# Investigative Journalism Reportika


## Posts

- [Wealthy North Koreans refuse loans to farms after government cancels farm debt](https://ij-reportika.com/wealthy-north-koreans-refuse-loans-to-farms-after-government-cancels-farm-debt/): The North Korean government’s order to cancel the debts of collective farms is causing reluctance among wealthy lenders to issue new loans to farmers, a major funding setback that could hamper the country’s ability to produce food this year, sources told RFA. After a devastating famine from 1994-1998, North Korea’s cash-strapped government stopped subsidizing collective farms, instructing them to become self-reliant. The loss of state funding led farm managers to seek loans from wealthy North Koreans with the promise that after the fall harvest, they would repay them in harvested crops worth twice what was borrowed. The farms were still obligated to produce enough food to satisfy quotas mandated by the state under this new system, and as long as the harvests went according to plan, there was enough to pay off both the lenders and the state. Poor harvests in 2021 made both impossible. But during a meeting of the Central Committee of the ruling Korean Workers’ Party in December, the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, declared that North Korea would take special measures to cancel the debts incurred by collective farms to the state, meaning that they were off the hook for the 2021 production quota. This also meant indirectly that private debt was canceled, as the whole point of forgiving the farmers’ state debts was so they could get back to farming in 2022 with a clean slate. But the move seems to be backfiring, as lenders are now unwilling to provide the collective farms with capital. “It’s not like last year, when the farm officials could just go into the city and borrow 10,000 yuan [U.S. $1,577] from wealthy lenders,” a resident of Ryongchon county, in the northwestern province of North Pyongan, told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “This year they don’t even want to lend just 100 yuan, so all the farm officials are really getting anxious,” said the source. According to the source, after Kim Jong Un gave the order in December, law enforcement officials threatened lenders that they could be branded as anti-socialist for engaging in capitalistic activities. Wealthy North Koreans who did lend money to the farmers may never be repaid, a source from Musan county, in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong, told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “They have their money taken by the state-run collective farms with their eyes open. Even if they want to try to get it back, they are afraid they might get caught and punished as an example to others,” the second source said. “They are complaining that the debt cancellation measure is really the state’s confiscation of their wealth,” said the second source. The policy could jeopardize a system that has been in place for decades, Seo Jae-pyoung, the secretary general of the Seoul-based Association of the North Korean Defectors, told RFA. “Farm officials have been borrowing rich people’s money every year under the party’s policy of self-reliance since the Arduous March of the 1990s,” he said, using the local term for the 1994-1998 famine, which killed millions. “They have set up and built trust with the rich lenders through loan transactions with them. This relationship of trust has been broken by the authorities, which will be an unfavorable factor for the collective farms,” said Seo. Another North Hamgyong resident told RFA that the mercantile class has all the money in North Korea. “The country doesn’t have the money. … Farms don’t have money to buy gasoline, so they borrow the money from the rich. They have to plow the fields, but they can’t run the tractors without gas, which they have to buy illegally,” the second North Hamgyong resident said. The sudden cancellation of farm debt is causing confusion among farm managers this year because the farms are still supposed to be self-reliant even if they cannot find funding, a resident of South Pyongan, north of the capital Pyongyang, told RFA. “The farm officials are urgently visiting the rich lenders on the down low to ask them to lend them money again this year. They say they will pay back even more than double,” the South Pyongan source said. “If they refuse to lend, some of the officials are even offering to lend them farmland,” he said. North Korea canceled collective farm debt only once before — in the 1960’s — under the rule of Kim Jong Un’s grandfather, national founder Kim Il Sung. Translated by Claire Lee and Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Uyghurs in exile grapple with discussing  genocide in Xinjiang with their children](https://ij-reportika.com/uyghurs-in-exile-grapple-with-discussing-genocide-in-xinjiang-with-their-children/): The 12-year old Uyghur girl, who now lives in the U.S. state of Virginia, was about seven years old and starting to absorb a bit more knowledge when she first learned about the repression of Uyghurs in their homeland northwestern China’s Xinjiang region. As she got older, her mother would tell her more and more about the back story, bringing it up in the normal course of conversation or if they were in the car and the girl asked a question about her grandparents still in Xinjiang. “I felt really sad,” the girl said about when her parents starting telling her about the crackdown. The girl, who spoke on condition of anonymity and did not want to identify her parents to avoid endangering relatives in Xinjiang, said that the pain hit home with her when schoolmates would talk about where they were from originally. When the girl thought about her family coming from Xinjiang, other questions would arise, such as why her grandmother would never come to visit her family in the U.S. Her voice grows weaker and begins to trail off whenever she is asked about her hometown. “It does affect my voice,” the girl told RFA. “Sometimes if people ask me where I’m from, it’s going to be sometimes difficult because they don’t know much about us [Uyghurs], and because they think that China is like a perfect place. They don’t know about the government and everything.” “They’re going to think you’re crazy, she added. It’s never easy for teenagers and children to discuss tragedies in their families, nor is it easy for parents to broach such topics with their offspring. Mom, who are they? They are military. Uyghurs, who are being persecuted as an ethnic and religious group by the Chinese government, face a common challenge of figuring out how best to talk with young people about the 21st-century atrocities occurring in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region. Uyghur children, born and raised in the diaspora, are asking their parents why they can’t see their grandparents, why Uyghurs in Xinjiang face genocide, and why they can’t visit their homeland. Uyghur adults living abroad, frustrated by the inability to stop the atrocities despite widespread and credible reports about right abuses those living in Xinjiang face, say they are unsure about how to discuss the genocide with their children and sometimes falter when asked why it is happening. At least 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities are believed to have been held in a network of detention camps in Xinjiang since 2017, purportedly to prevent religious extremism and terrorist activities. Beijing has said that the camps are vocational training centers. The government has denied repeated allegations from multiple sources that it has tortured people in the camps or mistreated other Muslims living in Xinjiang. The United States and parliaments of several Western countries have declared that China’s repression and maltreatment of the Uyghurs amount to genocide and crimes against humanity. What should they be told? Although children’s questions may seem simple to parents, what they are actually asking is about the history of Uyghurs, Chinese politics, and how to ensure the existence of Uyghurs abroad, said Suriyye Kashgary, co-founder of Ana Care, a Uyghur language school in northern Virginia with about 100 students ranging in age from five to 15 years old. Uyghur boys who have lost at least one parent, raise their hands during a Koran class in a madrasa, or religious school, in Kayseri, Turkey, January 31, 2019. The madrasa that shelters 34 children, including eight who have lost at least one parent, in Kayseri, a central Anatolian city, has received Uyghurs since the 1960s and today hosts the second largest population of Uighur exiles in Turkey. REUTERS/Murad Sezer “They always ask questions like “Why isn’t my grandma here? Why isn’t my grandpa here? Where are my relatives? My grandpa isn’t around. My grandma isn’t around. Where are my relatives?” she said “What I’ve been able to learn is that [many of] the children are a bit confused because some parents answer their kids’ questions, while some parents don’t speak with them in much detail at all,” she said. While some Uyghur parents do not disclose information to their children about the genocide, others do talk about it and take them to local demonstrations against China’s repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang. “There are many disagreements over whether it’s OK to explain some things to the children or not,” Kashgary said. “Some people argue that we shouldn’t let [the genocide] negatively impact their psyches, that children shouldn’t be sad about these things, and that they shouldn’t live under such stress from a young age.” At her school, Kashgary expects teachers to be comprehensive, balanced, and vigilant as they work with the children, given the teachers’ need to be well-informed on a range of topics, she told RFA. Uyghurs in the diaspora, who are indirect victims of China’s genocide, have been demanding justice by exposing the oppression of their families to others, including to the media. But as a collective group of genocide victims, they have not been able to fully shield their children from the emotional suffering and negative psychological influences of the ongoing atrocities targeting Uyghurs. Zubayra Shamseden, four of whose family members were killed or tortured by the Chinese government as part of the Ghulja Massacre in 1997, and who has relatives currently being held in internment camps in Xinjiang, works as China’s outreach coordinator for the Washington-based Uyghur Human Rights Project and as a Uyghur human rights activist. “When it comes to the Uyghur genocide, it’s a fact that it is tearing up and impacting the lives of Uyghurs on the outside in the diaspora as well,” she said. “It’s not just adults — the shadows of the Uyghur genocide are affecting children and teenagers.” Shamseden says that Uyghurs in the diaspora are dealing with a kind of emotional genocide and that trying to hide the genocide from the children will not solve the issue....
- [Under junta scrutiny, Myanmar HIV clinic and orphanage at risk of closure](https://ij-reportika.com/under-junta-scrutiny-myanmar-hiv-clinic-and-orphanage-at-risk-of-closure/): The Nurture AIDS Center (NAC) in Ward 11 of Yangon’s East Dagon township is a place of refuge for orphans and patients with HIV/AIDS in Myanmar’s commercial capital. The center cares for a total of 150 people – 94 children and 66 adults – and spends 400,000 kyats (U.S. $225) per day to provide them with food, medicine, and other necessities.   But times have been tough for the NAC in the 14 months since the military’s Feb. 1, 2021 coup, with the economy devastated by a combination of factors including mismanagement, widespread unrest, Western sanctions and the COVID-19 pandemic.   The center has also come under the scrutiny of the junta since its founder, a former lawmaker for the deposed National League for Democracy (NLD) named Phyu Phyu Thin, joined the shadow Pyidaungsu Hluttaw Committee of Representatives (CRPH) after the military takeover.   Phyu Phyu Thin established the NAC in 2012 and had cared for the center’s orphans and patients with the help of NLD youth volunteers but was forced to abandon her work and flee to an area under the control of an armed ethnic group to avoid arrest. She was stripped of her citizenship by the junta on March 7.   Yar Zar, the man who assumed her duties at the NAC and is known by the residents there as “Aba,” was arrested by security forces on March 2 and is now facing charges of “money laundering” and “terrorism.” The junta froze the center’s bank accounts in connection with the arrest.   The volunteers who remain at the NAC told RFA’s Myanmar Service that they now face regular harassment from the junta and the donors they rely on are afraid to be associated with the center.   One volunteer named Aung Kyaw Lin said that as donations have dried up, the NAC now only has enough food and supplies left for slightly more than a week.   “This past week, we received some donations, but not much,” he said.   “Right now, we can only afford to provide very basic meals, unless we receive aid. We used to be able to afford meat twice a week but can only do so once a week these days.”   Thae Thae, a resident of the NAC, said even the center’s rice supplies are running low.   “We have been relying solely on donations to feed more than 100 people. But they come infrequently,” he said.   “We need one bag of rice per day and around 100 bags for three months. We receive donations of one or two bags occasionally, and that’s what we are living on.”   Thae Thae said the food shortage is seriously impacting the health those who rely on the center, as they include people ranging in age from two months to over sixty years old.   ‘We would have to close’   He expressed concern that the center could also be shut down because there is no longer anyone in charge.   “We saw the news that they arrested [Yar Zar], so many donors might be thinking that [junta] informers are watching the center and they might be arrested as well,” he said.   “If the donations don’t come, the center won’t be able to survive anymore. We would have to close. But if these people are forced to live on the street, they won’t have access to regular medicine, and without regular dosages, they will face an increased HIV viral load … Their health will deteriorate severely.”   The residents of the NAC are mostly homeless or were abandoned by their families. The children who live there are being provided with opportunities that they would never have had on their own, including the chance to study English and a vocation under the tutelage of the NLD volunteers.   Wai Yan Moe, a 13-year-old who is studying at the seventh-grade level at the NAC, told RFA he doesn’t know what he will do if the center is forced to close.   “We are worried that Aba won’t be back, and the center will be gone,” he said.   “I have no other home and no place to go. I have only ever lived under Aba’s roof.”   Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Junta forces kill 7 in Saigang village, torch hundreds of homes](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-forces-kill-7-in-saigang-village-torch-hundreds-of-homes/): A joint force of junta troops and pro-military Pyu Saw Htee militiamen carried out a raid on a village in Myanmar’s Sagaing region Thursday, killing seven civilians and setting nearly half of the tract’s homes on fire, according to sources from the area. A resident of Wetlet township’s Ywar Nan village told RFA’s Myanmar Service that six of the victims were young adults, while the seventh was a 70-year-old woman. “The death toll is seven and 325 houses were burnt down,” said the resident, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “[The perpetrators] are stationed in [nearby] Sadaung village. There were so many of them. They suffered many casualties during a clash [with anti-junta fighters] at Nyaung Ngote-toe village, so they attacked our village in revenge and set the houses on fire.” The resident said that only the identity of the 70-year-old victim could be confirmed because the other victims were badly burned or mutilated, although RFA was unable to independently confirm the information. A village of about 700 houses, Ywar Nan is home to more than 3,000 people. Nearly all the inhabitants fled to the nearby jungle during the attack, sources said. Another resident told RFA that the fires were started at around 6 a.m. at a house near a lake on the southern side of Ywar Nan. “Even the monastery was burned,” he said. “The northern part is sparsely populated, and the houses are scattered here and there. People live mostly on the south side. Everything on the inhabited side is gone.” Residents said that the fire killed all the village’s chickens, pigs, goats and cattle, although the exact number was unclear. Photos provided to RFA of the aftermath of the attack appeared to show charred buildings, an elderly woman whose body had been badly burned, a young man whose throat was cut, and slaughtered livestock. A member of the anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary group in Wetlet township confirmed to RFA that a day prior to the raid on Ywar Nan village his group had carried out an attack on junta troops and Pyu Saw Htee fighters stationed in nearby Nyaung Ngote Toe village. “Many of them were wounded in the battle at Nyaung Ngote Toe, and so they went to Ywar Nan, chased the villagers out and set the village on fire,” he said. “They must have been furious because they suffered many casualties. They must have thought that residents of Ywar Nan did it, so they set it on fire. They shelled the village at about 1 a.m., before raiding it.” The PDF fighter said that the joint junta force also set fire to 15 houses in Nyaung Ngote Toe. Wetlet township’s Ywar Nan village, April 7, 2022. Credit: Citizen journalist No acknowledgement of crimes Myanmar’s military seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup. Security forces have killed at least 1,700 civilians since then, mostly during peaceful anti-junta protests, according to Thailand-based rights group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Meanwhile, the military has launched a series of scorched earth offensives against ethnic armed groups and PDF groups in the country’s remote border regions, where reports regularly emerge of acts of arson, looting, torture, rape and murder by junta troops. The junta initially responded to reports of civilian deaths during raids by saying that villages were targeted because they had offered haven to fighters with the PDF, which it has labeled a terrorist organization. As evidence of largescale killing and destruction mounts, however, it has shifted blame to the PDF itself. Junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun told RFA on Thursday that the military was not involved in the arson attack on Ywar Nan village. “There was no arson attack by the [military]. There is no reason to burn [the village] down. The culprits are the PDFs. They entered villages where local militias were formed by the people, attacked them, and set the area on fire when they left,” he said. “But whether the fires were started by the military or the PDFs, the government is responsible for rebuilding the villages. It is the government that avoids fighting. We must help those who are in trouble.” Zaw Min Tun did not provide evidence of the PDF’s responsibility for the attack or details about how the military plans to rebuild Ywar Nan and other villages that have been torched during raids. Kay Jay, a political activist in Wetlet township, told RFA that the military has never acknowledged any of the crimes committed by its troops. “They have never admitted that any village was set on fire. The junta has never admitted that people were intentionally shot or set on fire,” he said. “The people have no faith in any of the junta’s statements.” According to Data for Myanmar, an independent research group, nearly 8,000 homes have been destroyed by the military and its supporters since the coup, some 5,000 of which were in Sagaing region. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English Joshua Lipes.
- [Vietnam’s vote for Russia on UN council could damage campaign to lead it](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnams-vote-for-russia-on-un-council-could-damage-campaign-to-lead-it/): Vietnam’s vote against a U.S.-led resolution to remove Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council on Thursday likely ends any hope Hanoi had to lead the body, one analyst told RFA. Cambodia’s abstention from voting, meanwhile, drew criticism from local rights groups who accused Phnom Penh of flip-flopping its position on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In all, 24 countries voted against booting Russia from the council, including Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and Syria. But after 93 countries voted yes, Moscow resigned its seat. Vietnam’s ambassador to the U.N., Dang Hoang Giang, said in remarks prior to the vote that Hanoi was concerned about the impact of the war on civilians. He said that the country was “against all attacks on civilians that were in violation of international laws on humanitarianism and human rights.” He also said that it was important “to examine and crosscheck recent information publicly, with transparency and objectivity and with the cooperation of relevant parties.” Vietnamplus was the only Vietnamese outlet that reported Giang’s comments. Vietnamese state media made no mention of Vietnam’s vote in coverage of the resolution. Alienating vote Vietnam has publicly voiced its intention to run for chairmanship of the council for the 2023-2025 term, but experts told RFA’s Vietnamese Service that Hanoi will now find it difficult to gain support from Western countries. “I should say that Vietnam has shot itself in the foot,” Carl Thayer of New South Wales University in Australia told RFA. “Vietnam has always been proud of its prestige in the international circles as a commodity that made it important. Any country in the world that is now opposing Russian action are not going to support Vietnam,” he said. Thayer noted that Vietnam’s profile among the international community had been on the rise, as it had twice been elected as a non-permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. “Now that smooth sailing is going to hit headwinds and if it continues to support boats like [Russia], Vietnam is going to find increasingly there will be a drop-off in support,” Thayer said. He said that Hanoi may have been trying to demonstrate that dialogue and negotiation are more effective than measures to isolate Russia. But it would have been better to abstain from the vote, because now Vietnam has alienated the West and has little to gain by casting its lot with Russia. “That country is never going to play a major role with Vietnam in coming years. In my opinion, it is going to be weakened and economically isolated as long as Putin remains in power.” Isolation ineffective Cambodia did abstain from Thursday’s vote with Ambassador Ke Sovann saying in a statement that Russia’s isolation will not help resolve the conflict in Ukraine, but will only make a bad situation worse. “At a fragile time for world peace, security and stability, the engagement among the member states in all relevant United Nations bodies including the Human Rights Council is very important,” he said.  Phay Siphan, a spokesman for the Cambodian government, told RFA’s Khmer Service that kicking Moscow out of the council will “only allow the country to avoid its responsibility.” But Ny Sokha, president of The Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association, said the vote to remove Russia from the council is a stand against the death and destruction the country’s invasion of Ukraine has caused. “We should not allow the country that abuses human rights in the U.N. Human Rights Council. As a member it needs to respect human rights,” he said. Cambodia’s abstention from Thursday’s vote is an example of flip-flopping in its response to the situation in Ukraine, said Ny Sokha, an apparent reference to Cambodia’s vote last month at the U.N. condemning the invasion. Political analyst Kim Sok said Cambodia voted for a resolution last month to condemn Russia as part of its efforts to convince the U.S. to attend a special summit with ASEAN while Phnom Penh chairs the regional bloc. Thursday’s vote, in contrast, was an effort to appease China, he said. “When China opposes, Hun Sen dares not to vote in favor,” he said.   Russian Threats Prior to Thursday’s vote, Russia warned that votes in favor or abstentions would be seen as an “unfriendly gesture” and would have consequences in bilateral relations. Despite voting to remove Russia, the U.N. Human Rights Council remains an organization with a shaky reputation likened to an old boys club for dictators. Of its 47 member nations, only 15 are classified as “free” societies by rights watchdog Freedom House. The rest are either only “partly free” or “not free,” and include countries with poor human rights records like China, Eritrea, Somalia and Cuba. The U.S. left the council temporarily in 2018, calling the organization a mockery of human rights for not punishing rights abusers and for what then-ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley called bias against Israel. After Tuesday’s vote, the Russian representative announced Russia’s decision to withdraw its membership from the council before the 2021-2023 term ends, and called the resolution “an illegal and politically motivated move to punish a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council who was pursuing an independent domestic and foreign policy.” Translated by Anna Vu and Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Manila eyes broader ties with Indo-Pacific nations looking to counter Beijing](https://ij-reportika.com/manila-eyes-broader-ties-with-indo-pacific-nations-looking-to-counter-beijing/): The Philippines is broadening its relationship with countries that are trying to counter Beijing’s growing assertiveness in the region, while it maintains friendly ties with China despite the Asian superpower’s incursions into Manila’s waters in the South China Sea. Nurtured by President Rodrigo Duterte to much criticism at home, Manila is keeping its relationship with Beijing on an even keel, ostensibly demonstrating, according to political analyst Rommel Banlaoi, a “pragmatic independent foreign policy” in a polarized world. For instance, the Filipino foreign secretary is in Tokyo this weekend to take part in the first ever bilateral two-plus-two talks involving the foreign and defense ministers of the Philippines and Japan. This visit follows a meeting between China’s Xi Jinping and Duterte on Friday, where they “committed to broaden the space for positive engagements” on the South China Sea issue. And on the same day, the Philippines concluded one of its largest military exercises with the United States, its longtime defense ally. Banlaoi, president of the Philippine Association for Chinese Studies (PACS), said Manila is demonstrating its independence by maintaining its longstanding security alliance with the U.S, strengthening is strategic partnerships with Japan, Australia, South Korea, and the European Union, and maintaining friendly relations with China despite tensions over the waterway. Still, disputes to do with the South China Sea, part of which is called the West Philippine Sea by the Filipinos, are the main reason behind for broadened security cooperation between the Philippines and other countries in the region, analysts said. Celia Lamkin, Founder of the National Youth Movement for the West Philippine Sea “The foreign and defense talks between Japan and the Philippines in Tokyo [on Saturday] are significant because of the non-stop aggression and militarization by China in our West Philippine Sea,” Celia Lamkin, Founder of the National Youth Movement for the West Philippine Sea, told BenarNews, using the Philippine term for the South China Sea. On Thursday, the Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana met with his Japanese counterpart, Nobuo Kishi, in Tokyo to discuss “ways to further enhance bilateral and multilateral cooperation,” according to the official Philippine News Agency. The two defense ministers agreed to bolster security cooperation and expand bilateral and multilateral exercises, according to a statement from the Japanese Ministry of National Defense. “They shared their intent that they will not tolerate any unilateral change of the status quo by force in the Indo-Pacific, particularly in East Asia and Southeast Asia,” the statement said. China is involved in maritime disputes with Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea. The inaugural two-plus-two meeting on Saturday will continue to “promote bilateral defense cooperation and exchanges to uphold and strengthen the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP),” Japan Defense Ministry said. “We need allies like Japan and the U.S. to show China to respect international law in our West Philippine Sea and the rest of the South China Sea,” said Lamkin from the National Youth Movement for the West Philippine Sea. China claims nearly the entire South China Sea, including waters within the exclusive economic zones of Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan. While Indonesia does not regard itself as party to the South China Sea dispute, Beijing claims historic rights to parts of that sea overlapping Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone as well. ‘Open, warm, and positive’ A day before this two-plus-two meeting, Duterte, who is due to leave office after the Philippine general election in May and who has consistently called China’s Xi a friend, had a telephone meeting with the Chinese leader. During the call, the two said they work towards maintaining peace and stability in the South China Sea by exercising restraint, a statement from Duterte’s office said. A Chinese statement, meanwhile, said Xi had expressed his approval for how the two nations have dealt with the issue of the disputed South China Sea. Beijing, however, has consistently ignored a 2016 decision by an international arbitration court in The Hague that rejected China’s expansive claims in the contested waterway. Meanwhile, news emerged on Thursday that, for days, a Chinese coastguard ship had followed a research vessel deployed by Philippine and Taiwanese scientists in waters in off the northern Philippines, sparking concerns. Still, the statement from Duterte’s office described the hour-long telephone conversation as “open, warm and positive.” Then again, Manila surprised many a day earlier by voting against Beijing’s ally Moscow, and in favor of a resolution to suspend Russia from the United Nations Human Rights Council. It was the only ASEAN Nation to vote in favor of the resolution, apart from the Myanmar government in exile. Also, last September, when Australia, the United Kingdom and the U.S. announced the establishment of a trilateral security pact, AUKUS, the Philippines was the first country in Southeast Asia to endorse it despite concerns from regional players including Malaysia and Indonesia. With the Philippine presidential election looming in May, all eyes are on who will win the race, said Lamkin from the National Youth Movement for the West Philippine Sea. She added: “Our struggle for sovereign rights in the West Philippine Sea depend very much on who will be the next president.” Jason Gutierrez of BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated on-line news outlet, contributed to this report from Manila.
- [Stuck between the state and neighbors, North Korean local watch chiefs are quitting](https://ij-reportika.com/stuck-between-the-state-and-neighbors-north-korean-local-watch-chiefs-are-quitting/): North Koreans responsible for leading weekly meetings to enforce the party’s will over their neighbors are resigning, saying their government’s expectations of them are too high, sources in the country told RFA. Every North Korean citizen is part of a so-called neighborhood watch unit. These groups consist of about 20 households and meet regularly to hear policy announcements, confess loyalty infractions, accuse their neighbors of various missteps, and, ultimately, work together when directed to provide free labor for public projects. Three neighborhood watch unit leaders from Hamhung in the eastern province of South Hamgyong tendered their resignations at the beginning of April, a resident of the province told RFA’s Korean Service April 5 on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The three of them used various excuses to claim that they will not be able to keep their roles. It was just like last month when five neighborhood watch unit leaders told the local party organizations that they were resigning because they were sick,” he said. The watch units are the lowest level of government organizations, but they exert individual control over each citizen, so neighbors tend to try to get on their unit leader’s good side. Leaders are responsible for reporting any concerning activities or policy violations among their groups to higher-ups. But during the current economic slump in North Korea, the government has asked more than usual from neighborhood watch units. The leaders face new pressures both from above and below — they are on the receiving end of their neighbors’ frustrations, and they are blamed by their superiors when their units underperform. The government’s recent excessive taxation is what caused the watch unit leaders in Hamhung to quit, according to the source. “They are supposed to control and manage the residents, but they are giving up their roles … because authorities are always imposing taxes every two weeks for things like supporting the rural areas and helping fund construction in Pyongyang,” he said. The capital Pyongyang is in the middle of a five-year construction plan to build 50,000 new homes by the end of 2025 that is behind schedule and requires massive amounts of money for construction materials and food for workers. Residents from outside the capital who are being asked to fund the project will likely never be granted permission to even visit Pyongyang. “The head of the neighborhood watch unit is responsible for collecting taxes from the residents. But residents who are having a hard time living due to the pandemic are angry at the authorities’ orders to pay more money and rice, and are pouring their anger into the leader responsible for collecting directly from them,” he said. “If the neighborhood watch unit’s tax quota is not collected in time due to protests and opposition from the residents, the heads of the neighborhood watch unit will be questioned by the higher levels in the local party organization. So they are under excessive pressure between the residents and the local party organization and feel skeptical about their own roles. That is why many are choosing to give up.” A group of residents in the city of Chongju in the northwestern province of North Pyongan has come to despise their neighborhood watch unit leader, a resident there told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “The neighborhood watch unit leader knocks on the door of the house every few days and also calls them to mobilization every morning, so he is the most hated person here,” said the second source. “These days, we’ve been ordered to work on city development. The cleanup and painting of each section of road in the city is assigned to each watch unit. The unit leaders are having trouble getting the people to come out and work in the morning,” he said. Out of about 20 households, only eight to 10 people end up actually working on the roads, he said. The rest make up excuses, saying they are too sick to work, for example. “When the project isn’t progressing properly, the neighborhood watch unit leader must answer to the local party organization,” the second source said. “Having to carry out the government’s excessive mobilization orders is making the unit leaders skeptical about their roles. They have to collect their neighbors for unpaid labor, yet they are firmly aware that many of their neighbors are in difficult economic situations. That is why more and more of the unit leaders are quitting,” he said. Though the watch unit leaders are not paid, they can subsidize their income because they get exclusive control of communal toilets and can sell accumulated feces to cooperative farms to be used as fertilizer, sources said. Translated by Claire Lee and Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Philippines: Xi, Duterte agree to ‘positive engagements’ over South China Sea](https://ij-reportika.com/philippines-xi-duterte-agree-to-positive-engagements-over-south-china-sea/): Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping agreed during a bilateral meeting on Friday to remain “committed to broaden the space for positive engagements” in dealing with disputes over the South China Sea.  The telephone summit between the two leaders took place the same day the Philippines and the United States wrapped up two weeks of war games, which were among the biggest between both allies. The scenarios included the defense of an isolated island from foreign invaders.  In their phone call, Duterte and Xi “stressed the need to exert all efforts to maintain peace, security and stability in the South China Sea by exercising restraint, dissipating tensions and working on a mutually agreeable framework for functional cooperation,” Duterte’s office said in a statement. “Both leaders acknowledged that even while disputes existed, both sides remained committed to broaden the space for positive engagements which reflected the dynamic and multidimensional relations of the Philippines and China,” it said. The statement described the hour-long telephone conversation as “open, warm and positive.” China has been continuing to expand territories and islands it occupies in the South China Sea. Still, Xi and Duterte affirmed the “importance of continuing” talks in solving the sea dispute, and for all claimants to work towards finally concluding a “code of conduct” for the sea. China claims nearly the entire South China Sea, including waters within the exclusive economic zones of Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan. While Indonesia does not regard itself as party to the South China Sea dispute, Beijing claims historic rights to parts of that sea overlapping Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone as well. Duterte, who has consistently called Xi a “friend,” has said several times since his term began in 2016 that Beijing has the capability of sending missiles to the Philippines, and that he won’t deploy Filipino troops to be slaughtered. Instead, he has sought to rebuild ties with China – ties that were soured by a 2016 decision by an international arbitration court in The Hague that rejected China’s expansive claims in the contested waterway. The 77-year-old Duterte will be leaving office after the Philippine general election next month. Duterte and Xi also discussed the elevation of bilateral relations “into a comprehensive strategic cooperation” as a way to build on the gains made since the Filipino leader took power. For his part, Xi said that both sides have “properly” handled the South China Sea issue, according to a statement about the phone call, issued by the Chinese Embassy in Manila. “During the phone conversation, Xi said that he still has fresh memories about Duterte’s first visit to China in October 2016, which he called an ice-breaking trip and a milestone in the history of bilateral relations,” the statement said. “The two sides’ properly handling of the South China Sea issue has provided an important foundation for the China-Philippines friendly cooperation, benefited the two people and also effectively safeguarded regional peace and stability, Xi said,” according to the statement. Meanwhile, both presidents on Friday expressed “deep concern” over developments in Ukraine, the statement by Duterte’s office said. “The two Presidents renewed the call for a peaceful resolution of the situation through dialogue in accordance with international law,” the statement said. A day before the Xi-Duterte telephone meeting, Manila voted in support of a resolution on suspending Russia from the United Nations Humans Rights Council, together with the U.S. and other Western countries. China, which is Russia’s ally, voted against the resolution. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.
- [Chinese authorities jail at least 100 Uyghurs from the same Xinjiang hamlet](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-authorities-jail-at-least-100-uyghurs-from-the-same-xinjiang-hamlet/): At least 100 residents from the same small community in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region have been imprisoned by authorities, a security guard from the area said. When RFA asked how Chinese authorities were treating the families of those who had been imprisoned, the security guard mentioned the number of jailed residents from Sheyih Mehelle hamlet in Ghulja (in Chinese, Yining) county. The reasons for the imprisonment of the Uyghur residents are not known. The guard also said that the government has provided aid to the families of the prisoners, including food, clothing and coal — 30 tons of which had recently been distributed to at least 100 households. “The government has been taking care of them,” he said. Sheyih Mehelle has a population of more than 700 people, the security guard said. It is part of Chuluqay village, which has more than 10,000 residents. A Uyghur living in exile who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal from the Chinese government said it is not surprising that 14 percent of a Uyghur hamlet’s population is in prison. The Uyghur, who hails from Ghulja’s Onyar village, said that in his family alone, three of his brothers were all imprisoned by the Chinese government, and that sources in the area told him between one to five people from each family in his old neighborhood had been jailed. He estimated that the number of people imprisoned from the hamlet the village security guard mentioned could reach 200 based on what his sources told him. Another security official in Sheyih Mehelle told RFA that four people from the Nesrulla family were in prison. Another official said six siblings from a different family there had been jailed. China is believed to have held 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in the camps since 2017. Beijing has said that the camps are vocational training centers and has denied widespread and documented allegations that it has mistreated Muslims living in the region. The United States and parliaments in other Western nations have declared that the repression of the Uyghurs amounts to genocide and crimes against humanity. The U.S. has sanctioned Chinese officials linked to human rights abuses in Xinjiang, including mass incarceration, invasive surveillance and forced labor. The U.S. also has passed legislation banning imports from the Xinjiang region of China that lack proof they were not made with forced labor. U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, on Thursday introduced the Uyghur Policy Act to increase U.S. support for the Uyghur diaspora in the United States and other countries, and to advocate for improving the conditions of Uyghurs suffering human rights abuses at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party. “The CCP is carrying out a disgusting campaign of genocide and human rights abuses committed against Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups. The United States cannot be silent in the face of such horrific abuse,” Rubio said in a statement. Rushan Abbas, executive director of the Campaign for Uyghurs, whose sister disappeared three years ago and is believed to be incarcerated in Xinjiang, welcomed Rubio’s legislation and called for its swift approval. “I hope the U.S. government can pass this critical bill into law as soon as possible which would create a comprehensive strategy to raise international awareness of the genocide of Uyghurs, enable the U.S. State Department to respond to the genocide in East Turkistan more effectively, and hit back on the Chinese regime’s efforts to silence Uyghur advocates, as they did by taking my sister as hostage,” Abbas said in a statement. East Turkestan is the Uyghurs’ preferred name for the region of Xinjiang, which shares borders with the fellow Turkic-speaking nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan that gained independence after the dissolution of the Soviet Union three decades ago. Translated by RFA’s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Shanghai warns people against 'rumor-mongering' as online pleas for food grow](https://ij-reportika.com/shanghai-warns-people-against-rumor-mongering-as-online-pleas-for-food-grow/): Authorities in Shanghai on Friday warned the city’s 26 million residents not to post ‘rumors’ online amid growing public anger over food shortages amid a citywide COVID-19 lockdown. “The Cyberspace Administration of the municipal [ruling Chinese Communist] Party Committee reminds social media group chat members and moderators that … it is especially necessary in the current situation to prevent the spread of all kinds of rumors, false information or fear-mongering,” the municipal government said in a post to its official Weibo account. “[Social media users] must not make up rumors to cause trouble or for the purposes of grandstanding,” it said. “We will continue to work with police and other departments to track down rumor-makers and those who deliberately spread rumors, working from public tip-offs and online investigations, and punish them according to law,” the message said. The warning came after Shanghai police denied an online report that the authorities had banned group-buying practices among locked-down residents, who have been complaining of food shortages due to a lack of takeout services and inadequate fresh supplies from the government. The Shanghai government said its consumer protection committee had on Thursday updated a list of sites offering group-buying opportunities for fresh fruit and vegetables, sanitary towels and diapers, as well as baby formula and other dairy products. “Some group buying groups may be full,” the notice warned. “The municipal consumer protection committee [will] strive to meet the needs of the public.” “We will continue to urge enterprises and sellers on the list to make every effort to ensure supplies,” it said. It said officials would contact sellers and consumers “to properly resolve … problems with shopping as shown in online posts from users.” The government also denied a report that the authorities were planning to send in armed police to take over the running of residential communities from neighborhood committees, many of whom have been superseded by self-organizing mutual help groups. “On April 7, a rumor that the armed police will take over Shanghai communities” went viral on social media and online platforms,” the government said, adding that police had detained a 35-year-old man surnamed Zhou on suspicion of “disrupting public order through fake news.” People wear personal protective equipment (PPE) as they transfer daily food supplies and necessities for local residents during the Covid-19 lockdown in Shanghai, April 5, 2022. Credit AFP Online search for food Residents across the city, including Pudong New District, Leyuan Road, Jinqiao township, Songnan No. 1 Village and Baoshan district, have posted in recent days to Weibo, appealing for help sourcing food, saying that promised supplies had failed to arrive, or were simply not enough. “We try and call the leaders every day, because nobody has food, because we’ve been locked down for many days now,” a resident of Jiading district told RFA on Friday. A Shanghai resident surnamed Xia said: “The government did distribute a batch of supplies, but even if it distributes that amount to more communities, it’s far from enough to last the whole length of this lockdown.” She said auction site Taobao has halted deliveries, and buying groups are hard to find and get into. “Some babies have split diapers, some people’s wifi is down, and nobody has come to repair it, and some people need teeth filled that have exposed nerves, but they can’t go out,” Xia said. She said some online stores had produce available, but it sold out very fast online first thing in the morning. “Fruit, coffee and snacks are already luxuries, and some people have no salt left. Things are very bad,” she said. A resident surnamed Gu said he had received just two deliveries of groceries in 28 days of lockdown, that were enough to last his household 10 days. The lockdowns were announced too suddenly for most people to lay in sufficient stores of food, he said. “We are locked into our residential community and can’t go out to buy stuff,” Gu said. “There is basically no supply chain left, and online deliveries have been disrupted or stopped altogether.” “There isn’t anything available to buy online, nor enough people to deliver it,” he said. “There’s a problem with the food supply chain.” View of a residential building during a COVID-19 lockdown in the Jing’an district in Shanghai, April 8, 2022. Credit: AFP Closed medical facilities A video clip taken in Shanghai’s Putuo district and seen by RFA showed one man on the phone with police, yelling that there was nobody to take care of his elderly grandmother in or his parents in Xuhui district. “Is the government of Shanghai even human?” the man yells in the clip. Another video circulated of shots of people falling from a number of different tall buildings. RFA was unable to verify the content of the video independently, but its reporters have received reports of suicides, sometimes by people unable to access life-saving medical treatment due to the lockdown and the closure of a number of medical facilities to new patients. The Shanghai government released a list of closed medical facilities on its Weibo account on Friday, showing a total of 26 hospitals and clinics in Xuhui, Baoding, Pudong, Changning and other districts were closed. “Some medical institutions in this city have suspended some medical services due to their cooperation with pandemic investigations,” it said. “Citizens are reminded to pay attention to the information released by official websites and social media accounts of various medical institutions in a timely manner before seeing a doctor,” it said, but offered no emergency number or other avenue to seek assistance. A man in Kailu No. 5 Village called the emergency services to tell them he hadn’t eaten in four days, according to a recording posted online. “Hello, is that the … police station? I’m not trying to cause trouble, but if I charge past the community cordon and you arrest me, will I get something to eat?” the man says. “You can’t rush out of the residential community,” the officer replies, to which the man says: “Then you’d better...
- [Chinese official jailed for 11 years over bribes in Qinghai](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-official-jailed-for-11-years-over-bribes-in-qinghai/): A former top official in China’s Qinghai province was given 11 years in prison last month for taking more than $3 million in bribes from mining and construction groups, businesses and individuals during his time in office, according to state media reports. Wen Guodong had served as vice-governor in Qinghai from 2009 to 2020. He was sentenced on March 29 by the Chongqing First Intermediate People’s Court, which also fined him 2 million yuan ($314,213) and forced the return of his assets gained through bribes, sources said. While in office, Wen had protected illegal mining operations at Qinghai’s Muli coalfield, a vast mining area developed by the Kingho Group, a private company, according to a Feb. 2, 2021, report by the Beijing-based China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation. Located in Themchen (in Chinese, Tianjun) county in the Tsonub (Haixi) Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, the Muli coalfield was described in an Aug. 8, 2014, report by Greenpeace East Asia as a “growing cancer on an otherwise intact alpine ecological system.” “The opencast coal mining [at Muli] over the years has destroyed the alpine meadows connecting the glaciers on the mountains and the plateau, cutting off the channel for rainfall and melt water to feed the rivers,” the environmental watchdog group said. “As a result, the water-holding capacity of the landscape is significantly compromised,” Greenpeace added. Coverage of Wen’s case in the Chinese press has downplayed the impact of the former official’s corruption on the environment in Tibetan areas, though, said Sangay Kyab, a Tibetan researcher based in Spain. “By just highlighting the bribery charges against Wen Guodong, the Chinese official media have ignored the damage he caused to the region, and how the excessive exploitation of Tibet’s environment has deprived Tibetans of their traditional way of life,” Kyab said. “The Chinese government has always tried to conceal these problems, no matter what impact their development and environmental policies have had on Tibetans and the Tibetan plateau,” he added. Sentencing disparities in China’s justice system also point to the unequal treatment of Tibetans under Chinese law, Kyab said, calling Wen’s 11-year sentence “lenient” in relation to the harm his actions caused. Kyab noted that Go Sherab Gyatso, a 46-year-old monk at Kirti monastery in Sichuan’s Ngaba (Aba) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, had been given a 10-year prison term in 2021 just for expressing loyalty to Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama. “So we can see that Chinese leaders and officials really do get away with crimes and atrocities,” he said. Tibet has become an important source of minerals needed for China’s economic growth, and Chinese mining and infrastructure projects in Tibetan areas have led to widespread environmental damage, including the pollution of water sources and destruction of sacred sites, experts say. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [Henan rights activist in secret 'defamation' trial after visit to rights lawyer](https://ij-reportika.com/henan-rights-activist-in-secret-defamation-trial-after-visit-to-rights-lawyer/): Xing Wangli, a rights activist in the central Chinese province of Henan, has been put on trial behind closed doors on charges of “defamation” after he supported human rights attorney Jiang Tianyong, who remains under house arrest following his release from prison. Xing, who is currently being held at Henan’s Xi County Detention Center, stood trial by video link at the Xi County People’s Court on April 7 on charges of “defamation” after he posted an open letter accusing a local propaganda official of corruption and intimidation. The court building was closed for business on Thursday, with a large police presence on the streets outside. More than a dozen fellow activists went to support Xing, but they were prevented from approaching the building by court police, who deleted photos of the scene from their mobile phones. Xing has been denied permission to meet with his lawyer, who didn’t receive a copy of the indictment until March 21, the U.S.-based rights group, the Dui Hua Foundation said in a statement on its website. The authorities cited disease prevention restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, it said. Blunt-force head injuries Xing’s wife Xu Jincui was at the court to observe the trial, which was closed to journalists or members of the public. “The prosecution accused Xing Wangli of continuing to speak out about the unusual deaths of two petitioners in Xi county: Diao Yanfang and Feng Guohui,” Xu told RFA. “[They] claimed that Xing Wangli instigated his son to participate in rights protection activities.” “But more importantly, Xing Wangli said that the serious injuries he suffered were directly linked to three well-known local officials,” she said. Xing suffered serious head injuries in 2016 while being held at Xi County Detention Center. He later said they were the result of an attack with a blunt weapon. He has repeatedly requested an official probe into the incident via the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. Xing’s son Xing Jian, who now lives in New Zealand, said the authorities have claimed that the injuries were the result of a fall during a botched suicide attempt, and he said the video presented by the prosecution as evidence had likely been tampered with. He said he believes the current prosecution was sparked by his father’s attempt to visit Jiang Tianyong. “After my father was arrested, my mother was illegally detained many times by the local stability maintenance personnel,” Xing Jiang said. “During this period, these stability maintenance personnel also told my mother many times not to interact with [Jiang] in future, otherwise there will be endless trouble for her.” “The authorities believe that lawyer Jiang Tianyong tried to subvert state power, saying that he is anti-party and anti-state, but I don’t think a regular lawyer could do that,” he said. ‘Picking quarrels and stirring up trouble’ He said an unidentified driver had scraped Xing’s lawyer’s car in the court parking lot on Thursday. “[That kind of] psychological pressure would affect his performance in court,” Xing Jian said. Xing was originally detained on suspicion of “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble” in May 2021 after he tried to visit Jiang, who remains under house arrest, in April 2021. He was formally arrested in June 2021, but for “defamation,” and indicted by the county prosecutor in January 2022. While defamation cases in China have previously been private prosecution cases, new guidelines issued in 2013 paved the way for it to be brought as a criminal charge against people accused of “spreading disinformation or false accusations online can constitute criminal acts. If a post deemed to contain disinformation or false accusations accrues more than 5,000 views or 500 reposts, then it is considered a “serious circumstance,” according to the U.S.-based rights group, the Duihua Foundation. Jiang was “released” from prison in February 2019 at the end of a two-year jail term for “incitement to subvert state power,” a charge often used to imprison peaceful critics of the government. He was allowed to return to his parents’ home in Luoyang, but remains under close surveillance and heavy restrictions. Jiang’s U.S.-based wife Jin Bianling has repeatedly expressed concern for her husband’s health after he was tortured by cellmates during his time in detention. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Women harmed by China's draconian family planning policies still seek redress](https://ij-reportika.com/women-harmed-by-chinas-draconian-family-planning-policies-still-seek-redress/): Hundreds, possibly thousands, of Chinese women are still seeking redress after their health was destroyed by botched or untested reproductive procedures aimed at keeping births within targets set by Beijing. Peng Dongxiang, of Qianjiang in the central province of Hubei, gave birth to two children in defiance of population controls, drawing the ire of local officials. “We did as the government said and went to the family planning station to get injections,” Peng said. “But they were experimenting on us; using our bodies.” “They injected us straight into the Fallopian tubes … I fainted and was freezing cold instantly,” Peng recalls. “Later they told me I had to get another injection because I hadn’t had tubal ligation, but that second injection ruined my health.” Peng has suffered from decades of lower back pain, abdominal pain and organ adhesions, and was bed-bound for several years immediately after the sterilization shots. Her sons were sent to live with their grandparents because she was unable to work any more. “If [my husband’s family] hadn’t treated me well, I wouldn’t be here today,” said Peng, who has been engaged for more than a decade in a bid to win redress through official channels. She knows of hundreds of other Qianjiang women who had similar experiences. “Some of them died outright … the government didn’t care and just injected anyone at the time, even pregnant women,” Peng said. Birth quotas The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has a long history of controlling the reproductive lives of Chinese women, mostly through a decades-long “one-child” policy that led to widespread violence and rights violations against women by local family planning officials keen to stay within birth quotas. The period became infamous worldwide for the use of late-term, forced abortions, compulsory sterilization, female infanticide or selective abortion and the constant policing of women’s fertility, as well as violent attacks, forced evictions and other privations imposed on families guilty of “excess births.” Liang Zhongtang, a former government family planning adviser, said the Qianjiang women could have been subjected to a particular form of “adhesive surgery” that was used in Hubei, Sichuan and Shanxi in the mid-1980s. “The National Family Planning Commission supported this method to a certain extent back then,” Liang said. “But … the operation wasn’t recognized by the Ministry of Health, so it was dropped after a while.” But the women have yet to find any kind of redress for their grievances. One of the Qianjiang victims said she was exhausted by years of petitioning and official violence, and gave up the struggle. Another said she had stopped petitioning for fear that her children’s careers would be politically tainted by her actions. “My family … has to make money so that I can keep taking my medications and stay alive,” one 60-year-old woman told RFA. “If I give a media interview, will my son lose his job? Will they refuse to pay my compensation?” Liang said poorly educated rural cadres likely also contributed to the women’s suffering. “Back in the 1960s and 1970s, there were very few medical institutions in rural areas below county level, and the conditions weren’t there for the implementation of such family planning policies,” Liang said. In December 2007, Zhang Weiqing, then director of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, admitted that one-third of the 150,000 family planning technical service personnel — the ones carrying out abortions and sterilizations — lacked any kind of medical qualification, while many facilities used outdated equipment. An official who answered the phone at the Qianjiang municipal government denied there was an issue with the mass sterilization of women in the 1980s. “[You will] need evidence and some basis for this … and if you do investigate I think you will find … it never happened; it’s a rumor,” the official said. Repeated calls to the Hubei provincial health commission and the Qianjiang municipal health commission rang unanswered in early April. Call for compensation Zhang Jing, New York-based founder of Women’s Rights in China, said the CCP has long controlled the reproductive lives of Chinese women. “If the party tells you to give birth, you will give birth. If it tells you not to, then you won’t,” Zhang said. “This is a terrible and tragic policy.” Zhang called on the CCP set up a nationwide compensation system for women who have been harmed by family planning policies over the years. “The CCP and the Chinese government control the wombs of Chinese women,” she said, adding that rural women are most vulnerable to the kinds of abuse and mistreatment described by the women of Qianjiang. And they aren’t the only victims. Fifty-eight-year-old Jing Liping lives alone in a dangerous building on the outskirts of Beijing. She gave birth to a single child more than three decades ago, then spent a month recuperating at her husband’s family home in the western province of Gansu. There, the local family planning team caught up with her and forced her to undergo tubal ligation using metal clips. Jing’s health was also destroyed by the procedure, she told RFA. “The doctors told me that my Fallopian tubes were inflamed … but I had to rely on others to get me anti-inflammatory drugs,” Jing said. “No local doctor in Gansu would help me because I was ligated.” “It wasn’t until 2017, when I passed out on the side of the road and was sent to the hospital, that they found a problem with the clips. My Fallopian tubes had been inflamed for a long time, and they already had necrotic tissue, so I could only have them removed,” said Jing, whose husband left her, taking the couple’s son, because she started passing out every time the couple attempted intercourse. A staff member surnamed Zheng who answered the phone at the Gansu provincial health commission said officials hadn’t approved Jing’s procedure, which would have been carried out based on “expert” medical opinion. “This decision can only be made by experts … whose opinions we...
- [Ukraine war disrupts cereal markets, threatens food security in SE Asia](https://ij-reportika.com/ukraine-war-disrupts-cereal-markets-threatens-food-security-in-se-asia/): As war rages across Ukraine, farmers have been busy towing captured Russian tanks, artillery, and downed helicopters. In addition to their new calling, is the planting of the spring crop. It’s another reminder that Russia’s illegal invasion is occurring in one of the world’s major bread baskets, with consequences for food security in Asia and beyond. What’s at stake? In 2021, Ukraine was the third largest producer of wheat, exporting 60 million of its 80 million-ton harvest. That accounted for 17 percent of global exports. In addition, Ukraine was the second largest producer of barley, the fourth largest producer of corn, and the largest producer of sunflower oil. Both Ukraine and Russia are major players in global markets. But they have a greater role in the developing world and in humanitarian disasters: Half of the World Food Program’s grain is purchased in the Ukraine. In 2021, Ukraine exported U.S. $2.9 billion in wheat to Africa. Since the war began the price of wheat, which was already at a historic high, has increased by 30 percent. Ukraine, along with Russia, is an important provider of grain and food staples to Southeast Asia. In 2020, Ukraine exported $708 million to Indonesia, accounting for 25 percent of imports; $92 million to Malaysia, 23 percent of imports; and $131 million to Thailand, around 17 percent of imports. But Indonesia and the Philippines – Southeast Asia’s most food insecure nations – will be hit particularly hard. Almost 75 percent of Indonesia’s imports from Ukraine consists of cereals, including wheat. In 2021, Indonesia imported 3.07 million tons of wheat from Ukraine. In 2020, Ukraine was the single largest source of grain for the most populous Southeast Asian nation, and the largest in 2021. And in both Indonesia and the Philippines, demand for wheat is growing. According to the Philippine statistics agency, in 2021 imports of cereals increased by nearly 48 percent over 2020. In Indonesia, flour consumption increased by almost 5 percent in 2021. At the same time, the populations of the neighboring countries are growing. Indonesia’s population is increasing by 1.1 percent per annum and the Philippines’ at 1.3 percent – making it the fastest growing population in Southeast Asia. In both countries, food production has never kept pace with population growth. And both governments are very sensitive to inflation in food commodities. Fighting spreads to farm fields Meanwhile, in the middle of Ukraine’s sowing season, the war has shifted from north of Kyiv, to the eastern part of the country. The fighting is now taking place in some of Ukraine’s most productive farmland.  In places where it is not too dangerous to farm, the physical infrastructure has been destroyed. Able-bodied men and women are serving in the military or territorial defense forces. The Ukrainian government is expecting a 30 percent decline in agricultural production this year because of the war. Dire warnings by the government suggest that exports in 2022 could plummet to 15 to 20 percent of 2021’s exports. Even if the farmers are able to grow crops, there are questions about their ability to get the grains to global markets. The Russians razed Mariupol and have devastated the physical infrastructure and depopulated most of the other of Ukraine’s ports on the Sea of Asimov. Odessa is the last major port that Russia has not attacked, but Russian forces are blockading it.  For the time being, Ukrainian grain exports are only leaving the country by train or truck, but if the Russians target logistic nodes in western Ukraine even those exports could be dented. Local farmers are also vulnerable to a liquidity crisis, unable to get the loans they need to cover operations in the first half of the season. That’s not suggest that there is a shortage of sources of wheat outside Ukraine. Last year, Indonesia imported 4.69 million tons from Australia. In 2020, it imported 2.63 million tons from Argentina. Having suppliers in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres is essential for the steady importation of food stuffs. And next to Russia, the United States, and Canada, Ukraine is the largest exporter in the Northern Hemisphere. Without a doubt, the war is bad news for global food markets. Prices for cereals have been climbing steadily in the past few years at a time when most countries have experienced economic slowdowns, the loss of income, and climbing poverty rates due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic. Inflation in energy markets and food staples is hitting consumers hard the world over. Other uncertainty in food markets Beyond the Russian invasion of Ukraine there are other factors unsettling global food markets. China’s winter wheat harvest was described by their agriculture minister as “the worst in history.” A decline in water levels along the Mekong River due to damming has increased salt intrusion into the Mekong Delta, leading to a smaller harvest. According to the Stimson Center, the delta accounts for 50 percent of Vietnam’s rice crop, but 90 percent of rice exports. In 2020, Vietnam’s exports accounted for 7.4 percent of the global supply. Indonesia and the Philippines are amongst Vietnam’s top export markets. The economic fallout from Myanmar’s coup d’état is another factor. The kyat lost 60 percent of its value since the February 2021 military takeover, prompting a shortage of U.S. dollars and making imports of pesticides and fertilizers exorbitant. While Myanmar itself will remain food secure, the expected diminished crop will impact global markets. Myanmar is the seventh largest exporter of rice in the world. In 2020 it accounted for 3.2 percent of global exports. Optimistic estimates suggest that exports will be around 2 million tons in 2022, down from their normal export of 2.5 to 3 million tons. With the exception of Singapore, countries in Southeast Asia have been reluctant to criticize Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and none have been willing to impose sanctions, professing a desire to be neutral. But most countries in Southeast Asia will be feeling the economic pain cause by Russia’s military strike on its neighbor next-door. As this year’s president of the G-20, Indonesia is causing controversy by inviting President Putin to the Bali summit,...
- [Japanese gangster, 3 Thais ‘brokered’ heroin, meth deals for missiles, US alleges](https://ij-reportika.com/japanese-gangster-3-thais-brokered-heroin-meth-deals-for-missiles-us-alleges/): The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday announced the arrests of a suspected Japanese organized crime leader and three Thais who allegedly tried to sell large amounts of heroin and methamphetamine internationally to arm rebel groups in Myanmar and Sri Lanka with surface-to-air missiles and other weapons. Takeshi Ebisawa, who is a Japanese citizen, Thai nationals Somphop Singhasiri and Sompak Rukrasaranee, and American-Thai dual national Suksan Jullanan (alias Bobby) were arrested in Manhattan earlier this week following a probe that began as early as June 2019, according to a document filed in the U.S. Court for the Southern District of New York. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency began investigating Ebisawa in 2019 and identified him as a Yakuza organized crime leader. “We allege Mr. Ebisawa and his co-conspirators brokered deals with an undercover DEA agent to buy heavy-duty weaponry and sell large quantities of illegal drugs,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a news release announcing the arrests. “The drugs were destined for New York streets and the weapons shipments were meant for factions in unstable nations.” “The Yakuza is a network of highly organized, transnational crime families with affiliates in Asia, Europe, and the Americas, and is involved in various criminal activities, including weapons trafficking, drug trafficking, human trafficking, fraud and money laundering,” U.S. justice officials said. Investigators allege that Ebisawa introduced an undercover agent posing as a narcotics and weapons trafficker to associates in Japan, Thailand, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and the United States to set up drug and weapons transactions – noting that the four suspects “negotiated multiple narcotics and weapons transactions” with the undercover agent. Ebisawa, Jullanan and Rukrasaranee conspired to broker the purchase of U.S.-made surface-to-air missiles and other weapons “for multiple ethnic armed groups in Burma, and to accept large quantities of heroin and methamphetamine for distribution as partial payment for the weapons,” the charges allege. Joined by Singhasiri, Ebisawa sought to sell 500 kg (1,100 pounds) of methamphetamine and 500 kg of heroin to an undercover agent, justice officials said, adding that the drugs were to be distributed in New York. Singhasiri allegedly conspired to possess machine guns and other firearms to protect narcotics shipments and Ebisawa allegedly worked to launder U.S. $100,000 in “purported narcotics proceeds from the United States to Japan.” Ebisawa faces charges of conspiracy to import narcotics; conspiracy to acquire, transfer and possess surface-to-air missiles; conspiracy to possess firearms including machine guns and destructive devices; and money laundering. Charging documents allege that Ebisawa sought to buy the surface-to-air missiles, rockets, machine guns and automatic weapons for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a Sri Lankan rebel group also known as the Tamil Tigers. “Though defeated militarily in 2009, the LTTE continues to attract international financial support,” the justice department said in the charging document, adding that the LTTE is designated by the United States as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Singhasiri faces charges of conspiracy to import narcotics and conspiracy to possess firearms including machine guns and destructive devices. Jullanan and Rukrasaranee face charges of conspiracy to import narcotics; conspiracy to acquire, transfer and possess surface-to-air missiles; and conspiracy to possess firearms including machine guns and destructive devices. Justice officials allege the two and Ebisawa discussed potential deals to supply missiles and other weapons to the Myanmar groups including the Shan State Army and United Wa State Army. The weapons and drug charges carry penalties of up to life in prison if convicted. “The expansive reach of transnational criminal networks, like the Yakuza, presents a serious threat to the safety and health of all communities. Ebisawa and his associates intended to distribute hundreds of kilograms of methamphetamine and heroin to the United States, using deadly weapons to enable their criminal activities, at a time when nearly 300 Americans lose their lives to drug overdose every day,” DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said in a prepared statement. “These arrests represent the unwavering determination of the DEA, together with our U.S. and international partners, to target and bring to justice violent criminals who lead transnational drug trafficking organizations that continue to flood our country with dangerous drugs.” BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news outlet.
- [Deputy governor of Myanmar central bank shot by gunmen at her Yangon home](https://ij-reportika.com/deputy-governor-of-myanmar-central-bank-shot-by-gunmen-at-her-yangon-home/): The deputy governor of Myanmar’s central bank was shot by unknown assailants on Thursday, according to sources and media reports, amid a public outcry over a new directive ordering the sale of all U.S. dollars and other foreign currency at a fixed rate to licensed banks. It was not immediately clear whether Than Than Shwe, who was shot at her apartment complex in the commercial capital Yangon’s Bahan township, survived the attack. A resident of the same complex told RFA’s Myanmar Service that she and others who live there “only found out what happened when several military trucks arrived.” “We knew a woman had been shot — a bank employee. But later, news came out that she was the central bank [deputy] governor.” Junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun confirmed the shooting to RFA’s Myanmar Service and said Than Than Shwe was recuperating at the city’s military hospital. “We can confirm the attack at 11:30 a.m.,” he said, adding that Than Than Swe “was injured and is being treated at Tatmadaw Hospital.” “Her condition is good at this moment,” he said at the time. The Irrawaddy News reported later Thursday that Than Than Swe had died at the hospital from injuries she sustained in the shooting, citing sources close to the deputy governor. A report by the Associated Press quoted a local official named Thet Oo as saying Than Than Swe had been shot three times by two men after answering the door at her apartment and was confirmed dead after being taken to the hospital. RFA was unable to independently verify the reports. Than Than Swe, 55, was sworn in as deputy governor of the central bank after the military seized power from Myanmar’s democratically elected National League for Democracy (NLD) government in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup. Believed to be the most senior junta official to be shot since the takeover, she is known to have led efforts to reduce the cash flow in the banking and financial system under the NLD, a senior official at the central bank told The Irrawaddy. A group known as the Yangon Region Military Command (YRMC) announced in a statement on Thursday that it had “successfully carried out” the attack on Than Than Swe as it’s “latest target.” The YRMC is an anti-junta paramilitary group that has pledged loyalty to Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) and claims to have carried out more than 1,100 attacks since the NUG declared war on the military in September. The NUG, which has distanced itself from attacks on civilians, did not immediately comment on the attack Thursday and RFA was unable to confirm the YRMC’s claim of responsibility. Junta security forces have killed at least 1,733 civilians and arrested more than 10,000 others since February 2021, mostly during peaceful anti-coup demonstrations, according to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. An illegal money changer exchanges Myanmar kyat bank notes into US dollars in a back alley of Yangon, in a file photo. Credit: AFP New bank directive The attack on Than Than Swe comes days after an April 3 directive by the central bank ordering all foreign currency, including the U.S. dollar, to be resold within one day of entering the country to licensed banks at a fixed rate of 1,850 kyats to the dollar. The order also requires government approval before any foreign currency can be sent overseas. A Myanmar-based economist, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the central bank order suggests that the junta is running short of dollars. He warned that the move is likely to have dire consequences for an economy already decimated by COVID-19, junta mismanagement and Western sanctions. “This will make the dollar even scarcer and the buying and selling of dollars will be done under the table,” he said. “In that case, the kyat will depreciate further. The situation will just get worse. Imported goods will become even more expensive.” The price of imports from the Thai and Chinese borders are likely to be unaffected, he said, as Thai baht and Chinese yuan can be easily exchanged for Myanmar kyat. A source who earns his salary in U.S. dollars and declined to be named for security reasons told RFA he can no longer withdraw money from his bank. “The bank told me they cannot transfer the money to U.S.-dollar accounts due to the CBM directive. They cannot issue any currency notes or transfer money from one account to another in the same bank or to different banks, until further notice. … You can no longer transfer using the mobile app either. You can only see the dollars in your account, but cannot get hold of them,” he said. “There’s nothing I can do. I’m poor now. There is more money coming in and all of this was converted into kyats automatically. It’s a big, big headache now.” A businessman named Soe Tun said the prices of cooking and fuel oils are likely to fall if enough U.S. dollars are resold to importers but that the long-term impact on producers of rice and corn could be substantial. “For these exporters, it is unfortunate that they must sell their [goods] at a rate of 1,850 kyats to the dollar due to the newly fixed exchange rate,” he said. “They will lose roughly 11 percent, or about 200 kyats, for every dollar.” He said the consequences of the order will only become clear after a month or so. Lack of independence Khin Maung Myint, a legal expert, told RFA that Myanmar’s law stipulates that the central bank must remain independent from the government, but said the reality of the situation is that everything depends on who is appointed to run the bank by the junta. “The decision-makers, including the governor and the deputy governor, were appointed by the [junta], so it’s no wonder they act in accordance with the junta’s decisions and directives, no matter how independent they may be under the law,” he said. “It’s very difficult...
- [North Korea issues high-denomination money voucher, photo evidence shows](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-issues-high-denomination-money-voucher-photo-evidence-shows/): North Korea’s Central Bank has printed a 50,000 won (U.S. $8.30) money voucher worth 10 times its highest currency denomination, photo evidence obtained exclusively by RFA has revealed. North Korean paper currency is available in denominations ranging from the practically worthless 5 won ($0.00083) note to the 5,000 won note, worth less than $1. People generally use a mixture of foreign currencies like dollars and Chinese yuan in conjunction with the North Korean won to pay for goods and services. RFA received photos of the new voucher from the J.M. Missionary Union, a Seoul-based organization with knowledge of the situation. The note bears the name of the Central Bank of the DPRK with an issue date of “Juche 111,” the current year in the North Korean calendar that starts in 1912, the birth year of national founder Kim Il Sung. The background shows Mt. Paektu, a mountain on the Sino-Korean border that is sacred in Korean culture.  RFA was unable to confirm how many 50,000 won notes have been printed or whether they are in circulation. The organization said the voucher was issued earlier this year and is in use in Pyongyang. South Korean sources who requested anonymity due to the country’s presidential transition period told RFA’s Korean Service that North Korea issued a high-denomination money coupon earlier this year but could not confirm that it was a 50,000 won voucher. They said that the high denomination vouchers were for transactions between businesses. South Korea’s Ministry of Unification could not confirm whether North Korea has issued money vouchers worth more than 5,000 won ($0.83), which the Central Bank of the DPRK did in the second half of last year. “Issues related to the issuance of the [5,000 won] money coupons have been identified through messages to North Korean escapees … but the purpose of their issuance and distribution have not been specifically identified,” the ministry told RFA. A photo provided exclusively to RFA by the J.M. Missionary Union in Seoul shows the reverse of a new 50,000 won money voucher produced by North Korea’s central bank. Photo: J.M. Missionary Union During a South Korean National Assembly audit last year, the National Intelligence Service (NIS), Seoul’s spy agency, confirmed that the 5,000 won vouchers were in circulation. The NIS said in their report that the vouchers were issued because North Korea lacks the paper and ink necessary to print money due to the suspension of imports at the start of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Imports resumed on a limited basis at the beginning of this year, but trade volume has not yet reached normal levels. The issuance of money vouchers also may indicate that North Korea is attempting to avoid inflation by not printing actual currency, the Bank of Korea, South Korea’s central bank, said in a report last month, which did not mention vouchers in the 50,000 won denomination. The report said cashflow in the North was disrupted due to the economic slump and the vouchers are a means to increase the money supply, possibly for use in transactions between companies, while North Korean authorities can keep the companies’ cash in reserve. “Money should circulate. From the authorities’ point of view, they circulate money, but it’s not coming back to them,” Lim Song, an economist that focuses on North Korea at the Economic Research Institute of the Bank of Korea, told RFA. “The central bank has to print money to circulate money, but that will cause inflation, so instead of paper bills, they are circulating money coupons which they can convert when the economic situation gets better,” he said. Translated by Claire Lee and Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Meeting may signal warmer relations between Myanmar and China](https://ij-reportika.com/meeting-may-signal-warmer-relations-between-myanmar-and-china/): A recent meeting between the Myanmar junta’s foreign minister and his Chinese counterpart may signal China’s softening to the military rulers who came to power in a coup last year and an eagerness to revive its own economic initiatives in the war-torn country, analysts said. Wunna Maung Lwin, foreign minister of the State Administration Council, as the junta regime is called, met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in eastern China’s Anhui province during the Myanmar diplomat’s March 31-April 2 visit. Wunna Maung Lwin was appointed to his position after the Myanmar military seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi more than 13 months ago. He was barred by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) from attending a February meeting of regional organization’s foreign ministers in Cambodia. Analysts said that Wunna Maung Lwin’s meeting with Wang Yi signals Myanmar’s desire for deeper economic ties to its ally China, as it struggles to repress widespread opposition to its rule that has left thousands dead. Beijing meanwhile wants to get its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects in Myanmar moving forward. Beijing now seems more willing to side with the junta, as it had done with previous military regimes in Myanmar, political analyst Sai Kyi Zin Soe said. “China is consistently focused on the One Belt, One Road Initiative,” he said. “They may have something to do economically at present. They must also have many plans to invest in Myanmar, so they seem to be looking at what they can get out of it.” Chinese investments in Myanmar under the BRI, a trillion-dollar infrastructure program, have been hampered by ethnic unrest, the COVID-19 pandemic and the post-coup turmoil. China especially wants its main infrastructure project in Myanmar — the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor — to be completed so that it has a direct route from Yunnan province to the Indian Ocean oil trade. Wang Yi told Wunna Maung Lwin that China would support the junta’s efforts to safeguard independence and territorial integrity and find a path to development that suits Myanmar’s situation, according to a report by China’s official Xinhua news agency. He also said China was ready to deepen exchanges and cooperation in all fields. Zin Mar Aung, foreign minister of Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG), said the Chinese government’s move to invite the junta’s foreign minister on an official visit raises questions about Beijing’s support for Myanmar citizens. “It’s a very disappointing development,” she said. “It is questionable whether China has reversed its previous position when it said Beijing will stand by our people in the return of power to the people. Has it now taken a one-sided approach? Is Beijing standing on the other side against the Myanmar people?” So far, China has been in contact only with the State Administration Council and has yet to formally engage with the NUG. Sun Guoxiang, Beijing’s special envoy for Asian affairs met with Wunna Maung Lwin in Myanmar in August 2021. Afterwards, Sun said he would work with the international community to help bring about social stability and democratic change in the Southeast Asian country. When the Chinese Communist Party held an online conference of political parties in Southeast Asia in September 2021, the National League for Democracy, Myanmar’s ruling party until it was overthrown by the military, was invited to attend, but could not participate in discussions. ‘Main thing is economics’ China-based Myanmar observer Hla Kyaw Zaw said the Chinese government gives priority to its economy. “It is true that China had invited [Wunna Maung Lwin], but it was for its own interests,” she said. “China also wants democracy in Myanmar for stability, and it has said it will render all the help it can.” “The main thing is economics,” she said. “In the past, there were matters agreed upon during the time of Aung San Suu Kyi. Parts of the Silk Road project undertaken by Myanmar seem to have stopped, and China wants them to resume.” In a statement following the visit between Wunna Maung Lwin and Wang Yi, the junta’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called for the implementation of joint projects between the two countries, the opening of a Myanmar consulate in Chongqing in central China, and the addition of new border crossings between the two countries. The ministry also said the two foreign ministers discussed the implementation of a Five-Point Consensus, an agreement between Myanmar’s military ruler and ASEAN countries at a meeting held after the coup. Major General Zaw Min Tun, the junta’s spokesman, said the regime had no further comments on details of talks between the two foreign ministers. “We already have issued a statement. I have nothing else to say,” he said. Prashanth Parameswaran, a fellow with the Wilson Center’s Asia Program in Washington, said China believes that it is in its interest to increase its public support for the increasingly isolated Myanmar military regime. “But this support will not be cost-free for Myanmar,” he said. “The key question is what China will ask for in return for increased support, and Wang Yi’s comments suggest what this could entail, whether it be advances on infrastructure projects or diplomatic support for other issues.” Jason Tower, the country director for Myanmar U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) in Washington, said that China is betting that the Myanmar military will not relinquish power. “The problem, though, is that the junta has no possible pathway towards achieving stability in the country,” he told RFA. “Over the longer term this means that China will be placing its economic plans for Myanmar far out of reach by continuing to support the junta in this way.” The potential consequences of China’s backing of the junta could have negative consequences throughout the region, Tower said. “If Beijing moves forward with this level of support for a genocidal military with no popular legitimacy, it risks undermining any hopes of maintaining a strong friendship with the Myanmar people,” he said. “This could produce a regional crisis of tragic proportions...
- [Bribes are a common business expense in Laos, a new report says](https://ij-reportika.com/bribes-are-a-common-business-expense-in-laos-a-new-report-says/): Almost 70 percent of businesses that applied for registrations, licenses and permits in Laos paid bribes to government officials to get approval, a report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said. The report on the cost of doing business in Laos drew responses from 1,357 respondents, 68 percent of whom said that so-called “informal payments” were necessary for smooth and efficient business operations. ADB, which is based in Manila, provides loans, grants and other financial assistance to projects that promote growth in Asian countries and reduce extreme poverty in the region. “The informal charges must be paid for everything … because the access to the officials and the system they control is difficult, and the system is slow to adopt technology,” an employee at the ADB office in Laos, who requested anonymity for safety reasons, told RFA’s Lao Service Thursday. “It’s going to take some time to update the rules, amend the laws and improve the behavior of officials. The Lao government should develop human resources by upgrading their skills and knowledge, but it is more important that they are more transparent,” the ADB official said. Paying the bribe to get things done is sometimes easier than doing business by the book, an owner of a bar and restaurant in the historic town of Luang Prabang in northern Laos told RFA. “Paying kickbacks is widespread in Laos. They do it in every district and in every province because the process of obtaining license or permit in this country is very complex, bureaucratic and time consuming,” said the owner, who declined to be named. “In my case, I knew somebody in the provincial business registration office. They came by and inspected my facility first before I could register my business. You have to know somebody in the office, if not, it’s going to be difficult to get registered,” he said. Connections and money are integral to doing business in Laos, the owner of a Luang Prabang car rental company told RFA. “If you try to do it yourself, you’ll find a lot of trouble. But if you have a link or a connection in the office, it’ll be much easier because you and your connection can talk and compromise, of course, with the appropriate amount of money under the table,” he said. “With the appropriate amount, a process that normally takes three months takes only three weeks. In my case, I paid the appropriate amount to an acquaintance outside of his office after work hours,” the car rental owner said. Lao governmental paperwork is overly complicated, the owner of another business told RFA. “When I submit an application form for a permit, I can say to an official, ‘Please look at this application form. When it’s done, I’ll buy you a beer or two.’ Then I give him 300,000 kip ($25), the cost of one or two beers, for his service,” the source said. A Lao economist told RFA that the report did not uncover anything out of the ordinary. “For many people who don’t know about Laos, the ADB report looks negative. But for those who are used to it, kickbacks are normal because this kind of practice is a problem in every country in the world,” the economist said on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. “For example, when officials perform inspections for safety, labor practices or environmental impact of a factory, the factory owner would have to pay the inspectors cash and never receive a bill or receipt. The inspectors put the money in their pockets. The money is not a fee charged by the government,” he said, adding that foreign investors might not want to do business under that type of system. “For investors who are already here, the extra expenses in the form of kickbacks add up and increase the cost of doing business.” Solutions Kickbacks are often necessary because officials depend on them for much of their income, an official of the Lao Finance Ministry told RFA. “They take the kickbacks to make a living. I cannot deny that,” he said. “It’s getting worse in the current economic situation. The government is tackling this practice head-on in hopes of reducing it little by little.” The Lao Chamber of Industry and Commerce suggested in the ADB report that the government should step up training for its employees and switch from a system requiring person-to-person contact to an online processing method. In Transparency International’s 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index, which measures public sector corruption on a scale of 0 (“highly corrupt”) to 100 (“very clean”), Laos received a score of 30, placing it in 128th place among 180 countries. The least corrupt countries were New Zealand, Denmark, and Finland, each with score of 88, while the most corrupt was South Sudan, with a score of 11. Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Lack of engine could sink Thai purchase of Chinese submarine](https://ij-reportika.com/lack-of-engine-could-sink-thai-purchase-of-chinese-submarine/): Thailand’s long-planned purchase of three Chinese submarines, which a former top Bangkok diplomat described as “an insult to the Thai-U.S. treaty relationship,” could run into trouble, officials and analysts said. In April 2017, the Thai government approved the Royal Navy’s plan to buy three Yuan-class submarines from China valued at 36 billion baht (U.S. $1.05 billion). Because of budget constraints, the purchase of one submarine – now valued at 13.5 billion baht ($403 million) – got the green light but the other two were shelved. The Chinese state-owned submarine developer – China Shipbuilding & Offshore International Co. (CSOC) – could not obtain the diesel engine from Germany to fit into the sub because of the European Union arms embargo imposed on China, according to a German official. The engine is manufactured by Germany’s Motor and Turbine Union (MTU). “The export [of the engine] was refused because of its use for a Chinese Military/Defense industry item,” said Philipp Doert, the German defense attaché to Thailand, told the Bangkok Post. “China did not ask/coordinate with Germany before signing the Thai-China contract, offering German MTU engines as part of their product.” The EU imposed its arms embargo on China in 1989 after the violent suppression of pro-democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Thai-China relations ‘not affected’ Earlier this week, Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha said that if China could not fulfill the agreement, the submarine deal could be canceled. “What do we do with a submarine with no engines? Why should we purchase it?” Prayuth, who serves as the nation’s defense minister, told local media. Previously, Vice Adm. Pokkrong Monthatphalin, the Royal Thai Navy spokesman, said talks were to be held later this month with CSOC to discuss the engine issue. Local media reported that CSOC had offered an alternative engine – an offer rejected by the government, which paid its first installment of 700 million baht (U.S. $20.9 million) in 2017. The submarine’s delivery is scheduled for 2024. Despite his concerns, Prayuth told Thai reporters that any cancellation would not affect Thai-Chinese relations, according to the Bangkok Post. A Chinese navy submarine leaves Qingdao Port, Shandong province, in a file photo. Credit: Reuters Trust issues An analyst, meanwhile, said Bangkok’s growing military ties with China have led to trust issues with the United States. “Thailand and the U.S. are treaty allies. Thailand was designated by the U.S. as a Non-NATO ally,” Kasit Piromya, a Thai former foreign minister, told BenarNews. “The fact that Thailand commissioned the Chinese submarines is an insult to the Thai-U.S. treaty relationship,” he said, adding that the issue “must be reset and redressed.” Earlier this year, the Thai Royal Air Force expressed interest in purchasing F-35 stealth fighter jets from the U.S. But the U.S. would be reluctant to sell their state-of-the-art aircraft to Bangkok because of the Thai military’s close links with its Chinese counterpart, said Ian Storey, a senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. In addition, the relationship between Thailand and the U.S. has been up and down in recent years.  “The Thai military establishment does not like criticism of its role in Thai politics by the U.S. and Western allies, while China avoids political judgment and offers military hardware at friendship’s cost,” Kasit said. “The result is Thailand and the U.S. have been failing to hold heart-to-heart talks as allies and strategic partners,” he said. Southeast Asian countries, especially those with competing claims in the South China Sea, are joining the submarine club to deal with new security challenges. Vietnam bought six Kilo-class submarines from Russia, both Indonesia and the Philippines are discussing purchasing submarines from France. Singapore and Malaysia operate four and two subs, respectively. China by far has the largest fleet in Asia, with an estimated 76 submarines. The Yuan-class is a diesel-electric submarine designed to operate in shallow coastal waters, according to the U.S. Naval Institute.
- [Concerns grow over sale of UK's largest semiconductor plant to Chinese company](https://ij-reportika.com/concerns-grow-over-sale-of-uks-largest-semiconductor-plant-to-chinese-company/): Concerns are growing over plans by a state-backed Chinese company to acquire the U.K.’s largest semiconductor plant for U.S. $82 million, amid reports that the British government has “quietly” approved the sale despite ordering a review a year ago. “This is about the United Kingdom’s biggest producer of microchips and semiconductors. It is about national resilience,” crossbench peer Lord Alton told the U.K.’s upper house on Thursday. “It’s about whether or not we wish to become a wholly-owned subsidiary of the People’s Republic of China, which has been accused of genocide by Elizabeth Truss, our foreign secretary.” “Why aren’t we giving consideration [to] the remarks of Ciaran Martin, the former head of the National Cybersecurity Centre, that there are ‘very real concerns about the buyout’, and that it poses a greater threat than allowing Huawei to build the United Kingdom’s 5G network.” The question followed an April 1 report by the news website Politico, which cited sources as saying that ministers have decided not to intervene in the takeover of Newport Wafer Fab following a review by the government’s national security adviser, Stephen Lovegrove. “Lovegrove concluded there were not enough security concerns to block it,” the report cited two government officials as saying. Both the British government and Nexperia, the potential buyer, denied that the acquisition had been approved, however. The U.K.’s National Security and Investment (NSI) Act, which took effect on Jan. 4, 2022, empowers cabinet ministers to review and block foreign acquisitions that may damage national security. According to official guidelines on the government’s website, an acquisition is likely to fall within the scope of the act if the investor “is involved in the ownership, creation, supply or exploitation of intellectual property of … computer processing units, architectural, logical or physical designs for such units, the instruction set architecture for such units, code, written in a low-level language, that can control how such units operate, or integrated circuits with the purpose of providing memory. The House of Commons foreign affairs committee said on April 5 that it had sent letters to different government departments on many occasions regarding the deal, and had concluded that the review hadn’t been implemented according to the request of Prime Minister Boris Johnson. CCP backing Nexperia is ultimately owned by Wingtech, a Shanghai-listed company reportedly backed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), while Newport Wafer Fab (NWF) specializes in the fabrication of high-end silicon semiconductor chips and in manufacturing silicon chips for power conversion, and the industry in south Wales has received “significant financial support” from the government, the Committee said in its report. According to Chinese investment screening specialists Datenna, Wingtech is heavily backed by the CCP. Wingtech Chair Zang Xuezheng assumed the role of Nexperia CEO in March 2020, the report said. “Given the importance of semiconductors to the U.K.’s national security, we identified the acquisition of the U.K.’s largest semiconductor manufacturer by a company backed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as a cause for concern; even more so in the context of global semiconductor shortages,” the report said. “We argued that it is crucial that the Government gets the new investment screening regime right from the beginning.” Ruling Conservative Party MP Tom Tugendhat, who chairs the House of Commons foreign affairs committee, said the government should act under national security powers to review sensitive and strategic foreign investments in the U.K. He said the deal had left many wondering why national security-related infrastructure was being handed over to overseas companies with clear links to the Chinese government. He warned against acting only for short-term economic interests, rather than for future economic stability. Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith said the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is “determined” to get control over access to key technologies amid a global semiconductor shortage. He warned against “appeasing” China, which was trying to block Western countries’ access to microchips and other sought-after electronic components. No.10 Downing Street declined to comment. The CCP-backed Global Times newspaper has hit out at Tugendhat for being “anti-China,” while he and eight other individuals are barred from entering China, including Hong Kong and Macau. “Their properties in China will be frozen, and Chinese citizens and institutions will be prohibited from doing business with them,” the paper reported on March 26. Similar sanctions have also been imposed on Duncan Smith, it said. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Jailed Vietnamese rights activist marks one year in pre-trial detention](https://ij-reportika.com/jailed-vietnamese-rights-activist-marks-one-year-in-pre-trial-detention/): A well-known Vietnamese human rights activist who raised money for families of prisoners jailed for their political or religious views marked the first anniversary of her arrest for allegedly disseminating materials against the state, still in detention and awaiting trial. Nguyen Thuy Hanh, founder of the 50K Fund, which provides financial support to family members of so-called prisoners of conscience, was arrested on April 7, 2021, by police in Vietnam’s capital Hanoi. Authorities blocked her bank account in 2020 after she raised about 500 million Vietnamese dong (U.S. $21,600) to support the family of Le Dinh Kinh, the elderly leader of the Dong Tam commune, who was shot dead by security forces during a police raid in January 2020 amid a long-running land dispute. Hanh closed her fund in early December to take time to treat an illness, but she affirmed her continuing support for prisoners of conscience. Hanh herself had run afoul of Communist Party authorities for trying to run for a seat in Vietnam’s rubber-stamp National Congress in 2016. Human rights lawyer and democracy activist Nguyen Van Dai, who has been arrested twice for political reasons, told RFA that during pre-trial periods, prisoners are not allowed to see their families or defense attorneys as an additional method of punishment. “We need to understand the nature of the communist authoritarian regime in Vietnam,” he said. “When arresting political dissidents, their main purpose is not only to deprive their freedom but also to punish them both physically and mentally. “The reason they don’t allow us to see our family or lawyers and do all kinds of things to suppress and torture us mentally is to exhaust our strength and determination and discourage us from fighting for our ideals after being released from jail,” he said. Authorities also torment prisoners in pre-trial detention by sometimes providing half-cooked rice or stale food to eat or putting detergent into their soup, Dai added. “Temporary detention is the most stressful time [for detainees], which can cause depression in those who cannot tolerate it,” he said. Hanh’s husband, Huynh Ngoc Chenh, said his wife was very depressed before her arrest and that the family is concerned that her psychological state now may be worse. “My wife Hanh was suffering from serious depression and was being treated by a doctor in Saigon [Ho Chi Minh City] when she was arrested,” he said. “After a while, the detention center allowed us to send her some medicine.” Hanh was forced to undergo a month-long psychiatric evaluation while being held in pre-trial detention, Chenh told RFA in January. But authorities did not tell Hanh’s family about her mental state. The family learned about her month-long stay in a hospital from other patients there. “We don’t know anything about her health condition now,” Chenh said. ‘An act of torture’ Vietnam’s investigative security agencies often extend pre-trial detention periods for political prisoners, especially with high-profile detainees being held on alleged violations of national security. Human rights organizations, including London-based Amnesty International Amnesty, have repeatedly expressed concerns over this practice, calling it “an act of torture.” Vietnam is currently detaining 253 prisoners of conscience, including two dozen women, according to the rights group Defend the Defenders, though the organization said it believes that the actual number is higher. Three dozen of those being held are in pre-trial detention, while the remainder has been sentenced, Vu Quoc Ngu, the organization’s director told RFA on Wednesday. Prisoners charged with “sabotaging the national solidarity policy” and religious prisoners comprise the largest number of detainees, while about 100 belong to ethnic minority groups in northern Vietnam or the Central Highlands, he said. The rest were charged with other crimes such as “overthrowing the people’s government,” “conducting anti-state propaganda,” and “abusing the rights to freedom and democracy,” Ngu said. The real number of prisoners of conscience in Vietnam is likely much higher because Defend the Defenders has had difficulty obtaining information from detainees’ families or else their trials were held in secret and not covered by the media. The number of prisoners of conscience “shows that Vietnam’s authoritarian regime disrespects the basic freedom rights, including freedom of speech, freedom of establishing associations and press freedom,” Ngu said. “This number reflects the communist government’s increasing suppression.” Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translate by Anna Vu. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Smuggled sketches offer glimpses into notorious Myanmar prison](https://ij-reportika.com/smuggled-sketches-offer-glimpses-into-notorious-myanmar-prison/): Fourteen sketches smuggled out of Myanmar’s Insein Prison and interviews with eight former prisoners offer a rare glimpse inside the country’s most notorious jail, where thousands of political prisoners have been sent since last year’s military coup and communication with the outside world is sharply limited.  The ink sketches show daily life for groups of male prisoners in their dormitories, queuing for water from a trough to wash, talking or lying on the floor in the tropical heat. Beyond those depictions, the eight recently released inmates told Reuters the colonial-era facility in Yangon is infested with rats and widespread illness goes untreated. Also, bribery is common and prisoners pay for sleeping space on the floor.  “We’re no longer humans behind bars,” said Nyi Nyi Htwe, 24, who smuggled the sketches out of the prison when he was released in October, after spending several months for a defamation conviction, on charges he denies, in connection with joining protests against the coup.  Reuters could not independently verify the accounts provided by the former inmates.  The artist drew the prison sketches between April and July of last year. Later released, he declined to be interviewed or identified, telling Nyi Nyi Htwe he feared rearrest.  Nyi Nyi Htwe, who met the artist in prison, said the man sketched prisoners if asked and drew prison scenes wherever he went, saying he felt more relaxed while drawing. He gave Nyi Nyi Htwe, who has joined an armed rebel group since being released, the sketches as a birthday present.
- [Human trafficking in Cambodia nearly doubled in 2021](https://ij-reportika.com/human-trafficking-in-cambodia-nearly-doubled-in-2021/): Human trafficking cases in Cambodia almost doubled in 2021 compared to 2020 because the government was preoccupied with the coronavirus pandemic, a report issued Wednesday by the country’s National Committee for Counter Trafficking said. The report, which was released during a ceremony at the Ministry of Interior, the committee’s parent ministry, documented trafficking of laborers, organs, babies and surrogates, and sex workers. Minister of Interior Sar Kheng said human trafficking was on the rise amid the COVID-19 pandemic. He urged authorities not to let their guard down. “Criminals are choosing human trafficking as a career. They won’t let it go. They are taking advantage of us when we are facing a crisis,” he said.  The committee’s vice chairperson, Chou Bun Eng, said during an interview with a local radio station that traffickers used to move through Cambodia, but now the country has become a popular trafficking destination. She highlighted a particular case earlier this year to illustrate the point. “The trafficking suspects brought in victims to Cambodia. The suspects lured the victims to work in Cambodia due to the country’s development and political stability,” she said.  “There was huge increase compared to 2020, we found 359 cases in 2021 whereas in 2020, there were only 155 cases,” said Chou Bun Eng. Trafficking of surrogates is a rising problem. In the past it was common for Cambodian surrogate mothers to give birth inside Cambodia but now they are moved to other countries, she said. The surrogates are in danger of being trafficked even after they have given birth because traffickers can confiscate their passports and IDs. Chou Bun Eng said one surrogate mother was arrested by authorities in Vietnam. She said the traffickers are able to lure victims through sophisticated means, using online communication to evade police detection. Since 2020, about 200,000 Cambodians have illegally crossed the border to work overseas but were not paid what they were promised, she said.  “They don’t make any money. What are the benefits of the risk after spending years working and finally ending up receiving social welfare back home?” Chou Bun Eng said.  Many of the Cambodians trafficked into the sex industry are underage, Am Sam Ath of the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights told RFA’s Khmer Service. He said the authorities didn’t pay attention to the problem even before the pandemic. “Violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking against minors continues to occur. We urge the government to increase measures to prevent human trafficking, especially of minors,” he said.  In its 2021 Trafficking in Persons Report, the U.S. State Department placed Cambodia on its Tier 2 Watchlist for the third consecutive year, meaning it does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so. “Endemic corruption and lack of political will continued to severely limit progress in holding traffickers accountable; corruption continued to impede law enforcement operations, criminal proceedings and victim service provision,” the State Department said. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong. 
- [Junta troops arrest kindergartner from Yangon school](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-troops-arrest-kindergartner-from-yangon-school/): Junta security forces have detained a four-year-old boy from a preschool in Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon, according to eyewitnesses, who say they believe the child is being used to obtain information on an armed opposition group. Thant Phone Waiyan was taken into custody on Tuesday, his fourth birthday, from the Best Choice Kindergarten on Settwin Road in Yangon’s Alone township, a teacher at the school told RFA’s Myanmar Service. After arriving at the school at around 12:40 p.m., a group of 20 soldiers initially sent in a plainclothes officer who told teachers that he was the boy’s uncle. The teacher said that staff “blocked the doorway with both hands and didn’t let him get in,” and that she told the officer she had plans to adopt the boy and would not let anyone take him. “At that moment, another group of men came in with their guns. There were about four or five of them. While I was arguing with them, two guys pushed me aside to get in,” the teacher told RFA. “One teacher brought out the boy and they looked at him from head to toe before taking him away. They were about to handcuff me at first, but they changed their mind.” The incident reportedly lasted around 10 minutes. A source close to the family, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that two days after the arrest, the child’s mother Ma Wai was “hit by a car,” and then “shot and detained” in Yangon. Other family members have reportedly since fled in fear of being targeted. The source indicated that the reason for the arrest may be to pressure Ma Wai to provide information about members of the anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary group, which has risen up in opposition to the military’s Feb. 1, 2021 coup.  “It is believed that the child was arrested so that she could be coerced to yield secret information because she knew they had her child,” the source said. It was not immediately clear what ties Mai Wai has to the PDF, if any. A resident of Yangon’s Sin Min Ward, where the child is from, condemned the abduction. “If they want to make an arrest, arrest the parents. What can the child know? I feel sorry for the child. I also have kids,” said the resident, who declined to be named. “[The military is] just kidnapping the kid because they want to get to the parents.” Other sources told RFA that the military had “detained several people” since Tuesday, which they suggested had been made based on the earlier arrests. RFA was unable to independently confirm the detentions. Child arrests When asked about the reports of Thant Phone Waiyan’s arrest, junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun dismissed them as false. “It doesn’t make sense. They are talking nonsense. Which child did we arrest? There is no record of such arrests,” he said. While Zaw Min Tun denied that security forces had arrested Thant Phone Waiyan, he acknowledged to RFA in January that “some children” have been detained in raids. According to the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, authorities have arrested 255 children between the ages of nine months and 18 years since last year’s coup. Of those arrested, 62 have been released, but 191 remain imprisoned and two have been sentenced to death, the group says.  Khin Maung Myint, a veteran lawyer, told RFA on Thursday that Thant Phone Waiyan’s arrest was made in violation of both Myanmar’s Penal Code and the Protection of the Rights of the Child Act. “They arrested the child for his parents’ actions,” he said. “Even if a child committed a crime or even a murder, they would have no right to arrest or prosecute the child. Children are already protected by law.” Ei Thinzar Maung, Deputy Minister for Youth and Children for the Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG), told RFA that NUG is working to secure the boy’s release and said U.N. agencies have been informed about his abduction. “As soon as we heard the news, we [began] working for the immediate release of the child,” he said. “To abduct a four-year-old boy because they cannot arrest the parents is shocking. It’s a violation of international law and is also a terrorist act. We have reported this to the U.N.”  The NUG was formed in the aftermath of the military coup by members of the ousted government of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, as well as other civil society and pro-democracy activists, and says it represents the effort to return to democratic rule in the country. According to the AAPP, junta troops have killed at least 1,733 civilians and arrested more than 10,000 others since February 2021 – mostly during peaceful anti-coup protests. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Nawar Nemeh.
- [Public anger grows in China over 'Cultural Revolution-style' disease prevention](https://ij-reportika.com/public-anger-grows-in-china-over-cultural-revolution-style-disease-prevention/): Public criticism is growing in China of the authorities’ Cultural Revolution-style anti-COVID-19 campaigns after a doctor committed suicide over a hospital outbreak and officials killed pets whose owners tested positive for the virus. While most criticism or negative news about the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s zero-COVID policy is swiftly removed by internet censors, reports have surfaced in recent days that Shi Jun, head of neurosurgery at the Jidong County People’s Hospital in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, committed suicide after being arrested and interrogated by police in connection with a COVID-19 outbreak at his hospital. The outbreak was started by a woman who used her mother’s PCR test result to gain admission to the hospital for brain surgery, but who passed the virus on to other patients, causing an outbreak that led to a county-wide lockdown and billions of yuan in economic losses, according to local media reports. Shi was arrested and interrogated by police over seven days for hours at a time, forcing him to wear handcuffs and leg irons when he went for a medical checkup, and threatening him with a heavy sentence if he didn’t “confess.” He managed to take his own life while in detention by breaking his toothbrush and using it to stab an artery in his thigh, according to social media posts, many of which were quickly deleted. A fellow Jidong county doctor surnamed Chen told RFA the Shi had died in the course of the investigation into the outbreak. “Yes, it’s true, he really is dead,” Chen said. “It’s been more than a week now, I think.” “I don’t know the details, because I don’t work at the same place, but I heard it was because of a mistake or negligence at work, giving rise to an outbreak of COVID-19,” he said. An employee who answered the phone at the Jidong County People’s Hospital refused to comment on the case when contacted by RFA on Thursday. “I don’t know about this; we’re not in the same department … we didn’t know each other that well, there are hundreds of people who work here, and we had very little contact,” the employee said. “What media organization are you from?” “You can call management [and ask them],” the employee said. Shi was among thousands of doctors who volunteered to work on the front line of the early pandemic in the central city of Wuhan in February 2020, working at the Yingcheng Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital for 39 days. He was lauded by state media as a hero of the pandemic, with his wife and children appearing on TV, and his family named as “the most beautiful family” of Heilongjiang by the CCP-backed Jixi Women’s Federation, as part of CCP leader Xi Jinping’s insistence on positive news stories about the pandemic. An employee who answered the phone at the Jixi Women’s Federation declined to comment when contacted by RFA on Thursday. “We don’t know much about this,” the employee said. “If you want to ask about the most beautiful family, the person in charge of that department isn’t here … You can always call again later.” An employee who answered the phone at the Yingcheng Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital also declined to comment. “I haven’t been contact with him … I didn’t work with him, OK?” the employee said, before hanging up the phone. Calls to the Jidong county police department, the county health bureau and the Jidong county government rang unanswered during office hours on Thursday. Public anger over China’s “campaign-style” approach to managing COVID-19 appears to be breaking through onto social media despite official attempts to erase it. Genuine hardship Shanghai resident Ji Xiaolong, who has been under COVID-19 lockdown alongside 26 million others for several days now, has been warned off speaking out in public after he published a petition to the authorities in Beijing, hitting out at the zero-COVID policy. “I hope my petition will be placed on Xi Jinping’s desk,” Ji told RFA on Thursday, adding that he has been taking two or three phone calls a minute from people across China since he posted it. “[They call from] all over the country; there are also overseas Chinese, ordinary people who have escaped from Shanghai,” he said. “[I’ve had] thousands of phone calls, text messages, WeChat, voice notes and Weibo comments.” Ji also hit out an online censorship, saying that much of the information posted to social media is genuine, and not “rumors,” as claimed by the government. “The Shanghai government debunks a [so-called] rumor every two minutes,” he said. “Are there really so many rumors? These rumors are often later confirmed, so they’re not necessarily rumors.” Ji said the restrictions have caused genuine hardship in his residential community. “There are people in our community who need to go to the hospital on a regular basis,” Ji said. “I saw [one of them] begging [officials] in our WeChat group. There is a neighborhood committee for our community, but they need to report [trips for medical attention] to higher ups, one level after another, and several days have gone by.” “There are others who are unwilling to beg, because of their dignity, so they endure the pain instead; they definitely exist too.” ‘They’re like the Red Guards’ U.S.-based commentator Chen Pokong said there’s a joke circulating in Shanghai that the government doesn’t care if you die, as long as you don’t die of COVID-19. “This is the government’s position,” Chen said. “Hospitals and emergency rooms are closed, and critically ill patients can’t get treatment or assistance.” “Many critically ill patients are dying or starving to death, of jumping off buildings,” he said. Ji said epidemic prevention officials were jokingly referred to by residents as “condoms,” because of their protective suits. “They’re like the Red Guards [community enforcers during the Cultural Revolution],” he said. “We all have to stay inside, but they can walk around openly wherever they like.” “Judging from their age and mental outlook, they are also excellent Communist...
- [Cambodia's Hun Sen violates election law by campaigning early, watchdog says](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodias-hun-sen-violates-election-law-by-campaigning-early-watchdog-says/): Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen is violating election laws by asking for votes during official appearances prior to the start of the country’s campaign season for local elections in June, an electoral watchdog said Wednesday. Though the general election is more than a year away, and the two-week campaigning period for this year’s June 5 communal elections begins on May 21, Hun Sen is regularly using official appearances to tell crowds why they should back him on the ballot in 2023. Stumping outside of the official campaign period and while performing state duties is against the country’s electoral law, Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia monitor Kang Savang told RFA’s Khmer Service. “What happens to the smaller parties that don’t have government positions? Are they able to compete?” he said. “If you are using your government positions to serve a party, that’s called political exploitation.” Cambodian law prevents government officials from using their positions to serve party interests. They are also prohibited from using the state’s budget, materials, transportation, or other assets to conduct campaigns. An official with Cambodia’s National Election Commission (NEC) told RFA the electoral body cannot stop Hun Sen from asking for votes outside of the official 14-day campaign period, which is the only time it can address campaign violations. The official did not address concerns related to the prime minister campaigning during official duties. Ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) spokesperson Sok Ey San confirmed to RFA that Hun Sen’s visits to public places were meant to cultivate votes for the ruling party, but he dismissed claims that doing so is a violation of election rules. “The CPP is the ruling party. We won’t exploit public appearances while on official government duty, but we are taking advantage of the opportunity because we have achieved results,” he said. “The CPP president is the prime minister, so presiding over certain ceremonies is a chance to show our achievements to the people.” Trial continues The issue of electoral violations also came up Wednesday during the treason trial of former opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) chief Kem Sokha, when prosecutors asked him to account for his party’s adherence to the law ahead of the 2018 ballot. Kem Sokha refused to answer the questions, saying that the NEC is responsible for deciding whether a party abides by electoral law, his lawyer told RFA. Kem Sokha’s case centers around an alleged plot backed by the United States to overthrow Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia for more than 35 years. The opposition leader was arrested in September 2017 and spent a year in jail before being released under court supervision. After his arrest, Cambodia’s Supreme Court dissolved the CNRP in a move that allowed Hun Sen’s CPP to win all 125 seats in Parliament in the 2018 election. The action drew U.S. sanctions and the suspension of trade privileges with the European Union. “Kem Sokha was the party president. He cannot provide election process information in detail,” Peng Heng, a member of the defense team, told RFA after Wednesday’s session. During a previous session, government lawyers presented a list of names of foreign citizens who they said were involved in Kem Sokha’s alleged plot to topple Hun Sen. Peng Heng said the defense may request that the court invite the foreigners to the court to testify. “We know that during these circumstances, the key is in the CPP’s hands. Kem Sokha can’t initiate anything, but I think if the government, which is led by the CPP, has a will to resolve this political crisis, Kem Sokha would welcome a discussion,” he said. Soeng Sen Karuna of the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association (Adhoc) told RFA that if the court is accusing Kem Sokha of colluding with foreign states, it should identify which ones, or move on to providing evidence of other charges against him. “These off-topic questions will delay the trial. I think we need a way to speed up the case,” he said of the proceedings, which are now in their 36th week. The case was held up for nearly two years at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Observers have suggested that Hun Sen is trying to force a delay in the trial to weaken the opposition party or cause it to fracture. Proceedings in the case are scheduled to resume April 20. Defamation case  Meanwhile, a provincial court in the western province of Pailin summoned Kem MonyKosal, leader of the opposition Candlelight Party, to appear before the court between April 8 and April 20 on charges of incitement and defamation. Kem MonyKosal told RFA that the case stems from an election dispute he had with a CPP official, so the court should step aside and let the NEC handle the case. He considers the summons to be a threat. “This is ridiculous. They are using the court as a pretext to make political intimidation,” he said. “I am afraid for my personal security.” The Candlelight Party, formerly known as the Sam Rainsy Party and the Khmer Nation Party, was founded in 1995 and merged with other opposition forces to form the CNRP in 2012. After the CNRP was banned, many former CNRP members joined the Candlelight party, which over the past year has gained steam as supporters believe it can pose a threat to the CPP in the upcoming elections. Kem MonyKosal only expressed his constitutionally protected vies and committed no crime, Yin Mengly, Adhoc’s coordinator for Pailin province, told RFA. “This is purely a politically motivated case,” said Yin Mengly. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Myanmar junta metes out long prison terms for small donations to its opponents](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-metes-out-long-prison-terms-for-small-donations-to-its-opponents/): At least seven young Myanmar men and women from Tanintharyi region and Rakhine state have received long prison terms for donating money — U.S. $8 or less in a few cases — to opponents of the military junta that has ruled the country for 13 months, their lawyers and anti-junta activists told RFA. Military authorities have frozen the bank accounts of civilians suspected of transferring money through mobile banks services and in some cases also have filed lawsuits against them, they said. In Tanintharyi region, Saung Hnin Phyu, 19, from Dawei was sentenced to 10 years on March 29 for sending 13,500 kyats (U.S. $8) to a revolutionary group via a KBZ Bank mobile wallet service. Two other young women who are students at Dawei University were sentenced to seven years in prison on Feb. 16 for donating 5,000 kyats to the local People’s Defense Force (PDF) militia. The junta is sending a message that people who donate even small amounts of money to the opposition will receive costly penalties, an official from the Dawei Network of Political Prisoners said. “Their sentences are even longer than those handed down to anti-junta protesters,” the official said. Demonstrators receive sentences of two to three years in jail. “But these people who just donated a small amount of money and committed or did nothing are getting seven years or more,” he said. “This is a deliberate plan to oppress us.” Authorities in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state have arrested at least seven people on suspicion of having links to opposition groups, said Myo Myat Hein, director of the Rakhine state-based Thazin Legal Aid Group. Three young women from Thandwe township were sentenced to 10 years in prison on March 31 for donating money to opposition groups, and a young man from Mrauk-U township also received a 10-year sentence on Feb. 25, he said. Civilians across Myanmar have been giving money to several groups that the military regime has said are illegal: the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, which is the Burmese legislative body in exile; the shadow National Unity Government; Civil Disobedient Movement staff; and local PDFs. They also have made donations to help those displaced by the fighting between junta forces and PDFs in various regions. “The junta is using all kinds of methods to cut off the supply chain of support,” said a young woman who is on the run. “Many accounts of charitable organizations were closed down and lawsuits opened. The woman said she and others who transferred money to opposition forces using the online banking services KBZPay or Wave Money have had their accounts shut down and have been charged for violating the Counterterrorism Law for financing terrorism. “If we get arrested, more charges will be added,” she said. Opposition groups said the lines of financial support must be kept open so they are able to uproot the military dictatorship. A human rights lawyer, who declined to be identified by name out of fear for his safety, said the junta is using the Counterterrorism Law to impose the harshest penalties possible against people who financially support the opposition. “This is the current situation where an oppressive government is handing down disproportionate sentences,” he said. “What is the purpose of punishment? Is it punishment for the purpose of correcting? Is it fair punishment? Or is it something to prevent other people from doing the same thing? That should be the purpose of punishment.” Military regime leader Sr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing said on March 29 that those convicted under the Counterterrorism Law would not receive leniency in sentencing. The junta amended the 2014 law on Aug. 1, 2021, increasing the sentence for funding a terrorist organization to a maximum of life imprisonment. A photo montage shows the nine young anti-junta protesters arrested by the junta in Mandalay, Myanmar, Apr. 4, 2022. Credit: Citizen journalists Nine arrested now missing Meanwhile, nine young anti-junta protesters arrested on Monday in Myanmar’s second-largest city Mandalay are now missing, activists told RFA on Wednesday. The detainees are in their 20s and are students and businesspeople. Those arrested, including three women, are members of the Mandalay Strike Force from Amarapura and Patheingyi townships. “Nine people were arrested, and we have lost contact with them,” said another member of the Mandalay Strike Force, adding that the military should be responsible for ensuring that they are not harmed in detention. The nine were arrested after two safe houses were raided, said a source close to the military, who requested anonymity so as to speak freely. Venerable Rajadhamma, a Buddhist monk with Myanmar’s Peace Sangha Union, said he was concerned for the safety of those arrested, who are all in their 20s. “The junta said on March 27 that it would crackdown on all those who oppose it, whether they are laymen or monks,” he told RFA. Kyaw Swa Win, who participated in a flash protest against the military regime on March 27 in Mandalay, was beaten and arrested by the military and is said to be in critical condition. The State Administration Council, the formal name of the military regime that rules Myanmar, did not release a statement on the detainees. It also did not answer RFA’s calls for comment. “Even though the junta is saying it is going to be democratic, it is questionable how it will be able to explain about the ongoing arrests, torture and killings of protesters,” said Mandalay resident Htet Myat Aung. Since the military seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021 coup, security forces have killed at least 1,730 civilians and detained more than 13,100 political prisoners, mostly during peaceful anti-junta protests, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a Thailand-based rights group. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane for RFA’s Myanmar Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Tibetan exile leader set to visit Washington in April](https://ij-reportika.com/tibetan-exile-leader-set-to-visit-washington-in-april/): Tibetan exile leader Penpa Tsering will visit Washington D.C. from April 25 to 29 at the invitation of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Tsering confirmed to RFA in an interview on Tuesday. The Washington visit will be followed by visits to Canada and Germany, the Sikyong, or elected head of Tibet’s India-based Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), added. “We have received an official invitation from the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who has been a strong supporter and advocate for Tibet,” Tsering told RFA. “We will also be meeting with the State Department’s special coordinator for Tibetan issues Uzra Zeya and with many other government and non-governmental officials.” “Over the last decades, and especially under the leadership and authoritarian policies of Chinese president Xi Jinping, we have seen Tibetans face more and more religious and cultural repression aimed at wiping out the Tibetan identity,” Tsering said. A CTA report detailing what Tsering called the “urgent issues” surrounding Tibet’s environment and language and human rights situation, and prepared for submission to Xi Jinping, is being temporarily held back for “a number of reasons,” the Sikyong said. “One of these of course is the ongoing concern over Russia and Ukraine,” he said. CTA departments and a Permanent Strategy Committee established by the Sikyong are now working together to push again for a resumption of a Sino-Tibetan dialogue on Tibet’s status under Chinese rule, Tsering said. Nine rounds of talks were previously held between envoys of exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and high-level Chinese officials beginning in 2002, but stalled in 2010 and were never resumed. Divisions persist in the Tibetan exile community—about 150,000 people living in 40 countries—over how best to advance the rights of the 6.3 million Tibetans living in China, with some calling for a restoration of the independence lost when Chinese troops marched into Tibet in 1950. Penpa Tsering, a former speaker of Tibet’s exile parliament in Dharamsala, won a closely fought April 11, 2021 election to become Sikyong held in Tibetan communities worldwide. The fifth elected CTA leader, Tsering replaced Lobsang Sangay, a Harvard-trained scholar of law, who had served two consecutive five-year terms as Sikyong, an office filled since 2011 by popular vote. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [Prominent Uyghur journalist said to be serving 15 years for ‘political crimes’](https://ij-reportika.com/prominent-uyghur-journalist-said-to-be-serving-15-years-for-political-crimes/): A prominent Uyghur journalist who went missing in November 2017 is serving 15 years in prison in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region for “political crimes,” his son and authorities in the region told RFA. Qurban Mamut, the former editor-in-chief of the popular Uyghur journal Xinjiang Civilization, disappeared several months after he and his wife returned home after visiting their son, Bahram Sintash, at his home in Virginia in 2017, RFA previously reported. Chinese authorities had kept Mamut’s imprisonment and sentence a secret since they arrested him, said his son, a police officer and a Chinese court official in Xinjiang. Mamut’s arrest coincided with a Chinese government crackdown on Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang. In some case, authorities have not disclosed sentencing terms from the families of the jailed Uyghurs. Mamut, who is now 71, retired in 2011 after working for decades as the journal’s editor-in-chief, Sintash said. His son tried to obtain information about his father’s disappearance by discussing his case with reporters across the globe and providing testimony to U.S. lawmakers, but he was unable to learn what exactly had happened to him. “None of these efforts helped me to get any information on my father,” Sintash told RFA in February when he learned from his older sister that Mamut was alive but serving 15 years in prison. When RFA contacted Chinese officials at the Cultural Affairs Bureau in Urumqi (in Chinese, Wulumuqi), Xinjiang’s capital, where Mamut had worked as an editor, they declined to provide information on his situation. A police officer in Urumqi told RFA that he was aware that Mamut had been sentenced but said he could confirm the length of prison term only after he received approval. “I can tell you about his situation after I get approval from my bureau chiefs,” he said. Previous RFA reports on jailed Uyghur intellectuals, businessmen and other socially prominent people have indicated that since 2017 Chinese authorities have returned Uyghurs to their ancestral towns in Xinjiang and detained them there in internment camps or sentenced them to prison in those jurisdictions. RFA contacted police in Kuchar (Kuche) county, Aksu (Akesu) prefecture, where Mamut is from and where his nephews now reside. One officer in the county’s seventh district confirmed that the editor was in prison. “Qurban Mamut was sentenced to 15 years in prison for political crimes,” the police in Kucha told RFA in a phone call. “We received the [official] document on his sentence almost two years ago.” A Chinese court official in Urumqi also confirmed that Mamut was serving a 15-year term but said he didn’t know in which detention center. “I heard it was for 15 years,” he said. “I don’t know what prison he is in since I took this position recently.” Sintash expressed deep concern about his father’s health now that he is confined to a “hospital prison” where detainees receive medical treatment while they are handcuffed to their beds and under increased supervision. “I don’t know what hospital prison is or what kind of place it is … but after hearing the news I am more concerned about my father,” he said. “When his 15-year prison term ends, he will be in his 80s if he comes out from the Chinese prison live.” Translated by RFA’s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [China: No plans to build military base in Solomon Islands](https://ij-reportika.com/china-no-plans-to-build-military-base-in-solomon-islands/): China is denying that it will build a military base in the Solomon Islands after agreeing with the South Pacific nation to a security pact that is raising concerns in the region and beyond. Last week, the two sides quietly signed a Framework Agreement on bilateral security cooperation, saying it is “conducive to stability and security of the Solomon Islands, and will promote common interests of other countries in the region.” A framework agreement is not the final deal but confirms both countries’ intentions with details to be agreed in the future. A draft agreement leaked online last week would allow Beijing to set up bases and deploy troops in the Solomon Islands, which lies about 1,700 km (1,050 miles) from the northeastern coast of Australia. The draft agreement and Framework Agreement are separate documents. It remains unclear how the two documents differ but, in a statement released Tuesday, the Chinese Embassy in Honiara categorically denied that a military base would be developed in the Solomons. “This is utterly misinformation deliberately spread with [a] political motive,” an embassy spokesperson said in the statement, responding to a question about whether China would build a military base in the islands. China-Solomon Islands security cooperation is “no different from the cooperation of Solomon Islands with other countries,” the spokesperson added. In recent years, China has been developing closer ties with the Pacific islands, wooing them with infrastructure loans and economic assistance, as well as military exchanges. The Solomon Islands switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 2019 – a move to please Beijing which seeks to diminish the international diplomatic recognition of the government in Taiwan. Concerns over pact The draft agreement, meanwhile, has provoked fears in the South Pacific region’s traditional powers, Australia and New Zealand. Last week, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said that Wellington sees the pact as “gravely concerning.” The U.S., which has been promoting a free and open Indo-Pacific, also expressed concerns about China’s moves in the Solomons. Adm. Samuel J. Paparo, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, was quoted by the Australian Broadcasting Corp. as saying earlier this week that he was “undoubtedly concerned” about the China-Solomon Islands security pact. “There is still a path ahead. But anytime that a secret security arrangement makes its way into the light of day, it is a concern,” Paparo told the Australian network in Washington. The U.S. admiral also warned that “there’s the potential of conflict within our region within a couple of years because of the incredible unpredictability of events.”  The security agreement with China “will allow the Solomon Islands government to invite China to send police and even military personnel to protect Chinese community and businesses in Solomon Islands during riots and social unrests,” said a researcher specializing in the Pacific region at the Australian National University (ANU), who requested anonymity because of personal concerns. “This is different from China establishing a military base in Solomon Islands but may pave the way for China to do so,” he told RFA. ‘Diversification’ of partnerships Beijing doesn’t hide its ambition to set up military bases in the South Pacific. In 2018, media reports about China’s plan to build a base in Vanuatu prompted a stern warning from then-Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. A possible presence of Chinese law enforcement personnel so close to the homeland has rattled decision makers in Canberra. Australia is the biggest aid donor to the Solomon Islands and, in 2017, it signed a bilateral security treaty with Honiara, its first with a Pacific nation. “From traditional powers’ perspective, they think such security agreement is not necessary because existing regional mechanisms can meet the demands of Pacific islands like the Solomon Islands,” the ANU researcher said. “But the incumbent Solomon Islands government said they need to diversify the country’s external security partnerships, especially with China, which lends strong support to the government during and after the riot in November 2021,” he said. Rioting broke out in Honiara, the nation’s capital, in late November over the government’s decision to diplomatically recognize China over Taiwan. Last week, Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare told lawmakers that to achieve the nation’s security needs, “it is clear that we need to diversify the country’s relationship with other countries” but existing security arrangements with Australia would remain. His policy of “diversification” was evident in November when the PM asked Australia – and after that China – to send police forces to help him quell the riots that rocked Honiara. The Chinese Embassy, for its part, warned against what it called “Cold War and colonial mentality,” saying the Pacific island nations are “all sovereign and independent.” “The region should not be considered a ‘backyard’ of other countries,” it said in its statement issued on Tuesday.
- [Shanghai transports tens of thousands of COVID-19 cases, close contacts out of town](https://ij-reportika.com/shanghai-transports-tens-of-thousands-of-covid-19-cases-close-contacts-out-of-town/): The mass, out-of-town relocation of thousands of people from Shanghai who have tested positive for COVID-19 is sparking a social media backlash from neighboring regions in China, according to local residents and social media posts. With more than 10,000 people testing positive for the virus in the city so far, and isolation and quarantine facilities in the city overflowing, the authorities have started packing thousands of local people onto mass transportation and sending them to isolation camps in neighboring provinces and cities. Social media user @DeliciousFishSkinCrispy called the policy “shameless,” saying that some 30,000 Shanghai residents are being sent to the eastern province of Zhejiang alone. Others complained of a lack of containment measures during the trip to the isolation facility, saying the lax restrictions on those known to have been exposed to the virus would likely spread it to the surrounding areas. User @RadishTuan1971 posted a video of an isolation convoy heading to Zhejiang’s provincial capital, Hangzhou. “The neighborhood committee told us they wouldn’t be providing any protective clothing, and that large numbers of close contacts were being sent to Hangzhou,” the user commented, adding that he was worried about testing positive after being put on a bus with a group of potentially infected people despite quarantining at home for four days. He called on the government to issue personal protective equipment (PPE) to people ordered to leave town for isolation facilities. Shanghai reported a cumulative total of 13,354 confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, but officials vowed to stick to the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s zero-COVID policy, despite skyrocketing numbers. “We will stick unswervingly to the overall dynamic zero-COVID policy without hesitation, step up mass testing, quarantine and treatment, and realize the goal of zero-COVID in the shortest possible timeframe,” a health official told a news conference. Local media reported that around 10,000 people have been sent to Hangzhou, the same number to Ningbo, 6,000 sent in total to Shaoxing and Jinhua, and 4,000 in total to Huzhou and Taizhou. A health worker conducts a swab test for COVID-19 at a residential compound during the second stage of a pandemic lockdown in Shanghai’s Jing’ an district, April 6, 2022. Credit: AFP Treatment gap But local residents also reported a huge divide between the treatment meted out to the poorest and most vulnerable people during the current outbreak, and those living in affluent neighborhoods. A resident of Hongqiao Emgrand Garden in Shanghai’s Changning district who gave only the surname Jiang said her residential community was well-supplied, despite reports of food shortages in other parts of the city. “The volunteers were delivering rapid antigen test kits door to door yesterday,” Jiang said. “Nobody in the community is allowed out, not to walk the dog, not to hang out down in the courtyard; we all have to stay home.” “[However], it is being managed very well, and everyone is behaving very responsibly,” she said. “They even called us to say that proper fresh vegetables were being delivered, as well as steak and shrimp balls to every household yesterday evening.” Yet residents of the less affluent districts of Juquan, Xinyuan, Gucun township and Baoshan faced food shortages during their lockdown, while those in isolation facilities hadn’t received any government food supplies for nearly two weeks, according to social media reports. Instead, food supplies are dumped outside in the courtyard to leave people to fight for food in chaotic scenes that some people likened to the Hunger Games. He Anquan (L) and Wang Lijin (R) take part in a hunger strike opposite the Chinese Consulate in New York, April 6, 2022. Credit: He Anquan’s Twitter feed Strike in solidarity In New York, Chinese dissidents who formed the Shanghai National Party in exile staged a three-day hunger strike outside the Chinese consulate from April 4. Dissident He Anquan told reporters from a tent across the street from the consulate on Tuesday that he hadn’t eaten for 24 hours, and was struggling to keep warm with the temperature at a chilly nine degrees Celsius. “Of course it’s cold, but it’s still above freezing point,” He, who is refusing food but taking water, told RFA. “As a Shanghainese, this is all I can do to express my feelings of solidarity and concern to the 25 million Shanghai residents who live, work and were born in Shanghai,” he said. Since the citywide lockdown began, patients have died due to lack of timely medical treatment and children have been sent to separate isolation facilities from their parents, while food prices have skyrocketed. Some residents have committed suicide by jumping off their buildings, He told RFA. “The Chinese government’s lockdown policy in Shanghai amounts to a massacre, because it has resulted in the death of Shanghai citizens without medical treatment, or suicide due to emotional breakdown, all kinds of tragedies,” he said. “These things are already happening.” Opposition to policy Fellow Shanghai National Party activist Wang Lijin said he was joining He’s hunger strike. “[CCP leader] Xi Jinping wants to achieve national unity during these citywide lockdowns,” Wang said. “We are very opposed to his cruelty to the people of Shanghai.” “We came to oppose Xi Jinping’s shutdown of the city.” There are signs of growing dissent over Xi’s preference for a zero-COVID policy within China, however. A recent analysis that appeared on the encyclopedia site Zhihu argued that only the strictest lockdowns were of any use whatsoever in curbing the spread of the highly transmissible omicron variant of COVID-19. “The omicron variant spreads 5.82 times faster than the previous variants,” the article said. ““The likelihood of bringing it under control is only around 51 percent, unless the strictest possible containment and control measures are applied immediately, as soon as the first case appears [in a city].” Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Hong Kong police arrest six for 'sedition' over courtroom protests, support](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-police-arrest-six-for-sedition-over-courtroom-protests-support/): Hong Kong police on Wednesday arrested six people including a former labor leader on suspicion of “sedition” under a colonial-era law, as the city’s security chief — who is widely seen as Beijing’s preferred candidate — resigned to run for chief executive. Police said they had arrested four men and two women aged 32 to 67 on suspicion of “conducting acts with seditious intent.” Media reports said one of those arrested was Leo Tang, a former vice president of the now-disbanded Confederation of Trade Unions (CTU). The arrests were in connection with “nuisances” allegedly caused by the six as they attended court hearings between December 2021 and January 2022. Police said their actions had “severely affected jurisdictional dignity and court operations.” Police also searched the homes of the arrestees and seized various items in connection with the case. This arrests mark the first time that someone sitting in the public gallery of a Hong Kong court has been arrested for “actions with seditious intent,” a charge that carries a maximum sentence of two years’ imprisonment. The police statement said the six are accused of “incitement to hatred, contempt or betrayal of Hong Kong’s judiciary.” Previously, judges have responded to shouting and clapping from the public gallery by ignoring it or by ordering those responsible to leave the court. Any behavior in court that could distract judges from hearing evidence or making a judgement could be regarded as “an obstacle to the work of the court,” Hong Kong chief justice Andrew Cheung said in January. He said at the time that such incidents should be handled on a case-by-case basis by the judge concerned. Courtroom protests and vocal support for defendants has become increasingly common as Hong Kong continues with a citywide crackdown on public dissent and political opposition under a draconian national security law imposed on the city by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from July 1, 2020. In January 2018, supporters at the trial of pro-independence politician Edward Leung were ordered to leave the courtroom and to view the remainder of the trial via a video screen in the lobby. The arrests came as chief secretary John Lee — second-in-command to chief executive Carrie Lam — resigned from his post and announced he will run in an “election” for the city’s top job that is tightly controlled by Beijing. The successful candidate will be chosen on May 8 by a 1,500-strong Election Committee whose members have been hand-picked by Beijing. The arrests came after two U.K. Supreme Court judges resigned from Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal (CFA) last month, citing a recent crackdown on dissent under a draconian national security law imposed on the city by Beijing. Non-permanent CFA judges Lord Reed and Lord Hodge had sat on the court “for many years” under an agreement governing the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to Chinese rule, but Lam’s administration had “departed from values of political freedom, and freedom of expression,” Reed said in a statement. The national security law ushered in a citywide crackdown on public dissent and criticism of the authorities that has seen several senior journalists, pro-democracy media magnate Jimmy Lai and 47 former lawmakers and democracy activists charged with offenses from “collusion with a foreign power” to “subversion.” Extracts from Lai’s prison letters published by the Index on Censorship in late March 2022 quoted Lai as saying that “the muted anger of the Hong Kong people is not going away.” “This barbaric suppression [and] intimidation works,” Lai wrote. “Hong Kong people are all quieted down. But the muted anger they have is not going away. Even those emigrating will have it forever. Many people are emigrating or planning to.” “The more barbaric [the] treatment of Hong Kong people, [the] greater is their anger, and power of their potential resistance; [the] greater is the distrust of Beijing, of Hong Kong, [the] stricter is their rule to control,” Lai wrote. “The vicious circle of suppression-anger-and-distrust eventually will turn Hong Kong into a prison, a cage, like Xinjiang.” Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Thousands flee junta raid that torched 250 homes in Myanmar’s Sagaing region](https://ij-reportika.com/thousands-flee-junta-raid-that-torched-250-homes-in-myanmars-sagaing-region/): A joint force of junta troops and pro-military militiamen set fire to a village in Myanmar’s embattled Sagaing region over the weekend, destroying around 250 homes and forcing more than 2,000 people to flee, residents said Tuesday. A resident of Khin-U township’s Ngar Tin Gyi village, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told RFA’s Myanmar Service that soldiers and Pyu Saw Htee fighters stormed the settlement at around 7 a.m. on Sunday “firing guns and heavy weapons.” “On hearing gunfire, many villagers fled with only the clothes on their backs. Some of them were able to carry some small items and food,” the resident said. “The soldiers set some houses on fire at about 10 a.m. They stopped for a while later for lunch and then they continued burning houses again at about 2 p.m. All we could do was watch the houses burning from a distance.” Junta forces left the next morning, he said, and residents returned to Ngar Tin Gyi to collect what was left of their belongings briefly before returning to makeshift camps in the jungle. Another resident of Ngar Tin Gyi, who also declined to be named, said that villagers are too frightened of another raid to return to the area and rebuild. “Smoke billowed up and I could see the flames. The terrifying sound of gunfire echoed through the air,” he said. “All the grain and farm equipment and cattle were lost. We have nothing left – no clothes, no [rice] paddy, no food, no oil. Not a brick was left to rebuild our houses. All that we have saved throughout the years is gone now. I don’t know what to do. I cannot understand why they must be so cruel.” Others said it would take “thirty or forty years” to rebuild everything that was destroyed over the weekend. It was not immediately clear why Ngar Tin Gyi was targeted. The area has seen frequent clashes between the military and anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary groups in recent weeks, and residents of other villages raided by junta forces have told RFA they were accused of providing haven to the armed opposition. Not long after leaving Ngar Tin Gyi on Monday, the convoy of junta troops triggered a landmine planted by the PDF near Khin-U township’s Sai Gaung village. Sources said the troops responded by setting fire to a school in the village, and on Tuesday burned down three homes in nearby Ohnbin Gone village. An aerial view of Chaung Oo village, in Sagaing region’s Pale township, where junta troops and Pyu Saw Htee fighters burned more than 300 homes, Dec. 18, 2022. Credit: RFA Scorched earth campaign Junta Deputy Information Minister Zaw Min Tun on Tuesday called the accusations of arson attacks baseless and instead blamed the PDF, which the military regime has labeled a terrorist organization. “[The PDF] set fire to the houses and fled and, as usual, say the army is responsible,” he said. “They are using the term ‘Pyu Saw Htee’ in their accusations, but there is no Pyu Saw Htee. There is only a people’s militia group formed by residents [to protect themselves against the PDF].” Since the military seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021 coup, security forces have killed at least 1,730 civilians and detained more than 10,000 political prisoners, mostly during peaceful anti-junta protests, according to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. The junta has also launched several troop offensives against the PDF and armed ethnic groups in Myanmar’s remote border regions. On March 3, the military shut down internet access for several townships in Sagaing region before sending troops to the area two days later. Troops have encountered fierce resistance to military rule in the region and responded with a scorched earth campaign that reports say has included arson, looting, arbitrary arrests, rape, torture, and murder. According to an investigation by RFA, troops torched at least 447 houses in Khin-U township in the month of March alone in the villages of Dan-gone, Hmantaw, Kyunlei, Thet Pay, Tamote, Kala Lu, and Shar Lwin. The destruction since Sunday brought the total number of homes destroyed by fire in the township to nearly 700. Data For Myanmar, a group that researches the impact of conflict on communities, recently said that pro-junta forces had burned 7,973 houses across the country since last year’s the coup. Of those, 4954 houses were in Sagaing region. A former member of parliament from the deposed National League for Democracy party from Sagaing region told RFA that villages in Myanmar’s ethnic areas are no stranger to arson attacks by the military. “This is undeniable. In Rakhine [state] … and in other areas like Kachin state and Chin state they have done the same thing,” said the former lawmaker, who declined to be named. “Employing all of these horrible acts to keep the military dictatorship alive has become their tradition.” Chin refugees shelter near the Indian border after fleeing fighting in Northern Chin state’s Falam township, March 10, 2022. Credit: Citizen journalist Thousands at India border The reports of arson attacks in Sagaing came as sources in Northern Chin state said that intensifying clashes between the military and the Chin National Defense Force (CNDF) since early March had forced nearly all the 5,200 residents of Rikhawdar in Falam township to flee to Myanmar’s shared border with India. A resident of the town told RFA that fighting in the past week had become so bad, with junta troops indiscriminately firing mortars, that “only one percent of people remain.” “It’s all deserted. All that is left are the people guarding their houses and belongings that they can’t take with them,” he said. One refugee sheltering near the border said that many people had crossed into India’s Mizoram state, but “nearly 2,000” remain in makeshift camps on the Myanmar side and are running low on supplies. “Nearly 2,000 people who cannot afford rental fees over there have been living in tents along the border with India,” he said. “They have to find their own food and water. If the fighting continues, they will be...
- [Police detain over 300 Rohingya for venturing outside Cox’s Bazar refugee camps](https://ij-reportika.com/police-detain-over-300-rohingya-for-venturing-outside-coxs-bazar-refugee-camps/): Bangladesh authorities were holding more than 300 Rohingya in transit camps after police caught them working outside their refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, or while leaving their shelters for other purposes, officials said Tuesday. Human Rights Watch meanwhile renewed its call for the government to ease movement restrictions on Rohingya, saying that barring refugees from leaving the camps for work or shutting down their shops within the camps only compounds their misery. During raids in the Ukhia sub-district of Cox’s Bazar on Monday and Tuesday, police arrested 216 Rohingya refuges who had left the camps or were in the process of leaving them to go outside, Ahmed Sanjur Morhsed, officer-in-charge of the Ukhia police station, told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service. “The Rohingya people are not permitted to go out of the camps, but very often they get out of the camps [by] adopting different tactics,” he said. “Acting on a tip off, we conducted raids on Monday and Tuesday at different bazaars and detained Rohingya. We caught many Rohingya while they were heading out for various places [outside the refugee camps],” he said, adding that the operation was a “special drive.” He claimed that those arrested had admitted that they worked locally outside their refugee camps. After detaining them, police sent them to transit camps run by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Police in neighboring Teknaf, another sub-district of Cox’s Bazar, similarly arrested more than 100 Rohingya during the special drive on Monday and Tuesday. “The target of the special raids is to stop the Rohingya from getting out of the camps and to bar them from working in the local market,” Md. Hafizur Rahman, the officer-in-charge of the Teknaf sub-district police station, told BenarNews. All those Rohingya detained have been sent to the UNHCR transit camps ahead of their return to their respective refugee camps, he said. Separately, Ukhia police also arrested 48 Rohingya who were preparing to be trafficked to Malaysia illegally, by sea. Job competition Nur Amin, a resident of Kutupalong camp, was one of the Rohingya refugees rounded up by police on Tuesday from a bazar in Ukhia. “We were warned not to go out for work. I was passing my time idle,” Amin said. “So last month I took a job at a tea stall in return for 200 taka (U.S. $2.4) a day. The police arrested me from the stall,” he added. UNHCR has yet to confirm that the arrested Rohingya were handed over to the transit camp. “This is sort of incident would put stress on the Rohingya refugees. So the issue should be dealt with humanely,” Ziaur Karim, a Rohingya leader at Kutupalong camp, told BenarNews. Local Bangladeshis have voiced concerns about Rohingya refugees taking up jobs in Cox’s Bazar. “The local Bangladeshi workers have been losing their job opportunities while the Rohingya people have been offering menial work with cheap wages,” M. Gafur Uddin, chairman of Palongkhali union council, told BenarNews. Meanwhile, in a statement issued Monday, Human Rights Watch pointed to how Bangladeshi authorities, in recent months, had intensified their restrictions on Rohingya refugees’ livelihoods, movement, and education. “Bangladesh is understandably burdened with hosting nearly one million Rohingya refugees, but cutting them off from opportunities to work and study is only compounding their vulnerability and dependence on aid,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The Bangladesh government should formalize and expand employment opportunities to bolster the Rohingya’s self-reliance and enable them to support their families and communities.” Local humanitarian groups are aware of the issues raised by New York-based HRW. Nur Khan Liton, a human rights activist, told BenarNews: “I don’t think there’s an easy solution to many of these issues until Bangladesh officially recognizes these Rohingya as refugees.”
- [Myanmar prison on lockdown after deadly response to inmate protest](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-prison-on-lockdown-after-deadly-response-to-inmate-protest/): A prison in Myanmar’s Sagaing region is under lockdown Tuesday after authorities opened fire on an inmate protest over the weekend, killing one prisoner and injuring as many as nine others, according to sources. A source close to the prison on the outskirts of Sagaing’s Monywa city who spoke on condition of anonymity told RFA’s Myanmar Service that junta troops have assumed control of security at the site and that all trials and family visits have been suspended indefinitely. “The army is still guarding the prison with military vehicles,” the source said. “Lawyers who usually attend special court proceedings [on site] are still not allowed inside. As families cannot enter the prison [for inmate visits], all information has been cut off.” Residents told RFA on Monday that gunfire was heard emanating from inside Monywa Prison the previous night and that authorities had opened fire on a group of inmates who were chanting anti-junta slogans in a rare display of opposition to military rule, killing one and injuring nine others. One source with ties to inmates involved in the incident said they had been protesting harsh conditions at the prison, including the use of torture during interrogations. “During the daily inspection, as inmates were out of their cells, someone started shouting, ‘Do we, the people, unite?’ Then, the others responded, saying, ‘Yes, we do!’ A big crowd gathered, and the protest began,” said the source, who also declined to be named. The protest started at around 5 p.m. A half an hour later, two military trucks entered the compound, and the shooting began. “According to our sources inside, we can confirm one person was shot dead and five were injured,” the source said. “The one who died was shot in the chest. One of the injured is in serious condition after losing a lot of blood from his thigh. But as far as we know, they have not been taken for medical treatment and were forced to help each other in the prison.” A member of the Monywa People’s Strike Steering Committee, whose leader Wai Moe Naing is among several political prisoners being held at the prison, said emergency vehicles were diverted from patrols of the city prior to the shooting, including military trucks and ambulances. Other sources said that as many as nine inmates had been injured in the crackdown. RFA was unable to independently verify the number of casualties. Attempts to contact Khin Shwe, the junta’s deputy director of the Department of Prisons, went unanswered Tuesday. Bombing campaign Following the unrest, several prodemocracy People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary groups issued a statement about the shooting and in retaliation carried out a joint bombing campaign against five junta targets in the city, according to Boh Dattha of the Monywa PDF. “We asked residents not to leave their houses beginning around 5:30 p.m.,” he said. “In response to what happened in Monywa Prison, we, and three allied groups, carried out bombings against the military regime.” The other groups involved in the bombings were Monywa Generation Tiger, Monywa Special Date Date Kyei, and “a third new group,” Boh Dattha said. He provided no further details about the targets of the bombings or whether they resulted in any casualties. A resident of the city confirmed to RFA that multiple explosions were heard in Monywa after the shooting on Sunday night. “We heard gunshots. Later, there were a lot of explosions in the city — in no less than 10 places,” the resident said. The junta has yet to issue a statement about the shooting incident or the explosions in Monywa, but sources described an increased presence of police and military troops since the weekend and said authorities have been conducting checks throughout the city. Since seizing power in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup, junta troops have killed at least 1,730 civilians and detained more than 10,000 political prisoners, according to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Last month, authorities in Sagaing’s Kalay township killed seven inmates and injured a dozen others after using live ammunition to quell what junta officials described as a prison “riot.” Sources told RFA the deaths were likely the result of a violent crackdown on a protest over ill-treatment at the facility.  According to the military, guards at the prison tried to disable the inmates by aiming below their waists. But residents noted that photos published by the junta on its online “Viber Group” platform to accompany its statement on the incident showed that at least some of those killed had been shot in the head and chest. Authorities have responded to earlier protests over ill-treatment by political prisoners in Yangon’s Insein Prison and Mandalay’s Obo Prison by beating protesters, denying them medical treatment, and putting them in solitary confinement.   Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Vietnamese journalist gets 3 1/2 years for online criticism](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnamese-journalist-gets-3-1-2-years-for-online-criticism/): A court in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City Tuesday sentenced a journalist to three years and six months in jail for criticizing how authorities handled a corruption case he uncovered as a reporter. While working for the Ho Chi Minh City Law newspaper in 2018, Nguyen Hoai Nam submitted evidence of wrongdoing among employees of the Vietnam Internal Waterways Agency to the Investigation Department of the Ministry of Public Security. Authorities used the evidence to charge and sentence three employees at the agency for “abusing their positions of power while performing public duties.” But 14 others identified in evidence as having been involved in bribery went unpunished. Nam wrote on Facebook that the authorities’ handling of the case was insufficient and that investigators were trying to “cover it up and allow the defendants to slip away.” On April 2, 2021, Ho Chi Minh City Police arrested Nam on charges of “abusing freedom and democracy to infringe on the legal interests of the state, organizations and individuals,” a violation under Article 331 of Vietnam’s Penal Code. He was found guilty in Tuesday’s trial. The court concluded that Nam’s posts also violated anti-defamation laws. International human rights organizations have said Article 331 and other vaguely written and arbitrarily applied laws are tools for the government to silence dissenting voices and restrict freedom of speech. In January 2022, civil society groups in Vietnam composed a joint petition, calling for the removal of three sections of the country’s criminal code, including 331, because they are often used arbitrarily to crack down on political dissidents. Translated by An Nguyen. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Young Uyghur-Australian to run for seat in Australia’s Parliament](https://ij-reportika.com/young-uyghur-australian-to-run-for-seat-in-australias-parliament/): A young Uyghur-Australian chiropractor is running for a seat in Australia’s Parliament in part to address China’s threats to the continent and to Uyghurs in Xinjiang and elsewhere in the world. Intezar Elham, 28, told RFA that she decided in October 2021 to run in the country’s May 2022 election after she was invited to become a candidate by the newly formed Drew Pavlou Democratic Alliance, a small party that promotes human rights in China. On her website, Elham says she is the first and youngest Uyghur-Australian Muslim to run for parliament. Elham said she wanted to serve as a voice for Uyghurs in Australian politics. She attended a demonstration on March 30 in front of the Chinese consulate in Adelaide in southern Australia. In a speech there, Elham noted that Australians are now waking up to the reality that Uyghurs have faced for decades. She also described her determination to run for office because of what she said is the ruling Liberal Party’s failure to be tough on China. “But even if we don’t win — our goal is bigger than that,” she said at the gathering. “My goal is to shift the national conversation and debate on major issues like the threat the Chinese government poses to this country and the world.” Elham spoke of her admiration for late Australian Sen. Kimberley Kitching, an Australian Labor Party MP, lawyer and trade unionist who died of a heart attack on March 10. Kitching was “a staunch advocate for Uyghurs cause in Parliament and around the world, standing up to China having founded the Inter-Parliamentary Group on China and was the main politician pushing for an Australian Magnitsky Act,” Elham said, referring to an act passed by Australian Parliament in December 2021 to create a legal framework for sanctions. “Kimberley’s legacy is a world where countries like this one stand up for those who need us, and for that she has the thanks of Uyghurs here and around the world,” she said. Elham, who goes by the nickname Inty, says on her website that she never saw herself entering politics. “But because my grandparents fled the brutality of the authoritarian Chinese government, I cannot sit by and watch the Chinese Communist Party corrupt Australia and our democracy,” she said. “We can see this influence for example, in the imposing Chinese consulate in Joslin built without consultation with the community and spying on us,” she said, referring to the consulate, which opened in March 2021 in an area containing a large number of Uyghurs and near a Uyghur language school. “We must stand up.” Dilzat, a Uyghur intellectual who lives in Adelaide and supports Elham’s campaign, said Uyghurs around the world are pleased that the aspiring politician who was born and raised in Australia is fighting on behalf of Uyghurs in China. “What she made public to the media and the world there at the demonstration in front of the consulate was her political platform, what she’s fighting against, who is standing behind her,” he said. “This event was a formal opening ceremony of sorts.” Translated by RFA’s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [North Korea cracks down on private fuel sales during shortage](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-cracks-down-on-private-fuel-sales-during-shortage/): Authorities in North Korea are cracking down on citizens who privately sell gasoline as fuel shortages spread across the country, sources in the country told RFA. Private ownership and sale of fuel reserves is technically illegal in North Korea but is tolerated under normal circumstances. Now that fuel is hard to come by the government is finding the private sellers and seizing their fuel. The crackdown began at the beginning of the month, a resident of the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. “This investigation is a move to confiscate privately owned fuel in the country as it faces a fuel shortage,” he said. “These days in North Korea, the economic sectors including transportation, agriculture and fisheries are experiencing a severe shortage of gasoline and diesel fuel.” Demand is higher this time of year with the start of the farming season, but fuel reserves are lower than normal because of a two-year trade moratorium with China due to coronavirus concerns. Though the ban ended at the start of 2022, trade has not yet reached its former volume, so stocks have not yet been fully replenished. Global prices are also high right now due to sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. “At the beginning of this year, the price of fuel at the gas station operated by a trading company was 9,800 won per liter of gasoline [U.S. $6.17/gallon], 7,500 for diesel ($4.72/gallon),” the source said. “No one expected that gasoline would rise to 17,000 won per liter [$10.71/gallon] or 12,000 won per liter [$7.56/gallon] for diesel by the end of March,” he said. Prices of gas sold by individuals also shot up but is still 1,000 won cheaper per liter ($0.60 cheaper per gallon) than the government price, according to the source. “People began to prefer trading with the individual sellers. Also, everyone knows that the fuel sold at gas stations is of inferior quality to that of private individual sellers,” the source said. Gas stations are known to mix gasoline with cheaper fuels, such as naphtha (lighter fluid), during times of shortage. Though it stretches the gas reserves further, the adulterated gas can damage vehicles or machines intended to run on gasoline. It was this very practice that drove people in the northwestern province of North Pyongan to flock to the individual sellers, a resident there told RFA. “As the individual traders started selling fuels more actively, authorities began to take preliminary measures to take away their business,” the second source said. “Residents of the city of Sinuiju believe that the reason the price of fuel is soaring these days is because of the government’s series of missile test launches. … These continuous missile launches are preventing the smooth phase-in of fuel,” she said. She said the government tried to put price controls on gas in the city on the Chinese border, but it still has risen to unbelievable highs. Despite its proximity to China, gasoline in Sinuiju costs $7.10 per gallon and diesel costs $4.26. “Food and other necessities are skyrocketing right now as well,” she said. “Residents are very unhappy with the police department’s crackdown on … the private sellers.” “In springtime gas is in high demand for farming, fishing and transportation, but the authorities’ crackdown is making it difficult to get fuel because the private sellers are hiding so they don’t get caught. It is causing a major disruption to our daily lives,” the second source said. RFA reported last month that people were trying to cash in on the fuel shortage by buying fuel vouchers in one part of the country and selling them in other parts where gas was more expensive. Fuel vouchers, however, can only be redeemed at gas stations. Translated by Claire Lee and Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Two more Uyghurs detained in Saudi Arabia face risk of deportation to China](https://ij-reportika.com/two-more-uyghurs-detained-in-saudi-arabia-face-risk-of-deportation-to-china/): Two more Uyghurs — a mother and her daughter — are in danger of being deported from Saudi Arabia back to China, where they could face severe punishment at the hands of authorities there, an international human rights group said. Police detained Buhalchem (in Chinese, Buheliqiemu) Abula and her 13-year-old daughter near the holy city of Mecca on March 31 and told them that they faced deportation to China along with two Uyghur men already held, according to a message received by Abula’s friends, London-based Amnesty International said in a statement on Monday. One of the men held, Nurmemet Rozi (Nuermaimaiti Ruze), is Abula’s former husband and father of the 13-year who are now also being held. Rozi and Hamidulla Wali (Aimidoula Waili), a religious scholar, have been detained without charge in Saudi Arabia since November 2020. The two men traveled to Saudi Arabia from Turkey on a religious pilgrimage to Mecca and were arrested, though authorities allegedly never told them why they were being held, RFA reported in March. Family members of the two men told Amnesty that the pair had been transferred from Jeddah to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital, in a move they believed was a precursor to extradition. “Buhalchem and her daughter were detained in the evening of March 31,” Wali’s daughter, Nuriman Hamdulla, told RFA. “I spoke to her as she and her daughter were taken away. They were given no reason for the detention. We’re not sure where they’re detained now.” “They’re innocent,” she said. “They must be detained at the request of the Chinese government because they didn’t break any law.” Hamdulla also said that she had not received a response from the Saudi authorities about whether her father and Rozi had been sent back to China. “Deporting these four people — including a child — to China, where Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities are facing a horrific campaign of mass internment, persecution and torture, would be an outrageous violation of international law,” said Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty’s deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa. “With time seemingly running out to save the four Uyghurs from this catastrophic extradition, it is crucial that other governments with diplomatic ties to Saudi Arabia step in now to urge the Riyadh authorities to uphold their obligations and stop the deportations,” she said. Rights groups, the United Nations and some Western countries have denounced China’s persecution of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in Xinjiang. China is believed to have detained about 1.8 million people in a network of internment camps across the region, with survivors reporting forced labor, torture and rape. Call for international action Under the international law principle of nonrefoulement and as a state party to the U.N. Convention against Torture, Saudi Arabia is prohibited from returning people to countries where they would face torture, cruel punishment, persecution or other serious harm. Alkan Akad, Amnesty’s China researcher, told RFA that the Uyghurs would likely face arbitrary detention and torture if they were deported to China. “They would be taken to internment camps, and the daughter also would be forcibly separated from her family,” he said. “And so, we call on the Saudi government to release them immediately unless there is international recognizable crime they are charged with.” An official at the office of the Permanent Mission of Saudi Arabia to the United Nations in New York told RFA that the country’s “policy on the Uyghur issue is very clear in all our statements,” but said that she was not responsible for the issue. Amnesty also called on the international community, especially the United States and the United Kingdom as strategic allies of Saudi Arabia, to take action to prevent the illegal extradition of the Uyghurs to China. The call came after two U.N. experts, Fernand de Varennes and Ahmed Shaheed, urged Saudi Arabia on April 1 to abide by the nation’s nonrefoulement obligations and to refrain from extraditing Rozi and Wali. “We are alarmed by the arrest of two Uyghur men in Saudi Arabia, since November 2020, and their continuous detention without proper legal justification or implementation of fundamental safeguards, reportedly on the basis of an extradition request made by China,” the experts said in a statement. “Detention should remain an exceptional measure subject to an individual assessment and regular judicial review, otherwise Saudi Arabia would be depriving the two men of their fundamental rights provided for under national and international law,” they said. De Varennes and Shaheed also requested that Saudi authorities immediately allow the two men to contact their families. The Saudi government has publicly supported China’s antiterrorism measures in what rights activists have said is a tacit approval of the crackdown on predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in Xinjiang. Saudi authorities have returned other Uyghurs back to China after they traveled to the country for work or to make a pilgrimage to Mecca. “We call on the Saudi authorities to immediately release the detained Uyghurs and refrain from deporting them to China, a country that’s committing active genocide against Uyghur Muslims,” said Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress in Germany. “We urge the Saudi government to allow the Uyghurs to leave for a third safe country.” Translated by RFA’s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Water release from Vietnamese dam floods villages in southern Laos](https://ij-reportika.com/water-release-from-vietnamese-dam-floods-villages-in-southern-laos/): A sudden discharge of water from a dam on the Sekong River in Vietnam flooded downstream villages in Laos, destroying property and sending residents scrambling to higher ground, sources in Laos told RFA. The 170-megawatt A Luoi Dam near the border between the two countries in Vietnam’s Thua Thien-Hue province has been releasing water since April 2 as the dam’s reservoir swelled to alarming levels after days of rain in the region. Sources downstream in Laos’ Sekong and Attapeu provinces told RFA that whole buildings were washed away by the rising waters after the release. “More than 30 restaurants out of 40 have been swept away and other food stands have all been lost too,” a restaurant owner on the banks of the river in, Sekong province told RFA’s Lao Service. “The district authorities issued a warning notice saying that the release wouldn’t pose any danger to the residents, but the water level has jumped higher than expected. We didn’t have time to move our chairs, tables and equipment to a safe place at all,” the restaurant owner said. The warning came on the afternoon of April 1, so few had time to prepare, according to the owner. “Then the water from the dam in Vietnam came so quickly. The water is now almost overflowing the river bank. The strong current hit the river wall causing a lot of landslides and damage. For an exact damage toll, the authorities of Sekong Province are still assessing the cost.” A villager in Attapeu province told RFA that residents received a vague warning message on their smartphones. “That warning didn’t specify how much water was being released. The Lao authorities should’ve warned us several days earlier and they should have told us how much water will be released so people below the dam could have avoided a lot of the dam,” the villager said. A district-level official in Attapeu told RFA that the sudden discharge was because of nonstop rain. Satellite imagery of the A Luoi dam in Vietnam. Credit: CNES/Airbus The dam operator warned the Energy and Mines Department of Attapeu province earlier on April 1, an official of the department told RFA. “After that, Sekong province and Attapeu province publicly issued a similar warning to residents along the Sekong River to move their belongings to higher ground and stay away from the river.  All activities in the river were banned, including fishing and boating. But many villagers didn’t heed the warning,” the official said. “Many residents assumed that the water current wouldn’t be that strong. That’s why there is some damage to property of the people who live on the river bank. Their homes, cars, motorcycles and some heavy equipment of a sand dredging company, including a pick-up truck, sand trucks and a backhoe, are flooded. The discharge is causing quite a bit of damage to floating restaurants, food stands and huts because their owners didn’t have time to rescue them,” the official said. RFA reported on two previous floodings of Attapeu and Sekong provinces by the A Luoi dam in October and November 2018. A villager in 2018 told RFA that every time A Luoi releases water it floods the community. Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Vietnam approves 17 religious texts for use in prisons](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-approves-17-religious-texts-for-use-in-prisons/): Vietnamese authorities announced plans to deliver thousands of religious books to the country’s prisons, but former inmates and activists told RFA that prisoners are still likely to be prohibited from freely practicing their faith behind bars. Several government ministries collaborated to approve a list of 17 books, including the Bible, and distribute 4,400 copies to 54 prisons. The books include religious and theology texts, books on the history of religions, and analyses of Vietnamese laws regarding religion, state media reported. Maj. Gen. Thuong Van Nghiem, deputy director of the Ministry of Public Security’s Department of Homeland Security, said that the plan demonstrates Vietnam’s commitment to ensuring religious freedom, and conveys a message about the country’s efforts to support civil, political and human rights. But distributing the books is just a public relations move, Tran Minh Nhat, a Catholic who was jailed from 2011 to 2015 on charges of “attempting to overthrow the government,” told RFA’s Vietnamese Service. “The important thing is what books they are, who the author is, who published them, where they are placed and how they are managed,” said Nhat. “In most cases, their inclusion of scriptures or religious publications is mainly for embellishment purposes. The government or the Ministry of Public Security review and provide religious publications mainly to deceive public opinion and cover the public’s eyes, not to meet the needs of those who are serving jail sentences. It’s just for the sake of doing it,” he said. Nhat spent time at six different prisoners during his five-year sentence. In each, prisoners were prohibited from having their own Bibles, Buddhist scriptures or any kind of religious publication, even items that had been licensed by the government. Prisoners of any faith are prohibited from praying in groups, he said. “The practice of religious rites is prohibited. This is not only applied to Catholics but also Buddhists and Protestants. Because of such a ban, many people do not ask for the right to practice their religion,” said Nhat.  “There can be exceptions though, for example, when I myself went on a hunger strike for almost a month, then they finally gave me a Bible to read.” The Vietnamese government has never cared about religious, political or ethnic rights, Siu Wiu, who spent 13 years in prison for “disturbing security” by performing Protestant rituals in public, told RFA. “As far as I know, the Communists never tell the truth. They say one thing but do another. I’m living proof, there’s no such thing,” he said.  During his years in prison, Wiu was only able to pray alone and quietly, as the prisoners were not allowed to pray publicly. Punishments for practicing his religion were severe. “One time my wife visited me and smuggled a Bible in an instant noodle packet for me. When prison staff spotted the Bible, they chained me up for seven days,” said Siu. “Prior to that, I was disciplined and shackled for two weeks and then put in solitary confinement for six months because one time, when I called home, I asked the people in the village to pray for me on Sundays,” he said. Allowing religious texts in prison should raise awareness about the Communist Party’s guidelines and governmental policies and laws on beliefs and religions as well as the values and influences of religion on social life, Maj. Gen. Nguyen Viet Hung, deputy director of the Police Department of Prisons, Correction Centers, and Juvenile Reformatory Management, told RFA. RFA confirmed that 17 approved texts include the Bible, Ho Chi Minh’s “Viewpoints on Mobilizing Religious Followers,” and “Study on Religions and Beliefs” by Do Lan Hien, who is the director of the Institute of Religion and Belief at the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics.  RFA did not have access to the latter two books to verify their content. The latest report of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, released on Feb. 7, 2021, marked the 15th consecutive year that Vietnam was included by the U.S. on its list of “countries of particular concern” on religious freedom because of its repression on independent religious groups not recognized by the government. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Eugene Whong.  
- [<div>Police in China's Guangdong move ahead with subversion trial of feminist journalist</div>](https://ij-reportika.com/police-in-chinas-guangdong-move-ahead-with-subversion-trial-of-feminist-journalist/): Authorities in the southern province of Guangdong have moved to prosecute feminist activist and journalist Sophia Huang and fellow activist Wang Jianbing, rights groups reported. Police issued a notification that they had transferred the cases of Huang and Huang to the Guangzhou municipal prosecution service on March 27, the Free Xueqin and Jianbin campaign said in a statement on its Github page. &#8220;The Guangzhou police never allowed [their] lawyers to meet with them during the more than six months of investigation and detention, on the grounds that national security was involved,&#8221; the statement said. &#8220;Now that the investigation has been completed, we expect [their][ lawyers to be able to read [the files] and meet with them without any problems.&#8221; It said Huang and Wang, who face charges of &#8220;incitement to subvert state power,&#8221; have been transferred to the Guangzhou No. 1 Detention Center from the No. 2 Detention Center in Huang&#8217;s case, and from solitary confinement &#8220;for interrogation&#8221; in Wang&#8217;s. &#8220;It is reported that in the last month they have been retransferred to the Guangzhou No. 1 Detention Center (Hougang North Street, Baiyun District, Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province),&#8221; the April 1 statement said. Huang had planned to leave China via Hong Kong on Sept. 20, 2021 for the U.K., where she planned to take a master&#8217;s degree in development with a prestigious Chevening Scholarship. Wang, who is a labor and healthcare rights activist, had planned to see her off on her journey. But both were detained before she could board her flight. The Japan-based group Human Rights Now said in a recent testimony to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva that the initial arrests were &#8220;due to social gatherings at Wang&#8217;s apartment.&#8221; &#8220;The police acquired photos and a list of nearly 40 people who had participated in the gatherings from surveillance cameras installed at the apartment’s front door,&#8221; it said in a video testimony to the Council. &#8220;After the arrests, police continuously harassed and summoned the other participants for interrogation, asking them to identify material that they deemed as politically sensitive, and forcing them to sign false confessions that were drafted and fabricated by the police,&#8221; it said. &#8220;We urge the Guangzhou police to release Huang and Wang unconditionally as soon as possible,&#8221; the group said. &#8220;We &#8230; call for UN officials, independent experts, and governments to increase their monitoring of Huang and Wang’s situation, as well as of all journalists and activists in China.&#8221; Wang Jianbing in an undated photo. Credit Wang&#8217;s Facebook #MeToo activist Before being targeted by the authorities in 2019, Huang had been an outspoken member of the country&#8217;s #MeToo movement, and had carried out a survey of sexual harassment and assault cases among Chinese women working in journalism. Huang was present at a million-strong protest in Hong Kong on June 9, 2019 against plans to allow extradition to mainland China, and was detained for &#8220;picking quarrels and stirring up trouble&#8221; in October 2019, before being released on bail in January 2020, a status that often involves ongoing surveillance and restrictions on a person&#8217;s activities. Her travel documents were also confiscated after her return, preventing her from beginning a law degree in Hong Kong the fall of 2019. Huang had previously assisted in the investigation and reporting of a number of high-profile sexual harassment allegations against professors at Peking University, Wuhan University of Technology, Henan University and Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou. Wang started to work in rural development after graduating in 2005, before joining the Guangzhou Gongmin NGO in 2014 and director and coordinator for youth work. In 2018, he started advocacy and legal support work on behalf of workers with occupational diseases, and was a vocal supporter of China&#8217;s #MeToo movement. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Shanghai extends lockdown as armed police patrol gates of residential communities](https://ij-reportika.com/shanghai-extends-lockdown-as-armed-police-patrol-gates-of-residential-communities-2/): Authorities in Shanghai announced they would extend citywide lockdowns while they assessed recent mass COVID-19 test results, leaving residents facing further food shortages and lack of access to medical treatment. A two-stage lockdown has been in place across the city of 26 million people since March 28, although some residential communities where infections were discovered before that date have been under tight restrictions for far longer. “The city will continue to implement closures and controls, and continue to strictly implement the stay-home policy except in the case of people seeking medical treatment due to illness,&#8221; the Shanghai municipal government said in an April 4 announcement on its official Weibo account. It said a mass, citywide COVID-19 tests had been completed on Monday, with further testing, review of results and evaluation to be carried out while residents stayed home. Tens of the thousands of healthcare workers, including 2,000 military personnel, have been dispatched to the city to aid in the testing, isolation and quarantine operation under the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)&#8217;s zero-COVID policy. A front-line healthcare worker in the central city of Wuhan told RFA that some of his colleagues have been ordered to go to Shanghai to help with the testing program. &#8220;Wuhan sent 1,000 people &#8230; they told me yesterday it was to carry out PCR tests,&#8221; she said. Shanghai on Sunday reported 8,581 newly confirmed asymptomatic COVID-19 cases and 425 symptomatic COVID cases, calling on all residents to carry out rapid antigen tests at home. A Shanghai resident who gave only the surname Feng said armed police had also been drafted into the city, with a constant roar of planes taking off at landing at an airport near her home. &#8220;The armed police came on March 28 and 29, and there are a lot of armed police around right now,&#8221; Feng said. &#8220;They had been keeping a low profile, but they are much more open since vice premier Sun Chunlan arrived here.&#8221; &#8220;Those of us who live near the airport were kept up all night because the rumbling sound from the military transports was so loud, and there were also helicopters flying constantly back and forth overhead,&#8221; Feng said. Sun urged the Shanghai authorities on Saturday to &#8220;make resolute and swift moves&#8221; to curb the pandemic. &#8216;Keeping order&#8217; Zhang Jin, an academic who lives in the downtown area of Puxi on the west side of the Huangpu river, said armed police are currently patrolling the gates of his residential community. &#8220;There are special police with guns stationed at the gates of our community, because the older people on the neighborhood committee can&#8217;t keep control of the situation,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They&#8217;re afraid there&#8217;ll be some kind of incident in Shanghai, which would be a big deal, so they&#8217;ve been brought in to keep order.&#8221; But he said he thought the measures wouldn&#8217;t be enough to contain the spread of the highly transmissible omicron variant of COVID-19. &#8220;It&#8217;s like a broken old paper lantern; you try to patch it up with sticky tape, and then another hole appears,&#8221; Zhang said. A leaked audio recording, apparently between a member of the public and a member of the city&#8217;s Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), posted to social media on April 2, suggested that the authorities&#8217; capacity to implement Beijing&#8217;s zero-COVID policy on the ground is under huge strain. &#8220;Let me tell you this; hospital wards are full to bursting; there&#8217;s no space left in isolation facilities, and there are no ambulances available because they are answering hundreds of calls a day,&#8221; the official says. &#8220;This has totally overturned the image that Shanghai used to have [in the eyes of the rest of the world].&#8221; &#8220;They are now writing down people&#8217;s positive tests as negative &#8230; our professionals and experts are being driven crazy because nobody is listening to what they have to say,&#8221; the official says. &#8220;This pandemic has become a political disease, consuming so much manpower, material and financial resources.&#8221; Zhang agreed, saying all of China&#8217;s COVID-19 measures are now purely political. &#8220;I heard there were people testing positive at the National People&#8217;s Congress (NPC) [in March], but they weren&#8217;t being allowed to report it [as a positive result].&#8221; The secretary of one neighborhood committee admitted the system is now &#8220;a mess.&#8221; &#8220;I need decent policies coming down from higher up that I can explain to the residents, but that&#8217;s not what is happening here, not at all,&#8221; she said. &#8220;This job is leaving me physically and mentally exhausted, and my heart-rate is up to 100 beats per minute right now. I just can&#8217;t do this.&#8221; &#8220;Right now I&#8217;m trying to order food supplies for residents [before it runs out], and I&#8217;m taking your call. I&#8217;m under a lot of pressure,&#8221; the neighborhood official said. Logistics nightmare Shanghai residents have been taking to Twitter with fears that they could run out of food entirely, as takeout and supermarket deliveries are becoming less and less available in some districts. Feng confirmed these reports, saying many of the delivery drivers have themselves been forced into isolation camps by the HealthCode app, while deliveries are being prevented from entering the city from elsewhere in China, leaving huge quantities of food to spoil at roadsides and be wasted. Current affairs commentator Si Ling said the restrictions have made it well nigh impossible for logistics firms to operate in and out of Shanghai. &#8220;Even if trucks can get into Shanghai, it&#8217;s hard for them to get out,&#8221; Si said. &#8220;A lot of logistics companies are therefore reluctant to send vehicles into Shanghai &#8230; because they think it&#8217;s too expensive and time-consuming.&#8221; &#8220;The Chinese government has made every aspect of the pandemic very bureaucratic, with huge amounts of red tape, and it hasn&#8217;t taken the needs of logistics companies [part of the supply chain] into account,&#8221; he said. Sun&#8217;s comment during her visit to Shanghai was interpreted by a leaked Zhejiang provincial document as showing hard-line support from CCP leader Xi Jinping for...
- [More than 130 journalists arrested in Myanmar, media group says](https://ij-reportika.com/more-than-130-journalists-arrested-in-myanmar-media-group-says/): A total of 135 journalists have been arrested in Myanmar since the Feb. 1, 2021, military coup that overthrew civilian rule in that country, according to a local press freedoms group. Among those arrested, 109 were men and 26 were women, while three other journalists were killed in the course of their work, said Han Zaw, a spokesman for Detained Journalists Information Myanmar, speaking to RFA. “Right now, 55 journalists — 42 men and 13 women — are being held in detention, 22 of whom have now been convicted, and another six were given jail sentences in March,” Han Zaw said. The detentions and arrests of journalists in Myanmar are still ongoing, he added. Jailed in March were Han Thar Nyein, managing editor of Kamaryut Media; Than Htkine Aung, editor of Mizzima News; Neyin Chan Wai, a correspondent for the Bago Weekly Journal; Aung Zaw Zaw, editor-in-chief of the Mandalay Free Press; Ye Yint Tun, a correspondent for the Myanmar Herald; and freelance journalist Naung Yoe. All were charged with defamation and obstruction of the country’s military and were given sentences ranging from one-and-a-half years to 11 years in jail, with Han Thar Thein also charged with violations of Myanmar’s Electronic Communications Act. Conditions in Myanmar are now unsafe for journalists working for independent media groups, said veteran reporter Myint Kyaw, speaking to RFA from Myanmar’s commercial center and former capital Yangon. “There have been cases of torture,” Myint Kyaw said. “Not for everyone arrested, but there have been victims, and Myanmar has the second highest number of arrests after China, which means the second largest number of journalists arrested around the world,” he said. “It’s dangerous now to work for independent media, and it’s dangerous to report on any of the incidents now happening in the ongoing conflict,” he said. Veteran lawyer Khin Maung Myint told RFA that journalists arrested before June 2021 were charged only with defamation. But since June 30, charges under anti-terrorism and explosives statutes that allow for as long as 20 years have also been added, he said. And though most of the journalists arrested were able to prove in court that they were simply carrying out their professional work when detained, none were released following their conviction at trial, he said. &#8216;Enemies of the country&#8217; Speaking to RFA, junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun said however that no journalists were arrested in Myanmar for doing their work but only for instigating violence. “On Armed Forces Day [March 27], more than 40 local media outlets and 26 local reporters working for overseas media attended the event, and they were able to work and write freely. Even RFA has reporters in Myanmar,” Zaw Min Tun said. “If a journalist is doing the work of a journalist, we have no reason to arrest him. But if a journalist commits crimes and incites others to violence, we will arrest him not as a journalist but as a supporter of terrorism and a source of false news,” he said. Also speaking to RFA, Aung Kyaw — a senior correspondent for the Democratic Voice of Burma who was arrested and released in March last year — said that Myanmar’s military members hate the journalists held in interrogation camps and treat them as enemies of the country. “While I was being questioned, they would read news reports, and if they found something they didn’t like, they’d hit me and torture me, even though those reports were published by other media,” he said. “I told them that we were not a foreign news agency, that our news agency was officially registered in Myanmar, that we paid taxes to the country, and that we were paid only in kyats, not in dollars. But they wouldn’t listen.” Soe Ya, editor-in-chief of the Delta News Agency, said that journalists are now fleeing Myanmar due to junta suppression, causing a loss of human resources in the country’s media. “Many journalists are leaving and moving to other countries to pursue their livelihood and because of the lack of security in Myanmar,” he said. “Our media world is now suffering a big loss because experienced people have to leave, as they cannot continue to survive in the present situation.” Translated by Khin Maung Nyane for RFA’s Myanmar Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [Shanghai extends lockdown as armed police patrol gates of residential communities](https://ij-reportika.com/shanghai-extends-lockdown-as-armed-police-patrol-gates-of-residential-communities/): Authorities in Shanghai announced they would extend citywide lockdowns while they assessed recent mass COVID-19 test results, leaving residents facing further food shortages and lack of access to medical treatment. A two-stage lockdown has been in place across the city of 26 million people since March 28, although some residential communities where infections were discovered before that date have been under tight restrictions for far longer. “The city will continue to implement closures and controls, and continue to strictly implement the stay-home policy except in the case of people seeking medical treatment due to illness,&#8221; the Shanghai municipal government said in an April 4 announcement on its official Weibo account. It said mass, citywide COVID-19 tests had been completed on Monday, with further testing, review of results, and evaluation to be carried out while residents stayed home. Tens of the thousands of healthcare workers, including 2,000 military personnel, have been dispatched to the city to aid in the testing, isolation, and quarantine operation under the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)&#8217;s zero-COVID policy. A front-line healthcare worker in the central city of Wuhan told RFA that some of his colleagues have been ordered to go to Shanghai to help with the testing program. &#8220;Wuhan sent 1,000 people&#8230; they told me yesterday it was to carry out PCR tests,&#8221; she said. Shanghai on Sunday reported 8,581 newly confirmed asymptomatic COVID-19 cases and 425 symptomatic COVID cases, calling on all residents to carry out rapid antigen tests at home. A Shanghai resident, who wanted to be identified only by his surname Feng, said armed police had also been drafted into the city, with a constant roar of planes taking off at landing at an airport near her home. &#8220;The armed police came on March 28 and 29, and there are a lot of armed police around right now,&#8221; Feng said. &#8220;They had been keeping a low profile, but they are much more open since vice premier Sun Chunlan arrived here.&#8221; &#8220;Those of us who live near the airport were kept up all night because the rumbling sound from the military transports was so loud, and there were also helicopters flying constantly back and forth overhead,&#8221; Feng said. Sun urged the Shanghai authorities on Saturday to &#8220;make resolute and swift moves&#8221; to curb the pandemic. Zhang Jin, an academic who lives in the downtown area of Puxi on the west side of the Huangpu river, said armed police are currently patrolling the gates of his residential community. &#8220;There are special police with guns stationed at the gates of our community, because the older people on the neighborhood committee can&#8217;t keep control of the situation,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They&#8217;re afraid there&#8217;ll be some kind of incident in Shanghai, which would be a big deal, so they&#8217;ve been brought in to keep order.&#8221; But he said he thought the measures wouldn&#8217;t be enough to contain the spread of the highly transmissible omicron variant of COVID-19. &#8220;It&#8217;s like a broken old paper lantern; you try to patch it up with sticky tape, and then another hole appears,&#8221; Zhang said. A leaked audio recording, apparently between a member of the public and a member of the city&#8217;s Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), posted to social media on April 2, suggested that the authorities&#8217; capacity to implement Beijing&#8217;s zero-COVID policy on the ground is under huge strain. &#8220;Let me tell you this; hospital wards are full to bursting; there&#8217;s no space left in isolation facilities, and there are no ambulances available because they are answering hundreds of calls a day,&#8221; the official said in the recording. &#8220;This has totally overturned the image that Shanghai used to have [in the eyes of the rest of the world].&#8221; &#8220;They are now writing down people&#8217;s positive tests as negative&#8230; our professionals and experts are being driven crazy because nobody is listening to what they have to say,&#8221; the official said. &#8220;This pandemic has become a political disease, consuming so much manpower, material and financial resources.&#8221; Zhang agreed, saying all of China&#8217;s COVID-19 measures are now purely political. &#8220;I heard there were people testing positive at the National People&#8217;s Congress (NPC) [in March], but they weren&#8217;t being allowed to report it [as a positive result].&#8221; The secretary of one neighborhood committee admitted the system is now &#8220;a mess.&#8221; &#8220;I need decent policies coming down from higher up that I can explain to the residents, but that&#8217;s not what is happening here, not at all,&#8221; she said. &#8220;This job is leaving me physically and mentally exhausted, and my heart-rate is up to 100 beats per minute right now. I just can&#8217;t do this.&#8221; &#8220;Right now I&#8217;m trying to order food supplies for residents [before it runs out], and I&#8217;m taking your call. I&#8217;m under a lot of pressure,&#8221; the neighborhood official said. Shanghai residents have been taking to Twitter with fears that they could run out of food entirely, as takeout and supermarket deliveries are becoming less and less available in some districts. Feng confirmed these reports, saying many of the delivery drivers have themselves been forced into isolation camps by the HealthCode app, while deliveries are being prevented from entering the city from elsewhere in China, leaving huge quantities of food to spoil at roadsides and be wasted. Current affairs commentator Si Ling said the restrictions have made it well nigh impossible for logistics firms to operate in and out of Shanghai. &#8220;Even if trucks can get into Shanghai, it&#8217;s hard for them to get out,&#8221; Si said. &#8220;A lot of logistics companies are therefore reluctant to send vehicles into Shanghai&#8230; because they think it&#8217;s too expensive and time-consuming.&#8221; &#8220;The Chinese government has made every aspect of the pandemic very bureaucratic, with huge amounts of red tape, and it hasn&#8217;t taken the needs of logistics companies [part of the supply chain] into account,&#8221; he said. Sun&#8216;s comment during her visit to Shanghai was interpreted by a leaked Zhejiang provincial document as showing hard-line support from CCP leader Xi Jinping for zero-COVID, despite the massive logistical challenges it brings. Zhejiang and Jiangsu authorities are now being forced to...
- [Philippine, Chinese foreign ministers hold talks amid South China Sea tensions](https://ij-reportika.com/philippine-chinese-foreign-ministers-hold-talks-amid-south-china-sea-tensions/): The top diplomats of the Philippines and China met over the weekend in a Chinese district and exchanged views on the South China Sea, Beijing said, amid fresh accusations from Manila over alleged Chinese aggression in the disputed waterway. Filipino Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. and Chinese counterpart Wang Yi held talks on Sunday in Tunxi, Anhui province, days after Manila and Washington launched one of their biggest joint military exercises in years that observers described as a show of force. “On April 3, 2022, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks with visiting Philippine Foreign Minister Teodoro Locsin in Tunxi, Anhui province,” said a statement on the meeting posted on the Chinese foreign ministry’s website. The two sides believe “that maritime issues should be put in a proper place in bilateral relations,” the statement added, without giving details. Also without naming any nations or parties, Wang said Manila and Beijing “should eliminate interference, and calmly and properly manage differences, so as to prevent the overall China-Philippines relations from being affected.” Wang added that China was willing to fast track key infrastructure projects in the Philippines and continue providing COVID-19 vaccine assistance, the Chinese foreign ministry statement said. Attempts by the RFA-affiliated Benar News service to contact Locsin’s office for comment on the meeting went unanswered Monday. The talks came amid this year’s joint Balikatan military exercises between the Philippines and the United States that involve about 9,000 troops from both sides. The exercises in the Philippines will go till April 8. Wang and Locsin’s meeting comes after the Philippines in late March lodged a new diplomatic protest against China alleging that a Chinese coast guard ship maneuvered dangerously close to a Filipino vessel in the contested Scarborough Shoal earlier last month. China’s foreign ministry, meanwhile, insisted that it was within its rights when its ship allegedly engaged in what the Philippine Coast Guard described as “close distance maneuvering” in South China Sea waters. China’s envoy to Manila, Huang Xilian, did not say whether the issue of the Chinese coast guard ship was discussed at Sunday’s talks, but noted that the meeting of the two nations’ top diplomats produced “fruitful results.” “The talks included China’s reaffirmation of its priority neighborhood diplomacy with the Philippines, the maintenance of amicable policies for continued and stable bilateral relations, and the peaceful and proper resolution of differences,” Huang said. “China also reiterated its readiness to streamline key infrastructure projects’ construction with the Philippines.”
- [North Korea tries to cover up failed ICBM launch](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-tries-to-cover-up-failed-icbm-launch/): North Korea is attempting to discredit reports of a failed intercontinental ballistic missile launch, dismissing the accounts as hearsay even though many people in Pyongyang saw the rocket explode over the city, sources in the capital told RFA. North Korean media reported on March 24 that it successfully completed tests of the new Hwasong-17 ICBM, attributing its success to leader Kim Jong Un’s bravery. South Korean military authorities, however, reported Tuesday that the Hwasong-17 was involved in an earlier failed test launch on March 16. The March 24 launch was actually the older Hwasong-15 missile, they said. The North Korean government is now denying “rumors” of loud sounds and flashes that could be heard and seen over Pyongyang on March 16. “I have heard on various occasions through meetings and gatherings that there have been baseless rumors circulating about missile explosions. These rumors undermine the defense technology of our republic,” a Pyongyang city official told RFA’s Korean Service March 30. “There is an emphasis from higher ups that we should not believe or get involved in these false rumors spread by hostile forces, and evil people who hold a grudge against our way of life,” said the official, who requested anonymity for security reasons. The official admitted that the so-called rumors were in fact true. “On the morning of March 16th, people in the districts of Sunan, Hyongjesan and Ryongsong heard a loud roar that seemed to pierce the sky and a ‘bang’ sound and witnessed pieces of debris falling and smoking,” he said. “I heard from a friend in the same department who has a house in Sunan … that his wife went outside to hang clothes and heard a big airplane passing by and heard a ‘bang.’ After a while, she saw small pieces of shards falling nearby while smoking,” the official said. The official said that others in Ryongsong and Hyongjesan districts saw similar events unfold. “I even heard from a friend who lives in Ryongsong district that two people in Chungi-dong were struck by large pieces of debris falling,” he said. “About a week after these testimonies, there was a report that the launch of new intercontinental ballistic missile ‘Hwasong-17’ on March 24th was a great success under the direct guidance of Kim Jong Un,” said the official. Pyongyang has not only been trying to pass off the launch on the 24th as the Hwasong-17, it is also trying to use the event to lionize Kim. “People say that Kim Jong Un seems like an actor in a well-produced music video on the TV reports he appears in. The missile launch failed, but I don’t understand the government’s effort to hide it,” he said. North Korea has sent agents into the provinces for damage control, a resident of South Pyongan province, north of Pyongyang, told RFA. “Last week, an executive appeared at the morning assembly at my company, saying there were rumors that a missile launch failed. He emphasized that we were not to believe the false rumors spread by evil forces intent on internally breaking us down,” said the resident, who requested anonymity to speak freely. “But people are acknowledging the missile explosion as a fact. In Pyongyang as well as here, people saw flashing lights and smoke from the sky, and small fragments of debris fell here and there,” she said. The resident said others, including her cousin who lives in another South Pyongan town, saw flashing lights and heard bangs in the sky. “Although the incident has been witnessed by many, the authorities are dismissing it as a rumor spread by evildoers. There are many citizens who directly witnessed the explosion in the air, but I don’t know what the authorities are afraid of that they would hide the truth,” she said. More sanctions The U.S. Treasury Department Friday sanctioned five North Korean entities for their involvement in ballistic missile development programs in violation of several United Nations Security Council resolutions. In a statement, the Treasury Department said the sanctions target a North Korean organization that conducts research and development of weapons of mass destruction and four of its revenue-generating subsidiaries. “The DPRK’s provocative ballistic missile tests represent a clear threat to regional and global security and are in blatant violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions,” said Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in the statement. “The United States is committed to using our sanctions authorities to respond to the DPRK’s continued development of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles. I also commend Japan for their actions today against the DPRK, and stand ready to continue to work together to counter the DPRK’s continued threatening behavior,” she said. Analysts applauded the move. “It’s a positive sign, in that the U.S. is taking action against North Korea’s weapons development and testing,” Soo Kim of the RAND Corporation told RFA. “But I would underscore that the latest designations are subsidiaries of organizations that should probably have been designated. So it’s unclear whether this will have teeth in terms of impact,” she said.  Bruce Klingner of the Heritage Foundation, a group that promotes free enterprise and limited government, that there are any remaining North Korean entities to sanction, given its long and expansive history of violations of U.N. resolutions and U.S. laws. “It raises the question as to why Washington chose not to [sanction them] until now and how many other North Korean and other country entities the US could sanction but has not done so,” Klingner told RFA. “Each U.S. administration has claimed to be tough on North Korea and other violators but chose not to fully enforce U.S. laws. Trump&#8217;s ‘maximum pressure’ was never maximum. Indeed, he announced he was not sanctioning 300 North Korean entities and 12 Chinese banks that had violated US laws. Sanctions, like diplomacy, are a tool that should be used in conjunction with other tools of international power,” he said.  Translated by Claire Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [81-year-old Tibet man dies after self-immolation protest at Kirti Monastery](https://ij-reportika.com/81-year-old-tibet-man-dies-after-self-immolation-protest-at-kirti-monastery/): An 81-year-old Tibetan man has died after a self-immolation protest over Chinese rule, setting himself on fire last week at a police station in front of a major monastery in the western Chinese province of Sichuan, a source from the monastery’s branch in India told RFA late Saturday. The burning death on March 27 of a man identified as Taphun raises to 160 the number of Tibetans confirmed to have set themselves on fire since 2009, nearly all to protest Chinese rule in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, as well as historically Tibetan areas of Sichuan and Qinghai provinces. “On the 27th of March, around 5 o’clock in the morning, 81-year-old Taphun self-immolated in front of a police station near Kirti Monastery in a protest against the Chinese government’s oppression,” said Kanyak Tsering, a spokesman at the monastery’s branch in Dharamsala, India, home to the Tibetan government in exile and the Dalai Lama. “He was immediately taken away by the Chinese police. Though it’s been a few days since we learned about this incident, now it is confirmed that he has passed away,” the spokesman told RFA’s Tibetan Service. The 550-year-old Kirti Monastery lies in Ngaba (in Chinese, Aba) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan Province, part of what was formerly the Amdo region of Tibet before it was absorbed by China. “The place where Taphun self-immolated is in front of the police station that is right outside Kirti Monastery’s entrance,” said Tsering. “March is usually a very sensitive month for Tibetans and we have often seen many Tibetans in Ngaba self-immolate in the past,” the exile Kirti spokesman noted. “There are more restrictions and police presence around this time than usual and Tibetans are often arbitrarily interrogated by the Chinese police,” he added. March 10 is Tibetan Uprising Day, the date in 1959 of a failed armed rebellion against Chinese rule that resulted in a violent crackdown on Tibetans that drove the Dalai Lama across the Himalayas into exile in India. Although disclosed on April 2, the Kirti incident took place three days before the most recent known self-immolation–that of a man, known only as Tsering, who set himself ablaze in front of a Chinese police station near a Buddhist monastery in Kyegudo (in Chinese, Jiegu), in Yushul (Yushu) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai. His fate and other details remain unknown. Sporadic demonstrations challenging Beijing&#8217;s rule over what was an independent nation until China’s invasion in 1950 have continued in Tibetan-populated areas of China since widespread protests swept the region in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. High-technology controls on phone and online communications in Tibetan areas often prevent news of Tibetan protests and arrests from reaching the outside world, and sharing news of self-immolations outside China has led to jail sentences. Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on the Himalayan region, restricting Tibetans’ political activities and peaceful expression of ethnic and religious identity, and subjecting Tibetans to persecution, torture, imprisonment, and extrajudicial killings. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Written in English by Paul Eckert.
- [Myanmar’s Magway region suffers under military’s March offensive](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-magway-region-suffers-under-militarys-march-offensive/): Myanmar’s military killed as many as a dozen civilians and arrested nearly 30 others in restive Magway region in the month of March alone, while junta troops torched more than 700 houses in 18 of the region’s villages over the same period, residents said Friday. Sources in Magway’s Gangaw township told RFA’s Myanmar Service that 10 deaths occurred from Feb. 28 to March 2 as troops raided the villages of Thindaw, Shwebo, Kone and Sann. The military set more than 200 homes alight in Kone and Sann over the three-day period, they said, while a joint squad of some 100 troops and pro-military Pyu Saw Htee militia fighters burned another 200 on March 2 while attacking nearby Pauk township’s Leyar village. A villager who spoke on condition of anonymity called the violence and destruction “unacceptable.” “Our houses are antiques, built by hand according to our traditions. …  Our house was built with five tree trunks as its pillars and the current market price is no less than 7-8 million kyats (U.S. $4,000-4,500),” he said. “They attack and destroy everything indiscriminately. How can they believe that destroying the lives and property of ordinary people is justified?” The resident’s rice mill, which he valued at around 1.5 million kyats (U.S. $850), was also destroyed in the attack, he said. He said that more than 1,300 villagers were forced to flee the raids and have been living in the mountains ever since, unable to tend their farms. Other sources told RFA that junta forces raided Letpan Hla village on March 3 and burned down 50 of the village’s 120 houses. A member of the anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary group in Pauk Township said the raid came in response to an attack by his group on the military. “We couldn’t stand it anymore because they were causing so much trouble for the people,” said the PDF member, who also declined to be named. “They captured five of our comrades alive and they set them on fire. Three houses were also burned down.” More than 470 residents of Letpan Hla fled the village during the military attack and have yet to return, he said. In another incident, sources said, troops killed a mother and her son in a March 5 attack on Inn-Nge-Daung village. They said 29 people were arrested, including 12 women and nine children, and all remain in military custody. Family detained Lwin Wai, of Yezagyo township’s Taung Oh village, told RFA that authorities who came looking for him detained his mother and two other family members when they learned he wasn’t there. “I’m worried about my family. My sister is only 14 years old now. She knows nothing about politics. She just likes watching movies and playing games,” he said. “My mother had a surgical operation only about four months ago. We all are suffering under this injustice. I’m so furious that we are being bullied by people with weapons. I just want those who are innocent to be released unharmed.” Lwin Wai said his family members were first detained by the 258th Infantry Regiment and are now being held at the Yezagyo Police Station on charges of “defamation,” with a court appointment set for April 4. He said he is wanted for alleged ties to the PDF because area youth regularly come to his electronics repair shop to use his Wi-Fi connection. But he believes the accusation is retribution by the junta-appointed village administrator, who he once had a dispute with. Other reported incidents included the killing of two villagers during a March 26 military raid on Yezagyo township’s Kutote village, and the burning of more than 250 houses in four Gangaw township villages during joint raids by junta troops and Pyu Saw Htee fighters on March 23 and 24. Blaming the PDF Attempts by RFA to reach junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment on the raids in Magway region went unanswered Friday. He has previously attributed arson attacks on civilian homes to the PDF, which the military regime has labeled a terrorist organization. In a recent statement, the military claimed that on March 13 a unit of 20 PDF members had attempted to detain the junta-appointed administrator of Yezagyo township’s Gwaygyo village and burned down 17 homes when they could not locate him. RFA was unable to independently verify the junta claims. Chit Win Maung, a member of the anti-junta Magway People’s War Committee, told RFA the junta intentionally harasses and kills civilians in the region “because they cannot rule us.” “They have no people, no youth, supporting them,” he said. “We can see that they are trying to get rid of anyone who wants to stop their fascist movement. From a human rights point of view, they are oppressing the people.” Magway is one of several regions where the junta has encountered particularly fierce resistance since it seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup and launched a multi-pronged offensive against the PDF and armed ethnic groups in Myanmar’s remote border regions. According to Data For Myanmar, a group that researches the social impact of conflict, junta troops have burned at least 7,248 homes across the country since the coup. At least 1,148 of the homes were in Magway region, the group said. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Chinese officials restrict the number of Uyghurs who can observe Ramadan](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-officials-restrict-the-number-of-uyghurs-who-can-observe-ramadan/): Chinese authorities in Xinjiang are restricting the number of Muslims allowed to observe the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, drawing heavy criticism from rights groups that see the government directive as the latest effort to diminish Uyghur culture in the region. For years, officials in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) have prohibited Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims from fully observing Ramadan including by banning civil servants, students and teachers from fasting. Some neighborhood committees in Urumqi (in Chinese, Wulumuqi) and some village officials in Kashgar (Kashi) and Hotan (Hetian) prefectures have received notices that only 10-50 Muslims will be allowed to fast during Ramadan, which runs from April 1 to May 1, and that those who do so must register with authorities, according local administrators and police in Xinjiang. “Ramadan measures are being taken,” said a village policeman in Kashgar’s Tokkuzak (Toukezhake) township. “The purpose is to allay the fears of [Uyghurs] who are afraid to fast, in addition to security, because there should not be any misconception about the [Chinese Communist] Party’s religious policy. The party never said to abolish religion, but to Sinicize it.” A village administrator who oversees 10 families in Ghulja (Yining) county in Ili Kazakh (Yili Hasake) Autonomous Prefecture, said registration was already under way in his community and that the elderly and adults with no school-age children are allowed to fast. “This system is designed to avoid religion to have negative effects on children’s minds,” he said. “There is a lot of propaganda about it right now. A cadre from the village is registering people who meet the criteria for fasting.” Another administrator who oversees 10 families in the city of Atush (Atushi) in Kizilsu Kirghiz Autonomous Prefecture said he received a notice about the fasting restriction from local authorities. “Of the 10 families that I am in charge, two — Tahir and Ahmet — were identified as ones that can fast,” he said. “Both are elderly and have no children at home.” A Uyghur employee at a hotel contacted by RFA on Wednesday said he could not say anything about Ramadan and hung up the phone. Tursunjan Mamat sets down a copy of the Quran during a government organized visit for foreign journalists to his home in Aksu prefecture, northwestern China&#8217;s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, April 20, 2021. Credit: Associated Press Painting &#8216;a sham picture&#8217; In past years, authorities have warned Uyghur residents that they could be punished for fasting, including by being sent to one of the XUAR’s vast network of internment camps, where authorities are believed to have held up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities since April 2017. Authorities also have forced retirees to pledge ahead of Ramadan that they won’t fast or pray to set an example for the wider community and to assume responsibility for ensuring others also refrain. “It is pathetic and tragic to see China’s notice that only certain people can fast,” said Turghunjan Alawudun, director of the Committee for Religious Affairs at the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) in Germany. “The Muslim world would laugh at China’s actions and be astonished by the setting of a quota for those who can fast.” The Washington-based Uyghur Human Rights Project issued a statement on Thursday showing solidarity with Uyghurs in Xinjiang who cannot hold iftar, the meal eaten by Muslims at sundown to break the daily fast during Ramadan, or pray “without risking being labeled a religious extremist.” “There will be no Ramadan for Uyghurs in the homeland this year — or any year — until China’s campaign of genocide is brought to an end,” the statement said. The Campaign for Uyghurs, also based in Washington, also noted that Uyghurs in Xinjiang are once again being forbidden to worship and celebrate religious holidays. “To add insult to this injustice, the CCP selectively deploys Islam to paint a sham picture,” the group said in a statement issued Thursday. WUC president Dolkun Isa said China has turned Ramadan into “a month of hellish suffering of genocide for the Uyghur people” and called on Muslim leaders worldwide to condemn the rights abuses occurring in Xinjiang. “It’s your religious and moral duty to call on China to stop this ongoing genocide,” he said. “History will not treat you kindly if you continue to allow this genocide to continue under your watch.” The U.S. and parliaments in some Western countries have declared China’s actions against the Uyghurs and other Turkic people a genocide and crimes against humanity, though China has denied accusations of abuse. Translated by Mamatjan Juma and Alim Seytoff of RFA’s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Cambodian police deny reports of Thais being held against their will in the country](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-police-deny-reports-of-thais-being-held-against-their-will-in-the-country/): Cambodian authorities Friday denied media reports that Thai citizens are being held against their will in Cambodia by criminal gangs, but Malaysian police said human trafficking syndicates were running rampant across the entire Southeast Asian region. Chhoun Narin, police chief of the Sihanoukville Police Department, told RFA’s Khmer Service that more than 100 Thais have crossed over the border between the two countries to illegally take jobs in casinos located in Sihanoukville province. “We hear fake stories about detentions and torture,” he said. “There are no illegal detentions.” The denial contradicts reports in the Bangkok Post and other Southeast Asian outlets that there are between 2,800 and 3,000 Thais working illegally in Cambodia who have been tricked by gangs to take positions as scammers, according to Thai police estimates. Despite the denial, Chhoun Narin said the police will cooperate with Thai officials in repatriating Thai citizens. But he declined to comment on whether Cambodia will charge Thais found to be in the country illegally. RFA was unable to reach National Police spokesman Chhay Kim Khouen for comment on Friday. After the Cambodian government opened up the company following COVID-19 restrictions, reports of criminal activities in Sihanoukville province flooded the offices of the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association, Cheap Sotheary, the group’s Sihanoukville province coordinator, told RFA. She urged Cambodian authorities to work with their Thai counterparts to resolve complaints about kidnapping and detentions in Cambodia. “There should be an investigation to see how many separate incidents there are. If Thai delegates come, there should be a cooperation to avoid any misunderstanding,” she said. Police in Malaysia, meanwhile, have information indicating a human trafficking syndicate has trapped Malays as forced labor in Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and Myanmar, BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service, reported. Since 2021, the Anti-trafficking  unit of Malaysia’s Federal Criminal Investigation Department received six police reports of involving 26 victims — 24 men and two women—in need of rescue from crime syndicates. The police believe that there are still many people in similar situations but have not lodged reports with authorities.  Police say that the victims were duped by job advertisements offering relatively high salaries doing social media work as customer service officers in other countries.  Interested job seekers were encouraged to contact agents via WeChat, WhatsApp or Facebook who then would arrange travel costs for the unsuspecting victims. Once they arrived at the destination, the syndicate would confiscate or destroy travel documents and mobile devices, leaving the migrants with no way to call for help or escape on their own. The victims then would be sent to specific locations such as Preah Sihanouk in Cambodia, Mae Sot in Thailand, Vientiane in Laos and Kayin State in Myanmar and forced to work in scams involving online gambling, fake investments and Bitcoin mining. They would not be allowed to return home if they did not reach the company&#8217;s sales targets or they could pay between U.S. $7,125 and $11,875 for their release. The Royal Malaysian Police is working with Interpol and Aseanapol to seek help in tracking and rescuing Malaysian victims.  RFA reported last month that dozens of Thais and hundreds of Lao citizens were duped into working in casinos in Laos’ Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone. If these victims failed to meet sales quotas, they were told they would be sold to employers at different companies, including for positions in the sex trade. Multiple groups of Thais escaped last month back to Thailand or were rescued and repatriated. Translated by RFA’s Khmer Service and BenarNews. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Musician fears beloved Burmese bamboo xylophone will be a casualty of COVID, coup](https://ij-reportika.com/musician-fears-beloved-burmese-bamboo-xylophone-will-be-a-casualty-of-covid-coup/): Kyaw Myint, an 83-year-old musician from Yangon, Myanmar&#8217;s largest city and culture center, fears that among the country’s many losses to from the military coup and covid-19 pandemic will be the pattala, a teak-and-bamboo xylophone that he has played his whole life. Caught between the pandemic and the political turmoil following the February 2021 military coup, pattala artists have lost their jobs, with many forced to take up casual labor.&#8220;We aging artists are facing a lot of hardship. For a long time, the theatrical troupes have not had a chance to give any performances,” he said, echoing a lament heard from musicians around the world as gigs dried up during pandemic lockdowns. “Some of them have become vendors in the market because they cannot play their music anymore. Some even have become rickshaw drivers and some are selling vegetables,&#8221; Kyaw Myint told RFA’s Myanmar Service. Kyaw Myint studied with a who’s who of top Burmese classical musicians, including Saw Mya Aye Kyi, Ba Lay, and Ohn Maung and made a living playing the pattala for his entire adult life. But as musicians worldwide have been increasingly able to return to performing as the pandemic eases in many countries, the violence, political unrest and outright warfare that has engulfed Myanmar since the military overthrew the country’s elected government have brought nighttime curfews and the suspension of theatrical performances. The political conflict has also undercut the efforts by the poorest country in Southeast Asia to roll out vaccines and other measures to combat the pandemic. The pattala, developed more than 500 years ago for use in court music and chamber ensembles, has a teak resonating chamber shaped like a rowboat, over which 24 bamboo slats are suspended. It is played with padded hardwood mallets and tuned along lines similar the diatonic scale. Southeast Asian neighbors Thailand and Cambodia have similar versions of the ancient instrument. San San Nwe, a 67-year-old retired schoolteacher, is not a musician, but her traditional craft has also been collateral damage from the violence and turmoil. She learned the craft the art of making pattala mallets from her father, Saing Sayar Gyi Sein Tun Kyi, carrying on his tradition for almost 50 years. &#8220;In the past, while I worked as a schoolteacher, I would do this job if we had orders. But now we hardly have any orders,&#8221; she said. Nyunt Win Tun, 57,  San San Nwe&#8217;s brother, hopes pattala performances will return when peace returns to the multi-ethnic country of 54 million people. &#8220;We can only hope that these activities will return to normal when there is peace and tranquility. When normalcy returns, we will be able to do our work happily again. It&#8217;s been over two and a half years now. Things are not going well at all,” he told RFA. Even before the coup which has claimed thousands of lives and led to the jailing of hundreds of beloved writers, actors and musicians, traditional folk instruments like the hardwood-and-bamboo pattala were swimming against the tide of modern technology. Electronic pianos and organs that can play a variety of sounds are getting more and more popular while traditional instruments like the pattala are now becoming less and less popular among younger Burmese people. Kyaw Mint says there are now very few people in Myanmar who can play the pattala as it should be played, he said. And more ominously for the ancient tradition, there are thought to be only about a dozen people left who make pattalas in Myanmar. &#8220;There are a lot of reasons that the traditional music industry is disappearing,” said Kyaw Myint.. I’m trying to keep it alive. But I am saddened that there are very few young people who want to inherit this rare old tradition.” Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Edited by Paul Eckert.
- [Cambodian election authority removes opposition candidates from list](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-election-authority-removes-opposition-candidates-from-list/): Cambodia’s National Election Committee (NEC) has removed more than 100 candidates from the opposition Candlelight Party from the list of those running in the country’s commune elections on June 5, the party’s vice president said Friday. The party, which has threatened to boycott the vote because of political harassment of its members and activists by Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), has accused the NEC of abusing election law. Candlelight Party vice president Thach Setha said NEC president Prach Chan on Thursday removed all candidates in Phnom Penh and Pursat and Kampong Cham provinces from the candidate list, and accused election authorities of not complying with the law by failing to call witnesses to be questioned amid complaints filed by CPP against the Candelight Party. “He didn’t make any mistake. It is a violation of the election law,” Thach Setha said. Party officials say they have been falsely accused of using fake names for candidates and putting forward some candidates for election without their permission. CCP complains have accused Candlelight Party candidates of being illiterate and submitting documents without thumbprints or signatures. The NEC decision has left the CPP candidate without main competitors in the capital, Phnom Penh. The NEC also removed the name of the son of Eng Chhai Eang, vice president of the former opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) from the candidate list, Thach Setha said. The Candlelight Party, formerly known as the Sam Rainsy Party and the Khmer Nation Party, was founded in 1995 and merged with other opposition forces to form the CNRP in 2012. In November 2017, Cambodia’s Supreme Court dissolved the CNRP in a move that allowed the CPP to win all 125 seats in parliament in a July 2018 election. Election authorities based their binding decision on evidence and hearings after finding irregularities on the candidate lists, while some candidates during the hearing asked the NEC to remove their names from the lists, said NEC spokesman Hang Puthea. “Upon receiving the complaints, we held public hearings,” he said. Sam Kuntheamy, executive director of the Neutral and Impartial Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (NICFEC), said the NEC failed to present evidence and witnesses during the hearings. He also said the decision by the NEC — a theoretically independent agency that supervises the country’s elections, but is believed to be influenced by the CCP — to remove opposition candidates was an attempt to find weak points to prevent the Candlelight Party as the main threat to the CCP from participating in the elections. “The party that has popularity draws attention,” he said. “I want [the NEC] to comply with the law.” Meanwhile, Phnom Penh authorities arrested four Candlelight Party activists but later released three and sent one to Prey Sar Prison. Yok Neang, former leader of the CNRP’s Women Movement who recently joined the Candlelight Party, was arrested Friday and sent to the jail, her son, Ouch Vannarith, told RFA. She was speaking with other political opposition activists when police arrested them and has been charged with treason over a failed attempt by exiled CNRP leader Sam Rainsy in November 2019 to return to Cambodia to lead nonviolent protests against Hun Sen. At least two other Candlelight Party activists are being detained in Pursat province. Reported by RFA’s Khmer Service. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Family of slain Rohingya leader leaves Bangladesh for Canada](https://ij-reportika.com/family-of-slain-rohingya-leader-leaves-bangladesh-for-canada/): Canada has agreed to give refuge to 11 family members of a Rohingya rights activist who was gunned down at a refugee camp in Bangladesh last September, officials in Dhaka and a human rights group said Friday. Nasima Khatun, the widow of Muhib Ullah, their nine children and the husband of one of their daughters departed the South Asian country on a flight from Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka on Thursday night, human rights advocate Nur Khan Liton confirmed to BenarNews. “They are scheduled to arrive in Canada by Saturday,” Liton said. “They left with the aim of having a safe life.” On Friday, Bangladesh foreign ministry official Miah Md. Mainul Kabir credited the Canadian government for accepting Ullah’s survivors. “The government of Bangladesh gave more importance to the Canadian government’s interest in this regard than the application of Muhib Ullah’s family,” he told BenarNews. “As a shelter-providing country, Canada has done everything needed,” Mainul Kabir said, adding that Canada was the only country offering to shelter the family. Thursday’s flight was out of the ordinary, he said, because groups that large normally are sent to another country in phases. ‘Serious fear for their security’ In October, an immigration and refugee affairs analyst said it was not unusual for Bangladesh to send Rohingya to a third country in the past. More than 900 Rohingya were sent to countries including the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Sweden in 2009 and 2010, said Asif Munir, a former official of the International Organization for Migration (IOM). This transfer is different because Ullah’s family left the country over a “serious fear for their security,” said Liton, general secretary of Ain-O-Salish Kendra (ASK), a local human rights organization. The IOM, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, and Canadian High Commission had arranged the family’s exit from Bangladesh, he said. Gunmen killed Ullah, chairman of the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace and Human Rights (ARSPH), in his office at the Kutupalong refugee camp in southeastern Cox’s Bazar district on Sept. 29, 2021.  Last month, Bangladeshi police said four of 15 people arrested over alleged ties to the killing had confessed to their roles in it and that those in custody said they belonged to the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), a Rohingya insurgent group. “UNHCR does not comment on individual cases,” Mostafa Mohammad Sazzad Hossain, an official at the U.N. agency’s office in Dhaka, told BenarNews. In addition, IOM and Canadian officials did not immediately respond to separate requests for comment. Before leaving the country, the family asked Bangladesh officials to reopen the recently closed Myanmar curriculum school established by Ullah, Liton said. About 1 million Rohingya, including 740,000 who fled Myanmar’s Rakhine state following a military crackdown in 2017, have settled in refugee camps in and around Cox’s Bazar, close to the border with Rakhine. Nasima Khatun, the widow of Rohingya activist Muhib Ullah, speaks to reporters at her home in a refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, Sept. 30, 2021. Credit: BenarNews In his role as ARSPH chairman, Ullah had represented the stateless Rohingya community before the United Nations and at the White House in Washington, where he expressed concerns about his fellow refugees to then-President Donald Trump in 2019. Two weeks after Ullah was killed, Bangladesh authorities cited security concerns when they moved his family to an undisclosed location. Police also moved the families of 10 other ARSPH leaders. At the time, Md. Rashid Ullah, ARSPH spokesman and Ullah’s nephew, told BenarNews that those families wanted to leave Bangladesh over their own safety concerns. Millions of dollars for Rohingya Ullah’s family left Bangladesh days after American Ambassador Peter Haas announced on March 29 that the United States was providing U.S. $152 million (13 billion taka) in new humanitarian assistance for the Rohingya and their host communities in Bangladesh. Haas made the announcement after his first visit to Cox’s Bazar earlier in the week, according to a news release from the U.S. Embassy. “This brings the total we’ve provided since August 2017 to $1.7 billion (145.5 billion taka),” Haas said in the news release. “Of this new funding, $125 million (10.7 billion taka) is for programs inside Bangladesh – for Rohingya refugees and affected Bangladeshi communities,” it said. In Fiscal Year 2021 alone, the U.S. government reported spending nearly $302 million (25.9 billion taka) in support of humanitarian assistance programs for Rohingya sheltering in Bangladesh. Also this week, UNHCR launched a 2022 Joint Response Plan to raise more than $881 million (75.7 billion taka) to assist Rohingya. The funding is to support more than 918,000 Rohingya and about 540,000 Bangladeshis in neighboring communities, a UNHCR press release said. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.
- [<div>How Russia's disinformation on Ukraine is spreading to democratic Taiwan, via China</div>](https://ij-reportika.com/how-russias-disinformation-on-ukraine-is-spreading-to-democratic-taiwan-via-china/): Russian and Chinese disinformation about Ukraine, which is ideologically linked to ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda on Taiwan, is breaking through into online discourse on the democratic island, a fact-checking organization based there has said. According to Taiwan&#8217;s Information Operations Research Group (IORG), which seeks to &#8220;counter authoritarian expansion with scientific research and grassroots organization,&#8221; tens of millions of social media posts, articles, videos and comments have deluged the Chinese-language internet since Russian troops began massing on the Ukrainian border in November 2021. Among the CCP narratives, which are often straight echoes of the Kremlin&#8217;s own, are the idea that the relationship between Russia and Ukraine is similar to that of an ex-husband and wife, that the war was made inevitable by NATO&#8217;s eastward expansions, and that the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion is responsible both for mass murder in Ukraine, and for violently supporting Hong Kong independence. Far-right Ukrainians were spotted at the Hong Kong protest movement of 2019, which also won vocal support from ultra-conservative politicians in the U.S., and were outed on social media by protesters at the time, the majority of whom didn&#8217;t welcome their presence in Hong Kong. Other Chinese-language, pro-Russian takes on the Russian invasion include the idea that Ukraine is to Russia what Texas is to the United States, that Ukraine has engaged in a &#8220;de-Russification&#8221; program that disregards the rights of Russians in the country, and the slogan &#8220;Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow.&#8221; These narratives have been recurring in both simplified Chinese from China and traditional Chinese from Taiwan and Hong Kong across Facebook, LINE and Weibo, and represent a large-scale information offensive, IORG codirector Yu Chih-hao told The Reporter. One of the sources for the neo-Nazi claim was traced by IORG and RFA&#8217;s partner, The Reporter, to a Nov. 13 post in simplified Chinese posted to the Chinese International Facebook page. The post cited state media Russia Today (RT). A similar article appeared on the Russian news agency Sputnik, which has 11.62 million followers on China&#8217;s Weibo platform. By Nov. 15, 2021, the nationalist Global Times was accusing the Ukrainian government of &#8220;flirting&#8221; with nationalist militants and fascist groups, with the narrative spreading like wildfire through content farms and Facebook pages in the month that followed. A man collects pictures from a school hit by Russian rockets in the southern Ukraine village of Zelenyi Hai between Kherson and Mykolaiv, less than 5 km (3 miles) from the front line, April 1, 2022. Credit: AFP Hong Kong, too In Hong Kong, the CCP-backed Wen Wei Po took up the theme, reporting: &#8220;Ukrainian neo-Nazis have extended their black hand to other countries and regions, including participating in the [2019 protest movement] in Hong Kong two years ago,&#8221; claiming that they were working with &#8220;Hong Kong separatists.&#8221; Calls for independence for Hong Kong surfaced relatively late during the protest movement, which began as a mass movement opposing extradition to mainland China, and broadened to include calls for fully democratic elections and official accountability. They were later outlawed under a draconian national security law imposed on Hong Kong by the CCP from July 1, 2020. There were also parallels between Russia&#8217;s claim on Ukraine, using neo-fascism as an excuse, and the CCP&#8217;s threat of military invasion of Taiwan, given the Taiwan authorities&#8217; vocal support for the Hong Kong protests movement. According to You, this oversimplification and and exaggeration of the power and influence of the Azov battalion is deliberate, because it is preparing the ground for a future invasion of Taiwan, which has never been ruled by the CCP, nor formed part of the People&#8217;s Republic of China. The saying &#8220;Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow,&#8221; is also all over the Taiwanese internet, and is designed to give an air of inevitability both to Russia&#8217;s invasion of Ukraine, and to a putative Chinese invasion of Taiwan, IORG said. Summer Chen, editor-in-chief of the Taiwan FactCheck Center (TFC), said the war has once more highlighted Taiwan&#8217;s vulnerability to information warfare. She cited a Sputnik News Agency report on Feb. 26 claiming that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy had fled Kyiv, which appeared on a number of mainstream Taiwanese media sites. While the article was based on &#8220;unconfirmed reports,&#8221; the headlines about Zelenskyy&#8217;s &#8220;escape&#8221; from Kyiv gave the impression of legitimacy. Chen said Taiwanese media are particularly vulnerable to manipulation on Ukraine, as they lack their own sources of information on the ground, and rely too easily on Russian media for news of the war. Lu Sibin, a researcher at Taiwan&#8217;s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said the same content is also widely circulating in Chinese state media. &#8220;This is a phenomenon that hasn&#8217;t happened before,&#8221; Lu told RFA. &#8220;Not many people are aware of the extent to which Russian media content is being reused and disseminated in Chinese.&#8221; &#8220;Everyone thinks it&#8217;s only there to improve the performance targets of Russian officials.&#8221; Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (L) and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi during his first visit to China since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine in February, at their meeting in Huangshan in China&#8217;s Anhui province, March 30, 2022. Credit: China Central Television (CCTV) via AFPTV. Language facilitates fake news flow A survey of Chinese reports on Ukraine published during the past four month, carried out by IORG and The Reporter, found at least 400 articles that directly cited Russian state media as the main source of information. The majority covered Zelenskyy&#8217;s now-debunked &#8220;flight from Kyiv,&#8221; the erroneous claim that Russia now controls Ukrainian airspace, and disinformation that the U.S. secretly helped Ukraine develop biochemical weapons at a network of laboratories. The ready availability of such content in Chinese makes it that much easier for these items of fake news to penetrate websites in democratic Taiwan, You said. Senior journalists in Taiwan who spoke anonymously to The Reporter and RFA said they are typically expected to write up international news reports under extreme time pressure, and rely on quoting agency reports while attributing them to their source, with no time or resources to perform an independent...
- [Press freedom in Hong Kong gets lowest marks from public since handover to China](https://ij-reportika.com/press-freedom-in-hong-kong-gets-lowest-marks-from-public-since-handover-to-china/): Public satisfaction with the media in Hong Kong has hit rock bottom, according to a recent public opinion survey. Satisfaction with the performance of the news media in general hit an all-time low since records began in 1993, according to a survey of 1,004 Cantonese-speaking adults carried out by the Hong Kong Public Institute Research Institute (PORI). Meanwhile, satisfaction with the freedom of the press in Hong Kong fell by 23 percentage points &#8230; its lowest point since records began after the 1997 handover to Chinese rule, PORI said in a report published on Friday. Just 28 percent of respondents expressed satisfaction with the level of press freedom in Hong Kong, a new low since this question was first asked in September 1997, while 51 percent said they were dissatisfied, the highest level since October 2020. In addition, a record 46 percent felt that the Hong Kong news media didn&#8217;t make full use of what freedom of speech it did have, while 63 percent said the media held back on criticisms of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), while 51 percent said it avoided criticizing the Hong Kong authorities. Senior journalist Chris Yeung said the figures were a reflection of an ongoing crackdown on public dissent and political opposition under the CCP&#8217;s draconian national security law, which has seen several pro-democracy news outlets forced to close and senior journalists arrested under the law. &#8220;The trend is obvious,&#8221; Yeung told journalists on Friday. &#8220;At the very least, it&#8217;s very clear that the public believes the media has reservations and self-censors when dealing with matters relating to the central government.&#8221; &#8220;Many Hong Kong matters now include the point of view of the central government, from the national security law to COVID-19 policy and even the recent [China Eastern] air crash,&#8221; Yeung said. &#8220;The media are also careful how they handle other news that isn&#8217;t ostensibly political, like the case of Peng Shuai,&#8221; he said. Yeung said the poll results were &#8220;absolutely&#8221; related to the closure of a number of media outlets including the pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper and Stand News, Yeung said. &#8220;Diversity of media voices is an very important element of press freedom,&#8221; he said, adding that there is really only room for pro-government voices in the Hong Kong media now. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Philippine President Duterte plans to meet with Chinese ‘friend’ Xi on April 8](https://ij-reportika.com/philippine-president-duterte-plans-to-meet-with-chinese-friend-xi-on-april-8/): Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte said he would meet next week virtually with his “friend,” Chinese leader Xi Jinping, as Filipino and U.S. forces conduct one of their largest joint exercises in years in the Southeast Asian nation bordering the disputed South China Sea. The presidential office in Manila announced the upcoming meeting while troops, during the Balikatan (“shoulder-to-shoulder”) exercise, participated Thursday in a drill simulating an attack response on a remote beach on the northern tip of Luzon Island that fronts China and Taiwan. “China is good,” Duterte said, according to transcripts released to the media on Friday. “April 8. Xi Jinping wants to talk to me. We are friends.” Additional details of the planned meeting were being firmed up on Friday and Duterte’s office had not yet released topics to be discussed by the two leaders. “[T]his meeting is still in the preparatory stage,” Communications Undersecretary Kristian Ablan said. “So what specific issues will be discussed by the world leaders will be known in the coming days.” Although the Xi-Duterte meeting will be virtual, it is customary for a Philippine president to visit allies before leaving office. Duterte’s single six-year term ends on June 30. The 2022 version of Balikatan is the biggest joint exercise involving Philippine and U.S. troops in seven years. About 9,000 troops are involved in the war games, which are schedule to end on April 8, the same day Duterte is to meet with Xi. The exercise began shortly after the Philippine Coast Guard reported a March 2 “close distance maneuvering” incident involving one of its ships and the China Coast Guard near Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. Philippine officials said the Chinese ship sailed within 21 meters (69 feet) of the Philippine ship and accused Beijing of violating 1972 international regulations on preventing collisions at sea. Balikatan comes two months after the Biden administration in the United States introduced a new strategy to increase security engagements in the Indo-Pacific region amid growing concerns about China. Duterte’s relationships At the beginning of his term in 2016, Duterte drifted away from traditional ally Washington in favor of China and Russia. Instead of enforcing an international court ruling that invalidated China’s expansive claims to the nearly all of the South China Sea, the president pursued friendlier ties with Xi, leading to increased Chinese investments in the Philippines. While admitting in 2021 that the court ruling was binding, Duterte continued to emphasize his friendship with the Chinese leader, noting that Manila was indebted to Beijing for providing COVID-19 vaccines in the early days of the pandemic.  In March 2021, Duterte said he planned to visit China, a country he traveled to six times, to personally thank Xi for the vaccines. Those visits are the most by any Philippine president while in office to a foreign country but Duterte has never visited Washington, according to officials.  Duterte last traveled to China in August 2019 on a five-day official visit when he raised the landmark arbitral ruling for the Philippines on the South China Sea.  China has rejected the ruling and insisted on its historical claims over virtually the entire sea region, which the court ruled as having no basis under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Aside from China and the Philippines, five other Asian governments – Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam – have territorial claims. While Indonesia does not regard itself as a party to the South China Sea dispute, Beijing claims historic rights to parts of the sea overlapping Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone. Manila has grown critical of Beijing’s actions during the past year, including Chinese fishing boats swarming near the Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoal. In early March, the Philippines protested a Chinese navy reconnaissance ship’s “illegal incursion” in the Sulu Sea – a move that Beijing said did not break international law. In a rare move in November 2021, Duterte expressed “grave concern” after a China Coast Guard ship fired water cannon on Filipino supply boats in the disputed waters.  “We abhor the recent event in the Ayungin Shoal and view with grave concern other similar developments,” Duterte said at the time.  BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.
- [Italian university probes Chinese professor who singled out student from Taiwan](https://ij-reportika.com/italian-university-probes-chinese-professor-who-singled-out-student-from-taiwan/): A university in Italy is investigating allegations of bullying by a Chinese lecturer following a classroom dispute about the status of Taiwan, local media reported. Complaints were made after Politecnico di Milano architecture lecturer and Chinese national Chen Zhen admonished a student from the democratic island of Taiwan, which has never been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) nor formed part of the People&#8217;s Republic of China, for failing to register as &#8220;Chinese.&#8221; &#8220;I will talk something to Wang, but this is nothing related to the other two Iranian students, so I&#8217;m going to speak in Chinese with him, OK?&#8221; Chen is seen saying in English at the start of a video clip that he initially posted to his own account on the Chinese social media account WeChat. The clip was later picked up by Australia-based asylum-seeker Wang Lebao and amplified on Twitter. Chen continues in Chinese: &#8220;So, Wang, it&#8217;s not about your thesis. This has nothing to do with the other two students, so I&#8217;m going to say this in Chinese &#8230; I gave everyone a thesis template, asking them to fill out which city and which country they&#8217;re from. You wrote Taipei, Taiwan.&#8221; &#8220;The first thing I want to say is, the whole European Union, including Italy, sees Taiwan as a part of China,&#8221; he said. &#8220;You should know that not a single EU government, nor many others, officially recognizes Taiwan as a country.&#8221; &#8220;Your government may like to play word games to fool the people, but they&#8217;ve never amended the constitution,&#8221; he said. Taiwan was part of Japanese territory for the first half of the 20th century, before being handed over the 1911 Republic of China under Chiang Kai-shek at the end of World War II. The islands of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu are still governed as a sovereign state under its constitution. Politecnico di Milano in Milan, Italy. Credit: Politecnico di Milano &#8216;Unification&#8217; widely rejected Recent opinion polls have shown that the majority of its 23 million population don&#8217;t identify as Chinese, and have no wish to be governed by Beijing, which has threatened to annex Taiwan by military force to achieve its idea of &#8220;unification.&#8221; The &#8220;paternalistic and aggressive tone&#8221; of Chen&#8217;s comments prompted the university investigate, the Today.it news website reported. Taiwan&#8217;s foreign affairs ministry condemned the treatment of Wang as &#8220;an abuse of power,&#8221; and said it had asked its representative office in Italy to follow up on the matter. University rector Ferruccio Resta confirmed to the office that the university&#8217;s disciplinary committee has begun an investigation into the incident to determine whether Chen&#8217;s actions had violated the school&#8217;s code of ethics and conduct. Lee Hsin-ying, Taiwan&#8217;s representative in Italy, told Taiwanese students in the country that what had happened was &#8220;very wrong,&#8221; and a bid to quash any sense of national identity among them. Article 2 of the code requires the university to &#8220;prevent and combat all kinds of discrimination, both direct and indirect,&#8221; banning words, actions and procedures that discriminates against people based on gender, ethnic or national origin, sexual orientation, religion, personal or political views, abilities, social background or age,&#8221; the website said. &#8220;The Polytechnic should consider it of primary importance not to allow the promotion of the Chinese Communist Party&#8217;s world view or propaganda in an Italian university,&#8221; the Today.it website said in the commentary article. &#8220;Pending further developments, we ask ourselves: will this lecturer continue to teach at the university, and promote [CCP leader] Xi Jinping thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era?&#8221; the article said. Chinese &#8216;bullying&#8217; blasted Italian politicians also hit out at the incident, saying it was &#8220;bullying.&#8221; &#8220;The Polytechnic of Milan should suspend this teacher should suspend this teacher who attacks and bullies a Taiwanese student by imposing on him a geopolitical lesson using the worst of Chinese propaganda-speak,&#8221; Gianni Vernetti, a former senator and deputy minister from the center-left Democratic Party, said via his Twitter account. And far-right Brothers of Italy senator Lucio Malan accused Chen of trying to &#8220;re-educate&#8221; the Taiwanese student, saying he would demand an explanation from the relevant government minister. Milan&#8217;s il Giornale newspaper also weighed in with an editorial on Monday noting that Taiwan still has formal diplomatic ties with the Vatican, and is for all practical purposes a sovereign state. The row came after the 59th Bologna Children&#8217;s Book Fair succumbed to pressure from the Chinese government to change the country of origin of Taiwanese artist Pei-Hsin Cho to &#8220;Taiwan, China.&#8221; Taiwan&#8217;s foreign ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou condemned the move, and accused China of trying to smear the island for political reasons. Cho had been holding a solo exhibition at the book fair after winning an award there last year. &#8220;The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Taiwan reiterates that Taiwan is a sovereign state of the Republic of China and is not subordinate to the People&#8217;s Republic of China,&#8221; Ou said. &#8220;The Chinese government has never ruled Taiwan for a day, and naturally has no right to claim to represent Taiwan in the international arena or to devalue the name of the country used by the people of Taiwan to participate in activities.&#8221; &#8220;Taiwan and Italy share universal values such as democracy, freedom, and human rights; Taiwan solemnly calls on relevant Italian departments to show courage and reject China’s inappropriate bullying,&#8221; she said. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [With an eye on China, Japan plans 2 + 2 talks with Philippines, India](https://ij-reportika.com/with-an-eye-on-china-japan-plans-2-2-talks-with-philippines-india/): Japan plans to hold so-called &#8220;two-plus-two&#8221; meetings with the Philippines and India to discuss maritime security including in the South China Sea, a move analysts say could send a message to Beijing about Tokyo’s determination to foster ties with like-minded partners. “Two-plus-two” are ministerial-level meetings that involve both foreign and defense ministers of participating countries. Unnamed diplomatic sources were quoted by Kyodo News Agency as saying that arrangements are being made for Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi to meet with their Philippine counterparts in early April, and their Indian counterparts in mid-April in Tokyo. China’s growing maritime assertiveness is expected to be high on the agenda, and ministers are expected to renew their pledge to promote a &#8220;free and open&#8221; Indo-Pacific region. Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin and Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana are expected to travel to Tokyo for the talks. The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed to RFA that Japan and the Philippines are considering the launch of a two-plus-two meeting but maintained that &#8220;the timing has not been decided yet.&#8221; Neither the Philippine nor Indian foreign ministries responded to requests for comment. The talks are being planned amid a complex geopolitical backdrop. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, said Friday that he would meet with his &#8220;friend&#8221; Chinese leader Xi Jinping to discuss territorial disputes in the South China Sea on April 8. Duterte has had limited success in forging a more cooperative relationship with Beijing during his six-year term which ends in June. China and the Philippines are both claimants in the South China Sea alongside four other parties: Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan. Beijing holds the most expansive claim. While Japan is not a claimant, it is a strategic rival of China, and the two powers have competing claims in the East China Sea. Huynh Tam Sang, an analyst at Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Vietnam, said Tokyo’s plans for the two-plus-two talks “could send a nuanced message to Beijing about Japan&#8217;s determination to foster security ties with like-minded partners.” “If Japan could bring the Philippines and India on board for maritime deterrence, it will be a big deal,” said Sang. The Philippines filed a diplomatic protest this week over a Chinese Coast Guard vessel’s dangerous “maneuvering” in the South China Sea. Beijing rejected the accusation saying China has “sovereign rights and jurisdiction” over the waters. Japanese and Philippine ministers are expected to discuss arms exports to the Philippines, Kyodo’s sources said. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi welcomes Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida ahead of their meeting at Hyderabad House, in New Delhi, India, March 19, 2022. Credit: Reuters Quad members When Japanese Prime Minister Kishida visited India last month, Japan and India also agreed to hold what would be their second two-plus-two meeting &#8220;at an early date.&#8221; But the timing of the meeting has not been decided, either, Japan says. Both Japan and India are members of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) and important players in the Indo-Pacific so “it is only natural for India to also interact with Japan for two-plus-two,” said Sana Hashmi, visiting fellow at the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation. “Two-plus-two talks demonstrate the level of engagement and the willingness to strengthen the partnership by both sides,” Hashmi said, adding: “Of course, China’s aggression is a factor in countries’ willingness to advance ties, but India-Japan relations are multifaceted and two-plus-two dialogue is a part of this multifaceted engagement.” Besides the Philippines and India, Japan has held two-plus-two security talks with the United States, Australia, Britain, France, Germany, Indonesia and Russia.
- [Upward trend in Myanmar online wildlife trade endangers biodiversity and public health](https://ij-reportika.com/wildlife-trade-myanmar-online/): Upward trend in Myanmar online wildlife trade New research by WWF shows that online illegal wildlife trade in Myanmar increased by 74% from 2020 to 2021. The report, ‘Going viral: Myanmar’s wildlife trade escalates online,’ details 173 different species being advertised for sale online in 2021, up from 143 species the year before. Sales of mammal species &#8211; either as live animals or their body parts &#8211; rose by 241%. Posts that advertised mammals for sale referenced commercially bred civets, meat of the critically endangered Sunda pangolin for consumption, elephant skin pieces for jewellery and juvenile bears as pets. All these animals are used as an ingredient of Traditional Chinese Medicines (TCMs). “WWF research reveals that online trade in wildlife within Myanmar is escalating,” said Shaun Martin, WWF-Asia Pacific’s Regional Illegal Wildlife Trade Cybercrime Project Lead. “Despite the global importance of Myanmar’s biodiversity and everything we now know about the origins of COVID-19, online trade monitoring has revealed different species being kept in close proximity &#8211; sometimes in the same cage, wild meat selling out in minutes with demands for more, sales of soon-to-be extinct animals openly discussed in online groups, and trade occurring across country borders. With Asia’s track record as a breeding ground for many recent zoonotic diseases, this sharp uptick in online trade of wildlife in Myanmar is extremely concerning.”  Similar wildlife deterioration was observed in many African countries in the past decade.    Key findings from new WWF report on online trade in wildlife include More than 11,046 products from 173 species were recorded for sale online in 2021. 96% of posts were for live animals, with 87% advertising that animals had been taken from the wild. Mammal sale posts rose 241% from 2020 to 2021. The largest online trading group had more than 19,000 members and over 30 posts a day. The number of traded species on the IUCN Red List rose 80% from 2020 to 2021. Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), swine flu (H1N1), avian flu (H5N1), and COVID&#8211;19, all originated in animals and have proliferated in Asia in the last two decades. With scientists estimating that 3 out of every 4 new or emerging infectious diseases in people come from animals, it is likely that animal to human disease spillover &#8211; or zoonoses &#8211; would be the trigger for future pandemics. The trade in live wildlife and wildlife parts brings many species and their pathogens together, increasing the potential for spillover to humans. Among the 11,046 wildlife items promoted for sale through social media posts were six species listed as “Critically Endangered” on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, indicating an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. A further seven species were marked “Endangered” and 33 marked “Vulnerable” on the IUCN Red List. Of particular note were posts that advertised the Sunda and Chinese pangolins, both “Critically Endangered” species, with pangolins also identified as carrying SARS-related betacoronaviruses., These posts advertised pangolins as live animals and wild meat, as well as referring to commercial breeding. Similar posts for civets were also seen, with civets identified as the intermediate host of the virus that caused the SARS outbreak in Asia in 2002. “The risk of new pathogen transmission from wild animals to humans &#8211; the most common source of new epidemics, and pandemics &#8211; is increased by the close contact conditions created by this trade,” said Emiko Matsuda, Group Lead on Biodiversity and Public Sector Partnership, WWF-Japan. “These online sales of live animals and wildlife products need to be disrupted before they escalate any further, endangering Myanmar’s precious wildlife and global public health.”    
- [For Myanmar’s youth, college becomes another casualty of country’s turmoil](https://ij-reportika.com/for-myanmars-youth-college-becomes-another-casualty-of-countrys-turmoil/): Security concerns led to a dramatic decline in the number of students who registered for the first university entrance exams in Myanmar since the military coup, sources said Thursday, citing ongoing unrest and armed conflict in the Southeast Asian nation. The junta’s Ministry of Education that only 312,299 students had signed up for the exams during the 2021-2022 academic year. The number represented a decrease of more than two-thirds from two years earlier, when 970,759 students registered. It also marked the first decline in registrants in at least seven years, when 632,314 students took the exams in 2014-2015 — a drop from the previous term but a number that is still twice as large as in 2021-2022. Exams were cancelled during the 2020-2021 academic year due to COVID-19 school closures. This year’s exams, which are scheduled to run until April 9, are being held amid daily anti-junta bombings and public unrest throughout the country, and reports have emerged of the military blocking access to test sites. A Yangon-based student who took the exam said parents are no longer allowed to wait for their children in front of test centers as in previous years. “There was a large presence of soldiers and police outside,” she said, adding that students “just gave the answers to the exam questions quickly and left.” Aung Kyaw, deputy permanent secretary of the Ministry of Education, told RFA that security measures had been strengthened to allow testing to proceed. “We have coordinated with the health department and the security department,” he said. “All of our education ministry staff are also kept on standby. They are performing their duties. Security measures are in place and teachers have been working nonstop.” The testing marked the end to a trying academic year. In addition to the coup, schools had to contend with a COVID-19 outbreak that forced their closure for four months. When they reopened on Nov. 1, many students did not return, both in protest of military rule and out of fear that they could be the subject of an anti-junta attack. In Kayah state, where the military has encountered staunch resistance since launching offensives against armed ethnic groups and prodemocracy People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries, only 780 students had registered for this year&#8217;s matriculation exam. Since the coup, fighting in the region — which is home to around 290,000 people — has displaced more than 100,000 civilians, including many students. Soe Mya, a student from Ngwedaung village, in Kayah’s Demawso township, told RFA she had to flee her home due to the fighting and was forced to miss the exam. “Before the coup, I was ready to graduate and continue my schooling. My parents had made accommodation arrangements for me, and I had completed all of the necessary tutoring,” she said. “Of course, I want to go to school when I see others going. But it wasn’t possible to apply for this exam as we’re currently on the run and sheltering in the jungle.” Soe Mya said she had seen far fewer students taking university exams this year than in previous ones —particularly in Demawso, where clashes had occurred as recently as Thursday morning. Boycotts of military-run schooling Some parents RFA spoke with said that they had simply refused to allow their children to attend school or sit for exams in protest of the military-run education system. “Many schoolteachers are taking part in the [Civil Disobedience Movement] to protest the junta and we don’t like the teachers who replaced them,” said Khin Than Nu, a mother from Sagaing region, who said she had chosen to homeschool her children. “We will continue their education when the country is at peace. In the meantime, there are many vocational training courses available on the internet and my children are also learning English online.” According to the Ministry of Education, Rakhine state had the highest registration rate of students for the academic year at 45,592, followed by Yangon region with 37,560, and Mandalay with 37,202. Kayah state’s 780 registrants was the lowest of any region. Parents told RFA that despite the number of registrants, they expect the actual number of students who take this year’s university exams will be lower. When asked how many students had taken the exam on Thursday, a Ministry of Education official told RFA he did not know the exact number. The photos of two young boys shot dead during armed clashes are displayed during a funeral service in Mon state&#8217;s Bilin township, in an undated photo. Credit: Citizen journalist Youth victims While Myanmar’s coup and political upheaval have severely impacted access to education for the country’s youth, they have also put them at greater personal risk in their daily lives. According to Thailand’s Assistance Association of Political Prisoners, authorities in Myanmar have killed at least 1,723 civilians and arrested 10,000 others since the coup — mostly during peaceful anti-junta protests. A recent investigation by RFA found that more than 100 of those killed were under the age of 18. Sources described victims that included a six-year-old who died as he slept when junta troops shelled his village in Magway region’s Yezagyo township on the night of March 26, four teenagers who were among 11 people discovered burned to death by soldiers in Sagaing region’s Salingyi township on Dec. 7, 2021, and a 12-year-old boy who was shot dead by authorities in Sagaing’s Shwebo township on March 27 last year. RFA also confirmed the deaths of youths who were killed while participating in anti-junta protests, while detained on suspicion of involvement with the PDF or the country’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) and as the result of stray bullets and artillery fire. A resident of Salingyi’s Dontaw village, where the burned corpses were discovered in December, condemned what he said was the senseless killing of innocent youths. “These soldiers care little of the rights of children because the junta is trying to do whatever it can to harm the people. They don’t care whether people are young or...
- [Denmark commission finds Copenhagen illegally silenced anti-China demonstrators](https://ij-reportika.com/denmark-commission-finds-copenhagen-illegally-silenced-anti-china-demonstrators/): A commission appointed by the government of Denmark this week criticized the country’s Foreign Ministry for giving into Chinese pressure and preventing anti-Beijing demonstrations during state visits in 2012 and 2013. The Tibet Commission found that Denmark’s intelligence and security service used pressure to convince police in Copenhagen to stop all anti-China demonstrations, in violation of the country’s constitution. Protesters were barred from gathering within sight of the visiting Chinese delegations. The police hid them behind buses and confiscated Tibetan flags. China had cancelled several official visits to Denmark after a 2009 “unofficial” meeting between then Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and the Dalai Lama. The commission found that the canceled visits caused Copenhagen to pursue China-friendly policies. This was evident in 2011, when the Dalai Lama visited Denmark to give lectures on management and the meaning of life. The organizers of that visit made it clear that there would be no political meetings during his stay in the country.  “This issue is being discussed in the press and its being dealt by many ministerial and politicians. Several ministers have already commented that they will try to remedy these mistakes,” Anders Højmark Andersen, chairman of the Tibet Support Committee in Denmark, told RFA’s Tibetan Service. “This is the second report by the Tibet Commission which has dealt with period from 1995 to 2015, so it covers 20 years. There have been more than 200 Chinese official visits to Denmark in this period but it also deals with Tibetans’ visit to Denmark like His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s visit,” Andersen said. Andersen noted that although pro-Tibetan independence groups were allowed to demonstrate, they were often placed in areas where visiting Chinese officials would never run into them. “And that’s the problem,” he said. “During Hu Jintao’s visit in 2012, police even took Tibetan flags away from us in the street but we still succeeded in showing the Tibetan flag to the Chinese president fortunately”. “I think that now Chinese officials will hesitate before visiting Denmark on a very high level. And I also think they will only send lower-level leaders to Denmark in the future because now they know that they cannot persuade the police to hide us anymore,” Andersen said. He noted that Sino-Danish relations have been good since 2008 when Beijing and Copenhagen entered into a strategic partnership, but things have soured more recently. “The Danish government has realized the worsening human rights record in China and the attempt by the incumbent President Xi to assume lifelong leadership,” said Andersen. China routinely pressures foreign governments to silence criticism of Beijing, Mandie McKeown, executive director for the UK-based International Tibet Network International, told RFA in an email. “We have seen this kind of influence many times before. Most notably back in 1999 when Metropolitan Police broke U.K. law in their handling of demonstrators during the state visit of then-Chinese president Jiang Zemin,” she said. “In a high court case brought by the Free Tibet Campaign (where I worked), the police agreed they had policed Free Tibet demonstrators &#8220;unlawfully&#8221; by removing Free Tibet banners and Tibetan National flags from people solely on the basis that they were protesting against the Chinese President&#8217;s visit,” said McKeown . She said Beijing has tried to bully other governments into silence, recalling that in 2016 at least 12 governments issued a joint statement to the U.N. Human Rights Council saying they had been targeted by Chinese pressure. “Ireland was threatened with the cancelling of a multi-euro trade deal. The Irish Times reported that the Irish government had been warned by the Chinese authorities that a vote by Ireland at the United Nations Human Rights Council could have consequences for a multi-million-euro beef trade deal,” she said. “Notably we have seen China move towards a more sophisticated plan to build influence by doubling down on building their soft power and its ability to influence other countries, communities and individuals,” McKeown said. RFA attempted to reach the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Justice Department in Denmark for comments but received no reply. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Shanghai's lockdown shock](https://ij-reportika.com/shanghais-lockdown-shock/): Authorities in Shanghai, China&#8217;s biggest city and financial hub, suddenly announced a full lockdown after the detection of the omicron variant of coronavirus. The strictness of Shanghai&#8217;s COVID-19 restrictions caught many residents in the city of 26 million people off-guard, sparking anger and panic-buying that emptied shelves and raised concerns about elderly people unable to access food. While public criticism of government policies is risky in China, some questioned the wisdom of Chinese Communist Party chief Xi Jinping&#8217;s insistence on a zero-COVID policy, and one economist said the lockdowns could cost the economy at least $46 billion a month in lost output.
- [Indonesian foreign minister calls on Russia to stop war with Ukraine](https://ij-reportika.com/indonesian-foreign-minister-calls-on-russia-to-stop-war-with-ukraine/): During a meeting with her Russian counterpart in China this week, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said she pressed Moscow to end its war with Ukraine, citing the urgent humanitarian situation and the conflict’s ripple effects on the world economy.  Her Wednesday talk with Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of an international meeting to discuss the situation in another country scarred by war – Afghanistan – focused on the war in Ukraine, Retno told reporters on Thursday. “Indonesia conveyed the importance of ending the war immediately because of its tremendous humanitarian impact, not to mention its impact on global economic recovery,” Retno told a virtual news conference from China. “I reiterated Indonesia’s consistent position, including respect for international law and the principles of the United Nations Charter such as sovereignty and territorial integrity,” she said. Retno said that, during a separate meeting on Wednesday, she also asked Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to support efforts to end the Russian invasion. “I conveyed the importance of all parties, including China, to push for an immediate end to the war so that the humanitarian crisis does not get worse,” Retno said of her meeting with Wang. Retno talked with Lavrov and Wang on the sidelines of a dialogue between Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and its neighboring Chinese district of Tunxi. The dialogue sought to stabilize Afghanistan, which is known today as an Islamic emirate after the Taliban took over following the withdrawal of U.S. forces last year. Regarding Ukraine, Indonesian officials hope negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv could be positive, she said. “Flexibility is needed so that negotiations can produce good results. And all parties must strive to end the war immediately to avoid the worsening of the humanitarian situation,” she said. During peace talks in Istanbul on Tuesday, Russian negotiators agreed to “fundamentally” cut back operations near the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and the northern city of Chernihiv, news agencies reported. Alexander Fomin, Russia’s deputy defense minister, said the move was meant “to increase trust and create conditions for further negotiations.” Despite those statements, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday dismissed Russia’s pledge, saying his army was getting ready for clashes in the east, Agence France-Presse reported. “We don’t believe anyone, not a single beautiful phrase,” Zelenskyy said in a video address to his nation. “We will not give anything away. We will fight for every meter of our territory.”   Since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, more than 4 million Ukrainians have fled their country, according to a United Nations report. Shuttle diplomacy Hikmahanto Juwana, an international law professor at the University of Indonesia, said Jakarta should maintain communication with all parties in the Ukraine conflict. “Indonesia can also send its foreign ministers or a special envoy to engage in shuttle diplomacy to discuss solutions [on ending the war],” he told BenarNews. He noted that Indonesia will be hosting the G-20 summit of the world’s leading economies in October, and that could be spurring the nation’s interest in seeing fighting end in Ukraine. “Indonesia through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs must act immediately to make the G-20 summit a success and ensure that all heads of government and heads of state are present,” he said. Indonesia has sent invitations to all member countries, including Russia, foreign ministry official Dian Triansyah Djani said earlier. Russia’s ambassador to Indonesia has said that Putin planned to attend G-20 summit in Bali despite attempts by Western governments to oust Moscow from the grouping. Ukraine, which is not a G-20 member, had previously urged Indonesia to include discussions on the invasion during the summit. But Teuku Faizasyah, spokesman for Indonesia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, had said Jakarta’s stance was “that the G-20 summit should focus on global economic issues.” Afghanistan While attending the gathering of Afghanistan and other countries during the China dialogue, Retno said she stressed the need for the ruling Taliban to open education to all children. In his own message to dialogue attendees, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged his nation’s support for Afghanistan but without mentioning the Taliban’s alleged human rights abuses, the Associated Press reported. Meanwhile on March 26, Indonesian and Qatari officials signed a letter of intent to provide scholarships and skills training for teen girls in Afghanistan, Retno said. “I expressed my hope that the ban on schooling for Afghan girls at the secondary school level can be reviewed,” she said of her statement at the dialogue. “As the largest Muslim country, Indonesia is ready to contribute to helping the people of Afghanistan, including in the field of education,” she said. The Taliban, which returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, had planned to allow teen girls to attend secondary schools, but dropped the plan last week over concerns about uniforms and the dress-code for schoolgirls. Girls can attend school up to grade six. She said it was important that the Taliban make good on its promises. “The Taliban needs to prepare a road map with concrete steps and timelines for fulfilling promises,” Retno said. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.
- [Shanghai battens down for further lockdowns as city government admits poor planning](https://ij-reportika.com/shanghai-battens-down-for-further-lockdowns-as-city-government-admits-poor-planning/): China looks set to stay with its controversial zero-COVID policy, as residents of the west bank of Shanghai&#8217;s Huangpu river flocked to supermarkets ahead of Friday&#8216;s scheduled lockdown, and patients said they were having trouble getting lifesaving medical treatment due to testing restrictions. The city, which is home to 26 million people, is under a two-phase lockdown that saw the Pudong financial district locked down for five days, to be followed by Puxi across the river on Friday. But the Pudong lockdown looks set to be extended as the authorities grapple with a rapidly rising wave of fresh community transmission of the omicron variant of COVID-19. High-ranking Shanghai government official Ma Chunlei admitted that the government had been taken unawares by the rapid rise in infections, as the city reported more than 5,600 newly confirmed cases, both symptomatic and asymptomatic. Ma said his government was working hard to address citywide food shortages. &#8220;Our knowledge about the highly contagious omicron variant has been insufficient, we were inadequately prepared for the fast-rising number of infected patients, and our control measures have not been up to speed,&#8221; Ma told journalists on Thursday, in a rare official admission of responsibility. &#8220;We sincerely accept everyone&#8217;s criticism, and are working hard to improve,&#8221; Ma said in a briefing, adding that the government is expanding its COVID-19 testing and patient isolation facilities. &#8216;Dynamic clearance&#8217; The Shanghai municipal government also sent the message to the city&#8217;s residents by mass SMS, a resident surnamed Wang told RFA. &#8220;The Shanghai government was criticized today because of the huge number of complaints we have received,&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;They started distributing emergency supplies of food yesterday, but it isn&#8217;t being distributed to every household, only to those in need.&#8221; &#8220;Actually, every household is having difficulty,&#8221; he said. &#8220;There are many people in my community, and only 100 households have been given a small amount of fresh vegetables.&#8221; State news agency Xinhua weighed in on the side of mass testing and lockdown-style restrictions, saying the CCP&#8217;s preferred method of &#8220;dynamic clearance&#8221; to contain COVID-19 hadn&#8217;t changed. And food supplies aren&#8217;t the only issue. Many patients are now unable to access life-saving medical treatment as the city&#8217;s hospitals shut their doors. A woman surnamed Zhou said her husband had been scheduled to get his weekly hemodialysis at Shanghai&#8217;s Zhongshan Hospital, but the entire area is now under lockdown. &#8220;Zhongshan Hospital has been helping us find other hospitals to go to,&#8221; said Zhou, who estimated that around 500 other patients are in a similar situation to her husband. Tests before appointments She said the problem is that hospitals require a negative PCR test before patients are allowed to attend their appointments. &#8220;We were notified that we had an appointment at Longhua Hospital this evening, but it takes 24 hours to get a PCR test result back,&#8221; Zhou said. &#8220;The results come out too late, sometimes more than 10 hours too late.&#8221; Another resident surnamed Wu said his mother was rejected for treatment for terminal cancer, and local officials didn&#8217;t allow her to leave until he complained about it on social media. &#8220;My mother was admitted yesterday &#8230; they want a [negative] PCR test result to admit you,&#8221; Wu said. &#8220;I would call the neighborhood committee but their phone was constantly busy or rang unanswered.&#8221; &#8220;Within half an hour [of my social media appeal], they called me,&#8221; he said. But Shanghai resident Zhao Ning said he knew of someone who died of an asthma attack due to the lockdown restrictions imposed on medical patients. &#8220;When he was taken ill, he called an ambulance, and his family went to the police [on guard] at the door for help, but the police didn&#8217;t help them,&#8221; Zhao said. &#8220;Another ambulance came for a COVID-19 patient next door, and they went to ask for help from them, but they couldn’t help them. Then the asthma patient died.&#8221; Shanghai has seen around 20,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 since March 1, although observers believe the true number may be several times higher. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Struggling North Koreans say they are in no mood to celebrate missile launch](https://ij-reportika.com/struggling-north-koreans-say-they-are-in-no-mood-to-celebrate-missile-launch/): Following North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch last week, its first since 2017, the country’s media has been lauding it as evidence of Kim Jong Un’s leadership and bravery, sources in the country told RFA. But citizens and soldiers alike are beginning to resent the use of missile launches to praise Kim Jong Un, who is reverently referred to as the “Highest Dignity,” and would rather the government pay more attention to issues like food and supply shortages. Though it was initially believed that North Korea launched the Hwasong-17 ICBM on March 24, South Korean military authorities reported Tuesday that it was in fact the older Hwasong-15. The Hwasong-17 was involved in a failed launch on March 16 and exploded over Pyongyang, they said. “Today, while I was reading the news report in the Rodong Sinmun newspaper app on my smartphone, there was a report saying the Highest Dignity signed an order to launch an ICBM and I was skeptical whether our leader is the right person,” an official of Ryongchon county, in the northwestern province of North Pyongan, told RFA’s Korean Service. “This year, the authorities insist that the food problem should be solved by decisively increasing agricultural production. Cooperative farms are struggling because they do not have fertilizer and other materials that are desperately needed for farming preparations, but the authorities do not provide any funds,” said the source, who requested anonymity for security reasons. He said that the money the government is using for nuclear and missile development could be better used to boost the agricultural sector, but the government keeps launching missiles, so farm officials are angry. In the city of Chongju in the south of the province, government loudspeakers have been broadcasting propaganda about the missile test. “It says the Highest Dignity directly guided the launch of an ICBM that could stand up to a long-term confrontation with the United States,” a resident of the city told RFA. “This is the 13th missile they launched this year alone. They are acting like kids playing war games. Is this something we should be proud of? “The authorities’ propagandize that the launch of the ICBM was carried by the handwritten order of the Highest Dignity, which said to ‘launch bravely for the great dignity and honor of the country and people’. The residents find it absurd … expressing anger at authorities who turn a blind eye to their livelihoods,” the second source said on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. Soldiers in the military also see through the propaganda, griping that authorities are telling to sacrifice their lives for the nation, just as the soldiers who launched the missile are somehow sacrificing themselves to fulfill the orders of Kim Jong Un. The soldiers and officers have been attending daily “mental education classes” where they learn that the Red Flag Company, which launched the ICBM, are elite fighters who follow through on Kim Jong Un’s orders. “The ideological education emphasizes that the Red Flag Company is a family that shares joy and suffering with the Supreme Leader. They say the Red Flag Company are dedicating themselves to defending him,” the military source said. “They are told the Red Flag Company are warriors prepared to sacrifice their lives for the Supreme Commander by following the spirit of defending the leader. “However, the soldiers who listened to the instructor&#8217;s lecture continued to have expressionless faces as if they did not know what they were willing to sacrifice their lives for. The soldiers griped about the military authorities, who were forcing them to listen to this propaganda when they needed time to rest after their grueling winter training,” the third source said. Another military source, in North Pyongan, told RFA that the officers there are not buying the propaganda. “They know that another intercontinental ballistic missile launch failed on the 16th, so they are wondering how much money was wasted again for this launch,” the fourth source said. “Rather than focusing on the development of missiles, officers believe that it is urgent for the authorities to improve the poor supply situation in order to increase the morale of the soldiers. This would also increase the actual combat power of the military,” he said. Translated by Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Tibet man attempts self-immolation near monastery in Qinghai](https://ij-reportika.com/tibet-man-attempts-self-immolation-near-monastery-in-qinghai/): A Tibetan man set himself on fire near a police station in a Tibetan region of northwestern China’s Qinghai province and was immediately taken away by authorities with no word on his condition, sources in India said Thursday, a day after the incident. The man, known only as Tsering Samdup, or Tsering, self-immolated on Wednesday afternoon in front of a Chinese police station near a Buddhist monastery in Kyegudo (in Chinese, Jiegu), in Yushul (Yushu) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai, a Tibetan exile source in India told RFA’s Tibetan Service. “The Tibetan who self-immolated is a very well-educated person. He was immediately taken away by the Chinese police and no one is allowed to meet or inquire about the self-immolator,” the source told RFA. “There are no particular restrictions in place in Kyegudo at the moment by the Chinese authorities, in order to present a very normal ambience,” the source added. A report by the Central Tibetan Administration, the Tibetan government in exile in Dharamsala, India, confirmed the time and place of the incident, but added: “verifiable information on the name and background detail of the self-immolator is not available.” With Wednesday’s incident, 159 Tibetans are confirmed to have set themselves on fire since 2009, mostly to protest Chinese rule in Tibetan areas, and another eight have taken their lives in Nepal and India, home to large exile populations. The previous known self-immolation took place on Feb. 25, when popular contemporary singer Tsewang Norbu, 25, shouted slogans and set himself on fire in a protest in front of the iconic Potala Palace in the Tibet regional capital Lhasa. Tsering’s attempt is the first one in Yushul since a spate of six self-immolations by men aged 22 to 62 in 2012. A region of nomads and monasteries that was part of Tibet’s traditional Kham province, Yushul lies at an altitude of 3,700 m (12,100 ft) in the mountainous eastern edge of the Tibetan plateau. Sporadic demonstrations challenging Beijing&#8217;s rule over what was an independent nation until China’s invasion in 1950 have continued in Tibetan-populated areas of China since widespread protests swept the region in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. High-technology controls on phone and online communications in Tibetan areas often prevent news of Tibetan protests and arrests from reaching the outside world, and sharing news of self-immolations outside China can lead to jail sentences. Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on the Himalayan region, restricting Tibetans’ political activities and peaceful expression of ethnic and religious identity, and subjecting Tibetans to persecution, torture, imprisonment, and extrajudicial killings. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Written in English by Paul Eckert.
- [Critics see ‘scary reality’ as China touts Xinjiang police high case clearance rates](https://ij-reportika.com/critics-see-scary-reality-as-china-touts-xinjiang-police-high-case-clearance-rates/): Police in China’s far-western Xinjiang region ranked first in the country in 2021 for solving all homicide cases, while the region’s High People’s Court was hailed as a model for concluding the greatest number of cases last year, according to a Chinese state media report that prompted political and legal analysts outside the country to raise questions about the results. Xinjiang’s Public Security Bureau achieved a 100% resolution rate in current murder cases for six consecutive years, ranking first in the country, while the region’s High People’s Court handled 17,600 cases related to people’s livelihoods in 2021, the highest number in all of China, said the March 25 report by the China News Service in Urumqi (in Chinese, Wulumuqi), Xinjiang’s capital. “For six consecutive years, the police detection of number of homicides in Xinjiang has increased to 100%, with the number of homicides in Xinjiang falling to its lowest level in history, with the highest number of homicides detected in the history,” the report said. The Xinjiang Public Security Bureau (PSB) has in recent years launched a mechanism of average people “collectively assisting the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region [XUAR] public security bureau’s criminal investigation team in investigating major cases,” it said. The report also stated that the PSB had implemented a “one file per case” standard, and through gathering complete past records of crimes, were able to find murderers from cases dating back 20 years. Xinjiang police have been using a “one tactic per person, one plan per person, one measure per person” system for detecting criminals by using advanced technology and information, and identifying and analyzing suspicious activities, the report said. Ilshat Hassan Kokbore, a political analyst based in U.S., said that such Chinese reports are unreliable because the Chinese police’s handling of cases is “completely obscure.” “We cannot just trust the numbers provided by the Chinese government in their reports,” he told RFA. “This is always the case because Chinese police statistics or figures are unreliable.” “Second, they don’t disclose their records,” said Kokbore, who is also vice chairman of the Executive Committee of the World Uyghur Congress. “They always keep it all the evidence undisclosed. No one can question the credibility of their findings or evidence. To sum up they detect their cases in the dark, not in the open.” Chinese human rights activist and lawyer Teng Biao said that while the Chinese police in Xinjiang did not disclose the number of cases they have detected, the fact that they ranked first in the country is concerning. “[Xinjiang police] saying that in six years they have raised the case clearance rate to 100% and reduced the crime rate to its historic low has a scary reality behind it,” he told RFA. Setting up internment camps and installing high-tech surveillance cameras everywhere has helped in authorities’ efforts to expose “crimes” and to reduce the crime rate, Teng said. “In the Chinese judiciary, on the other hand, the power of the police is greater than the power of the judge and the prosecutor,” he said. “If the police suspect someone, the judge and prosecutor will also convict him.” Teng noted that the Xinjiang police were able to report a 100% case clearance rate and rank first in China because police routinely use torture to obtain confessions, which then are included in court verdicts. “In China, the law enforcement agencies have a lot of power, the judiciary is not independent, and there are a lot of wrongdoing and murder cases that have been suppressed because of the lack of freedom of the press,” Teng said. ‘Justice in today’s world’ Speaking about the Xinjiang High People’s Court’s achievement, Teng told RFA that judicial standards should be fair, and pursuing speedy outcomes should not be priority. “Chasing speed is a sign that China has turned its own judicial system into something else. It is incompatible with the idea of justice in today’s world,” he said. Officials have conducted a major shakeup of judges and prosecutors who work in the Xinjiang judiciary, according to a March 28 report by the Bingtuan News Network, run by the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC). A state-owned economic and paramilitary organization, the XPCC, also known as the Bingtuan, has been sanctioned by the U.S. for its involvement in human rights violations against Uyghurs. On Monday, the Standing Committee of the XUAR’s People’s Congress issued a list of more than 120 officials who have been dismissed or appointed to serve in the region’s courts. Experts say that it is rare for so many judges and prosecutors to be replaced in Xinjiang at the same time, but that the Chinese government is likely refreshing the judiciary and prosecutors as it prepares for an upcoming visit by a U.N. delegation led by Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, to Xinjiang. Bachelet announced earlier in March that she had reached an agreement with the Chinese government for a visit “foreseen to take place in May” to China, including the turbulent Xinjiang region. Her office is under pressure from rights activists to issue an overdue report on serious rights violations by Chinese authorities targeting Uyghurs and other Turkic communities in the XUAR. Up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and others have been held in a vast network of internment camps operated by the Chinese government under the pretext of preventing religious extremism and terrorism among the mostly Muslim groups. “In preparation for the U.N. rights chief visit in the region, the Chinese government may have removed the politically unreliable judges and prosecutors and replaced them with judges and prosecutors loyal to the Chinese Communist Party,” Teng said. Reported and Translated by RFA’s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- ['Spying' trial of Australian national, state TV anchor Cheng Lei held in secret](https://ij-reportika.com/spying-trial-of-australian-national-state-tv-anchor-cheng-lei-held-in-secret/): Australian national and Chinese state TV anchor Cheng Lei stood trial behind closed doors at a Beijing court on Thursday for alleged breaches of the national security law. Cheng was detained on suspicion of &#8220;spying&#8221; in August 2020, and has been held incommunicado for more than 18 months since. She stood trial at the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People&#8217;s Court on Thursday, amid tight security, but accompanied by a lawyer, according to an Australian diplomat at the scene. Australian ambassador to China Graham Fletcher said he was denied permission to sit in the public gallery for the trial, on the grounds that the case &#8220;involved state secrets.&#8221; The refusal came despite a public request from Australian foreign minister Marise Payne, who called on Beijing to allow diplomats to observe the trial and observe basic standards of fairness, procedural justice and humane treatment. Fletcher told reporters he was concerned about the outcome for Cheng. Beijing-based criminal lawyer Zhang Dongshuo said the harshness of Cheng&#8217;s sentence &#8212; Chinese courts rarely acquit defendants outright &#8212; would likely depend on how sensitive the &#8220;secrets&#8221; involved were deemed to be. &#8220;If it is a question of more than one instance, for example, sentencing would be very different if there were more than 10 or less than 10 instances,&#8221; Zhang said. &#8220;Whether it involved the highest-level of classified information, what they call &#8216;top secret,&#8217; or a lower level [also affects the outcome].&#8221; He said Cheng&#8217;s Australian passport is unlikely to help her much. &#8220;Nationality and identity are generally not considered in sentencing, but in some special cases, it could be affected by matters of national defense, foreign affairs and other matters, and special consideration may be given by the court,&#8221; Zhang said. Currently, sentencing for those found guilty of &#8220;illegally providing state secrets overseas&#8221; ranges between five and 10 years&#8217; imprisonment, but lighter sentences have also been given, he said. If Cheng was seen as &#8220;cooperative,&#8221; for example, if she &#8220;confessed&#8221; to the charges and pleaded guilty, she could be released soon after the trial. &#8220;This possibility certainly exists,&#8221; Zhang said. &#8220;If the number and level of state secrets in Cheng Lei&#8217;s case aren&#8217;t high, then she could receive a fairly light sentence with time already served deducted.&#8221; But he said there was no guarantee, in the absence of further information about the charges faced by Cheng. Feng Chongyi, a professor of political science at the University of Technology Sydney, said the existence of any &#8220;confession&#8221; was the most important factor, however. &#8220;This is very important,&#8221; Feng said. &#8220;This is the scary part of the Chinese criminal law. It requires the person to plead guilty, and it depends on your attitude in making a confession.&#8221; &#8220;Cheng Lei is a mother of two children. That would make it easier to negotiate with the Chinese authorities and to reach a compromise,&#8221; he said. Bloomberg employee Meanwhile, little has been heard of Bloomberg News employee Haze Fan, who was taken away by state security police in December 2020 on suspicion of &#8220;endangering national security.&#8221; Chinese authorities have only said that investigation into her case is still ongoing. Both Fan and Cheng had been friends, helping to collect donations of medical supplies to aid front-line medical workers in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan, according to information publicly available on Facebook. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called for Fan&#8217;s immediate and unconditional release, saying the allegations against her have no credibility. Cheng, 47, was born in Hunan and moved to Australia with her parents as a child. She once worked as an anchor on China Global Television News (CGTN), the international arm of CCTV. She was detained in August 2020 and formally arrested in February 2021. Cheng&#8217;s detention came amid increasingly strained ties between Beijing and Canberra, which is taking steps to limit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)&#8217;s propaganda outreach in the country, and which has barred Chinese telecoms giant Huawei from bidding for 5G mobile contracts. Risks of reporting While foreign journalists have long faced challenging conditions under CCP rule, now they are also dealing with growing hostility and intimidation, including online stalking, smear campaigns, hacking and visa denials, the Foreign Correspondents&#8217; Club of China (FCCC) said in its annual report in February 2022. More than 60 percent of respondents had been obstructed by police or officials last year, while almost all journalists who went to Xinjiang were visible followed throughout their trips, while more than a quarter said their sources had been detained, harassed or questioned more than once following interviews. There is also a growing legal threat for journalists working in China, with the authorities encouraging a spate of lawsuits or the threat of legal action against foreign journalists, typically filed by sources long after they have explicitly agreed to be interviewed, the report said. It said &#8220;state-backed attacks&#8221; including online trolling of foreign journalists is also on the increase. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Women in China’s Leadership](https://ij-reportika.com/women-in-china-leadership/): Women in China’s Leadership Staggering data about the status of women in leadership roles in China has been released as the Women in China’s Leadership report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Women make up almost half of China’s 1.4 billion population. Of the approximately 92 million CCP members, there are about 28 million women or roughly 30% of the CCP’s total. Women have limited representation and voice across the top echelons of China’s political system. Historically, female representatives have rarely constituted more than 10% of the roughly 300-member CCP Central Committee. Only six women have ever served in the 25-member Politburo, and three of those were wives of other top leaders. No woman has ever served on the Politburo Standing Committee or held any of the top three positions in China’s political system: CCP General Secretary, Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), and State President. Female representation in key government roles such as ministries and provincial governorships is also extremely low. The percentage of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) service members who are female is not publicly available, but China Military Online, an official publication of the PLA, estimated in 2015 that approximately 5% or less are women. Currently, no women hold senior command or political commissar positions. The highest rank a woman in the PLA has ever achieved is Lieutenant General, with one woman promoted to Lieutenant General in 1993 and a second in 2010. Other Key Findings of the report are: According to United Nations data from 2021, China’s population comprises approximately 703.8 million females and 740.4 million males. Although they represent roughly 48.7% of the population, women occupy less than 8% of senior leadership positions. The absence of diversity is noteworthy given the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership’s stated commitment to equal opportunity. The absence of women in Party leadership parallels low female representation within the group of Chinese nationals holding leadership positions in international organizations. Of the 31 Chinese nationals serving in top leadership positions in key international organizations, only 4 are women Table  1: Female Representation in Chinese Communist Party Leadership   Table: Female Representation in Government Leadership   Table 3. Female Representation in Military Leadership   Credits : https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/2022-03/Women_in_Chinas_Leadership.pdf
- [<div>Interview: 'I can see how the Russian propaganda machine works here'</div>](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-i-can-see-how-the-russian-propaganda-machine-works-here/): RFA’s Vietnamese Service interviewed Natalya Zhinkyna, interim representative of the&nbsp;Ukraine&nbsp;Embassy in Hanoi about her country’s struggle under the Russian invasion and her work in the capital of Vietnam, a traditional ally of Russia, a number of whose people have turned out to support Ukraine. In a wide-ranging interview, she thanked the Vietnamese public for participating in recent charity events that raised more than $100,000 for humanitarian relief. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. RFA: What is the reaction of the Vietnamese public that you have noticed &nbsp;since the war broke out? Zhinkyna: Since the 24th of February, when the war started, every day we receive words of sympathy and support from the Vietnamese public, people write messages come to the embassy there with flowers and donations to help Ukraine, who had to leave their homes to protect their lives, ran our cities have been bombed by Russian army. We have organized charity events for Vietnamese public at our embassy in the beginning of March to raise money in order to address the humanitarian needs in Ukraine. And more charity events are coming soon. And the Vietnamese people are praying together with us for the innocent Ukrainians who lost their lives in the fierce Russian attacks on peaceful cities of Ukraine. This money is aimed at humanitarian relief for Ukraine and what is also important here that many Vietnamese opinion leaders took their mission in the informational front and help Ukraine to combat Russia&#8217;s propaganda here in Vietnam. Help to refute fakes and disinformation and expand the reasons, the costs, and the consequences of Russia&#8217;s brutal aggression for the global rules-based order, as well for the region of Southeast Asia, including for Vietnam. RFA: Can you tell us, can you give us some examples of how the Vietnamese individually and collectively shown their support toward Ukrainian people that have moved the most? Zhinkyna: When I see people coming to the embassy to just give us a hug. And I see the tears in their eyes and I hear the kind words from Vietnamese people who even didn&#8217;t have an opportunity to visit Ukraine or to know about Ukraine before. This is very touching. This is very moving. And as I mentioned, people have just flowers left at the embassy&#8217;s doors. I know this comes from Vietnamese people. This is very touching. And the donations that we receive, it doesn&#8217;t matter how much money people bring, but sometimes we will receive a big amounts from like private people like 1,000 or 2,000 dollars. I understand that this is a big donation for Vietnam, this person, and it is made from the bottom of their hearts in order to support and to help. And this is very precious. And are those messages that we receive? I personally receive thousands of messages and I&#8217;m very sorry. I cannot respond to all the all of the people who write to me, but it really inspires me or for the everyday work and it inspires my colleagues. RFA: Did it come as a surprise from you, the level of support from the Vietnamese public? Zhinkyna: This war itself, it was very much unexpected. We did understand that there is a big threat coming from Russia, but until the very beginning, we didn&#8217;t expect it to happen and then we didn&#8217;t expect the amount of support coming from the Vietnamese public. But I do understand. I do know that those are Vietnamese people who understand exactly what Ukrainians in Ukraine feel around that and how the rockets are flying over their heads because Vietnamese people, they still have their memories of the wars. Even me and my colleagues here, when we are staying in a peaceful Hanoi and we are very much worried about our relatives in Ukraine, we still do not understand that feeling of being afraid, of being scared or that your life will end just abruptly, or what is worse, your kid&#8217;s life could end. And I know that Vietnamese people do understand that. So I cannot say that this was not expected by us to receive support from the Vietnamese public. It came naturally, and we are grateful for that. RFA: You mentioned that it seems there has been a propaganda effort in Vietnamese language social media, basically propagating pro-Russia rhetoric. And you may be aware that there has been some conflicts-clashes between the pro and against sides since the war started. So are you aware of this ongoing war of information in Vietnamese social media and how do you feel about it? Zhinkyna: &nbsp;Of course I&#8217;m aware of that. Just yesterday, I saw a reader taking my picture and totally distorting the words that I say, so I can see how the Russian propaganda machine works here and how much money Russia puts into those efforts, into spreading disinformation and to spreading fake news into transferring their own narratives here. This is to some extent a good point. Let them spend their money on propaganda, but not on new rockets and tanks. But of course, it makes our work here difficult. This is just an information war…and we are very much grateful for all those members of the Vietnamese public who help us to refute those fakes, to help us spread the truth because their every word of truth about this war and condemnation of the aggressor helps to stop Russia from advancing further into Ukrainian land.
- [No justice for victims as Cambodia marks anniversary of deadly grenade attack](https://ij-reportika.com/no-justice-for-victims-as-cambodia-marks-anniversary-of-deadly-grenade-attack/): Members of Cambodia’s Candlelight Party marked the anniversary of a deadly grenade attack on an opposition rally Wednesday with demands for justice in the case that remains unsolved despite a 25-year “investigation” by authorities. Around 200 party officials and family members gathered at a stupa in the capital Phnom Penh where they held a Buddhist ceremony dedicated to the 16 victims of the March 30, 1997, attack on the rally led by Sam Rainsy, the acting president of the dissolved Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) who now lives in exile to avoid what are widely viewed as politically motivated charges and convictions. In an interview with RFA’s Khmer Service, former CNRP Sen. Ly Neary, the 79-year-old mother of one of those who died in the attack, expressed her frustration over the failure of authorities to bring her son’s killers to justice. “It’s been 25 years, and authorities have yet to conclude their investigation,” she said. “I don’t have any hope for a resolution.” Nonetheless, Ly Neary urged the government to keep the case open and hold those responsible to account. She said her son, a doctor, had been proud to take part in the rally at Phnom Penh’s Wat Botum Park, where protesters gathered across from the National Assembly to denounce the judiciary’s corruption and lack of independence. While Sam Rainsy is thought to have been the target of the attack, the assailants missed him, killing his bodyguard, as well as some protesters and bystanders. The blasts blew the limbs off nearby street vendors and left more than 150 people injured. According to eyewitness accounts, the people who threw the grenades ran toward Prime Minister Hun Sen’s riot-gear clad bodyguards, who allowed them to escape. An FBI report declassified in 2009 indicated that Cambodian police possessed prior knowledge of the attack and that there was the possibility that the attackers colluded with Hun Sen’s bodyguard unit. Despite the toll of death and dismemberment, no one has been arrested for the attack, leaving victims and family members still searching for justice. Sam Rainsy is carried away in state of shock after a grenade attack on a group of demonstrators outside the National Assembly building in Phnom Penh, March 30, 1997. Credit: AFP ‘Investigation’ continues Government spokesman Phay Siphan told RFA that the case remains open and urged family members to submit any new evidence they find to authorities for further investigation. He criticized the Candlelight Party for exploiting Wednesday’s ceremony “to draw attention for political benefit.” “The court continues to accept complaints and information from the public and organizations to find those responsible for the grenade attack,” he said. RFA was unable to reach National Police Spokesman Chhay Kim Khoeun for comment on the status of the investigation on Wednesday. Hing Bun Heang, the commander of Hun Sen’s Bodyguard Unit, denied involvement in the grenade attack in an interview with RFA and dared anyone to present evidence to the contrary. “I already clarified this [with the FBI]. I wasn’t involved. I don’t know anything,” he said. “Show me a photo of me throwing the grenade,” he added, threatening to “use a machine gun against anyone who accuses me.” Hing Bun Heang was sanctioned by the U.S. government in June 2018 over his unit’s alleged role in the grenade attack, as well as several other assaults on unarmed Cambodians. Kata Orn, spokesman for the government’s Cambodia Human Rights Committee, told RFA that officials have been working with the FBI to apprehend the suspects in the case. He also dismissed a French judge’s order last month that Hing Bun Heang and another security aide for Hun Sen named Huy Piseth be tried for organizing the attack. “Cambodia has a constitution to protect Cambodians,” he said, adding that the French court would never be able to enforce its verdict against the two generals outside of its jurisdiction. In an interview with RFA last month, Brad Adams, Asia director of New York-based Human Rights Watch, said a conviction in the French court could lead to enhanced sanctions against the two individuals and an Interpol Red Notice, or a so-called European arrest warrant, in their names. Cambodians gather at the site of a grenade attack on a group of demonstrators outside the National Assembly building in Phnom Penh, March 31, 1997. Credit: AFP ‘No light’ of accountability Former Sen. Ly Neary said that while she welcomes the French court order, authorities in Cambodia should be responsible for pursuing the case. She questioned why the onus is on the families of the victims to pursue justice for their loved ones. “I am a regular citizen. How can I ‘find evidence?’ Only the authorities have the legal right to do so — regular citizens can’t do it,” she said. Candlelight Party Vice President Thach Setha called Phay Siphan’s comments “disrespectful” to the victims and their family members. “[The government] can’t find the suspects, so instead they accused us of exploiting the event,” he said. Ny Sokha, president of the Cambodian rights group Adhoc, told RFA that if the government really had any interest in seeking justice for the victims, the French court warrant would be “a good start.” “The government doesn’t have the will to seek justice [for the victim] because it has already been 25 years,” he said. “There is no light [to hold the perpetrators accountable]. This is yet another example of [official] impunity.” Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [New law brings Myanmar police under junta control](https://ij-reportika.com/new-law-brings-myanmar-police-under-junta-control/): A new law enacted this month in Myanmar brings the country’s police force under the full control of the military, with expanded powers put in place to help quell resistance to junta rule, according to sources in the country. Issued on March 25, the 18-chapter Myanmar Police Law gives Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, commander-in-chief of the country’s military, authority to appoint or remove the head of the police force, sources say. Myanmar’s police force will now have to comply with all orders issued by the leaders of the coup that overthrew the democratically elected civilian government of Myanmar on Feb. 1, 2021, a police officer working in opposition to the junta told RFA. “The new police law means that the police force is now totally under the control of the commander-in-chief,” the officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “Everything, starting from the appointment of a police chief to his retirement, can now be done only after obtaining consent from the military chief. “This could even mean the police will have to take part in military operations,” the officer, a member of Myanmar’s Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) set up to resist junta rule, added. Chapter 2 of the new law says that the police force, in addition to ensuring social stability and the rule of law, must now also participate in matters related to security and the national defense. Kyee Myint, an attorney in Myanmar, said the country’s police force “has now been turned into an army. “The country’s security should be taken care of by the army, and the police force should be responsible for the rule of law. But the police can’t say anymore that they work only to enforce the law,” Kyee Myint said. “The authority of the police force to uphold the rule of law will now be severely affected because of this law.” Police officers acting under the new law are now empowered to enter homes and public buildings without a warrant, said high court lawyer Khin Maung Myint. Before, police entering a home would have a warrant and be accompanied by at least two village or ward administrators and their deputies, he added. “But now, these requirements have been suspended. From a legal point of view, I don’t think this is a good law,” he said. Also speaking to RFA, political analyst Ye Tun said that provisions of the law allowing for warrantless detention or arrest may be aimed at reducing attacks by resistance groups against security forces and junta supporters. “Overall, the law appears to have been enacted for public safety, and it will empower police to be more effective in preventing the smuggling of ammunition and explosives,” he said. “But at the same time, I think it is going to make ordinary people more uneasy in their daily lives. “If and when the situation later improves, I think the next parliament will be able to repeal the stricter provisions of the law,” he added. Another provision of the law allows the arrest of any person for playing drums or banging pots and pans at times not permitted by the police, with observers calling the move a bid to restrict public protests like many seen last year. Violators face one to three months in prison or a fine of from 10,000 kyats (U.S. $5.62) to 50,000 kyats (U.S. $28.12), or both. Myanmar security forces have killed a total of 1,722 civilians and arrested another 9,991 during mostly peaceful protests since the Feb. 1, 2021 military coup that overthrew civilian rule in the country, according to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners-Burma. Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [Solomons ready to sign security pact, denies pressure for China base](https://ij-reportika.com/solomons-ready-to-sign-security-pact-denies-pressure-for-china-base/): The Solomon Islands prime minister has told lawmakers that a controversial security agreement with China is “ready for signing” without revealing the details, saying only that his government had not been pressured to let China build a naval base in the country. Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare made the remarks to Parliament late Tuesday, according to multiple news reports. Neighboring powers have expressed concern over the pact that China has defended as normal cooperation with Pacific island nation. “We are not pressured in any way by our new friends and there is no intention whatsoever to ask China to build a military base in the Solomon Islands,” Sogavare was quoted as saying. A draft agreement leaked online last week would allow Beijing to set up bases and deploy troops in the Solomon Islands, which lies about 1,700 kilometers (1,050 miles) from the northeastern coast of Australia. The document provoked fears in the region’s traditional powers, Australia and New Zealand, with the New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern saying that her country sees the pact as “gravely concerning.&#8221; It is unclear whether the leaked draft differs from the final agreement. Sogavare told Parliament that in order to achieve the nation’s security needs, “it is clear that we need to diversify the country&#8217;s relationship with other countries” but existing security arrangements with Australia would remain. His policy of “diversification” was evident last November when Sogavare asked Australia, and after that China, to send police forces to help him quell violent riots that rocked the capital, Honiara. Alexander Vuving, a professor with the Hawaii-based Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, said Sogavare’s strategy is not unusual for leaders of small Pacific island states who are “willing to play the major powers off against each other, thus bloating their states&#8217; values to the major powers.” A Chinese Foreign Ministry’s spokesman said on Tuesday that “normal law enforcement and security cooperation between China and Solomon Islands … is consistent with international law and customary international practice.” “We hope relevant countries will earnestly respect Solomon Islands’ sovereignty and its independent decisions instead of deciding what others should and should not do in a condescending manner,” spokesman Wang Wenbin said. A file photo showing sailors stand on deck of the guided-missile destroyer Taiyuan of the Chinese People&#8217;s Liberation Army Navy as during commemorations of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the navy near Qingdao in eastern China&#8217;s Shandong province, April 23, 2019. Credit: AP China’s growing presence in the Pacific Beijing doesn’t hide its ambition to set up military bases in the region. Some Chinese analysts, such as Qi Huaigao, an associate professor at Fudan University, suggested that in order to compete with the United States in the Western Pacific, China needs to have bases in Solomon Islands, Samoa and Vanuatu for commercial and military supply purposes. In 2018, media reports about China’s plan to build a base in Vanuatu prompted a stern warning from the then Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. David Capie, director of the Centre for Strategic Studies at the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, told RFA earlier this week that China “wants to be able to operate its rapidly growing navy out in the wider Pacific, complicating U.S. plans in the event of a future conflict.” “A base in the Pacific would let People’s Liberation Army Navy vessels operate far away from their home ports for longer and in the future might also be used for intelligence gathering and surveillance,” he said. It would greatly boost China’s capabilities in intelligence-collecting which is alleged to have often been done by marine research vessels. Data provided by the ship-tracking website MarineTraffic show that China’s spacecraft-tracking ship Yuanwang-5 is currently operating in the Western Pacific, not far from the Solomon Islands. Yuanwang-class ships are “multi-purpose signals and technical intelligence gathering platforms,” said Paul Buchanan, director of the Auckland, New Zealand-based 36th Parallel Assessments risk consultancy. The Yuanwang-5’s presence is normal but “it would not be surprising if it makes a port visit to Honiara as part of the deployment in order to register the seriousness of China’s intent in the region,” Buchanan said.
- [Top British judges quit Hong Kong final appeal court, citing national security law](https://ij-reportika.com/top-british-judges-quit-hong-kong-final-appeal-court-citing-national-security-law/): Two U.K. Supreme Court judges resigned from Hong Kong&#8217;s Court of Final Appeal (CFA) on Wednesday, citing a recent crackdown on dissent under a draconian national security law imposed on the city by Beijing. Non-permanent CFA judges Lord Reed and Lord Hodge had sat on the court &#8220;for many years&#8221; under an agreement governing the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to Chinese rule, Reed said in a statement. &#8220;I have been closely monitoring and assessing developments in Hong Kong, in discussion with the government,&#8221; Reed wrote. &#8220;However, since the introduction of the Hong Kong national security law in 2020, this position has become increasingly finely balanced.&#8221; &#8220;The judges of the Supreme Court cannot continue to sit in Hong Kong without appearing to endorse an administration which has departed from values of political freedom, and freedom of expression, to which the Justices of the Supreme Court are deeply committed,&#8221; the statement said. U.K. foreign secretary Liz Truss said the government supported the decision. &#8220;The Foreign Secretary supports the withdrawal of serving UK judges from the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal, following discussions with the Deputy Prime Minister and Lord Chancellor and the President of the Supreme Court,&#8221; said in a brief statement, which was signed by Truss and deputy prime minister Dominic Raab. Ruling Conservative Party rights activist Benedict Rogers, who heads the U.K.-based rights group Hong Kong Watch, said the move was the correct one. &#8220;Today&#8217;s news reflects the sad reality that the national security law has torn apart the human rights and constitutional safeguards which made Hong Kong meaningfully autonomous,&#8221; Rogers said. &#8220;The British judges&#8217; ongoing presence was providing a veneer of legitimacy for a fundamentally compromised system, and the British government is right to have taken steps to recall them,&#8221; he said. The Law Society of Hong Kong, which represents solicitors in the city, called on the judges to reverse their decision. &#8220;Unfair and unfounded accusations &#8230; against the judicial system of Hong Kong have no place in the discussion about rule of law,&#8221; president C.M. Chan said in a letter to news editors. &#8220;I sincerely appeal to the U.K. judges to reverse course.&#8221; Hong Kong Chief Justice Andrew Cheung noted the resignations &#8220;with regret.&#8221; Men in white T-shirts with poles are seen in Yuen Long after attacking anti-extradition bill demonstrators at a train station in Hong Kong, July 22, 2019. Credit: Reuters Documentary on attacks The resignations came as internet service providers in Hong Kong appeared to have blocked a 30-minute documentary by Vice News on YouTube detailing the involvement of triad criminal gangs in bloody attacks on passengers at the Yuen Long MTR station on July 21, 2019, amid a mass protest movement sparked by plans to allow the extradition of alleged criminal suspects to face trial in mainland China. The documentary explored in depth the attacks by men wielding sticks and wearing white clothing. &#8220;For many, the violence was shocking and symbolized the death of Hong Kong’s democracy,&#8221; the platform said in its introduction to the video on YouTube. &#8220;It is tragic how a Hong Kong citizen like me had to use a VPN in order to watch this,&#8221; YouTube user Dayton Ling commented under the video. &#8220;It saddens me that Hong Kong has gone from a first class financial centre to a third world police state.&#8221; Several other users commented that the journalist interviewed for the film is currently behind bars, awaiting trial under the national security law. Hong Kong&#8217;s national security police recently wrote to Benedict Rogers ordering him to take down the group&#8217;s website, which was highly critical of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)&#8217;s rights record in Hong Kong. The U.K., along with Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand and the United States have suspended their extradition agreements with Hong Kong. However, extradition agreements remain active between Hong Kong and the Czech Republic, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea and Sri Lanka, putting anyone traveling to those countries at potential risk of arrest if they are targeted by the law. The national security law ushered in a citywide crackdown on public dissent and criticism of the authorities that has seen several senior journalists, pro-democracy media magnate Jimmy Lai and 47 former lawmakers and democracy activists charged with offenses from &#8220;collusion with a foreign power&#8221; to &#8220;subversion.&#8221; Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [<div>China, Russia slam 'illegal' international sanctions targeting Putin over Ukraine</div>](https://ij-reportika.com/china-russia-slam-illegal-international-sanctions-targeting-putin-over-ukraine/): Russia and China further cemented their alliance on Wednesday, hitting out &#8220;illegal&#8221; international sanctions on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine. &#8220;The ministers had a thorough exchange of views on the situation around Ukraine,&#8221; the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement following talks between Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in the eastern province of Anhui on Wednesday. &#8220;The head of the Russian foreign ministry informed his Chinese counterpart about the progress of the special military operation &#8230; and the dynamics of the negotiation process with the Kyiv regime,&#8221; the statement said. &#8220;The sides noted the counterproductive nature of the illegal unilateral sanctions imposed on Russia by the United States and its satellites.&#8221; Wang and Lavrov, who were shown masked and bumping elbows on state TV in deference to CCP leader Xi Jinping&#8217;s zero-COVID policy, had agreed to continue to speak out on the issue &#8220;with a united voice,&#8221; it said. Both China and Russia also referenced their vision of a &#8220;multipolar&#8221; world order, implying a challenge to U.S. diplomatic and military power. China has refused to describe the war as an invasion, nor to condemn Russia&#8217;s military action in Ukraine, blaming eastward expansion by NATO for stoking security tensions with Russia and calling for the issue to be resolved through negotiation. The two foreign ministers also discussed strengthening coordination on foreign policy matters, and widening bilateral cooperation. &#8216;No limits&#8217; Wang Yi was quoted as saying by state-backed Phoenix TV that Sino-Russian ties had &#8220;withstood the test of international turbulence,&#8221; amid an increased willingness to develop the relationship on both sides. &#8220;Our striving for peace has no limits, our upholding of security has no limits, our opposition towards hegemony has no limits,&#8221; Wang said. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin meanwhile reiterated the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) line that Beijing sees this alliance as having unlimited potential. &#8220;There is no limit to China-Russia cooperation, no limit to our efforts to achieve peace, safeguard security and oppose hegemony,&#8221; Wang told a regular news briefing in Beijing. &#8220;China-Russia relations are non-aligned, non-confrontational and not targeted at any third party,&#8221; the spokesman said. On Ukraine, Wang Wenbin said China would &#8220;play a constructive role and provide assistance to normalize the situation in Ukraine,&#8221; adding, &#8220;any action that could add fuel to the fire or exacerbate controversies must be prevented.&#8221; Lavrov, who is in the country ostensibly for talks about the future of Afghanistan, said the international community is &#8220;living through a very serious stage in the history of international relations.&#8221; &#8220;We, together with you, and with our sympathizers will move towards a multipolar, just, democratic world order,&#8221; he said in a video clip released by the Russian foreign ministry ahead of a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Beijing-based independent commentator Zha Jianguo said the meeting shows that the alliance between Beijing and Moscow is rock-solid. &#8220;China&#8217;s basic attitude towards the war in Ukraine will not change, which is to say that it will side with Russia while remaining neutral, and focus on its own interests,&#8221; Zha said. &#8220;I think both sides were probably telling each other the truth, sharing views and attitudes, and gaining further understanding of each other&#8217;s positions,&#8221; he said of the meeting. Low Russian morale Zha said the war had almost certainly not gone according to Russian president Vladimir Putin&#8217;s original plan. &#8220;The sticking point right now is likely to be coming from Russia,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Personally, I&#8217;m not very optimistic about [these] negotiations.&#8221; Independent political commentator Wu Qiang said it was hard to see how long Putin could keep the war going, however. &#8220;If they try to keep the areas they had de facto control of before the war, Donbass and the Crimean peninsula, then this could lead to a protracted defensive war,&#8221; Wu said.  &#8220;But the state of the Russian army right now suggests that would be pretty hard for the Kremlin to do.&#8221; Wu said low morale and a hostile international community could affect the stability of Putin&#8217;s hold on power. A senior international news editor surnamed Gao said the friendly relationship between Beijing and Moscow had definitely been reaffirmed on this visit by Lavrov. &#8220;They have once more jointly condemned the so-called eastward expansion of NATO, and aid supplies will still be sent to Russia,&#8221; Gao said. &#8220;It&#8217;s just a little more subtle now, but the friendly ties are definitely being reaffirmed.&#8221; &#8220;China won&#8217;t give the U.S. anything, substantially or superficially.&#8221; Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Fighting in Myanmar’s Kayin state drives thousands to Thai border](https://ij-reportika.com/fighting-in-myanmars-kayin-state-drives-thousands-to-thai-border/): Fighting between junta troops and ethnic Karen rebels in eastern Myanmar’s Kayin state has forced more than 10,000 civilians to seek shelter along the country’s shared border with Thailand, but Thai officials have refused entry to the refugees and aid workers warned Tuesday of a food shortage risk. Since mid-March, soldiers with the Karen National Liberation Army have engaged in several clashes with the military in Kayin’s Myawaddy township. Thousands of villagers living along the Myawaddy-Walay road have set up makeshift camps along the Moei River, which separates Myanmar and Thailand, to escape the conflict. On Saturday, heavy fighting in the Wawlay and Lay Kay Kaw areas of Myawaddy forced around 1,000 people to cross the Moei into Thailand, but Thai authorities later sent them back across the border, according to an official from a refugee camp in Myawaddy’s Phalu Lay village. “We crossed to the Thai side and then Thai soldiers came and said we could stay there only for the night. They said we’d have to cross back in the morning when the fighting stopped,” said the official, who spoke to RFA’s Myanmar Service on condition of anonymity. “The next morning, we returned and stayed in our camp. Some of those who were very scared stayed behind on the Thai side. The Thai soldiers came again this morning and told them they could not stay any longer. So, we have called everyone back to our camp. The other side did not accept us at all.” The camp official said he hopes Thai authorities will reconsider and allow the refugees temporary asylum during the fighting, which has worsened in recent days. Aid workers told RFA that, instead of offering refuge, Thai authorities are tightening security along the river and are searching border villages for any Myanmar nationals who have crossed illegally. One aid worker said border camps are securing food from the town of Mae Sot in Thailand but warned that the flow of goods “is not official” and remains at risk of being shut down. “These routes work because we have an understanding [with the local authorities]. But when donors share information on social media about how they have provided help and from which places, they could be closed. That’s a problem,” the worker said. “If the current supply routes are blocked, tens of thousands of refugees will be in trouble.” Some camps along the Moei River “only have rice and onions,” workers said, while recent heavy rains have destroyed supplies in others. The situation along the border is similar to one in December, when intensified fighting in Kayin state forced more than 20,000 people to flee to Thailand. At that time, Thai authorities opened temporary camps to receive the refugees, but the camps were closed, and refugees were sent home when the fighting subsided. Only around 2,000 refugees continued to live in makeshift camps along the Myanmar side of the river, but that number swelled to more than 10,000 amid renewed fighting in March. Refugees at risk A woman living along the river in Myanmar, who declined to be named, told RFA about the state of the camps in recent days. “Now, there are people from Wawlay as well as from Ingyin Myaing and Sone-Zee-Myaing. And there are also people who were already living on the riverbank,” she said. “Since the Thais did not allow us to enter, people are staying on sandbanks in the middle of the river. The main problem is [a lack of] drinking water. There are some young mothers who have just given birth. We need blankets, dry rations and medicine.” Somchai Kijcharoenrungroj, the governor of Tak province in Thailand, told RFA-affiliated Benar News that authorities there are not deporting Myanmar nationals. “Currently, there are still people being displaced from Myanmar, gathering along the border, and periodically crossing into Thailand. The figures are always fluctuating. Lately, there are about 100 to whom we gave sanctuary and humanitarian aid,” he said. “Regarding repatriation or pushback, we affirm that no such thing has taken place. Most of them voluntarily return because when things calm down, they must go look after their property.” Junta Deputy Minister of Information Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun told RFA that temporary camps are being set up in and around Myawaddy township for those fleeing the fighting. “If it’s going to take time for them to return to their places of residence, we consider them to be [displaced persons]. If it isn’t, it is considered a temporary evacuation,” he said. “There is fighting in some places and that is why we are making preparations to set up temporary shelters for refugees in and around Myawaddy.” Pado Saw Tawney, foreign affairs officer for the Karen National Union (KNU), the political party affiliated with the KNLA, said some of the routes leading into the area had been closed since Sunday due to the clashes. He called for the junta to withdraw its troops from Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) territory. “The problem is that [the military was] talking about a ceasefire at the same time it was sending troop reinforcements,” he said. “We have had to engage in self-defense. Things will calm down again if their troops withdraw. If they don’t withdraw, there will inevitably be clashes. It’s difficult to say for sure what will happen.” Sources told RFA that people fleeing the fighting in Kayin along the Thai border are from towns and villages under KNLA control including Wawlay, Lay Kay Kaw, Maetawthalay, Phlugyi, Plululay, and Ingyinmyaing. KIC reporter Nay Naw in an undated photo. Credit: Citizen journalist Reporter arrested Meanwhile, officers from the Myawaddy Myoma Police Station have arrested a Myawaddy-based reporter for the Karen Information Center (KIC) news agency named Nay Naw, a source who is close to the man’s family told RFA. The source, who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons, said that police had summoned Nay Naw to the station twice for questioning on Monday and detained him during the second meeting. “They didn’t tell us...
- [Cambodia’s small but growing opposition party threatens to boycott upcoming elections](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodias-small-but-growing-opposition-party-threatens-to-boycott-upcoming-elections/): Cambodia’s opposition Candlelight Party, whose popularity has been steadily increasing, is threatening to boycott local elections on June 5 if its activists and members continue to be harassed by officials from Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP). Some political observers believe the Candlelight Party poses the greatest challenge to the CPP in the June commune votes. But Candlelight Vice President Thach Setha said local officials continue to hound candidates from his party without any effort from the Cambodian government to stop the abuse. Thach Setha told RFA on Tuesday that he is considering petitioning the European Union and foreign embassies in Cambodia to intervene to try to stop the government’s intimidation of his party. “If the problem has not been resolved, the party will boycott the election,” he said. The Candlelight Party, formerly known as the Sam Rainsy Party and the Khmer Nation Party, was founded in 1995 and merged with other opposition forces to form the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) in 2012. In November 2017, Cambodia’s Supreme Court dissolved the CNRP in a move that allowed the CPP to win all 125 seats in Parliament in a July 2018 election. Candlelight officials allege they have been falsely accused of using fake names for candidates and putting forward some candidates for election without their permission. At least two Candlelight Party activists have been jailed on allegations of submitting false documents to run in the communal elections. Activists say the harassment often comes at the hand of local police. Candlelight Party activist Sim SoKhoeun told RFA that he was summoned to his local police station in Pursat province on Monday. Once there, police could not produce any complaint against him. “After asking me to wait for an hour, they set me free,” he said, adding that he suspected the move was meant to intimidate him. The Candlelight Party’s boycott threat came as a U.N. human rights official warned that the rights of Cambodians to speak freely and challenge authorities are being eroded by single-party rule. Vitit Muntarbhorn, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Cambodia, called on all CPP officials to respect basic freedoms of expression and assembly. He spoke via video at a meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Council on Tuesday. “Civic and political space in Cambodia have receded and regressed due to what is effectively all-intrusive single-party rule,” he said. The outlook for human rights and democracy in Cambodia is troubling on many fronts as local, commune elections approach in June, Vitit Muntarbhorn said. Although Cambodia has made progress by drafting laws to protect “vulnerable people” and has reduced a backlog of court cases that had kept people in jail before their trial, Vitit Muntarbhorn said that he had immediate concerns about “closing civic and political space; mass trials and imprisonment of political opposition members; and the upcoming elections.” “I call on all authorities in Cambodia to respect fundamental human rights and international human rights laws to which the country is a party, including the basic freedoms of expression and assembly,” he said. Too much impunity Kata Orn, spokesman for the government’s Cambodia Human Rights Committee, said the government does not abuse human rights and that only politicians abuse the law. “The special rapporteur for Cambodia confused the meaning of human rights abuse and abuse of the law,” he said. Seventeen political parties have registered to put forward candidates in the communal elections, he said. Kang Savang, a monitor with the Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (Comfrel), said although local authorities are supposed to remain neutral, some of them, including police officers, have abused their power and threatened the opposition party. He warned that the integrity of the communal elections would be affected without new measures to prevent political threats against Candlelight Party. Kang Savang urged the Ministry of Interior to investigate the conduct of local authorities. “Impunity will allow perpetrators to not be concerned about their conduct,” he said. Sam Kuntheamy, executive director of the Neutral and Impartial Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (NICFEC), said local officials do not have the authority to resolve election-related disputes. Those instead must be handled by Cambodia’s National Election Committee (NEC). “It is the NEC’s job. If there are disputes, they should file a complaint with the NEC,” he said. RFA couldn’t reach Ministry of Interior spokesman Khieu Sopheak for comment on Tuesday, but Interior Minister Sar Kheng said at a meeting a day earlier that the Candlelight Party was using fake candidate names and then names of others without their consent — a punishable crime. He mentioned a few districts where this had occurred. Thach Setha denied the accusation, saying local authorities had not produced any evidence to support their claims. Reported by RFA’s Khmer Service. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Uyghur woman who escaped forced abortion said to have died in prison](https://ij-reportika.com/uyghur-woman-who-escaped-forced-abortion-said-to-have-died-in-prison/): A Uyghur woman who escaped from a hospital in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region to avoid a forced abortion in 2014 has died in prison, a Uyghur who lives in exile and a village police officer said. Authorities ordered Zeynebhan Memtimin to terminate her pregnancy, but she fled the hospital in Keriye (in Chinese Yutian) county in Hotan (Hetian) prefecture where the procedure was to take place. In 2014, a Uyghur from the county who was then living in exile told RFA that authorities took Zeynebhan from Arish village to a hospital for a forced abortion. RFA later determined through interviews with sources in Xinjiang that Zeynebhan had escaped from the hospital to save her unborn child. When the child turned three in 2017, authorities detained Zeynebhan in an internment camp along with her husband, Metqurban Abdulla, who had helped her escape from the hospital, on charges of “disturbing the social order” and “religious extremism” for avoiding the abortion, the Uyghur in exile told RFA last week. Both were sentenced to 10 years in prison, the source said. The Uyghur source said that contacts in the region and a former neighbor confirmed last week that Zeynebhan died in 2020. The woman’s funeral was conducted under heavy supervision by Chinese officials, who did not disclose the reason for her death to her family and didn’t provide any information on her detained husband, the Uyghur source said. Chinese authorities in Keriye county contacted by RFA declined to comment on the matter. A police officer in Arish village confirmed to RFA that Zeynebhan and Metqurban had been sentenced to 10 years, but he didn’t provide any information on what happened to their four children after they had been incarcerated. “They were sentenced to 10 years in prison and were serving their terms in Keriye Prison,” he told RFA. He also said that Zeynebhan was 40 years old when she died in prison from an illness caused by having multiple births, and that she had been jailed for violating family planning policies. “Since she had multiple births, it’s natural that she died from illness,” he said. RFA’s Uyghur Service reported in 2014 that Metqurban agreed to pay a fine for Zeynebhan to have a fourth child in violation of China’s family planning policy for ethnic minorities, which limited families to two children. But instead, authorities tried to force her to terminate the pregnancy. At that time, the Uyghur Service aired a series of eight reports on authorities forcing women in Keriye county’s Lenger, Arish and Siyek villages to have abortions. Of the 70% of Uyghurs in Arish village who were arrested and detained in 2017 for allegedly engaging in illegal religious activities about 10% were being held because they violated family planning policies, according to the Uyghur source in exile. Uyghur activists say Chinese authorities in Xinjiang often arrest Uyghurs accused of violating family planning policies as a pretext for meeting their arrest quotas. The Chinese government implemented population control measures for Uyghurs, including forced sterilizations and abortions as part of the crackdown that began in 2017. Muslim Uyghur and other Turkic minority women who have been detained in Xinjiang’s vast network of internment camps but later released have reported being raped, tortured and forced to undergo sterilization surgery. Such population control measures, among other repressive policies in Xinjiang, were cited by some Western parliaments and the United States as evidence that China is committing genocide against the Uyghurs. Translated by RFA’s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Philippines lodges new diplomatic protest against China over close encounter at sea](https://ij-reportika.com/philippines-lodges-new-diplomatic-protest-against-china-over-close-encounter-at-sea/): The Philippines lodged a new diplomatic protest against China after a Chinese coast guard ship maneuvered dangerously close to a Filipino vessel in the disputed Scarborough Shoal in early March, a senior official said Tuesday.  China’s foreign ministry, meanwhile, insisted that it was within its rights when its ship allegedly engaged in what the Philippine Coast Guard described as a “close distance maneuvering” in South China Sea waters. “It’s done, we’ve filed a diplomatic protest regarding that,” National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr. told reporters on Samar Island in the central Philippines, where he was attending a government event. Similar incidents could occur over contending claims in Scarborough Shoal, he warned. Esperon heads the national taskforce for the West Philippine Sea, the Philippine name for territory claimed by Manila in the South China Sea. On Sunday, the Philippine Coast Guard reported that a China Coast Guard ship had sailed within 21 meters (69 feet) of the BRP Malabrigo during a routine patrol on March 2. That was the fourth time since May 2021 that Chinese Coast Guard ships had made that type of maneuver against Philippine vessels, Philippine officials said. “It can always happen that vessels of the different countries, especially from the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and other claimant countries and China, will get into close encounters simply because we have conflicting claims,” Esperon said. “There may be counter-claims but we, as a nation, will stand by our established sovereign rights and sovereignty over the area.” He said Manila had been increasing its presence in the region through the Philippine Coast Guard and Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources. Esperon also said there were fresh reports about other claimants to the potentially mineral rich sea region improving facilities on islands they occupy.  “That’s the situation there, just be aware of it. And Vietnam has 21 positions, we have nine stations, [while] China has seven strong positions,” he said. Manila, which claims nine islands in the South China Sea, the biggest of which is the 92-acre Pag-asa Island (known internationally as Thitu Island), has been improving its facilities in the region in recent years “in the same manner that Vietnam is doing a lot of improvement” to theirs, Esperon said. The national security adviser said the government would continue to assert its claims through “diplomatic channels and through the international community.” “Can we afford to go to war? Not now or not in this instance. … [I]n general we want peaceful settlements of the conflicts in the area,” he said. ‘Earnestly respect China’s sovereignty’ Manila issued the protest a day after Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin insisted that China had sovereign rights over the shoal. “China has sovereignty over Huangyan Dao and its adjacent waters as well as sovereign rights and jurisdiction over relevant waters,” Wang said, using the Chinese name for Scarborough Shoal. “We hope that Philippine ships will earnestly respect China’s sovereignty and rights and interests, abide by China’s domestic law and international law, and avoid interfering with the patrol and law enforcement of the China Coast Guard in the above-mentioned waters,” he said during a media briefing on Monday. Also known as Bajo de Masinloc, Scarborough Shoal lies 120 nautical miles west of Luzon Island – well within the Philippines’ 200-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ). For years, the shoal has been a traditional fishing ground for Filipinos but since 2012 it has been under virtual control by China, which has maintained a constant coast guard presence. After a tense standoff, Manila said the United States brokered a deal for both sides to pull out of the shoal but China reneged on it. In 2016, an international court ruled in favor of the Philippines in a South China Sea territorial dispute. Instead of moving to enforce the internationally accepted deal, President Rodrigo Duterte moved to appease Chinese leader Xi Jinping in exchange for cordial ties and billions in Chinese investments. Apart from China and the Philippines, other claimants to South China Sea territories are Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan. Indonesia is locked in a separate dispute with China which claims parts of the sea that is within Jakarta’s EEZ. ‘Shared responsibility’ Also on Tuesday, Malaysia Defense Minister Hishamuddin Hussein said that the South China Sea “is ultimately a region of shared responsibility, a region which we in ASEAN are collectively responsible for,” referring to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. “Issues around the South China Sea have always made headlines. As much as strongly worded statements are likely to grab attention, we must strive to ensure that cooler heads prevail,” Hussein said during the Putrajaya Forum, a security conference organized by the Malaysian Institute of Defense and Security and the Malaysian Defense Ministry. “Though we are in the business of defense and security, de-escalating a high-stakes situation is a task in itself. A task that we must all put above all else lest we risk compromising the peace and stability in the region,” he said. Hussein told those at the conference that tensions between nations must be diffused “through all available means. “Due to the complexity and sensitivity of the issue, through established international laws and conventions, all parties must work together to increase efforts to build, maintain and enhance mutual trust and confidence so that we can maintain peace, security and stability in the South China Sea.” Nisha David in Kuala Lumpur contributed to this report by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.
- [China Russia and bad omens](https://ij-reportika.com/china-russia-and-bad-omens/): Any hope that Chinese Communist Party chief Xi Jinping may have had for a quiet 2022 to ease the path to his anointment in autumn to an unprecedented third term as party chairman and state president vanished early in the face of a coronavirus outbreak, real estate and energy problems hurting the economy, and his Russian ally Vladimir Putin&#8217;s invasion of Ukraine. China&#8217;s worst COVID-19 surge since the 2020 Wuhan outbreak has prompted lockdowns of tens of millions of people, hitting consumer spending and supply chains. China&#8217;s awkward stance on the war on Ukraine–proclaiming neutrality, but sticking to Moscow&#8217;s line and censoring reports on the conflict, while its diplomats and state media spread anti-U.S. conspiracy theories–has won Xi few friends in the wealthy democratic West, and Beijing faces the risk of being hit by secondary versions of the crippling economic sanctions imposed on Russia if it steps up material support for Putin.
- [China imposes total information controls around China Eastern crash site](https://ij-reportika.com/china-imposes-total-information-controls-around-china-eastern-crash-site/): The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is moving to delete rumor, speculation and opinion about the China Eastern crash from the country&#8217;s tightly controlled internet, while even state-approved journalists have reported problems gaining access to the crash site. Since officials announced on March 22 that all 132 people aboard flight MU5735, a Boeing 737 China Eastern en route between Kunming and Guangzhou that crashed in a mountainous part of Guangxi outside Wuzhou, had died, any information about the investigation into the cause of the crash has been tightly restricted by the authorities. Chinese journalist Du Qiang recently complained on the social media platform WeChat that he and a colleague, Chen Weixi, were denied access to the crash site by police after flying there on the same day, only managing to take a few photos from a distance before being ordered to leave. Du wrote that the roads leading to the crash site were blocked by three police checkpoints, and that fellow journalists working for Japanese broadcaster NHK met with similar treatment. He wrote that official journalists working for state broadcaster CCTV and Xinhua news agency had once been in the habit of visiting disaster sites in the hope of netting some prized photos or footage of the area, but that this now seems impossible. His WeChat post, which also called for better press arrangements, including wider access to official news conferences, garnered huge numbers of views and comments, but has since been deleted. &#8220;Could the leaders of China Eastern Airlines and relevant departments come better prepared so that more questions can be raised?&#8221; Du&#8217;s post said, also calling for more interviews with rescue teams or grieving relatives. &#8220;Is it possible to seek the opinions of family members and let those who are willing to meet with the media?&#8221; A photographer who gave only the nickname Xiao Gao told RFA he had also tried to get to the site around the same time. &#8220;I have never come across such tight controls at a disaster site as I did this time around,&#8221; Xiao Gao said. &#8220;We tried to interview people in nearby villages &#8230; but there were obstacles at every turn.&#8221; Hebei-based journalist Huang Tao said the authorities are keen to ensure that they control every aspect of media and social media reporting of the crash. &#8220;This must be to prevent information from leaking out,&#8221; Huang said. &#8220;There is probably a lot of evidence at the scene indicating something that they don&#8217;t want reporters to find out about.&#8221; Deleting &#8216;rumors&#8217; China&#8217;s powerful Cyberspace Administration said on March 26 that it has deleted more than 279,000 posts containing &#8220;illegal content&#8221; relating to the crash, including 167,000 rumors and 1,295 hashtags. It said it had also shut down 2,713 social media accounts. Among the &#8220;rumors&#8221; deleted from social media included claims that China Eastern had already sustained losses of tens of billions of dollars, and had slashed maintenance costs in a bid to improve its financial situation. But Huang said he believes much of what the authorities say is &#8220;rumor&#8221; is authentic information. &#8220;You can tell which reports are true by looking at what they are deleting,&#8221; Huang said. &#8220;[So] the reports that the airline didn&#8217;t maintain [the aircraft] properly to save money &#8230; may be true; it&#8217;s looking more and more likely that it has to do with maintenance.&#8221; An aircraft maintenance engineer surnamed Chen said the fact that parts of the aircraft&#8217;s tail were found some 10 kilometers from the crash site suggests that there may have been problems with this part. &#8220;[If] the torque was too large, it could have gotten sheared off, which wouldn&#8217;t be surprising,&#8221; Chen said. &#8220;The crash is going to be either due to human error or a mechanical failure.&#8221; Both black boxes, the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder, have been recovered and taken to Beijing for decoding, Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) official Zhu Tao told journalists on March 27. The investigation is seeking answers to questions about why the Boeing 737 descended 6,000 meters in the space of just one minute, before burying itself 20 meters deep in a mountainside as it began its descent to Guangzhou. Deliberate media controls U.S.-based economist He Qinglian said the media controls are likely top-down and deliberate. &#8220;They won&#8217;t let them report from the crash site &#8212; that&#8217;s the CCP&#8217;s dead hand controlling the media,&#8221; He said. &#8220;It&#8217;s to make sure that nobody starts making interpretations that aren&#8217;t in line with the official narrative.&#8221; Meanwhile, the authorities have yet to publish a list of the passengers and crew who were aboard the doomed flight, with Hong Kong media reports saying the families of victims are being closely watched around the clock by Chinese officials. An online appeal from the families of victims complained that they, too, are being kept in the dark by officials. &#8220;Due to the pandemic, there is almost no way for family members [of victims] to communicate with other family members,&#8221; the appeal, which was no longer visible on Toutiao by Tuesday, said. However, authorities did respond to some of the relatives&#8217; requests by taking them up to the crash site in separate groups, to view the scene and to make offerings for their loved ones at a temporary shrine in the area. One family member wrote: &#8220;Even if they don&#8217;t find anyone, I am hoping to go home with some soil from the crash site [in lieu of remains].&#8221; Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [<div>Shanghai lockdown leaves hundreds stranded, wipes 'billions' from economy</div>](https://ij-reportika.com/shanghai-lockdown-leaves-hundreds-stranded-wipes-billions-from-economy/): A Swissair flight from Zurich to Shanghai was canceled 20 minutes before departure on Tuesday, leaving more than 200 Chinese passengers stranded, as Shanghai&#8217;s COVID-19 lockdown begins to bite. Swissair flight LX188 was due to take off for Shanghai&#8217;s Pudong International Airport at 7.10 p.m. local time on Monday evening, but was canceled as passengers were waiting to board the plane at the gate, despite all having provided negative COVID-19 tests at check-in, disgruntled passengers told RFA. Some passengers shared photos of people holding up placards saying &#8220;I want to go home,&#8221; in the airport, demanding the authorities take measures to help them. In one video clip uploaded to social media, the passengers stood in a row chanting &#8220;We&#8217;re going home! We&#8217;re going back to China!&#8221; They included around 100 passengers who had transited through Zurich following a 10-hour flight from Brazil, as well as children, elderly and a pregnant woman, passengers told RFA. Zhejiang-based scholar Cai Yong said the group appeared to be angry with Swissair for canceling the flight, although it was the authorities at Pudong who had revoked its landing permission. &#8220;The stranded passengers have no problem with the Chinese government, just the airline,&#8221; Cai said. &#8220;They are addressing their demands to the wrong place.&#8221; &#8220;It would make more sense for them to get in touch with their local Chinese consulate, and convey their demands to the Chinese government [that way],&#8221; he said. Passengers posted to social media that some of their visas had expired, leaving them in Switzerland illegally. Most said they were forced to buy tickets on other flights at sky-high last-minute prices. Calls to the Chinese consulate in Zurich resulted in a statement saying officials there respected &#8220;all Swiss decisions.&#8221; The logos of Swissair (L) and China Airlines (R) are seen on the fins of long-haul airplanes on the opening day of the International Paris Airshow, June 15, 2015. Consulate trying to &#8216;pass the buck&#8217; However, some help did arrive from the consulate on Tuesday morning, as consular officials delivered food, water and other necessities to Chinese nationals still stranded at the airport, and promised to negotiate with Swissair on their behalf. &#8220;This flight cancellation wasn&#8217;t done by the airline, which was forced into that decision,&#8221; Cai said. &#8220;The consulate is also trying to pass the buck.&#8221; &#8220;Don&#8217;t any of those people have critical thinking skills?&#8221; he said. Germany&#8217;s Lufthansa was also forced on Tuesday to cancel a flight to Shanghai from Frankfurt, while Air China also canceled CA842 from Vienna to Beijing, leaving more than 100 Chinese nationals stranded in the Austrian capital. Chinese scholar Wang Zheng said many people have taken by surprise at the strictness of Shanghai&#8217;s COVID-19 restrictions. &#8220;Many people have expressed surprise and incomprehension faced with Shanghai&#8217;s COVID-19 measures,&#8221; Wang told RFA, adding that the lockdown is largely ideological, and in keeping with ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping&#8217;s insistence on a zero-COVID policy. &#8220;One size fits all lockdowns are the latest trend in the new era,&#8221; Wang said in a reference to Xi&#8217;s personal brand of political ideology, &#8220;socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era.&#8221; &#8220;Shanghai&#8217;s lockdown tells us that they are tightening restrictions to curb COVID-19, not loosening them,&#8221; he said. Meanwhile, the current lockdown in the Pudong financial district and an imminent lockdown across the river in the downtown area of Puxi have been extended until April 5, local residents told RFA. &#8220;This morning the residential community committee informed us that we&#8217;re no longer allowed to take a walk [in the compound] downstairs,&#8221; a resident of the Pudong No. 1 residential community surnamed Liu said. &#8220;The restrictions on the community have been extended now to April 5,&#8221; he said. Previously, the authorities said the lockdown would be lifted on April 1. Shoppers rummage through empty shelves in a supermarket before a lockdown as a measure against the Covid-19 coronavirus in Shanghai, March 29, 2022. Credit: AFP Heavy losses from zero-COVID The news came as a study found that while China&#8217;s zero-COVID measures have been largely effective at curbing the spread of the virus, the country&#8217;s economy has paid a heavy price in the form of an estimated U.S.$46 billion in losses a month, just over three percent of GDP. Economists at the Chinese University of Hong Kong used logistical tracking data linked to two million trucks to extrapolate the impact on economic activity. Co-author and CUHK economics professor Song Zheng said a strict lockdown in Shanghai alone could knock four percentage points off China&#8217;s GDP. Tsai Ming-fang, economist at Taiwan&#8217;s Tamkang University, said the lockdown had effectively wiped out the city&#8217;s electronics industry. &#8220;The Shanghai lockdown has led to the disappearance of the entire electronic logistics industry,&#8221; Tsai told RFA. &#8220;The port is also directly affected, and it is impossible for goods to be shipped.&#8221; &#8220;It&#8217;s also impossible for workers to commute to work normally. These are the points at which the economic impact is felt.&#8221; Reuters cited sources on Tuesday as saying that Tesla supplier Lingang had halted production for four days. &#8220;There will be some satellite factories under Tesla, and smaller partners under the satellite factories, which have a low tolerance for risk,&#8221; Tsai said. &#8220;Once production is halted, they won&#8217;t be able to keep going because they will have operational difficulties caused by cash-flow problems, or even go bankrupt,&#8221; he said. Current affairs commentator Si Ling said the lockdown in Shanghai casts doubt over whether the CCP under Xi is that committed to running a globalized economy that is connected to the rest of the world. &#8220;It does make you wonder how determined China is to pursue economic reform and an open economy,&#8221; Si told RFA, in a reference to economic policies initiated by late supreme leader Deng Xiaoping in 1979. &#8220;Shanghai was once a window on the world for that policy.&#8221; He said the status of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen as attractive entry points for foreign direct investment could now be in jeopardy. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [China warns Nepal about ‘outside interference’ following US grant](https://ij-reportika.com/china-warns-nepal-about-outside-interference-following-us-grant/): China warned Nepal this month against what it called interference from outside forces following Nepal&#8217;s ratification of a U.S. development grant, while China-tied projects in the country continue to stall, media sources say. The warning came during Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s March 25-27 visit to Nepal, and only a month after Nepal’s parliament ratified a $500 million no-strings-attached U.S. grant to build electric power lines and improve roads in the impoverished Himalayan country. Signed by Washington and Kathmandu in 2017, the agreement called the Millenium Challenge Corporation Nepal Compact (MCC-Nepal) was finally ratified by Nepal on Feb. 27 after numerous delays in the country’s parliament. In talks in Kathmandu last week, Wang Yi said that “external interference” in Nepal’s affairs might now threaten the “core interests” of both China and Nepal, according to a March 28 report by the India-based ANI online news service. “China supports Nepal in pursuing ‘independent domestic and foreign policies,’” ANI said, quoting Wang. Regional experts speaking to RFA in interviews this week said Wang Yi’s statements in Nepal reflect Beijing’s growing concern that Kathmandu may no longer rely exclusively on China for supporting its development. Beijing wants to convince Nepalese politicians that China is still a friend to Nepal, said Aadil Brar, a China specialist at the Delhi, India-based online newspaper The Print. “And there is now a certain concern within China that Nepal might be moving closer to the U.S., and so I think that was the primary goal in terms of [Wang Yi’s] three-day visit,” he said. “If we look at the kind of support China offers, it’s mostly in terms of infrastructure projects that are being built in Nepal. But Nepalese politicians usually like to have grants instead of loans, because that helps them make sure they are not going to be dependent on China.” No progress on BRI projects Nepal is seen by China as a partner in its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to boost global trade through infrastructure development, but no agreements on BRI projects or the terms of their loans were signed during Wang Yi’s visit, sources in the country say. “We have seen many politicians and experts here in Nepal who do not approve of China’s Belt and Road Initiative project and consider it threatening to Nepal,” said Sangpo Lama, vice president of HURON, the Human Rights Organization of Nepal. “China’s principle is to give money for BRI projects in Nepal in the form of loans, and not as grants,” Sangpo Lama said. Beijing has been apprehensive ever since Nepal ratified the MCC-Nepal agreement with the United States, said Santosh Sharma, a faculty member at Nepal’s Tribhuvan University and co-founder of the Nepal Institute for Policy Research. “Nepal needs international grants and support to build infrastructure in the country, and China’s Belt and Road Initiative and the MCC grant from the U.S. both serve that purpose. However, by signing the MCC agreement, Nepal has shown just how significant the American grant is,” Sharma said. Wang Yi’s claims of concern for Nepal’s “sovereignty and independence from external forces” only mask Beijing’s greater worry over U.S. influence in Nepal, added Parshuram Kaphle, a special correspondent on foreign and strategic affairs at Nepal’s Naya Patrika newspaper. “However, neither China nor the U.S. will be able to create a bond with Nepal like India has,” Kaphle said. “There is a natural bond between Nepal and India. And geopolitically India will also play a huge role in Nepal’s future.” Though BRI projects in Nepal have so far failed to launch, Nepal’s government has cited promises of millions of dollars of Chinese investment in restricting the activities of an estimated 20,000 Tibetan refugees living in the country, leaving many uncertain of their status and vulnerable to abuses of their rights, rights groups say. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.
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- [Pro-China newspaper denounces Hong Kong journalists' union as 'anti-China'](https://ij-reportika.com/pro-china-newspaper-denounces-hong-kong-journalists-union-as-anti-china/): A newspaper backed by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has called on a prominent journalists&#8217; association in Hong Kong to disband, as the city&#8217;s foreign correspondents&#8217; club said it had axed a prestigious award for journalists reporting on human rights issues. Writing in the Wen Wei Po newspaper, pro-Beijing lawmaker Edward Leung called the Hong Kong Journalists&#8217; Association (HKJA) &#8220;a suspected anti-China organization that disrupts Hong Kong,&#8221; saying it was a political organization in the guise of a press organization. &#8220;The HKJA is &#8230; fighting against the reality of Chinese rule in Hong Kong,&#8221; Leung wrote, saying it had &#8220;incited fake journalists to spread rumors and incite violence.&#8221; &#8220;Just like the Professional Teachers&#8217; Union and the Confederation of Trade Unions and other anti-China, trouble-making organizations in Hong Kong, they must be held responsible for the damage they have caused,&#8221; Leung wrote. Meanwhile, the pro-CCP Ta Kung Pao published an opinion article titled &#8220;dissolution is the only solution for the HKJA.&#8221; &#8220;If the HKJA thinks that it can continue to destroy Hong Kong with the support of foreign forces, then it&#8217;s on a fool&#8217;s errand,&#8221; the paper said. The association has previously been a vocal critic of police restrictions on journalists, particularly during the 2019 protest movement, which culminated in the police force refusing to tolerate the presence of anyone it decided was a &#8220;fake journalist.&#8221; Leung said city officials have demanded the HKJA &#8220;provide relevant information on activities not conforming to its articles of association,&#8221; but the organization hadn&#8217;t immediately complied, suggesting it had &#8220;ghosts&#8221; it was avoiding. Chairperson of the Hong Kong Journalists Association Ronson Chan (L) and Chris Yeung, chief editor of the organization’s annual report “Freedom in Tatters.” in Hong Kong, July 15, 2021. Credit: AFP Dwindling freedom HKJA president Ronson Chan told RFA that the organization hasn&#8217;t yet decided whether or not to dissolve, as many trade unions and civil organizations have since the CCP imposed a draconian national security law on Hong Kong from July 1, 2020, saying that was a decision for its members. &#8220;I am disappointed in that article,&#8221; Chan said. &#8220;The issues [around the articles of association] have been clarified, and I have said this many times, but their argument is still the same.&#8221; &#8220;It doesn&#8217;t only reflect the views of the pro-establishment media, but also the views of the powerful establishment behind it,&#8221; he said. &#8220;But whether we continue to exist is a matter &#8230; for our members to decide.&#8221; The national security law ushered in a citywide crackdown on public dissent and criticism of the authorities that has seen several senior journalists, pro-democracy media magnate Jimmy Lai and 47 former lawmakers and democracy activists charged with offenses from &#8220;collusion with a foreign power&#8221; to &#8220;subversion.&#8221; Journalists laid off after the folding of a number of outspoken news organizations since the law took effect have told RFA they face an uncertain future amid dwindling freedom of expression in Hong Kong. &#8220;National security education&#8221; &#8212; which is being tailored to all age-groups from kindergarten to university &#8212; is also mandatory under the law, while student unions and other civil society groups have disbanded, with some of their leaders arrested in recent months. An online meeting of the HKJA on Saturday did discuss the possibility of disbanding, and whether or not it should change its articles of association, Chan said, adding that the HKJA will continue to exist &#8220;for the forseeable future.&#8221; The organization sent an email out to members on April 22 informing them that its executive committee are considering the organization&#8217;s position, and calling for comments in a consultation exercise. Any motion to disband must win the support of at least five-sixths of voting members in a secret ballot. Pro-CCP hires Meanwhile, the Foreign Correspondents&#8217; Club (FCC) announced it was axing the prestigious Human Rights Press Awards this year, citing legal risks. &#8220;Over the last two years, journalists in Hong Kong have been operating under new &#8216;red lines&#8217; on what is and is not permissible, but there remain significant areas of uncertainty and we do not wish unintentionally to violate the law,&#8221; FCC president Keith Richburg said in a letter to members posted to the FCC website. &#8220;We explored a variety of other options, but could not find a feasible way forward. It is particularly painful coming less than two weeks before May 3, World Press Freedom Day, when we normally announce the HRPA winners and celebrate their journalism,&#8221; he said. Former Hong Kong Baptist University journalism professor To Yiu-ming said political affiliation is now the most important thing when media organizations in Hong Kong hire journalists, especially the most senior ones, not professionalism. He cited the recent hiring of pro-CCP media figures to senior editorial role, including that of Chan Tit Piu as director of NowTV news. &#8220;The fact that these people can get directly hired to positions like that has to do with political considerations,&#8221; To told RFA. &#8220;It&#8217;s a bit problematic.&#8221; &#8220;Why don&#8217;t they emphasize professionalism [when hiring]?&#8221; Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Viral Shanghai lockdown video-maker deletes own work amid rumors of detention](https://ij-reportika.com/viral-shanghai-lockdown-video-maker-deletes-own-work-amid-rumors-of-detention/): The creator of a viral video about the Shanghai lockdown has said he has deleted it, and that rumors of his detention were untrue, as shoppers poured into stores in Beijing amid rising COVID-19 cases. The montage-style video &#8220;April Voices&#8221; puts together audio clips, video and still photos of the past few weeks of life under the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)&#8217;s zero-COVID policy. &#8220;Shanghai is not under lockdown, and doesn&#8217;t need to be,&#8221; an official voice is heard saying at the start, followed by images of deserted streets and soundbites about overcrowded hospitals and ambulances that never come and deleted complaints posted to social media. It continues with audio of crying babies, complaints about undelivered groceries, rotting vegetables by the roadside, the scarcity of basic foodstuffs and water, wails and shouts from the windows of high-rise apartment buildings demanding officials hand out basic supplies. In the middle is a tearful clip of an exhausted neighborhood committee official who laments the lack of sensible policies or even explanations about why some 25 million people have been confined to their homes since late March and forced to submit to round after round of mass COVID-19 testing, before either being sent to overcrowded and under-resourced quarantine facilities or walled up in their own buildings and apartments, often with welded metal barriers. &#8220;Are they going to kill it? Oh my God!&#8221; says one woman, apparently witnessing officials dispatching a pet whose owners have been taken away after testing positive. &#8220;Some nice police officers brought us food, because we hadn&#8217;t eaten in several foods,&#8221; a man&#8217;s voice says, while another man talks about being unable to get admitted for urgent treatment in hospital owing to stringent testing requirements. &#8220;People might not be dying of the virus, but they&#8217;re starving to death,&#8221; says a man&#8217;s voice. &#8220;They haven&#8217;t even put up beds so we&#8217;re sleeping on the floor,&#8221; a woman&#8217;s voice says. &#8220;Are you locking the door?&#8221; shouts a woman. &#8220;What if there&#8217;s a fire?&#8221; a man demands to know. &#8220;I&#8217;m sorry to disturb you ma&#8217;am but my kid has a fever!&#8221; yells another woman. The blogger and video-maker Strawberry Fields, who described themselves as &#8220;Shanghai born and bred,&#8221; said via QQ.com that the video had now been deleted. &#8220;There were online comments today about the maker of the video being taken away, and a lot of people have been asking what happened, so I need to clarify things,&#8221; the blogger wrote. &#8220;My family and I are all fine, at home as usual, and no officials have contacted me.&#8221; &#8220;I felt that perhaps the meaning given to the video had been extended by its audience, and it spread far further and faster than is normal, so I deleted it myself at around 3 p.m. today,&#8221; they wrote. &#8220;I don&#8217;t want any more misunderstandings.&#8221; The video&#8217;s disappearance came as residents of Pudong and Huangpu protested at officials who had come to seal them into their buildings with steel barriers and fences, which are springing up across the city, sometimes cutting off entire districts from each other by blocking main thoroughfares. Shanghai authorities reported 51 deaths from COVID-19 in the past day, with 2,680 newly confirmed symptomatic cases and more than 17,000 asymptomatic cases. A resident of Beijing queues up for nucleic acid testing, April 25, 2022. Credit: Reuters Beijing preparing for closure Meanwhile, shoppers flooded stores and supermarkets in Beijing amid rising COVID-19 cases, as the authorities sealed off a number of residential districts in Chaoyang district. Store shelves were rapidly emptying of basic foodstuffs, fresh fruit and vegetables, sanitary supplies and Coca-Cola, as people scrambled to lay in stores for prolonged restrictions on their freedom of movement. Pork, steak and burgers, onion, ginger and coriander were among the first to go, as online posts suggested buying a second refrigerator or freezer to store food in for the long haul. Chaoyang district has launched a program of district-wide mass COVID-19 testing, to be repeated three times over the next week, a local resident surnamed Sun told RFA. &#8220;There was an infection source traced to Chuiyangliu in Chaoyang district,&#8221; he said. &#8220;All staff will undergo PCR testing today, and again on Wednesday and Friday, three times in all,&#8221; Sun said. &#8220;A lot of people are now buying food.&#8221; Another resident said many store shelves now stand empty. &#8220;Residents rushed to buy food at various supermarkets in Beijing yesterday, all the food is gone, and the shelves are empty,&#8221; the resident said. Current affairs commentator Li Ang said the authorities have shown in their handling of the Shanghai lockdown that they are less concerned about COVID-19 than they are about potential social unrest. &#8220;The main point is to strengthen their control of society in an all-round way, to prevent trouble, any unexpected incidents from happening,&#8221; Li said. &#8220;The first thing they consider is the stability of the regime, and the second is the security of the regime.&#8221; &#8220;That is the top priority, and nothing else is seen as a problem.&#8221; Lockdowns were imposed on 14 areas in Chaoyang at the time of writing, with another 14 areas subject to less stringent restrictions on people&#8217;s movements. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Tibetan village leaders told to ‘Speak in Chinese’](https://ij-reportika.com/tibetan-village-leaders-told-to-speak-in-chinese/): Chinese officials in rural areas of Tibet are forcing village leaders to speak in Chinese, as authorities move forward with campaigns aimed at restricting the use by Tibetans of their native language, RFA has learned. Workshops launched at the end of last year now order local administrators to conduct business only in Chinese, telling them they must support language policies mandated by Beijing and lead the Tibetan public “by example,” according to a source living in Tibet. “A 10-day workshop was held for local leaders in Kongpo in central-eastern Tibet to promote Chinese, both written and spoken, as their main language of communication,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. Six workshops have now already been held in Kongpo’s Gyamda (in Chinese, Gongbujiangda) county, with others conducted in many other regions of Tibet, the source said, adding, “And Tibetan village employees are being required to speak and communicate in Chinese at all times.” Speaking to RFA, Tibetan researchers living in exile called the move a further push by China to weaken the Tibetan people’s ties to their national culture and identity. Pema Gyal, a researcher at London-based Tibet Watch, said that recent years have seen China’s government impose the use of Mandarin Chinese in Tibetan schools and religious institutions. “But now these policies are being enforced on all Tibetans.” “This is an attempt to Sinicize Tibet’s language and culture,” Gyal said. China’s programs mandating the use of the Chinese language in Tibet’s cities have already taken hold, added Nyiwoe, a researcher at the Dharamsala, India-based Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy. “So now they are going to implement these policies in the villages and rural areas,” he said. A new program supported by China’s 5G network has meanwhile been launched to “improve” education in Tibet by the use of Mandarin Chinese in online teaching, research, and communications between schools, according to a Chinese state media report on April 8. “This program using the 5G network is aimed at expediting and expanding the already harsh ongoing policies of the Chinese government to Sinicize the Tibetan language inside Tibet,” commented Kunga Tashi, an analyst of Tibetan and Chinese affairs now living in New York. Teaching opportunities Despite Chinese government policies restricting Tibetan children from learning their own language, many parents in Tibet are now creating teaching opportunities outside the schools, a Tibetan living in Tibet’s regional capital Lhasa said. “We now have small childcare centers in Lhasa where the children are taught the Tibetan language and Tibetan dances and songs, and where they are encouraged to wear Tibetan clothing,” RFA’s source said, also declining to be named. “No specific subjects are taught in Tibetan, though, because the Chinese government has imposed very tight restrictions on teaching in Tibetan. At least teaching these children Tibetan songs and dances will help to preserve our culture and language,” he added. Also speaking to RFA, another Lhasa resident said he has been teaching his child to read and write in Tibetan and also to recite Tibetan prayers. “He can recite his prayers very well now, and he also has very good Tibetan handwriting.” “I would like to take this opportunity to ask all Tibetans living in exile to preserve our language and to always speak in Tibetan with your children. Without our own language, we will have no identity,” he added. Chinese Communist Party efforts to supplant local language education with teaching in Chinese have raised anger not only among Tibetans, but also in the Turkic-language-speaking Uyghur community of Xinjiang and in northern China’s Inner Mongolia. Plans to end the use of the Mongolian language in ethnic Mongolian schools sparked weeks of class boycotts, street protests, and a region-wide crackdown by riot squads and state security police in the fall of 2020, in a process described by ethnic Mongolians as “cultural genocide.” Formerly an independent nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force more than 70 years ago. Language rights have become a particular focus for Tibetan efforts to assert national identity in recent years, with informally organized language courses in the monasteries and towns deemed “illegal associations” and teachers subject to detention and arrest, sources say. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [Vietnam says it discussed army games with Russia, not military drills](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-says-it-discussed-army-games-with-russia-not-military-drills/): The Vietnamese Defense Ministry says that a meeting this month with Russia did not discuss a joint military exercise as reported Russian state media but an international military competition. Vietnam’s version of events published in the official military newspaper Sunday could be intended to distance Vietnam from bilateral military activities with Russia amid international condemnation of the war in Ukraine. Quan Doi Nhan Dan, the official mouthpiece of Vietnam’s armed forces, reported that on April 15 a Vietnamese delegation led by Maj. Gen. Do Dinh Thanh, commander of Vietnam Army’s Tank Force and Armored Warfare, took part in a virtual meeting with the Russian side to discuss Vietnam’s participation in the Army Games 2022. The International Army Games, dubbed the War Olympics, is an annual military competition hosted by Russia since 2015, usually at the end of summer. Participating armies compete in different events such as “tank biathlon,” infantry, anti-aircraft artillery and troop intelligence. China has been a regular participant of the games while Vietnam began taking part in 2018 together with nearly 30 other countries. Analysts say the Army Games aims to showcase the military prowess of Russia and other countries, as well as promote Russian weapons and technologies to prospective buyers. The report in Quan Doi Nhan Dan said the Vietnamese general had requested that his tank team be allowed to arrive early for training and familiarization “if the Army Games are to take place” this year. Bilateral military activities Russia is waging a full-scale war in Ukraine after invading its neighbor on Feb. 24. The invasion, widely condemned by the international community, has caused the largest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II. On April 19, Russia’s state media reported that Russia and Vietnam were planning to hold a joint military training exercise. The move was described by analysts as “inappropriate” and likely to “raise eyebrows” in the rest of the region. Russian state-run news agency RIA Novosti said the initial planning meeting for the military training exercise was held virtually between the leaders of Russia’s Eastern Military District and the Vietnamese army. The news came as the U.S. announced a May 12-13 summit in Washington with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, including Vietnam. Vietnam considers Russia a traditional ally and a “comprehensive strategic partner,” and has been supportive of Moscow despite international outrage over Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. Earlier this month, Vietnam voted against a U.S.-led resolution to remove Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council. Before that, Hanoi abstained from voting to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the U.N. General Assembly. Vietnamese army officials are usually very tight-lipped about international affairs, and the report in the official army newspaper could be viewed as a denial of involvement in bilateral military activities with Russia.
- [China calls on public to submit 'opinions' to ruling party ahead of top meeting](https://ij-reportika.com/china-calls-on-public-to-submit-opinions-to-ruling-party-ahead-of-top-meeting/): The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is calling for &#8216;opinions&#8217; from citizens ahead of a crucial political meeting later this year, amid growing public anger over CCP leader Xi Jinping&#8217;s COVID-19 policy, that has seen millions confined in grueling lockdowns across the country in recent months. The &#8220;call for public submissions&#8221; comes ahead of the CCP&#8217;s 20th Party Congress, scheduled for late 2022, the Global Times newspaper cited state news agency Xinhua as saying. From April 15 through May 16, the anniversary of the start of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1967) when late supreme leader Mao Zedong began a purge of his political rivals within party ranks, people can submit their &#8220;opinions and suggestions&#8221; online, including via the CCP&#8217;s official People&#8217;s Daily newspaper, Xinhua and the China Media Group, it said. &#8220;Opinions expressed online will be collected, analyzed and then provided as a reference to the drafting of the report of the 20th national congress, and some of the common problems raised by netizens will be dealt with immediately or assigned to responsible departments for further research,&#8221; the paper said, citing &#8220;analysts.&#8221; The move is intended to boost the CCP&#8217; public image as confident, open, honest and innovative, it said. The People&#8217;s Daily said it received more than 10,000 submissions within the first 12 hours of launching the page. Submissions must be made under eight categories, many of which are ideological rather than factual, and include subjects like &#8220;developing the people&#8217;s whole-process democracy,&#8221; a Xi Jinping buzzword for public consultation under an authoritarian system, as well as &#8220;improving people&#8217;s livelihoods,&#8221; and &#8220;strengthening and upholding party leadership.&#8221; China&#8217;s President Xi Jinping (front) appears for the closing session of the National People’s Congress (NPC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, March 11, 2022. Credit: AFP Strict limits Deng Yuwen, a former newspaper editor for a CCP party school publication, said calls for public consultation aren&#8217;t uncommon in China&#8217;s political system, but that there are strict, unwritten rules about what kind of opinions are acceptable. General political points are particularly unwelcome, he said. &#8220;You can only talk about things that related to your personal situation, such as raising retirement benefits a little,&#8221; Deng said. &#8220;[These are the] so-called vital interests.&#8221; &#8220;Other topics can&#8217;t be raised at all and people know not to mention them,&#8221; he said, adding: &#8220;Asking for some opinions online doesn&#8217;t represent a particularly noteworthy change.&#8221; According to the submission page on the People&#8217;s Daily website seen by RFA on April 21, people submitting comments and suggestions must supply their real names, their employer&#8217;s name, their rank or job title, political status, age and geographical location. Mobile numbers must also be supplied, so that submissions can be verified with an SMS code, meaning that anonymous submissions aren&#8217;t an option. The submissions already visible on the People&#8217;s Daily page tended to point in the same direction as published government policy, rather than challenging anything. &#8216; Petitioners are escorted out of a park by police and security personnel before being loaded on buses and driven away in Beijing as hundreds of police swarmed the streets of Beijing&#8217;s financial district to quash a rally by angry peer-to-peer lenders, Aug. 6, 2018. Credit: AFP Marginal, mundane and innocuous issues&#8217; Chen Kuide, executive chairman of the Princeton Chinese Society in the United States, said all submissions will be subject to strict review, and that critical or challenging comments would never make it as far as Xi himself. &#8220;The authorities can only tolerate opinions on fairly marginal, mundane and innocuous issues,&#8221; Chen told RFA. &#8220;But when it comes to issues linked to Xi Jinping&#8217;s political survival, like the zero-COVID policy, China&#8217;s relationship with Russia and the U.S. or Taiwan, there can be no opinions opposing CCP policy or Xi Jinping&#8217;s own view.&#8221; Wang Dan, a former leader of the 1989 student-led democracy movement in China and the founder of the Dialogue China think-tank, said the zero-COVID strategy alone could mean there is a political crisis brewing for Xi, who will seek an unprecedented third term in office at the 20th Party Congress. &#8220;The disease control strategy will have a psychological impact on all Chinese people, but it will have a greater psychological impact on the middle classes; those who have gained some benefit from past economic development,&#8221; Wang said in a commentary broadcast by RFA&#8217;s Mandarin Service. &#8220;Shanghai, where life became unbearable overnight, will make many people see the grim reality, [people] who used to go about thinking they could live a peaceful life without getting involved in politics,&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;When this crisis happened, they will realize that politics will come to you.&#8221; &#8220;People are facing the risk of starvation, or arrests and beatings, even in the richest districts of Shanghai,&#8221; he said. &#8220;All of this &#8230; will make the middle classes &#8212; once the biggest supporters of CCP policies &#8212; totally lose any confidence in China&#8217;s future.&#8221; He said most of Generation Z in China will likely feel abandoned both by society and the economy in the aftermath of the pandemic. &#8220;Once they wake up to this, the sense of resistance will be very strong &#8230; [and] that kind of crisis will be far more deadly to the CCP than the pandemic,&#8221; Wang said. &#8216;Full of pseudoscience&#8217; Veteran Democracy Wall dissident Wei Jingsheng agreed, adding that Xi&#8217;s political ideology is unlikely to give way easily in the face of anger and resentment, as his thinking was molded by the chaotic factional strife of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). &#8220;Comrade Xi Jinping grew up in that era, and his basic notions were formed then: his head was full of pseudoscience, his thinking full of arrogance, superstition, violence and other absurdities,&#8221; Wei wrote in a recent commentary. &#8220;This is the ideological source of his insistence on the absurd zero-COVID policy today.&#8221; Wei said Xi would have been regularly exposed to violent propaganda in his youth, and had likely developed a taste for violent oppression, which Wei said was akin to Stockholm Syndrome. Wei warned that it would be hard to...
- [Soaring unemployment in Myanmar follows junta rollback of labor rights](https://ij-reportika.com/soaring-unemployment-in-myanmar-follows-junta-rollback-of-labor-rights/): Thu Thu, a 37-year-old laborer living in Shwepyithar township on the outskirts of Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon, has been trying to find work at one of the Industrial Zone’s garment factories for more than two weeks with no luck. Using a pseudonym, she told RFA’s Myanmar Service that she was unlawfully terminated from her job nearly a month ago and needs to care for her elderly parents and two daughters but said no one wants to hire a woman over the age of 30. “Before, under the [civilian National League for Democracy government], employers hired based on a person’s skills. Now, under junta rule, they tend to look at age and they reject me after they see how old I am on my ID card,” she said. “I am facing severe hardship trying to support my family. Sometimes, to speak truthfully, I even consider taking my own life.” She said she now works odd jobs to make ends meet but questioned how much longer she will be able to manage with few prospects of employment. Thu Thu is just one of around 1,000 laborers trying to find work in the Shwepyithar Industrial Zone, a key component of Myanmar’s U.S. $3.4 billion textile sector. According to the Confederation of Trade Unions of Myanmar, there are over 500,000 textile workers in the Yangon region alone. However, job opportunities – even in the country’s once bustling cities – are drying up. The International Labor Organisation (ILO) estimates that more than 1.6 million workers, or nearly 3 percent of Myanmar’s population of around 54 million, lost their jobs last year due to the coronavirus pandemic and the political upheaval that followed the Feb. 1, 2021 military coup. According to the Myanmar Garment Factory Entrepreneurs Association, only 504 of 759 factories in Yangon are currently operating. Those workers in the Shwepyithar Industrial Zone who still have their jobs said they receive a fixed wage of 4,800 kyats (U.S. $2.60) per day and can no longer work for overtime pay because electricity shortages prevent their factories from operating at full capacity. Other baseline worker benefits have also disappeared in the wake of the coup. Garment worker Su Su Aung told RFA that since the takeover, factory owners have stopped providing medical leave to their employees and instead require that they sign documents agreeing to have their status downgraded following any absences. “We used to be able to take impromptu leave for sickness or take medical leave, but we can no longer do that. If we take leave for a day or two because of an emergency, they reduce our pay grade or skip our bonuses,” she said. “We never experienced these kinds of conditions before. When we appealed to them to keep the old policies in place, they threatened us and said no one would listen to our complaints, so we are forced to work under these conditions.” Workers arrive at a factory in Yangon, in an undated photo. Credit: RFA Reforms rolled back A garment factory worker of seven years’ experience, who declined to be named citing fear of reprisal, said years of labor rights reforms under the NLD government were rolled back seemingly overnight by the coup. “Employers have become more self-centered. There is no rule of law, so they can do whatever they want, knowing that the workers will keep silent because we need the money,” she said. “They think they are entitled to hire and fire people whenever they want. It’s like a living hell for us. We can only hope that someone will emerge who can make our lives better.” Zin Wai Aung, a volunteer who assists workers, said he is receiving an increasing number of complaints about getting fired. “We get two or three cases each day – most of them are for being terminated from work. Many workers get unpaid time off for 20 days and are to come back to work for ten days on regular basis. They no longer have full-time jobs, but they aren’t getting fired either,” he said. “In addition, we have seen many workers getting fired unlawfully, for complaining to their manager or requesting leave or holidays.” Workers arrive at a factory in Yangon, in an undated photo. Credit: RFA An owner of a garment factory that employs nearly 250 people told RFA that workers deserve someone to stand up for them in negotiating their rights. “It is normal to see disputes between workers and employers. We are trying to resolve them on both sides and things are getting better,” he said. But the owner added that after the coup, the labor situation in Myanmar “returned to square one,” leaving workers little protection of their rights. Workers who spoke to RFA echoed the owner’s sentiments, noting that the unions which represented them in disputes under the NLD government had largely disbanded after the takeover because they were being targeted by the military regime. Late last month, the ILO said it plans to investigate whether Myanmar is following conventions its government agreed to on the formation of worker unions and banning forced labor, but the junta has objected to the announcement. Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Junta chief offers Myanmar’s ethnic armies rare in-person peace talks](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-chief-offers-myanmars-ethnic-armies-rare-in-person-peace-talks/): Myanmar junta chief, Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, on Friday offered to meet with leaders of armed ethnic groups to end conflict in the country’s remote border regions but was met with a mixed response from the armies, who said the military has broken vows in the past and needs to deliver on promises of peace. The offer also was not extended to representatives of the country’s ousted, democratically elected government and the prodemocracy People’s Defense Forces that sprang up in an effort to return it to power. “I have said that 2022 is the year of peace and that we will work for an end to all armed conflict in the country,” he said in a speech broadcast on state-run television. “I call on the leaders of the ethnic armed groups to meet and negotiate, as peace needs to be implemented in practice. I will meet all the groups in person and later talks could be held with a delegation made up of members of the [junta].” Min Aung Hlaing proposed that the meeting include the heads of each ethnic army and two of their lieutenants — the names of whom should be submitted by May 9. He said a date would be set for full talks after the initial meeting. Junta deputy information minister, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, told RFA’s Myanmar Service that the military regime would assume responsibility for the safety of those attending the event. “We fully guarantee the safety of the people who will be attending the talks, and the [junta] will pick them up wherever they feel comfortable … and bring them in [for the meeting].” He said China had also agreed to help broker the peace process and that the junta is willing to work with all stakeholders. Col. Khun Okkar, the leader of the Pa-O National Liberation Organization (PNLO), told RFA he believes the junta is determined to work for peace in the run-up to a general election, and suggested Min Aung Hlaing proposed the meeting to “find a way to stabilize the country.” At the time of Myanmar’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup, Min Aung Hlaing promised elections within a year, but he has since pushed the date back to August 2023. More recently, the junta has said elections would only be held if there is “stability” in the country. Khun Okkar said that by proposing the talks on television, Min Aung Hlaing was likely trying to bypass the red tape required to get talks started. “There&#8217;s too much centralization. … There are a lot of steps and sometimes things don&#8217;t get to the point in time,” he said. “It seems he wanted to be more effective when he said he would take charge himself. Time is running out … and as he needs time to prepare for the elections, I think he wanted to have the talks as quickly as possible.” Padoh Saw Tawney, foreign affairs officer for the Karen National Union (KNU), said past experiences with the peace process have raised doubts within his group about the military&#8217;s tactics. &#8220;We have never rejected peace, but peace cannot be achieved with words only. So, we need them to show us real facts and actions that can lead to peace,” he said. “Without these, we cannot accept any offers — even if he meets with us personally. &#8230; We have taken part [in previous peace talks] and we know every little trick they use. So, there cannot be peace talks without accepting our conditions,” he added, without providing details. Ethnic minority Karen troops approach a Myanmar army outpost near the Thai border, which is seen from the Thai side on the Thanlwin, also known as Salween, riverbank in Mae Hong Son province, Thailand, April 28, 2021. Credit: Reuters Political ‘act’ in response to pressure Sai Kyi Zin Soe, a Myanmar-based political analyst, called Min Aung Hlaing’s call for peace “useless” and suggested it was a political act to alleviate international pressure over the junta’s brutal repression of its opponents. According to rights groups, security forces have killed 1,782 civilians and arrested nearly 103,000 since the coup, mostly during peaceful anti-junta protests. Proper peace talks cannot be held without all stakeholders, Sai Kyi Zin Soe said, and must also include the country’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG), prodemocracy People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries, and other opposition forces. The junta has ruled out talks with the groups, which it accuses of terrorism. “The path he is taking and the work he is doing is just a figurative demonstration of a desire for real political stability,” he said. “[Failing to include groups beyond the ethnic armies] shows he’s making the offer because of pressure from China or ASEAN amid international criticism, rather than out of a genuine desire for real peace.” Ye Tun, a former member of parliament with the deposed National League for Democracy (NLD), said he believes Min Aung Hlaing may be trying to “keep the ethnic armed groups in check” until he can eliminate the PDF and other armed opposition groups. Ethnic armies have been fighting against Myanmar’s military since the country’s 1948 independence. In the aftermath of the coup, several groups have thrown their support behind anti-junta resistance fighters, while others are joining forces with the local PDF branches to fight the military. Only 10 ethnic armies have signed a Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement with the government since 2015, when the document was inked in the presence of international observers and Myanmar’s highest legislature. The 10 groups have suggested that the deal remains in place, despite an already flailing peace process that was all but destroyed by the unpopular junta’s coup. However, they say they will not pursue talks with the military, which they view as having stolen power from the country’s democratically elected government. While the junta has made peace overtures to the ethnic armies in the past, Friday marked the first time Min Aung Hlaing offered to meet with them in person. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written...
- [In North Korea, a soldier’s biggest threat may be the censor](https://ij-reportika.com/in-north-korea-a-soldiers-biggest-threat-may-be-the-censor/): The North Korean military is harshly punishing soldiers for divulging “sensitive” information —including their location or unit’s size — in letters back home, sources in the military told RFA. In most of the world’s militaries, especially during wartime, soldiers are typically forbidden from relaying certain facts about their deployment. But in secretive North Korea, which is still technically at war with South Korea, even honest mistakes can bring consequences that last a lifetime. One soldier was recently punished when censors found that a letter he wrote revealed where the unit was located and the name of the battleship he served on, a military source from Sinpo, a city in the eastern province of South Hamgyong, told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The soldier was arrested and interrogated by the State Security Department for nearly two months and was eventually separated from the service with a dishonorable discharge,” he said. “If you fail to fulfil your military service time and are punished and discharged this way, that’s the end of any prospect for a good life.” Every North Korean male serves about seven years in the armed forces, according to South Korean intelligence. All the mail that they write is read and censored. Soldiers are supposed to use military postcards to write to their families or sweethearts to make it easier for censors to identify offending passages. But postcard supplies are down, so soldiers are sending more letters written on ordinary paper, in makeshift envelopes, according to the source. That affords more opportunities for mistakes. “Military mail takes more than a month or two for the letters to come and go, and the soldiers are never able to write down everything they want to say on the postcard,” the source said. If letters containing sensitive information are caught by censors, the person who delivered the letter to the post office can be punished alongside the sender, he said. “Earlier this month, an East Coast squadron naval unit in the city of Sinpo held an educational session on how not to divulge military secrets in letters,” the military source said. “The session pointed out how soldiers have been sending letters to civilian addresses with confidential information that the public should not know. The soldiers were warned not to reveal the location of troops, details about combat missions and troop movements. These are acts of treason and in violation of the military oath,” he said. Another soldier who was caught by censors was sent to work in a coal mine, a resident of the South Hamgyong province told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “My friend’s younger brother, who enlisted to the army, was punished and separated from the military with a dishonorable discharge earlier this year. He bragged about his unit’s arms equipment in a letter to a friend at home who couldn’t join the military due to his physical condition, and this was caught in postal censorship,” said the second source. “My friend’s brother was then deployed as a coal miner in a rural county. If you are discharged from the military for a mistake, you are placed in the most difficult areas of society and will be excluded from all personnel appointments. This includes membership in the Workers&#8217; Party, commendations and university recommendations,” she said. Party membership unlocks certain privileges like better education, housing and food rations — perks no longer available to the former soldier. “Mining work is difficult and dangerous, so my friend’s parents tried to get their son out of the mine any way they could, but it didn’t work,” the second source said. “My friend’s parents found out that there was a note in their son’s discharge document, saying ‘He must be assigned as a coal mine worker at the toughest coal mine. He should never be transferred to another company,’” she said. Though a market economy has begun to emerge in recent years, North Koreans still must report to their government-assigned jobs. Toiling away in the mine provides no opportunity for the former soldier to earn money on the side. “What I know about my friend’s younger brother is that he was bright and active. Now he is quiet and rarely speaks. He doesn’t meet his friends and he is very lonely. His parents are so sad,” she said. “It seems excessive to impose a lifetime of punishment on young soldiers for inadvertently bragging about information related to military secrets. The fact that every letter we send and receive is inspected by the state security department is also terrifying,” she said. Translated by Claire Lee and Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Malaysian media, officials urged not to fan hatred of Rohingya amid hunt for escapees](https://ij-reportika.com/malaysian-media-officials-urged-not-to-fan-hatred-of-rohingya-amid-hunt-for-escapees/): Malaysian police have detained two Rohingya they suspect of having instigated a riot and mass breakout at a detention center that led to six escapees being fatally struck by vehicles on a highway in the middle of the night, authorities in northern Kedah state said Friday. Eighty-eight Rohingya remained at large, including nine women and eight children, according to police chief Wan Hassan Wan Ahmad, who urged local people not to help them. Sheltering people who violate immigration laws is punishable by up to 10 years in prison, he said. “It’s been three days. These people are hungry, barefoot. They will not be able to last, with children in tow. We ask the public to immediately report to the police if any refugees seek help from them,” he said.  A total of 287 officers in three states – Kedah, Penang and Perak – have been mobilized to look for the remaining escapees, Wan Ahmad said. Meanwhile, amid ongoing updates about the manhunt, a Malaysian media advocacy group urged local officials and media not to use language that could foster hatred or fear of Rohingya people. “Publishing authorities’ comments that label Rohingya detainees as ‘highly dangerous’ … or that ‘they may also act out of control to survive’ presents the detainees as ‘violent and irrational,’” said a statement by the Malaysia-based Center for Independent Journalism (CIJ). Reporters should “interrogate the root causes behind the breakout, and not … sensationalize the issue by framing it as a crime,” it said. “While we understand the need for balanced and accurate reporting, there is a fine line that could potentially trigger increasing xenophobia and discrimination,” CIJ executive director Wathshlah Naidu she told BenarNews. Death hours before riot being investigated  On Thursday, Kedah Criminal Investigation Department chief G. Suresh Kumar said the riot occurred hours after a detainee died at the Sungai Bakap Temporary Immigration Depot. “For the record, there was a death involving a detainee in his 30s late at night, hours before the early morning rioting took place. We are conducting a post-mortem on the body and until we have the autopsy report, I wish to call on everyone to refrain from speculating,” he said. “So far, what we know is that the escapees only wanted their freedom and it was not because they were unhappy with the camp management,” he said. No serious injuries were reported in the riot early Wednesday, officials said then, adding that security personnel on duty were quickly overwhelmed as 528 people escaped. Two children were among the six later struck and killed on a highway about six km (3.7 miles) away. Most of the escapees have since been captured and taken to a detention facility in Semenyih, Selangor, about 350 kilometers (218 miles) from the place they escaped. “We have taken statements from 420 Rohingya detainees and also took their fingerprints for record. [The riot occurred] probably due to congestion and having been in detention for too long,” Wan Ahmad, the police chief, said Friday. On Wednesday, Home Minister Hamzah Zainudin had said the Rohingya who broke out of the detention center were brought there after being apprehended in Langkawi, off the coast of Kedah, in 2020. But the Kedah police chief on Friday said the main instigator of the unrest had been there three years – and was transferred there from another immigration facility. “He was transported here from Semenyih Depot three years ago,” Wan Ahmad said. “As of now, we believe his main motivation in orchestrating the riot was to create an opening to flee from the depot,” he said of the 34-year-old suspect. Kedah Police Chief Wan Hassan Wan Ahmad (right) and colleagues shows images of four Rohingya men accused of instigating a riot at an immigration depot two days earlier, Bandar Baharu, Kedah, April 22, 2022. Two of the four have been captured. Credit: BenarNews. Hamzah, the home minister, said Thursday that the reason the Rohingya had been detained for more than two years at immigration centers was because the Myanmar government did not recognize them as citizens. “If we want to send them back, where do we want to send them to? This is our problem,” he told reporters. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 saw a sharp rise in negative sentiment toward Rohingya people in Malaysia, with increased hate speech directed at the group. Dozens of NGOs spoke out against the treatment of Rohingya refugees during health-related government round-ups of immigrants and by citizens who took to social media to post views that included threats and dehumanizing language and images. The tragic events on Wednesday drew international attention, along with calls for a probe of what led to the unrest and for transparency about Malaysia’s secretive immigrant detention centers, where people are held indefinitely and incommunicado.  Jerald Joseph, a member of Malaysia’s Human Rights Commission (Suhakam), called on immigration authorities to allow representative from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to meet with the detainees. “The Immigration Department has to give access to UNHCR so they can determine whether the ones detained were really Rohingya. If so, they should be freed like the 150,000 Rohingya who are here in the country,” he said. While Malaysia allows refugees to enter the country, it has not signed the U.N. Refugee Convention. Those caught by the authorities, including children, are often detained in immigration detention centers indefinitely. Close to 1 million Rohingya who have fled persecution in Myanmar are living in crowded refugee camps in southeastern Bangladesh, but many undertake perilous sea journeys in search of a better life in Southeast Asian countries including Malaysia. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.
- [Former national immunization director sentenced to 3 years in prison by Myanmar junta](https://ij-reportika.com/former-national-immunization-director-sentenced-to-3-years-in-prison-by-myanmar-junta/): The head of the COVID-19 virus vaccination program of Myanmar’s ousted government has been sentenced by the military junta to three years in prison with hard labor for actions to resist the army takeover, according to the country’s Anti-Corruption Commission. Dr. Htar Htar Lin, a former director of Myanmar’s Public Health Department, was arrested in Yangon in June 2021, four months after the army overthrew the elected government, along with other senior medical figures who had acted in support of the Civil Disobedience Movement, a campaign of professionals resisting junta rule with work stoppages and other actions. The physician allegedly ignored ministerial orders when she returned a vaccine and immunization grant of 168 million kyats (U.S. $91,000) from UNICEF and the World Health Organization on Feb. 10, 2021, nine days after the coup, the online journal The Irrawaddy reported Thursday, citing junta-controlled newspapers. The same day, the commission also sentenced retired Dr. Soe Oo, former director-general of public health, to two years in prison for failing to investigate Htar Htar Lin. The junta’s Anti-Corruption Commission set up set up a team on April 20 to investigate Htar Htar Lin and other officials of the Ministry of Health and Sports. Since June 2021, junta authorities have charged Htar Htar Lin with three more charges that carry penalties of up to 20 years in prison, including high treason and incitement and under the Unlawful Associations Act for allegedly assisting the shadow National Unity Government (NUG), which the junta has designated as a terrorist group, The Irrawaddy reported. The military regime has targeted medical professionals, killing some, arresting dozens of others, and driven hundreds more into hiding since it overthrew the elected government more than two years ago, undermining the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, doctors in Myanmar told RFA in a September 2021 report. Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Vietnamese journalist serving 5-year sentence loses appeal](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnamese-journalist-serving-5-year-sentence-loses-appeal/): A Vietnamese journalist who has been serving a five-year sentence for livestreaming videos on hot-button social and political issues lost his appeal of the conviction this week, said his wife, who only learned of the decision days later. Le Trong Hung was arrested on March 27, 2021, after declaring his candidacy for a seat in the country’s National Assembly in a challenge to the ruling Communist Party. He was charged with “creating, storing, disseminating information, materials, items and publications against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.” On Dec. 31, 2021, after a trial that lasted less than four hours, he was sentenced to five years in prison. On Tuesday, authorities watched Hung’s house but didn’t inform her of the appeal, his wife Do Le Na told RFA’s Vietnamese Service. “On April 19, I had no reason to go out of the house, and had no idea that my house was being watched. At 11 a.m., my son came home from school and told me that someone was watching our house,” she said. “After lunch, a friend of Hung’s messaged me to ask if the appellate trial was being held that day,” Na said. Hung’s friend told Na that his house was also under watch on April 19 and a security agent told him that the reason was because Hung’s appellate trial was on that day. Na then searched for news about her husband online but could not find anything. It was not until Friday, when she came to the prison where her husband is being detained, that she was able to confirm news of the trial. Hung, 79, is a former teacher and founder of CHTV Television, which formerly livestreamed videos on controversial social and political issues. He was accused of violating Article 117 of Vietnam’s Penal Code, which has been widely used by authorities to arbitrarily detain journalists and critics. The case against Hung was based on four videos posted to his Facebook page covering sensitive issues, including a deadly Jan. 9, 2020, police crackdown during a land dispute in Dong Tam Commune. Translated by Chau Vu. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [China military PR video hints at 3rd aircraft carrier launch](https://ij-reportika.com/china-military-pr-video-hints-at-3rd-aircraft-carrier-launch/): A newly released military propaganda video suggests that the third aircraft carrier of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could be launched soon, Chinese media and experts said. A six-minute video, produced by the PLA Navy Political Publicity Bureau and the army broadcaster, was posted on Friday. It provides a glimpse into China’s aircraft carrier program and how the PLA carriers and personnel operate. China already has two aircraft carriers in operation, named Liaoning and Shandong. The third is being built and the promotional video seems to give a hint that its launch is imminent. At the end of the video, timed for China&#8217;s Navy Day which falls on Saturday, an officer is shown taking a call from his mother who appears to urge him to have “the third child,” to which the man replies: “That’s being arranged.”  The camera then moves to two photos of a carrier’s flight deck – an apparent reference to the first two aircraft carriers – before shifting to a blank screen and closing credits. This bizarre hint nevertheless got some Chinese media excited. The state-run tabloid Global Times wrote: “This is a very clear implication that the country’s third aircraft carrier is coming soon.” The Global Times quoted Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert and TV commentator, as saying that the third carrier, known as Type 003, could be launched “in the second half of 2022.” The paper said the carrier may be named Jiangsu, after the province in eastern China. A file photo showing China&#8217;s aircraft carrier Liaoning taking part in a military drill of Chinese People&#8217;s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy in the western Pacific Ocean, April 18, 2018. Credit: Reuters. Covid lockdown “From the video, it does seem that the third Chinese carrier would be launched in the near future,” said Sheu Jyh-Shyang, a military expert at the Taiwan&#8217;s Institute for National Defence and Security Research (INDSR). The U.S. think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies said in a report last November that the launch “could be as soon as February 2022” but it has been delayed several times as China is struggling with the Covid pandemic. Recently severe lockdown measures have been imposed in Shanghai, home of the Jiangnan Shipyard where the Type 003 is being constructed – and where the Covid situation has disrupted shipping and may have caused delays in arrival of components for the vessel. Compared to the first two carriers, the Type 003 appears to be larger, and it has some new important components including catapult systems, used for launching aircraft from the ship.  “It is the first CATOBAR (Catapult Assisted Take-Off Barrier Arrested Recovery) carrier that China has,” said Sheu from INDSR. “CATOBAR carriers have much better capabilities, but they still need to have enough operating experience,” he added. The CSIS report last November also said that after launch, it would still be years before the Type 003 is commissioned into the PLA Navy and achieves initial operating capability. China already has the biggest naval fleet in the world, according to the US Office of Naval Intelligence. But the U.S. has far more aircraft carriers: 11 compared to China&#8217;s two. A screengrab from a video to mark China’s Navy Day on April 23, 2022, jointly produced by the Propaganda Bureau of PLA Navy&#8217;s Political Department and the official Weibo and WeChat accounts of the Chinese military. Credit: Global Times. Vulnerable as the ‘Moskova’ Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense, which is watching China’s military developments closely, said in a report published earlier this year that the Type 003 would enable the PLA Navy to project power past the “first island chain.” The first island chain, conceptualized during the Cold War, commonly refers to the major archipelagos that lie off the East Asian mainland coast. The chain stretches from the Kamchatka Peninsula in the northeast to the Malay Peninsula in the southwest, and includes the territory of U.S. allies Taiwan and the Philippines. Taiwanese observers also pay attention to the PLA’s plan to procure new warplanes for the Type 003. “The first two (aircraft carriers) have only J-15 fighters and maybe some helicopters but the third one may have some airborne early warning and control (AEW&amp;C) KJ-600 aircraft,” military analyst Sheu said. The Xian KJ-600 is said to accurately detect and track other airplanes and so greatly increases the effectiveness of carrier-based combat aircraft. Meanwhile, Taiwanese media have been looking at the sinking of Russia’s flagship “Moskva,” reportedly by Ukrainian Neptune missiles, last week. Russia said it was damaged in an unexplained fire. The missile cruiser Moskva was built in the same Black Sea Shipyard Mykolaiv in Ukraine as China’s first aircraft carrier back in the Soviet days. Beijing bought the ship, then called Varyag, and renamed it to Liaoning. The Liaoning regularly patrols the Taiwan Strait and may be deployed in the event of armed conflict with the self-governing island. China considers Taiwan a breakaway province that shall be united with the mainland. Taiwanese newspaper Liberty Times quoted an analyst as saying that “Taiwan has a bigger and more powerful anti-ship missile arsenal than Ukraine.” The Chinese aircraft carriers could be “as vulnerable as the ‘Moskva’ to Taiwan’s anti-ship missile,” it said.
- [Uyghur lecturer sentenced to 13 years, allegedly for writings, foreign connections](https://ij-reportika.com/uyghur-lecturer-sentenced-to-13-years-allegedly-for-writings-foreign-connections/): A Uyghur academic who studied in Germany has been sentenced to 13 years in prison in northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, according to a security officer at a university where the man worked. The officer who spoke with RFA did not give the reason for the imprisonment of Ababekri Abdureshid, a lecturer at Xinjiang Normal University in Urumqi (in Chinese, Wulumuqi). “He was sentenced for 13 years in prison, I believe,” the security officer said, adding that Abdureshid’s family would know the reasons behind his arrest and imprisonment. “We don’t know anything about this man’s case,” he said. The scholar, who studied for a year as a visiting scholar in Germany in 2012, was apprehended in early 2018 after returning to Xinjiang, according to his friend and former colleague, Husenjan, who now lives in exile in Norway. Husenjan said he heard through social media from sources in Xinjiang that Abdureshid had been sentenced. “I got the news from a very close colleague of Ababekri Abdureshid that he was sentenced to over 10 years in prison,” Husenjan told RFA. “[He] published academic articles on Uyghur culture and literature in both regional and national magazines.” Abdureshid, a university lecturer on philology, the study of languages, faced a difficult choice between staying in Germany or returning to Xinjiang. He decided to return home even though Uyghur higher education had been deteriorating, Husenjan said. When RFA contacted officials at Xinjiang’s Education Bureau for information about Abdureshid’s incarceration, they suggested calling judicial authorities. In an earlier report, RFA confirmed Abdureshid, who had been missing since 2018, was in captivity, although it was unknown whether he had been sentenced to prison. Abdureshid was born in 1981 in Qaraqash (Moyu) county, Hotan (Hetian) prefecture, the second-largest county in Xinjiang by population with more than half a million Uyghurs. He was admitted to the Xinjiang University in 2006 to pursue a master’s degree in modern Uyghur literature. From 2009 to 2012, Abdureshid studied for a doctorate at Minzu University of China in Beijing. During this time, he was a visiting scholar in Germany for a year. While in Germany, Abdureshid once visited Turkey and met with colleagues there to exchange views on research topics, according to Husenjan, who added that the scholar’s connections to colleagues and friends in Germany and Turkey were a further reason for his detention by authorities in Xinjiang. Officials at Xinjiang Normal University have consistently refused to comment on Abdureshid’s imprisonment when contacted by RFA. But a Chinese judicial official in Korla (Kuerle), capital of Bayin’gholin Mongol (Bayinguoleng Menggu) Autonomous Prefecture, told RFA that the Chinese government had sent people who returned from studies in foreign countries to “re-education centers.” After he had returned to Xinjiang, Abdureshid married and began working at the university in 2013. He was interrogated by Chinese police multiple times for refusing to drink alcohol. Chinese authorities have arrested numerous Uyghur intellectuals, businessmen, and cultural and religious figures in Xinjiang as part of a campaign to control members of the mostly Muslim minority group and, purportedly, to prevent religious extremism and terrorist activities. More than 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities are believed to have been held in a network of detention camps in Xinjiang since 2017. Beijing has said that the camps are vocational training centers and has denied widespread and documented allegations that it has mistreated Muslims living in in the region. The purges are among the abusive and repressive Chinese government policies that have been determined by the United States and some legislatures of Western countries as constituting genocide and crimes against humanity against the Uyghurs. Translated by RFA’s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Hong Kong's Chinese University evicts student media as PolyU cuts ties with union](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kongs-chinese-university-evicts-student-media-as-polyu-cuts-ties-with-union/): A Hong Kong university has evicted a student newspaper and radio station, after another cut ties with its student union, amid an ongoing crackdown on freedom of speech on university campuses in the city. The student newspaper and radio station at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), which cut ties with the student union last year after it played a key role in recent pro-democracy protests, &#8220;CUHK Campus Radio moved out of Room 302 of the Benjamin Franklin Centre on April 20,&#8221; the radio station said in an announcement on its Facebook page on Thursday. &#8220;[We] started broadcasting in 1999, 23 years ago, and now we have reached the end,&#8221; the statement said. Students running the CUHK Student Press were also told to move out of the club room by university management on the same day, so repairs could be carried out. Asked if they could return after the work was completed, management declined to reply. The newspaper had been running since 1969, and hosted a huge archive of former news and features produced by students, the more historically valuable of which were sifted out and removed by student journalists before they vacated the space, local media reported. No mention was made of the eviction on the paper&#8217;s Facebook page, and no stories had been posted since April 20, when the paper reported on a compulsory vaccination program for students. The evictions came after the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) cut ties with its student union. CUHK Campus Radio, which has been evicted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong, is the latest casualty in an ongoing crackdown on freedom of speech on university campuses in the city under a draconian national security law imposed by Beijing. Credit: CUHK Campus Radio. Campus protests Both CUHK and PolyU were besieged by riot police during the 2019 protest movement, and saw days of pitched battles between protesters and riot police in November of that year. Rights groups hit out at the Hong Kong police for &#8216;fanning the flames&#8217; of violence, as desperate protesters were trapped for several days inside the PolyU campus, while hundreds more waged pitched battles with riot police on the streets of Kowloon. The U.S.-based group Human Rights in China condemned police action in and around Poly U as &#8220;trapping students, journalists, and first aiders, and reportedly handcuffing the latter group.&#8221; &#8220;[We] received an email from the Student Affairs Office on the evening of [April] 14 &#8230; [in which] the union was officially ordered to drop Hong Kong Polytechnic University from its name,&#8221; the Poly U student union said in a Facebook post. &#8220;All organizations linked to the union are required to move out of the PolyU campus on or before July 15, 2022,&#8221; it said. &#8220;The union has been trying to negotiate &#8230; with the university for years, but has been unable to reach a consensus,&#8221; the statement said. &#8220;The university will stop providing all venues and other support [previously] provided to the student union.&#8221; The April 15 post called on students to pay attention to the move. &#8220;A student union is not just a student organization, but also an expression of collective consciousness,&#8221; it said. &#8220;We hope PolyU students won&#8217;t give up their right to protect themselves.&#8221; Meanwhile, the Law Society of Hong Kong served notice on a prominent human rights law firm, which will be forced to close in June after representing an 18-year-old woman who accused several police officers of gang-rape during the 2019 protest movement. Vidler &amp; Co. also represented Indonesian reporter Veby Mega Indah, who lost vision in one eye after being hit by a non-lethal projectile fired by police while covering the protests, although she later terminated her instruction of the firm. Firm founder and senior partner Michael Vidler told RFA he wouldn&#8217;t be able to comment on the reasons for the Law Society&#8217;s order to cease practicing until June 3, owing to a legal injunction in force until that date. Vidler has also worked with other high-profile Hong Kong dissidents including Joshua Wong, and in 2013 assisted a trans woman &#8212; in W V. Registrar of Marriages &#8212; to win the right for any transgender person in the city to marry as their affirmed gender. In January, the Education University of Hong Kong became the latest of the city&#8217;s universities to cut its student union loose, amid an ongoing clampdown on public speech, under a draconian national security law imposed on the city by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The university said it hadn&#8217;t &#8220;authorized&#8221; the union. Hong Kong student unions have provided various types of activities and benefits for students for decades, receiving funding and premises to do so, as well as participating in the formulation of policy by sending elected representatives to sit on university committees. But since the national security law took effect on July 1, 2020, they have been increasingly criticized by officials and denounced in the CCP-backed media, often a harbinger of official reprisals. Media reports said the University of Hong Kong (HKU), CUHK, City University, Polytechnic University, Lingnan University and Baptist University have all stopped collecting student union dues since the start of the current academic year. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [On the 'run' from China](https://ij-reportika.com/on-the-run-from-china/): China&#8217;s zero-COVID policy of mass compulsory testing, stringent lockdowns and digital health codes has sparked an emigration wave. Keyword searches on social media and search engines, as well as immigration lawyers, attest to spiking interest in emigration to Western countries among middle-classes fed up with food shortages, confinement at home, and other intrusive policies. The tide of emigrants has sparked a meme playing on the Chinese character &#8220;run&#8221; in late supreme leader Mao Zedong&#8217;s birth name, Mao Runzhi, and the English word &#8220;run.”
- [Indonesia wants Chinese lender to fund overrun for high-speed rail line](https://ij-reportika.com/indonesia-wants-chinese-lender-to-fund-overrun-for-high-speed-rail-line/): Indonesia will ask the China Development Bank to finance 75 percent of the nearly U.S. $2 billion cost overrun for the construction of a Beijing-backed fast train project linking the capital Jakarta with Bandung, a project official said Thursday. The cost of the rail line, which is now projected to be completed next year, has swelled to nearly $8 billion. The project is part of the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s $1 trillion-plus program to finance and build infrastructure projects across the globe. “Obviously the first one to be offered is CBD [China Development Bank], the lender financing 75 percent of the project,” said Dwiyana Slamet Riyadi, president director of the consortium, PT Kereta Cepat Indonesia China (KCIC), according to a report by Tempo, the Indonesian news outlet. Dwiyana said the Indonesian government had proposed that the same financing structure apply to the cost overrun, with the consortium covering 25 percent.  KCIC is a joint venture of a consortium of four Indonesian state-owned companies – KAI, Wijaya Karya, PTPN VIII, and Jasa Marga – and a consortium of Chinese companies. The Indonesian consortium controls 60 percent of KCIC, while China Railway Engineering Corp. and other Chinese companies control the rest. The 89-mile (143.2-km) Jakarta-Bandung rail line is expected to slash travel time between the Indonesian capital and Bandung from three hours to 40 minutes, officials have said. In January, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo said the project was expected to be operational by June 2023. The contractor, meanwhile, said the project was 82 percent complete. Since construction began in 2017, the project has been dogged by criticism about its impacts on surrounding areas as well as concerns about rising costs. On Wednesday, Minister of Transportation Budi Karya Sumadi witnessed the laying of the first section of track for the rail link in West Java. Last October, Jokowi decided to allow the government to share the cost of the railway project, contradicting an earlier pledge and decree in 2015 that prohibited the use of state funds for its construction. A presidential spokesman said Jokowi’s directive would allow the project to be completed. A month later, the finance minister told a parliamentary panel that the government had decided to inject 4.3 trillion rupiah ($299 million) into the project. Critics had expressed concern that the move could deplete state coffers and lead Indonesia into a debt trap. Yusuf Rendy Manilet, an economist at the Indonesian Center for Reform of Economics, a private think-tank, said renegotiating funding for the project is necessary. “The government should also look at whether the risks [to state coffers] remain the same or there are adjustments or additional risks,” Yusuf told BenarNews. The economist said potential overruns should have been agreed upon during the project’s planning stage. “This needs to be especially noted considering that China will become one of Indonesia’s main economic partners in the next few years,” Yusuf said. Now, the government and other stakeholders need to recalculate the cost because of the overrun, he said. Knock-on effects from capital move In February, the consortium said the high-speed rail service was expected to become profitable 40 years after completion – not 20 as earlier projected – partly because plans to move the national capital from Jakarta to Borneo could sharply reduce the number of riders. Moving the seat of government away would cut the projected number of passengers using the railway connecting Jakarta to Bandung in West Java nearly in half because many government employees are expected to relocate to the new capital, a company spokesman said. An AidData study released last year noted that Indonesia owes $17.28 billion in “hidden debt” to China, more than four times its $3.90 billion in reported sovereign debt. Nearly 70 percent of China’s overseas lending is directed to state-owned companies and private-sector institutions and the debts, for the most part, do not appear on government balance sheets, said the U.S.-based international development research lab. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.
- [Chinese national living in the Netherlands forced to shut down Twitter account](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-national-living-in-the-netherlands-forced-to-shut-down-twitter-account/): A Chinese national living in the Netherlands and his family in China have been harassed by Chinese police over posts to social media he made while out of the country, including voicing support for Ukraine following the Russian invasion, RFA has learned. Gao Ronghui, who hails from Pingtan county in the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian, provided audio recordings of phone calls with police from Suao police station in Pingtan county, who have also visited his parents and elderly grandmother, he said. &#8220;Did you take part in the demonstration?&#8221; the officer is heard asking Gao, who had told him he supports Ukraine. Gao replies: &#8220;I saw the demonstration in the square.&#8221; &#8220;As Chinese citizens, we don&#8217;t take part in demonstrations,&#8221; the police officer tells him, repeating: &#8220;You can&#8217;t take part.&#8221; In another section of the audio file provided to RFA, the police officer asks him if he wrote &#8220;reactionary comments&#8221; on Twitter. &#8220;Let me tell you this: the internet is wide open. Just because you&#8217;re in a foreign country, doesn&#8217;t mean that China doesn&#8217;t know what you&#8217;re doing,&#8221; the officer warns him. &#8220;We know everything, do you understand?&#8221; The officer then orders Gao to &#8220;delete everything you wrote online, and on Twitter.&#8221; &#8220;This has to be deleted immediately and we can pretend we never saw it and all will be forgiven,&#8221; the officer says, before threatening his family. &#8220;If there is a problem with your political stance, it will affect your family for generations, if you have kids, where they go to school, anything you want to do. Politics is a massive thing.&#8221; High blood pressure Gao told RFA that he had shut down his Twitter account temporarily after the phone call. &#8220;My grandmother had high blood pressure because of this, and my mother was depressed for two or three weeks, and spent about three days in hospital on a drip,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I feel very confused and helpless right now,&#8221; Gao told RFA. &#8220;I feel that the CCP is depriving me of my freedom even here in the Netherlands.&#8221; &#8220;I want to tell them that the only person responsible for their actions is the person doing them &#8230; [but] they have silenced me. They, the system, they&#8217;re the ones who should change, not me. It&#8217;s the 21st century,&#8221; he said. Gao said he fled China after police raided his family home in July 2021 over social media posts he had made, then summoned him for questioning. &#8220;I walked to the police station from a friend&#8217;s house that day. It took 20 minutes, and during that time I deleted everything on my phone,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I knew I couldn&#8217;t have committed any crime other than just spreading the truth.&#8221; &#8220;When I got to the police station, I was severely beaten and abused, and they forced me to sign a guarantee that I would support the [ruling Chinese Communist] Party (CCP) line, and not post anything that would endanger national security,&#8221; Gao said. &#8220;From that day on, I started planning to leave the country.&#8221; &#8216;Feel the iron fist&#8217; Gao said he finally felt free after arriving in the Netherlands, and began expressing his political views freely in public, supporting practitioners of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, which has been heavily suppressed by the CCP inside China, and showing solidarity with Ukraine. &#8220;[I even] sprayed the Chinese embassy with paint to vent my anger,&#8221; Gao said. &#8220;I knew this was wrong, and I went to the police station and turned myself in, but the Dutch police told me it was okay.&#8221; &#8220;Around that time, I started to criticize the CCP again on Twitter, in solidarity with the suffering Chinese people. I know that if I don&#8217;t speak up for them today, no one will speak for me tomorrow,&#8221; he said. But Gao wasn&#8217;t as free as he had hoped he would be, and the long arm of Chinese law enforcement has succeeded in controlling his actions by threatening his family. He said he hoped public anger over the recent lockdowns in Shanghai and other parts of China under the CCP&#8217;s draconian zero-COVID policy would fuel political opposition back home. &#8220;I think some Chinese people are going to wake up because of the Shanghai lockdown, as they feel the iron fist themselves,&#8221; Gao said. &#8220;We should stand united to change China.&#8221; Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Children of Myanmar’s conflict zones deprived of key immunizations](https://ij-reportika.com/children-of-myanmars-conflict-zones-deprived-of-key-immunizations/): Children whose families have fled fighting in Myanmar’s conflict zones are being deprived of essential immunizations due to lack of access to health care, refugees and medical professionals said Thursday. From infancy to 18 months of age, children are required to receive 12-13 routine immunizations to ensure healthy growth and protection from disease. They include vaccines designed to protect against tuberculosis, measles, hepatitis B, diphtheria, chickenpox, tetanus, polio, meningitis, severe pneumonia, Japanese encephalitis, rubella, severe diarrhea and cervical cancer. But doctors told RFA’s Myanmar Service that regular injections are often not an option for families caught in fighting between junta troops and the armed opposition in the nearly 15 months since the military seized power in a coup. They said small children — especially those in the war-torn remote border areas of Kayin, Kayah, and Chin states and Sagaing region — have been most affected by the failure to immunize, which can lead to stunted growth, severe illness and even death from otherwise treatable medical conditions. A refugee mother from Kayin state sheltering near Myanmar’s border with Thailand told RFA that she was recently forced to flee her village with the baby girl she had given birth to only days earlier. “I had to leave my village with my two-week old baby, and she hasn’t received any vaccines yet,” she said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We had to sleep on the other side of the river [in Thailand] because of the fighting and the baby got sick as the weather was very cold for three or four days. I was so worried for her. The medics tending the refugees here gave us some Paracetamol and she got better, but I wish we could get her vaccinated.” Parents have described a similar situation in Sagaing region, where the military has been burning homes to the ground in raids on villages, they say have provided haven for anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries. A woman from Sagaing’s Yinmabin township Chinbon village said she has been on the move with her young child since her home was recently targeted by military airstrikes. “We&#8217;ve been running from place to place, so there is no medication, no vaccines for these children,” said the woman, who also declined to be named. “Many children in the area suffer from poor health, and we just have to give them whatever we can find. There is no proper medicine. We don’t have clinics or hospitals around. My baby is now 15 months old and hasn’t been vaccinated because we’ve been on the run all this time in the jungle.” Lack of medical care since coup Before the coup, Myanmar’s regional Ministries of Health under the democratically elected National League for Democracy government organized routine immunizations for children through hospitals, clinics and rural health centers. In some towns and villages, children were vaccinated by health workers at administrative offices and churches. But since the takeover, many parents in Myanmar’s conflict zones told RFA that their children have never received a full medical exam or routine immunizations. Than Naing Soe, the director of the Health Awareness Center under the junta’s Ministry of Health, rejected claims that families lack access to immunizations for their children. “We’ve been providing vaccinations for children constantly at hospitals and clinics. We can do that,” he said. “Public health services are also being administered in wards and villages, while hospital-based immunization activities are gaining momentum.” But a mother in Chin state’s Tedim township, where anti-junta resistance is strong, alleged that vaccines are not being delivered to health facilities in the region. “In Chin State, no health services or medicine has been available since the coup,” she said, noting that many midwives in rural clinics have joined the [anti-junta] Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), while those who didn’t have no supplies. “We haven’t received anything since the coup. Medical supplies stopped coming in a long time ago. What were we supposed to do? We have had to do whatever it takes to care for our children.” Rebuilding the country A doctor in the CDM, who gave her name only as Olivia, said children are at risk of developmental conditions if they do not receive their required immunizations within a specified age range. “During the 18 months after birth, the baby should be vaccinated in a timely manner. &#8230; Only then will they have a chance to fully develop mentally and physically,” she said. “If not vaccinated, their health and safety is at risk. &#8230; Losing children means losing key human resources needed to rebuild the country.” The United Nations Children’s Fund said in February that nearly 1 million children in Myanmar are deprived of access to routine immunizations, while around 5 million are at risk of contracting disease due to a lack of vitamin supplements. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Hun Sen favors cronies with parcels of drained lake land](https://ij-reportika.com/hun-sen-favors-cronies-with-parcels-of-drained-lake-land/): Cambodian’s autocratic Prime Minister Hun Sen has doled out at least 900 hectares of land reclaimed from one of the last large natural lakes in Phnom Penh to his sister, a wealthy tycoon and ally, and top military officials all benefiting from the largesse, according to a domestic land rights organization. The privatization and filling of Boeung Tamok Lake, also known as Beoung Tumnup Kabsrov, has picked up during the past few years, with little left of the body of water on the northwest side of the capital city. The lake spans six communes in Prek Pnov and Sen Sok districts and is home to a diverse ecosystem of birds and fish. It is also home to 300 families and 1,000 people, many of whom earn a living through fishing, aquaculture farming and home-based businesses, according to the Cambodian NGO Sahmakum Teang Tnaut (STT). Most of the families live in dilapidated and poorly built housing, with 30% residing in makeshift shelters. The lake’s boundaries were officially demarcated in 2016 when the Cambodian government declared Boeung Tamok’s original 3,240 hectares as state public property, according to an April 2021 report by the NGO. As part of a land privatization drive, the government granted dried-out parts of the lake to ministries authorized to resell the land for urban development projects and to oligarchs and cronies close to the government, STT reported. In more than four years, the government has issued more than 40 directives to reclaim parts of the lake or to give away the land, according to STT, which assists poor communities to protect their rights to land and housing. As of late 2021, the government had reclaimed more than half of the lake area, or about 1,670 hectares. Hun Sen-approved land giveaways that went to 11 government ministries and institutions, including the Interior, Justice and Health ministries, Phnom Penh City Hall and the National Police, according to STT and to reports by VOD, a local independent media outlet. The Ministry of Interior, for instance, sold the allocated land to finance the construction of a new building headquarters on the old site. In addition, 22 individuals also received reclaimed lake land from Hun Sen. Among those who have benefited are his sister, Hun Seng Ny, who received 20 hectares of land. Vong Pisen, commander-in-chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces; Sao Sokha, deputy commander-in-chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces; and other senior military officers each received more than 36 hectares, VOD reported based on information in subdecrees signed by Hun Sen. Kok An, a wealthy tycoon close to the prime minister, received 155 hectares of land. Hun Sen also handed over 100 hectares to Chheng Thean Seng, the younger sister of wealthy real estate businesswoman Chheng Sopheap, also known as Yeay Phu, who has been implicated in several land grab scandals in Cambodia. Say Sophea, wife of Phoeung Phalla, a two-star general of the Special Forces Parachute Unit, received 75 hectares, VOD reported Environmental activist Thon Ratha, who was jailed for criticizing the government’s reclamation of Boeung Tamok, said he fears that the lake could soon disappear, like other natural lakes in Boeung Tumpun and Boeung Choeung Ek districts. The fact that individuals close to Hun Sen received parcels of the restored land raises a suspicion of corruption, he said. “Whether to sell or rent, how much to sell for, or whether to rent it and for how long — we seem to have no information about these questions other than the decision to give parts of the lake to this person and that person,” he told RFA. “That’s why I’m still skeptical. We’re worried that there may be a systematic conspiracy or corruption.” A map shows Phnom Penh&#8217;s Boeung Tamok Lake and the Tompoun/Cheung Ek Wetlands. Credit: RFA graphic &#8216;It belongs to the state&#8217; Government spokesman Phay Siphan said that those who acquired land bought it from the original owners. He also said that before the government offered the land for sale, state institutions assessed the impact on local communities living there, though he did not know if the reclamations had forced some residents to leave their homes. “They bought it from the people in two stages, during which they asked for a [subdecree] to cut away part of the land from the lake,” he said. Seang Muy Lai, director of the Housing Rights and Research Project at Sahmakum Teang Tnaut, said that Boeung Tamok should be kept for the benefit of the public. More than 200 poor families living on the lake face eviction, Seang Muy Lai said. “It is unreasonable to give away parts of the lake that are two to three meters deep,” he said. “There should be no one occupying it. It is illegal to allow anyone to occupy the lake because it belongs to the state.” The environmental watchdog group Mother Nature Cambodia has urged the government to stop the development of reclaimed areas of the lake because of the negative impact on communities that rely on the body of water for their livelihoods and significant flooding in the city as the result of runoff during heavy rains. Lim Kean Hor, Cambodia’s minister of water resources and meteorology, has clashed with Hun Sen over the issue for expressing growing concern over the encroachment on the riverbanks and waterways that are properties of the state and has warned that warned that flooding is connected to landfilling developments such as Boeung Tamok. “The bank of the river, the river, the creek, the canal, and the lake, these are all public properties, so all provincial authorities and governors must take measures to facilitate the prevention of abuse from dumping land which is not in compliance with the law,” he said in a May 2020 letter issued all municipal governments and provincial authorities. Reported by RFA’s Khmer Service. Translated by Sok Ry Sum. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Cambodian activist safe in Thailand after 6-day flight through jungle](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-activist-safe-in-thailand-after-6-day-flight-through-jungle/): A prominent Cambodian activist who fled her country in a six-day journey through the jungle safely arrived in Thailand, where she plans to seek asylum with the U.N. In Cambodia, meanwhile, government officials said they would not call foreign officials as witnesses in a “treason” case against another critic of the country’s ruling party. Sat Pha, who has supported the now-banned Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), told RFA that she fled after a hand-written threat, which she believed was from the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen, saying she could be “disappeared” was tacked to her door. “Authorities know how to assault, arrest and imprison [activists],” she told RFA’s Khmer Service. Opponents of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) have been targeted in a 5-year-old crackdown that has sent leaders of the CNRP into exile and landed scores of its supporters in prison. Cambodia’s Supreme Court dissolved the CNRP in November 2017 in a move that allowed the CPP to win all 125 seats in Parliament in a July 2018 election. Sat Pha is one of the many Cambodians who has become disenfranchised in land disputes with the government or developers. She has also protested the detention of former CNRP politicians, and, she says, been beaten by governmental officials. “The authorities attacked me until my legs were injured. Has the govt. arrested any authorities? As a leader [Hun Sen] he doesn’t protect citizens. He knows how to assault, arrest and imprison. Killers are never brought to justice,” she said. Sat Pha said she became ill in her journey but is now in a safe location in Thailand. She said she is in the country illegally and is running low on food. She plans to request asylum from the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) office in Thailand. Sat Pha was released from prison in Cambodia six months ago after serving a year in detention for inciting social unrest during a peaceful protest in front of Chinese Embassy in Phnom Penh.  RFA was unable to contact Phnom Penh Municipal Police spokesman San Sok Seiha for comment.  However, Cambodian People Party spokesman and lawmaker Sok Ey San told RFA that he believes Sat Pha fabricated her story to earn sympathy. “Police have a duty to look for the suspects. There is a need for cooperation between the victim and the police. It might be a personal dispute,” he said. Sok Ey San previously denied that the threat came from CPP leadership. Sat Pha has the right to ask NGOs for help when she doesn’t have any confidence in the authorities, Soeung Seng Karuna, spokesperson for the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association told RFA. “It is normal for a victim who is threatened to seek asylum,” he said. Kem Sokha Trial In the treason trial of CNRP former leader Kem Sokha in Phnom Penh, prosecutors on Wednesday refused to summon representatives of any foreign governments that he is accused of colluding with.  The prosecution citied the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, an international agreement that codifies diplomatic immunity. Defense lawyer Ang Odom told RFA after Wednesday’s session that the convention does not forbid representatives of foreign governments from testifying, adding that the prosecution told the defense they could ask the foreign governments to testify. “They need to do it, but they asked us to instead,” he said, adding that the defense plans to officially request that the prosecution summon foreign government representatives to testify in next week’s session, scheduled for April 27. “All relevant parties will help the court seek the truth. They need to speak the truth about the alleged collusion to commit treason,” he said. The government claims Kem Sokha was in league with Indonesia, Yugoslavia, Serbia, Australia, the United States, Canada, the European Union, Taiwan and India in plots to commit treason against Cambodia. The government may have a legitimate point regarding the Vienna Convention, Cambodian American legal analyst Theary Seng, who is herself on trial in Phnom Penh for treason and incitement, told RFA. “Rarely do I have the opportunity to agree with this regime’s political tool [the court], but in this instance it is right to deny the defense’s request. First, there is clear international custom and provision enshrined in Article 31 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations that gives diplomats immunity from criminal proceedings as a charged person or a witness,” she said. “Second, it is not politically feasible that any country, especially a superpower, would give way to an incendiary charge as ‘treason’ in another country’s court system, as that carries countless criminal and political implications,” she said. Theary Seng said that putting a diplomat on trial would be a loss of face for the country he or she represents. “It is understandable that Kem Sokha’s lawyers will look to influential figures or countries to come their client’s defense in denying this most serious charge of treason. But it is a dead-end road. Rather, the defense lawyers should place the onus on the prosecutors and court in demanding why the regime did not expel the diplomats or close down the embassy, making the diplomat persona non grata or communicating to the sending state the extremely serious nature of the change,” she said. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [US, Chinese diplomats square off on Twitter over human rights, jailed Uyghur](https://ij-reportika.com/us-chinese-diplomats-square-off-on-twitter-over-human-rights-jailed-uyghur/): U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield sparked a social media spat with her Chinese counterpart on Wednesday after she called on the head of the U.N. Human Rights Council to release an overdue report on rights abuses in China’s Xinjiang region. In a tweet, Thomas-Greenfield urged Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, to release the report on Xinjiang, which Bachelet previously said would be finished in September 2021. “And let’s be clear: any visit by the High Commissioner to China must have unhindered and unfettered access,” Thomas-Greenfield tweeted, referring to Bachelet’s upcoming visit to China. Bachelet announced in March that she had reached an agreement with the Chinese government for a visit “foreseen to take place in May” to China, including the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). No dates have been announced. In response, the spokesperson of Chinese mission to the U.N. tweeted that, “China welcomes the visit by @mbachele including a trip to Xinjiang. This is a normal exchange between two sides. There is no place for political manipulation and malicious pressure. Such indiscreet remarks only reveal the US intention to set up obstacles to disrupt the visit.” A second tweet said, “To some U.S. politicians who are obsessed with making lies: STOP turning a blind eye to the human rights violations in your own country. Save your own people from desperate racism, violence and inequality. Smearing and defaming China cannot cover or divert your failure.” Bachelet first announced that her office sought an unfettered access to the Uyghur region in September 2018, shortly after she became the U.N.’s top human rights official. But the trip has been delayed over questions about her freedom of movement through the region. International rights groups have said that Bachelet’s visit to Xinjiang must be independent and unhindered to be credible. Bachelet’s office is under pressure from rights activists to issue the overdue report on alleged serious rights violations by Chinese authorities who target Uyghurs and other Turkic communities in the XUAR. In March, about 200 human rights groups urged Bachelet to make the report public without delay. Up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and others have been held in a vast network of internment camps operated by the Chinese government under the pretext of preventing religious extremism and terrorism among the mostly Muslim groups. The U.S. government and the legislatures of several Western countries have declared that China’s maltreatment of the Uyghurs and other minority Muslims in Xinjiang constitutes genocide and crimes against humanity. ‘A political pawn’ Thomas-Greenfield’s tweet followed a meeting on Wednesday with the family Gulshan Abbas, a Uyghur physician detained for more than three years in an internment camp in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region. “Just met with the family of Dr. Gulshan Abbas, a Uyghur medical doctor who&#8217;s been unjustly detained in China,” Thomas-Greenfield tweeted. “The U.S. will continue to push for her safety and release — and speak out against PRC [People’s Republic of China] atrocities toward Uyghurs and other members of ethnic and religious minority groups.” On Sept. 11, 2018, Chinese police took Gulshan Abbas, now 59, from her home to one of the region’s camps. Her family, including her sister, Rushan Abbas, a Uyghur American activist who is the founder and executive director of the nonprofit Campaign for Uyghurs based in Washington, D.C., later learned that Gulshan had been sentenced in March 2019 to 20 years in prison on false charges. Rushan has said that her sister was detained on trumped-up “terrorism” charges after she spoke out against the Chinese Communist Party (CPP). Gulshan’s daughter, Ziba Murat, told RFA on Thursday that her mother was a “nonpolitical, kind, generous person and gentle grandmother” with chronic health issues. “As a health care provider, she devoted her life providing medical treatments for people suffering from illnesses/disease,” Murat said. “The CCP defiled my mother’s name as if she is a political pawn. My mother is a law-abiding and caring human being, deserving of dignity.” In response to the Thomas-Greenfield’s tweet, the Chinese mission account tweeted: “Q: Who is Gulshan Abbas? A: a criminal sentenced to jail for crimes of participating in a terrorist organization, aiding terrorist activities. It is common sense to respect the rule of law. Time to stop making yourself a laughing stock.” That prompted Rushan Abbas to join in the exchange: “Did I make my sister up or is she in prison? Your claims have 0 credibility. 1st #China denied the existence of my sister (see) &amp; called me a liar, saying I stole images of others. Now they falsely link her to ‘terrorism.’” In reference to the upcoming visit to China by Bachelet of the U.N., 56 civil society organizations on Tuesday issued a statement laying out certain conditions that must be met in order for the visit to be credible, including the release of the overdue report on serious human rights violations in Xinjiang. They also demanded that Bachelet meet with independent civil society groups, human rights defenders and diaspora groups before leaving for China and to set up unsupervised meetings with human rights defenders and others who have been forcibly disappeared or who have been arbitrarily detained. The groups also said they were concerned that Bachelet has remained silent on the human rights crisis in Tibet, in contrast with her predecessors. The World Uyghur Congress (WUC), a Germany-based Uyghur activist group that signed on to the statement, said Bachelet also has a responsibility to meet with Uyghur groups and survivors to hear directly from them before her visit to China. “Engagement with the affected communities must be a priority for her and her office,” WUC president Dolkun Isa said in a statement. Meanwhile, the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China on Thursday issued a letter to Claude Heller, chair of the U.N. Committee Against Torture, urging him to release a review of China’s actions. “The human rights situation in China has demonstrably worsened since the committee’s last review in 2015, particularly in the XUAR, which prompted the United States...
- [Water release from Chinese dam causes Mekong River to rise downstream](https://ij-reportika.com/water-release-from-chinese-dam-causes-mekong-river-to-rise-downstream/): Residents in Laos said they were surprised to find water on the Mekong River rising this week due to unannounced releases from the Jinghong Dam upriver in China, although there were no reports of significant damage. The Mekong in parts of Laos rose more than 30 centimeters (0.98 feet), according to a notice issued Wednesday by water authorities in Thailand. Water levels rose higher in Thailand, to between 70 and 80 centimeters in Chiang Khan district in Loei province and Chiang Saen district of Chiang Rai province, Thailand’s Office of National Water Resources said. Officials in Laos and in Thailand said they were not notified of the release from the dam in in southwestern China’s Yunnan province. China has 11 massive dams, including two large storage dams, along the mainstream of the Upper Mekong Basin, known as the Lancang in China. Laos has two hydropower dams in operation on the Mekong mainstream and dozens more on its tributaries as part of the government’s aim to bring in revenue by exporting electricity to the country’s richer neighbors. A Lao fisherman who lives in Tonpheung district said he noticed higher water on Wednesday. “At 10 a.m. on April 20, the Mekong River water level in front of Tonpheung district was about 30 centimeters higher than it was the day before, and it is expected to be higher today and tomorrow,” he said. “So far, we haven’t been affected yet. We’ve already secured our boats by tying them up to the stakes on the riverbank.” The dam near Jinghong includes a 1,750-megawatt hydroelectric power station, and water is sometimes released to generate more electricity. But sudden releases of water can pose a threat to communities downstream. The Office of National Water Resources said that the Mekong’s water flow rose to 1,626 cubic meters per second, from 970 cubic meters per second, following the release at Jinghong. Thai water authorities and the Mekong Dam Monitor, which tracks water levels in the river, expect levels to increase between 80 centimeters and 160 centimeters, or 1.6 meters, on Thursday and Friday. Lao officials received no notice about the increased water discharge from China, an official at the Natural Resources and Environment Department of northern Laos’ Bokeo province said. “Usually there must be some kind of a notice or a letter informing us of the discharges so that we can issue a warning to our residents,” said the official, who like other sources in this report requested anonymity for safety reasons and to speak freely. An estimated 80% of the nearly 65 million people who live in the Lower Mekong River Basin depend on the river for their livelihoods, according to the Mekong River Commission (MRC), an intergovernmental organization representing Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam that manages the shared water resource. Agriculture and fisheries production in the Lower Mekong River Basin can be harmed by either higher or lower levels of water discharge from China. A resident of Bokeo’s Tonpheung district, which sits along the Mekong River, told RFA that locals heard about the upstream water release from the crew of a Chinese cargo ship. “Oh, the water level is now inching up,” he said. An MRC member told RFA that it also did not receive any notice or warning from the Chinese about the dam discharge. A member of the Hak (Love) Chiang Khong Group, a Thai nonprofit environmental campaign in Chiang Rai, told RFA that the Jinghong Dam has discharged more water nine times since the beginning of the year, including twice in April. “We believe that the dam will release more water whenever it wants to produce more electricity or to raise the Mekong River’s water level so that Chinese cargo boats can navigate down to Laos and Thailand,” he said. Reported by RFA’s Lao Service. Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Cooking oil prices in North Korea remain high despite more imports](https://ij-reportika.com/cooking-oil-prices-in-north-korea-remain-high-despite-more-imports/): Cooking oil prices in North Korea remain high despite more imports from China, the result of the government diverting the new supplies to food factories in preparation for a major holiday, sources in the country told RFA. Food prices skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic when the Sino-Korean border was shut down and all trade was suspended for about two years, starting in January 2020. As supplies dwindled, sugar, cooking oil and other ingredients became unaffordable luxuries to many North Korean families. Poor harvests in North Korea in both 2020 and 2021 added market pressure by creating shortages of staples like rice and corn. Ahead of the Day of the Sun, a holiday celebrating the life of leader Kim Jong Un’s late grandfather, national founder Kim Il Sung, North Korean authorities began importing more ingredients for cakes and sweets, but residents outside the capital Pyongyang are not seeing much benefit. Though freight trains laden with cooking oil are now rolling in from China, North Koreans are not seeing a price drop, a resident of the northwestern province of North Pyongan told RFA’s Korean Service Tuesday on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “In early April, the news spread that the Dandong-Sinuiju freight train was importing 20 cargo compartments of sugar, flour and cooking oil almost every other day, raising hopes that the cooking oil prices would fall soon,” he said. “However, the price of 1 kg (2.2 lbs.) of cooking oil is still equivalent to 5 kg (11 lbs.) of rice. Residents are wondering where all the imported cooking oil is going. They are complaining that they don&#8217;t know when they will be able to add oil to their dishes,” the source said. The current price of cooking oil is 22,000 won per kg ($7.43 per lb.) at the marketplace in Sinuiju, a border city that lies across the Yalu River from China’s Dandong, the source said. Locally produced cooking oil costs 25,000 won per kg. In 2019, before the pandemic, cooking oil cost 13,000 to 15,000 won per kg. In contrast, prices for flour are falling as supplies increasingly come in via maritime trade through Sinuiju and are distributed to local markets as far away as South Pyongan province, north of Pyongyang. At the height of the pandemic, flour cost as much as 30,000 won per kilogram, but now it costs 11,000 to 12,000 won per kilogram. In the city of Pyongsong in South Pyongan, food factories received orders to increase production of sweets, instant noodles and bread, a resident there told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “Raw materials such as flour, sugar, and cooking oil are imported on the Dandong-Sinuiju weekly freight train,” the second source said. “On the occasion of Kim Il Sung&#8217;s birthday, authorities ordered the import of food materials from China by increasing the frequency of freight trains. They ordered gifts of sweets and food to distribute to high-ranking officials, national contributors and Pyongyang citizens,” he said. Residents of the capital Pyongyang live lives of privilege, with more access to luxuries than people living in the provinces. “Food products from the Dandong-Sinuiju freight train are not released to the market,” the second source said. “After the cargo is disinfected at the Uiju food-quarantine facilities, it is only supplied to food production plants in Pyongyang and other food production companies under the party and the military. The price of food products in the marketplace is not going down,” he said. Translated by Claire Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Self back patting in Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/self-back-patting-in-myanmar/): Myanmar&#8217;s military junta leader Min Aung Hlaing did not let such problems as a civilian death toll topping 1,700, international pariah status and a ruined economy stand in the way of awarding himself the country&#8217;s two top honorary titles—Thiri Thudhamma and Maha Thray Sithu—that traditionally recognize those who have done great work for the country. The leader of the Feb. 2021 army coup also marked the Burmese New Year by bestowing the highest honors on previous military dictators from Myanmar&#8217;s five decades of army rule.
- [Concerns remain over pro-CCP stance of U.K.-based Chinese community organizations](https://ij-reportika.com/concerns-remain-over-pro-ccp-stance-of-u-k-based-chinese-community-organizations/): Hong Kong activists based in the U.K. have repeated warnings that community groups in the county may have been infiltrated by people loyal to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), posing potential threats to incoming migrants from Hong Kong under the British National Overseas (BNO) visa scheme. Former Hong Kong lawmaker Nathan Law said via his Twitter account on April 19 that most the of 100,000 people who have left the city following the imposition of the draconian national security law to make new lives in the  U.K. support the 2019 mass protest movement, which called for fully democratic elections and greater official accountability. &#8220;HKers are anxious and insecure. Most of them are in support of the pro-democracy movement, therefore they left Hong Kong with trauma and worries of persecution,&#8221; Law wrote. &#8220;They fear that Chinese agents in the UK would send their activity records back to Hong Kong, thus endangering them.&#8221; Law voiced his concerns as The Times reported that pro-CCP figures appeared to have infiltrated large Chinese community organizations in Southampton and Birmingham, both of which have received tens of thousands of pounds in government funding to help newly arrived Hongkongers integrate into British society. Law added: &#8220;The Chinese govt is a dictatorial regime that destroyed our home. Many Chinese community organizations in the UK support the political lines of CCP. More than 200 of them endorsed the National Security Law,&#8221; he said, adding that Hongkongers would feel &#8220;scared and unwelcome&#8221; if government funds were awarded to such groups. According to The Times, two of the Birmingham center’s directors worked with the British Chinese Project, a scheme founded by Christine Lee, a lawyer who MI5 warned was trying to influence parliamentarians on behalf of Beijing in January 2022. A patron of the center, James Wong, has visited China on a trip sponsored by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, part of the CCP&#8217;s outreach and influence operation known as the United Front Work Department. The Birmingham Chinese Community Center denied it was under CCP influence, saying it had no wish to be drawn into the politics of the Hong Kong protest movement, and had no wish to become involved with such &#8220;toxicity.&#8221; A screenshot of former Hong Kong lawmaker Nathan Law&#8217;s Twitter account where he raises concerns that Chinese agents in the UK have infiltrated large Chinese community organizations in British cities. Allegiances hard to trace Meanwhile, U.K.-based activist Ping Hua, who has termed reports of the mass incarceration of Uyghurs in Xinjiang &#8220;appalling lies and fabrication,&#8221; founded the Southampton group, which told the paper she is no longer part of the organization. Law tweeted a day after being quoted in the article: &#8220;We must know more about the infiltration activities of the Chinese govt and prevent these mistakes from happening. The best way is to engage with the UK-based Hong Kong community and conduct thorough background checks on the org’s connection to the Chinese embassy.&#8221; U.K. activist and former consular worker Simon Cheng said that while the links between Wong and Ping and the CCP were fairly clear, many other Chinese community organizations have made statements that suggest where their allegiances lie, even if connections with the CCP are harder to trace. &#8220;They want to carefully blunt our democratic consciousness and fighting spirit,&#8221; Cheng said. &#8220;For example, they could, once people have settled in, encourage them to move on from the past.&#8221; &#8220;If they really have a pro-CCP agenda, or are United Front, the most important concern is that they could report people&#8217;s personal information to the national security police [in Hong Kong],&#8221; he said. &#8220;Then, you could run into problems if you go back to Hong Kong, or to any country that has a current extradition treaty with either China or Hong Kong.&#8221; According to a 2017 report by New Zealand political science professor Anne-Marie Brady, Chinese leader Xi Jinping is leading an accelerated expansion of political influence activities worldwide, much of which rely on overseas community and business groups, under the aegis of the United Front Work Department. Some 100,000 Hongkongers have emigrated to the U.K. under a pathway-to-citizenship visa scheme aimed at around three million people eligible for the BNO passport. Overseas properties Community groups have sprung into action to offer career, job-hunting and taxation workshops to new arrivals, provide entertainment and social opportunities and to offer advice on education, mental health and starting a new business. Meanwhile, the U.K.-based rights group Hong Kong Watch said nine high-ranking Hong Kong officials and 12 lawmakers elected under Beijing&#8217;s approval to the city&#8217;s legislature hold property overseas, including in the U.K., Canada, the U.S., Australia, Japan, and France. In a new report, the group lists health secretary Sophia Chan as owning or co-owning three properties in London, civil service secretary Patrick Nip as owning a flat in Islington, and former University of Hong Kong senior leader Arthur Li as owning two west London properties. All are members of chief executive Carrie Lam&#8217;s cabinet, the Executive Council, and are collectively responsible for implementing the national security law, which bans public criticism of the government and criminalizes acts of political opposition, journalism and online dissent. All of the officials and lawmakers in question have pledged allegiance to Beijing and expressed their public support for the national security law, the report said. &#8220;The report recommends that like-minded countries consider auditing the assets of Hong Kong officials and introducing a Hong Kong specific sanctions list covering those named,&#8221; it said. The group&#8217;s senior policy adviser Sam Goodman said: &#8220;The Hong Kong officials and lawmakers who are complicit in the ongoing human rights crackdown in Hong Kong are more than happy to continue to use the West as a safe haven for their hidden wealth.&#8221; Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Mystery fences spring up blocking Shanghai streets overnight amid ongoing lockdown](https://ij-reportika.com/mystery-fences-spring-up-blocking-shanghai-streets-overnight-amid-ongoing-lockdown/): Mysterious fences have begun appearing overnight blocking city thoroughfares in Shanghai amid a grueling COVID-19 lockdown affecting some 26 million people, residents told RFA. Photos from a number of different locations across the city were visible on social media on Thursday, showing wire netting fences with steel posts driven deep into the ground, blocking all traffic on the street. &#8220;The posts supporting the wire fencing have all been driven into the ground,&#8221; Minhang district resident Feng Enhao told RFA. &#8220;It has been a unified move across the whole city, including Minhang, Putuo and Jiading districts, completed overnight.&#8221; &#8220;The sections left unblocked are around party and government buildings,&#8221; Feng said. &#8220;It&#8217;s very strange, because even police vehicles can&#8217;t get through, and the military and police can&#8217;t move around.&#8221; The move came as vice premier Sun Chunlan and Shanghai municipal government officials promised that the end of COVID-19 &#8220;dynamic clearance&#8221; restrictions in Shanghai is just around the corner, with cases in the city beginning to dip. Wu Ganyu of the Shanghai municipal health commission told a news conference on Wednesday that community transmission of the virus had been &#8220;effectively curbed,&#8221; after newly confirmed cases fell for three days straight. Road blockages have been reported in more than a dozen districts of Shanghai, including Changning, Huangpu and Xuhui. One resident said there is no sign of COVID-19 measures being lifted any time soon, despite official promises. Transferring negative tests The move comes after large numbers of residents from Huangpu district were transported out of the city to Hangzhou on Wednesday, following a directive from the Pingwangjie neighborhood committee to residents of Nanjing East Road. At the start of lockdown, anyone testing positive during mass, compulsory COVID-19 testing was sent to mass isolation facilities in the city. When those filled up, then were bused out to neighboring provinces, including Zhejiang. More recently, however, those testing negative have been bused out of town, leaving those who tested positive to isolate in Shanghai, with some residential communities requisitioned as isolation facilities. A Huangpu resident told RFA on Wednesday: &#8220;They are transferring the people test negative because too many people are testing positive in the community,&#8221; the resident said. &#8220;So they are turning it around and sending those who tested negative to Hangzhou today.&#8221; &#8220;There are very few negatives in the community, so they only need two buses to transport them,&#8221; she said. Those testing negative will remain in Hangzhou for seven days before being sent back home for a further seven days of quarantine, the Pingwangjie directive said. Anger over restrictions Public anger and despair over the restrictions continues to bubble over onto social media despite the best efforts of government-backed censors to delete such accounts. In one video, a woman is shown about to jump from a building while onlookers try to dissuade her. &#8220;Someone from the [temporary] cabin hospital is about to jump off the building,&#8221; the person shooting the video says. &#8220;Some people can&#8217;t bear being held in those conditions.&#8221; &#8220;Fierce types like me make trouble, but those who don&#8217;t dare to do that and can&#8217;t bear it any longer do this instead.&#8221; &#8220;They fooled people into coming [to the temporary facility] and then gave them nothing,&#8221; the person says. &#8220;There are no sanitary towels for the women and no toilet paper for the men.&#8221; Another video clip showed a woman in a residential community berating a police officer over supplies that were ordered but hadn&#8217;t arrived. &#8220;Our pandemic supplies are being left to rot in the civic center, and nobody is distributing them,&#8221; the woman asks loudly. &#8220;What happened to our pandemic supplies?&#8221; In another, a man shoots video from inside a compulsory isolation center where people are shown crammed in to a large hall on camp beds, with no measures taken to avoid infection. &#8220;First day in the isolation center, and I&#8217;ve got a cough. I didn&#8217;t have a cough before I went into isolation, but I have one now,&#8221; the man says. &#8220;Look at this &#8212; so many people isolating together. No measures to limit transmission, no masks &#8230; no members of staff come here. What&#8217;s the point of isolating if it&#8217;s like this?&#8221; Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Analyst suspects China pressure as Philippines suspends oil exploration](https://ij-reportika.com/analyst-suspects-china-pressure-as-philippines-suspends-oil-exploration/): The Philippines has suspended oil and gas exploration activities in the disputed South China Sea, a presidential spokesman said, under what an analyst described as “coercion” from China. Martin Andanar, spokesman for President Rodrigo Duterte, told reporters on Tuesday in Manila that the Security, Justice and Peace Coordinating Cluster (SJPCC), or the government&#8217;s security advisors, decided to suspend all exploration activities within the disputed areas in West Philippine Sea. West Philippine Sea is the name used by the Filipinos for the part of the South China Sea over which Manila claims sovereignty. Local companies in the Philippines have been test drilling two sites at Reed Bank, also known as Recto Bank, off Palawan province for survey purposes, but the Department of Energy (DOE) has now ordered them to stop. Andanar said that the DOE has requested the government to reconsider the suspension because “under international law, a geophysical survey is perfectly legitimate activity in any disputed area.” In 2018, Manila and Beijing signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for joint oil and gas development in contested areas and those two sites were identified by the DOE as possible sites for joint exploration with China. Jay Batongbacal, director of the University of the Philippines&#8217; Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea, said Beijing has been pressuring Manila to accept its exploration terms or to stop drilling. “Through diplomacy and the actions of the China Coast Guard, Beijing has been trying to coerce Manila to stop conducting seabed exploration and research activities in the West Philippine Sea until the latter submits to China’s conditions for joint development,” Batongbacal said. The Philippines, China, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam all hold claims in the South China Sea but China’s claim is the most expansive, occupying nearly 90 percent of the sea. In 2016, the Philippines brought a case against China to an international tribunal and won but Beijing refused to accept the ruling. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte gestures as he meets cabinet officials at the Malacanang presidential palace in Manila, Philippines, March 7, 2022. Credit: Malacanang Presidential Photographers Division via AP Joint exploration in contested waters In 2014, under Duterte’s predecessor President Benigno Aquino, the Philippines imposed a ban on oil and gas exploration in the disputed areas of the South China Sea in protest against China’s aggression. Duterte lifted the moratorium in 2020, paving the way for joint development with China, hoping to attract new investment from the biggest player in the region. There were also fears that unilateral exploration activities might hurt the Sino-Philippines relationship. Yet until now, the MOU the two countries signed in 2018 has not resulted in any actual project. All efforts made to date by other countries in prospecting for oil and gas in the South China Sea have made little progress because of heavy opposition from China, said Fitch Solutions, a global market analysis agency. “China has formally claimed the rights to explore and exploit hydrocarbon resources in the disputed waters, but has not done so in practice and appears content to prevent others from exploring the area,” said Fitch Solutions. “There is limited scope for the current deadlock over the South China Sea to ease,” it added. Tensions have been high between the Philippines and China in the last few months of Duterte’s presidency. In the latest incident, the Philippines lodged a diplomatic protest against China after a Chinese coastguard ship maneuvered dangerously close to a Filipino vessel in the disputed Scarborough Shoal in March.
- [1 in 100 displaced by conflict since Myanmar coup, UN says](https://ij-reportika.com/1-in-100-displaced-by-conflict-since-myanmar-coup-un-says/): One out of every 100 citizens of Myanmar became displaced by conflict in the nearly 15 months since the junta seized power, according to the United Nations, pushing the total number of internal refugees to a staggering 912,700 and pushing the country ever closer to the brink of a humanitarian crisis.  In a statement on Tuesday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that 566,100 people — or more than 1% of Myanmar’s population of around 55 million — were made refugees since the Feb 1, 2021, coup, adding to some 346,000 people already identified as internally displaced persons (IDPs) prior to the takeover. The agency said that for the first time, displacement in the northwest, where the military is carrying out a scorched earth campaign in Chin state and the regions of Sagaing and Magway, exceeded 300,000 people. Eastern Myanmar, which includes the embattled states of Shan, Kayah, and Kayin, also saw substantial displacement since the coup. Junta troops killed at least 1,600 people, including some 100 children, since the coup, the U.N. office said. Many of the victims died in military airstrikes, artillery strikes or as the result of triggering landmines. “Hundreds of thousands of men, women, boys and girls have fled their homes for safety since the February military takeover, many of them forced to move multiple times exposing people to grave protection risks,” the statement said. The U.N. said in mid-January that the number of people displaced in Myanmar since the coup totaled 320,000, suggesting an increase of nearly 600,000 in the past three months alone. The displacement has placed a tremendous strain on resources and IDPs are in desperate need of assistance. “Overall, humanitarian actors, in close coordination with local partners, continue providing critical life-saving assistance to the most affected people but face ongoing challenges in addressing urgent needs due to access constraints and funding shortfalls,” the U.N.’s humanitarian office said. “To meet their obligations to people in need, humanitarian actors, including the U.N., international and national NGOs, need quicker, simpler and more predictable access processes.” Among the needs of IDPs identified by the agency were funding for educational activities, food security, health care, nutritional supplements, protection from violence, shelter, water, sanitation and hygiene. The smoking remains of homes destroyed by the military in Khin-U township&#8217;s Ngar Tin Gyi village, April 4, 2022. Credit: Citizen journalist Scarce supplies and food shortages Speaking to RFA’s Myanmar Service on Wednesday, a refugee in Sagaing’s Yinmabin township said that obtaining things like rice, cooking oil and salt must be done in the city but are subject to seizure by junta troops at checkpoints. “Many people are facing starvation. Our homes have been burned down. The fire has also destroyed our storage and all our supplies for the entire year. We are sharing what is left among the villagers,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal. “We went to Monywa to purchase some bags of rice, but [the soldiers] seized them on the way home. We are not allowed to transport large bags of rice or other food supplies.” He said those displaced are forced to scrape by trading their remaining rice supplies with nearby villages. In Kayah state, food transport routes have been cut off by fighting between the military and anti-junta People’s Defense Force paramilitaries, forcing people to ration what they have left. An IDP from Kayah’s Demoso township, which has been the center of intense clashes in recent weeks, told RFA that his group of refugees is at risk of running out of food. “We cannot find more foods. The roads are closed, so we must ration what we have,” said the IDP, who also declined to be named. “We can use cooking oil only once or twice a month. We prepare foods without cooking, often by grinding it into a powder. We skip some meals. We have only one meal instead of two meals a day. We adults try to adapt and give priority to the children.” A volunteer helping IDPs in Kayah’s Hpruso township said his aid group is working to obtain extra food supplies in anticipation of future scarcity. “It has become more difficult to transport food. We can’t carry as much as we need. For example, we order 100 rice bags, but we are allowed to transport only 50 — the authorities are controlling things very strictly,” he said. “I think we need to save up more food for the future because we expect things will become even more difficult. Whenever there is fighting, we face shortages.” In Chin state, a volunteer told RFA his group can’t transfer food because of fighting near the roads. Additionally, he said, troops require permits to transport food and other commodities along closed routes, leading to price hikes in local markets. Attempts by RFA to contact Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, the junta’s deputy information minister, for comment on the military closing roads in conflict regions went unanswered on Wednesday. Salai Za Oak Lein, the deputy executive director of the Chin Human Rights Organization, accused the military of closing roads to prevent aid from reaching IDPs. “This action shows that they lack humanitarian spirit. The military is trying to weaken the local resistance by cutting of food supplies, but they are impacting local civilians,” he said. “They intentionally create food shortages and force people to abandon their homes. These are horrible human rights violations.” Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Hun Sen’s call for fair local elections this June in Cambodia raises eyebrows](https://ij-reportika.com/hun-sens-call-for-fair-local-elections-this-june-in-cambodia-raises-eyebrows/): Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Wednesday that he would not stump for his party in local elections in June and urged authorities to remain neutral during the campaign, an appeal that did little to comfort the beleaguered opposition. After a spate of violence and harassment directed against aspiring candidates, however, critics and political opponents told RFA that Hun Sen must allow real challenges to candidates from his ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) in the nationwide elections. Hun Sen’s comments came during a ceremony for a flood prevention and improvement project in Phnom Penh. He said local officials must work to ensure the June 5 elections are free and fair. “If CPP wins the election, all people can live together. Now we have 17 parties participating in the election,” he said. “I won’t … campaign, but I want to stress that we please don’t allow any types of violence during the election process.” Earlier this month, the Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia, an electoral watchdog, criticized Hun Sen for appealing for votes while on official duty, a violation of the country’s election laws. A CPP spokesman said the prime minister was simply promoting his administration’s accomplishments. Cambodian authorities also barred 100 candidates from the emerging Candlelight Party from participating in the elections. The party, has been gaining steam  despite a crackdown against it and other opposition parties. On Wednesday, Hun Sen said that all political parties should have equal rights during the election, including parties that oppose his government.  “I appeal to all places, to allow people to participate in the election so they can vote for their candidates freely,” he said. Hun Sen has made similar statements in the past, but the situation for his political opponents continues to worsen, Thach Setha, vice president of the Candlelight Party, told RFA’s Khmer Service. “If he talks without taking any measures against the perpetrators [of violence], it can’t guarantee a good election environment free from intimidation and assault,” Thach Setha said, noting that many political activists remain in prison. “This needs to end to ensure that the election will be free and fair. Please stop using the court to issue warrants and summons” to political opponents, he said. On Monday, RFA reported that Seam Pluk, president of the National Heart Party, is in hiding after an arrest warrant for forgery of documents for June local elections was issued. Critics said his charges were trumped up amid a government crackdown on the opposition. Hun Sen’s appeal Wednesday for fair elections will be ineffective without concrete action, Kang Savang, a monitor with the Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia, told RFA. Several NGOs have asked the government to ensure a safe election environment, but the government has so far not acted on their request, Kang Savang said. “If there is only a message without an order toward the local authorities it is not enough,” he said. Opponents of the CPP have been targeted in a 5-year-old crackdown that has sent leaders of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) into exile and landed scores of its supporters in prison. Cambodia’s Supreme Court dissolved the CNRP in November 2017 in a move that allowed the CPP to win all 125 seats in Parliament in a July 2018 election. The June 5 election will decide who serves in a total of 11,622 seats in local districts known as communes across Cambodia. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Amnesty International blasts new proposed social media regulations in Vietnam](https://ij-reportika.com/amnesty-international-blasts-new-proposed-social-media-regulations-in-vietnam/): An international rights group condemned the Vietnamese government’s plan to adopt new regulations to tighten control over social media platforms in the communist one-party country where leaders already have little tolerance for public criticism or dissent. The planned amendments to existing law will require social media companies like Facebook and TikTok to remove content and services deemed illegal within 24 hours, block illegal livestreams within three hours of notice, and immediately remove content that endangers national security, Reuters reported Wednesday, citing people with knowledge of the matter. Companies that do not comply with the requirements risk having their social media platforms banned in Vietnam, the report said, adding that it is expected that Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh will sign the new regulations in May. The Vietnamese government is finalizing the amendments for June 2013 decree on the management, provision and use of internet services and online information for both domestic and foreign companies and individuals. The government has been using the decree to ask companies that run popular social media platforms in Vietnam to take down “anti-government” content. Human rights organizations expressed concern that the restrictive internet environment in Vietnam will become worse under the new regulations. “In Vietnam, social media, including Facebook, is one of very few places for local people to express their opposition,” said Ming Yu Hah, deputy regional director of campaigns in East and Southeast Asia for London-based Amnesty International. “They face the risk of being imprisoned for years if their posts are deemed to violate the law. “Such harsh laws are an existential threat to the freedom of expression in Vietnam,” she added. Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Twitter are popular foreign social media platforms in the Southeast Asian country, used by citizens to express their opinions of and dissatisfaction with the government and politics. However, many Vietnamese have been sent to prison for their expressing their opinions via social media. In March, for instance, RFA reported that a court in Hanoi sentenced independent journalist and activist Le Van Dung to five years in prison for discussing political and socioeconomic issues in livestreamed videos on social media. Reuters said that Vietnam’s communications and foreign ministries did not respond to requests for comment. Facebook-owner Meta Platforms Inc. and Alphabet Inc., which owns YouTube and Google, and Twitter Inc. declined to comment. TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance Ltd., said it will continue to comply with applicable local laws and would remove content that violates platform guidelines. For years, the Vietnamese government has demonstrated its desire to control foreign social media platforms via the decree passed in 2013 and a cybersecurity law that entered into effect in 2019. In November 2020, Facebook announced that it had been forced to increase content censorship as requested by the Vietnamese government, after being threatened with a ban if it did not comply. The move drew heavy criticism from rights groups that have accused social media companies of putting profits before human rights and the freedom of expression. Amnesty’s Ming Yu Hah called on social media companies to protest the forthcoming regulation and “put human rights above profits and market access rights.” About 60 million-70 million Vietnamese use Facebook, generating about U.S. $1 billion in annual revenue for its parent company, according to the Reuters report. YouTube has 60 million users in the country, while TikTok has 20 million. Open letter to Biden In a related development, more than 40 NGOs and 40 individuals signed an open online letter to U.S. President Joe Biden, calling for him to raise concern with Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chinh at a U.S.-ASEAN Summit in mid-May about the government’s antagonistic policies toward religions that do not submit to government control. “Of particular concern is the intensifying state-directed and state-supported propaganda that promotes hate speech and incites violence against religious and lay leaders with real and deeply disturbing consequences,” the letter says. The letter says organized mobs known as Red Flag Associations have used social media to slander Catholic priests, characterize respected monks of the Unified Buddhist Church’s Sangha as “bad forces” who “distorted the nature of religious freedom in Vietnam,” and call on the government to eliminate the Montagnard Evangelical Church of Christ in Dak Lak province. “So far, Red Flag members have enjoyed complete impunity,” the letter says. “Their messages promoting hatred and violence have rapidly multiplied throughout Vietnam’s society.” Certain government units also have incited hatred against ethno-religious minorities, including the Department of Public Security of Gia Lai Province, which characterizes Montagnards who have converted to Catholicism as a cult and in December 2020 declared that it had completed the heretical religion. The United Nations Human Rights Committee singled out the Red Flag Associations as a source of incitement to hatred and violence following a review of Vietnam’s implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in 2019. “In light of this worrying trend, we ask that you communicate directly to Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh of Vietnam and urge his government to comply fully with both Article 18 of the ICCPR, which guarantees the right to religious freedom or belief, as well as with the requirement of Article 20 that incitement to violence be prohibited by law,” the letter says. On Monday, a coalition of Vietnamese NGOs and individuals issued an open letter to U.N. member states, asking them not to elect Vietnam to the U.N. Human Rights Council for the 2023-2025 term. Among the organizations that signed the letter were the Vietnam Human Rights Network, Defend the Defenders, Assembly for Democracy of Vietnam, Humanistic Socialist Party, the Great Viet Party, Vietnam Democracy Federation, the Independent Journalists Association of Vietnam, and Vietnam Democracy Radio. They noted that Vietnam voted against a U.N. General Assembly resolution on April 7 to suspend Russia from the Human Rights Council over its invasion of Ukraine, which has killed thousands of people. “Before looking for membership of the council, the Vietnamese government must improve its human rights record, strictly enforce international human rights...
- [Biden nails down a date for ASEAN summit but not a full invite list](https://ij-reportika.com/biden-nails-down-a-date-for-asean-summit-but-not-a-full-invite-list/): President Joe Biden, keen to showcase American interest in Southeast Asia, has secured a date to celebrate 45 years of U.S. ties with the far-away region, but not all of ASEAN’s leaders are coming to the party. Myanmar’s junta chief, Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, won’t be welcome because of the military coup he launched a year ago. And Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who leaves office in June, is also expected to be a no-show. He has not visited Washington during his six years in office that have been characterized by turbulent relations with the United States. The May 12-13 summit between the U.S. and leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations is an opportunity for Biden to forge a closer bilateral partnership with ASEAN and counter China’s influence in the region. The White House is keen to advance its vision of a “free and open” Indo-Pacific. The summit will mark U.S.-ASEAN relations, which began in 1977. It will be only the second such summit with Southeast Asian leaders hosted by an American president in the United States. Barack Obama welcomed ASEAN leaders to Sunnylands estate in Rancho Mirage, Calif., in February 2016. While next month’s meeting will therefore carry heavy symbolic value, it will make for some unusual diplomatic bedfellows for Biden. Cambodia’s foreign ministry says that Prime Minister Hun Sen – whose government has faced U.S. sanctions for its suppression of democracy – will be there. Cambodia is the current rotating chair of the 10-nation bloc. “Of course, Samdech Techo Prime Minister Hun Sen, as the ASEAN rotating chair, will co-chair this summit with the president of the United States,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ spokesman Chum Sounry told Radio Free Asia (RFA), the parent company of BenarNews. He was using the honorific adopted by Hun Sen, who has ruled for 37 years. It translates roughly as “glorious, supreme prime minister and powerful commander.” But officials indicated that Min Aung Hlaing – who recently awarded himself two of Myanmar’s highest honors for services to his country despite the current, violent chaos there – won’t be invited to Washington. “The consensus among ASEAN is (that) Myanmar should be represented by a non-political representative,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah of Indonesia, which is the bloc’s coordinator for U.S.-ASEAN ties. He told BenarNews on Tuesday that Indonesian President Joko Widodo plans to attend.  In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah confirmed that Prime Minister Ismail Sabri will also join the summit. He further noted: “I don&#8217;t think Myanmar should be represented. I am not so sure if Washington invited Myanmar.” However in Bangkok, the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Prayuth Chan-o-cha, the prime minister and ex-junta chief, was “considering the journey” to Washington. ASEAN has been grappling with a 14-month-old crisis in Myanmar, where the Burmese junta’s forces have bombed and burned swathes of the country to quell resistance to the military’s overthrow of an elected government in February 2021. In late March, the junta blocked ASEAN envoy Prak Sokhonn, who is Cambodia’s foreign minister, from meeting with deposed Myanmar civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, setting back efforts to forge a political resolution – and backtracking on a commitment the junta chief made to ASEAN to allow access to all stakeholders in the country. ASEAN itself has excluded Min Aung Hlaing from its own summits. The Myanmar military council’s spokesman said on Tuesday that Myanmar has not been invited so far to the Washington summit, and they would only attend anyway if they had equal representation. “If, as in the past, we could only attend with someone who does not hold political office, we absolutely would not attend any meeting. Our position is to engage only at equal rank,” the spokesman, Maj Gen Zaw Min Tun, told RFA. Myanmar has been subject to U.S. asset seizures and sanctions since the coup – including restrictions levied against Min Aung Hlaing himself. No such restrictions are faced by Duterte. The Philippines is a U.S. treaty ally, meaning the two nations are committed to each other’s defense if they come under attack. The U.S. is bound to Thailand by a similar treaty. But Duterte, who has sought closer relations with China despite recurring disputes in the South China Sea, has sworn repeatedly that “he will never go to the U.S.” At one time he even called America “lousy.”  BenarNews asked an aide to Duterte whether that position has changed in view of the upcoming summit, and was told it had not. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment to media about it. There’s another reason for the Philippine leader to skip the Washington summit: The two-day meeting falls just three days after May 9 elections in the Philippines. It is customary for any Filipino leader to avoid foreign travel during an election season, particularly when the election is for the position they will be vacating. Jason Gutierrez in Manila, Tria Dianti in Jakarta, Nontarat Phaicharoen in Bangkok, Nisha David in Kuala Lumpur, and RFA&#8217;s Cambodian and Myanmar Services contributed to this report by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated news service.
- [North Korea orders wartime readiness during joint U.S.-South Korean military drills](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-orders-wartime-readiness-during-joint-u-s-south-korean-military-drills/): North Korea put its military in a wartime posture–mobilizing troops and stepping up army political indoctrination– in response to the semi-annual U.S.-South Korean joint military exercises that began this week, sources in the country told RFA. The exercises are mostly computer simulations and involve cooperation between alliance command posts. But North Korea still views the exercises as a threat to its sovereignty, and its General Political Bureau has ordered the military to be ready for war. “Artillery and other important mission units were instructed to maintain a high state of readiness and conduct frequent inspections on their combat equipment so they could enter battle immediately in the event of a crisis,” a military source in the northwestern province of North Pyongan told RFA’s Korean Service Tuesday on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “During the South Korea-U.S. joint military exercises, commanders must not leave the areas under their jurisdiction. Soldiers in the units are prepared to mobilize in a ready state, day or night,” he said. But soldiers are exhausted, having just finished their grueling “winter training” sessions, where they toil as essentially free labor for the government on the premise of training, and coming off a major holiday full of political events, the source said. “They are angered by the authorities’ orders to immediately mobilize at a time when they lack fuel and materials, and they say the situation is not realistic,” he said. Authorities want soldiers not only to be ready on the physical battlefield, but also on the ideological battlefield, a military source in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “From the 19th, political departments in all units were urged to use ideological education classes for high-ranking officials this coming Saturday, and daily mental education hours for soldiers, so that they can propagandize the tension of the current political situation, and confirm their determination to defend our supreme leader,” he said, referring to the country’s leader Kim Jong Un. “The General Political Bureau has ordered the Korean People’s Army newspapers, telecommunications, and the third broadcast within the military to put out intensive propaganda that shows the party and the military’s resolve, and our principled and ruthlessly super-hardline stance,” the second soruce said. Third broadcast refers to government-controlled loudspeakers that transmit messages or instructions to everyone they can reach. “The propaganda must emphasize the need to show the will of tens of millions of people to respond to the U.S.-South Korean war provocations with military action and not just words,” the second source said. “In response to the orders … high-ranking officials and the soldiers below them complain that they are already tired from winter training and the various different political events concentrated in April. They wonder whether it makes sense to ‘arm soldiers with the 1950 spirit of defending the motherland…’  when what they want the most right now is adequate rest and enough food to eat,” he said. The source said the propaganda is essentially meaningless. “If you listen to the third broadcast inside the Korean People’s Army, you will only hear songs on the theme of defending our leader. All day long,” he said. “These songs include ‘I will defend Gen. Kim Jong Un with my life,’ ‘Our weapons don’t forgive,’ and ‘Leader, just give us an order.’ I don’t understand why the authorities are obsessed with ideological education when the joint military exercises between South Korea and the United States happen every year.” The joint exercises will run through Friday, then break for the weekend, resuming April 25 and ending April 28, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. Hostilities in the 1950-1953 Korean War ended with an armistice agreement, but North and South Korea are technically still at war as no peace treaty has ever been signed. Translated by Claire Lee and Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Landless Lao farmers are caught growing crops in state parks and forests](https://ij-reportika.com/landless-lao-farmers-are-caught-growing-crops-in-state-parks-and-forests/): National parkland and protected forests have been shrinking slightly in southern Laos, not the work of the usual culprit — illegal loggers — but because residents are encroaching upon the land to grow cassava and other crops. In the provinces of Sekong, one of the most impoverished areas of Laos, and neighboring Saravan, farmers desperate for land are turning up soil in national parks and forests despite laws and campaigns to protect the tracts in a country suffering rapid deforestation. The surface areas of national parks and national protected forests in Sekong province’s Tha Teng district have diminished to 36.8% from more than 40% in 2016 partially due to encroachment by local residents, Viengsamone Chanbengseng, deputy director of the district’s Agriculture and Forestry Department, said at a meeting on deforestation on April 5. Since 2016, about 75 families, including retired state employees in 12 villages in the district, have been encroaching on about 37 hectares of state land, especially in Sayphouluang National Protected Forest, Phouchoum National Protected Forest and Houei Ped National Protected Forest, according a Tha Teng district official. The province’s Agriculture and Forestry Department has ordered them to stop occupying state land and stop cultivating land in protected forests after the November harvest. An official at the Sekong Provincial Administration Office, who like other sources in this report requested anonymity for safety reasons or to be able to speak freely, told RFA on Monday that authorities have taken action against those caught encroaching upon protected land. “We’ve reeducated them,” he said. “Most of them have been booked, many others have been disciplined, and some have been detained from three days to one week for grabbing state land.” A Tha Teng district police officer said that the rising price of cassava, now 2,200 kip (U.S. $0.18) a kilogram, has prompted poor villagers to grab land to plant the starchy root vegetables. “Many villagers who are poor and landless grow cassava and coffee to make ends meet,” he said. “However, we, the authorities, insist they stop encroaching upon state land. They should grow crops on their own land for which they have title. The government doesn’t allow people to use state land.” The Tha Teng district official provided a similar explanation. “These people don’t have land to farm,” he said. “They don’t have money to do anything. They grow cassava, so that they can have some income or some money to buy food.” District officials are discussing a plan to provide villagers with capital, about 10 million kip (U.S. $826) per family, so they can invest in growing vegetables in their own gardens instead of on state land, he said. “The Lao government wants to protect and preserve these forests for future generation,” said the Tha Teng district official. “The district authorities will be monitoring these people closely. If they encroach upon the state land again, they’ll be charged according to the law.” The satellite image shows an area of Phou Xieng Thong National Protected Forest in Lakhonepheng district, southern Laos&#8217; Saravan province, where villagers have encroached upon state land. Credit: Google Earth ‘I don’t have land’ A Tha Teng district resident who grows cassava said locals feel unfairly targeted by the government. “All land is occupied, so we’re going to where there is land,” he said. “A lot of land is occupied by Chinese and Vietnamese investors from here in Sekong province all the way to Saravan province. Why are the authorities cracking down only on us but not on the foreigners?” Another farmer who lives in the district voiced a similar complaint: “We clear the forest to grow crops for our survival, not for commercial purposes. If the government wants to protect the forest, the government shouldn’t give land concessions to foreigners and shouldn’t limit land for its own people.” In Saravan province, more than 100 families have grown cassava and mango on up to 600 hectares of land in Xebang Nouane National Protected Forest and Phou Xieng Thong National Projected Forest, a provincial National Park Service official told RFA in March. “Just this year, 16 more families have occupied 10 more hectares in these two protected forests to grow cassava,” he said. “We’re beginning to seriously protect the forests because some villagers just disregard the law. Our [Lao People&#8217;s Revolutionary] Party and government want to protect the forests.” Authorities had allowed farmers to grow crops on state land because they only occupied a small part of the protected forests, about 600 hectares of land, or about 2-3% of the total area, a Lakhonepheng district official in Saravan said. “However, we, the provincial authorities, now want to stop it and to prevent people from expanding their cultivation,” he said. A cassava grower from the Phoukasy village in Lakhonepheng said he is growing more of the tuber this year because of the higher prices. “The problem is that I don’t have land,” he said. “I grow cassava in the protected forest and pay taxes to the district. We’re still allowed to grow cassava this year, but I don’t know about next year.” Reported by RFA’s Lao Service. Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [2 children among 6 Rohingya killed after escaping Malaysian detention center](https://ij-reportika.com/2-children-among-6-rohingya-killed-after-escaping-malaysian-detention-center/): Hundreds of Rohingya detained for two years in northern Malaysia escaped Wednesday following a pre-dawn riot, but six were killed by vehicles as they tried to cross a highway, in a tragic turn of events highlighting conditions at the country’s secretive immigrant detention centers. Close to 400 people had been recaptured by evening, officials said, while human rights groups called for a probe into what had provoked the unrest. They also demanded to know how many detention centers, where immigrants are held indefinitely and incommunicado, were operating across the country. “I have instructed the Royal Malaysia Police and the Immigration Department to conduct a detailed investigation of what caused them to act in such a way,” Home Minister Hamzah Zainudin said of the escapees late Wednesday. Multiple agencies from two states were working to track down more than 100 people still at large, he said. “All 528 detainees who escaped were ethnic Rohingya refugees transferred from a camp in Langkawi after being arrested for trespassing in Malaysian waters and violating the Immigration Act in 2020,” he said. Langkawi is an island group in the Strait of Malacca, off the coast of the northern Kedah state. Police in Bandar Baharu, Kedah were alerted to a riot and escape at the Sungai Bakap Temporary Immigration Depot at around 4 a.m., according to the state police chief, Wan Hassan Wan Ahmad. Prior to the riot, 664 people were housed there – 430 men, 97 women, and 137 children, he said. He told reporters that no serious injuries were reported during the riot and that its cause was under investigation. Detainees smashed a door and fence at the depot before making a run for it, he said, adding that the 23 security personnel on duty were quickly overwhelmed. “Because there were so many of detainees in a cramped space, things got out of control and the detainees took the opportunity to break out,” he told a press conference in Kedah. “The fatal accident involving the escapees happened about six to seven kilometers from the depot. Two men, two women, and two children (a boy, and a girl) were killed after being hit by vehicles when they tried to cross a highway while fleeing,” he said. Villagers living near the immigration facility said they were afraid to leave their homes with escapees still at large. “The detainees were everywhere, running out from the depot, and they headed to our village before they went into the bush,” a man who gave his name as Hashim told BenarNews. Another villager, Ahmad Husin, said they could be hiding in nearby palm oil plantations. Earlier, “some of them came to us looking for water because they were thirsty but no one dare to give them any because they were afraid of any untoward incident,” he told BenarNews. The Kedah police chief warned residents of nearby villages against helping the escapees, saying to do so was an offense punishable by law. ‘Traumatizing’ Tens of thousands of Rohingya have fled to Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and other countries to escape persecution in Myanmar, their home country, and dire living conditions in cramped refugee camps in Bangladesh. Malaysia, however, does not recognize refugee status. Since 2020, the country has rounded up thousands of refugees and housed them in crowded detention centers, in what the authorities say are measures to contain the spread of coronavirus. An estimated 180,000 UNHCR cardholders currently live in Malaysia, much higher than the estimated 38,000 in 2013. Jerald Joseph, a member of the Malaysia’s Human Rights Commission (Suhakam), called on the country’s immigration authorities to allow representative from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to meet with the detainees. “The Immigration Department has to give access to UNHCR so they can determine whether the ones detained were really Rohingyas. If so, they should be freed like the 150,000 Rohingyas who are here in the country,” he said. For its part, Amnesty International Malaysia demanded the government fully and transparently investigate the events “including the desperate circumstances within Sungai Bakap immigration detention center that led to detainees trying to escape, resulting in the loss of six lives.” Suhakam should investigate how many temporary immigration detention centers are in existence across the country, Katrina Jorene Maliamauv, executive director of Amnesty International Malaysia, said in a statement. “Conditions at these immigration detention centers should be documented, given past incidences of human rights violations in immigration depots in Malaysia,” she said. She called indefinite detention “traumatizing.” “The government therefore needs to answer not only on the deaths of the six individuals but also why so many refugees, including children, are being detained,” she said. Yusof Ali, chairman of Kedah Rohingya Association, also appealed to the Malaysian government “to look into the Rohingya issue detained at the Immigration Depots in the country.” Asked why the breakout occurred, he said, “Maybe because they have been in there far too long. Some of them have temporary documents and UNHCR cards, but when they showed it to the authorities, the office in charge will arrest them and allege that the document or the card are fake. No other countries want to accept our ethnic group. It is now up to the Malaysian government’s discretion,” he said. Zul Suffian in Penang, Malaysia and Iskandar Zulkarnain in Kedah, Malaysia contributed to this report by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated news service..
- [Vietnam court jails 12 on subversion charges in trial described by lawyer as ‘flawed’](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-court-jails-12-on-subversion-charges-in-trial-described-by-lawyer-as-flawed/): A court in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City on Monday sentenced 12 Vietnamese to prison terms of from three to 13 years on charges of supporting an exile group accused of attempting to overthrow the government in a trial described by defense attorneys as violating legal principles. Nine of the cases were drawn from separate parts of the country, jeopardizing standards of fairness in the trial, defense attorney Nguyen Van Mieng told RFA in an interview after the sentences were handed down. “This trial violated legal procedures, as it gathered nine cases from different provinces and cities and then combined them in a single trial,” Mieng said. “These 12 people had no relationships or links with each other,” he added. Defendant Tran Thi Ngoc Xuan, who received a 13-year prison term and was described by prosecutors as the most active member of the alleged plot, was acquainted with only two of the others brought to trial, Mieng said. “However, she had no close ties with either of them. They simply knew each other and did not work together as members of a team,&#8221; he said. Prosecutors had charged the group with “carrying out activities aimed at overthrowing the government” under Article 109 of Vietnam’s Penal Code and with recruiting others to join the Provisional Government of Vietnam, a U.S.-based opposition group described by Vietnamese authorities as a terrorist organization. Speaking to RFA, Mieng said however that the defendants had only thought they were joining projects aimed at helping the country’s poor. “In general, these 12 defendants are all poor and not well-educated,” Mieng said. “Therefore, when hearing from an online source about 18 programs providing land and houses carried out by the U.N. in cooperation with an ‘interim government,’ they registered their names and encouraged others to participate.” “And then they were arrested,” he said. Only Xuan declared her innocence at trial, with the others pleading guilty and asking for leniency from the court, Mieng said. Only Xuan had been able to hire a lawyer, while the other defendants were represented by lawyers assigned by the court, he added. Xuan, who has already spent two years in pre-trial detention, will now consider filing an appeal of her sentence, which must be filed within 15 days, Mieng said. Based in Orange County, California, the Provisional Government of Vietnam was founded in 1991 by former soldiers and refugees loyal to the South Vietnamese government that existed before the country’s takeover by North Vietnam in 1975. The group was designated a terrorist organization by Vietnamese authorities in January 2018 after group members in Vietnam were charged with a plot to attack Tan Son Nhat International Airport with petrol bombs ahead of a major holiday the year before. At least 18 Vietnamese have been jailed in recent years for alleged involvement with the group. Repeated attempts by RFA to contact representatives of the Provisional Government of Vietnam for comment have gone unanswered. Translated by Anna Vu for RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [I'll never let go, Vlad](https://ij-reportika.com/ill-never-let-go-vlad/): The sinking of the Moskva, Russia’s Black Sea fleet flagship, was the biggest wartime loss of a naval ship in 40 years. Despite the major embarrassment for Vladimir Putin and the vaunted Russian military, China&#8217;s Xi Jinping has maintained his embrace of his fellow strongman. Beyond the reputational damage to China from his alliance with Putin, analysts question whether Xi is getting accurate information about Russian battlefield failures, which may offer lessons for China&#8217;s military.
- [Chinese police order residents to hand over passports 'until after the pandemic'](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-police-order-residents-to-hand-over-passports-until-after-the-pandemic/): Police in the central Chinese province of Hunan have ordered local residents to hand over their passports to police, promising to return them &#8220;when the pandemic is over,&#8221; amid a massive surge in people looking for ways to leave China or obtain overseas immigration status. A March 31 notice from the Baisha police department in the central province of Hunan posted to social media ordered employers to hand over the passports of all employees and family members to police, &#8220;to be returned after the pandemic.&#8221; An officer who answered the phone at the Baisha police department confirmed the report, and said the measure is being rolled out nationwide. &#8220;According to official requirements, [passports] must be handed over because of the pandemic,&#8221; the officer said. &#8220;It&#8217;s everywhere, not just Hunan. It&#8217;s across the whole country,&#8221; they said. &#8220;Anyone with a passport has to hand it over, not just people who have an employer.&#8221; &#8220;If people don&#8217;t hand them over &#8230; then they have to expect to be investigated,&#8221; the officer said. China&#8217;s zero-COVID policy of mass compulsory testing, stringent lockdowns and digital health codes has sparked an emigration wave fueled by &#8220;shocked&#8221; middle-classes fed up with food shortages, confinement at home, and amid broader safety concerns. The number of keyword searches on social media platform WeChat and search engine Baidu for &#8220;criteria for emigrating to Canada&#8221; has skyrocketed by nearly 3,000 percent in the past month, with most queries clustered in cities and provinces under tough, zero-COVID restrictions, including Shanghai, Jiangsu, Guangdong and Beijing. Immigration consultancies in Shanghai confirmed they have also been seeing a huge spike in emigration inquiries in recent weeks. Many clients are now looking for &#8220;a green card from a big country and a passport from a small country&#8221; to supplement their Chinese passports, a consultant who gave only the surname Liu told RFA. &#8220;Some clients also need a favorable exchange rate [with their destination country],&#8221; he said. &#8220;We have had nearly four times as many inquiries this year as this time last year.&#8221; He said most people are looking for a one-step process to achieve permanent residency, and don&#8217;t mind spending more of their savings to achieve it. &#8220;There are many who are applying to Turkey, because [you need to] buy a house for at least U.S. $250,000, which is between one and two million yuan,&#8221; Liu said. &#8220;There are rumors this will go up to U.S. $400,000 in May, so a lot of people are trying jump aboard the last bus before the price hike.&#8221; A Shanghai-based immigration consultant surnamed Shen said more and more people are applying now, as there is scant sign that the government will ease up on the zero-COVID policy. &#8220;You could maybe start by applying for permanent residency of another country, in case this escalates in future,&#8221; Shen said, referring to the order to hand over passports. Mao Runzhi The wave of interest in leaving the country has sparked memes around the Chinese characters &#8220;runzhi,&#8221; a satirical reference both to late supreme leader Mao Zedong and the English word &#8220;run.&#8221; &#8220;Mao Zedong&#8217;s [birth] name was Mao Runzhi, and he ran away at the most critical moment,&#8221; Xia Ming, professor of political science at New York&#8217;s City University, told RFA. &#8220;There is also the word run in English, as in run away.&#8221; Xia sees the current exodus as the peak of a wave of migration that began around five years ago, and cited recent news events like the woman found chained by the neck in the eastern province of Jiangsu as catalysts, along with the pandemic. &#8220;There are constantly cases of abduction and trafficking and missing persons,&#8221; Xia said. &#8220;Anyone could become that chained woman; it&#8217;s so random.&#8221; &#8220;Women and children are kidnapped and sold as sex slaves or for organ donations, and this has had a big impact on China&#8217;s middle classes,&#8221; he said. He said the Shanghai lockdown had also come as a huge shock to some of the most privileged people in Chinese society. &#8220;These people who used to live more comfortable lives than everyone else suddenly found themselves facing starvation overnight, and lost any sense of personal dignity,&#8221; Xia said. &#8220;This was a huge shock to the quietly successful middle class.&#8221; Taiwan-based Hong Kong commentator Sang Pu said people from Shanghai aren&#8217;t fleeing COVID-19 so much as their government&#8217;s draconian disease control restrictions. &#8220;Emigration is being driven by the CCP&#8217;s authoritarian approach to disease control and prevention, not by the virus,&#8221; Sang said. &#8220;The reason is a political one.&#8221; &#8220;But do their politics accord with those of the countries they are moving to? Not necessarily,&#8221; he said. &#8220;These people aren&#8217;t just refugees; they are looking for some kind of paradise where they can live freely, but they bring with them the legacy of authoritarian rule. We should stay vigilant.&#8221; He said if rich Chinese businesspeople and senior officials are allowed to flee overseas with money, this would effectively set up a tried-and-tested channel for money-laundering, as well as providing the CCP with a growing foothold overseas. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [China, Solomon Islands confirm they have signed security pact](https://ij-reportika.com/china-solomon-islands-confirm-they-have-signed-security-pact/): China and the Solomon Islands have both confirmed they signed a controversial security pact that has sparked concerns about China’s rising influence in the Pacific region. The confirmation came as a U.S. delegation led by the National Security Council Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell was heading to Honiara to discuss regional security issues. Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare told parliament on Wednesday that the agreement with China was to help with the country’s “internal security situation,” referring to recent unrest that saw businesses and buildings burned and looted. The prime minister said the decision “will not adversely impact or undermine the peace and harmony of our region.” Hours before that, a Chinese government spokesman said that the pact is “part of normal exchanges and cooperation between two sovereign and independent countries” and does not target any third party. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters in Beijing that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Solomon Islands counterpart Jeremiah Manele officially signed the document “the other day.” China did not offer an explanation about whether the signed document is the final agreement. Neither party has revealed any details of the deal, with Sogavare saying it would be disclosed after a &#8220;process.&#8221; Kurt M. Campbell, the Biden administration’s coordinator for the Indo-Pacific, pictured official at the China Development Forum in Beijing, China March 23, 2019. At the time, Campbell was chairman and CEO of a consultancy, the Asia Group. Credit: Reuters. Lack of transparency Solomon Islands’ neighbors Australia and New Zealand have repeatedly voiced concerns since a copy of the draft agreement was leaked online in March. On Tuesday, Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Pacific Minister Zed Seselja issued a joint statement saying “Australia is deeply disappointed by the signing” of the pact. “We are concerned about the lack of transparency with which this agreement has been developed, noting its potential to undermine stability in our region,” the statement reads. Seselja traveled to Honiara last week to urge the Solomon Islands prime Mminister not to sign the deal with Beijing, without success.  New Zealand&#8217;s Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta said her country was &#8220;saddened&#8221; that the Solomon Islands had made the pact. The U.S. also expressed concern over “the lack of transparency” in China&#8217;s security pact with the Solomon Islands, calling it part of a pattern of Beijing offering &#8220;shadowy&#8221; deals to countries, Reuters news agency reported. Two top U.S. officials for the Indo-Pacific region &#8211; Kurt Campbell and Daniel Kritenbrink, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs &#8211; are currently in Fiji before traveling to Honiara to meet with the island nation’s leaders. Campbell said in January that the U.S. has “enormous moral, strategic, historical interests” in the Pacific but had not done enough to assist the region. Their trip has been criticized by China as having “ulterior motives.” “Several senior U.S. officials now fancy a visit to some Pacific island countries all of a sudden after all these years,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry’s Wang Wenbin, pointing out that the U.S. Embassy in Solomon Islands has been closed for 29 years. This February, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Fiji to meet with Pacific island leaders, and announced that the embassy in Honiara would be reopened. The Chinese national flag flies outside the Chinese Embassy in Honiara, Solomon Islands, April 1, 2022. Credit: AP. Military presence China has maintained that Pacific island countries need to diversify their cooperation with other countries and “have the right to independently choose their cooperation partners.” “China is always a builder of peace and a promoter of stability in the South Pacific region,” Wang said. A draft copy of the security pact leaked onto social media in late March suggested there would be Chinese logistical hubs or bases in the island nation. One of the clauses says: “China may, according to its own needs and with the consent of Solomon Islands, make ship visits to, carry out logistical replenishment in, and have stopover and transition in Solomon Islands.” David Capie, director of the Centre for Strategic Studies at the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, told RFA that the security pact would allow Beijing to set up military bases and deploy troops in the Pacific island nation, “marking the start of a much sharper military competition than anything we’ve seen in the region for decades.” Capie said that the agreement “would allow the People’s Republic of China to deploy police and military personnel to Solomon Islands with the consent of the host government, and potentially provide for refueling and support of Chinese ships.” U.S. State Department Spokesperson Ned Price said earlier this week that the U.S. is concerned that the agreement “leaves the door open for the deployment of Chinese forces on the Solomon Islands.” “We believe that signing such an agreement could increase destabilization within the Solomon Islands and will set a concerning precedent for the wider Pacific island region,&#8221; Price added. Analysts say a presence of Chinese troops in the Solomon Islands could raise the risk of confrontation between China and the U.S. and its allies, as well as challenge the U.S.-led vision of a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific.”
- [Bangladesh extends road near Myanmar, NE India to combat cross-border smuggling](https://ij-reportika.com/bangladesh-extends-road-near-myanmar-ne-india-to-combat-cross-border-smuggling/): Bangladesh officials on Tuesday announced an extension until 2024 for a road-building project in the remote Chittagong Hill Tracts and Cox’s Bazar, saying the improved infrastructure would help combat illegal smuggling across the nearby frontiers with Myanmar and India, among other uses. An army-run initiative, which was to have wrapped up in June 2021, is being extended to June 2024 and will more than double in price, to 38.6 billion taka (U.S. $448 million), they said. Bangladesh’s southeast has 210 km (130 miles) of land border with Myanmar and 330 km (205 miles) with India. Insurgents, such as the Arakan Army from Myanmar, have slipped across the porous borders, according to an analyst, even attacking Bangladeshi border guards on at least one occasion.    On Tuesday, the National Economic Council Executive Committee, headed by the prime minister, approved the updated proposal for the road system in the hilly and largely inaccessible southeastern region, Shahedur Rahman, the planning ministry’s spokesman, told BenarNews. He said the project, approved at an earlier committee meeting, was supposed to finish by 2021, but would end in June 2024 after the extension approval. The system is to connect all roads along the bordering areas of four southeastern districts and ultimately link with the region’s existing road system. According to a copy of the updated proposal obtained by BenarNews, the roads and highways department is to build a 317-km (197-mile) border road in three districts in the Chittagong Hill Tracts – Rangamati, Khagrachhari and Bandarban – and Cox’s Bazar district along its frontiers with Myanmar and northeastern Indian states. The hills and dense forest in the region hamper Border Guard Bangladesh efforts. In 2020, the government for the first time acquired two helicopters for the BGB along the southeastern border. “There is no road in this highly inaccessible and hilly region; our soldiers need to walk at least eight hours to cross 1 km. The distance between two BGB border outposts in this region ranges between 4 and 6 km, depending on terrain,” Lt Col. Foyzur Rahman, the BGB operations director, told BenarNews. “Construction of the border road would enable our soldiers to reach one outpost to another very easily and quickly, making guarding the border[s] an easier task. The smuggling of arms and narcotics would stop,” he said. ‘Many security considerations’ The original timeline for the road ran from January 2018 to June 2021 and set the project cost at nearly 17 billion taka ($197 million), according to the document. But that deadline passed before the project was finished – the government estimates more than 30 percent of the project has been completed. The new timeline runs through June 2024 and increases the cost. A.K.M. Manir Hossain Pathan, chief engineer of the roads and highways department, said his department had been constructing the border road system with assistance from the army’s engineering corps. “The border road involved many security considerations which the roads and highways department engineers are not supposed to be involved with. Therefore, we have been implementing the project through the Bangladesh Army,” he told BenarNews. “The inaccessible hilly terrain has slowed the implementation of the border road project. Getting machines, construction materials and the engineers and workers [to] the site is a herculean task so the project’s deadline has been extended to June 2024,” he said. In addition to the road project, the proposal calls for establishing improved communication links in Rangamati, Bandarban, Khagrachhari and Cox’s Bazar districts and “establishing government control in the bordering areas through heightening security measures.” Such measures would be used to combat the smuggling of illegal arms, narcotics and human trafficking at the border, it said. The proposal also says construction of helipads and security enclosures have been added to the original project. Cross-border infiltration Separatist groups have taken advantage of the rugged and remote terrain. On Aug. 25, 2015, a group of Arakan Army insurgents from the other side of the Myanmar border attacked BGB in Bandarban district, injuring two soldiers. The border road would benefit Bangladesh, said retired Maj. Gen. K. Mohammad Ali Sikder, a security analyst. “The terrain along the border in Chittagong Hill Tracts and Cox’s Bazar has been very tough and inaccessible. Exploiting this tough hilly terrain, the cross-border criminal syndicates carry out smuggling of arms, narcotics and other contraband while different separatist groups move freely between countries,” he told BenarNews. “The members of the Arakan Army very often enter Bangladesh territory from Myanmar as the BGB members cannot guard all the time, and the anti-Bangladesh groups easily cross into Myanmar,” he said. “After completion of the road, the movement of the criminals and separatist groups would stop.” BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.
- [Rewards for jets, helicopters will test loyalty of Myanmar military: former soldiers](https://ij-reportika.com/rewards-for-jets-helicopters-will-test-loyalty-of-myanmar-military-former-soldiers/): A reward program offered by Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) to junta soldiers who defect with jets, helicopters and other vehicles is likely to test the loyalty of the military’s lower ranks, according to former servicemen. Earlier this month, the NUG announced that it was offering cash rewards of up to U.S. $300,000 equivalent to any soldier who destroys an army, navy or air force assault vehicle or aircraft, or up to U.S. $500,000 to anyone who defects to the opposition along with one. Naing Htoo Aung, the permanent secretary of NUG’s Defense Ministry, said at the time that the rewards program is intended to provide “guarantees in life” for those soldiers who turn against the junta. “We have learned that there are many soldiers who want to defect from their units and join the people’s forces,” he said, adding that the military vehicles are being used to “attack the public.” “We hope this announcement will encourage them to defect more. We believe the rate of defection will increase every day.” Capt. Kaung Thu Win, a military officer who joined the anti-junta Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), agreed that rank and file soldiers are likely to jump at such an opportunity, although he acknowledged that it would be difficult for them to abscond with the vehicles intact. “It could be challenging to bring aircraft or fighter jets to another location. For example, fighter jets need a [special] landing strip. The helicopters are also limited in their range, depending on their capacity. Even tanks are difficult to take long distances,” he told RFA. “It is more realistic to expect them to destroy them. And they should only receive the rewards if they can show evidence that they have destroyed the vehicles and defected.” According to the NUG announcement, soldiers are eligible for cash rewards equal to U.S. $100,000 for destroying fighter jet fuel tanks, as well as weapon factories and storage facilities. Repeated calls to junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment on the rewards program went unanswered. Thein Tun Oo, executive director of the Thayninga Institute of Strategic Studies, a group of former military officers from Myanmar, called the offer impractical and unrealistic. “There are several measures in place that make it difficult to steal military vehicles, let alone destroy them. There are hierarchies of command that monitor the members of each unit,” he told RFA. “To be frank, this announcement is just for propaganda purposes. When the opposition forces take up arms to fight, they will do anything to defeat the enemy, regardless of whether it is right or wrong. As for whether these tactics will work or not, it depends on their purpose and the impact they have.” Capt. Lin Htet Aung said that regardless of its impact on the outcome of the conflict, the NUG’s reward offer will cause soldiers from all levels of the military to question their loyalty to the junta. “This announcement could stir up the members of elite forces. Those who are operating the vehicles will have thoughts to consider. It will also stir up distrust among the members of the military,” he said. “The military is already facing a moral crisis and losing loyalty among its members. The top ranking officers will strictly punish any infraction that occurs after this announcement.” According to Pyithu Yinkwin (People’s Embrace), a group of CDM members made up of former military personnel, nearly 3,000 soldiers have joined the CDM since the Feb. 1, 2021, coup that saw the junta seize power from the democratically elected National League for Democracy (NLD) party.  Junta tanks take part in an Armed Forces Day parade in Naypyidaw, Myanmar, March 27, 2022. AFP Misuse of public property In a recent interview, NUG Defense Minister Yee Mon told RFA that the announcement of the rewards program was justified under Myanmar’s Public Property Act of 1947, which prevents against the “misuse of public property.” “The junta is currently misusing military facilities, which are public property, to wage violence against and kill the people,” he said, adding that the president of a new civilian government would put new laws into place to ensure such violations do not happen again. Yee Mon responded to critics who doubt the feasibility of NUG’s announcement by noting that “helicopters don’t need landing strips,” and suggesting “airports will be under PDF control sooner or later” to accommodate any stolen fighter jets. In the meantime, opposition forces — comprised largely of People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries — are being armed with “factory-made standard arms and IEDs that we made ourselves,” as well as weapons bought using a budget of U.S. $34 million, and others seized from junta troops. “We have enough weapons to meet the minimum requirements for the PDF forces,” he said, without providing further details. Yee Mon said that the armed opposition now numbers “between 50,000 and 100,000” soldiers from the PDF and other allied anti-junta groups formed into 259 military battalions, as well as fighting units based in 250 townships across the country. RFA was unable to independently verify the minister’s claims. “The majority of these groups are working with NUG … and we are ready to defeat the military junta,” he said. “Now we are working on the next step in terms of surrounding and controlling some towns.  The defense minister said that the NUG has no plans to negotiate with the junta, “as long as it upholds an authoritarian system and mindset.” “With regards to the future of the military, which is under its control, it is up to their soldiers to decide,” he said. “They can choose either to completely disband the military or reform it into forces that comply with the command of a civilian government. If the latter, the window for negotiations remains open.” Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Cambodian minor party leader on the run, wanted on fraud charges](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-minor-party-leader-on-the-run-wanted-on-fraud-charges/): The president of an unrecognized Cambodian political party who is on the run, facing an arrest warrant for forgery of documents for June local elections, is in a safe location, his lawyer told RFA Tuesday.  Critics said his charges were trumped up amid a government crackdown on the opposition. Seam Pluk, president of the National Heart Party, is in hiding in an undisclosed place, his lawyer Sam Sok Kong told RFA’s Khmer Service. His flight was revealed Monday, the same day a prominent activist fled to safety after receiving a death threat for joining street protests. Sam Sok Kong said his client is willing to appear before the court but fled because he didn’t have time to prepare for a hearing by April 25. He is waiting for the warrant to expire and the court to issue a new one. “He is planning to consult with lawyers about his legal issues and he is seeking to testify before the court. When he has a date, he will make it public so we can clarify before the court against the charge,” Sam Sok Kong said. Phnom Penh Municipal Court Investigative Judge Li Sokha on April 4 ordered police to bring Seam Pluk in for questioning over allegations of the use of fraudulent documents to register his party for local elections. If he is convicted, he could face up to three years in jail. RFA was not able to reach Seam Pluk for comment but previously he said the court’s warrant is political intimidation against non-ruling party politicians and has nothing to do with enforcing the law. Soeung Sengkaruna of the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association (Adhoc) said Seam Pluk was targeted for political reasons, the latest in a series of such cases. “The court is being criticized for lacking independence over politically motivated cases. It is rare that politicians and conscience activists are spared. They are charged and convicted,” he told RFA. Thach Setha, the spokesperson of a small party called the Candlelight Party, told said Seam Pluk was targeted because of his previous support for Candlelight, which has recently been gaining steam. Its leaders believe it could challenge Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party in the upcoming elections. After  the Ministry of Interior banned Seam Pluk’s party, Thach Setha urged all its members to join the Candlelight Party.  “Since he supported [the Candlelight Party] he was charged. This case is politically motivated more than being about the law,” Thach Setha told RFA. RFA reported Monday that Seam Pluk joined the Candlelight party after the Ministry of the Interior refused to recognize the Cambodian National Heart party but Thanch Setha said Seam Pluk never joined. The Candlelight Party, formerly known as the Sam Rainsy Party and the Khmer Nation party, was founded in 1995. It merged with other opposition forces to form the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) in 2012. All opponents of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) have been targeted in a five-year-old crackdown that has sent CNRP leaders and landed scores of supporters in prison. Cambodia’s Supreme Court dissolved the CNRP in November 2017 in a move that allowed the CPP to win all 125 seats in Parliament in a July 2018 election. Sam Rainsy, 72, has lived in exile in France since 2015 and was sentenced in absentia last year to 25 years for what supporters say was a politically motivated charge of attempting to overthrow the government. CPP spokesman Sok Ey San told RFA recently that Seam Pluk received thousands of dollars from Sam Rainsy, but Seam Pluk has denied the allegation. Translate by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Authorities free 3 Tibetans jailed for running ‘illegal’ land rights group](https://ij-reportika.com/authorities-free-3-tibetans-jailed-for-running-illegal-land-rights-group/): Authorities in China’s Qinghai province have released three of the nine Tibetans who received prison terms in 2018 for running an “illegal organization” promoting land rights. Three more from the group are due to be released in June, according to Tibetan sources in exile. Sonam Gyal and two others, who were not immediately identified, completed their terms and were freed earlier this year, a source living in India told RFA’s Tibetan Service, speaking on condition of anonymity. “In January this year, Sonam Gyal and two others were released after serving their prison term,” said the source. “Tashi Tsering and two others are scheduled to be released in June, also after completing their prison terms,” the source added. The names of the other two who are expected to be freed are also unconfirmed. While the source said that the terms of the second trio are set to expire in June, “it is also uncertain if [they] will be released accordingly.” According to the source, the remaining three had their cases “sent back for retrial and were sentenced to seven years again.” “The prison time they had already served until now was invalidated,” they said. In April 2019, RFA reported that the nine Tibetans, all residents of Horgyal village in Qinghai’s Rebgong (in Chinese, Tongren) county, were handed terms of from three to seven years by the County People’s Court for running an “illegal organization,” citing information from the Dharamsala, India-based Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD). Authorities had additionally accused the men — Gendun Soepa, Drukbum Tsering, Bende Dorje, Tashi Tsering, Sonam Gyal, Dargye, Shawo Tsering, Khajam Gyal and Choesang — of usurping the duties of already established village committees, “extortion,” and “gathering people to disturb social order,” the group said at the time. Detained in July 2018, the nine men were formally arrested in August, and were serving their sentences at a large prison facility in Rebgong, a second Tibetan source in exile told RFA. “Though the prison is very close to Horgyal village, their families and relatives were never allowed to meet them over the last several years,” said the source, who also declined to be named. “Sonam Gyal’s health was not in a good state for a long time while in prison, but we don’t know much about his current health status, even though he is released. … People in the region were all too scared to talk about it and tried to avoid the conversation.” The second source said that the health conditions of the six still in prison are also uncertain. Petition to reclaim land In a petition signed on Feb, 21, 2017, the nine, part of a larger group of 24, had mobilized village support to demand the return of Horgyal village land handed over for use by three brick factories in exchange for lease payments to the village that ended when the works were closed down by government order in 2011. For the next seven years, authorities compensated the factories annually for their loss of business, though payments to the Horgyal village government then stopped, TCHRD said in its statement at the time of their sentencing, adding that villagers had called since then for the land’s return. Two years before, a Tibetan monastery in Rebgong had appealed for the return of property formerly leased to a teacher’s college but seized by local officials as the college moved to a new location, Tibetan sources told RFA in an earlier report. The property, comprising one third of the total estate of Rongwo monastery, was confiscated in 2016, and monks had petitioned ever since for its return, sources said. Chinese development projects in Tibetan areas have led to frequent standoffs with Tibetans, who accuse Chinese firms and local officials of improperly seizing land and disrupting the lives of local people. Many projects result in violent suppression, the detention of protest organizers, and intense pressure on the local population to comply with the government’s wishes. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [North Korea stops public transit for 3 days on founder’s birth holiday](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-stops-public-transit-for-3-days-on-founders-birth-holiday/): North Korea ordered all public transportation to stop for three days in observance of the April 15 birth anniversary of the country’s late founder, angering some citizens who rely on buses and other services to get around and conduct business, sources in North Korea told RFA. “From the day before the Day of the Sun through yesterday, authorities in Unsan county completely restricted the operation of state-owned transportation, including buses, taxis and motorcycles,” a resident of South Pyongan province, north of the capital Pyongyang, told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “With every major national anniversary, the authorities will do things like strengthening security and holding political events and lectures, but this is the first time they are trying to control the people by shutting off public transit,” she said. Kim Il Sung (1912-1994), the grandfather of current leader Kim Jong Un, was born on April 15, and his birthday is celebrated every year as a major holiday called the “Day of the Sun.” Kim Il Sung’s son and successor, Kim Jong Il (1942-2011), was born on Feb. 16, the “Day of the Shining Star.” The two holidays solidify the cult of personality surrounding the Kim family, which has now ruled North Korea for three generations. April 15 this year would have been Kim Il Sung’s 110th birthday, and authorities stopped all buses and taxis nationwide for three days to try to encourage citizens to attend political events to celebrate the day, sources said. Authorities wanted to push residents to attend a people’s rally to show support for the party ideology and to rededicate their loyalty to the leadership, but North Koreans have responded coolly to the measure, the source said. “Public transportation services completely stopped for political events to commemorate the Day of the Sun, but the merchants who rely on public transit to transport goods from one market to another had no avenue to complain about their difficulties,” she said. The stoppage of public transit in the northwestern province of North Pyongan was designed to reduce the risks anyone would attempt to disrupt political events there, a resident of the province told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “Residents who are unable to travel for three days had no choice but to go to the political events, starting with the special assembly on the day before the Day of the Sun,” she said. On the Day of the Sun, the people laid flowers in offering to Kim Il Sung at the Tower of Eternal Life, a landmark in the border city of Sinuiju, after which they celebrated with a public dance ceremony, the second source said. The following day, they attended a political event where they rededicated their allegiance to Kim Jong Un. “The people were exhausted from going to these events, and it took them away from their jobs, which they need to put food on the table,” she said. In addition to turning off public transit, authorities cut civilian phone communications between North Pyongan and the capital Pyongyang during the three-day period, the second source said. She tried to call the cell phone of her acquaintance in Pyongyang, but could not get through until April 17. Translated by Claire Lee and Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Hong Kong says voters only have one option in 'elections' for city's next leader](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-says-voters-only-have-one-option-in-elections-for-citys-next-leader/): The Hong Kong government on Monday said only one valid candidate has been approved to run in a forthcoming &#8220;election&#8221; for the city&#8217;s top job, naming former police officer and security chief John Lee. &#8220;The name of the one validly nominated candidate for the sixth-term Chief Executive Election was gazetted today (April 18),&#8221; the government said in a statement on Sunday. The move comes after dozens of pro-democracy politicians and activists were arrested amid a citywide crackdown on public dissent and political opposition under a draconian national security law imposed on Hong Kong from July 1, 2020. The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had also pushed through changes to Hong Kong&#8217;s electoral system that effectively ensure that only &#8220;patriots&#8221; backed by a slew of CCP-backed committees and the national security police could make the slate. Now, even the appearance of choice appears to have been dispensed with. The government&#8217;s Candidate Eligibility Review Committee, chaired by financial secretary Paul Chan said the 786 nominations garnered by Lee from the 1,500-strong Election Committee were valid. The announcement came as a well-known figure from the 2019 protest movement calling for fully democratic elections was convicted of &#8220;organizing an illegal assembly&#8221; in a court in Eastern District. David Li, a protester known by his nickname Brother Lunch, after he appeared in Eastern Magistrate&#8217;s Court in Hong Kong and was found guilty of &#8220;organizing an illegal assembly&#8221; and released on bail pending a social services report, April 19, 2022. Credit: RFA. Brother Lunch David Li, known by his protest nickname Brother Lunch, appeared in Eastern Magistrate&#8217;s Court on Tuesday, was found guilty and released on bail pending a social services report. The court found that Li had repeatedly shouted slogans and made hand gestures at the International Financial Center, signaling the &#8220;five demands, not one less&#8221; of the protest movement which included universal suffrage and no limits on candidacy, as well as greater police accountability and an amnesty for political prisoners. The fact that others joined in, and that Li appeared to be looking to see the effects of his demonstration on others, meant he had organized an assembly, despite the fact that he had stuck to a requirement for 1.5 social distancing in place at the time. The defense said Li is autistic and has a diagnosis of ADHD, and called for his young age and rehabilitation to be taken into account. Li was a regular participant in the &#8220;lunch with you&#8221; gatherings during the 2019 campaign to prevent legal amendments allowing the extradition of alleged criminal suspects to face trial in mainland China, which later broadened to include calls for full democracy and official accountability. His conviction came as the creator of a banned sculpture commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen massacre said he was unable to move his work out of Hong Kong, because at least 12 logistics companies had refused to take on the job. The Pillar of Shame memorial to victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing is shown at the University of Hong Kong in a May 2021 photo. Credit: AFP. NSL scares shippers Danish artist Jens Galschiøt said he has been working with the Danish foreign ministry in a bid to get the sculpture out of Hong Kong, but that no removal company would move it from its current location to a cargo terminal at Hong Kong&#8217;s airport. Galschiøt said he has been turned down by at least 12 companies, who said they feared that moving the sculpture would put them in breach of the national security law. He said there appears to be a greatly diminished trust in the city&#8217;s judicial system since the law took effect. Galschiøt revealed plans for smaller replicas of the sculpture to be placed in universities around the world, to serve as a focus for commemorating the dead of Tiananmen Square. He said the statue had been cut into two parts by University of Hong Kong management at the time of its removal on Dec. 23, 2021. The statue was placed on the university campus by the now disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Democratic Patriotic Movements of China, which had it on loan from Galschiøt. The 32-year-old Alliance now stands accused of acting as the agent of a foreign power, with leaders Chow Hang-tung, Albert Ho, and Lee Cheuk-yan arrested on suspicion of &#8220;incitement to subvert state power,&#8221; and the group&#8217;s assets frozen. The group was one of a number of civil society groups that disbanded following investigation by national security police. The annual Tiananmen massacre vigils the Alliance hosted on June 4 often attracted more than 100,000 people, but the gatherings have been banned since 2020, with the authorities citing coronavirus restrictions. China’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office had previously accused the organization of inciting hostility and hatred against the CCP and the central government. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Shanghai police warn bereaved families of elderly COVID-19 patients not to speak out](https://ij-reportika.com/shanghai-police-warn-bereaved-families-of-elderly-covid-19-patients-not-to-speak-out/): Authorities in Shanghai are warning the families of elderly people who have died of COVID-19 not to talk to the media, as the omicron outbreak rips through at least one hospital in the city, causing an unknown number of deaths. At least 27 elderly people in Donghai Hospital in Shanghai&#8217;s Pudong New District have died of COVID-19, with many more deaths suspected as a result of an outbreak among staff and patients. Some families have refused to have their loved ones&#8217; remains cremated, and have been warned not to talk to foreign media by police, a person who has spoken to the families told RFA. “A person identifying as a police officer told me that they are conveying a message to families from the internet police in Pudong; it&#8217;s not the hospitals that are contacting them,&#8221; Yue Ge, a Chinese YouTuber who has been following the outbreak among the elderly closely, told RFA. &#8220;[This person] said they would let it go as understandable if they spoke to Chinese media, but that they mustn&#8217;t talk to foreign media, on pain of legal consequences,&#8221; Yue said. The warning comes after several families of elderly people who died in the Donghai Hospital after being admitted for COVID-19 claimed that the hospital had under-reported the number of patients who have died of the disease. &#8220;The families counted and found [references to] 27 bodies, which basically means that there were 27 dead bodies that tested positive for COVID-19,&#8221; Yue said. &#8220;Some of the Donghai families are saying that the Donghai Hospital has totally failed to contain an outbreak [of nosocomial infections] that started in mid-April,&#8221; he said. &#8220;According to their account, deaths are still happening there,&#8221; he said. &#8216;No means of controlling it&#8217; Yue said the hospital is understaffed, with at least 80 percent of its staff dispatched elsewhere for disease control and prevention work, and elderly people admitted there aren&#8217;t being properly cared for or treated. He said the figure of 27 deaths didn&#8217;t include people who had died there due to other causes than COVID-19. Yue said large numbers of elderly patients with the virus are also being sent to temporary field hospitals or designated hospitals, with fears that some may even have died due to neglect or starvation. &#8220;In the two weeks or more since the start of April, there have been four staff changes among the nurses on the ward where [some of the elderly patients] are,&#8221; Yue said. &#8220;Three of them were due to the fact that the nurses tested positive.&#8221; &#8220;The fourth just got there &#8230; but the family fear that transmission is still occurring,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It seems they have no effective means of controlling it.&#8221; &#8220;The nursing staff are already in full PPE, but transmission is still taking place; they can&#8217;t stop it, and the new nurses aren&#8217;t paying full attention to taking care of the elderly because they&#8217;re afraid of getting infected too,&#8221; Yue said. Yue said there are also concerns that the hospital will start editing death certificates to suggest that COVID-19 wasn&#8217;t the primary cause of death, and that the patients had died &#8220;with&#8221; it rather than &#8220;of&#8221; it. &#8220;They got the feeling that there is a certain amount of embellishment or editing of medical records going on after the event,&#8221; Yue said. &#8220;The official response is that the charts have to be written up after attempts to resuscitate someone.&#8221; In this image taken from video provided by Beibei, who asked to be identified only by her given name, residents take a rest at Shanghai&#8217;s National Exhibition and Convention Center, which converted to a quarantine facility set up for people who tested positive but have few or no symptoms, April 15, 2022. Credit: Beibei via AP &#8216;Who are people supposed to talk to?&#8217; Wuhan-based activist Zhang Hai, who has campaigned for redress after his father died in the early days of the pandemic, said the government is suppressing a huge amount of information about the current outbreak. &#8220;We don&#8217;t have a free press in China, so there are no reasonable channels available for us to tell the rest of the world what&#8217;s happening to ordinary people,&#8221; Zhang said. &#8220;This is because our domestic media organizations are all controlled by the government.&#8221; &#8220;Who are people supposed to talk to, if not foreign media? Their loved ones have been treated unfairly and lost their lives,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Anyone with a bit of courage would find it impossible not to speak out,&#8221; Zhang said. Meanwhile, some residents of Shanghai have been posting notices in their doors and windows refusing to take any more PCR tests after many rounds of citywide mass testing. &#8220;No PCR tests: negative antigen self tests,&#8221; read one notice, a photo of which was sent to RFA. &#8220;Negative all along,&#8221; read another card. The notices are an indicator of growing public anger at the citywide lockdown, which comes after the city&#8217;s leaders were repeatedly told to pursue the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)&#8217;s zero-COVID strategy, regardless of how hard it was to keep 26 million people stuck at home amid lack of resources and food shortages. Dozens of residents of one residential community responded with &#8220;we don&#8217;t want to,&#8221; after their neighborhood committee told them to line up downstairs for yet another round of PCR testing. Many are unclear why they need to be repeatedly tested if they haven&#8217;t been outside their homes for weeks, according to Zheng Jianming, a resident of Jiading district. &#8220;We have done more than 20 PCR tests, so what else is there left to do?&#8221; Zheng said. &#8220;We are all negative, we can&#8217;t go out, so we can&#8217;t get infected.&#8221; &#8220;And getting a PCR test could put you at risk; we think it&#8217;s now the biggest source of potential infection,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We&#8217;ve all stopped going for PCR tests in the past few days; fewer and fewer people are doing them.&#8221; Compulsory PCR testing Current affairs commentator Zhang Jianping said the repeated rounds of PCR testing was &#8220;bizarre.&#8221;...
- [Dalai Lama to visit Ladakh in first trip since pandemic’s start](https://ij-reportika.com/dalai-lama-to-visit-ladakh-in-first-trip-since-pandemics-start/): Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama will visit India’s northwestern territory of Ladakh later this year in his first trip away from his residence since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic two years ago, sources said this week. The visit, which will take place between July and August, was made at the invitation of a high-level delegation from Ladakh, a strategically sensitive area where thousands of Indian and Chinese troops clashed in June 2020, with deaths reported by both sides in the fighting. News of the trip was announced on Monday by delegation members Thiksey Rinpoche, a former member of the Indian parliament’s upper house, and Thupten Tsewang, also a former Indian MP and now president of the Ladakh Buddhist Association. “We made the request during our special audience with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and he agreed to visit and bless devotees in Ladakh this summer,” Thiksey Rinpoche said following an April 18  meeting at the spiritual leader’s residence in Dharamsala, India, the seat of Tibet’s exile government, the Central Tibetan Administration. The Dalai Lama, who last visited Ladakh in 2018 and spent 19 days there, had been unable to visit again in recent years because of the COVID-19 pandemic, said Thupten Tsewang, also a member of the delegation. “Now, the people of Ladakh will be very happy to hear this news, and we are all very delighted,” Tsewang added. Banned by Chinese authorities in Tibet, celebrations of the Dalai Lama’s July 6 birthday have been held by large gatherings in Ladakh in recent years, sources say. Concerns have been raised over the advancing age of the now 86-year-old spiritual leader, with Beijing claiming the right to name a successor after he dies, and the Dalai Lama himself — the 14th in his line — saying he will be reborn outside of areas controlled by China. Formerly an independent nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force more than 70 years ago, and the Dalai Lama and thousands of his followers later fled into exile in India and other countries around the world following a failed 1959 national uprising against China’s rule. Tibetans living in Tibet frequently complain of discrimination and human rights abuses by Chinese authorities and policies they say are aimed at eradicating their national and cultural identity. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [Russia says military drills planned with Vietnam](https://ij-reportika.com/russia-says-military-drills-planned-with-vietnam/): As fighting rages across Ukraine, Russia and Vietnam are planning to hold a joint military training exercise, Russian state media reported Tuesday, a move that analysts described as “inappropriate” and likely to “raise eyebrows” in the rest of the region. It comes amid international outrage over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the mounting civilian death toll there. It also coincides with U.S. preparations to host a May 12-13 summit in Washington with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, including Vietnam. Russian state-run news agency RIA Novosti said the initial planning meeting for the military training exercise was held virtually between the leaders of Russia’s Eastern Military District and the Vietnamese army. The two sides “agreed on the subject of the upcoming drills, specified the dates and venue for them” and “discussed issues of medical and logistic support, cultural and sports programs,” the news agency reported without giving further details. Col. Ivan Taraev, head of the International Military Cooperation Department at the Eastern Military District, was quoted as saying that the joint exercise aims “to improve practical skills of commanders and staffs in organizing combat training operations and managing units in a difficult tactical situation, as well as developing unconventional solutions when performing tasks.”  The two sides also discussed what to call the joint exercise. One of the proposed names is “Continental Alliance – 2022.” Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, right, and his then-Vietnamese counterpart Ngo Xuan Lich, left, reviewing an honor guard in Hanoi, Vietnam, Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2018. Shoigu was on a visit to Vietnam to boost military ties between the two countries. Credit: AP &#8216;Inappropriate decision&#8217; Vietnamese media haven’t reported on the meeting, nor the proposed exercise. Vietnamese officials were not available for comment. “This is a totally inappropriate decision on Vietnam’s part,” said Carlyle Thayer, professor emeritus at the New South Wales University in Australia and a veteran Vietnam watcher. “The U.S. is hosting a special summit with Southeast Asian leaders in May,” Thayer said. “How will the Vietnamese leader be able to look Biden in the eye given the U.S. clear stance on the Ukrainian war and the Russian invasion?” “This is not how you deal with the world’s superpower,” he said. Earlier this month, Vietnam voted against a U.S.-led resolution to remove Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council. Before that, Hanoi abstained from voting to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the U.N. General Assembly. “As Russia&#8217;s closest partner in the region, Vietnam wants to demonstrate that it still has a firm friend in Southeast Asia,” said Ian Storey, senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. “But this joint exercise is likely to raise eyebrows in the rest of the region,” Storey said. Vietnam and Russia have a long-established historical relationship that goes back to the Soviet era. Russia is Vietnam’s first strategic partner, and one of its three so-called “comprehensive strategic partners,” alongside China and India. Moscow was also Hanoi’s biggest donor until the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. “Vietnam’s nuanced approach to the Russia-Ukraine war and its refusal to single out Russia’s invasion suggest introspection in Hanoi over its foreign and defense policy calculations,” wrote Hoang Thi Ha, a Vietnamese scholar at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute. The Russia-led war in Ukraine “presented a hard choice for Hanoi between preserving the fundamental principle of respect for a sovereign nation’s independence and territorial integrity and maintaining its good relations with Russia — a key arms supplier and a major oil and gas exploration partner in the South China Sea,” Ha said. Political message That explains Vietnam’s moves but there are distinctions between casting votes at the U.N. and holding joint military activities. The latter would send a wrong message about Vietnam’s intention to work with the West and raise its profile among the international community, analysts said. In particular, the past decade or more has seen a notable growth in ties between the U.S. and Vietnam, which share a concern over China’s assertive behavior in the South China Sea. Details of the proposed Russia-Vietnam exercise have yet to be made public, and already some observers are expressing doubts that it would take place. A Vietnamese analyst who wished to stay anonymous as he is not authorized to speak to foreign media said the Russian side announced similar exercises in the past which didn’t materialize. The Press Service of Russia’s Eastern Military District also said back in 2015 that the first bilateral military drill between Russia and Vietnam would take place in 2016 in Vietnamese territory. The supposed drill was rescheduled to 2017 but in the end didn’t happen at all. Vietnam has, however, taken part in a number of multilateral military exercises with Russia. The latest was the first joint naval exercise between Russia and countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations last December. The Eastern Military District, headquartered in Khabarovsk, is one of the five operational strategic commands of the Russian Armed Forces, responsible for the Far East region of the country. The district was formed by a presidential decree, signed by the then-President Dmitry Medvedev in September 2010.
- [Junta pledges ‘year of peace’ after Thingyan, but opposition says fight just starting](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-pledges-year-of-peace-after-thingyan-but-opposition-says-fight-just-starting/): Junta chief Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing marked the end of Thingyan on Sunday by declaring the Myanmar New Year a “year of peace,” even as the military continued an offensive in nine of the country’s 14 regions and armed resistance groups vowed to fight harder than ever. “This year is the eve of the diamond anniversary of our Independence Day. Therefore, we must all strive hard to fully enjoy the fruits of independence and the essence of democracy,” the coup leader said in an address in the capital Naypyidaw at the close of the April 13-16 New Year Water Festival. “That’s why we are doing our best to make this year a ‘year of peace’ and bring stability to the whole country.” Min Aung Hlaing did not elaborate on how the military regime, which rights groups say has killed at least 1,769 civilians since its Feb. 1, 2021, coup, intends to carry out his vision. Thingyan — normally a bustling and jubilant holiday — was eerily silent in Myanmar’s main cities of Yangon and Mandalay, as residents chose to boycott junta-led festivities and heed warnings by armed opposition forces that the areas could become the target of attacks. An RFA investigation found that authorities arrested nearly 100 people in the two cities, as well as Myawaddy township in Kayin state, in the first 10 days of April as part of a pre-Thingyan crackdown. Some of those detained had joined anti-coup protests, while others were accused of being members of Yangon-based anti-junta paramilitary groups, including the People’s Defense Force (PDF). Meanwhile, armed clashes between the military and joint anti-junta forces were in full swing through the New Year in Kayin, Kachin, Kayah, Chin and Rakhine states, as well as in Sagaing, Magway, Bago and Yangon regions, according to Karenni National Progressive Party. Khoo Daniel, first secretary of the ethnic Karenni National Progressive Party, predicted that the fighting will get even worse in the new year with an expansion of war zones. “The military situation is going to get worse as each and every group is preparing in their own way,” he said. “The [shadow National Unity Government (NUG)] itself has openly said it will launch military operations everywhere. So, it’s likely to be very tense.” In 2021, the clashes were relatively minimal, he said, because there was “a lack of unity among the armed groups to fight the military junta.” But Khoo Daniel said that the nation’s politicians and public now have a better understanding of why ethnic groups have taken up arms against the military and are more likely to throw their support behind them. People&#8217;s Defense Force fighters in Kayah state&#8217;s Loikaw township, in an undated photo. Credit: Loikaw PDF ‘Sacrificing’ for democracy One group that has benefitted from such an alliance is the Karen National People’s Party in Kayin state, which has linked up with the Karen National Defense Force (KNDF) paramilitaries and other PDF units in neighboring Kayah and Southern Shan states to fight the military. A member of the KNDF, who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity, said the group hopes to open new fronts in the new year. “As resistance fighters, our focus this New Year is to fight the junta together,” she said. “We hope to open several fronts across the whole country.” The Free Tiger Rangers, a group loyal to the NUG’s Ministry of Defense that is attacking junta targets in Yangon, also said in a recent statement that its New Year resolution is to “defeat the military.” Observers told RFA they expect the military to heavily crack down on the armed resistance this year if it hopes to find a solution to the country’s political crisis and hold a general election in 2023. “What is special about this New Year is that we are seeing a lot of intense fighting between the military forces and the PDFs, as well as the ethnic armed groups. The clashes have intensified,” said Myanmar-based military analyst Than Soe Naing. “I think both sides are hoping for a decisive situation and the armed conflict will likely intensify in the mountains, in the plains, and in the cities — in both rural and urban areas.” Even if the military achieves its objectives, it is unlikely the country will be in any sort of state to hold a general election next year, he added. Hein Thiha, a former high school teacher who has worked as a farmer since joining the anti-junta Civil Disobedience Movement, told RFA that the people of Myanmar showed how much they want a return to democracy by abstaining from celebrations for Thingyan, which he called the nation’s “most cherished festival.” “The world can now see how our people are willing to sacrifice in the hope that democracy will one day flourish again,” he said. NUG acting President Duwa Lashi La, meanwhile, vowed in a New Year’s address on Saturday to reclaim territory under military control and said he would do everything in his power to free the people from junta rule. “The NUG has redoubled its efforts to build a peaceful federal democratic union and to provide people with the services they need with help from international organizations,” he said. “I can see a ray of light at the end of the tunnel, and we will make the people’s dream come true.” The NUG said in a statement over the weekend that it is affiliated with 354 PDF units fighting the military and that more than 100 of them are working under its control. It said PDF and armed ethnic groups are now in control of “nearly 50 percent of the country.” Family members of inmates wait in front of Insein Prison in Yangon, April 18, 2022. Credit: RFA Prisoner amnesty The end of Thingyan also saw the junta release more than 1,600 inmates from jail in a general amnesty on Monday, none of whom were political prisoners or journalists, according to observers and family members. The junta pardoned 1,619 people, most...
- [Cambodian political activists flee to safety after threat, court summons](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-political-activists-flee-to-safety-after-threat-court-summons/): A prominent Cambodian activist fled to safety after receiving a death threat allegedly for joining street protests, while a member of a political party challenging Prime Minister Hun Sun’s government is also on the run after a court ordered him to appear on what he says are false charges. Five years after strongman Hun Sen launched a crackdown against the political opposition and civil society, the country of nearly 17 million people that he has ruled since 1985 will hold local elections on June 5, followed by a parliamentary vote next year. Opposition politicians, including those from the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) that was banned during the 2017 crackdown, have faced harassment when trying to organize for the June elections. Sat Pha, a CNRP supporter, said she believes a handwritten threat that authorities from Hun Sen’s one-party government posted the note on the door of her home. The threat said, “You, contemptible, don’t be bold or you will be disappeared.” Sat Pha said she has been on the run since April 16, fearing that she will meet the same fate as other opposition activists in Cambodia. “[They] could put me in jail or make me disappeared or make me crippled for my whole life,” Sat Pha told RFA from an undisclosed location. “I see this dictatorial regime is good at beating people, killing people and throwing people in prison.” She herself was released from prison six months ago after serving a year in detention for inciting social unrest during a peaceful protest in front of Chinese Embassy in Phnom Penh. Prior to her imprisonment and following her release, Sat Pha participated in protests staged by fellow activist Theary Seng, a Cambodian American lawyer who is on trial in Phnom Penh for treason and incitement, and with relatives of political prisoners. In a video clip apparently recorded in a jungle in neighboring Thailand and posted on Theary Seng’s Facebook page, Sat Pha said she left Cambodia under pressure from the government. “They posted a life threatening message at my house after I arrived home from the Khmer New Year holiday,” she says in the video. “I beg for national and international help to find justice for me.” Sat Pha also appealed to NGOs and the United Nations to help her remain safely in Thailand as a political refugee. Speaking to RFA on Monday, Theary Seng called the threat against Sat Pha “a cowardly move by this dictatorial regime,” aimed at tamping down her protests that have tried to draw attention to the crackdown. “She has received many threats in the past, but she has refused to give up her [street] protests. But this time I told her that her life is more important than joining protests with me. They have threatened her because she dares to join protests and do advocacy work with me.” Sok Isan, spokesman of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), told RFA that party authorities did not threaten Sat Pha and accused her and other activists of fabricating stories about political persecution to try to obtain asylum through the United Nations. “It is a made-up show to invent a political incident, so she can claim political rights,” he said. “It has happened in the past. In Phnom Penh, the authorities are everywhere, so they would see it if someone posted such a message.” Cambodian activist Sat Pha (C) takes a nap in a jungle in Thailand where she is hiding out after being threatened in Cambodia, April 18, 2017. Credit: Theary Seng/Facebook Fraud and forgery charges Siam Pluk, a former opposition Candlelight Party member and president of the unregistered Cambodia National Heart Party, also fled to safety after the Phnom Penh Municipal Court issued an order for him to be apprehended for allegedly forging a document of party supporters, Theary Seng said. Seng Theary said that the Phnom Penh Municipal Court issued an arrest warrant for Siam Phluk because he did not remain silent after the Ministry of the Interior refused to register his political party. Ly Sokha, an investigating judge of the court, on April 4 ordered authorities to bring in Siam Phluk for questioning before April 25 in connection with allegations of fraud and the use of forged documents to form his party in 2021. The offense carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison. After the ministry refused to recognize the new political party, Siam Phluk joined the Candlelight Party, which at one time was part of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) that opposed Hun Sen’s government. Cambodia’s Supreme Court dissolved the CNRP and banned 118 of its elected officials from politics two months later for the party’s alleged role in a plot to overthrow the government. The moves were part of a wider crackdown by Hun Sen on the political opposition, NGOs and the independent media that paved the way for his CPP to win all 125 seats in Parliament in the country’s July 2018 general election. Soeung Sen Karuna, spokesman for the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association (ADHOC), said political persecution has prompted opposition activists to flee to safety to Thailand, Malaysia and other countries, especially after the dissolution of the CNRP. “Peaceful protests are the rights and freedoms of the people guaranteed by the constitution, so the authorities must not restrict the rights of citizens,” he told RFA. Siam Phluk also provided support to striking workers of the NagaWorld Casino in Phnom Penh, who demonstrated near the casino to demand that it reinstate laid-off workers and recognize their union, Seng Theary said. “Siam Phluk joined me to deliver drinking water to NagaWorld strikers a few times,” she said. “He stood in protest in front of the court each time I had a court hearing, and the authorities took pictures of him.” RFA could not reach Siam Phluk for comment. In an interview with Radio France International his attorney, Sam Sokong, denied that his client had falsified fingerprints as alleged by the Ministry of the Interior....
- [North Korea's weapons system test seen as boosting short-range nuclear capabilities](https://ij-reportika.com/north-koreas-weapons-system-test-seen-as-boosting-short-range-nuclear-capabilities/): North Korea said it tested a new “tactical-guided weapon” on Saturday designed to bolster its nuclear capabilities, although experts questioned how big of a military advance the launch represents when Pyongyang has no miniature warheads. The state-run Korea Central News Agency said the test was successful and the new weapons system “is of great significance in drastically improving the firepower of the frontline long-range artillery units and enhancing the efficiency in the operation of tactical nukes of the DPRK and diversification of their firepower missions.” The launch came days before the U.S. and South Korea on Monday began annual joint military exercises, which the North says threatens its sovereignty. The new weapons system, though classified as long-range artillery by North Korea, is not different from guided missiles, Jeffery Lewis of the California-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies’ East Asia Nonproliferation Project, told RFA’s Korean Service Monday. “North Korea uses the phrase ‘Hwasong artillery’ to refer to its long-range ballistic missiles. This is probably what the U.S. government calls a ‘close-range ballistic missile’ that is apparently capable of delivering a nuclear warhead about 100 km,” Lewis said. Photos of the tested weapon appear to show “some kind of heavy rocket artillery or close-range ballistic missile,” Ian Williams of the Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS) in Washington told RFA. Williams likened the projectile to the KN-25, a tactical ballistic missile North Korea first tested in July 2019. “The rhetoric about nuclear fighting capability could be North Korea signaling this rocket is meant to deliver a tactical nuclear weapon. However, we have not seen evidence that North Korea has been able to miniaturize its nuclear weapons to this extent,” he said. The Pentagon’s description of the new weapon as a “long-range artillery system” was one of many choices, said Ankit Panda of the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Tactical-ballistic missile, close-range ballistic missile, and even long-range artillery system are all reasonable ways of defining this new ‘tactical-guided weapon,’” he told RFA by email “The main significance of this weapon is its presumptive nuclear weapons delivery role,” said Panda. The Rand Corporation’s Bruce Benet said having built-in guidance makes a rocket a missile, “so these apparently guided artillery rockets are actually guided artillery missiles.” Benet also expressed doubts North Korea’s claim that the new missile could carry a nuclear weapon. “Even if the new missiles did, the North could always have used its KN-23 and other larger missiles to deliver nuclear weapons close to the battlefield, so this new type of missile appears to have more political impact than military impact,” he said. Though he didn’t know what type of weapon was actually fired, David Maxwell of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington said the weapon was a means for Pyongyang to further its geopolitical strategy. “This is likely in support of the regime’s political warfare strategy and blackmail diplomacy to use threats, increased tensions and provocations to gain political and economic concessions,” he told RFA.   “In the context of the regime’s objective to dominate the peninsula, this weapons test supports the development of advanced military capabilities to support warfighting to eventually use force to achieve unification under the rule of the Guerrilla Dynasty and Gulag State. This test serves two purposes: support to blackmail diplomacy and support to warfighting,” Maxwell said.  The U.S. remains open to engagement with North Korea, U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said at a news briefing. “We have … sought to make very clear to the DPRK that the door to diplomacy is not closed, that it does remain open, but that the DPRK needs to cease its destabilizing actions and instead choose the path of engagement, something it has not yet done,” said Price. “Unfortunately, it is the DPRK that has failed to respond to our invitations, and instead they&#8217;ve engaged in this series of provocations, including the ICBM launches in recent weeks,” he said. The U.S. Department of Defense declined to release intelligence assessments but confirmed the weapons test and reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to the defense of its allies in the region.
- [Impoverished Laos has lost more than $760 million to corruption since 2016: report](https://ij-reportika.com/impoverished-laos-has-lost-more-than-760-million-to-corruption-since-2016-report/): The Lao government has lost U.S. $767 million to corruption since 2016, with government development and investment projects such as road and bridge construction the leading source of the widespread graft, according to the country’s State Inspection Authority. The SIA reported on April 11 that nearly 3,700 members of the communist Lao People’s Revolutionary Party had been disciplined, with 2,019 expelled and 154 people charged. According to the inspection authority, 1,119 people, including 127 government employees, were involved in illegal logging and wood trade. In a country where illegal natural resource trade drives much of the graft, authorities seized 300,000 cubic meters of wood worth U.S. $127 million since 2016, according to the report. The government has vowed to address corrupt practices that are pervasive in politics and every sector of the economy society, and put off potential foreign investors from pumping money into much-needed infrastructure and development in the landlocked nation of 7.5 million people. However, despite the enactment of an anticorruption law that criminalizes the abuse of power, public sector fraud, embezzlement and bribery, Laos’ judiciary is weak and inefficient, and officials are rarely prosecuted. A Lao environmentalist, who like other sources in the report requested anonymity for safety reasons, told RFA that Lao authorities recently said they exported 1 million cubic meters of wood to Vietnam. Vietnamese authorities reported, however, that they imported 3 million cubic meters of wood from Laos during the same time period. “The difference, which is 2 million cubic meters, means that the Lao authorities are not transparent and are corrupt, and that there must be some kind of complicity between wood traders and Lao officials,” he said. A small business owner in capital Vientiane said the inspection authority should name officials involved in abusing their power for private gain. “Every year, they report the corruption and the losses in general,” he told RFA. “We don’t know who they are, names, position, where they work, on in which ministry, department or province they are.” A corruption inspector told RFA that officials can name officials caught engaging the most egregious cases of graft. “It depends on the case,” he said. “In serious cases of corruption, the agency can reveal names and positions, but because most of the cases are concealed, this will remain a state secret. It can’t be revealed.” Khamphanh Phommathat, president of the State Inspection Authority, delivers a report on corruption to the National Assembly in Vientiane, Laos, November 2021. Credit: Lao National Television screen shot ‘We can’t say anything’ State Inspection Authority President Khamphanh Phommathat has pledged to tackle the problem, saying that inspections are one of the most important tasks of the government and the Party. Laos’ vice president, Bounthong Chitmany, has called on the inspection authority and officials in other sectors to expose corruption and punish those responsible. “Our party considers corruption to be a major threat to the existence and development of our new regime,” he was quoted as saying by the Vientiane Times on April 11. “Not only that, it creates social injustice and affects the trust of people in the government and party.” But a resident of Champassak province in southern Laos said he was not surprised about the country’s massive financial losses due to corruption. “All nice and luxury cars on the road in this country belong the officials,” he said. “That’s not right, because their salary is only 3 million kip (U.S. $250) a month. How can they have that much money to buy those expensive cars for personal use? They still have a lot of money to spend on other things, too. “We, the people, just watch and can’t say anything,” he added. A volunteer teacher in Savannakhet province said that graft is so widespread in Laos that she and her colleagues have had to bribe officials to be hired for jobs with the government. “My friend paid $1,500 last year to pass an exam and to be hired as permanent teacher,” said the women who declined to be named so she could speak freely. “He could do that because he knew and paid somebody up there.” A young resident of Savannakhet province said Laotians have no way to report corruption without endangering their safety in the one-party country. “In Thailand, there is a multiparty system, so the Thais can expose wrongdoings,” he said. “But here in Laos, we can’t say anything, even though we know there is a lot of corruption. In Thailand, there is corruption too, but much less so than there is in Laos.” Lao inspectors acknowledged the problem of pervasive corruption and said they, too, are at a loss as to how to address it. One official who said he worked as an inspector in Vientiane for a decade said that he and his colleagues review the finances of government offices and departments but not those of individual officials who are powerful members of the party and the government. “Nobody would dare inspect them,” he said. A woman holds a wad of Lao kip at an open market in Laos, March 2022. Credit: Citizen journalist ‘That’s how it works’ An inspector in Luang Prabang province told RFA that the odds are stacked against the anti-graft campaign. “When we receive an order from the central government to investigate individuals, most of the time the individuals will know this before we do, so that the person can get away with it,” he said. “That’s how it works.” Berlin-based Transparency International 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index ranked Laos at 128 of 180 countries in the world. Laos received a score of 30 on a scale of 0-100, on which 0 means highly corrupt and 100 means very clean. Government officials who are caught engaging in graft usually face little or no punishment, officials said. A low-ranking government worker in Saravan province said that an official in his department was disciplined in 2021 for embezzling money from a government development project. “Then he was just transferred to another position, not even fined or...
- [Chinese censors, police go after list of Shanghai dead, zero-COVID critics](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-censors-police-go-after-list-of-shanghai-dead-zero-covid-critics/): Ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-backed censors have deleted an online list of people who died as a result of the Shanghai lockdown, and blocked the URL after internet users saved it to a blockchain-based site. &#8220;They did not die of COVID-19, but because of it,&#8221; the introduction to the list on the Airtable collaboration platform &#8212; which uses blockchain technology &#8212; said. &#8220;They should neither be ignored, nor forgotten.&#8221; The site showed &#8220;incomplete numbers&#8221; of more than 152 people whose deaths were believed to be directly linked to the CCP&#8217;s zero-COVID policy and stringent lockdowns that have dragged on in Shanghai for weeks. Searches for the list yielded no results on Weibo on Monday, with one repost of the Airtable URL to the social media platform yielding a notice that read: &#8220;This content cannot be viewed at this time.&#8221; Among dozens of others, the list names Qian Wenxiong, a former official at the Hongkou district maternal and child health center, as having committed suicide; Zhou Shengni, a nurse at the Dongfang Hospital, as having died of an asthma attack; Wei Guiguo, vice president of Netcom Securities, as having died of a cerebral hemorrhage; and &#8220;Captain Zhao,&#8221; a security guard at the Changning Hongkang Phase III residential community, as having died of overwork. Several suicides are recorded in the list, many as a result of people jumping from tall buildings. &#8220;Someone put the list of the dead onto the blockchain now, because the authorities deleted the post titled &#8216;Shanghai&#8217;s Dead&#8217; yesterday,&#8221; internet user Zhou Ni told RFA. &#8220;It can&#8217;t be deleted, but the website has been blocked in China, so people there can no longer see it.&#8221; &#8220;Anyone in China will have to circumvent the Great Firewall to see it,&#8221; Zhou said. Meanwhile, Shanghai-based rapper Fang Lue, known by his stage name ASTRO, said he had taken down a video of a song he wrote about lockdown titled &#8220;New Slave.&#8221; &#8220;I am very grateful yet nervous that my song “New Slave” has been getting a lot of attention in recent days,&#8221; Fang wrote in a statement posted to his YouTube channel. &#8220;I had essentially  hoped to use this song to call for more reflection and debate about the particular time we are living through and the problems we are having,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It was never my intention to bring up unfounded criticisms.&#8221; &#8220;I was told that there have been some reposts and appropriations of my song on other social platforms, alongside messages that are a long way from what I wanted, so I have deleted my public video of New Slave on YouTube,&#8221; Fang wrote. The song&#8217;s lyrics included the lines &#8220;When freedom of thought and will are imprisoned by power &#8230; when people who aren&#8217;t sick are locked up at home and treated as if they are sick, yet those who are truly sick can&#8217;t get into a hospital &#8230; it stinks; the stench of rotting souls fills the air.&#8221; &#8220;Open your mind, just open your mind,&#8221; Fang sings. &#8220;How much guilt and pain does the prosperity of skyscrapers cover up?&#8221; Before it was deleted, &#8220;New Slave&#8221; had gone viral on China&#8217;s tightly controlled internet, with commentators saying this kind of social commentary was exactly what rap should be doing, and supporting Fang to carry on writing and performing. The CCP has banned hip-hop from social media since the beginning of the year, and its propaganda and cultural officials have ordered entertainment platforms to avoid any &#8220;non-mainstream&#8221; cultural performances characterized as &#8220;decadent&#8221; by its directives. Protest slogans have also been popping up on the streets of Shanghai in recent days, according to photos posted to Twitter, one of which riffs on a common notice left in place of deleted content by censors: &#8220;This content can&#8217;t be viewed due to violations [of relevant laws and regulations].&#8221; Others have simply complained that &#8220;People are dying,&#8221; or referenced the &#8220;list of the dead.&#8221; Meanwhile, vice premier Sun Chunlan was found to have filmed some of her reported &#8220;visit&#8221; to Shanghai on the roof of the headquarters of a state-owned enterprise, rather than in Menghua Street, as claimed in the official footage. And rights activist Liu Feiyue was summoned by local police for questioning after he criticized COVID-19 restrictions in Suizhou. Liu was suspected of &#8220;violating supervision and management regulations,&#8221; according to the Zengdu branch of the Suizhou municipal police department, according to a copy of the summons uploaded to Twitter. He was ordered to go to the Dongcheng police station at 9.00 a.m. Monday local time for questioning. Liu Feiyue, who founded the Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch website, was convicted of &#8220;incitement to subvert state power&#8221; on Jan. 29, 2017 after giving interviews to foreign media. He was sentenced to five years in prison, deprived of political rights for three years, and had 1.01 million yuan of personal assets confiscated. He was awarded the 9th Liu Xiaobo Writers of Courage Award in November of the same year, as well as the 13th Writers in Prison Award from the Independent Chinese PEN Association. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Former Vietnamese coast guard leadership charged with embezzlement](https://ij-reportika.com/former-vietnamese-coast-guard-leadership-charged-with-embezzlement/): Authorities in Vietnam have arrested seven coast guard officers, including the former commander and the top Communist Party leader, for allegedly embezzling the military branch’s funds in the country’s latest high-profile corruption case, media reports said. In mid-April arrests announced on Monday included former coast guard commander of the, Lt. Gen. Nguyen Van Son, and the former political commissar, Lt. Gen. Hoang Van Dong. Both men had previously been confined to their homes after being dismissed from the coast guard and all other party positions in October 2021 during a review of the coast guard’s Vietnamese Communist Party leadership The review found that between 2015 and 2020 the leadership “lacked responsibility, leadership, direction, examination and monitoring.” It reported serious violations in financial management, the procurement of technical equipment, and the prevention and control of smuggling. Also charged with embezzlement after being dismissed after the review were the former deputy commander and chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Pham Kim Hau; the former deputy commander, Maj. Gen. Bui Trung Dung; the former deputy political commissar, Maj. Gen. Doan Bao Quyet; and the former deputy commander, Full Col. Nguyen Van Hung; and the deputy head of the Finance Department, Sen. Col. Bui Van Hoe. The Vietnamese Coast Guard is a young force. It was established in 1998 but has grown rapidly. Amid rising tensions in the South China Sea, Vietnam has prioritized maritime security, and the Vietnamese navy and coastguard have received large investments from the government budget. However, observers say that big money and the lack of transparency has led to rampant corruption in the system. The sacking of the coast guard generals could serve as a warning signal for authorities to tighten control over government funds invested in law enforcement, analysts say. The Ministry of Defense’s Criminal Investigation Agency, meanwhile, has been conducting another investigation related to oil and gas management violations. The agency has prosecuted 14 people for taking bribes, including Maj. Gen. Le Xuan Thanh and Maj. Gen. Le Van Minh. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Foreign students 'taken from Shanghai' as teachers resign from international schools](https://ij-reportika.com/foreign-students-taken-from-shanghai-as-teachers-resign-from-international-schools/): The Shanghai lockdown has prompted an exodus of foreign students and teaching staff, as the city reported its first deaths from COVID-19.  Foreign residents of the city, many of whom were working in the education sector, are being evacuated, with many consulates arranging for evacuation of their nationals back home, according to social media posts. &#8220;It&#8217;s not just in Shanghai; teachers at the best international school in China have left,&#8221; Fudan University graduate Li Min told RFA. &#8220;They sent out a letter saying that while they have more than 100 years of history as an international school, the lockdowns have left them feeling hopeless in just a short period of time.&#8221; &#8220;A large number of teachers [in Shanghai] have [also] resigned, because they can&#8217;t guarantee normal food and drink supplies there.&#8221; One announcement from an international school in Shanghai seen by RFA said in a letter to parents: &#8220;Currently, 28 teachers have indicated that they may leave Shanghai by June 2, and 24 of them are expected to return to Shanghai in time for the next academic year.&#8221; It said the school would move to distance learning until then. &#8220;We must create an environment that retains our top teachers, rather than forcing them to resign or to hesitate about their responsibilities,&#8221; the letter said. The South Korean consulate meanwhile wrote to Fudan University calling on university authorities to release the remaining South Korean students still locked down on campus. &#8220;Last week, half of the international students in China were evacuated by plane,&#8221; the letter said. &#8220;There are still [South] Korean students in various schools.&#8221; &#8220;The Korean consulate wrote to Fudan University because the school wasn&#8217;t cooperating &#8230; and refused to allow them to leave.&#8221; The letter described the students as &#8220;extremely panicked and helpless.&#8221; A December 2019 file photo showing a sign of Fudan University , One of China&#8217;s top universities, on the campus in Shanghai. Credit: AFP. 40,000 Japanese nationals A Shanghai resident surnamed Sun said Fudan&#8217;s foreign students have been transported out of Shanghai to isolation facilities in Zhejiang, Jiangsu and other provinces. &#8220;The foreign students at Fudan are no longer in Shanghai and have been moved to Zhejiang and Jiangsu,&#8221; Sun said. &#8220;They got taken away when the temporary hospitals no longer had enough space.&#8221; The Consulate General of Japan in Shanghai has also written to the local authorities to ask how long the lockdown will continue. In a letter to deputy mayor Zong Ming, it said that around 40,000 Japanese nationals are currently living in Shanghai, and are &#8220;facing an unprecedented and difficult situation.&#8221; It said some 11,000 Japanese-invested companies had been unable to operate normally for more than a month. &#8220;The impact on the business activities of enterprises has become increasingly serious,&#8221; it said. A Shanghai-based scholar surnamed Fan said the letter was a thinly veiled warning that Japanese companies could relocate, if the situation doesn&#8217;t improve soon. Three official deaths Health officials said on Monday that just three people have died from Covid-19 in Shanghai since the citywide lockdown began last month, although hundreds of thousands of cases of omicron have been recorded. Public anger among Shanghai&#8217;s 26 million residents over the ongoing restrictions is growing, amid ongoing complaints of food shortages, substandard and unsafe accommodation in isolation facilities and heavy-handed enforcement by officials. A Shanghai resident surnamed Lu said more than 20 million are totally confined to their homes, without external help for domestic chores like emptying septic tanks, fixing broken plumbing or water heating systems, as well as being barred from seeking hospital treatment without a negative PCR test, which can arrive too late for those in urgent need of care. &#8220;There are new issues starting to emerge,&#8221; Lu said. &#8220;For example, a friend of mine&#8217;s Wifi has been down for the past two weeks, so it&#8217;s been tough on them, staying at home.&#8221; &#8220;Yesterday, a friend&#8217;s water heater broke down, and another friend&#8217;s refrigerator the day before that, and another&#8217;s gas stove,&#8221; she said. &#8220;No-one came out to repair these things because the whole of Shanghai is shut down.&#8221; Online complaints have also pointed to garbage piling up in residential areas and overflowing septic tanks, while frail and elderly people have been forced to wait out the lockdown at home, alone. CCP leader Xi Jinping has repeatedly insisted on a zero-COVID approach, despite the ongoing outbreak, with officials warning that allowing the virus to rage unchecked through an under-resourced healthcare system and a sparsely vaccinated elderly age group could cause millions of deaths. But political commentators say Xi, who is seeking approval from party ranks for an unprecedented third term in office later this year, has staked his political reputation on the policy, and is unable to back down without admitting personal and political failure. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Report: Taiwan plans upgrade of runway on disputed island](https://ij-reportika.com/report-taiwan-plans-upgrade-of-runway-on-disputed-island/): The Taiwanese military plans to extend a runway on a contested island in the South China Sea to accommodate fighter jets, local media reported on Monday, in a move that would likely trigger protests from other claimants. Taiwan’s government has previously pushed back against suggestions it might militarize the island, Taiping. Taiwan’s air force declined Monday to comment on the report. Taiping, also known as Itu Aba, is the biggest natural feature in the Spratly islands. It is currently occupied by Taiwan but is also claimed by China, the Philippines and Vietnam. United Daily News, a conservative newspaper in Taiwan, quoted an unnamed source as saying that the military is planning to finish another round of renovation works on Taiping this year, with an extension of the existing 1,150-meter-long airstrip by 350 meters. A 1,500-meter runway would be able to accommodate F-16 jet fighters and P-3C anti-submarine aircraft. Air force spokesperson Chen Guo-hua told RFA Mandarin Service that he was not aware of media reports and had no comment. If confirmed the news could provoke strong reactions from other claimants of the island. In March, the Taiwanese Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-Cheng said that Taiwan had no intention of militarizing Taiping despite reports that China had completed building military facilities on three artificial islands nearby. Runway extension Taiwanese media had reported in the past about proposed plans to develop the infrastructure on Taiping Island including the runway extension. The plans were criticized by the Philippines and Vietnam as stoking tensions in the disputed South China Sea. Taiping is located in the north-western part of the Spratly islands, 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) from Taiwan and 853 kilometers (530 miles) from the Philippines. It is under the administration of Kaohsiung Municipality. It has been under Taiwan’s control since 1956 but the current runway was only built in 2008. According to a report on the website of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, “Beijing sees Taiwan’s development work on Taiping Island as a long-term strategic asset.” “China considers Taiwan to be a part of China and the runway or piers built on Taiping Island may be used by mainland China in the future after reunification of the two sides,” it said. The international tribunal in the case brought against China by the Philippines in 2016 however ruled that Taiping is a &#8220;rock&#8221; under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and therefore not entitled to a 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone and continental shelf. Both Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China rejected this ruling.   RFA Mandarin journalist Xia Xiao-hua in Taipei contributed to this report.
- [White House: Biden to host US-ASEAN summit in Washington May 12-13](https://ij-reportika.com/white-house-biden-to-host-us-asean-summit-in-washington-may-12-13/): President Joe Biden will meet with Southeast Asian leaders in Washington for a special U.S.-ASEAN summit next month, the White House announced Saturday. The meeting in mid-May will take place amid tensions in the South China Sea, divisions among members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations over its response to the crisis in post-coup Myanmar, and the lack of a collective condemnation by the bloc of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – a stark contrast to the West’s condemnation of it. “President Biden will host the Leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Washington, DC on May 12 and 13 for a U.S.-ASEAN Special Summit,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement. Cambodia, the 2022 holder of the ASEAN chairmanship, confirmed the new dates for the summit. “During this historic meeting, the Leaders of ASEAN and the United States will chart the future direction of ASEAN-U.S. relations and seek to further enhance strategic partnership for the mutual benefits of the peoples of ASEAN and the United States,” Phnom Penh said in a statement issued Sunday. The U.S.-ASEAN summit was originally scheduled for the end of March but was postponed because scheduling for the meeting ran into trouble when the facilitating country, Indonesia, could not get all ASEAN members to agree on a date. Next month’s meeting will be the second special summit between Washington and the Southeast Asian bloc since 2016 and the first in-person one since 2017, Cambodia said.   “The Special Summit will demonstrate the United States’ enduring commitment to ASEAN, recognizing its central role in delivering sustainable solutions to the region’s most pressing challenges, and commemorate 45 years of U.S.-ASEAN relations,” Psaki said. The summit is also set to happen a few days after a general election in the Philippines to determine who will succeed Rodrigo Duterte as president of the longtime U.S. defense ally at the frontline of territorial disputes with Beijing over the South China Sea. During his nearly six years in office, however, Duterte has fostered closer relations with China despite diplomatic protests lodged by Manila over intrusions by Chinese coast guard ships and other vessels in waters within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.     Balancing power The U.S. sees Southeast Asia as crucial to its efforts to push back against China’s rising power in the South China Sea and across the Indo-Pacific region. “It is a top priority for the Biden-Harris Administration to serve as a strong, reliable partner in Southeast Asia. Our shared aspirations for the region will continue to underpin our common commitment to advance an Indo-Pacific that is free and open, secure, connected, and resilient,” Psaki said. The Biden administration announced the new dates for the summit more than two weeks after the American president met with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at the White House, where they discussed the South China Sea, among other issues. “From our point of view, freedom of navigation is important, international law is important, the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea [UNCLOS] is also important, and peaceful resolution of disputes so you avoid some accidental conflicts,” Lee said during an event at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington on March 30, a day after his meeting with Biden. Myanmar crisis ASEAN, meanwhile, has been grappling with a 14-month-old crisis in bloc member Myanmar, where the Burmese junta’s forces have bombed and burned swathes of the country to quell resistance to the military’s overthrow of an elected government in February 2021. In late March, the junta blocked ASEAN envoy Prak Sokhonn from meeting with deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi during his three-day visit to Myanmar, despite its pledge to grant him access to all political stakeholders, Prak, the Cambodian foreign minister, told reporters upon returning to Phnom Penh. At the end of an emergency meeting of ASEAN leaders in April last year, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the junta chief who led the coup, agreed to allow an envoy from the Southeast Asian bloc access to all stakeholders in Myanmar as part of a Five-Point Consensus to end the political crisis in his country. Apart from the Myanmar crisis, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has tested ASEAN unity. In early March, the bloc as a whole issued a statement calling for a ceasefire but without naming Russia or using the word “invasion.” Meanwhile on March 2, most ASEAN member-states – except for Vietnam and Laos, which abstained – supported a much tougher U.N. General Assembly resolution against Moscow.
- [Monasteries, churches are not spared from Myanmar’s conflict](https://ij-reportika.com/monasteries-churches-are-not-spared-from-myanmars-conflict/): Nearly 100 religious buildings have been destroyed in two regions and two states in Myanmar more than a year after the military seized control from the elected government and plunged the Southeast Asian country into chaos and violence, according to data compiled by RFA. The 97 religious buildings that have been demolished since the Feb. 1 coup include 15 Buddhist monasteries in Sagaing region, five Buddhist monasteries and one Christian church in Magway region, 62 Christian churches in Chin state, and 13 Christian churches and a mosque in Kayah state. In some cases, soldiers raided the religious buildings and beat locals who had taken shelter there. Residents of Sagaing region in northwestern Myanmar said several Buddhist monasteries and Christian churches in Ye-U, Mingin, Yinmarbin and Khin-U had been burned down, while other monasteries had been destroyed in Ye-U, Tanze, Kalay, Myaung, Pale and Ayadaw townships. Zaw Zaw, a resident of Pale township, said Buddhist monks there are being fed by locals offering alms after military troops raided villages and robbed and torched their monasteries. “They were swearing at the Buddhist monasteries [and] fired several shots into the air,” he said. “They seized cell phones from the monks at the gunpoint. They also robbed civilians who took shelter in the monasteries of their money, gold and jewelry.” Whenever a military detachment entered Zaw Zaw’s village, residents remained behind closed doors and did not go to the monastery to offer alms to the monks, he said. “Even Buddhist monks are on the run,” Zaw Zaw added. Other civilians told RFA that they have been appalled to see bullet holes and other damage from bomb blasts on Buddhist pagodas that serve as landmarks in many small communities. Locals used to take shelter in monasteries when military units arrived in their villages, but now these places are no longer safe, they said. Soldiers no longer honor religious buildings in the Buddhist-majority nation because they only want to ensure they maintain power, said a member of the People’s Defense Force (PDF) in Yesagyo township in Magway region who wanted to remain anonymous for safety reasons. “They are a fascist, terrorist army,” he said. “They no longer venerate the religion. They don’t care about the well-being of the people. They don’t care anything else. All they care about is upholding their power and increasing their wealth.” “They also prosecute and assault the people,” said the PDF member. “They will do the same thing to the sacred buildings of any religion. They won’t be reluctant to destroy anytime.” Dawuku Catholic Church in Loikaw township, eastern Myanmar&#8217;s Kayah state, seen in January 2022, was damaged by artillery fire from a military junta aircraft. Credit: Citizen journalist &#8216;Horrible acts&#8217; Largely Christian Chin state in western Myanmar has had 62 religious structures destroyed — the largest number of such of any single state or region since the military takeover — including 22 that were burned to ashes, and 20 more destroyed by artillery blasts, according to the Institute of Chin Affairs, a human rights organization. “We feel that this is result of lacking respects on the people with different religious beliefs,” the organization said in a March 22 statement. “Many of us have perceptions that they treated us this way because they disrespect to people with different religious beliefs. Losing the mutual respect to other religions is not acceptable, and assaulting the believers of different religions is violation of international laws.” The Rev. Dennis Ngun Thang Mang said some of the churches destroyed were on fire though there were no armed conflicts in their vicinity, and when he and other asked the military about the blazes, they claimed they didn’t know anything about it. Additionally, military forces arrested 20 Christian ministers. While a dozen of the captives were later released, four remain in detention and four were killed, the Institute of Chin Affairs said. In Loikaw, Demoso and Hpruso townships of Kayah state, three Baptist churches, 10 Catholic churches and a mosque have been destroyed. St. Joseph Catholic Church in Demoso township, Kayah state, was damaged by artillery and small arms fire on May 26, 2021, despite pleas a day earlier by Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, the archbishop of the Catholic Church in Myanmar, that troops refrain from attacking the country’s religious buildings. Credit: Karenni People&#8217;s Defense Force Military commanders are supposed to avoid hitting religious buildings during armed conflicts, said a Christian religious leader in Loikaw, who requested anonymity for safety reasons. “During the armed conflicts in Kayah state, most of the bombs from air raids and artillery blasts fell inside the compound of the churches,” he told RFA. “That’s why many churches were destroyed. “We don’t know why they did it,” he said. “We strongly condemn their actions. We want to appeal them to avoid targeting religious buildings.” The military regime’s spokesman, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, denied that army forces targeted religious buildings during armed conflicts. “The Tatmadaw never targeted any religious buildings,” he said, using the Burmese name for the Myanmar military. “There were incidents of raiding them when we received credible information that terrorists were hiding in the buildings.” In cases where monasteries and churches were accidentally hit by military fire, soldiers took the lead in helping to repair them, Zaw Min Tun said. Aung Myo Min, human rights minister of the shadow National Unity Government, said the U.N.’s Geneva Convention lays out guidelines to protect religious building amid armed conflict. “Religious buildings and sacred places are icons of religious freedom,” he told RFA. “They should not be assaulted or destroyed, even by society’s norms. But targeting religious buildings in armed conflicts and firing weapons at them are horrible acts.” Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [China conducts major military drills as US lawmakers visit Taiwan](https://ij-reportika.com/china-conducts-major-military-drills-as-us-lawmakers-visit-taiwan/): The Chinese military conducted a large multi-force exercise on Friday morning around Taiwan, just hours after U.S. lawmakers arrived for a visit to show support for the self-ruling island and meet President Tsai Ing-wen. Chinese military aircraft, warships and troops were taking part in the combat readiness drills in the East China Sea as well as in the sea and airspace around Taiwan, according to a statement from Col. Shi Yi, spokesman for the Eastern Theater Command of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The number of troops and weaponry was not disclosed but the Taiwanese military said six PLA aircraft including four J-16 fighter jets and two J-11 fighter jets entered Taiwan&#8217;s southwest air defense identification zone (ADIZ) on Friday. The PLA statement said the drills were being conducted “in response to the recent wrong signals the U.S. sent related to the Taiwan issue.” “The U.S. wicked tricks are completely futile and very dangerous,” it said, adding “those who play with fire will set themselves on fire.” The Taiwanese Ministry of National Defense responded that its naval ships and aircraft have been dispatched to closely monitor the cross-strait situation and safeguard the security in “our airspace and territorial waters.” Taiwan&#8217;s President Tsai Ing-wen (R) speaks with Sen. Lindsey Graham at the Presidential Office in Taipei, Taiwan, April 15, 2022, during a visit by U.S. lawmakers. Credit: Taiwan Presidential Office via AP U.S. delegation in Taiwan Six members of the U.S. Congress arrived in Taipei Thursday evening. The bipartisan delegation was led by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, and included Democrat Sen. Bob Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The delegation met Friday with President Tsai. The U.S. lawmakers voiced support for the self-governing island and its democracy. Menendez described Taiwan – which China regards as a renegade province– as a &#8220;country of global significance&#8221; and said its security has implications for the world. The previously unannounced visit came after reports last week that U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi was planning a landmark visit to Taiwan but had to postpone it after she tested positive for COVID-19. Such visits are sensitive because Washington and Taipei do not have formal diplomatic relations, although they do have substantial ties and the U.S. is committed by law to help provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian told reporters in Beijing on Friday that China “firmly opposes any form of official interaction between the U.S. and the Taiwan region” and confirmed that the military drills were a response to the lawmakers’ visit to the island. Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry issued its own robust statement late Friday in response to the Chinese drills, saying “the threat of force … will only strengthen the will of the Taiwanese people to defend freedom and democracy.” “Democratic Taiwan will continue to deepen cooperation with the United States and other like-minded countries, safeguard the security of the Taiwan Strait and the free and open Indo-Pacific region, and prevent the continuous expansion of the totalitarian government of the Chinese Communist Party,” the statement said. On Thursday, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said at a meeting at The Economic Club of Washington D.C. that it is U.S. policy to ensure that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan does not occur. China is watching the war in Ukraine closely and some observers fear that Beijing may consider opportunistic moves against Taiwan, which it seeks to unite with the mainland, by force if necessary. During the drills on Friday morning, PLA Air Force Su-35 fighter jets flew over the Bashi Channel south of Taiwan in formation with H-6K strategic bombers. Qi Leyi, a Taipei-based military analyst and commentator for RFA Mandarin Service, said: “Whenever the U.S.-Taiwan relations advance, the PLA has a corresponding military response. Beijing’s worried that Taiwan and the U.S. are entering a quasi-alliance.”
- [Taiwanese rights activist home from China after five-year 'subversion' jail term](https://ij-reportika.com/taiwanese-rights-activist-home-from-china-after-five-year-subversion-jail-term/): Taiwanese rights activist and NGO worker Lee Ming-cheh has arrived home on the democratic island following his release at the end of a five-year jail term for &#8220;subversion&#8221; in China. &#8220;After being improperly detained by China for more than 1,852 days, Lee Ming-cheh arrived at Taiwan&#8217;s Taoyuan International Airport at around 10 a.m. today, April 15, 2022,&#8221; a coalition of rights groups that has campaigned for Lee&#8217;s release said in a statement. &#8220;Due to disease prevention regulations, neither the [coalition] nor family members were able to meet him at the airport,&#8221; it said, adding that a news conference would likely be held when Lee has completed his quarantine period. Lee was shown in local live TV footage arriving off a Xiamen Air flight to Taipei and being escorted to a car by two people in full personal protective gear. &#8220;When I finally returned to Taiwan, I saw Ching-yu, who was looking tired and wan but very excited, through the window,&#8221; Lee said in a joint statement issued with his wife, Lee Ching-yu. &#8220;I am still very tired and the world seems quite unfamiliar, although my current isolation is completely different from the isolation I experienced in China,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Now I am embraced by love, not besieged by terror.&#8221; The statement continued: &#8220;Our family&#8217;s suffering is over, but there are still countless people whose human rights are being violated in China. May they one day have their day of liberation, too.&#8221; &#8220;We know that freedom comes from oneself, just as the people of Taiwan traded blood and tears under martial law for freedom, democracy and human rights,&#8221; the letter said. &#8220;May the Chinese people know and learn from this.&#8221; Taiwan&#8217;s government said Lee&#8217;s incarceration was &#8220;unacceptable.&#8221; &#8220;Lee Ming-cheh &#8230; was tried by a Chinese court for &#8216;subversion of state power&#8217; and imprisoned for five years, which is unacceptable to the people of Taiwan,&#8221; Taiwan&#8217;s Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) spokesman Chiu Chui-cheng told reporters on Friday. He called on the Chinese government to protect the rights of Taiwanese nationals in China. &#8216;Vilifying China&#8217; Lee is a course director at Taiwan&#8217;s Wenshan Community College, and had volunteered with various NGOs for many years, the Free Lee Ming-cheh Coalition said in a statement posted on the Covenants Watch rights group&#8217;s Facebook page. &#8220;The Free Lee Ming-cheh Coalition has always believed that Lee Ming-cheh is innocent,&#8221; it said. &#8220;He has only ever concerned himself with commenting on human rights in China, civil society and other similar issues online.&#8221; &#8220;The treatment he received after being imprisoned was hardly in line with international human rights standards,&#8221; the group said. &#8220;Apart from being forced to eat bad food, to live in unheated quarters, and wear discarded clothes &#8230; Lee&#8217;s right to communicate was also restricted,&#8221; it said. &#8220;We will continue to monitor Ming-cheh&#8217;s physical and mental health following his return to Taiwan,&#8221; it said. His release comes after he was held for most of his sentence at Chishan Prison in the central Chinese province of Hunan, where authorities repeatedly refused to allow his wife to visit him. Lee was also barred from speaking to his wife on the phone, or from writing letters home, Amnesty International&#8217;s Taiwan branch has said. Lee applied to visit her husband at the prison 16 times during the past two years, but was refused every time, although the family members of other prisoners had visiting rights at the time, it said. A lifelong activist with Taiwan&#8217;s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which is vilified by Beijing for refusing to accept its claim on the island, Lee was sentenced by Hunan’s Yueyang Intermediate People&#8217;s Court to five years in jail for &#8220;attempting to subvert state power” in November 2017. He was accused of setting up social media chat groups to “vilify China.” Cross-strait tensions According to statistics from Taiwan&#8217;s Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), Lee Ming-cheh is among 149 Taiwan nationals to have gone missing in China since Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) President Tsai Ing-wen took office in 2016. While the Chinese authorities had assisted in providing some information on 82 missing Taiwanese, some information on the remaining 67 had been withheld or was insufficient to draw any conclusion. Eeling Chiu, secretary general of Amnesty International&#8217;s Taiwan branch, warned that what happened to Lee could happen to citizens of any country, citing the case of Swedish national and Hong Kong-based publisher Gui Minhai, who remains behind bars in China after being arrested in Thailand for alleged &#8220;crimes&#8221; committed in Hong Kong. Taiwan was ruled as a Japanese colony in the 50 years prior to the end of World War II, but was handed back to the 1911 Republic of China under the Kuomintang (KMT) government as part of Tokyo&#8217;s post-war reparation deal. The KMT made its capital there after losing a civil war to Mao Zedong&#8217;s communists that led to the founding of the People&#8217;s Republic of China. While the Chinese Communist Party claims Taiwan as an &#8220;inalienable&#8221; part of its territory, Taiwan has never been ruled by the current regime in Beijing, nor has it ever formed part of the People&#8217;s Republic of China. The Republic of China has remained a sovereign and independent state since 1911, now ruling just four islands: Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu. The island began a transition to democracy following the death of KMT leader Chiang Kai-shek&#8217;s son, President Chiang Ching-kuo, in January 1988, starting with direct elections to the legislature in the early 1990s and culminating in the first direct election of a president, Lee Teng-hui, in 1996. Taiwan&#8217;s national security agency has repeatedly warned of growing attempts to flood Taiwan with propaganda and disinformation, and to infiltrate its polity using Beijing-backed media and political groups. Lawmakers say the country is doing all it can to guard against growing attempts at political infiltration and influence by the Chinese Communist Party&#8217;s United Front Work Department in Taiwan. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Cambodian opposition activists spend New Year’s holiday suffering in prison](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-opposition-activists-spend-new-years-holiday-suffering-in-prison/): Three activists affiliated with Cambodia’s banned opposition party are spending the New Year’s holiday in jail, with the wife of one reporting concern over her husband’s declining health. Eap Suor, the wife of Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) activist Kong Sam An, visited her husband, 70, at the Prey Sar Prison Friday, the second day of the Cambodian New Year holiday. She told RFA’s Khmer Service that he was very ill due to his detention in a crowded prison cell, where he is underfed to the point of malnutrition. He and other prisoners looked pale during the highly restricted visit, which allowed only two family members to see him. “This is the second New Year that I visited my husband in prison. He told me that he was happy to see us and nothing could compare with meeting his children and wife,” she said. “Please release him, he is an innocent person. I was shocked to see my husband. He is a good person, they shouldn’t imprison him,” Eap Suor said, adding that they brought food and money for him during the visit. “There is no clean water or a place to sleep, and he now has skin disease,” she said. The Supreme Court is set to hear her husband’s appeal on April 27, she said. Kong Sam An, a former district councilor for the CNRP, was arrested in September 2020 and sentenced to seven years in jail for “treason” for an alleged plan to bring CNRP’s exiled leader, Sam Rainsy, back to Cambodia. The Supreme Court banned the CNRP in November 2017 for its supposed role in an alleged plot to overthrow the government. Key party figures were arrested as others fled into exile as part of a crackdown by Cambodia Prime Minister Hun Sen on the political opposition, NGOs and independent media outlets Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party went on to win all 125 seats in the country’s July 2018 general election. Since then, the government has continued to target activists associated with the CNRP, arresting them on arbitrary charges and placing them in pretrial detention in overcrowded jails with harsh conditions. The Khmer New Year runs from April 14-16. The family of another CNRP activist, Khan Bunpheng, was unable to visit him over the holiday, because the prison did not inform them that New Year’s visitation was permitted, his wife Men Kuntheary told RFA. Khan Bunpheng had been a commune chief in Battambang province in the country’s northwest. He was arrested in January 2021 on treason charges. Men Kuntheary said she plans to bring her husband food and money after the holiday. Prum Chantha, wife of Kak Komphear, who is also charged with treason, told RFA that she was unable to meet her husband. She instead had a Buddhist ceremony at her home without him. “I am sad that for the past two years, I haven’t had a chance to see him. I wish in the new year that my husband will be in good health and that he will be freed soon,” she said.  RFA was unable to reach Prison Department spokesman Nuth Savna for comment on Friday. Am Sam Ath, of the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (Licadho), said political prisoners should not be kept away from their families on the holiday. “We cannot forget that people are meeting happily during the New Year both inside and outside the country, but the families of detained activists can’t meet them. This is sad,” he said. “As an NGO we urge politicians to negotiate to reach a compromise to release the political activists.” About 60 CNRP activists are in custody, some serving sentences as long as five years. Cambodia has no bail, so detained political activists can remain in pretrial detention for years before their case is heard in court. Licadho has said that the lack of a bail system has unnecessarily kept the prison population larger than it needs to be. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Myanmar anti-junta leader said to have been tortured to death](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-anti-junta-leader-said-to-have-been-tortured-to-death/): An anti-regime People’s Defense Force leader in Yangon was allegedly tortured to death by members of the Myanmar military and pro-junta groups, one of the man’s colleagues told RFA on Friday. Chan Min Naung, a former aid worker who became an anti-junta militia leader in Yangon’s Kyauktan township following the February 2021 coup, was captured after a group he was leading assassinated a local junta administrator on April 2. Before he was killed, Chan Min Naung was repeatedly cut with a knife, pinned down while his legs and hands were broken, and then beheaded, members of the Kyauktan People’s Defense Force (PDF) said. The PDF is the armed wing of the National Unity Government (NUG), a body of democratically-elected legislators and officials that is widely accepted by Myanmar’s civilian population to be the legitimate government of the Southeast Asian nation. RFA could not independently confirm the report about Chan Min Naung’s death or reach his family. Junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun was not available for comment. Chan Min Naung’s alleged killing followed the murder of Soe Moe, who was the administrator of the township’s San-gyein-hmi ward. He was shot dead on April 2 by an anti-junta group that calls itself Che Guevara and works under the Kyauktan PDF. Soe Moe had been accused of being an informer to the regime and selling public land for personal gain. The Kyauktan PDF said it assigned a group of hitmen to kill Soe Moe after he did not heed a warning to stop his activities. In an attack led by Chan Min Naung, Soe Moe was shot and died as he arrived at a hospital. A deputy administrator was also killed. But colleagues of Soe Moe were able to detain Chan Min Naung, Kyauktan PDF leader Dee Par said. “The main guy who got him was a city development worker in our town known as James Bond,” he said. “The ward administrator’s thugs also stabbed Chan Min Naung and later dragged him by a rope from the rear of a car. That must have been about 1,500 yards from San-gyein-hmi’s Sixth Street to Shwe Hmaw Wun Hall.” Chan Min Naung was later tortured to death by military intelligence personnel and other local councilors at Shwe Hmaw Wun Hall, he said. “They stabbed him in the back of his left palm,” Dee Par said. “They sliced his hands and ears and pulled his hair out. They also broke his legs and arms and left him in the rain tied to a post. They kicked him in the groin and carried on with their questioning. “We later learned that Chan Min Aung was decapitated and cut into pieces and buried,” he said. Chan Min Naung’s body was not turned over to his family, though authorities told them that the man had been buried, he said. A photo obtained by RFA shows a stab wound in Chan Min Naung’s left palm and facial injuries. Dee Par said the photo was taken by one of the questioners while Chan Min Naung was being interrogated at Shwe Hmaw Wun Hall. The photo was later leaked to the local PDF. Chan Min Naung’s relatives have been threatened by the military, Dee Par said. The PDF leader, who was divorced and had a five-year-old daughter, was active in his community and in charity events before the coup. Lin Thant, the NUG’s representative to the Czech Republic, said the shadow government would take steps to address Chan Min Naung’s murder. “We have seen many evidence of such brutal torture committed by the junta’s forces,” he said. “When their officers and troops are captured on the front lines by our units, the NUG has a policy to treat them well as prisoners of war and to give medical attention if needed.” “Comparatively, the inhuman acts of the military against the detainees were so brutal they could be seen as war crimes,” he said. “We are collecting evidence and preparing work on many things so that we can submit the cases to the international courts.” Translated by Khin Maung Nyane for RFA’s Myanmar Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Rebel soldiers push back Myanmar forces from strategic town in Kayin state](https://ij-reportika.com/rebel-soldiers-push-back-myanmar-forces-from-strategic-town-in-kayin-state/): Karen rebels used heavy artillery to beat back a push by Myanmar junta forces to take Kayin state’s “peace town” of Lay Kay Kaw late Thursday and early Friday, with reports of heavy casualties among regime soldiers. Lay Kay Kaw was established as symbol of peace in 2017 through a partnership between Japan’s Nippon Foundation, the Myanmar government and the rebel group Karen National Union (KNU) to house ethnic Karen refugees who were returning home after decades of fighting between the military and armed ethnic groups. But in recent months, Lay Kay Kaw has been the site of fierce fighting among the junta troops and their opponents. More than 10,000 villagers have been displaced since clashes first broke out in the area on Dec. 15, 2021, as the sides pushed for advantage. Myo Thura Ko Ko, a spokesman for the Cobra Column, which is affiliated with the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), an ethnic armed group, said Myanmar soldiers shelled the area before the assault. “They used a variety of heavy weapons, and the shells fell like rain in the area,” he told RFA. Fighting between the two sides began at about 3:30 a.m., with Myanmar soldiers retreating with heavy casualties after failing to capture a targeted hill, Myo Thura Ko Ko said. The number of soldiers wounded or killed is not known, however. “We were close to the fighting zone, only about 100 yards away, so we saw the enemy being injured or killed,” he said. “But it was hard to estimate the exact number of casualties because of the darkness.” KNLA and Cobra Column troops successfully defended the hills where they were stationed, and there were no casualties on their side, Myo Thura Ko Ko said. While clearing the area Friday morning, rebel soldiers found an intact rocket-propelled grenade, two mobile phones and some military equipment left by Myanmar forces, he said. Padoh Saw Tawney, the KNU’s foreign affairs officer, said junta forces attacked the rebels in the hills where the KNLA joint forces are based because they are in a strategic area near Lay Kay Kaw. “Their main goal is to get control of the area,” he said. “They are desperate for territorial control, and they have tried a couple of times. They also tried it last night and didn’t succeed, but they will do it again.” Myanmar soldiers launched air strikes on KNLA and anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) fighters in Lay Kay Kaw on April 10, suffering a loss of about 20 soldiers and a captured captain, according to the KNU. The air strikes damaged about 30 houses and a school in the town, residents told RFA in an earlier report. Some officers and soldiers were injured during an ambush while clearing the town’s sixth ward, said a statement issued by the junta on Apr. 13. It said necessary security measures would be taken to ensure stability and peace in Lay Kay Kaw because the Karen rebels had violated nationwide cease-fire agreements. Junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun could not be reached for comment on the fighting. Civilians displaced by clashes are now sheltering along the banks of Thaungyin River near Myanmar’s border with Thailand. They said they were forced to flee to the Thai side as the fighting intensified but returned after it subsided because they were pushed back by Thai authorities. Myet Hman, who is now living in the P’lotapho refugee camp near the river because of the fighting near Lay Kay Kaw, told RFA that he wanted the armed conflict to end as soon as possible so he and other locals could return to their homes. “It would be better for us if the two sides killed each other and quickly found a resolution,&#8221; he said. “That would be good. But now, armed men from this side or that side come into the village, stop for a while, and then engage in clashes. Meanwhile we villagers have had to flee our homes because of their fighting.” Almost everything left in deserted houses in Lay Kay Kaw has been looted, he added. Reported by RFA Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Owners facing COVID-19 isolation in Shanghai scramble to save pets from 'disposal'](https://ij-reportika.com/owners-facing-covid-19-isolation-in-shanghai-scramble-to-save-pets-from-disposal/): Residents of Shanghai are banding together to save each other&#8217;s pets from being killed as the COVID-19 lockdown in the city drags on, RFA has learned. More than 1,000 listings have been made to an online document listing people who have tested positive for coronavirus in the past few weeks, and are looking for people to take care of their pets while they are in compulsory isolation facilities. &#8220;I basically have tested positive &#8230; but they haven&#8217;t notified me when I will be sent to isolation,&#8221; a woman surnamed Wang from Shanghai&#8217;s Putuo district wrote on the page on April 12. &#8220;I have a five-month-old kitty at home.&#8221; Wang was told by her neighborhood committee that her cat would need to be &#8220;disposed of,&#8221; she told RFA. &#8220;I wanted to see if &#8230; I could get it sent to a friend&#8217;s house, but I don&#8217;t know if the neighborhood committee will accept this or not, or whether they will agree to have the cat stay in my home,&#8221; she said. &#8220;They told me that, strictly speaking, the cat should be disposed of, and that I shouldn&#8217;t tell anyone about this,&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;[They told me] if I can move the cat away, or give it to a friend, before I get sent to isolation, it would be safer [for the cat],&#8221; she said. Wang said she was at her wits&#8217; end to know what to do. The mutual assistance page for pet owners suggests she is far from alone. &#8220;I&#8217;m worried that [will also test] positive, and my pet&#8217;s life will be in danger,&#8221; another Shanghai resident wrote. &#8220;The neighborhood committee won&#8217;t allow the cat to leave, should I want to hand it over to a friend.&#8221; &#8220;If I go into isolation, I fear the consequences of leaving my pet at home will be unimaginable. Please help!&#8221; they said. Another wrote: &#8220;My family members are all &#8230; contacts [of an infected person], and they could all test positive. I&#8217;m afraid our dog will be disposed of by the neighborhood committee.&#8221; &#8220;Please take my dog to a foster home, with dog food, litter tray and toys.&#8221; Seeking foster homes The majority of posts were labeled as being from Pudong New District, with hundreds of distraught pet owners requesting help. A volunteer from Shanghai surnamed Lin said she helped to arrange foster homes for three cats. &#8220;They are very anxious to send their cats and dogs [to a foster home], but some neighborhood committees won&#8217;t help them with that, so they have to figure out what to do by themselves,&#8221; Lin said. &#8220;Sometimes, volunteers from their community can come to their door [and take the pet] and send it to me,&#8221; she said. &#8220;It&#8217;s very hard for them to send their pets away, because they&#8217;re not allowed out themselves.&#8221; She said there had been a surge in requests for pet foster homes after a video surfaced on social media showing a corgi being beaten to death by neighborhood committee members with a shovel, amid loud screams from the animal and shocked comments from the person shooting the video. Once pets have been successfully removed from the residential community, then logistics personnel must be hired to deliver them to the foster home, Lin said, which is very expensive. Some pet owners have sent their pets to pet hospitals, but places are hard to secure. An employee who answered the phone at the Sanlin branch of the Shanghai Hanghou Pet Clinic chain said most of the pet hospitals are now full. &#8220;We are all full, right now; the hospital is overcrowded,&#8221; the employee said. &#8220;There have been a couple of cases in Shanghai of pets being killed, this is true.&#8221; Shenzhen shelters Meanwhile, authorities in the southern city of Shenzhen have set up two pet shelters, where pets of people sent into isolation are housed for free. There are places available for up to 300 pets, and the facility is the first of its kind in China. Peter Li, head of China affairs at the Humane Society International, said the humane disposal of pets isn&#8217;t official policy in Shanghai. &#8220;The few cases we have seen in Shanghai are the result of grassroots government workers not following Shanghai government policy,&#8221; Li told RFA.  &#8220;This failure, in addition to incompetence and lack of empathy, may also be due to the fact that they are handling situations they have never experienced before, resulting in huge psychological pressure.&#8221; Li, whose organization is also working to save pets beleaguered by war in Ukraine, called on Chinese officials to formulate policies for pets in the event of an emergency or disaster. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [North Koreans pay for sons to spend military service in cushy capital posts](https://ij-reportika.com/north-koreans-pay-for-sons-to-spend-military-service-in-cushy-capital-posts/): Military officials in North Korea are taking bribes from the parents of new recruits, promising to assign their children to units in Pyongyang, where they can spend their service in relative comfort, sources in the country told RFA. Still technically at war with wealthier South Korea, North Korea makes every male serve about seven years in the armed forces, according to South Korean intelligence. The life of a soldier in the North Korean military is typically one of toil and sweat. The government routinely mobilizes soldiers to exploit their free labor, requiring them to work on farms, factories and construction sites, all while maintaining a modicum of battle readiness. But certain military assignments can park a soldier behind a desk in Pyongyang, the country’s capital and home of the privileged and elite. Parents are eager to ensure their sons can spend seven years living in what they would consider luxury, rather than doing hard labor in the rural areas. “Parents who receive bribe requests give money to the officials to ensure the safety of their children, but the amount they are asking is too large for most to afford,” a resident of the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “A resident in the Sunam district of Chongjin city asked an official of the military mobilization office, a longtime acquaintance, to send his son, to a comfortable and safe unit, but the official requested at least U.S. $300,” he said. The average monthly salary for North Koreans working in government-assigned jobs is around $4, the Seoul-based Korea Joongang Daily reported in 2018. Paying the exorbitant bribe can even be a point of pride. “A resident of Chongam district paid a bribe of $500 … to send his son to a military police unit in Pyongyang. The resident proudly boasts that the son has completed his training as a new recruit at the unit in Pyongyang, which is off limits to ordinary folks, and he started his military life in Pyongyang,” the source said. “North Korea has a declining birth rate, so most families these days have only one child, two at most. So people try to protect their kids from danger by any means necessary. The officials in the military mobilization office can use the psychology of these parents to their advantage,” he said. But some residents complain that officials are using the new recruits as bait to get bribes, the source said. The sons of parents who cannot pay the bribe are sent off to more difficult military postings, as happened to one family in the northwestern province of North Pyongan. “A resident of Tongrim town asked the military mobilization office to have his son sent to a safe and comfortable unit, but the family was unable to pay the $300 bribe, so the son was shipped off to the front line area unit of the 1st Corps,” a resident of the province’s Tongrim county told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “Our neighborhood is a village with cooperative farms, so most of the new recruits are the children of poor farmers. This is why most of the new recruits have no power or money, and they get sent to the front line units in the rugged mountains of Kangwon province, so there is great concern for parents sending their children to the military,” he said. The parents who cannot afford the bribe can do nothing but watch as their sons are sent to do hard labor in Kangwon, in the east, along the border with South Korea, the second source said. “The authorities are aware that bribery is going on, but I don’t know whether there is a way to stop it, or whether they are condoning it. I have never seen any official from the military mobilization office get punished for accepting bribes,” he said. “In this country, children of powerful and wealthy families can serve in comfortable assignments in the military, but it gets taken for granted that everyone with no money or power will have a difficult military life.” Translated by Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.    
- [Former Myanmar army officer calls Rohingya crackdown ‘genocide,’ offers to testify](https://ij-reportika.com/former-myanmar-army-officer-calls-rohingya-crackdown-genocide-offers-to-testify/): Captain Nay Myo Thet served in Myanmar’s military for nearly six years in Rakhine state but defected in December and relocated to an area under the control of anti-junta Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) forces. In 2016, a military crackdown forced some 90,000 Rohingya to flee Rakhine state and cross into neighboring Bangladesh, while a larger one in 2017 in response to insurgent attacks, killed thousands of members of the ethnic minority and led to an exodus of around 700,000 across the border. The former transportation officer told RFA’s Myanmar Service in an interview that the military’s clearance operations amounted to “a genocide” and said he is willing testify as a prosecution witness in a case that was brought against the military to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague. RFA: Can you first tell us about your background? Nay Myo Thet: I first attended the Pyin-Oo-Lwin Defense Services Academy in 2006. I finished training in 2008 and served with units in the Division 5 and Division 6 areas in Kayin and Kachin states, as well as northern Shan state. I was sent to Rakhine state in 2015 to serve with the No. 233 Infantry Battalion in Buthidaung and was stationed there until I joined the CDM in November 2021. RFA: Can you tell us more about the operations that drove the Rohingya people out of Rakhine State? Nay Myo Thet: I was a captain in the Supply and Transport Battalion in 2015, serving with the No. 1 Border Police Force Strategic Command. A clearance operation was launched for the first time in 2016 following a terror attack in Kyi-Gan-Byin and another one in 2017 after the [Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) insurgent] raid on three Border Police posts in the same area. When we went there the second time, we noticed there was nothing much left behind. The locals had taken away almost everything. RFA: Did the troops really commit the atrocities against the Rohingya people as accused by international rights groups? What’s your take?  Nay Myo Thet: I can tell you only some things I’d learned about the units I served with. There was one officer who wanted to make a search for deadly weapons, like knives, and he asked the girls in the village to go into one room, lined them up and stripped them naked. And then, I heard from one soldier who was talking about his colleague who had raped a Rohingya woman. I cannot remember his name. Another incident I remember was about a young boy being thrown into a well. These incidents happened while I was serving with the No. 233 Infantry. And then, there were incidents that were spread by word of mouth about some soldiers committing brutal acts. Villagers were driven out of their houses and those who ran away were shot to death. Most of the bodies were buried in the fields beside the villages. As you may have seen in the photos, people left their villages in hordes – some carrying elderly people who could not walk in makeshift stretchers. Many who couldn&#8217;t cross the border were forced to live in the jungle and mountains. ‘This amounted to a genocide’ All these things should not have happened. Everything that happened was unacceptable. I tried to sound out my colleagues. Most of them had the idea that these people must be driven out – that they could not stay – because the [insurgents] who raided and attacked the police posts were of their same ethnicity. These villagers were giving support to the [insurgents] and they believed there would be no peace unless they were got rid of. These were their views. So, this wasn’t even like an ordinary military operation which would never be so brutal. They just wanted to get rid of the entire community without bothering to find out who [the insurgents that attacked the police posts] were. I agree with the international charges that all of this amounted to a genocide. RFA: What do you think of [deposed National League for Democracy (NLD) leader] Aung San Suu Kyi going to The Hague [in 2019] to defend the military against the charges made in the case brought by The Gambia? Nay Myo Thet: It seems like the military was waiting for a scapegoat, waiting for the NLD to come into power, to defend them because they could have done this [themselves] a long time ago and they didn’t … I think she went there with two goals – to defend the country’s integrity with a nationalist spirit as well as to defend the military. She seemed to feel responsible for the military. But I think it was wrong for her to do that. She shouldn’t have gone there. She wasn’t responsible at all for what happened and she didn’t commit the crimes. The military was responsible [for the crimes] … for creating the division between the [ethnic] Rakhines and the Rohingyas. Even for sowing hatred between the Rakhines and the [majority ethnic] Bamar. If I were to be summoned [to the ICJ], I’d surely go and disclose all I know. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane.
- [Tibetan language advocate barred from hotels in Tibet](https://ij-reportika.com/tibetan-language-advocate-barred-from-hotels-in-tibet/): UPDATED at 12:15 A.M. ET on 2022-04-15 A Tibetan activist traveling to promote language rights in Tibetan areas of western China has been denied shelter, RFA has learned, after authorities ordered hotel operators in the region to turn him away. Tashi Wangchuk, a former political prisoner aged around 35, had been traveling in China’s Qinghai province since April 6, a Tibetan living in the area told RFA’s Tibetan Service in an exclusive interview. “On his way from Yulshul to Siling, he had stopped by various Tibetan schools in Golog, Rebgong and Malho to advocate for the use of Tibetan language in Tibetan schools,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “But he was denied accommodation and dismissed from hotels in Rebgong [In Chinese, Tongren] and Malho [Huangnan]. We don’t have any information about his present whereabouts, and it’s dangerous to talk about this,” he added. A resident of Qinghai’s Yulshul (Yushu) municipality, Wangchuk was released on Jan. 28, 2021, after completing a prison term for “inciting separatism” and is now subject to near-constant monitoring by authorities. While traveling, Wangchuk had posted photos and videos of his visits to Tibetan schools in Darlag (Dali) county in the Golog (Guoluo) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture and in Rebgong, where Chinese authorities have clamped down on the use of the Tibetan language in teaching, RFA’s source said. “However, only 30 minutes after checking into a hotel in Rebgong on April 7, the hotel told him to leave after they were instructed by county police not to let him stay, and his attempts to find a hotel on April 8 and 9 also failed after police told the hotels not to give him accommodation.” When Wangchuk went to a police station in the Malho prefecture to complain, he was denied entry to the station and told no one there could talk to him, the source said. “And later he even went to Rebgong county’s Commission for Discipline Inspection to file an appeal, but it was closed.” “After April 10, all the details that he posted on his Weibo social media account were deleted by the Chinese authorities, so it’s difficult to learn anything now about his well-being,” he added. Also speaking to RFA, Pema Gyal — a researcher at London-based Tibet Watch — said that former political prisoners in Tibet are kept on Chinese government black lists and often have trouble finding jobs or accommodation in hotels. “We are, of course, very concerned about Tashi Wangchuk at the moment,” Gyal said. While China claims to uphold the rights of all minorities to access a bilingual education, Tibetan-language schools have been forced to shut down, and school-age children in Tibet regularly receive instruction only in Mandarin Chinese. Similar policies have been deployed against ethnic Mongolians in China’s Inner Mongolia and Muslim Uyghurs in northwestern China’s region of Xinjiang. Formerly an independent nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force more than 70 years ago. Language rights have become a particular focus for Tibetan efforts to assert national identity in recent years, with informally organized language courses in the monasteries and towns deemed “illegal associations” and teachers subject to detention and arrest, sources say. Correction: An earlier version of this story said that Tashi Wangchuk is missing, but RFA was only able to confirm that his whereabouts were not immediately known and that there is concern about his personal security. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [Nearly 100 arrested ahead of Thingyan in Myanmar’s Yangon, Mandalay](https://ij-reportika.com/nearly-100-arrested-ahead-of-thingyan-in-myanmars-yangon-mandalay/): Authorities in Myanmar arrested nearly 100 people in the country’s two largest cities and the Myawaddy township in Kayin state in the first 10 days of April as part of a pre-Thingyan crackdown, according to data compiled by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Of the 99 people arrested in the lead up to the April 13-16 New Year Water Festival, 47 were from the commercial capital, Yangon, 43 from Myanmar’s second city, Mandalay, and nine from Myawaddy on the country’s border with Thailand, an investigation found. Some of those detained had joined anti-coup protests, while others were accused of being members of Yangon-based anti-junta paramilitary groups, including the People’s Defense Force (PDF). A total of 15 people, including Thiri Wai — the mother of 3-year-old Thant Phone Wai Yan, who was taken by security forces from a kindergarten in Yangon’s Ahlone township on April 5 — were arrested “in possession of explosives,” pro-junta dailies reported on Wednesday. A member of the Pazundaung and Botahtaung Townships Youth Strike Committee, a Yangon-based anti-junta group, told RFA that city authorities had tightened security and stepped up arrests in response to increased activities by the armed opposition ahead of Thingyan. “In the past, if one of your comrades was arrested, you still had time to escape or go into hiding. But now it’s becoming very difficult,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. “Now, if a close contact is arrested, you must be extra careful. People who normally want to hide us are also becoming reluctant because if the military finds out, these people will get into big trouble. The security situation is becoming very difficult.” In Mandalay, Nyein Chan Aung, a member of another anti-junta group known as the Mandalay Strike Committee, told RFA that security forces had arrested several young protesters during a pre-Thingyan campaign that he likened to “a military operation.” “They are making arrests in a crackdown just like a military operation, locking down the towns as soon as they get information about us,” he said. “If they catch a person, he is immediately interrogated. If they don’t get what they want to know, they beat and torture him, before continuing their interrogation. Once they get information, they immediately move to a new location and begin making more arrests.”                          Nyein Chan Aung said the junta has employed a variety of new tactics to sweep Mandalay and tighten security ahead of other recent holidays, including Union Day on Feb. 12 and Armed Forces Day on March 27. One such tactic is to increase the presence of army informants and pro-junta militia forces to monitor for any would-be protesters and in areas where urban resistance groups are believed to be operating, he said. 9 killed in Myawaddy Meanwhile, sources reported that on April 6, a combined force of junta Border Guard Forces (BGF) and military troops in Kayin state’s Myawaddy township shot dead nine youths who were sending supplies to a PDF group in the area. A spokesman for the Kayin State PDF, who declined to be named, said that since the incident, the military has placed Myawaddy under a state of near-total lockdown. “We know that they have sentries hiding in all parts of the township. Some of them are in civilian clothes — mostly BGF members,” he said. “The BGF and other [pro-junta] groups are also patrolling around. The military is now in control of most areas in and around the township.” Attempts by RFA to contact junta spokesman, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, went unanswered on Thursday. Nan Lin, a spokesman of the University Old Students Association veteran activist group, said no number of arrests would stop the people from working to unseat the military regime. “Taking advantage of Thingyan, the junta is making more arrests and killing people unnecessarily,” he said. “Our conviction has become stronger, and we will try harder in every way.” According to the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, junta troops have killed at least 1,751 civilians and arrested more than 10,200 others since the Feb. 1, 2021, power grab — mostly during peaceful anti-coup protests. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [North Korea on high alert ahead of late founding father’s birth holiday](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-on-high-alert-ahead-of-late-founding-fathers-birth-holiday/): North Korea has declared a five-day military-wide special security period as the people prepare to celebrate the life of the country’s late founder, sources in the country told RFA. Kim Il Sung (1912-1994), the grandfather of current leader Kim Jong Un, was born on April 15, a major holiday now known as the “Day of the Sun.” His son and successor, Kim Jong Il (1942-2011), was born on Feb. 16, the “Day of the Shining Star.” The two holidays solidify the cult of personality surrounding the Kim family, which has now ruled North Korea for three generations. Friday marks what would have been Kim Il Sung’s 110th birthday, and authorities have commanded the military to be on high alert. “The special security period starts at 17:00 on April 14 and ends at 17:00 on the 19th. Units were ordered to create a special security plan for approval by their commanders by 17:00 on April 13,” a military source from the northwestern province of North Pyongan told RFA’s Korean Service Wednesday on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The General Staff Department has instructed that emergency mobilization units be in a full-combat readiness posture and on standby,” he said. Additionally, the department told soldiers stationed at the country’s borders, the coast guard, and the air force to be ready at a moment’s notice. “They need to be able to respond immediately without missing even minor threats that could occur during the special security period,” the source said. Soldiers in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong, meanwhile, also must guard against even the slightest problem during the five-day period, a military source there told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “They must also strengthen security in areas that glorify Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, like their statues, public portraits, public displays of their artwork, propaganda boards and related historic sites,” said the source. Officials and soldiers are resentful at having to do extra work on a holiday, when they are used to getting time off. “They are saying they wish there were no holidays at all, because they have been mobilized for difficult guard duty and will not be able to properly rest,” he said. Forced loyalty Retired and disabled soldiers, meanwhile, were upset about having to take an oath of allegiance to Kim Jong Un ahead of the holiday as a requirement to receive their annual special holiday food allotment celebration of the day, a resident of the Sino-Korean border city of Sinuiju told RFA Tuesday. “Yesterday in Sinuiju, because of the Day of the Sun, 15 days’ worth of grain and basic foodstuffs, such as 500 grams [1.1lbs] of sugar and a bottle of soybean oil, were provided to war veterans and honorable soldiers,” she said, on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. Honorable soldiers are soldiers disabled from injuries they sustained while on duty. RFA reported last week that the state was unable to properly care for honorable soldiers as promised due to worsening economic conditions. The Sinuiju resident estimated that the city is home to between 100 and 300 disabled and able-bodied vets. She explained that the gift of 15-days’ food assistance was not provided by the state, but by local authorities. Since central government did not provide funding to the local government for this event, so the veterans realize the “gift from Kim Jong Un” was nothing of the sort, she said. “Even though they said it has been supplied as a special consideration from Kim Jong Un, it is actually a part of the emergency goods imported by the provincial trade bureau, using local funds” she said. “They had to attend a special hour-long event at the cultural center, where authorities would present them with their ‘gift from Kim Jong Un’ on the condition that they pledged their allegiance to him. The disabled veterans complained,” she said. About 200 veterans, including some who had seen action during the 1950-1953 Korean War, attended a similar ceremony in South Pyongan province, north of Pyongyang, a resident there who declined to be named told RFA. “The special holiday supplies … included rice, 500 grams [1.1 lbs] of sugar, and a bottle of soybean oil imported from China via freight train,” she said. “The county party official emphasized that the food was provided on the occasion of the Day of the Sun as ‘the noble will of the Highest Dignity to cherish and love the veterans and honorary soldiers who were loyal to the party and the leader,’ and forced them to repay them with loyalty,” the South Pyongan resident said, using an honorific term for Kim Jong Un. The veterans were angry at being made to swear an oath to Kim Jong Un when his so-called gift was imported from China and was not actually from himself or the central government which he leads, she said. Translated by Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Vietnam arrests Facebook user for discussing high-profile financial crimes](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-arrests-facebook-user-for-discussing-high-profile-financial-crimes/): Authorities in Vietnam arrested Hanoi resident Dang Nhu Quynh for allegedly posting information on Facebook about the arrest of a business leader, which they said violated state interests, state media reported. Quynh was arrested Tuesday for posting “unverified information” about several people and companies in the finance and real estate sectors, Lt. Gen. To An Xo of the Ministry of Public Security said Thursday. Quynh’s posts violated the rights and interests of those individuals and companies and may have negatively affected the country’s stock market, the agency said. Over the past few weeks, Quynh posted on Facebook assessments of how the ministry was handling the cases of finance mogul Trinh Van Quyet, chairman of FLC Group who had been arrested for stock market manipulation, and Do Anh Dung, the chairman of property developer Tan Hoang Minh Group who was arrested for bond-issuance fraud. In the posts, Quynh said that the Ministry of Public Security would continue prosecuting people and companies that are guilty of similar crimes in the near future. Quynh was previously summoned to the ministry for 200 Facebook posts he penned in 2020 about COVID-19 developments in Vietnam. Authorities commonly arrest people for spreading sensitive information on the pretext of stopping false rumors from spreading, even if what the people targeted have said or written is true, Dang Dinh Manh, a Vietnam-based lawyer, told RFA’s Vietnamese Service. “After the arrest of Mr. Quyet, people started talking about other big players who could be the next,” he said. “On the one hand, false information negatively affects these businessmen and their companies’ shareholders. But on the other hand, some information flagged as false rumors later turned out to be true,” said Manh, adding that a better way to eliminate rumors would be for the government to provide information to the media in an honest and timely manner. Tran Ngoc Tuan, a journalist based in the Czech Republic, told RFA that Vietnamese spread rumors because they do not trust state media. “Perhaps every citizen in an authoritarian regime does the job of journalists because they want to learn about the truth, which is often hidden and covered. They often reach out to many sources, including insiders who are leaders,” he said. “The government believes that this type of information undermines the state, the authorities and executive agencies. However, people often say that you should go to the internet to get information that is true and turn on Vietnam Televison or read the People’s Newspaper to hear untruths.” Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Cambodian officials move against opposition activists ahead of June elections](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-officials-move-against-opposition-activists-ahead-of-june-elections/): Cambodian authorities moved this month to block members of political opposition groups from challenging the country’s ruling party in local elections set for June, arresting some on contested charges and disqualifying others from running, Cambodian sources say. Barred now from participating in the vote are more than 100 candidates from the Candlelight Party, formerly called the Sam Rainsy Party, which merged with other groups in 2012 to form the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP). Cambodia’s Supreme Court dissolved the CNRP in November 2017, allowing the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) led by long-serving Prime Minister Hun Sen to win all 125 seats in Parliament in a July 2018 election. Other opposition activists have meanwhile been arrested, denied release from jail in time to contest the polls, or injured or killed in apparently targeted physical attacks, sources said. One Candlelight Party activist and his son were arrested in western Cambodia’s Pursat province on Thursday and sent to prison to await trial on charges of illegal fishing, with other party members calling the charges a ploy to restrict their political activities. Hem Chhil, 35, a commune council candidate for the Kandieng district’s Syva commune, and Pim Dara, 15, were arrested while pumping water from a pond behind their house and catching fish to cook for a holiday celebration, provincial party leader Phan Bunsoth told RFA on Thursday. “Around five local village guards and police officers arrested them after saying they had used electricity to stun the fish in order to catch them,” Phan Bunsoth said. A tool used for that purpose had been found around 100 meters from the house, he added. Hem Chhil had earlier been warned by authorities not to set up a party sign outside his home, said Candlelight Party Vice President Thach Setha. “It is as if they arrested him to keep him from installing a party sign for others to see. And then they also arrested a 15-year-old minor. This is such an extreme act for the authorities to take,” he said. “The authorities are doing everything they can in order to win,” agreed Sam Chankear, provincial coordinator the Cambodian rights group ADHOC. “But this will affect the image of the government and the ruling party as a whole,” he added. Requests for comment from Pursat provincial prosecution office spokesperson Long Cheap, provincial court spokesperson Heng Donin, and provincial Police Commissioner Sarun Chanthy were unanswered on Thursday. Physical attacks On Monday, another Candlelight Party activist — Khorn Tun, a commune candidate in Tabaung Khmom province’s Ponhea Krek district — was attacked by unidentified men who threw rocks at her home, while on April 9, Prak Seyha — a party youth leader for Phnom Penh’s Kambol district — was attacked and beaten by a mob. Also on April 9, a party candidate for Phnom Penh’s Chhbar Ampov district, Choeun Sarim, was killed in traffic while traveling by motorbike from southern Cambodia’s Takeo province to the capital, Phnom Penh. Speaking to RFA, Choeun Sarim’s wife Satik Srey Touch said her husband’s skull had been crushed by a blow from behind. He had also been threatened and assaulted in the past, she said. Meanwhile, a Phnom Penh court on Tuesday denied bail to ailing 63-year-old Yok Neang who is on trial for “conspiracy” in connection with a plan to bring Sam Rainsy, acting chief of the banned Cambodia National Rescue Party, back to Cambodia to challenge CPP rule. Speaking to RFA, Am Sam Ath of the Cambodian rights group Licadho said that Cambodian courts have no grounds to prosecute Yok Neang and other opposition activists, calling the legal moves against them politically motivated. “The domestic and international community have seen that these cases are motivated more by politics than by concern for upholding Cambodian law,” he said. Cambodia is set to hold its fifth commune council election on June 5, with 17 parties competing for a total of 11,622 seats in communes nationwide. Over 9.2 million Cambodians are registered to vote, according to the country’s National Election Committee. Translated by Samean Yun, Sok Ry Sum, and Sovannarith Keo for RFA’s Khmer Service. Written in English by Richard Finney, Joshua Lipes, and Nawar Nemeh.
- [Japan PM set to visit SE Asia in late April](https://ij-reportika.com/japan-pm-set-to-visit-se-asia-in-late-april/): Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is planning a visit to Southeast Asia later this month to counter China’s growing assertiveness in the region, according to news reports and a government official. Kyodo, a Japanese news agency, said Kishida’s trip would take place during the so-called Golden Week holidays and includes stops in Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam. The report cited unnamed diplomatic sources. Golden Week 2022 runs from April 29 to May 5. It starts with Showa Day and ends on Children’s Day, with a five-day consecutive holiday between May 1–5. It also reported that Kishida may consider a visit to Europe during the holiday period. A previously proposed meeting between ministers of defense and foreign affairs from Japan and India in mid- to late-April may therefore have been postponed as usually foreign ministers accompany the prime minister on his foreign trips. RFA has approached the Japanese Foreign Ministry for confirmation. In Jakarta, the Foreign Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah on Thursday confirmed to BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated news agency, that Kishida would visit Indonesia “at the end of April.” He said the exact date would be announced later. Kyodo reported that in Southeast Asia, the Japanese prime minister is expected to “underscore cooperation toward realizing the vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific amid China&#8217;s rise.” Thailand and Indonesia are this year’s chairs of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) and the Group of 20 respectively. Vietnam meanwhile shares interest with Japan in safeguarding maritime security in the South China Sea where China holds expansive claims and has been militarizing reclaimed islands. Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force personnel on the destroyers JS Suzutsuki (L) and JS Inazuma (R) after arriving as part of an Indo-Pacific tour at Tanjung Priok Port in Jakarta, Indonesia, in a file photo. Credit: Reuters Free and open Indo-Pacific “China is the principal geopolitical threat, be it for India, Japan or Southeast Asian countries,” said Pratnashree Basu, associate fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, an Indian think tank. “Pooling resources and strengthening capacities is therefore an ongoing process for almost all countries in the Indo-Pacific in order to be in positions of stronger pushback in the face of China&#8217;s aggression,” she said. Japan last year joined a growing list of countries that are challenging China’s maritime claims in the South China Sea. Tokyo sent a diplomatic note to the United Nations rejecting China’s baseline claims and denouncing what it described as efforts to limit the freedom of navigation and overflight. Japan is not a South China Sea claimant, but Tokyo has deepened security ties with several Southeast Asia nations with claims or interests there. The Japanese Navy and Coastguard have conducted joint exercises with Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. Stephen Nagy, senior associate professor at the Department of Politics and International Studies, International Christian University in Tokyo, said that Japan prioritizes maintaining stability and a rules-based approach to governing the South China Sea as its sea lanes are critical arteries for the Japanese economy. Tokyo has also been playing an important role in supporting the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy. Leaders of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, including Japan, the U.S., Australia and India are meeting in person later in May in Tokyo for a summit. The Quad is widely seen as countering China’s weight in the region. Kishida visited India and Cambodia in March, his first bilateral trips since taking office in October 2021. Cambodia is the current chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
- [Emigration inquiries spike in China amid grueling COVID-19 lockdowns, restrictions](https://ij-reportika.com/emigration-inquiries-spike-in-china-amid-grueling-covid-19-lockdowns-restrictions/): As a citywide lockdown continued in Shanghai and around 100 cities imposed more limited COVID-19 curbs, immigration consultancies said they are receiving a record number of inquiries from people hoping to get out of China for good. Keyword searches relating to emigration spiked more than 100-fold in recent days, according to publicly available data from the Baidu search engine for the week from March 28 to April 3. Canada, the United States and Australia were the top three countries shown in such searches, with searches for immigration to Canada showing a 28-fold increase compared with the previous week. &#8220;The number of immigration consultations has skyrocketed in the past few days,&#8221; an employee who answered the phone at the Beijing-based immigration consultancy Qiaowai told RFA on Wednesday.  &#8220;We are very busy every day, and waiting times are relatively long, because we don&#8217;t have enough consultants.&#8221; &#8220;This is likely the case for every other company [in the sector],&#8221; the employee said. &#8220;There are more coming from Shanghai because the pandemic is pretty bad in Shanghai right now.&#8221; An employee who answered the phone at the Immigration 11 agency gave a similar response. &#8220;There are quite a lot of people inquiring,&#8221; the employee said. &#8220;I need to hurry up [with this call].&#8221; &#8220;Is it the pandemic? We&#8217;ve had a lot of people consulting us from Shanghai in Guangdong, and also a lot from Beijing,&#8221; the employee said. Senior journalist Chen Hongtao said the figures could be an indication that high-ranking officials in the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and their families are voting with their feet. &#8220;Anyone who has the option to leave may be thinking about how to get out,&#8221; Chen said. &#8220;Those who work for the regime don&#8217;t believe [propaganda], and they have access to a lot more information [than regular people].&#8221; &#8220;Most middle and working-class people don&#8217;t have the wherewithal to get hold of comprehensive information,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They&#8217;re the ones who believe what the little pinks [pro-CCP commentators] tell them.&#8221; A woman who identified herself by the pseudonym Zhang Li said she and her friends are in the process of trying to leave China. &#8220;I don&#8217;t think this is weird at all,&#8221; Zhang said. &#8220;It&#8217;s normal &#8230; because the pandemic disease control measures aren&#8217;t based on scientific decisions.&#8221; &#8220;I know a woman, a medical student, who is currently submitting her application to emigrate to the U.S.,&#8221; she said. &#8220;She plans to study [English] first, then become a nurse.&#8221; However, it looks likely that the majority of people will have trouble leaving, in the absence of political clout or existing immigration channels. An employee who answered the phone at the Shanghai police department&#8217;s exit and entry administration said the office, which issues passports and exit permits, is currently closed. &#8220;You can&#8217;t apply for passports, and entry-exit offices are all closed around here because of the pandemic,&#8221; the employee said. &#8220;There are some cases where on-site review of materials is happening for emergency circumstances, for example, to visit the critically ill overseas, or to go and study overseas,&#8221; they said. Meanwhile, residents of Shanghai said they are still struggling to source enough food and other daily necessities, with strict stay-at-home orders still in place across the city. &#8220;I went to the neighborhood committee to order food,&#8221; a resident surnamed Xu told RFA. &#8220;It&#8217;s been 20 days, and I still haven&#8217;t gotten the rice I ordered. I am out of oil and soy sauce for cooking at home, and I haven&#8217;t been able to buy more.&#8221; &#8220;I have to try to get food sent from online&#8230; we have been locked down here since March 8,&#8221; she said. A resident of Baoshan district surnamed Zheng said people who test positive are now being &#8220;sealed&#8221; inside their own apartments or buildings, as isolation and quarantine facilities are full. &#8220;If you test positive, the entire building will be sealed off with barbed wire, and nobody will be allowed in or out,&#8221; Zheng told RFA. &#8220;The disease control people set up a hut outside to guard it.&#8221; &#8220;Last week, they would take you away in a vehicle immediately if you tested positive,&#8221; he said. &#8220;That&#8217;s not the way they&#8217;re doing it now.&#8221; A resident of Xuhui district surnamed Liu said the supplies delivered to people&#8217;s homes during the lockdown were nowhere near enough to last the entire length of lockdown. &#8220;In the first stage, some people had no food,&#8221; she said. &#8220;In the second stage, Pudong was closed for four days, and then Puxi was closed for another four days, but I didn&#8217;t expect the city to be locked down forever.&#8221; &#8220;They government sent a batch of groceries, but &#8230; the food they have distributed was far from enough,&#8221; Liu said. A resident surnamed Zhao gave a similar account. &#8220;We have been locked down for more than a month, and we had food for four days,&#8221; he said. &#8220;There&#8217;s not enough for such a long time&#8230; all the stores are closed.&#8221; The Shanghai municipal health commission reported a total of 27,719 newly confirmed cases on Thursday, with rapidly constructed and converted field hospitals and quarantine facilities unable to meet demand for beds. &#8220;You can&#8217;t get into the Fangcang cabin hospitals, and a lot of people can&#8217;t even get an ambulance if they call 120,&#8221; Zheng said. &#8220;We have no idea how many people have died of COVID-19.&#8221; However, reports have also emerged of people being forcibly dragged from their homes to isolation facilities, even with a negative PCR test. One audio recording features a young couple who have tested negative arguing with enforcement personnel. &#8220;Our tests were negative,&#8221; one person says, while a police officer answers: &#8220;The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says you are positive.&#8221; &#8220;No way,&#8221; the person replies. &#8220;I have a negative test result. If I go to the cabin hospital I will wind up positive.&#8221; The ongoing lockdown comes after CCP leader Xi Jinping urged local governments on Wednesday to stick to his zero-COVID policy, with a slew of reports and commentaries in state media defending the...
- [Interview: 'Do you realize there is also a price to pay for silence?'](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-do-you-realize-there-is-also-a-price-to-pay-for-silence/): Wang Jixian is Chinese national living in Odessa who turned citizen journalist when the war in Ukraine began, posting first-hand accounts of the conflict. But his outspoken YouTube videos cursing out Russian troops were out of step with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)&#8217;s official stance on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and have been deleted or blocked from social media platforms in China by government censors, while Wang&#8217;s personal social media accounts have been shut down. Wang, an artificial intelligence expert by day, has also been the target of online abuse from Little Pinks, an online army of troll-commentators who enforce the CCP line on China&#8217;s tightly controlled internet. He spoke to RFA&#8217;s Mandarin Service about what motivates him to keep posting. I&#8217;m a programmer by profession. I have to go to work every day &#8230; I don&#8217;t even have advertisements [on my YouTube channel]. I&#8217;m not an influencer, and I&#8217;m not doing this for the money. I make my videos to show people what is going on in my region, which is the Russian-speaking world, where there is even more censorship, information blockage and brainwashing going on than in the regions you criticize. My idea is to use logic and reasoning to awaken people&#8217;s consciences. I&#8217;m not looking to get more traffic, or more subscribers. They started out by deleting one or two of my videos &#8230; then they started doing it by stealth. It got to the point where, one day, every single social media account under my name &#8212; not just WeChat &#8212; had been shut down. The whole lot of them. All of them had been set up personally by me in China, using my national ID card, and they were all deleted simultaneously, on Baidu, on Douyin, different companies. So how were they able to delete them all at the same time? And that&#8217;s not all. They even deleted my face. They deleted videos in which the only thing I said was that I was still OK. Anything with my face in it. Then they said I was spreading rumors. I read out parts of the Chinese Communist Party charter and the Constitution of the People&#8217;s Republic of China. How are those things rumors? And what reason did they have for deleting the accounts of people who reposted my posts? I didn&#8217;t just read [about freedom of speech], but also freedom of the person, of religious belief, freedom of speech, all of that is written in the constitution. As a Chinese citizen, I want the protections that are enshrined in the constitution. The constitution itself states that breaching the constitution is the worst kind of law-breaking, because it carries the highest legal authority. I don&#8217;t understand what I&#8217;m supposed to have done wrong. What did I say to oppose the party, or the government? I&#8217;m an incredibly patriotic person. My point in reading out those sections of the CCP charter was to urge people to be a passable CCP member before they start saying I&#8217;m opposing anyone. I was telling them that they should look to within party ranks. The day [my social media accounts were deleted], I remember it very clearly &#8230; it took me a very long time to get in contact with my family. My dad is a pretty tough person, and he told me he was fine. But the last time I spoke to them I noticed that their hair was a lot greyer than the last time I spoke with them. [Now that my WeChat account has gone], I have to rely on friends &#8230; to find ways to send them my videos, so they can still see them. I&#8217;m just an ordinary person. I&#8217;m not a member of any party or political faction. My beliefs just tell me that I shouldn&#8217;t do anything evil. I don&#8217;t see anything wrong with that. They didn&#8217;t report [the Ukrainian perspective]. This is something that mainstream media from all over the world managed to do. They sent their own journalists to the front line to report. What other country&#8217;s media just translated what the Russian media was saying, word for word about the Bucha massacre. Haven&#8217;t we had reports from the United Nations, from Ukraine, or any other country&#8217;s media? Why has none of it made it into Chinese? But even if [people in China] can&#8217;t see what&#8217;s going on, they should be able to figure it out for themselves. Just look at a map of the world. This is Ukraine. There&#8217;s a bunch of tanks — have they got Ukrainian license plates? Do the guys driving them have visas? You send these young Russian men to war, telling them that it&#8217;s just a military exercise taking place over the border in Ukraine and in the capital &#8230; that the people of Ukraine will welcome them with wreaths of flowers. Later on, you tell them that everyone they are killing is a Nazi, that they deserve to die. What Nazis? Who decided this? What did these people do for you to call them Nazis? It&#8217;s all lies. Some internet users in China have tried to threaten me, saying, “You do realize you&#8217;ll have to pay a price for speaking like this, don&#8217;t you?” I told them, “Of course I realize that. But I have a question for you, too. Do you realize that there will also be a price to pay for your silence today? Do you not think you&#8217;ve already paid too high a price for that silence?” There&#8217;s a price to pay for courage, but no price to pay for silence? I want to wake people up a bit. I ask them what or who they think my speech is opposing. I don&#8217;t really understand what news I&#8217;m supposed to be breaking. I just talk about daily life here, how much groceries costs, the price of seafood or beef. I think I report a lot less actual news than the media does. I&#8217;m just trying to get people to see...
- [Hong Kong changes law, forcing owners to give up pets 'believed' to have COVID-19](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-changes-law-forcing-owners-to-give-up-pets-believed-to-have-covid-19/): Authorities in Hong Kong have changed the law to force people to hand over pets and other animals believed infected with COVID-19 for &#8216;humane dispatch,&#8217; as police have been tasked with investigating activists who tried to save hamsters from a cull in January, the city&#8217;s top health official has said. &#8220;The government recently introduced amendments [including] clear provisions requiring the owner of an article (including an animal) to surrender the article upon a health officer’s direction,&#8221; the city&#8217;s secretary for food and health Sophia Chan said in a written response to a lawmakers&#8217; question. The new rules took effect from March 31, 2022, and anyone failing to comply with an order to hand over their pets for &#8220;humane dispatch&#8221; could face a fine of  up to H.K.$10,000 and six months&#8217; imprisonment, she said. Chan said existing quarantine law &#8220;aims to regulate matters relating to quarantine and the prevention of disease among animals and birds, etc&#8221; but doesn&#8217;t specifically cover COVID-19. The rule change comes after Hong Kong&#8217;s Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) &#8220;strongly advised&#8221; members of the public to surrender imported hamsters bought from local pet shops for humane dispatch. The advice prompted widespread resistance, including spontaneous offers to take hamsters off people&#8217;s hands and keep them safe from the authorities. Chan said a total of 145 hamsters were handed over to the authorities by the end of March. She said the authorities had been removing animals from local pet shops for &#8220;humane dispatch,&#8221; and had banned imports of any small mammals for commercial purposes. &#8220;In response to some people stopping others from surrendering hamsters and taking over hamsters from members of the public intended for surrender to the [authorities], the AFCD &#8230; reported the case[s] to the police for follow up and handling,&#8221; Chan said. &#8220;Obstructing, or assisting to obstruct a health officer in the exercise of a power or performance of a function is a criminal offense, and offenders are liable on conviction to a fine of H.K.$5,000 and to imprisonment for two months,&#8221; she warned. &#8216;Going too far&#8217; A pet owner who gave only the nickname Miss J said the rules were going too far. &#8220;I think it&#8217;s going too far to have us hand over our animals,&#8221; she said. &#8220;They already killed all of those hamsters with barely a second thought. It&#8217;s totally outrageous.&#8221; &#8220;They say that the articles will be destroyed, which means they are treating animals as inanimate objects,&#8221; Miss J said. Miss J, who has a Shiba Inu and a dachshund she regards as &#8220;family,&#8221; said she had only been walking her dogs outside once or twice a week to minimize the risk of catching COVID-19, but wasn&#8217;t sure if that was now possible. &#8220;We have done everything we could, and they have just backed us into a corner,&#8221; she said. A pet owner who gave only the nickname A Ting said she wouldn&#8217;t hand over her two rescued stray cats if her life depended on it. &#8220;This is unreasonable &#8230; You wouldn&#8217;t give up your own children,&#8221; she said. &#8220;People who have pets treat them as members of the family, and won&#8217;t give them up just because they&#8217;re sick.&#8221; &#8220;Quite frankly, the government has brought in so many restrictions to prevent the spread of COVID-19, but have they worked?&#8221; A Ting said. &#8220;If they come to my home for my two cats, it&#8217;ll be over my dead body,&#8221; she said. Meanwhile, on the democratic island of Taiwan, owners of dogs, cats or mink have been told to isolate their pets at home if they test positive for COVID-19. Pets belonging to people sick with COVID-19 should be cared for by friends or relatives, or handed over to disease control authorities for boarding until the person has recovered. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Myanmar’s largest cities empty amid call to boycott Thingyan festivities](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-largest-cities-empty-amid-call-to-boycott-thingyan-festivities/): Yangon and Mandalay were eerily quiet on Wednesday despite the start of the three-day Thingyan holiday in Myanmar, as residents chose to boycott junta-led festivities and heed warnings by armed opposition forces that the cities could become the target of attacks. On the eve of the April 13-16 New Year Water Festival, the main pavilion in front of Yangon’s City Hall — traditionally bustling with revelers on the holiday — was empty. Dozens of police and soldiers were seen guarding the area, and the military blocked off access to the pavilion as well as the mayor’s office. Trucks were seen ferrying people in uniforms to the venue. While the junta has sought to promote this year’s Thingyan as a time to unwind and have fun, members of the public told RFA’s Myanmar Service they have little interest in participating. One resident of Yangon said he would not join celebrations out of respect for those who sacrificed their lives while protesting the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup. “There are many children, young people and adults who have given their lives for the country and for justice. I sympathize with them. I feel sorry for them, and I won’t go out at all,” said the young man, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Also, there have been warnings against participating in the festivities. It’s up to you to take the risks.” A woman from Yangon’s Pazundaung area who gave her name as Rati told RFA she would not attend Thingyan, or any other festivals held under the military regime. One of the few places in Yangon where people congregated on Wednesday was at the city’s holy Shwedagon Pagoda, where religious pilgrims said they hoped to perform good deeds and gain merit during Thingyan, while also praying for those who are in prison or have otherwise suffered under junta rule. Separately, sources told RFA that at least one deliveryman was killed, and others arrested amid heightened security and roadblocks in Yangon. Workers said that three young delivery men from the Food Panda restaurant on Po Sein Road were talking in front of the shop Wednesday morning when junta troops arrived, causing them to panic and flee. They said troops opened fire as the men ran away, killing Hein Htet Naing, while the other two workers, identified as Tin Tun Aung and Kyi Thar, were taken into custody. Other sources said that around eight delivery men were arrested in the city on Wednesday. RFA was not able to independently confirm the incidents. &#8216;Like a ghost town&#8217; In Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city, the military tightened security around the Palace Moat, which is traditionally the center of Thingyan celebrations each year, and blocked the entrance to the city’s main pavilion. A resident of Mandalay, who also declined to be named for security reasons, said people “understand the current situation” and would heed the call to boycott the festivities. “Thingyan is a period for us to celebrate. We all know we can only enjoy it once a year. But today, people are all united,” she said. “The city is like a ghost town. No one is celebrating or partying. They obey the requests of the revolutionary forces.” A photo of the Thingyan celebration in Yangon in 2019 shows children spraying water at revelers. Credit: AFP Warnings to the public On Monday, various armed resistance groups told RFA that they had launched a dozen attacks on military-held areas of Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon over the weekend as part of a bid to dispel junta claims that the situation in the country had “returned to normal.” Anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary groups had announced that they plan to launch attacks on the military during Thingyan and warned members of the public to stay away from the brightly colored pandal platforms that the government typically erects as performance stages and water-spraying stations for the holiday. On Tuesday, a body of opposition stakeholders known as the National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC) called on artists and celebrities to boycott junta-led Thingyan festivities, condemning what it said was a bid by the military regime to make political gains while the nation is embroiled in post-coup violence. In a statement, the NUCC said that authorities are “conducting raids, making arbitrary arrests, and committing murder” around the country, and suggested the junta may take advantage of the festival to “launch more attacks.” “Many, including the urban anti-junta forces and the PDFs, are urging people not to participate in the celebrations sponsored by the junta,” NUCC member Toe Kyaw Hlaing said. “We also condemn the military’s attempt to make political gains, and therefore we have issued this statement in support of both the opposition and the PDFs.” Formed in April last year, the NUCC is one of Myanmar’s most inclusive political dialogue platforms, consisting of a range of stakeholders with varied interests and long-standing grievances. The body includes representatives from Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG), the deposed Committee Representing the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CPRH), rights groups, civil society organizations, activist networks, and ethnic parties and armies. Attempts by RFA’s Myanmar Service to contact actors and musicians for comment went mostly unanswered, although well-known singer May Khalar said that she will not be performing at any of this year’s Thingyan pandals. Empty streets in Mandalay on the first day of the Thingyan festival, April 13, 2022. Credit: RFA &#8216;A cultural tradition&#8217; Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, the junta’s deputy minister of information, told RFA on Tuesday that Thingyan festivities will be held “in safe places across the country,” including cities such as Yangon, Mandalay and the capital Naypyidaw. He dismissed the boycott, saying that Thingyan celebrations should not be politicized. “The Thingyan festival is celebrated every year. It has nothing to do with whether you support the government,” he said. “Celebrating Thingyan is a Myanmar cultural tradition. Using threats to stop people from celebrating is an act of terrorism.” Zaw Min Tun noted that armed attacks and bomb blasts had “become more frequent” as Thingyan...
- [Vietnam upholds former police officer’s 2-year sentence over traffic spat](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-upholds-former-police-officers-2-year-sentence-over-traffic-spat/): An appellate court in Vietnam upheld the two-year sentence of a former policeman arrested last year for “resisting officers on official duty” during a traffic spat. Le Chi Thanh was once an officer at Han Tan Prison in the southern coastal province of Binh Thuan. He was fired in July 2020 after he accused his supervisor of corruption. Afterwards he became an active social media user, often livestreaming videos that monitored traffic police. Police in Ho Chi Minh City impounded his car on March 2, 2021, for occupying a lane reserved for two-wheeled vehicles. He argued with the police and recorded and live streamed the exchange. He was arrested on April 14, 2021, for his actions on March 2. The Ho Chi Minh City High-level People’s Court upheld the two-year sentence Thanh received in January. Thanh’s lawyer, Dang Dinh Manh, told RFA’s Vietnamese Service that he presented new evidence — medals and certificates Thanh received while he was a police officer — during the appellate trial. “The prosecution side accepted the medals as mitigating circumstances and proposed reducing his jail term by six months,” he said. “However, in the end, the judging panel said that they decided to uphold the first verdict as it was suitable and accurate. Therefore, there were no grounds to reduce it,” Manh said. The lawyer also said that his client was in better shape at the appellate trial than during the first trial. Thanh was unable to walk on his own in January. His lawyer and family at that time claimed he had been tortured during pretrial detention. In its newly-realsed Vietnam 2021 Human Rights Report, the U.S. State Department said Thanh was arrested “on charges of resisting a law enforcement officer in what international human rights observers asserted was retribution for exposing systemic corruption on his YouTube channel” and that “Thanh, who was fired in July 2020, criticized what he called a ‘culture of corruption within the prison system.’”  One day before the appellate trial, Vietnam’s state media also reported that Thanh had also been prosecuted for “abusing the rights to freedom and democracy to violate the state’s interest and the legitimate interests of organizations and individuals” during his livestreamed videos on social media. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Bangladesh home minister: Rohingya have babies to get more food aid](https://ij-reportika.com/bangladesh-home-minister-rohingya-have-babies-to-get-more-food-aid/): The way food aid is distributed to Rohingya needs to be adjusted because it is driving population growth in the country’s sprawling refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, a senior Bangladesh government official said. Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, the home minister, suggested that because the food rations encourage Rohingya to have more babies, as he put it, the government intends to reduce food aid destined to the refugees. “The Rohingya, irrespective of age, get the same amount of food. One adult man and a newborn baby get the same amount of food. Therefore, they give birth to more babies – 35,000 babies are born every year,” he told the RFA-affliated BenarNews agency on Monday, a day after he led a meeting of a government committee that coordinates and manages law and order at the southeastern camps along the Myanmar border that house about 1 million Rohingya refugees from nearby Rakhine state. The committee discussed food allocation and other issues related to security, according to Khan. “The Rohingya have more babies for more food,” he said. “We have decided that the quantity of food will be reduced. Our relevant agencies will work out a fresh standard of ration.” The number of babies at the camps is about half of what Khan claimed, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Responding to a BenarNews request for details, the office released a spreadsheet that showed there were 18,858 children younger than 1 in the Rohingya camps as of Feb. 28. Md. Shamsud Douza, an additional refugee relief and repatriation commissioner under the Ministry of Disaster Management, told BenarNews that food allocations for Rohingya refugees are fixed in coordination with the World Food Program (WFP), a U.N. agency. “Every Rohingya family gets a monthly food card with per-head allocations of 980 taka (U.S. $11.40) to 1,030 taka ($11.97). They collect rice and 19 other essentials from some designated shops fixed by the WFP, according to their requirements,” Douza told BenarNews on Tuesday. He said his office had not received any directive about changing the allocations. Officials at the WFP and UNHCR, the U.N.’s refugee agency, did not immediately respond to BenarNews multiple requests for comment on Khan’s proposal. Criticism Human rights activists, meanwhile, criticized the government, saying that cutting food allocations would not reduce the birth rate among Rohingya and such efforts could cause malnutrition and food insecurity. Md. Jubair, the secretary of the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace and Human Rights, said the allocations already fall short. “We get a maximum 1,030 taka per person per month. With this small amount we buy 13 kilograms of rice, pulses, fish, salt, edible oil, vegetable and other essentials. It is very hard to run a family with this allocation,” he said. Another activist said such cuts would have a negative impact. “The amount of food aid given to each Rohingya family helps them live with minimum requirements. Further cutting it down is not acceptable because it would spell a disastrous impact on the health and food security of the entire Rohingya population, especially on the women and children,” Professor Mizanur Rahman, former chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, told BenarNews. “If the government reduces food rations, then women would not reduce food allocations for their male family members and cut it for themselves and the children. In that case, the women and children will face malnutrition and food scarcity,” he said. He added: “Everywhere in the world, poor people think of having more children for more food or more income and Rohingya must not be singled out in this regard.” Nur Khan, a former executive director of Ain-O-Salish Kendra (ASK), a Bangladeshi human rights group, also challenged Khan’s comments. “This is really unfortunate that we hear such an unfair comment about the food intake of the Rohingya. Talking about someone’s food is not decent,” he told BenarNews. “There is no correlation between increased food allocation and a population boom: cutting food allocation would in no way reduce the birth rate. I would strongly oppose any move to cut food allocation for the Rohingya in the pretext of reducing birth rates,” he said. Birth control efforts According to Dr. Pintu Kanti Bhattacharya, deputy director at the department of family planning in Cox’s Bazar district, the higher birth rate among the Rohingya stems from superstition, religious bigotry and a lack of education. “The local and international NGOs and the government’s family planning department have been working to motivate the Rohingya to adopt birth control measures,” he told BenarNews. “The family planning workers visit door-to-door twice a week at camps and conduct counseling so they do understand the benefits of family planning,” Bhattacharya said, adding that agencies provide contraceptives including pills, injections and condoms. “Compared to the situation in 2017 and 2018, the Rohingya people are friendlier to family planning,” he said. Bangladesh has seen an influx of about 740,000 Rohingya since a Myanmar military crackdown against the stateless Muslim minority group in August 2017.
- [To prevent escapes, North Korea confiscates passports of officials sent abroad](https://ij-reportika.com/to-prevent-escapes-north-korea-confiscates-passports-of-officials-sent-abroad/): North Korea is now confiscating the passports of both managers and workers stationed abroad to prevent them from escaping, sources in China and Russia told RFA. Pyongyang dispatches legions of workers to both Russia and China to work in factories and on construction sites to earn foreign cash for the state. The workers give the lion’s share of their salaries to their North Korean handlers, who forward it to the central government, but the remainder is still more than the workers could ever hope to earn in their home country. It is standard procedure to confiscate the workers’ passports to make it harder for them to flee to a third country. But now even the workers’ managers have to turn their passports over to their local North Korean embassy or consulate, indicating that Pyongyang may fear that they too might try to escape. “In February of this year, the North Korean embassy and consulates in China recovered all passports from company officials and representatives in the region,” a Chinese citizen of Korean descent told RFA’s Korean Service April 9 on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “They retrieved the officials’ passports because during the pandemic, the companies are earning less. &#8230; It is a special measure that acknowledges the possibility that some officials may want to escape, especially as many are under heavy pressure to pay their assigned quota, despite the company’s reduced earnings,” he said. RFA reported last month that 20 workers and their manager, who were stationed in Shanghai, went missing in mid-February. Sources in that report said the group had left their dormitory to escape to a third country, but RFA was unable to confirm that they attempted to escape. “The presidents and trade representatives of North Korean companies do not have passports, so they cannot travel wherever they want to go,” he said. “They used to be allowed to keep their passports. “The order to collect their passports came directly from Pyongyang. The North Korean officials are resentful that their government trusts them enough to send them overseas to work hard for the country, but does not trust that they will not run away,” he said. In Vladivostok, the confiscation of passports means that North Koreans aren’t even allowed to take a single step outside of their workplace, a Russian citizen of Korean descent told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “After several incidents where North Korean workers dispatched here to Russia escaped, they confiscated everyone’s passports,” he said. “But even company officials and state security agents, who are supposed to monitor and prevent workers from escaping, have now had their passports collected. Workers who came to Russia through a one-year education or training visa, however, may have their passports in their hands for a short time while re-registering their residence every year,” the second source said. The new regulations have changed the balance of power between the workers and their watchers. “Russian company officials and the dispatched North Korean workers now scoff at the North Korean officials and state security agents who boldly lorded over the workers.” Meanwhile, a local source told RFA last month that the number of North Korean workers in the three northeastern Chinese provinces is estimated to be between 80,000 and 100,000 as of January this year, with the bulk of the workers in Dandong, just across the border from North Korea’s Sinuiju. The same source estimated there were 20,000 in and around Vladivostok in Russia. Translated by Claire Lee and Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [‘Middle Way’ approach for Tibet not just about politics: Dalai Lama](https://ij-reportika.com/middle-way-approach-for-tibet-not-just-about-politics-dalai-lama/): A Middle Way approach to the question of Tibet’s status under Beijing’s rule does not concern politics alone and will benefit both the Tibetan and the Chinese people, Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama said in a rare political statement in India this month. “The Middle Way approach is not just a political and administrative approach,” the Dalai Lama said, speaking on April 7 at a traditional Shoton, or Yogurt, Festival held in Dharamsala, India, seat of Tibet’s exile government, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA). “Instead, it is a practical approach and mutually beneficial to both Tibetans and Chinese, in which Tibetans can preserve their culture and religion and uphold their identity. We cannot resort to violence and banish the Chinese from our lands,” the Dalai Lama said. Formerly an independent nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force more than 70 years ago. And in the debate over how best to advance the rights of Tibetans living under Beijing’s rule, some Tibetans have called for a restoration of the country’s former independence. The CTA and the Dalai Lama, however, have adopted a policy approach called the Middle Way, which accepts Tibet’s status as a part of China but urges greater cultural and religious freedoms, including strengthened language rights, guaranteed for ethnic minorities under the provisions of China’s own constitution. “Despite the Chinese government’s continuous oppression of Tibetans inside Tibet, Tibetans have endured it all,” the exiled spiritual leader said. “So Tibetans in exile must work hard. China’s brutal policies will not last long, and will someday change.” The Tibetan struggle for greater freedoms has been a struggle lasting over generations, the Dalai Lama said. “So older Tibetans must nurture the younger generations of Tibetans, to whom we can pass on our Tibetan language, culture, and religious and traditional beliefs.” Nine rounds of talks on greater autonomy in Tibetan areas of China were held between envoys of the Dalai Lama and high-level Chinese officials beginning in 2002, but stalled in 2010 and were never resumed. Formerly Tibet’s traditional ruler, the Dalai Lama has made few political statements in public since handing his political responsibilities over to an elected exile leader, or Sikyong, in 2011 and now considers himself only Tibet’s spiritual leader. &#8216;Something achievable&#8217; The Dalai Lama continues to work hard for the good of his people, though, said Marco Respinti, director-in-charge at Bitter Winter, an online magazine monitoring religious freedom in China. “And the good of the Tibetan people should be something achievable, not just some utopia,” Respinti said. “While the Chinese Communist government is literally waging a cultural genocide against the Tibetans, and the Uyghurs and the Mongols, the Dalai Lama has taken on himself the moral responsibility both to stop the horror and to get something concrete done. “The Middle Way approach tries to keep these two things together, envisioning a future of interactions and exchanges,” Respinti said. China’s Communist Party remains determined to destroy Tibet’s national and cultural identity though, and seeks only “total surrender to its totalitarian power,” Respinti said. “The Middle Way approach is the last noble chance that Tibetans can offer to the CCP, but the CCP has no intention of taking it.” Translated with additional reporting by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [Banned Hong Kong statues to find new refuge in democratic Taiwan: rights activists](https://ij-reportika.com/banned-hong-kong-statues-to-find-new-refuge-in-democratic-taiwan-rights-activists/): A bronze statue of late Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo that was removed from public display in Hong Kong amid a citywide crackdown on dissent could find a new home on the democratic island of Taiwan. The statue of a smoking, bespectacled, seated Liu, who died of late-stage liver cancer in 2017 while serving an 11-year jail term for &#8220;subversion,&#8221; was once on display in Hong Kong&#8217;s Times Square shopping plaza in Causeway Bay. It later reappeared in the Tin Hau branch of the children&#8217;s clothing chain Chickeeduck, which has been a vocal supporter of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, particularly during the 2019 protests. The statue was in the keeping of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Democratic Patriotic Movements of China, a civil society organization that was forced to disband after being investigated under a draconian national security law imposed on Hong Kong by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from July 1, 2020. Now, it appears Liu&#8217;s effigy may have found a new home in Taiwan, a democratic country that has never been ruled by Beijing, and whose 23 million people have no wish to lose their democratic rights and freedoms, or the rule of law. &#8220;He has no other place to go, so we will keep him permanently in Taiwan,&#8221; Tzeng Chien-yuan, who chairs Taiwan&#8217;s New School for Democracy, told RFA. &#8220;We plan to set up a museum to tell the world about human rights issues in China under CCP rule.&#8221; Tzeng said the statue will be put on public display in Taiwan in the run-up to the 33rd anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre on June 4. &#8220;We are coming at this from the perspective of universal values,&#8221; Tzeng told RFA. &#8220;Even if the vast majority of Taiwanese want independence, they still affirm Liu Xiaobo&#8217;s value, because they espouse universal values.&#8221; He said the Charter 08 document calling for sweeping political change in China that landed Liu in jail didn&#8217;t specifically mention Taiwan. But he said Liu had never subscribed to Beijing&#8217;s insistence on claiming the island as its territory, nor its threat to annex Taiwan by military force if necessary. &#8220;He said Taiwan&#8217;s future should be decided by its people,&#8221; Tzeng said. Pillar of shame statue The New School for Democracy will also play host to another banned Hong Kong monument &#8212; the &#8220;Pillar of Shame&#8221; marking the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. The statue was first unveiled at a now-banned candlelight vigil commemorating the victims at Victoria Park on June 4, 1997, weeks before the city was handed back to China, and was on display at the University of Hong Kong until last year, when it was dismantled and removed despite protests from its creator, Danish sculptor Jens Galschiøt. Tzeng says he has no fears for his personal safety. &#8220;We have our national sovereignty and our national armed forces to protect us,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We&#8217;re not worried.&#8221; &#8220;The only concern is the shipment of the exhibits out of Hong Kong, and the safety of people there who are doing that.&#8221; Taiwanese rights activist Yang Sen-hong said the image of Liu Xiaobo is anathema to the CCP, but that at least he could become a &#8220;refugee&#8221; in Taiwan. &#8220;Liu Xiaobo has to be a refugee, even in statue form,&#8221; Yang said. &#8220;Naturally, Taiwan is willing to offer his statue a place of refuge.&#8221; &#8220;Taiwan is not China, nor Hong Kong: we are a single country on our own side,&#8221; he said. Shih Yi-hsiang of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights said Taiwanese rights activists are keen to support movements against oppression around the world, including Hong Kong and China. &#8220;Taiwan is involved in other action against oppression, not just in being concerned about the situation in Hong Kong,&#8221; Shih said. &#8220;I think we have an obligation to &#8230; show solidarity, whether it&#8217;s with Ukraine, Xinjiang or Tibet.&#8221; Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Thai authorities release Vietnamese dissident with UN refugee status](https://ij-reportika.com/thai-authorities-release-vietnamese-dissident-with-un-refugee-status/): A Vietnamese political dissident granted refugee status by the United Nations but held by immigration authorities in Thailand for possible deportation was released on bail, he told RFA on Wednesday. Authorities detained Chu Manh Son with four other Vietnamese refugees on April 8 when he went to the headquarters of the Royal Thai Police in Bangkok to request a police report for an immigration application to relocate to Canada with his family members, who also have U.N. refugee status. Son said lawyers helped to get him and another political refugee, Nguyen Van Them, released on bail on Tuesday, though Them’s wife, Nguyen Thi Luyen, and two children are still being held because they have tested positive for the COVID-19 virus. “Thanks to the endless efforts of our lawyers and U.N. representatives, late yesterday the Immigration Detention Center agreed to let our lawyers bail us out providing that we will have to show up at their office on a monthly basis,” Son told RFA. Thai police arrested Son after he failed to present a passport, which he did not have since he was forced to flee Vietnam in 2017 after being sentenced by a court in Nghe An province to 30 months in prison for “conducting propaganda against the state.” They transferred Son and the other refugees — a family of four, who also did not have passports — to the Immigration Detention Center (IDC) where they were held for possible deportation, RFA reported on Monday. After a hearing during which they all were charged with illegally residing in Thailand, they had to pay fines and remained in custody at the IDC to await deportation orders. “We were very worried because the judge ruled that we had to pay a fine and said that we could be deported,” Son said. In order to be freed on bail, Son said he and Them had to be verified as refugees by U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and directly managed by the organization, post the bail, and pay a COVID-19 test fee. Son said he alone paid nearly U.S. $2,000 in total for the fine, bail and coronavirus test. The lawyers are still working to get Luyen and her children released on bail to avoid possible deportation, he said. Vietnamese dissidents often flee to Thailand to avoid persecution by the government for political and religious reasons, though the country is not a signatory of the U.N.’s 1951 Refugee Convention, which prohibits sending refugees back to their home countries if they face threats to their life or freedom. People running to Thailand to escape persecution therefore face the risk of being arrested by immigration authorities and treated as illegal immigrants, though they seek help from the UNHCR’s office in Bangkok in hopes of being resettled in a third country. Translated by Anna Vu for RFA&#8217;s Vietnamese Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Taiwan issues 'survival handbook' to prep for possible Chinese invasion](https://ij-reportika.com/taiwan-issues-survival-handbook-to-prep-for-possible-chinese-invasion/): Taiwan has issued for the first time a “survival handbook” to guide its citizens in the preparation for a possible Chinese invasion in the future. The 28-page National Defense Handbook is where the general public can find “an emergency response guideline in a military crisis or natural disaster,” said the defense ministry, which is responsible for compiling and releasing the material. The raging war in Ukraine has heightened concerns that China would seize the opportunity when the world’s focus is on Europe to wage an attack against the island. Survival guidelines “I was surprised to hear about the survival handbook,” said 35-year-old Cathy Hsieh, a bank clerk. “I’ve never thought we’d need something like that but it’s good that they [the government] have made such precaution,” she said. The handbook is drawn from similar publications issued in Japan and Sweden, and contains illustrated guidelines on how to find shelters in the case of bombing and what to do in emergencies such as fires, air raids or natural disasters. It even teaches people how to differentiate warning sirens. One guideline tells citizens to not open the fridge door too often during a power outage to keep the contents cold. The handbook provides a set of QR codes for citizens to scan using their mobile phones to access needed information as well as a list of emergency numbers. Yet some Taiwanese say the handbook, albeit a nice initiative, is impractical. “When all the hell breaks loose, I don’t think people would want to rely on QR codes and mobile networks which for sure won’t be working,” said George Cai, a 28-year-old resident of Taipei. He said there should be rehearsals on how to use the handbook. Lien Hsiang joint exercise On Tuesday, the Taiwanese military also held a large-scale exercise “to rehearse the rapid response to a simulated attack by Chinese warplanes.” F-16 fighters, Indigenous Defense Fighters (IDFs), Apache helicopters, and other aircraft were dispatched as part of an effort to “strengthen the protection of important assets and counter airstrikes.” “The exercise is an important part of training to counter an attack by the People&#8217;s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF),” said Col. Sun Li-fang, Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense spokesman, at a press conference. A Chinese military expert was quoted by Chinese media as saying that both the drills and the handbook are “futile in resisting reunification.” Taiwanese people consider themselves citizens of an independent, democratic country but China claims the island is a breakaway province of China and vows to reunite it with the mainland, by force if necessary.  The Lien Hsiang joint exercise has been held annually since 2016 and involves the air force, army and the navy. The air force however took the center stage as Taiwan is seeing almost daily incursions by Chinese aircraft into its air identification zone (ADIZ). Since the beginning of April, 25 Chinese military aircraft including 16 fighter jets, six spotter planes, and three helicopters have been tracked in Taiwan’s ADIZ, according to the Ministry of Defense. An ADIZ is not a country’s sovereign airspace, but the extended area around it, and is closely monitored in case of illegal encroachment.
- [As Lao dam plans progress, farmers worry about compensation for lost land](https://ij-reportika.com/as-lao-dam-plans-progress-farmers-worry-about-compensation-for-lost-land/): Chinese developers are preparing to begin work on two major hydropower dams to be built on the Mekong River in Laos, projects government officials hope will bring the impoverished country closer to its goal of become the battery of Southeast Asia. But compensation and relocation packages for villagers affected by the massive infrastructure projects are still up in the air. The China-backed Pak Beng Dam will be built in the Pak Beng district of Oudomxay province in northern Laos, while the Pak Lay Dam will be built in the Pak Lay district of northern Laos’ Xayaburi province. They will be the newest hydropower projects among dozens of dams that Lao has constructed on the Mekong and its tributaries under its plan to sell around 20,000 megawatts of electricity to neighboring countries by 2030. In November 2021, Thai power authorities agreed to purchase power generated by the two dams, both located 60-80 km (35-50 miles) from the Thai border, and by the Nam Gneum 3 Dam on Nam River. NGOs and local communities have warned that the Pak Beng and Pak Lay dams will harm the Mekong’s ecosystem and the livelihoods of people living along the river. The Pak Beng is expected to displace around 6,700 people living in 25 villages, and the Pak Lay Dam is expected to force the relocation of more than 1,000 residents from 20 villages, sources told RFA in earlier reports. Though the Lao government sees power generation as a way to boost the country’s economy, the projects are controversial because of their environmental impact, displacement of villagers and questionable financial arrangements. A map shows the location of the impending Pak Beng Dam on the Mekong River in northern Laos&#8217; Oudomxay province. Credit: Mekong River Commission Draft MOU on tariffs China Datang Overseas Investment, the developer of the Pak Beng Dam, has begun moving machinery to prepare the site and to set up workers’ camps in anticipation of a power purchase agreement (PPA) to be signed in May with Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT), an official at the Lao Ministry of Energy and Mines told RFA on April 8. “They have begun transporting machinery equipment in order to build [workers’] camps as they are looking for a buyer,” he said. “The main buyer is Thai, but the agreement has not yet been signed.” Thailand is preparing a draft a memorandum of understanding on tariffs for power generated by the Pak Beng Dam and the impending Luang Prabang Dam before construction officially gets underway, said the official who declined to give his name because he is not authorized to speak with the media. The U.S. $3 billion, 1,460-megawatt Luang Prabang Dam will be built by Thailand’s Xayaburi Power Company Ltd. and Vietnam’s PetroVietnam Power Corp. The project is being financed by the Luang Prabang Power Company Ltd., a consortium of the Thai and Vietnamese power companies and the Lao government. Most villagers fish the Mekong and grow rice and raise livestock along it. People who live near the Pak Beng project will lose their farmland and have to relocate to another area. “Regarding the relocation of and compensation for affected villagers, the dam developer has not given details yet about how they will proceed,” a Pak Beng district official told RFA on April 8. Villagers fear being shortchanged in the compensation they receive for their losses, as have other Laotians affected by hydropower dam projects. “They’ve marked where the houses will be relocated, and now it is quiet,” said one affected villager who requested anonymity. “We are worried. The impact is huge.” A resident of the district’s Homxay village said there is not much land available for farming in other parts of the district because most of it is in a mountainous area. ‘Nobody wants to relocate’ Meanwhile, China’s Sinohydro Corp. has begun to prepare for construction on the U.S. $2 billion Pak Lay Dam, an official at the Energy and Mines Department of Xayaburi province told RFA on April 1. “They’ve started, but the relocation of the families has not,” he said. “As soon as the power purchase agreement is signed, they [Sinohydro] will bring all the equipment and materials to the dam site.” The developer has been preparing to build an access road, a workers’ camp and a power source at the site since late 2021, said the official who declined to be identified because he is not authorized to speak to the media. The preconstruction phase is moving ahead, but Lao and Sinohydro officials have not yet met with the residents, he said. A resident of Phaliap village in Pak Lay district confirmed that neither Lao government officials nor company representatives have formally spoken with villagers. “They haven’t talked to us yet,” he said. “Nobody wants to relocate, and nobody wants to lose their farms, rice fields and cassava plantations.” A resident of the district’s Nongkhai village, who expects to be displaced by the dam, expressed similar concern over the unsettled issues. “We’re worried about the relocation, resettlement and compensation,” he said, adding that he has heard that villagers will receive 30 million kip (U.S. $2,500) per hectare of land, which they believe is a low-ball figure. “We’re hoping that what they pay us is closer to what our land is worth or comparable to the market value,” he said. “As for the relocation, we don’t know yet where we’re going to move to.” A map shows the location of the impending Pak Lay Dam on the Mekong River in northern Laos&#8217; Xayaburi province. Credit: Google Earth ‘Dam will worsen the impact’ The Love Chiang Khong Group, a Thai NGO, has said the dam will reduce the fish population and destroy the ecosystem of the Mekong in the area. “The river’s water level is fluctuating right now because of Chinese dams and the Xayaburi Dam,” said a representative of the organization, who did not want to be named so he could speak freely. The Thai-owned U.S. $4.5 billion Xayaburi Dam on the...
- [Hong Kong resident held in southwest China for taking part in protests](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-resident-held-in-southwest-china-for-taking-part-in-protests/): Authorities in the southwestern Chinese region of Guangxi have detained a resident of Hong Kong for taking part in the city&#8217;s pro-democracy protests, RFA has learned. The woman, whose birth name is Tan Qiyuan, but who is widely known by her nickname Nicole, was detained by police in Guangxi&#8217;s Liuzhou city in April 2021 when she took a trip to her hometown after many years of living in Hong Kong. Nicole has been incommunicado since April 2, 2021, when she messaged a cousin saying she was flying back to Liuzhou that afternoon. Nicole&#8217;s friend, who wanted to be identified only his nickname A Feng, said she was on the way to celebrate her mother&#8217;s birthday. He messaged her on April 2, but never got a reply. &#8220;I thought she might reply later. I waited and waited but she didn&#8217;t reply,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I started to think something wasn&#8217;t right, and she still hasn&#8217;t replied to this day and &#8230; her phone is switched off.&#8221; &#8220;She told me she&#8217;d be back in Hong Kong by the end of April at the earliest, or maybe in May &#8230; she wasn&#8217;t going to stay very long in mainland China,&#8221; he said. &#8220;She knew, and everybody else knew, that it was dangerous.&#8221; Activists said little is known of Nicole&#8217;s fate, as her family are likely being targeted by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)&#8217;s &#8220;stability maintenance&#8221; teams, which place people under surveillance and prevent them from contacting the outside world in politically sensitive cases. A fellow activist surnamed Duan in the southern city of Shenzhen, who has some knowledge of Nicole&#8217;s fate, said the authorities in China have ways to track people arriving across the border. &#8220;If you enter the CCP&#8217;s jurisdiction with your mobile phone, even if you switch it off, they can track you if you are deemed sensitive,&#8221; Duan said. &#8220;The CCP also intimidates the relatives and friends of the parties involved, meaning that many of them daren&#8217;t speak out,&#8221; he said. Hong Kong rights activist Liao Jianhao believes Nicole was detained for her role in recent mass protest movements in Hong Kong. &#8220;The whole case is likely about prosecuting her for taking part in the Occupy Central movement of 2014 and the anti-extradition movement of 2019,&#8221; he told RFA. Prior to her detention, Nicole was an active citizen journalist, using Twitter to post real-time news about the protests, and resident of Hong Kong, although she was born in Guangxi. Liao said she is currently being held in the Liuzhou Detention Center on charges of &#8220;incitement to subvert state power.&#8221; &#8220;One of her [alleged] crimes was hosting mainland Chinese visitors to Hong Kong,&#8221; he said. &#8220;She was also part of the press team and was involved in helping those injured [in clashes with police].&#8221; Liao said the authorities may have targeted Nicole in the hope of obtaining the names of mainland Chinese residents who supported the 2019 protest movement in Hong Kong. She had earlier taken part in demonstrations in support of the 47 former opposition lawmakers and pro-democracy activists arrested for &#8220;subversion&#8221; under a draconian national security law imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing from July 1, 2020. &#8220;I took part in a demonstration in Causeway Bay on Sept. 27, 2019, and Nicole gave me first aid when I was hit by a tear gas grenade,&#8221; Liao said. &#8220;I am very grateful to her.&#8221; He said it was illegal under Chinese law to detain someone for a crime committed outside mainland Chinese jurisdiction. &#8220;The location was Hong Kong, which has nothing to do with [the authorities] in Liuzhou,&#8221; Liao said. &#8220;Liuzhou shouldn&#8217;t be able to bring a case against Nicole under Chinese law, but everyone knows what kind of country China is.&#8221; He said the CCP regards the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement as an attempt by foreign powers to instigate a &#8220;color revolution&#8221; in the city. &#8220;They think it&#8217;s a political activity created by hostile factions aimed at overthrowing CCP rule, which is actually pretty absurd,&#8221; Liao said. Former Hong Kong University of Science and Technology student Zhu Rui, who was also born in mainland China, said the CCP won&#8217;t stop pursuing mainlanders who took part in the Hong Kong protests. &#8220;We are facing an unscrupulous and evil regime,&#8221; Zhu told RFA. &#8220;We have to keep telling ourselves to keep trying to damage the CCP regime for as long as we&#8217;re free, because once they catch us, we&#8217;ll just be prisoners or hostages.&#8221; &#8220;Nicole was merely expressing her demands for freedom, democracy and the rule of law peacefully like any other Hongkonger,&#8221; Zhu said. &#8220;These were freedoms we should have had, but which were taken from us by the CCP.&#8221; He said CCP leader Xi Jinping is imposing oppressive controls on Hong Kong along the lines of the oppression of Uyghurs and other ethnic groups in Xinjiang. &#8220;They&#8217;re putting everyone they lay eyes on in jail,&#8221; Zhu said. Lydia Wong, a researcher at the Georgetown University Asian Law Center who specializes in Hong Kong, said the Chinese authorities are increasingly keen to pursue dissidents far beyond mainland China, citing the fact that Beijing made Hong Kong National Security Law applicable to anyone of any nationality, anywhere in the world. &#8220;You can commit these actions anywhere in the universe, but you can still be arrested wherever police in Hong Kong or mainland China are able to arrest people,&#8221; Wong told RFA. &#8220;It is entirely plausible that they will use their domestic judicial system to target certain people they think are participating in the anti-China movement in Hong Kong,&#8221; she said. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Only a few thousand tigers survive in Asia in 2022](https://ij-reportika.com/only-a-few-thousand-tigers-survive-in-asia-in-2022/): With the lunar Year of the Tiger well under way, various assessments show that only a few thousand tigers at the most are surviving in South and East Asia. Tigers once ranged from Eastern Turkey and the Caspian Sea to the south of the Tibetan plateau eastward to Manchuria and the Sea of Okhotsk. According to The World Wildlife Fund (WWF), tigers were also found in northern Iran, Afghanistan, the Indus Valley of Pakistan, and the islands of Java and Bali. Today, the Swiss-based WWF says that rampant poaching and unchecked habitat destruction have shrunk the tigers’ range by more than 95 percent. At the beginning of the 20th century, wild tigers are said to have numbered some 100,000. The total number of wild tigers has declined to as few as 3,200, with more than half of them to be found in India. In India, it’s against the law to attempt to kill an endangered tiger except in self-defense or by the special permission granted by a wildlife protection act. Offenders face a minimum of three years in prison unless the tiger was deemed a man-eater by a court. Of the 13 “tiger-range” nations of the world, seven—Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam—are located in Southeast Asia. In 2010, the governments of 13 countries where tigers still roam met for the first time in St. Petersburg. There they committed themselves to a doubling of the population of wild tigers by 2022, the Lunar New Year of the Tiger. Debbie Banks with the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), which also has offices in Washington, D.C., says criminal gangs capture wild tigers and sell their bones and pelts, which can be processed into luxury home décor items. The bones are also sometimes used for medicinal purposes despite a lack of scientific evidence that this remedy works as claimed. The largest markets for these items appear to be found in China, Hong Kong and Vietnam. Although the health claims associated with tiger body parts are dubious, the benefits of wild tigers to their surrounding environment are widely accepted by scientists. According to the WWF, wild tigers “play an important role in maintaining the harmony of the planet’s ecosystems.” Tigers prey on “herbivores,” such as cows, deer and sheep, which feed on forest vegetation. They thus help to preserve vegetation that can be consumed by humans. The WWF also notes that tigers are “incredibly adaptable” and “can survive in vastly diverse habitats … under extreme temperatures.” That characteristic gives some cause for optimism. The tenacity of tigers may be enough for the species to avoid extinction, if only humans stop killing them. Dan Southerland is RFA&#8217;s founding executive editor.
- [Myanmar Central Bank official confirmed alive after assassination attempt](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-central-bank-official-confirmed-alive-after-assassination-attempt/): The deputy governor of Myanmar’s Central Bank is alive and recuperating at a military hospital in the country’s commercial capital Yangon, junta officials said Tuesday, dispelling reports that she had died after being shot last weekend. Than Than Swe was shot by unknown assailants at her apartment complex in Yangon’s Bahan township on April 7 amid a public outcry over a new directive ordering the sale of all U.S. dollars and other foreign currency at a fixed rate to licensed banks. Initial reports by the Associated Press and domestic media suggested that the bank official had died at the hospital from injuries she sustained in the shooting, citing sources close to the deputy governor and a local official.  On Tuesday, junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun told RFA that Than Than Swe is being treated at Yangon’s Mingaladon Military Hospital and is in stable condition. “There were no deaths. She is recovering,” he said. “We are now seeing attacks on civilians who have nothing to do with the security forces. We are currently working to prevent such attacks with a system that includes security forces and the public,” he added, without providing details. Aung Kyaw Than, director general of the Central Bank’s financial management department, also confirmed to RFA that Than Than Swe is alive and undergoing medical treatment. Than Than Swe, 55, was sworn in as deputy governor of the Central Bank after the military seized power from Myanmar’s democratically elected National League for Democracy (NLD) government in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup. Believed to be the most senior junta official to be shot since the takeover, she is known to have led efforts to reduce the cash flow in the banking and financial system under the NLD, according to a report by The Irrawaddy online news agency. The attack on Than Than Swe came days after an unpopular April 3 bank directive ordering all foreign currency, including the U.S. dollar, to be resold within one day of entering the country to licensed banks at a fixed rate of 1,850 kyats to the dollar. The order also requires government approval before any foreign currency can be sent overseas. Attacks on junta targets On the day of the attack, a group known as the Yangon Region Military Command (YRMC) announced that it had “successfully carried out” the attack on Than Than Swe as it’s “latest target.” The YRMC is an anti-junta paramilitary group that has pledged loyalty to Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) and claims to have carried out more than 1,100 attacks since the NUG declared war on the military in September. On Tuesday, a member of the Free Tiger Rangers told RFA that his group of anti-junta fighters was involved in the attack and that Than Than Swe had been targeted for supporting the military regime and carrying out its policies. “We attacked Than Than Swe, the Central Bank deputy governor,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. He said the attack was the last objective of a seven-month operation targeting junta members and their supporters and had been carried out “under the direction of the NUG Ministry of Defense.” The Ranger said his group considers anyone who did not join the nationwide Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) that has seen thousands of people leave their jobs to take part in anti-junta protests “our enemies.” “[However] we don’t kill every non-CDM employee. We only try to get rid of those who have become a huge help to the junta and brought trouble to the people,” he said. The NUG, which has distanced itself from attacks on civilians, did not immediately respond to RFA requests for comment on Tuesday. No ‘normalcy’ in Myanmar Than Soe Naing, a military observer, told RFA that targeted attacks like the one on Than Than Swe are likely to rattle the junta. “The military wants to show the world that the situation in the country is stable and peaceful, and they can do whatever they want,” he said. “These activities [by the opposition] are effective because they reject the military’s claim that normalcy has returned to Myanmar.” Than Soe Naing added that while he didn’t want to comment on whether targeted attacks on civilians like Than Than Swe are right or wrong, they are “surely a consequence of the military coup.” Junta security forces have killed at least 1,745 civilians and arrested nearly 10,200 others since February 2021, mostly during peaceful anti-coup demonstrations, according to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [US human rights report cites China's violations in Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Tibet](https://ij-reportika.com/us-human-rights-report-cites-chinas-violations-in-xinjiang-hong-kong-and-tibet/): China’s abuses targeting Uyghurs, Hongkongers and Tibetans are among some of the worst human rights violations around the world, the U.S. Department of State said Tuesday. “The Chinese government continues to commit genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang against predominantly Muslim Uyghurs among other minority groups, to erode fundamental freedoms and autonomy in Hong Kong, and to carry out systematic repression in Tibet,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a press briefing before the release of the department’s 2021 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. The report, which the State Department is required to release each year by law, details the state of human rights and worker rights in 198 countries and territories. The administration of former President Donald Trump officially determined in January 2021 that abuses in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Regions (XUAR) amounted to state-sponsored genocide and crimes against humanity. President Biden’s administration has agreed with the designation and has worked with its international allies on measures to hold the Chinese government to account. The 90 pages in the report that are dedicated to China focus on the XUAR and the arbitrary imprisonment of more than 1 million civilians in extrajudicial internment camps and the additional 2 million who are subjected to daytime-only “re-education” training. The report also cited evidence of forced labor, forced sterilizations of women, coerced abortions, more restrictive birth control policies, rape and torture, and draconian restrictions on freedoms of religion and expression. The report cited an Oct. 21, 2021, report by RFA that said more than 170 Uyghurs, including woman and minors, in Hotan (in Chinese, Hetian) were detained by national security authorities on China’s National Day holiday because they allegedly displaying resistance to the country during flag-raising activities. Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress, said the State Department’s report is important because it highlights the most urgent crises around the world. “The Uyghur genocide is one of them,” he told RFA. “This reports is important in the sense that it must be used as a reminder that international inaction in the face of Uyghur genocide will lead to the deterioration of human rights around the world.” “The international community must act,” he said. “The Uyghur people have suffered enough in the past five years.”Campaign for Uyghurs also welcomed the human rights report. “Uyghurs are really delighted to see this strong stance to call China out for its crimes of genocide, and standing firmly on the values that ought to be advocated by the United States precisely concerning liberty, respect and freedom for the principles of humanity,” said the organization’s executive director Rushan Abbas in a statement. The report also notes rights violations in Hong Kong, Tibet and other parts of China, includingserious limits on free expression and the media. Journalists, lawyers, writers and bloggers have suffered from physical attacks and criminal prosecution. The U.S. supports human rights by meeting with advocates, journalists and others to document abuses and works with the Treasury Department to apply sanctions and visa restrictions on human rights abusers, Blinken said. It also collects, preserves and analyzes evidence of atrocities. In March, the U.S. government imposed new sanctions against Chinese officials over the repression of Uyghurs in China and elsewhere, prompting an angry response from Beijing and a pledge to respond with sanctions of its own. At the time, Blinken said the U.S. would restrict visas on unnamed individuals he said were involved in repressive acts by China against members of ethnic and religious minority groups inside and outside the country’s borders, including within the U.S. Blinken noted that even though the U.S. has its own human rights shortcomings, the country openly acknowledges them and tries to address them. “Respecting human rights is a fundamental part of upholding the international rules-based order which is crucial to America’s enduring security and prosperity,” he said. “Governments that violate human rights are almost always the same ones that flout other key parts of that order.”
- [Vietnam charges former cop for recording his traffic spat with police](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-charges-former-cop-for-recording-his-traffic-spat-with-police/): A former Vietnamese policeman who in January was sentenced to two years over a traffic spat received an additional charge for recording his interaction with traffic police, state media reported. Le Chi Thanh was once an officer at Han Tan Prison in the southern coastal province of Binh Thuan. He was fired in July 2020 after he accused his supervisor of corruption. Afterwards he became an active social media user, often livestreaming videos that monitored traffic police. Police in Ho Chi Minh City impounded his car on March 2, 2021, for occupying a lane reserved for two-wheeled vehicles. He argued with the police in an attempt to stop them from taking his car, while recording and livestreaming the incident. He was later arrested on April 14, 2021, on the charge of “resisting officers on official duty.” The Ho Chi Minh City Law online newspaper reported that the procuracy in the southern province of Binh Thuan filed an additional charge of “abusing the rights to freedom and democracy to violate the state’s interests, legitimate rights and interests of organizations and individuals” in accordance with Article 331 of Vietnam’s Penal Code. Thanh’s lawyer, Dang Dinh Manh, confirmed the new indictment to RFA’s Vietnamese Service. If convicted, Thanh could get two to seven years on top of his earlier two-year sentence, which he has since appealed. During his pre-trial detention, in a video posted on October 29, 2021, Le Thi Phu, Thanh’s mother, called for justice for her son. She said in the video that detention officers had tortured him by cuffing his hands and legs and hanging him over a dung pit for seven days in a row. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Lao villagers beaten, detained by soldiers in land dispute](https://ij-reportika.com/lao-villagers-beaten-detained-by-soldiers-in-land-dispute/): Five Lao villagers were beaten and detained Sunday in a village north of Vientiane by soldiers who said the group and their families were living on land owned by the country’s military, according to Lao sources. Around 40 families had lived in Sisawat and Houay Nam Yen villages in Naxaithong district since 1989, when they fled homes damaged by floods at the nearby Nam Houm Reservoir. Soldiers claiming ownership of the land began around five months ago to build there, one local villager told RFA. “Officers from Section 513 of the Vientiane Military Division have been building shelters and a gate on the land for the last four or five months, barring us from farming there,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “And on Sunday, they detained five of us and took them away in a truck, beating them and threatening them with rifles.” Around 60 to 70 soldiers are now present at the conflict site to prevent disturbances and make further arrests, she added. Villagers have lived and farmed in the disputed area for 20 to 30 years, another local source said, also declining to be named. “Our parents lived there until they died, and before the soldiers came. But the soldiers now tell us that we’re living on their land, even though they have no documents to show our village chief proving their ownership. “Their own word is all they have,” she said. Military officers are required to make a report to village authorities of any incident in the area involving their troops, the source added. “But they just took our villagers to a truck and drove away,” she said. Speaking to RFA, a local village authority confirmed Sunday’s arrests. “The five villagers are now reportedly being held in the Vientiane Military Division and are not being allowed to see their relatives and family members,” the source said. Vientiane’s Agriculture and Forestry Department had formerly used the disputed land for feeding livestock. But when the Nam Houm Reservoir collapsed in 1989, villagers moved to the area’s higher ground to escape the flood, he said. The disputed land is now fertile and well suited to feeding livestock and raising crops for cash, he said, adding that villagers had invited army officers to a meeting to help resolve the conflict, but that officers had ignored their request. “The Vientiane Military Division said this was the duty of Section 513, while Section 513 said it was the military division’s responsibility,” the local village authority said. The five detained villagers were residents of Houay Nam Yen village and had temporary documents proving their right to their land, the source said. “But the military officers took these away from them,” he added. Naxaithong district deputy head Phouvone Phong-Latkeo said, however, that local villagers have no right to the disputed land, saying the Vientiane Agriculture and Forestry Department had handed it over to the military following the Nam Houm flood and that it was now property of the state. “Villagers grabbed and repurposed the land without authorizing documents. In fact, the land is reserved for the Nam Houn Reservoir and does not belong to them,” he said, adding that villagers displaced in 1989 by the reservoir’s collapse had already been compensated for their loss. A gate erected by Lao soldiers at the entrance to disputed land is shown on March 25, 2022. Photo: Citizen Journalist The five villagers detained by soldiers on Sunday had not been formally arrested but were taken away for “re-education” because they had gathered others to stage a protest and cause disruptions, Phouvone said. “Thus, the officers had to assert their control and prevent more problems.” Sources told RFA on Tuesday that the five now held are being questioned by military authorities, with no word given yet on when they may be released. “The military will release them later, but they may still end up being held for a while,” a Naxaithong district official said. “Their families have asked the military for permission to visit and bring them some food, but their request was denied. “The military officers haven’t said when they’re going to release the villagers. But some rumors say they might be freed sometime after the Lao New Year on April 15,” a district villager added. Reached for comment, family members of some of those now held declined to speak about the case, fearing retaliation by authorities, while one family member was ordered on Monday to delete a video he had taken of the arrests. An official of the People’s Council, meanwhile, said his office had received no reports of the conflict or arrests. “A report may have been sent to the economic committee, though, because the conflict involves land,” he said. Some of the families living on the 25-hectare area of land now claimed by the army had inherited the land from their parents even before the 1975 communist takeover of Laos, and had paid property taxes on the land ever since, another villager told RFA. “The military says that the land belongs to the army, but everybody knows that the land belongs to the villagers,” the villager said, also speaking on condition of anonymity. “Before building anything, the military should at least have asked for approval from the village authorities, but in this case they began building things without any warning,” he said. Translated by Ounkeo Souksavanh for RFA’s Lao Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [As North Korea’s economy struggles, disabled soldiers suffer more than most](https://ij-reportika.com/as-north-koreas-economy-struggles-disabled-soldiers-suffer-more-than-most/): North Korean soldiers who were injured during their service are now unable to depend on the state to care for them due to worsening economic conditions, sources in the country told RFA. Officially known as “honorable soldiers,” many of the disabled rely on the government for basic support. For those who are incapable of working, a sudden drop-off in government-provided stipends and food rations can be devastating. “Everyone is having a difficult time because the prices of goods are ridiculously expensive and business has not yet recovered,” a resident of Paegam county in the northern province of Ryanggang told RFA’s Korean Service April 6 on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The honorable soldiers are facing a miserable situation, especially as the nation’s benefits have been reduced due to economic difficulties,” she said. The source discussed the case of an honorable solder in her neighborhood who lost both of his legs and cannot work. “There is no woman who wants to marry him, so he is living with his mother, who is the only person who can care for him. Since last summer, though, her health has become worse since she is getting older,” the source said. “She normally has a vegetable business that she’s been doing for a long time, but she is no longer able, so their livelihood has been badly affected,” she said. Honorable soldiers are classified as grade 1-3 depending on the severity of their injuries. Soldiers who have lost multiple limbs or have become paralyzed and must rely on others for basic tasks are classified as special grade. These soldiers are supposed to get support from the government for the rest of their lives, the source said. “But I know that there is no other support except for a small amount of corn due to the poor economic situation of the country. The military provided firewood after his mother stopped her business, but now even that support has been cut off,” she said. The daily supply of corn from the government amounts to less than 500 grams (1.1 lbs.), hardly enough to live on, the source said. Meat and cooking oils are rarely ever provided in the government support ration. “I haven’t seen our honorable soldier in a while. His wheelchair is broken and he isn’t able to go outside,” the source said. “If you go to the market in Hyesan, there’s a place there that sells Chinese-made wheelchairs, but they cost 200,000 to 400,000 won (U.S. $33 to $66). With no money he cannot afford to get a new one,” she said. The source said she did not know how the soldier had lost both of his legs but many of the injuries to soldiers occur when they are assigned to construction duty. If an accident occurs, their injuries are officially recorded as having occurred while the soldier was on a military mission. The soldiers are often reluctant to reveal how they were injured, except to their closest family members, according to the source. Living conditions for honorable soldiers in the northwestern province of North Hamgyong is “appalling,” a resident of the province’s Orang county told RFA. “The honorable soldiers in Pyongyang and other large cities work at  ‘Honorable Soldier Factories’ which operate at full capacity because they are important to the country, but out here in the small-town rural areas the factories for them aren’t running,” he said. “In our county, we have more than 70 honorable soldiers with relatively minor disabilities. Most of them work at the honorable soldier fishing gear factory, but it has been a long time since they shut down due to a lack of electricity and raw materials,” the second source said. The source said that when the factories shut down, the able-bodied were able to support themselves through other means. “The ordinary residents can survive by going out to sea to fish or going to the mountains to collect firewood to sell, but the honorable soldiers cannot do those things because they can’t move around freely. The lives of the honorable soldiers are far more miserable than those of the able-bodied,” he said. “Even now, the number of honorable soldiers continues to increase. They either have an injured limb or they lost an eye, or things like that. The authorities say that those soldiers are the precious treasures of the country and that they should be taken care of, but there’s no actual support.” Translated by Claire Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Shanghai extends citywide lockdown after Beijing steps up pressure over zero-COVID](https://ij-reportika.com/shanghai-extends-citywide-lockdown-after-beijing-steps-up-pressure-over-zero-covid/): Authorities in Shanghai extended a citywide lockdown on Tuesday, in the face of growing public anger over ongoing restrictions under ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping&#8217;s zero-COVID policy. &#8220;Shanghai&#8217;s epidemic prevention and control is at the most difficult and most critical stage,&#8221; municipal health official Wu Qianyu told journalists. &#8220;We must adhere to the general policy of dynamic clearance without hesitation, without wavering.&#8221; Wu&#8217;s announcement came amid public anger over food shortages amid a citywide logistics crisis, the separation of parents and children in compulsory isolation facilities and the culling of family pets. More than 1,000 Shanghai residents petitioned online for asymptomatic children to be allowed to isolate at home, but the petition was no longer available on the social media platform WeChat on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Shanghai reported 13,086 new asymptomatic coronavirus cases on Monday compared with 8,581 the previous day, following a mass testing program that covered almost all of the city&#8217;s 26 million residents. The announcement came after vice premier Sun Chunlan &#8220;rushed&#8221; to to Shanghai from the northeastern city of Jilin to call on the city not to relax its grip on the virus. &#8220;We must adhere unswervingly to the general policy of &#8216;dynamic zero&#8217; without hesitation, have a resolute and firm attitude, and act swiftly and powerfully,&#8221; Sun told municipal leaders in comments reported by state news agency Xinhua. Sun called for expanding mobile cabin hospitals and designated hospitals, preparing a sufficient number of isolation rooms, tracking down infected persons to achieve &#8220;daily clearing and settlement&#8221; of cases, and &#8220;strictly increasing community management and control and guaranteeing basic living conditions and regular medical care,&#8221; the report said. An online video clip showed Shanghai municipal party secretary Li Qiang inspecting a residential compound under lockdown, where he was mobbed by residents wanting to share issues. &#8220;We want to ask if you&#8217;re going to solve our livelihood issues,&#8221; one resident asks Li, who proceeds to listen to some of their concerns. Reports of price-gouging A Shanghai resident surnamed Zheng said the lockdown is a crude way of managing the virus, and its impact on people&#8217;s daily lives has been huge. &#8220;I wrote a letter to the mayor myself, and they replied that it had been passed on, but no one came, so I had to find a way to buy food by myself,&#8221; Zheng told RFA. &#8220;It is hugely troublesome because courier companies aren&#8217;t allowed to deliver now, supermarkets aren&#8217;t allowed to open and stores are closed,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They said they would organize group buying, but the vegetables were horribly expensive.&#8221; &#8220;We haven&#8217;t seen any of the vegetables sent by other provinces to support us here in Shanghai,&#8221; Zheng said. Zheng said local officials had been accused of price-gouging in the group-buying business and some had resigned. &#8220;The party secretary and mayor of Cai township in the northeast of Pudong stepped down &#8230; they earned 20 to 30 million yuan out of just a few days [of lockdown],&#8221; he said. A man looks outside from his window during a COVID-19 lockdown in Shanghai&#8217;s Jing&#8217;an district, April 12, 2022. Credit: AFP &#8216;No different than a lockdown&#8217; While authorities announced on Monday that residents of thousands of residential communities would be allowed to move around in a limited manner for the first time in weeks, a resident surnamed Chen said this didn&#8217;t appear to have been implemented on the ground. &#8220;It just allowed people to move around within their compound, not to go out,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s no different than a lockdown.&#8221; Meanwhile, seriously ill patients across the city remain locked out of life-saving medical care by COVID-19 restrictions and ward closures that are being blamed in part on the diversion of the city&#8217;s healthcare personnel to compulsory mass testing programs. Economist Lang Xianping posted on Weibo that his mother had died of kidney failure after multiple PCR tests had failed to yield results soon enough to get her admitted to hospitals in the city. &#8220;I was in shock,&#8221; Lang wrote. &#8220;My mom left me forever after waiting at the door of the ER for four hours.&#8221; He said he had been unable to see her one last time. &#8220;This tragedy could have been avoided,&#8221; Lang wrote. &#8216;Little better than a slum&#8217; Tensions were running high in locked-down communities, with people shouting out of windows that they were &#8220;going crazy&#8221; or &#8220;dying&#8221; or &#8220;need supplies.&#8221; Several videos circulating online showed authorities unable to respond to the explosion of numbers in need of quarantine beds, with 6-12 people to a room in hastily built field hospitals. In one, the person shooting the scene says the facility is &#8220;half-finished&#8221; and that everyone had to go and fight for their own bedding. &#8220;It&#8217;s little better than a slum,&#8221; the person says. Another video, titled &#8220;one person, one box&#8221;, showed confirmed COVID-19 patients sleeping in rows of long cardboard boxes alongside their personal belongings. Li Zhenghong, president of the Shanghai Taiwan Business Association, said member companies are having trouble sourcing supplies of coal, gas, water, electricity and food to take care of their employees. &#8220;Logistics is a bigger problem,&#8221; Li told RFA. Taiwan epidemiologist Ho Mei-hsiang said the lockdown would have to lift eventually, which would give rise to a larger wave of infections. &#8220;Even if they&#8217;re successful [in getting to zero] after 20 or 28 days, the question is what happens next?&#8221; Ho said. &#8220;There is still a bunch of virus circulating outside [Shanghai]. The next time the virus comes in, will they lock down again?&#8221; &#8220;As long as the virus exists in the world, completing the first three doses of vaccine should be the top priority, not lockdowns,&#8221; Ho said. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Hong Kong police are ‘weaponizing’ the law against outspoken media mogul: lawyers](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-police-are-weaponizing-the-law-against-outspoken-media-mogul-lawyers/): Lawyers for jailed pro-democracy media magnate Jimmy Lai, who is awaiting trial under a draconian national security law, have called on the United Nations to investigate the multiple criminal cases against him. Lai&#8217;s legal team led by Caoilfhionn Gallagher at Doughty Street Chambers filed an urgent appeal over &#8220;legal harassment&#8221; against him, saying he had been jailed simply for exercising his right to freedom of expression and assembly and the right to peaceful protest. The 74-year-old founder of the now-defunct Next Media empire, whose flagship Apple Daily newspaper was forced to close amid an investigation by the national security police, has been repeatedly targeted by the Hong Kong authorities, the firm said in a statement on its website. &#8220;Hong Kong authorities have repeatedly targeted Mr Lai, &#8230; and this has intensified since the passing of the controversial National Security Law in 2020,&#8221; it said. It said Lai faces a &#8220;barrage&#8221; of legal cases, including four separate criminal prosecutions arising from his attendance at and participation in various protests in Hong Kong between 2019-2020, including most recently in relation to his participation in a vigil marking the 1989 Tiananmen massacre in Beijing, for which he received a 13-month prison sentence. He is currently serving concurrent prison sentences in relation to all four protest cases, while awaiting trial for &#8220;collusion with foreign powers&#8221; and &#8220;sedition&#8221; in relation to editorials published in Apple Daily. The appeal calls on the United Nations to consider all of the cases against Lai “as they constitute prosecutorial, judicial and legal harassment of Mr. Lai, because of his advocacy of democracy and the rights to protest and freedom of expression in Hong Kong,&#8221; it said. &#8220;The appeal also highlights intimidatory tactics used against Mr. Lai’s lawyers, which raise further concerns,&#8221; the statement said. Lai&#8217;s son Sebastien Lai welcomed the move. &#8220;My dad’s trials are piling up with no end in sight,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The CCP [Chinese Communist Party] may have swapped their guns for a gavel. But with patience, a gavel can do as much damage, and make much less noise.&#8221; &#8220;I urge the United Nations Special Rapporteurs to investigate what the CCP through the Hong Kong government is doing to my father and dozens of other brave Hong Kongers.&#8221; Gallagher said the cases against Lai are &#8220;spurious,&#8221; and that Lai could spend the rest of his life in prison simply for speaking out to defend Hong Kong&#8217;s freedoms. &#8220;[The] appeal details how the Hong Kong and Chinese authorities are weaponizing the law against him – using the pretext of national security and a range of legal measures not only to silence and punish him for expressing his views, but also to deter others from doing the same,&#8221; she said. The Hong Kong national security police said the allegations were &#8220;groundless,&#8221; and that the national security law &#8220;safeguards &#8230; many rights and freedoms.&#8221; Lai has been in Stanley Prison for nearly 18 months. The appeal came as Hong Kong activist Max Chung pleaded guilty to &#8220;organizing an unauthorized assembly&#8221; in Yuen Long in protest at an attack by white-clad mobsters wielding sticks on passers-by and passengers in the Yuen Long MTR station on July 21, 2019. He was convicted by District Court judge Amanda Woodcock on April 11. Some 288,000 protesters went to Yuen Long on the day of the protest, which drew widespread public anger against the police, who didn&#8217;t respond to multiple emergency calls from the scene until nearly 40 minutes had elapsed. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Myanmar’s military reportedly suffers heaviest casualties since coup](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-military-reportedly-suffers-heaviest-casualties-since-coup/): Heavy fighting between junta troops and a joint force of ethnic fighters and prodemocracy paramilitaries in Myanmar’s Kayin state resulted in the largest number of casualties the military has suffered in clashes since it seized power last year, according to sources. Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) and anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) fighters squared off with the military on Sunday after some 45 soldiers from the 207th Battalion, led by Maj. Thet Naing Oo of the 44th Division, approached the town of Lay Kay Kaw near the border with Thailand at around 2 a.m. on Sunday. The KNLA’s Cobra Column reported that the junta forces began the attack at 5 a.m. with 40 mm guns, supported by heavy artillery fire from Swei Daw Hill and nearby Let Khat Taung township, as well as airstrikes. It said that by the time the fighting was done at around 11 p.m. on Sunday, the military had retreated, leaving 12 soldiers dead. Padoh Saw Tawney, the foreign affairs officer of the Karen National Union (KNU), told RFA’s Myanmar Service that the military suffered its worst casualties since its Feb. 1, 2021, coup. “There weren’t many of them, only about 40 or 50. We could say we wiped out the entire military column,” he said. “They lost their commanding officer. One officer with three stars, the rank of a company commander, surrendered. We also seized a total of nine firearms and a lot of ammunition. And we lost two soldiers from our side.” Padoh Saw Tawney said that the commanding officer, Maj. Thet Naing Oo, was killed in the fighting and that the company commander, Capt. Tin Lin Naing, “will be dealt with in accordance with the KNU’s code of conduct for prisoners of war.” RFA was not able to independently confirm the number of casualties in the fighting. Hpa-Tarah, the mayor of Lay Kay Kaw, said two military jets dropped “at least 16 bombs” in a bid to take control of the town. “The fighting began at about 5 a.m. and ended at about 11 p.m., and then jet fighters flew in and bombed the area about 15 times between 11 p.m. and 2 p.m. [on Monday]. Two jets at a time — it was frightful,” he said. “Their artillery units from the hills also shelled us. About 50 or 60 rounds. The shelling finally stopped at about 5 p.m. [on Monday].” Residents of five villages in the area fled their homes because of the airstrikes on Sunday night, he said. The airstrikes damaged about 30 houses and a school in Lay Kay Kaw, and burned down five houses, according to residents. KNLA Cobra Column spokesman Myo Thura Ko Ko told RFA that the military might have used “chemical bombs” in the airstrikes. “After the bombing raids, there was a strange smell,” he said. “Some of our comrades said it was kind of a sweet smell and some yellow dust was seen floating in the air. Some of them suffered from spells of dizziness.” Attempts by RFA to contact junta Deputy Information Minister Zaw Min Tun for comment on the fighting went unanswered Monday. A school destroyed by a military airstrike in Lay Kay Kaw, April 11, 2022. Credit: KNLA Cobra Column Refugees face food shortage An aid worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told RFA that thousands of residents have been sheltering on Myanmar’s side of the border since Dec. 15, when fighting first broke out between the military and anti-junta forces in the region. “There aren’t many refugees from Lay Kay Kaw on the Thai side,” he said. “There are about seven [refugee] camps on this side of the border. According to the latest findings, there are more than 12,000 in seven groups. Along the banks of the Moei River [which separates Myanmar and Thailand], from Phlu Lay village to Kyauk Khat village. All spread out.” Myet Hman, a refugee on the banks of the Moei River, said there were more than 900 people from 600 households in his camp, adding that there is a severe food shortage. “The problem is that we need food badly. Currently, roads are closed on the Thai side and aid workers do not dare to come to us from the Myanmar side. Donors cannot come to us because of several checkpoints,” he said. “We are in dire need of food. We can only provide about a dozen milk-cans of rice to each family this month.” He said the ongoing fighting makes it difficult to estimate when residents will be able to return to their homes. KNU officials have reported daily clashes in areas under their administration, including the townships of Kawkareik and Kya Inn Seik Kyi, and say they are likely to intensify. A video posted to social media purports to show anti-junta fighters opening fire on a military outpost on Yangon&#8217;s Inya Road, On April 11, 2022. Credit: Citizen journalist Yangon resistance Meanwhile, various armed resistance groups told RFA on Monday that they had launched a dozen attacks on military-held areas of Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon over the past three days. A fighter with the Free Tiger Rangers said that a bomb exploded at a pro-junta garment factory in Yangon’s Hlaing Tharyar township at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, damaging vehicles. “The junta wants to show that there is peace and things are normal in Myanmar. The revolutionary forces cannot let that happen,” said the fighter, who declined to be named. “The current situation is that we had a military coup, and we will fight the regime in whatever way we can.” Separately, a video posted on social media Monday purports to show a group of anti-junta fighters in a car open fire on a military and police outpost on Yangon’s Inya Road on Sunday evening, killing a police officer. Other anti-junta attacks in the Yangon region over the past three days included the killing of Maj. Kaday Phyo Aung, the Lanmadaw Township’s administration officer, by unknown gunmen, as well as the killing of two plainclothes...
- [North Korea appears to be rebuilding tunnels at closed nuclear testing facility](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-appears-to-be-rebuilding-tunnels-at-closed-nuclear-testing-facility/): North Korea appears to be restoring tunnels at its Punggye-ri nuclear testing site, nearly four years after Kim Jong Un publicly closed it in a move that observers said was an attempt to ease tensions in the region. Foreign journalists who attended the closing ceremony Kim Jong Un presided over in May 2018 in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong reported that tunnels used for testing had been destroyed. But later reports noted that only the entrances to the tunnels were demolished and that maintenance activity at the site had resumed. The Open Nuclear Network (ONN), a non-profit organization headquartered in Vienna, Austria, reported last week that North Korea is believed to have built an entrance to tunnel 3, south of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site. The ONN report was based on satellite imagery taken between March 24 and April 6. Residents of the province who were near the Punggye-ri test site told RFA’s Korean Service that they too have seen evidence of construction activities. “A few days ago, I went to my relative’s house in Kilju county close to Punggye-ri, and I saw trucks carrying construction debris,” a resident of Musan county, in the same province, told RFA’s Korean Service April 7 on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The trucks unloaded the construction debris in the open space at nearby Chaedok rail station. Then the construction waste was loaded onto a freight train using a forklift. As soon as it was loaded, the freight train departed,” she said. Access to the part of the station where the debris is stored and loaded is very limited due to a military presence there, the source said. “I heard from my relative who works at Chaedok station that the debris area is surrounded by armed soldiers and is off-limits to the public,” she said. “According to my relative, the rocks carried by the freight train are from the tunnel restoration site of the Punggye-ri nuclear testing site, but no one knows why the debris is loaded onto freight trains … instead of being dumped at the nuclear test site,” said the source. Restoration work at the site has been ongoing around the clock at the site. “Soldiers from the engineering units under the General Political Bureau of the Ministry of Defense are mobilized day and night to excavate and restore the Punggye-ri nuclear test site.” A former high-ranking North Korean official who escaped and resettled in South Korea told RFA that it was likely that the orders to restore the tunnels came from the very top. “The engineer corps under the General Political Bureau is in charge of important construction projects promoted by the party’s Central Committee. If they were the people mobilized to restore the Punggye-ri nuclear test site, it must be considered that this order comes from the supreme commander,” the former official said, referring to Kim Jong Un. Local residents noticed when construction equipment and materials rolled into Kilju county at the beginning of this year, one county resident told RFA. “I don’t know when the tunnel restoration of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site started, but it was in mid-February that we saw things like trucks and excavators loaded with rebar and wood and other construction materials entering the village at Punggye-ri,” the Kilju resident said on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “The nuclear test site tunnels are located in the mountains,” he said. “As trucks loaded with construction materials and excavators are heading toward the tunnels in the mountains where the nuclear test site is located, it seems that the tunnel restoration started in earnest from mid-February.” The Kilju resident also said he had no idea where they were taking the debris after it was loaded at Chaedok rail station. “No one can go near the debris because it is so heavily guarded.  If you take a tiny stone from the pile of rubble at the station, you can be treated as a spy and accused of trying to sell it … to hostile countries, “he said. The two sources both said they were able to see debris unloaded and loaded at the station from a distance of about 100 meters (109 yards) away. RFA reported in March that movement had been detected in satellite imagery of the test site, and experts predicted the site could be completely restored in six months at the latest. Of the four tunnels at the test site, all except the first, which was heavily damaged during North Korea’s first nuclear test in 2006, could possibly be restored, Joseph Bermudez, a senior fellow for Imagery Analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told RFA in March. Translated by Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Relatives of detained Uyghurs forced to work in Xinjiang factories](https://ij-reportika.com/relatives-of-detained-uyghurs-forced-to-work-in-xinjiang-factories/): Hundreds of family members of detained Uyghur residents of a small community in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region have been forced to work in local government-run factories, a source with knowledge of the situation and a local police officer said. At least 100 residents from Sheyih Mehelle hamlet in Ghulja (in Chinese, Yining) county have been imprisoned by authorities, a security guard from the area told RFA in an earlier report. The hamlet has a population of more than 700 people and is part of Cholunqay village, which has more than 10,000 residents. Authorities have been transporting their relatives, mostly women and some elderly men, by bus to the factories where they work 10-12 hours a day under the watch of staff assigned to oversee them, a source familiar with the situation said. During the first two years of the detentions from 2017 to 2019, Chinese authorities forced the family members of those who had been incarcerated or taken to internment camps to attend political study sessions, the source said. But in the last three years, they have forced the hamlet residents to work in factories for monthly wages of 1,000-2,000 yuan (U.S. $157-$314). China is believed to have held 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim Turkic minorities in the camps since 2017. Beijing has said that the camps are vocational training centers and has denied widespread and documented allegations that it has mistreated Muslims living in the region. Authorities take the family members to factories in Yamachang on the outskirts of Ghulja city, a police officer in Cholunqay village said. “There are around 500 people working in that [place]. … There are factories there that make clothes, socks and gloves,” he said. RFA previously reported that Yamachang comprised more than 20 internment camps set up in 2017 and 2018. The officer, who said he did not know if the residents were paid for their work, told RFA that government officials are assigned to take the families of the detainees to the complex at 6 a.m. The residents are returned to the hamlet at 6 p.m. so they can take care of their children and elderly parents. Besides the mostly women and a few elderly men who work at the complex, at least one ill resident has been forced to work there, he said. “They are mostly women and elderly,” he said. “There’s even one who is always ill. “They have school-age kids, and some have elderly to take care at home,” he said. “That’s why they are brought back in the evening.” Some of the hamlet residents are also working in factories in Aruz farm field, the police officer said. The Chinese women’s affairs director in Cholunqay village said that people who have “graduated from re-education” are among the laborers who work in the factories in Yamachang and at the Aruz farm fields. Gulzire Awulqanqizi, an ethnic Kazakh Muslim who was held at the Dongmehle Re-education Camp in Ili Kazakh (in Chinese, Yili Hasake) Autonomous Prefecture’s Ghulja city from July 2017 to October 2018, told RFA that after her release, she had been forced to work at a glove factory in the Aruz farm fields. The woman, who now lives in the U.S. state of Virginia, said authorities transported her by bus from her dormitory to the factory, where she received only 600 yuan a month for her work. When she returned home at the end of the day, she had to undertake political studies and was subjected to police interrogations. “We went to work from 7 a.m. onwards, and we had 40 minutes for lunch,” she said. “After the factory work, we went to our dormitories.” Translated by RFA’s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Malaysian Police arrest fugitive allegedly close to US-sanctioned Chinese triad boss](https://ij-reportika.com/malaysian-police-arrest-fugitive-allegedly-close-to-us-sanctioned-chinese-triad-boss/): Malaysian police announced the arrest of a suspected criminal leader who is said to be close to the Chinese underworld, following his surrender to law enforcement here on Monday after more than a year in hiding. Nicky Liow Soon Hee, who faces 26 counts of money laundering according to the police, had been on the run since March 2021 when authorities smashed his syndicate and arrested more than 60 suspects, including some law enforcement officers, police said. Nicky is alleged to be close to the United States-sanctioned Chinese triad leader Wan Kuok Koi (commonly known as Broken Tooth), the head of the 14K Triad, one of the largest Chinese organized crime gangs in the world. “[Nicky] Liow Soon Hee also known as Nicky Liow was arrested at 11 a.m. at the Federal Police Commercial Crime Department office in Jalan Tun Razak after he turned up and surrendered to police,” Commercial Crime Director Kamarudin Md. Din said. “Liow will be charged with 26 counts of money laundering under &#8230; the Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act 2001,” he added. Liow is scheduled to be produced at Shah Alam court in Selangor on Tuesday. He is staring at a prison sentence of 15 years and hefty fines, if convicted. Last month, the Federal Police Commercial Crime Department obtained an arrest warrant for Liow after it filed charges against him at the Shah Alam Court for money laundering offenses under the instructions of the Attorney General’s Chambers, according to Kamarudin. Liow’s Nicky Gang operated a telecommunication scam where it tricked victims, mostly in China, into handing over large sums of money, allowing the gang to allegedly amass millions of ringgit, police said. The syndicate would also target investors from China by promising them huge returns through investments in cryptocurrency, real estate and the foreign exchange market. During a series of raids in March 2021 to take down the Nicky Gang, police arrested more than 50 people and seized 773,000 ringgit (U.S. $187,500) along with 35 vehicles valued at 8.86 million ringgit ($2.14 million) under provisions of the Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act of 2001. Among those arrested were Liow’s two brothers, Liow Wei Kin and Liow Wei Loon, but they were later freed after prosecutors dropped charges against them. A series of sanctions by the U.S. Treasury Department on Wan Kuok Koi, the Macau underworld kingpin allowed the Royal Malaysia Police to establish links to the Nicky Gang, Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay, then the police chief of Johor state, told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service, in an interview last April. “It was crucial information as based on the tip of the iceberg. We were able to study the serious and extensive operations of the local syndicate, which has international connections,” Ayob told BenarNews. “It is very serious and we are very concerned what would have happened should we have failed to react accordingly and slam the brakes on their operation.” He described Liow’s and Wan Kuok Koi’s relationship as close. “Liow and Broken Tooth are as close as siblings,” Ayob said. “They have known each other since 2018 and Broken Tooth … had since been providing Liow with patronage and security assurance under his 14K Triad.”
- [Thai authorities detain Vietnamese dissident with UN refugee status](https://ij-reportika.com/thai-authorities-detain-vietnamese-dissident-with-un-refugee-status/): A Vietnamese political dissident granted refugee status by United Nations is being detained in an immigration detention center in Thailand and faces possible deportation, he told RFA on Monday. Chu Manh Son said that authorities detained him on April 8 when he went to the headquarters of the Royal Thai Police in Bangkok to request a police report for an immigration application to relocate to Canada with his family members, who already have obtained U.N. refugee status. Thai police asked Son to present his passport, but he did not have it as he was forced to flee Vietnam in 2017 after being sentenced by a court in Nghe An province to 30 months in prison for “conducting propaganda against the state.” The authorities arrested Son with four other Vietnamese refugees when they went to police headquarters for the same reason, he said. “When I and my friends, Mr. Them and Ms. Luyen, went to the Judicial Department of Royal Thai Police to get our criminal records, they asked for my personal papers,” he told RFA from the Immigration Detention Center (IDC). “I gave them my U.N. card. Then they asked for my passport, but I did not have it.” Nguyen Van Them, Nguyen Thi Luyen and their two children — Nguyen Tien Dat, 16, and Philip Nguyen Nhat Nam, five months — did not have passports either, said Son. “After that, they asked us to stay and called the immigration police,” he said, adding that the police accompanied the group to the IDC. Vietnamese dissidents often flee to Thailand to avoid persecution by the government for political and religious reasons. But Thailand has not signed the U.N.’s 1951 Refugee Convention, which prohibits sending refugees back to their home countries if they face threats to their life or freedom. People running to Thailand to escape persecution therefore face the risk of being arrested by immigration authorities and treated as illegal immigrants. A day after their arrest, the five attended a court hearing during which they were charged with illegally residing in Thailand, Son said. “On the morning of April 9, the police accompanied us to a hearing during which we were fined 10,000 baht [U.S. $300] each,” he said. “I had to pay an extra 1,000 baht fine because I had entered the country illegally. After paying the fines, we were taken back to the IDC to wait for a deportation order.” Son’s case in Vietnam also involved 14 young Catholics and Protestants. He said that his family left Vietnam and entered Thailand illegally in 2017 to avoid jail. “As a former political dissident chased by the Vietnamese police, if I am repatriated to Vietnam, I will face a very tough sentence,” he said. RFA has not been able to reach Thai authorities to find out if Son and the others will be deported. The Refugee Protection Department of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Thailand declined to provide information on the five for confidentiality reasons. Translated by Anna Vu for RFA’s Vietnamese service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Seriously ill patients die after being denied hospital care in Shanghai lockdown](https://ij-reportika.com/seriously-ill-patients-die-after-being-denied-hospital-care-in-shanghai-lockdown/): Patients in Shanghai are being locked out of life-saving medical treatment as the city pushes ahead with Xi Jinping&#8217;s zero-COVID policy, RFA has learned. As large swathes of the city remain under lockdown and thousands of new infections are reported every day, hospitals are increasingly closing their doors to patients, even those in need of dialysis and cancer treatment. Jiading district resident Wang Zhumin&#8217;s 77-year-old father &#8212; who would typically need dialysis three times a week &#8212; hasn&#8217;t been able to get it for seven days, she said. &#8220;I keep seeking out the neighborhood committee and the municipal government, but they tell me they can&#8217;t get him into Jiading Central Hospital, and that we can&#8217;t come in,&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;I said, so does that mean he has to stay home and wait for death?&#8221; Wang&#8217;s father once received dialysis three times a week at Haihua Hospital near his home, but that facility was initially hit by staff shortages and a lack of beds, then announced it was shutting down the dialysis clinic because of a COVID-19 outbreak. Neither the neighborhood committee, the city government nor emergency services have been able to help, she said. &#8220;They told me to find a hospital myself &#8230; like kicking a ball around,&#8221; she said. She later took her father to the Jiading Central Hospital and waited all day on the off-chance of a dialysis slot, but went home with nothing. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t see hide nor hair of a doctor,&#8221; Wang said. Repeated calls to the Haihua Hospital and the Jiading Central Hospital ER rang unanswered on April 7 and April 8. According to Haihua Hospital&#8217;s WeChat account, the hospital has dispatched more than 500 people to &#8220;the front line&#8221; to support the mandatory, city-wide COVID-19 testing effort. The Jiading Central Hospital also sent some 100 medical staff to Pudong to support the PCR testing operation there on March 28, according to publicly available information. More than 20,000 patients in Shanghai rely on regular dialysis to stay alive, and new appointments were already few and far between. A report in the China News Weekly said many dialysis facilities have been shut during lockdown, with their staff in compulsory isolation centers after testing positive for COVID-19. Desperate patients &#8212; including those needing dialysis, cancer treatment or those with complex chronic illnesses &#8212; frequently post appeals to social media calling for help from somewhere; anywhere. Shen Ruiyin, a 77-year- old Shanghai resident, died on the evening of March 28 due to heart failure caused by going without kidney dialysis for a prolonged period. His son Shen Li took to Weibo to complain that his father had been transferred between three difference hospitals after testing positive for COVID-19 on March 26. He died alone in the hospital, with no family at his side, without the medication he needed, and with no dialysis, Shen Li wrote. Qi Guoyong, a 79 -year-old Shanghai resident, lost his wife Zhang Siling at the end of March. &#8220;I am very saddened by the death of my wife, but I can&#8217;t do anything about it,&#8221; Qi told RFA. &#8220;I hope the hospital can give me some kind of answer&#8230; I just want them to give me an explanation.&#8221; Qi said the hospital is &#8220;too busy&#8221; to worry about his wife&#8217;s death, with a huge backlog of cancer patients awaiting chemotherapy. But he wants to know if Zhang, who was passed around three different hospitals after presenting with abdominal pain on March 22, was misdiagnosed; if anything could have been done to save her. Zhang was initially treated for pancreatitis, before developing sepsis likely caused by a bowel obstruction, Qi said. A Hangzhou resident surnamed Lei, 33, said she had brought her terminally ill mother to Shanghai to seek treatment at the Shanghai Fudan Cancer Hospital on March 23, and surgery was scheduled within seven days from her admission. But lockdown hit, and Lei&#8217;s mother&#8217;s surgery was repeatedly postponed, with doctors telling Lei that her mother had to wait two weeks because they weren&#8217;t Shanghai residents. &#8220;We are really desperate,&#8221; Lei said. &#8220;My mother&#8217;s metastatic tumor could still be surgically removed, but it&#8217;s been more than 60 days since her last chemotherapy, and the tumor could grow &#8230; or metastasize at any time.&#8221; &#8220;My mother has diabetes, and there is no food or medicine available around here &#8230; this has been devastating for my mother&#8217;s mental health.&#8221; It&#8217;s a humanitarian disaster that has rippled through Shanghai since lockdown came. At least two asthma patients have died after being refused treatment by medical staff on the grounds of disease prevention, according to online reports. Miao Xiaohui, former chief physician at Shanghai Changzheng Hospital, wrote in an April 7 article that the government should be taking steps to address the issue of non-COVID excess deaths caused by the restrictions. He cited figures reported in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) as saying that the mortality rate from diabetes in China increased by 83 percent during 2021, while the suicide rate has risen by 66 percent, compared with before the pandemic. Meanwhile, local officials charged with imposing draconian stay-at-home restrictions have been resigning en masse, citing a lack of understanding of the impact of the zero-COVID policies on the ground, and a lack of support for those tasked with enforcing them, many of whom are retirees and volunteers. Wu Yingchuan, branch CCP secretary at Shanghai&#8217;s Changli Garden residential compound, said in a resignation letter that the committee were resigning as they were unable to meet testing and contract-tracing requirements as required by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). &#8220;There are too many things that we grassroots officials needed to know from the start, but we weren&#8217;t told,&#8221; Wu wrote, adding that his neighborhood committee had tried their hardest to arrange transportation for chemotherapy and dialysis patients, but had been told repeatedly not to send them to hospitals. The Hancheng neighborhood committee sent an open letter to residents on April 9, saying that its members had been separated from their families since March 17. &#8220;We are also doing our best...
- [Vietnamese girl’s 1940 birth certificate could support Paracels sovereignty claim](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnamese-girls-1940-birth-certificate-could-support-paracels-sovereignty-claim/): New evidence has emerged that may help support Vietnam’s claims over the Paracel islands in the South China Sea, currently occupied by China. A copy of a birth certificate issued in June 1940 claims that Mai Xuan Quy, a girl, was born at 3 p.m. on Dec. 9, 1939, on Pattle Island to Mai Xuan Tap, a Vietnamese meteorologist and his wife, Nguyen Thi Thang. The paper was witnessed by Nguyen Tang Chuan, a medical doctor, and Do Duc Mui, head of the local radio communication station. As such, it indicates that French Indochina, of which Vietnam was part, had administration of the island and Vietnamese people worked there. That could be significant evidence as claimants to disputed features in the South China Sea may seek to show they were the first to have an official presence there. Pattle is a coral island, part of the Crescent Island group of the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea. It served as the main base for the colonial-era French Indochinese and later, South Vietnamese occupation of the Paracels. Vietnam, Taiwan and China all claim sovereignty over the entire Paracel archipelago but China has occupied it since 1974. Peaceful life During the 1930s, the French colonial government built some infrastructure including a weather station, a medical facility and a post office on Pattle Island. Mai Xuan Tap, father of Mai Kim Quy, was among the civilians sent there to man the weather station when it was first set up in 1938. He brought with him his wife and two daughters, Mai Thi Phi, then two years old, and a newly born baby, Mai Thi Phuong. The eldest daughter, Mai Thi Phi, who is now 86 and lives in Ho Chi Minh City, said: “Our family lived in Pattle four years, from 1938 to 1941. My sister Mai Kim Quy was born there.” “Unfortunately Quy died in 1942 after we returned to the mainland.” “Our life on Pattle Island was quiet and peaceful. The Vietnamese living there were mainly civil servants working at the weather station, the post office and the hospital,” Phi recalled. “We had never seen any Chinese person on the island during the whole time we were there,” she said. Mai Xuan Tap died in 1983, his wife died much earlier in 1954. After returning to Saigon, the couple had seven more children including three sons and four daughters. The birth certificate of Mai Kim Quy was passed to the eldest son, Mai Xuan Phu, for safekeeping. “My family has donated the birth certificate to the Vietnamese foreign ministry,” said Mai Thi Phi. “The ministry said this is a valuable document that can play an important role in defending the country’s territorial claims in the South China Sea,” she added. The birth certificate issued in June 1940 by the French colonial authority on Pattle Island in the Paracels for Mai Xuan Quy. Credit: Mai Xuan Tap family ‘Useful evidence’ The Paracel archipelago is now occupied and fully controlled by China, with the biggest feature – Woody Island – being extensively developed. China has also carried out land reclamations and substantial upgrades of its military infrastructure there, according to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. Yet disputes remain over the islands’ ownership. Contested territorial claims are hard to verify, especially because until the 20th century, there was no permanent military nor civilian presence of any country there.  China, Vietnam and Taiwan all have ample historical documents to back up their claims, including maps, declarations and different materials. Vietnam, which was part of French Indochina, said the troops of Annam (the then-name of colonial Vietnam), and after that, civilian administrators, set up base on the Paracels before anybody else. Mai Xuan Quy’s birth certificate may serve as a historical evidence of physical acts of administration on the Paracel islands, said Bill Hayton, associate fellow in the Asia-Pacific Program at Chatham House, an independent U.K. think tank. “My argument would be that this [the birth certificate] doesn’t swing the argument decisively but it is very useful evidence that Annam was in effective occupation of some of the Paracels at that time,” Hayton said. “If the case ever went to a tribunal of some kind, the Chinese would put forward their own evidence and the judges would decide which case was stronger.” “Such cases aren’t decided by vague claims or printing names on maps but on proving that a state had administrative control over a feature &#8211; and registering a birth on the island to a civil servant is quite strong evidence of that,” the British analyst said. His argument, however, is being rejected by some historians who point out that China’s stance would be to stick to historical claims. “The French Government stated at the time that they only occupied the Paracels ‘before any other Power did so’, meaning Japan. This was widely reported in the press,” said Mark Hoskin, an independent researcher and lecturer on China’s maritime history and law. This action was taken because the Japanese had occupied Hainan and implemented a blockade of the Southern Chinese coastline. Japan was threatening France due to the transport of arms via Indochina to China. “So the French occupation of the Paracel islands had strategic and military reasoning, but was not sovereignty related. The French statements themselves negate any potential for a sovereignty claim,” Hoskin added.
- [Hong Kong police arrest senior journalist, radio host on colonial 'sedition' charge](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-police-arrest-senior-journalist-radio-host-on-colonial-sedition-charge/): Hong Kong national security police on Thursday arrested a senior journalist for &#8216;sedition,&#8217; as Beijing&#8217;s preferred candidate and former police chief John Lee launched his campaign to win the city&#8217;s top job. Former TVB News producer and former RTHK radio show host Allan Au, who has also had columns in Stand News and in the Ming Pao newspaper, was taken away from his home in Kwai Chung at around 6 a.m. local time on suspicion of &#8220;sedition&#8221; under colonial-era laws. Au&#8217;s arrest for &#8220;conspiring to publish seditious material&#8221; came after his sacking from RTHK in June 2021 as the government moved to exert editorial control over the broadcaster, amid an ongoing crackdown on public dissent and political opposition that began with the July 1, 2020 imposition of the national security law on Hong Kong by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). &#8220;The arrest of veteran journalist Allan Au is a further blow to press freedom in Hong Kong,&#8221; the U.K.-based rights group Hong Kong Watch said in a statement on its website, adding that his arrest appeared to be part of an ongoing national security case involving former senior editors at Stand News, Chung Pui Kuen and Patrick Lam. &#8220;The international community must condemn this latest attack on the free press in Hong Kong, and work to pressure China and the Hong Kong Government to stop targeting journalists and to release political prisoners in Hong Kong,&#8221; Hong Kong Watch CEO Benedict Rogers said. Hong Kong Journalists&#8217; Association (HKJA) chairman Ronson Chan said he was &#8220;very sad&#8221; at the news of Au&#8217;s arrest. &#8220;We worked together and used to hike together,&#8221; Chan said. &#8220;Everyone grew up reading Au&#8217;s [columns]. His name represented the [best of the] Hong Kong press &#8230; He explained the news in a calm and rational way.&#8221; Chan said shifting &#8220;red lines&#8221; about what constitutes acceptable public speech have become the new norm in Hong Kong, which is now very similar to mainland China. The HKJA said in a statement on its website: &#8220;The HKJA is deeply concerned about the arrest, and that it will further damage freedom of the press in Hong Kong.&#8221; It said Au had also worked as a lecturer at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)&#8217;s journalism department, and &#8220;often shared his experience with the younger generation.&#8221; &#8220;We call on the government to protect the freedom of the press and speech enjoyed by Hong Kong citizens in accordance with the [law],&#8221; it said. The CCP-backed Global Times newspaper said more arrests could follow, citing a police statement. Former police officer and security chief John Lee, in a file photo. Credit: AP Photo Crackdown on public dissent The national security law ushered in a citywide crackdown on public dissent and criticism of the authorities that has seen several senior journalists, pro-democracy media magnate Jimmy Lai and 47 former lawmakers and democracy activists charged with offenses from &#8220;collusion with a foreign power&#8221; to &#8220;subversion.&#8221; Au&#8217;s arrest came as former police officer and security chief John Lee launched a high-profile campaign to succeed Carrie Lam as chief executive, with pro-CCP media singing his praises. Lee is widely regarded as Beijing&#8217;s intended winner of a closed-circle &#8220;election&#8221; slated for May 8. The Global Times said Lee was committed to ensuring that nobody will be allowed to stand in elections in Hong Kong unless they are truly loyal to Beijing. Lee joined the Hong Kong Police Force in 1977, rising through the ranks before being made undersecretary for security in September 2012, and secretary for security from 2017 to 2021. He recently resigned as the city&#8217;s No. 2 official, chief secretary for administration, to pursue the campaign for Lam&#8217;s job. &#8220;Coming in the same week that the former police officer and security minister, John Lee, was anointed as Carrie Lam’s successor, the arrest of Allan Au confirms what many of us feared, that Beijing will continue its crackdown on human rights and press freedom in the city,&#8221; Rogers said in a statement on Au&#8217;s arrest. Former pro-democracy lawmaker Ted Hui, who recently had his family&#8217;s assets frozen by national security police, in a file photo. Credit: Reuters Assets frozen Meanwhile, former pro-democracy lawmaker Ted Hui, currently in exile in the U.K., has had his family&#8217;s assets frozen by national security police, he said in an April 9 Facebook post. Hui&#8217;s family is now subject to a restraining order under the national security law that prevents him or his family members from disposing of any assets in Hong Kong, according to a copy of the official document posted to Facebook. Hui said the move was a form of political persecution &#8220;using judicial means.&#8221; &#8220;This is the second time I have been robbed by the Hong Kong government &#8230; using shameful methods,&#8221; he wrote, calling on the international community to impose further sanctions on Hong Kong officials responsible for the move. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [ASEAN foreign ministers to meet in Washington before summit with US](https://ij-reportika.com/asean-foreign-ministers-to-meet-in-washington-before-summit-with-us/): Southeast Asian foreign ministers will meet “unofficially” in Washington on Wednesday to discuss the Myanmar junta reneging on a consensus with ASEAN to move the country back towards democracy, Malaysia’s foreign ministry said. At the meeting to be held on the eve of a two-day U.S.-ASEAN summit in the American capital, Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah will call for unofficial engagement by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations with Myanmar’s parallel civilian National Unity Government (NUG), the ministry said Monday. “The meeting will be held on the 11th in Washington,” Saifuddin&#8217;s press secretary told BenarNews. “It will be held face to face as most leaders will be there.” The official also confirmed that Saifuddin had told a local newspaper, The Star, that the May 11 meeting was being held unofficially and to discuss the post-coup crisis in Myanmar. “We will put forward several views on how we can ensure the 5PC is implemented properly,” the minister said in an interview Saturday with The Star. Saifuddin was referring to a five-point consensus agreed upon among ASEAN members, including the Burmese junta, which overthrew the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi on Feb. 1, 2021, three months after her party won re-election by a landslide. Most analysts agree that implementation of the consensus, which was reached on April 24 last year, has been a colossal failure. ASEAN envoys appointed by successive chairs of the regional bloc have not been able to meet with all parties concerned, and the junta’s forces have unleashed even more violence after agreeing to the consensus. More than 1,800 people, mostly civilians, have been killed by Myanmar’s security forces since the coup, and nearly 11,000 people have been arrested, charged or sentenced by the military regime. The consensus had called for the “immediate cessation of violence”; a constructive dialogue among all parties; the mediation of such talks by a special envoy of the ASEAN chair; provisions of humanitarian assistance coordinated by ASEAN; and a visit to Myanmar by an ASEAN delegation, headed by the special envoy, to meet with all parties. ‘Engage the NUG’ Meanwhile, Saifuddin, who had earlier said he would propose that ASEAN start an informal dialogue with the NUG and the National Unity Consultative Council, reiterated that he would make this proposal at this week’s meeting. The NUCC includes representatives of the NUG, civil society groups, ethnic armed organizations, and civil disobedience groups. “It’s okay for us to show impartiality but we should engage [the NUG] because according to the 5PC, we need to engage all stakeholders,” he said. This did not imply ASEAN was taking sides, he noted. Besides, Saifuddin had said in late April that he already contacted the NUG. “We have no business in choosing sides. We have to take into consideration that the NUG is a government that was formed through an election and the NUCC is the grouping of all kinds of organizations, parliamentarians, civil society organizations, ethnic groups and regional groups,” Saifuddin told The Star. The Malaysian foreign minister’s comments came about a week after the Myanmar junta’s foreign ministry reacted furiously to his earlier suggestion that ASEAN engage unofficially with the NUG. On May 3, the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper quoted the junta’s foreign ministry as saying it “protests and rejects” the Malaysian foreign minister’s remarks, because “they could abet terrorism and violence in the country, hampering the Myanmar Government’s anti-terrorism efforts and infringe international agreements related to combatting terrorism.” Separately, a group of Southeast Asian parliamentarians on Monday urged ASEAN and the U.S. to take the opportunity of their meeting next week to initiate tougher action against the Myanmar military. “We urge the U.S. and ASEAN to adopt much stronger measures than those taken so far, including the suspension of Myanmar’s membership in the group, travel bans in the region for Min Aung Hlaing and his generals, and targeted sanctions against the leaders of the coup,” ASEAN parliamentarians for Human Rights said in a statement.
- [Hong Kong's one-horse leadership poll marks end of city's special status: analysts](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kongs-one-horse-leadership-poll-marks-end-of-citys-special-status-analysts/): Hong Kong&#8217;s one-horse leadership poll, which selected former security chief John Lee &#8212; the only candidate &#8212; for the city&#8217;s top job at the weekend, has wiped out any distinction between the city and the rest of mainland China, commentators said on Monday. Lee, a former police officer who oversaw a violent crackdown on the 2019 protest movement, was &#8220;elected&#8221; by a Beijing-backed committee under new rules imposed on the city to ensure that only those loyal to the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) can hold public office. Ninety-nine percent of the 1,500-strong committee voted for Lee, who was the only candidate on the slate. Lee, who takes office on July 1, the anniversary of the 1997 handover to China, vowed to &#8220;start a new chapter&#8221; in Hong Kong, which has seen waves of mass, popular protest over the erosion of the city&#8217;s promised freedoms in recent years. He also denied that anyone had been detained or imprisoned for &#8220;speech crimes&#8221; under a draconian national security law imposed on the city by Beijing from July 1, 2020, saying that people were only taken to court because of their &#8220;actions.&#8221; Incumbent chief executive Carrie Lam said Saturday&#8216;s &#8220;election&#8221; showed why a citywide crackdown on dissent and political opposition, which included the changes to electoral processes, was needed. &#8220;[The] chief executive election was very important, because &#8230; it meant we were able to fully implement a political system in which Hong Kong is ruled by patriots,&#8221; Lam told reporters. She thanked Beijing for restoring &#8220;stability&#8221; in Hong Kong with the national security law and the electoral changes. The national security law ushered in a citywide crackdown on public dissent and criticism of the authorities that has seen several senior journalists, pro-democracy media magnate Jimmy Lai and 47 former lawmakers and democracy activists charged with offenses from &#8220;collusion with a foreign power&#8221; to &#8220;subversion.&#8221; &#8220;National security education&#8221; &#8212; a CCP-style propaganda drive targeting all age-groups from kindergarten to university &#8212; is also mandatory under the law, while student unions and other civil society groups have disbanded, with some of their leaders arrested in recent months. Chan Po-ying (2nd R) of the League of Social Democrats waits as police question two of her colleagues before they hold a protest against the selection process of the city&#8217;s chief executive in Hong Kong , May 8, 2022. Credit: RFA. &#8216;Steady erosion of political and civil rights&#8217; In a joint statement, the foreign ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S. criticized Lee&#8217;s &#8220;election&#8221; as &#8220;part of a continued assault on political pluralism and fundamental freedoms.&#8221; “The current nomination process and resulting appointment &#8230; further erode the ability of Hongkongers to be legitimately represented. We are deeply concerned about this steady erosion of political and civil rights and Hong Kong’s autonomy,” they said. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Lee&#8217;s selection had &#8220;violated democratic principles and political pluralism in Hong Kong.&#8221; Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Beijing believed that Lee would lead a new administration and the people of Hong Kong to &#8220;a new prospect of good governance.&#8221; A Taiwan-based Hongkonger who have only the surname Wong said the city had entered a &#8220;new era,&#8221; referencing the political ideology of CCP leader Xi Jinping. &#8220;What is this era? It is one of rule by a military regime and of white terror of a kind that Taiwan has seen before; an era of dictatorship,&#8221; Wong said. &#8220;I don&#8217;t think there is any more room for breakthroughs or changes to the way things are developing for civil society in Hong Kong, or to the system,&#8221; he said. &#8220;There&#8217;s no going back from this.&#8221; A former 2019 protester who gave only the nickname Joker said he had also left his home city for democratic Taiwan, and has no prospect of going back there any time soon. &#8220;It makes no difference to me whether John Lee comes to power or not; the government has had no respect for us since [the protests],&#8221; he said. &#8220;For me, Hong Kong is no longer the Hong Kong I once knew. It is no longer our home.&#8221; Former Causeway Bay bookstore manager Lam Wing-kei, also exiled in Taiwan, said the process had accelerated quicker than he had expected. &#8220;Things are worse in Hong Kong than I had previously thought they would get,&#8221; Lam told RFA. &#8220;It&#8217;s just like &#8230; [the rest of China] &#8230; The main thing now is obedience; obeying orders from central government,&#8221; &#8216;A tragedy for Hong Kong&#8217; Taiwan-based current affairs commentator Sang Pu said Lee is likely to take an even harder line on matters deemed &#8220;national security&#8221; by Beijing than Carrie Lam. &#8220;John Lee is a security chief, not a decision-maker; he&#8217;s the white glove [concealing the iron fist] of the CCP,&#8221; Sang told RFA. &#8220;It&#8217;s clear from his record that he has a tough style, and may be even more vicious than either Carrie Lam or [her predecessor] Leung Chun-ying.&#8221; &#8220;[For example,] I understand that prisons in Hong Kong are becoming more and more indistinguishable from prisons in China,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I think CCP will seize even more control of Hong Kong in future, with religion, families and communities deeply impacted &#8230; no different from Xinjiang or the Soviet Union.&#8221; &#8220;This is a tragedy for Hong Kong.&#8221; Huang Chieh-chung, associate professor of international affairs and strategy at Taiwan&#8217;s Tamkang University, said Lee will also likely preside over even harsher national security legislation under Article 23 of Hong Kong&#8217;s Basic Law. He said it was a move in the wrong direction. &#8220;The best thing would be for Beijing to govern Hong Kong as little as possible, and let the people of Hong Kong decide what the [differences between Hong Kong and China are],&#8221; Huang said. &#8220;The more Hongkongers have a right to speak up, the better.&#8221; Fan Shih-ping, professor at the Institute of Politics at Taiwan Normal University, said any distinction between Hong Kong and mainland China has been eroded with Lee&#8217;s accession to power. &#8220;Hong Kong...
- [Police sent to Beijing university campus amid growing public anger over zero-COVID](https://ij-reportika.com/police-sent-to-beijing-university-campus-amid-growing-public-anger-over-zero-covid/): Police were deployed to the campus of Beijing International Studies University at the weekend, as authorities in Shanghai step up forcible, mass isolation of residents in the wake of a top-down directive from ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping. A post on the BISU leaders&#8217; message board said restrictions on people entering and leaving the school campus and the fencing off of living areas to prevent the spread of COVID-19 had been implemented with no consultation, and before any official announcement had been made. It said workers sent in to implement the restrictions and carry out disinfection work weren&#8217;t wearing masks, and that the measures had done little to stem the spread of the virus. &#8220;Please could the leaders take charge on behalf of ordinary people,&#8221; the post said, adding that people were bound to gather in public spaces if they were prevented from moving around freely. A video clip apparently shot at the BISU campus over the weekend showed rows of uniformed police officers standing ready, while a law enforcement officer gave a warning by megaphone. &#8220;This is your first warning,&#8221; the officer says. &#8220;We hope you will cooperate with the school CCP committee &#8230; and disperse immediately.&#8221; &#8220;If you are still here after the third warning, then the police will take lawful action to clear the area,&#8221; the officer says. After an official tells them to use official channels to pursue complaints, one person shouts: &#8220;You&#8217;re crazy! What channels do I have?&#8221; The BISU website posted a call for the university to obey CCP leader Xi Jinping&#8217;s call on colleges and universities to take part in his zero-COVID policy, which has led to grueling lockdowns enforced by steel barriers, forcible transfers to isolation facilities and ongoing mass testing in major cities including Shanghai, affecting tens of millions of people. The BISU party committee said it viewed disease control and prevention as &#8220;the political priority for the present,&#8221; and would &#8220;resolutely implement&#8221; the policy, without need for local centers for disease control and prevention (CDCs) to get involved. City lockdown In Beijing&#8217;s Chaoyang district, residents of the Jiayuan residential compound were placed under lockdown by officials, who welded them into their apartment buildings with steel barriers. Beijing resident Wang Qiaoling said dozens of families were confined to their homes by the move. &#8220;These are 28-story high-rise apartment buildings, usually with three households to a floor, and sometimes four, so multiply 28 by three &#8230; it&#8217;s really scary,&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;Are any of them patients needing dialysis? Any who need to attend hospital or get out to buy medicines on a regular basis?&#8221; Shanghai&#8217;s lockdown has resulted in an unknown number of seriously ill patients dying due to lack of access to hospitals, which are insisting on negative PCR results, a test that can take up to 48 hours to return a result. &#8220;Is this what they mean by serving the people?&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;I bet the person giving this order didn&#8217;t have any family members in that block.&#8221; &#8220;We had the Wuhan lockdown of 2020, and they&#8217;re still locking cities down. Not just lockdowns, either, but welding people&#8217;s buildings shut.&#8221; Beijing-based current affairs commentator Ji Feng said Chaoyang is one of the most densely populated districts in Beijing. While most people in the city are currently going about their lives in a normal manner, the targeted lockdown in Chaoyang show how far local officials are willing to go to please those higher up. &#8220;It&#8217;s overkill at each level of the hierarchy,&#8221; Ji said. &#8220;If something gets said at the highest level, then every level below that overdoes the response, for fear of [spoiling their service record].&#8221; &#8220;If nothing bad happens, there are no bad consequences for overdoing things &#8230; in China, no questions get asked by leaders or those lower down about the process; only the result,&#8221; he said. &#8216;Many are resisting&#8217; Since Xi&#8217;s speech reiterating his commitment to the zero-COVID policy, authorities in Shanghai have also stepped up lockdown measures, emptying entire residential buildings and taking residents away to isolation centers if only one person tests positive for COVID-19. &#8220;Please don&#8217;t go out,&#8221; a residential official is heard saying in one video posted to social media. &#8220;The entire building will be taken away if even a single person tests positive.&#8221; Other videos showed enforcement personnel in PPE white suits forcing their way in to people&#8217;s homes, spraying disinfectant all over their belongings, and separating a woman from her child. In one video, a resident refuses to leave with officials or to hand over the keys to her apartment. A Shanghai resident surnamed Chen said people are trying to resist. &#8220;Many people are resisting,&#8221; Chen told RFA. &#8220;I told them that it didn&#8217;t matter which leader came up with this idea; that it was totally unreasonable.&#8221; Signs of widespread dissent are also emerging online, only to be rapidly silenced. Chinese constitutional expert Tong Zhiwei had his Weibo account shut down after he wrote a post arguing that the forcible removal of residents to isolation centers, as well as the requisitioning of their homes for isolation purposes, is illegal in the absence of emergency legislation. &#8220;These agencies have no right to use coercive means to force residents to be quarantined in makeshift hospitals,&#8221; Tong wrote. &#8220;Public authorities at all levels and of all types in Shanghai have the responsibility and obligation to immediately stop the use of coercive means to send any residents other than patients, pathogen carriers, and suspected patients to isolation facilities.&#8221; He said the forcible requisitioning of people&#8217;s homes is also illegal. &#8220;Officials in Shanghai forcing residents to hand over their house keys, then sending people into their homes for &#8216;disinfection&#8217;, is trespassing illegally in citizens&#8217; homes,&#8221; Tong wrote, adding, &#8220;this practice has already been implemented in some areas.&#8221; Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [China steps up drills around Taiwan, Japan scrambles jets due to airspace intrusion](https://ij-reportika.com/china-steps-up-drills-around-taiwan-japan-scrambles-jets-due-to-airspace-intrusion/): The Chinese military conducted live-fire drills around Taiwan over the weekend, its official website said Monday, while Japan reported scrambling fighter jets because of a suspected intrusion of its airspace over the East China Sea. In a short dispatch on Monday, the military’s website said “naval, air and conventional missile forces of the Chinese PLA Eastern Theater Command held drills in seas and airspace to the east and southwest of Taiwan Island from May 6 to 8, in a bid to test and improve the joint operations capability of multiple services and arms.” PLA stands for People’s Liberation Army. It didn’t provide further details. The Japanese Ministry of Defense’s (JMOD’s) Joint Staff also confirmed via its social media that from May 6 to 8, Japanese air force’s fighters “scrambled to cope with a suspected intrusion into Japan’s airspace over the East China Sea and the Pacific Ocean.” Before that on Sunday, the JMOD issued a press release saying that the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning and four other warships were spotted on May 7 in the waters about 150 kilometers (95 miles) south of Ishigaki Island, Okinawa Prefecture. On May 6, the number of ships in the flotilla was six, the ministry said. ‘Future operations against Taiwan’ The Chinese vessels were conducting live-fire drills with carrier-based fighters and helicopters, the JMOD said, adding that Japan’s Izumo light aircraft carrier was dispatched to monitor the situation. RFA has approached the Taiwanese Ministry of National Defense (MOND) for comment on the latest Chinese drills. Taiwan’s local media reported that he ministry has deployed Sky Bow III missiles, which have a maximum range of 200 kilometers (125 miles), to deal with threats to eastern Taiwan. F-16V fighter jets will be deployed at Taitung’s Chihang Base and a number of Hsiung Feng III and Harpoon missiles will also be moved to the east. Taiwanese people consider themselves citizens of a sovereign country but China claims the self-ruling, democratic island is a breakaway province of China and vows to unite it with the mainland, by force if necessary.   A file photo showing a rocket being fired from a Thunderbolt 2000 multi-rocket launcher during military exercises in Taichung City, central Taiwan, July 16, 2020. (AP Photo) Experts said that the appearance of the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning and aircraft near eastern Taiwan was a direct challenge to the island. Qi Leyi, a Taipei-based military analyst and commentator for RFA Mandarin, said that the PLA joint combat drills will escalate further in the future. “The sea and the airspace east and southwest of Taiwan will remain the focus of future operations against Taiwan,” Qi said. “Besides naval and air forces, the conventional missile force will be utilized, too, to attack Taiwan&#8217;s important political and military targets,” he said. Shen Ming-ShiI, acting deputy chief executive officer at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, a government think-tank, said that in addition to demonstrating the capabilities of the aircraft carrier battle group, the Chinese drills around Taiwan also aim “to demonstrate the PLA blue water combat capabilities.” “It’s likely that one or two Chinese submarines have also conducted coordinated exercises underwater,” Shen said. The Taiwanese MOND said on May 6, 18 Chinese military planes entered the southwestern and southeastern parts of Taiwan&#8217;s air defense identification zone, the largest intrusion by Chinese military aircraft so far in May. Put on alert A week ago on May 2, the Japanese and Taiwanese militaries were put on alert after spotting a flotilla led by the Liaoning aircraft carrier sailing from the East China Sea towards the Pacific Ocean. On that day, the aircraft carrier was accompanied by seven destroyers and supply vessels, forming the largest Liaoning carrier group in recent voyages, according to the Chinese mouthpiece Global Times. Among seven warships in the Liaoning carrier group were the Type 055 large guided missile destroyer Nanchang, the Type 052D guided missile destroyer Chengdu, and the Type 901 comprehensive supply ship Hulunhu. The Liaoning &#8211; China’s first aircraft carrier &#8211; was seen carrying a number of J-15 fighter jets as well as Z-8 and Z-9 helicopters. The carrier group is on a “routine, realistic combat training mission,” said the hawkish newspaper. Last December, the aircraft carrier and five other vessels conducted drills in the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea and the West Pacific for 21 days in order to boost its combat capability. The Global Times quoted Shi Hong, the editor of a Chinese military magazine, as saying that the waters where the Liaoning carrier group is holding drills is “a vital sea region should a reunification-by-force operation take place.” “By moving in tandem with aerial and maritime forces from the Chinese mainland, the carrier group could completely cut off the routes foreign forces may take if they militarily interfere with the Taiwan question,” Shi was quoted as saying. Taiwanese military analyst Shen Ming-Shih however pointed out that the fact that China uses the Liaoning aircraft carrier as the flagship to command and the other active carrier Shandong is in port for maintenance, shows that “the PLA still has the problem of dual aircraft carrier maritime confrontation, and its navigation scope is also limited.” “It can try bullying Taiwan, but in the face of the U.S. naval and air superiority, China still has great concerns,” he said.  
- [A Reporter Looks Back: Better times in Shanghai](https://ij-reportika.com/a-reporter-looks-back-better-times-in-shanghai/): The current plight of Shanghai after weeks of draconian COVID-19 lockdowns causes me to recall better times in the 1980s when I enjoyed walking through the streets of China&#8217;s most populous city in search of a story. I always thought of Shanghai as a place where you could meet everyone from workers to leading intellectuals and discover that they would be honest with you. Or they’d at least let you know that under Communist Party rule they couldn’t be honest about everything. I covered demonstrations by protesting students and workers in Shanghai in 1986, and most were eager to explain why they were protesting for political reforms as long as I didn’t use their names. The demonstrations took place in Shanghai and other Chinese citizens in the context of high inflation rates leading to increased living costs. I remember once trying to board a bus in Shanghai and being pushed aside until a few people realized that this foreigner needed help in getting on board. They kindly stepped back until I could get up into the bus. One of the most bizarre meetings which I participated in in Shanghai took place in 1988 when Katherine Graham, the publisher of The Washington Post, met with Jiang Zemin, then the city’s mayor. Jiang later went on become General Secretary of the Communist Party, the most powerful position in China. I was the Beijing bureau chief for The Washington Post at the time. In the meeting with Mrs. Graham, Jiang seemed to be determined to avoid addressing serious issues. Instead, he spoke at length about difficulties facing Shanghai’s garbage collectors. It sounded as if watermelon rinds littering the streets was issue number one for him. The Christian Science Monitor summed things up well recently when it reported that Shanghai has now emerged as “an epicenter in China’s worst coronavirus outbreak since the pandemic began in Wuhan in 2019.” The report described how Shanghai citizens are now using social media to share information that the city government has failed to provide to them. &#8216;Big white&#8217; The report described quarantine enforcers—nicknamed “da bai,” or “big white”— shouting through megaphones at an intersection. They were summoning city residents for testing, carrying out an extraordinary order issued by municipal officials to test the whole city in a single day to combat COVID-19. Individuals in Shanghai are now tracked through their phones for test results, their locations, and even whether they bought medicines. It assigns them a risk status that determines whether they can move around, are restricted at home, or are quarantined. Their data is then shared with the police. People in Beijing worry they will face draconian lockdowns similar to that in Shanghai. In Beijing, local news reports showed road closures and apartment buildings sealed off with metal fencing as officials imposed “targeted lockdowns” in neighborhoods. Officials in Beijing are under pressure to makes sure that the capital city doesn’t become a repeat of Shanghai’s lockdown, which was marred by food shortages, clashes with authorities, and angry citizens venting their frustrations online. Foreigners in Shanghai are concerned about crowding, traffic congestion, and air pollution, among other things. Shanghai is the home to some 150,000 officially registered foreigners. This includes some 31,500 Japanese, 21,000 Americans, and 20,700 Koreans. These numbers are based on official figures, so the real number of foreigners based in China’s financial capital is probably much higher. The number of foreigners who have left Shanghai since the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus isn’t clear. The South China Morning Post reported that foreign residents rushed to supermarkets to stock up on food following the outbreak of the virus at the end of March this year. On April 22, foreign businesses reported that less than half of their employees were able to get to their factories due to lockdown restrictions. Cleaner air Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal recently described how China’s strictly controlled, top-down political system was affecting Shanghai’s e-commerce. Until recently, Shanghai boasted one of the world’s most robust delivery services. With a few taps on their smartphones, consumers could find groceries at their door steps within 30 minutes to an hour. But the rigid lockdown of Shanghai that began in late March put an end to that network. It had been built on sophisticated technology and an army of delivery workers. The network collapsed as Shanghai began fighting a surge in COVID-19 cases, according to reporters In late April, Beijing was reaching a critical point in its efforts to halt a COVID-19 outbreak, as new cases spread from school students and a tour group, while deaths in Shanghai more than tripled from a day earlier. As of May 8, Shanghai had reported 554 deaths, while Beijing recorded nine–out of a total of 5,185 deaths nationwide. While still low by global standards, the numbers are a challenge to the ability of China’s top leaders to halt outbreaks with their zero-COVID policy. Shanghai is an important financial and shipping center both for China and the world. Its port has ranked first for container ship throughput in the world in recent decades. There is fear that China’s COVID shutdowns could feed inflation by disrupting the supply chains that many manufacturers rely on, pushing up the cost of making and transporting goods. A major downside of Shanghai’s industrialization has been air pollution. According to the Washington, D.C.-based Wilson Center, the Shanghai government has intended to invest 100 billion yuan, or more than $15 million, in 200 projects to reduce air pollution. According to the website “Health and Safety in Shanghai,” air pollution has been one of the main concerns of foreigners living there. But it claims that much improvement has been made in recent years. A “Shanghai Clean Air Action Plan” was unveiled in 2013. A report issued in 2014 said that Shanghai’s air pollution was derived from motor vehicle and factory emissions, power stations, and straw burning by farmers, among other things. Shanghai introduced the strictest air pollution law in China. It went into effect on October 1, 2014.  Dan Southerland is RFA&#8217;s founding executive editor.
- [Hong Kong's intrepid press corps battle dislocation, nostalgia and unemployment](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kongs-intrepid-press-corps-battle-dislocation-nostalgia-and-unemployment/): Former members of Hong Kong&#8217;s once-free press corps are launching their own media outlets aimed at covering the city from overseas, from a pro-democracy point of view. While the implementation of a draconian national security law since July 1, 2020 has ushered in a crackdown on pro-democracy media organizations, activists and politicians in Hong Kong, many journalists have already joined the steady stream of people leaving their home to seek a less restricted life elsewhere. The Chaser, a Chinese-language news site, was set up &#8220;to preserve press freedom, defend democracy and human rights, and serve Hong Kong people around the world,&#8221; according to its Patreon page. It cited the recent forcible closure of Jimmy Lai&#8217;s Next Digital media empire, including the pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper, as well as the closure of Stand News and Citizen News, and the &#8220;rectification&#8221; of iCable news and government broadcaster RTHK to bring them closer to the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)&#8217;s official line. &#8220;Any independent media that remain are struggling for support, and are in danger of being banned at any time,&#8221; The Chaser said. &#8220;Our news platform hopes to provide readers with the most authentic, in-depth reports without red lines and official censorship by recruiting independent and quality professional journalists, and strive to maintain the position of press freedom of the Hong Kong media.&#8221; The outlet aims to become the biggest source of news for Hongkongers in exile, while still serving those who remain in the city, it said. Since its inception six weeks ago, The Chaser has filed daily news on Hong Kong, Taiwanese and international affairs, posted exclusive investigative reports and kept Hongkongers overseas connected with each other. Another media platform &#8212; Commons &#8212; has been started by Hongkongers based in democratic Taiwan, although its editorial team were reluctant to go on the record due to security concerns for those they left behind in Hong Kong. &#8220;The Hongkongers in Hong Kong, including some who are interested in migrating overseas, are very curious about the lives of Hongkongers overseas, and want to know everything about them,&#8221; Commons&#8217; editor-in-chief told RFA, giving only the pseudonym A Muk. File photo of 2019 pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong that were followed by a crackdown and the imposition of the National Security Law for Hong Kong, which has made it virtually impossible for journalists to work in the Chinese city. Credit: Liang Mingkang. Diaspora journalists Commons is focusing on in-depth interviews, and all of its content is free to read online, unlike The Chaser, which requires a subscription through Patreon. &#8220;The environment in Hong Kong is no longer conducive to journalism, so I wondered if there could be opportunities and a more suitable environment overseas, to set up a media outlet for Hongkongers overseas,&#8221; he said. Commons currently employs around 8-10 people, as well as stringers in Canada and the U.K., to keep track of the newly arrived Hong Kong communities there. &#8220;Now that Stand News and Citizen News are gone, there is an even bigger gap, and an even greater need among Hongkongers,&#8221; A Muk said. &#8220;We thought we should try to use our environment and platform to report news from overseas, to see if we can fill that gap, to meet the demand among Hongkongers for news.&#8221; New media platforms like Commons and The Chaser could also provide limited opportunities for Hong Kong&#8217;s growing community of former journalists in diaspora. When Stand News folded on Dec. 29, 2021 under the threat of investigation by national security police, reporter Lam Yin-bong was the one who turned off all of the lights in the office for the last time. Lam said he had been hugely reluctant to leave the building. &#8220;There was a sense that it was all over, and, even though we were expecting it, that night, we really didn&#8217;t want to leave,&#8221; Lam said. &#8220;We knew that from that day onwards, nothing would be the same.&#8221; &#8220;I still have nostalgia for those times, but I also know that nostalgia is pretty useless, and not worth clinging to,&#8221; said Lam, whose 10-year career as a journalist ended overnight. &#8216; Photojournalist Liang Mingkang moved to Manchester, England at the beginning of 2022 and put down his camera to put on a uniform and become a traffic inspector in the northern British city. Credit: Liang Mingkang. A way of life&#8217; He described being deprived of his professional identity and way of life, something he had enjoyed for 10 years. &#8220;It wasn&#8217;t just a job, but a way of life, but then suddenly that way of life is gone completely. It&#8217;s a horrible feeling,&#8221; Lam said. What Lam finds harder than losing his own job is a more generalized silence emanating from Hong Kong&#8217;s once-crowded media landscape. He was stunned to find that the boundaries with the rest of mainland China were also fading rapidly, citing the building of a new bridge with neighboring Shenzhen and a mainland Chinese-style makeshift hospital staffed with mainland Chinese staff under emergency regulations in March. &#8220;This was a huge development. Suddenly there&#8217;s this bridge between Hong Kong and Shenzhen, and extraterritorial powers not regulated by Hong Kong laws,&#8221; Lam said. &#8220;Why did nobody care about this story?&#8221; &#8220;I thought maybe the world needs this information, and that maybe I could still do my bit &#8230; to remind people what is going on in Hong Kong,&#8221; he said. Lam&#8217;s &#8220;bit&#8221; took the form of his blog &#8220;ReNews,&#8221; which describes itself as a &#8220;one-person news platform founded by an unemployed journalist.&#8221; He hopes at least to use it to chronicle the death of the Hong Kong he once knew. &#8220;People often say that Hong Kong is dead, or dying,&#8221; Lam said. &#8220;So people living here should know how it died, and what the process entailed.&#8221; &#8220;Even if you can&#8217;t change it, at least you know,&#8221; said Lam, who offers all of his content free of charge, although paid subscriptions are available. Stand News reporter reporter Lam Yin-bong, who turned off all of the lights...
- [Auction of activists’ homes seen as revenge for sale of junta assets](https://ij-reportika.com/auction-of-activists-homes-seen-as-revenge-for-sale-of-junta-assets/): An announced plan to auction off the homes of anti-coup activists is the military regime’s bid for revenge after Myanmar’s shadow government began selling shares of assets appropriated by Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing and other junta officials, according to analysts. On April 27, junta deputy information minister, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, told reporters at a press conference in the capital Naypyidaw that the sealed-off homes of detained activists had been “presented to the court” and would be sold at auction sometime in the future. When asked for clarification on Thursday, Zaw Min Tun told RFA’s Myanmar Service that the junta had obtained court permission to proceed with the sales. “You must present evidence according to court procedure,” he said. “Once the court has ruled on the evidence, there are certain procedures to follow. Right now, we have presented the evidence as needed.” The deputy minister provided no other details on the homes in question, including who they had belonged to or what the former owners are being charged with. Last week’s announcement came six days after National Unity Government (NUG) Minister for Finance and Investment Tin Tun Naing told RFA of plans to sell a number of properties he said were identified by the shadow government as having been illegally occupied by senior junta officials when the military seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup. Among the properties is the former guesthouse of Myanmar’s military and accompanying two-acre plot of land at No. 14 Inya Road in Yangon, which now serves as Min Aung Hlaing’s home. Tin Tun Naing said the NUG plans to sell the estate for U.S. $10 million — about one-third of the property’s current value — in 100,000 shares of U.S. $100 each. On Thursday, Tin Tun Naing provided additional details of the sale, which he said involves 100,000 shares of the estate priced at U.S. $100 apiece. “Once we identified it as state property, we started to sell it to facilitate the end of the dictatorship and to raise funds needed for the success of the Spring Revolution, in the interest of the people,” Tin Tun Naing said. “As soon as it was announced that it would go on sale, there were several purchases. One single person has already bought shares worth U.S. $100,000.” The NUG’s Ministry of Finance and Investment said the sale will involve around 400 acres of land occupied by junta officials in Yangon, Mandalay, and Naypyidaw, which will be “confiscated and made available to the public in May on a pre-purchase basis.” The sale assumes that the NUG will claim control of the country from the junta, at which point it would deliver on the promised asset. Proceeds from the sale will be donated to the opposition movement and used to compensate victims of junta arrest and torture, rehabilitate members of the Civil Disobedience Movement who left state jobs in protest of the coup, and assist people whose homes have been burned in arson attacks by junta forces, the ministry said. The NUG said that its plan to seize junta assets “is to discourage likely dictators who want to abuse power from illegally taking over state-owned land and properties in the future.” ‘No legal right to confiscate’ Lawyers and political analysts told RFA that while the sale of the former military guesthouse involved returning public property to the people, the military has no legal right to confiscate and sell private assets. A spokesman for the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) called the junta’s announcement a form of “retaliation” against democracy and human rights activists, adding that many of the homes belong to people whose trials have not been ruled on by the courts. “The law does not allow for the confiscation of properties of innocent people,” they said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Some of the houses they sealed off were not even owned by the person they arrested. Now we are seeing family-owned properties being confiscated too. It’s a form of revenge.” High Court lawyer Kyee Myint, who assists with human rights cases, told RFA that the junta plan to sell private property is in violation of the law. “I am very pleased that the NUG has said it will auction off the former military guesthouse on Inya Road, now taken over by Min Aung Hlaing. But how can it be legal for them to retaliate against us,” he asked. “They are robbers. The courts are now under their control. The chief justice is a military officer. The judiciary in our country has been destroyed for a long time. It is a violation of the law to seize properties of ordinary politicians.” Well-known singer Chan Chan, who has a warrant out for her arrest on charges of incitement, said in a May 1 post to her Facebook page that she heard the junta is preparing to sell her house in the port city of Thanlyin near Yangon and urged fans to protest. Other properties seized by the junta are owned by artists, anti-junta activists, members of the deposed National League for Democracy and paramilitaries with the prodemocracy People’s Defense Force. On May 3, authorities sealed off the family home of Myint Zaw Oo, an NLD member of Parliament in Sagaing region’s Kanbalu township. “They have no rules or laws. They just act blindly,” he said. “They think we may be demoralized if they do these things. It is seen as a kind of psychological warfare. But we have already thought of the consequences of our actions, so it doesn’t matter whether they seize our property or even burn it.” According to the AAPP, authorities have killed 1,825 civilians and arrested some 10,545 since February last year, mostly during peaceful anti-junta protests. The group said the junta has confiscated more than 570 homes and buildings since the coup. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Laos’ ‘circle of cronies’ keeps a tight lid on country’s news outlets, report says](https://ij-reportika.com/laos-circle-of-cronies-keeps-a-tight-lid-on-countrys-news-outlets-report-says/): Laos is an information “black hole” where the government exerts complete control over news outlets, Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) said in its 2022 World Press Freedom Index this week that ranks the Southeast Asian country near the bottom of its list in terms of allowing journalists to challenge authorities. Laos placed 161st out of of 180 countries in the index, a slight improvement over 2021, when it was ranked 172nd. But the index still painted a dismal picture of press freedom in Laos, a finding that local reporters and citizens backed up in interviews with RFA this week. “The government essentially controls all press. Laos’ 24 newspapers, 32 television networks and 44 radio stations are required to follow the party line dictated by the Peoples’ Propaganda Commissariat, which is disseminated by the three dailies that the ruling party publishes,” the index, released this week, said. “The Lao Popular Revolutionary Party (LPRP) keeps the press under close surveillance and makes the creation of independent media impossible. The circle of cronies at the heart of the system, in many cases descendants of the old aristocracy, keep a lock on information,” the report said. Laos’ guarantee of freedom of expression is undone by laws prohibiting media outlets from harming the “national interest” or “traditional culture.” “The penal code provides for imprisonment of journalists who criticize the government, a provision extended in 2014 to internet users. Internet service providers are required to report web users’ names, professions and data search histories to the authorities,” the index said. The small boost in the rankings was likely due to more reporting on drugs and corruption, a former reporter for Lao state media told RFA’s Lao Service on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. “In March this year, a drug lord, Sisouk Daoheuang, was sentenced to death for drug trafficking and smuggling. State media also report some more details like the number of corrupt officials who have been disciplined, dismissed and charged,” the former reporter said. But one current reporter who is an employee of the Information, Culture and Tourism Department of Savannakhet Province told RFA’s Lao Service that journalists’ work is still restricted. “Despite improvement in ranking, we in the Lao media still don’t have much press freedom. There are no independent news outlets. All the news agencies belong to government and are controlled by government,” the reporter said. “We’re all members of the state media and we’re not independent and there is no variety of news in Laos. So, our reporting is restricted especially when reporting about corruption of the Party members and government officials. We can’t be critical to the Party and government at all. Even reporting on social media is restricted,” said the source. Reporters must run their stories by their department directors before they are published and they cannot cover any events without permission from at least the head of the department, the reporter said. Another reporter in the capital Vientiane told RFA that no media outlet there is free or independent. “If we’re told to cover that event, we’ll go and do it. They’ll tell us whether we can or can’t go and we must follow government policy. We only report what is approved and permitted by the authorities,” the Vientiane reporter said. “Sometimes, we know that what we are reporting is not true, but we can’t do anything about it. For example, we know that those government officials in that ministry are corrupt and are embezzling state money, but we can’t report that. We can’t report any news that the government considers as dangerous to the national security, the political process or is too critical of the leaders,” said the Vientiane reporter. Another problem with freedom of the press is that too many people are afraid to speak the truth, a resident of the southern province of Savannakhet told RFA. “If we speak out we’ll be thrown in jail. In this country, if someone tries to speak the truth, they will end up missing like Mouay,” the resident said. Houayheuang Xayabouly, better known by her nickname Mouay, was arrested Sept. 12, 2019, a week after she published videos critical about the government’s inability to rescue people from flooding in the country’s southern Champassak and Salavan provinces. The delayed government response had left many Lao villagers stranded and cut off from help, she said in the video, which was viewed more than 150,000 times. “She criticized the government, and actually what she said was true, but now she’s in jail for five years. People outside the country can speak out, but no one inside can. The people of Laos are afraid and worried, even when they express themselves on social media,” said the resident. A resident of Vientiane province told RFA that people can get in trouble for complaining about their lives. “The government will suppress you right away before you can do more harm. It’s like they’ll put out the fire before it spreads. Even if you escape to Thailand, the government will get you. That’s why many people here don’t get involved in politics,” the Vientiane province resident said. An aid worker in Laos told RFA that social media has in some ways given people more of a voice, as it provides more access with less restrictions than traditional media like radio, television and newspapers. “More and more Laotians are hungry for information and they turn to social media for it. The trend will continue because Laotians can express themselves more on social media. They want to vent their frustration because the government can’t do anything to solve the problems like the crumbling economy and financial crisis.” The number of social media users among Laos’ population of 7 million people increased to 51% this year, up from 49% last year and from 43% year before, data from statista.com shows. “Social media is a voice and a tool of people. When they see an official doing something wrong or judges making an unfair decision, they can post their comments...
- [European Parliament calls on Cambodian government to stop targeting opponents](https://ij-reportika.com/european-parliament-calls-on-cambodian-government-to-stop-targeting-opponents/): The European Parliament on Thursday adopted a resolution calling on the Cambodian government led by Prime Minister Hun Sen to stop persecuting and intimidating political opponents, trade unionists, human rights defenders and journalists ahead of local elections in June and national campaigns next year. The government of Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia since 1985, is now five years into a no-holds-barred crackdown on its political opposition and civil society, jailing or driving into exile scores of opposition figures. The resolution, which was adopted with 526 votes in favor and only five votes against (another 63 members abstained), condemns the Cambodian Supreme Court’s dissolution of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), the country’s largest opposition party, in November 2017. The European Parliament repeated its call for charges against former CNRP leaders Kem Sokha, Sam Rainsy and Mu Sochua and other opposition officials to be dropped and urged authorities to release all prisoners of conscience, journalists, human rights defenders, environmental activists and union members. The CNRP was banned for its supposed role in an alleged plot to overthrow the government. With the CNRP out of the picture, Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) went on to win all 125 seats in the country’s July 2018 general election. Since then, the government has continued to target activists associated with the CNRP, arresting them on arbitrary charges and placing them in pretrial detention in overcrowded jails with harsh conditions. Government spokesman Phay Siphan said he doesn’t understand why the resolution was passed given discussions with the Cambodia’s EU representative on the progress the country has made in regard to human rights. “So far, individuals have breached the law, so [that] is the issue between the court and those individuals,” he said. “What the EU raised was a political matter that we already have explained. If they raise the same issue, we will explain it to them again because we are strengthening the law and the rule of law.” Men Vanna, who served as leader of the youth movement for the CNRP, told RFA that the resolution will give hope to Cambodian’s fighting for a more democratic country. The government “must change if they love democracy and the country,” he said. &#8216;Friday Wives&#8217; petition US Embassy Also on Friday, a group of spouses whose husbands are in jail for political activities staged a protest in front of the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh to call on the government to push for their release before a special U.S.-ASEAN Summit in Washington on May 12-13. Cambodia currently holds the rotating chair position of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). About 10 women from the group “Friday Wives” handed a petition to the embassy seeking U.S. support. At least 60 CNRP activists have been imprisoned. Some of the former members of the banned political party have been convicted as others are being tried. “Please release our husbands. We are suffering, our families are splitting apart,” one of the women, Prum Chantha, said. “In Cambodia, people don’t give credit to politicians, but rather prosecute them. This shows that Cambodia doesn’t respect human rights and democracy.” Another protester, Ouk Chanthy, whose husband has been detained for two years, said she hopes that the U.S. will pressure the Cambodian government at the summit to release her husband “in order to restore Cambodia’s reputation.” “Hun Sen is heading to the U.S. as the ASEAN chair,” she said. “I urge him to drop all charges against political opponents and release them. Should Hun Sen represent ASEAN when Cambodia has imprisoned politicians who haven’t committed any crimes?” Phnom Penh security guards harassed the women, injuring at least two of them and destroying their banners. Kata Orn, spokesman for the Cambodian Human Rights Committee, an organ for the government, said the guards responded to the women because they allegedly assaulted the guards. He also said the government has nothing to do with the cases against the women’s husbands. “Cambodia isn’t worried about international pressure during the U.S.-ASEAN Summit,” he said. Translate by Samean Yun for RFA’s Khmer Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [After more firms quit, Myanmar junta claims Russia to enter energy industry](https://ij-reportika.com/after-more-firms-quit-myanmar-junta-claims-russia-to-enter-energy-industry/): Russia will soon begin participating in Myanmar’s energy industry in place of international companies that quit, the Burmese junta said in response to the exit of three big Asian firms from a gas field in the coup-hit nation. Since April 29, the Malaysian and Thai state-owned oil firms and a Japanese energy conglomerate have withdrawn from Myanmar’s Yetagun gas field, with all three citing commercial reasons for pulling out. Japan’s ENEOS also mentioned Myanmar’s “current situation, including the social issues” as one of the reasons for quitting, referring to human rights excesses by the military where nearly 1,800 civilians have been killed since the February 2020 coup. The companies quit not because of political instability but because of declining economic benefits from the Yetagun project, Myanmar’s military spokesman told RFA&#8217;s Myanmar Service. “Our allies and friendly organizations are cooperating with us in the electricity and energy sectors. You will soon see Russia’s cooperation in the near future. We will expand our oil and gas operations as soon as possible,” Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun said on Thursday. One political analyst said it would not be surprising if Russia entered Myanmar’s oil and gas industry. “When democratic countries sever relationships or slap sanctions against a military junta, countries that do not value human standards or rules and regulations will step in for their own benefit. This has happened in many countries,” analyst Sai Kyi Zin Soe told RFA.. “There have been similar incidents in the history of Myanmar.” One economist, who requested anonymity, said it was unlikely that Myanmar could find a replacement so soon for the companies that have quit its energy sector. “Russia is a very powerful country in the oil world,” the economist said. “[E]fforts could be made with them [the Russians] but a sudden replacement is not so easy. It’s not going to work right away.” A logo of Petronas is seen at the Malaysian state-owned oil firm’s office in Kuala Lumpur, April 27, 2022. Credit: Reuters. Declining output While it is true that ENEOS, Malaysia’s Petronas, and Thailand’s PTTEP withdrew from a depleting gas field, the political situation did not help, analysts told BenarNews. Besides, said one Southeast Asia observer, the withdrawal of the firms representing two ASEAN nations, even from an unprofitable project, would have been a huge blow to the junta. It had bamboozled the regional bloc by reneging on a consensus among ASEAN members to put the country back on the democratic path. The three firms packed up from the Yetagun project because gas output had plummeted, Readul Islam, a Singapore-based energy research analyst, told BenarNews. “The Yetagun project produced roughly 3 percent of Myanmar’s 2020 gas output, which already was a steep decline from the project’s 6 percent of Myanmar’s 2019 output,” said Islam, an analyst for Rystad Energy, an independent energy research company, about a field where experts say output had been declining since 2013. “[S]o, while the politics certainly don’t help, the Yetagun exits appear to be purely economic decisions,” Islam said. BenarNews could not reach the chief executive of PTTEP for comment, nor did officials at Petronas immediately return phone calls or reply to emails. Human and civil rights activists have been pressing corporations, especially oil and gas companies, to quit post-coup Myanmar. Since the military took over, a slew of companies, not only oil firms, have left. They cited the coup or the subsequent abuses, and said they had also been hobbled by international sanctions imposed on the regime that makes it difficult to do business there. Among the international firms that quit Myanmar are British American Tobacco, Chevron, Coca-Cola, Posco, Telenor, TotalEnergy, and Woodside Petroleum. The ASEAN factor The departures of Petronas and PTTEP from the Yetagun project should be viewed in this context, according to Southeast Asia analyst Zachary Abuza. He agreed that Petronas and PTTEP may have left a dying field but, in his view – at least in the case of Malaysia’s Petronas – apart from the economics, others reasons motivated the decision. “My takeaway from this is that the Malaysians are frustrated and want to put pressure on the SAC,” said Abuza, a professor at the National War College in Washington, referring to the State Administration Council, the junta’s official name. It was different for Thailand’s PTTEP, which, in fact, announced they were taking over the stakes quit by Chevron and TotalEnergy in another Myanmar gas field, Yadana, Abuza acknowledged. And yet, “[i]t is a loss for the SAC. It doesn’t look good when your key cash cow, the MOGE (the Ministry of Oil and Gas Enterprises) is losing key investors even if [the oil] fields are not profitable. The optics are bad.” What makes it worse for Myanmar, a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations bloc, is that state-owned firms from fellow member-states were the ones that quit, Abuza said. “These [Malaysian and Thai companies] are ASEAN partners. For the junta, it is probably not a huge surprise that Western oil firms have pulled back, but for ASEAN partners to do so, that has got to sting a bit more,” Abuza said.  “Symbolism matters for a regime that craves international recognition.” Meanwhile, activist group Justice for Myanmar, told BenarNews that the withdrawal from the Yetagun gas project was a result of the “sustained pressure from the people of Myanmar and activists around the world.” According to the group, more pressure is needed to stop all oil payments to the junta so it cannot use the funds to buy the arms and ammunition it uses to gun down civilians in its brutal nationwide campaign against anyone who opposes the generals’ rule. “PTTEP now must go further and suspend payments to the Myanmar military junta from the Yadana and Zawtika projects, or withdraw,” Yadanar Maung, spokesperson for Justice For Myanmar, told BenarNews by email. “These projects bankroll the Myanmar military junta, a terrorist organization, and PTTEP’s continued involvement aids and abets the junta’s … crimes. …We call on the Thai government to change...
- [Tight jeans, dyed hair forbidden as North Korea cracks down on ‘capitalist’ fashion](https://ij-reportika.com/tight-jeans-dyed-hair-forbidden-as-north-korea-cracks-down-on-capitalist-fashion/): North Korea is cracking down on citizens who sport so-called “capitalist” fashion and hairstyles to ensure that they conduct themselves according to the ideals of socialism, sources in the country told RFA. Wearing certain items of clothing, such as tight-fitting pants or t-shirts with foreign words, or having hair longer than a certain length, has always been potentially problematic in North Korea. But now the government is redoubling its efforts to make sure that people don’t flaunt styles associated with capitalistic countries. “At the end of last month, the Socialist Patriotic Youth League held an educational session nationwide, where they defined the act of imitating foreign fashion and hairstyles as ‘capitalist flair,’ and examples of ‘anti-socialist practices,’” a resident of the city of Hamhung in the eastern province of South Hamgyong told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. The league, formerly known as the Kimilsungist-Kimjongilist Youth League until last year, is modeled after the Soviet Komsomol, a group of teenagers and young adults who spread communist propaganda. “The youth league’s patrols are cracking down on young people who wear long hair down to their waists, and those who dye their hair brown, as well as people who wear clothes with large foreign letters and women who wear tight pants,” the source said. “This time the crackdown mainly targets women in their 20s and 30s. If they are caught, they are made to wait on the side of the road until the patrols can finish their crackdown in that area. Only then will they be taken to the youth league office in the district, where they must write letters confessing their crimes. They must then contact someone at home to bring acceptable clothes for them, and then they are released,” she said. The country has been on a crusade against the infiltration of foreign — especially South Korean —culture. RFA previously reported that authorities ordered members of the country’s main youth organization to turn in the cellphones for inspection, so they could determine who was watching and distributing foreign media or spelling words in the South Korean way or using Southern slang. Patrols in the city of Chongjin, in the province of North Hamgyong, targeted the marketplace where many young people are known to hang out, a resident there told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “If they are caught, the company they work for and the Socialist Patriotic Youth League will be notified. They are then subject to criticism and in the most severe cases, the violator’s name, home address and workplace will be revealed publicly on the Third Broadcast,” she said, referring to government-controlled loudspeakers placed throughout most cities and towns to spread messages of propaganda. “Even though they have these kinds of crackdowns all the time, the young people do not stop trying to look and dress like people in foreign films and TV.” Illegal activities The government is also working to suppress what it deems to be illegal capitalistic activities, an official in Chongjin told RFA. “Recent arrests here in Chongjin caught five property brokers who illegally facilitated state-owned housing transactions and collected fees for their services. Meanwhile, six fortune tellers and a fake medicine seller were also arrested. The guy selling fake traditional medicines claimed they could treat diseases,” he said. “Everyone was sentenced five to seven years of hard labor and put in jail,” said the official. Chongjin authorities are also targeting the scalping of rail tickets, bribes given to train crews and rail police by merchants who don’t have the proper government permission for travel, and payments to police to look the other way when they catch someone doing something illegal, he said. In Ryanggang province, west of North Hamgyong, authorities there have been using the Third Broadcast to warn citizens against the evils of drugs, superstitions like fortune telling, and fake medicines, a resident there told RFA. “The people are complaining that the authorities are coming down hard on them again so soon after the April national holidays have ended, under the pretext of eradicating anti-socialist acts,” she said, referring to holidays that commemorated the life of country’s founder Kim Il Sung on April 15 and the formation of the country’s military on the 25th. Translated by Claire Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [ASEAN envoy says he will visit Myanmar in 'the next few weeks'](https://ij-reportika.com/asean-envoy-says-he-will-visit-myanmar-in-the-next-few-weeks/): The special envoy to Myanmar for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) aims to visit the strife torn-country in coming weeks, he said Friday in a statement following humanitarian relief talks with the U.N. and regional agencies. The visit, specific dates for which have not been announced, would be the second trip to Myanmar by the ASEAN envoy, Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn, following a trip in March. &#8220;I look forward to my second visit to Myanmar in the next few weeks,” the minister wrote on Facebook Friday, after hosting the Consultative Meeting on ASEAN Humanitarian Assistance to Myanmar. The meeting addressed plans to deliver humanitarian aid and administer Covid-19 vaccines to Myanmar, Cambodia&#8217;s foreign ministry said in statement. The country of 54 million people, ASEAN&#8217;s poorest per capita, has been engulfed in political turmoil as well as military conflict since the Feb. 1, 2021 military coup that overthrew the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi three moths after her party won re-election by a landslide. “Today we are taking another step forward in our collective endeavor to ensure that the people of Myanmar will have access to humanitarian assistance without discrimination,&#8221; Sokhonn wrote. &#8220;As the ASEAN Chair’s Special Envoy, I remain optimistic that our persistent efforts will genuinely benefit the people of Myanmar,&#8221; he added. Cambodia is the current rotating chair of the 10-member ASEAN. In a video conference on May 1, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen urged the Myanmar junta chief, Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, to allow the special envoy to visit and meet deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi and take other steps to implement a five-point agreement the military leader reached between ASEAN&#8217;s foreign ministers in April 2021. Although the military regime in Naypyidaw agreed with ASEAN on humanitarian aid and the creation of the special envoy, little concrete progress has been made on more challenging parts of the five-point agreement, including an end to violence, talks among all parties in Myanmar, and mediation by the envoy. The junta on May 3 poured cold water on calls from Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah last month for ASEAN talks with Myanmar&#8217;s National Unity Government (NUG), a parallel, civilian administration formed of ousted lawmakers from Aung San Suu Kyi&#8217;s political party, prominent civil servants, and ethnic minority leaders. The state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper quoted the junta’s foreign ministry as saying it “protests and rejects” the Malaysian foreign minister’s remarks, because “they could abet terrorism and violence in the country, hampering the Myanmar Government’s anti-terrorism efforts and infringe international agreements related to combatting terrorism.” The junta has branded opponents of military rule as terrorists. The military regime has jailed Aung San Suu Kyi among thousands of political prisoners and killed 1,800 people, mostly anti-coup protesters. The 76-year-old Nobel laureate has been sentence to 11 years in jail on various charges, and faces other charges that could land her in prison for more than a century. Her supporters and human rights groups reject the charges as baseless and designed to end her political career. Reported by RFA&#8217;s Khmer Service. Written by Paul Eckert.
- [Poking China in the eye](https://ij-reportika.com/poking-china-in-the-eye/): The Biden administration is reportedly preparing to place tough human rights-related sanctions on Hikvision, a company in Hangzhou, China that is the world’s largest manufacturer of surveillance equipment. The U.S. accuses the firm of providing the Chinese government with surveillance cameras used for intrusive monitoring and repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, where some 1.8 million members of the Turkic Muslim minority group have been detained in internment camps.
- [Russian arms sales to Southeast Asia have tanked, report finds](https://ij-reportika.com/russian-arms-sales-to-southeast-asia-have-tanked-report-finds/): Russia’s arms sales to Southeast Asia have plummeted due to international sanctions imposed since the start of the Ukraine crisis in 2014 and the ongoing war will likely lead to a further decline, creating market opportunities for countries like China, a new report says. An article in the bulletin ISEAS Perspective published by the ISEAS –Yusof Ishak Institute, a Singapore-based research institution, has found that Russia’s defense industry has been hit hard, with export values reduced from $1.2 billion in 2014 to just $89 million in 2021. Cumulatively Russia has been on top of the list of arms suppliers to Southeast Asia over the last two decades but the sales are likely to fall further and regional countries will look to divert their weapons contracts to other countries, the report says. Data provided by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) show that in 2021 alone, Russia has already slipped behind the United States and China. According to the article’s author, academic Ian Storey, the biggest reason behind the fall is sanctions and export controls that the U.S. and Europe imposed on Russia’s defense industry since its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Those restrictions haven’t necessarily prevented Southeast Asian nations from buying Russian arms, but there is less on offer as Russian manufacturers face difficulties in conducting financial transactions and accessing technologies and critical components. It&#8217;s also ended defense industry ties between Russia and Ukraine. “The conflict brought to an abrupt end longstanding and extensive cooperation between Ukrainian and Russian defense companies, especially in the production of engines for surface ships, helicopters and aircraft,” Storey said. Military visitors of Vietnam observe a Russian T-90MS tank during the International Military Technical Forum Army-2020 in Alabino, outside Moscow, Russia, Aug. 23, 2020. (AP Photo) Another factor is a pause in the military modernization program in Vietnam, Russia’s biggest customer in Southeast Asia. Hanoi began the program in the late 1990s and in the period 1995-2021, it bought $7.4 billion worth of weapons and military equipment from Russia. That accounted for more than 80 percent of Vietnam’s total arms imports. &#8220;Vietnam has put the military modernization program on hold because of concerns over Moscow’s ability to fulfill orders but also due to an anti-corruption drive,&#8221; Nguyen The Phuong, lecturer at the Faculty of International Relations, Ho Chi Minh City University of Economics and Finance, wrote in July 2021 research paper. Hanoi will still have to rely on Moscow to maintain and operate its Russian-made arsenal of six Kilo-class submarines, 36 Sukhoi Su-30MK2 aircraft, four Gepard 3.9 class frigates and two Bastion mobile coastal defense missile systems, but experts say it has already been on the look-out for alternative supply sources including Israel, Belarus, the U.S. and the Netherlands. Downward trends In the light of the Ukraine war, the new report says will be difficult for Russia’s defense manufacturers to revive their sales due to “the imposition of tighter sanctions and export controls by a number of countries, the reputational damage caused by the poor performance of Russia’s armed forces in Ukraine, and its need to replenish battlefield losses.” Storey pointed out that the current sanctions on Russian banks, and their exclusion from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) international payment network, “will make it harder for the country’s defense industry to conduct financial transactions with overseas clients.” Export controls imposed on Russia will also restrict Russian manufacturers’ access to advanced technologies critical in modern military hardware and components that Russia doesn’t possess. “As a consequence, foreign buyers may decide to switch to more reliable sources of military hardware.” People walk past the headquarters of Russian Agricultural Bank in downtown Moscow, Russia, on July 30, 2014. It was one of the Russian banks hit by Western sanctions. (AP Photo) Furthermore, losses suffered by Russian forces in Ukraine this year may have seriously damaged Moscow’s reputation as a military equipment powerhouse. “The problems facing Russia’s defense-industrial sector will create market opportunities in Southeast Asia for other countries, including China,” the report says. According to SIPRI data, China’s arms exports to Southeast Asia in 2021 totaled $284 million, up from $53 million in 2020. So far, China has refrained from condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and as the war drags on Moscow’s dependence on Beijing may deepen. In return, “China will seek increased access to Russia’s most sensitive military technology and even pressure Moscow to reduce military sales to Vietnam,” Storey said. A medium range surface-to-air missile weapon system is displayed during the 12th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition in Zhuhai city, south China&#8217;s Guangdong province, on Nov. 6, 2018. (AP Photo) Ukraine’s arms sales That would be a blow for Russian exporters but also for Vietnam, which has competing claims against China in the South China Sea. The situation in Ukraine also disrupted the Ukrainian arms supply to Hanoi which totaled $200 million during 2000-2021. Ukraine was part of the Soviet and then Russian defense industries even after proclaiming independence. It has been a major supplier of aircraft and spare parts, as well as armored vehicles and munitions. During 2009-2014, up until the annexation of Crimea, Ukraine was among world’s 10 largest arms exporters, according to SIPRI. In 2012, it was in fact the fourth-largest arms exporter. Kyiv sold $1.3 billion worth of conventional arms that year. Ukraine’s state-owned exporter Ukrspecexport had contracts with nearly 80 countries. In its heyday, the company ran 100 arms-producing plants and factories, and employed tens of thousands of workers. Besides Vietnam, in Southeast Asia Thailand and Myanmar were also big customers that spent $479 million and $111 million on Ukrainian weapons respectively during 2000-2021. In 2011, Bangkok ordered 49 T-84 Oplot battle tanks and 236 BTR-3E armored vehicles from Ukraine. However the delayed deliveries of the Oplots due to the Crimea crisis forced Thailand to buy VT-4 main battle tanks from China instead. Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos and Indonesia also bought weapons from Ukraine, though in much lesser quantities. A Bangladesh military officer, Brig (Rtd)...
- [Chinese journalist sentenced in Hainan for smearing reputation of CCP heroes](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-journalist-sentenced-in-hainan-for-smearing-reputation-of-ccp-heroes/): Authorities in the southern province of Hainan have jailed a former journalist for &#8220;impeaching the reputation of heroes and martyrs&#8221; after he commented online about the portrayal of China&#8217;s role in the Korean War (1950-1953) in a ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda movie. Luo Changping was sentenced to seven months&#8217; imprisonment by a court in the resort city of Sanya, which found him guilty of the charge in connection with his comments on &#8220;The Battle at Lake Changjin.&#8221; He was also ordered to make a public apology. Critics of the movie outside China say it never mentions that the Korean War was triggered by the North&#8217;s invasion of the South, and make it appear that the landing of U.S. forces at Incheon was an invasion out of the blue. Soldiers in the film are led to believe that they are ultimately fighting to protect China from a U.S. invasion, and Luo made fun of them as &#8220;stupid&#8221; in a social media post commenting on the movie. Luo was initially detained by police in Sanya in October 2021. The court found that while Luo deleted his post and apologized shortly afterwards, it had already been widely seen by other internet users, and &#8220;caused strong public indignation.&#8221; &#8220;Luo Changping&#8217;s remarks negated core socialist values and the spirit of resisting U.S. aggression and aiding Korea, disrupted social order and harmed the public interest, to a very serious degree,&#8221; the judgment said. However, it said the sentencing had been mitigated by Luo&#8217;s turning himself in, his guilty plea and acceptance of his punishment, as well as his willingness to pay 80,000 yuan (U.S. $12,000) in compensation to public welfare funds. The trial was reported in state media, but no footage of Luo&#8217;s guilty plea was used. Friends of Luo&#8217;s told RFA he will likely be released soon, as the sentence was equal to time already served in pretrial detention. But calls to Luo&#8217;s cell phone resulted in a shut down signal on Friday, while his accounts on WeChat and Weibo remained suspended. &#8216;Kill the chickens to frighten the monkeys&#8217; U.S.-based legal scholar Teng Biao said the crime Luo was convicted of is in itself a violation of Chinese citizens&#8217; constitutional right to freedom of expression. &#8220;The authorities like to use cases like this to kill the chickens to frighten the monkeys,&#8221; Teng told RFA. &#8220;The fact that even Luo Changping, who is a relatively well-known journalist, can still get arrested and sentenced to jail will make the deterrent even more effective.&#8221; &#8220;Even if others say similar things, the government can arrest them too, in their dozens, hundreds or even thousands, and jail them too,&#8221; Teng said. &#8220;The environment for freedom of speech and expression in China is getting worse and worse.&#8221; &#8220;The CCP uses &#8230; evil laws like &#8216;impeaching the honor of heroes and martyrs&#8217; to deprive citizens of their basic rights and control them,&#8221; he said. A human rights lawyer who gave only the surname He agreed that such laws are problematic. &#8220;The whole concept is absurd,&#8221; He said. &#8220;How do you define a hero and what constitutes an insult?&#8221; &#8220;If you insulted [World War II hero] Sun Liren and called him a butcher, I think you&#8217;d be fine, because he was in the Kuomintang [the CCP&#8217;s political rivals],&#8221; he said. &#8220;But if you speak ill of a certain CCP general during the war against Japan, you could be guilty of this crime.&#8221; A fellow rights attorney surnamed Zhang said the CCP&#8217;s &#8220;defamation&#8221; law works similarly, as it has been used to prevent public criticism of officials. A resident looks out through a gap in the barrier at a residential area during a COVID-19 lockdown in Shanghai, China, May 6, 2022. Credit: Reuters Lockdown anthem arrest Meanwhile, authorities in Shanghai have hauled a man in for questioning after he sang the Internationale, an anthem of global communism, from his apartment during lockdown. &#8220;Arise, slaves to hunger and cold,&#8221; the Chinese version of The Internationale begins. &#8220;Arise, all those who suffer around the world.&#8221; In a video clip uploaded to social media, four police officers in full PPE are shown at the door of the man&#8217;s apartment. &#8220;We heard the Internationale. Please cooperate with our investigation,&#8221; one of them tells the couple. &#8220;We will investigate this and may issue a summons. Please cooperate.&#8221; The clip sparked intense discussion on Weibo, with many comments expressing incredulity that a communist anthem is deemed illegal in a communist country, particularly on the birthday of late supreme CCP leader Mao Zedong. &#8220;So we can&#8217;t even play the Internationale in socialist countries now?&#8221; one person commented, while another added: &#8220;What&#8217;s wrong with playing it on Mao&#8217;s birthday?&#8221; Veteran Beijing political journalist Gao Yu said the song likely cut too close to the bone for the authorities amid ongoing public anger at CCP leader Xi Jinping&#8217;s zero-COVID policy. The people of Shanghai are currently in the same situation as those slaves to hunger and cold in the Internationale, Gao told RFA. &#8220;It&#8217;s because it has that line about &#8216;slave to cold and hunger&#8217; in it,&#8221; Gao said. &#8220;Slaves have no personal freedom, and they&#8217;re all in lockdown.&#8221; &#8220;They are living through cold and hunger right now,&#8221; she said. Former 1989 student leader Wu Jianmin said the CCP typically views expressions of public anger as an attempt to cause trouble for the regime. &#8220;The police didn&#8217;t just issue a reprimand; no, they will charge you with a crime straight away if you oppose Chinese government policy, Xi Jinping or the CCP, so many people don&#8217;t dare to oppose them openly,&#8221; Wu told RFA. &#8220;But they still need to vent their feelings, and they have found something to express their mood in the lyrics of The Internationale,&#8221; he said. &#8220;That&#8217;s why they won&#8217;t let people sing it during lockdown, because they think they are disrupting public order.&#8221; Gao said the CCP usually sings the anthem during its five-yearly national party congresses, the next of which is slated for later this...
- [Junta forces kill 20 civilians in one day in Myanmar’s Sagaing region](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-forces-kill-20-civilians-in-one-day-in-myanmars-sagaing-region/): A joint force of military troops and pro-junta militiamen killed 20 civilians earlier this week in Myanmar’s war-torn Sagaing region, according to sources, who said soldiers forced some of the victims to serve as human shields and executed several others as they lay face down in the dirt. The victims, who included men in their 70s and one young woman, were all killed on May 2 and included three people from Seikhun village and six from Nyaungbin Thar village; both in Shwebo township, nine from Butalin township’s Otpo village, one from Khin-Oo township’s Innpat village, and one from Ayardaw township’s Malae Thar village, sources told RFA’s Myanmar Service. A resident of Otpo village, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal, said the victims were all civilians who had been hiding from the soldiers in an unoccupied Buddhist convent. “We heard the army was coming from Butalin … and the villagers fled in fear. Many went to the convent to take shelter and that’s when they met the soldiers head-on,” the resident said. “The detainees were told to lie on their bellies on the ground and were shot in the head. A child was ordered to go away from the site before they killed the victims.” The convent’s nuns, who might have served as a deterrent to the troops, had earlier fled the area after receiving reports of the advancing column, the source said. Troops also set fire to several vehicles in and around Otpo village, he said. On the same day, three villagers were killed, and six others were injured when troops engaged in a firefight with anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries near Seikhun and Zeebyugone villages and shelled the area, other sources told RFA. A resident of Seikhun, who also declined to be named, said the troops had come to the village from the seat of Shwebo township, around 7 miles to the north, “to clear the area.” “The soldiers entered the village, where there are monasteries. The people hiding in the monastery compounds were used as human shields,” he said. “But before entering the village, they opened fire with heavy weapons from all sides. Three people died and six others were injured because of the shelling.” Of the three dead, one 25-year-old man was “burned to death” by the troops, while the other two “died of gunshot wounds,” the source said. Residents told RFA that troops had come to Seikhun last year and destroyed village looms “because people didn’t pay their electricity bills.” A resident of Nyaungbin Thar said six villagers were shot dead on May 2 after the military raided the tract for the second time in a week. “They burned Kyar village earlier, stopped for a while in Panyan village, and then returned to Nyaungbin Thar. The local paramilitaries detonated a few landmines and held them off, so the troops withdrew and began shelling the area. Two villagers were wounded,” they said. “After that, the soldiers moved towards Khin-Oo, where they killed five villagers. One man was killed inside a house where he was captured. The troops brought along Pyu Saw Htee from [nearby] Khun Daung Gyi village.” In addition to the killings in Shwebo and Butalin townships on May 2, sources said that at least one man died when troops set fire to more than 300 houses in Khin-Oo’s Innpat village and a blind man perished in another arson attack on Ayardaw’s Malae Thar village that day. The aftermath of a May 2, 2022 military arson attack on Ayardaw township’s Malae Thar village. Credit: Citizen journalist ‘Completely inhuman’ Graphic photos obtained by RFA of the aftermath of the incidents showed several victims lying crumpled on the ground in their own viscera. In some cases, the subjects of the images were unrecognizable because of the trauma inflicted on their bodies. Attempts by RFA to contact junta Deputy Minister of Information Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment on the reported killings went unanswered. Previously, the deputy minister has rejected reports of troops killing civilians as “baseless accusations,” and blamed such incidents on the PDF, which the junta has labeled a terrorist group. The military cut off internet access to most townships in Sagaing region beginning in March this year when it launched a scorched earth campaign in the area. RFA has received frequent reports of arrests, looting, rape, torture, arson, and murder in the region. Aung Kyaw, a former Member of Parliament for the deposed National League for Democracy (NLD) in Butalin township, said the military is targeting innocent civilians because it is unable to defeat the PDF. “The PDF groups have planted landmines in the area and when [the army] suffers casualties, they kill anyone they encounter as an act of revenge,” he said. “The military has become a band of terrorists, violating every law. They are completely inhuman.” Aung Kyaw said there are now daily protests in Sagaing against military persecution. According to Data for Myanmar, which monitors troop arson attacks, a total of 11,417 homes have been destroyed by fire across the country since the military seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021 coup. Sagaing saw the most arson attacks of any other state or region in Myanmar, with more than 7,500 homes burned. The Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners said security forces have killed 1,822 civilians since the coup and arrested some 10,535 others, mostly during peaceful anti-junta protests. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [More than 200 arrested for social media posts supporting Myanmar opposition](https://ij-reportika.com/more-than-200-arrested-for-social-media-posts-supporting-myanmar-opposition/): Authorities in Myanmar have arrested more than 200 people for incitement and terrorism since late January in connection with posts they made to social media in support of opposition groups the junta has labeled terrorist organizations, according to official statements. On Jan. 25, the junta announced that anyone posting content in support of the shadow National Unity Government (NUG), Committee Representing the People’s Parliament (CRPP), or prodemocracy People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries — intentionally or not — would face lengthy prison terms as well as the loss of their homes and other property. In a statement on Thursday, the junta said that it had arrested 229 users for violating the country’s Anti-Terrorism Law and a section of the Electronic Communications Law that prohibits distribution of anti-junta propaganda online since authorities began to monitor Facebook for such posts on Jan. 27. Among those arrested was well-known comedian Kaung Kyaw, who was taken into custody on April 19 from his home in Yangon’s Thaketa township. A source close to Kaung Kyaw, who spoke to RFA’s Myanmar Service on condition of anonymity, questioned why he was arrested. “Kaung Kyaw just wrote some posts on Facebook, nothing like they accused him of,” he said. Kay Jay, a close relative to residents of Sagaing region’s Shwebo township who were arrested in the crackdown, told RFA authorities had no right to target people for using social media. “People were arrested for their online activities — writing or sharing posts and political news or using the NUG logo as their profile pictures. But, when they were taken to court after interrogations, some were also charged with anti-terrorism laws,” he said. “These people were just writing and campaigning online. As a citizen, I strongly condemn such arrests.” Others detained in the roundup include celebrities, politicians, businesspeople and doctors from Yangon, Mandalay, Naypyidaw, Lashio, Pakokku, Kawthaung and Hpa-an. Their ages range from 17 to 64. Of the 229 people mentioned by the military, some have been released, while others remain in detention. When asked about the arrests, junta deputy information minister, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, told RFA they had been carried out “in accordance with the law.” “The NUG, CRPH and PDF groups are committing acts of terrorism in Myanmar,” he said. “We have said previously that they are subject to punishment under the Anti-Terrorism Act. People who support them or help them financially are also in violation of the Terrorism Act.” Arrested comedian Kaung Kyaw in an undated photo. Stripped of rights and legal protection An IT technician from Yangon, who declined to be named for security reasons, said conversations on social media sites are traceable and warned users against posting politically sensitive content. “A digital footprint is always left on social media,” he said. “If an excerpt from a text you wrote on Facebook or Twitter is searched on Google, your digital footsteps can be tracked, and nothing can be done to prevent it.” Aung Myo Min, the NUG’s human rights minister, said arrests over online content are in violation of the rights of freedom of expression and access to information. “It is deplorable that one could be arrested and face long prison terms for writing his or her beliefs on social media. People cannot print newspapers, bulletins or journals like before, and so they rely on social media to write their ideas, and share news and information,” he said.  “Now, [authorities] are not just repressing the media, but also punishing those who write on social media, and this is a serious violation of fundamental rights.” In addition to arresting social media users who post content in support of the opposition, the junta is also drafting a cybersecurity law that carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison for anyone using a VPN, or virtual private network, to cloak their IP address and access restricted websites. A lawyer told RFA on condition of anonymity that the people of Myanmar have been stripped of their rights and legal protections. “I see this as a very worrying situation in which the rights and freedoms that a citizen deserves are truly gone,” he said. “Citizens now have zero protection under the law.” People who spoke to RFA said that despite the threat of arrest, netizens in Myanmar are still posting their ideas and sharing information on Facebook and Twitter. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Vietnamese writer declines literature award due to government threats](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnamese-writer-declines-literature-award-due-to-government-threats/): A Vietnamese literary critic who won an award from a group of her peers has declined to publicly accept it due to what she said were threats from authorities.  Vietnam’s communist government has stepped up widespread crackdowns of those it considers its opponents, including independent journalists, bloggers and writers. The country was ranked 174th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders&#8217; 2022 World Press Freedom Index. Nguyen Thi Thinh Thy’s book “Dare to Look Back” won for the category of research-criticism at the 7th Van Viet Literature Awards. Van Viet is a forum created by authors who support free literature and the Vietnam Independent Writers’ Association (VIWA). Van Viet published a letter from Thy, in which she declined to accept the prize. “How much longer will we suffer?” Thy wrote. “Is there anyone on earth, throughout the ancient and modern eras, in both eastern and western literature who has had to write a letter like this? One that asks for the award organizer to PLEASE KEEP THE AWARD FOR ME?” She wrote that she was honored to have won but could not accept the honor due to harassment from security officers. She said they told her, “You should not go and receive the award to avoid undermining public security.&#8221; “If you want to receive the prize, there should be no award presentation ceremony, no filming, and no posts on social media so that you can avoid getting into unnecessary trouble,” she said the authorities told her. RFA’s Vietnamese Service requested an interview with Thy but she said she had written all what she wanted to say in the letter posted on Van Viet. It was not the first time that authorities have threatened or assaulted writers over literature awards, Hoang Dung, a member of Van Viet’s judging panel told RFA.  “Creating pressure to force this person or that person to withdraw their article or refuse to accept an award, or even physical attacks, is nothing new,” Dung said. Another Van Viet Literature Awards recipient, Thai Hao, was beaten by plainclothes security officers in March while he was on the way to a different award presentation ceremony held by VIWA’s Campaign Committee. Dung said that the government efforts to ban independent literature shows the weakness within the political system.  “Please note that Ms. Tinh Thy’s incident is among a series of government reactions to Van Viet in particular and non-mainstream literature in general. They are always afraid,” Hoang Dung said. “They see enemies everywhere.” The Communist Party has long sought to control what gets written, but intellectuals and writers would persevere despite those efforts, he said. “I want to let our fellow compatriots know that there are still intellectuals with a conscience who have the courage to deal with government crackdowns. And I wish one day our country would be more open in terms of ideological issues,” Hoang Dung said. “The most important thing right now is to make people see how things really are and raise their voices and join hands toghether to make our country a better place.”  The Vietnamese International Writers’ Association was established in 2014 by more than 60 prominent Vietnamese writers who support freedom of literature. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Xinjiang officials said to pay Uyghurs to perform dance at Kashgar mosque](https://ij-reportika.com/xinjiang-officials-said-to-pay-uyghurs-to-perform-dance-at-kashgar-mosque/): Authorities in Kashgar allegedly paid Muslim Uyghur men to dance outside the most famous mosque in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region to celebrate the end of Ramadan, a performance that was filmed and released by state media ahead of an anticipated visit by the United Nations human rights chief later this month. Kashgar locals told RFA that people were not allowed to pray at Id Kah Mosque but instead were organized to dance on Eid al-Fitr on May 3, as shown in a YouTube video posted by China News Service (Zhongxinwang) on Tuesday. Chinese tourists can been seen observing the dancing and taking photos in the square. A police officer from the city’s Kumdarwaza police station told RFA that prayers have not been allowed at the Id Kah Mosque since 2016. The dance was organized by residential committees, Chinese Communist Party organizations that oversee neighborhood units in cities and towns across China, he said. “Several of our colleagues went to the square and met residential committee officials, and they told them that they had brought people to perform Sama,” the officer, who did not provide his name, said. The Muztagh and Donghu residential committees sent about 500-600 people to perform the Sama, the officer added. “Several weeks before the festival, the residential committees created a list with the names of those who would attend the Sama,” he said. “On one list, I saw there were four to five people I knew on one floor of our building.” The U.S. and other countries have accused China of waging a campaign of genocide against the Uyghurs and other Turkic communities in Xinjiang through draconian policies designed to wipe away native cultures and traditions in the region, allegations the Chinese government has angrily disputed. The filmed dance may be the country’s latest effort to show all is well ahead of the visit from U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet. Uyghur rights groups have pressed Bachelet to visit the region and release an overdue report on well-documented allegations of torture, forced labor and other severe rights abuses against the local population. The Donghu residential committee paid 120-150 yuan (U.S. $18-23) to those who went to Kashgar to perform the dance because it would take them at least half a day, the police officer said. A typical worker in Kashgar earns about 250-300 yuan a day. The Muztagh residential committee did not pay the Uyghurs, who comprise 90% of the residents in the community, to dance, he said. “No one can reject the demands of the residential committees, especially in the communities where Uyghurs live,” the officer said “I watched the video, and I guess some people missed the Sama dance because they haven&#8217;t danced it for six years,” he said. “Some people try to show themselves as being alive and happy — that’s what the residential committees want. “Moreover, after 2017, people became worried about approaching the mosque,” he added. “There is no such thing as running to Sama now. That’s why they paid them.” &#8216;Forced to attend&#8217; In 2017, Chinese officials ratcheted up a crackdown on Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities, detaining hundreds of thousands in a network of government-run detention camps that China says are vocational training centers meant to prevent religious extremism and terrorism. Zumrat Dawut, a former Uyghur internment camp detainee who has said she was forcibly sterilized by government officials, said that if residential committee members sent notices to people via phone to appear at a particular place, they had to go to the site within 20 minutes. “There is sometimes a payment for those who participate in organized activities when investigators arrive,” said Dawut, who now lives in the U.S. “For example, when my father went to the mosque, he was paid 100 yuan for a day’s stay in the mosque.” Mamattohti Emin, a Uyghur who lives overseas, said he learned from acquaintances in Xinjiang that some of the Uyghurs who performed the Sama were paid by residential committees. “Some of them were family members of Uyghurs in captivity,” he said. “They were forced to attend and warned that otherwise they would no longer be able to see their relatives onscreen.” Ilshat Hassan Kokbore, a Uyghur political observer who lives in the U.S., posted a video clip of mostly men dancing in the square outside the historic mosque. A few women who appear to be Chinese tourists also are dancing. “Carefully observe a group of young people in uniform French style in front of the camera, not only do they not know how to dance Sama, but they also look around, obviously they are arranged actors!” Kokbore tweeted in Chinese. “The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has not yet set foot on the land of East Turkestan, the performance of ‘Made in China’ has begun!” the tweet says. “If the High Commissioner for Human Rights can finally make the trip, they will see a group of Uyghurs dancing with the wind, with tears of happiness, drinking the northwest wind, singing praises, and thanking the party-state!” Kokbore tweeted. In May 2021, the Xinjiang regional government invited foreign diplomats from more than 15 countries to observe live-streamed Eid al-Fitr festivities at several mosques in Xinjiang, including the Id Kah Mosque, the state-run Global Times reported. “This is the first time that the Xinjiang regional government held such a reception for Eid al-Fitr and invited foreign diplomats to observe — a move, officials and observers said, that showed the region’s sincerity and openness amid outside slander, as Xinjiang has nothing to hide,” the report said. Translated by Mamatjan Juma for RFA’s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Tibetan political prisoner in poor health said to be released from jail](https://ij-reportika.com/tibetan-political-prisoner-in-poor-health-said-to-be-released-from-jail/): Chinese authorities have released Tibetan political prisoner Norzin Wangmo, who was arrested in 2020 and sentenced to three years in prison for sharing information about Tibetans who self-immolated in protest of China’s repressive policies, a Tibetan living in exile told RFA on Thursday. “Norzin Wangmo was unexpectedly released on May 2 from a prison in Kyegudo, where she was serving a three-year term,” said the Tibetan, who declined to be identified for safety reasons. “Because of severe torture and ill treatment in prison, she can barely stand up on her feet. “She is currently being treated at her home because she is not allowed to visit hospitals for treatment,” said the source. “She is still closely monitored by the Chinese government.” Wangmo from Kham Kyegudo in Yushul (in Chinese, Yushu) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai province was accused of sharing information about Tenzin Sherab who self-immolated in the prefecture’s Chumarleb, (Qumalai) county in May 2013. The woman, who is married and has young three children, was sentenced in May 2020 after a secret trial. Her family was not allowed to visit her while she was in prison despite frequent requests to do so. Due to strict restrictions and harsh policies in Tibet imposed by Chinese government, Wangmo’s case did not reach the Tibetan exile community until 20 months after her arrest. “Before her arrest, she had been interrogated for about 20 hours by local police,” said another Tibetan who lives in exile and has knowledge of the matter. “Her hands and feet were both shackled, and her family was allowed to see her only for a few minutes before she was taken into the prison,” the source said. “The clothes and other goods that her family brought for her were also returned.” Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [North Koreans roll their eyes during May Day lectures about socialism's superiority](https://ij-reportika.com/north-koreans-roll-their-eyes-during-may-day-lectures-about-socialisms-superiority/): Workers in North Korea ridiculed their government’s May Day propaganda which touted the superiority of socialism at a time when most of the people are struggling to put enough food on the table, sources in the country told RFA. May Day, or International Workers’ Day, is an annual celebration of the fight for labor rights and an important holiday in communist countries. The North Korean government held special lectures for factory workers ahead of the holiday, where they emphasized the evils of capitalism to show why North Korean socialism is better. At one such lecture at the Chongjin Steel Factory in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong, workers were not buying the party official’s argument. “They gathered workers into conference rooms, pointing out the problems of capitalism for a whole hour, and then rambled on and on about socialism and how it is superior,” a source working in the factory told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The workers scoffed at the message, saying that nothing could be further from the truth,” he said. They even openly objected while the lecturer was speaking. “When he said that all the workers under the socialist system live happily and receive many benefits from their government, the workers cried out, ‘How can he tell such a lie with a straight face, knowing all the hardships we are facing right now?’” the worker said. “This kind of propaganda that reinforces the superiority of socialism is offending the workers, and we can remain silent no more,” he said. In the northern province of Ryanggang, the subject of the lecture was how workers’ independence has been trampled in capitalist countries and they are not treated like people, a worker at a factory there told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “Most of the workers are well aware that the lecture was unrealistic,” he said. “These days, we all know about how the capitalist countries are the richest, and we know about the rights that workers have from foreign and South Korean movies and TV shows, and from overseas radio broadcasts,” the second source said. The workers therefore ignored the lecture completely. “The reality is that no matter how much the speaker stresses that workers are exploited, pressured, subjugated and repressed under the capitalist system, his words are not being heard,” the second source said. “In the past, during these kinds of lectures, there would be many who actually agree, but these days we just don’t respond to these empty words that declare this as the ideal society in which our independent rights are guaranteed and we are all equal under the socialist system. “Most workers feel like they are at a dead end in terms of their livelihoods, and they express their dissatisfaction by agreeing just for appearances sake.” Translated by Claire Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [High cost likely to derail Taiwan purchase of US helicopters](https://ij-reportika.com/high-cost-likely-to-derail-taiwan-purchase-of-us-helicopters/): Days after Taiwan confirmed its plan to acquire American-made howitzers has been delayed because of the war in Ukraine, the island’s military is facing another snag in acquiring the U.S. defense equipment – this time because of cost. Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng told a legislative session on Thursday that the asking price for the procurement of anti-submarine helicopters from the United States was &#8220;too high and beyond our capability,&#8221; local media reported. The Taiwanese Navy originally set aside a budget of U.S. $1.15 billion to purchase 12 MH-60R Seahawk anti-submarine warfare helicopters made by the aerospace giant Lockheed Martin but the choppers’ price is understood to have increased. Chiu did not indicate how much more expensive it became but a U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency’s statement on March 15 said Spain had been cleared to purchase eight MH-60R Seahawk helicopters, plus support and related equipment, for an estimated U.S. $950 million. That means 12 choppers would come with a price tag of at least U.S. $1.425 billion. Lockheed Martin said the MH-60R is “the most capable naval helicopter available today designed to operate from frigates, destroyers, cruisers and aircraft carriers.” There are currently more than 300 units in operation worldwide. Missiles delivery’s possible delay On Monday, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry confirmed that the first batch of U.S.-made M109A6 “Paladin” self-propelled howitzers will not be delivered in 2023 as planned as the production capacity of the U.S. arms industry has been affected by the ongoing Ukrainian war. Taiwan reached a deal last August to buy 40 M109A6 howitzers and related equipment at an estimated cost of U.S. $750 million. On Tuesday, the ministry said another procurement contract of U.S.- made portable Stinger missile launchers may also be delayed. Taiwan ordered 250 Stingers, made by Raytheon Technologies, with deliveries to be completed by the end of March 2026 but since Stingers and other hand-held missile systems are now in demand by the Ukrainian military, the completion date seems unlikely. Although Washington and Taipei do not have formal diplomatic ties, the U.S. is committed by law to help provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself. Those arms sales have long been an irritant in relations between Washington and Beijing which regards the island as part of China, although Taiwan governs itself. A file photo of a Y-8 Chinese military plane flying IN airspace between Okinawa prefecture&#8217;s main island and the smaller Miyako island in southern Japan, taken Oct. 27, 2013, by the Japan Air Self-Defence Force. This week, Taiwan said that Chinese Y-8 anti-submarine warfare aircraft have been put back on maritime patrol near island after one airplane reportedly crashed two months ago in the South China Sea. The Taiwanese Defense Ministry said in a statement that on Tuesday, a Y-8 entered Taiwan’s southwest air defense identification zone (ADIZ). An ADIZ is an area where foreign aircraft are tracked and identified before further entering into a country’s airspace. In March, the island’s intelligence agency said a Y-8 military aircraft crashed in the Gulf of Tonkin, prompting the People&#8217;s Liberation Army to set up a navigation exclusion zone in the adjacent waters to carry out search-and-rescue, and also military training. The alleged crash has not been confirmed by China.
- [Interview: 'There was no overall logic to anything'](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-there-was-no-overall-logic-to-anything/): A Belgian national of Taiwanese descent has described living through the bureaucratic hell of the Shanghai lockdown, which left the city&#8217;s 26 million people confined to homes or makeshift hospitals for weeks on end with scant access to food, basic supplies and live-saving medical treatment for some. The woman, who gave only the surname Chang, told RFA her experiences after arriving back in the city where she currently works just as the lockdowns under the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)&#8217;s zero-COVID policy were beginning: &#8220;The Shanghai I was seeing on [Chinese state] TV was quiet, with large numbers of volunteers, no shortage of supplies. The weather was good and everyone was full of confidence. There were no visible problems, so I wondered why my residential community was different from the rest. The Shanghai authorities put out a lot of information. We would check every morning how many people in our compound were infected. The city government would publish figures every few hours, and everyone in our [WeChat] friends circle would also communicate with each other, so we found out what was going on in other districts, too, if they were doing PCR testing. Gradually, we discovered that nobody could find anything to eat. One person said they had a single potato left in their home. Initially, we thought the lockdown would be for four days, so that&#8217;s what we had prepared ourselves for, mentally, psychologically. That is totally different from being locked down for a month. I really experienced that feeling of the days and nights merging into one. We had no way of knowing that they would keep postponing lifting the lockdown, again and again. We couldn&#8217;t trust our leaders &#8230; and we had no idea when it would end. My father is in hospital right now in Taiwan. If he had been in Shanghai, he wouldn&#8217;t have been able to go to hospital at all. Because to get into a Shanghai hospital, regardless of how seriously ill you are, no matter if it&#8217;s an emergency, you have to get a negative PCR test first. There are so many PCR tests getting done in Shanghai right now that you need to wait 12-48 hours for the result to come back. All I can say is, I&#8217;m glad my family wasn&#8217;t in Shanghai too. [Errors with names and results of PCR tests] were also happening to people around me. Someone would get their PCR test result on their mobile phone, then somebody would call them up and tell them that the result was wrong. So if you had gotten a negative result, you could be told by your neighborhood committee that it was actually positive, and that they had decided to haul you off to a makeshift hospital [for isolation]. Some people were hauled off to makeshift hospitals after waiting so long for a test result that they were already negative again. Just imagine what that&#8217;s like if there&#8217;s an error with your test result. You don&#8217;t know whom to turn to, to sort it out. Nobody knew what would happen from one day to the next. The people in charge didn&#8217;t know either. It felt like PCR testing was the only thing confirming my existing. And yet, I didn&#8217;t see the CDC taking any other [anti-COVID] measures apart from testing. Everyone was telling each other not to go get a PCR test if they had tested positive on a rapid antigen test [at home]. People were willing to cooperate. If they didn&#8217;t test, then they&#8217;d be recorded as not having it. The more people they tested, the more people would be found to have it. And all the time we were forced to buy [food and supplies] in groups, or putting pressure on the delivery guys [to bring food]. They had to cheat the system too, because they had to have a negative PCR to be allowed to work. The absurdities of that kind were unbelievable. I really don&#8217;t understand a country that can advance and progress so fast in space, military, weapons, and various areas of scientific research &#8230; and yet, two years in, in April 2022, they still don&#8217;t seem to have any understanding of this virus, and they don&#8217;t seem to have any vaccines against it. [The official rhetoric was all about] keeping their eyes on the prize of zero-COVID, tackling important nodes, taking faster and more effective action and measures, and winning the air-defense war against the pandemic as soon as possible. But they could have been talking about the war on pornography or corruption. There wasn&#8217;t much in [the Shanghai disease control and prevention] report about the actual virus. This was the official guidance. On April 26, it was all about keeping up the spirit of zero-COVID, on April 27, it was about fully implementing CCP general secretary Xi Jinping&#8217;s instructions. I couldn&#8217;t see any difference between the statements &#8230; they could equally well have been about fighting pornography or corruption. They were all the same. [Even after lockdown lifted, I heard about someone who] tried to leave the residential compound, where they checked all his papers, and he had everything, so he got as far as the highway, where there was a police roadblock, and the highway police wouldn&#8217;t let him through. They said he didn&#8217;t have a pass. He said he did, with his name on it. They said it should have his license plate on it, too, and that he should go back to his residential committee to ask for it. So he got off the highway, by which time all the roads back to his residential compound were blocked, and he couldn&#8217;t get back there. It took him five minutes to get to the highway, but an hour or two to get back to his compound. When he got there, the police in the compound told him they were only allowed to let people leave, but they weren&#8217;t allowed to let anyone back in again. It was the same everywhere. Everyone was...
- [Hong Kong pollster 'had no choice' but to leave city amid crackdown on dissent](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-pollster-had-no-choice-but-to-leave-city-amid-crackdown-on-dissent/): An outspoken public opinion researcher who recently left Hong Kong for the U.K. did so after being questioned under the national security law, which has sparked a city-wide crackdown on public dissent and political opposition to the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Chung Kim-wah, deputy chief executive of Hong Kong&#8217;s Public Opinion Research Institute (PORI), announced he had left the city on April 24, to &#8220;live for a while in the U.K.,&#8221; he said in a Facebook post at the time. He told the Ming Pao newspaper at the time that he had been &#8220;invited for a chat&#8221; by the authorities in connection with a draconian national security law imposed on Hong Kong by the CCP from July 1, 2020. &#8220;It wasn&#8217;t just one time, either,&#8221; he told the paper. &#8220;People were telling me that I was in a lot of danger, if they were even going after Allan Au.&#8221; Au, a former TVB News producer and former RTHK radio show host who also wrote columns in Stand News and the Ming Pao, was taken away from his home in Kwai Chung on April 11 on suspicion of &#8220;sedition&#8221; under colonial-era laws. Au&#8217;s arrest for &#8220;conspiring to publish seditious material&#8221; came after his sacking from RTHK in June 2021 as the government moved to exert editorial control over the broadcaster. In a Facebook post announcing his departure, Chung said he didn&#8217;t want to &#8220;desert&#8221; his home city, but &#8220;had no other option.&#8221; Sources told RFA that Chung was initially interviewed by the authorities early in December 2021, as the authorities geared up to run the first-ever elections for the Legislative Council (LegCo) to exclude pro-democracy candidates in a system that ensures only &#8220;patriots&#8221; loyal to Beijing can stand. Followed at the airport Chung&#8217;s questioning came after he was criticized by pro-CCP figures for including a question about whether voters intended to cast blank ballots in the election, which they said could amount to &#8220;incitement&#8221; to subvert the voting system under the national security law. Simon Peh, commissioner of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), said at the time that the agency was &#8220;looking into&#8221; whether or not HKPORI had broken the law. Chung later said he suspected he was being followed at the airport as he boarded a plane to leave the city. &#8220;There was a guy sitting in the corner the whole time who I had also seen at the front of the main entrance hall &#8230; and there were people [by the boarding gate] who weren&#8217;t passengers checking their phones and sending messages,&#8221; Chung wrote on his Facebook page after arriving in the U.K. &#8220;It was clear that they were all from the same troop &#8230; I don&#8217;t know who they were, maybe scouts or spies,&#8221; he wrote. &#8220;Members of the same species were all over the place.&#8221; Chung described a near-deserted airport full of empty waiting rooms, with only around 10 out of around 80 boarding gates in Terminals 1 and 2 in visible use. The CCP-backed Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po news site described Chung&#8217;s departure in an April 25 report as &#8220;fleeing Hong Kong for fear of his crimes.&#8221; It once more referred to PORI&#8217;s question about blank ballots, as well as the fact that Chung was questioned by police in connection with a 2020 democratic primary that later resulted in the arrests of 47 former lawmakers and pro-democracy activists for &#8220;subversion.&#8221; The Hong Kong police responded that they didn&#8217;t comment on individual cases when contacted by RFA last week, but that action would be taken &#8220;in accordance with the law.&#8221; Questions remain over the fate of PORI in Chung&#8217;s absence. &#8216;Only lies are permitted&#8217; Chung served as assistant professor in the Department of Applied Social Sciences at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University for more than 10 years, retiring in 2020 to devote himself to public opinion research work at PORI. He has always been an outspoken commentator on current affairs, social and public policy. &#8220;In Hong Kong today, there is no room for sincere speech. Only lies are permitted,&#8221; he wrote after his departure on Facebook. &#8220;Hong Kong may no longer be free from intimidation for [some of us], no longer a place where we can live a normal life.&#8221; Chung also expresses anger &#8220;at the constant intimidation and oppression of many of my elders and peers&#8221; and sadness over &#8220;so many younger people going to jail for daring to resist&#8221; during the 2019 protest movement and in protests over the national security law. He vowed to keep working on behalf of Hong Kong, and said the ultimate goal is to &#8220;find a way to go back home.&#8221; Since Chung left, former pro-democracy lawmaker and veteran social welfare activist Fernando Cheung has migrated with his family to Canada, according to media reports and Chung&#8217;s Facebook page. &#8220;I wish my esteemed friend Fernando Cheung and his family a happy life in Canada,&#8221; Chung wrote on his Facebook page on May 4. According to the South China Morning Post newspaper, Cheung responded by saying he needed to focus on taking care of his disabled daughter. &#8220;I am not yet in a stable situation now, but at least it is safe, and my basic freedoms no longer need to be granted by those in power,&#8221; it quoted Cheung as saying. Former pro-democracy lawmaker Bottle Shiu also confirmed Cheung&#8217;s departure, the paper said. &#8220;This was what I told him when he boarded the plane: Thank you for fighting for Hong Kong until the last moment. Stay safe and take care of yourself. Fer, with countless vivid memories – in the classroom, on the streets, in Legco, courtroom and prison – goodbye to you,&#8221; it quoted Shiu as saying. Cheung, 65, was born in Macau and moved to Hong Kong at the age of seven, where he later graduated with a social work degree from Hong Kong Baptist University. His grown daughter suffers from a rare disease, and Cheung has been a staunch advocate for the...
- [Myanmar Bank missive suggests junta seeks more than financial ties with Russia](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-bank-missive-suggests-junta-seeks-more-than-financial-ties-with-russia/): Recent moves by the Central Bank of Myanmar to promote cooperation between military-owned lenders and their Russian counterparts suggest the junta is seeking more than financial ties to the Kremlin and may be brokering a back channel for arms deals, analysts said Wednesday. In an April 25 letter, the Central Bank of Myanmar told the Myanmar Banking Association that five Russian banks will hold talks this month with local lenders, including the military backed Innwa and Myawaddy banks. The letter, which did not say which banks would be involved in the talks, may signal that the two junta-linked lenders plan to act as conduits for military purchases of Russian weaponry, economic and political analysts said. A Myanmar-based economist, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing security concerns, told RFA’s Myanmar Service the junta’s plan to link with Russian banks was part of a bid to show that its ties to Russia run “beyond economic ones.” He said establishing political and military ties to other larger nations is key to the junta’s survival at a time when the military leadership is being ostracized by the international community over its Feb. 1, 2021, coup and subsequent violent repression of opponents to its rule. According to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, security forces have killed at least 1,821 civilians and arrested 10,526 more in the 15 months since the military seized power from the democratically elected National League for Democracy government, mostly during peaceful anti-coup protests. An arrangement to procure arms via the two banks stands to benefit both Russia, which has been increasingly cut off from the global financial system in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine, and the junta, whose arms suppliers have faced criticism for providing the regime with weaponry used to repress opponents to its rule. In March, the rights group Justice For Myanmar said in a statement that as a major supplier of arms and dual use goods to Myanmar’s military, Russia is “aiding and abetting the military’s genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity,” and called for international action to stop the trade. It called for sanctions against 19 companies that it said have supplied Myanmar since 2018, including multiple subsidiaries of the Russian state-owned arms giant, Rostec, as well as manufacturers of missile systems, radar and police equipment. The group said many of the companies it identified have exported to Myanmar since the coup. A branch of the Myawaddy Bank in Yangon&#8217;s Yanken township, in a file photo. Credit: RFA ‘Boosting trade’ When asked for comment, junta deputy minister of information, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, told RFA that last week’s letter to the Myanmar Banking Association was related to boosting trade between Russia and Myanmar and had “nothing to do with arms.” “Russia wants to increase links in the trade and energy sectors, and [cooperation in] other sectors will follow,” he said. “[Myanmar’s] banking sector must be upgraded so businesses can grow. Foreign currency is not based on U.S. dollars alone.” Zaw Min Tun noted that recent inter-governmental initiatives between Beijing and Naypyidaw had established a system for trade through the direct exchange of Chinese yuan for Myanmar kyats. He said the junta is working to create a comparable system for trade with Myanmar’s neighbors Thailand and India. “Similarly, we are now working to facilitate trade between [Russia and Myanmar] with a direct exchange of the ruble and the kyat,” he said. The minister said that all purchases of arms are made on a government-to-government basis, adding that the need to establish banking links stems from junta plans to purchase energy from Russia, as well as import fertilizer from and export agricultural products to its Republic of Tatarstan. An official with a private bank in Myanmar, who declined to be named, told RFA that the Central Bank’s letter could indicate a strategy shift in line with Zaw Min Tun’s stated goals for the junta. “Before this Russian issue, there was the China Initiative &#8230; and you can now transfer money to China by going to the nearest Myanmar bank,” they said. “Now they are planning the same thing with Russia for a direct exchange between kyats and rubles. &#8230; So, there will be more countries that can use rubles as well as Myanmar’s currency. There will be more channels for all countries close to China and Russia to make their monetary system easier.” In October 2021, a delegation of the Russia-Myanmar Friendship and Cooperation Association visited Myanmar and met with Than Nyein, the governor of the Central Bank of Myanmar. Observers have said that the meeting could set the stage for linking the two countries’ banking systems as part of a bid by the junta to improve Myanmar’s banking sector. Ties beyond banking However, another official with a private lender in Myanmar, who also spoke anonymously, said that the junta is better off looking for other countries to work with, both because of Russia’s relatively poor economy and the stigma associated with its invasion of Ukraine. “I don’t think any private banks will get involved in this [initiative]. Myawaddy and Innwa are half-owned by the government, so I think only those banks will be involved,” they said. “Linking with these Russian banks is not going to bring much benefit. Other countries would have already done so if that was the case.” Myanmar-based businessman Nay Lin Zin told RFA that, despite Zaw Min Tun’s comments, he believes the Central Bank’s letter is about more than building links between banking systems. “I don&#8217;t think Innwa and Myawaddy Banks can accomplish much just by opening an account in Russia, but it might benefit them if they could open branch offices there or the Russians opened a branch office here,” he said. “There may be other purposes at play. Of course, it is better to have more channels to choose from than to rely on [the U.S. dollar] alone. But we can’t just ignore the dollar, which is accepted all over the world. We can’t demote...
- [Cambodia’s Supreme Court upholds 7-year sentence for opposition party activist](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodias-supreme-court-upholds-7-year-sentence-for-opposition-party-activist/): Cambodia’s Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a lower court’s verdict to sentence a 70-year-old activist affiliated with a dissolved political opposition party to jail for seven years for treason, the man’s lawyer and relatives said. Kong Sam An was arrested in September 2020 for an alleged plan to bring Sam Rainsy, the exiled former leader of the now-banned Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), back to Cambodia. The Tboung Khmum Provincial Court handed down the original sentence to Kong Sam An, who was the CNRP chief for Memot district. He has been detained in Prey Sar Prison in Phnom Penh since 2020. Critics said Kong Sam An’s sentence is part of the government’s efforts to stifle opposition before local elections on June 5 and the general election in 2023 to ensure that Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s party remains in power. Sam Sok Kong, the activist’s lawyer, called the Supreme Court’s verdict unjust. “I am very saddened by the Supreme Court’s decision,” he told RFA about presiding Judge Kong Srim’s ruling. Kong Sam An’s daughter, Kong Moly, told RFA that her father did not commit any crime. She called for the charge against him to be dropped. “I urge the government to talk and don’t regard us as enemy,” she said. “He is a gentle man, [and] he shouldn’t be unjustly detained. Please release him.” In April, Eap Suor, Kong Sam An’s wife, visited her husband in prison and later told RFA that he is very ill from confinement in a crowded prison cell and from malnourishment. Soeung Sengkaruna, spokesman for the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association (Adhoc), said the court’s verdict was politically motivated intended to persecute the opposition party. “Justice has not been given to Kong Sam An,” Soeung Sengkaruna told RFA. “NGOs urge the ruling party, which is leading the government, to decrease the tension to avoid international criticism and open up the political space and human rights.” The Tboung Khmum Provincial Court sentenced six other activists along with Kong Sam An on treason charges. They all received sentences of five to seven years in jail in February 2020, though some were released on bail, while others fled. The Supreme Court banned the CNRP in November 2017 for its supposed role in an alleged plot to overthrow the government. Key party figures were arrested as others fled into exile as part of a crackdown by Cambodia Hun Sen on his political opposition, NGOs and independent media outlets. Hun Sen’s CPP went on to win all 125 seats in the country’s July 2018 general election. Since then, the government has continued to target activists associated with the CNRP, arresting them on arbitrary charges and placing them in pretrial detention in overcrowded jails with harsh conditions. Meanwhile, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court postponed the hearing of former CNRP leader Kem Sokha, who is accused of conspiring with a foreign power to topple the government, for one week. The new date for the hearing is May 11. The former CNRP president was arrested in September 2017 over an alleged plot purportedly backed by the United States to overthrow the government of Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia for more than 35 years. The country’s Supreme Court dissolved the CNRP two months after his arrest. Kem Sokha’s trial resumed in January after two years of delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Judge Koy Sao granted the delay based on a request from government attorney Cheng Penghap, who cited a previous business commitment as the reason. NGOs criticized the court’s move saying the postponement would also delay the deliverance of justice to Kem Sokha. Soeung Sengkaruna of Adhoc said the government lawyer did not provide details about his request for the delay, and that if the trial continues to drag on, Kem Sokha will not be able to participate in the upcoming commune elections. “The delay has caused concerns over his right to get justice and political rights,” he said. “It will affect Kem Sokha’s freedom as a politician.” Am San Ath of the Cambodian rights group Licadho urged a political solution though national reconciliation. “If politicians have goodwill, then they can seek a way out of this deadlock to end political crisis for the sake of the country,” he said. Translated by Samean Yun for RFA’s Khmer Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Interview: ‘I couldn’t go on working for them,' says Myanmar military nurse](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-i-couldnt-go-on-working-for-them-says-myanmar-military-nurse/): Capt. Khin Pa Pa Tun, a nursing captain at the Myanmar Military Medical Academy, and her husband, retired doctor Capt. Thin Aung Htwe, left the military, took their two children and fled to an opposition-controlled area of Myanmar recently to join the pro-democracy movement.  Thin Aung Htwe retired from a 500-bed military hospital in Meikhtila in 2009 because he no longer liked the military. The couple spoke to Khin Maung Soe of RFA’s Myanmar Service from an undisclosed about their motives and experiences in the army that overthrew their country’s elected government on Feb. 1, 2021. RFA:  Please tell me why you joined the anti-junta movement? Khin Pa Pa Tun: I was serving in the hospital when the coup was staged. I knew that the coup was wrong but I had to continue my work because of family reasons.  RFA: Can you further explain why you left now, over a year after the coup? Khin Pa Pa Tun: The reasons they gave for the coup were not logical and I was not happy about the violence in the crackdowns and the atrocities that followed. I couldn&#8217;t help shedding tears every time I saw in the news young protesters beaten up and killed. But I had to carry on with my work because it was not easy to leave and I have a family to think of. Finally, I couldn’t go on working for them. RFA: How do you see the current situation of the country? Khin Pa Pa Tun: I have to say our country has become a failed state. Everything is falling apart in the health, education and economic sectors.  People are being arrested unlawfully and there have been extrajudicial killings.  RFA: How many other people like you are in the military? Khin Pa Pa Tun: There is a lot of discrimination in the army. Lieutenant Colonels and higher ranks have a lot more benefits than officers below them. They have become ‘specially privileged’ people. They have abused authority for their own benefit and we in the lower ranks are being used as their pawns. RFA: How many officers like you think the junta is doing wrong? Khin Pa Pa Tun: There are many who pretend not to see the reality and there are some who keep on working in the interests of their families. RFA: Who do you think are greater in number: those who oppose or those who support the junta? Khin Pa Pa Tun: I think there are more officers who do not like the junta than those who support them, though they do not express their views openly. RFA: What are your future plans? Khin Pa Pa Tun: I feel a lot better now as my conscience is clear. I was quite unhappy then wearing that uniform because my conscience was not clear. RFA: Why do you think the coup was launched and what do you think of the reasons they gave for their act? Khin Pa Pa Tun: I think it was carried out in the interests of one person. And the excuse they gave was not logical. I have been in the military service for over 20 years and I have never voted in elections. I realized they fixed votes in advance because officers added in the lists names of those who are not even in the camp. That&#8217;s why I cannot accept the (junta&#8217;s) excuse that the voting lists were erratic. I know their wrongdoings.  RFA: You must have heard about the burning of villages and the killings of innocent people in several regions and states. Who do you think is responsible for all these atrocities? Khin Pa Pa Tun: It’s the leaders who gave the orders as well as those who committed the acts. The perpetrators had a choice. They didn’t have to follow the orders to the letter. RFA… Do you have anything to say to your fellow officers and colleagues? Khin Pa Pa Tun: Among the Four Oaths we have to say aloud at roll call every morning, there’s one that says &#8216;we will always be loyal to the country and our citizens&#8217;. I refused to say that aloud later because my conscience was not clear. I don’t think we should be saying this oath if we are wearing these uniforms and serving these leaders.  RFA: Can you tell me why you left the military service? Thin Aung Htwe: There are many reasons I left the service. To be honest, I am more interested in the politics of the country. I always ask myself why our country is so poor and backward. Is it because our people are not intelligent or is it because of the system? Our country has been suffering for the past 70 years because of mismanagement of a group of people. These people have not managed well. Frankly speaking they do not have the management skills. They don’t have the education or experience or goodwill for the country. They only made us work for them and their families. Our education levels have gone down so badly. Our universities and colleges were once among the top in Southeast Asia but now we, even doctors, cannot get a proper job in a country like Singapore. Our local degrees are useless and we need more college degrees to be able to work there. We got into this situation due to mismanagement. RFA: What would you like to say about your decision to leave the military? Thin Aung Htwe: To speak frankly, we are very happy now. First, because we can now participate in the struggle for democracy, and second, because of the knowledge that we are no longer on the opposite side of the people. We will do whatever we can to help the people&#8217;s cause. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. 
- [NGO: Video shows Thai military destroying footbridge used by Myanmar refugees](https://ij-reportika.com/ngo-video-shows-thai-military-destroying-footbridge-used-by-myanmar-refugees/): The Thai army in March destroyed a footbridge used by refugees fleeing attacks in eastern Myanmar, a human rights group alleged this week, but the military claimed Wednesday that it had dismantled the structure to stop cross-border crime. On Tuesday, Fortify Rights released video footage that shows uniformed soldiers dismantling the small footbridge made of bamboo over the Wa Le (also known as the Waw Lay) River, a tributary of the Moei River, at the Thai-Myanmar frontier. The makeshift walkway connected Thailand’s Tak Province with Myanmar’s Karen State, where the junta’s forces have allegedly killed civilians in recent months amid nationwide post-coup turmoil. In a statement, the Bangkok-based group called on the Thai government “to investigate the recent destruction by its soldiers of a makeshift cross-border footbridge used by refugees fleeing deadly attacks in eastern Myanmar.” Thai authorities should also “ensure any investigation into the situation on the border is aimed at protecting refugee rights, not further violating them,” said Amy Smith, executive director of Fortify Rights. “Arbitrary arrests and the destruction of this footbridge demand urgent attention.” The group confirmed that the video was filmed two months ago, adding it had obtained the 16-minute clip filed from the Myanmar side of the border and uploaded a shorter clip to YouTube. In the video, people speaking a Karen language and a crying infant child can be heard off-camera. In another clip from the video, a soldier asks, “What are you filming, [Expletive]. You want to die?” The exact date and time for when the footage was filmed were on file with Fortify Rights, the group said.  “Sources familiar with the bridge and the area told Fortify Rights that Myanmar refugees, especially children and older people, used the bridge to flee violence and persecution and that informal humanitarian workers used it to transport lifesaving aid from Thailand to internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Myanmar,” it said. On Wednesday, the Thai army’s regional command, the 3rd Army Area, responded to the allegations made by Fortify Rights and the video, which the group had circulated through social media. “The video clip depicting Thai soldiers breaking off a cross-border bamboo bridge was taken before the fighting inside of Myanmar flared up, and the bridge was illegal,” the army’s regional command said in a statement. “The bridge demolition has nothing to do with the migration of displaced persons … it was conducted following an order by the Tak border authorities to prevent illegal groups from doing their criminal activities,” the statement said, without saying what these criminal activities were. The statement claimed that the bamboo bridge had been illegally constructed and was destroyed before fighting with Karen rebels flared. “At that time, there was no fighting between Myanmar soldiers and ethnic minority force, and there were no displaced people,” it said. Long frontier Thailand shares a long history and 2,400-km (1,500-mile) border with Myanmar. The military said Thailand was delivering humanitarian aid to more than 1,500 Myanmar displaced people in four camps in Um Phang district. The Karen have been crossing the border since the Feb. 1, 2021, coup when Burmese Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing toppled the country’s democratically elected government, threw its civilian leaders in jail, and then turned military forces and police on his own people who have been protesting the junta’s actions. The Myanmar military has launched attacks throughout the country, including regions along the Thai frontier. Government security forces have killed at least 1,821 civilians – many of them pro-democracy protesters – throughout Myanmar since the coup happened, according to a tally compiled by the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Across the border, Thai authorities have been accused of forcing thousands of refugees to return to Myanmar after Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha ordered them to prevent “illegal immigration.” Additional video Fortify Rights said it obtained other video footage from Jan. 25, before the Thai soldiers allegedly destroyed the footbridge. The video shows at least 45 people, including women and children using the footbridge or lining up to cross the river. The group also alleged that Thai authorities had arbitrarily arrested and extorted refugees in the border town of Mae Sot. Fortify Rights described how refugees were forced to pay officials to avoid being arrested. “Since February 2022, Fortify Rights interviewed 15 Myanmar refugees on the Thailand-Myanmar border, including seven women, as well as three U.N. officials and four humanitarian aid workers in Thailand,” the statement said. “[F]irsthand testimonies collected by Fortify Rights reveal how Thai authorities have arbitrarily arrested, detained, and allegedly extorted money from Myanmar refugees within the last year.” It also noted that on April 8, the Associated Press reported that “police cards” were sold in Mae Sot through middlemen for an average monthly cost of 350 baht (U.S. $10). The refugees made the purchases under the belief the cards would “help them avoid arrest.” “The Thai government should create a formal nationwide system to issue identification cards to refugees that provide genuine protection,” Smith said in the release. “Such a process would help prevent extortion and other abuses and provide critical information on new arrivals to Thailand.” On Wednesday, Thai government authorities did not immediately respond to BenarNews’ request for comment – but Thai police announced last month that they would investigate the scheme. Activists’ concerns Activists, meanwhile, said Thailand should treat the refugees with respect. The Thai military should be more responsible for the refugees, said the person who coordinates the Burma Concern Project at Chiang Mai University in northern Thailand. “I feel bad that the military is giving a terrible reason like this. We have seen this happen again and again,” said Thanawat, who goes by one name. “Even though we see some attempt to aid the refugees, behind the scenes, they are also pushing them back the refugees by not welcoming them like this.” According to another activist, the Thai government did not implement United Nations-supported procedures to deal with the refugees. “They have always let the security agencies take care of the refugees...
- [Seven teachers from high school in China’s Xinjiang confirmed imprisoned](https://ij-reportika.com/seven-teachers-from-high-school-in-chinas-xinjiang-confirmed-imprisoned/): At least seven educators from a high school in the third-largest city in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) have been imprisoned by Chinese authorities, a local police officer and school employees said. The seven imprisoned are among more than 10 teachers from the No. 8 High School in Ghulja (in Chinese, Yining) arrested in recent years amid an intensification of a crackdown on Uyghurs in the turbulent region that began in 2017, the sources said. RFA reported in April that Dilmurat Abdurehim, the school’s former principal who went missing nearly a year ago, was being detained in the city, according to municipal education officials and a Uyghur living in exile who provided information on the man’s disappearance. The Uyghur in exile, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal by the Chinese government, told RFA that he found out that at least 10 other teachers from the high school had been arrested by authorities and provided the names of Abdurehim along with two others — Nighmet and Shohret. Through calls to local police and school employees, RFA confirmed that at least seven of the 10 were currently in prison. When RFA called a local police station located in the same area as the high school, a police officer said that around 20 to 30 teachers had been taken to “re-education centers” and seven or eight of them had been sentenced to prison. He also said that the other two who were imprisoned were Elshat and Nighmet. “There were 29 teachers [who were arrested or detained],” he said. Around 20 have been released so far.” “Around seven or eight [were arrested],” he said. “One’s name is Elshat. He is around 40 to 50 years old. The other one is Nighmet.” Ghulja’s No. 8 High School has about 4,000 students, about half of whom are ethnic Uyghurs and the other half Han Chinese, and 200 staff members, including Uyghur, Kazakh and Chinese teachers. It has provided what it calls “bilingual education” since 2010, requiring Mandarin to be used as the primary language of instruction in schools, with the Uyghur language and literature taught as subjects. A school official contacted by RFA acknowledged that some teachers had been detained by authorities but said that he did not know them and could not provide details because it was a “state secret.” He said the school’s human resources department would have more information about the imprisoned educators. When asked if Abdurehim, Nighmet and Shohret were among those arrested, he told RFA to contact municipal education officials. “I can’t tell you this,” he said. “This is definitely a state secret. If you insist on knowing know, you can ask the city education bureau.” An employee in the school’s human resources department said she could not provide information about the arrested teachers since she was fairly new to her position there, but she did not deny that some educators had been arrested by Chinese authorities. “If I knew all the names and details, I would tell you, but since I am new, I don’t have those details,” she said. A school security official told RFA that three Kazakh teachers had been taken to “re-education camps” but later were released and continued to work at the high school “There are some Kazakh teachers who were taken to re-education. Qemer, Nurjan and Ewzel were taken to re-education and came back later,” he said. Founded in 1934, the No. 8 High School was one of only two high schools in Ghulja at the time. After 1949, the school was renamed after Ehmetjan Qasimi, president of the Republic of East Turkistan which was established in the northern part of what is now the XUAR by Uyghurs and other Turkic ethnic groups in 1944 with help from the former Soviet Union. Qasimi and other republic leaders died in a mysterious airplane crash while flying to Beijing for a political consultation with the then Communist leaders of People’s Republic of China in 1949. Authorities have targeted teachers and intellectuals in Xinjiang because they are the brains of Uyghur society and the most significant means of passing on Uyghur culture and identity, Abdureshid Niyaz, an independent Uyghur researcher based in Turkey, told RFA in a 2021 report. More than 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities are believed to have been held in a network of detention camps in Xinjiang since 2017. Beijing has said that the camps are vocational training centers and has denied widespread and documented allegations that it has violated the human rights of Muslims living in in the region. The purges are among the abusive and repressive Chinese government policies that have been determined by the United States and some legislatures of Western countries as constituting genocide and crimes against humanity against the Uyghurs. Translated by RFA’s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [China casts its 'SkyNet' far and wide, pursuing tens of thousands who flee overseas](https://ij-reportika.com/china-casts-its-skynet-far-and-wide-pursuing-tens-of-thousands-who-flee-overseas/): The Chinese Communist Party (CCP)&#8217;s law enforcement agencies routinely track, harass, threaten and repatriate people who flee the country, many of them Turkic-speaking Uyghurs, under its SkyNet surveillance program that reaches far beyond China&#8217;s borders, using a variety of means to have them forcibly repatriated. A video clip of a Uyghur mother and her 13-year-old daughter crying for help after being detained in Saudi Arabia and told they would be sent to China recently surfaced on social media, highlighting China&#8217;s use of pliant allies to circumvent criminal justice processes and ensure political refugees and Muslims are sent back. The Safeguard Defenders rights group has called on the Saudi authorities to release Abla Buhelchem and her daughter Babure Miremet immediately, as well as two other Uyghur men being held without charge by Saudi police. &#8220;We call on Saudi authorities to immediately release four Uyghurs – including a 13-year-old girl and her mother – who are at grave risk of enforced disappearance, torture and forced separation if sent back to China,&#8221; the group said in a statement on its website. Abla Buhelchem and her daughter were detained near Mecca and told by police they would be sent back to China along with Abla Buhelchem&#8217;s ex-husband Nurmemet Rozi and Hemdulla Weli, both of whom have been detained without charge since November 2020. Rozi and Weli were both in Saudi Arabian on pilgrimage, an act that the CCP deems &#8220;extremist&#8221; along with many other required expressions of Islamic faith, and were detained at the request of the Chinese embassy. It said the two men were moved from the detention center where they were being held in March 2022, and their whereabouts are currently unknown. Abla Buhelchem (L) and her 13-year-old daughter Babure Miremet (R), who have been detained in Saudi Arabia and told they would be sent to China. Credit: Uyghur Human Rights Project. &#8216; Gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights&#8217; On Friday, April 1, United Nations legal experts said the four should on no account be sent to China. &#8220;The prohibition of refoulement is absolute and non-derogable under international human rights and refugee law,&#8221; the statement said. &#8220;States are obliged not to remove any individual from their territory when there are substantial grounds for believing that the person could be subjected to serious human rights violations in the State of destination, including, where applicable, the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights.&#8221; Norway-based Uyghur scholar Abdul Ayup, said he last heard from Abla Buhelchem on April 9. &#8220;At that time, she had already arrived at the detention center in Riyadh,&#8221; Ayup said.  &#8220;She said she was waiting for the Chinese embassy personnel. She said that she was told that she would be deported in three hours. She kept crying.&#8221; Abduweli, a person familiar with the situation, said all four were still in detention in Saudi Arabia as of April 28. He said he had tried to warn Abla Buhelchem of the danger, and advised her to leave the country, but she wanted to stay and tell her ex-husband&#8217;s story to the international community, fearing he would disappear and be forgotten about. &#8220;My friends who work in the Saudi government told me privately that Uyghurs shouldn&#8217;t come to Saudi Arabia.&#8221; &#8220;As far as I know, there has been no clear accusation until now, and the officials have not explained why they were arbitrarily arrested without any documentation,&#8221; Abduweli said. &#8220;This is very strange.&#8221; Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty International secretary-general for the Middle East and North Africa, said the forcible repatriation of the four Uyghurs was &#8220;unconscionable,&#8221; and a violation of Saudi Arabia&#8217;s obligations in international law. &#8220;In China, they will be arbitrarily detained, persecuted, and possibly tortured,&#8221; Maalouf said. Nurmemet Rozi (L)m Abla Buhelchem&#8217;s ex-husband, and Hemdulla Weli, who have been detained without charge in Saudi Arabia since November 2020. Credit: Safeguard Defenders Arab world repatriations In 2020, Saudi Arabia and 45 other countries signed a letter in support of China’s mass detention camps in Xinjiang, marking a &#8220;turning point&#8221; for Saudi foreign policy, according to Bradley Jardine, fellow at the Kissinger Institute for U.S.-China Relations. At least five other governments in the Arab world — Egypt, Morocco, Qatar, Syria and the United Arab Emirates — have detained, extradited, or participated in cross-border repression of Uyghurs at China’s request. And the problem isn&#8217;t confined to the Middle East. “It is very difficult for Uyghur advocates to travel to Central Asia now,” Omer Kanat, chairman of the executive committee of the World Uyghur Congress told RFA after being sent back to Turkey from Kazakhstan. &#8220;I was stopped by border officials while visiting Kazakhstan. I was interrogated by Kazakh security officers at the airport, who asked me why I came to Central Asia.&#8221; Beijing&#8217;s allies among Central Asian nations are grouped under its Shanghai Cooperation Organization initiative. &#8220;They told me that no member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is going to let me in, then they sent me back to Turkey,&#8221; Omer Kanat said. According to statistics from the Uyghur Human Rights Project and the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs, the Chinese government has detained, deported or extradited more than 1,300 Uyghurs since China&#8217;s &#8220;war on terrorism&#8221; began in 2014, most of the them from Muslim-majority countries. U.S.-based Freedom House has described in a recent report several key features of China&#8217;s transnational crackdown. Political dissidents, activists also sent back China will target ethnic groups like the Uyghurs, but also political dissidents, rights activists, journalists and former officials using its overseas networks. Between the launch of the SkyNet program in 2014 and June 2021, China repatriated nearly 10,000 people from 120 countries and regions, the report said. Yet according to Safeguard Defenders, just one percent are brought back to China using judicial procedures; more than 60 percent are just put on a plane against their will. &#8220;The diversity of the CCP&#8217;s so-called &#8216;extradition&#8217; is something that worries us,&#8221; Chen Yanting of Safeguard Defenders told RFA. &#8220;For example, the Interpol red...
- [Musk's Twitter acquisition prompts renewed fear of Chinese influence, infiltration](https://ij-reportika.com/musks-twitter-acquisition-prompts-renewed-fear-of-chinese-influence-infiltration/): Elon Musk&#8217;s Twitter takeover has sparked fears that the platform may now be more vulnerable to Beijing&#8217;s influence, amid an ongoing overseas influence and infowar campaign by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Musk&#8217;s recent U.S.$44 billion acquisition of the social media platform was questioned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos soon after it was finalized, with Bezos tweeting on April 26: &#8220;Interesting. Did the Chinese government just gain a bit of leverage over the town square?&#8221; The tweet came in response to an earlier one from New York Times reporter Mike Forsythe, who noted that China was the second-biggest market for Musk&#8217;s Tesla electric cars in 2021, with the company relying heavily on Chinese battery-makers to make electric vehicles. &#8220;After 2009, when China banned Twitter, the government there had almost no leverage over the platform,&#8221; Forsythe tweeted on April 25, adding: &#8220;That may have just changed.&#8221; The same question was posed to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the Foreign Press Center in Washington on May 3. While Blinken declined to comment on private companies, he responded in more general terms: &#8220;Free speech, including free media, including platforms of one kind or another, are incredibly important to to the Biden administration,&#8221; he said. Blinken also accused Beijing of waging &#8220;hybrid warfare&#8221; against the democratic island of Taiwan, &#8220;including disinformation, including cyber attacks.&#8221; &#8220;These are designed to basically distort the information environment and democratic processes,&#8221; Blinken said. &#8220;So we&#8217;ve partnered with Taiwanese authorities on civil society organizations, to support independent fact based journalism, to try to build societal resilience to disinformation, and other forms of foreign interference.&#8221; Blinken also indirectly touched on more detailed concerns expressed on Twitter in recent days that Musk might consider making it easier for Beijing to identify who is posting on Twitter, or tolerate CCP-sponsored propaganda accounts, which have previously been deleted in large numbers from the platform. &#8220;We&#8217;ve been deeply concerned about what we&#8217;re seeing from [China], in terms of its misuse of technology to try to do things like increased surveillance, harassment, intimidation, censorship, of citizens, journalists, activists, and others,&#8221; Blinken said.  &#8220;These very same leaders in Beijing are using the free and open media that we ensure that are protected in democratic systems to spread propaganda to spread disinformation.&#8221; A Tesla model 3 is seen during the 19th Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition in Shanghai, April 19, 2021. Credit: AFP. Tesla needs Beijing&#8217;s goodwill He also warned that Beijing is keen to extend its censorship and propaganda efforts internationally. &#8220;It also appears that they are further using these systems to stalk, harass and threaten critics who are outside [their] territory,&#8221; Blinken said. &#8220;We condemn and we&#8217;ve taken action against these efforts and will continue to defend the principles of free press an open secure, reliable, interoperable internet and the benefits that flow from it.&#8221; Taiwan Association for Strategic Simulation deputy secretary Ho Cheng-hui said Tesla is heavily dependent on Beijing&#8217;s goodwill to maintain current operations. &#8220;There is their megafactory in Shanghai, and all of his supply chain, like batteries, comes from China,&#8221; Ho told RFA. &#8220;The Chinese government has always been very good at controlling companies &#8230; and has always placed strong controls on big capital and on freedom of speech.&#8221; Musk&#8217;s acquisition of Twitter will make it much easier for China to wield influence there and affect freedom of speech internationally, and that includes exerting influence over foreign companies, he said. &#8220;The Chinese government will never relent, even in part, on controlling freedom of speech, especially where it wants to protect itself or prevent speech that isn&#8217;t in its interest,&#8221; Ho said. &#8220;I can&#8217;t see them letting an opportunity to interfere with a platform like that go.&#8221; After the takeover, Musk took to Twitter to invite his &#8220;worst critics&#8221; to stay on the platform and keep the tradition of free speech alive there. But he added that speech could only be free &#8220;I want even my worst critics to stay on Twitter, because that&#8217;s what free speech is all about,&#8221; Musk said after acquiring Twitter. However, he also tweeted, &#8220;By “free speech”, I simply mean that which matches the law.&#8221; Foreign companies, including Cambridge University Press, have previously used the notion of compliance with laws and regulations to justify implementing Beijing&#8217;s censorship demands. Love-hate relationship? Musk tweeted on April 26: &#8220;I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law. If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect.&#8221; Taiwan strategic analyst Shih Chien-yu said Musk appears to have a love-hate relationship with the CCP. &#8220;Musk is a global entrepreneur who has tried to have restrictions and rules in different countries changed to create ways of operating and values that are conducive to the ongoing development of his business,&#8221; Shih told RFA. &#8220;Twitter is part of his business [empire] now.&#8221; But he said it was hard to predict how far Musk would be willing to use Twitter as leverage with Beijing. &#8220;We also don&#8217;t know how far Musk&#8217;s control of Twitter is going to result in enabling or breaking free speech,&#8221; Shih said. Tesla’s financial report released in February 2022 showed that its annual revenue from the Chinese market was worth U.S.$13.844 billion for the whole of 2021, compared with U.S.$6.662 billion for the whole of 2020, a year-on-year growth rate of 107.8 percent. Reuters reported on May 3 that authorities in Shanghai had helped Tesla transport more than 6,000 workers and carry out necessary disinfection work to reopen its factory last month amid the city&#8217;s lockdown, according to a letter that Tesla sent to local officials. Tesla reopened its factory in Shanghai on April 19 after a 22-day hiatus amid widespread coverage from state media. The letter lauded a company run by the Lingang Group had arranged for 6,000 Tesla workers to be bused in to the factory and disinfected the whole premises to enable production to start up again, Reuters said. The letter also mentioned plans for further expansion of the Shanghai facility, the agency said. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin...
- [Testing Chinese patience](https://ij-reportika.com/testing-chinese-patience/): Millions of residents of Beijing, Shanghai and other big cities face not only extensive long-term lockdowns under China&#8217;s zero-Covid policy, but also an exhausting regimen of testing in response to the spread of the omicron variant. The Chinese capital used the May Day holiday to test millions of people, adding to the stress of securing daily necessities under tight controls on movement.
- [China amphibious assault ship held live-fire drills in South China Sea](https://ij-reportika.com/china-amphibious-assault-ship-held-live-fire-drills-in-south-china-sea/): China’s largest Type 075-class amphibious assault ship Hainan has conducted combat training and live fire drills in the South China Sea, Chinese media reported. The exercise took place on April 22 but news about it only emerged this week on an online Chinese military network.  The Hainan is the second- largest type of vessel in the Chinese Navy, after its two aircraft carriers. The latest photos show People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) personnel carrying out coordinated training, supply maneuvres and ammunition firing at an unspecified location in the South China Sea. Helicopters were seen rehearsing taking off and landing on the ship’s dock. The drills were said to aim at “consolidating the basic skills of officers and soldiers, optimizing the ship deployment and command process, and effectively improving the comprehensive combat capability.” The Hainan, named after the Chinese island in the South China Sea, is China’s first Type 075 amphibious assault ship, commissioned into service only a year ago. It was built in Hudong-Zhonghua Shipyard in Shanghai and listed under the Southern Theater Command which is responsible for the South China Sea. It has a total displacement of 40,000 tons. The Hainan’s deck layout is similar to that of China&#8217;s Liaoning and Shandong aircraft carriers. As tall as a 15-storey building, it can carry a number of helicopters, amphibious hovercrafts, tanks and armored vehicles. The vessel is equipped with weapon systems including missiles and ship guns but its main task is transporting helicopters and amphibious vehicles to conduct amphibious operations. Type 075 vessels A day before the Hainan’s exercise, on April 21, the PLAN also announced the commissioning of its second Type 075 amphibious assault ship, the Guangxi. The Chinese Navy only officially started development work on the Type 075 in 2011 but has already launched three ships, two of which are fully operational and the third is on sea trials. A total of eight vessels are said to be on order for the PLAN, reported the Naval News portal. Chinese state media said the Type 075 “will play vital roles in possible operations on the island of Taiwan, as well as islands and reefs in the South China Sea.” Experts said that the commissioning of the three ships will place China in the second rank in terms of global amphibious capabilities, second only to the United States. A U.S. Defense Department report released last November said China has the biggest maritime force on the globe with 355 vessels. The number is projected to increase to 420 ships within the next four years and 460 by 2030. The state media report about the live-fire drill with the Hainan emerged days after a Chinese navy flotilla led by the Liaoning aircraft carrier was spotted sailing from the East China Sea towards the Pacific Ocean. Both the Japanese and Taiwanese militaries said they were monitoring the flotilla.
- [Little to celebrate on Press Freedom Day amid worsening media crackdown in Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/little-to-celebrate-on-press-freedom-day-amid-worsening-media-crackdown-in-myanmar/): There was little to celebrate on World Press Freedom Day in Myanmar, where the junta has jailed 135 journalists since it seized power last year and reporters routinely face harassment, arrest and even death for doing their jobs, members of the media and watchdog groups said Tuesday. Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said that in the 15 months since its Feb. 1, 2021, coup, the junta had “obliterated” a decade of moderate press reforms in Myanmar, prompting it to name the country the world’s fifth worst abuser of the media freedom in its annual global index. Speaking to RFA’s Myanmar Service on Tuesday, Han Zaw of the Detained Journalists’ Information said his group had documented the arrest of 135 journalists in Myanmar since the coup, adding that nearly half of them remain in detention. “Eighty-three of them — 13 women and 70 men — have been released so far, some on amnesty, some after completing their sentences and some after serving a short-term detention,” he said. “More than 80 journalists have been charged. There are currently 51 detained journalists — 13 women and 38 men.” Myanmar is recognized by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists as the world’s worst jailer of journalists after China. Since the coup, authorities have arrested and sentenced outspoken members of the press on vaguely worded criminal charges that include “publishing false information” and “defamation,” as well as on charges of “terrorism.” Freelance journalist Soe Yar Zar Tun was detained on Feb. 28, 2021, while covering anti-coup protests and is being held in Yangon’s Insein Prison facing a trial for violating the country’s Anti-Terrorism Law. His brother, Zar Ni Tun, told RFA that the junta has no right to arrest members of the media for reporting the news. “It’s completely hypocritical,” he said. “They have harassed and arrested and tortured people in the past and are still doing it.” An editor from the Shwe Phi Myay News Agency, which is based in Shan state, said that in addition to the threat of arrest, journalists are now regularly in danger of losing their lives while doing their jobs. “We know that once a person is arrested, it is very difficult for them to be released. At worst, they could be arrested, tortured or even killed,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “It’s not just the army in this area. There are many ethnic armed groups too. And so, we could get arrested and detained at any time and face a life-threatening situation.” Japanese journalist Yuki Kitazumi raises his hands as he is escorted by police upon arrival at the Myaynigone police station in Sanchaung township in Yangon, Feb. 26, 2021. Credit: AP Photo Risking death Veteran journalist Myint Kyaw said journalists in the country now find themselves in the worst situation they have faced since the military coup. “We had the case of the first journalist to be killed while covering an armed conflict last January,” he said, referring website editor Pu Tuidim, who was abducted by junta troops while reporting on military clashes with armed ethnic soldiers in Chin state and later shot dead by his captors. “Armed conflicts have escalated in cities as well as in rural areas. Journalists will be killed even more, as there are now death threats to journalists and their family members. And so there might be more bad news for us.” According to RSF, Pu Tidim was the third journalist to be killed in less than a month in Myanmar. His murder followed the Dec. 25, 2021, death of Federal News Journal editor Sai Win Aung from gunfire during a clash between the military and anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries in Kaiyn state. Freelance photographer Soe Naing became the first journalist to die at the junta’s hands under torture on Dec. 14, four days after being arrested while covering a protest in Yangon. Journalists are also increasingly facing death threats for reporting news that portrays the junta in a bad light. Last week, the pro-junta Thway Thauk, or “Blood Comrades,” militia called for the deaths of reporters and editors working for news outlets in Myanmar including The Irrawaddy, Mizzima, Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) and The Irrawaddy Times — as well as their family members. Observers say groups like the Thway Thauk have been emboldened by the military regime’s open disdain for the media, which was again demonstrated — days ahead of World Press Freedom Day — by junta deputy information minister, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, when he accused several news outlets of being “destructive elements” in Myanmar during an April 27 press conference in the capital Naypyidaw. When asked by RFA for comment on the number of reporters currently detained or in prison, Zaw Min Tun responded that the junta had “not arrested anyone for working in the media.” “They were arrested for inciting people and for having contacts with terrorist organizations,” he said. “All media outlets, with the exception of those that have been declared illegal, are working freely here,” he added. In this image made from video taken on Feb. 27, 2021, Associated Press journalist Thein Zaw is arrested by police in Yangon, Myanmar. Credit: AP Photo Plummeting index rank Global media watchdog RSF disagreed with that assessment Tuesday when it dropped Myanmar to 175th out of 180 countries in its 2022 World Press Freedom Index from 140th a year earlier. The group said that in the 15 months since seizing power, the junta had “obliterated” a decade’s worth of modest media reforms that began when the country’s last military regime disbanded in 2011. The new ranking put Myanmar behind only North Korea, Eritrea, Iran and Turkmenistan as the worst place in the world to be a journalist. RSF said that after seizing power from Aung San Suu Kyi’s democratically elected National League for Democracy (NLD) government on Feb. 1, 2021, the junta immediately banned a number of outspoken media outlets, leaving a handful to continue the work...
- [Factory in China tests North Korean workers for COVID after 20 show symptoms](https://ij-reportika.com/factory-in-china-tests-north-korean-workers-for-covid-after-20-show-symptoms/): Around 800 North Korean workers in the northeastern Chinese city of Dandong spent their May Day holiday getting tested for COVID-19 after about 20 of their coworkers began showing symptoms for the disease and were quarantined, sources in China told RFA. The North Korean women are employed by a clothing company in the city’s Zhenan district. They are among the 80,000 to 100,000 North Koreans dispatched to China’s three northeastern provinces to earn foreign currency for their cash-strapped government. Dandong has been locked down as part of China’s zero-COVID policy since last week. Workers would typically have off for May Day, an annual celebration of the fight for labor rights and an important holiday in communist countries. But workers were instead called into the factory for testing, a source in the city told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. ​The factory where the 800 women work is an important one in the battle against COVID-19, as it produces protective medical gowns, the source said. On April 27, about 20 suspected cases of COVID-19 were detected among North Korean workers at the company and the factory closed, the source said. The COVID-19 Pulmonary Infectious Disease Prevention and Control Command in Dandong diagnosed the suspected symptoms as laryngitis instead of COVID-19. “The 20 or so North Koreans who appear to have symptoms of COVID-19 are currently being treated in isolation inside the factory,” the source said. “It is absurd to say that it is laryngitis when there are hundreds of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Dandong and the municipal government and disease control authorities are blocking roads and alleys and restricting the movement of people.” COVID-19 has swept through companies employing North Korean workers before, but it was always kept a secret, the source said. “Perhaps if it was confirmed that North Korean workers had COVID-19 there would be considerable ramifications if it became known to the public. I know that the North Korean consulate in Dandong and the Chinese government are fabricating information to cover it up,” he said. “Even though it is a holiday for workers around the world, the North Korean workers are locked up in their company and taking nucleic acid tests.” A health official from Zhenan district told RFA’s Mandarin Service on Tuesday said that there were confirmed coronavirus cases in the factory, but she could not say whether it was North Korean or Chinese workers who were infected. She said that information would not be released. RFA Mandarin attempted to contact the factory but received no response. Another source in Dandong told RFA’s Korean Service that because the company is making protective gear, the factory had to continue operations on the holiday. “They don’t have time to enjoy the day because they are too busy producing COVID-19 protective suits and isolation gowns,” he said on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “They are working while wearing what they make.” “There was a recent scare after North Korean women working in restaurants, hostess bars and public baths had a few suspected cases,” he said. The source spoke of another case where four young North Korean women working at a hotel in Dandong were suspected cases. “I heard from an acquaintance who works with them that they were immediately placed into quarantine because they were showing symptoms,” the second source said. “As COVID-19 spreads here in Dandong, production rates at companies with North Korean workers fell dramatically. Companies that bought materials in advance, before things got so bad, are still forcing the North Koreans to come to work, even with the lockdown,” he said. Millions of residents of major Chinese cities are facing rigid lockdowns and strict testing regimens as the country tries to stop the spread of the omicron variant of COVID-19 under the Communist Party’s zero-COVID policy. RFA reported last week that Dandong, which lies across the Sino-Korean border from North Korea’s Sinuiju, started shutting down on April 25 and stopped all rail freight on May 1, just months after it resumed after an almost two-year hiatus due to the pandemic. North Korean labor exports were supposed to have stopped when United Nations nuclear sanctions froze the issuance of work visas and mandated the repatriation of North Korean nationals working abroad by the end of 2019. But Pyongyang sometimes dispatches workers to China and Russia on short-term student or visitor visas to get around sanctions. Translated by Claire Lee and RFA’s Mandarin Service. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Interview: 'It has become very risky for me to do the job.'](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-it-has-become-very-risky-for-me-to-do-the-job/): Myanmar freelance photojournalist Ta Mwe, a pen name he uses to protect his security, the pseudonym named for his security, has won awards for his news photos of the crackdown on anti-military junta protests following the Feb 2021 coup that ousted the country’s elected civilian government. To mark World Press Freedom Day,  Ye Kaung Myint Maung of RFA’s Myanmar Service spoke to Ta Mwe about his work on the conflict. RFA: Can you tell me about the award you won? Ta Mwe: I have won the jury’s choice for honorable mention in Southeast Asia and Oceania category of the World Press Photo awards. (I submitted) a series of 10  black and white photos about the Spring Revolution in Myanmar. My photo series covers the scenes from the early days of protests after the military coup in 2021. The contestants in this category are required to submit their ten best photos from their work that depict the story. So I picked my ten best photos taken in four months, from February to May of last year. RFA: Can you tell me about your career as a photographer? Ta Mwe: I started my career in photo journalism as a citizen journalist. Around 2007, I started taking photos using my phone and uploaded them anonymously to Burmese language blogs on Blogspot.com. Around 2011, I started working as a full-time photographer. I had worked as a full-time photojournalist for a local weekly journal, then became a freelance photographer.    RFA: What can you tell me about the situation of press freedom in Myanmar at the moment? Ta Mwe: The situation has become extremely difficult for journalists now. When we cover news activities on the ground, we first need to find a route to flee from the scene and escape arrest, before we start doing anything like taking photos or interviewing people. We have to figure out how to ensure our own security before we hit the ground. As I have covered flash mob protests in Yangon, I have planned carefully which streets to run away on as soon as I finish taking photos. It has become very challenging. When I grab a taxi on my way back from the coverage, I don’t do it in the streets close to the scene. I walk a few blocks to hide the traces of my identity before I take a taxi. Before, there were several news media and several photographers working at the scene. They now have either been arrested or gone into hiding. RFA: We have seen that informants for the military authorities are everywhere. How risky it is for the journalists to do their jobs under those circumstances? Ta Mwe: As when I was covering the flash mob protest in Yangon, I have to be at the scene before the activities happen and check the surroundings if there are authorities in plain clothes near the scene. There could be informants at the scene. If I think it is not safe to cover the activities closely, I have to take photos from a distance. It has become very unpredictable. I think the chances of spotting the informers are 50/50. Sometimes, I can easily distinguish the informants from the crowd because of their appearance. But other times, I cannot distinguish them. I hear that sometimes they suddenly come out of a parked car to arrest people. It has become very risky for me to do the job.   RFA: Now you are at a safe location. What do you expect to do to continue your work? Ta Mwe: I am now at a safe location. But I will keep doing the journalism work by recording the happenings in Myanmar and disseminating them to the world, because we are witnessing a historic turning point in Myanmar. For someone of my age, it is very significant. I will keep covering the news happening in Myanmar from a distance. If it is possible, I will go and cover it on the ground.   RFA: What kind of message do you want to pass to concerned leaders around the world, working to restore peace and democracy in Myanmar? Ta Mwe: As a journalist, I am risking my life to report news about Myanmar so that the concerned leaders around the world can make the right decisions. It is their job to make an informed decision. I believe it is my job to send out the correct information, regardless of the risks. I hope they will make the right and unbiased decision based on the information received from us. I also would like to implore them to work harder to secure the release of journalists in detention. Without journalists working on the ground, the people in Myanmar will be under an information blackout, and concerned leaders around the world will have many blind spots in their decision making and they will not make the best decision. I would like to appeal them to try hard for the release of journalists in prison and support those who are in hiding or evading arrest.
- [Myanmar junta rejects ASEAN outreach to NUG shadow government](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-rejects-asean-outreach-to-nug-shadow-government/): Myanmar’s junta on Tuesday poured cold water on calls from Malaysia for Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) talks with the National Unity Government (NUG), calling the parallel, civilian administration that opposes military rule “terrorists groups.” Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah last month revealed he’d had contact in mid-February with the shadow government, the first ASEAN country to acknowledge such an interaction. He was responding to calls from ASEAN lawmakers urging the bloc to “immediately and publicly meet with the NUG.” More than a week later the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar quoted the junta’s foreign ministry as saying it “protests and rejects” the Malaysian foreign minister’s remarks, because “they could abet terrorism and violence in the country, hampering the Myanmar Government’s anti-terrorism efforts and infringe international agreements related to combatting terrorism.” The junta, which overthrew Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government in a coup on Feb. 1, 2021, has branded opponents of military rule as terrorists. The military regime has jailed Aung San Suu Kyi among thousands of political prisoners and killed 1,800 people, mostly anti-coup protesters. “The Ministry cautions the government officials and parliamentarians of Malaysia against making contacts or communicating as well as providing support and assistance to those terrorist groups and their representatives in future,” the junta ministry statement said. Last October, Saifuddin, Malaysia’s outspoken foreign minister had said he would open talks with the NUG if the junta kept stonewalling in cooperating with ASEAN’s conflict resolution efforts. The rebuff to Malaysia came a day after Cambodia&#8217;s Foreign Ministry said Prime Minister Hun Sen had urged the Myanmar junta to allow ASEAN’s special envoy to visit and meet deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi. In a video conference Sunday, Hun Sen called on Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing to allow the meetings and take other steps to implement a five-point agreement the junta leader reached between ASEAN&#8217;s foreign ministers in April 2021. Cambodia is the current rotating chair of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and Hun Sen visited Myanmar in January and met Min Aung Hlaing and urged steps to resolve the political crisis sparked by his coup. Hun Sen requested &#8220;further cooperation in facilitating the second visit to Myanmar by the ASEAN Chair&#8217;s Special Envoy special chairs envoy, possibly at the end of May,&#8221; the ministry said. &#8220;He reemphasized the importance of access for the Special Envoy to meet all parties concerned in Myanmar, including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and former President Win Myint, for creating (a) conducive environment to start an inclusive political dialogue,&#8221; the ministry said. Aung San Suu Kyi and Win Myint are in detention and undergoing trial in military courts for what supporters say are politically motivated charges. The Cambodian statement said Min Aung Hlaing had &#8220;pledged to facilitate meetings with other parties concerned.&#8221; Asked by RFA about Hun Sen’s appeal, junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun did not give a definite answer about the envoy meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi, instead focusing on peace talks and meetings with leaders of ethnic groups with longstanding conflicts with the army that pre-date the coup and have little bearing on the current crisis. The previous visit in March to Myanmar by the ASEAN envoy, Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn, “discussed mainly him meeting with the relevant ethnic armed groups on his next visit,” the spokesman said. Little meaningful progress has been made on the five-point agreement, which included an end to violence, the provision of humanitarian assistance, an ASEAN envoy’s appointment, all-party dialogue, and mediation by the envoy. Kyaw Htwe, a senior member of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, said the ASEAN envoy was not likely to meet the 76-year-old Nobel laureate. &#8220;In the current situation, based on the violence they have meted out on the country, I don’t think the military will have the guts to allow Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and U Win Myint to meet with the ASEAN special envoy,” he told RFA. But political analyst Sai Kyi Zin Soe said Min Aung Hlaing might try to “find a way out” of its isolation by granting assess to the detained leader. “He might give the envoy a chance because of the current domestic crisis and his political dilemma, especially when the people and the world are all against him,” he told RFA. Bo Hla Tint, the NUG’s special representative to ASEAN, urged all diplomatic partners to reconsider their approach and talk to the civilian leaders. &#8220;We urge the United States and the European Union and the world community to work for a more pragmatic solution through direct coordination with NUG, a nationally recognized government,” he told RFA’s Myanmar Service. “It is clear that efforts to find a solution centered on the ASEAN Five-Point Agreement cannot get any results.” Myanmar will be on the agenda of a May 12-13 summit between the U.S. and leaders of ASEAN, where the White House is keen to advance its vision of a “free and open” Indo-Pacific and discuss efforts to counter Chinese influence. Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Paul Eckert.
- [Cambodian prime minister’s son praises press freedom, despite father’s crackdown](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-prime-ministers-son-praises-press-freedom-despite-fathers-crackdown/): The son of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen defended press freedom at an event marking World Press Freedom Day in Phnom Penh on Tuesday, ignoring his father’s crackdown on journalists who have criticized his government. Lt. Gen. Hun Manet, an army commander expected eventually to succeed his long-ruling father, glossed over increasing restrictions on press freedom and civil rights in the country Hun Sen has ruled since 1985. “As Prime Minister Hun Sen stated in his statement, the royal government is committed to protect freedom of expression, press freedom and promote cooperation between the government and press institutions that is vital for the country’s development,” Hun Manet, 42, said as his father’s representative at the event, which was attended by more than 100 journalists, Cambodian news outlet VOD reported. World Press Freedom Day was created by UNESCO in 1991 to highlight the importance a free press plays in society. This year’s theme, “Journalism Under Digital Siege,” is designed to spotlight how developments in monitoring and surveillance technologies affect journalism and freedom of expression. Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a Paris-based group, ranked Cambodia 142 out of 180 countries and territories in its 2022 World Press Freedom Index released Tuesday. “Worried by the possibility that he might have to give up power after more than 30 years in office, Hun Sen went after the press mercilessly ahead of parliamentary elections in July 2018,” RSF said. “Radio stations and newspapers were silenced, newsrooms purged, journalists prosecuted — leaving the independent media sector devastated. Since then, the few attempts to bring independent journalism back to life have drawn the wrath of ruling circles,” the annual report said. But in his speech, Hun Manet insisted that his father’s government views the press as an ally in creating a better-functioning society. The government has prioritized its policy on the press to allow its participation in fighting corruption and promoting democracy and respect for human rights to create a just society, peace and development, Hun Manet said. “Of course, we have criticisms against the government that we’ve restricted press freedom,” he said. “The allegation is groundless and doesn’t reflect the truth. Cambodia has a pluralistic government that respects freedom of expression and freedom of the press.” Information Minister Khieu Kanharith said at the event that the government was disappointed with reports criticizing the government. He claimed that NGOs that are not registered as news organizations produce the negative reports based on the wishes of their donors. But he didn’t provide evidence to support the claim. Government pressure Sun Narin, Voice of America’s reporter in Cambodia, told RFA on Tuesday that Hun Manet did not take questions at the event. He also said the press cannot write what they want, even though freedom of expression is enshrined in the country’s constitution. “There are pressures from the government,” Sun Narin said. “I have observed that [journalists] are afraid of the government.” He said that he and other journalists are advocating for a law that would make the government more transparent. “We don’t have documents now,” he said. “It is difficult to get statistics. It is hard to find information.” Hun Manet’s speech came a day after two dozen organizations, press associations, journalists and NGOs held a conference in Phnom Penh to discuss the deteriorating situation of press freedom in Cambodia. Nop Vy, executive director of the Cambodian Journalists Alliance Association, said the government must ensure that Cambodians get the information they need to make informed decisions in the country’s local elections on June 5. “Receiving information is essential and getting real information is even more important to make improvements to the quality of life and to the democratic process that ensures the participation of the people,” he said. “As Cambodia prepares for next month’s elections and the 2023 elections, the government should ensure that information flows to every citizen, and all the harassment against journalists must not continue.” In Cambodia, journalists still face persecution, intimidation, violence, arrests and pretrial detention for their work, Nop Vy said. Free press advocates want Cambodia’s government to end impunity for crimes against journalists, including physical assaults and murder, by bringing the perpetrators and accomplices to justice. They also want the country’s Information Ministry to reissue revoked media licenses and to expedite the passage of a Right to Information Act, they said. Meas Sophorn, secretary of state and Information Ministry spokesman, said the government was committed to ensuring further protections for respecting freedoms of the press and expression. Translated by Samean Yun and Sok Ry Sum for RFA’s Khmer Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Hong Kong falls to a new low in global press freedom index as Jimmy Lai stands trial](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-falls-to-a-new-low-in-global-press-freedom-index-as-jimmy-lai-stands-trial/): Hong Kong has plummeted to 148th on a global press freedom index, as authorities in the city took the now-shuttered pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper to court for &#8220;fraud.&#8221; Paris-based press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said the city&#8217;s fall down the index by 68 places was the biggest of the year, and comes amid an ongoing crackdown on the pro-democracy media under a draconian national security law imposed by Beijing from July 1, 2020. &#8220;It is the biggest downfall of the year, but it is fully deserved due to the consistent attacks on freedom of the press and the slow disappearance of the rule of law in Hong Kong,&#8221; Agence France-Presse quoted RSF&#8217;s East Asia bureau chief Cedric Alviani as saying. &#8220;In the past year we have seen a drastic, drastic move against journalists,&#8221; he added. The national security law was initially used to target the government&#8217;s political opponents, but later turned its power onto independent media organizations, forcing the closure of Jimmy Lai&#8217;s Apple Daily, parent company Next Media and Stand News. &#8220;Once a bastion of press freedom, [Hong Kong] has seen an unprecedented setback since 2020 when Beijing adopted a National Security Law aimed at silencing independent voices,&#8221; RSF&#8217;s entry on Hong Kong reads. &#8220;Since the 1997 handover to China, most media have fallen under the control of the government or pro-China groups,&#8221; it said. &#8220;In 2021, two major independent news outlets, Apple Daily and Stand News, were forcefully shut down while numerous smaller-scale media outlets ceased operations, citing legal risks.&#8221; It said the Hong Kong government now takes orders directly from the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Beijing, and openly supports its propaganda effort. &#8220;Public broadcaster Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK), previously renowned for its fearless investigations, has been placed under a pro-government management which does not hesitate to censor the programmes it dislikes,&#8221; RSF said. Despite promises of freedom of speech, press and publication made under the terms of the handover to Chinese rule, the national security law could be used to target any journalist reporting on Hong Kong from anywhere in the world, it warned. Jailed media mogul As the RSF index was published on World Press Freedom Day, Lai &#8212; who is currently serving time in jail for taking part in peaceful protests and awaiting trial under the national security law for &#8220;collusion with a foreign power&#8221; &#8212; and former Next Media administrative director Wong Wai-keung were in court facing two charges of &#8220;fraud&#8221; linked to the use of the Next Media headquarters by a consultancy firm. Lai stands accused of violating the terms of the building&#8217;s lease and concealing the breach from the landlord, Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation, over two decades. Lai, 74, appeared in court on the first day of the trial wearing headphones, leaning back with his eyes closed, appearing in good spirits as he blew a kiss to his wife. Lai&#8217;s legal team led by Caoilfhionn Gallagher at Doughty Street Chambers filed an urgent appeal at the United Nations over &#8220;legal harassment&#8221; against him in April, saying he has been jailed simply for exercising his right to freedom of expression and assembly and the right to peaceful protest. His lawyers say he has been repeatedly targeted by the Hong Kong authorities with a &#8220;barrage&#8221; of legal cases, including four separate criminal prosecutions arising from his attendance at and participation in various protests in Hong Kong between 2019-2020, including most recently in relation to his participation in a vigil marking the 1989 Tiananmen massacre in Beijing, for which he received a 13-month prison sentence. He is currently serving concurrent prison sentences in relation to all four protest cases, while awaiting trial for &#8220;collusion with foreign powers&#8221; and &#8220;sedition&#8221; in relation to editorials published in Apple Daily. New host of press award Meanwhile, a U.S. university has said it will take over the hosting of the Human Rights Press Awards after the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents&#8217; Club (FCC) withdrew from the event, citing legal risks under the national security law. The awards will now be run by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. &#8220;Recognizing exceptional reporting on human-rights issues is more important today than ever before, due to the many – and growing – threats to press freedom around the world,&#8221; dean Battinto Batts said in a statement on the school&#8217;s website. A former reporter for Stand News, who gave only the pseudonym Miss Chan, said she had been notified she would win an award this year. She said the relocation of the awards overseas didn&#8217;t necessary help journalists in Hong Kong, however. &#8220;If the awards are able to go ahead overseas, I think Hong Kong journalists will be more worried about whether to participate in the competition or serve as judges, because they may be accused of colluding with foreign forces or incitement and so on,&#8221; Chan said. &#8220;The situation in Hong Kong is changing too fast and it may be getting worse, so I don&#8217;t know if I still have the guts to take part,&#8221; she said. A former winner who gave only the pseudonym Mr. Cheung said the relocation was better than nothing. &#8220;Naturally, something is better than nothing, and there is some encouragement in that,&#8221; Cheung said. &#8220;But the Human Rights Press Award can no longer exist in Hong Kong before of the huge retrograde steps being made there regarding human rights.&#8221; &#8220;Hong Kong journalists used to know they could report on human rights issues in Hong Kong, China or elsewhere in the region,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Now there&#8217;s no room [for that].&#8221; Former Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) journalist professor To Yiu-ming said the awards had served as a bellwether for press freedom in the city. &#8220;[They] served as a benchmark for the freeom of the press in Hong Kong, and also as a bulwark protecting some press freedoms,&#8221; To told RFA. &#8220;Their disintegration is also the disintegration of another pillar of Hong Kong&#8217;s [former]...
- [Russian street singer with anti-Putin sign in brief legal scrape in Vietnam](https://ij-reportika.com/russian-street-singer-with-anti-putin-sign-in-brief-legal-scrape-in-vietnam/): Police in Vietnam denied local media reports that they arrested a Russian citizen for a public protest against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, saying instead that they summoned him for an expired visa. Street performer Alex Kniazev was singing and playing guitar Monday in front of a sign he made that said “STOP WAR, STOP PUTIN, RUSSIA IS NOT PUTIN!!” at Lam Vien Square in the city of Da Lat, in Vietnam’s southern Lam Dong province. After images of  Kniazev, a stage name, went viral on Vietnamese social media on Monday,  multiple Vietnamese media organizations reported on Tuesday that Lam Dong police arrested Kniazev because of the sign. Protests of any kind in one-party Communist Vietnam, an ally of Moscow, are rare and quickly snuffed out. The Da Lat police, however, said they merely invited Kniazev to meet with authorities to work out visa issues, the Lam Dong Newspaper reported. Following the meeting, Kniazev understood that he was in violation and agreed to travel to Ho Chi Minh City to renew his passport and extend his visa, the official newspaper said. In an official statement, the Da Lat Police repudiated the reports that it arrested the Russian for the sign, and warned that people who share fake news related to Kniazev’s situation could face legal consequences, Tuoi Tre News reported. Kniazev used the word “arrest” when he described the situation in writing to RFA’s Vietnamese Service Tuesday. “They arrest me for 2 hours because I must wait my new visa in Saigon,” he said, using the name of Ho Chi Minh City before the communist era. “I follow Vietnam’s rules and go to Saigon. That&#8217;s all,” he wrote. Kniazev also said that the police told him “they do not welcome the political actions of foreigners.” RFA reported Monday that Vietnamese government-aligned “opinion workers” who promote the Communist Party and protect its image on social media are now pushing the Russian narrative about the situation in Ukraine on Vietnam’s social media. Vietnamese have shown support for Ukraine in various ways. Hundreds of people in Hanoi have taken part in events at the Ukrainian Embassy and fundraising events to raise money for those affected by the armed conflict. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Shanghai-based Ji Xiaolong joins ranks of COVID-19 dissidents in China](https://ij-reportika.com/shanghai-based-ji-xiaolong-joins-ranks-of-covid-19-dissidents-in-china/): Shanghai-based rights activist Ji Xiaolong, who was recently released on bail by police, vowed on Tuesday to keep speaking out against rights abuses in the city, much of which remains under tight restrictions amid renewed rounds of mass testing. Ji, who was incommunicado for two days after tweeting &#8220;The police are here looking for me&#8221; on Saturday. He told RFA late on Monday that he had been taken to the local police station for questioning. Police clad in full PPE started knocking on the door of his apartment in Yanlord Riverside City, Pudong New District at 3.00 p.m. on April 30, before breaking down the door and grabbing him and his wife. They gave no indication of their identity or purpose, but seized one of his laptops and two cell phones, as well as some letters he had exchanged with his wife in prison, Ji said. They were &#8220;disinfected&#8221; and subjected to PCR tests before being taken to Meiyuan New Village police station and interrogated separately. &#8220;I felt that something was up, because there were 10 of them this time, including two or three regular police officers from the local police station, some state security police from Pudong and also from the Shanghai municipal police department,&#8221; Ji said. &#8220;There were maybe four or five high-ranking officers.&#8221; Repeated calls to the Meiyuan New Village police station rang unanswered on Monday. Ji, who has already served a three-and-a-half year jail term for writing political graffiti in a Shanghai public toilet, has been a vocal critic of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)&#8217;s zero-COVID policy of stringent lockdowns, mass isolation and quarantine facilities and wave upon wave of PCR testing that has sparked public anger over the &#8220;total chaos&#8221; of their implementation. People in Shanghai have repeatedly complained of shortages of food and essential supplies and lack of access to life-saving medical treatment for those sick with something other than COVID-19, during the lockdown. Policemen wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) stand on a street during a Covid-19 coronavirus lockdown in the Jing&#8217;an district in Shanghai, May 3, 2022. Credit: AFP Out on bond Ji was detained alongside his wife, who was released after a few hours, while he was released the following day on payment of a 1,000 yuan bond. &#8220;They confiscated by ID card, my passport and my cell phone, which has my Alipay account,&#8221; Ji said. &#8220;I can&#8217;t get a new SIM card because they took my ID,&#8221; Ji said. &#8220;So now I can&#8217;t go anywhere because you have to scan the [COVID-19] health code app to go anywhere.&#8221; &#8220;I can&#8217;t go to the mall, I can&#8217;t ride the subway, and I can&#8217;t take the bus,&#8221; he said. His questioning came after he posted a petition to several social media platforms calling on the central government in Beijing and the municipal authorities in Shanghai to suspend the &#8220;zero-COVID&#8221; policy, and compensate Chinese citizens and businesses for the economic losses it incurred. Ji had also posted a number of video clips and posts about Shanghai under lockdown. During the interview, police confronted him with various comments he had made to overseas media organizations including RFA, the Epoch Times and New Tang Dynasty TV, as well as the petition he started, some video clips he reposted and some social media posts he made. Ji said he had admitted to giving the interviews, and told them he had taken steps to verify the video clips before forwarding them. His bail notice says he is currently under suspicion of &#8220;picking quarrels and stirring up trouble,&#8221; a charge frequently used to target peaceful critics of the government. He said none of his interrogators had identified themselves to him, nor had they signed a transcript of the interview. &#8220;I firmly believe that I am innocent,&#8221; Ji said. &#8220;I won&#8217;t sit idly by and watch the people of Shanghai suffer, and I will continue [to speak out].&#8221; An undated photo of award-winning citizen journalist Zhang Zhan, who was sentenced in December 2020 to four years&#8217; imprisonment by the Shanghai Pudong New District People&#8217;s Court after she reported from the front lines of the covid lockdown in Wuhan. Credit: Zhang Zhan. Citizen journalists in jail Ji isn&#8217;t the first to be targeted by the authorities anxious to prevent news from the front line of the zero-COVID policy reaching the internet. Award-winning citizen journalist Zhang Zhan, whose family has said she is close to death in Shanghai Women&#8217;s Prison, was sentenced in December 2020 to four years&#8217; imprisonment by the Shanghai Pudong New District People&#8217;s Court, which found her guilty of &#8220;picking quarrels and stirring up trouble,&#8221; after she reported from the front lines of the lockdown in Wuhan. Meanwhile, private businessman Fang Bin has been incommunicado for more than two years after he reported as a citizen journalist from the early days of the pandemic in Wuhan. He is believed to be in Wuhan&#8217;s Jiang&#8217;an Detention Center pending a trial at the Jiang&#8217;an District People&#8217;s Court, according to an unconfirmed account shared with RFA in recent months. U.S.-based constitutional scholar Wang Tiancheng said more pandemic dissidents will likely follow in Zhang, Fang and Ji&#8217;s footsteps. &#8220;The situation will get worse and worse, and more people will be arrested for different reasons &#8230; some for criticizing the government, or accused by the authorities of spreading rumors when they were just telling the truth,&#8221; Wang told RFA. Six districts and five towns in Pudong were declared COVID-free by the Shanghai authorities on Sunday, but stringent lockdown conditions remain across nine other districts of the city. Ji was initially jailed for scribbling &#8220;Down with the Communist Party!&#8221; in a Shanghai public toilet as well as some satirical graffiti taking aim at CCP leader Xi Jinping&#8217;s removal of the two-term limit for China&#8217;s highest-ranking leaders. He was detained in July 2018 after calling on rights activists and democracy campaigners to respond to Xi&#8217;s call for a &#8220;toilet revolution&#8221; by penning political slogans on the walls of toilets in universities and hospitals that could be seen by thousands. Ji was sentenced to three-and-a-half years&#8217; imprisonment...
- [Japan, Taiwan militaries on alert as China flotilla heads to Pacific](https://ij-reportika.com/japan-taiwan-militaries-on-alert-as-china-flotilla-heads-to-pacific/): The Japanese and Taiwanese militaries have been put on alert after a Chinese People&#8217;s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy flotilla led by the Liaoning aircraft carrier was spotted sailing from the East China Sea towards the Pacific Ocean. Japan Self-Defense Forces&#8217; Joint Staff Office released a statement on Monday saying that the Liaoning, accompanied by seven destroyers and supply vessels, had left the East China Sea and passed through waters between Japan&#8217;s Okinawa and Miyako islands before entering the West Pacific. The Japanese defense ministry dispatched the Izumo light aircraft carrier, as well as P-1 maritime patrol aircraft and P-3C anti-submarine aircraft to monitor the activities of the Chinese ships, the statement said. Meanwhile on Tuesday, Taiwanese military spokesman Sun Li-fang told reporters that Taiwan&#8217;s military closely monitors Chinese military maneuvers in waters and airspace surrounding Taiwan, and would take &#8220;appropriate response measures.” According to the Japanese statement, among seven warships in the Liaoning carrier group were the Type 055 large guided missile destroyer Nanchang, the Type 052D guided missile destroyer Chengdu, and the Type 901 comprehensive supply ship Hulunhu. With a total of eight vessels, this is the largest Liaoning carrier group in recent voyages, said the state-run Chinese newspaper Global Times. The newspaper said it is likely that the Liaoning and other ships are to take part in a “routine PLA Navy far-sea exercise.” It quoted an anonymous military analyst as predicting that the Chinese ships “could go further east into the Pacific Ocean, or they could transit through the Bashi channel south of the island of Taiwan and conduct exercises in the South China Sea.” Combat training In one of the photos released by the Japanese military, the Liaoning &#8211; China’s first aircraft carrier &#8211; was seen carrying a number of J-15 fighter jets as well as Z-8 and Z-9 helicopters. This is the first time this year the Liaoning carrier group passed the so-called First Island Chain that includes Taiwan and Japan to enter the Pacific Ocean. Last December, the aircraft carrier and five other vessels conducted drills in the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea and the West Pacific for 21 days in order to boost its combat capability. Chinese naval movements in the close proximity of Taiwan have always been closely watched by the Taiwanese military, the island’s ministry of defense said. The ministry’s spokesman Sun Li-fang said Taiwan “has response plans based on possible actions by China.” The Liaoning regularly patrols the Taiwan Strait and may be deployed in the event of armed conflict with the self-governing island. China considers Taiwan a breakaway province that shall be united with the mainland. “It&#8217;s no secret that the Taiwanese Navy is totally overmatched by the PLA Navy,” said Gordon Arthur, a military analyst and Asia-Pacific editor of Shepherd, a defense news portal. “Last year, for example, China commissioned some combined 170,000 tonnage of new warships &#8211; this is more than the combined Taiwan’s fleet, and reflects Chinese additions in just one year.” “Taiwan cannot hope to compete with this, so it has been concentrating on vessels that will give it some asymmetric advantages,” Arthur said, adding that examples include the homemade Tuo Chiang-class corvette and the Indigenous Defense Submarine. Yet it’s still some years till the island’s Navy is fully capable to counter any blockade or invasion attempt by China, experts said.
- [Pro-junta militia calls for killing of Myanmar reporters and their family members](https://ij-reportika.com/pro-junta-militia-calls-for-killing-of-myanmar-reporters-and-their-family-members/): A pro-junta militia that recently claimed responsibility for the slaying of opposition party members is now openly threatening to kill journalists and their families over content the military regime has dubbed “destructive to the state.” Last week, eight members of the deposed National League for Democracy (NLD) and their supporters were found brutally murdered with badges or cards on their bodies displaying the insignia of a group calling itself the Mandalay branch of the Thway Thauk, or “Blood Comrades,” militia. A social media post on the group’s Telegram account last week also called for the deaths of reporters and editors working for news outlets in Myanmar including The Irrawaddy, Mizzima, Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) and The Irrawaddy Times — as well as their family members. Khit Thit media editor Tha Lun Zaung Htet, who was among those named in the Thway Thauk’s list, said he believes the group is acting on the orders of authorities, despite junta claims to the contrary. “This group is surely linked to the military because the victims were taken away by police or military vehicles and the bodies were later dropped by these same vehicles,” he said, adding that he is in possession of “photos taken by witnesses.” Photographs obtained by RFA show leaflets or cards bearing the group’s logo of crossed swords over the image of a man from Myanmar’s royal era left near the victim’s bodies — the same logo seen posted on the social media accounts of junta supporters and nationalist activists. Junta deputy minister of information, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, said during a press conference last week in Naypyidaw that the military has no ties to the Thway Thauk, adding that the only pro-junta militias active in the country formed independent of the regime in rural areas. At the same press conference, he accused seven media outlets of being “destructive elements” in Myanmar, including RFA, Khit Thit Media, The Irrawaddy, Mizzima, DVB and The Irrawaddy Times. “Ten local and foreign media outlets wrote around 55 inciting reports meant to disrupt Thingyan,” he said, referring to Myanmar’s April 13-16 New Year Water Festival, he said. “We saw seven media outlets reporting possible bomb threats during the week of Thingyan, and also publishing articles telling people not to participate in the festivities as a way of protest.” Thingyan — normally a bustling and jubilant holiday — was eerily silent in Myanmar’s main cities of Yangon and Mandalay, as residents chose to boycott junta-led festivities and heed warnings by armed opposition forces that the areas could become the target of attacks. An RFA investigation found that authorities arrested nearly 100 people in the two cities, as well as Myawaddy township in Kayin state, in the first 10 days of April as part of a pre-Thingyan crackdown. Some of those detained had joined anti-coup protests, while others were accused of being members of Yangon-based anti-junta paramilitary groups, including the People’s Defense Force (PDF). ‘A new low’ for press freedom Days ahead of International Press Freedom Day, veteran journalist Myint Kyaw said that the junta’s calling out of media outlets, combined with threats by groups such as the Thway Thauk, constituted “a new low” for Myanmar’s media environment. &#8220;We can say that [the junta and the Thway Thauk] have the same views because they think the media supports the opposition,” he said. “It’s not new that they would accuse us of such things when they think we are writing against them. But it’s unprecedented for them to threaten us and our families.” Sein Win, executive editor of Mizzima News, said the military and pro-junta armed groups are targeting and suppressing the media and journalists who report negatively on the junta, and expects the situation to continue while the military remains in power. “They don’t want people who criticize the military, who seek the truth or who value freedom of the press,” he said. “People will be arrested, imprisoned, and even killed. So long as there are military coups, democracy will remain dormant. Evil will reign if democracy cannot be given space to thrive.” An observer of the media, who declined to be named citing fear of reprisal, warned that a lack of legal protection for journalists in Myanmar will cripple the country’s development. “In short, freedom of the media is not protected in accordance with the law or international standards in current times,” they said. “Some are threatened, some are arrested, and some have died. &#8230; Journalists are seen as criminals and are constantly threatened. We are going back to the Dark Ages.” More than 50 journalists have been arrested on charges under Myanmar’s Penal Code since the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup, rather than for violations of the country’s media law. The business licenses of outlets including Myanmar Now, DVB, Khit Thit, 7 Days, Mizzima, Myitkyina Journal, The 74 Media, Tachileik News Agency, Delta News Agency, Zeyar Times and Kamaryut Media were revoked shortly after the military seized power. Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders ranks Myanmar 140th out of 180 countries in its annual Press Freedom Index and says the media environment is now at a danger level following last year’s coup. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Cambodia PM urges Myanmar junta boss to let  ASEAN envoy meet Aung San Suu Kyi](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodia-pm-urges-myanmar-junta-boss-to-let-asean-envoy-meet-aung-san-suu-kyi/): Prime Minister Hun Sen has urged Myanmar&#8217;s military junta to allow the ASEAN special envoy to visit and meet deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Cambodia&#8217;s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday. In a phone call Sunday, Hun Sen called on Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, to allow the meetings and take other steps to implement a five-point agreement the junta leader reached between ASEAN&#8217;s foreign ministers in April 2021. Cambodia is the current rotating chair of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and Hun Sen visited Myanmar in January and met Min Aung Hlaing and urged steps to resolve the political crisis sparked by his Feb. 1, 2021 coup. Hun Sen requested &#8220;further cooperation in facilitating the second visit to Myanmar by the ASEAN Chair&#8217;s Special Envoy special chairs envoy, possibly at the end of May,&#8221; the ministry said. &#8220;He reemphasized the importance of access for the Special Envoy to meet all parties concerned in Myanmar, including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and former President Win Myint, for creating (a) conducive environment to start an inclusive political dialogue,&#8221; the ministry said. Aung San Suu Kyi and Win Myint are in detention and undergoing trial in military courts for what supporters say are politically motivated charges. The Cambodian leader also urged the junta chief to release political prisoners, &#8220;avoid excessive use of force in maintaining law and order&#8221; and to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance particularly in conflict areas, it said. There was no immediate comment from Myanmar, but the Cambodian statement said Min Aung Hlaing had &#8220;pledged to facilitate meetings with other parties concerned.&#8221; Hun Sen is set to attend a May 12-13 summit between the U.S. and leaders of ASEAN, where the White House is keen to advance its vision of a “free and open” Indo-Pacific and discuss efforts to counter Chinese influence, but the Myanmar conflict is likely to be discussed. No progress has been made on the five-point agreement, which included an end to violence, the provision of humanitarian assistance, an ASEAN envoy’s appointment, all-party dialogue, and mediation by the envoy. Min Aung Hlaing has escalated the military’s attack on the people of Myanmar, and continued to target and detain political opponent. Nearly 1,800 people, mostly pro-democracy protesters, have been killed by Burmese security forces, since the coup.
- [More than a dozen senior NLD officials sentenced for ‘graft’ in Myanmar in April](https://ij-reportika.com/more-than-a-dozen-senior-nld-officials-sentenced-for-graft-in-myanmar-in-april/): Military courts in Myanmar sentenced a total of 14 Cabinet ministers and senior officials from the deposed National League for Democracy (NLD) government to lengthy prison terms on corruption charges last month, according to data compiled by RFA’s Myanmar Service. On April 22, Deputy Minister for Construction Kyaw Lin was sentenced to 20 years in prison while directors-general Aung Mint Oo, Ye Min Zaw and Nay Aung Ye Myint were sentenced to two to four years in prison. That same day, Kachin State Chief Minister Khet Aung, Director of the State Municipal Authority Soe Naing, and ministers Wai Lin, Win Nyunt, La Sai, Naw Li, Zaw Win and Ne Win were also jailed on corruption charges. Former State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, the head of the NLD who was arrested on the day of the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup, was sentenced to five years in prison on April 27 in the first of 11 corruption cases against her. Yangon Region Social Affairs Minister Naing Lin was also handed a prison sentence for corruption the following day. Naw Naw, the son of Khet Aung, told RFA that his father had worked tirelessly on behalf of the country only to end up jailed for 12 years on bogus corruption charges. “This sad development can be seen throughout the country, where all those who had worked in good faith are meeting the same fate,” he said. Mar La Myint, the wife of Ne Win, said her husband’s sentence was a blow to him and his entire family. “He was imprisoned before for his political beliefs, but this time it’s worse,” she said, adding that her husband was “incapable of corruption.” Other notable NLD officials who were sentenced on corruption charges last month include Sagaing Region Chief Minister Myint Naing, Bago Region Chief Minister Win Thein, and Yangon Region Transport Minister Nilar Kyaw. Plan to maintain power When asked for comment on last month’s sentences, junta deputy minister of information, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, told RFA that only those who are guilty of the charges against them had been sentenced. “We have no reason to put [NLD officials] into prison if didn’t do anything wrong,” he said. “If it were not for [their acts of] corruption, we wouldn’t have arrested them. No one is above the law. If you commit a crime, you will be punished accordingly.” But Win Myat Aye, minister for Humanitarian and Disaster Management for the shadow National Unity Government (NUG), told RFA the sentences were “part of the junta’s plan to hold onto power.” “They’ll do whatever it takes to reach their goal. From the very beginning, they seized state power by force. They’ll keep on using force to hold on to power,” he said. “What they are doing is illegal and not in line with the wishes of the people.” Political analyst Than Soe Naing said he sees the prison terms as part of a bid by the junta to exclude the NLD and its key party leaders from upcoming military-sponsored elections. “They are carrying out these unfair actions under unfair laws by unfair tribunals so that the NLD and all the party’s top leaders will not be able to run in the next election,” he said. “This year has seen a lot of unjust imprisonment under unjust legal procedures. I’m sure they are doing this to prevent the NLD taking part in the elections they are planning to hold.” Aung San Su Kyi, whose NLD ruled the country for five years and won re-election in November 2020 in a landslide vote that the army refused to honor, was sentenced in January to six years for violating export-import laws, the communications law and the natural disaster management law. She had already been sentenced to six years in prison on five of 18 charges lodged against her since the junta overthrew and detained her. With last week’s five-year sentence, she faces 11 years imprisonment from six charges, with 12 more charges pending. RFA records show that a total of 64 people, including NLD leaders and cabinet members, have been charged with corruption, in the 15 months since the military seized power. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [At bilateral meet, Japanese, Thai PMs urge end to war in Ukraine](https://ij-reportika.com/at-bilateral-meet-japanese-thai-pms-urge-end-to-war-in-ukraine/): Japan and Thailand urged an end to the war in Ukraine and discussed working with the international community to provide humanitarian assistance, Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-Cha said after he met with his Japanese counterpart, Fumio Kishida, in Bangkok on Monday. The two countries also signed a defense deal as they reaffirmed their bilateral relationship during Kishida’s trip to Thailand, which coincides with the 135th anniversary of diplomatic relations and ten years of the strategic partnership between the two countries. Kishida arrived in Thailand Sunday evening for a two-day trip after visiting Vietnam, a staunch Russian ally, which nevertheless announced a humanitarian aid package worth U.S. $500,000 to Ukraine during the Japanese leader’s trip. “Concerning the situation in Ukraine, Thailand and Japan reaffirmed the principles of territorial integrity, international law, and the United Nations Charter. Both sides expressed concern over the escalation of tension in the situation and urged all relevant parties to cease all hostilities and violence and exercise utmost restraint,” Prayuth said in the statement. Japan condemned Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine and joined a slew of Western nations in imposing sanctions on Moscow. Thailand, meanwhile, abstained from a United Nations resolution vote to suspend Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council for alleged human rights abuses in the war in Ukraine. It did however support a strongly worded U.N. resolution that “deplored” the aggression by Russia against Ukraine. Kishida said Japan admired Thailand for supporting the latter resolution. “I agree with Prime Minister Prayuth to denounce the violation of sovereignty and territorial integrity, unilateral use of force in any region, and disapproval of the use of weapons of mass destruction or the threat to use it,” the Japanese PM said. Prayuth also said he had proposed a “new approach towards ending confrontation which calls for the need to change the narrative of the Ukraine situation from conflict to humanitarian consideration for those who are affected by the Ukraine situation.” He said he had a similar approach “to resolve the situation in Myanmar and attached importance to humanitarian assistance for the people of Myanmar.” He did not give details about the so-called approach. Thailand shares a 2,400-kilometer (1,500-mile) long border with Myanmar. It has not outright condemned the coup in Myanmar or the actions of its security forces, which toppled the elected National League for Democracy (NLD) government on Feb. 1, 2021. Before arriving in Bangkok, the Japanese PM visited Hanoi where he spent fewer than 24 hours. He was received by all three of Vietnam’s top leaders, including the prime minister, the president, and the chairman of the national assembly. Speaking about Vietnam’s commitment of humanitarian aid for Ukraine, a Vietnamese analyst, Le Dang Doanh, said that Kishida’s visit helped Russian ally Vietnam “adjust its stance towards the Ukrainian war.” South China Sea At a meeting with his Vietnamese counterpart Pham Minh Chinh and the other Vietnamese leaders, Kishida also discussed the issue of the disputed South China Sea, and the need for a free and open Indo-Pacific. Vietnam shares interest with Japan in safeguarding maritime security in the South China Sea, where China holds expansive claims and has been militarizing reclaimed islands. China is involved in maritime disputes with Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea. China claims sovereignty over nearly all of the South China Sea, where Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam all have claims.  In Bangkok Monday, Kishida said that Japan along with Thailand hoped to “achieve the goal of [a] free and open Indo-Pacific and will closely cooperate to handle the matters of the South China Sea and North Korea and nuclear weapon and ballistic missile tests.” Defense deal Meanwhile the new defense equipment deal announced by Kishida and Prayuth would help facilitate the transfer of hardware and technology from Japan to Thailand, but the leaders provided no details. The deal “would support the strengthening of defense cooperation between the two countries and incentivize Japanese investment in the Thai defense industry, which is one of the targeted industries,” Prayuth said in a joint press conference held at the Government House in Bangkok on Monday evening. “The signing of our defense equipment and technology transfer agreement is a major step forward in expanding bilateral defense cooperation,” Kishida said. The two countries will later decide on the specific types of equipment for transfer. Apart from the defense deal, the two leaders also witnessed the signing of agreements to deepen financial cooperation between Japan and Thailand. Additionally, Japan gave Thailand COVID-19 emergency support worth 50 billion yen (U.S. $384 million) in loans and 500 million yen in grants aid, according to a joint statement. The two leaders discussed improvements in agricultural supply chains and agreed to continue working together on the Mekong sub-region, “particularly in promoting connectivity, human resource development, and sustainable development,” the statement said. Japan is Thailand’s biggest foreign investor, followed by the United States and Singapore. According to the Thai commerce ministry, Japanese investors represented 28.6 percent of the overall foreign investment in Thailand, worth more than 82.5 billion baht (U.S. $ 2.39 billion), in 2021. Japan’s investments, especially in the automotive industry, have been vital to Thailand’s economic growth in the last several decades.
- [Zero-COVID policy in Chinese border city stops freight to North Korea](https://ij-reportika.com/zero-covid-policy-in-chinese-border-city-stops-freight-to-north-korea/): North Korea and China are again suspending rail freight as Beijing’s zero-Covid policy spreads to cities on the Sino-Korean border, sources in both countries told RFA. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China announced at an April 29 news briefing that it would temporarily suspend all freight transportation between China’s Dandong and North Korea’s Sinuiju because of the COVID-19 situation in Dandong. Dandong and Sinuiju lie on opposite sides of the Yalu River that separates the two countries, and are the key hubs in Sino-North Korean trade. “The Dandong-Sinuiju freight train … will operate until the end of this month and will be suspended again from May 1,” a source from the North Korean province of North Pyongan told RFA’s Korean Service last week. “Since COVID-19 is spreading in Dandong … the city government began to lock down the city from the 25th and restricted residents’ movement. Because Dandong is locked down, our side is also suspending freight trains to prevent COVID-19,” said the source, who requested anonymity for security reasons. The rail stoppage comes as tens of millions of residents of major Chinese cities such as Beijing and Shanghai are facing rigid lockdowns and strict testing regimens as the country tries to stop the spread of the omicron variant of COVID-19 under the Communist Party’s zero-COVID policy. At the beginning of the pandemic in early 2020, Beijing and Pyongyang closed the border and suspended all trade, a move that was disastrous to the North Korean economy. Rail freight finally resumed on a limited basis almost two years later in January 2022, only to be shut off again after less than four months due to the lockdowns Days before the closure, traders made preparations for the last shipments, the source said. “The freight station is now filled with fertilizer, pesticide and food purchased by North Korean trading companies as national emergency goods. The last trains will be shipped to a quarantine facility in Uiju either tomorrow or the day after,” he said. RFA reported last year that North Korea had completed a new rail line between Sinuiju and a quarantine facility in Uiju, in anticipation of trade reopening prior to the end of the pandemic. The new facility allows entire trainloads of cargo to be sterilized prior to distribution to Pyongyang and the rest of the country. A second source familiar with Sino-North Korean trade in Dandong confirmed that rail freight would stop at the beginning of May. “North Korea urgently needs farming materials and fertilizer, so the two sides have both agreed to bring the supplies to Sinuiju by the end of this month,” he said. “People expect that the freight train between Dandong and Sinuiju will resume only after COVID-19 disappears and the city lockdown is lifted throughout China.” The lockdown in Dandong forbids all 2.2 million residents from leaving their homes and requires them to submit to daily testing. Translated by Claire Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Philippines vote: Marcos seen as pro-China; Robredo will likely test Beijing ties](https://ij-reportika.com/philippines-vote-marcos-seen-as-pro-china-robredo-will-likely-test-beijing-ties/): China would likely enjoy friendly ties with the Philippines if Ferdinand Marcos Jr. wins next week’s presidential election, while his main challenger, Vice President Leni Robredo, has vowed to seek help in protecting Philippine waters in the South China Sea, American analysts said. They say Marcos Jr. closely hews to the stance of outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte, who chose to ignore the 2016 Hague tribunal ruling that threw out China’s expansive claims in the South China Sea as Beijing promised rivers of money for infrastructure development. “Marcos is the most pro-Beijing of all candidates,” said Greg Poling, a Southeast Asia analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington-based policy research organization. “He is the most pro-Chinese in a system where most people are anti-Chinese. He avoids the press and debates, and what we have are these off-the-cuff remarks that are pro-Chinese. He is a friend of the Chinese embassy,” said Poling, director of CSIS’s Southeast Asia Program and Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative. He was referring to anti-Chinese government sentiment among much of the Philippine population who see their fishermen’s livelihoods being threatened and lives being endangered by alleged harassment on the part of Chinese navy and coast guard ships. Marcos Jr., the son and namesake of the country’s late dictator deposed by a people power revolt in 1986, has consistently led opinion polls ahead of the May 9 general elections to replace Duterte, who is limited by the constitution to a single six-year term. The latest survey conducted by independent pollster Pulse Asia from April 16-21 showed Marcos Jr. in the lead with 56 percent support, and Robredo in second place with 23 percent. The eight other candidates competing, including boxing superstar Manny Pacquiao, are already out of contention, according to experts. Marcos Jr. is running alongside Sara Duterte-Carpio, Duterte’s daughter, in what they tout as a continuity ticket that would safeguard the outgoing leader’s legacy. Pundits say that a Robredo government would take a tougher stance on Beijing over the sea dispute, and put an immediate stop to the Duterte government’s deadly war on drugs, which has killed thousands and battered the country’s international image. ‘Not a man of strong opinions’ Poling said that Marcos Jr. does not appear to “have many political beliefs” when it comes to the South China Sea, while Robredo has said she would enforce a 2016 arbitral ruling invalidating China’s claims to almost the entire, mineral-rich South China Sea. Robredo has stressed repeatedly that the West Philippine Sea, or that part of the South China Sea that falls within the country’s exclusive economic zone, belongs to the Philippines, and that she “will fight for that.” And she has put forward an idea never even entertained by the Duterte administration: that the ruling could be used to create a coalition of nations to pressure China. Poling said Robredo may not be ideologically pro-American or a “cheerleader for the alliance,” but she appears to be a nationalist who could tap allies for help in the territorial row that has dragged on for years. “She is pragmatic about the South China Sea. [She believes] China is a threat and violates the rule of law in the South China Sea,” Poling said, adding that there was reason to believe that her victory could strengthen the Philippine-U.S. alliance. Manila is Washington’s biggest ally in Southeast Asia, where an increasingly assertive China is encroaching on other claimant nations’ exclusive economic zones in the disputed South China Sea. Duterte tested the U.S.-Philippines relationship, threatening to drop one of many bilateral security agreements and vowing never to set foot in the United States while president. Marcos Jr. has said he would not rock the boat if he won, and would largely continue with Duterte’s policies. But, unlike the outgoing leader, he does not appear to have animosity towards Washington, analysts point out. “The impression you get of him is that he does and says things not of his own initiative but based on what people around him say. He is not a man of strong opinions,” said Vicente Rafael, a professor of Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Washington. Both candidates have little foreign policy experience, though in this election that area does not carry enough weight to swing votes, analysts said. Domestically, the Philippine economy is just recovering after being in one of the world’s longest lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Foreign policy “is not a big deal in these elections,” according to Andrew Yeo, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institute. “The biggest issue is recovering from the pandemic.” Yeo said that relations with the U.S. are unlikely to get worse under Marcos Jr., because “the Philippine military is very supportive of the alliance with the U.S. and so is the foreign policy establishment.” “Marcos Jr. would have to calibrate his policies carefully, because he has to rely on the military and defense and foreign policy establishment for military and foreign policy. He will have to play some politics to keep them satisfied,” Yeo said. On Robredo, the Brookings fellow said that it is clear she would support the alliance with the U.S., which supports the rule of law and freedom of navigation in the seas. “She won’t bend to the will of China, like Duterte who gave up on the Hague ruling. She won’t do that,” he said. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.
- [A free press for a free world](https://ij-reportika.com/a-free-press-for-a-free-world/): In honor of the United Nations’ World Press Freedom Day, we reflect on media targeted by the restriction and destruction of press freedom, as well as remember the journalists who have died in the pursuit of a story.
- [Uyghurs warned against divulging 'state secrets' before UN right chief 's China visit](https://ij-reportika.com/uyghurs-warned-against-divulging-state-secrets-before-un-right-chief-s-china-visit/): Chinese officials in Xinjiang are warning Uyghurs not to divulge “state secrets” during a visit by United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet this month, officials in the western region said. A Chinese government video instructing Uyghurs on 10 things not to do has been shared widely on Douyin, a Chinese version of the TikTok short video app, in Xinjiang, the sources said. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Committee of Yarkand (in Chinese, Shache) county in Kashgar (Kashi) prefecture recently uploaded the video to social media. It features 10 female CCP officials from the county reciting the “10 commandments” and warning Uyghur residents not to disclose so-called state secrets. Chinese officials in Xinjiang told RFA that a government notice with the same title had been issued two months ago. “It’s been around two months since we received it,” said a female police officer from Yarkand township. When RFA pointed out that the same directive was previously in place, the officer said it was renewed because of the U.N. delegation’s visit. A five-member advance team from the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) arrived in China last week to prepare for a visit by Bachelet expected in May, though the dates have not yet been disclosed. The U.N. human rights chief and former Chilean president first announced that her office sought an unfettered access to Xinjiang in September 2018, shortly after she took over her current role. But the trip has been delayed over questions about her freedom of movement through the region. Uyghur activists and other rights groups are pressing for Bachelet to have independent and unfettered access to Xinjiang to conduct a meaningful investigation of alleged atrocities in the region. Human rights activists say that by issuing such notices and promotional videos, China is threatening the region’s residents not to disclose any information about the government’s widely documented repression of Uyghurs. A directive not to take calls RFA contacted Chinese government offices in several cities in Xinjiang to ask officials about the preparations that were underway before Bachelet’s arrival. Most said that authorities have warned locals not to accept calls from unknown phone numbers and not to answer questions from the U.N. human rights team without approval from the government. “We have a directive to not answer phone calls starting with zero,” said a female official from Yarkand county’s Dongbagh village, referring to international calls in China. A security chief from the No. 2 village of Imamlirim township in Aksu (Akesu) prefecture’s Uchturpan (Wushi) county said people were informed about the directive at a village meeting. “Don’t talk to any foreigners and don’t answer phone calls starting with zero. This was told to us at the village meeting,” he said. In the Yarkand county CCP video, authorities warned Uyghurs in sometimes threatening manner not to divulge, question or argue about “state secrets.” A male police officer from the Dongbagh village police station said he was worried about answering questions from RFA because of the government directive. “We have a directive on not answering questions from unknown and strange phone calls and people,” the officer said. Zumret Dawut, a Uyghur who was held in an internment camp and says he was forced to undergo permanent sterilization surgery, said Chinese authorities have always required Uyghurs in Xinjiang to keep quiet whenever U.N. human rights commissioners have visited the region. “Similar directives existed when I was there,” Dawut said. “They asked us the same things before flag raising ceremonies in the morning. They would ask us not to speak to foreigners and not to talk to them about the [internment] camps, and so on.” Up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and others have been held in a vast network of internment camps operated by the Chinese government under the pretext of preventing religious extremism and terrorism among the mostly Muslim groups. China has said that the camps are vocational facilities for Uyghurs and meant to deter religious extremism and terrorism. “They would ask us to stay away from foreigners and if asked about China, they would say talk to them about positive things about the country,” Dawut said. &#8216;China is afraid&#8217; Bachelet will be the first U.N. human rights commissioner to visit China since 2005. Her office has been under pressure from rights activists to issue an overdue report on rights violations by Chinese authorities targeting Uyghurs and other Turkic communities in the Xinjiang. Uyghur groups have demanded that office issue the report before her visit. RFA previously reported that since 2009, Uyghurs arrested on charges of “leaking state secrets” have been sentenced to more than seven years in prison. Uyghurs are sensitive to the consequences of saying too much, Dawut said. “Despite this, the authorities still felt it was necessary to continue such propaganda,” Dawut told RFA. “The need for this Chinese heightened alert on tightening the information leaks on of state secrets may have been the result of the forthcoming visit by a U.N. investigation team.” Ilshat Hassan Kokbore, a Uyghur political observer who lives in the United States, said a country’s state secrets should only be known by high-ranking officials or institutions that govern that country, and not the public. “If the Chinese government is urging the rural population of the Uyghur region not to divulge so-called state secrets, then what is being hidden here is not a secret, but all the policies and practices of the state — which is the Uyghur genocide,” he told RFA. “China is afraid that the U.N.’s Bachelet will discover the truth if Uyghurs speak out about the Chinese policy of genocide,” Kokbore said. “That’s why they have initiated this campaign of deception.” Translated by RFA’s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Vietnam ‘opinion workers’ push Russian fake news on Ukraine on social media](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-opinion-workers-push-russian-fake-news-on-ukraine-on-social-media/): Vietnamese “opinion workers” who promote the Communist Party and protect its image on social media now have a new role: spreading fake or misleading reports that support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Facebook. Facebook groups like “Đơn vị Tác chiến Mạng” (Cyber CombatUnit), “Truy quét Phản động” (Elimination of Reactionary Forces), “Bộ Tự lệnh Tác chiến” (Combat Command), and “Trung đoàn 47” (Regiment 47) that have worked to counter criticism of the Communist Party all now post information in favor of Russia. For example, Trung đoàn 47, which is believed to be part of a cyber combat force in the Vietnam People’s Army, posted this justification for the invasion: “Mr. Putin said: ‘Moscow has done everything it can to maintain Ukraine’s territorial integrity as well as protect the interests of Donetsk and Lugansk’s people but Kiev had blocked Donbas, suppressing local residents and shelling Donbas.’” Đơn vị Tác chiến Mạng posts fake news on a nearly daily basis. One video clip shows Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meeting with members of his Cabinet and a close-up shot of a handful of white powder on his desk that looks like heroin. Đơn vị Tác chiến Mạng claimed that Zelensky posted this video on his website before it was quickly deleted. Facebook attached an alert on the video to let viewers know it is an altered recording, though it is still available. Even wider of the mark has been coverage of the massacre in Bucha, a town outside the capital Kyiv where hundreds of Ukrainians were killed by Russian soldiers. The torture and murder of Bucha residents apparently carried out by Russian soldiers before Ukrainian forces retook the town has drawn international calls to bring perpetrators to justice for war crimes. But Don Vi Tac Chien Mang said the atrocities were faked by Ukraine officials and soldiers, who, the Facebook group claimed, transported the corpses to Bucha from another location. RFA sent evidence to prove the video was fake to Meta, Facebook’s parent company, asking for comment as to why the social media platform had not yet identified it as such. A team representative said a response would be forthcoming within 24 hours, but RFA did not receive a reply. ‘It cannot discourage me’ The pro-Russian disinformation comes from a force of tens of thousands of cyber troops created by the Hanoi regime to watch and attack people online for posting information seen as detrimental to the Vietnamese Communist Party. Targets include individual netizens like Phan Chau Thanh, a Vietnamese businessman living in Poland who along with his friends began to organize the delivery of relief aid to Ukraine refugees in Poland right after the war broke out. “I find this war extremely unjustifiable,” Thanh said. “How can Russia carry out an invasion of another country right in the middle of Europe in the 21st century? Therefore, I want to provide Vietnamese people with updates about the war through the eyes of a person living in Europe.” Posts from his Facebook account garner thousands of views among Vietnamese, including government officials and the army of official influencers. “Since the war started, or over the past 60 days, my Facebook account has been blocked four times,” he said, due to reports accusing him of violating Facebook’s community standards. In December 2021, Meta, Facebook’s parent, announced that it had removed from the site a network of users who attacked political dissidents in Vietnam through similar methods. Thanh said he has also received a flurry of obscene and nasty comments, a typical tactic of Vietnamese cyber troops. “Of course, it makes me feel down, but it cannot discourage me,” he said. “It irritates me, but in many cases it gives me stronger determination to keep going.” RFA sent Facebook a message containing Phan Chau Thanh’s complaints but did not receive a response. In many cases, Vietnamese opinion workers are amplifying fake news created by Russian propagandists. Their influence could be seen recently when a video of four Ukrainian men ripping apart Vietnamese flags went viral on Facebook, passed on as “evidence” of the Ukrainian government’s hostile view toward the Southeast Asian nation. The video fueled a wave of criticism against Ukraine and served to support the Vietnamese government’s decision to maintain neutrality in the face of Russia’s brutal attack. It turned out the flag-tearing incident occurred in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv 16 years ago. Fallout from the video Oleksandr Gaman, Ukraine’s ambassador to Vietnam, was forced to address the fallout from the video on the embassy’s Facebook page. “The information war, part of the burning war in Ukraine, has come to Vietnam. Russia is making every effort to create frictions between Ukrainian and Vietnamese people,” Gaman said in a video speech posted on April 19, adding that old videos and photos and fake facts were being presented as the official position of Ukraine. A representative from the Ukrainian Embassy in Hanoi told RFA that Russia also has a large army of fake newsmakers. Natalia Zhynkina, the embassy’s temporary chargé d’affaires, said Russia was taking advantage of the image of the former Soviet Union, a country that supported Vietnam during its war with the United States, to make its propaganda appealing to the Vietnamese. But she questioned the effectiveness of Russia’s tactics. “A question should be asked about the effectiveness of Russia’s communication attempts in Vietnam,” she told RFA. “I believe that the information created by Russia has failed to attract the attention of young people. A communication campaign based on hostility and a war will never succeed.” Despite Russia’s efforts, many Vietnamese have shown support for Ukraine in various ways. Hundreds of people in Hanoi have taken part in events at the Ukrainian Embassy and fundraising events to raise money for those affected by the armed conflict. Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Laos shrugs as villagers lose farms to dam reservoir](https://ij-reportika.com/laos-shrugs-as-villagers-lose-farms-to-dam-reservoir/): Developers who built Laos’ Nam Khan 3 dam have not compensated farmers who lost crops to rising water in the reservoir, sources living near the dam told RFA. A Lao government official said the displaced villagers were unlikely to get any more money. The dam, which sits on the Nam Khan River, began operating in 2016, and the villagers were relocated downstream to a newly built resettlement village. While they received money for lost homes, they were never given any compensation or new plots of farmland. Instead, they were told that they could continue to work at their farms upstream from the dam. But those farms are now flooded. “The dam owner recently made a survey. When they close the waterway, the water in the reservoir is on the rise and floods the villagers’ farmland,” a villager living near the dam in the province’s Xieng Ngeun district in the northern part of the country told RFA’s Lao Service on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. “The villagers have not received compensation like a plot of new cultivated farmland in a resettlement village. It seems like the dam owner just got their land for free and they get nothing at all,” the villager said. According to the villager, the dam has negatively affected more than 650 people in 10 villages. “There are only a few parts of the farmland that are not completely flooded. The villagers have not received money for their lost farmland, but all of them want it. If we do not get the compensated, for our lost farmland, it will be so sad,” a second villager said. A Xiengngeun district official confirmed to RFA that the rising water in the reservoir has damaged farmland and trees and caused landslides. “The dam owner has to investigate and solve these problems, and the district has informed them they should do this,” the official said. An official at the province’s Energy and Mines Department, however, told RFA that the villagers were not entitled to compensation for flooded farms because the dam owned the land and had allowed the farmers to cultivate it. The Nam Khan 3 Dam is a 60-megawat dam, designed and constructed by the Sinohydro Corporation of China and owned by the state-run Électricité du Laos, which financed the project by borrowing about $130 million from China’s Exim Bank. The Nam Khan River, where the dam was built, meets the Mekong River at the ancient city of Luang Prabang in the northern part of Laos. The project is one of dozens of dams that Lao has constructed on the Mekong River and its tributaries under its controversial economic strategy to become the “Battery of Southeast Asia” by selling electricity to neighboring countries. But displaced villagers commonly complain that they are not sufficiently compensated for what they have lost in the name of development. The energy official said the villagers would not be able to cultivate any of the land near the reservoir without permission. “Water is rising in the areas belonging to the dam owner, so there is no problem,” the energy official said. “As there is no farmland left in the resettlement village, there will be no compensation to those villagers who are affected by the dam,” said the energy official, who pointed out that the villagers already received compensation for their houses, as well as some of the trees on their property. From the local government’s point of view, the issue of compensation has already been settled, he said. When villagers who said they were told they could continue to farm on land that has now been flooded complained to the National Assembly for relief, they were told that the issue of compensation had been resolved and they were not eligible for additional relief. Reported and translated by RFA/Lao service. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Vietnam protests as China declares annual South China Sea fishing ban](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-protests-as-china-declares-annual-south-china-sea-fishing-ban/): China has once again announced a unilateral fishing moratorium in the South China Sea, to vigorous protests by Vietnam but the Philippines has so far not reacted. The three-and-half-month ban began on Sunday and covers the waters north of 12 degrees north latitude in the South China Sea which Vietnam and the Philippines also call their “traditional fishing grounds.” Hanoi spoke up against the fishing ban, calling it “a violation of Vietnam’s sovereignty and territorial jurisdiction.” The moratorium applies to part of the Gulf of Tonkin, and the Paracel Islands claimed by both China and Vietnam. The Vietnamese Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman said: “Vietnam requests China to respect Vietnam&#8217;s sovereignty over the Paracel Islands, sovereign rights and jurisdiction over its maritime zones when taking measures to conserve biological resources in the East Sea (South China Sea), without complicating the situation towards maintaining peace, stability and order in the East Sea.&#8221; Spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang said Vietnam&#8217;s stance on China&#8217;s fishing ban &#8220;is consistent and well established over the years.&#8221; Meanwhile the Philippines, which holds a presidential election next weekend, hasn’t responded to the moratorium. In the past, Manila has repeatedly protested and even called on Filipino fishermen to ignore the Chinese ban and continue their activities in the waters also known as the West Philippine Sea. Vietnamese foreign ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang speaks at a news conference in Hanoi, Vietnam July 25, 2019. Credit: Reuters. Risks of overfishing China has imposed the annual summer fishing ban since 1999 “as part of the country&#8217;s efforts to promote sustainable marine fishery development and improve marine ecology,” Chinese news agency Xinhua reported. A collapse of fishery stocks in the South China Sea due to overfishing and climate change could fuel serious tensions and even armed conflict, experts said.  “Overfishing is the norm in open-access fisheries, so restrictions on fishing represent a sensible policy,” said John Quiggin, professor of economics at the University of Queensland in Australia. “But China&#8217;s decision to impose such restrictions implies a claim of territorial control which other nations are contesting,” Quiggin told RFA. “The best outcome would be an interim agreement to limit over-fishing, until boundary disputes are resolved, if that ever happens,” he added. China’s fishing ban in the South China Sea is expected to end on Aug. 16. It also covers the Bohai Sea, the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, with a later end-date. Chinese media said this week that the South China Sea branch of the Coast Guard and local authorities will patrol major fishing grounds and ports “to ensure that the ban will be well observed.” At the end of last year, Beijing issued a new regulation threatening hefty fines of up to tens of thousands of dollars on activities of foreign fishermen in China’s “jurisdictional waters.” The self-claimed “jurisdictional waters” extend to most of the South China Sea but the claims are disputed by China’s neighbors and have been rejected by an international tribunal. Rashid Sumaila, a professor at the University of British Columbia in Canada and author of a 2021 report on the fishery industry in the East and South China Seas, said in an interview with RFA that “the simmering conflict that we see in the South China Sea is mostly because of fish even though countries don’t say it out loud.” “Fishery is one of the reasons China’s entangled in disputes with its neighbors in the South China Sea,” Sumaila said. A file photo showing Chinese fishing boats docked in Jiaoshan fishing port in Wenling city in eastern China&#8217;s Zhejiang province on July 12 2013. Credit: AP. Distant-water fishing Meanwhile, China’s distant-water fishing causes serious concerns across the world, mainly because of the size of the Chinese fleet and its “illegal behavior,” according to a recent report. The report released in March by the Environmental Justice Foundation, a U.K. non-profit organization, traces “China’s vast, opaque and, at times illegal global fisheries footprint,” using mainly China’s own data. It found that China’s distant-fishing fleet that operates on the high seas and beyond its exclusive economic zone is “by far the largest” in the world. The number of Chinese distant-water fishing boats is unknown, but could be around 2,700, according to some estimates. China is responsible for 38 percent of the distant-water fishing activities of the world’s 10 largest fleets in other countries’ waters, the report said. Chinese fishing vessels operate “across the globe in both areas beyond national jurisdiction and in the EEZs of coastal states.” Researchers who worked on the report have identified “high instances of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, destructive practises such as bottom trawling and the use of forced, bonded and slave labour and trafficked crew, alongside the widespread abuse of migrant crewmembers.”
- [China clamps down on dissident writer who criticized cult of personality around Xi](https://ij-reportika.com/china-clamps-down-on-dissident-writer-who-criticized-cult-of-personality-around-xi/): Despite asking for public input ahead of a key party congress later this year, Chinese authorities appear to be stepping up its clampdown on public dissent amid a growing cult of personality around ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping. Retired writer and member of the Independent Chinese PEN Association Tian Qizhuang is apparently incommunicado after he submitted an &#8220;opinion&#8221; opposing the Xi personality cult, saying it was in breach of the CCP charter. In an open letter to CCP disciplinary chief Zhao Leji, Tian accused Guangxi regional party secretary Liu Ning of &#8220;serious violations&#8221; of the party charter in a speech he made in a recent communique. &#8220;We must work hard to forge our party spirit and loyalty to core [leader Xi Jinping] with a high degree of political awareness,&#8221; the communique read, after the regional party CCP conference elected Xi as a delegate after he was nominated by the CCP Central Committee, in an exercise aimed at requiring and demonstrating loyalty to Xi. &#8220;[We must] always support our leader, defend our leader and follow our leader,&#8221; the communique said. In his letter, Tian argued that the communique was in breach of a clause added to the CCP charter at the 12th Party Congress in 1982, forbidding personality cults around Chinese leaders. &#8220;The key point about cults of personality is that they privilege personal power over the constitution and the law, violating the republican principle that everyone is equal before the law,&#8221; Tian wrote. &#8220;The Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region party committee has blatantly issued this communique in violation of the CCP charter,&#8221; he said. &#8220;This denial of the basic policy of sticking to the rule of law also shows that the cult of personality [around Xi] has already reached a dangerous level,&#8221; Tian wrote, calling on the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) to &#8220;investigate and deal with the matter promptly, and make the results and punishment known to the whole party &#8230; to prevent such corrupt thoughts and culture from making a comeback.&#8221; The CCP, instructed by Xi, has said it is soliciting online opinions and suggestions ahead of the party congress from April 15 through May 16, in a bid to &#8220;brainstorm and promote democracy.&#8221; But several days after the letter was published, Tian received a visit from local state security police, who swept his home for &#8220;evidence,&#8221; confiscating his cell phone and computer. Paeans to Xi The Guangxi communique came after outgoing Shenzhen party secretary Wang Weizhong lauded Xi to the skies in his valedictory speech, listing five of the leader&#8217;s attributes for which he would remain &#8220;eternally grateful.&#8221; Current affair commentator Wei Xin said paeans to Xi are likely to become even more frequent in the run-up to the 20th CCP National Congress later this year. &#8220;On the one hand, we have a wave of populism, accompanied on the other by structural changes in the highest echelons of the CCP Central Committee, which is inclining itself more and more towards individual totalitarianism,&#8221; Wei told RFA. &#8220;The party constitution isn&#8217;t enough to rein in the cult of personality or the centralization of power in one individual in the face of those changes,&#8221; he said. &#8220;[These tendencies within] the CCP will get stronger and stronger in the next six months as we approach the 20th party congress, and will likely peak in the fall.&#8221; Wei&#8217;s warning harks back to a 2010 essay by Chengdu party school professor Liu Yifei titled &#8220;Never forget to oppose personality cults.&#8221; In it, Liu warns that a lack of clear understanding in party ranks of the dangers led to disaster in the absence of strong institutional constraints, resulting in &#8220;a leader who couldn&#8217;t be curbed&#8221; by his own party: late supreme leader Mao Zedong. Feng Chongyi, a professor of Chinese Studies at the Sydney University of Technology in Australia, said the emerging personality cult around Xi is linked to the CCP leader&#8217;s successful removal of presidential term limits via China&#8217;s rubber-stamp parliament, the National People&#8217;s Congress (NPC), in 2018. &#8220;After the Cultural Revolution [1966-1976] ended, the party line was against individual autocracy, and the abolition of lifelong leadership was part of that,&#8221; Feng said. &#8220;No leader from Hu Yaobang, to Zhao Ziyang, to Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, served more than two terms in office, but he is now breaking that rule and bringing back lifelong tenure.&#8221; &#8220;To achieve that, he needs a deification campaign and a personality cult; it&#8217;s all part of the same operation,&#8221; he said. Distractions from bad news Feng said there is plenty of bad news from which Xi needs to distract people through populism. &#8220;There is trouble at home and abroad, with a constantly weakening economy, and worsening confrontation with developed countries,&#8221; he said. &#8220;This has created a lot of dissatisfaction within party ranks, but China doesn&#8217;t have &#8230; democratic elections or any political process.&#8221; &#8220;So, as long as they can suppress people like this writer, he will get his re-election,&#8221; Feng said. Tian&#8217;s silence came as online platforms including Weibo, Douyin and WeChat began requiring users to supply their IP address, making it easier to locate people when they comment or post. WeChat said it will begin displaying the location of users when they publish content, using their IP address, with domestic accounts showing the user&#8217;s province, autonomous region or directly governed municipality, and overseas accounts showing their country. Hebei-based political scientist Wei Qing said the move feeds into the growing use of &#8220;grid management,&#8221; which divides localities up into grids, giving officials responsibility for the actions of anyone living in their square. &#8220;The goal is grid management, which is central government policy, and the Cyberspace Administration is implementing that central policy,&#8221; Wei said. &#8220;Controlling the movement of people is the biggest characteristic of an autocratic society.&#8221; &#8220;Now that China is heading back to the Cultural Revolution, the movements of people both in physical space and in cyberspace, will be one of the most important goals.&#8221; He said local officials&#8217; knowledge of who is posting from where...
- [Shanghai fires, probes officials after man placed in body bag while still alive](https://ij-reportika.com/shanghai-fires-probes-officials-after-man-placed-in-body-bag-while-still-alive/): Authorities in Shanghai on Monday announced punishments for five officials in the city&#8217;s Putuo district after an elderly man was found alive in a body bag en route between a care home and a morgue. &#8220;Five people in Putuo District, Shanghai were held accountable for wrongly transferring an elderly person from a care home,&#8221; the city&#8217;s Putuo district government said in an announcement on its official Weibo account. &#8220;On the afternoon of May 1, reports were posted online that a so-called dead body being transferred from the Shanghai New Long March Care Home was found to show signs of life,&#8221; it said. &#8220;Putuo district government &#8230; launched an immediate investigation and sent the elderly man to receive treatment in hospital, where he is currently stable.&#8221; It said Putuo civil affairs bureau chief Zhang Jiandong, section chief Liu Yinghua and social development director Wu Youcheng had been fired pending a ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) disciplinary case against them. Meanwhile, a doctor surnamed Tian had been struck off for signing the man&#8217;s death certificate, and is currently under police investigation, it said. A team has been sent from the civil affairs bureau to carry out further supervision at the care home, which has also been subjected to an administrative punishment, the statement said. The move came after a video clip saw staff load, then unload, a yellow body bag from a vehicle outside the care home. &#8220;The care home said the person is dead, but the people from the funeral home said they&#8217;re still alive; they&#8217;re moving,&#8221; a person behind the camera says. &#8220;They&#8217;re not even dead, yet they&#8217;re declared dead.&#8221; &#8220;Now they&#8217;re discussing what to do. Get them out of there; what else can you do? What you&#8217;re doing is immoral.&#8221; &#8220;They&#8217;re not even dead, and they&#8217;re put in a van to go to the funeral home,&#8221; the man&#8217;s voice says. Widespread anger The staff then push the gurney back into the care home courtyard with the zip partially unfastened and leave. The care home later apologized, but online comments showed widespread anger, as Shanghai&#8217;s 25 million residents continued into a fifth week of COVID-19 lockdown that has brought havoc to the city. Some 400 deaths from COVID-19 have been reported in care homes, amid growing suspicion that the figure is being under-reported, in a city where only 62 percent of over-60s have been fully vaccinated, and just 15 percent of those over 80 have received two shots. The average age of deaths is 84, according to the government. Vice mayor Liu Duo said the city&#8217;s disease control and prevention efforts were &#8220;stable and improving,&#8221; however. &#8220;Disease control and prevention work has entered a critical phase,&#8221; Liu told reporters. &#8220;Effective disinfection measures can play a positive role in cutting off transmission routes.&#8221; Liu made no mention of the New Long March incident. Current affairs commentator Fang Yuan said the huge amount of political pressure on staff and officials during lockdown has led to &#8220;chaotic actions.&#8221; &#8220;The disease prevention and control regulations are too aggressive,&#8221; Fang told RFA. &#8220;This kind of chaotic action is worse than inaction.&#8221; &#8216;Total chaos&#8217; He said it could also be a way to show those higher up how the system is failing to function under CCP leader Xi Jinping&#8217;s zero-COVID policy. &#8220;It&#8217;s also a form of passive resistance,&#8221; Fang said. &#8220;Better to cause incidents through the chaos and get the attention of those higher up, because only then will order return.&#8221; Fang said the incident had generated huge amounts of public anger in a city where people are regularly banging pots and pans from apartments in a muted form of mass protest. &#8220;They want to deal with these kinds of incidents in as low-key a manner as possible, but there is huge pressure from public opinion,&#8221; Fang said. &#8220;It&#8217;s not okay to ignore it.&#8221; A Shanghai resident surnamed Chen said the authorities have restarted mass PCR testing in several districts of the city in recent days, but that he has refused to take part, as others have done, fearing being transported out of their homes where they are more likely to catch the virus. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t go; I&#8217;m not doing it,&#8221; Chen said. &#8220;The whole thing is total chaos; they can&#8217;t control it.&#8221; &#8220;The highways are all blocked, and there&#8217;s nowhere to run,&#8221; he said. &#8220;There&#8217;s a lot of tension all over the country.&#8221; Beijing municipal health commission spokesman Li Ang has ordered restaurants in the city to stop allowing customers to eat in for four days, in a bid to stem rising cases over the May holiday break. The city is also starting to build makeshift hospitals to isolate those who test positive for the virus, in a sign that the capital will keep going with Xi&#8217;s favored approach to managing COVID-19 risk. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Myanmar’s junta vows to defend China-backed copper mine after PDF threats](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-junta-vows-to-defend-china-backed-copper-mine-after-pdf-threats/): Myanmar’s junta has vowed to defend a suspended Chinese copper mine, seen as a key source of revenue for the military regime, after the country’s armed opposition threatened to destroy the project if owners resume operations. The Letpadaung copper mine in Sagaing’s Salingyi township is a joint venture between China’s state-owned Wanbao Co. and the military-owned Myanmar Economic Holding Limited (MEHL) company. Following the military’s Feb. 1, 2021 coup, employees walked off the job to join the anti-junta Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), reducing the mine’s operating capacity by more than 80 percent. In early April, junta Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in eastern China’s Anhui province in what analysts said signaled Myanmar’s desire for deeper economic ties to its northern ally. Not long after the trip, residents of Salingyi reported that workers were being called back to the mine to restart the project after more than a year of downtime, prompting threats from anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries. Late last week, junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun told RFA’s Myanmar Service that the military would deploy troops to protect the mine in the event of an attack. “As a government, we have a responsibility to protect all investments in the country, both legally and on the ground, and we must work to provide security for them,” he said, adding that the junta is “working to get things back on track” at Letpadaung. Zaw Min Tun didn’t provide details on the status of the mine or whether any other foreign projects had come under threat. His comments came in response to an April 21 joint statement from 16 PDF groups from Salingyi and nearby Yinmarbin townships threatening to destroy the mine if Wanbao brought it back online. A spokesman from the NRF, one of the PDF groups that issued the warning, told RFA that Chinese and other foreign-owned assets in Myanmar qualify as fair game for the armed opposition if they are generating income for the junta. “If the military can purchase weapons with that money, the people will suffer further persecution,” he said, calling the statement a warning to other foreign companies in Myanmar “earning money that will be used [by the junta] to buy bullets to kill people.” Sit Naing, a spokesperson from the Salingyi PDF, clarified that the groups “don’t have a plan to attack foreigners,” but said if foreign companies “keep working with the military and take part in persecuting the people, we will have to attack them, without fail.” Zin Mar Aung, foreign minister for Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG), to which the prodemocaracy PDF has pledged its loyalty, expressed disappointment with China for its support of the junta in a recent statement. An excavator works on a section of the Letpadaung copper mine site in Sagaing region&#8217;s Salingyi township, in a file photo. Credit: RFA Resident protests Reports that operators are restarting the 60-year-old Letpadaung copper mine project – which has already faced criticism for appropriating land from 26 area villages and damaging the environment with chemical waste and dust – have also prompted opposition from Myanmar’s civilian population. Residents of Letpadaung have held daily protests demanding that Beijing respect the wishes of the people of Myanmar by shutting the mine down, and on April 25, nearly 560 prodemocracy groups sent an open letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping urging him to stop supporting the junta through the mine and other China-backed development projects. In an interview with RFA, a member of the CDM in Salingyi called on all copper mine staff to remain in the movement, even if they are called back to work by Wanbao. “As the project is directly affiliated with the junta, we are urging staff to hold out and refuse to return to work to resume operations, no matter how much incentive the company offers,” the CDM member said. “We ask that they go back to work only when the country is liberated.” Other sources were more direct in their condemnation of China, including a Salingyi township protest organizer who noted that Beijing has been backing the junta for much of the 15 months since the military’s coup. “They don’t give priority to the people, and they are prioritizing our enemy the military’s leader [Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing], so China is our common enemy,” she said. “I want to appeal the workers to stand with the people. No matter how many incentives or extra salary they offer, don’t consider working for the enemy.” Reassessing control in Myanmar In response to an RFA email seeking comment on the situation in Salingyi, China’s embassy in Yangon said that Chinese projects in Myanmar “are meant to benefit Myanmar&#8217;s economic development, bilateral interests, and the livelihoods of the local people.” Attempts by RFA to contact Wanbao and Letpadaung copper mine officials went unanswered, as did calls to junta Deputy Minister of Information Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun. According to Myanmar’s Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, 32 Chinese garment factories were set on fire in the early months of the coup, while PDF attacks on Chinese projects have damaged the water supply pipeline to the Letpadaung project, as well as a gas pipeline and nickel plant in Mandalay region. A Myanmar-based analyst on China-Myanmar relations, who declined to be named, said the NUG’s statement was a “warning” to China, emboldening local PDF groups. “The PDFs are trying to make China reconsider whether the junta can effectively protect its interests, after it offered support to the junta,” the analyst said. “China should reassess who is really in control on the ground … We will have to wait and see if they decide to negotiate with the NUG after they do so.” Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung and Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Delivery of US Howitzers to Taiwan delayed due to Ukraine crisis](https://ij-reportika.com/delivery-of-us-howitzers-to-taiwan-delayed-due-to-ukraine-crisis/): An arms contract between the United States and Taiwan is facing severe delays due to “crowded production lines” caused by the war in Ukraine, prompting Taipei to look for alternatives, the island’s Ministry of National Defense has confirmed. The first batch of U.S.-made M109A6 “Paladin” self-propelled howitzers will not be delivered in 2023 as planned as the production capacity of the U.S. arms industry has been affected by the ongoing Ukrainian war, Taiwan has been notified. Instead, the U.S. has offered some alternative long-range precision strike weapon systems such as the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), the Taiwanese Ministry said, adding that officials are currently evaluating the proposal before making a final decision. Last August, Washington approved the sale of 40 M109A6 &#8220;Paladin&#8221; self-propelled howitzers and related equipment at an estimated cost of U.S. $750 million to Taiwan. It was part of the first arms sale to Taiwan approved by President Joe Biden since taking office that also included 20 M992A2 Field Artillery Ammunition Support Vehicles, 1,698 multi-option Precision Guidance Kits, and other related equipment and logistical support. The first eight units were due to be delivered next year, with another 16 each in 2024 and 2025, but U.S. manufacturers have now said it would be 2026 at the earliest. Eight weeks into the war, Washington decided to ramp up the delivery of artillery guns including a large number of howitzers to Ukraine as part of an additional U.S.$800-million military assistance package, the Associated Press reported. The Taiwanese military has been using two older howitzer variants – the M109A2 and M109A5. The “Paladin” is believed to be far superior with increased armor and an improved M284 155mm howitzer cannon. The proposed alternative – HIMAR – is a multiple-launch rocket system made by Lockheed Martin Corp. It can be mounted on a military truck, is mobile and has a strike distance of 300 kilometers (185 miles) when carrying M57 Army Tactical Missile Systems. Local media reported that besides the howitzers, a Taiwanese Navy’s plan to purchase 12 MH-60R Seahawk anti-submarine helicopters from the U.S. may also run into difficulties as the U.S. deemed that the helicopter is not suitable for asymmetric warfare. Although Washington and Taipei do not have formal diplomatic ties, the U.S. is committed by law to help provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself. Those arms sales have long been an irritant in relations between Washington and Beijing which regards the island as part of China, although Taiwan governs itself.
- [China's tactics to exploit cultural narratives around the globe](https://ij-reportika.com/exploitation-of-cultural-narratives-by-china/): Chinese influence on culture is twofold: influence on the production and export of Chinese cultural products to seduce foreign publics; and pressure exerted on foreign cultural productions to make them conform to the CCP’s interests
- [China enlists foreign vloggers to whitewash Uyghur situation in Xinjiang](https://ij-reportika.com/china-enlists-foreign-vloggers-to-whitewash-uyghur-situation-in-xinjiang/): China has enlisted some fresh faces in its pushback against charges it is committing genocide against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang: young foreign social media influencers who produce short videos showing happy minorities in the far-western region. Travel videos recorded by video bloggers known as vloggers are carried on platforms such as Twitter that are banned in China and spread by state media and affiliated sites. The echo and amplify Beijing’s massive propaganda effort to depict Uyghurs as content with and grateful for Chinese rule. The videos show “foreign travelers” interviewing people in factories in Xinjiang, with captions such as “Friends, it’s a lie that there is a genocide of the Uyghurs.” “Everything is normal here,” and “Is there a single piece of evidence that there are more than 1 million people in concentration camps?” State-owned media outlets and local governments organize the pro-China campaign, paying vloggers to take trips, according to documents posted online and video producers familiar with the system. “What happens is you&#8217;ll have a state media like CGTN or CRI or iChongqing or any number of organizations which are run by the Chinese government — which are the Chinese government — and what they will do is they will pay for the flights, pay for the accommodation, organize the trip, and liaise with the content creator and invite them to go on these trips,” said YouTuber Winston Sterzel, who lived in Xinjiang. Minders working as translators or fixers are always present to make sure the content creators follow the script, he said. Vloggers, who post short videos on their personal websites or social media account on platforms like YouTube, say that local government officials arrange their travel and logging during trips they are hired for to make videos that put China in a good light. “They arrange our travel, and they pay for our lodging and food,” said YouTuber Lee Barrett in a video he recorded.   Business Insider reported in January that China’s consulate general in New York signed a U.S. $300 million contract with U.S.-based Vippi Media in New Jersey to create a social media campaign promoting positive messaging about China TikTok, Instagram, and Twitch as a lead-up to the 2022 Olympic Games in Beijing. Social media influencers were asked to produce content for their target audiences on Chinese culture, positive diplomatic relations between China and the U.S., and consulate general news. ‘Living happily and joyfully’ On the YouTube channel “Two Brothers,” Netherlands-based Tarekk Habib and Anas Habib, both of Egyptian descent, published a video on Dec. 31, 2021, in which they say a Chinese company agreed to pay them U.S. $1,000 to produce and share a video extoling the government’s measures to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus at the Olympics and to ensure the safety of athletes. They said they turned down the request and instead produced a video discussing China’s oppression of Uyghur Muslims. China&#8217;s struggle to shape world opinion about Xinjiang will come into sharp focus this month, when U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet makes a long-awaited visit to China, including Xinjiang. Since 2017, about 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples are believed to have been incarcerated a vast network of internment camps in Xinjiang. The U.S. and a handful of European countries have labelled these practices genocide, while China has angrily rejected criticism and maintains the camps are vocational training centers designed to combat religious extremism and terrorism. In fall 2021, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) government began an initiative to mobilize foreign students in China to praise “Xinjiang policy.” The effort was part of the central government’s larger plan to portray ethnic minorities in Xinjiang as happy and content, according to an article in Xinjiang Daily. Under the title “The people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang are living happily and joyfully,” the report cited a series of letters written by Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping in which he called on foreign students in July 2021 to increase their understanding of the “real China,” so that their knowledge would inspire others to understand the country as well. The XUAR government in October 2021 sponsored a trip to Xinjiang for students from 16 countries, including Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Burundi, Uganda, Russia, Pakistan, Korea, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, the U.S. and the U.K. Chinese state media said the students visited Kashgar (Kashi), Hotan (Hetian), and other places, and saw Xinjiang’s economic development, social stability, quality of life, culture, ethnic unity and religious harmony. “They are not only able to look after the young and old people in their homes, they can also earn a salary. Their work environment is very good, and they are truly happy,” an Armenian student was quoted as saying. Such accounts are meant to counter a growing tide of well-researched reports by researchers and foreign media about conditions in Xinjiang. Government minders Since the start of 2018, authorities have prevented most international journalists from entering Xinjiang and forced foreigners living in the region to leave. YouTubers from the U.S. and South Africa who lived in the Xinjiang or in mainland China for a decade or more said that while recent vlogs by foreigners “traveling” to Xinjiang appear to be simple and normal, government fixers are always on the other side of the camera, controlling what is said and recorded. “You’re gonna be approached by your agent or your middleman … who is a communicator between you and the management company, or as they call themselves, talent agencies,” said LeLe Farley, an American comedian and rap artist who lived in China for years and worked as an announcer for Chinese-language programs. “Those talent agencies get word directly from the government, like ‘we need foreign bloggers for white-washing Xinjiang; we need them to go there, and here’s the trip that we’ve prepared for them to go on. We&#8217;ll pay for the whole trip,’” he said. Josh Summers, who ran a popular blog known as “Far West China” as well as a YouTube channel, moved...
- [Chinese leader Xi Jinping seeks support of young people amid lockdown restrictions](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-leader-xi-jinping-seeks-support-of-young-people-amid-lockdown-restrictions/): Chinese leader Xi Jinping has called on China&#8217;s young people to get behind the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in a recent visit to a university reminiscent of the Mao era, as &#8220;little red books&#8221; of his personal brand of ideology made an appearance in Guangxi. In an April 25 speech to staff and students, Xi said young people should: &#8220;Unswervingly obey the party, follow its direction, and strive to grow into heirs of the era worthy of the important task of national rejuvenation.&#8221; The visit came ahead of the anniversary of a century-old student-led May Fourth Movement (1919) previously lauded by Xi for its &#8220;patriotic spirit.&#8221; The 100-year-old student-led movement was sparked by popular anger at the Treaty of Versailles and the concession of a huge tract of Chinese territory to Japan. Describing the country&#8217;s youth as the &#8220;oar,&#8221; and Xi&#8217;s Chinese Dream slogan as the &#8220;sail,&#8221; Xi appeared to encourage young people to travel the country, as they did during the decade of political turmoil instigated by Mao and now known as the Cultural Revolution. &#8220;Measure the motherland with your footsteps, discover the spirit of China with your eyes, listen to the voice of the people with your ears, and sense the pulse of the times with your hearts,&#8221; Xi told them, calling for &#8220;creative transformation and innovative development&#8221; stemming from traditional Chinese culture. Yet, as he spoke, tens of millions of people remained under a grueling COVID-19 lockdown in Shanghai and other Chinese cities, while Xi addressed students without wearing a mask. The visit came after authorities in the southwestern region of Guangxi announced the publication of a Mao Zedong-style &#8220;little red book&#8221; of Xi&#8217;s political ideology, an indication of the growing personality cult Xi is seeking to build around himself, analysts said. Chen Lee-fu, vice president of the Taiwan Professors Association, leaders of dictatorial regimes, including North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Russian president Vladimir Putin, rarely wear masks, believing that it is detrimental to their strongman image, and makes them look like a patient. Decorative plates and cups featuring images of Chinese President Xi Jinping are seen in front of a plate featuring late communist leader Mao Zedong (top L) at a souvenir store next to Tiananmen Square in Beijing on Feb. 27, 2018. Credit: AFP &#8216;Red gene&#8217; However, all of Xi&#8217;s entourage were masked, Chen said, sending the message that the country&#8217;s leader would be protected from COVID-19, which is currently ripping across the country. State news agency Xinhua said the visit was significant because Renmin University, also known as the People&#8217;s University, was the first to be founded by the CCP. Xi&#8217;s visit on the eve of May 4th was to emphasize that the university must inherit the &#8220;red gene,&#8221; and cultivate the next generation of socialists, the agency said. Taiwan-based dissident Gong Yujian said the CCP, for all its idealization of the May Fourth Movement, wouldn&#8217;t tolerate any kind of actual protest by young people in real life. &#8220;The CCP won power through rebellion, so no it fears a popular rebellion more than anything,&#8221; Gong said. &#8220;There are people in Shanghai openly calling for the overthrow of the CCP and of Xi Jinping, but the real threat is the secondary disaster and casualties caused by the inhumane lockdowns, in which people have lost their lives.&#8221; &#8220;Only rioting will make Xi Jinping feel any real fear,&#8221; he said, speaking as teams of workers continued to put up steel fences blocking major thoroughfares in Shanghai, and walling people into their buildings. Chen said Xi is currently seeking to build a groundswell of public support ahead of the CCP&#8217;s 20th Party Congress later this year, at which he will seek an unprecedented third term in office. But he said there are key differences between Xi and his late predecessor, Mao Zedong. &#8220;Back then, Mao Zedong called for the elimination of traditional Chinese bureaucracy and elite politics,&#8221; Chen said. &#8220;He gave young people a plan: to overthrow everything, and start over from scratch.&#8221; &#8220;The big dream of young people in the Mao era was to surpass Britain and catch up to the United States.&#8221; China&#8217;s President Xi Jinping with a face mask is displayed as people visit an exhibition about China’s fight against the COVID-19 coronavirus, Jan. 15, 2021. Credit: AFP Xi&#8217;s Red Guards Chen said the plan was unlikely to work for Xi, despite his recent calls for Chinese economic output to surpass that of the United States this year. &#8220;They have lived through the good years before Trump and Xi Jinping, before the conflict between the US and China,&#8221; Chen said. &#8220;This is the generation of Alibaba, of free trade and studying overseas.&#8221; &#8220;Now studying overseas isn&#8217;t an option, Belt and Road projects are failing, the whole country is under pandemic lockdown, and even expressing an opinion online can get you deleted or harassed,&#8221; he said. &#8220;All of this has happened in the last two or three years.&#8221; &#8220;The students know very well that Xi Jinping&#8217;s growing power has entailed reductions to their power and freedoms, so there is no way they will truly support him,&#8221; Chen said. &#8220;How can China imagine it will displace the United States when all the cities are locked down and there&#8217;s no food to eat &#8230; foreign capital is leaving, and there are no jobs.&#8221; He added: &#8220;Chinese universities are no longer places to nurture intellectuals and independent thought. They are the cradle of the CCP &#8230; places for Xi Jinping to cultivate his own army of Red Guards.&#8221; Sweden-based Zhang Yu, secretary-general of the Independent Chinese PEN Association, said the reappearance of the little red books in Guangxi are evidence of a nationwide propaganda campaign encouraging the cult of personality around Xi ahead of the 20th Party Congress. &#8220;With this mass propaganda movement in Guangxi, they are stepping up the praise of Xi and his so-called ideology in China ahead of the 20th Party Congress,&#8221; Zhang told RFA. &#8220;They absolutely want to try to recreate the collective hysteria of the...
- [Indonesia confirms invitation to Ukraine for G-20 summit, says Putin will attend](https://ij-reportika.com/indonesia-confirms-invitation-to-ukraine-for-g-20-summit-says-putin-will-attend/): Indonesia has asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to be a guest at the G-20 summit, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo said Friday, belatedly confirming an invitation to the war-torn European nation’s leader that the United States had urged him to extend. The Indonesian president also said that Vladimir Putin, the leader of G-20 member Russia whose military invaded Ukraine in February, had agreed to attend the same summit in Bali in mid-November, although the Kremlin had not confirmed his participation. Indonesia hold this year’s presidency of the grouping of the world’s top 20 economies. “We know that the G-20 plays the role of catalyst in the global economic recovery and the two things are affecting the global economic recovery in a major way: COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine,” Jokowi said in a speech broadcast on YouTube.  “It is in this context that I invited President Zelenskyy to attend the G-20 summit,” he said of his call Wednesday with the Ukrainian president. Meanwhile in Washington on Friday, the Pentagon’s press secretary said that Putin “absolutely shouldn’t be” welcomed at the G-20 summit. “He isolated Russia by his own actions and should continue to be isolated by the international community &#8230; [as one of the] consequences of his actions in Ukraine,” John Kirby told CNN. A day earlier, when asked whether President Joe Biden would attend the G-20 summit were Putin to attend as well, a White House spokeswoman indicated that a decision had yet to be made. “[T]he President has been clear about his view: This shouldn’t be business as usual, and that Russia should not be a part of this,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters. “But, again, [the G-20 summit] six months away; we don’t even have confirmation of these reports [about Putin’s attendance].  So I’m certainly not going to get into a hypothetical in this case.” Southeast Asia analyst Derek J. Grossman said Indonesia’s invitation to Ukraine reflected its stated foreign policy. “The nonaligned path in action,” the senior defense analyst at the Rand Corp., a U.S. think-tank, said on Twitter. Ukraine is not a G-20 member, but Indonesia, as the holder of the group’s presidency, can invite leaders of non-member countries as guests. Zelenskyy on Wednesday pre-empted Indonesia by announcing via Twitter that Jokowi had invited him to the summit. His attendance at the G-20 summit would “depend mainly on the situation in the battlefield,” Vysotskyi Taras, a senior Ukrainian government official, was quoted by Reuters as saying on Thursday. ‘War must be stopped immediately’ Jokowi, however, said he had turned down a request by Zelenskyy that Indonesia send weapons to Ukraine.  “I reaffirmed [to Zelenskyy] that in line with our constitution and our independent and active foreign policy, we cannot send arms support to other countries, but we are prepared to send humanitarian aid,” Jokowi said.  The Indonesian leader also said he had called for an end to the war, in his telephone conversation with Putin on Thursday.    “It should be underlined that the war must be stopped immediately and peace negotiations be given a chance. Indonesia is ready to contribute to achieving that goal,” Jokowi said. “President Putin expressed gratitude for the invitation to the G-20 summit and said that he would attend,” he added. In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia would prepare for the summit but did not say whether Putin would go to Bali. “Putin wished success for the Indonesian G-20 presidency and assured that Russia will do everything necessary and everything possible to contribute to it,” Peskov was quoted as saying by the Russian news agency TASS. But, Peskov said, “it is premature to talk about any other modalities of our participation.” Last month, President Biden said Ukraine should be able to participate in the G-20 summit, if the grouping did not expel Russia, the country that invaded its smaller neighbor and former Soviet socialist republic next-door on Feb. 24. Washington went a step farther on April 6, saying that it would boycott some of the group’s meetings if Russian officials attended, which it then did later in the month.  On April 20, several nations, including Ukraine and the United States, walked out when Russian officials addressed a G-20 meeting convened by Indonesia in Washington. Indonesia had invited all members, including Russia, to attend the group’s meeting of finance ministers and central bank chiefs that day. Shailaja Neelakantan in Washington contributed to this report for BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.
- [North Koreans wait 17 hours for compulsory viewing of Pyongyang military parade](https://ij-reportika.com/north-koreans-wait-17-hours-for-compulsory-viewing-of-pyongyang-military-parade/): Residents of Pyongyang who were forced to participate in a parade to mark the founding of North Korea’s army this week waited for nearly an entire day before the event began, disrupting their work and leaving them exhausted, sources said Friday. On the evening of April 25, Pyongyang commemorated the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army – the predecessor to the Korean People’s Army, formed when the country was founded in 1948 – with an extravagant military parade, classified as a “No. 1 event” because it was presided over by the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un. A city official told RFA’s Korean Service that tens of thousands of residents were forced to assemble well in advance of the event showcasing North Korea’s most advanced military equipment, including tanks, armored vehicles, and the Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile, which Pyongyang claims to have successfully tested last month. “From the dawn on the 25th, about 100,000 Pyongyang citizens waited at Kim Il Sung Square for 17 hours to make the military parade possible,” said the official, noting that the start of the event was not made public until just before it began. “They were all totally exhausted,” he added. Sources told RFA that North Koreans have tried to avoid “parade duty” ever since Kim Jong Un came to power in 2011. The government has taken action to make sure parades are not sparsely attended, forcing them to practice watching or marching in the parade in the two months leading up to the actual event. “Now the number of participants are assigned to each neighborhood watch unit and they are forcibly mobilized,” the official said. “Pyongyang citizens mobilized for the event are complaining that their livelihoods are being disrupted as they were not able to do business during the two-month military parade practice period. There are many residents who think that it is better to pay $30.00 per month to drop out of practice so they can work instead.” Those marching in the parade also sacrifice much for the highly publicized propaganda event. “The authorities conducted a two-month training session for middle school students selected for the balloon group, but during this period, the children’s grades are bound to drop,” the official said. Security for the event meant that certain people were kept away from the parade, even those who might have enjoyed watching it, a Pyongyang resident told RFA. “On the day of the event, the members of No.1 event department checked the list of general citizens who were not eligible to participate in the military parade by their residence. General citizens, such as elderly and younger children, who were excluded from participating in the event, gathered in a certain place by residence until the end of the parade and their movement was restricted,” the resident said. “Security agents with heavy firearms were stationed on the rooftop of an apartment building around the square, and strict security was maintained until the event was over… I don’t know what they are afraid of,” the resident said. Citizens participating in the parade were instructed to wear black clothes to avoid being detected by satellites until just before the start of the ceremony,” the official said. Sources said that authorities even blocked all mobile communications to ensure leader Kim Jong Un’s security, without providing details about the perceived threat. “At the order of the Supreme Guard Command escorting the leadership, the operation of the mobile phone base station in Pyongyang was stopped, and mobile phone calls from and to Pyongyang citizens were blocked,” a second Pyongyang resident told RFA. “Until now, whenever any No.1 events are held in Pyongyang, the event participants gathered at Kim Il Sung Square are inspected with metal detectors by members of the Ministry of State Security and are banned from possessing watches and mobile phones. It is the first time that the operation of the mobile phone base station has been stopped and the use of mobile phones in Pyongyang has been completely blocked,” he said. Everyone involved in the parade was so unhappy about being selected to participate, including the soldiers, a stark contrast to the military parades of yesteryear when Kim Jong Un’s father and grandfather ruled the country, the first Pyongyang resident said. “During the Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il eras, soldiers who participated in military parades were given considerable benefits such as commendations, 15 days of vacation, and gifts like televisions for their homes,” the first Pyongyang resident said. “However, after Kim Jong Un came to power, the soldiers who participate in military parades are immediately returned to their military camp without any compensation.” New weapons Despite the fanfare, North Koreans said that the parade did little to improve morale. North Korea showcased its most advanced military equipment during the parade, including its Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile, which it claims to have successfully tested last month. To drive the point home, authorities forced residents to attend two-hour lecture sessions to educate them about the weapons that appeared in the parade, a resident of the northwestern province of North Pyongan told RFA. “The purpose of this intensive lecture is to promote North Korea’s military power as the world’s strongest by showing off strategic and tactical weapons that appeared at the parade, and to calm the dissatisfaction of the people who are tired of living difficulties due to sanctions and the coronavirus,” he said. The North Korean economy is still suffering from a pandemic caused two-year trade ban with China, as well as international nuclear sanctions. “Residents mobilized for the lecture were skeptical about the speaker’s statement that we are standing tall as the world’s most powerful military power,” the North Pyongan resident said. The lecture also promised an end to North Korea’s economic misery, a resident of the city of Chongjin in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA. “Residents did not hide their disappointment, saying that no one believed the authorities’ propaganda.” Translated by Leejin J. Chung Written...
- [Japan PM begins SE Asia trip, urges open seas, response on Ukraine](https://ij-reportika.com/japan-pm-begins-se-asia-trip-urges-open-seas-response-on-ukraine/): Japan’s leader made a veiled but strong statement against Chinese assertiveness as he met Indonesia’s president on Friday at the start of a trip to Southeast Asia and Europe to promote a free and open Indo-Pacific and rally a regional response to the Ukrainian crisis. Tokyo is also considering giving Indonesia patrol boats so its coast guard could strengthen maritime security, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said, amid Chinese pressure on Jakarta over its oil and gas drilling operations in its own exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea. “I expressed a strong sense of protest against efforts to change the status quo unilaterally and economic pressures in the East China Sea and South China Sea,” Kishida said, after meeting with President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo in Jakarta. The Japanese premier’s remarks were a pointed reference to concern over Chinese activities in the region. Kishida’s eight-day tour will see him visiting “strategic ASEAN partners,” including Vietnam and Thailand. The prime minister will then proceed to Europe, with stops in Italy and the United Kingdom, both members of the G7 grouping of industrialized countries that also comprises Japan. Before embarking from Tokyo on his trip, Kishida said at the airport that he would like to “exchange frank opinions on the situation in Ukraine with each of the leaders and confirm their cooperation.” Indonesia is host of this year’s Group of 20 summit in November, an engagement that has placed Jakarta in a diplomatic bind, amid opposition to the participation of Russia because of its invasion of Ukraine and alleged war crimes there. On Friday, Jokowi confirmed that Indonesia had invited Ukraine’s president as a guest to the G-20 summit in Bali and that Russian leader Vladimir Putin would also attend. Kishida said he and Jokowi “exchanged views openly” on the Russian invasion, “which is a clear violation of international law and which we say has shaken the foundations of the international order, including Asia, and must be strongly condemned.” “Keeping in mind the U.N. resolutions agreed upon by the two countries, I and the president discussed this issue. We have one understanding that a military attack on Ukraine is unacceptable. In any area, sovereignty and territorial integrity should not be interfered with by military force or intimidation,” the Japanese leader said. Jokowi, for his part, called for all countries to respect sovereignty and territorial integrity. “The Ukraine war must be stopped immediately,” he said. A regional ‘reluctance to take sides’ The war in Ukraine has been a divisive issue among members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN. “Across the region there is a reluctance to take sides and an ambivalence about the concert of democracies lining up in support of Ukraine,” said Jeff Kingston, a professor and director of Asian Studies at Temple University in Tokyo. Most Southeast Asian countries – Singapore being an exception – have been hesitant to condemn Russia or join international sanctions against Moscow. Japan hopes to consolidate their responses during the prime minister’s visit. “Kishida will [also] seek to gain understanding of what is at stake and the potential implications for Asia in terms of China’s hegemonic aspirations,” Kingston said. China’s increasing assertiveness in the East China and South China seas will be high on the agenda, and Kishida said he would discuss with Southeast Asian leaders further cooperation “toward realizing a free and open Indo-Pacific,” and maintaining peace and order. Stops in Hanoi, Bangkok In Vietnam, where Kishida will spend less than 24 hours over the weekend, he will meet with both the Vietnamese prime minister and president. Bilateral talks will focus on post-COVID-19 and security cooperation, Vietnamese media said. Vietnam shares interests with Japan in safeguarding maritime security in the South China Sea where China holds expansive claims and has been militarizing reclaimed islands. In Thailand, Kishida will hold talks with Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha. Thailand is the host of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum summit in November. Bangkok and Tokyo are celebrating the 135th anniversary of diplomatic ties this year, and the two sides are seeking to sign an agreement on the transfer of defense equipment and technology to strengthen cooperation in the security field, according to the Bangkok Post. Government spokesman Thanakorn Wangboonkongchana said it would be the first official visit of a Japanese prime minister to Thailand since 2013. In March, Kishida visited India and Cambodia, his first bilateral trips since taking office in October 2021. Later in May, he will host a visit by U.S. President Joe Biden and a summit of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad. The White House announced on Wednesday that President Biden would visit South Korea and Japan May 20-24 to advance a “commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific and to U.S. treaty alliances” with the two countries. The trip will be Biden’s first one to Asia as president. “In Tokyo, President Biden will also meet with the leaders of the Quad grouping of Australia, Japan, India, and the United States,” the statement said without disclosing the date. The Quad is widely seen as countering China’s weight in the region. China has been sneering at the formation of the Quad, calling it one of the “exclusive cliques detrimental to mutual trust and cooperation among regional countries.” On Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry’s spokesman Wang Wenbin said that the Quad “is steeped in the obsolete Cold War and zero sum mentality and reeks of military confrontation.” “It runs counter to the trend of the times and is doomed to be rejected,” he said. Dandy Koswaraputra in Jakarta contributed to this report for BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.
- [Rights groups call on China to release Taiwanese man who attended Hong Kong protests](https://ij-reportika.com/rights-groups-call-on-china-to-release-taiwanese-man-who-attended-hong-kong-protests/): Human rights groups have hit out at China over ongoing restrictions being imposed on Taiwan businessman Lee Meng-chu, also known as Morrison Lee, following his release from jail. Lee &#8220;disappeared&#8221; in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen after taking photos of troops gathering near the border during the 2019 Hong Kong protest movement and sending them back to contacts in Taiwan. He later appeared making a &#8220;confession&#8221; on Chinese state television, before being sentenced to one year and 10 months&#8217; imprisonment and two years&#8217; deprivation of political rights. Although Lee was recently released from prison at the end of his jail term, the authorities are preventing him from going home to loved ones on the democratic island of Taiwan, saying his &#8220;punishment&#8221; hasn&#8217;t been completed, as the two years&#8217; deprivation of political rights has yet to expire. &#8220;The Chinese government&#8217;s deprivation of political rights [sentencing] is in breach of international human rights law,&#8221; Eeling Chiu, secretary-general of Amnesty International&#8217;s Taiwan branch, said in a statement on the group&#8217;s website. &#8220;No prisoner should be deprived of their right to freedom of speech, let alone those who have served out their sentences.&#8221; Chiu said Lee&#8217;s trial had been full of procedural flaws and hadn&#8217;t met international requirements to be judged a fair trial. &#8220;The Chinese government should return Mr. Lee Meng-chu to Taiwan as soon as possible, and end its serious violations of his right to freedom of thought, expression, assembly and association,&#8221; Chiu said. The rights group Safeguard Defenders said Lee had been held in a &#8220;secret jail&#8221; system known as Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location (RSDL) from August 2019 after taking part in the 2019 Hong Kong protest movement, which began as a mass protest against plans to allow extradition of alleged criminal suspects to face trial in mainland Chinese, and broadened to include calls for fully democratic elections. Politically motivated It said Lee&#8217;s prosecution was politically motivated, and that the same rules regarding deprivation of political rights hadn&#8217;t been applied to a more prominent Taiwanese activist, Lee Ming-cheh, who was allowed to leave China as soon as his jail term ended. It said there are at least three other Taiwanese nationals currently in Chinese jails on &#8220;spying&#8221; charges: Shih Cheng-ping; Tsai Chin-shu and Cheng Yu-chin. According to the Exit and Entry Administration Law of the People’s Republic of China (Article 12-2), Chinese nationals sentenced to criminal punishment are banned from leaving the country if the punishment has not been completed. Taiwan has never been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), nor formed part of the People&#8217;s Republic of China, but its nationals are regarded as Chinese citizens under another administration by Beijing. The majority of Taiwan&#8217;s 23 million people say they have no wish to give up their country&#8217;s sovereignty or lose their democratic way of life under Chinese rule. &#8220;By not allowing Morrison Lee to leave, Beijing is &#8230; violating the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which it signed in 1998, although not yet ratified,&#8221; Safeguard Defenders said in a statement. &#8220;Safeguard Defenders urges China to respect its own laws and international rights norms and allow Morrison Lee, who has served his time, to go home and reunite with his family,&#8221; it said. It added: &#8220;China also manipulates deprivation of political rights to prevent Chinese rights defenders from freely going home after release from jail, instead subjecting them to weeks, months, even years of continued illegal detention.&#8221; No &#8216;political rights&#8217; Ma Xiaoguang, spokesman for China&#8217;s Taiwan Affairs Office, told a news conference on Wednesday that Lee is currently serving &#8220;an additional sentence,&#8221; in a reference to the two years&#8217; deprivation of political rights. Shih Yi-hsiang, head of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, said Lee Meng-chu would likely not even be able to exercise &#8220;political rights&#8221; in China, so the exit ban made no sense. &#8220;The Taiwan Association for Human Rights believes that, in any case, Lee Meng-chu is not a Chinese citizen, but a Taiwanese citizen,&#8221; Shih said. &#8220;It is meaningless to insist on some additional sentence now.&#8221; &#8220;We think this is ridiculous; the Chinese government has no reason to force Lee to stay in China, and we advocate his safe return to Taiwan,&#8221; Shih told RFA. Yang Sen-hong, president of the Taiwan Association for China Human Rights, said the CCP makes a habit of arbitrarily arresting people. &#8220;You have to be very strong when standing up to the CCP regime,&#8221; Yang said. &#8220;I hope that the Taiwanese government and its Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) will actively move to rescue Lee Meng-chu.&#8221; The MAC declined to comment, saying it was respecting the stated wishes of Lee and his family. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Vietnam unveils world’s longest glass-bottom bridge](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-unveils-worlds-longest-glass-bottom-bridge/): The world’s longest glass-bottom bridge opened in Vietnam this month &#8211; suspended at a stunning height of 150 meters (490 feet) and spanning over 600 meters (1,970 feet) in length. The Bach Long bridge &#8211; meaning “white dragon” in Vietnamese &#8211; is a pedestrian bridge and tourist attraction that bends around a large valley centered between two peaks. Inspectors from the Guiness Book of World Records are expected to verify the bridge’s status next month. For now, the official longest glass-bottom bridge is in Guangdong, China. After over two years of COVID-19 shutdowns, Vietnam is eager to woo tourists back to the country after ending mandatory quarantines for international visitors in mid-March. It also resumed 15 days of visa-free travel for citizens from 13 countries. Credit: AFP
- [Tibetan exile leader wraps up first official visit to Washington](https://ij-reportika.com/tibetan-exile-leader-wraps-up-first-official-visit-to-washington/): Tibetan exile leader Penpa Tsering has wrapped up his first official visit to Washington D.C. with a meeting on Thursday with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other congressional leaders and public talks scheduled for Friday evening. Tsering — the Sikyong or elected head of Tibet’s India-based exile government the Central Tibetan Administration — began his visit on Tuesday with talks held with Uzra Zeya, the State Department’s Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues. The Department also hosted a lunch for Tsering attended by ambassadors from the Czech Republic, Denmark, Canada, the United Kingdom and other countries. Participating in Tsering’s meeting on Thursday with Pelosi were International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) board chairman Richard Gere and acting president Bhuchung Tsering; Zeegyab Rinpoche, abbot of the India-based branch of Tibet’s Tashilhunpo monastery; U.S. congressman Jim McGovern; and Namgyal Choedup, representative of exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama. Speaking to RFA after the meeting, Choedup noted this week’s visit to Washington was the first by Tsering, a former speaker of Tibet’s exile parliament in Dharamsala, India, who won a closely fought April 11, 2021 election to become Sikyong held in Tibetan communities worldwide. Choedup described Thursday’s talks as “decisive and constructive,” calling Tibetans grateful for Pelosi’s continued support. “The meeting also discussed collective decisions on future courses of action regarding how to resolve the Sino-Tibetan conflict,” Choedup said. Formerly an independent nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force more than 70 years ago, and Tibetans frequently complain of discrimination and human rights abuses by Chinese authorities and policies they say are aimed at eradicating their national and cultural identity. U.S. congressman Michael McCaul, ICT board chairman Richard Gere, and Sikyong Penpa Tsering are shown left to right. Photo: RFA “We are trying to burst the myths or narratives that the Chinese government has been presenting for many decades about Tibet being a part of China, which is not true,” said ICT board chairman Richard Gere, also speaking to RFA on Thursday. “And we are trying to push for a genuine dialogue [between China] and His Holiness the Dalai Lama,” Gere added. The Dalai Lama and Tibet’s India-based exile government the Central Tibetan Administration have proposed a “Middle Way” approach to talks with Beijing that now accepts Tibet’s status as a part of China but urges greater freedoms for Tibetan language, religious, and cultural rights. Nine rounds of talks were previously held between envoys of exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and high-level Chinese officials beginning in 2002, but stalled in 2010 and were never resumed. Congressional supporters of the Dalai Lama “would love to have the Dalai Lama address a joint session of the U.S. Congress by video,&#8221; said representative from Texas Michael McCaul, a ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. ”The American people stand with the Tibetan people and with the Dalai Lama, who is one of the greatest spiritual leaders of our time,” McCaul said. Penpa Tsering ends his Washington visit Friday evening with a panel discussion held at George Washington University on the Tibet-China dialogue and a public talk with the D.C.-area Tibetan community. He will then visit Tibet communities in Philadelphia and New York before moving on to meetings in Canada. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [Vietnam’s crackdown on corruption in private sector seen as potential turning point](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnams-crackdown-on-corruption-in-private-sector-seen-as-potential-turning-point/): Recent arrests in Vietnam of business leaders amid a larger crackdown on corruption could cause some bumpy days on the stock market and hit the property sector, but a serious housecleaning will improve the overall business climate, analysts told RFA. In late March, authorities arrested Trinh Ban Quyet, chairman of property and leisure company FLC Group and its subsidiary Bamboo Airlines, on charges of stock market manipulation, after he failed to report to authorities his sale of 74.8 million shares in the company in January. In early April, authorities arrested Do Anh Dung, chairman of the Tan Hoang Minh property development group, on suspicion of fraudulent appropriation of assets, after the company issued private bonds between July 2021 and March 2022 while submitting false information and hiding other relevant information about the business. International and local media called these arrests a signal that Vietnam’s largest companies were now a target of the Vietnamese Communist Party’s anti-corruption efforts. “Big companies with long lasting business issues should be very nervous,” Nguyen Van Duc, the CEO of the Dat Lanh Real Estate Company, told RFA’s Vietnamese Service. “This could trigger a collapse of the real estate market, especially in the area dealing with resorts and leisure. Many businesses have invested tens of thousands of billions of dong [hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars] in a resort development project, but purchasing power hasn’t been able to catch up,” he said. Reuters reported that as of Wednesday, Vietnam’s benchmark index had fallen 13.8 percent this month, with investors and brokers partially blaming the recent arrests for the downturn. The market had been steadily trending upward since hitting a low in March 2020 at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the country’s relative success at keeping the number of cases down for 2020 and early 2021, the pandemic still had a major impact on the economy. “Households still experienced lower incomes, job loss, and hardships. Inequalities, differences in abilities to cope, vulnerabilities, and policy implementation challenges… are cautionary signs and offer relevant lessons to consider as Vietnam faces a much more challenging phase of COVID-19 ahead,” the World Bank said in a report. The turmoil in Vietnam’s economy due to the COVID-19 pandemic is pushing the government to tackle corruption in hopes of speeding a recovery, Duc said. “They’d rather do it earlier than later to avoid an even more damaging collapse,” he said. Authorities have tried to calm investors’ fears about the arrests. The crackdown on questionable dealings of real estate tycoons would have the beneficial effect of easing the rise of real estate prices, said Duc. “During Tan Hoang Minh Group’s case, the government discovered a plot to increase real estate prices in Ho Chi Minh City, and the country in general, when they offered a bid on a property that was 8.3 times higher than the initial offering,” he said. “As a result the government decided to examine the entire company. I think this was a sound action of the government that prevented an unreasonable and dangerous price spike of real estate.” Le Dang Doanh, the former president of Vietnam’s Central Institute for Economic Managment (CIEM), told RFA that the arrests of Dung and Quyet might represent a turning point for the country. “In the short term, some investors will be worried about market fluctuation, but this will bring about a better business environment for the stock market in the long term,” said Doanh. “I believe regulations to prevent corruption like we’ve seen in these cases will be created. For example, there are currently no regulations on bonds issued by enterprises, therefore we have not been able to effectively monitor this issue,” he said. The Tan Hoang Minh group used bonds to raise money for a specific project but then used the acquired capital for other purposes, authorities allege. “Many similar incidents have been discovered. I think that’s a positive sign for Vietnam’s business environment,” Doanh said. More investigations into large companies and arrests of key personnel are likely as the Standing Board of the Central Steering Commitee on Anti-Corruption, under the Politburo, has set up eight inspection teams to detect corruption, local new outlet Vietnam+ reported. During a meeting on Wednesday, members of the anti-corruption committee reviewed their response to FLC and Tan Hoang Minh, a major embezzlement scandal involving the Vietnam Coast Guard High Command, and a bribery case at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for spaces on COVID-19 rescue flights for Vietnamese citizens abroad, the report said. Investigators have examined more than 1,200 cases involving more than 2,000 suspects. More than 700 cases involving more than 1,500 defendants have been brought to the court, Vietnam+ said. Analysts have said that recent high-profile arrests are intended to demonstrate that Vietnam is getting tougher on corruption. At the same time, the country’s government continues to punish citizens who discuss the cases publicly. In mid-April,  authorities arrested Hanoi resident Dang Nhu Quynh for allegedly posting information on Facebook about the arrests of Trinh Ban Quyet and Do Anh Dung, and said that the Ministry of Public Security would continue prosecuting people and companies that are guilty of similar crimes. Quynh was charged with violating state interests for publishing “unverified information.” The law applied in Quynh’s case is designed to prevent the spread of false information that could damage the reputation of people and companies, legal experts said. But many people who have been punished were found guilty even if the information was true. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Zero-covid costs spread](https://ij-reportika.com/zero-covid-costs-spread/): Chinese leader Xi Jinping&#8217;s decision to stick with a zero-covid policy that worked in 2020 but has not stopped the spread of the Omicron variant has brought lockdowns in Shanghai, Shenzhen and Beijing among 45 mainland cities, affecting nearly 400 million people. The economic damage to China is now spilling over to U.S., Europe, Japan and others in a global economy struggling with shortages, inflation and the Ukraine conflict.
- [China's Politburo promises stimulus, employment measures to boost COVID-hit economy](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-politburo-promises-stimulus-employment-measures-to-boost-covid-hit-economy/): The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on Friday promised a slew of measures to help the country&#8217;s COVID-battered economy. The CCP&#8217;s Politburo met on Friday to discuss economic growth, which is targeted to reach 5.5 percent this year, an unlikely target in the absence of further stimulus given the supply-chain havoc caused by the pandemic and risks linked to the war in Ukraine. &#8220;The COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine crisis have led to increased risks and challenges, increasing the complexity, severity and uncertainty of our country&#8217;s economic development, and posing new challenges to stable growth, employment, and prices,&#8221; the meeting, chaired by CCP leader Xi Jinping, said in a communique summarized by state news agency Xinhua. Beijing&#8217;s dynamic clearance, zero-COVID policy would continue, but measures would be taken to &#8220;keep the economy operating within a reasonable range,&#8221; the summary said. Measures will include a boost to infrastructure construction and other stimuli to boost domestic demand and jobs, as well as tax rebates, tax and fee cuts and &#8220;monetary policy tools,&#8221; it said. Measures should &#8220;stabilize and expand employment&#8221; and &#8220;maintain overall social stability,&#8221; as well as a national strategy to restore the country&#8217;s domestic supply chains and logistics industry, which has been left fragmented by COVID-19 restrictions in major cities and ports, particularly Shanghai. Care should be taken to prevent rare and unexpected &#8220;black swan&#8221; incidents, as well as more predictable &#8220;gray rhino&#8221; developments from gathering momentum and getting out of hand, the report said, using buzzwords associated with Xi&#8217;s personal brand of political ideology. Reuters quoted a person with knowledge of the matter as saying that the government would be meeting with internet platforms next month. People line up to be tested for Covid-19 coronavirus outside a supermarket in Beijing on April 26, 2022, the day the Chinese capital launched mass coronavirus testing for nearly all its 21 million people. Credit: AFP Outflow of foreign capital Nomura&#8217;s chief China economist Ting Lu said he predicts an economic growth rate of just 1.8 percent in the second quarter of this year, with annual GDP growth of 3.9 percent for the whole of this year. The move comes after a U.S.$8 billion selloff of Chinese government bonds by foreign investors in March, with foreign capital outflows of U.S.$17.5 billion in the same month. Foreign investment in Chinese funds fell by 70 percent in the first quarter of 2022, compared with the previous quarter, while the yuan hit a six-month low against the dollar and China&#8217;s foreign exchange reserves fell by U.S.$25.8 billion between the end of February and the end of March. Online comments were skeptical that the Politburo could do much to affect the mass outflow of foreign capital. &#8220;The higher-ups shout their slogans, while the in-betweens have no policy to implement them, and the lower ranks are just cashing in,&#8221; according to one comment seen by RFA on Friday. Others said little would change economically while the CCP&#8217;s zero-COVID policy was still in place. The meeting came after the Wall Street Journal quoted a number of people as saying that Xi is insisting that China&#8217;s economic growth must exceed that of the U.S. this year. The U.S. posted a 5.7 percent GDP growth rate in 2021. Downward revision Zhu Chengzhi, chairman of Wanbao Investment Consulting, said said four percent GDP growth would be a good achievement for China this year. &#8220;[Zero-COVID] must have caused a significant downward revision [in GDP growth forecasts], a very serious downward revision,&#8221; Zhu told RFA. &#8220;The real estate sector is stuck, and they&#8217;ll have to rely on money supply [to boost] domestic demand.&#8221; &#8220;China&#8217;s economy is based on value-added manufacturing, but global prices for raw materials are on the rise around the world, squeezing profits in that sector, so that will also hurt GDP,&#8221; Zhu said. In a commentary for RFA, commentator Wang Dan said recent moves by the CCP to regulate entire sectors of the economy by limiting private-sector involvement had affected the labor market, where 11 million new entrants are expected this year. Wang said Xi will likely solve these structural problems by ordering up the results he wants to see. &#8220;Why do I say he can still manage it? Because companies in China &#8230; do as he tells them,&#8221; he said. &#8220;This has to do with Xi Jinping&#8217;s status and his bid for [a third term] at the 20th party congress.&#8221; He said the likelihood is that Xi regards his COVID-19 policy as a crucial part of attempts to demonstrate the superiority of China&#8217;s political system to the rest of the world. &#8220;But if he elevates his disease control and prevention policy to be a part of that attempt, he will be forcing himself to ride a tiger,&#8221; Wang warned. &#8216;Common prosperity&#8217; Zhu said stock markets in China, even pre-pandemic, had been dealt a huge blow by Xi&#8217;s insistence on the &#8220;common prosperity&#8221; model, which saw a nationwide ban on the highly lucrative private education and tutoring sector. &#8220;During the past five years, mainland China and Hong Kong have been the only places where stockmarkets are falling, which is not a good sign,&#8221; Zhu said. &#8220;Xi Jinping is trying to introduce some bullish sentiment with certain remarks, but it&#8217;s just a brief respite.&#8221; &#8220;It&#8217;s not so easy to correct mainland Chinese markets when they are this weak,&#8221; he said, adding that GDP figures are already likely artificially inflated, or shares would be performing better. The meeting came as authorities in Beijing shut down more businesses and placed more residential compounds under lockdown on Friday, while extending contact-tracing. Meanwhile, video clips of people banging pots and pans from Shanghai apartments in protest at the ongoing lockdown have been circulating on social media. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Junta troops torch 500 homes in 3 days in Myanmar’s Sagaing region](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-troops-torch-500-homes-in-3-days-in-myanmars-sagaing-region/): Junta troops torched more than 500 homes in five villages over the past three days in Myanmar’s Sagaing region, residents said Thursday, where nearly three-fourths of townships have been cut off from internet access since early March amid ongoing military raids. The arson attacks occurred between April 25 and April 27 in the Sagaing townships of Mingin, Khin Oo, and Shwebo, residents told RFA’s Myanmar Service, speaking on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal. Soldiers destroyed around 200 and 70 homes in Mingin’s Thanbauk and Zinkale villages, respectively, on April 25, some 220 homes in Khin Oo’s Thanboh village the following day, and an unconfirmed number of homes in Shwebo’s Malar and Makhauk villages on the evening of April 27, they said. The number of homes set alight in Shwebo township was not immediately clear because residents remain in hiding. One resident of Khin Oo said that the fires in Thanboh broke out early in the morning April 26 after two columns of troops entered the village. “The fires were burning almost the whole day and died down only at about 5 p.m.,” he said. “There have been more raids since they cut off the internet. More troops have been brought in and there have been more atrocities committed, such as setting houses on fire and killing people.” Aung San Myint, a 35-year-old villager who was arrested during the raid on Thanbo village and forced to work as a guide, was later shot dead by the soldiers who held him captive, he said. Residents said Thanboh village is home to around 300 houses and is adjacent to Magyee Tone village, where many members of the pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militia live. They said that while the military and Pyu Saw Htee often enter the area, Tuesday marked the first time homes there had been set on fire. A resident of nearby Kyauk Myaung sub-township, who declined to be named for security reasons, said the attacks likely took place after informants reported to the army that members of the anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries are active in the area. Other sources said that the military unit responsible for the arson attacks was accompanied by Pyu Saw Htee fighters and identified it as the Kalemyo township-based Infantry Battalion No. 87, with an estimated force of around 150 troops. An aerial view of Chaung Oo village, in Sagaing region&#8217;s Pale township, where junta troops and Pyu Saw Htee fighters burned more than 300 homes, Dec. 18, 2022. Credit: RFA Internet restrictions Attempts to contact junta deputy information minister, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, for comment on the burnings went unanswered Thursday. However, in a statement on April 4, he told RFA that soldiers were not responsible for arson attacks in Sagaing. “Some PDFs and [armed ethnic] groups attacked villages where [pro-junta] militias have been formed,” he said at the time. “They set the villages on fire when they leave and blame the military or Pyu Saw Htee. … When villages are destroyed by fire, it is the [junta] who must rebuild them. So, we have no reason to burn the villages.” Since early March, internet access has been cut off in 27 of the 37 townships under the administration of Sagaing — including the embattled townships of Debayin, Kani, Pale, Khin Oo and Shwebo, where much of the fighting between the military and the PDF has taken place in the region. A member of the Monywa University Students&#8217; Union, who declined to be named, called the shutdown a violation of residents’ right of access to information. “People in these areas have no way of learning about what is happening in other parts of Myanmar, about the political situation outside Sagaing region, or how the fight against the military is going on in various townships,” he said. “They only have information from those around them, as if they are cut off from the outside world.” Residents have been reduced to sharing information between themselves via weekly text messages, he said. Data for Myanmar, a research group that monitors how conflict affects communities, recently said that as of April 16, junta troops have torched more than 9,000 homes across the country since the military seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup. More than 60% of the homes — the most of any of Myanmar’s 15 states, regions and territories — were located in Sagaing, the group said. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Cambodia arrests leader of opposition political party who was in hiding](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodia-arrests-leader-of-opposition-political-party-who-was-in-hiding/): Authorities in Cambodia on Thursday arrested the president of a small Cambodian political party who had been on the run since last week after being charged with forging documents to compete in local elections in June. RFA reported April 18 that Seam Pluk, president of the National Heart Party, had gone into hiding after authorities issued a warrant for his arrest and ordered him to appear in court on April 25. His lawyer, Sam Sok Kong, said that he intended to appear but that the court date did not give sufficient time to prepare to fight the charges. Choung Chou Ngy, another lawyer representing Seam Pluk, told RFA’s Khmer Service that the arrest was not legal because the warrant expired two days ago. “It is wrong for the police to implement an expired warrant. The court should take action against the police,” he said. Choung Chou Ngy also sought to cast doubt over the allegation that Seam Pluk forged registration documents so that his party could participate in elections. “The Ministry of Interior did a unilateral investigation without the National Heart Party’s participation. Was it an accurate audit? It is a secret,” he said. Among the 4,000 thumbprints collected for party registration, the Ministry of Interior only identified 200 that may have been forged, he said. Even if there are forgeries, the party has enough support to register, assuming the remaining prints are legitimate, Choung Chou Ngy said. The political party registration process should not lead to arrests, Kang Savang, a monitor with the Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (Comfrel), said.   “I haven’t seen the ministry file a complaint over thumbprint issues. This is new to me. I am concerned they are using the court to deal with the case. It will affect people’s right to participate in the electoral process,” Kang Savang said. “I think authorities shouldn’t use the court to resolve this issue. The ministry should have just refused to register the party,” he said. The Ministry of Interior moved to prosecute Seam Pluk after they accused him of receiving funds from exiled opposition leader Sam Rainsy to participate in the election, an accusation Seam Pluk has denied. Sam Rainsy is one of two prominent leaders of the now-banned Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP). Cambodia’s Supreme Court dissolved the CNRP in November 2017 in a move that allowed Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party to win all 125 seats in Parliament in a July 2018 election. Sam Rainsy, 72, has lived in exile in France since 2015. He was sentenced in absentia last year to 25 years for what supporters say was a politically motivated charge of attempting to overthrow the government. Choung Chou Ngy said he will meet Seam Pluk April 29 in prison to discuss an appeal against his detention. RFA reported last week that another small opposition party, the Candlelight Party, believed that Sam Pluk has been targeted because of his previous support for Candlelight. The Candlelight party has been gaining steam over the past year and its leaders believe it can challenge the CPP in the upcoming elections. After the National Heart Party’s registration was denied, Candlelight party leadership encouraged Heart party supporters to join Candlelight. The Candlelight Party, formerly known as the Sam Rainsy Party and the Khmer Nation party, was founded in 1995. It merged with other opposition forces to form the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) in 2012. Freedoms monitor Seam Pluk’s arrest comes as three NGOs released a report that listed hundreds of instances of rights abuses in the country, which Hun Sen has led for decades. “Despite the government’s duty to respect, protect and promote the freedoms of association, expression and assembly, the report records more than 300 restrictions and violations of fundamental freedoms in every province,” the report by the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association (Adhoc), and the Solidarity Center said. The report’s findings show that “fundamental freedom is being restricted while opposition parties are being abused by the state, authorities and third-party actors,” Hun Seanghak, who coordinated the report, told RFA. But a spokesperson for a government-aligned rights group dismissed the report’s conclusions. “When individuals break the law, authorities must implement the law. Is that human rights abuse? In Cambodia people enjoy their freedom,” Kata Orn, spokesperson for the pro-government Cambodia Human Rights Committee, told RFA. He said the report was designed to please donors and doesn’t reflect the truth about democracy and freedom in Cambodia. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Canadian, UK lawmakers advance measures on China’s repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang](https://ij-reportika.com/canadian-uk-lawmakers-advance-measures-on-chinas-repression-of-uyghurs-in-xinjiang/): A Canadian parliamentary committee advanced a motion to offer special immigration procedures now granted to Ukrainian refugees to Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities fleeing persecution in Xinjiang, while lawmakers in the United Kingdom moved to ban medical imports from the region in western China. Members of the Standing Committee on Immigration and Citizenship in Canada’s House of Commons unanimously approved a motion on Thursday that includes the issuance of temporary resident permits and single journey travel documents to people without a passport. This measure would allow displaced Uyghurs who face risk of detention and deportation back to China to seek refuge in Canada. Last month Canada said it would introduce new immigration policies, including a Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel, for Ukrainians who want to come to Canada. The government is obligated to respond to the committee’s motion within 30 days, in a process that is expected to later involve a debate in the House of Commons and a vote on the motion, said conservative lawmaker Garnett Genuis, a committee member. Genuis said the motion reaffirms a recognition of the ongoing genocide of the Uyghur and other Turkic Muslims in China and calls for recognition of the vulnerability of refugees from Xinjiang. “We’re seeing a situation in which the Chinese Communist Party is trying to extend its influence beyond its borders and threaten the security of Uyghurs who have already sought asylum in other places,” he told RFA. “So, it [the motion] calls on the government of Canada to work to support Uyghur refugees and create pathways that recognizes particular challenges.” Canada’s Parliament, along with some other Western legislatures, including the one in the U.K., have declared that China’s policies targeting Uyghurs constitute genocide and crimes against humanity. The U.S. government also has declared likewise. In March 2021, the Canada, the U.S., U.K. and European Union announced sanctions against Chinese officials and companies over human rights violations in Xinjiang, bringing swift condemnation of their actions by Beijing along with threats of retaliation. Memet Tohti, executive director of Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project in Canada, said his group lobbied with committee and parliament members to press the demand that Ottawa “treat the Uyghur refugees fleeing the Chinese genocide just like the Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war.” Thursday’s passage of the motion with the support four parties means “they now have unanimous consensus in the Parliament on resetting Uyghur refugees in Canada,” he said. No more blind eyes This week, lawmakers in the U.K. passed an amendment banning the government from purchasing health goods made in the Xinjiang region where China has been accused of forced-labor abuses. The Modern Slavery Amendment was incorporated into a larger health bill to prevent the country’s National Health Service from buying products tainted by modern slavery, including anything made with Uyghur forced labor. A year ago, U.K. lawmakers approved a nonbinding parliamentary motion declaring that crimes against humanity and genocide were being committed against Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic minorities in Xinjiang. Conservative MP Iain Duncan Smith, who spearheaded the amendment’s passage, said he welcomed the move by government health officials to outlaw the purchase of goods and services that come from companies and countries where there is slave labor. With the advance of the amendment, “the government has signaled that they will no longer turn a blind eye to forced labor in U.K. supply chains,” he said. Rahima Mahmut, U.K. director of the World Uyghur Congress, said the Uyghur activist group has campaigned for years for the government to take meaningful action against Beijing’s genocide in Xinjiang. “This amendment is the most significant piece of U.K. legislation addressing the Uyghur crisis so far,” she told RFA. “Once the bill comes into law, the Chinese government will no longer be rewarded with million-pound contracts for Uyghur slave-made healthcare products, as they have done throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.” Translated by Alim Seytoff for RFA’s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [China says Taiwan ‘playing with fire’ over alleged Taiping Island plans](https://ij-reportika.com/china-says-taiwan-playing-with-fire-over-alleged-taiping-island-plans/): China has reacted strongly against Taiwan’s alleged plans to extend a runway on the contested Taiping Island in the South China Sea, saying it was “playing with fire.” Taiwanese media reported last week that the island’s military is planning to lengthen the existing 1,150-meter-long airstrip by 350 meters so that it will be able to accommodate F-16 jet fighters and P-3C anti-submarine aircraft. Taiwanese officials have yet to confirm the plans, reported by United Daily News, a conservative Taiwanese newspaper. But recent satellite imagery suggests some kind of changes on the ground at the western tip of Taiping, which is located in the north-western part of the Spratly islands. Taiping, also known as Itu Aba, is the biggest natural feature in the Spratly islands. It is currently occupied by Taiwan but is also claimed by China, the Philippines and Vietnam. On Wednesday, Ma Xiaoguang, spokesman for Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office, warned Taipei of “playing with fire” with the Taiping extension plan. “Any attempt to collude with external forces and betray the interests of the Chinese nation is playing with fire and will surely be punished by both sides of the [Taiwan] Strait,” Ma was quoted by the state-run China News Service (CNS) as saying. “It will be rejected by the people and punished by history,” he said. The island, officially considered a “rock” under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, is named after the warship “Taiping” that China sent to take over the island after Japan surrendered at the end of World War II. It has been under Taiwan’s control since 1956. ‘Inherent territory’ Ma Xiaoguang was quoted as saying that “the Nansha Islands (Spratly Islands), including Taiping Island, are China&#8217;s inherent territory, and China has indisputable sovereignty over the Nansha Islands and its adjacent waters.” Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday rejected China’s statement, saying that the islands in the South China Sea belong to the Republic of China (ROC or Taiwan), and “the Taiwanese government&#8217;s determination to defend the sovereignty of the islands in the South China Sea has never wavered,” the island’s news agency CNA reported. The ministry however did not confirm nor deny the alleged runway extension. Taiwan’s air force earlier declined to comment. Taiwan, Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, are all claimants of the South China Sea, but China holds the most extensive claim of nearly 90 percent of the sea, demarcated by the so-called nine-dash line. The U-shaped demarcation line was actually first introduced in 1947 by the ROC and it is now being used by both Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China (PRC or China) to back their claims in the South China Sea. An international tribunal in the case brought against China by the Philippines in 2016 rejected the Chinese “historical claims” in the South China Sea and invalidated the U-shaped line. Both Taiwan and the PRC refused to accept the ruling. Taiwan was not party to the case but its claims in the South China Sea are similar to those of China. Satellite photos Satellite imagery taken on March 24 and April 23, 2022, appears to show topographical changes at the western end of Taiping Island over the past month. Credit: EO Browser, Sinergise Ltd. Taiping is located in the north-western part of the Spratly islands, 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) from Taiwan and 850 kilometers (530 miles) from the Philippines. It is under the administration of Kaohsiung Municipality. The current runway was only built in 2008. Proposed plans to develop the infrastructure on Taiping Island were criticized by the other two claimants – the Philippines and Vietnam &#8211; as stoking tensions in the disputed South China Sea. Last week, a Beijing-based Chinese think-tank said it had obtained new evidence of the runway extension plan. The South China Sea Probing Initiative (SCSPI) said satellite imagery obtained via the satellite data provider Sentinel Hub shows that reclamation work has begun on the western tip of Taiping Island, supporting the news about the island&#8217;s intention of extending the existing airstrip to 1,500 meters. Satellite photos from Sentinel taken on March 24 and April 23 and seen by RFA show noticeable differences in the topography of the western areas of the island. The Taiwanese Ministry of Defense declined to comment when asked by RFA. In March, the Taiwanese Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-Cheng said that Taiwan had no intention of militarizing Taiping despite reports that China had completed building military facilities on three artificial islands nearby.
- [Son of Dalian Wanda billionaire banned from Weibo after criticism of COVID-19 policy](https://ij-reportika.com/son-of-dalian-wanda-billionaire-banned-from-weibo-after-criticism-of-covid-19-policy/): Government censors have banned the son of Dalian Wanda billionaire tycoon Wang Jianlin from posting on a major social media platform after he cast aspersions on a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) formula currently being distributed to homes around the country to treat COVID-19, state media reported. Online influencer Wang Sicong was banned for life from Weibo on Tuesday for &#8220;violating relevant laws and regulations,&#8221; the Global Times newspaper, which has close ties to ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) paper the People&#8217;s Daily, reported. It said the ban came after Wang&#8217;s &#8220;controversial remarks on Weibo about Chinese herbal medicine Lianhua Qingwen,&#8221; and that the comments have now been deleted. The last post to remain visible on Wang&#8217;s account is dated April 14, and takes issue with the popular belief that Lianhua Qingwen has been recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) for the treatment of COVID-19, the Global Times said. &#8220;The post also raised doubts about the efficacy of Lianhua Qingwen, claiming that its producer Yiling Pharmaceutical should come under scrutiny from related authorities,&#8221; it said. The paper said Wang had also called on the China Securities Regulatory Commission investigate the medicine&#8217;s makers, Yiling Pharmaceutical, but later deleted the remark. &#8220;Lianhua Qingwen has been widely used to treat COVID-19 patients in China and is currently being distributed to almost every household in Shanghai,&#8221; it said, adding that some 15 billion yuan was wiped from Yiling Pharmaceutical share prices after Wang&#8217;s post appeared. Wang, 34, is the only son of Wang Jianlin, one of the richest people in China. Residents play table tennis at a residential area under lockdown to curb the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus in Panjiayuan, Chaoyang district, in Beijing, April 27, 2022. Credit: AFP Challenging official narrative YouTuber and current affairs commentator Yue Ge said Wang&#8217;s privileged background likely led him to believe he could challenge the official CCP narrative on social media, something that has resulted in expulsion from the party and even prison sentences for outspoken members of the elite under CCP leader Xi Jinping. &#8220;He mainly studied in the UK, and he was admitted to some prestigious schools, and went to University College London, which cultivates subversive thinking,&#8221; Yue Ge said. &#8220;Western education has no qualms about cultivating critical minds.&#8221; &#8220;The second generation of super-rich has a lot of wealth, but also operates outside of the [political] system, with not much in the way of official curbs,&#8221; Yue Ge said. He said Wang had also been highly critical in online comments of the lockdowns in Shanghai that have left people struggling to get enough to eat amid stringent restrictions on the movement of trucks and delivery personnel. &#8220;What Wang Sicong said about any lack of access to food in the 21st century being due to politics &#8230; can be understood as a criticism of the CCP&#8217;s disease prevention policies,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Some even thought he was questioning the legitimacy of CCP rule.&#8221; Current affairs commentator Wei Xin said Wang was likely voicing simmering public discontent over lockdowns in Shanghai. &#8220;Wang Sicong&#8217;s comments weren&#8217;t just a form of personal expression, but also a form of political protest,&#8221; Wei said. &#8220;What may have been a casual comment on Weibo actually reflects deep discontent among Chinese capitalists.&#8221; &#8220;Wang Sicong was the kid who shouted out that the emperor wasn&#8217;t wearing any clothes.&#8221; Financial elite no longer safe Wei said the move to silence Wang comes after the CCP under Xi has rolled back privileges for the financial elite, imposing CCP committees at boardroom level and intervening in labor disputes likely to cause social unrest. &#8220;The second generation of capitalists, represented here by Wang Sicong, is currently at a very delicate crossroads,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They are eager for political recognition, and even if that&#8217;s hard for them to achieve under the current system, it will inevitably mean further conflicts in future.&#8221; Chinese Twitter users reported on April 27 that Shanghai police had arrested Wang on suspicion of &#8220;picking quarrels and stirring up trouble.&#8221; RFA was unable to verify the content of those tweets. Meanwhile, residents of Shanghai are continuing to report a spike in suicides by people jumping from buildings, as the ongoing lockdown is enforced with steel-link fences and panels, and amid continuing complaints about lack of food. Video clips showed one person falling from a building in Xizang Road, and a mother hugging the body of a dead child in Qingpu, Pudong New District. Meanwhile, residents banged pots and pans to express dissatisfaction during a visit by the Huangpu district party secretary and mayor to Datong secondary school on Quxi Road, according to another clip. Many others have been left homeless or with no access to life-saving medical treatment by the lockdown. &#8220;Right now I have hydronephrosis, so I want to get surgery as soon as possible,&#8221; a woman from Anhui who has been living on the streets since being discharged from an isolation facility, told RFA. &#8220;But the hospital told me that most Shanghai hospitals are closed, their operating rooms not fully operational, and medical resources are very limited, so I have to wait for two weeks,&#8221; the woman, who gave only a nickname Anna, said. &#8220;My hydronephrosis is getting worse, and quite painful now, and I need to get treatment as soon as possible,&#8221; she said. Challenges for Xi Media reports from NetEase Finance and Phoenix Satellite TV aired a video clip from someone in the northern province of Hebei saying they had been ordered to put their front door keys outside for officials to hold, or face detention by local police, prompting online criticism over the safety implications. Beijing-based rights lawyer Mo Shaoping local officials have no legal right to lock residents in their homes: &#8221; I personally think that they have no legal basis for doing this,&#8221; Mo told RFA. Veteran Democracy Wall dissident Wei Jingsheng said CCP leader Xi Jinping is currently in a difficult situation. &#8220;Just as he thought he&#8217;d been successful in eliminating dissidents from party ranks and in controlling public speech, the virus...
- [Guangdong tainted milk parent-activist denied compensation for wrongful conviction](https://ij-reportika.com/guangdong-tainted-milk-parent-activist-denied-compensation-for-wrongful-conviction/): Tainted milk parent-turned-campaigner Guo Li has been denied compensation for wrongful imprisonment by the Supreme People&#8217;s Court RFA has learned. In 2017, a court in the southern province of Guangdong retrospectively acquitted Guo after he served a five-year jail term for demanding compensation after his infant daughter was sickened by the 2008 melamine-tainted milk scandal. The simultaneous interpreter was handed the five-year sentence by a court in Guangdong&#8217;s Chaozhou in 2010 for &#8220;extortion&#8221; linked to his campaign for compensation from Guangzhou-based infant formula maker Scient after his child became ill with kidney stones. Following his release, Guo then lodged an appeal with the Guangdong Provincial High Court, which found that the facts of the case were unclear, that there was insufficient evidence, that the court of first instance had breached due process on two occasions, and that the case was inconclusive. Guo later took his appeal to the Supreme People&#8217;s Court in Beijing, learning on April 10 that his attempt to win redress had been unsuccessful, he told RFA in a recent interview. He said his claim for state compensation was ruled &#8220;inadmissible&#8221; because a time limit had expired. &#8220;The court found that no compensation should be paid, and my appeal application was rejected,&#8221; Guo said. &#8220;I was advised to deal with the matter through other means.&#8221; Guo said the ruling was itself in breach of regulations governing state compensation claims. &#8220;I think this is a shameful and ridiculous ruling,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I will continue to pursue those responsible for compensation in the Guangdong Provincial People&#8217;s High Court, via the prison service, and through the detention center system.&#8221; Beijing-based lawyer Mo Shaoping said the two-year limitation does exist, but that the court should have ignored it. &#8220;If the judicial system has wronged a person and that person is eventually acquitted, they it should take the initiative to compensate them,&#8221; Mo told RFA. Tainted milk scandal Guo&#8217;s daughter was one of 300,000 made ill by infant formula milk laced with the industrial chemical melamine, which saw a total of 21 people convicted for their roles in the scandal, two of whom were executed. The government said after the 2008 scandal that it had destroyed all tainted milk powder, but reports of melamine-laced products have occasionally re-emerged. Guo has previously described three years of harsh treatment, including beatings and solitary confinement, during his prison sentence, as the authorities put pressure on him to &#8220;admit to his crimes.&#8221; Held in a cell measuring little more than one meter (3.3 feet) wide and deprived of adequate food and water, Guo was given moldy food and dirty ditch-water instead. Campaigners say promises from then-premier Wen Jiabao that the government would foot the medical bills for all of the children affected by melamine-tainted milk haven&#8217;t been kept. Instead, the scandal has led major health insurance companies in China to start excluding kidney-related diseases from policies, owing to the huge medical bills racked up following the scandal. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Tibetan schoolteacher released from jail in Qinghai](https://ij-reportika.com/tibetan-schoolteacher-released-from-jail-in-qinghai/): Authorities in China’s Qinghai province have freed a Tibetan schoolteacher after holding her in jail since last year, when her school for Tibetan students was closed for teaching classes in their own language, RFA has learned. Rinchen Kyi, 42, was released on Aug. 24 at about 8:00 p.m. local time and taken to her family home in Qinghai’s Darlag (in Chinese, Dali) county without advance word given to family members, a Tibetan living in exile told RFA this week, citing local sources. “Two cars carrying security personnel arrived that evening at the door of Rinchen Kyi’s family home,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “A few neighbors came out to see what was happening and saw Rinchen Kyi get out of one the cars and immediately enter her house.” “Police prevented people from getting too close to her, so no one was able to learn where she had been held all this time,” the source added. Kyi was a teacher of 2nd and 3rd grade students at the Golog Sengdruk Taktse School in Darlag when it was closed on July 8, 2021 amid a regionwide clampdown on schools offering instruction in the Tibetan language, sources told RFA in an earlier report. Authorities took her to a hospital on Aug. 1 citing an alleged mental illness, and she was later charged with inciting separatism and arrested at her home, with no word given to her family concerning her whereabouts or condition of health. Separatism is a charge frequently used by Chinese authorities against Tibetans promoting the preservation of Tibet’s language and culture in the face of domination by China’s majority Han population. Pema Gyal, a researcher at London-based Tibet Watch, confirmed Kyi’s release from jail. “We need to know now where she was detained and what kind of reeducation program she may have been subjected to,” Gyal added. Tibetan students at the Sengdruk Taktse School in Qinghai&#8217;s Darlag county are shown in an undated photo. Photo: From Tibet. Darlag-area students at Sengdruk were divided into different sections when the school closed and were sent to study at separate schools, while students who had come to Sengdruk from areas in neighboring Sichuan province had trouble at first finding schools to take them in, sources told RFA in earlier reports. Authorities in Sichuan have meanwhile also closed down private Tibetan schools offering classes taught in the Tibetan language, forcing students to go instead to government-run schools where they are taught entirely in Chinese. The move is being pushed in the name of providing uniformity in the use of textbooks and instructional materials, but parents of the affected children and other local Tibetans have expressed concern over the imposed restrictions, saying that keeping young Tibetans away from their culture and language will have severe negative consequences for the future. Language rights have become a particular focus for Tibetan efforts to assert national identity in recent years, with informally organized language courses in the monasteries and towns deemed “illegal associations” and teachers subject to detention and arrest, sources say. Translated by Rigdhen Dolma for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [Unfavorable US views of China ‘at new high’: report](https://ij-reportika.com/unfavorable-us-views-of-china-at-new-high-report/): Negative views of China are growing among U.S. citizens, with around two-thirds of those surveyed in a recent poll considering China’s rising power and influence in the world a “major threat,” according to a new report released on Thursday. A survey conducted at the end of March by the Washington-based Pew Research Center shows increasing levels of U.S. concern on a wide range of issues, including China’s economic relationship with the United States, China’s partnership with Russia, and growing tensions across the Taiwan Strait. Unfavorable opinions of China rose in the U.S. during the last year, with around 8 out of 10, or 82%, of the 3,581 adults surveyed reporting negative views, 40% of whom reported holding views described as “very unfavorable.” “[This was] a 6-point increase in negative views from 2021 and a new high since the center began asking this question on its American Trends Panel in 2020,” Pew said in its report. Most Americans still see China as a competitor rather than an enemy, by a 62% to 25% margin. Another 10% call China a U.S. partner, the survey said. On economic issues, the United States should take “a tougher stance” against China rather than “strengthening the relationship,” more than half of the survey’s respondents said. Only 28% said the U.S. should “prioritize the economic relationship, even if it means ignoring human rights issues,” according to the report. “These views have changed little in the last year,” Pew said. Police stand at attention while a Chinese national flag is lowered at sunset at Tiananmen Square in Beijing in a file photo. Photo: AP Seven out of 10 respondents to the poll said the U.S. remains the world’s strongest military power, with only two-in-10 saying China now holds the lead. “Still, the share who say China is the highest since the question was first asked in 2016 and has more than tripled from 6% who held that view in 2020. “Americans have [also] become more concerned about the relationship between China and Taiwan,” the report said. “While 28% saw the tensions as very serious in 2021, 35% now consider cross-strait tensions a very grave concern.” Of special concern to Americans responding to this year’s poll was China’s partnership with Russia, now fighting a war against its neighbor Ukraine. “About six-in-10 say the relationship poses a very serious problem — 15 percentage points higher than the next highest response,” Pew said, noting that China recently voted against expelling Russia, which has been accused of serious war crimes in Ukraine, from the United Nations Human Rights Council.
- [Low interest in events hailing North Korea’s warm relationship with Russia](https://ij-reportika.com/low-interest-in-events-hailing-north-koreas-warm-relationship-with-russia/): While much of the Western world views Russia as a pariah state over its invasion of Ukraine, North Korea’s autocratic government called on its people to focus on the Cold War comradeship it shared with its powerful neighbor and sponsor. As part of the celebration to commemorate the 110th birth holiday on April 15 of Kim Il Sung (1912-1994), the country’s founder, North Korea published a photo book promoting solidarity with Russia and its lost Soviet Union empire. “The Great Years of North Korea and Russia” encourages readers to relive the relationship much like a family photo album does, only in this case the focus is on Kim Il Sung’s friendship with Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. “The photobook emphasizes North Korea’s friendship with Russia,” an official from Pyongyang told RFA’s Korean Service April 18 on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The book was displayed at the exhibition halls for the Day of the Sun celebration in Pyongyang from April 8th to the 18th. … It is a photo book of 219 pages of propaganda.” Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of current leader Kim Jong Un, was born on April 15, a major holiday now known as the “Day of the Sun.” The book was on display at three exhibition halls in Pyongyang, including the one that hosted the celebration’s opening ceremony, according to the source. But North Koreans, many of whom are struggling under dire economic circumstances largely due to trade restrictions related to COVID, did not seem interested in reliving past glories, even as they were forced to attend celebratory events, sources said. “Only the officials from the Propaganda and Agitation Department, and workers from the publishing house attended the opening ceremony the first day. But the exhibition hall was quiet because the number of visitors was small from the next day,” the source said. “Only a few copies of the booklets were displayed, and copies were distributed as e-books instead, so that reduced the effectiveness of the propaganda,” the source said. Authorities encouraged state-run organizations, universities and factories to send employees to the exhibition halls, but the people were less than enthusiastic about attending, he said. “Residents who reluctantly visited the exhibition hall under the direction of their affiliated supervisors complained, questioning the intent in emphasizing the friendship between North Korea and Russia at this time,” the source said. A resident of the city told RFA that authorities forced people to attend exhibitions that glorified Kim Il Sung, including the photobook exhibition, but actual turnout was lean because companies and organizations reported more attendees than they actually sent. “The authorities are trying to emphasize the blood alliance with Russia and focus on promoting long-standing friendly ties,” he said. “The Pyongyang citizens had no choice but to visit the exhibition emphasizing our friendship with Russia, but that does not change the people’s opinion on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” this source said. The Kim Dynasty owes its early legitimacy to Soviet backing. Kim Il Sung led guerilla campaigns in and around the Korean peninsula against the occupying Japanese in the 1930s and 1940s, eventually earning the rank of major in the Soviet Army. When Japan surrendered at the end of World War II, Stalin installed Kim as first secretary of the Korean Communist Party north of the 38th parallel, a position that enabled him to consolidate power and wage war on the South in 1950, largely with Soviet military equipment. Soviet aid played a huge role in propping up the North Korean economy up until its collapse in 1991. The sudden cutoff of aid to the country, along with Kim’s death in 1994, resulted in a famine that killed millions of North Koreans. Translated by Claire Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whonng.
- [Pro-junta ‘Blood Comrades’ claim killings of 8 opposition members in Mandalay](https://ij-reportika.com/pro-junta-blood-comrades-claim-killings-of-8-opposition-members-in-mandalay/): A newly formed pro-junta militia is terrorizing members of the deposed opposition party in Mandalay, residents of Myanmar’s second largest city said, claiming responsibility for eight brutal killings over the past week by placing a signature badge on the bodies of its victims. All eight of the victims, who were members of the deposed National League for Democracy (NLD) or supporters of the party, were found brutally murdered with badges or cards on their bodies displaying the insignia of a group calling itself the Mandalay branch of the Thway Thauk, or “Blood Comrades,” militia. A woman close to the Mandalay NLD, who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal, said the killings had created a sense of panic among party members in the city. “The situation’s getting worse these days. There’s much more reason to be afraid,” she said. “Some people won’t even dare stay in their own homes because [Thway Thauk] could come in with guns and take them away. They’d leave the body the next morning. Some [victims] were party members and some weren’t — just party supporters. But everyone is scared.” She said death threats were also recently found at the homes of some NLD members and supporters. A Mandalay resident, who also declined to be named, said he believes the attacks are meant to send a message to those protesting the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup. “It’s revenge because soldiers, the police and their families have [since] been attacked [by the armed opposition], so they’re doing the same thing,” he said. “This group is in civilian clothes, but they must be from the military. In the past, they would at least arrest people under vague laws before killing them. Now, they are openly committing murder.” Another member of the Mandalay NLD told RFA that several party supporters who have received death threats have fled their homes, fearing that they may become the Thway Thauk’s next victims. A badge showing the insignia of the pro-junta Blood Comrades. Credit: S ‘Operation Red’ On April 21, the group announced via the Telegram social media platform that it had launched “Operation Red” to “destroy” members of the NLD party and its supporters, as well as anti-junta paramilitaries with the People’s Defense Force (PDF). Three days later, the body of an NLD village chairman from Mandalay’s Maha Aungmyay township was found along a road by residents of nearby Aungmyay Tharzan township, who told RFA’s Myanmar Service that a Thway Thauk badge had been conspicuously placed on the victim. The same day, Khin Maung Thein — the owner of the Sein Win Win Tea Shop in Mandalay’s Chan Aye Tharzan township — his wife, Daw Kha Kha, and his brother, U Tin, were reported missing in an apparent abduction. On Monday morning, residents found Khin Maung Thein’s stabbed and bullet-ridden body in front of the district NLD office in Mandalay along with his severely injured wife, sources close to the NLD told RFA. His brother’s body was discovered later that day near a low-income housing unit on Mandalay’s Strand Road. The bodies of both men had Thway Thauk badges affixed to them, the sources said. Daw Kha Kha is currently receiving treatment at an area hospital, they said. Thway Thauk issued a statement on Monday claiming responsibility for the killings and warning of more to come. It said the operation had expanded to include “PDF supporters, members of the fake news media, people living abroad and inciting murder on social media, people who are not part of the armed opposition but are calling for the death of so-called ‘Dalans’ [military informers] … and their family members.” In the statement, Thway Thauk claimed that it is “not affiliated with the police” or the pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militia that has sworn loyalty to the military and targeted civilians in attacks in Myanmar’s remote border regions. On Monday evening, two more men were found shot to death in Mandalay’s Patheingyi township, according to sources, who said the pair had yet to be identified. On Tuesday, residents of Maha Aungmyay township found the body of an unidentified man who had been stabbed in the neck and the body of another man was discovered floating in Mandalay’s Palace Moat. Sources told RFA that all five of the bodies discovered since Monday exhibited gunshot and stab wounds and had cards reading “Thway Thauk Group &#8211; Operation Red MDY” attached to them. Ko Moe, the brother of Maha Aungmyay township NLD lawmaker Zaw Zaw Aung, became the eighth victim in six days when his body was discovered Wednesday morning near Mandalay’s Thingaza Creek on 26th Street. He had been abducted by an unidentified group two days earlier, according to his family. Group affiliation When asked about the killings on Wednesday, junta deputy information minister, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, said that “only one militia group has been formed and no other,” in an apparent reference to the pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee. In a statement issued Wednesday, the shadow National Unity Government (NUG) said that “action will be taken against those committing terror acts against supporters of the NUG and their families, including the Pyu Saw Htee, in accordance with the law.” Speaking to RFA, Myanmar-based political analyst Than Soe Naing echoed Mandalay residents who said they believe the Thway Thauk was formed by pro-junta elements to retaliate against the opposition after “hundreds of their village and ward administrators were assassinated,” mostly by members of the PDF. “I don’t think the junta itself would directly form such groups,” he said. “It may have been formed by junta’s supporters or the Pyu Saw Htee. And I’m sure the junta forces would encourage them or support them.” Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Another Mekong River dam in Laos begins review process](https://ij-reportika.com/another-mekong-river-dam-in-laos-begins-review-process/): Lao officials will soon submit plans for the Phou Ngoy Dam and hydropower plant to the Mekong River Commission for review, but villagers whose livelihoods would be hurt by the construction worry they will be left out of the process. “We can’t tell you what day or when exactly we’re going to do that,” said an official at the Ministry of Energy and Mines, who declined to be named to speak freely. “We think we’ll do it at the end of this year. Right now, we’re preparing the paperwork.” The 728-megawatt Phou Ngoy Dam in southern Laos’ Champassak province will be the seventh of nine existing or planned large-scale hydropower projects on the Mekong River mainstream. Thailand’s Charoen Energy and Water Asia Co. Ltd. is the lead developer of the U.S. $2.4 billion hydropower dam project, whose power is anticipated will be sold to Thailand. The hydropower dam would be built by two South Korean construction companies: Korea Western Power Co., Ltd. and Doosan Heavy Industries &amp; Construction Co., Ltd. It is slated to be completed in 2029. A power purchase agreement has not yet been signed. Laos’ government believes that it came greatly boost the country’s economy by becoming the battery of Southeast Asia by selling power generated by dams along the Mekong to its neighbors. But villagers whose lives have been disrupted by the plans say they haven’t been fairly compensated for being forced to move to make way for the progress. The Mekong River Commission (MRC) is an intergovernmental organization that works with the governments of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam to jointly manage the Mekong. The Phou Ngoy Dam will be located about 18 kilometers north of Pakse, the capital of Champassak province, and 50 kilometers from confluence of the Mekong River and Mun River, a tributary of the Mekong that flows through northern Thailand. During the MRC’s consultation process, states and other stakeholders will discuss and review the benefits and risks of proposed water-use projects that may have potential significant cross-border impacts on water flow, water quality and a host of other environmental and socioeconomic conditions. Surasri Kidtimonton, secretary-general of Thailand’s Office of National Water Resources, told RFA that the consultation depends on all MRC members. “As for Thailand, we’re right now looking at a lot of documents about the Phou Ngoy Dam project,” he said. “We’re doing our best to protect our interest,” he told the National News Bureau of Thailand. The map shows existing and planned hydropower dams along the Mekong River in Laos. Credit: RFA graphic ‘The losers are the local people’ A representative of the Love Chiang Khong Group, a Thai NGO, expressed concern that project investors and Lao authorities will exclude communities that will be affected by the dam from the ongoing review. “The Lao government keeps pushing many projects forward, and the investors keep looking for more benefits. The losers are the local people,” the source, who requested anonymity so as to speak freely, said. The investors and the Lao government have not paid any attention to past studies on the project’s impact and did not allow locals to participate in the decision-making process, he said. “The Phou Ngoy Dam is being built not for the benefit of the locals in the area, but for the benefit of the investors,” the person said. “This large dam will block the Mekong River, which is the international mainstream river that goes through many countries. It’ll destroy our livelihoods, our jobs and our ecosystem.” An official at the Lao Ministry of the Information, Culture and Tourism said he was worried in particular about the dam’s impact on Vat Phou, a ruined Khmer Hindu temple complex at the base of a mountain about six kilometers (3.7 miles) from the Mekong River in Champassak province, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Though the Phou Ngoy Dam is more than 30 kilometers from the city of Pakse, capital of Champassak province, it could have an impact on the Phou Phaphin area close to Vat Phou, he said. “If the Lao government and the Phou Ngoy Dam developer really want to build this dam, they’ll have to do the Heritage Impact Assessment, similar to the one for the Luang Prabang Dam Project that has been submitted to UNESCO,” he said. Plans for the Phou Ngoy Dam and hydropower plant have also sparked concern among residents of Khonken village in Champassak province, who fear they may get a raw deal from Lao authorities and the project developer when it comes to compensation for lost land and forced resettlement in other communities. The project will affect 88 villages, including 57 villages above the dam, and 31 villages below the dam. About 800 residents in more than 140 households in Khonken village are expected to be the most heavily affected by the project. Most of the villagers are farmers who grow rice and vegetables and raise livestock, while others run small businesses like restaurants and guesthouses to accommodate growing numbers of Thai tourists to the area. One resident told RFA in late December 2021 that local Lao authorities and the dam developer had conducted a survey asking villagers about their property, shops and fruit trees. Since then, however, they have not heard anything more about the impending relocation. “We don’t want to be relocated,” he said. “We don’t know where to move to. We’ve been here for years, and we believe that this is our permanent home.” Another villager said he wants the Lao government to reconsider building the dam. “Yes, the government builds dams for business, but this dam will destroy the natural beauty and our property.” Pak Beng Dam MOU Meanwhile, two investors in another hydropower project on the mainstream Mekong signed a tariff memorandum of understanding for the Pak Beng Dam, Laos’ Vientiane Times reported on Wednesday. China Datang Overseas Investment Co., Ltd. and Gulf Energy Development Public Co., Ltd. as project cosponsor inked the deal with the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT)...
- [Uyghur high school principal from Xinjiang’s Ghulja city said to be detained](https://ij-reportika.com/uyghur-high-school-principal-from-xinjiangs-ghulja-city-said-to-be-detained/): A Uyghur educator and high school principal in Ghulja in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region who went missing nearly a year ago is being detained in the city, municipal education officials told RFA. Dilmurat Abdurehim has been missing since the Eid al-Fitr Muslim religious holiday on May 13, 2021, that marked the end of the holy month of Ramadan. He left his home in the city’s Dongmehelle area but never returned, said the source who requested anonymity for security reasons. Ghulja (in Chinese, Yining) is the third-largest city in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) after Urumqi (Wulumuqi) and Korla (Kuerle) and the seat of the Ili Kazakh (Yili Hasake) Autonomous Prefecture. Abdurehim’s family members did not give any information to their friends and neighbors about the principal’s disappearance, the source said. Nevertheless, friends and neighbors began to suspect he had been abducted by police, who warned his family not to disclose his whereabouts, the source added. Abdurehim graduated with a degree in history from Xinjiang University in 1990. He began teaching at Ghulja’s No. 7 high school and later became a principal at the Nos. 3, 8 and 9 high schools, the source with knowledge of the matter said. A staff member at the No. 3 High School told RFA that Abdurehim had worked at the school but moved to another school years ago. The official also said he was aware that Abdurehim was in custody. An official at No. 8 High School, where Abdurehim had his longest tenure, said the educator had been detained while he was working at the No. 9 High School. He did not mention the reason for Abdurehim’s arrest and suggested that RFA contact officials at the No. 9 High School for more information. “I don’t know how long has it been since he was detained,” he said. “I don’t know the reason behind his arrest since he was not detained while he was in our school.” After calls to No. 9 High School went unanswered, RFA again contacted the No. 8 High School and asked whether Abdurehim was being held in a prison or an internment camp. The official said the information was a “state secret” and that the school was not authorized to comment. Authorities have targeted teachers and intellectuals in Xinjiang as part of an effort to weaken Uyghur culture and identity, Abdureshid Niyaz, an independent Uyghur researcher based in Turkey, told RFA in a 2021 report. More than 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities are believed to have been held in a network of detention camps in Xinjiang since 2017. Beijing has said that the camps are vocational training centers and has denied widespread and documented allegations that it has violated the human rights of Muslims living in in the region. The United States and the legislatures of some Western countries have said Chinese policies toward the Uyghurs constitute a genocide and crime against humanity. Translated by RFA’s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Philippines’ Duterte intends to skip ASEAN summit in Washington](https://ij-reportika.com/philippines-duterte-intends-to-skip-asean-summit-in-washington/): Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte announced his intention to skip the U.S.-ASEAN summit in Washington next month, telling Filipinos he doesn’t want to take a stance that could go against his successor who will be elected the same week. Previously, Duterte had repeatedly said he would not travel to the United States, a country which he has not visited as president and with which he’s had a stormy relationship because of Washington’s criticism of his administration’s deadly war on drugs. As he prepares to leave office in June, Duterte faces an International Criminal Court investigation over the drug war, which has left thousands of Filipinos dead. “If it is a working conference, there might be some agreements or commitments that will be made and I might take a stand that will not be acceptable to the next administration,” he said, without elaborating. In his weekly televised speech to the nation late Tuesday, Duterte cited the May 9 General Election as the main reason for declining the invitation to attend the summit between U.S. President Joe Biden and leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations scheduled for May 12-13. “By that time, the elections will be over and we will find out who the next president will be,” Duterte said, according to transcripts released Wednesday. “So I told them it would not look good if I attend and there will be a new president.” Duterte’s six-year term will end when his successor takes office on June 30. Duterte also cited “personal reasons” for declining President Biden’s invitation, adding that U.S. officials had wanted him to attend but he refused “as a matter of principle.” During the meeting with Southeast Asian leaders in the U.S. capital, Biden is expected to seek to strengthen relationships with ASEAN members to counter China’s perceived aggression and military expansionism in the contested South China Sea. Missed meetings This is not the first time that Duterte will be missing an ASEAN-related meeting. Last year, he cited “pressing domestic concerns in light of the surge of COVID-19 cases” as an excuse to not attend an emergency summit of ASEAN leaders who met in Jakarta to discuss the post-coup crisis in Myanmar. As president, Duterte pivoted the Philippines’ foreign policy closer to China and away from the United States, the country’s staunchest military ally for the past seven decades. He has traveled to China six times as president and called leader Xi Jinping a close friend while insisting that Manila cannot go to war with Beijing.  Duterte also banked on Chinese money to fund his infrastructure projects, and of late, he has profusely thanked Beijing for sending COVID-19 vaccines ahead of other nations.  In 2020, Duterte vowed to skip a U.S.-ASEAN summit – which was later postponed indefinitely because of the global pandemic – after the U.S. Embassy refused to issue a visa to Sen. Ronald dela Rosa, the former police chief who implemented his administration’s brutal war on drugs. He also threatened to scrap an agreement that allowed American troops to hold large-scale joint military exercises here, but later reversed his stand. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.
- [Three Chinese nationals die in suicide bomb attack on Karachi Confucius Institute](https://ij-reportika.com/three-chinese-nationals-die-in-suicide-bomb-attack-on-karachi-confucius-institute/): Four people, including three Chinese nationals, have died in a suicide bomb attack on a Confucius Institute in Pakistan thought to be linked to Beijing&#8217;s Belt and Road projects in the country. Tuesday&#8216;s attack near the Confucius Institute at the University of Karachi in southern Pakistan left four people dead, including the director, Huang Guiping, and teachers Ding Mupeng and Chen Sai. Another Chinese national, Wang Yuqing, was injured alongside several local people. CCTV footage of the blast showed a person in a burqa walking towards a van, which then exploded, covering the surrounding area in thick smoke. News photos from the aftermath of the blast showed the Confucius Institute building with shattered windows. Pakistani military personnel and police cordoned off the area, with news photos showing the remains of a charred, white Toyota van near the gate of the Confucius Institute on the Karachi University campus. The van, according to local media reports, had been carrying several teachers to the Institute when it was attacked, escorted by several motorcycles. The injured Chinese national was rushed to a local hospital for treatment, along with several injured security personnel and other staff. The Chinese Consulate General in Karachi confirmed that the three deceased were staff of the Confucius Institute at the University of Karachi. Rangers stand guard nearby the blast site a day after a suicide attack on a van near the Confucius institute which is the cultural programme that China operates at universities around the world at the Karachi University in Karachi, April 27, 2022. Credit: AFP. Security alert raised It said the &#8220;terrorist attack&#8221; took place at around 2.20 p.m. local time on April 26, and that the consulate has activated its emergency plan, raising the security alert level for all Chinese institutions, projects and personnel in Pakistan. A consulate employee who answered the phone declined to comment when contacted by RFA on Wednesday. &#8220;This isn&#8217;t my responsibility,&#8221; the staff member said. &#8220;I don&#8217;t know the specific details of the situation.&#8221; &#8220;It&#8217;s not that I don&#8217;t want to answer your query; I really don&#8217;t know. You need to contact the embassy,&#8221; the staff member said. Repeated calls to the Chinese embassy rang unanswered during office hours on Wednesday. &#8220;First of all, from a political point of view, Chinese people are a very big target and an influential target that can make the Pakistani government pay a high level of attention,&#8221; a Chinese national living in Pakistan told RFA. &#8220;The Chinese government will also always pay a high level of attention to security issues,&#8221; said the person, who asked to remain anonymous. &#8220;So these are some of the reasons for this terrorist attack against the Chinese.&#8221; The separatist group the Baloch Liberation Army, which has claimed responsibility for the attack on the Confucius Institute, said more deadly attacks on Chinese targets could follow. Mining and energy projects The group is one of several fighting for independence in Pakistan&#8217;s biggest province, where Chinese companies are involved in lucrative mining and energy projects under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)&#8217;s Belt and Road global infrastructure initiative. &#8220;Hundreds of highly trained male and female members of the Baloch Liberation Army&#8217;s Majeed Brigade are ready to carry out deadly attacks in any part of Balochistan and Pakistan,&#8221; spokesman Jeeyand Baloch said in a statement on Wednesday reported by Agence France-Presse. He called on China to halt its &#8220;exploitation projects&#8221; in Balochistan and its &#8220;occupying of the Pakistani state.&#8221; The group named the bomber as Shaari Baloch, a 30-year-old mother of two who had been studying for a master&#8217;s degree. China&#8217;s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on Pakistan to take steps to guarantee the safety of all Chinese citizens and interests in the country and to launch a full investigation into the blast, warning Chinese nationals not to go out unless necessary, and to take &#8220;the strictest precautions.&#8221; The Prime Minister&#8217;s Office issued a message of condolence, and vowed to eliminate terrorists, while Prime Minister Shabazz Sharif paid a visit to the Chinese embassy to express condolences, condemnation, and to promise a full investigation. Taiwan strategic analyst Shih Chien-yu said the Karachi Confucius Institute was a relatively easy target for terrorist attacks. &#8220;Confucius Institutes are particularly vulnerable and don&#8217;t have very strong security,&#8221; Shih told RFA. &#8220;A lot of the infrastructure and engineering projects along the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor employ various private security guards and even the Pakistani army [for protection], so it&#8217;s not easy to carry out an attack.&#8221; &#8220;Confucius Institutes are relatively vulnerable &#8230; so it&#8217;s not surprising it was the target of a suicide attack,&#8221; he said. Debt and resentment Shih said the attack came amid growing resentment over the presence of Chinese companies involved in Belt and Road projects. &#8220;People in Balochistan, the ethnic groups in the upper and lower reaches, have always felt that they are a neglected and bullied minority &#8230; who have received no benefits from the construction projects of the Belt and Road.&#8221; The attacks are a fresh blow for Belt and Road in Pakistan, following a Bloomberg report in 2021 that the planned flagship port and airport development at Gwadar, the last stop in the China-Pakistan Corridor and terminus for dozens of planned roads, railways and pipelines, was semi-moribund. Many infrastructure projects in Pakistan are still heavily indebted to China, while incoming Chinese investment has been falling year-on-year. In October, Pakistan was forced to borrow U.S.$6 billion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to meet its immediate needs. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Jailed Vietnamese citizen journalist allowed to meet wife after secret hearing](https://ij-reportika.com/jailed-vietnamese-citizen-journalist-allowed-to-meet-wife-after-secret-hearing/): Vietnamese citizen journalist and political prisoner Le Trong Hung was allowed to see his wife for the first time since his arrest more than a year ago, a 40-minute meeting last week, his wife told RFA.  Born in 1979, Hung is known for livestreaming on Facebook and YouTube videos on controversial social and political issues, particularly land rights cases that have been at the center of controversies in Vietnam. He was arrested in March 2021 on charges of “disseminating anti-State materials” under Article 117 of Vietnam’s Penal Code shortly after nominating himself to run for Vietnam’s National Assembly elections in defiance of the ruling Communist Party and sentenced in December to five years in prison and five years of probation.  Hung was able to see his family on April 22, three days after an appeal’s court in Hanoi upheld his sentence in a hearing that neither his lawyers nor his family were informed about in advance, said Hung’s wife, Do Le Na. “My husband said that on April 19, the trial day, he was ‘kidnapped; and sent to the court. He did not agree to stand the trial as he hadn’t got a chance to see his lawyers,” she told RFA. Her 40-minute meeting was closely monitored, Na added. “They repeatedly reminded me and my husband not to mention the appeal trial,” she said. “They warned that our talk over the phone would be stopped and we would be kicked out if we talked about the trial.” Na said that she would keep fighting for her husband. “I myself will keep speaking up and reaching out to human rights organizations and civilized countries which pay attention to the human rights situation in Vietnam. I want to point out how my husband has been treated and expose all of the Vietnamese government’s wrongdoings.” Before his candidacy, Hung was a chemistry teacher at Xa Dan junior high school in Hanoi, but he quit teaching after unsuccessfully petitioning for reforms to the educational system. He had also participated in protests for environmental conservation, as well as sharing news about protests in Myanmar and the cases of other activists targeted by Vietnam’s government. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Nawar Nemeh.
- [Residents in last-minute scramble to get out of Beijing amid lockdown fears](https://ij-reportika.com/residents-in-last-minute-scramble-to-get-out-of-beijing-amid-lockdown-fears/): Residents fled Beijing on Wednesday amid rising COVID-19 cases and growing fears of an imminent citywide lockdown, according to social media reports and local residents. Photos and video uploaded to social media showed traffic jams and people wheeling suitcases on the city streets on Tuesday night. &#8220;They&#8217;re scared. Taking their luggage and leaving,&#8221; says one man on a video clip showing cars queuing up in the street, at a standstill. &#8220;They can&#8217;t leave because the police have sealed off the road,&#8221; a woman&#8217;s voice adds. The apparent mass movement of people out of the city comes despite an official ban on any non-essential travel out of the city, as residential compounds in Chaoyang, Xicheng and Haidian districts were ordered into lockdown after locally transmitted cases were confirmed there. A Beijing resident who gave only his surname Ye said police have blocked main thoroughfares leading out of the city towards neighboring Hebei province. &#8220;I live in Baishun, Xicheng district, and we&#8217;re under lockdown right now,&#8221; Ye said. &#8220;I&#8217;m only allowed into the garden of my bungalow, but I can&#8217;t go out.&#8221; &#8220;It seems infections in Beijing are on the rise, and now I have to apply to buy supplies,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s been four days now.&#8221; &#8220;They delivered some vegetables to each household, as well as ten pounds of rice and a small barrel of cooking oil,&#8221; Ye said. The lockdown in Xicheng extends across Baishun, Dabaishun and Xiaobaishun alleys as well as Shaanxi Lane and Shitou alleys, residents said, all of which now have large numbers of white-clad disease-prevention personnel patrolling around in full PPE, residents told RFA. Local resident Zhang Hong said most of those who are trying to leave the city are in middle- or high-income groups with good access to information, and may have been tipped off about future lockdowns by friends or relatives in official jobs. &#8220;A lot of people have left because of issues with the government&#8217;s restrictions &#8230; now that a lot of them, both big and small, have seen the light of day,&#8221; Zhang said. &#8220;Shanghai is one example, where we saw people jumping off buildings due to starvation,&#8221; Zhang said. &#8220;So some rich people are leaving without waiting for the government&#8217;s decision [on whether to lock down more of the city].&#8221; Online comments suggested Beijing residents could be denied access to accommodation outside the city, however, because they can be identified by the COVID-19 Health Code app on their phones, which is needed to access key services and public transportation. The city is currently undergoing three waves of mass, compulsory testing from April 26-30, according to official announcements. Employees of Chinese online shopping platform Meituan prepare deliveries in Shanghai, in a file photo. Credit: Reuters Group-buying schemes The news website Caixin reported that the online shopping and food delivery platform Meituan had shut down group-buying schemes, which have been widely used by residents of Shanghai to get food and other essential supplies in the face of a ban on individual delivery riders or shopping in person. A link to the group-buying function was removed from the homepage of the app and the service shut down from April 26, according to an announcement posted in the app. One comment said similar group-buying functions on other delivery apps had also been shut down. &#8220;Just when I need you, you&#8217;re not there,&#8221; wrote social media user @duoyun_kuanyin. Others said local neighborhood committees who control access to residential communities were well-placed to make money from delivery operations. &#8220;They won&#8217;t let [these platforms] operate &#8230; but the neighborhood committee&#8217;s own trucks will get through,&#8221; @Lenin&#8217;s_little_brain_axe commented. The Beijing Municipal Health Commission announced 31 newly confirmed, locally transmitted cases, and three asymptomatic infections on Wednesday. Testing halted Meanwhile, in Shanghai and other affluent eastern cities, the test and trace service has ground to a halt under the sheer weight of data being processed about infections, as the authorities restarted mass testing in several parts of the city from April 26. &#8220;The app in Shanghai is frozen, because there are so many volunteers on the front line,&#8221; one testing volunteer from Suzhou told RFA. &#8220;We&#8217;re like front-line troops, and yet the system they gave us to work with seems to be crumbling.&#8221; &#8220;Why is this happening?&#8221; A Shanghai resident surnamed Li said lockdowns are currently seen as the politically correct thing to do. &#8220;They are trying everything they can think of, but to be brutally frank, they really haven&#8217;t a clue,&#8221; Li said. &#8220;Who really knows what to do?&#8221; &#8220;They built all of those makeshift hospitals in Shanghai, the biggest of which had capacity for 40,000 people, but now the policy has changed again.&#8221; &#8220;It used to be that you had to go to a makeshift hospital for 14 days&#8217; quarantine, but now they are letting people out after just a week, to make room for infected people to come in,&#8221; Li said. &#8220;It used to be that nobody who tested positive was taken there.&#8221; Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [China musters troops to track US warship transit of Taiwan Strait](https://ij-reportika.com/china-musters-troops-to-track-us-warship-transit-of-taiwan-strait/): China’s People&#8217;s Liberation Army dispatched troops to shadow the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Sampson when it transited the Taiwan Strait this week, a passage described by a Chinese think-tank as “humiliating” for the PLA. The U.S. 7th Fleet said in a statement that its Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Sampson (DDG 102) conducted a routine Taiwan Strait transit on Tuesday “through international waters in accordance with international law.” The transit “demonstrates the United States&#8217; commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” the statement said, adding that the U.S. military “flies, sails, and operates anywhere international law allows.&#8221; China responded quickly. A spokesperson for the PLA Eastern Theater Command on Wednesday said the U.S. has been “frequently carrying out provocative acts to send wrong signals to ‘Taiwan Independence’ forces, deliberately undermining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.” The spokesperson, Snr. Col. Shi Yi, said the U.S. Navy “hyped it [the Taiwan Strait transit] up publicly” and in response, “the PLA Eastern Theatre Command sent troops to track and monitor the U.S. warship&#8217;s passage, and remained alert in the whole course.” ‘Not threatening but humiliating’ China considers Taiwan a province of China and has repeatedly said that the democratic island of 23 million people will eventually be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary. The U.S. considers the waterway between the island and China’s mainland international waters and has been patrolling the Taiwan Strait as part of its Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy. U.S. warships conducted 12 such transits last year and four since the beginning of 2022, according to Collin Koh, a regional military analyst. Elsewhere in the South China Sea, the U.S. Navy has also been conducting regular Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs). Taiwan&#8217;s Ministry of National Defense on Wednesday described the USS Sampson’s northward journey through the strait as “normal” and said the Taiwanese military “used joint intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance to monitor movements at sea and in the air around Taiwan.” The South China Sea Probe Initiative (SCSPI), a Beijing-based think-tank, however, said on Twitter: “The U.S. military operation around China has been over politicized.” “We don&#8217;t know the meaning of this kind of publicity and hyping. For the PLAN (PLA Navy), this is not much threatening, but a bit humiliating,” it said. The SCSPI offered no policy recommendations, but noted that the PLAN “also maintained full surveillance based on international practice.” Tuesday’s passage was the first known Taiwan Strait transit for the USS Sampson, which has been forward-deployed to the 7th Fleet’s area of operations and is now taking part in a carrier strike group led by the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72). The strike group conducted joint exercises with the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) in the Sea of Japan on Apr. 13 and 14.    
- [Uyghurs keep focus on Xinjiang report, access as UN rights chief preps for China tour](https://ij-reportika.com/uyghurs-keep-focus-on-xinjiang-report-access-as-un-rights-chief-preps-for-china-tour/): With an advance team for the United Nations human right’s chief’s visit to China next month in the country to prepare for her long-awaited tour, Uyghur activists and other rights groups are pressing for a meaningful investigation of atrocities in Xinjiang and the release of delayed U.N. report on the region. The five-person delegation invited by the Chinese government was quarantining in Guangzhou before moving on to Xinjiang, U.N. human rights spokesperson Elizabeth Throssell told the South China Morning Post this week. Once out of quarantine, they are “due to visit the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region,” Throssell told the Hong Kong daily. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a regular news conference that an Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights preparatory team had arrived in China to prepare for an inspection tour by Michelle Bachelet. “What I want to tell you is that the goal of the high commissioner’s visit is to promote exchange and cooperation,” Wang said. “We are opposed to political manipulation by exploiting the matter.”  After years of negotiations with Beijing about her visit, Bachelet, a former Chilean president, announced that she had “recently reached an agreement with the government of China for a visit” in May, including to Xinjiang, where China is accused of having incarcerated 1.8 million Uyghur in mass detention camps. China angrily rejects all such claims as politically motivated attacks on its security and development policies in the vast western region. Beijing is calling for a &#8220;friendly&#8221; visit by the U.N. rights official, the kind that rights experts fear would help China whitewash the situation. The advance team will be expected to ensure “meaningful access” and try to “gain a clear understanding of the human rights situation in the country and engage in discussions on relevant issues with a wide range of stakeholders, including senior government officials and civil society,” Throssell told the Post, Doubts about access Bachelet first announced that her office sought an unfettered access to Xinjiang in September 2018, shortly after she took over her current role. But the trip has been delayed over questions about her freedom of movement through the region. She would be the first human rights commissioner to visit China since 2005.  The Campaign for Uyghurs (CFU), a Washington, D.C.-based Uyghur rights organization, welcomed the news that Bachelet’s team had arrived in Guangzhou, but doubted that she would be given unimpeded access because China had refused a visit unless the trip was “friendly” in nature. CFU said the Chinese government has given no sign that Bachelet will be allowed unimpeded access. “While I welcome news that the high commissioner’s visit is seemingly moving forward, I am concerned that this is another tactic to delay the release of her report on Uyghur genocide until her term expires,” CFU Executive Director Rushan Abbas said in a statement issued Monday. “Her visit is contingent on COVID restrictions, and she may spend weeks in quarantine moving from city to city, hampering her ability to investigate,” Abbas said. The World Uyghur Congress (WUC) and other European-based Uyghur organizations will hold a protest in front of the United Nations compound Geneva on May 13 to demand the immediate release of an overdue human rights report on abuses in China’s Xinjiang region, the Germany-based activist group said Tuesday. &#8216;Extreme suffering&#8217; WUC is teaming up with Tibetan and other international rights groups to call on Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. high commissioner of human rights, to issue the report and to consult Uyghur groups in exile and former internment camp detainees ahead of her planned trip to China. Activists will stage a two-hour protest outside Palais Wilson, which is the headquarters of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. “We have been waiting for the release of the high commissioner’s report since September. Why has it been delayed?” WUC President Dolkun Isa said in a statement. “We are calling on Ms. Bachelet to consult with Uyghur representatives in exile beforehand, and listen to the voices of those who have experienced extreme suffering as a result of China’s policies.” WUC and other rights groups have expressed concern that the Chinese government will restrict access to places or otherwise set an itinerary designed to hide evidence of human rights abuses. Rights groups have said that Bachelet must have unfettered access to location she wants to visit for her trip to be seen as credible. That includes to China’s vast network of internment camps, where millions of mostly Muslim Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities have been arbitrarily detained and allegedly subject to torture, rape and other abuses. About 200 organizations, including WUC, called on Bachelet in March to release the report and brief members and observers of the U.N. Human Rights Council on its contents as a matter of urgency. On April 19, nearly 60 rights groups issued a set of preconditions that had to be met in order for Bachelet’s visit to be seen as credible and independent. The statement came a day after four Uyghur internment camp survivors began a weeklong protest outside U.N. offices in Geneva. The group is calling on Bachelet to meet them before her visit and to publish her report on the situation.
- [Myanmar military court sentences Aung San Suu Kyi to 5 more years in jail](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-military-court-sentences-aung-san-suu-kyi-to-5-more-years-in-jail/): A military court sentenced deposed Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi to five years in jail on Wednesday finding her guilty of corruption in closed-door proceedings, a source familiar with the trial said. In the first of 11 corruption cases against the 76-year-old Nobel laureate, the judge in the capital Naypyidaw pronounced her guilty minutes after the trial opened, within moments of the court convening, said the source, who declined to be identified for security reasons The former State Counselor’s lawyers have been barred since October by Myanmar’s military rulers from releasing information or speaking publicly about the two cases being tried. The junta-controlled court said Aung San Suu Kyi had violated section 55 of the Anti-corruption Law in a case that alleged she accepted 11.4 kg (402 oz) of gold and cash payments totaling $600,000 from former Yangon chief minister Phyo Min Thein. She has rejected all allegations, which her supporters, rights groups and foreign governments have condemned as political charges aimed at ending her career. Aung San Su Kyi, who ruled the country for five years and won re-election in November 2020 in a landslide vote that the army refused to honor, is already serving six years for violating export-import laws, the communications law, and the natural disaster management law. “Myanmar’s junta and the country’s kangaroo courts are walking in lockstep to put Aung San Suu Kyi away for what could ultimately be the equivalent of a life sentence, given her advanced age,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “This conviction on bogus corruption charges just piles on more years behind bars,” he said in a statement from Bangkok. “Sadly, there’s more where that came from in the coming months, with many additional trials on other criminal charges to follow,” added Robertson. According to the Association Assistance for Political Prisoners (AAPP), the military regime has handed out more than 1000 sentences among more than 10,300 civilians arrested or detained since the Feb. 1 coup that deposed Aung San Suu Kyi and her elected government. The junta has killed nearly, 1,800 civilians, the Bangkok-based group says. Reported by RFA&#8217;s Myanmar Service. Written in English by Paul Eckert.
- [Myanmar Civil Disobedience Movement ‘losing steam’ amid junta crackdowns](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-civil-disobedience-movement-losing-steam-amid-junta-crackdowns/): Myanmar’s Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), a popular strike movement that at its peak brought the administrative machinery of the military regime to a halt, has lost more than one-third of its active members amid a crackdown by the junta, organizers and the country’s shadow government said Tuesday. Formed by doctors in Mandalay a day after the Feb. 1, 2021, coup, the CDM once boasted more than 360,000 members who chose to walk away from their state jobs and take part in peaceful anti-junta protests or other opposition activities in a bid to pry loose the regime’s grasp on power. The CDM captivated the international community for its effectiveness in the face of the junta’s violent repression and was even nominated for the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize. But Kyaw Zaw, a spokesman for the shadow National Unity Government’s (NUG) President’s Office, told RFA’s Myanmar Service that the number of active members in the CDM has dwindled significantly since the junta began to target them with a campaign of threats, arrest, and other forms of harassment. “CDM members have been arrested. They have endured many kinds of threats, and even torture in some cases. Furthermore, when CDM staff evade arrest, authorities detain their family members,” he said. “Many CDM members felt insecure to a point that they had to leave the movement.” Kyaw Zaw said the NUG estimates there are currently around 200,000 state employees still in the CDM, although “we don’t know exactly how many have left the movement.” The shadow government’s assessment suggests that the CDM has lost more than 150,000, or slightly more than 40%, of its peak membership. CDM sources told RFA that the junta also tries to lure CDM members away from the movement by making them offers that include reinstatement to their former jobs and guarantees that they will not be sent to prison. But they said those who refuse are often arrested on what they called “bogus charges” or can have difficulty earning a living due to policies such as a ban on hiring CDMs in the private sector. Hein Thiha, a senior CDM teacher from Magway region, said some of his colleagues had left the movement after receiving threats. “Your ability to participate can be different based on whether you are based in an area with a strong CDM or a weak CDM,” he said. “Where the CDM is strong, it is easier to operate. But it’s very difficult where the CDM is weak. Some people have reluctantly withdrawn from the CDM because of these pressures.” Hein Thiha said that, like many CDM employees, he has been struggling to make ends meet as a farmer since February 2021 with no source of regular income. Sit Min Naing, a CDM doctor, told RFA that public support for the movement appears to have shifted to the armed opposition since the NUG declared war on the junta in September and ordered allied prodemocracy People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary groups around the country to attack military targets. “This support grew stronger and stronger, and now they seem to have forgotten about the CDMs,” he said. In its first annual report issued on April 16, the NUG said it had provided 229 million kyats (U.S. $190,000) in financial support to CDM staff. But NUG officials said at a press conference accompanying the release of the report that they had shifted the focus of their financial support to military expenditures and acknowledged that doing so had likely led to a decline in the number of CDM members. A Civil Disobedience Movement protest by education workers in Yangon, Feb. 19, 2021. Credit: RFA Former security forces joining movement One of the few civil servant groups to grow the ranks of the CDM in recent months is that of the country’s security forces, according to the People’s Embrace — a faction within the movement that is made up of former junta soldiers. CDM Capt. Lin Htet Aung told RFA that former members of the security forces who have joined the movement now number around 10,000, which he said is partly because they no longer want to be complicit in the junta’s killing of civilians. “We realize we are fighting against the population. We are killing people and they hate us. We don’t have the support of the people anymore,” he said. “We realize we are working to benefit the personal interests of the military leaders and not in the national interest. … This has led to a steady increase in deserters.” Lin Htet Aung said more people would leave the military and the police force if their security could be guaranteed. Meanwhile, relatives of members of the security forces told RFA that the junta has tightened restrictions inside the military and police force in a bid to dissuade potential deserters, including by restricting their access to friends and family. Junta deputy information minister, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, dismissed claims that authorities have been targeting CDM staff. “In some cases, there have been terminations … but these actions were taken according to existing staff regulations,” he said. “However, in cases where [CDM staff] are found to have incited people during protests, they will be punished according to the law.” According to Thailand’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, there are around 100 CDM staffers serving prison sentences in Myanmar and at least 886 in detention. Myanmar-based political analyst Sai Kyi Zin Soe told RFA that the CDM will continue to lose members if they cannot be guaranteed personal and financial security. “After more than a year, we can say the CDM is losing steam,” he said. “This is because many employees in the CDM already must risk their lives for the movement. Things become untenable if they are also unable to earn enough to live.” Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Kim Jong Un hints he might use nukes as more than deterrent](https://ij-reportika.com/kim-jong-un-hints-he-might-use-nukes-as-more-than-deterrent/): North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Monday vowed to boost his nuclear weapons program and said the weapons could be used “in any situations of warfare” as he observed a massive military parade that showed off Pyongyang’s intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), state media reported. Kim Jong Un emphasized the need to strengthen the North Korea’s military capabilities, with an emphasis on nuclear development, in a speech before the parade that analysts in Seoul and Washington said were troubling. “In particular, the nuclear forces, the symbol of our national strength and the core of our military power, should be strengthened in terms of both quality and scale, so that they can perform nuclear combat capabilities in any situations of warfare, according to purposes and missions of different operations and by various means,” the state-run Korea Central News Agency reported him as saying. The event commemorated the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army (KPRA), which under the country’s founder, Kim Il Sung, waged guerilla attacks against the Japanese army in and around the Korean peninsula. The elder Kim is Kim Jong Un’s grandfather. Pyongyang has been actively testing short and long-range missiles to display its military power, with a more conservative administration about to take over the government in South Korea and talks with the U.S. over denuclearization stalled. Officials in Washington and Seoul have said that activity at North Korea’s nuclear testing site may indicate that Pyongyang is preparing to resume tests there. Kim said in the speech that the purpose of Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal is to deter attacks, but also suggested that the weapons could be used for other purposes. “Our nukes can never be confined to the single mission of war deterrent even at a time when a situation we are not desirous of at all is created on this land,” Kim said. “If any forces try to violate the fundamental interests of our state, our nuclear forces will have to decisively accomplish its unexpected second mission.” The parade included the country’s largest known ICBM, the Hwasong-17, which Pyongyang claims to have successfully tested last month. South Korean officials have said that the Hwasong-17 exploded prematurely during the test and North Korea tested a less-advanced missile a few days later, claiming it was the Hwasong-17. State media made a point of showing Kim shaking hands with military officials as the Hwasong-17 rolled by them. People at a train station in Seoul, South Korea watch a TV screen showing a news program reporting about North Korea&#8217;s military parade, Tuesday, April 26, 2022. Photo: AP De-escalation urged Officials in South Korea urged the North to stop raising tensions on the peninsula. “The South Korean government, above all else, urges North Korea to immediately stop any actions that cause tensions on the Korean peninsula and in the region,” South Korea’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Choi Young-sam said. The presidential transition committee for South Korean President-elect Yoon Seok-yeol, who will assume office on May 10, said in a statement that close cooperation with the U.S. was necessary to deter North Korean threats. South Korean analysts said that Kim’s words signified a significant shift regarding North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. “North Korea’s supreme leader has explicitly stated that [nuclear weapons] are no longer a means of self-defense, but they are now for attack,” Kwak Gil Sup of Kookmin University in Seoul told RFA’s Korean Service. This increases the likelihood that North Korea would attempt to use nuclear weapons to resolve crises, Cho Han Bum of the Seoul-based Korea Institute of National Unification told RFA.  “By significantly expanding the scope of the use of nuclear weapons, it is possible to use nuclear weapons in such attempts as regime crises, internal crises and regime changes,” said Cho. Analysts in the U.S. meanwhile expressed doubts that the Hwasong-17 in the parade was real, but agreed that Kim Jong Un’s comments about his nuclear ambitions were troubling. “What we see in the parade may only be a mockup, [and] may not be a real missile, either,” David Maxwell, a former Army officer and now a senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told RFA. “I think it&#8217;s safe to say that Kim Jong Un is trying to show us advanced military capabilities, which on the one hand support his political warfare strategy and blackmail diplomacy to raise tensions to make threats. And they use these provocations to gain political and economic concessions,” Maxwell said. Bruce W. Bennett, a counterproliferation expert at the RAND Corporation, told RFA that Kim Jong Un’s comments about nuclear weapons were “worrisome.” “He&#8217;s trying to be scary and make it look like he&#8217;s capable. And then he says, ‘Hey, guys, bother me, and I&#8217;ll use nuclear weapons.’ You know, it&#8217;s a threat,” he said. “And especially given that he&#8217;s facing internal instability, [it] does make us wonder where things are going on the peninsula.” People at a train station in Seoul, South Korea watch a TV screen showing a news program reporting about North Korea&#8217;s military parade, Tuesday, April 26, 2022. Photo: AP The General Political Bureau of the People’s Army used the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the KPRA’s founding to issue a directive to soldiers that they have the responsibility of “protecting the system as the military of the supreme leader,” a military source in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA’s Korean Service Monday on condition of anonymity for security reasons. But the source said that there was discontent brewing among the troops. “The soldiers and even military officials criticize their leaders for designating them as a ‘spearhead’ for protection of the [current political system], without treating them accordingly. … [The order] emphasizes protecting the system but does not say anything about improving the military supply situation, so many soldiers scoff at the directive,” the military source said. In North Pyongan province, in the northwest, another military source told RFA the directive included instructions to boost troop morale. “The [recent] test...
- [Hanoi's heavy hand](https://ij-reportika.com/hanois-heavy-hand/): Vietnam, a one-party communist state with low tolerance for public criticism or dissent that has jailed scores of journalists and bloggers, is moving to tighten content rules for social media. Amended laws will require platforms like Facebook and TikTok to remove content and services deemed illegal within 24 hours, block illegal livestreams within three hours of notice, and immediately remove content that endangers national security–or risk being banned in the country of 98 million people.
- [A decade after activist’s death, rights groups in Cambodia press for answers](https://ij-reportika.com/a-decade-after-activists-death-rights-groups-in-cambodia-press-for-answers/): Cambodian environmentalists called for authorities to reinvestigate the 2012 murder of a forestry activist, who was slain while campaigning against illegal logging, a problem that has gotten worse in the decade since his killing.  Chut Wutty was shot to death on April 26, 2012 while investigating illegal logging in southern Cambodia’s Koh Kong province. He had been active in organizing communities to protect Cambodian forests against developers and campaigned against the government’s granting of land concessions in national parks and wildlife sanctuaries. A letter by the Khmer Student Intelligent League Association, signed by 28 separate civic society organizations, called on Justice, Interior and Defense Ministry officials and Koh Kong provincial authorities to “undertake a credible and thorough investigation to hold all those responsible for his murder to account.” An official investigation into Chut Wutty’s death was closed in October 2013 when a court in Koh Kong province abruptly ended its proceedings.  Student league President Keut Saray said he has little expectation that the authorities will bring any suspects in Chut Wutty’s murder to trial. “It is sad that we don’t hope to get justice, but as a nation for a person who sacrificed his life, the ministry shouldn’t ignore it,” he told RFA’s Khmer Service. “We will follow up with the investigation. Not for just a few weeks; we will follow up as long as we live. Today is more about having a chance to remember the hero who protected our forests. We need to lead and sacrifice to protect the forest,” he said. In another event that commemorated Chut Wutty, hosted by the Khmer Thavrak youth group, 10 young people adorned in white ribbons decorated their motorbikes with leaves. They attempted to ride to the Ministry of Environment and Justice, but authorities stopped them and confiscated their bikes. Chut Wutty’s son Cheuy Oudom Reaksmey, who is in Lowell, Massachusetts, for a ceremony to commemorate his father scheduled for May 1, told RFA that the authorities are trying to stop activists from commemorating Chut Wutty anniversary, including by showing a documentary about him. “We are implementing undemocratic laws. People are not allowed to walk in Phnom Penh anymore,” he said. Cheuy Oudom Reaksmey noted that Hun Sen once claimed he would behead himself if he failed to stop illegal logging. But preventing activists from holding public commemorations for the forestry activist raises questions about the prime minister’s commitment to protecting Cambodia’s forests, Cheuy Oudom Reaksmey said. “Why can’t we commemorate the hero who has already been murdered?” he asked. “We will continue to try to show the world to know that there has been no justice, even 10 years since his murder.” Cheuy Oudom Reaksmey urged the government to allow the forestry activists to patrol the country’s protected forests, an activity that is currently prohibited. Illegal logging will continue until there is a change in policy, and his father’s case will linger until there is a new government to investigate. “Justice can’t be rendered. I don’t have confidence in the court, which is not independent,” he said. Neither Phay Siphan, a spokesman for Hun Sen’s government, and Chhin Malin, a spokesman for the Ministry of Justice, could be reached for comment on April 26. Phay Siphan recently told RFA that the court already closed Chut Wutty’s case, but it might reopen the investigation if the family and NGOs submit more evidence. Illegal logging in protected areas of Cambodia is a major source of social instability and helps drive rapid deforestation, which is a problem across the entire Southeast Asian region. Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand declined to sign a global pact at the COP26 summit in Glasgow in November to end and reverse forest loss by 2030, even while the region — home to around 15% of the world’s tropical forests — is among its major deforestation hotspots. Cambodia has lost 26% of its tree cover, equivalent to about 5.7 million acres, since 2000 according to satellite imagery. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Beijing’s zero-COVID policy snags Lao exports to China via new railway](https://ij-reportika.com/beijings-zero-covid-policy-snags-lao-exports-to-china-via-new-railway/): Costly and time-consuming customs-clearing procedures put in place as part of China’s zero-COVID-19 restrictions are making it difficult for Lao traders to export products via the new Laos-China Railway, Lao officials and people involved in cross-border trade said. Lao authorities have been negotiating with their Chinese counterparts and officials with the rail company for months in an effort to send more Lao goods by train to China, but to little avail, said a Lao transportation official, who declined to be named so he could speak freely to the media. The U.S. $6 billion high-speed railway has been in operation for four months. Chinese goods and produce are shipped to Laos daily, while Lao goods are rarely transported to China, and fresh produce is not carried at all. The Chinese government’s ongoing enforcement of its zero-COVID policy for containing the highly contagious virus through intensive testing and tracing and lockdowns has meant that all imported goods must be fully checked and limits on the kinds of fruits and vegetables that are allowed in, the Lao official said. “The Chinese government does not allow sending fresh products and is still enforcing zero-COVID-19 procedures,” he said. Another complicating factor is that the train is not ready to carry fresh agricultural products, though it is transporting Chinese machinery, electrical equipment and housewares from China to Laos, the official told RFA on Monday. “Most Lao produce, including bananas and watermelons, haven’t been transported by train to China yet because these agricultural products are perishable, and the train containers are too hot for them,” the official said. Only some dried agricultural products from Laos, such as rubber, cassava and soil from Laos, can be exported by land to China via the railway, he said. A manager of the Vientiane office of a Chinese company that offers shipping services to businesses via the new railway told RFA that the COVID restrictions in China take too much money and time to process for most shippers. “They are very strict about the shipping of fresh products, fruit and produce,” he said. “The import and export of goods and tax document declaration is pretty hard as strict measures to cope COVID-19 are still imposed.” RFA could not reach the Chinese Embassy in Vientiane for comment. But state-run China Radio International reported on April 12 that China continued to enforce the zero-COVID policy to prevent all means of the virus from entering the country, including through the import of produce. A freight train from China traveling along the Laos-China Railway stops at Vang Vieng station in Vientiane province, Laos, Dec. 4, 2021. Credit: RFA Rotten fruit A businesswoman in southern Laos who exports white charcoal to China, South Korea and Japan said she’d like to use the railway but the Chinese have made the process too difficult. As of now, she sends goods to her customers in other countries via ships that leave from a Vietnamese port. A truck driver in northern Laos, who provides shipping services to China, said it was still more convenient and faster to ship produce to China via truck, even though that process has also slowed. “Sending fruits via Laos-China railway is not easy or fast,” he said. “The process takes very long, and the fruits can go rotten if it is not sent to China on time.” It used to take truck drivers two to three days to reach China by road, but COVID-19 protocols at the border have led to huge traffic jams and added as much as three days to the journey, he said. “When we reach Laos-China border, there will be trucks from China to take fruits or produce from our trucks … because we cannot drive to the cities in China,” the driver said. “These days, it is very hard to drive to China, and the COVID-19 control is very strict, and I do not understand why,” he said. “There will be officials in white plastic suits who will drive the trucks of fruit and produce from us into mainland China.” Phithoun Sri-inngarm, director of Nongkhai province’s customs office, told RFA that the Laos-China Railway transports goods from China to Laos and Thailand, but not vice versa. “In the past four months, transporting goods from Thailand to China through Laos is still very little when compared to goods shipped from China to Thailand through Laos,” he said. “The main reason is the difficult process on the Chinese side.” On March 27, the first shipment of Thai fruit — 40 tons of durians in two containers and 20 tons of coconuts in one container — was transported from Rayong province, Thailand, via the Laos-China Railway to Chongqing municipality, according to a Thai media report that cited Somkiat Mansiripibul, the manager of Kaocharoen Train Transport Co., Ltd. In January, the first shipment of 1,000 tonnes of Thai rice was delivered to China via the Laos-China railway, Thai media reported. As of March 3, the Laos-China Railway had carried more than 1.7 million passengers — 1.6 million of whom travelled on the section of railway in China — and 1.1 million tons of goods, according to the Lao News Agency. Officials have expected the railway to cut the cost of transport through Laos by 30%-40% compared to travel by road, giving a boost to trade and investment in the impoverished, landlocked country. The railway has operated 350 international train journeys carrying over 250,000 tons of freight since the start of 2022, Lao News Agency reported. Translated by RFA’s Lao Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Henan court jails dissident for nearly three years after Jiang Tianyong visit](https://ij-reportika.com/henan-court-jails-dissident-for-nearly-three-years-after-jiang-tianyong-visit/): Authorities in the central Chinese province of Henan have handed down a two-year, 11-month jail term to dissident Xing Wangli, after he visited a prominent rights attorney. Xing was sentenced by the Xi County District People&#8217;s Court, which found him guilty of &#8220;defamation,&#8221; following a trial by video link to the Xi County Detention Center earlier this month. His attorney received the sentencing decision on April 25. The case against Xing rested on an open letter he wrote laying responsibility for serious head injuries he received in the detention center at the door of three local government officials. The letter, dated March 5, 2021 and titled &#8220;To netizens and people from all walks of life,&#8221; accused local officials of attacking and retaliating against him for standing up for his family&#8217;s rights and interests. It accuses local officials and law enforcement of covering up after his son suffered massive injuries in a traffic accident at the age of 5, requiring treatment in intensive care and details a self-immolation attempt by his wife Xu Jincui on Tiananmen Square, after which Xu was jailed for three years and Wang sent to labor camp for one year. &#8220;During my detention in the Xi County Detention Center, I was subjected to inhuman treatment, hunger strike, shackles, handcuffs, and physical and mental torture,&#8221; the letter reads. Xi&#8217;s mother-in-law He Zeying and his mother Xing Jiaying were jailed for three years for &#8220;picking quarrels and stirring up trouble,&#8221; it said. &#8220;While I was detained in the Xixian Detention Center, the deputy county magistrate of Xi county, Li Xuechao, came up with a plan and the county party secretary Jin Ping nodded along, so police chief Liu Yang arranged for the detention center to carry it out,&#8221; the letter said. &#8220;I was beaten with blunt instruments, and was later diagnosed by Xinyang Central Hospital with comminuted fracture of the brain, contusion of the lower lobes of both lungs, and bilateral pleural effusion,&#8221; it said. &#8220;I was illegally detained, sent to illegal re-education through labor, and sentenced to jail for a total of nine years and nine months,&#8221; the letter said. &#8216;Rotten apples&#8217; Xing&#8217;s wife, mother-in-law and mother and other family members have served a total of 26 years behind bars, it said, calling on CCP leader Xi Jinping to &#8220;investigate these rotten apples.&#8221; The letter said some of the retaliation was linked to Xing&#8217;s refusal to stay quiet about the deaths of two petitioners in suspicious circumstances. The court decided that the letter had been commissioned by Xing&#8217;s son Xing Jian, while the officials named in it took the witness stand to say it wasn&#8217;t true. It accuses Xing of instructing his son to post the letter &#8220;containing fabricated claims&#8221; to WeChat groups, after which it garnered more than 12,000 page views. It said Xing&#8217;s &#8220;defamation of public officials&#8221; had violated the officials rights and affected their mental health. Xing Jian, now living in New Zealand, said the trial was entirely biased in favor of the officials. &#8220;The witnesses they found were all public officials, and they all had a relationship to the [case],&#8221; he said, adding that what his father posted was in the public interest. &#8220;Government officials are public figures, and they need to be supervised under the law and by the public,&#8221; Xing Jian said. &#8220;Yet, if a member of the public questions, criticizes, or makes accusations against them, they put them in jail.&#8221; Canada-based dissident artist Hua Yong said Xing Wangli and his family had tried to take on the government and lost. &#8220;This kind of thing happens so often in China,&#8221; Hua said. &#8220;The lower rungs of government are willing to kill [to prevent criticism].&#8221; &#8220;If attempts to call them out get a lot of public attention, they may get out of the starting gate, but if there is no-one paying attention, they will be attacked in retaliation &#8230; it&#8217;s all a power game,&#8221; he said. Xing Wang Li&#8217;s son Xing Jian. Credit: Xing Jian. Tortured by cellmates Xing&#8217;s sentence was just one month below the maximum of three years for &#8220;defamation,&#8221; and commentators have said this is likely because he tried to visit prominent rights attorney Jiang Tianyong, who is under house arrest at his Henan home after serving a jail term during a nationwide crackdown on rights lawyers. Xing was originally detained on suspicion of &#8220;picking quarrels and stirring up trouble&#8221; in May 2021 after he tried to visit Jiang, who remains under house arrest, in April 2021. He was formally arrested in June 2021, but for &#8220;defamation,&#8221; and indicted by the county prosecutor in January 2022. While defamation cases in China have previously been private prosecution cases, new guidelines issued in 2013 paved the way for it to be brought as a criminal charge against people accused of &#8220;spreading disinformation or false accusations online can constitute criminal acts. If a post deemed to contain disinformation or false accusations accrues more than 5,000 views or 500 reposts, then it is considered a &#8220;serious circumstance,&#8221; according to the U.S.-based rights group, the Duihua Foundation. Jiang was &#8220;released&#8221; from prison in February 2019 at the end of a two-year jail term for &#8220;incitement to subvert state power,&#8221; a charge often used to imprison peaceful critics of the government. He was allowed to return to his parents&#8217; home in Luoyang, but remains under close surveillance and heavy restrictions. Jiang&#8217;s U.S.-based wife Jin Bianling has repeatedly expressed concern for her husband&#8217;s health after he was tortured by cellmates during his time in detention. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [US vows to respond to any Chinese military base in Solomons](https://ij-reportika.com/us-vows-to-respond-to-any-chinese-military-base-in-solomons/): The United States voiced concerns Tuesday over a “complete lack of transparency” surrounding a new security deal between the Solomon Islands and China and vowed to respond to any attempt to establish a Chinese military base in the island nation. A draft copy of the security pact leaked onto social media in late March but neither party has made public the deal, reportedly signed by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Solomon Islands counterpart Jeremiah Manele. The deal has drawn expressions of deep concern from U.S. allies Australia and New Zealand that it could enable China to extend its military reach in the Pacific. It also prompted a hasty visit to the Pacific by two top U.S. diplomats. U.S. National Security Council Indo-Pacific Coordinator Kurt Campbell and Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink led a U.S. delegation to Honiara late last week where they held a 90-minute “constructive and candid meeting” with Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare. Kritenbrink told journalists at a teleconference on Tuesday that the lack of transparency of the security agreement was “our fundamental concern.” “I think it’s clear that only a handful of people in a very small circle have seen this agreement, and the prime minister himself has been quoted publicly as saying he would only share the details with China’s permission, which I think is a source of concern as well,” the U.S senior diplomat said. “Of course we have respect for the Solomon Islands’ sovereignty, but we also wanted to let them know that if steps were taken to establish a de facto permanent military presence, power-projection capabilities, or a military installation, then we would have significant concerns and we would very naturally respond to those concerns,” Kritenbrink said. A file photo showing Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, Solomon Islands Foreign Minister Jeremiah Manele, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Chinese State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi at a signing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China Oct. 9, 2019. Credit: Reuters. ‘Red line’ The assistant secretary of state declined to elaborate on possible responses to security implications caused by the new agreement but said that Prime Minister Sogavare gave the U.S. three specific assurances that “there would be no military base, no long-term presence, no power-projection capability.&#8221; In Washington, during a Tuesday hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Republican Sen. Mitt Romney called the agreement “alarming.”  In response, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he shared the senator’s concern. He reiterated the assurances the U.S. delegation had gotten from Sogavare, adding: “We will be watching that very, very closely in the weeks and months ahead.” Sogavare’s words have done little to calm Solomon Islands’ neighbors. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that a military base would be a “red line” for Canberra. The Solomons occupies a remote but strategic location in the western Pacific, about 1,700 kilometers (1,050 miles) from the northeastern coast of Australia. Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), said: “I think now that the security agreement has been officially signed, there is little the U.S. or Australia can do to reverse it. The key question now is how fast will China move to establish a permanent presence, leading to a base, in the Solomon Islands.” “Australia and the U.S. can try to use diplomacy to convince the Sogavare government to not allow this base to be established quickly, or to constrain its size and function, but there is little chance that these efforts will succeed, as it’s clear that Sogavare has aligned with China,” Davis said. “They can also try to contain Chinese influence in the region further by &#8216;stepping up&#8217; the &#8216;Pacific Step Up&#8217; and making it more effective,” he said, referring to the Biden administration’s push to increase U.S. engagement in the region. He added: “This has greater chance of success given the regional concern about the agreement signed between Solomon Islands and China.” Norah Huang, associate research fellow at Prospect Foundation, a Taiwanese think tank, described the deal as “opportunism” by the Solomons prime minister. She said the best response might be “candid talks with the governing parties in private to walk it back or at least neutralize the deal.” “But Australia, the U.S. and New Zealand should be careful not to reward those who play opportunism,” Huang said. A file photo showing Australian Navy officers from the HMAS Canberra arriving at the Tanjung Priok port, as part of the military exercise Indo-Pacific Endeavour 2021, in Jakarta, Indonesia, Oct. 25, 2021. Credit: Reuters. Regional efforts Japan became the latest regional power to send a representative to the Solomon Islands to express concern over the security pact. According to Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi, the Solomons prime minister repeated assurances to Japanese officials on Tuesday that he had no intention of allowing China to build military bases in his country, Reuters reported. Davis at ASPI said the China-Solomons deal could presage a move by Beijing to extend its reach in the South Pacific. “I think the greatest risk is that China would choose to extend its influence into Papua New Guinea, where it already has substantial investment, and is openly talking about a &#8216;fishing facility&#8217; at Daru Island, which could ultimately be the basis for a port that could support Chinese Coast Guard vessels,” he said. “The U.S. and Australia, as well as New Zealand, will now need to adjust their defense policies with the prospect of a forward Chinese military presence in the Southwest Pacific that certainly dramatically increases the military threat to the Australian eastern seaboard, but also severs the sea lane of communication between Australia and the United States,” the defense analyst said. ‘Too little, too late’ There have been calls in Australia’s political and defense circles to “prepare for war,” and Davis said there should be some review of Australian defense force posture, and greater investment into air, sea, and space capabilities across...
- [Tibetan exile leader arrives in Washington for talks](https://ij-reportika.com/tibetan-exile-leader-arrives-in-washington-for-talks/): Tibetan exile leader Penpa Tsering has met with senior State Department official Uzra Zeya for discussions on the status of the Himalayan region in the first of a series of talks this week with U.S. Congressional and government representatives. Tsering – the Sikyong or elected head of Tibet’s India-based exile government the Central Tibetan Administration – will be in Washington until April 29 at the invitation of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and will be following his talks there with visits next week to Canada and Germany. Monday’s meeting with Uzra Zeya, Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues, was followed by a lunch hosted at the State Department and attended by seven foreign ambassadors, including ambassadors from the Czech Republic, Denmark, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Special Coordinator Zeya has been active in supporting Tibet’s struggle for greater freedoms under China’s rule ever since her appointment to the role last year, Tsering said in remarks following their discussions. “She had her first virtual meeting with the Representative of the Office of Tibet in Washington D.C., and has met with other groups such as the International Campaign for Tibet and the Tibet Fund, and has also been interviewed by various Tibetan media outlets such as Radio Free Asia,” Tsering said. Former State Department special representatives were never so visible or spoke so openly in raising concerns over Tibetan issues, Tsering said. Discussions on how to resume talks between China and Tibet’s exile government will continue “and cannot be resolved in one day,” the Sikyong said, reiterating the CTA’s support for a “Middle Way” approach that accepts Tibet’s status as a part of China but urges greater freedoms for Tibetan language, religious, and cultural rights. “We urge the Tibetans inside Tibet not to lose hope, as we in exile will continue to do our best to advocate for Tibet,” Tsering added. Nine rounds of talks were previously held between envoys of exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and high-level Chinese officials beginning in 2002, but stalled in 2010 and were never resumed. Also meeting with Zeya on Monday, Zeegyab Rinpoche — abbot of the South India branch of Tibet’s Tashilhunpo monastery, seat of Tibet’s missing Panchen Lama — said that he and Tsering urged Zeya in their talks to “take a stronger stand and strengthen efforts to resolve the Tibetan issue and His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s return to Tibet.” The U.S. must now also implement the Tibet Policy and Support Act, U.S. legislation pushing for U.S. access to Panchen Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, who vanished into Chinese custody as a young boy in 1995 after being recognized by the Dalai Lama as the previous Panchen Lama’s successor, Zeegyab Rinpoche said. Following the Panchen Lama’s disappearance, the Chinese government quickly put forward its own candidate, Gyaincain Norbu, calling him the “real” Panchen Lama. Norbu remains widely unpopular among Tibetans, who consider him a puppet of Beijing. A significant religious figure April 25 marked the 33rd birthday of the missing Panchen Lama, and was celebrated by Tibetan exile communities around the world. It was also observed this year by a large gathering in Ladakh, a northwestern Indian territory that shares many Buddhist traditions with Tibet. Commenting on Monday’s observance, Thiksey Rinpoche — a former member of the Indian parliament’s upper house — called the Panchen Lama “a very significant religious figure not just for Tibetans but for Buddhists everywhere.” “Tibet and Ladakh share similar religious and cultural traditions, and any problems faced by Tibetans are also problems faced by all Himalayan communities,” Thiksey Rinpoche said. “The [well-being of] the Panchen Lama remains a critical issue,” agreed Jamyang Tsering Namgyal, a member of India’s parliament. “It is also obvious that the Chinese government will object if the Dalai Lama himself is reincarnated in India, and as an Indian I feel we must be concerned about this.” “This is not just a concern for Tibetans alone. The Indian government must address this issue too,” Namgyal said. In a statement Monday, the U.S. State Department urged authorities in the People’s Republic of China to account for the missing Panchen Lama’s whereabouts and well-being, “and to allow him to fully exercise his human rights and fundamental freedoms, in line with the PRC’s international commitments.” “The United States supports Tibetans’ religious freedom and their unique religious, cultural, and linguistic identity, including Tibetans’ right to select, educate, and venerate their own leaders, like the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama, according to their own beliefs and without government interference,” the State Department said. Formerly an independent nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force more than 70 years ago, and the Dalai Lama and thousands of his followers later fled into exile in India and other countries around the world following a failed 1959 national uprising against China’s rule. Tibetans living in Tibet frequently complain of discrimination and human rights abuses by Chinese authorities and policies they say are aimed at eradicating their national and cultural identity. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [China's smaller cities also under lockdown as COVID-19 prevention drive hits Beijing](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-smaller-cities-also-under-lockdown-as-covid-19-prevention-drive-hits-beijing/): As a grueling lockdown in Shanghai continues to make world headlines, as many as 30 million people have been under similar measures for weeks under the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)&#8217;s zero-COVID policy elsewhere in China. A recent video posted by the Yitiao short video content producer featured interviews with residents of the southwestern border town of Ruili, which has been locked down on and off for weeks, prompting an estimated 200,000 people to leave town. The city is an important trading center for the China-Myanmar border, but has been locked down nine times, making a total of 160 days, since the pandemic began, in line with the official narrative that the biggest threat of COVID-19 transmission comes from outside China. As people flocked to stores and supermarkets fearing an imminent lockdown in Beijing, parts of which are already under lockdown or similar restrictions, residents of port and border cities have been living under some degree of restriction for months, they told RFA. A Ruili hotel employee surnamed Yang confirmed the report. &#8220;It&#8217;s true that the economy here is no good,&#8221; Yang said. &#8220;The city is often locked down because of the pandemic, and most of the traders have gone to other nearby cities like Longchuan, Pingjiang and Tengchong.&#8221; Yang said he would like to leave too, but is currently on a seven-day mandatory quarantine at home, and will need a negative PCR test before he can leave. A second Ruili resident said the border with Myanmar remains closed, with low occupancy rates in hotels. Asked about locals, the resident replied simply: &#8220;Everyone&#8217;s gone.&#8221; In the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, the border trading town of Suifenhe, on the Binsui railway close to the Russian border, is also locked down, a resident told RFA. According to Yitiao, Suifenhe was placed under lockdown in April 2020 after some cases were found to have been imported from Russia, and has been under lockdown since Jan. 25, 2022, with all delivery services, pharmacies and hospital clinics closed for business. A staff member sprays disinfectant at a cinema as the city starts to reopen after a Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak in Shenyang, in China&#8217;s northeastern Liaoning province, April 25, 2022. Credit: AFP Dozens of cities An employee who answered the phone at a restaurant in the town confirmed the report. &#8220;We&#8217;re closed. We&#8217;re not doing business. Since about March or April,&#8221; the employee said, adding that he expected the lockdown to lift soon, and businesses to open again. Residents of Dongxing in the southwestern region of Guangxi on the border with Vietnam have also reportedly been under similar restrictions since Feb. 23, 2022, which were only lifted on April 23. Media reports show dozens of smaller towns and cities are currently under partial or total lockdown due to rising COVID-19 cases, including Baotou in Inner Mongolia, Hangzhou, home to the headquarters of Alibaba, and Tangshan in the northern province of Hebei. A Caixin media report also listed Changchun, Handan, Quanzhou and many cities in Jilin, Shanxi, Heilongjiang, Jiangsu and Shaanxi as locked down, with more than 30 million people affected. U.S.-based current affairs commentator Tang Jingyuan said hard and soft lockdowns are being used interchangeably by local governments. &#8220;The boundary between the CCP&#8217;s notion of locked-down and semi-locked down cities, or between hard and soft city closures, is getting more and more blurred,&#8221; Tang said. Most seem to share a few features in common, however: residents are required to stay home unless they need medical treatment or are getting tested in one of the compulsory mass-testing operations. Schools are closed, businesses shut down, and roadblocks are put in place to minimize non-essential traffic on the roads. While Shanghai&#8217;s lockdown has been a major focus for Chinese state media and social media, much less is being written on any platform about the smaller cities. Block-and-delete operations Meanwhile, those in other cities are finding it harder and harder to read or watch content coming out of Shanghai, as government censors step up their block-and-delete operations. A directive issued by the CCP&#8217;s powerful propaganda department to media editors dated April 22 orders editors and censors to remove any reference to a hard-hitting short video featuring an audio montage of the voices of people during the Shanghai lockdown. &#8220;Will all channels please completely remove any copies of &#8220;April Voices&#8221; or screenshots from it, as well as any images deriving from it,&#8221; the directive, posted to the China Digital Times website and attributed to the Beijing Cyberspace Administration, said. A similar message was also attributed by CDT, which curates leaked propaganda directives under its Ministry of Truth section, to the Guangdong Cyberspace Administration. According to Tang Jingyuan said there has been little online complaint or protest regarding lockdowns outside Shanghai, which is home to a highly privileged and well-connected population. &#8220;Firstly, smaller and medium-sized cities don&#8217;t get much public attention anyway, and secondly, local governments may wield stronger control over content like that, so it&#8217;s hard for discontent to spread.&#8221; He said the factional battle lines within CCP ranks have found public expression in Shanghai. &#8220;There is both a public and a hidden struggle going on between their two models,&#8221; Tang said. &#8220;These very strong political factors have led to a high degree of non-cooperation throughout Shanghai, even publicly, which is pretty rare.&#8221; Authorities in Beijing reported 70 new cases of symptomatic COVID-19 during the past four days, and announced they would expand mass PCR testing across most of the city. Supermarkets were scrambling to restock after Monday&#8216;s panic-buying, but residents said basic foodstuffs were still in short supply. In Shanghai, authorities continued to send residents who tested negative outside of the city, mostly to Hangzhou, sparking fear among local people. And media reports said Meng Qinggong, the deputy chief designer of China&#8217;s homegrown CR929 aircraft, died of a heart attack at his home on Sunday after attempts to save him were unsuccessful. Meng died after a long wait for an ambulance, which was hampered by current lockdown restrictions and couldn&#8217;t reach him in time, the reports said....
- [Nearly 40 Buddhist clergy killed and 40 jailed since Myanmar coup](https://ij-reportika.com/nearly-40-buddhist-clergy-killed-and-40-jailed-since-myanmar-coup/): Nearly 40 Buddhist clergy have been killed, and 40 others jailed, since Myanmar’s military took control of the country in a coup last year, according to data compiled by RFA’s Myanmar Service.   The 38 monks and one nun were killed between Feb. 1, 2021 — the day the military seized power — and mid-April 2022, RFA found through analysis of junta press releases, local media reports and interviews with sources.   A recent statement by the junta claimed that 33 monks were killed, and seven others injured, in a single April 3 attack by prodemocracy People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries, a group the military regime has accused of terrorism. RFA was unable to independently verify the claims made by the junta.   RFA’s own records, based on sources and local media reports, show that at least five monks were arrested and killed by junta authorities for alleged links to PDF groups, while another 38 monks are being held in various prisons throughout the country.   Residents and Buddhist leaders from Mandalay region’s Madaya township told RFA that on April 3 a PDF unit killed a monk from the township’s Kin village for allegedly working as an informer for the military. In retaliation, they said, the military arrested the head of the area monastic school Pinnya Wuntha, who later died in detention after being interrogated by troops.   Than Lone, a member of the PDF in neighboring Mingin township, told RFA that with the exception of those with ties to groups such as the pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militia, the PDF had never killed a Buddhist clergy member.   “We can boldly say that no PDF units have killed any civilians … as long as they were not Dalans (informers),” he said.   “No comrade would have done that kind of killing. We are all connected. We might get rid of Dalans or Pyu Saw Htee members, but no one else.”   Than Lone said that the PDFs were formed “to protect the public” from the military and said they “would never do anything that would upset the people.”   Another report on the alleged killing of a monk by the military was relayed to RFA on Sunday by residents of Thabyethar village in Sagaing region’s Wuntho township, who said troops shot and killed the village abbot after he tried to stop them from setting fire to area homes.   When asked by RFA about reports of the killing and arrests of Buddhist clergy, junta deputy information minister, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, said that military has only arrested monks in rare circumstances.   “When it comes to arrests, the government rarely does that to monks,” he said. “In some places, so-called PDF terrorist fighters are operating under the guise of being monks. When we find out who they really are, we must take legal action.”   Zaw Min Tun did not comment on reports of the military killing monks.   Ma Ba Tha monks   Last month, a video went viral on social media in Myanmar purportedly showing monks with the hardline Ma Ba Tha group on a “tour” of several pro-junta villages in Sagaing in support of forming Pyu Saw Htee units. The video appears to show the monks helping to train people and delivering Buddhist sermons.   In one clip, Ma Ba Tha leaders known as “sayadaws” appear to be holding guns in their hands and telling residents that the PDFs are killing people and setting fire to villages.   Sources told RFA that the footage was filmed on Feb. 27 at the Yadanar Kan Myint Htei Monastery during a Pyu Saw Htee training camp graduation ceremony in Taze township’s Kabe village. They confirmed that pro-junta monks have been “carrying guns” and “taking part in some of the fighting” in the region.   A woman in Monywa region, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons, blamed the deaths of the 38 clergy and many other civilians on the country’s leading monks, who she said had failed to intervene and stop the military’s crackdown on opponents to its rule.   “I’m heartbroken that [they] didn’t stop the junta from committing violence and killings,” she said.   According to the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, authorities have killed at least 1,782 civilians and arrested nearly 10,300 others since the Feb. 1, 2021, coup, mostly during peaceful anti-junta protests.   Attempts by RFA to contact the State Sangha Maha Nayaka Group, a Yangon-based Buddhist monastic order, for comment on the reported killings went unanswered Monday.   Ashin Rajadhamma, a member of the Sangha Union in Mandalay, said true monks should not be engaged in weapons training or acting as informants for the military.   “National politics doesn’t call for monks to be involved in an armed struggle,” he said.   “Historically, the involvement of the monks [in politics] was nonviolent. We stand by doing the right thing. That’s why we express our wishes in a non-violent way. We take part in peaceful street protests. That’s how monks should be involved in national politics.”   Of the 38 monks RFA confirmed to be held in prison since the coup, most are from the regions of Mandalay, Sagaing, Bago, Tanintharyi, Ayeyawaddy, Magway and Yangon.   Among them are Thaw Bita (Alinga Kyeh) and Tay Zaniya (Mandalay Hill), two prominent monks with ties to the deposed National League for Democracy (NLD) party who were arrested on the day of the power grab. Thaw Bita was later sentenced to a two-year jail term by a prison court.   There are more than 500,000 Buddhist monks and 600,000 nuns in Myanmar, and while they are aligned in their veneration of the Buddha, their political interests vary. Some Buddhist clergy are outspoken proponents of democracy, while others support the junta for what they say is its protection of religious values.   Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Uyghur internment camp survivors rally outside UN office in Geneva](https://ij-reportika.com/uyghur-internment-camp-survivors-rally-outside-un-office-in-geneva/): Uyghur survivors of China’s internment camps began a weeklong rally outside the United Nations compound in Geneva on Monday, seeking a meeting with the U.N. human rights chief and urging her to issue an overdue report detailing rights abuses in Xinjiang. Qelbinur Sidiq, Gulbahar Jelilova, Gulbahar Haitiwaji and Omir Bekali have requested a meeting with Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights. She announced last month that she had reached agreement with the Chinese government for a visit in May, including the turbulent western China region. The Uyghur women want Bachelet to release the human rights report before she visits China. They offered to accompany the former Chilean president on the trip. “I’d be happy to take them to the camps and prisons in Urumqi,” Gulbahar Jelilova said, referring to Xinjiang’s capital. “If we don’t accompany them, China will play a lot of games not to show them the reality. That’s why we’re requesting to go on this trip.” Gulbahar Jelilova said she could show the U.N. team a location where Uyghurs were executed and a hospital that removed organs from dead prisoners. Jelilova said she was detained on accusations of “aiding terrorism” while on a business trip to Urumqi and put into three different camps over a period of 15 months beginning in May 2017. She returned to Kazakhstan in September 2018, as a direct result of appeals from her two children in Kazakhstan, who sought diplomatic assistance from the Kazakh government. Jelilova has since alleged since that she witnessed a number of atrocities inside the camps, including the torture and the deaths of innocent people. Bachelet’s office has been under pressure from rights activists to issue an overdue report on rights violations by Chinese authorities targeting Uyghurs and other Turkic communities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). Up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and others have been held in a vast network of internment camps operated by the Chinese government under the pretext of preventing religious extremism and terrorism among the mostly Muslim groups. “We hope she discloses the truth to the world after her return,” said Qelbinur Sidiq, 52, who is also known as Kalbinur Sidik. The Xinjiang regional government has published statements discrediting Sidiq and other former Uyghur female detainees, who have testified about the abuse they endured or witnessed in internment camps in Xinjiang. “We’re all fully aware that China is a very crafty and deceptive country extremely skillful at choreographing fake people and fake stages,” said Gulbahar Haitiwaji. “What worries me most is that it’s really not useful but damaging if Michelle Bachelet does not see the real genocide and real repression, but only meets with the people and fake stages set up by China,” she told RFA. Haitiwaji was arrested in January 2017, around the time authorities began to detain Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities en masse, accusing them of “religious extremism” and other allegedly phony charges. She later wrote about her brutal living conditions in prison after she was released and returned to her family France in August 2019. “If she fails to see the real genocide and real repression in our homeland but report something not truthful, then Michelle Bachelet will become complicit with China’s genocide against Uyghurs,” Haitiwaji said. A ‘first solid step’ Omir Bekali, a Uyghur of Kazakh decent who said he was tortured by authorities during the nine months he spent in three camps on allegations of terrorist activities, said the demonstration outside U.N. headquarters was “one of the first solid steps we have taken to end the ongoing genocide of our people and to free them sooner.” “We decided to launch this campaign with the hope of getting more attention from international institutions and media,” he said. “We’re hoping to expand it later to include the European Union. We also hope that camp survivors in the U.S. hold the same rally in front of the U.N. [in New York].” The United States government and the parliaments of some Western nations have declared that the Chinese government’s abuses in Xinjiang constitute genocide and crimes against humanity. Monday’s action comes on the heels of tweet by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield on April 20 that Bachelet to release the report on Xinjiang, which the human rights chief previously said would be finished in September 2021. Bachelet first announced that her office sought an unfettered access to the Uyghur region in September 2018, shortly after she stepped into her current role. But the trip has been delayed over questions about her freedom of movement through the region. International rights groups have said that Bachelet’s visit to Xinjiang must be independent and unhindered to be credible. Also on Monday, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released its annual report, recommending that 15 countries, including China, Myanmar, North Korea and Vietnam, be designated by the State Department as “countries of particular concern” because their governments engage in or tolerate “systematic, ongoing and egregious violations” of religious freedom. The commission is an independent, bipartisan federal government entity created in 1998 to monitor and report on religious freedom abroad and make recommendation to the U.S. administration and Congress. The report noted that the U.S. government had implemented USCIRF recommendations, including the use of targeted sanctions on religious freedom violators and genocide determinations for atrocities perpetrated by the Chinese government against Uyghur and other Turkic Muslims. “Throughout the past year, the U.S. government continued to condemn abuses of religious freedom and hold perpetrators accountable through targeted sanctions and other tools at its disposal,” said USCIRF vice chair Nury Turkel in a statement. “Moving forward, the United States should take additional steps to support freedom of religion or belief around the world. USCIRF’s 2022 Annual Report makes recommendations on how Congress and the Executive Branch can further advance this universal, fundamental human right.” Translated by Alim Seytoff for RFA’s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Malaysia contacts Myanmar’s shadow govt as ASEAN fails to implement 5-point consensus](https://ij-reportika.com/malaysia-contacts-myanmars-shadow-govt-as-asean-fails-to-implement-5-point-consensus/): Malaysia’s top diplomat has revealed he’s had contact with the Burmese shadow government, the first ASEAN country to acknowledge such an interaction, as activists lambasted the bloc on the anniversary of its failed five-point plan to restore democracy in Myanmar. Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah was responding Sunday to an open letter from a Southeast Asian parliamentarians’ group to the leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. In it, they urged the bloc to “immediately and publicly meet with the NUG” – Myanmar’s parallel, civilian National Unity Government. “I have informally met [through virtual conference] the NUG Myanmar foreign minister and the NUCC chairman before the last ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Retreat. Let’s meet and discuss,” Saifuddin said via Twitter, referring to a ministerial retreat that took place in a hybrid format in mid-February after being postponed from an earlier scheduled date amid reports of differences among member-states. Myanmar’s National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC) includes representatives of the NUG, civil society groups, ethnic armed organizations, and civil disobedience groups. In the tweet, Saifuddin tagged the ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR), the group that sent the open letter on Sunday, the anniversary of the day when Southeast Asian leaders and the Burmese junta chief, agreed during an emergency summit to a so-called Five-Point Consensus for action on post-coup Myanmar. Last October, Malaysia’s outspoken foreign minister had said he would open talks with the NUG if the Burmese junta kept stonewalling in cooperating with ASEAN’s conflict resolution efforts. RFA contacted the foreign ministry of Cambodia, this year’s ASEAN chair, for comment but did not immediately hear back. Meanwhile, Bo Hla Tint, the NUG’s special representative to ASEAN, questioned the Southeast Asian bloc’s seriousness in solving the Myanmar crisis. “They have failed to implement, during the past year, the basic point of the ASEAN Common Agreements – to end the violence. And then, they failed to comply with the second point – systematic distribution of humanitarian aid,” he told RFA. “I’d say the ASEAN leadership does not take seriously the policy or framework set down by the ASEAN leadership itself, if the leaders do not take any effective action [against the junta].” This aerial photo taken by a drone shows Bin village in Mingin, a township in Myanmar’s Sagaing region, after villagers say it was set ablaze by the Burmese military, Feb. 3, 2022. Credit: Reuters ‘A five-point failure’ In Malaysia, two analysts praised Saifuddin for breaking from ASEAN and initiating separate action. “Malaysia takes lead on call to review ASEAN’s approach to Myanmar (after a year of failed ASEAN five-point consensus), acknowledging informal meetings with NUG Myanmar,” Bridget Welsh, a political analyst with the University of Nottingham Malaysia, tweeted. Another analyst, Aizat Khairi, a senior lecturer at Universiti Kuala Lumpur, agreed. “Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah’s reaction to the APHR open letter is something refreshing,” he told BenarNews. The five-point agreement reached between ASEAN’s leaders and Burmese military chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing on April 24 last year included an end to violence, the provision of humanitarian assistance, an ASEAN envoy’s appointment, all-party dialogue, and mediation by the envoy. ASEAN has not succeeded in implementing any of these points, said Joshua Kurlantzick, senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, a Washington think-tank. “I think there is no doubt every part of [the consensus] has failed, and with Cambodia as the chair and the junta increasingly backed by China, there is no way the consensus will succeed, or that ASEAN will do anything at all serious about Myanmar,” Kurlantzick told BenarNews. “Suspend Myanmar from ASEAN until a return to democratic rule. &#8230; But ASEAN won’t do that.” He was referring to Beijing’s support for Naypyidaw at international forums, including at the United Nations, since Min Aung Hlaing toppled the elected National League for Democracy (NLD) government on Feb. 1, 2021.   Under ASEAN’s long-standing policy that its 10 members take all decisions collectively through consensus, if one member-state opposes a proposed move, it is shelved. And not every ASEAN member is on board with stricter action against Myanmar other than barring junta representatives from attending top ASEAN meetings, analysts have noted. A “five-point failure” is what the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar (SAC-M), a group of independent international experts, calls ASEAN’s consensus. “The junta has not held to a single point of the five-point consensus. The agreement has failed and a change of course from ASEAN is needed,” SAC-M member Marzuki Darusman said in a statement issued Friday. In fact, since joining the consensus, Min Aung Hlaing has escalated the military’s attack on the people of Myanmar, and continued to target and detain political opponents, SAC-M said. Nearly 1,800 people, mostly pro-democracy protesters, have been killed by Burmese security forces, since the coup. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.
- [Chinese medical experts in North Korea to advise on COVID response](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-medical-experts-in-north-korea-to-advise-on-covid-response/): A Chinese delegation of medical experts has arrived in Pyongyang to advise North Korea on strategies to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, which has been spreading rapidly over the past month, sources in both countries told RFA. Though North Korea has been reluctant to ask for foreign help during the pandemic, Pyongyang specifically requested that China send a team of experts for guidance, a North Korea-related source in Beijing told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “Last week 13 medical officials, doctors and medical technicians left Beijing for Pyongyang, and they are currently staying at the National Academy of Sciences in Pyongyang’s Unjong district,” the source said on Sunday. “North Korea requested help in the fight against the spread of COVID-19 across the country, especially around the Pyongyang area,” he said. The Chinese experts will work closely with North Korea’s National Emergency Quarantine Command, hoping to pass on practical knowledge and expertise in dealing with the virus. They will also train North Korean medical personnel. “So far, China has provided supplies like COVID-19 test kits, protective shields, and vaccines to North Korea. In the future, China will also provide support for production technologies and facilities that can produce diagnostic kits,” said the source. North Korea last year rejected 3 million doses of China’s Sinovac vaccine last September, saying that other countries needed them more. The vaccines the source was referring to are not confirmation that North Korea has begun officially accepting vaccines from China. Sources have told RFA that doses for elite members of society have made their way to Pyongyang in small amounts. For more than two years, North Korea denied that any of its citizens had contracted the coronavirus. This month, Pyongyang finally announced its first cases and deaths, saying the Omicron variant had begun to spread among participants of a large-scale military parade in late April. The country declared a “maximum emergency,” but the situation has worsened as nearly 3 million people have reported having symptoms of the virus. The government has been isolating suspected patients, but the country’s healthcare system is woefully underdeveloped and ill-prepared to withstand the shocks of a major pandemic. As COVID-19 cases increased drastically in Pyongyang, the Central Committee of the ruling Korean Workers’ Party requested urgent assistance from China, a resident of Pyongyang told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “They asked for China to provide medical equipment such as COVID-19 vaccines, test kits and protective clothing and face shields,” said the second source. “While the medical equipment is being brought to Pyongyang, the Central Committee has also requested China’s help in releasing technology needed to help with biological research,” he said. The government established a bio-research center to fight COVID-19, but it hasn’t produced any results yet due to a lack of overseas knowledge. “China agreed to help with our request. The medical staff and technicians came to Pyongyang last week and have been conducting technical training at the National Academy of Science Bio research center located in Pyongyang,” he said. North Korea’s state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper reported on May 14 that the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, ordered researchers to learn from China’s quarantine achievements and experiences. “The Chinese government is willing to support and strengthen cooperation with North Korea during the COVID-19 response,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said. About 2.9 million people have been hit by outbreaks of fever, 68 of whom have died, according to data based on reports from North Korean state media published by 38 North, a site that provides analysis on the country and is run by the U.S.-based think tank the Stimson Center. Around 2.5 million are reported to have made recoveries, while 400,200 are undergoing treatment. The country has only a handful of confirmed COVID-19 cases, which 38 North attributed to insufficient testing capabilities. Data published on the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center showed North Korea with only one confirmed COVID-19 case and six deaths as of Tuesday evening. Tuesday marked the first day that no new deaths were recorded since North Korea declared the emergency on May 12, the state-run Korea Central News Agency reported. &#8220;In a few days after the maximum emergency epidemic prevention system was activated, the nation-wide morbidity and mortality rates have drastically decreased and the number of recovered persons increased, resulting in effectively curbing and controlling the spread of the pandemic disease and maintaining the clearly stable situation,&#8221; KCNA said. Reuters reported that many analysts doubt the accuracy of the statement, citing the difficulty of assessing the true scale of the virus’ spread throughout the country. Translated by Claire Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Cambodian opposition party’s signs destroyed in run-up to local election](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-opposition-partys-signs-destroyed-in-run-up-to-local-election/): Members of Cambodia’s largest opposition party said on Tuesday their campaign signs for June 5 elections in southern Siem Reap province were vandalized and destroyed in the latest of a pattern of harassment. Candlelight Party officials have complained for weeks about incidents of harassment by local officials representing Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP). Every five years, voters in the nation of 16 million people elect councils to represent rural precincts know as communes and urban districts called sangkat. This year some 86,000 candidates from 17 political parties are competing for 11,622 seats in 1,652 precincts nationwide. While the councils hold relatively little power, the June 5 election will test the dominance of the CPP and the limits of political freedom for opponents five years into Hun Sen’s crackdown on civil society, media and the internet. Sock Kissing, the chief of the Candlelight Party’s northwestern province, told RFA’s Khmer Service that signs his party hung in public places were deliberately destroyed, which he said shows the bias held by local officials toward the CPP. “The Candlelight Party urges the authorities to provide equal protection toward the party’s candidates, supporters and party property,” he said. The Candlelight Party has risen from the ashes of the main opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party, whose strong showing in previous communal elections in 2017 prompted Hun Sen have the party dissolved, paving the way for his CPP to win all 125 parliamentary seats in 2018. With its rise has come what Candlelight officials say are made-up accusations that the party has used fake names for candidates and has put forward candidates in violation of Cambodian election laws. Several Candlelight Party activists have been jailed on allegations of submitting false documents to run in the communal elections, and many others say they have been harassed or attacked by people loyal to the CPP. Sock Kissing said that although authorities are monitoring the campaign trail in Siem Reap, they are watching his party in hopes of catching its candidates slip up, rather than ensuring a free and fair election. He intends to file a complaint with the National Election Commission. The Provincial Election Committee’s secretariat chief, Men Vann Sam, told RFA that he had worked with local officials to resolve all complaints. “We are investigating the incidents with local authorities. We are working for all parties, not only the Candlelight Party,” he said. Norn Thera, a Candlelight candidate in Siem Reap, told RFA that he also submitted complaints about political harassment, which makes it hard to conduct a campaign fairly. “I am very sad over the incidents. I can’t accept it. Many party’s banners were destroyed in public spaces,” he said. Destruction of any political party’s property is a crime that affects the political rights of the Cambodians, Sam Kuntheamy, director of the Neutral and Impartial Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia, told RFA. Voting holiday for textile workers The labor ministry announced Tuesday it will give garment factory workers three days paid leave from June 4-6 to vote. Yang Sophoan, director of the Cambodia Alliance of Trade Unions, told RFA that the move is a possible indication of CPP’s confidence in its position heading into the election. “It shows that the CPP thinks it has a huge advantage in the election,” she said. Before the pandemic, Cambodia’s garment sector employed about 1 million workers and accounted for 45 percent of Cambodia’s exports. The CPP, the only party large enough to field candidates nationwide, is expected to win a landslide victory, enjoying the power of incumbency and patronage in what Hun Sun has effectively turned into a one-party state at the national level. The government should allow time for workers from remote areas of the country to travel back home to vote, Ath Thun, president of the Cambodian Labour Confederation, told RFA. Government spokesperson Phay Siphan said the government was not considering extending the voter leave beyond three days. Given the country’s modern infrastructure, he said workers should not need more than 10 hours of travel. The government is not covering transportation expenses, Phay Siphan said. The Ministry of Labor, however, urged factories to pay the workers before they leave to vote, or at least loan them money for travel expenses. Meanwhile, NGOs monitoring the campaign say they have reported no serious incidents so far. Kang Savang, a monitor with the Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia, said parties have continued to conduct their campaigns, including by marching and distributing leaflets.  “There is no serious irregularity or threat during this election campaign,” he said. The National Election Commission issued a statement Tuesday that said the campaigns were proceeding normally.  “In general, the election campaign in the fourth day went smoothly with security, safety and order, without violence or intimidation,” it said. Translate by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Mobile phone service cut amid heavy fighting in Myanmar’s Sagaing](https://ij-reportika.com/mobile-phone-service-cut-amid-heavy-fighting-in-myanmars-sagaing/): Myanmar junta troops on Tuesday briefly cut mobile phone service to eight townships in Sagaing region, leaving more than a million residents without cell access in an effort to mask the movements and operations of Military Council forces in the war-torn area, Myanmar sources say. Phone lines were cut for six hours from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m., with affected areas including Monywa, Pale, Khin Oo, Ye-U, Kanbalu, Kyun Hla and Kani. local sources said. “Yes, the phone lines were cut off around 7,” a resident of Khin Oo told RFA, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “I found a missed-call notification on my phone earlier and now I’m calling you back, but even still the signal is dropping off now and then. “The spot I’m speaking from now has a pretty strong signal, and there is also a place where you can get 2G internet service. But we have to find these kinds of places to make our calls go through,” he said. “Service has been available on and off, but right now it seems to be working again,” said a villager in Sagaing’s Ye-U, where more than 150,000 residents have had trouble making and receiving calls since 6 a.m. “Earlier in the morning, both of my phones didn’t work.” Local providers MPT and Telenor were both down, the source said, also declining to be named. “Service is okay one minute, and then the next it’s not,” he added. Nearly 20 calls made by RFA to affected townships at around 10 a.m. failed to connect, while a call made in the afternoon to a resident of Monywa was blocked. Phone service was largely restored in the township by around 1 p.m., residents said. Myo Swe, director general of the ruling Military Council’s Directorate of Communications, told RFA he was unaware of the reports of a cut-off in services. “I don’t know anything about this issue. We’ll take a look into that,” he said. Inn Phat village in Sagaing&#8217;s Khin Oo township is shown after being burned by Myanmar junta troops, May 16, 2022. Photo: Citizen Journalist But a spokesman for the Myanmar Defense Force, an armed group set up to oppose junta rule, said that junta troops had cut phone service in Sagaing to prevent reporting of their activities and movements in the area. “They don’t want news of their soldiers committing arson reaching the media and the international community,” the spokesman, Bo Taw Win, said. “We have video files of some of them burning houses, but we can’t upload them because of the weak signals. We can only upload photos. “But they also want to cover up our victories. They don’t want people to know about the intensity of the fighting here, and they don’t want any aid from donors to reach us,” Bo Taw Win said. Military activity had been reported in Kani and Ye-U townships after phone service was cut Tuesday morning, he added. Northwest Myanmar’s Sagaing region has been the center of some of the strongest armed resistance to junta rule since the military seized power from the country’s democratically elected government in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup. Myanmar’s military has for months conducted an arson campaign in Sagaing targeting rural villages, killing civilians and burning hundreds of homes, leaving thousands displaced. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane for RFA’s Myanmar Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [Missing Tibetan writer said to be detained in prison in China’s Qinghai province](https://ij-reportika.com/missing-tibetan-writer-said-to-be-detained-in-prison-in-chinas-qinghai-province/): The Tibetan writer and poet Gendun Lhundrub, who has been held incommunicado for more than a year after his arrest in 2020, is being detained in a prison in Siling (in Chinese, Xining), Tibetans with knowledge of his situation said. Lhundrub, aged around 47 and formerly a monk at Rongwo monastery in Rebgong (Tongren) county in the Malho (Huangnan) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, had been monitored by authorities for signs of political dissent before being detained, a Tibetan living in exile told RFA in a previous report. Authorities arrested Lhundrub on Dec. 2, 2020, in western China’s Qinghai province while he was on his way to attend a religious debate in Rebgong. He was put in the back of a black car driven by Chinese police, according to a witness. “We have learned that Gendun Lhundrub whose whereabouts remained unknown until now is being detained at a detention center in Siling,” said a Tibetan who lives inside the Tibet Autonomous Region. “However, his family members are still not allowed to see him, and no information about his condition has been revealed.” Lhundrub is reportedly undergoing political re-education program for which he must translate Tibetan Buddhist scripts into Mandarin Chinese, the source said. The Chinese Communist Party requires Tibetan Buddhist studies to be taught exclusively in Chinese. Chinese officials told Lhundrub’s family in a September 2021 phone call that the writer’s trial would soon be held but have not heard anything since, said a second Tibetan who lives in exile. “According to a source close to Lhundrub, there is still no news about his trial, but he is being detained at a special detention center where his life is not under threat,” the source said. Chinese authorities have frequently detained Tibetan writers and artists who promote Tibetan national identity and culture — with many sentenced to lengthy prison terms — following region-wide protests against Chinese rule that swept Tibet and Tibetan areas in western provinces of China in 2008. Language rights have become a particular focus for Tibetan efforts to assert national identity in recent years, with informally organized language courses typically deemed “illegal associations” and teachers subject to detention and arrest, sources say. Authorities have also issued orders to Buddhist monks and nuns about using Mandarin Chinese instead of Tibetan. At a religious conference in Qinghai in September 2021, government authorities issued instructions that Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and study centers had to begin translating classroom texts from Tibetan into Mandarin Chinese, China’s “common language,” sources told RFA in a report at that time. Monks and nuns were told that they must learn and speak to each other in Chinese instead of their native language, part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s call to Sinicize religion across the country. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Hong Kong activist Benny Tai jailed over voting scheme, cardinal pleads not guilty](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-activist-benny-tai-jailed-over-voting-scheme-cardinal-pleads-not-guilty/): A court in Hong Kong on Tuesday jailed democracy activist and former law professor Benny Tai for 10 months for &#8220;illegally&#8221; promoting a strategic voting scheme for the 2016 Legislative Council (LegCo) elections. Tai, 57, was handed the sentence after pleading guilty to illegally incurring H.K.$253,000 in election expenses by placing six newspaper ads to promote scheme, which aimed to win a majority for pro-democracy parties in LegCo. District Court judge Anthony Kwok said the sentence had been reduced by five months due to the guilty plea and by two months because of delays in prosecuting the case. Kwok said the strategic voting scheme had affected the &#8220;fairness&#8221; of the election, although it was later postponed by the government and held under rules preventing any opposition candidates from standing at all. Tai and 26 other activists and former pro-democracy lawmakers are also awaiting trial under the national security law for subversion for their role in an unofficial democratic primary held in the run-up to the main poll. Onlookers shouted out &#8220;Hang in there!&#8221; and &#8220;Jesus loves you!&#8221; from the public gallery after the sentence was read out. (L-R) Scholar Hui Po-keung, Cardinal Joseph Zen, Cantopop star Denise Ho and former pro-democracy lawmaker and barrister Margaret Ng, who pleaded not guilty to &#8216;collusion with foreign forces&#8217; in connection with their trusteeship of the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, head to court in Hong Kong, May 24, 2022. Credit: RFA. The sentencing came as retired Catholic bishop and Cardinal Joseph Zen and five co-defendants pleaded not guilty to &#8216;collusion with foreign forces&#8217; in connection with their trusteeship of the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, which offered financial, legal and psychological help to people arrested during the 2019 protest movement. Zen&#8217;s co-defendants, former pro-democracy lawmaker and barrister Margaret Ng, scholar Hui Po-keung, jailed former lawmaker Cyd Ho, Cantopop star Denise Ho and former fund secretary Sze Shing-wai, also pleaded not guilty to the same charge at West Kowloon Court on Tuesday. At the hearing attended by the German consul Johannes Harms and other foreign diplomats, the six also pleaded not guilty to another charge of &#8220;failure to apply for registration or exemption from registration of a society within the specified time limit.&#8221; Their trial has been scheduled for Sept. 19, and all defendants barring Cyd Ho were released on bail after the national security police confiscated their passports. The prosecution said it would call 17 witnesses, and present 10 boxes of documents and eight hours of video clips as evidence. Onlookers called out in support of Zen and the others, calling him Peace Cardinal, and exhorting them to &#8220;take care,&#8221; and offering Christian blessings. Meanwhile, the Law Society said it would investigate the defense team for alleged &#8220;professional misconduct,&#8221; prompting fears that the pro-China body will target defense attorneys in a similar manner to official lawyers&#8217; associations in mainland China. The Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong said Tuesday said it will no longer hold masses for those who died in the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, citing fears of prosecution under the national security law. Masses were held at seven churches last year to the June 4, 1989 anniversary. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Australia, India, Japan and US end 'Quad' summit with eyes on China](https://ij-reportika.com/australia-india-japan-and-us-end-quad-summit-with-eyes-on-china/): Leaders of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) met on Tuesday in Tokyo, with China’s increasing influence and assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific region looming large over the four-nation summit. They announced the roll out of a major new maritime initiative that is expected to monitor Chinese maritime activities in the region.  Leaders of Australia, India, Japan and the United States said in a joint statement that they convened “to renew our steadfast commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific that is inclusive and resilient.” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and U.S. President Joe Biden reaffirmed “our resolve to uphold the international rules-based order where countries are free from all forms of military, economic and political coercion.” The statement did not mention China but said the Quad leaders opposed “the militarization of disputed features, the dangerous use of coast guard vessels and maritime militia, and efforts to disrupt other countries’ offshore resource exploitation activities” – actions that China has been accused of in the East and South China Sea.  “The Quad members would probably not say so out loud in public, but in private they would all acknowledge that the Quad only exists because all four members are nervous about the authoritarian tilt of an expansionist and assertive People’s Republic of China (PRC) under President Xi Jinping,” said John Blaxland, professor at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University. “By not being explicit about the raison d’être, the Quad countries hope to provide some space for other regional states to continue to engage constructively on security issues with Quad nations,” Blaxland told RFA. The four leaders announced a so-called Indo-Pacific Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA) initiative that would support Indo-Pacific countries to monitor their waters, not only to respond to humanitarian and natural disasters but also to combat illegal fishing, another reference to China’s assertive actions in the regional seas and oceans. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L) and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida feed carp before their dinner at Akasaka State Guest House in Tokyo on May 24, 2022, following the end of the Quad leaders&#8217; summit between the US, Japan, India and Australia. Credit: AFP ‘Strategic ambiguity’ on Taiwan  A White House fact sheet said the IPMDA will allow tracking of “dark shipping” and other tactical-level activities. “This initiative will transform the ability of partners in the Pacific Islands, Southeast Asia, and the Indian Ocean region to fully monitor the waters on their shores and, in turn, to uphold a free and open Indo-Pacific.” Asked about the Quad statement, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Beijing &#8220;actively upholds the UN-centered international system and the international order underpinned by international law,&#8221; and  took a swipe at critics.  &#8220;We hope certain countries would not see China through tinted glasses and make unwarranted accusations. Building small cliques and stoking bloc confrontation is the real threat to a peaceful, stable and cooperative maritime order,&#8221; he told a news briefing in Beijing Tuesday. The Quad summit came a day after U.S. President Joe Biden attracted much attention and drew criticism from Beijing when he stated that he would be willing to use force to defend Taiwan in the case of any Chinese invasion. China considers the democratic island a breakaway province and vows to “reunify” it with the mainland, by force if necessary. Biden told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday that there was no change to the U.S. policy of “strategic ambiguity” on Taiwan, meaning the U.S. acknowledges the One-China policy but informally supports the island and provides it with defensive weapons. In Beijing, Wang said Washington had “publicly or stealthily incited and endorsed ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist activities” and warned it to stop. “If the U.S. continues to go down the wrong path, there will be irretrievable consequences for the China-U.S. relations and the U.S. will have to pay [an] unbearable price,” he said.. In his opening speech, Biden said the summit was about &#8220;democracies versus autocracies, and we have to make sure that we deliver.&#8221; The Quad leaders also discussed the war in Ukraine, which Biden said had become “a global issue” and Japanese Prime Minister Kishida said a similar invasion should not happen in Asia. Debut of Australia PM Albanese Without mentioning Russia, as Quad member India has so far refused to condemn Moscow, the four leaders said they “reiterated our strong resolve to maintain the peace and stability in the region” at a time of profound global challenges. This is the fourth meeting of the leaders of the Quad, but the second in person because of the Covid pandemic. This is also the first summit for Australia&#8217;s new Prime Minister Anthony Albanese who was sworn in just a day ago. Australia has been spooked by China’s growing presence in the Pacific islands, especially after Beijing signed a controversial security pact with the Solomon Islands that may allow China to deploy troops in Australia’s back yard. “The new Prime Minister has made clear that in terms of broad security policy choices, he is aligned with the previous government,” said Professor Blaxland from the Australian National University. “The difference lies in the rhetoric, Albanese probably will have a softer line.” “It also lies in some of the substance on the issue of the environment. Addressing the felt need of nervous small Pacific Island nations is now seen as being of fundamental importance,” Blaxland said.
- [US Navy: 'Unit-level errors and omissions' led to grounding of nuclear-powered sub](https://ij-reportika.com/us-navy-unit-level-errors-and-omissions-led-to-grounding-of-nuclear-powered-sub/): The U.S Navy has released the command investigation into the submarine USS Connecticut grounding last October, saying that it “resulted from an accumulation of unit-level errors and omissions that fell far below U.S. Navy standards.” Three top commanders of the nuclear-powered submarine were already sacked after the accident happened at an undisclosed location in the South China Sea. An earlier month-long investigation concluded that the Seawolf-class fast-attack submarine hit an “uncharted seamount while operating in international waters in the Indo-Pacific.” A seamount is a mountain that rises from the sea bed. The released command investigation, believed to be heavily-redacted, disclosed further that the collision happened while the USS Connecticut was conducting a so-called humanitarian evacuation (HUMEVAC) transit in the direction of the Japanese island of Okinawa. HUMEVACs are performed when one or more crew members need to disembark at a location for various reasons including family matters or childbirth. The investigation determined that the collision “was preventable.” “Specifically, the grounding resulted from an accumulation of unit-level errors and omissions in navigation planning; watch team execution; and risk management,” it said. Thorough investigation The redacted command investigation recommended nonjudicial punishments for the submarine&#8217;s navigator, assistant navigator, officer of the deck and quartermaster of the watch on duty at the time, but didn’t disclose their names. “The U.S. Submarine force has always been thorough in all their activities and actions,” said Carl Schuster, a former director of operations at the U.S. Pacific Command&#8217;s Joint Intelligence Center in Hawaii. “That leads to credible lessons learned and improving the force to reduce the possibility of future incidents of this nature.” “In my view, the investigation&#8217;s primary benefit lies in the improved procedures, training and operations that it identified,” Schuster said. The investigation found “specific areas for improvement in the deployment training and certification process” and delineates dozens of corrective actions that need to be carried out “with a sense of urgency.” The USS Connecticut hit an uncharted bathymetric feature while operating submerged in a poorly surveyed area in the South China Sea on Oct. 2, 2021. The U.S. Pacific Fleet waited for five days after the incident before issuing a statement, leading to China’s criticism that the U.S. was trying to cover it up. The Pentagon denied that. The submarine is now under repair at its home base in Bremerton, Washington state. The USS Connecticut is one of three Sea Wolf-class submarines, commissioned in the Cold War era. It is 107 meters long and can carry around 130 sailors and officers. It is believed to have cost over $3 billion to build. The U.S. Navy has around 70 submarines, all nuclear-powered.
- [Shandong activist incommunicado as veteran dissident Xu Qin is held without trial](https://ij-reportika.com/shandong-activist-incommunicado-as-veteran-dissident-xu-qin-is-held-without-trial/): As U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet continued her visit to China on Tuesday, friends of Shandong rights activist Li Yu said she has been incommunicado in recent days, and may have been detained. Li, whose rights activism started when she tried to win redress through petitioning for the loss of her home and farmland, hasn&#8217;t responded to large numbers of messages via social media, and her account has been blocking friends without any explanation, her Los Angeles-based friend Jie Lijian told RFA. &#8220;People from the petitioner community back home in China who were close to her haven&#8217;t been able to reach her,&#8221; Jie said. &#8220;We can&#8217;t reach her either, not on WeChat, and her phone is constantly turned off.&#8221; &#8220;We are worried that Li Yu could have been illegally detained by the authorities again, kidnapped or placed under house arrest in a secret detention facility, ostensibly because of disease control and prevention,&#8221; Jie said. &#8220;It&#8217;s hard to tell, because she has been cut off from all of us.&#8221; Jie said Li has likely been detained, however, because she once told him that if she didn&#8217;t reply to his messages, it would be because she was under police surveillance or in detention. A fellow petitioner from the northeastern province of Liaoning, Jiang Jiawen, said she hadn&#8217;t been able to get any response from Li either. &#8220;I can&#8217;t get in contact with her, and I have tried every channel,&#8221; Jiang told RFA. A call to Li&#8217;s cell phone resulted in an electronic message saying: &#8220;The number you have dialed is not in use. Please check and try again.&#8221; Li is no stranger to harassment and detention by the authorities, and has already served two jail terms totaling six years for publicly commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. At the time she went incommunicado, she was living at her mother&#8217;s home in Zaozhuang, Sichuan, and was under close surveillance by the authorities. U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet (2nd, left) meets with Chinese officials on her second day of a key visit to China. Credit: OHCHR Twitter. &#8216;Picking quarrels and stirring up trouble&#8217; Meanwhile, a court in the eastern province of Jiangsu has suspended the subversion trial of Xu Qin, a key figure in the China Rights Observer group founded by jailed veteran dissident Qin Yongmin. Xu had been held on suspicion of &#8220;picking quarrels and stirring up trouble,&#8221; a public order charge typically used in the initial detention of activists and peaceful critics of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). She had been a vocal supporter of a number of high-profile human rights cases, including that of detained human rights lawyer Yu Wensheng. The Yangzhou Intermediate People&#8217;s Court said in an April 22 ruling that the trial had to be suspended &#8220;due to unavoidable circumstances,&#8221; but gave no further details. However, Xu&#8217;s husband Tang Zhi said he wasn&#8217;t informed of the decision until a month later. He said a lawyer had told him that the trial had been suspended at the behest of state security police, which he believes was the result of Xu&#8217;s refusal to plead guilty or &#8220;confess&#8221; to the charges against her. &#8220;This has been postponed again and again; this is the sixth time now,&#8221; Tang said. He said that Xu&#8217;s defense lawyer had been targeted for harassment by state security police after she insisted on defending her not guilty plea. &#8220;The state security police drove to the lawyer&#8217;s law firm and spoke to the director, trying to get her to drop the case, and for her to be fired if she insisted on defending it,&#8221; Tang said. A member of Xu&#8217;s Rose China, a sister group to the China Rights Observer, said the suspension of the trial didn&#8217;t mean the case had been dropped. &#8220;The point of suspending the trial is to keep [her] in detention, rather than to conclude the case,&#8221; the member, who declined to be named, told RFA. &#8220;It looks as if she is being held in long-term detention, but with no conclusion [to the case].&#8221; Quoting Xi to Bachelet Xu, 60, is currently being held at the Yangzhou Detention Center, where she has been on hunger strike in protest at the loss of letter-writing and receiving privileges, and a months-long ban on meetings with her lawyer. &#8220;She didn&#8217;t see her lawyer between Nov. 5, 2021 and Feb. 17 this year, and only then because she went on hunger strike to fight for her rights,&#8221; the Rose China member said. Hundreds of rights organizations have expressed concern that Bachelet&#8217;s visit to China will result in her whitewashing the CCP&#8217;s human rights abuses. Bachelet was presented with a selection of writings on human rights authored by CCP leader Xi Jinping on her arrival in the southern province of Guangdong on Monday. Foreign minister Wang Yi quoted sections from the writings to Bachelet, saying China&#8217;s approach to human rights should work for the rest of the world, and that dialogue on the subject shouldn&#8217;t be &#8220;politicized&#8221; or make use of &#8220;double standards.&#8221; Foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the visit is expected to &#8220;enhance mutual understanding and cooperation, as well as to clarify misinformation,&#8221; in an apparent reference to Beijing&#8217;s claim that the mass incarceration of Uyghurs in Xinjiang and related policies aren&#8217;t a form of targeted totalitarian repression or genocide, as described by the U.S. and international rights groups. Bachelet&#8217;s official Twitter account said merely: &#8220;We will be discussing sensitive, important human rights issues, and I hope this visit will help us work together to advance human rights in China and globally.&#8221; Former 1989 student leader Zhou Fengsuo and founder of the rights group Humanitarian China said he hadn&#8217;t expected much from the U.N. &#8220;The bigger the institution, the more it is controlled by the CCP,&#8221; Zhou told RFA. &#8220;It&#8217;s really outrageous to see Bachelet &#8230; not protesting at all, and happy to receive such nonsense from the dictator Xi Jinping.&#8221; &#8220;This basically reflects the essence of her trip to China: it is to cooperate with the Chinese government...
- [Pregnant women with COVID suffer in North Korea’s run-down medical system](https://ij-reportika.com/pregnant-women-with-covid-suffer-in-north-koreas-run-down-medical-system/): North Korea’s COVID outbreak may be leading to a rise in stillbirths as pregnant women thought to be suffering from the disease are shuttled into hotels, warehouses and other improvised medical facilities that lack proper treatment, sources in the country told RFA. After more than two years of denying any North Korean had contracted the coronavirus, the country finally announced its first cases and deaths this month, saying the Omicron variant had begun to spread among participants of a large-scale military parade in late April. The country then declared a “maximum emergency” and began locking down entire cities and counties, requiring people to check their temperature and report symptoms twice a day. Suspected cases were isolated from the rest of the population. The makeshift quarantine facilities, sometimes set up in empty tourist or industrial facilities, are ill-equipped to treat anyone infected with the virus, and pregnant patients added a new layer of complications. “At the Anju Hotel, men and women with symptoms of COVID-19 are separated and isolated in their rooms,” a resident of the city of Anju in South Pyongan province, north of the capital Pyongyang, told RFA’s Korean Service. About 200 residents of Anju are isolated in the hotel, and their treatment consists of only two pain reliever tablets each day, said the source, who requested anonymity to speak freely. “There are many pregnant women among those with severe symptoms who are quarantined in the hotels,” the source said. “Those who are about to give birth are at risk. There have been cases of stillborn babies, born way before their due date because the women are unable to receive proper treatment. “The quarantine authorities only dealt with the bodies of the stillborn babies and are not giving further treatment or special care for the mothers who complain of high fever or symptoms of postpartum. Families are outraged that the quarantine officials, who say they can only let the grieving mothers go out if they recover from their COVID-19 symptoms,” she said. The source said she knew specifically about two women who had stillbirths, including one who had been helped by a doctor to deliver the baby. In Chungsan county, in another part of the province, suspected COVID-19 cases are isolated in an empty warehouse on a cooperative farm, a resident there told RFA on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The meals are provided by the local government. Two fever pills are provided by the Central Committee to each person, but the pills are not really working for the patients with high fevers,” he said. “Right now, there are about 300 patients that are quarantined at the warehouse and propaganda office at the farm. There are about 20 pregnant women among the group, who, after 10 days of isolation in a harsh environment, are suffering from high fevers and pregnancy poisoning, swelling, and pain all over their bodies, so they are appealing for appropriate treatment,” he said. But the quarantine officials are treating the pregnant women the same as everyone else at the makeshift facility. “They give the pregnant women the same corn-rice and spinach soup as they give to the other patients, and no treatment is given. The pregnant women are having stillbirths because they cannot eat properly when they are sick, and the fetuses die in their stomachs,” he said. “As the news of stillbirths spread among the families of the pregnant women quarantined for COVID-19, local residents are complaining that the authorities and their COVID-19 quarantine measures are killing pregnant women and their unborn babies,” the second source said. About 2.8 million people have been hit by outbreaks of fever, 68 of whom have died, according to data based on reports from North Korean state media published by 38 North, a site that provides analysis on the country and is run by the U.S.-based think tank the Stimson Center. Around 2.3 million are reported to have made recoveries, while 479,400 are undergoing treatment. The country has only a handful of confirmed COVID-19 cases, which 38 North attributed to insufficient testing capabilities. Data published on the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center showed North Korea with only one confirmed COVID-19 case and six deaths as of Monday evening. Translated by Claire Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Long lines for gasoline in Laos as shortage worsens](https://ij-reportika.com/long-lines-for-gasoline-in-laos-as-shortage-worsens/): A gasoline shortage in Laos has motorists queuing in long lines for hours, only to drive away with a small amount of fuel, or none at all, sources in the country told RFA. The price of gas has risen worldwide since the Russian invasion of Ukraine has rattled oil markets and put a strain on the global supply. Landlocked Laos has no oil reserves and imports most of its gasoline from neighboring countries. Though a newly built refinery began operations in 2020, the country’s gas prices are the most expensive in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) outside of Singapore. According to the GlobalPetrolPrices.com website, as of May 16, gasoline in Laos cost U.S. $6.35 per gallon. Laos usually imports 120 million liters (31.7 million US liquid gallons) of gasoline each month but recently has been able to import only 20 million liters, an employee of a fuel importing company told local media. The shortfall leaves Laotians in a daily scramble to get what they can. “There simply is no gas at the pump,” a motorcyclist from the capital Vientiane told RFA’s Lao Service. “The government warns people not to hoard gas, and motorcyclists like me are only allowed to get 1.5 liters of gas at a time. That’s not enough to fill up the tank. If we don’t have gas, we can’t go to work, and the boss will complain.” A government worker from the southern province of Champassak told RFA that most pumps in his area are only open for one hour each day. “If you miss it, there will be no more gas that day,” the government worker said. “This is a serious crisis.” No fuel for plowing The lack of gasoline across Laos is affecting all segments of its economy and nearly every aspect of people’s lives. A farmer in the northern province of Oudomxay told RFA that he cannot plow as frequently as he would like because of the lack of fuel. “We have to get up early then walk between two to five kilometers to the farms, and then we don’t have gas to plow the rice fields either,” he said. “We’ll just have to wait for gasoline to come in.” In northern Laos, transportation companies have been forced to leave their vehicles parked, one bus owner said. “It’s not worth continuing,” he said. “We have fewer passengers now.” Residents of rural villages in Savannakhet province say the shortages leave them even more isolated, a villager told RFA. “No gas, no going out. Only staying at home,” said one villager. Another Savannakhet resident said a pregnant neighbor was almost forced to give birth at home because her husband didn’t have enough gasoline to drive her to her doctor. “My car had some gas left, and I decided to take her to the hospital,” she said. Meanwhile in Borikhamxay, the shortage is also complicating the ability of students to take their final exams, as many rely on motorbikes to commute to school, a principal of a high school told RFA. “Many students live five kilometers or up to eight kilometers from the school … and now, they don’t have gas and can’t go to school,” the principal said. “Likewise, many teachers who live far away from schools some days don’t go to school or come late because they don’t have gas, or they were in line at the pump for gas.” Kip fall behind shortage Laos’ foreign currency problems are a chief cause of the gasoline shortage, Phosisoi Kouthilath, the director of the Industry and Trade Department of Savannakhet province, told RFA. “In our country, the exchange rates are going up every day especially the U.S. dollars. The fuel importers don’t have the dollars to import more gas. That’s why pumps are running out of gas.” According to Asia News Network, the kip depreciated by 6% against the U.S. dollar between Jan. 4 and April 8. A report from the Bank of Laos (BOL) said that from February this year, the kip entered a period in which it set records for decreases in valuation relative to the U.S. dollar and the Thai baht. An official of the Industry and Trade Department of Savannakhet Province said the currency devaluation is making it harder to import gas. “We have to pay in foreign currency for gas,” the official said. “The government doesn’t have the money to give to the gas importing companies.” Laos is entirely dependent on foreign fuel, Sisangkhom Khotyotha, chairman of the Lao Fuel and Gas Association, told RFA. “All fuel in Laos comes from abroad. The importers must pay in U.S. dollars that keeps appreciating, but the kip keeps depreciating,” he said, adding that with the demand for gas is also rising. Turning to Russia? The Lao Prime Minister’s Office issued a notice on May 6 ordering the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Lao Fuel State Enterprise to begin negotiations to buy cheaper oil from Russia. But the situation in Ukraine and international opinion might complicate things. “We’re setting up a national committee that will include the government agencies and gas importing companies. This committee will meet and discuss about the possibility of buying Russian gas,” an official of the Ministry of Industry and Trade told RFA. “However, it won’t be easy. It might be difficult to buy Russian gas because of the conflict with Ukraine,” the official said. Getting the gas from Russia has logistical challenges as well, a government official told RFA on condition of anonymity. “Usually, we import most of our gasoline from Thailand. To change the route won’t be that easy,” the government official said. The Standing Committee of the Lao National Assembly, meanwhile, has agreed with a government proposal to halve all fuel taxes, an official at a fuel warehouse in Vientiane told RFA. The Lao government is also attempting to switch its fleet of vehicles away from gas-powered cars to electric. But that effort is a long way from having any effect on...
- [UN rights chief lowers expectations for heavily scrutinized visit to Xinjiang](https://ij-reportika.com/un-rights-chief-lowers-expectations-for-heavily-scrutinized-visit-to-xinjiang/): The United Nations’ human rights chief flew into China Monday to the dismay and anger of human rights groups and Uyghur activists as she told diplomats her trip to Xinjiang this week wouldn’t be an “investigation” in what was seen as effort to lower expectations. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet arrived in China and told a video call with some 100 participants, mostly Beijing-based diplomats, that setting high expectations would lead to disappointment, according Bloomberg News Agency, which quoted participants without naming them. The trip by Bachelet, a former Chilean president who is the first rights chief to visit China since 2005, has sparked concerns that it will be used by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to whitewash and legitimize its rights record. “Michelle Bachelet’s long-delayed visit to Xinjiang is a critical opportunity to address human rights violations in the region, but it will also be a running battle against Chinese government efforts to cover up the truth,” said Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard. “The UN must take steps to mitigate against this and resist being used to support blatant propaganda,” she added in a statement. “To turn this landmark visit to China into a promotional tour would be a mistake that tarnishes the reputation of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and leaves the Uyghurs facing genocide at the hands of China to struggle alone,” said the Washington-based Campaign for Uyghurs. Chinese Foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Bachelet will travel in a &#8220;closed loop,&#8221; ostensibly to minimize COVID-19 transmission risk, which will mean she won&#8217;t be able to meet anyone outside of the list of contacts pre-arranged by Chinese officials. No journalists will be able to travel with her either, during the May 23-28 trip, Wang said. “Of course #China govt, intolerant of free speech and press, didn’t want journalists traveling with @UNHumanRights @mbachelet. But did UN try to argue for it? No one representing #humanrights, #democracy should make this mistake,&#8221; tweeted Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch. Rights activist have long warned that Bachelet will be kept by Chinese minders from seeing the true picture of what is taking place in the region, including reports of Uyghurs being held in a network of detention camps and being used as forced labor at Chinese factories. Uyghurs demonstrate against China outside of the United Nation offices during the Universal Periodic Review of China by the U.N. Human Rights Council, on Nov. 6, 2018 in Geneva, Switzerland. Credit: AFP. ‘Symbolic visit’ During her May 23-28 visit, she will meet with high-level government levels, academics, and representatives from civil society groups and businesses during stops in the southern city of Guangzhou and in the Xinjiang cities of Urumqi (in Chinese, Wulumuqi) and Kashgar (Kashi), the U.N. said last week. “We are deeply disappointed to learn that U.N. Human Rights High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet is not going to investigate the genocide against the Uyghur people in East Turkestan but rather make a symbolic visit just as China wished,” said Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC). East Turkestan is the Uyghurs preferred name for Xinjiang. “We have repeatedly cautioned High Commissioner Bachelet that such visit would be highly damaging to the U.N. credibility and play right into the hands of the Chinese government to manipulate this trip to whitewash the genocide,” the Germany-based Isa, told RFA. China angrily rejects all genocide and forced labor claims as politically motivated attacks on its security and development policies in the vast western region. Beijing has calling for a &#8220;friendly&#8221; visit by Bachelet. Uyghurs have been pressing for the release of a report on the rights situation in Xinjiang by the OHCHR, Bachelet’s office in Geneva, which has been delayed since September.  Ordinary Chinese have also pressed the U.S. rights chief to take up the cases of jailed loved ones. The mother of a man jailed and reportedly tortured after someone posted a photo of ruling CCP leader Xi Jinping&#8217;s daughter to a website he ran said she has written to Bachelet, calling on her to ask authorities in the southern province of Guangdong about his case. &#8220;I heard Ms. Bachelet was going to be Guangzhou this week, and the miscarriage of justice involving [my son] Niu Tengyu and 24 other young people also took place here in Guangdong,&#8221; Niu&#8217;s mother Coco told RFA. &#8220;I hope that Ms. Bachelet can call on the Guangdong authorities to revoke these miscarriages of justice and release Niu Tengyu, and all the other young people.&#8221; &#8220;I hope she will bring this case up with the country&#8217;s leaders and urge Guangdong to right this wrong,&#8221; she said. Beijing-based rights lawyer Yu Wensheng tweeted that he was looking forward to briefing her about the human rights situation in China, although he is highly unlikely to have access. Fellow rights attorney Wang Yu called on Bachelet to meet with some of China&#8217;s human rights lawyers, and inquire after jailed lawyers Li Yuhan, Chang Weiping, Ding Jiaxi and Qin Yongpei. Controlling the narrative Pema Dolma, a London-based campaign director of the activist group Students for Free Tibet, said the lack of transparency rendered the entire visit suspect, however. &#8220;If there is any indication that this visit is subject to restrictions [by the Chinese government], will the High Commissioner immediately end her visit?&#8221; she said. &#8220;I think it is safe to say that the answer is no.&#8221; Bachelet traveled this week in spite of calls from 220 human rights organizations, who called in a joint statement earlier this month for her to cancel her trip. The statement received no response. “Having an opaque visit to China and writing a report that highlights the concerns of the Chinese government rather than those of civil society is actually part of what Xi Jinping wants,&#8221; Pema Dolma said. &#8220;[He wants] to be able to control the human rights narrative.&#8221; Bachelet also arrives just ahead of the politically sensitive anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre, an overseas-based rights group said....
- [Tibetan monks told to take blame for statue demolitions](https://ij-reportika.com/tibetan-monks-told-to-take-blame-for-statue-demolitions/): Authorities in western China’s Sichuan province are forcing Tibetan monks to take the blame for the destruction of sacred statues torn down by China, ordering them to sign affidavits claiming responsibility, RFA has learned. The move follows widespread condemnation of the demolitions in Drago (in Chinese, Luhuo) county in the Kardze (Gandzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture that were reported by RFA’s Tibetan Service in January. “After reports of these demolitions in Drago county reached the international community, the Chinese government is now accusing Tibetan monks in Drago of destroying the Buddhist statues, and is coercing them into signing documents to take the blame,” a Tibetan living in exile said, citing contacts in the region. “But due to tight restrictions in the area right now, it is difficult to gather information on what punishment the monks will receive if they refuse to sign these documents,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity to protect his contacts. “Most of the local Tibetans and monks who were arrested for sharing news of the Buddha statues’ destruction have now been released, but they are constantly being harassed and are closely watched by the Chinese authorities,” the source added. A 99-foot-tall Buddha statue that stood in Drago was targeted for demolition in December by officials who said it had been built too high. Monks from a local monastery and other Tibetan residents were forced to witness the destruction, an action experts called part of an ongoing campaign to eradicate Tibet&#8217;s distinct national culture and religion. Destroyed along with the statue were 45 traditional prayer wheels set up for use by Tibetan pilgrims and other worshippers, sources said. Drago county chief Wang Dongsheng, director of the demolition, had earlier overseen a campaign of destruction at Sichuan’s sprawling Larung Gar Buddhist Academy. Eleven monks from a nearby monastery were then arrested by Chinese authorities on suspicion of sending news and photos of the statue’s destruction, first reported exclusively by RFA, to contacts outside the region. Using commercial satellite imagery, RFA later verified the destruction at the same time of a three-story statue of Maitreya Buddha, believed by Tibetan Buddhists to be a Buddha appearing in a future age, at Gaden Namgyal Ling monastery in Drago. Communications clampdowns and other security measures meanwhile remain in place in Drago county, said Pema Gyal, a researcher at London-based Tibet Watch. “Chinese authorities continue to impose restrictions on Drago county, and those released from prison are kept under scrutiny all the time,” Gyal said. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [More than a dozen Rohingya die when boat capsizes off Myanmar coast](https://ij-reportika.com/more-than-a-dozen-rohingya-die-when-boat-capsizes-off-myanmar-coast/): More than a dozen people, including women and children, died on Saturday when a boat carrying at least 90 Rohingya from western Myanmar’s Rakhine state to Malaysia capsized and sank in the Bay of Bengal during a storm, Myanmar residents and rescue workers said. The passengers, refugees from deadly crackdowns on Rohingya Muslims by Myanmar troops that have driven nearly a million people into camps in Rakhine and neighboring Bangladesh, had paid U.S. $1,500-2,500 each to traffickers to take them to Malaysia, where they hoped to find employment, some of the Rohingya survivors told RFA. More than 50 other passengers remain missing, and more than 20 survivors, mostly men, have been detained by local authorities at the Shwe Thaung Yan township police station in Pathein district of Ayeyarwady region, the sources said. “Ninety people were said to be on the boat, 23 were arrested, and 14 dead bodies have been found so far, most of them children around 11 or 12 years of age,” said a Shwe Thaung Yan resident who declined to be named for safety reasons. RFA has not been able to independently confirm the figures. Seven bodies were recovered after they washed ashore Sunday near the popular Shwe Thaung Yan beach, local rescue workers said. Six others were found earlier in the afternoon in the Wetlet area, and another body washed up on the shore in Shwe Thaung Yan’s ward No. 1. The bodies were not found on the resort side of the beach, one local said. One rescue worker said the bodies were buried Sunday night with the help of Muslim religious leaders from Pathein. “The bodies were buried yesterday,” he said. “The leaders of their religious group came and buried them. We found another dead body in Shwe Thaung Yan No. 1 ward at about 5.30 p.m. The Muslim leaders buried it too. They came from Pathein.” The passengers were trying to reach Malaysia from displacement camps in Rakhine’s Sittwe, Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships, locals said. The ward administrator said that the traffickers and some people about 20 years of age were found alive. “The single body found in our ward was that of a 10-year-old girl,” he said. He speculated that the boat may have been sunk in a cyclone. “The sea around here is very scary. Storms come unannounced sometimes,” he said. Traffickers apprehended Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, spokesman for Myanmar’s ruling junta, said that the boat capsized about five nautical miles west of Thapyay Hmaw Island near Shwe Thaung Yan. “A search was carried out and found 14 Bengalis dead. The rest will be deported as usual,” he said. Authorities captured five “suspects” in Shwe Thaung Yan’s Thae Gone village at about 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, Zaw Min Tun said. “We checked them and found them to be human traffickers. They were bringing these Bengalis from [Rakhine’s] Rathedaung [township] by boat to go to Yangon and then to Malaysia,” he said, using a derogatory term for Rohingya, who in Myanmar are considered illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. In addition to tens of thousands of Muslim refugees in Rakhine, more than 740,000 Rohingya have been sheltering since a 2017 crackdown at refugee camps in southeastern Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar, where they are fenced in and not allowed to work outside their confines. Rohingya in the camps and those still in western Myanmar pay traffickers to transport them to Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand to find work and a better life. Groups of Rohingya have also packed into boats and sailed off in search of asylum in other countries, often only to be denied entry. Tin Hlaing from the Rohingya displacement camp in Thetkeibyin village, Sittwe township, said many have tried to leave Myanmar with the help of traffickers, which in most cases has not ended well. “They left because there are a lot of difficulties in the refugee camps here,” he said. “About 90% of them had financial problems. Jobs are scarce. In some cases, children have grown up. … That’s why they leave.” The Rohingya often ignore warnings of camp administrators about the risks of paying traffickers to transport them, Tin Hlaing said. “About 35 out of 100 people make it,” he said. “They have to pay a lot of money to the traffickers and now they are losing their lives.” “The latest tragedy shows once again the sense of desperation being felt by Rohingya in Myanmar and in the region,” Indrika Ratwatte, director of the regional bureau for Asia and the Pacific at the U.N.’s refugee agency (UNHCR), said in a statement issued Monday. “It is shocking to see increasing numbers of children, women and men embarking on these dangerous journeys and eventually losing their lives.” At least 1,000 Rohingya have left internal displacement camps in Rakhine’s Buthidaung, Maungdaw and Sittwe township s every year in an effort to eke out a living elsewhere. They usually must pay traffickers 3 million-5 million kyats (U.S. $1,600-2,700) per person to be smuggled. Nay San Lwin, co-founder of the Rohingya Liberation Coalition, said Rohingya hoping for a better future in Malaysia have been repeatedly deceived by traffickers “People are not allowed to travel, [and] their working rights are restricted, so they try to flee, thinking that if they go to Malaysia, they will find a brighter future,” he said. RFA could not reach Maung Maung Than, social affairs minister of Ayeyarwady region, for comment. Myanmar police arrested 41 Rohingya in Shwe Taung Yan’s Nwe Nyo Chaung village on March 22 after their boat broke down and was stranded on the beach. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane for RFA’s Myanmar Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Xinjiang goldsmith’s death after release from prison is followed by son’s demise](https://ij-reportika.com/xinjiang-goldsmiths-death-after-release-from-prison-is-followed-by-sons-demise/): A Uyghur goldsmith died 20 days after being released from prison and his 20-year-old son died the next day at his funeral in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region, Chinese government officials said. Yaqup Hesen, 43, was released from prison in Ghulja (in Chinese, Yining) in April and died on May 1, the eve of the Eid al-Fitr holiday that marked the end of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan. Bilal Yaqup, his son, died the following day, the sources said, confirming news about the pair that had circulated on social media. Despite China’s severe restrictions on online information, reports of the deaths of Uyghurs detained in prisons and internment camps in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) have continued to circulate on Facebook and other platforms. Many of the videos and photos posted are of deceased Uyghurs who are under the age of 50 and had lost a significant amount of weight while incarcerated. A Facebook post about the father and son said Bilal collapsed and died while carrying his father&#8217;s casket at the businessman’s funeral. A resident from the neighborhood committee in the area of Ghulja where Hesen lived said many Uyghurs have died after being released from area prisons and camps, but she did not disclose their names. “There are many. I don’t know all their detailed identities,” she said. A neighborhood committee official where Hesen lived told RFA that he had been jailed for praying. He spent three years in prison and left unable to walk. “He lived in our neighborhood,” she said. “It’s been three years since he was sentenced to prison.” The committee official also confirmed that Bilal died the day after his father passed away. “I don’t know the reason for his death,” she said. Tursunjan, a Uyghur from Ghulja who now lives in Turkey and who knew Hesen, told RFA that he called people in the city after he had seen a social media post about the man’s death to find out if the information was accurate. His sources in Ghulja confirmed to him through gestures on a video call that the information about the father’s and son’s deaths was correct, he said. Tursunjan said he learned that Hesen was taken away in 2018 and was sentenced to prison a year later. He was released in critical condition in April about two to three weeks before Eid al-Fitr. “He was sentenced to prison three years ago. That’s what I heard,” he said. “After his death, I heard that he had been actually released from prison,” Tursunjan said. “He was pronounced dead on the eve of Eid.” Hesen’s and Bilal’s deaths spoiled a typically festive mood in the city during the Eid al-Fitr holiday, Tursunjan said. “He had a very good reputation in the city as an ethical and pious person,” said Tursunjan, who said he knows at least 40 people from Ghulja who are still in prison. Hospital treatment Another Uyghur from Ghulja who now lives abroad but requested anonymity for safety reasons, said municipal police, state security forces and a group of Chinese government officials from the XUAR attended Hesen’s funeral. One of the members of the group told RFA that Hesen died due to ineffective treatment for an illness and confirmed that Bilal passed away the day after Hesen died. “We heard he died, so we went [to the funeral],” the government official said. “We didn’t know what the cause of his death was.” Hesen’s family took him to hospitals in Ghulja and Urumqi (Wulumuqi), the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) capital for treatment, the Uyghur in exile who requested anonymity said. “The family tried hard to treat him in hospitals both in Ghulja and Urumqi, but all were ineffective,” he said. “His son fainted and died because of deep mourning about his father’s passing.” Chinese authorities have targeted and arrested numerous Uyghur businessmen, intellectuals, and cultural and religious figures in the XUAR for years as part of a campaign to monitor, control and assimilate members of the minority group purportedly to prevent religious extremism and terrorist activities. Many of them have been among the 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities believed to be held in a network of detention camps in Xinjiang since 2017. Beijing has said that the camps are vocational training centers and has denied widespread and documented allegations that it has mistreated Muslims living in Xinjiang. The United States and the legislatures in several Western countries have deemed the treatment of Uyghurs and others in the XUAR as constituting genocide and crimes against humanity. Translated by RFA’s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Former RFA blogger in failing health in Vietnam jail](https://ij-reportika.com/former-rfa-blogger-in-failing-health-in-vietnam-jail/): A Vietnamese journalist jailed for writing articles that criticized Vietnam’s one-party communist government is in failing health, with prison authorities refusing family requests to send him outside the facility for medical treatment, RFA has learned. Nguyen Truong Thuy, a former vice president of the Vietnam Independent Journalists Association (IJAVN), is serving an 11-year sentence at the An Phuoc detention center in southern Vietnam’s Binh Duong province on a charge of “propagandizing against the state.” He had blogged on civil rights and freedom of speech issues for RFA’s Vietnamese Service for six years and visited the United States in 2014 to testify before the House of Representatives on media freedom in Vietnam. Thuy, 72, is now suffering in custody from back pain, high blood pressure, scabies and inflammatory bowel disease, Thuy’s wife, Pham Thi Lan, told RFA in a recent interview. “I visited him on May 14, and he told me that he now has less back pain but still has to take medicine to treat the problem with his large intestine. And he still has problems with scabies, as the treatment he has been given for this so far has been unsuccessful,” Lan said. Detention center authorities have rejected requests to send Thuy to a medical center outside the jail for better treatment and have downplayed the severity of his condition, Lan added. “In a letter he sent home in March, my husband wrote that he sometimes had to urinate in his cell and seek medical help every week because of issues with his health, and because of this, I made a request that he be sent to another facility for treatment,” Lan said. “But the center said his health was not that bad, and they told me to correct the information in my report.” A former officer in the Vietnam People’s Army, Thuy worked at a construction company after being discharged and then retired with a pension of more than 6 million VND ($260) per month. But payments were stopped in March after an authorization letter allowing his family to receive his pension on his behalf expired. Thuy’s harsh treatment behind bars may be due to his refusal to plead guilty to the charges filed against him or to recognize the court’s verdict in his trial, Lan said. She called on the international community to pressure Vietnam’s government to allow him to seek medical care. Calls by RFA seeking comment from the An Phuoc detention center were unanswered. Truong Van Dung is shown with his arrest warrant issued by Hanoi Police on May 21, 2022. Police in Vietnam’s capital in a separate case on May 21 arrested Hanoi resident and human rights activist Truong Van Dung, charging him under Article 88 of Vietnam’s 1999 Penal Code with “conducting propaganda against the State,” Dung’s wife Nghiem Thi Hop told RFA the same day. Dung, who was born in 1958, was taken into custody at around 7 a.m. at the couple’s home, Hop said. “While I was out shopping, I received a phone call from a neighbor telling me he had been arrested, and I came back at 7:30 but they had already taken him away.” Police in plain clothes then arrived and read out an order to search the house, taking away books, notebooks, laptop computers and protest banners, she added. Dung had participated in protests in Hanoi including demonstrations against China’s occupation of the Paracel Islands — an island group in the South China Sea also claimed by Vietnam — and protests against the Taiwan-owned Formosa Company for polluting the coastline of four central Vietnamese provinces of Vietnam in 2016. Public protests even over perceived harm to Vietnam’s interests are considered threats to its political stability and are routinely suppressed by the police. Dung’s arrest under Article 88 of Vietnam’s Penal Code is the second arrest on national security charges reported since Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh’s May 12-17 visit to the U.S. Cao Thi Cue, owner of the Peng Lai Temple in southern Vietnam’s Long An province, was arrested on charges of “abusing the rights to freedom and democracy” under Article 331 of the 2015 Penal Code. Both laws have been criticized by rights groups as tools used to stifle voices of dissent in the one-party communist state. Translated by Anna Vu for RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [Flickering dreams of democracy](https://ij-reportika.com/flickering-dreams-of-democracy/): Cambodia is set to open two weeks of campaigning for local Commune Council elections on June 5. Prime Minister Hun Sen has urged authorities to remain neutral during the race, but politicians are wary after months of violence and harassment directed against aspiring candidates from parties other than the strongman&#8217;s Cambodian People&#8217;s Party. Cambodians also recall the previous local elections in 2017, where a strong showing by the main opposition party prompted Hun Sen, who has ruled the country since 1985, to ban the party and arrest its leader, a move that allowed his party to sweep all seats in parliamentary voting the following year.
- [President Biden warns China over invasion threat, drawing parallel with Ukraine](https://ij-reportika.com/president-biden-warns-china-over-invasion-threat-drawing-parallel-with-ukraine/): U.S. President Joe Biden warned on Monday that China is &#8216;flirting with danger&#8217; with its ongoing threat to annex democratic Taiwan, saying the U.S. is &#8220;committed&#8221; to defending the island in the event of a Chinese invasion. Speaking during a visit to Tokyo, Biden was asked if Washington was willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan, replying: &#8220;Yes. That&#8217;s the commitment we made.&#8221; Biden said such an invasion would mirror Russia&#8217;s invasion of Ukraine. &#8220;We agreed with the One China policy, we signed on to it&#8230; but the idea that it can be taken by force is just not appropriate, it would dislocate the entire region and would be another action similar to Ukraine,&#8221; Biden said. Biden warned that Beijing was &#8220;flirting with danger right now by flying so close and all the maneuvers undertaken,&#8221; in a reference to repeated sorties flown by China&#8217;s People&#8217;s Liberation Army (PLA) jets in the island&#8217;s Air Defense Exclusion Zone (ADIZ), as well as naval exercises and other displays of strength in the Taiwan Strait. In a joint statement, Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said that their basic positions on Taiwan remained unchanged. While Washington lacks formal diplomatic ties with Taipei, it is bound under the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) to ensure the island has the means to defend itself, and to be prepared to &#8220;resist any resort to force &#8230; that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan,&#8221; the law says. Slavic people living in Taiwan display posters and a Ukraine flag during a rally at the Free Square in front of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei, May 8, 2022. Credit: AFP. &#8216;No room for compromise&#8217; The law says that the U.S. should also resist &#8220;any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes.&#8221; Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin hit back, warning that &#8220;no one should underestimate the firm resolve, staunch will and strong ability of the Chinese people in defending national sovereignty and territorial integrity.&#8221; &#8220;China has no room for compromise or concession,&#8221; Wang told a regular news briefing in Beijing. Taiwan foreign ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou welcomed Biden&#8217;s comments. &#8220;The Ministry of Foreign Affairs welcomes and expresses its sincerest thanks for the reiteration by President Biden and the U.S. government of its rock-solid commitment to Taiwan,&#8221; Ou said. She said Taiwan will continue to boost its own capability to defend itself against a potential invasion, and deepen cooperation with like-minded countries like the U.S. and Japan to strengthen regional stability. Ding Shu-Fan, honorary professor at Taiwan&#8217;s National Chengchi University, said Biden&#8217;s statement was of a piece with an earlier promise from former president George W. Bush in 2001, who said Washington would do &#8220;whatever it takes&#8221; to defend Taiwan from a Chinese attack. &#8216;Strategic ambiguity&#8217; Alexander Huang, international affairs director at Taiwan&#8217;s opposition Kuomintang, also welcomed Biden&#8217;s comments, but said it was unlikely they represented a departure from the &#8220;strategic ambiguity&#8221; practiced by Washington for decades in a bid to prevent either a Chinese invasion or a formal declaration of independence from Taiwan. &#8220;President Biden&#8217;s comments came as he took questions from reporters,&#8221; Huang said. &#8220;When the U.S. wants to revise its current policy of strategic ambiguity and take a publicly known stance, or change its policies on China or Taiwan, it is unlikely to do it at this kind of function.&#8221; Su Tse-yun, an associate researcher at Taiwan&#8217;s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, told this station that countries in the Asia-Pacific region have started to need more clarity, and with a greater sense of urgency, on Washington&#8217;s likely strategy in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. &#8220;In this context, Biden&#8217;s announcement is constructive, clear, and unwavering,&#8221; Su told RFA. Taiwan is a democratic country governed under the aegis of the Republic of China founded by Sun Yat-sen in 1911. Its government has controlled the islands of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu since Chiang Kai-shek&#8217;s KMT regime lost the civil war to Mao Zedong&#8217;s communists in 1949. Taiwan issues Republic of China passports to its 23 million citizens, who have never been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and who have no wish to give up their democratic way of life for &#8220;unification&#8221; under Beijing&#8217;s plan, according to opinion polls in recent years. Beijing, for its part, insists that its diplomatic partners sever ties with Taipei, and has blocked the country&#8217;s membership in international organizations like the United Nations and the World Health Organization (WHO). Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Biden unveils US Info-Pacific economic plan after summits in Japan, South Korea](https://ij-reportika.com/biden-unveils-us-info-pacific-economic-plan-after-summits-in-japan-south-korea/): U.S. President Joe Biden wound up his visit to South Korea and Japan Monday with the announcement of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF), drawing more Southeast Asian involvement than previously anticipated. A statement by the White House said the U.S.-led regional economic initiative includes a dozen initial partners: Australia, Brunei, India, Indonesia, Japan, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam; together representing 40% of the world’s GDP. Earlier this month, diplomatic sources said that only two of the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) &#8211; Singapore and the Philippines &#8211; were expected to be among the initial countries joining negotiations under IPEF. One of the reasons for hesitancy is the U.S. Indo-Pacific plans are considered to be designed to counter China’s rising influence in the region, and ASEAN countries, especially small- and medium-sized, may wish to stay neutral. It appears that the situation has changed after the special U.S.-ASEAN summit in Washington in mid-May, with Brunei, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam also signing up.  “The U.S. is finally re-engaging economically in the Indo-Pacific region,” said Norah Huang, associate research fellow at Prospect Foundation, a Taiwanese think tank. “The delay says there have been difficulties of the political climate back home and in this part of the world,” she said.  Indo-Pacific economic power Details remain vague but it is understood that IPEF is not a free-trade agreement, but an economic cooperation seeking to establish trade rules across “four pillars” &#8211; trade resiliency, infrastructure, decarbonization and anti-corruption. The White House said it will “enable the United States and our allies to decide on rules of the road that ensure American workers, small businesses, and ranchers can compete in the Indo-Pacific.” With U.S. direct investment in the region totaled more than U.S. $969 billion in 2020, the U.S. “is an Indo-Pacific economic power, and expanding U.S. economic leadership in the region is good for American workers and businesses — as well as for the people of the region.” China has been critical of the U.S. involvement in the region. On Sunday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said “the so-called ‘Indo-Pacific Strategy’ is bound to fail.” Speaking in Guangzhou after talks with visiting Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. Wang said the strategy “is causing more and more vigilance and concern” because it is “attempting to erase the name &#8220;Asia-Pacific&#8221; and the effective regional cooperation architecture in the region.” IPEF “should promote openness and cooperation instead of creating geopolitical confrontation,” Wang said. The U.S. is “politicizing, weaponizing and ideologizing economic issues and using economic means to coerce regional countries to choose sides between China and the United States,” according to the Chinese Foreign Minister. Regional reaction Regional economic powers Singapore and Malaysia were the first to welcome the IPEF.  Malaysian International Trade and Industry Minister Mohamed Azmin Ali tweeted on Monday that IPEF “serves as an impetus for economic diplomacy between USA and the Indo-Pacific region.” “I am optimistic that this cooperation acknowledges that our economic policy interests in the region are intertwined, and deepening economic engagement among partners is crucial for continued growth, peace, and prosperity.” Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong last week said that he encouraged more ASEAN participation in the IPEF which he said “needs to be inclusive and provide tangible benefits.” “To get India and Indonesia signed up will be important to up the game and could serve as catalyst for hesitant actors to come off fence,” said Norah Huang from the Taiwanese Prospect Foundation. Staunch U.S. allies South Korea and Japan, which President Biden has visited since Saturday, both supported the IPEF as “they clearly support any U.S. engagement within the region,” said Stephen Nagy, senior associate professor at the Department of Politics and International Studies, International Christian University in Tokyo. Before the IPEF launch, Biden held a meeting with the Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, their first formal face-to-face.  Quad meeting On Tuesday, the U.S. President will attend a summit of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, with leaders of Japan, India and Australia. The meeting will “focus on a rules-based order, enhancing infrastructure and connectivity in the region and in general, providing public goods to the broader region,” said Nagy. “The leaders will also discuss security in the maritime environment, primarily secured through cooperation within the Quad, as well as peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” the analyst said. Taiwan has not been invited to IPEF, a decision called “regrettable” by Taipei. &#8220;As an important economy that plays a crucial role in the global supply chain, Taiwan is definitely qualified for inclusion in the IPEF,” the Taiwanese Foreign Ministry said in a statement. In Tokyo on Monday, however, President Biden said he would be willing to use force to defend Taiwan in the case of a Chinese attack. &#8220;We agree with a one-China policy. We&#8217;ve signed on to it and all the intended agreements made from there. But the idea that, that it can be taken by force, just taken by force, is just not, is just not appropriate,&#8221; Biden said in Tokyo, adding that it was his expectation that such an event would not happen or be attempted, Reuters news agency reported. China swiftly expressed its “strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition” in comments by Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry. “On issues concerning China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and other core interests, there is no room for compromise,” Wang told a daily briefing in Beijing.
- [China pushes the ‘Sinicization of religion’ in Xinjiang, targeting Uyghurs](https://ij-reportika.com/china-pushes-the-sinicization-of-religion-in-xinjiang-targeting-uyghurs/): When Erkin Tuniyaz, chairman of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), visited the largest mosque in Urumqi before the Eid al-Fitr holy day marking the end of Ramadan, he used the opportunity to promote Beijing’s policy of assimilation of non-Chinese people in its far western resgions. “According to the arrangements and invitation of the autonomous region party committee, we must hold absolutely tight to the plan for Sinicizing the Islamic religion in Xinjiang and actively take the lead in fitting the Islamic religion into socialist society,” he said at the Noghay Mosque, as quoted in an April 30 article by Xinjiang Daily.   Though the 19th-century mosque is technically open, the complex is cordoned off with fences and barbed wire. In recent years, Chinese authorities removed the Arabic shahada, or testament of faith from above the entrance gate to the building — the largest mosque in Urumqi (in Chinese, Wulumuqi) — also known as the Tatar Mosque. They also installed a security checkpoint next to the gate where Muslim worshippers must pass facial recognition scanners to verify their identities as uniformed guards look on. A few days before Erkin made his statement, XUAR Party Secretary Ma Xingrui commented on China’s political strategy in the region, reemphasizing the concepts of “the shared sense of belonging of the Chinese nation” and “ethnic fusion” in an April article in the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Ma proposed strengthening assimilative policies in the XUAR along with the further tightening of the CCP’s religious policy by Sinicizing Islam. Sinification policies and debates long predate the 1949 Communist Party seized of power, said a recent study in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, which defined it as “ the process by which all non-Han or non-Sinitic people who entered the Chinese realm, no matter whether as conquerors or conquered, eventually were inevitably assimilated as Chinese.” But under the decade-long rule of CCP chief Xi Jinping, coercive assimilation has picked up pace—not only in Xinjiang, but also in Tibet&lt; Inner Mongolia and other areas populated by minorities. The drive to erase differences among the cultures is enforced in Xinjiang by a vast high-tech mass surveillance system, heavy-handed grassroots policing and mass internment camps that have target a significant number of the 12 million Uyghurs. The Sinicization of religion in the XUAR takes aim at the Islamic aspects of the Uyghur identity—a policy whose heavy-handed imposition that some Western governments say constitutes genocide under international law. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet will travel to Urumqi and Kashgar (Kashi), during a May 23-28 visit to China, the first by a U.N. human rights chief since 2005. Her trip has raised questions about her freedom of movement through the region, with many Uyghur groups and rights experts warning her that Beijing will put on a staged tour and use it for propaganda against its critics. Xi first put forward the concept at the Communist Party’s 19th People’s Congress on Oct. 18, 2017. At the time, Chen Quanguo, then party secretary of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, was stepping up what’s become a well-documented campaign of oppression against the Uyghurs as part of a forced assimilation effort. Chen and his successor Ma Xingrui, who was appointed XUAR party secretary in late 2021, executed state policies concerning the “Sinicization of religion” and “creating awareness of the shared sense of belonging to the Chinese nation.” During a recent inspection of the XUAR, Wang Yang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo of the CCP and chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, issued a special directive regarding the “resolute advancement of the Sinicization of Islam in Xinjiang.” The Chinese government has vigorously implemented its policy not only for Muslims in Xinjiang, but also for Tibetan Buddhists, Christians, Protestants and others throughout the country, demanding that the religious groups adhere to and support the CCP’s rule and ideology. For Muslims, the policy means being forced to renounce their Islamic faith, according to testimony given by Uyghur survivors of detention camps in Xinjiang. Authorities have forced Uyghurs to eat pork, which is forbidden in Islam, have gathered and burned copies of the Quran, and have restricted the wearing of beards for men and of long clothing and headscarves for women. Uyghur names such as “Muhammad,” “Ayishe,” and “Muhajid” have been forbidden and, in cases where those names have been given to children, the authorities have implemented very strict policies to change them. Applying for passports and traveling abroad have been reasons for detention in camps, which means that Uyghurs have lost their right to go on the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca that all Muslims are expected to make at least once during their lifetime. While China’s legal guarantee of religious freedom are touted in propaganda, and said to be composed according to Western standards, “it exists simply on paper,” said Nury Turkel, vice chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). “This is a means of deceiving people, of [China] trying to portray its own system as perfect.”   A banner reading &#8216;Love the Party, Love the Country&#8217; in the Chinese and Uyghur languages hangs from a mosque near Kashgar Yengisheher county, Kashgar prefecture, in northwestern China&#8217;s Xinjiang region, March 20, 2021. Credit: Associated Press ‘Eradication of Islam’ Chinese authorities have detained more than 1,000 imams and clerics for their association with religious teaching and community leadership since 2014, according to a May 2021 report titled “Islam Dispossessed: China’s Persecution of Uyghur Imams and Religious Figures” issued by the U.S.-based Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP). “The Sinicization of Islam is the eradication of Islam,” Turghanjan Alawudun, vice chair of the executive committee of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) and a Uyghur religion scholar, said. In 2016, Chinese authorities began demolishing mosques and old cemeteries in the XUAR, with the destruction reaching a climax in 2018. Since about 2017, up to 16,000 mosques, or roughly 65%, of all mosques have...
- [Weeks of COVID-19 lockdown in Shanghai takes toll on residents' mental health](https://ij-reportika.com/weeks-of-covid-19-lockdown-in-shanghai-takes-toll-on-residents-mental-health/): The weeks-long COVID-19 lockdown in China has taken a huge mental health toll, with more than 40 percent of the city&#8217;s 26 million residents reporting symptoms of depression in a recent poll. Shanghai residents have been battling food shortages, barriers to medical treatment, repeated mass, compulsory PCR and antigen testing, as well as the constant threat of being sent off to an isolation camp or makeshift hospital, having their pets killed and their homes ransacked by &#8220;disinfection&#8221; teams, or being welded inside their homes by local officials keen to hit the right quotas in the service of Chinese leader Xi Jinping&#8217;s zero-COVID policy. A poll of more than 1,000 Shanghai residents conducted by the @Zhaoluming Weibo account found that more than 400 of them reported having experienced a &#8220;depressed mood&#8221; during lockdown. A resident of downtown Shanghai surnamed Wang said he believes the true number of depressed people could be much higher. &#8220;Forty percent? I would say more like 80 percent,&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;Everyone has a sense of resentment and their psychology isn&#8217;t quite normal, whole communities shut up like animals in a zoo.&#8221; Photo illustration by RFA; Reuters Qiu Jianzhen, director of the outpatient department of psychological counseling and treatment at the Shanghai Mental Health Center, said in a recent interview with state broadcaster CCTV that the number of calls to the center&#8217;s psychological hotline had nearly tripled in the past month to more than 3,000. Eighty percent of callers cited the pandemic as an issue for their mental health, Qiu said. &#8220;If you need to see a doctor or call an ambulance, the neighborhood committee needs to sign off with a certificate and a letter of commitment,&#8221; Wang told RFA. &#8220;There is a lot of anger about that, because what if it&#8217;s urgent?&#8221; &#8220;Most of the people who live in my compound are temporary workers, so if they can&#8217;t work, they get no wages,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Even if they lift the lockdown, who will compensate us for the loss of more than a month&#8217;s income?&#8221; &#8220;How can the small company bosses do that &#8230; when they are going bankrupt themselves?&#8221; Visible toll Wang lives in a low-income district of Puxi with his family, and was mostly worried about how to feed his kids when lockdown came. Photo illustration by RFA; Reuters &#8220;Adults can maybe get by on frozen food, but I was worried about the kids not having any milk or any fruit,&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;We would try to make a 950 ml bottle of milk last a few days, but then what would we do after that?&#8221; And it&#8217;s not just the economically marginalized who are suffering. Wang said the burden on working parents will likely increase now that people are gradually returning to work. &#8220;My former colleague was complaining that now they have to try to grab food, keep up with antigen and PCR testing, talk to their kids&#8217; teachers, all while taking part in meetings via video call,&#8221; he said. &#8220;She&#8217;s going crazy.&#8221; Wang said the toll taken on people&#8217;s well-being was very visible in his neighborhood. &#8220;There were people who jumped off the top of the building in the residential neighborhood next to us, and I saw news of people jumping from buildings, not just in text, but video clips, which have a psychological impact in themselves,&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;It&#8217;s hard not to be depressed in such circumstances,&#8221; he said. A white-collar worker surnamed Li, who works for a large foreign company, said he has sought out psychological counseling during lockdown despite not having financial worries. &#8220;It&#8217;s like being incarcerated for one or two months,&#8221; Li said. &#8220;Loss of freedom over a long period of time will give rise to a lot of negative emotions, the most prominent of which is anger.&#8221; Photo illustration by RFA; Reuters &#8216;I totally lost control&#8217; A resident of Jing&#8217;an district surnamed Sun said she had a mental breakdown over the authorities&#8217; chaotic handling of mass COVID-19 tests, after she started to show symptoms on May 1, but was left without a PCR test despite requesting one. &#8220;On the night of May 6, I went totally crazy, calling the emergency services many times,&#8221; Sun said. &#8220;I totally lost control.&#8221; &#8220;If the ambulance hadn&#8217;t come, I would have run out right there &#8230; and started spreading the virus.&#8221; Eventually, Sun and her symptomatic family were taken to an isolation facility, but she suspects the delay in testing them was due to a political attempt to massage new case figures. She pointed to repeated complaints on social media that officials appeared to hand out test results and change them at will. &#8220;There were people testing positives and they said they were negative, and people testing negative who they said were positive,&#8221; Sun said. In universities students have complained of unclean food and lack of support for their mental health. A psychology lecturer surnamed Chen said one woman had to spend thousands of yuan to escape the city by private taxi after being stuck in a situation of food scarcity while suffering from anorexia nervosa. &#8220;She couldn&#8217;t eat, and her mental state was very bad,&#8221; he said. &#8220;She had a relapse [of anorexia] after being stuck inside the dorm building since early March.&#8221; Serene, an international school counselor, said many of her students have gone back to their parental homes, while mental health problems have doubled among those who remained. &#8220;It&#8217;s mostly about conflicts with parents, but since the pandemic also about difficulties with distance-learning,&#8221; she said. &#8220;There is also the lack of interaction with peers and lack of social support.&#8221; &#8220;One of my students was having difficulty with interpersonal communication, but he had bravely begun to take the first steps before the pandemic, and had formed some relationships,&#8221; she said. &#8220;But when the pandemic came &#8230; he told me he feared he would never make friends again.&#8221; Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Cambodia’s commune campaign to test country’s electoral integrity](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodias-commune-campaign-to-test-countrys-electoral-integrity/): Cambodia will launch a two-week election campaign for local commune councils Saturday, a contest for grassroots bodies that won’t tip the scales of power in a country autocratic Prime Minister Hun Sen has ruled for nearly four decades, but also seen as a measure of electoral integrity. The limited power of commune councils––who vote on behalf of their constituents in the 2024 elections for the Cambodian Senate––hasn’t dampened anticipation ahead of the June 5 election in a country that has endured a five-year crackdown on civil liberties and other freedoms by Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP). The CPP, the only party large enough to field candidates nationwide, is expected to win a landslide victory, enjoying the power of incumbency and patronage in what Hun Sun has effectively turned into a one-party state at the national level. “Commune elections in Cambodia have always been a low stakes affair for the ruling party because of how much control they have in rural areas at the local level,” said Sophal Ear, an author and policy analyst who teaches at Arizona State University. “And this next commune election is no different but even more extreme in how much control there is at the national level,” he added. But election watchers are looking at the contest between the CPP and 16 other parties for 11,622 seats in 1,652 rural and urban precincts to find out how much support the opposition Candlelight Party can win in the atmosphere and after months of harassment from the ruling party. “Civic and political space in Cambodia has receded and regressed due to what is effectively all-intrusive single-party rule,” said Vitit Muntarbhorn, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Cambodia. “The outlook for human rights and democracy in the country remains disconcerting on many fronts, especially in the lead up to the commune elections,” he told RFA. The Candlelight Party has risen from the ashes of the main opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP), whose strong showing in previous communal elections in 2017 prompted Hun Sen have the party dissolved, paving the way for his CPP to win all 125 parliamentary seats in 2018. The Candlelight Party was founded in 1995 by Hun Sen’s political rival Sam Rainsy, who is now living in exile facing a raft of charges his supporters sat are designed to keep him out of politics. Candlelight, which merged with another party to form the CNRP in 2012 but is not subject to the opposition ban, is now the second largest political party in Cambodia and the largest opposition party. The party has been gaining steam over the past year. With its rise has come what Candlelight officials say are made up accusations that the party has used fake names for candidates and has put forward candidates in violation of Cambodian election laws. Several Candlelight Party activists have been jailed on allegations of submitting false documents to run in the communal elections. In February, authorities in the northwestern province of Battambang ordered the Candlelight Party to remove a sign from a citizen’s house, even though national officials pledged a free and fair campaign, without political and partisan discrimination. On April 9, Prak Seyha — a party youth leader for Phnom Penh’s Kambol district — was attacked and beaten by a mob. That same day, Choeun Sarim, a party candidate for Phnom Penh’s Chhbar Ampov district, was killed in traffic while traveling by motorbike from southern Cambodia’s Takeo province to the capital, Phnom Penh. His wife said he had been threatened and assaulted prior to his death, which she said was caused by a blow from behind. On April 11, Khorn Tun, a Candlelight Party activist and a commune candidate in Tabaung Khmom province’s Ponhea Krek district — was attacked by unidentified men who threw rocks at her home. Flags and marches The Candlelight Party has sent flags, about 3 million leaflets and party uniforms to its supporters around the country, the party’s vice president Thach Setha told RFA’s Khmer Service. The party plans to march through the streets of Phnom Penh with thousands of supporters on Saturday in an effort to drum up more support. “We urge all activists and supporters to participate in our march to express their support for the Candlelight Party and to show up for a chance,” he said. The ruling party has also been active in shipping out materials for the campaign, but will not hold massive rallies, CPP spokesman Sok Ey San told RFA. “Activists will visit voters’ houses to inform them about the party’s political platform,” he said, adding that the most active days will be the first and last days of the campaign period. The country’s third largest party, the National United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful and Cooperative Cambodia, a royalist party known as Funcinpec, plans to hold a rally with the party president and about 1,000 supporters in Kandal province in the south, the party’s spokesman Ngouen Raden told RFA. “In each province, working groups will meet voters at their houses,” he said. The National Election Commission (NEC) on Tuesday urged the parties to comply with measures intended to keep the campaigns peaceful and nonviolent. It also asked authorities at all levels to remain neutral and impartial, allowing all candidates access to public places. The NEC is working with authorities to coordinate marches planned by party supporters so that confrontation can be avoided, the commission’s spokesman, Hang Puthea, told RFA. “Until now, there are no negative issues reported yet. I have observed that each party has already prepared for the election campaign tomorrow at 6 a.m.,” he said. The Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (Comfrel) has deployed 20 monitors to follow campaigns in Phnom Penh and other areas, Kang Savan, a monitor for the NGO, told RFA. Despite the trappings of a healthy campaign, the contest fails to meet basic definitions of democracy, said Ear. “Managed democracy–if you even call it that–in Cambodia is about giving people little...
- [Elderly and sick die of COVID-19 complications in North Korean capital](https://ij-reportika.com/elderly-and-sick-die-of-covid-19-complications-in-north-korean-capital/): North Korean authorities are mobilizing medical students in the capital of Pyongyang to help in hospitals suddenly overwhelmed with cases of COVID-19, sources in the country told RFA. Even so, deaths continue to rise due to lack of proper care and from counterfeit medicines as treatment options remain limited in the impoverished and isolated country. After more than two years of denying any North Korean had contracted the coronavirus, the country finally announced its first cases and deaths last week, saying the Omicron variant had begun to spread among participants of a large-scale military parade in late April. The long-term denial means doctors in the capital’s many hospitals are not up to speed on how to treat coronavirus, a Pyongyang resident told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “As a result, some elderly people infected with Omicron and people with chronic diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes died because they did not receive proper treatment,” said the source. “In addition, there are a number of people who have died due to side effects from medicines they purchased on their own without proper prescriptions,” the source said. Pyongyang, with 2.9 million residents living relatively closely to one another, has been hit the hardest by the pandemic. “They declared an emergency and mobilized doctors from each hospital in the city, then they even began mobilizing med students,” a Pyongyang resident told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “All residents in the city are subject to intensive medical screenings. They must check their temperature and report any abnormal symptoms twice a day,” the source said. The demand for fever reducers and antibiotics has greatly increased. Many people travel from pharmacy to pharmacy in search of acetaminophen, ibuprofen and amoxicillin, said the source. Antibiotics have no effect on viral diseases like COVID-19. “Authorities began to release wartime emergency medicines and have placed uniformed military doctors at pharmacies to prevent stealing. So now it is possible to buy necessary medicines,” said the source. As home to most of the country’s privileged elites, Pyongyang has superior health care facilities than exist in the provinces. In the city of Hamhung, in the eastern province of South Hamgyong, people had been crowding hospitals weeks before the declared emergency, complaining of coronavirus symptoms, a medical source there told RFA. “There are provincial hospitals and city hospitals, as well as health institutions and facilities in provincial cities like Hamhung. However, in the case of county-level hospitals, there are only a few beds with poor medical equipment and facilities, and inexperienced doctors,” the second source said. “I am worried about whether they can cope with it. It will be of great help if the authorities receive aid from the U.N. or medicines made in South Korea, which are effective and safe,” the source said. About 2.2 million people have been hit by outbreaks of fever, 65 of whom have died, according to data based on reports from North Korean state media published by 38 North, a site that provides analysis on the country and is run by the U.S.-based think tank the Stimson Center. Around 1.5 million are reported to have made recoveries, while 754,800 are undergoing treatment. The country has only a handful of confirmed COVID-19 cases, which 38 North attributed to insufficient testing capabilities. Data published on the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center showed North Korea with only one confirmed COVID-19 case and six deaths as of Friday evening. Accurate reporting The numbers provided by state media are likely accurate, Ahn Kyungsoo, head of dprkhealth.org, a South Korea-based website that tracks North Korea’s healthcare situation. But Ahn said that not all “fever” cases are necessarily coronavirus. “In the middle of April is when seasons change in Korea. The North Korean authorities have released statistics since the end of April. There are inevitably a lot of people who develop fevers that time of the year due to the change of seasons…. And the main symptoms… are almost the same as those of cold patients who get ill in-between seasons,” he said. “The cumulative number of people with fever that the North Korean authorities are talking about is not an individual person with a confirmed case of COVID-19. Their definition of ‘cured’ does not mean the full recovery from COVID-19, but only that fever symptoms have disappeared. These are the people who have been released from quarantine,” he said, adding that test kits in North Korea are scarce, and tallies can only be kept by observing symptoms like fever, body aches, coughing and sore throats. Ahn said that even with a lot of help from the international community in the form of donated vaccines, North Koreans would still have trouble inoculating everyone because of a lack of cold storage and an inability to quickly transport vaccines to most parts of the country. “Also, it takes time for the vaccine to take effect after one is vaccinated. From the perspective of North Korea, it will take quite a while even if they get the vaccine tomorrow. So, I think getting as many oral treatments as possible would be more advantageous than the vaccine.” Translated by Claire Lee and Leejin J. Chung
- [Myanmar junta tribunal sentences 7 youths to death in Yangon](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-tribunal-sentences-7-youths-to-death-in-yangon/): Myanmar’s junta condemned seven youths to death this week in the Yangon region, with a secret military tribunal finding them guilty of murder, a state-run Myanmar’s junta condemned seven youths to death this week in the Yangon newspaper said. The seven, all from all from Hlaingtharyar township in the country’s largest city Yangon Region, were ruled guilty of taking part in the March 6 murder of a ward official suspected of being a police informer and sentenced to death on Wednesday under Section 54 of the Anti-Terrorism Law. As of March 11, military tribunals in the Yangon region had sentenced more than 150 people to death or life imprisonment, RFA reporting has revealed. No executions have yet been reported by the military regime that overthrew Myanmar’s elcted government on Feb. 1, 2022. The seven were identified as Ye Min Naing, Soe Moe, Thant Zin, Daewa, San Shay, Athay Lay and Aye Aye Min. Another youth, Htet Myat Naing, Yangon’s North Dagon township, was also sentenced on Wednesday to life in prison under Section 50(j) of the Anti-Terrorism Law for having links to and collecting money for terrorist organizations. An underground youth activist in Yangon said the military is imposing harsh punishments on young people to discourage them from participating in resistance movements against the junta, the junta newspaper said. &#8220;The deliberate arrests of young people and such harsh sentences are attempts to intimidate the youth not to be involved in the revolution. No matter what they do, young people are already determined to march on with this,” he told RFA. Lawyers have argued that the sentences imposed by military tribunals handing down highest sentences on the youth are unjust and punishable. Military spokesman Maj Gen Zaw Min Tun said the government was not targeting young people but was prosecuting violators of the law. According to Thai-based rights group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners Burma, a total of 10,707 people were arrested and 1072 of them were imprisoned between Feb 1, 2021 to May 19, 2022, among them 72 have been sentenced to death including 2 children. And another 41 are sentenced to death in absentia. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written by Paul Eckert.
- [Vietnam ethnic minority activist jailed for 4 years for reporting abuse allegations](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-ethnic-minority-activist-jailed-for-4-years-for-reporting-abuse-allegations/): An ethnic Ede Montagnard minority activist was sentenced to four years in prison on Friday for submitting three reports about human rights violations in Vietnam to “reactionary forces” overseas, another activist who followed his trial said. A court in Cu Kuin district, Dak Lak province, sentenced Y Wo Nie on the charge of “abusing the rights to freedom and democracy” under Article 331 of Vietnam’s Penal Code, said activist Vo Ngoc Luc, who followed the trial developments as they were broadcast over a local loudspeaker. The article prohibits citizens from abusing “the rights to freedom and democracy to violate the State’s interests and the legitimate rights and interests of organizations and individuals.” Rights groups have criticized the statute as providing authorities widespread latitude to crack down on any criticism of the government. Nie participated in several online training courses held by “reactionary forces.” The classes included lessons on religious faith, Vietnam Civil Law, international human rights law, the Montagnard experience in Vietnam, and how to document human rights abuses, according to the online news outlet Congly, the mouthpiece of the Supreme People’s Court of Vietnam. “Learning about human rights is very good — that’s what I told security officers whom I met this morning,” Luc said. “You cannot convict [people] for taking online courses on human rights.” Prosecutors failed to provide evidence to support a second accusation against Nie for “providing false information,” Luc said. “They were all general and ambiguous accusations,” he said. “Saying the sentence was too heavy is wrong,” Luc added. “I would say it was groundless. If we lived in a civilized world, then the court would declare his innocence, set him free right at the trial, and the investigation agency would apologize him.” In its indictment, the Cu Kuin People’s Procuracy said that in 2020 Nie collected distorting and false information and composed three reports on human rights violations and sent them to “reactionary forces overseas” via the WhatsApp instant messaging service. The indictment also said Nie met with the delegates from the U.S. Embassy and Consulate General in Vietnam when they visited the Gia Lai province in June 2020. The judges concluded that Nie’s acts had affected social safety and order, political security and government administrative agencies’ activities, undermining confidence in the regime and at home and abroad. When Nie was arrested in September 2020, Cu Kuin police officers said that they seized “many materials with false content and images slandering, insulting and defaming the prestige and dignity of the party, state, local authorities, the public security forces in Cu Kuin district and in Dak Lak province.” Prior to the September 2020 arrest, Nie received a nine-year jail term for “sabotaging the national unity policy.” In recent decades, many ethnic minority groups in Vietnam’s Central Highlands, including the Montagnards, have been persecuted for their religious beliefs and seen their land confiscated without adequate compensation. The crackdowns tend to ramp up on the groups when they try to fight back and report these human rights abuses, activists said. Translated by Anna Vu for RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [UN rights chief’s office announces dates of China visit, including Xinjiang](https://ij-reportika.com/un-rights-chiefs-office-announces-dates-of-china-visit-including-xinjiang/): The U.N.’s human rights chief on Monday will begin a six-day official visit to China, including to the far-western Xinjiang region where widespread abuses against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities at the hands of Chinese authorities are said to have occurred. The trip is the culmination of years of effort by exiled Uyghurs to draw international attention to what they and independent researchers have said is a network of detention camps in Xinjiang. While groups representing the community welcomed the announcement of the trip, they also expressed concern the team led by U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet will be kept from seeing the true picture of what is taking place in the region, including allegations of Uyghurs being used as forced labor at Chinese factories. Bachelet’s May 23-28 visit will mark the first to China by a U.N. high commissioner for human rights since 2005. She plans to meet with high-level government levels, academics, and representatives from civil society groups and businesses during stops in Guangzhou — the capital of southern China’s Guangdong province where she plans to deliver a lecture to students at Guangzhou University — and in the Xinjiang cities of Urumqi (in Chinese, Wulumuqi) and Kashgar (Kashi), the press release said. Bachelet, a former Chilean president, first announced that her office was seeking unfettered access to Xinjiang in September 2018, shortly after she took over her current role. But the trip was delayed over questions about her freedom of movement through the region. Bachelet plans to issue a statement and hold a press conference at the end of the visit on May 28. An advance team from her office arrived in China on April 25. They were quarantined in Guangzhou according to China’s COVID-19 protocols but met virtually with officials during that time. They later held in-person meetings and visits in Guangzhou and traveled to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S.’s top diplomat to the U.N., has joined with Uyghur advocacy groups and other human rights organizations in calling for China to give Bachelet unfettered access to Xinjiang to gather evidence of what’s taking place there. China is accused of having incarcerated 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in Xinjiang in mass detention camps, subjecting some to torture and other abuses. The United States and the legislatures of several Western countries have found that China’s mistreatment of the Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang constitute genocide and crimes against humanity. Beijing has rejected all such claims as politically motivated attacks on its security and development policies in the vast western region. Beijing has called for a “friendly” visit by the U.N. rights official. “We have repeatedly stated and expected that Commissioner Bachelet’s visit should be completely impartial with unfettered access to the concentration camps in the region,” Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) in Germany, told RFA. “Our current position is still the same; however, we’re deeply concerned because her trip seems to be not based on the expectations of the international community and wishes of Uyghur people but rather on China’s arrangements from our observations and the press statements of both U.N. and Chinese government,” he said. “If the trip is made under such circumstances, then China will take full advantage of Bachelet’s visit to whitewash the Uyghur genocide.” Alena Douhan, the UN special rapporteur on the negative impact of the unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights, gives a press conference in Iran&#8217;s capital Tehran, May 18, 2022. Credit: AFP ‘A light to be shone’ Washington-based Campaign for Uyghurs (CFU) on Friday repeated the demands outlined by some 200 rights organizations that sent an open letter to Bachelet in March, calling for transparency in the visit, unfettered access to the region, and the publication of an overdue human rights report on Xinjiang. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, WUC, CFU and Uyghur Human Rights Project were among the groups that signed the letter. They all have repeatedly raised alarm to Bachelet’s office about extreme measures taken by Chinese authorities since 2017 to eradicate the religion, culture and languages of Xinjiang’s ethnic groups. A visit without unfettered access would support China’s long-standing narrative that there are no human rights violations occurring in the XUAR, CFU said. “Commissioner Bachelet has delayed the release of her office’s report and her visit, extending the suffering of the Uyghur people and our wait for a light to be shone on China’s genocidal crimes in the largest global forum on Earth,” CFU’s executive director Rushan Abbas said in a statement. News of the dates for Bachelet’s visit came two days after Geneva-based watchdog organization UN Watch demanded that Alena Douhan, a U.N. Human Rights Council official, return a U.S. $200,000 contribution she received from the Chinese government in 2021. Douhan, a Belarussian former professor of international law and U.N. special rapporteur focused on the negative effect of unilateral sanctions, received the money, according to disclosures in a U.N. filing, as she lent U.N. legitimacy to Chinese disinformation, including a regime-sponsored propaganda virtual event with the banner, “Xinjiang is a Wonderful Land,” UN Watch said in a statement on May 18. Douhan appeared on the program in which Chen Xu, China’s ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, said that people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang live “a life of happiness.” The event also featured XUAR chairman Erkin Tuniyaz, who accused the U.S and other Western countries of concocting a “smear that the Xinjiang government deprives local ethnic workers’ fundamental rights.” “It is clear that China is now willing to pay unprecedented sums of money to influence Alena Douhan’s U.N. human rights office, in wake of last year’s decision by the U.S., EU, U.K. and Canada to announce sanctions on China for its persecution of the Uyghurs,” Hillel Neuer, UN Watch’s executive director, said in the statement. “A U.N. human rights investigator accepting money from China’s abuser regime would be like the Chicago Police Department receiving subsidies from...
- [Philippines deploys buoys as ‘sovereign markers’ in South China Sea](https://ij-reportika.com/philippines-deploys-buoys-as-sovereign-markers-in-south-china-sea/): The Philippines has installed buoys and opened some command posts to mark out and assert its sovereignty in waters and islets it claims in the contested South China Sea, the country’s coast guard chief said Friday.   The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) set up five navigational buoys, each one 30-feet long and bearing the national flag, near Lawak (Nanshan), Likas (West York), Parola (Northeast Cay), and Pag-asa (Thitu) islands from May 12 to 14, Adm. Artemio Abu, the service’s commandant, told a local radio station. Abu hailed “the resounding success of installing our sovereign markers.” On May 17, he said, the coast guard also established new command observation posts on Lawak, Likas, and Parola to boost Manila’s “maritime domain awareness” in the South China Sea, which Filipinos refer to as the West Philippine Sea, and is crisscrossed heavily by international vessels. An estimated $5 trillion in international trade transits through the waterway yearly. Several Vietnamese and Chinese fishing boats, as well as China Coast Guard vessels, he noted, had been spotted in the vicinity of Pag-asa Island, the largest Philippine-held territory that houses a Filipino civilian community. “The ships from Vietnam and China showed respect for the mission we undertook,” Abu said, adding that the Philippine Coast Guard boats were prepared to challenge the foreign vessels in case they interfered with the mission to install the navigational buoys and command posts. In the past, China Coast Guard ships had blocked Philippine vessels on resupply missions to outposts manned by the Philippine Marines in the disputed waters. In November 2021, CCG ships fired water cannon toward Philippine supply boats, which were en route to Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal. Sourced from Spain, the buoys are equipped with “modern marine aids to navigation” including lanterns, specialized mooring systems, and a satellite-based remote monitoring system able to transmit data coast guard headquarters in Manila, Abu said. The lack of this capability was highlighted in recent years, when vessels from other claimant states in the maritime region, particularly from China and Vietnam, became more and more present in Philippine-claimed waters. The new coast guard outposts will “improve our capabilities in promoting maritime safety, maritime search and rescue, and marine environmental protection,” Abu said. “These [outposts] will optimize the strategic deployment of PCG assets by monitoring the movement of merchant ships in its surrounding waters and communicating maritime incidents to the PCG National Headquarters [in Manila].” This screengrab from a video clip disseminated by the Philippine Coast Guard on May 20, 2022, shows coast guard personnel near a Filipino navigational buoy deployed in Manila-claimed waters in the South China Sea. Credit: Philippine Coast Guard. Separately, the head of the Philippine Commission on Human Rights lauded the coast guard for its actions in “asserting the sovereignty of the Philippines over the disputed territories where China has constructed artificial islands and interfered with Filipino fishing activities.” “No State should deprive our Filipino fisher folk from carrying out their livelihood in our national territories. The installation of navigational buoys is a notice to the rest of the international community that the Philippines is asserting sovereignty over the Kalayaan Island Group,” Jacqueline Ann de Guia, the commission’s chairwoman, said in a statement Friday.  Chinese coast guard vessels and fishing trawlers have, in recent years, also blockaded or limited Filipino fishermen’s access to their traditional fishing grounds in the South China Sea, such as Scarborough Shoal and the waters around Pag-asa. On Friday, the embassies of China and other states with territorial claims in the sea did not immediately respond to requests from BenarNews for comment. The Philippines, China, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Vietnam each have territorial claims in the South China Sea. Indonesia does not count itself as a party to territorial disputes but has claims to South China Sea waters off the Natuna Islands. A 2016 ruling by a tribunal of the Permanent Court of Arbitration affirmed Manila’s sovereign rights to a 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone and an extended continental shelf, and declared Beijing’s sweeping claim to virtually the entire sea invalid under international law. Beijing rejected the ruling and proceeded to occupy the waters with its vast flotilla of government and fishing vessels. The international community has urged China to comply with the ruling, as other claimant states have made efforts to assert their rights and deploy more of their own vessels to the disputed waters. Marcos: On the way forward with China The coast guard’s installation of the buoys and command observation posts occurred only days after the Philippine general election, in which Ferdinand Marcos Jr. won the presidential election in a landslide, according to an unofficial tally of votes. On July 1, he will succeed President Rodrigo Duterte, who will be leaving office at the end of a constitutionally limited six-year term, during which he cultivated warmer bilateral ties with China and was seen as relatively soft on the issue of territorial disputes. The installations also took place in the same week that Marcos had a “lengthy” telephone call with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who congratulated him for his victory in the May 9 polls. “We talked about the way forward for the China-Philippine relationship,” Marcos said in a statement on May 18. “So, it was very good, very substantial.” Marcos, 64, is widely seen here as someone who would carry on with Duterte’s friendly policies towards Beijing over the maritime issue. “I told him that in my view, the way forward is to expand our relationship, not only diplomatic, not only trade, but also in culture, even in education, even in knowledge, even in health to address whatever minor disagreements that we have right now,” Marcos said. “And I told him that we must not allow what conflicts or difficulties we have now between our two countries to become historically important,” he said. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.
- [Beijing ramps up local COVID-19 lockdowns as Shanghai slowly starts to move again](https://ij-reportika.com/beijing-ramps-up-local-covid-19-lockdowns-as-shanghai-slowly-starts-to-move-again/): Authorities in Beijing are ramping up COVID-19 restrictions, while some residents of Shanghai said they were able to leave their apartments on brief trips outside on Friday. Much of Chaoyang district in the eastern part of the Chinese capital was under lockdown on Friday, while 100 subway stations and 24 administrative districts in Fangshan district were locked down after 10 positive PCR tests among college students there. The Beijing municipal health commission reported 64 newly discovered local cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, of which 10 were students at the Beijing Institute of Technology&#8217;s Fangshan campus. While the authorities haven&#8217;t declared a lockdown, parts of the city are indeed in a locked-down state, a Fangshan resident surnamed Zhang told RFA. &#8220;We&#8217;re locked down. There was a close contact in our building, so the entire building was locked in for 18, 19 days,&#8221; she said. &#8220;They put seals on our doors and electronic dogs outside,&#8221; she said, in a reference to automated devices that call the police if people move outside of their apartments. She said residents are now struggling to buy food. &#8220;It&#8217;s not just that the street hawkers have gone out of business: we can&#8217;t get a hold of vegetables at all,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Five chilli peppers now cost 12.9 yuan, when they used to be 2.5, or 3.5 yuan at most,&#8221; Zhang said. &#8220;Three small cabbages now cost nearly 13 yuan, while the price of cucumbers and potatoes has also gone up.&#8221; Zhang Mingming, a spokesman for the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)&#8217;s Fangshan district committee, said hundreds of students and faculty at the Beijing Institute of Technology campus and at the School of International Education are being transported out to compulsory isolation facilities. People queue for swab to be tested for Covid-19 coronavirus at a swab collection site in Beijing on May 18, 2022. Credit: AFP Even open spaces As of Tuesday, Beijing had 15 high-risk areas and 32 medium-risk areas, with more than 100 subway stations closed to passengers. Since May 1, anyone entering public places has to show a recent, negative PCR test taken in the past 48 hours. &#8220;You need a negative PCR to get into the park; this is an open space,&#8221; a local film-maker told RFA. &#8220;I don&#8217;t know why.&#8221; PCR testing companies have been the target of widespread public anger on Chinese social media for profiteering on the back of mass, compulsory testing. The film-maker said: &#8220;A lot of people think it&#8217;s the government, but most of the money is going to the [medical] insurance industry.&#8221; Photos posted to social media showed Beijing residents trying to eke a living by setting up makeshift roadside stalls, while some roast duck restaurants started hawking roast duck by the side of the street. Meanwhile, in Shanghai, residents are slowly being allowed out to resume some daily activities. &#8220;They say today that lockdown will be lifted tomorrow, but when it&#8217;s tomorrow, they say businesses will stay open every day starting from the day after tomorrow,&#8221; a resident of Pudong district surnamed Fang told RFA. &#8220;I have no idea which is the true statement.&#8221; &#8220;A lot of people are waiting to get passes to leave our residential compound, but they haven&#8217;t been issued yet,&#8221; she said. &#8220;The neighborhood committee put out a list, but our compound wasn&#8217;t on it.&#8221; &#8220;There have been no positive tests in our compound for more than two weeks, but they still won&#8217;t let us out,&#8221; Fang said. &#8220;They&#8217;ve done 30 or 40 PCR tests on every person here, but it&#8217;s still not over.&#8221; Mass layoffs and bankruptcies Some workers in Shanghai are being allowed to travel between work and home only, in a &#8220;point-to-point&#8221; arrangement. But the move could be too late for many companies, which have been bankrupted by the CCP&#8217;s zero-COVID policy, with widespread mass layoffs of pre-lockdown staff. Mass layoffs have been predicted at major factories as well as at small and medium-sized businesses, amid a spike in departures via Shanghai&#8217;s Hongqiao Railway Station, as newly unemployed migrants finally leave the city. Shanghai worker Zhang Wandi, said many companies have been hit with rental payments and salaries through lockdown, but with no income to fund them. &#8220;Currently, commercial rent deposits in Shanghai are generally three months&#8217; rent &#8230; but nobody has paid their rent lately because they&#8217;re all waiting for government subsidies,&#8221; Zhang said. &#8220;I think a lot of companies are just going to go out of business when lockdown ends.&#8221; Media worker Li Wei said the government must fear mass layoffs as a side-effect zero-COVID. &#8220;The thing they fear most is layoffs at big companies,&#8221; Li said. &#8220;The economy is not a car, to be driven with one foot on the brake and the other on the gas; it&#8217;s more like a plane, where the plane loses height when you slow it down, and you have to take off again.&#8221; &#8220;To do that, you have to  have a runway, taxiing and acceleration, and the disease control and prevention measures have hit China&#8217;s economy hard,&#8221; he said. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Hong Kong migrants to UK suffer widespread trauma, depressive symptoms: report](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-migrants-to-uk-suffer-widespread-trauma-depressive-symptoms-report/): Nearly one in four Hongkongers who fled an ongoing crackdown by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) say they still suffer from symptoms of post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) linked to the violent crackdown on the 2019 protests and the subsequent fear engendered by the national security law, according to a recent survey. A survey of recently arrived migrants by the Hongkongers in Britain group found that 23.8 percent of respondents reported symptoms of PTSD linked to the 2019 protests and subsequent political crackdown. Nearly 19 percent reported symptoms of depression, while 25.8 percent reported symptoms of anxiety disorders, it said. The survey found that issues with English, jobhunting and newfound tensions with family members were among the most commonly reported problems affecting the mental health of recently arrived Hongkongers. &#8220;Mental health issues &#8230; included perceived fear of retribution for discussing politics and worry for people still back in Hong Kong,&#8221; the report said. &#8220;Perceptions around political forces continue to prevent Hongkongers from speaking freely about their mental health experiences,&#8221; it said. University of Cambridge mental health expert and survey author Mark Liang said the majority appeared reluctant to seek professional help, however, preferring to talk to friends and family, whom they trusted, amid fears of retaliation against loved ones who stayed behind. &#8220;[Even Hong Kong mental health professionals in the UK] stated that it&#8217;s very difficult to get people to come in as patients,&#8221; Liang told a news conference presenting the report. &#8220;They said that even after developing trust &#8230; even after talking about things that weren&#8217;t related to PTSD, like about coming into the country and immigration, when they started probing questions like where were you in 2019, a lot of Hongkongers wanted to just freeze up.&#8221; &#8220;That has to do &#8230; with this perception that we believe Hongkongers have of the political situation &#8230; it&#8217;s choking out many Hongkongers from speaking honestly and freely about their experiences, which is very important in the healing process,&#8221; Liang said. Drastic drop in freedom Since the CCP imposed a draconian national security law on Hong Kong, saying it was necessary to prevent a &#8220;color revolution&#8221; instigated by &#8220;hostile foreign forces,&#8221; freedom of expression has declined sharply, with dozens of former opposition politicians arrested for subversion, several pro-democracy media outlets forced to close, rights groups forced to disband and student unions ousted from university campuses. After the law took effect on&nbsp;July 1, 2020, national security police set up a hotline to encourage people to inform on people &#8220;suspected&#8221; of having breached its sweeping bans and prohibitions, which include protest slogans, commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen massacre and any other form of peaceful criticism of the authorities. The U.K. rolled out a new pathway to citizenship for some three million holders of its BNO passport and their families, and more than 97,000 applications have so far been successful, the Home Office said in&nbsp;March 2022. Migrants from Hong Kong are suffering from the emotional upheaval of moving, sometimes at short notice, to an entirely new country with their families, and cited problems helping their kids to settle in new schools as a major issue affecting their mental health, Liang said. There is also the feeling that an essential part of their identity has been lost. &#8220;A part of myself is not there when I do not speak Cantonese&#8230; even though English is my better [academic] language,&#8221; one respondent told the survey. Others cited &#8220;survivor&#8217;s guilt&#8221; as weighing heavily on their emotional state, while others felt the pain of being exiled from their home for reasons beyond their control. “I hate to think [I] cannot travel back to [my] homeland freely, no one wants to be exiled or named fugitive,&#8221; the report quoted another respondent as saying. &nbsp; &nbsp;University of Cambridge mental health expert and survey author Mark Liang. Credit: Hongkongers in Britain&nbsp; Asylum seekers&#8217; quandary But asylum-seekers are even more vulnerable than BNO passport-holders, given the high degree of uncertainty that comes with applying for refugee status, Liang said. &#8220;Asylum seekers coming into this country have a much, much different experience than BNO passport-holders. They are required to present information that suggests they are a refugee who would be at political risk if they went back to their country of origin,&#8221; Liang said. &#8220;They are not given the same freedoms as in the right to study, to work, to live as a BNO holder, and that of course is very impactful on one&#8217;s mental health, just having that uncertainty &#8230; asylum cases in the U.K. right now are backlogged by months,&#8221; he said. &#8220;One asylum-seeker [described it as] political and social limbo.&#8221; But the report also said that the majority of respondents to the survey had reported an improvement in their mental health since leaving Hong Kong, despite the difficulties. And those who were struggling were more likely to seek out friends or family. &#8220;There are &#8230; other reasons, outside forces besides culture that are preventing people from seeing mental health providers in the U.K.,&#8221; Liang said. Meanwhile, a court in Hong Kong jailed a 26-year-old man accused of being the admin of the SUCK Telegram channel, to six-and-a-half years&#8217; imprisonment. IT worker Ng Man-ho was found guilty of allowing posts to the channel from&nbsp;October 2019&nbsp;to&nbsp;June 2020&nbsp;that allegedly taught people how to make home-made explosives, set up barricades and encouraging people to take part in the student defense of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), which was hit by around 1,000 tear gas rounds from Nov. 11-15, 2019. During the siege, students set up barricades to prevent riot police from entering the campus, as President Rocky Tuan and other senior members of staff tried to negotiate with police to defuse the standoff by standing down. As tensions worsened, officers opened fire with tear gas and rubber bullets towards Tuan, staff members and a large group of students surrounding them, saying he should leave if he had no control over the black-clad protesters guarding the bridge with barricades, fires and by lobbing petrol bombs...
- [The perception war between Russia and NATO](https://ij-reportika.com/the-perception-war-between-russia-and-nato/): The West or the NATO nations employed several tactics of the perception warfare to tackle Russia when it started the special military ops in Ukraine in February, 2022. The perception war between Russia and NATO is at its peak and following are some of the tactics employed by…
- [Schools close as pandemic rages in North Korea](https://ij-reportika.com/schools-close-as-pandemic-rages-in-north-korea/): As COVID-19 cases dramatically increase in North Korea’s military academies and secondary schools, the government has ordered students to begin remote learning, a daunting proposal in a land where most homes lack consistent supplies of electricity, much less online capabilities, sources in the country told RFA. After more than two years of denying anyone in the country had contracted the coronavirus, North Korea finally announced its first cases and deaths last week, saying the disease had begun to spread among participants of a large-scale military parade in late April. Sources in the capital Pyongyang told RFA’s Korean Service that confirmed cases were identified at two premier military academies in the city, both of which sent participants to the parade. “At the beginning of last week there were only five university students who were confirmed to be infected with COVID-19 at Kim Jong Il University of Military Politics, but now that number has increased to dozens,” a source from the city told RFA Tuesday on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The National Emergency Quarantine Command is conducting testing on university students who have symptoms like a severely high fever and shortness of breath. The students who test positive are immediately taken by ambulance to an isolation facility on the outskirts of Pyongyang,” he said. The roughly 300 students from Kim Jong Il University who participated in the military parade are being quarantined at a single dormitory, according to the source. “The students’ temperatures are being checked every day and they are given fever reducers when necessary,” said the source. The authorities have closed areas surrounding the university and have ordered students to stay in their dormitories, even if they were not part of the military parade, the source said. Authorities also tested parade participants from the city’s other major military university, Kim Il Sung Military University, another source in the city told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “A friend of mine who attends the university told me over the phone that more than 30 students that were classified as confirmed cases are being quarantined in isolation facilities at the outskirts of Pyongyang,” the second source said. The 300 students from Kim Il Sung Military University who participated in the parade were also put in quarantine and are undergoing daily testing. “The area around Kim Il Sung Military University is currently restricted. The school is closed and all students and faculty must not leave their dormitories until the end of the month,” the second source said. Sources reported that the Central Committee is adequately supplying medicines and masks, including fever-reducing medicines, to students quarantined at both universities, where confirmed cases are rising. The virus is affecting more than the military’s educational institutions. Authorities ordered all schools nationwide to begin distance learning. “All students in Pyongyang have stopped going to school for in-person classes and are participating in distance learning at home,” an official from Pyongyang told RFA Tuesday on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. “The frequent power outages and hiccups in the intranet network are causing difficulties, though.” North Korea does not allow its citizens to connect to the global Internet, but the government operates an intranet where citizens fortunate to have devices capable of logging on are able to visit government-approved websites, all of which are hosted within the country. “On May 2nd, there was a commotion when five out of 23 students of a class at a middle school in Moranbong district showed symptoms of high fever and coughing,” the official said. “Other students in different classes showed the same symptoms of high fever and coughing, so the school immediately stopped classes and had all students return home under the direction of the National Emergency Quarantine Command,” he said. On May 11th the Ministry of Education ordered all schools in the capital to stop in-person learning and change to distance learning, the official said. “The [authorities] confirmed that the first middle school students to show symptoms were those who had been mobilized to participate in the parade as spectators in the crowd,” the source said. The orders to begin distance learning were sent all over the country, but a resident who lives north of Pyongyang in South Pyongan province told RFA that few students have the resources necessary for remote classes. “In general, only 2-3% of students have computers at home, so distance learning is meaningless, unless they are elite students of No. 1. high schools,” she said. Aid reluctance North Korean authorities have not responded to a South Korean proposal to cooperate in efforts to combat the pandemic. Observers said Pyongyang is unlikely to accept humanitarian aid from the international community, because it would be an admission of the country’s leader Kim Jong Un’s failure to control the virus. North Korea may be unwilling to work closely with South Korea in particular because of a change in administration in Seoul earlier this month, Hong Min, the director of the North Korea Research Division at the Seoul-based Korea Institute for National Unification, told RFA. President Yoon Seok-yeol is expected to take a harder line in respect to North Korea than predecessor Moon Jae-in, who advocated engagement with the North. Accepting help from other countries would be a bad look for Kim Jong Un, Ho Hong Kim of the Washington-based Institute for National Security Strategy told RFA. “If North Korea immediately accepts the international community’s support, it would be like North Korea is admitting that the quarantine policies promoted by Kim Jong Un have failed,” he said. “So North Korea is probably trying to solve [the COVID-19 situation] on its own as much as possible.” Kim said that North Korea may be capable of resolving some of its problems with help from China, including the provision of the emergency medicines North Korea desperately needs. Between January and March, North Korea imported U.S. $183,000 worth of facemasks and $3 million worth of mask making materials, such as nonwoven fabrics and thermoplastics, data released Wednesday by the...
- [Myanmar junta gets effective diplomatic downgrade as a result of military coup](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-gets-effective-diplomatic-downgrade-as-a-result-of-military-coup/): Myanmar’s 15-month-old military junta is suffering a diplomatic downgrade as Western and some Southeast Asian neighbors are withholding ambassadorial appointments to the country and increasingly meeting with elected officials overthrown by the army early last year, diplomats said. The trend of posting a number two in missions comes as the junta has been shunned by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which held a summit last week with the U.S. in Washington, where Myanmar was represented by an empty chair symbolizing rejection of the February 2021 coup. The Australian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on May 16 that Australia has appointed a senior official to replace its ambassador in Myanmar, Andrea Faulkner, who completed her tenure last month. Britain likewise downgraded its ties with Myanmar from ambassadorial level to chargé d&#8217;affaires level in August 2021. The junta found that unacceptable and the British Ambassador, Pete Vowles, who went abroad on business, was barred from re-entering the country in February 2022. “The UK has a longstanding policy and practice of recognizing states, not governments,” Stephen Small, the embassy&#8217;s liaison officer, wrote in an emailed reply to RFA’s Myanmar Service. “We are engaging with the junta only where strictly necessary to deliver our political, development and humanitarian objectives and [for] the functioning of our embassy,” he added. “Changing the status of our head of mission ensures we can continue our role supporting the people of Myanmar without giving the military credibility by presenting our credentials to the Commander-in-Chief,” said Small. Vowles arrived in Myanmar in August 2021, seven months after the coup, and refused to hand over his credentials to the junta. In April the military regime told the embassy it would not accept him as ambassador any longer, the spokesman said. London did not recall Vowles, but decided to let him head the mission at a lower level and he is waiting for a new visa and entry permit for Myanmar, said Small. Police stand guard near the US embassy during a demonstration by protesters against the military coup in Yangon, Feb. 22, 2021. Credit: AFP Shunning an ‘unethical group’ Germany has likewise downgraded its representation in Myanmar, said embassy press officer Markus Lubawinski. “I can confirm that the German Embassy in Yangon, where we continue with our embassy work, is headed by a chargé d’affaires,” he wrote in an email to RFA. “The reduction from ambassadorial level to charge d&#8217;affaires, is, in layman&#8217;s terms, degrading,” said Kyaw Swa Tun, the third secretary at the Myanmar Embassy in Washington who joined the opposition after the coup. “It’s like saying we don&#8217;t need to pay attention to an unethical group,” he told RFA. “At present, most countries, including Europeans, have lowered their statuses in dealing with the regime. It also shows that they are not recognizing the junta and thus, the junta’s role is downgraded,” added Kyaw Swa Tun. Min Zaw Oo, executive director of the Myanmar Institute for Peace and Security said countries lowered the level of their diplomatic representation to avoid the poor optics of recognizing the junta. The regime is estimated to have killed at least 5,600 civilians in nearly 16 months since the coup. “When an ambassador comes in, he has to be officially recognized by the head of state. So, they do not want a big blaring photograph in the newspapers showing the current junta leader accepting their new ambassadors,” he said. Diplomatic sources in Yangon say Denmark, Italy, Israel and South Korea are considering following Britain, Germany and Australia in downgrading their level of representation. The U.S., European Union and Japan, however, are maintaining ambassadors at their embassies in Yangon. Hiram J. Ríos Hernández, spokesman for the U.S embassy in Yangon told RFA in an email that the US will continue to put pressure on the junta to return to the path of democracy in Myanmar. “Amb. Thomas Vajda presented his credentials to democratically elected President U Win Myint on January 19, 2021,” he told RFA by email. “The U.S. will continue to press the military regime to cease its violence, release all those unjustly detained, provide unhindered humanitarian access, and restore Burma’s path to democracy.” Zin Mar Aung, foreign minister of the National Unity Government, speaking with RFA during her visit to Washington May, 12, 2022. Credit: RFA Outreach to the NUG The European Union (EU) embassy in Yangon has said it will not change its current ambassadorial post, a spokesperson told RFA on behalf of Amb. Ranieri Sabatucci. “The EU does not envisage any change to my accreditation for the time being. The movements in the diplomatic sphere do not have any effect on our dealings with the military council,” he said, using a shorthand for the junta. Germany and Britain, the colonial ruler of what was formerly called Burma, and the EU have held meetings with representative of the country’s National Unity Government (NUG), a parallel administration made up of former lawmakers and officials of the government of leader Aung San Suu Kyi. “The federal government in Germany has spoken to individual members of the NUG. These exchanges have been made public,” said Lubawinski. “The U.K. sees the NUG as an important stakeholder for resolving the crisis,” said Small of the British Embassy. “The EU is having informal exchanges with the NUG. These are entertained by and from a number of interlocutors including our HQ in Brussels, the EU Mission to ASEAN and the EU Mission to the UN in New York,” said the EU mission in Yangon. “The EU retains the right to entertain relationships with any relevant party in Myanmar, including the NUG,” the statement issued on behalf of Sabatucci. Analyst Kyaw Swa Tun said that although the NUG has not yet been officially accepted by the international community, these contacts can been as a sign the group in increasingly being recognized as a legitimate government. Zin Mar Aung, who represents the NUG on the world stage, held key meetings on the sidelines of the U.S.-ASEAN summit in Washington last week with Wendy...
- [Vietnamese attorneys face abuse from police when defending their clients](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnamese-attorneys-face-abuse-from-police-when-defending-their-clients/): Attorneys in Vietnam say their ability to defend their clients in court is being undercut by threats and physical abuse the lawyers themselves face, often at the hands of state authorities. Defense lawyers in civil cases and politically charged ones said they not only encounter the usual obstacles to their work in a country with a long history of corruption — long pre-trial detentions of clients, witness intimidation, and politically motivated charges — but they also have been threatened and, in some cases, beaten by police and investigators who want defendants to be found guilty. Attorney Le Hoang Tung from Everest Law Firm filed a complaint after he was assaulted this month by an investigator while meeting with police officers in Ho Chi Minh City. City police denied the accusation on Wednesday, saying that the investigator did not assault Tung and that the lawyer was injured when he slipped and fell. They failed to explain why there were shoe marks on Tung’s shirt — evidence supporting the accusation that the investigator kicked the lawyer. In response, the Vietnam Bar Federation (VBF), which protects the rights of lawyers, submitted a request to police to investigate the incident, and to act against people who abuse attorneys or otherwise interfere with their ability to practice law. Attorney Nguyen Van Hau, a standing member of the VBF, told RFA on Wednesday that the organization sent requests to the directorates of the Ho Chi Minh City police and procuracy, which must provide public responses and handle the case in accordance with the law. “As for our part at VBF, we will monitor [the case] and protect the legitimate rights of lawyers participating in legal proceedings,” he said. Vietnam’s Law on Lawyers ensures that attorneys have the right to take part in legal proceedings, provide legal services, and protect justice, individuals and organizations’ rights and interests, and citizens’ rights to democracy and freedom. “No one can violate these rights,” Hau said. Tung’s case appears to involve the wrongdoing of single person, he said. “Sometimes, after lawyers raise an issue, the two sides [lawyers and investigators] start to argue with each other, and then they lose control,” said Hau. “If violations are detected, they should be handled properly and seriously. According to the Constitution, the body of a person is inviolable. Assaulting an ordinary person is already an infringement.” Defending their rights Other lawyers have suffered physical attacks in recent years. In November 2015, attorneys Tran Thu Nam and Le Van Luan were attacked by a group of eight people wearing face masks after they visited Do Thi Mai, whose son, Do Dang Dung, had been beaten to death at a temporary detention center. Prior to that, Mai said that Hanoi police had forced her to refuse access to lawyers. Nam and Luan then met with her to learn more about the case. In November 2021, attorney Ngo Anh Tuan from the Hanoi Bar Association reported that local police chased him away when he visited a client in Thanh Khuong commune, Bac Ninh province. “I will fulfill the responsibilities and protect the dignity of a lawyer until the last day I have my lawyer’s card,” he wrote on Facebook at the time. “I will have zero tolerance and will fight against all the violations of mine and my colleagues’ lawful rights.” Attorney Nguyen Duy Binh was representing colleague Tran Vu Hai, who as a lawyer defended political dissidents until he was accused of tax evasion, when Binh was forcefully escorted out of the courtroom by police for asking a defendant if the court had denied her request to petition five other lawyers to represent her. Binh was detained for a short time, before being released. Speaking about the incident, Binh told RFA on May 18 that he had been treated violently at least three times by people working in the justice system and that police had confiscated his mobile phone and deleted all of his data. Binh said that more attorneys are being assaulted by police due because Vietnam’s judiciary system” that enables investigative agencies and police investigators to prevent lawyers from doing their job. “Investigators don’t want lawyers to get involved in the cases they are working on because lawyers will make it harder for them to accuse suspected people and prove them guilty,” he said. “Perhaps, they think that lawyers will give advice to their clients in accordance with the law, making their clients more confident in answering questions and issues raised by investigative agencies,” said Binh. Lack of judicial independence In its annual worldwide human rights report last year, the U.S. State Department identified the lack of judicial independence as a key shortcoming in Vietnam. “The law provides for an independent judiciary, but the judiciary was effectively under the control of the [Communist Party of Vietnam], it said in the report, covering the year 2020. “There were credible reports political influence, endemic corruption, bribery, and inefficiency strongly distorted the judicial system,” it added, noting that “most, if not all, judges were members of the CPV.” Observers say attorneys who work as defense lawyers in political or sensitive cases are more likely to be assaulted. The number of cases in which police officers “raised their arms” or “lifted their legs” and “bumped” into people, including lawyers, with the intent to injure them have become common, attorney Dang Dinh Minh told RFA Wednesday. “Even lawyers who have good understanding of the law are sometimes victims of this problem,” he said. He suggested that authorities take a hard look at the problem and prosecute perpetrators. “Calling it by its true name would make it easier to address the issue in accordance with the law,” Minh said. “This is not only a sanction but also a deterrent to prevent the violation from being perpetuated. It would also help the relationship between citizens and law enforcement officers be healthy again.” Translated by Anna Vu for RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Top US official meets in India with Tibet’s Dalai Lama](https://ij-reportika.com/top-us-official-meets-in-india-with-tibets-dalai-lama/): The top U.S. official responsible for Tibetan issues met on Thursday morning with Tibet’s Dalai Lama at the exiled spiritual leader’s residence in Dharamsala, India. The meeting came on the second day of an official visit to the seat of Tibet’s government in exile, the Central Tibetan Administration, and drew a quick rebuke from China’s Foreign Ministry. Uzra Zeya, the State Department’s special coordinator for Tibetan issues, spoke with the Dalai Lama for more than an hour in the meeting, which was also attended by exile government leader Penpa Tsering, who accompanied Zeya and her delegation, and by Namgyal Choedup, representative of the Dalai Lama at the Office of Tibet in Washington D.C. “I am President Biden’s special coordinator for Tibetan issues, and it is my greatest honor to be received by you,” Zeya said, addressing the Dalai Lama at their meeting. “I bring greetings from our president and the American people and best wishes for your good health and gratitude for your message of peace for the world.&#8221; The Dalai Lama in turn expressed his happiness at meeting the U.S. diplomat, who was named to her post in December 2021. Speaking to reporters following the meeting, Sikyong Penpa Tsering — the democratically elected political leader of Tibet’s exile government — confirmed the meeting and said that Zeya and the Dalai Lama had discussed U.S. efforts “to preserve Tibet’s religion, language and culture to protect Tibet’s identity.” Formerly an independent nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force more than 70 years ago, and Tibetans frequently complain of discrimination and human rights abuses by Chinese authorities and policies they say are aimed at eradicating their national identity and culture. At a May 19 press conference, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian denounced Zeya’s meeting with the Dalai Lama, calling Tibet’s exile government an illegal organization and the Dalai Lama himself “a political exile disguised as a religious figure.” “The appointment of the so-called ‘US Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues’ constitutes an interference in China’s internal affairs. China is firmly opposed to this and has never acknowledged it,” Zhao said. In the debate over how best to advance the rights of the 6.3 million Tibetans living in China, some Tibetans call for a restoration of the independence lost when Chinese troops marched into Tibet in 1950. The CTA and the Dalai Lama, however, have adopted a policy approach called the Middle Way, which accepts Tibet’s status as a part of China but urges greater cultural and religious freedom, including strengthened language rights, for Tibetans living under Beijing’s rule. Nine rounds of talks were previously held between envoys of the Dalai Lama and high-level Chinese officials beginning in 2002, but stalled in 2010 and were never resumed. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [US investigators indict exiled Chinese pro-democracy activist on spying charges](https://ij-reportika.com/us-investigators-indict-exiled-chinese-pro-democracy-activist-on-spying-charges/): A prominent Chinese democracy activist in exile has been indicted on spying charges in the United States alongside four intelligence officers, suggesting successful infiltration of exile groups by China&#8217;s state security police. Wang Shujun, 73, a U.S. citizen resident of Queens, New York, was accused in an indictment of taking part in &#8220;an espionage and transnational repression scheme in the U.S. and abroad,&#8221; according to a statement on the Department of Justice&#8217;s official website. Wang was indicted along with People&#8217;s Republic of China (PRC) intelligence officers He Feng, Ji Jie, Li Ming and Lu Keqing and arrested on March 16, while his co-defendants remain at large, the statement said. &#8220;We will not tolerate efforts by the PRC or any authoritarian government to export repressive measures to our country,&#8221; Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen said. Olsen said the accused had sought to &#8220;suppress dissenting voices within the United States and to prevent our residents from exercising their lawful rights.&#8221; Wang, who had been known as an elder of the pro-democracy movement in exile, was a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) mole in that movement, &#8220;spying on and reporting sensitive information on prominent pro-democracy activists and organizations to his co-defendants, who are members of the Chinese government’s Ministry of State Security,&#8221; U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said. He said the operation had been threatening the safety and freedom of PRC nationals in the U.S., targeting them for their pro-democracy beliefs. According to the indictment, Wang was turned in 2011, after which he started covertly collecting information about prominent activists, including advocates for independence for Taiwan, a Uyghur state of East Turkestan, and Tibet, and giving it to Beijing. Police perform a stop and search on a group of people outside the High Court in Hong Kong, July 30, 2021. Credit: AFP &#8216;Transnational repression&#8217; Alan E. Kohler Jr.,  Acting Executive Assistant Director of the FBI’s National Security Branch, said the CCP&#8217;s intelligence operations now reach far beyond the borders of the PRC. “The PRC is targeting people in the United States and around the world,&#8221; Kohler said, adding that the FBI would continue to fight &#8220;transnational repression.&#8221; Wang had communicated with He, Ji, Li and Lu using encrypted messaging apps and emails, as well as during face-to-face meetings in the PRC. Wang recorded details of his conversations with activists in around 163 draft email entries in accounts that were also being accessed by the state security police, it said. Wang is also accused of transferring telephone numbers and contact information belonging to Chinese dissidents to his handlers, as well as making materially false statements to federal law enforcement about such contacts, court documents said. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law, it said. &#8216;An attack by the enemy within&#8217; U.S.-based activist Zeng Jianyuan said that Wang Shujun was very active in the U.S.-based pro-democracy movement. &#8220;Wang Shujun was very active in those circles. I had no contact with him, but I know him,&#8221; Zeng told RFA. &#8220;Many of us do. Nobody had fears or suspicions &#8230; I wasn&#8217;t wary of him.&#8221; &#8220;This was an attack by the enemy within,&#8221; he said. &#8220;He was at the heart of this circle, and could get intelligence first hand, which is why the CCP turned him.&#8221; Among the conversations Wang may have reported to state security police was one with former Hong Kong Democratic Party chairman Albert Ho, who also led the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Democratic Patriotic Movements of China, as well as the names and contact details for several Hong Kong activists who have since been arrested for their involvement in the 2019 protest movement. The 32-year-old Alliance now stands accused of acting as the agent of a foreign power, with leaders Chow Hang-tung, Albert Ho, and Lee Cheuk-yan arrested on suspicion of &#8220;incitement to subvert state power,&#8221; and the group&#8217;s assets frozen. Current affairs commentator Sang Pu said the indictment shows that the CCP has fully and successfully taken control of Hong Kong. &#8220;There are at least three kinds of infiltration practiced by the CCP,&#8221; Sang said. &#8220;One is red, in the case of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) and the Federation of Trade Unions.&#8221; &#8220;Another is gray, and uses a variety of methods and hiding places, so people think it&#8217;s harmless: that could take the form of a person, an ordinary businessman,&#8221; he said.  &#8220;The third is embedded in [the pro-democracy] camp: that could take the form of someone who is the yellowest in the yellow [Hong Kong pro-democracy] camp, or the greenest in the green [Taiwan&#8217;s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and allies] camp, who can spy on them from within.&#8221; &#8220;These three systems are all in operation at the same time,&#8221; Sang said. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Escape from Beijing: how a young man fled China's zero-COVID policy](https://ij-reportika.com/escape-from-beijing-how-a-young-man-fled-chinas-zero-covid-policy/): A Chinese citizen and former resident of Beijing who gave only the nickname Joseph took one look at the newly emerging COVID-19 restrictions in the Chinese capital, and decided he wanted no part of another lockdown like the one still under way in Shanghai. He spoke to RFA&#8217;s Mandarin Service about his roller-coaster exit from China. RFA: Did you feel you were on the run? Joseph: Of course I was on the run. I just escaped from Beijing. The Beijing authorities announced an eight-point rule on May 10, which seemed to imply that if a single person tested positive on your street, you and everyone else will immediately be barred from leaving town. When I saw that, I panicked, and said &#8216;that&#8217;s it. I&#8217;m running away&#8217;. RFA: You had already postponed a planned trip to New Zealand &#8212; how hard was it to leave? Joseph: I thought at first I could perhaps get on a flight on May 11, so I arrived in Shanghai on May 10. But I was wrong. The flight never left. I eventually took a flight on May 13. RFA: So even though you&#8217;d bought the ticket, you still didn&#8217;t know if you&#8217;d be able to get on the plane? Joseph: Everyone has to just guess. I could see the daily departures and arrivals on an app, which showed that Pudong, Hongqiao, and Guangzhou airports, the hardest-hit areas. You can tell from looking at it that the departure rate [for scheduled flights] is less than one percent, so it&#8217;s a guessing game that you can&#8217;t win. RFA: What did you do when your flight was canceled at Pudong International Airport? Joseph: I had brought some food, some cooked food, as well as crackers and the like. I was ready for a bit of hardship. I looked for a place to spend the night, but these airports all have marble floors. I had brought a sleeping bag, but I wasn&#8217;t well prepared because the floor was cold. I was OK, but cold. I made it through the nights. RFA: Was there no way to go anywhere else? You just had to stay at the airport? Joseph: Yes, all of the routes were cut off, so it&#8217;s basically an island there. There was an old lady in her 70s who flew to New Zealand on the same plane as me. New Zealand required the PCR test results in English, so we took the bus together for her to get the English test results. The bus was a bit late getting back. She&#8217;d done a PCR test but the results weren&#8217;t back yet, and it had been more than 48 hours after her earlier test. She was stopped and prevented from entering the terminal building. She begged them, saying her luggage and food were inside, and that she would starve, but she wasn&#8217;t allowed in. I tried to put in a word for her, and they nearly dragged me away. University student He Siyuan, who had to stay at Shanghai&#8217;s Pudong International Airport for 40 days because of the city&#8217;s strict COVID-19 lockdown. He took a PCR test every other day at the airport, and tested negative every time. Credit: Joseph RFA: Were there other people in your situation? Joseph: There was a college student next to me, a guy called He Siyuan who made the news a couple of days ago. It was broadcast on CCTV, and he slept next to me. The guy was very kind and very honest. He had been there more than 40 days, and I asked him how he was feeling. He said that it was quite bad at first, but that he had gradually gotten used to it. He said that he was worried at first, but now he is fine. He was barred from going back home by his neighborhood committee in Beijing, so he had no choice. He did a PCR test every two days at the airport, and every time it was negative. It was incredible all the people in Area A of Terminal 2. There was a gentleman from Zhejiang who was in Wuhan during the lockdown. When that ended, he went to Shanghai, where he was caught up in the lockdown there. He got there on April, like the college student. He had wanted to fly to Wuhan, but couldn&#8217;t, so he was stranded [at the airport]. I was touched by what he did. He started picking up the moisture-proof mats and sleeping bags left by the passengers from April 1, and used them to built a platform that could sleep more than 20 people along one of the walls in Area A. He surrounded it with luggage carts, leaving an exit, making a temporary shelter. He didn&#8217;t charge people to go in and sleep there. He would let you in if you asked him, as long as there was a spot. RFA: Where there any domestic flights leaving? Joseph: Yes, but sometimes only one, and sometimes none. Nobody knew exactly where they would be flying too, and they&#8217;d often be canceled. There was only the bus to Hongqiao or downtown Shanghai, but none to other provinces. There was the high-speed rail, but it was very, very hard to get tickets for it, so hard that it wasn&#8217;t worth bothering. RFA: What about international flights? Joseph: If there were eight flights a day, seven would be international and only one domestic. Maybe it&#8217;s because there would be diplomatic incidents if you cut off international flights and left foreigners in China for longer than they were supposed to be there. There were still international flights leaving Pudong and Guangzhou Baiyun airports. RFA: But people couldn&#8217;t actually get to Pudong Airport from Shanghai, could they? Some people were walking for 10 hours to get there. Joseph: Because there are almost no buses, and the buses that were running were on odd schedules. RFA: Didn&#8217;t you say that there was a bus from the airport to the city? Joseph: Yes, but only going to...
- [Missiles over medicine](https://ij-reportika.com/missiles-over-medicine/): North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has mobilized military forces to distribute vaccines, as the reclusive country departed from official denial and acknowledged a widening outbreak of COVID-19. Many of the country&#8217;s nearly 26 million people have weakened immune systems from chronic malnourishment and a lack of medical supplies – the result critics say of Kim&#8217;s spending most of his revenue on weapons systems that destabilize the region.
- [Conflict between Myanmar’s proxy forces may outlast a political resolution](https://ij-reportika.com/conflict-between-myanmars-proxy-forces-may-outlast-a-political-resolution/): Pro-military Pyu Saw Htee militiamen and anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries are engaged in what will likely become a protracted conflict in Myanmar with no formal process in place to mediate between the two civilian proxy armies, an analyst said Wednesday. In September, Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) declared war on the junta and ordered allied PDF groups around the country — formed to protect civilians from the military in the aftermath of its Feb. 1, 2021, coup — to attack junta targets. In areas where the PDFs were the strongest, such as in Magway and Sagaing regions in the north and west, the junta armed and trained groups of citizens who support military rule, forming the militia groups now known as the Pyu Saw Htee. The militia — whose name is derived from Pyusawhti, the legendary founder of the first Burmese kingdom — was given carte blanche to make arrests, seize property, kill PDF members and destroy villages, sources have told RFA’s Myanmar Service. More than 15 months since the military takeover, the two proxy forces have grown substantially and regularly clash throughout the country, where many of their fighters live virtually side by side as residents of neighboring townships and villages that support either the NUG or the junta. Min Zaw Oo, executive director of the Myanmar Institute for Peace and Security (MIPS), said that even if the junta and the NUG hammer out a resolution to Myanmar’s political crisis, the conflict between the Pyu Saw Htee and the PDF may well continue far into the future. “These are conflicts that are not easily ended,” he said. “It’s different from dying in a battle — war can end if a ceasefire is agreed to by two armies. … But such killing between civilians is not easily forgotten. This is a problem that will remain for decades to come. The mistrust will fester and remain a black mark on our society.” Observers say that between 150 and 200 civilians are killed each month in Myanmar — not on the battlefield, but during violent raids on villages that have in some cases resulted in massacres. The Institute for Strategy and Policy (ISP Myanmar), an independent research group, recently said it had documented the killing of at least 5,646 civilians across the country between the time of the coup and May 10, 2022. The current chaos is the result of the junta’s failure to control the violence, whether willingly or not, Min Zaw Oo said. A member of the People&#8217;s Defense Force in Kayah state&#8217;s Loikaw township. Credit: Loikaw PDF Forced recruitment Despite international pressure to defuse the situation through inclusive talks with all of Myanmar’s stakeholders, the junta has not only refused to meet with the NUG, which it calls a “terrorist organization,” it is forcibly “recruiting” Pyu Saw Htee fighters to battle the PDF in regions such as Sagaing and Magway, sources said Wednesday. Moe Gyi, a resident of Kan Doe village in Magway’s Gangaw township, told RFA that a joint force of junta troops and Pyu Saw Htee fighters entered the tract on May 13 and ordered people there to form a militia. “They told us to form a Pyu Saw Htee group within a week and said they would set the village on fire if we didn’t do so,” he said. According to Moe Gyi, a Buddhist monk from the village refused, and the junta forces promised to return in seven days. “There will be violence,” he said, adding that many residents have fled in fear of the military, which is “expanding their control to the south” of the township through the formation of Pyu Saw Htee militias. Other sources told RFA that the junta has provided training and weapons to the Pyu Saw Htee in Gangaw’s nearby Myauk Khin Yan and Han Thar Wa Di villages under the direction of “Bullet” Hla Swe, a former member of Parliament for the military proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP). USDP spokesperson Nanda Hla Myint said that although the party has not instructed its members to attack the PDF, it would “not stop” those who do. “We don’t have a party policy directing members to take up arms,” he said. “But it is their right to participate in programs set down by the local authorities, depending on the security situation in their area, so we have nothing to say about it.” Reports of forced recruitment into pro-junta militias were echoed by a resident of Sagaing’s Pale township named Zaw Zaw, who told RFA on Wednesday that fighters from two Pyu Saw Htee camps in the villages of Imahtee and Zeebyugone have threatened to harm area inhabitants if they do not fight the PDF. “People were told that food and water supplies will be cut off if they do not take up arms,” he said, adding that the junta is “exploiting” them because it does not even bother to maintain lists of Pyu Saw Htee fighters killed in operations against the PDF. An aerial view of Chaung Oo village, in Sagaing region&#8217;s Pale township, where junta troops and Pyu Saw Htee fighters burned more than 300 homes, Dec. 18, 2022. Credit: RFA ‘Working for the peace of the community’ The junta has repeatedly denied reports that it is behind the expansion of the Pyu Saw Htee, insisting that villagers are willingly and independently forming militia units to protect themselves from the PDF. Junta deputy minister of information, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, on Wednesday denied reports that the military is forcing villagers to form militias. “If there is a real need, we will provide training,” he said. “During the training, we teach them not only how to shoot but also what rules to follow, as well as the duties and responsibilities that any ordinary soldier should know. We are working for the peace of the community in a systematic way.” Zaw Min Tun said PDF groups “often attack villages when they hear that a militia unit has been formed,” and...
- [An uneasy truce is under threat in Myanmar’s Rakhine state](https://ij-reportika.com/an-uneasy-truce-is-under-threat-in-myanmars-rakhine-state/): Tensions between Myanmar’s military and the Arakan Army (AA) insurgent group are rising in the restive western state of Rakhine, although an uneasy ceasefire remains in effect for now, residents in the area told RFA. In late 2020, the AA agreed to end about two years of intense fighting with Myanmar’s military. The ceasefire was tested in February when the military attacked two AA bases in Rakhine, prompting new clashes in the area, sources told RFA at the time. Although the skirmishes did not lead to an all-out conflict, locals say tensions remain high and fighting could soon resume. The AA’s commander-in-chief, Maj. Gen. Tun Myat Naing, tweeted a warning to the leader of the junta’s Western Command, Htin Latt Oo, as the military and the AA work to establish a presence in towns like Minbya and Rathedaung. “We saw heavy security in Rathedaung Township since about a week ago,” Kyaw Min Khaing, a resident of Rathedaung, told RFA’s Myanmar Service. “It seems like both sides are ready for a full-scale battle. There are lots of them, in full force, both inside and outside the town. So, people are worried about a renewed fighting.&#8221; Soldiers from both sides are said to be facing each other in several Rathedaung villages, including Chaung, Aung Thar Si and Hteeswe. “Our people are worried because there are similar tensions in other areas,” said Annthar Gyee, a resident of Minbya, a town of 170,000 people where junta and AA forces have confronted one another. “There could be new fighting breaking out at any time. This time it could be bigger than before. What will happen if there is renewed fighting? We are worried about the consequences,” Annthar Gyee told RFA. On May 15, the AA said in a statement that the junta was deploying more forces in Rakhine, including areas controlled by the United League of Arakan (ULA), the AA’s parent political organization. The AA’s statement indicated that it viewed the junta’s activities to be a threat to the ULA’s administrative authority. Residents told RFA that junta soldiers are stationed in Taungup, Kyaukpyu, Ramree, Pauktaw and Ponnagyun to monitor AA activities in Rakhine, especially in Muslim villages. They also urge villagers not to support the AA and to inform them about the AA’s activities. The AA has called on the public to be vigilant in case tensions boil over and fighting erupts. Junta spokesman, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, told RFA that the military is only trying to promote security in the region. “We have to do what is necessary for security. What we are seeing lately is the AA’s statements about the current worrisome situation and the possibility of renewed fighting,” he said. “So, the question we want to ask is, What kind of attitude did they have when they issued such statements? We have to think about whether they are asking for some fighting,” Zaw Min Tun said. AA spokesman Khaing Thukha said what happens next will be determined by the junta&#8217;s activities in Rakhine. “We will take necessary action, depending on the political or military moves of the Myanmar army,” Khaing Thukha said. Disruptive activities by the military have brought the people of Myebon township to the brink, Pe Than, a former member of Myebon’s People’s Assembly, told RFA. “If the Myanmar army continues to harass and arrest our people or disrupts our judiciary practices, as they have been doing, I don’t think it’ll be long until we see new fighting.,” Pe Than said. “Troops from both sides are in close proximity on the ground and if new fighting were to occur, it’d be quite intense,” he said. He said the current ceasefire in Rakhine was a matter of mutual agreement that could be undermined without clarity between the two sides. Despite a ceasefire between the AA and the military, there are tens of thousands of people that have been displaced by the fighting between December 2018 and November 2020 and are still unable to return to their homes. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Uyghur lecturer said to be detained for not signing allegiance oath to CCP](https://ij-reportika.com/uyghur-lecturer-said-to-be-detained-for-not-signing-allegiance-oath-to-ccp/): A computer teacher from a university in the Xinjiang region has been detained by Chinese authorities since 2017 for failing to sign an oath of allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a Uyghur source in the town of Ghulja and local officials told RFA. Abdureshid Hamit, who worked at Ili Pedagogical University in Ghulja (in Chinese, Yining), was arrested and later charged with failing to make clear statements against what the Chinese government terms the “three evils” — separatism, extremism and terrorism — in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) and failing to sign the oath of allegiance, said a source in the city who has knowledge of the situation. Hamit is among a group of more than 20 educators at the university that an earlier RFA report said have been detained. Not all of the names of the educators have been publicly released. Chinese authorities have purged Uyghur society of intellectuals, prominent businessmen, and cultural and religious figures, imprisoning many of them in a vast network of internment camps, as part of what Beijing says is a campaign to prevent religious extremism and terrorist activities. The U.S. and the parliaments of other Western countries, however, have declared that such actions constitute genocide and crimes against humanity. The computer instructor is the son of Hamit Qadirghoja, a former university dean, and he grew up on the school campus. Hamit enrolled in Xinjiang University in 1995 and graduated in 2000 with a bachelor’s degree in computer science. Besides Uyghur and Chinese, he is fluent in English, the source with knowledge of the situation said As a lecturer at the university’s Institute of Information Technology in 2000, Hamit was known for his professionalism and strict moral code, the person said. He regularly expressed his dissatisfaction with what he saw as the unequal treatment of Uyghur and Kazakh students and the disparity in teacher salaries to school administrators, the source said. As a result, Hamit became an unofficial representative for Uyghur and Kazakh teachers at the school. At the time, the university’s Chinese leaders said his character was “quarrelsome,” and in 2017 he was accused of “ethnic separatism” and “being a two-faced person” —accusations that were the basis for his arrest, the source said. When RFA called the university to inquire about Hamit’s fate, an official in the Education Department said that the educator was not currently on the school’s list of teachers and was likely detained. “He was more socially active among Uyghurs,” the official said. “It’s been five years since he was arrested. We don’t know where he is in captivity.” Another official at the school said Hamit was in detention but provided no further details. “His case was concluded three years ago,” she said. “I don’t know his imprisonment information.” A former classmate of Hamit who now lives in exile told RFA by email that the lecturer did not sign the oath of loyalty to the CCP. Nor, the source said, did Hamit swear to be against the “three evils” in a document prepared by the university’s Political Department in 2016, when the Chinese government sought to get Uyghurs in the XUAR to profess an allegiance to the CCP. His refusal prompted an official investigation later the same year, the former classmate said. The university’s Disciplinary Committee repeated Hamit’s previous disagreements with school administrators and charged him with political “crimes,” such as “creating a sense of ethnic hatred” and “inciting ethnic divisions” at the school, he said. Hamit’s case was then referred to judicial authorities. Investigators found that Hamit used a virtual private network, or VPN, to circumvent Chinese government censorship of internet sites and to contact foreigners online. Authorities charged him with harboring separatist sentiments. A disciplinary officer at Ili Pedagogical University told RFA that Hamit was arrested in 2017, but he did not know the length of his prison term or where he was incarcerated. Hamit, whose parents are Uyghur and Kazakh, traveled to Kazakhstan in 2010 to visit his Kazakh relatives, the source with knowledge of the situation said. During his second visit to the Central Asian country, he also visited Turkey and met with computer professionals there. Chinese authorities later cited these foreign visits as evidence of his connections with “separatist organizations and individuals” and used them as a basis to charge Hamit with the crime of “trying to separate the country,” the source said. Translated by RFA’s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [US government’s special coordinator for Tibetan issues to meet with Dalai Lama](https://ij-reportika.com/us-governments-special-coordinator-for-tibetan-issues-to-meet-with-dalai-lama/): A top U.S. official on Tibet will meet with the Dalai Lama on Thursday morning during a two-day official visit to Dharamsala, India, the headquarters of the Tibetan government-in-exile. Uzra Zeya, who was appointed as the State Department’s special coordinator for Tibetan issues in December 2021, will make the stop during trips to India and Nepal on May 17–22 to “deepen cooperation on human rights and democratic governance goals, and to advance humanitarian priorities,” the department said Monday. Zeya, who is also the undersecretary for civilian security, democracy and human rights, arrived with her delegation at the seat of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) on Wednesday and will meet the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader at his residence the following day. The visit comes at a time when the Chinese government is stepping up repressive measures on some minority groups in the country, including Tibetans and Uyghurs in Xinjiang. The U.S. State Department’s 2022 human rights report, which covers 2021, cited significant human rights issues in Tibet perpetrated by authorities, including: arbitrary arrests; extrajudicial killings; torture and cases of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment; and severe restrictions on religious freedom. Zeya is working to promote a substantive dialogue without preconditions between Beijing and the Dalai Lama and his representatives, or with democratically elected Tibetan leaders. She is also working to protect Tibetans’ linguistic, cultural and religious heritage. During the visit, Zeya plans to tour the Tibetan Children’s Villages school, the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts, the Tibet Museum, the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, and a number of monasteries. Sikyong Penpa Tsering, the elected leader of Tibet’s exile government, welcomed Zeya upon her arrival in what is the first high-level contact between the U.S. and the Tibetan leadership during the Biden administration. “The Biden administration’s immediate appointment of the special coordinator after taking office is itself is a huge honor, and during her visit here in the Dharamsala she will be briefed on different management and the overall Tibetan administration, where she will also meet with the Dalai Lama,” said CTA spokesman Tenzin Lekshey. “So, this visit will facilitate the U.S. government to understand and further strengthen support for Tibet.” Khenpo Sonam Tenphel, speaker of the Tibetan Parliament-in-exile, said the special coordinator’s visit to Dharamsala “sends a strong political message to China” of the need to work toward a negotiated agreement on Tibet. Bhuchung Tsering, interim president of International Campaign for Tibet, an advocacy group that promotes democratic freedoms for Tibetans, told RFA that Zeya’s meeting with CTA leaders is significant in two respects. “First, China has been under scrutiny lately with regard to various concerns, and Tibet is one of the most crucial, so we believe that this meeting with our Tibetan leaders is crucial for the Tibetan issue globally,” he said. Second, while campaigning in September 2020, President Biden and his administration promised to take a strong stand against China’s human rights abuses in Tibet and to support Tibetans’ cultural and religious rights, he said. “The special coordinator’s visit to India signifies his promise and his administration’s initiative to draw support for Tibet,” Tsering said. During his first official visit to the U.S. after being elected CTA leader, Tsering met with Zeya in Washington in April and with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and other congressional leaders. In January 2000, Julia Taft, the late former U.S. assistant secretary of state for population, refugees, and migration, became the first special coordinator for Tibetan issues to visit Dharamasala. Sarah Sewell, former undersecretary for civilian security, democracy and human rights, visited the city in 2014 and 2016 when she held the special coordinator position. At the time of Zeya’s appointment to the role in December 2021, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement that her designation demonstrated the Biden administration’s “commitment to advance the human rights of Tibetans, help preserve their distinct heritage, address their humanitarian needs, and meet environmental and water resource challenges of the Tibetan plateau.” Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Hong Kong could move to block Telegram app, citing 'privacy violations'](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-could-move-to-block-telegram-app-citing-privacy-violations/): Authorities in Hong Kong could move to block the popular Telegram messaging app, amid fears that the city could gradually be moving towards mainland China-style internet censorship. Privacy Commissioner Ada Chung told a Legislative Council (LegCo) committee on Monday that the government remains concerned about doxxing and other violations of personal data privacy, and that her office is looking at blocking Telegram to address the issue. Chung&#8217;s office issued 227 takedown orders to 12 online platforms between Oct. 8, 2021 and Dec. 31, 2021, requesting the removal of posts that revealed people&#8217;s personal details, something that was criminalized in an amended Privacy Ordinance last October. She said around 80 percent of the 1,111 posts had been removed. Chung said her office had also been involved in having people arrested for posting information about LegCo members &#8212; all of whom were elected from a slate of candidates strictly vetted for their loyalty to the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) &#8212; and their family members online. Such information, if it led to knowledge of lawmakers&#8217; business interests and political connections, might be considered in the public interest elsewhere. Chung said her office was fighting an ongoing battle to prevent personal information being posted online, as people often repost the information after the takedown order has been implemented. She said it was much harder to enforce the law when it came to online platforms headquartered overseas. Chung said the newly amended law gives her office the power to restrict access to platforms that don&#8217;t comply with the city&#8217;s privacy laws, adding that her officials are compiling a blacklist of non-compliant platforms. Forum for social activism The pro-China Singtao Daily newspaper identified Telegram &#8212; which was widely used to coordinate civil disobedience and other actions during the 2019 protest movement &#8212; as the chief area of concern for the government. &#8220;Since 2019, the Privacy Commissioner has noticed that many of the messages that originated in Hong Kong were sent from a few groups on Telegram, and that most of them were political in nature, or involved the continuation of social activism,&#8221; the paper said. &#8220;Those targeted included government officials, LegCo members and even regular citizens.&#8221; Telegram said on Wednesday it was &#8220;surprised&#8221; by the claims of doxxing made by Hong Kong officials. &#8220;Doxxing content is forbidden on Telegram and our moderators routinely remove such content from around the world,&#8221; spokesperson Remi Vaughn said in a statement emailed to RFA. It said that while doxxing, illegal pornography or calls to violence would be deleted, the company wouldn&#8217;t carry out political censorship. &#8220;Any requests related to political censorship or limiting human rights such as the rights to free speech or assembly are not and will not be considered,&#8221; the statement said. Meanwhile, exiled Hongkongers in the U.K. are using public spaces to evade political censorship that would be meted out to them at home under a draconion national security law imposed on Hong Kong by the CCP, banning public dissent and political opposition. Art curator and former pro-democracy district councilor Clara Cheung moved to the U.K. with her family after it became clear that opposition politicians were increasingly being targeted under the national security law, which took effect from July 1, 2020. Now in Manchester, Cheung has put together an exhibit titled &#8220;The 24901-mile-wide Red Line,&#8221; showcasing works from Hong Kong artists that can no longer be publicly displayed in their home city. Milk Tea Alliance She also invited artists from Thailand and Myanmar, whose own protest movements were supported by Hong Kong protesters as part of the Milk Tea Alliance, to exhibit. The 24,901 miles refers to the earth&#8217;s circumference, and Beijing&#8217;s attempts to extend censorship far beyond China&#8217;s borders to the entire planet. Many of the works in the show would have been entirely unproblematic in Hong Kong just a few years ago, Cheung said. She said the exhibit was intended to encourage Hong Kong artists to keep testing the limits of government censorship. &#8220;Otherwise, the creative space will get smaller and smaller, and the red line will be more and more entrenched,&#8221; Cheung said. &#8220;Everyone will get squeezed tighter and tighter by the white terror,&#8221; she said, using a term that originated in Taiwan to describe political crackdowns on dissent under the authoritarian rule of the Kuomintang, which ended in the 1990s. &#8220;The people in charge of Hong Kong are giving us the impression &#8230; that curbs are actually more severe than those in mainland China,&#8221; Cheung said. &#8220;It&#8217;s as if the different departments in the Hong Kong government, like the state security police, prosecution service, etc, are fighting among themselves to see who is more loyal [to Beijing].&#8221; A Hongkonger viewing the exhibit who gave only the nickname A Chin said dissidents in Myanmar appear to have it still worse, however. &#8220;One artist in Myanmar died after being tortured for 12 hours &#8230; I don&#8217;t even know what to say to that; it weighs heavily on me,&#8221; A Chin said. &#8220;But it&#8217;s important for those of us who are still alive to see what we can do &#8230; you can&#8217;t stay in the pain of the past forever.&#8221; Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Report tracks China’s assertiveness at sea over the decades](https://ij-reportika.com/report-tracks-chinas-assertiveness-at-sea-over-the-decades/): China is the source of destabilization in the South China Sea and has been for the last couple decades, but Beijing’s assertiveness has less to do with its rivalry with the United States than is commonly assumed, a new report says. In the report “Dynamics of Assertiveness in the South China Sea” published by the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR), an U.S. non-profit research institution, U.K.-based academic Andrew Chubb examines maritime disputes and the changes in state behavior of the most active claimants including the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Philippines and Vietnam. The report is based on based on data that measures the year-on-year changes in assertive behavior by the three countries between 1970 and 2015. Chubb identified four types of assertiveness which states are demonstrating while pursuing their interests in the South China Sea, ranging from verbal claim assertions via statements and diplomatic notes to threats of punishment and the use of force. One of the findings is that increasing Chinese assertiveness has been continuous in the South China Sea, with the PRC making assertive moves in most years since 1970. Furthermore, the PRC’s coercive actions, or those that involve the threat or use of punishment, became much more frequent after 2007, the year that marked the beginning of a rapid expansion of Chinese patrols and massive land reclamation efforts. China’s assertive actions have most frequently targeted the Philippines and Vietnam, the study found, and were generally not driven by dynamics in Sino-U.S. relations – although Washington, which is not a claimant in the South China Sea, has in the past decade become increasingly vocal about China’s behavior. More recently, it has also stepped up freedom of navigation operations and military drills in those waters. Deterrence strategy The study also draws conclusions about the stance of the China’s rival claimants. On Vietnam, it finds that as early as the 1990s, virtually every assertive move by Hanoi in the South China Sea concerned its disputes with China. Meanwhile, Vietnam remained a target for around 80 percent of PRC assertive actions through the 2000s. But by 2010, after three years of sustained Chinese advancements, Vietnam could no longer keep up with the PRC and from mid-2011 on, new Vietnamese assertive activities were mostly verbal declarations, as Hanoi switched its focus toward diplomacy, according to the study. Manila’s behavior in the South China Sea, on the other hand, has been more sporadic and inconsistent than that of the other claimants, and more likely to be one-off incidents rather than ongoing actions. The confrontation between Chinese maritime militia and the USNS Impeccable in the South China Sea in 2009. (Center for Strategic and International Studies). Serious U.S. concerns only started in March 2009 when the U.S. surveillance ship USNS Impeccable, believed to have been conducting hydrographic surveys, was harassed by Chinese maritime militia while operating near Hainan island in the South China Sea.  The study finds that PRC’s assertive policy in the South China Sea has not been driven by its great-power competition with the U.S. China’s policy gathered steam about a decade before the sharp downturn in Sino-U.S. relations from 2017. The author says it is challenging for Washington to formulate a response to Bejing’s assertiveness while continuing to be seen as a stabilizing force in the region. “Given the protracted nature of the PRC build-up, it definitely means that the U.S. has a lot of challenges if it wants to use policy tools to try to deter the PRC from engaging assertive moves,” Chubb said. The author looked into “the idea of trying to counter the PRC’s strategy by deliberately raising the risk of escalation … that has been advocated by a number of influential policy thinkers over the years.” Chubb advised against it, saying that one of the greatest strengths of the U.S. in the region is being seen as a stabilizing force. “Looking at the situation over the past couple decades, it’s quite clear that the PRC is the source of destabilization and the U.S. presence has been by and large a stabilizing one.” “Deterrence strategy should focus on economic measures such as trade negotiations rather than actions that raise the risk of military escalation,” he said. ASEAN countries could also do more to send a “subtle but loud deterrence signal” that will force Beijing to make concessions or at least give it incentives for moderation. “Over the past couple decades, the intra-ASEAN disputes have been neutralized, ASEAN countries are no longer advancing claims against each other in an active manner,” Chubb said. But he noted that even “symbolic gestures would be taken very seriously by the PRC as a sign that countries in the region are forming a united front against China.”  
- [Shanghai residents take issue with 'fake' propaganda claims about reopening](https://ij-reportika.com/shanghai-residents-take-issue-with-fake-propaganda-claims-about-reopening/): Residents of Shanghai have been reporting their city government to a national fraud hotline after claims of fully stocked, open supermarkets and eateries were posted by a ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) newspaper. Shanghai officials say the city has been free from any new COVID-19 infections for four days straight, as some shops have been allowed to open and public transport will likely resume at the weekend. Residents of housing compounds are now being allowed out on a limited basis, one person at a time, and with ongoing restrictions on their movements in the local area. Some 790,000 people remain under total lockdown, while 2.71 million are still subject to strict controls on their movements and 19.8 million are now in &#8220;prevention&#8221; areas requiring a green health code to travel or access goods and services outside the home. Citywide testing and contract-tracing will continue, hoping to close in fast on any new infections to contain outbreaks before they can spread, municipal health commission spokesman Zhao Dandan told journalists on Wednesday. Infected people and close contacts will continue to be sent to isolation facilities, Zhao said. Since the city government claimed it had achieved zero-COVID on Monday, officials have ramped up local visits and inspections, with municipal party secretary Li Qiang visiting Fengxian district and mayor Gong Zheng visiting Songjiang district on Tuesday, to encourage ongoing testing and tracing efforts. CCP newspaper the People&#8217;s Daily also published a graphic based on the Shanghai government&#8217;s plans to reopen food and beverage businesses from May 16, describing breakfast and dim sum bars, fast food joints, hair salons, supermarkets and farmers&#8217; markets as opening up gradually. A delivery worker is seen delivering orders to residents next to a checkpoint on a closed street during a Covid-19 coronavirus lockdown in the Jing&#8217;an district in Shanghai, May 17, 2022. Credit: AFP Fraud hotline report Social media users hit out at the graphic, with some people posting screenshots showing they had reported the municipal authorities to a national fraud hotline. &#8220;Sort this account out,&#8221; one comment read, referencing the Shanghai government&#8217;s official Weibo account, while another wrote: &#8220;Sort out the Shanghai government, stop them talking rubbish with their eyes open.&#8221; &#8220;Please sort out @shanghaifabu,&#8221; another tip-off says, referencing the same account. The People&#8217;s Daily account later removed the graphic. A Xuhui district resident surnamed Zhou said senior officials appear to be ramping up public appearances as part of their &#8220;celebration&#8221; of zero-COVID. &#8220;The leaders will be putting on a show, including appearing under the Oriental Pearl tower,&#8221; Zhou said. &#8220;They have already begun rehearsals, and they seem to be getting ready to celebrate.&#8221; Zhou said the compound he lives in remains locked down, and he can&#8217;t go out even to buy daily necessities. &#8220;A lot of stores are still closed right now, so there&#8217;s no point in going out anyway,&#8221; Zhou told RFA. &#8220;Even if the stores are open, they have nothing in stock, nothing to buy.&#8221; &#8220;If you want to buy stuff, you still have to rely on group buying,&#8221; he said. Fresh fruit highly sought after Zhou said one of the most sought-after items is fresh fruit, with even apples currently selling for prices 50 percent higher than before lockdown. In a video clip posted to social media, a member of a neighborhood committee in Xuhui accused local residents of breaking disease control regulations by buying in fruit, and stop them from collecting their order. &#8220;All we want is to eat some fruit,&#8221; a woman says in the video. &#8220;It was banned until May 15, but we&#8217;re still not allowed to order it on May 16.&#8221; &#8220;Now there are several people dragging me away,&#8221; she says. &#8220;This is such bullshit. Don&#8217;t ordinary people have a right to live as well?&#8221; Current affairs commentator Zhang Jianping said many people are angry over what they say is fake news stories being peddled by the authorities. &#8220;Of course they&#8217;re going to be angry, if they&#8217;re living through hell in Shanghai right now,&#8221; Zhang said. &#8220;We should take seriously these accusations of fake news coming from the people of Shanghai.&#8221; &#8220;They should take a good look at their content. The police lied and released false information, so this post was bound to cause offense to people,&#8221; he said. Meanwhile, police detained a man surnamed Lu on Tuesday at the China Resources Vanguard supermarket in Global Harbor on suspicion of &#8220;conjuring up rumors from thin air,&#8221; the Shanghai government said. Lu had allegedly claimed that the supermarket was being forced to operate by the government under chaotic management and in filthy conditions. Lu was jailed on an administrative punishment by police in Shanghai&#8217;s Putuo district for &#8220;disturbing public order with made-up allegations,&#8221; it said. Administrative sentences of up to 15 days can be handed down by police to perceived troublemakers without trial. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [The Chinese mighty influence on the World Cinema](https://ij-reportika.com/the-chinese-mighty-influence-on-the-world-cinema/): The Chinese mighty influence on the World Cinema According to @StatistaCharts, China is world’s Largest Film Market, overtaking North America with 47 billion yuan (7.4 billion USD) of box office revenue in 2021. Let’s discuss Chinese influence on the world cinema through its gigantic market and its economic influence! 𝗣𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰𝘀 Hollywood Studios are pressurized by China to indulge in censorship to suit the Chinese narrative. They thus indulge in self censorship, post release censorship and cutting out movies scenes before its China release. 𝗕𝗮𝗻 𝗠𝗼𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘀 Dr Strange 2 was banned recently. The reason was a newspaper box of Dajiyuan the Chinese language EpochTimes (critical of Chinese authoritarianism) appearing in one shot of the movie. Following are some of the movies which suffered a similar fate. Recently, The Film Censorship Board of Malaysia (LPF) has banned a Hong Kong film from screening in Malaysia for allegedly glorifying violent protests and for its potential to affect Malaysia-China bilateral relations. The film, ‘May You Stay Forever Young’, depicts a 17-year-old girl’s attempt to kill herself during the massive anti-extradition protests in Hong Kong and her friends’ efforts to rescue her. 𝗕𝗮𝗻 𝗔𝗿𝘁𝗶𝘀𝘁𝘀 Actor John Cena had to apologize to Chinese audience after calling Taiwan a country to avoid getting banned. Many other prominent artists, however, got banned in China in past decades. Show Tibet/Taiwan/Hongkong and get banned Any movie in the world cant showcase these nations as independent nations or nations under captivity. Even attending concerts for countries like Tibet will ensure a ban on the artist and all his/her movies. 𝗖𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗦𝗰𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘀 The 2015 sci-fi movie Pixel made it into China after removing a scene of aliens blasting a hole into the GreatWall of China. The makers put a scene where the aliens are smashing the Taj Mahal in India instead. 𝗕𝗮𝗻 𝗔𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝘄𝘀 China also bans the broadcast of the Award Shows where an uncensored film is getting nominated/honored. Music Censorship 𝗢𝗯𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝗲 influenced world cinema Many countries have objected to the release of the movies influenced by China. US Market vs the Chinese Market The growth of China in the movie world is significant. The stats show why Hollywood cant resist the Chinese temptation. The following data is from the year 2021. China finances Hollywood China finances many Hollywood movies and the number of movies it finance is on the rise. Chinese movies are also getting shelved!! Recently, a film &#8220;Hidden in the Dust&#8221;, which reflects the living conditions of the people at the bottom of northwest China, was taken off the shelves after breaking through the box office of over 100 million yuan.&nbsp;The reason for this has sparked heated debate. On July 8 this year, a Chinese reality film &#8220;Hidden in the Dust&#8221;, which has been withdrawn many times, was finally approved by the cultural department for screening.&nbsp;This small-budget film cost only about 2 million yuan, but within 60 days of its launch, it created an astonishing record of breaking the box office of 100 million yuan. However, before the film&#8217;s network key had expired, the film was removed from the theaters ahead of schedule due to reasons such as &#8220;catering to the West&#8221;, and Chinese streaming media platforms followed closely. Wang Ruiqin, former member of the Chinese People&#8217;s Political Consultative Conference of Qinghai Province, who lives in the United States, said in an interview that &#8220;Hidden in the Dust&#8221; just reflects the current situation of Northwest society. Which movie will surely get banned There is a 𝗽𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻 𝗯𝗲𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗯𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗼𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗯𝗮𝗻𝘀. Just like Chinese influence on the world media and Chinese influence on the cultural narratives, the Chinese influence on the world cinema is also massive. Following are some of the common themes that gets banned by China. “Censorship is to art as lynching is to justice.” Henry Louis Gates Jr Sources: Dr.Jenny Kin Jacobs compiled and curated this report jenny_kjacobs
- [New civilian death toll since coup ‘unprecedented’ in Myanmar’s history](https://ij-reportika.com/new-civilian-death-toll-since-coup-unprecedented-in-myanmars-history/): More than 5,600 civilians have been killed in Myanmar since the military seized power last year, according to a new estimate by an independent research institute, which called the death toll “unprecedented” in the country’s history. The Institute for Strategy and Policy (ISP Myanmar) said in a report last week that it had documented at least 5,646 civilian deaths between the Feb. 1, 2021, coup and May 10, including people killed by security forces during anti-junta protests, in clashes between the military and pro-democracy paramilitaries or ethnic armies, while held in detention, and in revenge attacks, including against informers for the regime. At least 1,831 civilians were killed in shooting deaths, the largest number of which occurred in war-torn Sagaing region, where junta troops have faced some of the toughest resistance to military rule in clashes with People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries that have displaced tens of thousands of residents since the coup. The numbers are largely in line with reporting by RFA’s Myanmar Service, which had documented at least 5,683 civilian deaths between the military takeover and May 12. On May 10 alone, junta troops slaughtered 29 civilians in Mon Taing Pin village, in Sagaing region’s Ye Oo township, sources recently told RFA, saying the victims appeared to have been “killed and burned intentionally” by soldiers targeting residents in retaliation for alleged ties to the PDF. ISP Myanmar said at least 3,107 civilians were killed after being named “Dalans,” or military informants, based on statements issued by the junta on Jan. 14 and by the chairman of the military proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party, Than Htay. A member of the PDF in Sagaing region told RFA on condition of anonymity that those who report paramilitary movements to the military have been targeted because the armed opposition is “handicapped in manpower and weapons.” “If these pillars supporting the junta are not removed in time, they will report every movement of ours to the military,” he said. “If the military finds out about our movements, they can easily crush our defenses on the ground. The military would always have the upper hand.” A similar form of revenge killing is on the rise with the emergence of the pro-junta Thway Thauk, or Blood Comrades, militia, whose members have killed at least 18 people — mostly members of the deposed National League for Democracy party and their relatives — in Mandalay region. The daughter of Zwee Htet Soe, a protester who died during a demonstration against the military coup, cries during her father&#8217;s funeral in Yangon, March 5, 2021. AFP ‘Unprecedented’ death toll Kyaw Htet Aung, a senior researcher at ISP Myanmar, called the death toll since the coup “unprecedented” in the history of Myanmar. “We are seeing pressures and reactions that are unprecedented in Myanmar’s history. As clashes between the two sides increased, so did civilian casualties. I think that’s the main reason why civilian deaths are the highest that have ever been in the post-independence era [beginning in January 1948],” he said. “One side is operating under the belief that the junta cannot be allowed to rule at all. But the junta is determined to work towards stability and dominance at all costs. So, I think the civilian casualties have increased because of these clashing ideologies.” Peace and security in Myanmar have been shattered, Kyaw Htet Aung said, and “people are living in fear.” When asked for comment on the estimated death toll, junta deputy minister of information, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, called ISP Myanmar’s numbers “baseless.” “These groups rarely provide true and accurate information,” he said. “We are publishing daily updates on what is happening. We can just ignore [the estimated death toll]. We don’t need to respond to them.” Spokesperson for the military proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) Nanda Hla Myint told RFA the civilian deaths do not bode well for the country’s future. “It’s unfortunate that our fellow citizens are being killed in such ways,” he said. “Instead of carefully trying to understand the cause of why all this is happening, people have become accustomed to arming themselves and killing at will. It’s not right to say, ‘You’re my enemy if you’re not with us.’ It’s a matter of grave concern for the future of our country.” Nanda Hla Myint urged both sides to “use wisdom to think and act correctly” before resorting to bloodshed. “The main thing is to be able to think carefully. We need to have the wisdom to think and see correctly.” Political analyst Sai Kyi Zin Soe said Myanmar’s political crisis will only be resolved “when all parties concerned act in good faith.” “People are suffering,” he said. “[But] if all stakeholders with the power to make decisions operate under this kind of mindset, there is nothing that is unresolvable.” The bullet-pierced motorbike helmet of Mya Thwe Thwe Khine, the first protester to die in demonstrations against the Myanmar military coup, at her funeral in Naypyidaw, Feb. 21, 2021. US-ASEAN Summit The latest death toll statistics came as Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) called the decision not to invite junta representatives to last week’s U.S.-ASEAN Summit in Washington, while allowing NUG officials to engage with their counterparts there, “a major setback” for the military regime’s international standing and “a win for the people of Myanmar.” “Arranging a meeting with senior government officials is … a very good step for the NUG [and] a great result for the people of Myanmar,” said NUG President’s Office spokesperson Kyaw Zaw. “This makes the military regime even more isolated. It’s a big diplomatic defeat and a source of shame for them.” Myanmar was one of only two ASEAN countries whose rulers were not at the May 12-13 summit. The Philippines was represented at the summit by its foreign minister as it wrapped up a presidential election, while Myanmar’s junta chief, Sen. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, was barred from the gathering for the brutal crackdown on opponents of his regime. While absent...
- [North Korea prioritizes vaccines for border soldiers as COVID wave hits](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-prioritizes-vaccines-for-border-soldiers-as-covid-wave-hits/): North Korea’s border patrol soldiers have been among the first to receive shots of the Sinovac vaccine hastily procured from China as the isolated country struggles to contain a wave of COVID-19 infections, North Korean sources said. The Korean Central News Agency reported that more than 1.2 million had fallen ill with an unspecified “fever” believed to be the highly contagious respiratory virus from the end of April until May 15. The announcement came only two days after North Korea first admitted that some of its citizens had COVID-19. Of the people who fell ill, more than 50 later died, the country said. Ryu Yong Chol, an official of the National Emergency Quarantine Command Center, said on Korean Central TV that there were 42 confirmed cases of the virus in Pyongyang and a total of 168 confirmed cases in seven cities and provinces. Leader Kim Jong Un has mobilized military forces to distribute vaccines in the nation of nearly 26 million people, many of whom have weakened immune systems from chronic malnourishment and a lack medical supplies. “The National Emergency Quarantine Command started administering Chinese vaccines to soldiers of the 31st Border Security Bureau brigade,” a military official from North Pyongan province told RFA on Sunday. Though vaccinations also have been given to Border Security Bureau and armistice units stationed in North Pyongan and Chagang provinces, which border China, the vaccination rate remains less than 1%, said the source, who declined to be named for safety reasons. News of COVID-19 infections surfaced after soldiers who had participated in a military parade on April 25 reported high fevers and respiratory symptoms and later tested positive for the disease. As of the beginning of May, the coronavirus has been spreading among members of the Border Security Bureau and soldiers stationed along the entire border region, the source said. Because of this, a delegation of the National Emergency Quarantine Command was urgently dispatched to China to obtain doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, he said. “The delegation of the National Emergency Quarantine Command went to China, contacted the Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac with the cooperation of the trade representative in China, and requested support for the COVID-19 vaccine,” the source told RFA. Sinovac provided that vaccines for free, he said, adding that it was likely that Chinese authorities ordered the company to give the doses to North Korea. “The vaccines from China were immediately brought in by sea and the Border Security Bureau patrols and soldiers stationed on the border were vaccinated first,” the source said. “It’s a state secret how many people can be vaccinated with Chinese vaccines, which have just now come in for the first time.” &#8216;Death toll will increase&#8217; A trader from North Pyongan province told RFA on Sunday that the National Emergency Quarantine Command initially announced that there were 296,180 of “fever” cases nationwide as of May 14. “In fact, the published figures show fever and respiratory symptoms are being reported at rates more than a few times greater than that,” he said. North Korean officials requested COVID-19 vaccines manufactured by Sinovac because they can be stored and transported at normal refrigeration temperatures of 2 to 8 degrees Celsius (36-46 degrees Fahrenheit), the trader said. “If sufficient amount of vaccines are imported in the future, Pyongyang citizens and all military personnel across the country will be vaccinated,” he said. North Korean citizens, however, are going untreated due to lack of access to medicines, including those to treat common cold symptoms, a medical source and a resident of North Pyongan province told RFA. As COVID-19 cases soar, hospitals are quickly becoming overrun, said the medical source, who declined to be named in order to speak freely. “It looks like that the death toll will increase because they will not receive any medicine to alleviate their symptoms,” she said on Sunday. Cold and fever medicines were not available after the Central Committee of the Workers&#8217; Party of Korea, the country’s ruling party, began operating the emergency quarantine system at a maximum level, she said. The medical professional warned that people who are able to get their hand on cold medicines must be careful of fake product that could harm them. “Sometimes, pharmacists and drug dealers sell cold medicines, but most of them are fake,” she told RFA. “In fact, a patient with a high fever from Sunam district in Chongjin [North Hamgyong province] died of side effects after taking a cold medicine manufactured by the Pyongyang pharmaceutical factory.” But a resident in North Pyongan province told RFA that all cold medicines manufactured in neighboring China are gone, as are the counterfeit drugs made by state-owned pharmaceutical companies. “As the number of coronavirus patients rapidly increases these days, fever and cold medicines have become unavailable,” said the resident, who declined to be named for safety reasons. Meanwhile, the cost of herbal medicines unrelated to coronavirus treatment has skyrocketed, with the price of uhwang-cheongsimhwan, a pill made from about 30 herbs used to treat various symptoms such as numb limbs, apoplexy and epilepsy in traditional Korean medicine, more than doubling to 25,000 North Korean won (U.S. $4.16) from 10,000 won (U.S. $1.66). The price of uhwang-angunghwan, another herbal medicine, has risen to 35,000 won from 15,000 won, and the price of sochewan is up to 8,000 won, the source added. Neighborhood monitors have stepped in to try to prevent the number of infections from growing by instructing residents to perform basic hygiene. “The head of the neighborhood watch unit visits each household in the morning and evening, emphasizing that washing hands and gargling with salt water is an effective way to prevent coronavirus,” said the resident of North Pyongan province. Translated by Claire Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Uyghur university lecturer confirmed detained in China’s Xinjiang region](https://ij-reportika.com/uyghur-university-lecturer-confirmed-detained-in-chinas-xinjiang-region/): A Uyghur lecturer from a university in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region has been sentenced to prison for “disregarding the national language,” by failing to teach in Chinese, a Uyghur source in the town of Ghulja and local officials told RFA. Dilmurat Awut, 65, was a senior literature teacher at Ili Pedagogical University in Ghulja (in Chinese, Yining) and was deputy Chinese Communist Party secretary of the school’s Marxism Institute, said a source in the city who has knowledge of the situation. Awut is among a group of more than 20 educators at the university that an earlier RFA report said have been detained. Not all of the names of the educators have been publicly released. Awut held administrative positions in the school’s institutes of political education and philology until his abduction in 2017. He was well respected but at times clashed with the Chinese administrators at the school, said the source, who declined to be named for safety reasons. When government authorities banned of the usage of Uyghur language at the university, Awut sometimes continued to use his native tongue whenever his students had difficulty mastering the course material when presented in Mandarin Chinese, the official language. In 2017, Awut was investigated on allegations that he taught in the Uyghur language and was sentenced to prison for the transgression, local education officials said. When RFA called the university to inquire about the “crimes” of teachers there, including Awut, an official in the Education Department said he could not provide information because it was a “state secret.” A disciplinary officer at the university, however, confirmed that Awut was among the teachers who had been detained. The officer did not know the length of Awut’s sentence. “I heard that Dilmurat was abducted; that’s what I know,” he said. “The rest I don’t have the authority to know. I don’t know how many years [he was sentenced to]. I don’t know this information since I’m not a member of law enforcement.” Behtiyar Nasir, a student of Awut’s in the 1980s who now lives in the Netherlands, recalled his former teacher as being an outspoken, cheerful and active person. “Dilmurat taught us philology,” said Behtiyar Nasir, who is now the deputy inspector general of the World Uyghur Congress. “He was medium height and white faced. A friendly teacher.” A former Ghulja educator named Yasinjan, who now lives in Turkey, recalled that Awut had been questioned several times on suspicion of “opposing the national language.” “Dilmurat Awut was investigated a few times by the Chinese authorities for not speaking in Chinese in school,” he said. One of Awut’s former students who now lives overseas told RFA that the university lecturer has two children, and that his son, Dilyar, is living in the United States. RFA has been unable to locate the son. Before 2017, Chinese authorities sought to arrest Uyghurs in Xinjiang who were known to have anti-China sentiments, the source in Ghulja said. Since then, however, officials have abducted Uyghurs simply considered “likely to resist,” including the university teachers, because of their social influence and personal character even if they have not actively shown resistance to the China’s repressive policies, the source said. Some of the detainees ended up in prison, while others were interned in China’s vast network of “re-education” camps in Xinjiang, he said. Translated by RFA’s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [PM Hun Sen threatens Cambodian opposition after shoe-throwing incident in Washington](https://ij-reportika.com/pm-hun-sen-threatens-cambodian-opposition-after-shoe-throwing-incident-in-washington/): Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen blasted a man who threw a shoe at him last week in Washington, saying that if the U.S. fails to condemn him, then similar attacks against his political opponents in Cambodia would be justified. “If the U.S considers shoe-throwing as freedom of expression, it is encouraging [the practice] in other countries,” said Hun Sen, a strongman who has ruled Cambodia since 1985 and who allows little opposition or criticism. “Now I am concerned for the safety of the opposition party leaders,” he said. “Here we can also throw shoes at opposition party leaders’ heads in Cambodia,” he said. As the 69-year-old Hun Sen prepared to meet supporters in Washington last week on the eve of a summit of U.S.-Southeast Asian leaders, a retired Cambodian soldier, Ouk Touch, flung a shoe that whizzed by his head and missed him. The incident at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel on May 11 was caught on video and went viral on social media. Ouk Touch, 72, a resident of California, last week told RFA that he had been planning the attack for quite some time and he hoped that Hun Sen would be humiliated.  He said family members died in a 1997 grenade attack on rival politicians in Hun Sen’s governing coalition that has been widely attributed to the prime minister’s supporters. He was able to talk his way into the group of Hun Sen supporters outside the hotel. He said Hun Sen’s bodyguards jumped toward him and attempted to beat him, but U.S. security officials intervened and urged him to leave the scene. Scene of an incident in which former Cambodian soldier Ouk Touch threw a shoe at visiting Prime Minister Hun Sen in Washington, D.C., May 11, 2022. Credit: Screengrab of official TV. Upon his return to Cambodia from the U.S. summit with leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Hun Sen lashed out at Ouk Touch, saying the attack was premeditated. He said he would not be sending a diplomatic note to the U.S. over the issue, but promised that Ouk Touch would be prosecuted if he were to return to Cambodia. In February opposition activist Sam Sokha was released after serving a four-year prison term for throwing her shoe at a poster of Hun Sen and sharing it on social media. She is among scores of activist jailed in a sweeping crackdown on opponents of Hun Sen, the media and civic society groups that begin in 2017. Sam Sokha told RFA’s Khmer Service that Hun Sen “should be more patient and should not imprison people without finding out the reason” they protest, she said. “Pertaining to my case, [he] should have asked me why I did it. He should have tried to find out what the cause of the dissatisfaction is.” Throwing a shoe is nothing compared to the suffering of innocent people under Hun Sen’s rule, Khmer-American human rights lawyer Seng Theary told RFA’s Khmer Service. “It is an individual’s frustration, but the incident represents many people’s feelings,” she said. Exiled political analyst Kim Sok told RFA he is saddened that Hun Sen is taking the incident seriously and has allowed it to incite hatred among people and dilute Cambodia’s diplomatic relationships. The analyst, who took asylum in Finland to avoid arrest in the 2017 crackdown, said he feared concern Hun Sen’s supporters would start attacking opposition leaders. Many opposition figures are in hiding, exile or prison. “Any comment from Hun Sen should not be taken for granted. It is incitement. It will happen because Hun Sen is an influential figure managing all issues in the country,” he said.  Translate by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Tibetans forced to move to make way for Chinese power plant](https://ij-reportika.com/tibetans-forced-to-move-to-make-way-for-chinese-power-plant/): Residents of a Tibetan village in northwestern China’s Qinghai province are being forced from their homes to make way for a government-ordered hydropower station, with monks living in a nearby monastery also told to leave, Tibetan sources say. Monks at the Atsok Gon Dechen Choekhor Ling monastery in Tsolho (in Chinese, Hainan) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture have petitioned Chinese officials to rescind the order, a Tibetan resident of the area told RFA this week. “But the Chinese local supervisor and other authorities have been visiting the Tibetans and warning them to relocate regardless of the cost,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “Monks from the monastery are also being summoned for meetings and ordered to agree to relocation,” the source added. Construction of the power plant was authorized by the Chinese government, with supervision of the work assigned to a company called Machu after an investigation into the project’s viability concluded in December 2021, RFA’s source said. Dechen Choekhor Ling monastery was founded in 1889 and is currently home to 157 monks, with monks under the age of 18 forbidden since 2021 by government order to live or study there, sources say. Frequent standoffs Chinese development projects in Tibetan areas have led to frequent standoffs with Tibetans who accuse Chinese firms and local officials of improperly seizing land and disrupting the lives of local people. Many projects result in violent suppression and the detention of project organizers, with intense pressure put on local populations to comply with government wishes. The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, an NGO based in Dharamsala, India, has reported that China’s development drives in Tibet have pulled the region closer to economic and cultural integration with Beijing. Projects have failed to benefit the Tibetans themselves, however, with rural Tibetans often moved from traditional grazing lands and into urban areas where the best jobs are held by Han Chinese. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [Interview: 'All they've learned is how better to control people'](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-all-theyve-learned-is-how-better-to-control-people/): In April 2020, independent Chinese author Murong Xuecun traveled to Wuhan under lockdown, quietly interviewing people from the front line of the emerging COVID-19 pandemic. In his newly published work, &#8220;Deadly Quiet City,&#8221; his conversations with a number of people from an exhausted doctor in a small hospital to an unlicensed motorcycle taxi-driver, to a citizen journalist, are recorded for the world to read. He spoke to Jane Tang of RFA&#8217;s Mandarin Service about the experience, and about the ongoing lockdown in Shanghai: RFA: During the lockdown in Shanghai, we have seen a lot of grass-roots creativity, including music, videos, and texts, emerge from the experience. How does this output compare with what you saw during Wuhan&#8217;s lockdown? Murong Xuecun: First, this content deals more with the lives of the middle class: exhibitions, fashion shows &#8230; most of the people and things mentioned are part of the middle-class community. It makes me even more worried about the lives of people lower down the social ladder in Shanghai; how are the migrant workers managing? What about the elderly who live alone? That&#8217;s not so visible. Second, there were a few citizen journalists working out of Wuhan, as well as a lot of people shooting and gathering footage, and several documentaries were released afterwards. But I don&#8217;t think that&#8217;s been possible in Shanghai, because very few people in the city have been allowed to go out, apart from white people, the police and volunteers. But back when I arrived in Wuhan, and when [now-jailed citizen journalist] Zhang Zhan got there on Feb. 1, there was still some freedom of movement. We were able to move around freely, conduct interviews and shoot footage. This time in Shanghai, pretty much everybody has been confined to their home. Third, a lot of content is presented in a mocking way. This sarcasm is actually something of a last resort. In fact, many of this content, these videos and posts are asking the same question: how did Shanghai get to this state today, which is so different from Wuhan at the beginning [of the pandemic]. At that time, there was more grief and anger in Wuhan, and there was a layer of confusion and shock in Shanghai. How did Shanghai get here? RFA: So you think that Shanghai has stricter restrictions on shooting and creative work this time around? Have you seen any non-fiction works along the lines of Wuhan Diary by Fang Fang? Murong Xuecun: There are a lot of parodies. These don&#8217;t take long to do. To actually write something like Wuhan Diary requires a long period of observation, material gathering and then writing. The current situation doesn&#8217;t allow for a process like that, and anyway, I think it would be deleted by the next day. There are actually more writers in Shanghai, but so far I haven&#8217;t seen any works like Fang Fang&#8217;s diary. This tells us that Shanghai&#8217;s lockdown restrictions, controls, and suppression  [of public speech] are much stricter than Wuhan&#8217;s were. Let me give you an example. When Wuhan needed to transport patients and their close contacts [to isolation facilities], it relied on volunteers. In Shanghai, the police are doing it. When Wuhan was locked down on Jan. 23, 2020, we still didn&#8217;t have the QR code. But by the time Shanghai locked down, we were living in a world governed by them. Everyone is now controlled by big data, and everyone&#8217;s whereabouts are available at a glance. Also, the shortage of supplies in Shanghai is far worse than it was in Wuhan back then. I witnessed all kinds of misery back then in Wuhan, but the levels of misery and cruelty in Shanghai have been far greater than in the Wuhan lockdown of 2020. RFA: The material for your book Deadly Quiet City came from first-hand interviews in Wuhan. How did you get into the city? Many citizen journalists ran into trouble trying to get in. How did your interviews and writing go? Murong Xuecun: I arrived on April 6, 2020, they lifted the lockdown on the 8th, and I left on May 7. I had been there a month when the secret police called me and said they knew my whereabouts. I had already interviewed a lot of people by then, and I was afraid that that work would be lost, so I left &#8230; soon after they called me. RFA: So did you go back to Beijing to write the book? Murong Xuecun: I didn’t dare to go back to Beijing, because I was one of those old &#8216;tea drinkers&#8217; who was often under surveillance by the secret police, or called to &#8216;drink tea&#8217; or summoned for interrogation. So I holed up in Mount Emei and finished writing the book there. It was very exciting, that time. I would send each chapter to a friend of mine overseas as soon as I finished it, so he could back it up for me, then I&#8217;d delete it from my hard drive. RFA: Were the locals willing to talk to you during your visit to Wuhan? Murong Xuecun: They fell into two types: regular citizens were very willing to be interviewed; and community officials, doctors and nurses, who were extremely reluctant. For example, I called one residential community official several times, and he just told me straight that they weren&#8217;t allowed to give interviews. It was the same with the doctors. One doctor from Tongji Hospital hesitated for several days, then finally told me, sorry, friend, but it&#8217;s really not a good time, so we left it. I could feel that he felt a strong need to tell me about his experiences and everything he knew, but he could also have been under a lot of [political] pressure [to keep quiet]. I said: &#8220;Well, I can understand where you&#8217;re coming from, and hopefully one day you can tell me about your experiences.&#8221; &#8220;He sighed softly and said: &#8220;It&#8217;s a shame. I hope too.&#8221; These conversations told me that all of these officials, doctors and...
- [Vietnamese blogger sent back to jail after three years in mental hospital](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnamese-blogger-sent-back-to-jail-after-three-years-in-mental-hospital/): A Vietnamese blogger held for three years in a mental hospital while awaiting trial for criticizing Vietnam’s one-party communist state has been sent back to his former detention center on the orders of the Hanoi Police Investigation Agency, RFA has learned. Le Anh Hung, a member of the online Brotherhood of Democracy advocacy group, was returned to the agency’s Detention Center No. 1 on May 10 following a decision made the day before by police investigators, his mother Tran Thi Nem told RFA in a recent interview. His trial will now be held within a few months, Nem said. Hung, who had logged for Voice of America, was arrested on July 5, 2018 on a charge of “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the state” under Article 331 of Vietnam’s criminal code. If convicted at trial, he could serve up to seven years in prison. He was transferred in April 2019 for “observation and treatment” from jail to Hanoi’s National Institute of Forensic Psychiatry, where he was beaten and forcibly injected with psychiatric drugs, including a powerful sedative that left him unconscious, to treat his supposed mental illness, sources told RFA in earlier reports. While held in hospital, Hung was confined with 15 female patients, journalist Huynh Ngoc Chenh—the husband of prisoner of conscience Nguyen Thuy Hanh, also held in the Institute—told RFA following a May 6 meeting with his wife. However, security guards and hospital staff had prevented Hanh and Hung from speaking with each other, Chenh said. Prisoners at Gia Trung Detention Center are shown returning from work in an undated photo. Photo: State Media Held in cells all day Meanwhile, political prisoners held at the Gia Trung Detention Center in Dak Lak, a province in Vietnam’s central highlands, are being kept in their cells all day, with only an hour allowed outside for meals, for refusing forced-labor assignments, prisoners’ relatives said. Prisoners convicted of political crimes have been singled out for harsh treatment at the center, said Le Khanh Duy—the former husband of prisoner of conscience Huynh Thuc Vy—citing a phone call made by Huynh to family members on May 16. “Vy told me that political prisoners at the detention center are being persecuted,” Le Khanh Duy told RFA this week. “They are locked up in their cells all day for refusing to go to work, and are allowed outside for only one hour each day to get their meals.” Vy, who is serving a 33-month jail term for “offending the national flag” under Article 276 of Vietnam’s criminal code, also reported being harassed by common prisoners suspected of acting under orders to make political prisoners’ lives “more difficult,” Duy said. Other political prisoners held at Gia Trung include Nguyen Trung Ton, a member of the Brotherhood for Democracy now serving a 12-year jail sentence, and Luu Van Vinh, a member of the Vietnam National Self-Determination Coalition, now serving a 15-year term. Phan Van Thu, the leader of a religious group called Council for the Laws and Public Affairs of Bia Son, named for a mountain in coastal Vietnam’s Phu Yen province, is also serving a life sentence at the center. Speaking to RFA, Luu Van Vinh’s wife Le Thi Thap said her husband had previously been allowed to leave his cell twice a day, but now was under heavier restrictions. “Vinh and some other inmates don’t go out to work, and therefore had to stay in their cells while others work outside, but they were allowed to go out for a while at noon and then later in the afternoon,” Thap said. “But I’ve heard that things have gotten worse since last month, so now I want to visit my husband and ask him about this in person,” she said. &#8216;No forced labor&#8217; The use of forced labor in Vietnamese prisons has been strongly criticized by human rights organizations including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. In August 2020, the Vietnam Times Magazine, a publication of the Vietnam Union of Friendship Organizations (VUFO) published an article titled “There is no forced labor in Vietnam.” Making arrangements for prisoners to work is “a demonstration of the humanity in the policy of the Vietnamese Government and Communist Party,” wrote the article’s author Nguyen Van Dieu, an official of the Ministry of Public Security’s Department of Detention Center Management. Calls seeking comment from the Gia Trung Detention Center rang unanswered this week. Translated by Anna Vu for RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [California church shooter in Taiwan 'peaceful reunification' group linked to Beijing](https://ij-reportika.com/california-church-shooter-in-taiwan-peaceful-reunification-group-linked-to-beijing/): California church killer David Chou has close ties to a Taiwan &#8216;peaceful reunification&#8217; group linked to the ruling Chinese Communist Party&#8217;s United Front Work Department, a body that has been designated a representative of a foreign government by the U.S. government, according to a report on its founding ceremony. Chou, who opened fire on a Taiwanese lunch banquet at the Geneva Presbyterian Church in Irvine, CA on May 15, killing one person and injuring five others before being restrained, was pictured at the setting up of the Las Vegas Association for China’s Peaceful Unification on April 2, 2019, holding up a banner calling for the &#8220;eradication of pro-independence demons,&#8221; according to an April 3, 2019 report on the Chinese LVNews website. The group &#8212; whose president Gu Yawen warned the people of Taiwan that &#8216;peaceful unification is the only way to avoid war&#8217; in his inaugural speech &#8212; is a local branch of the National Association for China’s Peaceful Unification (NACPU) under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)&#8217;s United Front Work Department. &#8220;The United Front Work Department (UFWD) is the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) organ tasked with co-opting and neutralizing threats to the party’s rule and spreading its influence and propaganda overseas,&#8221; the State Department said in a statement in 2020. &#8220;The CCP regards this party apparatus as a &#8216;magic weapon&#8217; to advance Beijing’s policies.&#8221; In the same statement, the State Department designated NACPU a foreign mission of China. &#8220;The UFWD &#8230; uses front organizations like the NACPU to advance [Beijing]’s propaganda and malign influence,&#8221; then Secretary of State Mike Pence said. Taiwan has never been ruled by the CCP, nor formed part of the People&#8217;s Republic of China, but its nationals are regarded as Chinese citizens under another administration by Beijing. The majority of Taiwan&#8217;s 23 million people say they have no wish to give up their country&#8217;s sovereignty or lose their democratic way of life under Chinese rule, but CCP leader Xi Jinping has said &#8220;unification&#8221; is inevitable, and has refused to rule out the use of military force to annex the democratic island. David Chou holds up a banner calling for the &#8216;eradication of pro-independence demons,&#8217; at the Las Vegas Association for China’s Peaceful Unification, April 2, 2019. Credit: LVNews &#8216;Politically motivated hate&#8217; Orange County police said Chou&#8217;s actions were fueled by &#8220;politically motivated hate.&#8221; Sheriff-Coroner Don Barnes said Chou &#8212; who reports said was born in Taiwan to parents from China &#8212; had left a note in his car showing he didn&#8217;t agree that &#8220;Taiwan is a country independent of China,&#8221; and had expressed dissatisfaction with political tensions across the Taiwan Strait. Chou, 68, of Las Vegas, has been arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder after he entered Geneva Presbyterian Church and fired multiple rounds, striking six victims, Orange County police said. &#8220;At the time of the shooting, members of the Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church, which has had a space at the church since 2009, were having a lunch banquet to welcome a pastor who had recently returned from Taiwan,&#8221; it said. Five victims sustained gunshot wounds and were taken to local hospitals for treatment, while the deceased was identified as Dr. John Cheng, 52, pronounced dead at the scene after sustaining multiple gunshot wounds when he intervened and tackled the suspect, enabling others to rush in and hogtie Chou to prevent further carnage. &#8220;There is no doubt that Dr. Cheng’s actions that day saved the lives of many other church members. He is a hero and will be remembered by this community as such,&#8221; Barnes told journalists, adding that Chou appeared to have superglued the church doors shut and had deposited spare ammunition and Molotov cocktails around the building ahead of time. The five injured victims, four men and a woman aged 66-92, were taken to a local hospital, where they are being treated, police said. The banquet had been in honor of pastor Chang Hsuan-hsin, who had returned to the church after a two-year absence, local pastor Hwang Chun-sheng told RFA. &#8220;Our pastor and elder hadn&#8217;t been back to California for more than two years, so most of the older members of the church wanted to go to church for that day&#8217;s service,&#8221; Hwang said. &#8220;[Dr. Cheng] decided he would bring his mother to church [for the occasion]. &#8216;Violence is never the answer&#8217; Chien Ta, a former member of a NACPU branch in the U.S., said more violence could occur over the status of Taiwan, which is a sovereign country formally ruled by the 1911 Republic of China founded by Sun Yat-sen whose government fled to the island after losing a civil war to Mao Zedong&#8217;s communists in China. &#8220;If we don&#8217;t deal with this kind of nationalistic hatred, we will definitely see more intense conflicts on the issue of unification or independence in future,&#8221; Chien warned. Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen, who has insisted that any dialogue must be on a government-to-government basis, expressed her condolences to Cheng&#8217;s family via social media. &#8220;I want to convey my sincere condolences on the death of Dr. John Cheng &amp; my hopes for a prompt recovery for those injured in the shooting at the Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church in California,&#8221; Tsai tweeted. &#8220;Violence is never the answer.&#8221; Taiwanese lawmaker for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Lin Ching-yee said via Facebook that the shooting was driven by a &#8220;genocidal&#8221; ideology, calling for greater awareness of the possibility of politically motivated killings of Taiwanese overseas, in addition to the threat of Chinese invasion. Presidential Office spokesman Xavier Chang said Tsai had asked Taiwan&#8217;s top representative to the U.S. Hsiao Bi-khim to visit California soon and support the victims&#8217; families. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Taiwan Navy ship grounded after a crew member tests positive for COVID-19](https://ij-reportika.com/taiwan-navy-ship-grounded-after-a-crew-member-tests-positive-for-covid-19/): A Taiwanese warship has been grounded after a crew member tested positive for coronavirus, the second vessel to be hit by an outbreak of Covid-19 within just two days, Taiwan’s Navy has confirmed. The island is experiencing a new wave of infection, with over 60,000 new cases reported every day for almost a week and the daily tally is expected to exceed 100,000 later this week. Navy Spokesman Rear Adm. Feng Kuo-wei said in a statement that the Keelung-class destroyer of the 168th Fleet has just returned from a mission at sea when the crew member got sick. The whole crew is being isolated for PCR tests, and those who have Covid will be quarantined in accordance to the government’s regulations, Feng said, adding that the ship’s combat readiness is not affected. The Taiwanese Navy has four guided missile Keelung-class destroyers, bought from the U.S., each has a maximum capacity of 250 crew members. On Monday another ship, a Chi Yang-class frigate – the Fong Yang &#8211; was ordered to return to base after several crew members tested positive. The number of infected personnel has not been disclosed. Earlier this month, Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng told a committee at the Taiwanese legislature that more than 1,000 officers and soldiers had tested positive for COVID-19, but fewer than 100 of them had been hospitalized. Most of the cases only have mild symptoms, Chiu said. More than 98 percent of Taiwanese military personnel have had two jabs and around 89 percent have been triple-vaccinated. Taiwan’s army has about 180,000 service members.        
- [Junta troops murder 3 dozen civilians over 4 days in Myanmar’s Sagaing region](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-troops-murder-3-dozen-civilians-over-4-days-in-myanmars-sagaing-region/): Junta forces brutally murdered nearly three dozen civilians — including members of the Buddhist clergy — over the course of four days in Myanmar’s embattled Sagaing region, sources said Monday. The military dismissed the allegations as “fabrications.” Residents told RFA’s Myanmar Service the killings took place from May 10-13 in Sagaing’s Ye Oo and Pale townships, beginning with an early morning raid on the former’s Mon Taing Pin village. A resident of Mon Taing Pin, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal, said junta troops rained heavy artillery and mortar shells down on the village around dawn on May 10 in an attack that members of the anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary group later told RFA killed two of their fighters on guard in the area. “They entered our village after firing a variety of heavy weapons. Once in the village, they set up sentries all over and went to the monastery, where they arrested people hiding there and brought them out with hands tied behind their backs,” the resident said. “There was one group of 10 men, and then another group of eight, and another group of 12, and so on. All of them were later beaten to death and their bodies were placed under houses that the troops set on fire.” The villager called the attack “indescribably cruel” and “calculated.” On May 12, when the troops finally left the area and villagers were able to return, they discovered the charred remains of 28 people — 18 inside of homes destroyed by arson in Mon Taing Pin and another 10 similarly disposed of in nearby In Pin village. The victims were all men, between 20 and 60 years old, sources said, adding that in addition to Mon Taing Pin and In Pin, several homes burned in neighboring Si Son village, and around 10,000 residents from 10 area villages fled into the jungle during the attack. Photos provided to RFA by residents of the area appear to show human remains so thoroughly burned that little is left besides bone fragments and blackened internal organs. In other images, the bloated bodies of two young men lie askew next to a motorbike, their faces unrecognizable due to decomposition. One photo shows the lower half of a severed torso, next to a pair of amputated legs. Buddhist monks killed An aid worker, who also declined to be named, told RFA that his organization was compiling a list of victims on Monday. “The houses that were burned down are being cleared up — our main goal is to get the villages into a habitable state,” he said. “The houses were destroyed by fire, so we must make some makeshift repairs. We need funding to make food available. There villages are mostly destroyed, so we are in urgent need of donations.” Refugees from the attack are also in need of shelter as the rainy season approaches, he said. A member of the Ye Oo Township PDF told RFA that the threat of attack remains, as the military maintains a heavy presence in the area. “We don’t know at this time what they might do. The people in the region don’t dare to return to their villages, even though the situation has calmed down,” he said. “We’re trying to find ways to lift their spirits, to make them strong and help them. These are our priorities.” Separately, two Buddhist monks and two young novices were killed on May 13 when junta troops fired heavy artillery into the center of Sagaing’s Pale township, Po Thar, a fighter with the local Black Leopard PDF, told RFA.  Po Thar said that on May 12, the Black Leopards launched an attack on the military proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party office in Pale, setting it on fire. “The next day, when the military column that was on a mission to Let Yet Ma village returned to Pale, they learned that a PDF group was in the town and started firing artillery shells,” he said. “But the PDF fighters were gone, and they were hitting ordinary people. One of their shells hit the Mya Thein Dan Monastery in the center of the town and killed the abbot, another monk and two young novices.” ‘Fabricated’ reports Junta deputy minister of information, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, called the reports of civilian deaths “fabricated.” “These are just rumors. When they have a favorable outcome, [the PDF] says they were responsible. And if one of them is killed, they claim it was a [civilian],” he said, calling the reports part of the PDF’s “routine tricks.” He said the military attacked and captured a PDF camp near Ye Oo’s Sigone village on May 11, killing more than 10 paramilitaries and confiscating a cache of makeshift mortars, weapons and other related materials. Last week’s attacks follow a May 1 announcement by the military that Ye Oo had been upgraded from a township to a district level. PDF fighters in the area told RFA that a military tactical commander is now overseeing the area and that several armored vehicles and troop reinforcements have since been deployed there. Myint Htwe, a former lawmaker with the deposed National League for Democracy party in Ye Oo, said that since the beginning of May, the military has been clearing out an increasing number of villages in the township. Sagaing region has been the center of some of the strongest armed resistance to junta rule since the military seized power from the country’s democratically elected government in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup. Fighting between the military and the PDF in the area has intensified in recent months, displacing thousands of civilians, according to sources. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Vietnamese delegation’s loose lips caught on video during US-ASEAN summit](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnamese-delegations-loose-lips-caught-on-video-during-us-asean-summit/): A video that captured crass remarks made by Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and other high-ranking officials prior to their meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken went viral over the weekend and was removed from the U.S. State Department’s YouTube account. The Vietnamese officials met with Blinken on Friday as part of the two-day U.S.- summit with the 10-member Association for Southeast Asian Nations. According to a series of tweets about the incident by Southeast Asia analyst Nguyen Phuong Linh, the video shows the Vietnamese delegation laughing that U.S. President Joe Biden told Prime Minister Chinh that he could “not trust Russia.” Chinh also describes the meeting with Biden as “straightforward and fair and that Vietnam isn’t afraid of anyone,” after which the Vietnamese ambassador to the U.S., Nguyen Quoc Dzung, said they “put [Biden] into checkmate.&#8221; Minister of Public Security To Lam is also seen praising the former deputy national security adviser during the Trump administration, Matthew Pottinger, for being young and smart and having a wife who was born in Vietnam. The Vietnamese officials also refer to a number of U.S. officials without using honorific terms that in the Vietnamese language their titles alone would command. The State Department typically captures video footage of dignitaries prior to meetings with its senior staff and shares the videos on its YouTube account. In most cases, these videos will show smiles and handshakes and are largely uneventful. The video was published shortly after their meeting on Friday but by Saturday evening, the video became “unavailable” on YouTube. RFA was not able to determine why the video was removed from the State Department’s account. “So embarrassing for the Vietnamese that the State Dept. appears to have taken the video offline,” former BBC journalist Bill Hayton wrote on his Twitter account. The dialogue caught in the video “might indicate a more serious issue of how dysfunctional the incumbent cabinet in [Vietnam] is in general, and how incompetent the [Vietnamese] leaders are in terms of comms, foreign affairs and security,” Linh tweeted. RFA’s Vietnamese Service, which shared the video on its Facebook account, received comments from followers that were critical of the Vietnamese delegation. “Talking about your host while you’re a guest at their house is so uneducated,” Facebook user Kien Nguyen commented. “This kind of language, coming from the Prime Minister’s mouth. It sounds like what you hear in bus stations,” Hoa Nguyen, another Facebook user, said. Translated by An Nguyen. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [As borders reopen, labor shortage looms in Laos’ SEZs](https://ij-reportika.com/as-borders-reopen-labor-shortage-looms-in-laos-sezs/): Laos’ special economic zones (SEZs) are losing labor rapidly as workers move on to greener pastures in Thailand following a reopening of the borders between the neighboring Southeast Asian countries last week. Many of the workers who left for Thailand have previously worked in the country. When the pandemic hit and they lost their jobs, they returned home to Laos before the two countries sealed their borders. The large workforce later took jobs in SEZs in the capital Vientiane region, where Chinese companies are given concessions in exchange for development and jobs. With no other choice, the workers were forced to accept wages that were a mere fraction of what they could get in wealthier Thailand. But the reopening of the borders last week brought a mass exodus of workers, Thanongxay Khounphaithoun, director of the Special Economic Zone Management Department of Vientiane, told local media. In the five SEZs in Vientiane, only 3,375 workers are on the job and, of those, 2,737 are Laotian, he said. To operate at full capacity, the zones need a total of 6,000 Lao workers this year and 10,000 next year. The money is simply better in Thailand. “We can’t attract workers,” an employee at one of the SEZs told RFA’s Lao Service on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. “The problem is that most Laotians came to work with us only temporarily then quit. And now they went back to Thailand,” he said. Another factor that may cause workers to favor Thailand to the SEZs is the language barrier. The Thai and Lao languages are mutually intelligible. But working in the SEZs may require learning Chinese, ultimately for less money. “Chinese companies need Lao workers who speak Chinese,” an employee of a Chinese company in one of the capital’s SEZs told RFA on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “If you speak Chinese, you can send your application and resume to their email then wait for a call,” the employee said. But the companies in the SEZ badly need workers and are taking anyone they can get, another employee of a Chinese company in a different SEZ told RFA. “We need a lot workers in the production department. Those who have graduated from high school and are 18 years old or older can apply,” the second employee said. An unemployed Lao resident who used to work in Thailand told RFA that although he could find a job in the SEZs relatively easily, he did not plan to apply. “I don’t want to work in the special economic zones because the wages are too low. I’ve seen an announcement from the Labor Ministry that says the SEZs need a lot of workers, but I don’t want to apply because it’s not worth it,” he said. The difference in wages between the two countries is stark. A Lao worker who is employed in a suburb of Thailand’s capital Bangkok told RFA that she now makes more than three times what she did in Laos for the same job. “In Laos, I worked at a factory in Savannakhet province and I received a basic salary of 1.1 million kip [U.S. $85] per month,” she said.  “Here in Thailand I get 10,000 baht [$288] a month and the cost of living in Thailand is cheaper too.” The Lao Federation of Trade Unions in late March called on businesses to raise the minimum wage from 1.1 million kip ($85) to 1.5 million ($115), the Vientiane Times reported. RFA reported last week that the Lao kip is also in serious decline, losing value against the Thai baht and U.S. dollar to the tune of a 6% drop between January and April. This has coincided with a 15-50% increase imported household goods, meaning that wages paid in kip have gone down in terms of what they can purchase, and wages paid in baht have remained stable by the same measure, and have gone up when compared to the value of the kip. Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Myanmar’s shadow government holds talks with powerful Arakan Army](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-shadow-government-holds-talks-with-powerful-arakan-army/): Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) on Monday met for the first time with leaders from the country’s formidable Arakan Army (AA) insurgent group, prompting speculation over an alliance that an analyst said could give the opposition the upper hand over an overextended military. NUG Foreign Minister Zin Mar Aung and Min Ko Naing, the head of its Alliance Relations Committee, held a two-hour meeting via video conference with United League of Arakan/Arakan Army (ULA/AA) chairman, Gen. Tun Myat Naing, and Gen. Sec. Nyo Tun Aung. The NUG said in a statement that the two sides discussed “the current political situation in Myanmar.” “The parties held cordial discussions on the state of the nation and exchanged views,” said the statement, which referred to the Rakhine group as the “ULA/AA-led Rakhine People’s Government.” “Additionally, the current activities of the National Unity Government were discussed by relevant ministries,” it added, without providing further details. AA spokesperson Khing Thukha confirmed the meeting in an interview with RFA’s Myanmar Service, calling it an “exchange of views” on the political situation in Myanmar more than 15 months after the military took power in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup. The AA agreed to a ceasefire with Myanmar’s military in late 2020 after around two years of intensive fighting. The ceasefire was tested in February when the military attacked two AA bases in Rakhine state, prompting clashes in the region, sources told RFA at the time. Talks with the NUG, which the junta has labeled a “terrorist organization,” are likely to ruffle feathers in Naypyidaw. When asked whether the AA expects a resumption of fighting with the military in Rakhine, Khaing Thukha said that time will tell. “It depends on [the junta’s] actions, and whether they respond militarily or politically,” he said. “We will respond as necessary, depending on their actions.” Monday’s meeting came a day after the NUG issued a statement marking Rakhine National Day and expressing condolences for “the suffering of the people affected by the military and political conflict in Rakhine state,” and pledging to “work with relevant organizations to bring about justice.” The shadow government sent a similar message on April 10 to mark the 13th anniversary of the founding of the AA. Potential shift in power Political analyst Ye Tun said that if talks between the NUG and the ULA/AA are successful, fighting could resume in Rakhine and shift the nationwide balance of power in favor of the armed resistance, led by the NUG-aligned People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary group. “If renewed fighting occurs there, the military will have to extend its forces even further to deal with a new battlefront,” he said. “It would not be able to mobilize and attack in one place, so the PDFs would enjoy a slight advantage over the other fronts.” Ye Tun noted that the AA has yet to respond to an invitation to peace talks last month from junta chief, Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing. He said the ethnic Rakhine army would not attend if it pursues an alliance with the NUG. Earlier this month, the country’s four most powerful ethnic armed groups — the Kachin Independence Organisation, the Karen National Union, the Karenni National Progressive Party and the Chin National Front— all rejected the invitation, saying that by not offering the NUG and the PDF the chance to participate, the junta showed it is unwilling to meet halfway. The NUG has reportedly made overtures to the AA in the past. On April 16, ULA/AA Chairman Tun Myat Naing tweeted that the NUG had “invited us to join hands” in the aftermath of the coup, but the AA chose not to respond because “we had our own agenda to pursue.” Fierce fighting erupted between the military and the AA in December 2018 under deposed National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government, but the two sides brokered a ceasefire in November 2020 and the region had been largely quiet since. However, on May 15 this year, the AA announced that the junta had undermined the agreement and said clashes with the military “could occur at any time” in Rakhine state. Ten armed ethnic groups have signed a Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement with the government since 2015 and have suggested that the deal remains in place, despite an already flailing peace process that was all but destroyed by the unpopular junta’s coup. Previously, all 10 said they would not pursue talks with the military, which they view as having stolen power from the country’s democratically elected government. The military has made 12 invitations to the country’s armed ethnic groups since the coup, but the April offering marked the first time Min Aung Hlaing said he would attend. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Malaysian FM: ‘Junta should be more open to ASEAN proposals’](https://ij-reportika.com/malaysian-fm-junta-should-be-more-open-to-asean-proposals/): The Myanmar junta should do more to help ASEAN deliver humanitarian aid across the turmoil-hit country, Malaysia’s top diplomat said after meeting in Washington with the Burmese opposition’s foreign minister. Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah spoke to reporters here on Saturday after his first in-person meeting with Zin Mar Aung, his counterpart from the opposition “shadow” government of Myanmar, made up of elected leaders who were overthrown in a military coup in February 2021. “I think the junta should be more open to ASEAN proposals, especially in the current situation in helping to distribute the humanitarian assistance,” Saifuddin told a press conference. “We have to be transparent. We want to make sure that whatever that is distributed will reach the actual target group. What we don’t want to happen is for humanitarian assistance to be weaponized by the junta and used in a certain way that is so discriminatory, that only certain people will receive the assistance.” The two diplomats met at a hotel near the White House, a day after the leaders of Malaysia and other members of the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations met with President Joe Biden and other senior U.S. officials for a special U.S.-ASEAN Summit here. Saifuddin described his discussion with Zin Mar Aung as a “heart-to-heart” one that focused largely on how to improve the distribution of humanitarian aid inside Myanmar. Zin Mar Aung, who represents the National Unity Government (NUG) on the world stage, later took to Twitter to post a message about the meeting with Saifuddin. “Had a productive meeting with Foreign Minister of Malaysia @saifuddinabd about the dire situation in Myanmar, and how the NUG and Malaysia can work together to restore peace and democracy in Myanmar, including humanitarian assistance and support for the Myanmar refugees,” she tweeted on Sunday. During her visit to Washington, Zin Mar Aung also met with Wendy Sherman, a senior U.S. State Department official who played a prominent role at the U.S.-ASEAN Summit, on the sidelines of that meeting. Among his ASEAN counterparts, Saifuddin has been leading calls lately for the Southeast Asian bloc to hold informal talks with the National Unity Government. The Burmese military government, in the meantime, has denounced reports of engagements in the U.S. capital between State Department and NUG officials and has sent protest notes to all ASEAN countries and the United States calling on them to not speak with the shadow government, Reuters reported on Saturday. It cited a statement from the junta-appointed foreign ministry.   During their meeting, Saifuddin and Zin Mar Aung also discussed the possibility of Malaysia allowing the NUG to open an office in Kuala Lumpur, Saifuddin said, adding this idea had yet to be discussed in detail. Given the NUG’s prominent role in Myanmar, the opposition government could play an important role in helping deliver and distribute humanitarian aid, Saifuddin said.   “[W]e have the same understanding that humanitarian assistance must be organized in a certain way that it is transparent. We cannot have only the junta doing the humanitarian assistance,” Saifuddin told reporters. “Malaysia’s proposal is that you must have a strong presence of international organizations, and the best way is to have organizations under the auspices of the United Nations.” The U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is in Myanmar already, but more needs to be done, according to Saifuddin. Malaysia is proposing that each of ASEAN’s other member-states offer up one NGO to help deliver aid to the Burmese people, he said. Brutal crackdown According to human rights groups, at least 1,800 civilians have been killed during a brutal crackdown against opponents of the coup led by Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the junta chief, who was barred from attending the Washington summit. ASEAN has been heavily criticized for failing to carry out a five-point consensus that leaders from the bloc as well as the junta chief had agreed to at an emergency summit in Jakarta in April 2021. Since then, the junta has refused to allow a special envoy from ASEAN to meet with NUG officials during his visits to the country, and which was framed among the five points in the so-called consensus. At Saturday’s news conference, a reporter asked Saifuddin whether the conditions existed for ASEAN to open informal talks with the NUG. “I think the conditions [are] already here,” he said. “Now we are saying [that] after one year, nothing [has] moved. Since nothing [has] moved, more people are killed, more people [have] fled the country.” “We can’t wait for another one year, so we have to be creative,” Saifuddin said. “And this is why we are saying, look, we have been for one year talking to the junta and nothing seems to be moving, so it’s about time we also talk to the NUG, even if it is in an informal way.” BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.
- [Protests at Peking University as China's Xi moves to silence ruling party elders](https://ij-reportika.com/protests-at-peking-university-as-chinas-xi-moves-to-silence-ruling-party-elders/): Hundreds of students protested at the weekend on the campus of Peking University (Beida) after a fence was put in place segregating them from the rest of the university, which continues to move around freely. The protest comes as ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping seeks to eliminate public dissent, especially criticism his flagship zero-COVID policy, ahead of the 20th party congress later this year, when he will seek an unprecedented third term in office. In a video clip sent to RFA, Beida party secretary Chen Baojian appealed to the students to disperse, and photos shown by RFA showed part of the fence on the ground. It was unclear who had dismantled it. &#8220;Please go back to your dormitory in an orderly manner,&#8221; Chen tells the students by loudspeaker. &#8220;If anyone, any student has an opinion tonight, we can talk about it.&#8221; Shortly afterwards, the sound of something metallic falling to the ground is heard, and students applaud. Chen then appears to take issue with students filming the standoff on their phones. &#8220;Classmates &#8230; please put down your mobile phones to protect Peking University,&#8221; he said. The crowd of students replies: &#8220;Tear it down! Tear it down!&#8221; Former Chinese premier Zhu Rongji, 94, whose comments expressing unhappiness with Communist Party chief Xi Jinping&#8217;s bid for a third term in office, when leaders since Mao Zedong have been limited to two terms apiece, appears to triggered a call by party mouthpiece the People&#8217;s Daily for retired leaders &#8220;not to make arbitrary comments about key policies of the Central Committee.&#8221; File photo by Reuters. Faculty over students Political commentator Ji Feng said the thing that has angered students the most is that the restrictions only apply to them, and not to faculty or staff at the university. &#8220;They have sent me things which show that students and faculty used to come and go by the same door, and all mixed together, but now they want to segregate them,&#8221; Ji told RFA. &#8220;They can&#8217;t enforce restrictions on Beida faculty, because they live in the same blocks as the middle-ranking cadres and university leaders,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They&#8217;re not going to impose lockdown on themselves.&#8221; &#8220;So faculty are allowed in, but the students aren&#8217;t; they&#8217;re all being fenced off in their dormitories,&#8221; Ji said. &#8220;That&#8217;s why the students were protesting.&#8221; Chen Baojian was appointed to his position as deputy vice chancellor and party secretary in February, with responsibility for the student body, the CCP Youth League and health and security matters, sources told RFA. &#8220;He is worried that the students &#8230; will spread the virus, as if faculty wouldn&#8217;t,&#8221; Ji said. &#8220;There hasn&#8217;t been a large-scale student protest in Beijing for many years.&#8221; &#8220;If they don&#8217;t deal well with this, they could wind up starting one.&#8221; The protest at a university will be highly sensitive for China&#8217;s political elite. Sun Fugui, who was expelled from Shandong&#8217;s Ludong University for opposing zero-COVID measures there, said Beida has a reputation for political struggle. &#8220;Students at [these famous schools] have a broader perspective [and will be asking] if there is any scientific basis for these disease control and prevention measures,&#8221; Sun said. &#8220;If there are any violations of their personal rights and interests, they will fight back for them. They have a stronger sense of citizenship and rights protection than regular college students, that&#8217;s for sure,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Peking University students have this spirit, this tradition in their blood,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Other Chinese colleges and universities look to Beida, and look to Tsinghua [University].&#8221; An anonymous Beida student commented online: &#8220;With this &#8230; incident, we are witnessing the resurgence of the tradition of political struggle among Beida students.&#8221; Online comments also said staff had been calling on students to report each other to the authorities for attending the protest, and hand over their footage or photos as evidence. Snuffing out critics The protest came as the CCP called on retired party elders to keep quiet on topics where they disagree with Xi, possibly in response to reported criticisms made by a former premier. In a possible response to reported comments from former Chinese premier Zhu Rongji about Xi&#8217;s bid to serve a third term in office, party mouthpiece the People&#8217;s Daily called on retired leaders &#8220;not to make arbitrary comments about key policies of the Central Committee.&#8221; The article, titled &#8220;Opinion on strengthening party building among retired cadres in the new era,&#8221; said party committees at all levels should call retired members in for lectures, adding that overseas retirees should &#8220;strictly adhere to the relevant regulations.&#8221; Retired officials should also refrain from &#8220;disseminating politically negative remarks, and from taking part in illegal social organizations,&#8221; the article said, calling for additional study, counseling and training for retired officials. The Wall Street Journal reported in March that Zhu, 94, was unhappy with Xi&#8217;s bid for a third term in office, when leaders since Mao Zedong have been limited to two terms apiece. The paper said many in the CCP including former Premier Zhu Rongji have recently voiced their opposition to Xi Jinping&#8217;s move to break the established party system of leadership succession and plan to be re-elected this year. Citing CCP sources, the paper said that the left-leaning economic reforms spearheaded by Xi will also likely be postponed due to opposition within party ranks, amid an economic slowdown sparked by the zero-COVID policy. The new campaign targeting retired CCP cadres will require them to &#8220;stand firm in the face of major right and wrong, to be loyal to the party, to obey the party&#8217;s commands [and] to act responsibly with regard to the party,&#8221; the People&#8217;s Daily article said. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Shanghai to ease lockdown if cases keep falling, but mass health checks to remain](https://ij-reportika.com/shanghai-to-ease-lockdown-if-cases-keep-falling-but-mass-health-checks-to-remain/): Authorities in Shanghai on Monday announced the easing over the next six weeks of a grueling lockdown that has seen the city&#8217;s 26 million residents mostly confined to their homes, with many deprived of urgent medical care or essential supplies. Restrictions on movements around the city &#8212; which are tracked and regulated through a series of &#8220;grid management&#8221; checks and roadblocks using the Health Code app &#8212; will remain at least until next week, when the city will move towards &#8220;normalization,&#8221; should COVID-19 cases continue to fall, officials said on Monday. Full reopening may take place in June. On Monday, taxis and private cars were allowed back on the road in districts that have already attained zero-COVID status, including Jinshan and Fengxian, while airlines began operating a limited number of domestic flights, with some train services also scheduled to resume. Some supermarkets, convenience stores and pharmacies reopened on Monday, with some hair salons and fresh produce markets also allowed to open for business, while metro and bus services are slated to make a comeback from May 22. However, residents have been warned that more intense monitoring via the app will take the place of restrictions, along with more frequent PCR tests at thousands of testing stations across the city, as many venues will require a recent negative COVID-19 for entry. Jiading district resident surnamed Zheng said his residential compound remains under lockdown, despite the announcements. &#8220;We can&#8217;t leave the compound; we&#8217;re only allowed to move around inside it,&#8221; Zheng told RFA. &#8220;It will remain closed for another week or so.&#8221; &#8220;Restrictions and controls are particularly strict in Yangpu district, because they are still finding large numbers of positive results every time they do PCR testing,&#8221; he said. A photo of a 93-year-old woman in Shanghai who was given up for dead and sent to a funeral home from the city&#8217;s Zhoupu Hospital and sent back to the nursing home after being found alive, posted by the woman&#8217;s grandson. Credit: Zhuge (her grandson). Instant noodles Commenting on a viral video in which Qingpu district residents throw instant noodles at members of the local ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) neighborhood committee after discovering them in a secret cake-eating session, Zheng said he understood people&#8217;s frustration. &#8220;You can&#8217;t eat instant noodles every day for two months,&#8221; he said. &#8220;People who have come to Shanghai from elsewhere have had it particularly tough.&#8221; &#8220;The neighborhood committees keep a lot of the good stuff back for themselves &#8230; they distributed pork chops with maggots in them the other day &#8230; and we&#8217;ve not had a handout of fruit in two months,&#8221; Zheng said. Meanwhile, the relatives of a 93-year-old woman in Shanghai who was given up for dead and sent to a funeral home from Zhoupu Hospital said she had been sent back to the nursing home after being found alive. The woman&#8217;s grandson, who gave only the surname Zhuge, posted a photo of his grandmother from the nursing home after her return. Jiangsu-based current affairs commentator Zhang Jianping said the incident was &#8220;terrifying.&#8221; &#8220;This kind of large-scale lockdown, with makeshift hospitals, is a kind of humanitarian disaster,&#8221; Zhang said. &#8220;The disease and control prevention measures in Shanghai are a bit like the [political turmoil of the] Cultural Revolution, and seem more like disease prevention in the Middle Ages, treating people like livestock,&#8221; he said. Alive in a body bag Earlier this month, authorities in Shanghai announced punishments for five officials in the city&#8217;s Putuo district after an elderly man was found alive in a body bag en route between a care home and a morgue. Putuo civil affairs bureau chief Zhang Jiandong, section chief Liu Yinghua and social development director Wu Youcheng had been fired pending a ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) disciplinary case against them, while a doctor surnamed Tian was struck off for signing the man&#8217;s death certificate and placed under police investigation. Zhang said part of the problem is the suppression of any kind of criticism of government policy during the lockdown, which was the result of orders from the CCP Central Committee and leader Xi Jinping in Beijing. &#8220;Shanghai&#8217;s disease control measures were totally chaotic, but you can&#8217;t express your opinion,&#8221; he said. &#8220;If you do, officials will say that you are wavering on the zero-clearing policy.&#8221; Lu Jun, founder of the Beijing Yirenping Center, a non-profit health organization, said the zero-COVID policy has given rise to many human rights violations. &#8220;These actions have caused extremely serious consequences and had a huge impact, and violated the legitimate rights and interests of the people,&#8221; Lu told RFA. &#8220;But civil rights protection in China has never been an easy task, and the cost of doing it is very high,&#8221; he said. Lu said a number of rights lawyers had formed an advisory group to help people sue the government for violations of their rights as a result of COVID-19. The COVID-19 Claims Legal Advisory Group calls on families of victims to collect as much evidence as possible it send it to the group, which helps file compensation claims with the government. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [China, ASEAN to hold South China Sea code of conduct talks this month](https://ij-reportika.com/china-asean-to-hold-south-china-sea-code-of-conduct-talks-this-month/): China and countries from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will conduct face-to-face consultations on a Code of Conduct (COC) in the disputed South China Sea later this month in Cambodia, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has said. Spokesperson Zhao Lijian told reporters in Beijing that the consultations will be done in person “in the latter half of this month… despite the impact of COVID-19.” For the last two years, most of the negotiations over the South China Sea, the thorniest issue between China and ASEAN, have been conducted online because of the pandemic. China and ASEAN agreed on a Declaration of Conduct of Parties (DOC) in the South China Sea in 2003, but progress on a COC has been slow going amid an increasing risk of conflict. China’s diplomats are believed to be making fresh efforts to speed up COC negotiations with ASEAN, especially as China’s close ally Cambodia is holding the bloc’s chairmanship this year. “Establishing a COC is clearly stipulated in the DOC, and represents the common aspiration and need of China and ASEAN countries,” said spokesman Zhao. He said that China “is fully confident in reaching a COC,” which would provide a “more solid guarantee of rules for lasting tranquility of the South China Sea.” Yet analysts say there are still major stumbling blocks to be addressed, such as China’s self-proclaimed historical rights over 90 percent of the South China Sea and the long-standing division within ASEAN over maritime disputes. China and five other parties including four ASEAN member states –Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam – hold competing claims in the South China Sea but the Chinese claims are the most expansive and a 2016 international arbitration tribunal ruled that they had no legal basis. “If the idea is to produce a comprehensive COC that addresses all of the different concerns of the claimant countries, I do not think it is achievable,” Jay Batongbacal, director of the Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea at the University of the Philippines, told RFA in an earlier interview. Credit: RFA U.S.-ASEAN Special Summit The South China Sea was high on the agenda at last week’s Special Summit between ASEAN countries and the United States. The Joint Vision Statement issued at the end of the summit said that parties “recognize the benefits of having the South China Sea as a sea of peace, stability, and prosperity.” “We emphasize the importance of practical measures that could reduce tensions and the risk of accidents, misunderstandings, and miscalculation,” the statement said. Without mentioning China, the signatories of the joint vision statement “emphasized the need to maintain and promote an environment conducive to the COC negotiations” and said they welcomed further progress “towards the early conclusion of an effective and substantive COC.” Some analysts, however, think that the U.S. involvement may not be beneficial to the COC negotiation process. “I don’t think it will help improve the South China Sea situation,” said Kimkong Heng, a senior research fellow at the Cambodia Development Center. “The U.S. has its own agendas that might exacerbate rather than facilitate the South China Sea negotiation,” he said. Cambodia is not a claimant in the South China Sea. From Phnom Penh’s standpoint, the U.S. will likely “continue to pressure Cambodia on the potential Chinese military base in the kingdom,” added Heng “This will serve as a barrier for any meaningful negotiations between the U.S. and Cambodia on national and regional issues,” Heng said. ASEAN comprises ten members: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.    
- [For two North Korean escapees, losing local elections in the UK feels like a victory](https://ij-reportika.com/for-two-north-korean-escapees-losing-local-elections-in-the-uk-feels-like-a-victory/): Timothy Cho and Jihyun Park are not typical British politicians. Their route to becoming candidates for the Conservative and Unionist Party in last week’s local elections began more than a decade ago when they escaped from North Korea. Both Cho and Park ended up settling in Greater Manchester in 2008, naturalized as Britons, and after acclimating to a democratic society that offered a stark contrast to life they fled, sought the opportunity to represent their respective communities in the northwestern English city. Although they were among a host of Conservatives to lose to Labour Party candidates in the May 5 election, both of the North Korean escapees told RFA’s Korean Service that they considered their campaigns to be a victory of sorts. “I lost the election, but I feel like I have won. I feel like I have reached out to the people in my constituency, and I feel like they accepted and embraced me,” said Cho, who ran for a contested councilor seat of the Denton South ward of Greater Manchester’s Tameside borough. In his race against Labour’s Claire Reid, Cho secured 35% of the vote, 9 percentage points higher than his first attempt last year to win a seat. “The process of escaping from North Korea and coming here was a series of challenges, and I think this latest challenge is a beautiful race. I am so grateful to even run for office because I have experienced the flower of democracy,” Cho said. “Since I was running for the same constituency, many of the voters recognized me. I could see that my opponent viewed me as a serious rival and was nervous from the start because there was a high chance that I would receive more votes than last year,” he said. Cho also said he appreciated that his opponent publicly recognized him as a conservative candidate rather than simply as a “North Korean refugee” or “defector.” He said he was especially proud to have been able to connect with the many low-income voters in his district through his own experiences growing up in extreme poverty in North Korea and the tough times he endured after settling in England in 2008. Timothy Cho (3rd from right) campaigning prior to the 2022 UK local elections. Photo: Timothy Cho When he arrived, Cho said he spoke no English, had few friends, and had to work his way through university. The freedom he was afforded in Britain, where his hard work translated into better opportunities, was a constant source of motivation, he said. “The more I did, the more I thought of the people who remain in North Korea,” Cho said. “It really breaks my heart to think of my siblings, who are still in the darkness of North Korea. But if they lived in a free society like I do, they could be living the life I am living, and more politicians and businessmen would have come out our family,” said Cho. “This is why I work harder.” Cho said he plans to run for office again at the first opportunity. Until then he said he will continue advocating for North Korean human rights. Timothy Cho and Jihyun Park, expressed their feelings about running in local elections in the UK after losing their respective races on May 5, 2022. Photo: Timothy Cho and Jihyun Park&#8217;s Twitter accounts A personal victory Jihyun Park didn’t win her race for one of three contested councilor seats in the Ramsbottom ward of Greater Manchester’s Bury borough — Labour candidates took all three slots — but Park felt good anyway because she said the election cemented her status as a Briton. “I challenged myself with the heart of being British, and not to place myself as an outsider or as a stranger. I think a lot of people voted for that challenge,” she told RFA. “I describe [my candidacy] as victory for humanity, because it gave a message to many people that the challenge was not a failure, but rather a personal victory,” she said. “I will continue to challenge myself.” Park also ran in elections last year, but this year’s election was different. Because of redistricting, she was now trying to represent an area she does not herself live in. She also was able to successfully become a candidate without the party nominating her, she introduced herself to the voters and was elected to represent the Conservatives on her own merits. “Unlike in last year’s election, I was interviewed in front of the residents and became a candidate chosen by them which was very important to me and made me feel proud. The candidates were interviewed one by one to see what they could do for the people. I was glad and impressed that they chose me,” Park said. Like Cho, Park said she chose to focus on the needs of the residents of Ramsbottom rather than her background. But her life as a North Korean refugee and rights activist did help, she said. She characterized her candidacy as bringing a message of hope to the people, and she hopes one day to share her experiences of living in a democratic political system with North Koreans. She also used her platform to draw attention to the challenges of living in the country she fled from. “I had conversations with election commission officials, and I said that in North Korea we never know where and how our votes are used and we do not have the right to vote,” she said. Though North Korea holds elections, usually there is only one party-selected candidate running for each office. All able-bodied people are required to show up and vote for that candidate. “I am so impressed by the system here in the United Kingdom, where everyone has the right to vote, and they can see how their votes are counted,” she said. Jihyun Park (right) campaigning ahead of the 2022 local UK elections . Photo: Jihyun Park Many of the voters, she said, were surprised to...
- [Uyghurs in exile use art to combat China’s cultural genocide back home](https://ij-reportika.com/uyghurs-in-exile-use-art-to-combat-chinas-cultural-genocide-back-home/): Classical performing artist Shohret Tursun said he realized early on that his native Uyghur culture was on the brink of obliteration in Xinjiang, as he watched in horror as fellow musicians and other Uyghur friends were detained or disappeared by Chinese authorities starting in 2017. From exile in Australia, Tursun did his best to counter China’s efforts to wipe away Uyghur culture by creating artistic works that governmental policies could not destroy. On Sept. 2, 2018, he raised the curtains on the Twelve Muqam Festival at Sydney’s Riverside Theatre, where he performed the “Rak Muqam,” the first suite of the “Twelve Muqam,” a quintessential Uyghur work that includes sung poetry, stories and dancing. In doing so, Tursun was continuing a musical tradition one thousand years old. Until that day, muqam had never been performed on a major stage in Australia. Tursun is among a group of Uyghur artists, now living in different parts of the world, who are all working to preserve their identity and culture and call greater attention to the plight of their people back home. A time of unrelenting darkness Tursun, who plays several instruments, including the Uyghur dutar and sattar, is joined by singer Rahima Mahmut in the U.K. and artist Gulnaz Tursun (no relation to Shohret Tursun) in Kazakhstan in using art to push back against a sense of hopelessness that pervades the Uyghur exile community. The three expressed similar sentiments about the purpose of their works during interviews with RFA, saying it was their duty to instill hope and confidence in Uyghurs through their artistic performances and creations. Shohret Tursun, who has lived in Australia since 1999, said he’s dedicating his life to preserving and disseminating the cultural relics like the “Twelve Muqam,” which is a symbol of the Uyghur nation. He has played in Australia, Japan and in other countries. The performance of his Australian Uyghur Muqam Ensemble in Sydney on July 20, 2019, was streamlined by Uyghurs around the world. Mahmut sings mournful melodies of Xinjiang to give voice to the Uyghurs unable to speak out. And Gulnaz Tursun creates works of art on canvas to inspire Uyghur teenagers to hope for a better future at a time of unrelenting darkness. Since 2017, Chinese authorities have detained an estimated 1.8 million of Uyghurs and other native Turkic peoples in a vast network of internment camps for “re-education,” while others outside the prison and camp systems live under constant high-tech surveillance and monitoring. “The Chinese Communist Party has covered our homeland in blood,” Shohret Tursun said in a speech during the opening ceremony of the Muqam Ensemble. “China is oppressing us to an unprecedented level, restricting our religion, banning our language, devastating our culture and arts. They are murdering our Uyghur artists. Today, we have done everything we can to found the Australia Uyghur Muqam Ensemble as a way of honoring our ancestors and paving a new path for our descendants.” Tursun told RFA that he hopes to inspire a new generation of Uyghur performing artists around the world to carry on the torch of Uyghur musical and singing traditions. Uyghur musician Shohret Tursun (C) performs onstage with a band in an undated photo. Photo courtesy of Shohret Tursun ‘Music is a tool’ In addition to being a performing artist, Rahima Mahmut is the U.K. representative of the World Uyghur Congress and an advisor to the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, an international, cross-party alliance of legislators and parliamentarians working to combat the rise of authoritarian China. For the past 20 years, Mahmut has been using her artistic talent to make the Uyghur voice known through music, while drawing the attention of the international community to the crisis in Xinjiang. “There is no place that is like a person’s home,” she said. “You cannot compare [home] to anything else. It has been five years since my contact with my family was cut off. Now I can’t even remember the faces of the people I love most, but music is a tool that allows me to turn suffering into strength.” Mahmut said she always loved to sing but she majored in petrochemical engineering at Dalian University of Technology near China’s Pacific Coast. As she searched for a job after graduation, she experienced firsthand the unequal treatment of Uyghurs at the hands of Chinese state institutions. She planned to work in Urumqi (in Chinese, Wulumuqi), but she could not get a job there due to severe state discrimination against Uyghurs. She also could not find an acceptable job offer in her hometown of Ghulja (Yining). But it was the massacre of Uyghur youth in Ghulja, where she had been born and raised, on Feb. 5, 1997, that drove her decision to leave Xinjiang for the U.K. “The hope for the preservation of our people, the preservation and flourishing of our culture and history, and the future existence of our homeland, can be a reality if we fight for these ideals in our lifetimes,” Mahmut told RFA. “This is why I always say that hopelessness is of the devil. We must be hopeful. Our arts provide us with hope.” “There is a proverb among our people: Despair is the work of the devil!” she said. “Our art also gives us hope, so I have tried to give hope and confidence to our people during these times of tribulation through art and performance.” Mahmut, who has lived in the U.K. since 2000, has performed Uyghur songs at major concerts and cultural festivals in the U.K. and across Europe and the United States. She’s says her life as an activist began on her first day in the U.K., when she explained the Uyghur persecution to her taxi driver. Singer Rahima Mahmut sings a Uyghur song in an undated photo. Photo courtesy of Rahima Mahmut Symbolic songs Today, Mahmut speaks about the Uyghur genocide with U.K. government officials, members of Parliament, representatives from Jewish, Muslim and Christian institutions, major U.K. universities, media organizations such as the BBC and Al...
- [North Korean soldiers spread COVID-19 during April 25 military parade](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korean-soldiers-spread-covid-19-during-april-25-military-parade/): A massive military parade in North Korea has been identified as a COVID-19 super-spreader event, after several servicemen who marched in it tested positive for the virus, sources in the country told RFA. Held on April 25 to commemorate the guerilla operation  that started 90 years ago and grew into the country’s military, the parade brought together about 20,000 soldiers. At the time, North Korea was still claiming that it was 100% “virus free.” This week, Pyongyang finally confirmed its first cases of COVID-19 and at least one death from the disease. The country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, has since declared a “maximum emergency epidemic prevention system” is in effect.  Several soldiers stationed as border guards in the border city of Sinuiju, which lies across the Yalu River from China, began exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19 at the beginning of this month, a border security official in the northwestern province of North Pyongan told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “They had high fevers and acute respiratory symptoms … and after testing by the health authorities, it was confirmed that they were infected with the Omicron variant,” the source said. “Most of the ones who tested positive are officers and soldiers who took part in the military parade …  on April 25. The health authorities reported the incident to the national emergency quarantine command, who in turn sent it in as a No. 1 report,” he said, referring to communications of the highest level, sent across the desk Kim Jong Un. The revelation that the border guards could have contracted the virus at the parade and may have spread it to others upon their return led authorities in North Pyongan to declare a state of emergency. “As a result, the border area has been further sealed up and traffic between the border guard units has been suspended,” the source said. “Soldiers in each battalion, company and platoon cannot enter or exit the barracks, and movement restrictions are in place to prevent even a single solder from joining or leaving a unit. They are even prohibiting private conversations between soldiers within the same unit,” he said. Another border security official, in nearby Uiju county, told RFA that soldiers there have been ordered to wear gas masks to prevent the virus from spreading. “No one is allowed to go outside the unit barracks except the soldiers on duty in outposts who work in shifts,” said the second source, who requested anonymity to speak freely. “The number of confirmed cases among the border guard soldiers stationed in Uiju County has been increasing since early this month,” he said. “Most of the sick soldiers took part in the military parade to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army in Pyongyang on April 25th.” If the soldiers indeed caught the virus during the parade, then it could have spread to all branches of the military in every part of the country, the second source said. “The military parade mobilized a large number of personnel. Not only the border guards, but also officers and soldiers selected from the army and marines, navy, and air force across the country participated. Therefore, it should be considered that the coronavirus has spread to every military base everywhere,” the second source said. “The authorities quickly … started up the maximum emergency quarantine system nationwide and began locking everything down,” he said. “But it is already too late.” Sources told RFA that people are angry an event purely for propaganda purposes may be the source widespread illness. According to a North Korean state media report on Friday, there are currently 187,800 people in quarantine in North Korea, and six people have died after showing COVID-19 symptoms. One of the dead was confirmed to be infected by the omicron variant of COVID-19. Translated by Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Rights groups press UN ahead of trip to Xinjiang as detention camp list emerges](https://ij-reportika.com/rights-groups-press-un-ahead-of-trip-to-xinjiang-as-detention-camp-list-emerges/): About 20 Uyghur, Tibetan and international human rights groups protested outside the United Nations compound in Geneva on Friday, calling on the U.N. human rights chief to release her report on abuses in Xinjiang and to consult internment camps survivors and other Chinese exiles ahead of her planned visit to China’s western region. The latest of numerous rallies by Uyghurs, Tibetans and other subjects of Chinese repression ahead an expected May visit by Michelle Bachelet, the U.N.’s high commissioner for human rights, came a day after the release on Thursday of a suspected police list with the names of more than 10,000 allegedly detained Uyghurs from one county in Xinjiang. Bachelet, a former Chilean president, is expected to visit the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region among other places in China this month, though the dates have yet to be disclosed. Bachelet first announced that her office sought an unfettered access to Xinjiang in September 2018, shortly after she took over her current role. But the trip has been delayed over questions about her freedom of movement through the region. “As the high commissioner and her team are preparing for a visit to East Turkistan, three and a half years after ‘unfettered access’ was requested, Uyghurs, Tibetans, Hong Kongers and other groups remain deeply concerned about the lack of transparency surrounding the terms of the visit, as well as the incomprehensible delay in publishing the high commissioner’s long-awaited report,” said a May 10 statement issued by the World Uyghur Congress, one of the groups that participated in the protest. During the protest, Uyghur groups sought to deliver a letter to the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR), specifying their demands for a credible visit, WUC said. “Today, we haven’t come before the U.N. to beg High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet,” said WUC president Dolkun Isa. “We have come here to hold her accountable. We have come here to remind her of her solemn duty. She has the inescapable duty to stop China’s genocide against Uyghurs.” China is accused of having incarcerated 1.8 million Uyghurs in mass detention camps. The United States and the legislatures of several Western countries have found that China’s mistreatment of the Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang constitute genocide and crimes against humanity. China angrily rejects all such claims as politically motivated attacks on its security and development policies in the vast western region. Beijing has called for a “friendly” visit by the U.N. rights official, the kind that rights experts fear would help China whitewash the situation. &#8216;Fabricating malicious lies&#8217; In a report to Congress, the U.S. State Department said it will increase pressure on Beijing over China’s maltreatment of the Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in Xinjiang by raising concerns during meetings with other nations, multilateral institutions and the private sector, Bloomberg reported on Thursday. In response to a question about the report, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian repeated his government’s contention that “the allegation of ‘genocide’ in Xinjiang is nothing but the lie of the century concocted by some people in the U.S. in total disregard of facts.” “The international community has a fair judgment as to who is truly guilty of genocide,” he said. “The U.S. also knows the answer very well itself. We hope the U.S. will do some earnest soul-searching regarding the 500,000 child laborers working on American farms and all those Native American lives lost to genocide over the past decades. We also urge the U.S. to stop meddling in China’s internal affairs and put an end to its sinister agenda of containing China by fabricating malicious lies.” Uyghur groups, international organizations and lawmakers attended a three-day conference this week in Brussels, where they discussed ways for governments and companies in the EU to avoid purchasing products made by Uyghur forced labor. The European Commission will consider draft legislation to restrict the entry of forced-labor goods into European markets in September. U.S. lawmakers last year banned imports from Xinjiang unless they are certified as not having been made with forced labor. The act will be implemented in June. &#8216;High time&#8217; For Uyghurs living abroad, the release on Thursday of a suspected police list with the names of more than 10,000 allegedly detained Uyghurs from Xinjiang’s Kashgar Kona Sheher (Shufu) county underscores the importance of Bachelet’s upcoming visit. The list, which also contains birthdates, ethnicities, ID numbers, addresses, sentence lengths and prison locations of the Uyghurs, was obtained by authorities in Turkey, Agence France-Presse reported Thursday. AFP said it is not been possible to independently verify the authenticity of the database. Nursiman Abdureshid on Friday told RFA that she discovered that her brother, Mamateli Abdureshid, had been sentenced to nearly 16 years in prison in Xinjiang from information on the leaked list. Nursiman, who is from Saybagh village in Kashgar Kona Sheher’s Shor township, now lives in Turkey with her family. She is also the sister of an RFA reporter. Nursiman said she lost contact with Mamateli in June 2017, the year that China stepped up its crackdown on Uyghurs. “I learned about the imprisonment of my brother in Aksu (in Chinese, Akesu) from this list,” she said. “The reason for his sentencing, the length of the sentence, his home address and ID are listed on it.” Mamateli was charged with “disrupting social stability” and “potential to join terrorist activities,” the same reasons the Chinese Embassy in Ankara gave her in 2020, Nursiman said. “I asked for the reason for his sentence, whether there was a trial, and where he was imprisoned, but got no response,” she said. More than 100 people on the list are from the same township, said Nursiman, who identified seven people she knew. “The genocide has been ongoing for the last five years,” she said. “The U.N. has failed to hold China accountable in spite of the recognition of the Uyghur genocide by the U.S.-led Western democracies, preponderance of evidence of genocide, testimonies of camp survivors and many lists of Uyghurs being...
- [27 charred bodies discovered in Sagaing after Myanmar junta’s latest arson attack](https://ij-reportika.com/27-charred-bodies-discovered-in-sagaing-after-myanmar-juntas-latest-arson-attack/): Villagers found 27 charred bodies inside burnt homes yesterday in northwestern Myanmar’s Sagaing region, where the ruling military junta has for months conducted an arson campaign targeting rural villages, burning hundreds of homes, and leaving thousands displaced.  The villagers told RFA that the bodies were found in the Mon Dai Pin and Inbin villages of Ye Oo township. While there was no fighting in their area, the villagers said, soldiers arrived during a military operation and spent a night in the village.  “Most of the villagers fled to safety, [but] some were unable to escape,” one villager said. RFA has not been able to confirm the incident and attempts to contact junta spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun went unanswered.  A military column from nearby Taze township raided Mon Dai Pin on May 9 and set fire to about 30 houses, villagers said.  In addition to the charred bodies, villagers said three monks from the village monastery were taken away by the military. Of the 27 bodies, 17 were found in Mon Dai Pin and the other 10 were found in Inbin.  Some of the bodies were found on the street, and villagers said some of them had gunshot wounds. The victims were identified as local residents in their 40s. The villagers said that since the fire has not fully died down, they could not search all the homes. RFA previously reported on the junta’s burning of 500 homes in Sagaing in only three days, with the military cutting off internet access in 27 of the region’s 37 townships in early March. The information blackout has left villagers in the dark about the campaign as the military moves from village to village in a crackdown on opponents of its Feb. 1, 2021 coup.  Soldiers had destroyed around 200 and 70 homes in Mingin’s Thanbauk and Zinkale villages, respectively, on April 25, some 220 homes in Khin Oo’s Thanboh village the following day, and an unconfirmed number of homes in Shwebo’s Malar and Makhauk villages on the evening of April 27, RFA’s investigation found.
- [Bridge in disputed territory between China and India sparks concern](https://ij-reportika.com/bridge-in-disputed-territory-between-china-and-india-sparks-concern/): A bridge being built by China across Pangong Lake in a disputed section of northwest India could further inflame tensions between the two countries, experts on the border dispute said. The bridge, which spans about 500 meters (1,640 feet), is situated south of a position occupied by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) on the north bank of the lake in Ladakh, an area that India contends China has illegally occupied since 1962. The area has been the site of clashes between the countries, as has the so-called Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh that separates Indian-controlled territory from Chinese-controlled territory. The bridge will cut the travel distance between the PLA position and a military base in Rutog (in Chinese, Ritu) county, Ngari prefecture, in far-western Tibet Autonomous Region by about 150 kilometers (93 miles), making it easier for Chinese troops to counter Indian forces if future flare-ups arise. A black dot marks the site of the new bridge over Pangong Lake on the border with India and China. Credit: RFA graphic/Datawrapper In January, geo-intelligence expert Damien Symon first used satellite imagery to show that China was building a bridge across Pangong Lake the eastern Ladakh territory it controls. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin that month said the construction would safeguard China’s security. “China building bridge over Pangong Lake is a key area for the Indian border,” said Brahma Chellaney, a professor of strategic studies at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi. “Despite land agreements between the two, China has been carrying out military activities in the border area. The bridge will make it easier for Chinese troops to access the region.” Sana Hashmi, a visiting fellow at the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation in Taipei whose research focuses on China’s foreign policy and territorial disputes, said that the border dispute will be at the forefront of China-India relations going forward. “This only shows that China has no real intention of resolving the dispute and that the tensions are only going to grow,” she told RFA in a written statement. India is responding to the bridge construction by boosting its defense capabilities and seeking cooperation with like-minded countries, Sana Hashmi said. This satellite image with a detail inset shows China&#8217;s bridge over Pangong Lake on the border with India and China, April 24, 2022. Credit: EO Browser, Sinergise Ltd. Kunchok Tenzin, a councilor from the Pangong Lake area, said the bridge’s construction has raised concern among locals, who fear they could be hurt if a clash between India and China breaks out. “The Indian government should make the development of border areas a priority and ensure the safety of the local residents,” he said. Monk Kunchok Rigchok from Pangong Monastery said that people know the bridge may pose a threat in the future. “Though there is no fear as we have lived here our whole lives, but the Indian government must remain on alert because China has illegally occupied land in the region,” he said. “They may target our place soon.” Tenzin Lhundup, a Pangong Lake resident who lives by the border, said he was born in the area and intends to live there until he dies. “We are not scared of the Chinese, as they have been visiting this area even during the pandemic lockdown,” he said. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Economics and hotspots Myanmar and Ukraine on agenda of US-ASEAN Summit final day](https://ij-reportika.com/economics-and-hotspots-myanmar-and-ukraine-on-agenda-of-us-asean-summit-final-day/): Vice President Kamala Harris offered Southeast Asian leaders maritime security assistance to address “threats to international rules and norms” as the top U.S. diplomat sought deeper ties with regional heavyweight Indonesia and budding partner Vietnam on Friday, the final day of a U.S.-ASEAN Special Summit. Hosting the leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations for a working lunch, Harris stressed the security concerns many of the countries share over aggressive Chinese actions in the South China Sea, where several of the 10 ASEAN states have territorial disputes with Beijing. “Our administration recognizes the vital strategic importance of your region, a role that will only grow with time. And we recognize ASEAN’s centrality in the region’s architecture,” she told the gathering at the State Department in Washington. “As an Indo-Pacific nation, the United States will be present and continue to be engaged in Southeast Asia for generations to come,” Harris said, adding that with a shared vision for the region, “together we will guard against threats to international rules and norms.” “We stand with our allies and partners in defending the maritime rules-based order which includes freedom of navigation and international law,” she said, without mentioning China. To underscore U.S. commitment, Harris said the U.S. will provide $60 million in new regional maritime security assistance led by the U.S. Coast Guard, and will deploy a cutter as a training platform and will send technical experts to help build capacity in the region. That offer followed President Joe Biden commitment at the summit’s opening dinner Thursday to spend U.S. $150 million on COVID-19 prevention, security, and infrastructure in Southeast Asia as part of a package his administration hopes will counter China’s extensive influence in the region. A U.S. Coast Guard ship will also be deployed to the region to patrol waters ASEAN nations say are illegally fished by Chinese vessels. In bilateral meetings Friday with Indonesia and Vietnam, ASEAN’s most populous nations, Secretary of State Antony Blinken stressed deepening partnership in security and stronger economic ties. The second U.S.-ASEAN summit to be held in the United States, following an inaugural gathering in California in 2016, “puts an emphasis on the great importance that we attach, the United States attaches to ASEAN, our relationship, ASEAN centrality,” Blinken told Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi. “We are working together across the board to advance a shared vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific region.  We’re working to strengthen economic ties among countries in the region,” he said at the State Department. U.S. President Joe Biden (L) and leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) arrive for a group photo on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, May 12, 2022. Credit: AFP. &#8216;Dreadful humanitarian crisis&#8217; in Ukraine Retno welcomed “intensified communication and cooperation between our two countries,” and said “we should use this strategic partnership also to contribute to the peace, stability, and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific.” Departing with a general reticence about discussing the war in Ukraine among of ASEAN states–which include Russia-friendly Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam–the Indonesia minister said: “Our hope is to see the war in Ukraine stop as soon as possible.” Retro’s remarks echoed those made to U.S. lawmakers Thursday by Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo, who noted the Ukraine war’s impact on the global economy, including food and energy price surges. “The Ukrainian war has led to a dreadful humanitarian crisis that affects the global economy,” he said, according to remarks released by his cabinet. Blinken told Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh that Washington and Hanoi are “now the strongest of partners, with a shared vision for security in the region we share and for the strongest possible economic ties.” The crisis following the February 2021 military coup in Myanmar, which was a top focus of Thursday’s meetings on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit, was at the fore of Blinken’s meeting with Cambodia Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn, who also serves as ASEAN’s special envoy to Myanmar. “We’re working very closely together as partners to try to advance a shared vision for the region, including regional security,” said Blinken. Cambodia is this year&#8217;s rotating ASEAN chair. “And of course, we welcome the leadership role that you’re playing at ASEAN on a number of issues, including hopefully working to restore the democratic path of Myanmar,” Blinken added. Absent but high on the agenda Myanmar was one of only two ASEAN countries whose rulers were not at the summit. The Philippines is being represented by its foreign minister as it wraps up a presidential election this week, while Myanmar’s junta chief, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, was barred from the summit amid a brutal crackdown on opponents of his military regime that rights groups say has claimed the lives of at least 1,835 civilians. While absent in Washington, the country the U.S. still officially calls Burma was much on the agenda of its fellow ASEAN members Thursday. Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah called out junta officials in a series of tweets for failing to honor their commitment to end violence in the country, while U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman held a meeting with Zin Mar Aung, the foreign minister of the shadow National Unity Government in Myanmar. “The deputy secretary highlighted that the United States would continue to work closely with ASEAN and other partners in pressing for a just and peaceful resolution to the crisis in Burma,” according to a statement by State Department spokesperson Ned Price. “They also condemned the escalating regime violence that has led to a humanitarian crisis and called for unhindered humanitarian access to assist all those in need in Burma.” In Naypyidaw, RFA’s Myanmar Service asked military junta spokesman Maj Gen Zaw Min Tun for comments but he did not respond. But the head of a think tank made up of former military officers who often reflects the regime’s hardline views called the U.S. meeting with the parallel administration &#8220;unethical.” “To put it bluntly, it’s an unethical act...
- [Chinese censors go after 'last generation' references on social media platforms](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-censors-go-after-last-generation-references-on-social-media-platforms/): Censors backed by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have deleted references to a viral video that spawned the &#8220;last generation&#8221; meme, which emerged as a form of protest over ongoing lockdowns, mass incarcerations and compulsory testing under its zero-COVID policy. In the video, PPE-clad police officials turn up outside someone&#8217;s apartment and tries to force them to go to an isolation camp even though he had recently tested negative for coronovirus. &#8220;We&#8217;re negative. You have no right to take us away,&#8221; the man says, before a police officer steps forward wagging a finger and says: &#8220;You know that we will punish you, right? And when that happens, it will have a bad effect on your family for three generations.&#8221; &#8220;Sorry. We&#8217;re the last generation,&#8221; the man replies in the video which began circulating on Chinese social media platforms from May 11, garnering huge numbers of views and comments. Searches for the video or the keywords &#8220;last generation&#8221; yielded no results on Thursday. The meme has apparently fed in to a culture of passive resistance begun with the &#8220;lying down&#8221; movement of 2021. Some have joked online that the era from 1966 onwards was all about the innocence of revolution and justified rebellion, while the 1989 pro-democracy movement felt it was their &#8220;duty&#8221; to protest. By contrast, the youth of 2022 are shutting up shop before their lives have properly begun, by referring to themselves as the &#8220;last generation.&#8221; A related meme talks about the study of &#8220;run,&#8221; a Chinese character that echoes the English word &#8220;run,&#8221; meaning finding ways to leave the country. The memes come at a time when the CCP is hoping to get people to have more children amid concerns over a rapidly aging and dwindling population. But even before the &#8220;last generation&#8221; meme emerged, Shanghai officials had announced that the city&#8217;s birth rate fell below the rate of 1 needed for the population to replace itself, to just 0.73. Anger over zero-COVID policies Ye Yaoyuan, head of the Department of International Studies and Contemporary Linguistics at St. Thomas in the United States, said the phrase highlights huge popular anger over the zero-COVID policies, likening it to a pressure cooker. &#8220;In the years between 1989 to 2022, the CCP has developed an incomparable array of tools for controlling the population,&#8221; Ye told RFA. &#8220;They are now trying to monitor [public opinion] because they fear the emergence of collective action and resistance&#8221; &#8220;Back in 1989 [before the mass pro-democracy movement on Tiananmen Square and across China], they didn&#8217;t actually have that capability.&#8221; The stated refusal to toe the line and produce another generation is a deep and disturbing form of dissent for the CCP and leader Xi Jinping, who wants to project an image of self-confidence in China&#8217;s authoritarian form of government, in a bid to show the world its superiority over Western-style liberal democracy. Xi has also presided over a blanket ban on private tuition and other measures aimed at making child-rearing less stressful and expensive for parents, while his government has raised the maximum number of children per couple from two to three. Yi Fuxian, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin who follows China&#8217;s population policy and family planning controls, said prosperity is a key driver of birth rates. &#8220;What the government should do is create a better environment and lifestyle, so that people are willing to have children,&#8221; Yi told RFA. &#8220;This is the government&#8217;s obligation and responsibility.&#8221; &#8216;You can&#8217;t stop them at all&#8217; A man who gave only the surname Chen said he understood the feelings of powerless engendered by the Shanghai lockdown, saying he too is fighting to remain in his hotel quarantine room, despite testing negative for COVID-19. Chen said he wants to save his cat 14sky from being bludgeoned to death or poisoned by officials if he is forced to go to an isolation camp. &#8220;These people who have power can do any crazy thing they want, and you can&#8217;t stop them at all,&#8221; Chen said, adding that he plans to stay single with his cat. &#8220;No matter what you do, you will have a strong sense of powerlessness, because you have no control over anything,&#8221; Chen said. &#8220;Sometimes you just want to be a person. It&#8217;s very difficult, very desperate.&#8221; Ming Juzheng, an honorary professor of politics at National Taiwan University, said the CCP likely fears that if it relaxes restrictions now, there will be a resurgence of COVID-19 just in time for the 20th party congress later this year. &#8220;This would be an unacceptable challenge [for Xi], whose entire ideological line would be thrown into question, and his regime overthrown,&#8221; Ming said. He added: &#8220;The CCP has a pathological attachment to power.&#8221; Taiwan political commentator Ren Sung-lin said the zero-COVID policy more of a political campaign than a public health policy, and the Shanghai lockdown is a part of Xi&#8217;s need to show he can bring the city &#8212; an internationally connected economic powerhouse &#8212; to heel. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [In Myanmar, daily commute gets tougher](https://ij-reportika.com/in-myanmar-daily-commute-gets-tougher/): Residents of Dala, a township on the southern banks of Myanmar’s Yangon River, rely on an extensive ship and motorboat system to reach the country’s largest city, Yangon, on the other side of the water. More than 180,000 people live in Dala, and half of them commute to Yangon for work each day. But since the military seized power last year, the price of fuel has skyrocketed across the country, and people in the township are finding it difficult to afford the cost of the boat trips. Operators are also considering raising the price of the trips, which currently stands at 200 kyats, around $0.12 USD. Many residents have also lost their jobs in the city amid the economic downturn that has followed the coup and the COVID-19 pandemic.
- [China slams planned US economic framework as Biden hosts SE Asian leaders](https://ij-reportika.com/china-slams-planned-us-economic-framework-as-biden-hosts-se-asian-leaders/): Beijing has slammed the U.S.-proposed Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), calling it an attempt by Washington to lure Southeast Asian countries to “decouple from China.” U.S. President Joe Biden has been hosting a special two-day summit with leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that ends Friday. At the summit, it’s expected that the U.S. will share more details of the framework, which is likely to get its official launch later this month when Biden visits South Korea and Japan. It’s not a free trade pact in the mold of the Trans-Pacific Partnership that the Obama administration championed and negotiated for years as part of its foreign policy ‘pivot’ to Asia, only to see the Trump administration ditch it. An iteration of the same deal was later adopted by other Pacific Rim nations. But the IPEF does seeks to foster ties with economic partners in the Indo-Pacific by setting trade rules and building a supply chain, without China. In the words of President Biden at the East Asia Summit last year, the IPEF involves “trade facilitation, standards for the digital economy and technology, supply chain resiliency, decarbonization and clean energy, infrastructure, worker standards, and other areas of shared interest.” On Thursday, Beijing warned Washington that the Asia-Pacific is “not a chessboard for geopolitical contest” and any regional cooperation framework should “follow the principle of respecting others’ sovereignty and non-interference in others’ internal affairs.” The Chinese Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson Zhao Lijian said China rejects “Cold War mentality” when it comes to regional groupings. The People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of China’s Communist Party, said in an editorial that the IPEF is designed to “make up for the shortcomings of Washington&#8217;s previous engagement with Southeast Asia, which focused only on security and ignored the economy.” “The U.S. holds profound political and strategic objectives aimed at forcing countries to decouple from China,” the paper quoted some analysts as saying. The gathering in Washington is the second U.S.-ASEAN special summit since 2016, when then-President Barack Obama hosted leaders of the bloc in Sunnylands, California. ASEAN leaders, minus Myanmar and the Philippines, attended a White House dinner with Biden on Thursday and met with a host of U.S. political and business leaders, but had no bilateral meetings with the U.S. president. Leaders were meeting with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday at the State Department. There are 10 ASEAN member states but Myanmar’s junta was not invited to the summit and the Philippines, which held a presidential election last weekend, only sent its foreign minister. ASEAN’s cautiousness Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was the first ASEAN leader to welcome the IPEF. Speaking at an engagement with the U.S.-ASEAN Business Council and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Thursday, Lee said that the IPEF “needs to be inclusive and provide tangible benefits to encourage wider participation.” “We encourage greater ASEAN participation in the IPEF and we hope the U.S. will directly invite and engage ASEAN member states in this endeavor,&#8221; he said. Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong listens to a translation of remarks during a meeting with ASEAN leaders and U.S. business representatives as part of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) U.S.-ASEAN Special Summit, in Washington, U.S., May 12, 2022. (REUTERS) At present, it’s understood that only two of the 10 ASEAN countries &#8211; Singapore and the Philippines &#8211; are expected to be among the initial group of counties to sign up for the negotiations under IPEF. “Most ASEAN members have remained hesitant to voice support for Biden&#8217;s IPEF, which is, to their perceptions, a counterweight against China&#8217;s Belt and Road Initiative in specific and Beijing&#8217;s economic coercion in general,” said Huynh Tam Sang, a lecturer at Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities (USSH) in Vietnam. “Given the economic proximity to China, ASEAN member states have sought to avoid provoking Beijing, let alone getting embedded in the Sino-U.S. competition,” Sang said. Yet judging from prepared statements and initial feedback from ASEAN leaders on the prospects of ASEAN-U.S. economic cooperation and the IPEF, “they do not only value the substance of the relationship but are eager to see it grow,” according to Thomas Daniel, a senior fellow at Malaysia&#8217;s Institute of Strategic and International Studies. “Unfortunately, Washington is still unable to fully grasp or address the desire in Southeast Asia for practical dimensions that will bring an immediate and tangible benefit to local economies and communities,” he said. On Thursday, Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob urged the U.S. to adopt a more active trade and investment agenda with ASEAN countries. He pointed to the Chinese-backed Regional Economic Comprehensive Partnership, which took effect this year, as an important tool to invigorate regional business and economic activity through reduced trade barriers. Seeking to offer concrete benefits at the summit, Biden offered US$150 million for ASEAN infrastructure, security, pandemic preparedness and other efforts. More division in the bloc? Details of the IPEF remain vague but policymakers in Washington have said that they’re designing a framework to prioritize flexibility and inclusion, with a pick-and-choose arrangement for participating countries, allowing them to select the individual areas where they want to make more specific commitments. The IPEF looks to foster economic cooperation by establishing trade rules across “four pillars” &#8211; trade resiliency, infrastructure, decarbonization and anti-corruption. Containers sit stacked at the Manila North Harbour Port, Inc. in Manila, Philippines on Oct. 19, 2021. (AP Photo) An analysis by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said while the IPEF holds promise, “it will need to be well engineered and managed.” “Wherever possible, the framework should seek to advance binding rules and hard commitments that go beyond broad principles and goals,” the CSIS said. At the same time, “the Biden administration will need to offer tangible benefits to regional partners, especially less-developed ones,” according to the analysis. There are warnings that the proposed framework, if not carefully considered, may even create a bigger gap between countries in the Southeast Asian...
- [China sets up local law enforcement militias to boost 'stability maintenance'](https://ij-reportika.com/china-sets-up-local-law-enforcement-militias-to-boost-stability-maintenance/): Judicial authorities across China are setting up &#8220;people&#8217;s legal struggle militias&#8221; to aid law enforcement, recruiting lawyers 18-45 &#8220;in good physical condition,&#8221; according to official notices posted online. A notice issued by bureaus of justice in Shanghai, Guangdong, Hubei and other locations said the militias would be formed in support of &#8220;our online forces.&#8221; &#8220;Plans are under way to set up legal struggle militia and report to the armed forces department of municipal government before the end of May,&#8221; the notice said. &#8220;We are recruiting &#8230; lawyers or paralegals from city law firms. Recruitment criteria: Aged 18-45 years old, in good physical condition. [Ruling] Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members, veterans preferred,&#8221; it said. Chinese criminal lawyer Mo Shaoping said he had never heard any mention of &#8220;legal struggle&#8221; in his career. &#8220;It seems like a coined expression; I&#8217;ve never heard it before,&#8221; Mo told RFA. &#8220;I haven&#8217;t seen any definition of &#8216;legal struggle&#8217; in any legal dictionary.&#8221; Current affairs commentator Zha Jianguo said the use of the word &#8220;struggle,&#8221; which has roots in the political &#8220;struggle sessions&#8221; of the post-1949 era and the kangaroo courts of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), suggested a move away from the rule of law and judicial channels. &#8220;It means a kind of intense conflict and tension between people,&#8221; Zha said. &#8220;It&#8217;s a neologism, which means they want to fight, but to use the law as a weapon, but without any specific legal basis.&#8221; &#8220;It&#8217;s about cloaking artificial &#8216;struggles&#8217; &#8230; in a legal veneer.&#8221; An angry Chinese (striped T-shirt) is heckled in Beijing by a plain-clothes militiaman (facing camera) while trying to roll out and paste his hand-written placard or dazibao on the &#8220;dazibao wall&#8221; in front of the Municipal Revolutionary Committee of Beijing, July 23, 1974. Credit: AFP Dangerous indicator Political scientist Guo Wenhao said the creation of militias is a dangerous indicator of what is to come, now that the power to &#8220;enforce the law&#8221; has been delegated beyond government departments and law enforcement agencies. China empowered local officials at township, village, and neighborhood level to enforce the law under an amended administrative punishment law that took effect in July 2021, as well as operating a vastly extended &#8220;grid management&#8221; system of social control in rural and urban areas alike. &#8220;[Officials at] township, village and neighborhood [level] shall be given administrative law enforcement powers &#8230; while existing law enforcement powers and resources shall be integrated,&#8221; according to a high-level opinion document dating from April, but not published by state news agency Xinhua until July 11. Government will be based on a &#8220;grid&#8221; system of management, a system of social control that harks back to imperial times, and which will allow the authorities even closer control over citizens&#8217; lives, the opinion document issued jointly by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) central committee and the country&#8217;s State Council said. According to directives sent out in 2018, the grid system carves up neighborhoods into a grid pattern with 15-20 households per square, with each grid given a dedicated monitor who reports back on residents&#8217; affairs to local committees. Neighborhood committees in China have long been tasked with monitoring the activities of ordinary people in urban areas, but the grid management system turbo-charges the capacity of officials even in rural areas to monitor what local people are doing, saying, and thinking. &#8220;Now that the power of law enforcement has been delegated to townships and sub-districts, and institutions without any legal knowledge or powers of law enforcement have been given the power to enforce the law, there will be widespread abuse of this power of law enforcement,&#8221; Guo said. &#8220;And such phenomena have a tendency to intensify.&#8221; Cultural Revolution enforcement style He said the militias suggest that China is indeed heading towards a Cultural Revolution enforcement style where the government no longer has a monopoly on political violence. &#8220;I get the impression that a completely absurd system has emerged, outside of traditional personnel structures,&#8221; Guo said. &#8220;The government allows them to do bad things, then they can deny [doing them].&#8221; Gansu scholar Zhang Ping said the militias will be under the command of local government militias, in a manner similar to the grassroots militias of the Cultural Revolution. &#8220;Granting the militia a lot of law enforcement power is tantamount to having an armed reserve outside of the military and police force, with greater freedom than the police or armed police,&#8221; Zhang told RFA. &#8220;This is to prevent a so-called popular revolt &#8230; it&#8217;s about social control.&#8221; A version of the directive issued by authorities in Gansu&#8217;s Pingliang city on April 28 said the plan aimed to &#8220;strengthen stability maintenance on a wartime footing&#8221; a nationwide system of surveillance and coercion that aims to prevent protests and petitions before they occur. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Czech venue pushes back against pressure from China to cancel Badiucao's cartoons](https://ij-reportika.com/czech-venue-pushes-back-against-pressure-from-china-to-cancel-badiucaos-cartoons/): Organizers of an exhibition by dissident cartoonist Badiucao in the Czech Republic have refused to cancel the event despite pressure from the Chinese embassy, who said his work &#8220;slanders Chinese leaders and hurts the feelings of the Chinese people.&#8221; Badiucao&#8217;s exhibit, which is touring the world under the title &#8220;MADe IN CHINA,&#8221; opened as planned on Thursday at the DOX Contemporary Art Center in Prague It includes works referencing the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, the 2019 protest movement in Hong Kong, Chinese support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)&#8217;s genocidal policies targeting Uyghurs and the ongoing COVID-19 lockdowns under CCP leader Xi Jinping&#8217;s zero-COVID policy. One work merges the faces of Xi and outgoing Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam, to express the erosion of Hong Kong&#8217;s freedoms under the CCP, while another merges Xi&#8217;s face with that of Russian president Vladimir Putin, the first work visitors see entering the exhibit. The works have clearly ruffled feathers in Beijing. On the afternoon of May 11, DOX Contemporary Art Center project director Michaela Šilpochová suddenly received a call from Hao Hong, a cultural affairs department official at the Chinese embassy, to her private cell phone. Hao Hong said they were calling on the order of the Chinese embassy, and accused Badiucao&#8217;s work of &#8220;smearing the image of China&#8217;s leaders&#8221; and &#8220;hurting the feelings of the Chinese people&#8221; and warned that the exhibition would &#8220;destroy the relationship between the two countries.&#8221; Šilpochová responded that the center wouldn&#8217;t cancel the show, with DOX Contemporary Art Center chief Leoš Válka saying that the Chinese embassy had tried to put pressure on him in the past, and his lack of cooperation was likely why they hadn&#8217;t called him again. He said DOX Art Center refused to tolerate &#8220;intimidation and threats.&#8221; Hao Hong confirmed she had made the call when contacted by RFA. &#8220;I expressed serious concern about this exhibition on behalf of the embassy, and told Šilpochová that they shouldn&#8217;t be putting on an exhibition that hurts the feelings of the Chinese people,&#8221; Hao said. &#8220;I heard that this exhibition had already been held in Italy, so we knew the content of this exhibition.&#8221; &#8220;So we just had to express our opposition,&#8221; she said, accusing Badiucao of using politics to attract attention to himself. &#8220;Do artists have to express their political views and become famous by hurting this country and its leaders? I think it may be in order to attract the attention of people who are less friendly to China, and to use art to achieve a political goal,&#8221; Hao told RFA. Badiucao said he was no stranger to Beijing&#8217;s ire. &#8220;The Chinese government regards all criticisms as smears,&#8221; he told RFA. &#8220;But all that stuff about hurt feelings and smears is just a pretext for them to avoid criticism and oversight.&#8221; &#8220;My exhibition criticizes the Chinese government, and also praises the resistance of Chinese people faced with political dilemmas,&#8221; he said, citing late whistleblowing doctor Li Wenliang and late Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo. &#8220;I am a Chinese person myself, and I have never discriminated against Chinese people or wanted to hurt the Chinese people&#8217;s feelings,&#8221; he said. &#8220;But this government doesn&#8217;t represent the people or speak for them, because it&#8217;s not democratically elected.&#8221; He said politics and art mix well together. &#8220;Art should intervene in politics,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I would rather a society where art interferes in politics than one where politics interferes with art.&#8221; He hit out at the attempts by the CCP to silence him overseas. &#8220;Stifling expression, censorship, and threats against artists are ridiculous in a democratic country,&#8221; Badiucao said. &#8220;The Czechs once also lived in an authoritarian society, and the memory of being censored is very strong for them. In doing this, the Chinese government is reactivating painful memories of their history,&#8221; He said the exhibit was more likely to encourage more people to understand contemporary China, and arouse empathy for the Chinese people, than to smear China. Zhou Fengsuo, chairman of Humanitarian China, was present during the phone call between Hao and Šilpochová. &#8220;The Chinese embassy in the Czech Republic had a strong response, saying that it would endanger the relationship between China and the Czech Republic,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I heard the same thing when a statue of Liu Xiaobo was erected here three years ago.&#8221; &#8220;On the one hand it is ridiculous, on the other hand it is hateful. The CCP is afraid of Badiucao&#8217;s work and tries to silence opposition anywhere in the world &#8230; but the Czech Republic has a tradition of supporting free expression and opposing authoritarian rule.&#8221; Known as &#8220;China&#8217;s Banksy, Badiucao, 36, emigrated to Australia in 2009, where he has continued to produce political cartoons taking aim at the CCP&#8217;s human rights record. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [The manipulation of the world media by China](https://ij-reportika.com/media-manipulation-by-china/): Media manipulation is a series of related techniques in which partisans create an image or argument that favors their particular interests. Foreign actors take advantage of Western Media freedom to spread disinformation.
- [North Korea confirms first COVID-19 cases and at least 1 death](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-confirms-first-covid-19-cases-and-at-least-1-death/): North Korea acknowledged its first confirmed COVID-19 cases and at least one death from the disease on Thursday, after more than two years of claiming the country was “virus free.” The state-run Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that 187,800 people are undergoing treatment in quarantine for a fever of unknown origin that has spread throughout the country since the end of last month. The report did not specify how many people had tested positive for COVID-19. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un presided over a meeting of the Politburo where he ordered a nationwide lockdown and declared a “maximum emergency epidemic prevention system,” KCNA said Thursday. A resident of Pyongyang told RFA’s Korean Service that the capital Pyongyang was on lockdown after health authorities in the city confirmed a case of the virus two days before. “At 5 p.m. [Tuesday], an emergency directive from the national emergency quarantine command of the Central Party’s Political Bureau was issued to all parts of Pyongyang. Specific project details were delivered to the city’s various levels of units, enterprises and the neighborhood watch units in implementing the quarantine project to the maximum emergency quarantine system,” the source said on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The instructions are to prohibit group gatherings, strictly observe personal hygiene, social distance, wash our hands frequently, boil water before drinking it, gargling with salt water frequently to disinfect, and properly ventilate the indoor air to prevent coronavirus,” the source said. There have been many instances of hospital patients exhibiting signs of COVID-19, but quarantine authorities had been diagnosing cases as pneumonia or the flu, the source said. “Residents are confused why the quarantine authorities are suddenly acknowledging coronavirus. Shops, restaurants and marketplaces are all closed. If the lockdown is prolonged, it will disrupt the lives of the residents,” said the source. In the city of Sinuiju in North Pyongan province, across the Yalu River from China, a complete lockdown was underway on Wednesday, a resident there told RFA. “All sectors, including the party, administrative organizations, economic organizations, the police, state security and the armed forces, emphasized the thorough implementation of the instructions of the national emergency quarantine command,” said the second source on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “It is the first time that we have acknowledged the influx of COVID-19 and it is the stealth Omicron variant. Authorities are reassuring residents that it is a virus similar to pneumonia or flu and can be overcome with domestically produced drugs,” the second source said. This source said that a relative in Pyongyang had said that that starting tomorrow an intensive medical screening for all city residents will start. Already citizens are prohibited from going to work, increasing the level of economic anxiety in the country at a time when many are already struggling to get by. “The people are about to fall into a period of chaos, as they cannot even make ends meet prior to the emergency,” the second source said. Vaccine status The World Health Organization (WHO) told RFA on Thursday that it has not yet received information from North Korea’s Ministry of Health regarding the confirmed COVID-19 case as reported by KCNA. North Korea is eligible to receive COVID-19 vaccines through the COVAX global vaccine sharing project, the WHO said. Pyongyang refused to accept vaccines from COVAX earlier in the pandemic when it was still claiming to be “virus-free.” Reuters reported that Washington has no immediate plans to share vaccines with Pyongyang, quoting a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council. Amnesty International called on the North Korean government to ensure that its people were immunized against the disease, which is now estimated to have killed more than 6 million people across the globe. “There is no evidence to show that North Korea has access to enough vaccines to protect its population from COVID-19,” Boram Jang, Amnesty International’s East Asia researcher, said. “With the first official news of a Covid-19 outbreak in the country, continuing on this path could cost many lives and would be an unconscionable dereliction of upholding the right to health,” she said. “The North Korean government should immediately establish plans to secure COVID-19 vaccines for its population by cooperating with the international community.” Strategy North Korea’s timing in acknowledging that the virus has entered its borders is “noteworthy,” Soo Kim, a former CIA analyst now with the RAND corporation, told RFA. “The international community never turned a blind eye toward North Korea’s coronavirus situation; it was the Kim regime that consistently rejected offers of PPE and vaccines on unjustifiable grounds,” she said. “It’s possible that the situation with the coronavirus in North Korea has significantly worsened to a point where the regime can no longer suppress it or cope on its own. But then the question remains — the situation could have been contained had the Kim regime accepted international assistance from the beginning. So why now?” she said. Soo Kim said that economic anxiety, rather than public health concerns, may have motivated North Korea to stray from its claims of having zero confirmed cases. “Extensive lockdown, border closures, and Kim’s already incompetent state management can only take him so far in suppressing the realities of the pandemic,” she said. Harry Kazianis, the president and CEO at the Rogue States project, told RFA that COVID-19 has been present in North Korea since the beginning of the pandemic.  “However, over the last few months as Omicron has crept into the country, North Korean officials cannot use the same brute force tactics of locking people in their homes or isolating entire villages as spread happens so fast. So now, Pyongyang must admit to their being a problem as there is no way no they can hide it,” he said. “Unless North Korea suffers tens of thousands of casualties I doubt the DPRK will ask for help at this point. They do not want to show any weakness at all and want to always project an image of strength and control of their population. Asking...
- [Myanmar political crisis takes center stage on day 1 of US-ASEAN Summit](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-political-crisis-takes-center-stage-on-day-1-of-us-asean-summit/): The ongoing upheaval in Myanmar took center stage on the first day of a U.S.-ASEAN Summit in Washington, as fellow bloc member Malaysia slammed the junta for refusing to engage with the country’s shadow government. Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders held a lunch meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other lawmakers at the U.S. Capitol on Thursday to kick off two days of top-level meetings, which President Joe Biden hopes will bolster Washington’s ties with the bloc and increase its influence in the region. Eight of ASEAN’s leaders made the trip to the U.S. for the summit, which marks the first time the White House extended an invitation to the group of nations in more than four decades. The Philippines declined to attend as it wraps up a presidential election this week, while Myanmar’s junta chief, Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, was barred from the summit amid a brutal crackdown on opponents of his military’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup that rights groups say has claimed the lives of at least 1,835 civilians. U.S. State Department officials instead met with the foreign minister of the National Unity Government, Myanmar’s shadow government of deposed leaders and other junta critics working to take back control of the country. The lunch event on Capitol Hill was closed to the press, but the situation in Myanmar was front and center on Thursday, after Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah called out junta officials in a series of tweets for failing to honor their commitment to end violence in the country. Specifically, he referred to the military regime’s refusal to allow the United Nations special envoy to the country, Noeleen Heyzer, to attend an ASEAN meeting last week to coordinate humanitarian aid to Myanmar. “We regret that the [junta] has not allowed the U.N. Secretary General&#8217;s Special Envoy on Myanmar to participate in the processes,” Saifuddin tweeted. “We should not allow [the junta to be] dictating who to be invited for related meetings.” Saifuddin said he made clear at an informal meeting with ASEAN foreign ministers on Wednesday that Malaysia fully supports Prak Sokhonn, the special envoy of ASEAN Chair Cambodia, “in fulfilling his mandate on [the] 5-Point Consensus” — an agreement formed by the bloc in April 2021 that requires the junta to meet with all of Myanmar’s stakeholders to find a solution to the political crisis. He said he called on the ASEAN envoy to “engage all stakeholders, including [shadow National Unity Government] NUG and [National Unity Consultative Council] NUCC representatives,” both of which are recognized by the junta as “terrorist groups.” Saifuddin’s comments came a day after he told the RFA-affiliated BenarNews agency that he welcomed the idea of engaging informally with the NUG and NUCC via video conference calls and other means if the junta prohibits such meetings in-person. The Malaysian foreign minister said he plans to meet with NUG Foreign Minister Zin Mar Aung in Washington on Saturday to solicit her opinion on how the people of Myanmar can move on. As ASEAN leaders lunched with lawmakers on Thursday, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman held a meeting with Zin Mar Aung and other NUG representatives in Washington during which she underscored the Biden administration’s support for the people of Myanmar during the crackdown and for those working to restore the country to democracy, according to a statement by spokesperson Ned Price. “Noting the many Southeast Asian leaders in Washington for the U.S.-ASEAN Special Summit, the deputy secretary highlighted that the United States would continue to work closely with ASEAN and other partners in pressing for a just and peaceful resolution to the crisis in Burma,” Price said, using the former name of Myanmar. “They also condemned the escalating regime violence that has led to a humanitarian crisis and called for unhindered humanitarian access to assist all those in need in Burma.” Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen attends a meeting with ASEAN leaders and US business representatives as part of the US-ASEAN Special Summit, in Washington, May 12, 2022. Credit: Reuters Other events Following Thursday’s working lunch, ASEAN leaders met with Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, as well as other leaders of the business community, to discuss economic cooperation. In the evening, they joined Biden for dinner at the White House to discuss ASEAN’s future and how the U.S. can play a part, according to media reports, which quoted senior administration officials as saying that each leader would be given time to meet with the president one-on-one. On Friday, leaders will meet with Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken for a working lunch to discuss issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the global climate, and maritime security, before meeting with Biden for a second time. While some ASEAN leaders have been more outspoken in their condemnation of the junta, others —including Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who is also the bloc’s chair — have done little to hold it to account for the situation in Myanmar. In January, Hun Sen became the first foreign leader to visit Myanmar since the military coup — a trip widely viewed as conferring legitimacy on the junta. Hun Sen is no stranger to global condemnation, however. The Cambodian strongman brooks no criticism at home and has jailed his opponents on what observers say are politically motivated charges in a bid to bar them from mounting a challenge his nearly 40-year rule. This week’s summit marks Hun Sen’s fourth visit to the U.S., following trips to attend his son’s graduation from West Point in 1999, the 2016 U.S.-ASEAN Summit with President Barack Obama at the Sunnylands Retreat in California, and a meeting at the United Nations in New York in 2018. Thursday’s dinner with Biden will be his first visit to the White House. Prior to Thursday’s dinner, during a photo session with leaders on the South Lawn, Biden committed to spending U.S. $150 million on COVID-19 prevention, security, and infrastructure in...
- [Interview: 'It’s time for ASEAN to move forward,' urges NUG’s foreign minister](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-its-time-for-asean-to-move-forward-urges-nugs-foreign-minister/): Zin Mar Aung is the foreign minister of the shadow National Unity Government, or NUG, that represents the civilian administration that was ousted in last year’s military takeover in Myanmar. The former democracy activist and political prisoner is in Washington, D.C., for meetings on the sidelines of the summit of U.S. and Southeast Asian leaders, seeking greater diplomatic recognition for the NUG. She spoke Thursday to RFA’s Managing Editor for Southeast Asia Matthew Pennington about the need for the United States to support democracy forces against the Myanmar junta, and for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to step up engagement with the NUG. Zin Mar Aung spent 11 years as a political prisoner under a previous military regime in Myanmar, including years in solitary confinement. She was released in 2009. She was elected in 2015 as a member of the House of Representatives for Yankin township, Yangon, for the National League for Democracy – a position she lost in the Feb. 1, 2021, military coup. RFA: Can I ask you first about your meetings with Biden administration officials? Do you have any more confidence now that the United States might consider giving formal diplomatic recognition to the National Unity Government? Zin Mar Aung: Yes, I feel that because, you know, the way the Biden administration has engaged with me and the way they treat me is really very good and very much welcome and very much supportive. Very friendly discussions. This trip is really encouraging to me. RFA: So who have you met from the administration? ZMA: I met this morning with the Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, and (State Department Counselor) Derek Chollet and also the president&#8217;s adviser for human rights. RFA: Have you asked them directly whether they are going to recognize the National Unity Government as being the rightful government of Myanmar? ZMA:So this trip, you know, I didn&#8217;t directly address them (on this), but we usually ask them to recognize and engage and to support our struggle. So today what they have said is that by welcoming us to Washington, D.C., they are very much consistent, you know, supporting our struggles and they appreciate what the NUG is doing and and also our commitment. So they are also showing their commitment to support us. RFA: What&#8217;s the single most important thing you think for the United States to do, to support what you&#8217;re trying to do in Myanmar? ZMA: The United States as a leading, powerful and democratic country, has not just this time, but also previously, continuously supported our struggle (against military rule), whether Democrats or Republicans &#8230; And it&#8217;s very important, as by getting support from the United States, with its allies, it is very encouraging for our movement, both diplomatically and politically and in terms of, for example, economic sanctions. (The United States) has a lot of allies. RFA: Now it&#8217;s been about one year since the Association of Southeast Asian Nations adopted its Five-Point Consensus to try and bring about a resolution to the crisis in Myanmar. And there&#8217;s been very little progress during that past year. Now, I understand that you&#8217;re meeting with some ASEAN foreign ministers while you&#8217;re here. Can you tell us a bit about who you&#8217;ve met or who you&#8217;re due to meet and whether you&#8217;re any more confident now that ASEAN can help resolve the situation in Myanmar? ZMA: Yes, I met a few ASEAN foreign ministers. You know, publicly I&#8217;m about to meet with the Malaysian foreign minister. So regarding the ASEAN Five-Point Consensus, we already issued a statement. The coup leader didn&#8217;t follow, didn&#8217;t keep his promise (to meet with all stakeholders in Myanmar) &#8230; That is why the Five-Point Consensus is not enough to solve the problem. We very much support the Five-Point Consensus. It needs to be implemented. But the problem is that there is no accountability mechanism. Now it is time for ASEAN to move forward, whether the coup leaders implement it properly or not. If not, what happens next? This is the question for the ASEAN leadership. RFA: Have you had the chance to meet the Cambodian foreign minister (Prak Sakhonn), who is ASEAN&#8217;s envoy to Myanmar? ZMA: No, I haven&#8217;t met (him). RFA: And do you think you&#8217;re going to meet him on this trip? ZMA: Not sure. I also sent a request letter to meet during this trip, but, you know, (he) hasn&#8217;t replied yet. RFA: So what do you see are the prospects of ASEAN actually engaging directly with the NUG? It seems like you&#8217;re meeting with ministers from some countries, but not from others. ZMA: Yes, like I said before, some member states are willing to engage. It (engagement) is actually in line with the Five-Point Consensus. The ASEAN envoy needs to meet with different stakeholders. We are very huge stakeholders supported by the people. So why doesn&#8217;t the ASEAN envoy meet with us (Myanmar) except the SAC (ruling military State Administration Council)? What we are asking for is in line with the Five-Point Consensus. So that is why I would like to encourage the ASEAN member states and leadership to follow through and to engage with different stakeholders in Burma, not just only with us. RFA: It&#8217;s been about 15 months since the military coup led by Min Aung Hlaing. Can you summarize for me what is the situation inside Myanmar now in terms of the extent of the conflict in the country and the impact that it&#8217;s having on civilian population? ZMA: It has had a very huge impact for the daily life of civilian populations. Also on the military, actually. There are a lot of defectors in the military. Military personnel themselves, you know, do not believe their leadership. So it has a very huge impact (on them). It&#8217;s one of the indicators how much impact the military coup has on its own institutions. Even the military, soldiers, officials do not support the military coup .. And people now very much...
- [Flying footwear, fawning ‘fans’ for rare Washington visit by Cambodia PM Hun Sen](https://ij-reportika.com/flying-footwear-fawning-fans-for-rare-washington-visit-by-cambodia-pm-hun-sen/): Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen, making his first visit to Washington, got a taste of the dissent he has completely crushed back home in his 36 years of rule when an émigré from the Southeast Asian nation threw a shoe at him as he greeted supporters in front of his hotel. As the 69-year-old strongman prepared to meet supporters on the eve of a summit of U.S.-Southeast Asian leaders, a retired Cambodian soldier flung a shoe that whizzed by his head and missed him. The incident at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel on Wednesday was caught on video and went viral on social media. “I feel so relieved and slept well, sleep better after I threw my shoe at Hun Sen’s head. I have intended to do this for a long time because I want him to be humiliated, nothing more than that,” Ouk Touch told RFA’s Khmer Service on Thursday at another protest. He said Hun Sen’s bodyguards jumped toward him and attempted to beat him, but U.S. security officials intervened and urged him to leave the scene. “My action, it was just throwing a shoe at Hun Sen, but Hun Sen threw grenades at Cambodian people, peaceful protesters. Hun Sen is a dictator, and he has killed many people, including my relatives,” said Touch, 72, a former soldier in the Cambodian army in the early 1970s. The retiree and California resident was referring to an armed attack against Hun Sen’s elected coalition partners in 1997, one of two such violent attacks that helped him remain in power after failing to win elections. The 1997 attack killed 16 people and wounded 150, but the perpetrators have not been brought to justice. Responding on Facebook to the shoe incident, Hun Sen’s son Hun called it “absolutely unacceptable,” adding: “Those extremists must not be tolerated.” In February Cambodian opposition activist Sam Sokha was released after serving a four-year prison term for throwing her shoe at a poster of Hun Sen and sharing it on social media. She is among scores of activist jailed in a wide-ranging crackdown against opponents of Hun Sen, the media and civic society groups that begin in 2017. Touch said he managed to talk his way into the gathering with a group of Hun Sen supporters that largely consisted of Cambodian officials and their relatives, businessmen with government projects and several people who told RFA their travel expenses to Washington was paid for, without elaborating on the source of funding. “I’m so delighted that Cambodia has a hero, who liberated us from the genocide and we have peace for 30-40 years and people are living prosperously,” said one supporter, who said he was part of a group of 23 Cambodians who flew to Washington from Vancouver, Canada on Tuesday. Hun Sen’s trip to Washington, his first such visit to the U.S. capital, is as chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a ten-country bloc whose leaders are holding a summit with U.S. President Joe Biden. The Cambodian leader will attend a dinner at the White House Thursday. Aside from a handful of visits since 1999 to the United Nations in New York for annual meetings, Hun Sen has made very few trips to the U.S. He attended the West Point graduation ceremony of his son and designated heir Hun Manet in May 1999 and took part in the first U.S.-ASEAN summit hosted by former President Barack Obama in California in February 2016. As rotating chair of ASEAN this year, Hun Sen’s suitability to lead outside efforts to resolve a political crisis in Myanmar since a military coup in in February 2021 is questioned by many observers in light of his record of violence and his systematic destruction of Cambodia&#8217;s opposition since 2017. In a briefing ahead of the U.S.-ASEAN gathering, a White House spokesperson had to address Hun Sen’s problematic rights record and noted that he was attending in his role of ASEAN chair. “When you think about Cambodia, that’s the question that we tend to get,” said Principal Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. “The president and our administration (have) been clear about human rights concerns and promoting human rights in Cambodia,” she added. Biden “will, of course, not hold back from expressing his views and his priorities to promote human rights in that region,” she added. Hun Sen resents being held at arm’s length by successive U.S. administrations, which “have generally viewed Cambodia as a strategically marginal country,” said Sebastian Strangio, Southeast Asia Editor at The Diplomat  and author of books on Cambodia and Southeast Asia. “Hun Sen’s steady accumulation of power and generally authoritarian behavior is the primary reason why he has never been invited to the White House. But it’s also true that many leaders with similar (or worse) records have received the red carpet treatment,” he told RFA in emailed comments. “Indeed, for Hun Sen, the fact that he has been overlooked, while leaders such as Thailand’s Prime Minister Prayut, who seized power in a coup, and Nguyen Phu Trong, the head of the Vietnamese Communist Party, have been feted in Washington, continues to be a source of abiding resentment,” added Strangio. “From his perspective, it is just one more example of how Western nations have treated Cambodia differently from partners and allies,” he wrote. Translated by Som Sok-Ry. Written by Paul Eckert.
- [Cardinal Zen arrest sparks international outcry from governments, overseas activists](https://ij-reportika.com/cardinal-zen-arrest-sparks-international-outcry-from-governments-overseas-activists/): Britain on Thursday hit out at the arrest by Hong Kong&#8217;s national security police of five pro-democracy figures including 90-year-old retired bishop Cardinal Joseph Zen, amid calls for Magnitsky-style sanctions on officials responsible for the ongoing crackdown on public dissent. &#8220;The Hong Kong authorities’ decision to target leading pro-democracy figures, including Cardinal Zen, Margaret Ng, Hui Po-keung and Denise Ho, under the national security law is unacceptable,&#8221; minister for Europe and North America told the House of Commons on Thursday. &#8220;We continue to make clear to mainland China and to Hong Kong authorities our strong opposition to the national security law, which is being used to curtail freedom, punish dissent and shrink the space for opposition, free press and civil society,&#8221; he said. Former ruling Conservative Party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith called on the government to sanction Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam, chief executive-elect and former security chief John Lee, as well as Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official in charge of implementing a draconian national security law in Hong Kong Luo Huining and former police chief Chris Tang, among others. &#8220;Not one of those people has been sanctioned by the U.K. government,&#8221; Duncan Smith said. &#8220;It is time to step up and make our position very clear.&#8221; Cleverly said the government was willing to listen to calls for &#8220;not just words but actions.&#8221; Meanwhile, the Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong said it was &#8220;extremely concerned&#8221; over Zen&#8217;s arrest. &#8220;The Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong is extremely concerned about the condition and safety of Cardinal Joseph Zen and we are offering our special prayers for him,&#8221; it said in a statement on its website. &#8220;We urge the Hong Kong Police and the judicial authorities to handle Cardinal Zen’s case in accordance with justice.&#8221; In Washington, State Department spokesman Ned Price said the recent arrests of Cardinal Zen, former pro-democracy lawmaker and barrister Margaret Ng, scholar Hui Po-keung and Cantopop star Denise Ho showed that the Hong Kong authorities &#8220;will pursue all means necessary to stifle dissent and undercut protected rights and freedoms.&#8221; Zen, Ng, Hui and Ho served as trustees of the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, which helped thousands of arrested Hong Kong democracy protesters access funds for medical aid, legal advice, psychological counseling, and emergency financial relief, he said. &#8220;We call for the immediate release of those who remain in custody and continue to stand with people in Hong Kong,&#8221; Price said in a May 11 statement. In addition to the above four, jailed former pro-democracy lawmaker Cyd Ho, another trustee currently on remand awaiting trial on a separate charge, was also arrested on the same charge of &#8220;conspiracy to collude with foreign powers&#8221; on Thursday. Canadian foreign minister Melanie Joly has called the arrests &#8220;deeply troubling.&#8221; Denise Ho holds a Canadian passport. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said he was following the arrests with &#8220;great concern,&#8221; while Human Rights Watch called it a &#8220;shocking new low for Hong Kong.&#8221; The Vatican has said it is following the case closely. National Security &#8216;offenses&#8217; China hit back at the international outcry over the arrests on Thursday, saying that international criticism was &#8220;slandering and smearing legitimate law enforcement action by the Hong Kong police against the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund.&#8221; &#8220;Rights and freedoms cannot be used as a shield for illegal activities in Hong Kong,&#8221; the foreign ministry&#8217;s Hong Kong office said in a statement. &#8220;We urge external forces trying to intervene to cease this clumsy political performance immediately,&#8221; it said, adding that the arrestees are suspected of offenses under the national security law &#8220;of a serious nature.&#8221; Zen and the other arrestees were released on bail late on Wednesday. More than 180 Hongkongers have been arrested to date under the law, including dozens of former opposition politicians and democracy activists, and several senior media figures including Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai. Cardinal Zen, 90, has long been an outspoken supporter of Hong Kong&#8217;s pro-democracy movement and a critic of the CCP&#8217;s suppression of religious freedom. U.S.-based democracy campaigner Samuel Chu said the fact that Zen was arrested shortly after the selection of one-horse candidate and former security chief John Lee showed that Beijing is celebrating its new-found control over every aspect of life in Hong Kong. Chu described the national security law &#8212; which applies to actions and speech anywhere in the world &#8212; as an &#8220;evil law&#8221; that is now the paramount political principle in Hong Kong. &#8220;It doesn&#8217;t matter who is the chief executive or who is in charge of the different government departments,&#8221; Chu said. &#8220;As long as there is a national security law, they will arrest whoever they want, and no one in the world is safe.&#8221; Taiwan human rights activist Shih Yi-hsiang said the law is in violation of international human rights covenants. &#8220;All of our brothers and sisters in Hong Kong who have been arrested &#8230; are innocent,&#8221; Shih told RFA. &#8220;Who is to blame? The CCP regime &#8230; and the puppet chief executive John Lee.&#8221; Rwei-ren Wu, an associate researcher at the Institute of Taiwan History of the Academia Sinica, called on President Tsai Ing-wen to expedite a clear path to political asylum for Hongkongers fleeing political oppression in their home city. Chiu Chui-cheng, spokesman for Taiwan&#8217;s Mainland Affairs Council, condemned &#8220;any evil action that suppresses human rights and freedoms in the name of national security.&#8221; Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Conflict seen escalating in Myanmar on anniversary of PDF](https://ij-reportika.com/conflict-seen-escalating-in-myanmar-on-anniversary-of-pdf/): One year after Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) established the prodemocracy People’s Defense Force (PDF), hundreds of anti-junta groups are active throughout the country and violent conflict is escalating with no end in sight, an analyst said Wednesday. May 6 marked the anniversary of the PDF, a paramilitary group formed to protect Myanmar’s civilians after junta security forces violently repressed peaceful protests of the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup. Comprised of members from all walks of life, the PDF counts deposed members of parliament, artists, celebrities, students, farmers, and defected soldiers among its ranks. In a statement detailing the growth of the group over the past year, the NUG Ministry of Defense said the PDF has since expanded to 257 units based in 250 townships across Myanmar and maintains links to more than 400 local guerrilla groups. Around U.S. $30 million was spent on arms training and military equipment for the PDF since its formation, the NUG said, adding that it plans to increase related expenditures to ensure the group is amply supplied going forward. But while the PDF has developed into a formidable fighting force, Min Zaw Oo, executive director of the Myanmar Institute for Peace and Security (MIPS), told RFA’s Myanmar Service that the country is less stable than it was in the aftermath of the coup. “The security situation in the country has deteriorated significantly,” he said. “There’s a lot of insecurity among the people and armed conflict is on the rise.” Min Zaw Oo said that the military is increasingly spread thin, fighting insurgents on a multitude of fronts, including in areas technically under its control. “The junta had to stretch its forces when armed insurgencies erupted in areas where there were none in the past,” he noted. “These areas are currently controlled by the junta, but there are also rebel forces there. Such rebel pockets exist in nearly every city.” He warned that, with more armed groups operating in Myanmar than ever before in the country’s 70 years of independence, violent conflict is likely to become worse before it gets better. In the more than 15 months since the military coup, security forces have killed at least 1,835 civilians and arrested more than 10,600 others, mostly during anti-junta protests, according to Thailand-based NGO Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. The junta has sought to justify its putsch with unsubstantiated claims that the deposed National League for Democracy (NLD) won the country’s most recent election through voter fraud. In addition to suppressing the opposition in urban areas, the junta has launched offensives against PDF forces located in the Myanmar’s remote border regions, where armed ethnic groups administer wide swathes of territory. ISP-Myanmar and Data for Myanmar – two groups monitoring conflict in the country – say at least 615 civilians have been killed in clashes between the military and the PDF, while as many as 811,000 have been displaced and more than 11,400 homes have been destroyed in fires started during the fighting. PDF members mark the one-year anniversary of the paramilitary group, May 6, 2022. Credit: NUG Ministry of Defense Growing insecurity NUG Defense Minister Ye Mon said during his address marking the anniversary of the PDF that the group had grown substantially stronger over the past year and suggested that it would soon remove the junta from power. “Our comrades have gained a decent amount of experience and military skills within the year, and I believe that they have become more skillful in guerrilla warfare and can attack the enemy more effectively,” he said. “It has become obvious that the morale of the enemy is down. At such a moment, we need to intensify our attacks and bring the enemy to its knees in front of the people.” Ye Mon said that with the help of armed ethnic groups, the PDF is now in control of nearly half of Myanmar and predicted further gains soon. But junta Deputy Information Minister Zaw Min Tun dismissed the claims as inaccurate in a recent interview with RFA. He also blamed the country’s growing insecurity on the NUG and the PDF, which the junta has labeled “terrorist organizations.” “We were first on the path to a negotiated solution but they, the current armed insurgents, have chosen to resort to this path of violence,” Zaw Min Tun said. He said PDF units that pursue armed violence will be “cracked down on until the country is stable.” Despite calls at home and abroad for inclusive talks to end conflict in Myanmar, the junta has said it will not negotiate with the NUG or the PDF. Meanwhile, civilians caught in the middle of the fighting say they want to be left out of the conflict. Nadi Aung, a woman from war-torn Sagaing region’s Myaung township, called on both the military and the PDF to prevent further casualties among unarmed villagers amid the escalating fighting. “As a citizen, I want to ask both sides to fight bravely and with honor,” she said. There are armed groups and unarmed groups operating everywhere. We want an end to the taking hostage of unarmed civilians. We want an end to the looting, killings and burnings.” Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Malaysian FM: ASEAN’s Myanmar envoy welcomes informal talks with NUG, NUCC](https://ij-reportika.com/malaysian-fm-aseans-myanmar-envoy-welcomes-informal-talks-with-nug-nucc/): ASEAN’s special envoy to Myanmar has welcomed the idea of engaging informally with Myanmar’s Myanmar’s National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC), a body of opposition stakeholders, and its parallel civilian government, as the junta has reneged on a promise to put the country back on a democratic path, Malaysia’s foreign minister said in an interview Wednesday. Meetings with opposition stakeholders could be held via video conference calls and other means if the junta prohibits such meetings in-person, Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah told BenarNews after an informal gathering here with other top diplomats from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations ahead of a leader-level summit here with the United States. “I thought the ASEAN special envoy, in his concluding remarks – though I cannot speak on his behalf – &#8230; in some ways welcomed the idea of engaging the NUG and the NUCC and the other stakeholders,” Saifuddin said. “Two other ministers spoke along the same lines, but not necessarily mentioning the NUG and the NUCC.” He was referring to the National Unity Government, Myanmar’s parallel, civilian-led government. The NUCC is a more representative body, which includes members of the NUG, civil society groups, ethnic armed organizations, and civil disobedience groups. Saifuddin’s proposals at Wednesday’s meeting in Washington included strengthening the role of the bloc’s envoy to Myanmar and ensuring that the United Nations special envoy to the country, Noeleen Heyzer, is invited to relevant ASEAN meetings. Heyzer could not attend an ASEAN meeting last week to coordinate humanitarian aid to Myanmar because the Burmese junta does not recognize her. “I mentioned that the U.N. secretary general’s special envoy needs to be invited to all of the relevant meetings, regardless what the junta is saying. You cannot allow the junta to dictate who is to be invited,” Saifuddin noted having told meeting with the ASEAN ministers. “If it is an ASEAN meeting, then it is ASEAN that should decide who is to attend. And in this context we should invite Dr. Noeleen Heyzer.” Two weeks ago, the Myanmar junta reacted furiously when Saifuddin said he planned to propose that the ASEAN envoy must engage informally with NUG. In its response, the junta branded the NUG “terrorist groups.” Judging from that response, the Burmese generals won’t be happy to learn that Saifuddin said he was planning to have his first in-person meeting with the NUG’s foreign minister, Zin Mar Aung, in Washington on Saturday. He said he planned to solicit her opinion on how the people of Myanmar can move on. ‘We need to be more creative’ The foreign ministers of the ASEAN member-states are in Washington with their countries’ leaders to participate in the U.S.-ASEAN summit. Saifuddin said the ministers had planned the informal meeting here to mainly discuss the crisis in post-coup Myanmar and the non-implementation of a five-point agreement that the junta agreed to with ASEAN to return the country to peace and democracy. The junta’s reneging on the agreement notwithstanding, ASEAN members plan to stick with the five-point consensus, Saifuddin said. “We are very much still on board with the five-point consensus, but I think many of us are quite frustrated …,” Saifuddin acknowledged. “I think we need to be more creative and that is why, for example, we [need to] start naming the stakeholders …the NUG, the NUCC, all of them.” The points of the consensus call for  a constructive dialogue among all parties; the mediation of such talks by a special envoy of the ASEAN chair; and a visit to Myanmar by an ASEAN delegation, headed by the special envoy, to meet with all parties. BenarNews asked Saifuddin if he believed the NUG should attend the U.S.-ASEAN summit, because the junta is being kept out of ASEAN meetings and Washington is following the regional bloc’s lead on that. The NUG foreign minister was in Washington, as of Wednesday. “Well, we have not come to that point. My suggestion to the ASEAN meeting this morning was to engage informally. We, as you know, many of us are democrats at heart and our countries are democracies,” the Malaysian minister said. “But at the same time, we do not want to, you know, to do something that is probably beyond what we can handle. So I thought the best way forward for now is to engage with the NUG informally.” Meanwhile, when a senior Biden administration official was asked Wednesday about who would represent ASEAN member-state Myanmar at the summit, he replied “we’ll have more to say on this tomorrow.” “We have had diplomatic engagement with the government in exile. We are in discussions about the best way to represent what has transpired in Burma and how to represent that in the meeting,” the senior administration official told Radio Free Asia, the parent company of BenarNews, in a briefing to media. “I think one of the discussions has been to have an empty chair to reflect our dissatisfaction with what’s taken place and our hope for a better path forward.” BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.
- [Cambodian tycoon with ties to Chinese fugitive dies](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-tycoon-with-ties-to-chinese-fugitive-dies/): The Cambodian national soccer team wore black armbands during their Southeast Asia Games match against Singapore on Wednesday evening in tribute to Phnom Penh Crown Football Club owner Rithy Samnang who had died that morning, according to a statement from the Football Federation of Cambodia. It is understood that Samnang, who turned 41 in March, had been suffering from cancer. Outside of sports, Samnang had business interests in a variety of fields ranging from digital payments to hotels. He was not only incredibly wealthy but also highly connected. His wife Phu Cherlin is the daughter of Kok An, a senator in the ruling Cambodian People’s Party. In 2017, his brokerage firm Askap Gold was revealed by the Phnom Penh Post to count among its “main clients” Hun Maly, the youngest daughter of Prime Minister Hun Sen for whom it processed $600,000 of payments in one month alone. An RFA investigation last year revealed that Samnang had leveraged some of those high-level connections for the benefit of another business partner, Chinese fugitive Xu Aimin. Xu became a naturalized Cambodian citizen in 2005. Eight years later a Chinese court would find him guilty of running a $1.75 billion illegal online gambling ring from Cambodia and sentence him to 10 years in jail. While 36 of his co-conspirators were extradited, Xu has remained in Cambodia and at liberty. In 2019, six years after Xu was convicted over the illegal gambling scheme, he and Samnang broke ground on the KB Hotel, a luxury Sihanoukville property whose centerpiece – ironically enough – was a 650-square-meter casino. More recently, in February of this year VOD reported on victims of human trafficking who alleged they were held, beaten and forced to work on scam operations in buildings connected to the hotel. In the middle of a tribute video posted to Facebook on Wednesday by Samnang’s Phnom Penh Crown soccer team was footage of Samnang giving a speech at the Kantha Bopha hospital. Partially visible in the video at his right-hand side is Xu’s face and torso. The pair had been donating $200,000 to the hospital on behalf of an investment company they managed together. The donation had been overseen by the head of Cambodia’s military police Gen. Sao Sokha, who is also the president of the Football Federation of Cambodia. On Wednesday the federation posted photographs of Sokha paying his respects and burning incense over Samnang’s body, which was covered in a white cloth.
- [North Korean labor managers in China demand more money as job market tightens](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korean-labor-managers-in-china-demand-more-money-as-job-market-tightens/): North Korean job placement officials in China are demanding more money and perks like free cell phones from Chinese companies for the use of North Korean workers, a consequence of the tight labor market that has grown out of the COVID-19 pandemic, sources in China told RFA. Pyongyang dispatches legions of workers to both Russia and China to work in factories and on construction sites to earn foreign cash for the state. The workers give the lion’s share of their salaries to their North Korean handlers, who forward it to the central government. But demand for workers is rising as China’s economy struggles under a new wave of lockdowns, giving officials at the North Korean human resources companies new negotiating leverage with their Chinese business partners. While the North Koreans say the extra cash will improve the lives of the foreign workers they supervise, Chinese business owners suspect the placement officials are using the money for other purposes. A common tactic is to request more money to improve the workers’ squalid living conditions, a Chinese citizen of Korean descent, from Yanji, in the northeastern province of Jilin, told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “On the outskirts of Yanji, about 300 North Korean workers … are employed by a clothing processing company. According to the original contract, the monthly salary per worker is 2,000 yuan (U.S. $297), but the North Korean handler is asking for more money in addition to that,” the source said. “The North Korean handlers demand things like electronic devices like cell phones and laptops, which they will use. Even if the company president buys them the devices, they will still ask for more money under the pretext of feeding the workers meat and providing them with snacks,” he said. Since the border with North Korea remains closed, the labor managers hold all the cards and the company owners have very little leverage, according to the source. “It is impossible to dispatch more manpower from North Korea because of the coronavirus crisis. It’s like the North Korean manpower managers are strangling the Chinese company owner, who is in a hurry to get the factory operating,” he said. “Even with the Chinese company’s proposal to give an average of an additional 30 yuan ($4.46) per worker per day to account for the additional working hours, the North Korean officials argue that it is not enough,” the source said. In some disputes, the North Korean consulate has had to step in to mediate between the labor managers and business owners, another Chinese citizen of Korean descent in the border city of Dandong, which lies across the Yalu River from North Korea’s Sinuiju, told RFA on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The consulate sent a warning to a North Korean human resource company in a contract with a poultry processing company, urging them to ‘abide by the law and order of the host county,’ but to no avail,” the second source said. “The Chinese company offered an additional 15 yuan [$2.23] per hour per person for night work, but the North Korean official said that was not enough and they got into a huge argument,” he said. The Chinese business owner argued that he would be unable to offer more than the agreed 2,000 yuan per worker per month as stipulated in the contract unless there was additional night work, the second source said. “However, the North Korean officials are raising the issue, saying that fresh vegetables that were brought in daily before the coronavirus crisis have decreased to once a week during the pandemic, and the workers are suffering,” he said. “The officials say that the reason they are arguing over wages is to feed the workers better, but in reality, it is because they don’t have enough funds after they pay off the state,” the second source said, adding that most of the human resource companies operate a cafeteria exclusively for their workers, and they are usually adequately fed. “It is true however that after paying off the government and the consulate, as well as their food and living expenses, they don’t have enough to pay the workers their cut, as well as their food and living expenses,” he said. The U.N. Security Council reported that 50,000 out of 100,000 North Korean overseas workers were dispatched to China. The Chinese government claims to have repatriated more than half of the workers, but did not disclose specific figures. According to RFA sources, about 30,000 North Korean workers are believed to be in the Dandong area. North Korean labor exports were supposed to have stopped when United Nations nuclear sanctions froze the issuance of work visas and mandated the repatriation of North Korean nationals working abroad by the end of 2019. But Pyongyang sometimes dispatches workers to China and Russia on short-term student or visitor visas to get around sanctions. Translated by Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Authorities warn Uyghurs not to talk about ‘re-education’ with UN team](https://ij-reportika.com/authorities-warn-uyghurs-not-to-talk-about-re-education-with-un-team/): The Chinese government has issued a new directive that forbids Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region from discussing the network of internment camps or accepting calls from international phone numbers ahead of an expected visit by the United Nations human rights chief, a police office in the region told RFA. The officer, who works in Kashgar (in Chinese, Kashi) and declined to give his name, told RFA that police received special government notices on how to prepare for the visit this month by Michelle Bachelet, the U.N.’s high commissioner for human rights. The policeman said he was a Chinese Communist Party member and was playing a leading role in disseminating the notices during political study sessions and enforcing their mandates. “The political study sessions are being held on Wednesdays, and prefectural and autonomous regional notices are being studied as they arrive,” he said. The dates of Bachelet’s visit to China and Xinjiang have yet to be announced. Uyghur rights groups have pressed her to visit the region and release an overdue report on well-documented allegations of torture, forced labor and other severe rights abuses against the local population. An advance delegation from Bachelet’s office arrived in late April in Guangzhou in southern China’s Guangdong Province, where they are still being held in quarantine as required by COVID-19 protocols before heading to Xinjiang, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Wednesday. Officials issued a notice prohibiting Uyghurs from speaking about “re-education” or internment camps, but added that if the topic arose, they should only mention positive aspects of re-education, namely that it is a pathway to living a good and normal life, the Kashgar officer said. Uyghurs have been told not to speak spontaneously when the U.N. team arrives and asks questions, he said. “We were told not to speak about re-education and the current situation, and that we should speak positively about life here,” the police officer said. The policeman made the comments when RFA contacted him last week about reports that residential committees had paid Uyghurs to perform a dance in front of the Kashgar Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar on the Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. In the past, officials in Xinjiang have issued notices warning citizens there not to disclose so-called “state secrets,” including one directive requiring Uyghurs to not disclose any information about the camps. In a previous RFA report, authorities in Xinjiang said Chinese officials had warned Uyghurs not to divulge “state secrets” during Bachelet’s visit, not to accept calls from unknown phone numbers, and not to answer questions from the U.N. human rights team without approval from the government. Another government notice on the U.N. rights chief’s visit to Xinjiang that appeared recently on the Chinese video-focused social networking service Douyin, known in English as TikTok, was about setting up mobiles phones to not accept international calls. One video provided step-by-step instructions on how users could adjust their cell phone settings to reject calls from abroad. ‘Slanderous lies’ Zumrat Dawut, a former Uyghur internment camp detainee who has said she was forcibly sterilized by government officials, said Chinese authorities are concerned about possible cooperation between the Uyghurs inside Xinjiang and those living abroad in revealing evidence about the internment camps during Bachelet’s visit. “Before the U.N. team goes, they are worried that the people will tell the real information about the situation on the ground,” she said. “That’s why they are emphasizing these restrictions.” Authorities are believed to have held up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities accused of harboring “strong religious” and “politically incorrect” views in a vast network of internment camps in Xinjiang since 2017 and have jailed or detained hundreds of Uyghur academics and other influential members of the ethnic group in recent years. The U.S. and the parliaments of several Western governments have declared that China’s mistreatment of the Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in Xinjiang constitutes genocide and crimes against humanity. China rejects the accusations as “slanderous lies” and asserts that the re-education centers are part of efforts to combat terrorism and extremism by providing vocational training. On Tuesday, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) government hosted a teleconference on religious freedom that was livestreamed to more than 60 countries and international organizations, China News Service reported. “Today, the situation of religious belief and freedom in Xinjiang is incomparable to any historical period,” Abdureqip Tumulniyaz, president of the state-controlled Islamic Association of the XUAR and of the Xinjiang Islamic Institute, said at the conference, which was attended by XUAR officials, religious leaders and Muslim residents. A report by state-run Global Times on Tuesday said: “Happily dancing crowds to celebrate the festival of Eid al-Fitr, clean and solemn mosques with Muslims waiting for prayer time, students in the Xinjiang Islamic Institute reading doctrine out loud … these were the scenarios displayed during an online meeting held by the government of Northwest China&#8217;s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on Tuesday to show the situation of religious freedom in the region.” China in 2019 organized two visits to internment camps in the XUAR — one for a small group of foreign journalists, and another for diplomats from non-Western countries, including Russia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan and Thailand. A U.S. diplomat dismissed those trips as “Potemkin tours” and an Albanian scholar who was taken on one of the tours later said he agreed with reports about the camps. “This official narrative was very shocking to us, and we could see it put into practice when we visited the mass detention centers … that our Chinese friends call vocational training institutes, but which we saw to be a kind of hell,” Olsi Jazexhi, a university lecturer with a doctoral degree in nationalism studies, told RFA after visiting the region in August 2019. Translated by RFA’s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Hong Kong police arrest Catholic Cardinal Joseph Zen over protester assistance fund](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-police-arrest-catholic-cardinal-joseph-zen-over-protester-assistance-fund/): National security police in Hong Kong have arrested four people including Cardinal Joseph Zen and pop star Denise Ho on suspicion of &#8220;collusion with foreign powers&#8221; after they acted as trustees for a legal defense fund for democracy protesters. Hui Po-keung, another trustee of the now-disbanded 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, which helped arrested protesters pay for their legal and medical bills, was arrested at Hong Kong&#8217;s international airport on Tuesday. Zen, a 90-year-old retired Catholic bishop who has long been an outspoken defender of human rights, democracy and civil liberties, Cantopop singer Denise Ho and barrister Margaret Ng were also arrested on the same charge. Some reports said former pro-democracy lawmaker Cyd Ho, who is currently on remand awaiting trial in a different case, and who was also a trustee, would also likely face the same charge. The national security police confirmed they had arrested two men and two women aged 45 to 90, on suspicion of &#8220;conspiracy to collude with foreign powers.&#8221; Zen was released after several hours of questioning, the Hong Kong Free Press said via its Twitter account. The Vatican said in a statement reported by the Catholic News Agency that it was following the case closely. “The Holy See has learned with concern the news of the arrest of Cardinal Zen and is following the development of the situation with extreme attention,” the Holy See press office said. The 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund was set up on June 15, 2019, at the height of the anti-extradition movement that broadened to include demands for fully democratic elections and greater official accountability. Its aim was to provide humanitarian relief in the form of funding for medical, psychological, legal and other necessary assistance to those injured or arrested during the police crackdown on the protest movement. The fund disbanded in August 2021 because it no longer had access to a bank account because the Alliance for Democracy that had processed its funding had been suspended. Both groups were later ordered to provide information to national security police on their sources of funding and their donors, under a draconian national security law imposed on Hong Kong by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from July 1, 2020. Cardinal Joseph Zen attends the Episcopal Ordination of the Most Reverend Stephen Chow in Hong Kong’s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Dec. 4, 2021. Credit: AFP. &#8216;Brutal crackdown&#8217; The law criminalized calls on the international community for sanctions on Hong Kong and Chinese officials, overseas lobbying or fundraising on behalf of the pro-democracy movement, and criticism of the authorities deemed to incite public anger or &#8220;hatred&#8221; against the government. The U.K.-based rights group Hong Kong Watch said four trustees of the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund had been arrested, naming Ng, Denise Ho, Cardinal Zen and Hui. &#8220;We condemn the arrests of these activists whose supposed crime was funding legal aid for pro-democracy protesters back in 2019,&#8221; the group&#8217;s chief executive Benedict Rogers said in a statement on the group&#8217;s website. &#8220;Today’s arrests signal beyond a doubt that Beijing intends to intensify its crackdown on basic rights and freedoms in Hong Kong,&#8221; the statement said. &#8220;We urge the international community to shine a light on this brutal crackdown and call for the immediate release of these activists.&#8221; The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) also hit out at the arrests, which came days after pro-Beijing security hardliner John Lee was anointed leader of Hong Kong in a one-candidate election that analysts said erased most significant differences between the once free city and the Communist Party-run mainland. &#8220;These arrests mark a new and deeply worrying phase in the crackdown upon what remains of Hong Kong’s civil society,&#8221; it said in a statement. &#8220;John Lee, Hong Kong’s new chief executive, is posing a direct challenge to the international community and the autonomy promised to Hong Kong under international law,&#8221; IPAC said, calling for the immediate release of those arrested. &#8220;Mere words are no longer enough,&#8221; it said. &#8220;We also call upon our governments to impose targeted sanctions on John Lee, and others involved in these persecutions.&#8221; New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) also called for the immediate release of those arrested, and for the charges against them to be dropped, China researcher Maya Wang said via her Twitter account. Meanwhile, a U.S.-based rights group went ahead with the 2022 Human Rights Press Awards after they were canceled by the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents&#8217; Club (FCC), citing legal risks under the national security law. &#8220;On #WorldPressFreedomDay, we declare that the freedom of the press will NOT be canceled,&#8221; Campaign for Hong Kong founder and president Simon Chu said via Twitter. &#8220;Help recognize journalists who told the truth courageously and those who can no longer report freely.&#8221; Hong Kong Cantopop singer, actress and LGBT activist Denise Ho posing for a photograph with protesters during a #MeToo rally calling on the Hong Kong police to answer accusations of sexual violence against pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, August 28, 2019. Credit: AFP Xi is a &#8216;pathetic coward&#8217; A petition calling on FCC president Keith Richburg to have a more public conversation about the controversial decision had garnered some 170 signatures its organizers said were journalists, including many former winners of the awards. (Disclosure: Richburg is a member of RFA’s board of directors). &#8220;More than 170 journalists signed the petition, 25 are reportedly this years&#8217; awardees &amp; over 20 of us are the former winners of the Awards. We emailed the FCC on 29 April, 3 May and today,&#8221; a Twitter account called @lettertofcc said on May 10. &#8220;I think we need to at least acknowledge that there are still journalists in Hong Kong who stick to their day-to-day reporting, and say that we stand with them, that we take note of them and their work, and thank them for that,&#8221; Yuen Chan, a senior lecturer on London&#8217;s City University journalism program, told RFA. She said simply saying that press freedom was dead was too pessimistic an approach for people who are still working as journalists in the...
- [China deletes WHO chief's criticism of zero-COVID policy from social media platforms](https://ij-reportika.com/china-deletes-who-chiefs-criticism-of-zero-covid-policy-from-social-media-platforms/): Ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) censors rushed to delete comments by the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) criticizing its zero-COVID policy as unsustainable from social media platforms in China on Wednesday. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called on China to change its approach, saying CCP leader Xi Jinping&#8217;s favored policy &#8220;will not be sustainable&#8221; in the face of new fast-spreading variants of the virus. Tedros&#8217; comments were deleted from Weibo and ignored by China&#8217;s tightly controlled state media. But foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian hit back at a news conference on Wednesday. &#8220;We hope the relevant individual can view Chinese COVID policy objectively and rationally and know the facts, instead of making irresponsible remarks,&#8221; Zhao said. CCP commentator Hu Xijin said Tedros should &#8220;respect China.&#8221; &#8220;When he speaks specifically about China, he should think whether his words will have a positive effect on promoting solidarity in the fight against COVID-19 in China,&#8221; Hu, a former editor-in-chief of the CCP-backed Global Times, said via his Twitter account. Keyword searches on Weibo for &#8220;Tedros&#8221; in Chinese, as well as the equivalent abbreviation to WHO yielded no results on Wednesday, while users were unable to share an article about his comments from an official U.N. account, Agence France-Presse reported. Prior to their deletion, Tedros&#8217; comments had drawn a number of positive responses, with people wanting to know if the government would listen. The censorship came as the majority of Shanghai&#8217;s 26 million residents remained under a grueling lockdown, walled into their apartment buildings and homes with steel fencing, with major transportation routes and services shut down, as many still struggled to access food, essential supplies and urgently needed medical treatment. China insists that its zero-COVID strategy is the only way to prevent a massive death toll from COVID, as has been seen in other countries. Researchers at Shanghai&#8217;s Fudan University published a paper in the scientific journal Nature on Tuesday saying that allowing the omicron variant to tear through the population would likely result in 1.6 million deaths and the collapse of rural healthcare systems. A worker disinfects the queue area of a swab test collection site for Covid-19 coronavirus in Beijing, May 11, 2022. Credit: AFP. Distancing from China But critics say the policy is the result of Xi wanting to boost his domestic image as a leader who can succeed by doing things differently from liberal democracies ahead of the CCP&#8217;s 20th National Congress later this year. Lee Lung-teng, a high-ranking health minister in Taiwan&#8217;s government during the 2003 SARS epidemic, said Tedros appeared to be distancing himself from his previously cozy relationship with Beijing. &#8220;He had been helping them clean up their image and acting as if they were doing it right, but maybe he is coming under pressure from someone else, who could be threatening to withdraw their support for him if he continues to be so biased in favor of China,&#8221; Lee told RFA. &#8220;Maybe he can&#8217;t bear [not to speak out] any longer.&#8221; &#8220;Everywhere else is gradually opening up, so isn&#8217;t it a bit strange that they are still talking about zero-COVID &#8230; when a situation with no infections would be impossible,&#8221; he said. Ren Ruihong, former head of the medical assistance department at the Chinese Red Cross, said Xi is keen to tout his &#8220;victory&#8221; over the COVID-19 pandemic when he seeks an unprecedented third term in office at the 20th party congress. &#8220;The 20th CCP National Congress is happening soon,&#8221; Ren said. &#8220;International focus is on whether or not Xi Jinping can get another term in office.&#8221; &#8220;If he abandons the zero-COVID policy now, it will be tantamount to abandoning his own political platform &#8230; basically everyone understands that it&#8217;s a political necessity [for Xi].&#8221; A Shanghai resident surnamed Ma agreed, saying the city&#8217;s officials seem to be constantly changing how they implement the zero-COVID directives from higher up. &#8220;The decrees are changing daily, sometimes twice a day,&#8221; Ma said. &#8220;Different instructions are coming from different leaders.&#8221; &#8220;Nobody can figure out the rules. There aren&#8217;t any,&#8221; she said. &#8220;First they said we have to do a PCR test every five days, then it was seven.&#8221; &#8220;We were supposed to be out of lockdown by May 1, but now it&#8217;s mid-May and we&#8217;re still not out of it; nobody knows when it will end now,&#8221; Ma said. Losing patience in Shanghai Shanghai residents are increasingly unwilling to toe the line on mass testing amid a string of false positives reported on social media. &#8220;People aren&#8217;t scared of the virus at all now, but the rule of law has been completely destroyed,&#8221; Ma said. &#8220;The law is what the officials say it is.&#8221; &#8220;There&#8217;s no humanity, even if you&#8217;re sick or elderly: I think it&#8217;s worse than during the Cultural Revolution,&#8221; she said. In one video clip uploaded to social media, residents of Beicai township in Shanghai&#8217;s Pudong New District yell at officials for trying to get them to go to a makeshift &#8220;hospital&#8221; that was actually rows of tents. &#8220;Is this a place to house human beings?&#8221; one person shouts. &#8220;These tents would blow over in a strong wind.&#8221; Social media reports said private taxis are currently charging 3,000 yuan per pickup; 12,000 for airport transfers, after the city&#8217;s subway network was shut down. People also posted video showing officials in full PPE removing food from a large refrigerator in an apartment they had allegedly come to &#8220;disinfect.&#8221; Many social media accounts have been shut down permanently during the Shanghai lockdown. Retired Shanghai teacher Gu Guoping said several of his accounts have been shut down after he criticized the government. &#8220;My WeChat account has been blocked by the internet police and Tencent six or seven times, even after I changed my phone number,&#8221; Gu told RFA. &#8220;This means that I have been cut of from various sources of information, and I have very limited access to information that is local to Shanghai,&#8221; he said. The shutdowns came as the Shanghai Cyberspace Administration repeated calls for social media content users...
- [Uyghur secretary of Marxism Institute at Xinjiang University confirmed detained](https://ij-reportika.com/uyghur-secretary-of-marxism-institute-at-xinjiang-university-confirmed-detained/): About 20 Uyghur teachers from a university in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region have been arrested, including the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) secretary of the school’s Marxism Institute, a Uyghur source in the town of Ghulja and local authorities told RFA. Six of the educators from Ili Pedagogical University in Ghulja (in Chinese, Yining) are being held in detention, including Abdullah Ismail of the Marxism Institute. He was abducted in 2018 and charged with being “two-faced,” the sources said. The CCP uses the term to describe an official or party member who is either corrupt or ideologically disloyal to the party. The source in Ghulja, who has knowledge of the situation, sent RFA the names and phone numbers of two people who had worked closely with the school on Abdullah Ismail’s case. When RFA called one of them, a staff member in the school’s Education Department, reluctantly acknowledged that she knew him but refrained from commenting on his situation. Parhat Kadir, Abdullah Ismail’s former high school classmate who now lives in the Netherlands and is the former chairman of the Dutch East Turkistan Uyghur Union, said Ismail was well-liked in high school, where he was a top student and a skilled soccer player. “Abdullah was my classmate from first to 10th grade,” he told RFA. “He was an honest and hardworking kid.” Abdullah Ismail, who was born in 1962 in Ghulja’s Suidong township, was admitted to the Literature Department of the Ili Pedagogical University in 1981, Kadir said. After he graduated four years later, he began teaching at the school. As secretary of the Marxism Institute, Ismail published research papers on Marxist theory in a number of newspapers and magazines, including the Ili Gazette, the source said. Ismail later was included on the list of suspicious persons in the school in 2017 when China stepped up its crackdown on Uyghurs by detaining them in “re-education” camps, and had been interrogated intermittently, the source from Ghulja said. He was charged with several criminal charges, though the source did not name them. The preliminary questioning was conducted by the School Discipline Commission, according to the source who provided the phone number of a disciplinary officer in charge of the investigation that year. The disciplinary officer confirmed that Ismail had been a member of school administration and was abducted in 2018. He also said he met the teacher four or five years ago and had sent material he collected during his investigation to the relevant authorities. “It was in 2017 that I was asked to collect and give his material to the school disciplinary committee,” he told RFA. “He was charged with being a two-faced person. “He was a member of school administration before being CCP secretary of the Marxism Institute at Ili Pedagogical University,” the disciplinary officer said. “He was the secretary when he was arrested. Nobody knows or nobody told us how many years he was sentenced to [following arrest] in 2018.” Behtiyar Nasir, deputy inspector general of the World Uyghur Congress, said he attended Ili Pedagogical University in the late 1980s when Ismail was a teacher there. He said Ismail had received a doctorate in philosophy from a university in Beijing. Translated by RFA’s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [US warship sails through Taiwan Strait after China drills](https://ij-reportika.com/us-warship-sails-through-taiwan-strait-after-china-drills/): A U.S. warship has sailed through the Taiwan Strait, the second such transit in two weeks and only two days after a large Chinese military live-fire exercise, signaling increased tension in the strait. The U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet said that its Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Port Royal “conducted a routine Taiwan Strait transit on May 10 (Tuesday) through international waters in accordance with international law.” “The ship transited through a corridor in the Strait that is beyond the territorial sea of any coastal State,” it said, adding that the transit “demonstrates the United States&#8217; commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.” Exactly two weeks ago on April 26, the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Sampson, also from the 7th Fleet, made a similar transit. On both occasions, the Chinese People&#8217;s Liberation Army (PLA) “sent troops to track and monitor the U.S. warship&#8217;s passage,” according to a statement from the PLA Eastern Theater Command. Snr. Col. Shi Yi, spokesperson for the command, said China “firmly opposes” what he called “provocative acts” by the U.S. that sent “wrong signals” to Taiwan. The Taiwanese Ministry of National Defense, meanwhile, said Wednesday that the Taiwanese military closely monitored movements at sea and in the air around Taiwan as the U.S. warship sailed northwards in the strait and “the situation was normal.” Prior to that it warned that on the same day as the U.S. ship’s transit, a Z-10 attack helicopter and two Ka-28 anti-submarine warfare helicopters of the PLA entered Taiwan&#8217;s air defense identification zone (ADIZ). The Z-10 attack helicopter crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait, apparently a step up from the PLA incursions that occur almost daily at present. This was only the second time this year a Chinese aircraft has crossed the median line, with the first occurring on Jan. 31. Imminent attack on Taiwan? Over the weekend, the PLA conducted three days of live-fire drills around Taiwan with the participation of “naval, air and conventional missile forces,” according to its website. The Liaoning carrier group, led by the PLA first aircraft carrier, has been operating in the area and conducted training with live munitions in the Philippine Sea, east of Taiwan and south of Japan from May 3 to at least May 9. A J-15 jet fighter takes off from China&#8217;s Liaoning aircraft carrier during military drills over the weekend. (Japan Ministry of Defense) The threat of a military action against Taiwan between now and 2030 is &#8220;acute,” U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said during a hearing at the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday. &#8220;It&#8217;s our view that (China is) working hard to effectively put themselves into a position in which their military is capable of taking Taiwan over our intervention,&#8221; she said without elaborating further. Haines and Defense Intelligence Agency Director Scott Berrier said that events in the Ukrainian war and how Beijing construes them could impact China’s timeline and approach to Taiwan but they believe that China prefers to avoid a military conflict over the island if possible. Grant Newsham, a retired U.S. Marine colonel turned political analyst, said that by his own estimate a PLA attack on Taiwan could happen “anytime from 2023 onwards.” “It much depends on the United States.  If America is distracted by domestic turmoil, is having financial troubles, and is focused on a war in Ukraine, I think Beijing just might make its move,” Newsham told RFA. “China has indeed been building a military force and capability designed to attack and subjugate Taiwan.  They have probably had the capability to move an assault force across the Strait since at least 10 years ago,” the analyst added. “We are in a dangerous time. “ China considers Taiwan a province of China and has repeatedly said that the democratic island of 23 million people will eventually be united with the mainland, by force if necessary. ‘One-China’ Policy On Tuesday, China reacted angrily after the U.S State Department updated its page on U.S.-Taiwan relations on May 5 and removed wordings such as “Taiwan is part of China” and “The United States does not support Taiwan independence.”   China&#8217;s foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian speaks during a news conference in Beijing, China March 18, 2022. (Reuters) Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters in Beijing that the U.S. modification of the fact sheet “is a trick to obscure and hollow out the one-China principle.” “Such political manipulation of the Taiwan question and the attempt to change the status quo across the Taiwan Strait will hurt the U.S. itself,” Zhao warned. “There is only one China in the world. Taiwan is an inalienable part of the Chinese territory,” the spokesman said. “The U.S. has made solemn commitments on the Taiwan question and the one-China principle in the three China-U.S. joint communiqués,” he said, adding that Washington should abide by them. The U.S. State Department responded that “there’s been no change in our policy.” “All we have done is update a fact sheet, and that’s something that we routinely do with our relationships around the world,” spokesman Ned Price told a press briefing on Tuesday, pointing out that the fact sheet has not been updated for several years. “When it comes to Taiwan, our policy remains guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, the Three Joint Communiques and Six Assurances, as that very fact sheet notes,” Price said. The spokesman reconfirmed “our rock-solid, unofficial relationship with Taiwan,” and said the U.S. calls upon China to “behave responsibly and to not manufacture pretenses to increase pressure on Taiwan.” Under the U.S. policy, Washington has formal diplomatic relations with Beijing but retains a “robust unofficial relationship” with Taipei and is committed by law to make available to the island the means to defend itself.
- [China's growing investments in Iraq and the hidden Iranian presence](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-investments-in-iraq/): A recent report from Fudan University in Shanghai revealed that Beijing secured a new construction deal in Iraq for around $10.5 billion in 2021 — a sum constituting almost one-sixth of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) investments that year.
- [Activists face new threats as pro-junta militias spread in Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/activists-face-new-threats-as-pro-junta-militias-spread-in-myanmar/): Death threats against pro-democracy and anti-junta activists are on the rise across Myanmar as militia groups loyal to the military regime expand their presence in the country’s urban areas and other more densely populated regions, sources said Tuesday. In late April, eight members of the deposed National League for Democracy (NLD) and their supporters were found brutally murdered in Mandalay with badges or cards on their bodies displaying the insignia of a group calling itself the Thway Thauk, or “Blood Comrades,” militia. Since the killings, similar groups have emerged in Bago, Tanintharyi, and Irrawaddy regions, as well as in the capital Naypyidaw, issuing death threats on social media against the NLD, activists, journalists, and members of the anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary group, sources said. Among them are the Thway Thitsar (Loyal Blood) in Naypyidaw, the Yangon Castigate Group (YCS) in Yangon, the Patriotic Coalition in Bago region’s Pyay township, and the Soon Ye (Kite Force) in Tanintharyi region. An anti-coup protester in Tanintharyi region’s Dawei township told RFA’s Myanmar Service that opponents of the military regime feel increasingly unsafe as the groups spread. “What I am worried about is my family members, not myself. I&#8217;m worried that my family members will be killed,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Neither side has complete control on the ground and so people are in a very precarious situation.” On May 2, a group in Tanintharyi’s Launglon township calling itself Soon Ye said in a Facebook post that it had the addresses of anti-coup protesters and would harm their family members if they did not stop their activities. A day later, the Dawei District Democracy Movement Strike Committee said in a statement that Soon Ye members shot and killed three villagers in their homes in Launglon’s Pandale village on April 28 and killed another man on the road between Dawei and Launglon on May 3. In Bago’s Pyay township, a group calling itself the Patriotic Coalition began posting threats in recent days, according to residents. On May 5, the Thway Thauk posted a statement on its Telegram social media account that claimed an anti-coup protester was killed in nearby Wethteegan township’s Hlwa-zin village, although sources in the area told RFA no such killing had occurred. Kyaw Zeya, a former Member of Parliament for the NLD in Pyay township, said such threats are part of a bid by pro-junta forces to cut off support for the PDF and the country’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG). “They are trying to discourage people from supporting the NUG government and to stop engaging in political activities,” he said. “Those who have been very active on the political scene and their families could become their targets. So, this is a time for everyone to be extremely cautious in their movements.” A former NLD MP for Irrawaddy region’s Maubin township named Ei Ei Pyone said in a Facebook post that her family received an online threat from a group calling itself the Maubin Thway Thauk on Monday. A day earlier, the same group opened fire on a resident of the town named Zaw Win Myint, while other sources reported hearing gunfire in the area that evening. ‘A downward spiral’ Aung Thu Nyein, director of ISP-Myanmar, a research institute, told RFA that rule of law “has totally collapsed” in Myanmar and said no political stakeholder is safe. “It&#8217;s a downward spiral, with one side killing the other and so on,” he said. “In this situation, when people have no security, who would dare to set up a political party?” Observers have speculated that the military regime may have been behind the recent bloodshed attributed to the militia groups, but junta Deputy Minister Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun denied the claims in an April 27 press conference and said they were carried out by the PDF to create “confusion and instability.” He also rejected accusations that the military regime had ignored the killings, although no suspects have been arrested in any of the cases. According to RFA reporting, pro-junta militias are responsible for killing at least 18 people between April 25 and May 10. The dead include NLD members and party supporters, family members of PDF paramilitaries, and civilians from Mandalay, Yangon, Kyaukse, Singhu and Launglon townships. A high court lawyer told RFA that the junta assumed responsibility for such killings after it seized control of the country in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup. “The political rivalry is gradually growing stronger and stronger, and the situation is getting out of control at the grassroots level,” said the lawyer, who also declined to be named. “The rule of law has collapsed and the regime, which has taken control of state power, is fully responsible for the situation.” Political analyst Than Soe Naing told RFA that Myanmar had become “a failed state.” “This is a natural outcome when two sides are competing for dominance, and so we cannot say which side is right or wrong,” he said. “All of this happened as a result of the junta’s violent repression of the people, and now our country is in ruins.” Junta security forces have killed at least 1,833 civilians and arrested nearly 10,600 others since last year’s coup, according to Thailand-based NGO Assistance Association for Political Prisoners — mostly during peaceful protests of military rule. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Deaths and arrests rise in Myanmar’s heartland](https://ij-reportika.com/deaths-and-arrests-rise-in-myanmars-heartland/): Junta security forces have killed at least 155 civilians and arrested 683 others in Myanmar’s Magway region — the heartland of the majority Bamar people — since the military seized power 15 months ago, according to reporting by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Local sources said that troops had destroyed more than 2,100 houses by arson in Magway over the same period — making it second only to Sagaing in regions hit hardest by the attacks since the Feb. 1, 2021, coup. In the first week of April alone, at least 20 villages were razed in Magway’s Pauk township, where the armed opposition has gained a foothold in recent months. Sources told RFA that nearly all the incidents occurred in the Magway townships of Magway, Pakokku, Seik Phyu, Gangaw, Saetottara and Myaing — all pockets of strong resistance to military rule. Much of the reporting on abuses by junta troops to date has focused on Myanmar’s remote border regions, where armed ethnic groups seeking independence have battled the country’s military for decades and established a patchwork of self-administered territories. The new statistics from Magway, where the population is more than 95% Bamar, suggest that not even members of the Myanmar’s majority ethnic group in the country’s central region are immune to attacks by the military. Daw Aye, a 56-year-old woman from a village in southern Pauk township, told RFA that her home was destroyed in two fires set by the military and pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militiamen on April 10 and 24. “My house was a decent building with a separate stable for the animals &#8230; and now it’s all gone,” she said, adding that her destroyed property was valued at around 20 million kyats (U.S. $10,800). “I don’t know if I’ll ever live in that kind of house again. We have no place to live even if we could go back to the village. We no longer sleep peacefully at night. We cannot eat our meals in peace. We must always be alert.” Residents of Gangaw township’s Taungbet village said troops and Pyu Saw Htee fighters set two fires that destroyed 36 houses there after accusing them of providing haven to anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries, which the military regime has labeled a terrorist group. More than 800 people were forced to flee the village in the attacks, they said, adding that at least 695 houses in 17 Gangaw villages have been destroyed by arson since the coup. Lay Lay Win, a resident of Pauk’s Htan Pauk Kone village, told RFA that her husband Than Tun Oo was arrested on Feb. 21 while he worked on the tract’s water tower by a 30-man column of junta troops from the military’s Pakokku-based 101st Brigade, who brutally murdered him the same day. “My husband was said to be tortured and stabbed. He was hit in the face with rifle butts and was vomiting blood before he died,” she said. “We only learned of his fate when some of the young men who were arrested that day and later released told us what had happened.” Lay Lay Win, who has two young children and is pregnant with her third child, said that Than Tun Oo was targeted after informants told the military he was assisting the local PDF. She said the military did not inform her of her husband’s death or return his body to their family. Gangaw township, which borders Myanmar’s restive Chin state, was one of the first centers of armed opposition to junta rule. Fighting between the local PDF and the military has been frequent there since early 2022, as it has been in the nearby townships of Saw and Htee Lin. Residents of the area told RFA that every time the two sides clash, the military raids nearby villages, targeting them with arson attacks and even air strikes. Refugees on the rise Meanwhile, the number of refugees forced to flee their homes amid the fighting in Magway has risen in recent months, according to residents. In Htee Lin township alone, some 1,400 people have been displaced since the coup. Kyaw Aye, a resident of the township’s Kyin village, told RFA he and his family had to flee their home four times on April 17, the day of the Burmese New Year, due to repeated air strikes. “On New Year’s Day, we heard gunshots near the village. Our whole family huddled together at home because we were scared and we had to flee in the evening as a plane flew over the village and fired randomly,” he said. “We’ve been on the run again and again — once four times in one day [on New Year’s Day],” he said. “We’re now taking refuge in a nearby village after spending two nights in the jungle.” Kyaw Aye said he was among 70 people, including children and the elderly, who fled his village during the most recent military attack and were forced to find shelter in the jungle. When asked about the arrests and killings in Magway, junta deputy minister of information, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, attributed them to PDF groups moving between the region and Chin state. “In the northern part of Magway region, there have been some fake reports that the army was burning villages. But when we captured some PDF members, they said that the army didn’t do it,” he said. “We captured a nurse and a health worker, and their statements were already released to newsmen. This group is making up stories about what is really happening.” History of resistance Despite the army raids, Boh Cross, the leader of the Myaing Township PDF, told RFA that the armed opposition is gaining significant territory in northern Magway. “The situation is much better than before,” he said, adding that there are now eight PDF units in Myaing township alone, with a strength of more than 10,000 fighters. “Our organizations … are all working together.” Pauk Kyaing, a resident of Pauk township, told RFA that Magway region has long...
- [Struggling businesses ready to welcome tourists again as Laos reopens](https://ij-reportika.com/struggling-businesses-ready-to-welcome-tourists-again-as-laos-reopens/): Laos fully reopened its borders to foreign visitors Monday after more than two years of coronavirus restrictions, a move applauded by business owners who rely on tourism to the landlocked Southeast Asian nation. Laos’ economy is likely to still feel the effects of the pandemic, however, as China, a major economic partner, is keeping its borders closed after a resurgence of the virus in many of the country’s major cities. The Lao Prime Minister’s Office issued a notice May 7 indicating that it would lift nearly all restrictions, including reopening all international border checkpoints and entertainment venues in the country. Everyone aged 12 and over who is not vaccinated, including Lao citizens, have to show negative COVID-19 tests within 48 hours of their departure for Laos. But they do not need to submit to tests following their arrival, and vaccinated people do not have to be tested at all, the notice said. “As the notice indicated, we’re now wide open,” an official of the Information Culture and Tourism Department of the Lao capital Vientiane told RFA’s Lao service Monday on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “All the Lao-Thai friendship bridges are open and everybody is free to enter or exit Laos and can travel all over the country,” the official said. A Thai immigration officer at a bridge between Laos’ Savannakhet province and Thailand’s Mukdahan province told RFA on Monday that traffic has already picked up. “They’re required to have only their passport and a proof of vaccination,” the Thai officer said. “Many Thais and Laotians have crossed the bridge today.” That is welcome news to many Laotians who have struggled to keep businesses afloat without the benefit of tourism. “We’re happy because we’ve been struggling for more than two years,” a restaurant owner in Vang Vieng, a popular tourist town in Vientiane province, told RFA. “We all hope that the tourists come to our town and our country soon, so that we can have some badly needed income.” That sentiment was shared by a hotel employee in Vientiane. “I’m happy that we have the opportunity to receive more foreign tourists,” the source said. “The country is completely open like before the pandemic, and I am happy to return to my job and see all the night clubs and karaoke bars open again.” Laos relies heavily on its tourism industry: the 4.8 million foreign visitors it welcomed in 2019 accounted for 5.9% of its gross national product (GNP). Tourism fell off a cliff in 2020 when the pandemic hit. Only 886,400 visitors arrived in Laos that year, the latest data from the World Tourism Organization, generating just 1.2% of GNP. Tourism from Thailand is especially important to Laos, accounting for more than 2 million of the 2019 visits. But more than 1 million Chinese also visited Laos that year, and until China relaxes its border restrictions, tourism is unlikely to reach pre-pandemic levels. Exports to China will also remain limited, further delaying a full economic recovery. “We’ve been open since yesterday, but the Chinese side hasn’t opened yet because China hasn’t lifted their COVID-19 restrictions,” a Lao border official stationed at Boten, the main crossing point between China and Laos in Luang Namtha province, told RFA on Tuesday. “They are only allowing a maximum of 300 trucks a day into their country.” Trucks from Laos must wait more than a week to get into China, a Lao trucker said. &#8220;They’re not open. It’s getting more difficult to get into China and it takes at least seven days to cross the border,” he told RFA. An official at Luang Namtha’s Public Works and Transport Department told RFA that the Chinese authorities are overly strict. “When are they going to open their border? The answer is ‘I don’t know,’ because the number of COVID-19 cases in China is still on the rise, several thousand a day,” the source said. In the most recent outbreak, newly confirmed daily cases in China peaked in late April at more than 30,000. But major cities across the country remain under strict lockdowns as part of the country’s zero-COVID policy. The number of active COVID-19 cases in Laos is in decline, with only 110 new cases on Monday. About 67 percent of the country’s population of 7.2 million are fully vaccinated. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the country confirmed 208,535 cases and 749 deaths, according to statistics from the health ministry. Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Chinese border police 'clipping' passports of citizens as they arrive back home](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-border-police-clipping-passports-of-citizens-as-they-arrive-back-home/): Border police in Guangzhou have stepped up controls on incoming Chinese citizens, questioning them about their overseas activities and confiscating passports, amid ongoing controls on people leaving the country. Passengers arriving in Guangzhou aboard China Southern flight CZ3082 from Bangkok on Sunday morning were all questioned individually by immigration officials at the airport, according to a social media post from one of the passengers. Border guards wanted to know what they had been doing in the countries they were returning from, why they were coming back to China, and whether they planned to leave the country again, the post said. Some passengers had their passport corners clipped, invalidating them for further travel, the post said. The report came days after the National Immigration Administration held a news conference announcing &#8220;strict reviews&#8221; of travel documents and visas, and calling on Chinese nationals not to leave the country unless absolutely necessary. Spokesman Chen Jie said immigration authorities were &#8220;continuing to maintain the highest level of prevention and control,&#8221; resulting in &#8220;low levels&#8221; of outbound passengers at border crossings and airports. A Chinese national surnamed Zhang said border guards often use passport-clipping as a way to prevent people from leaving the country, and anyone hoping to leave must first get an exit permit, signed by their local police station. &#8220;My passport was clipped two or three years ago now,&#8221; Zhang said. &#8220;There has been a strict requirement for exit permits for two years, and basically the border guards don&#8217;t want people to leave on Chinese passports.&#8221; Students blocked from travel Reports continue to surface on social media of people leaving China for foreign study having their passports clipped as they tried to board a plane, and also from people who had been denied passports when they applied for them. &#8220;There have been a lot of posts saying that people are being rejected when they apply for passports, or when they try to renew them,&#8221; a current affairs commentator surnamed Lu told RFA. &#8220;It shows that the Chinese government is trying to reduce the number of Chinese people leaving the country,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They are worried that if they do, they&#8217;ll find out what the situation is in the rest of the world.&#8221; An employee at an overseas study consultancy surnamed Huang said the government has suspended permission for minors in primary and secondary school to study abroad. &#8220;The government has said that nobody should leave the country unless it&#8217;s absolutely necessary,&#8221; Huang told RFA. &#8220;Parents aren&#8217;t allowed to send their children overseas too young either.&#8221; &#8220;Before, parents could send their kids to secondary school in Thailand or the U.K., but they&#8217;ve stopped allowing that now,&#8221; she said. &#8220;They&#8217;re only allowed to go overseas at university level.&#8221; &#8220;What does this have to do with the pandemic? They just don&#8217;t want so many people leaving,&#8221; Huang said. She said the government is concerned that children will be inculcated with &#8220;Western values&#8221; overseas. &#8220;Then, they&#8217;ll be less easy to control after they get back,&#8221; Huang said. &#8220;The more they know, the more ideas they get; they don&#8217;t need them to know much, just be a simple worker. Too many ideas and they raise objections to every suggestion: how is that manageable?&#8221; Huang said she expects the restrictions to stay in place even after zero-COVID controls have lifted. &#8216;Illegal entry and exit&#8217; The immigration authorities said a crackdown on &#8220;illegal entry and exit&#8221; was under way. &#8220;The police have &#8230; strengthened full-time and all-region patrols, controls and investigations, closely cooperating with law enforcement in neighboring countries to crack down hard on illegal entry and exit activities,&#8221; the agency&#8217;s Chen said at the April 27 news conference. &#8220;People are coming in and out through illegal channels,&#8221; Chen said. &#8220;Border guards at land, sea and air checkpoints &#8230; are taking measures appropriate to local conditions and circumstances.&#8221; But Chen didn&#8217;t explain which &#8220;illegal channels&#8221; were being used. Police in the central province of Hunan in April confirmed to RFA that that residents had been ordered to hand over their passports to police, promising to return them &#8220;when the pandemic is over,&#8221; amid a massive surge in people looking for ways to leave China or obtain overseas immigration status. A March 31 notice from the Baisha police department in the central province of Hunan posted to social media ordered employers to hand over the passports of all employees and family members to police, &#8220;to be returned after the pandemic.&#8221; An officer told RFA that the order would be rolled out nationwide. China&#8217;s zero-COVID policy of mass compulsory testing, stringent lockdowns and digital health codes has sparked an emigration wave fueled by &#8220;shocked&#8221; middle-classes fed up with food shortages, confinement at home, and amid broader safety concerns. The number of keyword searches on social media platform WeChat and search engine Baidu for &#8220;criteria for emigrating to Canada&#8221; has skyrocketed by nearly 3,000 percent in the past month, with most queries clustered in cities and provinces under tough, zero-COVID restrictions, including Shanghai, Jiangsu, Guangdong, and Beijing. Immigration consultancies have seen a huge spike in emigration inquiries in recent weeks, with clients looking to apply for overseas passports or green cards, while holding onto their Chinese passports, they said in April. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Philippines' Marcos Jr. will likely seek closer ties with Beijing: analysts](https://ij-reportika.com/philippines-marcos-jr-will-likely-seek-closer-ties-with-beijing-analysts/): Philippines&#8217; president-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr., will likely seek to turn the country to an ally of China, despite lingering anti-Beijing sentiment, analysts said following his landslide election victory on Tuesday. &#8220;Bongbong&#8221; Marcos, the son of long-ruling dictator Ferdinand Marcos, garnered more than 30.8 million votes by an unofficial count on Monday, and looks likely to take office in June. Sara Duterte-Carpio, daughter of incumbent Rodrigo Duterte, is expected to serve as his vice president. Marcos has already said he wants to pursue closer ties with China, including disregarding a 2016 ruling from The Hague invalidating China&#8217;s massive territorial claims to the South China Sea. Marcos has sought to distance himself from the ruling, which has been rejected by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Beijing, and said he will likely continue to develop Duterte&#8217;s policy of closer ties with China. Zhuang Jiaying, associate professor of politics at Singapore&#8217;s National University, said Marcos&#8217; election is a milestone in the political life of the Philippines. &#8220;There are several reasons why this Philippine presidential election is more important [than previous ones],&#8221; Zhuang told RFA. &#8220;During the campaign, Marcos continued to whitewash his family&#8217;s unrestrained abuse of power during authoritarian rule.&#8221; &#8220;There was also a campaign of harassment targeting supporters of rival candidates, &#8230; raising questions about whether democracy is taking a backward step, and whether [Marcos] will continue the current wave of authoritarian leadership.&#8221; &#8220;[Marcos&#8217;] comments seem to favor a more pro-China stance, but whether those ideas can be realized in terms of policy is another matter,&#8221; Zhuang said. &#8220;When Duterte came to power, China promised a lot of investment, but it didn&#8217;t live up to expectations.&#8221; &#8220;That gap caused disappointment in the Philippines, whose defense and security forces have become more suspicious of China because of its unrelenting pressure regarding the South China Sea dispute,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Even if Marcos himself wants a good relationship with China, he will meet with a certain amount of doubt and resistance.&#8221; U.S. ties run deep Jeremy Chiang of the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation said there had been a certain amount of popular support for the Marcos regime among Filipinos, despite the former dictator&#8217;s ouster by a &#8220;people-power&#8221; revolution. &#8220;When Marcos fell, not all Filipinos opposed him,&#8221; Chiang said. &#8220;In particular, the Marcos family had a positive image in their political heartland, and also in the popular imagination, and some still miss being part of a strong nation and economy at that time.&#8221; &#8220;This image has been fed to young people via social media, so young people have a fairly good impression of Marcos,&#8221; he said. Chiang said Marcos had only narrowly lost the last presidential race six years ago to Duterte, and had hung onto his supporter base since then. However, he said it could be hard for Marcos to wean his country off military and security reliance on the United States. &#8220;Military cooperation between the Philippines and the United States has evolved into a long-term strategy, with many people in the Philippines military and diplomatic service cherishing that relationship,&#8221; Chiang said. &#8220;That kind of relationship with such a solid foundation was hard to shake off during Duterte&#8217;s term, despite the fact that China had [offered] more financial resources and aid programs,&#8221; he said. Analysts have also cited anti-Chinese government sentiment among much of the Philippine population who see their fishermen’s livelihoods being threatened and lives being endangered by alleged harassment on the part of Chinese navy and coast guard ships. Manila is Washington’s biggest ally in Southeast Asia, where an increasingly assertive China is encroaching on other claimant nations’ exclusive economic zones in the disputed South China Sea. During his term, Duterte tested the U.S.-Philippines relationship, threatening to drop one of many bilateral security agreements and vowing never to set foot in the United States while president. Domestically, the Philippine economy is just recovering after being in one of the world’s longest lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Imagery shows China still building on Subi Reef in South China Sea](https://ij-reportika.com/imagery-shows-china-still-building-on-subi-reef-in-south-china-sea/): Recent satellite imagery shows that China is continuing to actively develop its facilities on the disputed Subi Reef in the South China Sea, two months after a top U.S. commander said Beijing had “fully militarized” it. Simularity Inc., a U.S. geospatial intelligence company, said that an analysis of satellite imagery from May 5 has revealed new structures and seven active construction sites on Subi, the coral reef occupied by China since 1988 but also claimed by the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. In March, the U.S. Indo-Pacific commander Adm. John C. Aquilino said that the construction of missile arsenals, aircraft hangars, radar systems and other military facilities at Subi Reef, as well as Mischief Reef and Fiery Cross &#8220;appeared to have been completed.&#8221; Subi is one of several major bases that China built during a massive dredging and artificial island-building campaign in the Spratlys that began in 2013, creating 3,200 acres of new land and giving it a new strategic foothold in the South China Sea. In its natural state, Subi is what is known as a low-tide elevation and an international tribunal in 2016 ruled that as it is submerged at high tide, Subi is not an island but considered “sea bed” and the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC’s) constructions on the reef are illegal.  China rejected the ruling. Until now, China has reclaimed 976 acres on Subi, according to the Asia Maritime Initiative (AMTI) at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. The seven active construction sites are located in the northern and southern parts of the reef, with visible presence of trucks, construction equipment and material, Simularity said. “A significant amount of sand” is seen at the sites, indicating new roads and structures are being built. At one site in the south, there are new walls and parking lots, Simularity said, without drawing further conclusions about the possible function of the sites under construction. Extensive development Subi (Zamora in the Philippines) Reef lies just 12 nautical miles from the Philippine-administered Thitu Island, which is the second largest natural feature in the Spratlys after Taiping (Itu Aba) Island, occupied by Taiwan. China has developed it into a military base that can accommodate a garrison of 200 troops and a helipad, according to Philippine officials. AMTI says there are a number of important structures on Subi, including a large lighthouse, five hangers that each can accommodate 20 combat aircraft, and an over 3,000-meter airstrip, completed in early 2016. A satellite image of Subi Reef, taken May 6, 2022. Credit: EO Browser, Sinergise Ltd. Aquilino said in March that the function of China’s artificial islands is “to expand the offensive capability of the PRC &#8230; They can fly fighters, bombers plus all those offensive capabilities of missile systems.” &#8220;They threaten all nations who operate in the vicinity and all the international sea and airspace,” he added. China’s Civil Aviation Authority said it successfully tested a civilian flight on Subi in July 2016, using a Boeing 737 airplane, “further enhancing its capability to provide public services as a responsible player in the region.” The Philippines and Vietnam both protested against the test flight which is not known to have become regularly scheduled.
- [PDF clashes with junta troops guarding mines in Myanmar’s Sagaing region](https://ij-reportika.com/pdf-clashes-with-junta-troops-guarding-mines-in-myanmars-sagaing-region/): Prodemocracy People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries clashed with junta security forces guarding two Chinese-owned copper mine projects over the weekend in the country’s war-torn Sagaing region after the military attacked two villages in the area, PDF fighters said Monday. The fighting broke out on Sunday when junta troops, who had been sent to defend the mines following threats by local PDF groups, entered the villages of Shwe Pan Khaing and Thedaw Gyi in Sagaing’s Yinmarbin township, Myaunk Yamar PDF spokesman Ko Khant told RFA’s Myanmar Service. “It was a military security column guarding the Yangtse and Wanbao projects,” he said, referring to the Chinese companies that operate the two mines in collaboration with the military’s Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited (MEHL) company. “They left from Yinmarbin township on May 5 and spent the night in Wadan village and Tal Bin Kan village, in [neighboring] Salingyi township. They then started an offensive against Shwe Pan Khaing and Thedaw Gyi villages on the Yinmarbin township side.” Ko Khant said that the PDF did not attack the troops guarding the copper mine projects and only engaged with them after they began raiding the villages, adding that the fighting had lasted for around four hours. Last week, the junta vowed to defend the suspended copper mines, seen as a key source of revenue for the military regime, after the PDF threatened to destroy them if owners resume operations. Following the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup, employees walked off the job to join the anti-junta Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), reducing the mines’ operating capacity by more than 80 percent. In early April, junta Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in eastern China’s Anhui province in what analysts said signaled Myanmar’s desire for deeper economic ties to its northern ally. Not long after the trip, residents of Salingyi reported that workers were being called back to the mines to restart the projects after more than a year of downtime, prompting threats from the PDF. Sit Naing, spokesman for the Salingyi PDF, told RFA that his and other PDF groups “will not attack them if they do not resume the projects.” “We didn’t start the fight in this incident – they began using weapons to threaten residents of nearby villages, telling them not to come close to the projects. It appears that the projects are being restarted, given this kind of action.” Sit Naing said that around 200 troops have been deployed to guard each project. At the Wanbao mine, machine guns were positioned around the project targeting the villages, he added. “They have even fired 120-millimeter guns into the villages,” he said. “Tensions between the junta troops and the PDF have been high for three days. The junta forces fired three artillery shells at villages in Yinmarbin township last night.” Sit Naing said the three shells had set fire to several houses and caused residents to flee, but no one was hurt. Heavy artillery shelling was reported in other villages on Monday, he said. No official statement was released by the junta in connection with the clashes. Attempts by RFA to contact junta Deputy Minister of Information Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun about the clashes went unanswered on Monday. Residents of the area where the copper projects are located have held daily protests demanding that Beijing respect the wishes of the people of Myanmar by shutting them down, and on April 25, nearly 560 prodemocracy groups sent an open letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping urging him to stop supporting the junta through the mines and other China-backed development projects. According to Myanmar’s Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, 32 Chinese garment factories were set on fire in the early months of the coup, while PDF attacks on Chinese projects have damaged the water supply pipeline to one of the mines in Sagaing, as well as a gas pipeline and nickel plant in Mandalay region. Translated by Kyaw Min Htun. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Myanmar’s 4 strongest ethnic armies reject junta invitation to peace talks](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-4-strongest-ethnic-armies-reject-junta-invitation-to-peace-talks/): Myanmar’s four most powerful ethnic armed groups have rejected an olive branch from the junta, saying there can be no peace talks until the military regime allows the country’s shadow government and the paramilitary group that fights on its behalf to take a seat at the table. On April 22, junta chief, Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, called for negotiations that he promised to personally attend and gave the ethnic armies until Monday to accept the offer. But the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO), the Karen National Union (KNU), the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP) and the Chin National Front (CNF) all rejected the invitation. They said that by not offering all stakeholders the chance to participate, the junta showed it is unwilling to meet halfway. “We recognize that political issues need to be addressed through a political dialogue,” KIA information officer, Col. Naw Bu, told RFA’s Myanmar Service, when asked about the decision not to register for the talks. “We are not attending the meeting this time because it’s clear to us that we will not be able to reach a point at which we can discuss real political issues.” The four ethnic armies are Myanmar’s largest, most experienced and best equipped, and together have accounted for some of the strongest resistance to military rule. KNU spokesman Padoh Saw Tawney said that in addition to refusing to allow the shadow National Unity Government (NUG) and the prodemocracy People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary group to attend talks, the junta had failed to honor commitments it had made to his and other ethnic armies, such as reducing its troop presence in their territories in the country’s remote border regions. “If the talks are not held in an inclusive environment, the consequences will be indescribable for the country,” he said. The junta has rejected requests from ethnic leaders and the international community to let the NUG and PDF participate in the talks. Min Aung Hlaing has repeatedly said that the junta will not talk with “terrorists,” and vowed to continue to crack down on the groups. Padoh Saw Tawney said that if the military has good intentions, it should “leave politics” so that the rest of Myanmar’s stakeholders can form a federal democracy and begin the process of rebuilding the country. “We cannot go without these preconditions,” he said. Other ethnic leaders, such as KNPP First Secretary Khu Daniel, told RFA that peace talks without the NUG and PDF would be “meaningless,” and suggested that the junta peace offer was part of a bid to create a schism within the armed opposition. “The NUG formed political alliances with our ethnic groups,” he said. “The junta intends to separate them from these groups. But without them, there will be no solution to this problem.” Khu Daniel acknowledged that some ethnic armies had agreed to join in negotiations but noted that they have smaller forces and hadn’t made much headway in fighting against the military. “Our groups, which are really fighting, are not attending. So, nothing will come out of it,” he said. Myanmar&#8217;s Commander in-Chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing (C) poses for a photo during the second anniversary of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) in Naypyidaw, in a file photo. Credit: Reuters Armies that accepted In addition to the KIA, KNU, KNPP, and CNF, the other ethnic armies to reject the invitation were the All Burma Students Democratic Front and the Lahu Democratic Union — two of the 10 groups that have signed a Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) with the government since 2015. The United Wa State Party, the Shan State Progressive Party, and the National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA) have said they will attend the peace talks. So have the Arakan State Liberation Party, the Shan State Rehabilitation Council, the Karen National Peace Council, the Democratic Karen Army, the New Mon State Party, and the Pa-O National Liberation Organization — all of which are members of the Peace Process Steering Team (PPST) of NCA signatories. The 10 groups that signed the NCA have suggested that the deal remains in place, despite an already flailing peace process that was all but destroyed by the unpopular junta’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup. Previously, all 10 said they would not pursue talks with the military, which they view as having stolen power from the country’s democratically elected government. PPST spokesman, Col. Saw Kyaw Nyunt, said his group decided to accept the junta invitation with the hope that it would lead to broader negotiations. “It’s a start with the aim of finding a way to have inclusive talks,” he said. “We’ll try to determine how to create such an inclusive political environment, even though we have not yet held a political dialogue to build a federal democratic union.” The three northern alliances — the Kokang National Democratic Alliance, the Ta&#8217;ang National Liberation Army and the Arakan Army — have said they are still negotiating among themselves over Min Aung Hlaing’s offer. Speaking to RFA at the end of last week, junta deputy information minister, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, told RFA that “most” of the ethnic armed groups had accepted the invitation. On Monday, he said that “a total of nine groups” had confirmed they would attend talks — NCA signatories Democratic Karen Army, Karen National Peace Council, Pa-O National Liberation Organization, New Mon State Party, Arakan State Liberation Party, and Shan State Rehabilitation Council; and non-signatories United Wa State Party, Shan State Progressive Party, and National Democratic Alliance Army. “Some groups have issued statements saying they will not attend, and we are waiting for others to make their decision,” he said. Zaw Min Tun said the junta is committed to pushing the peace process forward, adding that it is willing to “openly discuss the establishment of a union based on democracy and federalism.” ‘Effort to buy time’ Naing Htoo Aung, permanent secretary of the NUG’s Defense Ministry, said that 15 months after seizing power, the junta has led Myanmar to ruin, and its rule is...
- [North Korea enlists office workers to carry water to fields in battle to save crops](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-enlists-office-workers-to-carry-water-to-fields-in-battle-to-save-crops/): Local officials in North Korea are forcing office workers into the fields to help water plants due to a shortage of working water pumps, as the government struggles to combat a widespread drought, sources in the country told RFA. North Korea frequently drafts ordinary citizens whenever it needs manpower for public projects, a practice that has drawn complaints from a population struggling to make ends meet. Forced labor is often used for construction, road maintenance and agriculture. But sources told RFA that mobilizing people to do the work of water pumps was essentially meaningless. An agricultural source from the city of Chongju in the northwestern province of North Pyongan told RFA’s Korean Service that city and county irrigation management office managers across the country were told by the Central Committee in Pyongyang to what they had to do to prevent crop damage. “The Provincial Rural Economic Management Committee gathered the irrigation management office managers from each city and county, and the officials in charge of overall supervision and management of agricultural technology,” said the source, who requested anonymity out of security concerns. “The authorities emphasized the supply of agricultural water to the irrigation management officials because there was so little snow in the winter and no rain during the spring, and this could cause great damage to crops already planted,” said the source. But the efforts to mitigate the worst effects of the dry weather have been complicated by a shortage of working water pumps in the country, in part due to the suspension of trade with China in January 2020 due to the pandemic. Rail freight finally resumed almost two years later, but a resurgence of the pandemic in China led officials to close the border again this month. “Currently, most of the water pumps and electric motors from each working group under the Chongju Irrigation Management Office are broken … and the parts for the machines are not available on the market because the border has been closed due to COVID-19,” the source said. “The irrigation management officials are pursuing a plan to smuggle used water pumps and electric motors from China in order to carry out the Central Committee’s order,” the source said. Pumps typically cost between U.S. $800 and $1,000, although used ones can be bought for about half that price, the source said. Authorities in some areas are trying to solve their pump problems by forcing people to manually water the planted crops, a source in South Pyongan province, north of the capital Pyongyang, told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “Officials and clerks, not only from the agricultural sector, but also from organizations in the province and neighboring Pyongyang, and workers from state-owned enterprises are being mobilized,” the South Pyongan source said. “Nationwide, the temperature in April was more than 2 degrees Celsius higher than usual, and precipitation was less than half of most years, and hot and dry weather is expected to continue in May. In the case of Chungsan county in our province, workers from various central organizations, such as the Ministry of Forestry, the Ministry of Commerce, the Maritime Administration Bureau, and the Literature and Arts Publishing House, provided support for three days in a row,” the South Pyongan source said. But regardless of how many able bodies are on hand to render assistance, they desperately need water pumps to properly irrigate the crops, the South Pyongan source said. “The state is unable to provide this, so it recklessly mobilizes large numbers of people,” the South Pyongan source said. A source in North Pyongan’s Ryongchon county told RFA that the authorities are rushing to save the crops that have already been damaged before the water-intensive rice-planting season. “The irrigation management office under the Farm Management Committee of Ryongchon county used to operate six water pumps to supply water to every cooperative farm. Due to the frequent power outages last year, only three water pumps are currently in operation following motor failure,” this source said. “The three water pumps are currently concentrated in wheat fields that are severely damaged by drought, so there are no water pumps to supply water to the rice paddies where rice planting will be carried out. Coil wires and insulation materials are essential to repair the broken water pumps, but there is no support at all from the government,” he said. Another agricultural source, in the northeastern province of South Hamgyong, reported to RFA that office workers there were also mobilized to water the crops, some of them forced to carry water on their backs. “I am more concerned about rice planting. There is a lot of work to do, such as bed management, watering the rice fields, and harrowing. You can’t just make the farmers water wheat and barley fields,” the source said. “If the rice seedlings that have just been sown don&#8217;t have enough moisture, they will not germinate properly. Also, without enough water, the wheat and barley yields may drop,” the source said. Translated by Claire Lee and Leejin Jun Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Lao central bank blames depreciating kip on currency converter manipulation](https://ij-reportika.com/lao-central-bank-blames-depreciating-kip-on-currency-converter-manipulation/): Laos’ central bank is blaming the depreciation of the country’s kip currency on money exchange businesses colluding to manipulate the market, but a lack of foreign reserves and an import-export imbalance appear to be the true causes, sources in the country told RFA. According to Asia News Network, the kip depreciated by six percent against the U.S. dollar between Jan. 4 and April 8. At the same time, prices for imported household goods rose by 15-50 percent between April and January, the Vientiane Times reported. A report from the Bank of Laos (BOL) acknowledged the decline, saying that from February this year, the kip entered a period in which it set records for decreases in valuation relative to the U.S. dollar and the Thai baht. The central bank claimed that the currency was depreciating as a direct result of manipulation by illegal currency conversion shops, but sources who operate those businesses deny that they are to blame. “We exchange money based on a free-market mechanism and the banks cannot control anything. … The depreciation of the Lao kip is because imports exceed exports. We import more and more,” a money changer and gold seller in the central province of Borikhamxay told RFA’s Lao Service. “For example, there are many businesspeople who import all kinds of products ranging from fertilizer, seafood and snacks from Thailand and they need a large amount of baht or U.S. dollars to do this. They cannot get foreign currency at the banks, even though the banks set the exchange rate very low. They have to use our service to get foreign currency to continue their businesses,” the moneychanger said on condition of anonymity for security reasons. Because the moneychangers must buy foreign currency at a high rate, they must also sell it for an even higher rate to remain in business, the moneychanger said. The economic police from the Ministry of Public Security and officials from the BOL last month raided illegal money exchange shops as part of a broad crackdown, state media reported. The intent was to stop the kip’s depreciation against the baht and the dollar. It would have worked if there was actual collusion between the moneychangers, rather than the simple result of supply and demand, the Borikhamxay moneychanger said. Under normal circumstances, business owners would rather deal with the banks, but the banks have few reserves, forcing the owners to go to moneychangers, both legal and illegal. “We cannot exchange our kip for baht or dollars at any bank. Even if we could, they would limit the amount of money we can have, and this wouldn’t meet our needs,” the moneychanger said. Another moneychanger told RFA that depreciation feeds on itself. Fewer people want the kip as it falls further in value. “Many people do not want to hold the kip and it is losing value very fast. Thus, many people are scrambling to get foreign currency in their pockets and wallets,” the second moneychanger said. A trade expert in the southern province of Savannakhet, who asked not to be identified, said the fact that a trade deficit with Thailand has had a destabilizing effect on the kip. In 2021, Laos recorded a trade surplus of about $1 billion according to the Chinese news outlet Xinhua, but this included a trade deficit of $813 million with Thailand, data from the Lao Trade Portal showed. The most recent data from trade portal, from March, indicated a $100 million surplus, but with a $162 million deficit with Thailand. Banks withholding Thai baht forces prices higher and higher. “Even when people try to withdraw baht from their baht-denominated accounts, they can only get out 200,000 baht, or $6,000 per each account per day. For the big enterprise owners and business people, this policy makes everything difficult. The only thing they can do is to go to the exchange shops and accept their high exchange rates,” the expert said. Another expert, who declined to be identified, told RFA that a crackdown on illegal moneychangers would do little to stabilize the kip. “It would be far better to promote the exports to be stronger, and finally the kip will become strong itself under the free market,” he said. He said Laos’ lack of foreign currency reserves were the main reason why the kip is weak against its trading partners’ currencies. “Countries like China and Thailand have a much larger amount of foreign exchange reserves that would last several months. If the BOL wants to solve the problem of the depreciation of the kip, it would be better to let the exchange rate be based the free market, … or try to increase the foreign exchange reserves or get more foreign currency to meet the market needs, which is very challenging,” he said. A BOL official agreed that most banks do not have enough foreign currency to sell to consumers, although there are some that could sell foreign currency on a limited basis. “Anyone who wishes to exchange kip for foreign currencies has to be a legal entity, for example, a company, enterprise, or organization declaring to make payment in foreign currencies to companies overseas. The exchange will also have limitation and not everyone will get the amount he or she wants,” the official told RFA, on condition of anonymity for privacy reasons. According to the the Banque pour le Commerce Exterieur Lao Public, the official exchange rate for the kip was 12,666 kip per dollar on May 6. A Vientiane moneychanger told RFA that the free market rate on the same day was 14,050 kip per dollar. Translated by RFA’s Lao Service. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Detained former opposition chief meets with Cambodia’s Hun Sen](https://ij-reportika.com/detained-former-opposition-chief-meets-with-cambodias-hun-sen/): Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen met with the detained former leader of a dissolved opposition party on Sunday, weeks before local elections are to be held in the Southeast Asian nation. Few details were released about what the two men discussed, but one Cambodian political analyst said that the meeting was unlikely to lead to any significant changes in the political climate of the country, where opposition candidates continue to face harassment. Kem Sokha, who led the now-banned Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), faces up to 30 years in jail on treason charges over an alleged plot purportedly backed by the United States to overthrow Hun Sen and his government. Kem Sokha and the prime minister met in Kampong Cham province during the funeral of Hun Neng, Hun Sen’s 72-year-old brother, who died on May 5. For about four hours, the two discussed national policy issues, including measures to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus, the status of the vaccination campaign and post-crisis economic recovery, Muth Chantha, a close aide to Kem Sokha, told news website Cambodianess. It was not disclosed whether Kem Sokha, whose trial resumed in January after two years of delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic, asked Hun Sen to help resolve his case. “Today, I and my colleagues went to pay homage to the soul of Samdach Oudom Tepnhan [honorific] Hun Neng at his home in Kampong Cham. On that occasion, I and Samdach Techo Hun Sen, the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Cambodia, discussed many issues, especially the country’s issues. And the Khmer people too,” Kem Sokha said on his Facebook page on Sunday. The funeral meeting comes days before Hun Sen begins a rare visit to Washington for a summit hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden for leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The U.S. has been critical of the rapid shift to authoritarian rule in Cambodia that began with the arrest of Sokha in September 2017 and the banning of the CNRP two months later. Exiled political analyst Kim Sok said while the meeting was unexpected, he does not believe that it will lead to Hun Sen allowing Kem Sokha to participate in local commune elections on June 5. “It may be just a slight relaxation, for example, to allow Kem Sokha to meet his supporters without such restrictions,” he told RFA. “But will there be a political solution to release Kem Sokha so he can lead the CNRP again or launch a new party to engage in politics to his full potential? “This is not the time for Hun Sen to be thinking that he should give in to Kem Sokha, or else he should wait until he [Sokha] is no longer a rival to him and his son,” Kim Sok said, referring to Lt. Gen. Hun Manet, an army commander expected eventually to succeed his long-ruling father. Since being charged with treason, Kem Sokha has met with Hun Sen one other time. The two talked for almost an hour at Hun Sen’s residence on May 5, 2020, when Sokha paid his respects to the prime minister’s deceased mother-in-law. Harassment of Candlelight Party activists Sunday’s meeting came two days after the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling on the Cambodian government to stop persecuting political opponents ahead of the local elections next month and a national election in 2023. But there is no indication that the two are related, and Thach Setha, vice president of the Candlelight Party, a small opposition party that has itself been gaining support, told RFA on Monday that officials from Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) continue to harass candidates and activists from his party. Khem Monikosal, president of the Candlelight Party in Pailin province, was called by a local prosecutor to appear in court for second time on May 11 to face incitement and discrimination charges in connection with a Facebook post criticizing government health care workers for not performing their duties in a COVID-19 quarantine center in 2021. Khem Monikosal, a former health officer, told RFA that the summons was meant to intimidate him after authorities fired him from his post in 2021. “We are busy with political activities, organizing work, but the court summoned me twice, causing a lot of trouble,” he said. “This is an oppression of political party activists, and especially of me because I represent the Candlelight Party in Pailin.” Chea Sa, deputy prosecutor of the Pailin Provincial Court, told RFA that he could not comment on the matter. The Koh Kong Provincial Court meanwhile issued a summons for Pal Kep, a Candlelight Party member running to be Stung Veng commune chief, in response to a complaint filed by CPP lawyers. The complaint accuses Pal Kep of forgery, falsifying public documents to endanger national security, public defamation and illegal election campaign activity. Pal Kep said he applied for an adjournment with the provincial court on Monday. He said the summons is an effort to intimidate him. “The accusation against me is very cruel, but I will use my legal rights to protect me and to confront this,” he said. Wai Phirum, deputy governor of the Koh Kong Provincial Court, denied that the case was politically motivated, in an interview with RFA. RFA could not reach the CCP’s Koh Kong lawyers for comment. Ny Sokha, president of the rights group Adhoc, said that the cases against the Candlelight Party members was meant as a political threat. “We think that in order to create a pre-election atmosphere in which political parties can compete in a free and fearless [arena], the court system should not be used to charge or detain or intimidate for political motivation purposes,” he said. Translated by Sum Sok Ry for RFA’s Khmer Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [China bans tattoos for minors, forbidding anyone from offering the service to teens](https://ij-reportika.com/china-bans-tattoos-for-minors-forbidding-anyone-from-offering-the-service-to-teens/): China&#8217;s State Council has issued a ban on tattoos for minors, banning any business, individual or organization from providing such services or encouraging young people to get tattoos. &#8220;No enterprise, organization or individual shall provide tattoo services to minors, and shall not coerce, induce or instigate minors to tattoo,&#8221; the June 6 directive, which takes immediate legal effect, said. &#8220;For immature minors, tattoos may be just a whim, something they do in pursuit of individuality, but the harm done is enormous and long-lasting,&#8221; the document said. It said that while similar bans already exist in some parts of China, including Shanghai and Jiangsu, different local authorities have different attitudes when it comes to regulating the behavior of children and teenagers. The directive overrules local law-making, requiring judicial and law enforcement agencies to comply with its provisions without exception. &#8220;Families and schools must actively guide minors to increase their awareness of tattoos and their adverse effects, so that minors can consciously and rationally refuse tattoos,&#8221; the directive said. &#8220;Service providers must improve their sense of responsibility and resolutely refrain from offering tattoo services to minors,&#8221; it said. Taiwanese youth worker Yeh Ta-hwa said teenagers typically get tattoos as a form of self-expression, and the new rules are a bid to exert greater control over young people&#8217;s freedom of expression in China. &#8220;Xi Jinping has been curbing people&#8217;s freedom of expression since he took office,&#8221; Yeh told RFA. &#8220;He has done so much to restrict the freedom of young people, including banning them from any form of religion under the age of 18, limiting their online gaming time and what content they can view.&#8221; &#8220;[All of this] shows that China&#8217;s control and monitoring of its citizens&#8217; free will is getting tighter and tighter.&#8221; In some other countries, including the U.S., some European countries and democratic Taiwan, tattoo parlors are allowed to tattoo minors with parental consent. Paternalistic overreach? Yeh said tattoos were previously stigmatized in Taiwan, where they are closely linked in people&#8217;s minds with organized crime, but under the influence of indigenous peoples&#8217; culture, they are now increasingly seen as an expression of culture, art and personal freedom. U.S.-based legal scholar Teng Biao said the law is highly paternalistic, putting the state in loco parentis. &#8220;This is an overreach, a paternalistic approach in which the government takes the place of the parents,&#8221; Teng said. &#8220;Tattoos aren&#8217;t particularly harmful, so the government is going too far, trying to control them.&#8221; &#8220;It would be better coming from the parents, through education and persuasion.&#8221; Taiwan-based dissident Zhou Shuguang said the Chinese government could fear that people will use tattoos to show allegiance to something other than the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), or use it as a form of political protest. &#8220;They probably fear that minors&#8217; bodies will become taken over by various cultural symbols, making it harder for the CCP to brainwash them,&#8221; Zhou told RFA. &#8220;Cultural icons, cartoon characters and writing are all carriers of culture.&#8221; &#8220;Minors could be branded for life, with the symbols hard to erase,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The other thing they could be worried about is that people will use tattoos as tokens of recognition when forming groups, the thing that the CCP fears most, and has to break up.&#8221; Teng agreed. &#8220;For example, if someone gets the numbers 8964 tattooed on their body [a covert reference to the 1989 Tiananmen massacre], just putting those numbers together is going to be trouble,&#8221; he said. &#8220;China won&#8217;t allow those numbers to be posted online.&#8221; He said the move was part and parcel of China&#8217;s &#8220;patriotic education&#8221; program in schools. &#8220;Chinese education is actually a form of brainwashing, and these controls on minors&#8217; freedom of speech by the entire education system is doing great harm to their minds,&#8221; Teng said. &#8220;There may be no bloodshed involved, but a lifetime of [psychological] harm instead.&#8221; Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Hpa-an Prison inmates tortured and starved](https://ij-reportika.com/hpa-an-prison-inmates-tortured-and-starved/): At least 60 inmates of Hpa-An Prison, in Kayin State, have been injured in a series of violent incidents involving authorities after two political prisoners escaped over a wall on June 4, sources close to the prison told RFA on Wednesday. A source close to the prison, who declined to be named for security reasons, said young inmates were attacked from outside the cells.  “All the children were stabbed with long bamboo sticks from outside the cells at 10 a.m. today. There were a lot of injuries and a lot of blood. And food for the prisoners has not been provided for a whole day, no food at all,” the source said.  “Last night at about 8:30 p.m., while they were sleeping, the prison authorities got into the cell through the window and beat the inmates with electric sticks and shot them with iron nuts using slingshots. They also pointed guns from outside the cell.” On June 4, two of the more-than-200 political prisoners in the Gyo Gyar barracks at the prison escaped at noon by climbing a wall with a rope. A prison guard who witnessed the incident ordered the security guard in the tower to shoot, but no bullets were fired and the men escaped. Hla Shwe, the new head of Hpa-an Prison, arrived after the incident and told political prisoners to calm down. However, on Monday authorities threatened to move political prisoners from Gyo Gyar barracks to other barracks on orders from the military junta. The prisoners refused, which led to growing tension, which escalated according to sources close to the prison. “Political prisoners do not want to move elsewhere in the prison because there have been problems between the political prisoners and prisoners jailed for drug use,” said another source close to the prison who also declined to be named. “The drug offenders threaten the political prisoners, saying ‘We all have weapons and you all can be stabbed at any time. We will open your abdomens’ The political prisoners were moved to Gyo Gyar barracks by former prison authorities.” The source said soldiers arrived on Tuesday accompanied by prison authorities and forcibly dragged the political prisoners to an old barracks inside the prison where they had previously lived. At least 60 prisoners suffered broken arms and injuries to their foreheads and mouths. They were denied medical treatment and visits were banned on Wednesday according to sources close to the prison. Prison Department spokesman Khin Shwe denied the allegations and told RFA that prison conditions are normal. “There is no commotion in Hpa-an Prison,” he said. “Security, administration and discipline are normal.”  A source close to lawyers who were allowed to visit the prison said some prison staff had been detained and are being investigated over the prison break. “The day after the riot, officials came to check the prison and some prison staff were arrested. Action was taken at the prison. Court hearings were delayed yesterday and the police were in charge during the hearings. The situation in Hpan-an has now calmed down.” On May 8, more than 60 political prisoners in Hpan-an Prison were beaten by junta soldiers for singing the anti-regime song ‘Tway Thit Sar’ and banging metal cups and pans, according to another source close to the prison who spoke on condition of anonymity. He told RFA four inmates were injured and 17 were confined to their cells following the incident. According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners a total of 10,962 people were arrested in Myanmar between Feb.1, 2021 and June 6, 2022, of which 1,117 were imprisoned.
- [Kidnapping suspect fled to Vietnam to escape arrest](https://ij-reportika.com/kidnapping-suspect-fled-to-vietnam-to-escape-arrest/): A suspect in the kidnapping of Vietnamese oil executive Trinh Xuan Thanh returned to Vietnam to evade a European Union arrest warrant, according to a Berlin-based journalist covering the case, while another reporter claimed he could have avoided arrest if he had stayed away from Europe for a few more months. The German Federal Prosecutor&#8217;s Office said last week that a Vietnamese national, identified as Anh T.L., was arrested in Prague and handed over to German authorities on June 1. He is accused of &#8220;spying and assisting in deprivation of liberty,&#8221; in connection with the abduction of Thanh in a Berlin park in 2017. Journalist Le Trung Khoa told RFA the suspect is Le Anh Tu, a Vietnamese resident of the Czech Republic.   Khoa said the German prosecutor’s office issued an indictment against him during the trial of another suspect, Nguyen Hai Long, in 2018. The indictment said that Le Anh Tu drove the minibus used to kidnap Thanh on July 23, 2017 and then sought refuge at the Vietnamese Embassy in Berlin: “Clearly, he was directly involved in the kidnapping because he was the driver of the car that was used during the illegal detention of Trinh Xuan Thanh. He witnessed the entire process from the time the kidnapping team picked up Lieutenant General Duong Minh Hung and other Vietnamese officers at a nearby hotel,” said Khoa. German journalist Marina Mai, who has also been covering the case, told RFA that Le Anh Tu would not have been arrested if he had arrived in Europe more than four months later: “Secret operations in Germany have a five-year statute of limitations,” she said. “Because the arrest warrant for Mr. Anh was effective from August 10, 2017, as far as I know, it would expire on August 10, 2022. So if Mr. Anh came to Europe four months later, he may not have been arrested. Now it has happened, I think there will be a second trial related to Trinh Xuan Thanh&#8217;s abduction to try him.&#8221; Meetings at the Borik Hotel It is claimed that Le Anh Tu drove another vehicle from the Czech Republic to the Borik Hotel in the Slovakian capital Bratislava where he met with Vietnam’s Minister of Public Security, To Lam. Khoa said that because Le Anh Tu was involved in almost the entire process of abducting and taking Trinh Xuan Thanh from Germany to the Czech Republic a trial will help clarify To Lam&#8217;s role and reveal whether or not former Slovak Interior Minister Robert Kaliňák was also involved in the kidnapping.  “In [Nguyen Hai Long&#8217;s] sentencing they clearly stated that To Lam was the one who organized this kidnap in Europe. However, at present, there is not enough real evidence to prosecute To Lam so I think they will do it step by step. Le Anh Tu’s arrest and extradition to Germany was a very important step because he [took part in] the meeting of the former Slovak Minister of Interior and To Lam at the Borik Hotel in Slovakia.” Vietnam’s Minister of Public Security met with then-Slovak Republic Interior Minister Robert Kaliňák at the hotel on July 26, 2017. The government then lent a plane to the Vietnamese to fly to Moscow from Bratislava. Some German and Slovakian media outlets speculated that Vietnam might have used the plane to take Thanh back to Vietnam. Robert Kaliňák denies being involved in the kidnapping plan. In December 2018, Slovakia decided to suspend an investigation of officials suspected of aiding Thanh&#8217;s return to Vietnam. At the time of the kidnapping the German foreign ministry condemned Vietnam&#8217;s abduction on German soil as &#8220;a flagrant violation of German law and international law, which we will never tolerate.&#8221; It imposed sanctions, including the suspension of its strategic partnership with Vietnam and expelled four Vietnamese Embassy employees and their families. German economic groups who want to do business with Vietnam have criticized the sanctions, according to Mai. She said their pressure persuaded the government to begin normalizing relations with Vietnam at the end of 2018.  “This does not mean that Germany is no longer interested in the Trinh Xuan Thanh case,” Mai said.  “Germany has recognized Vietnam&#8217;s release of Nguyen Van Dai to Germany, and also acknowledged that Vietnam did not execute Trinh Xuan Thanh. But the German government is still demanding the release of Trinh Xuan Thanh and his return to Germany.” “Vietnamese diplomatic passport holders are still not allowed to travel to Germany without a visa and Germany has not allowed Vietnam to appoint a liaison officer with the police and secret service in the Vietnamese embassy in Berlin since the kidnapping happened,&#8221; she added. Trinh Xuan Thanh is led by policemen to the courtroom at Hanoi People&#8217;s Courthouse on January 8, 2018. CREDIT: AFP Germany will ‘pursue it to the end’ According to Le Trung Khoa, Germany’s independent judiciary means it will investigate this case to the end, as evidenced by the fact that Le Anh Tu was arrested as soon as he returned to Europe: &#8220;Germany must, and will, pursue it to the end according to the independent judiciary, no matter what they ignore or like in Vietnam or say it will take a long time to pass.&#8221; In 2017, the German side made three requests to Vietnam in order to re-establish diplomatic relations between the two countries. The first was to ask Vietnam to return the status quo by returning Trinh Xuan Thanh to Germany. The second was to apologize for violating the law and sovereignty of Germany. The third was to promise not to repeat the crime. However, Vietnam has not complied with these requests. Marina Mai said the likelihood of Thanh being returned to Germany depends on whether the Hanoi government wants to stop violating international law.   “That can only happen if Trinh Xuan Thanh is returned to Germany,” she said.  “Germany is ready to issue a passport to Trinh Xuan Thanh. His family is living here.”  Vietnam unlikely to return Thanh any time...
- [Myanmar’s junta uses identity documents as tools of genocide against Rohingya: report](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-junta-uses-identity-documents-as-tools-of-genocide-against-rohingya-report/): Myanmar’s junta is using identity documents to carry out a genocide of the ethnic Rohingya community, much like the perpetrators of the Holocaust and Rwandan genocide, according to a new report, which calls on the U.N. Security Council to refer the situation to the International Criminal Court (ICC). The 63-page report entitled “Genocide by Attrition: The Role of Identity Documents in the Holocaust and the Genocides of Rwanda and Myanmar” and published Tuesday by the Southeast Asian rights group Fortify Rights, details how the junta is forcing Rohingya to obtain National Verification Cards (NVCs) that its authors say effectively strip them of access to full citizenship rights and protections. It also draws on case studies from the Holocaust and Rwandan genocides to demonstrate how authoritarian regimes use such documents to “systematically identify, persecute, and kill targeted populations on a widespread and massive scale.” “Perpetrators have long used identification documents in the commission of genocide,” said Ken MacLean, co-author of the report, senior advisor to Fortify Rights, and Clark University Professor at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, in a statement accompanying the release of the report. “Evidence from the Holocaust and Rwandan genocides show striking similarities with the ongoing erasure of the Rohingya identity in Myanmar by the junta.” The report found that identification cards such as those used during the Holocaust and Rwandan genocides contributed to “genocide by attrition,” which it defined as “the gradual destruction of a protected group by reducing their strength through sustained, indirect methods of destruction.” Such policies have long been in use in Myanmar and continue to play a role in the ongoing genocide of the Rohingyas, the report said, citing interviews with more than 20 Rohingya-genocide survivors, leaked junta documents, and a media analysis of junta-backed news outlets since the military’s Feb. 1, 2021 coup. It said that Rohingya in Western Myanmar’s Rakhine state described how the junta forces them to carry NVCs to prevent them from identifying as “Rohingya,” restrict their movement, and curtail their ability to earn a living, “creating conditions of life designed to be destructive.” Instead, they are made to identify as “Bengali” immigrants from Bangladesh in what the report said is a bid by authorities to exclude them from citizenship and ethnicity within Myanmar. The report cited the United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention’s findings that increased politicization of identity and discriminatory measures targeting protected groups are indicators in creating “an environment conducive to the commission of atrocity crimes,” noting that similar legal and administrative tools were used to facilitate the destruction of the Jewish and Tutsi populations, and are now being used against the Rohingya. “Rohingya continue to face existential threats under the military junta, an illegitimate regime responsible for far-reaching atrocities,” said John Quinley, senior human rights specialist at Fortify Rights and co-author of the report. “The ongoing denial of Rohingya ethnicity and citizenship are indicators of genocide. The [shadow] National Unity Government has committed to ensuring Rohingya citizenship and inclusion. The junta, however, is still using coercive measures to force Rohingya to identify as foreigners, erasing records of their existence.” Myanmar immigration officials hand over an identification document to a Rohingya woman at the Taungpyoletwei town repatriation camp in Rakhine state&#8217;s Maungdaw township, near the Bangladesh border, in a file photo. Credit: AFP Holding the junta accountable Fortify Rights said that while the connection between identification documents and international crimes is well-recognized, some U.N. officials, embassies, and others in Myanmar have failed to condemn the use of NVCs in targeting Rohingya. In some cases, the group said, they have even endorsed the documents as a solution to the group’s “statelessness.” The report’s findings demonstrate links between the NVC process and acts of genocide and should be a focus of investigations and legal proceedings, Fortify Rights said. The violations documented in Genocide by Attrition demonstrate links between the NVC process and genocidal acts and should be a focus of ongoing investigations and legal proceedings, said Fortify Rights. It called on U.N. member states to cut Myanmar’s junta off from access to arms, finances, and political legitimacy, and urged the U.N. Security Council to refer the situation in the country to the International Criminal Court (ICC). “The Myanmar military junta poses an undeniable threat to international peace and security,” said Fortify’s Quinley. “U.N. member states must wake up and act now to deny the junta the resources it craves and to hold it accountable for all of its crimes including genocide.” In 2016, a military crackdown forced some 90,000 Rohingya to flee Rakhine state and cross into neighboring Bangladesh, while a larger one in 2017 in response to insurgent attacks, killed thousands of members of the ethnic minority and led to an exodus of more than 740,000 across the border.  Human rights groups have produced a trove of credible reports based on commercial satellite imagery and extensive interviews with Rohingya about the operations in Rakhine state in 2017, including arbitrary killings, torture, and mass rape. Gambia has accused Myanmar’s military leadership of violating the 1948 Genocide Convention in Rohingya areas in a case it brought to the Hague-based International Court of Justice. The court is holding hearings to determine whether it has jurisdiction to judge if atrocities committed there constituted a genocide.
- [Chinese Ambassador attends ceremony at controversial Cambodian base](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-ambassador-attends-ceremony-at-controversial-cambodian-base/): A ground-breaking ceremony got underway on Wednesday morning at the Ream Naval Base in Cambodia for a Chinese-assisted development project that is causing grave concerns to the U.S. and allies. Pro-government site Fresh News, which broadcast the event live, said Cambodian defense minister Tea Banh and Chinese Ambassador Wang Wentian presided over the ceremony. According to the publicly announced plan, China will help Cambodia to renovate and upgrade some facilities at Ream, including constructing two new piers, a dry dock and a slipway, a hospital and several other buildings. China will also assist the Cambodian Royal Navy to repair some of its old ships and dredge navigation lanes to allow medium-sized vessels to access the base. It is unclear how much the project will cost but it is understood that the Chinese government will foot the whole bill. Ream Naval Base is located in Sihanoukville province on the Gulf of Thailand. Dredging work being carried out at the Ream Naval Base in Sihanoukville province. CREDIT: Fresh News ‘Not a secret base’ The project has attracted much attention from Western governments after the Wall Street Journal reported in 2019 that Phnom Penh and Beijing had signed a secret deal to allow the Chinese military to use part of the base for 30 years—with automatic renewals every 10 years after that—and to post army personnel, store weapons and berth warships. The reported deal would provide China with its first naval staging facility in Southeast Asia, the second in the world after a base in Djibouti, and allow it to significantly expand patrols across the South China Sea. Cambodia has repeatedly denied the information, saying permitting a foreign military base on Cambodia’s soil would be in complete contradiction to the country’s constitution. Phnom Penh argued that it had organized several visits for foreign diplomats to Ream, proving it was “not a secret base.” Chinese government officials also denied a later report that said the Chinese military “will have exclusive use of parts” of the base. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters in Beijing on Tuesday that “the renovation of the base serves solely to strengthen the Cambodian naval capacities to protect its maritime integrity and combat maritime crimes.” Cambodian and Chinese official statements however did little to calm international concerns. On Tuesday, during a courtesy call with Cambodia’s Deputy Prime Minister Prak Sokhon, the new Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong pressed the Cambodian official about the base.  Earlier, the new Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he was concerned about the implications of a Chinese naval base being built in Cambodia. “We&#8217;ve been aware of Beijing&#8217;s activity at Ream for some time and we encourage Beijing to be transparent about its intent and to ensure its activities support regional security and stability,” Albanese was quoted by news agencies as saying.
- [Myanmar’s junta vows to proceed with high-profile executions](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-junta-vows-to-proceed-with-high-profile-executions/): The court-ordered executions of four Burmese prisoners, including a deposed lawmaker and a prominent former activist sentenced to death for “terrorism,” will be carried out despite widespread international criticism, a junta official said Tuesday. Junta deputy information minister, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, rejected the possibility for pardons in the four cases, which are part of a surge in death sentences under martial law in Myanmar. Since taking over in a coup last year, the military has transferred the authority to try cases of civilians to special or existing military tribunals, resulting in what rights groups say are summary proceedings with no chance of appeal. Former National League for Democracy (NLD) lawmaker Phyo Zeyar Thaw and 88 Generation leader Ko Jimmy were sentenced to death for violating the country’s Anti-Terrorism Law. Two other men — Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw — were sentenced to death in Yangon region’s Hlaing Tharyar township on charges of murder. All four lost appeals of their cases last week. “The death penalty will be implemented,” Zaw Min Tun told RFA’s Burmese Service. “They will not be pardoned. We have finished the process all the way up through the appeals,” he added, when asked whether junta chief, Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, would consider staying their executions. Zaw Min Tun said the four men had been transferred to the custody of the junta’s Prison Department, which is now responsible for their cases. According to the junta, Phyo Zeyar Thaw and Ko Jimmy maintained contact with Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG), the Committee Representing the People’s Parliament (CRPP), and other organizations labeled “terrorist groups” by the military regime and had carried out “acts of violence.” The two men were sentenced to death by a military tribunal on Jan. 21. The four death sentences, as well 111 others that have been handed down by junta courts between the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup, and May 19 this year, have drawn criticism from legal experts and rights groups, who say the regime is threatening the public with unfair executions. The United Nations, Washington, Ottawa, and Paris have issued statements strongly condemning the decisions in the cases now proceeding to execution, although the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) — of which Myanmar is a member state — has yet to respond. Thailand-based rights group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), which claims junta security forces have arrested 14,032 people between the start of the coup and June 7 this year – 10,976 of whom it says remain in detention – issued a statement Monday calling on the U.N., ASEAN, and the rest of the international community to intervene in the cases. The junta’s Foreign Affairs Ministry recently responded to the statements by the U.N. and Western governments, accusing their authors of “condoning acts of terrorism.” Waging ‘psychological warfare’ Kyaw Htwe, a member of the NLD’s Central Executive Committee, echoed concerns that the junta is using the sentences as a warning to its opponents in an interview with RFA on Tuesday. But he said proceeding with the executions could ultimately harm the regime itself. “I think the junta is using the [threat of the] death penalty of the four men, including Ko Jimmy and Ko Phyo Zeyar Thaw, to wage psychological warfare against the armed resistance and the people,” he said. “They are testing the limits. They have crossed the line and made an irrational decision, which required presidential orders and involved several steps of appeal. If they stupidly implement this decision, they will face a strong response from the domestic and international communities.” Kyaw Htwe said the junta’s administrative, legislative and judicial decisions are all “illegal,” because it is an illegitimate government that seized power through force. However, he didn’t provide clarification on how the NLD intends to respond to the death sentences. NUG Human Rights Minister Aung Myo Min said the junta lacks the judicial authority to issue execution orders, which require an in-depth and transparent process to avoid wrongful convictions. “We cannot trust the junta’s tribunal, courts, and sentencing. They are murdering innocent civilians and view all democracy activists as the enemy,” he said. “[Proceeding with execution] is the wrong decision, both in terms of human rights and rule of law.” High-stakes bluff A Yangon-based attorney, who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity, said he believes the execution orders are a bluff by the military regime as part of a bid to extract some sort of concession from the international community. “After reviewing all factors, I conclude that it is very unlikely they will carry out the execution order,” he said, adding that it is likely the junta wants to use the cases “as a bargaining chip for political reasons.” “Given the fact that the world is protesting these orders, and that the decisions are in violation of international and domestic laws, they will face severe consequences if they proceed.” However, political analyst Than Soe Naing told RFA that the junta, which the AAPP says has killed more than 1,900 civilians since the coup, has demonstrated over the past 16 months that it has little regard for the sanctity of human life. “They might reconsider if the international community appeals to them courteously,” he said. “Otherwise, I think they would actually hang Ko Jimmy and Phyo Zeyar Thaw, as they are little more than a group of thugs.” In its latest annual report covering the judicial use of the death penalty for the period January to December 2021, London-based rights group Amnesty International found that dozens of people were “arbitrarily sentenced to death” by Myanmar’s military tribunals, “several without the defendants being present, in what was widely perceived as a way to target political opponents and protestors.” The group said that prior to February 2021, Myanmar’s known death sentences were sporadically imposed for murder and usually commuted through mass pardons. However, the yearly average for the years 2017-2020 had remained lower than 10. The last execution in Myanmar — that of student leader Salai Tin Maung...
- [Cambodia and China deny that Beijing is building secret facility at Ream Naval Base](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodia-and-china-deny-that-beijing-is-building-secret-facility-at-ream-naval-base/): China is not secretly building a military facility for its exclusive use inside a naval base Cambodia, a government spokesman said, dismissing a new report that detailed how both countries have been concealing a project that first gained U.S. attention in 2019. The Washington Post reported on Monday that China is building a new facility­–its second overseas military installation after a base in Djibouti–on the northern part of Ream Naval Base on the Gulf of Thailand, where Cambodia will host a groundbreaking ceremony on Thursday. The newspaper quoted a Chinese official in Beijing as saying that “a portion of the base” will be used by “the Chinese military.” The official denied it was for “exclusive” military use, telling the Post that scientists would also use the facility. Cambodian government spokesperson Phay Siphan echoed the Beijing official’s denial that it would be for exclusive Chinese military use. “There is no agreement or law saying that the construction is reserved for Chinese benefit exclusively,” he told RFA’s Khmer Service. He said the base remains open for visits from other countries, including the United States, but the Post report said Cambodian and Chinese authorities have worked hard to hide the Chinese presence in Ream, keeping the Chinese areas off limits to third-country visitors and altering their dress to avoid scrutiny. Ream base became the center of controversy in July 2019 after The Wall Street Journal cited U.S. and allied officials as confirming a secret deal to allow the Chinese to use part of the base for 30 years—with automatic renewals every 10 years after that—and to post military personnel, store weapons and berth warships. The reported deal, which would provide China with its first naval staging facility in Southeast Asia and allow it to significantly expand patrols on the South China Sea, was vehemently denied by Hun Sen, who said permitting foreign use of a military base in the country would “be in full contradiction to Cambodia’s constitution.” Last year, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman voiced concern about the Chinese military presence at Ream Naval Base during a visit to the country, citing Cambodia’s razing of two U.S.-constructed buildings on the base in 2020. After meeting with Prime Minister Hun Sen, she arranged for the U.S. Embassy to send its defense attaché for regular visits. Ten days later, the attaché arrived at the base, but he cut the tour short when he was not allowed full access, including to the sites of the two buildings. The U.S. had offered to renovate one of them, and the choice to destroy it suggested that Cambodia had accepted Chinese assistance to develop the base, a Pentagon report released last year said. A Cambodian official told RFA at that time that Cambodia never agreed to give the attaché a full tour, and that the U.S. had committed a breach of trust for asking more than what was agreed upon. Exiled political analyst Kim Sok told RFA that Cambodia and China are hiding the truth with their denials. “If any suspicions about the Chinese naval base are not resolved, Cambodia could face serious consequences—not only a diplomatic crisis in the form of pressure from the U.S.—but also it will lead to a security crisis. This will affect regional issues if there is no solution,” Kim Sok said. The base will bring more Chinese into Cambodia for purposes other than tourism or business, Cambodian-American rights activist and legal expert Theary Seng told RFA. “The Cambodian political situation is fragile, especially in terms of building good communication with the free world, because the ruling party dissolved its competitors to bolster the dictatorial regime. This has enabled China to [pounce on] the opportunity to increase its influence [in the region],” she said. Australia-based political scientist Carl Thayer said the semantics don’t change the situation. “Ream Naval Base is a Cambodian base on its own territory. Are they allocating a section that China can use? And if so, can Cambodians gain access to it without seeking prior permission?” he asked. “So Hun Sen says it&#8217;s not a base, it is a facility, and it&#8217;s still a base. Or [as] Shakespeare [said], ‘A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,’” added Thayer, an emeritus professor at the University of New South Wales in Australia. “A Chinese navy base in Cambodia, if it&#8217;s called a facility, it&#8217;s still a Chinese navy base,” he said. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Refugees in Myanmar’s Chin state excluded from ASEAN humanitarian assistance plan](https://ij-reportika.com/refugees-in-myanmars-chin-state-excluded-from-asean-humanitarian-assistance-plan/): Nearly 100,000 internally displaced ethnic Chins in western Myanmar have called for help from civil society groups to avoid allowing the military junta to control distribution of humanitarian aid from Southeast Asian countries, saying their strife-torn region is not receiving assistance. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) — a regional grouping that aims to promote economic and security cooperation among its 10 member states, including Myanmar — announced on Sunday that it would work with the military regime to distribute humanitarian aid to Myanmar. The number of internally displaced people (IDPs) in Myanmar topped 1 million as of May 30 amid fighting and armed clashes across the country since the February 2021 military coup overthrew the democratically elected government, triggering civilian displacement and a humanitarian crisis, according to the U.N.’s refugee agency (UNHCR). Residents of Chin state have been strong opponents of the military since the takeover, turning the 36,000-square-kilometer (13,900-square-mile) territory into a battlefield. Nearly 90,000 local residents have been forced by the fighting to flee the area. In Chin state and Magway and Sagaing regions in Myanmar’s northwest, indiscriminate attacks by junta forces against civilians have resulted in numerous deaths and casualties, the torching of homes and villages, house searches, arbitrary arrests and detentions, UNHCR said. Restrictions on movement and transportation has led to shortages of food and goods in among IDPs and host communities in the region, the U.N. agency said. ASEAN’s promised aid will bypass ethnic Chin IDPs, according to the interim Chin National Consultative Council, Chin state’s leading political group, and the national Unity Government (NUG), the government in exile formed elected lawmakers and members of parliament ousted in the coup. ASEAN will provide assistance to Kayah and Kayin states, as well as to Magway, Sagaing and Bago regions, allowing a military junta-led task force to make decisions on how aid is delivered through the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management, said Salai Isaac Khin, chairman of the Interim Chin National Consultative Council (ICNCC). “We wonder if they had ignored us because they didn’t know the ground conditions,” he told RFA. “What’s the meaning of this? This is questionable. It’s like the people of Chin state, the most vulnerable people, have had their rights ignored.” ‘We’re so disappointed’ The states and regions that will receive the humanitarian aid have 50,000 IDPs due to post-coup fighting and violence, about 45% of the number of displaced people in Chin state, said the ICNCC and the NUG in a statement issued Sunday. Furthermore, over 30,000 IDPs from Chin state have fled over the border into India. RFA called ASEAN’s office in Yangon to ask why Chin IDPs were not included in the aid program, but no one responded. A spokesman for the Chin State Joint Defense Committee (CJDC) said it was disappointing that the state is being excluded from receiving ASEAN humanitarian assistance. “Almost the entire town of Thantlang in Chin state was burned down during the fighting,” he said. “In Falam, about 93 houses were turned into ashes. Thirty percent of the Chin people are war refugees. We’re so disappointed that our people have been left out of the ASEAN Humanitarian Assistance Program. It isn’t fair. We strongly oppose that this entire aid program is coming through the junta.” An aid worker assisting the Chin IDPs, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said ongoing fighting has made it difficult to travel between Thantlang and Hakha, and food and medical aid are badly needed. “Chin state is a mountainous region, and it’s very difficult to bring rice from the mainland,” he said. “We want to ask ASEAN whether it has ignored us because it doesn’t think that Chin state is involved in Myanmar politics,” the aid worker added. “Another thing is that ASEAN should meet and work with NGOs and international NGOs instead of with the junta.” Salai Charlie, who helps Chin refugees in Mizoram, India, told RFA that Christian groups and NGOs in India provided initial assistance to those fleeing the fighting but now have stopped. “Currently we are not receiving foreign aid,” he told RFA. “The Mizoram government is not helping us. The church in Mizoram, the NGOs and the wealthy in Mizoram have donated everything they could to help us. No one is helping us anymore. The rains have come, and we cannot work.” RFA could not reach junta spokesman, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, for comment. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane for RFA Burmese. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Jailed Tibetan monk not allowed to meet with family](https://ij-reportika.com/jailed-tibetan-monk-not-allowed-to-meet-with-family/): A Tibetan monk serving a four-and-a-half year prison term in China for working to “split the country” has been refused permission to meet with his family, with contact restricted to brief phone calls once a month, RFA has learned. Rinchen Tsultrim, 29 at the time of his arrest, was taken into custody on July 27, 2019, in Sichuan’s Ngaba (in Chinese, Aba) county for expressing his thoughts on Tibetan political and social issues on social media. Now after serving more than a year of his sentence, Tsultrim is still being blocked from meeting in person with family members, who are not being told about his condition of health following his conviction in a closed trial, a Tibetan living in exile told RFA this week. “Despite many requests for a meeting with Rinchen Tsultrim, his family has not been allowed to meet with him even once,” RFA’s source said, citing contacts in the region and speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “But we have learned from an inmate who was released from the prison that Tsultrim now hopes to get a picture of his family, and he may be able in coming days to speak with them on the phone in a 10-minute call allowed to inmates every month,” he said. Separatism, or “working to split the country,” is an accusation often leveled by Chinese authorities against Tibetans opposing the assimilation of Tibet’s distinctive national and cultural identity into China’s dominant Han culture, and China continues to clamp down on information flows in the region. Scores of monks, writers, educators and musical performers have been arrested in recent years for sharing news and opinions on social media and for contacting relatives living in exile, sometimes with news of anti-China protests, according to rights groups and other experts. Particular targets of censors and police are images of exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama shared on mobile phones and calls for the preservation of the Tibetan language, now under threat from government orders to establish Chinese as the main language of instruction in Tibetan schools. A formerly independent nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force more than 70 years ago. Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on the Himalayan region, restricting Tibetans’ political activities and peaceful expression of ethnic and religious identity, and subjecting Tibetans to persecution, torture, imprisonment and extrajudicial killings, say Tibetan activists and human rights groups. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [Turning to folk remedies](https://ij-reportika.com/turning-to-folk-remedies/): North Korea has declared a &#8220;maximum emergency&#8221; after acknowledging that COVID-19 is spreading among its population. With the capital Pyongyang monopolizing the country&#8217;s limited medical supplies, rural citizens are turning to alternatives, including unproven traditional remedies such as dried deer blood, to cope with the pandemic.
- [Cantopop singer Tommy Yuen in court accused of 'incitement' under security law](https://ij-reportika.com/cantopop-singer-tommy-yuen-in-court-accused-of-incitement-under-security-law/): Hong Kong police on Tuesday charged Cantopop singer and activist Tommy Yuen with &#8220;inciting hatred against the government&#8221; and &#8220;fraud&#8221; after he spoke out on social media against COVID-19 restrictions, and tried to raise money to assist a 19-year-old woman accused of &#8220;rioting.&#8221; Yuen, 41, appeared in court on Tuesday after police froze some H.K.$140,000 of his assets, charged with one count of &#8220;one or more acts of incitement&#8221; and one count of &#8220;fraud.&#8221; He had no defense lawyer present, and confirmed that he had withdrawn his application for legal aid, and would hire a private attorney instead. Yuen appeared in court with hair grown out to shoulder length, wearing a blue denim jacket, in apparently good spirits, waving to onlookers at the end of the hearing. He made no bail application, and will be remanded in custody until July 26. The charges against Yuen are based on posts he made to Facebook and Instagram between Sept. 26, 2021 and Jan. 21, 2022, which the prosecution alleged were &#8220;intended to provoke hatred or contempt for the government &#8230; or cause resentment or rebellion among Hong Kong residents.&#8221; He is also accused of using fraudulent means to raise funds for a 19-year-old defendant charged with &#8220;rioting,&#8221; a charge often used to target those present during the 2019 protest movement, or even its absent supporters. Meanwhile, secondary schools in Hong Kong are removing books deemed in breach of the national security law, the city&#8217;s Ming Pao newspaper reported. A list of books removed from the shelves of three school libraries obtained by the paper showed that more than 200 titles have disappeared from libraries because of fears they could breach the law. Targeting books Education bureau director Kevin Yeung said schools are responsible for ensuring that they don&#8217;t break the law. &#8220;Books are as important as textbooks and can influence the minds of young students,&#8221; Yeung told reporters. &#8220;The choice of books isn&#8217;t the sole responsibility of librarians; subject director, and even principals &#8212; the whole school &#8212; needs to get involved in this work,&#8221; he said. Bao Pu, publisher of the memoirs of late ousted premier Zhao Ziyang, one of the books on the list, said the book has little to do with national security. &#8220;When this book was published, I didn&#8217;t think it violated the laws of Hong Kong, nor did I think this book had anything to do with China&#8217;s national security,&#8221; Bao told RFA. &#8220;I believe that the books I published were all beneficial to readers and to China,&#8221; he said. But he added: &#8220;How they choose to self-censor is not my business and has nothing to do with me.&#8221; Bookburning Sociologist Chung Kim-wah described the removal of books as the modern version of book-burning. &#8220;The government doesn&#8217;t dare to actually draw up a list of banned books, so they are leaving the schools, teachers and library staff to try to guess what their superiors would think about them,&#8221; Chung told RFA. &#8220;This means that any works that might be regarded as objectionable or unfriendly by the government will be removed from the shelves,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s the safest way of controlling them, through intimidation,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s no different from burning books &#8230; it&#8217;s basically about control over the freedom of speech and expression.&#8221; Under guidelines published by the Education Bureau in February, schools are required to &#8220;establish/ strengthen the monitoring mechanism for regular review of learning and teaching resources (including their content and quality).&#8221; &#8220;Schools should ensure that the display of words or objects within the campus (including school buildings, classrooms and bulletin boards, etc.), such as books (including library collections), publications and leaflets does not involve contents that endanger national security,&#8221; the guidelines state. &#8220;Schools should also prohibit anyone from bringing objects to schools in contravention of the rules.&#8221; The national security law criminalizes speech and actions deemed to amount to secession, subversion, terrorism, or collusion with foreign powers, and enabled the setting up of a national security office under the direct control of Beijing to oversee the implementation of the law, as well as a Hong Kong headquarters for China&#8217;s feared state security police, to handle &#8220;special cases&#8221; deemed important by Beijing. It also bans speech or actions anywhere in the world deemed to incite hatred or dissatisfaction with the CCP or the Hong Kong government. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Tank cake influencer Austin Li 'set up' by his enemies: business associate](https://ij-reportika.com/tank-cake-influencer-austin-li-set-up-by-his-enemies-business-associate/): Beauty influencer Austin Li, part of a generation of younger Chinese people who know little of the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen massacre, may have been set up by a rival when he displayed a tank-shaped ice-cream dessert on his livestream, prompting censors to pull the plug immediately, RFA has learned. Li&#8217;s livestream was taken off air on Jun. 3 shortly after he showed an ice-cream dessert in the shape of a tank, one day ahead of the 33rd anniversary of the crackdown. Public commemorations of the massacre are banned in China. But a close business associate of Li&#8217;s, Sun Mei, said the young man was raised in an era where nobody mentioned the massacre. The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) says the mass protests of 1989 were a &#8220;counterrevolutionary rebellion&#8221; and that then supreme leader Deng Xiaoping was justified in sending in the People&#8217;s Liberation Army (PLA) to mow down unarmed civilians with guns and tanks. Online references to the events of June 4, 1989, including images of tanks, are swiftly deleted by government censors. &#8220;He&#8217;s not doing too well right now,&#8221; Sun told RFA. &#8220;He has offended a lot of people, some of whom were looking to mess with him. He was set up.&#8221; Sun dismissed online rumors that Li is being held by the authorities for tax evasion. &#8220;Li Jiaqi paid off his taxes; he paid out a lot of money &#8212; far too much, but he wanted to buy peace, and the tax evasion incident is over,&#8221; he said. Unaware of history Sun described Li as a loyal patriot who &#8220;usually responds to directions from the CCP very well,&#8221; expecting to be protected in return. &#8220;His office resembles a party-building operation, and he has had a lot of interaction with the district and municipal party committees,&#8221; he said. So, how did a loyal party follower come to display the controversial tank dessert on his live show? Sun said Li&#8217;s generation lacks exposure to his country&#8217;s own recent history. &#8220;He is a victim of the information blackout [around that topic] because &#8230; he is very young,&#8221; he said. &#8220;He has a lot of fans &#8230; now everyone is talking about what happened on June 4, 1989, and more and more people are coming to know about it.&#8221; Sun said some 100 million fans may already have heard of the Tiananmen massacre, but plenty more were now likely planning to find out about it as a direct result of Li&#8217;s tank dessert debacle. Settling &#8216;old and new scores&#8217; Meanwhile, authorities in the eastern province of Zhejiang have detained a former leader of the 1989 protest movement at Hangzhou University on suspicion of &#8220;picking quarrels and stirring up trouble,&#8221; after he protested the confiscation of his mobile phone by police. Xu Guang was detained on suspicion of the charge, which is frequently used to target peaceful critics of the CCP, by the Xihu branch of the Hangzhou police department last week, fellow dissident Zou Wei told RFA. &#8220;The Xihu district state security police and officers from Yuquan police station came to his door and told him not to go out or make comments online around June 4,&#8221; Zou said. &#8220;Then they took Xu Guang&#8217;s two mobile phones away. The next day, Xu Guang went to Yuquan police station to get his phone back, but the police refused to give it back,&#8221; he said. Xu, 54, went to complain in person but was detained when he showed up at the police station. &#8220;The state security police told Xu Guang that &#8230; this time he would get a heavy sentence, because old and new scores were being settled all at once,&#8221; Zou said. &#8220;All we know is that Xu has been on hunger strike since his arrest, but we don&#8217;t know the specific details.&#8221; Xu has previously served a five-year jail term after trying to formally register the China Democracy Party (CDP) as a political party in 1998, and has repeatedly called on the CCP to overturn the official verdict on the 1989 protests. He is currently being held in the Xihu Detention Center. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [COVID test scandal topples two Vietnam Communist Party high officials](https://ij-reportika.com/covid-test-scandal-topples-two-vietnam-communist-party-high-officials/): It’s always a sign when the Vietnam Communist Party (VCP) calls for an emergency session of its Central Committee. Following a late May report by the Central Inspection Discipline Commission that detailed the wrong doing and bribe taking by the country’s Minister of Health and the Chairman of the Hanoi Party Committee, the Central Committee voted to expel the two men from the communist party. A third individual, the Deputy Minister of Science and Technology, but not a member of the Central Committee, was also expelled from the party. Expulsion from the party is in itself a major deal. Party investigators have four levels of discipline: reprimand, warning, demotion and expulsion. No longer protected by their elite party status, their legal jeopardy just went up a few notches. Now that the party’s inspection has concluded, they will now be passed on the prosecutors for trial and an almost certain conviction. While the investigation of Central Committee members is not unheard of (indeed two members of the 12th Politburo were expelled), this is an incredibly elite body of 180 members and 20 alternate members in a country of 100 million people. So what was the scandal about? This was no run of the mill corruption scandal involving payments to regulators or misuse of public funds. This was a through, year-long  investigation, a sign of how importantly the VCP is taking the scandal. One has to recall that in the first year of the pandemic, Vietnam was the international gold standard or response. They sealed their borders, imposed quarantines, waged a public health campaign, and rallied the population. But Vietnam soon faltered. The Delta and Omicron variants hit the country hard. Vietnam had been so successful in containing the virus that they failed to secure vaccines. Vietnam tried to develop four separate vaccines rather than concentrating its efforts on one or partnering with foreign firms. And following the 13th Party Congress in January 2021, a new leadership team was slow to find its footing. By May 2021, Ho Chi Minh City, the country’s economic engine was in lockdown. In February 2020, the elite Military Academy of Medicine and Viet-A received an $830,000 grant for a pilot project to produce. In a significant breakthrough, they developed an effective, accurate, and cost-effective test within a month and then quickly moved into commercial production. The Ministry of Health authorized the purchase of the kits at $21 apiece. But then the dodginess began. In April 2020, the Ministry of Science and Technology announced that the World Health Organizations had authorized the Viet-A test kit, with the expectation of massive sales overseas. Communist Party Chief Nguyen Phu Trong publicly awarded the company with a medal for its achievements in March 2021. Not only did the WHO not recognize the Viet-A test, they rejected it. That should have set off some alarm bells, but Viet-A made up for the loss of overseas sales by inflating the price at home. A 45 percent markup netted the firm some $175 million. Calls for investigations mounted in the latter half of 2021. And perhaps with the walls closing in, the company’s Chairman, Phan Quoc Viet, increased the bribes and kickbacks. By the time of his arrest in December 2021, he acknowledged paying bribes of over VND500 billion, roughly $22 million. His arrest was just the beginning: 21 people have been investigated and VND1.6 trillion in assets were seized. In March 2022, two senior colonels from the Military Medical Academy were arrested. The director of the Military Medical research Institute was arrested for embezzlement and abuse of power, while the head of the Equipment and Supplies Department was investigated for &#8220;violating regulations on bidding, causing serious consequences.” Both were expelled from the party.   In April, Lieutenant-General Do Quyet, director of Vietnam Military Medical University and his deputy, Major General Hoang Van Luong, were investigated for their institution’s role in the scandal. In May, authorities arrested the deputy head of the price management division of the Drug Administration of Vietnam. That month, the Central Committee’s Central Inspection Committee released their report that culminated with a recommendation for disciplinary actions against the Hanoi party chief Chu Ngoc Anh, who had previously been the Minister of Science and Technology, and current Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long for their lax oversight and corruption within their ministries. A health worker waits amidst empty stools at a Covid-19 coronavirus vaccination centre for youths between the age of 12 to 17 in Hanoi, Nov. 23, 2021. Credit: AFP Does it Matter? Vietnam is a $271 billion economy, and growing quickly. Even by Vietnamese corruption scandals, the Viet-A scandal wasn’t that large. Yes, bribes were paid, but bribes are paid every day in Vietnam. But this scandal seems to have stung the leadership a little bit more. In part there was the direct link between the firm and the senior leadership. General Secretary Nguyen Pho Trong had egg on his face. But more importantly, Vietnam’s response to the pandemic was really quite exemplary. Even after the omicron wave rocked the country in mid-2021, they handled it well, and more importantly, had an extremely effective vaccine rollout. Vietnam’s handling of the pandemic was critical in keeping the economy humming. In 2020 as every other economy in Southeast Asia contracted, Vietnam,’s economy grew, though at a modest 2.9 percent. Growth slowed to 2.58 percent in 2021, but is set to grow rapidly in 2022. Public health is seen as essential to economic growth, especially as Vietnam seeks to benefit from decoupling from China and supply chain diversification. The scandal has also hit the vaunted Vietnam People’s Army, an institution that enjoys the highest levels of trust in the country. Vietnam has largely avoided the major kickback procurement scandals in their military modernization program that plagues many other countries. But it is far from immune to corruption. And one only has to look to Russia to see how pervasive corruption can hollow out a fighting force even after two decades of concerted...
- [Yangon blasts injure three people, including a child](https://ij-reportika.com/yangon-blasts-injure-three-people-including-a-child/): Two suspected bombings in Hlaing Tharyar Township’s No. 5 Ward this morning injured three people, including a child. The first blast, at around 6 a.m. in a garbage dump on Narawat Road, injured a 30-year-old man walking along the road. Hlaing Tharyar resident Ko Lwin Oo told RFA a second explosion took place while police and soldiers were investigating the first. It injured a middle-aged woman and a young child. “The first bomb blast hit the man who was walking at 6 a.m. in the morning. The second bomb exploded when the troops arrived at 7 a.m.,” he said. “A woman and a child in a house close to the blast were hit and the woman has been critically injured, wounding her left arm.” The local said the three injured were picked up immediately by an ambulance but it was still not known which hospital they were taken to. Ko Lwin Oo said he believed the child to be over 5-years-old. He said he could not tell whether the child was a boy or girl because he only saw the head and the child’s red shirt during the immediate evacuation of the injured. It is also unclear if the woman was the child’s mother or a relative. No group has so far claimed responsibility for the blasts. Calls to a military council spokesman by RFA throughout the day went unanswered. Residents of Hlaing Tharyar Township staging street protests in March. CREDIT: RFA The suspected bombings are the second in a week. On May 31, a bomb blast near the Bar Street bus stop on Anawrahtar Road in Kyauktada Township killed a man and injured nine others. A military spokesman said the dead man was secretly carrying the bomb and was a member of a local People’s Defense Force (PDF). The shadow National Unity Government (NUG) and members of PDFs in Yangon denied carrying out last week’s bombing. They accused the military junta and military-affiliated groups of manipulating the incident to mislead the public.
- [Taiwanese air force jet makes ‘hard landing’ in Hawaii](https://ij-reportika.com/taiwanese-air-force-jet-makes-hard-landing-in-hawaii/): In the second incident in a week, a Taiwanese air force F-16 fighter jet had to make an emergency landing in Hawaii on Monday due to landing gear problems, media reports said. Hawaii News Now said the fighter made a “hard landing” at Honolulu airport, coming to rest on its nose because “the landing gear on the aircraft didn’t deploy.” No one was injured in the incident, which happened on Monday afternoon, the news portal said. A runway was closed for hours while crews worked to move the aircraft.  Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense has yet to provide any comment on the incident, the second related to U.S.-made F-16 aircraft this year. In mid-January an F-16V, one of the most advanced fighters in Taiwan’s possession, crashed in the sea off the west coast of the island, killing its sole pilot. The Taiwanese air force suspended F-16 combat training for over a week but resumed in late January. On May 31, an air force pilot died when his AT-3 Tzu Chung jet trainer crashed in southern Taiwan. Taiwan Air Force’s refitted F-16V jets taking off. CREDIT: CNA Upgrading the fleet The aircraft at Honolulu airport, believed to be a F-16A/B version, was en route from Luke Air Force Base in Arizona to Taiwan, the national Central News Agency (CNA) reported. Currently 10 F-16 fighters are stationed at the Arizona base for training. They are part of Taiwan’s program to upgrade 140 F-16A/B aircraft to F-16V status at a total cost of NT$110 billion or U.S. $3.72 billion. Taiwan has ordered 66 new F-16V fighter jets from the U.S. defense giant Lockheed Martin for an undisclosed amount. The jets are expected to be delivered by late 2026 and will be stationed at Zhihang Air Force Base in Taitung County. In 2019, the U.S. approved the sale of U.S. $8 billion in arms to Taiwan, including the F-16Vs.
- [Vietnam's religious groups face state persecution, church leaders say](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnams-religious-groups-face-state-persecution-church-leaders-say/): Church leaders in Vietnam say freedom to practice their religion, enshrined in the Constitution, is being undermined by the 2016 Law on Belief-Religion. Their comments support U.S. claims that the law allows the government to tighten control over religious activities. The U.S. State Department’s annual report on International Religious Freedom 2021, released last week, included Vietnam on a list of countries where religious practices are being curtailed by the state. The report, by the State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom, found that:  “Some religious leaders, particularly those representing groups that either did not request or receive official recognition or certificates of registration, reported various forms of government harassment, including physical assaults, detentions, prosecutions, monitoring, and denials of, or no response to, requests for registration and other permissions.” RFA interviewed several religious dignitaries, who agreed with the State Department’s findings. ‘“The current Law on Belief-Religion 2016 significantly controls religion,” said Catholic priest Dinh Huu Thoai of the Redemptorist Church, which has been operating in Vietnam since 1925.  “Specifically, when registering or changing the place of religious activities we have trouble with the concept of &#8216;religious organization.&#8217; In the regulations it requires &#8216;written approval of the religious organization,&#8217; which is required by law. The definition of religious organization varies from place to place.” There are almost 7 million Catholics in Vietnam, according to Union of Catholic Asia News, making up 6.6 percent of the population. Even so, Father Dinh said the Catholic Church of Vietnam is still not considered a religious group in some parts of the country.  “Some places consider parishes to be religious organizations or at least &#8216;affiliated religious organizations.&#8217; They consider the registration or change of places of concentrated religious activities under the jurisdiction of the parish priest. And, if they are rigid considering only the diocese as a religious organization, they ask for the bishop&#8217;s text even if he is at the bishop&#8217;s house, not in the locality.” Unregistered religious groups &#8216;persecuted&#8217; Unregistered religious groups find it even harder to navigate the religious law, Father Dinh said. “For example, the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, Pure Hoa Hao Buddhism, Cao Dai Chan Truyen or Protestant groups that do not accept government intervention, are persecuted in all their religious activities.” The U.S. State Department report also mentioned the Vietnamese government&#8217;s refusal to return hospitals, clinics and schools that local authorities took from the Catholic Church many years ago. When asked about this, Father Dinh said:  “Properties of the Catholic Church and [other] religious orders in Vietnam have been confiscated, appropriated, borrowed by the Vietnamese communist government; borrowed but not returned. Hundreds of facilities including monasteries, schools, hospitals, orphanages, etcetera from 1954 in the North and from 1975 in the South. The owners of these establishments repeatedly demand their return in accordance with fair and civilized law, but the number of establishments returned is very small.”  “There is a paradox going on today,” Father Dinh said. “The authorities give themselves the right to grant land to religious institutions, even though that land was bought by the religions themselves a long time ago, but they have to carry out procedures to return the right to use that land.” “Why doesn&#8217;t the state use its rights to give the requisitioned religious facilities back to the owner rather than letting this problem drag on without knowing when it will be settled?&#8221; Banned from traveling or meeting overseas visitors The Redemptorist priest said the U.S. State Department report is lacking in that it omits to mention the issue of freedom of movement for many religious leaders. “Some religious dignitaries, including myself, are arbitrarily banned from leaving the country. These dignitaries are not protected by the law but are arbitrarily banned by the police from leaving for an indefinite period.”  “I myself have been banned from leaving the country since 2010 until now, which is almost 12 years, without any sign of them returning my passport along with my freedom of movement,” Father Dinh said. Hua Phi, a high-ranking member of the independent religious group Cao Dai Chan Truyen, said his passport was confiscated in 2014 and is yet to be reissued, making it impossible for him to go abroad to attend a religious freedom conference in Southeast Asia. Hua said all independent religious groups are restricted by the Vietnamese government in terms of their right to practice religion freely, with the government requiring groups to register in order to do so. He said even though many groups have a long history the government still makes it difficult for them to practice their religion. Many religious organizations and followers are persecuted during religious holidays, according to Hua. He said local police keep a close eye on his movements during Cao Dai religious events, making him unable to travel to some parts of the country to practice his religion. Hua said many dignitaries of the Interfaith Council of Vietnam, himself included, have been prevented from contacting foreign diplomatic missions when they come to learn about religious freedom in the region. The U.S. State Department report states that representatives of the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi and the Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City regularly raise concerns about religious freedom in Vietnam with local government officials and the Communist Party of Vietnam. Father Dinh called on the international community and governments of ‘civilized countries’ to use economic leverage to put pressure on Hanoi to respect religious freedom. RFA emailed Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Vietnam Government Committee for Religious Affairs with a request for comment on the U.S. report but received no response.
- [Myanmar military forcibly recruits villagers into pro-junta militias](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-military-forcibly-recruits-villagers-into-pro-junta-militias/): Myanmar’s military is sending troops to villages in war-torn Sagaing region where the armed resistance is strong and forcibly recruiting residents into pro-junta militias, according to sources in the area. Residents of Sagaing told RFA’s Burmese Service on condition of anonymity that troops have offered them money to join and train with the pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militia and threatened to burn down their villages if they don’t comply. A source from Kyunhla township’s Magyi Inn village wrote in a letter to RFA that one military unit visited the area last week and demanded that 30 residents join the Pyu Saw Htee. Troops said that if the recruits didn’t show up for training within a few days, they would return and torch the entire tract. RFA attempted to confirm the incident with residents of the village by phone, but they refused to comment, citing fear of reprisal. A resident of Taze township told RFA that troops recently armed villagers in the area and paid them to recruit others in the fight against pro-democracy People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries. “Pyu Saw Htee groups have been set up in many villages of Kanbalu and Taze townships, as well as those in the Mu River valley,” he said. “In those villages, people joined them because they were paid and provided weapons. When they were sent elsewhere, they acted abusively because they had received armed training. In some places, they ended up extorting money from people and now are more like bandits.” RFA was unable to independently confirm the resident’s claim that villagers were being paid to join the Pyu Saw Htee. Residents of Taze told RFA that there are “about 400 Pyu Saw Htee fighters” based in the eastern part of their township and neighboring Kanbalu. Around 500 homes in Taze’s Ywah Shay village were set on fire by a joint force of military troops and Pyu Saw Htee militiamen on June 1, they said, although it was not immediately clear whether the arson was connected to a recruitment campaign. An aerial view of Chaung Oo village, in Sagaing region&#8217;s Pale township, where junta troops and Pyu Saw Htee fighters burned more than 300 homes, Dec. 18, 2021. Credit: RFA Targeting two regions Data for Myanmar, a research group that studies the impact of conflict on communities, also said the burning of villages in Sagaing and neighboring Magway region are the work of the military and Pyu Saw Htee. More than 11,400 homes have been destroyed in the regions since the military’s Feb. 1, 2021 coup, the group said. Residents in Sagaing and Magway regions claim that the military pays Pyu Saw Htee members 7,000 kyats (U.S. $4) a day. A spokesman for the PDF in Magway’s Yezagyo township told RFA that the military is using Pyu Saw Htee units “to oppress the people.” “To say it bluntly, Pyu Saw Htees are asked to do the dirty work because the military doesn’t want their name tarnished,” he said. “These Pyu Saw Htees are mostly supporters of the military. They are given training and armed and are sent to the head of troop columns. It’s dangerous. In other words, they are being used as human shields.” A resident of Sagaing, who also declined to be named, told RFA that he had seen Pyu Saw Htees carrying military-grade weaponry, including automatic rifles and carbines and even grenade launchers. Asked about the reports, junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, told RFA last week that there “are no such thing” as Pyu Saw Htees and claimed the military is forming militia groups so that residents can protect their own villages from the PDF, which the military has labeled a terrorist group. “If there is a real need, we will provide training first. During the training, they learned how to shoot,” he said. “But it is not just a matter of armed training. There are duties and responsibilities to be assumed. There are rules to be followed, just like a soldier does. We are working for peace in the community in a systematic way.” He did not comment on allegations that members of the Pyu Saw Htee are paid by the military. Forming a proxy force After the military coup, Pyu Saw Htee militias were formed in villages which formerly supported the military and the military proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP). Observers say the Pyu Saw Htee act as a proxy force for the military and are responsible for some of the junta’s worst abuses against civilians, including looting and arson, arbitrary arrests, torture, and execution. RFA documented at least 74 civilian deaths linked to pro-military groups such as the Pyu Saw Htee in Myanmar in May alone. USDP spokesman Nanda Hla Myint has told RFA that although party members had not been instructed to take up arms against the opposition, the party leadership will not stop them from doing so. Zaw Zaw, a resident of Sagaing’s Pale township said that although not every USDP member is Pyu Saw Htee, Pyu Saw Htee units are mainly comprised of USDP members. “Some of them, mostly hardliners, go to Pyu Saw Htee training. In some villages, people who were accused as ‘Dalans’ (military informers) flee and join them,” he said. “These kinds of people have been involved in election campaigns for years. They are not actually USDP members but most of them are very supportive of the USDP.” Min Zaw Oo, executive director of the Myanmar Institute for Peace and Security (MIPS), said the formation of proxy armed groups like the Pyu Saw Htee is a military strategy with a long history in the country. “It seems junta leaders were hesitant in the beginning, as they weren’t sure whether they could trust the villagers not to turn against them when they were given weapons,” he said. “In the beginning, there were no guns, but later – especially in 2022 – more groups were armed.” According to a recent report by the Institute for Strategic...
- [North Korea imposed 'loyalty funds' on trade officials in China amid missile tests](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-imposed-loyalty-funds-on-trade-officials-in-china-amid-missile-tests/): North Korea ordered trade officials stationed in China to pay U.S. $3,000 in so-called “loyalty funds” by the end of July, which some sources in China said was likely an effort to offset at least part of cost for ballistic missile tests over the weekend. The China-based trade officials are tasked with doing business with Chinese partners to earn foreign cash for their government, in some cases for leader Kim Jong Un’s personal slush fund. Occasionally the government will demand that they pay funds in addition to what their businesses earn for the government, effectively cutting into their own earnings. The call for loyalty funds usually coincides with important events, a North Korean trade official in the Chinese city of Dalian, in the northeastern province of Liaoning, told RFA’s Korean Service Monday on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “This is the third time the authorities have imposed a loyalty fund on us this year. The first and second time, though, trade had been partially open, so we could at least pay half of the fund,” the source said. “This time it is not easy because China is on complete lockdown due to the coronavirus,” said the source.” The North Korean economy is in shambles, partially because of the closure of the Sino-Korean border and the suspension of trade for essentially the first two years of the coronavirus pandemic. Earlier this year rail freight resumed, but it was quickly shut down due to new outbreaks of COVID-19 in China. With no trade, it is difficult for the officials sent overseas to pay their loyalty funds, and they have come to resent it, the official in Dalian said. “Trade officials are indignant that they keep imposing loyalty funds. We know through the internet that yesterday, once again, they tested ballistic missiles, this time eight from four locations,” said the source. “We are well aware that tens of millions of dollars are spent to launch a single missile. But how many ballistic missiles have been launched this year? I can’t quite understand the behavior of the authorities, who waste foreign currency on missile launches and forcibly impose loyalty funds on us.” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said that the eight missiles were fired from four locations, including the Sunan area of Pyongyang into the sea east of the Korean peninsula. RFA sources estimate that North Korea has sent around 1,000 trade officials to China, meaning that the loyalty funds imposed this time should bring in around $3 million, far less than the estimated cost of Sunday’s missile test. Another trade official in Donggang, a port located close to the North Korean-Chinese maritime border, told RFA that the last time the government imposed loyalty funds, it was for a military parade in Pyongyang. That event later forced the government to acknowledge the virus after fever cases began to erupt among parade participants after they returned to their homes. “Trade officials cannot disobey orders from Pyongyang, so some of us have had to borrow money from our Chinese counterparts to contribute last time,” the second source said. “Because of that parade they ended up blocking train and maritime trade again, leaving us in debt. The complaints are pouring in because they are asking us to pay loyalty funds again,” the second source said. “They are squeezing more money out of us and wasting it on missile launches.” Translated by Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Cambodia’s Candlelight Party says commune election marred by widespread fraud](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodias-candlelight-party-says-commune-election-marred-by-widespread-fraud/): Nationwide elections for local councils were marred by fraud and irregularities, Cambodia’s opposition Candlelight Party said Monday while ruling out a formal protest against what the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) claimed was a sweeping victory. Though official returns from Sunday’s polls are scheduled for release on June 26, a statement issued by the National Election Committee (NEC) on Monday said the CPP received 5.3 million popular votes to win 9,338 out of the 11,622 commune council seats that were contested. The Candlelight Party received 1.6 million votes, winning 2,180 seats, with other parties taking up the remainder of votes and seats. Candlelight Party candidates and election observers said they were the victims of harassment and intimidation before and during the voting, and that the NEC, a purportedly independent agency that supervises elections in Cambodia, failed to take action to stop it. Nearly all polling stations across the country were closed and locked after 3 p.m., and officials prevented observers from monitoring the counting of votes at polling stations, they said. In some cases, election officials did not allow the counting of ballots at polling stations after they closed, but instead gave local authorities and representatives from CPP observer organizations access to them, they said. The Candlelight Party said the abuses amounted to vote-rigging. The party does not believe the results reflect the will of the people, but will not protest the returns, said Son Chhay, Candlelight’s vice president. “We have no plans to demonstrate, but we want to make our concern or the concern of the electorate heard about the irregularities that affect their will, and we ask for improvement,” he said at a press conference. NEC spokesman Hang Puthea disputed the Candlelight Party’s contention, saying the election process went smoothly and the results can be trusted. “Acceptance or disapproval does not depend on the political language of any political party,” he said. “On the contrary, many parties and national and international observers have expressed their appreciation for the management of the election process.” But Hang Puthea added that the NEC would accept all recommendations that yield better elections in the future. RFA could not reach CPP spokesman Sok Eysan for comment on Monday. On Sunday night he had called the election the “best one” ever without elaborating. “Pattern of threats’ Several observers though had noted heavy-handed tactics by the ruling CPP in the run-up to Sunday’s vote. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed its concern over a pattern of intimidation and the arrest and imprisonment of some opposition party candidates. At least six Candlelight Party candidates and activists had been arrested and jailed before and during election campaigning. “We are disturbed by the pattern of threats, intimidation and obstruction targeting opposition candidates ahead of communal elections in Cambodia on 5 June,” office spokesperson Liz Throssell said in a statement Friday. The ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) also registered its concerns with the election campaign, especially the persecution of Candlelight Party candidates. APHR member Maria Chin Abdullah, a Malaysian lawmaker, said it was impossible to hold free and fair elections in an environment where opposition politicians are persecuted. Political commentator Meas Nee, who visited a number of polling stations, told RFA that while he didn’t see any violence at polling stations there were other signs of voter intimidation. “But village and commune chiefs were present at the polling stations and were there to record the names of people who came to vote,” he said. “This could be interpreted in a way that conveys if you don’t vote for me, you will have problems.” Voters, many of whom are struggling with inflation after two years of economic hardship as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, expressed disappointment with the results. “My vote is meaningful for my life, but I’m so frustrated because the result showed the opposite of my expectation,” Kim Channara, 49, who works at the Chea Sinath Garment Factory Worker in Phnom Penh, told RFA on Monday. Khuth Sokha, 42, president of the garment factory, said she was disappointed by the outcome and noted that just before the elections, CPP authorities distributed 20,000 riels (U.S. $5) and a krama, or scarf, to each citizen. “The government has in power for so long and has not made any substantial progress,” Khuth Sokha said. “Land disputes are widespread, so I want to see a change of new leaders who might make the situation better.” ‘Time to fulfill promises’ Kata On, spokesman for the government’s Human Rights Commission, said the election results must be respected. “The Cambodian People’s Party works for the interest of the people. We, the CPP, are of the people, by the people, and for the people.” For several voters, working for the people means controlling inflation in country. Chheang Sinath, a tourist tuk-tuk driver in Phnom Penh, told RFA that high gasoline and food prices in Cambodia have hurt his ability to earn a living and pay his bills. “We know that the result is that the Cambodian People’s Party won the commune elections, so please consider solving the high price of gasoline for us,” he said. “Nowadays, living is so difficult.” RFA could not reach Ministry of Commerce spokesmen Seang Thai and Long Kemvichet for comment. Vorn Pov, president of the Independent Association of Informal Economy, a union that represents tuk-tuk drivers and other service economy workers, said it members are becoming poorer amid the price increases. Once again, it’s the CPP’s responsibility to solve the problem, he said. “We see that the government, especially the ruling party, has won a landslide victory in thousands of communes, so it should be time to fulfill its promises made during the election campaign,” Vorn Pov said. Translated by Sum Sok Ry for RFA Khmer. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [New Australian PM pledges to help make Indonesia’s G20 presidency, summit successful](https://ij-reportika.com/new-australian-pm-pledges-to-help-make-indonesias-g20-presidency-summit-successful/): Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese pledged Monday to help host country Indonesia make this year’s G20 summit a success, including by attending the gathering, which controversially has both the Russian and Ukrainian presidents on the guest list. Australia’s new PM made the pledge during a news conference at the Presidential Palace in Bogor, after he and Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo held talks and rode around the palatial grounds on bamboo bicycles, in a nod to their humble origins. Albanese, who took office two weeks ago, was on his maiden visit as prime minister to the giant neighbor next-door. “[D]eepening engagement with Southeast Asia is a priority for my Government,” he stressed in a statement read out to reporters. “I will work closely with President Widodo to help deliver a successful summit,” Albanese said, adding that international cooperation was needed “to tackle the many challenges we face in navigating the post-COVID global economic recovery.” Indonesia holds the 2022 presidency of the grouping of the world’s top 20 economies. The United States has urged Indonesia not to invite member-state Russia to the G20 summit, scheduled for November in Bali, because of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.  Jakarta so far has refused to disinvite Russia from the summit but has invited Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, which is not a G20 member, as a guest. In March, U.S. President Joe Biden said Ukraine should be able to participate in the G20 summit, if the grouping did not expel Russia. Indonesian President Joko Widodo (left) and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese interact with journalists at the Presidential Palace in Bogor, Indonesia, June 6, 2022. Credit: Indonesian Presidential Palace ‘Mutually beneficial bilateral cooperation’ Albanese also pledged closer cooperation with Indonesia on trade, security and climate change. “Indonesia is on track to be one of the world’s five largest economies,” Albanese said. “Revitalizing our trade and investment relationship is a priority for my government,” he said. Albanese added that the two countries were working to realize the potential of the Indonesia Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, a free trade agreement which came into effect two years ago. Albanese came to Indonesia with a delegation that included chief executives of major Australian companies, as well as Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Trade Minister Don Farrel. Jokowi, for his part, said that the “strategic partnership agreement” and the free trade deal with Australia provided a strong foundation for bilateral relations. “These two foundations are very important for the two countries to continue to strengthen mutually beneficial bilateral cooperation,” Jokowi said. Jokowi stressed the importance of expanding access to exports for Indonesian products to Australia, including cars. “The first shipment of completely built-up cars made in Indonesia to Australia was made in February and I hope that export access like this will continue to expand,” he said. Jokowi said he told Albanese that good bilateral relations could contribute to regional peace and prosperity. “International principles and laws must be consistently obeyed, strategic competition in the region needs to be managed properly to avoid open conflict, a culture of peace and strategic trust needs to be strengthened,” he said. Albanese also promised increased cooperation in the fields of defense, as well as maritime security and safety, amid China’s growing assertiveness in the contested South China Sea. Indonesia has on several occasions expressed concerns about a new trilateral security pact between Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, known as AUKUS, which allows Australia to acquire nuclear-powered submarines. In their respective statements, however, the two leaders made no references to AUKUS. Albanese stressed that his government would work closely with Australian Super Funds, one of the country’s largest investors, to explore investment opportunities in Indonesia. Ninasapti Triaswati, an economist at the University of Indonesia, said the visit provided an opportunity for Indonesia to strike business deals with Australian companies. “But it requires technical readiness on the part of the Indonesian side to be able to make cooperation contracts that benefit the Indonesian people,” Ninasapti told BenarNews. Ninasapti said she believed the presence of Putin at the upcoming G20 summit would not affect economic ties with Australia. “If Putin comes, the Australian government may leave the room, but CEOs of Australian private companies will still be interested in investing in Indonesia,” he said. ‘Strengthen partnerships in the Pacific’ Albanese also said his government was committed to deepening economic ties with Southeast Asian countries. “And we will deliver a comprehensive ASEAN Economic Strategy to 2040, to map current and future export and investment opportunities across key ASEAN markets,” he said. Albanese said Australia would give A$470 million (U.S. $338.55 million) to Southeast Asia over four years under Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) programs, on top of A$200 million for its climate and infrastructure partnership with Indonesia. “We also agreed to strengthen partnerships in the Pacific, especially in the fields of climate, fisheries and agriculture,” he said. “True to my government’s ambitious climate targets, I want better access to affordable, reliable and secure clean energy right across our region, as we transition to a net zero world together.”
- [Vietnam Communist Party expels health minister and Hanoi mayor for COVID test scandal](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-communist-party-expels-health-minister-and-hanoi-mayor-for-covid-test-scandal/): The Vietnam Communist Party (VCP) on Monday expelled the country’s health minister and the mayor of the capital Hanoi for their roles in a U.S. $172 million scandal involving overpriced coronavirus test kits, the party said at an emergency meeting of its Central Committee. Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long and Mayor Chu Ngoc Anh are the latest casualties of the one-party state’s crackdown on corruption, which has seen several high-profile arrests of government and private sector officials over the past few months. Long and Anh could face criminal charges for their actions in connection to the Viet A Technologies Company scandal, during which officials were paid off so that hospitals would use overpriced COVID-19 test kits. “It’s always a sign when the Vietnam Communist Party calls for an emergency session of its Central Committee,” Southeast Asia analyst Zachary Abuza, a professor at the National War College in Washington, told RFA. “Expulsion from the party is in itself a major deal&#8230; No longer protected by their elite party status, their legal jeopardy just went up a few notches,” he said. “Now that the party’s inspection has concluded, they will now be passed on the prosecutors for trial and an almost certain conviction.” The company’s director-general, Phan Quoc Viet, faces charges of bribing health officials so that they would agree to overpay for the test kits to be distributed to hospitals and provincial Centers for Disease Control. Viet was able to make $172 million in profit and then re-channel $34 million into more bribes, AFP reported. The Viet-A scandal was uncovered at the end of last year as part of the Communist Party’s efforts since 2016 to get tough on corruption. The anti-corruption campaign, referred to as “furnace burning” by its architect, Secretary General Nguyen Phu Trong, has seen high-profile arrests of government officials over the past few months for their involvement in various scandals. For example, several Ministry of Health officials have been accused of accepting bribes for space on international rescue flights out of areas in the world heavily hit by COVID-19. Authorities have also discovered a number of training violations at the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences. The director of a military hospital was arrested for granting slots to unqualified applicants at the ASEAN Medical and Pharmaceutical College. Vietnam also recently arrested 19 people on charges of “violating regulations on asset management and use, causing losses and waste” at an agriculture company, and seven senior coast guard officials, including the commander, for embezzling funds Nguyen Ngoc Gia, an independent journalist, told RFA that corruption is more widespread than even the recent arrests would indicate. “I think the big reasons are that the rule of law doesn’t exist, the rule of virtue is just a formality, and the technocracy is too weak,” Gia said. “Meanwhile, culture and education, the two most important areas making up the soul of a nation, are widely manipulated by money. Therefore, it can be seen that the current appearance of morality is just hypocrisy,” said Gia. Totalitarianism and the one-party system have led to an overemphasis on money and power, Gia said. The Viet-A scandal was not as large as others, but the government is paying special attention, Abuza said. “This scandal seems to have stung the leadership a little bit more. In part there was the direct link between the firm and the senior leadership. General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong had egg on his face,” Abuza said. “Anti-corruption has been the hallmark of General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong’s tenure. Trong has wielded anti-corruption as he believes that the country’s endemic corruption threatens the VCP’s legitimacy,” he said. “But he also has wielded it as a tool against political rivals. And many in the country will see this as just that: elite political infighting.” Trong suffered a stroke in 2020, so there are expectations that the third-term general secretary will step down before the term is up in 2026, Abuza said. “But as long as he believes that corruption is still reaching the senior most ranks, he’ll fight to stay on, convinced that others will take the issue of corruption as seriously.” Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Gunmen fire at cars on China-backed Lao expressway](https://ij-reportika.com/gunmen-fire-at-cars-on-china-backed-lao-expressway/): Gunmen opened fire Sunday on traffic moving along a China-invested expressway in Laos, leaving one of three injured in the shooting in a coma in a local hospital, Lao sources say. Four suspects described by authorities as “bandits” and including both Lao and ethnic Hmong are now under arrest following the incident, which took place at about 12:30 p.m. at the Phou-Pha tunnel on the Vientiane-Vang Vieng Expressway, a public security official told RFA on Monday. The group may have been involved in a business dispute, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media about the case. “We have already arrested four suspects, who include both Lao and Hmong,” the official said. “Details of what happened are still unclear, and we are carrying out an investigation.” An official press conference will be held when the investigation ends, the official said. Meanwhile, security measures will be taken to ensure safety along the Vientiane-Vang Vieng expressway, and vehicles will be checked before entering, the official said. Seriously wounded in the shooting, a resident of the Lao capital Vientiane is now in a coma at the Lao-Soviet Friendship Hospital in Vientiane, where doctors are attempting to remove a bullet from one of his lungs, and family members are appealing for donations of blood, sources said. A family member contacted by RFA declined to comment on the case. A toll gate on the Vientiane-Vang Vieng Expressway , Dec. 27, 2020. Photo: RFA Lao residents concerned over safety issues on the major roadway linking the capital with Vang Vieng, a popular tourist destination north of Vientiane, told RFA the gunmen had likely been involved in a dispute over drugs, with one source saying the shooters may have been under the influence of drugs themselves. “These young gangsters are all using drugs, especially methamphetamines. The police are always arresting them,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. Other Lao villagers following the news said those injured in the shooting may have been involved in earlier disputes. “After reading about this incident on Facebook, it seems to me there may have been some conflict over drugs. I’m sure this must be what this was all about,” one source said, also declining to be named. Government authorities must now strengthen security along the expressway, especially by deploying more police officers along the road, said another local resident who often drives along the Vientiane-Vang Vieng route. “I usually see CCTV cameras on the expressway, but not that many police,” he said. Reached for comment, an official of the Laos-China Joint Expressway Development Co., Ltd., declined to speak to RFA reporters, but the company issued a statement Sunday reporting the shooting and saying reasons for the incident were being investigated by the police. Traffic was moving normally along the expressway, which began operations in 2020, by 5:35 p.m., the company said in its statement. Translated by Phouvong for RFA’s Lao Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [Tank cake on eve of Tiananmen anniversary sparks shutdown of influencer's livestream](https://ij-reportika.com/tank-cake-on-eve-of-tiananmen-anniversary-sparks-shutdown-of-influencers-livestream/): Chinese censors shut down the livestream of beauty influencer Austin Li after he displayed a tank-shaped cake ahead of the 33rd anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre, as former student leaders reflected on the June 4, 1989 crackdown from overseas. Li&#8217;s livestream was taken off air on Friday shortly after he showed an ice-cream dessert in the shape of a tank, prompting fans to wonder what unknown event he could have been referring to. Public commemorations of the massacre, in which the People&#8217;s Liberation Army (PLA) mowed down unarmed civilians with guns and tanks to end a weeks-long mass protest movement in Tiananmen Square, are banned in China. The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rarely allows any public reference to the event, although it describes the protests that preceded it as &#8220;countterevolutionary turmoil.&#8221; Online references to the events of June 4, 1989, including images of tanks, are swiftly deleted by government censors. Now, Li may have introduced a new generation of 170 million largely unsuspecting fans to the violent crackdown that left hundreds, possibly thousands, dead. Li attributed the premature ending of his livestream to a &#8220;backstage technical failure,&#8221; but hadn&#8217;t updated his social media account by Monday. A current affairs commentator who gave only the surname Su said anything that refers to the events of spring and early summer 1989 is politically sensitive for the CCP. &#8220;He&#8217;s the second most popular anchor after Wei Ya, and he has thousands of people among his suppliers,&#8221; Su said. &#8220;He has so many people around him, yet he was silly enough to promote a tank-shaped dessert on June 3.&#8221; &#8220;Why did his production team fail to detect or block such a common-sense issue; there must be some kind of problem,&#8221; he said. Su said Li was unlikely to re-emerge following the incident. &#8220;Given the current political environment, he is finished for sure, or at least will just fade away from the public eye,&#8221; Su said. Screenshot of Chinese beauty influencer Austin Li, whose livestream was taken off the air after he displayed a tank-shaped cake on the eve of the 33rd anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre, June 3, 2022. House arrest for dissidents Massacre survivors, victims&#8217; families and prominent dissidents are typically placed under house arrest or similar restrictions by state security police during the anniversary, only to be released when the date has passed without incident. Qi Zhiyong, a massacre survivor who had both legs crushed by a tank in June 1989, said he had been forced to leave town with a state security police escort. &#8220;I was taken away from my home on May 28 by police, who confiscated my mobile phone,&#8221; Qi told RFA. &#8220;But my dialysis appointments weren&#8217;t affected.&#8221; &#8220;There are police and security guards at the entrance to my apartment complex,&#8221; he said. Former 1989 student leader Wang Dan said he is currently engaged in setting up a June 4 Memorial Hall in New York City. &#8220;All of my energy is devoted to this project now,&#8221; Wang, who also founded the Dialogue China think-tank since arriving in the U.S. on medical parole 24 years ago. He said the overseas democracy movement was the best exiled dissidents could do for China, and suggested that CCP leader Xi Jinping&#8217;s zero-COVID policy could open some younger people&#8217;s eyes to the nature of the regime. &#8220;We&#8217;re already seeing the effects of the Shanghai lockdown,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I think a lot of little pinks [CCP fans] in Shanghai, and many millennials will be realizing that this society isn&#8217;t as beautiful as they once believed.&#8221; Former 1989 student activist Zhou Fengsuo, who founded the rights group Humanitarian China after arriving in the U.S., said his organization manages to support more than 100 prisoners of conscience annually. &#8220;That has added up to more than 1,000 people over the years,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We hope that more people will come to know about them, and to thereby understand the human rights situation in China.&#8221; Brainwashing Former Shandong student activist Bob Fu has worked to promote religious freedom in China since becoming a Christian in the wake of the 1989 crackdown, founding the Texas-based group ChinaAid. &#8220;The first thing we want to do is to give them a voice, and the second is to make very specific efforts to promote religious freedom in China,&#8221; Fu told RFA. &#8220;In the past couple of decades, we have paid particular attention to human rights lawyers, as to support them is actually to promote religious freedom in China.&#8221; A member of the millennial generation who gave only the surname Li said he thought everyone should understand what happened in 1989. &#8220;June 4, 1989 is something that every Chinese person should remember,&#8221; Li said. &#8220;We can learn a lot from the way the students were thinking, from their spirit, now.&#8221; &#8220;But a lot of people don&#8217;t have access to the internet outside the Great Firewall, including a lot of Generation Z, so they don&#8217;t know about such things, and have never heard of any of it.&#8221; A slightly older man from Shanghai surnamed Wang said CCP brainwashing has been particular effective among the younger generation. &#8220;If anyone mentions freedom and democracy, they tell you that you can&#8217;t eat those things,&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;They really support the current regime with all their hearts.&#8221; &#8220;It&#8217;s clear that this brainwashing [patriotic] education they received has been hugely successful, from the point of view of those who rule,&#8221; he said. Zhou said he realizes how far there is to go. &#8220;Of course so far, this has been a losing battle,&#8221; he said of China&#8217;s faltering democracy movement. &#8220;But before the CCP falls, many more people will have to get involved in this losing battle.&#8221; &#8220;For those who are in it and are still fighting against this authoritarian regime, at least they have the courage to resist, the spirit of perseverance. This is worthy of huge respect.&#8221; Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Police arrest six on banned Tiananmen massacre anniversary in Hong Kong](https://ij-reportika.com/police-arrest-six-on-banned-tiananmen-massacre-anniversary-in-hong-kong/): Police in Hong Kong have arrested six people on public order offenses around the 33rd anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre near Victoria Park, commemoration of which has been banned under a draconian national security law for the third year in a row. Police said they had arrested five men and one woman aged 19-80 by 11.30 p.m. on June 4 after stepping up patrols around Causeway Bay and Victoria Park and warning people not to try to stage their own personal memorials. The six arrestees were taken away on charges that included &#8220;inciting others to take part in an illegal assembly,&#8221; &#8220;possessing an offensive weapon&#8221; and &#8220;obstructing police officers in the course of the duties.&#8221; The soccer pitches, basketball courts and central lawn areas &#8212; where mass candlelight vigils had taken place for three decades since the June 4, 1989 massacre by the People&#8217;s Liberation Army (PLA) in Beijing &#8212; were reopened on Sunday after being closed to the public. Police remained at the park on Sunday, stopping passers-by for questioning, but otherwise allowing people in and out again. Large numbers of Hongkongers in exile turned out to mark the massacre in London at the weekend, lighting candles and writing messages of commemoration, including outside the Chinese Embassy, where protesters mock-charged the building with paper effigies of tanks, only to be pushed back by police. Protesters held up photos of political prisoners jailed in Hong Kong under a draconian national security law imposed on the city by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the wake of the 2019 protest movement, which called for universal suffrage and greater official accountability, as well as opposing plans to allow extradition to mainland China. A former Hong Kong teacher who gave only the English name Jeremy said he had emigrated to the U.K. with his family, and had continued his annual attendance at the vigil in London, this time bringing his daughter along too. &#8220;The regime did something wrong, and we are here as proof of that, and to tell the next generation that justice should be done, and that someone should admit responsibility for that wrongdoing,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s that simple.&#8221; &#8220;The people of Hong Kong see you, and we haven&#8217;t forgotten the June 4 massacre,&#8221; he said. Hongkongers in exile in Britain join mainland democracy activists to mark the 33rd anniversary of the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen massacre in London at the weekend, lighting candles and writing messages of commemoration outside the Chinese Embassy, in London, June 2, 2022. Credit: RFA Danger to families A participant who gave only the surname Liew said Hongkongers are beginning to have similar fears to mainland Chinese in exile, namely that their friends and families back home could be targeted if they speak out overseas. &#8220;Of course I&#8217;m scared too, but my view is that if we do nothing, they&#8217;ll be even more contemptuous of our rights,&#8221; she said. &#8220;They won&#8217;t go any easier on us if we do nothing; the abuse of our rights will only intensify.&#8221; Around 2,000 people turned out to mark the anniversary on the democratic island of Taiwan, many of them chanting now-banned slogans from the 2019 protest movement including &#8220;Free Hong Kong! Revolution now!&#8221; A replica of the now-demolished Pillar of Shame sculpture that once stood on the University of Hong Kong campus formed a focal point for the event, as Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen wrote on her Facebook page that the authorities in Hong Kong are currently working to erase collective memory of the massacre. The country&#8217;s foreign affairs ministry sent an open letter to the people of China in the simplified Chinese used in China, calling on them to research the massacre for themselves, beyond the Great Firewall of internet censorship. A replica of the now-demolished Pillar of Shame sculpture that once stood on the University of Hong Kong campus is displayed in Taiwan, where some 2,000 people turned out to mark the 33rd anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre, June 4, 2022. Credit: RFA Hong Kong artist Kacey Wong, now in exile in Taiwan, gave a speech to the crowd, saying the CCP fears such events because of how many people they killed. &#8220;Friends looked for friends in piles of corpses, wives looked for husbands in piles of corpses, parents looked for their sons and daughters among the blood and corpses,&#8221; Wong said. &#8220;The Chinese Communist Party is very afraid of passing on [that knowledge] from generation to generation, but that&#8217;s exactly what we want.&#8221; &#8220;Make sure everyone knows they killed those people &#8230; fight for freedom and democracy, and then their deaths will have made sense.&#8221; Back in Hong Kong, national security judge Peter Law handed over the &#8220;subversion&#8221; cases of 47 former opposition lawmakers and democracy activists to the High Court, paving the way for potential life imprisonment under the national security law for organizing a democratic primary in 2020. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Five people killed in  Sagaing region township blazes](https://ij-reportika.com/five-people-killed-in-sagaing-region-township-blazes/): The charred bodies of a 79-year-old woman and a 14-year-old boy were among five people discovered after military forces set fire to two villages in Myanmar’s war-torn Sagaing region, locals told RFA. The elderly woman was from Thargara village in Khin Oo township. The boy and three men came from Than Se Chaung village in Kani township. Residents told RFA the elderly woman may have been trapped after suffering a stroke when junta troops burned down houses on June 4. They say the blaze also killed cattle and destroyed 70 houses, agricultural machinery, motorbikes and 10,000 baskets of rice, being stored for food. Agricultural equipment and food supplies were also destroyed in the blaze. CREDIT: citizen jounalist. The bodies of four Than Se Chaung residents were found close to their village, near Nat Sin Gone at Nga Pyat village. They had been detained by the military a few days earlier. A local resident told RFA the four villagers, aged between 14 and 45, were killed after being taken hostage by troops. “They were sent to the frontline and were then killed as they did not do what the junta troops asked and commanded,” said the resident, who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity. It was still not known how the four were killed. Calls to a military council spokesman by RFA on Monday morning went unanswered. Most of Sagaing’s townships and villages have been affected by fierce fighting between junta forces and members of the People’s Defense Forces since the military seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021 coup. RFA reported last month that nearly 6,300 homes in 19 townships had been burned down in the northwestern region over the previous two months. Junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun blamed the PDFs for starting the fires. RFA figures show that 414 people were killed in Sagaing region between Feb. 1 and Dec. 1 last year, 309 by the junta and 105 by PDFs.
- [Australia protests to China after dangerous air intercept](https://ij-reportika.com/australia-protests-to-china-after-dangerous-air-intercept/): A Chinese fighter jet dangerously intercepted an Australian reconnaissance aircraft over the South China Sea last month, Australia’s Department of Defence (DOD) said, but China’s state media stated it was “Western countries” who were in the wrong. A DOD statement said on May 26 a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) P-8A Poseidon “was intercepted by a Chinese J-16 fighter aircraft during a routine maritime surveillance activity in international airspace in the South China Sea region.”  “The intercept resulted in a dangerous manoeuvre which posed a safety threat to the P-8 aircraft and its crew,” the DOD said, adding that the Australian Government had raised its concerns about the incident with the Chinese Government. Last week the Canadian government also expressed concerns over Chinese aircraft “buzzing” a Canadian surveillance aircraft in the East China Sea, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau calling it “extremely troubling.” Chinese media rejected the accusations, saying Canada and Australia – members of the Five Eyes Western intelligence alliance – conducted “close-in reconnaissance and provocative activities” on China. The Global Times, a mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, said reports on the Chinese intercepts “are not consistent with the truth.” On Monday China&#8217;s defense ministry said the PLA has taken reasonable measures to counter provocations by Canadian military jets that have been carrying out increased reconnaissance in the region. Spokesman Wu Qian described China&#8217;s response as &#8216;reasonable,&#8217; adding that Beijing has made &#8216;solemn representations&#8217; through diplomatic channels, according to Reuters. ‘Dangerous mid-air maneuvres’ The Australian DOD’s statement said that it has “for decades undertaken maritime surveillance activities in the region and does so in accordance with international law.” Defence Minister Richard Marles told Australian media that the J-16 jet flew very close to the RAAF P-8A maritime surveillance aircraft, released flares and then “accelerated and cut across the nose of the P-8, settling in front of the P-8 at very close distance.” &#8220;It then released a bundle of chaff, which contains small pieces of aluminium, some of which were ingested into the engine of the P-8 aircraft,” Marles told Australia’s Channel 9. “This maneuvre is dangerous and designed to provoke,” said Alexander Neill, a defense and security consultant based in Singapore. “Dispensing chaff is extremely dangerous,” Neill added, as the pieces could cause serious damage when entering the engine of the P-8. The Chinese interpretation of the event was very different.  The Global Times quoted Zhang Xuefeng, a Chinese military expert, as saying that “it is possible that the Australian P-8 used its jamming pod to lase the Chinese aircraft, triggering the latter&#8217;s self-defense system which is programed to automatically release the flares and chaff.” Earlier this year Australia accused a Chinese warship of pointing a military-grade laser at an Australian P-8A Poseidon in the Arafura Sea, north of Australia, posing great danger to the pilots’ safety. The RAAF has a fleet of 14 modern Boeing-manufactured P-8As that it uses for maritime surveillance. Canberra raised concerns with Beijing over the Feb. 17 incident but the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) did not issue an apology, arguing that the vessel was fully complying with international law and Australia was “maliciously spreading disinformation” against China. In 2019 a similar incident happened in the South China Sea when Australian helicopter pilots, operating from the naval vessel HMAS Canberra, were forced to land as a precaution after a Chinese warship targeted it with a laser. “This maneuvre in May is similar to the one which downed a U.S. Navy P-3 back in 2001,” said Alexander Neill.  In April 2001 a Chinese F-8 fighter jet collided with a U.S. Navy EP-3 Aries II surveillance plane over the South China Sea, killing the Chinese pilot. The U.S. aircraft had to make an emergency landing on China’s Hainan island. “It seems the PLA  returned to using such dangerous techniques but dispensing chaff is even more serious,” the analyst said. A CP-140 Aurora, similar to the aircraft “buzzed”by Chinese jets over the East China Sea, in a Canadian Government file photograph  ‘Five Eyes’ Such events have become more regular as China ramps-up its campaign to back up territorial claims in the region.  At the same time the U.S. and its allies have also intensified activities in accordance with the ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific’ initiative. In September last year Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States formed the AUKUS security alliance, which is generally seen as an effort to counter China’s growing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific. Canberra was alarmed when China signed a security pact with the Solomon Islands in April and sought to reach a multi-sector deal with some other Pacific island nations. “I would say this latest incident is part of a new coercive strategy to put pressure on Australia following the creation of AUKUS and also in response to pressures by Australia in the South Pacific,” Neill told RFA. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S. are already members of the long-standing intelligence alliance known as Five Eyes. China has been accusing the U.S. and partners of conducting “provocative reconnaissance” on China. The South China Sea Probing Initiative, a Beijing-based Chinese think tank, alleged that last month the U.S. military performed 41 sorties of land-based reconnaissance aircraft over the South China Sea alone.
- [Cambodia opposition decries intimidation as ruling party claims local election sweep](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodia-opposition-decries-intimidation-as-ruling-party-claims-local-election-sweep/): Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party claimed a sweeping victory in nationwide elections for local councils on Sunday, a contest that rights watchdogs said was heavily slanted toward the ruling party and marred by intimidation and obstruction of the opposition. The voting for local councils in rural and urban precincts was seen as a test of support for opponents of the CPP five years after Hun Sen had the largest opposition party banned after a strong showing in the previous election. The National Election Committee has yet to release preliminary results, but said the ruling CPP was leading an election in which 77.91 percent, or about 7.1 million of 9.2 million registered voters turned out to elect 11,622 commune council members. “It’s been a successful electoral process with a calm environment, security, public order, no violence and no intimidation,” NEC President Prach Chan told a news conference after the polling stations closed Sunday afternoon. “The voters voted overwhelmingly &#8212; 77 percent voted. The preliminary results are showing the CPP is the leading in all provinces and municipalities,” said CCP spokesman Sok Ey San. “This is a big success for the CPP,” he said. People look for their names in the voters&#8217; list at a polling station during local commune elections in Phnom Penh, June 5, 2022. Credit: AFP RFA has not independently confirmed the turnout and preliminary results. The official election results will be announced on June 26. “It was not a free and fair and just election,” said Thach Setha, vice-president of the Candlelight Party, the most prominent of 16 non-CPP parties competing. “There was pressure and intimidation,” he said, noting that the NEC was dominated by the ruling party, when the law stipulates a neutral body. Thach Setha said his party will file complaints with the NEC over the alleged election irregularities, including CPP village chiefs who violated the election law by sitting at the polling stations.  He said authorities arrested two of his election observers, releasing one later. Voters did not turn out in as great a number as in 2017 and many polling stations were quiet, said Soeung Sengkaruna, a spokesman for the rights group Adhoc. “Fewer people went to polling station to find their names. And to the ballot counting stations, I didn’t see many people monitoring the process,” he said. “This shows that people didn’t actively participate in the process like the previous commune election,” added Soeung Sengkaruna. Kem Sokha, the former leader of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) who was arrested months before the party was banned in 2017, declined to vote on Sunday and was joined by many of his followers. “We didn’t vote because if we have voted it would been seen like we supported the CNRP’s dissolution,” said close Kem Sokha ally Khou Haingmeang. The former CNRP representative from Siem Reap said Kem Sokha, who is embroiled in a slow-moving treason trial on charges from 2017, also feared that getting involved Sunday could violate court orders banning political activities. On the last day of two weeks of campaigning Friday, the United Nations Human Rights Office criticized what it called &#8220;the pattern of threats, intimidation and obstruction targeting opposition candidates.&#8221; “Candidates have faced numerous restrictions and reprisals that have hindered their activities, with imprisonment of a number of candidates that appears designed to curb political campaigning,” office spokesperson Liz Throssell said in a statement. France-based opposition leader Sam Rainsy, who founded the Candlelight Party in 2005 before joining forces with the CNRP, said that while &#8220;these elections are worse than the previous ones in terms of transparency and honesty,&#8221; the party did well in the face of obstacles thrown up by the government. “Despite the continuous atmosphere of fear and intimidation in Cambodia, hope for democratic change at the ballot box has been revived by the Candlelight Party,” he said a statement. “Every seat won is a seat less for the autocratic regime of Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has been in power for 37 years,&#8221; said Rainsy, who has lived in exile in France since 2015 under threat of arrest on a raft of charges he and his supporters say are aimed at keeping him out of politics. Translated by Samean Yun. Written by Paul Eckert.
- ['Follow the party and prosper: oppose it and die'](https://ij-reportika.com/follow-the-party-and-prosper-oppose-it-and-die/): In the second part of this two-part essay, Bao Tong, a former political secretary to late, ousted Chinese leader Zhao Ziyang, comments on then Premier Li Peng&#8217;s accounts of the events leading up to the June 4, 1989 bloodshed by the People&#8217;s Liberation Army that put an end to weeks of student-led protests on Tiananmen Square. An English-language version of the diary was published in 2010 as &#8220;The Critical Moment – Li Peng Diaries.&#8221;  Zhao was later removed from office and spent the rest of his life under house arrest at his Beijing home, dying in early 2005. Bao, who before the events of 1989 worked as director of the Office of Political Reform of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, served a seven-year jail term for &#8220;revealing state secrets and counter-revolutionary propagandizing.&#8221; The 89-year-old Bao, a long-time contributor of commentary on a wide range of Chinese and international issues for RFA Mandarin, including a column titled &#8220;Under House Arrest,&#8221; remains under close police surveillance in Beijing.Now I think we need to take a look at what Zhao Ziyang did next. Zhao, of course, had no idea that the tangled web being woven by the chairman of the Central Military Commission, the president and the premier. He just took Deng&#8217;s &#8220;all agreed&#8221; and set to work implementing it. His schedule for May 14 and 15 was full, and he had a meeting with visiting Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on the afternoon of the 16th. Once that was over, Zhao hurried back to his office in Qinzheng Hall to call a meeting of the Politburo standing committee. He had finalized the agenda, which was to affirm the student protesters&#8217; patriotism and to retract the April 26 People&#8217;s Daily editorial. Zhao didn&#8217;t say or imply to the standing committee that Deng had agreed to the plan, but outlined his reasoning for the move. Li Peng made a few points against affirming the students&#8217; patriotism, then looked at Yang Shangkun and Yao Yilin, and saw they weren&#8217;t very engaged. So he stopped trying to oppose the motion, and it eventually passed. So it was that on the following day, all the major media outlets reported that Zhao Ziyang, on behalf of the Politburo standing committee, had affirmed the students&#8217; patriotism. But the retraction of the People&#8217;s Daily editorial remained a sticking point. Li Peng, Yao Yilin and Yang Shangkun were all adamantly opposed, saying that it couldn&#8217;t be allowed because it would harm the image of Comrade Xiaoping. Zhao tried to reassure them by saying that the editorial was based on inaccurate reports made to Deng by standing committee members, so it should all be seen as coming from the committee. People would know that Comrade Xiaoping had supported us in making a correction of our own mistake, so the move wouldn&#8217;t harm Deng, but rather enhance his prestige, Zhao argued. Qiao Shi and Hu Qili made their support for Zhao&#8217;s plan clear, while Li Peng and Yao Yilin were strongly against it. Yang Shangkun supported Li Peng&#8217;s position, but he wasn&#8217;t a member of the Politburo standing committee. According to the standing committee&#8217;s rules of procedure, a majority vote holds sway. Three votes were for Zhao and two for Li Peng, so they could have gotten the resolution through. But they decided to keep talking just to be on the safe side. This is why Zhao didn&#8217;t request his next meeting with Deng until the morning of May 17.Deng said that was fine. Deng told Zhao to arrive at a specific time that same afternoon (I no longer recall the exact time) and not to be late. As soon as Zhao turned up, on time, Deng set his plan in motion.   The devil&#8217;s in the details. But I have never read a detailed account of this endgame written by any of those involved. And I certainly don&#8217;t set much store by the speculations of those who were not. All I have is Zhao Ziyang&#8217;s personal account when he spoke to me and his secretary and deputy director Zhang Yueqi that same evening. As I remember it, Zhao said: &#8220;There was a trial today. Yao Yilin has won everything. I have lost everything. I thought Deng and I were just talking privately. I didn&#8217;t realize he had called a meeting of the standing committee. When I got there, they were all ready for me. Yang Shangkun was there too. Yao criticized my [May 7] speech to the Asian Development Bank, saying it was appalling, as it had struck two notes that weren&#8217;t in keeping with Deng&#8217;s line.&#8221; &#8220;Some decisions were made today. I can&#8217;t tell you what they were, because they&#8217;re classified.&#8221; I replied: &#8220;A decision is better than no decision. But I can&#8217;t implement it.&#8221; &#8220;Deng told me that I&#8217;m still the general secretary,&#8221; Zhao told us. &#8220;But when I got back, I thought some more about it, and I realized that I have to resign. So you need to draft a letter of resignation for me.&#8221; &#8220;From both posts?&#8221; I asked, referring to the general secretary of the CCP and the vice chairman of the Central Military Commission. &#8220;From both posts,&#8221; Zhao replied. The bodies of dead civilians lie among mangled bicycles near Beijing&#8217;s Tiananmen Square in this June 4, 1989 file photo. Credit: AP Deng&#8217;s personal mantra Incidentally, some details did emerge from the standing committee meeting called by Deng. I was told to be careful not to leak anything when I drafted Zhao&#8217;s letter of resignation. &#8220;That&#8217;s easy,&#8221; I said. &#8220;I never leaked a secret in my life.&#8221; &#8220;Someone is saying that you did,&#8221; Zhao replied. &#8220;That&#8217;s got to be Li Peng, because the others would never say something so irresponsible,&#8221; I said in anger. &#8220;They&#8217;re saying you have already leaked something,&#8221; Zhao said. I replied that there has to be some basis for such claims under the rule of law. He said &#8220;I have a basis, but I won&#8217;t talk about that until it&#8217;s really necessary.&#8221; I finally found out that Li Peng...
- [Cambodians to vote in local commune council elections Sunday](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodians-to-vote-in-local-commune-council-elections-sunday/): Cambodians will go to the polls Sunday to elect local commune councils in what observers believe will be a test case of support for a rising opposition party after five years of a coordinated campaign by Prime Minister Hun Sen and his supporters to squash dissent. Hun Sen has ruled Cambodia for more than three decades. His Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) is expected to win in a landslide, as it is the only political party large enough to field candidates nationwide. Heading into Sunday’s vote, the United Nations Human Rights Office criticized what it called a “systemic shrinking” of political space in the country, leaving room only for the CPP. “We are disturbed by the pattern of threats, intimidation and obstruction targeting opposition candidates ahead of communal elections in Cambodia on 5 June,” office spokesperson Liz Throssell said in a statement. “Candidates have faced numerous restrictions and reprisals that have hindered their activities, with imprisonment of a number of candidates that appears designed to curb political campaigning.  Four days before the election, at least six opposition candidates and activists are in detention awaiting trial while others summonsed on politically motivated charges have gone into hiding.” Throssell noted the government’s response to the last commune elections, five years ago. The Supreme Court dissolved the main opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) after it performed well in the local races in 2017, a decision that paved the way for the CPP to take all 125 seats in the National Assembly in the 2018 general election. Though the country is essentially now a one-party state, a new opposition party, the Candlelight Party, has entered the fray and will face its first major test on Sunday. The Future Forum, an independent think tank based in Phnom Penh, called the election a “litmus test” for the country. “The outstanding and primary concern of any election cycle set today is the absence of a viable political opposition,” it said in a report. “This in itself renders the anticipated outcome of such processes reasonably predictable. It is however crucial to note that, versus the 2018 cycle, there are a larger number of electoral observers, and the presence of an alternative vote for nearly all communes in the kingdom.” The elections will not have much effect on the balance of national power, as commune councils are concerned mostly with local matters. But councilors elected Sunday will vote on behalf of their constituents in 2024 elections for the Cambodian Senate. Election watchers are looking at the contest between the CPP and 16 other parties for 11,622 seats in 1,652 rural and urban precincts to find out how much support the opposition Candlelight Party can win in the atmosphere and after months of harassment from the ruling party. Members of parliaments in other Southeast Asian countries condemned “harassment and intimidation” suffered by the opposition during the campaign. In a statement released Friday, the ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) took issue with incidents of political bullying by local officials. “It is impossible to hold free and fair elections in an ongoing climate of persecution against the opposition … these polls cannot be regarded as an exercise in pluralism and democracy when the CPP led by Prime Minister Hun Sen is not allowing anyone who can challenge their power to campaign freely and safely,” said Maria Chin Abdullah, a member of the Malaysian Parliament and an APHR member. “The intimidation of the opposition we are witnessing now is nothing new. It is part of a long pattern in which Hun Sen and his party have maintained and increased their control over Cambodia, closing the space for opposition and rights defenders to dissent without fear of reprisal. This does not bode well for the future of democracy in Cambodia. The outcome of this local election will pave the way for next year’s national elections and will determine who will control the country’s overall political power,” Abdullah said. She urged neighboring countries to “maintain a critical eye” on Cambodia and not accept that Sunday’s elections would be a true democratic exercise, criticizing the elections as “another attempt by the CPP to legitimize its increasingly dictatorial rule.” Campaign draws to a close On the last day of the official two-week campaign Friday, the CPP and Candlelight Party held political rallies all over the country, with thousands in the capital Phnom Penh attending the rallies for both sides. Hun Sen’s son Hun Many attended campaign events in the capital, as CPP supporters including famous celebrities drove luxury cars in a convoy, hoping to sway voters with star appeal. Candlelight supporters drove their own convoy through the city, using megaphones to remind people to vote. Both sides reflected on the campaign period optimistically. “For the past 14 days, we have showed that we are better and more firmly situated than other parties,” Sar Kheng, who is the CPP’s vice president and the country’s minister of interior, said to supporters while leading campaign activities in the southern province of Prey Veng. “We have shown that the CPP is the only party can guarantee peace and read development,” he said. Candlelight’s vice president, Thach Setha, who led campaign activities in Phnom Penh Friday, told RFA’s Khmer Service that his party has received overwhelming support because the voters recognize their true need for democracy. He acknowledged that the campaign is supported mainly by donations from supporters. During Friday’s convoy, people cheering the party on provided campaigners with water from the roadsides, he said. “[The people] want change, and they want to tell the CPP that they want change, they don’t want to keep doing the same thing,” Thach Setha said. The campaign period was mostly peaceful, Hang Puthea, spokesperson for the country’s National Election Commission (NEC), told RFA. “Over the past 14 days, there was no violence or threats,” he said. The NEC received only 52 complaints during the campaign period. “The campaigns were helped with good security and order,” he said. But Kang Savang, a coordinator at the Committee...
- [Food prices double in Laos as inflation grips economy](https://ij-reportika.com/food-prices-double-in-laos-as-inflation-grips-economy/): Runaway inflation in Laos has caused prices of food, gas and other essentials to nearly double over the past year, some even within the last month, sources in the country told RFA. Inflation in the country is closely related to the value of the kip relative to other currencies, due to the country’s heavy reliance on imports for most of its consumer needs. On Friday, U.S. $1 equaled about 13,950 kip, compared with 9,420 kip a year ago, for a depreciation of about 48%. The sudden rise in food prices is making life difficult, sources told RFA. “On Saturday, May 28, 2022, I gave 2,000 kip [$0.50] to my 12-year-old son to go to buy some eggs from a nearby store for his lunch,” a mother in the capital Vientiane, who like all other unnamed sources in this report, requested anonymity for security reasons, told RFA on Tuesday. “At first, I thought that with the 2,000 kip, my son would be able to buy two eggs. But, when he arrived home with only one egg, I was surprised that the price of an egg has now doubled since late last year,” she said. Six months ago a pack of instant noodles in Vientiane’s Hatxayfong district cost 20,000 kip, now it costs 40,000, a resident there told RFA. “The price of everything is doubling,” she said. Pork in Pakse, a city in the southern province of Champassak, now costs 55,000 kip a kilogram (2.2 pounds), up from 30,000 kip, a resident said. “Food prices are going up every day. The government must solve the problem,” the person said. According to data from the Lao Statistics Bureau and RFA Lao, in just the past month, the cost to buy rice, beef, pork or eggs has significantly increased. Eggs have doubled in price. Inflation is not limited to food. The price of gas rose for the 13th time this year on June 1, according to the Lao Ministry of Industry and Commerce. Regular unleaded gas increased from 23,770 kip per liter ($6.46 per gallon) to 28,070 per liter ($7.64/gallon) Gas prices are so high that “a lot of people go across the Mekong River to visit [Thailand] and buy cheaper gas and other consumer goods,” a motorist in Vientiane told RFA. “We have to adjust ourselves to the new normal, in other words to change our lifestyle,” Another motorist told RFA “For example, I drive my car only when it’s very necessary and I sometimes drive to Thailand to buy cheaper gasoline, vegetable oil, fish sauce and other food items.”   A gas station owner in Thailand verified the trend. He told RFA that two weeks ago he noticed a sharp increase in customers from Laos. “Most of them buy consumer goods and fill their vehicle tanks with gasoline on their way back home,” he said. Public transportation costs are also rising. “Starting June 1, 2022, a Laos-China train ticket to the capital Vientiane will be 242,000 kip at the sale office counter and 262,000 kip at stores, up from 198,000 kip,” a ticket seller in Luang Prabang City, Luang Prabang Province, said. Train fares are out of reach for most people, a villager in the northern province of Luang Prabang told RFA. “Most people are suffering from severe gas shortage and inflation, and now there are high train fares too,” he said. “I want to see lower prices because everything is going up. Farmers in Laos have had to deal with a double-whammy of inflation and shortages of some products required to do their work. The combination has delayed plowing in the southern province of Attapeu, a provincial official told RFA. “These farmers are poor and unable to afford gas. They just sit and wait for gas prices to come down,” he said. Small businesses are also suffering in the harsh economic climate, a Vientiane businessman told RFA. “One half of all SMEs [small-to-medium enterprises] are dead. They can’t survive the high gas prices and lack of business. The other half is struggling.” The World Bank reported that inflation in Laos jumped to 9.9% in April this year from only 2% in January 2021. The bank recommended that the country stabilize the kip, push for more agricultural production, work to attract more investment and create more jobs. A Lao financial expert told RFA that the country must change how its economy has operated to survive. “One of the solutions would be that we should import fewer goods. We can’t afford to buy as much as before because we have less foreign money,” he said. “The other solution would be that we produce more domestically.” Sonexay Sitphaxay, governor of the National Bank of Lao P.D.R., told reporters on May 27 that the government was trying several approaches to solve its problems. “[We] are attempting to divert foreign currencies into the banking system from black market, punish money exchangers and manipulators, reduce the impact of inflation on society, negotiate with trade partners and convince them to accept the kip, and reduce the need of foreign currencies,” he said. An economist told RFA, “First for most, the government should stabilize the kip, increase foreign currency reserve and expand economy in a sustainable way.” But the recovery for Laos will take time, an Asian Development Bank employee said. “[It] is going to be slow this year and in the next several years because of COVID-19, the stronger U.S. dollar and the crisis in Ukraine,” he told RFA. “While the buying power of Laotians is lower, the Lao economy may start up again in 2-3 years.” Translated by RFA’s Lao Service. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [More than a generation ago](https://ij-reportika.com/more-than-a-generation-ago/): China has put pro-democracy activists under house arrest ahead of the 33rd anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, while the strict suppression of June 4 commemorations of victims has spread to once-free Hong Kong, now under mainland-style authoritarian rule. But with the student protesters now well into their 50s, and children born since the killings being raised with scant knowledge of the event, the passage of time is helping the Communist Party erase memories.
- ['Why did Deng feel the need to conspire in this way?'](https://ij-reportika.com/why-did-deng-feel-the-need-to-conspire-in-this-way/): In the first part of this two-part essay, Bao Tong, a former political secretary to late, ousted Chinese leader Zhao Ziyang, comments on then Premier Li Peng&#8217;s accounts of the events leading up to the June 4, 1989 bloodshed by the People&#8217;s Liberation Army that put an end to weeks of student-led protests on Tiananmen Square. An English-language version of the diary was published in 2010 as &#8220;The Critical Moment – Li Peng Diaries.&#8221;  Zhao was later removed from office and spent the rest of his life under house arrest at his Beijing home, dying in early 2005. Bao, who before the events of 1989 worked as director of the Office of Political Reform of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, served a seven-year jail term for &#8220;revealing state secrets and counter-revolutionary propagandizing.&#8221; The 89-year-old Bao, a long-time contributor of commentary on a wide range of Chinese and international issues for RFA Mandarin, including a column titled &#8220;Under House Arrest,&#8221; remains under close police surveillance in Beijing.This article is addressed to those working in the free press and to researchers. Let&#8217;s start with a few key events from the spring and summer of 1989: April 15, 1989: Hu Yaobang dies. He had been one of the best-loved Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders because of his commitment to reversing millions of miscarriages of justice from the days of the Cultural Revolution, and for his advocacy of free thinking, and because his ouster at the hands of Deng Xiaoping in early 1987 elicited widespread public sympathy. April 16, 1989: Li Jing asks then general secretary Zhao Ziyang what the official line should be on the students&#8217; mass mourning for Hu on Tiananmen Square. Zhao answers, in front of the entire Politburo standing committee and Deng Xiaoping&#8217;s secretary: &#8220;It&#8217;s fine. Yaobang was our leader. If we mourn him ourselves, then how can we forbid the students from doing the same? April 19, 1989: Deng Xiaoping tells Zhao Ziyang he should still go on his scheduled trip to North Korea. April 22, 1989: As the official memorial service for Hu Yaobang concludes, Zhao announces that he will leave for North Korea on the following day. &#8220;I have three things to say about the students,&#8221; he says. &#8220;1. The mourning period is over, and the students should be told to go back to class. 2. There is to be no deployment of the police or military unless there is smashing and looting. 3. We should seriously study the students&#8217; demands and resolve this through consultation and dialogue with all sectors.&#8221; All of this was endorsed by the entire Politburo standing committee, and by Deng himself. These three points were effectively a resolution by the standing committee. Zhao also told me at the time that, with regard to political reform, we should focus all of our efforts on achieving dialogue and consultation, because that in itself was a kind of reform.   I was present for all of the above, and I take responsibility for authenticating it. As the events described below, I have no knowledge of them other than via the account provided in &#8220;Li Peng: June 4th Diary.&#8221; Beijing youths chant as they drive to Tiananmen Square to lend their enthusiastic support to striking university students, May 19, 1989, Beijing, China. Credit: AP Two Li Pengs  Regarding the events of April 23, we see two Li Pengs described by Li in his diary. Let&#8217;s look at the afternoon Li Peng first. That Li Peng accompanies Zhao to the railway station, where he will take a train to North Korea, and asks him if there are any other instructions. Zhao replies: &#8220;No. Just get it done.&#8221; Li returns to CCP headquarters in Zhongnanhai, immediately seeks out then National People&#8217;s Congress (NPC) chairman Qiao Shi, and they send out the communique together. That was the Li Peng we see in the afternoon.   Now let&#8217;s look at the evening Li Peng. Li writes that Yang Shangkun, president of the People&#8217;s Republic of China, told him to go and see Deng, that Li asked if Yang would come too, and that Yang agreed. So, did Yang and Li actually go visit Deng that evening? If so, what did they talk about? What actually happened? What made Li, Yang and Deng feel the need to meet up the moment Zhao&#8217;s back was turned? The diary doesn&#8217;t say they actually went, but neither does it say they only talked about going, but wound up not going. There&#8217;s nothing in Deng&#8217;s official annual report about any meeting, planned or actual, with Li and Yang that night. It claims that Deng didn&#8217;t meet with Li and Yang to hear their reports until the following morning, on April 25. This is entirely understandable, as Deng&#8217;s annual reports are CCP records that are kept confidential within the party.   To find out the truth of the matter, we need to go back to Li Peng&#8217;s diary and take a closer look at what Li Peng was doing and thinking on the evening of April 23. I believe with 100 percent certainty that Li Peng had figured out what Deng Xiaoping was prepared to do to quash the student protests by the evening of April 23. Because there must be a reason for Li Peng&#8217;s apparent transformation starting from that evening. Because Li wasn&#8217;t the same premier after that point, the premier who had been in such a hurry to send out documents conveying general secretary Zhao Ziyang&#8217;s three-point opinion earlier the same day. Instead, he singlehandedly rejects this important communique from general secretary Zhao Ziyang that had already been endorsed by the entire Politburo standing committee. According to his diary, Li was worried that the students would bring back the chaos of the Cultural Revolution to China. So he decided to instruct the Beijing municipal party committee to make a report on the student unrest to the standing committee immediately. He also took unusual care to prime Wen Jiabao, then head of the General Affairs Office that coordinates the workings...
- [Vietnamese journalist in failing health after 2 years in prison](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnamese-journalist-in-failing-health-after-2-years-in-prison/): A Vietnamese journalist is in failing health after serving two years of a prison sentence for criticizing the country’s one-party communist government, RFA has learned. Prison authorities have rejected requests he be allowed to seek medical treatment outside his jail. Le Huu Minh Tuan, a member of the Vietnam Independent Journalists’ Association, was arrested on June 12, 2020, on a charge of “conducting propaganda against the state,” and is now serving an 11-year term at the Bo La Detention Center in southern Vietnam’s Binh Duong province. Tuan had been held first at another detention center in Ho Chi Minh City’s Binh Thanh district, where harsh conditions behind bars caused his health to deteriorate, his sister Na told RFA after speaking with Tuan on May 26 in the first family visit allowed to him since his arrest. “My brother is in very bad health. I couldn’t recognize him,” Na said, describing Tuan as emaciated and hard of hearing. “He has scabies, and he’s also malnourished as the food and living conditions where he’s being held are so tough.” Detention center officials have refused Tuan’s request to get medical care at an outside facility, though family members are allowed to send medicine to him inside the jail, Na said. Tuan had been kept in his cell all day while serving the first two years of his sentence at the Phan Dan Luu Detention Center in Binh Thanh, but now is allowed outside for 15 to 30 minutes each day at his new jail in Binh Duong, Na said. “However, the food there is horrible and has no nutrition at all,” she said. “They feed him only rice and a poor quality of soup without salt or other spices, and the rice itself is only half-cooked and mixed with sand.” The number of family visits allowed to prisoners at the Bo La Detention Center is restricted, and relatives can bring in only limited amounts of food, Na said. “For example, when Tuan ran out of milk and wanted to have some fruit, I went to the prison cafeteria to register to buy some for him, but was told I couldn’t do it,” she said. Tuan’s family had heard no news of him for the first two years following his arrest, not knowing whether he was alive or dead. They were finally told that he had been sent to the Bo La facility in Binh Duong on April 14, Na said. “Now we feel relieved, because we know we can visit him occasionally from now on.” Vietnamese independent journalist Pham Doan Trang is shown in an undated photo. Photo: icj.org Mother of jailed writer accepts award Another jailed Vietnamese writer, Pham Doan Trang, this week was awarded the 2022 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, with her mother, Bui Thi Thien Can, accepting the honor in Geneva, Switzerland, on her behalf. Speaking at the presentation ceremony, Can said she was proud of her daughter, who is now serving a nine-year sentence in Vietnam for “spreading propaganda against the state.” “[Trang] has been determined and persevering in pursuing a path that she fully understands is a dangerous and arduous journey,” Can said. “She has dedicated herself and fought tirelessly for democracy and human rights in Vietnam and for the freedom and happiness of the Vietnamese people.” Accompanying Can to Geneva were Tran Quynh Vi — codirector of the California-based NGO Legal Initiatives for Vietnam and owner of Luat Khoa (Law) Magazine — and democracy activist Will Nguyen. Independent journalists in Vietnam are still working but face massive challenges, Vi said in remarks following the award ceremony. “The good news is that in spite of Ms. Trang’s arrest, our newspapers are still published regularly and we have more and more contributors,” she said. “And the more they prohibit us, the more we want to work in the area.” Also speaking in Geneva, activist Will Nguyen called on citizens of Switzerland and other developed countries to alert their lawmakers and diplomats to Vietnam’s ongoing abuses of human rights. “I think we have a lot of leverage,” said Nguyen, a Vietnamese-American who was arrested for taking part in public protests in Vietnam in 2018 and then deported from the country by a Ho Chi Minh City court. “The more we look into this issue, the more likely it is that the Vietnamese government will treat its citizens with more respect,” he said. A prominent human rights activist and blogger, Trang was arrested on Oct. 6, 2020, and sentenced to nine years in prison on Dec. 14, 2021, on a charge of disseminating anti-state propaganda. The indictment against Trang also accused her of speaking with two foreign media outlets — Radio Free Asia and the British Broadcasting Corporation — “to allegedly defame the government of Vietnam and fabricate news,” according to a letter sent by 25 human rights groups calling for her release ahead of her trial. In addition to the Martin Ennals Award, Trang has also received the 2017 Homo Homini Award presented by the Czech human rights organization People in Need, and the Press Freedom Prize in 2019 from Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders. Translated by Anna Vu for RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [Jailed Uyghurs' relatives forced to attend study sessions in Ghulja during UN visit](https://ij-reportika.com/jailed-uyghurs-relatives-forced-to-attend-study-sessions-in-ghulja-during-un-visit/): Chinese authorities forced the relatives of detained Uyghurs in the town of Ghulja in Xinjiang to attend political study sessions while monitoring their contact with others during a recent visit to the region by the U.N. human rights chief, a local officer police said. Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, visited China on May 23-28 with stops in the coastal city of Guangzhou and in Urumqi (Wulumuqi) and Kashgar (Kashi) in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). It was the first visit to the country by a U.N. rights chief since 2005. Before her trip, China’s state security police warned Uyghurs living in Xinjiang that they could suffer consequences if their relatives abroad spoke out about internment camps in the region, a reflection of the government’s sensitivity to bad press about its forced assimilation campaign that has incarcerated as many as 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in the name of “vocational training.” Bachelet’s itinerary didn’t include a stop in Ghulja (in Chinese, Yining), the third-largest city in the XUAR and the site of a protest by Uyghurs against religious repression 25 years ago that left as many as 200 hundred people dead. But, given the city’s history, Chinese authorities there are sensitive to signs of popular unrest, and they redoubled the surveillance and indoctrination programs imposed on the 12 million Uyghurs across Xinjiang, a territory the size of Alaska or Iran. A village police officer said the “political study session” for the family members of detainees began in mid-April, and that authorities kept a tight rein on their work and social lives. As a result, those residents have been incommunicado with others in their community. “The ones whose fathers or mothers or other relatives were detained, came to the sessions and spoke at the political and legal meetings organized by the village,” he told RFA. During the sessions, the Chinese government enforced a rule for Uyghurs to immediately attend sessions whenever a bell sounded and to leave them when the bell sounded a second time, the police officer said. The attendees gathered in the morning on street corners or at residents’ committees to wait for the signal. “They come with a sound of a bell and leave with another sound of a bell,” he said. “We hold these meetings from 8 a.m. in the morning.” Organized by the village’s 10 family leaders or police, the attendees had to express their gratitude to the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government and had to promise that they would help protect national security by not sharing any sensitive information with outsiders. The family members of detained Uyghurs were warned against accepting international calls to ensure that no “state secrets” — meaning in this case the detention of Uyghurs or other measures to repress them — were released. “We told them not to make phone calls or take phone calls from abroad,” the police officer said. “We told them not to directly tell [people] if they asked on the phone about their detained relatives. We warned them to first ask where they are calling from and why they need to ask for the information. We told them not take those phone calls from abroad in order to keep state secrets.” The residents were instructed as to how not to expose information on their detained relatives to the outside world and were told how to give “standard answers” to questions raised by anyone visiting from outside China, he said. Furthermore, if the residents were visited by relatives or friend from other cities, they would be summoned to the police station and asked about what they had discussed with their guests, he said. “If anyone came to [see] their family for a visit from other cities such as Kashgar, we would take them to the police station and investigate who the visitors were, why are they were here and what they talked about,” the policeman said. The mandatory political study sessions ended when Bachelet and her team left the region, he said. Translated by RFA Uyghur. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [China rounds up dissidents, activists ahead of Tiananmen massacre anniversary](https://ij-reportika.com/china-rounds-up-dissidents-activists-ahead-of-tiananmen-massacre-anniversary/): Authorities in China have ordered dozens of pro-democracy activists and dissidents into house arrest or other forms of restriction ahead of the 33rd anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre on June 4. Dissident political commentator Zha Jianguo and veteran journalist Gao Yu are under house arrest at their Beijing homes, while rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang and his wife have been taken on a forced &#8220;vacation&#8221; out of town. Security is tighter than usual for this year&#8217;s anniversary of the bloody crackdown that ended weeks of student-led peaceful protests on Tiananmen Square, as the authorities tighten their grip ahead of the 20th congress of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) later this year. &#8220;The police have set guard detail and a car [outside my home] to watch me,&#8221; Gao told RFA on Friday. &#8220;If I want to go anywhere, they have to take me in their car.&#8221; &#8220;Also, my landline and mobile phone are no longer acceptable international calls, including calls from Hong Kong,&#8221; she said. Dissident commentator Zha Jianguo, who was among the founding members of the long-banned China Democracy Party (CDP), said he is in a similar situation. &#8220;They&#8217;re stationed [outside],&#8221; Zha told RFA. &#8220;They do this every year from June 1 to June 5.&#8221; &#8220;I went out on the morning of June 1 and saw them setting out stools and sitting themselves down outside our home,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The district police department said they would be sending some people round today as well.&#8221; &#8220;As far as I know, about seven, eight, maybe 10 people are under house arrest like this in Beijing,&#8221; he said. Zha said police have also warned him not to speak about the anniversary in media interviews. &#8220;They called me yesterday and said I wasn&#8217;t to discuss June 4 with anyone, not in posts, nor in media interviews,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I told them, it&#8217;s been 33 years since June 4, and you&#8217;re still doing this?&#8221; Sources said fellow Beijing-based dissidents Hu Shigen, He Depu, massacre survivor Qi Zhiyong and others were also under some form of restriction. Construction workers stand next to Chinese characters reading &#8220;cold blood&#8221; on the ground as they use metal sheeting to cover up one of the last public tributes in Hong Kong to the deadly 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre which has adorned a campus footbridge at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) for over three decades, Jan. 29, 2022. Credit: AFP. Noticeably tighter security You Weijie, spokesperson for the Tiananmen Mothers victims group that campaigns for compensation, redress and transparency of information around the massacre, said she couldn&#8217;t talk when contacted by RFA on Friday. &#8220;It&#8217;s not convenient for me to talk to you right now,&#8221; You said, her response suggesting that the authorities were monitoring her communications. Asked if she had been banned from giving media interviews, You replied: &#8220;Yes, yes.&#8221; She said she and the other Tiananmen Mothers members were being escorted to Wan&#8217;an Cemetery on Saturday to make offerings for those who died in the crackdown. &#8220;I&#8217;ll go tomorrow; the car has been arranged. It&#8217;ll be the same families going,&#8221; she said. Zhou Xiang, a dissident scholar in the central province of Hunan, said security was particularly tight this year. &#8220;Several people in Zhuzhou city have been contacted [by police]. He Jiawei was the first, and they have taken away his mobile phone,&#8221; Zhou said. &#8220;I also got a call. They told me not to speak out, not to upload photos or text [relating to June 4, 1989], etc.&#8221; &#8220;As far as I know, maybe seven or eight people received these warnings in Zhuzhou city.&#8221; Dissidents in the southwestern megacity of Chongqing reported similar treatment. Democracy advocate Xu Wanping, who served 23 years in jail for trying to set up an opposition party, said he is being taken out of town by police. &#8220;They made a point of contacting me and emphasizing that I wasn&#8217;t to speak out on anything today or tomorrow,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They&#8217;re taking me out of town for a couple of days; I&#8217;ve just gotten ready to leave.&#8221; Hong Kong park closure Asked if police were present as he spoke, Xu laughed and replied: &#8220;I wish you a healthy Dragon Boat Festival.&#8221; He said many others in Chongqing were also being escorted away from their homes. According to Zhou, the moves are part of a nationwide coordinated effort by police to prevent any form of public commemoration of the June 4, 1989 bloodshed, whether through in-person meetings or online. He said the level of security was &#8220;unprecedented&#8221; for a June 4 anniversary, and was likely linked to political jitters ahead of the 20th Party Congress later this year. Meanwhile, authorities in Hong Kong, where a once-annual candlelight vigil for massacre victims is being banned for the third year running, announced the partial closure of Victoria Park, the venue where it once took place. &#8220;In view of the police&#8217;s observation that some people are using different channels to incite the participation of unauthorized assemblies in the Victoria Park and its vicinity which may involve the use of the venue for illegal activities, the Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD) [is closing] part of the Victoria Park &#8230; until 12.30 a.m. on June 5, in order to prevent any unauthorized assemblies in the Park,&#8221; an LCSD spokesperson said in a statement on Thursday. The closed area will include the soccer pitches where the vigils once took place, it said. Police senior superintendent Liauw Ka-kei warned the public not to &#8220;test&#8221; the force&#8217;s willingness to enforce the law on June 4. He warned that solo candlelight vigils will be treated in the same way as gatherings, and that anyone wearing black clothing or carrying candles would be regarded as suspect. He cited recent court precedents as establishing that people could be guilty of &#8220;illegal assembly&#8221; even if they weren&#8217;t present at the scene, if it could be shown that they had in some way promoted such assemblies. &#8220;If the purpose of the person&#8217;s appearance at the scene makes it seem that he is inciting others to participate in an illegal assembly, the police will definitely search for evidence, and the specific law enforcement action will...
- [Wuhan activist Zhang Hai's bank card, online payments frozen in murky move](https://ij-reportika.com/wuhan-activist-zhang-hais-bank-card-online-payments-frozen-in-murky-move/): Wuhan-based activist Zhang Hai, who has campaigned for redress after his father died in the early days of the pandemic, has had restrictions placed on his bank account, RFA. Zhang, who has been an outspoken critic of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since the pandemic prompted a city-wide lockdown in Wuhan and killed his father, said he believes the move is a form of official retaliation. Zhang was recently asked to submit additional proof of ID in recent transactions via his account at the Bank of China Nantou branch in the southern city of Shenzhen, where he currently lives. Similar restrictions have been placed on several of his bank cards since the beginning of this year, he told RFA, while online banking transactions often fail to go through, he said. &#8220;The card I have is an ordinary bank card, which is linked to my mobile phone,&#8221; Zhang said. &#8220;All of the cards under my name are  restricted, meaning that I can&#8217;t do online transactions using payment services like WeChat Pay and Alipay, only cash.&#8221; &#8220;The way things are in China right now, so many places rely on those services to accept payment, and some places don&#8217;t want cash at all, even if I offer it,&#8221; he said. Staff at the Nantou Bank of China branch initially said the restrictions were requested by the Wuhan city police department, Zhang said. &#8220;The first time I went, they said that the Wuhan police had me under investigation, and had placed the restrictions,&#8221; Zhang said. &#8220;I went there yesterday, and they told me the bank card had been flagged by their own risk control mechanism, which made me feel as if they were just trying to inconvenience me,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They wanted me to submit further proofs, but then they said all of my cards were under investigation by Wuhan police,&#8221; he said. Zhang filed a lawsuit suing the Wuhan municipal government and a hospital over the wrongful death of his father in 2020, who died of COVID-19 after visiting a doctor in the early days of the pandemic, when the authorities hadn&#8217;t warned anyone about the virus. He has also given many interviews to foreign media outlets in recent years. &#8220;I have been called in to &#8216;drink tea&#8217; by the local state security police,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The Wuhan city government is furious with me, and have used all of their power to deal with me.&#8221; &#8220;The entire service sector in China, including banks, has to take orders from the government,&#8221; he said. Similar restrictions Rights attorney Ren Quanniu, whose lawyer&#8217;s license was revoked by the authorities last year, said his bank card had been placed under similar restrictions last year. &#8220;My Bank of Communications card was restricted some time ago. I went to the bank to report it, and they said it was under investigation,&#8221; Ren said. &#8220;I asked by which department, and they said that was confidential.&#8221; &#8220;But it wasn&#8217;t the police or a court, so it&#8217;s my guess that it was the state security police,&#8221; he said. He said the bank should honor the terms of its contract with customers in the absence of any judicial proceedings. &#8220;The bank has no right to inquire about customers&#8217; transactions or how they use the funds,&#8221; Ren said. &#8220;So the problem with his account is clearly some action behind the scenes.&#8221; &#8220;If there is a problem, the department should issue a document saying the account-holder is suspected of law-breaking and then the account will be frozen or restricted openly,&#8221; Ren said. &#8220;But there has been no document issued [regarding Zhang], nor any result from any investigation,&#8221; he said. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Myanmar military court sentences young man to death by hanging](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-military-court-sentences-young-man-to-death-by-hanging/): A 24-year-old man has been sentenced to death by hanging by the Tachileik District Court in Myanmar&#8217;s eastern Shan State, sources close to the court told RFA. Aik Sai Main, an ethnic Wa from Waine Kyauk Ward, Tachileik city, was arrested by police along with 21-year-old Htin Lin Aung on suspicion of bombing a pro-military rally on Feb. 1 this year. Four months later, the junta-run Tachileik District Court sentenced him on Wednesday to death by hanging under Section 54 of the Anti-Terrorism Law and Section 368 (1) of the Criminal Procedure Code, according to a source familiar with the court proceedings who did not want to be named for safety reasons. “It is true that he was sentenced to the death penalty by hanging. We investigated that in the District Court,” the source told RFA. “Family members could not come to the venue. They will be so upset. We ethnic groups are saddened by the junta’s arbitrary arrests and verdicts without any evidence.” Htin Lin Aung was sentenced to seven years in prison on Thursday under Section 52 (a) of the Anti-Terrorism Law. The bomb blast near a military rally in Tachileik on Feb. 1 killed four people and wounded more than 30 others. The bombing came exactly one year after a military coup against an elected civilian government which prompted mass protests, and then escalating violence across the country after the military used extreme force to quell the protests. In the past, the death penalty imposed by the junta has been based mainly on anti-terrorism laws. This is the first case of its kind since the coup to include Section 368 (a) of the Criminal Procedure Code which imposes death by hanging. Section 54 of the Anti-Terrorism Law, which was handed down at the trial, provides for a minimum sentence of 10 years and maximum sentence of life imprisonment or death. Section 368 (a) of the Code of Criminal Procedure stipulates that when the death penalty is given the person must be executed by hanging. A lawyer who declined to be named for security reasons described the verdict as a harsh sentence, noting that Section 368 (a) of the Criminal Procedure Code allows an appeal. “It gives the right to appeal to the Supreme Court within seven days, whether the sentence is death or death by hanging. Even if the family does not appeal, the prison authorities can appeal on behalf of the victim. Section 368 (1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure stipulates that the death penalty must be imposed by hanging until death.” Military council spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun told a press conference in the capital Naypyidaw on Wednesday the death penalty was a just punishment. Legal experts have criticized the junta for threatening the public with unfair executions.  A total of 115 people, including Aik Sai Main, were sentenced to death between Feb. 1, 2021, and May 19, 2022, according to data compiled by RFA based on figures released by the military council.  Last month Myanmar’s junta sentenced seven youths to death in the Yangon region after a secret military tribunal found them guilty of murder, a junta newspaper reported. According to Thai-based rights group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma) 13,926 people have been arrested between the start of the coup and June 2 this year. It says 10,870 people are still being held in detention while 3,035 have been freed and 21 released on bail. The group, founded by exiled former political prisoners, says 1,087 people were sentenced in person and 72 of those, including two children, were sentenced to death. Another 120 people were sentenced in absentia with 41 receiving the death penalty.
- [Invasion of Ukraine may spark a world war, experts warn](https://ij-reportika.com/invasion-of-ukraine-may-spark-a-world-war-experts-warn/): Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought to the fore U.S.-China frictions with no end in sight, analysts warned, while a former Asian leader cautioned about the risk of a new world war.  &#8220;I am afraid that wars have a habit of beginning small and then grow into world wars,&#8221; former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said at the Future of Asia conference hosted by Nikkei Inc. last week. Mahathir served as Malaysia&#8217;s prime minister from 1981 to 2003 and again from 2018 to 2020. He was 20 when World War II ended. Meanwhile, Chinese and U.S. analysts present at the conference traded accusations against each other’s countries and their roles in trying to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Bonnie Glaser, Director of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, said that China and Russia share a common interest in weakening U.S. global influence and they “seek to change the international order.” She reminded the audience at the conference that before the Russian invasion of Ukraine it was reported that the U.S. shared intelligence with China about Russia’s military plan and urged Beijing to intervene to prevent the war, only for China to share that intelligence with Moscow. This “underscores how much mistrust is there between the U.S. and China,” Glaser said. In response Jia Qingguo, professor at the Peking University’s School of International Studies, said the difference between China and the U.S. is that the U.S. is seeking an ideological world order while China is seeking a secular one “based on national sovereignty and territorial integrity.” It is the U.S. that has been trying to contain China, Jia said. China does not endorse Russia’s military attack against Ukraine but is sympathetic to Moscow being pushed by NATO’s possible expansion, the Beijing-based professor said, adding: “Never push a country, especially a big country, to a corner, however benign the intentions are.” &#8220;Countries should respect each other,&#8221; Jia said. Regarding that statement, the German Marshall Fund’s Glaser argued that China has been showing double standards when it comes to the definition of “respect.” &#8220;When countries have put their own interests ahead of Chinese interests, that has been interpreted by Beijing as disrespect,” she said. China-U.S. rivalry As the war drags on, “rather than be a strategic partner for China, Russia will become a burden,” predicted Glaser. “One possibility is that the U.S. will be freed up to some extent to focus even more intently on the competition with China and on cooperation with allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region,” the American analyst said, pointing out that officials in the Biden administration believe “that is the most likely outcome.” Veteran diplomat Bilahari Kausikan, who is a former permanent secretary to Singapore’s Foreign Ministry, said the key issue at present is U.S.-China relations. “China has been put in a very awkward situation. It has no other partner of the same strategic weight as Russia anywhere in the world,” he said. Speaking from the perspective of Southeast Asian countries, Kausikan said geopolitics are &#8220;moving in the direction of the West” but “if you insist in defining this conflict as a fight between totalitarianism and democracy you’ll likely make that support more shaky and shallow.”  “Not every country in this region finds every aspect of Western democracy universally attractive. Nor do they find every aspect of Chinese authoritarianism universally unappealing,” he argued. Former Malaysian PM Mahathir seemed to echo the Chinese government’s stance when describing the attitude of the U.S. as &#8220;always to apply pressure to force regime change.&#8221; &#8220;When people do not agree, the U.S. would show that it may take military action,&#8221; he said. &#8220;That is why there is a tendency for tension to increase whenever it involves the U.S.&#8221; But “it’s not easy to contain China,” Kausikan said. “China and the U.S. are both parts of the global economic system. They’re linked together by supply chains … Like it or not, they’re stuck together,” the Singapore analyst said. “Competition will be very complicated,” he added. Arleigh-burke class guided missile-destroyer USS Barry transits the Taiwan Strait during a routine transit on Sept. 17, 2021 in this US Navy photograph Taiwan question Experts at the Tokyo conference also discussed the possibility of a conflict involving Taiwan, which China considers a breakaway province that should be reunified with the mainland. Jia Qingguo stated that there should be no comparison between Ukraine and Taiwan. “No country has the right to support some residents of another country to split the place in which they live away from that country,” he said.  “China has every right to make sure that Taiwan will not be split from China.” Glaser said China’s military is, without doubt, following the war in Ukraine closely.  “There are some differences between Taiwan and Ukraine and it’s not a perfect analogy but there are lessons to be drawn.” “Russia has far greater military capabilities than Ukraine but the Ukrainian resistance has been fierce and I wonder if the PLA has actually anticipated a possibility of facing a fierce resistance in Taiwan,” Glaser said. She said she hoped Taiwan would also draw some lessons from the conflict in Ukraine and develop its own defense capabilities in the face of security threats from China.
- [Suspect in kidnapping of Vietnamese executive extradited to Germany](https://ij-reportika.com/suspect-in-kidnapping-of-vietnamese-executive-extradited-to-germany/): A suspect in the 2017 Berlin kidnapping of former Vietnamese oil and gas official Trinh Xuan Thanh has been extradited to Germany from the Czech Republic. The Vietnamese national, identified as Anh T.L., was handed over to German authorities on Wednesday after his arrest in Prague earlier this year, news agencies reported citing a statement from the German Federal Prosecutor&#8217;s Office. Anh faces charges including espionage and is accused of stalking the victim and driving the getaway van. On July 23, 2017, former Trinh Xuan Thanh was abducted in a Berlin park and thrown into a van with a woman, identified as Thi Minh P.D. He was allegedly smuggled back to Vietnam for trial. A Hanoi court charged Thanh with causing loss of state assets and mismanagement at PetroVietnam Construction Joint Stock Corporation. He was sentenced to two life terms on corruption charges. At the time of his abduction Thanh was seeking refugee status in Germany. The kidnapping strained German-Vietnamese relations and prompted Berlin to expel two Vietnamese diplomats. A year after the kidnapping, a Vietnamese citizen, identified as Long N.H., was sentenced to three years and 10 months in prison by a Berlin court on charges of espionage and assisting Vietnamese secret service agents in entering German territory to kidnap people. &#8220;The kidnapping was carried about by members of the Vietnamese secret service and employees of the Vietnamese embassy in Berlin as well as several Vietnamese nationals living in Europe, among them Ahn T.L.,&#8221; the German public prosecutor general at the Federal Court of Justice said in a statement seen by news agencies. Vietnam claims Thanh returned voluntarily to face charges.
- [Chinese medical team returns home after training North Korea on COVID response](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-medical-team-returns-home-after-training-north-korea-on-covid-response/): A Chinese delegation of medical experts who last month traveled to North Korea to advise on COVID-19 containment strategies has returned to China, sources in both countries told RFA. RFA reported last month that the 13 doctors and medical technicians were in Pyongyang to help train North Korean medical personnel. “The Chinese medical experts left Pyongyang by train on the morning of May 29 and arrived in Dandong in the afternoon,” a North Korea related source, in the city on the Chinese side of the border, told RFA Wednesday on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “They passed on the experience and technology that China has gained about quarantine and response to the coronavirus to North Korea,” the source said. The Chinese health experts conducted training on the use of vaccines and testing at a bio-research center in Pyongyang, and discussed their clinical experience with staff at four Pyongyang hospitals, according to the source. “The North Korean quarantine authorities expressed their gratitude for their help in containing the spread of coronavirus in Pyongyang. Cooperation between the two countries regarding the COVID-19 quarantine will continue in the future,” the source said. State-run media this week reported that the COVID situation had “improved” in North Korea, after the country declared a maximum emergency last month due to a wave of outbreaks. The World Health Organization disagreed with that assessment, saying on Wednesday that the coronavirus situation in North Korea is getting worse, not better. Authorities still say an ongoing quarantine should continue, a source in the northwestern province of North Pyongan told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “Currently, they are doing a project to raise the skill level of hospital doctors in provincial areas,” the second source said. “In Pyongyang, technical training has already been conducted for medical staff at central hospitals. … Now in the provincial areas, preparation for receiving clinical education on coronavirus testing, medicines and treatment methods are in full swing through an online education system operated by Pyongyang Medical University,” the second source said. “Doctors in all areas are working really hard.  Doctors have always been respected by the residents, but the popularity of doctors is increasing due to the recent Omicron outbreak,” the source said. North Korean authorities said on Thursday that the number of new suspected coronavirus cases remained below 100,000 for three consecutive days. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency reported that from 6 p.m. on May 31 to 6 p.m. on June 1, there were about 96,610 new fever cases and about 108,990 patients had recovered, while no deaths were recorded. About 3.8 million people have been hit by outbreaks of fever, 70 of whom have died, according to data based on the most recent reports from North Korean state media published by 38 North. Around 3.7 million are reported to have made recoveries, while around 165,390 are undergoing treatment. Translated by Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Enrollment up as new academic year begins in Myanmar, despite turmoil](https://ij-reportika.com/enrollment-up-as-new-academic-year-begins-in-myanmar-despite-turmoil/): Myanmar’s junta reopened basic education schools across the country for the 2022-2023 academic year on Thursday with student enrollment levels surpassing those from a year earlier, when the pandemic and a teacher boycott of the military regime kept kids at home, according to parents and residents. In the commercial capital Yangon, the number of students attending primary schools saw a noticeable uptick, residents said, while security at the city’s educational centers was tighter than the previous year. Yangon taxi driver Than Win estimated that “around 50% of the children” went to school on the first day of classes, based on what he had seen driving through five of the city’s townships Thursday morning. “Very few were in school uniforms — maybe 20% or so,” he told RFA’s Burmese Service, suggesting they didn’t want to be seen as supporting junta rule. “I didn’t see security guards in the morning but in the afternoon, there were five or six security guards posted at some of the more prominent schools.” Parents said more children are attending school this year than last. Schools were closed in 2021 due to coronavirus restrictions and the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup, which prompted many teachers to leave their jobs and join the anti-junta Civil Disobedience Movement. Wai Wai, a mother from Yangon’s Twante township, told RFA that her 7-year-old daughter attended her first day of kindergarten classes on Thursday. “I thought there’d be no one at school but many people came — all the kids were wearing their white and green school uniforms. Last year, the children did not dare to wear white and green,” she said. “One teacher told me she had only three students in her class last year, but today she had 30.” The junta announced that 5.6 million students had enrolled nationwide for the current academic year, most of whom are based in Yangon region, the capital Naypyidaw and Mon state. An anti-coup protester splashes red paint on student uniforms hung outside a school during a demonstration against the re-opening of the school by the junta in Yangon, April 27, 2021. Credit: AP Photo NUG-run classes Despite the increase in enrollment, many parents said they would continue to boycott junta-run schools. The country’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) recently said it is working to provide classes for school-age children of parents led by CDM teachers. Mon Mon, a resident of Magway region’s Yezagyo township, told RFA her 7-year-old son will attend NUG-run classes this spring instead of school. “There’s no school for my son this year because we don’t want to support the junta&#8217;s education system,” she said. “I plan to send my son to classes run by the Spring Revolution NUG. We will find a school where CDM teachers teach. Another reason [he won’t attend] is that we feel sorry for children in war-torn areas who cannot go to school and sympathize with them.” The junta invited CDM teachers to return to work with no repercussions by May 31 and recently extended its offer to June 7. Kyaw Min Khant, an official with the All Myanmar Teachers’ Federation, confirmed to RFA that enrollment in schools in many of the country’s regions and states is around 50% higher than last year. “We have seen a significant increase in enrollment over the past year,” he said. “Many parents have realized that they need to keep their children in school. … They know that their kids will be much older if they wait for the country&#8217;s political stalemate to be solved before they return, so they are willing to separate their politics from their children’s education.” According to Kyaw Min Khant, 11 million children were eligible to attend school nationwide in 2021, while the number had increased to around 13 million this year, with some 80% in attendance. Translation by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [US report on international religious freedom cites genocides in China and Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/us-report-on-international-religious-freedom-cites-genocides-in-china-and-myanmar/): China and Myanmar feature prominently in the U.S.’s latest report on global restrictions on religious rights and practices, which singles out the two countries for their repression of mostly Muslim Uyghurs and Rohingya. “We have seen to genocides of religious minority communities in recent years in China and Burma,” said U.S. Ambassador-at-Large Rashad Hussain of the Office of International Religious Freedom during a press conference Thursday to release the report. The State Department is required to submit its assessment of religious freedom across the globe to Congress each year. Witnesses and experts provided grim testimony in the report about torture, rape and other human rights violations in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). “It comes as no surprise that the People’s Republic of China is a glaring example” of a government that represses citizens who practice certain religions, said Hussain, who serves as an advisor to the President Joe Biden on religious freedom conditions and policy. “The PRC government continues to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs who are predominantly Muslim and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups,” he said. Hussain noted China’s continued use of technologies, including artificial intelligence and facial recognition, “to surveil and maintain control of its open-air prison in Xinjiang.” Human rights groups and Uyghur advocacy organizations have amassed credible evidence of the severe abuse Uyghurs in Xinjiang have suffered, from mass incarcerations and the destruction of mosques to torture, rape and forced sterilizations. Beijing has angrily denied the accusations, calling them the “lie of the century.” “China continues its genocide of predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other religious minority groups,” said U.S. Secretary of State Blinken at the press conference. “Since April 2017, more than 1 million Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, Kirghiz and others have been detained internment camps in Xinjiang.” RFA has reported that up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities have been detained in China’s vast network of hundreds of internment camps throughout Xinjiang. Chinese officials have said that the camps are vocational training centers designed to offer an alternative path away from terrorism and religious extremism. Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress in Germany, said the comments by Hussain and Blinken show that the U.S. stands with Uyghur Muslims and will hold China to account for the Uyghur genocide. “Their powerful words should encourage the international community to act to end the Uyghur genocide,” he said. “China wants to eradicate Islam because it believes Islam is a cancer. China is committing genocide against Uyghur people precisely because we are Muslims.” Rushan Abbas, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Campaign for Uyghurs, said she was pleased that Blinken called out China’s gross violations of human rights, genocide and crimes against humanity. “Blinken’s words reveal to the world that China is like the emperor’s new clothes, hiding behind lies,” she said. There was no immediate comment from the Chinese government about the U.S. report. The report also noted Myanmar’s repressive treatment of members of the Rohingya ethnic and religious minority group.  Violent clearance operations of Rohingya communities in western Myanmar by the country’s military in 2017, including arbitrary killings, torture and mass rape, drove more than 740,000 people to neighboring Bangladesh, where they now living in sprawling refugee camps.  “In March, based on extensive legal review of the evidence, I made the determination that Burma’s military committed genocide and crimes against humanity with the intent to destroy predominantly Muslim Rohingya in 2017,” Blinken said, citing evidence of attacks on mosques, use of religious and ethnic slurs, and the desecration of Korans. The military junta that seized power from the democratically elected government in February 2021 had confined 144,000 Rohingya in internal displacement camps in Rakhine state by the end of 2021, the report says, citing information from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.  The junta also continues to restrict where Rohingya are allowed to travel in Myanmar and has made no efforts to initiate the return of Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh, the report says.
- [Cambodian woman says police assault during strike led to miscarriage](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-woman-says-police-assault-during-strike-led-to-miscarriage/): A Cambodian woman said a physical assault she suffered at the hands of police officers during a labor protest outside the NagaWorld Casino may have led to the death of her unborn child. Sok Ratana told RFA’s Khmer Service that she had been pregnant when she joined the ongoing strike outside the casino’s offices on May 11. The police pushed and shoved her during the protest, she said. Fearing they may have hurt her baby in utero, she went to her doctor, who told her that the baby only had a 50% chance to live. Sok Ratana said that she miscarried on May 28. The doctor told her that the baby had likely died two days before he removed it from her womb, she said. “Losing my beloved baby has caused me an unbelievable pain that I will feel the rest of my life,” said Sok Ratana. “This experience has shown me the brutality of the authorities and it has deeply hurt my family.” Sok Ratana is one of thousands of NagaWorld workers who walked off their jobs in mid-December, demanding higher wages and the reinstatement of eight jailed union leaders, three other jailed workers and 365 others they say were unjustly fired from the hotel and casino. The business is owned by a Hong Kong-based company believed to have connections to family members of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen. The strikers began holding regular protest rallies in front of the casino. Cambodian authorities have said their gatherings were “illegal” and alleged that they are part of a plot to topple the government, backed by foreign donors. Authorities began mass detentions of the protesters, claiming that they were violating coronavirus restrictions. They often resorted to violence to force hundreds of workers onto buses. “The labor dispute has turned to a dispute with authorities because they constantly crack down on us without any clemency,” Sok Ratana said. “I never thought that Cambodia has a law saying that when workers demand rights … authorities can crack down on us.” She said that authorities worked with the company to pressure workers to stop the strike. She urged the government to better train its security forces to not become violent. Kata Orn, spokesperson of the government-aligned Cambodia Human Rights Committee, expressed sympathy with Sok Ratana’s circumstance but said that it was too early to say whether the authorities were at fault. He urged Sok Ratana to file a complaint with the court. “We can’t prejudge the loss due to the authorities. Only medical experts can tell,” he said. “We can [only] implement the law. It is applied equally to the workers and the authorities.” Sok Ratana said she is working on collecting evidence to file a complaint, but she wasn’t confident a court will adjudicate the case fairly. “I don’t have much hope because my union leader was jailed unjustly for nine weeks. Her changes have not been dropped yet,” she said. “To me, I don’t hope to get justice. From who? I want to ask, who can give me justice?” Police violence is a serious human rights violation, Am Sam Ath of the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights told RFA. He urged relevant institutions to investigate the miscarriage and bring those responsible to justice. “Labor disputes can’t be settled by violence and crackdowns. This will lead to even more disputes and the workers and authorities will try to get revenge,” he said. The Labor Ministry has attempted to mediate the dispute between the casino and the union leaders, who have been released on bail, but no progress has been made after more than 10 meetings. Am Sam Ath said the difficulty in resolving the labor dispute might push the government to crack down harder on the holdouts and make more arrests. RFA attempted to contact Phnom Penh Municipal Police spokesman San Sok Seiha and the Ministry of Women’s Affairs spokeswoman Man Chenda, but neither were available for comment.  Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Democracy in China won't come without a 'huge crisis' for ruling party: analysts](https://ij-reportika.com/democracy-in-china-wont-come-without-a-huge-crisis-for-ruling-party-analysts/): Democracy is unlikely to come to China unless a number of circumstances fall into place at just the right time under the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), exiled dissidents told RFA ahead of the 33rd anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre. Wang Dan, a former leader of the 1989 student-led democracy movement in China and the founder of the Dialogue China think-tank, warned that people shouldn&#8217;t harbor illusions about deliberate political reform under the CCP. He said there was likely a less than 0.1 percent chance that the ruling party would willingly reform itself in a democratic transition seen under the Kuomintang government in Taiwan. Instead, internal divisions over how to deal with a crisis are more likely to weaken the CCP&#8217;s hold on power, Wang Dan told RFA. &#8220;Perhaps if there is a huge crisis and challenge [facing China], generating a certain level of internal disagreement, and the government misjudges and makes the wrong response are wrong, then maybe history will turn,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Without the combination of these factors, I advise everyone to drop any remaining illusions they hold about the CCP,&#8221; he said. Exiled dissident and political commentator Wang Juntao said CCP leader Xi Jinping&#8217;s insistence on a zero-COVID policy in response to the pandemic could prove to be just such a crisis, however. &#8220;Now that the enforcement methods used to implement zero-COVID disease control and prevention measures have brought disaster to the people, more and more people agree that Xi Jinping is going against the opinions of experts from all over the world, and yet there is no way to make him correct his course,&#8221; Wang Juntao said. He said that Mao Zedong&#8217;s initiation of the political turmoil of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) had prompted calls for democracy from within CCP ranks after the late supreme leader&#8217;s death. Those people understood the need to prevent the emergence of another strongman like Mao, and tried to make power less concentrated, so that the entire party and country were subject to the rule of a single person ever again. But it seems that a similar pattern has emerged under Xi Jinping, he said. Students gather at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, April 22, 1989.AFP The new generation Wang said the crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen protests was to be expected under such a repressive system, and that crackdowns on dissent had been ongoing since then. But he said he wasn&#8217;t pessimistic, because different generations make different meanings out of history. &#8220;You have to believe that democratization is the overall trend,&#8221; he said. &#8220;You have to believe that constitutional human rights are based on the basic aspirations of human nature, and you have to believe that the political demands of 1989 are the inevitable destination of human beings and the Chinese nation.&#8221; &#8220;This generation may not have been through the Tiananmen massacre, but they will have experienced their own events, and will soon start connecting their destiny with the events of the past,&#8221; he said. &#8220;When that happens, the Tiananmen protests and massacre will take on a fresh meaning, like a stele [stone carved with a commemorative inscription],&#8221; he said. &#8220;As long as China remains undemocratized, there will come a time when the next generation shares the same fate we do, unless those in power stop suppressing their struggle for democracy,&#8221; Wang Juntao said. Wang Dan said most young people in China had heard of the Tiananmen massacre, but were unlikely to understand what took place in detail. &#8220;Most people know about June 4th, but they don&#8217;t know the cause, the outcome, or the ins and outs,&#8221; Wang Dan said. &#8220;But they do know that June 4, 1989 is a sensitive date.&#8221; &#8220;There are actually very few young people who don&#8217;t know this huge things happened in China,&#8221; he said, adding that current events could trigger their curiosity. He said that Chinese people often do their own research once they go overseas to study, and are free of government censorship or surveillance. &#8220;As long as the wheel of democracy is rolling forward, I&#8217;m not worried at all,&#8221; he said. &#8220;From a historical perspective, it&#8217;s fairly irrelevant whether young people know about June 4, 1989 right now or not.&#8221; View of a residential building during a COVID-19 lockdown in the Jing&#8217;an district in Shanghai, April 8, 2022. Credit: AFP Protests over lockdown In recent days, protests involving hundreds of students have sprung up at university campuses in Beijing and Tianjin, over draconian COVID-19 restrictions imposed on higher education. The scenes at Tianjin University, Beijing International Studies University and Beijing Normal University were eerily reminiscent of the early stages of the 1989 student movement, which later took over Beijing&#8217;s Tiananmen Square for weeks on end with demands for democratic reforms and the rule of law. Those protests culminated in a bloody massacre of civilians by the People&#8217;s Liberation Army (PLA) on the night of June 3-4, with an unknown number of casualties. In Shanghai, an open letter from entrepreneurs dated May 30 called for the release of all political prisoners and for the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to begin a process of political reform at the 20th Party Congress later in the year, warning of mass capital flight and a widespread loss of public confidence in Xi Jinping&#8217;s leadership. It urged the industrial sector not to act like &#8220;sheep fattened for slaughter&#8221; by returning to full production in the wake of the weeks-long Shanghai lockdown. It said the &#8220;rule of law&#8221; had been reduced to &#8220;rule by man&#8221;, while the economy had been hijacked by politics, leaving millions of COVID-19 &#8220;graduates&#8221; unemployed, calling on people to &#8220;take back their civil rights and rebuild the country.&#8221; The letter also called on the government to overturn the guilty verdicts against entrepreneurs Ren Zhiqiang and Sun Dawu, as well as punishing officials responsible for &#8220;violating the law and disregarding public opinion&#8221; as part of the zero-COVID policy and loosening CCP controls on the media. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Jailed Changsha NGO worker subjected to physical abuse, mistreatment in jail: wife](https://ij-reportika.com/jailed-changsha-ngo-worker-subjected-to-physical-abuse-mistreatment-in-jail-wife/): The wife of one of the Changsha Funeng NGO workers jailed in the central Chinese province of Hunan says he is being subjected to physical abuse and mistreatment in Chishan Prison. Changsha Funeng co-founder Yang Zhanqing, who now lives in the U.S., has previously said that the three men were targeted because their rights work had received overseas funding, which the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regards as &#8220;collusion with hostile foreign forces,&#8221; and a threat to its national security. Changsha Funeng sought to prevent discrimination and ensure equality in line with Chinese law by using the courts to strengthen protections for individuals living with disabilities and with HIV/AIDS and other communicable diseases. Shi Minglei, wife of Cheng Yuan, recently received a handwritten letter form her husband detailing his treatment while serving a sentence for &#8220;subversion of state power&#8221; handed down by the Changsha Intermediate People&#8217;s Court in August 2020. She spoke to RFA about the contents of the letter: The letter said that as soon as he got out of the van, he was taken to the high-security wing, where he was detained for three months until April 18. Anyone who has been in a high-security prison area knows that it forms part of a correctional center, also called a strict management center, with poor food and substandard living conditions. There were hourly roll calls taken through the night, and there was a lot of physical abuse, like forced duck-walks, and many other kinds of psychological and physical abuse. The treatment in high-security prisons is tantamount to torture. What I heard is that they learned from the experience of the concentration camps in Xinjiang. He [included one quotation, a couple lines of poetry] written in pain by [Chinese historian] Sima Qian after being tortured, very severely. What this means is that Cheng Yuan has never confessed or pleaded guilty, so they sent him to a high-security jail to try to force him to &#8216;confess.&#8217; He also used a couple lines of poetry to express in a very cryptic way &#8230; that he is getting up before daylight to do forced labor and getting back very late from the workshop. He only has two hours to himself in which he has to wash himself and his clothes, so he&#8217;s also not getting enough time to rest. For example, the molding workshop contains chemicals and harmful gases, and there isn&#8217;t even any basic protection. They only get regular masks or even fabric masks. Washing frequently doesn&#8217;t have any protective effect. They distribute disposable medical masks only when the prison leaders come round on a tour of inspection. [Taiwan political activist and former inmate] Lee Ming-cheh told me that most prisoners are taken straight to prison, and even maybe to study centers for study, but not to the high-security wing. High-security prisons are places meant for punishing existing inmates. Cheng Yuan had done nothing wrong when he went to Chishan Prison, but he was taken to the high-security wing, which is standard practice for torture. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Warships arrive in Kyauk Phyu township as tensions rise in Myanmar's Rakhine state](https://ij-reportika.com/warships-arrive-in-kyauk-phyu-township-as-tensions-rise-in-myanmars-rakhine-state/): Myanmar’s military is sending more troops into Rakhine state amid fears that an informal ceasefire with the Arakan Army (AA) is about to collapse. A submarine arrived at Kyauk Phyu township on May 31, after sailing through the Bay of Bengal and traveling up the Than Zit river, according to locals. They said a warship arrived the following day. A resident, who declined to be named for safety reasons, told RFA’s Burmese Srrvice the ship was equipped with heavy artillery and helicopter landing pads. “The warship is huge,” the resident said. “It docked at Number Three Port in Kyauk Phyu and I saw soldiers disembark. I don’t know how many there were but I estimate that hundreds of soldiers were on board.” The two vessels moved to Number 15 Port at the Thit Pote Taung Naval Base in Kyauk Phyu after the troops disembarked. The township is home to one of China’s largest infrastructure projects in Myanmar, including the Kyauk Phyu Deep Sea Port. The resident speculated that the troop reinforcements were sent to protect China’s business interests amid fears of further clashes between the military and the AA. “There are a lot of Chinese projects here,” the local said. “The construction of deep-sea ports for docking submarines was also done by Chinese companies. So if the fighting intensifies I think the military is being deployed to protect China’s economic projects.” Some locals told RFA they were concerned about being able to get hold of basic supplies such as rice, cooking oil and salt as a result of the military reinforcement. When contacted by RFA, a junta spokesman denied that more troops had arrived on May 31. At a news conference on May 19 he said that the military could not be blamed if fighting breaks out in Rakhine state. Military tensions between the military council and the AA have been high since early May, with locals and Rakhine politicians concerned that fighting will soon intensify. An NGO which is monitoring the crisis released a report on Wednesday urging both sides to refrain from fighting. International Crisis Group (ICG) said people in Rakhine state would suffer if the war between the army and the AA breaks out again. Renewed clashes could impact 3 million Rakhine residents The AA began as a resistance group in 2009 and grew into a powerful ethnic army. It fought a two-year war with Myanmar’s military, which ended with an informal ceasefire in November 2020. The ceasefire has still not been formalized and the AA says it remains committed to establishing an independent state for ethnic Rakhines. Clashes between AA fighters and the military in two villages near Paletwa township on May 26 have raised fears the uneasy truce is about to crumble. The resumption of full-scale conflict between the military and the Arakan Army could put the lives of millions of ethnic minority residents of Rakhine State at risk, according to ICG. It said AA moves to gain territory in the north are likely to affect the lives of as many as 3 million ethnic Rakhines and Rohingyas. ICG senior adviser on Myanmar Tom Kean told RFA the humanitarian consequences would probably be worse than during the two-year war. Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) has invited the AA to join an alliance of regional armies to fight the military, which IGC said could also lead to an escalation in violence in Rakhine state.
- [Tiananmen massacre vigil organizer says Hongkongers 'refuse to forget' despite ban](https://ij-reportika.com/tiananmen-massacre-vigil-organizer-says-hongkongers-refuse-to-forget-despite-ban/): Chiu Yan-loy, a community officer in Hong Kong&#8217;s Tsuen Wan district and former leading member of the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, won&#8217;t be lighting candles in Victoria Park this year. The once-annual vigil commemorating those who died at the hands of the People&#8217;s Liberation Army (PLA) as it crushed a weeks-long peaceful protest on Beijing&#8217;s Tiananmen Square has been effectively banned for the third year running. Chiu has already served eight months in prison for taking part in an unauthorized vigil in 2020. Instead, Hongkongers will be remembering the dead in private, amid a city-wide crackdown on public dissent under a draconian national security law. Chiu Yan-loy: I have no regrets. It was an honor for me to be sentenced as a dissident-in-mourning on June 4. Commemorating the massacre in itself is not a crime, and making it one is political suppression and nothing more. I choose to stay in Hong Kong to endure this situation. More than 10,000 other people in Victoria Park at the same time of me also risked such charges. If I can carry the can for them, then that&#8217;s what I&#8217;ll do. RFA: Will there be other events in Hong Kong? Chiu Yan-loy: It&#8217;s a luxury to hold a ceremony like that in today&#8216;s Hong Kong. June 4 commemorations and candlelight vigils are a way of gathering a kind of strength. We won&#8217;t see June 4 rallies again in Hong Kong, nor any [public] mourning. RFA: What can be done instead? Chiu Yan-loy: When I was in prison, I realized that the most unbearable thing was the feeling of loneliness; a sense that nobody cared about me. Visiting inmates is similar to the spirit of mourning June 4. Spiritual support makes them understand that they are not alone &#8230; that there are still people who care about them. Helping them overcome their loneliness is the most important thing. RFA: How are your former colleagues doing? Chiu Yan-loy: I&#8217;m very sad that every one of them has wound up in jail or been suppressed in some way. However, I respect their choices. [Alliance leader Chow Hang-tung] had previously talked with me about her choices before [her prison sentences] and why she made them. I hope she has enough will-power to hang in there. I wish her well. RFA: How are you doing? Chiu Yan-loy: After I got out, I went back to the community to serve my residents through crowdfunding. There are many unknowns in the future, but I will keep up hope and perseverance. Hongkongers should have hope, and keep moving forwards. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Canada protests after aircraft ‘buzzed’ by Chinese jets](https://ij-reportika.com/canada-protests-after-aircraft-buzzed-by-chinese-jets/): China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) fighter jets have repeatedly “buzzed” a Canadian reconnaissance aircraft on a U.N. mission in East Asia, with over two dozen intercepts deemed dangerous, a media outlet in Canada reported. “Buzzing” means flying extremely close and fast. On these occasions the Chinese jets came as close as 20 to 100 feet (six to 30 meters) to the Canadian plane, according to a report Wednesday in Canada’s Global News. The network quoted anonymous sources in the Canadian government and military as saying the government lodged “multiple” diplomatic complaints with Beijing for what they called the “unsafe and unprofessional conduct” of the Chinese pilots. The Canadian maritime patrol aircraft CP-140 Aurora, manned by rotating crews, is currently taking part in U.N. Operation NEON to monitor sanctions against North Korea. A spokesperson for the Canadian Department of National Defence was quoted as saying that the incidents are “of concern and of increasing frequency.”   There have been around 60 such incidents since December with the planes sometimes coming so close the pilots could make eye contact with each other, risking a mid-air collision, the report said. The Chinese government is believed not to have responded to Canada’s complaints, the report said. The Lockheed CP-140 Aurora is similar to the Lockheed P-3C Orion which is used by the U.S. Navy for anti-submarine and maritime surveillance.  The Aurora is “Canada’s primary airborne intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft,” according to the Canadian government website. It “provides a full range of maritime, littoral and overland surveillance capabilities for domestic and deployed missions.” It is unclear which type of Chinese aircraft were involved in the “buzzing” incidents.  Close encounters continue There have been a number of close encounters between Chinese and foreign military airplanes in recent years.  The latest incident took place in March when U.S. Lockheed Martin F-35 fighters had at least one close contact with China’s J-20 stealth fighters over the East China Sea. A U.S. Navy P-3C Orion surveillance aircraft and a Chinese military surveillance aircraft came within 1,000 feet (305 meters) of each other in the skies over the South China Sea in 2017. The worst incident occurred in April 2001 when a Chinese F-8 fighter jet collided with a U.S. Navy EP-3 Aries II surveillance plane over the South China Sea, killing the Chinese pilot. The U.S. airplane had to make an emergency landing on China’s Hainan island and its 24 crew members were detained for 11 days before being released.  Strained relationship Canada-China relations have been strained after Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, a senior executive at the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei in 2018 at the request of the U.S. China retaliated by arresting two Canadian citizens, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig.  The two Canadians were released last September after Meng was allowed to return to China. Relations between the two countries soured again last month after Canada banned Huawei and another Chinese telecom company, ZTE, from taking part in its 5G network development.
- [Resumption of conflict would put millions at risk in Myanmar’s Rakhine state: report](https://ij-reportika.com/resumption-of-conflict-would-put-millions-at-risk-in-myanmars-rakhine-state-report/): A resumption of a full-scale conflict between Myanmar’s military and Arakan Army (AA) insurgents could result in the worst violence Rakhine state has seen in years and put the lives of millions of ethnic minorities in the region at risk, according to a new report by an international NGO. In a report released Wednesday, the International Crisis Group (ICG) said AA moves to gain territory in central and northern Rakhine state since it agreed to an informal ceasefire with the military in the latter part of 2020 are likely to prompt intense fighting in the region. It warned that up to 3 million ethnic Rakhines and Rohingyas would be severely affected by the violence and called for the ceasefire to be formalized, despite the AA’s declared goal of establishing an independent state for ethnic Rakhines and a bid by Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) to have the AA join a coalition of anti-junta armed groups. “A resumption of war in Rakhine state would have significant impacts for the 2-3 million people in the state, both Rakhine and Rohingya, who have so far been spared the post-coup violence that has engulfed the rest of Myanmar,” the ICG’s senior adviser on Myanmar, Tom Kean, told RFA’s Burmese Service in an email prior to the release of the report. “The humanitarian consequences would likely be devastating — almost certainly worse than during the two-year war from December 2018 to November 2020, which the state has still not recovered from.” Kean said that in researching the ICG’s report, both Rakhine and Rohingya interviewees expressed fear of conflict resuming, adding that while many believed such a conflict is inevitable, it is something they neither wanted nor supported. And while many in Myanmar would welcome a partnership against the junta between the AA and the NUG-led opposition, the report suggested that such an arrangement could spark violence that would significantly worsen the living situation for civilians in Rakhine state, which is already reeling from a battered economy and years of communal violence. Instead, Kean urged the AA to secure a formal ceasefire with the military, adding that while the insurgent army must decide for itself how best to achieve its political goals, a renewed war is “not the best option.” However, he suggested that the AA “work closely” with the NUG to choose a way to avoid the risk of a recurrence of conflict in Rakhine state. Refugees at a camp in Rakhine state&#8217;s Ponnagyun township, Jan. 21, 2022. Credit: RFA ‘The view of the people’ The ICG report follows a recent uptick in tensions between the two sides after the Arakan Army commander-in-chief, Gen. Tun Myat Naing, issued a warning to the military’s Western Commander Htin Latt Oo on Twitter. On May 26, the military and AA fighters clashed near the villages of Abaung-thar and Yote-wa, about six miles from the center of Rakhine’s Paletwa township, and residents have told RFA they are worried that the two-year-old ceasefire had been broken. Nyo Aye, the chairwoman of the Rakhine Women’s Network, called for calm between the two sides in an interview with RFA, noting that it is largely civilians who bear the brunt of armed conflict. “When tensions grow, there is a likelihood for more fighting,” she said. “We find this very worrying. It is our people who suffer because of the fighting. Tensions need to be reduced and I’m not talking about one side. I mean both sides need to compromise. That’s the view of the people.” An ethnic Rohingya Muslim from a village in northern Rakhine’s Buthidaung township told RFA that people there do not want fighting to resume. “Our only desire is to live in peace,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “If there is fighting, there will be hardship. I am worried about the lives of refugees. We just want the fighting to stop.” He said fighting appears likely to resume as the military is regularly entering Muslim villages in Buthidaung, watching for AA movements. Attempts by RFA to reach AA spokesman Khaing Thukha for comment went unanswered Wednesday, but the junta’s deputy information minister, Maj. Gen Zaw Min Tun, responded to inquiries saying that the military is not deploying troops to Rakhine state and is trying to maintain peace in the region. “We only have local security forces who were there [from the previous conflict],” he said, adding that the AA claims the military is sending reinforcements to the area “to frighten the people.” “We are committed to the development of Rakhine state, and we are continuing to work for peace and stability. … If they want to say the [military] is expanding its presence or launching an operation, they should provide some evidence.” Military ‘directly responsible’ for violence Meanwhile, the ICG’s Kean said that if the junta truly hopes to establish peace in Rakhine state and other parts of Myanmar, it must stop oppressing its own people. “The military regime is directly responsible for the violence in Myanmar because it launched the [Feb. 1, 2021] coup and refuses to respect the will of the vast majority of Myanmar people,” Kean said. “Instead, it is using extreme violence to try and cower them into submission,” he said of the junta’s ensuing crackdown that rights groups say has led to the deaths of at least 1,878 civilians and the arrest of 13,915 more, mostly during peaceful anti-coup protests. Kean noted that despite the military’s brutal tactics, resistance to its rule — both armed and non-violent — “remains strong across much of the country.” “The military should of course stop abusing its own people, but this alone is unlikely to end the conflict because most people in Myanmar do not seem willing to accept any form of military government,” he said. “The path to stability is to hand back power to a civilian administration that has the support of the people.” Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Cambodian diplomat’s club stake to be examined by English Football League](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-diplomats-club-stake-to-be-examined-by-english-football-league/): The English Football League says that it will be making enquiries with Birmingham City Football Club following the revelation by RFA earlier this week that Cambodian diplomat Wang Yaohui secretly controls an eighth of the club’s shares. Under English Football League regulations, Birmingham City is obliged to disclose both to the league and publicly the identity of any person who directly or indirectly holds “any Significant Interest in the club.” Birmingham’s ownership disclosure does not name Wang, something that could cause problems for the club. Contacted on Tuesday, the English Football League’s communications manager Billy Nickson indicated in an email that the league was looking into the issues raised in RFA’s report. “All Clubs are aware of their obligations in respect of providing the appropriate and necessary disclosures in accordance with EFL Regulations,” Nickson wrote. “The EFL will take the matter up with the Club.” The EFL Championship is English soccer’s second highest division.  Born in China in 1966, Wang Yaohui is a naturalized Cambodian citizen and minister counselor at Cambodia’s embassy in Singapore. He has extensive business ties to one of Cambodia’s most powerful families, headed by ruling party Sen. Lau Ming Kan and his wife Choeung Sopheap. The couple are allies of Prime Minister Hun Sen. Wang’s stake in the soccer club is held through a company listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange called Birmingham Sports Holdings Limited, which owns 75 percent of the club. In December 2017, Wang acquired 8.52 percent of Birmingham Sports Holdings through a British Virgin Islands company called Dragon Villa Ltd. In the years since, filings with the Hong Kong stock exchange show he increased his stake to 17.08 percent, giving him a 12.8 percent interest in the club itself.  In its own disclosure statement, Birmingham City identifies Dragon Villa as being owned by a Chinese citizen named Lei Sutong. However, documents seen by RFA suggest that he is owner in name only. Corporate secrecy laws in the British Virgin Islands make it virtually impossible for members of the public to ascertain who the true owner of Dragon Villa is. However, filings lodged with the Singapore High Court reveal that it is in fact Wang. Gold Star Aviation Pte Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dragon Villa involved in the owning and operation of private jets. It is currently the defendant in a civil action in Singapore. Among its co-defendants is a Taiwanese-American named Jenny Shao, who Wang has granted power-of-attorney over his affairs since at least 2009. In a sworn affidavit submitted by Shao’s lawyers on her behalf and dated October 2020, she describes herself as Dragon Villa’s “authorized signatory.” She adds that Dragon Villa “is beneficially owned by Mr. Wang.” A beneficial owner is a person who enjoys the benefits of owning a company, even if it is held in someone else’s name. Former associates of Wang, who asked not to be identified citing security concerns, confirmed to RFA that Wang was Dragon Villa&#8217;s beneficial owner. The statement is also echoed in other affidavits lodged as part of the Singapore court case. Records also show that Dragon Villa has been involved in the ownership networks of several other Wang-linked enterprises. Should the EFL find the club violated regulations by failing to disclose Wang’s control of Dragon Villa – and therefore 12.8 percent of the club – then Birmingham City could face sanctions from the league. Wang Yaohui’s first Cambodian diplomatic passport bearing his Khmer name Wan Sokha. The passport was granted to him in 2015 in recognition of his role as an advisor to Prime Minister Hun Sen. Absentee owners Birmingham City fan Daniel Ivery has been raising concerns over Wang’s possible association with the club for years. He wrote on his blog Almajir on Tuesday that he had, “repeatedly attempted to raise this issue of Wang Yaohui with the EFL since December 2017.” Each time he raised the issue, he writes, the league refused “to even acknowledge that there may be an issue.” While it seems the league is now taking notice, it remains to be seen what, if anything, they will do about it. Ivery is not the only one who has been sounding the alarm over Birmingham City’s ownership. Local member of parliament Shabana Mahmood wrote to the UK Minister of Sport in January decrying “financial and professional mismanagement of absentee owners” at the club. For its part, Birmingham City has so far remained silent. The club acknowledged RFA’s enquiries for the first time on Wednesday when media manager Dale Moon promised to raise the issue with the club’s board and senior management – although he did not expect a statement to be forthcoming. “In all honesty,” Moon wrote, “given their historical stance on ownership, I don’t expect they will want to make any comment.” As of publication, no statement had been issued by the club.
- [Officials open mosques in Xinjiang cities visited by UN human rights chief](https://ij-reportika.com/officials-open-mosques-in-xinjiang-cities-visited-by-un-human-rights-chief/): Officials in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region opened long-closed mosques in the two cities visited last week by the United Nations human rights chief to give the appearance of normalcy despite a severe crackdown on the religion and culture of Muslim Uyghur residents, local police officers and government officials said. Mosques in Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi (in Chinese, Wulumuqi) and Kashgar (Kashi) were opened for a visit by U.N. rights czar Michelle Bachelet during the two days she spent in the region. Bachelet was on a six-day trip to China during which she also stopped in the coastal metropolis of Guangzhou in southern China. Since about 2017, up to 16,000 mosques, or roughly 65%, of all mosques have been destroyed or damaged as a result of government policies, according to the Uyghur Human Rights Project, a U.S.-based activist group. Other mosques have been closed but left standing, and a few famous ones remain open but under surveillance. The moves are part of a larger campaign of repression to erase Uyghur religious practices culture, along with the arbitrary detention of an estimate 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in internment centers and prisons. China has repeatedly denied it has committed rights abuses against Uyghurs and said the camps were vocational training centers to prevent extremism in the region. The United States and the parliaments of several Western countries have issued determinations that China’s policies in the XUAR amount to genocide and crimes against humanity. A person familiar with the situation in Urumqi told RFA that during Bachelet’s visit the Chinese government opened mosques that had long been closed there and in Kashgar. Local police officers interviewed by RFA also said some central mosques were open to the public in both cities, while other officials confirmed that mosques in Ghulja (Yining), Xinjiang’s third-largest city, which was not on Bachelet’s itinerary, remained closed before and during her trip to the XUAR. Though most of the mosques in Urumqi had been demolished or closed since 2016, a number have remained open for exhibition since 2020, said another source with knowledge of the situation. Prayer services are rarely performed, however. Uyghurs urged to pray Ahead of the U.N. team’s visit to Xinjiang, neighborhood committees urged Uyghurs to begin praying at several prominent mosques, including Urumqi’s Aq Mosque, also known as the White Mosque, said the source, who declined to be named for safety reasons. A police officer in the area where the Aq Mosque is located said the imam led Friday prayers on May 27 and that the religious building was open for exhibitions. “The imam of White Mosque led the prayers last Friday. That’s what I know,” he said. A police official in Kashgar told RFA that the historic Id Kah Mosque, which dates to 1442 and has been closed for worship since 2016, was opened for prayers since Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan that fell on May 1-2 this year. The official did not say how many people were going to mosque for prayer or whether they were going voluntarily or being forced by their neighborhood committees. “The only mosque that was opened during the U.N.’s visit was the Id Kah Mosque,” he said. A second security official in Ghulja said the four mosques in his hamlet were all closed and that Uyghurs were still banned from praying. He also described the situation of people not praying as a positive development. “We are telling them all the time that they cannot pray and they should not pray at home,” he said. “Before 2017, when people were allowed to pray, they did. But now everyone listens to the government’s new rules on religion and does not pray. It’s been like this since 2016.” Bachelet first announced that her office sought an unfettered access to Xinjiang in September 2018, shortly after she took over her current role. But the trip was delayed over questions about her freedom of movement through the region. In March, she announced that her office reached an agreement with the Chinese government about the visit. Her may trip was the first visit to China by a U.N. human rights commissioner since 2005. Bachelet said that her visit was not an investigation, but a dialogue and exchange between two sides. But Uyghur rights organizations have criticized her for failing to condemn China for its genocidal policies in Xinjiang and called for her resignation. Washington, D.C.-based Campaign for Uyghurs said Bachelet provided no transparency about the trip and that a prison visit in Xinjiang was a “Potemkin-style sham.” RFA Uyghur has yet to receive a reply to a request for comment from Bachelet’s office. Translated by RFA Uyghur. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Military carried out ‘collective punishment’ on ethnic civilians in eastern Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/military-carried-out-collective-punishment-on-ethnic-civilians-in-eastern-myanmar/): Myanmar’s military has subjected ethnic civilians in Kayin and Kayah states to “collective punishment” through aerial and ground attacks, detentions that lead to torture or extrajudicial executions, and the razing of villages, according to a new report by London-based rights group Amnesty International. The report, entitled “‘Bullets rained from the sky”: War crimes and displacement in eastern Myanmar’” and published Wednesday, found that clashes between the military and armed groups in the two regions reignited in the wake of the military’s February 2021 coup and worsened significantly from December to March this year. Hundreds of ethnic Karen and Karenni civilians have been killed in the fighting and more than 150,000 people have been displaced. “The world’s attention may have moved away from Myanmar since last year’s coup, but civilians continue to pay a high price. The military’s ongoing assault on civilians in eastern Myanmar has been widespread and systematic, likely amounting to crimes against humanity,” Rawya Rageh, senior crisis adviser at Amnesty International, said in a statement accompanying the report. “Alarm bells should be ringing: the ongoing killing, looting and burning bear all the hallmarks of the military’s signature tactic of collective punishment, which it has repeatedly used against ethnic minorities across the country.” Amnesty based its report on research it carried out in March and April this year, including interviews dozens of eyewitnesses and survivors of attacks as well as three defectors from the military. The group analyzed more than 100 photos and videos related to rights violations, in addition to satellite imagery, fire data and open-source military aircraft flight data. Amnesty said that since the coup, the military “has relentlessly attacked civilians” to punish those who purportedly support a particular armed group or the wider anti-junta uprising, while at other times “fir[ing] indiscriminately into civilian areas” where there are also military targets. “Direct attacks on civilians, collective punishment and indiscriminate attacks that kill or injure civilians violate international humanitarian law and constitute war crimes,” the group said. “Attacks on a civilian population must be widespread or systematic to amount to crimes against humanity; in Kayin and Kayah States, they are both, for crimes including murder, torture, forcible transfer and persecution on ethnic grounds.” Amnesty said it documented two dozen attacks by artillery or mortars between December and March that killed or injured civilians or that destroyed civilian buildings, adding that eyewitnesses said some of the attacks lasted “days at a time.” The group also documented eight air strikes on villages and camps housing refugees fleeing clashes in the first quarter of 2022 that killed nine civilians and injured at least nine others. Eyewitnesses described the attacks on locations where “only civilians appear to have been present” as extremely traumatic, leaving many unable to sleep or unwilling to return to their homes out of fear that they would be targeted again. A school destroyed by a military airstrike in Lay Kay Kaw, April 11, 2022. Credit: KNLA Cobra Column Extrajudicial executions, looting and burning Additionally, Amnesty’s reporting found that the military regularly carried out arbitrary detentions of civilians based on their ethnicity or because of their suspected support of an anti-junta group. Detainees “were tortured, forcibly disappeared or extrajudicially executed,” Amnesty said. The group specifically pointed to an incident that drew international condemnation in Kayah state’s Hpruso township on Christmas Eve last year, when the military stopped at least 35 women, men and children in multiple vehicles, killed them, and burned their bodies. An examination found that many of the victims had been tied up and gagged and were likely shot or stabbed to death. Amnesty has called for an investigation into the incident as a case of extrajudicial executions which, during armed conflict, constitute war crimes, the group noted. Other incidents mentioned in the report were related to what Amnesty called the military’s “systematic” looting and burning of villages in Kayin and Kayah state. Together, violence in the two regions has displaced more than 150,000 people, the group said, “including between a third and a half of Kayah state’s entire population.” The victims of this displacement are forced to shelter in “dire conditions,” it said, while aid workers are obstructed by the military from providing them access to much-needed food and health care. “Donors and humanitarian organizations must significantly scale up aid to civilians in eastern Myanmar, and the military must halt all restrictions on aid delivery,” said Matt Wells, Amnesty International’s crisis response deputy director for thematic issues. “The military’s ongoing crimes against civilians in eastern Myanmar reflect decades-long patterns of abuse and flagrant impunity. The international community — including ASEAN and U.N. member states — must tackle this festering crisis now. The U.N. Security Council must impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Myanmar and refer the situation there to the International Criminal Court.”
- [China demands information on COVID status of exiled Tibetans](https://ij-reportika.com/china-demands-information-on-covid-status-of-exiled-tibetans/): Authorities in western China’s Sichuan province are demanding that local Tibetans report the COVID status of relatives living outside the country, threatening them with the loss of housing subsidies and other support if they fail to disclose the information, RFA has learned. Local officials in the province’s Drago (in Chinese, Luohuo) county have gone door to door to collect the required data, a Tibetan living in exile said, citing contacts in Drago. Sichuan shares a border Tibet, which was invaded and incorporated into China by force more than 70 years ago.  “Chinese authorities are now forcing Tibetans in Drago to disclose the COVID vaccination status of their relatives living abroad. The information should include proof of vaccination and details of additional doses,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “Tibetan families must also reveal the cell phone numbers and social media accounts of their relatives living outside of China,” the source said. “They are being told that if they fail to hand this information over, they will be removed from household registries and denied any state assistance they may be receiving from the government,” he added. The reason for the data collection is still unclear, the source said. “However, there have been a few Tibetans living overseas who have been submitting their COVID vaccination records in the hope of someday returning to Tibet. “On the other hand, the Chinese authorities may want to collect data on Tibetans living abroad simply to gather information,” he said. China closely tracks communications from Tibetans living in Tibetan areas of China to relatives living abroad in an effort to block news of protests and other politically sensitive information from reaching international audiences, sources say. In May, RFA reported that Sichuan authorities were forcing Tibetan monks in Drago, a county located in Sichuan&#8217;s Kardze (Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, to sign affidavits claiming responsibility for the destruction of a sacred statue torn down by China. The move came after news of the demolition reached the international community, prompting widespread condemnation. The 99-foot tall Buddha that stood in Drago was targeted for destruction in December by officials who said the statue had been built too high. Monks from a local monastery and other Tibetan residents were forced to witness the destruction, an action experts called part of an ongoing campaign by China to eradicate Tibet’s national culture and religion. Eleven monks from a nearby monastery were later arrested by Chinese authorities on suspicion of sending news and photos of the statue’s destruction, first reported exclusively by RFA, to contacts outside the region. Using commercial satellite imagery, RFA later verified the destruction at the same time of a three-story statue of Maitreya Buddha, believed by Tibetan Buddhists to be a Buddha appearing in a future age, at Gaden Namyal Ling monastery in Drago. Communications clampdowns and other security measures meanwhile remain in place in the county, Tibetan sources report. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [Shanghai entrepreneurs demand political reform, release of prisoners of conscience](https://ij-reportika.com/shanghai-entrepreneurs-demand-political-reform-release-of-prisoners-of-conscience/): As Shanghai residents celebrated a partial end to a weeks-long, grueling city-wide lockdown, calls emerged on Wednesday for industrial action by businesses in the city to protest Chinese leader Xi Jinping&#8217;s zero-COVID policy. As the Shanghai city government claimed the city&#8217;s lockdown had lifted despite multiple barriers to movement around the city, an open letter calling on workers and companies to &#8220;lie down on the job&#8221; and to go back to work, but not back to production began circulating online. The May letter, penned by businesses rather than shop-floor workers, predicts mass capital flight and a widespread loss of public confidence in the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) under Xi, and calls on the industrial sector not to act like &#8220;sheep fattened for slaughter.&#8221; &#8220;It is a pity that some of us entrepreneurs and investors who are slightly successful, despite sitting on investments of hundreds of billions of yuan in Shanghai and across the whole country, and employing millions of employees, are still struggling,&#8221; the letter said. &#8220;Repeatedly forced into isolation, door-to-door disinfecting and other threats at the hands of neighborhood committees, the police, and unidentified individuals, all that expensive real estate wasn&#8217;t enough to protect us or our families,&#8221; it said. &#8220;Now we have woken up, we are no longer willing to wait like fat lambs for the slaughter,&#8221; it said. &#8220;In honor of the 20th CCP National Congress [later this year], we will be going back to work, but not back to production.&#8221; Predicting mass capital flight a large-scale corporate bankruptcy, reorganization, and liquidation, the letter said the &#8220;rule of law&#8221; had been reduced to &#8220;rule by man&#8221;, while the economy had been hijacked by politics, leaving millions of COVID-19 &#8220;graduates&#8221; unemployed. &#8220;Social unrest is inevitable,&#8221; it warned, adding that mass layoffs, salary cuts and streamlining would be necessary. &#8220;We have a full sense of autonomy and aspire to fair competition,&#8221; the letter said. &#8220;We look forward to a civil society. The people should take back their civil rights and rebuild the country.&#8221; It called on the government to overturn the guilty verdicts against entrepreneurs Ren Zhiqiang and Sun Dawu, as well as punishing officials responsible for &#8220;violating the law and disregarding public opinion&#8221; as part of the zero-COVID policy. A health worker takes a swab sample from a woman in the Huangpu district of Shanghai on June 1, 2022. Credit: AFP Entrepreneurs speak out It called for the &#8220;release and rehabilitation&#8221; of political prisoners, calling them &#8220;national treasures, and the backbone of the nation.&#8221; &#8220;Returning power to the people, rewriting the constitution, loosening the CCP&#8217;s control of the media, eliminating the privileged class, abolishing feudal systems like household registration and political review, and all other unreasonable systems that violate human morality and conscience,&#8221; the letter said. &#8220;If the country does not reform, trust in the government cannot be rebuilt, and the free market cannot be hoped for, we will never have peace!&#8221; it said, calling for the protection of private property rights, especially freehold residential homes, the &#8220;last refuge of the family.&#8221; RFA made contact with several of the people who authored the letter, via other contacts, and was able to verify its authenticity. French political commentator Wang Longmeng said the authors had asked him to help publicize the letter overseas. &#8220;I can guarantee that this is the true voice of some entrepreneurs in Shanghai,&#8221; Wang told RFA. &#8220;Instead of committing suicide like Nanjing entrepreneur Hou Guoxin, they fought back.&#8221; &#8220;Even the strategy of resuming work without resuming production shows courage,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The open letter makes the crucial point that there can be no real economic vitality without political reform.&#8221; France-based Wan Runnan, the dissident software engineer who founded Stone Emerging Industries Company in the 1980s, said Xi&#8217;s zero-COVID policy has led to the loss of China&#8217;s economic vitality, the loss of public support, and had likely also undermined the legitimacy of the CCP regime. &#8220;Xi Jinping is so stupid and utterly barbaric,&#8221; Wan told RFA. &#8220;What is zero-COVID? &#8230; It has brought zero economic growth, and zero hearts and minds.&#8221; &#8220;He has lost the support of the party, the people and the army,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Entrepreneurs are also a social force and a key component of public support.&#8221; An open letter penned by Shanghai entrepeneurs calling on workers and companies to &#8220;lie down on the job&#8221; predicting mass capital flight and a widespread loss of public confidence in the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) under Xi Jinping. Credit: Wang Longmeng Bound to a sinking ship Wan said China&#8217;s entrepreneurs know very well that if the 20th Party Congress does not initiate a process of political reform, they will eventually be bound to the sinking ship of the Chinese economy. &#8220;Their plan is a very good one, which is to say that what happens to the economy depends on what happens at the 20th Party Congress,&#8221; he said. &#8220;If Xi doesn&#8217;t step down &#8230; then we are sorry but we won&#8217;t play ball.&#8221; Residents of Shanghai celebrated on the streets after the lifting of lockdown at midnight on June 1, honking vehicle horns and cheering. Many of them have been trapped in their homes for more than two months. Negative PCR tests continue to be required for entry and exiting residential estates and other public places, with hundreds of testing stations set up in the streets to facilitate compulsory mass testing. A resident of Jing&#8217;an district surnamed He said she got up in the middle of the night to do her PCR test, to ensure the results were back by the time she needed to go grocery shopping. &#8220;It takes between 48 hours and 72 hours to issue a PCR test certificate,&#8221; she said. &#8220;They ask to see these certificates if you go shopping at the supermarket.&#8221; &#8220;It&#8217;s like the sword of Damocles hanging over your head; you need it to take the bus or get on the subway,&#8221; He said. A Yangpu resident surnamed Chen said lockdown hadn&#8217;t even eased yet in her district. &#8220;We&#8217;ve been issued with residents&#8217; cards,...
- [Myanmar’s junta shuts down publisher for distributing book on Rohingya genocide](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-junta-shuts-down-publisher-for-distributing-book-on-rohingya-genocide/): Myanmar’s military regime has shut down a well-known publishing house in Yangon for importing and distributing a book on the 2017 Rohingya genocide, junta-controlled state newspapers said Wednesday. The regime accused Lwin Oo Sarpay Publishing House of violating the country’s 1962 publishing law by distributing and selling the book titled Myanmar’s Rohingya Genocide: Identity, History and Hate Speech by Ronan Lee, an Irish-Australian researcher at Loughborough University London. The junta shuttered the company’s book distribution center on May 28. State-owned media reported said Lwin Oo Sarpay was closed because it was distributing the book via Facebook. Since taking over Myanmar in a February 2021 coup, the junta has shut down media outlets critical of its regime and shuttered publishers that distribute books not in line with its own narrative. In recent weeks, the junta has shut down two other publishing houses, Shwe Lat and Yan Aung Sarpay, and the Win To Aung printing press. Human rights groups have produced a trove of credible reports based on commercial satellite imagery and extensive interviews with Rohingya about the military’s clearance operations in Rakhine state in 2017, including arbitrary killings, torture and mass rape. The violence drove more than 740,000 people to neighboring Bangladesh where they now living in sprawling refugee camps. Lee, a former member of Parliament for Queensland state, Australia, researched Rohingya refugees, including through field work in Bangladesh, Myanmar and Thailand, as part of his doctoral studies. His book, published in 2021, presents new evidence that the government of Myanmar enabled a genocide in Rakhine state and the surrounding areas, where most of the country’s Rohingya live. Drawing on interviews and testimony from the Rohingya, it assesses the full scale of the genocide of the Muslim minority group, including human rights violations, forced migrations and extrajudicial killings in 2017 under the previous leadership of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. In March, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken issued an official determination that Myanmar’s military committed genocide against the Rohingya in 2017, going a step further than the U.S. government’s previous findings that the military had committed ethnic cleansing. A resident of Yangon who reads books distributed by Lwin Oo Sarpay told RFA that the closure of the publishing house was politically motivated because the junta does not want citizens to know what really happened to the Rohingya. “Lwin Oo Sarpay has been distributing books on politics and history by local and foreign authors,” said the resident who did not want to be named for safety reasons. “Now that it is closed down and its [operating] license has been withdrawn, people will not learn what they should know.” The military has accused Lwin Oo Sarpay of violating Section 8 of the Printing and Publishing Law, which imposes restrictions on the content of publications and websites run by publishers and bans the import or distribution of foreign publications that contain banned content. In this case, the prohibited content was deemed as causing harm to an ethic group or among ethnic groups. RFA could not reach Lwin Oo Sarpay for comment.  Translated by Khin Maung Nyane for RFA Burmese. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Chinese forces step up exercises around Taiwan, South China Sea](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-forces-step-up-exercises-around-taiwan-south-china-sea/): China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has intensified activities around Taiwan and in the South China Sea in an apparent response to the U.S. commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific, as well as its support for Taipei. The PLA’s Eastern Theatre Command recently conducted a multi-force patrol “in the waters and airspace around the Taiwan Island,” said an army spokesman. This is the third large-scale military exercise around Taiwan in the past 30 days. Senior Colonel Shi Yi, spokesperson for the PLA Eastern Theater Command, said the joint combat-readiness security patrol involved “multiple services and arms,” but did not specify the date. “These actions are a necessary response to the collusion activities between the U.S. and the ‘Taiwan independence’ forces,” Shi said. He added that the U.S. “has been making frequent moves on the Taiwan question recently,” and warned that by emboldening and supporting Taiwan, Washington “will put Taiwan in a dangerous situation and bring serious consequences to itself.” Last weekend two U.S. aircraft carriers – the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Ronald Reagan – reportedly conducted dual-carrier exercises in waters to the southeast of Okinawa, according to the South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative (SCSPI), a Beijing-based think tank. Chinese analysts say the area could be a main maritime battlefield if the U.S. militarily intervened in a possible conflict across the Taiwan Strait. A U.S. delegation led by Senator Tammy Duckworth has just completed a three-day visit to Taipei to “talk about our support for Taiwan security.” The U.S will also make sure Taiwan “does not have to struggle alone,” Duckworth told Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, who said that a cooperation plan between the U.S. National Guard and Taiwan’s armed forces was in the works. On the day of her arrival, 30 Chinese aircraft flew into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ), making it the second-highest number of daily incursions since the beginning of the year. The senator’s visit has infuriated Beijing. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said China “deplores and rejects this and has lodged solemn representations with the U.S. side.”  South China Sea drills On Wednesday morning the PLA conducted a military exercise in waters south of Hainan island in the South China Sea, according to a navigation warning issued by the Hainan Maritime Safety Administration. A navigation warning is a public advisory notice to mariners about changes to navigational aids and current marine activities or hazards including fishing zones and military exercises. The warning did not specify what kind of military exercise took place but the coordinates provided indicate the location was just south of Hainan, not far from the Gulf of Tonkin that China shares with Vietnam. Meanwhile on Wednesday Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) condemned the harassment by the Chinese Coast Guard of a joint Filipino-Taiwanese research vessel in the South China Sea in April, calling it “a breach of a United Nations convention.” A day earlier, the Philippines summoned a senior Chinese diplomat to protest over the incident. From late March to early April, the China Coast Guard (CCG) tailed the Legend, a Taiwanese research vessel with Filipino scientists, as it mapped undersea fault lines in the waters northwest of Luzon Island in the South China Sea.
- [Hundreds of Ede families in Vietnam demonstrate to demand land from forestry company](https://ij-reportika.com/hundreds-of-ede-families-in-vietnam-demonstrate-to-demand-land-from-forestry-company/): Hundreds of ethnic minority households from a commune in south-central Vietnam&#8217;s Dak Lak province are fighting to reclaim their land from a forestry company after 40 years of working on it as hired laborers. Protests in Lang village, Ea Pok town, Cu Mgar district began last month, with farmers demanding the return of about 40 hectares of arable land. Demonstrations came to a head on May 18 when hundreds of people gathered on the land to protest against the coffee company&#8217;s destruction of their crops. Videos and photos of the protest were shared on social media, showing riot police clashing with demonstrators. Demonstrations continued last week, with protestors holding up banners asking the coffee company to return the land. State media has so far not reported on the incident. “We want the company to return our ancestral land so that people can have a business in the future,” a local resident told RFA under the condition of anonymity. “People are getting [taxed] more and more but have less land, so people need to reclaim the land.”   According to RFA research, Lang village has about 250 households, all indigenous Ede people. The residents all make a living from farming. ‘The company does not give a dime’ Residents told RFA they had been cultivating the land for many generations but after 1975 the local government took it and gave it to the state-owned enterprise, Eapok Coffee Farm to grow coffee trees. The company later changed its name to Ea Pok Coffee Joint Stock Company. Locals went from being landowners to hired workers on their own land. They say the company allowed them to cultivate the land from 1983 until now but told them to produce 18 tons of coffee per hectare or pay for up to 80% of each harvest.  “People work hard, but they don&#8217;t have enough to eat because they have to pay the company&#8217;s output. In many cases, they don&#8217;t even have enough output to pay so they are in debt and have to pay for it in the next crop,&#8221; said one resident who was assigned to grow coffee on 8,000 square meters of land. Residents say that in 2010 the company allowed them to uproot coffee trees and grow other crops, including corn, but did not support them by offering seedlings, fertilizers, or pesticides. The company also continued to impose output quotas or taxed as much as 80% of the crop.  “People have to pay by themselves. The company does not give a dime or give a single pill when people are sick,” said another resident farming 10,000 square meters of land. Struggling farmers decided to file an application with the government in 2019 to reclaim their land and farming rights. Locals say this year Ea Pok Coffee asked them to start growing durian trees. When they opposed the plan the company started destroying crops on May 18 to prepare the land for durian cultivation. When an RFA Vietnamese reporter called Ea Pok Coffee Joint Stock Company to ask for comments they were told the press must register with the company&#8217;s leaders, and get their approval first.  When asked about the government&#8217;s attitude towards people&#8217;s demands, a local resident said: “We sent petitions to the town government and the provincial government but got no response. The first time five households signed, then many more households signed. The government always sides with the company, rather than helping the people.” RFA contacted Nguyen Thi Thu Hong, chairwoman of the People&#8217;s Committee of Ea Pok town, to ask about the dispute between Lang villagers and the coffee company. She said that she would not accept telephone interviews. When asked if people would agree to maintain the current form of contract farming if Ea Pok Coffee Joint Stock Company reduced taxes and increased support, local people said they still committed to reclaiming the land. Translated by Ngu Vu.
- [Ten-year-old boy critically injured in army shelling of Myanmar refugee camp](https://ij-reportika.com/ten-year-old-boy-critically-injured-in-army-shelling-of-myanmar-refugee-camp/): Seven displaced people sheltering in a monastery, including a ten-year-old boy, have been injured by heavy artillery in Kalay township, in the war-torn Sagaing region, local residents told RFA Wednesday. They said army shells hit the monastery at Nat Myaung village on Tuesday. Two men and four women were injured along with the boy. A local resident, who declined to be named for safety reasons, said soldiers heading to Nat Chaung village were intercepted by local militia of the People Defense Forces (PDFs). The army troops intentionally shelled the monastery, the resident said. “The army came from the north. They entered from the cemetery east of Nat Myaung village and passed through the village,” the local said. “An internally displaced persons (IDPs) camp has been set up at Nat Myaung village’s monastery. There is a field between the monastery and the village. The soldiers went through between the Aung Su Pan monastery and Net Chaung Educational School and were confronted by the local defense forces. The army did not fire the heavy artillery in the direction of the militia. Soldiers turned back and intentionally fired at the monastery where the IDPs are sheltering.” The source, who is close to the injured family, said the heavy artillery hit the 10-year-old boy who was critically injured. He was sent to a 100-bed military hospital in Kalemyo. The local resident said the other six people were not critically wounded and are being treated at the monastery. The shells also hit a fence and water tank at the monastery, according to residents Calls to a military council spokesman by RFA still remain unanswered. Fighting between the military troops and local militia PDFs at Nat Chaung village near Nat Myaung village intensified on Wednesday morning, according to local residents.  There are more than 200 villages in Kale Township. It was the first township in Myanmar to take arms against the military junta. Some 150 people have been killed and nearly 500 arrested due to the military crackdown, arrests on suspicion and arbitrary killings of anti-regime protesters in Kale Township in the year since the military coup, according to anti-regime protesters.  Military, NUG trade accusations over Yangon blast  The attack comes as the military junta and government-in-exile trade accusations over an explosion in downtown Yangon that killed one person and injured nine others. No-one has claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s attack but a junta spokesman said the National Unity Government (NUG) was behind the blast. He did not provide evidence.  NUG spokesman Dr. Sasa said in a statement that evidence pointed to the junta, claiming the &#8220;brutal genocidal military has been carrying out senseless bombings and killings against its own civilian population across Myanmar.&#8221;  Also Tuesday, a bomb blast at around 2 p.m. (3:30 p.m. EDT) near a state education office in Naung Cho Township, northern Shan State, killed at least one person and wounded seven.  The Institute for Strategy and Policy said in a report this month it had documented at least 5,646 civilian deaths between the Feb. 1, 2021 coup and May 10. The figures include people killed by security forces during anti-junta protests, in clashes between the military and pro-democracy paramilitaries or ethnic armies, while held in detention, and in revenge attacks, including against informers for the regime.
- [News from next door](https://ij-reportika.com/news-from-next-door/): Communist-ruled Laos, a one-party state, was described by Reporters Without Borders as an information &#8220;black hole&#8221; where the government exerts complete control over news outlets. The watchdog group&#8217;s 2022 World Press Freedom Index placed Laos 161st out of 180 countries in the index and noted that many of the Southeast Asian country&#8217;s 7 million people get their news from next-door Thailand, which has a similar language and enjoys more media freedom.
- [Refugees displaced by conflict in Myanmar now more than 1 million](https://ij-reportika.com/refugees-displaced-by-conflict-in-myanmar-now-more-than-1-million/): The number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Myanmar has surpassed 1 million people for the first time in the nation’s history, including nearly 700,000 forced to flee conflict and insecurity since the military’s coup in February 2021, according to a new report by the United Nations. In an update published on Tuesday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that the new estimate of IDPs fleeing fighting between the military and ethnic armies or anti-junta paramilitaries includes around 346,000 internal refugees displaced mainly in Rakhine, Kachin, Chin and Shan states by conflict prior to the coup. “During the reporting period, various parts of Myanmar have witnessed an escalation in fighting, further entrenching the already fragile humanitarian situation,” the agency said in a statement. “The impact on civilians is worsening daily with frequent indiscriminate attacks and incidents involving explosive hazards, including landmines and explosive remnants of war.” According to OCHA’s findings, thousands of IDPs who have already fled their homes are being forced to move for a second or third time, while more than 40,000 people have crossed borders into neighboring countries since the coup. It counted nearly 13,000 civilian properties as having been destroyed in the fighting, which it said will complicated the return of refugees, even if the situation improves. “Consequently, complex needs are surfacing, requiring immediate humanitarian responses to save lives and protect those affected, supporting them to live in dignified conditions,” it said. Adding to the threat of violence, OCHA said that thousands in Myanmar have been hit by the increasing cost of essential commodities, such as food and fuel, noting that on average the price of diesel in mid-April 2022 was nearly 2.5 times higher than it was in February last year. “This inflation has affected people’s purchasing power and is starting to impact on the work of several clusters, particularly food security and shelter, who depend on commodities to implement their humanitarian programming,” OCHA said. To make matters worse, coastal areas of Myanmar — including Rakhine, Kayin, Kachin and Shan states — have been battered by strong storms and heavy rain since April, destroying civilian structures and compounding the vulnerabilities of IDPs in displacement sites. OCHA said that while by the end of the first quarter of 2022, 2.6 million people — or some 41% of those targeted in this year’s Humanitarian Response Plan — had been provided assistance, the funding situation for the plan is now “dire” and currently around U.S. $740 million short of its goal. “The consequences will be grave if this level of underfunding continues in the remainder of 2022,” it said. “Humanitarian partners will be forced to cut back on their support at a time when this assistance is needed the most, particularly as the monsoon season is just getting underway.” A child refugee suffering from diarrhea in Sagaing region&#8217;s Southern Kalemyo township, May 6, 2022. Credit: Citizen journalist Nationwide hardships for IDPs OCHA’s update came as IDPs and aid workers told RFA’s Burmese Service that those displaced by conflict in Myanmar are facing severe hardship in securing food, shelter and healthcare as the monsoon season begins. They said that while local and international humanitarian organizations have been made aware of the needs, transportation complications — largely due to weather or conflict — have made it nearly impossible for aid to be delivered. A resident of Salingyi township in war-torn Sagaing region told RFA that IDPs are facing an increasing number of life-threatening illnesses because of a lack of access to basic supplies and medical care. “We are currently facing a shortage of food and tarps for shelter, as well as health problems,” said the resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal. “It is the rainy season now and we are afraid of malaria, as we are living in the forests.” The junta’s Health Ministry recently said it had recorded 1,516 cases of dengue fever leading to two deaths in Myanmar in the nearly five months from January to May 20, adding that it expects a significant increase in cases this year. An aid worker in Sagaing’s Debayin township, who also declined to be named, described the plight of refugees as “serious” — mostly due to worsening food shortages. “We don’t have much rice or cooking oil. [The military] set fire to everything,” they said. “With a couple of thousand to feed, we do not have enough supplies. We just must share what we have.” In Kayah state’s Phruso township, where clashes continue to occur frequently, an aid worker said that road closures due to weather have left more than 6,000 refugees dangerously short of food. “It was difficult even during the summer, and now we’re having transportation problems,” they said. “We can’t use the main road [due to fighting] and the roads we are using now are very bad. When it rains continuously, the cars can slip off the road. It happens a lot with vehicles delivering food.” Landslides and floods in Chin state’s Mindat township have also made travel difficult, residents said. Nonetheless, sources in the area told RFA that the military has continued operations in the area, ignoring the growing number of refugees. Junta deputy information minister, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, assured RFA that the authorities “are taking full responsibilities for delivering aid” when asked about the situation on Tuesday but blamed slow distribution on the need to “inspect” donations. “We could deliver aid to those in need in time, but … any aid coming to the country must go through ruling government agencies or groups that are sanctioned by the government to operate,” he said, referring to the junta. “The complaints [about delayed distribution] come from groups that want to skirt the regulations,” he added, without providing details. The decision to send international assistance to Myanmar through the junta was made at a May 6 meeting on the country’s humanitarian crisis by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Cambodia. In the meantime,...
- [Rural North Koreans turn to deer blood, counterfeits as COVID meds go to Pyongyang](https://ij-reportika.com/rural-north-koreans-turn-to-deer-blood-counterfeits-as-covid-meds-go-to-pyongyang/): North Korea is sending most of its reserve medicines to the capital Pyongyang, leaving rural citizens in the lurch, with many turning to alternatives and counterfeits, as the country copes with waves of COVID-19 cases. After two years of denying the pandemic had penetrated its closed borders, North Korea in May declared a “maximum emergency” and acknowledged the virus had begun to spread among participants of a large-scale military parade the previous month. Medicine to treat the disease is in short supply and the stocks that are available are getting sent to Pyongyang, home of the country’s wealthiest and most privileged citizens. The drug shortage has left an opening for a black market of unproven traditional medicine to emerge, with some citizens offering dried deer blood as a COVID remedy. Counterfeit versions of fever reducers like aspirin and acetaminophen are also on the rise, sources said. “All pharmacies are open 24 hours a day in this maximum emergency, but there is a huge difference between Pyongyang and the provincial areas, so people out here are really dissatisfied,” a resident of the northwestern province of North Pyongan told RFA on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “Expectations were high as the central quarantine command had intensive discussions where they agreed to quickly distribute the reserve stocks of medicines for the emergency, but we were greatly disappointed when that medicine was given to people in Pyongyang and to the military,” he said. In the city of Sinuiju, which lies across the Yalu River border from China, no one can find even basic medicines like fever reducers and painkillers, the source said. “Reserve medicines were supplied in very small amounts to hospitals, and pharmacy shelves are empty,” he said. “At least some pharmacies in Sinuiju are stocked with herbal medicines used as a cold medicine, but county-level pharmacies are completely empty. However, the pharmacies are ordered to be open 24 hours a day unconditionally,” he said, adding that salespeople and security guards are sitting around at the pharmacies day and night, even if they have nothing to sell. In the city of Chongjin in northeastern province of North Hamgyong, patients complaining of a high fever and cough have increased, a resident there told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. North Korea lacks adequate testing capabilities to confirm coronavirus cases but has been tracking numbers of patients reporting “fever.” “An acquaintance who is a doctor at a provincial hospital told me that even when patients with coronavirus symptoms come to the hospital, they are unable to receive the proper treatment because there is no medicine,” said the second source. “According to my acquaintance, medicines are normally supplied to hospitals and pharmacies in Pyongyang, and patients with fever in Pyongyang are receiving intensive treatment at quarantine facilities. But even though pharmacies in Chongjin are open 24 hours a day, but there is no medicine or only herbal medicines whose efficacy has not been verified. So it is not helpful to patients at all,” he said.  “They complain saying, ‘Are Pyongyangers the only citizens of the state? Is it okay for us in the provinces to just die?’” the source said.  To deal with the shortage of medicine in the provinces, people are turning to the black market, where unproven traditional remedies like deer blood are sold. In Pyongysong, South Pyongan province, north of Pyongyang, people are illegally selling deer blood from their homes, touting its medicinal properties as effective against COVID-19, a resident there told RFA on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. “The types of deer blood traded on the black market are raw blood and dried blood powder. Raw blood in a tiny penicillin bottle is 10,000 won [about US$1.80], and powdered blood in a penicillin bottle is 5,000 won [about US$0.90],” she said. “If you catch a deer, you can drain its blood. Then you put the blood in a plastic bag,” she said. “Raw blood spoils, so it’s hard to sell. So, people dry the blood and sell it. When a deer gives birth, there is placenta coming out. They also dry it and sell it as a treatment for coronavirus.” The deer blood remedy is available in North Pyongan as well, a resident there, who declined to be named for safety reasons, told RFA. She said that rather than catching the deer in the wild, the workers on a deer farm that supplies meat and other byproducts for Kim Jong Un, his family, and other high-ranking officials, are illicitly selling the blood on the black market. “The musk or placenta of deer are vacuum packed and usually sent to the Central Committee, but the people who work there are secretly selling it.” Counterfeit medicines that look like the real thing but have no effect at all are also being sold. Fakes have made their way to the local marketplaces in Chongjin, a source there told RFA on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The authorities are making a fuss saying they are responding to coronavirus by releasing the national reserve medicines, but there’s still a shortage here so counterfeiters are taking advantage of this opportunity,” the second Chongjin source told RFA. “A few days ago, the head of the neighborhood watch unit circulated a notice from the district to each household. The notice warns of the fake drugs out in circulation. There are many people around me who bought fake medicines and suffered from taking them,” the second Chongjin source said. “There are various types of counterfeit medicines, such as antipyretic analgesics such as aspirin and acetaminophen [Tylenol], and multivitamins, which are frequently sought by people to treat coronavirus infection. A friend from my workplace had a fever, so he bought acetaminophen at the market and took it for two days. But it was fake and didn’t work at all,” the second Chongjin source said. The counterfeit was indistinguishable from the real deal, according to the second Chongjin resident. “I saw the fake medicine that my friend...
- [Cambodia arrests returned exile who supports opposition political party](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodia-arrests-returned-exile-who-supports-opposition-political-party/): Authorities in Cambodia on Monday arrested a former youth activist and Norwegian citizen who recently returned from exile to support the opposition Candlelight Party in the June 5 local communal elections, RFA has learned. Ear Channa had been living in Norway after he was granted asylum there in 2005 for criticizing the Cambodian government’s attempts to solve a border dispute with Vietnam. While abroad, he came to support the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), which Cambodia’s Supreme Court dissolved in 2017. The move allowed Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) to claim all 125 seats in the National Assembly during general elections the following year, kicking off a five-year crackdown on political opponents to the CPP. The Candlelight Party grew over the past year to become Cambodia’s largest opposition party. Candlelight officials have complained for weeks about their party’s candidates being harassed by officials supporting the ruling CPP. Ear Channa came back to Cambodia last week to serve as the vice president of Candlelight&#8217;s organization in Takeo province in the country’s south. He was arrested while trying to apply for a passport in Phnom Penh and sent to detention in Prey Sar Prison on charges of conspiracy to commit treason for his actions two years ago, when he allegedly disturbed the social order to such a degree as to affect the nation’s security. Candlelight Party Vice President Son Chhay told RFA’s Khmer Service that Ear Channa is the second person affiliated with the party to have been arrested after voluntarily repatriating. He expressed concern over the arrest, calling it another example of intimidation against his party. “Why are they making these kinds of arrests during the election campaign period?” he said. The campaign period started on May 21 and will end on June 3. “This is all intimidation to disturb the election.” CPP spokesman Sok Ey San said the arrest and the election were not related. “This is not pressure against an opponent. It has nothing to do with the election. Don’t connect this case to the election campaign,” he said, and cited the pending 2020 warrant. Sok Ey San also said that an active election campaign period cannot prevent the court from issuing warrants or arresting criminals. Heng Kim Lay in a file photo. Credit: citizen journalist Monk excommunicated In another move against the opposition, a Buddhist monk in the northern province of Siem Reap said he was removed from his office for his support for the Candlelight Party. Heng Kim Lay raised funds for the party which caused several pagodas to deny him entrance. He left the party on May 28, but the pagodas refused to bring him back into the fold. “As a monk, I have political rights, and I should not be a victim,” he told RFA. Supporters have urged him to flee to Thailand, he said, but he has decided not to. RFA was unable to reach Ministry of Cults and Religions spokesman Seng Somoni for comment.  Removing a monk for his political views is illegal, according to Am Sam Ath of the Cambodian League for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights NGO. “Monks have the right to support any political party. He has done nothing wrong,” he said. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Uyghur groups urge resignation of UN rights chief for ‘Potemkin-style’ Xinjiang tour](https://ij-reportika.com/uyghur-groups-urge-resignation-of-un-rights-chief-for-potemkin-style-xinjiang-tour/): Uyghur rights groups are calling for the United Nations human rights chief to resign after they said she reiterated Chinese talking points in a news conference about her trip to northwestern China’s Xinjiang region and failed to denounce the repression Uyghurs face there as a genocide. Michelle Bachelet, a former Chilean president who has served as the U.N. high commissioner for human rights since 2018, paid a six-day visit to China last week, including spots in the coastal city of Guangzhou and Urumqi (in Chinese, Wulumuqi) and Kashgar (Kashi) in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). At a May 28 press conference in Beijing to mark the end of the visit, Bachelet said she had “raised questions and concerns about the application of counter-terrorism and de-radicalization measures and their broad application” and their impact on the rights of Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities in the XUAR.  Bachelet, who said before her trip that she wouldn’t be conducting an investigation like Uyghur rights groups had pushed for, told reporters that she had been unable to assess the full scale of what China calls “vocational education and training centers” (VETC) in Xinjiang, but which the human rights community and scholars call internment camps.  Uyghur rights groups took issue with her references to “deradicalization,” “anti-terrorism” and “vocational education and training centers,” which they said mimic the words Beijing uses to describe its campaign in Xinjiang. Washington, D.C.-based Campaign for Uyghurs said Bachelet provided no transparency about the trip and that a prison visit in Xinjiang was a “Potemkin-style sham.” “The high commissioner has disgraced herself and her office by refusing to investigate China’s genocide and adopting, repeating the Chinese regime’s narrative, further cementing their propaganda in the U.N.,” Rushan Abbas, the organization’s executive director, told RFA on Tuesday. “Her comments seem custom-made for Beijing’s propaganda machine, and she neglects the duties of her office and the founding principle of the U.N.,” she said. Abbas called on Bachelet to step down from her post. ‘In bed with communist China’ Bachelet she said she raised with the government the lack of independent judicial oversight in the region, the reliance on 15 indicators to determine tendencies towards violent extremism, allegations of the use of force at the institutions, and reports of severe restrictions on religious practices. “During my visit, the government assured me that the VETC system has been dismantled,” she said. “I encouraged the government to undertake a review of all counter terrorism and deradicalization policies to ensure they fully comply with international human rights standards, and in particular that they are not applied in an arbitrary and discriminatory way.” In 2017, authorities began illegally detaining thousands of Uyghurs and others in “re-education” camps in an effort, they said, to prevent religious extremism and radicalism, later calling the facilities “closed training centers” or “vocational training centers.” But evidence quickly emerged that inmates had been deprived of their freedom under the pretense of political education and were in some case subjected to severe abuse. It is believed that authorities have held up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and others accused of harboring “strong religious” and “politically incorrect” views in a vast network of “re-education” or internment camps in Xinjiang. The United States and the legislatures of several Western countries have deemed China’s mistreatment of the mostly Muslim Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in the XUAR as genocide and crimes against humanity. Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress based in Germany, said Bachelet missed a historic opportunity to hold China accountable for the Uyghur genocide. “The impression is that now the U.N. is in bed with communist China, a regime that has been committing the Uyghur genocide for the past five years,” he said Tuesday. “It is truly stunning to see that Ms. Bachelet did not act as the highest human rights official at the U.N. but rather as a mouthpiece of the Chinese communist government during and after her trip. “She has completely discredited the role of her office and the authority of the United Nations as a champion of human rights in the world,” Isa said.   Isa also called for Bachelet’s immediate resignation. US expresses concern The same day Bachelet held a press conference about her trip, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. remained concerned about her visit and efforts by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to restrict and manipulate it. “While we continue to raise our concerns about China’s human rights abuses directly with Beijing and support others who do so, we are concerned the conditions Beijing authorities imposed on the visit did not enable a complete and independent assessment of the human rights environment in the PRC, including in Xinjiang, where genocide and crimes against humanity are ongoing,” Blinken said in a statement. The U.S. was also troubled by reports that authorities had warned Uyghurs and others in the XUAR not to complain or speak openly about conditions in the region, that no insight was provided into the whereabouts of missing Uyghurs and the conditions of those in detention, he said. “The high commissioner should have been allowed confidential meetings with family members of Uyghur and other ethnic minority diaspora communities in Xinjiang who are not in detention facilities but are forbidden from traveling out of the region,” Blinken said.    In response to Blinken’s statement, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a press conference on Monday that the U.S. rehashed false claims that had been debunked countless times to try to smear and attack China. “Ridiculously, this time they made up new lies that China has restricted and manipulated the visit,” he said. “In fact, all the activities and arrangements of High Commissioner Bachelet during her stay in China were decided in accordance with her will and based on full consultation of the two sides.” “The high commissioner also said at the press conference that she had unsupervised and extensive meetings during the visit,” Zhao said. “Where is restriction and manipulation to speak of? To find the one...
- [Philippines summons Chinese diplomat over ship’s ‘harassment’ in South China Sea](https://ij-reportika.com/philippines-summons-chinese-diplomat-over-ships-harassment-in-south-china-sea/): Manila summoned a senior Chinese diplomat to protest the China Coast Guard’s alleged “harassment” of a joint Filipino-Taiwanese research ship in the South China Sea in April, officials here said Tuesday, in a fresh dispute as a new president prepares to take power in the Philippines.   The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) also said it was taking diplomatic action against other recent incidents of Chinese ships allegedly accosting Philippine and Philippine-commissioned ships in the contested waterway. Manila issued the statement days after the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington think-tank, published a report on “three rounds of coercion in Philippine waters” by Chinese ships. In one of the incidents, a China Coast Guard (CCG) tailed the Legend, a research vessel with the Taiwan Ocean Research Institute under the Ministry of Science and Technology, as it mapped undersea fault lines in the waters northwest of Luzon Island in the Philippines from late March to early April, AMTI reported. The Legend was jointly deployed by the University of the Philippines National Institute of Geological Sciences and the National Central University in Taiwan. “The Department summoned a senior official of the Chinese Embassy in Manila to protest the harassment by CCG on RV Legend, which had been conducting an authorized marine scientific research (MSR) activity, with Philippine scientists on board,” the Philippine foreign office said in a statement. On Tuesday, the Chinese Embassy in Manila did not immediately respond to a BenarNews request for comment. In another incident in April, a CCG ship allegedly followed a pair of Philippine-commissioned ships conducting a seismic survey of an area within the Philippine exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and extended continental shelf (ECS). That incident prompted Manila to halt all oil and gas exploration in both those areas in the South China Sea, the Department of Foreign Affairs said. In April, Manila’s energy department ordered Philippine company PXP Energy to suspend exploration by contractors in SC 75 and SC 72, an area where it had planned to drill an appraisal well. The ships were forced to survey a different area to the east, and they left the Philippines several days later, the DFA said. “The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs takes appropriate diplomatic action for violations of Philippine sovereignty [and] sovereign rights within our maritime jurisdiction,” the department said in its Tuesday statement. “Only the Philippine Coast Guard has enforcement jurisdiction over these waters. The presence of foreign vessels following tracks that are neither continuous nor expeditious, that are not consistent with Article 19 of UNCLOS on innocent passage, are against the interests of the Philippines,” it said, referring to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. “The detailed reports of these activities are being reviewed for the filing of appropriate diplomatic action.” ‘Our territorial right’ These protests come on the heels of yet another DFA protest filed Monday on China’s “unilateral imposition” of a 3½-month fishing moratorium in areas of the South China Sea. They also come as President-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr. gets set to take over as leader of the country after President Rodrigo Duterte’s term ends on June 30. Under Duterte, Manila and Beijing had a cozy relationship with the Philippine leader overlooking a 2016 international tribunal ruling affirming Manila’s sovereign rights to an EEZ and ECS in the South China Sea, and declaring Beijing’s sweeping claims to much of the entire sea invalid under international law. Beijing has rejected the ruling. Manila has, in recent years, filed a series of diplomatic protests with Beijing over the presence of Chinese ships in Philippine-claimed waters. Last week, Marcos vowed that he would assert the international tribunal’s ruling after taking office. He said there was “no wiggle room” on the issue of sovereignty – his strongest public comments so far about the dispute that involves China, the Philippines’ biggest Asian neighbor. “We will use it to continue to assert our territorial rights. It’s not a claim, it is already our territorial right and that is what the arbitral ruling can do to help us,” he said. “Our sovereignty is sacred and we will not compromise it in any way. We are a sovereign nation with a functioning government, so we do not need to be told by anyone how to run our country.” BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.
- [China faces diplomatic setback in its push for influence in Pacific islands](https://ij-reportika.com/china-faces-diplomatic-setback-in-its-push-for-influence-in-pacific-islands/): China and 10 small Pacific island nations have failed to sign a Beijing-initiated agreement amid concerns in the region about geopolitical power play. An analyst said that was a diplomatic setback to China. It followed expressions of concern to Pacific nations from the U.S. and regional powers, but it was unlikely to diminish Beijing’s ambitions to expand its influence in the region. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was seeking to conclude the sweeping security and trade pact, dubbed the China-Pacific Island Countries Common Development Vision, at a meeting with Pacific counterparts in Fiji on Monday.  Wang is on an unprecedented 10-day, Pacific tour that includes the Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste.  A draft copy of the pact seen by news agencies covers multiple sectors from security to data communication to fisheries.  Monday’s meeting, however, ended without an agreement because participating ministers couldn’t reach a consensus, Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama was quoted as saying by Australian broadcaster ABC. Bainimarama, who is also Fiji’s foreign minister, posted on Twitter afterward: “The Pacific needs genuine partners, not superpowers that are super-focused on power.” What Fiji was looking for in the cooperation with China was “stronger Chinese commitment to keep 1.5 alive, end illegal fishing, protect the #BluePacific&#8217;s ocean, and expand Fijian exports.” By “keep 1.5 alive” the prime minister was referring to the commitment to prevent global warming from exceeding more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Before that, Bainimarama also tweeted that “our greatest concern isn’t geopolitics &#8211; it’s climate change.” Fiji&#8217;s Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama speaks at a press conference at the Pacific Islands Foreign Ministers&#8217; meeting in Suva, Fiji, May 30, 2022. Credit: Fiji government. Australia’s diplomatic efforts Fiji has just accepted a U.S. invitation to become a founding member of the newly-launched Indo-Pacific Economic Framework that comprises a dozen countries in the region. Several Pacific island nations have expressed concern about being caught up in superpower competition. Federated States of Micronesia&#8217;s President David Panuelo earlier urged “serious caution” about signing the agreement with China, which he said “is demonstrative of China&#8217;s intention to shift Pacific allegiances in their direction.”  Panuelo warned that “the Common Development Vision threatens to bring a new Cold War era at best, and a World War at worst.” The United States, Australia and New Zealand have been expressing concerns about China’s growing influence and security foothold in the Pacific. On the same day that Wang Yi started his eight-nation tour, Australia sent its new foreign minister, Penny Wong, to Fiji with promises that the new Labor government will renew the focus on climate change and continued economic support for the region. Alexander Vuving, a professor at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, a U.S. Department of Defense institute based in Hawaii, said: “I think the shelving of the China-Pacific Islands deal at the last minute resulted from pressure by the United States, Australia, and maybe some other regional powers. Penny Wong&#8217;s visit is part of this effort.”  “This is a diplomatic victory for these ‘China-wary’ nations and a diplomatic defeat for China,” he said, but added that China “will not accept a defeat.” The Chinese Ambassador to Fiji, Qian Bo, while admitting that some Pacific countries had “some concerns on some specific issues” said that there has been general support for the plan. China’s Foreign Ministry also hailed the foreign ministers’ meeting as a “success” and “an important step towards reaching the final agreement.” ‘Greater harmony, greater progress’ Foreign Minister Wang was telling his counterparts after Monday’s meeting: “Don’t be too anxious and don’t be too nervous.”   “Because the common development and prosperity of China and all the other developing countries would only mean great harmony, greater justice and greater progress of the whole world,” he was quoted by news agencies as saying. Meanwhile Global Times, a mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, condemned “a few people” in the Pacific island countries, who “under the pressure and coercion of the U.S. and former colonizer, may be willing to serve American interests at the cost of their national and people&#8217;s interests.” During the foreign minister’s visits to Kiribati and Samoa, China signed separate bilateral deals with the two nations. The agreements signed in Kiribati last Friday focus on a range of areas including development planning, infrastructure, health and pandemic response, climate change, and maritime affairs. In Samoa on Saturday, China and Samoa signed an economic and technical cooperation agreement and two smaller cooperation projects, including for the construction of a police academy, according to a Samoan government statement. “The agreements China is signing with the Pacific Islands nations today represent the early steps on the road toward more ambitious goals,” said Vuving. “They may just talk about security cooperation in vague terms, but they are to pave the way for China&#8217;s ultimate military presence,” he said.
- [UN: 1 billion meth pills seized in East, Southeast Asia last year](https://ij-reportika.com/un-1-billion-meth-pills-seized-in-east-southeast-asia-last-year/): Tons of methamphetamine have been produced, trafficked and used in East and Southeast Asia where a record 1 billion methamphetamine tablets were seized in 2021, a United Nations agency says in a new report, warning that the synthetic drug trade has expanded and diversified. Regional law enforcers seized more than 170 metric tons of methamphetamine in tablets and crystal form, an all-time high, the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in a report, “Synthetic Drugs in East and Southeast Asia.” In addition, the record 1 billion tablets were seven times more than the 143 million seized a decade ago, UNODC said, adding that more than 90 percent of the recent tablet seizures occurred in Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam. “The region is literally swimming in methamphetamine and I think it’s high time that the region starts taking a hard look at policies in place to address the problem,” Jeremy Douglas, Southeast Asia regional representative for the UNODC, told reporters at a news conference in Bangkok on Monday to announce the report. “So, there’s going to have to be a radical policy shift to address this problem or it’s just going to continue to grow.” The 1 billion tablets, which would weigh about 91 tons, were part of a regionwide seizure of 171.5 tons of methamphetamine, the UNODC report said, adding that about 79 tons of crystal methamphetamine, which is smoked by users, were seized last year. Methamphetamine is the region’s most popular drug. Douglas said the “scale and reach of the methamphetamine and synthetic drug trade … is staggering, and yet it can continue to expand.” Law enforcers display bags of seized methamphetamine tablets during the 50th Destruction of Confiscated Narcotics ceremony in Ayutthaya province, Thailand, June 26, 2020. Credit: Reuters. The so-called Golden Triangle – Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar – has long been a hotspot for drug production and trafficking, primarily because of lax policing, porous borders and political instability, authorities have said. “Organized crime syndicates and armed groups have exploited the pandemic and political instability in the Golden Triangle and border areas of Myanmar to expand production the past year,” Douglas said in a statement, referring to COVID-19 and the February 2021 junta overthrow of the Myanmar government. “There are very few drug labs found in the region outside the Triangle anymore, the supply continues to surge and governments and agencies continue to report the same source.” According to UNODC, Laos “has become a major transshipment point for trafficking into Thailand and other parts of the Mekong and the Asia Pacific.” At the same time, Malaysia “has also been used extensively for transit and trafficking to Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.” The increase in methamphetamine supply resulted in wholesale and street prices falling to all-time lows, especially in Malaysia and Thailand, the UNODC said. The drop in price “is particularly concerning as it has become much more accessible and available to those that could not afford it before,” said Kavinvadee Suppapongtevasakul, a UNODC regional drugs analyst. “The social consequences of increased use are significant, and health and harm reduction services remain limited across the region,” she said. “It is also likely that use has been seriously underestimated for years as most countries in the region do not monitor or study drug demand.” In a news release on Monday, a Thai official said addressing “the methamphetamine situation is a top priority” for the government. “We are working with UNODC and international and regional partners to update our laws and policies, develop important forensic, data and operational capacities, and address priorities including chemical trafficking,” said Thanakorn Kaiyanunta, deputy secretary-general at the Thai Narcotics Control Board. Primary meth source The report noted that Myanmar’s northern Shan state remains the region’s primary source of methamphetamine. Laos, dubbed “a soft target for traffickers” by Douglas, registered a more than a 669 percent jump in interceptions of meth tablets in 2021. In October 2021, police seized more than 55.6 million meth pills and 1,500 kg of crystal meth in a single raid in one of Asia’s biggest drug busts, according to state media. In January, authorities seized more than 36 million tablets and 590 kg of crystal methamphetamine. “Drug control authorities in the region have indicated that organized crime groups have also targeted Lao PDR for tableting of the drug,” the report said referring to the country by its proper name, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.
- [Analysts: US notches win in wooing ASEAN countries to join economic deal](https://ij-reportika.com/analysts-us-notches-win-in-wooing-asean-countries-to-join-economic-deal/): The United States has scored a win in its efforts to counter Beijing’s influence in Southeast Asia by getting most members of the ASEAN bloc to join the Biden administration’s new Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity deal, analysts say. Although IPEF lacks the heft of a formal international trade agreement, according to analysts, the interest that seven members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have shown in it reflects their desire for greater U.S. engagement to balance out a regional economy dominated by China. Even in the weeks before President Joe Biden unveiled the deal at a conference in Tokyo, few ASEAN states were expected to join it, said one expert. “Well, I was surprised that so many ASEAN countries were initially part of the deal. This is a coup for the United States in a way,” Elina Noor, deputy director at the Asia Society Policy Institute in Washington, told BenarNews. The Biden administration has touted the framework as the bulwark of its economic strategy in the Indo-Pacific region. IPEF’s stated goals are ensuring the smooth and supple flow of goods, the use of the same digital economy standards, green and clean work processes and fair and honest business. “IPEF will strengthen our ties in this critical region to define the coming decades for technological innovation and the global economy,” the White House said in a statement launching IPEF on May 23. In addition to Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam – all members of the 10-nation ASEAN bloc – Australia, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea also signed up as initial members. Hunter Marston, an international affairs analyst at Australian National University, had expected Singapore and Thailand to join the IPEF at the start, but that other ASEAN members would join later. “[I]t did surprise me a bit [that others joined initially]. … It was a major policy win for Biden,” Marston told BenarNews. “It shows that the region still supports the U.S. It is a signal there is a lot of interest in Washington’s continued engagement in the region. They see Washington’s engagement as critical to maintaining balance of power in the region.” China’s economic reach in Southeast Asia eclipses that of the U.S. China has been ASEAN’s largest trading partner for 12 consecutive years, with 2020 trade reaching nearly U.S. $517 billion, according to the regional bloc’s statistics, and $685 billion according to China’s statistics. By contrast, in 2020 U.S-ASEAN trade stood at $362 billion. Meanwhile, a regional survey of policy experts in ASEAN states conducted late last year showed that China is still seen as the most influential economic and political power, but that “has created more awe than affection.” Trust in Beijing dropped by about three percentage points, while trust in the U.S. rose by 18 percent compared with the previous year. “China is the only major power that has increased its negative ratings … the majority worry that such economic heft, combined with China’s military power, could be used to threaten their country’s interest and sovereignty” according to the State of Southeast Asia 2021 Survey published by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. In such a scenario, “if there is one thing the U.S. could do to reassure a Southeast Asia worried about U.S. commitment to the region, it is expand economic ties,” analyst Anne Marie Murphy at Seton Hall University told BenarNews before Biden launched IPEF. According to Marston, a security partnership alone would make ASEAN uncomfortable.  “It is less appealing without an economic component because an economic role gives ASEAN the pretense of working with the U.S. on other fronts not aimed at containing China,” he said. Four pillars But does the IPEF go far enough? “The framework doesn’t have a lot of substance,” Marston said. He was referring to how the IPEF is not a trade deal like the CPTPP, or Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, or its predecessor, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The U.S. once belonged to and had led negotiations on the latter until President Donald Trump pulled the superpower out of the agreement. China isn’t part of the CPTPP, but has applied to join, and Singapore, an influential economic member of ASEAN, has backed Beijing’s bid. The major trading bloc in the region is the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which the U.S. isn’t part of, but which includes China, most ASEAN states, as well as other big Indo-Pacific economies. IPEF is no RCEP or CPTPP, in Marston’s view. “This is definitely not a trade deal,” he said. “Calling it an economic framework is better, as watery as it sounds. It’s like the COP 26 – a pledge to participate that doesn’t require any enforcement,” he said, referring promises to reduce carbon emissions that were made at the 26th United Nations Climate Change conference. That means the U.S. doesn’t offer its partners in the agreement access to its markets or any tariff breaks. Therefore, any business deal under IPEF – whether one insists on green protocols or anti-corruption mechanisms – has no binding clauses, unlike in a trade agreement where in exchange for market access, partners have to adhere to certain standards. IPEF is the opposite of a multilateral trade agreement, “the traditional grail of free-traders,” according to Robert Kuttner, a professor at Brandeis University. “Countries can decide which areas they want to join; and not all deals with all participating countries will be the same,” he wrote in an article in Prospect magazine. Some critics say that is the reason Washington found so many Southeast Asian takers as initial partners in IPEF. Analyst Robert Manning, who calls walking away from what was called the TPP “a major strategic mistake,” is one of them. “I wasn’t surprised [so many countries joined]. The U.S. lowered the bar on all four pillars. No one had to sign on to any standards,” Manning, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank, told BenarNews. The four pillars Manning referred to are resilient economy, or the creation of a...
- [China tightens grip on activists, dissidents ahead of Tiananmen massacre anniversary](https://ij-reportika.com/china-tightens-grip-on-activists-dissidents-ahead-of-tiananmen-massacre-anniversary/): Authorities across China are tightening security and ramping up surveillance of dissidents ahead of the Tiananmen massacre anniversary, RFA has learned. Ten years after the death of prominent labor movement leader Li Wangyang in police custody prompted suspicions of foul play, activists in the central province of Hunan said they will be marking that anniversary, as well as the 33rd anniversary of the June 4, 1989 massacre, at least in private. &#8220;It&#8217;s the 10th anniversary of Li Wangyang&#8217;s death,&#8221; Hunan activist Ouyang Jinghua told RFA. &#8220;He passed away on June 6, which happened to be close to June 4 [the massacre anniversary].&#8221; &#8220;He suffered a lot for the cause of democracy,&#8221; Ouyang said. &#8220;Everyone still remembers him.&#8221; Ouyang said there had been some attempt to organize a collective commemoration for Li, but said it was unclear if it would go ahead, given the tightened security. &#8220;Some people from Changsha, Hengyang and Zhuzhou are supposed to be coming, but we don&#8217;t know how many people will make it, due to the obstacles placed by the authorities,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s possible that none of them will be allowed to come.&#8221; Ouyang said rights activists and democracy campaigners still hope for posthumous justice for Li. &#8220;We have a lot of doubts about the explanation of the cause of his death,&#8221; Ouyang said. &#8220;The authorities should explain it clearly, but I don&#8217;t think they will, because to do so would shake their basis to hold power; the whole regime.&#8221; The grave of of prominent labor movement leader Li Wangyang, whose death 10 years ago in police custody prompted suspicions of foul play, in the central province of Hunan. Credit: Citizen journalist. &#8216;Stability maintenance&#8217; Prominent dissident and Hunan native Zhu Chengzhi has also been a major focus for the local authorities&#8217; &#8220;stability maintenance&#8221; operations. Zhu, who was detained in April 2018 after visiting the grave of Mao-era dissident Lin Zhao, was released from Jiangsu&#8217;s Dingshan Prison on Jan. 26 after serving a three-year, nine-month jail term for &#8220;picking quarrels and stirring up trouble,&#8221; a charge frequently used to target peaceful critics of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Zhu became one of China&#8217;s most prominent rights activists after he spoke out Li Wangyang&#8217;s death in 2013, and had previously been held on suspicion of subversion after he questioned the official verdict of suicide. &#8220;Zhu Chengzhi recently arrived in Changsha, Hunan, and some friends in the city met up with him,&#8221; Ouyang told RFA. &#8220;Anyone who met with him was called in to &#8216;drink tea&#8217; with the state security police.&#8221; &#8220;When Zhu Chengzhi arrived in Loudi, a friend from Guangxi came to visit him &#8230; [but then] Guangxi [officials] immediately rushed to Loudi and took away my friends from Guangxi,&#8221; he said. Dissidents in Beijing said that fewer of them are being forced to leave town ahead of the anniversary this year, owing to COVID-19 travel restrictions. Political commentator Ji Feng said he had been forced to leave, however, as his registered household is in the southwestern province of Guizhou. &#8220;They&#8217;re taking me away [on Tuesday] morning,&#8221; Ji told RFA. &#8220;I will have the same state security bureau chief with me, eating and drinking with me, around June 4.&#8221; &#8220;If they keep me drinking and chatting, I won&#8217;t be able to do anything else.&#8221; Warnings, forcible relocations He said outspoken veteran political journalist Gao Yu, dissident artist Yan Zhengxue and writer Jiang Qisheng were all staying in Beijing due to the COVID-19 restrictions. Meanwhile, a dissident in the southern province of Guangdong said many activists in the province had been warned off talking about sensitive topics around the anniversary, with some forcibly relocated. &#8220;State security police moved me into a basic house about 20 kilometers from Enping,&#8221; the dissident said. &#8220;It&#8217;s pretty remote; there&#8217;s nobody else living round there, but there are surveillance cameras everywhere.&#8221; &#8220;As soon as I leave my house, my phone will ring, and they&#8217;ll ask me where I&#8217;m going,&#8221; they said. Li Wangyang, 62, died at a hospital in Shaoyang city in the custody of local police. When relatives arrived at the scene, his body was hanging by the neck from the ceiling near his hospital bed, but was removed by police soon afterwards. Police took away Li’s body after his death was discovered and kept it in an unknown location, Li&#8217;s relatives said. Relatives, friends, and rights groups have all called into question several details of both circumstance and timing which they say point to the possibility of foul play, including photographs distributed on the Chinese microblog service Sina Weibo, which showed Li’s feet touching the floor. Li, a former worker in a glass factory, was jailed for 13 years for &#8220;counterrevolution&#8221; after he took part in demonstrations inspired by the student-led protests in Beijing, and for a further 10 years for &#8220;incitement to overthrow state power&#8221; after he called for a reappraisal of the official verdict on the crackdown. He was blind in both eyes and had lost nearly all his hearing when he was finally released from prison in May 2011, his family said. Li&#8217;s death came as Chinese authorities moved to crack down on dissidents and rights activists around the country, in a bid to prevent any public memorials on the 23rd anniversary of the June 4, 1989 bloodshed. The authorities have refused to make public the results of an autopsy on Li&#8217;s body. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Taiwanese pilot dies in military training exercise](https://ij-reportika.com/taiwanese-pilot-dies-in-military-training-exercise/): A Taiwanese air force pilot died on Tuesday morning during a training exercise in the south of the island, the military said. 23-year-old 2nd Lt. Hsu Ta-chun, a trainee from the Air Force Academy, was on only his second solo flight on board a AT-3 Tzu Chung jet trainer. The aircraft went missing from radar minutes after it took off. Kaohsiung City Fire Bureau personnel found the pilot’s body at the crash site near the city. The air force said Hsu was among a group of five pilots who were conducting exercises using AT-3 trainers. The other four returned safely. The AT-3 Tzu Chung is a Taiwan-made jet trainer, first brought into service during the 1980s. The air force operates over 60 AT-3s for training purposes. This is the third air accident reported this year by the Taiwanese military. A Mirage 2000-5 fighter jet crashed into the sea off Taiwan’s southeastern coast during a routine training mission in March, leading to the grounding of the whole fleet of French-built planes. The pilot ejected safely and the Mirages have since gone back to operation. In mid-January a F-16V, one of the most advanced fighters in Taiwan’s possession, crashed in the sea off the west coast, killing its sole pilot. The Taiwanese air force suspended combat training for its U.S.-made F-16 fleet for over a week but put them back in action in late January. Surge in Chinese incursions Meanwhile 30 Chinese airplanes flew into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) on Monday, making it the second highest number of daily incursions since the beginning of the year. An ADIZ is an area where foreign aircraft are tracked and identified before further entering into a country’s airspace. Taiwan’s military provided a list of Chinese aircraft spotted on Monday inside the island’s ADIZ, including eight Shenyang J-11 fighter jets, six Shenyang J-16 fighter jets, four Chengdu J-10 fighter jets, two Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets, two Sukhoi Su-30 fighter jets, one Shaanxi Y-8 anti-submarine warfare plane, one Shaanxi Y-8 electronic warfare plane, four Shaanxi Y-8 electronic intelligence spotter planes and two KJ-500 airborne early warning and control aircraft. Taiwan responded by scrambling combat patrol aircraft, issuing radio warnings, and deploying air defense missile systems. The incursions by Chinese warplanes happened shortly after two U.S. aircraft carriers, the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Ronald Reagan, reportedly held drills on Saturday and Sunday in waters to the southeast of Okinawa. The record number of incursions this year so far was reported on January 23 when 39 Chinese military aircraft intruded into Taiwan’s ADIZ. The all-time single-day record for the most Chinese warplanes spotted inside the island’s ADIZ was 56 on Oct. 4, 2021. U.S. senator meets Taiwan president The surge of the incursions coincided with the arrival of a U.S. delegation led by Senator Tammy Duckworth. She is in Taipei for three days to discuss regional security, trade and investment and global supply chains with Taiwanese leaders, according to the American Institute, the U.S. de facto embassy. Duckworth met with President Tsai Ing-wen on Tuesday, saying she wanted to  “emphasize our support for Taiwan security,&#8221; according to comments obtained by the Associated Press. Duckworth has put forward a bill to the U.S. Congress calling for cooperation between Taiwan’s military and the U.S. National Guard. The National Guard is a reserve component of the U.S. Army and Air Force under the control of  state governors and the president. Tsai thanked Duckworth for “keeping a close watch on Taiwan related security issues,” and praised the U.S. government for the importance it places “on peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.” Taiwan has operated as a self-governing state formally named the Republic of China since the ROC regime fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war to Mao Zedong&#8217;s communists. Taiwan has never been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party, but Beijing has repeatedly called for &#8220;unification&#8221; and threatened to annex the island, whose 23 million residents regard themselves as Taiwanese, and, having democratized in the 1990s, have no wish to live under China&#8217;s authoritarian rule. The United States, recognizes Beijing as the government of China, but does not endorse Beijing&#8217;s claim over Taiwan, and opposes using force to change the status quo. Washington is obliged by U&#8217;S. laws to sell arms to Taiwan to maintain its defense against China.
- [Suspected bombing in downtown Yangon wounds about 10 people](https://ij-reportika.com/suspected-bombing-in-downtown-yangon-wounds-about-10-people/): An explosion in downtown Yangon wounded about 10 people on Tuesday, a local charity worker at the scene said. The blast, believed to be a bombing, happened at around 3 p.m. local time (4:30 a.m. EDT) at a bus stop near Bar Street and Anawrahta Road in Kyauktada Township, said the worker, speaking to RFA Burmese on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. “It was a mess. I just brought an injured patient and came out. But I did not know the exact (number) of victims and about 10 people have been brought (for medical treatment),” he said, adding that two of injured were in a serious condition. All the injured were men. The scene of a bomb blast at the bus stop near Bar Street and Anawrahta Road in Kyauktada Township, in Myanmar&#8217;s Yangon region, May 31, 2022. Credit: Citizen journalist. Other local aid groups also assisted the injured. There was no immediate comment from authorities about the cause of the explosion, but since the military seized power from an elected civilian government 16 months ago, violence has spiralled including bombings in urban centers. Yangon is the commercial center of Myanmar. RFA has sought comment from the ruling military council.  There was no immediate claim of responsibility for an attack.  Also Tuesday, a bomb blast at around 2 p.m. (3:30 p.m. EDT) near a state education office in Naung Cho Township, northern Shan State, killed at least one person and wounded seven. Locals said that the fatality was a teacher from Macchi Nu village in that township and the injured were education staff and teachers.
- [Irrawaddy dolphin deaths on Bangladesh’s coast worry environmentalists, authorities](https://ij-reportika.com/irrawaddy-dolphin-deaths-on-bangladeshs-coast-worry-environmentalists-authorities/): Growing up, Nuru Majhi and his friends used to see dolphins jumping in Bangladesh’s southern coastal waters. “But now we see a lot less dolphins,” the 58-year-old fisherman from Patuakhali district told BenarNews. “The main cause of death is due to fishing nets. The number of fishermen has increased 10 times compared to 30 years ago.” The deaths of two Irrawaddy dolphins earlier this month near Kuakata beach where Majhi fishes highlight the threat faced by the aquatic mammals in Bangladesh, which hosts the world’s largest population of the species, authorities and fishermen said. Bangladesh Forest Department officials recovered the remains of the dolphins on May 3 and 14, bringing the tally this year to at least eight. All were found in the same Kuakata beach area in Patuakhali, about 294 km (183 miles) south of Dhaka. Meanwhile on May 22, a local Bangladesh media report said that a pregnant female Irrawaddy dolphin had died after being hit by a trolling net. The report said the dolphin was found floating at the mouth of Andharmanik River in Patuakhali district that morning. The carcass of an Irrawaddy dolphin lies on the Kuakata beach in Bangladesh’s Patuakhali district, May 14, 2022. Credit: Dolphin Conservation Committee of Kuakata, Bangladesh. The trend worries government authorities, environmentalists and fishermen. Similar concerns have been raised as the Irrawaddy population has plummeted on the Mekong River near Cambodia’s border with Laos. “This is really a matter of concern for us that the Irrawaddy dolphins are dying,” Abdullah Al Mamun, the division forest officer in Patuakhali district, told BenarNews. Forest officials were examining the causes of the latest dolphin deaths, he said. The Irrawaddy dolphin, which is distinct for its roundish head and lack of beak, is found in freshwater along with brackish shallow coastal waters in South and Southeast Asia, from Bangladesh to Mekong region and the Philippines. The name comes from the Irrawaddy River in Myanmar where the first specimens were described, according to riverdolphins.org, a website on dolphin conservation and management. Roman Imtiaz Tushar, a Kuakata wildlife activist, said 24 Irrawaddy dolphins were found dead in 2021, 18 in 2020 and 12 in 2019. Majhi, which means “boatman” in Bengali, said no fisherman intentionally kills a dolphin. “Every dolphin’s death makes fishermen very sorry,” he said. “Dolphins are a very emotional type of animal. They move in groups. When one is entangled in a net, others come around the trapped dolphin.” Credit: International Whaling Commission Trapped in nets Sharif Uddin, a fisheries department official, said Kuakata and other adjacent coastal areas are rich in resources. “The number of fishermen in this area has increased over the years. So more dolphins are getting trapped in the fishing nets,” said Uddin, chief scientific officer for the marine fisheries survey management. In 2019, Dhaka adopted a Dolphin Conservation Action Plan to save the country’s population of Irrawaddy, a protected species, along with the Ganges River dolphin. The plan authorizes the fisheries department to work with fishermen, while the main task of saving and conserving the dolphins goes to the forest department. “In line with the action plan, we have started awareness campaigns among the coastal fishermen so they can immediately release the dolphins, if possible,” Uddin said. “So, if we can make them more sensitive, there is a possibility that some of the dolphins trapped in the nets could be saved,” he said. But locals said they do not always know whether a large fish or a dolphin has been entangled in their long nets and can rescue only those caught close to them. “Once caught, the dolphins die in a maximum of 10 minutes,” Majhi, the fisherman, said. A fisherman casts a net on the Mekong River, home to Irrawaddy dolphins, in Kratié province, Cambodia, March 24, 2007. Credit: Reuters Dolphins are mammals and need to take oxygen from the air at intervals of 10 minutes or less, according to M.A. Aziz, a zoology professor at Jahangirnagar University in Dhaka. “They cannot take oxygen from the water like fish.” “Some fishermen use very thin and transparent nets which the dolphins cannot always detect. When they run after fish, they cannot detect the presence of the thin fishing net and get entangled with it,” he told BenarNews. “As a result, they suffocate and die underwater in a short time.” Bangladesh’s coasts and the coastal rivers host about 80 percent of the world’s Irrawaddy dolphins, Aziz said. Globally, the Irrawaddy population is about 7,000, according to experts and international studies. Figures for Bangladesh range from 5,800 to 6,000, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the World Conservation Society. The Irrawaddy dolphins are classified as “endangered” on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, with some river and coastal subpopulations designated as “critically endangered.” In February, the last known freshwater Irrawaddy dolphin on a stretch of the Mekong River near Cambodia’s border with Laos died after being snagged in a fishing net, said wildlife officials and villagers from both sides of the frontier. Overall, a few dozen of these dolphins survive in the Lower Mekong region. An Irrawaddy dolphin raises its tail swims in a river in Kratié province, Cambodia, March 24, 2007. Credit: Reuters. The Irrawaddy population along the Mekong has declined from an estimated 200 in 1997 to 89 in 2020, according to riverdolphins.org. IUCN said the dolphin population level was satisfactory in Bangladesh waters where they are frequently spotted near the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest, and the Meghna River estuary near Nijhum Dwip. It said the Irrawaddy’s regional habitat was affected by increasing salinity caused by climate change and freshwater withdrawals. The fresh water flow into the river system that is needed to produce a suitable mixture with salt water to create the proper habitation for dolphins has been reduced, environmentalists said. The forest department, which investigates each recorded dolphin death, has concluded that in most cases they were entangled in fishing nets or hit by trawlers. Tushar, the team leader at...
- [Hong Kong leader-in-waiting John Lee officially anointed by Beijing](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-leader-in-waiting-john-lee-officially-anointed-by-beijing/): Hong Kong&#8217;s leader-in-waiting John Lee received the blessing of ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping at the weekend following the former security chief&#8217;s selection for the role in a one-horse poll earlier this month. Xi received his letter of appointment in Beijing, and along with congratulations from Xi, who lauded the new system of &#8220;elections&#8221; that ensures only candidates with proven political loyalty to Beijing may stand. Xi &#8220;praised Lee for his patriotism, love for Hong Kong, and daring to take responsibility,&#8221; the CCP-backed Global Times newspaper reported. Xi said Hong Kong&#8217;s new electoral system had played a decisive role in ensuring &#8220;patriots&#8221; govern Hong Kong, the paper reported. Current affairs commentator Johnny Lau said the rhetoric during Lee&#8217;s Beijing trip indicates that the CCP under Xi has no intention of relaxing its grip on Hong Kong. &#8220;The suppression of Hong Kong has already had a negative impact on economic growth, people&#8217;s income and employment, international confidence and foreign investment,&#8221; Lau said. &#8216;Indistinguishable from other cities in China&#8217; Political commentator Sang Pu said the national security law and the changes to Hong Kong&#8217;s electoral system were all Xi&#8217;s idea. &#8220;The new electoral system is about hands-on governance [from Beijing] and patriots ruling Hong Kong,&#8221; Sang told RFA. &#8220;It is Xi Jinping&#8217;s alone, because Xi Jinping made the final decision.&#8221; &#8220;The aim is to turn Hong Kong into a city that is indistinguishable from other cities in China, with its special characteristics and autonomy destroyed,&#8221; he said. Lee takes office on July 1, the anniversary of the 1997 handover to Chinese rule, amid speculation that Xi will make a visit to Hong Kong to mark the occasion. Analysts said the one-horse poll that returned Lee as successor to incumbent Carrie Lam wiped out any distinction between the city and the rest of mainland China, despite Beijing&#8217;s promises that Hong Kong would maintain its existing rights and freedoms and transition to fully democratic elections. Lee, a former police officer who oversaw a violent crackdown on the 2019 protest movement, was &#8220;elected&#8221; by a Beijing-backed committee under new rules imposed on the city to ensure that only those loyal to the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) can hold public office. Ninety-nine percent of the 1,500-strong committee voted for Lee, who was the only candidate on the slate. &#8216;National security education&#8217; Lee has vowed to &#8220;start a new chapter&#8221; in Hong Kong, which has seen waves of mass, popular protest over the erosion of the city&#8217;s promised freedoms in recent years. He has also denied that anyone has been detained or imprisoned for &#8220;speech crimes&#8221; under a draconian national security law imposed on the city by Beijing from July 1, 2020, despite dozens of arrests amid an ongoing crackdown on rights activists, peaceful protesters and opposition politicians. The crackdown has seen several senior journalists, pro-democracy media magnate Jimmy Lai and 47 former lawmakers and democracy activists charged with offenses from &#8220;collusion with a foreign power&#8221; to &#8220;subversion.&#8221; &#8220;National security education&#8221; &#8212; a CCP-style propaganda drive targeting all age-groups from kindergarten to university &#8212; is also mandatory under the law, while student unions and other civil society groups have disbanded, with some of their leaders arrested in recent months. Eleven defendants including Cantopop singer Leslie Chong pleaded not guilty in a Hong Kong court on Monday to charges of &#8220;rioting&#8221; in connection with the siege by armed riot police of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The defendants&#8217; transit records and WhatsApp messages are being used to show that they went to nearby Yaumatei district during the siege in defiance of a police statement telling people to stay away. Protesters converged on the district to distract riot police and support protesters holed up inside the university campus. A video clip shown in court showed around 250 Molotov cocktails being thrown at police during the standoff, the prosecution told the court. Police later arrested more than 200 people at the scene, including Chong and his 10 co-defendants, who are aged 19-28 and include students, teachers and service sector workers. The prosecution alleged that the defendants&#8217; presence in the vicinity constituted the crime of &#8220;rioting.&#8221; Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [From Chinese detainee to Cambodian diplomat: the radical rebirth of Wang Yaohui](https://ij-reportika.com/from-chinese-detainee-to-cambodian-diplomat-the-radical-rebirth-of-wang-yaohui/): Wang Yaohui has taken an unconventional career path for a Cambodian diplomat. For one thing, he was born in China and lived there for most of his life. For another, he has a very checkered past in the business world, tainted by bribery scandals over a copper mine in Zambia and a state-run bank in China for which he was detained and an associate was sentenced to life in prison. But following a path well-trodden by other Chinese tycoons with reputational problems, Wang used connections among the Cambodian elite to land himself a new nationality, a new name and a new career. Using his adopted Khmer name, Wan Sokha, he rapidly became an “advisor” to Prime Minister Hun Sen and landed a plum post at Cambodia’s embassy in Singapore, a position he still holds. That diplomatic posting has not prevented him from furthering his business interests. Untangling the web of those interests which stretch from Asia to Europe is no easy task. Wang has gone to great lengths to conceal his enormous but undeclared commercial footprint. A key piece in this complex puzzle are the Singaporean holdings of a Cambodian power couple: Sen. Lau Ming Kan and his wife Choeung Sopheap, who has been instrumental in Wang’s progress. This story explores those ties, using documentary evidence and also flight manifests from aircraft owned by Wang. It is part of a wide-ranging RFA investigation into more than $230 million in financial and property interests that figures linked to Cambodia’s ruling party have in the prosperous city state of Singapore. The documents not only show how Sopheap helped transform Wang from a fugitive to an accredited Cambodian diplomat. They also show how Wang has become the apparent beneficial owner of an energy company granted an exclusive 10-year license to import liquified natural gas by the Cambodian government. The documents also show that Wang has concealed from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and the English Football League his substantial stake in a major English soccer team, Birmingham City Football Club. That is potentially a criminal offence, punishable by up to two years in prison. Additionally, the documents shed light on how Sopheap has been embroiled in a real estate deal in Cyprus involving Wang that is the subject of a European police investigation. Mired in mining scandal Wang was born in June 1966 in Heilongjiang, China’s northernmost province bordering Russia, soon after the start of the Cultural Revolution, which saw millions die as the Communist Party sought to purge society of traditional and capitalist elements. That’s in stark contrast to the dynamics of Wang’s adult life which associates say has been spent in single-minded pursuit of money. From the late 1990s onwards, his zest for profits saw him invest in everything from African mining operations to the Chinese art market and he did so with gusto. By the end of each venture, however, his business partners almost invariably felt that they had been wronged. A truck leaves the Chibuluma copper mine after collecting ore from 1,693 feet (516 meters) below the surface in the Zambian copper belt region, Jan. 17, 2015. (Reuters) In 2009, Wang signed an agreement with the government of Zambia on behalf of his Zhonghui Mining Group, pledging to invest $3.6 billion in a copper mine in the central African nation. The deal – which was hailed by Zambia’s then-President Rupiah Banda as a “positive development” – would quickly come undone, according to By All Means Necessary: How China&#8217;s Resource Quest is Changing the World, a 2013 book by Elizabeth Economy and Michael Levi, who would go on to be a special assistant to U.S. President Barack Obama. Economy and Levi recount how in 2011 Zhonghui “began building the mine without conducting an environmental impact assessment, violating Zambia’s 1997 EIA regulations.” The year also saw a new party take power in Zambia, which set about scrutinizing land and mining deals overseen by its predecessors. While the move was viewed by the government’s supporters as a marker of improved governance, others “believed that the new administration simply wanted to nullify previous deals to reap its own payments and bribes as the various concessions were sold anew.” Zhonghui was ordered to stop work immediately pending its production of an EIA. The company failed to do so and was charged alongside Zambia’s former minister of mines and minerals with corruption. The government alleged that Zhonghui had paid close to $60,000 of Zambian customs duties for 5,000 bicycles the minister had imported from China in 2011. Reuters reported that prosecution witnesses, “testified that with the minister’s influence, the Chinese firm was awarded the licenses within three days when such a process normally lasted months.” The minister was found guilty in 2015 and sentenced to one year in jail with hard labor (although in 2019 he received a presidential pardon). The court ruled Zhonghui had no case to answer. But by that time, Wang had bigger problems closer to home. A bribes for loans scandal In June 2012, the South China Morning Post reported that Wang had been detained late the previous month in Beijing by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the Chinese Communist Party’s anti-corruption watchdog. Citing unnamed sources, the newspaper claimed the party was investigating allegations of “bribery and money laundering” within a “complex network run by low-profile but well-connected businessman Wang Yaohui.” Photograph of Wang widely distributed around the time of Agricultural Bank of China Vice President Yang Kun’s arrest for allegedly receiving bribes from Wang. (Photo: Supplied by source) In particular, the authorities were examining Wang’s relationship with Yang Kun, the vice-president of the state-owned Agricultural Bank of China. Sources told the South China Morning Post that together Wang and Yang had “lost several hundred million yuan during their gambling trips to Macau.” Moreover, the sources added, Yang had overseen loans from the bank to one of Wang’s companies, putatively intended to support property development, but which, “may have been misused to cover gambling losses in Macau.” Yang was...
- [China's 'White Guards' gain reputation for brutal enforcement of Shanghai lockdown](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-white-guards-gain-reputation-for-brutal-enforcement-of-shanghai-lockdown/): Police officers, neighborhood committee members and community volunteers dressed in head-to-toe white PPE have been a ubiquitous feature of China&#8217;s zero-COVID policy, often shown on social media video uploads surrounding people, beating and dragging them away, or knocking on their door to put pressure on them to submit to a PCR test, to leave home for an isolation camp. Dubbed White Guards in a nod to the Red Guards, the often violent and arbitrary enforcers of political decrees during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), the &#8220;dabai,&#8221; or &#8220;big whites&#8221; have gained themselves a reputation for Kafkaesque orders, physical violence and abuse of power. Yet many didn&#8217;t sign up for grueling disease control prevention measures that left some of them isolated from friends and family and others loathed by the residents they had thought they were mostly there to help. Constant political sloganeering, changing criteria and orders from higher up, and incomprehensible containment processes left many neighborhood committee members and healthcare workers emotionally drained, under constant psychological stress and liable either to lash out physically or verbally. Others grabbed any opportunity to improve their lives with both hands, as in the case of the Shanghai neighborhood committee who barricaded themselves into a room to gorge themselves on a secret stash of cake while their residents were having trouble getting any food at all. A community doctor surnamed Chen was among the army of White Guards drafted in to carry out mass, compulsory PCR testing throughout the Shanghai lockdown, getting up in the middle of the night to start swabbing thousands of mouths and nostrils a day. &#8220;We were originally doctors in regular private clinics,&#8221; Chen told RFA. &#8220;When lockdown started a while back, all non-essential facilities were shut down, and staff called in to assist with disease control and prevention work.&#8221; &#8220;We didn&#8217;t volunteer for this work, and we received no compensation for it,&#8221; he said. A worker in a protective suit looks out through a gap in barriers at a closed residential area during lockdown, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in Shanghai, China, May 25, 2022. Credit: Reuters. A political task Chen was pressured into joining the &#8220;dabai&#8221; by his manager, who said PCR testing was now a political task, under ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping&#8217;s ongoing insistence on a zero-COVID strategy to deal with the omicron variant of COVID-19. &#8220;If we hadn&#8217;t gone, the powers-that-be would have given our clinic trouble in future, making it hard to stay in business,&#8221; Chen said. In return for wearing full body PPE for five hours straight, making bathroom breaks well nigh impossible, Chen, who lives in Handan city in the northern province of Hebei, said the &#8220;dabai&#8221; could expect three meals a day and drinks provided by the authorities, at a time when many families are struggling to buy enough food because of lockdown restrictions on businesses and delivery drivers. Many would save their meals and bring them home to their families after work, Chen said, adding that this was a key motivation for him to keep doing the work. Chen said there was scant scientific basis for the seemingly endless rounds of mass PCR testing he helped to implement. &#8220;This isn&#8217;t really disease control and prevention at all,&#8221; Chen said. &#8220;The most important thing in disease control work is to prevent clusters, but many communities had zero infections.&#8221; &#8220;The whole thing was more of a political show, using Handan as a line of defense to protect Beijing,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Everyone is in danger right now, and a lot of people are afraid to talk about the trauma the pandemic has caused them, but &#8230; it won&#8217;t stay hidden,&#8221; Chen said. A health worker (C) wearing personal protective equipment conducts a swab test for the Covid-19 coronavirus in a compound during a Covid-19 lockdown in Pudong district in Shanghai on April 19, 2022. Credit: AFP Depression and trauma He said he has seen a number of patients with depression, as well as patients presenting with mysterious abdominal pain with unknown cause, which he attributed to the effects of trauma on the body. A temporary worker surnamed Wang who was drafted onto a community disinfection team in Shanghai&#8217;s Pudong district said he did it out of desperation, after his source of work was cut off by the pandemic. &#8220;I still have to pay the mortgage, so there was a lot of pressure,&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;I was actually scared at first and thought it was a bit dangerous, because I came into contact with so many people,&#8221; said Wang, who normally makes a living cutting people&#8217;s hair, Huang Kuang-kuo, professor of psychology at National Taiwan University, said the psychological concept of depersonalization could go some way to explaining the behavior of people, particularly the faceless &#8220;dabai,&#8221; during the Shanghai lockdown. &#8220;This makes sense, because when we can&#8217;t identify people, then they behave differently,&#8221; Huang told RFA. &#8220;A more authoritarian personality comes to the fore.&#8221; A community volunteer wearing personal protective equipment stands as residents line up during a test for the Covid-19 coronavirus in a compound during a Covid-19 lockdown in Pudong district in Shanghai on April 19, 2022. Credit: AFP. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Uyghur group slams UN rights czar over ‘wasted opportunity’ during trip to Xinjiang](https://ij-reportika.com/uyghur-group-slams-un-rights-czar-over-wasted-opportunity-during-trip-to-xinjiang/): A Uyghur rights group on Saturday expressed “serious disappointment” in the outcome of U.N. Human Rights czar Michelle Bachelet’s trip to Xinjiang, which it said had amounted to “a propaganda opportunity for China to whitewash its crimes against humanity and genocide against the Uyghur people.”  Ahead of the visit, rights groups demanded assurances that the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights would have unfettered access to the region and the ability to speak freely with Uyghurs without fear of reprisal. Otherwise, they warned, her trip risked lending legitimacy to Beijing’s justification for a “counter-terrorism” campaign that has seen as many as 1.8 million members of the ethnic minority held in a network of internment camps since 2017. During a news briefing at the end of her six-day trip to China on Saturday, Bachelet said she was not in China for an official investigation of the situation in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), although she claimed to have had “unsupervised” access to sources that the U.N. had arranged to meet in the region. She added that she had urged China to avoid “arbitrary and indiscriminate measures” in its crackdown in the XUAR and said officials in the region had assured her that the internment camps they call “vocational training centers” have been dismantled. But RFA and other outlets have reported in the run up to the visit that China put pressure on Uyghurs in Xinjiang and their relatives abroad to stop them from speaking about internment camps and other abuses in the region. In a statement from Germany, World Uyghur Congress (WUC) President Dolkun Isa warned that Bachelet’s visit – the first by a U.N. rights czar in nearly two decades – only strengthened China’s narrative about its policies in the region, which Western nations say amount to a genocide of the Uyghur people. “As expected, the High Commissioner has wasted a historic opportunity to investigate the Uyghur genocide and deliver justice to the Uyghur people,” Isa said. “The High Commissioner has ruined her office’s credibility by aligning with China’s wishes and conducting a visit that by no means adequately addressed justice for Uyghurs and accountability for those responsible.” The WUC said that a recently released police list with the names of more than 10,000 allegedly detained Uyghurs known as the Xinjiang Police Files underscore exactly why an investigation into the situation in the XUAR is needed and urged Bachelet’s office to release her independent assessment “as a show of willingness to hold the Chinese government accountable for crimes against humanity and genocide being committed.” Bachelet’s visit was also slammed by German researcher Adrian Zenz, director in China studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington, D.C., who posted a message on Twitter saying that the result was “significantly worse than what had been feared.” “The perhaps worst human rights violation of our time is treated as a matter of internal review by the perpetrator,” he tweeted. “The main takeaway is that Bachelet treats the Xinjiang government as a rational actor who should undertake its own ‘review’ of how its ‘deradicalization’ policies may not be complying with international standards,” the researcher wrote, calling the U.N. official’s press briefing “absolutely stunning.” Call for stronger measures The end of Bachelet’s trip came as the WUC convened a May 26-28 summit in Munich, Germany on best practices for advocacy efforts, which Isa opened by urging the global community to adopt stronger measures if it intends to hold Beijing to account for its treatment of Uyghurs in northwestern China. In a speech to more than 200 policymakers, activists, lawyers, and members of the Uyghur diaspora gathered for the summit – held just a half-hour’s drive from the former Dachau Nazi concentration camp – Isa welcomed the international attention that the Xinjiang Police Files had drawn to the situation in the XUAR. But he warned that compiling evidence of China’s policies targeting the Uyghurs is only part of what must be an urgent and concerted international effort to end atrocities in the region. “The ‘Xinjiang Police Files,’ as they are called, remind the world of the nature of the Chinese government’s atrocity crimes and genocide of the Uyghurs,” Isa told those in attendance at the conference hall. “For us [Uyghurs], this is not breaking news – it is the daily reality of our lives … Millions of Uyghurs are being detained in 21st century concentration camps, where they are subjected to all forms of abuse – torture, rape, sexual abuse, forced labor, [and] sterilization.” While the U.S. government and the parliaments of several Western nations have declared that the situation in the XUAR constitutes genocide, the only action taken against China to date has come in the form of sanctioning Chinese officials and businesses seen as complicit in the policies. In early December, the Uyghur Tribunal, an independent people’s tribunal in London, determined that China has committed genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, although its findings are non-binding and lack state-backing. Meanwhile, more than five years since the establishment of the camps, little has changed for Uyghurs in the XUAR. Authorities in the region use a high-tech and comprehensive surveillance system to monitor for any sign of opposition to Chinese rule, which increasingly includes any outward expression by Uyghurs of their traditional culture, such as dress, language, and religion. Isa said the onus is on global powers to demand that Beijing change course or face consequences. “Over the past five years, all Uyghurs, Kazakhs, [and members of the] diaspora have tried to find any information about the whereabouts and well-being of our families in the homeland. What we have learned in these five years should already have shocked the world’s conscience,” he said. “With the Xinjiang Police Files being yet another reason, [the WUC] calls on the international community to end its ‘business as usual’ approach to China.” Summit attendees listen to a recording of the national anthem of East Turkestan, the name Uyghurs...
- [More than 1,000 Myanmar migrants in China wait months or years for deportation](https://ij-reportika.com/more-than-1000-myanmar-migrants-in-china-wait-months-or-years-for-deportation/): More than 1,000 Myanmar migrant workers are stuck in Chinese detention centers with no way to contact their families or return to their homes, current and former migrants told RFA. The migrant group consists of undocumented illegal border crossers and people who overstayed six-day tourist visas to work. Some had lost their jobs during recent outbreaks of coronavirus and were trying to return to Myanmar when authorities arrested them. More than 100 are at a detention center in the southeastern province of Guangdong, while 1,000 more are in Baoshan, Yunan province, close to the Myanmar border. Aye Moe, 26, had been in detention for seven months at a drug rehabilitation center in Baoshan prior to her release and deportation on May 20 along with 152 other detainees. She told RFA’s Burmese Service there were about 1,000 Myanmar nationals at the center including 14 members of the Rakhine minority, who were still being held on charges of forging Chinese ID cards. The additional crime complicated their deportation. “You can&#8217;t have a job if you don’t have a registration card. So the brokers gave them fake registration cards and the police found out. Those 14 Rakhines were not even allowed to fill out their immigration forms,” she said. “I tried to be brave one day and went to ask the police captain to help them. He said he couldn’t do anything and that he didn’t get the case files when they were handed over to him. He said he could only do what he was asked,&#8221; she said. Hnin Hnin of Yangon, who had been working at a battery factory in Huazhou, Guangdong, told RFA that she and her husband were among 28 people arrested at the factory during a police raid last February. “Since I was pregnant they sent me back to the factory,” she said. “They said I would be deported. I already have a confirmation letter from Myanmar authorities from four months ago, but I have not been sent back yet. I have no job and want to go home to give birth in Myanmar,” Hnin Hnin added. The 36-year-old expectant mother said that eight people in the group, including her husband, were deported to Myanmar on May 19 over China’s border with Kachin state with the help of the Myanmar Embassy.  The crackdown on factories using migrant labor began in early 2021. Since then, hundreds of Myanmar migrants have been hiding in the jungles outside of the cities where they once worked. Others have tried to return to Myanmar, paying 10,000 yuan (about U.S. $1,500) to brokers who lead them on a three-day journey from Guangdong to the Myanmar border, but they were caught en route. Ye Lwin Tun, a 26-year-old resident of Kyaukphyu village in Namsang Township, northern Shan State, told RFA that three of his friends had not been freed yet. &#8220;Over 170 people have now been released. We heard they would release more than 100 people from the prisons. A few of them are Vietnamese, but the rest are Myanmar citizens,” he said. “There are about four or five prisons in Guangdong. They are huge ones. We were not put together in one prison but separated in different ones. Three of our villagers have not been released yet. Chinese police said all illegal immigrants who do not have COVID-19 vaccinations would be arrested. Myanmar citizens are now refused by Chinese companies because the owners do not dare hire them. If they are caught, they have to pay fines and may go to prison,” he said. Ye Lwin Tun said he was arrested in October last year along with about 300 Myanmar nationals while working at a factory in Huazhou that makes shampoo caps. Kyaw Kyaw, a labor activist in Ruili, China, said it normally takes about 20 days or so for Myanmar workers to be returned to the border if they give themselves up to the Chinese police, but now have to stay in detention camps for at least three to six months.   &#8220;It takes a long time for the mainland to deport them,” he said. “If they do not have passports, they will be released within a maximum of 20 days on grounds of COVID rules. But for those from Guangdong, they could not get past Baoshan. Whether they take a shortcut or not, it is impossible to pass that line. If arrested, they could be held for at least 3 to 6 months.” Kyaw Kyaw said there are prisoners who have been detained for years who have had no contact with their families or the embassy. RFA contacted both Myanmar Embassy in Beijing and Chinese Embassy in Myanmar by email on May 25 for comments but have not received a reply. In March, the Chinese Embassy in Yangon told RFA in an e-mail that China takes the rights of foreign workers seriously and that foreigners should in turn respect Chinese laws. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [China warns overseas Uyghurs to keep quiet during UN visit](https://ij-reportika.com/china-warns-overseas-uyghurs-to-keep-quiet-during-un-visit/): Two weeks before a visit by the U.N. human rights chief, China’s state security police warned Uyghurs living in Xinjiang that they may suffer consequences if their relatives living abroad spoke out about internment camps in the region.  Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, is now on a six-day trip to China, including the coastal city of Guangzhou and Urumqi (in Chinese, Wulumuqi) and Kashgar (Kashi) in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). She began the tour on May 23.  On May 12, U.S.-based Kalbinur Gheni posted a tweet asking Bachelet to meet with her sister, who is incarcerated at a women’s prison in Sanji (Changji), a city next to Urumqi, capital of the XUAR.  Gheni said members of China’s state security police in Korla (Kuerle), the second-largest city in Xinjiang, visited her mother in Cherchen county the next day and pressed her to convince Gheni not to tweet more about her sister’s detention.  “‘Your daughter in the United States is speaking out against the government. If you don&#8217;t talk to this girl and ask her to agree to delete everything on Twitter, you will be convicted of being a two-faced person yourself,’” Gheni recalled the security officials told her mother.  “When I called my mom on the second day after my tweet, my poor mother cried and shouted saying that if I didn’t delete what I had posted, she would sever her blood relationship with me,” Gheni said. The agents threatened to charge her mother with the “crime” of being “a two-faced person” if she failed to persuade Gheni. The Chinese Communist Party uses the term to describe people — usually officials or party members — who are either corrupt or ideologically disloyal to the party.  Gheni’s sister, Renagul Gheni, was a primary schoolteacher in Cherchen county when authorities allegedly took her to an internment camp in 2018. Two years later she was sentenced to 17 years in prison — seven years for praying during her father’s funeral and 10 years for possessing a Quran.  Gheni said security officials had pressured her family over her tweets about her sister before the latest incident. “The same state security official has been contacting me directly over a year now,” Gheni told RFA, adding that the agent has told her that he is taking care of her family members in Xinjiang.  Gheni’s younger brother, who had not spoken to her for more than two years, also had left a message asking her to delete her Twitter posts.  “After this tweet, my brother with whom I had lost contact for over two years, left a voice message on WeChat saying, ‘We heard that while abroad you have made anti-China statements. Will you let us live or not? Stop making these statements and delete everything you posted.’”  On May 23, Gheni tweeted: “I will keep up the fight, I won’t give up on my loved ones.”  ‘No Uyghur is safe’  U.S.-based Uyghur Gulruy Esqer told RFA that Chinese government authorities also tried to silence her by rearresting a relative in the XUAR. Esmet Behti, who was a history professor the Bingtuan Pedagogical School under the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, was rearrested in May 2021 in an attempt to silence Esqer. The teacher was first arrested in 2019 and taken to a detention camp but released nine months later.  “I thought he had been released because of my activism in the U.S. and that he would be safe from further harm by Chinese authorities, but I was wrong,” she told RFA. “No Uyghur is safe from Chinese authorities. That’s what I’ve now concluded. Any Uyghur on any given day or night might be taken away by Chinese authorities.”  Shortly before the start of Bachelet’s visit to the XUAR, the Chinese government launched a campaign there to “protect state secrets,” warning Uyghurs not to talk about or discuss “state secrets,” meaning the detention of Uyghurs or other measures to repress them.  International human rights organizations say that China’s efforts to silence Uyghurs abroad serve the same purpose as using propaganda to cover up the reality of rights abuses in Xinjiang.  Bachelet’s visit coincided with release of leaked Chinese police files on Uyghurs in the XUAR published online by German researcher Adrian Zenz, director in China studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington, D.C.  The files detail the brutality of the Chinese authorities against Uyghurs and show top Chinese leaders’ direct involvement in the mass internment campaign.  Translated by RFA Uyghur. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Hundreds of students protest COVID-19 lockdown on Tianjin University campus](https://ij-reportika.com/hundreds-of-students-protest-covid-19-lockdown-on-tianjin-university-campus/): Hundreds of students in the northern Chinese port city of Tianjin gathered on the Tianjin University campus late on Thursday, in protest at COVID-19 restrictions. Chanting &#8220;Down with formalism! Down with bureaucracy!&#8221;, the students gathered on the university&#8217;s Beiyang Square, calling on university leaders to come out and talk to them about arrangement for classes and exams amid ongoing zero-COVID restrictions. The scenes were eerily reminiscent of the early stages of the 1989 student movement, which later took over Beijing&#8217;s Tiananmen Square for weeks on end with demands for democratic reforms and the rule of law. Those protests culminated in a bloody massacre of civilians by the People&#8217;s Liberation Army (PLA) on the night of June 3-4, with an unknown number of casualties. Students are calling on the university administration to clarifying arrangements for online classes, final exams, and when students need to be back on campus if they decide to wait out the lockdown at home. The protest came after no response was forthcoming. Video clips posted to social media showed hundreds of young people gathered under streetlights on Thursday evening, shouting &#8220;Down with formalism! Down with bureaucracy!&#8221; and calling on management to come forward for dialogue. One poster called on the school to let students go back home to take online classes, only coming back for their exams, but the university authorities have refused to say when these will take place. It called for further protests outside Zhengdong Library on Saturday. Sick of confinement Social media posts said the students are sick of being confined to their dorms and forced to take online classes, which they could do from home. Posts also said the university had conceded to most of the students&#8217; demands. A Tianjin resident surnamed Xu said the school had to compromise to avoid larger protests ahead of the politically sensitive 33rd anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre next week. &#8220;The college students are knowledgeable, literate, and united, and the protests are definitely legitimate,&#8221; Xu said. &#8220;The [university] made concessions, because they had to; it&#8217;ll soon be the anniversary of June 4, 1989.&#8221; The protests came after the Tianjin municipal government locked down the city&#8217;s Nankai district, forcing residents to stay home, and carry out regular COVID-19 tests. Less stringent restrictions are already under way in Heping district. Tianjin University&#8217;s Beiyang campus has been under COVID-19 restrictions since Jan. 8, with more than 15,000 students confined to their dorms since then. Students are angry that the university has made no move to explain or justify the lockdown since announcing it. Petty officials Jiangxi-based current affairs commentator Zhang Kun said the lockdowns have left regular citizens at the mercy of petty officials. &#8220;The country is being run by mediocre people, and the incompetent are doing evil,&#8221; Zhang told RFA. &#8220;The slightly more competent ones have been purged.&#8221; &#8220;The longer this zero-COVID policy persists, the worse it&#8217;s going to get,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The reality has hit everyone in the face.&#8221; The Tianjin protest came after hundreds of students gathered at two Beijing universities earlier this week with similar demands. Hundreds of students at the China University of Political Science and Law (CUPL) and at Beijing Normal University (Beishida) gathered to show their displeasure with current restrictions on their movements, as the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to roll out its zero-COVID policy across the country following a grueling weeks-long lockdown in Shanghai. This year&#8217;s Tiananmen massacre anniversary is all the more sensitive as it falls ahead of the 20th party congress later this year, during which CCP leader Xi Jinping is hoping to be voted in for an unprecedented third term in office. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [North Korea punishes officials for failing to contain coronavirus](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-punishes-officials-for-failing-to-contain-coronavirus/): North Korea is sentencing mid-tier government and ruling party officials to short jail or labor sentences for failing to stop COVID-19 from spreading in the country, which sources see as an effort to deflect blame from the country’s leaders for the sudden rise in cases. North Korea is in a state of “maximum emergency” after revealing this month that the virus had begun to spread among participants of a large-scale military parade in late April. Prior to that, Pyongyang had for more than two years denied that anyone in the country had contracted COVID-19, and the government could now lose face if people start to question how the virus could have spread to more than 3 million people in such a short amount of time. Accusing officials of being corrupt or incompetent, blaming them for the pandemic, then punishing them, even lightly, allows officials higher up, including leader Kim Jong Un to shift responsibility away from them. “At an official meeting held at the party committee building last week, a number of officials were punished for their failure to adhere to the emergency quarantine system. Among them were two managers who were one day late in locking down the workers’ dormitory at their production unit,” an official from the city of Chongjin in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA’s Korean Service on Wednesday on condition of anonymity for security reasons. Both managers were sent to “confinement” after they were brought on the stage and publicly criticized. “The officials were locked up for three days,” the source said. “Since the implementation of the emergency quarantine system, these types of punishments are happening more often than before.” Authorities were reluctant to release information to the public regarding the punishments, as they still want to protect the reputations and dignity of the officials, who belong to a class more privileged than those they supervise, the source said. “Still, though, many of the officials are especially not happy with confinement. Two years ago they locked up a company official for five days. Feeling humiliated and insulted, he resigned the next day of his release, citing health concerns,” said the source. “Being confined at the Social Security Department alongside criminals is such a petty way to punish someone for insufficient performance in their duties. Is it that the authorities can&#8217;t control the cadre of officials except in this old-fashioned way?” the source said. Confining officials can also be a way to get them to push their workers to work harder to achieve the country’s economic goals, a company official in the northern province of Ryanggang told RFA. “Authorities, who previously pointed out that last year’s economic goals were not quite met, have been ‘encouraging’ officials to live up to their roles and responsibilities through punishment,” said the second source, who requested anonymity to speak freely. “In April, officials were punished to three months of unpaid labor, including an official who failed to prevent an employee from smuggling, as well as several officials who failed to complete the spring land management mobilization task,” this source said. “This month, organizations that were reported for failing to implement lockdown within their units and those officials who failed to mobilize their personnel for the housing construction task force in Hwasong, Pyongyang, were punished with confinement and unpaid labor,” the second source said. Workers try to lessen the burden on their bosses who have been detained, knowing that the boss will shortly be released from jail, the second source explained. “The workers negotiate with the Social Security Department to ensure that their superiors don’t eat meals provided by the detention center, and they deliver outside food for them. In addition, they urgently scramble to solve the problem that became a cause for punishment so that the locked up official can be released from the detention center as soon as possible,” the second source said. “When the authorities lock up officials in charge of organizations and enterprises, their units do whatever it takes to solve their problems. So, it seems that the authorities are enjoying locking up officials in charge of organizations and enterprises. The general public does not appreciate the authorities’ way of motivating officials by insulting them,” said the second source. The pandemic has heightened tensions in the country, the source said, quoting authorities as describing the campaign as “a test period to verify our patriotism and loyalty to our leader.” “It’s a very tense atmosphere, like a state of war almost, so nobody dares to complain even if the authorities issue absurd policies or instructions,” the source added. Though North Korea has acknowledged that the virus is spreading inside the country, it has only reported a handful of confirmed COVID-19 cases, which 38 North, a site that provides analysis on the country and is run by the U.S.-based Stimson Center think tank, attributed to insufficient testing capabilities. Data published on the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center showed North Korea with only one confirmed COVID-19 case and six deaths as of Friday evening. The country is, however, keeping track of numbers of people who exhibit symptoms of COVID-19. About 3.3 million people have been hit by outbreaks of fever, 69 of whom have died, according to data based on the most recent reports from North Korean state media published by 38 North. Around 3 million are reported to have made recoveries, while 233,090 are undergoing treatment. Translated by Claire Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Chutzpah in China](https://ij-reportika.com/chutzpah-in-china/): U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet began a visit to China with a photo op with Beijing&#8217;s top diplomat that appeared to confirm the human rights community&#8217;s fears that the Chinese government will use the May 23-28 tour for propaganda and keep Bachelet from seeing the reality on the ground in troubled Xinjiang and other areas. With cameras clicking, Foreign Minister Wang Yi gave Bachelet “Excerpts from Xi Jinping on Respecting and Protecting Human Rights,&#8221; a book by China&#8217;s paramount leader, who has tightened Communist Party control and restricted speech and other freedoms to a degree not seen in decades.
- [Interview: 'It was hard to breathe, let alone sleep' in Shanghai lockdown](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-it-was-hard-to-breathe-let-alone-sleep-in-shanghai-lockdown/): A Shanghai resident who gave only the surname Cao recently spoke to RFA&#8217;s Mandarin Service about her experiences under weeks of COVID-19 lockdown, during which the city&#8217;s 26 million residents submitted on a daily basis to confinement at home, food scarcity and mass compulsory PCR testing, along with the ever-present possibility of being bundled into a bus and sent to an isolation camp. Cao and her family were sick with COVID-19 during the lockdown, then had a nasty surprise awaiting after they recovered: Cao: I had been feeling unwell since I tested positive, and I got really super-anxious when the baby started to run a fever, although I tried to keep quiet about it for fear we would be sent to an isolation camp. But I knew I would have to see a doctor if the fever persisted, so I was under a lot of psychological pressure. We stayed at home and kept a low profile until the entire family was testing negative. Then we thought we had gotten through it. RFA: Then your neighbors informed on you, right? Cao: Yes, but then we heard nothing, and it seemed that they wouldn&#8217;t be forcing me to go to the isolation facility, until there were suddenly five more confirmed cases in my courtyard. Everyone was in groups, allocated a volunteer to distribute food and supplies, and [our volunteer] just straight up told them that our family [was infected with COVID-19]. The neighbors were terrified and started spreading rumors, saying I&#8217;d opened the windows, or that I&#8217;d been downstairs to pick up a package, but I hadn&#8217;t stepped outside that whole time. Some neighbors attacked our family, and some were outrageous and aggressive despite my trying to reason with them. Because I had eventually decided to report it in the [neighborhood WeChat group] which includes the neighborhood committee, disease control and prevention, the police, all of them. RFA: What did the neighbors say? Cao: It was a very exaggerated reaction, and nonsensical. They said they wouldn&#8217;t give us food or help us with any packages, and wanted to force us to go into isolation. I don&#8217;t know if they&#8217;d been driven crazy by the lockdown, but they weren&#8217;t all like that. Some of them were kinder in private. But there was this one terrible person who was the loudest in the group, and dominated discussions. She would attack any of the nicer neighbors who tried to speak out and take our side, so after that, nobody dared speak out again. RFA: So, you were taken off to an isolation camp on May 3, a month after you were diagnosed with mild symptoms? And you had already tested negative many times at home? Cao: Yes. [They] told me on the phone that the policy was set in stone and there was nothing they could do about it, and that a lot of people are already testing negative by the time they get there. They said they were just implementing the policy, but were helpless to make any changes to it. RFA: What was the isolation camp like? Cao: It was in an extremely remote location, about two and a half hours by bus from Jing&#8217;an district, faraway and desolate. There were thousands of beds in the area I was staying in, which was really scary. Some people there were testing positive, others negative, and they were all mixed in together, even whole families, so it was very high-risk. I was so scared when I first got there that I would test positive again, despite my negative test. I was dumbfounded when I saw the bed; it was made of iron, and parts of it were sagging and bent out of shape. If I shifted my weight slightly, the whole bed would tilt and flip upwards, so I had to lie there without moving, balancing. I was devastated, and cried several times a day. The lights were on 24 hours a day &#8230; and we had to wear a mask and goggles. It was hard to breathe, let alone sleep. I copied some of the other people, and made a little tent for myself out of a sheet to block the lights out at least a little. RFA: What kind of care did they provide? Cao: The isolation facilities are supposed to be places for patients to rest and recover, but it was very uncomfortable. I couldn&#8217;t sleep properly, so I was in a poor state, and there was no proper medical attention, just a bunch of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) distributed around the building. RFA: How do people get out of these places? Cao: You can leave after two negative tests, so I was in a hurry as soon as I entered, and kept asking me when I could get my next PCR. They told me I couldn&#8217;t on the same day I arrived, and that I would have to weight two more days. I heard from the person next to me that they do a PCR on the third and fourth day, but even if they were both negative, we couldn&#8217;t leave on the next day, because we had to wait for the results, so the quickest anyone could get out was on the sixth day after arriving. I ran into people who had been there two weeks, some even more than a month. Everyone who came back from isolation camps was traumatized, and very anxious, and reluctant to do another PCR test. There is no information transparency in the camps. Everyone is woken at 5.00 a.m. to do PCR tests, but you don&#8217;t get the results. You can ask the staff, but they won&#8217;t tell you. They&#8217;re waiting from orders from higher up, who issue a list of names of people who need PCR tests, and those allowed to leave, and they&#8217;re just doing as they&#8217;re told. RFA: Have you and your husband changed your opinion of Shanghai at all? Cao: We have both lived in Shanghai for seven or eight...
- [Leaders of least-developed Cambodia, Laos play down concerns of a China debt trap](https://ij-reportika.com/leaders-of-least-developed-cambodia-laos-play-down-concerns-of-a-china-debt-trap/): UPDATED at 1:10 p.m. EDT on 2022-05-27 Leaders of two of the least developed countries in Southeast Asia, Laos and Cambodia, denied Friday they have fallen into a Chinese debt trap despite owing billions of dollars to their giant neighbor. Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen and Laos President Thongloun Sisoulith both spoke at the 27th Future of Asia conference in Tokyo on Friday via video link. Hun Sen, who has been ruling Cambodia for almost four decades, claimed that Cambodia&#8217;s borrowing rate was at 23 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP), well below its legislated ceiling of 40 percent. He said, “we don&#8217;t just borrow without looking at our situation.&#8221; Cambodia’s external public debt stood at around US$8.8 billion in 2020, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Bilateral debt continues to account for 69 percent of total external debt, with more than half of it owed to China, the IMF said. The prime minister told the conference that Cambodia borrows from a number of countries including Japan and South Korea, as well as international institutions such as the Asian Development Bank and World Bank. The loans are needed for infrastructure development, he said, adding: “We don&#8217;t put ourselves into anybody&#8217;s trap.&#8221; &#8220;If we don&#8217;t have investment from China, what source of electricity can we have?&#8221; Hun Sen said, repeating the question he asked at the 26th Future of Asia conference last year.   The annual conference is organized by Nikkei Inc. and provides a forum for Asian political leaders and academics to discuss regional issues. One year ago, Hun Sen told the conference: &#8220;If I don&#8217;t rely on China, who will I rely on? If I don&#8217;t ask China, who am I to ask?&#8221;  A file photo showing Laos&#8217; President Thongloun Sisoulith at the Japan-Mekong Summit Meeting in Tokyo, Japan, Oct. 9, 2018. At the time he was prime minister of Laos. Credit: Reuters Landlocked economy Cambodia’s neighbor Laos also said China is not the only source of loans. “Relying on only one country’s resources is not enough. We have connected with different countries and international organizations for help with our infrastructure development,” said President Thongloun, who served as Lao prime minister between 2016-2021. “We’re engaged in discussions and negotiations not only with China but also Vietnam, Japan, Asia Development Bank, World Bank and other countries that offer loans and support the Lao People’s Democratic Republic,” he said. Laos is a landlocked country with no access to the sea, the president said, and it desperately needs to develop connectivity with other countries around it. “We’re trying to repay our debts according to our ability and system and the need of our current situation.” “I would say that we’re not in a debt trap at the moment,” Thongloun said. The World Bank reported in August 2021 that Laos’ public debt has climbed to U.S. $13.3 billion, or 72 percent of its GDP. Most of the debt was incurred by the energy sector – as Laos builds dozens of hydropower dams in a push to become the ‘battery of Asia’.  International credit rating agency Fitch said in an August 2021 report that almost half of Laos’ external debt over the next few years must be paid to China – which has also built a $6 billion dollar, high-speed railway, which opened late last year. The government will have to pay $414 million a year in interest alone, according to Lao Finance Minister Bounchom Oubonpaseuth. Cambodia’s leadership succession  Also at the Future of Asia conference, Prime Minister Hun Sen rejected criticism about his plans to pass power to his eldest son, Hun Manet, who is currently the commander of the Royal Cambodian Army. The ruling Cambodian People&#8217;s Party (CPP) at its Congress in December voted unanimously for 44-year-old Hun Manet, the oldest of Hun Sen’s six children, to succeed his father. The CPP holds every seat in the nation’s parliament. When asked about it at the conference, Hun Sen declined to talk about a transition plan but said that all his three sons “are capable of becoming prime minister.” Cambodia is set to hold commune elections on June 5 – a prelude to general elections in July 2023 to elect members of the National Assembly, or the lower house of the Parliament. &#8220;If people continue to vote for the CPP with Hun Sen as the prime minister candidate and Hun Manet as the future candidate for prime minister, that means the people are in agreement with the CPP continuing to lead the country, led by Hun Sen and then by Hun Manet after that,&#8221; Hun Sen said. This story has been updated to edit the quote below the headline.
- [China, Australia vie for influence, as Beijing touts vision for the Pacific](https://ij-reportika.com/china-australia-vie-for-influence-as-beijing-touts-vision-for-the-pacific/): As China launched a high-level diplomatic mission to build its influence in the Pacific islands, Australia’s new government responded with one of its own, promising to bring “more energy and resources” to the remote region. China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi arrived Thursday in the Solomon Islands, kicking off a 10-day Pacific tour that will include Kiribati, Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste.  Wang is hoping to strike a deal with 10 small nations. A draft copy of a so-called Common Development Vision seen by Reuters and the Associated Press covers multiple sectors from security to data communication to fisheries. China plans to reach some agreement on it at a meeting between Wang and his Pacific counterparts in Fiji on May 30. Richard McGregor, senior fellow at the Lowy Institute, an Australia-based think tank, wrote in The Guardian that Wang’s itinerary “is an emphatic statement by Beijing that it intends to entrench itself in the region, where it has been building influence for more than a decade.” Underscoring the growing strategic competition for influence in the Pacific – where the U.S. sent its own high-level diplomatic mission a month ago – Canberra’s new top diplomat Penny Wong arrived in Fiji on Thursday. She landed hours ahead of Wang’s arrival in the Solomons, promising to “put more energy and resources” into the Pacific. Wang Yi holding talks with Solomon Islands Foreign Minister Jeremiah Manele. Credit: Xinhua News Agency Western allies concerns International attention on the Pacific islands has built since April, when China and the Solomon Islands confirmed that they’d signed a security pact without divulging its contents. The deal sparked concerns about China’s growing presence and influence, especially as a leaked document suggested that it would allow Beijing to set up military bases and deploy troops in the Pacific island nation. On Thursday, Foreign Minister Wang sought to calm critics by saying that “the security cooperation between China and the Solomon Islands does not target any third party and China has no intention of building a military base there.” The deal is aimed at helping the island nation to improve its law enforcement capabilities to maintain public order while protecting the safety of Chinese citizens and organizations there, Wang was quoted as saying by state-run Xinhua news agency. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said that the two sides “agreed to jointly build major landmark projects under the Belt and Road Initiative, make good use of the zero-tariff preferential policy for products exported to China” as well as to expand bilateral cooperation to cover a wide range of fields including response to climate change and multilateral affairs. China will also help the Solomon Islands to prepare facilities for the upcoming Pacific Games 2023.  Wang said that China respects Solomon Islands&#8217; ties with other countries, opposes all forms of power politics and bullying, and in Beijing the Solomon Islands have “one more good friend and one more sincere and reliable partner.” Australia&#8217;s Foreign Minister Senator Penny Wong speaks in Suva, Fiji, Thursday, May 26, 2022. Wong says it was up to each island nation to decide what partnerships they formed and what agreements they signed, but urged them to consider the benefits of sticking with Australia. Credit: Fiji Sun via AP. ‘Engagement rather than lecturing’ Similar words were employed by the new Australian foreign minister after she arrived in Suva, Fiji, which lies about 1,300 miles (2,100 kilometers) to the southeast of the Solomons’ capital, Honiara.  Wong, a senator, said Australia has “a strong desire to play our part in the Pacific family and build stronger relationships,&#8221; according to the Australian broadcaster ABC.  Australia respects the Pacific nations’ choice of friends and partners, she said, adding that her country wants to “be a partner of choice and demonstrate to your nation and other nations in the region that we are a partner who can be trusted and [is] reliable, and historically we have been.&#8221; Wong said the new Labor government in Australia, formed on Monday after the general election, will renew the focus on climate change and continued economic support for the region. In a speech to the Pacific Islands Forum secretariat in Fiji, the foreign minister said Australia “will be a partner that doesn’t come with strings attached nor imposing unsustainable financial burdens,” apparently drawing a contrast with China’s policies. Wong said she acknowledged that the previous Australian government “neglected its responsibility to act on climate, ignoring the calls of our Pacific family” and showed disrespect to Pacific nations. As Wong urged Pacific leaders to consider long-term and “think about where you might be in a decade” after reaching deals with China, a former Australian prime minister, Kevin Rudd, said Australia and allies should offer better proposals rather than deliver “a moral lecture.” Speaking Friday at the Future of Asia conference in Tokyo via video link, Rudd said China is showing &#8220;a much more assertive leadership style and intends therefore to change the status quo by adopting a more assertive foreign security policy in the region and the world.&#8221; “The way forward for Western allies like Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. is … to offer different, better, development-friendly proposals,” said Rudd, who is now president of the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York. New Zealand meanwhile said it would extend the New Zealand Defense Force&#8217;s deployment to the Solomon Islands until at least May next year.  Wellington deployed troops there at the request of the local government in December 2021 after riots broke out in Honiara after anti-government protests.
- [Threat to China’s investment in Pakistan](https://ij-reportika.com/threat-to-chinas-investment-in-pakistan/): Due to several attacks on the Chinese nationals working in Pakistan, failing economy and Power crisis China might bring its military forces in Pakistan to secure its investments or leave Pakistan.  Read the complete report and what Chinese Citizens are saying about this relation and why many Chinese are Panic Posting on Chinese social media here
- [Attackers in Cambodia topple motorbike, injure local election opposition candidate](https://ij-reportika.com/attackers-in-cambodia-topple-motorbike-injure-local-election-opposition-candidate/): Two attackers on Thursday injured an opposition candidate for a local council in Cambodia’s upcoming commune elections, an incident she and members of her party said is another example of intimidation and harassment that they have faced in the run-up to the June 5 vote. Sorn Chanthorn is running for a seat on the Tra Paing Prasat Commune council in the northwestern province of Oddar Meanchey, representing the opposition Candlelight Party. While she was driving to a campaign function, she said the attackers kicked her motorbike, causing her to crash. She believes the attackers wanted her to withdraw her candidacy. “I think it was a politically motivated case because I never had any problems like this in the past,” she said, adding that she would not file a complaint because she has no confidence that the police will help her. Tra Paing Prasat district Police Chief Ouch Mao said he hasn’t received any information about the incident. Nevertheless, he said that he doesn’t believe the attack was politically motivated. He said it was sad to hear that Sorn Chanthorn doesn’t have confidence in his department. “So far, I resolved complaints without any political discrimination,” he said. Candlelight Party officials have complained for weeks about incidents of violence and bullying by local officials representing Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP). Election monitors have also been harassed, causing several to resign, they said. “The authorities don’t have any measures to prevent intimidation,” Thatch Setha, one of the Candlelight Party’s two vice presidents, told RFA’s Khmer Service Thursday. “They destroy our party’s signs and assault our supporters,” he said, adding that authorities do nothing to stop it. Every five years, voters in the nation of 16 million people elect councils to represent rural precincts know as communes and urban districts called sangkat. This year some 86,000 candidates from 17 political parties are competing for 11,622 seats in 1,652 precincts nationwide. While the councils hold relatively little power, the June 5 election will test the dominance of the CPP and the limits of political freedom for opponents five years into Hun Sen’s crackdown on civil society, media and the internet. CPP spokesman Sok Ey San dismissed the Candlelight Party’s complaints as exaggerations designed to muddy the election environment. He urged it to file complaints with the National Election Committee (NEC), set up to be an independent organization, but that has in the past been criticized for corruption and close ties to the CPP. “It is merely allegation,” Sok Ey San said. “No one dares to threaten [the Candlelight Party].” Kang Savang, an election monitor with the independent Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia NGO, told RFA he has not received any definitive reports of political intimidation, but he urged victims to report election violations to the NEC. “The victims should, however, not simply make verbal complaints. They should make notes and file complaints if it is important,” he said.   Party violations Cambodia’s Minister of Interior Sar Kheng on Wednesday said the Candlelight Party violated its statute by appointing Son Chhay as a vice president earlier in the year. Son Chhay was banned from politics for his affiliation with the opposition Cambodia National People’s Party, which was dissolved by Cambodia’s Supreme Court in 2017, a move that allowed Hun Sen’s CPP to win all 125 parliamentary seats the following year. Son Chhay, who requested amnesty and joined the Candlelight Party in March, said he will work to clear up any of the ministry’s concerns. “It is a clerical issue,” he said. “I will prepare my biography and send it to the ministry.” Meanwhile, an appeals court rejected the bail request for Seam Pluk, the founder of a smaller opposition party called the Cambodia National Heart Party, citing concerns over flight risk. Authorities arrested Seam Pluk in late April on charges of forging documents for his party to compete in the local elections. Seam Pluk was on the run for about a week before his arrest. Am Sam Ath of the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights said the decision gives the country’s political system a bad look. “He should have been released on bail because the international community is monitoring the election, especially our political environment,” said Am Sam Ath. Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee President Ros Sotha said Seam Pluk’s arrest violated election laws. He said that Seam Pluk did not provoke any social unrest. “[The government] should have asked him to make corrections and shouldn’t have arrested him. It is a violation his political rights. It is a concern,” he said. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Top US diplomat lays out 'invest, align, compete' strategy to meet China challenge](https://ij-reportika.com/top-us-diplomat-lays-out-invest-align-compete-strategy-to-meet-china-challenge/): Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday said the United States would employ a threefold strategy of investing at home, aligning efforts allies and partners, and competing with China to counter Beijing’s drive to change the existing rules-based world order. “To succeed in this decisive decade, the Biden Administration’s strategy can be summed up in three words — invest, align, compete,” Blinken said. “The foundations of the international order are under serious and sustained challenge,” he told an audience at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., citing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine posing a “clear and present threat, and China as a long-term challenge. “Even as President Putin’s war continues, we remain focused on the most serious long-term challenge to the international order, and that’s posed by the People’s Republic of China,” he said. “China is the only country with the intent to reshape the international order and increasingly the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to do it, Blinken said. “Beijing’s vision would move us away from the universal values that have sustained so much of the world’s progress over the past 75 years” since the end of World War II, he said. IPEF &amp; Quad Blinken’s speech came several days after President Joe Biden returned from his first visit to Asia since taking office in January 2021. Biden visited U.S. allies South Korea and later Japan, where he unveiled the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) which 13 other nations signed up to with hopes that it will lead to a free trade agreement in the future. Biden also attended a summit of the Quad, an Indo-Pacific security grouping of the Australia, India, Japan and the U.S. that is widely seen as countering China’s rising influence and assertiveness in the region. Blinken noted that cooperation with China is necessary for the global economy and solving issues such as climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic and said the U.S. was not looking for conflict or a new Cold War. “To the contrary, we are determined to avoid both,” he said, adding that the U.S. is not seeking to block China or any other nation from growing economically or advancing the interest of their people. “But we will  defend and strengthen international law, agreements, principals and institutions that maintain peace and security, protect the rights of individuals and sovereign nations, and make it possible for all countries, including the United States and China, to coexist and cooperate,” said Blinken. Though China’s rise was possible because of the stability and opportunity that the international order provides, the country is now seeking to undermine those rules, he said. In his 40-minute talk, Blinken touched on hot-button issues like the South China Sea and China’s treatment of the Uyghur ethnic minority in Xinjiang, where Beijing’s heavy-handed policies have been branded genocide by the U.S. and other Western nations. “Under Xi Jinping, the ruling Chinese Communist Party have become more repressive at home and more aggressive abroad,” he said. “We’ll continue to oppose Beijing’s aggressive and unlawful activities in the South and East China Seas,” he said, noting a 2016 international court ruling that found Beijing’s expansive claims in those waters “have no basis in international law.” Uyghur genocide Human rights was another “area of alignment we share with our allies and partners,” said Blinken, who raised Chinese crackdowns on Uyghurs, Tibetans and repression in Hong Kong. “The United States stands with countries and people around the world against the genocide and crimes against humanity happening in the Xinjiang region, where more than a million people have been placed in detention camps because of their ethnic and religious identity,” he said. A leading Uyghur-American official welcomed his remarks, which came as the top United Nations official for human rights was poised to visit Xinjiang, amid expectations that Beijing will so tightly manage the itinerary that the official, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, will not get an accurate view of conditions there. “I was encouraged to hear Secretary’s commitment to align with US allies and partners to respond and stop the ongoing Uyghur genocide and crimes against humanity in the Uyghur homeland,” said Nury Turkel, vice chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. “We stand together on Tibet, where the authorities continue to wage a brutal campaign against Tibetans and their culture, language, and religious traditions, and in Hong Kong, where the Chinese Communist Party has imposed harsh anti-democratic measures under the guise of national security,” Blinken added. “We’ll continue to raise these issues and call for change – not to stand against China, but to stand up for peace, security, and human dignity.” Additional reporting by Alim Seytoff in Munich, Germany.
- [Narcotics use on the rise among youth in Myanmar’s Kachin state following coup](https://ij-reportika.com/narcotics-use-on-the-rise-among-youth-in-myanmars-kachin-state-following-coup/): The sale and usage of illegal narcotics by young people have increased significantly in northern Myanmar’s Kachin state in the nearly 16 months since a military coup toppled the elected government, residents and antidrug activists said. At least two of every five men in all 18 townships of the state of about 1.7 million people (as of the last national census in 2014) consume illicit drugs, mainly heroin from opium, the activists said. Myanmar’s opium production is mainly concentrated in Kachin and Shan states. There were 11 cases of drug trafficking in Kachin in March, and drugs worth 900 million kyats ($477,000) were seized, according to the most recent figures from the Myanmar Police Force’s Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control.   Though technically illegal in Myanmar, opium cultivation for the manufacture of heroin has been tolerated and even taxed by corrupt officials in the Myanmar military, the Myanmar Police Force and rebel ethnic armies. A resident of Myitkyina district said the number of drug users in his village, which he did not want named for safety reasons, has doubled. “Following the coup, drugs became available more than ever in Myitkyina,” he said. “Cases have now more than doubled in our village.” A resident of the town of Mohnyin said that many young people lost their jobs after the February 2021 coup and turned to drugs to compensate. “If the situation in the country goes on like this, the future will be very bleak,” said the resident who declined to be named. “The situation worsens when there is no law.”  In 2021, an estimated 30,200 hectares were under opium poppy cultivation in Myanmar, a 2% increase from 2020, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Higher increases in opium yields were observed in Kachin and eastern Shan states, at 17% and 12%, respectively, the UNODC’s 2021 “Myanmar Opium Survey” said. The situation in Myitkyina, the Kachin state capital, is particularly worrisome. “Drugs are now widespread in Kachin state because they are so easily available,” said an official with a Myitkyina-based civil society group who requested anonymity. “It will be very difficult to control. At present, there are few public activities unlike in the past because traveling from one place to another is difficult. People are worried they might get arrested on suspicion alone.”   Youths under the age of 18 are now using drugs, and most of them are addicted to heroin, leading to an uptick in crime in Myitkyina, he said. In the past, community-based antidrug groups set up operations in all parts of the state to track down drug users and traffickers in villages and send them to detention centers or to rehabilitation facilities, according to the official. About 30 self-help antidrug training facilities run by Christian and private groups operate in Myitkyina, and each one is looking after nearly 100 addicts, he said. &#8216;More and more drugs&#8217; A spokesman from an antidrug group based in Putao said that the town, previously classified as a white zone because there were no drug users, is now off the list. “Every village around here has more and more drugs,” he told RFA. “Drug use has risen in the past two or three months, and the crime rate is going up. Religious teachers and village elders are stepping in to take control of the situation now. We cannot even go to church in peace here. Someone has to stay behind to guard the houses.”  About 1,000 drug addicts live in Putao, about half of them women, he added. Drug trafficking is also on the rise with dealers contacting various homes in the area for sales and others openly selling narcotics on the street. Win Ye Tun, a spokesman for the Kachin State Military Council, said the junta regime was working on drug prevention and rehabilitation. “We are trying to stop drug trafficking,” he said. “We make arrests and take action against them [users]. We also have another program to educate these people not to use drugs again. We have opened training camps and drug eradication camps. We did that all along. The government is always behind it.” Tan Raw, who runs an antidrug youth training school in Myitkyina, said the lives of most young people in Kachin have been ruined by the military coup and its bloody aftermath. “Right now, the authorities cannot think of this drug trafficking as an issue,” he said. “That makes it worse. As a consequence, crime rates are rising, too.“ “Most importantly, we have lost the country’s valuable human resources,” said Tan Raw. “Therefore, I think it would be very difficult for us to rebuild our country, even if the political [situation] stabilized.” Translated by Khin Maung Nyane for RFA Burmese. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [North Korea gives Chinese vaccines to soldiers working as construction labor](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-gives-chinese-vaccines-to-soldiers-working-as-construction-labor/): North Korea has begun promoting a vaccination campaign for soldiers working on a high-priority construction project in the capital Pyongyang, marking the first time the government has administered vaccines in large numbers, sources in the country told RFA. The country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, promised to build 50,000 new homes for the residents of Pyongyang by the end of 2025, and tens of thousands of soldiers have been mobilized to help with the project. “They play loud political propaganda messages as the soldiers get injected with the vaccines from China,” a city government official told RFA on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “They are calling it a ‘vaccination of love from the Highest Dignity,’” he said, using an honorific term for Kim Jong Un. Each brigade of soldiers has set up a field sanitation center. On the morning of May 18th, broadcast vehicles began documenting army doctors dressed in protective gear inoculating the soldiers, according to the source. “It was like it was a national political event. All of the officials of the construction command came out to the site, and the atmosphere was all serious,” he said. “The broadcasting car played loudspeaker messages saying, ‘The general secretary has decided to import COVID-19 vaccines in the midst of our nation’s difficult situation. It was repeatedly emphasizing that the vaccines were a gracious gift given to the people from Kim Jong Un,” he said. North Korea is in a state of “maximum emergency” after acknowledging this month that the virus had begun to spread among participants of a large-scale military parade in late April. Prior to that, Pyongyang had denied that anyone in the country had contracted COVID-19, even rejecting 3 million doses of China’s Sinovac vaccine last September, saying that other countries needed them more. ‘Long live Kim Jong Un’ Sources have told RFA that doses for elite members of society have made their way to Pyongyang in small amounts, and that a limited number of soldiers stationed at the Chinese border had also been inoculated. The soldiers in Pyongyang were relieved to learn they would be receiving the vaccine after they heard news that COVID-19 was spreading rapidly in the capital, the source said. “Some of the soldiers were seen raising their hands and giving praise to Kim Jong Un, shedding tears and shouting ‘Manse!,’” said the source, using a Korean phrase usually said during times of overwhelming emotion that directly translates into English as “10,000 years” but effectively means “long live Kim Jong Un” in this context.   “The vaccination campaign conducted that day was only for the soldiers, even though others are helping with the 10,000 homes project. Members of the Korean Socialist Women’s League or local residents who ‘volunteered’ for construction were excluded,” he said. The original plan called for the completion of 10,000 homes in 2021, but the home-building project in the capital fell behind schedule. The government now hopes to meet the target sometime this year and construct an additional 10,000 by the end of the year.  The rapid spread of the coronavirus could upend those plans. Over the past month the virus’s spread has forced the government to shut down entire cities, including the capital. But for now projects like the one in Pyongyang continue. Soldiers mobilized for construction in other parts of the country are also in the government’s vaccination plans, a resident of South Hamgyong province, north of Pyongyang, told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “Last week I heard from a friend who works in the medical field that the soldiers who are working on the Ryonpho Greenhouse Farm in Hamju County have received COVID-19 vaccines,” she told RFA Tuesday. “The government is prioritizing soldiers working on national construction projects. “The greenhouse farm is a national construction project which Kim Jong Un ordered to be completed by Oct. 10… The general secretary attended a groundbreaking ceremony there on February 18th. The soldiers who are fighting the construction battle night and day were prioritized for vaccination against COVID-19 with vaccines imported from China,” she said, using militaristic language that North Korea uses to describe communal work projects and public campaigns. ‘Immortal Potion of Love.’ People are angry that the government is not rolling out the vaccine for them, however. “They are saying that the government’s behavior is ridiculous. They are only vaccinating soldiers, and they are using images of these soldiers, saying how thrilled they are that the Highest Dignity is giving them a special consideration, as propaganda,” said the second source. “A broadcast vehicle that appeared at the vaccination site loudly proclaimed the greatness of the general secretary, who prepared for them the ‘Immortal Potion of Love.’ People saw the scenes of the emotional soldiers, singing, weeping and shouting ‘Manse!’ but they looked on emotionless.” Though North Korea has acknowledged that the virus is spreading inside the country, it has only reported a handful of confirmed COVID-19 cases, which 38 North, a site that provides analysis on the country and is run by the U.S.-based Stimson Center think tank, attributed to insufficient testing capabilities. Data published on the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center showed North Korea with only one confirmed COVID-19 case and six deaths as of Thursday evening. The country is, however, keeping track of numbers of people who exhibit symptoms of COVID-19. About 3.1 million people have been hit by outbreaks of fever, 68 of whom have died, according to data based on the most recent reports from North Korean state media published by 38 North. Around 2.7 million are reported to have made recoveries, while 323,300 are undergoing treatment. Washington has offered to give vaccines to North Korea and China, U.S. President Joe Biden announced during a recent visit to Seoul. Neither country has responded to the offer. North Korea has also ignored a South Korean proposal to cooperate in efforts to combat the pandemic. Observers say Pyongyang is unlikely to accept humanitarian aid from the international community because it would be an admission...
- [Uyghur sports trainer confirmed arrested by Chinese authorities in Xinjiang](https://ij-reportika.com/uyghur-sports-trainer-confirmed-arrested-by-chinese-authorities-in-xinjiang/): A Uyghur athletic trainer who worked at a university in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region was arrested by Chinese authorities in 2017, said Uyghur sources with knowledge of the situation and officials in the region. Behtiyar Abduweli worked at Ili Pedagogical University, also known as Yili Normal University, in the city of Ghulja (in Chinese, Yining). He is the son of the late Abduweli Jarullayov, a Uyghur singer and playwright. Behtiyar Abduweli is one of more than 20 educators at the university that an earlier RFA report said have been detained. Not all of the names of the educators have been publicly released. A disciplinary committee officer at the university and a Uyghur who lives in Ghulja but did not want to be named for safety reasons said authorities detained the sports trainer in 2017. “I heard that Behtiyar was also taken. You know, the PE teacher Behtiyar,” said the Uyghur source. A Chinese government official in Ghulja confirmed that Abduweli was arrested five years ago because of his leading role in Uyghur society. Since 2017, Chinese authorities have targeted Uyghur intellectuals, businessmen, and cultural and religious figures, imprisoning many of them in a vast network of internment camps in what Beijing says is an effort to prevent religious extremism and terrorist activities.  The U.S. and the parliaments of other Western countries, however, have declared that such actions constitute a genocide and crimes against humanity. The university meshrep Uyghur educators at Ili Pedagogical University have long influenced Uyghur society through their academic research and teaching, as well as their adherence to Uyghur traditions and customs. More than 30 Uyghur teachers at the university organized a meshrep, a social gathering that celebrates Uyghur culture and traditions, in the 1990s and early 2000s. The events typically include poetry, music, dance and conversation, the Uyghur source said. The gatherings were organized by Abduweli and Abdullah Ismail, the Chinese Communist Party secretary of the school’s Marxism Institute who also is being detained. Their meshrep encouraged more Uyghurs in Ghulja to appreciate Uyghur customs but caused concern among Chinese officials who believed the gatherings were not in line with Chinese Communist Party policy. But the government did not explicitly ban the educators from holding the gatherings because there were no clear government rules or regulations prohibiting the meshrep. In 2017, as Chinese authorities ramped up their repression of Uyghurs, they officially declared that the meshrep is an indication of “religious extremism” and a “propaganda platform of ethnic separatism.” As a result, authorities began investigating the university teachers who participated in the gatherings, and Abduweli was the first to be detained, the Uyghur source said. An official from the Education Department at Ili Pedagogical University declined to comment on Abduweli’s arrest. A former Ghulja educator named Yasinjan, who now lives in Turkey, told RFA that Abduweli and Ismail, along with two other educators — Nijat Sopi and Dilmurat Awut — were all active members of the university meshrep. Abduweli criticized Chinese authorities for flooding the stadium where the members of the university meshrep played soccer matches in 1997, saying the action would affect the community’s social harmony, Yasinjan said. Abduweli’s outspokenness 25 years ago was defined in 2017 by Chinese authorities as “opposing the Chinese government” and “inciting ethnic tensions in the society,” he added. “Behtiyar Abduweli was the leading man in the meshrep gathering of the schoolteachers,” Yasinjan said. “He was the national-level referee in sports games. He was highly respected among his peers both in school and in Uyghur society.” Abduweli also ran a private canteen on campus and gave free food to some students with disabilities. Abdureshid Hamit, another detained educator from the university, also worked with Abduweli in the canteen, Yasinjan said. Another reason that authorities detained Abduweli was because he collected and saved his father’s writings, he added. Abdulweli’s “crimes” also included “encouraging other students who possess ethnic separatist ideas,” said the same Uyghur source who declined to be named.  A staff member of the university’s Political Science Department initially tried to answer questions posed by RFA, but when he heard Abduweli’s name, he anxiously said that he did not know about his case. The staffer suggested contacting local law enforcement for details. Translated by RFA Uyghur. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Marcos: Philippines will assert maritime territorial rights under his leadership](https://ij-reportika.com/marcos-philippines-will-assert-maritime-territorial-rights-under-his-leadership/): President-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr. vowed Thursday that, after taking office, he would assert a 2016 arbitral ruling won by the Philippines against China over the South China Sea, a sensitive issue that his predecessor failed to address adequately. In a news conference with a select few reporters, Marcos stressed there was “no wiggle room” on the issue of sovereignty – his strongest public comments yet about the territorial dispute with the Philippines’ biggest Asian neighbor.  “We will use it to continue to assert our territorial rights. It’s not a claim, it is already our territorial right and that is what the arbitral ruling can do to help us,” he said.  “Our sovereignty is sacred and we will not compromise it in any way. We are a sovereign nation with a functioning government, so we do not need to be told by anyone how to run our country.” Manila, under his leadership, will not allow its sovereignty “to be trampled upon,” he added.  The Philippines traditionally has been the United States’ biggest ally in Southeast Asia, though the alliance was tested under the leadership of outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte, who ingratiated himself to China by setting aside the 2016 ruling in favor of bilateral economic cooperation.  While Duterte changed his approach on the South China Sea issue toward the latter part of his six-year term, China has strengthened its presence in the disputed waterway and encroached on other claimant states’ exclusive economic zones.  During his press conference Marcos promised to talk to China “with a firm voice” even as he acknowledged that the Philippines was at a disadvantage militarily against Beijing. Asked about the Philippine president-elect’s statement, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Beijing’s “position on the South China Sea arbitration case is consistent, clear and unchanged. “China and the Philippines are friendly close neighbors. We have established a bilateral consultation mechanism on issues relating to the South China Sea and maintain communication and dialogue on maritime issues,” he told reporters on Thursday. “China stands ready to continue working with the Philippines through dialogue and consultation to properly handle differences and safeguard peace and stability in the South China Sea.” ASEAN role Continuing to pursue multilateral talks with China involving fellow members of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), as well as dealing with Beijing bilaterally, would be on top of his foreign policy agenda, Marcos said.  “In fact, this is what I mentioned when I spoke to President Xi Jinping when he called me to congratulate me on winning the election. I immediately went and I said we have to continue to talk about this. This cannot be allowed to fester and to become more severe in terms of a problem between our two countries,” he said.  Marcos was elected president in a landslide on May 9, receiving 31.6 million votes – more than twice his nearest rival, outgoing Vice President Leni Robredo. The 2016 landmark international tribunal ruling was a result of the arbitration case filed by the administration of the late President Benigno Aquino III against China and came just days after Duterte succeeded him in office. China claims nearly the entire South China Sea, including waters within the exclusive economic zones of Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan. While Indonesia does not regard itself as a party to the South China Sea dispute, Beijing claims historic rights to parts of that sea overlapping Indonesia’s EEZ as well.  Analysts had predicted that Marcos would likely echo Duterte’s stance with regard to the South China Sea dispute. His campaign rallies did not focus on foreign policy but included generic talk about unifying a highly divided country.  Meanwhile, Robredo, the opposition leader, had vowed to use the ruling to create a “coalition of nations” that would help the Philippines in the territorial dispute.   US versus China  Citing the competition between the United States and China, Marcos said the Philippines must have an independent foreign policy – similar to what Duterte originally espoused. Duterte, for his part, forged warmer ties with Beijing while criticizing the U.S. for interfering with his anti-drug campaign that has killed thousands of Filipinos.  To strike this balance, Marcos said the country’s ties with ASEAN is of “critical importance.”  “We are a small player amongst very large giants in terms of geopolitics, so we have to ply our own way. I do not subscribe to the old thinking of the Cold War where you are under the influence of the U.S., Soviet Union,” Marcos said.  “I think we just find an independent foreign policy where we are friends with everyone. It’s the only way,” he said.  Marcos, whose family has been welcoming of Beijing and has attended Chinese embassy events, said he would continue Manila’s “traditional relationship with the U.S.”  His father, the late dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos, began forging ties with China’s late chairman, Mao Zedong, in 1975, while also being one of the staunchest U.S. allies in Southeast Asia. “We define that role very simply, it comes from our traditional relationship with the U.S., which has been very strong and very advantageous to both of us for the past 100 or so years,” the president-elect said. “That’s how we define that, and so we must maintain that balance. I don’t think we are the only country that’s having to do that.” BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.
- [Chinese Christians find it harder to get passports amid pandemic travel bans](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-christians-find-it-harder-to-get-passports-amid-pandemic-travel-bans/): Authorities in eastern China are turning down passport applications from Chinese Christians wanting to emigrate or just study overseas, RFA has learned. The families of several children raised Christian in the eastern provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangsu said they have recently been questioned about the purpose of their passport applications, which were later turned down after Entry-Exit Bureau officials discovered the family&#8217;s religious beliefs. An overseas education consultant said the cases had emerged in Zhejiang&#8217;s Wenzhou city &#8212; known for a high proportion of Protestant Christians &#8212; as well as other locations in the region. &#8220;A bunch of students from Wenzhou with a church background had been planning to go and study at overseas universities, but the government has refused to give them passports,&#8221; a Christian surnamed Zhu from Jiangsu&#8217;s Xuzhou city told RFA. &#8220;The government is keeping up the pressure and these controls, even though the pandemic isn&#8217;t that serious right now,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We have come to another crossroads, after 40 years of reform and opening up.&#8221; China announced on May 10 it would place strict curbs on &#8220;non-essential&#8221; travel overseas by its nationals, amid a surge in immigration inquiries after weeks of grueling mass testing, lockdowns and forcible mass transportation to quarantine camps. A Christian surnamed Chen from the southern city of Guangzhou said he had also been turned down for a passport, with immigration officials saying there was &#8220;no need&#8221; to travel during the pandemic. However, they declined to define what they might regard as a &#8220;necessary&#8221; overseas trip. Hundreds of churchgoers wearing tee shirts vowing to &#8220;safeguard religious dignity&#8221; protest against the forced removal of crosses from churches in Wenzhou, Aug. 10, 2015. Credit: A church member. &#8216;Nobody can get or renew a passport&#8217; And a Protestant pastor in the eastern province of Shandong, who gave only the religious name John, said Christians across the country are now being prevented from leaving China. &#8220;It&#8217;s not just students with Christian backgrounds but non-religious students as well,&#8221; John said. &#8220;Nobody can get or renew a passport.&#8221; But he added: &#8220;I think it&#8217;ll be hard for church leaders like me to go overseas in future.&#8221; Fellow Shandong Christian Shi Tao said he knew of people with similar experiences in recent weeks. &#8220;Someone I know was repeatedly questioned &#8230; [by border guards], who said that their political views could mean that they are prevented from leaving the country if they&#8217;re not careful,&#8221; Shi told RFA. &#8220;If they find out that you are considered a sensitive person or have had dealings with the police, they won&#8217;t let you leave,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They will [also] find reasons not to let you out if you have a religious background.&#8221; &#8220;In particular, they are highly likely to stop people from traveling overseas to attend a seminary.&#8221; A Zhejiang Christian who declined to be named said the apparent travel bans come amid an ongoing crackdown on Chinese Christians under ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping. &#8220;No gatherings are allowed, in the name of disease prevention, and the authorities will shut down any seminaries linked to house churches if they hear about them,&#8221; the person said. Clipping passports An overseas study agent surnamed Ma said controls on people leaving China are currently very tight. &#8220;Some richer families like to send their children to high school overseas, but the government has been discouraging that since the pandemic began,&#8221; Ma said. &#8220;You have to say you&#8217;re going for tourism, and not even say you&#8217;re going to visit relatives; they question everyone very closely.&#8221; In March, police in the central province of Hunan ordered local residents to hand over their passports to police, promising to return them &#8220;when the pandemic is over.&#8221;   A March 31 notice from the Baisha police department in the central province of Hunan posted to social media ordered employers to hand over the passports of all employees and family members to police, &#8220;to be returned after the pandemic.&#8221; Local police confirmed the report to RFA, and said the measure is being rolled out nationwide. Meanwhile, people leaving China for foreign study are having their passports clipped as they arrive or try to leave the country, according to passport-holders, overseas study agencies and social media reports. China&#8217;s zero-COVID policy of mass compulsory testing, stringent lockdowns and digital health codes has sparked an emigration wave fueled by &#8220;shocked&#8221; middle-classes fed up with food shortages, confinement at home, and amid broader safety concerns. The number of keyword searches on social media platform WeChat and search engine Baidu for &#8220;criteria for emigrating to Canada&#8221; has skyrocketed by nearly 3,000 percent in the past month, with most queries clustered in cities and provinces under tough, zero-COVID restrictions, including Shanghai, Jiangsu, Guangdong, and Beijing. Immigration consultancies have seen a huge spike in emigration inquiries in recent weeks, with clients looking to apply for overseas passports or green cards, while holding onto their Chinese passports, they said in April. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Insult follows injury to Tibetan monks](https://ij-reportika.com/insult-follows-injury-to-tibetan-monks/): Several months after ordering the destruction of Buddhist statues in the Kardze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan province and forcing Tibetan monks to watch, Chinese authorities are now forcing those monks to sign affidavits claiming responsibility for the demolition. It remains unclear what punishments the monks face if they refuse to falsely take the blame, but monks who were detained in early 2022 for revealing the destruction to the outside world face harassment and scrutiny even after their release, local sources said.
- [Myanmar wood carvers continue centuries-old tradition](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-wood-carvers-continue-centuries-old-tradition/): Wood carving is one of Myanmar’s iconic handicrafts, with detailed sculptures of Buddhas alongside decorated chairs and tables lining the stores of artists throughout the country. The wood-carving tradition dates back to the Pyu period, an arrangement of city-states that existed in Myanmar between the 2nd and 11th centuries, and has survived to the present day. Inside the workshops, the colors of the wood pieces create unique patterns in rooms jam-packed with masterpieces, often featuring images of candles, trees and stupas.
- [Top U.S. diplomat for Tibetan affairs visits refugees in Nepal](https://ij-reportika.com/top-u-s-diplomat-for-tibetan-affairs-visits-refugees-in-nepal/): Uzra Zeya, the U.S. special coordinator for Tibetan issues, met with Tibetan refugees in Nepal as well as government officials during a recent visit to Kathmandu in the highest-level visit by a U.S. official in a decade, sources in the Himalayan country told RFA. Zeya, who also met with Tibetans in India on her trip, reportedly discussed the refugees’ undocumented status during the meeting. In 1995, Nepal stopped issuing refugee cards for Tibetans who flee across the border from their homeland, which has been under Chinese control since 1951. Nepal is seen by China as a partner in its Belt and Road Initiative to boost global trade through infrastructure investment, and Nepal’s government has cited promises of millions of dollars of Chinese investment as a reason for restricting Tibetan activities in the country. Zeya’s trip from May 20 to 22 was intended to “deepen cooperation on human rights and democratic governance goals, and to advance humanitarian priorities,” the State Department said on its website. “Zeya met with Tibetans in Jawalakhel where they raised the problems they are facing in the absence of proper documentation in Nepal … and deteriorating human rights conditions,” a Nepalese journalist told RFA’s Tibetan Service on condition of anonymity to speak freely. The lack of proper identification cards for the refugees is a result of pressure from the Chinese government, Vijay Karna, Nepal’s former ambassador to Demark, told RFA. “More than 5,000 Tibetan refugees and their families are facing problems regarding their refugee card. Resolving this issue would also be of huge significance to the Nepalese government,” he said. “Zeya’s meeting with the Tibetan community in Nepal during this visit sends a clear message to the Chinese government,” Karna said. “It is high time the Nepalese government resolves the issues of Tibetan refugees in Nepal with obtaining their identity cards.” Sangpo, who works at the Human Rights Organization of Nepal, told RFA that any solution to the ID card problem would have to be practical. “Right now an ID card would act only as an ID card and nothing more. To get a travel document, one must first run around to three or four different offices … and since there are no proper guidelines in place, the government should reconsider this,” Sangpo said. Zeya’s meeting with the Tibetan community in Nepal has been closely watched by China, Santosh Sherma, a co-founder of Nepal Institute for Policy Research, told RFA. “Before the arrival of Uzra Zeya and her delegation in Nepal, the Chinese ambassador to Nepal Hou Yanqi called on Nepal’s home minister to discuss the One-China Policy and bilateral relations between the two countries to get assurance from Nepal. So, Zeya’s visit has definitely made China anxious,” Sherma said.   Of his meeting with Zeya, Nepal’s Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba tweeted, “It was a pleasure receiving the US delegation led by Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy and Human rights. We exchanged views on Nepal-US relations and matter of mutual interests.” Zeya announced in a tweet on May 21 that the U.S. would provide Nepal with $659 million through the United States Agency for International Development. The United States, U.N. and European Union have urged Nepal’s government to protect the rights of Tibetans living in Nepal and of refugees fleeing Tibet. The recent visit also coincided with the 75th anniversary of the Nepal-US diplomatic ties. Washington-based Freedom House rated Nepal “partly free” in its 2022 annual index of world liberty, with a score of 57 out of a possible 100. China was rated “not free” with a score of 9, while Tibet got an even lower ranking of just 1. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Lao villagers say they got little warning of dam water release](https://ij-reportika.com/lao-villagers-say-they-got-little-warning-of-dam-water-release/): Heavy rains in northern Laos forced a hydroelectric dam on the Nam Ou River to release water unexpectedly, panicking downstream residents who said a late warning gave them little time to respond, sources in the country told RFA. The Nam Ou has a cascade of seven dams that have been operating since October 2021. They are part of Laos’ controversial economic strategy of becoming the “Battery of Southeast Asia” by aggressively damming the Mekong River and its tributaries and selling the generated power to neighboring countries. The Nam Ou 4 Dam, owned by the Power Construction Corporation of China, began releasing water on Monday after its reservoir rapidly rose. A district-level office in Phongsaly province issued a warning to its citizens earlier in the day. “The Khoua District of Phongsaly province would like to inform party members, government employees, chiefs of villages and all residents, that heavy rain is causing the Nam Ou River water levels to rise, and the amount of water in the Nam Ou 4 Dam reservoir is rising fast. Therefore, for safety reasons, all residents along the Nam Ou River and Nam Bak River should be extra cautious,” it said. A villager in the district told RFA’s Lao Service that the warning was too late. “The district issued the warning on May 23, and the dam released water the same day. We had no time to prepare for the worst, and we were worried about the possible loss of lives and property,” said the villager, who like all anonymous sources in this report declined to be named for safety reasons. Other villagers in the same district told RFA they were still concerned on Wednesday, two days after the dam began releasing water. “The Chinese company is discharging more water from the Nam Ou 4 Dam,” a resident of Phonxay Neua village, who declined to be named, told RFA. “Right now, the river is not yet at a dangerous level, but we are worried that our homes, land and other properties will be flooded, or will cause landslides.” “The district authorities haven’t informed us about how much water the dam is discharging and how high the water will rise,” the Phonxay Neua villager said. The sudden rise of the Nam Ou is uncharacteristic for this time of year, a resident of Sob Kai village told RFA. “Usually the Nam Ou and Nam Bak rivers in Khoua district rise in August or September, so this year is unusual,” the Sob Kai resident said, on condition of anonymity. “When the dam’s reservoir is full, it’ll release water. Each time, the authorities and the dam developer warn us, but many residents who live in remote areas might not be aware of the warning,” the Sob Kai resident said. Provincial authorities told RFA that their duty was simply to warn citizens and that they had effectively done that. “Our job is to receive the information about the discharge from the Chinese company and then inform our constituents. Measuring the water levels is the responsibility of the company, but we do check and monitor Nam Ou River water levels daily and report them to the province,” an official of the province’s Natural Resources and Environment Department told RFA. Thailand’s Water Department on Wednesday said heavy rains would increase the Nam Ou 4’s discharge from 500 cubic meters per second to 2,400 cubic meters per second from May 23 to May 31. More than half of the Thai-Lao border is demarcated by the Mekong River, which the Nam Ou flows into. “The water will flow down at 6,600 cubic meters [about 233,000 cubic feet] per second to the Mekong River through the Xayaburi Dam in Lao P.D.R. raising water levels downstream between one meter and 1.5 meters today, May 25, 2022, and tomorrow, May 26, 2022,” the statement said. Sustainable Development Thailand has called on the Mekong River Commission (MRC), an intergovernmental organization that works with the governments of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam to jointly manage the Mekong, to be more forthcoming with information prior to making decisions that affect people living along the banks of the river. “The Thai deputy prime minister, [Prawit Wongsuwon] met with the new CEO of the MRC [Anoulak Kittikhoun] and stressed that information sharing is important so that it can be used to warn residents along the river,” Surasri Kittimonthon, secretary-general of the Thai Office of National Water Resources, told RFA Wednesday. “The deputy PM called for sustainable development along the river such that information about the impact should be clear and tangible,” Surasri Kittimonthon said. Any kind of effort to warn people in advance will fail without China’s cooperation, however, an official of the Lao Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment told RFA. “When Chinese dams release more water, they don’t inform us. We have to measure the water levels (of the Mekong River) every day ourselves, then we report them to MRC,” the official said. A representative of the Thailand-based Love Chiang Khong Group, an environmental NGO, told RFA that the notifications from Laos and Thailand were less than useful. “The notification of the water released from the dams is not helpful at all. It won’t solve any of the problems or impacts on the people and the environment in the Lower Mekong River region,” he said. “The right way to solve these problems is for the governments and people to work together to properly manage the Mekong River water. The local people know best about their river, about fish, where they live and how they reproduce,” he said. In a report about Monday’s meeting published on its website, the MRC said China agreed in 2020 to share hydrological data from two of its Mekong River dams not only during the wet season but also in the dry season to help countries downstream plan for any “unusual” rise or fall. The report noted, however, that the agreement never clearly defined “unusual.” Laos has staked its future on power generation, hoping to export electricity...
- [Thousands of homes burned by soldiers in Myanmar’s Sagaing region](https://ij-reportika.com/thousands-of-homes-burned-by-soldiers-in-myanmars-sagaing-region/): Nearly 6,300 homes have been burned down in 19 townships in northwestern Myanmar’s war-torn Sagaing region during the past two months, forcing residents into tents and other makeshift shelters as the rainy season begins, according to data compiled by RFA. Most of Sagaing’s 34 townships and more than 5,900 villages have been affected by fighting between military forces and members of the anti-junta People’s Defense Forces (PDF). While the military denies it is responsible for the widespread arson, villagers who spoke to RFA said the fires were part of the junta’s strategy to crush opposition forces. Some of the fiercest armed resistance to junta rule has occurred in Sagaing since the military seized power from the country’s elected government in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup. As fighting between the military and the PDFs has intensified there in recent months, junta forces have conducted an arson campaign targeting rural villages, killing civilians and burning hundreds of homes, leaving thousands displaced. Among the 6,281 homes destroyed between April 1 and May 24, Kalemyo township had the highest number with 1,609 houses. Khin Oo township had the second-highest with 874 houses, followed by Mingin township with 609 houses. Homes have also been destroyed in Pale, Chaung-U, Myinmu, Wetlet and Kanbalu townships. A resident of Ngadin Gyi village in Khin Oo township, who declined to be named for safety reasons, told RFA that he could not rebuild his house so long as military forces are still conducting clearance operations in the area. “It’s unthinkable to build a house under this regime,” he said. “There’s also a financial problem [because] a house costs 2.5 million-5 million kyats ($1,325-$2,650). And no one can guarantee that this will not happen again.” Soldiers reportedly burned down more than 200 houses in Ngadin Gyi village on April 3, forcing residents to live in makeshift tents. A resident of Tayawgyin village in Yinmabin township, whose community was torched on May 15 and May 24, said the arson was an act of cruelty committed by the ruling junta. “Tayawgyin village has suffered fires twice,” said the villager who declined to be named. “They set fire to 25 houses the first time. Another 15 homes were set on fire yesterday. We cannot understand why they did that. It is just plain cruelty to the people.” Other villagers said their homes were set ablaze as they fled in fear of the soldiers. A resident in Tin Maw village in Kanbalu township, who also did not want to be named for security reasons, said he and his fellow villagers have been living in tents in the woods after Burmese soldiers burned their homes on May 17. “The houses and the barn where we had over 500 baskets of paddy were all gone,” he said. “Now I have to pitch a makeshift tent in the forest. We need timber to rebuild the [houses], and timber is scarce in this area. Only when the situation calms down will we be able to rebuild.” &#8216;This shouldn&#8217;t have happened&#8217; Junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun rejected the arson allegations and blamed the fires on the PDFs. “We did not enter the villages,” he said. “Our main focus was their camps near the villages and places where they produced weapons. As is customary for PDFs, they attacked some villages when they heard that militia units had been formed. When they retreated, they set the villages on fire and blamed us, saying the army set fire to them.” Locals and civil defense groups said otherwise. Bo Moe Yan, a member of Taungdwin PDF in Minkin township, said residents just watched the military destroy buildings. “The actions of the military are so inhumane,” he said. “When they could not fight the PDFs, they would burn any house they came across. Almost all the houses and shops along Kalaywa and Yagyi Roads are now gone. This shouldn’t have happened. We just had to watch in agony.” Sagaing villagers who have lost their homes are now suffering from poor health and need food and shelter to get through the rainy season, locals said. The rainy season in Myanmar typically runs from mid-May through October. U Pe of the Black Peacock PDF in Pale township said the need for tents there is great, though the armed resistance groups are helping villagers as much as they can. “We need about 60,000 kyats ($32) to get bamboo and poles to build a tent,” he said. “We collect donations for those who cannot rebuild their houses yet. A palm leaf now costs about 150 kyats because most of the houses were destroyed by fire, and demand for them has gone up. It is hard to get them now because it is planting season.” After thousands of homes were destroyed in the fires, their group was able to donate only 23 tents, he added. More than 800,000 civilians across the country of about 55 million people have been displaced by hostilities since the coup, with Sagaing region having the highest number at more than 240,000. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane for RFA’s Burmese Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [UNHCR chief: World must not forget Rohingya refugees amid Ukraine crisis](https://ij-reportika.com/unhcr-chief-world-must-not-forget-rohingya-refugees-amid-ukraine-crisis/): Despite the Ukraine war, the world mustn’t forget about the plight of Rohingya and other refugees as well as the burden of their host countries, the head of the U.N.’s refugee agency pleaded Wednesday as he ended a five-day trip to Bangladesh. The conflict stemming from the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its humanitarian fallout is straining resources everywhere, including in supporting the sprawling refugee camps in southeastern Bangladesh along the frontier with Myanmar, said Filippo Grandi, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “I am here to remind the international community that there is not just Ukraine. Bangladesh has been bearing the responsibilities for five years and this support cannot decline,” he told a press conference in Dhaka. “I will not accept it. I will put maximum pressure on all donor partners.” “It is very important that the world knows this should not be forgotten …. The risk is there of marginalization of some of the crises because so many resources are absorbed, especially by the Ukraine emergency,” he added. The camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district house about 1 million Rohingya refugees, including 740,000 who fled atrocities during a military offensive in Myanmar’s Rakhine state in 2017. But only 13 percent of the U.S. $881 million needed by humanitarian agencies this year to support the Rohingya refugees in the South Asian nation has been funded as of May. “I am a bit worried&#8230; first of all, there are a bit more needs because there is also Bhashan Char, and now in Ukraine, in Afghanistan and a lot of other competing crises, we struggle a bit, but I am here also for that reason,” Grandi said. Bhashan Char is a remote island in the Bay of Bengal where the Bangladesh government has relocated some 26,000 Rohingya refugees since December 2020, ostensibly to ease the burden on the crowded mainland camps in Cox’s Bazar. During his stay in Bangladesh, Grandi visited refugee camps in both Cox’s Bazar and on Bhashan Char. Grandi said the war in Ukraine had added an additional financial burden on the United Nations, which was affecting the Rohingya camps as well. “The Ukraine emergency is posing a problem here as well. We buy liquid gas for … [these] camps. That price has gone up a lot and this is a direct impact of the crisis,” he said. When asked, Grandi acknowledged that funding for the Rohingya refugees would be more difficult than before. “I think the government knows that, we know that, and the donors know that.” The solution to the Rohingya crisis lies in Myanmar, the UNHCR chief said. “The Rohingya refugees I met reiterated their desire to return home when conditions allow. The world must work to address the root causes of their flight and to translate those dreams into reality,” Grandi said. Filippo Grandi (center), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, walks inside the Kutupalong refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar district in Bangladesh, May 22, 2022. Credit: UNHCR. Grandi talked with Rohingya about their situation during his visit to refugee camps earlier this week, said Kin Maung, the founder of the Rohingya Youth Association in Cox’s Bazar. “We hope, following the visit of UNHCR boss, the process of repatriation will get more focus,” he told BenarNews. “We want to return to our homeland with dignity.”
- [Japan criticizes ‘provocative’ China-Russia air patrol during Quad summit](https://ij-reportika.com/japan-criticizes-provocative-china-russia-air-patrol-during-quad-summit/): Japan has described as “provocative” a joint patrol by Chinese and Russian air forces over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea, conducted when Quad leaders met in Tokyo to discuss regional security. At Tuesday’s meeting, the leaders of Australia, India, Japan and the United States declared a “steadfast commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.”     Japanese Minister of Defense Nobuo Kishi said after the summit that Japan had “communicated through our diplomatic routes our grave concerns” over the China-Russia joint patrol. “We believe the fact that this action was taken during the Quad summit makes it more provocative than in the past,” Kishi told reporters in Tokyo, adding that it was the fourth such incident since November. The Chinese Ministry of National Defense said in a brief statement that a joint aerial strategic patrol was carried out “in the airspace over the waters of the Sea of Japan, the East China Sea and the western Pacific Ocean.” The two militaries staged the patrol “in accordance with their annual military cooperation plan,” the statement said. The Russian Defense Ministry denied that the joint patrol was aimed against third countries.  It said that during the 13-hour mission Russian and Chinese bombers did not intrude into Japanese and South Korean airspace. South Korea said at least four Chinese and four Russian warplanes entered its air defense zone several times during the day of the patrol, Reuters reported. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, U.S. President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi attend an event during the summit of Quad leaders in Tokyo, Japan, May 24, 2022. Credit: Reuters. China-Russia no-limit partnership The Russian ministry maintained that the Russian and Chinese aircraft “ operated strictly in compliance with the provisions of international law.”  It said the patrol included Tu-95MS strategic missile-carrying bombers of the Russian Aerospace Force and Hong-6K (commonly known as Xian H-6) strategic bombers of the Air Force of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). A number of Russian Su-30SM jets provided fighter support for this air task force and at some sections of the route, the bombers were “escorted” by F-2 aircraft of the South Korean Air Force and F-15 jets of the Japanese Air Force, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. Japan’s Ministry of Defense Joint Staff confirmed that Japanese fighters “scrambled to cope with a suspected intrusion into Japan’s airspace over the Sea of Japan, the East China Sea and the Pacific Ocean.” It said in a press release that Japan identified four Chinese H-6 bombers, two Russian Tu-95 bombers and a Russian Il-20 reconnaissance aircraft. This is the fourth consecutive year that Chinese and Russian air forces have conducted such joint strategic air patrol. The two militaries have also carried out numerous joint exercises on land and at sea. At a briefing on Tuesday, U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said the latest event demonstrated that the Sino-Russian partnership is “quite alive and well.” Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping held a summit in February, in which they praised the bilateral partnership as having &#8220;no limits&#8221; and &#8220;no forbidden areas of cooperation.&#8221; “China-Russia cooperation is driven by strong internal dynamics and valued for its independence. It is not targeted at any third party and will not be affected by others,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin on Tuesday. The Russia-initiated war in Ukraine has pushed the two countries even closer and Beijing has so far refused to condemn the Russian invasion. “As the international community responds to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, the fact that China took such action in collaboration with Russia, which is the aggressor, is cause for concern. It cannot be overlooked,” Japanese Defense Minister Kishi said, referring to Tuesday’s joint patrol. Containing China The Quad summit on Tuesday, though not mentioning China, did reaffirm the grouping’s “resolve to uphold the international rules-based order where countries are free from all forms of military, economic and political coercion.” Analysts say the four Quad nations share concerns about China’s growing influence and assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific. Beijing has been responding to international criticism by holding military drills and deployments. On Monday, U.S. President Joe Biden said his country is &#8220;committed&#8221; to defending Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. On the same day, China announced increased naval activities in the two strategically important straits northwest and southwest of Japan.  Japan&#8217;s Ministry of Defense Joint Staff said two Type 054A frigates of the PLA Navy &#8211; the Xuzhou and the Handan &#8211; transited the Tsushima Strait towards the Sea of Japan while the Sovremenny-class destroyer Hangzhou entered the Pacific Ocean after crossing the Miyako Strait from the East China Sea. Meanwhile on Wednesday, the PLA Eastern Theater Command said it has “recently organized joint combat-readiness patrol and real-combat training exercises involving multiple services and arms in the waters and airspace around the Taiwan Island.” “These actions are stern warning against the recent collusion activities between the US and the ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces,” said command spokesperson, Senior Col. Shi Yi. He did not specify the dates when the exercises took place. China considers Taiwan a breakaway province that should be unified with the mainland, by force if necessary. The Eastern Theater Command of the PLA is responsible for Taiwan, Japan and the East China Sea.
- [Hong Kong unlikely to see Tiananmen vigil, as Taiwan plans major June 4 event instead](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-unlikely-to-see-tiananmen-vigil-as-taiwan-plans-major-june-4-event-instead/): Hong Kong&#8217;s once-annual candlelight vigil for Tiananmen massacre victims is likely to be suppressed for a third year running, amid ongoing political crackdown under the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and plans are afoot to move the event to democratic Taiwan. The vigil has been banned &#8212; ostensibly for public health reasons &#8212; for the past two years and the leaders of its organizing group, the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, arrested for colluding with foreign powers under a national security law imposed by Beijing from July 1, 2020. The Ming Pao newspaper reported that the Leisure and Cultural Service Department (LCSD), which administers the Victoria Park soccer pitches where the rally used to take place, has suspended any bookings on June 4, the 33rd anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre, although bookings are available on other days in the same month. An LDSD official who answered the phone on Tuesday said that &#8220;non-designated bookings&#8221; had been suspended at its sports facilities, and that nobody had tried to hire the soccer pitches between June 1 and 5 this year. However, the department&#8217;s official website carried a notice dated May 12, announcing that two of the park&#8217;s six soccer pitches will be &#8220;closed for maintenance&#8221; throughout May and early June. The Hong Kong Police said on Monday that they hadn&#8217;t received any application to hold a large gathering on Hong Kong Island on June 4. League of Social Democrats spokeswoman Chan Po-ying said the group hasn&#8217;t yet decided what, if anything, it will do to mark this year&#8217;s anniversary. Former chairman Avery Ng said there are currently no plans for such an event. &#8220;The government has used a number of excuses in the past few years to refuse to allow citizens to hold large-scale gatherings,&#8221; Ng told RFA. &#8220;So I wouldn&#8217;t be surprised if any application by other people to hold a June 4 event was turned down this year too.&#8221; &#8220;Of course, the government keeps hoping that people will forget about June 4, but I don&#8217;t think they will,&#8221; he said. People attend a vigil commemorating the 32nd anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen square pro-democracy protests and crackdown outside of the Chinese consulate in Los Angeles, California, June 4, 2021. Deeply rooted after 30 years You Weijie, spokeswoman for the Tiananmen Mothers victims&#8217; group said it was a shame that the event couldn&#8217;t go ahead in Hong Kong, but said people wouldn&#8217;t forget the date, nor the three decades of vigils that had already happened. &#8220;The candlelight vigil in Victoria Park went on for more than 30 years, and is deeply rooted in the memories of everyone with a conscience,&#8221; You told RFA. &#8220;It&#8217;s part of the desire to live a free life.&#8221; &#8220;The candlelight won&#8217;t be extinguished; it will just be lit by people of conscience all over the world,&#8221; she said. Many of those commemorating those who died when the People&#8217;s Liberation Army (PLA) rolled into Tiananmen Square, putting a bloody end to weeks of student-led protests in the spring and early summer of 1989 will likely be on the democratic island of Taiwan. Taiwan&#8217;s New School for Democracy has said it will keep up the vigil tradition in support of Hong Kong, which now has around 1,000 political prisoners amid a citywide crackdown on dissent instigated by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the wake of the 2019 protest movement. Chairman Tzeng Chien-yuan said the group will co-host the vigil in Taiwan on the night of June 3-4, now that Victoria Park is no longer an option. &#8220;Back when I was growing up, I actually used to envy Hong Kong&#8217;s freedoms and rule of law,&#8221; Tseng said, in a reference to Taiwan&#8217;s peaceful transition from single-party state under authoritarian rule by the Kuomintang (KMT) to a pluralistic democracy with a strong human rights record. &#8220;Taiwan&#8217;s path to democracy was nourished and supported by Hong Kong, and I think we Taiwanese are duty bound to speak up for Hongkongers and for all Chinese people now that the June 4 event can&#8217;t be held there any more,&#8221; Tseng said. People hold candles during a vigil in Hong Kong on June 4, 2018, to mark the 29th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown in Beijing. Credit: AFP Pillar of shame The centerpiece of this year&#8217;s ceremony will be a smaller replica of the Pillar of Shame sculpture, which was dismantled and removed from public view among other commemorative artworks on Hong Kong university campuses, amid a crackdown on public criticism of the government under a draconian national security law imposed on the city by Beijing. &#8220;The rule of law has fallen in Hong Kong, which is so close to Taiwan,&#8221; Tseng said. &#8220;It means Taiwan is also under great threat from the expansionism, infiltration and encirclement [practiced] by the CCP.&#8221; &#8220;We have also been through a struggle on the way to democracy &#8230; so the Taiwanese people are on a historic mission &#8230; to use our democracy as a model,&#8221; he said. The Taiwan branch of Amnesty International also plans to premiere &#8220;May 35th&#8221;, a Hong Kong stage play linked to June 4, in Tainan and Taipei on June 1 and 3 respectively, its secretary general Eeling Chiu told RFA. &#8220;The June 4 commemoration has been banned and suppressed in Hong Kong for the past two years,&#8221; Chiu said. &#8220;We want to bring May 35th to Taiwan &#8230; so that more Taiwanese know about June 4.&#8221; Chiu said younger Taiwanese are an important political force. &#8220;They bring a lot of change &#8230; so we are looking forward to reaching more young people.&#8221; As the anniversary approached, a U.S.-based rights group said there are now more than 1,000 political prisoners in Hong Kong, compared with a handful at the start of the 2019 protest movement. &#8220;The large number of political prisoners is a key indicator of the deterioration of the rule of law, judicial independence, and protections of civil and political liberties, marking Hong Kong’s rapid descent into authoritarianism,&#8221; the Hong Kong Democracy Council (HKDC) said in a recent report. &#8220;In few places in the world...
- [Hundreds join student protests at two Beijing universities over COVID-19 measures](https://ij-reportika.com/hundreds-join-student-protests-at-two-beijing-universities-over-covid-19-measures/): Hundreds of students gather have been gathering this week at two Beijing universities to protest over COVID-19 restrictions, according to video footage uploaded to social media. Hundreds of students at the China University of Political Science and Law (CUPL), and at Beijing Normal University (Beishida), gathered to show their displeasure with current restrictions on t heir movements, as the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to roll out its zero-COVID policy across the country following a grueling weeks-long lockdown in Shanghai. The protests came as district officials in Beijing&#8217;s Haidian district announced a local lockdown, with classes at the two universities suspended from Monday. Students at CUPL gathered in their hundreds outside the main block, lighting up their phone flashlights, and demanding the option to go back home, as well as clear information about the timing of final exams and greater transparency from the school administration. The rally was followed by a similar gathering at Beishida on Tuesday, during which some protesters shouted historic slogans linked to China&#8217;s first peasant uprising in 209 BC. Footage of the protest posted to social media showed a crowd of people waving their lit-up mobile phones. &#8220;Everyone is concerned right now about the policies the university is announcing,&#8221; a student says in one of the clips. &#8220;[We] demand clarification of the timing and methods used for the final exams, and that they respond positively to student demands, with no backlash or interviews.&#8221; A poster at Beishida said the administration had given them a verbal promise that they would be able to at least apply to go back home for the duration of the COVID-19 measures, and promised not to retaliate against students who took part in the protest. A scene of students at Beijing Normal University rallying against restrictions on their movements under the Chinese Communist Party&#8217;s zero-COVID policy, May 24, 2022. Credit: Participants. &#8216;They want their freedom back&#8217; A Weibo post said some 300 people turned out on Tuesday evening, although around 500 were expected to take part. Another source said most of the students were angry over the decision to stop face-to-face classes, while still requiring students&#8217; presence on campus to take part in online classes, citing other students at different universities in the same district who were being allowed home. A resident of Haidian who gave only the surname Zhang said the students want some measure of freedom back. &#8220;Students feel that being stuck indoors all day isn&#8217;t what they signed up for, and they want their freedom back,&#8221; Zhang said. &#8220;Similar incidents took place at the Beijing International Studies University (BISU).&#8221; &#8220;I don&#8217;t know when Beijing will get back to normal; they are estimating not until June,&#8221; Zhang said. Beishida announced on Tuesday that many students are currently on their way back home to study from their hometowns, and will complete their studies and exams online. June 4 anniversary approaches People&#8217;s University alumnus Guo Baosheng, who now lives in the U.S., said students have shown that there is still a spirit of resistance, and that the university&#8217;s diplomatic approach &#8212; at least promising to meet some of their demands &#8212; was likely due to the fast-approaching 33rd anniversary of the student-led protests of 1989 and their bloody conclusion in the Tiananmen massacre. &#8220;One of the reasons for the compromise is that zero-COVID is causing very real public resentment,&#8221; Guo told RFA. &#8220;The lower-ranking cadres, including school leaders, are actually very unhappy about the zero-COVID approach, and should be somewhat flexible.&#8221; &#8220;Another reason is that we are entering the most sensitive period for Beijing colleges and universities, namely, the anniversary of June 4, 1989,&#8221; he said. Guo said the authorities typically step up surveillance and monitoring of students&#8217; activities in the run-up to the anniversary. &#8220;I was a key target in my school around the June 4 anniversary in 1993,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The school leaders will need to guide students [to a satisfactory resolution] before [the anniversary], so as to minimize potential instability.&#8221; This year&#8217;s anniversary is all the more sensitive as it falls ahead of the 20th party congress later this year, during which CCP leader Xi Jinping is hoping to be voted in for an unprecedented third term in office. The official website of the Tiananmen district management committee of the Beijing municipal government said on Tuesday it is suspending all spontaneous visits to Tiananmen Square through June 15. Tourists wishing to view the square must book a slot a day in advance, have a green code on their COVID-19 test and trace app, and a negative PCR test from within the last 48 hours, it said. All visitors will have to pass through security checkpoints, as usual. Meanwhile, Chaoyang district resident Ye Jinghuan said the area has been under tight restrictions for the past 20 days, with all residents required to work from home, and schools, restaurants and public transportation all shut down. &#8220;The most unbelievable thing about this is that many communities are totally negative, and yet they are still under lockdown,&#8221; Ye told RFA. &#8220;If you want to leave Shibalidian township, you need to get a pass, a PCR test certifcate and so on,&#8221; Ye said. &#8220;As of [Sunday], five Beijing districts have required residents to work from home and shut down public transportation.&#8221; Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Tortured dissident Xu Zhiyong stands trial in China's Shandong for 'subversion'](https://ij-reportika.com/tortured-dissident-xu-zhiyong-stands-trial-in-chinas-shandong-for-subversion/): Rights groups called for the release of Chinese dissident Xu Zhiyong, who has reported being tortured in detention, as his trial for &#8220;subversion&#8221; went ahead behind closed doors on Wednesday. &#8220;The hearing ended,&#8221; Xu&#8217;s lawyer Zhang Lei said in comments reported by the Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) network on Twitter. &#8220;Once it was decided that in the name of the law that they announced the trial would be non-public, a lawyer can just be a witness, to witness that [Xu] doesn&#8217;t just enter darkness,&#8221; Zhang said. CHRD said police had also harassed Xu&#8217;s sister who traveled to attend the trial at Linshu County People&#8217;s Court in Linyi city, Shandong province, raiding her hotel room in the middle of the night and forcing her to leave. &#8220;Is there any humanity left in the [ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)] totalitarian state?&#8221; Xu&#8217;s U.S.-based wife Luo Shengchun said via Twitter. &#8220;Not only was she unable to attend her brother&#8217;s trial; she wasn&#8217;t even allowed to stay in the area,&#8221; Luo tweeted. &#8220;Does this darkness mean that dawn is coming soon? I hope so!&#8221; Luo said the trial had been moved to Linshu county to keep it out of the public spotlight. &#8220;In order to prevent witnesses from testifying in court, they put them all under house arrest; in order to prevent the media from reporting it, they kept proceedings secret and forced lawyers to sign non-disclosure agreements,&#8221; Luo wrote. &#8220;They tortured to extract confessions, fabricated evidence and lies, and I will carry on exposing them to the rest of the world!&#8221; she tweeted. Xu&#8217;s trial on charges of &#8220;subversion of state power&#8221; has been widely criticized by rights activists as resulting from a trumped-up charge. &#8220;The Chinese government is making a grave and shameful mistake by proceeding with the trial of Xu Zhiyong,&#8221; Liesl Gerntholtz, director of the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Center at PEN America said in a statement. She added: &#8220;Xu has not committed a crime. He is a leading public intellectual using his words to try to hold the Chinese government accountable to Chinese citizens.&#8221; Rights groups say Xu&#8217;s case has been marred with due process violations, including torture and incommunicado detention for nearly two-and-a-half years. &#8220;We call on the Chinese government to immediately drop all charges against Xu and release him from detention. We also urge an independent review of the harrowing reports that Xu has been tortured,&#8221; American PEN said. CHRD has echoed calls for the release of Xu and rights lawyer Ding Jiaxi, whose trial is scheduled for June 24. &#8220;CHRD urges the Chinese government to immediately and unconditionally release the two human rights defenders,&#8221; the group said in a recent statement. &#8220;The Chinese government must heed the opinions of UN experts who found that Xu and Ding are being arbitrarily detained in violation of international law.&#8221; The trials come ahead of the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, CHRD said, adding that Ding had also reported being tortured while in detention. The entire case against Xu and Ding stemmed from the men&#8217;s &#8220;peaceful advocacy,&#8221; the group said. It cited Ding&#8217;s wife Luo Shengchun as saying that neither man&#8217;s lawyers have been allowed to meet with them during the past three months, and had been barred from making copies of the case files. &#8220;Not allowing lawyers to make copies means that lawyers may have to read and take notes on hundreds of pages of case files at one fixed time in an office, which obviously impairs their capacity to adequately prepare for a legal defense,&#8221; CHRD said. Ding&#8217;s lawyers say he was restrained in a &#8220;tiger chair&#8221; between April 1 and 8, 2020, and interrogated for 21 hours a day, subjected to sleep deprivation and limited food and water. Ding and Luo have both filed applications to exclude the evidence against him as having been obtained illegally, under torture, but with no success. Xu has told his lawyer that he was subjected to similar treatment in the &#8220;tiger chair&#8221; while detained in Shandong&#8217;s Yantai city. Xu, who has already served jail time for launching the New Citizens&#8217; Movement for greater official accountability, was detained in early 2020 and held on suspicion of &#8220;subversion of state power&#8221; alongside Ding and other activists who held a dinner gathering in the southeastern port city of Xiamen on Dec. 13, 2019. Both men were held incommunicado, denied permission to meet with either family members or a lawyer for two years, under &#8220;residential surveillance at a designated location&#8221; (RSDL) and criminal detention. They haven&#8217;t been seen or heard from since their indictments in August 2021. Activists and rights lawyers say Xu has never advocated violence, and has paid a very heavy price for advocating for his personal ideals. They say the charges against those who attended the Xiamen dinner are a form of political persecution by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Protest in Malawi over Chinese video showing children saying anti-Black racial slur](https://ij-reportika.com/protest-in-malawi-over-chinese-video-showing-children-saying-anti-black-racial-slur/): Civic groups in Lilongwe, Malawi, marched in protest over the actions of Chinese national Lu Ke, who was arrested by Zambian authorities after filming a racist video involving local children, calling for him to be tried in the country rather than sent back to China, the Nyasa Times reported on Wednesday. Protesters from the University of Malawi Child Rights Legal Clinic and other civil society organizations also called for compensation and psychological support for the children exploited by Lu and made to say racist things about themselves in Chinese, the paper said. The Maravi Post cited clinic supervisor Garton Kamchedzera as saying that Lu&#8217;s treatment of the children was in breach of the Malawian constitution. The group said it would also deliver a petition to the Chinese embassy. The paper said Lu had been &#8220;using violence to force the children say the phrases he wanted.&#8221; Lu fled the country after being outed by BBC journalist Runako Celina as the maker of a video in which children from Lilongwe&#8217;s Njerwa village said &#8220;I am a black ghost. I have a low IQ&#8221; to camera. The phrase &#8220;black ghost&#8221; is considered the Chinese equivalent of the N-word. Lu&#8217;s video was far from being a one-off. Celina&#8217;s documentary also uncovered a lucrative industry in short videos featuring Africans. &#8220;There&#8217;s something inherently sinister in swanning into a village somewhere in Africa, tossing a few coins at people less privileged than you and being able to instruct them to do whatever you want,&#8221; Celina wrote in an article on the BBC website after the documentary aired. &#8220;If the price (or pay off) is high enough, or the sense of humor crude enough the possibilities are endless.&#8221; &#8220;It&#8217;s this exact boundless freedom, plus a deeply ingrained racist ideology that has made an online Chinese industry I&#8217;ve spent the last year investigating possible,&#8221; she wrote. A social media post with a commenter in blackface supporting anti-black racist commenters. Weibo. Anti-Black racism remains uncensored Immigration authorities in Zambia confirmed they had arrested Lu on June 21. Ghanaian YouTuber Wode Maya told the Black Livity China podcast that the Chinese term &#8220;heigui,&#8221; or &#8220;black ghost,&#8221; is equivalent to the N-word in English. Guests told the show that anti-Black racism remains largely uncensored on China&#8217;s tightly controlled internet, and that the video was part of a lucrative industry exploiting African adults and children with custom-made greetings videos. Not everyone in China likes the videos, which have been sold on online stores, but many believe they are a harmless and fun way to send a novelty greeting, while others see anti-Black racism as a function of Chinese colonial power in Africa, according to views expressed on the podcast and on social media. One video resulting from a keyword search on Wednesday showed young black men dressed in coordinated clothing, performing to camera to cheer up residents of Shanghai during the grueling COVID-19 lockdown in April. Another showed black children dressed in red holding flowers and chalk boards with birthday messages for a Chinese woman called &#8220;Xingxing.&#8221; The Malawian Centre for Democracy and Economic Development Initiatives (CDEDI) has called on the Chinese embassy in Malawi to apologize to black Malawians over the racist video filmed by Chinese national Lu Ke, and called for an immigration sweep for Chinese nationals who remain illegally in the country. &#8220;CDEDI is hereby challenging both the Malawi and the Chinese governments to treat this matter with the urgency and seriousness it deserves,&#8221; Namiwa said in a June 17 statement posted to the group&#8217;s website. A screenshot of the Chinese embassy statement on Twitter on June 13 that it had &#8220;noted with great concern&#8221; the findings of the BBC documentary Racism for Sale. &#8216;Zero tolerance&#8217; &#8220;It should be emphasized that any attempts to downplay the issue or help the suspect to beat the long arm of the law will only succeed in stirring avoidable actions with far-reaching consequences,&#8221; Namiwa said, but said the group didn&#8217;t want anyone targeting the Chinese community for retaliation as a whole. &#8220;Since the matter also borders on aspects of profit-making, CDEDI is urging the relevant authorities to ensure that survivors of the exploitative filming should benefit by way of compensation,&#8221; it said. The Chinese embassy said via Twitter on June 13 that it had &#8220;noted with great concern&#8221; the findings of the BBC documentary Racism for Sale. &#8220;We strongly condemn racism in any form, by anyone or happening anywhere,&#8221; it said. &#8220;We also noted that the video was shot in 2020. It shall be stressed that Chinese government has zero tolerance for racism.&#8221; It added on June 17: &#8220;We demand internet &amp; social media platforms to strictly prohibit the dissemination of all racist contents.&#8221; The BBC documentary found that two Douyin accounts were sharing the video in question, along with other anti-Black racist content, and that Lu had bribed the kids with food and candy to take part in the shoot. Shih Yi-hsiang of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights said China&#8217;s response to the incident was inadequate. &#8220;The Chinese government is condemning this matter and also saying that China has zero tolerance for racism, which is ridiculous, because what the Chinese regime has done to Tibetans [and] Uyghurs &#8230; for a long time is seriously racist,&#8221; Shih said. &#8220;What we actually see behind [these words] is exploitation and oppression,&#8221; Shih said. &#8220;Chinese people are abusing these kids.&#8221; Shih called for further investigation into the exploitation of African children by Chinese content creators. Blackface on CCTV Taiwan strategic analyst Shih Chien-yu cited the use of blackface on the CCTV Lunar New Year TV gala, as well as costumes associating black people with monkeys. Chinese people go to Africa to shoot these videos to make money, rationalize racism, which is clearly colonialism with Chinese characteristics, Shih Chien-yu said. &#8220;They believe that the local people are poor and they will be obedient if you give them some small benefits,&#8221; Shih said. &#8220;We see the 19th century colonial mentality being replicated in 21st century China.&#8221; Gong Yujian, a Chinese dissident now living in democratic Taiwan, said...
- [Laos shuffles top Cabinet posts amid economic slowdown](https://ij-reportika.com/laos-shuffles-top-cabinet-posts-amid-economic-slowdown/): The Lao government this week reorganized its ruling Cabinet, adding two new deputy prime ministers and replacing heads of the national bank and the Ministry of Industry and Commerce as an economic crisis grips the Southeast Asian country. The move, approved on Monday by the Lao National Assembly, comes just a year into the new administration of Prime Minister Phankham Viphavanh. Laotians say it has become increasingly difficult to eke out a living in the one-party communist country, given the rising costs of gasoline, food and other daily necessities. Laos’ inflation rate stood at 12.8 percent in May — one of the highest in Southeast Asia. Hundreds now line up each day outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Vientiane to renew or apply for passports to search for jobs in neighboring Thailand. And a government plan to increase the country’s minimum wage from 1.1 million kip (U.S. $75) to 1.3 million kip (U.S. $88) per month may not be enough to keep them home. The number of deputy prime ministers in the Lao government has now moved from three to five following the promotions of former Minister of Foreign Affairs Saleumxay Kommasith and former Minister of Public Security Vilay Lakhamfong. Governor of the Bank of the Lao PDR Sonexay Sitphaxay has now been replaced by Deputy Minister of Finance Bonleua Sinxayvoravong, while President of the State Audit Organization Malaythong Kommasith has now replaced Khampheng Saysompheng as Minister of Industry and Commerce. Speaking to RFA on Wednesday, several Lao residents said they welcomed the shuffle of top leadership jobs but voiced caution as to the chances for positive change in the near term. Monday’s switch of Cabinet posts shows the government is now fully focused on the country’s economic and financial problems, said one faculty member at the Lao National University. “This is a period of transition, and the government will make some changes to the economy. However, everything will probably stay the same for now,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to speak freely. “Whoever takes these posts, it seems that things may stay the same,” agreed another Lao citizen, also declining to be named. “I will have to wait to see how decisive he or she will be in solving our problems. “The government should recruit talented and educated people to put in these positions,” he added. Another Lao citizen said the government should do more to encourage participation by the country’s young in managing the economy. “Our problems will not be solved just by people with a strong spirit of nationalism,” he said. “There will be solutions only when we encourage our young people to also take responsibility. But if things continue as they are, I have no idea how all of this will turn out. “There is nothing I can do myself,” he said. Translated by Phouvong for RFA Lao. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [80,000 tons of Chinese diplomacy](https://ij-reportika.com/80000-tons-of-chinese-diplomacy/): China has launched a third aircraft carrier, a Type 003 christened the Fujian, firming up its place in an elite group of countries led by the United States that are able to deploy huge seaborne military airports. The Fujian–which follows the People’s Liberation Army Navy&#8217;s Liaoning carrier in 2012 and the Shandong in 2019–will “enhance the ability to safeguard world peace,” said a Chinese Embassy spokesman in Washington. Taiwan, which has come under intense Chinese political and military pressure aimed at unifying the island with the mainland, views the vessel differently than Beijing.
- [Mes Aynak Threatened By Chinese Copper Mines](https://ij-reportika.com/mes-ayank-threatened-by-chinese-copper-mine/): Mes Aynak Threatened By Chinese Copper Mines Mes Aynak&nbsp;(meaning &#8220;little source of copper&#8220;), also called&nbsp;Mis Ainak&nbsp;or&nbsp;Mis-e-Ainak, was a major Buddhist settlement 40&nbsp;km (25&nbsp;mi) southeast of&nbsp;Kabul,&nbsp;Afghanistan, located in a region of&nbsp;Logar Province. The site is also the location of Afghanistan&#8217;s largest&nbsp;copper&nbsp;deposit. Located at the confluence of Hellenistic and Indian cultures, Mes Aynak near Kabul was once a vast city organised around the extraction and trade of copper. The site of Mes Aynak possesses a vast 40 ha (100 acres) complex of Buddhist monasteries, homes, over 400 Buddha statues, stupas and market areas. The site contains artifacts recovered from the Bronze Age, and some of the artifacts recovered have dated back over 3000 years. As its name suggests, the presence of copper at Mes Aynak has been known about for some time, while the site&#8217;s archaeological wealth had been discovered by Russian and Afghan geologists in 1973–74. Mes Aynak was at the peak of its prosperity between the 5th and 7th centuries AD. A period of slow decline began in the 8th Century, and the settlement was finally abandoned 200 years later. Archaeologists believe that Mes Aynak is a major historical heritage site. But the need for the Taliban, who returned to power in August last year, to find new revenue streams after international aid was frozen has made mining the project a priority, and could put an end to further archaeological work. In November 2007, a 30-year lease was granted for the copper mine to the&nbsp;China Metallurgical Group&nbsp;(MCC) for US$3 billion. Fifteen years later, the mine still does not exist &#8212; insecurity and disagreements between Beijing and Kabul over financial terms of the contract have caused delays. The project is once again a priority for both parties. All of this historical material is in imminent danger of destruction by the mining endeavor. Many experts are comparing the Chinese mining company to those who destroyed the&nbsp;Buddhas of Bamiyan. Despite the imminent danger, negotiations between Afghanistan’s new Taliban government and China’s state-owned MCC and its publicly listed subsidiary Metallurgical Corp. of China are underway over the resumption of mining activity at the Mes Aynak Logar copper project. The discussions are about &#8220;80% finished&#8220;, says the Taliban spokesman, with only technical points remaining to be settled, which should be done soon. The Taliban are demanding that the contract, which includes the construction of a power station to supply the mine and Kabul, and a railroad to Pakistan, be respected. They also insist that the copper be processed locally with an Afghan workforce. China, whose economy is in dire need of copper, is reluctant to meet these demands. MCC, which did not respond to AFP, also continues to demand a reduction in royalties due. When it was last in power the Taliban shocked the world by dynamiting the giant Buddhas of Bamiyan in March 2001, but today they say they are determined to preserve the findings of Mes Aynak. &#8220;It is the duty of the Ministry of Information and Culture to protect them,&#8221; Esmatullah Burhan, the spokesman for the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum, told AFP. But while the rhetoric seems sincere, many of the remains are simply too bulky or fragile to be moved and seem destined to disappear. The Chinese favors open-pit rather than underground mining. If this goes ahead, it would open up the copper mountain and bury all the fragments of the past. The Taliban hope to earn more than $300 million a year from Mes Aynak. This is about 60% of the full state budget for 2022. Therefore, it wants to speed up the process undermining the environmental consequences and cultural values attached with the place. Mes Aynak would qualify as a World Heritage site if the government of Afghanistan were to apply for that status. This is an outstanding and complex archaeological landscape, with astounding quality of preservation. archaeologist and UNESCO advisor Tim Williams in 2017 So instead of destroying a potential UNESCO World Heritage Site with emotional and cultural connect of the Buddhist World, it should be preserved as a Buddhist Civilizational Wonder of the world.
- [12 militia members killed in Magway region shootout](https://ij-reportika.com/12-militia-members-killed-in-magway-region-shootout/): Twelve members of a People’s Defense Force (PDF) have been shot dead and three others arrested after fighting near Mae Zali Bridge in Myanmar’s central Magway region, according to police, a PDF official and local residents. Locals said a six-wheeled red truck driving from Salin township was inspected by junta security forces at around 6 a.m. Wednesday. Fighting then erupted on Pathein-Monywa road in Pwint Phyu township, killing 12 PDF members in the vehicle. PDF official Ko Kyar Gyi confirmed the incident and told RFA that the PDF members were not from Pyint Phyu Township. He said the PDF is still trying to find out where they came from. “PDF groups from other townships confronted the junta forces at the Mae Zali bridge. There were some casualties and arrests from our side by junta forces and also their side had some casualties,” he said. “Our township’s PDF group was asked for some help after the fighting and we are assisting. We can explain in detail when the remaining members are safe. It will be announced on our township [social media] page.” The local news outlet Myay Latt Voice said that the PDF members killed Wednesday morning were from Thayat and Kanma Townships in Magway region. It said the vehicle was carrying weapons from Sagaing region and was attacked by the military forces on the way back. A confidential telegram from Pwint Phyu Police, seen by RFA, stated that a red-six-wheeled vehicle driving along the Pathein-Monywa road from Salin township was stopped by junta forces led by Brigadier General Min Paing Soe near Mae Zali bridge and fighting broke out. It says that 12 PDF members were shot dead and three captured alive. Two of the arrested are said to be in critical condition. Rifles and a grenade launcher captured by security forces after the shootout. CREDIT: Citizen journalist Police confiscated 25 KA-25 rifles and a 40 milimeter grenade launcher according to the telegram. Residents said 12 people died when a rocket propelled grenade was fired at the vehicle carrying PDF members by security forces guarding the Mae Zali bridge. They said the vehicle was carrying weapons provided by the National Unity Government. RFA could not independently verify the claims and calls to a military council spokesman went unanswered. Photographs from pro-military websites show the bodies of the 12 dead PDF members were badly mutilated. Myay Latt Voice quoted a PDF spokesman as saying members were killed when their vehicle was shot by heavy artillery at close range by military forces. Magway is Myanmar’s second largest region and PDFs there have fought fiercely with junta forces since the coup on February 1 last year.
- [CAN calls for immediate release of Vietnamese anti-coal activist](https://ij-reportika.com/can-calls-for-immediate-release-of-vietnamese-anti-coal-activist/): The international environmental group Climate Action Network (CAN) has called for the release of Vietnamese anti-coal activist Nguy Thi Khanh. In a news release Monday CAN condemned Nguy’s sentencing on tax evasion charges, saying she was one of a number of environmental activists targeted by state authorities in Vietnam. Nguy leads the Green Innovation and Development Center is also chair of the board of Climate Action Network South East Asia (CANSEA). “It is apparent CANSEA Board Chair Nguy Thi Khanh has been imprisoned for her environmental work, especially against coal use, as part of an effort to silence dissent from environmental groups,” said CANSEA director and regional coordinator Nithi Nesadurai. “Her arrest has already had a chilling effect on other environmental civil society groups advocating for environmental protection and addressing the effects of climate change, on behalf of the Vietnamese people. We call on the government to release her immediately and all those detained on the pretext of other charges for doing their work on climate protection.” CAN said that Nguy has dedicated her life’s work to fighting against an increase in the production and use of coal and trying to promote a transition to sustainable energy sources. The group said Nguy had succeeded in influencing the Vietnamese government to commit to a faster transition from coal to green energy. It said the Goldman Environmental Prize winner and Eisenhower Fellow was key to the implementation of the 1 million solar rooftop homes in Vietnam program. Nguy was arrested earlier this year and her office was ransacked. CAN said the raid was part of a crackdown on climate activists aimed at protecting what it called “powerful vested interests,” which have increased the risks faced by environmental activists in Vietnam. State media has been silent on the case but people familiar with trial said that Nguy was found guilty of tax evasion and sentenced on Friday to two years in prison. Michael Sutton, the Goldman Environmental Prize executive director, called for Nguy’s release, saying: “We believe that the legal charges leveled against her are part of a wider effort to silence environmental leaders in Vietnam.” CAN cited the recent murder of indigenous leader Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips in the Brazilian Amazon as a reminder that those aiming to expose environmental wrongdoing are putting their lives on the line and that those in power will use any means possible to stop them.  “The repression, harassment and targeting of environmental defenders and civil society leaders is a dangerous trend across the world and highlights the enormous risks so many activists continue to take to simply do their work to protect people and the planet,” said CAN executive director Tasneem Essop. “There is no climate justice without social justice and the protection of basic human rights – the rights of people to protest, to challenge the status quo and the state and the freedom to engage in our work without fear of repercussions. We call for the immediate release of Nguy Thi Khanh and all other civil society activists recently targeted by the Vietnamese authorities. We are closely watching the situation, not only in Vietnam, but also elsewhere in the world. We stand in solidarity with all those fighting for a better, safer and just future. An injury to one is an injury to all.” CAN claims to be the world’s biggest climate network, made up of more than 1,500 civil society group in over 130 countries.
- [Newly elected commune chief from Cambodian opposition arrested for 2002 ‘robbery’](https://ij-reportika.com/newly-elected-commune-chief-from-cambodian-opposition-arrested-for-2002-robbery/): Authorities in Cambodia arrested a newly elected commune chief over his alleged involvement in a robbery case 20 years ago, sources in the country told RFA. As a candidate for the opposition Candlelight Party, Nhim Sarom won a seat on the council of Chamna Lue commune in the central province of Kampong Thom during local elections on June 5. Police took him into custody on Tuesday afternoon, while he was working in the commune hall. The arrest warrant for his involvement in an incident in 2002 was obtained by RFA. It is dated June 21, 2012, but only enforced, signed by Kampong Thom Provincial Police Commissioner Vorn Sophorn, on June 21, 2022.   Khat Kheang, Nhim Sarom’s wife, told RFA’s Khmer Service that her husband was innocent, and that his arrest was a violation of political rights and the will of the people. &#8220;I request that the authorities release my husband,” she said. “My husband is not in the wrong, my husband is clean, let the court help release my husband.&#8221; Kampong Thom Provincial Court Investigating Judge Sik Vanna accused Nhim Sarom of robbery for an event that occurred 20 years ago. The arrest and charges are politically motivated, Thach Setha, the Candlelight Party’s vice president, told RFA. “The alleged case occurred in 2002 and there was an arrest warrant in 2012, but they never arrested him,” Thach Setha said. “Why did they arrested him only after he was elected to be commune chief?” According to Thach Setha, the charge is related to the seizure of property for debt repayment. “Nhim Sarom took a motorbike from a man who owed him money. He took the bike to the police station to try to find a solution,” Thach Setha said. “The two men later reconciled, and the problem was resolved. …This is political intimidation,” said Thach Setha. The 20 years between the incident and the arrest was “strange,” Soeung Senkaruna, spokesperson for the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association, told RFA. “As far as this case is concerned, it looks like a political issue. It is something that we think will have a significant impact on political competition,” he said. Arrests like this one can undermine the public’s confidence in Cambodia’s political and legal systems, said Soeung Senkaruna. Nhim Sarom was one of three Candlelight Party candidates elected to commune councils in Kampong Thom province on May 5, and the second newly elected local official from the party to be arrested following victory in the election. Ley Sokkon, who won a seat in Battambang province, was arrested June 8 for allegedly violating housing rights when he filmed local authorities of the ruling party registering people to vote on election day. RFA was unable to reach Kampong Thom Provincial Police Commissioner Vorn Sophorn for comment on Nhim Sarom’s arrest. Translated by Sok Ry Sum. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Tibetan activist sentenced to prison for ‘separatist acts’ and ‘social disorder’](https://ij-reportika.com/tibetan-activist-sentenced-to-prison-for-separatist-acts-and-social-disorder/): Chinese authorities sentenced a young Tibetan language activist arrested in October 2021 to four years and five months in prison, although his friends and family members remain in the dark about where he was taken, a source in Tibet told RFA on Monday. Thupten Lodoe, also known by his pen name Sabuche, is in his 30s and hails from Seshul county (in Chinese Shiqu), part of the Garze (Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan province.  “He was actually arrested in October of last year and 2021 [and] convicted of ‘separatist acts and creating disorder in society’ on June 13 or 14,” said a friend of his in Tibet, who declined to be identified for safety reasons. “We don’t know where he is imprisoned at the moment.”  Lodoe was reportedly taken to Sichuan’s capital Chengdu following his arrest, according to an earlier RFA report. Lodoe’s arrest comes as part of a larger crackdown by the Chinese government on Tibetan writers, intellectuals and cultural leaders who are arbitrarily imprisoned in undisclosed locations, usually for long periods. In most cases, authorities do not provide information about their charges and sentencing details to their families. Fluent in Chinese, English and Tibetan, Lodoe is known to have studied at a school established by the Panchen Lama, a Tibetan spiritual leader. After his graduation, Lodoe taught in a school in his town. The Chinese government previously offered Lodoe 10,000 yuan (U.S. $1,500) for a job, which he turned down to advocate for the preservation of the Tibetan language, sources told RFA earlier. “Lodoe was sentenced to four years and five months in prison for allegedly writing about the real situation of Tibetans inside Tibet under the Chinese government and sharing them on social media,” said his friend. Chinese police had warned Lodoe once before to stop writing such articles, but he kept doing so, he added. Lodoe also translated many works from Chinese and English into Tibetan for which the Chinese government considered him a threat, which was another reason for his arrest, the Tibetan said. Now, the Chinese government has erased Lodoe’s social media posts and blocked his accounts, he said. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Unvaccinated North Korean soldiers told to use saltwater, mugwort smoke when sick](https://ij-reportika.com/unvaccinated-north-korean-soldiers-told-to-use-saltwater-mugwort-smoke-when-sick/): With a shortage of vaccines in North Korea, the government is telling unvaccinated soldiers to rely on unproven folk remedies if they come down with coronavirus symptoms, sources in the country told RFA. North Korea has been importing Chinese vaccines for use among the military and has held widely publicized vaccination campaigns involving soldiers. But not every member of the military has been fortunate enough to receive the so-called “potion of love” from the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un. Instead, they have been told to turn to unproven folk remedies if they get sick. “Fever continues to emerge among soldiers who could not be vaccinated due to a lack of vaccines,” a resident of South Hwanghae province, on the peninsula’s western coast, told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “Military authorities are recommending folk remedies such as indoor disinfection using mugwort smoke and gargling with salt water,” she said. According to the source, only soldiers working off base were vaccinated due to an insufficient amount of vaccine inventory imported from China. “The vaccinations were limited to the soldiers of the military police squadron who perform crackdowns against other soldiers, the communication battalion, the divisional medical office, and the rear support battalion. Even so, soldiers within those units who are on ordinary guard duty, are known to have been excluded from the vaccination,” she said. “Unvaccinated troops and soldiers were excluded from rural support or community service. Last year, soldiers helped rice planting and harvesting at a nearby farm. But, this spring, the authorities banned the unit from rural support activities due to fear of the spread of COVID-19,” said the source. In North Hamgyong province, in the country’s northeast, only the coast guard, the military police and staff of military hospitals are vaccinated, a resident there told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “The military authorities are designating units and soldiers to be vaccinated separately as there is a shortage of COVID-19 vaccines. Only officers and soldiers who have been vaccinated are permitted to engage in outside activities,” the second source said. “Most soldiers who did not get vaccinated were instructed not to leave the barracks and to prevent COVID-19 with folk remedies such as mugwort smoke disinfection and gargling salt water,” she said. Soldiers tending two salmon farms, one of which Kim Jong Un once visited to provide guidance on its operations, were also excluded from vaccination, according to the source. Places visited by the country’s leaders are usually given special considerations long after the trip, so it is somewhat surprising that the fish-raising soldiers did not receive vaccines. “There are complaints within the military over what authorities have implemented. The authorities have declared a national emergency and even implemented nationwide lockdown measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19, but they have failed to secure enough COVID-19 vaccines,” said the second source. “Very few soldiers have been vaccinated. However, some soldiers are rather fortunate in that they were not mobilized for rural support labor because they are not vaccinated,” she said. RFA reported in May that the North Korean government began a vaccination campaign for soldiers working on a high-priority construction project in Pyongyang. The event was filmed and used as propaganda, complete with soldiers weeping at receiving Kim Jong Un’s “Immortal Potion of Love.” Citizens who saw the propaganda complained that the government only secured enough vaccines for the military, not for the general public. After two years of denying the pandemic had penetrated its closed borders, North Korea in May declared a “maximum emergency” and acknowledged the virus had begun to spread among participants of a large-scale military parade the previous month. Though North Korea has not been tracking confirmed coronavirus cases, possibly due to lack of testing equipment, state media has been publishing daily figures of people who report fever symptoms. As of Monday, 4.65 million people have come down with fever, nearly 99.4 percent of whom have recovered, according to data published by the state run Korea Central News Agency. Translated by Claire Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Lao authorities rescue nearly 500 workers from Golden Triangle SEZ](https://ij-reportika.com/lao-authorities-rescue-nearly-500-workers-from-golden-triangle-sez/): Police in northwestern Laos’ Bokeo province rescued nearly 500 trapped workers in the past year, including about 200 women who were victims of human trafficking in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone, a provincial official said. Bokeo Deputy Gov. Khamphaya Phompanya told Kikeo Khaykhamphithoune, Laos’ deputy prime minister and chairman of the National Committee on Anti-Human Trafficking, during a June 14 meeting that police rescued 477 workers between May 2021 and May 2022. The smallest and least populous province in the landlocked country is home to the SEZ, a gambling and tourism hub catering to the Chinese situated along the Mekong River where Laos, Myanmar and Thailand meet. In 2018, the U.S. government sanctioned the Chinese tycoon who is said to run the SEZ as head of a trafficking network. Most of those rescued have been Lao nationals lured by middlemen to perform jobs as scammers trying to convince people to invest or buy shares in the Kings Romans Casino. When they couldn’t meet their sales quotas, they were detained against their will, and in some cases sold off to work in the sex industry. “Our police department estimates that there are a lot of workers who are still being abused in the Golden Triangle SEZ in Bokeo province and haven’t been rescued,” Khamphaya said during the meeting. “Rescuing workers in the SEZ is not easy because the SEZ is controlled by the Chinese, and not accessible by the Lao authorities.” Lao authorities cannot easily enter the Chinese-run zone, which operates largely beyond the reach of the Lao government. Provincial police officers have been able to rescue workers being held against their will by their employer only after the women have contacted the authorities. At the end of the meeting, Kikeo said that the Lao government began implementing a five-year anti-human trafficking plan to crack down on human trafficking nationwide in 2021. Bokeo province officials have put in place their own measures to protect SEZ workers. In February, they began requiring all employers to sign labor contracts that ensure workers have a safe workplace, insurance benefits and fair wages. The authorities also prohibit forced labor and require regular monitoring and reporting of work and living conditions to the provincial management office. Once the contracts are signed, workers receive a province-issued smart card showing their identity and the name of their employer. Labor contract disputes A Bokeo province police officer, who like other sources requested anonymity for safety reasons, told RFA that authorities know there are still many more abused and trapped workers in the SEZ, but they don’t know the number. “[M]any Lao and foreign workers have been abused [while] having labor disputes with Chinese employers,” he said. “For example, they couldn’t do the jobs, and the employers wouldn’t give them any food and water, or would detain them or sell them to massage parlors and brothels.” “We don’t know the number because the SEZ is a Chinese territory,” the police officer said. “We can go in there only when we’re allowed to.” A member of Bokeo’s anti-human trafficking unit said it also was difficult to rescue trapped workers because they have signed employment contracts. “We can’t help many workers such as those who have labor contracts with their employers for six months or one year,” he said. “They have to abide by the contracts. We can help only those who are abused and didn’t sign the contracts.” A Lao woman who recently escaped from the SEZ confirmed that human trafficking is still occurring despite the Lao government’s efforts. “Right now, they [human traffickers] are still recruiting Lao and Thai girls, women and men to work in the SEZ,” she told RFA, adding that recruiters usually are paid 15,000 baht (U.S. $425) for each person they recruit. “Many workers experience all kinds of hardship and still continue to work in the SEZ because they come from very poor families,” she said. “They have no other choice but to work there.” Another former SEZ worker said when middlemen tried to sell him women, he declined because he pitied them. “In the SEZ, a woman can be sold for sex for 2,000 yuan (U.S. $300) per night or 400 yuan (U.S. $60) for one time.” Translated by Max Avary for RFA Lao. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Five killed by junta troops, allied fighters in Myanmar’s Sagaing](https://ij-reportika.com/five-killed-by-junta-troops-allied-fighters-in-myanmars-sagaing/): Four civilians and a local militia member were found killed Monday after a three-day raid by junta troops and allied fighters on a village in northwestern Myanmar’s Sagaing region that saw 10,000 civilians flee the area, Myanmar sources say. The five victims, whose charred bodies were discovered after being left behind by departing junta soldiers, were buried by residents of Chaung-U township’s Nyaungbin Tae village when they returned following the attack, one local villager told RFA on Tuesday. A military column combining Myanmar military and fighters from the Pyu Saw Htee, a pro-junta armed group, had entered the village on Saturday, RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “When they arrived, all the villagers ran to safety, leaving only four or five people behind in the village,” the source said. “During the raid, one of the village guards was killed by artillery fire, but we weren’t able to recover his body until the soldiers left the village on June 20. “We later found all the bodies and buried them yesterday,” the source said. Killed in Nyaungbin Tae by junta troops and allied fighters were 20-year-old Toe Naing Win, a member of a local People’s Defense Force unit set up to oppose junta rule; Paw Kyi, 52, whose body was found burned in a house; and 37-year-old Ne Win and 49-year-old Pyay Aye, whose bodies were found in a cornfield nearby, sources said. The body of Aung Min, 48, was later found outside the village, they said. The June 18 raid on the village was carried out by a force of around 80 junta soldiers, all in plain clothes, a local anti-junta militia member told RFA, also declining to be named. “There was no fighting, no clash,” the source said. “They entered the village after shelling it with heavy weapons, and one of our comrades was killed by an artillery shell. Two others were injured, one in the hand and the other on his body. “Four men were killed in the village altogether, three of them when their house was set on fire. One other man was shot dead in the road when he would not carry the soldiers’ stuff,” he said. The soldiers may have been attached to Light Infantry Battalions 357, 368 and 369, and were accompanied by pro-junta fighters from the Pyu Saw Htee pro-junta militia, he added. Before leaving Nyaungbin Tae, soldiers looted the village’s nearly 275 homes of cash, jewelry and other valuables, villagers said. &#8216;We all had to run&#8217; Also speaking to RFA, a 70-year-old villager confirmed that junta soldiers had attacked Nyaungbin Tae with heavy weapons. “We all had to run, and older women who could not run had to be taken away on motorcycles,” the villager said, also speaking on condition of anonymity. “One woman who was paralyzed had to be left behind in the village,” he said. “The men who were killed were too attached to their livestock and refused to leave. They were seized and killed. Now I don’t even want to hear anything about the army, and I don’t want to see them,” he added. Requests for comment by junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Htun received no reply. Sagaing has been the scene of some of the fiercest fighting to take place between junta troops and opposition forces since Myanmar’s military overthrew civilian rule in a February 2021 coup. Villagers say junta forces have indiscriminately attacked communities, killing civilians, torching homes and forcing thousands to flee in search of safety. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane for RFA Burmese. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [China's Hebei province moves to suppress media reporting in wake of Tangshan attacks](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-hebei-province-moves-to-suppress-media-reporting-in-wake-of-tangshan-attacks/): Authorities in the northern Chinese province of Hebei have launched a crackdown on &#8220;fake news,&#8221; in a move commentators said was likely a bid to suppress widespread reporting of the vicious beatings of women at a barbecue restaurant in Tangshan earlier this month. The Hebei provincial state prosecutor, internet regulator, state-run journalists&#8217; association and radio, film and television bureau issued a joint notice launching &#8220;a special campaign targeting fake news and extortion in journalism,&#8221; vowing to crack down on &#8220;fake media, fake reporters and fake news.&#8221; The move comes amid social media reports that Tangshan police have been obstructing state media journalists as they try to follow up on a crackdown on organized crime in the city sparked by public outrage at the beating incident. Its scope mirrors a campaign announced at the national level in the summer of 2021. &#8220;[These government departments] have launched a special campaign against fake news and journalistic extortion,&#8221; the provincial government website said in a report published June 16. &#8220;The chief task of this &#8230; campaign will be to crack down on journalistic extortion and fake news, investigate and punish fake media, fake reporters, and fake bureaus, and rectify &#8216;paid-for news&#8217;,&#8221; the report said. The campaign will be led by a taskforce in the propaganda department of the provincial branch of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), it said. Chinese journalist Lu Nan said the provincial authorities&#8217; move to adopt the nationwide campaign is likely a direct attempt to shut down independent accounts of the Tangshan beatings and the anti-crime campaign that followed. &#8220;They don&#8217;t want to solve problems using the rule of law, but just move to solve law-enforcement issues with non-legal means, moving straight to &#8216;strike hard&#8217; campaigns,&#8221; Lu told RFA. &#8220;All this means is that they want to keep up their total control over public expression,&#8221; he said. Pressure on media Lu cited the case of the Guizhou TV reporter detained and interrogated by police after arriving at the Tangshan railway station. &#8220;Just a few days ago, they were interrogating [journalists] one by one as they arrived in Tangshan, and even treated some journalists roughly who went to report there,&#8221; Lu said. &#8220;The only reason for doing such things is to cover up the truth.&#8221; Hebei-based scholar Wang Zheng agreed, saying the move was an indirect way of putting pressure on news organizations and social media sites. &#8220;Why do they want to crack down on fake news? Because they are the ones who are fake,&#8221; Wang told RFA. &#8220;Some people want to report the truth, maybe citizen journalists, but they won&#8217;t be allowed.&#8221; &#8220;Sometimes citizen journalists will volunteer to cover a certain story, sometimes for a fee, given that they have to take risks, that&#8217;s very reasonable,&#8221; he said. A Zhejiang-based journalist surnamed Jiang said the local authorities are clearly keen to avoid any follow-up reporting of the Tangshan beatings, which prompted widespread shock and anger on social media. &#8220;Naturally they need to lay down the law and frighten the media so as to suppress any follow-up reporting on the Tangshan beating incident,&#8221; Jiang said. &#8220;This comes along with the deletion of tens of thousands of posts from Sina Weibo relating to Tangshan in the past couple of days, and the closure of tens of thousands of accounts.&#8221; He added: &#8220;Shanghai lawyers have also gotten a notice from the municipal justice bureau saying they are banned from representing any of the victims of the Tangshan beatings,&#8221; Jiang said. Two beaten women still in hospital Two of the four women beaten by a gang of thugs at the restaurant remain in hospital 11 days after the attack, despite claims from the authorities that they had sustained &#8220;second degree minor injuries.&#8221; The deputy chief of the Tangshan police Lubei branch, which was responsible for the initial handling of the case, has been fired, while the authorities have promised an investigation into the slow response to incidents and “serious violations of laws and discipline” by Tangshan&#8217;s police department. Police arrived at the scene 28 minutes after they received the report, by which time the injured had already been sent to hospital. Video footage of the incident showed four women who had been eating at a late-night barbecue restaurant being brutally attacked by a group of men in the early hours of June 10, after one of them harassed a woman, who flapped a hand at her harasser and fought back after she was slapped, prompting the others to join in to repel the man. The attackers shoved the women to the ground, kicked them, threw a chair at them, and later dragged one of the women out of the restaurant to continue beating her outside. One was taken away on a stretcher with a visibly bloodied and swollen face. The claim that the women sustained &#8220;minor injuries&#8221; was met with skepticism on social media. But the CCP-backed Global Times said the official classification of &#8220;minor injuries&#8221; could include anything up to broken ribs, perforated eyeballs or rupture of tissues and organs. Nine suspects &#8211; seven men and two women &#8211; were formally arrested on June 12, it said. It said five officials are being investigated for by the CCP&#8217;s own discipline inspection and supervision arm, including Ma Aijun, the head of the public security bureau of Lubei district in Tangshan. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Number of Chinese nationals seeking asylum grows tenfold under Xi Jinping](https://ij-reportika.com/number-of-chinese-nationals-seeking-asylum-grows-tenfold-under-xi-jinping/): The number of Chinese nationals seeking political asylum overseas has skyrocketed under ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping, according to a recent report. Figures released by the United Nations&#8217; refugee agency UNHCR showed that while around 12,000 Chinese nationals sought asylum overseas in 2012, the year that Xi took office as CCP general secretary, that number had rising to nearly 120,000 by 2021. &#8220;Year by year since Xi Jinping came to power, in lockstep with a more oppressive system of governance, the number of asylum-seekers from China has continued to grow at an alarming rate,&#8221; the overseas-based rights group Safeguard Defenders reported on its website. &#8220;In 2020, and now with new figures just released for 2021, it shows continued growth despite COVID restrictions,&#8221; it said. In total, around 730,000 Chinese nationals have sought asylum since 2012, with more than 170,000 living outside China under refugee status, the report said. &#8220;Seeking asylum is for many a desperate act, reserved for those with few other options, which does not apply to the great many Chinese who have moved, and continue to do so, to the U.S, Australia, and beyond, often via naturalization, work visas or property purchases,&#8221; Safeguard Defenders said. The U.S. remains the most popular destination, accepting 88,722 applicants from mainland China last year. Australia took 15,774 asylum-seekers in the same year, the figures showed. Thousands also apply for asylum in Canada, Brazil, South Korea, and the U.K. Transnational repression The group warned of a growing risk of transnational repression, including the use of involuntary returns, now that a growing number of Chinese nationals have fled the country. Safeguard Defenders researcher Jing-jie Chen said the data also reflect the impact of Xi&#8217;s zero-COVID policy, that has led to grueling lockdowns and draconian restrictions of people&#8217;s movements under the guise of disease control and prevention. &#8220;China has basically been in a state of lockdown during the past couple of years that these data are from, and it is actually very difficult for asylum seekers to go abroad,&#8221; Chen told RFA. &#8220;Yet we can see that the number has reached a new high &#8230; with the number of asylum seekers rising every year over the past three years.&#8221; The figures don&#8217;t include Hong Kong, where a draconian crackdown on public dissent and peaceful political opposition has been under way under a national security law imposed by Beijing since July 1, 2020. Chen said many more people are voting with their feet and opting to emigrate from China, either through overseas study or investment visas and residency cards. World Uyghur Congress spokesman Dilxat Raxit said many of the asylum-seekers are Uyghurs fleeing a network of concentration camps and technological totalitarianism in the northwestern region of Xinjiang. He said overseas Uyghurs remain at risk from the Chinese authorities. &#8220;Uyghurs in exile are constantly at risk from China putting pressure on their countries of residence to detain and forcibly return them,&#8221; Dilxat Raxit said. &#8220;We call on the international community to continue to take measures to provide Uyghurs at risk with adequate protection,&#8221; he said, adding that many Uyghur asylum-seekers had been unable to renew expired passports and sometimes had trouble documenting the oppression they suffered back home. Foxhunt and Skynet Chen said the CCP has a coordinated international operation called &#8220;Operation Foxhunt&#8221; to force Chinese nationals to return home. &#8220;Since Xi Jinping took office, he has brought the &#8216;foxhunt&#8217; plan for the global oppression of dissidents that extends internationally,&#8221; Chen said. &#8220;If you only have a simple immigrant residency status, you may not be able to actually be protected in some countries,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Sometimes, asylum and refugee status application can offer more protection.&#8221; The CCCP&#8217;s law enforcement agencies routinely track, harass, threaten and repatriate people who flee the country, many of them Turkic-speaking Uyghurs, under its SkyNet surveillance program that reaches far beyond China&#8217;s borders, using a variety of means to have them forcibly repatriated. Beijing often relies on pliant allies to circumvent criminal justice processes and ensure political refugees and Muslims are sent back. China will target ethnic groups like the Uyghurs, but also political dissidents, rights activists, journalists and former officials using its overseas networks, according to a 2021 report by Safeguard Defenders. Between the launch of the SkyNet program in 2014 and June 2021, China repatriated nearly 10,000 people from 120 countries and regions, the report said. Yet according to Safeguard Defenders, just one percent are brought back to China using judicial procedures; more than 60 percent are just put on a plane against their will. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Two children killed in explosion in Gangaw Township](https://ij-reportika.com/two-children-killed-in-explosion-in-gangaw-township/): Two seven-year-old children were killed when an unexploded ordnance went off while they were playing with it, residents of Kan village, in Gangaw township, Magway region told RFA.  Residents said Pyae Sone Aung and Min Htut Zaw did not know what the ordnance was. They found it after junta forces left their village on Sunday evening. One local told RFA the shell suddenly went off while the children were playing with it, killing both of them. “It was an explosion of a 40 mm bomb,” the resident said. “The children found it and were playing with it by picking it up and throwing it. I think it hit a stone and exploded and killed them.” Around 74 soldiers from Gangaw township in Magway region and more than 100 soldiers from Kale township in Sagaing region camped near Kan village for two days. Residents believe the ordnance was a 40 mm grenade, left behind by the soldiers from Kale Township. More than 98 vehicles carrying solders arrived in Gangaw township on June 17, locals told RFA. They were carrying out military scorched-earth operations in villages, including Kan where the blast took place.  Calls to a military council spokesman by RFA went unanswered on Tuesday.
- [Protestant family of 13 expelled from their village](https://ij-reportika.com/protestant-family-of-13-expelled-from-their-village/): A family of 13 in Vietnam’s Nghe An province say they are being persecuted by local authorities for religious reasons. They told RFA at least one child was denied a birth certificate because the parents refused to renounce Protestantism. On June 15, Xong Ba Thong, from Na Ngoi commune in Ky Son district, sent a report to the Evangelical Church of Vietnam (Northern region). The report said his family faced persecution in Ka Bottom village even though it had been granted approval to join a legal religious organization. Expelled for following Christianity According to RFA research, the family of 26-year-old Xong Ba Thong has lived in this area for generations. The ethnic Hmong family had traditionally followed the local custom of ghost-worshiping. Thong said that around 2017, his entire family including his parents, younger siblings and himself voluntarily converted to Protestantism after learning about the religion through radio broadcasts. Around 2019, local authorities began demanding that the family renounce Protestantism and forced them to return to the local custom. “They said that here in Ky Son district, Na Ngoi commune and the whole of Nghe An province, no one followed a religion, but they said it was against the law to follow another religion. They also said that [by following Protestantism] we have greatly affected national unity,&#8221; Thong said. The family wanted to be officially converted to Protestantism and applied to join the Vietnam Evangelical Church (Northern) General Assembly. The application was approved in April this year. Instead of acknowledging the church’s approval and allowing Mr. Thong&#8217;s family to convert, local authorities increased pressure on them to try to force them to give up their religious beliefs. Local officials repeatedly visited their house to try to persuade family members to renounce Protestantism. They also repeatedly summoned Thong to the commune headquarters for “work”, including spending time with the cadres of Ky Son district on May 17. Thong said the “work” revolved around the request for his family to renounce Protestantism. “The day I met the district delegation, I read the law on belief and religion to them all and showed them all, but they said the law has no effect here, has no effect in the district, this province,” Thong said. Threats and sanctions for following a religion As well as putting pressure on the family, commune authorities also applied punitive measures. Sources told RFA local officials confiscated the family’s plow, which had been donated by the state for farming. They said local authorities took the plow because the family refused to renounce Protestantism and also confiscated some of the wood that the family had been planning to build a house with. Although the family has more than one hectare of rice fields, they are afraid to cultivate it due to threats. They have now abandoned it fearing any crops they grew there would be destroyed. The local government has also cut off the electricity to their house for more than a week. “It’s true that I can raise cattle here, but when it comes to trading, they don&#8217;t let merchants come and buy anything from the family,” Thong said. “Now our money has gone, we don’t have enough to eat and drink. In hard times we can use rice as a reserve but there is no electricity to grind it.&#8221; The campaign against the family culminated on June 4, when the government held a vote to expel Xong Ba Thong&#8217;s family from the locality. According to Thong, no one dared to vote against the decision. As a result of the vote the government no longer considers the family to be local citizens, does not allow them to use public services and even refuses to issue citizenship and birth certificates to some family members. RFA made repeated calls to the party secretary and chairman of Na Ngoi commune to verify the information, but no one picked up the phone. RFA then contacted Tho Ba Re, Vice Chairman of Ky Son district, who had previously directly campaigned for Mr. Thong&#8217;s family to renounce their religion. After RFA mentioned the family’s situation he refused to comment saying he was not authorized by the district president. An RFA reporter also sent an email to the General Assembly of the Evangelical Church of Vietnam (North) to verify the information, but did not immediately receive a reply. The government mobilizes people &#8220;not to follow other religions&#8221; On May 1, Nghe An newspaper published an article about the An Dan model in Phu Kha 1 village, Na Ngoi commune, Ky Son district near the border with Laos. It was co-written by the Ky Son District Committee for Mass Mobilization and the Commanding Committee of District Military, Na Ngoi Border Guard Station, Na Ngoi Commune Party Committee. Phu Kha 1 village is located not far from Ka Bottom village, where Thong’s family live. According to the article the An Dan model steering committee aims to encourage families living in Phu Kha 1 village to abide by the law and the village&#8217;s covenant, which is not to listen to or follow “bad” propaganda. It also instructs them not to follow other religions but only the long-standing beliefs and customs of the Hmong people. A Hmong Protestant pastor in Lao Cai province who is currently taking refuge in Thailand, told RFA the expulsion of ethnic Hmong Protestants from their locality for refusing to renounce their religion is quite common “This kind of case happens a lot, and has happened for many years,” he said. “There have been many such cases and when an appeal is made to higher authorities such as the province and the central government, they answer that it is because the commune or village authorities do not understand the law or the constitution about religion. They say superiors will investigate but many households have asked their superiors to solve it and, in the end, nothing came of it.&#8221; The pastor also said that if households do not leave the locality after formal expulsion it will...
- [Social media comments express 'shock' over Tangshan police's treatment of reporters](https://ij-reportika.com/social-media-comments-express-shock-over-tangshan-polices-treatment-of-reporters/): Authorities in the northern Chinese city of Tangshan have been obstructing state media journalists after they tried to follow up on a crackdown on organized crime in the city, sparked by thugs beating up women at a barbecue restaurant earlier this month, social media reports said. In one video on Weibo, a woman faces the camera in the style of a news anchor and introduces a video clip of a Guizhou journalist who tried to cover the anti-gangs campaign in Tangshan, known as Operation Thunderstorm. &#8220;I am a reporter,&#8221; the woman says. &#8220;According to the Regulations on News Reporters, journalists who carry a press card are protected by law when carrying out their reporting duties. Individuals and organizations are prohibited from interfering or harassing a reporter or a news organization in carrying out legal reporting activities.&#8221; &#8220;Despite this, journalists who go to Tangshan to cover the campaign against organized crime, are running into obstructions at the hands of the campaign itself.&#8221; In the video clip, the Guizhou journalist said he was shoved around and manhandled by police. &#8220;A police officer yelled at me, twisted my neck, roughly pressed my hair, told me to kneel, and put my hands behind my back,&#8221; the man says in the video clip. &#8220;Four or five police officers surrounded me and searched me.&#8221; &#8220;They confiscated my cell phone, power bank and other items.&#8221; He added: &#8220;When I showed my press card a policeman came into the interrogation room where they were holding me and yelled at me &#8230; calling me unqualified &#8230; and ignorant.&#8221; Reporter targeted Weibo user @Brother_He,_Shaanxi commented that such behavior was more appropriate when &#8220;catching criminals.&#8221; &#8220;But sadly, the police in Tangshan did not target the underworld forces this time, but a reporter who had a press card,&#8221; the user wrote. &#8220;According to various media reports &#8230; it is very difficult to enter Tangshan now. When you arrive at Tangshan Station, you cannot move around freely. You need to take a designated vehicle, and you must take a photo with the car before leaving,&#8221; the post said. The woman in the video also cited a Phoenix news reporter as saying that authorities in Tangshan had deleted all of his video footage, claiming he was there to &#8220;make money.&#8221; &#8220;What&#8217;s even more shocking is that you might think that they would take a bit more care of [state broadcaster] CCTV, but that several CCTV news vehicles have been smashed up,&#8221; she says. &#8220;Yes, that&#8217;s right. CCTV news vehicles. Pretty outrageous, huh?&#8221; @Albert_Qiang commented: &#8220;Tangshan is rebelling!&#8221; while @Cai_Xukun&#8217;s_mother-in-law wrote: &#8220;Isn&#8217;t it a bit of a joke asking the police to go after criminal gangs? They are a criminal gang.&#8221; &#8220;Operation Thunderstorm is blocking the news with its thunder,&#8221; user @Hongru_hrh quipped, while @JOHN-976 added: &#8220;If you can&#8217;t solve the problem, then go after the people asking about the problem.&#8221; The reports prompted criticism of the journalists from professor Liu Qingyue of the media studies department of Beimin University in the central province of Hubei, who wrote on the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-backed account Jinri Toutiao that &#8220;a press card isn&#8217;t an access-all-areas pass.&#8221; Social media backlash Liu said the journalists should reflect on their own behavior in traveling to a sensitive area, prompting an angry backlash on social media. Veteran journalist Cheng Yizhong, who edited the once cutting-edge Southern Metropolis Daily newspaper, said Liu was just acting as a &#8220;mouthpiece&#8221; for what is CCP policy. &#8220;What this professor said strikes exactly the same tone as the CCP propaganda department,&#8221; Cheng told RFA. &#8220;She is just a mouthpiece.&#8221; &#8220;The CCP has already eradicated all &#8230; possibility of freedom of the press in China &#8230; and journalism departments in universities have been brought totally in line [with the government],&#8221; he said. Cheng said all news stories are seen as political in the eyes of the CCP. &#8220;After an incident like Tangshan happens, local news agencies will receive a ban from the local authorities, usually communicated by phone call or verbally, warning news organizations not to do any reporting on their own, but to rely on approved copy circulated by the centrally controlled news media,&#8221; Cheng said. Current affairs commentator Johnny Lau, who once worked as a journalist in Beijing, said the reactions to Liu&#8217;s comments indicate growing public dissatisfaction with official controls on free speech. &#8220;The CCP controls the media and public speech, not only through its machinery of suppression, but also through its public opinion management &#8230; which means that it controls a group of people who will endorse official policy,&#8221; Lau told RFA. &#8220;The backlash [against Liu&#8217;s comments] is part of public dissatisfaction with the entire CCP public opinion industry,&#8221; he said. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Hong Kong's new leadership to keep up hard line on dissent, political opposition](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kongs-new-leadership-to-keep-up-hard-line-on-dissent-political-opposition/): Hong Kong&#8217;s new leadership-in-waiting will continue to focus on a &#8220;national security&#8221; crackdown when it takes office on July 1 under incoming leader John Lee, whose cabinet were confirmed by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Beijing at the weekend. Lee, a former high-ranking policeman and government security chief, has said the ongoing crackdown on dissent under the national security law will be his &#8220;fundamental mission&#8221; when he takes over from chief executive Carrie Lam. Lee, who was the only candidate in an &#8220;election&#8221; for the city&#8217;s top job held earlier this year, has pledged to keep up the hard-line approach to dissent, which has led to the closure of civic groups including labor unions, pro-democracy newspapers and an organization that once organized annual candlelight vigils for the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. More than 10,000 people have been arrested and the 2,800 prosecuted under the national security law, which was imposed on the city by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from July 1, 2020. Among them are 47 former pro-democracy politicians and activists awaiting trial for &#8220;subversion&#8221; after they took part in a democratic primary election in July 2020. The government later postponed the Legislative Council elections the primary was preparing for and changed the electoral system so that pro-democracy candidates couldn&#8217;t run. His incoming chief secretary Eric Chan, security chief Chris Tang and secretary for constitutional and mainland affairs Erick Tsang all have backgrounds in either the security or disciplinary services, and have been sanctioned by the U.S. government for their role in the crackdown. Lee&#8217;s cabinet received the nod from Beijing amid growing indications that CCP leader Xi Jinping may be planning to visit Hong Kong to mark the 25th anniversary of the city&#8217;s handover to Chinese rule. The South China Morning Post newspaper and the HK01.com news website said Lee and his team will immediately go into a &#8220;closed-loop&#8221; quarantine bubble, to ensure they are free from COVID-19 ahead of the ceremony, while the Ming Pao reported that some schools have been told to bring students for &#8220;pick-up and drop-off&#8221; ceremonies at the airport on June 30 and July 1. Funds from mainland China have been pouring into the Hong Kong stockmarket in recent weeks, boosting the Hang Seng Index ahead of a Xi visit that many think is likely based on his visit on the 20th anniversary of the handover. Hong Kong Chief Executive-elect John Lee (L) poses for photos with Chief Executive Carrie Lam during their meeting at the Central Government Complex ahead of a press conference in Hong Kong, May 9, 2022. Credit: AFP Disapproval of Lam Current affairs commentator Johnny Lau said this visit will be far more important to Xi than his 2017 trip. &#8220;This time will be very different from 2017, because it&#8217;s the 25th anniversary, which is half of the 50 years [China promised to maintain Hong Kong&#8217;s way of life],&#8221; Lau told RFA. &#8220;China will seize this opportunity to vigorously publicize the feasibility and success of its one country, two systems concept &#8230; even if they haven&#8217;t reached zero-COVID,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Also, the international community is also concerned about what will happen to Hong Kong in the future,&#8221; Lau said. &#8220;If Xi Jinping visits Hong Kong, it will show that Hong Kong is still a place you can make a profit &#8230; as the Chinese economy is in great difficulty, and Hong Kong is still the main bridge for foreign capital to enter China.&#8221; &#8220;Focusing on the economy and less on politics and security is good for Hong Kong in terms of atmosphere,&#8221; he said, adding that the trip should boost Xi&#8217;s image ahead of the 20th CCP National Congress later this year, when Xi is expected to seek an unprecedented third term in office. Lam is leaving her post under a cloud of disapproval after the 2019 protest movement that sparked Beijing&#8217;s crackdown on the city. The movement started with a mass protest that blockaded Hong Kong&#8217;s Legislative Council (LegCo) on June 12, preventing lawmakers from getting into the chamber to pass the hugely unpopular legal amendment that would have allowed the extradition of alleged criminal suspects to mainland China. However, Lam refused to withdraw the amendment until several months later, by which time the protest movement&#8217;s demands had broadened to include fully democratic elections and official accountability for the handling of the protests, as well as an amnesty for political prisoners. The protest was the first of many to be quelled that year by widespread police violence that saw the firing of tear gas and rubber bullets on an unarmed and peaceful crowd, many of whom were unable to flee, as well as mass arrests and physical beatings of mostly young people. &#8220;For us, the damage she did to Hong Kong during her time in office is beyond words,&#8221; former pro-democracy politician Clara Cheung told RFA in a recent interview. &#8220;Shame on her for not apologizing, as if it had nothing to do with her, for not admitting that damage, nor her responsibility for it.&#8221; Hardline leadership Cheung and fellow pro-democracy activists in exile in the U.K. have written an open letter refusing to recognize John Lee as chief executive. &#8220;John Lee was one of the main forces behind the [crackdown] on the anti-extradition movement of 2019,&#8221; Cheung said. &#8220;He coordinated the crackdown, which used very cruel methods to suppress protesting citizens.&#8221; &#8220;On the one hand we feel angry, but we are also worried that things will get worse and worse in Hong Kong under his hardline leadership,&#8221; she said. The letter said that, under the new electoral rules that followed the democratic primary, only the 1,461 members of the Election Committee have any meaningful vote, out of the city&#8217;s population of 7.4 million people, and described Lee as a &#8220;puppet chief executive&#8221; appointed by Beijing with scant popular support. U.K.-based activist Finn Lau said it was significant that Lee would assume office on the 25th anniversary. &#8220;This year happens to mark the 25th anniversary of the handover, which is...
- [North Korean marketplaces go from bustling to empty during pandemic](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korean-marketplaces-go-from-bustling-to-empty-during-pandemic/): In the photo of Sinpo Market in Sinuiju, taken on November 2019 (top), the market was crowded with merchants and customers, but in March 2021 (middle) the market seems noticeably quieter after blockade of the NK-China border. / Source: Google Earth. On the other hand, the satellite image that was taken on May 30th 2022 (bottom) shows no vehicles or people around the market due to full lockdown to prevent the spread of Covid. / Source: Planet Labs PBC Commerce in North Korea’s once bustling marketplaces has slowed to a trickle thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, raising questions about the long-term prospects for Kim Jong Un’s experimental effort to give citizens a bit more economic freedom. Marketplaces, called jangmadang in Korean, had dramatically expanded under the watchful eye of the North Korean dictator, who has sought to kick start the beginnings of a market economy in the communist country. But those plans took a hit when Beijing and Pyongyang closed the Sino-Korean border and suspended all trade in January 2020 in response to the pandemic. The lack of imported goods to trade meant fewer things to sell at markets. The border closure has devastated the country’s economy, which had already suffered under international sanctions aimed at depriving Pyongyang of resources it could funnel into nuclear and missile programs. While a resumption of rail freight with China earlier this year had brought on hopes of recovery, the “maximum emergency” declared by Pyongyang after officials announced that the virus was spreading among participants of a massive April military parade killed activity at the markets altogether, satellite images show. ‘Chaeha Market’ in Sinuiju, North Pyongan Province, North Korea. In the photo taken on October 7, 2016 (above), cars were parked in the parking lot, but in the photo taken on March 17, 2021 (below), the parking lot is empty and there is no activity./ Google Earth Jacob Bogle, curator of the Access DPRK blog, which uses satellite imagery in its analysis of North Korea, told RFA’s Korean Service that the markets have seen a massive downturn since the pandemic. According to Bogle, an analysis of satellite images shows that there are at least 477 markets in North Korea, of which 457 are official markets recognized by North Korean authorities.  Markets have continued to grow in North Korea since Kim Jong Un came to power. At least 39 markets have opened and 114 markets have expanded since 2011, Bogle said. But the growth stopped once the pandemic hit, he said. The chart shows the total area of the new markets constructed each year. / Source: Jacob Bogle (AccessDPRK.com) “In 2019, there was over 23,000 square meters of new market space built around the country. By 2021, it was only 630 square meters of new space,” Bogle said. “I think there&#8217;s a clear connection with market activity and the impacts of COVID and shutting down trade that it greatly impacted the economy,” he said. The import ban had its biggest impact on those markets near the border, Joung Eunlee of the Seoul-based Korea Institute for National Unification told RFA. “It seems that the market has contracted more because supply has decreased a lot due to the COVID-19 situation, “ Joung said. The border closure did not completely kill off the markets, though. Most were able to continue in some capacity with domestically made products. The coronavirus outbreak has taken a “decisive blow” on the North Korean economy, Lim Eul Chul, a professor at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University in South Korea’s southeast. Markets in North Korea / Source: Jacob Bogle (AccessDPRK.com) “Mobility must be guaranteed for a market to a certain extent, but since mobility is not guaranteed, the market inevitably shrinks. Second, raw materials, fuel, and various subsidiary materials must be smoothly supplied from China,” Lim said. “Without these, market activities shrink. North Korea under COVID-19 is in an environment that is difficult to control. The situation itself can only result in a shrinking market,” he said. The apparent end of the emerging free market in North Korea may be permanent, Jiro Ishimaru, the founder and editor-in-chief of the Osaka-based Asia Press news outlet that specializes in North Korea, told RFA. “At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, controls rapidly tightened. First of all, they continued to put pressure on food sales, and gradually introduced a system to sell food through state-run food vendors,” he said. “It was then that people started saying that they felt like the era of free trade and free economic activity in the market is coming to an end,” Ishimaru said. Ishimaru said that the state could be using the pandemic to assert more control over the economy and the people. At the 8th Party Congress in January 2021, Kim Jong Un emphasized that the country and the people would have to get through the pandemic and its accompanying economic crisis through strict adherence to the principle of self-reliance, harkening to the country’s founding Juche ideology. Lim said this was the beginning of the state exerting more control on the market. “The national self-reliance is a more orderly self-reliance, that is, the market will also be led by the state. It aims for marketization that is managed and led by the state. As a result, the market is bound to contract,” he said. North Korea’s Tongil Market / AP Even with a market contraction and policy changes, North Koreans still want to conduct business, a North Korean refugee who now lives in Seoul, identified by the pseudonym Kim Hye Young, told RFA. Kim was a trade worker in North Korea prior to her escape. She says that a middle class used to higher living standards has developed in the country. “The demographic composition of North Korea has also changed to favor the jangmadang generation,” she said, referring to the generation that came of age after the marketplaces had become entrenched — in other words, millennials. “The younger generations are doing things that...
- [Low wages and soaring inflation push Laotians to Thailand](https://ij-reportika.com/low-wages-and-soaring-inflation-push-laotians-to-thailand/): Hundreds of Laotians are lining up daily outside the Lao Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Vientiane to apply for or renew passports so they can go to neighboring Thailand, where they hope to find better paying jobs and escape crippling inflation at home. Laotians say it has become increasingly difficult to eke out a living in their country, given the rising costs of gasoline, food and daily necessities. A government plan to increase the country’s monthly minimum wage from 1.1 million kip (U.S. $75) to 1.3 million kip (U.S. $88) likely won’t be enough to keep workers home. “How can we live on 1.3-million-kip salary in the current situation?” asked a garment factory worker in Savannakhet province, adding that the minimum monthly wage should be at least 2 million kip (U.S. $150) because consumer prices have doubled. “The increase is too small, and salaries are too low,” he told RFA on Thursday. “As soon as I get my passport, I’m going to Thailand where the salary is three times higher.” Laos’ inflation rate stood at 12.8% in May — one of the highest in Southeast Asia — with a record 9% increase during the first five months of the year compared to the same period in 2021, according to the Lao Statistics Bureau. A lack of fuel and the ongoing depreciation of the kip are to blame for soaring inflation. “The Lao currency, the kip, is now floating and continuously losing it value,” said a factory worker in Champassak province in southern Laos. “The government should take the financial and economic situation into account while raising the minimum wage. Wages should be balanced with the cost of living.” Prime Minister Phankham Viphavanh’s office on June 13 announced that the monthly minimum wage will increase to 1.2 million kip (U.S. $81) on Aug. 1. On May 1, 2023, it will increase to 1.3 million kip. “The government will speed up efforts to resolve the fragility of the macro-economy and normalize the situation,” Phankham said Monday at the start of the Lao National Assembly’s Third Ordinary Session, according to the local Vientiane Times. A member of the Lao Federation of Trade Unions said that his organization had asked the government to increase the minimum wage to 1.5 million kip (U.S $101) per month, but officials refused. “Inflation is too high, and the prices of all food and other goods are skyrocketing,” he told RFA. “The minimum wage is not enough for all living expenses. It might be enough only for fuel, but not for food.”  Some government officials at the provincial level also bemoaned the salary situation.  “A salary of 1.3 million kip is too low especially in current situation. We can’t live on that kind of income,” said an official from the Labor and Social Welfare Department of Luang Namtha province in northern Laos. The central government has raised the monthly minimum wage twice in the past seven years, in 2015 when the wage was 626,000 kip, and in 2018 when it was 900,000 kip. Laotians wait to submit passport applications to the Consular Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Vientiane, Laos, June 10, 2022. Credit: RFA Lining up for passports The current economic circumstances have prompted Laotians of working age to head next door to Thailand for better paying jobs. One Lao worker in Vientiane told RFA that in recent weeks he had observed about 500-600 mostly young people waiting each day outside the Foreign Affairs Ministry to submit passport applications, though the ministry was handling only 250-300 applicants. People arrived at the building the night before and slept on the sidewalk to ensure they would get in the next day, he said. “It’s crowded — packed,” said a young Laotian waiting in a long line to apply for a passport on Thursday. “The number of people lining up is growing. I’ve been in line since dawn.”  Officials are now accepting about 500 applications a day, up from 300 a couple of days ago to ease long waits, he said. Another passport applicant from Savannakhet province said there are long lines at the ministry because there is no online application process. Sisouphanh Manivanh, deputy director of the Foreign Ministry’s Consular Department, which processes passport applications and renewals, told RFA on Tuesday that more citizens began applying for passports after Laos reopened its borders in May, following COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. The department is adding more staff members and asking them to work overtime so they can accept more applications daily, he said. Meanwhile, Lao workers must deal with skyrocketing prices for gasoline, food and everyday products, which have nearly doubled, with the kip depreciating versus the Thai baht and other foreign currencies during the past five months. “Everything is bad now,” said one worker. “Our currency has depreciated, and the Thai baht is strong. We can earn at least U.S. $10 per day in Thailand, and every month if we earn U.S. $300 it means that we get about 5 million kip per month.” The factory worker in Savannakhet told RFA that the majority of young people in the province prefer going to Thailand to earn more money. “About 1,000 Thai baht is equivalent to more than 500,000 Lao kip or U.S. $30, so it is better than it is Laos now,” he said. “We’re facing gasoline shortages, and it’s also very expensive [in Laos].” Since land borders between Laos and Thailand were fully reopened on May 9, over 2,000 Laotians crossed the border daily compared to only 300 people during the first two weeks, according to a report issued by Thai customs officials on June 7. Laotians check their passport applications as they wait to submit them to the Consular Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Vientiane, Laos, June 10, 2022. Credit: RFA Crossing into Thailand Not everyone heading to Thailand is seeking a job. Lao tourists and commodities traders have also pushed up the number of people crossing the border, said a border guard...
- [Rohingya refugees are stuck in limbo a decade after violence forced them to flee](https://ij-reportika.com/rohingya-refugees-are-stuck-in-limbo-a-decade-after-violence-forced-them-to-flee/): More than 130,000 Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar’s Rakhine state remain stuck in makeshift camps that are often short of food and opportunity, unable to return to their homes after sectarian violence with Buddhists forced them to flee a decade ago. The communal fighting with ethnic Buddhists in Rakhine began on June 8, 2012, and spread across the state in western Myanmar, leaving more than 200 people dead and the communities of tens of thousands of Muslims burned. The refugees were forced to live in squalid settlements scattered around the state, including ones on the outskirts of Sittwe on the Bay of Bengal coast. Rohingya again faced mass violence in August 2017 when Myanmar forces brutally attacked communities in northern Rakhine. The attacks triggered an exodus of more than 740,000 people into neighboring Bangladesh, where they have also lived in sprawling settlements. Moe Moe An Ju, 37, who lives in Sittwe’s Thae Chaung camp, said she and her family do not get enough to eat and she cannot afford to send her five children to school. “There is no work here,” she told RFA. “When things went awry, I had to pawn my rations book the relief team had given me. We cannot live without eating, right? If we had curry one day, we’d have fish the next day. We have beef just once a month. Even for that, we have to try very hard. I can&#8217;t send my children to school because there is no money. How can we do that?” Before the violence of 2012, Moe Moe An Ju and her husband worked as bamboo traders in Sittwe’s Setyonzu industrial zone.   Many families have struggled like hers to make ends meet since they were forced to take refuge at the Thae Chaung internally displaced persons (IDP) camp, surviving on 500 kyats (27 U.S. cents) per person a day from the World Food Program.  Successive governments ruling Myanmar, a Buddhist-majority country of 54 million people, have ignored the plight of the Rohingya, despite calls by the members of the minority group to solve the problem. This includes the military junta that seized control from the elected government in a February 2021 coup. Fighting in Rakhine between the Myanmar military and the ethnic-Rakhine Arakan Army, as well as with People’s Defense Force militias battling junta forces following the coup, have left the Rohingya stuck in a no-man’s land. Those living in the camps say they are subject to a system of apartheid, sealed off from the rest of the country with barbed wire fencing and security checkpoints. Viewed by Myanmar as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, they are prohibited from leaving even though the camps lack jobs, educational opportunities and humanitarian aid. ‘We are still waiting’ Ten years since the 2012 violence, prospects for the Rohingya living in the camps have not improved, with many saying they continue to experience shortages of food and shelter. Faysal Mauk said he could not find work on his own because the authorities do not allow the Rohingya to travel freely. “We are facing much hardship here,” he said. “We could at least find something to do in the old place, but not here. We could have food only if we went out to sea. Otherwise, we’d have nothing to eat.” “We could find some kind of work if we went to a Rakhine village, but after living here for 10 years, I no longer feel like going there,” he said. “We are so used to living in the camp now. When we can find something, we can have food. If not, we don’t.” Before June 2012, Fayzal and his family lived in Setyonzu, one of the areas along with Mingan and Magyee-myaing wards in Sittwe that were destroyed.  The Thae Chaung camp has more than 2,700 refugee households and a population of over 14,000. Other displaced Muslims from Thetkei-byin, Darpaing, Mawthinyar and Sanpya wards, west of Sittwe, are spread among 14 settlements.  After their homes were torched during the 2012 communal violence, ethnic Rakhines, who are predominantly Buddhist, moved into the communities abandoned by the Rohingya. Refugees said government officials have ignored their pleas to address this issue, along with other hardships they face. Kyaw Hla, who is in charge of the Thae Chaung camp, said the Rohingya still hope to return to their original places of residence one day. “Nothing has been done for more than 10 years now, but we are still waiting,” he said. “We will go back to our areas, our villages, and live again like we did before — just as we had lived and worked in the past, both Rakhines and non-Rakhines together. We still have our hopes, though it has not happened yet.” In the meantime, some Rohingya are borrowing money to pay traffickers to transport them via land or sea to Muslim-majority Malaysia where they believe a better life awaits, but more than 600 have been caught and arrested in the past six months.   RFA could not reach the military regime’s spokesmen for comment. &#8216;They have no future&#8217; Rohingya political activist Nay San Lwin, cofounder of the Free Rohingya Coalition, said Myanmar leaders have done nothing to help the Rohingya. “The main important thing is the goodwill of the rulers of the country, [but] they just want to oppress the Rohingya,” he said. “They just want to hurt them. They do not even recognize the Rohingya as human beings.&#8221; “People in the IDP camps in Sittwe are not refugees from other countries,” he said. “Their homes and belongings were set on fire. Their land was confiscated. These people have now been locked up in refugee camps for more than 10 years. They have no opportunities. They have no future, so I don’t think we need to talk further about how their human rights are being violated.” The situation for the Rohingya is unlikely to improve under the current military regime, said New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW).  “The Myanmar junta’s unyielding oppression of the Rohingya people...
- [Cambodian American activist Theary Seng transferred to remote prison](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-american-activist-theary-seng-transferred-to-remote-prison/): Authorities in Cambodia have transferred Cambodian American democracy activist Theary Seng to a remote prison, a move that her lawyer said will isolate her from her family and legal counsel. Theary Seng was arrested on Tuesday while she protested a mass trial that convicted her and more than 50 other democracy advocates on charges related to their association with the banned opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP). She began serving her six-year sentence for treason the same day at Prey Sar prison in the capital Phnom Penh. But prison authorities have confirmed to RFA that Theary Seng has since been transferred to Preah Vihear Prison in the country’s far north. “We have foreseen risks in keeping her in Phnom Penh, and for the sake of ensuring her security and to maintain public order, we transferred her to a higher security prison,” Nuth Savna, spokesman for the General Prison Department, told RFA’s Khmer Service on Friday. Theary Seng’s lawyer, Choung Chou Ngy, told RFA that the move could complicate an appeal, which would be reviewed by a court in Phnom Penh.   “The prison didn’t tell me why they transferred her. I don’t know the reason. … The transfer affects my rights to defend her because I lose opportunity to see her. She has the right to appeal, so I need to see her to explain to her about the process and her right to appeal,” he said. “If she decides to appeal, I will prepare a case for her,” Choung Chou Ngy said. “It is difficult for a lawyer to defend her while she is so far away and the court will have a problem because it has to transport her from Preah Vihear.” Choung Chou Ngy said that he was unable to see his client while she was held at Prey Sar, which he said was a violation of her rights. Marady Seng, Theary’s brother, told RFA that he was also unable to meet his sister while she was detained at the Phnom Penh prison. Officials cited COVID-19 restrictions as the reason, he said. “Since June 14, we have no new information. I have been concerned since her arrest I don’t have any information about her health or whether she was harmed. This is not justice,” he said. “What the government has done is too much. I urge the government to release her immediately.” Am Sam Ath of the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights told RFA that Theary Seng’s detention is another example of Prime Minister Hun Sen pressuring human rights advocates. “Putting her away from her family and friends will isolate her and impact her emotionally,” Am Sam Ath said. He noted that the government has used similar tactics to isolate incarcerated other opposition politicians and activists.  Theary Seng and the other convicted activists were all in some way connected to the Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP) before the country’s Supreme Court dissolved the party five years ago, a decision that paved the way for Hun Sen to tighten his grip on the country and squash criticism of his government.  The treason charges against the activists stem from abortive efforts in 2019 to bring about the return to Cambodia of CNRP leader Sam Rainsy, who has been in exile in France to avoid what his supporters say are politicized charges against him.  Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Charges against Chinese citizens' movement leader Xu Zhiyong 'trumped up': lawyers](https://ij-reportika.com/charges-against-chinese-citizens-movement-leader-xu-zhiyong-trumped-up-lawyers/): Detained democracy activist Xu Zhiyong will stand trial for subversion in the eastern Chinese province of Shandong on June 22, lawyers and a rights group said on Friday. &#8220;Linyi Intermediate People&#8217;s Court has decided that Xu Zhiyong&#8217;s case will be heard in Courtroom No. 3 of the Linshu County People&#8217;s Court at 9:00 am next Wednesday,&#8221; the Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) network said via its website and Twitter account, citing defense attorney Zhang Lei. Xu, who has already served jail time for launching the New Citizens&#8217; Movement for greater official accountability, was detained in early 2020 and held on suspicion of &#8220;subversion of state power&#8221; alongside Ding and other activists who held a dinner gathering in the southeastern port city of Xiamen on Dec. 13, 2019. Xu&#8217;s pretrial conference was held on Friday, with that of human rights lawyer Ding Jiaxi scheduled for Monday, lawyers told RFA, citing a document issued by Shandong&#8217;s Linyi Intermediate People&#8217;s Court. Both men were held incommunicado, denied permission to meet with either family members or a lawyer for two years, under &#8220;residential surveillance at a designated location&#8221; (RSDL) and criminal detention. They haven&#8217;t been seen or heard from since their indictments in August 2021. Trumped-up charges U.S.-based rights lawyer Wu Shaoping said the court has indicated that Xu and Ding will be tried separately. &#8220;According to the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Law, the two cases should be tried together, because they both resulted from the defendants attending the Xiamen gathering,&#8221; Wu told RFA. &#8220;I believe that most of the evidence in their cases is the same,&#8221; he said, questioning whether the two men would receive a fair trial, saying that the defense attorneys had been pressured into removing large amounts of &#8220;illegal&#8221; evidence from their case files in an impossibly short amount of time. &#8220;Really, the authorities just want to go through the motions and push this complicated case through a quick trial,&#8221; Wu said. Rights lawyer Wang Yu said Xu and Ding are being tried on trumped-up charges. &#8220;These are trumped-up charges, and &#8230; a lot of people in China want to hear the facts of the case &#8230; but the facts will only be established if there is a joint trial,&#8221; she said. CHRD had earlier called for Xu and Ding&#8217;s immediate and unconditional release, and for an independent investigation into their accounts of torture while in detention. &#8220;Xu and Ding have told their lawyers that Chinese authorities subjected them to torture and other ill-treatment,&#8221; the group said in a statement on its website. &#8220;CHRD reiterates its appeal to the UN experts to urge the [Chinese] government &#8230; to launch a prompt and impartial investigation of police officers and/or other state actors accused of subjecting Xu Zhiyong, Ding Jiaxi, and others to torture, and prosecute any individuals who have been found to have violated Chinese law and international law,&#8221; it said. Torture details Meanwhile, the Linyi municipal prosecutor&#8217;s office has moved ahead with the trial of Xu&#8217;s partner, the rights activist Li Qiaochu for &#8220;incitement to subvert state power.&#8221; The case against Li rests on claims that she wrote and edited Xu&#8217;s personal blog and uploaded articles he wrote there. Li, who was recently given the Cao Shunli Memorial Award for her rights activism, was initially detained on Feb. 6, 2021 on suspicion of &#8220;subversion of state power,&#8221; and held at the Linyi Detention Center, then at a psychiatric facility. Her detention came after she posted details of torture allegations by Xu and Ding. U.S.-based lawyer Teng Biao said that a documentary about Xu&#8217;s political activism, made by fellow activist and poet Chen Jiaping, will soon be available outside China. &#8220;It documents the whole of Xu Zhiyong&#8217;s civil rights protection movement &#8230; including many activities before he was imprisoned in 2013 and an interview after he was released from prison in 2017,&#8221; Teng told RFA. &#8220;Chen Jiaping, the director of the film, was arrested by the Chinese police for a period of time because of the film.&#8221; &#8220;Given that Xu Zhiyong&#8217;s pretrial conference is today, we wanted to let more people know what Xu Zhiyong did,&#8221; he said. Teng added: &#8220;Xu Zhiyong is a human rights lawyer and a legal scholar who played a very, very important role in the Chinese human rights movement by civil society. He was sentenced to 4 years in prison from 2013 to 2017. Now he is facing trial.&#8221; &#8220;A lot of citizens have come together in a very difficult and dangerous situation to campaign for basic human rights and the rule of law in China,&#8221; Teng said. Xu has never advocated violence, and has paid a very heavy price for advocating for his personal ideals, he said. &#8220;This current charge of subversion of state power is totally a case of political persecution &#8230; he didn&#8217;t commit any crime at all, of course he didn&#8217;t,&#8221; Teng said. &#8220;He is respected and followed by many people.&#8221; Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Taiwan boosts advanced chip plans, warns of high-tech fallout if China invades](https://ij-reportika.com/taiwan-boosts-advanced-chip-plans-warns-of-high-tech-fallout-if-china-invades/): Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) said on Friday it would join the race to make next-generation 2-nanometer chips by 2025, amid growing saber-rattling from China. The company said it would start volume production of the low-energy advanced chips within the next three years. Samsung and Intel have made similar announcements in recent months. &#8220;We are living in a rapidly changing, supercharged, digital world where demand for computational power and energy efficiency is growing faster than ever before, creating unprecedented opportunities and challenges for the semiconductor industry,&#8221; TSMC CEO C.C. Wei told the North America Technology Symposium. TSMC launched the 5nm process in 2020 and is scheduled to start commercial production of the 3nm process later this year in Tainan. The first 2-nm plant will be built in Hsinchu, with production to expand later to Taichung, the island&#8217;s Central News Agency reported on Friday. The announcement came after Taiwan&#8217;s chief trade negotiator John Deng warned that a potential Chinese invasion &#8212; increasingly threatened by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) &#8212; would lead to a global shortage of semiconductor chips. &#8220;The disruption to international supply chains; disruption on the international economic order; and the chance to grow would be much, much (more) significant than [the current shortage],&#8221; Deng told Reuters at a World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in Geneva this week. &#8220;There would be a worldwide shortage of supply.&#8221; &#8216;Special operation&#8217; fears Taiwan dominates the global market for the most advanced chips, with exports totaling U.S.$118 billion last year, Reuters reported, quoting Deng as saying he hopes to decrease the 40 percent share of the island&#8217;s exports that are currently being sold to China. While Taiwan has never been governed by the CCP, nor formed part of the People&#8217;s Republic of China, and its 23 million people have no wish to give up their sovereignty or democratic way of life, Beijing insists the island is part of its territory. Taiwan has raised its alert level since Russia invaded Ukraine, amid concerns that CCP leader Xi Jinping could use an invasion of the democratic island to boost flagging political support that has been dented by growing confrontation with the United States and draconian zero-COVID restrictions at home. Xi recently signed a directive allowing &#8220;non-war&#8221; uses of the military, prompting concerns that Beijing may be gearing up to invade the democratic island of Taiwan under the guise of a &#8220;special operation&#8221; not classified as war. &#8220;One interpretation is that, in doing this, Xi Jinping is copying Putin&#8217;s designation of the Ukraine war as a &#8216;special military operation&#8217;,&#8221; U.S.-based current affairs commentator Xia Yeliang told RFA. &#8220;Xi Jinping &#8230; wants to surpass Mao Zedong, and in doing that, he doesn&#8217;t think anyone is as good as him, not even Deng Xiaoping,&#8221; Xia said.  Collective leadership He said Xi is under huge political pressure from within party ranks, citing media reports and credible rumors from high-ranking sources within the CCP.&#8221;How&#8217;s he going to do that? Economically, the situation is already better than under Mao. So he means to liberate Taiwan, and fulfill Mao&#8217;s wish, the task that he was unable to complete himself.&#8221; &#8220;A lot of people don&#8217;t trust Xi and worry that he&#8217;s going to get China into trouble &#8230; they could replace him with a system of collective leadership. So what does Xi do in response? He tries to create an atmosphere of fear, threatening to go to war, that if the U.S. does this or that, we&#8217;ll make our move,&#8221; Xia said. &#8220;Xi Jinping wants to manufacture an external crisis; a sense that if we don&#8217;t invade Taiwan now, then the opportunity will be lost, so we have to move now. He wants everyone to support him as chairman of the Central Military Commission [ahead of] the CCP 20th National Congress,&#8221; he said. Tseng Chih-Chao, deputy secretary-general of Taiwan&#8217;s Chung-hwa Institution for Economic Research, said global shortages of a particular kind of chip have already put a spanner in the works of automakers around the world, and that TSMC currently holds a 90-percent global market share in advanced chips. &#8220;When we look at their main customers like Apple&#8217;s Nvidia chips, they are the most advanced chip manufacturers in the world,&#8221; Tseng said.  &#8220;Without TSMC, the entire high-tech industry around the world would cease to function, including all of the chips that go into iPhones or Apple computers,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Most importantly, there are no alternative suppliers who can make these chips anywhere in the world right now.&#8221; &#8220;If China launched an attack, it could cause serious damage in a very short period of time, that would be very difficult to rebuild, especially after the [likely] loss of technology, equipment and talent,&#8221; Tseng said. &#8220;So of course [Deng] was going to say this to the United States and other Western countries.&#8221; Taiwan&#8217;s foreign ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou said the island welcomed U.S. support, but stood ready to defend itself. &#8220;In the face continued military expansion and provocation from China, Taiwan has a high degree of determination and capability to defend itself,&#8221; Ou said on June 16. &#8220;[Our] government will continue to strengthen self-defense capabilities and asymmetric combat capabilities, maintain national security with solid national defense, and deepen Taiwan-US ties.&#8221; Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [ASEAN Special Envoy won’t meet Suu Kyi during Myanmar visit](https://ij-reportika.com/asean-special-envoy-wont-meet-suu-kyi-during-myanmar-visit/): ASEAN Special Envoy Prak Sokhonn will not be allowed to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi on his second visit to Myanmar, military council spokesman Gen. Zaw Min Tun told RFA. The National League for Democracy leader and State Counsellor has been detained since the Feb.1, 2021 coup. Suu Kyi has been sentenced to 11 years in jail on 19 counts and faces further charges that could keep her in prison for as long as 100 years. When asked about possible meetings with Suu Kyi, and former Myanmar president Win Myint, the spokesman said the ASEAN Special Envoy was only scheduled to meet with ethnic armed groups currently holding peace talks with the junta. “At this time, meeting with the appropriate and deserving people will be on schedule,” he said. “The people who deserve to be met do not include those who are being prosecuted and are on trial.” Sokhonn, who is also Cambodia’s Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, is scheduled to make his second visit to Myanmar as ASEAN Special Envoy on June 29 and 30. The focus of his visit will be the urgent need for humanitarian assistance in Myanmar but ASEAN leaders, including Cambodia’s Prime Minister, have called for meetings with Suu Kyi and officials from the shadow National Unity Government (NUG), considering talks with them to be key to resolving the conflict. The military council scheduled meetings between Sokhonn and some members of the National League for Democracy (NLD) during the Special Envoy’s first visit in March this year but cancelled meetings with some NLD members due to political opposition from NLD MPs who have left the country. Political analyst Ye Tun said the trip could not be considered a success if the ASEAN Special Envoy was not allowed to meet with Suu Kyi at a time when the situation in Myanmar is deteriorating. “He would be even more disappointed if he was not allowed to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi and if the military does not comply the Cambodian Prime Minister’s request not to impose the death penalty on former NLD MP Phyoe Zeya Thaw, and others,” he said. “Cambodia stands by the pressure being applied by ASEAN. If it comes to nothing during the trip the feeling will be that the Special Envoy cannot do anything effectively in his visit.” A file photo of Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn, who serves as ASEAN Special Envoy to Myanmar. CREDIT: AFP Cambodia is the current chair of ASEAN and, in a call with Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing on May 1, Prime Minister Hun Sen urged Myanmar’s junta chief to allow the special envoy to meet with Suu Kyi. He also asked the military leader to take further steps to implement the five-point consensus for Myanmar, reached with ASEAN&#8217;s foreign ministers in April 2021. Failure to achieve all the points in the consensus in more than a year has led to growing criticism at home and abroad and Sokhonn will use his second visit to focus on the sticking points in the agreement. Malaysia’s Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah has spoken up in global summits, calling for specific talks between the Special Envoy, Suu Kyi and NUG leaders, arguing that the five-point consensus includes an agreement to hold a dialogue with all stakeholders in Myanmar. Aung San Suu Kyi will spend her 77th birthday on June 19 in detention. During her 34-year political career she has been repeatedly arrested and prosecuted by successive military governments, spending 17 of her birthdays in detention. Pro-democracy activists are expected to mark the Nobel Laureate’s birthday on Sunday with nationwide protests, according to Crisis24. “The largest protests will probably occur outside government buildings and in other popular protest sites, such as public squares, in major cities like Yangon and Mandalay. Hundreds to thousands of people will probably participate in larger demonstrations,” the global security consultancy said in an alert on Thursday. Authorities are likely to step up security, causing disruption to transport and businesses, it said. Crisis24 also warned of the likelihood of clashes between protestors and security forces and the risk of explosions targeting security personnel and facilities, both in the countryside and in cities including Yangon, Mandalay, and Naypyidaw.
- [UK investigates Vietnamese billionaire's funding of Oxford University college](https://ij-reportika.com/uk-investigates-vietnamese-billionaires-funding-of-oxford-university-college/): The British government is investigating a £155 million (U.S.$191 million) grant to Oxford University’s Linacre college by a Vietnamese billionaire. Education Minister Michelle Donelan told the House of Commons that the ministry would give an update in the next few days after looking into the grant from VietJet founder Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao. Donelan’s comments came in response to questions from a fellow Tory MP as the House of Commons considered the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill on Monday, British media reported. Conservative MP Julian Lewis asked Donelan whether she was concerned at conditions set by the Vietnamese billionaire such as renaming Linacre ‘Thao College,’ considering Vietnam is a country where people seldom enjoy freedom of speech Dr. Nguyen Quang A, co-founder and former director of Vietnam&#8217;s Institute of Development Studies, told RFA businesses that want to prosper in countries such as Vietnam need to have a good relationship with the government. “In Vietnam and China officials use political power to make money from citizens and business owners. The relationship between businesses and the government is the crystallization of corruption. One party uses money to gain political influence and to enrich themselves while the official uses his power to enrich himself. That is corruption. This relationship is reciprocal,” he said. Responding to RFA’s questions by text, human rights activist Nguyen Thi Hai Hieu, a fifth-year student studying in the UK, said the British government&#8217;s suspicions were completely justified. She said she agreed with the decision to investigate the donation, adding that she suspects it to be a money-laundering case involving the Vietnamese government. Hieu said she believed that investing in colleges or supporting scholarships for Vietnamese students was a good idea but not necessary even though she considered the British education system to be better than Vietnam’s. She said Vietnam should prioritize investment in its own education system because there are many disadvantaged areas in the country, where equipment and facilities in schools are still limited. Thao signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Linacre College on October 31, 2021. After signing the MoU and receiving the first £50 million of the agreed funding, Linacre College said it would approach the Privy Council, a group of politicians who advise the Queen, to ask to change the school&#8217;s name to Thao College. Critics say that changing the school&#8217;s name would lose the history of the collage, named after Thomas Linacre, a British scholar, humanities researcher and physician. Linacre used to treat ‘Utopia’ author Sir Thomas More, along with Cardinal Wolsey, chief advisor to King Henry VIII.
- [Britain investigates Vietnamese billionaire's funding of Oxford University college](https://ij-reportika.com/britain-investigates-vietnamese-billionaires-funding-of-oxford-university-college/): The British government is investigating a £155 million (U.S.$191 million) grant to Oxford University’s Linacre college by a Vietnamese billionaire. Education Minister Michelle Donelan told the House of Commons that the ministry would give an update in the next few days after looking into the grant from VietJet founder Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao. Donelan’s comments came in response to questions from a fellow Tory MP as the House of Commons considered the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill on Monday, British media reported. Conservative MP Julian Lewis asked Donelan whether she was concerned at conditions set by the Vietnamese billionaire such as renaming Linacre ‘Thao College,’ considering Vietnam is a country where people seldom enjoy freedom of speech Dr. Nguyen Quang A, co-founder and former director of Vietnam&#8217;s Institute of Development Studies, told RFA businesses that want to prosper in countries such as Vietnam need to have a good relationship with the government. “In Vietnam and China officials use political power to make money from citizens and business owners. The relationship between businesses and the government is the crystallization of corruption. One party uses money to gain political influence and to enrich themselves while the official uses his power to enrich himself. That is corruption. This relationship is reciprocal,” he said. Responding to RFA’s questions by text, human rights activist Nguyen Thi Hai Hieu, a fifth-year student studying in the UK, said the British government&#8217;s suspicions were completely justified. She said she agreed with the decision to investigate the donation, adding that she suspects it to be a money-laundering case involving the Vietnamese government. Hieu said she believed that investing in colleges or supporting scholarships for Vietnamese students was a good idea but not necessary even though she considered the British education system to be better than Vietnam’s. She said Vietnam should prioritize investment in its own education system because there are many disadvantaged areas in the country, where equipment and facilities in schools are still limited. Thao signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Linacre College on October 31, 2021. After signing the MoU and receiving the first £50 million of the agreed funding, Linacre College said it would approach the Privy Council, a group of politicians who advise the Queen, to ask to change the school&#8217;s name to Thao College. Critics say that changing the school&#8217;s name would lose the history of the collage, named after Thomas Linacre, a British scholar, humanities researcher and physician. Linacre used to treat ‘Utopia’ author Sir Thomas More, along with Cardinal Wolsey, chief advisor to King Henry VIII.
- [Justice for Myanmar: Vietnamese telco helps junta track deserters](https://ij-reportika.com/justice-for-myanmar-vietnamese-telco-helps-junta-track-deserters/): Viettel has been helping Myanmar’s junta track civilians and military deserters, according to Justice for Myanmar (JFM), which called for immediate sanctions against Viettel Global Investment (VGI), a unit of Vietnam&#8217;s largest mobile carrier. Viettel is owned by Vietnam&#8217;s defense ministry and VGI holds a stake in Telecom International Myanmar, which runs mobile company Mytel. “Mytel … is a key pillar in the Myanmar military’s business network, providing revenue, technology and surveillance capabilities,” JFM said in a news release. The activist group said leaked documents show Mytel has been working with military commanders to offer customized phone numbers to personnel that include their ID number. Over four years Mytel has given hundreds of thousands of free SIM cards to military personnel, as well as civil servants and members of the former National League for Democracy government, enabling the military to monitor them, Justice for Myanmar said. &#8220;Mytel is a product of the Myanmar military’s systemic corruption, supporting war criminals including Min Aung Hlaing and the illegal military junta that he is heading, with revenue, technology and intelligence,” Justice for Myanmar spokesperson Yadanar Maung told RFA by email. Analysis shows that Myanmar’s military is set to earn more than U.S.$700 million from Mytel over 10 years, using the profits to fund continued war crimes and crimes against humanity, the report said.  The spokesperson said the Vietnamese military also stands to benefit from its stake in Mytel&#8217;s parent company through access to data military infrastructure, including bases for mobile phone towers and the Myanmar military’s fiber optic cable network. “In seeking profits, military generals have handed the Vietnam Ministry of National Defence unprecedented access to military secrets, including personnel data and access to military bases. This is data that was not even available to the previous National League for Democracy-led government or the parliament that the military has attempted to dispose of. It includes the names, ranks and ID of personnel at a national level, organized by military base, and the personal call data of the majority of Myanmar military personnel,” Maung said. &#8220;While Vietnam is an ally of Myanmar&#8217;s militaristic regime, Viettel and the Ministry of National Defense of Vietnam can use and misuse this data if desired, even in their own national interest,” Yadanar Maung said. Justice for Myanmar called for immediate targeted sanctions against Mytel owner Telecom International Myanmar as well as Viettel Global Investment. It also called for an immediate boycott of Mytel to stop money flowing into the pockets of the military. RFA emailed Viettel to ask for their comments on the report but did not immediately receive a response. Following the military coup in February last year, many soldiers and police defected to join the civil disobedience campaign. JFM claimed they were still being monitored by military authorities with the help of Mytel’s sim cards. JFM said Mytel’s profits should not be used by Myanmar’s military to buy weapons and equipment to target the opposition but should be used to serve the interests of the people. In December 2020, Justice for Myanmar released documents it said showed that Viettel was supporting the modernization of Myanmar&#8217;s military through technology transfers and training, to improve the technical capacity of the military.  Therefore, &#8220;Viettel and the Ministry of National Defense of Vietnam are contributing to military operations in ethnic Myanmar areas and supporting and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity,&#8221; JFM said. More than 1,900 people including children have been killed by the military, and more than 11,000 people have been detained and tortured, JFM said, citing the Myanmar Association for the Support of Political Prisoners.
- [Political prisoner executions would backfire on Myanmar junta, say analysts](https://ij-reportika.com/political-prisoner-executions-would-backfire-on-myanmar-junta-say-analysts/): As talk that Myanmar’s junta was set to hang veteran democracy activist Ko Jimmy and three other men went viral on social media Thursday, other junta opponents and analysts said carrying out the executions would backfire against the military regime that has ruled the country since a coup last year. The rumored executions at dawn Thursday did not take place, but critics said carrying out death penalties handed down after brief, closed trials on terrorism charges would bring more international opprobrium and galvanize domestic opposition against the unpopular junta. &#8220;There will be calls for more pressure against the junta in the international arena, and the junta will find it more difficult to impose their rule on young people across the country,” Aung Moe Zaw, chairman of the Democratic Party for New Society, told RFA. “I think more people will be out on the streets,&#8221; he added. On June 3, Ko Jimmy, lawmaker Phyo Zeyar Thaw of the National League for Democracy party that was banned after the military overthrew the country’s elected government on Feb. 1, 2021, and two other men lost appeals of their death sentences. The junta rejected the possibility of a pardon for the condemned men. Ko Jimmy, whose real name is Kyaw Min Yu, was a prominent leader of the pro-democracy 88 Generation Students Group who fought military rule three decades ago. The 53-year-old activist was arrested in October after spending eight months in hiding and was convicted by a military tribunal in January under the Counter-Terrorism Law. He was accused of contacting the National Unity Government (NUG), and People’s Defense Force (PDF), an opposition coalition and militia network formed by politicians ousted in the Feb. 1 coup that the junta has declared terrorist organizations. In September, the NUG declared a nationwide state of emergency and called for open rebellion against junta rule, prompting an escalation of attacks on military targets by various allied pro-democracy militias and ethnic armed groups. Myanmar democracy activist Ko Jimmy (L) and former Myanmar lawmaker Phyo Zeya Thaw (R) in a combination photo created on June 3, 2022. Credit: AFP/Myanmar’s Military Information Team First judicial execution since 1988 Ko Jimmy was also accused of advising local militia groups in Yangon and ordering PDF groups to attack police, military targets, and government offices, and asking the NUG to buy a 3D printer to produce weapons for local PDFs. The four death sentences, as well 111 others that have been handed down by junta courts between the military’s 2021 coup and May 19 this year, have drawn criticism from legal experts and rights groups, who say the regime is threatening the public with unfair executions. The United Nations, Washington, Ottawa, and Paris have issued statements strongly condemning the decisions in the cases now proceeding to execution. An appeal against carrying out what would be the first judicial execution in Myanmar since 1988 came from Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who wrote junta leader Sen. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing on June 10, urging him to “reconsider the sentences and refrain from carrying out the death sentences.” If carried out, the executions “would trigger a very strong and widespread negative reaction from the international community” and hurt efforts to find a peaceful solution to the crisis in Myanmar, wrote Hun Sen, in his capacity as 2022 rotating chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Myanmar is a member. Thiha Win Tin, a former member of the All Burma Federation of Students&#8217; Unions, Said plans to execute the four would spark an angry reaction from many quarters of society which don’t accept the legitimacy of the junta or the military tribunals that meted out the death penalty. “This is not a death penalty. They were simply arrested and ordered to be killed,” he said. “It’s not just Phyo Zeyar Thaw and Ko Jimmy. Many of our comrades have been killed during interrogations, some killed on the streets–unarmed and peaceful protesters arrested late in the night,” added Thiha Win Tin. Hatred of army will grow Mar Kee (also known as Kyaw Kyaw Htwe), a political ally of Ko Jimmy since the 1980s, said “the consequences will not be good” if the executions were carried out. “There were people in the country who accepted Jimmy and Zeyar Thaw and their work, and there were those who didn’t. Even those who didn’t accept them, as well as those in the middle, would be outraged if the death penalty were to be imposed on people for their political beliefs,” he told RFA. “I think the hatred against [the army] will grow.&#8221; Local anti-junta PDFs groups and other regime opponents have issued a series of warnings in recent days that they would retaliate if Ko Jimmy, Phyo Zeyar Thaw and the others were put to death. Military spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, at a conference in Naypyidaw Thursday, defended the planned executions as a necessary measure by a sovereign country, but did not say when they would take place. “Innocent people lost their lives because of these two’s encouragement [of anti-junta militias],” he said. “I just said innocent people. I am not talking about security personnel.” “At least 50 lives were lost thanks to their support. So how can you say it’s not fair?” said Zaw Min Tun. The junta has not provided evidence to support the allegations, and the spokesman did not elaborate. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), a Thai-based advocacy group, said that 1,958 people have been killed and 14,139 anti-regime activists across the country have been arrested in more than 16 months since the military coup. Of those, 11,081 are still in custody.   Political analyst Sai Kyi Zin Soe said no one in Myanmar would believe in the multi-party elections the military has promised to hold in 2023 if the executions were carried out. “When the elections are held in 2023, these guys, who were supposed to be contesting the elections but have been executed unfairly, would be absent,” he told RFA....
- [Migration from Myanmar to Thailand surges amid fighting, COVID concerns](https://ij-reportika.com/migration-from-myanmar-to-thailand-surges-amid-fighting-covid-concerns/): The number of migrants crossing illegally from Myanmar to Thailand has surged in recent months as residents of regions near the border flee fighting with government troops and outbreaks of COVID-19, sources say. Nearly 20,000 migrants trying to cross the border were arrested by Thai police during the last five months alone, with many discovered in life-threatening situations, according to the Foundation for Education and Development, a Thai-based NGO. Some had been left behind by traffickers in caves or forest areas near the border, foundation spokesman Min Oo said in a statement. “Sometimes Thai police officers would find them after receiving tips from local residents, and the migrants would then sometimes try to escape,” he said. “Just the other day, a car full of Myanmar migrants fell off the road into an abyss. Also, two women died of suffocation after being left in a crowded car in the jungle. There have been shootings on the road as well,” he said. “The situation is very bad.” The number of Myanmar migrants detained by Thai police is growing day by day, with many now facing shortages of food and shelter, Min Oo said. Most were forced to flee their homes in Myanmar’s Sagaing, Magway and Mandalay regions and Karen and Kayah states following the Feb. 1, 2021, military coup that overthrew civilian rule, he added. Others trying to cross have been looking for work after factories in Myanmar shut down due to fighting and the spread of COVID-19 in the military-ruled country, said Thida Win, a resident of Magway region’s Yayzagyo township now working at a garment factory in Thailand after crossing the border in April. “Most of the factories in Myanmar were closed because of COVID and the coup, and as a result many people were left without jobs. So instead of just sitting at home they took loans and came to Thailand to work,” she said. “Because we are here illegally, we don’t dare go out except to go to work and then return home. I send every penny I earn back to my sisters, and when my debt is paid, I will call my brother and sister here to work too, as they have no jobs where they live,” she said. Aung Ko Win, a second-year university student from Sagaing who is currently looking for work in a small Thai border town, said people pay between 20,000 and 30,000 baht ($571.59 to $857.39) if they want to work illegally in Thailand. “We are suffering from the war in Sagaing, so I left my family and came to Thailand when it became difficult to earn a living at home, and after passing through many checkpoints on the way, I got here and am now staying with a friend,” he said. “I have no idea where to find a job. I’ll have to take any kind of work that comes by. All of this is for the sake of my family.” Most illegal migrants in Thailand work in the construction and fishing industries or in factories, with others working as house maids or as hired hands in farming, sources say. They can earn between 10,000 and 15,000 baht a month, but because they work illegally they have no insurance or labor rights. Reached for comment, Adisorn Kerdphol — an official with the Migrant Workers Group in Thailand — told RFA he has raised the issue of the detained migrant workers with the Thai government, while a staff member of the Myanmar Embassy in Bangkok dealing with migrant workers told RFA that the Thai government would deport the migrant workers after their release from jail. Speaking to RFA on Thursday, Pairote Chotikasathien, the director general of the Thai Ministry of Labor’s Department of Employment, said that Thailand has since January brought Myanmar workers into the country legally to fill labor shortages in industry and the fishing sector. “As for the illegal workers, we will propose to the government that they have them registered, hopefully by late June or sometime next month,” he said. Meanwhile, workers coming into Thailand illegally will still be detained and repatriated by the same route through which they entered. And though immigration law stipulates that an illegal migrant may be jailed for up to two years and fined 20,000 baht, they are normally just sent home, he said. The International Labor Organization said in a 2021 report that around 1.6 million people were unemployed in Myanmar following the spread of COVID and the military coup, with 25 million — more than half the country’s population — possibly facing famine by the end of 2022. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Additional reporting by Pimuk Rakkanam in Bangkok. Written in English by Paul Eckert and Richard Finney.
- [Family of young Tibetan still in the dark 6 months after his arbitrary arrest](https://ij-reportika.com/family-of-young-tibetan-still-in-the-dark-6-months-after-his-arbitrary-arrest/): Chinese authorities arrested a young Tibetan language activist six months ago, and his whereabouts remain unknown, even to his family, sources in Tibet told RFA. Lodoe, son of Rigzin, is a university graduate in his 30s from Seshul county (in Chinese Shiqu), part of the Garze (Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan province. As he is fluent in both Chinese and Tibetan, the government offered him a job, which he turned down to advocate for the preservation of the Tibetan language. “Lodoe was arrested unexpectedly by the Chinese authorities six months ago from Seshul County and taken to Chengdu, [Sichuan’s capital],” a Tibetan source in Tibet told RFA’s Tibetan Service, on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “Since then, his whereabouts and condition are unknown. His family has learned from some sources that he will be convicted soon, but they still don’t know where exactly he is being detained at the moment — whether in a prison or a detention center,” the source said. The arrest of Lodoe is part of a larger crackdown by the Chinese government on Tibetan writers, intellectuals and cultural leaders. Authorities arbitrarily imprison them for long periods of time in undisclosed locations, without revealing the exact charges or the dates of their sentences to their families, sources said. “Usually officials from a respective county will come and take individuals away to detention,” the source said. “However, this time Chinese officials from Sichuan province came to arrest Lodoe. Many believe that Lodoe was arrested for having communicated with people in exile and also for advocating for Tibetan language rights. Chinese officials have still not cited any reasons for his arrest,” the source added. “We still don’t know the exact month and date of his arrest [either].” Chinese authorities have frequently detained Tibetan writers and artists who promote Tibetan national identity and culture — with many sentenced to lengthy prison terms — following region-wide protests of Chinese rule that swept Tibet and Tibetan areas in western provinces of China in 2008. Language rights have become a particular focus for Tibetan efforts to assert national identity in recent years, with informally organized language courses typically deemed “illegal associations” and teachers subject to detention and arrest, sources say. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Split between opposition leaders could solidify Hun Sen’s rule in Cambodia](https://ij-reportika.com/split-between-opposition-leaders-could-solidify-hun-sens-rule-in-cambodia/): The split between Cambodian opposition leaders Kem Sokha and Sam Rainsy could help Prime Minister Hun Sen and his ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) hold power, sources in the country told RFA. Kem Sokha, while on trial Wednesday on unsubstantiated charges of treason, declared that his alliance with his Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) co-founder Sam Rainsy was over, seemingly confirming rumors that the country’s top opposition partnership of the past decade had ended. Sam Rainsy, who has been living in self-imposed exile in France since 2015, attributed Kem Sokha’s statement to the legal pressure he faces and said that there was no change in their relationship. Such a split, if genuine, could help the CPP in general elections next year, and all but ensure a smooth transition of power from Hun Sen to his son, Han Manet, exiled political analyst Kim Sok told RFA’s Khmer Service. Hun Sen has ruled the country since 1985. “Hun Sen will transfer power to his son because he has seen sign of split between the opposition leaders,” he said. Mey Chandara, coordinator for the Phnom Penh-based Cambodia Youth Network, told RFA that the split will cause a rift in supporters of the opposition at a time when they should be unified to challenge the ruling party. “We don’t want to see them separate. We want the opposition’s voices to demand justice in the upcoming election,” he said. Sam Rainsy founded the Candlelight Party under a different name in 1995. In 2012, supporters from his party and Kem Sokha’s Human Rights party merged to form the CNRP, which was dissolved by Cambodia’s Supreme Court five years later after it performed well in the country’s 2017 communal elections. Candlelight, as a separate party from the CNRP, was technically not affected by the ban and has risen to become the largest opposition party in the country. Sam Rainsy has thrown his support behind Candlelight, whereas Kem Sokha believes that its participation in what he viewed as a compromised election earlier this month only serves the CPP and its claims of winning the elections in a landslide. Seng Sary, a political analyst, said the divide between the two opposition leaders was real, and not initiated for strategic purposes. He said that the split was initiated by Kem Sokha, who did not support the opposition Candlelight Party in this year’s local commune elections.  CPP spokesman Chhim Phalvorun dismissed the idea that the CPP would benefit from the split between Sam Rainsy and Kem Sokha. CPP will stay in power because it has the support of the people, he said. “When a wife and husband get a divorce, it is their issue. It has nothing to do with outsiders,” he said. If the rift in the opposition can be described as a divorce, it is not an amicable one, at least as far as Kem Sokha’s daughter, Kem Monovithya, is concerned. She wrote scathing criticism of Sam Rainsy on her Facebook account, accusing him of allowing Hun Sen and the CCP to use him to attack her father. “We think the ruling party wants to destroy the opposition party as a whole, especially the [Cambodia] National Rescue Party,” she wrote. “[The CPP] is doing two things. It is destroying Sam Rainsy through threats to arrest him, so he fled. At the same time, it is destroying Kem Sokha by using Sam Rainsy’s hands to attack him because he hasn’t fled,” Kem Monovithya wrote. “We think the ruling party and Sam Rainsy’s faction think that if Kem Sokha dares to defend himself or express any different ideas [from Sam Rainsy’s], his popularity will decline,” she said.   Kem Sokha is now more popular than when he started the Human Rights Party in 2007, Kem Monovithya added. “Kem Sokha has been the main leader since 2007, so we will continue our courage and speak the truth, even if the truth hurts Sam Rainsy’s faction or the ruling party,” she said. “In simple language, we will fight both.” Activist yet to meet lawyer Cambodian American activist Theary Seng, who on Tuesday was arrested while she protested a mass trial that convicted her and more than 50 other democracy advocates for their associations with the CNRP, has still not been allowed to meet with her lawyer in prison. By forbidding him to meet with his client, the lawyer, Choung Choy Ngy, told RFA that Phnom Penh’s Prey Sar Prison was breaking Cambodian law, which specify that prisoners be allowed to meet with legal counsel to discuss appeals. He said he was preparing a complaint to the Ministry of Interior, seeking intervention from Minister Sar Keng to allow him to meet Theary Seng. “Theary Seng wasn’t at the announcement of the court verdict, so she doesn’t [officially] know what the verdict is, so my intention was to inform her and explain her rights to appeal,” Choung Choy Ngy said. “I am sad that prison officials didn’t allow me to meet her.” Prison Department spokesman Nuth Savna told RFA that officials have designated her as a special case, so they have worked to ensure her safety, so for the time being the prison will not allow visitors. “We didn’t allow the visit due to safety and security factors,” he said, adding that prison officials received information that there is a plan by Theary Seng supporters to protest in front of the prison. The prison should allow her to meet with her lawyer, otherwise it is a violation of Theary Seng’s rights, Am Sam Ath of the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights told RFA.  The U.S. State Department said it was “deeply concerned” about Tuesday’s verdict in a statement published Wednesday evening. “The sentencing of these opposition activists, many of whom are associated with the disbanded Cambodia National Rescue Party, is the latest instance in an alarming pattern of threats, intimidation, and persecution of opposition political leaders and parties. These actions undermine multiparty democracy and the rule of law,” department...
- [China nationalizes private schools in ongoing reform of education sector](https://ij-reportika.com/china-nationalizes-private-schools-in-ongoing-reform-of-education-sector/): Authorities across China have begun nationalizing private schools, amid ongoing reforms aimed at bringing all educational institutions under the direct control of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Thirty-eight private primary and secondary schools across more than 10 districts were forced back into public ownership in the northern city of Xi&#8217;an, the municipal education bureau announced on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the Shanghai municipal government said it had &#8220;bought out&#8221; around 20,000 places at the city&#8217;s private schools, effectively turning at least 30 private schools into free education providers. Former teacher Jia Minling said Shanghai&#8217;s government had previously welcomed private education in the city, and the number of private schools had mushroomed, many of them offering extremely high standards of teaching and facilities. &#8220;If they are taking back [the private sector] in this way, then it means education will be completely in the hands of the government,&#8221; Jia said. &#8220;Private schools make efforts to compete for enrollments, and the teachers are very responsible and really serious about improving the children&#8217;s grades.&#8221; Provincial authorities in the central province of Hunan, eastern province of Jiangsu and the southwestern province of Sichuan have recently all announced they are moving to ensure that private schooling accounts for no more than five percent of the education sector in their province. An education insider in Shanghai who gave only the surname Pan said the nationalization program appears to be gathering momentum across China. &#8220;They are gradually bringing them back into the public sector, although they can&#8217;t do that all in one go,&#8221; Pan said. &#8220;Now there are targets being set for each district.&#8221; &#8220;A lot of Shanghai private schools have reduced their fees &#8230; so now, not only do they not make money, they can&#8217;t even operate. They call it delisting.&#8221; The government has bought out some of the places at private schools, in order to enable students to pay no fees, according to reports, while imposing lower or zero fees on others. More than 17,000 school places have been forcibly bought out by the government, across 87 schools, with 30 schools now charging no fees at all. Eradicating private education Jia said the government was &#8220;interfering&#8221; with the schools&#8217; private operations. &#8220;Private schools are responsible for their own profits and losses,&#8221; Jia said. &#8220;What right do they have to interfere with that?&#8221; &#8220;If the tuition is too high, they will not be able to recruit students. They are restricted by the market economy,&#8221; he said. &#8220;[The government] are building public schools with taxpayer money.&#8221; &#8220;Private schools are private enterprises that didn’t ask the government to invest a cent when they built their schools, nor were their teachers paid by the education bureau,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Now they want to take them back into public ownership when they see them doing well.&#8221; The ministry of education announced in August 2021 that there will be no more private education in China by August 2023. On June 15, 2021 the ministry set up a new department to monitor off-campus education and training provisions and to implement &#8220;reforms to the off-campus education and training sector,&#8221; and the CCP leadership then signaled on July 30 that it would crack down on private tuition schools and other measures aimed at slashing homework and out-of-hours educational activities. Training institutions were banned from offering subject-based tutoring on national statutory holidays, rest days, or winter and summer vacations. More than 75 percent of students in primary and secondary education attended after-school tutoring in 2016, the most recent industry figures showed, and the need to hothouse children privately to get them into the best schools was criticized by CCP leader Xi Jinping in March as a barrier to boosting birth rates. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [China balancing close ties with Russia and distance from Ukraine war: analysts](https://ij-reportika.com/china-balancing-close-ties-with-russia-and-distance-from-ukraine-war-analysts/): Chinese leader Xi Jinping is struggling to balance his country&#8217;s geopolitical interests with his support for Russia in the wake of president Vladimir Putin&#8217;s invasion of Ukraine, analysts said following a call between the two leaders. China&#8217;s foreign ministry said Xi had told Putin that Beijing would work with Moscow on bilateral cooperation, but struck a cooler note on Ukraine. &#8220;China is willing to work with Russia to continue supporting each other on their respective core interests concerning sovereignty and security, as well as on their major concerns,&#8221; it paraphrased Xi as saying. &#8220;China is also willing to work with Russia to promote solidarity and cooperation among emerging market countries and developing nations, and push for the development of the international order and global governance towards a more just and reasonable direction,&#8221; Xi told Putin. But he called for a &#8220;responsible&#8221; approach to the war in Ukraine. &#8220;Xi emphasized that China has always independently assessed the situation on the basis of the historical context and the merits of the issue, and actively promoted world peace and the stability of the global economic order,&#8221; the foreign ministry statement said. &#8220;All parties should push for a proper settlement of the Ukraine crisis in a responsible manner,&#8221; it quoted Xi as saying in a phone call marking his 69th birthday. According to the Kremlin, the two leaders discussed &#8220;increasing economic cooperation, trade and military-technical ties between China and Russia.&#8221; The Chinese statement made no mention of military or technical cooperation. There was also no mention of a trip by Putin to China, suggested by Xi during a phone call on March 4. &#8220;[Beijing] is worried about U.S. sanctions, but covertly supporting Russia won&#8217;t satisfy Putin, so they need to talk to each other personally,&#8221; current affairs commentator Lu Nan told RFA. &#8220;Actually, what Xi Jinping does will be a long way from want Putin wants.&#8221; A photo of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at the Russian Embassy in Santiago, Chile is defaced in a protest in support of Ukraine, February 26, 2022. Credit: AFP Marriage of convenience Xi and Putin last met in person just before Russia invaded Ukraine, vowing to boost ties during the February 2022 Winter Olympics. China has refused to describe the Ukraine war as an invasion, nor to condemn Russia&#8217;s military action in Ukraine, blaming eastward expansion by NATO for stoking security tensions with Russia and calling for the issue to be resolved through negotiation. Chinese has repeatedly said there is &#8220;no upper limit&#8221; on bilateral cooperation, but vowed to play a &#8220;constructive role&#8221; to normalize the situation in Ukraine. Liu Hsiao-hsiang, associate researcher at Taiwan&#8217;s Institute for the National Defense and Security Research (INDSR), said the relationship between Beijing and Moscow remains a marriage of convenience. &#8220;China and Russia have no choices right now,&#8221; Liu told RFA. &#8220;China knows very well that even if it supports the West and the United States on Ukraine, that won&#8217;t win it the goodwill of the U.S.&#8221; &#8220;Russia is its natural support base &#8230; but when calculating how to support [Russia], they will always prioritize their own national interest,&#8221; he said. The U.S. State Department said on Wednesday it sees China as a close Russian ally. &#8220;China claims to be neutral, but its behavior makes clear that it is still investing in close ties to Russia,&#8221; a U.S. State Department spokesperson said in a statement shortly after Xi and Putin&#8217;s call, adding that Washington is monitoring Chinese activity closely. &#8220;China is still standing by Russia. It is still echoing Russian propaganda around the world. It is still shielding Russia in international organizations,&#8221; the spokesperson said. &#8220;And it is still denying Russia&#8217;s atrocities in Ukraine by suggesting instead that they were staged.&#8221; &#8220;Nations that side with Vladimir Putin will inevitably find themselves on the wrong side of history,&#8221; the statement said. &#8220;It&#8217;s in the best interests of the United States for it to dampen China&#8217;s support for Russia with verbal threats and actions of appeasement,&#8221; Lu said. &#8220;China won&#8217;t overtly challenge Washington, but it will carry on quietly buying grain and natural resources from Russia, so as to meet its own domestic needs and also appear to be supportive of Putin,&#8221; he said. CCP &#8216;word games&#8217; Liu said that when the two leaders last spoke in March, the war in Ukraine had barely begun, and both likely underestimated the strength of Ukrainian military resistance. &#8220;How the geopolitical situation changes in future will be the decisive factor,&#8221; Liu said of the bilateral relationship. &#8220;The relationships between the major powers will shift along with the changes in the way the war is going.&#8221; The call came as Xi issued a new directive setting out guidelines for the use of the Chinese military for &#8220;non-war operations.&#8221; The Chinese government has previously defined non-war military operations as actions to create military deterrence, international peacekeeping, anti-terrorist activities, anti-smuggling, anti-drug operations, and martial law. The full text of the outline has not yet been published. Germany-based analyst Wu Wenxin said the move has parallels with Putin&#8217;s &#8220;special military operations&#8221; against Ukraine, and indicate that the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is trying to create a legal basis to invade the democratic island of Taiwan. &#8220;There are two reasons for this. One is that Xi Jinping&#8217;s status is threatened [due to the zero-COVID policy], and he wants to stabilize support from the military &#8230; ahead of the 20th CCP National Congress [later this year],&#8221; Wu told RFA. &#8220;The other is that Xi Jinping may want to invade Taiwan,&#8221; said. &#8220;But starting a war looks very negative, so he has come up with the phrase &#8216;non-war military operation&#8217;.&#8221; &#8220;The CCP is playing word games,&#8221; Wu said. Akio Yaita, Taipei bureau chief for Japan&#8217;s Sankei Shimbun and an expert on China, said the move is in keeping with Beijing&#8217;s insistence that the Taiwan Strait is part of China&#8217;s territorial waters. &#8220;Everyone is still very worried about whether Xi Jinping will use this kind of &#8216;non-military action&#8217; as justification when he launches...
- [Three people killed as troops target villages in Chin State](https://ij-reportika.com/three-people-killed-as-troops-target-villages-in-chin-state/): Three people died Thursday after junta forces fired artillery shells at a farm in Mui Tui village in Chin State’s Mindat township, residents told RFA. Yaw Man, an official from Mindat People’s Administration which is engaged in armed resistance, said a man and two women died when shells exploded. He said the military council’s Infantry Battalion No. 274 started shelling villages in the northern part of the city on Thursday morning. Mui Tai village is located 6 miles (9.7 kilometers) from Mindat. “A 70-year-old man, a 60-year-old woman and a 30-year-old woman working on the farm died on the spot. Another was wounded by bullets. The shells also landed in the village. Three houses were destroyed there,” said Yaw Man, adding the the injured man was being treated at a charity clinic near Mindat Township.  Residents told RFA that Infantry Battalion No. 274, which is based in Mindat, fired shells seven times targeting villages, including Mui Tui, in the north of Mindat city from around 9:30 a.m. Locals said the army was not targeting local People’s Defense Forces (PDFs), but deliberately aiming at the villages. Calls to a military council spokesman by RFA on Thursday morning went unanswered. In the past, the spokesman has said the army had to open fire to destroy villages where local PDFs were sheltering and conducting military training. On May 23, heavy artillery fired by Infantry Battalion No. 274 hit a house in Madat village critically injuring an 11-year-old boy whose right leg had to be amputated. Chin State was one of the first regions in Myanmar to form militias to fight the military following the coup in February last year. More than 200 people have been killed in the state since then according to the Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO), which monitors human rights abuses. At least 10 civilians have been killed in Mindat City and Mindat Township since February 1, 2021. Fighting between junta troops and local militias has forced nearly 90,000 locals to flee their homes in Chin State.
- [Former Cambodian opposition chief Kem Sokha claims end to alliance with Sam Rainsy](https://ij-reportika.com/former-cambodian-opposition-chief-kem-sokha-claims-end-to-alliance-with-sam-rainsy/): Cambodia’s top opposition partnership of the past decade is no more, one half of the duo said Wednesday, confirming rumors of a split within the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) and raising questions over who can mount a legitimate political challenge to strongman Prime Minister Hun Sen. Speaking during proceedings for his trial on unsubstantiated charges of treason at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, former CNRP President Kem Sokha announced that his relationship with the party’s acting President Sam Rainsy had ended, although Sam Rainsy was quick to dismiss the comments as the result of legal pressure. “I am using this platform to speak about politics [to put an end to speculation]. Sam Rainsy and I are done. I would like to inform you that this is true. It’s no longer ‘Sam Rainsy and Kem Sokha as one,’” Kem Sokha said in a rare courtroom audio recording that was later published by the pro-ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) Fresh News media outlet. “Before, Samdech [Hun Sen] maintained a culture of dialogue with Sam Rainsy, but now there is none. He [Sam Rainsy] led the Candlelight Party to join the [commune] election and in doing so, he left us and attacked me. I want to clarify this during the trial.” Sam Rainsy, who founded the Candlelight Party in 2005 before joining forces with the CNRP, has been living in self-imposed exile in France since late 2015. The opposition leader tried to return in November 2019 to lead a peaceful uprising against Hun Sen’s CPP, but his plan to enter Cambodia from Thailand was thwarted when he was refused permission to board a Thai Airways plane in Paris. Kem Sokha told the court on Wednesday that he had “never supported” his former ally’s plan to return, which has subsequently been used by authorities to try and convict several opposition members on charges of incitement to overthrow the government. His comments came after being pressed by the court prosecutor to explain his connection to the events of 2019. “I didn’t support him. I asked my supporters not to join. If I were granted political rights by the judge, I would have held a press conference to explain this,” Kem Sokha said, referring to a court-ordered ban on his political activities during his trial. “I’ve decided that Cambodia is my homeland and I have no other place that I belong. I have no interest in bringing foreigners into the country to provoke chaos.” Speaking to RFA Khmer following Wednesday’s hearing, Kem Sokha’s lawyer Pheng Heng confirmed his client’s statement. “This is real audio recorded during the trial. He responded to the same questions [asked by the prosecutor] who accused him of assisting with Sam Rainsy’s repatriation,” he said. “Sam Rainsy and Kem Sokha ended their alliance when Sam Rainsy threw his support behind the Candlelight Party.” Pheng Heng added that he was “surprised” that the court had allowed Kem Sokha’s statement to be taped during the trial, as reporters are normally banned from making audio or video recordings during hearings and said that he will discuss with his client whether he intends to file a complaint. Kem Sokha leaves the Phnom Penh Municipal Court following a hearing in his case, June 15, 2022. Credit: citizen journalist Rumors of a split Kem Sokha’s claim to have ended his relationship with Sam Rainsy appear to confirm pervasive rumors of a schism within Cambodia’s opposition that were reignited following a four-hour meeting last month between the former CNRP president and Hun Sen at a funeral for the latter’s brother, during which the two discussed national policy issues. CNRP supporters had dismissed the rumors as part of a bid by the CPP to fracture the opposition ahead of nationwide elections for local councils held earlier this month but had urged party leaders to issue a statement clarifying the status of their relationship. The CPP claimed a sweeping victory in the commune polls last week — a contest that rights watchdogs said was heavily slanted toward the ruling party and marred by intimidation and obstruction of the opposition. The official election results will be announced on June 26. On Wednesday, Sam Rainsy told RFA that Kem Sokha had lied about the nature of their alliance, insisting that “nothing has changed.” “We must look at the circumstance. Is he speaking his mind or is he being pressured? He spoke before the court that charged him,” he said. “I don’t change my stance. Kem Sokha is a hostage of Hun Sen. He can’t say what he wants. Hun Sen has threatened Kem Sokha that he will send him back to prison.” Sam Rainsy also alleged that the leak of the courtroom audio is “part of a plot” organized by Hun Sen. “This is a plot to show that Sam Rainsy and Kem Sokha are splitting,” he said. “If Cambodia’s democrats remain united, it will mean the end for Hun Sen. So, I’m not interested in what Kem Sokha said in this circumstance.” Cambodia’s Supreme Court dissolved the CNRP in November 2017, two months after the arrest of Kem Sokha for his role in an alleged scheme to topple Hun Sen with the help of the U.S. government — charges he denies. The former CNRP president, who faces up to 30 years in jail, declined to vote in this month’s election and was joined by many of his followers. Sam Rainsy told RFA that amid efforts to return the CNRP to legal status, the best way forward for Cambodia’s opposition supporters is to rally behind the Candlelight Party. “While we are in the jungle, we need candlelight until the sun rises,” he said. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [UN member states criticize China over Uyghurs at Human Rights Council session](https://ij-reportika.com/un-member-states-criticize-china-over-uyghurs-at-human-rights-council-session/): Nearly 50 United Nations member states on Wednesday issued a joint statement criticizing China’s atrocities against Uyghurs and calling on the U.N. human rights chief to release a long-overdue report on abuses in Xinjiang. Paul Bekkers, the permanent representative of the Netherlands to the U.N. office in Geneva, delivered the statement on behalf of 47 countries, saying the member states continued to be “gravely concerned” about the human rights situation in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). Bekkers cited well-researched and credible reports of the detention of more than 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in the region, along with widespread surveillance, discrimination, and severe restrictions on culture and freedom of religion that these groups face there. “We are also concerned about reports of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, forced sterilization, sexual and gender-based violence, forced labor, and forced separation of children from their parents by authorities,” he said. Bekkers also said the member states continued to be “gravely concerned” about deteriorating human rights situations in Hong Kong and Tibet. In the statement, the nations urged China to respect for the rule of law, to protect human rights, to provide unfettered access for independent observers to Xinjiang, and to respect the principle of non-refoulement, which prevents people who have the right to be recognized as refugees from being forcefully returned to countries where they could be harmed. The statement from the member states came more than two weeks after Michelle Bachelet, a former Chilean president who has served as the U.N. high commissioner for human rights since 2018, wrapped up a six-day visit to China in May, including stops in its far-western region Xinjiang. At a news briefing following the visit, Bachelet, 70, said she was not in China for an official investigation of the situation in Xinjiang, though she said she had “unsupervised” access to sources that the U.N. had arranged to meet there. Uyghur rights groups demanded her resignation after they said she repeated Chinese talking points and said she had been unable to assess the full scale of what Beijing calls “vocational education and training centers” in Xinjiang, but which the human rights community and scholars call internment camps. Bekkers said Beijing should stop arbitrary detentions and immediately release those held, end travel restrictions, and begin impartial investigations into allegations of racial, ethnic and ethno-religious profiling, which were among the eight recommendations relating to Xinjiang issued in August 2018 by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination within Bachelet’s office. Bekkers also called on Bachelet to disclose more information about her visit to China. “We are interested in more detailed observations, including on the restrictions the Chinese authorities imposed on the visit as well as on your access to members of civil society and to places of your choice,” he said. As for the overdue report on abuses in Xinjiang, Bachelet informed the Human Rights Council in September 2021 that her office was finalizing its assessment of information on allegations of rights violations. Three months later, a spokesperson said the report would be issued in a matter of weeks, but it was not released. Support is growing The World Uyghur Congress (WUC) praised the issuance of the statement, saying it was pleased to see many countries from Latin America and the Pacific sign onto it, though the effort was bittersweet. “However, like last time, there is no single Muslim nation among them. It is very tragic,” said Semet Abla, vice chairman of WUC’s Executive Committee. But WUC president Dolkun Isa pointed out that the number of U.N. member states supporting the Uyghurs has been steadily growing with 47 backing Wednesday’s statement, compared to 43 showing support for Uyghur issues in 2021, and 14 in 2018. “Even Israel was one of the signatories of the statement,” he said. “Even though Turkey did not sign the statement, it issued a strong condemnation and rebuke of the Chinese concentration camps.” On Monday, Bachelet told officials attending the Human Rights Council session that she raised concerns about the human rights situation concerning Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities in Xinjiang during her trip. “My office’s assessment of the human rights situation in Xinjiang is being updated,” she said in an oral update at the session. “It will be shared with the government for factual comments before publication.” Bachelet also said that her office and the Chinese government agreed to hold an annual senior meeting on human rights and to continue exchanges on human rights issues of concern. “We are now elaborating concrete steps to put the agreements into action,” she said. Sophie Richardson, China director of New York-based Human Rights Watch, noted that Bachelet now has said that she will release the report before the end of her term ends in August or September. “And we certainly hope that she follows through on that,” she told RFA. “We are a bit skeptical, but nevertheless still think that it is extremely important to hear the United Nations Human Rights Office offer up its assessment based on remote monitoring of what Human Rights Watch deems crimes against humanity targeting Uyghurs and other Turkic communities,” Richardson said. Bachelet also said Monday that she would not seek a second term for personal reasons, but later told reporters her decision was not connected to criticism over her China trip. “As my term as high commissioner draws to a close, this council’s milestone 50th session will be the last which I brief,” she said. Translated by Mamatjan Juma for RFA Uyghur. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Russia, Ukraine turn Indonesia into diplomatic battlefield](https://ij-reportika.com/russia-ukraine-turn-indonesia-into-diplomatic-battlefield/): The Russian and Ukrainian ambassadors have turned Indonesia – this year’s G20 chair – into a diplomatic battlefield by holding tit-for-tat press briefings, becoming regulars at local newsrooms and giving interviews to present their versions of what’s happening in the actual warzone.  Take the case of an in-person press conference last week by Lyudmila Vorebieva, Russia’s envoy here. During the interaction with reporters, she claimed that her country’s forces did not target civilians in Ukraine and the Western media had published fake news. When asked to respond, Ukrainian Ambassador Vasyl Hamianin shot back. He called Vorebieva a liar and war criminal who had “reserved a place in hell.”  The reason for this diplomatic battle is Indonesia’s position as holder of the 2022 presidency of the Group of Twenty leading economies, said Radityo Dharmaputra, an international relations lecturer at Airlangga University in Surabaya.  “For Russia, Indonesia is important because they need to show that not all countries support Ukraine,” Radityo told BenarNews.  “For Ukraine, they need support from countries other than Europe and the United States.” And Indonesia? It does not have an incentive to support either side, partly because its citizens have no affinity with Russians or Ukrainians, Radityo said.  “Indonesia’s foreign policy tradition in such a situation is to play it safe,” he said. Indonesia voted for a United Nations General Assembly resolution in March that condemned Moscow’s military strike on Ukraine. But, at the same time, Jakarta has not ever directly criticized Russia or used the word “invasion.”  And still, Indonesia has been drawn into a tug of war between the United States and the European Union on one side and Russia and China on the other, by virtue of being this year’s G20 president.  The U.S. and other Western countries wanted Russia expelled from the group, while China said no member had the right to expel another country. U.S. President Joe Biden said Ukraine should be able to participate in the G20 summit, which is scheduled for mid-November in Bali, if Russia is not expelled. Indonesia has been reluctant to disinvite Russia, but has asked Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, which is not a G20 member, as a guest.  The Ukrainian government has said that Zelenskyy’s attendance at the G20 summit would “depend mainly on the situation in the battlefield.”  In April, Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo said that Russian President Vladimir Putin would attend the summit,  although the Kremlin had not confirmed his participation. Russian Ambassador to Indonesia Lyudmila Vorobieva gestures while talking to journalists as Defense Attache Sergey Zhevnovatyi listens during a news conference at the Russian Embassy in Jakarta, March 23, 2022. Credit: Reuters Meanwhile, Moscow’s and Kyiv’s ambassadors to Jakarta launched dueling diplomatic offensives to court Indonesia and its people. In March, both Vorobieva and Hamianin visited the headquarters of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), Indonesia’s largest Islamic organization that boasts 80 million followers, only a day apart. They met with NU’s new chairman, Yahya Cholil Staquf, a former advisor to Jokowi.   The two have also given “exclusive” interviews to various Indonesian media outlets. At last week’s press conference, Vorobieva repeated Moscow’s assertions that what happened in Ukraine was the result of the West’s “anti-Russian project.”  “They’re actually spreading terror, people were fearing and are still fearing. You will not see that in the Western media, but we see it every day,” she said.  Hamianin laughed off Vorobieva’s allegations.  “She doesn’t look ignorant. That’s why she’s just a liar, right?” Hamianin told BenarNews in a phone interview.  “The oppression Russia committed over Ukraine during the last 30 years, the non-stop blackmailing, nonstop humiliation, like territorial attacks and all that, especially the last eight years … is what turned Ukraine into anti-Russia,” he said.  “Because we don’t accept the aggressors. We don’t accept liars, murderers, and rapists.” He described Vorobieva’s claim that Ukraine’s government backed Nazis as “disgusting.”  “I’m absolutely sure that by saying this, she booked her personal seat on the bench of war criminals in The Hague tribunal, and definitely reserved a place in hell,” he said, referring to the International Court of Justice, based in the Netherlands.  Hikmahanto Juwana, an international law professor at the University of Indonesia, said winning the hearts and minds of people in the world’s fourth most populous country was important for Russia and Ukraine.  “The Indonesian public needs to be propagandized so that the government takes a position that is in line with public aspirations,” Hikmahanto told BenarNews.  Alvin Prasetyo in Jakarta contributed to this report by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.
- [Starvation becomes a side effect of North Korea’s struggle to contain COVID](https://ij-reportika.com/starvation-becomes-a-side-effect-of-north-koreas-struggle-to-contain-covid/): The increase of COVID-19 cases in North Korea is creating knock-on hardships for the families of patients, as the loss of income from quarantine restrictions has left some without enough money to feed themselves. The cash-strapped North Korean government has responded to reports of family members of COVID patients starving to death, by forcing neighbors to “volunteer” to feed them–but the state isn’t providing any additional food for the effort. North Koreans have long chafed at being drafted by the state to provide free labor, food, building materials or cash for national projects–orders that come on top of the non-stop struggle to survive on a bleak economy. A family illness can have devastating consequences in North Korea, where both men and women need to work to earn enough to support their families. Men work in government-appointed jobs, but because their salaries are low, women are expected to earn additional income through side businesses. “Confirmed COVID-19 cases have increased from the beginning of May. COVID-19 patients were quarantined at the facilities while their families were quarantined in their homes,” a resident from Unsan county in South Pyongan province, north of the capital Pyongyang, told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “An elderly family member of a COVID patient died, unable to eat properly during the 15 days that the patient was in quarantine. It was then that they started organizing the volunteer group,” she said. The source said that since the beginning of June, each neighborhood, or division and subdivision of each rural town, was directed to operate a group of volunteers to look after the families of quarantining patients. But the government did not give these groups any extra food to carry out their work, as it is in short supply in the chronically malnourished country. “The local government provides a certain amount of corn to COVID-19 quarantine facilities, but they don’t give anything, not even a single cabbage, to the families who all quarantine in their homes. There have been cases of elderly people who starved to death … because they were trapped at home, unable to make money, and they had nothing to eat,” she said. “As the residents&#8217; complaints increased and became stronger, county quarantine command reported these cases to the National Emergency Quarantine Command. When the case was reported to the Central Committee, the authorities organized COVID-19 volunteer groups across the country, including in Pyongyang, and took measures to provide food and water for the elderly and other at-risk people in their quarantine homes,” she said. The measures included forcing some North Koreans to harvest their own vegetable gardens to give food to the quarantining families, the source said. While residents do what they can to avoid being tapped to volunteer, authorities tend to target the people with the largest vegetable gardens. “They complain and ask, ‘Who is this service for?’ The authorities are using us to provide what the government should be providing, and they are taking all the credit,” the source said. In Uiju county, near China in the northwestern province of North Pyongan, authorities organized volunteer groups there after the death of the child of a woman in her 30s who was away in quarantine, a source there told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “She was the breadwinner for her family and her 3-year-old child died of malnutrition as her husband watched at home,” he said. “The authorities who organized the volunteer groups are appealing to people to show the true face of socialism by displaying the spirit of service that offers generous support and effort. They are asking people to think of those who are facing greater difficulties than they are in the time of COVID-19,” said the second source. Authorities are forcing better-off citizens to volunteer for at least 10 days and to donate about 30 kilograms (60 pounds) of potatoes each, he said. &#8220;Residents say that if the state wants to take care of the families of COVID-19 patients, the state should be the one that provides the food and vegetables,” the second source said. “They say [the government] is just passing on the cost to the residents, and it is not volunteer work for the families of COVID-19 patients but volunteer work for the state.” After two years of denying the pandemic had penetrated its closed borders, North Korea in May declared a “maximum emergency” and acknowledged the virus had begun to spread among participants of a large-scale military parade the previous month. Though North Korea has not been tracking confirmed coronavirus cases, possibly due to lack of testing equipment, state media has been publishing daily figures of people who report fever symptoms. As of Tuesday, 4.53 million people have come down with fever, 72 of whom have died, 38 North, a site that provides analysis on the country and is run by the U.S.-based Stimson Center think tank, reported. Translated by Claire Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Henan rural bank customers curbed by COVID-19 app as they protest frozen accounts](https://ij-reportika.com/henan-rural-bank-customers-curbed-by-covid-19-app-as-they-protest-frozen-accounts/): Authorities in the central Chinese province of Henan have been using the COVID-19 Health Code app to control the movements of protesters over failures at rural banks, according to social media posts. Some 400,000 customers of four rural banks were left unable to withdraw their money after an estimated U.S.$1.5 billion in assets were frozen in mid-April, according to Caixin magazine. The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) has said it is paying close attention to the four village lenders who stopped offering online banking services, was working with local authorities to resolve the issue, it said. &#8220;Many customers from wealthy southern and eastern regions deposited huge sums into these village banks for high interest rates and cash rewards,&#8221; it said. Some of the depositors staged &#8212; or tried to attend &#8212; street protests, but posted that their COVID-19 health codes had turned red, preventing them from going. The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has imposed an electronic traffic light system on all citizens, ostensibly to control people&#8217;s movements, trace close contacts of those infected, and limit community transmission of the virus. But the reports suggest the authorities could turn it to other purposes, preventing people from petitioning over government wrongdoing or protesting against injustice. A video clip posted to social media on Monday showed more than 20 people holding up placards in front of the Chongqing branch of the CBIRC. A man uses his smart phone to register with China&#8217;s COVID-19 Health Code app, in a file photo. Credit: AFP Health codes react Similar protests were reported outside the Henan provincial branch of the body, at the Zhengzhou International Convention and Exhibition Center and outside the Henan representative office in the southern city of Guangzhou. The CCP-backed Global Times newspaper cited several would-be protesters as saying that their health codes had turned red on arrival in Henan&#8217;s provincial capital Zhengzhou, despite their having a negative PCR test from within the past 48 hours. Some said their health codes had turned red after they scanned a QR code for &#8220;Zhengzhou station west exit&#8221; that had been shared in a group chat for depositors. Others said their codes had turned green again after they arrived back in their hometowns, the Global Times said. The paper quoted Henan officials as saying that &#8220;errors in the database&#8221; could be the reason for the sudden changes in creditors&#8217; health codes. The Henan provincial health commission has said it is looking into the reports. U.S.-based legal scholar Teng Biao said the local government, if they did indeed use the health code app to control people&#8217;s movements, could have violated three Chinese laws. &#8220;The first is the Personal Data Protection Law, as it would be a violation of the right to personal privacy,&#8221; Teng said. &#8220;It could also involve illegally obtaining or leaking citizens’ personal information.&#8221; &#8220;It could also be in breach of the Law on the Control and Prevention of Infectious Diseases,&#8221; he said, adding that that law forbids false reporting of disease-related information, and that this could constitute a crime in cases deemed &#8220;serious.&#8221; &#8220;This case is fairly serious because so many people are involved,&#8221; Teng said. &#8220;The officials concerned could also be abusing their power, which is provided for in the Criminal Law.&#8221; Dissidents also targeted Teng said he thought it unlikely that anyone would be held accountable, even if they were shown to have misused the app. Former political prisoners and human rights lawyers have reported similar phenomena when using the app. Rights attorney Xie Yang had his health code turn red when he traveled to Shanghai to meet up with the mother of jailed citizen journalist Zhang Zhan. &#8220;They are abusing disease control and prevention measures, abusing the health code app, for political purposes, to restrict the freedom of rights defenders to travel,&#8221; Teng said. Shanghai resident Li Bing said similar issues are appearing in the city, which is still imposing strict controls on residents&#8217; movements despite announcing an end to lockdown on June 1. &#8220;Everything just keeps getting better and better,&#8221; Li said sarcastically, when asked about the health code app. &#8220;This is going to get worse in future, as the CCP increasingly employs digital totalitarianism,&#8221; he said. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Laos to sell $350 million in high-interest bonds to combat inflation](https://ij-reportika.com/laos-to-sell-350-million-in-high-interest-bonds-to-combat-inflation/): The Lao government is so desperate for cash that it is offering about U.S. $340 million in bonds with a six-month interest rate of 20 percent, terms that sources told RFA sounded too good to be true. The Lao economy is struggling with rampant inflation, a severe lack of foreign currency, and shortages of food and gas. While all the problems are interconnected, the government has taken to blaming the devalued kip on black market moneychangers and has introduced measures to maintain the value of its currency. To that end, the Bank of Lao P.D.R. said on Tuesday it would start selling bonds worth 5 trillion kip. Buyers will receive a certificate from the central bank. “We’re selling bonds to everyone except commercial banks and financial institutions,” a central bank employee told RFA’s Lao Service on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “Even foreigners who have lived in Laos for only one year are eligible to buy bonds.” But Laotians contacted by RFA said that the 20 percent rate over six months sounded too good to be true. They say they do not have confidence that their cash-strapped government will be able to honor the commitment. “I’m not interested in buying bonds like that because they are too risky,” said the owner of a rubber-processing plant in northern Laos, who like the rest of the unnamed sources in this report declined to be named for safety reasons. “I’m going to lose money on those bonds. Nobody is going to buy them. The government is broke right now, so how can it pay us back when the bonds mature?” he told RFA. A Lao financial expert said the interest rate will make it hard for the government to repay the notes. “The government won’t be able to pay that much. I heard yesterday from the Lao National Assembly meeting that the government wanted to sell 5 trillion kip worth of bonds to tackle inflation and divert more foreign currency into the system. The question is, who is going to buy them?” the expert told RFA. “My impression is that most people are concerned, not confident. They are afraid that the government won’t have money to pay it back,” said the expert. An import-export business owner from Vientiane also told RFA he won’t be buying any bonds. “I don’t have much kip. Most of the time I use Thai baht because I import products from Thailand, and pay in baht. Most of the big businesses in Laos use either dollars or baht,” he said. The owner of a business in the southern province of Savannakhet told RFA that she was surprised when she heard the interest rate on the bonds was set at 20 percent. “The government will pay that high interest? 20 percent! Usually, we get a little more than 6 percent a year for stocks or bonds, but we’ll get 20 percent for government bonds? That’s much too high,” she said. According to a report by the Lao Statistics Bureau, the country’s inflation rate climbed to 12.8 percent on the year in May, its highest rate in 18 years.  This continued a trend of increasing on year inflation rates since January. Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Interview: ‘I am a powerless Pakistani citizen’ who ‘raised my voice for you’](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-i-am-a-powerless-pakistani-citizen-who-raised-my-voice-for-you/): Muhammad Usman Asad, a 22-year-old Pakistani student at the National University of Sciences &amp; Technology in Islamabad, donned a doppa — a Central Asian skullcap — and clutched the sky blue flag of East Turkestan during a solitary sit-in to protest China’s repressive policies against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in the country’s far-western Xinjiang region. Asad staged his peaceful protest on June 10 during a campus celebration of China’s Dragon Boat Festival. Nong Rong, China’s ambassador to Pakistan, and other Chinese officials involved in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor — a collection of multibillion-dollar infrastructure projects built in Pakistan since 2013 under China’s Belt and Road Initiative — attended the event, organized by the university’s China Study Centre and Centre for International Peace and Stability. Asad, who said he learned about China’s abusive policies targeting Muslims in Xinjiang while surfing online, was shocked to learn that Pakistan, a predominantly Muslim country, was not helping the Uyghurs, but instead siding with its ally China. Reporter Gulchehra Hoja of RFA Uyghur talked to Asad about why he staged the protest on the Chinese holiday and how others responded. The interview has been edited for clarity and length. RFA: How did you learn about Uyghur situation? Asad: When I was a child, I only knew that there was a province in China which is predominantly Muslim. I didn’t have much knowledge about the history or the culture or know anything about the genocide that is currently going on. When I started growing up, I used to spend a lot of time on the internet and reading about a lot of issues. I didn’t have enough knowledge or enough sources when I was back home, but when I lived in other cities where we had free internet service, we started using Facebook and other social media platforms like YouTube. From there, I started researching the topic. I [watched] many documentaries, and there was so much clear evidence that I couldn’t stop myself from sympathizing with the Uyghur issue or denying the fact that the genocide is currently going on. I then critiqued it within my own mind, comparing the Kashmir issue with the Uyghur issue, and I came to the conclusion that the Uyghur issue was more fundamental and more devastating and that the situation is very harmful for the Muslim community there. RFA: Have you been in touch with any Uyghur activist groups or activists in Pakistan? Asad: About one year ago, I came across a VICE News documentary. From that point on, I came to know about the … Uyghur community living here in Pakistan. When this event was being organized inside our university, about three or four days before, I was thinking about the university saying that there was a big billboard [for it]. So, I thought that I should do something about it in relation to protesting the Uyghur issue. I didn’t have any access to anything, so I started researching on the internet and found the Omar Uyghur Trust in Pakistan (a Uyghur language and cultural organization) and [contacted] Omar Khan (the group’s cofounder). We had a meeting just two days before the protest at the university. We discussed everything [about the issue], and he gave me the cap as well as a flag. I was preparing for my exams as I was preparing to do the protest. RFA: Did you reach out to your friends or other students to join your protest? Asad: I tried reaching people, but they were busy with their exams. They promised to support it, but when they got to the campus, there were fewer people present there. RFA: Did anybody try to stop you from protesting? Asad: When I entered the event, two people were sitting right beside me, and they were scaring off all the people I asked to take my picture. They told them that the authorities would come for them and they would be kicked out of the university. One person who took one of my pictures went out for some water, and the security team went up to him and ordered him not to sit beside me. The person did not agree with it. All they wanted to do was get all the images that I had taken during the whole event. … I said that if I just went outside the building and held this flag, it wouldn’t bother them and wouldn’t mean anything to either of them. …. [With] all the high Chinese cultural representatives here and all the different Pakistanis present, I said to myself, “OK, this will work.” RFA: Did anything happen to you after the protest? Asad: I haven’t received any threats either from the university or from the disciplinary committee. RFA: Have you been in contact with any Pakistani journalists at local news organizations? Asad: I am a student, so I don’t have connections with a lot of media persons — radio persons who are very influential. They are mostly controlled by the Pakistani establishment, so even if you go and speak to them, they will still need a green light from [officials]. Even if any of the media in Pakistan wanted to cover the issue, all the Chinese would need to do is place one call to the authority that regulates electronic media, and all the content would be taken off. RFA: Are you now concerned about your safety or are you being pressured by authorities? Asad: I have been following different stories of human rights activists within Pakistan, and our conditions are not very great. At the same time, I thought that the university could do something with having a disciplinary committee. I was having a lot of tension, and I was thinking again and again about how I should do the protest in such a way that my own studies and my own career [would not be affected] and that I would not get sued by the government. I thought that they would take me away for one or...
- [China blocks Tibetans offering help to earthquake survivors in Sichuan](https://ij-reportika.com/china-blocks-tibetans-offering-help-to-earthquake-survivors-in-sichuan/): Chinese authorities in an earthquake-hit region of Sichuan are telling Tibetans offering support to survivors to return home, saying their help is no longer needed, RFA has learned. More than 25,000 residents of Barkham (Maerkang, in Chinese), a county-level city in the Ngaba (Aba) Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, were displaced when an earthquake measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale struck the area on June 10. Government rescuers did not reach the affected area until Monday. Meanwhile, Tibetans living in areas nearby offered immediate help, with monks and townspeople providing food, clothing and temporary shelter in tents to those whose homes were destroyed, local sources said. After Chinese rescue teams arrived on June 13, however, Tibetans offering aid were told to leave, a Tibetan resident of the area told RFA on Wednesday. “After the official Chinese rescue teams came in, the Tibetans who had come from nearby regions to provide help were not allowed to stay and were told by Chinese authorities to leave the area for their own safety,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to speak freely. “However, the timely assistance they provided to survivors was a huge help,” the source said. Monks bring boxes of food and other supplies to survivors of a June 10, 2022 earthquake in Sichuan. Photo from Tibet. Updated figures of casualties were not immediately available. However, Chinese state media on June 10 reported one resident had been injured in the quake, with 25,790 survivors transferred and resettled. Chinese authorities have meanwhile imposed a strict clampdown on information coming from Barkham, with residents barred from posting reports, pictures or any other information about the quake, which devastated houses, stupas and monks’ residences, a source told RFA in an earlier report, also declining to be named. Earthquakes are common on the Tibetan plateau, with a 7.3-magnitude quake last year striking Matoe (Maduo) county in Qinghai, killing 20 and injuring 300. Authorities had similarly blocked social media reporting at that time, telling citizens to report injuries and deaths only to the government rather than sharing information online, RFA said in earlier reports. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [New Hong Kong school history textbooks say the city 'never was a British colony'](https://ij-reportika.com/new-hong-kong-school-history-textbooks-say-the-city-never-was-a-british-colony/): A nationalistic program of Moral, Civic and National Education brought in to replace Liberal Studies in Hong Kong&#8217;s primary and secondary schools has removed references to the city&#8217;s status as a former British colony, local media reported. Four textbooks recently released online from three publishing houses contain the sentence &#8220;Hong Kong was not a colony,&#8221; the Ming Pao and other newspapers reported. The move comes after articles in media controlled by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) expressed the same idea. &#8220;Before 1997, the United Kingdom regarded Hong Kong as a colony, and its use of the term &#8220;overseas dependent territory&#8221; was just another term for a colony,&#8221; a 2021 opinion piece in the CCP-backed Ta Kung Pao said in an op-ed piece dated April 10, 2020. &#8220;But Hong Kong was never actually a colony; it&#8217;s just that the British practiced colonial rule here.&#8221; The article dismissed British sovereignty over Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, ceded by the Qing Dynasty in perpetuity, or the New Territories, which were governed by Britain under a 99-year lease that expired in 1997. The colonial status of Hong Kong was &#8220;wishful thinking&#8221; on the part of the British, the article, signed by Xiao Ping, said. &#8220;The Chinese government after the Qing Dynasty did not recognize the unequal treaty that &#8216;ceded&#8217; Hong Kong, and never gave up its territorial sovereignty over Hong Kong,&#8221; it said, adding that China had successfully had Hong Kong removed from a United Nations list of colonies in 1972. It said the removal of Hong Kong from that list meant that the city wasn&#8217;t eligible for independence under post-war, post-colonial settlements like other former colonies. An installation marking the July 1 25th anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover from Britain to China is seen in the Admiralty district of Hong Kong on June 12, 2022. Credit: AFP CCP arguments taught as fact Now, this CCP-endorsed argument has made it into Hong Kong schools, to be taught as fact, as part of the new nationalistic education program in the city. Students are required to absorb, and find arguments to support, the political points made in the program, without considering arguments for and against, the Ming Pao reported. The Liberal Studies critical thinking program, rolled out in Hong Kong schools in 2009, has been blamed by Chinese officials and media for several mass protests in recent years, from the 2011 campaign against patriotic education by secondary school students, to the 2014 youth-led Umbrella movement, to the 2019 protests that began as a campaign against extradition to mainland China and broadened to include demands for fully democratic elections. Details of the new textbooks emerged after staff removed more than 200 titles from school libraries, including those written by pro-democracy advocates and former lawmakers. Meanwhile, CCP leader Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter to the Ta Kung Pao on its 120th anniversary on Monday, commending the newspaper for its contribution to &#8220;maintaining social stability in Hong Kong&#8221; and &#8220;winning back hearts and minds&#8221;. The letter was read out by Luo Huining, director of Beijing&#8217;s Central Liaison Office in Hong Kong, who also lauded the paper&#8217;s patriotism. &#8220;In a diverse society like Hong Kong, it is especially necessary for the patriotic media to uphold the truth &#8230; and promote clarity,&#8221; Luo said. &#8220;We especially need journalists who will uphold their mission and act responsibly.&#8221;   Public opinion still appears to be lagging behind CCP propaganda, however. The Ta Kung Pao has been bottom of the class in recent polls by public opinion researchers at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, according to Taiwan-based political commentator Sang Pu. &#8220;They want to bring Hong Kong under complete subjugation to the CCP, and the Ta Kung Pao is a good tool for Xi Jinping to achieve this,&#8221; Sang told RFA. &#8220;The Ta Kung Pao, along with Xinhua news agency, the People&#8217;s Daily and CCTV, have played a key role in &#8230; placing the CCP&#8217;s press releases in Hong Kong [media].&#8221; Party mouthpieces proliferate He said the Ta Kung Pao had printed political denunciations of prominent, pro-democracy media organizations shortly before they were forced to close amid the threat of prosecution under the national security law, which ushered in an ongoing crackdown on public dissent and peaceful opposition in the wake of the 2019 protest movement. &#8220;Xi Jinping is of the view that the media are the mouthpiece of the party, so the Ta Kung Pao counts as a media organizations, while all the rest are chaotic elements that don&#8217;t count as media at all,&#8221; Sang said. &#8220;In the view of the CCP, there is no such thing as freedom of the press.&#8221; Sang said the removal of certain books from primary and secondary schools shows that the entire publishing industry must be walking a fine line to avoid prosecution under the national security law. Among those removed were books about the democratic processes that developed in Hong Kong between the 1990s and 2019, when the last democratic elections to the District Council following months of mass popular protest over vanishing freedoms resulted in a landslide for the pro-democracy camp. An autobiography by Wang Lingyun, mother of 1989 student protest leader Wang Dan, and by late ousted liberal premier Zhao Ziyang, were also among those removed from schools. Wang said the removal of the books showed that freedom of expression was being stifled in the city. &#8220;There used to be no taboo around June 4, 1989-related or other politically sensitive books in Hong Kong, but now they&#8217;re being removed by the education authorities,&#8221; Wang told RFA. &#8220;Under the national security law, the Hong Kong authorities must support the government in Beijing, which has made up its mind to stifle freedom of speech in Hong Kong, and have no choice but to take them off the shelves to protect themselves,&#8221; he said. He said the CCP&#8217;s aim is to erase memories of mass protests, and to prevent younger people in Hong Kong from being influenced by ideas like freedom and democracy. Translated and edited by...
- [More than 40 anti-regime protesters arrested in Yangon in two days](https://ij-reportika.com/more-than-40-anti-regime-protesters-arrested-in-yangon-in-two-days/): Myanmar’s military junta is targeting younger protesters in the country’s business capital, Yangon, arresting more than 40 men and women on Monday and Tuesday. Witnesses said those arrested were aged between 18 and 30.  An activist told RFA the military council tracked down the remaining members of an anti-regime group after rounding up protestors in Yangon’s Kyee Myin Daing township on Monday  “Seven or eight people in one house have been arrested. The junta forces are able to find the location of the rest of protesters and arrest them under the pretext of checking household guest lists. Most of the detainees were UGs [underground], supporters of anti-regime leaders and protesters on the ground,” said the person, who declined to be named for safety reasons. Most of those arrested are from Kyee Myin Daing, San Chaung, Tamwe, Kyauktadar and Yan Kin townships. Junta forces raided their houses day and night under the pretext of checking household lists and forcefully arrested them, sources told RFA. Protesters still at liberty and their families said the exact whereabouts of the more than 40 detainees are not yet known. Witnesses and protesters who are currently in hiding said the police and army arrested activists and beat them at their homes, forced them to kneel in the road and tortured them to discover the whereabouts of remaining members. Calls to a military council spokesman by RFA on Wednesday remain unanswered. Anti-regime protesters in Yangon on June 3, 2022. CREDIT: Yangon People&#8217;s Strike Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) said Tuesday that a total of 14,110 Anti-regime activists across the country have been arrested in more than 16 months since the military coup. Of those, 11,053 are still in custody.  Even younger opponents of the regime are being systematically targeted by police and troops according to a report by the United Nations. UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Tom Andrews called on world leaders to “take immediate coordinated action to address an escalating political, economic and humanitarian crisis that is putting Myanmar’s children at risk of becoming a lost generation.” “During my fact-finding for this report, I received information about children who were beaten, stabbed, burned with cigarettes, and subjected to mock executions, and who had their fingernails and teeth pulled out during lengthy interrogation sessions,” Andrews said, describing the junta’s actions as “war crimes.” The UN report said at least 142 children have been killed, more than 250,000 have been displaced by the military’s attacks and over 1,400 have been arbitrarily detained since the coup in February, 2021. It said at least 61 children, including several under 3-years-old, are reportedly being held as hostages, while the UN has documented the torture of 142 children since the coup.
- [Membership of a political party ‘cannot be grounds for arrest’ UN group says](https://ij-reportika.com/membership-of-a-political-party-cannot-be-grounds-for-arrest-un-group-says/): The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) has criticized the case against a Vietnamese Australian facing a 12-year sentence as lacking grounds for arrest. The comments came in a report released in the first week of June, concerning the case of Chau Van Kham, an Australian resident and member of the banned U.S.-based Viet Tan opposition party. WGAD also released a report on Nguyen Bao Tien, a driver who volunteered for a publishing house founded by a jailed activist. According to documents No. 13/2022 and No. 35/2022, approved by WGAD during its 93rd session from March 30 to April 8, 2022, the agency considers the arrests of Tien and Kham to be arbitrary. WGAD called on Vietnam’s government to take the necessary steps to remedy their situation immediately and in accordance with relevant international conventions, including those set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Chau Van Kham, 72, was arrested on January 13, 2019 on charges of &#8220;operating to overthrow the people&#8217;s administration.&#8221; He was later sentenced to 12 years in prison on another charge of &#8220;terrorism aimed at opposing the people&#8217;s administration,&#8221; because he was a member of Viet Tan, labeled a &#8220;terrorist&#8221; organization by Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security. Viet Tan was described by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights as a moderate activist group advocating for democratic reform. WGAD said it was not the general rule to arrest Chau Van Kham without a warrant in violation of Article 9 of ICCPR. The agency said the deprivation of his liberty was arbitrary because he was only exercising the freedoms of conscience and belief as well as the right of expression enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the ICCPR. It said Kham’s connection to Viet Tan could not be considered grounds for arrest. WGAD also criticized Kham’s limited consular access from the Australian Mission in Vietnam and inadequate legal assistance.  In an interview with Radio Free Asia this week, Viet Tan chairman Do Hoang Diem said: “Right now we are in Australia and the purpose of our trip is to meet Australian politicians and elected officials to campaign for Mr. Chau Van Kham.” “This UN ruling is very timely. With this verdict, it is clear that Mr. Chau Van Kham is innocent … We will fight for Mr. Kham to be free and return to his family.&#8221; In March the Vietnamese government responded to criticism by saying Kham was arrested for violating Vietnamese law, not for his democratic views. The government said his arrest and sentencing were carried out in accordance with Vietnamese law, consistent with international conventions that Vietnam has ratified. Hanoi said it had announced that Viet Tan was a terrorist organization with the aim of overthrowing the government by methods such as armed activity, directly threatening national security and social order, and recruiting and training members in the use of weapons and explosives. The government said Kham illegally entered Vietnam on January 11, 2019, under the direction of Viet Tan, to organize recruitment and training for sabotage and terrorist activities. Since his arrest, many civic groups and parliamentarians in Australia have called on the government in Canberra to put pressure on the Vietnamese government to secure his release. However, he is still detained and forced to do hard labor in a Vietnamese prison. In a separate report the working group commented on 36-year-old Nguyen Bao Tien, a book courier and voluntary worker for Liberal Publishing House. The publishing house was founded by imprisoned activist Pham Doan Trang and is not registered with the Vietnamese government,  Tien was arrested on May 5, 2021 on charges of &#8220;conducting propaganda against the state&#8221; under Article 117 of the Criminal Code. He was sentenced to 5 years and 6 months in prison on January 21 this year. WGAD said Tien was punished only for peacefully exercising the right to freedom of expression and association as provided for in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the ICCPR. It noted that during his detention and trial Tien was deprived of the right to a defense attorney. In March the Vietnamese government said Tien was arrested for violating national law and that during his arrest and trial, his rights were guaranteed. The government said Tien owned and distributed 108 books containing content defaming the regime&#8217;s policies in order to call for the overthrow of the people&#8217;s government.  WGAD operates under the auspices of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), with the mandate to “investigate cases of deprivation of liberty imposed arbitrarily or inconsistently with the international standards set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or the international legal instruments accepted by the States concerned.” In the last five years it has released documents criticizing the arbitrary arrest and conviction of dozens of prisoners of conscience, including Tran Huynh Duy Thuc, Pham Chi Dung, Nguyen Tuong Thuy, Pham Doan Trang, Nguyen Thuy Hanh and Le Van Dung. It has called on the Vietnamese government to release them. However, Vietnam has sentenced them to lengthy prison terms and placed them in prisons with harsh living conditions.
- [North Korean doctors in Laos ordered to pay ‘loyalty funds’ to Pyongyang](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korean-doctors-in-laos-ordered-to-pay-loyalty-funds-to-pyongyang/): North Korea is forcing two doctors who set up a highly profitable ward in a hospital in Laos to send their earnings back home as so-called “loyalty funds,” North Korean sources in Laos told RFA. The North Korean doctors, a physician and a surgeon, were dispatched to the Southeast Asian country to set up a practice on one floor of the Lao-Asean Hospital in the capital Vientiane, an upscale medical facility that offers a higher standard of care than an average Lao hospital. The hospital caters to wealthy foreigners who live in Laos, as well as tourists. Under the normal terms for North Korean workers dispatched to other countries, the doctors had to give their government a percentage of their earnings. In most cases, the money these workers keep is still several times what they could hope to earn at home. But the COVID-19 pandemic caused revenue at the hospital to decline, as there were fewer wealthy foreign patients. The ward operated by the North Korean doctors was forced to suspend operations until the Lao government lifted restrictions in May. As the money started rolling in, Pyongyang ordered the two doctors to resume payments, only in greater amounts that cut sharply into their incomes. “I heard from an acquaintance, who is close to the doctors from Pyongyang, that the North Korean authorities have demanded excessive loyalty funds from the doctors,” a North Korean source in Laos told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “Their operations have barely become normalized. But they look particularly depressed and disappointed because they owe more in loyalty money than they earn,” she said. The doctors started their practice in Vientiane to capitalize on the tourism industry centered there. “Since there are many tourists, they expected that [opening a ward] in that hospital would be able to earn a lot of foreign currency,” said the source. “They designated [their ward] as [part of the] international hospital rather than a North Korean one,” she said. “Most foreign tourists and residents recognize it as [part of] an international hospital that offers better treatment than the local Lao hospitals, and they visit a lot.” Prices can be up to 10 times higher, and must be paid in U.S. dollars, cash only, according to the source. She said she was aware of a Chinese businessman who paid $20 for an abdominal pain diagnosis that would cost $2 in a typical Lao hospital. “Since May, the hospital has been making a good profit as the Lao government completely lifted the COVID-19 lockdown,” she said. Another North Korean in Laos said the hospital ward was established a few years ago, before the worst of the pandemic had reached Laos. “It was founded and operated by two doctors in their 40s who were dispatched from Pyongyang a few years ago. They diagnose, treat and perform surgeries on patients regardless of their nationalities, and get a lot in foreign currency,” she told RFA on condition of anonymity in order to speak freely. “The Lao government closed the border and banned movement between regions in 2020. As the entry and movement of foreigners was suspended, the North Korean hospital [ward] started seeing fewer patients,” the second source said. Eventually the ward had to suspend operations as the steady flow of patients dwindled. “The [ward] has emerged from operational difficulties caused by the COVID-19 crisis, and it is making significant profits,” she said. Sources told RFA that the North Korean ward is able to earn between $100 and $200 per day on average, but has been asked to send to Pyongyang $3,000 per month. After factoring in overhead, very little remains for the two doctors. An employee of the Lao-Asean hospital confirmed to RFA’s Lao Service that two North Korean doctors have been working at the hospital for the past two years, but could not elaborate on how they came to work for the hospital or what their exact positions were. A Lao health official, meanwhile, told RFA that the hospital is privately owned by a domestic company, Lao Medical Service Co., but that it was common for hospitals to hire doctors from abroad. “Many private hospitals in Laos employ many foreign doctors and medical experts including Chinese and Vietnamese because these foreigners have great knowledge in the field,” the official said. “As for the Lao-Asean Hospital, I know that the owner is a Lao investor who has hired several Chinese doctors to work with Lao counterparts and at least one of them is the head of a treatment department, but I don’t know whether the hospital has any North Korean doctors,” he said. Additional reporting by RFA Lao. Translated by Claire Lee, Leejin J. Chung and Max Avary. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Police report: ARSA rebel chief ordered Rohingya leader Muhib Ullah gunned down](https://ij-reportika.com/police-report-arsa-rebel-chief-ordered-rohingya-leader-muhib-ullah-gunned-down/): The leader of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army rebel group ordered the killing of Rohingya activist Muhib Ullah at a Bangladeshi refugee camp last year, police in the South Asian country said in recommending murder charges against 29 suspects, although the insurgent group denied being involved. Muhib Ullah was more popular than Ataullah Abu Ahmmar Jununi, the head of ARSA, and that displeased him, according to an investigation report that police submitted to a court in Cox’s Bazar district on Monday. Seen by BenarNews, the police report says the 29 suspects were members of ARSA and that they acted at the orders of Ataullah and were involved in Muhib Ullah’s murder at various stages.  Fifteen of the 29 suspects have been arrested since the killing last September and the remaining 14 are absconding, police said. The report says that four of the 15 persons confessed to their involvement in Muhib Ullah’s murder. According to one of them, ARSA leaders organized a meeting at one of the refugee camps two days before the murder, the police report says. “At the meeting, [one suspect] and others said ‘our leader Ataullah Jununi told us that Muhib Ullah is emerging as a bigger leader. The Rohingya are giving him more support. He must be killed’ said accused Azizul Haque who was guarding the meeting venue,” according to a portion of the police report. “All of the persons having involvement with the murder are the members of the so called ARSA/Al-Yaaqin,” reads the report, adding that the accused persons had reportedly been involved in theft, robbery, murder, rape, mugging, human trafficking and smuggling of illegal narcotics. “All of them are rogues,” says the report, stating that ARSA and Al-Yaaqin were the same organization. This is the first official admission by Bangladeshi authorities on the presence of ARSA at the refugee camps. Until now, the Bangladesh government has strenuously denied that ARSA exists on Bangladesh soil. Mohammad Rafiqul Islam, an additional superintendent of police in Cox’s Bazar district, confirmed to BenarNews that police submitted the investigation report to the local court on Monday, but he declined to comment further. “The investigation report says it all. We have no comments beyond the investigation report,” he told BenarNews. On the night of Sept. 29, 2021, unidentified gunman burst in and fatally shot Muhib Ullah, a refugee and internationally known Rohingya activist, in his office at the Kutupalong camp while he was meeting with other refugees. ARSA is a Rohingya insurgent group whose 2017 attack on government outposts in Myanmar’s Rakhine state led to a brutal military crackdown against the stateless Rohingya Muslim minority, causing about 740,000 of them to flee to neighboring Bangladesh. ARSA is also blamed for criminal activities at the Rohingya camps in Ukhia and Teknaf, two sub-districts of Cox’s Bazar, a southeastern district near the border with Rakhine state in Myanmar. The police report says that ARSA was against the repatriation of the Rohingya to Myanmar but it did not elaborate on the reason. “Ataullah Abu Ahmmar Jununi could not accept the leadership of Muhib Ullah. He asked Muhib Ullah to stop the operation of his organization to promote the repatriation of the Rohingya. But he did not listen,” the report says. Without going into detail, the report also says that the popularity of the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace and Human Rights, Muhib Ullah’s organization, would stand in the way of ARSA’s operations. In addition, according to the report, Ataullah asked Muhib Ullah to join ARSA but he rejected the offer. Sunil Barua in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, contributed to this report. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.
- [UN official urges action to prevent a lost generation of children in Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/un-official-urges-action-to-prevent-a-lost-generation-of-children-in-myanmar/): The international community must “reengage and refocus” on Myanmar to head off a looming crisis that may leave a “lost generation” of children, who have already suffered incredible deprivation since the country’s February 2021 military coup, a United Nations human rights official said on Tuesday. In a 40-page report titled “Losing a Generation: How the military junta is attacking Myanmar’s children and stealing their future,” Tom Andrews, the U.N. special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, says the military regime has systematically abused children since taking power. Soldiers, police officers and military-backed militias have murdered, abducted, detained and tortured children in a campaign of violence across the Southeast Asian nation, the report says. Military attacks have displaced more than 250,000 children, the report says. More than 1,400 youths have been detained and at least 61 are currently being held hostage. The report says that 142 children have been tortured — beaten, cut, stabbed, burned with cigarettes, deprived of food and water — since the military seized power from the democratically elected government. “The junta’s relentless attacks on children underscore the generals’ depravity and willingness to inflict immense suffering on innocent victims in its attempt to subjugate the people of Myanmar,” said Andrews, a former member of the U.S. Congress from Maine from 1991 to 1995, in a statement. He was appointed to his U.N. role in May 2020. An estimated 7.8 million children remain out of school because of the conflict. As many as 33,000 minors could die preventable deaths this year because they have not received routine immunizations, according to the report. Andrews called on U.N. member states, regional organizations, the U.N. Security Council and other U.N. agencies to significantly increase humanitarian assistance and regional support for refugees. Countries should also implement stronger economic sanctions and coordinated financial investigations to diminish the military’s ability to remain in power. The parties must “respond to the crisis in Myanmar with the same urgency they have responded to the crisis in Ukraine,” the special rapporteur said. “The junta’s attacks on children constitute crimes against humanity and war crimes,” Andrews said. “Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing and other architects of the violence in Myanmar must be held accountable for their crimes against children.” There was no immediate response from the State Administration Council, the formal name for the junta regime. In Geneva, Switzerland, on Tuesday, Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, urged member states to step up pressure on the Myanmar junta amid ongoing reports of violence and human rights violations. “[T]here are reasonable grounds to believe the commission of crimes against humanity and war crimes,” Bachelet said. “What we are witnessing today is the systematic and widespread use of tactics against civilians in respect of which there are reasonable grounds to believe the commission of crimes against humanity and war crimes,” she told the current session of the Human Rights Council. Bachelet called on U.N. member states to take sustained and concrete action to end the violence against civilians and minority groups. “I urge all member states, particularly those with the highest-level access and influence, to intensify the pressure on the military leadership,” she said, citing measures such as increased restrictions on the regime’s financial holdings and business interests and limiting its access to foreign currencies to restrict the purchase of military equipment and supplies. “I also call for continued support to the efforts underway to pursue accountability for the ongoing and past serious human rights violations, as well as alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity through all available tracks,” she said. “Myanmar&#8217;s future depends on addressing the root cause of this crisis.”
- [Cambodian American lawyer gets 6 years for ‘treason’ in mass sentencing of opposition](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-american-lawyer-gets-6-years-for-treason-in-mass-sentencing-of-opposition/): Police in Phnom Penh on Tuesday arrested a Cambodian American lawyer and activist dressed as the Statue of Liberty outside a courthouse, where minutes before a mass trial ended by convicting her and more than 50 other opposition figures of treason. Theary Seng was a high-ranking member of the Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP) before the country’s Supreme Court dissolved the party five years ago, a decision that paved the way for Prime Minister Hun Sen to tighten his grip on the country and squash criticism of his longstanding government.    Wearing a copper-patina hued flowing gown and speckled in glitter, Theary Seng stood holding the torch of liberty in one hand and a tablet reading “Paris Peace Accord, 23 October 1991” in the other, a reference to the agreement that ended civil war in Cambodia and established the Southeast Asian nation as a fledgling democracy. “I am ready for the sham verdict that will be announced this morning which will be a guilty verdict. I am ready and prepared to go to the notorious Cambodian prison for my political opinions, for my beliefs, for my belief in democracy,” she told reporters prior to the conviction. “This regime will not let me go free. It will be an unfair and unjust verdict, because I am innocent, the others charged with me are innocent. But we are living in a dictatorship, we are living in a regime that suppresses and represses its own people, that punishes, that uses the law as a weapon against its own people,” Theary Seng said. She also said that she would not enter the court during the trial. If the authorities wanted to arrest her, they would have to do it publicly, she said. Theary Seng was sentenced to six years in prison, while the others received sentences ranging from five to eight years. Among the other activists on trial Tuesday, 27 were tried in absentia, according to New York-based Human Rights Watch. The treason charges against the activists stem from abortive efforts in 2019 to bring about the return to Cambodia of CNRP leader Sam Rainsy, who has been in exile in France to avoid what his supporters say are politicized charges against him. Following the verdict, authorities obliged Theary Seng’s request for a public arrest — two police officers grabbed her and rushed her into a waiting truck, a video shows. Chhoeun Daravy, an activist who witnessed the arrest, told RFA the police truck drove her to prison. “We are deeply troubled by today’s unjust verdicts against Theary Seng and others,” the U.S. Embassy in Cambodia said in a statement posted to Facebook. “Freedom of expression and association, and tolerance of dissenting views, are vital components of democracy. “We call on Cambodian authorities to release her and other human rights activists from unjust imprisonment.” The Cambodian government’s spokesperson, Phay Siphan, told RFA’s Khmer Service that Theary Seng’s courtside demonstration had nothing to do with the verdict, and tried to dispel the idea that her conviction could damage relations with Washington. “The court’s measures are based on the law,” he said. “Cambodia and the U.S relationship is important … more important than just one person,” Phay Siphan said. Because Theary Seng is a dual citizen of Cambodia and the United States, the embassy can request that she serve her sentence in the U.S., Phay Siphan said. He also said she had the option to appeal and could also seek amnesty from Cambodia’s king after serving two-thirds, or four years, of her sentence. Theary Seng’s lawyer, Choung Chou Ngy, told RFA that he will appeal the court’s verdict. Meanwhile, the prison department refused to allow him to see her, which he said violated the law. The court’s verdicts today show a double standard, Ny Sokha of the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association told RFA. He said that former CNRP officials who agreed to defect to the ruling Cambodian People’s Party have seen their sentences suspended or the charges they faced dropped. “The court’s decision is more about politics rather than the law. If the culture of the dialogue still existed, no one would have been prosecuted. The problem stemmed from political conflict,” he said. In an interview with RFA, Sam Rainsy said he would return to Cambodia to face charges if Hun Sen dropped all charges against former CNRP officials, including Theary Seng. “Hun Sen has targeted me. Hun Sen is afraid of my presence. Why is Hun Sen is afraid of me?” he said. “Release all the prisoners. I volunteer to stay in jail since they [the court] accused me of being the ring leader.” During the mass trial in Phnom Penh Tuesday, Sam Rainsy was given an additional eight years in absentia–adding to the 47 years he has received in recent years. “Hun Sen is afraid of democracy. About 61 were prosecuted but millions of people won’t be intimidated. Wipe your tears and continue,” he said, adding that Theary Seng would be a bone that Hun Sen would have to swallow. Jared Genser, who is providing pro bono counsel to Theary Seng, condemned the court’s decision. “By detaining Theary on plainly fabricated national security charges, Hun Sen has violated a litany of her rights — and dealt yet another blow to Cambodia’s civic space,” said Genser. “It is clear that Hun Sen feels greatly threatened by this courageous woman who speaks truth to power.”  Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, called Tuesday’s proceedings a “show trial” and said they “expose the Hun Sen government’s fear of any vestige of democracy in Cambodia.” “The mass trials against political opposition members are really about preventing any electoral challenge to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s rule, but they have also come to symbolize the death of Cambodia’s democracy,” Robertson said. “By creating a political dynamic that relies on intimidation and persecution of government critics, Hun Sen demonstrates his total disregard for democratic rights,” he said. The convictions draw to a close a trial that began in 2020...
- [Vietnam state media trained to protect government policies](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-state-media-trained-to-protect-government-policies/): Reporters and editors employed by state media outlets in Vietnam are being trained to uphold the views of the ruling Communist Party on human rights, freedom of expression and other politically sensitive topics, sources in the country say. Vietnam’s government appears especially sensitive to foreign criticism on human rights issues, frequently attacking allegations of abuse or the suppression of free speech as the work of hostile forces, according to rights groups and other activists. Trainings are now held each year to ensure that those working in Vietnam’s state-owned media work within limits set by the government and ruling party, Nguyen Ngoc Vinh — former managing editor of the country’s popular Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper — told RFA in an interview. “Vietnamese law already clearly stipulates that the media in Vietnam are a tool of the party and state, and fighting against ‘hostile forces’ is just one of the goals the media has to achieve,” Vinh said. A training course recently held in northern Vietnam’s Ninh Binh province, and reported in an article on Monday by the country’s Labour newspaper, served to remind the reporters, editors and other staff attending of their role in affirming “the party’s guidelines in media affairs,” Vinh said. “Those guidelines have been agreed by the media in Vietnam at all levels, and they are that caution must be used in reporting on human rights issues. That’s it!” he added. Employees of state media in Vietnam are also instructed to guide public opinion on politically sensitive and controversial cases, Vinh said, pointing to the deadly January 2020 clash between land protesters and police at Dong Tam commune outside Hanoi as an example. At first, only social media covered the killing by police of Dong Tam elder Le Dinh Kinh, but then official media reported the incident, using the police as their only source of information, Vinh said. “The media rejected all other sources of information, including accounts by local residents who were witnesses to the killing.” One-sided stories According to standards of modern reporting, the media must obtain information from different sources in order to get as close to the truth as possible, Vinh said. “But in Vietnam, the media are only allowed to tell one-sided stories, especially in human rights cases.” A human rights lawyer, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons, told RFA that the censoring of media by political authorities has badly hurt the defense of human rights in Vietnam. In a free and democratic society, the media play a critical role in protecting the freedom and dignity of the people, RFA’s source said. “However, in Vietnam, the media are seen as a tool of the ruling party and government. They lose their function of creativity and criticism, as they are closely controlled by the Communist Party of Vietnam’s Central Commission on Education and Communications. “The media therefore only serve as the authorities’ mouthpiece in cracking down on dissenting voices, providing misleading information to divide people in society, and protecting the ruling elite,” the lawyer said. Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [Police in China's Tangshan promise citywide crime crackdown after thugs beat woman](https://ij-reportika.com/police-in-chinas-tangshan-promise-citywide-crime-crackdown-after-thugs-beat-woman/): Police in the northern Chinese city of Tangshan have announced a citywide crackdown on violent crime after a viral video of thugs beating up a woman at a barbecue restaurant sparked massive public outrage. Nine people were arrested in connection with the incident. Tangshan mayor Tian Guoliang said the city would &#8220;strike hard&#8221; against organized crime and improve public order after several of the woman&#8217;s assailants were found to have ties to a Jiangsu-based criminal gang, the Tian &#8216;an Society, according to state broadcaster CCTV.   The anti-crime campaign received widespread public support on social media, where the video has sparked outrage, prompting women to voice concerns about traveling or eating alone. It will target criminal activities that &#8220;spur strong emotion from the public and have an adverse influence on society, including intentional injury, extortion, drug abuse and cybercrimes,&#8221; the English-language China Daily newspaper reported. The video &#8212; which shows women initially fighting back after being approached and harassed by an unidentified man &#8212; has been traced to the early hours of June 10, at a restaurant in Tangshan&#8217;s Lubei district. Much of the outrage focused on the fact that nobody watching intervened to stop the subsequent, vicious beating of the women who fended off the initial assault, who was left severely injured as the attackers ran off. Four women were injured in the incident, two of whom were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, police told state media. The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)&#8217;s disciplinary arm called for the &#8220;root causes&#8221; of the crime to be investigated and dealt with. &#8220;We must stick to a zero tolerance policy for all kinds of illegal and criminal activities &#8230; and build a comprehensive and three-dimensional prevention and control system,&#8221; the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said. &#8220;Don&#8217;t wait for problems to emerge before you pay attention to them.&#8221; Hebei resident Zheng Cheng said the barbecue restaurant incident was just the tip of the iceberg, in a city plagued by gang violence. &#8220;They have their own independent source of funding, and there are [powerful] people behind them,&#8221; Zheng told RFA. &#8220;These attackers are very arrogant, and act as tyrants in the local area.&#8221; Further reports of violence against women have emerged in Tangshan since the beating video. Kidnappings Pictures posted by medical staff from a Tangshan hospital showed a young woman&#8217;s injuries after she was kidnapped outside the high-speed railway station, raped and stabbed, eventually crawling two kilometers before being rescued. A nightclub singer surnamed Zhang also reported being kidnapped by a Tangshan gang who held her for ransom, locking her in a dog cage. Six people have been arrested in connection with her case, and with that of a cake shop owner who reported extortion, Tangshan police department said on Monday. A current affairs commentator surnamed Cai said online discussion of the case was relatively free, even on China&#8217;s tightly controlled internet. &#8220;The reason they have gone easy on online [reports and comments] is that there was no official involvement here,&#8221; Cai said. &#8220;That&#8217;s hugely important. If officials had played any kind of a role here, they would have shut down discussion.&#8221; &#8220;They are now deflecting the blame onto criminal gangs, to take the heat off the government,&#8221; he said. Xue Li, a Generation Z woman, said she has been left sad and angry after reading constant updates on the Tangshan incident on her phone all weekend. &#8220;I just felt so angry at the time, and so disappointed, for the same reason as everyone else, which was why was nobody helping?&#8221; she said. &#8220;How is it that men can just get away with beating up women like that?&#8221; Another young woman who asked to be identified as S said she had felt panicky after seeing the video. &#8220;I couldn&#8217;t breathe,&#8221; S said. &#8220;I couldn&#8217;t believe that something like this could happen in 2022.&#8221; A Taiyuan resident who gave only the nickname Ellie said many women are well aware that the Tangshan incident was just the tip of the iceberg. &#8220;What makes me feel even more helpless is that this is just one of countless cases of violence against women, and if the authorities hadn&#8217;t decided to go in hot [due to the online outcry], they wouldn&#8217;t have arrested them so soon,&#8221; she said. &#8216;Powerless in the face of absolute violence&#8217; Another woman who gave the nickname Shirley said telling women to be more careful wasn&#8217;t the right response. &#8220;I don&#8217;t know why, but every time this kind of incident happens, somebody comes out and says that women should take steps to protect themselves,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I used to agree with that, but after watching this incident, I wonder if women can actually protect themselves,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Even if I stop wearing [certain clothes] or going to out-of-the-way places &#8230; I&#8217;m still powerless in the face of absolute violence,&#8221; Shirley said. The Tangshan beating was just the latest case of violence against women to rock China in recent months, In February, harrowing video footage of a woman identified as Xiaohuamei chained by the neck in an outbuilding went viral on the Chinese internet, prompting widespread public anger over the rampant trafficking of women and girls, aided and abetted by local ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials. An investigation by Jiangsu provincial authorities said Yang was a missing woman known by the nickname Xiaohuamei who was trafficked out of the southwestern province of Yunnan in 1997 and sold twice by human traffickers in Feng county. Nine people have been arrested for crimes linked to her trafficking, including her &#8220;husband,&#8221; who was identified by his surname, Dong. However, doubts remain about Yang&#8217;s actual identity. &#8220;Both the Tangshan incident and the case of the chained woman a few months ago, taken together, have contributed to a general concern among Chinese women that there are no guarantees for their personal safety,&#8221; Human Rights Watch senior researcher Maya Wang told RFA. According to the government-backed news website The Paper, found a number of court cases in which men stood trial for...
- [Taiwan says China's sovereignty claims over Taiwan Strait reveal military ambitions](https://ij-reportika.com/taiwan-says-chinas-sovereignty-claims-over-taiwan-strait-reveal-military-ambitions/): Taiwan on Tuesday rejected China&#8217;s claim that the Taiwan Strait, the body of water between the democratic island and China, were its own territorial waters. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou said the Taiwan Strait is defined in international law as international waters. &#8220;Our government has always respected any activities conducted by foreign vessels in the Taiwan Strait that are allowed by international law,&#8221; Ou told reporters in Taipei. &#8220;We understand and support the freedom of navigation operations conducted by the U.S. as these operations promote peace and stability in the region,&#8221; she said. She said recent comments by Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin laying claim to the Taiwan Strait were &#8220;a distortion of international law.&#8221; She said Wang&#8217;s comments &#8220;revealed [China&#8217;s] ambition to annex Taiwan.&#8221; While Taiwan has never been governed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) nor formed part of the People&#8217;s Republic of China, and its 23 million people have no wish to give up their sovereignty or democratic way of life, Beijing insists the island is part of its territory. &#8220;Taiwan is an inalienable part of China&#8217;s territory,&#8221; Wang told a news conference on June 13. &#8220;Taiwan has sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction over the Taiwan Strait.&#8221; &#8220;It is a false claim when certain countries call the Taiwan Strait &#8216;international waters&#8217; in order to find a pretext for manipulating issues related to Taiwan and threatening China’s sovereignty and security,&#8221; he said. China vs rule-based international order In Taipei, Ou said Taiwan will continue to work with like-minded countries to jointly uphold the rule-based international order and promote peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. According to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), countries can claim an area 12 nautical miles (22 kilometers) from the coast as their territorial seas, where they have full sovereignty. They can also claim exclusive economic rights over waters up to 200 nautical miles from their coast, but other countries still have the right to sail through or fly over the waters. Most of the Taiwan Strait is less than 200 nautical miles wide, meaning that Chinese and Taiwanese economic claims mostly overlap. Huang Chieh-chung, associate professor of international affairs and strategy at Taiwan&#8217;s Tamkang University, said the timing of Wang&#8217;s claim was interesting. &#8220;Is it appropriate to come out and say something like this now? The intentions behind [Wang&#8217;s comments] may need further analysis,&#8221; he said. He said it was unclear whether the international community would support China&#8217;s claim. &#8220;The Taiwan Strait is an important international waterway, so how can China claim it all as its own?&#8221; Huang said. &#8220;Whether or not China can win international support for this view is up to them.&#8221; &#8220;But we in Taiwan won&#8217;t accept it.&#8221; Legitimacy rejected Ye Yaoyuan, director of the Department of International Studies and Contemporary Linguistics at the University of St. Thomas in the United States, said Beijing&#8217;s intention could be linked to legal moves aimed at paving the way for a military invasion of Taiwan. &#8220;One thing China has been doing is showing [its actions regarding Taiwan] from a legal point of view,&#8221; Ye told RFA. &#8220;If there is war in the Taiwan Strait, can they prevent other countries from intervening in such a war using international law, or intimidate them?&#8221; &#8220;China has been making comments, particularly using the perspective of international law, to strengthen its legal case for forcing &#8216;unification&#8217; on Taiwan,&#8221; Ye said. &#8220;But the legitimacy [of such arguments] isn&#8217;t accepted by most countries.&#8221; Chinese leader Xi Jinping has signed a directive allowing &#8216;non-war&#8217; uses of the military, prompting concerns that Beijing may be gearing up to invade the democratic island of Taiwan under the guise of a &#8220;special operation&#8221; not classified as war. The U.S. State Department hadn&#8217;t responded to requests for its comment on Wang Wenbin&#8217;s comments by the time of writing. U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan held &#8220;candid&#8221; talks with Chinese defense minister Yang Jiechi on Monday, with scant agreement reached on the matter of Taiwan. Sullivan reiterated the U.S. policy of recognizing Chinese sovereignty but expressed &#8220;concerns about Beijing&#8217;s coercive and aggressive actions across the Taiwan Strait,&#8221; a senior White House official told Agence France-Presse. Last month, U.S. President Joe Biden appeared to break with decades of Washington policy when he said the U.S. would defend Taiwan militarily if it was attacked by China. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Three die in raid on Sagaing region village](https://ij-reportika.com/three-die-in-raid-on-sagaing-region-village/): The bodies of a woman and two men have been found after junta troops set fire to Lat Pu Kan village in Myanmar’s Sagaing region on Monday. The three had been tied up and killed before troops torched the village in Pale township. The bodies of the woman, Daw Aye Man, and a man U Kyaung Maung, both in their 70s, were found along with U Paw, a man in his 80s, a local resident told RFA. “The victims were arrested and killed,” said the resident, who declined to be named for safety reasons. “Daw Aye Man, the woman, could not go anywhere as she was old and had no one who could carry her to help her flee. She was killed in her bed. U Paw, who was over 80, had poor vision. He was tied up and killed. The other man, U Kyaung Maung, was deaf. Their bodies were found after the military left the village.”  It was not clear why the three were killed when they were unable to take up arms to resist the junta forces. Calls to a military council spokesman by RFA on Tuesday morning went unanswered. In addition to the three murdered villagers, a 30-year-old local, Ko Naing, is missing according to local residents. A 53-year-old man, U Paw San, was shot and injured on Monday when troops fired heavy artillery and live rounds on nearby Kokko Gone village, locals told RFA. Three cattle were also killed. The military council has not issued a statement on either incident. The local People’s Defense Force (PDF) militia said that local PDFs have been able to defeat the junta’s troops because locals led them around landmines. It said that was why troops targeted the villages. Local militia member, Saya Poe Thar from the Kya Thit Nat group (Leopard Squad) said the troops who burned Lat Pu Kan and Kokko Gone villages on Monday also went to Pon Taung Nat Htake village in Pale Township on June 10, sending 107 military trucks, carrying around 170 soldiers. The troops included a landmine clearance team.  He said about 10 soldiers were killed on Sunday by landmines laid by the Kya Thit Nat militia group. Two local fighters also died. The military then set fire to nearby villages thought to support the PDFs, killing civilians and destroying their homes, Saya Poe Thar said. Sagaing has been the site of some of the fiercest fighting between military troops and opposition PDFs since the junta seized power in February last year. Data for Myanmar says 103 people were killed and 192 injured in the region between February 1, 2021 and April 28 this year. Fighting and arson attacks have forced an estimated 336,600 people to flee their homes in Sagaing since the coup, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Independent think-tank Institute for Strategy and Policy Myanmar said this month that around 15,530 homes and other buildings had been burned or destroyed in the northwest region from the start of military rule until May 26 this year, representing nearly 70% of all the buildings damaged in Myanmar.
- [Family of dead soldier questions military’s drowning claim](https://ij-reportika.com/family-of-dead-soldier-questions-militarys-drowning-claim/): The family of a Vietnamese soldier has questioned claims by the military that he drowned while stationed at Ba Vi, on the outskirts of Hanoi. On June 11, the family wrote on social media that a soldier from Tuyen Quang city had died. Research by RFA  revealed the dead man was Ly Van Phuong, a 22-year-old ethnic Hmong, who had been serving in the Vietnamese military at Infantry Officer School No. 1 since February last year. Phuong’s family said his unit notified them that he was missing on the afternoon of June 9. The following morning, family members went to Ba Vi to look for him but returned home after failing to find him. On June 11, they received a phone call from his unit telling them that Phuong’s body had been found in a pond near the barracks. According to the soldier’s younger sister, Ly Thi Thu Hang, Phuong’s unit initially tried to persuade the family not to come to collect his body and instead to wait for the army to bring it to them. The family refused and insisted on going to the site of his death. “I went down but they still wouldn&#8217;t let me see the place where my brother died,” Thu Hang said. “Later my family argued with them and then they took us to the scene.” Thu Hang said there were many signs of a fight at the scene and they saw maggots on the ground even though her brother&#8217;s body was said to have been found in the pond. &#8220;I don&#8217;t know if it&#8217;s real, but it&#8217;s unacceptable,&#8221; she said. The family said they were asked by Phuong’s military unit to bring his body back home for burial as quickly as possible and were offered VND500 million (U.S.$22,400). “At first, they said that they would pay VND500 million to my family to bring my brother back and that&#8217;s it. They wouldn&#8217;t let my brother stay there anymore. My parents couldn&#8217;t accept that because they wanted to investigate further but they still wanted my parents to take my brother home.” RFA was unable to verify the family’s claims because it could not contact Infantry Officer School No. 1. Although initially intending to leave Phuong’s body at the barracks and request an investigation, the family decided on Sunday to bring it home for burial because it was severely decomposed. On the same day, Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reported on the incident, stating the view of the military unit. It said that Phuong was discovered missing at 5:30 a.m. on June 9. The unit later organized a search but could not find him. VNA said people discovered his body floating in a lake about 100 meters away from the unit on the evening of June 10. A representative of Infantry Officer School No. 1 said the military school was investigating the cause of death, VNA reported. When asked how she felt about her brother&#8217;s sudden death while performing military service, Ly Thi Thu Hang said: “On June 9, when they reported my brother was missing, I was already worried. Then they said that maybe he had gone out with some girls but I thought for sure that my brother hadn’t gone.” “Then my parents went down to look for him but couldn&#8217;t find him. On Saturday morning, when I heard that my brother had died, I was shocked feeling like it wasn&#8217;t true.&#8221; Thu Hang said she felt worried for her brother after hearing about the death of another soldier, Tran Duc Do, who died during military service in Bac Ninh. That incident took place in June, 2021 creating shock and anger across the country. Although the soldier&#8217;s family claimed that his son was beaten to death, the army ultimately concluded that Do hanged himself. In December 2021, a similar incident occurred in Gia Lai province, when another soldier, Nguyen Van Thien, died at his unit. Senior officers initially claimed Thien died in a fall at his barracks. A subsequent investigation showed he was beaten to death by his teammates, leading to the investigation and arrest of three servicemen believed to have been responsible. Based on those two cases, Ly Van Phuong’s family said that they did not believe he had drowned.
- [Myanmar’s armed resistance rejects junta call for surrender](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-armed-resistance-rejects-junta-call-for-surrender/): Myanmar’s armed resistance has dismissed an unprecedented call by the junta to surrender as a “sugar-coated offer” by a regime that must pay for its war crimes against civilians, as a new report found the military responsible for nearly 20,000 arson attacks since it’s 2021 coup. In a statement published in both Burmese and English by Myanmar’s state-run newspapers on Monday, the junta’s Information Team announced that all members of the armed resistance – including the pro-democracy People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary group it has labeled a terrorist organization – will be allowed to return to civilian life if they willingly lay down their arms. The junta blamed “political adversaries and disagreements in ethnic affairs” for Myanmar’s internal armed conflicts, which it said had hampered development, and called for “unity” to heal the nation. “Those who were persuaded by terrorist groups … to commit acts of terrorism leading to the utter devastation of the country and launch armed resistance under various names of groups including PDF … affect the stability of the State and ensue delay in ways to democracy,” the statement said. “Therefore, it is here announced that the organizations, including PDF, are welcomed if they enter the legal fold [to return to] their normal civilian lives by surrendering their weapons, [and] following rules and regulations to participate in future work plans of the country.” Various armed resistance groups that have sworn loyalty to Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) told RFA Burmese that surrender to the junta is “impossible,” citing the devastation it had wrought on the country since the Feb. 1, 2021 takeover. Others said the military cannot be trusted and suggested that its call for surrender is a sign of weakness. “If we had thought surrender was a possibility at the beginning, we would never have started the revolution,” said a spokesman for PDF in Kayah state’s Demawso township, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We will never surrender. We’ll never trust the military which has ruled us for over 70 years and wants to brainwash us, no matter what they say.” A spokesman for the Myingyu township PDF in Sagaing region, who also declined to be named, said his group will also continue its fight against the military. “As far as we know, they are weakening. I think they are making this offer because they have suffered heavy casualties during their offensive in our township,” he said. “We blew up their convoys with landmines whenever they passed through our territory, and they suffered a lot. We will never surrender to them but fight to the end.” A member of the Chinland Defense Force, which was fighting the junta in Chin state before the NUG was formed in April last year, said his group had barely acknowledged Monday’s offer. “We have determined to wipe out the military dictatorship. That is why we have taken up arms against them and reached this stage,” he said. “Frankly speaking, we don’t even need to comment on their offer.” Myanmar&#8217;s military chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing (2nd from R) arrives for the fourth session of the 21st-Century Panglong Conference, Aug. 19, 2020.Credit: AFP Doubts over junta’s claims Naing Htoo Aung, shadow defense secretary, said the NUG will not consider the offer because the junta is “untrustworthy.” “It is unbelievable that these people, who are currently committing atrocities and killing innocent people and burning villages, have asked us to surrender our weapons and return to civilian life,” he said. “We all know that we cannot believe [this offer].” Naing Htoo Aung called Monday’s offer “sugar-coated,” and vowed to hold the junta responsible for the death and destruction it has sown over the past 16 months. The NUG claimed last month that it had already formed more than 250 battalions across the country and established links to more than 400 PDF units, suggesting it was more than capable of defeating the military regime. Sai Kyi Zin Soe, a Myanmar-based analyst, questioned why the junta would expect the PDF to disarm without removing the group from its list of terrorist organizations. “After all, it is difficult for people who have suffered because of the junta actions, to give up their weapons,” he said. “In this age, when news travels fast, the military cannot make up stories and fool people like the previous juntas.” Monday’s offer came days after U.S. State Department adviser Derek Chollet told reporters in Bangkok that the junta should return Myanmar to the path of democracy as it appears unable to crush the opposition. He also noted that the military has suffered heavy casualties in its fight with the resistance. Earlier this month, independent research group the Institute for Strategy and Policy (ISP Myanmar) said that it had documented more than 4,600 clashes between PDF units and the military as of May 15. More than half of them occurred in Kayin state, while the second most took place in Sagaing region. Junta chief Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing in April called on Myanmar’s ethnic armed groups to hold peace talks and end armed conflict with the military, but he refused to meet with the PDF. The smoldering remains of Kebar village in Sagaing region&#8217;s Ayeyarwaddy township, Dec. 13, 2021. Nearly 20,000 houses razed The junta’s invitation to surrender also came less than a week after local watchdog group Data for Myanmar issued a report which found that junta troops and military proxy groups had burned down 18,886 homes across the country between last year’s coup and the end of May 2022. According to the report, villages in Sagaing were the hardest hit by the junta, with 13,840 houses destroyed, while those in Magway region and Chin state came in second and third. It said that 7,146 homes were set on fire in May alone – the highest monthly figure since the coup. Legal experts and analysts told RFA on Monday that the widespread use of arson against civilians amounts to war crimes and said the junta must be held...
- [Statesman or shark bait?](https://ij-reportika.com/statesman-or-shark-bait/): After blanket denials that China is building a naval facility for its use at Cambodia&#8217;s Ream Naval Base, Cambodia is now saying Chinese forces will not have exclusive use of the structure at the Gulf of Thailand base. While the U.S. and other regional powers worry about China gaining its first naval staging facility in mainland Southeast Asia near the South China Sea, there are also concerns that Prime Minister Hun Sen will cede too much Cambodian sovereignty to a far more powerful partner that won&#8217;t take &#8220;no&#8221; for an answer.
- [China sets information blockade after 6.0 magnitude earthquake hits Tibetan county](https://ij-reportika.com/china-sets-information-blockade-after-6-0-magnitude-earthquake-hits-tibetan-county/): The Chinese government is imposing an information lockdown after a series of earthquakes in a Tibetan county in Sichuan province displaced more than 25,000 residents, RFA has learned. The initial quake, measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale, hit Barkam (Maerkang in Chinese), a county-level city in the Ngawa (Aba) Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, at 1:28 a.m. June 10, Beijing time, the China Earthquake Networks Center (CENC) reported. According to a state-run media report, the quake injured at least one person and 1,314 rescuers were dispatched to the area. An estimated 25,790 residents of the area were transferred and resettled. “Most of the houses [in affected areas] are destroyed and many have sustained extensive damage,” a source told RFA’s Tibetan Service Friday on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “Many people have been left injured, but I haven’t heard any death reports so far.” File photo of earthquake damage in Barkam county, Ngawa, Tibet. Photo: Citizen Journalist Another source told RFA that many of the homes still standing are now without electricity. “The number of fatalities and injured are unknown at the moment. However, the government has strictly instructed us not to share any pictures, videos and other information of the calamity on social media,” the source said on condition of anonymity for security reasons.  “The earthquake stuck in the middle of the night while it was raining heavily. Though it was frightening, many were able to step out of their houses for safety. But another earthquake measuring 5.8 magnitude and few small ones stuck again in the early morning hours,” said the source. Chinese media reported that rescuers had been dispatched, but the source said that they had not yet arrived when he spoked to RFA.  “The schools in Barkam county, where the earthquake stuck, have seen no help from the government and the students are still lying around their school’s playground. They even have to take care of their own food,” the source said. Residents of Barkam have been barred from posting reports, pictures and any other information about the quake, which has devastated houses, stupas and monks’ residences, a third source who requested anonymity to speak freely told RFA. File photo of the aftermath of an earthquake in Barkam county, Ngawa, Tibet. Photo: Citizen Journalist Many displaced people have had to find temporary shelter in tents, which the monks and townspeople have set up together. Government rescuers did not reach Barkam until Monday, three days after the initial quake. India’s National Center for Seismology reported two more earthquakes in Tibet on Monday — a 4.2 magnitude quake at 4:01 a.m. IST and a 4.5 magnitude quake at 11:49 a.m. IST. Both occurred in Gerze (Gaize) county, Xizang province. Earthquakes are common on the Tibetan plateau and last year a 7.3-magnitude quake struck Matoe (Maduo) county, killing 20 people and injuring 300.  RFA reported at that time that authorities had similarly blocked social media reporting, telling citizens to report injuries and deaths only to the government rather than sharing the information online. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Two Vietnam villagers complete jail terms for deadly 2020 raid in land dispute](https://ij-reportika.com/two-vietnam-villagers-complete-jail-terms-for-deadly-2020-raid-in-land-dispute/): Two villagers who were jailed for “resisting officials on duty” during a deadly January 2020 police raid over a tense land dispute in northern Vietnam completed their nearly 30-month sentences and were released on June 9, one of the freed men said Monday. Bui Van Tuan and Trinh Van Hai were part of an initial group of eight residents of Hoanh hamlet in Dong Tam commune, about 25 miles south of Vietnam’s capital Hanoi who were arrested following a deadly clash between residents and police on Jan. 9, 2020 that left three officers and the village elder dead. On that day, about 3,000 officers intervened in a long-running dispute between villagers and developers over construction of a nearby military airport on nearly 150 acres of agricultural land they used. Police raided the homes of the residents, including that of village elder Le Dinh Kinh, shooting dead the octogenarian in his bedroom during the early morning attack. Kinh’s sons, Le Dinh Chuc and Le Dinh Cong, were sentenced to death on Sept. 14, 2020, in connection with the deaths of three police officers who were killed in the clash. After his release, Tuan told RFA on Monday that his health was fine and he had not been treated badly in prison. Tuan also said that after his unsuccessful appeal trial, authorities sent him to Thanh Phong Detention Center in Thanh Hoa province, where he performed forced labor. Hai, who was held at Detention Center No. 6 in Thanh Chuong district, Nghe An province, was released on the same day, but RFA could not reach his relatives for comment. Four other villagers are serving jail terms of 12 years to life on murder charges, while eight others are serving prison terms of 30 months to five years for “resisting officers on official duty.” Another 15 people were also charged with resisting officers, but received probation. Following the deadly clash, the My Duc district government built a fence around the disputed 59 hectares (146 acres) of land in Dong Senh, and the military built a high wall separating its land from the disputed land, a villager said at that time. International organizations have called on the Vietnamese government to conduct an independent and transparent investigation of the Dong Tam incident. In an earlier flare-up of the Dong Tam dispute, farmers detained 38 police officers and local officials during a weeklong standoff in April 2017. Three months later, the Hanoi Inspectorate rejected the farmer’s claims that 47 hectares (116 acres) of their farmland was seized for the military-run Viettel Group — Vietnam’s largest mobile phone operator — without adequate compensation. Though all land in Vietnam is owned by the state, land confiscations have become a flashpoint with residents, who have accused the government of pushing small landholders aside in favor of lucrative real estate developments and of paying insufficient compensation for their losses. Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Hundreds of Rohingya tried to flee Myanmar in past 6 months](https://ij-reportika.com/hundreds-of-rohingya-tried-to-flee-myanmar-in-past-6-months/): More than 600 Rohingya Muslims from western Myanmar’s Rakhine state have been arrested over the last six months trying to reach Malaysia, an RFA analysis shows, part of an exodus of refugees who were driven by a lack of jobs and food to make a risky and sometimes deadly trek. RFA compiled the data from statements issued by military junta officials in Rakhine state and information from local media outlets. A Muslim man who lives in Maungdaw township, who did not want to be named for security reasons, said he sold all his belongings to send his daughter to Malaysia, but she was arrested on the way. “Our family agreed to marry our daughter off to a boy who is in Malaysia,” the man told RFA. “We asked him if he would pay for half the travel expenses. He agreed, and because we didn’t have 500,000 kyats [U.S. $270], we sold our land and house and other stuff to pay for her travel. Now, she’s been arrested, and we’ve lost everything. Our lives are ruined.” The daughter was aboard a boat with 228 others about 17 miles northwest of Mayu Island near Sittwe when they were was arrested by Myanmar authorities. More than 100 of the Rohingya passengers were sentenced to five years in prison by the Maungdaw District Court on Dec. 14 for violating immigration laws. Minors were released. In December, a total of 270 Rohingya were arrested for immigration law violations. Two dozen Rohingya were detained in January, 135 in February, 14 in March, 35 in April and 124 in May, for a total of 602 people. A Rohingya in Kyaukphyu township said Muslims were leaving Rakhine and risking arrest or even death because of a lack of jobs in the state and restrictions placed on them by authorities. Malaysia is a preferred destination because most of its residents are Muslim. “It has become easier for traffickers to exploit us,” he said. “The current problem in Rakhine is that people are not allowed to travel freely. There are also very few job opportunities to earn a living. We could not go outside because we were living in a refugee camp. That is why people are taking risks. They think they will prosper if they can make the trip.” Many are also motivated by food shortages in the camps in which the Rohingya are confined in Myanmar, Rohingya sources said. Rohingya living in Maungdaw township pay what is to them exorbitant sums to traffickers — a total of about 9 million kyats (U.S. $4,900), paid in stages along the route. Imminent danger Despite the costs, Rohingya still face imminent danger on their trek, which often involves travelling in rickety boats in rough seas. On May 21, at least 25 Rohingya out of about 90 passengers on their way to Malaysia died when their boat capsized and sank in the Bay of Bengal during a storm off the coast of Ayerarwady region. Myanmar authorities picked up more than 20 survivors, including the traffickers, on a beach the following day. A number of other Rohingya remain missing. Thai authorities arrested 59 Muslims from Myanmar and Bangladesh on June 4 on Koh Taung Island in the southern province of Satun after they were told they had reached Malaysia and disembarked. Tin Hlaing, a Rohingya from Thekkebyin village in Sittwe township who works on human trafficking issues, told RFA that some Rohingyas suffer abuse at the hands of their traffickers on the journey. “Some kids were so pitiful [because] the traffickers beat them up and sent a video to their families demanding that they pay the remaining 2 million, 3 million or 5 million kyats if they wanted their son or daughter to live,” he said. “Their parents, who also live in the IDP camps, had no money to pay,” he said. “What they did was sell their rooms or their rations coupons. Finally, they had no place to live and nothing to eat. They had to do that so their children would not die. We see such tragedies here.” RFA could not reach military regime spokesmen in Rakhine state or in Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw for comment. Activist Nay San Lwin, cofounder of the Free Rohingya Coalition, noted that the stream of Muslims trying to illegally flee Myanmar is a result of the violation of their fundamental rights. “If you can work and live freely in your area, if there is stability and peace, no one will migrate,” he said. “All over Myanmar, people can travel freely by land or by water, but only the Rohingyas are not allowed to do so. Rohingyas are deprived of the use of waterways in their own birthplace. “They don’t have the right to live a normal life,” he said. “The deprivation of basic rights, such as the right to freedom of movement, is a serious violation of human rights.” Call for urgent intervention The Rohingya were placed in IDP camps in in Sittwe, Pauktaw and Kyaukphyu townships following sectarian violence between Muslims and Buddhists in 2012 and 2013. In 2017, Myanmar’s military conducted brutal clearance operations in Rakhine that forced more than 740,000 Rohingya, mainly in Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships, to flee across the border and into Bangladesh, where they now live in sprawling refugee camps. The United States in March said that the clearance operations constituted a genocide. Myanmar Ethnic Rohingya Human Rights Organization Malaysia issued a written appeal on Monday to the U.N. Human Rights Council to find a permanent solution to the Rohingyas’ plight. “[We] need the urgent intervention and peace from the outside world to change our fate,” the group said. “We cannot delay our ACTION as it will only allow more Rohingyas and people of Myanmar to die.” The organization asked world leaders, the European Union, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Associations of Southeast Asian nations, and U.N. member states to appeal to the current regular session of the Human Rights Council, which runs until July 8, to find a...
- [Chinese leader Xi Jinping signs new rules governing 'non-war' military operations](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-leader-xi-jinping-signs-new-rules-governing-non-war-military-operations/): Chinese leader Xi Jinping has signed a directive allowing &#8216;non-war&#8217; uses of the military, prompting concerns that Beijing may be gearing up to invade the democratic island of Taiwan under the guise of a &#8220;special operation&#8221; not classified as war. While Taiwan has never been governed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), nor formed part of the People&#8217;s Republic of China, and its 23 million people have no wish to give up their sovereignty or democratic way of life, Beijing insists the island is part of its territory. Xi signed an order which takes effect June 15, state media reported, without printing the the order in full. &#8220;It mainly systematically regulates basic principles, organization and command, types of operations, operational support, and political work, and their implementation by the troops,&#8221; state news agency Xinhua said in a in brief report on Monday. &#8220;[It] provides a legal basis for non-war military operation,&#8221; it said. Among the six-chapter document&#8217;s stated aims are &#8220;maintaining national sovereignty &#8230; regional stability and regulating the organization and implementation of non-war military operations,&#8221; it said. The report came after Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky called for a diplomatic solution to the threat of military action in the Taiwan Strait. Speaking via video link at the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore, Zelensky used Ukraine as an example, calling on the world to &#8220;always support any preventive action,&#8221; and called for diplomatic solutions to prevent war. Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida warned on Friday that &#8220;Ukraine today may be East Asia tomorrow,&#8221; Soldiers stand on deck of the ambitious transport dock Yimen Shan of the Chinese People&#8217;s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy as it participates in a naval parade to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the founding of China&#8217;s PLA Navy in the sea near Qingdao in eastern China&#8217;s Shandong province, April 23, 2019. Credit: AFP Changing attitudes after Ukraine Beijing-based political commentator Wu Qiang said Zelenskyy appears to be aligning himself with U.S. policy goals in the Asia-Pacific. &#8220;All countries are making these comparisons, but Zelenskyy is making a point of making them,&#8221; Wu said. &#8220;I believe he is reciprocating [in return for U.S. support]; he is supporting the strategic goals of the United States in the Indo-Pacific region.&#8221; &#8220;During the past few months, U.S. President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have continued to emphasize that the long-term competitor of the U.S. in future will be China,&#8221; he said. He said Zelenskyy&#8217;s comments are also representative of a change of attitude in Eastern Europe and the EU to Taiwan, in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. &#8220;It&#8217;s more appropriate for him to represent this change in the EU&#8217;s position,&#8221; Wu said of Zelenskyy. Chen Chi-chieh, associate professor of political science at Taiwan&#8217;s National Sun Yat-Sen University, said Zelenskyy has been fairly careful to avoid provoking Beijing, however. &#8220;He is smart enough not to want to provoke China, so he can&#8217;t speak out very clearly on the Taiwan question, so he had to answer it in a subtle way,&#8221; Chen told RFA. He said there are many areas in which Ukraine relies on Chinese assistance, and will likely rely on it for post-war reconstruction. &#8220;Ukraine&#8217;s relationship with Taiwan isn&#8217;t that close, so he doesn&#8217;t need to sacrifice the relationship between Ukraine and China to support Taiwan, at least not very clearly,&#8221; Chen said. Austin also made it clear that the United States is still committed to maintaining the status quo across the Taiwan Strait, as well as its commitment under the Taiwan Relations Act, which requires Washington to help Taiwan to defend itself. The war in Ukraine  featured prominently during sessions at the Shangri-La Dialogue. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told participants that the invasion of Ukraine &#8220;indefensible,&#8221; and &#8220;a preview of a possible world of chaos and turmoil.&#8221; China’s Defense Minister Wei Fenghe delivered scathing remarks about the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy in a speech in Singapore on Sunday, calling it an attempt to form a clique to contain China. In his speech on &#8220;China’s vision for regional order&#8221; at the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum he hit back at Austin’s remarks a day earlier, saying China firmly rejects America’s accusations and threats. Wei said the Indo-Pacific strategy was &#8220;an attempt to build an exclusive small group to hijack countries in our region” to target one specific country – China. “It is a strategy to create conflict and confrontation to contain and encircle others,” said the minister, who is also a general in China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Chen said Wei is trying to prevent the U.S. from being too good an ally to Taiwan. &#8220;[Beijing] wants to deter Taiwan from getting too close to the United States, and also hopes that the United States will stop selling arms to Taiwan, especially advanced weaponry,&#8221; Chen said. &#8220;That&#8217;s why they are using such harsh words.&#8221; But Wu said Wei doesn&#8217;t hold a very powerful position in the Chinese military establishment. &#8220;Wei Fenghe is not even a member of the CCP&#8217;s Politburo, but plays quite a secondary role,&#8221; Wu said, adding that bilateral dialogue between Wei and Austin at the Shangri-La Dialogue could yield little of substance because it wasn&#8217;t a meeting of equals or counterparts. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Thousands rally to mark 3rd anniversary of 2019 anti-extradition protest in Hong Kong](https://ij-reportika.com/thousands-rally-to-mark-3rd-anniversary-of-2019-anti-extradition-protest-in-hong-kong/): Thousands of exiled Hongkongers and allies marked the 3rd anniversary of the 2019 Hong Kong protest movement in cities around the world at the weekend, with a large crowd gathering on Parliament Square in London to mark the first anniversary of mass public protests on June 12, 2019. Some 4,000 protesters gathered in London gathered at Marble Arch, marching to Parliament Square to chant slogans including &#8220;Free Hong Kong! Revolution now!&#8221;, which has been banned under a draconian national security law in Hong Kong. Exiled former pro-democracy lawmaker Nathan Law said people&#8217;s goals weren&#8217;t all the same, but that Hongkongers in exile would still work together. &#8220;Some people want an armed revolution, the liberation of Hong Kong, and independence for Hong Kong,&#8221; Law said. &#8220;We have also heard how we might use culture to change a society.&#8221; &#8220;We imagine different paths to reach the goal, but we all share the same values,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We are diverse, we don&#8217;t have only one voice, and we don&#8217;t have only one way to express what we want.&#8221; &#8220;This diversity can be complementary, and coexist without any of us being subordinate to each other or telling each other what to do, but with the community responding to everyone when needed,&#8221; he said. In Liverpool, drone footage showed a line of dozens of people along a busy shopping street, dressed in the black of the 2019 protest movement, and carrying the yellow umbrellas of the democracy movement. At the London rally, participants were asked to remember the 10,277 people arrested and the 2,800 prosecuted under the national security law, which was imposed on the city by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from July 1, 2020, ushering in an ongoing crackdown on peaceful political opposition and public dissent. The rally marked the mass protest that blockaded Hong Kong&#8217;s Legislative Council (LegCo) on June 12, preventing lawmakers from getting into the chamber to pass a hugely unpopular legal amendment that would have allowed the extradition of alleged criminal suspects to mainland China. The protest was the first of many to be quelled that year by widespread police violence that saw the firing of tear gas and rubber bullets on an unarmed and peaceful crowd, many of whom were unable to flee, as well as mass arrests and physical beatings of mostly young people. Teargas memories A young man who was there at the time, and who now lives in the U.K., said he still has vivid memories of the day. &#8220;When I got there, all I could smell was the harsh and pungent smell of tear gas,&#8221; the man, who gave only the nickname Karson, told RFA at the London rally. &#8220;The people were surrounded by [police firing] tear gas, and there was no way for us to leave.&#8221; &#8220;I remember the police saying at the time that they wanted the crowd to disperse, but they also tear gassed protests that had [police approval], and &#8230; prevented people from leaving,&#8221; he said. &#8220;That sort of action in a crowded place caused people to trample each other.&#8221; Karson, who is in the difficult process of applying for political asylum, said others shouldn&#8217;t be discouraged, as there are organizations set up to help asylum-seekers from Hong Kong. A Hongkonger who arrived in the U.K. with his family over a year ago, who gave only the surname Chan, was also in Parliament Square, joining in with a mass rendition of the Les Miserables hit &#8220;Do You Hear The People Sing?&#8221;, which was often sung during the 2019 protests. Chan said his family had agreed the night before that they should all attend to support Hong Kong, now that they live overseas. &#8220;I want to tell our brothers and sisters in Hong Kong prisons that we have not forgotten you or given up on you,&#8221; Chan told RFA. &#8220;We are still very worried about you and care about you, and hope you are safe and well.&#8221; Mrs Chan said she is keen not to forget the protest movement, and the subsequent crackdown imposed by Beijing. &#8220;I felt that I needed to keep the momentum going, so that I don&#8217;t forget what happened,&#8221; she said. &#8220;This isn&#8217;t over, and I want to see it through.&#8221; The Chans&#8217; 11-year-old daughter Kimmy said she is in the process of explaining to her classmates what has befallen Hong Kong in recent years. &#8220;I will tell them the story of the Hong Kong people, from the Umbrella Revolution [of 2014] to the present and try to take the fight to the international front,&#8221; Kimmy said. &#8220;Maybe, if more people know about it, Hong Kong can be restored [to the way it was], I hope.&#8221; Speak up when being bullied An older woman, also surnamed Chan, said she had come to the rally after living in the U.K. for decades. &#8220;I think it&#8217;s very important to deliver on one&#8217;s promises and not just to talk big,&#8221; she said. &#8220;As you can see from my slogan, we just want to get back what we deserve: it&#8217;s that simple.&#8221; &#8220;I think if people are bullying you, and you are unhappy about it, you have to speak up.&#8221; Similar rallies were held across the U.K. on Sunday, including Liverpool, Manchester and Nottingham. Manchester police took away a man in a red shirt who started playing the Chinese national anthem during the rally in the city. Hongkongers and their supporters also rallied on the democratic island of Taiwan. Some 700 people set off from Elephant Park in Taipei, many of them wearing black clothing and shouting 2019 protest slogans, as well as slogans calling on the authorities to defend Taiwan against CCP infiltration and aggression. &#8220;There&#8217;s nothing that people in Hong Kong can do right now [because of the national security crackdown], so we who are overseas should do a bit more,&#8221; a protester surnamed Chan told RFA. &#8220;It&#8217;s important to keep these memories going now that we are in a place of relative safety.&#8221; Another protester surnamed Chow said he had...
- [Could China's zero-COVID policy spur a mass protest movement?](https://ij-reportika.com/could-chinas-zero-covid-policy-spur-a-mass-protest-movement/): As the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues with large-scale and long-term lockdowns on major cities, mass incarceration in quarantine camps and on university and college campuses, coupled with blanket digital surveillance and control over people&#8217;s movements, some signs of mass discontent have begun to emerge. Shanghai entrepreneurs called in a May 30 open letter for the release of all political prisoners and for the CCP to begin a process of political reform at the 20th Party Congress later in the year, warning of mass capital flight and a widespread loss of public confidence in Xi Jinping&#8217;s leadership. The letter also called on the government to overturn the guilty verdicts against entrepreneurs Ren Zhiqiang and Sun Dawu, as well as punishing officials responsible for &#8220;violating the law and disregarding public opinion&#8221; as part of the zero-COVID policy and loosening CCP controls on the media. Public anger at the policy was glimpsed during the Shanghai lockdown, as residents clattered pots and pans from the relative safety of high-rise balconies, sang protest songs composed for the occasion, or yelled anonymous protests into the night air. A Shanghai resident who gave only the nickname Ceausescu said the lockdown had likely forced a lot of people to think about politics. &#8220;Most people were locked up at home, and they couldn’t even buy food for a while at first, so they had to think about it three times a day,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Normally, people from Shanghai, people in the middle classes, wouldn&#8217;t have to think about such things &#8230; they would definitely have felt that their rights had been violated.&#8221; The deprivation of personal freedom, loss of control over economic activity, and no guarantee even of basic subsistence would have caused many people to start thinking more about politics, even those who were previously uninterested in the topic, Ceausescu said. &#8220;I think if young people are unable to go about their lives in peace, they will definitely stand up,&#8221; he said. Some have wondered whether the feisty attitudes of sophisticated Shanghainese with their keenly developed sense of middle-class entitlement translate readily to other parts of the country. Protests involving hundreds of students have sprung up at university campuses in Beijing and Tianjin following months of draconian COVID-19 restrictions imposed on higher education institutions. The scenes at Tianjin University, Beijing International Studies University and Beijing Normal University were eerily reminiscent of the early stages of the 1989 student movement, which later took over Beijing&#8217;s Tiananmen Square for weeks on end with demands for democratic reforms and the rule of law. Similar protests had sprung up at the Wuhan University of Science and Technology and Sichuan University in March. But, possibly due to the proximity of the sensitive June 4 anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre that ended the nationwide pro-democracy movement, the authorities appear to have largely given the students what they wanted: the right to take online classes at home, and to return to campus only to sit exams. University protests, clockwise from top left: Beijing International Studies University, May 8, 2022; Peking University, May 14-15; Beijing Normal University, May 24; and Tianjin University, May 26. RFA collage. Xi taking China backwards A Shanghai resident born in the year of the Tiananmen Square protest movement, who gave only the pseudonym Li Bing, said the students had clearly decided to take their fate into their own hands. &#8220;I think they chose to protest on campus because it had become very clear to them that you have to fight for your rights; that nobody is going to just hand them to you,&#8221; Li told RFA. But he said he wasn&#8217;t sure if he would join a similar protest, despite the privations of lockdown in Shanghai&#8217;s Pudong district. &#8220;Of course I want to resist, but when the call came, I am pretty sure [I wouldn&#8217;t].&#8221; Li is no stranger to public dissent. He once reposted a list of the victims of the Tiananmen massacre issued by the Tiananmen Mothers victims group. The move brought him a slew of threatening phone calls from local officials, imprinting the shadow of fear firmly on his mind. A Henan resident who graduated from college just a year ago, and who gave the pseudonym Zhou Xiao, had no hesitation, however. He expects some form of mass popular uprising against the CCP in the next few years, largely spurred by zero-COVID and the government&#8217;s program of forced vaccinations. &#8220;Vaccines have been administered on a large scale in the past two years,&#8221; Zhou said. &#8220;Anyone who reported side effects had their posts deleted and their accounts blocked.&#8221; &#8220;Nobody really knows what side-effects there could be from the vaccine &#8230; I was forced into getting vaccinated because of my work,&#8221; he said. According to Zhou, the CCP under Xi had already been going backwards in terms of freedom of expression even before the pandemic emerged in Wuhan in 2020. &#8220;I&#8217;m totally disappointed,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Most obviously, the suppression of speech is getting worse.&#8221; Zhou expects public anger to translate into action at some point in the next few years. &#8220;The big one is coming, and I feel that this regime will face huge problems within the next 10 years, due to various factors causing a chain reaction,&#8221; he said, citing the economic hardship caused by the government&#8217;s response to the pandemic. People stand in line at a COVID-19 testing site in Beijing on June 9, 2022. Thousands of testing booths have popped up on sidewalks across Beijing and other Chinese cities in the latest twist to the country&#8217;s &#8220;zero-COVID&#8221; strategy. Credit: AP Indifference Wang Juntao, U.S.-based chairman of the China Democracy Party (CDP), which is banned in China, said now is the likely time for protests to emerge, however. &#8220;From my experience of the student movements of the 1980s, they were all sparked by particular real-life problems,&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;They started slowly, in dribs and drabs.&#8221; &#8220;It was hard at first, but then the students started to see their own strength, and it got easier and easier as more students joined them,&#8221;...
- [ASEAN states unlikely to choose sides between US and China, say officials and experts](https://ij-reportika.com/asean-states-unlikely-to-choose-sides-between-us-and-china-say-officials-and-experts/): When Cambodia’s Minister of National Defense General Tea Banh was seen taking a leisurely dip in the Gulf of Thailand with Chinese Ambassador Wang Wentian after a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a Cambodian naval base being built with China&#8217;s help earlier this month, no one in the region batted an eyelid.  As U.S.-China friction is getting more intense, Phnom Penh seems to have tilted towards its big neighbour, which has been offering cash and assistance to not only Cambodia but other nations in Southeast Asia. “Cambodia and China aren&#8217;t good at hiding their relationship,” said Virak Ou, President of Future Forum, a Cambodian think tank. “It&#8217;s obvious that we are choosing sides,” he said. Yet most countries in the region so far remain reluctant to pick sides, and analysts say it is crucial that Washington realize the need to engage Southeast Asian nations in its Indo-Pacific strategy, or risk losing out to Beijing. Cambodian Minister of Defense Tea Banh and Chinese Ambassador Wang Wentian are seen swimming following Ream Base groundbreaking ceremony in Sihanoukville. Credit: Tea Banh’s Facebook page. Right to decide own destiny At the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore, Tea Banh lashed out at what he called “baseless and problematic accusations” against the Cambodian government in relation to a naval base that Phnom Penh is developing in Ream, Sihanouk Province, with help from Beijing. The Ream Naval Base provoked much controversy after the U.S. media reported that Hun Sen’s government was prepared to give China exclusive use of part of the base. It would be China’s first naval facility in mainland Southeast Asia and would allow the Chinese military to expand patrols across the region. “Unfortunately, Cambodia is constantly accused of giving an exclusive right to a foreign country to use the base,” the minister said, adding that this is “a complete insult” to his country. Cambodia, he said, is a state that is “independent, sovereign, and has the full right to decide its destiny.” As usual, the Cambodian defense chief refrained from naming countries involved but it is clear that both the U.S. and China are vying for influence over the ten-nation Southeast Asian grouping. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in his remarks at the Shangri-La forum stated that “the Indo-Pacific is our center of strategic gravity” and “our priority theater of operations.” But questions remain on where smaller Southeast Asian nations feature in that grand strategy of the United States. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin (L) stands with Vietnam&#8217;s Defense Minister Phan Van Giang during a bilateral meeting ahead of the Shangri-La Dialogue summit in Singapore, June 10, 2022. Credit: AFP Lopsided cooperation The region, noted Indonesia’s Minister of Defense Prabowo Subianto, “has been for many centuries the crossroad of imperialism, big power domination and exploitation.” “We understand the rivalry between the established world power and the rising world power,” he said, implying the United States and China. Prabowo, who joined the military in the thick of the Vietnam War and retired at the rank of Lieutenant General, told the audience at the Shangri-La Dialogue that Southeast Asian countries are “the most affected by big powers’ competition.” Despite divisions and differences between member countries, “we’ve come to our own ASEAN way of resolving challenges,” he said. It may seem that “we’re sitting on the fence,&#8221; Prabowo said, but this seeming inaction reflects an effort of preserving neutrality by ASEAN countries.  “Indonesia opted to be not engaged in any military alliance,” the minister said.  The same stance has been adopted by another ASEAN player – Vietnam– whose White Paper on defense policy stated “three nos” including no military alliances, no basing of foreign troops in the country and no explicit alliances with one country against another. Yet it’s unlikely that Hanoi, often seen as anti-China as Vietnam has experienced Chinese aggression at many occasions in history, will embrace the U.S. to counter Beijing.  “It’s better to nurture a relationship with a close neighbor rather than relying on a distant sibling,” Vietnamese Defense Minister Phan Van Giang explained, quoting a Vietnamese proverb. Two of ten ASEAN nations &#8211; the Philippines and Thailand &#8211; are U.S. treaty allies. But even in Manila and Bangkok, there have been signs of expanded cooperation with China. “Southeast Asia and China are neighbors thanks to the geography, and their cooperation is natural,” said Collin Koh, Research Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. Koh suggested that in order to maintain the foothold in the region, “the U.S. need to embrace and appreciate local cultures and not try to force regime changes.” “The cooperation between the U.S. and the region has been too one-dimensional and lopsided, too security focused, and needs to expand,” he said. China&#8217;s Defence Minister Wei Fenghe attends the opening reception at the Shangri-La Dialogue summit in Singapore, June 10, 2022. Credit: AFP Limited leverage “Southeast Asia is a difficult region for the U.S. to grasp,” said Blake Herzinger, a Singapore-based defense policy specialist. “The region needs to foster ties with China and Washington needs to accept and work with that,” Herzinger said, adding that it’s time to recognize that “U.S. leverage is limited in a competitive region where the opposite number is China.” According to Southeast Asia analyst Koh, “it’s not too late for the U.S. to adjust its policy towards Southeast Asia.” “There are still demands for an American presence here and a reservoir of goodwill that the U.S. has built over the past,” Koh said, but warned that “this may risk running dry if Washington doesn’t truly recognize the importance of engagement in the region.” The U.S. and allies should also bear in mind regional geopolitical calculations, he said. “Southeast Asian countries don’t want to pick sides but they find themselves being sucked into the super power competition and being pragmatic as they are, some of them are making efforts to try to benefit from it,” Koh said. “I think the Biden administration has done a good job in relation to Southeast Asia...
- [U.S. attempting to ‘hijack countries in our region’ to target China, Wei Fenghe says](https://ij-reportika.com/u-s-attempting-to-hijack-countries-in-our-region-to-target-china-wei-fenghe-says/): China’s Defense Minister Wei Fenghe delivered scathing remarks about the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy in a speech in Singapore on Sunday, calling it an attempt to form a clique to contain China.  In his speech on ‘China’s vision for regional order’ at the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum he hit back at U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s remarks a day earlier, saying China firmly rejects America’s accusations and threats. In his keynote speech on Saturday, Austin said that China had adopted a “more coercive and aggressive approach to territorial claims” and that Beijing’s moves “threaten to undermine security, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific.” In his remarks Wei said that “to us, the Indo-Pacific strategy is an attempt to build an exclusive small group to hijack countries in our region” to target one specific country – China. “It is a strategy to create conflict and confrontation to contain and encircle others,” said the minister, who is also a general in China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). This is the second time Wei has attended the major regional security forum, hosted by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). This year’s conference, which resumed after a two-year suspension due to COVID, is taking place amid the war in Ukraine, increased tensions around Taiwan and in the East and South China Sea. ‘Say no to bullying’ The forum once again highlights U.S.-China rivalry in the Indo-Pacific, with both sides trading criticisms, while at the same time calling for the rule of law to be upheld.  “We should respect each other and treat each other as equals and reject a zero-sum game in which the winner takes all,” General Wei said. “We should seek peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation rather than hegemony and power politics.” ‘Hegemony’ seems to be the word of choice when Chinese officials talk about the United States and its foreign policy. As the U.S. defense secretary insisted that his country’s military “will fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows,” the Chinese minister called the U.S. freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea a “navigation hegemony.” Wei said the U.S.-China relationship is at a “critical and crucial juncture” but to improve it depends on Washington’s efforts. “We require the U.S. side to stop smearing and containing China, stop interfering in China&#8217;s internal affairs and stop harming China&#8217;s interests,” Wei said. “The bilateral relationship cannot improve unless the U.S. side can do that,” he said, adding: “If you want to talk, we should talk with mutual respect … if you want confrontation, we will fight to the very end.” At the same time, the Chinese minister called on regional countries to “say ‘no’ to bullying.” “Only the one who wears the shoes knows if they fit or not,” he said, implying that countries should pick their own paths and resist what he called “interference” from outsiders. Two Su-35 fighter jets and a H-6K bomber from the People&#8217;s Liberation Army air force fly in formation during a patrol near Taiwan on May 11, 2018. CREDIT: Xinhua via AP China’s only choice The Chinese defense minister resorted to forceful words when speaking about Taiwan, insisting: “Taiwan is first and foremost China’s Taiwan.” Reiterating that Taiwan is a province of China, Wei said the island’s reunification with the mainland “is a historical trend that no one, no force, can stop.” “This is the only choice for China,” he said. The minister accused Washington of violating its promise on the ‘One China principle’ by supporting the “separatist forces” in Taiwan and playing the Taiwan card against China. “China is firmly opposed to such acts… the pursuit of Taiwan’s independence is a dead end,” Wei said, adding “we will not hesitate to fight” to defend China’s core interests. This year the PLA celebrates the 95th anniversary of its foundation and the Chinese defense minister dedicated a segment of his remarks to speak about the PLA which he called a “force of peace.” “We have never proactively started a war against others or occupied one inch of other’s land,” Wei said.  The Chinese defense minister said those who question the factual truth behind this statement “should re-read history.”
- [‘We must stop Russia,’ Ukraine’s leader urges Singapore security forum](https://ij-reportika.com/we-must-stop-russia-ukraines-leader-urges-singapore-security-forum/): The future rules of the international order are playing out in Ukraine’s war zones, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore as he rallied support for his country Saturday in its fight against Russia’s invading forces.   The Ukrainian leader appeared on a giant screen as he addressed delegates from 40 countries, who were attending Asia’s preeminent international security forum, via a video-link from an undisclosed location in the capital Kyiv.  “I am grateful for your support &#8230; but this support is not only for Ukraine, but for you as well,” said Zelenskyy, who wore a black t-shirt as he spoke to delegates dressed in formal clothes. “It is on the battlefields of Ukraine that the future rules of this world are being decided along with the boundaries of the possible.” The Russian invasion of Ukraine has divided countries in the Asia-Pacific region, with some finding themselves wedged between Sino-U.S. frictions and strategic differences over the issue. “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is what happens when oppressors trample the rules that protect us all,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a speech at the Singapore forum earlier in the day. “It’s a preview of a possible world of chaos and turmoil that none of us would want to live in,” he said, adding that “the rules-based international order matters just as much in the Indo-Pacific as it does in Europe.” In his late-afternoon speech to the high-level delegates gathered in Singapore, the Ukrainian president listed alleged atrocities committed by Moscow’s forces and said Russia had destroyed “all achievements of the human kind.” As Ukraine is unable to export enough food because of a Russian blockade, “the shortage of foodstuff will lead to chaos,” Zelenskyy said. “We must stop Russia. We must stop the war,” he pleaded.  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addresses the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore, June 11, 2022. Credit: Screenshot/BenarNews Pre-emptive measures Responding to a question that drew a parallel between Ukraine and Taiwan, the Ukrainian leader said the world “must use pre-emptive measures” and come up with diplomatic resolutions to support countries in need, not leaving them at the mercy of more powerful nations. Zelenskyy did not mention China by name, but Beijing has always insisted that “Taiwan is not another Ukraine.” Beijing considers Taiwan one of its provinces and as an inalienable part of China. So far, China has refrained from condemning Russia for its actions in Ukraine. In February Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin proclaimed a “no limits” partnership with no “forbidden” areas of cooperation.   In Southeast Asia, most countries have hesitated in denouncing  Russia or joining in international sanctions against Moscow. The ASEAN regional bloc has found it difficult to come up with a clear and united framework when dealing with the Russian war. Some members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations that experienced sanctions in the past are close to Russia and vehemently oppose them. On Saturday, Cambodian Defense Minister Tea Banh told the security forum in Singapore that “the use of sanctions in any form is not the right option to solve problems.” When it was his turn to speak, Malaysia’s defense chief pointed to how the war in Ukraine was testing regional security alliances such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. “Members of NATO have met Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with outrage, deploying thousands of troops to Eastern Europe to protect their alliance members,” Minister Hishamuddin Hussein told the forum. “Even though Ukraine is not a member of the alliance, the potential of the conflict sparking into a much larger world war exists and the fear of it becoming a reality is conceivable, as much as we want to deny it.” Indonesian Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto speaks with an aide during the second plenary session of the 19th Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, June 11, 2022. Credit: Reuters Rules-based international order The war in Ukraine has featured prominently during sessions at the Shangri-La Dialogue so far. Austin, the U.S. defense secretary, said that “Russia’s indefensible assault on a peaceful neighbor has galvanized the world.” “It’s what happens when big powers decide that their imperial appetites matter more than the rights of their peaceful neighbors,” he said in a thinly veiled reference to China. The Ukraine war highlights “the dangers of disorder,” Austin said, as he urged countries in the region to cooperate to strengthen the rules-based international order. It’s yet to be seen, though, how his calls resonate among smaller nations in Southeast Asia who, up to now, have remained reluctant to pick sides. For his part, the defense chief of Southeast Asia’s largest country indicated that Indonesia was keeping an eye on the situation in Ukraine, but throughout its history as a nation, Jakarta has pursued an “Asian way” in approaching challenges to its security amid big-power rivalries, he said. “The situation in Ukraine teaches us that we can never abandon our security and independence and never take them for granted. Therefore, we are determined to strengthen our defense. Our outlook is defensive, but we will defend our territory with all of our resources,” Indonesian Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto said in his speech Saturday to the Singapore forum. “In our experience, over the last 40 to 50 years, we have found our own way, the Asian way, to solve this challenge. We decided that our shared experience of being dominated, enslaved, and exploited, forced us to struggle and create a peaceful environment,” he said.
- [Chinese research on Xinjiang mummies seen as promoting revisionist history](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-research-on-xinjiang-mummies-seen-as-promoting-revisionist-history/): A new Chinese study on the ancient populations of Xinjiang purports to show modern-day residents descend from a mix of ethnicities, but scientists and experts on the region cautioned the findings are being used to support  China’s forced assimilation policy toward the predominately Muslim Uyghurs. The study from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences is based on 201 ancient human genomes from 39 different archeological sites in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). Scientists analyzed the genetic composition, migration and formation of the ancient inhabitants of Xinjiang during the Bronze Age, which lasted from 5,000 to 3,000 years ago, the Iron Age, which lasted between 3,000 and 2,000 years ago, and into the Historical Era, which started about 2,000 years ago. They published their findings in the April edition of the journal Science in an article titled “Bronze and Iron Age population movements underlie Xinjiang population history.” The report states that the region’s ancestral population during the Bronze Age was linked to four different major ancestries — those of the Tarim Basin, which includes present-day Xinjian; Central Asia; and the Central and Eastern Eurasian Steppes. “Archaeological and mitochondrial studies have suggested that the BA [Bronze Age] inhabitants and cultures of Xinjiang were not derived from any indigenous Neolithic substrate but rather from a mix of West and East Eurasian people, whereas BA burial traditions suggest links with both North Eurasian Steppe cultures and the Central Asian BMAC civilization,” the report says, referring to the Central Asian Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) in the south. Further mixtures between Middle and Late Bronze Age Steppe cultures continued during the late Bronze and Iron Ages, along with an inflow of East and Central Asian ancestry, the report says. “Historical era populations show similar admixed and diverse ancestries as those of present-day Xinjiang populations,” the report says. “These results document the influence that East and West Eurasian populations have had over time in the different regions of Xinjiang.” The study by the Chinese Academy of Sciences comes at a time when the Chinese government has stepped up its assimilation of the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs to inculcate a common identity among Uyghurs with other ethnicities in the country. The government rejects claims that the ethnic minority group has its own history, culture, language and way of life. The Beauty of Xiaohe, a mummy discovered in the Tarim Basin in northwestern China, is shown at the &#8216;Secrets of the Silk Road&#8217; exhibit at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Feb. 18, 2011. Credit: Associated Press &#8216;We have to think carefully&#8217; Following the beginning of the mass internment campaign targeting Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in April 2017, Chinese archaeological and anthropological research in Xinjiang entered a new phase. The XUAR’s Communist Party Committee set a political goal for archaeological research aimed at combating “separatism” and emphasized that cultural relics should serve the concept that Xinjiang has always been an inseparable part of China. On March 22, 2017, then-Party Secretary Chen Quanguo said at an archaeological work conference that “archaeological work is necessary in establishing and advancing socialist values in Xinjiang, in deepening patriotic education, and in the fight against separatist ideas.” But an expert in the genetics of ancient Central Asian populations based in the United States says the report’s findings do not significantly differ from findings on the Bronze Age published recently by a group of international researchers. Vagheesh Narasimhan, an assistant professor in the Department of Integrative Biology and the Department of Statistics and Data Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin, told RFA that the findings in the Science article are similar to those published late last year by international researchers. “A few months ago there was a report of the sequencing of certain mummies from the Tarim Basin from the Bronze Age,” he said. “In this paper [from April 1], they also added 200 genomes from various time periods from all over Xinjiang. They co-analyzed the data from the previous analysis with the analysis in this paper, and they tried to draw conclusions combining the data from the previous paper by the international team with data from this group.” Narasimhan said that the two studies found a similar genetic ancestry in Xinjiang from the Bronze Age. But he said the findings do not refute the idea that Uyghurs are a distinct ethnicity. “You can’t think two groups are the same just because they have a common ancestry; in that case, every person in the world would have a common ancestry from Africa,” he said. “We have to think carefully about which population they’re actually using as a reference.” In its analysis of the Iron Age population of Xinjiang, the Science article stresses that iron materials found during this era were related to the Saks, or the Scythians, an important nomadic culture at the time. It also notes that many archaeological finds connected to the group have been found in Xinjiang’s Ili River Valley and Tarim Basin, and that a diverse conglomeration of many nomadic tribes, including the Saks, Huns, Paziriks and Taghars, appeared around the region. The Science article also states that from among these groups, the Saks were the descendants of the Andronova, Srubnaya, and Sintashta peoples from the latter periods of the Bronze Age and that the other ancestors of the Saks are connected to the populations of the Bayqal Shamanka and Bactria-Margiana and are related to the language of Hotan, which was part of the Indo-European family. But about 2,200 years prior, the region had become a point of conflict between the Yuezhi (Yawchi or Yurchi), Huns, Hans and Turks. “Thus, Xinjiang represents a key area for studying the past confluence and coexistence of populations with dynamic cultural, linguistic and genetic backgrounds,” the report says. Members of the media view an infant mummy discovered in the Tarim Basin in northwestern China, at the &#8216;Secrets of the Silk Road&#8217; exhibit at the University of Pennsylvania Museum...
- [U.S. not seeking to create "Asian NATO,” defense secretary says](https://ij-reportika.com/u-s-not-seeking-to-create-asian-nato-defense-secretary-says/): The U.S. Defense Secretary emphasized partnership as the main priority for the American security strategy in the Indo-Pacific during a keynote speech on Saturday. However, Lloyd Austin stressed that the U.S. does not seek to create “an Asian NATO.” Austin spoke for half an hour at the First Plenary Session of the Shangri-La Dialogue 2022 security forum in Singapore. While reiterating that the U.S. stays “deeply invested” and committed to a free and open Indo-Pacific, the defense secretary said: “We do not seek confrontation and conflict and we do not seek a new Cold War, an Asian NATO or a region split into hostile blocs.” The United States and its allies in the Indo-Pacific have recently expressed concern over China’s increasingly assertive military posture in the region. Beijing, on its part, has been complaining about what it sees as attempts by the U.S. and its partners to form a defense alliance in the region. When leaders from the U.S., Japan, India and Australia met last month for a summit of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, China cried foul. Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Washington was “keen to gang up with ‘small circles’ and change China’s neighborhood environment,” making Asia-Pacific countries serve as &#8220;pawns&#8221; of the U.S. hegemony. “I think Secretary Austin made it very clear that there’s no appetite for an Asian NATO,” said Blake Herzinger, a Singapore-based defense analyst. “The U.S. values collective partnerships with shared visions and priorities, without the need to form a defense alliance,” he told RFA. &#8216;A region free from coercion and bullying&#8217; The U.S will “continue to stand by our friends as they uphold their rights,” said Austin, adding that the commitment is “especially important as the People’s Republic of China adopts a more coercive and aggressive approach to its territorial claims.&#8221; He spoke of the Chinese air force’s almost daily incursions into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) and an &#8220;alarming&#8221; increase in the number of unsafe and unprofessional encounters between Chinese planes and vessels with those of other countries. Most recently, U.S. ally Australia accused China of conducting a “dangerous intercept,” of one of its surveillance aircraft near the Paracel islands in the South China Sea. Austin met with his Chinese counterpart Wei Fenghe on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue on Friday. During the meeting, which lasted nearly an hour, the two sides discussed how to better manage their relationship and prevent accidents from happening but did not reach any concrete resolution. Austin used Saturday’s speech to remind Beijing that “big powers carry big responsibilities,” saying “we’ll do our part to manage these tensions responsibly — to prevent conflict, and to pursue peace and prosperity.&#8221; The Indo-Pacific is the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DOD) &#8220;priority theater,&#8221; he noted, adding that his department’s fiscal year 2023 budget request calls for one of the largest investments in history to preserve the region&#8217;s security.  This includes U.S. $6.1 billion for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative to strengthen multilateral information-sharing and support training and experimentation with partners.  The budget also seeks to encourage innovation across all domains, including space and cyberspace, “to develop new capabilities that will allow us to deter aggression even more surely,” he said. The U.S. military is expanding exercises and training programs with regional partners, the defense secretary said. Later in June, the Pentagon will host the 28th Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) naval exercise with forces from 26 countries, 38 ships and nearly 25,000 personnel. Next year a Coast Guard cutter will be deployed to Southeast Asia and Oceania, he said, “the first major U.S. Coast Guard cutter permanently stationed in the region.” An armed US-made F-16V fighter lands on the runway at an air force base in Chiayi, southern Taiwan on January 5, 2022. CREDIT: AFP Protecting Taiwan &#8220;Secretary Austin offered a compelling vision, grounded in American resolve to uphold freedom from coercion and oppose the dangerously outmoded concept of aggressively-carved spheres of influence,” said Andrew Erickson, Research Director of the China Maritime Studies Institute at the U.S. Naval War College, speaking in a personal capacity. “The key will be for Washington to match Austin’s rhetoric with requisite resolve and resources long after today’s Dialogue is over,” said Erickson.   “It is that follow-through that will determine much in what President Biden rightly calls the ‘Decisive Decade’,” he added. Last month in Tokyo Biden announced a new Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA) that Austin said would provide better access to space-based, maritime domain awareness to countries across the region. The U.S. defense secretary spoke at length about his government’s policy towards Taiwan, saying “we’re determined to uphold the status quo that has served this region so well for so long.” While remaining committed to the longstanding one-China policy, the U.S. categorically opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side.” “We do not support Taiwan independence. And we stand firmly behind the principle that cross-strait differences must be resolved by peaceful means,&#8221; Austin said. The U.S. continues assisting Taiwan in maintaining self-defense capability and this week approved the sale of U.S. $120 million in spare parts and technical assistance for the Taiwanese navy.
- [Guards deny female inmates drinking water after protest in Myanmar’s Insein Prison](https://ij-reportika.com/guards-deny-female-inmates-drinking-water-after-protest-in-myanmars-insein-prison/): Authorities in Myanmar’s notorious Insein Prison have cut off the drinking water supply to the cells of female political prisoners who protested poor living conditions in the facility after a fellow inmate who was denied medical treatment suffered a miscarriage, sources said Friday. Sources who visited the prison on the outskirts of Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon told RFA Burmese that dozens of prisoners have been forced to drink from the toilet after the taps were turned off more than two weeks ago, leaving them with no other source of water. “The authorities cut off the drinking water since the protest,” said one recent visitor, who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity. “They put 60-70 female prisoners in one prison hall. I was told that all of them are now forced to drink water from the toilet.” The source said that some of the prisoners have contracted cholera and other diseases after drinking the unclean water. Last month, a 24-year-old political prisoner at Insein named Cherry Bo Kyi Naing, who is serving a three-year prison sentence for “unlawful association,” suffered an early-term miscarriage after authorities delayed sending her to the hospital for treatment. On May 23, the female political prisoners held a protest, claiming that Cherry Bo Kyi Naing’s miscarriage was avoidable and the result of negligence by the guards. Two days later, prison authorities shut down the protest and relocated all the female political prisoners to the single prison hall, before shutting off the water supply. When asked by RFA for comment on the situation at Insein, Prison Department spokesperson Khin Shwe denied reports that the women had been cut off access to drinking water. “In Insein prison, we provide adequate water supplies for both drinking and hygiene,” he said. “We don’t give such punishments for incidents that occur in the prison. We have no such thing.” Attempts by RFA to reach the International Committee of the Red Cross in Bangkok, Thailand, went unanswered Friday. The Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) told RFA it is still making inquiries into the protest at Insein and the response by authorities and was unable to comment. Kaythi Aye, a former political prisoner in Myanmar who now lives in Norway, told RFA that female prisoners require better hygiene conditions than their male counterparts, and access to clean water is crucial. “Prisoners are in serious trouble when they don’t have access to clean water, especially during the monsoon season, when mosquitos proliferate and people suffer skin conditions,” she said. “Wet conditions cause disease to spread further. It’s inhumane to cut off clean water for the female prisoners.” According to the AAPP, security forces have arrested more than 11,000 civilians in Myanmar since the military seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021 coup. There are nearly 1,200 female prisoners across the country, around 200 of which are held in Insein Prison. Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung for RFA Burmese. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Seven Uyghur staffers from sports school in Xinjiang serving up to 5 years in prison](https://ij-reportika.com/seven-uyghur-staffers-from-sports-school-in-xinjiang-serving-up-to-5-years-in-prison/): Authorities in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region sentenced seven Uyghur teachers at a sports school in Kashgar to jail terms of four to five years, a local police officer and a person with knowledge of the situation said. The police officer, who did not give his name, provided the names of the detained teachers at the Kashgar Sports School, which is located in the district his station patrols, but said he didn’t know the reasons for the arrests. Uyghur instructors and staff members Adil Tursun, Amir, Osmanjan and Qeyserjan were arrested in early 2017, he said. Authorities later arrested the school’s Taekwondo trainer, Abduxkur, and math teacher, Esqerjan. Another employee, Nurmemet Yasin, was the last to be detained. “I don’t know the last names of these teachers,” he said. “They were sentenced to four years or five years each for re-education. I don’t where they are now.” Uyghurs comprised about 20% of the employees among the school’s total 60-some workers. The rest were Han Chinese, according to a Uyghur source who knows about the school. “Osmanjan is around 42 or 43,” said a source familiar with the school staff, who did not want to be named. “Amir is the same age as Osmanjan. They graduated from the same class. Adil Tursun is about 45. We don’t know the reasons why they were arrested.” An earlier RFA report confirmed that authorities arrested Alimjan Mehmut, a volleyball teacher at the Kashgar Sports School who served as a torchbearer for China’s 2008 Summer Olympics. Mehmut was sentenced to eight years in a prison in Aksu (in Chinese, Akesu) for “befriending bearded men” under a deepening crackdown on Islamic practices and culture, according to information provided by the Norway-based rights organization Uyghur Hjelp, which documents missing and imprisoned Uyghurs in the XUAR. “Alimjan Mehmut was arrested before I went to work at the school,” said the source. “It’s been two years since he was arrested.” In RFA’s previous story, Aduweli Ayup, the Uyghur linguist who runs the Uyghur Hjelp website, said that Mehmut was one of at least six or seven instructors, including two volleyball coaches, from the Kashgar Sports School hauled away by authorities in past years. At the time, Ayup also named Mehmut’s colleagues, Ezizjan and Ezisqari from the Kashgar Sports School among those arrested, though their detentions have not yet been confirmed by police. Translated by RFA Uyghur. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Chinese rubber company detains Laos farmer trying to sell crop outside province](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-rubber-company-detains-laos-farmer-trying-to-sell-crop-outside-province/): Employees of a Chinese-owned rubber company in rural Laos illegally stopped a local rubber tree farmer trying to sell his harvest to another buyer for a higher price, sources in the Southeast Asian country told RFA. Zhongtian Luye operates a rubber processing factory in Khua district in the northern province of Phongsaly along the border with China. The company created a contract farming system with rubber tree farmers in the area to maintain supply. It pays farmers U.S. $0.56 per kilogram ($0.25 per pound) of natural rubber. Though it has contracts with local farmers for certain quantities of their yield, nothing is stopping them from selling the rest of their crop in nearby Oudomxay province, where prices are around 25% higher. Employees of the rubber company blocked a road to prevent a car packed with raw rubber from leaving town, a villager told RFA’s Lao Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “They thought that the driver was shipping his output to sell in Oudomxay province [in breach of contract.] They also thought that he was trying to buy output from other villagers who have contracts with the company,” the villager said. “That is why they stopped his car and took it to their camp area. Normally if a car is stopped and there is any kind of wrongdoing, it should be taken to the district police station,” he said. Police showed up at the work camp to investigate, later ordering the company to release the driver. Zhongtian Luye did not have a contract with the man who was stopped, and the rubber was all from his own farm, the villager said. Police fined the employees for blocking the road without permission. A second villager said the company may feel justified in buying rubber at below market prices from local farmers because of the money it has invested in the area, including for road construction and to help farmers start producing rubber. There also have been cases where the farmers broke their agreements with Zhongtian Luye to try to make more money elsewhere, the second villager said. “They already signed agreements, but some farmers are not satisfied with the price set by the Chinese company,” the second source said. “The company has a concession and the right to buy from the farmers as stated in the memorandum of understanding. However, when the trees are mature for harvesting, some farmers don’t want to sell for so low.” A woman who used to do business with Zhongtian Luye told RFA that the company feels entitled to all the rubber produced in the area, even from farmers who are not under contract. “They want them to sell it to their company only, even though they can get a higher price in Oudomxay,” she said. RFA was able to contact Zhongtian Luye’s interpreter but he declined to comment on the issue. Under the most common contract farming system in Laos, referred to as “3+2 contract farming,” companies provide funding, training and marketing services to producers, in addition to buying the product, while farmers provide land and labor. The central or local government is usually responsible for ensuring that neither party is taken advantage of. An official from the Phongsaly province’s Department of Agriculture and Forests told RFA that Zhongtian Luye, the province and the farmers have signed production agreements. The company can decide to block roads to prevent the farmers from selling elsewhere, the official said. “It is to up the provincial and district level authorities to consider how to solve this kind of problem and the district deputy governor will hold a meeting to find a solution,” the official said. “But the agreement states that the rubber farmers who signed a contract-farming agreement cannot sell to other companies, but only this company,” he said, without explaining why the company has a right to prevent the farmers not under contract from selling elsewhere. The official said the company does not tell his department the prices it pays, but said the department would meet with the company to double check that the contracts are fair. Zhongtian Luye has been operating in Khua district since 2006. It is unknown how many farmers have contracts to produce rubber for the company. According to the report from the Phongsaly province People’s Assembly, there are two Chinese rubber companies in the district. Translated by Phouvong. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Myanmar’s junta yet to send execution orders for former lawmaker, democracy activist](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-junta-yet-to-send-execution-orders-for-former-lawmaker-democracy-activist/): Myanmar’s ruling military junta has not issued execution orders for a former lawmaker from the deposed government and a prominent democracy activist sitting on death row after convictions on terrorism charges, despite reports that the men would be hanged Friday evening local time, a Prisons Department spokesman told RFA. On June 3, the junta announced that it would proceed with the planned executions of former Member of Parliament Phyo Zeya Thaw and Ko Jimmy, a longtime democracy activist and former leader of the 88 Generation Students Group. Anti-regime opponents Aung Thura Zaw and Hla Myo Aung are also facing the death penalty. Myanmar’s military, which seized control from the democratically elected government in a February 2021 coup, has cracked down on anti-regime activists, sentencing more than 100 to death. The executions of Phyo Zeya Thaw and Ko Jimmy, whose real name is Kyaw Min Yu, would be the country’s first judicial executions since 1990. Authorities had not received execution orders from the junta for Phyo Zeya Thaw and Ko Jimmy, who are being held in Yangon’s Insein Prison, said Prisons Department spokesman Khin Shwe. “We haven’t receive anything from the superiors,” he said. “We also don’t know about the news that they will be hanged this evening and that there had been religious rites in prison for the inmates.” All four inmates are in good health and have been transferred to death row where they are wearing orange prison suits given to those facing execution, he said. Junta spokesman, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, told RFA on Tuesday that all four men would be executed under the regular procedures of the Prisons Department. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, current chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), sent a written appeal on Friday to Sen. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, head of the State Administration Council (SAC), the formal name of the junta regime, to “reconsider the sentences and refrain from carrying out the death sentences.” “The death sentences and reported planned execution of a number of anti-SAC individuals have attracted great concern among ASEAN member states, as well as ASEAN external partners,” he wrote. If carried out, the executions “would trigger a very strong and widespread negative reaction from the international community” and hurt efforts to find a peaceful solution to the crisis in Myanmar, Hun Sen wrote. A former member of the hip-hop band Acid, Phyo Zeya Thaw served as a lawmaker from the National League for Democracy from 2012 to 2020. Following the coup and the subsequent crackdown on peaceful anti-regime protesters, he went into hiding but was arrested in November 2021. Phyo Zeya Thaw, whose real name is Maung Kyaw, and Ko Jimmy, who was arrested in October 2021, were both sentenced to death by a military tribunal this January for treason and terrorism. Activist Nilar Thein, who is the wife of Ko Jimmy, said the junta will have to take responsibility for giving her husband the death penalty. Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung for RFA Burmese. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Hong Kong investigative news agency FactWire shuts down, citing 'great change.'](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-investigative-news-agency-factwire-shuts-down-citing-great-change/): The Hong Kong-based investigative news agency FactWire announced its closure on Friday, the latest in a line of cutting-edge media outlets to fold amid an ongoing crackdown on dissent under a draconian national security law. &#8220;It is time for us to bid you farewell,&#8221; the agency said in a statement on its website. &#8220;In recent years, the media has contended with great change,&#8221; it said. &#8220;Despite having wrestled many times with the difficult decision as to whether to continue our journalistic work, we had always come to the same affirmative conclusion: to stand fast to our core values and beliefs, and to always report the facts.&#8221; &#8220;But to every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose. It has, at last, come time to end our journey,&#8221; the agency said. &#8220;The FactWire News Agency will cease operation as of today, Friday, June 10, 2022. All staff will be dismissed in accordance with pre-established procedures. All monthly subscriptions will also be suspended as of today,&#8221; the statement said. Set up in 2015 with crowdfunding from thousands of Hong Kong residents, FactWire ran a non-profit, public service news agency for six years, focusing on hard-hitting investigations, and has been no stranger to official harassment and covert threats. The agency tweeted on May 3 that its newsletter delivery system had been hacked, exposing the personal details of some 3,700 subscribers, apologizing to subscribers for the data leak. It made global headlines in 2017 when it exposed defects in the European pressurized reactors (EPR) designed by French nuclear firm Areva at the U.S. $8.3 billion Taishan nuclear power plant on the coast of neighboring Guangdong. In 2018, the agency reported that a garrison of Chinese border guards had taken over land on Hong Kong&#8217;s side of the internal border despite promises from China the city would remain a separate jurisdiction after the 1997 handover. The investigative journalism group FactWire found that some 21,000 square feet of privately owned land within a high-security area along the Hong Kong side of the border with mainland China had been taken over by the 6th Detachment of the Guangdong provincial border defense corps of the People&#8217;s Liberation Army (PLA) for six years. It said the border guards had also built themselves a small bridge over the Sha Tau Kok river, which runs along the border at this point, and &#8220;frequently&#8221; use it to enter Hong Kong incognito. In 2016, FactWire, which has won SOPA and Human Rights Press Awards for its work, vowed to ignore an anonymous threat of &#8220;trouble&#8221; after an expose on faulty trains made in mainland China, stepping up security measures. During the 2019 protest movement, which prompted China to exercise far more direct political control of Hong Kong via changes to the election system and by criminalising peaceful opposition under the national security law, FactWire followed up on the fate of victims of the Aug. 31, 2019 attacks on passengers at Prince Edward MTR, and later exposed a facial recognition function hidden in the Hong Kong government&#8217;s LeaveHomeSafe COVID-19 tracking app. The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) imposed a draconian national security law on Hong Kong from July 1, 2020, ushering in a crackdown on pro-democracy media organizations, activists and politicians that sparked the forcible closure of Jimmy Lai&#8217;s Next Digital media empire, including the pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper, as well as the closure of Stand News and Citizen News, and the &#8220;rectification&#8221; of iCable news and government broadcaster RTHK to bring them closer to Beijing&#8217;s official line. Hong Kong recently plummeted from 80th to 148th in the 2022 Reporters Without Border (RSF) press freedom index, with the closures of Apple Daily and Stand News cited as one of the main factors. More than 800 Hong Kong journalists lost their jobs at the two outlets, leaving most forced to look for work outside the industry, many of them far from Hong Kong. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Thai school reopens for Myanmar children after 2-year COVID lockdown](https://ij-reportika.com/thai-school-reopens-for-myanmar-children-after-2-year-covid-lockdown/): The Sukkahansa (Happy and Joy) Learning Center, located in Thailand’s Mae Sot district along the Myanmar border, welcomed Burmese children back as classes resumed on the first day of June after being shut down for more than two years because of the COVID-19 outbreak. Many of the boys and girls had fled with their families from post-coup violence in their homeland by crossing the Moei River, which separates the two countries. On June 1, nearly 100 students dressed in school uniforms, met with their teachers and friends at the school for the first time since the pandemic began. The school is not part of Thailand’s formal schooling system, but provides students with instruction in Burmese and Thai. It is sponsored by the Help without Frontiers Foundation, a Thai NGO. While Thailand for decades has harbored nearly 100,000 displaced people – largely ethnic Karen, as well as millions of migrant workers – the fighting between the Burmese junta forces and ethnic minority rebels after the February 2021 coup have worsened hardships for those who fled here from Myanmar. About 2,000 of 12,000 students at what had been more than 70 learning centers located along the border with Myanmar have not returned to classes, said Siraporn Kaewsombat. The number of centers has shrunk to 66. “The real problem for students at migrant learning centers is that they have no Thai citizenship so they cannot enter Thai state-run schools and have to depend on these NGO-sponsored schools,” Siraporn told BenarNews.
- [Four villagers hurt as hundreds protest over cemetery project in central Vietnam](https://ij-reportika.com/four-villagers-hurt-as-hundreds-protest-over-cemetery-project-in-central-vietnam/): Four people were hurt in clashes with police as hundreds of mostly female protesters wrapped themselves in Vietnamese flags to rally against a cemetery and crematorium project in central Vietnam, villagers said Friday. The protest on Thursday targeted Vinh Hang Eco-park and Cemetery, an 80-ha, 500 billion dong ($21.8 million) project in the Hung Nguyen district of central Nghe An province. Approved by local authorities in 2017, the cemetery has encounterd strong objection by local residents due to environmental and water resource concerns. “There was a clash among the police and local residents. One woman was seriously injured and was sent to Nghe An provincial hospital for emergency care. Two others were sent to a district hospital with less serious injuries,” local resident Phan Van Khuong told RFA Vietnamese. “They arrested three or four people but released them on the same day,” he added. A Facebook page titled “Hạt lúa Kẻ Gai” showed ozens of police officers in uniform knocking down protesters’ tents. “The Commune People’s Committee sent some people to plant markers on a road where local residents put up tents [to block the project] and we all rushed up there to stop them,” Nguyen Van Ky, a resident from Phuc Dien village, told RFA. “In response, district and commune police officers were deployed and they removed the tents and shoved us down, injuring four people,” said Ky. The injuries were caused when police officers kicked and stomped on protesters. A fourth protester had a leg injury that did not require hospital treatment. RFA called authorities from Nghe An province and Hung Tay commune to seek comments but no one answered the phone. While all land in Communist-run Vietnam is ultimately held by the state, land confiscations have become a flashpoint as residents accuse the government of pushing small landholders aside in favor of lucrative real estate projects, and of paying too little in compensation. Translated by Anna Vu. Written by Paul Eckert.
- [Swimming, or drowning, in the Chinese tide](https://ij-reportika.com/swimming-or-drowning-in-the-chinese-tide/): China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi recently visited the Solomon Islands and seven other South Pacific nations, part of leader Xi Jinping’s drive to expand Chinese economic and diplomatic clout through the Belt and Road Initiative of loans for infrastructure and trade. The Indian Ocean countries of Sri Lanka and the Maldives, however, have found themselves in deep debt from earlier China partnerships.
- [Vietnamese Facebook user jailed for 5 years for criticizing government](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnamese-facebook-user-jailed-for-5-years-for-criticizing-government/): A Vietnamese court on Thursday sentenced a Facebook user to five years in prison for posting stories criticizing government authorities, with an additional five years of probation to be served following his release, state media and other sources said. Nguyen Duy Linh, a resident of the Chau Thanh district of southern Vietnam’s Ben Tre province, was jailed following a 3-hour trial in the Ben Tre People’s Court. He had been charged with “creating, storing, disseminating information, materials, publications and items against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,” under Article 117 of Vietnam’s Penal Code. Linh’s wife Nguyen Ngoc Tuyet was present at his trial as a witness, but friends and other political dissidents were barred by authorities from attending and Linh had waived his right to a defense by lawyers in the case, sources said. Commenting on the outcome of the case, Phil Robertson — deputy director for Asia for the rights group Human Rights Watch — told RFA by email that posting criticisms of government policies and authorities online should not considered a crime. “All that Nguyen Duy Linh did was exercise his right to freedom of expression, which is a core human right that is explicitly protected by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that Vietnam ratified,” Robertson said. Vietnam’s one-party communist government “seems intent on proving that it is one of the most rights-repressing governments in the Asian region,” Robertson added. “The authorities in Hanoi have completely lost any idea of how to rule a modernizing, 21st century country with intelligence and respect for the people.” State media reporting on the case said that Linh from March 2020 to September 2021 had posted on his Facebook page 193 stories with content “offensive to the Party and State’s leaders or against the government.” Linh had also posted what state sources called false stories about socio-economic issues and the spread of COVID-19 in Vietnam, according to media reports. Linh is the fifth person accused in Vietnam since the beginning of this year of “spreading anti-State materials” under Article 117 of the 2015 Penal Code or “propagandizing against the State” under Article 88 of the 1999 Penal Code. Both laws have been criticized by activists and rights groups as measures used to stifle voices of dissent in Vietnam. Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [North Korea makes school uniforms in inter-Korean industrial zone without permission](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-makes-school-uniforms-in-inter-korean-industrial-zone-without-permission/): Some North Korean students will show up for school this summer decked out in high-quality uniforms made in a South Korean-built factory that has been shuttered in the wake of missile tests by Pyongyang. Sources in the country told RFA that the company that supplies uniforms to schools in North Hwanghae province began making summer uniforms in the nearby Kaesong Industrial Complex, a joint-Korean manufacturing zone that was once a showcase of North-South cooperation. The complex briefly closed in 2013 during a period of high tension between Seoul and Pyongyang.  In 2016 South Korea halted operations in the complex in response to a North Korean missile test, and operations remain suspended. Though the uniforms made in Kaesong are superior, unilaterally starting up the South Korean factories could spark friction with Seoul, sources said. “Last week, an official of the provincial Clothing Industry Management Bureau and I returned to North Hwanghae province with summer school uniforms that were able to pass product inspection. We brought them from a garment factory at the Kaesong Industrial Complex,” an official of the province, which lies just across the demilitarized zone from South Korea, told RFA’s Korean Service Tuesday on condition of anonymity for security reasons. The bureau is responsible for making enough summer uniforms by the end of the month, after which they will be given to the province’s elementary, middle and high schools as gifts from the country’s leader Kim Jong Un, the source said. “That’s why the bureau has been operating sewing and cutting machines in Kaesong since March, with permission from the Central Committee. They mobilized residents from Kaesong who previously worked at the industrial complex,” he said. “Mobilization” is North Korean code for forced labor, in stark contrast to when the industrial complex was in operation and workers, at least in theory, earned several times more than their counterparts outside the complex. North Korean use of the complex without South Korean permission might be frowned upon below the 38th parallel, but North Hwanghae is located just south of Pyongyang and is a strategic region for propaganda purposes. The students need to look their best. “The Central Committee took special measures to use the facilities in the industrial complex… are partly because the other clothes factories in North Hwanghae are so old. But the main reason is because the Highest Dignity often visits the province to offer his guidance,” the official said, referring to Kim Jong Un’s well-documented visits to factories, farms, schools and areas hit by natural disasters, so he can be portrayed as a benevolent leader. “It is an urgent priority to present the school uniforms to the students in a timely manner,” the source said. Truck drivers are shipping imported fabric from Sinuiju, on the border with China, to Kaesong, for use in the factories, a source north of Pyongyang in South Pyongan province told RFA. “I heard from a driver who brought the imported fabrics in a freight car that they are still producing clothes in the Kaesong Industrial Complex in the factories that were operated by South Korean companies,” he said, on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “They are making winter clothes for officials.” Since the complex closed in 2016, some of the equipment has been repurposed by companies as far away as North Pyongan province in the northwest, a source there told RFA. “Prior to the pandemic, several of the currency earning clothing factories here moved the equipment from the garment factories in Kaesong without permission,” he said on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. “Though clothing processing was suspended due to coronavirus lockdown measures, the industrial complex machinery here has been used to make school bags and uniforms for students in the province,” the third source said. “Although there are homegrown garment production units… in Sinuiju, they are not as good as what was in the industrial complex. So they used it to make the school uniforms faster and with better quality.” South Korea’s Ministry of Unification Thursday announced that it detected vehicle movement inside the Kaesong Industrial Complex, and that it was monitoring the area to determine if North Korea was operating facilities in the complex without permission. Translated by Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Mother of jailed Chinese activist Huang Qi says her cancer is spreading](https://ij-reportika.com/mother-of-jailed-chinese-activist-huang-qi-says-her-cancer-is-spreading/): Pu Wenqing, the mother of jailed rights activist Huang Qi, says her cancer is spreading from her lungs to her liver, and has called on the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to allow her to visit her son in prison before she dies. &#8220;Grandma Pu&#8217;s cancer has spread all over her body,&#8221; friend of Huang&#8217;s who asked not to be named told RFA. &#8220;The hospital told her to do chemo, but she was afraid she wouldn&#8217;t be able to take it, so she didn&#8217;t.&#8221; &#8220;She is urgently asking to visit her son in prison,&#8221; the friend said, adding that Pu&#8217;s medical insurance doesn&#8217;t run to higher-quality cancer care at a hospital in the southwestern city of Chengdu, only in her hometown of Neijiang, Sichuan province. &#8220;If she goes to Chengdu for treatment, her medical insurance will only reimburse 60 percent of the costs, and she cannot afford it,&#8221; the friend said. Pu, who is a medical doctor, was able to speak briefly with RFA, confirming the friend&#8217;s report. &#8220;I saw a doctor at the West China Hospital [at Sichuan University in Chengdu], and had a multi-slice CT scan,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I was diagnosed with lung cancer in &#8230; part of the right lower lobe, and there were lesions in other parts.&#8221; &#8220;There were also changes in my ilium [and] in my liver,&#8221; she said. Pu, 88, said she is currently living under surveillance by the state security police, who insist on escorting her to every medical visit. Earlier meeting cut off She said the last time she was able to speak with Huang via video call was Sept. 17, 2020. A Jan. 28, 2022 meeting was abruptly cut off two minutes in, after she tried to discuss Huang&#8217;s defense lawyers with him. &#8220;When the call started, there was no sound, but when it connected I could see Huang Qi arguing with the prison staff, quite fiercely,&#8221; Pu told RFA. &#8220;Huang Qi asked me if I&#8217;d hired a lawyer for him, and I said yes,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I told him I had hired lawyer Song and another lawyer surnamed Zhang from Beijing.&#8221; &#8220;No sooner had I finished speaking than the video call was cut off.&#8221; The move came after Pu was told by prison authorities to make only small talk with her son. &#8220;They told me that I wasn&#8217;t to discuss his case, and that I could only talk about daily household stuff and my illness,&#8221; she said. Huang&#8217;s friend confirmed that two lawyers from Beijing had visited Pu recently, and sent an application to the authorities to meet with Huang Qi. It was unclear whether they had received a response. One last meeting Meanwhile, Pu said all she wants now is to see Huang one last time before she dies. &#8220;They can&#8217;t cure it, and they can&#8217;t alleviate the symptoms, which are going to get worse,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I want to leave this world, but I still want to see my son Huang Qi for the last time.&#8221; A court in the southwestern province of Sichuan handed down a 12-year jail term to Huang, a veteran rights activist and founder of the Tianwang rights website, on July 29, 2019. Huang was sentenced by the Mianyang Intermediate People&#8217;s Court to 12 years&#8217; imprisonment, after it found him guilty of &#8220;leaking state secrets overseas.&#8221; Huang&#8217;s lawyers and Pu have said all along that the case against Huang was a miscarriage of justice, even allowing for the traditionally harsh treatment of dissidents in China. Huang, 57, has been identified by Paris-based press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) as one of 10 citizen journalists in danger of dying in detention. He has repeatedly denied the charges made against him and has refused to &#8220;confess.&#8221; Huang&#8217;s Tianwang website had a strong track record of highlighting petitions and complaints against official wrongdoing, and injustices meted out to the most vulnerable in society, including forced evictees, parents of children who died in the devastating 2008 Sichuan earthquake, and other peaceful critics of the ruling Chinese Communist Party. Until her illness progressed, Pu had been a vocal campaigner for Huang&#8217;s release on urgent medical grounds, and says the charges against him are politically motivated, with no evidence to back them up. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Lithuania’s courtship of Taiwan rubs China the wrong way](https://ij-reportika.com/lithuanias-courtship-of-taiwan-rubs-china-the-wrong-way/): Lithuania has angered China by allowing Taiwan to establish a representative office in its capital, Vilnius. At the same time, Lithuania, a staunchly anti-authoritarian government, has evacuated its embassy In Beijing and recalled its diplomats for “consultations.” China has spent much time and effort in recent years in attempting to persuade a dwindling number of nations that still have diplomatic ties with Taiwan to switch their recognition to China. Lithuania switched the other way. According to reporting by the Financial Times, China had downgraded Lithuania’s status in Beijing and striped its officials of diplomatic immunity because of its relationship with Taiwan. Lithuania was concerned about the safety of its diplomats in Beijing, the newspaper said. Meanwhile, a commentator for the Global Times, an ultra-nationalistic Chinese daily tabloid run under the auspices of China’s People’s Daily newspaper, accused Lithuania of launching “an anti-China crusade.” China has also been at odds with Czechoslovakia because of its relationship with Taiwan.   Zdanek Hrib, the mayor of Prague, the Czech capital, has said that he considers himself a “Taiwan fan.” He first visited Taiwan in March 2019 and met with his Taiwan counterpart Taipei mayor Ko Wenje as well as with Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen. The Czech Republic maintained unofficial relations with Taiwan even after it officially recognized the People’s Republic of China following the Communist takeover of mainland China in 1949. Taiwan, known officially as the Republic of China (ROC) now has formal diplomatic relations with only 14 countries, most of them small nations in the Pacific, the Caribbean, and Latin America. &#8216;Lithuania Mania&#8217; sweeps Taiwan Lithuania’s withdrawal of its diplomats from Beijing was widely welcomed in Taiwan, with some Taiwanese citizens flying off to Lithuania bearing thank-you gifts. According to Agence France-Presse, the tiny handful of Lithuanians now living in Taiwan are suddenly in vogue among the island’s residents after their small Baltic nation did something that Taipei has long staked its identify on: standing up to China. In the months since Taiwan opened a de-facto embassy in Vilnius, Richard Sedinkinas says that he has started to receive applause in restaurants once the staff there realize where he is from. It doesn’t matter that the 41-year-old boxing instructor, as well as some two dozen Lithuanians living in Taiwan had nothing to do with his country’s decision to withdraw its diplomats from Beijing. “People like to show appreciation. They treasure someone who supports Taiwan in the face of this giant country next door,”Sedinkinas told AFP. China regards self-ruled, democratic Taiwan as part of its territory, and it baulks at any international support for the island’s sovereignty.  Dan Southerland is RFA&#8217;s founding executive editor.
- [Former Irrawaddy photojournalist charged with defamation](https://ij-reportika.com/former-irrawaddy-photojournalist-charged-with-defamation/): A photojournalist who had worked for The Irrawaddy newspaper has been charged under Section 505 (a) of the Penal Code by the Military Council at the junta’s special court in Mandalay’s Obo Prison. A lawyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told RFA that Zaw Zaw’s first court trial took place on Wednesday. “The case started on the 6th of June. The power of attorney was sent on the 8th of June,” the lawyer said. “I saw that he was in good health, except for being a little thin, with no signs of torture. It&#8217;s not known why he was only charged with Section 505 (a) since a copy of the case file has not been made.” The case is being prosecuted by Police Chief Myint Lwin from the No.1 Police Station of Aung Myay Thar Zan Township in the Mandalay region and will be heard every Wednesday. Section 505 (a) of the Penal Code prohibits members of the military and government employees from undermining support for the government or the military, lacking discipline, or slacking in the performance of their duties. It also prohibits harmful, disruptive or destructive actions and carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison. Zaw Zaw, 35, stopped working for The Irrawaddy after the military coup and continued to live in Mandalay with his family. He was arrested on April 10 this year on his way back from a donation ceremony, according to a news source close to his family. “On the day he was arrested, he told junta forces that he was no longer a journalist but his computer and cell phone were confiscated when they searched his home,” the source told RFA. “I heard that he was taken to the Mandalay Palace’s interrogation center. I later found out that he was in Obo Prison.&#8221; Zaw Zaw’s family members have not been allowed to see him. A Defense Service Information Team statement issued on May 20, said that Zaw Zaw Aung, a resident of Daw Nu Bwar Ward, had used the name Zaw Zaw Diana in a Facebook account to incite the public to destabilize the country and spread propaganda. Journalists have been increasingly targeted since the February 1, 2021 military coup. More than 135 have been arrested since the coup, 61 of whom remain in custody in various prisons. Journalists are being prosecuted under Section 505 (a) of the Penal Code as well as Section 124 of the Penal Code, an anti-terrorism law which provides for long prison sentences, lawyers representing the accused told RFA.  Myanmar ranked 176 out of 180 countries on the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) 2022 Press Freedom Index. RSF described Myanmar as “one of the world’s largest prisons for media professionals.” Journalists also face threats from supporters of the military regime. In April, the Mandalay branch of the Thway Thauk, or “Blood Comrades” militia called for the deaths of reporters and editors working for news outlets including The Irrawaddy, Mizzima, Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) and The Irrawaddy Times, along with their family members.
- [U.S.-China defense chiefs to meet at Asia security summit](https://ij-reportika.com/u-s-china-defense-chiefs-to-meet-at-asia-security-summit/): U.S.-China tensions will once again take center stage at a major regional security forum in Singapore this weekend, with the two countries’ defense chiefs meeting in person for the first time. Both U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his Chinese counterpart Wei Fenghe have arrived at the Shangri-La Dialogue security summit, hosted by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a London-based think tank. Austin and Wei are delivering keynote speeches to highlight the defense policies of their respective countries but eyes are on their bilateral meeting, reportedly held on Friday afternoon. This is the first time the two defense chiefs are meeting in person, though in April they had a phone conversation to discuss “bilateral relations, regional security issues and Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine,” according to a Pentagon statement. Since then, bilateral security ties between the U.S. and China have had a few setbacks amid Beijing’s growing assertiveness and changing military postures in the region.  China has signed a security deal with the Solomon Islands and is setting up a naval facility in Cambodia. Both developments have raised concerns among the U.S. and its allies. Chinese flyovers and naval patrols around Taiwan, in the East and South China Sea, are also posing challenges to the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy. Washington has condemned what it calls “China’s provocations,” while Beijing has insisted it is the U.S. that threatens peace and security in the region.  The bilateral meeting in Singapore – “held at the Chinese side’s request,” according to the Department of Defense (DOD) – is not expected to deliver any major breakthroughs. However, it is expected to open a clearer and more regular communication channel between the two sides. “In general, such dialogues remain rare in a bilateral relationship marked by scant human connections,” said James Crabtree, Executive Director, IISS-Asia. “This lack of communication would be cause for worry in any future regional crisis,” he said. Preventing miscalculations Austin would like to keep lines of communication open between the U.S. military and the People&#8217;s Liberation Army (PLA) to prevent miscalculations, according to the DOD website. The defense secretary will speak on Saturday, clarifying the next steps for the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy with emphasis on the new approach of “integrated deterrence,” where the U.S. aims to “harmonize both traditional and emerging defense capabilities and priorities, along with non-military tools of power, with partners and allies in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific.” China’s Defense Minister Wei Fenghe will speak on Sunday on China’s vision for regional order, in which “he will discuss China&#8217;s policies, ideas and concrete actions in practicing true multilateralism, safeguarding regional peace and stability, and promoting the development of a community of a shared future for mankind,” according to Chinese state media. Austin and Wei will also hold several other bilateral and multilateral meetings on the sidelines of the summit. The U.S. defense secretary is scheduled to meet with ASEAN defense officials as well as South Korean Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup. He is also expected to take part in trilateral talks with Lee and their Japanese counterpart Nobuo Kishi.  The Chinese defense minister, meanwhile, is expected to meet the Japanese defense minister to discuss North Korea after having co-chaired the Inaugural Singapore-China Defense Ministers&#8217; Dialogue on Thursday afternoon. Japanese media said Kishi also wanted to register with Wei Fenghe “Japan&#8217;s concerns about China&#8217;s growing maritime assertiveness, and to urge Beijing to exercise restraint.” Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida answers questions before leaving for Singapore to attend the Shangri-La Dialogue. CREDIT: AFP On Friday Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is giving a keynote address to kick off Shangri-La Dialogue 2022. The address will outline his vision and plan for a free and open Indo-Pacific region. Kishida is the first Japanese prime minister to attend the summit in eight years, the last visit being by Shinzo Abe. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to deliver a special address to the summit via video link on Saturday to talk about the situation in his country.  The IISS-hosted Shangri-La Dialogue has gone into its 19th year after a two-year suspension due to the COVID pandemic. It is taking place on June 10-12 at the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore, this year with the participation of some 500 delegates and press, according to the organizers.
- [Cambodian local elections legitimized resurgent opposition party, exiled founder says](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-local-elections-legitimized-resurgent-opposition-party-exiled-founder-says/): Though fraud and irregularities tainted the June 5 Cambodian local commune council elections, the opposition Candlelight Party showed that it can challenge Hun Sen’s ruling party in future elections, Candlelight’s exiled founder told RFA in an interview. A statement issued by the National Election Committee (NEC) on Monday said the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) received 5.3 million popular votes to win 9,338 out of the 11,622 commune council seats that were contested, while the Candlelight Party (CLP) came away with 1.6 million votes and 2,180 seats. “I don’t like the results, but I like political change in Cambodia,” exiled opposition leader and CLP founder Sam Rainsy told RFA’s Khmer Service. “It’s a drastic change now, compared with before. Before we were only a one party state, from the central government to the grassroots. The one party state has been ended.” The NEC, an agency that supervises elections in Cambodia, said the election process went smoothly and the results could be trusted, but Candlelight Party candidates and election observers said they were victims of harassment and intimidation before and during the voting and the NEC did nothing to stop it. In some cases, local authorities and CPP observer organizations were alone given access to the ballot counting, the CLP said, accusing the ruling party of vote-rigging. Despite what he sees as questionable results, Sam Rainsy said that the CPP will face real competition in next year’s general election, when voters will choose members of the National Assembly. “In the 2023 election, there will have to be a negotiation, because there are [essentially] only two political parties. They can’t just dissolve CLP. The CPP can’t have free ride. The forces of democracy have progressed,” Sam Rainsy said. Should the Candlelight Party survive to contest next year’s election it would be a stark contrast to the main opposition party five years ago, the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP). After the CNRP won 43% of the vote in the last commune council elections in 2017, the party’s leader Kem Sokha was arrested for treason and the Supreme Court dissolved the CNRP, paving the way for the CPP to win all 125 parliamentary seats in 2018’s general election. This began a five-year crackdown by Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia since 1985, on civil liberties and other freedoms that stripped CNRP members of their political rights and forced many of them to join Sam Rainsy in exile or risk imprisonment. Sam Rainsy has been in France since 2015 Though the CNRP’s dissolution was a major setback for the country’s opposition, the Candlelight Party’s performance on Sunday gives Sam Rainsy hope that a stronger opposition party can emerge in Cambodia and restore the democratic balance, he said. “We took votes away from the CPP. We must now focus on free and fair elections in 2023. The political situation is now better than it was before this election,” he said. “Only the CLP is capable of competing with the CPP. … There is only one [viable] opposition party and that is the CLP. [The CPP] can’t avoid the CLP,” he said, adding that in preparation for next year’s election, the CLP intends to challenge the government to reform the NEC so that it can operate more in line with its stated purpose. “We must change the NEC members, because it is being controlled by the ruling party,” he said. Sam Rainsy, however, lamented that his equally popular political ally Kem Sokha, with whom he cofounded the CNRP, did not support the CLP. Kem Sokha has said that Candlelight should not participate in what many believe is a compromised electio “It seems he regarded the CPP and CLP as the same party.  I am sad. He will realize this is wrong,” he said.  The journey toward Candlelight becoming Cambodia’s largest opposition party began when Sam Rainsy, on the heels of his expulsion from the National Assembly, founded it in 1995 as the Khmer Nation Party. It later came to be known as the Sam Rainsy Party. In 2012, most of its members merged with Kem Sokha’s Human Rights Party to form the CNRP, effectively mothballing the two parent parties. Because of new laws that forbade political parties from making reference to anyone convicted on political charges, the Sam Rainsy Party changed its name to Candlelight in 2017, avoiding the ban of the CNRP. However, once it was clear that the party was gaining steam before the communal elections, authorities began harassing the party, Candlelight Party sources have told RFA. Several CLP activists have been jailed on allegations of submitting false documents to run in the communal elections, and many others were bullied or harassed by CPP supporters. But Sam Rainsy said he was proud that the party was able to rise from the ashes of the CNRP on short notice. Most of Candlelight’s growth happened in the past few months in preparation for the commune elections. “I must express appreciation to the wonderful voters. We must continue our struggle. The CLP is a base. We have time to prepare for 2023. We have a strong foundation and it will get stronger,” Sam Rainsy said. “We will restructure the NEC and restore democracy to the country.”  Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.  
- [Uyghur university student in Xinjiang arrested for ‘attempting to divide the country’](https://ij-reportika.com/uyghur-university-student-in-xinjiang-arrested-for-attempting-to-divide-the-country/): A Uyghur student who had attended university in southeastern China was arrested last December during an internship in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region and sentenced up to five years in prison, his family told RFA. Chinese police arbitrarily arrested Zulyar Yasin, 25, at his parents’ home in Urumqi (in Chinese, Wulumuqi) on Dec. 14, said his aunt, Raziye Jalalidin, who now resides in the Netherlands. “On May 30 of this year, I learned that my nephew, Zulyar Yasin, had been arrested,” she told RFA. “In September 2014, he went to study economics at Istanbul University in Turkey, but he returned to Urumqi in 2016 after he was not able to adjust to life in Istanbul.” The following year, Yasin took China’s national college entrance exam, receiving a high score and gaining admission to Fujian Agricultural and Forestry University in Fuzhou, capital of Fujian province on China’s southeastern coast, Jalalidin said. “He returned to Urumqi in July 2021 and began his college internship in the city, but on Dec. 14, he was arrested by police at his home for no apparent reason,” his aunt said. “He was arrested while he was an intern,” she said, adding that the police initially said Jalalidin would be returned home in two days. “My older sister didn’t even have the right to ask why they arrested him,” she said. Jalalidin said she learned from her relatives in Urumqi on May 30 that a Chinese government police officer called Yasin’s home on Feb. 14 and informed his parents that he had been sentenced to three to five years in prison on the charge of “attempting to divide the country.” The Chinese government has targeted Yasin because he comes from a family of intellectuals, Jalalidin said. “The Chinese government is only arresting our bright youth like my nephew because they are damn afraid of their own insecurities,” she said. “What was his crime? What is our crime? Our crime is just being Uyghur. In the eyes of this Chinese regime, our being Uyghur is our crime — nothing else.” Chinese authorities have arrested numerous Uyghur intellectuals, businessmen, and cultural and religious figures in Xinjiang as part of a campaign to control members of the mostly Muslim minority group and, purportedly, to prevent religious extremism and terrorist activities. More than 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities are believed to have been held in a network of detention camps in Xinjiang since 2017. Beijing has said that the camps are vocational training centers and has denied widespread and documented allegations that it has mistreated Muslims living in in the region. The purges are among the abusive and repressive Chinese government policies that have been determined by the United States and some legislatures of Western countries as constituting genocide and crimes against humanity against the Uyghurs. “Will our talented young children be destroyed under this injustice?” Jalalidin asked. “Why can’t we live like other free people in democratic countries?” “Why has the world been silent, even after declaring genocide?” she asked. Abduweli Ayup, a Norway-based Uyghur rights activist who tracks missing and detained Uyghurs, said Chinese authorities are still continuing to abduct members of the mostly Muslim minority group. They began targeting Uyghur students studying in mainland China in September 2021, he said. Translated by RFA Uyghur. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [EU lawmakers find ‘serious risk of genocide’ in China’s repression of Uyghurs](https://ij-reportika.com/eu-lawmakers-find-serious-risk-of-genocide-in-chinas-repression-of-uyghurs/): Members of the European Parliament on Thursday easily passed a resolution calling the Chinese government’s systemic human rights abuses against the mostly Muslim Uyghur minority “crimes against humanity and a serious risk of genocide.” The EU condemned “in the strongest possible terms that the Uyghurs have been systematically oppressed by brutal measures including mass deportation, political indoctrination, family separation, restrictions of religious freedom, cultural destruction, and extensive use of surveillance.” The resolution said “credible evidence about birth prevention measures and the separation of Uyghur children from their families amount to crimes against humanity and represent a serious risk of genocide.” Lawmakers also passed a separate resolution to ban products made using forced labor into the EU market, expected to take effect in September, and pushed for new sanctions against high-level Chinese officials responsible for policy in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The Parliament also demanded that U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet, who recently traveled to Xinjiang, release a long-awaited report on human rights violations in the region, saying that she “failed to clearly hold the Chinese government accountable.” That measure followed the release of “Xinjiang Police Files,” leaked police records from internment camps in the XUAR with details about more than 20,000 detained Uyghurs. The files were released in May by German researcher Adrian Zenz, who is an expert on internal Chinese government documents and the Xinjiang internment campaign. “The Xinjiang Police Files have clearly been a wake-up call for the European Parliament to sense the urgency of the situation and the need for effective action,” said Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC), in a statement issued Thursday. “The EU and its member states must now act upon these calls and do everything they can, in cooperation with governments and civil society worldwide, to end the Uyghur genocide.” The actions by EU Members of Parliament (MEP) follow declarations from the U.S. and other Western governments that Chinese repression in Xinjiang is a crime against humanity and meets the legal definition of a genocide. “The Uyghurs around the world — we are on your side, so we have a strong resolution today in this parliament, so stay strong,” said German MEP Engin Eroglu, a resolution cosponsor, after the vote. “We fight with you for the human rights.” “It’s very important to name the crime, and so today is a historic day, and not only because of the resolution on the genocide, but also because we voted for the import bans,” said French MEP Raphaël Glucksmann, another cosponsor of the resolution. “We will strike a heavy blow at this crackdown machine of the Chinese Communist Party, and this is only the beginning of the struggle,” he said. “You are not alone. We stand with you. Europe stands with you.” ‘What are they waiting for?’ At least 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities are believed to have been held in a network of detention camps in Xinjiang since 2017, purportedly to prevent religious extremism and terrorist activities. Beijing has said that the camps are vocational training centers. The government has denied repeated allegations from multiple sources that it has tortured people in the camps or mistreated other Muslims living in Xinjiang. “Today we have a feeling that we are not alone,” Dolkun Isa said at the European Parliament building in Strasbourg, France, following the vote. “We have a lot of supporters.” U.S.-based Campaign for Uyghurs (CFU) said it supports “the robust, direct and solid action of the European Parliament to hold the Chinese accountable for their genocide” in Xinjiang. “The Chinese regime’s claims that the so-called vocational training centers are for reeducation are proven false by the ‘Xinjiang Police Files,’” said CFU’s executive director Rushan Abbas in a statement. “Uyghurs and other Turkic groups in East Turkestan have been subject to totalitarian oppression for years as the evidence in these most recent papers further proves,” she said, using Uyghurs’ preferred name for Xinjiang. U.S.-based Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) called on EU member states to take steps to ensure that the atrocities are subject to relevant international accountability mechanisms. “There is no better time to finally bring the case to an international court to adjudicate the evidence of atrocities,” said Omer Kanat, UHRP’s executive director. “The European Parliament just affirmed the EU’s own obligation to prevent genocide — what are they waiting for?”
- [‘The junta will bear full responsibility if my husband is executed’: Nilar Thein](https://ij-reportika.com/the-junta-will-bear-full-responsibility-if-my-husband-is-executed-nilar-thein/): 88 Generation leader Ko Jimmy and former National League for Democracy lawmaker Phyo Zeyar Thaw were sentenced to death by a military tribunal on Jan. 21 for violating Myanmar’s Anti-Terrorism Law. They and two other men on death row — Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw — lost appeals of their cases last week. A junta spokesperson on Tuesday rejected the possibility of a pardon in response to international and domestic condemnation of the sentences, meaning that the four men may end up being the first to be executed in Myanmar in 34 years. Speaking to RFA’s Burmese Service on Thursday, Ko Jimmy’s wife Nilar Thein vowed that the junta will not escape punishment if it proceeds with the execution of her husband. RFA: The military council has issued an execution order for Ko Jimmy, who was sentenced to death. The junta’s spokesperson said the appeal process is complete and the Prison Department is now in charge of his case. What else do you know about the process? Nilar Thein: Ever since Ko Jimmy’s arrest, we received no contact or information from the junta. Likewise, we didn’t get a chance to consult with an attorney to submit appeals for him. That’s why the junta’s decision must be incorrect. We never got a chance to work with the authorities for Ko Jimmy’s case. RFA: What is your response to Ko Jimmy’s death sentence? Nilar Thein: The junta will be held accountable for all its actions and statements at some point. They will have to take responsibility for what they did, regardless of who they did it to. This day will come. RFA: Ko Jimmy has been charged under the counter-terrorism law. Do you think he was really involved in terrorist activities? Nilar Thein: Everyone knows who is committing violent terrorist acts and who has become the victims of these acts. We have the right to defend ourselves from aggression and injustice … we have become the victims of the junta’s violent tactics. We are exercising our right to defend ourselves – to protect our lives, homes, and properties from these acts. RFA: The military council has stated that they will move forward to execution in Ko Jimmy’s case. Do you believe they will carry out the execution order? Nilar Thein: This is entirely up to them. Under the law and from the perspective of the human rights community, they should not carry out this death sentence. Death sentences have not been carried out in Myanmar for a long time. It is a blatant violation of human rights even to state that they intend to carry out the execution order, to kill a human being like killing a bird or chicken &#8230; Regardless of what they will do, I want them to know they will be accountable for their decisions. Their acts will not be forgotten. RFA: What are you currently working on for him? Are you engaged with any international organizations about his case? Nilar Thein: I have contacted some international organizations, such as Amnesty International. As soon as the news came out about the execution orders for Ko Jimmy and Ko Phyo Zeyar Thaw, several international organizations and foreign diplomats contacted me and told me that they would protest the decision. RFA: What do you want to tell Ko Jimmy? Nilar Thein: I think he has written his history by committing to a cause he believes in. He has his duty done for the people. I want to tell him I am very proud of him. RFA: What message do you have for the people of Myanmar? Nilar Thein: No matter how the times have changed, the power of the people will be the deciding factor in our country’s future … Those who have participated have played important roles in the resistance and they will be part of history. Whatever comes next, I trusted in the people’s power. That’s why we all need to stay united and join hands to drive out this military regime. Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung.
- [Philippines protests new Chinese ‘swarming’ in South China Sea](https://ij-reportika.com/philippines-protests-new-chinese-swarming-in-south-china-sea/): The Philippines said Thursday it had filed a new diplomatic protest against Beijing over the alleged return of a massive Chinese fleet operating “illegally” around Whitsun Reef, within Manila’s exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea.  The Department of Foreign Affairs made the announcement hours after U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman met in Manila with President-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr. as well as Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. during a visit that she said was part of “preserving a free and open Indo-Pacific.” The department said it “protested the return of over 100 Chinese vessels illegally operating in the waters in and around Julian Felipe Reef on 04 April 2022, barely a year after the same swarming incident was protested by the Philippine government.” In its statement, the department did not say when the diplomatic protest was filed nor if the ships remained at the reef. The department and the Chinese Embassy in Manila did not immediately respond to BenarNews requests for comment late Thursday. Internationally known as Whitsun Reef, Julian Felipe Reef is described as “a low-tide elevation within the territorial sea of relevant high tide features” in the Kalayaan Islands in the South China Sea, the foreign office said.  “The lingering unauthorized presence of Chinese fishing and maritime vessels is not only illegal, but is also a source of instability in the region,” it said. The statement noted that the “persistent swarming” of Chinese ships violated the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea and “the final and binding 2016 arbitral award” won by the Philippines over China. Moreover, it was a violation of a regional agreement to avoid actions that could inflame tensions, the department said. In March and April, Philippine complaints about hundreds of Chinese ships and boats clustering in the waters of Whitsun Reef were the focus of bilateral tensions over the disputed sea. The announcement about the latest protest came about 10 days after the department summoned a senior Chinese diplomat to protest the alleged harassment by the China Coast Guard of a joint Filipino-Taiwanese research ship in the South China Sea in April. Philippine Coast Guard members in rubber boats patrol near Chinese ships moored at Whitsun Reef in the South China Sea, April 14, 2021. Credit: Philippine Coast Guard via AP Sherman-Marcos meeting Earlier on Thursday, Sherman met with Marcos at his campaign headquarters where they were joined by the Philippine envoy to Washington, Jose Manuel Romualdez, as well as other officials. Sherman and Marcos “agreed on the importance of partnering together to strengthen our economies,” according to the U.S. State Department. Topics discussed included the countries’ longtime alliance, the importance of public-private partnership, clean energy, the digital economy, and the importance of human rights and the rule of law.  “The deputy secretary and the president-elect highlighted the importance of the U.S.-Philippine alliance to security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region and the world,” the U.S. statement said.  Sherman, the highest ranking State Department official to visit since the pandemic, also paid a courtesy call on Locsin, the country’s top diplomat.  In a series of posts on Twitter, the Department of Foreign Affairs said Sherman and Locsin discussed “concrete ways to further enhance relations” amid a government transition. Sherman’s visit to Manila marked the second leg of a four-nation Asian tour, which began in South Korea early this week and will take her to Laos and Vietnam. During a stop in Hanoi scheduled for this weekend, the issue of China’s plans to build a navy base in Cambodia are likely to be on the agenda of Sherman’s talks with Vietnamese officials, diplomatic sources told RFA.
- [China sets up hotline with financial rewards for 'national security' tip-offs](https://ij-reportika.com/china-sets-up-hotline-with-financial-rewards-for-national-security-tip-offs/): China&#8217;s ministry of state security has set up a public hotline to encourage people to report each other for threatening &#8220;national security,&#8221; a broadly defined concept that criminalizes overseas contacts and fund-raising, criticism of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and peaceful political opposition. A directive dated June 6 provides for both real-name reports and anonymous tip-offs, offering financial rewards from 10,000 yuan to more than 100,000 yuan, depending on the quality and importance of the &#8220;information.&#8221; While it didn&#8217;t define the sort of tip-offs the hotline wants to receive, the directive said the move was &#8220;according to&#8221; the current national security law, which criminalizes words and deeds deemed separatist, terrorist, seditious or to be evidence of &#8220;collusion with a foreign power.&#8221; In Hong Kong, where the CCP imposed a national security law from July 1, 2020, dozens of former opposition lawmakers, democracy activists, pro-democracy journalists and civic organizations including unions and rights groups have been targeted under the law. Hong Kong also offers a tip-off line for reporting words and deeds under the law, although many arrests have followed public denunciation by CCP-backed media. Citizens can dial in their reports verbally by phone, file them directly to the state security police website, report in person, or write letters, the directive said. It also required state security police to take further action via propaganda departments, broadcasters, traditional media and social media platforms to &#8220;increase citizens&#8217; enthusiasm and initiative when it comes to reporting acts endangering national security.&#8221; No rewards will be given for information that turns out to be inaccurate, nor to anyone who already has a statutory duty to investigate such matters, it said. Political control Chinese political scientist Chen Daoyin said that while &#8220;espionage&#8221; was the ostensible target of national security legislation and call for tip-offs, the move was more about domestic political control. &#8220;This document is more aimed at tightening internal controls,&#8221; Chen told RFA. &#8220;We have been seeing a lot of popular resistance to disease control and prevention measures in Shanghai, which has been different from Wuhan, Shenzhen, Xi&#8217;an and even Beijing.&#8221; &#8220;These measures can be said to reflect a sense of insecurity among those in power,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The point of the directive is to encourage people to struggle against each other and report each other, strengthen the stability of the regime, and securing the CCP&#8217;s grip on power,&#8221; Chen said. Feng Chongyi, associate professor at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Technology, Sydney, said the move likely indicates a renewed drive towards greater totalitarian social control ahead of the CCP&#8217;s 20th National Congress later this year. &#8220;Xi Jinping wants to take China backwards from being a post-totalitarian society to a totalitarian dictatorship again, ahead of the 20th Party Congress,&#8221; Feng told RFA. He said people were less obedient than they were during the political turmoil of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), however. Hong Kong police followed suit on Wednesday, giving the city&#8217;s existing national security hotline an upgrade with financial rewards, trying to repackage it as an &#8220;anti-terrorism&#8221; hotline, to encourage more people to report others via phone, text or WeChat. Former pro-democracy lawmaker Ted Hui said the move was unprecedented in Hong Kong, and signaled that the city is turning into a police state. &#8220;The police already have various means at their disposal, like intercepting communications and online monitoring, and they keep increasing staff numbers in the counter-terrorism department,&#8221; Hui said. &#8220;Wages and staffing levels are also rising across the police force as a whole.&#8221; &#8220;It&#8217;s clear that Hong Kong has become a police state, a city run by cops, which is going too far.&#8221; Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Skier Eileen Gu sparks uproar in China over U.S. 2030 Olympic bid involvement](https://ij-reportika.com/skier-eileen-gu-sparks-uproar-in-china-over-u-s-2030-olympic-bid-involvement/): Chinese-American freestyle skier Eileen Gu, who was lauded by Chinese fans for her patriotism after choosing to represent China at the 2022 Winter Olympics, has announced she will act as goodwill ambassador in support of Salt Lake City&#8217;s 2030 Olympics bid. Gu, who was born in the United States, said she was just 15 when she decided to embrace her Chinese heritage and represent the host nation at the Olympics, taking gold in the big air and halfpipe events, and a silver medal in slopestyle. Yet Gu, 18, has been unwilling so far to address the issue of patriotic allegiance head on, and has said she is American while in the U.S., and Chinese while in China. China doesn&#8217;t permit dual citizenship, at least not officially, and Gu has never clarified which passport, or passports, she actually now holds. China&#8217;s state-controlled media lauded her haul of medals to the skies, but never probed the issue any further. &#8220;Salt Lake specifically wants to become a global destination for athletes everywhere to come train there and they want to incorporate 15 new countries into the Winter Olympics,&#8221; Gu told Time Magazine in a recent interview. &#8220;I think that’s something that’s really beautiful and I’ve always stood for that and so I’m really honored to be a part of the whole thing,&#8221; she said, adding that it was a &#8220;beautiful example of globalism.&#8221; However, Time referred to her as &#8220;China&#8217;s Eileen Gu,&#8221; saying this showed the global influence of a top-level Chinese athlete. Gu&#8217;s involvement in the Salt Lake City bid comes at a time of heightened political tensions between Washington and Beijing. In April, she attended an assembly of Chinese Olympians at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, where she got a special mention from ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping, who ribbed her for her love of Chinese dumplings. 15 million views in China U.S. Olympic bid spokesman Tom Kelly confirmed to the Associated Press on Tuesday that Gu participated in the bid as an &#8220;athlete representative.&#8221; &#8220;She is working with us,&#8221; Kelly said, &#8220;but we haven&#8217;t chosen her exact title.&#8221; He said Gu wouldn&#8217;t be traveling with the bid&#8217;s delegation to Switzerland to meet with International Olympics Committee (IOC) officials, but that U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn would be going. The topic has blown up the Chinese internet, with more than 15 million views reported on the #EileenGu hashtag on China&#8217;s Weibo social media platform alone on Thursday. &#8220;As a sports figure, Eileen Gu is often seen through a screen of commercial hype &#8230; but being the U.S. ambassador for the Olympic bid doesn&#8217;t mean much,&#8221; the @dibaofficialweibo account commented. &#8220;Those who scold her for it make themselves look stupid and ignorant.&#8221; @CarShooter responded sarcastically to Gu&#8217;s comment in the Time Magazine interview that she had no regrets about representing China, commenting: &#8220;Ha ha Chinese athlete Eileen Gu, thank you, really!&#8221; adding a &#8220;Bye-bye&#8221; emoticon. Former Global Times editor-in-chief Hu Xijin, usually known for his hyper-nationalistic rhetoric, was unexpectedly supportive of Gu, however. He said Gu had &#8220;defined her identity&#8221; by choosing to represent China in 2022, and had done nothing yet to suggest she was trying to change that. User @SisterFei_talks_politics_and_economics took issue with Gu&#8217;s critics, who had slammed her as an &#8220;exquisite egoist.&#8221; &#8220;I can&#8217;t understand the disdain and even anger of many people towards Eileen Gu,&#8221; the user wrote. &#8220;They think she is a person who uses her privilege to have her cake and eat it. I find these ideas ridiculous and narrow-minded.&#8221; Nationality switching Gu had never claimed to love China, but only to spend some of her time there. She had never tried to tap into any kind of nationalistic rhetoric to win favor, but had instead relied on her own talents and efforts to bring gold and silver medals for China, the user wrote. &#8220;Do we need her more, or does she need us?&#8221; they asked. Weibo user @zhongdongzongzanfeng said China should never have let Gu compete on its Olympic team. &#8220;I have nothing against her, but I am against nationality changes just to get more gold medals; gold medals won in this way are worthless,&#8221; the user wrote. Sun Youkui, sports management lecturer at Towson University, said nationality switching is actually quite common among top athletes, and that Chinese athletes have previously served as ambassadors for foreign Olympic bids. &#8220;Naturally, everyone is talking about the question of her nationality again because she just represented China in competition, and now she is helping the United States to bid for the Olympics,&#8221; Sun told RFA. &#8220;The focus is all on her.&#8221; &#8220;But there have also been examples in the past of [bid teams] seeking out top or well-known international athletes to serve as ambassadors for an Olympic bid,&#8221; Sun said. &#8220;The fact that she isn&#8217;t an athlete from that country means nothing.&#8221; &#8220;It&#8217;s to demonstrate the international reputation of Salt Lake City.&#8221; Chinese diving star Gao Min has served as ambassador for New York&#8217;s Olympic bid, while Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo played the same role for South Korea, Ding Junhui for London and Chen Lu for Sochi. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Big Brother trumps Lipstick Brother](https://ij-reportika.com/big-brother-trumps-lipstick-brother/): Beauty e-commerce influencer Austin Li (Li Jiaqi), part of a generation of younger Chinese people who know little of the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen massacre, displayed a tank-shaped ice-cream dessert on his livestream on Jun. 3, one day ahead of the 33rd anniversary of the crackdown. Censors pulled the plug immediately, and the cosmetics pitchman known to 40 million followers as “Lipstick Brother” hasn’t returned. Li was not any kind of activist and his predicament shows how successfully Beijing has suppressed knowledge of the watershed event.
- [WHO driver shot dead in Mawlamyine](https://ij-reportika.com/who-driver-shot-dead-in-mawlamyine/): The World Health Organization says one of its employees was shot dead in Mawlamyine city, Mon State, on Wednesday. Myo Min Htut was killed near a statue of General Aung San close to Than Lwin Park at around 5:45 p.m., the WHO said today. Myo Min Htut worked as a driver for the WHO Myanmar Office for nearly five years. He was shot dead on his way home from work by motorcycle. The WHO statement offered condolences to his family but gave no further details. People’s Defense Organization Mawlamyine (PDOM) said on its Facebook page yesterday that it was behind the shooting. A statement said that Myo Min Htut used to take the lead in conducting searches for the military junta based on the family&#8217;s household registration. It said Myo Min Htut had threatened members of the anti-regime Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) and their families. It said the victim was also a relative of Lt. Gen. Aung Lin Dway, one of the top Military Council leaders. The statement said he was shot five times. RFA has not yet been able to confirm the PDOM’s claims. A local militia said they shot Myo Min Htut  five times. CREDIT: Citizen journalist Ramanathan Balakrishnan, the UN Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator ad interim in Myanmar, condemned the killing in a statement issued today. “The United Nations appeals to all parties and stakeholders to respect the neutrality of the United Nations and humanitarians and further calls for all parties to protect the rights and safety of civilians and strongly condemns acts of violence against civilians,” the statement said.        “The United Nations expects an impartial investigation into the incident and the perpetrators to be held accountable.” “During these difficult times, against significant odds, the United Nations continues to stay and deliver essential humanitarian and development support for the people of Myanmar,” the statement added. This is not the first attack on humanitarian workers in Myanmar since the military coup on February 1 last year. On December 24, two Save the Children staff members were among 35 people killed in a terrorist attack near Moso village, in Hpruso Township, Kayah State.
- [Countering the lies about the Tiananmen Square massacre](https://ij-reportika.com/countering-the-tiananmen-square-controversy/): Our East China expert Jenny Kin Jacobs on the occasion of the anniversary of the brutal Tiananmen massacre presented a report loaded with facts about the brutal chain of events that unfolded in China in 1989. After that report came out several Twitter handles and websites tried to whitewash it by calling it TIAN'ANMEN SQUARE MASSACRE: THE WEST'S MOST PERVASIVE LIE. Let us debunk these lies and present the counter argument with FACTS and only FACTS. 
- [Prominent Tibetan writer confirmed detained after year-long disappearance](https://ij-reportika.com/prominent-tibetan-writer-confirmed-detained-after-year-long-disappearance/): Prominent Tibetan writer and scholar Rongwo Gangkar, who went missing more than a year ago, has been confirmed arrested by Chinese authorities, RFA’s Tibetan Service has learned. Gangkar, the 48-year-old author of such popular works as “The Knot” and “An Interview with Gendun Choephel,” was likely detained in early 2021, a Tibetan source living in Tibet told RFA, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “He was unexpectedly arrested by the Chinese police and right now his whereabouts and condition remain unknown,” said the source. “He was missing since the beginning of 2021, but we only later learned from a few of his friends and acquaintances that he was suddenly taken into custody on the orders of the Chinese government. Few were aware of his arrest, due to tight restrictions in place because of COVID-19 at the time.” Another source in the region, who also declined to be named, told RFA he was saddened to learn of Gangkar’s arrest and is concerned for his well-being. “Rongwo Gangkar is a well-known Tibetan writer known for many of his popular works,” he said. “He is from Rebkong (in Chinese, Tongren) [county in the Malho (Huangnan) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture] and belongs to Rongwo monastery. … I haven’t seen him for so long.” Crackdown on Tibetan leaders Gangkar, who is also celebrated for his skill as a translator, is the latest confirmed victim of a crackdown by Chinese authorities on Tibetan intellectuals and cultural leaders. Last month, RFA learned that Tibetan writer and poet Gendun Lhundrub, who was held incommunicado for more than a year after his arrest in 2020, is being detained in a prison in Siling (Xining). The former monk at Rongwo monastery had been monitored by authorities for signs of political dissent before being detained and was arrested in western China’s Qinghai province while he was on his way to attend a religious debate in Rebgong. Lhundrub is reportedly undergoing political re-education and must translate Tibetan Buddhist scripts into Mandarin Chinese, which the Chinese Communist Party requires be used to teach Tibetan Buddhist studies. Chinese authorities have frequently detained Tibetan writers and artists who promote Tibetan national identity and culture — with many sentenced to lengthy prison terms — following region-wide protests of Chinese rule that swept Tibet and Tibetan areas in western provinces of China in 2008. Language rights have become a particular focus for Tibetan efforts to assert national identity in recent years, with informally organized language courses typically deemed “illegal associations” and teachers subject to detention and arrest, sources say. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Myanmar junta forces attack villages in Sagaing region, killing 11, residents say](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-forces-attack-villages-in-sagaing-region-killing-11-residents-say/): Eleven civilians were shot dead or burned to death by military junta troops in northwestern Myanmar’s Sagaing region after the soldiers found a weapon in a pagoda compound where the displaced villagers had sought shelter, local residents said Wednesday. Junta forces shot six of the civilians from Kan Pyar village in Myinmu township in the back on Monday after they ordered them to run. Another three were shot to death after they were told to place their hands on their heads when soldiers found the homemade pistol during a raid on the Myat Saw Nyi Naung pagoda, the sources said. Two other villagers were trapped in a burning Buddhist monastery and burned to death, they said. Soldiers also torched more than 100 motorcycles inside the pagoda compound where the residents were sheltering. Sagaing has been the site of some of the fiercest fighting between the junta troops and opposition forces since the military seized power in a February 2021 coup. Villagers have said junta forces have also indiscriminately attacked communities, killing civilians, torching homes and forcing thousands to flee in search of safety. An estimated 336,600 people have fled Sagaing since the coup, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. The ages of those who were executed ranged from 17 to over 60 years old, locals said. Ten of the 11 victims have been identified: Myint Oo, Nay Zar Aung, Yupar, Aung Min Khaing, Hla Soe, Paing Paing, Mae Gyi, Thura, Tin Htwe and U San. A villager who requested anonymity for safety reasons said soldiers committed the “heinous crime” after they arrived in the pagoda compound on Monday. The villager repeated accounts he had heard from those who witnessed the killings. He did not see them himself because he fled the area when the soldiers arrived. He later returned and saw the dead bodies. “They interrogated the [internally displaced persons] who are taking shelter [and] found a handmade pistol,” he said. “Then, they ordered the men to run on the count of three and shot them in the back. Six of them got shot and killed. All are local villagers. They got murdered for a small pistol.” “Now, people are fearful,” he said. “They are too afraid to live in the village. It is heinous crime that they told the villagers to flee and shot them in the back.” The soldiers ordered about 30 men to flee, killing six. They also detained and took away another 10, the villager said. RFA could not contact the villagers who witnessed the incident because the soldiers had confiscated their mobile phones. After the villagers buried the bodies on Wednesday, more residents left, too afraid to remain there, the source said. ‘More than an atrocity’ A second local who also requested anonymity for safety reasons said soldiers left behind dead bodies and devastated family members. “I haven’t got the words to comfort them. I’m aghast,” he told RFA. “The soldiers made them watch their family members being shot and killed. This is more than an atrocity. I am heartbroken to see them crying their hearts out.” A member of the Myinmu township People’s Defense Force (PDF) said members of the militia are providing medical treatment to villagers who were injured by the gunfire. “They have contacted PDF troops and requested medical attention,” he said. “We went as far as they could come and gave them medical treatment. These civilians are fearful. This is like a scene from a movie. It was very brutal.” RFA contacted junta spokesman, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, for comment, but he did not return the calls. He has repeatedly denied claims that Myanmar soldiers were raiding villages and terrorizing residents. Nay Zin Latt, a former National League for Democracy lawmaker in the Sagaing regional parliament, said the most recent incident constituted a war crime. “This is a brutal crime in which local civilians were murdered, and it has further frightened them on purpose,” he said. “It did not come about by accident because the village is closed to the conflict area. This was intentional. “They are burning villages and murdering civilians while there are not armed conflicts,” he added. “I think this could even mean they are attempting a genocide.” The dead bodies of civilians from Kan Pyar village, Myinmu township, in northwestern Myanmar&#8217;s Sagaing region, lay covered on the ground, June 6, 2022. Credit: Citizen journalist Two other villages attacked Junta soldiers also targeted Sagaing’s Kanbalu township on Monday, burning more than 250 houses and 65 granaries with at least 6,500 bushels of rice paddy during a raid of two villages, said residents who watched the destruction as they hid nearby when troops entered their community. More than 80 soldiers from Light Infantry Battalion No. 367, stationed in the township’s Koe Taung Boet village, raided Hnaw Kone village at about 4 a.m. and began burning down houses seven hours later before moving on to Shaw Hpyu Kone village, where they also set houses ablaze, residents said. A Shaw Hpyu Kone resident who lost both his home and his harvested rice paddy said the soldiers fired guns as they entered the community. “We were half asleep and had to run for our lives,” he said. “They fired heavy artillery as they entered. They cooked and ate their meals before they started burning the houses around 11 a.m. “They burned all houses in the village and granaries,” he said. “We’ve lost both food supplies and seeds for the coming season. It happened right before the time for sowing the seeds. Some people were not able to carry anything as they fled. All the villagers had to flee and left their belonging to be burned down.” Junta troops torched 52 houses and 30 granaries holding at least 3,000 bushels of paddy in Hnaw Kone village and 200 houses and 35 granaries with at least 3,500 bushels of paddy in Shaw Hpyu Kone, said the resident, who requested anonymity for safety reasons. Villagers in the two communities told RFA...
- [Vietnam arrests 3 disgraced Communist Party officials for corruption](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-arrests-3-disgraced-communist-party-officials-for-corruption/): Vietnamese authorities on Tuesday arrested three disgraced former Communist Party officials for a kick-back scheme involving COVID test kits, as part of an anti-graft campaign some observers think has been too slow to punish high-level government offenders. Police at the Ministry of Public Security arrested former Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long, former Hanoi Mayor Chu Ngoc Anh and former Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Pham Cong Tac, all of whom were expelled from the Communist Party and removed from their positions Monday. The three were implicated in a U.S. $172 million scandal in which the Viet A Technologies Company bribed officials to get its test kits made and distributed nationwide at inflated prices. They are the latest casualties of the one-party state’s years-long crackdown on corruption, referred to as “furnace burning” by its architect, Secretary General Nguyen Phu Trong. The crackdown, intended to restore public confidence in the Communist Party, has seen several high-profile arrests of government and private sector officials over the past few months. But it has drawn mixed reviews among observers of the government. Le Hoa, a lawyer based in Hanoi, praised the effort in an interview with RFA’s Vietnamese Service. “This is a very positive signal giving ordinary people more faith in the Communist Party of Vietnam’s fight against corruption,” he said. “The fight, led by General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, is on the right track and is bearing fruit. Those are my thoughts, and I believe many others would have the same view.” Hoa said that he hoped authorities don’t declare this the end of the Viet A scandal. He said that if police investigate further and bring in even higher ranking party officials, it would show that the party is serious about its tough stance on corruption. Throwing mud in a pond Justice is happening too slowly, Pham Dinh Long, a former officer in Vietnam’s military who cancelled his membership in the Communist Party in 2009, told RFA via text message. “If the law is really strict and transparent and for the sake of justice, they should have been arrested right at the beginning of the Viet A scandal,” said Long, who lives in the central highland province of Lam Dong. “It’s not only too late, but it is a disregard for justice that these two ringleaders weren’t arrested until this stage,” he said. Nguyen Thong, a blogger, wrote on his Facebook account that it had taken too long for Vietnam to discipline Long and Anh. He said that a democratic regime that respects for the rule of law would have been quicker to act and that the furnace burning campaign was largely a public relations effort to boost confidence in government and downplayed the campaign’s effectiveness. “Some praise this anti-corruption furnace, but I despise it. It can&#8217;t undo the rottening nature of this country&#8217;s system,” he said. “Arresting a thousand guys then replacing them with a thousand of the same kind of guys is just throwing stones, throwing mud to the pond.” A Hanoi lawyer, who spoke with RFA under condition of annonymity for security reasons, wondered whether the replacements to the three arrested officials would be any better. The lawyer also noted that party leaders, including Nguyen Phu Trong, supported the re-election of Long and Anh to the Central Committee at last year’s 13th Party Congress. More arrests to come? Uncovering corruption can be a tool for those hoping to discredit political rivals, but Vo Van Tao, a journalist from the coastal city of Nha Trang, told RFA that he doubted the arrests were political infighting. He expects further arrests. “There are a lot of rumors on social media, saying that [Long and Anh] might not be the last catch. Perhaps even higher ranking leaders [could be arrested],” he said. Vietnam’s agreements to buy Chinese vaccines at a higher price than Pfizer’s during the height of the pandemic last September looked suspicious, he said. “As you may recall, the first batch consisted of 20 million doses of Pfizer vaccine and each dose cost 127,000 dong [U.S. $5.50]. However, just more than 10 days later, the prime minister agreed to the Ministry of Health’s proposal to import 20 million doses of Chinese Verocell vaccine and the price for each dose was 160,000 dong (around $7). I think something’s abnormal here.” Hospital official implicated As part of the same scandal, police in the northwestern province of Son La arrested Lo Van Chien, the head of the Son La General Hospital’s Pharmaceutical Department, for accepting bribes from the Viet A Technologies Company, state media reported. According to the police investigation, Chien received kickbacks from Viet A when the hospital signed contracts worth 1.05 billion dong (about $45,000) to buy COVID-19 test kits. Son La General bought each test kit for between 185,000 and 200,000 dong (around $8-9), considerably higher than similar test kits sold for about 140,000 dong ($6) to hospitals and medical facilities in other provinces and Ho Chi Minh City. The State Audit of Vietnam recently announced that among the 32 provinces and cities it audited, 30 had purchased Viet A’s test kits. Vietnam has 63 provinces and centrally administered cities. The 30 audited provinces and cities that bought Viet A test kits spent well over 2.1 trillion dong ($91.3 million) in total. In early January this year, Lt. Gen. To An Xo, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Public Security, said that Viet A Director Phan Quoc Viet had admitted to inflating the price of a COVID-19 test kit by 45% and sending almost 800 billion dong ($35.2 million) in kickbacks to the company’s partners. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Nearly 600 properties seized by junta over alleged ties to armed resistance](https://ij-reportika.com/nearly-600-properties-seized-by-junta-over-alleged-ties-to-armed-resistance/): Myanmar’s junta has confiscated nearly 600 homes and other buildings owned by people it claims are members or supporters of the armed resistance, according to a report by independent research group the Institute for Strategy and Policy (ISP Myanmar). The report found that, between the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup and May 20 this year, authorities seized 586 properties, mostly from people who have alleged ties to the shadow National Unity Government (NUG), Pyidaungsu Hluttaw Committee of Representatives (CRPH), and anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary group — all of which the regime considers “terrorist organizations.” Several other confiscated properties belonged to people the military regime said had a role in bombings of junta targets, anti-coup protests, and the nationwide anti-junta Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM). Among the seizures were the homes of NUG acting President Duwa Lashi La and Prime Minister Mahn Winn Khaing Thann, the report said. The largest number of properties, 159, were confiscated from owners in embattled Sagaing region, where the military has faced some of the strongest resistance to date. Myint Htwe, a former lawmaker for the deposed National League for Democracy (NLD) party representing Ye-U township in the Sagaing Regional Parliament, called the military’s seizures “arbitrary” and illegal. “These confiscations are entirely arbitrary, according to the law,” the former MP, whose home was among those confiscated, told RFA’s Burmese Service. “The junta is a terrorist organization that has violated all the ethics of how soldiers should act and how civilians should be treated. I know they will never abide by the laws, and I don’t expect anything different.” According to ISP Myanmar’s findings, 373 properties, or nearly two-thirds of those seized, belonged to civilians. Another 147 properties belonged to lawmakers, while 66 were owned by the NLD or its members. Kyaw Htet Aung, senior researcher at ISP Myanmar, said the confiscations had taken an emotional, social and economic toll on the victims. “Especially, the family members and victims of home confiscations have had their lives disrupted and ruined,” he said. “When someone loses their home, they can live with relatives or shelter at a camp for internally displaced people,” he added. “But often it becomes difficult to maintain one’s regular social, economic, educational and medical activities after a home is lost. Owning a home is central part of one’s life.” Attempts by RFA to contact junta deputy information minister, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, for comment on the confiscations went unanswered Wednesday. A photo shows the exterior of the home of Moe Ma Kha, a former NLD lawmaker for the Bago Regional Parliament, which was sealed off by junta authorities in Taungoo city on Feb. 12, 2022. Credit: Citizen journalist Targeting the NLD NLD Central Committee member Kyaw Htwe said the junta is illegally targeting members of his party. “The military regime is jealous of the NLD party for achieving landslide victories in every free and fair election. They know they cannot achieve a monopoly on power while the NLD is around, and that’s why they are targeting the party,” he said. “They destroyed the party headquarters, sealed party member’s homes, and arrested the party members. They even arrest and intimidate the family members of NLD members and supporters. They are taking away the rights of the people.” The junta says voter fraud led to the NLD’s landslide victory in the country’s November 2020 election but has yet to provide evidence for its claims. It has instead violently suppressed nationwide protests calling for a return to civilian rule, killing 1,909 people and arresting 14,046 in the 16 months since, according to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Most detainees from the NLD were charged for alleged crimes that carry heavy sentences, including rebellion, corruption, unlawful association and incitement. The NLD said in January that more than three-quarters of its members arrested by the junta remained in detention more than 11 months after the military seized power. Since the Feb. 1 coup, junta security forces have arrested hundreds of NLD members, including leader Aung San Suu Kyi and former President Win Myint. Political Analyst Than Soe Naing said the junta is using every means at its disposal to crush the resistance movement and drive away its supporters. “They intend to make NLD supporters and proponents of the NUG suffer and become homeless,” he said. “There are no laws or constitutional provisions that support such actions. The junta is now using unprecedented and inhumane tactics to suppress the resistance and its supporters.” Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Filipino fishermen, boat owner ‘compensated’ for South China Sea ramming incident](https://ij-reportika.com/filipino-fishermen-boat-owner-compensated-for-south-china-sea-ramming-incident/): Filipino fishermen whose boat sank in 2019 after a Chinese trawler rammed into it in disputed South China Sea waters have received six million Philippine pesos (U.S $113,421) in compensation, the Department of Justice said Wednesday. However, a fishers’ association criticized the settlement for the 22 fishermen and the owner as too little and coming too late. Justice Undersecretary Adrian Sugay told reporters that the owner of the F/B Gem-Ver 1 boat and the fishermen had received the compensation on May 16, with officials adding that the settlement amount was half of what the victims sought. “Full compensation has already been made in favor of the vessel owner and the fishermen,” Sugay said in his message. The original amount demanded by the fishermen represented repair costs, other damages, and income lost due to the incident. Fernando Hicap, head of Pamalakaya, a fisherman’s group, called the compensation to the 22 fishermen and the owner of the boat that sank “long overdue and insufficient.” “The 22 victimized fishermen have been enduring the loss of their traditional livelihood after the tragic incident in Recto Bank. It took three years before they were improperly compensated.” Hicap told BenarNews. “Our demand is that the compensation should cover not only the cost of the fishing vessel and their supposed income on the night of the incident, but also the aftermath wherein their livelihood activities have not returned to normal.” Hicap also demanded an “immediate end to Chinese aggression” in the sea region. “The government should give full justice to all the Filipino fisherfolk who are victims of Chinese harassment and hostility in our territorial waters,” he said. The incident occurred on June 9, 2019 in an area within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ). After their boat sank, the 22 Filipino fishermen were left floating at sea until a Vietnamese boat rescued them. On June 15, the Chinese embassy in Manila confirmed that a Chinese trawler, Yuemaobinyu 42212, “bumped into” the Filipino fishing boat, but denied that it was a “hit and run” incident, as Philippine officials claimed. The incident came mid-way into the term of President Rodrigo Duterte, who had taken steps to appease Chinese leader Xi Jinping, whose government has ignored a 2016 international arbitral verdict on the South China Sea that ruled against Beijing in favor of Manila. At the time, Duterte played down the incident as a “little maritime accident” that should not get in the way of friendly bilateral relations. China and five other governments – Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam – have territorial claims in the disputed waterway. While Indonesia does not regard itself as a party to the South China Sea dispute, Beijing claims historic rights to parts of the sea overlapping Indonesia’s EEZ. Duterte’s friendly policy towards Beijing is expected to be tested when President-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr. assumes office at the end of June. Two weeks ago, Marcos said he would implement the arbitral ruling and assert the Philippines’ territorial rights in the sea region. “Our sovereignty is sacred and we will not compromise it in any way,” he said. “We are a sovereign nation with a functioning government, so we do not need to be told by anyone how to run our country.” BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.
- [Lao police seize major haul of drugs, arrest 2](https://ij-reportika.com/lao-police-seize-major-haul-of-drugs-arrest-2/): Police in northern Laos have seized 12 million methamphetamine pills and arrested two suspects in the fourth major drug haul in the region this year, Lao sources say. The June 4 operation in Bokeo province’s Huayxi district blocked delivery of the drugs to the Lao capital Vientiane, with police also seizing guns and cell phones from the suspects, police sources told RFA on Tuesday. Arrested were a member of the Lao Hmong ethnic group, age 30 and a resident of Bokeo, and a 29-year-old Lao resident of the northern province of Luang Namtha, one source told RFA, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. Both are citizens of Laos and told police they had been hired by a dealer in Bokeo’s Tonpheung district to move the drugs for around $70,000 U.S. dollars in cash, RFA’s source said. “Everything is now being handled by officials, and we are carrying out an investigation to find out where these drugs came from. Nothing is clear at the moment,” he said. Also declining to be named, a second police official in Bokeo said the suspects’ attempt to take the drugs to Vientiane in pickup trucks had failed because of the many police checkpoints set up along the road. “Most of the drugs we seize come from the northern part of Laos, but we can’t say for sure yet whether these drugs also came from the north. This is still under investigation,” he said. “The suspects are Lao citizens and will be punished according to the law.” Methamphetamine pills seized in Bokeo province in northern Laos are shown in a June 4, 2022 photo. Photo: Lao Security News A villager in Bokeo’s Tonpheung district told RFA on Tuesday that police have been unable to end the drug trade in the area, where many young people become addicted and then turn to selling drugs themselves, he said. “If the police let things go on like this, our own children and grandchildren will also become bad people someday. I want the authorities to crack down on this problem,” he said. Police involvement with drugs has also slowed efforts to control the trade, another Tonpheung villager said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “If the police were really serious about solving this problem, all of it would be gone,” he said. “The problem still exists because sometimes the police will get drugs from the dealers and then sell them themselves.” The June 4 seizure of drugs in Bokeo was the fourth major haul reported in the province this year, with large quantities of amphetamine pills also seized in January and March, according to Lao media sources. On May 30, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported that the trade in synthetic drugs continues to expand in East and Southeast Asia, “with production and trafficking hitting record levels in 2021.” Drug labs in the Golden Triangle area of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar are the major sources of production, “and the supply continues to surge,” the UNODC said. Translated by Phouvong for RFA’s Lao Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [Shanghai, Beijing residents give lie to claims that COVID-19 lockdowns have eased](https://ij-reportika.com/shanghai-beijing-residents-give-lie-to-claims-that-covid-19-lockdowns-have-eased/): Despite the government&#8217;s claims that a two-month lockdown in Shanghai has been relaxed, residents of some districts of the city said they have yet to regain their freedom, amid ongoing shortages of food and other daily necessities. A resident of Shanghai&#8217;s Jing&#8217;an district surnamed Feng said some residential areas of her district, as well as some of Xuhui and Huangpu districts, remain under &#8220;closed-loop&#8221; management, while the lockdown in Yangpu district has yet to ease at all. &#8220;We are still locked down due to the pandemic,&#8221; Feng said. &#8220;Anywhere that somebody tests positive is still being locked down.&#8221; &#8220;The lockdown never ended in Yangpu district, where they were still installing barriers on May 29,&#8221; she said. Shanghai resident Wang Ning many factories are now unable to operate due to shortages of supplies and road closures, while many restaurants are still only offering takeout. &#8220;Some people are back at work one day, then take three days off,&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;We are doing PCR tests nearly every day.&#8221; &#8220;There are rumors that there will be another lockdown from June 20, so we laid in a lot of supplies yesterday, so as to be prepared if that happens,&#8221; Wang said. A worker padlocks fencing securing a residential area under Covid-19 lockdown in the Xuhui district of Shanghai on June 8, 2022. Credit: AFP PCR tests But any trip outside one&#8217;s home, even in districts where this is now allowed, must be preceded by hours of lining up to get a PCR test, Wang said. &#8220;There are PCR testing booths at the entrance of our community, saying that we need to show a negative test from the past 48 hours to leave,&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;I did one last night, so I can go run a few errands today.&#8221; A resident surnamed Ma said that standing in line for PCR tests is the bane of people&#8217;s existence now in Shanghai. &#8220;It&#8217;s a constant sword hanging over people&#8217;s heads &#8230; because you can&#8217;t go anywhere without a negative PCR test from the past 48 or 72 hours,&#8221; she said. &#8220;The fact that the results don&#8217;t usually come out till the next day is very troublesome for people, and creates anxiety,&#8221; Ma said. &#8220;We are constantly lining up to do PCR tests,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Anyone who tests positive will be put in isolation or lockdown at home.&#8221; &#8220;All of this is a disaster for ordinary people &#8230; these tests cost 20 yuan a time, and they have to do one every couple of days, so how will they afford it?&#8221; Residents line up for COVID-19 tests outside the Sihang Warehouse War Memorial Hall in Shanghai, June 7, 2022. Credit: Reuter Limits in Beijing A Shanghai resident surnamed Chang said the city isn&#8217;t back to normal yet. &#8220;You can only say that the lockdown has been partially lifted,&#8221; Chang said. &#8220;Some places haven&#8217;t gotten back to normal yet.&#8221; While authorities in Beijing also announced the easing of weeks of restrictions in the early hours of Tuesday, public transportation in the city remains suspended, and people are being told to work from home. A resident of Beijing&#8217;s Fangshan district surnamed Guo said people without private cars can&#8217;t easily get around. &#8220;We can only walk around the Fangshan area, as we don&#8217;t have a car,&#8221; Guo said. &#8220;There are parts of the subway where the trains aren&#8217;t stopping, and Fengtai district is still under lockdown.&#8221; Guo said people are being asked to pay high fees for documentation allowing them to leave their residential compounds. &#8220;It costs 240 yuan to get an exit pass in our compound now,&#8221; she said. A man surnamed Guo from Haidian district said parts of the district remain under tight restrictions, with several PCR tests required from residents ever week. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [China navy facility in Cambodia raises eyebrows in Vietnam and beyond](https://ij-reportika.com/china-navy-facility-in-cambodia-raises-eyebrows-in-vietnam-and-beyond/): Latest developments at the Ream Naval Base in Cambodia, where China is building a facility that its military can use, have raised quiet concerns in neighboring Vietnam, where military strategists have been closely following events across the border. Diplomatic sources say the base and China’s involvement in strategic projects in Cambodia are likely to be on the agenda of U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman’s meetings when she visits Vietnam at the weekend. Sherman is scheduled to visit Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi from June 10-13 and meet with Vietnamese officials including Deputy Prime Minister Le Van Thanh, Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son and Vice Foreign Minister Ha Kim Ngoc. The U.S. deputy secretary is not meeting Vietnamese defense officials because of conflicting schedules but on a similar trip in 2014 Sherman met with then Lt. General Nguyen Chi Vinh, Vice-Minister of National Defense and Vietnam’s chief strategist on Cambodia.  She was Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs at that time. Cambodian Navy personnel are seen walking along a jetty during a government-organized media tour to the Ream naval base in Preah Sihanouk province, July 26, 2019. Credit: AFP Historical ties Vietnam is not only a neighbor but also Cambodia’s historical “brother from Indochina” and traditional ally. The current government in Phnom Penh was installed in power by Hanoi after Vietnamese troops defeated the Khmer Rouge in 1979. Prime Minister Hun Sen, a fluent Vietnamese speaker, used to be called by critics a “Vietnam’s puppet” at the beginning of his political career. The news about the Chinese-assisted development project, under which China will help Cambodia to renovate and upgrade naval facilities at Ream, reveals how much leverage Vietnam has lost in Cambodia in recent years.  “Vietnam is of course worried because Ream is extremely close to Vietnam’s own naval base in Phu Quoc island,” said a Vietnamese analyst who doesn’t want to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue. The Ream Naval Base is situated in Preah Sihanouk province in southwest Cambodia on the Gulf of Thailand, less than 30 km (18 miles) from Phu Quoc, known as Koh Tral in Khmer. It was the Vietnamese Navy who in January 1979 seized the base from Pol Pot troops and transferred it from the Khmer Rouge regime to the new Cambodian government. But the Vietnamese Navy was invited to visit the Ream Naval Base only a couple times and recently the “Joint Vietnamese Friendship” building, a facility built by the Vietnamese, was relocated from the base, reportedly to avoid conflicts with Chinese personnel. “There is also a sense of great disappointment,” said the Vietnamese analyst. “However I don’t think the Chinese involvement here is targeting Vietnam but more for the Cambodian government to give a message of defiance and a warning signal to the U.S.,” he added. In July 1982, Hanoi and Phnom Penh signed an agreement on “historical waters” between the two countries to define the sea border and the legal sovereignty of the islands in the Gulf of Thailand, in order to minimize misunderstanding and prevent potential conflicts. Cambodia&#8217;s Prime Minister Hun Sen (C) cuts a ceremonial ribbon as Chinese ambassador to Cambodia Wang Wentian (3rd R) looks on during the opening ceremony of the Morodok Techo National Stadium, funded by China&#8217;s grant aid under its Belt and Road Initiative, in Phnom Penh, Dec. 18, 2021. Credit: AFP Security dilemma Beijing’s involvement in Ream has nevertheless sparked controversy in the West as the U.S. sees the danger of China gaining its first naval staging facility in mainland Southeast Asia that could allow it to significantly expand patrols across the South China Sea. Concerns about Ream go back as far as 2019, when the Wall Street Journal reported a secret deal allowing China to post army personnel, store weapons and dock warships there. Cambodia and China have repeatedly denied the information, saying “the renovation of the base serves solely to strengthen the Cambodian naval capacities to protect its maritime integrity and combat maritime crimes.” Washington has complained “about the lack of transparency on the intent, the nature, the scope of this project, as well as the role that the PRC military is playing in its construction and in its post-construction use of the facility.” “The latest news report about the Ream Naval Base is a further indication that the U.S. has not accepted the fact that Cambodia and China have already been close partners in Southeast Asia,” said Sovinda Po, a research fellow at the Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace. “The main reason behind the U.S.&#8217;s constant accusations is to warn the Cambodian government against aligning so closely with China,” Po said. &#8220;Vietnam is also not happy to see China moving closer towards its own territory as it and China have ongoing sovereignty disputes in the South China Sea and the overall trust between the two countries is low,” the Cambodian analyst said. The naval base and its development therefore have become a major security dilemma for Cambodia, Vietnam, the U.S. and China, according to Sovinda Po. ‘The new normal’ China already has the biggest maritime force in the world, with 355 ships and is projected to have 460 by 2030, according to the latest U.S. Defense Department report on Chinese military. The U.S. has 297 battle-force ships but operates more than 800 military bases overseas. “This is our normal now, China will seek overseas bases, just like we do,” said Blake Herzinger, a Singapore-based defense policy specialist and U.S. Navy Reserve officer. “If we think freezing out countries that do elect to cooperate with the Chinese does anything other than make us look like them, we are sorely mistaken,” Herzinger wrote on Twitter. U.S.-Cambodia relations have been strained over recent years due to many factors including differences in geopolitical and strategic interests, human rights, democracy and China’s role in the region. In contrast, during the last decade under the so-called Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China has been pumping investment into important...
- [After Lao rivers run red, authorities order iron mine to stop production](https://ij-reportika.com/after-lao-rivers-run-red-authorities-order-iron-mine-to-stop-production/): Authorities in Laos have ordered a Vietnamese mining company to suspend its operations after it polluted local waterways, causing two rivers to run red, local media reported. The Company of Economic Cooperation in Vietnam (Coecco) runs a mining operation in the Boualapha district of Laos’ southern Khammouane province. When “red water” began flowing down the Sa-A and Xe Noi Rivers starting on June 21, the governors of Khamouane and the downstream Savannakhet provinces, along with the minister of Natural Resources and Environment, inspected three Boualapha district mining operations, local outlet Next Media reported. Investigators discovered that Coecco’s mine was to blame and also discovered the company had been conducting illegal mining activities. On June 27, the Ministry of Energy and Mines issued a notice that ordered Coecco to stop all operations until the company completes construction of a larger waste treatment facility. “Pollution has been affecting many villages along the Sa-A and Xe Noi Rivers,” an official of Savannakhet’s Vilabouly district told RFA’s Lao Service on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “The most affected are four villages — Nateu, Katae, Na Yom and Hoei Phai — here in Vilabouly district,” the official said. The water turns red when the mines wash iron and release waste into the river, a resident of Nateu, who like the rest of the sources in this story, declined to be named for safety reasons, told RFA. “The river water becomes red, undrinkable and unusable. Some villagers here who are rich can dig wells and get [uncontaminated] groundwater, but the poorer folks have no choice but to use the red water,” the Nateu resident said. The red water in the facility overflows when it rains, the villager said. Prior to the ministerial order to halt operations, authorities and villagers in Vilabouly district wrote a letter demanding Coecco stop polluting, but the company did nothing. Bathing in the red water leaves residue on villagers’ bodies, a resident of Hoei Phai told RFA. “I took a bath in the Sa-A River on the other day. The red water stuck to my body, my arms and my legs,” the Hoei Phai resident said. “The governors of Khammouane and Savannakhet provinces and the minister came down here, so this week the company agreed to stop operations. The company previously ignored the demand of the district authorities,” the Hoei Phai resident said A resident of Nong Kapad village in te Boulapha district told RFA that residents there have been less affected by pollution even though the mine is located in the district. “We live far away from the rivers, but a lot of villages in the south, especially those four in Vilabouly district in Savannakhet, have been badly affected. They can’t drink the water or take baths in the rivers,” the Nong Kapad villager said. The residents are unhappy about the red water, a Khammouane province Natural Resources and Environment Department official, who was part of the inspection team, told RFA. “The company must improve the [waste] treatment system as required by the governors and the minister. The waste reservoir is too small and substandard, so that is why the waste is flowing down into the rivers,” the official said. The official said that the inspection team did not discuss the issue of building wells for the residents when they met with Coecco. When asked if the red water was toxic, the official responded, “All the information regarding this matter is kept by the inspecting committee.” The Lao government gave the concession to Coecco for rights to extract iron ore in a five-hectare (12.3-acre) plot in Boualapha district in July 2021. So far, the company has produced 36,000 tons of ore. Foreign-invested farming, mining and development projects in Laos have been touted as a boon for development and employment in the impoverished nation. But the projects have sparked friction over land taken without proper compensation, harsh labor conditions and environmental pollution. Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Xian under seven-day lockdown amid surge in COVID-19 cases across eastern China](https://ij-reportika.com/xian-under-seven-day-lockdown-amid-surge-in-covid-19-cases-across-eastern-china/): Authorities across China have stepped up mass testing and COVID-19 restrictions as cases continued to surge in major cities. Millions stood in line in Shanghai to get tested on Thursday, as the local authorities said they had traced a renewed outbreak to an underground karaoke parlor, with residents of several districts ordered to take two PCR tests between Tuesday and Thursday. Rapid self-tests are already mandatory to enter shopping malls or to use public transportation, while dozens of residential compounds were under lockdown. Meanwhile, authorities in the northern city of Xian have imposed a seven-day lockdown from Wednesday, with the growing raft of zero-COVID restrictions already having an impact on supply chains. Schools, restaurants and entertainment venues will be closed for seven days, including libraries, cultural venues and other indoor public places. The health code tracker app will be used to ensure anyone entering other public places like supermarkets or restaurants for takeout has a green code denoting a negative PCR test from the past 48 hours. &#8220;Now there are people infected in every district, so starting yesterday (Tuesday), everyone has to test twice over three days,&#8221; a Shanghai resident surnamed Wu told RFA. &#8220;Residents are allowed to go out, but you can&#8217;t get into hospitals, supermarkets or other stores without a code showing a PCR test in the past 48 hours.&#8221; In Wuxi city, Jiangsu province, authorities are also scrambling to prevent further community transmission after reporting 172 newly confirmed cases. A health worker takes a swab sample from a child to be tested for the Covid-19 coronavirus in Sixian county, Suzhou city, in China&#8217;s eastern Anhui province, July 4, 2022. Credit: AFP Supply concerns A resident of Wuxi surnamed Shen said that a number of factories are now operating in &#8220;closed-loop&#8221; bubbles, meaning that some supplies were unable to get through. &#8220;Many people are worried that supply chains will be disrupted again,&#8221; Shen said. Since June 26, 13 cities in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui have reported outbreaks of cases totaling more than 1,000. Constitutional scholar Zhang Lifan posted video clips to his Twitter account on Wednesday showing a gathering of people and police at the Beijing Institute of Technology, in protest at current COVID-19 restrictions on campus. An employee who answered the phone at the university on Tuesday declined to comment when contacted by RFA. &#8220;Protest? Who is this?&#8221; the employee said, before hanging up the phone. Zhang said strict controls on people entering and leaving the campus had prompted the protest after the school authorities required anyone passing through a checkpoint at the gate to give a day&#8217;s notice of their movements. A lecturer surnamed Zhou said staff could use the &#8220;normal channels&#8221; to complain about school policies. &#8220;I will listen to your suggestions at any time,&#8221; Zhou said. &#8220;We have a meeting this afternoon, and we are willing to listen.&#8221; &#8220;I would like to take public opinion into account, but some people think one thing, and the rest another; it&#8217;s all different,&#8221; he said. A 93-year-old man who was beaten up by police after he tried to get a PCR test certificate to attend a hospital appointment lies in bed explaining the incident to neighbors in the northeastern city of Dandong. The man later took his life. Credit: Citizen journalist. Police beating followed by suicide Meanwhile, residents of the northeastern city of Dandong were left reeling after the suicide of a 93-year-old man who was beaten up by police after he tried to get a PCR test certificate to attend a hospital appointment. Police beat him after he started to drop his pants to show them his hernia, then lost his grip, leading to what the police said was &#8220;indecent behavior.&#8221; Wuhan-based activist Zhang Hai, who has campaigned for compensation after losing his father to COVID-19 at the start of the pandemic, said the treatment of the old man was unacceptable. &#8220;This 93-year-old man just wanted to see a doctor, and he was a bit slow and unsteady,&#8221; Zhang said. &#8220;Instead of treating him like an old man, they handcuffed him, and beat him up.&#8221; He said such police violence is very common in China. &#8220;When they beat someone, they call it law enforcement, but if people fight back, that&#8217;s assaulting a police officer,&#8221; Zhang said. &#8220;Police should be held legally responsible for beating people.&#8221; Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Hong Kong loses international luster as its sanctioned government calls for rebrand](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-loses-international-luster-as-its-sanctioned-government-calls-for-rebrand/): Authorities in Hong Kong Thursday suspended flight bans on specific routes and boosted COVID-19 testing requirements for newly arrived passengers, in an apparent bid to send a message that it remains an international city despite U.S. sanctions on its leader John Lee. Since being sworn in by ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping on July 1, Lee has called on people to tell the rest of the world about Hong Kong&#8217;s &#8220;stories and achievements,&#8221; echoing Xi&#8217;s call for state media to &#8220;tell good stories about China.&#8221; But critics pointed to a lack of space in mandatory government quarantine facilities and a plummeting international reputation on human rights and freedoms, both of which will likely hamper Lee&#8217;s efforts to rebrand Hong Kong. &#8220;Further enhanced and more frequent [PCR] testing for inbound persons is more effective in halting the importation of cases,&#8221; the government said in a statement. &#8220;[We have] has therefore decided to suspend &#8230; the route-specific flight suspension mechanism until further notice.&#8221; Earlier, Lee had urged members of the city&#8217;s Legislative Council (LegCo) and media to &#8220;tell others about Hong Kong&#8217;s stories and achievements.&#8221; &#8220;This will create a sense of identity, including an international identity, and everyone will feel proud to be from Hong Kong,&#8221; Lee said, adding: &#8220;We have to work together to build this awareness.&#8221; A EuroCham survey found in March 2022 that 25 percent of companies that responded to its poll had said they will &#8220;fully relocate&#8221; out of the city during the next 12 months, citing highly restrictive COVID-19 measures. More than 50 percent said they were having trouble attracting talent from overseas, the survey said. Police gather in the Wanchai district of Hong Kong on June 29, 2022, close to where celebrations to mark the 25th anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China took place on July 1. Credit: AFP Sanctions for crackdown But Hong Kong&#8217;s international image is also being marred by the fact that Lee and many of his senior officials are subject to U.S. sanctions as individuals deemed responsible by Washington for implementing a draconian national security law, that ushered in a citywide crackdown on political opposition and peaceful dissent in the wake of the 2019 protest movement. Hong Kong current affairs commentator Chung Kim-wah said Lee will find it hard to leave Hong Kong, as any company &#8212; including banks and credit card companies &#8212; with a presence in the U.S. is now proscribed from doing business with him. &#8220;He has been sanctioned, so it&#8217;s hard for him to leave Hong Kong,&#8221; Chung told RFA. &#8220;He can only use cash, so how can he tell a good story about Hong Kong?&#8221; &#8220;It doesn&#8217;t matter how well he tells it; there are so many places he can&#8217;t actually get to &#8230; [including] important trading partners of Hong Kong, places where he might go to attract investors,&#8221; he said. Nearly all of Lee&#8217;s predecessors since the job was created with the 1997 handover, including shipping magnate Tung Chee-hwa, former financial chief Donald Tsang and pro-Beijing stalwart Leung Chun-ying, made sure that their first overseas trip after taking office was to Washington, where they tried to boost trade and economic ties with the U.S. But key members of Lee&#8217;s cabinet, including second-in-command Paul Chan and security chief Chris Tang, are themselves the targets of U.S. sanctions for their part in the suppression of Hong Kong&#8217;s promised rights and freedoms. The city&#8217;s human rights record will also be up for review at the United Nations from July 7-12, inviting further public scrutiny of the impact of the national security crackdown on the city&#8217;s seven million people. The bid to &#8220;talk about stories and achievements&#8221; is also part of an ongoing attempt by the authorities to erase collective memory of the city&#8217;s former freedoms and once vibrant political life, which once included one of the freest media sectors in the world. &#8220;[The handover anniversary on] July 1 always used to mean a demonstration, because there was nothing to celebrate about the return of Hong Kong [to Chinese rule],&#8221; former Polytechnic University social science lecturer Lake Lui, now based on the democratic island of Taiwan, told RFA. &#8220;There was always a march, from 2003 onwards. The first, back when I was in college, was in protest against [national security legislation],&#8221; Lui said. &#8220;Later, it was to fight for fully democratic elections.&#8221; People waving goodbye as a family makes their way through the departure gates of Hong Kong&#8217;s International Airport, July 22, 2021. Credit: AFP Net outflow of emigrants The people of Hong Kong may still be marching, but this time away from their beloved city. Immigration statistics for the first three months of 2022 showed a net outflow of more than 140,000 people from Hong Kong, far exceeding the number of arrivals. A Chinese University of Hong Kong poll last year found that nearly 60 percent of 800 respondents aged 15 to 30 wanted to leave the city. Wang Ssi-yue chose to study in Hong Kong after graduating from high school in 2011. &#8220;I probably wouldn&#8217;t choose to study or work in Hong Kong if [I were graduating] now,&#8221; she said. &#8220;There&#8217;s too much that&#8217;s unstable about living there, and a sense that it could be risky.&#8221; She remembers the city as being far freer than it is now. &#8220;There was no sense of self-censorship, even on sensitive topics. People would just joke about it,&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;[We felt] nothing would happen to us because it was Hong Kong.&#8221; &#8220;I didn&#8217;t expect that to end so abruptly,&#8221; she said. &#8220;It&#8217;s really scary; it&#8217;s like watching a city die.&#8221; Waning confidence Former Hong Kong Baptist University sociology professor Yao-Tai Li agreed. &#8220;Since the national security law was implemented, people have less and less confidence in Hong Kong as an international city,&#8221; Li said. &#8220;Many of my former colleagues in academic and financial circles have now left.&#8221; &#8220;Hong Kong is slowing losing what once made it unique, which was the intersection of...
- [FBI and MI5 team up to warn of the risks of Chinese hackers and spies](https://ij-reportika.com/fbi-and-mi5-team-up-to-warn-of-the-risks-of-chinese-hackers-and-spies/): In an unprecedented joint appearance Wednesday, the heads of U.S. and U.K. security agencies warned about China’s hacking and economic espionage, which they called “the most game-changing challenge we face.” FBI director Christopher Wray in a speech delivered at the London headquarters of MI5, the British domestic intelligence service, said “it’s the Chinese government that poses the biggest long-term threat to our economic and national security.” He added that Beijing was “set on stealing your technology, whatever it is that makes your industry tick, and using it to undercut your business and dominate your market.” MI5 Director General Ken McCallum said that his agency “has already more than doubled” the effort against Chinese activity of concern in the last three years.  “Today we’re running seven times as many investigations as we were in 2018,” he said, adding that MI5 plans “to grow as much again” to counter threats by China. “The Chinese Communist Party is interested in our democratic, media and legal systems. Not to emulate them, sadly, but to use them for its gain,” said the MI5 head. This joint appearance by the two agencies&#8217; heads is seen as a show of Western solidarity and, as Wray put it, “FBI and MI5 are united in this fight.” McCallum meanwhile said: “Today is the first time the heads of the FBI and MI5 have shared a public platform. We’re doing so to send the clearest signal we can on a massive shared challenge: China.” ‘Immense threat’ “Such a joint appearance, focused on the activities of one country, is highly unusual,” said Matthew Brazil, Fellow at the Jamestown Foundation and co-author of the book “Chinese Communist Espionage’. “It indicates that London and Washington think their business communities are insufficiently aware, or even negligent, of technology theft by Beijing&#8217;s security services,” said Brazil, who also serves as China analyst for Washington D.C.-based firm BluePath Lab. “This is not hyperbole. The 2021 annual survey of members by the U.S.-China Business Council indicate that American firms may be worried about the bilateral relationship, but they are still making money in China,” he said. The China analyst warned there is a systemic problem with corporations seeking short-term returns and some high-tech businesses being “more focused on being a generation ahead of competitors than losing last year&#8217;s technology to a foreign government.” In his remarks to business leaders in Thames House, London, Christopher Wray, who spent 12 years in the private sector, called the threat by China “immense” and “a far more complex and pervasive threat to businesses than even most sophisticated company leaders realize.” “Where we see some companies stumble is in thinking that by attending to one, or a couple, of these dangers, they’ve got the whole Chinese government danger covered—when really, China just pivots to the remaining door left unattended,” the FBI boss said. The FBI and MI5 leaders gave a number of examples of Chinese economic espionage, with Ken McCallum warning that “privileged information is gathered on multiple channels, in what is sometimes referred to as the ‘thousand grains of sand’ strategy.” China’s ambition “The aim here is not to cut off from China – one fifth of humanity, with immense talent,” the MI5 head said. “We’re not talking about Chinese people,” he said, adding that his agency is focused on the Chinese Communist Party and certain parts of the Chinese State, whose “scale of ambition is huge.” The FBI’s Wray was more direct when he said that the Chinese government is “using intimidation and repression to shape the world to be more accommodating to China’s campaign of theft.” “The Chinese Government sees cyber as the pathway to cheat and steal on a massive scale,” he said, adding that China’s “lavishly resourced” hacking program is bigger than that of every other major country combined.  The Chinese government has yet to respond but a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington rejected the allegations given in the joint address. Liu Pengyu said in an emailed statement to the Associated Press that China “firmly opposes and combats all forms of cyber-attacks” and called the accusations groundless. Christopher Wray warned about the possibility that China may try to forcibly take over Taiwan, saying “it would represent one of the most horrific business disruptions the world has ever seen.” The intelligence chiefs called for more cooperation to counter imminent threats. The U.K. has shared intelligence about cyber threats with 37 countries, according to MI5’s McCallum who said that security alliances such as the Five Eyes comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States “remain at the heart of our response.”
- [Body of NLD politician found in Myanmar's Kayin state](https://ij-reportika.com/body-of-nld-politician-found-in-myanmars-kayin-state/): The body of a National League for Democracy MP has been found two weeks after his arrest. Kyaw Myo Min had been tied up and buried in a shallow grave in Kayin state’s Hpa-An township. He had been arrested in his home town of Belin in neighboring Mon state on June 22 along with two other NLD members and a local who were traveling by motorcycle. Junta forces shot at them and they were then arrested. An NLD member told RFA the troops had tried to hide Kyaw Myo Min’s body. “He was tied up at his back and buried on the shore of the creek, but he was not buried well and his head was visible. It seems the body was dumped on the shore of the creek and covered with leaves. It was difficult to identify the body as it had decomposed. There were no visible bullet or stab wounds”, he said. A member of Kyaw Myo Min’s family, who spoke on condition of anonymity for safety reasons, said the family knew he was in danger because it was impossible to contact him after his arrest. Last Saturday locals also found the bodies of the other two arrested NLD members, Pan Myint and Ko Ko Maung. The bodies were dumped in Hpa-An township close to where the MP’s body was found. There are a number of infantry troops stationed in Belin township: the Thein Zayat-based Kha Ma Ya 207 brigade, the Kyaik Hto-based Kha La Ya , Kha Ma Ya 102 from Tha Hton, along with Military Battalion 33 and the Border Guard Force Brigade. It is not yet known which troops were involved in the arrests and killings. Calls to the military council spokesman by RFA went unanswered and it has not released any statement on Kyaw Myo Min’s arrest. One of his family members told RFA the local who was arrested with the NLD members managed to escape so the troops broke the other captives’ legs and critically injured Kyaw Myo Min. “Now they are doing what the powerful do: anything they want without following laws regarding prisoners,” said an NLD source and colleague of the murdered MP. “I will record their illegal activities so I can recall them during the [coming] revolution. People will know who committed the crimes and they will be made to suffer one day.”  Kyaw Myo Min became an MP in 2011. He also served as chairman of the Belin branch of the NLD. An NLD statement released in May said 917 NLD members had been arrested since the coup on February 1, 2021. It also said 18 party members, including MPs, died due to inadequate health care and brutal interrogations. Many NLD members joined the mass protests after the 2021 coup and armed themselves to fight after junta forces launched a brutal crackdown on peaceful protests.
- [Vietnam criticizes Facebook for not removing “malicious news”](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-criticizes-facebook-for-not-removing-malicious-news/): Vietnam’s government has hit out at Facebook, accusing owners Meta Platforms of ignoring calls for it to block posts containing content considered “malicious” in the country. The government considers any comments that criticize the ruling communist party or the government as “malicious” along with content that incites violence. There are around 70 million Facebook users in Vietnam. The platform was singled out by Luu Dinh Phuc, Director of the Department of Radio, Television and Electronic Information at the Ministry of Information and Communications. Speaking at a workshop last week on activities in the field of electronic information in the first six months of the year Phuc said &#8220;Some foreign enterprises providing cross-border services to Vietnam still find ways to avoid preventing malicious information in Vietnam, typically its Facebook.” Social media companies bow to government calls to remove posts VietNamNet&#8217;s ictnews website said on March 29 that foreign social networking platforms including Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok removed thousands of posts with allegedly malicious content that slandered the Vietnamese Party and State in the first three months of this year. The figures, supplied by Vietnamese authorities, showed that the social media companies took down all but 10% of the posts objected to by the government. The figures also showed that Alphabet’s Google removed 2,679 videos identified as breaking the law on its YouTube platform with a removal/blocking rate of 93%. ByteDance’s short form video site TikTok removed or blocked 71 videos, or 87% of the total. Facebook removed 5% fewer posts than in the same period last year and Google’s removal rate dropped by 3%. Nguyen Ngoc Truong, the former president of the Center for Strategic Studies and International Relations Development (CSSD), told RFA he didn’t believe government censors were being too heavy handed. “I find social media in Vietnam very good, compared with China and Russia. Here there is freedom and comfortable access. There are no restrictions with the exception of a few sensitive areas,&#8221; he said. When RFA asked Nguyen for his views on the blocking of some foreign news sites in Vietnam he said it made sense to censor sensitive material but in general “there are things that are not worth interfering with,” adding that sometimes authorities can be too sensitive when dealing with foreign news sources. Hanoi-based teacher Tran Thi Thao, who often criticizes the regime and government officials on Facebook, told RFA that in May one of her articles was restricted by the platform due to what it called a “legal requirement.” She said on another occasion her post was moved to a lower position on the news feed for nearly a month. Thao said she believed that Facebook was still complying with requests to block news considered critical of the communist party and the government. The seventh largest Facebook user base in the world Figures from the World Population Review website show that Vietnam had the seventh highest number of Facebook users in the world in 2020 and 2021, which may explain why Facebook responds favorably to government censorship requests. Last October the Washington Post reported that Facebook co-founder and Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally signed a commitment with the Vietnamese Government to limit posts on the social network that are considered &#8220;anti-state,” because he didn’t want to be shut out of one of the most important social media markets in Asia. Not all Vietnamese Facebook users are critical of the site’s policies. Hanoi-based civil activist Do The Dang, who writes and share articles related to many issues in Vietnam, said he had been using Facebook for more than 10 years and had never been suspended. RFA emailed Meta’s California headquarters to ask for its response to the Vietnamese government’s criticism but did not receive a reply. The company’s Transparency Center page says “Meta responds to government requests for data in accordance with applicable law and our terms of service. Each and every request we receive is carefully reviewed for legal sufficiency and we may reject or require greater specificity on requests that appear overly broad or vague.” In its section on Vietnam the Transparency Center said it had received six requests from the Vietnamese government to delete Facebook posts in the second half of last year and removed two of them. In the first half of the year it received three requests and removed one post.  
- [Tibetans skirt tight Chinese surveillance to mark the Dalai Lama’s 87th birthday](https://ij-reportika.com/tibetans-skirt-tight-chinese-surveillance-to-mark-the-dalai-lamas-87th-birthday/): Tibetans bucked tight Chinese security and online surveillance to honor the 87th birthday Wednesday of exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama with incense and picnics, sources in the region said. Previous years have seen arrests in the weeks around the July 6 birthday and Lhasa and other population centers across Tibet and Tibetan regions of Chinese provinces faced beefed up security this year. “Despite Chinese authorities’ clampdown on celebrations of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s 87th birthday, Tibetans inside Tibet are finding ways to observe the anniversary, either covertly or openly” said a Tibetan in the region who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “On July 6th Many Tibetans are making Sangso incense smoke offerings on the top of hills in their respective areas, and Tibetans are also commemorating the day by holding picnics at other places,” said the source. Despite the intensifying security this year, “there are Tibetans inside Tibet, who write essays and articles in praise of His Holiness the Dalai Lama on the occasion,” the source said. The articles “are widely read and shared on social media,” he added. Chinese authorities in the Himalayan region made everyone attend meetings to warn Tibetans not to share any kinds of photos and telling them that their cellphones will be checked for banned content, another source said. “In many places, new checkpoints are erected that check all travelers and police units are established to spy on the activities of the family,” the second source said. “This year around in recent days, the visitors and pilgrimage to Potala Palace and Tsulangkhang Temple in Lhasa are heavily restricted and limited.  Only a certain number of visitors are allowed each day to avoid large public gatherings,” said a source in Lhas, the regional capital. Last year RFA reported the arrests of 20-30 Tibetans around the time of the Dalai Lama’s 86th birthday. But there has been no word of detentions or arrests this year. Exiled Tibetans participate in a procession to mark the 87th birthday of their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, at Jawalakhel Tibetan refugee camp on the outskirts of Kathmandu, July 6, 2022. Credit: AFP In Nepal, which borders Tibet, the government permitted a two-hour celebration of the Dalai Lama’s 87th birthday at the Jawalakhel Tibetan Settlement, a 60-year-old facility near the capital Kathmandu that is home to more than 1,000 Tibetans. “It took more than two hours to complete the celebrations with the presence of many Western embassy dignitaries,” said a local Tibetan who attended the celebration. Local media reported that diplomats from the embassies of France, the EU, Japan, and the United States were among the foreign guests at the settlement center. &#8220;This year the Nepali government granted permission and a large number of Tibetans showed up to celebrate the occasion,” the local source said. “Nepali police were deployed at the venues, but they are just keeping watch and does not interrupt the celebrations, which included processions of carrying the Dalai Lama’s portrait, official speeches of the Central Tibetan Administration, cultural performances and so on,” added the Nepal source. Nepal had in previous years banned any such open display of devotion to the Dalai Lama, a stance seen as deferring to its powerful neighbor China, which reviles the popular leader as a separatist. The Dalai Lama fled Tibet into exile in India in the midst of a failed 1959 Tibetan national uprising against rule by China, which marched into the formerly independent Himalayan country in 1950. Displays by Tibetans of the Dalai Lama’s photo, public celebrations of his birthday, and the sharing of his teachings on mobile phones or other social media are often harshly punished. Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on Tibet and on Tibetan-populated regions of western China, restricting Tibetans’ political activities and peaceful expression of cultural and religious identity, and subjecting Tibetans to imprisonment, torture, and extrajudicial killings. In a statement honoring the Dalai Lama’s birthday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken praised his “ongoing commitment to non-violence to resolve the grievances of the Tibetan community” and his “dedication and service to humanity.” Blinken said “the United States will continue to support His Holiness’s and the Tibetan community’s efforts to preserve Tibet’s distinct linguistic, religious, and cultural traditions, including the ability to freely choose their religious leaders.” Translated by Dorjee Damdul. Written in English by Paul Eckert.
- [New report details China’s efforts to control Uyghurs beyond its borders](https://ij-reportika.com/new-report-details-chinas-efforts-to-control-uyghurs-beyond-its-borders/): On a sunny summer day in the South Australia city of Adelaide in late January 2018, scores of community groups marched through the streets in a parade to celebrate Australia Day. Among them was the South Australia Xinjiang Association, a nonprofit organization set up in 2009 that provides a platform for Chinese migrants from the region in northwestern China to meet one another and network. The group also has a more nefarious purpose, two researchers say in a new report on China’s efforts to tamp down global criticism of its policies in Xinjiang, where well-documented reports have uncovered widespread abuses toward Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups. The Han Chinese-dominated South Australia Xinjiang Association, which has the backing of China’s diplomatic mission to Australia, “claims the right to speak on behalf of the Xinjiang diaspora while neutralizing the legitimate concerns of the Uyghur community about Beijing’s human rights abuses in the Uyghur homeland,” write Lin Li, and independent researcher, and James Leibold, a senior fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s International Cyber Policy Centre, Dozens of SA Xinjiang Association members displayed a huge banner bearing the group’s name as they marched wearing the traditional attire of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities, despite objections from some of the city’s 1,500 Uyghur residents that the Han Chinese were appropriating their culture, which Chinese authorities back home were working to extinguish through a harsh campaign of forced assimilation. Adding insult to injury, the association won the best costume award, its members triumphantly posing for photos with Jay Weatherill, who was then the premier of South Australia, boosting the group’s public profile. Some Uyghurs later complained to the Adelaide City Council that the parade march by the Han Chinese was an intentional by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) effort at “a soft propaganda publicity act” to distract from the communist Chinese government’s persecution of Uyghurs, including members of their own families. The CCP uses deceptive and coercive influence operations around the globe to undermine Uyghurs living outside China, often through the United Front Work Department (UFWD), say Li and Leibold in their 65-page policy paper, titled “Cultivating Friendly Forces: The Chinese Communist Party’s Influence Operations in the Xinjiang Diaspora.” The UFWD gathers information about and attempts to influence individuals and organizations inside and outside China to ensure they are supportive of or useful to the party’s interests. The information collected is also used to harass Uyghurs and other minorities living overseas, the report says. Community organizations with innocuous-sounding names serve as conduits for propaganda about Xinjiang in an effort to dispute the well-documented human rights abuses in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), the researchers say. “What we were trying to do in this report is to open up another window onto the strategy of the Chinese Communist Party in its very complex and decentralized united front system,” Leibold told RFA in an interview. “And that is the efforts to co-opt Chinese overseas community organizations who would have members which had some links to Xinjiang.” Since 2017, Chinese authorities have ramped up a clampdown on Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in the XUAR through arbitrary arrests and lengthy detentions. An estimated 1.8 million members of these groups have been held in internment camps, where some experienced severe human rights abuses, torture, rape and forced labor. “The SA Xinjiang Association, which is part of a large network of Xinjiang-linked overseas groups, might not be immediately recognizable as closely aligned with the CCP and its united front system, but our research demonstrates how the CCP actively cultivates community organizations, such as the SA Xinjiang Association, as conduits for advancing the party’s agenda abroad and obscuring — or even silencing — the voices of Uyghurs and other critics of its policies in Xinjiang,” the report says. ‘Tool to exert influence’ The report cites three other case studies of organizations like the SA Xinjiang Association that work to neutralize or silence criticism of CCP policies in Xinjiang. “It’s a tool of the Chinese Communist Party to exert its influence amongst the entire diasporic community and really undermine democratic values and institutions in places like the United States, Canada and Australia,” said Leibold, who has been blacklisted by the CCP. “The starting point really is to expose the way the system operates, its aims, its ambitions and its strategies.” “By offering up four case studies, we tried to expose the kind of inner workings of these community organizations and their direct links back to the united front system and the Chinese Communist Party,” he said. The CCP gathers intelligence on its critics, maintains databases of former and current Xinjiang residents with overseas connections, and establishes research institutes that suggest policies to lawmakers in their respective countries, the report states. The tactics also include cultivating overseas community leaders and sending officials tasked with qiaowu — overseas Chinese affairs —to conduct united front work, while inviting targets residing abroad to China. The CCP taps into business networks, offers political honors for its backers, and stages cultural performances to “nurture friendly forces for China” through language schools and summer camps in a widespread public relations campaign. “It’s easy to get duped into thinking these are just normal cultural activities,” Leibold said. The researchers used Chinese-language media reports, government documents and social media posts to track groups and individuals promoting the CCP’s Xinjiang narrative and policies overseas. They urge other researchers to document human rights abuses in the XUAR and call on governments to hold China accountable for its repressive policies there. They also recommend that media, NGOs and research institutes increase public awareness of the links between community organizations in the Xinjiang diaspora and the CCP and ask on law enforcement and civil society groups to disrupt the CCP’s ability to interfere. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [India shuts Myanmar border as anger over pro-junta militia killings rises](https://ij-reportika.com/india-shuts-myanmar-border-as-anger-over-pro-junta-militia-killings-rises/): Authorities in India’s Manipur state have temporarily closed the Indo-Burmese border after pro-military militiamen killed two Indian nationals in Myanmar’s war-torn Sagaing region, prompting Indian protesters to attack a junta border checkpoint on Wednesday. A source in Sagaing’s Tamu township told RFA Burmese that Indian nationals M. Pyanar, 32, and P. Mohan, 28, were visiting friends in the area on Tuesday when they were stopped by members of the pro-military Pyu Saw Htee militia at an unofficial checkpoint in Tamu’s Saw Bwar ward and shot dead. “There’s a school we call Saw Bwar 10 No. 4. The two were shot near there,” said the resident, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Witnesses said that the shots were fired by Pyu Saw Htee. The two men were shot in the head and died instantly.” The source said the bodies of the two men were brought to the Tamu People’s Hospital, where they are being held in the morgue. He said that residents of Moreh township across the border in India’s Manipur state are demanding that the bodies be returned to their families, prompting Indian authorities to shut down their side of the border crossing on Wednesday. “At the moment, we are not allowed to enter India at all,” the source said. A Tamu resident who is close to the families of the victims told RFA that the area where they were killed is “Pyu Saw Htee territory.” “The two Indians were killed in that area. [The perpetrators] found out only later that they were Indian citizens,” said the source, who also declined to be named. “Both were shot in the head. They had a motorcycle with them. One wore a ring on his hand and the other had two. … When the bodies arrived at the morgue, [the motorbike and rings] were gone.” RFA was unable to independently confirm the details of the deaths. India’s Tamil Guardian on Wednesday also reported the killings as having been carried out by the military proxy Pyu Saw Htee. “The Myanmar army might have suspected them to be spies and shot them dead,” the report said, citing the local Tamil Sangam. “There is a killing every day by the army in this part of Myanmar.” An official order issued on Wednesday by the deputy commissioner of Tengnoupal township, under the government of Manipur, announced that no one would be permitted to cross the border from Moreh into Myanmar without a special permit, citing the “prevailing law and order situation” in the country. Indian residents of Manipur’s Moreh township protest near the Myanmar-India border, demanding the return of the bodies of two Indian nationals killed in Myanmar’s Sagaing region, July 6, 2022. Credit: Citizen journalist Indian outrage A Myanmar national living in Moreh told RFA that local youths were outraged over the deaths and said around 200 people had gathered near the border on Wednesday, demanding that the bodies of the victims be returned to their families. “Young people have gathered near the border gate and are challenging the Myanmar authorities,” he said. “They also beat up some people from the Myanmar side who crossed the border this morning [prior to the closure]. They are all furious.” Another resident of Moreh said the protests began when Myanmar authorities failed to deliver the bodies back to India by noon on Wednesday, as had been originally promised. “They are protesting because [the bodies were] not sent,” he said. “They have been gathering since the morning. Myanmar nationals in Moreh have not been able to go out in fear. The protesters set fire to a Myanmar border patrol checkpoint between Tamu and Moreh.” Indian media reported that shops had been closed amid increased security in Moreh, citing the unrest over the killings. Repeated attempts by RFA to contact the Indian Embassy in Yangon for comment went unanswered Wednesday, as did attempts to reach junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun. The Tamu-Moreh border crossing was reopened on June 4 after being closed for nearly two years due to the coronavirus pandemic. Residents of Tamu told RFA that around 50 traders travel across the border to the neighboring Indian township daily for work. Myanmar refugees in India say more than 300 families displaced by conflict between junta troops and armed opposition groups in Sagaing have crossed the border seeking shelter in Moreh, and that anger over Tuesday’s killings forced many Myanmar nationals living there to flee the area. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Five Cambodian opposition parties demand political reform, greater freedoms](https://ij-reportika.com/five-cambodian-opposition-parties-demand-political-reform-greater-freedoms/): Representatives from five Cambodian opposition parties, including the main opposition Candlelight Party, met on Wednesday to demand electoral reforms and greater political freedom, but were unable to reach a deal on forming a political alliance, one of the party leaders told RFA. The Candlelight Party took about 19 percent of the country’s 11,622 local council seats in last month’s commune elections, but is outnumbered on the councils by Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) by about five to one. Prior to the election, the Candlelight Party candidates reported harassment and intimidation by members of the CPP and its supporters, including government officials. On Wednesday, Candlelight joined the Grassroots Democratic Party, the Cambodian Reform Party, the Khmer Will Party and the Kampucheanimym Party to issue eight joint statements demanding free and fair elections and the right to compete on equal ground with the ruling party. The statements will be submitted to the Cambodian government and the National Election Commission (NEC), Yang Saing Koma, the Grassroots Democratic Party’s founder, told RFA’s Khmer Service. The next step, he said, was for the parties to iron out the details on establishing an alliance. “The Grassroots Democratic Party has coordinated our efforts and built upon what we have previously accomplished to show that the Khmer political parties, even though we are separate, can cooperate to work toward a common goal,” Yang Saing Koma said. The five parties are studying their past experiences to create a new framework for their alliance, he said. Two scenarios are under discussion. The first would merge all of the parties into a single party and the second would keep the parties separate, but alliance candidates would not compete against each other for the same seat, he said. The five parties will hold a joint press conference on July 11 to release their statements and announce their goals. RFA was unable to reach NEC spokesman Hang Puthea and government spokesman Phay Siphan for comment. Kong Monika, president of the Khmer Will Party, told RFA his party advocates a merger before next year’s general elections, when Cambodians will choose members of the 125-seat National Assembly. The Candlelight Party’s vice president, Thach Setha, said Candlelight’s focus is on working with the other four parties to push for greater freedom and to improve the electoral process. Candlelight has not internally discussed an alliance with the others. Merging into a singular party has been tried before with moderate success, said Ros Sothea, director of the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee, a local alliance NGOs. During the 2013 election, the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) was able to take 55 seats in the assembly, while the CPP took 68. The CNRP was an alliance between the Kem Sokha-led Human Rights Party and the Sam Rainsy Party, named after its leader who went into self-imposed exile in France in 2015 after he was accused of crimes that his supporters say are politically motivated and groundless.  Hun Sen had Cambodia’s Supreme Court dissolve the CNRP in 2017 after it performed well in that year’s commune council elections. The move allowed the CPP to take all 125 of the assembly seats in 2018’s general election. The dissolution began a five-year crackdown on the opposition that made political activities under the CNRP banner illegal and forced many former CNRP members into exile. Many of those who stayed were later imprisoned. The Sam Rainsy Party was technically a separate entity from the CNRP and not affected by the 2017 Supreme Court ruling. It rebranded itself as the Candlelight Party, and many former CNRP members have joined Candlelight, which after this year’s commune elections is firmly established as the main opposition party. “To me, if the parties can combine forces to get free and fair competition, it would be better because of Cambodia’s electoral system,” Ros Sothea said. The four smaller parties that participated in Wednesday’s meeting won a combined seven seats in this year’s commune council elections. The Grassroots Democratic Party won six seats, and the Kampucheanimym Party won one. The other two parties did not win a single seat but had a higher number of total votes for their candidates than the Kampucheanimym Party. Four other smaller parties that did not participate in Wednesday’s discussion also won seats in this year’s commune elections. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [North Korea gives war death certificate to soldiers who died from COVID-19 symptoms](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-gives-war-death-certificate-to-soldiers-who-died-from-covid-19-symptoms/): North Korean soldiers who died of COVID-19 symptoms after participating in a military parade in April are receiving an honorable war death certificate that used to confer bereaved families with special privileges, but is essentially worthless these days, sources in the country told RFA. After two years of denying the coronavirus had penetrated its closed borders, North Korea in May acknowledged coronavirus had begun to spread among participants of the large-scale military parade held at the end of the previous month and declared a “maximum emergency” to fight the disease. The soldiers who developed symptoms of COVID-19 after the parade and died while in quarantine were quickly cremated and their remains were returned to their families along with the once prestigious “Certificate of Honor for War Death.” In years’ past, the certificate was given out only in the rarest of circumstances, such as when a soldier died in combat training or during the infrequent skirmishes with the South Korean military that occasionally erupt along the demilitarized zone that separates North from South. Bereaved families who received the certificate would also get extra food rations or special preference when applying for government jobs or party positions. But the sheer number of certificates sent out these days, combined with North Korea’s struggling economy, make the certificates essentially worthless, sources told RFA. “Immediately after the massive military parade held in Kim Il Sung Square in April, the soldiers who were confirmed to have COVID-19 received intensive treatment at an isolation facility in Pyongyang,” a resident of the North Korean capital told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “But hundreds of the severely ill patients died and they were promptly cremated at the Obongsan crematory,” he said. The cremations were ordered even before families were aware that their soldier had died, the source said. When they informed the families, they said the soldiers died while receiving treatment for an “acute respiratory infection,” stopping short of calling the infection COVID-19. “Because the military parade was considered a success thanks to the sacrifice of the dead soldiers, the authorities awarded the families with the Certificate of Honor for War Death when they returned the ashes of their loved ones,” he said. “The bereaved families wept at the sudden news, and they returned home with a cremation urn and the certificate as gifts from the state. A month and a half later, many of the families are still angry at the authorities, who they say have put these young soldiers in unnecessary danger, even killing some of them, for the sake of a military parade,” said the source. The parade involved more than 100,000 military officers, soldiers and college students from all over the country, with students from the military university in Pyongyang participating in large numbers, another source from the city, who requested anonymity to speak freely, told RFA. “I heard from an official of the Capital Quarantine Committee that many of the students were among the participants in the parade who died from COVID-19,” the second source said. “The authorities secretly transported the dead bodies to the Obongsan crematory in Pyongyang. They cremated the bodies and gave the bereaved family an urn and the Certificate of Honor for War Death,” she said. The certificate this time carries less meaning than it did in the past, according to the second source. “It is customary to hold a public award ceremony as a national event for recipients of the Certificate of Honor for War Death, but the authorities quietly called on the bereaved families, because they want to keep secret the total number of parade participants who died from COVID-19,” she said. “The bereaved families… were unable to say anything and wept while receiving the certificate. They are resentful at the thought that their healthy sons died because of a military parade,” she said.   While technically not fighting and dying in a battle, the parade participants are eligible for the certificate because they carried their military ID cards during the parade. On this technicality the parade was designated as combat training. The certificate is merely a means to placate the bereaved families though, according to the second source. Under normal circumstances the state would give many perks to the families who received the certificate including priority in personnel decisions, because the soldier died in battle or in combat training. But these days, due to North Korea’s extreme economic hardship, and because most personnel decisions are decided through bribery, the certificate is no longer valued as it once was. In fact, the state has been widening the circumstances where soldiers can receive the certificate to justify giving more of them out, according to the second source. “If soldiers die while working at a construction site, that should be treated as a labor safety accident, but there have been many cases where the Certificate of Honor for War Death is given when soldiers die while working on the Pyongyang Household Construction project, because it is a priority of the Highest Dignity,” said the second source, using an honorific term for the country’s leader Kim Jong Un. Kim has vowed to build 10,000 new homes in the capital per year for a total of 50,000 homes by the end of 2025. The builders failed to reach their goal of 10,000 homes in 2021 but are still trying to hit 20,000 by the end of this year, so speed, rather than safety is the main concern, the second source said. Giving out the war death certificate for deaths that are clearly unrelated to combat is becoming more common, a former high-ranking military official, who has resettled in South Korea after escaping the North, told RFA on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. “It’s just a trick to avoid complaints from the bereaved families and residents. They are angry at the leaders who held the parade [amid the pandemic], causing so many young people to die,” he said. The North Korean government has only reported a handful...
- [During Manila visit, Wang Yi touts potential ‘golden era’ in Sino-Philippine ties](https://ij-reportika.com/during-manila-visit-wang-yi-touts-potential-golden-era-in-sino-philippine-ties/): New President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s friendly policy toward Beijing promises to usher in a “golden era” in Sino-Philippine relations, China’s top diplomat said during a visit here Wednesday, only weeks after Manila filed another protest over Chinese boats intruding in territorial waters. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi paid a courtesy call to Marcos after meeting with Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo. Wang said the nations’ two-way relationship “overcame all sorts of difficulties” under previous Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte, who handed the reins of government to Marcos on June 30.  However, as Duterte pursued closer ties with Beijing during his six years in power, bilateral tensions over the South China Sea persisted as senior officials from his administration complained about the unauthorized presence of Chinese ships within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ).    Given the “uncertain, unstable and complex regional and international dynamics, it is even more important for China and the Philippines, as two close neighbors, to join hands to further enhance mutual trust (and) expand mutually beneficial cooperation,” Wang said through an interpreter about his meeting with Manalo.  “This will not only serve the common interest of the two countries and two peoples but will also be our important contribution to peace and stability in our region,” he said, noting that cooperation during the previous administration brought “tangible benefits” to both countries.  Wang’s visit to Manila was his third stop on a five-nation tour of Southeast Asia. The Philippines, an archipelago in the middle of the disputed South China Sea, is one of the region’s oldest defense allies of China’s main superpower rival, the United States, whom Marcos’ father, the longtime Filipino dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos, staunchly supported during his rule from 1965 to 1986. Shortly after Duterte took office in mid-2016, an international arbitration court ruled in favor of Manila over Beijing after its ships refused to leave Scarborough Shoal, which lies within the Philippine EEZ.  Instead of confronting China, Duterte set aside the ruling in favor of investments and cooperation. The soft approach allowed Beijing to carry on with its expansionist moves in the maritime region, according to observers. With the election of Marcos, Beijing’s relationship with Manila has “turned a new page,” Wang said. “We highly appreciate President Marcos’ recent commitment to pursuing friendly policy toward China,” said Wang, whose government is seeking to blunt U.S. influence in Southeast Asia. “And we speak highly of his recent statements that have sent out very positive signals to the outside world.”  He quoted Marcos as saying that China “is the strongest partner of the Philippines” and that he hopes to fortify the relationship. China, in turn, is “ready to work toward the same direction,” Wang said. “And I am confident, with our two sides working together, we can surely open up a new golden era for the bilateral relationship.” After the meeting, Marcos posted a message on Twitter saying he was “grateful to Minister Wang Yi for extending the message of congratulations and support from President Xi Jinping. We also discussed agriculture, infrastructure, energy, and our commitment to maintaining the strong relationship between our peoples in the coming years.” The new president had previously said he would pursue close ties with China without necessarily giving away the country’s sovereignty.  On Tuesday, before Wang landed in Manila, Marcos said the visit was expected to boost ties with Beijing, including through military exchanges. “It’s essentially always trying to find ways to improve relationships. We would like for us to increase the scope. China and the Philippines should not only focus on the West Philippine Sea. Let’s do other things too and that way we will normalize our relationship,” Marcos said, referring to Philippine-claimed territories in the South China Sea. Beijing claims nearly all of the South China Sea including waters within the EEZs of Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan. While Indonesia does not regard itself as a party to the maritime disputes, Beijing also claims historic rights to parts of the sea that overlap Indonesia’s EEZ. Last month, the Philippines announced that it had filed a new diplomatic protest against Beijing over a massive Chinese fleet operating “illegally” in April around Whitsun Reef. The complaint cited a 2016 landmark international court ruling that invalidated China’s sweeping claims to the waterway. Beijing has refused to recognize the decision by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.
- [‘Diplomatic drama’ possible over Russian attendance at G20 meeting in Bali](https://ij-reportika.com/diplomatic-drama-possible-over-russian-attendance-at-g20-meeting-in-bali/): Group of Twenty diplomats will gather in Bali this week for a meeting that analysts expect will turn into a “diplomatic drama” over the participation of Sergey Lavrov, foreign minister of Russia, which the West has ostracized for invading Ukraine. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese counterpart Wang Yi are scheduled to attend the G20 meeting, which is set to begin on Thursday, and hold talks on the sidelines the next day, but a bilateral meeting between America’s top diplomat and Lavrov is not on the cards, officials in Washington said. Still, analysts warned, divisions over Lavrov’s presence could sidetrack delegates at the Bali gathering hosted by Indonesia, this year’s G20 chair. “It is likely there will be a diplomatic drama, such as statements that criticize Russia,” Riza Noer Arfani, an international relations lecturer at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, told BenarNews. “If the foreign ministers engaged in a diplomatic drama, more substantial issues such as efforts to mitigate the impact of the [Russia-Ukraine] war could be left unaddressed and that would make the meeting fruitless.” Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, Indonesia’s president, has warned that a global food crisis caused by the war would send people in developing and poor countries into “the abyss of extreme poverty and hunger.” Since Russia launched its invasion on Feb. 24, its military forces have blocked all of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports and cut off access to almost all of that country’s exports – especially of grain – sparking fears of a global food crisis. However during a meeting in Moscow last week, Russian leader Vladimir Putin assured Jokowi that he would provide secure food and fertilizer supplies from his country and Ukraine, to avert a global food crisis.  While Western countries led by the U.S. have called on Russia to be disinvited from G20 meetings, other members of the grouping such as Indonesia and India refuse to do so and continue to maintain ties with Russia. During a stopover on Wednesday in Vietnam, a close Russian ally, Lavrov said he was not aware of any attempts to stop Russia from participating in G20 meetings. “We have Indonesia’s invitation to attend both a [G20] Foreign Ministers Meeting to open in Bali tomorrow, and a G20 summit there in November,” Russia’s TASS news agency quoted him as saying. “If there have been any such attempts, the Indonesian authorities might have ignored them,” he said. ‘Give us a reason to meet’ Meanwhile, there promises to be plenty of drama at the foreign ministers’ meeting in Bali. Lavrov’s Canadian counterpart has warned she would not shake his hand. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has promised some kind of response, saying “we will not simply let Russia take the stage of the meeting.” “We all have an interest in ensuring that international law is observed and respected,” she said in a statement before departing for Bali. “That is the common denominator.” Blinken plans to shun Lavrov as well. The U.S. State Department said Blinken would not meet Lavrov formally. “We would like to see the Russians be serious about diplomacy. We have not seen that yet,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters during a briefing on Tuesday. “We would like to have the Russians give us a reason to meet on a bilateral basis with them, with foreign minister Lavrov, but the only thing we have seen emanate from Moscow is more brutality and aggression against the people and country of Ukraine,” he said. Meanwhile, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said that all G20 member countries would be represented by their top diplomats. Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah declined to comment on possible tensions over Lavrov’s participation, but said:  “We as diplomats must anticipate all possibilities.” He said that the summary of the meeting’s outcome could be in the form of a chair’s statement from Indonesia. Vasyl Harmianin, the Ukrainian ambassador to Indonesia, said he hoped the meeting could spotlight what he called “the continued killing of civilians” in his home country. Preview of G20 summit Jakarta, which has been trying to mediate between Russia and Ukraine, said the meeting would discuss collective efforts to strengthen “multilateralism” and avert a looming food crisis caused by the war. “Rising commodity prices and disruption of global supply chains have had a huge impact on developing countries,” the foreign ministry said in a statement Wednesday. “For this reason, the G20 as an economic forum representing different regions of the world has the power to discuss these issues comprehensively to find sustainable socio-economic solutions.” This week’s meeting could set the tone for the G20 summit in November, according to Agus Haryanto, a professor of international relations at Jenderal Soedirman University in Purwokerta. “It will provide us with an idea of how the G20 summit will go. If the ministerial meeting is successful, it is likely that the summit will be attended by all heads of government,” Agus told BenarNews. The ministers should talk about how to bring peace to Ukraine after Jokowi’s visit to Kyiv and Moscow last week, a senior Indonesian diplomat, Sugeng Rahardjo, told the national news agency Antara. “The positive results from Jokowi’s trip deserve follow-up by G20 members at their meeting in Bali,” Sugeng told the national news agency Antara. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.
- [Jailed Chinese NGO worker 'tortured' in Hunan's Chishan Prison, according to letters](https://ij-reportika.com/jailed-chinese-ngo-worker-tortured-in-hunans-chishan-prison-according-to-letters/): Jailed Chinese NGO worker Cheng Yuan has been subjected to torture in a &#8216;high security&#8217; sector of Hunan province&#8217;s Chishan Prison, according to his family. Cheng, who founded the Changsha Funeng NGO, was tried in secret at the Changsha Intermediate People&#8217;s Court in September 2020 for &#8220;subversion of state power&#8221; alongside two colleagues, after being held incommunicado for nearly 18 months, according to Cheng&#8217;s wife Shi Minglei, who arrived in the U.S. with the couple&#8217;s daughter on April 7, 2021. Since his transfer to Chishan Prison on Jan. 18, 2022, he has been detained in the high-security wing in a tiny cell and subjected to bright lights and chronic sleep deprivation, according to three handwritten letters received by Cheng&#8217;s family on July 5, Shi told RFA. &#8220;We&#8217;re talking about a tiny cell with room only for a single bed, no room to move around, and no windows, with very strong lights on 24 hours a day,&#8221; Shi said. &#8220;They don&#8217;t let you sleep under a quilt &#8230; and you&#8217;re not allowed to sleep on your side.&#8221; She cited Taiwanese democracy activist Lee Ming-cheh &#8212; who also served time in Chishan Prison &#8212; as saying that high-security detainees suffer from extreme constipation due to reduced rations. &#8220;We think it&#8217;s very likely that they are trying to get Cheng Yuan to implicate other people, but that he is very unwilling to do so,&#8221; Shi said. &#8220;So they used this very cruel form of torture to force him &#8230; locking him in there for three months.&#8221; Weight loss, white hair Shi said Cheng&#8217;s hair had turned white in prison, and he had lost a large amount of weight, reading out a section from one of the letters: &#8220;You may be sad and upset to see me: I have lost 12 pounds now, and my hair is nearly totally white,&#8221; she quoted Cheng&#8217;s letter as saying. &#8220;My husband used to weigh more than 120 pounds, so basically he&#8217;s a little over 100 pounds now &#8230; actually, very, very thin,&#8221; Shi said. &#8220;Our family all cried for a long time when they read those two sentences.&#8221; Patrick Poon, a visiting researcher at the Institute of Comparative Law at Japan&#8217;s Meiji University, believes that the confinement has likely caused significant physical and psychological harm to Cheng Yuan. &#8220;He can&#8217;t even see a lawyer, so they can&#8217;t help him file a complaint,&#8221; Poon said. &#8220;Being locked up in such conditions for several months will have long-term effects and cause damage to his mind and body.&#8221; Poon said Chinese law bans torture and cruel or degrading treatment of prisoners and detainees &#8212; in theory, at least. &#8220;In actual fact, [prisons] are able to get away without any regulation, basically,&#8221; Poon said. &#8220;It&#8217;s a very serious violation of detainees&#8217; rights.&#8221; Lawyers fired Cheng, Liu Dazhi, and Wuge Jianxiong all stood trial sometime between Aug. 31 and Sept. 4, 2020, according to the overseas-based rights group Front Line Defenders. Their families weren&#8217;t informed of the trial, and were therefore unable to attend. Wu&#8217;s father, the Zhejiang-based lawyer Wu Youshui, said his son had been handed a three-year jail term, while Liu was sentenced to two years&#8217; imprisonment in a judgment handed down on July 20, 2021. But there was no information given on the sentence handed down to Cheng, he said. The three defendants have been denied meetings with attorneys hired by their families since being detained on July 22, 2019. The lawyers were told in March 2020 that the defenders had &#8220;dismissed&#8221; them and that the government had assigned them government-funded lawyers. But the families said they believe that the lawyers were fired under duress, and said they have had no contact with the government-appointed lawyers. Changsha Funeng co-founder Yang Zhanqing, who now lives in the U.S., has previously said that the three men were targeted because their rights work had received overseas funding, which the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regards as &#8220;collusion with hostile foreign forces,&#8221; and a threat to its national security. In a statement co-signed by the Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) network, the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) and the Rights Practice, Front Line Defenders said the three men had &#8220;advocated for the rights of marginalized groups and worked to protect the rights of the most vulnerable people in society.&#8221; Changsha Funeng sought to prevent discrimination and ensure equality in line with Chinese law by using the courts to strengthen protections for individuals living with disabilities and with HIV/AIDS and other communicable diseases, it said. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Hong Kong leader wants 'more effective' security laws, as soon as possible](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-leader-wants-more-effective-security-laws-as-soon-as-possible/): Hong Kong&#8217;s chief executive John Lee vowed on Wednesday to press ahead with more &#8220;effective&#8221; security laws that could draw on security forces in mainland China to implement them. &#8220;The National Security Law for Hong Kong currently deals with the most pressing risks to national security,&#8221; Lee said of a law that has criminalized public criticism of the authorities anywhere in the world. But further laws will be need &#8220;to deal with any conceivable serious security risk &#8230; and the timing needs to be as soon as possible,&#8221; he told the city&#8217;s Legislative Council (LegCo). &#8220;The cities in the Greater Bay Area [of the Pearl River delta] are like brothers and sisters to us &#8230; so what kind of help will they provide, if we need it?&#8221; Lee said. &#8220;That&#8217;s what we need to figure out.&#8221; Lee&#8217;s comments to LegCo came after he reiterated his commitment to enacting further security laws under Article 23 of the city&#8217;s Basic Law, a move that prompted mass protests in 2003. &#8220;We will legislate as soon as possible, but &#8230; we must also consider whether the laws we make can really deal with the most serious national security risks we can imagine,&#8221; Lee said. Current affairs commentator Johnny Lau said the new laws are part of a package of four requirements given to Lee by ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping when he visited the city last week to mark the 25th anniversary of its handover to Chinese rule. &#8220;Xi Jinping came to Hong Kong to put forward four requirements, the first of which was to improve governance,&#8221; Lau said. &#8220;I don&#8217;t think it will be long [before they act on Article 23].&#8221; &#8220;They want this legislation to cover anything and be infinitely expandable,&#8221; Lau said. &#8220;It will definitely be stricter than the initial draft [that was shelved] back in 2003.&#8221; Singapore as model? Current affairs commentator Sang Pu said Lee may be considering far tighter controls on the internet, looking to Singapore as a model. &#8220;Singapore passed a law last year that allows the government to order social media sites and Internet providers to disclose users&#8217; personal data or block content they deem hostile or risky, which you could call [the power to] shut down the internet, and enhanced use of AI,&#8221; Sang told RFA. &#8220;It&#8217;s like 24/7 monitoring.&#8221; &#8220;As long as the government thinks there is hostile intent, and it has the absolute right to decide this, it can block something,&#8221; he said. Lee&#8217;s comments came as five speech therapists stood trial for &#8220;conspiracy to print, publish, distribute, display or reproduce seditious publications&#8221; in connection with a series of children&#8217;s books about a village of sheep defending itself against wolves. The defendants &#8212; all of whom are members of the Hong Kong Speech Therapists General Union &#8212; were arrested in connection with three children&#8217;s picture books titled &#8220;The Guardians of Sheep Village,&#8221; &#8220;The Garbage Collectors of Sheep Village&#8221; and &#8220;The 12 Heroes of Sheep Village.&#8221; Police said the sheep were intended to represent protesters who fought back against riot police in 2019, and depicted the authorities as wolves, &#8220;beautifying bad behavior&#8221; and &#8220;poisoning&#8221; children&#8217;s impressionable minds. One book characterizes the wolves as dirty and the sheep as clean, while another lauds the actions of heroic sheep who use their horns to fight back despite being naturally peaceful, police said at the time of the therapists&#8217; arrests. The indictment alleges that the books were intended to &#8220;provoke hatred or contempt for, betrayal of, or to incite violence against the government &#8230; and judiciary.&#8221; The defense said its arguments would seek to disprove any violent or disruptive intent, and draw on the constitutional right to freedom of expression in the Basic Law. Back to pre-reform era Dozens of former members of the pro-democracy camp in LegCo have been arrested in recent months, either for public order offenses linked to peaceful protests during the 2019 anti-extradition and pro-democracy movement, or under the national security law. Observers have told RFA that changes to Hong Kong&#8217;s election system imposed on the city by the CCP since the law took effect have set the city&#8217;s political life back by decades, to the pre-reform colonial era in the mid-20th century. The rule changes mean that opposition candidates are highly unlikely to be allowed to run, but even when candidates make it into the race, they will now be chosen by a tiny number of voters compared with the previous system. Under the &#8220;one country, two systems&#8221; terms of the 1997 handover agreement, Hong Kong was promised the continuation of its traditional freedoms of speech, association, and expression, as well as progress towards fully democratic elections and a separate legal jurisdiction. But plans to allow extradition to mainland China sparked a city-wide mass movement in 2019 that broadened to demand fully democratic elections and an independent inquiry into police violence. Rights groups and foreign governments have hit out at the rapid deterioration of human rights protections since the national security law was imposed. Chinese and Hong Kong officials say the law was needed to deal with an attempt by foreign powers to foment a &#8220;color revolution&#8221; in Hong Kong. Its sweeping provisions allowed China&#8217;s feared state security police to set up a headquarters in Hong Kong, granted sweeping powers to police to search private property and require the deletion of public content, and criminalized criticism of the city government and the authorities in Beijing. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Tensions rise in Rakhine state after a five-day naval drill](https://ij-reportika.com/tensions-rise-in-rakhine-state-after-a-five-day-naval-drill/): Myanmar’s military staged a five-day show of strength, starting last Friday, with warships, helicopters and two submarines, leading to fears the military is preparing for a major battle with the Arakan Army (AA). The junta-run newspaper, Myanma Alin (New light of Myanmar), said on Wednesday that the military exercise was carried out in the Bay of Bengal 1,300 miles (2,080 kilometers) off the coast of Rakhine state. People’s Assembly member Pe Than, who is closely monitoring the military situation, said the exercise shows that the military is prepared to make full use of the navy if fighting breaks out with the AA in Rakhine. “It is impossible to prevent international hostilities with such a force and there is no country planning a war with this country either,” he said “This is just an exercise to allow the systematic use of the navy in the event of a battle in Rakhine. The main thing is that they can show their strength.” Military Council Chairman joins top brass to watch war games Sr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing joins high ranking military staff to watch the exercise on Tuesday. CREDIT: DSINFO The drill was overseen by military council chairman Sr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing. High-level members of the army, navy and air force attended on Tuesday. Min Aung Hlaing ordered the warships to be constantly prepared for combat, according to comments carried in Wednesday’s edition of the Myanmar Alin Newspaper. “The naval warships must be ready. Also weapons and weapons systems must be ready. The navy personnel must be ready. They also need to be constantly trained to be ready for battle, and these three levels of readiness must be maintained,” he said. Sea Shield 2022 aimed to cover the 12 nautical miles (22.2 kilometers/13.8 miles) of Myanmar’s territorial waters and protect the Myanmar Exclusive Economic Zone at sea, the junta chairman said. Myanmar’s exclusive economic zone is adjacent to its territorial waters and extends for 200 nautical miles (370.4 kilometers/230 miles) from the coastal baseline. One of the submarines used in the military drills, arrived in Kyaukphyu, Rakhine state, on May 31. Kyauk Phyu is home to some of China’s largest economic projects, and locals have criticized the military council for apparently preparing to protect Chinese businesses in the event of a battle with the AA. AA spokesman, Khing Thukha gave an online news conference on June 14, saying that the military council is expanding its forces and weapons in Rakhine to prepare for a full-scale attack in the event of a renewed fighting with the AA. Local residents said tensions have been further heightened due to arrests of AA members or sympathisers in retailiation for AA abductions of junta troops. Last June, the AA abducted more than 10 police and soldiers and the junta responded by arresting 40 civilians from the four townships of Sittwe, Kyauktaw, Ponna Kyun and Mrauk-U. The AA fought a fierce campaign against Myanmar’s military from December 2018 to November 2020, demanding autonomy for ethnic Arakanese. More than 300 civilians were killed and more than 700 injured during the fighting in Rakhine state according to figures compiled by RFA. The two sides agreed an informal ceasefire shortly before the coup on February 1, 2021 and an uneasy truce has held for more than a year. However, locals told RFA tensions have risen in the last two months, due to the arrests and the arrival of military reinforcements. Tensions are simmering even outside Rakhine state since the AA also has a presence in Chin, Kayin and Shan states. On Monday a military air strike killed six AA members and injured dozens when junta jets targeted a camp in Kayin (Karen) state near the Thailand-Myanmar border, a region controlled by AA allies the Karenni National Liberation Army. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs nearly 78,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in Rakhine and Chin states as of March 6 this year due to fighting between junta forces and the AA.
- [Russia’s Lavrov enjoys warm relations with Vietnam ahead of frosty reception in Bali](https://ij-reportika.com/russias-lavrov-enjoys-warm-relations-with-vietnam-ahead-of-frosty-reception-in-bali/): Sergey Lavrov is on a two-day visit to Russia’s closest ASEAN ally, Vietnam, before heading to the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting The Russian foreign minister is in Hanoi on a quick visit to Moscow’s main Southeast Asian partner before attending a G20 meeting in Bali, during which Lavrov’s Canadian counterpart has warned she would not shake his hand. Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly told Canadian media she would instead “confront him with facts and expose Russia’s narrative for what it is: lies and disinformation” about the war in Ukraine. Canada, alongside a number of Western countries, has imposed sanctions on Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine, now in its fifth month. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is also expected to snub Lavrov in Bali, with the State Department saying &#8220;it cannot be business as usual with the Russian Federation.” Vietnam on the other hand has repeatedly refused to condemn the Russian war and also objected to a U.S.-led effort to suspend Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council. Lavrov is the first Russian cabinet minister to visit Hanoi since President Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation” against Ukraine in February. His visit is taking place as Hanoi and Moscow celebrate the 10th anniversary of the so-called “comprehensive strategic partnership” that Vietnam has forged with only three nations in the world. Besides Russia, the two other comprehensive strategic partners are China and India. ‘The most important partner’ The Russian foreign minister and his Vietnamese host Bui Thanh Son held a meeting on Wednesday morning, during which Foreign Affairs Minister Son was quoted by Russian state media as saying that he’d like to “reassure you that Russia will always be our most important partner and the main priority in Vietnam’s policy.” Son said he “deeply believed that with the high level of political trust and a long-term interest,” the Vietnam-Russia relationship would continue to develop. Moscow is Hanoi’s traditional ally and its biggest arms supplier. Most Vietnamese weaponry used by the navy and air force was bought from Russia, leading to a future dependence on Russian maintenance and spare parts, despite efforts to diversify arms supplies. Russian anti-submarine ship Marshal Shaposhnikov seen in a file photo. CREDIT: ITAR TASS A Russian presence in the South China Sea, where Beijing claims “historical rights” over almost 80 per cent, could also be seen as a counterweight for competing China-U.S. rivalry as well as keeping China’s aggression at bay, say analysts. On June 25-28, three warships of the Russian Navy’s Pacific Fleet, led by the Udaloy-class anti-submarine destroyer Marshal Shaposhnikov, visited Cam Ranh in central Vietnam  where Russia operated a major naval base until 2002. Lavrov was quoted as telling his Vietnamese counterpart on Wednesday that “in the context of current world affairs, once again we should unite and strive to maintain international laws, the principle of national sovereignty and non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs.” The full agenda of the Russian minister’s visit has not been disclosed but some analysts, such as Artyom Lukin, Deputy Director for Research at the School of Regional and International Studies at Russia’s Far Eastern Federal University, said boosting economic cooperation at a time when Moscow has been isolated and sanctioned would be one of the main topics. “The Kremlin should already be more or less satisfied with Hanoi&#8217;s position on the Ukraine crisis since Vietnam&#8217;s stance all along has been strictly neutral,” Lukin said. “Rather than securing Vietnam&#8217;s political neutrality, which is already there, Moscow needs to ensure that Vietnam continues, and expands, economic links with Russia.” Between a rock and a hard place “What is important for Russia now is how to restructure economic ties, trade, cooperation in industry and technologies with the non-Western world,” said Fyodor Lukyanov, Chairman of the Presidium of the Russian Council for Foreign and Defense Policy. “It is highly important for Russia to intensify all possible ties to find ways to avoid and bypass the economic warfare applied by the West,” said the Moscow-based analyst. Artyom Lukin from the Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok pointed out that “amid Western sanctions, Asia and the Middle East are replacing Europe as Russia&#8217;s main geo-economic partners.” “Vietnam is the only ASEAN country to have a Free Trade Agreement with Moscow and Vietnam&#8217;s economic significance for Russia will now grow substantially, both as a market in itself and as a gateway for Russia&#8217;s business interactions with Asia,” he added. Despite COVID-19, bilateral trade between Vietnam and Russia reached U.S.$5.54 billion in 2021, a 14-percent increase from the previous year, according to official statistics. Yet the Ukrainian crisis that severely disrupted the global supply chain of food, fertilizer and energy has put Hanoi in an uneasy position. Vietnam has established some important strategic links with foreign powers including the U.S. and Japan, both strongly opposed to the Russian war in Ukraine and both are considered supportive of Hanoi’s interests in the South China Sea. Being seen as too close to Moscow would give Hanoi a disadvantage unless it could act as a go-between to mediate Russia’s interactions with the West, said a Vietnamese expert who didn’t want to be named as they are not authorized to speak to foreign media. Vietnam also has to be watchful for Russia-China joint maritime activities that may hurt its interests in the South China Sea. On Monday Chinese and Russian warships were spotted just outside Japanese territorial waters around the disputed, Japan-administered Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. Tokyo lodged a protest with Beijing about the incident that happened amid China&#8217;s growing maritime assertiveness and increasingly robust China-Russia military ties, Kyodo News reported. Chinese media responded that the Russian Navy&#8217;s recent military activities in the West Pacific are a warning to Japan amid Japanese sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine crisis.
- [Police soon to wrap up investigation into Vietnamese Facebooker](https://ij-reportika.com/police-soon-to-wrap-up-investigation-into-vietnamese-facebooker/): A police probe into a well-known Vietnamese Facebook user will end soon with Bui Van Thuan facing anti-state propaganda charges. The case is being investigated by the Security Investigation Agency of Thanh Hoa provincial police who said they would charge him under Article 117 of the Criminal Code &#8220;Making, storing, spreading information, materials, items for the purpose of opposing the State of Socialist Republic of Vietnam.&#8221; If convicted he faces a sentence of five to 12 years. Two police investigators, Le Hong Ky and Mai Van Tinh, spoke to the political blogger’s wife on Tuesday morning according to a summons sent the previous day. Before his arrest in August last year, Bui Van Thuan was well known as a daily compiler of Vietnamese political news. His posts featured many of the political struggles going on between provincial officials, which he nicknamed the &#8220;dog fighting ring.” Thuan’s wife went to the Thanh Hoa Police station for two hours on Tuesday morning, during which the police told her that her husband would soon have his day in court. “They said that Thuan&#8217;s case is about to be finished with investigations nearly complete and they will bring him to trial this year,” she said. “They told me Thuan asked the police to return to me some belongings unrelated to the case [confiscated during a house search]. They said they would return them but I should pick them up another day.” Nhung told RFA the main reason she was summoned to the police station was to discuss posts she made on her Facebook page and that of her husband. The two investigators said she should not have posted the letter of summons and should not have posted the content of the meeting with security officers on Facebook because it was against the rules. Nhung said the two officers told her they were aware of her meetings with friends of her husband and wives of prisoners of conscience. Thuan was arrested on August 30, 2021, just days after the visit of US Vice President Kamala Harris to Hanoi. He has been kept in solitary confinement in a single room since then, unable to meet relatives and lawyers. His wife says Thuan’s health has deteriorated as a result of his detention. “In March, I received a letter from Thuan that had been written by the police,” she said. “It said his health was fine with the exception of pain in his legs but the medicine provided by the detention facility is not very effective. I asked to be allowed to provide some medicine but the police refused saying that the medicine provided by prison clinics should be sufficient.” Nhung said she bought liver and eye tonics to send to her husband, but the police did not allow it, saying a doctor’s prescription was needed in order to send medicine to a prisoner. She added that the police only allowed her to send food worth no more than VND60,000 (U.S.$2.70) on each visit, up to a maximum of three times a month. However, she was given a deposit of about VND1.6 million (U.S.68) per month so her husband could buy food and other essentials from the prison canteen. This is the second time Thanh Hoa police have summoned Nhung for interrogation related to her husband but the latest document, dated July 4, said it was the first summons. On March 17, during the first summons, the police threatened Nhung over her actions to defend her husband and told her she could be arrested at any time if she did not cooperate with the investigation into her husband&#8217;s activities. She was also asked repeatedly to confirm details of Thuan’s and her own Facebook accounts. Bui Van Thuan was born in 1981, and is an ethnic Muong. He graduated from Hanoi National University of Education and worked as a chemistry teacher for a while, before becoming a famous Facebooker in Vietnam with the nickname &#8220;Old Father of the Nation,&#8221; a reference to political propaganda which refers to Ho Chi Minh as the father of the nation.
- [Uyghurs in exile mark anniversary of deadly 2009 Urumqi unrest](https://ij-reportika.com/uyghurs-in-exile-mark-anniversary-of-deadly-2009-urumqi-unrest/): Uyghur exile groups around the world on Tuesday demanded that China end its persecution of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang in a series of protests marking the 13th anniversary of deadly ethnic violence in the region’s capital. Uyghurs demonstrated in the capital cities of European Union countries, Turkey, Australia, Japan, and Canada, and in New York and Washington, D.C., to commemorate the crackdown in Urumqi, which became a catalyst for the Chinese government’s efforts to repress Uyghur culture, language and religion through a mass surveillance and internment campaign. “We gathered here to commemorate the massacre that occurred on July 5 in Urumqi and to remember the ongoing genocide taking place in East Turkestan today,” said Hidayetulla Oghuzhan, chairman of East Turkestan Organizational Alliance in Istanbul, using Uyghurs’ preferred name for the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). “We call upon the international community to not to remain silent and to take action against this genocide,” he said. In Paris, one protester told RFA that he lost many of his friends in the July 5 clash and that remembering that day was very important for him. Smaller demonstrations were held in other cities. About 15 members of the Australian Uyghur Tangritagh Women’s Association protested outside a mall in Adelaide to mark the anniversary of the massacre and demand that the Australian government ban the importation of goods made with Uyghur forced labor in the XUAR, according to India’s The Print online news service. Muslims in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka and in Narayanganj district, about 16 kilometers (10 miles) southeast of the city, also staged protests against the Chinese government’s oppression of Uyghurs, according to the same news source. About 200 people died and 1,700 were injured in three days of violence between ethnic minority Uyghurs and Han Chinese that began on July 5, 2009, in Xinjiang’s largest city, Urumqi (in Chinese, Wulumuqi), according to China’s official figures. Uyghur rights groups say the numbers of dead and injured were much higher, however. The unrest was set off by a clash between Uyghur and Han Chinese toy factory workers in southern China’s Guangdong province in late June that year that left two Uyghurs dead. News of the deaths reached Uyghurs in Urumqi, sparking a peaceful protest the spiraled into beatings and killings of Chinese, with deaths occurring on both sides. Chinese mobs later staged revenge attacks on Uyghurs in the city’s streets with sticks and metal bars. ‘We mourn the past’ Dolkun Isa, president of Germany-based World Uyghur Congress (WUC), called July 5 a day of mourning. “We have to remember that day,” he told RFA on Tuesday. “That day is the turning point in from China’s ethnic segregation and discrimination policy to the beginning of the genocidal ethnic policy. 2009 is the starting point of the ongoing ethnic genocide since 2016.” In late 2016 and 2017, authorities ramped up their clampdown on Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in the XUAR through abductions and arbitrary arrests and detentions in what China called “re-education” camps or prisons. An estimated 1.8 million members of these groups have been held in internment camps, where detainees who were later freed reported widespread maltreatment, including severe human rights abuses, torture, rape and forced labor. The U.S. and the parliaments of the EU have said the repression of Uyghurs in the XUAR is a genocide and crime against humanity. The Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP), based in Washington D.C., demanded the protection of Uyghur refugees and asylum seekers residing abroad. “Saving Uyghur refugees is the least that the world can do for Uyghurs, as we experience the 6th year of an ongoing genocide,” UHRP Executive Director Omer Kanat said in a statement. “It is urgent that all countries recognize the threat posed to Uyghurs abroad, and develop their own resettlement programs on an emergency basis.” Because China has sought the forcible return of some Uyghurs living abroad, UHRP said governments should immediately implement resettlement programs for those at risk of refoulement — forcing refugees to return to a country where they will likely face persecution. UHRP called on the U.S. Congress to pass the Uyghur Human Rights Protection Act, which would make Uyghurs and other persecuted Turkic peoples eligible for priority refugee processing by the U.N., designating them as “Priority 2” refugees of special humanitarian concern. The Washington, D.C-based Campaign for Uyghurs said the Urumqi Massacre was a reminder of the brutality of the Chinese government and the loss that Uyghurs have experienced in their fight for equality. “The world no longer believes China’s whitewashed tales stating the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] is innocent and a victim in the Urumqi massacre,” Rushan Abbas, the group’s executive director, said in a statement. “While we mourn the past, we continue to fight for the living, fight for the future of this free and democratic world. Justice is on our side reclaiming this correct history.” “We labor ensuring those who perished in 2009 will not have sacrificed their lives in vain,” she said. “With courage and hard work, justice shall prevail.” Translated by Mamatjan Juma for RFA Uyghur. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [China calls for junta cooperation with Myanmar opposition to resolve crisis](https://ij-reportika.com/china-calls-for-junta-cooperation-with-myanmar-opposition-to-resolve-crisis/): Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has called on Myanmar’s military regime to work with the opposition to resolve the country’s political crisis, days after an ASEAN envoy concluded a visit there without meeting any anti-junta stakeholders. According to a statement posted on the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s official website on Monday, Wang told the junta that Beijing wants to see “reconciliation” in Myanmar and that “all those involved in politics should hold a dialogue for the sake of the people.” Wang was in Mandalay region’s Bagan city on Sunday to attend the 7th Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Summit, co-chaired by China and Myanmar. China’s Foreign Ministry said Wang met with junta Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin on Monday to discuss reconciliation in Myanmar and informed him that his country can only move forward when political and social stability are achieved. A statement from the junta following Monday’s meeting said the two sides “discussed ways to work more closely with the United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).” The statement did not address China’s call for cooperation with Myanmar’s opposition, and calls by RFA seeking comment from junta deputy information minister, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, went unanswered Tuesday. Myanmar-based political analyst Sai Kyi Zin Soe told RFA Burmese that the military regime is seeking legitimacy on the global stage with the help of China after drawing condemnation from its fellow member nations in ASEAN over its Feb. 1, 2021, coup and an ensuing crackdown that has caused the deaths of at least 2,065 civilians, according to Thailand’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. “They are aiming for international acceptance of what they are doing at home,” he said. But Sai Kyi Zin Soe said the junta cannot expect its status within ASEAN to change overnight, even with the help of China, and expects a power struggle will continue with the bloc. China’s Foreign Ministry has said it “supports the international community’s efforts to protect Myanmar’s interests and reputation,” according to a report by the state-run Xinhua news agency. A spokesman for the Pro-democracy Strike Committee (Dawei), an anti-junta group, told RFA that the junta is seeking Chinese help because of declining international support. “The junta has no international support at all … and so they must rely on China,” said the spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity. “As China is a world power, the regime is relying on it to obtain international recognition.” Concern for investments Kyaw Zaw, a spokesman for the office of the president for Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG), told RFA that Wang attended the Lancang-Mekong meeting in an attempt to “legitimize the junta,” and warned that doing so would be harmful to the country’s economy and development. “It would be detrimental to regional security, as it would lead to more instability in the area and there will be even more violence in Myanmar,” he said. “The situation would become an obstacle for economic development. The military’s actions are based on violence, and violence does not bring stability.” Kyaw Zaw said the NUG’s goals are aimed at achieving economic growth for the country and that the shadow government is committed to protecting genuine businesses, while the military is turning economic projects into “battlefields.” Since the coup, Myanmar’s armed opposition has targeted Chinese investment and development in the country, particularly projects that could earn the junta income it says is used to oppress the people. At least 77 clashes took place in the 42 townships where the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor project was to be implemented between July 2021 and April 2022, according to research group Institute for Strategy and Policy Myanmar. Political analyst Ye Tun said China is concerned about its investments in Myanmar as the conflict is unlikely to end any time soon. “Because of that, they are also concerned about their future investments in Myanmar and their security,” he said. “That’s why they are pushing for the implementation of the ASEAN agreement,” he added, referring to a Five-Point Consensus agreed to by Min Aung Hlaing at an emergency ASEAN meeting on the crisis in April 2021. Points agreed to during last year’s emergency ASEAN meeting included an immediate end to violence in the country, the distribution of humanitarian aid, dialogue among all parties, and the appointment of an ASEAN special envoy to Myanmar who would be permitted to meet with all stakeholders. The junta has yet to implement any of the points in the 14 months since the meeting, while continuing its violent crackdown on opponents. China has become the largest source of foreign investment in Myanmar since the withdrawal of Western businesses following the military coup. However, trade between the two countries dwindled to U.S. $4.3 billion in the 2021-2022 budget year, down from more than U.S. $5 billion a year earlier, according to figures from the junta’s Ministry of Commerce. ASEAN Special Envoy Prak Sokhonn and Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing meet in Naypyidaw, June 30, 2022. Credit: Myanmar military ‘Sham effort’ Wang Yi’s comments came days after Prak Sokhonn, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations special envoy to Myanmar, concluded a June 29-July 2 trip to Myanmar, during which he met with junta chief Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin, and International Cooperation Minister Ko Ko Hlaing. He also met with seven ethnic armed groups — all signatories of a Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement with the government since 2015 — and seven political parties that won seats in Parliament in the country’s November 2020 election. A July 2 statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Cambodia, which hosts the rotating chair of ASEAN, said Sokhonn met with Min Aung Hlaing and Wunna Maung Lwin to find a way to work with the U.N.’s representative for Myanmar, stop the violence, release political prisoners, speak with civilians — including Suu Kyi — and access areas where humanitarian assistance is difficult to reach. The statement said he discussed how the U.N. and international NGOs should be involved in humanitarian assistance with...
- [Cambodia’s opposition party cries foul after governor likens them to 'social plague'](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodias-opposition-party-cries-foul-after-governor-likens-them-to-social-plague/): Cambodia’s opposition Candlelight Party is once again urging government officials to stop harassing its members after a provincial governor from Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling party compared Candlelight members recently elected to local offices to a “social plague,” sources in the country told RFA. The complaint comes as members of the Candlelight prepare to meet with other minority parties to consider forming an alliance and to make recommendations to improve Cambodia’s elections process. The Candlelight Party won roughly 19 percent of the country’s 11,622 open commune council seats in the June 5 election, establishing itself as the main opposition to the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), which took more than 80 percent of the vote. Prior to the election, the Candlelight Party candidates reported harassment and intimidation by members of the CPP and its supporters, including government officials. Unless the government acts, the discrimination against Candlelight and other opposition party members will grow, Candlelight officials fear. At a post-election ceremony in the western province of Pailin, provincial Gov. Ban Sreymom threatened the newly elected councilors affiliated with the Candlelight Party, saying they were a “plague we need to get rid of.” “We don’t teach people to be rude and provoke a social toxin or plague. We don’t let them stay. They are a plague, they will be removed or be sprayed with insecticide to kill it,” Ban Sreymom said during the ceremony. The comment will make it harder for the commune councils with representatives from both political parties to operate, the Candlelight Party’s chief for the province, Khem Monykosal, told RFA’s Khmer Service. “We haven’t even started our jobs, but there has been a threat already. This comment shouldn’t be used and they should respect the people’s votes. The comment is a major offense to our councilors,” he said. RFA was unable to reach the governor for comment Tuesday. Interior Minister Khieu Sopheak was also not available. Bun Sreymom’s comments were not discriminatory, asserted the CPP spokesperson Sok Ey San. “We empower the provincial governors to advise commune councilors, so I don’t believe they use the events to attack [the Candlelight Party],” he said. Government officials should not use their offices to discriminate against their political rivals, Kang Savang, a monitor with the Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia NGO, told RFA. He urged the Ministry of Interior to investigate the case and to punish officials if they are in breach of the law. “Senior government officials should not use terms like that in public because it is against their duties as authorities,” he said. Candlelight Party Vice President Thach Setha said the Ministry of Interior must issue strict measures to prevent such comments in the future.  He hopes that the party’s newly elected commune councilors will be able to serve their constituents unhindered so that they can develop their communities. “We want the Ministry of Interior to take tough measures and punish [CPP councilors] who don’t share responsibilities with [opposition party] councilors,” he said. Opposition alliance Five political parties including the Candlelight Party will meet Wednesday to discuss a possible alliance. The four smaller parties — the Grassroots Democratic Party, the Cambodian Reform Party, the Khmer Will Party and the Kampucheanimym Party — will along with Candlelight also make recommendations to Cambodia’s government on improving the election process. “We are advocating progress on improvement to elections to the NEC [National Election Commission], and we all have plenty of work to do on the same path,” Yang Saing Koma, founder of the Grassroots Democratic Party, told RFA.  The ruling party is not concerned about the alliance, CPP spokesperson Sok Ey San told RFA. “They all split from the big party,” he said, referring to the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), which was dissolved in 2017 by Cambodia’s Supreme Court, paving the way for Hun Sen’s CPP to win all of the seats in the National Assembly in general elections the following year. Many of the former CNRP members who were barred from engaging in political activities as members of that party are now members of Candlelight. “Now they want to reunite, but the party lost election to the CPP already,” Sok Ey San said, referring to the CPP’s dominance in this year’s commune elections. Exiled political analyst Kim Sok said the parties should merge in order to compete with the CPP by creating a new political force. “We can’t say we are united and still support different parties,” he said. “If we don’t merge there is no significant benefit.” Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Using farmland for mining, construction now banned in North Korea](https://ij-reportika.com/using-farmland-for-mining-construction-now-banned-in-north-korea/): North Korea is cracking down on government-run entities that illegally use farmland for other money-making activities, like gold mining and manufacturing, sources in the country told RFA. For a country chronically short on food, allowing farmland to be used for anything but growing food could lead to a public backlash. Authorities are now warning collective farms and revenue-producing arms of various governmental agencies that they could be punished for doing anything except growing food on lands designated for agricultural production. “Late last month, orders were issued from the central government to investigate the destruction and illegal use of agricultural lands meant to produce grain. Investigations are now underway,” an official from the northern province of Ryanggang told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The order highlighted that there are a large number of land violations in the grain producing areas, and this is hindering the country’s grain production plans. Most of the country’s special organizations openly violate agricultural land policies for gold mining or construction projects. These are powerful and reputable organizations,” he said. The special organizations are divisions within government agencies like the Ministry of Defense, Ministry of State Security and parts of the military. They include Office 39, the organization charged with procuring slush funds for the country’s leader Kim Jong Un and his family. The government has limited capability to properly fund itself, and each ministry or agency must go into business in order to function properly. The source said that the special organizations have been ignoring the agricultural designations for land use and “invading” them with new factories, buildings or mining operations. “Each cooperative farm has therefore been ordered to report in detail how the special organizations are using their land, especially for goldmines and construction,” he said. “In principle these organizations cannot do anything other than agriculture on those lands without permission from the state, but it is common for them to use threats or bribery to convince local officials to allow them to use the land for other purposes,” the source said. Entities that legally want to repurpose farmland must go through an arduous bureaucratic process that includes permission from five different organizations: the collective farm, the province’s farm management office, the provincial government, the Ministry of Agriculture, and the Ministry of National Territory Environment Protection, according to the source. “Authorities have been taking steps to increase food production in recent years, but they are missing the most important point. The fastest way to solve the long-term food shortage is to give the farmland back to the farmers and allow them to process their own harvest,” he said. Such a move could provide incentive for the farmers to earn a living off of the crops they grow, but it would also go against the ideas collective farming and communal land ownership. Cooperative farms in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong are also under investigation, and authorities are punishing those implicated in bribery, a resident of the city of Hoeryong told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “With this order, the organizations that were invading the farmland as well as the officials who took bribes will not be able to sleep at night,” the second source said. “However, this order was only a loud proclamation, and it is ultimately a fruitless measure that will end in smoke.” The Central Committee has a history of talking about strict measures but rarely enforces them, the second source said. “For whatever reason, the organizations that are capable of invading agricultural land and using it for other purposes are powerful, and a lot of the foreign currency that they earn goes into party funds,” he said. Translated by Claire Shinyoung O. Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Vietnamese blogger arrested on ‘propaganda’ charge](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnamese-blogger-arrested-on-propaganda-charge/): Vietnamese police on Tuesday arrested a prominent political activist and blogger on a charge of spreading anti-state “propaganda,” as authorities continue to crack down on dissenting voices in the one-party communist country. Nguyen Lan Thang, a contributor to RFA’s Vietnamese Service since 2013, was taken into custody at around 8 a.m. while on his way to a coffee shop in Thinh Quang ward in the capital Hanoi, family sources said. He now faces a charge of “making, storing, spreading or propagating anti-State information, documents, items and publications opposing the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.” Speaking to RFA, fellow activist Thai Van Duong called Nguyen Lan Thang a “fighter in the pro-democracy movement,” saying the two had participated together in anti-China protests in Hanoi. Thang was an activist not only in his social media postings but also in his daily life, Duong said. “Both I and my friends and the international media know that Thang has an excellent character, unlike the descriptions given of him by opponents of the pro-democracy movement. “Only those who have interacted with Nguyen Lan Thang can understand his personality and the way he performs his activities,” Duong said. Phil Robertson — deputy director of the Asia division of Human Rights Watch — told RFA by email that Nguyen Lan Thang had “peacefully campaigned for democratic reform and justice, so he should be respected and listened to rather than face this kind of unjustified repression. “Vietnam’s excessive and unacceptable crackdown on freedom of expression has just snared another victim who will invariably face a kangaroo court trial and years in prison for speaking his mind,” Robertson said. “Governments around the world should demand Nguyen Lan Thang’s immediate and unconditional release, and pressure Hanoi to stop this wave of abuse.” Thang, who comes from a family of scholars in Hanoi, has a Facebook following of more than 152,000. He has taken part in protests defending Vietnam’s sovereignty in disputed areas of the South China Sea and worked to help people affected by floods and storms in the country’s Central Highlands. In 2013, he was detained and interrogated at Noi Bai Airport in Hanoi after returning from Thailand and the Philippines, where he had met with U.N. human rights officials to report on human rights abuses in Vietnam. A year later he was barred from leaving the country to attend a World Press Freedom Day event organized by UNICEF in the United States. According to RFA reports, Vietnam has arrested at least 18 dissidents since the beginning of the year, most of them charged with “conducting propaganda against the state&#8221; under Article 88 of the 1999 Penal Code and Article 117 of the 2015 Penal Code. Both laws have been criticized by activists and rights groups as measures used to stifle voices of dissent in Vietnam. Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [Former 1989 student leader on detention center hunger strike in China's Zhejiang](https://ij-reportika.com/former-1989-student-leader-on-detention-center-hunger-strike-in-chinas-zhejiang/): A former student leader of the 1989 protest movement at Hangzhou University in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang is being force-fed in detention after refusing food and drink, RFA has learned. Xu Guang has been formally arrested on suspicion of &#8220;picking quarrels and stirring up trouble,&#8221; a charge frequently used to target peaceful critics of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), after he protested the confiscation of his mobile phone by police, fellow rights activist Zou Wei said. &#8220;Xu Guang is on hunger strike, and his family was a little concerned [about saying anything in public], because the state security police got in contact after my last interview,&#8221; Zou said. &#8220;I got a call from state security police just 10 minutes after I gave that interview,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They called me twice.&#8221; The news emerged via a defense lawyer who was allowed to visit Xu in detention in mid-June, but who didn&#8217;t dare to go public with the information for fear of reprisals from the authorities, Zou said. &#8220;They met once, but the lawyer didn&#8217;t dare to say anything, and I didn&#8217;t say anything either, because the case is so [politically] sensitive.&#8221; &#8220;The relevant departments got to the lawyer and talked them out of [saying anything],&#8221; he said. Xu, 54, was detained after he held up a placard outside Hangzhou&#8217;s Yuquan police station demanding his phone back. He had been approached by officers from the Xihu district police department and warned to keep a low profile during the 33rd anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre on June 4. His family received official notification of Xu&#8217;s formal arrest on Saturday, Zou said. A friend of Xu&#8217;s who gave only the surname Jiang said warnings to stay out of the public eye were common for Xu around the massacre anniversary. &#8220;Xu Guang was illegally hauled in for questioning by local police, who confiscated his communications device[s] and issued a warning,&#8221; Jiang said. &#8220;So Xu went down to the police station with a placard that said &#8216;overturn the official verdict on June 4&#8217;,&#8221; she said. &#8220;The state security police detained him on the same day.&#8221; &#8220;According to Xu Guang&#8217;s family, he is on hunger strike in the detention center,&#8221; she said, adding that everyone is concerned about his health. Repeated calls to Xu&#8217;s sister Xu Yan rang unanswered on Tuesday. Xu has previously served a five-year jail term after trying to formally register the China Democracy Party (CDP) as a political party in 1998, and has repeatedly called on the CCP to overturn the official verdict of &#8220;counterrevolutionary rebellion&#8221; on the 1989 protests. He is currently being held in the Xihu Detention Center. The New York-based Human Rights in China (HRIC) describes the June 3-4, 1989, massacre as a government-backed military crackdown that ended large-scale, peaceful protests in Beijing and other cities during that year. &#8220;Despite persistent citizen demands for the truth and an accounting of the bloodshed, the authorities have offered nothing beyond their characterization that the protests were &#8216;counterrevolutionary riots&#8217; &#8212; a  label they later changed to &#8216;political disturbance&#8217; &#8230; suppressed by &#8216;decisive measures&#8217;,&#8221; the group says in a standing description on its website. &#8220;The Chinese government has never publicly accounted for its actions with an independent and open investigation, brought to justice those responsible for the killing of unarmed civilians, or compensated the survivors or families of those killed,&#8221; HRIC said. &#8220;In fact, it has never made public even the names and the number of people killed or wounded during the crackdown, or of those executed or imprisoned afterwards in connection with the protests,&#8221; it said. Public mourning for victims or discussion of the events of spring and summer 1989 are banned, and references to June 4, 1989, blocked, filtered or deleted by the Great Firewall of government internet censorship. Beauty influencer Austin Li, part of a generation of younger Chinese people who consequently know little of the massacre, had his June 3, 2022, livestream interrupted after he displayed a tank-shaped ice-cream dessert, prompting censors to pull the plug immediately. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Macau 'at a standstill' amid zero-COVID restrictions, mandatory mass testing program](https://ij-reportika.com/macau-at-a-standstill-amid-zero-covid-restrictions-mandatory-mass-testing-program/): Authorities in the former Portuguese enclave of Macau have imposed a series of stringent restrictions and multiple rounds of citywide mass testing for COVID-19 amid a fresh outbreak in the city, prompting criticism of attempts to mimic mainland China&#8217;s zero-COVID policy in the tourism-dependent city. Mass testing started at the end of last month, with hundreds of people standing in long queues in the rain and summer heat, as officials told businesses to shut down or minimize operations and the general public to stay home unless absolutely necessary. Secretary for social affairs and culture Elsie Ao said Macau&#8217;s current fight against COVID-19 was &#8220;even more difficult&#8221; than the Shanghai lockdown earlier this year, local media reported. Residents&#8217; movements are being restricted by a COVID-19 health code app similar to that used in mainland China, with 16 buildings classified as &#8220;red zones&#8221; and more than 70 &#8220;amber zones&#8221;. Residents of red zones are barred from leaving their homes, while those in amber zones may only leave to pick up essential supplies at designated locations. The city reported 852 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 on July 3. A resident who requested anonymity said he had stood in line for two hours for his most recent PCR test, which are mandatory, along with interspersed rapid antigen tests done from home. &#8220;I went to a school on Monday afternoon for a PCR test,&#8221; the man said. &#8220;There were a lot of people queuing up outside, although the school did have air conditioning.&#8221; &#8220;I think the government&#8217;s arrangements have led to greater concentrations of people, which has very likely actually increased the number of people infected with the virus,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It happened to be raining heavily while I was standing in line just now, and a lot of people there were criticizing the government.&#8221; Tired of stocking up He said many people are tired of constantly rushing to the supermarket to try to lay in supplies of food and other essentials amid sudden shortages. &#8220;Everyone has been rushing to buy supplies at the supermarkets every day, mostly rice or cases of instant noodles,&#8221; he said. &#8220;When I went to a supermarket just now, the instant noodles were all gone.&#8221; &#8220;People are posting fake news in chats saying that there isn&#8217;t enough stock in supermarkets, and telling everyone to rush and buy stuff, even though the government has said repeatedly that there is plenty of supply,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I think people are frightening themselves.&#8221; He said many people are confused by the shifting rules on people&#8217;s movements. &#8220;The government&#8217;s policies seem to change every day,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I&#8217;m in a red zone, and people there are in lockdown and can&#8217;t go out.&#8221; &#8220;They depend on friends and relatives to get supplies, but mine got confused by the information and missed the window set by the government, so my supplies weren&#8217;t delivered,&#8221; he said. &#8220;A lot of people are criticizing the authorities for messing with people.&#8221; Waste of money Macau-based journalist Roy Choi said it wasn&#8217;t entirely clear how effective the Macau authorities&#8217; approach would be in detecting and eliminating COVID-19, however. &#8220;[Mass testing] may randomly detect and confirm more cases, but it also means that citizens have to make appointments, stand in line and take the risk of being around other people, which will increase the number of cluster infections,&#8221; Choi told RFA. &#8220;It&#8217;s not just a major upheaval for people; it&#8217;s a waste of public funds and manpower.&#8221; &#8220;Macau is pretty much at a standstill, and it seems that this has only happened in Macau and some cities in mainland China,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Is it actually necessary?&#8221; &#8220;What science is it based on? It even makes people wonder if the authorities are passing on the benefit to certain companies that conduct nucleic acid testing,&#8221; Choi said. He said the Macau government, in charge of an economy that is export-based, should move towards living with COVID-19 as soon as possible. &#8220;The most embarrassing thing at the moment is that Macau has to follow mainland China&#8217;s lead,&#8221; Choi said. &#8220;This policy is political,&#8221; he said. The government is handing out subsidies to eligible employees of 15,000 patacas (around U.S.$1,800), while taxi drivers, tour guides and those who make their living from fishing will each receive 10,000 patacas each. Tax rebates will also be offered on tourism and housing taxes, fees for hotels and catering firms, and a road tax rebate for commercial vehicles, local media reported. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Six killed as junta jets target Arakan army base](https://ij-reportika.com/six-killed-as-junta-jets-target-arakan-army-base/): The Arakan Army (AA) said an attack by two military fighter jets on Monday killed six of its members and left scores injured. The bombing also damaged a hospital, a clinic and a garment factory in the area near the Thai border, controlled by AA ally the Karenni National Liberation army Witnesses said the jets flew into Thai airspace after the bombings. The dead were identified as Kyaw Oo Hlaing, Kyaw San Htay, Tun Lin, Bo Than Kyaw, Nay Zaw Oo, and Zar Ni Win, aged between 20 and 31. Rakhine residents have been posting messages on Facebook mourning those killed in Monday’s air strike. Calls to the military council spokesman by RFA went unanswered. AA spokesman Khing Thukha told local media outlets that his troops were not fighting with junta forces in the area. He said the airstrike was unprovoked and the AA plans to retaliate. Pe Than, a former People’s Assembly member from Rakhine State, said that the junta’s bombing of the AA account could lead to renewed fighting. “We all know who lives there and whose camp is this,” he said. “That means this was a deliberate attack. [The junta] have to attack these camps because of the situation in Karen State. [In spite of a ceasefire] the military sees the AA as the enemy, so the lull in fighting during the ceasefire is unlikely to last.” The military council and the AA agreed a ceasefire, which has largely held for more than a year. The AA operates primarily in Rakhine State, where it is seeking autonomy from the ethnic Rakhines, but also operates in other states, including Kayin (Karen) state. It has been a long and bitter conflict. On November 19, 2014, 23 cadets from the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), Chin National Front (CNF), All Burma Students Democratic Front (ABSDF), and eight cadets from the AA died when the military shelled their training academy in Laiza, Kachin state. Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) has invited the AA to join an alliance of regional armies to fight the military, which could also lead to an escalation in violence. The AA has so far ignored the NUG’s overtures and instead focused on its own territorial ambitions. ICG said the group now controls between half and three quarters of Rakhine state.
- [U.S. aircraft carrier to visit Vietnam as Western allies stage war games](https://ij-reportika.com/u-s-aircraft-carrier-to-visit-vietnam-as-western-allies-stage-war-games/): The aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan is to visit Vietnam in the second half of July, the first U.S. carrier to stop in a port there in more than a year, two local sources said. The last visit was the USS Theodore Roosevelt in March 2020 when all 5,000 crew had to test for COVID-19 upon visiting Danang. The supercarrier was conducting exercise in the Philippine Sea at the weekend after leaving Guam late June. Vietnam has now fully opened to foreign visitors as the government adopts a policy of “living with COVID”. RFA contacted the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command for information but has yet to receive a reply. If confirmed, this will be only the third U.S. navy aircraft carrier to visit the country since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. The first carrier to make a port call in Vietnam was the USS Carl Vinson, in March 2018. There were talks about a planned visit by the USS Abraham Lincoln in May but it didn’t materialize. The Abraham Lincoln is now taking part in the biennial Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) naval exercise near Hawaii. The USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76), named after the 40th U.S. President, is a Nimitz-class, nuclear-powered supercarrier, homeported in Yokosuka, Japan. It too suffered a COVID outbreak in March 2020 when in the West Pacific, prompting a lockdown at the Yokosuka Naval Base, home of the U.S. 7th Fleet. By the end of March 2020, the U.S. Navy reported a total of 134 personnel had contracted COVID without naming their specific ships. Caption: An F/A-18F Super Hornet launches from the flight deck of the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt in the Philippine Sea (March 2020). CREDIT: U.S. Navy ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific’ The shipping and maritime sources close to the Vietnamese Navy said the USS Ronald Reagan, carrying 90 aircraft including a number of F/A-18E Super Hornets and sophisticated missile systems, will pay a five-day visit to Danang in central Vietnam “sometime in the next two weeks.” All visits by foreign warships are carefully regulated by the Vietnamese military which doesn’t want to be seen as siding with any world power. In recent years, however, former enemies Hanoi and Washington have made big strides towards a strategic partnership amid China’s assertive moves in the South China Sea, over which Vietnam and five other nations hold competing territorial claims. Since the U.S. lifted an arms embargo on Vietnam in 2016, during the Obama administration, Vietnam has started acquiring U.S. military hardware including vessels for its growing coast guard force. The U.S. accuses China of militarizing the sea and regularly despatches naval ships to perform so-called freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs), to much protest from Beijing. In June 2016, before an international tribunal requested by the Philippines delivered an historic ruling against China’s excessive and illegal claims in the South China Sea, the Ronald Reagan was deployed to the region in a mission largely seen as a show of support for the case. In the latest development, the world&#8217;s largest naval exercise, Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2022, led by the United States, is underway until Aug. 4 to showcase the maritime might of the U.S. and allies. Five countries bordering the South China Sea – Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore – are amongst the 26 participating nations with 25,000 personnel. China’s English-language official mouthpiece China Daily has published a scathing editorial calling the “display of navy clout” a “show of intimidation.” This political clout “is aimed at ensuring an ‘Indo-Pacific’ that is subject to the dictates of the U.S. rather than one that is truly ‘free and open’,” it said. The paper warned that with “the rise of its national strength, China has developed the capacity to defend its core interests, sovereignty and territorial integrity in a broader scope in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.” China launched its third aircraft carrier, developed and built entirely in the country, on June 17. The Liaoning is an 80,000 tonner vessel equipped with high tech equipment such as electromagnetic catapults for launching aircraft. It is the first aircraft carrier wholly designed and built in China. The first carrier, the Liaoning, was bought from Ukraine and repurposed. The second, the Shandong, was based on the Liaoning’s design. China now has three carriers, compared to U.S.’s eleven. The Chinese Defense Ministry has said the country would develop more aircraft carriers depending on “national security needs.”     Credit: U.S. Navy
- [Chinese researchers develop device they say can test loyalty of ruling party members](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-researchers-develop-device-they-say-can-test-loyalty-of-ruling-party-members/): Researchers in the eastern Chinese province of Anhui say they have developed a device that can determine loyalty to the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) using facial scans. A short video uploaded to the Weibo account of the Hefei Comprehensive National Science Center on June 30 said the project was an example of &#8220;artificial intelligence empowering party-building.&#8221; The Weibo post was later deleted, but a text summary of video, produced in honor of the CCP&#8217;s July 1 anniversary, remained available on the Internet Archive on Monday. &#8220;Guaranteeing the quality of party-member activities is turning into a problem in need of coordination,&#8221; the text said. &#8220;This equipment is a kind of smart ideology, using AI technology to extract and integrate facial expressions, EEG readings and skin conductivity &#8230; making it possible to ascertain the levels of concentration, recognition and mastery of ideological and political education so as to better understand its effectiveness,&#8221; the description said. &#8220;It can provide real data for organizers of ideological and political education, so they can keep improving their methods of education and enrich content,&#8221; it said. It said the device relies on &#8220;emotionally intelligent computing,&#8221; among other methods, to measure to what extent subjects &#8220;feel grateful to the CCP, do as it tells them and follow its lead.&#8221; In the video, as reported by Hong Kong&#8217;s Ming Pao newspaper, a researcher in white walks into a room and sits in front of a screen to take a test, before receiving a test score and analysis onscreen. Big Brother Before the post was deleted, some comments slammed the idea as &#8220;high-tech brainwashing,&#8221; while others referenced George Orwell&#8217;s dystopian novel 1984, saying that &#8220;Big Brother&#8221; would be watching them. Anhui-based sociologist Song Da&#8217;an said the post had been removed due to its political sensitivity. &#8220;Hefei Comprehensive National Science Center has been using biotechnology to measure the loyalty of party members and cadres,&#8221; Song said. &#8220;This shows that the CCP is becoming more and more totalitarian.&#8221; &#8220;In the logic of a totalitarian society, more and more emphasis is placed on refining controllability, and party members are regarded as screws [that could come loose] and potentially cause damage; they are the enemy of the machine,&#8221; he said. Song said the technology was based on the polygraph, used by security services to detect lying, which was itself based on the word association experiments of Swiss psychiatrist C.G. Jung. &#8220;They are using this technology to treat all party members as potential anti-CCP agents,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The use of these technology on officials demonstrates the sorry state of affairs within party ranks.&#8221; A Jiangxi-based current affairs commentator surnamed Zhang agreed. &#8220;They are consolidating their power to better hold onto it,&#8221; Zhang said. &#8220;That&#8217;s what these people want; to consolidate their position.&#8221; &#8220;Would a regime that served the people be afraid of losing political power?&#8221; &#8216;All-seeing eye&#8217; A call to the Hefei Comprehensive National Science Center on Monday resulted in a recorded message saying &#8220;Sorry, the person you have called isn&#8217;t authorized to take your call. Goodbye.&#8221; In 2018, authorities in Zhejiang province installed an &#8220;all-seeing eye&#8221; in a high-school classroom to spot students who weren&#8217;t paying attention or who fell asleep in class, official media reported. The new system at the Hangzhou No. 11 High School links up a surveillance camera to facial recognition software that tracks students&#8217; movements and facial expressions, according to the Zhejiang Daily newspaper. The technology was part of a trial of software and surveillance systems that could be rolled out elsewhere as part of the development of &#8220;smart campuses,&#8221; the paper said. &#8220;The system &#8230; can perform statistical analysis on students&#8217; behaviors and expressions in the classroom and provide timely feedback on abnormal behaviors,&#8221; the report said. Data collected by the system will be analyzed by the software, and overly inattentive or sleepy behavior will generate a prompt to the teacher to admonish the offender, it said. The data could also be used to evaluate teachers&#8217; performance in the classroom, the report said. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Hacker puts one billion Chinese citizens' leaked personal data up for sale](https://ij-reportika.com/hacker-puts-one-billion-chinese-citizens-leaked-personal-data-up-for-sale/): A hacker has claimed to be selling the personal data of one billion Chinese nationals leaked from a Shanghai police database, according to a post by user &#8220;ChinaDan&#8221; on the hacker forum Breach Forums that was widely shared on Telegram. If the claim is true, the data leak would be one of the biggest in history, Reuters cited tech experts as saying. &#8220;In 2022, the Shanghai National Police (SHGA) database was leaked. This database contains many TB of data and information on Billions of Chinese citizen,&#8221; the post said. &#8220;Databases contain information on 1 Billion Chinese national residents and several billion case records, including: name, address, birthplace, national ID number, mobile number, all crime/case details.&#8221; The post had sparked widespread discussion on China&#8217;s tightly controlled social media platforms, and censors had blocked the hashtag #dataleak from Weibo by Sunday afternoon, the agency said. The data breach was also referenced by rights activist Fu Xianyi on Twitter, who said the leak was from the &#8220;Shanghai public security database,&#8221; meaning the police. Cryptocurrency business founder Zhao Changpeng also referred to a data leak involving one billion people&#8217;s personal details in an Asian country being up for sale on the dark web. An online security expert who gave only the surname Chang said he believed the reports were genuine, as he had known of the database&#8217;s vulnerability before the report emerged. &#8220;The information coming out now is true,&#8221; Chang said. &#8220;There is a high probability that it was leaked last year but is only now being sold,&#8221; he told RFA. &#8220;The Shanghai authorities are investigating Gong Daoan, a police chief who was fired last year, so perhaps it&#8217;s related.&#8221; &#8220;Most likely it was leaked from Alibaba Cloud.&#8221; Major data dump Chang said the data was linked to host oss-cn-shanghai-shga-d01-a.ops.ga.sh, which is a Shanghai police local area network (LAN) that is physically isolated from the internet, using private services from Alibaba Cloud. The breach is likely the biggest to hit China since Communist Party (CCP) rule began in 1949. &#8220;The data is linked to one billion people, with everything there,&#8221; Chang said. &#8220;I saw on Twitter that some people have already started analyzing the population decline, telecom fraud or other research based on the data.&#8221; &#8220;A lot of people have downloaded some part of it.&#8221; The data dump reportedly includes ID card and phone numbers, payment records for online purchases including groceries, ticket sales and hotel bookings, as well as details of age and gender. Current affairs commentator Li Ang said the data dump is highly sensitive, coming as it does ahead of the CCP&#8217;s 20th National Congress later this year, at which CCP leader Xi Jinping is expected to seek an unprecedented third term in office. &#8220;This isn&#8217;t some regular hacker; they must have used very high-tech means to get this data, and to publish it,&#8221; Li told RFA. &#8220;I don&#8217;t think this is an accident.&#8221; &#8220;The person was already holding this data, and they have chosen this time to publish it,&#8221; he said. China has yet to comment on the estimated 24TB of data involved in the leak, and many online comments said the government was unlikely to respond, for fear of encouraging more people to try obtaining data. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Tibetan former political prisoner Jigme Gyatso dies in Gansu](https://ij-reportika.com/tibetan-former-political-prisoner-jigme-gyatso-dies-in-gansu/): Prominent Tibetan monk Jigme Gyatso, who was frequently jailed for protests against Chinese rule, died at his home in northwestern China’s Gansu province at the weekend, sources familiar with his situation told RFA. Jigme Gyatso, a monk at the Labrang Monastery also called Jigme Goril, died Saturday at home in the Kanlho (in Chinese, Gannan) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, a former student said. &#8220;During his imprisonment, he has been subjected to severe beatings due to which he has been admitted in hospital for a long time without any sign of improvement,” the former student now living in exile told RFA Tibetan. No cause of death has been given, but sources said he had been in poor health since his release from prison in 2016. &#8220;Since May his health took the turn for the worse, and he was taken to a medical facility in Xining, Qinghai province, for a long period but without any success.  The Chinese government is trying to block information regarding Gyatso which is why has become extremely difficult to get a recent photo of him,&#8221; said a source in Tibet. Previously detained in 2006, 2008 and 2010, Gyatso was again taken into custody in 2011 and handed a five-year prison term by the Kanlho People’s Intermediate Court on a charge of working “to split the nation.&#8221; He was released on October 26, 2016, in Lanzhou prison, &#8220;but still the Chinese government kept a close watch on him, restricting his movement and his visit to the hospital, depriving him of medications when he needed them,&#8221; said another source in the region. Splittism is a charge often brought against Tibetans who assert their national culture and identity or who protest Beijing’s rule in Tibetan areas, where self-immolations and other protests have led to crackdowns by security forces and the arrests of scores of Tibetans. Gyatso became an instant hero in the Tibetan community after a 2009 video in which he described his brutal treatment in custody was widely circulated on the internet. Translated by Tenzin Phakdon. Written by Paul Eckert.
- [Arrests of Vietnam environmentalists clash with carbon cutting goals](https://ij-reportika.com/arrests-of-vietnam-environmentalists-clash-with-carbon-cutting-goals/): The arrest and sentencing of prominent environmentalist Nguy Thi Khanh and other rights defenders in Vietnam are in conflict with the country’s commitment to reducing its considerable carbon emissions to combat climate change, human rights and environmental groups said. Nguy Thi Khanh, an ardent opponent of Vietnam’s reliance on coal power and winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2018, was arrested in January for failing to pay a 10% tax on her U.S. $200,000 prize money, equivalent to about 4.65 billion Vietnamese dong. The executive director of the environmental NGO Green Innovation and Development Centre was sentenced on June 17 in Hanoi. The Oil Change International (OIC), the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders criticized the arrest and demanded Khanh’s release. “Earlier this month, Nguy Thi Khanh was sentenced to prison on trumped up tax evasion charges, which have widely been condemned as an attempt to silence Vietnam’s most influential environmental activist,” OIC said in a statement issued Tuesday. “Her arrest is the latest in a string of efforts to repress activists in Vietnam.” Khanh had been active in pointing out the negative effects of coal-fired plants and calling for clean energy use. Vietnam is the ninth-largest coal user in the world, but Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh vowed that the country would stop building new coal-fired power plants and work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2050. In October 2021, Khanh and representatives from other NGOs told Pham that Vietnam needed to revise a national power development plan for 2021-2030 to meet its goals, according to the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders. Two years earlier, she joined a dozen NGOs in signing the “Hanoi Statement,” demanding that the government stop funding coal-fired power plants. Khanh is the fourth environmental rights defender to be arrested this year on a tax evasion charges, the Observatory said in a statement issued on June 24. On Jan. 11, 2022, Mai Phan Loi, founder and director of the Center for Media in Educating Community (MEC), was sentenced to four years in jail, while Bach Hung Duong, MEC’s former director, received a two-year, six-month sentence. Nearly two weeks later, Dang Dinh Bach, director of the Law and Policy of Sustainability Development Research Center (LPSD), was sentenced to five years in prison. Though nonprofit organizations are exempt from paying corporate taxes in Vietnam, the tax law pertaining to NGOs receiving funds from international donors are particularly vague and restrictive, according to the Observatory. The organizations of the activists and the Vietnam Committee on Human Rights believe that the arrests were triggered by their promotion of civil society’s role in monitoring the European Union-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement that came into force in 2021, the Observatory said.  Both Loi and Bach were executive board members of VNGO-EVFTA Network, a group of seven development and environmental CSOs set up in November 2020 to raise awareness about the FTA and its civil society element, known as the Vietnam Domestic Advisory Group. After the organizations, including MEC and LPSD, submitted applications for membership in the advisory group, Loi and Bach were arrested in early July 2021. The Observatory, a partnership of the FIDH and the World Organisation Against Torture, called on Vietnamese authorities to guarantee the well-being of Khanh and the other activists, and to immediately and unconditionally release them. “The Observatory strongly condemns the judicial harassment and arbitrary detention of Nguy Thi Khanh, Dang Dinh Bach, Bach Hung Duong, and Mai Phan Loi, as it seems to be only aimed at punishing them for their legitimate environmental and human rights activities,” the organization’s statement said. The organization also demanded that authorities stop harassing activists and human rights defenders in Vietnam, including through the court system, and ensure they can exercise their rights as citizens without any fear of reprisal. A man works in a coal yard in Hanoi, Vietnam, Nov. 9, 2021. Credit: AFP ‘Silencing those who dare to speak’ The charges against the four environmental rights defenders have raised questions about the Vietnamese government’s commitment to protect the environment at the United Nations Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, in November 2021. U.S. Special Presidential Climate Envoy John Kerry and his European Union counterpart, Frans Timmermans, have also called for the release of Nguy Thi Khanh and the other climate activists. A Politico report on June 26 said those calls risk derailing a deal to shift Vietnam off coal, but doing nothing would risk criticism from civil society groups that oppose helping finance climate action in countries that jail activists.  In April, the Group of Seven, a political forum that includes, the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Japan, agreed on a plan to help Vietnam, the world’s ninth largest coal-consuming nation, reach its carbon emission goals.  The Politico article quoted Saskia Bricmont, a Belgian member of the European Parliament, as saying that the tax evasion allegations against the activists were “not credible” and were “clearly a deception.”   Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam said at a regular press briefing on June 23 that Khanh had been investigated and prosecuted for economic crimes, specifically violating the provisions of the law on tax administration, and that she admitted to tax evasion. “Some speculations that Nguy Thi Khanh is being criminally handled for her activities and opinions related to climate change are baseless and not true to the nature of the case,” a spokesman said.    Responding to the ministry’s statements, a person who used to work with the Alliance for the Prevention of Non-Communicable Diseases of Vietnam — a group to which the NGOs affiliated with the sentenced activists belonged — said the environmentalists had been wrongly imprisoned.  “The arrest of environmental activists aims at silencing those who dare to speak out and stands in the way of the authorities,” said the source who declined to be named for safety...
- [Will Southeast Asia support Russia’s war with semiconductor exports?](https://ij-reportika.com/will-southeast-asia-support-russias-war-with-semiconductor-exports/): Despite the efforts of Indonesian President Joko &#8220;Jokowi&#8221; Widodo, the war in Ukraine continues. Whether governments in Southeast Asia are willing to admit it or not, the war matters, as it threatens the liberal international order, creates a dangerous precedent for other aggressor states, and harms the fragile post-pandemic economic recovery by causing inflationary pressures in energy and food. Southeast Asian states, apart from Singapore, have eschewed sanctions and continue to trade with Russia. But as the war drags on, that will have consequences in terms of secondary sanctions and other penalties imposed by the west. Russian supply chains run through Southeast Asia, and the United States and other western governments are have made the targeting of Russian sanctions evasion operations a top priority. One area where Southeast Asian actors may be tempted into sanctions evasion – or where, conversely, they could help pressure Russia economically – is in the export of semiconductors. A Protracted War Initially, Ukrainian forces successfully repelled the Russian invasion near the capital Kyiv and other cities in the north. Now, the Russians have advanced in the east and south, where the flat terrain favors the offense and provides little security for the defense. Tens of thousands of soldiers and over 4,500 civilians have been killed in 120 days of fighting. The United States estimates that the Ukrainians are losing 100 to 200 men a day. Cities, such as Mariupol, have been leveled by artillery fire and depopulated. Mass graves are being discovered, and the evidence of Russian war crimes is mounting. While Ukrainians are maintaining the will to fight, the costs are rising. Indonesian President Joko &#8216;Jokowi&#8217; Widodo visits an apartment complex destroyed by Russian airstrikes in Irpin, Ukraine, June 29, 2022. Credit: Handout/Press Bureau of the Indonesian Presidential Secretariat Trying to Weather the Economic Storm The initial shock of sanctions on the Russian economy has been stemmed. The ruble has not only recovered after its initial drop, but, buoyed by $150 million a day in oil and gas exports, it’s stronger than before the war began. Indeed, according to a recent report in The New York Times, in the first 100 days after the invasion, Russia netted $98 billion. Nonetheless, on June 26, Russia defaulted on $100 million in sovereign debt. While the economy reeled from the immediate or planned departure of about 1,000 western firms, over half of the 300 Asian firms have remained and continue to do business.  Where Russia is going to start to feel the economic pinch is in its manufacturing sector, as it is highly dependent on the import of inputs such as European machine tools and Asian semiconductors. Though Russia has five foundries, they produce very low quality products and Moscow is highly dependent on imports. In 2020, Russia imported nearly $1.5 billion in semiconductors. The largest producers of high-end circuitry, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and most importantly Taiwan, remain firmly committed to the sanctions regime. But firms in China and Southeast Asia may try to fill those critical supply chains for Moscow. In 2020, China accounted for one-third of Russian semiconductor imports. Since the Russian invasion, China has complied with international sanctions, for fear of secondary sanctions and the loss of market access. But diplomatically, China remains firmly in Russia’s camp, and continues to espouse the Russian justification for and narrative of the war. President Xi Jinping stated that there are “no limits” on the bilateral relationship and no “forbidden” areas of cooperation, suggesting frustration with western sanctions. On June 29, the U.S. Treasury department added five Chinese electronics manufacturers to an export blacklist, which will deny them the ability to sell in the U.S. market, for their sales to Russian military industries. This should have a chilling effect on other Chinese suppliers. Southeast Asia’s Role in Moscow’s Supply Chain In 2020, Malaysia exported some $280 million worth of semiconductors to Russia, making it the second largest source after China, according to the Financial Times. The Philippines and Thailand exported over $60 million each; Singapore exported roughly $10 million. In all, Southeast Asia accounted for nearly a third of Russian semiconductors. Malaysia has already been called out for announcing their intentions to sell semiconductors to Russia as part of their policy of “strategic neutrality.” On April 23, the South China Morning Post reported that the Malaysian ambassador to Moscow told state-owned media that Malaysia would “consider any request” and continue their exports to Russia. Malaysian manufacturers were warned that they could face secondary sanctions and loss of market access, threatening future investment in a nearly $9 billion export market. Similar warnings were made to manufacturers in the Philippines and Thailand. Although Vietnam remains close to Russia, its semiconductor manufacturing is directly controlled by foreign investors. Intel, which is amongst the most prestigious foreign investors in the country, made an additional $475 million investment in 2021; bringing their total investment to $1.5 billion. As companies continue to decouple from China, Vietnam is eager to increase high-tech manufacturing and is cognizant of the costs of trying to evade sanctions on Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Indonesian President Joko &#8216;Jokowi&#8217; Widodo at the Kremlin in Moscow, June 30, 2022. Credit: Sputnik via Reuters Evading Sanctions But Russia is desperate to revive its manufacturing and, as the war drags on, it will try to get countries to evade sanctions and/or use straw purchasers. Countries including Indonesia that are hard-hit from soaring energy prices have already looked to Russia for below market energy supplies. Jokowi’s trip to Moscow and his defiant willingness to include President Putin at the G-20 summit in Indonesia in November, are clearly intended to curry favor with Moscow for narrow economic gain. Indonesia’s leadership seems unable to grasp the fact that soaring food and energy prices that are hitting the public so hard have been caused by Russia’s illegal war of aggression. And sadly they are not alone in Southeast Asia, where the governments continue to view the war in Ukraine as a remote European crisis that doesn’t impact them or have other geo-strategic implications for the region. Southeast Asian countries can profess their neutrality,...
- [Thai prime minister downplays Myanmar aircraft entering nation’s airspace](https://ij-reportika.com/thai-prime-minister-downplays-myanmar-aircraft-entering-nations-airspace/): Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha and the Royal Thai Air Force chief on Friday played down a brief incursion by a Burmese fighter jet into the nation’s airspace amid fierce fighting across the border, saying Myanmar and Thailand have “a good relationship.” Thailand’s air force scrambled two F-16 fighter jets to its northwestern border on Thursday after radar captured a Myanmar air force jet briefly violating Thai airspace during an aerial assault against Karen rebels, according to an air force statement that day. It also said Myanmar helicopters were detected in the area but did not appear to enter Thai airspace. “[They] admitted it and apologized. No intention, no determination so,” Prayuth said Friday, adding that the jet turned and overshot into Thailand. “We scrambled our aircraft to warn him as standard operating procedure. Today the military envoys have talked, and they apologized. “It looks like a big deal but it’s up to us to not make a mountain out of a mole hill – we have a good relationship.” Meanwhile, Thai Air Chief Marshal Napadej Thupatemi said he was irate over the incursion, but it was inadvertent. “I tell you frankly, like you, I was irate too, perhaps even more than you people. But we have contacted top commanders of Myanmar forces, asking them be mindful about their operation,” he said. “In air defense, there are three steps – identify friend or foe, intercept, and destroy if necessary,” he said. “Bear in mind, Myanmar is a friend. If a friend inadvertently trespasses our turf and we shoot him dead, that is way too excessive.” Fierce clashes The incursion occurred a day after Myanmar’s junta chief, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, hosted a delegation headed by Lt. Gen. Apichet Suesat of the Royal Thai Army in Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw for the 34th meeting of the Thailand-Myanmar Regional Border Committee, according to a report by the official Global New Light of Myanmar. The two sides discussed ways to strengthen cooperation between defense forces and anti-terrorism measures to improve stability along the border, the report said. Days of fierce clashes between Myanmar’s military and anti-junta forces in Kayin state have left more than a dozen anti-junta fighters dead and several wounded on both sides of the conflict, sources in the region said Thursday. The fighting began on June 26 when pro-democracy People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries and fighters with the ethnic Karen National Defense Organization/Karen National Liberation Army (KNDO/KNLA) launched a joint attack on a military outpost near Myawaddy township’s Ukrithta village, according to a report by the pro-military Myawaddy newspaper. The attack prompted a military retaliation that included artillery fire and airstrikes, and more junta troops were being deployed to the area, the report said. A rebel officer said junta jets were attacking positions in the area “nine or ten times a day.” About 200 residents of Myanmar fled across the border into Tak province on Wednesday, and two injured Burmese civilians were treated in Phob Phra district, local Thai officials said. Border communities Thai border communities have been affected by intermittent fighting in neighboring Myanmar since the 2021 coup, and in previous clashes between rebel groups and the Burmese government. A Karen source in Tak province’s Mae Sot district said more than 1,000 Karen refugees who fled the current conflict were still in Thailand. Southeast Asian countries have been criticized for not doing more to pressure Myanmar to return to democracy after the military coup in Feb. 2021 that ousted an elected government, and amid a brutal campaign to suppress protesters and armed opposition to the junta since then. A “five-point consensus” agreed by the 10-member regional bloc ASEAN in April 2020 to put Myanmar on the road to democracy was never enacted, in part, critics say, because the bloc operates by consensus and includes authoritarian governments that remain friendly with the junta. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.
- [New entreaty by ASEAN envoy to meet Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi](https://ij-reportika.com/new-entreaty-by-asean-envoy-to-meet-myanmars-aung-san-suu-kyi/): The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Special Envoy to Myanmar has again requested that the junta let him speak with detained opposition chief Aung San Suu Kyi, amid criticism that his mission to resolve the country’s political crisis will be fruitless without meeting all stakeholders. ASEAN Special Envoy Prak Sokhonn held talks on Friday with representatives of seven ethnic armed groups in the capital Naypyidaw on the third day of his second visit to Myanmar since assuming his role with the bloc. Leaders of the armed groups told RFA Burmese that during the two-hour meeting Prak Sokhonn explained that he is working to achieve three goals: a dialogue on conflict resolution with all stakeholders, a nationwide ceasefire, and providing humanitarian assistance to those in need. He also told the groups that he wants to meet with the head of the deposed National League for Democracy (NLD) Aung San Suu Kyi, but that doing so “is very difficult,” they said. Nai Aung Ma-ngay, a spokesman for the New Mon State Party (NMSP), an opposition party that signed the Myanmar government’s nationwide ceasefire agreement in 2018, told RFA that the ASEAN envoy claimed to have asked for a meeting “with those whom he deserved to meet” during talks with junta leader Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing on Thursday. “He said he is trying his best on the prison issue. He said he met with the [junta] chairman yesterday and talked about these issues. He said they also talked about a dialogue,” the NMSP spokesman said. “Regarding the matter of Aung San Suu Kyi behind prison walls, he told us today ‘it is very difficult’ and ‘will take a lot of time.’” Nai Aung Ma-ngay noted that during Prak Sokhonn was also denied access to Suu Kyi by the junta during first visit to Myanmar as special envoy in March. “He said he is still trying and that he has about six months left in his current role [before the ASEAN chair rotates at the end of the year],” the NMSP spokesman said. “He told us that he would try to find a way to do it before his tenure ends.” During an emergency meeting on the situation in Myanmar in April 2021, Min Aung Hlaing had agreed to a so-called Five-Point Consensus to end violence in the country, which included meeting with all stakeholders to resolve the political crisis, but has failed to keep that promise. Observers say that peace cannot be achieved without including the NLD leadership and other powerbrokers in the process. In addition to the NMSP, the ethnic armed groups that met with Prak Sokhonn on Friday included the Shan State Reconstruction Council (RCSS), Democratic Karen Army (DKBA), Arakan State Liberation Party (ALP), Karen National Peace Council (KNLA/PC), Lahu Democratic Union (LDU) and Pa-O National Liberation Organization (PNLO). All seven are among groups that have signed a Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) with the government since 2015. Saw Mra Yazarlin, vice-chairwoman of the ALP, told RFA that Prak Sokhonn also asked the groups for their thoughts on who else should be included in talks aimed at resolving the country’s political stalemate. “Some answered him, saying representatives of the government, parliament, and [military],” she said. “[But there also] must be all political parties, and all ethnic armed groups, and civil society organizations, and other stakeholders included. Our side told him such a situation is necessary.” National League for Democracy party leader Aung San Suu Kyi, in a file photo. Credit: AFP ‘No one is above the law’ Prior to Prak Sokhonn’s ongoing five-day trip, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen — whose nation holds the chair of ASEAN — and the special envoy had requested that he meet with Suu Kyi and NLD president Win Myint but were refused by the junta. The pair are among several NLD officials who were arrested in the immediate aftermath of the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup and face multiple charges widely viewed as politically motivated. Prak Sokhonn has also requested that Suu Kyi be returned to her original place of detention after she was transferred last week to a Naypyidaw prison, prompting concern for the 77-year-old’s well-being due to poor conditions and lack of access to health care at the facility. That request was denied Friday by junta Deputy Minister of Information Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, who told a press conference that “no one is above the law,” and said special arrangements had been made to provide Suu Kyi “with proper food and healthcare needs.” Multiple attempts by RFA to contact Zaw Min Tun for comment on Prak Sokhonn’s visit went unanswered Friday. Earlier this week, the junta spokesman said that “those facing trials” will not be allowed to meet with the ASEAN envoy, adding that the military regime is “working with certain groups” to end the conflict in Myanmar, which has claimed the lives of 2,053 civilians since the coup, according to Bangkok-based NGO Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. The military has said it plans to allow the envoy meet with “some NLD members” during his visit but has not specified who they are. When asked on Wednesday who will hold talks with Prak Sokhonn, NLD central working committee member Kyaw Htwe said he could not comment on the matter. No solution likely Speaking to RFA, Naing Htoo Aung, permanent secretary of the shadow National Unity Government’s (NUG) Ministry of Defense, described Friday’s talks as “a sham,” and said they won’t produce a practical solution to the political crisis in Myanmar. “It is very important that all those who deserve to be involved in the talks are involved,” he said. “A sham political dialogue is not a solution to the country’s political and armed conflict, and such talks could have more negative consequences.” Ye Tun, a Myanmar-based political analyst, said that Friday’s meeting failed to include armed groups fighting junta forces in Kayin, Kachin, Chin, and Kayah states, and Sagaing and Magway regions, and that therefore it would do little to...
- [Chinese fans clash with rights protesters at basketball game in Australia](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-fans-clash-with-rights-protesters-at-basketball-game-in-australia/): Chinese fans clashed with human rights protesters at a basketball game between China and Australia on Thursday in Melbourne, at a time when the two countries are trying to ease a number of policy disputes. During the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) World Cup qualifier, activist Max Mok, a Hongkonger-Australian, was shoved by a Chinese fan as the activist shouted, “free East Turkestan,” a reference to Uyghurs in China&#8217;s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and “Hong Kong independence” during the game. The incident was captured by a cell phone video and posted on social media. Mok also was holding a sign demanding the release of Mirzat Taher, an Australian-Uyghur who was sentenced to 25 years in prison in China in April 2021. The sign showed a picture of Mirzat created by Chinese dissident artist and political cartoonist Badiuca, who is based in Australia. Mirzat, a permanent resident of Australian, married Australian-born Mehray Mezensof of Melbourne in Xinjiang in August 2016. A year later, the couple was going to fly to Australia to live, but police detained Mirzat two days before their scheduled departure. Authorities have detained Mirzat two other times since then. Australian political activist Drew Pavlou, who has spoken out against the Chinese government and Chinese Communist Party over their policies on Hongkongers, Tibetans and Uyghurs, attended the game and alleged that security guards dragged him down a flight of stairs, as captured on a cell phone image and posted on Twitter. “Security didn’t take any action against this violent attacker but they did drag me backwards down a flight of stairs for holding signs supporting Australian political prisoners in China and calling for an end to Uyghur Genocide,” Pavlou tweeted. The United States and the legislatures of some Western countries have issued determinations that China’s maltreatment of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang constitutes a genocide and crimes against humanity. Beijing has angrily denied accusations of severe rights abuses in the region. Another protester displayed the flag of Tibet, which is banned in China because it considers the western region to be part of the country. Security personnel said they removed seven people involved in the incidents from the arena and that no one was physically hurt, according to local news reports. More than 8,100 spectators were in attendance at John Cain Arena. The Australian team won the game 76-69 and is now 4-0 in its qualifiers. The incident came about a week after Xiao Qian, who was appointed China’s ambassador to Australia in January, was hectored by human rights protesters during a speech about improving relations between Beijing and Canberra under the new Labor government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. “The recent years our relationship has been a difficult period, nonetheless, China’s policy of friendship towards Australia remains unchanged,” Qian said during his speech at the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney on June 24. “Looking into the future, China and Australia relations enjoy great potential for cooperation and bright prospects.”  The human rights demonstrators interrupted the event several times to criticize Chinese government policies in Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang. They were escorted from the event.
- [Junta troops kill 9 unarmed civilians, including 4 teens, in war-torn Sagaing region](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-troops-kill-9-unarmed-civilians-including-4-teens-in-war-torn-sagaing-region/): Junta troops in Myanmar’s embattled Sagaing region captured and killed nine unarmed civilians, including four teenagers, as they traveled to receive medical training, according to an official from their group and a family member of one of the victims. The nine medics with the Wetlet township branch of the Generation Z Special Task Force, an organization aligned with the anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary group, were detained by the military, and shot dead on Wednesday near Shwebo township’s Kunseik village while enroute to southeastern Sagaing’s Ayadaw township, some 60 kilometers (37 miles) away. A spokesman for the Generation Z Special Task Force told RFA Burmese that those killed included four women: Pa Pa Khine, 14, Win Ei Kyaw, 15, Naing Naing Aung, 24, and Thit Thit Hlaing, 34; and five men: Pho Htaung, 17, Phone Kyaw, 17, Thein Than Oo, 21, Aung Kyaw Moe, 27, and Pho Nyein, 27. The spokesman, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that his group confirmed the identities of the victims after obtaining photos of the slaughter. “They didn’t have any weapons on them. They were going for medical training in an area where there was no fighting,” he said. “We sent for them after notifying our allied groups as there were no military activities around here [and could safely return]. We have no idea how they got captured. We heard about some arrests [on Wednesday] and only [on Thursday], when we saw the photos, did we realize they were our team members.” The mother of one victim said she was devastated by the news that her daughter and her friends were killed at such a young age. “She wanted to do this, even though she was so young. She always said that she wanted to have a role she could play,” said the victim’s mother, who also declined to be named. “Now that this has happened, I’m heartbroken. I’m so numb and I feel like I have nothing inside.” The junta has yet to comment on the incident and calls by RFA to junta deputy information minister, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, went unanswered on Thursday. The Generation Z Special Task Force said it will work to obtain justice for the families of the victims of the extrajudicial killings and to bring international attention to the incident with the help of Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government. According to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, security forces have killed at least 2,053 civilians since the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup, although the group acknowledges its records are incomplete and says the real number of deaths is likely much higher. Last month, the Institute for Strategy and Policy (ISP), a local think tank, said in a report that it had documented at least 5,646 civilian deaths in Myanmar between the coup and May 10. The ISP figure included people killed by security forces during anti-junta protests, in clashes between the military and pro-democracy paramilitaries or ethnic armies, while held in detention, and in revenge attacks, including against informers for the regime. At least 1,831 civilians were killed in shooting deaths, the largest number of which occurred in Sagaing region, where junta troops have faced some of the toughest resistance to military rule in clashes with the PDF paramilitaries that have displaced tens of thousands of residents since the coup, the ISP report said. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Will the people of Hong Kong ever run their own city again?](https://ij-reportika.com/will-the-people-of-hong-kong-ever-run-their-own-city-again/): On June 30, 1997, pro-democracy members held the majority seats on Hong Kong&#8217;s Legislative Council (LegCo), the result of the city&#8217;s first fully democratic general election in 1995, under political reforms brought in at the 11th hour of British rule by then colonial governor Chris Patten. By the following day &#8212; the first under Chinese rule &#8212; the 1995 LegCo had been swept aside in favor of a China-backed &#8220;provisional LegCo,&#8221; packed with members viewed more favorably by Beijing. Twenty-five years after the handover, the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has rewritten the rules to ensure that only those it deems &#8220;patriots&#8221; can stand as candidates. The current LegCo &#8212; elected earlier this year under the new rules &#8212; now has no openly pro-democracy members at all. And while the city&#8217;s Basic Law &#8212; endorsed by the CCP &#8212; promised direct, popular elections for the city&#8217;s chief executive by 2017, incoming chief executive John Lee was selected by a Beijing-backed committee in a &#8220;perfected&#8221; election in which he was the only candidate. Meanwhile, dozens who once served as pro-democracy lawmakers are now behind bars, accused under a draconian national security law of &#8220;subversion&#8221; after they took part in a democratic primary in 2020. The lack of democratic participation in post-handover Hong Kong isn&#8217;t for want of trying. From a mass march in 2002 against national security laws, to a 2012 campaign against CCP propaganda in schools, to the 2014 Occupy Central, or Umbrella Movement, Hong Kongers have mobilized in their thousands, hundreds of thousands and millions to demand an end to the erosion of their traditional freedoms and that promises of autonomy and more democracy made before the handover be kept. Riot police launch tear gas into the crowd as thousands of protesters surround the government headquarters in Hong Kong, Sept. 28, 2014. Credit: AP Photo Extradition law protests draw brutal response In 2019, mass protests of one and two million erupted in response to then chief executive Carrie Lam&#8217;s plan to allow extradition of alleged criminal suspects to face trial in mainland Chinese courts. Mass public anger over a brutal response to these protests spurred the movement further, which broadened to include demands for fully democratic elections, police and government accountability, and an amnesty for Hong Kong&#8217;s growing number of political prisoners. As protesters started to fight back against police tear gas, water cannon, live ammunition and rubber bullets with Molotov cocktails and bricks, not everyone was on board with a departure from peaceful resistance and civil disobedience. But the District Council elections of November 2019 resulted in huge turnout and a sweeping majority for pro-democracy candidates across the board, among them many who had been expelled from LegCo for not being patriotic enough in the years before the national security law criminalized public dissent. By March 2021, China&#8217;s National People&#8217;s Congress (NPC) had voted to change Hong Kong&#8217;s electoral system to ensure that only vetted candidates approved by a Beijing-picked committee and cleared by the city&#8217;s newly installed national security police could run for or hold any kind of public office. The NPC announced that China would be &#8220;taking full political control&#8221; of Hong Kong, and that only patriots would be allowed to run for office. Riot police fire tear gas during the anti-extradition bill protest in Hong Kong, Aug. 11, 2019. Credit: AP Photo Meanwhile, the arrests of outspoken journalists and the closure of pro-democracy media outlets and civil society groups continued under the national security law. On July 1, 2019, protesters broke into and vandalized the LegCo chamber to protest plans to allow extradition to mainland China. Now, the building has been refurbished and the Chinese national emblem added to the wall. The 90-seat expanded chamber is no longer the scene of lively political debate, and only 20 seats are returned by public vote. &#8220;The whole basis on which we do politics has changed,&#8221; Bruce Liu of the pro-democracy Association for Democracy and People&#8217;s Livelihood (ADPL) told RFA. &#8220;Political development has been uneven since the handover, with ups and downs, like the wind and waves.&#8221; &#8220;It&#8217;s like a circle game that always ends up back where it started,&#8221; Liu said, adding that his party now no longer seeks seats in LegCo, preferring to focus on social welfare and constituency clinics instead. Police detain protesters after a protest in Causeway Bay before the annual handover march in Hong Kong, July 1, 2020. Credit: AP Photo Exile or prison Tik Chi-yuan, who represents the social welfare sector in LegCo and who holds one of the few seats still elected by individuals rather than block voting by organizations, said the CCP sees Hong Kong as a security risk. &#8220;The central government in Beijing perceives some kind of threat to its security calculus,&#8221; Tik &#8212; who describes himself as a &#8220;non-establishment&#8221; LegCo member told RFA. &#8220;I think we need to look to the future now. The Basic Law promised democratic elections, so we should take that as our goal. It&#8217;s a process.&#8221; With most of the former political opposition either behind bars or in exile, the younger generation who grew up protesting have also disappeared from public view, many to escape becoming Hong Kong&#8217;s next political prisoner. Former student leader Law Cheuk Yiu said he left for the U.K. out of fear for his personal safety. &#8220;When the situation started to look truly bleak, I decided to leave,&#8221; he said, recalling a relatively liberal political atmosphere in the years immediately following the handover. &#8220;Things have changed since those early years: they won&#8217;t ever go back to the way they were then,&#8221; Law said. &#8220;Nowadays, anyone with a dissenting opinion is totally suppressed, basically.&#8221; For Law&#8217;s generation of Hong Kongers born and raised after the handover the past few years have left them facing a crisis of identity &#8212; whether they try to live under the national security law or seek a freer life overseas, as an estimated 140,000 have already done. &#8220;Our generation knows only too well that China...
- [Vietnam sentences 5 soldiers for beating death of platoonmate](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-sentences-5-soldiers-for-beating-death-of-platoonmate/): A military court in Vietnam’s central region sentenced five soldiers to a total of 41 years in prison on charges of causing the death of another soldier last year, a punishment the victim’s bereaved father said was too light. Nguyen Van Thien, born in 1998 in central Vietnam’s Gia Lai province, began his mandatory military service in February 2020 and was just one month shy of finishing his two-year stint when he was found dead in a barracks bathroom last November. “Five people have been jailed, but the sentencing was not right,” Nguyen Van Lam, Thien’s father, told RFA’s Vietnamese Service. According to the investigation, the object that struck Nguyen Van Thein’s head and caused his death was a five-liter plastic pail. The defendant who was holding the pail when the death occurred claimed the death was an accident. “The plastic pail is too light to kill anyone,” Lam said. “The defendants described their positions when the killing happened, but it did not sound right. According to the lawyers, it was impossible to use a light plastic pail to cause someone’s death. So, we are not sure of the cause of death or who the killer is.” Four of the defendants were in the same platoon as Thien. Ksor Dim and Rmah Tuy were both sentenced to seven years, while Nguyen Dinh Tam, who was said to have been the main culprit, and Tran Van Mao, who stuck Thien in the head with the plastic pail, received nine-and-a-half year sentences. Squad leader Tran Duc Loi, meanwhile, got eight years. According to the military procuracy’s report issued on April 25th, 2022, three soldiers, Nguyen Van Thien, Huynh Van Trung and Nguyen Van Hung went out for drinks at 3 p.m. on Nov. 29, 2021. Their platoon leader discovered their absence after a roll call later in the day, and the platoon began searching for them. At about 7 p.m. Nguyen Dinh Tam and the three other defendants in the platoon discussed what punishments they could face because of Thien, Trung and Hung. According to the court, Nguyen Dinh Tam persuaded the others to beat the three absent soldiers for revenge. At 9 p.m., while in bed, Thien was called to the bathroom and beaten by the five defendants until he fell unconscious.  The defendants said that they tried to wake him up but could not, so they returned to their bunks thinking that Thien had blacked out because he had drunk too much. A moment later, another soldier passed by the bathroom and found Thien lying on the ground with foam in his mouth. He called for help, but Thien was pronounced dead on the way to the hospital. During the trial, a representative of the Gia Lai military command told Thein’s family that the bruises on his body were from autopsy cuts and because he fell, not because he was engaged in a fight. Vietnamese state media has not reported on the trial. Le Xuan Anh Phu, the lawyer who represented the victim, told RFA that according to the procuracy’s report, defendant Tran Van Mao was the one who hit Thien’s head with the plastic pail, causing him to fall. At the trial, however, Mao said he slipped and fell and that the pail had hit Thien’s head by accident. Phu said he requested another investigation because of discrepancies in the defendants’ statements and because he believes a five-liter plastic pail is too light to cause a serious head injury. But the request was denied. “They did not reenact the whole scene. They just examined the scene and then the prosecutors argued that there were many witnesses of the beating, and the defendants testified the same,” Phu said. “They concluded that they have enough evidence,” he said. “We argued that we need to reenact the whole scene to have a more convincing investigation and to satisfy the bereaved family.” Additionally, the five-liter pail shown in the courtroom was not the actual pail that struck Thien because investigators could not find the actual pail Mao allegedly used. Representatives of Gia Lai military command told the court that they have disciplined more than 20 people in this case but did not elaborate on the details.  Phu, the attorney, said that military policy allowing other soldiers to discipline their colleagues indirectly led to Nguyen Van Thien&#8217;s death. He said that the policy needs to be reviewed.  The victim’s father told RFA that the family will appeal the court’s verdict in an attempt to discover the real cause of his son’s death and determine who the real killer is.  Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Taiwan hits out at Hong Kong's vanishing freedoms, vows to protect its sovereignty](https://ij-reportika.com/taiwan-hits-out-at-hong-kongs-vanishing-freedoms-vows-to-protect-its-sovereignty/): Democratic Taiwan on Friday said freedom had &#8220;vanished&#8221; in Hong Kong, as concerns were raised internationally over a political crackdown in the city after just 25 years of Chinese rule. &#8220;It&#8217;s only been 25 years, and in the past the promise was 50 years of no change,&#8221; Taiwan&#8217;s premier Su Tseng-chang told journalists as Hong Kong marked the 25th anniversary of the 1997 handover to Chinese rule. &#8220;Freedom and democracy have vanished,&#8221; he said, adding that Taiwan, which made a peaceful democratic transition in the 1990s after decades of authoritarian rule under the Kuomintang (KMT), must protect its own way of life in the face of Chinese territorial claims. &#8220;We also know that we must hold fast to Taiwan&#8217;s sovereignty, freedom and democracy,&#8221; Su said, in a reference to Beijing&#8217;s insistence that the island &#8220;unify&#8221; with China, despite never having been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and despite widespread public opposition to the idea. &#8220;China&#8217;s so-called &#8216;one country, two systems&#8217; has simply not stood up to the test,&#8221; Su said of the arrangement touted by Beijing as a success in Hong Kong, and as a possible pathway to a takeover of Taiwan. Taiwan&#8217;s Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said CCP rule had led to the end of freedom and democracy in Hong Kong. In a statement, the council hit out at China&#8217;s imposition of a draconian national security law &#8220;to govern Hong Kong in a coercive manner, restrict the basic human rights of Hong Kong’s people, and to imprison democracy advocates, silencing the news media and prompting the collapse of civil society.&#8221; It also said recent changes to the city&#8217;s electoral system to ensure only &#8220;patriots&#8221; can hold public office &#8220;is even more contrary to goal of universal suffrage and the expectations of Hong Kong citizens.&#8221; &#8220;Democracy, human rights, freedom, and rule of law have seriously regressed in Hong Kong, compared with 25 years ago,&#8221; the MAC said, dismissing Beijing&#8217;s claims that the pro-democracy movement had been instigated by foreign governments. &#8220;Taiwan adheres to a free, democratic and constitutional government, that the Republic of China and the People&#8217;s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other, that sovereignty cannot be invaded and annexed, and that the future of the Republic of China and Taiwan must be decided by the people of Taiwan,&#8221; the statement said. &#8220;Taiwan will continue to safeguard universal values, democratic systems and ways of life, stand side by side with the international community, and firmly defend democracy,&#8221; it said. The statements from Taipei came after CCP leader Xi Jinping used the phrase &#8220;one country, two systems&#8221; more than 20 times during his speech on Friday marking the 25th anniversary of Chinese rule over Hong Kong, saying China&#8217;s tougher political grip on the city in the wake of the 2019 protest movement had enabled it to &#8220;rise again from the ashes.&#8221; MAC spokesman Chiu Chui-cheng called on China not to keep deceiving itself about the success of its policies in Hong Kong. &#8220;We solemnly urge [Beijing] to give the people back the democracy, freedoms and human rights that are their due,&#8221; Chiu said. Taiwanese political scientist Wu Rwei-ren said Xi wants to package the 25th anniversary as a kind of second handover. &#8220;The legal basis for one country, two systems was the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration [setting out the terms of the handover],&#8221; Wu told RFA. &#8220;By 2014, Xi Jinping&#8217;s regime had declared that it wouldn&#8217;t recognize [the treaty], saying it was a historical document with no meaning,&#8221; he said. &#8220;In this way, they redefined one country, two systems as a purely internal concept.&#8221; &#8220;The basis for [Hong Kong&#8217;s economic and social] achievements was the original political system, which has been destroyed by Xi Jinping,&#8221; Wu said. &#8220;He&#8217;s now saying that all sources of chaos have been eradicated, Hong Kong has returned to stability, and that everyone can start working hard to improve the economy,&#8221; he said. &#8220;But the institutional basis for that has been destroyed.&#8221; Wu said even the Taiwanese business community, which has typically been happy to overlook the CCP&#8217;s worst failings in the pursuit of greater profits, is now getting out of China and Hong Kong. &#8220;This isn&#8217;t about ideology; it&#8217;s about the very practical aspects of money,&#8221; Wu said. &#8220;These people were once more enthusiastic about making money than they were about their own country.&#8221; &#8220;They invested huge amounts in China because it was profitable, but now, faced with various deteriorating factors, they are getting out of China fast,&#8221; he said. Meanwhile, invitations were circulating overseas for people to attend a &#8220;Funeral for Hong Kong&#8217;s Lost Freedoms&#8221; in cities across the U.S., including New York, Washington and San Francisco. Hong Kong protest rallies were also planned in the U.K., Canada and Japan. A participant at the New York rally who gave only the nickname A Wai said the protest was over the CCP&#8217;s failure to deliver on its promises. &#8220;We&#8217;re only halfway through the 50 years during which Hong Kong was supposedly not going to change, and everyone can now see through the lie that is one country, two systems,&#8221; A Wai told RFA. &#8220;That&#8217;s why we chose July 1 to stand up &#8230; Hong Kong people are still angry about the crackdowns on protesters on June 12, 2019, July 21, 2019 and Aug. 31, 2019, and we can express all of that on July 1,&#8221; he said. Former 2014 Occupy Central leader Alex Chow said everyone will be wearing black &#8212; the color of the 2019 protest movements, but also the color of mourning in some cultures &#8212; and that protesters would lay funeral wreaths to signal the death of Hong Kong&#8217;s freedoms. &#8220;The situation in Hong Kong and the mainland is full of turmoil and tears,&#8221; Chow told RFA. &#8220;Behind the facade of prosperity, there is a lot of political in-fighting, and Hong Kong is one of the places where sacrifices are being made.&#8221; &#8220;That&#8217;s why Hong Kongers overseas who have enough freedom to do so &#8230; feel the...
- [Hong Kong’s last hand-painted porcelain factory carries on the tradition](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kongs-last-hand-painted-porcelain-factory-carries-on-the-tradition/): Step into Yuet Tung China Works, Hong Kong’s last remaining hand-painted porcelain factory, and you find yourself surrounded by stacks of dinnerware, each piece painstakingly decorated by hand with vibrant motifs of flowers, fruits and animals. Joseph Tso, the third-generation owner of the factory, and his small team are among the few people in Hong Kong who have mastered the traditional technique of painting “guangcai,” or Canton porcelain. It is a fading art in this modern metropolis, as fewer young people are willing to put in the time and effort required to master the craft or to work at the factory full-time. “The business environment in Hong Kong is not suitable for labor-intensive industries,” Tso said. “Hong Kong’s traditional handicraft industry is gradually declining. It will eventually disappear.” Guangcai, which comes from the nearby Chinese city of Guangzhou, is characterized by an overglaze technique in which the painter sketches a design on white porcelain and then fills it in with color using thin brushes before firing the piece in a kiln. Tso’s grandfather established the factory in Hong Kong’s Kowloon City in 1928. It rose to prominence over the years, becoming famous for its delicate craftsmanship and custom dinnerware.
- ['Hong Kong must not become chaotic again,' China's Xi warns on handover anniversary](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-must-not-become-chaotic-again-chinas-xi-warns-on-handover-anniversary/): Chinese leader Xi Jinping swore in a new, security-focused government in Hong Kong on Friday, 25 years after Britain handed the city back to China, saying the current arrangements &#8212; which have seen a citywide crackdown on peaceful dissent and political opposition &#8212; are here to stay. &#8220;For this kind of good system, there is no reason at all to change it. It must be maintained over the long term,&#8221; Xi said in a speech at the inauguration ceremony. &#8220;After experiencing wind and rain, everyone can painfully feel that Hong Kong cannot be chaotic, and must not become chaotic again &#8230; Hong Kong’s development cannot be delayed again, and any interference must be eliminated,&#8221; Xi said. &#8220;Power must be in the hands of patriots,&#8221; Xi said. &#8220;No country or region in the world will allow unpatriotic or even traitorous or treasonous forces and figures to hold power.&#8221; &#8220;In the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, power is firmly in the hands of patriots, which is an inevitable requirement to ensure long-term stability in Hong Kong, and it will be unshakable,&#8221; he said. Xi also swore in former security chief and ex-cop John Lee, who has been sanctioned by the United States for his role in implementing the national security law, as chief executive. Police outside ran a massive security operation that included no-sail and no-fly zones, as well as roadblocks around the Convention and Exhibition Centre where Xi gave his speech. Xi&#8217;s defense of Chinese rule in Hong Kong came after British prime minister Boris Johnson and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Beijing of failing to meet its handover commitments. China&#8217;s line is that the national security law ended months of mass protests for full democracy and official accountability in 2019, which saw some protesters fight back with makeshift weapons against riot police wielding batons, tear gas, rubber bullets, water cannon and even live ammunition. China&#8217;s President Xi Jinping (R) standing with Hong Kong&#8217;s new Chief Executive John Lee (L) after Lee was sworn in as the city&#8217;s new leader, during a ceremony to inaugurate the city&#8217;s new government in Hong Kong on July 1, 2022. Credit: Hong Kong&#8217;s Information Services Department. &#8216;New era&#8217; Uniform decorations declaring a &#8220;new era&#8221; of stability were seen across many districts, including red lanterns and the Chinese national flag, and the Hong Kong regional flag. &#8220;Hong Kong has of course also encountered various challenges, including the global financial crisis, the unlawful occupy movement in 2014, the Mong Kok riots in 2016, the riots and violence in 2019 together with the interference in Hong Kong&#8217;s affairs by external forces which threatened our national security, and the COVID-19 pandemic,&#8221; Lee told the inauguration ceremony, thanking the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for its support. Lee also lauded the national security law for &#8220;bringing order out of chaos,&#8221; and new election rules under which he was selected as the only candidate for the city&#8217;s top job in May 2022. &#8220;It is therefore imperative that we should cherish and uphold the system for a long time to come, and we should make good use of it to effect sound governance,&#8221; Lee said, sounding the death knell for any hope of democratic development under the new regime. Chinese political scientist Chen Daoyin said Xi&#8217;s tone in the speech was condescending and parental, and that late supreme leader Deng Xiaoping&#8217;s promise that Hong Kong would remain unchanged for 50 years was already dead in the water. &#8220;What [Xi] talked about what different from what Deng Xiaoping proposed,&#8221; Chen said. &#8220;Deng said Hong Kong would be like mainland China after 50 years, and maybe not at all.&#8221; &#8220;Xi has a new view on Hong Kong, which he calls a new starting point, making the point that Hong Kong has been brought to order out of chaos,&#8221; Chen said. Current affairs commentator Sang Pu said Xi has deliberately distorted the meaning of &#8220;one country, two systems.&#8221; &#8220;If he admits that one country, two systems is over, that would be tantamount to inviting opposition from Europe and the U.S.,&#8221; Sang told RFA. &#8220;It would also make it look as if he has failed.&#8221; &#8220;Instead, he is repackaging it as a new beginning.&#8221; Sang said Xi&#8217;s mention of cooperation between Hong Kong&#8217;s judiciary and that of mainland China was worrying, suggesting that the authorities may start requiring &#8220;patriotism&#8221; from judges as well as from lawmakers and civil servants. Dutiful congratulations Across the internal border in mainland China, the CCP-controlled state media focused on a highly choreographed &#8220;welcome&#8221; for Xi in Hong Kong, and on praising Beijing&#8217;s governance of the city. &#8220;Some media didn&#8217;t report it at all, so we can see that Hong Kong isn&#8217;t a priority for the government, and that nobody cares if Xi or anyone else goes there,&#8221; a Chinese scholar surnamed Shen told RFA. &#8220;Hong Kong can never be given too much prominence in the Chinese media.&#8221; Official media reports on the anniversary garnered a few dozen comments, most of them dutifully congratulatory, on social media. Only one comment on an article by the China Youth Daily, the official newspaper of CCP&#8217;s Youth League, opined: &#8220;I wish Hong Kong a better tomorrow.&#8221; Current affairs commentator Johnny Lau said Xi&#8217;s promise of science and technology cooperation between Hong Kong and neighboring Guangdong province had likely been behind his visit to the Hong Kong Science and Technology Park on Thursday. &#8220;Hong Kong&#8217;s high-tech R&amp;D is good, but there is a shortage of production capacity and talent,&#8221; Lau said. &#8220;Through cooperation with the mainland, we can &#8216;reap the east wind&#8217;.&#8221; Xi was likely taking the opportunity to try to reboot Hong Kong&#8217;s international reputation as a trading and financial center in the wake of the national security crackdown and the COVID-19 pandemic, Lau said. Xi was declaring to the rest of the world that he has confidence in Hong Kong&#8217;s future and its economic policies, to exiting foreign investors to return, he said. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Three lawyers assisting political cases arrested in Mandalay](https://ij-reportika.com/three-lawyers-assisting-political-cases-arrested-in-mandalay/): Three lawyers who were representing clients in anti-regime political cases have been arrested in Mandalay, sources close to the legal community told RFA on Friday. A source close to the court told RFA Tin Win Aung, U Thuta and an unnamed lawyer were picked up on their return from working at Obo Prison’s court in Mandalay on Wednesday evening. “Three people have been arrested, the third name is still unknown,” he said. No contact had been made with the detainees and it is still not known where they were taken, the source told RFA, adding that six Mandalay lawyers, including Ywat Nu Aung, are now in custody. Aung was arrested on April 27 and charged under Section 50 (j) of the Anti-Terrorism Law. The prominent Mandalay lawyer was assisting members of the regional government, including the National League for Democracy’s (NLD) Mandalay Regional Chief Minister, Zaw Myint Maung. The Regional Court in Chan Aye Thar San Township, Mandalay Region. CREDIT: RFA In the third week of June, Khin Than Htay, another Mandalay lawyer who was assisting with political cases, was arrested by the military council and taken to Obo prison’s court. Sources said the legal transcript of her case was written at the court. Arrests of lawyers have not been confined to Mandalay. In Sagaing region’s Monywa, three lawyers appear to have been arrested in the past few weeks. One was Moe Zaw Htun, who was representing Myint Naing, the NLD government’s Chief Minister in the region. The other two lawyers are missing and it is not clear whether they have been arrested, Monywa residents told RFA. The military council has not commented on the arrests of any  of the lawyers. Calls to the military council spokesman by RFA went unanswered on Friday. According to data compiled by RFA, 27 lawyers have been arrested since the February 2021 military coup, including several representing people arrested on political charges.
- [FET completes trials of advanced submarine rescue vehicle](https://ij-reportika.com/fet-completes-trials-of-advanced-submarine-rescue-vehicle/): U.S. firm Forum Energy Technologies (FET) has completed sea trials of an advanced submarine rescue vehicle (SRV), the main component of a submarine rescue vessel, for the Vietnamese Navy, reports said. A press release by FET said the Scottish branch of the Texas-based company “successfully completed sea trials” of the SRV “ahead of its deployment for an Asia Pacific-based navy.” Media sources said the client was the Vietnamese Navy which bought six Kilo-class submarines from Russia ten years ago.  Vietnamese military officials were not available for comment. Vietnam commissioned a homegrown multi-purpose submarine search and rescue vessel, which it named Yet Kieu after a legendary hero, in July 2021 but this final step “indicates that the vessel should be nearing an operational capability,” said Gordon Arthur, a defense analyst and Asia-Pacific editor of Shephard Media. “Given that Vietnam has been operating Russian-built Kilo-class submarines since 2014, it is perhaps surprising that it&#8217;s taken nearly ten years to get such a rescue capability,” Arthur told RFA. Highly advanced vehicle According to FET’s statement, the sea trials tested the SRV’s capabilities to “perform a variety of demanding operations, including deep dives, navigation, and mating with a target.”  In-country commissioning and testing took two months to complete, it said. The trials were done in close cooperation with the navy and Lloyd’s Register (LR), a maritime classification organization which “offered third party verification and supervised every part of the sea trials.” The SRV is divided into two sections including a command module for pilots and a rescue chamber for the chamber operator and people being rescued. It is capable of rescuing up to 17 people at a time and operates at depths of up to 600m, FET said. The vehicle boasts “some of the most advanced sensors and sonars” including a doppler velocity log, fibre optic gyroscope, sonar, and depth sensing to quickly locate a distressed submarine. FET will also be providing training for navy pilots as part of the contract, which includes theoretical training, maintenance, diving and recovery. The mother ship ‘927-Yet Kieu’ meanwhile is nearly 100m-long, 16m-wide and 7.2m-high, with a displacement of up to 3,950 tons, according to Vietnamese defense sources.  The multi-purpose vessel can operate continuously at sea 30 days and nights and it is capable of withstanding high wind and waves. Vietnamese army company Z189 began building the ship in mid-2018 after the commissioning of the last of six Russian-made submarines in 2017. Vietnam has the largest submarine fleet in Southeast Asia with six Kilo-class diesel-electric submarines, dubbed “black holes” for their stealthiness. With the new SRV, the Vietnamese navy has now joined the club of countries with submarine rescue capability in the Asia-Pacific including Australia, China, India, Japan, Malaysia and South Korea. Flag-hoisting ceremony on Kilo-class submarine Ba Ria – Vung Tau CREDIT: Vietnamese Navy ‘Expensive and dangerous’ “There has been a growth in the number of submarines in the region,” noted Gordon Arthur, adding that as submarine incidents have the potential to quickly become catastrophic, “it is vital that navies operating submarines have their own rescue capability, so that they can quickly swing into action.” “A submarine rescue capability is like a tuxedo. They are expensive and are rarely used &#8211; but when you do need it, absolutely nothing else can replace it,” he said. In April 2021 an Indonesian navy submarine, the KRI Nanggala, sank off the coast of Bali killing all 53 crew on board. Yet Jakarta is seeking to expand its submarine fleet from four at present to at least ten by 2029. “Some nations think that owning submarines will bring prestige and respect but submarines are not shiny toys. They are very expensive and underwater operations are inherently dangerous,” said Arthur. “Navies need to ensure they have the skills, money and rescue capability to keep their submarines in top condition.” Vietnam, China and some other countries are entangled in territorial disputes in the South China Sea and the new submarine force would enable Hanoi to defend its interests, the Vietnamese military leadership said. But compared to its neighbor, Beijing has a much larger fleet of nearly 60 submarines, a third of which are nuclear-powered. Analysts have questioned if Vietnam’s new SRV could be used for reconnaissance purposes besides submarine rescue missions. But some experts such as Collin Koh, Research Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, point out that such submersibles are handicapped by range and endurance, “so they may have limited standoff reconnaissance capabilities.” “But such submersibles with suitable modifications can potentially do seabed espionage-related work, such as tapping undersea cables,” Koh said.
- [Airstrikes target anti-junta forces in Myanmar’s Kayin state for 5th day](https://ij-reportika.com/airstrikes-target-anti-junta-forces-in-myanmars-kayin-state-for-5th-day/): Five days of intense clashes between Myanmar’s military and joint anti-junta forces near the Thai border in Kayin state have left more than a dozen coalition fighters dead and several wounded on both sides of the conflict, sources in the region said Thursday. The fighting began on June 26 when prodemocracy People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries and fighters with the ethnic Karen National Defense Army/Karen National Liberation Army (KNDO/KNLA) launched a joint attack on a military outpost near Myawaddy township’s Ukrithta village, according to a report by the pro-military Myawaddy newspaper. The attack prompted a military retaliation that included artillery fire and airstrikes, the report said. More junta troops are being deployed to the area, the report said. Sources on the battlefield confirmed to RFA Burmese on Thursday that a joint force of ethnic Karen and PDF units led by Cmdr. Saw Win Myint of the KNDO Special Commando Battalion are fighting to take control of the Ukrithta camp held by junta troops. Battalion sources told RFA that at least 13 members of the coalition forces have been killed in the five days of heavy fighting, which includes clashes in the nearby villages of Wawlay and Myaing. KNDO officer Boh Salone said that Myanmar’s air force had been pounding opposition positions with strikes since June 26, including as recently as Thursday morning. “There are injuries on both sides but there are many on their side,” he said. “They have been attacking us with jet fighters for the past four days. All throughout the day. When they came, they flew over the area four or five times and fired at us. The jets came nine or 10 times a day. They have already come 10 times today.” The military has not released any information on the number of casualties from the fighting and repeated calls by RFA seeking comment from the junta’s deputy minister of information, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, went unanswered on Thursday. KNDO chief, Gen. Saw Nedar Mya, told RFA that the junta is “desperately fighting to prevent the camp from falling” because of its strategic importance, although he did not elaborate on its significance to the military. The fighting is occurring near the Thai border south of Myawaddy, in an area controlled by the ethnic Karen National Union’s (KNU) Brigade-6. Fighter jets scrambled Thailand’s air force scrambled two F-16 fighter jets to patrol the border area on Thursday after its radar captured Myanmar air force jets allegedly violating Thai airspace briefly during their aerial assault against the Karen rebels, according to a report by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated news outlet. “At 11.16 hours, air force units found unidentified aircrafts violating territory at Pob Phra district, Tak province, to attack the minority along the border and later disappeared from radar screen,” the Thai air force said in a statement, adding that helicopters were also detected in the area, although they did not appear to enter Thai airspace. “Therefore, the air force scrambled two F-16s to promptly perform combat patrol mission along Pob Phra border area and directed the air force envoy to Yangon to warn Myanmar’s related agencies to avoid reoccurrence.” BBC Thai showed photos of a Russian-made MiG-29 jet flying over Thai soil and reported that it fired rockets into Myanmar’s Kayin state. The alleged incursion occurred a day after junta chief, Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, hosted a delegation headed by Lt. Gen. Apichet Suesat of the Royal Thai army in Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw for the 34th meeting of the Thailand-Myanmar Regional Border Committee, according to a report by the official Global New Light of Myanmar. The report said that the two sides had discussed ways to strengthen cooperation between defense forces and anti-terrorism measures to improve stability in the border area. Zay Thu Aung, a former Myanmar air force captain who defected to join the anti-junta Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), said videos of Thursday’s airstrike showed that the junta is using Russian-made MiG-29s to raid the area. “The videos show a MiG-29 attack, with the fighter gaining altitude following a bombing dive,” he said. “MiG-29s are very good as all-weather long-range attack fighters. They must have flown from [Yangon’s] Hmawbi Airbase.” A composite photo shows ethnic Karen rebels engaged in fighting in Kayin state&#8217;s Myawaddy township. Credit: Citizen journalist Residents fleeing Residents of Kayin’s Myawaddy township told RFA that Thursday’s clashes had been the worst of the five days of fighting. “There were a lot of airstrikes today. Quite a lot. We also heard today that there was fighting in [nearby] Lay Kay Kaw [township] last night. We heard the military fired more than 20 artillery shells,” one resident said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “At present, people from Wawlay, Myaing and Ukrithta are fleeing.” Sources in the area said that the number of people who have been forced to seek refuge is unclear. Several airstrikes have been conducted in the area since anti-junta coalition forces seized a police station in Wawlay on May 18, detaining three policemen including the station’s commander, and freeing several PDF fighters, they added. In December 2021, about 200 fully armed junta troops arrested several CDM staff and PDF members sheltering in a KNU-controlled area in Lay Kay Kaw. Several days of fighting ensued between junta forces and the KNU, causing more than 70,000 residents to flee the area. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Former RFA reporter in Cambodia loses appeal to ­­­­­­­­­­­have passport returned](https://ij-reportika.com/former-rfa-reporter-in-cambodia-loses-appeal-to-have-passport-returned/): An appellate court in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh upheld a lower court’s decision not to return the passport of Yeang Sothearin, citing an ongoing investigation into the former RFA editor and reporter, he told RFA.  Yeang Sothearin, who also worked as a news anchor for RFA’s Khmer Service, was taken into custody in November 2017 along with Uon Chhin, who was an RFA photographer and videographer. They were charged with “illegally collecting information for a foreign source” after RFA closed its bureau in the capital in September that year amid a government crackdown on independent media. They have since been charged with additional crimes. If convicted of the first charge, they could face a jail term of between seven and 15 years. They remain out on bail but in legal limbo after a series of appeals have been rejected by courts. Yeang Sothearin said the court’s decision would prevent him from visiting his ailing father, an ethnic Cambodian living in southern Vietnam, or participating in NGO activities outside of Cambodia. “I told the court that it has been five years, it is a long time and I don’t know when it will end,” Yeang Sothearin told RFA’s Khmer Service. “There is no indication from the judge of when the investigation will end and they won’t tell me when my passport will be returned, so how can I live? I will use my rights to demand [my passport],” he said. He said that he will appeal again by taking the case to Cambodia’s Supreme Court. The decision not to return the passport violates Yeang Sothearin’s rights because the case has been delayed for many years and has not yet reached conclusion, Ny Sokha, president of the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association (Adhoc) told RFA. He said the delay affects both Yeang Sothearin and Uon Chhin.  “We don’t see any indication that they want to avoid the court or flee overseas. They have houses here and they want the freedom to travel to make a living. I don’t see any reason to restrict their freedom,” he said. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong
- [North Korea military celebrates ‘Anti-U.S. Joint Struggle Month’](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-military-celebrates-anti-u-s-joint-struggle-month/): North Korea’s military has designated the end of June and most of July as “Anti-U.S. Joint Struggle Month” as a means to foment greater hostility toward the U.S. in retaliation for the Biden administration’s lack of interest in negotiating with Pyongyang, military sources told RFA. There were two summits between the two countries during Donald Trump’s presidency: 2018 in Singapore and 2019 in Hanoi. But ultimately the U.S. and North Korea were unable to work out a deal on sanctions relief in exchange for denuclearization. The shift in policy of the new administration makes a return to negotiations less likely, so North Korea is bringing back a more hostile style of rhetoric toward the U.S. The month-long education project started on June 25, the anniversary of the start of the 1950-53 Korean War, and will last until July 27, the anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended hostilities in the conflict. Over the course of the month, military personnel must learn why the U.S. is North Korea’s main enemy, a military related source in the northwestern province of North Pyongan told RFA on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The General Political Bureau of the People’s Army… created new anti-U.S. education materials that say the U.S. is our main enemy and sent it down to all the subordinate units. From the 25th, all units… have been attending anti-U.S. classes during their mental education hours, which are held each day for about an hour,” the source said. “Previous materials made since the time of the 2018 North Korea-U.S. [Singapore] Summit have used the [softer] term ‘imperialism’ to describe the U.S, in order to not provoke them,” said the source. The new materials have been changed to use harsher language. “They now call the U.S. an ‘imperialist aggressor.’ The content is intended to strengthen anti-U.S. sentiment and says things like, ‘The aggressive nature of the United States never changes. They are our enemy who must not live under the same sky with us,’” said the source. “The General Political Bureau has also instructed the political departments of each unit to visit their respective education center during Anti-U.S. Joint Struggle month. The political department should organize officers and soldiers to attend classes there, and they must also punish those who neglect to visit with their units. So the military officials are nervous,” the source said.           Every province, city and county in North Korea has set up education centers that collect and display anti-U.S., anti-South Korean and anti-Japanese materials, according to the source. “Since 2018, when we were trying to improve relations with the U.S., anti-U.S. education for military personnel was suspended, but this time, we will bring it back in time for the anniversary of the Day of Victory in the Great Fatherland Liberation War,” the source said, using the North Korean term for the day the armistice was signed. The source said the soldiers are not happy with the government’s flip-flopping on whether the U.S. is the number one enemy or not. “They say, ‘They removed the hostile phrases to improve relations with the U.S., and now they are bringing them back. We don’t know how to play along.’” The new materials say that peaceful coexistence with the U.S. is not possible, a military source in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “It says that coexistence is just an illusion and equivalent to death, and we must be armed with a high sense of antagonism and ideological determination to fight against the U.S.,” the second source said. “But the officers and soldiers come out of their mental education classes expressionless and with indifference,” said the second source. “The General Political Bureau is also telling all units to post up new propaganda signs bearing the slogan, ‘Destroy all U.S. imperialist aggressors, the absolute enemies of the Korean people’ in their barracks. By posting anti-U.S. slogans, which previously we only attached to combat equipment, they will more intently concentrate on hostility toward the United States.” The sources both said that they interpreted the renewed hostility toward the U.S. as the government expressing its dissatisfaction with a shift in Washington’s stance on North Korea to a more hardline position since the beginning of the Biden administration. Though fighting in the Korean War ended with the signing of the armistice on July 27, 1953, North and South Korea are still technically at war. Translated by Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [China's Xi Jinping says Hong Kong 'risen from the ashes' amid crackdown on dissent](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-xi-jinping-says-hong-kong-risen-from-the-ashes-amid-crackdown-on-dissent/): Chinese leader Xi Jinping arrived in Hong Kong on Thursday ahead of the 25th anniversary of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rule, saying the city had &#8220;risen from the ashes&#8221; under a draconian national security law that left former opposition lawmakers under house arrest and journalists shut out of official events. &#8220;Hong Kong has withstood challenge after challenge and won many a battle in recent years,&#8221; Xi told a crowd who turned out to greet him waving national flags and cheering, at the start of what observers said will be a heavily stage-managed trip subject to citywide security measures. &#8220;Hong Kong has lived through turbulent times and risen again from the ashes to renewed vigor,&#8221; said Xi, who arrived by special train with first lady Peng Liyuan on Thursday. As he spoke, former pro-democracy lawmaker Avery Ng tweeted that he had been placed under house arrest, likely for the duration of Xi&#8217;s visit, a form of treatment usually meted out by state security police to mainland Chinese dissidents during important political events. &#8220;I am now in prison,&#8221; Ng wrote, adding &#8220;#ifyouknowyouknow&#8221; and a salty Cantonese epithet referring to somebody&#8217;s mother. Ng took to social media to livestream about the anniversary instead, telling followers: &#8220;This is the first time this has happened &#8230; I&#8217;m sitting here at home with nothing to do &#8230; I can&#8217;t go out.&#8221; Organizers of the city&#8217;s once-traditional July 1 protest march said it wouldn&#8217;t be going ahead, citing conversations with the national security police, who are spearheading a citywide crackdown on peaceful political opposition and public criticism of the authorities. &#8220;Today, some volunteers and friends from the League of Social Democrats were spoken to by the national security police,&#8221; LSD chairwoman Chan Po-ying said in a statement earlier this week. &#8220;We have assessed the situation, and there will be no demonstration on July 1,&#8221; Chan wrote on June 28. &#8220;We hope you can forgive us. We are in a difficult situation.&#8221; Police guard a closed road outside the West Kowloon station in Hong Kong on June 30, 2022, after Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives in Hong Kong to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China taking place on July 1. Credit: AFP Roadblocks  and station closures Xi&#8217;s visit has also prompted a huge deployment of police at roadblocks near the 25th anniversary ceremony venue. People and vehicles heading to the area around the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre will be stopped and checked, while footbridges and flyovers along the route of Xi&#8217;s motorcade will be closed, police told journalists. The MTR subway station serving the venue was closed on Thursday, and will reopen after the ceremony on Friday, while a no-fly zone has been set up over the whole the city&#8217;s iconic Victoria Harbour, including for drones. Xi&#8217;s itinerary includes visits to the Hong Kong Science Park, dinner with outgoing chief executive Carrie Lam and top officials, and meeting carefully selected &#8220;people from all walks of life&#8221; in Wanchai. The Chinese leader, Hong Kong&#8217;s top officials and Xi&#8217;s entourage will remain in a bubble throughout, to minimize the risk of COVID-19 transmission. Xi, Peng and their entourage wore masks on arriving at the West Kowloon high-speed rail terminus. Exiled former pro-democracy lawmaker Ted Hui said the reality of life in Hong Kong is very far from Xi&#8217;s claims, and that Beijing&#8217;s promise to allow Hong Kongers to run the city under &#8220;one country, two systems,&#8221; had come to nothing. &#8220;Xi Jinping called &#8216;one country, two systems&#8217; a good system &#8230; but the people of Hong Kong feel very differently,&#8221; Hui told RFA. &#8220;The human rights and freedoms guaranteed in the Basic Law have completely disappeared.&#8221; &#8220;Hong Kong is part of one country, and one system now,&#8221; Hui said, adding that many have yet to recover from the trauma of the crackdown on the 2019 protest movement, during which police violence sparked an international outcry. &#8220;He says Hong Kong has been reborn from the ashes, but I only see anger in Hong Kong; anger and hatred for the [CCP] regime,&#8221; he said. Just like the mainland now Hui said Xi&#8217;s visit is the first by a high-ranking Chinese leader during which protests and demonstrations have been banned. &#8220;The relationship between the people and the government has been lost,&#8221; Hui said, adding that bans on protests were a symptom of the CCP&#8217;s cowardice in the face of criticism. &#8220;This never used to happen in Hong Kong, only mainland China, but now it&#8217;s happening today in Hong Kong,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Does the lack of [public] dissent mean success, or the end of freedom? It&#8217;s a huge step backwards.&#8221; Hui said those who greeted Xi were hired for the role in the manner of movie extras, and had nothing to do with regular Hong Kongers. The Hong Kong Journalists&#8217; Association (HKJA) said only a selected number of media outlets were invited to apply for accreditation to cover the anniversary celebrations. &#8220;Similar handover official events in the past were open to media registration without requiring invitations,&#8221; the group said in a statement on its website, saying it was &#8220;deeply concerned&#8221; by the move. &#8220;At least 10 well-known local online and overseas media outlets, news agencies as well as photo wires were not invited nor allowed to sign up for the events, making them unable to report from the handover’s official events,&#8221; the HKJA said in a June 16 statement. The government replied on June 29, saying the decision was “a balance as far as possible between the needs of media work and security requirements,&#8221; government broadcaster RTHK reported. The government declined to comment on accreditations for individuals or organizations. Meanwhile, London mayor Sadiq Khan said the crackdown on Hong Kong had been &#8220;devastating,&#8221; pledging to do everything in his power to help Hong Kongers fleeing the crackdown to start new lives in the British capital. The Greater London Authority said it had set up the Migrant Londoners Hub to provide Hong Kongers arriving...
- [China’s plan to turn Xinjiang into industrial hub is threat to Uyghurs, report says](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-plan-to-turn-xinjiang-into-industrial-hub-is-threat-to-uyghurs-report-says/): China’s efforts to turn its far-western Xinjiang into a manufacturing powerhouse could force more Uyghurs to work against their will and make it harder to track whether the country’s exports are made with forced labor, according to a new report from a Washington, DC-based research group.   The Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS), which studies global conflict and transnational security issues, said China is establishing industrial parks, providing more financial assistance from state-owned enterprises, and connecting manufacturers within its borders as part of a long-term objective to bolster supply chains. “The Chinese government is undertaking a concerted drive to industrialize the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), which has led an increasing number of corporations to establish manufacturing operations there,” the report says. “This centrally-controlled industrial policy is a key tool in the government’s efforts to forcibly assimilate Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples through the institution of a coerced labor regime.” The 25-page report, titled “Shifting Gears: The Rise of Industrial Transfer into the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region,” analyzes publicly available data and case studies to detail the political nature of China’s industrial transfer in the Xinjiang, the patterns through which it takes place, and the scale at which abuses in the region are embedded within Chinese and global supply chains. “Forced labor is a major component of these human rights abuses,” the report says. “It occurs not only within extrajudicial detention centers and through the placement of detainees in factories but also through the threat of detention to pressure Uyghurs into jobs across XUAR and throughout China. “Both state-owned and private corporations are significant perpetrators of human rights abuses, implementing coercive working conditions, indoctrination and mass surveillance.” The main mechanism for the central government’s industrialization drive in the XUAR is a program to pair Xinjiang counties and municipalities with wealthier provinces and municipalities on the east coast. The effort began 25 years ago and was expanded in 2010, the report says. Government bureaus in the coastal provinces design and implement programs in their respective partner localities in the XUAR and help train Uyghur workers to build loyalty and obedience to the Chinese Communist Party, the report says. “The central government wants economically dynamic east coast cities to reproduce their successful export-led growth model in the region by attracting manufacturers through low labor costs and subsidized land, electricity and freight fees,” the report says. For example, the Yining Textile Industry Zone, containing two industrial parks — the Yining County Home Textiles and Garment Industrial Park and the Yining County Weaving Industrial Park, in Ghulja (in Chinese, Yining) prefecture — was constructed under the pairing program of Nantong, Jiangsu province, a major textile production hub in eastern China. The Yining zone is linked with the Jiangsu Nantong International Home Textile Industrial Park, the largest home textile distribution center in the world. As of March, about 20 Nantong-based textile companies had set up operations in the Yining Textile Industry Zone, the report says.   At least 1,000 people work in the Yining industrial park, including those sent via organized labor transfers from the surrounding county, according to the report. Several ethnic Kazakhs have testified that they were forced to work in a factory in the park after being released from a detention camp. A guard tower and barbed wire fences are seen around a facility at the Kunshan Industrial Park in Artush in northwestern China&#8217;s Xinjiang region, Dec. 3, 2018. Credit: Associated Press ‘Modern industrial workers’ The industrial transfer policies have increasingly focused on four prefectures in the southern half of the XUAR with concentrated Uyghur populations and relative economic isolation that the Chinese government sees as problematic to its assimilation goals, says the report. “The government sees the mass detention campaign and the establishment of a police state as prerequisites that allow Chinese manufacturing companies to feel secure enough to move into XUAR,” it says. “In turn, these manufacturers move Uyghurs from their farms and villages to factories and industrial parks where they can be monitored, indoctrinated and transformed into ‘modern’ industrial workers.” Since 2017, Chinese authorities have ramped up their repression of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities throughout the XUAR, detaining up to 1.8 million members of these groups in internment camps. The maltreatment also includes severe human rights abuses, torture and forced labor as well as the eradication of linguistic, cultural and religious traditions. Credible reports by rights groups and the media documenting the widespread abuse and repression in the XUAR have led the United States and some parliaments in Western countries to declare that the Chinese government’s action amount to a genocide and crimes against humanity. The Center for Advanced Defense Studies analyzed Chinese corporate data of tens of thousands of companies based in the XUAR, publicly available trade data, and government and media reporting to show how manufacturers there are linked to local governments and companies in eastern China. The group said that subsidiaries and partner companies in China make it hard to track whether goods originated from Xinjiang and were produced by forced labor. The U.S. enacted the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in December 2021 to strengthen an existing ban on the importation of goods made wholly or in part with forced labor into the country and to end the use of forced labor in the XUAR. The act, which took effect on June 21, creates what is referred to as a “rebuttable presumption” that assumes goods made in Xinjiang are produced with forced labor and thus banned under the U.S. 1930 Tariff Act. The law requires U.S. companies that import goods from the region to prove that they have not been manufactured at any stage with Uyghur forced labor. But the report said the structure of Chinese industrial policy, where goods are shipped and reshipped within its borders, will make enforcing forced labor laws difficult. “[A]s long as the flow of goods produced in the region to exporters elsewhere in China is left unaddressed, tainted goods will continue to enter global supply chains,” the...
- [Teenage boy dies during junta shelling of Chin state village](https://ij-reportika.com/teenage-boy-dies-during-junta-shelling-of-chin-state-village/): A 14-year-old boy was killed by heavy artillery shelling on Wednesday at Madap village, Mindat township in Myanmar’s southern Chin state. Yaw Man, a member of the Mindat (Township) People’s Administration, told RFA a shell fired by the Mindat-based ‘Ka La Ya’ infantry Battalion 274, exploded near a house in Madap village, killing the boy on the spot. “The military council’s Infantry Battalion 274 is 16 miles away from Madap village,” Yaw Man told RFA. “Both the army and Madap village are on the top of the mountains. The army and the village are closer [as the crow flies] between the tops of the mountains. The artillery shell landed in front of the victim’s house in Madap village. It exploded and struck the 14-year-old boy’s heart. He died on the spot.” The 14-year-old boy, killed when a shell exploded near his house on Wednesday. CREDIT: Mindat (Township) People&#8217;s Administration The dead boy was the brother of an 11-year-old boy who was hit by heavy artillery fired by junta troops on May 23. The younger boy’s right leg was completely severed. The boys’ mother was also critically injured in the May blast. Calls to the military council spokesman by RFA to ask about civilian casualties went unanswered. Also on Wednesday an artillery shell fired by the military battalion based in Mindat township landed in Kyar In Nu village near Madap village, destroying a house and some livestock, according to residents. Mindat township was the site of the earliest armed resistance to the coup council and the junta has hit back, targeting villages believed to have housed or aided the rebels. Last year on June 16, three people were killed when a heavy artillery shell fired by junta forces exploded in Mui Twi village, Mindat township.
- [Vietnam faces global calls to release anti-coal activist](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-faces-global-calls-to-release-anti-coal-activist/): International groups are increasing pressure on the Vietnamese government to release anti-coal campaigner Nguy Thi Khanh, the director of civil society organization the Green Innovation and Development Centre (GreenID). On Tuesday U.S.-based NGO Oil Change International (OCI) voiced its support for the campaign, demanding her immediate release. “Our message to the government of Vietnam is that you cannot jail leading activists and claim to be a climate leader. You will never silence influential voices who speak out against the dirty fossil fuel business. The more you imprison people, the more you empower others,” the group said in a news release. The OCI also called on the Vietnamese government to release three other environmental activists, Mai Phan Loi, Dang Dinh Bach, and Bach Hung Duong. All four are serving prison sentences on tax evasion charges. Nguy Thi Khanh, 46, was sentenced to 24 months in prison by the Hanoi People&#8217;s Court on June 17. The other three were sentenced to between two and a half and five years in prison. OCI&#8217;s Asia program director, Susanne Wong urged G7 leaders, who met in Germany this week, to use their influence to &#8220;protect the rapidly shrinking civil society space in Vietnam&#8221; and &#8220;ensure that just transition packages with the Vietnamese government include provisions to protect civil society engagement in climate discussions and to guard against the use of administrative laws to silence activists.” Four days before OCI’s announcement, the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Activists, an alliance of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT), issued a statement calling on the international community to speak out about the cases along with those of other human rights activists. It also expressed concern over the Vietnamese government&#8217;s frequent use of tax evasion charges as a weapon to silence activists. The coalition urged individuals and organizations around the world to write to the Vietnamese government, calling on it to end its crackdown on human rights and environmental activists, release those serving prison sentences and ensure all activists are able to operate without fear of reprisal. Andrea Giorgetta, director of FIDH&#8217;s Asia Office, said it was important to give environmentalists the freedom to speak out. “Environmental activists such as Khanh play a vital role in ensuring that environmental rights and principles are part of the Vietnamese government’s policies, which have historically followed a top-down approach without any genuine public consultation and input,” he said. “The jailing of Khanh and the other environmental activists represents a worrying escalation by Hanoi in the repression of civil society. Khanh, Bach, and Loi were not hardcore government critics &#8211; their organizations in fact sought to engage the Vietnamese government with regard to the implementation of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement. Their imprisonment shows that in Vietnam nobody is safe from government persecution.” Giorgetta said it appeared that the Vietnamese government was adopting subtler tactics to escape international criticism. “Perhaps Hanoi believes that the use of tax laws as opposed to the enforcement of draconian national security legislation will not trigger international condemnation. But the harsh prison sentences imposed on Khanh, Bach, and Loi for tax evasion show that Hanoi considers environmental activists to be as dangerous as dissidents, and that they must all be silenced.” Five months after Vietnam sentenced Mai Phan Loi, Dang Dinh Bach, and Bach Hung Duong to prison and nearly two weeks after the trial of Nguy Thi Khanh, the campaign for their release has snowballed. There are now three governments, the United States, Britain, and Canada, as well as various NGOs including the Climate Action Network (CAN), voicing their opposition to the activists’ conviction and calling for their immediate and unconditional release. The United Nations Human Rights Office and the UN Environmental Programme also issued a statement on April 22 expressing deep concern about the imprisonment of human rights and environmental protection activists for alleged &#8220;tax evasion&#8221; in Vietnam. The U.S. President’s climate envoy John Kerry and his European Union counterpart Frans Timmermans issued a joint call on June 26 demanding the release of Khanh and other environmental activists imprisoned in Vietnam. On June 23 Vietnam&#8217;s Foreign Ministry rejected international criticism of the case against Khanh, insisting that her prison sentence was legal.
- [Nine killed in junta raids on Myanmar villages near China-backed copper mine](https://ij-reportika.com/nine-killed-in-junta-raids-on-myanmar-villages-near-china-backed-copper-mine/): At least nine civilians are dead, and dozens are missing after a month of military raids on villages near a China-backed copper mine in Myanmar’s Sagaing region that prodemocracy paramilitaries had threatened to destroy because it could provide income for the junta, residents said Wednesday. Sources in Sagaing’s embattled Salingyi township told RFA Burmese that at least seven residents of Done Taw, Moe Gyoe Pyin (North), Ton, and Hpaung Ka Tar villages were killed, and three others reported missing following junta troops raids from June 15-25. Two men from Salingyi’s Ywar Thar village were taken hostage by the military on May 25 and later killed, they said. Speaking on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal, a resident of Moe Gyoe Pyin (North) told RFA that Tin Soe, 46, and Wa Gyi, 47, were killed when the military shelled his village early on the morning of June 21, before setting fire to homes there later that day. “They came in so fast; some people were not able to escape, and some were trapped,” the resident said. “As they were killing people and burning houses, no one dared to stay. We just had to flee.” The resident said that “around 20 people were taken hostage” during the raid and that the bodies of the two victims were discovered after the troops left the following day. Other sources from the area told RFA that the body of 30-year-old Sai Myat Soe from Sar Htone village was found mutilated on June 26 near Hpaung Ka Tar village. Junta troops attacked the Salingyi villages of Nat Kyun and Htan Taw Gyi as recently as Tuesday, residents said, forcing inhabitants to evacuate and seek shelter. A woman who had to flee her home during Tuesday’s raid said she was separated from her family members during the ordeal and doesn’t know what became of them. “I went back to the village today hoping things had calmed down, but just as we arrived at the village, soldiers came in from the other side through the forest, while others approached from the river. We had to leave right away,” she said. “My whole family is on the run and I’m worried whether I’ll ever see them again or if I’ll be able to go back to my house. I can’t stop worrying because [the soldiers] were burning the villages.” Sources claimed that the raids were conducted by military units based in a compound run by China’s Wanbao Mining Ltd., which operates the Letpadaung Copper Mine – a joint venture between the Chinese government and the junta that has been suspended for the 16 months since the military seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021 coup. Other villages targeted in the raids included Lin Sa Kyet and Wadan, they said. The raids follow an April 21 warning issued by 16 local People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary groups that the Letpadaung copper project would be attacked because it could provide income for the junta. Attempts by RFA to contact junta Deputy Minister of Information Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun went unanswered Wednesday. He has previously rejected reports of military raids, as well as allegations of civilian deaths and acts of arson by junta troops. Caught in the crossfire Members of the local anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary group have said they are reluctant to intercept the raids for fear of causing civilian casualties while the military holds hostages. However, the group has attacked military units stationed within the copper project compound and recently destroyed a power line connected to the site. Wanbao has strongly condemned attacks in the region, saying in a statement that its presence has nothing to do with the ongoing civil unrest in Myanmar and demanding that armed groups in the area refrain from targeting its employees. A member of the anti-junta Salingyi Revolution Army (SRA) said that Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG), to which local PDF forces have sworn loyalty, has never ordered attacks on Wanbao or its employees. “We haven’t attacked Wanbao, only the military units housed in the compound,” said the SRA fighter, who also declined to be named. “Of course, some of [Wanbao’s] equipment might get destroyed in the chaos, but our NUG government has not instructed us to attack Wanbao and we would never do it on our own. The local defense groups are following the guidelines and instructions of the NUG.” In an interview on May 29, Zaw Min Tun told RFA that all governments have a responsibility to protect foreign investment on both legal grounds and for reasons of security. He said at the time that the military’s use of force to clear the territory was aimed at protecting the Chinese project. Thet Oo, a member of the prodemocracy Salingyi Multi-Village Strike Steering Committee, told RFA that the junta has deployed “two military columns for clearance operations in the Letpadaung area,” indicated that it “is clearly concerned with defending the Chinese project.” But he said that his and other PDF units in the area do not want the mine to resume operations because profits from the project will be used by the junta to fund its repression of Myanmar’s people. According to local sources, military raids have forced around 20,000 residents of 25 villages near the project site to flee their homes and take shelter in the jungle. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Taiwan activist Lee Ming-Cheh says world pressure on his Chinese jailers helped him](https://ij-reportika.com/taiwan-activist-lee-ming-cheh-says-world-pressure-on-his-chinese-jailers-helped-him/): Taiwanese NGO worker Lee Ming-Cheh was released from Chishan Prison in the central Chinese province of Hunan on April 15 after serving nearly five years for &#8220;attempting to subvert state power.”  Lee, a course director at Taiwan&#8217;s Wenshan Community College, was a lifelong activist for Taiwan&#8217;s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, which Beijing vilifies as a separatist group that rejects China’s claim over the democratic island. Among the accusations he faced at Hunan’s Yueyang Intermediate People&#8217;s Court was that he set up social media chat groups to “vilify China.”  Lee has been invited to Washington, D.C. to testify before the U.S. Congress and other institutions about human rights conditions in Chinese prisons, the role of international pressure in helping him get slightly better treatment while in jail, and Beijing’s expansion of repressive tactics to Taiwan and around the world. He was unable to enter the U.S., however, because the Chinese-made COVID vaccines that he received while he was in prison are not recognized and approved by the World Health Organization and therefore do not meet Centers for Disease Control regulation for entry. He spoke to Hsia Hsiao-hwa and Paul Tuan of RFA Mandarin about his prison experience, which he describes as “field research” into China’s human rights situation. Lee stressed to RFA that constant activism on his behalf by his wife, American and Taiwanese supporters and U.S. and European Union government entities helped him during his incarceration. On his trial: “Since Xi Jinping took office, mine was the only ‘subversion of state power’ case that was tried in public. There is an upside of an open trial. The prosecutor must lay out the evidence clearly. They cannot smear me as a spy, nor can they claim that I went to China for prostitution. None of the incriminating evidence that China has presented in court was about what I actually did in China. The public trial turned out to be a display of evidence that China has violated freedom of speech globally. China provided self-incriminating evidence. “In political cases, there would be a rehearsal before the trial. The attorneys and the prosecutors rehearsed the entire process of a trial. Even the defense lawyer (who was the then-Hunan delegate to the NPC) that the Chinese government has hired for Peng Yuhua, the co-defendant of the case, questioned how the national security agency can list social media app chat groups as formal organizations and fabricated stories about these groups having solid structures and specific job assignments.“ On isolation under observation: “The prison guards would not let you have any contact with the outside world. There was no formal arrest. There was no lawyer representation. You were not allowed access to any books, magazines, televisions. You were just under full arrest. Twenty-four hours a day, you were being watched by a two-person team, even when you went to the bathroom or took a shower. It caused tremendous psychological stress. Many political prisoners in China suffer from mental health issues because they were severely restricted in terms of their residence locations and conditions of their living quarters. I am very fortunate. Under pressure from the international society, (the situation) only lasted for two months. The damage inflicted on one’s mind and body fits what the United Nations considers as psychological torture.” On prison food and water that left him with polyps in his gall bladder when he was released: “The doctor said what I ate and drank over the past few years had been too dirty. In Chishan Prison, we drank water from the Dongting Lake. There was a lot of sediment in the boiled water. Even the prison guards would not drink it. Many prisoners who served longer terms have suffered from diseases such as urethral stones and kidney stones because of the poor living conditions.” On a letter-writing campaign for Lee led by NGOs in Taiwan: “In China’s domestic propaganda, these people (activists) were cooperating with the US imperialism power and mobilizing color-scheme revolutions to destroy peace in China. If the police officers did not know me, they might have really believed that I was a vicious villain who would become violent when interacting with someone. Yet if you write letters to prisons, the police would know that many people care about this prisoner and that they should not treat him with excessive force. A saying in China goes like this, ‘there is no unconditional love’; ‘there is no unconditional hatred.’ The fact that so many strangers are writing to this person who they do not know would make the prison guard and the warden think again: This person may not be as vicious as they’d thought he would be.” Taiwanese activist Lee Ming-cheh (center) appearing in Yueyang Intermediate People&#8217;s Court, in central China&#8217;s Hunan Province, Nov. 28, 2017. Credit: Yueyang Intermediate People&#8217;s Court On regular visits from his wife, Lee Ching-yu, until the COVID-19 pandemic halted them:  “Many families of Chinese political prisoners were deprived of the visitation rights to meet with their loved ones. My wife’s visits helped me physically and mentally. I am able to disclose the obsolete practices in the Chinese prisons. The visitations also allowed me to be more than just an inmate but someone who advocates for human rights and conducts field research on human rights.” On China’s creeping extension of repressive policies and censorship to self-ruled Taiwan and beyond: “China is acting to extend its jurisdiction beyond its borders to Taiwan, over which China has never ruled. China also used comments collected on the Internet as its evidence to find me guilty of ‘subversion of state power’. China clamps down on freedom of speech and on the use of Internet. It extends its jurisdiction to anyone in the world who uses Chinese social media apps.” On China’s crackdown against human rights lawyers, NGO activists and other rights defenders: “Ever since Xi Jinping took office, many were found guilty of ‘subverting state power’ and sent to prison. Specifically, if you look at these NGO activists, none of...
- [Gas graft: smugglers defraud Laos of taxes on 700 million liters a year](https://ij-reportika.com/gas-graft-smugglers-defraud-laos-of-taxes-on-700-million-liters-a-year/): Citizens in Laos are calling for accountability after learning that gasoline smugglers and enablers in the government are defrauding the country out of taxes on 700 million liters (about 185 million US liquid gallons) of gasoline per year, sources told RFA. Prime Minister Phankham Viphavanh revealed the extent of gas smuggling in an address to the National Assembly last week. Laos is mired in perhaps its worst gasoline shortage in its history, exacerbated by rising prices, a lack of foreign currency and a rapid depreciation of Laos’ currency, the kip. “According to our internal report, around 1.2 billion liters of gasoline is imported to our country [each year]. However, when we check with the exporters of both Thailand and Vietnam, they are sending us around 1.9 billion liters of gasoline,” Phankham Viphavanh said. “Where are those 700 million liters?” he asked, accusing state officials and companies of corruption. Members of the government who allow smugglers to get out of paying taxes should be punished, said Laotian sources, all of whom requested anonymity for safety reasons. “This is an act of corruption. Those who want money will do whatever they can to get it and this will lead to a leak in government revenue,” a citizen of the capital Vientiane told RFA Lao. “If the government can prevent this kind of problem, it will be better for the country. If they can find out the government officials and whoever else is involved, they should all be fined and fired,” the source said. Another source told RFA that the country’s lax law enforcement allows corruption to flourish. “There is no strong punishment for corrupt government officials in Laos. They just transfer them to other offices somewhere else. I am not sure if there will ever be a strong punishment for them,” the second source said. “They are too flexible over this matter in Laos. If the government is serious about curbing corruption, they can do it and it will be good for our country. We have laws, but at this moment the laws can do nothing.” A Lao analyst told RFA that Laos needs to set up an investigative committee to go after corrupt officials and expose them to the public. “There is no accountable investigation and punishment from the relevant authorities,” the analyst said. “It is common to hear leaked information that the government found some people involved with revenue collection, but there is no punishment. “This is why nobody is afraid of the law and the corrupt officials will just get more money.” A proposal to immediately punish corrupt officials instead of reeducating them is under consideration at the National Assembly after it was introduced last week by Assemblywoman Valy Vetsaphong, who is also the deputy president of the Lao National Chamber of Industry and Commerce. A Lao official who declined to be named said that the gasoline smuggling issue is under investigation. “They are finding ways to solve this problem. The gasoline shortage still continues and it is a big headache for the government,” the official said. “We have already negotiated with our Thai trade partners to bring in more gasoline, but it will take time to return to normal.” According to a May 2022 report from Ministry of Industry and Commerce, Laos imports around 100 million to 120 million liters of fuel a month on average. Thus, it costs around $600 million to $700 million to import enough fuel for one year. However, prices are actually double in Laos due to the increasing price of oil on the world market. Closed for price gouging Gas stations in Laos that allegedly attempted to capitalize on the gasoline shortage by increasing prices have been closed for cheating their customers, sources told RFA. “The authorities inspected all the gas stations in this province and found that three of them had been overcharging,” an official of the Industry and Trade Department of the northern province of Luang Namtha told RFA. “They were selling gas at about 2,000-3,000 kip [$0.13-0.20] higher than the government price per liter. Our province has rules that control gas prices so we suspended those three gas stations,” he said. There are however many gas stations that can only get fuel by buying it from abroad, and to do that, they need dollars or Thai baht. Due to a shortage of foreign currency, businesses cannot get as much as they need at the official rate from banks, so they must pay more for foreign currency from other sources. This, in turn, forces them to raise gas prices. “We understand that the pumps get foreign currency from other sources and at higher rates but we have rules to abide by too,” the official said. “The owners of the three pumps will be fined 5 million kip [$333].” A gas station owner in the town of Luang Namtha linked higher gas prices with higher exchange rates. “We can’t get foreign currency from the banks, so we get foreign currencies … from private money exchange outlets at much higher rates. We can’t sell gas at the prices set by the government, we’ll lose a lot of money,” he said. The gas shortage has forced small gas stations to close in Vientiane, leaving only the big companies in business, a motorist in the city told RFA. “Only the large ones like Petroleum of Thailand and the Lao state fuel enterprise are able to be open,” the motorist said. Authorities of the Industry and Trade Department of Champassak Province in southern Laos also inspected all gas stations in the province between June 21 and 28 and found seven gas stations were selling gasoline at higher prices. According to the newspaper of Champassak Province, the authorities put locks on each gas pump, booked and fined the owners and sent them for reeducation. According to the GlobalPetrolPrices.com website, the average price of gas in Laos was 28,070 kip per liter, or $7.13 per gallon as of June 27. Translated by Phouvong. Written in English by...
- [Cambodian court warns Kem Sokha, on trial for ‘treason,’ not to get political](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-court-warns-kem-sokha-on-trial-for-treason-not-to-get-political/): A court in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh warned opposition leader Kem Sokha not to engage in any further political activities after the prosecution played a recorded conversation he held with supporters ahead of recent local elections, the latest wrinkle in his trial that started more than two years ago on unsubstantiated charges of treason. The deputy court prosecutor demanded Kem Sokha’s arrest after alleging that he had met with allies in the northwestern province of Siem Reap prior to the June 5 vote for commune council seats and discussed politics. Kem Sokha was released from pre-trial detention to house arrest in September 2018 and granted bail in November 2019 by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, the terms of which allowed him to travel within Cambodia but restricted him from taking part in any political activities. An undercover investigator recorded one of the conversations, which was used as evidence in Wednesday’s proceedings. Kem Sokha was allowed to return home when the court session ended at 2 p.m. His lawyer, Pheng Heng, told RFA’s Khmer Service that Kem Sokha would be more careful about interactions in order to avoid new charges as the trial unfolds. “He didn’t make any political speech,” said Pheng Heng. He said that Kem Sokha has participated in public gatherings, like weddings, Buddhist ceremonies and a feast, none of which were political. “The deputy prosecutor thought it was political activity, but the defense thinks otherwise,” Phen Heng said. Kem Sokha is not part of any political party recognized by the Ministry of Interior. The Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) — which he co-founded with Sam Rainsy, who is living in self-exile in France — was dissolved by Cambodia’s Supreme Court in November 2017, two months after he was arrested over an alleged plot backed by the United States to overthrow the government of Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia for more than 35 years. Kem Sokha therefore could not have been engaging in politics, his lawyer argued. Wednesday’s hearing was the 46th session of the trial that started prior to the coronavirus pandemic. While the trial was delayed by the court’s closure during the height of the pandemic, critics believe that since then the authorities have been stalling in an attempt to keep Kem Sokha out of the public sphere to curb his political influence. During the 46th session, the court did not address the underlying charges against Kem Sokha, but focused instead on his recent activities. The case against Kem Sokha is clearly politically motivated, Yi Sok San, a senior monitor for the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association (Adhoc), told RFA. “I urge the government to differentiate between politics and law,” he said, adding that it was not fair to raise the new allegation against Kem Sokha without informing the defense. CPP spokesperson Chhim Phall Vorun told RFA that the government’s case is not politically motivated. Experts condemn mass trial U.N. human rights experts on Wednesday requested a review of a June 14 mass trial where 43 defendants with connections to the CNRP were convicted on charges of plotting and incitement, receiving sentences of up to eight years. U.N. officials Vitit Muntarbhorn, who monitors human rights concerns in Cambodia, Clement Nyaletsossi Voule, who tracks freedom of peaceful assembly issues, and Diego Garcia-Sayan, who promotes the independence of judges and lawyers, signed the statement. “The outcome of this first instance trial reinforces a troubling pattern of political trials peppered with judicial flaws,” the experts said in a statement. “We urge the government to urgently review and remedy the process to ensure the defendants’ access to justice.” Among the convicted activists is Cambodian American lawyer Theary Seng, who was recently moved from a prison in Phnom Penh to a more remote location, which the experts said makes family or consular visits more difficult. “On these grounds, the government is urged to review these convictions — and all pending similar cases — and to ensure future judicial proceedings adhere to international obligations,” the experts said. “This is critical to ensure the trend of shrinking civic and democratic space in Cambodia, aggravated by these trials, is reversed. A hindered access to justice not only infringes the rights of the victims, but has an overall chilling effect on society, discourages participation in assemblies and associations, and contributes to the dangerous trend of closing of civic space,” they said. Cambodia’s mission to the U.N. rejected the assessment of the trial as “misleading news.” The mission asserted that the trial was not politically motivated and said calling it as such was “unfounded and prejudicial.” It said that the experts’ narrative “one-sided and biased.” Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Second trip to Myanmar minus key stakeholders underway for ASEAN Envoy](https://ij-reportika.com/second-trip-to-myanmar-minus-key-stakeholders-underway-for-asean-envoy/): Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Special Envoy to Myanmar Prak Sokhonn kicked off his second trip to Myanmar Wednesday to mediate the country’s political crisis despite being denied access to key stakeholders, prompting observers to question the value of his visit. On Tuesday, junta deputy minister of information, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, told the media that the envoy will be permitted to meet with regime chairman, Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, during his five-day visit, as well as other members of the military regime, ethnic armed groups and individuals from “some political parties.” The junta has said that Prak Sokhonn will hold a meeting on Friday with the 10 ethnic armed groups that recently met for peace talks with Min Aung Hlaing — seven of which have signed a Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) with the government since 2015, and three that have not. The talks were boycotted by Myanmar’s major ethnic armies for a perceived lack of inclusivity. On Wednesday, Karen Peace Council (KNLA-PC) spokesman, Col. Saw Kyaw Nyunt, whose group is among those will meet with Prak Sokhonn later this week, suggested that the envoy must meet with more than just those who have been approved by the junta if he hopes to resolve the country’s political stalemate. “I’d urge him to meet, as a special envoy, with all those involved in the political crisis in Myanmar,” he said. “We’ll also [push to] find out what ASEAN could do to bring about a political dialogue inclusive of all stakeholders. And then, as a next step, what ASEAN could do to bring about nationwide peace talks. We have all these in mind.” Prior to the trip, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen — whose nation holds the rotating chair of ASEAN — and Prak Sokhonn had requested permission for the envoy to meet with the head of the deposed National League for Democracy (NLD) Aung San Suu Kyi and the party’s president, Win Myint, but were refused by the junta. The pair are among several NLD officials who were arrested in the immediate aftermath of the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup and face multiple charges widely viewed as politically motivated. During an emergency meeting on the situation in Myanmar in April 2021, Min Aung Hlaing had agreed to a so-called Five-Point Consensus to end violence in the country, which included meeting with all stakeholders to resolve the political crisis but has failed to keep that promise. Observers say that peace cannot be achieved without including the NLD leadership and other powerbrokers in the process – concerns that were echoed by Col. Saw Kyaw Nyunt in his interview with RFA. Multiple attempts by RFA to contact Zaw Min Tun for comment on Prak Sokhonn’s visit went unanswered Wednesday. Earlier this week, the junta spokesman said that “those facing trials” will not be allowed to meet with the ASEAN envoy, adding that the military regime is “working with certain groups” to end the conflict in Myanmar, which has claimed the lives of 2,039 civilians since the coup, according to Bangkok-based NGO Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. “The main point of the agreement is that we are discussing with practical organizations to reduce the tensions of the armed conflict,” Zaw Min Tun said at the time, referring to the 10 ethnic armed groups that met with Min Aung Hlaing for peace talks. “Basic agreements have been reached in the negotiations. More discussions will be held later. We have paved the way [for Prak Sokhonn] to meet with the right people, except those who are still being prosecuted and those who are still facing legal action.” The military has said it plans to allow the envoy meet with “some NLD members” during his visit but has not specified who they are. When asked who will hold talks with Prak Sokhonn, NLD central working committee member Kyaw Htwe said he could not comment on the matter. ‘Not optimistic’ Kyaw Zaw, a spokesman for the office of Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) president, Duwa Lashi La, told RFA he is “not optimistic” about the outcome of Prak Sokhonn’s trip if the envoy fails to meet with the country’s key stakeholders. “It’s impossible for the ASEAN special representative’s efforts to be successful if he is only holding discussions with the junta and is refused a chance to meet with important stakeholders during his visit,” he said. “I don’t expect there will be any benefit for the people of Myanmar.” Kyaw Zaw reiterated calls for Prak Sokhonn to meet with “all those involved in the conflict” during his visit, “not just with those who are chosen by the military.” Myanmar-based political analyst Sai Kyi Zin Soe also dismissed the likelihood of a solution to the country’s political crisis being reached if the opposition is denied a seat at the negotiating table. “The kind of result that people want will not come if things go on like this. It’s a one-sided approach to find a political solution [only] through dialogue with pro-military groups and those who are close to the military,” he said. “The desires and the perspectives of the people on the other side of the issue are being ignored. That’s why I don’t think the solution that people hope for will come out of the visit.” According to a statement issued by Cambodia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday, Prak Sokhonn will discuss the implementation of the Five-Point Consensus, the provision of humanitarian assistance, and ways to facilitate a political dialogue after holding talks with all stakeholders. The ASEAN special envoy visited Myanmar for the first time in March but was criticized for failing to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi and Win Myint, and for failing to make significant progress in his mission to Myanmar. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Zondo : Commission that changed South African Politics](https://ij-reportika.com/zondo-commission-that-changed-south-african-politics/): "The Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture, Corruption, and Fraud in the Public Sector including Organs of State" is better known as the "Zondo Commission" or "State Capture Commission". It is a public inquiry established in January 2018 by former South African President Jacob Zuma to investigate allegations of state capture, corruption, and fraud in the public sector in South Africa.
- [Fighting intensifies near Kayin state’s Myawaddy city](https://ij-reportika.com/fighting-intensifies-near-kayin-states-myawaddy-city/): Military council forces and allied militia have been fighting for four days against Kayin National Union (KNU) forces in Kayin State’s Myawaddy township, leading to heavy casualties on both sides, according to the KNU and Karen National Defense Organization (KNDO). The exact number of casualties is still unknown as the fighting continues, said Bo Salone, an officer from the KNDO which is an ally of the KNU. He told RFA that KNU, KNDO and People’s Defense Force (PDF) fighters have been targeting the military council stronghold at the Ukrithta camp. Junta forces are fighting alongside the Border Guard Force (BGF) and Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), carrying out major attacks and air raids against their opponents. “They have been bombing [us] with military aircraft for three days. Nine times yesterday and 10 more times today,” he said. &#8220;We have casualties on our side and there have been many casualties on the regime’s side too. The number of casualties is still unknown because the fighting has not finished yet.”. RFA’s calls to the military council spokesman, inquiring about the ongoing fighting and the number of junta casualties, went unanswered on Wednesday. A PDF member, speaking on condition of anonymity for safety reasons, told RFA the military council has reinforced troops near its camp due to heavy casualties. “We are still fighting and the military aircraft are still overhead. The battle is still going on. The military council troops fled their camp yesterday and came back with reinforcements,” he said, adding that military council soldiers from the 77th Brigade were involved in the fighting. The PDF group affiliated with the KNU/KNDO, said on its social media site on Tuesday that eight members were killed during the four-day battle, which they are calling &#8216;Venom&#8217;. Ei Kyar Kway, a comedian turned revolutionary who joined the armed insurgency after the February 2021 military coup, and Civil Disobedience Movement participant, Deputy Sergeant Wai Lin Aung (nicknamed Zaw Win Htut), were among the dead, according to the statement. The Ukarithta stronghold is located south of Myawaddy city which is controlled by the KNU’s Brigade-6. In December 2021, about 200 fully armed junta troops arrived at the new town of Lay Kay Kaw near Myawaddy and arrested several CDM staff and PDF members sheltering in a KNU-controlled area. Several days of fighting ensued between junta forces and the KNU, leading more than 70,000 residents to flee the area.. 
- [RIMPAC gets underway amid rising U.S.-China tensions](https://ij-reportika.com/rimpac-gets-underway-amid-rising-u-s-china-tensions/): Ships from various nations taking part in this year&#8217;s RIMPAC exercises. CREDIT: U.S. Navy The world’s largest naval exercise, the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) started Wednesday, promoting maritime cooperation in a region being clouded by U.S.-China rivalry. The U.S.-led war games, joined by all members of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or the Quad, sends a clear message to Beijing as tensions rise across the Taiwan Strait and the war in Ukraine drags on. China has been criticizing the Quad cooperation between the United States, India, Japan and Australia, as an attempt to create an &#8220;Asia-Pacific version of NATO.&#8221; Some 26 nations with 38 surface ships, four submarines, nine national land forces, more than 170 aircraft and approximately 25,000 personnel are taking part in the biennial RIMPAC 2022, scheduled for June 29 to Aug. 4, according to the U.S. Navy.  Five countries bordering the South China Sea – Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore – are amongst the participants. Three of them have competing territorial claims in the South China Sea, where China declares “historical rights” over most of the sea. RIMPAC 2022 is the 28th exercise since the war games started in 1971.  Earlier this year, there were talks to include Taiwan which China considers a province that needs to be “reunified”, into RIMPAC but the move was not realized. Beijing said that such inclusion would have “a strong political implication.” China was twice invited to participate in the RIMPAC in 2014 and 2016, but as bilateral relations have soured, Washington has kept Beijing out since 2018 in the context of China’s militarization of the South China Sea. ‘Sewage of the Cold War’ RIMPAC 2022’s theme is “Capable, Adaptive, Partners,” and the main aim is to promote a free and open Indo-Pacific, according to an announcement by the U.S. Navy. Participating forces will exercise a wide range of capabilities from “disaster relief and maritime security operations to sea control and complex warfighting.” The training program includes “amphibious operations, gunnery, missile, anti-submarine and air defense exercises, as well as counter-piracy operations, mine clearance operations, explosive ordnance disposal, and diving and salvage operations.” The drills will be conducted in and around the Hawaiian Islands and Southern California region. A number of U.S. partners and allies including NATO members Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark and France are taking part. China has been sneering at the presence of NATO countries in the region. The Chinese Permanent Representative to the U.N., Zhang Jun, said his country “firmly opposes NATO&#8217;s involvement in the Asia-Pacific region or the creation of an Asia-Pacific version of NATO.” An editorial in the Chinese Communist Party’s mouthpiece Global Times went further saying: “The sewage of the Cold War cannot be allowed to flow into the Pacific Ocean.” Analysts noted that the small Pacific island of Tonga is invited to RIMPAC for the second time.  This year’s invitation came as China and the U.S. and allies are squaring off for influence in the Pacific. Beijing reached a security deal with the Solomon Islands in March but failed to sign a bigger, more ambitious agreement with ten Pacific island nations.
- [ISIS style BEHEADING that shook India](https://ij-reportika.com/isis-style-beheading-seen-in-india/): &nbsp;India is shaken after the gruesome murder of a tailor in Udaipur city of the state of Rajasthan. In the horrific incident, two men beheaded a tailor at his shop for supporting Nupur Sharma&#8217;s controversial remarks on social media. The experts are calling it an ISIS style beheading. Moreover, the assailants recorded the crime on camera and circulated the video on the social media. One of the assailants, identified as Riyaz, attacked Kanhaiya Lal with a sharp-edged weapon while the other recorded the crime on his mobile phone. In the video they confessed the killing of the tailor for insulting the Prophet (PBUH). The assailants also threatened to kill Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a similar fashion. They can be seen saying &#8220;Inshallaah, our machete will reach Narendra Modi and Nupur Sharma too&#8221;. The two accused have now been detained by the local police.
- [Wife of prisoner of conscience banned from leaving Vietnam](https://ij-reportika.com/wife-of-prisoner-of-conscience-banned-from-leaving-vietnam/): U.S.-based non-profit organization Boat People SOS (BPSOS) released a video on Monday of a speech given by Bui Thi Kim Phuong to the 2022 International Religious Freedom Summit. In it, the wife of prisoner of conscience Nguyen Bac Truyen said she was banned from leaving the country by the Vietnamese government to prevent her speaking in the U.S. about her husband&#8217;s situation and the issue of religious persecution in Vietnam. Nguyen Bac Truyen was arrested in July 2017 under the charge of &#8220;subversion&#8221; and was sentenced to 11 years in prison during a trial in Hanoi in April 2018. Phuong told RFA she has been banned from leaving the country since 2019. “In 2019, I was invited to attend a conference by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, but when I arrived at Tan Son Nhat Airport, I was blocked from leaving the country,” she said. “They said the reason I was stopped was for security, social order and safety reasons. “I lodged a complaint with the Ministry of Public Security and the Immigration Department, and they replied giving the same reason.&#8221; Phuong said she has been invited every year since 2019 to attend a conference on religious freedom, and, although every year she still submits a complaint to the Ministry of Public Security to ask to be allowed to leave the country, she is not allowed to leave Vietnam. “In 2020, I was also invited,” she said. “I applied to the Vietnamese Government to ask if I was allowed to leave the country, and they answered with the same reason. In 2021, I also filed a petition to prepare to leave the country to attend the conference but the COVID-19 pandemic occurred.” “This year, before this conference, I also submitted a petition to the Ministry of Public Security and the Immigration Department, but until today they have remained silent.” Her husband Nguyen Bac Truyen is an independent Hoa Hao Buddhist and an active human rights activist. When he was arrested, many organizations believed the arrest to be politically motivated and a case of religious persecution. The International Religious Freedom Summit is an annual event. This year&#8217;s conference runs from Tuesday to Thursday. Part of the program will be devoted to victims of religious persecution around the world to publicize and discuss their cases. When asked about her feelings when being prevented from attending an international conference to fight for her husband, Ms. Bui Thi Kim Phuong said: &#8220;Of course, deep down I am very angry and frustrated but, since I live in this regime, if they block me and I still go it will be very difficult since I am still living in this country.&#8221; She added that she still planned to speak out strongly to denounce the government persecution faced by her family and her religion.
- [NLD slams junta transfer of Suu Kyi to prison in Myanmar capital](https://ij-reportika.com/nld-slams-junta-transfer-of-suu-kyi-to-prison-in-myanmar-capital/): Myanmar’s deposed National League for Democracy (NLD) on Tuesday condemned the junta’s decision to move party leader Aung San Suu Kyi from detention to a prison in the nation’s capital, citing poor conditions and lack of access to health care at the facility. On June 23, the junta announced that Suu Kyi had been transferred to Naypyidaw Prison. The 77-year-old has been charged in 19 cases since her arrest during the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup and sentenced to 11 years in prison for six of them. According to local media reports, authorities at Naypyidaw Prison began constructing a new building to house Suu Kyi last month and three female prison staffers have been assigned to monitor her. RFA reported last week that Suu Kyi had begun a new trial at a special court in Naypyidaw Prison. Speaking to RFA Burmese on Tuesday, NLD Central Working Committee member Kyaw Htwe called the decision to move the party leader “a stain on Myanmar’s history” and warned that the military is fully responsible for her health and safety. “They weren’t satisfied with the arbitrary arrest of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and now they have sent her to Naypyidaw Prison. This coup was one of the greatest mistakes in Myanmar’s history and can never be erased,” he said, using an honorific for the imprisoned leader. “With the intention of undermining the aspirations of the country and subduing the people, they did this to her, a leader who cannot be left out of Myanmar politics, who is the only person capable of making important decisions for the country, and who until now, has the support of the international community and still fully represents the people. If any danger befalls her, the junta will be totally responsible.” Kyaw Htwe noted that Naypyidaw Prison — like many other prisons in Myanmar — is plagued by unsafe drinking water, insects such as mosquitoes and flies, sanitation problems and a lack of fresh air. In a statement on Tuesday, the working committee also criticized the decision to move Suu Kyi, warning that it will be difficult to provide the elderly leader with timely medical treatment in the event of an emergency. The NLD also slammed the junta for arresting a public leader who it said had “committed no crime under any law,” as well as “threatening lawyers seeking to provide her with legal protection.” The statement alleged that Suu Kyi had “lost her legal right to defend herself” and is therefore facing an “unjust legal process.” Little is known about Suu Kyi’s status, but sources close to the NLD leader told RFA that after being transferred to Naypyidaw Prison, the military placed her in solitary confinement and prohibited her former aides from attending to her. Attempts by RFA to contact junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment on the transfer and conditions at the prison went unanswered Tuesday, although he confirmed to the media on Monday that Suu Kyi is being held in solitary confinement. Zin Ko, a resident of the commercial capital Yangon, said he was shocked by the news of Suu Kyi’s imprisonment. “What worries me is that she will be alone in the prison with only prison staff nearby, so how will her daily needs be met?” he asked. “[The public is] very shocked. It’s very important for her to survive for the sake of our country’s future. She is one of the few good leaders who can rebuild our nation from ruin.” More pressure likely News of Suu Kyi’s transfer came as Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) special envoy to Myanmar, Prak Sakhorn, who is expected to visit Myanmar June 29-30, wrote an open letter to the junta’s Foreign Ministry on Monday, expressing the bloc’s concern over Suu Kyi’s condition and urging the regime to return to her original place of detention. The junta immediately rejected the request in a statement to the media that said nobody is above the law in Myanmar and warned others about meddling in the affairs of a sovereign nation. Myanmar-based political analyst Sai Kyi Zin Soe on Tuesday told RFA that the junta’s move to imprison Suu Kyi will increase international pressure on the regime. “There are very few things that the U.N. or ASEAN can do effectively, but other countries have taken action against the junta [for violently oppressing the people of Myanmar] in their own way,” he said, referring to sanctions imposed by the U.S., U.K. and European Union. “I think that more of this type of action is likely to happen.” Suu Kyi is facing an additional 13 charges, convictions on which could extend her 11-year sentence to more than 100 years in prison. The top leaders of the NLD-led government, members of Parliament and many opponents of the military coup are facing trial in the Special Court in Naypyidaw Prison. Those convicted are often transferred to Yamethin Prison near Naypyidaw. Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, on June 23 expressed concern for Suu Kyi’s well-being and said her transfer was in defiance of a recent call by the U.N. Security Council for Myanmar to release all political prisoners. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Leaked documents show China’s careful coordination of Uyghur repression](https://ij-reportika.com/leaked-documents-show-chinas-careful-coordination-of-uyghur-repression/): Classified speeches given by high-ranking Chinese Communist Party officials describe Uyghurs and other Muslims as an “enemy class” whose traditions must be wiped away for China to survive, startling new evidence of the coordinated brutality authorities have deployed to force restive minority groups to assimilate. The speeches are part of a trove of documents known as the Xinjiang Police Files, leaked records allegedly from internment camps in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) that were released in May by German researcher Adrian Zenz, an expert on the region. The files contain information about more than 20,000 detained Uyghurs. The internal-party speeches, labeled “classified documents,” show that Chinese government officials carefully planned what the United States and the parliaments of some western countries have said is genocide and crimes against humanity. Among the documents is a May 2017 speech by Chen Quanguo, Chinese Communist Party secretary of the XUAR from August 2016 to December 2021, who said the Chinese government’s crackdown in Xinjiang was not an act of stamping out criminals but rather an “extinction war” aimed at the Uyghur population. He called the Uyghurs an “enemy class.” Chen described a “strike hard” campaign strategy of governing Xinjiang that was directed by the Chinese President Xi Jinping and included the imprisonment of Uyghurs. According to the files, Chen’s instructions in his speech were based on directives received from China’s central government. Rights groups have issued reams of credible, well-documented reports about the detention of an estimated 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in the XUAR, along with widespread surveillance, discrimination, restrictions on culture and freedom of religion that the groups face, and severe rights abuses, including torture, sexual assaults, and forced labor. Chen also said that those sentenced to fewer than five years in prison should be mobilized for “learning law” and “bilingual learning,” and be released only after they reached a satisfactory study level no matter how many years it took. The former official said Uyghurs deemed untrustworthy or harmful by the Chinese government had to be educated to the extent that they were committed to “completely freeing themselves from such ideas once they return to society.” But those whose outlooks could not likely be changed — “unauthorized imams” and “two-faced people” — should be detained or imprisoned indefinitely because they have the ability to guide the Uyghur community. The Chinese Communist Party uses the term “two-faced” to describe people — usually officials or party members — who are either corrupt or ideologically disloyal to the party. Authorities in Xinjiang interrogate a Uyghur in a &#8216;re-education&#8217; camp in an undated photo from the leaked &#8216;Xinjiang Police Files,&#8217; published by German researcher Adrian Zenz on May 24, 2022. Credit: Adrian Zenz/Xinjiang Police Files ‘Poisoned by terrorism, violence and extremism’ The “harmful” people Chen Quanguo mentioned in his speech refers to Uyghurs the Chinese government considers to be “poisoned by terrorism, violence and extremism” or during contacts with foreigners. Chen said such people needed to be “treated” in what he called a “people’s war.” Information in the Xinjiang Police Files and other research reports and leaked documents suggest that what Chen referred to as poison included Uyghur traditions and Islamic activities. Speeches by Chen and Zhao Kezhi, the former Chinese minister of public security, indicated that there were millions of “poisoned” Uyghurs. Adrian Zenz, who received the Xinjiang Police Files from an unnamed source, said Chinese authorities have detained Uyghurs not for crimes, but for their social connections. “[M]any of more than 2,800 people we have seen in the Xinjiang Police Files were detained because of their social networks, not because of any crime they committed,” he said. Ilshat Hassan Kokbore, a political analyst based in the U.S. and vice chairman of the executive committee of the World Uyghur Congress, said the large-scale arbitrary detention of Uyghurs by the Chinese government and what Chen describes as a “people’s war” are tantamount to publicly declaring the entire Uyghur people is the “enemy of the Chinese state.” Another focal point of Chen’s speech was the extension of government control over Uyghur families. In his view, police could visit and monitor only a limited number of households under what authorities called the “10 Families, One Ring” policy, creating a loophole in the surveillance of those who did not live in the vicinity of a police station. In late 2017, Xinjiang authorities assigned cadres to visit and stay in the homes of Uyghurs, where they ate with the residents and in some cases slept in their beds, in what was a test-run of the “Pair Up and Becoming Family” program. Under the program, public servants were assigned to families and had to live with them in their houses for a few days every couple of months to monitor them. Chen summed up the situation at the time: “In the past, in some villages, our officials were afraid of being killed when entering their families to become relatives. Now the officials who enter the families are greeted by everyone at the dinner table.” Children play near a screen showing images of Chinese President Xi Jinping in Kashgar, in northwestern China&#8217;s Xinjiang region, June 1, 2019. Credit: AFP. ‘Eliminating budding risk’ As far as Uyghur children were concerned, Chen said 1 million minors being educated in “bilingual&#8221; kindergartens had learned the “national language” very well. In just a few months it was possible for the children to sing the national anthem in Chinese and to love the “great motherland,” Beijing and Tiananmen Square, Chen said. “Only in this way can we make the next generation hopeful for long-term stability, follow the party and be grateful to the party,” Chen said, without mentioning where the parents of the Uyghur children were or what they thought. The Chinese state educating such a large number of Uyghur children would be devastating to Uyghur society, Kokbore said. The Chinese government’s education methods are driven by the notion of “eliminating budding risk,” so that the scale of the training continues until...
- [Chinese authorities sentence Tibetan student to 3 years for contacting exiles](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-authorities-sentence-tibetan-student-to-3-years-for-contacting-exiles/): Chinese authorities this month sentenced a university student to three years in prison for contacting Tibetan exiles, the latest in a series of arbitrary arrests of Tibetan intellectuals, artists and other community leaders, activists told RFA. Nyima, from Shelian Township in Kardze (Ganzi in Chinese) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan province, was arrested unexpectedly in January this year on charges of spying. He was a student at Sichuan’s Gehoe National University, concentrating his studies on Tibetan culture. Fluent in Tibetan, Chinese and English, Nyima had always been around tourists and visitors, sharing Tibet’s unique language and culture prior to his arrest in January. “[He] was sentenced on June 5 to three years in prison for allegedly disseminating state secrets, but the Chinese authorities have shared no details of what kind of state secrets Nyima has exposed,” a Tibetan source living inside Tibet told RFA. “He could be seen sharing Tibet’s history and authentic Tibetan culture with the tourists, so I think that may be the reason for his arrest. His family has no idea where he is imprisoned at the moment,” said the source, who requested anonymity for security reasons. Nyima’s arrest is very similar to the arrests of other influential Tibetans, Pema Gyal, a researcher at the London–based Tibet Watch advocacy group told RFA’s Tibetan Service. “There have been a growing number of cases of arrests of Tibetan intellectuals inside Tibet by the Chinese government, and we have learned that in case of Nyima, he was arrested for communicating with the outside exile community, and also for his commitment to preserve Tibetan language and culture,” Pema Gyal said. Language rights have become a particular focus for Tibetan efforts to assert national identity in recent years, with informally organized language courses typically deemed “illegal associations” and teachers subject to detention and arrest, sources say. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [In North Korea, a sack of flour separates haves from have-nots](https://ij-reportika.com/in-north-korea-a-sack-of-flour-separates-haves-from-have-nots/): A loaf of bread has become a status symbol in North Korea as prices for flour have increased so sharply that only the wealthiest citizens can afford it, sources in the country told RFA. Throughout Korean history, white rice has reigned supreme as the basic staple that signified wealth, and poorer people would mix their rice or replace it completely with cheaper grains like millet. In the case of North Korea, it is still true that only the very wealthy can expect all their meals to contain white rice or have the luxury of eating sweetened rice cakes, called ddeok, as a treat. Most North Koreans subsist primarily on corn and other coarse grains. But now flour has become so scarce that it costs more than rice, and North Koreans are starting to equate eating bread, or batter-fried foods like savory jijim pancakes, as a sign of wealth, a resident of Kimjongsuk county in the northern province of Ryanggang told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “These days, it’s the most prosperous household that can buy imported flour from the marketplace and make foods like bread and jijim,” said the source. “Before the pandemic it was the families who could make ddeok or who ate bowls of white rice, who were considered prosperous, because they had to ship the rice from places like Hwanghae province in the country’s grain producing region. But now imported flour is several times more expensive than rice,” she said. Cheap Russian and Chinese flour was once readily available in large quantities, but imports stopped when North Korea sealed its borders at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in January 2020 and suspended all trade. The border has remained closed for the entire pandemic, save for a brief reopening earlier this year that quickly ended only weeks later with a resurgence of the virus in China. Flour’s price has been intimately tied to the ability to import. Flour in Kimjongsuk county cost 4,000-4,600 won per kilogram (U.S. $0.25-0.29 per pound) in December 2019. During the pandemic the price went as high as 30,000 won per kilogram, then fell to 10,000 when China and North Korea briefly restarted maritime and rail freight. But now that the border is closed again, prices have increased to about 18,000 won. According to the Osaka-based AsiaPress news outlet that focuses on North Korea, the current price of rice in the country is about 6,600 won per kilogram, up from about 4,200 won at the end of 2019. “Ordinary residents cannot even dare to buy flour, because it’s even pricier than rice. When the price of flour is more than two or three times that of rice, as it is now, bread and mandu dumplings suddenly become food that only the high-ranking officials and fabulously wealthy can afford to eat. So foods made with flour are now a symbol of wealth,” said the Kimjongsuk source. Flour had been a cheap ingredient to make snacks and fried dishes less central to the North Korean diet, said a resident of Unsan county, South Pyongan province, north of the capital Pyongyang. “Flour … has become a deluxe ingredient that people use to show off when guests come over,” she told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “Last week, for my son’s birthday, I invited his elementary school teacher to my house. I wanted to show respect and sincerity, so I bought some imported flour, which is now costlier than the rice that goes into making ddeok, so I served bread, mandu and jijim,” she said. Translated by Claire Shinyoung O. Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Mutilated body found near China-Myanmar copper venture](https://ij-reportika.com/mutilated-body-found-near-china-myanmar-copper-venture/): The body of a man, whose head and arms had been cut off, was found on Sunday at Phaungkata (North) village, Salingyi township near the Chinese-owned Letpadaung copper mine in Myanmar’s northwestern Sagaing region, local residents told RFA. The victim was identified as 30-year-old Sai Myat Soe. Residents said he was not from the village but came from Sa Don Gyi village, also in Salingyi township. The junta forces guarding the copper project carried out raids on nearby villages, including Moe Gyo Pyin (North), Zee Taw, Sal Tel and Phaungkata (North) villages from June 21 to 24. The man went missing on June 24 when the junta forces set fire to his village, residents told RFA. A Phaungkata villager told RFA they found the mutilated body at around 10 a.m. on June 26. “The body was found near the school where he was arrested, locally called Phaungkata North village,” a resident told RFA. “The head, body and arms had been separated and scattered. Everything had to be collected and cremated.” Locals said Sai Myat Soe may have been killed after he was arrested when the junta forces set fire to villages near Sa Don Gyi. Calls to the military council spokesman by RFA went unanswered on Tuesday afternoon.  The remains of Moe Gyo Pyin (North) village, Salingyi township, Sagaing region, May 23, 2022.  CREDIT: Citizen journalist On April 21, 16 local PDFs groups issued a warning that the Letpadaung copper project, a joint venture with the Chinese Government and operated by Wanbao Mining Ltd., would be attacked because it could provide income for the military junta.. Shortly after the PDFs’ announcement, the military council stepped up security at the mine. They started raiding nearby villages on June 21. Tensions remain high due to guerilla raids by the PDFs. The military council spokesman earlier responded to RFA’s inquiries, saying the junta had to protect the copper mine because it is a foreign investment. More than 20,000 residents from 25 villages near the mine have been forced to flee due to attacks on nearby villages and fighting between junta forces and PDFs.
- [Vietnam orders media to promote its ocean strategy](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-orders-media-to-promote-its-ocean-strategy/): The Vietnamese government has launched a national campaign to promote its maritime policies as the ruling party pledges to explore “all available legal tools” to defend its interests amid China’s growing assertiveness in the South China Sea. A government order stipulates that by 2025, all domestic media outlets are required to have a dedicated section on Vietnam’s sea and ocean strategy, and their entire editorial staff must have the necessary  knowledge and understanding of both the international and domestic laws on the sea. Meanwhile, the Vietnamese authorities have banned all tourist activities on two islets adjacent to the strategic Cam Ranh Bay that is undergoing intensive development into an advanced naval base, home to its submarines. Vietnam has the largest submersible fleet in Southeast Asia with six Kilo-class subs, bought from Russia at a cost of U.S.$1.8 billion. Tour guides and witnesses told RFA that since April, the two islands of Binh Ba and Binh Hung in Cam Ranh Bay, Khanh Hoa province, have become off-limits to foreign visitors. Vietnamese nationals still have limited access to the scenic islets, just a stone’s throw from the docked frigates. “Eventually, even Vietnamese tourists will not be allowed on Ba Binh,” said Binh, a tour operator who wanted to be known only by his first name. “So, my advice is to visit it while you can,” he said. Russian Udaloy-class destroyer Marshal Shaposhnikov at Cam Ranh port on June 25, 2022. CREDIT: Sputnik Modern naval base Cam Ranh Bay is a well known deep-water port in central Vietnam, only 300 kilometers from Ho Chi Minh City. It was used by the French, and subsequently, the U.S. Navy until the end of the Vietnam war. In 1979 the Soviet Union signed a 25-year lease of Cam Ranh with the Vietnamese and spent a large sum of money to develop it into a major base for the Soviet Pacific Fleet. But Russia withdrew from the base in 2002, citing increased rent and changing priorities. Hanoi has since announced a so-called “three nos” policy &#8211; no alliances, no foreign bases on its territory and no alignment with a second country against a third – that means foreign navies will not be allowed to set up bases in Cam Ranh. However, a logistics faciliy has been established to offer repair and maintenance services to foreign vessels, including Russian and U.S. warships. Moscow is still maintaining a listening station in Cam Ranh Bay and has also indicated that it is considering a comeback, according to Russian media. Three warships of the Russian Navy’s Pacific Fleet led by the Udaloy-class anti-submarine destroyer Marshal Shaposhnikov visited Cam Ranh between June 25 and 28. With 50 ships and 23 submarines, the Pacific Fleet is Russia’s second largest naval fleet after the Black Sea Fleet which is currently involved in the war in Ukraine. U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea A Russian presence may be seen as a counterweight for competing China-U.S. rivalry in the South China Sea, where Beijing claims “historical rights” over almost 80 per cent, analysts said. With China apparently gaining a foothold in the region, at the Ream naval base in Cambodia, Cam Ranh may become even more important strategically to other regional players. On June 19 Vietnam protested against China’s drills near the Paracel islands, claimed by both countries but occupied entirely by China. Hanoi and five other claimants in the South China Sea are still struggling to agree on a Code of Conduct in the contested sea, where the U.S. and allies have been challenging China’s excessive territorial claims with their freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs). Vietnamese experts are calling for a more active application of legal documents to assert the country’s sovereignty in the South China Sea, especially as 2022 is the 40th anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the 10th anniversary of Vietnam’s own Law of the Sea. Tran Cong Truc, former head of Vietnam’s Border Committee, said that UNCLOS “paved a clear legal corridor for countries to defend their lawful rights,” and needed to be “properly utilized.” A series of special events are being held to commemorate the anniversaries, as well as to highlight the importance of this “legal corridor.”  “UNCLOS and Vietnam’s Law of the Sea are the two main legal tools for the fight for our rights,” Sr. Lt. Gen. Nguyen Chi Vinh, former vice minister of defense, was quoted by the People’s Army newspaper as saying. “Vietnam should only consider military actions as the last resort after exhausting all other options,” he said.
- [Vietnamese citizens question legality of COVID letter of accountability](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnamese-citizens-question-legality-of-covid-letter-of-accountability/): A Vietnamese government ruling that people who refuse a COVID vaccine booster need to write a letter of accountability has received either a negative response or ‘no comment’ from people contacted by RFA. The Ministry of Health issued the regulation, which states that people who do not want a fourth shot need to agree to take responsibility if they later get infected and spread the virus. Many people who spoke to RFA said the ruling had no legal basis. A representative of Ho Chi Minh City’s Center for Disease Control explained to the Thanh Nien newspaper that the request is in line with the Ministry of Health’s assessment of the risks but, so far, the ministry has not explained how people should take responsibility. Radio Free Asia asked Facebook users and human rights activists for their views. Of the 18 people interviewed, seven objected to the request while the remainder declined to comment. Hanoi-based law graduate Bui Quang Thang said there were no legal grounds to insist on another booster shot: “Clause 1, Article 29 of the Law on Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases stipulates: Persons at risk of contracting an infectious disease in an epidemic area and traveling to an epidemic area must be vaccinated and take medicines for diseases to which vaccines and medical biological products are available for their prevention.” “Point A, Clause 2, Article 30 of the law above stipulates: The Minister of Health is responsible for promulgating the list of infectious diseases subject to compulsory vaccination and use of medical biological products specified in Clause 1, Article 29 of this law.” “The list of infectious diseases … does not include COVID-19. Therefore, COVID-19 is not an infectious disease that requires vaccination.” Blogger Nguyen Quang Vinh said the decision to refuse a vaccination is up to the individual. “It is not possible to force people to sign a pledge so this government can wash its hands when people have the misfortune to be infected with COVID,” he said, adding that he had received two shots of COVID vaccine but had no intention of getting another because he believed he would not be infected. Social activist Phuong Ngo said the Vietnamese Constitution stipulates the right to inviolability of one’s body, especially in the situation that the whole country has natural herd immunity. Therefore, she believed the ministry’s request was not reasonable. According to statistics website Our World in Data, as of June 25 Vietnam had administered 230 million doses of Coronavirus vaccine, of which more than 80 million people had received two shots, accounting for nearly 83% of the country&#8217;s population. Facebook user Do The Dang, a member of the Hanoi No-U football team, said: “This is a very subtle abdication of responsibility because people have rights and making the pledge is a waiver of the government&#8217;s responsibility. As for me, I refuse to sign.” The Lao Dong newspaper ran an article on Monday headlined &#8220;Signing a commitment if you don&#8217;t get the third and fourth dose of COVID-19 vaccine: Needs specific regulations.&#8221; It carried comments from people in Thu Duc city, who agreed with the health ministry’s request. However, it said there should be &#8220;specific instructions on the issue of how to proceed, presented in a way that people can understand.&#8221; According to Monday’s edition of the Tuoi Tre online newspaper, many people who disagreed with the fourth injection had agreed to sign the commitment. The newspaper also quoted a ward leader in Ho Chi Minh City as saying: &#8220;signing the pledge can only be done by a few people and not everyone agrees to sign,&#8221; and if people don&#8217;t want to get the fourth shot and don&#8217;t sign the commitment medical staff have no choice but to treat them. The official also said most people supported the first two injections and one booster shot, but only a few people supported the fourth shot. Phan Trong Lan, Director of the Department of Preventive Medicine at the Ministry of Health confirmed to the press on Monday that the government considered the booster to be necessary due to the unpredictability of the SARS-COV-2 virus and possible mutations. Another official said that, while there are about 15 million shots of COVID vaccine in the country’s stockpile with expiry dates from July to October this year, the push for people to get the booster is not due to a surplus.
- [10 injured as Cambodia cracks down on NagaWorld protest](https://ij-reportika.com/10-injured-as-cambodia-cracks-down-on-nagaworld-protest/): At least ten people were injured Monday when security forces in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh violently dispersed a strike, ramping up a crackdown on workers involved in a six-month-old labor dispute with the NagaWorld Casino. Strikers told RFA Khmer that “hundreds” of security personnel were deployed to set up roadblocks and otherwise stymie the peaceful protest by around 150 mostly female NagaWorld workers near the downtown casino. They said authorities beat them when they wouldn’t board a bus sent to ferry them away from the area, leaving 10 people in need of medical attention. A worker named Chan Srey Roth said a security officer hit her in the head with a walkie talkie and repeatedly insulted her during the incident, while other officers “grabbed male workers by the hair and smashed their heads” against the side of the police vehicle. “They are members of the national security forces, whose duty is to protect the people, not to use violence against them – particularly against women,” she said. “We raised our hands, begging them not to beat us, but they did so anyway, ordering us to disperse. When we interlocked our hands, they tried to break our chain and dragged us off, one by one, to brutally beat us. One of them hit me in the face with a walkie talkie and kicked me, while cursing at me.” Another worker, Phat Channa, said authorities are increasingly turning to violence to break up gatherings by her group as protesters refuse to board the buses police have used to relocate them to Prek Pnov district, on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. “They beat me unconscious. I was shocked because they didn’t bother to consider that we are women – they just dragged us away and beat us like dogs,” she said. “We have experienced a lot of injustice. We are only demanding the right to work, but they beat us like beasts.” Other protesters told RFA that authorities prevented civil society representatives and United Nations human rights officials from monitoring Monday’s protest and threatened to confiscate the phones and cameras of anyone seen documenting the incident, unless they deleted their photos and video. A statement issued by the Phnom Penh government claimed that Monday’s protest was “an ugly event that was planned in advance by a handful of people seeking to make the authorities look bad.” “They disrupted social and public order, leading to violence that left a number of authorities injured and resulted in the loss of five walkie talkies and one watch.” Government Human Rights Committee spokesperson Kata Un accused the strikers of holding an illegal rally and called the response by authorities “an educational measure.” “In the case of illegal acts, the authorities have the right to use whatever measures are necessary to stop, disperse, or suppress the perpetrators,” he said. “So far, the Phnom Penh authorities have not taken any repressive measures. What the authorities are doing is educating people to avoid restricted areas and to instead hold protests in Freedom Park [in the Phnom Penh suburbs].” Six-month dispute Thousands of NagaWorld workers walked off their jobs in mid-December, demanding higher wages and the reinstatement of eight jailed union leaders, three other jailed workers and 365 others they say were unjustly fired from the hotel and casino owned by a Hong Kong-based company believed to have connections to family members of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen. The strikers began holding regular protest rallies in front of the casino, drawing the attention of NGOs and U.N. agencies who have urged Cambodia’s government to stop persecuting them and help resolve their dispute in accordance with labor laws. Cambodian authorities allege that the strikes by NagaWorld workers are part of a “foreign plot to topple the government,” although they have provided no evidence to back up their claim. An increasingly tough response by security personnel led to pushing and shoving during a strike outside the casino’s offices on May 11 that one worker claimed caused her to miscarry her pregnancy two weeks later. Am Sam Ath, chief of General Affairs for Cambodian rights group LICADO, told RFA that authorities have made the NagaWorld dispute worse by leveling allegations against the workers and cracking down on their protests. “We don’t want to see a labor dispute between NagaWorld and its workers turn into a dispute between the authorities and the workers,” he said. “What we want to see is a peaceful settlement to the issue, and these incidents of violence don’t benefit anyone.” Am Sam Ath urged the Ministry of Labor, as well as other relevant state institutions, to remain neutral and end their accusations against the NagaWorld workers and called for a resolution of the dispute in accordance with the law and international labor practices. Translated by Sok Ry Sum. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Mekong dams must release less water in dry season to preserve habitats, experts say](https://ij-reportika.com/mekong-dams-must-release-less-water-in-dry-season-to-preserve-habitats-experts-say/): Abnormally high-water levels in the Mekong River at the end of May indicate that dams on the river must release less water during the dry season to protect the ecosystem, experts said at an online panel Monday.  Rain levels during the dry season this year have increased, experts told an online seminar about the unseasonably wet 2022 dry season, hosted by the Washington-based Stimson Center. But they singled out dams, particularly in China and Laos, as adding to the problem of flooding along the lower half of the river, threatening the ecosystems there. The Mekong region is home to numerous species of plants and animals that rely on its annual changes from dry season to wet season and back again, the panelists said. Disruption of the cycle is harmful to many of the species, and in turn the riparian communities that depend on them. “I think our data shows that very clearly the river level there is much higher during the dry season than normal … and China&#8217;s dams actually can be part of the solution,” Brian Eyler, Southeast Asia program director of the Stimson Center and co-lead of its Mekong Dam Monitor Project, told the panel on Monday. “They wield a lot of power over the downstream, particularly those two largest dams,” he said. “We found that they can they alone can raise the river level by 50 percent &#8230; for total dry season flow. That&#8217;s power,” he said, adding that the dams could also help to restore natural flow in times of need. The Mekong River Commission, an intergovernmental body that helps to coordinate management of the river, reported that May 2022 was the second wettest May since it began collecting data. Total flow in May was 22.8 billion cubic meters, about 150% higher than the average flow of 9 billion cubic meters. The Mekong Dam Monitor’s data suggested that about 6 billion cubic meters from the flow came from dam releases upstream, mostly in China. An example of how the increased flow could affect species is the Mekong Flooded Forest, said Ian Baird, a geography professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The World Wildlife Fund said the flooded forest is “a spectacular 27,000 km² complex of freshwater ecosystems including wetlands, sandy and rocky riverine habitats in northern-central Cambodia, bordering the South of Laos.” Baird said that the forest’s most striking feature, trees that jut upward from the floodwaters, relies on drier periods when the trees are not submerged. “Right now what we can see is that, the bushes that are in the lowest part of the river have been heavily impacted. The Blodgett trees have [exhibited] medium impacts,” he said. “So, I mean, things are already bad, but it&#8217;s important to understand that they could get a lot worse than they are now. And really the way to mitigate this is to release less water in the dry season,” Baird said. But he said that decisions about upstream releases are mostly beyond Cambodia’s control. “This is all water coming from above Cambodia, you know, but there is a lot that China and Laos could do, especially China, I think, that that could reduce the impact.” The Mekong River ecosystem could be lost if nothing is done, Chea Seila, project manager of the Wonders of the Mekong, a research group that receives funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development. She brought up the world record 300-kilogram giant freshwater stingray that was recently caught, tagged by her team and released in Stung Treng. “The discovery of this [world record breaking] fish indicates the special opportunity that we have in Cambodia and also to protect the species, and also the core habitat,” she said. Eyler of the Stimson Center said that although existing dams could help keep the river’s flow closer to expected averages, building more could create new problems. “I would not recommend building more dams to counter this effect, which is a discourse that we&#8217;re hearing coming out of the Mekong River Commission, that there&#8217;s an investment solution to this, there&#8217;s an infrastructure solution to this,” he said. “I think that&#8217;s a very expensive, dangerous and risky proposition, particularly when there are solutions at hand,” Eyler said.    
- [Tibetan convention calls on governments to help resolve Tibet issue with China](https://ij-reportika.com/tibetan-convention-calls-on-governments-to-help-resolve-tibet-issue-with-china/): Participants at an international meeting on Tibet called on governments to do more to advance the rights of Tibetans who face repression at the hands of the Chinese government. More than 100 participants from 26 countries attended the 8th World Parliamentarians’ Convention on Tibet on June 22-23 in Washington, D.C., to discuss the resumption of the Sino-Tibet dialogue and other key objectives. The meeting was organized by the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile based in Dharamsala, India, which sent 10 representatives to the meeting. Attendees agreed to collaborate more fully on matters related to Tibet. They also declared that the International Network of Parliamentarians on Tibet would be revived and to work to establish groups of lawmakers focused on Tibetan issues in countries where they do not yet exist.  “Substantively what the parliamentarians are willing to do now is a step up from the past,” said Michael van Walt van Praag, the executive president of Kreddha, a nonprofit organization dedicated to resolving intrastate conflicts and promoting peace. “[T]his is bringing home very clearly how important it is to defend the values of freedom, self-determination but also to uphold international law and to stop large countries from invading their small neighbors,” he said. The Central Tibetan Administration, the formal name of the Tibetan government-in-exile, and the Dalai Lama have adopted an approach called the Middle Way, which accepts Tibet’s present status as a part of China but urges greater cultural and religious freedom, including strengthened language rights, for Tibetans living under Beijing’s rule. “Despite having a thousand years of history of being an independent country, we are sincere and committed to the Middle Way policy to resolve the conflict between Tibet and China through a mutually beneficial way,” Khenpo Sonam Tenphel, speaker of the 17th Tibetan Parliament in Exile, said in introductory remarks. The participants also called on parliaments to take coordinated actions to reach a resolution to the Sino-Tibetan conflict through talks and negotiations between the parties, without preconditions. “Tibetans can find a resolution in discussions with China somewhere in the middle between Tibet’s independence and integration with the PRC (People’s Republic of China),” said van Walt. ‘Dangerous assault’ on human rights The participants said China should allow Tibetan Buddhists to appoint the next Dalai Lama and other senior Lamas, which Chinese authorities have said would be a violation of religious freedom. The question of who will replace the current 86-year-old Tibetan spiritual leader, the 14th Dalai Lama, has become more pressing. Senior Buddhist monks have traditionally identified successors based on spiritual signs and visions, but the Chinese government in 2011 declared that only Beijing can appoint his successor. “Politically we are not seeking independence for Tibet,” said the Dalai Lama in a video message to the delegates. “I have made this clear over the years. What most concerns us is the importance of preserving and safeguarding our culture and language.” In their declaration, the participants also asked governments to prohibit corporations from benefiting from forced labor and the exploitation of the natural environment of the Tibetan plateau. U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat who spoke at the meeting, said that China has “waged a dangerous assault on human rights in Tibet” for decades. “The Chinese government has clearly shown that it has no regard for Tibetan autonomy or identity or faith,” she said. “This aggression has not only accelerated in recent years, with new actions to impose mandatory political education, cruelly restrict religious freedom, expand its mass surveillance regime and further close off Tibet to global visitors.” Pelosi also said that U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), would introduce bipartisan legislation to update the Tibet China Conflict Act, which would clearly state the history of Tibet and encourage a peaceful resolution to the ultimate status of Tibet. During the CECC hearing on Tibet on June 23, McGovern said that the U.S. and the world community were not doing enough to help resolve the Tibet issue. “Tibet’s true representatives are His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile as recognized by the Tibetan people, so any solution and way forward has to be what Tibetans want and cannot be imposed by anyone who is not part of Tibetan community,” he said. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Myanmar junta deploys loudspeakers in bid to prompt PDF surrender](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-deploys-loudspeakers-in-bid-to-prompt-pdf-surrender/): Myanmar’s junta has launched a campaign urging local members of the armed opposition to surrender, vowing to step down following elections planned for 2023, but prodemocracy fighters on Monday dismissed the move as a sign of desperation from a military regime barely clinging to power. Beginning on June 12, state-run media outlets published an announcement by the junta calling on members of all armed groups — including the People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary group it has labeled a terrorist organization — to lay down their weapons and return to civilian life. Three days later, residents told RFA Burmese that they began hearing similar messages over loudspeakers from vehicles escorted by the military through several cities and townships. “Their message was that they will be holding elections … and power will be handed over to the victorious [political] party, so they want the PDFs to give up their arms and surrender to the law,” said a resident of Myanmar’s second city Mandalay, speaking on condition of anonymity. He said that people “ignored the announcements.” Various armed resistance groups that have sworn loyalty to Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) told RFA that surrendering to the junta is not an option. Sein Kyaw, the head of the Myaung Revolution Army in embattled Sagaing region’s Myaung township, said he and his fellow fighters must refrain from responding to the military convoys with calls of the same offer. “There are people from their side who came to join [us]. … There are officers and soldiers who left the army. We PDFs are fighting against them as a people’s movement because we can’t tolerate their rule,” he said. “We have no intention of surrendering to them. We will fight until the terrorist military dictatorship is uprooted and a federal democratic union established, leaving no dictators in our country.” Sein Kyaw said the junta is incapable of rule, noting that his and several other townships in Sagaing lack operating schools, and suggesting that an election next year is unlikely as there is little coordination between the executive, judicial and legislative branches of the government. A spokesman for the Sagaing-based Ranger Kalay Defense Force, who also declined to be named, told RFA that the military’s invitation is seen as a political ploy. “I don’t think they have the power to conquer us at this time and they are making this move knowing that they cannot win,” he said. “No matter how much they implore us, we will not fall for this. We will do what is right until the very end.” A photo released by Myanmar&#8217;s military shows members of the PDF surrendering to junta authorities, June 20, 2022. Credit: Myanmar military Dividing the opposition PDF groups also slammed the military’s call for their surrender while offering to hold peace talks with the country’s ethnic armed groups, which they said was a tactic intended to create a schism within the opposition. Junta chief Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing in April called on Myanmar’s ethnic armed groups to hold peace talks and end armed conflict with the military, but he refused to meet with the PDF, and observers say there is little chance that a resolution can be reached without all stakeholders taking part in negotiations. Junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun has said that there will be no talks with the NUG, the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw Committee of Representatives, or the PDF because their objectives “are totally different from that of the ethnic armed groups” and “terrorist” in nature. But Naing Htoo Aung, secretary of the NUG’s Ministry of Defense, said Monday that peace will not be possible in Myanmar without the participation of the NUG and the PDF. “For many years, the military has used a strategy to divide the unity of the armed resistance, and it’s doing the same even now,” he said. “There can be no internal peace without the NUG or PDF, without a genuine intention of leaving politics by the military, or without accountability for their misdeeds or a strong commitment to a federal democracy.” Naing Htoo Aung said that, given the current political climate, elections are unlikely in 2023. If the junta pushes forward with a vote, he added, it will not reflect the will of the people. A spokesman for the Saw Township People’s Administration in Magway region, which operates under the NUG government, said that even if the military holds an election next year, no one in his region will participate. “I think an election is impossible, especially in our area. They can’t even operate their [administrative] machinery here and if they try to hold an election, there will be no election staff,” he said. “A war of resistance is continuing nationwide. Some of the military camps have even been taken over. They might be able to hold sham elections in cities they control like Yangon, Mandalay and Naypyidaw … but a nationwide election is impossible.” Junta defections According to the junta, at least 66 PDF fighters have handed over their weapons since the call to surrender was issued earlier this month, although RFA was unable to independently verify the claim. Political observer Than Soe Naing disputed the claim and suggested that the junta had issued the call to surrender as a tactic to end defections by members of the military and boost morale. “So far, the number of soldiers and policemen who have defected is more than 20,000, so I think this is a political ploy to stop [the defections],” he said, adding that “no PDF fighter has willingly surrendered.” He said that the opposition must defeat the military before an election is held next year if the people of Myanmar have any hope of reinstating democracy, as the junta will almost certainly install a puppet “civilian government” that will preserve its rule. Since 2010, there have been three general elections in Myanmar. The military overthrew Myanmar’s democratically elected government on Feb. 1, 2021, claiming voter fraud had led to a landslide victory for Aung San Suu...
- [Superstitious strongman](https://ij-reportika.com/superstitious-strongman/): Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen changed his official birthdate to Aug. 5, 1952 from April 4, 1951, a switch he said corrected a mistake from back when it was registered during wartime in the Southeast Asian country. But critics say the highly superstitious strongman moved his birth from the Year of the Rabbit to the Year of the Dragon, considered auspicious to followers of the Chinese zodiac. Some reports said he changed the date after the recent death of his older brother, fearing the birthdate he had been using may have led to his brother’s demise because it conflicted with the Chinese zodiac.
- [Chinese company faces hefty bill to quarantine 300 North Korean workers](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-company-faces-hefty-bill-to-quarantine-300-north-korean-workers/): A clothing company in China must pay U.S. $1,500 to quarantine each of its 300 North Korean workers after some of them tested positive for COVID-19, sources in China told RFA. Some Chinese employees at the factory in Dandong, which lies across the Yalu River from North Korea, also tested positive for the virus. All of them went into quarantine last week, but the high cost of isolating foreign workers means the company will have to shell out $450,000 to quarantine the North Koreans. “The news that the Chinese president of the company that hired the 300 North Koreans must pay for their treatment is disturbing to the other companies that use North Korean labor,” a Chinese citizen of Korean descent, who requested anonymity for security reasons, told RFA’s Korean Service. “The Chinese government has decided that the quarantine cost for foreigners is 10,000 yuan (about $1,500) per person. The head of the company may incur an irrecoverable debt from the quarantine costs alone,” the source said. North Korea sends workers overseas to places like China and Russia to earn desperately needed foreign cash. The workers must give the lion’s share of their salaries to their government, but what they get to keep is far more than what they could earn in a similar job at home. Most of the North Korean workers in the factory are female, according to the source.  “The quarantine command in Dandong … rushed all the workers to the hospital facility on a large bus,” the source said. The clothing company is not the first to have to quarantine its North Korean workers, according to the source. “In May, there were 20 North Koreans who worked for another company in Dandong and were placed in quarantine when they showed symptoms of COVID-19. In that case, they were quarantined in the company’s dormitory because there was no room in the hospital due to the outbreak spreading through Dandong,” he said. The company with the 300 North Koreans originally produced clothes, but switched to making COVID-19 protective clothing, he said. “The 300 North Korean workers wore the protective clothing [that they made] while they worked, but they still failed to prevent their own infection,” said the source. A North Korean source living in the port of Donggang, within the city limits of Dandong, told RFA that owners of companies who hire North Korean workers are getting nervous after hearing about the 300 quarantined North Koreans. “North Korean workers who are known to be infected with COVID-19 were transferred to the quarantine facility by several large buses,” the second source said on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “Most Dandong residents go to a hospital in Shenyang or Dalian when they get COVID-19, so it is likely the North Koreans are there,” he said. Dandong is a three-hour drive from Shenyang and a three-and-a-half-hour drive from Dalian. Confirming their whereabouts could be difficult, however. “Although the Dandong city government has lifted the COVID-19 lockdown, it has not yet guaranteed complete autonomous movement. There is therefore no way to know exactly where the North Korean workers have gone unless you’re somehow involved,” he said. According to RFA sources, about 30,000 North Korean workers are believed to be in the Dandong area. North Korean labor exports were supposed to have stopped when United Nations nuclear sanctions froze the issuance of work visas and mandated the repatriation of North Korean nationals working abroad by the end of 2019. But Pyongyang sometimes dispatches workers to China and Russia on short-term student or visitor visas to get around sanctions. Translated by Claire Shinyoung O. Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Married couple tied up and shot by regime forces in Tanintharyi region](https://ij-reportika.com/married-couple-tied-up-and-shot-by-regime-forces-in-tanintharyi-region/): Two people in their sixties were tied up and shot dead at close range by junta forces and their allies at a village in Myanmar’s southwestern Tanintharyi region on Sunday as revenge attacks by troops and their militia allies increase. Around 15 troops, and militia members from a nearby village entered Kadakgyi village in Launglon township, Dawei district, according to an official from the Democracy Movement Strike Committee (DMSC), Dawei district. The official identified the married couple as Thaung Win and Win Aye (nicknamed Mi Kyone). He said militia members from Pande village took part in the killings. “They came into the village and cuffed the couple’s hands behind their backs. The couple were shot dead in the street. I could not see any badges, but there were military intelligence and military-affiliated Pyu Saw Htee members,” the official said. The two villagers were shot in their heads, eyes, stomachs and backs, the official told RFA, adding that the bodies had been taken to a morgue. The couple had been involved in the anti-regime movement and supported young protesters, the official said. Junta forces and their militia allies looted houses after the killings. CREDIT: Democracy Movement Strike Committee, Dawei district. Local residents said the junta forces raided five houses in Kadakgyi village and took money and valuables after killing the couple. They say the troops and militia destroyed homes and belongings that were not claimed by villagers. The military council has not released a statement about the incident and calls to a military council spokesman by RFA went unanswered on Monday. The DMSC statement said six civilians had been shot dead and two injured by junta forces and Pyu Saw Htee groups between June 16 and 26. There has been a rise in attacks involving pro-junta militia in Tanintharyi recently. The Soon Ye (Kite Force) militia is thought to be behind the shooting deaths of three villagers in Launglon township on April 28 and another killing on the road  between Dawei and Launglon on May 3. The day before the second killing, the militia wrote on Facebook that it had the addresses of anti-coup protesters and would harm their families if they did not stop their activities. At least 2,021 people have been killed in Myanmar since the coup on February 1, 2021 to June 24 this year, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma). Figures gathered by Data for Myanmar between February 1, 2021 and April 28, 2022 show that 27 people had been killed in Taninthary, the sixth highest level of 15 regions.
- [Vietnam falls far short of its committment to freedom of expression, report says](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-falls-far-short-of-its-committment-to-freedom-of-expression-report-says/): Vietnam has a long way to go before it can realize its goal of joining the UN Human Rights council, according to the Vietnam Human Rights Network (VNHRN). The pressure group points to Vietnam’s treatment of journalists, who the government says are protected from all forms of discrimination and violence. “In fact, the arrests and imprisonment of those who use the right to freedom of expression to voice their opinions are at their peak,” the report said. From the beginning of 2021 to May 31 this year, VNHRN said at least 48 people were arrested and detained, and 72 were given heavy sentences. “Most of them were convicted for allegedly using the media to express their opinions and aspirations other than the ruling party’s. To our knowledge, Vietnamese authorities currently imprison at least 290 political and religious prisoners with multi-year sentences,” the report said. Along with restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression and information, VNHRN’s president Nguyen Ba Tung told RFA the government is ignoring many more basic human rights, describing the 2019 labor law as an empty promise and also criticizing the government&#8217;s track record on religion. “Regarding the right to religious freedom, the government has increased its control and manipulation of religious organizations and eliminated non-registered religious groups,&#8221; he said, adding that the government has promoted political dogma over religious faith. &#8220;We raised the issue of children being indoctrinated in schools as well as in organizations like Uncle Ho&#8217;s Good Children &#8211; an issue that has not been raised in any international report on the issue of children&#8217;s rights.” Nguyen said that no international research agency has talked about the discrimination faced by non-party members no matter how well they had served the country in the past. “Someone raised the fact that military officers must be party members, which violates the basic rights of people in the political sphere and even as a citizen in defending one&#8217;s homeland,&#8221; he said. VNHRN’s report covers last year and the first few months of 2022. It was put together with help from several activists in Vietnam. The study focuses on the areas outlined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Conventions on Human Rights that Vietnam has committed to observing. Those rights are: liberty, security of person, a fair trial by an independent, impartial tribunal; the right to participate in national political life, freedom of expression and information, freedom of religion and worship; the right to work and enjoy the fruits of that labor, equal treatment and non-discrimination, and well-being. VNHRN said the aim of the report is to alert the world about what it called “the alarming human rights situation in Vietnam today.” The report also offers the Vietnamese government what VNHRN called “concrete and feasible recommendations for the Vietnamese government to terminate its repeated violations throughout the years.” VNHRN said that until Vietnam improved its human rights record members of the United Nations General Assembly should vote against Vietnam’s membership of its Human Rights Council.
- [Interview: 'They’ve broken their word, as I’m afraid they do regularly'](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-theyve-broken-their-word-as-im-afraid-they-do-regularly/): Veteran British politician Chris Patten served as the last governor of Hong Kong from 1992 to 1997, overseeing the final years of British rule over the colony and helping arrange for its transfer to China in 1997.  He was vilified by the Chinese Communist Party for introducing democratic reforms in the city, many of which have been rolled back by Beijing in recent years in a crackdown in response to protests demanding more freedoms. Patten, 78, who holds the title Baron Patten of Barnes and serves as chancellor of the University of Oxford, spoke the Amelia Loi of RFA Cantonese about the changes in Hong Kong as the July 1 25th anniversary of the handover approaches. RFA: How do you assess the changes in Hong Kong in the 25 years since the handover? Patten: Hong Kong when we left was like a Rolls Royce. The economy was doing very well. It was stable and the system of government worked very well. The civil service was terrific. All you really needed to do as the Chinese Communist regime was to turn on the ignition and off it would pop. Hong Kong was an exceptionally successful community ––the eighth largest trading community in the world and we never had the sort of demonstrations which have affected Hong Kong in the last few years. I had very much hoped it would continue as long as possible and the Chinese had promised that it would continue for 50 years. They’ve broken their word, as I’m afraid they do regularly. They break their word. They break international treaties whenever it suits them. And I think that’s happening again this time. RFA: What do you say to those who say Britain should not have trusted China and returned Hong Kong? Patten: We had no choice but to hand Hong Kong over because all the New Territories where there seven large cities were held on a 99-year lease.  And we would have been in breach of international law if we’d tried to hold onto them.  So we had no choice and it’s sad but true. We could have held onto the part of Hong Kong which was held under a grant but it would have been impossible to hold onto the island. What would you have done for water? You would have to be bringing in water in container ships I suppose, but it would have been absolutely impossible and unreasonable. I don’t think we had any alternative but to do that. RFA: What do think of voices calling for Hong Kong independence? Patten: I have never been an advocate of independence of Hong Kong because I was part of a diplomatic effort to ensure Hong Kong could return to China, retaining its way of life for 50 years after 1997. The fact that the independence movement has grown in Hong Kong is an indication of how badly China has behaved and how little people actually trust China today. It’s an extraordinary thing that so few people are actually proud of Hong Kong being part of China now. There’s a great sense of Hong Kong citizenship, and there’s a great sense that people are Hong Kongers but only a small number think of themselves as Chinese. RFA: Would a different leadership of the Chinese Communist Party make a difference for Hong Kong? Patten: It would help Hong Kong and China if the leadership in China…was a little more like that of Jiang Zemin or Hu Jintao. What of course Deng Xiaoping had hoped for is that they wouldn’t again have a return to sort of Maoism, which is what’s happened, and wouldn’t again have a return to personality cults, which is again what’s happened. I think that’s all particularly sad, but I am not sure if there is anything we can do at the moment.
- [Teachers in Myanmar caught in crossfire as conflict rages](https://ij-reportika.com/teachers-in-myanmar-caught-in-crossfire-as-conflict-rages/): Schoolteachers in Myanmar, many of whom joined a national strike to protest the ruling military regime, have been increasingly caught in the crossfire following the February 2021 coup that overthrew the elected government. As of May, at least 40 teachers had been killed, according to the ruling junta. Educators who have gone on strike to oppose the regime and those who have not have both been killed in fighting between soldiers and members of anti-regime militias. At least 10 teachers have been killed in 33 arson attacks in the past two months alone, according to Save The Children, an aid group. About 260 schools and other educational buildings have been attacked since the coup. Now, the junta is asking schoolteachers who joined the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), a massive strike by teachers, doctors and other professionals against the military coup, to return to classrooms in schools administered by the regime’s Education Department. Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, a spokesman for the junta, told reporters on May 19 that People’s Defense Forces (PDFs), militias that have fought against the military, were to blame for harassing and killing teachers who resumed working after they quit the CDM. Military officials blamed a local militia for the deaths of Moe Moe Khaing, a middle school principal, and Kay Zar Khine, her younger sister, who were killed inside their home in Wetlet township, Sagaing region, on Jun. 6. A spokesman for the Wetlet PDF denied the accusation and condemned the attack. Zaw Min Tun said the shadow National Unity Government (NUG) and PDF “terrorists” are behind threats to close down schools. “A total of 504 schools were destroyed by terrorists who blew them up with mines in the last academic year, and 37 school teachers were killed,” he said. Naing Htoo Aung, secretary of the shadow National Unity Government’s Defense Ministry, which oversees PDFs across the country, said he had instructed militias not to attack civilian targets. “We have explicitly instructed our forces to target only military personnel,” he said. “We do not condone such killings of civilians [accused of being] dalan [pro-junta informants].” “We don’t accept this kind of killing although we are carrying out a revolution,” he said. “This is not acceptable. It is not in line with international law. We are launching a revolution because we want democracy. We are taking up arms because we have no choice. We cannot be seen by the international community as a terrorist group.” Naing Htoo Aung also said the NUG would act if it had information about the perpetrators of the attacks. Teachers in uniform take part in a Civil Disobedience Movement demonstration against the military regime that overthrew the elected national government, in Dooplaya district, eastern Myanmar&#8217;s Kayin state, May 13, 2021. Credit: AFP/KNU Dooplaya District ‘They do not trust us’ Zaw Min Tun told a news conference in Naypyidaw on June 16 that the regime contacted 3,156 teachers to urge them to return to work. Of these, 379 are high school teachers, 1,005 are middle school teachers, and 772 are primary school teachers. The junta pledged that it would take no action against CDM teachers who have been holding spring classes in NUG-dominated areas if they have not committed any crimes. But some who have quit the CDM and have resumed working for the junta are being monitored, said Chi Cho, a high school teacher in Yangon who joined the CDM in April 2021, but decided to come back due to financial difficulties. “Even though we have to go back to work to earn a living, we’ve noticed that the junta has asked the teachers to keep an eye on each other,” she said. “It shows they do not trust us.” Chi Cho added that teachers who return have not yet received their salaries because they had joined the CDM. Other teachers are adamant about remaining involved in the CDM movement because they do not want to work under the military junta. Salai Nwe Oo, a high school teacher in Falam township in western Chin state, said he will not work for the military regime. “From the very beginning, we had decided not to work under this military dictatorship,” he said. “We did not want to be a tool of a dictator. Therefore, from the beginning, we said we would not return to work until we regained power — never under a military junta.” According to the Myanmar Teachers’ Federation, there were almost 450,000 teachers nationwide in the 2020-21 academic year under the NLD government. About 200,000 teachers took part in the CDM, and about 130,000 of them were fired by the junta last year. Only a small percentage of experienced teachers are returning to classrooms in schools, said an official from the Teachers’ Federation who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. Regardless of whether teachers are striking or at work, they face various threats, the person said. “Most employees, whether they are involved in the CDM or not, are facing anxiety, fear and social problems from both sides,” the official said. Sai Khine Myo Tun of the NUG’s Education Ministry said the junta was recalling CDM staff as part of their efforts to reassert control over the country. “They have a big dream to hold elections in 2023 and to form a legitimate government, so they are trying to show that they can provide public services that support the administrative machinery,” he said. “That’s why CDM teachers and other staff are being called back to work. “Teachers and staff fully understand that the junta’s commitment is not to sustain education and develop the country but to establish their governing mechanism,” he said. Students and their parents wait outside the entrance of the No. 3 Basic Education High School in Mingalar Taung Nyunt township, Yangon, Myanmar, June 2, 2022. Credit: RFA ‘These dangerous times’ In the meantime, the NUG has been trying to assist education staff in the CDM who have been threatened with arrest, or have lost...
- [Vietnam Communist Party head says officials in bribery scandal apologized](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-communist-party-head-says-officials-in-bribery-scandal-apologized/): Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the Vietnam Communist Party, has said that two senior officials caught in a recent bribery scandal apologized to him for their actions but still needed to be punished as a warning to others, state media reported. Trong, who is also a member of the National Assembly for Hanoi, made the comment in a meeting in the capital Hanoi on Thursday, the reports said. But online critics of the government expressed continued frustration with Vietnam’s leadership for not doing more to root out graft in the government and mismanaging the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Trong, 78, has been general secretary of the Vietnam Communist Party (VCP) — the highest position in Vietnam — since 2011, and served as the country’s president from 2018 to 2021. As head of the Politburo, Vietnam’s highest decision-making body, he is the most powerful leader in the country. On June 6, the VCP announced it had expelled Hanoi Mayor Chu Ngoc Anh and Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long from the party following accusations that they were involved in a U.S. $172 million scandal. They were paid by Viet A Technologies Company to provide overpriced coronavirus test kits to hospitals. It is not unusual for senior government officials to apologize to the head of the VCP when they face high-profile corruption charges. Oil executive Trinh Xuan Thanh, who was convicted of embezzling assets from units of Vietnam’s state-owned oil company, and Nguyen Bac Son, a former minister of information and communications imprisoned for accepting a U.S. $3 million bribe, both expressed remorse for their actions. Musician Tuan Khanh from Ho Chi Minh City told RFA that the Trong’s response to the Viet A Technologies scandal has been insufficient. “He merely performed a simple act of expressing anguish and regret when the party members and those in top positions were penalized and dismissed from the party,” he said. “That shows Trong is a figure of the party circle with no vision to lead the nation forward but to nowhere.” Hanoi resident Nguyen Son noted that party leaders never apologize to Vietnamese citizens after they are convicted of wrongdoing. “The fact that so far the governing party has disrespected the common people is not new,” he told RFA. “They are afraid that if they apologize or take responsibility for the wrongdoing, it would mean that their power has been diminished. “They never publicly apologize to the people in the media,” he said. “Such a government cannot be said to be of the people, by the people and for the people. It is a government that grasps all power in its hands, so whether they apology or not, nothing can be done about it.” Lawyer and democracy activist Nguyen Van Dai was even more critical of Trong, who he said should accept more responsibility for the actions of officials in his government. “I cannot imagine why as a human he can lose all sense of decency,” he said. “The fact that he thinks all wrongdoing by the officials under him does not at all relate to him is unacceptable.” Dai said their remains a disconnect between the government and the people because under the one-party communist system leaders do not need to face the voters in open elections. Vietnam ranked in 87th place out of 180 countries on Transparency International’s 2021 Corruption Perception Index, with a higher ranking corresponding to a widespread perception of corruption in the public sector. Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [New prison to house criminals from Laos’ Chinese-run special economic zone](https://ij-reportika.com/new-prison-to-house-criminals-from-laos-chinese-run-special-economic-zone/): People convicted of crimes in the Chinese-run Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in northern Laos, a hotbed of human trafficking and smuggling, will soon serve their sentences in a new prison built by the zone as a gift to its host province. Lao authorities have complained that they cannot easily enter the zone, which operates largely beyond the reach of Lao laws, creating friction with locals. In a ceremony on June 16, the deputy of the zone’s board of directors, Cheng Yu Feng, gave control of the new facility to Bokeo province’s Department of Public Security. “It will be used within the zone. If there are any criminals [in the SEZ] they will be sent to this prison,” she told RFA’s Lao Service on Friday. An official from the security department, who requested not to be named, told RFA that the prison will be used as soon as the facilities are ready. “As of now, the building is not ready yet, and the relevant authorities are discussing how to transfer prisoners there, and how the security system will work,” the official said. The official was unable to comment on how many prisoners are in the zone or where they are being held. Nearby villagers told RFA that the prison is built about three kilometers (1.86 miles) away from the SEZ in Mouangkham village. “Most of the crimes in the zone, as I have observed, are those cases related to human trafficking,” a villager told RFA. “The criminals include Thai, Burmese and Lao citizens in the casino and some of them work as online scammers who chat with victims on social media platforms.” Most of the victims have been Lao nationals lured by middlemen to perform jobs as scammers trying to convince people to invest or buy shares in the Kings Romans Casino. When they couldn’t meet their sales quotas, they were detained against their will, and in some cases sold off to work in the sex industry. The new prison will replace a much smaller one within the zone, another villager told RFA. “There was a three-room prison before this bigger newly built prison,” the villager said. “The former one was located near the road to Bokeo International airport. The old prison also belongs to the zone.” A lawyer told RFA that the prison must be managed by the Ministry of Public Security under Lao laws. “Any Lao law breaker can only be punished by Lao police and officials,” the lawyer said. Lao citizens and foreigners who work in the SEZ also must be tried under Lao laws, the lawyer said. The Golden Triangle SEZ is run by Zhao Wei, chairman of the Dok Ngiew Kham Group, with Zhao’s firm holding 80 percent interest and the Lao government holding 20 percent. Located where Laos, Myanmar and Thailand meet, the Golden Triangle area got its name five decades ago for its central role in heroin production and trafficking. In 2018, the U.S. Treasury Department declared Zhao Wei’s business network, centered on Kings Romans Casino, a “transnational criminal organization” and sanctioned Zhao and three other individuals and companies across Laos, Thailand and Hong Kong. Zhao’s business “exploits this region by engaging in drug trafficking, human trafficking, money laundering, bribery and wildlife trafficking, much of which is facilitated through the Kings Romans Casino located within the [Golden Triangle] SEZ,” a Treasury statement said. The State Department’s 2021 Trafficking in Persons Report said Laos had increased its efforts to combat trafficking, but fell short in victim identification and screening procedures, and failed to adequately investigate suspected perpetrators of sex trafficking. According to the information from the SEZ board, the new 900 square-meter prison was built in October 2021. It was originally scheduled to be completed in May. There are 30 rooms within the prison, six of which are offices for prison staff. RFA was not able to determine the prisoner capacity of the facility. The new facility was funded and constructed by a Chinese company with the total cost of around 11.37 billion kip (U.S. $764,000). Translated by Phouvong, Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Arrests in Rakhine raise fears of renewed conflict between military, Arakan Army](https://ij-reportika.com/arrests-in-rakhine-raise-fears-of-renewed-conflict-between-military-arakan-army/): Residents in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state are increasingly on edge, worried that fighting between the military and the Arakan Army (AA) will soon erupt once again as arrests of personnel from both sides escalate. The national military fought an increasingly bitter war with the AA, which says it is fighting for autonomy for ethnic minority Rakhine people, from December 2018 until a truce was reached in November 2020, months before the army seized power in a February 2021 coup. The coastal state was awash with refugees from that fighting, but stayed relatively quiet for many months while anti-coup protests and fighting by local militias raged across much of Myanmar but tensions started rising in recent months. The military this week detained people who it suspected of having links with the AA in the state capital Sittwe, and Mrauk-U, Ponnagyun and Kyauktaw townships, in response to the AA’s recent arrests of junta soldiers. Since Thursday, the military has been blocking the city gates of Sittwe, after the AA arrested a naval lieutenant and a sailor there. It also shut down waterways from Sittwe to various towns in the state, which borders the Bay of Bengal and Bangladesh.  Police and soldiers are checking hotels, guest houses and residences all over Sittwe looking for suspected AA members. Residents told RFA that at least seven civilians were arrested on Thursday evening. Three civilians, including 46-year-old Oo San Maung, were arrested by 30 soldiers in the Mingan Block 9 area of the city, his son Myo Kyaw Hlaing told RFA’s Burmese Service. “They came to search our house. My father went out to the front of the house and said no one was there,” said Myo Kyaw Hlaing. “They just arrested him without saying a word. Not only my father, two other youths in our ward were arrested.  We have no contact with those arrested yet.” Residents told RFA that three minors and Soe Thiha, a visitor from Taunggup, were arrested in Sittwe on Friday Morning. There have been reports of more civilian arrests but RFA has not been able to confirm this independently. At about 9 p.m. Thursday night, soldiers fired shots at a group of people as they returned to a guest house in the same part of Sittwe, a person in the group told RFA on condition of anonymity for security reasons. &#8220;One of my friends and I were going back to our guesthouse on a motorbike. Three other guys were on another. The soldiers blocked our path and shouted at us to stop. When we didn’t stop, they fired four or five shots at us,” he said. “The guys on the other motorbike left it and ran away. I was lucky I didn’t lose mine,” said the man, who said he was not hurt in the gunfire. The military arrested more than 20 civilians in Mrauk-U township on Wednesday after the AA arrested three military personnel on Tuesday. “Aa far as we know, some of the civilians they arrested were released that day,” a resident of Mrauk-U told RFA. “We heard that six people were released, and I think there are still more than 10 people detained,” the resident said on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. The AA arrested a soldier and three policemen in Ponnagyun and Kyauktaw townships between June 16 and 22. In response the army arrested 30 civilians, according to local reports. Among the civilians, sources told RFA that four women were said to have been released, but the rest were still in detention. Other reports said that the AA has arrested more than a dozen members of the police and military in Mrauk-U and Kyauktaw townships, and the military has detained at least 50 civilians over the past few days in retaliation. RFA tried to contact the junta’s spokesman, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, by telephone for comment, but he did not respond. Zaw Min Tun, however, warned the AA at a press conference on May 19 that it would be responsible for the consequences of detaining soldiers. “What we are doing at the moment, the reason we are detaining the Rakhine people, is for their own good. We do not want them to get into trouble,” he told reporters. “I would like to repeat that we are detaining the Rakhine people so that they will not get into trouble. We are patiently working for peace within the union. If anything happens regarding this, don’t blame the military for the consequences,” Zaw Min Tun said. The AA’s spokesman, Khine Thukha, told a news conference on June 14 that AA members were only retaliating against the military for its abuses. &#8220;The reason for the arrests is that the Myanmar army raided houses of our ULA/AA members at night time,” he said. The ULA refers to the United League of Arakan, which is the political wing of the Arakan Army. “Some of our troops were detained by the military during last month and this month. That’s why we have arrested their troops. If they keep on doing that, we will retaliate,&#8221; he said. He said if the military releases the AA members, the AA would release the soldiers they arrested, but he would not disclose how many each side had arrested. Pe Than, a former member of the state parliament, said the situation in Rakhine was volatile. “It depends a lot on how many more people are going to be arrested in future and how much trouble there will be,” said Pe Than. “If both sides keep on doing this, the number of detainees, which is just a few at present, will become a lot. The arrests might be in groups instead of one or two. And then, as the situation worsens, there could be some clashes that could blow up into renewed fighting,” he said. Pe Than said the military and the AA should negotiate a peaceful resolution before the violence escalates. But tensions between the junta and the AA have been high since early May, with locals and Rakhine politicians concerned...
- [Jailed Cambodian American activist is allowed to meet with lawyer](https://ij-reportika.com/jailed-cambodian-american-activist-is-allowed-to-meet-with-lawyer/): A Cambodian American democracy activist jailed in Cambodia on treason charges has been allowed to meet with her lawyer after being transferred last week from the capital to a prison farther north, a move that supporters had feared would isolate her from lawyers and friends, RFA has learned. Now serving a six-year prison term, Theary Seng was sentenced on June 14 together with 50 other activists for their association with the Cambodia National Rescue Party, a group opposing long-serving Prime Minister Hun Sen that was banned by Cambodia’s Supreme Court in November 2017. The charges against the activists stem from abortive efforts in 2019 to bring about the return to Cambodia of CNRP leader Sam Rainsy, who has been living in exile in France to avoid convictions in court cases described by his supporters as politically motivated. Theary Seng, who holds citizenship both in Cambodia and the United States, was arrested June 14 while protesting outside the courthouse against the trial that convicted her, and began serving her sentence the same day at Prey Sar Prison in the capital Phnom Penh. Prison authorities later confirmed to RFA that she was then transferred to Preah Vihear Prison in the country’s far north. Blocked by authorities from meeting Theary Seng while she was held in Prey Sar, lawyer Choung Chou Ngy told RFA on Thursday he was recently able to meet his client for about two hours in her new prison, where she said authorities check her health every day. “Around 10 women are being held with her in her cell,” Ngy said. “I told her that people are speaking positively about her on social media, and she said she was grateful for their support. We also discussed details of her case she didn’t know about because of her arrest.” Theary Seng then asked him to file an appeal in her case, which he will submit to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court of Appeal in the next few days, Ngy said. Theary Seng denies the charges of treason made against her, Ngy added. “She said that she has only demanded and fought for respect for human rights and democracy in the interests of society as a whole, and she is being silenced because of her advocacy work.” Also speaking to RFA, Ny Sokha — president of the Cambodian rights group Adhoc — said that Theary Seng should be immediately released. “If the Cambodian government continues to harass and arrest political party activists, this will not look good for Cambodia’s future. More international sanctions will likely be imposed if the situation with human rights is not improved, especially before the next election,” he said. The European Parliament in May adopted a resolution calling on the Cambodian government to stop persecuting and intimidating political opponents, trade unionists, human rights defenders and journalists ahead of local elections in June and national campaigns next year. The ruling Cambodian People’s Party led by Hun Sen is now five years into a no-holds-barred crackdown on its political opposition and civil society, jailing or driving into exile scores of opposition figures. Translated by Sok Ry Sum for RFA Khmer. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [China steps up anti-NATO rhetoric ahead of Madrid summit, citing 'Cold War' ethos](https://ij-reportika.com/china-steps-up-anti-nato-rhetoric-ahead-of-madrid-summit-citing-cold-war-ethos/): China is stepping up anti-NATO rhetoric ahead of the military alliance&#8217;s summit next week, calling it a &#8220;product of the Cold War&#8221; dominated by the United States, while an envoy of leader Xi Jinping is hoping to convince European leaders the country doesn&#8217;t back the Russian invasion of Ukraine, analysts said. &#8220;NATO is a product of the Cold War and the world’s biggest military alliance dominated by the U.S.,&#8221; foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told journalists in Beijing on June 23, three days ahead of the summit in Madrid. &#8220;It is a tool for the US to maintain its hegemony and influence Europe’s security landscape [which] is clearly against the trend of our times,&#8221; he said in comments reported in the English edition of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) newspaper, the People&#8217;s Daily. Wang cast doubt on NATO&#8217;s core purpose as a defensive organization, saying it had &#8220;willfully waged wars against sovereign countries that left a large number of civilians dead and tens of millions displaced.&#8221; &#8220;NATO has already disrupted stability in Europe. It should not try to do the same to the Asia-Pacific and the whole world,&#8221; Wang said. Wang&#8217;s comments came after Zhang Heqing, cultural counselor at the Chinese embassy in Pakistan, commented on a video of tens of thousands of people demonstrating in Brussels against the cost-of-living crisis on June 20, claiming it was a protest against NATO. &#8220;Tens of thousands of protesters marched in #Brussels chanting &#8220;Stop #NATO&#8221; on June 20, expressing anger at the rising living costs &amp; condemning NATO countries’ rush to arm #Ukraine,&#8221; Zhang wrote, quote-tweeting the nationalistic Global Times newspaper. &#8216;Political warfare&#8217; and &#8216;disinformation&#8217; Teresa Fallon, director of Belgium&#8217;s Center for Russian, Europe and Asian Studies, said the march had had nothing to do with NATO. &#8220;The protests had nothing at all to do with NATO, but Beijing is using this form of political warfare or disinformation in the run-up to the NATO summit which takes place next week,&#8221; Fallon told RFA. &#8220;This type of clunky propaganda nevertheless may be believed by some people,&#8221; she said, adding that China shares its view of NATO with its ally Russia. The stepped-up rhetoric appears somewhat at odds with apparent attempts by the CCP under Xi Jinping to mollify European leaders, sending special envoy Wu Hongbo to meet with key figures ahead of the NATO summit. &#8220;Dispatching his special envoy to Europe for a three-week charm tour was just one of many acts of high-stakes damage control ahead of the 20th CCP Congress this autumn,&#8221; Atlantic Council president Frederick Kempe wrote in a commentary for CNBC ahead of the summit. &#8220;Xi’s economy is dangerously slowing, financing for his Belt and Road Initiative has tanked, his zero-Covid policy is flailing, and his continued support of Russian President Vladimir Putin hangs like a cloud over his claim of being the world’s premier national-sovereignty champion as Russia’s war on Ukraine grinds on,&#8221; Kempe wrote. &#8220;Xi’s taking no chances ahead of one of his party’s most important gatherings, a meeting designed to assure his continued rule and his place in history,&#8221; the article said, citing recent meetings between Wu and European business leaders as evidence of a more conciliatory approach by Xi. Fallon agreed. &#8220;I would say that there is a disillusionment across the board with China,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Beijing is attempting a diplomatic dance where they try to convince Europeans that they really aren&#8217;t supporting Russia.&#8221; &#8220;In reality, they are talking out of both sides of their mouth, trying to tell the Europeans one thing, while at the same time supporting Russia,&#8221; she said, adding that Beijing is the biggest customer for Russian energy, and those sales contribute to Russian president Vladimir Putin&#8217;s war coffers. Problems at home Craig Singleton, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, said Beijing&#8217;s current foreign policy is largely driven by pressing problems at home. &#8220;Global public opinion of China sits at record lows and Chinese leader Xi Jinping refuses to leave the country to meet with other world leaders,&#8221; Singleton told RFA. &#8220;Making matters worse is that China&#8217;s economy, long in decline, is really now in freefall on account of Xi&#8217;s financial mismanagement.&#8221; &#8220;This most recent outreach to EU capitals is reflective of growing recognition in Beijing that its wolf-warrior tactics have undermined China&#8217;s economic position with Europe, one of China&#8217;s most important trading partners, and that China needs the European market and European consumers to help get itself out of its current economic mess,&#8221; he said. While Germany&#8217;s current government had sent a number of &#8220;mixed signals&#8221; about its views on China since taking office, Berlin would likely ultimately rethink its relationship with Beijing, as it has already done with Moscow since the invasion of Ukraine, Singleton said. &#8220;China&#8217;s attempts to reset its relationship will be seen in Europe as insincere and likely leading to a continued erosion of the relationship,&#8221; he added. &#8220;Making matters worse is that European frustrations with China&#8217;s equivocations on Russia and Russia&#8217;s illegal invasion of Ukraine, [so] anger is growing against China from lots of European capitals, and there is no indication that China is rethinking its support for Russia&#8217;s invasion,&#8221; he said. Singleton said the growing willingness of European countries to enhance trade and investment ties with democratic Taiwan in recent months &#8220;will almost certainly irritate Beijing,&#8221; and lead it to lash out in ways that were inimical to its own foreign policy goals in Europe. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Former journalists for Hong Kong's folded Apple Daily take reporting to social media](https://ij-reportika.com/former-journalists-for-hong-kongs-folded-apple-daily-take-reporting-to-social-media/): One year after the paper was forced to shut down and several senior editors arrested by national security police, former reporters at Hong Kong&#8217;s pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper are still writing the stories the paper might have run, and posting them to social media. Journalist Alvin Chan, who uses the hashtags #AppleDaily and #keeponreporting on his Facebook page, posted a report showing a small group of people gathered outside the now-empty headquarters of Jimmy Lai&#8217;s Next Digital media empire late on Thursday night. &#8220;A group of former Apple Daily reporters happened to show up at the same time outside the &#8230; empty Next Digital building tonight &#8230; and took photos,&#8221; Chan wrote. &#8220;Then, suddenly, several police vehicles arrived at the scene, sirens blaring, so they left, leaving other journalists there still reporting.&#8221; Chan isn&#8217;t the only former Apple Daily staffer reporting on news that would be considered in breach of a draconian national security law imposed on the city by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from July 1, 2020. Former colleague Leung Ka Lai has started a Patreon page, and continues to post reports to her Facebook page, including interviews with leaders of the 2019 protest movement that prompted Beijing to tighten its grip on the former British colony. &#8220;I&#8217;m not reconciled to this, no,&#8221; Leung told RFA. &#8220;How can they just use such violent methods to eliminate a media organization?&#8221; &#8220;The Apple Daily shouldn&#8217;t be allowed to just disappear like this,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I figured there had to be some work I can keep on doing.&#8221; Employees, executive editor in chief Lam Man-Chung (L) and deputy chief editor Chan Pui-Man (C) cheer each other in the Apple Daily newspaper office after completing editing of the final edition in Hong Kong, June 23, 2021. Credit: AFP &#8216;The spirit of those times&#8217; Leung has published around 40 reports on her page since the paper closed, most of them about the aftermath of the 2019 protest movement, many of them based on interviews with arrestees and protest leaders. &#8220;They say the protesters are a forgotten group, but their experiences are actually representative of the spirit of those times,&#8221; Leung said. &#8220;My specialty is doing in-depth profiles &#8230; I think it&#8217;s very important to write down what happened to them, and preserve their thoughts and experiences.&#8221; &#8220;It feels more like a record, like the role of a storyteller, writing down their stories,&#8221; she said. Leung said she is trying to put into practice the ethos of the protest movement, summarized as a quote from late martial arts legend Bruce Lee, &#8220;be water.&#8221; &#8220;To be a human being, you need principles, and lines beyond which you won&#8217;t go,&#8221; Leung said. &#8220;If the biggest lesson Hong Kong people took from 2019 was to be water, then this needs to be integrated into everyday life, not just be a slogan.&#8221; Chan has dedicated his page to reporting on the progress of thousands of cases from the 2019 protest movement through the Hong Kong judicial system. &#8220;I like being a reporter, so I think that by reporting on cases from the public gallery, I can offer something like a glimmer of light that lets each other know we exist,&#8221; Chan said. &#8220;I don&#8217;t know if you can call it a sense of mission; it&#8217;s more the method I have chosen to use,&#8221; he said. Sensitive topics bring personal risk Chan, who remains in Hong Kong, said he still needs to consider his personal risk under the national security law. &#8220;I need to think about the dangers and risks behind some reports, and won&#8217;t touch any of the more controversial or sensitive topics,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I hesitate and struggle over whether to report certain Hong Kong-related events in foreign countries,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s a tough, rugged and difficult road to travel, that of an independent journalist.&#8221; &#8220;It means more risks at a time when there is little room for 100 flowers to bloom,&#8221; Chan said, in a reference to the criminalization of public dissent under the national security law. &#8220;But it makes what we are doing as reporters more meaningful,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Journalists write the history of a particular time, so I want to preserve the truth for the next generation, including my own.&#8221; According to a June 22 report from the Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI), Hong Kong&#8217;s rating under three measures of civil and political rights has plummeted since the survey began in 2019. Hong Kong&#8217;s score for the &#8220;right to assembly and association&#8221; fell from 4.5 in 2019 to 3.1 in 2020, and then to 2.5 in 2021. The city&#8217;s rating for the &#8220;right to hold and express opinions&#8221; and &#8220;right to participate in politics&#8221; fell by 2.7 and 2.4 respectively in 2021, putting all three indicators in the &#8220;very poor&#8221; category. The draconian national security law imposed by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on Hong Kong from July 1, 2020 has sparked a crackdown on pro-democracy media organizations. After Lai&#8217;s Next Digital media empire was forced to close, the crackdown has also led to the closure of Stand News and Citizen News, as well as the &#8220;rectification&#8221; of iCable news and government broadcaster RTHK to bring them closer to Beijing&#8217;s official line. Hong Kong recently plummeted from 80th to 148th in the 2022 Reporters Without Border (RSF) press freedom index, with the closures of Apple Daily and Stand News cited as one of the main factors. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Hundreds forced to flee after troops torch homes in Magway](https://ij-reportika.com/hundreds-forced-to-flee-after-troops-torch-homes-in-magway/): Man Gyee Lay Pin village, Mying township, Magway region was burned down by junta forces and affiliated Pyu Saw Htee groups on June 22, 2022. CREDIT: Mying Villages Revolution Front (MVRF) More than 500 residents of Kan Nat village were forced to flee when military forces and junta-affiliated Pyu Saw Htee members torched nearly all of its 115 homes. More than 80 soldiers and members of the affiliated militias raided the village in Magway region’s Mying township on June 15, and set fire to three houses, according to local residents. The following day they burned down more than 90 houses, leaving few homes standing, according to a resident who did not want to be named for safety reasons. “There are about 115 houses in the village, but nearly 100 were set on fire by the military and Pyu Saw Htee groups. They had weapons and we were afraid to do anything,” the resident said. One resident told RFA that a few days earlier military troops were deployed to Kan Ni village, which is next to Kan Nat. They were ambushed by the local People’s Defense Forces (PDFs). Junta forces fired heavy artillery before they entered the village on June 15 and forced the residents to flee empty handed. When locals returned to their village to try to put out their burning homes they were forced to run for a second time when troops shelled the village again. Soldiers also burned houses in other villages near Kan Nat. In the past a military council spokesman has told RFA that the burning of villages in Magway region is the work of PDFs, not junta troops. Data for Myanmar, which systematically monitors the damage to buildings and houses across the country, reported on June 7 that a total of 18,886 houses had been burned down from the day of the coup on February 1 last year to May 31, 2022. Of that total, 3,055 houses were in Magway region.
- [China's false claim on the Padma Bridge in Bangladesh](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-false-claim-on-the-padma-bridge-in-bangladesh/): Before the inauguration of the much anticipated Padma Bridge in Bangladesh, Chinese embassy has made false claims that it is constructed under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) through the Chinese funding. 
- [The Defective Chinese Equipment & Weapons](https://ij-reportika.com/the-defective-chinese-equipment-weapons/): Many countries suffered financial losses and lost many valiant officers each year. The reasons were the defective Chinese equipment, expensive/no after-sale assistance, and poor contract evaluations with a lack of clarity.... 
- [Vietnam’s human rights record is poor but improving, HRMI says](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnams-human-rights-record-is-poor-but-improving-hrmi-says/): Vietnam’s human rights situation has improved over the past year but remains poor, according to the annual report from Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI), released on Wednesday. Progress is still needed in areas such as empowerment, the survey showed. The report measures 13 rights, consisting of five economic and social human rights and eight civil and political human rights. HRMI gave Vietnam a score of 5.3 out of 10 in the Safety before the State section, indicating that many Vietnamese are not safe from the risk of arbitrary arrest, torture and ill-treatment, enforced disappearances, and execution without trial. Vietnam ranked 3 (very bad) in the Empowerment section. The report said the low score shows that many people do not enjoy civil and political freedoms such as freedom of speech, assembly and association, and democratic rights. In an emailed interview with Radio Free Asia, HRMI head of strategy and communications Thalia Kehoe Rowden said gradual progress is being made in the one-party country: “It&#8217;s encouraging to see some small but steady improvements over the last few years in the rights to be free of forced disappearance, arbitrary arrest and detention, and extrajudicial execution,” she said. “However, these scores still all fall in the &#8216;bad&#8217; or &#8216;fair&#8217; ranges, so there is considerable room for improvement.” Kehoe Rowden said many people in Vietnam are not safe from state harm and cannot be considered free to express their views. “Vietnam&#8217;s Empowerment scores show no significant improvement over the last few years, and all three rights we measure in that category fall in the &#8216;very bad&#8217; range. Many people in Vietnam do not enjoy their political freedoms and civil liberties,” she said. The good news, according to Kehoe Rowden, is that Vietnam&#8217;s scores on access to clean water and sanitation have steadily improved over the past decade, giving more people access to water and toilets in their homes. HRMI said there is not enough data from countries in East Asia and the Pacific to compare by region on civil and political rights, but compared to the other 39 countries surveyed by the organization, Vietnam is performing worse than the average for the right to be safe from the state. However, Vietnam still ranks higher than both the US (4.3 points) and China (2.8 points) in this regard. The report said that human rights campaigners, members of political and religious groups, journalists and trade unionists are at high risk of being deprived of their right to be safe from the state. Hanoi-based political dissident Nguyen Vu Binh, a former prisoner of conscience and former editor of Communist Journal, told RFA he believes the report to be accurate, taking into account: “the realities in Vietnam in criteria such as quality of life, safety from the state, and empowerment.” “Their report is detailed. In the past four to five years, the persecution of dissidents has greatly intensified. In some cases, environmental activists have also been arrested,” he said. Binh said high quality surveys like this serve to inform the international community about the lives and rights of the Vietnamese people and their treatment at the hands of Vietnamese authorities. HRMI was founded in 2016 by a group of economists, public policy and human rights researchers. The organization began conducting surveys in 13 countries in 2017 rising to 39 in the latest report for 2021. The organization says it aims to systematically measure all rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in every country in the world, giving governments a global measure and encouraging them to treat their people better.
- [A lack of smuggled oil is complicating North Korea’s efforts to catch smugglers](https://ij-reportika.com/a-lack-of-smuggled-oil-is-complicating-north-koreas-efforts-to-catch-smugglers/): North Korea has been forced to cut the number of patrol boats it sends out to catch smugglers and illegal border crossings–due to a shortage of smuggled fuel, sources in the military told RFA. Pyongyang has long sought to prevent people from leaving the country. But its level of vigilance was heightened when North Korea and China closed their border during the start of the pandemic in 2020. According to reports, some of the patrol boats that monitor the seas for illegal movements or shipments were themselves relying on smuggled fuel from China, as international sanctions aimed at curbing Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program have reduced the country’s legal supplies. Now China is stepping up sea patrols to prevent that smuggling, which in effect has made it harder for North Korea to operate its anti-smuggling patrols, a military official from Sinuiju, across the border from China’s Dandong, told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The Chinese border guards are increasing the number of maritime patrol boats significantly and controlling maritime smuggling to block the spread of COVID-19 from North Korea,” he said. The result for the North Korean border guards is a reduction in available fuel supplies. “The North Korean border guards are facing a significant reduction of maritime patrol boats due to a complete halt in fuel smuggling and a lack of fuel to operate the patrol boats,” the source said. “North Korea is a poor country, and officials in the border guard are seeing the reality of how each country is dealing with the coronavirus issue. I don’t know what will happen if things go on like this at the sea border,” he said. Instead of going out once every one or two hours during the day, the North Korean boats now can go out only every three hours, according to the source. Patrol boats relied on smuggled fuel in part because the coronavirus lockdown has caused domestic supplies to dwindle. A border guard official told RFA that only one or two patrol boats per day were coming out of Sindo and Ryongchon counties, downstream from Sinuiju. These boats are supplied with fuel from the military’s reserves located in the town of Paekma, according to the second source. “Originally around four boats would patrol the area in the lower Yalu River where it empties into the West Sea at one to two-hour intervals to strengthen border security,” the source said, using the Korean name for the sea. “Due to the COVID-19 crisis, the fuel supply has decreased and freight train operations and maritime trade have been completely suspended since the end of April. With fuel imports cut off, it is difficult to operate even one or two patrol boats,” he said. Fuel shortages were common before the pandemic, even in the military, which usually is among the front of the line for resources. International nuclear sanctions passed in September 2017 limited North Korea’s oil imports to 4 million barrels of crude and 2 million barrels of refined petroleum products per year in response to Pyongyang’s sixth nuclear test. When North Korea launched the Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile in November that year, its refined petroleum allotment was further reduced to 500,000 barrels. Gasoline shortages and price fluctuations are not only affecting the military. RFA reported in March that North Korean merchants were making money by buying fuel coupons from areas of the country where gasoline was less expensive, then selling them for a markup in areas where gas was more expensive. According to another RFA report in April, the North Korean government began cracking down on black-market fuel sellers, confiscating their stockpiles. Private ownership of fuel supplies is technically illegal, but tolerated under normal circumstances. Translated by Claire Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Cambodia’s Hun Sen changes birth year to align with the lucky Year of the Dragon](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodias-hun-sen-changes-birth-year-to-align-with-the-lucky-year-of-the-dragon/): Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen is now a year younger after he changed his official birthdate to Aug. 5, 1952, instead of April 4, 1951, a switch critics attributed to his overly superstitious nature. Hun Sen&#8217;s lawyer filed a petition with the Phnom Penh court earlier this month which stated that Hun Sen had been using the wrong date of birth, a mistake owing to the fact that Cambodia was mired in a war when he officially registered it with authorities. According to the Cambodia New Vision (CNV) website, which calls itself the official newsletter of the country’s Cabinet, Hun Sen had used the April 4, 1951, date from April 4, 1977, until June 20, 2022.  The year he officially registered was a tumultuous one for Cambodia and for Hun Sen, who had been a member of the ruling Khmer Rouge. The future prime minister fled with supporters to Vietnam in 1977 to escape a brutal political purge. He returned as one of the leaders of the Vietnamese-sponsored rebel army in 1979, becoming the country’s leader in 1985. Those who are skeptical of this version of events point to the fact that the change moves his birth from the Year of the Rabbit to the Year of the Dragon, considered auspicious by those who adhere to the Chinese zodiac. Exiled political analyst Kim Sok told RFA that Hun Sen should concern himself with bigger issues. “He is supposed to serve the interests of the people and protect the country’s territorial integrity and national honor, but he prioritizes the interests of himself and his family. It hinders the national interest,” Kim Sok said. Man Nath, the chairman of the Norway-based Cambodian Monitoring Council, said in a Facebook post that the change shows Hun Sen’s excessively superstitious nature. “His belief in superstition dominates his leadership. If he is a good leader, even in death he will become a ghost and still be worshiped for decades,&#8221; Man Nath said. Phnom Penh Municipal Court President Taing Sunlay issued a decree on June 20 adjusting the date of birth as sought by Hun Sen. Judge Taing Sunlay ordered the registrar and the authorities to change the civil status data in accordance with the prime minister’s request. Sok Eysan, spokesperson for Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party, told RFA it was right for Hun Sen to correct his birthdate, but he declined to comment on whether it related to superstition. “It is the responsibility of the prime minister himself to make [that decision], and there is no loss of anything to the people. The people of the country do not say anything [about it],” he said. Local media reported in early May that Hun Sen had announced the change days after the death of his older brother Hun Neng. India-based Wion News reported on May 19 that Hun Sen suspected the birthdate he had been using may have led to his brother’s death because it conflicted with the Chinese zodiac. The report also said that it is common for Cambodians older than 50 to have multiple birthdays. Official records were often lost or destroyed during the rule of the Khmer Rouge from 1975 to 1979, creating confusion about family histories. Others may have altered their birthdates to avoid military service in the 1980s when fighting continued between the government and Khmer Rouge remnants. Hun Sen’s Aug. 5, 1952, birthdate has been known publicly for at least the past 15 years. A reference to that date appeared in 2007 on Wikipedia, which cited a report by the Cambodia Daily news outlet. Subsequent edits over the next few years acknowledged one date or the other, and sometimes both. Translated by Sok Ry Sum. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [UN expert: Member-states should engage with NUG to find Myanmar crisis solution](https://ij-reportika.com/un-expert-member-states-should-engage-with-nug-to-find-myanmar-crisis-solution/): Other United Nations member-states should follow Malaysia’s lead and engage with Myanmar’s parallel civilian National Unity Government in efforts to help resolve the post-coup crisis in that country, a U.N. expert said Thursday. Additionally, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations needs a new approach in dealing with the Burmese junta to ensure it puts Myanmar back on the democratic path like it agreed to more than a year ago, said U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Tom Andrews, at a press conference at the end of an eight-day visit to Malaysia. “The five-point consensus is meaningless if it sits on a piece of paper,” he said, referring to an agreement struck between ASEAN member states, including Myanmar, on how the junta should move towards restoring democracy.  “Its only chance to make a difference is to put it into a meaningful action with a strategy, with an action plan, with a time frame, precisely as the [Malaysian] foreign minister has called for,” Andrews said, referring to Saifuddin Abdullah. Malaysia, which has strongly criticized the Feb. 1, 2021 coup, has also been consistently calling for stronger action from the regional bloc to make the Burmese junta accountable to the consensus it had agreed to in April 2021, but then ignored. “ASEAN must go back to the drawing board and implement a more detailed roadmap to achieving the five-point consensus within an appropriate timeframe,” Saifuddin said at a Shangri-La Dialogue panel in Singapore earlier this month. The five-point agreement reached between ASEAN leaders and Burmese military chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing on April 24 last year included an end to violence, the provision of humanitarian assistance, an ASEAN envoy’s appointment, all-party dialogue, and mediation by the envoy. ASEAN has not succeeded in implementing any of these points, and most analysts have said the regional bloc, which famously operates by consensus, is to blame for this. Not every country in the 10-member ASEAN is in favor of piling the pressure on its fellow member, which means the bloc cannot be very effective. ‘What Malaysia did is significant’ Last October, Malaysia’s outspoken foreign minister had said Kuala Lumpur would open talks with the NUG if the Burmese junta kept stonewalling in cooperating with ASEAN’s conflict resolution efforts. In February, he met his NUG counterpart Zin Mar Aung via video conference, following that up with an in-person meeting in Washington on May 16 after the United States-ASEAN Special Summit. During an interview in May with BenarNews, Saifuddin had said that many in ASEAN were frustrated that the Myanmar military was ignoring the five-point consensus. “I think we need to be more creative and that is why, for example, we [need to] start naming the stakeholders …the NUG, … all of them,” Saifuddin told BenarNews. The U.N.’s Andrews said he believed talking with the NUG was a correct move by an ASEAN member-state such as Malaysia – one that other nations should follow. “Let’s be clear who is legitimate here and who is not legitimate,” he said. “The National Unity Government is made up of people who were elected by the people, and also people who represent ethnic communities that are critically important to the fabric and the future of Myanmar. I highly recommend – and I am glad the [Malaysian] foreign minister here has engaged with the NUG and I [am] recommending – that all countries in the United Nations…do the same.” ASEAN’s engagement with the NUG will be a good initiative, said analyst Md. Mahbubul Haque of University Sultan Zainal Abidin. “If anyone really supports the struggle for democracy and the overall human rights situation in Myanmar, it is very necessary to engage with the NUG. Currently the NUG is representing major political forces including various ethnic minorities,” he told BenarNews. “What Malaysia did is significant because it came from an ASEAN member-state. But right now, we cannot expect that all members will follow the Malaysian stand, because of [their own] geopolitical interests.” Another analyst, Aizat Khairi of Kuala Lumpur University, said that ASEAN’s engagement with the NUG would give the Burmese junta the required push it needs. “The junta will not be happy but it will provide the pressure needed to make them be more open and ready to go to the next level of negotiation with other parties in Myanmar,” he told BenarNews. The U.N. expert said in a statement issued Thursday that Saifuddin had urged ASEAN to move from a policy of “noninterference” to one of “non-indifference.”  BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.
- [Residents trapped by floods in China's Guangdong after heavy rains batter region](https://ij-reportika.com/residents-trapped-by-floods-in-chinas-guangdong-after-heavy-rains-batter-region/): Residents of Guangdong&#8217;s Yingde city have been taking refuge from widespread flooding on upper floors and roofs, amid an ongoing shortage of relief supplies after heavy rainstorms battered the region. Photos posted to social media showed parts of Yingde under water up to the second floor of buildings, amid unconfirmed reports of deaths and building collapses. Government departments in Yingde, Guangdong province, were ordered on Thursday to maintain high vigilance against geological and natural disasters after the flood crest of the Beijiang River passed the city. &#8220;The flood crest of the Beijiang has passed the city, but it remains at a high level and the flow is still large, threatening the lives and property of local residents,&#8221; the Yingde government said in a statement reported by the English-language China Daily newspaper. Water in the Beijiang, a tributary of the Pearl River, began receding slowly after the flood crest passed at 2.00 p.m. local time on Wednesday, it said. The river, which runs through the city&#8217;s downtown area, was measured at nearly 10 meters above the danger line at its peak, the statement said. City authorities warned of possible landslides, mountain torrents, reservoir and river dike failures and building collapses as waters recede, the paper said. The floods came as parts of southern China faced the heaviest rainfall in more than 60 years, with large swathes of flooded areas suffering power outages, contaminated water supplies and relief supplies, with some people posted pleas for help on social media. Trapped by high water A resident of Yingde&#8217;s Xiniu township told RFA that they are currently trapped inside a two-story building with a roof dwelling alongside five other people. &#8220;The floodwaters are retreating now, but very slowly,&#8221; the person said. &#8220;Hopefully we&#8217;ll be able to last out until tomorrow now &#8230; when the waters should have gone down.&#8221; A resident of Yingde&#8217;s Wangbu township said she is currently trapped in a building with more than a dozen people, all elderly, women and children. &#8220;It&#8217;s been three or four days now, and nobody came yesterday,&#8221; the resident said. &#8220;They delivered a small piece of bread and bottle of water for residents this afternoon, and not until after 4.00 p.m.&#8221; &#8220;That was the only thing they delivered, so I didn&#8217;t eat anything until then, and only one meal isn&#8217;t enough,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I don&#8217;t know what will happen tomorrow.&#8221; While waters had begun to recede, she still couldn&#8217;t get out as they remained high. &#8220;I can&#8217;t go out now; I&#8217;ve been flooded all the way up to the second floor,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I can&#8217;t talk any more because my phone is nearly out of battery.&#8221; Repeated calls to helplines and contact numbers provided by the Yingde authorities went unconnected on Wednesday. Fears for the elderly Some people posted on social media saying that they had lost contact with elderly grandparents, while a 90-year-old man was stranded at home in need of oxygen. The flooding of Yingde came after authorities in upstream Shaoguan opened local floodgates on June 20, after days of heavy flooding there, inundated Yingde and other downstream areas. Shaoguan, one of the worst-hit cities in the current round of flooding, has seen record rainfall since late May. A video clip uploaded to social media showed a firetruck being washed away by a flash flood, although they were later rescued around one kilometer from where the video was shot. China&#8217;s ministry of water resources said that 99 rivers in the middle lower reaches of the Xi river in the Pearl river basin had water levels above the danger level between 12.00 noon on June 21 and noon on June 22. The Guangdong provincial flood control headquarters raised the emergency response level to the highest level on the evening of June 21, while authorities have evacuated more than 227,000 people within the province, with floods affecting nearly half a million people and causing economic losses of around 1.7 billion yuan. Flooding has also been reported in the southwestern region of Guangxi, Guizhou and other provinces, with five people killed and buildings destroyed by flash floods in Guangxi&#8217;s Liuzhou city on June 18. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Shanghai restaurants offer secret dining, 'hire' customers for the night](https://ij-reportika.com/shanghai-restaurants-offer-secret-dining-hire-customers-for-the-night/): Restaurants in Shanghai are offering secret lights-out dining and fake recruitment drives in a bid to get around the city&#8217;s stringent COVID-19 restrictions, RFA has learned. Residents of the city told RFA that despite the official lifting of a citywide lockdown on June 1, the municipal authorities have yet to lift a ban on in-house dining. &#8220;They&#8217;re still not allowing people to eat in,&#8221; a Huangpu district resident surnamed Yang said. &#8220;I can only eat secretly in the upstairs area, as dining in isn&#8217;t generally allowed, only takeout.&#8221; &#8220;My brother did the same &#8212; a friend invited him out to eat, and they went upstairs to an area of the restaurant you couldn&#8217;t see,&#8221; he said. Photos and video uploaded to social media showed people sitting at restaurant tables filled with food, but eating the light of their mobile phones, to avoid alerting any enforcement personnel to their presence. Other posts said some restaurants had made diners fill out application forms to work there, claiming them as employees, who are allowed to eat together in restaurants. When their meal was over, the diners resigned from the payroll, the reports said, likening the process to an underground party. &#8220;Many restaurants have closed down because they haven&#8217;t been able to survive [lockdown], which has lasted for more than three months,&#8221; Yang said. &#8220;If you rent premises &#8230; it&#8217;s going to cost tens of thousands of yuan a month, so they haven&#8217;t been able to keep up with it.&#8221; Community volunteers stand at an entrance in a residential area under a Covid-19 lockdown in Shanghai&#8217;s Huangpu district, June 22, 2022. Credit: AFP Testing burden Shanghai&#8217;s 26 million people are still being required to take a COVID-19 test several times a week, to be allowed to move around in public, residents said. &#8220;If you need to go out, to leave your residential compound to see the doctor, go to the supermarket, take the bus, etc., you need a negative PCR test result from the last 48 hours,&#8221; a Jing&#8217;an district resident surnamed Dai told RFA. Authorities in the southern city of Shenzhen announced similar requirements for anyone using public transportation in the city, including taxi or ride-sharing hires. Beijing-based current affairs commentator Hua Po said the impact of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)&#8217;s zero-COVID policy on the Chinese economy has been huge. &#8220;Beijing is carrying out mass PCR testing for all employees, and there is a lot of money involved,&#8221; Hua said. &#8220;The Beijing municipal government is in a very strong financial position, and it has that money to spend.&#8221; &#8220;But the situation is very different in other places,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Some local governments are very poor, and the people there are being forced to pay for the tests themselves.&#8221; Hua said the policy is more about political performance and official rankings than public health. &#8220;If officials fail to prevent or control COVID-19, they are severely punished, so party and government leaders are implementing these policies while trying to help out local governments and take on double the economic burden,&#8221; he said. Abuse of health code app A resident of the central province of Hubei who gave only the surname Lu said PCR testing is still mandatory in the provincial capital, Wuhan. &#8220;Things can&#8217;t go on like this &#8230; the economy is really bad and can&#8217;t take much more of this,&#8221; Lu told RFA. &#8220;Many companies, logistics and supply chains can&#8217;t carry on.&#8221; &#8220;Such frequent PCR testing is totally ridiculous &#8230; it would be better not to have any testing at all,&#8221; he said. Meanwhile, a resident of the central province of Henan said they are suing the government for using the &#8220;health code&#8221; COVID-19 app to restrict their movements during protests by depositors unable to withdraw their money from the Agricultural Bank. Xie Yanling, a resident of Dingzhuang village in Henan&#8217;s provincial capital Zhengzhou, told Caixin.com that she is suing the authorities for allegedly turning her traffic-light style health code amber despite her having submitted a negative PCR test result, on the day she was due to attend a court hearing relating to the demolition of her home. &#8220;It&#8217;s inexplicable,&#8221; a person familiar with the case told RFA. &#8220;The code had been green.&#8221; &#8220;I wish they would carry out the relevant policies in a normal manner, legally, and in the plain light of day,&#8221; the person said. Cai Fan, a retired associate professor of law at Wenzhou City University in Zhejiang, said health codes are being used for &#8220;stability maintenance&#8221; purposes in China. &#8220;This forced demolition involves the vested interests of the village committee and local government,&#8221; Cai said. &#8220;If they turn your health code amber for the hearing, you won&#8217;t be able to get in.&#8221; &#8220;Then, after a period of time, the government will level the land, put new buildings there, and you won&#8217;t be able to do anything about it,&#8221; Cai said. &#8220;It will be a fait accompli.&#8221; Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- ['After the Apple Daily shut down, I couldn't write another word'](https://ij-reportika.com/after-the-apple-daily-shut-down-i-couldnt-write-another-word/): One year after the pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper was forced to close amid an investigation by national security police, its former journalists are struggling to come to terms with the loss of the paper, an often sensationalist, sometimes hard-hitting daily founded by jailed media mogul Jimmy Lai. The paper&#8217;s closure came after hundreds of national security police descended on the headquarters of Next Digital in Tseung Kwan O on June 17, 2021, confiscating computers and journalistic materials police said were &#8220;evidence&#8221; of collusion with foreign forces under the national security law. Five executives were arrested, and the paper&#8217;s assets totaling around H.K.$18 million were frozen by the authorities. Chief editor Ryan Law and Next Digital CEO Cheung Kim-hung have since been charged with &#8220;collusion with foreign powers,&#8221; while three other executives have been released on bail without being charged. A former journalist who gave only the surname Leung said she still remembers the crowd of well-wishers who gathered outside the paper&#8217;s headquarters on the night that it closed, cheering and shouting encouragement. &#8220;The editors in charge came out to boost morale, with a strong sense that they were going to be martyrs,&#8221; Leung told RFA. &#8220;Everyone knew even then that the senior editors were in danger [of arrest and prosecution].&#8221; &#8220;I was hoping, as their employee, that they would leave Hong Kong that same night and go to a safe place, we also knew they were mentally prepared [for arrest],&#8221; she said. &#8220;As employees, we were sad that it had to end, but we felt it was an honorable defeat,&#8221; Leung said. Leung, a veteran newspaper reporter of 20 years&#8217; experience who had only worked at the paper for a year when it closed, said she suffered insomnia and suffered emotionally due to the arrests of her bosses, friends and colleagues. &#8220;Some places contacted me with jobs after Apple Daily closed on June 23, but I looked at the materials for a long time, and couldn&#8217;t write a word,&#8221; she said. &#8220;My heart had died along with the Apple Daily.&#8221; Leung gave up on journalism after the paper&#8217;s demise, and moved to the democratic island of Taiwan with her family, where she was able to disconnect and heal for a while, slowly recovering from the pain of the paper&#8217;s demise. But while she longs to write to her former colleagues and friends back in Hong Kong, she hasn&#8217;t contacted them for fear that doing so would render them vulnerable to further charges from the authorities. &#8220;I have always wanted to write to them, and I want to tell them that a lot of people are still flying the flag, and I would like to thank them for giving me the opportunity to work at Apple Daily,&#8221; Leung said. &#8220;But I fear that they could have fresh charges imposed on them like collusion, if they receive [letters] with Taiwan stamps on them,&#8221; she said. A draconian national security law imposed by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on Hong Kong from July 1, 2020 has sparked a crackdown on pro-democracy media organizations. After Lai&#8217;s Next Digital media empire was forced to close, the crackdown has also led to the closure of Stand News and Citizen News, as well as the &#8220;rectification&#8221; of iCable news and government broadcaster RTHK to bring them closer to Beijing&#8217;s official line. Hong Kong recently plummeted from 80th to 148th in the 2022 Reporters Without Border (RSF) press freedom index, with the closures of Apple Daily and Stand News cited as one of the main factors. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Former police captain sentenced to three years in prison](https://ij-reportika.com/former-police-captain-sentenced-to-three-years-in-prison/): Former Vietnamese policeman turned self-styled corruption buster Le Chi Thanh has been sentenced to three years in prison for defaming an unnamed deputy minister of public security This was the second sentence for the former captain, who was an officer at Ham Tan prison camp. The People’s Court of Ham Tan district in Binh Thuan province opened the trial on Wednesday, sentencing Thanh the same day. The defendant was charged under the crime of &#8220;abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the State, the legitimate rights and interests of organizations and individuals,&#8221; under Article 331 of the Criminal Code. Thanh was found guilty and sentenced to three years in prison. According to lawyer Dang Dinh Manh, who defended Thanh, the prosecution relied on videos posted by the accused on Facebook as evidence against him: “The prosecution agency relied on clips allegedly made by Le Chi Thanh himself, and posted on the social network Facebook with content that was ‘distorted and untrue’ infringing on state agencies such as courts, the police, a deputy minister of public security and an individual who is his former supervisor.” Mr. Thanh&#8217;s former supervisor is Col. Le Ba Thuy, chief of Ham Tan prison, who was accused of corruption by Thanh. According to the online news site VnExpress, Thanh claimed that Col. Thuy, the superintendent of Z30D Prison, had land and properties worth tens of billions of dong which he had received from an unknown source. Thanh reportedly asked the Central Party Committee of Public Security and Government’s Inspectorate to investigate his claims of corruption and confiscate the assets. The police said that Col. Thuy and his wife only had a house in Tan Duc commune, Ham Tan district and that his family bought property in An Phu ward, Thu Duc city in 2014 with money accumulated from wages, livestock farming, and grocery trading. The trial panel also said that a video posted on Facebook by Thanh, in which he claimed a deputy minister of public security abused his power to discipline Thanh, was misleading and untrue. Thanh was disciplined by the Prison Management Department (Ministry of Public Security) for the allegation and expelled from the police force in July 2020. After being sacked Thanh became active on social media, making live broadcasts monitoring the activities of the traffic police. On April 14, 2021, he was arrested under the charge of &#8220;resisting on-duty state officials&#8221; and later sentenced to two years in prison by the Thu Duc city court in January 2022. With the new sentence, Le Chi Thanh will serve two sentences at the same time with a total of five years in prison. Commenting on the outcome of the trial, lawyer Dang Dinh Manh said, although the sentence was lighter than could have been handed down under Article 331, his view was that using articles such as 331 or 117 in the Criminal Code was unjust: “because I think it goes against the freedom of speech that Article 25 of the Constitution provides.” “In the case of [the accused making] statements that unjustly affect the reputation, honor and dignity of agencies, organizations and individuals, they have the right to initiate civil lawsuits to request compensation for damage and that is enough. This is also consistent with the treatment given in many countries in the region and around the world,” he said. Thanh’s mother, Le Thi Phu, said he would not file an appeal. Instead she plans to continue lobbying high-level officials in the police agency to reduce her son’s prison term.
- [Interview: Nury Turkel to ‘call China out’ for atrocities against Uyghurs, others](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-nury-turkel-to-call-china-out-for-atrocities-against-uyghurs-others/): Uyghur-American lawyer Nury Turkel was unanimously elected chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), a bipartisan and independent federal government body. In a long career in advocacy, Turkel, who also serves as chairman of the board for the Uyghur Human Rights Project in Washington, he has played a major role in raising global awareness of the plight of the 12 million Uyghurs in the Chinese-controlled Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). China’s targeting of Uyghurs in XUAR in a crackdown on the minority group and its language, religion, and culture that intensified in 2017, has been declared a genocide by the United States and other western governments. The 50-year-old Turkel, who was born in Kashgar in a detention camp during China’s Cultural Revolution and in 2020 became the first Uyghur-American appointed to the USCIRF, was welcomed as “a tremendous asset to both USCIRF and the mission of protecting religious freedom,” in a statement by Campaign for Uyghurs Executive Director Rushan Abbas.  He spoke with RFA Uyghur Director Alim Seytoff about his goals as 2022-23 USCIRF chair. RFA: As a Uyghur American who’s elected as the USCIRF Chair, what does this position mean to you? Turkel: It’s simply humbling to be elected by my fellow commissioners to lead the US government agency.  But, on the other hand, I feel incredibly proud and privileged to be a citizen of this wonderful country that has given me so much&#8211; freedom and now a leadership role that is both substantive and symbolic.  It is one of the great American stories for someone with my background—an immigrant and indirect victim of the Uyghur genocide.  RFA: What are USCIRF plans to address China’s destruction of Uyghur Islam and genocide against Uyghurs? Turkel: As part of our legislative mandate, we will continue to monitor China’s atrocities against the Uyghurs and other vulnerable ethnic and religious groups, making sure that our government continues to call China out for the ongoing Uyghur genocide and advocate for a strong policy response to stop the atrocities committed against the Uyghurs and others in communist China.  RFA: Will the USCIRF work with its counterparts in other democracies to address the Uyghur Genocide? Turkel:  USCIRF has advocated for multilateral and bilateral responses to the Uyghur crisis in light of its complex and global nature. As a result, the U.S. has led the efforts to raise awareness and press China to end persecution, shut down the camps, and end the enslavement of the Uyghurs.  RFA: Will the USCIRF reach out to the Muslim countries and ask them to raise China’s genocide against Uyghur Muslims? Turkel: We have [worked with] our State Department counterparts to engage with Muslim majority countries to speak out against China’s atrocities and join the US-led efforts to end the Uyghur genocide.
- [Myanmar civilian death toll surpasses 2,000 since coup-NGO](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-civilian-death-toll-surpasses-2000-since-coup-ngo/): The toll of civilians who died at the hands of Myanmar’s military junta since it overthrew the country’s elected government 16 months ago reached 2,000 this week and is rising, according to a Thai-based activist group that has closely tracked deaths The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) said the milestone of 2,000 deaths since the Feb. 1, 2021 coup was reached June 20 and that recent deaths in anti-junta hotbeds Sagaing and Magway regions had pushed the figure to 2007. “This is the number verified by AAPP. The actual number of fatalities is likely much higher,&#8221; the AAPP said in a statement. The 2,000 deaths were memorialized by the U.S. and EU diplomatic missions in Yangon, with Brussels’ office posting a black cover on its social media page to express its condolences and Washington calling for accountability. “The inhumane atrocities committed by the military against the people of Burma across the country are a result of the lack of accountability among responsible persons on the part of the military. It highlights the urgent need for accountability,” the U.S. Embassy said. The AAPP report came five weeks after Institute for Strategy and Policy (ISP Myanmar), a local think tank, said in a report that it had documented at least 5,646 civilian deaths between the Feb. 1, 2021, coup and May 10. The ISP figure included people killed by security forces during anti-junta protests, in clashes between the military and pro-democracy paramilitaries or ethnic armies, while held in detention, and in revenge attacks, including against informers for the regime. At least 1,831 civilians were killed in shooting deaths, the largest number of which occurred in war-torn Sagaing region, where junta troops have faced some of the toughest resistance to military rule in clashes with People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries that have displaced tens of thousands of residents since the coup, the ISP report said. Former political prisoner Tun Kyi said the AAPP&#8217;s list does not capture the full death toll. “People are seen as criminals and arrested illegally. People are tortured and killed. Whole villages are set on fire,” he told RFA Burmese. “The current AAPP list shows 2,000 deaths. In fact, there are more than that.” The Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) said the milestone of 2,000 deaths since the Feb. 1, 2021 coup was reached June 20. Arbitrary detentions and torture The military has disputed or rejected the figures released by NGOS. Junta-controlled newspapers said last month that 2,796 non-combatants had been killed between the coup and May 15.  The military proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party said 3,107 people have been killed after being accused of being military informants, 690 people died in armed clashes and 18 were slain by the pro-junta militia Thway Thauk, or Blood Comrades. Coup opponents in Yangon told RFA they were still committed to resisting the military regime. “The military made arbitrary arrests and detentions and tortured and killed peaceful protesters,” said a member of a Yangon-based protest committee who used the name Jewel for security reasons. “As a result, this revolution has been going on for more than a year, with the conviction that the military dictatorship must be uprooted,” she said. “No matter how much the people have lost, we see that this is the last game and I will continue to fight with this in mind,” added Jewel. Kyar Gyi, a spokesman for the Htee Chaing Township PDF, said the army would continue to arrest and kill anyone who opposed the junta. &#8220;It is routine for them to arrest or kill anyone who opposes them. They are still doing it. Homes are being set on fire and people killed,” he told RFA. “We will continue the fight as long as it takes for the military dictatorship to fall.&#8221; Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written by Paul Eckert.
- [North Korea ends COVID-19 travel restrictions as ‘fever cases’ subside](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-ends-covid-19-travel-restrictions-as-fever-cases-subside/): North Korea has lifted COVID-19 travel restrictions nationwide, a sign the government may soon claim victory over the coronavirus pandemic, RFA has learned. After two years of denying the virus had penetrated its closed borders, North Korea in May acknowledged COVID had begun to spread among participants of a large-scale military parade the previous month and declared a “maximum emergency” to fight the disease. As part of its response, the government restricted movement between provinces and prohibited large gatherings. But now, after a partial lifting of the travel ban in late May, North Korea ended the limitations completely on June 12, a source from the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “Residents are able to travel to other provinces and even to the capital city, Pyongyang,” the source said. “The new order from the National Emergency Quarantine Command was given to residents of each neighborhood in Pohang district.” Each neighborhood watch unit held meetings to explain the policy change to residents, the source said. “They have been unable to travel outside the provincial borders with only the partial lifting of restrictions, so they welcome the news,” he said. “It is especially great news for merchants who rely on long-distance travel between provinces for their businesses. “But even if the restrictions are completely ended, there is still a separate procedure that requires travelers to carry a COVID-19 test certificate issued by the quarantine command. We can get a travel pass only if we have the test certificate,” he said. North Korea requires passes for travel between provinces even under normal circumstances. Residents with mobile phones can access test certificates through a smartphone app, a resident of the northwestern province of North Pyongan told RFA. Others must travel to receive a paper copy. “In rural areas such as Pakchon county, you have to visit the town quarantine center, which is miles away, to get a COVID-19 test certificate,” the second source said. “If a resident who wants to get a test certificate does not have a mobile phone, it is inconvenient.” But she agreed that most residents are happy the restrictions are ending. “Now they hope that the residents will have their livelihoods restored as soon as possible, but also by lifting the blockade of the border with China,” she said. After briefly restarting rail freight shipments from China earlier this year, new outbreaks in China forced Beijing and Pyongyang to suspend trade again. Aside from the short respite, trade has been suspended since the beginning of the pandemic in January 2020, with disastrous effects on the North Korean economy.  The first source said that not all residents were overjoyed at the lifted restrictions, believing that the government had an underlying and unsaid motive.   “There are speculations that restrictions were lifted in order to mobilize the residents,” the first source said, referring to the government practice of forcing residents to provide free labor for construction, farming and other government projects. “The COVID-19 lockdown restricted mobilizations on national construction projects and on rice planting duties,” he said. Nevertheless, the government has been saying that it is the leadership of Kim Jong Un that has eradicated the coronavirus, the second source said. Sources told RFA that North Korean traders and their Chinese counterparts are preparing to resume trade quickly once the Sino-Korean border reopens. They anticipate that cross-border trade will resume once coronavirus case numbers subside. German broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported Monday, citing North Korea experts and South Korean government sources, that North Korean authorities were preparing to declare victory over COVID-19 and give the credit to Kim Jong Un. The North Korean government has only reported a handful of confirmed COVID-19 cases, but it has been tracking fever symptoms since the beginning of the maximum emergency. According to data published by the state-run Korea Central News Agency, more than 4.67 million people have come down with fever, at least 99.4 percent of whom have made full recoveries. Translated by Claire Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Myanmar junta forces kill 2 militiamen, torch villages near copper mine](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-forces-kill-2-militiamen-torch-villages-near-copper-mine/): Myanmar junta soldiers killed two local militia members and torched over 20 villages near the Chinese-owned Letpadaung copper mine in northwestern Myanmar’s Sagaing region on Tuesday, forcing more than 10,000 civilians to flee, residents said. About 100 soldiers guarding the Chinese company Wanbao’s mining site fired heavy artillery shells and raided Moe Gyo Pyin village in Salingyi township and set ablaze between 300 and 400 houses, locals said. Sagaing has seen some of the fiercest armed resistance to junta rule since the military seized power from the country’s elected government in a February 2021 coup. As fighting between the military and the PDFs has intensified there in recent months, junta forces have conducted an arson campaign targeting rural villages, killing civilians and burning hundreds of homes, leaving thousands displaced. The junta stepped up raids of villages near the mine site after 16 local People Defense Force (PDF) militias opposed to the military regime issued a statement on April 21 calling for a halt to the controversial Letpadaung copper project, locals said. A Moe Gyo Pyin resident who lost his home said he had watched from a distance as the soldiers set fire to the village. “I could see my village being burned from a distance,” he said. “We were all men, not cowards, but we couldn’t do anything except just watch with clenched fists and grit our teeth, looking at each other with tears in our eyes. There was nothing we could do about it.” The exact number of houses that were burned down is unknown, but about two-thirds of the raided villages are gone, said another resident, adding that the troops left a monastery near the village untouched. “We heard they’d be coming yesterday morning and left two guys as sentries,” said the resident who did not want to be named for security reasons. “They shelled the village from afar before the raid. Some houses in the village were burned down in the morning and later, the whole village was set on fire in the afternoon. The two men we left behind as sentries were arrested and killed.” Soldiers cut off the arms of one of the guards — members of a local PDF — and stabbed the other in the abdomen, he said. After the soldiers left Moe Gyo Pyin during the night, residents returned to the village and found the bodies of the two dead PDF members and cremated them on Wednesday, the villager said. Villagers march along a road during a protest against a Chinese-backed copper mining company in Salingyi township, northwestern Myanmar&#8217;s Sagaing region, Dec. 30, 2019. Credit: Tint Aung Soe Another village raid Military troops detained about 60 people inside the monastery the same day after they entered the old village of Se-de, about two miles from Moe Gyoe Pyin, a resident there said. Others in the village fled. “We ran from the village straightaway and did not even dare to look back,” the resident said. “Some people carried some of their belongings as much as they could, but others did not. We were so afraid of them. Those who could not run got arrested.” RFA could not reach junta spokesman, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, for comment. He said on May 29 that governments have a responsibility to protect foreign investments in Myanmar. In retaliation for the military’s use of force against the villages, local PDFs said they fired 100 mortars at a power distribution site and the acid tanks inside the mine project site on Tuesday, though the extent of the damage is unknown. Zwe Htet, a member of Salingyi Revolutionary Army, a local militia group, pledged to attack the Chinese copper mine project daily if the regime’s forces continued burning down area villages. “Long-range shooting is our main strategy now,” he said. “We used 60 mm, 80 mm and 120 mm shells. The main attack was on the acid tank and the power plant. I saw some fires inside.” “The main purpose of the revolution is to overthrow the military regime,” he said. “They are now setting fire to villages in Letpadaung. Soon, the military situation will be tense.” Those who lost homes are moving to places near the monastery and other nearby villages, though Letpadaung area residents said their phone lines and internet service were still down. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane for RFA Burmese. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Experts raise concern about implementation of US law on Uyghur forced labor](https://ij-reportika.com/experts-raise-concern-about-implementation-of-us-law-on-uyghur-forced-labor/): A U.S. law that bans the importation of products from Xinjiang in China in response to allegations that Uyghurs in the region are being used as forced labor took effect this week, but the tough new prohibitions could prove difficult to enforce, experts said Wednesday. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) created what is referred to as a “rebuttable presumption” that assumes goods made in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) are produced with forced labor and thus banned under the U.S. 1930 Tariff Act. The law requires U.S. companies that import goods from the region to prove that they have not been manufactured at any stage with Uyghur forced labor. In previous U.S. investigations of imports from China, cotton used in major clothing brands, tomatoes and polysilicon for solar panels have been linked to forced labor in the XUAR. The U.S. and several Western parliaments have said that China’s action in Xinjiang constitute a genocide and crimes against humanity. China denies that it has persecuted Uyghurs or other ethnic minority groups in the region. The new forced labor law passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress and was signed into law by President Biden on Dec. 23, 2021. But Douglas Barry, vice president of communications and publications for the U.S.-China Business Council, said the law is unclear about how companies can definitively prove that no forced labor was involved in the goods they import from China. Several Chinese companies are already on the U.S. government’s Entity List, which forbids American firms from doing business with them unless they obtain special licenses, Barry said. Beyond that, the UFLPA places the onus on the U.S. firms to provide evidence that no forced labor was involved in the production of imported goods. “That’s a challenge because of the lack of independent third party auditors on the ground in China,” he said. “At the end of the day our member companies are fanatical about working in their supply chains to make sure there is no forced labor involved,” he said. “We hope that when enforcement issues arise in the coming days, the government agencies will work with the business community to resolve the issue as quickly as possible adjusting enforcement of tactics as the facts on the ground require.” ‘Challenging but doable’ Jessica Rifkin, an attorney who leads the customs, trade and litigation team at Benjamin L. England &amp; Associates, said that exporters could get around the law by shipping their products to another country before they arrive in the U.S. “[Y]ou have a good that’s subject to certain legal requirements based on its manufacture in one country, but then is shipped to another country, and then shipped through there to the U.S. in order to potentially evade those requirements,” she said. These types of transactions could still happen under the new law, although Rifkin said that U.S. customs officials have ways to identify those goods. U.S. companies could also divide their supply chains to get around the new requirement, presenting a major challenge to enforcement, said Peter Irwin, senior program officer for advocacy and communications at the Washington, D.C.-based Uyghur Human Rights Project. “You have one supply chain that is for the U.S. market to comply with the law, and then maybe they’ll bifurcate their supply chain and have another supply chain that doesn’t necessarily need to follow this law,” he told RFA. Since 2017, Chinese authorities have allegedly ramped up their repression of predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in the XUAR, detaining up to 1.8 million members of these groups in internment camps. The maltreatment also includes severe human rights abuses, torture and forced labor. Sophie Richardson, China director at New York-based Human Rights Watch, said the law’s implementation will be difficult but not impossible. “Some of the most complex challenges may be for companies that have, for example, taken a semi-finished product and sent it to the Uyghur region for finishing, and then sent it someplace else, and then sent it on into the United States,” she said. “Tracking the actual trajectory of the full supply chain is going to be challenging, but it is doable,” Richardson added. “Over time, hopefully what will happen is that companies will be do a better job of keeping records and sharing information about how things were produced and how they reached the U.S.” Holding China to account Rushan Abbas, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Campaign for Uyghurs, said called U.S. Customs and Border Protection should release data about any violations to the new law it finds. “Data should be released on the Customs and Border Protection’s website on a regular basis about the goods it holds, re-exports, excludes, and seizes, including information on the company importing the banned goods, their nature, value, and why the action was taken,” Abbas said in a statement issued on Wednesday. At a regular news conference in Beijing on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin called the allegations of forced labor in the XUAR “a huge lie made up by anti-China forces to denigrate China.” “It is the complete opposite of the reality Xinjiang, where cotton and other industries rely on large-scale mechanized production and the rights of workers of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang are duly protected,” he said.  “The U.S.’s Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act is built on a lie and designed to impose sanctions on relevant entities and individuals in Xinjiang,” said Wang. “This move is the furtherance of that lie and an escalation of U.S. suppression on China under the pretext of human rights. Moreover, the act is solid evidence of U.S.’s arbitrariness in undermining international economic and trade rules and global industrial and supply chains.” The U.S. government has taken measures to promote accountability in the XUAR, including visa restrictions, financial sanctions, export controls and import restrictions, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement on Wednesday. In July 2021, multiple U.S. agencies released an updated business advisory on Xinjiang warning of the legal risks...
- [Myanmar junta representative attends ASEAN defense meeting](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-representative-attends-asean-defense-meeting/): A representative of Myanmar’s military regime attended the ASEAN Defense Ministers&#8217; Meeting (ADMM) in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh on Wednesday, despite an appeal from hundreds of pro-democracy organizations in the war-ravaged country that the Southeast Asian regional bloc not engage with the junta. Myanmar Gen. Mya Tun Oo became the most senior official to represent the self-styled State Administration Council (SAC) at a ministerial meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations since the military ousted the country’s democratically elected government in February 2021. The 10 ASEAN member states have appeared divided on how to deal with the junta, with some fearing that engagement might signal acceptance or endorsement of the regime and its bloody crackdown on its opponents. Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia have all expressed to the 2020 ASEAN chair Cambodia that the junta should be excluded until there is an indication that hostilities in Myanmar will end. “Even though there is participation from Myanmar involving a representative from the State Administrative Council in the meeting today, this does not mean that Malaysia has recognized the SAC as the legitimate Myanmar government,” a statement from Malaysia’s Defense Ministry said. “Malaysia has always stressed that SAC should expedite the enforcement of the matters which were agreed on based on the 5 Point Consensus to find a solution to the political crisis in Myanmar,” it said, referring to the agreement reached between ASEAN’s leaders and Burmese military chief Sen. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing on April 24, 2021. The agreement sought an end to violence in Myanmar, the provision of humanitarian assistance, the appointment of an ASEAN envoy, and talks among the various groups in Myanmar to be mediated by the envoy. Cambodia’s Defense Minister Tea Banh, meanwhile, said that Mya Tun Oo’s participation in the meeting showed that the regional trade bloc is unified on security issues. &#8220;This is a participation to find solutions and this accusation, that accusation, we can&#8217;t respond to all of them,&#8221; he said during a news conference, responding to criticism over including Myanmar in the meeting. Indonesian Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto told his counterparts to put aside their differences to safeguard their mutual interests. “We must not allow outside powers to divide ASEAN and drag us into their competition. The future of ASEAN and our people rests on our shoulders, and I believe we all share the same view that we want peace and not conflict, cooperation rather than competition,&#8221; he said. A coalition of 677 pro-democracy organizations in Myanmar last week co-authored an open letter to the ASEAN defense ministers, urging them not to invite a representative from the junta. The organizations said Mya Tun Oo’s representation would be inconsistent with other ASEAN decisions to exclude representation from the junta, such as at the 2021 ASEAN Summit and the 2022 Foreign Minister’s Retreat. “ADMM’s engagement with the junta, which has included military exercises, may likely amount to the aiding and abetting of the junta’s war crimes and crimes against humanity,” the letter said. “In allowing the junta to participate in ADMM, ASEAN is further risking complicity in the junta’s atrocity crimes by providing support and legitimacy to the military and emboldening a military that is waging a nationwide campaign of terror.” Cambodian state media reported that the ministers agreed in a joint declaration issued after the meeting to enhance cooperation between ASEAN defense forces for COVID-19 containment, boost support for ASEAN Women Peacekeepers, further collaborate between defense-oriented educational institutions, and share information to enhance maritime security. Additional reporting by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.
- [Chinese leader Xi Jinping sets out five-year strategy ahead of bid for third term](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-leader-xi-jinping-sets-out-five-year-strategy-ahead-of-bid-for-third-term/): Ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping has set out his political strategy for the next five years ahead of his bid for an unprecedented third term in office at the 20th party congress later in the year. Xi told a high-level political symposium in Beijing this week that the CCP should &#8220;focus on deploying strategic tasks and major measures for the next five years.&#8221; &#8220;The next five years will be a critical time to start building a socialist modernized country in an all-round way,&#8221; Xi told the symposium. &#8220;We must firmly grasp the problem of unbalanced and insufficient development, focus on making up for shortcomings, strengths and weaknesses, consolidate the bottom line, and promote advantages, and study and propose new ideas and new measures to solve problems,&#8221; state news agency Xinhua paraphrased him as saying. Current affairs commentator Xiao Di said Xi&#8217;s comments suggest he plans to take China back to a state-controlled, command economy. &#8220;He&#8217;s steering China away from the capitalist road, back in the direction of communism,&#8221; Xiao told RFA. &#8220;That&#8217;s why he says the next five years will be a critical period to determine whether CCP rule will last forever.&#8221; &#8220;There should be no obstacle to his being re-elected as general secretary [at the 20th party congress],&#8221; he said. Some commentators have suggested that the fact that Xi&#8217;s speech to the symposium was given prominent coverage by state news agency Xinhua and the CCP&#8217;s official newspaper, the People&#8217;s Daily, indicates that Xi will likely get his way. The timing of the coverage ahead of the secretive annual leadership retreat in the resort town of Beidaihe suggests that Xi may be pre-empting any substantive discussion of his plan to serve a third term at that meeting. Future political direction Political scientist Ruan Guohong said the speech was a clear declaration to the outside world that Xi will be re-elected as general secretary of the CCP at the first plenary session of the 20th National Congress. Ruan said the speech was probably in part a response to international speculation about his political trajectory. &#8220;There has been a lot of speculation [on Xi&#8217;s third term] from the outside world lately, both inside China and overseas,&#8221; Ruan said. &#8220;But I think he was more likely addressing party elders about China&#8217;s future political direction.&#8221; In a conclusive break with the reformist thinking of the 1980s, Xi has already brought in constitutional changes nodded through in March 2018 by China&#8217;s rubber-stamp parliament, the National People&#8217;s Congress (NPC), removing presidential term limits. The move has potentially paved the way for indefinite rule by Xi, although it may not yet be a done deal, Ruan said. &#8220;He doesn&#8217;t know how things will turn out in future,&#8221; Ruan said. &#8220;But if he doesn&#8217;t manage to get another term in office, then the constitutional amendments will have been meaningless.&#8221; Possible infighting Exiled veteran dissident Wei Jingsheng said state media had been relatively quiet on the topic of Xi&#8217;s third term, suggesting fierce political infighting in the corridors of Zhongnanhai. But Wei also said in a commentary for RFA&#8217;s Mandarin Service broadcast before Xi&#8217;s speech was reported that the outcome of the 20th party congress was impossible to predict. &#8220;There are all kinds of possibilities,&#8221; Wei said. &#8220;But there is one outcome that can be predicted, that is, regardless of whether Xi Jinping is re-elected for a third term or not, further division [in party ranks] and the decline of the CCP are inevitable.&#8221; &#8220;If Xi Jinping is unsuccessful in his bid for another term, the Xi faction will inevitably be purged,&#8221; Wei said. &#8220;If it resists, it will rise up in rebellion, which will also be beginning of the end of the CCP.&#8221; &#8220;If Xi Jinping is re-elected, his retaliation [against those who opposed him] will force officials to rebel, which is not a bad result for China&#8217;s future. We will wait and see,&#8221; he said. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [USS Ronald Reagan reenters South China Sea amid tension over Pelosi visit](https://ij-reportika.com/uss-ronald-reagan-reenters-south-china-sea-amid-tension-over-pelosi-visit/): The aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and its strike group re-entered the South China Sea and is heading north as China threatens military action should U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi make a visit to Taiwan. The carrier left Singapore after a five-day port call on July 26, according to a statement from the U.S. 7th Fleet.  The statement did not specify the USS Ronald Reagan’s current location but the U.S. Navy released a couple of photos of the carrier refueling-at-sea with the replenishment oiler USNS Tippecanoe in the South China Sea on Wednesday. Data provided by the ship-tracking website Marine Traffic show the USNS Tippecanoe was well inside the South China Sea at the time of the replenishment operation. The ship’s projection shows it is moving northwards. While this doesn’t necessarily mean the aircraft carrier would take the same route, some Taiwan watchers say it may sail near the island in the coming days. An analyst who wishes to stay anonymous due to the sensitivity of the issue told RFA they think the Ronald Reagan will “sail close to the east side of Taiwan in a show of power but will not engage in any confrontation with China’s People’s Liberation Army.” Chinese state-supported Global Times meanwhile quoted Song Shingling, a Chinese military expert, as saying that “if the U.S. carrier strike group attacks relevant islands in the South China Sea or clashes with Chinese warships and fighter jets, this may equal to creating a conflict.” USNS Tippecanoe’s past track from July 21 to July 28. CREDIT: Marine Traffic Pelosi briefed on Taiwan trip  The Indo-Pacific Command declined to confirm whether the Ronald Reagan, the U.S. Navy’s only forward-deployed aircraft carrier, will sail near Taiwan. “We have nothing further on this,” said Cmdr. Tiffani Walker, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command spokeswoman. The democratic island, that China considers one of its provinces, has come under the spotlight after press reports that the Speaker of U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi would visit Taiwan in early August. Neither the U.S. Government nor Pelosi’s office confirmed the news but President Joe Biden indicated that the military “did not think it was a good idea right now” for Pelosi to visit Taiwan. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Wednesday he had spoken with Pelosi and given her a security assessment of the situation but did not comment on Taiwan, Reuters reported. President Biden is expected to discuss the visit, among other issues, with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in a telephone call on Thursday. It would be the fifth such conversation since Biden became U.S. president in January 2021. China has already responded strongly against the rumored trip, with a PLA spokesman threatening that should Pelosi insist on making the visit, “the Chinese military will never sit idly by, and will certainly take strong and resolute measures” to retaliate. The USS Ronald Reagan is a Nimitz-class nuclear-powered supercarrier, homeported in Yokosuka, Japan. It has been deployed to the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations “in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific region,” said the U.S. Navy.  
- [Vietnam religious freedoms group hits out at sentences against Peng Lei members](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-religious-freedoms-group-hits-out-at-sentences-against-peng-lei-members/): The Vietnam Interfaith Council has lashed out at the harsh sentences given to six members of the Peng Lei Buddhist House. They were sentenced last week to a combined 23 years and six months in prison on charges of “abusing democratic freedoms” under Article 331 of the Criminal Code. Police suspended investigations into further allegations of incest and fraud but indicated that other charges may follow. The council, dedicated to fighting for religious freedom, has members representing five major religions in Vietnam: Buddhism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Cao Daism, and Hoa Hao Buddhism. In a statement, the organization expressed &#8220;strong opposition to the unjust and illegal case, which is contrary to the basic principles of international justice.&#8221; At the same time, the group denounced the Vietnamese government for &#8220;defying the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations, depriving the Vietnamese people of basic freedoms, including freedom of religion and speech, freedom of association and the right to a fair trial.&#8221; Thich Khong Tanh, co-chair of the Interfaith Council, explained to RFA why the group released its statement. “The Interfaith Council has been present in Vietnam for ten years, and its stance has always been to advocate for freedom of religion, belief, and human rights in Vietnam,”. This [sentence] is a serious violation of the issue of freedom of religion and belief. It is also insulting the dignity of human beings, just as the human rights of the people in Vietnam are not respected.&#8221; During the trial, one of the issues raised by the judge was that the Peng Lei sect refused to register to join the Vietnamese Buddhist Church. Retreat head Le Tung Van said this was because he feels the Vietnamese Buddhist Church is &#8220;unworthy&#8221; to participate. Thich Khong Tanh said the Peng Lei sect has the right to practice Buddhism the way they want, not necessarily by joining the Vietnamese Buddhist church: “You naturally force people into your circle for you to manage, then how can that be called freedom of belief, freedom of thought, freedom of religion.” “Vietnamese Buddhism is very diverse, and the practice takes many forms. Because of the Buddha&#8217;s teachings, there are forty-eight thousand cultivation methods. So depending on the people, if we can access something taught by the Buddha and if we want to practice, we can all get it.” Since 2016 Thich Khong Tanh has held the role of Co-Deputy Director of the Executive Council of the Sangha of the Unified Buddhist Sangha of Vietnam, an organization separated from the church dating back to the Republic of Vietnam. Another member of the Vietnam Interfaith Council, Cao Dai clerk Hua Phi, also told RFA that the statement the organization made to affirm the religious freedom of its members and to denounce the repressive policy of the Vietnamese state was justified: “We fight for Vietnam to have freedom of religion. No one has the right to force us to follow a religion that we don&#8217;t like.&#8221; &#8220;Secondly, we find that for these unjust judgments, the online community as well as the activists need to speak up to let the world know that in Vietnam, rulers often impose their own versions of the law and use punishment to deter those who do not obey the will of the authorities.” He also said that the government initially falsely accused Le Tung Van of committing incest, but later used Article 331 to try to show the nature of this case is to abolish unregistered groups such as Peng Lei sect On July 26, the leader of Long An Provincial Police said there was not enough evidence to charge Le Tung Van with incest and said he would stop accepting allegations of this crime. The Interfaith Council also &#8220;requested the United Nations Human Rights Agency, international human rights organizations, and liberal and democratic countries around the world to pressure the communist government of Vietnam to respect human rights and comply with international judicial procedures and principles for the Vietnamese people.&#8221;
- [Unidentified men target the homes of executed Myanmar activists](https://ij-reportika.com/unidentified-men-target-the-homes-of-executed-myanmar-activists/): The homes of two democracy activists executed by Myanmar’s junta over the weekend were attacked by groups of unidentified men on Wednesday, according to residents who described the assailants as military supporters yelling obscenities and threatening the lives of the activists’ family members. A source in Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon told RFA Burmese that around 40 men in seven trucks pulled up to the home of former National League for Democracy (NLD) lawmaker Phyo Zeya Thaw on Bo Aung Kyaw Street in Kyauktada township at around 12:30 p.m. and began hurling projectiles at the building. “They were throwing stones and tomatoes and attacking with slingshots, at the same time cursing and swearing,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, but identified themselves as a neighbor of the lawmaker whose party was deposed by the military in a coup last year. “They seemed to be mostly supporters of the military. They were very mean – even threatening the lives of the elderly.” Witnesses said that the men drove away when security forces arrived at the scene, but vowed to return. Phyo Zeya Thaw’s mother, Khin Win May, confirmed to The Irrawaddy online journal on Wednesday that the family home had been attacked. A video circulating on a pro-military channel of the social media platform Telegram appeared to show several men standing outside the entrance to the building, throwing rocks and admonishing Khin Win May for expressing how proud she is of her son, which she did in an interview with RFA on Monday after learning of his execution. A description posted along with the video read, “people who do not want terrorism gathered to protest in front of the house of Phyo Zeya Thaw’s parents, who said they are proud of their son – a terrorist leader involved in the violent killing of many people.” State media announced the execution of Phyo Zeya Thaw, former student leader Ko Jimmy, whose real name is Kyaw Min Yu, and activists Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw, on Monday without reporting the date and method of killings. It is believed the men, who were convicted of “terrorism” against the military regime and the people of Myanmar, were hanged on Saturday in Yangon’s Insein Prison. The act drew widespread condemnation from Western governments, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), international rights groups and Myanmar-based democracy activists, as well as the Southeast Asian nation’s shadow National Unity Government and the People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries that are fighting the junta on the NUG’s behalf. Ko Jimmy’s home targeted A group of unidentified men also attacked the home of Ko Jimmy’s parents in Yangon’s Insein township on Wednesday, according to a witness, who declined to be named citing security concerns. The witness said that more than two dozen men armed with sticks and swords arrived at the house at around 1 p.m. in two vans and five pickup trucks and began pelting it with stones. “Those who attacked Ko Jimmy&#8217;s house came with swords hidden in their umbrellas, about thirty people,” they said. “When residents came out [to investigate], they left the neighborhood.” Another video posted to the same pro-military channel on Telegram appeared to show a group of men standing outside of Ko Jimmy’s parents’ home, cursing the former student leader as a “traitor” and threatening the lives of his family members. RFA was unable to independently confirm which organizations the two groups of attackers are associated with or how they were able to obtain the home addresses of the late democracy activists and their family members. Despite the blowback over the weekend’s executions, junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun told a press conference held in the capital Naypyidaw on Tuesday that the consequences of the punishments had “already been considered,” but the decision was taken to “mete out justice for those who died at their hands.” “The crimes they committed deserved several more death sentences than the ones committed by those on the death row,” he said at the time, adding that authorities decided to proceed with the punishment “for the sake of innocent people and their relatives.” According to Thai NGO Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, authorities have killed at least 2,131 civilians and arrested nearly 14,900 since the military seized power from Myanmar’s democratically elected government in a Feb. 1, 2021 coup, mostly during peaceful anti-junta protests. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [North Korea resumes coal shipments to China in violation of sanctions](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-resumes-coal-shipments-to-china-in-violation-of-sanctions/): North Korea has resumed shipping coal to energy-starved China to secure much needed foreign currency despite U.N. sanctions prohibiting the transactions, RFA has learned. U.N. Security Council Resolution 2371, adopted in August 2017, forbids countries from buying coal that originates in North Korea. The sanctions are aimed at depriving Pyongyang of cash and resources that could be funneled into its nuclear and missile programs. But China’s energy needs are great, and North Korea’s coal is of exceptionally high quality, so sales of coal stocks to Chinese buyers resumed in mid-July, a trade official in North Korea’s South Pyongan province, north of Pyongyang, told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “Trading companies affiliated with the party and the military resumed exporting coal to earn foreign currency on orders of the Central Committee,” said the source.  “Coal exported to China is transported from Nampo port to the West Sea,” the source said, referring to the body of water west of the Korean peninsula, known internationally as the Yellow Sea.  “It is common for the coal to be transferred from the North Korean trading company’s ships to  Chinese ships on the open sea,” the source said. The ship-to-ship transfers are an effort to avoid detection, although monitors have known the sales have continued since the sanctions were imposed. In 2019, the U.S. Treasury penalized two Taiwanese citizens and three shipping companies for transferring petroleum products with North Korean ships on the high seas. In October 2021 RFA reported that coal exports from North Korea to China, sometimes through ship-to-ship transfers, were on the rise as China struggled with severe coal shortages that led to rolling blackouts in many parts of the country. Maritime trade between the two countries has been on and off during the coronavirus pandemic. It was off again after North Korea declared a “maximum emergency” in May when a major outbreak was traced to a military parade in late April. Authorities have apparently made an exception in the case of coal. Some trading companies are getting bolder and forego ship-to-ship transfers entirely, the source said. “Some of the powerful party-affiliated trading companies bring the Chinese ships into the port of Nampo, where they are loaded with coal and then sail directly to Chinese ports. They can receive the cash right there on the spot,” the source said. “Foreign currency earned from coal exports is not deposited into the Foreign Trade Bank of the DPRK but is collected directly by the party.” The coal shipped out of Nampo goes to various ports in China’s Shandong province, with Longkou being the most popular destination, sources said. Coal is also transferred over a much shorter distance between Ryongchon county in the northwestern province of North Pyongan and Donggang, China, a trade official in North Pyongan told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “These days, at Jinhung Wharf in Ryongchon county, military trading companies that have received permission to resume coal exports from the Central Committee are exporting coal through the sea,” he said. “Powerful trading companies are earning foreign currency by exporting hundreds of thousands of tons of coal at a time by borrowing large ships from China,” said the second source. A ton of North Korea’s high-quality anthracite coal can fetch between U.S. $100 and $110 in China, according to the second source. This is almost double the cost per ton quoted by sources in the RFA report from October 2021.  “Military companies are using the foreign currency they earn from coal exports to secure fuel for Border Guard patrol boats and warships and food for military personnel,” the second source said. Sources told RFA that they were not able to determine if the resumption of coal exports is being carried out under any agreement with the Chinese government. RFA contacted offices at the United Nations, including the U.S. mission to the U.N., by phone and email but had not received any response as of 4 p.m. Wednesday. A U.S. State Department spokesperson told RFA that United Nations sanctions on the DPRK remain in place. “We will continue to implement them and encourage others to fully implement them, including at the United Nations and with the DPRK’s neighbors,” the spokesperson said. “The DPRK continues to fund its WMD and ballistic missile programs through sanctions evasion efforts in violation of UN Security Council resolutions.” “It is important for the international community to send a strong, unified message that the DPRK must halt provocations, abide by its obligations under UN Security Council resolutions, and engage in sustained and intensive negotiations with the United States.” Translated by Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Vietnam court charges 7 people for their roles in road demolition protest](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-court-charges-7-people-for-their-roles-in-road-demolition-protest/): Authorities in Vietnam’s Nghe An province have officially charged seven people in connection with a clash with riot police over the demolition of a local road earlier this month, family members said Wednesday. Ha Thi Hien, Tran Thi Nien, and Bui Van Canh were charged on July 22 with “resisting against officers on official duty,” while Tran Thi Hoa, Bach Thi Hoa, Ha Thi Thoa, and Ha Van Hanh were accused of “disturbing public order,” relatives told RFA Vietnamese. Family members said they had only learned of the charges – each of which carries a maximum sentence of seven years in prison – after receiving a notice from the Nghi Loc District Police Department on Wednesday. “I am very worried about my wife. They [the police] said she would be held for two months before trial,”  Nguyen Van Duc, the husband of Ha Thi Hien, told RFA’s Vietnamese Service. “All of my neighbors feel sorry for her, saying that Hien had never said or done anything bad, and ask why she was taken away. Since her arrest, our two young kids have been crying and asking for Mom every night,” he said. Riot police guard a fence build to stop protestors preventing the demolition of a hundred-year-old road on July 13, 2022. Photo: Citizen Journalist On July 13, hundreds of riot police descended on Binh Thuan parish in Nghe An’s Nghi Thuan commune as a similar number of protesters attempted to remove a fence blocking a road that connects the parish to an area highway. The road, which had been in use for more than 100 years, is located on land the government granted to a private company for a planned industrial zone. Police tried to disperse the protesters with smoke grenades and explosives but they fought back. Ten people were arrested in the clash, during which officials said protesters had &#8220;used bricks, stones, bottles, sticks [and petrol bombs], attacked and detained a police officer and injured five other police officers,” according to a statement issued after the incident. Authorities released one woman the same night and two men three days later. However, the other seven had remained in custody for two weeks before their families were notified of the charges against them on Wednesday.  The seven are being held at a temporary detention facility during an investigation of their case, which is expected to last until Sept. 10, according to the notice from the Nghe An Police Department, which also claimed that all of the accused had “refused access to a defense lawyer, or did not request one.” Duc said his wife Hien is innocent and was “only watching the protest” when she was arrested. She did not act against the police, he said. Duc said he has had to take leave from work to care for his two kids, aged three and six, and his mother, who is more than 80 years old. Attempts by RFA to contact the Nghi Loc District Police and the lead investigator for the case, Hoang Doanh Toan, went unanswered Wednesday. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Tibetan arrested for creating ‘unlawful’ WeChat group](https://ij-reportika.com/tibetan-arrested-for-creating-unlawful-wechat-group/): Chinese officials in a Tibetan-populated region of Sichuan this month arrested a Tibetan man accused of setting up a group honoring Tibetan religious leaders on the popular social media platform WeChat, Tibetan sources said. Lotse, 57 and a resident of Sichuan’s Sershul (in Chinese, Shiqu) county in the Kardze (Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, was taken into custody in July for creating the chat group, which was set up to celebrate the birthdays of revered Tibetan lamas, a Tibetan living in exile told RFA this week. “The group has around 100 members who come from all parts of Tibet,” RFA’s source said, citing local contacts and speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. Chinese authorities called Lotse’s creation of the group “unlawful,” the source added. Lotse, a single father of two sons, is now believed to be detained by authorities somewhere in Sershul, and local Tibetans were questioned about him and pressured by police in the period leading up to his arrest, the source said. “Chinese police also visited Lotse at his home before his arrest and threatened him for creating such a group without the government’s permission,” he added. Banned birthday celebration Sichuan authorities arrested two Tibetans in 2021 for celebrating the 86th birthday on July 6 of exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, sources told RFA in earlier reports. The pair, a man named Kunchok Tashi and a woman named Dzapo, both in their 40s, were taken into custody in Kardze’s Kyaglung town on suspicion of being part of a social media group that shared images and documents and encouraged the reciting of Tibetan prayers on the Dalai Lama’s birthday. The Dalai Lama fled Tibet into exile in India in the midst of a failed 1959 Tibetan national uprising against rule by China, which marched into the formerly independent Himalayan country in 1950. Displays by Tibetans of the Dalai Lama’s photo, public celebrations of his birthday and the sharing of his teachings on mobile phones or other social media are often harshly punished. Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on Tibetan-populated regions of western China, restricting Tibetans’ political activities and peaceful expression of cultural and religious identity, and subjecting Tibetans to imprisonment, torture and extrajudicial killings. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [Beijing bites back over repeated rumors of Pelosi’s Taiwan visit](https://ij-reportika.com/beijing-bites-back-over-repeated-rumors-of-pelosis-taiwan-visit/): China ratcheted up its already strong response to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s plans to visit Taiwan, with the Ministry of Defense in Beijing threatening military action. Ministry spokesman, Sr. Col. Tan Kefei, told a media briefing on Tuesday that, should Pelosi insist on making the visit, “the Chinese military will never sit idly by, and will certainly take strong and resolute measures” to retaliate. The U.S. “must not arrange for Pelosi to visit the Taiwan region,” he said. China considers the self-governed democratic island a breakaway province and its reunification a matter of “national sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Britain’s Financial Times first reported on the planned visit last week, saying it would be part of a tour that will also include Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Pelosi and her entourage will also make a stopover in Hawaii to visit the headquarters of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, the paper said. It would be the first time since Newt Gingrich’s 1997 trip that a U.S. House speaker has visited the island. U.S. officials have not confirmed the news but President Joe Biden indicated that the military “did not think it was a good idea right now” for Pelosi to visit Taiwan.  The much talked about trip by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the third most senior figure in the political system, has created a huge headache for U.S. policymakers. Biden is expected to discuss it, among other issues, with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in a telephone call on Thursday. It would be the fifth such conversation since Biden became U.S. president in January 2021. ‘Fourth Taiwan crisis’ Before the defense ministry delivered its official response, the Chinese foreign ministry had already protested against the reported trip, saying the U.S. must be prepared to “assume full responsibility for any serious consequence arising.”  Analysts say with so much tension over the alleged visit, U.S.-China relations are entering a “perilous period.” Taylor Fravel, Director of the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), wrote on Twitter that Pelosi’s visit seems likely “as other members of Congress cast her visit as a question of what China can or cannot ‘dictate’ to Congress.” This would “create even stronger incentives for a forceful response,” as Xi Jinping’s “policy, reputation and credibility will be seen to be at stake.” “We’re heading straight toward a Fourth Taiwan Strait crisis,” Fravel warned, referring to previous crises in the Taiwan Strait. The last one was in 1996 and ended after U.S. intervention. Some Taiwanese analysts disagree with the assessment, saying the possibility of a war is low. “This is not good timing for Xi to wage a fourth Taiwan crisis,” said Ming-Shih Shen, a senior expert at the Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research (INDSR). There are only a few months left before the opening of China’s most important political event – the Chinese Communist Party’s Congress – where Xi is believed to be seeking an unprecedented third term. “The situation’s being exacerbated perhaps by those who oppose Xi’s leadership within the Party in order to create troubles [for him],” Shen said. To go or not to go? Despite China’s hawkish response, Pelosi should still make the visit, said the Taiwanese expert, adding that it would work for her domestically, too. Carl Schuster, a retired U.S. Navy captain and former director of operations at the U.S. Pacific Command&#8217;s Joint Intelligence Center, said that China&#8217;s coercion tactics “work only when countries allow them to do so” and the United States “should stand up to China.” “China&#8217;s economy is not in better shape than ours and China is not going to war over Pelosi&#8217;s visit,” he said. “Bowing down to Chinese bullying makes us look weak at a time when we need to appear strong. Weakness, like withdrawing our embassy and trainers, encouraged Putin to invade Ukraine. We can&#8217;t make that mistake twice,” Schuster added. “The current tensions over Speaker Pelosi’s putative visit to Taiwan puts the Biden Administration in a no-win situation,” said Carl Thayer, a veteran regional expert. “If Speaker Pelosi decides to visit Taiwan, Xi Jinping will have no recourse but to provoke a crisis to demonstrate China’s resolve. This will put further strain on U.S.-China relations and undermine efforts underway by Biden to find some common ground with China,” the Canberra-based analyst said. The Biden Administration, in his opinion, “has not yet had to respond to a major incident of Chinese bullying and also has not gone out of its way to provoke a confrontation with China.” “If Pelosi decides to go and China throws down the gauntlet, this will be the first test for President Biden to call China to account and push back against its bullying,” Thayer said.
- [Vietnamese police suspend incest and fraud investigation into Buddhist group](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnamese-police-suspend-incest-and-fraud-investigation-into-buddhist-group/): Police looking into accusations of incest, fraud and abusing democratic freedoms by a Buddhist sect in Vietnam say they are temporarily suspending their work. Monday’s announcement by the Investigation Security Agency of Long An province police follows a previous police announcement that Peng Lai Temple (Tinh That Bong Lai) leader Le Tung Van used the religion for years to benefit personally from charitable donations. At his trial, last week, Le Tung Van said the people who leveled accusations against him should be brought to justice. “I did not offend the Vietnamese Buddhist Church in Long An province, nor did I offend the Duc Hoa district police. On the contrary, [we] were victims of horrible humiliation and slander for a long time. Whoever accuses me of offending them should appear in court. [We should] stand up to confront them and make it clear, don&#8217;t deceive the court!&#8221; Six members of the religious group were sentenced to a combined 23 years and six months in prison last week on charges of “abusing democratic freedoms” under Article 331 of the Criminal Code. News site Thanh Nien reported that investigators said they decided to put their work on hold because they had received many accusations against Peng Lai, so they needed to be cautious and make separate studies into the differing claims. It said the agency is waiting for blood tests and genetic analysis before following up on incest allegations and will drop that line of investigation if the tests are negative. The Zing news site quoted an unnamed Long An police official as saying the Investigation Security Agency had received accusations on three separate issues against Peng Lai but had only looked into the claims of “abusing democratic freedom,” while ignoring claims of incest and fraud. He said police are preparing to resume investigations into those two claims. Monday’s announcement that police were suspending their investigation prompted lawyer Ngo Anh Tuan to write on Facebook: &#8220;From the very beginning, when I received information about the cases related to the Peng Lai Temple, I had a somewhat hostile view of them … Up to this point, through some information that the official newspapers have published, it seems that the accusations of incest in the Peng Lai Temple are inference, lacking solid scientific basis. This also means that my aversion to the people there is unfounded.” Earlier this year state media were accused of trying to influence public opinion with headlines such as “Police investigating incest at Peng Lai Temple,” and “Peng Lai retreat: When morality has gone and ignorance leads the way.” The six sentenced temple members were convicted after prosecutors said they posted videos on social networks, including one defaming Thich Nhat Tu of the Vietnamese Buddhist Church. The indictment said the six posted articles and clips on Facebook and YouTube from 2019 to 2021 containing lies, fabricated and distorted information, which insulted the Duc Hoa District Public Security Agency, offended Buddhism and harmed the honor and dignity of Thich Nhat Tu.
- [Execution of 4 activists by junta puts peace in Myanmar further out of reach](https://ij-reportika.com/execution-of-4-activists-by-junta-puts-peace-in-myanmar-further-out-of-reach/): The execution of former student leader Ko Jimmy and three other democracy activists by Myanmar’s junta could become a serious obstacle to resolving the country’s political crisis, analysts and observers said Tuesday. The official Global New Light of Myanmar on Monday announced the executions of Ko Jimmy, whose real name is Kyaw Min Yu, former National League for Democracy (NLD) lawmaker Phyo Zeya Thaw, and activists Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw without reporting the date and method of killings. It is believed the men were hanged on Saturday in Yangon’s Insein Prison. The act drew widespread condemnation from Western governments, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), international rights groups and Myanmar-based democracy activists, as well as the Southeast Asian nation’s shadow National Unity Government and the People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries that are fighting the junta on the NUG’s behalf. On Tuesday, political analyst Kyaw Saw Han told RFA Burmese that the ASEAN-backed proposal for a dialogue that would include all of Myanmar’s stakeholders is now less likely than ever, as the executions have lessened the opposition’s interest in a peaceful resolution. “The ASEAN plan, which is being promoted by the international community, to meet with [deposed NLD leader] Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and then meet with the junta and all those involved in the conflict to find a solution, will be delayed,” he predicted. “I think it will be very difficult to have a dialogue. Right now, the public is angry. Their emotions of anger have been stirred up, so it is harder than before to accept this. We can say it will almost certainly be delayed and that the probability for such a dialogue is very low at this point.” The junta has reneged on a five-point consensus (5PC) it agreed to with ASEAN in April 2021 to put the country back on the path to democracy. The consensus called for an end to violence; dialogue among all parties; mediation by a special ASEAN envoy; ASEAN-coordinated humanitarian assistance; and a visit to Myanmar by an ASEAN delegation. Col. Khun Okkar of the Peace Process Steering Team of ethnic armies that have signed a nationwide ceasefire agreement (NCA) with the government since 2015 told RFA that his group will no longer meet with the junta if called for peace talks, as the executions show that the regime is not interested in upholding its promises. “Those who signed the NCA should not violate the points stated in the pact, namely, to respect human rights and to protect the lives and property of the people,” he said. “And so, based on that, we will not respond without consulting among ourselves to [the junta’s] calls for further discussions. We have made that decision.” Khun Okkar added that the actions of the junta could completely derail the peace process because public confidence in the process will be damaged beyond repair. Ko Ko Gyi, a leader of Myanmar Prominent 88 Generation Student Group and current People&#8217;s Party Chairman, talks to journalists during a press briefing at their 88 Generation Students Peace and Open Society Office, June 15, 2015, in Yangon, Myanmar. Credit: Associated Press Prior executions Only three people have been executed in Myanmar in the past 50 years: student leader Salai Tin Maung Oo, who helped to organize protests over the government’s refusal to grant a state funeral to former U.N. Secretary-General U Thant that resulted in a deadly crackdown in 1974; Capt. Ohn Kyaw Myint, who was found guilty of plotting an assassination of military dictator Gen. Ne Win; and Zimbo, a North Korean agent who bombed the country’s Martyrs’ Mausoleum during an attempted assassination of South Korea’s then-President Chin Doo-hwan in 1983. While Myanmar’s courts have sentenced people to death, there have been no executions carried out in the 30 years since the country’s 1988 democracy uprising and prior to the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup. Ko Ko Gyi, the chairman of Myanmar’s lesser known opposition People’s Party, said that the junta’s decision to carry out the death penalty after more than 30 years will certainly impact the likelihood of a peaceful resolution to the country’s crisis. “For those who are trying to find a political solution, it will be very difficult because of this,” he said. “The public’s emotions are running very high. That’s why I objected and made appeals from the beginning not to [proceed with the death penalty]. Now that it has happened, I see that there will be many difficulties ahead for a political solution.” He said that public opposition to military rule is likely to become more fierce, which authorities will respond to with greater force, lessening the likelihood of any kind of reconciliation. Myanmar-based political analyst Ye Tun said he also expects reprisals by Myanmar’s armed opposition to intensify following the executions. “This was a bit too serious. Retaliation is likely,” he said. Regional PDF groups have vowed to take revenge against junta forces for the weekend’s executions. Despite the blowback, junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun told a press conference held in the capital Naypyidaw on Tuesday that the consequences of the executions had “already been considered,” but the decision was taken to “mete out justice for those who died at their hands.” “The crimes they committed deserved several more death sentences than the ones committed by those on the death row,” he said. “Therefore, the government unavoidably decided to go ahead with the punishments in accordance with the law, for the sake of innocent people and their relatives. It’d be cruel and show a lack of empathy for us to be lenient to the accused perpetrators and let them go unpunished.” The four activists had been convicted of crimes that included contacting the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, PDF and NUG, which in September declared a nationwide state of emergency and called for open rebellion against junta rule, prompting an escalation of attacks on military targets by various allied pro-democracy militias and ethnic armed groups. Other...
- [Plan to bring back public loudspeakers annoys residents of Vietnam's noisy capital](https://ij-reportika.com/plan-to-bring-back-public-loudspeakers-annoys-residents-of-vietnams-noisy-capital/): Residents of the Vietnamese capital Hanoi are opposing a controversial plan by the city to resume using public loudspeakers to make pronouncements, which many see as an archaic remnant of the Vietnam War era, sources told RFA. At the height of the war in the 1960s and 1970s, the loudspeakers played an important role in North Vietnamese wards and communes to supply people with information about battles, including warnings about approaching U.S. bombers. The loudspeakers were used on a daily basis as late as 2017, when then-Hanoi Mayor Nguyen Duc Chung declared that the speakers “completed their historical missions.”  The city then designated them for use only in emergency situations. The Hanoi People’s Committee recently approved a communication plan for 2022-2025 that would again employ the speakers for everyday announcements. The city plans to expand their use where necessary so that all residential units are within earshot of a loudspeaker by 2025. But many residents say they don’t want to hear it. “I was astonished by this news, as it took a lot of effort and time to get rid of the loudspeakers here in Hanoi,” Nguyen Son, a resident of Hanoi, told RFA. “I don’t know why they want them back.” Opponents point out that the city already has a noise pollution problem that daily loudspeaker announcements would only make worse. “The ward-operated public loudhailers have been a nightmare to many people and one source of noise pollution in urban areas. Many residents strongly oppose this form of propaganda,” Bui Quang Thang, another Hanoi resident,  told RFA. “Nowadays, people living in urban areas have many tools to get information in a variety of ways, such as through television, internet, social media and smartphones,” he said.  Reintroducing loudspeakers would be a waste of money, he said. “Many other areas such as health care, education and environmental protection need more investment and should be prioritized,” Thang said. RFA sent emails to the Hanoi People’s Committee for comment, but received no response. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Tibetans returning from exile questioned by Chinese authorities](https://ij-reportika.com/tibetans-returning-from-exile-questioned-by-chinese-authorities/): Tibetans returning from exile to their home regions in Tibet are being summoned for questioning by Chinese authorities watching for signs of disloyalty or separatist sentiment, Tibetan sources say. Returnees living in Golog (Chinese, Guoluo) and Ngaba (Aba) counties, Tibetan-populated regions in western China’s Qinghai province, have recently been called in by police without warning, a Tibetan living in exile told RFA this week. “They are being asked about possible involvement in political activities,” RFA’s source said, citing contacts in the region and speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “Frequent meetings are being held to tell them how to live ‘a decent life’ under Chinese government rule and to stay away from sensitive political issues, and they are also being questioned over the phone from time to time,” the source said. As part of a broadening Chinese campaign of political education, Tibetans returning from exile to their former homes have been taken on excursions to Chinese cities to show them what the authorities call evidence of progress and development under Communist Party rule, the source added. Tibetans returning from exile to Tibet’s regional capital Lhasa are kept under particular scrutiny, another source in exile said, with their cell phones regularly inspected and monitored and their movements restricted around politically sensitive dates like the July 6 birthday of exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama. Efforts by China to bring Tibetans back to Tibet have escalated in recent years, with Chinese authorities reaching out to Tibetans living in India and Nepal about their plans to return and asking them what kind of work they are currently doing, sources say. “The Chinese government tried to send me money back when India was experiencing its worst wave of COVID cases, but I wouldn’t take their money,” said a Tibetan man now living in India but formerly from Qinghai. “They called me and tried to convince me to return, and they also interrogated my parents at their homes back in Tibet,” he added. COVID status Chinese authorities in Sichuan are meanwhile demanding that local Tibetans report the COVID status of relatives living outside the country, threatening them with the loss of housing subsidies and other government support if they fail to disclose the information, sources told RFA in earlier reports. Tibetan families must also reveal the cell phone numbers and social media accounts of their relatives living outside of China, one source said. China closely tracks communications from Tibetans living in Tibetan areas of China to relatives living abroad in an effort to block news of protests and other politically sensitive information from reaching international audiences, sources say. Formerly an independent nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force more than 70 years ago, and the Dalai Lama and thousands of his followers later fled into exile in India and countries around the world following a failed 1959 national uprising against China’s rule. Tibetans living in Tibet frequently complain of human rights abuses by Chinese authorities and policies they say are aimed at eradicating their national and cultural identity. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [Chinese rights lawyer Chang Weiping tried in secret as family members held by police](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-rights-lawyer-chang-weiping-tried-in-secret-as-family-members-held-by-police/): Detained rights lawyer Chang Weiping &#8212; whose lawyers say he has suffered torture in incommunicado detention &#8212; stood trial for subversion on Tuesday behind closed doors, as his wife was prevented from traveling to the court in the northern Chinese province of Shaanxi. Chang&#8217;s trial on charges of &#8220;subversion of state power&#8221; began at 9.00 a.m. local time at the Feng County People&#8217;s Court, as his wife Chen Zijuan tweeted that she had been pulled over at a highway exit and prevented from taking the exit for the court. The sentence carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment and a minimum jail term of 10 years. The trial lasted around 90 minutes, with sentencing to be announced at a later date, Chen said via her Twitter account. &#8220;Chang Weiping, I stand here today at the highway exit for Feng county,&#8221; Chen, clad in a green suit and holding a large bouquet of flowers, says in a short video recorded as police and COVID-19 enforcement officials mill around her. &#8220;I want to present these flowers to you. Today is your Good Friday; but also I think your day of glory,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I&#8217;m so sorry that I was unable to be there for you in person despite traveling more than 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) in the hope of seeing you with my own eyes.&#8221; &#8220;But they have been holding me here on this highway for more than 10 hours now,&#8221; Chen says. &#8220;I just heard from the lawyer that the trial is over already.&#8221; &#8220;But whatever the outcome, this has not been a fair trial. This trial wasn&#8217;t yours; instead it was the scene of their crime.&#8221; Chang Weiping in an undated photo. Credit: China Human Rights Lawyers Global response German ambassador to China Patricia Flor hit out at the treatment of Chen. &#8220;#ChangWeiping’s wife @zijuan_chen was held up at a roadblock when trying to enter Feng [county], where she wanted to attend the trial,&#8221; Flor said via her official Twitter account. &#8220;It is unacceptable that relatives are obstructed from supporting a defendant. #Justice needs #transparency.&#8221; The French embassy in Beijing also tweeted on Tuesday: &#8220;The French Embassy in Beijing stands with human rights lawyer CHANG Weiping and his family ahead of his closed trial on 26 July &#8230; and reiterates its support for human rights lawyers working for the rule of law in China.&#8221; The British government account @UKinChina called for the release of Chang and all prisoners of conscience in China. &#8220;#ChangWeiping, arrested in 2020 after raising issues of torture and #humanrights in China (including his own mistreatment) is today scheduled for trial behind closed doors,&#8221; the account tweeted. &#8220;The UK calls for the release of all those currently detained for promoting fundamental rights and freedoms.&#8221; Chen said she had been told she couldn&#8217;t visit Feng county because she had traveled from Dongguan in the southern province of Guangdong, which the authorities said contained medium- and high-risk areas for COVID-19. &#8220;After that, an ambulance came to take me away to an isolation facility,&#8221; she told RFA. &#8220;They are going too far,&#8221; she added. &#8220;I had no problem getting out of Xianyang Airport, and had called to inquire about the COVID-19 policy for [the area] but then they pulled me over in Feng county.&#8221; &#8220;They used COVID-19 policy as an excuse.&#8221; Chen, who was traveling with an older relative and an eight-year-old child, called a lawyer to get some food delivered to the car, but was prevented from receiving it by police at the scene. Two friends of Chang&#8217;s, Tian Qiuli and Long Kehai, were also prevented from traveling to the court buildings, and ordered to return to nearby Baoji city by local police. Tian&#8217;s hair was pulled by a police officer during an altercation, and they were later detained, Chen said. Luo Shengchun, the wife of fellow detained rights lawyer Ding Jiaxi, slammed the authorities&#8217; treatment of Chang&#8217;s family. &#8220;It&#8217;s been really heard on [Chen] Zijuan, her mother and child, who have to stay overnight,&#8221; Luo told RFA. &#8220;I don&#8217;t know if they even have food to eat.&#8221; Attendees targeted Chang&#8217;s detention came after he attended a dinner with prominent activists in Xiamen, including the founder of the New Citizens&#8217; Movement, Xu Zhiyong, in early December 2019. He and several others who had attended that dinner were arrested in a nationwide operation. The rights group Safeguard Defenders said in an October 2021 report on &#8220;residential surveillance at a designated location&#8221; (RSDL) that the authorities have detained more than 57,000 people under the system since its inception in 2013, detailing a system of grueling interrogations and torture used to elicit &#8220;confessions&#8221; from detainees, who can be held for up to six months without access to a lawyer. The report said Chang was tortured during six months of RSDL between October 2020 and April 2021. Chang, who was only allowed to meet with a lawyer after nearly a year in detention, was strapped immobile into a &#8220;tiger chair&#8221; torture device for six days straight, and deprived of food and sleep, his lawyer said in September. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Chinese strike drone flies near Taiwan as island stages military drills](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-strike-drone-flies-near-taiwan-as-island-stages-military-drills/): The Chinese military flew a reconnaissance and strike drone near Taiwan for the first time just as the island staged its largest multi-force drills to boost self-defense capabilities. Japan’s Ministry of Defense Joint Staff issued a press release on Monday saying that a Chinese TB-001 reconnaissance and strike unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was spotted flying between the Japanese islands of Okinawa and Miyakojima before heading towards Taiwan. The drone, nicknamed the &#8220;Twin-Tailed Scorpion,&#8221; then flew very close to the coast of Taiwan’s Hualien County, deep inside the island’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ). An ADIZ is an area where foreign aircraft are tracked and identified before further entering into a country&#8217;s airspace. The Japanese defense ministry also provided the UAV’s flight path which did not intrude into Japan’s airspace. The ministry still scrambled fighter jets in response and continued to monitor the situation. This was also the first time that a TB-001 has flown solo from the East China Sea to the Pacific, the ministry noted. Chinese TB-001’s Monday flight path. CREDIT: Japanese Ministry of Defense Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense has yet to say anything about the drone’s flight operation but on Monday it said China sent another reconnaissance aircraft, a Shaanxi Y-8, to Taiwan’s ADIZ. &#8220;The TB-001 could also carry weapon systems and conduct attack missions,&#8221; Jyh-Shyang Sheu, a military expert at Taiwan&#8217;s Institute for National Defense and Security Research told RFA. &#8220;We have seen the UCAVs playing a role in attacking aircraft in some armed conflicts in recent years. By sending the drone, China might also want the challenge the air defense capability of Taiwan, but these kinds of UCAV are normally easily detected by radar systems,&#8221; said Sheu, who added that Taiwan needs to make sure that its integrated air defense system works well. Chinese air sorties have become much more regular in recent months as tension rises in the Taiwan Strait. The TB-001 is China’s modern medium-altitude, long-endurance UAV that can also be armed for combat purposes. Designed by Tengden Technology, an UAV manufacturer based in Sichuan, it is believed to help greatly boost the Chinese military’s reconnaissance capabilities. A Taiwan Navy frigate fires a missile during the combined drill on Tuesday. CREDIT: Taiwan&#8217;s Ministry of National Defense Tracking Taiwan’s exercise Japanese media quoted anonymous military sources as saying that China may have flown the drone to gather information about Taiwan&#8217;s annual large-scale military drills, as well as to “give a warning to Taiwan.”  The annual Han Kuang military exercise entered Day Two on Tuesday, with President Tsai Ing-wen observing a joint naval combat readiness drill aboard a Kidd class destroyer. Some 20 different naval and coast guard vessels took part in the drill, believed to be the largest live-fire exercise ever staged with combined forces from all branches of the army. Tuesday’s drill also included port air defense and anti-mining exercises, and an anti-submarine operation. Elsewhere, thousands of army reservists are taking part in counterattack exercises in different locations, including some of Taiwan’s most strategic beaches.  Larger and more active participation of civilians and reservists is seen as the highlight of this year’s exercise. In Miaoli County, about 100 km west of Taipei, reservists were seen building concrete barriers on the beach in sweltering heat to block an enemy landing.  The Taiwanese defense ministry introduced a new, more demanding, reservist training program in March to improve the combat readiness of the island’s reserve forces in the face of threats from China, which considers Taiwan a breakaway province.
- [Protesters still in custody two weeks after Vietnamese road riot](https://ij-reportika.com/protesters-still-in-custody-two-weeks-after-vietnamese-road-riot/): The families of seven people arrested during clashes with police over the demolition of a road in Vietnam’s Nghe An province say they are desperate for information on the detainees, who have been held for nearly two weeks. Hundreds of riot police descended on Binh Thuan parish in Nghi Thuan commune on July 13, where a similar number of protestors were trying to remove parts of a fence built around the road, which was handed over to a private company by the government to make way for an industrial zone. The road connecting the parish to a main road has been used for more than 100 years. Police tried to disperse the protesters with smoke grenades and explosives but the locals fought back. Nge An provincial police issued a news release on July 13 saying locals &#8220;used bricks, stones, bottles, sticks [and petrol bombs], attacked and detained a police officer and injured five other police officers.” Police arrested 10 people, releasing one woman the same night and two men three days later. The men claim they were beaten and threatened into signing confessions. One woman, 72-year-old Bach Thi Hoa, was treated for her injuries in the district hospital, according to the two men who were released. She was accompanied by police at all times and her family were refused permission to see her. Two protesters are being held at the Nghi Loc district detention center. The other four are at Nghi Kim detention center. Police say they are collecting evidence to clarify their claims of &#8220;causing public disorders,&#8221; &#8220;resisting on-duty state officials&#8221; and &#8220;illegal detention.” Nguyen Minh Duc, the husband of detainee Ha Thi Hien, said although the police issued an arrest warrant for his wife on the day of the riot he only received a copy a few days ago. &#8220;They took the paper that day. They sent it the next day but the commune did not immediately give it to my family,” he told RFA. Duc said other detainees’ families are also struggling to get information and meet daily to tell each other what they know. Locals say they have heard from an unofficial source that Nghi Loc district police transferred two women to Nghi Kim detention center on July 21 when they no longer had the authority to hold them. Article 118 of the Criminal Procedure Code states that a person can be held in custody for three days and the detention can only be extended for two further three-day periods. If police want to hold someone for more than nine days they need the approval of the district or provincial procuracy to investigate further. State and local media have remained silent on the story for the past week. RFA called the leaders of the People&#8217;s Committees of Nghe An province and Nghi Loc district as well as the police agencies and the provincial and district procuracies but no one answered.
- [North Korea heralds sacrifices of Korean War veterans as many still suffer](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-heralds-sacrifices-of-korean-war-veterans-as-many-still-suffer/): North Korea is trying to encourage its exhausted citizenry to struggle on by highlighting the sacrifices made during the 1950-53 Korean War, a lesson sources told RFA is undermined by a growing number of deaths among elderly veterans to malnutrition and illness. The country is set to celebrate the signing of the armistice that ended hostilities in the war on Wednesday, a holiday Pyongyang officially calls the “Day of Victory in the Great Fatherland Liberation War.” In preparation for the day, the government has ordered people to stay after work for propaganda lectures telling them to “follow the heroic spirit of the ‘War Generation,’ who defeated the armed invasion of the United States and other imperialists in the 1950s and defended the leader and the country with their lives,” said a resident of South Pyongan province, north of Pyongyang, speaking to RFA on condition of anonymity for security reasons, in mid-July. “The workers ended their shift at 6 p.m. and gathered at each workplace meeting room. It began with a question and answer session about the spirit of the War Generation and how they struggled. We discussed what we should learn and emulate from them even after the years and generations have passed,” the source said. In a company-wide lecture, the workers learned about the War Generation’s revolutionary spirit, and how North Koreans overcame obstacles to construct a socialist society with “miraculous speed across 1,000 miles” during the post-war restoration period, the source said.  “So, the workers were called to adopt that fighting spirit in the factory’s production plan,” the source said. “The workers have not been eating properly due to food shortages and are already exhausted from going to work in this heat wave.” The poor living conditions of the factory workers in South Pyongan are causing them to resent being made to stay after work for propaganda meetings. “They are complaining that they cannot live because of the heat wave, and the government is trying to increase its control over them,” the source said. Food scarcity is a constant problem in North Korea, but the closure of the border with China and suspension of trade since the beginning of the pandemic in January 2020 has made it worse. With no imports to bridge the gap between food supply and demand, prices have gone up and the people have had to do without. The propaganda lectures note that the heroes of the glorious past extend beyond the soldiers fighting in the war, a source in North Hamgyong province. “The factory gathered the miners for lectures on the spirit of the War Generation, and they talked about the 1950s, when miners carried out missions that cost them their lives,” the second source told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “Now that the COVID-19 crisis has been resolved and the major task as part of the five-year plan [2021-2025] is to be carried out, the lectures were given to encourage the miners to accelerate production with the fighting spirit of the War Generation,” the source said. The lecture said they should devote themselves to the party and the leader without asking for any honor or remuneration just as their forebears did during the post-war period of restoration and construction, according to the second source. “The miners complain that they are exhausted from the hardships of the pandemic and the severe heat, but the authorities focus on lectures and learning sessions that bind the thoughts and spirits of the residents instead of rationing food,” she said. Though the second source said that the COVID-19 crisis has been resolved, reflecting the North Korean government’s declaration that it was set to “finally defuse” the crisis, the World Health Organization has cast doubt over the claim, saying instead that the situation could worsen. North Korea has officially reported a minimal loss of life during the recent outbreak that caused the country to declare a “maximum emergency,” but reports have surfaced saying that those who die of COVID-19 symptoms are quickly cremated before a cause can be determined. Sources told RFA that elderly veterans who served in the Korean War are among those who have died either from the coronavirus or malnutrition due to the lack of food, angering North Koreans who say the government uses the veterans for propaganda but does nothing when they starve or contract a deadly disease. The country is set to hold an 8th National Conference of War Veterans in Pyongyang to commemorate the armistice holiday on Wednesday, but sources told RFA that the number of participating veterans has sharply declined. In North Pyongan province’s Ryongchon county, about a third fewer veterans are participating in the conference this year, a resident there told RFA on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. “[We’ve seen] a decrease of nine out of the 28 participants in the 7th National Conference of War Veterans held last year,” the third source said. The third source said that three war veterans from the rural village of Sosok-ri were alive in the spring. In May, two had developed a high fever and shortness of breath, typical symptoms of COVID-19. They died without receiving adequate treatment, quarantined in their homes, she said. “In Jinhung village, an elderly veteran living with his son and daughter-in-law died of malnutrition in April. Since March, the family’s food has started to run out, so they have been eating dried radish stem and leaves mixed with corn powder as a meal,” she said. “In total, the number of veterans who died was nine in Ryongchon county, reducing the number of participants in the National Conference of War Veterans,” the third source said. “The residents are critical of the intention of holding the conference of war veterans when the elderly war veterans are dying for lack of food.”  In Songchon county, South Pyongan, the number of veterans sent to Pyongyang fell by half compared with last year, a resident there told RFA. “Every year, elderly veterans die from malnutrition because they can’t...
- [Interview: Families of executed Myanmar activists press for return of remains](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-families-of-executed-myanmar-activists-press-for-return-of-remains/): Hours after the terse announcement by Myanmar state media on Monday of the execution of veteran democracy activist Ko Jimmy, former National League for Democracy lawmaker Phyo Zeya Thaw and two other activists, RFA Burmese spoke to Nilar Thein, Ko Jimmy’s widow, and Phyo Zeya Thaw’s mother, Khin Win May, about their final interactions Friday with their condemned loved ones. RFA: What have you heard about Ko Jimmy? Nilar Thein: The deputy warden notified us that the execution had been carried out. When I asked for the return of his body, he said the prison laws do not permit such requests. RFA: What do you want to say about this?  Nilar Thein: The entire population of our country is facing arbitrary arrests and all kinds of violence and repression. I would say the execution of four people including my husband and Phyo Zeya Thaw was blatant murder.  As I have said in the past, they will have to pay one day for each and every crime or whatever they have done. I didn’t say that without a reason. One day, the perpetrators will meet the fate and punishment they deserve for the actions they have committed. Another thing is my husband Ko Jimmy stood by his commitment and loyalty to the people until his last breath. He has written a good record for himself and he will never die in our hearts. He will forever live in our hearts, in the hearts of all the people, as a hero. RFA: What plans does your family have now following this execution? Nilar Thein: We are not holding a funeral for him because we do not accept their actions (of the junta). There is no plan for a funeral. RFA: Did you receive any responses from the international community? Nilar Thein: The EU Ambassador, the former U.S. Ambassador Derek Mitchell and some other ambassadors have contacted me. I explained to them about the latest situation up to the confirmation of the Prisons Department. It is stated in the prison manual that the body of the person who receives the death sentence has to be returned to the family. Only in cases when the family cannot be contacted do they take care of the body. I am now trying all steps necessary to get back the body. RFA: Did they say anything about the possible execution when you met him on Friday? Nilar Thein: We learned that the deputy warden had said things would  be done in accordance with the prison manual, but when it would be carried out was not known yet. When we talked on Friday, Ko Jimmy asked me to deposit some money (to buy provisions) and the prison officials said the money could be deposited on Monday. And this morning when we went to the prison, we heard the news. RFA: What did you talk about at the meeting on Friday? Nilar Thein: He said his health was good and that we don’t need to worry about him over whatever we heard from the outside. He told us to take care of our health. He said he had the Dharma in his heart. Phyo Zeya Thaw and his mother, Khin Win May, in May 2015 photo. Credit: Phyo Zeya Thaw RFA: We heard this morning that you went to Insein Prison and asked about your son Phyo Zeya Thaw’s case. What did you learn there? Khin Win May: I went there only this morning when the news came out. I wanted to know for sure what the truth was. I actually had a plan to go and deposit some money for him today in Insein. When I met him on Friday, I didn&#8217;t have time to make a deposit and planned to do it today, Monday. First at the prison gate, I asked them if it was true as published in the news and they said yes, just like in the newspapers. What was written in the newspapers was not clear. I wanted to know if it was really true, on what day and when it was carried out exactly.  We are not atheists. We need to do our funeral rites, according to the Buddhist tradition. At first, they just said it was like in the newspapers and refused to let me in. Later on, I insisted that I wanted to see the responsible officials. I told them I wanted the details and only then they let me see the official. RFA: What did the official tell you? How did he explain it to you? Khin Win May: I asked him if it was true my son had been executed and he said yes. In fact, the family was allowed to see him on Friday and I was so happy to see him hoping the path is clear (for the future). It was the first time (since the arrest). I told the official that I really welcomed the meeting, that I was so happy to see him bright and cheerful and healthy, and that I had no idea that day the execution would take place. And the Insein Prison authorities read out to me the prison procedures. When Ko Jimmy and my son were first sent to prison, they submitted appeals to the State Administration Council. They sent the appeals twice and were rejected both times. And now the authorities were reading out all the prison procedures.  So I asked him if the death sentence were to be carried out when he said things would be done according to prison procedures. And he said he couldn’t say that exactly. But he said he would let us know in accordance with the rules of the prison which day or when it were to be carried out. If I only knew it that day, I’d understand that would be the last time we saw each other. My son didn’t know that it was our last meeting either. He even asked me to bring some personal things on my next visit....
- [Execution of democracy icons shows Myanmar junta is desperate to exert control](https://ij-reportika.com/execution-of-democracy-icons-shows-myanmar-junta-is-desperate-to-exert-control/): Why would Myanmar’s junta risk fueling more anger at home and outrage abroad through its execution on Monday of four activists, including two icons of the democracy movement? The answer might be found in its failing fortunes on the battlefield amid a deepening civil war. Myanmar state media announced Monday the execution of Ko Jimmy, a veteran activist since the 1988 uprising against military rule, and Phyo Zeya Thaw, a popular rap artist turned politician. Two other lesser-known activists were also put to death. The four had been arrested for their anti-junta activism and violating the counter-terrorism law.  In January, the four were accused of helping carry out &#8220;terror acts&#8221; and sentenced to death, despite the fact that Myanmar had not carried out a judicial execution in over 30 years.  Many had thought that that the death sentences were a ploy. The junta, it was assumed, would not risk the diplomatic backlash and popular protest that are likely to ensue. This was a card to be played diplomatically at the right time in a bid to gain international legitimacy – possibly by commuting the death sentences to win credit. Besides, if the junta has had any success since its February 2021 coup, it’s been on the diplomatic front. Why would it jeopardize the fact that no government has cut off ties? Considering that some 50 people that had died in military custody since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, the military had ample time and opportunity to kill the four. So why now? There can only be one answer.  In the past, the Myanmar military, led by Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, has been able to do what it wants because the population has been terrified of them. Credit: AFP The junta is losing on the battlefield. And thus they need to show that they are in total control. They have to show that they are not afraid of international or domestic repercussions from this act; that they are strong enough to withstand that pressure. Myanmar’s military is spread dangerously thin. They are fighting a multifront war across the country. They are fighting well-trained and well-armed ethnic resistance organizations (EROs) such as the Kachin Independence Army and the Karen National Liberation Army, both of whom are allied with the opposition National Unity Government (NUG).  The NUG itself has some 275 People’s Defense Forces (PDFs) spread throughout the country. Though they have limited resources and armaments, they have succeeded in capturing vast quantities of weaponry, and are now starting to manufacture their own armaments and ammunition. The NUG and affiliated EROs now claim to control roughly 50% of the country.  And things might get a lot worse for the military, which is on the verge of renewing hostilities against the Arakan Army, with which it has had a tenuous ceasefire since November 2020 after two years of bitter fighting in western Rakhine State. The AA has not joined the NUG, but has used the time since the coup to enhance its political and economic autonomy. For many in the military, this has gone too far and the AA needs to be put in its place.  But over 3,000 members of the army have defected to the NUG, despite the multitude of coercive instruments that it wields to deter them. The number of desertions is unknown. The military is estimated to have taken around 15% casualties, and recruitment is proving to be a challenge. Even the elite Defense Service Academy, once considered the most prestigious school in the country and avenue for upward social mobility, cannot fill their seats. The military has stepped up forced conscription and is using collective punishment to target family members of people who have joined the PDFs.  At the same time, the military&#8216;s budget is severely constrained due to their economic mismanagement. The Myanmar currency, the kyat, has plunged, prompting junta authorities to impose more currency controls. There is a net loss of foreign investment, with little new coming in, except from China. Exports are down dramatically. The banking system is teetering. The World Bank just announced that an estimated 40% of the population is now living under the poverty line.   Street vendors wait for customers March 3, 2022, during one of the frequent power outages in Yangon, Myanmar. Economic mismanagement has hamstrung the military’s budget. Credit: AFP So what will be the impact of the executions? Since the coup, citizens across the country have protested military rule on a daily basis – resorting to wildcat demonstrations after the bloody crackdown on mass protests that initially greeted the coup. And now, notwithstanding the risk of deadly force, there is another compelling reason to protest the dictatorship. Historically, the military has been able to act with total impunity because the population has been terrified of them. They get away with things because, since 1962, they’ve been able to cow the population into submission.  The problem for them is that for the first time, the population of Myanmar refuses to be intimidated. After a taste of democracy and after enjoying a period of media freedom, diplomatic openness, engagement with the international world, and an open internet, the population refuses to accept the military’s usurpation of power.  In the international realm, the executions may galvanize stronger diplomatic action by foreign governments. It could move the needle and get some European states and Australia to take a tougher stance against the junta. Japan and South Korea, however, are unlikely to change course, though even Tokyo condemned the executions.  Meanwhile the NUG, which is seeking formal diplomatic recognition, is sure to use the executions to further delegitimize the military regime and bolster its own international standing.  So for a military that is losing on the battlefield and that has no legitimacy, and is desperate to prove that it is in charge, the executions were ultimately an act of weakness and desperation. The junta executed four men without knowing what their action may unleash in the coming months. ...
- [INTERVIEW: Lin Zhao: a short-tempered martyr who idolized then rejected Mao Zedong](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-lin-zhao-a-short-tempered-martyr-who-idolized-then-rejected-mao-zedong/): Mao-era Chinese dissident Lin Zhao, whose birth name was Peng Lingzhao, was a writer and journalist who grew up near Nanjing, in the eastern province of Jiangsu. Initially a star student at the prestigious Peking University, Lin was branded a &#8220;rightist&#8221; and a &#8220;class enemy&#8221; in the 1950s for her criticism of then-supreme leader Mao Zedong&#8217;s Anti-Rightist Movement targeting intellectuals. She was executed by firing squad at Shanghai&#8217;s Longhua Airport in 1968 at the age of 36, and her family was ordered to pay five cents for the bullet that killed her. Her biographer Lian Xi, author of Blood Letters: The Untold Story of Lin Zhao, a Martyr in Mao’s China, spoke to RFA about her importance as a recent historical figure: RFA: Why was Lin such an important figure? Lian Xi: Lin Zhao really was an extraordinary person. We know that there were many, many victims of the Cultural Revolution, but there were no real political dissidents like Lin Zhao. There were some big-name intellectuals within [the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)] &#8230; peoplel like Deng Tuo and Wu Han in the early 1960s before the Cultural Revolution started &#8230; who tried to persuade Mao to give up authoritarian rule. There were also some political heretics outside the CCP during the Cultural Revolution, like Yu Luoke and Zhang Zhixin, but they never totally broke away from the ideology of the CCP. The only one who openly rejected CCP ideology as enslavement and tyranny was Lin Zhao. RFA: What impact did Lin Zhao&#8217;s parents&#8217; political views have on her world view? Lian Xi: Lin Zhao herself said that some of her so-called progressive political thoughts came from her mother&#8217;s influence. Her father was different. He never put his patriotic enthusiasm into action on the streets. He hoped to help China move towards modernity by introducing Western democratic institutions. But I think the most profound influence on her political ideals came around the time she was applying to go to the Jinghai teacher training college as a high-schooler. RFA: We know that Lin Zhao broke with her father, dropping his surname Peng and saying that Mao Zedong was her father. What role did her personality play in her story? Lian Xi: I think personality played a very big part. She was a very emotional person, but also a person who was prone to irritability. She also saw herself as inseparable from her ideals. When she was in secondary school, she was influenced by radical ideological trends within the CCP, and became determined to use her blood and her life to build a society free from social injustice, persecution and oppression. RFA: In 1954, Lin won a place at Peking University with the top score out of the whole of Jiangsu province. She once aspired to be the best reporter in the Mao Zedong era. When do you think she started having doubts about Mao and about communism? Lian Xi: As you just said, Lin Zhao once called Mao her father. This kind of complex, this very deep feeling for Mao, was actually very real at the time, and it wasn&#8217;t only Lin [who did that]. Lin had a classmate at Peking University called Shen Zeyi, and he was a poet. He used to say that many of their classmates had so much admiration for Mao that they all referred to him as father. Her ideas took a long time to change. She hadn&#8217;t given up her belief in Mao or the CCP by the early 1950s, when she was repeatedly suppressed during the land reform movement. It was only when she was labeled a rightist in 1957 that she started to break with the CCP and with communist ideas. RFA: And she was tortured due to that uncompromising attitude, wasn&#8217;t she? Lian Xi: The earliest torture mostly took place in the No. 1 Detention Center in Shanghai. Lin Zhao called the No. 1 Detention Center a hell-hole. Because she pleaded not guilty &#8230; the prison guards tortured her to force a confession. They handcuffed her hands behind her back, not with one pair of handcuffs, but two: one pair on her upper arm and the other on her lower arm &#8230; At one point she wore handcuffs for six months because she was determined not to give in [and &#8216;confess&#8217;]. During that time, she was also piercing her fingers and writing poems in her own blood, all of which were addressed to Mao Zedong. RFA: How much did she write in this way? Lian Xi: There are about 200,000 words that we know about, which is quite a number. Because she was a reporter, she described prison life in great detail, one of which was how she managed to write in blood. In her &#8220;Letter to the Editorial Department of People&#8217;s Daily&#8221; &#8230; she says that this letter isn&#8217;t being written in blood but in pen and ink, but it&#8217;s sealed with the character Zhao in her own blood. When I went to the Hoover Institution to look at Lin Zhao&#8217;s original documents, you could see that her private seal was stamped on each page. Also, the official indictment says that Lin Zhao pierced her own flesh hundreds of thousands of times to write hundreds of thousands of words of extremely reactionary content in her own blood. RFA: Have you seen any of this writing with your own eyes? Lian Xi: They&#8217;re not around any more. But I interviewed the judge who retried Lin Zhao&#8217;s case, and specifically &#8230; asked him if had seen her writings in blood, and he said he had seen them. Then I asked him why he didn&#8217;t give her writings back to her family, and he said it would have been too harrowing for them. The other [witness] was Chen Weisi, the first reporter to write about Lin, and he saw some of her blood writings too at the time. RFA: I know that Hu Jie, who directed the documentary &#8220;Looking for Lin Zhao&#8217;s soul,&#8221;...
- [Taiwan’s aircraft and warships stage five-day live-fire exercise](https://ij-reportika.com/taiwans-aircraft-and-warships-stage-five-day-live-fire-exercise/): The Taiwanese military kicked off a five-day annual live-fire exercise on Monday aimed at bolstering the island’s defense capabilities and combat readiness at a time when China and Taiwan’s allies have been facing off in the airspace and seas around the island. The Han Kuang drills will be taking place at a number of locations in Taiwan, with President Tsai Ing-wen observing a large-scale naval exercise from a warship off Yilan County in northeastern Taiwan on Tuesday, according to the Taiwan Ministry of National Defense. More than 20 military aircraft and warships will be taking part in the Yilan exercise, including some of Taiwan’s indigenous fighters and frigates. The two Chien Lung class submarines, manufactured in the Netherlands for Taiwan, will also be deployed.  Taiwan is developing its own submarines with 2025 earmarked for the first one to enter service. ‘Inconvenient but necessary’  During the first day, Taiwanese fighter jets were dispatched to counter a simulated enemy air attack while local anti-air artillery units watched over the airspace. Military transport aircraft also evacuated fighter jet spare parts away from the combat zone as the focus was on “testing the military&#8217;s preservation and maintenance of combat capabilities.” The defense ministry said in a press release that during the week mobile military radar vehicles and warships will be deployed and forces on Taiwan’s outlying islands will also perform a variety of exercises including counter attacks to beach landings. Han Kuang, now in its 38th year, is Taiwan&#8217;s largest war games exercise involving all military branches and designed to test the army’s combat readiness in the event of a Chinese invasion. This year’s drills will also test the population’s preparedness and contribution, the military said. Most Taiwanese consider the island an independent, democratically-run country but Beijing calls it a province of China and has repeatedly vowed to reunite with the mainland, with force if needed. In recent months, Chinese aircraft have been crossing into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) almost daily and Chinese warships have patrolled the waters near Taiwan. An aircraft takes off during Taiwan&#8217;s annual Han Kuang drills. CREDIT: Taiwan Ministry of National Defense The Taiwanese people have been training to deal with imminent threats of war. A four-day air raid exercise simulating Chinese air attacks began on Monday with air raid sirens going off in the capital, Taipei and some other locations in northern Taiwan. It will move to central and southern parts of the island during the week. The 45th Wan An drill aims at boosting citizens’ awareness and preparedness. For half an hour, residents are required to evacuate stress and remain indoors to allow for an emergency response. MRT (mass rapid transport) underground stations are open but passengers will have to stay inside until the end of the drill.  Suzy Tsang, an office worker who got stuck in the Taipei metro during the exercise, said she and her friends take part in the event every year. “It is quite inconvenient because you can’t move for 30 minutes but I think it is necessary,” she said. “Who knows when we will need it for real,” Tsang added. 
- [Cao Dai follower detained for hours after returning from U.S. religious summit](https://ij-reportika.com/cao-dai-follower-detained-for-hours-after-returning-from-u-s-religious-summit/): The follower of a Vietnamese religious group which has as many as two million believers faced more than six hours of interrogation on returning to the country from a conference in the U.S. 1926 Pure Cao Dai member Nguyen Xuan Mai went to Washington, D.C. to attend the 2022 International Religious Freedom Summit which took place from June 28 to 30. She also met with many international organizations to call for religious freedom in Vietnam. On her return to Ho Chi Minh City’s international airport on Friday evening she was asked by airport security to talk with nine officials, Mai told RFA on Saturday morning. “I was there from 8 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. the next day,” she said. “They [airport security] invited me to follow them over some issue, so I followed. There were nine people working, including one policeman from Vinh Long province and two policemen from Hanoi, one named Tran Dai.&#8221; The officers took her phone and checked her messages, printed all her emails and forced her to sign a letter of confirmation, Mai said. “My emails were already deleted, but they were still in the trash,” Mai said. “They took 90 of my documents and then printed them out asking me to sign to confirm that those people sent me emails. There was nothing wrong with my emails, just material for classes on human rights, and international and Vietnamese religious law. I honestly told them that, so it would be quick and wouldn’t create any difficulties for me.” “They said we should work together to see if I was sincere or hiding anything. I said I wasn’t denying anything. In general, I did not do anything to break the law.” Two riot police cars were parked outside the international terminal’s exit according to Mai’s daughter Nguyen Mai Tram. She said nearly a dozen people in plain clothes filmed and took pictures of a group of Cao Dai followers who had come to welcome Mai. “There were two riot police cars parked outside. A policeman walked around behind me filming and taking pictures of me, but he didn&#8217;t ask anything,&#8221; she said. Fellow Cao Dai member Tran Ngoc Suong said he and many fellow believers had to avoid police guards at their homes to get to the airport. Suong said while he was at the airport, a police officer in Tien Giang province named Manh, who didn’t give his family name, called a member of the delegation to &#8220;advise&#8221; everyone to go home because Mai was being held for interrogation and he was not sure when she would be released: “He said he saw me sitting to greet Xuan Mai, and advised me to go home because Mrs. Xuan Mai would be detained and could not return,” Suong said. The 1926 Pure Cao Dai group says the name of the religion is based on the year of its founding and it is an original religion, not under the direction of the State, and not part of the Cao Dai state-affiliated religious sect established by the Vietnamese government in 1997. Followers of 1926 Pure Cao Dai in Tien Giang province say they have frequently been harassed for many years by a policeman named Manh. He forced them to give up their religion to join a religious sect established by the government, Suong said. During her visit to Washington Mai met with some U.S. religious officials to raise the status of Pure Cao Dai followers who had been beaten and suffered years of repression. She met U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Rashad Hussain and Katrina Lantos-Swett, co-chair of the International Religious Freedom Summit Steering Committee. Former US Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback wrote on Twitter: “It is very worrying about the news that Ms. Mai disappeared after returning to Vietnam. She was released by the police after six hours of questioning. Thankfully she is on her way home but this is a completely unwarranted form of harassment by the government.”
- [Prominent democracy activist among four prisoners executed by Myanmar junta](https://ij-reportika.com/prominent-democracy-activist-among-four-prisoners-executed-by-myanmar-junta/): Myanmar’s junta has executed veteran democracy activist Ko Jimmy, state media reported. New Light of Myanmar announced the executions of Ko Jimmy, former National League for Democracy lawmaker Phyo Zeyar Thaw and two others without reporting the date and method of killings, although it is believed the men were all hanged. The New Light of Myanmar said &#8220;the punishment has been carried out under the prison&#8217;s procedures,&#8221; without elaborating. Former student leader Ko Jimmy, whose real name is Kyaw Min Yu, was convicted on terrorism charges for activities against the military regime that has ruled the country since a coup last year, according to state media. The first judicial executions in Myanmar since 1988 came despite a direct appeal on June 11 by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen to junta leader Sen. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing. Hun Sen acted in his role as chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Myanmar is a member. Myanmar political prisoner Kyaw Min Yu (C), known as Jimmy, and his wife Ni Lar Thein (L) holding her child, both members of the 88 Generation student group, celebrate upon their arrival at Yangon international airport following their release from detention on January 13, 2012. Myanmar pardoned prominent dissidents, journalists and a former premier on January 13 under a major prisoner amnesty, intensifying a surprising series of reforms by the army-backed regime. AFP PHOTO/Soe Than WIN Soe Than WIN / AFP                                         Koh Jimmy was a prominent leader of the pro-democracy 88 Generations Students Group who fought military rule three decades ago. The 53-year-old activist was arrested in October after spending eight months in hiding and was convicted by a military tribunal in January under the Counter-Terrorism Law. He was accused of contacting the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, National Unity Government (NUG), and People’s Defense Force (PDF), an opposition coalition and militia network formed by politicians ousted in the Feb. 1 coup that the junta has declared terrorist organizations. In September, the NUG declared a nationwide state of emergency and called for open rebellion against junta rule, prompting an escalation of attacks on military targets by various allied pro-democracy militias and ethnic armed groups. Ko Jimmy, an outspoken critic of the junta, was also accused of advising local militia groups in Yangon and ordering PDF groups to attack police, military targets, and government offices, and asking the NUG to buy a 3D printer to produce weapons for local PDFs. On June 3, Ko Jimmy, former National League for Democracy lawmaker Phyo Zeyar Thaw, and two others lost appeals of their death sentences. The junta rejected the possibility of a pardon for the condemned men. Phyo Zeya Thaw, a lawmaker of Myanmar&#8217;s National League for Democracy, arrives at the Myanmar parliament in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, on Aug. 19, 2015. A Myanmar military spokesperson announced on June 3, 2022, that Phyo Zeya Thaw, a 41-year-old former lawmaker from ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, and Kyaw Min Yu, a veteran pro-democracy activist better known as Ko Jimmy, would be executed for violating the country’s counterterrorism law.(AP Photo) The four death sentences, as well 111 others that have been handed down by junta courts between the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup, and May 19 this year, have drawn criticism from legal experts and rights groups, who say the regime is threatening the public with unfair executions. The United Nations, Washington, Ottawa, and Paris have issued statements strongly condemning the decisions in the cases now proceeding to execution. Hun Sen on June 10 wrote a letter to Min Aung Hlaing, urging him to “reconsider the sentences and refrain from carrying out the death sentences.” He said the executions “would trigger a very strong and widespread negative reaction from the international community” and hurt efforts to find a peaceful solution to the crisis in Myanmar. In an interview with RFA Burmese last month, Ko Jimmy’s wife Nilar Thein called the planned executions “a blatant violation of human rights” for which the junta would be held accountable. “Regardless of what they will do, I want them to know they will be accountable for their decisions. Their acts will not be forgotten,” said Nilar Thein. Responding to Monday&#8217;s announcement, activist group Justice for Myanmar Tweeted: &#8220;The shocking executions of Phyo Zeya Thaw, Ko Jimmy, Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw are #CrimesAgainstHumanity and #WarCrimes. All perpetrators from Min Aung Hlaing down must be held accountable for these brazen acts of cruelty. #EndImpunity.&#8221; Written By Paul Eckert.
- [Border closures, conflict threaten ‘shipadi’ fungus trade in remote northern Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/border-closures-conflict-threaten-shipadi-fungus-trade-in-remote-northern-myanmar/): Pandemic-related border closures and travel restrictions under military rule are taking their toll on the trade of “shipadis,” a rare fungus prized in China for its alleged healing properties, according to the ethnic Rawan who hunt it in northern Myanmar’s Kachin state. The shipadi is a species of parasitic Cordyceps fungi whose spores infect caterpillars, causing them to crawl upwards before killing them. After the caterpillar dies, the fruit of the fungus grows out of its head in a bid to further spread its spores. While shipadi grow mainly in China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, where they are known as “yartsa gunbu,” the Myanmar variant is found only on the ground, trees, and glaciers of northern Kachin state’s remote Puta-O region, near Myanmar’s borders with India and China. The ethnic Rawan who inhabit the region hunt for the fungus they call “Poe Say Nwe Pin” in May and June each year, when the weather warms and the ice has thawed. The highly-coveted golden-colored shipadi is mostly found on the glaciers of Phonrin Razi, Phangram Razi, and Madwe, and can appear as infrequently as once every four years. Aung Than, a local trader, told RFA Burmese that prior to the pandemic, merchants exported the majority of their shipadi to China, where they could expect healthy profits due to their use in traditional Chinese medicine as a treatment for kidney disease. However, China closed its borders soon after the coronavirus began to spread globally in early 2020, forcing shipadi traders to find a new market for their product. “In the past, when border crossing was easy, they bought shipadi from us,” he said. “But we cannot go there anymore and they can&#8217;t come to us either. It’s been more than two years now since I lost the market in China.” Aung Than said that since the pandemic, domestic demand had grown for shipadi, but traders could no longer expect to earn the profits they once had. A shipadi pokes out of the ground in Puta-O township. Credit: RFA Danger from conflict Other Rawan shipadi traders in Kachin state told RFA that the market had been further impacted by fighting between junta troops and ethnic Kachin rebels since the military seized control of Myanmar in a coup on Feb. 1, 2021. Daw Hla, the owner of an herbal store in Puta-O, said she regularly sold to customers from Myanmar’s big cities, including Yangon and Mandalay, prior to the coup. But an increase in clashes between the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and the military since the takeover had made it more dangerous to hunt shipadi and ship it out of the region, she said. “I used to send them to Yangon, Naypyidaw and other cities, as well as all over Kachin state. I’d send them as soon as I got the orders,” she said. “The transportation was OK and sales were good in the past. But this year, I don’t have much [shipadi] to sell. There’s little product to be had this year – it’s getting very rare.” Sources told RFA that the KIA had recently seized a military camp in Puta-O’s Tsum Pi Yang village, and that fighting along the main road from Puta-O to the Kachin state capital Myitkyina had become particularly fierce since the anniversary of the coup, making it extremely dangerous to travel in the area. A collection of shibadi gathered in Puta-O township. Credit: RFA A risky journey Residents of Puta-O township form groups of five or six each year to climb the mountains and search for shipadi, and can spend months away from home during the hunt. One resident named Lan Wan Ransan told RFA that hunting shipadi has always been risky, particularly during the rainy season when flash floods are common. Other times, he said, the snow and ice may not have thawed enough, making the trek into the mountains deadly and the search for shipadi nearly impossible. “There are many difficulties along the way,” he said. Normally, a single shipadi could fetch 2,000-3,000 kyats (U.S. $1-1.50), Lan Wan Ransan said, but the price has doubled this year, due to the added danger of the conflict. Most hunters will only find around 50 shipadis this year, he added, calling it a significant decrease from years past. In addition to shipadi, the Rawan also gather herbs in the mountains of Puta-O that are rarely found elsewhere, including the roots of the Khamtauk, Machit, Taushau, and Kyauk Letwar plants, as well as ice ginseng. However, none are as highly-prized as the caterpillar fungus from the glaciers of northern Kachin state, they say. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Four years after Laos’ worst dam catastrophe, survivors still live in limbo](https://ij-reportika.com/four-years-after-laos-worst-dam-catastrophe-survivors-still-live-in-limbo/): Four years after a dam collapse that caused Laos’ worst flooding in decades, survivors who lost everything say they are tired of waiting for the government to provide them with new homes and arable land. On the night of July 23, 2018, billions of cubic feet of water from a tributary of the Mekong River poured over the collapsed saddle dam D at the Xe Pian-Xe Namnoy (PNPC) hydropower project in southern Laos. The surging water that started in Champassak province, sweeping away homes and flooding villages downstream in Attapeu province, killed 71 people and displaced 14,440 when it wiped out all or part of 19 villages.  Many of the survivors lost their homes to the rising waters and were put in metal huts in relocation villages that were intended to be temporary. Four years on, a government that is still planning and building hydropower dams at a breakneck pace&#8211;even as it struggles with crippling debt, a sinking currency and fuel shortages&#8211;has failed to deliver on pledges to house the displaced. “It’s already been four years since the dam collapsed. Things have improved a little bit, but we aren’t receiving rice and cash allowances anymore. We do everything to earn money to buy rice and other necessities, but we’re still struggling,” one survivor told RFA Lao. Each family in his area were compensated with between one and two hectares (2.5-5 acres) of farmland, the source, from Attapeu’s Sanamxay district added. UN experts Friday called on the Lao government to rectify the situation. “It is shameful that four years since homes and livelihoods were washed away, many survivors continue to live in unsanitary temporary shelters, without access to basic services, and are still awaiting the compensation promised to them,” said the 10 experts, comprised of six special rapporteurs and a four-member working group. “While four years have been sufficient to rebuild the dam, survivors have been left unable to rebuild their lives during all this time,” the experts said. “Not only are many still living in entirely unsuitable temporary accommodation, the compensation promised by the Lao Government and the relevant companies is being delayed, reduced or simply not provided at all, leaving the survivors with no prospect for durable solutions,” they said. They said it was disturbing that the survivors and human rights defenders might face retaliation for bringing attention to their issues, which happened in 2019, and they noted that two other dams in the area show similar signs of impending failure as saddle dam D prior to its collapse in 2018. “Action must be taken now to ensure that these massive hydroelectric development programmes do not cause greater harm than they do good,” the experts said. Sanamxay district promised it would build 700 homes for the survivors there by the end of 2020, but to date, less than half of them have been completed. “Many of the survivors who still live in metal shelters have built huts as additional living space on their plots of land, because the metal shelters are too small and hot. They live in those huts as they grow vegetables and cassava,” said the survivor, who like all unnamed sources in this report, requested anonymity for safety reasons. “After four years, we’re still struggling to make ends meet,” a second survivor said. “We’re starting new lives. More than half are still waiting. “Nobody is working on our new homes right now because this time of the year is rice planting season. Almost all the workers have gone home to help on the farm. They also complain about being paid late and receiving less than they expected,” said the second survivor. The deadline for finishing the homes has been continually extended since the May 2020 agreement between Attapeu’s Public Works and Transport Department and the Vanseng Attapeu Construction Company.  Vanseng was to receive $25 million from the PNPC to complete 700 homes by the end of 2020. But only the skeletons of 200 homes had been built by then, and the deadline slipped to 2021. An Attapeu province official told RFA at the time that there were not enough carpenters and masons to meet the original schedule. Vanseng at that time promised to have 496 of the homes finished by the Lao New Year in April, and all 700 by the end of 2021. But by February Vanseng said only 440 would be done by April and that it would miss the anticipated completion date because not enough land had been cleared. At an official ceremony prior to the Lao New Year, only 153 completed homes were presented to survivors. The COVID-19 pandemic created new labor and materials shortages. Officials now anticipate the homes might be ready by the end of 2023 but possibly not until 2025, seven years after the disaster. As of April, only 322 of the promised 700 homes were complete, Souansavanh Viyakheth, minister of Information, Culture and Tourism, announced after visiting the survivors. A third Sanamxay district survivor told RFA that families are angry about the delays. “Most of us are not happy with the way the so-called ‘Reconstruction Programs’ work. Four years have passed and more than half of us are still homeless,” the third survivor said.  “Living in shelters, we often run out of water in the dry season. We have received the first compensation payments for lost vehicles like cars and motorcycles but nothing yet for our other property like homes, cash, gold and jewelry. We gave all the information about these losses to the authorities a long time ago,” the third survivor said. Houses being built for survivors of the 2018 Xe Pian-Xe Namnoy dam disaster are shown in a photo taken in early 2020. Photo: Citizen Journalist. Families still waiting for homes also have to deal with inferior education facilities for their children, a fourth survivor of the flood said. “One school for 500 children? It’s too crowded. Many of these kids who graduate from primary school don’t continue on to secondary school because [that school]...
- [Junta cuts phone and internet connections in Magway amid fierce fighting](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-cuts-phone-and-internet-connections-in-magway-amid-fierce-fighting/): Junta forces cut phone and internet access in Myanmar’s Magway region on Monday at the start of a scorched-earth operation that is still raging. Residents of Gangaw and Tilin townships said they believed their telecoms were cut off because of strong resistance by local People’s Defense Forces (PDFs) against junta troops. The People&#8217;s Administration Organization of nearby Saw township said that the cutting of internet and phone lines meant junta troops would soon raid local villages. &#8220;There is a news blackout in Tilin and Gangaw. We heard there were some attacks in the area but we don&#8217;t know exactly where they are happening because we don&#8217;t have phone connections. Normally, if the phone and internet lines are cut, it means they’ll be attacking the villages. Villages will be destroyed and burned so we have to be alert when the lines are cut. The movements of the revolutionary forces [PDFs] will also be seriously affected.&#8221; Locals said the military launched airstrikes on Tuesday and Wednesday near Zibya village and Shounshi village in Gangaw township. A resident of Myin Thar Village in Gangaw, who did not want to be named for security reasons, said he was very worried for his family. &#8220;I&#8217;ve been calling [my] village for four days now and I can&#8217;t get through. The internet and phone lines have been cut, and I&#8217;ve heard that they&#8217;ve been bombed by military aircraft. I don&#8217;t have all the information yet. I just heard that villages west of Gangaw and Hakha Road have been bombed but I can&#8217;t get any specific information because the phone lines have been cut.&#8221; A resident of Gangaw’s Sanmyo village, who is now in Chin state and also declined to be named, said he had heard reports the junta’s aircraft had attacked some villages but he did not know the exact facts. &#8220;Both the phone and lines have been completely cut off on our side. We have heard reports of bombings by fighter jets,” said the resident who added that the city has been hit as hard as the villages. “The entire Gangaw area has been completely shut down and we can&#8217;t reach anywhere.&#8221; A woman from Tilin, who also wanted to remain anonymous, said while lines were down some people managed to get a signal. “We could make some calls for the western side of our village so we had to go there to contact our relatives. But we can’t reach people in Gangaw,” she said, adding that villagers are concerned they won’t be warned in advance about attacks by aircraft and ground troops because lines have been cut. The woman eventually travelled two miles to the Magway-Chin border, where she was able to use her phone and the internet to gather information. Covering up junta war crimes The Human Rights Minister of the shadow National Unity Government, Aung Myo Min, said the military cut the internet and phone lines so as not to leave any evidence of the war crimes.&#8220;These cuts by the military council are to block the flow of information especially about their brutality, and war crimes committed by them on the ground and to cut off humanitarian aid,” he said. “Because when the news of their actions comes to light, it will definitely be used as evidence to international tribunals. Cutting off information has become a military strategy. It is obvious they do not want to leave any evidence that can be used when legal action is taken.&#8221; RFA called military spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, director-general Myo Swe of the Department of Communications at the Ministry of Transport and Communications, and the spokesman at the Magway Regional Government Office, but there was no response from any of them. Junta’s history of telecoms blackouts According to the General Administration Department, there are more than 200 villages in Gangaw and Tilin townships in Magway. More than 180,000 residents living in these townships are now losing their right to information due to the interruption of internet and phone lines. The military cut off all phone lines and the internet for the entire day of the coup on Feb. 1, last year. The internet was completely cut off on Feb. 6 and 7, 2021, only to be restored on Feb. 8. The military also cut off the internet in some townships and slowed it in others when the military launched attacks on armed PDFs in Magway, Sagaing and Mandalay regions and Chin and Kachin states. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane for RFA Burmese.
- [China holds new naval drills as US  carrier transits South China Sea](https://ij-reportika.com/china-holds-new-naval-drills-as-us-carrier-transits-south-china-sea/): China has staged another military exercise off the back of a five-day large-scale drill near the Paracel islands–just as the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan docked in Singapore after spending over a week in the South China Sea. The U.S. carrier and its strike group were slated to visit Vietnam this month but the visit has been called off, said two Vietnamese sources with knowledge of the matter who wish to stay anonymous because they’re not authorised to speak to the media. “No reason was given,” said one of the sources, adding that the Vietnamese staff involved in the preparation for the port call were asked to be on stand-by for a couple days before the final decision last week. As “a matter of policy” the U.S. Pacific Fleet declined to comment on the purported port call. The USS Ronald Reagan is now at Changi Naval Base and its crew met with visiting Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro before taking some R&amp;R. Del Toro’s office said the sailors have done “a fantastic job the past few months operating across the Indo-Pacific with Allies and partners reinforcing international norms and standards.” “Be safe, make good decisions, and enjoy your liberty!” it tweeted. The Ronald Reagan Strike Group began its first deployment in the South China Sea in 2022 on July 13 and was conducting exercises at the same time as another warship, the guided missile destroyer USS Benfold. China’s back-to-back military exercises While the U.S. ships were operating in the South China Sea, China announced a large military exercise on July 16 to July 20 in an area of 100,000 square kilometers (38,600 square miles) east of Hainan island overlapping the Paracel archipelago. On July 20 the Hainan Maritime Safety Administration (MSA) issued another navigation warning about a second military exercise also in the South China Sea but smaller and at a closer proximity to Hainan island. This drill started on the same Wednesday and finished Friday. China often holds military exercises at short notice as a response to U.S. naval activities in disputed areas of the South China and East China Seas. Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam hold territorial claims over parts of the sea including the Paracel and the Spratly islands but the Chinese claim is by far the most expansive.
- [Dozens of teachers killed, hundreds arrested by Myanmar junta for joining strike](https://ij-reportika.com/dozens-of-teachers-killed-hundreds-arrested-by-myanmar-junta-for-joining-strike/): Two dozen teachers have been killed and more than 200 others arrested since Myanmar’s military seized control from the elected government nearly 18 months ago, according to a Thailand-based Burmese human rights organization. The 24 teachers, who had joined the country’s Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) of striking professionals, died by gunfire during street protests or from torture, said the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP). The AAPP keeps a daily tally of the number of civilians killed and arrested by the military regime since the Feb. 1, 2021, coup. The 209 teachers who were arrested were also part of the CDM. The targeted arrest and imprisonment of CDM teachers may be higher than the AAPP’s tally, a spokesman for the organization said. Some teachers also have withdrawn from the CDM and returned to work because of pressure from the junta, he said. RFA reported in June that at least 40 teachers had been killed as of this May, according to information provided by the junta. RFA attempted to contact military spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun several times by phone without success. The shadow National Unity Government’s (NUG) Ministry of Education says that more 200,000 of Myanmar’s 450,000 schoolteachers participated in the CDM at its height in the months after the military coup. A family member of a middle school teacher who was arrested in April 2021 for joining the CDM and sentenced to three years in prison said she is furious with the junta. “We worked so hard for her to become a schoolteacher,” said the relative, who declined to be named for safety reasons. “It’s not appropriate for a young teacher to spend three years in prison.” Moe Thway Nyo, a secondary school teacher from Kawa township in Bago region who also joined the CDM but fled to the Myanmar-Thailand border to avoid arrest, said the State Administration Council, as the military regime is known, has begun prosecuting CDM teachers under the country’s Counter-Terrorism Law, which carries stiff penalties. “The longer the revolution goes on, the more severe the charges they are using to unjustly accuse and arrest CDM teachers,” he said. At first, the junta prosecuted CDM members under Section 505(a) of Myanmar’s Penal Code, which the regime revised in March 2021. The section previously made it a crime to publish or circulate statements, rumors or reports with intent to cause military personnel to mutiny, disregard or fail in their duty. The revision made attempts to hinder, disturb or damage the motivation of military personnel and civil servants and cause their hatred, disobedience or disloyalty punishable by up to three years in prison, according to Human Rights Watch. Now the junta is prosecuting CDM members under Sections 50(a), 50(b), and 50(j) of the Counter-Terrorism Law under which “the prison sentences became harsher,” Moe Thway Nyo said. Convictions under these sections of the law carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Protesters arrange abandoned flip-flops and other belongings next to a makeshift altar for teacher Tin Nwe Yi, left behind during a crackdown in Yangon, Myanmar, on March 1, 2021, after she was killed during a demonstration against the military coup. Credit: AFP &#8216;On the side of truth&#8217; A CDM secondary school teacher from Taikkyi township in Yangon region said the junta’s targeting of educators participating in the strike is unacceptable. “Teachers are expressing their views and saying what they think is wrong,” said the educator, who declined to be named for safety reasons. “We are on the side of the truth. The junta’s Education Department already sacked us long ago, but arrests are still being made. We strongly condemn these actions of arbitrary arrests and unjust imprisonments.” The junta has asked thousands of teachers who joined the CDM to return to classrooms in schools administered by its Education Department. Some have returned to their jobs, mainly out of financial necessity, but many others have stayed the course and are teaching students in NUG-dominated areas outside the regime’s education system. As of mid-June, more than 3,150 academic staffers had quit the CDM and returned to service, according to junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun. He also told reporters in May that People’s Defense Force militias that have fought against the military in opposition to the regime were to blame for harassing and killing teachers who resumed working after they quit the CDM. A spokesman for the Myanmar Teachers’ Federation who did not want to be named for security reasons said that if the regime continues to arrest educators, they will eventually leave the teaching profession. “If these teachers are arrested and harmed again, they will get tired of the situation and quit,” he said. “They will no longer be able to pass on to the new generation of teachers the knowledge they have acquired, and our education sector will be like a barren plant without any fruit. It is very worrying for the education sector.” Other educators who are part of the CDM told RFA that in addition to threats of arrest, the junta has prevented them from teaching in private schools. In a statement issued on July 17, the NUG’s Ministry of Education stated that the arrest of teachers violated articles of the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Convention on the Rights of the Child, and provisions of Myanmar’s 2019 Child Rights Law. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane for RFA Burmese. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Vietnam jails six in crackdown on religious group](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-jails-six-in-crackdown-on-religious-group/): A court in Vietnam has sentenced six members of an independent religious group to long prison terms following a two-day trial in which defendants said they had been forced to confess to the charges made against them, drawing condemnation from rights groups on Friday. Convicted by the People’s Court of Duc Hoa District in southern Vietnam’s Long An province, the members of the unofficial Peng Lai Temple were charged with “abusing the rights to freedom and democracy” and will now serve sentences of from three and a half to five years. Handed the harshest sentence on Thursday, temple member Le Tung Van was given a five-year term, with Le Thanh Hoan Nguyen, Le Thanh Nhat Nguyen and Le Thanh Trung Duong each sentenced to four-year terms. Le Thanh Nhi Nguyen was sentenced to three and a half years, and Cao Thi Cuc given a three-year term. All had been charged under Article 331 of Vietnam’s 2015 Penal Code. Speaking to RFA after the trial, a human rights lawyer in Vietnam called the case against the six temple members politically motivated. “These verdicts did not surprise me at all, because the nature of the case was political,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity out of concern for his personal safety. “Right from the beginning, state media had deliberately published information aimed at slandering the Peng Lai Temple members, accusing them of incestuous relationships and of committing fraud,” the lawyer said. “[Vietnam’s] press law clearly stipulates that the media are not allowed to make accusations on behalf of the court or the judging panel.” The accusations made by state-controlled news outlets had nothing to do with the charge of “abusing the rights to freedom and democracy” on which the defendants were convicted, the lawyer said. “The government of Vietnam is showing that they don’t understand what freedom of religion is and that they are willing to crack down on any religious groups that they can’t control through their licensing system,” he added. State prosecutors in their indictment had specifically charged group members with posting articles and video clips on Facebook and YouTube aimed at harming the reputation of Duc Hoa district police and “offending the honor and dignity” of Tran Ngoc Thao, also called Venerable Thich Nhat Tu, a local Buddhist leader. Threats and torture However, confessions made to the charges and used against group members at their trial were obtained by threats and torture, three of the six defendants said in court on July 20. “During the investigation, a Duc Hoa district police officer named Phong slapped me three times against the side of my head and put me in handcuffs, closing them so tightly that it cut off the circulation of my blood,” Le Thanh Trung Duong said. “I almost passed out, and then I was threatened by an officer named Phap, and that’s why I made false statements,” Duong said. Defendant Le Thanh Nhat Nguyen said in court that he had also been beaten by police during his pre-trial investigation. “But after our lawyers got involved, I wasn’t beaten any more. Therefore, I would like to ask that this investigation be conducted all over again,” he said. Replying to defendants’ accusations at the trial, a representative from the Long An Police Investigations Department said that the interrogation of members of the Peng Lai group had been conducted in accordance with the law, and that audio and video recordings of the questioning had been kept. &#8216;Outrageous, unacceptable&#8217; In a statement, Human Rights Watch Asia deputy director Phil Robertson said that Vietnam&#8217;s government is now widening its rights crackdown by silencing ordinary people who complain about local officials. &#8220;All this shows how intolerance for any sort of public criticism is getting worse in Vietnam. Vietnam should reverse these outrageous and unacceptable sentences against all of these persons,&#8221; Robertson said.  Vietnam’s government strictly controls religious practice in the one-party communist country, requiring practitioners to join state-approved temples and churches and suppressing independent groups. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in a report released April 25 recommended the U.S. government place Vietnam on a list of countries of particular concern because of Vietnamese authorities’ persistent violations of religious freedom. Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [Top UN court rejects Myanmar objections in Rohingya genocide trial](https://ij-reportika.com/top-un-court-rejects-myanmar-objections-in-rohingya-genocide-trial/): The International Court of Justice (ICJ) rejected on Friday all of Myanmar’s objections to a case brought against it by Gambia that accuses the Southeast Asian country of genocide against the mainly Muslim Rohingya minority. Myanmar’s military regime had lodged four preliminary objections claiming the Hague-based court does not have jurisdiction and that the West African country of Gambia did not have the standing to bring the case over mass killing and forced expulsions of Rohingya in 2016 and 2017. The ruling delivered at the Peace Palace in the Dutch city of The Hague by ICJ President, Judge Joan E. Donoghue, clears the way for the court to move on to the merits phase of the process and consider the factual evidence against Myanmar, a process that could take years. Donoghue said the court found that all members of the 1948 Genocide Convention can and are obliged act to prevent genocide, and that through its statements before the U.N. General Assembly in 2018 and 2019, Gambia had made clear to Myanmar its intention to bring a case to the ICJ based on the conclusion of a UN fact-finding mission into the allegations of genocide. “Myanmar could not have been unaware of the fact that The Gambia had expressed the view that it would champion an accountability mechanism for the alleged crimes against the Rohingya,” the judge said. The military junta that overthrew Myanmar’s elected government in February 2021 is now embroiled in fighting with prodemocracy paramilitaries across wide swathes of the country, and multiple reports have emerged of troops torturing, raping and killing civilians. In the initial hearing of the case in 2019, Gambia said that “from around October 2016 the Myanmar military and other Myanmar security forces began widespread and systematic ‘clearance operations’ … against the Rohingya group.” “The genocidal acts committed during these operations were intended to destroy the Rohingya as a group, in whole or in part, by the use of mass murder, rape and other forms of sexual violence, as well as the systematic destruction by fire of their villages, often with inhabitants locked inside burning houses. From August 2017 onwards, such genocidal acts continued with Myanmar’s resumption of ‘clearance operations’ on a more massive and wider geographical scale.” Thousands died in the raids in August 2017, when the military cleared and burned Rohingya communities in western Myanmar, killing, torturing and raping locals. The violent campaign forced more than 740,000 people to flee to squalid refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh. That exodus followed a 2016 crackdown that drove out more than 90,000 Rohingya from Rakhine. The Gambia has called on Myanmar to stop persecuting the Rohingya, punish those responsible for the genocide, offer reparations to the victims and provide guarantees that there would be no repeat of the crimes against the Rohingya. The Myanmar junta’s delegation protested at a hearing on Feb. 25 this year, saying the ICJ has no right to hear the case. It lodged four objections, all of which were rejected by the ICJ on Friday. The ICJ is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations and was established in 1945 to settle disputes in accordance with international law through binding judgments with no right of appeal. The U.S. has also accused Myanmar of genocide against the Rohingya. Secretary of State Antony Blinken ruled in March this year that “Burma’s military committed genocide and crimes against humanity with the intent to destroy predominantly Muslim Rohingya in 2017.” The State Department said the military junta continues to oppress the Rohingya, putting 144,000 in internal displacement camps in Rakhine state by the end of last year. A State Department report last month noted that Rohingya also face travel restrictions within the country and the junta has made no effort to bring refugees back from Bangladesh. Myanmar, a country of 54 million people about the size of France, recognizes 135 official ethnic groups, with Burmans accounting for about 68 percent of the population. The Rohingya, whose ethnicity is not recognized by the government, have faced decades of discrimination in Myanmar and are effectively stateless, denied citizenship. Myanmar administrations have refused to call them “Rohingya” and instead use the term “Bengali.” The atrocities against the Rohingya were committed during the tenure of the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi, who in December 2019 defended the military against allegations of genocide at the ICJ. The Nobel Peace Prize winner and one-time democracy icon now languishes in prison — toppled by the same military in last year’s coup. In February, the National Unity Government (NUG), formed by former Myanmar lawmakers who operate as a shadow government in opposition to the military junta, said they accept the authority of the ICJ to decide if the 2016-17 campaign against Rohingya constituted a genocide, and would withdraw all preliminary objections in the case. “It is hard to predict how long this case could take to reach the final verdict. Most likely it could take several years, even a decade,” said Aung Htoo, a Myanmar human rights lawyer and the principal at the country’s Federal Legal Academy. Written by Paul Eckert.
- [Student detainees in Myanmar allegedly beaten, kept in solitary confinement](https://ij-reportika.com/student-detainees-in-myanmar-allegedly-beaten-kept-in-solitary-confinement/): Four students imprisoned for protesting the ruling military junta have been held in solitary confinement and beaten nearly every day by authorities since being transferred to central Myanmar’s Bago region less than two weeks ago, their relatives and sources with knowledge of the situation said Thursday. Min Thu Aung, Banya Oo, Ye Htut Khaung and Zaw Win Htut — all students at Hpa-an University in Hpa-n, Kayin state — were arrested in March and charged with defamation of the state, organizing or helping a group to encourage the overthrow or destruction of the Myanmar military, and having contact with an unlawful organization, in this case an ethnic armed group fighting national forces. They each have been sentenced to 12 to 13 years in prison. The four students were among 60 other political prisoners who were transferred from Hpa-An Prison to Tharrawaddy Prison in Bago region on July 9. On instructions from the warden at Hpa-an Prison, the students were separated from the other prisoners when they arrived at the Bago detention center and placed in solitary confinement, a person close to one of the families told RFA. The four have been beaten and locked up in solitary confinement nearly every day since July 10, the youths’ family members and those familiar with the situation said. “They were not handcuffed when they were first beaten, though their ankles were shackled,” the person told RFA. Human rights violations in prisons, such as the beatings the students have experienced, have gotten worse since the military overthrew the democratically elected government in a February 2020 coup, said a spokesman for the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), a Thai NGO. “We have heard that political prisoners are being tortured intentionally and unjustly because they are political prisoners, and that they are being tortured in various ways,” he told RFA. According to AAPP’s records, junta authorities have arrested 11,743 civilians for civil disobedience activities, of which 1,344 were sentenced to prison terms, since the coup took place. When they were beaten while sitting without handcuffs, Banya Oo and Ye Htut Khaung tried to fight back, but were struck more forcefully, said the person close to one of the families of the detained students. They were then handcuffed, dragged away and locked in solitary cells. “They were taken out of the cells every morning and were beaten again,” the person said, adding that the guards taunted them, asking if their revolution against the junta had succeeded and telling them to say “We must win,” while continuing the beatings. The source said there were rumors that representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) may visit the detention center to investigate the alleged mistreatment of the students. Prison guards removed the students from solitary confinement on July 18, though they are still suffering from injuries from the daily beatings and have not received medical treatment, he said. Another RFA source, who did not want to be named for security reasons, said all four men had serious injuries, including broken noses and head wounds and that one was beaten until his teeth fell out. RFA could not reach Prisons Department officials in Yangon or military junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment. A statement issued by the ICRC in Myanmar on Monday said authorities must treat prisoners with dignity and humanity and ensure their health and safety. It also said the authorities had suspended ICRC access to prisons since March 2020 to check on detainees and provide humanitarian aid. &#8216;These actions are crimes&#8217; The torture of prisoners is a serious human rights violation because the students have already suffered from being sentenced to long jail terms, said the father of one of the students, who declined to be named for safety reasons. “The kids have already been given punishments,” he said. “They haven’t broken any law or prison rules [since their arrests]. They didn’t even have any kind of prisoners’ rights and all these beatings are very serious violations of human rights. “We feel that this kind of mistreatment has become more serious after the military coup,” he said. “There’s no rule of law at all. No matter what the law says, people would be arrested and unjustly sentenced by the courts once accusations were made against them.” The students’ parents and relatives from Hpa-an requested permission to visit Tharrawaddy Prison, but prison authorities rejected their requests. Tun Kyi, a senior member of the Former Political Prisoners Society, said prison authorities have a policy of torturing political prisoners. “They are committing the most serious violation of human rights with the intention of subduing political prisoners so that they do not dare to rise up again,” he said. “They have laid out policies in various prisons, and then brutally oppressed and tortured the prisoners, often asking questions like, ‘Are you a revolutionary?’ and ‘Is your revolution making any headway?’ before hitting them.” Hpa-an and Tharrawaddy prisons, along with Yangon’s Insein Prison, are among the worst detention centers of Myanmar’s more than 40 jails, Tun Kyi said. A former prison warden, who did not want to be named out of concern for his safety, said the prison officials who mistreat detainees nowadays are former military officers. A legal expert from Yangon, who did not want to be named for the same reason, said that physical beating of any detainee, including political prisoners, is a crime according to the regulations governing prisons. “If you look at it as a lawyer, these actions are actually crimes because the jail manual states that prison wardens can give only 12 types of punishments,” he said. “No one else has the right to punish the prisoners. Among those 12 types of punishments that he can give, he is not allowed to beat prisoners.” Those who torture political prisoners will be held to account at some point, said the AAPP spokesman, who declined to be named for safety reasons. “Those who personally carry out the torture and all those who order...
- [Hungry North Koreans bristle as elites feast on expensive dog meat](https://ij-reportika.com/hungry-north-koreans-bristle-as-elites-feast-on-expensive-dog-meat/): While citizens in North Korea are nearly starving in the face of food price hikes and shortages, the country’s elite are feasting on one of the country’s most expensive delicacies: dog meat. Meat of any kind is a rarity in the North Korean diet these days, and dog meat costs twice as much as pork. A single bowl of dog meat stew, called dangogi-jang, can cost the same as two kilograms of rice. After a ban on imports at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in January 2020, and with harvests failing to yield enough food for the country’s needs, food shortages are widespread, a resident of Chongjin, in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong, told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “Prices for food such as rice, corn and flour keep rising. Residents are frustrated as they suffer, … but high-ranking government officials and the wealthy class, for whom money is not an object, are busy looking for dog meat restaurants and taking care of themselves,” the source said. Dog meat is not common in the typical diet of either North or South Korea, but it is considered by some to be a summer delicacy with purported virility-enhancing and medicinal properties.  This summer, while the bellies of average citizens in the country of 25 million people rumble, the most popular dog meat restaurants in Chongjin and elsewhere are still bustling with powerful military and ruling party clientele. “Since last summer, the Kyongsong Dangogi Restaurant has been operating out of a two-story traditional Korean building in Chongjin’s Pohang Square. As the hot days of summer begin, it is buzzing with people who have come for their fill of dog meat,” the source said. “Kyongsong is the second largest dog meat restaurant in the country next to the Pyongyang Dangogi Restaurant on Tongil Street in Pyongyang. I believe [former leader] Kim Jong Il gave the restaurant its name. He was treated to dog meat stew every time he came to North Hamgyong province, and stayed at a hotel within the Kyongsong restaurant that has a scenic view,” he said. The source was aware that outside of Korea, dog meat consumption is rare. “In foreign countries, people don’t eat dog meat, but in our country, dangogi-jang is known for its invigorating effect on the body in summer. There’s even a saying that if you were to spill some of the soup on your foot, it would be like medicine to heal the body,” he said.  “Ordinary residents cannot even dare to eat a bowl of dangogi-jang, no matter how good it is for the body,” the source said. “It is the cheapest dish among the various other dog meat dishes like steak or braised ribs. The stew costs 12,000 won [U.S. $1.70] for a single bowl, about the price of two kilos [4.4 lbs] of rice.”  Besides Kyongsong, there are several other restaurants in Chongjin that serve dog meat dishes, according to the source. This file photo shows a meal at the Pyongyang Dangogi Restaurant on Tongil Street in the North Korean capital. Photo: Yonhap “People in power, such as party officials, prosecutors, social security agents and state security agents do not like to stand out and be seen in public, so they prefer to go to privately run restaurants to eat dog meat rather than public ones,” he said. A source in the northwestern province of North Pyongan said he believed dangogi-jang helped to heal his sick mother. “Everyone knows that dog meat is good for your health in the summer. But most residents cannot afford to eat even a single bowl each year,” the second source said. “There are several restaurants serving dog meat in Uiju county. On July 16, the first of the three hottest days of summer, for the first time in five years, I visited a dog meat restaurant with my mother, who was suffering from a fever and was terribly weak,” he said.  The second source said that there were many elites at the restaurant, including officials of the ruling Korean Workers’ party, agents of the Ministry of State Security and law enforcement officials. “It took a long time for my mother to eat her bowl of stew because her teeth are weak. So when other customers finished their meal and new customers replaced them, I recognized the faces of several well known Uiju county officials,” said the second source. “Ordinary residents are angry now because food prices are too high and there is no way to make money,” the source added. “I felt a sense of disappointment when I saw so many people in power who lined up to eat expensive dog meat … without a care about worrying how they would be able to earn a living.”  Dog meat is available at restaurants in both North and South Korea, but the dog meat trade is of questionable legality in the South. A South Korean court ruled in 2018 that killing dogs for their meat was illegal, but the law did not specifically ban selling or eating the meat. Translated by Claire Shinyoung O. Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [China angry at reported Pelosi Taiwan visit as plan questioned in US](https://ij-reportika.com/china-angry-at-reported-pelosi-taiwan-visit-as-plan-questioned-in-us/): China has once again lashed out at the reported plans by the U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi to visit Taiwan, warning Thursday of countermeasures even after President Joe Biden said the U.S. military thinks such visit is “not a good idea.” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at a news conference in Beijing that China holds a “stern position on firmly opposing” the visit. “If Speaker Pelosi visits Taiwan, it would seriously violate the one-China principle and harm China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and the political foundation of China-US relations,” Wang said. “If the U.S. insists on going its own way, China will take strong measures to firmly respond and take countermeasures. We will walk the talk,&#8221; the spokesperson stressed. On Wednesday, when asked about Pelosi’s prospective trip, President Biden said “I think that the military thinks it’s not a good idea right now.” “But I don’t know what the status of it is,” he added. Pelosi’s office meanwhile declined to comment on Pelosi’s international travel in advance due to longstanding security protocols, according to the Associated Press. Britain’s Financial Times newspaper reported earlier this week that Pelosi is to make a trip to Taipei in August after failing to visit the island in April because she had COVID. If Pelosi makes the trip it would be the first time since 1997 that a U.S. House speaker visited the island, which is democratically ruled but claimed by China as its own territory. One-China policy Taipei has been quiet on talk about Pelosi’s visit with the island’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Joanne Ou insisting that her ministry has not received any information about a planned visit. Taiwan, however, “always welcomes visits by American congresspersons to the country,” she told reporters on Thursday. Meanwhile, the former U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who has been visiting Taiwan since Monday said that China should not be allowed “to dictate the travel schedules of American officials.” Esper, who held office from 2019 to 2020 under former U.S. President Donald Trump, said that he believes that Washington’s one-China policy has “run its course” and should be &#8220;updated and modernized.&#8221; It is important that the U.S. government develops a fresh perspective regarding its cross-Taiwan Strait policy, Esper said at a press conference in Taipei. Beijing has long reacted strongly to any sign of support given to Taiwan but the U.S should not allow China to arbitrarily expand “the scope of activities translated as supporting Taiwan independence, and by that defining the scope of the U.S. one-China policy,” said Norah Huang, associate research fellow at the Prospect Foundation, a Taiwanese think-tank. “If applying over-generous self-restrictions as it has been the case, it also would encourage the Chinese government to play the nationalist card. This is not helpful for nurturing an understanding civil society which may grow as China develops,” she added.
- [Chinese pressure on UN rights chief prompts US call for release of Xinjiang report](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-pressure-on-un-rights-chief-prompts-us-call-for-release-of-xinjiang-report/): The U.S. called on the United Nations human rights chief on Wednesday release a report on conditions in Xinjiang “without delay,” after a report that China was working behind the scenes at the UN to bury the long-delayed document. On Tuesday, Reuters reported from Geneva that a letter authored by China expressing “grave concern” about the Xinjiang report was circulated among diplomatic missions. The note asked countries to sign it to show their support for China’s goal of convincing High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet to halt its release, the news agency said. “Despite frequent assurances by the Office of the High Commissioner that the report would be released in short order, it remains unavailable,” said a U.S. State Department in Washington. “We call on the High Commissioner to release the report without delay. And we are highly concerned about any effort by Beijing to suppress the report’s release,” the spokesperson said in an e-mailed statement. Bachelet, who visited Xinjiang in May, informed the Human Rights Council in September 2021 that her office was finalizing its assessment of information on allegations of rights violations. Three months later, a spokesperson said the report would be issued in a matter of weeks, but it was not released. On Wednesday, a spokesperson for UN Human Rights Office said it was still being finalized and that Bachelet had said it would be released before she leaves office ends in August or September. “The report is being finalized and final steps are being undertaken prior to public release,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement to RFA Uyghur. The final steps include “sharing with the concerned Member State for its comments before publishing as per standard practice,” the spokesperson said. “Reports are shared for comments with the concerned Member State. The Office will reflect comments of a factual nature in the final version,” said the statement. The spokesman had no comment on the letter cited in the Reuters report. The letter and any related Chinese pressure campaign at the UN was unsurprising because Beijing is “hypersensitive to criticism,” said Sophie Richardson, China director of New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW). “The Chinese government regularly tries to undermine or preempt or reject any criticism,” she told RFA. The letter emerged a month after nearly 50 United Nations member states on Wednesday issued a joint statement criticizing China’s atrocities against Uyghurs and calling on Bachelet to release the Xinjiang report. The UN report would cover a period in which Chinese authorities detained up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in internment camps since 2017, according to numerous investigative reports by researchers and think tanks. Xinjiang’s Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other minorities have reportedly been subjected to severe human rights abuses, torture and forced labor, as well as the eradication of their linguistic, cultural and religious traditions in what the United States and several Western parliaments have called genocide and crimes against humanity. The Campaign for Uyghurs, part of a coalition of 230 organizations who have demanded that Bachelet resign from her post, urged the UN to resist Chinese pressure. “It is not the first time China is trying to drum up support for its genocide, nor will it be the last,” said CFU Executive Director Rushan Abbas. “The question is whether countries will succumb to China’s whims because of economic ties, and if Michelle Bachelet will once again be coaxed into listening to China’s demands,” she added. Bachelet’s China tightly orchestrated Xinjiang visit, about which she has disclosed little, has been criticized as a staged, Potemkin-style tour. In Beijing Wednesday, however, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the 70-year-old former Chilean president “experienced in person what a real Xinjiang is like: a region that enjoys security and stability and sustained robust development, and its people live a happy and fulfilling life.” He told a news conference that China’s stance enjoyed the support of developing countries. “The calculations of a small number of countries to use Xinjiang to engage in political manipulation, tarnish China’s reputation and contain and suppress China will not succeed,” Wang said. HRW’s Richardson said Bachelet was caught between demands from Uyghurs, rights groups and Western governments for accountability and a disclosure of facts in Xinjiang and Beijing’s pressure to silence its critics. “Whether she goes ahead and how accurate it is will tell us a lot about how seriously she takes her mandate and how willing she is to challenge some of the most powerful members of the U.N. system,” she told RFA.  Written by Paul Eckert.
- [Unease downstream despite assurances that leaking Lao Nam Theun 1 is safe](https://ij-reportika.com/unease-downstream-despite-assurances-that-leaking-lao-nam-theun-1-is-safe/): People living near a leaking dam in central Laos remained fearful Wednesday, five days after a video of the leak went viral, despite assurances from the government that it is structurally safe and will be fixed in weeks, sources in the country told RFA. Video of the apparent leak at the Nam Theun 1 Dam in the central province of  Bolikhamxay was shared on Facebook on Saturday, a week before the fourth anniversary of the Southeast Asian country’s worst ever dam collapse that killed more than 70 people. Authorities told RFA on Monday that  the video depicted only “seepage” that would have no effect on operations or safety at the hydroelectric dam on a Mekong River tributary. On Wednesday, however, the government put out a statement saying that the Lao Ministry of Energy and Mines had found two small leaks during an inspection last month, and a second inspection on Sunday after the video circulated determined that the leaks were still the same size. “Our department inspected the dam on June 25, 2022 and found two leaks on the right side of the dam. However, the leaks are small and won’t have any impact on the structure of the dam,” Bouathep Malaykham, director of the ministry’s energy industry safety management department, said in the statement. “We immediately asked the dam developer to look for the source of the leaks and stop the leaks as soon as possible,” he said. “The developer is planning to fix the leaks in three weeks and our Ministry of Energy and Mines is closely monitoring the dam every day. Actually, we’re going to inspect the dam again on July 27, 2022,” Malaykham said The 650 MW Nam Theun 1 Dam is part of Laos’ controversial development strategy  to build dozens of hydropower dams on the Mekong River and its tributaries to become the “Battery of Southeast Asia” by exporting power to neighboring countries. Critics question rising debt levels and environmental damage as well as safety. The safety department head acknowledged that footage of the leaks on social media had caused understandable concern. But he rejected comparisons with the July 23, 2018 disaster, billions of cubic feet of water from a tributary of the Mekong River poured over a collapsed saddle dam at the Xe Pian Xe Namnoy (PNPC) hydropower project following heavy rains. It wiped out all or part of 19 villages, leaving 71 people dead and displacing 14,440 others. Malaykham’s statement reminded residents that the Xe Pian Xe Namnoy dam which collapsed in southern Laos four years ago was a soil dam, while the Nam Theun 1 Dam is a compact concrete dam.  “For those who want to post news and pictures of the dam, please think twice, and make sure your information is correct. If not, it might create some misunderstanding among the public,” he said. But the 2018 disaster is still fresh in the minds of people who live downstream from Nam Theun 1, and they remain terrified even with the explanation, a teacher in the province’s Pakkading district said Wednesday. “The dam is leaking now, and sooner or later the leak is going to get worse and finally the dam is going to break,” the teacher told RFA’s Lao Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons..  “Actually, the water is leaking from a dirt wall, not from the concrete wall, so, it’ll get larger and larger soon,” the teacher added. Another resident of the district told RFA he was not assuaged by government assurances. “History will repeat itself. We experienced the worst dam collapse four years ago, and now this is happening again.” A survivor of the 2018 disaster said the developer has instituted a warning system in the years since it caused what has been described as Laos’ worst flooding in decades. “The Xe Pian-Xe Namnoy Dam developer often issues alerts or warnings to us during the rainy season; but up to now, there has been no drills of an emergency or rescue plan at all,” the survivor told RFA Wednesday. The government recently ordered more inspections on hydroelectric dams, a dam developer in northern Laos’ Oudomxay province told RFA. “We already do inspections. We coordinate with the local authorities and residents about our dam condition,” the developer said. Dams also warn the public and the local authorities prior to releasing water, an employee of a dam developer in southern Laos’ Sekong province told RFA. The Nam Theun 1 hydropower project is 60 percent funded by Phonesack Group, 25 percent by EGAT and 15 percent by Electricite du Laos. When complete, its 650 MW of output will be sold to neighboring Thailand. Though the Lao government sees power generation as a way to boost the landlocked country’s economy, the projects are controversial because of their environmental impact, displacement of villagers without adequate compensation, and questionable financial and power demand arrangements. Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Hong Kong journalists make YouTube tribute on 3rd anniversary of bloody mob attacks](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-journalists-make-youtube-tribute-on-3rd-anniversary-of-bloody-mob-attacks/): Hong Kong journalists targeted under a citywide crackdown on dissent for their reporting of the Yuen Long mob attacks of 2019 have marked the third anniversary of the attacks with a YouTube documentary. A group of independent journalists including Bao Choy, who was arrested in November 2020 over her investigative documentary for government broadcaster RTHK about the July 21, 2019 mob attacks on train passengers at Yuen Long MTR, published a 14-minute video to YouTube on Tuesday, ahead of Thursday&#8217;s anniversary. Bao&#8217;s Hong Kong Connection TV documentary titled “7.21 Who Owns the Truth?” showed clips from surveillance cameras at shops in Yuen Long and interviewed people who were identified in the footage. Its airing forced police to admit that they already had a presence in the town, but did nothing to prevent the attacks as baton-wielding men in white T-shirts began to gather in Yuen Long ahead of the bloody attack on passengers and passers-by. &#8220;On the third anniversary of the 721 Yuen Long attack, a group of independent journalists have made this special program about the unfinished investigation &#8230; summarizing clues collected by civil society over the past few years, and following up with a few who have been persevering in seeking the truth,&#8221; the video description reads. &#8220;We are not affiliated with any media organization and have no news platform, but we sincerely appreciate the willingness of multiple independent journalists to work together on this production,&#8221; it said. &#8220;We have made this to professional standards despite the lack of salaries or resources.&#8221; Post-crackdown freedoms The video also &#8220;pays tribute to the interviewees who dared to comment publicly and on the record,&#8221; despite an ongoing crackdown on public criticism of the government under a national security law imposed on the city by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from July 1, 2020. &#8220;Some of them have been forced to leave [Hong Kong], while others have chosen to stay, but they all want to see the day when the truth is made public,&#8221; it said. The HKIJ channel where the video was published had garnered 3,540 subscribers by Wednesday afternoon, and 5,700 likes, with a number of supportive comments from Hongkongers. &#8220;You were the victims, but you bravely stood up and remembered the pain. I sincerely thank you and wish you all peace,&#8221; one comment read, while another said: &#8220;Neither forget nor forgive. Thank you to everyone who stood up.&#8221; &#8220;Thank you to every citizen who still dares to tell the truth, and every reporter who reports the truth, three years on,&#8221; another comment said. Men in white T-shirts with poles are seen in Yuen Long after attacking anti-extradition bill demonstrators at a train station, in Hong Kong, China July 22, 2019. Credit: Reuters Galileo The video includes interviews with three people who were in Yuen Long MTR three years ago, including Tuen Mun resident &#8220;Galileo&#8221; who was attacked while trying to rescue journalist Gwyneth Ho, and chef surnamed So who sustained heavy injuries from being beaten with rods, as well as a local businessman who supplied CCTV footage from his premises. &#8220;Galileo&#8221; and his wife tell the producers they gave high-definition video and detailed witness accounts to police, but that most of the attackers hadn&#8217;t been arrested to this day. Choy was arrested and fined for &#8220;road traffic violations&#8221; relating to vehicle registration searches used in her RTHK film. Thirty-nine minutes elapsed between the first emergency calls to the final arrival of police at the Yuen Long MTR station, where dozens of people were already injured, and many were in need of hospital treatment. At least eight media organizations, including the Hong Kong Journalists Association, the Hong Kong Press Photographers Association and the RTHK staff union expressed “extreme shock and outrage” at Choy’s arrest. Calvin So, a victim of Sunday&#8217;s Yuen Long attacks, shows his wounds at a hospital in Hong Kong, China July 22, 2019. Credit: Reuters Book fair censored The anniversary came as the Hong Kong Book Fair, once a vibrant showcase for independent publishers in the city, started displaying prominently a number of new titles about CCP leader Xi Jinping and the history of the ruling party, apparently specially produced for the Hong Kong market. Offerings from CCP-backed publishers were on prominent display at the fair on July 19, including titles expounding the success of the &#8220;one country, two systems&#8221; model under which Beijing took back control of Hong Kong in 1997. A spokeswoman for the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC), which runs the book fair, denied that a higher level of censorship is being implemented at the fair under the national security law, which bans public criticism of the authorities. &#8220;We don&#8217;t engage in the prior vetting of books, nor will we take action to censor any books,&#8221; spokeswoman Clementine Cheung told reporters. &#8220;But if someone complains or thinks there is an issue with a book, we have a mechanism for checking on that.&#8221; &#8220;If there really is a problem with a book, it won&#8217;t be up to us to decide that,&#8221; she said. While independent publishers have been gradually disappearing from the book fair in Hong Kong, organizers set up a small but independent event titled the &#8220;Five Cities Book Fair 2022&#8221; in small venues in Taipei, London, Manchester, Vancouver and Toronto, showcasing titles that are now banned in Hong Kong, especially those about the political crackdown and the 2019 protest movement. &#8220;Xi Jinping: The Governance of China&#8221; is displayed at a booth during the annual book fair in Hong Kong, Wednesday, July 20, 2022. Credit: AP Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [China moves to stave off crisis of confidence in banks amid mortgage strike, freezes](https://ij-reportika.com/china-moves-to-stave-off-crisis-of-confidence-in-banks-amid-mortgage-strike-freezes/): The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is moving to dampen concerns about a banking crisis amid an ongoing mortgage repayments strike and widespread protests over frozen accounts at rural banks. Several cities in the central province of Henan set up task forces to address the issue of unfinished housing projects, the Global Times newspaper reported, following widespread concerns over the systemic risks posed by mortgage defaulters. Authorities in Henan&#8217;s Pingdingshan city were finding ways to kick start unfinished projects, while Gongyi city announced on July 14 that three stalled projects in the city had been &#8220;properly resolved,&#8221; the paper said. &#8220;The accelerated moves by local authorities come as mortgage defaults in some Chinese cities, including those in &#8230; Guangdong &#8230; Henan and Hunan provinces, have raised concerns at both home and abroad,&#8221; the paper said. &#8220;Risk management mechanisms are generally deemed strong enough to withstand the risk,&#8221; it said of the banking sector. Financial markets commentator Chai Xin said the mortgage repayments strikes stem in part from unfair clauses in the off-plan, or presold, sector of the property market. &#8220;Almost all of them contain overlord clauses, which don&#8217;t give buyers any legal protection, and allow banks to use your other assets [to secure the mortgage], should the mortgaged property lose value,&#8221; Chai told RFA. &#8220;This doesn&#8217;t really happen anywhere outside China.&#8221; Chai said the CCP is very worried that the mortgage repayment strike will have a knock-on effect on public confidence in the banking system. &#8220;The suspension of mortgage repayments isn&#8217;t going to have a huge impact on the banks&#8217; huge assets,&#8221; he said. &#8220;But the thing the banks are most worried about right now is wavering public trust,&#8221; he said. &#8220;If public confidence in the banks is shaken, then they will have a big problem.&#8221; Plainclothes security officers stand on the road as people stage a protest at the entrance to a branch of China&#8217;s central bank in Zhengzhou in central China&#8217;s Henan Province on July 10, 2022. Credit: AP &#8216;Manageable overall&#8217; Chai said if the mortgage strike ends up prompting bankruptcies among property developers, that could also have a big impact on the banks. To date, 15 banks, including the five biggest banks in China, have issued announcements to the effect that the risks from the mortgage repayments strike are &#8220;controllable&#8221; or &#8220;manageable overall.&#8221; The move to reassure the public comes after thousands of people protested outside the Shaanxi branch of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) in the northern city of Xi&#8217;an on July 14, calling for an investigation into bank loans to property developers, some of whom have been transferring funds overseas. A manager in the personal loan department of the Shenzhen branch of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), who gave only the surname Li, said some developers have been taking the money needed to finish housing projects out of the country. &#8220;The developer will say, we can&#8217;t go on, this project can&#8217;t be completed, but that unfinished project is itself mortgaged, built with a loan borrowed from the bank,&#8221; Li said. &#8220;[They might take out a] loan of 400 million yuan, 100 million of which would be used for basic development project, and they keep selling off-plan [before completion],&#8221; she said. &#8220;[But] many developers have already transferred those funds overseas.&#8221; &#8220;If the housing developer fails to deliver the building on time, the building will be unfinished,&#8221; Li said. &#8220;In the loan agreement between the buyer and the bank, if there is a problem with property used as collateral, they can include your existing assets to recover the debt.&#8221; &#8220;But if this becomes very widespread, the banks won&#8217;t be able to withstand it,&#8221; she said. Call for patience Meanwhile, a CBIRC official called on depositors at four rural banks in the central province of Henan to &#8220;be patient&#8221; and wait for compensation. &#8220;Police have identified the main facts of the case and discovered &#8230; that Henan New Fortune Group manipulated five village banks in Henan and Anhui to illegally absorb public funds through internal and external collusion, use of third-party platforms and fund brokers, tamper with original business data, and cover up illegal behavior,&#8221; the official said. &#8220;The vast majority of ordinary customers of [these banks] have no knowledge or understanding of the suspected criminal behavior of New Fortune Group, and have not received additional high interest or subsidies &#8230; and their capital will be returned in batches,&#8221; the official said, adding that regular depositors with savings of less than 50,000 yuan would be refunded first. &#8220;This is a heavy workload because there are large numbers of people involved &#8230; so please wait patiently for follow-up announcements,&#8221; the official said. The official said CBIRC also &#8220;supports local governments to more effectively promote guaranteed property handovers by developers in a bid to address the mortgage repayments strike. &#8220;Banks should insist on finding out the truth of the situation &#8230; and on precise implementation of policy, and actively plan to solve the hard funding gap in a reasonable manner,&#8221; the official said in comments reported on the CBIRC official website. Since the protests began over the withdrawals freeze at the Henan rural banks, customers have also reported that their bank cards have been frozen or restricted by other banks in Beijing, Shandong, Hainan and other provinces and cities. One newspaper quoted a depositor in Shaanxi as saying that his ICBC savings card wouldn&#8217;t let him withdraw or transfer his money, only deposit it. The Securities Daily quoted several banks as saying that cards are generally restricted because of suspected money-laundering or other illegal activities, amid reports that Chinese banks have stepped up scrutiny of dormant accounts with no activity for three years or more in recent years. People protest outside a branch of the People&#8217;s Bank of China in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou on July 10, 2022. Credit: Anonymous source/AFP Liquidity fears Independent economist He Jiangbing said some dormant accounts are used for criminal activities, something that can happen anywhere...
- [Nearly 70 people hiding in a Sagaing monastery captured by  Myanmar military](https://ij-reportika.com/nearly-70-people-hiding-in-a-sagaing-monastery-captured-by-myanmar-military/): Nearly 70 villagers have been arrested at a village in Saigaing region’s Yinmabin township. They were taking refuge in a monastery in Ban Bwe village. Junta forces moved in and arrested them at around 1 p.m. last Saturday, according to locals. The arrested include 10 children aged between three and eight and five people in their 70s and 80s. The older people had to pay a total of MMK 2.5 million, or U.S.$ 1,345, and were released the same day. The rest are still being held by the military, according to a local woman who declined to be named for safety reasons. Soldiers and members of a military-affiliated militia have been deployed in the village for the past six months. “There are about 100 soldiers and Pyu Saw Htee,” the woman told RFA. “The detainees were sheltering in the Pepin Tawya monastery in the southern part of Ban Bwe village. The military forces and its affiliate, the Pyu Saw Htee, ordered the people to return home but then they arrested about 70 of them and held them at the village school. We had heard about what happened at Mone Tai Pin village in the past, and we are worried that those arrested will be killed.” Last May, more than 30 villagers were arrested and tied up by the army at a school in Mone Tai Pin, also in Sagaing region, which has seen some of the fiercest fighting between junta forces and People’s Defense Forces (PDFs). The military killed 29 of them. The woman said she was trying to find out who had been detained in Ban Bwe. RFA and locals have identified 14 of the adults and all 10 children so far. Calls to the military council’s spokesman by RFA went unanswered on Wednesday. Ban Bwe village. CREDIT: Google Earth Nearly a thousand people from more than two hundred households lived in Ban Bwe, which is also known as Ywa Ma village. When junta troops and Pyu Saw Htee entered the village in January locals fled due to battles between the troops and local PDFs. Apart from those who were hiding in the monastery, some have moved to nearby cities and some are hiding in a forest near the village.
- [Junta, opposition activists hold dueling events to mark Martyrs’ Day in Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-opposition-activists-hold-dueling-events-to-mark-martyrs-day-in-myanmar/): Myanmar’s military regime and opposition forces held dueling events Tuesday to mark the country’s 75th Martyrs’ Day, with heavy security deployed in the commercial capital Yangon for an official ceremony as anti-junta activists marched and held protests in several cities and towns. The families of the nine assassinated national leaders honored on the holiday laid wreaths at an official ceremony held by the junta at the Martyrs’ Mausoleum in Yangon. Noticeably absent from the event were the families of independence hero Gen. Aung San, whose daughter Aung San Suu Kyi was thrown in prison following the military’s Feb. 1, 2021 overthrow of her government, and his elder brother Ba Win. The military closed several of the main roads in the city for the early morning ceremony, which junta chief Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing did not attend. A resident of Yangon told RFA Burmese that the military set up checkpoints throughout the city ahead of the event. “Armed police were placed on pedestrian bridges and there were a lot of junta vehicles patrolling the streets. In addition, there were police and soldiers in front of City Hall, at many intersections and posted at various checkpoints,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “There were soldiers and police in plain clothes too … [The authorities] checked everyone who approached the cordoned areas.” The military also tightened security and carried out inspections along various roads in Myanmar’s second-largest city Mandalay, where the opposition maintains a strong presence. Demonstrators march in Kachin state on Martyrs&#8217; Day, July 19, 2022. Credit: Citizen journalist Despite the clampdown, people on the streets in many townships, including Yangon, commemorated Martyrs’ Day by honking their car horns and carrying wreaths honoring the nine leaders. Even political prisoners in Yangon’s notorious Insein Prison marked the holiday by writing excerpts of speeches by the nine martyrs on their uniforms. Meanwhile, anti-junta activists staged protests and hung posters denouncing the military regime in the regions of Yangon, Mandalay, Sagaing, Magway, and Tanintharyi, as well as in Kachin and Kayah states. A monk in Mandalay told RFA that activists held a march on Monday to commemorate Martyrs’ Day in anticipation of tight security in the city for the actual holiday. “We were able to lead a protest column … on the eve of Martyr&#8217;s Day,” said the monk, who also declined to be named. “Today, security was tight and we couldn’t undertake any activities … But we held a prayer ceremony this evening.” In Mon state, a member of the anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary group in Thaton township told RFA that a ceremony was held honoring not only the Nine Martyrs, but all who had died in the struggle for democracy. “[They] are also martyrs who deserve to be remembered,” he said. “They fought and sacrificed their lives for the sake of the country and people, for the truth and for justice, so we also must salute them.” Martyrs’ Day activities were also observed in Sagaing region’s Budalin, Chaung-U, Kani, Khin-U, Yinmarbin, Salingyi, Tamu, and Shwebo townships; Magway region’s Pauk, Gangaw, and Tilin townships; Tanintharyi region’s Launglon and Thayetchaung townships; Bago region’s Bago and Letpadan townships; Kachin state’s Hpakant township; and Kayah state’s Phekon township. Vice-Senior Gen. Soe Win (front), vice-chairman of the junta, salutes with officials at the tomb of Myanmar&#8217;s independence hero Gen. Aung San during a ceremony to mark the 75th anniversary of his 1947 assassination, at the Martyrs&#8217; Mausoleum in Yangon, July 19, 2022. Credit: Myanmar Ministry of Information via AP Abandoned goals Nan Lin, a member ofUniversity Students’ Unions Alumni Force in Yangon, told RFA that the junta had abandoned the goals of the Martyrs, so it was not strange that the family members of Aung San and Ba Win did not attend Tuesday’s official ceremony. “The number one thing they wanted was independence and the formation of a federal union, followed by the flourishing of democracy and human rights in our country,” he said. “However, what the military has been doing is totally against the aspirations of the martyred leaders.” On July 19, 1947, nine of Myanmar’s independence leaders were gunned down by members of a rival political group while holding a cabinet meeting in Yangon. The victims were Prime Minister Aung San, Minister of Information Ba Cho, Minister of Industry and Labor Mahn Ba Khaing, Minister of Trade Ba Win, Minister of Education Abdul Razak, and Myanmar’s unofficial Deputy Prime Minister Thakin Mya. The nine played key roles in Myanmar’s independence movement and, following the end of British rule less than six months later, the date of their assassination was designated a national holiday. Speaking to RFA in Yangon on Tuesday, youth protester Myat Min Khant said that Martyrs’ Day is now a day to commemorate all those who have sacrificed their lives for the nation. “There may have been nine martyrs in the past, but presently there are many more than nine,” he said. “There were martyrs in the urban clashes, in the street protests, and in the liberated areas [of Myanmar’s remote border regions]. We must recognize the brave warriors who died in battle [against the junta].” The military seized power from Myanmar’s democratically elected government last year, claiming voter fraud led to a landslide victory for the National League for Democracy (NLD) in the country’s November 2020 election. The junta has yet to provide evidence of its claims and has violently suppressed nationwide protests calling for a return to civilian rule. According to Thailand’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, the military has killed at least 2,092 civilians and arrested nearly 15,000 since the takeover, mostly during peaceful anti-junta demonstrations. The group acknowledges that its list is incomplete and says the numbers are likely much higher. Translation by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Xi Jinping’s Xinjiang visit may signal new emphasis on the assimilation of Uyghurs](https://ij-reportika.com/xi-jinpings-xinjiang-visit-may-signal-new-emphasis-on-the-assimilation-of-uyghurs/): Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent visit to Xinjiang signals a new emphasis on the assimilation of the Uyghurs, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority group the U.S. and other governments have said are victims of an ongoing genocide, analysts said. Xi made an unannounced visit to China’s far-western Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) on July 12-15, where he emphasized “social stability and lasting security as the overarching goal” of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) policies, according to a July 15 report by the official Xinhua News Agency. Xi’s visit to Xinjiang was his second in eight years to the region, where Chinese authorities have detained up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in internment camps since 2017. Locals have reportedly been subjected to severe human rights abuses, torture and forced labor, as well as the eradication of their linguistic, cultural and religious traditions in what the United States and several Western parliaments have called genocide and crimes against humanity. Adrian Zenz, a researcher at the Washington, D.C.-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and expert on the Xinjiang region, said Xi’s statements were “a very significant affirmation that Beijing’s policy was correct and that it should continue to be implemented. “It’s a statement of defiance and of pride,” Zenz told RFA. “Basically he is signaling that nobody can interfere into China&#8217;s ethnic policy in Xinjiang and that Beijing’s red lines are firmly upheld.” On Tuesday, Reuters reported that China has asked United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet to bury a report into Xinjiang, which she visited in May. The letter authored by China expressed “grave concern” about the Xinjiang report and aims to halt its release, Reuters said from Geneva, where four sources told the news agency that China began circulating it among diplomatic missions from late June and asked countries to sign it to show their support. Chinese President Xi Jinping (C) inspects a local village in Turpan, northwestern China&#8217;s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, July 14, 2022. Credit: Xinhua News Agency Xi &#8216;will eradicate the remaining few&#8217; In a July 16 tweet thread, James Millward, a history professor at Georgetown University who specializes in Central Asia, noted Xi’s contention that “Chinese civilization is the root of the cultures of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang” in a speech after his trip to describe the relationship of non-Han Chinese people in the XUAR to zhonghua, or Chinese identity. “In Xi&#8217;s speech at the Third Xinjiang Forum in September 2020 (and in other speeches around that time) a different phrase was used,” Millward wrote. That phrase was: “All ethnic groups in Xinjiang are family members linked to Chinese bloodlines.” “I pointed out at the time that by evoking ‘blood’ and ‘family member’ this phrase indirectly implied a genetic relationship between the Central Asian peoples now ruled by the [Chinese Communist Party] and ‘zhonghua,’ i.e., Chinese people,” he wrote. Millward also notes that Xi’s comment about the necessity of educating and guiding officials and the masses “to correctly recognize Xinjiang history, especially history of ethnic development” indicates that China is now stressing that various ethnic groups “are all Chinese, developed from and as part of what Xi calls the ‘zhonghua’ (now ubiquitous as generic, ahistorical cultural term equivalent to the western-language term ‘China’).” Chinese analyst Ma Ju said Xi went to Xinjiang in preparation for the CCP’s 20th Congress in autumn, where Xi likely will be reappointed for a third term as party general secretary, and the People’s Congress convening next March.  “Xi Jinping’s statements made after his visit to the region indicates that he will eradicate the remaining few and careful cultural figures after getting rid of the Uyghur elites,” Ma told RFA. “This is an eradication campaign. They will continue this eradication campaign just like getting rid of the civilization of other nations [non-Han peoples] in Chinese history.” Rahima Mahmut, U.K. director of the World Uyghur Congress, said events such as the staged dancing of Uyghurs for Xi’s visit was orchestrated for propaganda purposes. “This happens quite often,” she said. “It is the same not only for officials from the central government, but also for local officials. The Uyghur students and performers are forced to welcome such officials. The staged dancing of Uyghurs was meant to show the world that Uyghurs enjoy normal happy lives.” But Mahmut also said it was “frightening” to see photos and videos of the Chinese president with mostly elderly Uyghurs around him, and young men nowhere to be seen. “Where did the Uyghur young men go? The truth is most young Uyghur males have faced enforced disappearance. They are either in the camps or prisons. This is quite clear,” she said. Following Xi’s visit to the XUAR, a U.S. State Department spokesperson told RFA that the U.S. would continue to work “to promote accountability for the PRC [People’s Republic of China] government’s use of forced labor, as well as its ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang.” Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Japan renews promise to help Philippines modernize its military](https://ij-reportika.com/japan-renews-promise-to-help-philippines-modernize-its-military/): During a visit to Manila, Japan’s vice minister for defense renewed Tokyo’s commitment to helping the Philippines modernize its military, as the Southeast Asian nation faces territorial threats, Filipino officials said Tuesday. Tsuyohito Iwamoto met with Jose Faustino, the Philippines’ acting defense secretary, at Camp Aguinaldo on Monday after talks with other key Philippine defense and military officials, according to the Philippine Department of National Defense.  Beijing was not specifically mentioned, but the Philippines, along with other nations in the region, is locked in a bitter territorial dispute with China in the South China Sea. Japan, for its part, is locked in a separate dispute with China in the East China Sea, particularly over the Senkaku Islands. “The two officials discussed overall Philippines-Japan defense relations and regional security concerns,” the department said in a statement, adding that both officials “reaffirmed that respect for international law and a rules-based order is essential in maintaining peace and stability in the region, particularly in the South China Sea and East China Sea.” Arsenio Andolong, a spokesman for the department, said Iwamoto talked about Japan’s ongoing efforts to support the Philippines. “Japan has expressed its willingness to continue offering us equipment and some technologies. They want to help us with our requirements for our modernization,” Andolong said without giving more details because he was not authorized to do so. Over the past several years, Japan has donated trainer aircraft, spare parts for Huey helicopters and search-and-rescue equipment to the Filipino armed forces. Andolong said Faustino and Iwamoto also discussed defense relations as well as regional security concerns. During their meeting, Faustino and Iwamoto recalled the successful April two-plus-two Foreign and Defense Ministerial Meeting the countries held in Tokyo, Andolong said. Iwamoto described that meeting as a “manifestation of the two countries’ growing bilateral strategic partnership,” according to Andolong.  At Camp Aguinaldo, Iwamoto also met with Armed Forces chief Gen. Andres Centino where they discussed “bilateral engagements anchored on existing defense cooperation agreements,” according to the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Centino thanked Japan for its involvement in the Air Surveillance Radar System Acquisition Project under the military’s modernization program. The 5.5 billion pesos ($98 million) contract, signed in August 2020, was awarded to the Japanese firm Mitsubishi Electric Corp. The defense department said the radar was to cover the Philippine Rise to the east of the nation, the southern region where Islamic State-linked militants operate, as well as the “the Southern portion of the West Philippine Sea,” Manila’s name for its claimed territories in the South China Sea. The radar is expected to help boost Manila’s airspace monitoring, aircraft control as well as help the air force perform its air defense mission. In particular, it will “help detect, identify and correlate any threats and intrusions within the Philippine economic zone and deliver radar images” to operating units, the department said. The system is expected to be delivered later this year, according to a Philippine media report. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.
- [Interview: Former Trump China adviser Miles Yu wants NATO to go global](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-former-trump-china-adviser-miles-yu-wants-nato-to-go-global/): Historian Miles Yu, a former China adviser to the Trump administration, has called in a recent op-ed article for NATO to create a broader security alliance including the Indo-Pacific region, in a bid to stave off a Chinese invasion of democratic Taiwan. &#8220;There is an emerging international alliance, forged in the face of today’s greatest global threat to freedom and democracy,&#8221; Yu, who served as senior China policy and planning advisor to then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, wrote in the Taipei Times on July 11, 2022. &#8220;That threat comes from the China-led, Beijing-Moscow axis of tyranny and aggression,&#8221; the article said. &#8220;And the new alliance to counter that axis may be called the North-Atlantic-Indo-Pacific Treaty Organization — NAIPTO.&#8221; Yu argued that NATO&#8217;s strength would be &#8220;augmented&#8221; by robust U.S. defense alliances covering Eurasia, as well as the Indian, Atlantic, and Pacific oceans. &#8220;Such scale is necessary because NATO nations and major countries in the Indo-Pacific region face the same common threat. Common threats are the foundation for common defense,&#8221; Yu said. In a later interview with RFA&#8217;s Mandarin Service, Yu said the idea would solve several problems. &#8220;The first is to unify the U.S. global alliance system, which [is currently divided into] a European-style alliance that is multilateral, involving the joint defense of more than 30 countries,&#8221; Yu said. &#8220;In the Asia-Pacific region, the nature of the alliance is bilateral, that is, the United States has bilateral treaties with Japan, South Korea and the Philippines, but there is no mutual defense system between Japan, South Korea and the Philippines,&#8221; he said. &#8220;My proposal &#8230; is to unify the global alliance system of the United States and turn it into a multilateral collective defense treaty,&#8221; he said. He said NATO members and countries in the Indo-Pacific are facing a common threat, particularly since the Russian invasion of Ukraine had brought Beijing and Moscow closer together. &#8220;China and Russia are basically on the same page,&#8221; Yu said. &#8220;Both China and Russia are singing from the same hymn sheet when it comes to strategic statements and their understanding of the Russian-Ukrainian war.&#8221; &#8220;They are both in favor of making territorial claims against other countries based on civilization and language.&#8221; United States Naval Academy professor Miles Yu, a former China adviser to the Trump administration, poses for a photo during an RFA interview in Livermore, California, Oct. 16, 2021. Credit: RFA Common threat He said &#8220;ancestral&#8221; and &#8220;historical&#8221; claims on territory run counter to the current state of the world and internation law, and were effectively illegal. &#8220;The CCP and Russia have stood together and have recently acted together militarily,&#8221; Yu said, citing recent joint bomber cruises in the Sea of Japan, and joint warship exercises in the East China Sea. &#8220;Militarily, these moves are very meaningful; they mean that neighboring countries all face a common threat,&#8221; he said. He said European countries could perhaps be persuaded to contribute more funding for such an alliance, now that the EU appears to be following Washington&#8217;s lead in regarding China as its No. 1 strategic rival. &#8220;The United States cannot continue to keep up military spending on NATO as it did in the past,&#8221; Yu said. &#8220;This strategic shift shouldn&#8217;t require much persuasion for NATO&#8217;s European members, as they have a perception of the global threat from China that is more in line with that of the U.S. now.&#8221; Asked if that shift in perception would extend to helping defend Taiwan, which has never been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and whose 23 million people have no wish to give up their sovereignty or democratic way of life, Yu said Ukraine may have changed thinking in Europe on Taiwan. &#8220;The people of Taiwan and the people of the world have learned a lot from recent developments, especially from the war in Ukraine,&#8221; Yu said. &#8220;What happened in Ukraine was something done by Russia, so, would the CCP do the same thing to Taiwan? Logically, philosophically, they would,&#8221; Yu said. &#8220;The CCP supports Russian aggression against Ukraine &#8230; because it senses that Russia has set a precedent, for which the next step would be Taiwan,&#8221; he said. &#8220;So European countries are going to have a keener sense of the need to protect Taiwan.&#8221; &#8220;If everyone unites to deal with the military threat from China and its economic coercive measures, the CCP won&#8217;t be so bold,&#8221; Yu said, citing China&#8217;s economic sanctions against Australia after the country started taking a more critical tone with Beijing. &#8220;The CCP got angry and imposed large-scale economic sanctions on Australia, stopped buying its coal, and stopped buying its wine,&#8221; Yu said. &#8220;But if Australia were to join this alliance, it could take joint action to deal with China&#8217;s unreasonable measures.&#8221; &#8220;The CCP would stand to lose a lot, because this would be collective action, and the likelihood of further outrageous actions would be greatly reduced,&#8221; he said. He added: &#8220;Many countries in the world, especially those in the Asia-Pacific region, are dependent on China&#8217;s economy, but China is also dependent on these countries for energy and markets. This is a two-way street.&#8221; Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Protesters involved in Vietnamese road riot claim police torture](https://ij-reportika.com/protesters-involved-in-vietnamese-road-riot-claim-police-torture/): A man detained for protesting the demolition of a road in Vietnam’s Nghe An province says he was tortured into confessing by police while another detainee claims he was also forced to sign a confession. They were among 10 people arrested as hundreds of police clashed with locals demonstrating against the destruction of an old road connecting their village to a main road. A local, who did not want to be named for safety reasons, told RFA that police at Nghi Loc district police headquarters handcuffed a 55-year-old prisoner to a chair and slapped him. &#8220;The investigator, who was a uniformed officer, put one foot on his thigh to scare him then slapped him on both ears. He still has tinnitus. He was also hit on the back of the head,” the local said. Later the same day the resident claims the prisoner was slapped by another policeman named Toan, but not hard enough to cause any injury. He said the arrested man was told by police &#8220;if you don&#8217;t tell the truth you will be killed.&#8221; They ordered him to confess to the crimes of &#8220;disturbing public order&#8221; and &#8220;resisting a law enforcement officer in performance of his/her official duties.&#8221;  “He was forced to admit to causing disorder even though he said he didn’t cause trouble but was only seeking justice,” said the local. “They said he went to a crowded place [where people were] causing disorder. They forced him to confess.” “The policeman wrote the minutes himself, read them out and told him to sign. There were many passages he didn&#8217;t accept and crossed out but in the end he still had to sign.&#8221;  A 50-year-old man, who has also been released, said he was also forced to confess and was charged with &#8220;disturbing public order&#8221; and &#8220;resisting public officials.&#8221; Of the 10 arrested protesters one woman who wasn’t a local was released the same night. Seven people are still in custody. Binh Thuan parish resident Nguyen Van Hien said that, as of this Monday, the families of those still being held had not been allowed to visit and had not received any documents from the police about the cases against their relatives. Hundreds of police and plain clothes officers were mobilized on the morning of July 13 to stop the protest, building barbed wire fences around the road, which is on land the government has handed over to a company to build an industrial zone. A new road has been built to replace the old one but locals said they are worried the company that owns the road may close it and force them to leave the area their families have occupied for generations. Protestors removed part of the fence to occupy the old road and clashed with riot police armed with batons and shields. Video of the scene shows police firing tear gas and smoke grenades to disperse the crowd, some of whom responded by throwing petrol bombs. State media say five police officers were injured. A 72-year-old woman was taken to hospital, but her family were not allowed to see her. The 55-year-old man said he heard about the clashes with police in the morning and went to the scene to calm people, urging them to protest peacefully. He said he left when police fired smoke grenades and tear gas and returned to his village. When police started searching the village he hid on the second floor of a partially built house. He said police spotted him, threw him to the floor, beat and handcuffed him, dragging him along the ground. He said the beating left him with a lump on his head, facial bruising and blood in his eyes. The Investigation Police Agency of Nghi Loc district said they are collecting documents and evidence and investigating acts of &#8220;disturbing public order,” actions &#8220;against law enforcement officers&#8221; and claims of &#8220;illegally arresting people,” in accordance with Vietnamese law.
- [Authorities cut power to Ukrainian cultural seminar in Vietnam’s capital](https://ij-reportika.com/authorities-cut-power-to-ukrainian-cultural-seminar-in-vietnams-capital/): Authorities in Vietnam’s capital cut power to a building hosting a Ukrainian cultural seminar over the weekend, sources said Monday, in the latest bid by the one-party communist state to disrupt a Ukraine-related event since its ally Russia invaded the country in February. On July 16, a group of Vietnamese intellectuals who had lived and studied in Ukraine held a seminar on Ukrainian culture at the Sena Institute of Technology Research in Hanoi. Representatives from the Ukrainian Embassy in Vietnam, including Ukrainian Chargé d&#8217;Affaires Nataliya Zhynkina, and several Ukrainian students studying in Hanoi were in attendance. The seminar began with a performance of Ukrainian music by a group of visually-impaired students from Hanoi’s Nguyen Dinh Chieu School, but the building’s electricity went off in the middle of the show, which organizers and activists attributed to official malfeasance. Despite the interruption, the seminar proceeded in the dark, activist Dang Bich Phuong told RFA Vietnamese on Monday. “It was inconvenient in terms of comfort, but otherwise, the event went as planned. People still read poems, and a musician who was sitting in the corner still played his guitar passionately in the darkness. It was so touching,” Phuong said. “I noticed that most people accepted the situation very calmly. Despite the darkness, the choir still sang and people still clapped enthusiastically when poems were read, as others held up lights for them. I was very moved and emotional.” Organizers and activists told RFA that prior to the event, several people who planned to attend reported being monitored by police or being blocked from going by authorities. ‘A cultural problem’ Nguyen Khac Mai, the director of the Minh Triet Research Center and an organizer of the seminar, said that Vietnamese intellectuals who studied in Ukraine before going on to be leaders in their fields had asked to take part in the event to celebrate the country where they obtained their degrees. “These are people who had been nurtured and taught by Ukraine,” he said. “Now that they are successful, they want to gather and talk to one another about their sentiments for Ukraine and its people.” Mai said that the seminar had also aimed to amplify an earlier statement by Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh that “Vietnam does not choose sides, but chooses justice.” Instead, he said, authorities attempted to silence those who would speak in support of Ukraine. “Usually, a power failure is a technical problem. I think this wasn’t a technical problem, but a cultural one. It’s very difficult to fix a cultural problem because it resides in one’s heart [and mind],” he said. “Some people agree that we should be able to conduct cultural activities in a natural and friendly way.  But others don&#8217;t like it and [cut the electricity] because of that.” In an emailed response to RFA’s questions about the event, Ukrainian Chargé d&#8217;Affaires Nataliya Zhynkina said that, despite the disruption, “I believe we all felt that we were surrounded by friendship.” “We heard praises for the culture, history, living style and people of Ukraine, as well as words of consolation for the losses caused by the Russian army and my compatriots who are suffering,” she said. Zhynkina cited the words of the wife of Ukraine’s Ambassador to Vietnam, who spoke at the end of Saturday’s cultural event, to describe the feelings of those in attendance. “She said, ‘Our hearts are aching for our country every day when we receive horrifying news from home. But do you know when the pain eases? That’s when it&#8217;s shared by loved ones, Vietnamese people sharing the pain with Ukrainians.’” Strong alliance Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, Vietnam has repeatedly refused to condemn the war and also objected to a U.S.-led effort to suspend Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council. Earlier this month, Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov became the first Russian cabinet minister to visit Hanoi since Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation” against Ukraine. His visit took place as Hanoi and Moscow celebrated the 10th anniversary of the so-called “comprehensive strategic partnership” that Vietnam has forged with only three nations in the world – the other two being China and India. Moscow is Hanoi’s traditional ally and its biggest arms supplier. Most Vietnamese weaponry used by the navy and air force was bought from Russia, leading to a future dependence on Russian maintenance and spare parts, despite efforts to diversify arms supplies. The weekend’s seminar was not the first Ukraine-related event in Hanoi to be blocked by authorities. On March 5, police in the capital stopped people from leaving their homes to attend a charity event at the Ukrainian Embassy dedicated to raising funds for people in need in Ukraine. Another fundraising event planned for March 19 by a group of Ukrainians living in Hanoi was canceled due to police harassment, sources in the city told RFA at the time. Despite COVID-19, bilateral trade between Vietnam and Russia reached U.S. $5.54 billion in 2021, a 14-percent increase from the previous year, according to official statistics. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Cambodian opposition official hospitalized after motorbike attack](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-opposition-official-hospitalized-after-motorbike-attack/): A group of 10 people on motorbikes on Sunday attacked an official of Cambodia’s main opposition Candlelight Party, causing a severe head injury that required hospitalization, the official told RFA. Nol Pongthearith was on his way to a meeting and on his own motorbike in front of the Candlelight Party office at Por Senchey district in the capital Phnom Penh when he was allegedly attacked by 10 people on four motorcycles. They shouted death threats and struck him, including on the back of his head, with an iron bar. He said he was bruised and bloodied all over his body and required 12 stitches. On Monday, Nol Pongthearith told RFA’s Khmer Service that he was forced to leave the hospital prematurely to continue his treatment at home to ensure his safety. He remains in pain and his wounds require further treatment. “I am concerned for my life because the assailants shouted that [they] wanted me dead. This is not normal,” he said, adding that he believes that he was targeted because he is a member of the Candlelight Party. Candlelight Party officials have complained for several months about incidents of violence and bullying by local officials representing Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), especially in the run up to the June 5 local communal elections. The Candlelight Party ended up winning about one-fifth of the country’s contested commune council seats. “These assaults will continue. Today it happened to me, tomorrow it will happen to other members,” Nol Pongthearith said. “I demand that the government … arrest the perpetrators who caused these injuries to me as well as the other Candlelight Party activists and members, and that they are tried before the law.” The Candlelight Party condemned the attack in a statement it released on Sunday and called on authorities to open an independent investigation to find the people responsible. Police have received Nol Pongthearith’s complaint and require his cooperation to investigate, Phnom Penh Municipal Police spokesman San Sok Seiha told RFA. San Sok Seiha however urged the victim and journalists not to connect his assault with politics or similar incidents in the past before an investigation is completed. “Don’t just say this or that, because every assessment released by the police needs to be accompanied with clear evidence,” he said. Candlelight Party Vice President Thach Setha told RFA the violence against his activists undermine the credibility of Cambodian elections.   He said that if the authorities do not want to see criticism or accusations that the incidents are related to politics, the authorities must seek justice for all victims by allowing an independent investigation. “In the past, political activists and civil society have never seen the authorities arrest the perpetrators and punish them, that is why we are in doubt,” he said.  The government wants to protect its own reputation or considers all cases as non-political.  “Please catch the perpetrators, and [those who ordered the attack] and bring them to justice,” said Thach Setha. Civil society groups are very concerned about the recurrence of violence against political activists, Am Sam Ath, director general of the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights, told RFA.  He said that if the police do not prevent these kinds of incidents, they will invite criticism of Cambodia’s political system at home and abroad. “The authorities need to protect the security of the people if there is a crime against an individual. It must be investigated to find the perpetrator and bring justice to victims and eradicate the culture of impunity,&#8221; Am Sam Ath said. According to RFA statistics, since 2019, around 40 social and political activists have been victims of the brutal assaults by unidentified assailants, causing serious injuries, permanent disability and even death.  The authorities were unable to identify the perpetrators in almost all cases. Many of the incidents were similar, involving helmeted attackers chasing their target on motorbikes, beating them or throwing stones at their homes. Sunday’s incident was the second time Nol Pongthearith was attacked — he was also assaulted in 2019, when he was a member of the banned-opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party.  Translated by Sok Ry Sum. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Did China's Belt and Road Initiative destroy Sri Lanka?](https://ij-reportika.com/did-chinas-belt-and-road-initiative-destroy-sri-lanka/): On July 9, 2022, hundreds of thousands of anti-government protesters came out on the streets of Colombo and occupied the official residence and offices of Sri Lanka&#8217;s then president, who tendered his resignation before fleeing overseas. Two things are closely associated in my mind with the current political turmoil in Sri Lanka: the Chinese debt trap and green agriculture. Many of the Chinese-language reporting outside of mainland China and its state-controlled media blame the Chinese debt trap, while English-language media consistently lay the blame with green agriculture. According to data from the Ministry of External Resources of Sri Lanka, as of April 21, 2021 , Sri Lanka’s foreign debt totaled U.S.$ 57 billion, 47 percent of which was international capital market borrowings, 13 percent of which is owed to the Asian Development Bank, 10 percent to China, another 10 percent to Japan, nine percent to the World Bank, two percent to India and the remaining nine percent to other creditors. Sri Lanka&#8217;s GDP ranks between 60th and 70th in the world, but it gets more international media coverage than a lot of higher-ranking countries simply because of its geographical location as the &#8220;Pearl of the Indian Ocean.&#8221; It is also a key site of China&#8217;s global infrastructure and supply-chain initiative, known as Belt and Road. At the end of 2017, the Sri Lankan government announced it would formally transfer a 70 percent stake in Hambantota Port to the China Merchants Group, as well as allowing China to lease the port and its surrounding land for 99 years. This is where the idea that Sri Lanka is in a Chinese debt trap originates from. The deal was widely reported by Western mainstream media. A July 29, 2017 report from the Associated Press reflects the Western media&#8217;s take nicely. &#8220;Sri Lanka’s government on Saturday signed a long-delayed agreement to sell a 70 percent stake in a $1.5 billion port to China in a bid to recover from the heavy burden of repaying a Chinese loan obtained to build the facility,&#8221; the report reads. &#8220;The document was signed between the government-run Sri Lanka Ports Authority and the state-run China Merchants Port Holding Co. in the capital, Colombo, in the presence of senior government officials from Sri Lanka and China. According to the agreement, the Chinese company will invest $1.12 billion in the port, which sits close to busy east-west shipping lanes,&#8221; it says. &#8220;Two local companies whose shares will be split between the Chinese enterprise and the Sri Lanka Ports Authority will be set up to handle the port’s operations, security and services. The Chinese company will be responsible for commercial operations while the Sri Lanka Ports Authority will handle security. The lease period is 99 years.&#8221; A container ship arrives at a port in Colombo on July 16, 2022. Credit: AFP &#8216;String of pearls&#8217; Two things are important in this report. The first is that the equity transferred in the deal was actually a debt-to-equity swap, as Rajapaksa built the Hambantota port with a loan from China. The port opened in 2011 and was criticized by opposition parties during 2015 presidential election campaign. Soon after, Sri Lankan authorities sought help from China because the port had lost U.S.$304 million by 2016, and Sri Lanka couldn&#8217;t afford the heavy burden of loan repayments of &#8230; U.S.$59 million annually. The second is that the port was funded by Beijing as part of its &#8220;string of pearls&#8221; projects in the Indian Ocean. The phrase was coined by Indian politicians to describe concerns over China&#8217;s potential plans to wield influence in the region via a slew of civil and military infrastructure projects from Port Sudan in the Horn of Africa through Sri Lanka, along the coasts of Pakistan, Bangladesh, to the Maldives and the Straits of Malacca, Hormuz and Lombok. Many Indian commentators believe that both the &#8216;string of pearls&#8217; strategy and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor will threaten India&#8217;s national security. Beijing was able to include Sri Lanka in this plan because Rajapaksa relied heavily on Chinese infrastructure projects. China made massive investments in Sri Lanka&#8217;s ports, airports, highways and power plants during his time in office, becoming largest foreign investor in the country. On June 27, 2018, The New York Times published an article titled &#8220;How China Got Sri Lanka to Cough Up a Port,&#8221; which argued that the Chinese government knew all along that the port could never turn a profit. The whole purpose [of funding it] was to take the port for China when Sri Lanka came to the point of not being able to repay the debt. By 2022, China had been laying the groundwork, seeding global public opinion, to counter the Western media narrative of a Chinese debt trap. Now, influential foreign affairs think pieces in the United States are barely mentioning it at all. Instead, articles about Sri Lanka&#8217;s green farming crisis have been on display since last year, including a Dec. 7, 2021 piece in The New York Times titled &#8220;Sri Lanka’s Plunge Into Organic Farming Brings Disaster.&#8221; A July 2019 survey by Colombo-based analytics firm Verité Research found that three-quarters of Sri Lankan farmers rely heavily on fertilizers, while only 10 percent do not. For important cash crops like rice, rubber and tea, the dependence is 90 percent or more. Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, in white, walks with Chinese President Xi Jinping after officially launching a project to build a $1.4 billion port city on an artificial island off Colombo, Sri Lanka, Sept. 17, 2014. Credit: AP Organic farming push Both the Sri Lankan government and environmental groups believe the excessive use of fertilizers will cause growing problems with water pollution, and scientists have found that excessive exposure to nitrates increases the risk of colon, kidney and stomach cancers. So Rajapaksa pledged in his 2019 election campaign to convert the country&#8217;s farming industry to organic farming within 10 years, rushing to deliver on the plan by banning imports of synthetic fertilizer and pesticides &#8230; prompting soaring...
- [Parliamentarians call for sanctions on Chinese firms over sales to Russia](https://ij-reportika.com/parliamentarians-call-for-sanctions-on-chinese-firms-over-sales-to-russia/): An international alliance of lawmakers has called on more countries to blacklist Chinese companies accused of providing military-industrial support for Russia&#8217;s invasion of Ukraine. The cross-party Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), whose members hail from 25 parliaments in North America, Europe and Australia, have called on their governments to replicate sanctions made by the U.S. Department of Commerce on Hong Kong World Jetta Logistics, Sinno Electronics, King Pai Technology, Winninc Electronic and Connec Electronic. China claims it doesn&#8217;t extend military assistance to Russia, but Chinese customs data showed increased exports of raw materials for military use to Russia. In the first five months of 2022, Chinese chip shipments to Russia more than doubled from a year earlier to U.S.$50 million, while exports of components like printed circuits also recorded double-digit percentage growth. China also exported 400 times more alumina &#8212; an important raw material for weapons production and the aerospace industry &#8212; to Russia compared with the same period in 2021. &#8220;The signatories call for an export control and scrutiny mechanism to target [Chinese] entities providing support to Russia’s military efforts in Ukraine,&#8221; the IPAC said in a July 15 statement on its website. &#8220;Technologies produced on our shores cannot be allowed to further aid Russia’s senseless war in Ukraine,&#8221; they said in a joint letter to their foreign ministries. &#8220;As [China is] Russia’s largest single trading partner, ensuring the [its] entities do not act to weaken the impact of international sanctions on Russia is of critical importance,&#8221; said the letter, which included U.S. Representatives Congressman Mike Gallagher and Congresswoman Young Kim, German Green MEP Reinhard Bütikofer, and former Conservative Party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP. &#8220;Russia’s invasion of Ukraine comes amidst a deepened ‘no limits’ friendship between Moscow and Beijing,&#8221; IPAC co-chair Bütikofer said. &#8220;The Chinese government is working around the clock to push the Kremlin’s lies and disinformation on Ukraine across the globe, while Chinese companies continue to supply the Russian military with crucial technologies. Companies which service Putin’s senseless war in Ukraine must be named, shamed and face the consequences.&#8221; Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and Chinese President Xi Jinping pose for a photograph during their meeting in Beijing, Feb. 4, 2022. Credit: AFP China Poly Group The Wall Street Journal quoted the Center for Advanced Defense (C4ADS), a Washington-based security threat research organization, as saying that between 2014 and January 2022, it had tracked down 281 undisclosed shipments of goods that could be used for military purposes made by a subsidiary of China Poly Group, to the Russian authorities. China Poly Group is controlled by the Chinese central government and its subsidiaries include a major Chinese arms maker and exporter of small arms, missile technology and anti-drone laser technology. In late January, its subsidiary Poly Technology Group exported a batch of antenna parts to the sanctioned Russian defense company Almaz-Antey. Russian customs records show that antenna parts are used exclusively for radar and are used in Russia&#8217;s S-400 surface-to-air missile system, which, according to Russian media reports, has been used in Ukraine. However, the Center for Advanced Defense Research said it hadn&#8217;t detected further China Poly shipments to Russian defense companies since the war began. The Commerce Department announced the targeted companies on June 29, saying they had supplied items to Russian &#8220;entities of concern&#8221; before the Feb. 24 invasion, adding that they &#8220;continue to contract to supply Russian entity listed and sanctioned parties.&#8221; The agency also added another 31 entities to the blacklist from countries that include Russia, UAE, Lithuania, Pakistan, Singapore, the United Kingdom, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. &#8220;Today&#8217;s action sends a powerful message to entities and individuals across the globe that if they seek to support Russia, the United States will cut them off as well,&#8221; Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Alan Estevez said in a statement quoted by Reuters. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman rejected the claim that the companies were exporting goods to aid Russia&#8217;s war effort. &#8220;China and Russia carry out normal trade cooperation on the basis of mutual respect and mutual benefit. This should not be interfered with or restricted by any third party,&#8221; Zhao told reporters in Beijing in response to the announcement. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [The secretive world of TikTok](https://ij-reportika.com/the-secretive-world-of-tiktok/): Tiktok has been making the headlines since its inception for all the wrong reasons. But the biggest concern surrounding TikTok has been the misuse of TikTok to breach the internal security of countries. The secretive world of Tiktok is abusing the residents of other countries through various techniques in the name of “Entertainment”.
- [As many as 15 anti-regime teachers arrested in Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/as-many-as-15-anti-regime-teachers-arrested-in-myanmar/): Myanmar’s military junta has been rounding up teachers who are members of the Civil Disobedience Movement (CMD) and have been giving online lessons at a school linked to the shadow National Unity Government (NUG). Kaung for You was set up to educate pupils who are boycotting classes or have been unable to attend school. It offers online education by CDM teachers for around 20,000 children across the country. “We heard that up to 15 people were arrested in Yangon, Mandalay, Shan state and Thanintharyi region,” a member of the Myanmar Teachers’ Federation (MTF) told RFA on Monday. “The parents of the students are so worried. I warned Kaung for You school to be careful before the arrests. Anything can happen at any time when [the school] is public,” said the MTF member, who declined to be named for safety reasons. The arrests took place between July 13 and July 18 and included Kaung for You founder Kaung Thaik Soe, the assistant director for education at Myitthar township in Mandalay region. The school’s plan to move from online lessons to classroom teaching last Wednesday was halted by the arrests that day of Kaung Thaik Soe and two teachers. The junta announced the arrests three days later. The school says its website was then hacked, allowing the military council to locate and arrest other teachers. Students and parents told RFA they were also afraid of being arrested if their names and addresses had also been leaked. The NUG’s Ministry of Education denounced the arrests as a violation of children’s rights to free education. It said it would offer help to the detained teachers, continue courses for pupils and open an emergency hotline to provide advice and assistance. Aside from school boycotts, many children in Myanmar have been denied education since the coup on Feb.1, 2021 due to a surge in attacks on schools, teachers and students. There were at least 260 attacks on schools between May 2021 and April this year, non-profit organization Save the Children said in a report last month. In April bombs were found in four schools and there were three explosions in or close to schools. There were also 33 recorded cases of educational buildings being set on fire, 10 direct attacks on teachers and 10 schools occupied by the military. The ruling junta says at least 40 teachers have been killed in demonstrations and fighting between troops and militias.
- [Vietnamese Facebook activist’s family speak out about his ‘secret trial’](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnamese-facebook-activists-family-speak-out-about-his-secret-trial/): Facebook activist Nguyen Duc Hung’s family say he was denied visitors and they only found out about his five-and-a-half-year sentence from state media the day after it was handed down. Hung’s posts aimed to raise awareness of an environmental disaster in his hometown of Ky Anh. The Hung Nghiep Formosa Ha Tinh steel factory discharged chemical waste into the sea and environmentalists say the effects are still being felt by the residents. His social media posts did not focus solely on the disaster in his home town. He told his 9,000-plus followers about cases of social injustice and human rights abuses. He also focused on religious freedom, posting comments about the case of Thien An Monastery in which the provincial government of Thua Thien Hue &#8220;borrowed&#8221; land from the religious facility. Hung was convicted of “conducting anti-state propaganda” under Article 117 of the criminal code. The indictment said Hung’s actions directly affected the implementation of the Party&#8217;s guidelines and policies, the State&#8217;s laws, and the strength of the people&#8217;s government, divided national unity, reduced the people&#8217;s trust in the Party and State, and potentially caused national insecurity and disorder. While the court claimed it was a public criminal trial Hung’s family said they heard nothing from the police or the court. “When they carried out the trial, my family did not know,” Hung’s father Nguyen Van Sen told RFA. “I phoned the detention center and was told that the trial had been carried out the day before. When I asked why they didn&#8217;t notify my family, the police said the family was not involved.&#8221; Sen got the same response when the called the provincial police’s investigative department. According to a lawyer who has defended many similar trials Hung’s case is not uncommon. Ha Huy Son said the court does not have to notify the family or invite them to the trial. He said Criminal Procedure Code 2015 only stipulates telling the family the person is in custody, or has been arrested in the case of an urgent arrest. It is only necessary to tell the defense lawyer, the victim and any other parties involved at least 10 days before the trial. Hung is the sixth Facebooker this year to be convicted of &#8220;conducting propaganda against the state.&#8221; The others received sentences of between five and eight years. Hung, 31, was arrested on Jan. 6 this year and has been held incommunicado since then. His father said, despite repeated trips to the detention center, the family was not allowed to see him. The family did not hire a defense lawyer and Sen said he did not know if one was present at the trial. Sen did not want to comment on the sentence, other than saying he hoped it would be reduced because Hung’s wife had left him to raise their two primary school children. State media did not mention whether Hung had a lawyer, only saying he had pleaded guilty and asked for leniency. RFA called the People’s Court of Ha Tinh province but no-one replied Communist Party paranoia  “Given the worsening situation for activists and human rights defenders in Vietnam, it was sadly just a matter of time before Nguyen Duc Hung got arrested,” said Human Rights Watch Deputy Asia Director Phil Robertson. “It&#8217;s become obvious that the Vietnam Communist Party is so paranoid about dissenting views that it considers mere writing of words online to be a threat to state security. By giving out a five-and-a-half-year prison sentence for just writing criticism of the government on Facebook, the government has committed an outrageous and unacceptable violation of Nguyen Duc Thung&#8217;s rights.  In reality, he did nothing that would have been considered wrong, or even out of the ordinary, if he was in a democratic society, but of course he is stuck living under a single party dictatorship.” Roberts said Vietnam’s crackdown on freedom of expression means no peaceful activist can spread his views via social media without facing what he called “bogus state security charges” and many years in prison. “Quite clearly, Vietnam has become one of the worst rights abusing and dictatorial governments in Southeast Asia and now it wants to control the Internet as strictly as China. Any government donor or international business investor should think twice about investing in a country like Vietnam where freedom of expression and access to information is so strictly controlled,&#8221; Robertson said.
- [Global heating, human development could drive future waves of disease in east Asia](https://ij-reportika.com/global-heating-human-development-could-drive-future-waves-of-disease-in-east-asia/): Global heating is leading dozens of bat species to migrate to southern China and southeast Asian countries, amid growing concerns that the climate crisis could fuel more zoonotic disease and further deadly pandemics, experts told RFA. A 2021 University of Cambridge study found that climate change may already have played a role in the emergence of the current pandemic, after researchers tracked large-scale changes in vegetation patterns across southwestern Yunnan province and neighboring Myanmar and Laos. &#8220;Increases in temperature, sunlight, and atmospheric carbon dioxide &#8211; which affect the growth of plants and trees &#8211; have changed natural habitats from tropical shrubland to tropical savannah and deciduous woodland,&#8221; the study said. &#8220;This created a suitable environment for many bat species that predominantly live in forests.&#8221; It said the number of coronaviruses in a given area is closely linked to the number of different bat species present, with an additional 40 bat species moving into Yunnan during the past 100 years, bringing with them around 100 new coronaviruses. Genetic data suggests SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, may also have come from this region, according to study first author Robert Beyer, a researcher in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology. &#8220;Climate change over the last century has made the habitat in the southern Chinese Yunnan province suitable for more bat species,&#8221; Beyer said. &#8220;As climate change altered habitats, species left some areas and moved into others &#8211; taking their viruses with them,&#8221; he said. &#8220;This &#8230; most likely allowed for new interactions between animals and viruses, causing more harmful viruses to be transmitted or evolve,&#8221; said Beyer. The world’s bats carry around 3,000 different types of coronavirus, with each bat species harboring an average of 2.7 coronaviruses &#8211; most without showing symptoms. While most coronaviruses carried by bats can&#8217;t jump into humans, several coronaviruses known to infect humans are very likely to have originated in bats, the study said. The area of Yunnan covered by the study is also home to pangolins, which are a likely intermediary host for SARS-CoV-2, experts said. &#8220;The virus is likely to have jumped from bats to these animals, which were then sold at a wildlife market in Wuhan &#8211; where the initial human outbreak occurred,&#8221; a press release accompanying the study said. Another study published by researchers at Georgetown University in the journal Nature also warned that the climate crisis may increase the risk of cross-species transmission of viruses &#8212; and could even trigger the next pandemic, citing bats as a likely source species. Dobson&#8217;s horseshoe bat. Credit: India Biodiversity Portal Increased risk of disease Chen Chen-chih, associate professor of wildlife conservation at Taiwan&#8217;s Pingtung University of Science and Technology, said both studies showed similar findings, warning that migratory shifts could bring bats into closer contact with humans. He cited an outbreak of Hendra virus in Australia in 1994, which caused deaths in humans and horses, and originated in fruit bats. &#8220;When their habitats are destroyed or reduced, fruit bats will of course find another way to live,&#8221; Chen told RFA. &#8220;There are parks in the city, so the likelihood of finding food is very high, added to the fact that people in Australia don&#8217;t actively kill bats.&#8221; &#8220;So they find an urban environment that they can adapt to.&#8221; Li Lingling, professor of ecology and evolutionary Biology at National Taiwan University, said humans have already interfered with natural habitats. &#8220;Bats are nocturnal and do not [normally] come into contact with humans,&#8221; Li said. &#8220;When we increase opportunities for bats to come into contact with other animals, the risk of humans being exposed [viruses] also increases.&#8221; Chen agreed. &#8220;Many studies have found that when habitat of wild animals is stable and undisturbed, the pathogens they carry are less likely to spread,&#8221; he said. &#8220;When protected animal habitats are well managed and biodiversity taken care of, a single highly lethal pathogen is less likely to emerge,&#8221; he said. According to the Georgetown study, there are at least 10,000 viruses currently existent in wild mammals that could be transmitted to humans. Prediction models show that under different carbon emission scenarios, more than 300,000 first contacts between species will occur, some of them in the next 50 years, potentially resulting in more than 15,000 new cross-species virus transmissions. &#8220;The vast majority of prediction models believe that the virus will spread across species, particular cross-species transmission from wild animals will become more and more serious under climate change,&#8221; Chen said. &#8220;These pathogens may jump the species barrier, infect livestock animals, and then infect humans from there, or even directly from wild animals to humans,&#8221; he said. &#8220;All of these routes are possible [but] whether transmission happens or not depends on the frequency of contact, or the immune status of the potential host,&#8221; Chen said. Li said the overall risk had definitely increased, however. &#8220;There are some key factors in between, but the risk of disease is indeed increased,&#8221; Li said. A greater horseshoe bat. Credit: Marie Jullion/Wikimedia Commons Managing biodiversity Chen said the key lies in the management of biodiversity, particularly in tropical and subtropics regions of east and southeast Asia. &#8220;The more species there are, the more potential virus species there are, but when wild animals live in a natural habitat, there are few opportunities for contact, and therefore everyone can coexist peacefully,&#8221; he said. Li said areas of high population density and ongoing development are most at risk. &#8220;Humans invade nature, transform their environment, or make use of wild animals &#8230; and then the risk of coming into contact with viruses carried by wild animals is relatively high,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Once an epidemic occurs in a densely populated place, then of course there&#8217;s a much higher chance of it spreading,&#8221; Li said. Chen cited the hunting of wild animals for food, and the trading of different species in the same markets as high-risk behavior. Wild animals that are trapped alive and held in cages in close proximity have weakened immune systems, making transmission more likely among them...
- [Belt and Road becomes ball and chain for Chinese construction workers](https://ij-reportika.com/belt-and-road-becomes-ball-and-chain-for-chinese-construction-workers/): They signed up at job fairs to work as carpenters, bricklayers, plumbers and painters at a housing project in the North African country of Algeria and were promised round-trip air fare, room and board, and better wages than they’d earned in China. They thought working for companies serving China’s flagship Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was a safe bet. When the migrant workers from Sichuan, Shaanxi, Gansu, Henan, and Hebei–China’s relatively poorer inland provinces–arrived in the country, however, they soon found themselves living in sheds without air conditioning in desert heat and facing a nightmare of withheld wages, mysterious extra fees, confiscated passports, and dismal food. Many are trapped in Algeria. Chinese labor lawyers say their treatment not only besmirches China’s reputation, undermining the goals of the nearly 10-year-old Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) of infrastructure projects aimed at boosting Beijing’s global profile, but also constitutes human trafficking under international conventions China has signed. The BRI is seen as Chinese President Xi Jinping&#8217;s signature international policy. Following up on tips received from workers who’ve been stranded some 6,000 miles (9,200 km) from home, RFA Mandarin interviewed numerous workers employed in Algeria’s Souk Ahras Province, Chinese diplomats, labor lawyers and an executive of Shandong Jiaqiang Real Estate Co. Ltd, the eastern China-based company the laborers accuse of luring them to Algeria under false pretenses. “When I came here through an agent, I realized the situation is not good. It is worse than in China,” said Worker A, whose name has been withheld to protect him and his family from retaliation. “The contract is good for two years, and the pay listed on the contract is more than 10,000 yuan ($1,480) per month––between 15,000 ($2,220) and 20,000 yuan ($2,960). After landing here, I made less than 10,000 yuan ($1,480) a month,” he told RFA. “The pay is far from what was promised,” said a second man, identified as Worker B.  “It is worse than what we earned in China. Here the monthly pay on average is 3,000 yuan ($444).” When he and fellow workers “arrived here and found out that the situation was far from ideal, we wanted to go home,” said Worker A. “We spoke with the company, and the company said ‘no.’ They said ‘Because you already signed the contract, if you go home now, that is a breach of contract.’” According to Worker A, Shandong Jiaqiang Real Estate Co. Ltd. told the workers to “ask your family to wire 28,000 yuan ($4,145) over to pay for the penalty. After you pay the penalty, then you can go home.” He told RFA wages were only paid every six months, with 70 percent paid, and the other 30 percent withheld until the workers fulfilled their two-year contracts. That pay arrangement meant the workers “usually have no money to live on” and had to borrow advances against their wages. “In the process, the workers were ripped off by other costs,” added Worker A, who said the company profited by loaning money to them at an exchange rate to the local Algerian Dinar currency that was about half the actual rate. A Chinese worker walks by a building at a construction site in Algeria&#8217;s Souk Ahras province. Credit: A Chinese worker. ‘Pig food’ and hot sheds Worker B said it took a strike by workers in September 2021 to get the company to pay the 70 percent they were due in the middle of that year. He said the workers were told by the company: “Feel free to sue. We’re not afraid. Just sue us, go back to China to sue us.” But a third worker involved in the dispute said that path was impossible for poor workers to take “The lawsuit costs money. To hire someone costs money. If you file a complaint in China, you’re dragging your family in too. Who can afford to sue? said Worker C. A chief reason the workers had to borrow money was to cook their own meals because the three daily meals they were promised under their contracts was inedible. “To say it bluntly, the food was worse than those given to pigs. Sometimes the food was just impossible to eat,” said Worker B. “In the winter, they gave you marinated cucumber salad or marinated tomatoes, plus two eggs per person. That’s it. Or two eggplants each person,” he said. “The food we ate was mixed with sand and gravel. The noodles were black,” added Worker B. “Workers in many construction sites that this company operates received the same treatment. Why? The company does not want to cook the food well, because if it’s delicious, you’d eat more. By offering lousy food, you’d pay out of pocket to buy your own food and cook your own meals,” Worker A surmised.  The make matters worse, Worker A said, the workforce had to “live in regular sheds, with no air-conditioning, no matter how hot it is.” “In the summer, the temperature goes as high as 41 or 42 Celsius (105 or 107 Fahrenheit),” he added. Food provided to workers by Shandong Jiaqiang Real Estate Co. Ltd. ay its construction site in Algeria. Credit: A worker Overpriced plane tickets, improper visas Another grievance shared by the workers in Algeria who spoke to RFA in recent months was the failure to provide return airfare to China as promised. After checking with the Chinese Embassy in Algiers, workers who were trying to go home were told that tickets to China ran about 22,000 yuan. “The boss has told them that a flight ticket costs ¥42,000 yuan, and we have to pay our own ticket. He wanted us to pay by ourselves,” said Worker D. “It seemed that the ticket was around ¥22,000 yuan, and he charged you more than ¥30,000, said Worker E. “’Immigration clearance fee,’ they said,” he added. Worker D explained that because the company applied for business visas for the workers, when the workers return to China, they have to go through departure procedures at the...
- [Indonesia: Unity among G20 needed to avoid ‘catastrophic’ crisis in developing world](https://ij-reportika.com/indonesia-unity-among-g20-needed-to-avoid-catastrophic-crisis-in-developing-world/): Indonesia&#8217;s finance minister said Friday it is imperative that G20 countries are united in dealing with a looming food crisis caused by the conflict between breadbaskets Russia and Ukraine, or the world’s most vulnerable countries will face disastrous consequences. During a meeting in Bali, Sri Mulyani Indrawati also told the top finance and economic diplomats from the Group of Twenty counties to schedule a forum of members’ finance and agriculture chiefs to devise a plan to deal with food and fertilizer shortages. “The unresolved COVID-19 pandemic as well as the unfolding war in Ukraine are likely to exacerbate the already severe 2022 acute food security that we are all already seeing. In addition to that, a looming fertilizer crisis also has the potential to further exacerbate and extend the food crisis even in 2023 and beyond,” said the finance minister of Indonesia, this year’s holder of the G20’s rotating chair and host of the Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting. “We are acutely aware that the cost of our failure to work together is more than we can afford. The humanitarian consequences for the world and especially for many low-income countries would be catastrophic,” Sri said. Since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, it has blocked all of the latter’s Black Sea ports and cut off access to almost all of that country’s exports, especially of grain. Those moves sparked fears of a global food crisis. In its April report, the Global Crisis Response Group, set up by the United Nations secretary general, said Ukraine and Russia provide 30 percent of the world’s wheat and barley, a fifth of its maize and more than half of its sunflower oil. Russia also is the world’s largest natural gas exporter and second largest oil exporter. Sri said it was essential to deploy all available financing mechanisms to save lives and strengthen financial as well as social stability. “The G20 could urgently convene a joint G20 finance and agriculture ministers meeting to improve coordination between finance and agriculture ministers and explore actions to address the growing food insecurity and related issues,” she said. “This is exactly like we did or what we are doing with joint finance and health ministers when we were dealing with COVID-19 and preparing a pandemic preparedness mechanism.” Sri kept her comments about G20 unity general, but it’s no secret that the group is split between the West, which has condemned Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, and others including China, Indonesia and India, which have refused to do so and continue to maintain ties with Moscow, analysts have said. So sharp have the divisions been that in April, U.S., British and Canadian finance chiefs walked out of the last G20 finance ministers’ meeting in Washington when the Russian minister rose to speak. The Russian foreign minister reciprocated at last week’s G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in Bali during the top U.S. diplomat’s address. Media reports said no one walked out on Friday, day one of the two-day meeting, but it remains to be seen whether the forum will produce a communiqué on Saturday. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.
- [Auto parts are a hot commodity in a North Korea cut off from new supplies](https://ij-reportika.com/auto-parts-are-a-hot-commodity-in-a-north-korea-cut-off-from-new-supplies/): Thieves in North Korea are scouring the city for cars to strip, as a severe parts shortage grips the country due to a ban on imports in response to the coronavirus pandemic, sources in the country told RFA. Most North Koreans do not own vehicles, but most of those who do drive cars made in China.  Imports of Chinese auto parts stopped when Beijing and Pyongyang shut down the border and suspended all trade at the beginning of the pandemic in January 2020.  As supplies inside North Korea dwindled, parts available for purchase have become rarer and rarer. Opportunistic thieves are looking to cash in on the shortage. In some cases, car owners have to steal parts just to keep their own vehicles running, a resident of Chongjin in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “Thievery of auto parts is rampant downtown,” said the source. “New parts are almost impossible to find, and even used ones are hard to get, so the thieves steal other people’s auto parts to repair their own cars.”  Sometimes the thieves steal the entire car. “Last week in Sunam district, a car owner parked his car in front of his house. A short while later, while he was eating dinner, his car disappeared,” the source said. “The next day, the car was found … only the shell remained, with all the main components torn off.” A black market of stolen auto parts has developed as the parts become more and more valuable, the source said. “Car parts are as precious as food, and they can be sold to make money at any time. There are many cases where cars that are parked at night on the roadside or in villages are hauled to a remote place so the thieves can steal the parts,” he said.  “The vicious cycle continues when the victims of theft steal parts from others to fix their own cars,” the source said. A car drives past residential buildings in Pyongyang, North Korea in a file photo. Photo: Reuters Businesses have begun to ramp up security to protect the vehicles they depend on to make money, he said. “This can disrupt production and business operations, so drivers are sleeping in their cars to protect them when they travel to other regions.” Protecting cars has become a struggle in South Hamgyong province, a resident there told RFA, on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “Most companies that own cars do not have dedicated garages and they park their cars outside,” he said.  “There are two security guards on a shift at night in my company. Even though the car was parked in front of the well-lit security office, auto parts were still stolen multiple times,” the second source said. The second source’s company is holding drivers responsible for all vehicle expenses, so the drivers are getting creative to deter thieves. “One driver built a garage out of plastic film in his yard at his own high-fenced house. He guards the car by sleeping in it at night with two ferocious dogs,” he said.  “Due to the (COVID-19) pandemic, many thieves are active because there is not enough food to eat and clothes to wear. Nevertheless, the Workers’ Party has no interest in resolving the suffering of the people, and they are telling us to overcome economic difficulties, armed only with ideological training,” he said, referring to propaganda lessons that tell the people to solve their own problems in line with the country’s founding Juche ideology of self-reliance.  Translated by Claire Shinyoung O. Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Lao fishermen return to Malaysia, despite risks](https://ij-reportika.com/lao-fishermen-return-to-malaysia-despite-risks/): Thousands of Laotians are once again leaving their home country to work in the Malaysian fishing industry, where they are susceptible to abuse from employers due to their illegal status, the fishermen told RFA. The Lao Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare estimated that about 2,000 Laotians had recently traveled illegally to Malaysia for fishing jobs. During the pandemic, 700 Lao migrants had returned home from Malaysia, but most have since gone back as economic conditions in their home country worsen due in part to high inflation. Though the pay is sometimes better there than what they could earn in Laos, illegal migrants are often exploited by their employers, a Lao fisherman who has been working in Malaysia’s Pahang state told RFA’s Lao Service, on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. “There’s no fairness,” he said. “The main drawback is that we, as fishermen, don&#8217;t know the total weight of the fish we catch and we don’t know how much money our employers make. We just get whatever they give us. The information about the total catch and revenue is not known to us.”  To ensure their rights are protected, the Lao government is working on finding ways for more migrants to go to Malaysia legally. “We recently sent about 70 Lao workers to Malaysia, legally, for a pilot project. We are requesting that the Lao Ministry of Foreign Affairs send more workers to Malaysia, as we know many Laotians are going there to work illegally,” an official of the ministry’s Department of Labor Skill Development and Employment Service told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. Despite the risks, Malaysia is attractive to migrants because it is a relatively easy country to work in, the fisherman said. “The main reason so many choose to come here is because we don’t have money. Most of us don’t even have enough to make a passport,” he said. “In my case, the employer sent some money to me in Laos to apply for a passport and pay for all my documents. If I had gone to, say, South Korea instead, I would have had to pay for everything myself. I’d have to borrow money to fly over there,” he said. The fisherman said that he came to Malaysia via a land route through Thailand. The trip cost 100,000 baht (U.S. $2,800), which he repays through deductions from his paycheck.  “More than one thousand Lao fishermen are working here …, about 60 percent more than there were last year. Most of these new fishermen, who have never even been on the sea, come from the Vientiane suburbs or from nearby Borikhamxay province,” he said. Another Lao fisherman told RFA how he came to work in Malaysia. “Nobody told me to come here, but I came because in Laos, there are no jobs and labor is cheap,” he told RFA.  “I didn’t come here via the Lao Labor Department. At first, I came to Malaysia as a tourist. I took a bus to the town of Nong Khai in Thailand, then I traveled by bus to Pattani Province in southern Thailand where my employer’s bus was waiting to take me to Malaysia. Then, in Malaysia, my employer obtained all the necessary documents including a work permit for me, so I can work,” the second fisherman said. A third fisherman told RFA that the pay was good. “We make at least 3,700 ringit, or about 30,000 baht [$836] per month, but in some months when the catch is big, we can earn up to 7,000 ringit, or 50,000 baht [$1,581],” he said. “There are about 100 Lao fishermen working here &#8230; That’s not a lot. There are also Thais, Burmese and Cambodians too and we mingle together,” he said. The Lao government is making efforts to protect the migrants by making it easier for them to go to Malaysia legally, thereby making them harder to exploit. Authorities are collecting information in hopes of entering into an agreement with Malaysia to allow Laos to send more workers, Anousone Khamsingsavath, the director of the Department of Labor Skill Development and Employment Service, said at an August 2021 meeting that discussed workers’ rights in Southeast Asia. He acknowledged widespread exploitation in Malaysia’s fishing and seafood processing industries. Lao fishermen in Malaysia support the effort between the countries to reach an agreement, because it would increase the likelihood that their rights would be protected, a fourth Lao fisherman told RFA. BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news source, sent inquiries on this issue to the Malaysian government but received no response. BN reached out to MY govt officials for comment but didn&#8217;t receive an answer. Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Concerns remain over the health of journalists, writers jailed in China: RSF](https://ij-reportika.com/concerns-remain-over-the-health-of-journalists-writers-jailed-in-china-rsf/): Five years after the death of Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo from advanced liver cancer during an 11-year prison sentence for subversion, concerns remain for the health of many other free speech advocates who remain behind bars in China, a Paris-based press freedom group has said. &#8220;In China, detained journalists are almost systematically subjected to mistreatment and denied medical care,&#8221; Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in a statement on the fifth anniversary of Liu&#8217;s death. The statement cited the case of political commentator Yang Tongyan who died from an untreated cancer while in detention, and that of Kunchok Jinpa, a leading source of information about Tibet for journalists, who died in 2021 as a result of ill-treatment in prison. &#8220;Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the international community to finally step up pressure on the regime for it to put an end to its policy of censorship and media surveillance,&#8221; the group said. Liu&#8217;s sentence came after he co-authored Charter 08, a document calling for sweeping changes to China&#8217;s political system that was signed by more than 300 fellow activists on Dec. 10, 2008. &#8220;Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, freedom to choose where to live, and the freedoms to strike, to demonstrate, and to protest, among others,&#8221; the document demanded. &#8220;Without freedom, China will always remain far from civilized ideals.&#8221; Humanitarian China director Wang Jianhong, who founded the Zhang Zhan Concern Group in support of jailed citizen journalist Zhang Zhan, said Zhang&#8217;s health is a matter of grave concern. &#8220;We have no news about Zhang Zhan in nearly six months, and we are actually very worried about her health there in prison,&#8221; Wang told RFA. &#8220;While her family saw Zhang Zhan in a video call at the end of January, and said they saw her condition had improved and she could walk by herself, but there was no exact indicator [provided to them], such as her weight,&#8221; Wang said. Zhang is currently serving a four-year jail term for &#8220;picking quarrels and stirring up trouble&#8221; after she turned up in the central city of Wuhan and started reporting from the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic, then in its early stages. At one point, campaigners said she was on the verge of dying after months of partial hunger strike and forced feeding. Her family have been denied permission for another video call or an in-person meeting, Wang said. Jewher Ilham, daughter of jailed Uyghur professor Ilham Tohti, says she fears her father could share Liu Xiaobo&#8217;s fate. &#8220;I always feel that my father and Liu Xiaobo were soulmates,&#8221; she told RFA. &#8220;They have very similar views and expectations, that is, peaceful coexistence; and their experiences are also very similar in that they have been jailed. The experiences of the two of them are also very similar, that is, they were both controlled and detained by the Chinese government.&#8221; &#8220;On the anniversary of Mr. Liu Xiaobo&#8217;s death, I am not only heartbroken for Liu Xiaobo and his family, but also very worried about my father,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t know what happened to Mr. Liu Xiaobo. And what happened to my father?&#8221; &#8220;In a Xinjiang prison, with such a high-pressure environment and very poor hygiene, it is really hard to predict what will happen to my father&#8217;s health,&#8221; Jewher Ilham said. &#8220;I honestly don&#8217;t think he will be in very good health in there.&#8221; RSF published a list of 15 free speech defenders currently behind bars whose health is worsening, including China Rights Observer founder Qin Yongmin, dissident Yang Hengjun and Zhang Haitao, Swedish Hong Kong-based bookseller Gui Minhai and Huang Qi, founder of the 64 Tianwang rights website. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Thousands forced to flee Sagaing airstrikes that killed one and injured two](https://ij-reportika.com/thousands-forced-to-flee-sagaing-airstrikes-that-killed-one-and-injured-two/): Around 4,000 locals were forced to flee junta airstrikes on around 15 villages in Myanmar’s northwestern Sagaing region on Thursday. The attacks are part of a three-day scorched-earth campaign that continued Friday. It involved around 100 troops, targeting residents of a township that has fiercely resisted military rule. Four helicopters carried out raids on the villages in Depayin township, killing a man, identified as Khin Maung San, and injuring another man and a woman. “Khin Maung San died on the spot and the injured woman was critically wounded in the bladder. She was treated by military council forces,” a local told RFA on condition of anonymity. “The residents fled and didn’t return until the military left. The conditions on the ground are very bad.” The local said around 100 residents who could not flee were interrogated and had the contents of their mobile phones searched by the military to check whether they had contacted People’s Defense Forces (PDFs). These are not the first air strikes on Depayin this month. Residents said two military helicopters fired on three villages on July 2. Township residents have fiercely resisted the junta that have been ruling the country since the Feb.1, 2021 coup, offering support to local PDFs. The junta has tried to control opposition by cutting off mobile phone and internet access. More than 100 residents of Sagaing region were killed by junta forces in the first 15 months after the coup. Casualties across Myanmar have risen above 2,000. Calls to the military council spokesman by RFA to ask about the raids on Depayin went unanswered on Friday.
- [Vietnamese police try to stamp out religious sect](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnamese-police-try-to-stamp-out-religious-sect/): The police have been working for the past year to eliminate a religious sect based in northern Vietnam, according to a police newspaper.  On Tuesday the Cong an Nhan dan, which is the mouthpiece of the Ministry of Public Security, published an article about “Project 78”. It said its goal is to &#8220;fight, prevent, and proceed to eliminate the illegal Duong Van Minh organization,&#8221; in Bac Kan province. There are roughly 8,000 ethnic Hmong practitioners of the Duong Van Minh religion in four provinces in the northern mountains. The religion is not officially registered and the police article said the government believes the sect is conspiring to &#8220;establish an independent Hmong state&#8221; and break away from Vietnam. &#8220;The illegal sect Duong Van Minh, which has existed for more than 33 years, is an organization hiding in the shadow of beliefs and religions, propagandizing, gathering mass forces, enticing the Hmong ethnic people, plotting to establish an ‘independent Hmong state,’ seeking the support of hostile forces, and forming political opposition,” the article said. Followers of the sect have repeatedly denied claims they want independence. Duong Van Minh was founded in 1989 with the stated goal of promoting the elimination of outdated, expensive and unhygienic funeral customs. Hmong funeral services can last as long as a week before the body is buried. All family members are expected to attend the ceremonies, sacrifice animals and prepare feasts for the guests. Last December hundreds of police raided the funeral of founder Duong Van Minh, in Tuyen Quang province, citing Coronavirus concerns, despite the official cause of his death being lymphoma. Police arrested around 35 people, smashed windows in the family home and threatened the family with electric batons. Nine more people were arrested when they went to the police to protest and another four were later charged with assaulting police officers. On May 18 this year, a court in Tuyen Quang province convicted 12 followers of &#8220;resistance against on-duty state officials,” and sentenced them to between two and four years in prison. Over the years Vietnamese authorities have imprisoned many sect members for “abusing freedom and democratic rights” and have destroyed dozens of religious structures used as funeral homes. The police newspaper said the abolition of the Duong Van Minh religion must be turned into a political goal. It urged Bac Kan province set a &#8220;road map to eliminate&#8221; the sect by next year. Another northern province, Cao Bang, has already included the goal of &#8220;preventing and eliminating&#8221; the sect in its resolution on socioeconomic development for 2020-2025. A human rights lawyer, who did not want to be named for safety reasons, said the government’s plan to abolish the Duong Van Minh sect “is a serious violation of the people&#8217;s right to freedom of belief and religion. It shows that this State does not respect its Constitution and the laws that it promulgates.&#8221; “Article 24 of Vietnam&#8217;s constitution stipulates that everyone has the right to freedom of belief and religion, to follow or not to follow a religion. The State respects and protects the right to freedom of belief and religion,” the lawyer said. He added that Project 78 proved that the State had decided to destroy the lives of Duong Van Minh followers. “If it is a state that knows how to take care and think for the people the government must be responsible for helping and guiding people,” he said. “They set up such a project obviously to erase [the religion], not to acknowledge the Duong Van Minh sect.&#8221; The Vietnamese government has always insisted that it does not suppress religion, and calls Duong Van Minh&#8217;s sect an &#8220;illegal organization&#8221;. However, international organizations and foreign governments, including the U.S., have refused to accept the claim and regularly accuse the Vietnamese government of violating the right to religious freedom. According to the Report on Religious Freedom 2022, released by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom on April 25, the situation of religious freedom in Vietnam is still assessed as negative due to government’s religious persecution. The organization suggested that the US Government place Vietnam on the list of countries of special concern because of its systematic, persistent and serious violations of religious freedom.
- [China’s Xi Jinping makes unannounced visit to Xinjiang](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-xi-jinping-makes-unannounced-visit-to-xinjiang/): Chinese President Xi Jinping made an unannounced visit to the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi this week, state media reported Thursday, marking his second trip in eight years to the region where rights groups and several Western nations accuse him of carrying out a genocide against Uyghur Muslims. The official Xinhua news agency said Xi inspected Xinjiang University, an international land port area, a residential community, and a museum during his visit, which lasted from Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday morning. “Xi learned about the work in nurturing talent, coordinating COVID-19 response with economic and social development, promoting ethnic unity and progress and consolidating the sense of community for the Chinese nation, among others,” the report said. Other state media reports included images of Xi leading exuberant locals through the streets of the capital, receiving applause during his inspections, and observing ethnic dance performances. Xi’s visit marked only his second in eight years to the region where Chinese authorities have ramped up their repression of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities since 2017, detaining up to 1.8 million people in internment camps. The maltreatment also includes severe human rights abuses, torture and forced labor as well as the eradication of linguistic, cultural and religious traditions. Credible reports by rights groups and the media documenting the widespread abuse and repression in the XUAR have led the United States and some parliaments in Western countries to declare that the Chinese government’s action amount to a genocide and crimes against humanity. Adrian Zenz, a researcher at the Washington, D.C.-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and expert on the Xinjiang region told RFA Uyghur that Xi’s visit was likely a bid by Beijing to repudiate allegations of rights abuses and “project an image of stability … in terms of ethnic policy and economic development” to a global and domestic audience. He noted the symbolism behind Xi’s return to Urumqi where, during his last visit in April 2014, the Chinese leader delivered an internal speech changing the direction of Beijing’s policy in the region to one in which the central government runs Xinjiang as a virtual police state. Prior to the directive, Uyghurs were permitted a tightly-controlled version of “autonomy” in the region, but regularly faced discrimination and other forms of repression that prompted members of the ethnic group to carry out sporadic, violent attacks against Chinese rule. “It certainly is a symbol that Beijing feels firmly in control of the region. That there isn’t a concern about any attack or instability,” said Zenz, who in May published a trove of classified documents detailing the detention of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in the region, known as the Xinjiang Police Files. “On the one hand, it&#8217;s a message to his domestic constituencies – the Han – that Xinjiang is part of China. Policies are going well. And a very similar message, I think, is being portrayed to the international audience, to the U.S. and others. But also … to countries who&#8217;ve been supporting Beijing&#8217;s Xinjiang policy or at least been silent on criticism. Ilshat Hassan Kokbore, a political analyst based in the U.S. and vice chairman of the executive committee of the World Uyghur Congress, told RFA that Xi’s visit was meant to send a message that “he doesn&#8217;t care about the serious concerns of the international community regarding China&#8217;s ongoing genocide of Uyghurs.” “The ruthlessness of his regime is clear from the orchestrated meetings, singings and dancings of the very people who are facing genocide under his watch,” he said. Kokbore added that he believes Xi’s visit was also meant to reinforce his authority to the people of Xinjiang and to show solidarity with the Chinese officials who are implementing his policies in the region. Xi’s visit to Xinjiang marked the first time he had been seen in public for nearly two weeks – his longest absence of the year. Earlier this month, he had traveled to Hong Kong to appoint a new leader there on his first trip outside the Chinese mainland since January 2020 at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. It was not immediately clear why Xi’s trip to Xinjiang was not announced ahead of time, although public appearances by the leader are often made public days after the event. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [North Korea creates, smears refugees](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-creates-smears-refugees/): North Korea has reclassified refugees who have resettled in South Korea as “traitorous puppets” in order to impose harsher punishments on relatives in the North who remain in contact with them. The latest policy targeting the 33,000 or more North Koreans who&#8217;ve fled poverty and repression to settle in the prosperous, democratic South will mean more hardship for the families left behind that rely on remittances from the refugees.
- [Chinese homebuyers withdraw mortgage repayments in protest at stalled construction](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-homebuyers-withdraw-mortgage-repayments-in-protest-at-stalled-construction/): Homebuyers across China are threatening a mortgage payment strike in protest at stalled construction of off-plan properties by major developers across the country. Investors started selling off Chinese banking and real estate stocks, as well as corporate bonds issued by property developers, on Thursday, amid fears the strike would hit the financial system, Reuters reported. A growing number of homebuyers across China are saying they will halt mortgage payments to banks until developers resume construction of pre-sold homes, local media and social media reported. Japan&#8217;s Nomura has estimated that developers have only delivered around 60 percent of homes sold off-plan between 2013 and 2020. China&#8217;s outstanding mortgage loans rose by 26.3 trillion yuan during that period. &#8220;We are the owners of a property in Wuhan Optics Valley,&#8221; one homebuyer wrote on social media. &#8220;My husband and I both graduated from Tsinghua University with a master&#8217;s degree. Now working in Shenzhen, we originally planned to return to Wuhan to settle down, but last August I heard the news that the construction site was suspended. So I am very anxious now.&#8221; By July 12, buyers of 35 residential projects across 22 cities in China said they had decided to stop mortgage repayments, according to a report by Citigroup Inc. on Wednesday, despite the fact that it could mar their personal credit rating. Citigroup said the move could lead to bad debts of up to U.S.$83 billion, with large state-owned banks like China Construction Bank and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China facing greater risks as a result. A document titled &#8220;Summary of Loan Suspension Notices of Unfinished Buildings in Various Provinces and Cities of the Country&#8221; said that buyers of apartments in more than 110 unfinished buildings across 21 provinces had decided to halt mortgage repayments as of July 13. Buyers were linked to 32 unfinished projects in Henan, 15 each in Hunan and Hubei, eight in Jiangxi and seven in Shaanxi, it said, adding that well-known real estate companies like Shimao, Greenland, Aoyuan and Xinyuan were among those affected by the action. &#8216;Black hole&#8217; A former financial industry employee surnamed Song said the outcome was entirely predictable. &#8220;China&#8217;s real estate market is a black hole, which is the result of the collusion between the owners of real estate companies and local governments,&#8221; Song said. &#8220;The off-plan sale of properties is illegal, but they don&#8217;t implement the law; the [local] leaders have the final say.&#8221; China&#8217;s real estate has long been in crisis, with the country&#8217;s top 100 real estate developers selling 43 percent fewer new homes in June 2022 than during the same period last year, according to China Real Estate Information Corp. Song said mortgage income is currently propping up several major Chinese banks. &#8220;Several major banks in China are supported by housing loans,&#8221; Song said. &#8220;Mortgages in China have now reached 50 trillion yuan, equivalent to one fifth or one sixth of money in circulation.&#8221; Wang Longde, a former lawyer who lives in Laos, says the blame or the mortgage strike lies with the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). &#8220;With a [government-issued] license, legally speaking, property can be sold [off-plan]. But the government doesn&#8217;t supervize developers to ensure they deliver the &#8230; real estate to consumers on time and as required,&#8221; Wang said. Risk passed to consumers Wang said many developers just build the main body of the building, accounting for 70-80 percent of construction costs. If they run out of funds, they will then just halt production, passing the risk onto consumers. Many homebuyers don&#8217;t demand a contract setting out what happens to a mortgage in the event of construction delays or failure to complete, he said. Song agreed. &#8220;All problems in the banking system are caused by local government officials,&#8221; he said. &#8220;For example, Shanghai Bank of Communications or China Construction Bank, their presidents are mostly mute. The real [power] is held by local government.&#8221; &#8220;This is on central-level officials.&#8221; Citibank analyst Griffin Chan has warned that the mortgage strike is &#8220;is a critical moment for social stability,&#8221; as government censors were scrambling to delete posts about the strike. Posts on the topic available earlier on Thursday had disappeared from social media later in the day, RFA found. &#8220;Judging from the current economic situation in China &#8230; if people refuse to make repayments [companies] go bankrupt,&#8221; Song said. &#8220;All aspects of banking and credit reporting will be affected, but regular folk don&#8217;t care any more, and are lying down because they have lost faith in society as a whole,&#8221; he said. Many homebuyers have said in social media posts that they turned to a mortgage strike as a last resort, and only plan to withhold repayments until their properties are completed by the developers. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Cambodian diplomat’s concubines employed by soccer club shareholder](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-diplomats-concubines-employed-by-soccer-club-shareholder/): There’s another plot twist in Chinese-businessman-turned-Cambodian diplomat Wang Yaohui’s secretive investment in a prominent English soccer club. RFA can reveal that two mothers of his children were employed by a company associated with Yaohui, Chigwell Holdings Ltd.  The company acquired a sizeable stake in Birmingham City Football Club back in 2017. ​Just weeks ago, the English Football League said it was looking into reporting by RFA that Yaohui and a man said by former associates to be a close relative and frequent proxy for Yaohui control a large stake in the club through a series of offshore shell companies.  Yaohui’s undeclared ties to Chigwell Holdings – yet another entity owning shares in the club – is likely to factor into that investigation. Under its rules, the league requires clubs to publicly disclose the identity of any person controlling more than 10 percent. A complicated man Yaohui was born in China but as RFA has reported, became a naturalized Cambodian citizen in 2014 after a checkered business career characterized by secretive dealings and bribery scandals in China and Africa where associates were convicted although Yaohui himself was not charged.  If his corporate interests have been complex, the same can be said of his personal life. Despite having spent the last 15 years or so living as man and wife with Chinese film star Tang Yuhong, Yaohui has had at least five children by two other women in that time. The mothers, Wang Jing and Wang Qiong, were born seven years apart during the 1980s in Sichuan province, China. In 2015, both women approached Henley &amp; Partners, a broker for citizenship-by-investment schemes, seeking to acquire Maltese passports for themselves and their children. Multiple documents obtained by RFA, including the children’s birth certificates, show that their children shared a common father, Yaohui. Wang Qiong’s declaration to the Maltese authorities that while Wang Yaohui is the father of her children, they are “just friends, but not in spousal relationship.” Those documents were part of a tranche of internal Henley &amp; Partners data leaked to the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation, forming the bedrock of the foundation’s “Passport Papers” investigative collaboration with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, which made the data available through its Aleph database in June this year. A review of that data also revealed that from 2015 onwards, the women were both employed in the accounting department of Chigwell Holdings Ltd, a Hong Kong-based real estate holding firm connected to Yaohui, although the detailed biographies provided by both women as part of their Maltese citizenship applications indicated no educational background or employment history in finance or bookkeeping. Regardless of their seeming lack of experience, they were handsomely compensated. HSBC bank statements for an account in Jing’s name show monthly deposits of HKD$36,500 ($4,650) from the company. Statements for Qiong’s account show her receiving the slightly higher HKD$44,500 ($5,670) each month. A letter signed by Chigwell Holdings HR manager Helen Ho attesting to the company’s employment of Wang Qiong, mother of several of Wang Yaohui’s children. Both women also provided letters signed and stamped by Helen Ho, human resources manager at Chigwell Holdings, attesting to their employment by the firm. Ho’s name and phone numbers both appear in Yaohui’s Hong Kong passport as his emergency contact person. Hong Kong corporate records also show that in April 2017 the assets of Chigwell Holdings were used to secure a $40 million loan to Yaohui – suggesting that he has considerable influence over the company’s decision-making and the property under its management. An extract from a Hong Kong corporate filing registering that Chigwell Holdings’ assets have been used as security against a $40 million loan to Wang Yaohui. Buying into the game When eight months later, on Dec. 14, 2017, Chigwell Holdings acquired 500 million shares in a company listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange, Yaohui’s name was nowhere on the associated disclosure. Under Hong Kong law, companies owning significant stakes in companies listed on the stock exchange are required to disclose their stakes, as well as the identity of their beneficial owner. The company Chigwell Holdings had bought the 500 million shares in was Birmingham Sports Holdings Ltd, which at the time owned 96.64 percent of Birmingham City Football Club. At the time, Chigwell Holdings’ 500 million shares accounted for 5.97 percent of Birmingham Sports Holdings’ total stock, or 5.76 percent of the club. On the same day, another company bought an even larger chunk of shares in Birmingham Sports Holdings. Registered in the British Virgin Islands, Dragon Villa Ltd also omitted to mention its ties to Yaohui when it acquired just over 714 million shares, equivalent to 8.23 percent of Birmingham City Football Club at the time. However, earlier this year, RFA reported on evidence it had seen strongly suggesting that Yaohui is in fact Dragon Villa’s owner. The key piece of evidence was an affidavit submitted to a Singapore court on behalf of Yaohui’s longtime right-hand woman, Taiwanese-American dual national Jenny Shao. In the affidavit, Shao claimed that Dragon Villa “is beneficially owned by Mr. Wang [Yaohui].” A beneficial owner is a person who enjoys the benefits of owning a company which is in someone else’s name. Her testimony was echoed by multiple former business associates of Yaohui whom RFA spoke with. A wealthy wallflower But why would Yaohui want to obscure his stake in an English football club, something normally considered a prestige purchase? And perhaps more perplexingly, if he does indeed control Chigwell Holdings and Dragon Villa, why go to the trouble of splitting the purchase of shares in Birmingham Sports Holdings between the two companies when they took place on the same day? We may never know the true answer since representatives of both companies have not responded to repeated requests for comment in recent months. The combined stakes of the two companies represent more than 10 percent of Birmingham City Football Club  &#8211; therefore exceeding the threshold at which clubs are required to publicly disclose the...
- [Myanmar junta chief calls for improved ties in talks with Russian defense ministry](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-chief-calls-for-improved-ties-in-talks-with-russian-defense-ministry/): Myanmar junta chief Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing held talks with officials from Russia’s Ministry of Defense in Moscow this week, according to media reports, raising fears the junta is seeking new weapons to turn the tide in its fight against the country’s armed opposition. The regime leader met with unspecified “Russian defense ministry officials” on July 11, a day after he arrived in Russia for a “private visit,” the junta said in a statement on Tuesday. On Tuesday, Reuters news agency quoted a Russian defense ministry statement as saying that Min Aung Hlaing had met with “top officials” from the ministry and “discussed ways to strengthen bilateral military cooperation.” The official Global New Light of Myanmar reported Wednesday that after being welcomed on his arrival by Deputy Minister for Defence of the Russian Federation Colonel General Alexander Vasilievich Fomin, Min Aung Hlaing also held meetings with the Russia-Myanmar Friendship Association, the Russia-ASEAN Economic Council, the Rosatom State Corporations of Russia, and Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos. Notably, no mention was made of a meeting between Min Aung Hlaing and his counterpart, Russian President Vladimir Putin, or even the country’s Minister of Defense, Sergei Kuzhugetovich Shoigu. The trip marks the junta chief’s second visit to Russia in the more than 17 months since Myanmar’s military seized control of the country in a Feb. 1, 2021 coup. While Western nations were quick to impose sanctions on Myanmar over the coup, Russia has continued to supply Myanmar’s military with weapons and helicopters despite its continued and documented crackdown on civilians, killing at least 2,081 since coming to power. International media had reported that Myanmar purchased at least six SU-30 multi-role fighter jets from Russia before the military takeover, a transaction that was confirmed to RFA Burmese by Capt. Zay Thu Aung, a Myanmar air force officer who has since defected and joined the anti-junta Civil Disobedience Movement. Zay Thu Aung said at least two of the six jets have been stationed in Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw since March this year and that a team of Russian pilots and technicians has been training Myanmar pilots and crews. “Six were purchased, but only two of them had been delivered by 2020. The rest won’t be delivered until this year,” he said. “It was agreed beforehand that Russian crews would be sent to train local officers on aircraft assembly and maintenance. Once the jets are ready, Russian test pilots will arrive to test the aircraft before handing them over. It was agreed to in advance.” Attempts by RFA Burmese to contact junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment on the sale of the jets went unanswered Wednesday. Sukhoi Su-30 jet fighters perform during the MAKS 2021 air show in Zhukovsky, Russia, July 24, 2021. Credit: REUTERS/Tatyana Makeyeva Airstrikes on ethnic armies Thein Tun Oo, director of the Thayninga Strategic Studies Group, a Myanmar-based think tank run by former military officers, said he knew the military had been ordering SU-30 fighter jets “for some time.” “It’s been a long time since the SU-30s were ordered. The delivery has long been delayed,” he said. “We heard all kinds of news about the aircraft, such as that they were ‘being updated’ and made more ‘compatible for Myanmar.’ Anyway, it’s time they should be delivered. Taking into consideration the time of production of the aircraft and signing of the contracts, it’s the right time for delivery and I think it’s very possible that they will be here soon as we are hearing about them [from the military] now.&#8221; Thein Tun Oo noted that Myanmar and Russia have a history of military cooperation and said it is customary for experts from the country where the equipment was purchased to come and train local crews. Each two-engine SU-30 fighter jet, produced by Russia&#8217;s Sukhoi Aviation Corporation, costs about U.S. $30 million. Thein Tun Oo said the all-weather fighter can carry a wide array of weapons, including precision-guided missiles, rockets, and anti-ship missiles. The 70-ton SU-30 fighter jet can also fly across the 1,275-mile north-south expanse of Myanmar, if needed, without needing to refuel, owing to its large fuel capacity, according to weapons experts. Observers say Myanmar’s military regularly purchases Russian-made fighter jets and other powerful weapons to fight groups such as the Karen National Union (KNU) and the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), which are among the country’s most powerful and well-equipped ethnic armies. In June, the junta carried out airstrikes on KNU and Karen National Defense Organization (KNDO) coalition forces who had attacked a military camp in Ukrithta village, in Kayin state’s Myawaddy township. Days of fighting ended with heavy casualties on both sides. KNDO leader, General Saw Nedar Mya, told RFA that the military has yet to deploy sophisticated fighter jets like the SU-30 in airstrikes, opting instead to use older Russian-made MiG-29s. “They used jet fighters in the airstrikes on Ukrithta. They attacked us every day, for five days, day and night,” he said. “Since the military dictator is getting support from China and Russia, the West should be backing us. But even though [the junta is] buying all kinds of fighter jets and other weapons, their people lack a fighting spirit. Our people have conviction and are in high spirits.” Relations at ‘unprecedented level’ Australia-based military and security analyst Kyaw Zaw Han said relations between Moscow and the junta have reached “an unprecedented level” since the coup. He said the military’s use of sophisticated weapons, including fighter jets, in Myanmar’s civil war could lead to an increased death toll for the armed resistance. “The junta seems to have viewed Russia as a strategic partner from the beginning. This seems to be the case for both countries. And since the Feb 1 coup, the number of reciprocal visits has increased to an all-time high,” he said. “Russian-made weapons are increasingly being used in the civil war and they have had a huge impact … The use of these warplanes in the internal conflict has resulted...
- [US ambassador-nominee to Bangkok promises to help Thais pressure Burmese junta](https://ij-reportika.com/us-ambassador-nominee-to-bangkok-promises-to-help-thais-pressure-burmese-junta/): The Biden administration’s nominee for U.S. ambassador to Thailand told a Senate committee Wednesday that he would press Bangkok to reduce its dependence on oil and gas from neighboring Myanmar, where the ruling military junta is committing “horrifying atrocities.” Robert F. Godec made the pledge in response to a question from Sen. Ed Markey, who, citing a statement from Human Rights Watch, noted that Thailand receives 80 percent of oil and gas exported by Myanmar’s government. “We are seeking ways with the Thais to increase the pressure on the Burmese regime. All options are on the table, that includes further action in the oil and gas sector,” Godec told a Senate Foreign Relations panel here questioning him and three other nominees for ambassador posts in the Asia-Pacific region as well as a nominee to serve as the U.S. representative to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Godec promised committee members that he would focus on efforts to work with Thailand to pressure its neighbor. “The Burmese regime continues to carry out horrifying atrocities. It is critically important that this stop,” he said using the old name for Myanmar. “Burma and the Burmese regime’s horrifying actions have been a top issue in discussions with Thailand.” According to the statement released by Human Rights Watch in January, the state-run Petroleum Authority of Thailand (PTT) is responsible for the largest gas revenues paid to junta-controlled accounts through its purchases of about 80 percent of Myanmar’s exported natural gas from the Yadana and Zawtika gas fields. It said natural gas generates about U.S. $1 billion in foreign revenue annually. “I’ve repeatedly called for the United States to take a page out of the EU’s playbook and sanction the Myanmar oil and gas enterprise,” Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, told Godec, referring to the European Union. Since seizing control of Myanmar through a February 2021 coup that ousted a democratically elected civilian-led government, the Burmese junta has jailed opposition leaders and launched attacks that have killed more than 2,000 civilians, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, an NGO based in Thailand. Then-U.S. Ambassador to Kenya Robert Godec (left) helps his wife, Lorri Godec Magnusson, hold a candle during the 20th commemoration of the 1998 bombing of the U.S Embassy in Nairobi, Aug. 7, 2018. Mrs. Godec was left paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair after the bombing. Credit: AP Blinken visit The hearing on Capitol Hill followed Sunday’s visit to Bangkok by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken who took a hardline stance against the Myanmar government after meeting with Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha, the former Thai army chief and ex-junta leader who spearheaded a coup in 2014. Blinken said the Thai and other governments in Southeast Asia must push the Burmese junta to end its brutal violence and steer the country back on a path to democracy, as he called on Myanmar to institute the Five-Point Consensus it agreed to in April 2021. The consensus, hashed out during an emergency summit of Southeast Asian leaders in Jakarta that month, called for an immediate end to violence in the country, the distribution of humanitarian aid, dialogue among all parties and the appointment of an ASEAN special envoy to Myanmar who would be permitted to meet with all stakeholders. “Unfortunately, it is safe to say that we have seen no positive movement. On the contrary, we continue to see the repression of the Burmese people,” Blinken said, noting that members of the opposition were in jail or in exile. “The regime is not delivering what is necessary for the people.” In its January statement calling out PTT for its oil purchases, HRW noted that petroleum giants Chevron and TotalEnergies had announced plans days earlier to pull out of Myanmar. Months earlier, the New York-based human rights watchdog had joined 76 NGOs in calling for PTT to not expand its oil business ties with the junta, noting that the state-owned petroleum company had been involved in exploration in Myanmar for three decades and had paid billions of dollars to the neighboring government. “But with production declining in recent years, the company has ramped up its midstream and downstream investments in the country, with the stated goal of becoming the ‘top Myanmar provider’ of petroleum products,” HRW said in May 2021. Thailand’s military-dominated government has enjoyed close ties with the Burmese military and been slow to criticize its neighbor since the generals seized power there last year. Earlier this month, Prayuth played down reports of a Burmese fighter jet entering Thailand’s airspace amid fierce fighting across the border, even though the Thai air force had scrambled two jet-fighters during the incident. “It looks like a big deal but it’s up to us to not make a mountain out of a mole hill – we have a good relationship,” he said at the time. Godec, a long-time diplomat served most recently as acting assistant secretary for the Bureau of African Affairs, a post he assumed on Jan 20, 2021 – the date of President Joe Biden’s inauguration – until Sept. 30, 2021. He had previously served as ambassador to Kenya. The Senate committee did not take any action at the end of Wednesday’s hearing. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.
- [Junta troops kill 4, including teenage girl, after raid in Myanmar’s Sagaing region](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-troops-kill-4-including-teenage-girl-after-raid-in-myanmars-sagaing-region/): Residents of Pale township, in Myanmar’s embattled Sagaing region, said four people, including a teenage girl, were killed by junta troops after they returned to their village to feed their livestock following a military raid in the area. Sources from Pale’s Taung Ywar Thit village identified three female victims as Aye Win, 45, her daughter Moe Yee, 15, and their relative Nyo Kyin, 54, and one male victim as Tin Maung, 64. Around 100 junta troops entered the village on July 10, forcing all residents to escape into the jungle, the sources told RFA Burmese. One resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the victims were killed when they returned to the village that afternoon to feed their animals, thinking the troops had left. “At about noon on July 10, [the troops] came in from the eastern part of the village. The whole village fled,” the resident said. “The two women and the girl returned to the village at about 3:30 p.m., thinking the soldiers had left. We found the girl lying dead on her belly. Daw Nyo Kyin was lying dead on her side. The old man was shot dead with a rope around his neck. The bodies of the women were found near the toilet [behind the village].” The troops finally left the village on July 11. Residents discovered the bodies upon returning to the area the following day, the source said. Residents told RFA that Tin Maung’s body was found hastily buried in a shallow grave just outside the village tract. Moe Yee’s earrings had been removed from her body, they said. It was not immediately clear which army unit raided Taung Ywar Thit on July 10. Residents said that while the troops had left the area, they dare not return to their village, fearing another attack. Another resident of Taung Ywar Thit, who also declined to be named, told RFA that evidence of the killings had been documented on video. “They went to feed their cows and pigs in the village and were shot dead by the junta soldiers,” the resident said. “[The military has] no regard for human life. People were tortured and killed. We have video files recorded at the site of the murders of the women and the shallow grave — about 1.5 feet deep — where the man was buried.” The resident said copies of the video files had been sent to a local unit of the anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary group, which said they would be forwarded to representatives of Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG). PDF sources told RFA that the victims were civilians and had nothing to do with the armed opposition. Clothing lies scattered inside a home following a military raid in Pale township’s Taung Ywar Thit village, July 12, 2022. Credit: Citizen journalist Strategic route Boh Naga, a member of a Pale township-based PDF group known as the Tawwin Nagar (Royal Dragon) Army, told RFA that junta troops have been attacking villages along the highway that snakes west through Sagaing and neighboring Magway region into Chin state every day since the beginning of July. He said that people from several villages, including Taung Ywa Thit, have been arrested and killed as the military, which orchestrated a putsch on Feb. 1, 2021, tries to gain control of the strategic corridor. “They seized power in a coup because they do not care about the people, and now they are focusing on crushing the armed resistance, giving priority to areas where the opposition is strong,” he said. “The road from [the Magway city of] Pakokku and the road from [the Sagaing city of] Monywa meet here in Pale before proceeding north through [the Magway town of] Gangaw and on to Chin state. It is a strategic communication and transportation route for them, and as we are in full control of the area, they are attacking places where there are no PDF units and harassing and arresting ordinary people.” Taung Ywar Thit village, where the bodies of the four victims were discovered on Tuesday, lies about 18 miles outside of the seat of Pale township, near the border with Magway region. The village comprises around 500 homes with a population of some 2,000 people. Boh Naga said the junta is carrying out less of a military operation than “a brutal crackdown on civilians.” Repeated attempts by RFA to contact junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun about the July 10 killings and other military raids along the route to Chin state went unanswered Wednesday. ‘Completely defenseless’ A resident of Pale township, whose name was withheld over concerns for their security, told RFA that the military needs to be held accountable for its actions — particularly the crimes committed by members of its lower ranks. “The military junta is trying to rule by fear and those responsible need to be prosecuted under the country’s anti-terrorism laws because their soldiers are committing torture and rape at gunpoint,” they said. “Civilians are fleeing for their lives and those who cannot escape are arrested or killed. The people are completely defenseless and we are regularly seeing troops kill women and the young.” The discovery of the victims in Taung Ywar Thit village came amid reports by area PDF groups on Wednesday that junta troops set fire to around 100 homes in Htay Aung village, located only one mile away in Magway’s Myaing township. Thailand-based NGO Assistance Association for Political Prisoners says that junta forces have killed at least 2,081 civilians in Myanmar since the coup last year, but acknowledges that its documentation is incomplete, suggesting the death toll is likely much higher. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Dwindling freedoms, rolling lockdowns spark growing desire to 'run' from China](https://ij-reportika.com/dwindling-freedoms-rolling-lockdowns-spark-growing-desire-to-run-from-china/): Linghu Changbing has been on the run from China for three years, using his Twitter account to post an account of a motorcycle trip in Mexico and further travels across the United States, to the envy of many in China. While Linghu, 22, gets roundly criticized by Little Pinks, online supporters of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), for his life choices, he is living a freedom that many back home caught in endless rounds of COVID-19 restrictions can only dream about. His road-movie lifestyle puts Linghu at the cutting edge of a growing phenomenon among younger Chinese people with the wherewithal to leave the country, summarized by a Chinese character pronounced &#8220;run&#8221; that has come to symbolize cutting free from an increasingly onerous life under CCP rule in an online shorthand referencing the English word &#8220;run&#8221;. Shanghai white-collar worker Li Bing has been dreaming about emigrating to Japan with his girlfriend and two beloved cats for three years now. Li&#8217;s game-plan after graduating from university had been to get rich as fast as possible, but the COVID-19 pandemic and the Chinese government&#8217;s draconian zero-COVID policies has thrown several spanners in the works. Li, as a devoted servant to his two cats, was terrified at online video footage of &#8220;Dabai&#8221; COVID-19 enforcers in white PPE beating people&#8217;s pets to death after they were sent to quarantine camps. &#8220;One resident showed us through his camera lens those Dabai in PPE beating a pet to death,&#8221; Li said. &#8220;So my No. 1 nightmare is that my two cats could be disposed of [in that way].&#8221; An engineer by training, Li now works as a highly paid copywriter in the tech industry in Shanghai, which he once viewed as a new land of opportunity. But work has been hard-hit by the recent lockdowns, and the money isn&#8217;t coming in as frequently as it once did. &#8220;Since the pandemic &#8230; the interval between payments is getting longer and longer,&#8221; Li said. &#8220;The lockdown made me even more aware that I can&#8217;t afford to wait any longer, because I don&#8217;t know what I&#8217;m waiting for.&#8221; Workers and security guards in protective gear are seen at a cordoned-off entrance to a residential area under lockdown due to Covid-19 restrictions in Beijing, June 14, 2022. Credit: AFP Keyword searches for emigration soar Li, who recently secured a short-term business visa for Japan and wants to apply to study there too, is definitely not alone. Data from the social media app WeChat index showed a huge spike in searches using the keywords &#8220;emigration&#8221; or &#8220;overseas emigration&#8221; between March and May, suggesting that &#8220;run,&#8221; or running, is on many people&#8217;s minds. At its peaks, search queries for the keyword &#8220;emigration&#8221; hit 70 million several times during the Shanghai lockdown and 130 million immediately afterwards. The same keyword also showed peaks on Toutiao Index, Google Trends and 360 Trends between April and the end of June 2022, leading U.S.-based former internet censor Liu Lipeng to speculate that the most recent peak was triggered by a June 27 report in state media quoting Beijing municipal party chief Cai Qi as saying that current COVID-19 restrictions would be &#8220;normalized&#8221; over the next five years. WeChat&#8217;s owner Tencent said searches for &#8220;emigration&#8221; rose by 440 percent on April 3, 2022, the day CCP leader Xi Jinping told the nation to &#8220;strictly adhere to the zero-COVID policy.&#8221; A Japan-based immigration consultant who gave only the pseudonym &#8220;Mr. Y,&#8221; said he had witnessed a massive surge in queries to his business starting in April. &#8220;I&#8217;m also curious about what&#8217;s happened over the past month, and I think it&#8217;s amazing,&#8221; he said. &#8220;How can there be such a positive impact in little more than a month?&#8221; Mr. Y said he, like many others in the sector, has started taking to Twitter Spaces to provide listeners with free advice on immigrating to Japan. &#8220;I see seven or eight spaces about how to run, all of them with nearly 1,000 people in them,&#8221; he said. A Shanghai-based businessman surnamed Meng, who has a U.S. green card, found himself pressed into service as an informal immigration consultant during the Shanghai lockdown. &#8220;Only one person asked me about this &#8230; before lockdown,&#8221; said Meng, not his real name. &#8220;All the others came to ask me when we were locked down at home.&#8221; In a video clip sent to RFA, Peking University Communist Party Secretary Chen Baojian appeals to students to disperse after Hundreds of students protested in mid-May 2022 on the campus after a fence was put in place segregating them from the rest of the university. Credit: Screengrab of video. Steady erosion of freedom Australia-based writer Murong Xuecun said he had left after correctly predicting the steady erosion of individual freedom in China. &#8220;In the past few years &#8230; government has become more and more powerful, and the rights of ordinary people have dwindled,&#8221; he told RFA. &#8220;What kind of China will we see next?&#8221; &#8220;A more conservative, isolated and poorer China, and I think also a [more unpredictable and violent] China,&#8221; he said. &#8220;That&#8217;s what a lot of people worry about.&#8221; Many are aware that since Xi Jinping came to power, the government has made rapid advances in the direction of high-tech totalitarianism. A combination of a nationwide, integrated facial recognition network, a health code app that can prevent movement in public spaces under the guise of COVID-19 prevention, and the use of automated fare collection systems to track people on public transportation have combined to place severe limits on the personal privacy and freedoms of the average person in China. Meanwhile, the population is still struggling with the massive economic impact of rolling lockdowns, compulsory waves of mass COVID-19 testing and inflation that has characterized the pandemic in China. A wave of regulatory policies targeting the private sector, most notably private education and China&#8217;s tech giants, has has also taken its toll on the perception of the level prosperity and freedom that is realistically achievable for regular Chinese...
- [China lashes out as U.S. Navy destroyer sails near disputed islands](https://ij-reportika.com/china-lashes-out-as-u-s-navy-destroyer-sails-near-disputed-islands/): A U.S. Navy Freedom of Navigation Operation (FONOP) near the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea on Wednesday has drawn a strong reaction from Chinese military officials who said the U.S. warship “illegally trespassed” into its waters. A spokesman from the Southern Theater Command of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), whose areas of responsibility include the South China Sea, said in a press release that the command “organized air, naval forces to track and warn away USS Benfold destroyer that illegally trespassed into Chinese territorial waters off Xisha Islands.” Xisha is the Chinese name for the Paracel archipelago, claimed by China, Vietnam and Taiwan but entirely under Chinese control. The U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet meanwhile released a statement saying its Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, USS Benfold (DDG 65) “asserted navigational rights and freedoms in the South China Sea near the Paracel Islands, consistent with international law.” The destroyer then “exited the excessive claim and continued operations in the South China Sea,” according to the statement which said that the U.S. “challenges excessive maritime claims around the world regardless of the identity of the claimant.” “Unlawful and sweeping maritime claims in the South China Sea pose a serious threat to the freedom of the seas, including the freedoms of navigation and overflight, free trade and unimpeded commerce, and freedom of economic opportunity for South China Sea littoral nations,” the 7th Fleet said. “Under international law, as reflected in the Law of the Sea Convention, the ships of all States, including their warships, enjoy the right of innocent passage through the territorial sea,” it said. A MH-60 Sea Hawk conducting flight operations aboard the USS Benfold. CREDIT: U.S. Navy China&#8217;s illegal claims Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam hold competing claims over parts of the South China Sea and some islands in it but the Chinese claims are by far the most expansive, covering up to 90% of the sea. Beijing also developed islands that China occupies in the South China Sea to back up its claims and has fully militarized at least three of them. The U.S. Navy has also challenged China’s self-proclaimed territorial waters around the Paracel Islands. An international tribunal in 2016 ruled that the Paracels are in fact not islands and the occupying nation – China – cannot claim territorial sea around them.  The lengthy statement by the U.S. 7th Fleet said by conducting this FONOP, “the United States demonstrated that these waters are beyond what the PRC [People’s Republic of China] can lawfully claim as its territorial sea.” “U.S. forces operate in the South China Sea on a daily basis, as they have for more than a century,” it added. An F/A-18F Super Hornet launches from the flight deck of the USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76), July 13, 2022. CREDIT: U.S. Navy In another development, a U.S. carrier strike group led by the USS Ronald Reagan has moved into the South China Sea. The U.S. Navy said in a press release the strike group is operating in the South China Sea “for the first time during its 2022 deployment.” It includes the USS Ronald Reagan, the navy&#8217;s only forward-deployed aircraft carrier, with aircraft from Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 5 and crews from Task Force 70 and Destroyer Squadron (DESRON) 15. The Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Antietam (CG 54) and the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Higgins (DDG 76) are also involved in the operation, according to the release. “While in the South China Sea, the strike group is conducting maritime security operations, which include flight operations with fixed and rotary-wing aircraft, maritime strike exercises, and coordinated tactical training between surface and air units,” it said. “Carrier operations in the South China Sea are part of the U.S. Navy’s routine operations in the Indo-Pacific.” China’s South China Sea Probing Initiative (SCSPI) think-tank said that, according to the latest flight trajectory of the carrier-borne C-2A Greyhound cargo aircraft, the USS Ronald Reagan is sailing on Wednesday just south of the Spratly Islands, some 1,000 kilometers from the Vietnamese city of Danang. Vietnamese sources told RFA last week that the Nimitz-class, nuclear-powered aircraft carrier plans to visit Danang in the second half of July, an event that would draw criticism from China. The U.S. Navy declined to confirm the visit, saying “as a matter of policy, we don’t discuss future operations.”
- [Man dies in custody after cockfighting arrest](https://ij-reportika.com/man-dies-in-custody-after-cockfighting-arrest/): A middle-aged Vietnamese man died after 10 hours in custody at the Ke Sach district police headquarters in Soc Trang province. Nguyen Ngoc Diep, 49, was arrested with 10 others who were watching a cockfight at the Chi Be Ba restaurant on the afternoon of July 1. Betting on cockfighting is illegal in Vietnam but popular, particularly in the south of the country. Diep, who worked growing fruit trees, only had the equivalent of 90 cents on him when he was arrested, according to his family. They said Diep suffered from a stomach disorder and they brought food and medicine to the Ke Sach district police headquarters, asking officers to give it to him. Despite repeatedly telling the police about his medical condition Diep’s family said the police ignored them. The family asked the police to let Diep out of jail, since they didn’t think watching cockfighting was a serious offense and only warranted a fine. They said Diep would return the following day to answer police questions. However, the police refused to let him go home and interrogated him repeatedly about betting on the fight. Diep reportedly collapsed the same night and died. “I warned them that if they kept him locked up for a while, it would be dangerous for him because he&#8217;s very sick,” Diep’s wife Nguyen Thi Hong told RFA. “They didn’t care and I had to wait outside. I told the police my husband had a serious stomach complaint and would not be able to stand a long detention. At 11 p.m. he fainted and died. The police took him to hospital but the emergency doctor said he was dead on arrival.” Diep&#8217;s brother, Nguyen Van Do, witnessed the forensic examination of his brother&#8217;s body by Soc Trang provincial police the following morning. He said Dieps lungs were swollen and blood had pooled in his heart. “There was a small bruise on the bottom of his eyelid but the medical examiner said that was not the cause of death,” he said. Diep’s body was returned to the family after the medical examination. As of this Tuesday the family had not received the autopsy report. The district police have not commented on the case and did not sent a representative to offer condolences, according to the family. RFA called the Soc Trang Provincial Police Director, but he hung up as soon as the reporter introduced himself. The Deputy Directors did not pick up the phone and the Ke Sach police chief also failed to answer RFA’s calls. State media have not reported on the incident. Diep’s wife said she did not believe her husband died from a beating during interrogation. However, she said the family was upset about the police ignoring their repeated warnings about Diep’s health and she believed he died from being confined too long with no rest. &#8220;The family wants the police to be held accountable for my brother&#8217;s death because they were warned [about his health] but disregarded it,” Diep’s elder brother said. “They have to properly explain it to our family.&#8221; The district police released the other prisoners directly after Diep’s death, the family said, asking them to report back to the station in the following days to deal with paperwork related to illegal beatings. At the end of 2014, Vietnam’s National Assembly ratified the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel Treatment. In spite of the law numerous suspects and prisoners have been tortured to death or seriously injured in police stations across the country. RFA statistics, based on information from state newspapers, show that at least 16 people died in police stations and prisons from 2019 to the end of last year.
- [Cambodian farmers call for government help during extended drought](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-farmers-call-for-government-help-during-extended-drought/): A severe drought in northwest Cambodia has destroyed at least 10,000 hectares (24,700 acres) of rice and farmers are calling on the government to provide irrigation and other assistance. Chak Mao from Mongkol Borey district of Banteay Meanchey province told RFA that thousands of hectares of rice are drying up due to the four-month drought. She said her six hectares will be destroyed and her family would be forced to seek jobs in neighboring Thailand if there is no rain or assistance from the Cambodian government. “We have a serious drought,” Chak Mao said, adding that villagers are praying for rain. She urged the government to help the farmers by providing irrigation systems or reservoirs. A farmer who declined to be named said he stands to lose a significant sum of money because he hired workers for 20 hectares of land his family owns in addition to the three hectares they farm themselves. “We have some irrigation systems, but we don’t have reservoirs to store water, so when there is no rain,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We don’t have water.&#8221; Farmers in Thailand have access to stored water so their crops don’t dry up during periods without rain, he said. Hoeuk Heng said farmers like him face financial ruin: “If we don’t have rain, we will abandon it. We will abandon it, and it will die.&#8221; As she watched her husband pump water onto her rice field, Chhun Sory said they had collected some rain from a shower the night before. But they still need help. “I’m afraid that we don’t have any more seedlings to farm,” she said. “I want an irrigation system and for the government to help us so we have water for farming.&#8221; Commune head Chea Ty said he will continue to work to get the water for farmers. Roth Da Sinong, governor of Mongkol Borey district, said the drought has affected three communes there, though he did not know exactly how many hectares of crops were destroyed. Theng Savoeun, cofounder of the Coalition of Cambodian Farmer Community, urged the government to prepare long-term measures and to provide seedlings free of charge. “During the drought with a lack of water and lack of markets, local authorities must play a vital role to resolve the crisis for the people,” he said. Translated by Samean Yun for RFA Khmer. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Laos to increase minimum wage starting Aug. 1 in response to inflation](https://ij-reportika.com/laos-to-increase-minimum-wage-starting-aug-1-in-response-to-inflation/): Laos’ minimum wage will increase to 1.2 million (U.S. $80) per month starting on Aug. 1, the country’s government announced, despite complaints from business owners that say they cannot afford the increase. The Lao National Labor Committee announced the raise on July 8, which boosts the minimum wage by 100,000 kip (about U.S. $6.70) per month.  Business owners told RFA that they are still recovering from the coronavirus pandemic, which sharply reduced their revenue. “I was not informed of this, and I have not made any increase for my workers,” the owner of a water and ice business in the capital Vientiane told RFA’s Khmer Service. “I see that the Lao economy is not going well, and business operators will have a hard time if they have to increase minimum wage at this time.” A garment worker in Vientiane agreed that businesses need more time. “Some companies are seeing losses or they are not earning any profits right now,” the garment worker said. “For example, the company I am working for is facing losses and the company owner is still keeping the business running, but has to cut costs here and there to survive. … I only survive month-to-month with this wage.” The wage increase is designed to help Laotians cope with rampant inflation in the country. But it isn’t clear how extensively the new pay minimum will be applied. The government cannot force business owners to increase wages if they have reached an agreement with their workers on pay and other benefits, an official from the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare’s Department of Labor Management told RFA. “If they mutually agreed that the business operators provide food and accommodation to the workers, the business operators and workers can keep wages the same,” the official said.  “We cannot force the business operators to increase the minimum wage because companies or business operators have their own conditions and policies with their hired workers. If there is any case of taking advantage of the workers, we, as a government body, can go to workplaces and investigate problems,” the official said. An official from the Lao Federation of Trade Unions told RFA that the union will encourage workers to add language to their employment contracts forcing businesses to adhere to minimum wages set by the government. “The government has suggested to all business operators to increase the minimum wage. However, it depends on each company or business’s decision to increase to this suggested minimum wage. Each company and business operator has its own policy and conditions,” the trade union official said. Even with the increase, the minimum wage is not enough to keep up with the cost of living, several Lao workers told RFA. A worker from Vientiane told RFA that the government should mandate an even higher increase and also do more to moderate food prices. Fuel shortages and an overreliance on imports have sharply raised the cost of living in Laos. Foreign currency reserves have grown scarcer, leading to a devaluation of the kip, which in turn adds pressure on prices.  “They will add around $6.50 to the current minimum wage per month to about $79 per month,”  the worker said. “This will not help very much. Even though I earn over 1.3 million kip, or about $85 per month, I still find it very hard to survive.” After the Aug. 1 increase to 1.2 million kip, the minimum wage should increase to 1.3 million kip by May 1, according to the National Labor Committee. The increases are targeted at workers in the manufacturing and service sectors working a minimum of 26 eight-hour days per month, or six days per week. The minimum wage does not apply to overtime pay. Business owners have to pay an extra 15 percent of minimum wage to workers performing duties that are hazardous. The move to 1.2 million kip minimum wage comes after Phonesane Vilaymeng, vice president of the Lao Federation of Trade Unions, told state media on May 1 that the current wage of 1.1 million was no longer viable considering the higher cost of living. An official of the organization also told state media that the country would lose more workers to neighboring Thailand if it kept the minimum wage so low. The Lao Federation of Trade Unions in March proposed in March that the minimum wage be raised to at least 1.5 million kip, or about $99 per month, by May 1,  International Labor Day. Translated by Phouvong. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Chinese-American author slams movie distributors over lack of 'One Second' credit](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-american-author-slams-movie-distributors-over-lack-of-one-second-credit/): Chinese-American author Geling Yan has hit out at the companies involved in releasing a Zhang Yimou film based on one of her novels outside China without crediting her. Yan&#8217;s name was removed from Zhang&#8217;s 2020 film &#8220;One Second&#8221; despite it being an adaptation of part of one of her novels, after she made an outspoken social media post about a trafficked woman from rural China who was found chained by the neck in an outhouse belonging to her &#8220;husband.&#8221; Now, the movie is being shown outside China with the collusion of overseas companies not bound by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)&#8217;s strict censorship policies, a move that incenses Yan, who staged a protest with her husband outside the Berlin movie theater where the film premiered at the weekend. &#8220;If this issue was confined to China, it would be totally understandable,&#8221; she said. &#8220;But it&#8217;s going too far for them to ignore my intellectual property rights and my moral rights across the whole world.&#8221; &#8220;And I think that for these companies that are colluding with them to do this, it is a particularly shameful manifestation of their double standards,&#8221; Yan said after Sunday&#8217;s protest, which was attended by entrepreneurs, musicians, economists, poets, artists, and human rights activists from China. &#8220;Civilization [should be] based on allowing people to think freely and publish the results of their thinking freely,&#8221; she said. Yan said she had condensed 30 years of lived experience and national trauma into her novel &#8220;The Criminal Lu Yanshi,&#8221; on which &#8220;One Second&#8221; is based. &#8220;How many works like &#8216;The Criminal Lu Yanshi&#8217; can a person write across a lifetime? I place huge value on it, then they just strangle and cancel my intellectual property, killing a part of my intellectual life,&#8221; Yan said. &#8220;A human being needs to fight for her human rights, and a writer needs to fight for her intellectual property rights if they are violated,&#8221; she said. Before her comments on social media about the chained woman, Yan&#8217;s work was already being banned because of her criticism of the CCP&#8217;s response to the pandemic. Yan said she is highly unlikely to start praising the current regime in China, preferring to focus on the dignity and freedom of the individual. &#8220;I can pay a higher price and fight for the truth, whether it&#8217;s about a virus or a woman in chains,&#8221; Yan said. &#8220;Or that one of my works has been strangled and castrated.&#8221; A scene from Zhang Yimou&#8217;s film &#8220;One Second,&#8221; which was adapted from Geling Yan&#8217;s novel &#8220;The Criminal Lu Yanshi.&#8221; Credit: Geling Yan Censorship victim Yan said she views Zhang Yimou as a victim of the CCP&#8217;s censorship system, but she couldn&#8217;t accept his taking credit for her work overseas. &#8220;There has been enforced censorship of movies for too long in China,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Every movie includes a very painful process of trying to pass this test.&#8221; &#8220;Every film-maker has had work banned, and Zhang Yimou [said] he wouldn&#8217;t do such a thing to an author if there was any other option; he was forced into it,&#8221; Yan said. &#8220;But I told him that wasn&#8217;t good enough &#8230; this helpless attitude of &#8216;they made me do it&#8217;,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I don&#8217;t forgive him for that.&#8221; Yan and her husband and agent Lawrence Walker are now suing Zhang&#8217;s Beijing Huanxi Chuan Media Group, as well as the film&#8217;s international distributors and U.S., French and German producers. &#8220;We sent a lawyer&#8217;s letter but nothing came of it, and the movie was released anyway,&#8221; Walker told RFA. &#8220;So we started taking to the streets.&#8221; He said China may be a powerful nation, but the CCP shouldn&#8217;t be allowed to export their censorship practices, threatening free speech overseas. Chinese citizen journalist Li Tingyu protested alongside Yan and Walker. &#8220;Geling Yan has been my favorite author since high school,&#8221; Li said. &#8220;I read &#8220;Lu Yanshi&#8221; while I was in the detention center.&#8221; &#8220;Her books are very popular &#8230; but now, because she spoke out for women, and for justice, her name is disappearing and her voice has been obliterated [in China],&#8221; she said. Employees who answered repeated calls to the Beijing Huanxi Chuan Media Group on Monday declined to comment. Repeated calls to the personal number of the film&#8217;s producer, Zhao Yijun, also rang unanswered. Edits and deletions The saga began with Chinese director Zhang Yimou and Yan signing an agreement in 2011 giving Zhang the movie rights to her novel &#8220;The Criminal Lu Yanshi,&#8221; which tells the tale of a man sentenced to labor camp for the political crime of being a &#8220;rightist.&#8221; Zhang then made a movie based on the book called &#8220;Coming Home.&#8221; However, he also completed a second movie based on the novel titled &#8220;One Second,&#8221; but deleted any reference to Yan or her work of fiction from the publicity materials. In February 2019, the crew of &#8216;One Second&#8217; traveled to Berlin for the Berlin International Film Festival. They met at Yan&#8217;s house, looking forward to seeing it presented in competition for a Golden Bear award, and entered the venue on the red carpet together with her. But the movie was withdrawn abruptly just one hour before its scheduled media screening, allegedly for &#8220;technical reasons.&#8221; Further delays ensued before the film was eventually released in November 2020 after Zhang made a number of edits and deletions to satisfy Chinese officials. When the film finally did appear, there was no mention of Yan. Yan and Walker have contacted the Hollywood Screenwriters&#8217; Guild, of which Yan is a member, French film distribution company Wild Bunch of Paris, online platform Mubi, the Toronto Film Festival and the San Sebastian International Film Festival in Spain. Mubi has since reinstated a reference to Yan as the author of the novel that inspired &#8220;One Second.&#8221; Producer Zhao has told the couple that Yan&#8217;s name was removed for political reasons, on orders from the State Administration for Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), and that Huanxi was obliged to implement that order. Zhao...
- [Hong Kong to get China-style COVID-19 app, sparking fears of totalitarian control](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-to-get-china-style-covid-19-app-sparking-fears-of-totalitarian-control/): Hong Kong will impose a China-style COVID-19 app on the city&#8217;s seven million residents, sparking fears of ever-increasing state control over the movements of individuals. The city will start putting electronic bracelets on those who test positive for the virus from July 15, health secretary Lo Chung-mau told a news conference on Monday. In China, red codes banning movement in public places have already been used to target people for political reasons that have little to do with their health. Chief executive John Lee said the city needed to &#8220;be realistic&#8221; about the kind of risks it could be facing, citing average daily infections of around 3,000 with hospitalizations rising rapidly. &#8220;That is why we are thinking of designing methods that will be able to allow us to react more quickly, to respond more precisely, and at the same time, allow more people to be not so restrictive in their activities,&#8221; Lee told journalists on Tuesday. He added: &#8220;There may be some misinformation which we will need to address very quickly so that everybody knows what we are doing.&#8221; Health secretary Lo said the LeaveHomeSafe app would be updated soon, and would require people to register using a verified form of ID. &#8220;We must do real-name registration, so we can mainly use it for identification rather than tracking,&#8221; Lo said. &#8220;We need to identify high-risk people to ensure that they don&#8217;t endanger the health of other citizens, especially high-risk groups.&#8221; Lo said a person&#8217;s health code would turn red, preventing them from going to public places, on confirmation of a COVID-19 positive result, while new arrivals to the city would be given an amber code, restricting entry to certain places deemed high risk. A Hong Kong resident surnamed Mak said the app will function as a tool for those in power to monitor and control citizens. &#8220;It divides people into different categories, and people with a red code are denied the right to use any facilities or services, including withdrawing money from the bank,&#8221; Mak said. &#8220;Is it an exaggeration to think that one day, you could also get a red code if you are a dissident? &#8230; I think the government is easing into total control.&#8221; A Hong Kong resident surnamed Liu said she has similar concerns. &#8220;If they do this with the health code, then I will worry about being monitored,&#8221; she said. &#8220;What&#8217;s worse is that it seems they can integrate their system with that of mainland China.&#8221; &#8220;They don&#8217;t seem to think Hong Kong has any special privileges,&#8221; Liu said. A resident of the central Chinese provicne of Hubei surnamed Gao said he has been subjected to China&#8217;s health code app for two years now. &#8220;A red code means you stay isolated at home, and the yellow code means you can&#8217;t take the bus or go to a shopping mall,&#8221; Gao said, adding that the app is being used for &#8220;stability maintenance&#8221; as well as COVID-19 prevention. Several Chinese rights defenders have had their health code turn red or stop working for no reason, preventing them from going to Beijing, Shanghai or other places. Rights lawyer Xie Yang said his health code turned red after he made plans to visit the mother jailed citizen journalist Zhang Zhan, against the wishes of the Changsha police. Hong Kong commentator Sang Pu said depositors at rural banks in Henan province had also been given red codes when they planned to protest a ban on withdrawals of their savings. &#8220;The so-called infected people have no freedom to go anywhere, which is terrible,&#8221; Sang said. &#8220;Today they can decide that you can&#8217;t go everywhere because of COVID, and tomorrow they may decide that you can&#8217;t go anywhere because of a disease such as a cold.&#8221; &#8220;Then it could be that you have a mental health problem and can&#8217;t go anywhere &#8230; They want to act in line with the wishes of the CCP, rather than considering science, truth or rationality.&#8221; The LeaveHomeSafe app is already required to access any government-controlled premises, and is currently based on an individual&#8217;s vaccination status. Meanwhile, authorities in Shanghai have resumed local lockdowns, barricading some residents into their apartment buildings, amid a rise in the highly transmissible omicron BA5 variant of COVID-19. Photos and video clips uploaded to social media by Shanghai residents showed steel sheeting in place at the entrances of alleyways to prevent people from restricted areas from leaving. In one video, the move prompted an angry altercation between COVID-19 enforcement officials and residents. &#8220;Why are you blocking this?&#8221; a resident asks. &#8220;Because we are managing this community,&#8221; the official replies. &#8220;Where are you sending us?&#8221; the resident says. &#8220;We&#8217;re not here to argue with you,&#8221; the official replies. A Shanghai resident surnamed Liang said her residential compound was locked down for two days because one resident was identified as a close contact of an infected person. &#8220;Our community was closed for a couple of days because there was a close contact,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I heard that they have to go ahead with restrictions because this [variant] is more damaging than the last one,&#8221; Liang said. &#8220;Wherever there are cases or contacts, they will lock down the building.&#8221; The return to partial lockdowns comes after Shanghai ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) chief Li Qiang announced on June 25 that the &#8220;battle to defend Shanghai has been won.&#8221; Similar restrictions are in place in the northwestern city of Lanzhou, where authorities have told people not to leave their homes unless necessary, and implemented three waves of mass, compulsory COVID-19 testing. &#8220;They don&#8217;t call it lockdown any more, but temporary restrictions,&#8221; Lanzhou resident Ma Guoqiang told RFA. &#8220;At midnight, they put steel gates outside our community gates, and locked them from the side facing the street.&#8221; &#8220;This time it&#8217;s for at least seven days,&#8221; Ma said. &#8220;Takeout is allowed, but dine-in is not. We are all cooking and eating for ourselves at home.&#8221; He said the restrictions had scuppered the Lanzhou Trade and Investment Fair,...
- [ICJ to rule on Myanmar’s objections to Rohingya genocide case this month](https://ij-reportika.com/icj-to-rule-on-myanmars-objections-to-rohingya-genocide-case-this-month/): The International Court of Justice (ICJ) plans to deliver its judgement on Myanmar’s objections to the genocide case brought against it by The Gambia, on July 22. In a statement issued Monday the ICJ said a public sitting of the court will take place at 3 p.m. at the Peace Palace in the Dutch city of The Hague. The President of the Court, Judge Joan E. Donoghue, will read out the ICJ’s decision. A Rohingya Muslim in Buthidaung Township in northern Rakhine State, who was subjected to human rights abuses by the military, told RFA that the perpetrators should be brought to justice. “There is evidence of genocide against Rohingya Muslims by Myanmar’s army in 2017,” he said. “On-site inspection is available. The villages of Buthidaung and Maungdaw were destroyed. The residents fled to Bangladesh in fear of being killed by Myanmar’s army. No matter how much they deny it, we know our people suffered. Therefore, we want effective action against their genocide in accordance with the law.” The Gambia’s parliament approved the plan to bring genocide charges in July 2019, after the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) proposed to the West African Nation that it should prosecute Myanmar. It instituted proceedings in November of the same year alleging genocide through “acts adopted, taken and condoned by the Government of Myanmar against members of the Rohingya group.” The Gambia has not denied that it received funding for the legal action from the OIC. In the initial hearing The Gambia said that “from around October 2016 the Myanmar military and other Myanmar security forces began widespread and systematic ‘clearance operations’ … against the Rohingya group. The genocidal acts committed during these operations were intended to destroy the Rohingya as a group, in whole or in part, by the use of mass murder, rape and other forms of sexual violence, as well as the systematic destruction by fire of their villages, often with inhabitants locked inside burning houses. From August 2017 onwards, such genocidal acts continued with Myanmar’s resumption of ‘clearance operations’ on a more massive and wider geographical scale.” The military council’s delegation protested at a hearing on Feb. 25 this year, saying the ICJ has no right to hear the case. Christopher Staker, a lawyer hired by the military council, argued the international community should not be allowed to prosecute Myanmar and the court has no jurisdiction to hear the case.   Calls to the military council spokesman by RFA went unanswered Tuesday. Some local media outlets quoted an unnamed senior foreign ministry official as saying Myanmar’s delegation to the ICJ, led by the Military Council’s International Relations Minister Ko Ko Hlaing, plans to travel to The Hague to hear the ICJ’s judgment. The ICJ said the hearing at the Peace Palace will be closed to the public to observe Coronavirus restrictions. Only members of the Court and representatives of the States party to the case will be allowed to enter the Great hall of Justice. Members of diplomatic corps and the public will be able to follow the procedures on a live webcast on the Court’s website as well as UN Web TV. The Gambia has called on Myanmar to stop persecuting the Rohingya, punish those responsible for the genocide, offer reparations to the victims and provide guarantees that there would be no repeat of the crimes against the Rohingya. The ICJ is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations and was established in 1945 to settle disputes in accordance with international law through binding judgments with no right of appeal. The U.S. has also accused Myanmar of genocide against the Rohingya. Secretary of State Antony Blinken ruled in March this year that “Burma’s military committed genocide and crimes against humanity with the intent to destroy predominantly Muslim Rohingya in 2017.” That was the year the military cleared Rohingya communities in western Myanmar, killing, torturing and raping locals. The violent campaign forced more than 740,000 people to flee to squalid refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh. The State Department said the military junta that seized power in the Feb. 2021 coup continues to oppress the Rohingya, putting 144,000 in internal displacement camps in Rakhine state by the end of last year. A State Department report last month noted that Rohingya also face travel restrictions within the country and the junta has made no effort to bring refugees back from Bangladesh.
- [Refugees International: Thailand should allow delivery of humanitarian aid to Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/refugees-international-thailand-should-allow-delivery-of-humanitarian-aid-to-myanmar/): Thailand should allow delivery of cross-border humanitarian aid into Myanmar and not push back people seeking refuge from threats to their life and freedom in that country, a U.S.-based NGO is urging in a new report. Thousands of Burmese have crossed into Thailand along the porous 2,400-km (1,500-mile) frontier to flee the conflict in the wake of a military coup that toppled an elected civilian-led government and installed a junta in Naypyidaw early last year. “The military junta has committed widespread atrocities and blocked international humanitarian groups from delivering aid to areas that desperately need it,” Refugees International, a Washington-based group, said in its report released Tuesday. “In the meantime, delivery of international aid through Myanmar’s neighbors, particularly through local groups active along the Thai-Myanmar border, presents an underutilized path for getting assistance to those in need.” The report comes two days after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, during a visit to Bangkok, urged Thailand, other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China to press the Burmese junta into ending violence against Myanmar’s people and moving that country back toward democracy. Led by Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, Myanmar’s military toppled the democratically elected government in February 2021 and has thrown its civilian leaders in jail. Fighting between junta forces and opposition groups across the country has forced mass displacement amid growing humanitarian needs. “Thai authorities must also live up to their commitments to non-refoulement and refrain from pressuring people fleeing violence in Myanmar from returning before it is safe to do so,” Refugees International said. Thailand, long considered a linchpin in relations between ASEAN and member-state Myanmar, has been criticized as being relatively soft on the post-coup crisis that has divided the 10-member regional bloc. “Thailand is reluctant to do anything to incentivize more refugees coming into the country, but failure to allow cross-border aid – and thus allowing conditions for people across the border to deteriorate – could do just that,” Refugees International said. Myanmar refugees walk across the river to enter Thailand’s Mae Sot district, Jan. 15, 2022. Credit: AFP Myanmar crisis During the fighting inside Myanmar, the junta’s forces have detained more than 14,000 people, while more than 2,000 civilians have been killed, according to Thailand’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. About 1.1 million people have been displaced in Myanmar, including 758,500 forced to flee their homes as of June 20, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). An estimated 14.4 million people, or a quarter of the country’s population, need humanitarian assistance due to the conflict. In recent months, the most intense fighting has occurred in Chin, Sagaing and Magway states in northwestern Myanmar and in Karen and Karenni states in the southeast that borders Thailand. Junta forces have burned thousands of homes while fighting and airstrikes have caused more than 500,000 to flee their homes, said the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). For its part, Thailand has restricted cross-border aid, Refugees International said in the report, adding that the Burmese junta controls main roads and has allegedly seized or destroyed aid while attacking humanitarian workers. Similarly, Refugees International said, Myanmar’s rugged terrain limits informal aid for thousands who need humanitarian assistance in the interim and those living in areas not under junta control. Thailand-linked cross-border organizations have been providing some aid to residents in Karen and Karenni states. These groups have been operating since the 1990s when ethnic armed groups were fighting the Myanmar military. Myanmar refugees ride on a boat after receiving aid in Mae Sot, Thailand, Jan. 4, 2022. Credit: Reuters Aid barrier One of the Thai government’s main challenges in delivering aid across the border is Bangkok’s concern with its relationship with the junta, Refugees International said, alleging that officials are “seeking to balance economic and security interests” by refusing cross-border aid officially. The NGO called on the Thai and other governments to get involved. The “largest and most consistent barrier” to humanitarian assistance is the lack of funding, it said. “While a few governments are supporting local groups involved in aid efforts, donor countries should step up support for these underutilized and low-profile mechanisms,” it said. Because the report by Refugees International was embargoed for publication until Tuesday afternoon (Bangkok time), BenarNews could not immediately reach Thai officials to get a response. Refugees International also said Thailand should provide protection and rights to thousands of people who have crossed the border from Myanmar to seek temporary or long-term refuge since the coup. Salai Bawi, a research fellow at Chiang Mai University, said the Thai government had not taken the call for aid seriously because Thai people do not see the need to help the refugees as urgent. “For decades, the Thai government left the burden and responsibility of Myanmar refugees to international organizations, while it remained just a facilitator,” he told BenarNews. In the past, Thai authorities stressed that they had not forced refugees to return, adding that many had chosen to go back to Myanmar.  Local media, NGOs and human rights activists, on the other hand, have alleged that Thai authorities pressure displaced Myanmar people into returning to their country, Refugees International said. As of February 2022, the Thai government estimated that 17,000 Myanmar refugees had crossed into Thailand since the coup, but according to a report published by UNHCR in June, only 246 refugees remain in two Thai military-controlled sites where conditions are reported to be deplorable. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service. Kunnawut Boonreak in Chiang Mai, Thailand, contributed to this report.
- [Vietnam cracks down on Coast Guard oil smuggling ring](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-cracks-down-on-coast-guard-oil-smuggling-ring/): The wife of a former Coast Guard regional commander has been prosecuted for accepting bribes for her husband’s role in smuggling oil from Singapore to Vietnam. The indictment from the Central Military Procuracy accused Phan Thi Xuan, wife of former commander of the 3rd Coast Guard Region Maj. Le Xuan Thanh, of receiving the equivalent of U.S.$80,000 from gasoline smuggler Phan Thanh Huu in 11 installments, state media said on Monday. On Tuesday the military court of Military Zone 7 was set to open a first-instance court hearing, to hear charges of smuggling, accepting bribes, and helping those involved flee abroad. The defendants include Le Van Minh, former commander of the Vietnam Coast Guard’s Fourth Region and former Third Region commander Le Xuan Thanh Others facing prosecution include Maj. Luu Duc The, former deputy head of Reconnaissance 2 at Coast Guard Command; Col. Nguyen The Anh, former commander of the Border Guard of Kien Giang Province; and Col. Pham Van Tren, former commander of the Border Guard of Tra Vinh province. All have been charged with accepting bribes. Col. Nguyen The Anh and one other person have also been charged with helping people flee Vietnam. Col. Phung Danh Thoai, former Head of the Petroleum Department’s Logistics Department at the Coast Guard Command was charged with smuggling. The charges date from between March 2020 and Feb. 2021 when the director of Phan Le Hoang Anh Trading, Phan Thanh Huu, and his accomplices smuggled about 200 million liters of gasoline, worth about U.S.$130 million, into Vietnam. Col. Phung Danh Thoai is said to have helped finance the operation and share in its profits to the tune of U.S.$941,000. Former commander Le Van Minh was accused of abusing his position and power to receive U.S.$295,000 paid by Phan Thanh Huu to his wife and children. Investigations into all the defendants recovered more than $1.5 million. The former commanders of Coast Guard Region 3 and Coast Guard Region 4 returned all the money they are accused of receiving. The Procuracy of Dong Nai province also recently cracked down on oil smugglers, issuing an indictment against Phan Thanh Huu and 72 accomplices. It prosecuted Cpt. Ngo Van Thuy of the Team 3 Anti-Smuggling and Investigation Department of the General Department of Customs for taking bribes. The case dates back to Sept. 2019 when Phan Thanh Huu and Ocean Hai Phong Director Dao Ngoc Vien conspired to smuggle petroleum from Singapore to Vietnam. Col. Phung Dah Thoai and his accomplices are said to have contributed $2.3 million to finance the operation.
- [China’s deep space radar may have military uses](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-deep-space-radar-may-have-military-uses/): China has started building what it calls “the world&#8217;s most far-reaching radar” in the country’s southwest &#8211; a facility that could also have a military purpose, an analyst warned. Chinese broadcaster CGTN said the new high-definition deep-space active observation facility code-named &#8220;China Fuyan,&#8221; or “Facetted Eye” for its resemblance to an insect’s eye, is being built in Chongqing Municipality. The radar system would help “better safeguard Earth” by boosting “the country&#8217;s defense capabilities against near-Earth asteroids as well as its sensing capability for the Earth-Moon system,” the state-run broadcaster said. The Fuyan will have distributed radars with over 20 large antennas, capable of carrying out high-definition observation of asteroids within 150 million kilometers of Earth, according to CGTN. “If the radar is designed to observe asteroids, it would generally possess the basic capabilities for space surveillance, meaning, the ability to distinguish objects detected in space, and hence track them,” said Collin Koh, Research Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. “Where it comes to space, the lines between civilian and military applications can be blurred,” Koh said, adding that, given China&#8217;s predilection these days to go with civil-military fusion, “it&#8217;ll be of no surprise that the radar possesses both intended civilian and military applications.” Civil-military fusion The project is led by a team from the Beijing Institute of Technology (BTI), in cooperation with China&#8217;s National Astronomical Observatories under the China Academy of Sciences, Tsinghua University and Peking University. A China’s Defense Universities Tracker released by the International Cyber Policy Center at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in 2019 listed the BTI as “one of the ‘Seven Sons of National Defence’,” and “a leading centre of military research and one of only fourteen institutions accredited to award doctorates in weapons science.” It is categorized as “very high risk” and “top secret,” with 34 designated defense research areas including missile technology, radar and weapon systems. Both Tsinghua University and Peking University are also listed in the Tracker as “very high risk” and “high risk”, respectively.  Long Teng, President of the Beijing Institute of Technology, was quoted by Chinese media as saying the Fuyan program will have three phases of construction and by the end of Phase 3 China will have “the world&#8217;s first deep-space radar with the capability to carry out 3D imaging and dynamic monitoring as well as active observation of celestial bodies throughout the inner solar system.” The first two radars are expected to become operational by September this year in Chongqing. Asian defense analyst Collin Koh said the project will add new weight to China-U.S. rivalry in space. “When we consider the current context, while there&#8217;s no overt clarion call for China to embark on a space militarization race with the West, especially the U.S., since it has a publicly-professed line of not engaging in one, it is nonetheless very much into the game,” he said. “And all the more so, given the broader military rivalry with the U.S., which has extended into cyber and space domains.” The U.S. established a Space Force in 2019, creating the first new branch of the armed services in 73 years. It resulted from what the Force said was &#8220;a widespread recognition that Space was a national security imperative.&#8221; China has been actively engaged in radar development projects. The commercial satellite imagery company Maxar Technologies released a satellite photo in February, believed to be of a new long-range, early-warning radar that can be used to detect ballistic missiles from thousands of miles away. The Large Phased Array Radar (LPAR) in Yiyuan County, Shandong Province, can cover Taiwan and all of Japan, according to U.S.-based Defense News. The paper said China also has other radar facilities enabling early warning coverage of the Korean Peninsula and India.
- [China tells Southeast Asian states not to be pawns in big-power rivalries](https://ij-reportika.com/china-tells-southeast-asian-states-not-to-be-pawns-in-big-power-rivalries/): The Chinese foreign minister urged ASEAN countries Monday against becoming pawns in rivalries between big powers, a day after his U.S. counterpart visited Bangkok as part of the Biden administration’s intense diplomacy to counter Beijing’s engagement in Southeast Asia. In a speech in Jakarta, Wang Yi appeared to position Beijing as being on the side of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a stance that critics have questioned over frequent Chinese incursions into Asian claimant states’ waters in the disputed South China Sea. “We should insulate this region from geopolitical calculations and the trap of the law of the jungle, from being used as chess pieces in major power rivalry, and from coercion by hegemony and bullying,” Wang said during his policy speech at the ASEAN Secretariat.  “The future of our region should be in our own hands.” Wang called on the region to reject attempts to divide it into “confrontational and exclusive groups,” an apparent reference to U.S.-led security initiatives such as the Quad and AUKUS. The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, comprises the United States, Japan, Australia and India. AUKUS is a security pact under which the United States and Britain will help Canberra build nuclear-powered submarines. “We should uphold true regional cooperation that unites countries within the region and remain open to countries outside, and reject the kind of fake regional cooperation that keeps a certain country out and targets certain side,” Wang said. But, critics say, alleged incursions by Chinese vessels in the exclusive economic zones of Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia in the South China Sea have threatened stability in Southeast Asia. China has never accepted a 2016 ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague that found Beijing’s expansive “historical claims” in the South China Sea to have no legal basis. And for the Biden administration, Southeast Asia is a top priority, it has stressed time and again. It sees the area as crucial, and analysts said Washington scored a win in its efforts to counter Beijing’s influence by getting most members of the ASEAN bloc to join the new Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity deal in May. Now, Wang is on a tour of the region to promote China’s Global Development Initiative, and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). On Monday he described the former as a solution to “the global peace deficit and security dilemma.” BRI is an estimated $1 trillion-plus infrastructure initiative to build a network of railways, ports and bridges across 70 countries, which critics say has led many countries into a debt trap, a charge Beijing has hotly denied.  Wang’s visit to Jakarta followed the G7 summit in Germany late last month, where leaders announced that their governments together would raise $600 billion funds over five years to finance infrastructure in developing nations to counter the BRI. On Saturday, Blinken said that Washington was not asking others to choose between the United States and China, “but giving them a choice, when it comes to things like investment in infrastructure and development systems.” “What we want to make sure is that we’re engaged in a race to the top, that we do things to the highest standards, not a race to the bottom where we do things to the lowest standards.” While in Thailand, Blinken and his Thai counterpart, Don Pramudwinai, signed the U.S.-Thailand Communiqué on Strategic Alliance and Partnership on Sunday. “Our countries share the same goals – the free, open, interconnected, prosperous, resilient and secure Indo-Pacific. In recent years, we worked together even more closely toward that vision,” Blinken said. According to Agus Haryanto, an analyst at Jenderal Soedirman University in Purwokerto, China is concerned about U.S. reengagement with Southeast Asia after being perceived as lacking interest in the region during the years of the Trump administration (2017-2021). “The United States under President Biden is paying attention again to Southeast Asia, including a focus on democracy issues in Myanmar and strengthening cooperation with Thailand,” Agus told BenarNews.   China ‘supported Russia in the UN’ On Sunday, Blinken urged ASEAN members and China to push Myanmar’s junta to end violence against its people and move back toward democracy. More than 2,065 civilians have been killed in Myanmar since the military overthrew the democratic government in February 2021, according to Thailand’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Blinken also accused China of supporting Russia in its invasion of Ukraine, despite Beijing’s professed neutrality. “We are concerned about the PRC’s alignment with Russia,” Blinken told reporters after a meeting with Wang in Bali, where they had attended the G20 Foreign Ministers’ meeting. “I don’t think that China is in fact engaging in a way that suggests neutrality. It’s supported Russia in the U.N. It continues to do so. It’s amplified Russian propaganda,” he said. Meanwhile on Monday, Wang met with Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and praised Jakarta for its initiative to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said. “The PRC once again appreciates Indonesia’s various efforts to seek a peaceful settlement to ongoing situation in Ukraine, including specifically mentioning the President’s visits to Kyiv and Moscow,” Retno said in a statement released by Jokowi’s office. Retno said Wang and Jokowi discussed “priority projects,” including the China-backed Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway, the country’s first, and part of the BRI projects. In a statement following a meeting between with Indonesia’s most senior minister Luhut Pandjaitan on Saturday, Wang said Beijing and Jakarta agreed on building a community “with a shared future” and forging “a new pattern of bilateral cooperation” covering the political, economic, cultural and maritime sectors.  “Indonesia supports and stands ready to actively participate in the Global Development Initiative and the Global Security Initiative, both put forward by President Xi Jinping,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “China is ready to work with Indonesia to continue taking the lead in solidarity and cooperation among regional and developing countries, and forge an exemplary model of mutual benefit, win-win results and common development, as well as a vanguard of South-South cooperation, so as...
- [Observers say inclusive dialogue unlikely in Myanmar without added pressure on junta](https://ij-reportika.com/observers-say-inclusive-dialogue-unlikely-in-myanmar-without-added-pressure-on-junta/): Myanmar’s junta is unlikely to sign off on an all-inclusive dialogue to resolve the country’s political crisis unless additional pressure is applied, observers said Monday, following calls by both the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China to allow all stakeholders to the negotiating table. But sources in Myanmar told RFA Burmese that even if all sides of the political spectrum were represented at talks, compromise would be difficult because of how far apart their views are on how the country should be governed. “It could happen if more international and domestic pressure mounted,” political analyst Than Soe Naing said of the likelihood of all-inclusive talks. “Under the present circumstances, when [the junta has] some control over the country, they do not seem interested.” Than Soe Naing noted that the junta is adamant about maintaining Myanmar’s 2008 Constitution, which grants the military 25 percent of parliamentary seats, giving it an effective veto on constitutional reform. The country’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) and People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary group say they will only negotiate with the junta if it completely withdraws from politics. “They would have to reconcile that and I don&#8217;t think it will be easy. So I think [all-inclusive talks are] unlikely at the moment,” he said. Additionally, Than Soe Naing said, there is nobody who can represent the deposed National League for Democracy (NLD) at negotiations with the junta because all of the party’s top officials were arrested in the aftermath of the military’s Feb. 1, 2021 coup. The military claims voter fraud led to a landslide victory for Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD in the country’s November 2020 election. The junta has yet to provide evidence of its claims and has violently suppressed nationwide protests calling for a return to civilian rule, killing 2,076 people and arresting 14,544 over the last 17 months, according to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Junta chief Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing agreed to pursue talks with all of Myanmar’s stakeholders following an emergency ASEAN meeting on the situation in the country in April 2021, but has yet to do so. Calls for such a dialogue were reiterated by ASEAN Special Envoy for Myanmar Prak Sokhonn during his June 29-July 2 trip to Myanmar and again, days later, by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi during a meeting with his junta counterpart Wunna Maung Lwin. On Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken Thailand along with ASEAN members and China to push the junta to end violence against its people and follow through on its pledge at last year’s ASEAN meeting, following a meeting in Bangkok with Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha. Protesters hold posters during a motorcycle rally demonstration against the military coup near the royal palace in Mandalay, Feb. 7, 2021. Credit: AFP ‘Up to the people’ Nai Than Shwe, a spokesman for the Mon Unity Party (MUP) who met with Sokhonn during his visit, told RFA on Monday that the junta must have a desire for dialogue if all-inclusive talks are to take place. “If the junta takes the initiative, anything is possible. But it’s up to the junta whether or not a dialogue will happen,” he said. An abbot of the Mandalay Sangha Union of Buddhist monks told RFA that ASEAN and China are advocating for all-inclusive talks in the hopes of a return to the status quo in Myanmar. “The dialogue that both ASEAN and China are pushing for is, in short, nothing more than a return to quasi-military rule we used to have before the coup,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “However, the kind of negotiations called for by the NLD cannot end there. If they do, the people will not accept it.” He noted that the military, the NUG, and the PDF have all said they have no interest in negotiations, “so it is up to the people to make it happen.” A spokesman for the anti-junta People’s Defense Battalion No. 2 in Mon state’s Thaton township, who also declined to be named, echoed the abbot’s suggestion that the people of Myanmar must push for an all-inclusive dialogue. “Most of our PDF units … do not want discussions or negotiations with them,” he said. “Given our military momentum and the participation of the people, as well as growing international pressure, we have no reason to discuss anything with them at this time. They are actually looking for a way out … But if the people want us to do it, we will do it.” Junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun had earlier told RFA that the junta would not hold talks with those facing trial or with the NUG and PDF, who it has labeled “terrorists.” However, following the visits of the ASEAN and Chinese envoys, he told the BBC in an interview that “nothing is politically impossible.” The NUG is adamant that it will not hold talks with the junta. Attempts by RFA to contact Kyaw Zaw, a spokesman for the office of NUG President Duwa Lashi La, for comment on the shadow government’s latest position went unanswered Monday. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Chinese use Muslim holiday for propaganda purposes, celebrating with Uyghurs](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-use-muslim-holiday-for-propaganda-purposes-celebrating-with-uyghurs/): Authorities in Xinjiang sent local cadres to celebrate an Islamic holiday with Uyghurs in China’s far-western region amid ongoing repression of the predominantly Muslim minority group, in what Uyghur rights leaders said was a further effort to cover up the real situation there. Known as the Feast of Sacrifice, Eid al-Adha (Qurban Eid) is a major Islamic holiday that marks the end of the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. This year, the holiday began at sundown on July 8 and ended in the evening of July 9. China’s state media reported on huiju work teams of local cadres who “visited” Uyghurs bearing gifts of food and who helped them work in their fields in celebration of the holiday. State media also released a video of Uyghurs dancing in what some observers said were staged performances. A report on Tengritagh (Tianshan), the official website of the XUAR government told of how visitors spent the holiday celebrating with Uyghurs and delivering gifts of rice, noodles, cooking oil and milk. One huiju work team from the Jinghe County Water Conservancy Management Office organized a celebration with the theme “National Unity, One Family, and Eid al-Adha” in which people gathered to sing and dance at a farm in Jinghe county in Xinjiang’s Bortala Mongol Autonomous Prefecture (in Chinese, Bortala Menggu), the report said. “Everyone dressed in festive costumes and danced gracefully,” it said. “There are well-choreographed folk dances and modern dances, as well as poetry readings and calligraphy displays. Everyone actively participated in the national unity knowledge quiz, and the activity scene was filled with the passion of unity and progress.”  Another report on the Tengritagh website cited instances of Uyghurs expressing gratitude to the Chinese Communist Party on the holiday. A huiju team from the State Grid Kizilsu Kirgiz Autonomous Prefecture Power Supply Company in Shalatala village in Artush (Atushi) visited the homes of the poor and ‘went deep into the fields and helped the villagers to do farm work,’ the article said. An elderly villager named Ani Abriz expressed gratitude for the help the team offered and was quoted as saying, “Thanks to the party and the government for their care and concern for us. The first secretary also paid for the exterior wall of our house. Our whole family was very moved.” China’s attempts to deceive the international community by portraying ‘happy Uyghurs’ as part of its propaganda are becoming “evermore naked,” said Ilshat Hassan Kokbore, a political analyst based in the U.S. and vice chairman of the executive committee of the World Uyghur Congress. “It’s clear from its latest propaganda blitz featuring Uyghurs ‘happily’ celebrating the Qurban Eid under the watch of fang huiju officials,” he said, referring to the cadres dispatched by the regional government to monitor Uyghurs in their homes and report their activities to authorities. “Their job is to surveil, manipulate and even threaten the Uyghurs by forcing them to smile, look happy and perform for the state media to deceive the world,” Kokbore told RFA. “In fact, this is an intensive form of state repression that we’re witnessing. This inhuman treatment of Uyghurs is more than shocking, but pure evil.” Rushan Abbas, executive director of the U.S.-based Campaign for Uyghurs said that “China’s manipulation and orchestration of Uyghur happiness during the Eid” would not fool anyone. “The international community is fully aware that China has been committing an ongoing genocide against the Uyghur people and rooting out Uyghur people’s belief in Islam for the past six years,” she told RFA. “No amount of Chinese propaganda and manufactured happiness of Uyghurs will change the fact that China is actively destroying the very foundation of Uyghur people’s religious beliefs and practices,” she said. Earlier this year on Eid al-Fitr, a Muslim holiday marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, China portrayed Uyghurs in Xinjiang as enjoying religious freedom with public celebrations, contradicting documented reports by rights groups of state-backed human rights violations inside the region. Residents of Kashgar (Kashi) said authorities allegedly paid Muslim Uyghur men to dance outside the most famous mosque in Xinjiang to celebrate the May 1-2 holiday in a performance that was recorded and released by state media ahead of an anticipated visit by the United Nations human rights chief later that month. Since 2017, Chinese authorities have ramped up their repression of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities throughout Xinjiang, detaining up to 1.8 million members of these groups in internment camps. The maltreatment also includes severe human rights abuses, torture and forced labor as well as the eradication of linguistic, cultural and religious traditions. Credible reports by rights groups and Western media documenting the widespread abuse and repression in the Xinjiang have prompted the U.S. and some parliaments in Western countries to declare that the Chinese government’s action amount to a genocide and crimes against humanity. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [North Korea’s guidance department works to ensure loyalty of citizenry](https://ij-reportika.com/north-koreas-guidance-department-works-to-ensure-loyalty-of-citizenry/): North Korea’s Organization and Guidance Department, which spreads the directives and teachings of Kim Jong Un, is working to reaffirm loyalty to the dictator at a time of growing hardship for many citizens. Residents who heard news reports about a special lecture held by the department told RFA that the message came across as tone-deaf, given that the government has done little to improve the economic conditions in the country, which have worsened in the coronavirus pandemic. “Party members and residents were outraged when the content of a special lecture held … in Pyongyang from June 2nd to 6th was reported by the Korean Central Broadcasting Committee,” a resident of Musan County in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The lecture was for the officials of the Organization and Guidance Department … and was presided over directly by the highest dignity,” said the source, using an honorific term for Kim. “It focused on how they must establish a discipline in which all party members are absolutely obedient to the party’s sole leadership.” At a time when the economy is in shambles due to the closure of the border and suspension of trade with China, along with international nuclear sanctions, many North Koreans are focused on finding their next meal rather than proving their loyalty to Kim. “They criticize the authorities for their ignorance of the lives of the people,” the source said. “The authorities are not seeking measures to improve people’s lives but merely forcing the party members and residents to obey the party unconditionally.  “The officials of the Organization and Guidance Department already hold great power and were given even more authority to strengthen control over the thoughts and lives of party members. The intent is to suppress any divergence in public sentiment which has been aggravated by COVID-19. They will strengthen the autocratic powers of the party organization,” the source said. A resident of the South Pyongan province, north of Pyongyang, told RFA that people there are frustrated that the government is taking time for the special lectures when the rainy season is approaching, threatening crops. “That proves that the Central Committee [and Kim Jong Un] are not prioritizing the stability of our livelihoods and instead try to enhance and maintain his dictatorship,” said the second source, who requested anonymity to speak freely. “More and more members of the lowest organizations in the party, which support the Central Committee, are leaving the party. And a growing number of party members are absent from the weekly self-criticism sessions which are a required duty of a party member,” he said. Known as saenghwal chonghwa, the sessions are public meetings in which every citizen must individually confess their shortcomings to the party each week. “If you miss the party’s self-criticism session more than three times, you receive a warning. Failure to attend for more than six months will result in removal from the party,” the second source said. “The current situation in North Korea is similar to the situation in which residents openly criticized the authorities during the Arduous March,” the second source said, using the Korean term for the 1994-1998 North Korean famine that killed millions of people, possibly as much as 10 percent of the population. During the famine, the authorities were focused on controlling public opinion by dispatching officials to report on citizens, but now even the secretaries of local party cells are themselves experiencing hardships and are increasingly disillusioned with authorities, the second source said. “In the end, the special lecture held in Pyongyang showed the government’s intent to forcibly suppress and block the voices of dissatisfaction among party members and residents who defy them,” he said. “This is why they are strengthening the autocratic powers of the Central Committee. The people are outraged.” Translated by Claire Shinyoung O. Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Vietnam ministry proposes ending stricter oversight of Formosa steel plant](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-ministry-proposes-ending-stricter-oversight-of-formosa-steel-plant/): A Vietnamese government agency is proposing an end to a heightened level of oversight of a Taiwanese-owned steel plant responsible for the country’s worst-ever environmental disaster more than five years ago, despite ongoing concerns among local residents. The April 2016 release of toxic chemicals, including cyanide, polluted the coastline of four provinces over a total area of about 200 kilometers (124 miles), killing an estimated 115 tons of fish and harming the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, including fishermen and tourism industry workers. Taiwan-owned Formosa Plastics Group acknowledged the spill came from its massive steel plant located at a deep-water port in Ha Tinh province’s Ky Anh district. The company offered U.S. $500 million in compensation after a Vietnamese government investigation determined that incident caused considerable environmental damage. Though the funds were meant to cover the cleanup and to support people along the coasts whose livelihoods were destroyed, critics said the amount has not been adequate, and many of those affected have sought additional compensation through Taiwanese courts. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment last week proposed Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính stop a special supervision mechanism for the Hung Nghiep Formosa Ha Tinh steel factory and switch to a normal monitoring arrangement. The ministry said it had determined that Formosa had addressed and repaired the detrimental impacts of the spill. Environmental experts and local residents are objecting to the plan, fearing additional environmental damage by the plant if the current level of oversight is diminished. A woman living near the plant told RFA that she does not understand the ministry’s recommendations, especially because fish and other marine life from the affected areas continue to show effects from the disaster. “After 2016 and until now, dead fish sometimes have washed ashore, especially when the waste is discharged, and the amount of live fish is less than before,” said the woman who declined to be named for security reasons. “It occurs a few times every years.” The woman said her family earned a decent income from fishing, but their lives were turned upside down after the environmental disaster. The woman, who said she served a jail sentence demonstrating against Formosa following the spill, said almost half of the villagers in the area where she lives have developed health ailments from inhaling smoke and foul-smelling gas emitted by the plant. But most residents do not dare to discuss the consequences for fear of being sent to jail, she said. Local authorities imprisoned many of the villagers who protested the factory after the spill. RFA attempted to contact the leaders of Ky Anh district and Ha Tinh province for comment, but officials there who answered the phone abruptly hung up. A former lecturer in public policy at the National Economics University in Vietnam’s capital Hanoi said that the special monitoring should continue. “Formosa has made a precedent of serious violations, causing a terrible environmental disaster that local people have to suffer for hundreds of years,” said the former academic, who declined to be named for fear of retribution. “After the disaster, Formosa Ha Tinh even blatantly challenged the public with the declaration of ‘whichever to be chosen: steel or fish.’ “Due to the impact of the sea disaster, many fishermen in Ky Anh have had to quit their jobs, and many have gone to other provinces and abroad to look for jobs,” he said. “The proposal to stop the special monitoring mechanism for Formosa Ha Tinh is a way to encourage it to commit more violations.” Nguyen Van Khai, an environmentalist and physicist, questioned why the government would want to stop the current monitoring system. “Why stop? Please announce publicly the monitoring results! Do invite people to come there and do measurement work publicly,” he said. “How is the air quality?” Khai, who has led successful industrial waste treatment projects, volunteered to measure air quality from gas and water discharged into the environment from the Formosa plant if called upon. Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Cambodian opposition activists wait in pretrial detention longer than legal limit](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-opposition-activists-wait-in-pretrial-detention-longer-than-legal-limit/): An attorney representing several jailed Cambodian opposition activists said his clients have been in pretrial detention for longer than is legally allowed, as he urged the court to quickly work to resolve their cases. More than 60 opposition activists, mostly with connections to the banned opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), have been detained for expressing their political rights. Most of them were arrested by the authorities in early 2020.  Many of the activists have been in pretrial detention longer than the 18-month legal limit, while others are close to reaching that limit, Sam Sokong, who represents nearly 10 detained activists, told RFA’s Khmer Service.      The legal limit is “six months, and it can be extended twice for six months, so that’s equal to 18 months,” he said. Sam Sokong’s clients include Kong Mas, who previously served an 18-month sentence that ended in 2020, and Khan Bun Pheng, a former commune chief detained since January 2020. Both are awaiting trial on conspiracy charges. Sam Sokong’s other clients include activists who were arrested by Thai authorities and repatriated in late 2021: Voeung Samnang and Voeun Vearn, whose alias is Prey Lang Rose Wood, who are both charged with &#8220;conspiracy and incitement;&#8221; Lahn Thavry, who is charged with &#8220;incitement;&#8221; and Mech Heang, who is charged with &#8220;insulting the government leadership.&#8221;  They have been in detention for more than eight months. Sam Sokong said that the court told him that their cases had already been sent to a trial judge, but he has yet to receive a court date. Voeung Samnang’s wife, Srey Teang Chenda, told RFA that the court has already summoned her husband from prison six times since his detention began eight months ago but has not yet taken him to trial. She said she expects the court to expedite the hearing soon and release her husband to reunite with his family because he is innocent. “It is unfair because he was not at fault. The authorities arrested him and did not prosecute,” she said.  “He has done nothing wrong and just keeping him in prison is making me suffer. I have to take care of my family alone and need to visit him at the prison [to bring him food] too,” Sreay Teang Chenda said.  RFA could not reach Phnom Penh Municipal Court spokesman Ey Rin for comment. Civil society groups say detaining suspects without a trial violates their right to due process and a speedy trial. The opposition activists’ cases are moving more slowly than others, Soeung Senkaruna, spokesperson for the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association, told RFA. “In this case, we would like to see the same legal responsibility be implemented for the detained activists, by speeding up the trial process,” he said, explaining that prolonged pre-trial detention violates the rights of the accused. “Civil society organizations have consistently insisted on the court considering dropping the charges and granting detainees liberty,” Soeung Senkaruna said. The CNRP was dissolved by Cambodia’s Supreme Court in 2017, a move that paved the way for Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party to win every seat in the National Assembly in the 2018 general election. The dissolution of the CNRP kicked off a five-year crackdown on political opposition, with many of those affiliated with the party arrested and detained on charges like conspiracy, incitement, and treason. Translated by Sok Ry Sum. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Top US diplomat: China, ASEAN should push Myanmar to end violence](https://ij-reportika.com/top-us-diplomat-china-asean-should-push-myanmar-to-end-violence/): U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday urged Thailand along with ASEAN members and China to push Myanmar’s junta to end violence against its people and move back toward democracy following a meeting in Bangkok with Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha. Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Blinken called on the region’s government leaders to push the junta, which overthrew Myanmar’s democratic government in February 2021, to live up to a plan agreed upon two months later. Earlier, he signed a pair of cooperative agreements with Thailand’s foreign minister. “The United States is working with Thailand and all of ASEAN to push Burma’s regime to fulfill the Five-Point Consensus, end its brutal violence and put Burma back on the path to democracy,” Blinken said, using the old name for Myanmar and the acronym for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. “It is incumbent on China and in China’s interest to see Burma move back to the path it was on,” he also said. While junta government leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing agreed to the consensus in April 2021, his government has not implemented it. The consensus included an immediate end to violence in the country, the distribution of humanitarian aid, dialogue among all parties and the appointment of an ASEAN special envoy to Myanmar who would be permitted to meet with all stakeholders. “Unfortunately, it is safe to say that we have seen no positive movement. On the contrary, we continue to see the repression of the Burmese people,” Blinken said, noting members of the opposition are in jail or in exile. “The regime is not delivering what is necessary for the people.” More than 2,065 civilians have been killed in Myanmar since the coup, according to Thailand’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. After traveling to Thailand from Bali, Indonesia, where he had attended the G20 foreign ministers meeting last week, Blinken also met with his Thai counterpart, Don Pramudwinai. They signed the U.S.-Thailand Communiqué on Strategic Alliance and Partnership. “Our countries share the same goals – the free, open, interconnected, prosperous, resilient and secure Indo-Pacific. In recent years, we worked together even more closely toward that vision,” Blinken said. “I’m especially pleased to be in Thailand at a time when we have an ally and partner in the Pacific of such importance to us in the region that is shaping the trajectory of the 21st century and doing that every single day.” The communiqué, which noted the nations will celebrate their 190th anniversary of diplomatic relations in 2023, listed long-term goals of expanding and strengthening the strategic partnership to prevent conflict, preserving a peaceful security environment, promoting free expression and civil and political rights, and achieving inclusive, sustainable and balanced economic prosperity. “We pursue these goals as equals, for the benefit of the Thai and American people, as well as for the rest of the Indo&#8211;Pacific populations and the wider world. We seek to work together to ensure the resilience of critical supply chains, so that both our nations have access to the goods and resources required to preserve our safety, security and prosperity,” it said. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken (left) and Thai Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai sign a memorandum of understanding at the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bangkok, July 10, 2022. Credit: Stefani Reynolds/Pool via AP Blinken and Don also signed a memorandum of understanding regarding the supply chain between the two nations. “This ensures, strong, resilient and diverse supply chain cooperation, particularly in the category of industrial, technological innovation,” Don said. Bali meeting Blinken’s trip followed a five-hour meeting on Saturday with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Bali and as the two superpowers focus on maintaining their relationships with Thailand and other Southeast Asian nations. Wang visited Bangkok before traveling to Bali. Speaking to reporters in Bali, Blinken said, “What we’re about is not asking countries to choose, but giving them a choice, when it comes to things like investment in infrastructure and development systems. “What we want to make sure is that we’re engaged in a race to the top, that we do things to the highest standards, not a race to the bottom where we do things to the lowest standards.” Wang traveled to Bangkok on July 5 where he held similar meetings with Prayuth and Don. “We both agree on many issues. We agreed to jointly build joint societies for the future of Chinese and Thais, making it a guideline to future joint cooperation for both countries. … The objective of the joint societies is to stress that Chinese and Thai are no strangers but kin. The relationship is robust,” Wang told reporters in Bangkok after meeting with Don. Blinken is to travel to Tokyo where he will offer condolences on Monday to Japanese officials following the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service. Dandy Koswaraputra in Jakarta contributed to this report.
- [Police fire warning shots, beat Henan rural bank protesters amid withdrawal freeze](https://ij-reportika.com/police-fire-warning-shots-beat-henan-rural-bank-protesters-amid-withdrawal-freeze/): UPDATED at 12:02 P.M. EST on 2022-07-11 Police in the central Chinese province of Henan launched a mass beating operation at the weekend against crowds of protesters who had gathered in the provincial capital, Zhengzhou, in protest at a six-week-long freeze on bank withdrawals in the region. &#8220;[The police] called in a bunch of people in civvies to beat people up till they were covered in blood,&#8221; an eyewitness surnamed Sun told RFA on Monday. &#8220;It was awful &#8230; [I saw] a group of men beating up a woman who was bleeding from the eye.&#8221; A video of the scene posted to social media showed hundreds of police in black and white T-shirts charging a crowd of some 3,000 bank depositors outside the Zhengzhou branch of the People&#8217;s Bank of China in the early hours of Sunday. The video, uploaded to the Henan Rural Bank Rights Protection in Progress Twitter account, showed protesters shouting &#8220;Henan Bank, give me back my money!&#8221; and then calling on local ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) financial regulator Qin Hanfeng to come out and talk to them. At this point, armed police fired shots into the air, and the crowd retreated, shouting &#8220;[They&#8217;re] arresting [people]!&#8221; interspersed by further gunshot. Many were holding up placards and banners demanding the right to withdraw their funds from local branches of rural banks, in a recurring protest that has been largely unreported by China&#8217;s state-controlled news outlets. Sun said the people protesting had put their life-savings into what turned out to be criminal ventures. &#8220;They worked hard and saved so much money, and wound up handing over to a den of thieves,&#8221; she said. Other video footage showed gangs of men in white T-shirts crowding around people to beat them up methodically, and hundreds of protesters being detained and put on board dozens of buses. An officer who answered the phone at the Zhengzhou municipal police department didn&#8217;t confirm that shots were fired. &#8220;Where did you see this? Are you asking if it&#8217;s true or not? I&#8217;m not aware of this, comrade,&#8221; the officer said. &#8220;Sometimes police do fire warning shots in certain situations.&#8221; Asked about the whereabouts of the detained protesters, the officer replied: &#8220;We can&#8217;t answer this, comrade. If you leave a number, I can register your inquiry and get back to you.&#8221; No reply had been received by the time of writing, however. In response to the weekend protests, the Henan Banking and Insurance Regulatory Bureau and Henan Provincial Local Financial Regulatory Bureau announced Monday that some bank customers would receive advance payments beginning on July 15. Shangcai Huimin Rural Bank, Zhecheng Huanghuai Rural Bank, and Kaifeng New Oriental Rural Bank will issue payments to customers with combined account amounts of less than 50,000 yuan (U.S. $ 7,500), while those with more than that amount will be paid later, the announcement said. ‘Extremely risky’ Sporadic protests have been occurring for weeks, with depositors sometimes prevented from traveling to protest sites when their &#8220;health code&#8221; COVID-19 monitoring app suddenly turns red. In one video from May, protesters lie on the ground in a &#8220;die in,&#8221; screaming repeatedly while holding up slogans; in another, they kneel and wail, begging for access to their own money. Some 413,000 people have been left with no access to their money by the freeze on withdrawals, which the authorities say is linked to a massive police investigation into the businessman Lu Yi and his Henan New Fortune Group. The Henan Provincial Local Financial Supervision Bureau said in a statement on its website on Sunday that the &#8220;relevant departments are speeding up the verification of customer information at four rural banks &#8230; so as to protect the legitimate rights and interests of the general public.&#8221; According to Hong Kong&#8217;s Ming Pao newspaper, the rural banks started in 2006 as part of China&#8217;s rural revitalization plan, offering high interest on deposits. Many rural savers, attracted by the high interest rates on deposits and referrals from salespeople, placed their entire life savings in these high-interest deposit products, it said. By the end of 2021, there were 1,651 village and town banks in China, accounting for one-third of banking and institutions. Anyone wishing to set up a town-level village bank requires only 1 million yuan (U.S. $149,300) in registered capital, compared with 1 billion yuan (U.S. $149.3 million) for private banks nationwide. The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission recently reminded people that if any financial product promises a return of more than 6 percent, there should be a question mark over it, while anything offering a return of eight percent or more is &#8220;extremely risky.&#8221; Anyone investing in a product offering a 10-percent return should be prepared to lose all of their capital, the Ming Pao quoted the commission as saying in an apparent reference to the products offered by the Yuzhou Xinminsheng Rural Bank, Kaifeng New Oriental Rural Bank, Henan Shangcai Huimin Rural Bank, and Henan Tuocheng Huanghuai Rural Bank, which offered higher rates of return that China&#8217;s four state-owned banks. Many were prompted to transfer their entire savings, and even those of their parents, to the rural banks, only to find that withdrawals were blocked from April 18, 2022. Many of the deposits were made via third parties, locking in funds for three or five years, at an annual interest rate of 4.8 percent. Some of the banks&#8217; online transaction systems had been manipulated by Henan New Fortune Group, but none of the depositors had access to that information at the time. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. This article has been updated to include banking authorities&#8217; announcement on Monday of payments to customers of certain banks.
- [Hong Kong rights review marred by crackdown on civil society groups](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-rights-review-marred-by-crackdown-on-civil-society-groups/): A United Nations human rights council review of Hong Kong&#8217;s rights record has been hampered by a citywide crackdown on civil society groups, which would normally make submissions as part of the process, overseas rights groups have warned. &#8220;Since the enactment of the [national security law on July 1, 2020], nearly 100 civil society organizations operating in Hong Kong have been forced to disband or relocate facing similar threats posed by the law,&#8221; London-based Amnesty International said in its submission to the council. &#8220;The [law] created an unprecedented chilling effect among civil society groups.&#8221; It said the civil society landscape had changed drastically since the last review session. Of the 15 groups and networks that submitted information to the UN Human Rights Committee in 2020 in advance of the adoption of the list of issues prior to reporting, nearly half have either closed, left Hong Kong, or stopped all activities due to threats posed by the national security law, Amnesty said. It said local human rights groups that used to facilitate civil society groups’ participation in the UN human rightsmechanisms disbanded in 2020, with several of their leaders currently detained awaiting trial on nationalsecurity charges, and others forced into exile. It said groups had been deterred from submitting to the review for fear of being accused of &#8220;collusion with foreign powers&#8221; under national security law. The same issue was raised by the U.N. committee&#8217;s vice chair Christopher Arif Bulkan who asked Hong Kong officials at a hearing on July 8: &#8220;Can you provide assurances that the [civil society organizations] who participate here today, and over the next three days, are not in danger of prosecution or victimization under the national security law, for such engagement?” Bulkan asked. Apollonia Liu, deputy secretary for security, said the national security law and Basic Law contain in-built protections for human rights, and that the crackdown hadn&#8217;t affected the human rights landscape in the city. Freedoms dismantled She cited the willingness of protesters during the 2019 protest movement to fight back against police violence as evidence of a &#8220;terrorist&#8221; threat to Hong Kong. But the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the national security law has been used to dismantle Hong Kong&#8217;s freedoms, and not just for those who threw bricks and Molotov cocktails. &#8220;Basic civil and political rights long protected in Hong Kong—including freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly—are being erased,&#8221; it said in its submission to the review process. More than 50 groups across a cross section of Hong Kong’s civil society have disbanded since the imposition of the law, HRW said. &#8220;They included some of Hong Kong’s oldest civil society groups, such as the city’s second-largest labor union, the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Union, and the Hong Kong Professional Teacher’s Union, as well as newer organizations that formed since the 2019 mass protests,&#8221; it said. Police have also demanded information from civil society groups &#8230; Some people were arrested for refusing to hand over data.&#8221; Amnesty also cited the charging of a group with &#8220;collusion with a foreign power&#8221; under the law; the Hong Kong Alliance, which ran the now-banned Tiananmen massacre candlelight vigils in Victoria Park on June 4 for 30 years. Several of its members, including barrister Chow Hang-tung, are currently behind bars awaiting trial on the same charge. Beijing-controlled newspapers also intimidated and shut down another major protest organizer, the Civil Human Rights Front (CHRF), claiming that the group’s actions &#8220;bring chaos and disasters to the city,&#8221; and was &#8220;supported by foreign anti-China forces,&#8221; Amnesty said. Lifeboat visas CHRF’s convenor, Figo Chan, faces at least 14 counts of crimes involving his efforts to organize peaceful protests in 2020, and has been held in custody since May 2021 for &#8220;organizing unlawful assembly,&#8221; it said, adding that the CHRF disbanded in August 2021. Bulkan also took issue with the recent use of colonial-era sedition laws to prosecute the authors of a children&#8217;s book, supporters who clapped from the public gallery during a court hearing, and a pop star who criticized the government&#8217;s COVID-19 policies on social media. &#8220;These actions are acceptable in a democratic society, which is the legitimate exercise of freedom of expression protected by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,&#8221; Bulkan told the council. &#8220;In a democratic society, individuals have the right to criticize the government, and the crime of sedition should not be used as an excuse to suppress dissenting voices.&#8221; The session of the committee of 18 international experts will continue on Tuesday, while a closing session will take place on July 22. The London-based rights group Hong Kong Watch has warned that almost two million Hong Kongers lack a viable route out of the city as they are ineligible for the lifeboat visas currently on offer from the U.K., Canada and Australia. &#8220;Governments around the world must do more to support Hong Kongers who need to get out of the city,&#8221; the group&#8217;s chief executive Benedict Rogers said in a recent statement. &#8220;The need is greater now more than ever as John Lee, the former Security Secretary who was responsible for the 2019 crackdown and whose entire career has been in policing and locking people up, takes the reins in Hong Kong,&#8221; Rogers said. &#8220;There is now a genuine and well-founded fear that Hong Kong is becoming a police state.&#8221; The U.K.’s British National Overseas (BNO) visa scheme will covers around 5.4 million people when a rule change to include 18–24-year-olds takes effect in November, Hong Kong Watch said. Canada’s route is open to around 200,000 people, and Australia’s will benefit around 11,000 Hong Kongers already in the country, it said. The U.S. has only allowed 20,000 Hong Kongers to overstay existing visas, while the EU lacks any scheme at all, it said. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Sino-Pakistan naval exercise raises concern in India](https://ij-reportika.com/sino-pakistan-naval-exercise-raises-concern-in-india/): China and Pakistan kicked off a four-day joint maritime exercise on Sunday in an effort to bolster their naval cooperation, which some analysts see as a cause of concern for India. China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) sent a submarine, three warships and four aircraft to the Sea Guardians-2 drills off Shanghai, the PLA Daily said. PLAN spokesperson Liu Wensheng was quoted by Chinese media as saying that the exercise was “arranged according to the annual military cooperation plan of the two navies, has nothing to do with the regional situation and is not targeted at any third party.” Participating ships from the PLA Eastern Theatre Command include the guided-missile frigates Xiangtan and Shuozhou, the comprehensive supply ship Qiandaohu and one submarine. There is also one early warning aircraft, two fighter jets and a helicopter. Pakistan sent the frigate Taimur, the second of four powerful Type 054A/P ships built by China for Pakistan’s navy. The PLA said the joint maritime exercise aimed to “push forward development of the China-Pakistan all-weather strategic partnership of cooperation.” It will feature training courses including joint strikes against maritime targets, joint tactical maneuvering, joint anti-submarine warfare and joint support for damaged vessels. ‘Gaining momentum’ The drills follow last month’s visit to China by Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa. During the trip, Gen. Javed Bajwa held talks with Zhang Youxia, one of China’s top generals and Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission. “Naval cooperation between China and Pakistan has been going on for quite some time but is gaining momentum now,” said Sana Hashmi, an Indian analyst and currently Visiting Fellow at the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation in Taipei. “This exercise in particular is being noticed in India as China’s reach in the IOR [Indian Ocean Region] will be bolstered with Pakistan’s assistance. Definitely a cause of concern for India,” she said. Indian media reported that Sino-Pakistan military cooperation in recent years focused more on navies as “China gradually stepped up its naval presence in India&#8217;s backyard, the Indian Ocean.” The current event is the second Sea Guardians exercise, the first was held in January 2020 in the North Arabian Sea. The Press Trust of India (PTI) said the Arabian Sea is strategically important as many major Indian ports are located there and it provides entry to the Indian Ocean where China recently built a logistics base at Djibouti in the Horn of Africa. Beijing has also acquired the operational control of Pakistan&#8217;s Gwadar port in the Arabian Sea, which connects with China&#8217;s Xinjiang province by land as part of the U.S.$60-billion China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).  Further to that, it obtained a 99-year lease of Sri Lanka’s second largest port, Hambantota and is developing it as part of the ambitious Belt and Road Initiative. “CPEC exists primarily to extend and strengthen China’s reach to the IOR and that’s one of the reasons besides the sovereignty issues that India opposes CPEC,” said Hashmi, adding that the Sino-Pakistan growing ties “will further bolster the Quad and encourage them to strengthen maritime cooperation.” The Quad, or Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, is a strategic security dialogue between Australia, India, Japan, and the United States. Beijing has been slamming it, saying that the group represents an attempt to form an “Asian NATO.” Quad countries have repeatedly rejected the criticism. The Pakistan Navy ordered four powerful Type 054A/P frigates from China in 2017, two of which were delivered this year. It also signed a multi-billion deal to acquire eight submarines from China by 2028.
- [At least six burned bodies found in Magway region village](https://ij-reportika.com/at-least-six-burned-bodies-found-in-magway-region-village/): Two days of fighting between junta troops and People’s Defense Forces (PDFs) in Magway region’s Myaing township ended with the grisly discovery of charred bodies scattered across a village. Locals told RFA that at least six burned corpses were found in the remains of Sue Win village on Friday. They said they believed there were more victims as the body parts had been scattered. The corpses were so badly burned they could not be identified.  “There were more than six bodies,” said a local, who declined to be named for safety reasons. “They were not burned in one place. There were many bodies. They were found in four places.”  Battles between junta forces and local militia groups began on Friday and continued the next day. Locals told RFA they believed the military council had burned the bodies along with four houses and they think the dead are a mixture of locals and PDF members.  However, since the bodies have not yet been identified, it is not yet known if junta forces were among the dead. Some of the bodies were wearing bulletproof vests and army boots, with scarves tied around their necks in the military style indicating the military was trying to cover up its own casualties. Local junta Capt. Soe Win is believed to be among the dead. “The bodies were brought here in a vehicle,” said a local PDF member. “There were more than seven or eight bodies including those killed in the fighting on the way to our village.” The military council has not released any information on the discovery of the bodies and calls to a spokesman by RFA on Monday went unanswered. Ongoing battles between junta troops and the PDFs have left thousands homeless in Myanmar’s second largest region. On June 15 troops torched more than 3,000 houses in one township. Locals in Myaing township say residents of more than ten villages in the area have fled from the military council’s scorched-earth operations.Figures from Data for Myanmar show that 22 people had been killed in Magway between February last year and the end of April 2022 but more up to date figures are not available. D4M also reported last month that troops had torched more than 3,000 houses in Magway in the first 16 months following the coup.
- [Protests in China against the Bank Run](https://ij-reportika.com/protests-in-china-against-the-bank-run/): Chinese customers opened accounts at six rural banks in Henan and neighboring Anhui province that offered higher interest rates in large numbers. They later found they could not withdraw their funds after media reports that the head of the banks’ parent company was on the run and wanted for financial crimes. “We came today and wanted to get our savings back, because I have elderly people and children at home, and the inability to withdraw savings has seriously affected my life,” said a woman from Shandong province, who only gave her last name. local resident Zhang China heavily misused the COVID-19 tracking app. Many who set out for Zhengzhou to demand action from regulators found that their health status on the application had turned red, preventing them from traveling. Some reported being questioned by police after checking into their hotel about why they had come to the city. Five Zhengzhou officials were later punished. The protesters assembled before dawn on Sunday in front of the People’s Bank of China building in Zhengzhou. Police closed off the street and by 8 a.m. had started massing on the other side. The events were similar to the events that took place during the Tiananmen Square Massacre. The police then announced to the protesters from a vehicle with a megaphone that they were an illegal assembly and would be detained and fined if they didn’t leave. Around 10 a.m., the men in T-shirts rushed the crowd and dispersed them. The witnesses said they saw women dragged down the stairs of the bank entrance. Police was brutal in its ways to crush the protests. A protestor Yang said he was hit by two security officers including one who had fallen off the stairs and mistakenly thought in the chaos that Yang had hit or pushed him. “Although repeated protests and demonstrations don’t necessarily have a big impact, I think it is still helpful if more people get to know about us, and understand or sympathize with us,” Yang said. “Each time you do it, you might make a difference. Although you will get hit, they can’t really do anything to you, right?” The protesters were bused to various sites where they were forced to sign a letter guaranteeing they would not gather anymore. They were beaten and thrashed mercilessly. Ironically, since Chinese media are banned from conducting independent reports about the Henan bank crisis, Chinese netizens are flooding the comment section of the US embassy’s Weibo account, asking American media to cover the case. Several videos of the protests are going on the social media of the protests in China. The horrific state of affairs is similar to those happened in the Tiananmen Square. Image/Videos Credit: Byron Wan
- [Russia’s Lavrov walks out of G20 meeting over condemnation of Ukraine war](https://ij-reportika.com/russias-lavrov-walks-out-of-g20-meeting-over-condemnation-of-ukraine-war/): The G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in Bali concluded Friday with several nations’ top diplomats condemning Moscow’s war in Ukraine in the presence of their Russian counterpart, who walked out at least once during what he called the “frenzied castigation.” Retno Marsudi, the chief diplomat of host country Indonesia, did not say whether the meeting reached any consensus about food security, but mentioned that participants were deeply concerned about the conflict’s “global impact on food, energy and finance.” Some of the Group of Twenty members “expressed condemnation” of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, she said, adding, “It is our responsibility to end the war as quickly as possible. And to build bridges and not walls.” “Developing countries will be the most affected, particularly low-income countries and small, developing countries. There is an urgent need to address global food supply chain disruptions, integrating food and fertilizer from Ukraine and Russia into the global market,” Rento said in a statement after the meeting. Since Russia invaded the neighboring country on Feb. 24, its military forces have blocked all of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports and cut off access to almost all of that country’s exports – especially of grain – sparking fears of a global food crisis. Ukraine is the world’s fourth-largest grain exporter. Before the meeting started, Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, had to deal with tough questions from at least one reporter. “When will you stop the war?” a German journalist asked as Moscow’s top diplomat shook hands with Retno. Lavrov did not respond and walked away. At the ministers’ meeting, Lavrov, sat between representatives from Saudi Arabia and Mexico. He later told reporters that during the meeting, he accused the West of preventing a peaceful solution to the conflict in Ukraine by refusing to talk to Russia. “If the West doesn’t want talks to take place but wishes for Ukraine to defeat Russia on the battlefield – because both views have been expressed – then perhaps, there is nothing to talk about with the West,” TASS, the Russian state news agency, quoted him as saying. Asked if there was any chance that he and Blinken could talk, he said: “It was not us that abandoned all contact. It was the United States.” “If they don’t want to talk, it’s their choice,” Lavrov added. Before the U.S. diplomat left for Bali, U.S. State Department officials said that he would not meet Lavrov formally until the Russians were “serious about diplomacy.” But the Reuters news agency quoted Indonesia’s Retno as saying that Lavrov and Blinken were seen in a conversation in the meeting room. Additionally, Blinken is said to have responded to Lavrov’s accusations against the West, Reuters said, citing an unnamed diplomat, who added, though, that Lavrov wasn’t in the room at that time. “He addressed Russia directly, saying: To our Russian colleagues: Ukraine is not your country. Its grain is not your grain. Why are you blocking the ports? You should let the grain out,’” the official said, according to Reuters. The meeting on Friday occurred under the shadow of the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during an election campaign speech in Nara, Japan. In a message of condolence to the Japanese people, Retno said Abe would “be remembered as the best role model for all.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov speaks to reporters during the G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting at the Mulia Hotel in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia, July 8, 2022. Credit: Joan Tanamal/BenarNews ‘Everyone has to feel comfortable’ After the meeting, Lavrov and his German counterpart traded barbs. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock criticized Lavrov for being absent from the meeting room, according to German news agency DPA. “The fact that the Russian foreign minister spent a large part of the negotiations here not in the room but outside the room underlines that there is not even a millimeter of willingness to talk on the part of the Russian government at the moment,” DPA quoted Baerbock as saying. She noted that Lavrov was not present at discussions on how to improve global food supply and distribution problems. For his part, Lavrov questioned Western manners when informing reporters that G7 diplomats had skipped a welcome dinner organized by Indonesia on Thursday, TASS reported. “A welcome reception organized by Indonesia was held yesterday, a reception and a concert, and they [G7 countries] were absent from it,” Lavrov said. “This is how they understand protocol, politeness and code of conduct,” he added. Indonesia’s Retno spoke about the boycotted dinner. “We are trying to create a comfortable situation for all. When the G7 countries said they could not attend the optional informal reception, they all talked and I said I could understand the situation because once again, everyone has to feel comfortable,” Retno said. Indonesia has been trying to mediate between Russia and Ukraine, with President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo visiting the two countries last month on a trip he described as a peace mission. While his mission to persuade Moscow to declare a ceasefire did not immediately materialize, Jokowi said that Russian President Vladimir Putin had promised he would secure safe sea passage of grain and fertilizers from the world’s breadbaskets Russia and Ukraine, to avert a global food crisis. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.
- [Sagaing residents say they face discrimination under Myanmar junta](https://ij-reportika.com/sagaing-residents-say-they-face-discrimination-under-myanmar-junta/): Burmese citizens with national registration cards indicating they reside in northwestern Myanmar’s Sagaing region face travel restrictions and other forms of discrimination under Myanmar’s ruling military regime because they hail from the part of the country with the greatest armed resistance to the junta, locals said Friday. The junta which seized power from the elected government in February 2021 has faced the fiercest armed resistance in Sagaing region. Most of the region’s 34 townships and more than 5,900 villages have been affected by fighting between military forces and members of the anti-junta People’s Defense Forces (PDF). The hostilities and the burnings of villages have displaced thousands of residents in the region. The junta announced in late March that authorities could check the national registration cards, also known as citizenship verification cards, of people in the region anywhere on demand. Residents of the region told RFA that people holding national registration cards that identify them as being from the area are limited in where they can travel and cut off from employment opportunities. A Myaung township resident, who requested anonymity for safety reasons, said registration card holders have been subjected to stricter checks than are those registered in other regions and states since the junta made its announcement. “There’s nothing we can do about transportation or communications or getting jobs,” he said. “You cannot lie to them as every detail is on the registration card.” Though no one wants to accept people who have cards beginning with the numerical prefix that identifies them as Sagaing residents, locals are proud that they hold such ID documents, he said. “But we face a lot of difficulties in travelling and finding jobs,” he said, adding that he was dismayed that employers in other areas of Myanmar discriminated against migrant workers from Sagaing. A company worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity for the same reason, said authorities question him now when he travels more than they do others. “It’s just a normal trip, [and] there are many checkpoints along the way,” he said. “There’s a lot of questioning at some checkpoints. They gave you suspicious looks. You will be asked many questions even though it’s a normal business trip, just because you are holding a card with the prefix 5/ and you live in a township where there are concerning situations.’ “I’m always worried they might not accept my answers and turn me back,” the worker added. ‘Public security’ work A hotel owner in central Myanmar’s Mandalay region, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said regime authorities had not instructed hotels to conduct strict checks of Sagaing region citizens, though they had been told to maintain a list of guests and their phone numbers. “There are no specific orders to strictly check guests from what township or region they come from,” he said, adding that he did not record the townships from which his guests came. “But we have been told to keep records of names and phone numbers of guests who stay here because of the current situation in the country and we have to send guest lists to [authorities] regularly,” he said. “They will take action against us if we don’t follow the orders.” In the past, guests were allowed to stay at guesthouses without presenting their national registration cards if they could produce other identification documents. Sagaing residents also told RFA that people from the region who want to go abroad for work have been subjected to strict censorship, and some have been refused passports. Military spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun said there were no special restrictions as such, however. “Even in places like [the capital] Naypyidaw, you can find people fleeing from the people’s Defense Forces violence in Sagaing region,” he said. “Of course, there may be security checks in some places,” he said. “This is not done for these registration card owners. They’re just doing their work for public security.” Nazin Latt, a National League for Democracy lawmaker for Sagaing’s Kanbalu township, described the discrimination as “psychological warfare.” “It’s a violation of human rights to oppress people in areas with strong opposition, for jobs or travel whether it be for security reasons or not,” he told RFA. “On the one hand, it is seen as a systematic psychological warfare — being refused jobs or being refused to put up at guest houses, finding it difficult to get jobs in Yangon and Mandalay, all these issues. It also depends a lot on the employers.” A recent job announcement in Mandalay’s Pyin Oo Lwin township, said that people holding cards with the Sagaing numerical prefix on their ID cards could not apply. RFA could not reach the recruiter by phone for comment. In the past, during the height of armed conflict between national forces and the ethnic rebel Arakan Army (AA) in Rakhine state, the military and military-controlled local administrative authorities imposed similar restrictions on citizens with the numerical code for the western state on their national registration cards. The residents were prevented from traveling in other areas of the country, especially in northern Shan state, on suspicion that they might be heading there to participate in military training offered by AA near the border with China. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane for RFA Burmese. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Landmines in Myanmar target civilians, maim and kill children, NGOs say](https://ij-reportika.com/landmines-in-myanmar-target-civilians-maim-and-kill-children-ngos-say/): Myanmar’s military is guilty of war crimes for its alleged practice of laying landmines in populated areas where they have killed civilians, including children, two ethnic rights organizations told RFA. Landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) in Myanmar have maimed or killed at least 115 children since the military junta seized power last year, UNICEF Myanmar reported on June 24. The report said that one-third of all landmine and UXO casualties it tracked from the February 2021 coup to April 2022 were children. “In times of conflict, children are the most vulnerable, including from landmines and UXO. Since children are smaller than adults, they are more likely to take the full impact of the blast and are therefore more likely to suffer death or serious injury,” the report said. On June 19, two seven-year-old boys were killed when they played with an unexploded artillery shell near Kan Ywar village in Gangaw township in central Myanmar’s Magway region. Pyae Sone Aung and Min Htut Zaw found a 40mm shell and began throwing it to each other, Yu Ko, a resident of the village, told RFA. “Afterwards, as they were hitting it with a rock, the shell exploded and the blast killed both of them,” said Yu Ko. “I heard there were three or four similar incidents elsewhere of unexploded ordnance going off once it got into children’s hands.&#8221;  Chin state, in the country’s west, was one of the first regions in Myanmar to form militias to fight the military following the coup.  The military has shelled populated villages in response. It has also laid landmines that appear to target civilians, Hre Lian, a spokesperson for the Chin Human Rights Group, told RFA. &#8220;The soldiers plant landmines, and people step on them and get killed and injured,” he said.  “They are planted purposely. The death toll from civilian casualties has risen sharply. Additionally, children are killed while playing with unexploded ordnance. Tragedies like these occurred last August when four children were killed and three were injured in Thantlang township.” He said Thantlang, Matupi and Mindat townships were the most affected by landmines and unexploded ordnance in the state. The junta forces are guilty of war crimes for planting landmines in villages and settlements in Kayah state, Ko Banya, spokesperson for Karenni Human Rights Watch, told RFA. &#8220;We need to put pressure on the junta. They planted mines in areas where they cannot move as freely as in the past. They often planted landmines not only in villages but also inside buildings,” he said. “We can say that it is a war crime because they planted these mines intentionally to kill or injure civilians. War crimes are committed with an intent to kill. We hope the perpetrators of these actions will be punished at some point.” Around 20 civilians stepped on mines in Demoso and Hpruso townships and in the state capital Loikaw this year, two of whom have died, Ko Banya said. RFA repeatedly attempted to contact Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, a junta spokesman, for comment, without success. He previously told RFA that the military uses landmines only for security purposes and around military camps. A lack of mine awareness, as a result of the breakdown of government since the coup, is also to blame for civilian deaths, Aung Thu Nyein, executive director of the Myanmar Strategic and Policy Study Group, told RFA. &#8220;I think landmine awareness programs almost stopped soon after the coup. And then, there were fewer civil society organizations and mediating groups in the peace process,” he said.  “On the other hand, conflicts are escalating day by day. When educational talks and demining programs are lacking, the number of mine accidents naturally rises. So I think the number of victims will keep on increasing,&#8221; Aung Thu Nyein said. In its report, UNICEF Myanmar said that the agency and its partners provided Explosive Ordnance Risk Education to 20,000 children across the country in the first five months of 2022.  “UNICEF calls on all parties to facilitate access for assistance to victims; to stop laying mines and to clear existing mines and UXO,” the report said. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [North Korea requires cellphone users to install invasive surveillance app](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-requires-cellphone-users-to-install-invasive-surveillance-app/): North Korea is forcing smartphone users to install an app to use the isolated country’s closed intranet that also allows the government to remotely track their locations and monitor their devices in real time, sources there told RFA. The Kwangmyong app connects users to a corner of the intranet where they can access their subscription to the state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper and other educational and informational services.  But some North Koreans say that the app is a massive invasion of privacy, as it enables the Ministry of State Security and other law enforcement agencies to see exactly where they are or if they are using their phones to access forbidden content like movies from South Korea or foreign news. “At the post office these days, residents are lining up to pay the fee to get their quarterly [license] card,” a resident of Pukchang county, South Pyongan province, north of the capital Pyongyang, told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “Starting this month, cellphone users are forced to install an intranet app called Kwangmyong to get their quarterly cards,” he said. Citizens are not happy that they must agree to increased surveillance just to use their mobile phones. “They are reluctant to set it up because they know that they can be watched by the State Security Department at any time through the intranet. But the postal authorities stress that the Central Committee has ordered that they install Kwangmyong on all personal mobile phones. The cards cannot be issued unless Kwangmyong has been installed,” said the source. “Many of the residents reluctantly installed Kwangmyong on their phones … but some have refused to install the app and have been able to buy the quarterly card on the black market,” he said. The black-market version of the quarterly communications license is U.S. $12, much more expensive than at the post office, where it costs just 2,840 won ($0.40). Authorities have been touting the usefulness of the Kwangmyong app, a resident of Ryongchon county, in the northeastern province of North Pyongan, told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely.   “They say that installation of Kwangmyong can provide mobile phone users with information about the Rodong Sinmun [newspaper], foreign language education, and cooking techniques,” the source said. “The real intent is to monitor the residents through the Kwangmyong network installed on people’s mobile phones,” he said. Kwangmyong even tracks how devices are used as media players, according to the source. “When Kwangmyong … is installed on a personal mobile phone, the Ministry of State Security can monitor the users from that moment on. It can check when the users watched South Korean movies and how many times they read or downloaded illegal materials from abroad. It provides real-time monitoring,” he said. Because the North Korean intranet is not connected to the global internet, the illegal materials must be passed around from person to person on physical media like USB flash drives and easily concealable SD cards. With Kwangmyong installed, the authorities could easily learn that users viewed illicit material. “For this reason, many residents had been using their mobile phones without installing access to the intranet. But now, the post offices sell the quarterly cards only after they have installed it,” he said.  “They are accusing the authorities of using the intranet network as a surveillance tool,” he said. Another way that mobile phone users can avoid surveillance is to use a mobile phone smuggled from China, the second source said. These phones are illegal, but can access the Chinese network in areas close to the border. They are also not registered with North Korean authorities, so it is not necessary to purchase quarterly communications licenses. A 2019 report by the Washington-based Committee for Human Rights in North Korea described in detail how the government was able at that time to monitor cellphone activity and file sharing. The report said that all North Korean smartphones were required to have an application called “Red Flag” that kept a log of webpages visited by users and randomly took screenshots of their phones. Those could be viewed but not deleted with another app called “Trace Viewer.” “The system is sinister in its simplicity. It reminds users that everything they do on the device can be recorded and later viewed by officials, even if it does not take place online. As such, it insidiously forces North Koreans to self-censor in fear of a device check that might never happen,” the report said. Kwangmyong appears to have eliminated the need for a device check, as it allows remote monitoring through the intranet. Translated by Claire Shinyoung O. Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Late former prime minister saw the fates of Taiwan, Japan as bound together](https://ij-reportika.com/late-former-prime-minister-saw-the-fates-of-taiwan-japan-as-bound-together/): Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated on Friday, once remarked: &#8220;If Taiwan has a problem, then so do Japan and the United States.&#8221; On a democratic island facing the threat of invasion by neighboring China, that warning is quite a legacy. In a post to her Facebook page on Friday, President Tsai Ing-wen eulogized Abe as &#8220;Taiwan&#8217;s most steadfast friend,&#8221; as well as a friend she had known for more than 10 years. &#8220;Taiwan and Japan have worked together to overcome many challenges and build deep friendships, and I am grateful for Abe&#8217;s support,&#8221; Tsai wrote. When Taiwan was still reeling from the 2019 Hualien earthquake, Abe had sent a personal message saying &#8220;Go Taiwan!&#8221;, Tsai said. He had also played a part in promoting the island&#8217;s pineapple exports in the face of an import ban from China, she revealed. The Japanese government had also made a point of shipping COVID-19 vaccines to Taiwan in 2021, at a time when supplies were tight. She said Abe had once more repeated his warning about the interconnectedness of Taiwan&#8217;s national interests with those of Japan and the U.S. when they spoke via video call in March 2022. &#8220;Taiwan and Japan will continue to support each other and prove to the international community that the axis of good will continue to stand in the face of violence,&#8221; Tsai wrote. Tenure as PM Abe was born into a political family in Yamaguchi Prefecture in 1954, becoming prime minister for the first time in 2006, one of the youngest to hold the office, and the first prime minister born after World War II. In 2012, he served again as prime minister again for eight years, resigning due to illness. By then, he was the longest-serving prime minister in Japan and had been in Japanese politics for nearly 30 years. One grandfather was Hiro Abe, a former member of the House of Representatives, while another was prime minister Nobusuke Kishi. His great-uncle was also a prime minister &#8212; Eisaku Sato. Japan is no stranger to the assassination of former prime ministers: Inuyo Hamaguchi, Ito Hirobumi, Takahashi Nissin, and others have met with the same fate as Abe. Three days after Abe stepped down as prime minister, he visited the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, where the Class-A war criminals of World War II are enshrined, triggering a backlash from China and South Korea. Abe also urged the revision of the constitution, hoping to revise constitutional limits on Japan&#8217;s military. Both Abe and his grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, successfully bid for the Olympics during their tenure, but neither of them actually presided over the opening of the Olympics their country hosted. After taking office in 2006, Abe chose China instead of the United States for his first foreign trip, which was seen as an &#8220;ice-breaker.&#8221; Both sides were looking to end the diplomatic deadlock caused by former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi&#8217;s visit to the Yasukuni Shrine. But Abe stepped down for health reasons after only one year in office. Elected to the House of Representatives in 2009, he led a number of congressmen to visit Taiwan the following year and met with former President Lee Teng-hui, then-President Ma Ying-jeou and then-DPP Chairman Tsai Ing-wen. In 2012, Abe led the Liberal Democratic Party to victory again, but Sino-Japanese relations deteriorated over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands and over Abe&#8217;s visit to the Yasukuni Shrine. When he eventually visited China in 2018, it was the first time in eight years that a Japanese leader had met with a Chinese leader &#8212; in this case, Xi Jinping. Abe invited Xi Jinping to Japan in return, but the pandemic and further deterioration in Sino-Japanese ties meant that trip never happened. Abe also presided over the end of 40 years of Japanese economic aid to China. Pro-Taiwanese leader In Taiwan, Abe is seen as the most pro-Taiwanese prime minister Japan has ever had. Five hours after he was fatally shot, many politicians and members of the public were offering prayers for him via social media. When the news of Abe&#8217;s death came, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, the Kuomintang, the Times Power Party, the People&#8217;s Party, and the Fundamental Progress Party all issued statements of condolence. When Abe was at a low ebb, politically, he was encouraged by former Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui, who gave him some tips to aid his comeback. Lee told Abe that nobody else could be trusted to do the job, and suggested Abe try to revise Japan&#8217;s constitution. The two former leaders were like father and son, according to some account. Abe once said: &#8220;There is no politician in the world who thinks about Japan like Lee Teng-hui.&#8221; Chen Tang-shan, chairman of Taiwan&#8217;s Friends of Abe Association, said there had been plans for Abe to visit Taiwan on the second anniversary of Lee&#8217;s death at the end of July, but the schedule had yet to be finalized at the time of Abe&#8217;s death. &#8220;At a time when the international situation is at its most dangerous for Taiwan, we had a good friend who supported Taiwan very strongly,&#8221; Chen said. &#8220;He sadly lost his life in the shooting. As a political figure in Taiwan, I am very grateful for his support.&#8221; &#8220;He saw Japan and Taiwan as bound together in the same community,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We are very sad that someone who saw politics so clearly, and who had the courage to speak out publicly is no longer with us.&#8221; Chen Yongfeng, director of the Center for Japanese Regional Studies at Tokai University, said Abe&#8217;s stance on Taiwan had become hugely influential in Japanese political circles. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Fears grow for Guo Feixiong, on hunger strike in a Guangzhou detention center](https://ij-reportika.com/fears-grow-for-guo-feixiong-on-hunger-strike-in-a-guangzhou-detention-center/): Fears are growing over the health of Chinese dissident and former legal advocate Guo Feixiong, also known as Yang Maodong, who has been on hunger strike for several months while in detention. Guo has been detained and held incommunicado since writing an open letter to Chinese premier Li Keqiang, asking him to lift a travel ban and allow him to visit his critically ill wife Zhang Qing in the United States. His sister Yang Maoping told RFA that Guo now weighs less than 50 kilograms (110 pounds), citing a July 6 video call between Guo, who is being held in the police-run Guangzhou No. 1 Detention Center, and his defense attorney. Yang said her brother began refusing food shortly after being detained, and is only still alive due to force-feeding by the prison guards. &#8220;The lawyer told me that Yang Maodong has been on hunger strike since Dec. 5, 2021, and that they have been tube-feeding him, although his weight has dropped rapidly to around 100 pounds,&#8221; she said. &#8220;If he continues to lose weight, his life will be in danger,&#8221; she said. &#8220;He has two children, and one of them is still a minor.&#8221; &#8220;I am very sad and don&#8217;t know what to do &#8230; I don&#8217;t want his kids to be orphans,&#8221; Yang said. She said the state security police had tricked Guo into making a &#8220;confession&#8221; by promising he would be allowed to go to the U.S. to visit his then terminally-ill wife Zhang Qing, who died in January. &#8216;Ridiculous accusation&#8217; Instead, when he confessed, they charged him with &#8220;incitement to subvert state power,&#8221; Yang said. &#8220;It&#8217;s a ridiculous accusation,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Who is he supposed to be subverting? Can he do it all alone?&#8221; &#8220;I kept writing letters to everyone in our country who could help him go abroad and see his dying wife,&#8221; Yang said. &#8220;I even told them I was willing to be a hostage, but Zhang Qing died without seeing him.&#8221; An employee who answered the phone at the Guangzhou No. 1 Detention Center appeared to confirm the news of Guo&#8217;s hunger strike. &#8220;His going on hunger strike was his personal choice, but we are also carrying out ideological work with  him,&#8221; the employee said. &#8220;As for the next step, his lawyer should also [try to influence him], right?&#8221; Zhang Lun, a professor at the University of Sergi-Pondoise in France who has been a vocal advocate for Guo internationally said he is very worried about Guo&#8217;s health, given that his health was already poor after serving so many years in jail already. Zhang said activists had appealed to U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet to visit Guo Feixiong during her visit to Guangzhou in May, but to no avail. &#8220;Naturally, I am very worried,&#8221; Zhang said. &#8220;Mr. Guo Feixiong has been in prison several times before, to the great detriment of his health.&#8221; &#8220;I think the Commissioner has the responsibility to express her concern to the Chinese authorities,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The United Nations High Commissioner must make a statement on this matter.&#8221; &#8216;The inhumanity of this tyranny&#8217; U.K.-based scholar Wang Jianhong said the treatment of Guo and his family was tyrannical. &#8220;Even when Guo Feixiong&#8217;s wife Zhang Qing fell ill, the authorities still refused to allow him to leave the country and arrested him, instead,&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;The tragic experience of this family shows us the inhumanity of this tyranny [regime].&#8221; Wang said an international campaign over jailed Shanghai citizen journalist Zhang Zhan&#8217;s hunger strike had led to a partial improvement in her health following her hunger strike. &#8220;We have not achieved our goal of medical parole, but we learned in mid-February that Zhang Zhan&#8217;s situation in prison had improved, so we should speak out for Guo Feixiong today,&#8221; he said. The U.S. State Department said in a statement on Zhang Qing&#8217;s death on Jan. 10, 2022 that the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had subjected Guo to &#8220;years of mistreatment, imprisonment, routine harassment and surveillance.&#8221; &#8220;We call on [China] to immediately grant Guo humanitarian relief and allow his travel to the United States to be reunited with his children and grieve the passing of his wife,&#8221; the statement said. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Shooting death of Japan's Shinzo Abe gets mixed reactions on Chinese internet](https://ij-reportika.com/shooting-death-of-japans-shinzo-abe-gets-mixed-reactions-on-chinese-internet/): UDPATED at  10:40 a.m. EDT on 2022-07-08  The shooting death of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe Friday prompted mixed reactions on China&#8217;s tightly controlled internet, with nationalistic Little Pinks openly celebrating Abe&#8217;s death and government censors blocking a cryptic hashtag that could be a reference to public anger at the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)&#8217;s own leaders. The news of Abe&#8217;s death following a shooting by a gunman in Nara during an election campaign made it to the front page of the CCP&#8217;s official People&#8217;s Daily newspaper online edition, but as a fairly small headline below a plethora of stories about CCP leader Xi Jinping. The paper carried a factual news report from state news agency Xinhua in full, with a statement from the foreign ministry wishing Abe recovery as emergency medics tried to save him. However, its Japan channel also carried a Xinhua article about relations with South Korea dated July 6 and titled &#8220;From forced labor to &#8216;comfort women,&#8217; Japan&#8217;s human rights misdeeds cannot be denied.&#8221; China&#8217;s nationalistic Global Times newspaper quoted Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida&#8217;s reaction, condemning the &#8220;barbaric&#8221; attack, and Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian as saying that China was &#8220;shocked&#8221; by the incident. &#8220;After Japan&#8217;s announcement of Abe&#8217;s death, Chinese Embassy in Japan also mourned Abe&#8217;s passing and extended condolences to his family,&#8221; the paper said. It quoted &#8220;analysts&#8221; as saying that &#8220;Japanese right-wing forces may use this incident to push forward the trend of conservative transformation in Japanese politics &#8230; bringing more security risks to the geopolitics of Northeast Asia.&#8221; It quoted Da Zhigang, director of the Institute of Northeast Asian Studies at Heilongjiang Provincial Academy of Social Sciences, as saying that Abe&#8217;s death could boost nationalistic sentiment in Japan. &#8220;Japanese nationalism is also likely to be further strengthened by the incident,&#8221; Da said. &#8220;People may have concerns about whether the volume of calls in Japan to return to the path of war will increase further.&#8221; This image received from the Asahi Shimbun newspaper shows former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe (C) on the ground after being shot while attending a campaign event at Yamato Saidaiji Station in the city of Nara on July 8, 2022. Credit: Asahi Shimbun via AFP Hateful comments Some online comments reacting to Abe&#8217;s death on Chinese social media platforms were nakedly hateful, according to The Great Translation Project Twitter account, which translates and curates social media commentary in China. &#8220;The people of Shaanxi extend our warm congratulations to this,&#8221; the account translated one comment as saying. Several other comments followed with the exact same wording, but referring to different parts of China. Meanwhile a hashtag #kexibushini, which translates as &#8220;a pity it wasn&#8217;t you,&#8221; but could also be read as hinting at the wording &#8220;but Xi it wasn&#8217;t you&#8221; in a possible reference to CCP leader Xi Jinping, was blocked on social media platforms. One comment read: &#8220;These censors seem to know [what we mean] better than we do!&#8221; while another replied: &#8220;It&#8217;s so funny. Everyone knows.&#8221; &#8220;Someone is likely getting scared in Zhongnanhai,&#8221; another comment read, referring to the headquarters of the CCP leadership in Beijing. Abe, 67, was shot from behind minutes after he started his speech in Nara, the Associated Press reported. He was airlifted to a hospital for emergency treatment but was not breathing and his heart had stopped. He was later pronounced dead despite emergency treatment that included massive blood transfusions, the agency quoted hospital officials as saying. Police arrested the suspected gunman at the scene of the attack, while prime minister Fumio Kishida and his cabinet ministers rushed back to Tokyo to respond to what Kishida called a &#8220;dastardly and barbaric&#8221; attack. Sunday&#8217;s parliamentary elections will go ahead as planned, he said. Territorial, historical grievances China and Japan have been at loggerheads over a disputed island chain, visits by Japanese politicians to the Yasukuni shrine, where some Japanese war criminals are interred, and an ongoing war of words over Tokyo&#8217;s recognition of past military aggression and human rights abuses in East Asia. In 2012, a tense diplomatic standoff with Japan sparked nationwide protests and anti-Japanese riots over the Senkaku, or Diaoyu, Islands, while China held war drills in waters near Japan after then opposition leader Shinzo Abe visited the controversial Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo which honors Japan&#8217;s war dead, including Class A war criminals. The CCP later launched a crackdown on &#8220;irrational&#8221; forms of nationalism at home, after thousands of people took to the streets in a wave of mass protests in Chinese cities that lasted for several weeks. On the democratic island of Taiwan, where former president Lee Teng-hui was known to have a close relationship with Abe, President Tsai Ing-wen severely condemned the violence of the attack. &#8220;Japan &#8230; is an important democratic partner of Taiwan &#8230; and former prime minister Abe was committed over the long term to deepening friendly ties between Taiwan and Japan,&#8221; Tsai said. A similar statement was issued by the office of former president Ma Ying-jeou. Ko Wen-je, chairman of the Taiwan People&#8217;s Party, said Abe&#8217;s death was &#8220;a great loss for Taiwan-Japan relations.&#8221; Sadness, praise from Dalai Lama, Cambodia The Dalai Lama wrote to Abe&#8217;s widow Akie Abe offering his condolences. &#8220;I am deeply saddened to hear that my friend, Mr. Abe Shinzo has passed away following a gunshot attack this morning,&#8221; the Tibetan exiled spiritual leader wrote. &#8220;I pray for him and offer my condolences to you and members of your family.&#8221; &#8220;As you know, your late husband was a steadfast friend of the Tibetan people. I very much appreciated his friendship and support of our efforts to preserve our rich Buddhist cultural heritage and identity,&#8221; the letter said. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen expressed grief for Abe, who he called a &#8220;&#8221;a long-time good friend of mine and Cambodia.&#8221; &#8220;I was extremely shocked and deeply saddened to learn about the passing of His Excellency Abe Shinzo, resulting from the daylight assassination.&#8221; Abe, he said, &#8220;was an outstanding Japanese...
- [Myanmar charges three pre-coup UEC members with breaching polling laws](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-charges-three-pre-coup-uec-members-with-breaching-polling-laws/): Myanmar’s military government is cracking down on its opposition ahead of national elections expected next year by handing out jail sentences to members of the National League for Democracy ((NLD) and former Union Election Commission (UEC) members. UEC Chairman U Hla Thein and two UEC members from the pre-coup NLD-led government were sentenced to three-years in prison under Section 130 (a) of the criminal law, according to sources close to the court. One source identified the three as UEC spokesperson Myint Naing, UEC member Than Htay and UEC Chairman Hla Thein. They were sentenced by a special court on Thursday.  The three UEC members have been in Naypyidaw Prison since November 2021 and were tried in the prison&#8217;s court. The fate of other arrested UEC members is still unclear. Section 130 (a) aims to penalize those who prohibit or omit existing laws and carries a maximum sentence of three years plus a fine.  Myanmar’s former president Win Myint and NLD leader and State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi have also been accused of influencing and abusing their electoral power under Section 130 (a). The Union Election Commission organizes and oversees elections in Myanmar as well as vetting candidates and parties. The day after last year’s February 1 coup the State Administrative Council appointed six members aligned with the military.  The sentences handed out on Thursday are the first convictions of UEC members who were responsible for the 2020 election, the results of which were annulled following the coup. Other senior NLD ministers have also been charged under Section 130 (a) although local and international observers said the election had been free and fair. Sanchaung township NLD chairman Bo Bo Oo said that the military council is continuing to make mistaken legal judgements because it knows its claim to power is unfounded.  &#8221;The coup was illegal and it did not comply with the law,” he said “They broke the law by seizing power in the first place. They want to say what is right and wrong but in reality they are just making more mistakes. It has been one mistake after another from the beginning.” The junta-appointed UEC said in January that 422 people, including Aung San Suu Kyi had been arrested and charged with electoral fraud. Suu Kyi faces a series of charges that could lead to a sentence of more than 100 years. In the 2020 election the UEC deliberated on 1,077 election-related cases, charging 546 people with breaches of the electoral law. Of these, 342 were prosecuted and 194 cases were dismissed. The UEC says 10 cases are pending as it awaits legal advice.
- [No amnesty for Vietnamese 'anti-state' prisoners this year](https://ij-reportika.com/no-amnesty-for-vietnamese-anti-state-prisoners-this-year/): Vietnam’s annual September 2 National Day amnesty will not include anyone jailed for anti-state charges according to President Nguyen Xuan Phuc. A presidential spokesperson announced his decision on who to consider for early release at a Monday news conference, state-controlled media reported. This year’s amnesties will be granted to those sentenced to long or lifetime terms who will still be serving their sentences on August 31. The long list of charges not to be considered rules political prisoners out of the running. The exclusions include people charged with national treason; activities aimed at toppling the government; spying; trespassing on national security sites; and violence and terrorism against the State. Other cases ruling out release include sabotaging the material and technical foundations of the State of Vietnam; making, storing, disseminating or propagating information, documents and items aimed at opposing the State; disrupting security; attacking or damaging detention facilities; and terrorism. Crimes against peace and humanity, and war crimes are also on the list of who to exclude from the presidential pardons. RFA statistics show that Vietnam has arrested at least 12 dissidents from the start of the year through to Tuesday with five found guilty of conducting anti-state propaganda and sentenced to between five and eight years. The charges stem from crimes listed in the National Security provisions of the Criminal Code. These include “abusing democratic freedoms&#8221; under Article 331 of the Criminal Code 2015 and “conducting propaganda against the state&#8221; under Article 88 of the Penal Code 1999 or Article 117 of the Criminal Code 2015. Last year at least 32 people were found guilty of posting opinions critical of the government, according to Human Rights Watch. It said at least 26 others were arrested on fabricated political charges. In its World Report 2022 the independent pressure group was scathing in its criticism of the Vietnamese government and Communist Party. “Vietnam systematically suppresses basic civil and political rights. The government, under the one-party rule of the Communist Party of Vietnam, severely restricts freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly, movement, and religion,” it said.
- [Junta bid for Russian deal to address Myanmar’s energy shortages faces hurdles](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-bid-for-russian-deal-to-address-myanmars-energy-shortages-faces-hurdles/): Myanmar’s junta is in talks with Russia to address the country’s fuel and electricity shortages, although inking a deal may be difficult amid Western sanctions and other obstacles, according to observers. A junta delegation attended the June 15-18 International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, Russia, that included Myanmar’s ministers of electricity and energy, international cooperation, planning and finance, investment and foreign trade, economy and trade, and the deputy governor of the central bank. According to a June 20 report by the pro-military Myanmar Alin Daily, the delegation met with Russian Minister of Energy Shulginov Nikolay on the sidelines of the forum to discuss energy cooperation. During the meeting, the two sides held talks on Russian oil drilling in Myanmar and the export of oil and petroleum products, as well as the construction of a nuclear power plant, it said. They also discussed the possibility of direct exchanges of currencies between the two countries’ central banks and the purchase of fuel from Russia. In May, the junta announced that Russia would soon begin participating in Myanmar’s energy industry in place of international companies that quit, in response to the exit of three big Asian firms from a gas field in the nation a month earlier, citing commercial reasons. At least one of the three – Japan’s ENEOS – also mentioned Myanmar’s “current situation, including the social issues” as one of the reasons for quitting, referring to human rights excesses by the military that have led to the deaths of at least 2,069 civilians since a Feb. 1, 2021 coup. Speaking to RFA Burmese on condition of anonymity, a businessman with knowledge of Myanmar’s energy sector said that cheaper fuel imports from Russia could reduce the cost of high-priced commodities in the country that are the result of Western sanctions over the takeover and the junta’s subsequent crackdown on its opposition. “If we can buy cheap oil from a country that produces a lot of oil and gas, it’d benefit our energy sector and it’ll be good for energy security,” the businessman said. “I think we might also get a break from the high costs of food and consumer goods.” More than 17 months after the coup, Myanmar is mired in political and economic turmoil, while life is increasingly difficult for average people due to the rising cost of food, as well as regular power and water shortages. Even in Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon, which is home to an estimated 7 million people, sources say power is cut off twice in every 24-hour period, with homes sometimes left dark for six hours each day. Only the capital Naypyidaw, where the country’s military junta is based, has enjoyed uninterrupted electricity since the overthrow of civilian rule. A difficult deal Myanmar-based political analyst Than Soe Naing said the junta is only in the beginning phase of negotiations with Russia to deal with its ongoing energy crisis and will need to overcome several obstacles before moving towards an agreement that will solve its problems. “Cooperation with Russia over a nuclear program is unlikely without China’s support. In addition, the junta, which is facing a foreign exchange crisis, cannot afford to spend money on nuclear energy,” he said. “The main purpose of [the junta attending] this business forum was to seek help as a way to resolve the current oil crisis in Myanmar. I think they are looking for a way to get engine oil and fuel. But it is unlikely that anything more than that would happen.” Than Soe Naing said it will be difficult for Myanmar to secure the help of Russia, which is itself facing sanctions as well as an economic downturn related to its invasion of Ukraine. Amid the sanctions, the Kremlin has been forced to improve relations with countries in the Middle East, as well as China and India, in a bid to find new markets for its oil and natural gas. Myanmar, which has seen its fuel prices skyrocket as a result of Western sanctions, is one prospective buyer of said Russian exports. However, a source in Yangon, who also declined to be named for security reasons, said he doubts that the junta’s claims of cooperation with Russia will end Myanmar’s energy shortages. “The junta has said a lot about many things. For instance, they said they will produce electric cars and electric trains as soon as possible,” said the source, who also has ties to Myanmar’s energy sector. “Nothing has happened since they seized power. In fact, our people see these promises as daydreams.” A car is refueled at a gas station in Yangon, in a file photo. Credit: RFA Seeking fuel imports Sources from Myanmar’s fuel industry have told RFA that companies close to the son and daughter of junta chief Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing are in the midst of  negotiating import deals with Russia, although the claims could not be independently confirmed. RFA contacted Win Myint, secretary of the Myanmar Petroleum Importers and Distributors Association, seeking comment on the junta’s alleged attempts to purchase fuel from Russia, but he declined to discuss the issue. Oil traders say that even if Myanmar, which normally imports through Singapore, could buy fuel at a cheaper price from Russia, the cost of transporting it would essentially negate any discount. Another member of Myanmar’s business community told RFA that, despite ongoing political instability, the junta must find a way to end the country’s energy shortages if it hopes to cling to power. “It is true that there is instability. Global politics are unstable … but people have to go on with their lives. They are struggling to survive. All nations must have food and energy security,” he said. “The Ukraine conflict has been going on for four or five months, while the crisis in our country has continued for more than a year. We cannot stop our lives because of these problems. So we must find a way out.” Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Uyghurs abroad in shock after finding relatives listed in leaked police files](https://ij-reportika.com/uyghurs-abroad-in-shock-after-finding-relatives-listed-in-leaked-police-files/): Rabigul Haji Muhammed was stunned to see a former classmate on a leaked list of Uyghurs and other Turkic people detained in internment camps in China’s far-western Xinjiang region. The doctoral student in Turkology at Hacettepe University in Turkey was searching through a trove of classified documents published by a U.S.–based human rights group in May. One of the group’s researchers had been given the information from an anonymous source. Muhammad saw that Nurali Ablet had been detained for “engaging in online propaganda about violence and terrorism.” Ablet majored in the Uyghur language at the Central Nationalities University, also known as Minzu University, in Beijing and graduated in 2015, she said. “I knew him very well from those five years in college. He was a very hard-working and active student at the university,” she told RFA. “People like Nurali are not just images for us, they are living beings like us and everyone else.” Muhammad and other Uyghurs living in exile have scoured the Xinjiang Police Files since the document was first published by the Washington, D.C.-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation on May 24, searching for information about missing relatives or friends, or on the off chance they might know someone who unbeknownst to them had been detained by Chinese authorities. Many say that the abducted Uyghurs are college-educated, law-abiding and working-class –– not “terrorists” in any sense of the word. The extraordinary leak of evidence from internal police networks in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) describes prison-like “re-education” camps and provides fresh evidence of the direct involvement of top Chinese officials’ in the mass internment campaign. The files were analyzed and authenticated by a team led by Adrian Zenz, a researcher at the foundation who is an expert on the region. They were peer-reviewed by scholarly research and investigative teams from several major global media outlets. The documents include clear images and detailed information about camp detainees who were arrested in 2018 in Kashgar Kona Sheher (in Chinese, Shufu) county in Kashgar (Kashi), a southern city in the XUAR. Among the county’s more than 3,700 detainees labeled as “trainees” in Chinese government documents, the youngest is 14 years old, and the oldest is 73. Some photos show police minders wielding batons standing next to the detainees. Previously leaked Chinese government documents contained only the names and identification numbers of some detained Uyghurs. The new information includes photos and more information about their alleged crimes. The documents also describe a “shoot to kill” directive should the trainees try to escape what the Chinese government has called “voluntary vocational training centers” and the Chinese media has described as ordinary places of education. In one of the leaked documents, Chen Quanguo, former Chinese Communist Party secretary of the XUAR, said in a classified speech in May 2017 that if that “if they [trainees] try to escape, shoot them on the spot and report back later.” “The Xinjiang Police Files prove that China’s so-called vocational training centers are really prisons,” said Andrew Bremberg, president and CEO of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, in a statement issued in May. “These documents conclusively demonstrate that Beijing has been lying about its gross human rights violations in Xinjiang,” he said. “The international community must take immediate and concrete action to hold China accountable for these atrocities.” Police guard detainees as they stand in line apparently reciting or singing at the Tekes County Detention Center in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region in an undated photo. Credit: AFP/The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation ‘Revelations are very disturbing’ The police files were obtained by a third party through hacking into computer systems operated by the Public Security Bureau in Kashgar Kona Sheher country and in Tekes (Tekesi) county in Ili (Yili) Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture. Both areas are dominated by Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups. Zenz authenticated the documents in a peer-reviewed academic paper published in the Journal of the European Association for Chinese Studies and in a second paper published in the online magazine China File. “These findings are significant because they provide us with frank policy implementation directives along with the thought processes and intentions that made them a reality,” Zenz said in the statement. “This gives an unprecedented look into the personal attitudes of Chinese authorities and the personal involvement of [Chinese President] Xi Jinping,” he said. “Documents with this kind of insight have never before been published and their revelations are very disturbing.” The leaker, who managed to access some of the encrypted material, attached no conditions to the provision or publication of the documents, though the person requested anonymity due to safety concerns.   According to the files, Tajigul Tahir’s son was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2017 for being a “non-alcoholic and non-smoker” — signs, according to authorities, of his extremism. The 60-year-old woman was later arrested herself because she was the mother of an imprisoned Uyghur. Abdurrahman Qasim, a Uyghur based in Turkey, said he found the name of his former cellmate, Mehmutjan Nasir, in the leaked documents. They were in detention together in Hotan (Hetian), another city in southern Xinjiang, but met each other previously in Hotan when Nasir was a student at the Hotan Uyghur Medical College. Authorities detained Nasir in 2010 for communicating with people who prayed. A few years earlier, he had posted his Chinese national identification card on WeChat, a Chinese instant messaging social media app, of which Qasim took a screenshot. Qasim said he was able to find Nasir’s ID details when the files were published. “I searched the images in the files for people I know or any relative who might be among the images, and after looking at more than 1,000 images, I found Mehmutjan Nasir who was my cellmate in Hotan from late 2010 to early 2011,” Qasim said. “I was very saddened to find him on the detained Uyghurs’ list.” At least 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities are believed to have been held in...
- [Myanmar activists observe 60th anniversary of military crackdown amid tight security](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-activists-observe-60th-anniversary-of-military-crackdown-amid-tight-security/): Activists in Myanmar marked the 60th anniversary of a military crackdown that killed at least 100 students in the commercial capital Yangon with protests in more than a dozen townships on Thursday, despite increased security measures by junta authorities. The protests commemorating the July 7, 1962, crackdown were held in the Sagaing region townships of Salingyi, Yinmarbin, Tamu, Kani, Kale and Ayadaw; Tanintharyi region townships of Dawei and Launglon; Bago region’s Taungoo township; Kachin state’s Hpakant township; Mon state’s Thanbyuzayat township; as well as the cities of Yangon and Mandalay. Speaking from Yangon, where more than 30 students joined protests at around 11 a.m., a member of the Botataung Strike Group named Jewel told RFA Burmese that anniversary activities took place unhindered by authorities. “The July 7 protest is very important for every student movement and we observe it as a reminder to others so that people will never forget,” she said. “There were surprise checks in earlier days but fortunately there were none today. [The soldiers] came to the spot where we held the protest only after we left. There were no arrests today.” Thet Oo, a protester in Yinmarbin township, said people observing the anniversary event had to disperse after only 15 minutes of shouting slogans due to tight security. “The slogan ‘Do not forget 7.7.62’ refers to the many students and youths who bravely gave their lives in the fight for the truth,” he said. “In memory of that day, and to instill courage in people’s minds to fight like the fallen heroes for the freedom of the country, we members of the All Villages of the North Western Plains Strike Committee held this protest on the streets [despite the risk of arrest].” On March 2, 1962, Gen. Ne Win led the military in a coup to control Myanmar, appointing himself prime minister and dissolving the country’s legislature. On July 7 of that year, troops were sent to restore order as students protested tuition increases at Yangon University. The troops fired on the protesters, killing at least 100 people, and arrested thousands of students, according to local media reports. The following day, the military blew up the Yangon University Students’ Union building, which had stood as a monument to the anti-colonialism movement in Myanmar since the 1920s. Call to action In a statement issued Thursday in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the crackdown, the All-Burma Federation of Students&#8217; Unions called on people of Myanmar to take action in whatever way possible to overthrow the current military regime, which seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup. Myat Min Khant, chairman of the Yangon District Students&#8217; Union, called the announcement “a signal to end military rule.” &#8220;There are two reasons that the All-Burma Students Union issued the statement. The first is to remind people that it isn’t just now that the fascist military is killing people in cities and towns without hesitation. They have done so in the past,” he told RFA. “The second reason is to remind people we are still in the middle of the ‘Spring Revolution,’ fighting against the fascist military. We want to remind them that the fascist military and the 2008 constitution, which is the backbone of the fascist army, must be removed if they want real freedom.” A spokesman for the Yangon University Students&#8217; Union, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said students have always been at the forefront of the opposition to military rule in Myanmar. “The July 7 protests we are commemorating now were also a fight against the Ne Win regime, which also seized state power,” he said. “And then there were student protests in ‘74, ‘75 and ‘76. Students also joined hands with the people in the 1988 pro-democracy uprising. And now, in the 2021 anti-coup protests, students have actively participated in the ‘Spring Revolution’ against the military along with the people,” he added. “Myanmar’s students are still fighting the military dictatorship in various ways.” Junta authorities have killed at least 2,069 civilians since seizing power and arrested more than 14,500 others — mostly during peaceful anti-coup protests, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a Thailand-based NGO. At least 11,443 people remain in detention, the group says. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [NGOs urge Cambodia to  crack down on Chinese drugs](https://ij-reportika.com/ngos-urge-cambodia-to-crack-down-on-chinese-drugs/): NGOs are urging government authorities to enact tougher measures against Chinese drug lords operating in Cambodia, as methamphetamine use continues to surge in the Southeast Asian country. The calls came following news this week of the arrest in Sihanoukville of seven Chinese nationals who set up a factory in the coastal province to make the drugs from smuggled ingredients. Authorities also seized 14 tonnes (15.4 tons) of drug precursors and production equipment during the arrests, according to a report on the National Police Facebook page on Tuesday. The 7 arrested suspects will next be sent for processing in Cambodian courts, police authorities said. Drug use has now spread from Sihanoukville city to the suburbs and will eventually spread even farther into the country, leading to kidnapping and violence by criminal gangs, Cheap Sotheary — provincial coordinator for the rights group Adhoc — told RFA this week. All drugs confiscated by authorities should be immediately destroyed, she added. “We are concerned that many of these confiscated drugs are being stored and that some may be taken out and removed, as some authorities in the past turned out to be drug traffickers themselves. “Authorities should be taking strong action in every case,” she said. Also speaking to RFA, Transparency International Cambodia Executive Director Pech Pisey said that Chinese drug lords began to come to Cambodia after they saw that the country lacked a strong rule of law. “International criminals think they can produce and distribute drugs as much as they like,” Pech Pisey said. Cambodia must strictly enforce its laws if it wants to be kept off the Grey List of countries corrupted by money laundering released by the Paris-based watchdog Financial Action Task Force, he added. Cambodian Minister of the Interior Sar Kheng said during a National Day for Combating Drugs on June 26 that Cambodian police had seized a combined total of more than 100 tonnes of finished drugs and drug ingredients from 2020 to 2021. However, of the nearly 10,000 tonnes of the finished drugs that were seized, only 6,000 tonnes were then destroyed, he said. Translated by Samean Yun for RFA Khmer. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [Cambodian authorities clash with NagaWorld protesters, leaving several injured](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-authorities-clash-with-nagaworld-protesters-leaving-several-injured/): Authorities in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh violently clashed with some 100, mostly female former casino workers demanding to be reinstated to their jobs on Thursday, breaking the nose of one woman and leaving several others injured, according to sources. The former workers are from a group that has been holding regular protests since they were among 1,300 laid off by the NagaWorld Casino in December 2021. The workers say they were unfairly fired and offered inadequate compensation, although only around 150 continue to protest, as an increasing number have accepted payouts after months of no salary and repeated confrontations with police. At around 2 p.m. on Thursday, dozens of authorities blocked the group from holding a protest outside the casino with metal barricades, and rained blows down on those who tried to remove them, according to Bun Sina, one of the former workers. “I came to demand the right to seek justice, [as the situation] has not yet been resolved, but I was kicked in the thigh by the authorities,” she told RFA Khmer, adding that she was shocked by the brutality of the officers. “How much more of this violence and torture will we have to suffer from the authorities before this dispute is resolved?” Police and striking NagaWorld protesters struggle over a barricade in Phnom Penh in a screengrab from a video, Aug. 11, 2022. Credit: Citizen journalist Another worker named Sun Sreynich told RFA she was punched in the face by a police officer during the scuffle, causing her to bleed from the nose and pass out. “We were kneeling in front of the security forces and begging to be allowed to go to the NagaWorld building, but they assumed we were attacking them and fought us,” she said. “The officer hit me full force with his fist, breaking my nose and making me bleed. The blow knocked me unconscious,” she added, saying she is still in pain from the injury. The two sides clashed for around 15 minutes before resuming a verbal confrontation across the barricade line. The former workers eventually left the area around 5 p.m. Following the incident, the Phnom Penh government issued a statement calling the rally “illegal” for disrupting traffic and accusing protesters of intentionally attacking the reputation of the authorities by orchestrating the clash. “They created an event to put the blame on the government, inciting and provoking anger by cursing and insulting public officials before smashing 20 barricades and using violence against security forces who tried to block their path,” the statement said. “All workers should stop their unlawful demonstrations and try to resolve the dispute with the authorities,” it added. More than eight months since the layoffs, NagaWorld has said it will only discuss severance packages with former workers and Cambodia’s Ministry of Labor has deferred the matter to the courts. But the workers say they can’t afford to bring a lawsuit against the company and have urged the government to intervene in the dispute. Petition submitted Earlier on Thursday, a group of around 50 former NagaWorld workers and trade union representatives gathered to submit a petition to the Ministry of Labor, requesting that authorities drop charges against Cambodian Alliance of Trade Unions President Yang Sophorn, who the ministry has accused of organizing the protests. The petition also requested a meeting with Labor Minister Ith Samheng to find a resolution to the dispute. Fellow NagaWorld strikers attempt to revive Sun Sreynich, who says a police officer punched her in the nose and knocked her out. Credit: Citizen journalist NagaWorld Union President Chhim Sithaw met with Labor Ministry officials on Thursday and told RFA she was “disappointed” by their response, although she did not provide details of what was discussed. “We only see that the government – through City Hall, the Ministry of Labor, the judiciary, the Ministry of Health, authorities at all levels – is standing by the NagaWorld company, which is prohibited by law,” she said. “They have a role in mediation, not in protecting one side, and they must remain independent in this dispute.” Attempts by RFA to contact Labor Ministry spokesman Heng Sour for comment went unanswered Thursday. Translated by Sok Ry Sum. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Vietnamese authorities arrest air force officer involved in fatal car accident](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnamese-authorities-arrest-air-force-officer-involved-in-fatal-car-accident/): Vietnamese authorities on Thursday said they arrested an air force major involved in a fatal accident in late June in southeastern Vietnam’s Ninh Thuan province after determining he had been using his cell phone when his car hit and killed a high school student on a scooter. Maj. Hoang Van Minh of the 937th regiment, 370th division, of Vietnam People&#8217;s Air Force, formally called the Air Defense-Air Force, was driving a seven-seat military vehicle when he ran into 18-year-old Ho Hoang Anh on June 28. Minh is being temporarily detained for three months while investigators look into the crash, according to the Criminal Investigation Agency of Division 2 of the Air Defense-Air Force, authorities said. The provincial public security and information and communications departments held a press briefing on Aug. 2 to announce the action against Minh. Sr. Col. Ha Cong Son, deputy chief of the Phan Rang-Thap Cham city police, said that Minh has confessed to using his mobile phone while driving. Son also said the initial investigation indicated that before the accident Minh had changed lanes in an unsafe manner, causing Anh’s death as she drove her scooter along the right lane of the street and within the speed limit.   He added that he believed there was sufficient evidence to prosecute Minh. Security camera footage shows that on the day of the crash, Minh turned the military vehicle right into the driveway of a bank office, colliding with Anh’s scooter. The impact knocked Anh off the scooter and into an electricity pole, smashing her head. She died en route to the hospital.   The video also shows Minh still holding his mobile phone and talking while getting out of his car following the collision.   Medical authorities at Ninh Thuan Provincial General Hospital initially reported that Anh’s blood-alcohol concentration level was 0.79 milligrams per 100 milliliters of blood. That led to fears among her family and the public that the release of the test result was a part of an effort to exonerate Minh by placing the blame on Anh.  Ahn’s father filed a complaint asking for a review of claims that his daughter’s drinking caused the crash, and spoke with newspapers to make the point that alcohol was not to blame, according to an RFA report earlier this month.  After receiving his petition, the People&#8217;s Committee of Ninh Thuan province asked provincial police to verify the young woman’s blood-alcohol test result. On July 29, the hospital’s director apologized to the family for issuing an incorrect alcohol test result, blaming a technician for not following test regulations.  A week later, hospital administrators visited the student’s family to apologize in person and promised to invalidate the test result. On Tuesday, the hospital’s disciplinary committee said it would discipline those responsible.  Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [North Korean soldiers ordered to harvest grass for compost in spare time](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korean-soldiers-ordered-to-harvest-grass-for-compost-in-spare-time/): North Korean soldiers in low-level military units have an unusual and not entirely welcome new mission: collecting grass during summer training breaks to produce compost for farms, sources inside the country said. The impoverished and isolated country suffers from chronic shortages of chemical-based fertilizer during the summer growing season, a situation that has grown worse since 2020 because of border closures with China that cut off trade during the coronavirus pandemic. Each year, North Korean citizens are tasked by their government to fill unrealistically high government quotas for fertilizer. But the material they typically collect is human waste, which gets mixed with soil and applied to farm fields. “The dissatisfaction among soldiers is increasing as each unit uses their free time to meet the grass quotas,” a military-related source in North Hamgyong province told RFA on Tuesday. The General Political Bureau of the People’s Army sets grass compost production quotas for all military units each August and September, said the source who declined to be identified so as to speak freely. Each soldier is required to produce 50 kilograms (110 lbs.) of grass daily in order to produce compost, he added. They make natural fertilizer by cutting grass on a nearby mountainside as well as in areas to which they are assigned for their quotas, the military-related source said.  “This is all after their daily training,” he said. “As they are required to produce natural fertilizer in their free time after mandatory training, the soldiers are becoming exhausted. The morale of the soldiers participating in the training is declining day by day.” North Koreans cannot understand why authorities are mobilizing soldiers and assigning them to miscellaneous tasks like grass collection for compost, even though they verbally emphasize the importance of their training during the summer months, the military-related source said. They order the soldiers to produce grass-based fertilizer, stressing the importance of providing for the greater society to the benefit of all North Koreans, he said.  “The soldiers are confused because they have no idea how to go along with all these different orders,” he said. High-level commands are conducting frequent inspections to encourage the soldiers’ production of grass-based fertilizer, a military-related source in Ryanggang province told RFA on Tuesday. “The staff in each unit is obligated to report the grass-cutting performance of subordinate units,” said the source who declined to be named for the same reason. “Each officer in charge of a unit is struggling to match the daily performance.” Even officers are questioning why authorities are forcing them to produce grass-based fertilizer, he said. “Some military officers are complaining and saying, ‘We should make the military’s main job of training as a side job instead, and change farming to the main job of the military,’” said the source. Earlier this week, RFA reported that North Korean authorities are dispatching veterans and soldiers about to demobilize to collective farms to make up for labor shortages, raising fears among the military ranks that they will be stuck working in rural areas for the rest of their lives. Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee for RFA Korean. Translated by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Manila backs Senate bill to officially rename contested waters ‘West Philippine Sea’](https://ij-reportika.com/manila-backs-senate-bill-to-officially-rename-contested-waters-west-philippine-sea/): The Philippine foreign office said Thursday it was backing legislative efforts to formally rename the country’s portions of the South China Sea as the “West Philippine Sea,” in a move to bolster Manila’s territorial claims in the contested waterway. On Wednesday, Sen. Francis Tolentino announced he had filed Senate Bill 405, a proposed piece of legislation that aims to “institutionalize” the use of “ the West Philippine Sea” as the official name of territories claimed by the Philippines in waters that China and other neighbors also contest. The air space, seabed, and subsoil on the western side of the Philippine archipelago would be renamed “to reinforce the Philippines’ claim to the disputed territories found on the western side of the archipelago,” according to an excerpt from SB405. Maria Teresita Daza, spokeswoman for the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs, said Tolentino’s bill was consistent with a 2016 international arbitration court’s ruling that sided with Manila. “The West Philippine Sea was already actually defined in 2012 through Administrative Order 29,” Daza told a press briefing on Thursday. “Nevertheless, the department recognizes what the process of legislation can do in terms of clarity and institution building. And we look forward to supporting the process, should we be invited to do so,” she said. Tolentino’s bill covers waters around, within, and adjacent to the Kalayaan Island Group and Scarborough Shoal, as well as the Luzon Sea, or waters also known as the Luzon Strait between the northern Philippine island of Luzon and Taiwan. The Philippine senator said that the proposed legislation came about in response to the “archipelagic doctrine” embodied in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Under it, the Philippines is granted a territorial sea of up to 12 nautical miles, a contiguous zone of up to 24 nautical miles, and an exclusive economic zone of up to 200 nautical miles where the West Philippine Sea is located. The bill also directs government offices to use the name in all communications, messages, and public documents, and “to popularize the use of such [a] name with the general public, both domestically and internationally.” Six years ago, the Philippines won an arbitral award against Beijing before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. The landmark ruling nullified China’s expansive claims to the sea region, including in waters that reach neighbors’ shores. Manila had filed the case in 2012, when the Chinese occupied areas near Scarborough Shoal, a triangular chain of rocks and reefs that Filipinos consider a traditional fishing ground. Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam all claim parts of the sea. China, for its part, draws a nine-dash line to delineate its claim of “historical rights” to almost 90 percent of the waterway. The line also overlaps with the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of another nation – Indonesia. And while the name “South China Sea” has gained near universal acceptance in usage, countries that have claims to the disputed waters have their own different names for it. Vietnam calls the maritime region “the East Sea,” and, to Beijing, it is plainly known as “the South Sea.” In 2017, Indonesia renamed a resource-rich northern region around its Natuna Islands, which lie off the southern end of the South China Sea, as the North Natuna Sea. The waters near the Natunas have seen some tense standoffs in recent years between Indonesian ships and ships from China and other nations, including Chinese coast guard vessels. Jakarta’s decision to change the name of the sea region north of the islands was spurred by the arbitration court’s ruling in Manila’s favor the year before that nullified China’s historical claim to the entire South China Sea through the nine-dash line, Arif Havas Oegroseno, then the deputy of maritime sovereignty at the Ministry of Maritime Affairs, told reporters at the time. Since the arbitration court ruled for Manila in 2016, Beijing has refused to budge from the area around Scarborough Shoal. On Thursday, officials at the Chinese Embassy in Manila did not immediately respond to BenarNews efforts seeking comment on the Philippine bill. The proposed formal name change is a far cry from the policy on the disputed waters implemented by former President Rodrigo Duterte, who did not seek to enforce the ruling when he took office in 2016, but instead pursued warmer ties with Beijing. During his six-year term, Duterte, who left office on June 30, also pulled the Philippines away from the United States, the Philippines’ longtime ally and China’s main rival, until later in his term when he declared that the arbitration award was “beyond compromise.”  The U.S. government, meanwhile, has insisted on the doctrine of freedom of navigation and has sailed its navy ships into the contested waters. Duterte’s successor, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., in his first “state of the nation” address to Congress last month, declared he would not preside over any process that would give away “even one square inch of territory” to foreign rivals. Marcos’ newly appointed military chief, Lt. Gen. Bartolome Vicente Bacarro, told his generals and other military officials during his first command conference on Wednesday that the armed forces supported President Marcos’ pronouncement. “We only do what is required of us to do and what is important is we are able to perform our mandate to protect (the state and) our people,” Col. Medel Aguilar, a spokesman for the military, told reporters.  BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.
- [Vietnam appeals court reduces jail terms for two NGO workers](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-appeals-court-reduces-jail-terms-for-two-ngo-workers/): A court in Vietnam’s capital Hanoi on Thursday slightly reduced the jail terms of two civil society workers sentenced in January on tax evasion charges, saying one of the men had returned part of the money owed, while the other had not gained financially from the evasion. Mai Phan Loi, chairman of the Committee for Scientific Affairs of the Center for Media in Educating Community (MEC), will now serve 45 of the 48 months of his original sentence, while MEC director Bach Hung Duong will serve 27 months of a 30-month term, according to state media reports. In a story Thursday, the Ho Chi Minh City Law Newspaper said that Loi’s sentence was reduced because his family had returned part of the money claimed in taxes, while Loi himself had cooperated with authorities investigating the case against him. Duong will now serve a shorter term because he had received no benefit from the tax evasion and is suffering from an unspecified illness, the newspaper added. Speaking to RFA after the hearing, defense attorney Huynh Phuong Nam declined to comment on the trial, saying only that Loi’s family had given back VND 1.2 billion ($50,000) out of the VND 1.97 billion ($82,100) claimed by the government in taxes. The indictment filed against the men by the Hanoi People’s Procuracy said that MEC had received nearly VND 20 billion in support from domestic and international organizations, but had failed to create financial reports or submit tax declaration forms. Though nonprofit organizations are exempt from paying corporate taxes in Vietnam, the tax laws pertaining to NGOs receiving funds from international donors are particularly vague and restrictive, sources say. Jail term upheld In a separate hearing, the Hanoi High-Level People’s Court on Thursday upheld the 5-year prison sentence imposed in January on Dang Dinh Bach, director of the Research Center for Law and Policy for Sustainable Development (LPSD), saying Bach had refused to return VND 1.3 billion ($54,200) owed in taxes. Bach had failed to file taxes and to report sponsorship from groups overseas from 2016 to 2020, the indictment against him said. Speaking to RFA after the hearing, Bach’s wife Tran Phuong Thao said that security forces had barred her from attending her husband’s trial, forcing her to sit instead at the courthouse gate. Lawyers were also prevented from bringing laptop computers or mobile phones into the court, she said. “I was not surprised by the outcome of the trial and was mentally prepared for whatever would happen,” Thao said. “My husband continues to deny all the charges made against him and still declares his innocence. “Because my family has not paid the government’s so-called ‘remediation money,’ the court would not consider mitigating circumstances,” she said. Rights groups and activists have condemned Loi’s, Duong’s and Bach’s jailing, noting their arrests followed their promotion of civil society’s role in monitoring the European Union-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), which came into force in 2021. Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [Hongkongers warn of Chinese Communist Party infiltration of British universities](https://ij-reportika.com/hongkongers-warn-of-chinese-communist-party-infiltration-of-british-universities/): Youth organizers linked to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are actively recruiting among Hongkongers in exile at British universities, according to a statement from several Hong Kong advocacy groups. The Hong Kong branch of the Chinese People&#8217;s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), part of the CCP&#8217;s United Front Work Department outreach and influence program, is calling on Hong Kong students in the U.K. to sign up for a &#8220;mentorship&#8221; program at several universities. &#8220;Despite being directly connected to a government organization, [the program] promised that &#8216;there will be no political propaganda&#8217;,&#8221; a joint statement from five Hong Kong activist groups in the U.K., including Power to Hongkongers and Nottingham Stands with Hong Kong, said. &#8220;This claim is contradictory &#8230; We strongly oppose this program due to our deep concern over its covert political objective,&#8221; the statement, which was also signed by Durham Stands with Hong Kong, Newcastle Stands with Hong Kong and the Liverpool Hongkongers Alliance, said. &#8220;We urge the participating student societies to withdraw from this program and disassociate from this organization,&#8221; the statement, carried on the Facebook page of Nottingham Stands with Hong Kong, said. A spokesman for Newcastle Stands with Hong Kong who gave only the nickname K said Hong Kong activists are increasingly concerned about CCP infiltration of British universities. &#8220;We also experienced a lot of infiltration of the CCP into British universities when we were studying,&#8221; K said. &#8220;For example, in 2019 ,the Chinese Students and Scholars&#8217; Associations (CSSAs) directed Chinese students to suppress Hong Kong students&#8217; activities on campus in support of Hong Kong.&#8221; &#8220;The societies participating in this mentorship program are mainly established by Hong Kong people and carry a certain influence in Hong Kong student circles,&#8221; K said. &#8220;We are worried that the CCP will continue to brainwash the next generation of Hong Kong people overseas by infiltrating these societies.&#8221; The official Facebook page of the Hong Kong Chinese People&#8217;s Political Consultative Conference Youth Federation contains pro-Beijing images and other content. Credit: Hong Kong CPPCC Youth Federation Facebook page Coopting universities K said CCP propaganda, enforced by a draconian national security law imposed on Hong Kong by the CCP from July 1, 2020, has already changed the atmosphere at Hong Kong&#8217;s universities, particularly the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and the Polytechnic University, which resisted attacks by fully armed riot police and even an armored car on their respective campuses with Molotov cocktails and makeshift weaponry in November 2019. &#8220;The CCP has never stopped infiltrating, and has set up &#8230; organizations overseas to try to extend their influence to students in other countries,&#8221; K said. &#8220;Overseas governments should pay more attention to this attempt to coopt universities, so as to curb the expansion of CCP influence,&#8221; they said. Hong Kong societies at eight British universities including Kings&#8217; College London, Leeds University and Queen Mary University, London had already signed up for the &#8220;mentorship&#8221; scheme by the time the statement appeared. Kings College London took down the poster soon after the Aug. 8 statement appeared, to be followed by other societies on Aug. 9. But the poster remains on the Instagram accounts of the Unite UK Alliance and the Swansea University&#8217;s Hong Kong society. Benefits vs. dangers Chu Seoi, a doctoral student at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology who is currently teaching in a German university, said the &#8220;mentorship&#8221; program offered some attractive benefits to participants, and urged Hongkongers to remember who was behind it. &#8220;This program is pretty tempting,&#8221; Chu told RFA. &#8220;But the problem is that it is provided by the enemy of us Hongkongers: the United Front Work Department of the CCP.&#8221; &#8220;It&#8217;s being provided by the same CCP that took away our city, our home, and destroyed freedom and democracy in Hong Kong,&#8221; Chu said. &#8220;It&#8217;s as if someone who just killed your family comes running up and offers to introduce you to some people &#8230; who could help your career.&#8221; An employee surnamed Yue who answered the phone at the the Hong Kong CPPCC youth association on Wednesday said the mentorship program pairs young Hong Kong students with industry leaders in various sectors, and costs nothing to take part in. &#8220;Students in the U.K. can participate,&#8221; she said. &#8220;We will match them up with a mentor based on their wishes, and they can communicate with others in a group.&#8221; &#8220;We don&#8217;t charge students money for this, but it has been postponed until October now,&#8221; Yue said. The group was set up in 2014, and consists of CPPCC members under the age of 45, and the offspring of wealthy Hong Kong business owners, to &#8220;serve our nation, serve Hong Kong, and serve our members,&#8221; according to a motto on its Facebook page. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Bangladesh police: 2 Rohingya leaders were victims of ‘target killings’](https://ij-reportika.com/bangladesh-police-2-rohingya-leaders-were-victims-of-target-killings/): Unidentified assailants fatally shot two Rohingya leaders as they returned home after overseeing community night-watch duties at a refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, police said Wednesday. The shooting inside the Kutupalong mega-camp in the Ukiah sub-district on Tuesday evening was the latest in a string of killings, as fears grow among Rohingya refugees about crime and deteriorating public safety in crowded camps along Bangaldesh’s border with Myanmar.  Abu Taleb, 40, and Syed Hossain, 35, were the victims of “target killings” by a criminal gang in Tuesday’s attack, said Kamran Hossain, an additional superintendent of the Armed Police Battalion that is responsible for security in the camps, which are home to about 1 million Rohingya refugees. Taleb was leader of a block in camp-15 while Hossain led a sub-block at the Jamtoli refugee camp in Ukhia, he said. Both camps lie within the confines of Kutupalong, the world’s largest refugee camp. “At around 11:45 p.m. Tuesday, Abu Taleb and Syed Hossain went to a hill of Jamtoli camp to make cell phone calls after distributing the night surveillance duties among Rohingya volunteers. Then eight to 10 assailants shot them and fled the scene through another hill,” Hossain told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated news service, on Wednesday. “Both the slain Rohingya leaders had been active in curbing criminal activities at the camp. They used to cooperate with the police to arrest the camp-based criminals, so we are sure that they were the victims of target killings,” he said. The killings occurred a day after assailants killed Md. Ibrahim, 30, in the Nayapara refugee camp in Teknaf, another sub-district of Cox’s Bazar. Since mid-June, nine Rohingya men, including two suspected members of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), a militant group, were killed at the camps, according to the Bangladeshi authorities. “We have information that there is tension among different groups over the selection of camp leaders. We are examining all available clues,” Hossain said. “Most of the killings at the refugee camps are targeted – that are very hard to stop.” Mohammad Ali, the officer-in-charge of the Ukhia police station, told BenarNews that the bodies were sent to a Cox’s Bazar hospital for autopsies, and police were preparing to file murder charges once suspects were identified. The law enforcers said the rival groups have been attacking each other over control of the camps, where the trade in illegal weapons and drugs, along with human trafficking, are rampant. ARSA, based in Myanmar’s Rakhine state where Rohingya began a mass exodus to the Cox’s Bazar camps in August 2017, has been killing their rivals, law enforcers said. Members of the militant group have also been blamed for the Sept. 29, 2021, killing of Muhib Ullah, who had gained international fame and visited the White House in Washington on behalf of his fellow refugees. Until that time, authorities had denied the presence of ARSA in Bangladesh, but an investigation showed that ARSA members killed Ullah because of his popularity. Refugees feel unsafe In the wake of the recent spate of killings, camp residents said they worried about their safety. “We, the ordinary people, want peace at the camps. Many of the camp leaders help the police arrest the criminals and ARSA members,” Md. Kamal Hossain, a leader at the Balukhali camp, told BenarNews. “After coming out of the jail on bail, criminals identify informants and kill them in a premeditated way,” he said. “Therefore, ordinary Rohingya people do not dare to give tips about the criminals.” Hossain said the night surveillance by police and volunteers had led to a drop in criminal activities in the camps. “Very often the ARSA members threaten the camp leaders over phones so we immediately inform police about the threats,” Hossain said. “Though the police have been helping us, we are really worried.” BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.
- [China holds Taiwanese incommunicado amid 'secessionism' probe into Taiwan activities](https://ij-reportika.com/china-holds-taiwanese-incommunicado-amid-secessionism-probe-into-taiwan-activities/): Authorities in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang have placed a Taiwanese activist in incommunicado detention on suspicion of &#8220;separatism&#8221; and &#8220;endangering national security,&#8221; as the democratic island&#8217;s president hit out at a China trip by an opposition politician. Taiwan national Yang Chih-yuan was placed in &#8220;residential surveillance at a designated location (RSDL)&#8221; from Aug. 4 &#8212; meaning he will likely be held with no access to a lawyer or to family visits for six months &#8212; China&#8217;s Global Times newspaper reported. The paper said Yang had been &#8220;actively scheming&#8221; to work towards formal statehood for Taiwan, which has never been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), nor formed part of the 73-year-old People&#8217;s Republic of China, since high school. It cited his campaigning for a referendum on independence for Taiwan, a sovereign state still using the name of the 1911 Republic of China founded by Sun Yat-sen, and his founding of the Taiwan National Party in 2011 as examples. The paper said state security police in Zhejiang&#8217;s Wenzhou city are currently investigating Yang, who is also accused of &#8220;colluding with separatist forces to support Hong Kong secessionists&#8221; during the 2019 protest movement in the city. Rights groups say RSDL is associated with a higher risk of torture and mistreatment in detention. The news came as the vice chairman of Taiwan&#8217;s opposition Kuomintang (KMT), Andrew Hsia, arrived in China on a tour of several southern and eastern cities and provinces. It is unclear whether he negotiated with the Chinese authorities on Yang&#8217;s behalf. Hsia&#8217;s trip came amid several days of PLA military activity around Taiwan in the wake of an Aug. 2-3 visit to the island, which Beijing claims must be &#8216;unified&#8217; with China, by military force if necessary. When the nationalist KMT regime of Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan after losing the civil war to Mao Zedong&#8217;s Soviet-backed communists, it took over what had been a dependency of Japan since 1895, when Taiwan&#8217;s inhabitants proclaimed a short-lived Republic of Formosa after being ceded to Japan by the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). The island had just been handed back to the Republic of China as part of Japanese reparations in the wake of World War II, and KMT rule wasn&#8217;t welcome in many quarters, particularly after the Feb. 28 massacre following a popular uprising in 1947. Nonetheless, Beijing forces countries to choose between diplomatic recognition of Beijing or Taipei, and has repeatedly threatened to annex the island, should it seek formal statehood as Taiwan. Andrew Hsia gestures while speaking to a lawmaker at the Interior Committee of the Taiwan Parliament on April 13, 2016. Credit: AFP Bad timing for trip Taiwan&#8217;s Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said the time wasn&#8217;t right for Hsia&#8217;s trip, given the intensive military activity aimed at Taiwan, while president Tsai Ing-wen told the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) on Wednesday that his visit was disappointing, and could send the wrong message about the level of threat the island faces from China. The KMT has billed the visit as a &#8220;fact-finding&#8221; mission and a chance to connect with Taiwanese business owners in the Yangtze and Pearl River delta regions. Just this morning, China released a white paper full of wishful thinking &#8230; ignoring reality on the other side of the Taiwan Strait and not renouncing the use of force against Taiwan,&#8221; Tsai told party members. &#8220;It is disappointing to the people of Taiwan that the KMT is insisting on going to China at a time like this,&#8221; she said. &#8220;[It also] sends the wrong message to the international community. We want to make it clear here that what the people of Taiwan want peace, neither provoking nor escalating conflict, but also to safeguard our sovereignty and national security, and for Taiwan never to back down,&#8221; Tsai said. Taiwan People&#8217;s Party chairman Ko Wen-je said the trip would only be defensible if Hsia used it to protest the military blockade of air and sea around Taiwan. &#8220;If it&#8217;s just for fund-raising, then what kind of a time is this?&#8221; Ko said. Hsia told journalists just before he left that he &#8220;won&#8217;t be deterred by the current military exercises.&#8221; &#8220;We want to listen to our friends, hear what they have to say, and help them, in the hope that some improvements can be made,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Communication and contact are definitely good things &#8230; we won&#8217;t be put off by attempts to label us or attack us online or in the media.&#8221; Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Severe Health Impacts of the Traditional Chinese Medicines (TCM)](https://ij-reportika.com/severe-health-impacts-of-traditional-chinese-medicines/): The growth of TCM has been reckless over the years, but the central question remained unanswered, i.e. is TCM really beneficial as projected by China or are there any severe side effects of TCM ? We’ll try to uncover the truth by exploring various dimensions in which TCM has adversely affected the human health.
- [Naval standoff continues near Taiwan in spite of China claiming war games are over](https://ij-reportika.com/naval-standoff-continues-near-taiwan-in-spite-of-china-claiming-war-games-are-over/): Chinese and Taiwanese ships continued an apparent standoff in the waters near Taiwan despite the Chinese military saying major drills around the island were over, open source investigators said, citing satellite imagery from Sentinel Hub. As the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) wrapped up its week-long operation, held in response to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, “at least two sets of ships in typical &#8216;shadowing&#8217; positions [were] observed East of Taiwan” on Wednesday, H I Sutton, a well-known independent defense analyst wrote on Twitter.   On the same day, Beijing released a White Paper on Taiwan and China’s “reunification” policy, which Taiwan dismissed. “Taiwan rejects the &#8220;one country, two systems&#8221; model proposed by Beijing,” said Taiwan Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou at a media briefing in Taipei on Thursday. “Only Taiwan&#8217;s people can decide its future,” Ou added. Regular patrols Images from satellite data provider Sentinel Hub show two Taiwanese ships “shadowing” two Chinese vessels in waters off Hualian County in eastern Taiwan since early this week, several open source intelligence (OSINT) analysts said.  The PLA announced a major military exercise on Aug. 4 after Pelosi made a controversial stopover in Taipei. Beijing repeatedly warned her against the visit, which it condemned as a “gross violation of China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” and threatened retaliation. The military exercise was due to end on Aug. 7 but went on for two more days and only wrapped up on Wednesday. Yet the collected OSINT data indicate that China will probably continue to put pressure on the Taiwanese military in coming days.  Sr. Col. Shi Yi, spokesman of the PLA Eastern Theater Command, said on Wednesday that the Command’s troops will continue to “organize normalized combat-readiness security patrols in the Taiwan Strait.” The PLA is starting to “normalize” its activities, including drills east of the median line, adding to the pressure it has already exerted on Taiwan, said Collin Koh, a Singapore-based regional military expert, in a recent interview with RFA. A Taiwan Air Force F-16V taking off from Hualien airbase during a recent drill. CREDIT: Taiwan Defense Ministry Less autonomy for Taiwan On Wednesday, the Chinese government office responsible for Taiwan-related affairs released a White Paper titled &#8220;The Taiwan Question and China&#8217;s Reunification in the New Era,&#8221; to clarify Beijing’s policy towards the island that it considers a Chinese province. This is the third White Paper on Taiwan, the previous ones were published in 1993 and 2000. &#8220;We are one China, and Taiwan is a part of China,” the paper said. “Taiwan has never been a state; its status as a part of China is unalterable,&#8221; it reiterated. “Peaceful reunification and One Country, Two Systems are our basic principles for resolving the Taiwan question and the best approach to realizing national reunification,” the White Paper said, adding that “certain political forces have been misrepresenting and distorting its objectives.”  “Lack of details on ‘Two Systems’ compared with the 1993 and 2000 papers suggests an arrangement that might involve less political and legal autonomy for Taiwan,” Amanda Hsiao, China Senior Analyst at the Crisis Group think-tank, wrote on Twitter. The White Paper also provided guidelines for the post-reunification governance over the island. “We maintain that after peaceful reunification, Taiwan may continue its current social system and enjoy a high degree of autonomy in accordance with the law,” it said. However, while both the 1993 and 2000 White Papers pledged that China would not send troops or administrative personnel to be stationed in Taiwan following unification, the 2022 version did not have that line, said Crisis Group’s Hsiao. For the first time Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was mentioned in the paper. &#8220;The actions of the DPP authorities have resulted in tension in Cross-Straits relations, endangering peace and stability in the Taiwan Straits, and undermining the prospects and restricting the space for peaceful reunification,” it said. “These are obstacles that must be removed in advancing the process of peaceful reunification,&#8221; it said, delivering a clear threat to President Tsai Ing-wen’s party.&#8221; Recently, China’s ambassador to France provoked an outcry when he said during a TV interview that Taiwanese people will be re-educated after reunification with the mainland. “We will re-educate. I’m sure that the Taiwanese population will again become favorable over the reunification and will become patriots again,” Ambassador Lu Shaye told BFM TV. The Taiwanese authorities have “effectively indoctrinated and intoxicated” the population through de-Sinicization policies, Lu said in another interview. “Re-education” is the indoctrination technique used by several authoritarian regimes against dissent. China has been criticized by foreign countries and human rights groups for its re-education programs for the Uyghurs in its northwestern Xinjiang province.  
- [Woman killed, son injured,  in shelling of Chin state village](https://ij-reportika.com/woman-killed-son-injured-in-shelling-of-chin-state-village/): A 55-year-old woman was killed and her son was injured when a shell hit a village during fighting between junta forces and local militia in Hakha city, the capital of Myanmar’s Chin State. Local residents told RFA Wednesday&#8217;s battle broke out between the Hakha Chin Land Defense Force and the military’s Ka La Ya 266 battalion near the city’s ministerial residences. A local, who did not want to be named for safety reasons, told RFA an artillery shell landed on a house in Hniarlawn village, 11 kilometers (7 miles) from Hakha city. “She was hit by the artillery shell and died on the spot while she was cooking in the kitchen,” the resident said. “One of her sons was wounded in the hand. Her body has been left there for now because everyone has fled to the forest.” The woman was cooking in her kitchen when the shell hit her home. CREDIT: Chin Journal Calls by RFA to Military Council Spokesman Gen. Zaw Min Tun went unanswered on Thursday. This is not the first time fighting has affected Hniarlawn village, which houses more than 600 people in over 100 homes. Last month, 22-year-old Salai Manliansan was shot dead by junta troops there, according to residents. Battles break out daily in Chin state, causing many locals to flee their homes and set up makeshift camps in the jungle. UNICEF says the state, in the west of the country, has the highest poverty rate of all Myanmar’s regions but aid has been slow to arrive. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said last week 866,000 people had become refugees in Myanmar in the 18 months since the Feb. 2021 coup. There are now more than 1.2 million internally displaced persons across the country, or more than 2% of the total population.
- [Vietnam's government struggles to counter what it calls “fake news”](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnams-government-struggles-to-counter-what-it-calls-fake-news/): Vietnam’s Ministry of Information &amp; Communication is cracking down on “online fake and malicious news,” spread by users in a country where tens of millions of people use global social networking sites every day. The issue of distorted reports that could spread confusion and misinformation was brought up by legislators at the country’s National Assembly during the 14th session of the NA’s Standing Committee. State-controlled media carried quotes by Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung on Wednesday. Hung said “fake news” mainly appeared on homepages of global sites such as Facebook and YouTube. He said the multinational platforms had increased their response to Vietnamese removal requests from 20% in 2018 to 90-95% today.  Hung said before 2018 there were about 5,000 stories and videos that were deemed to be untrue by the government, which asked for them to be removed. He said the number has increased 20-fold to 100,000 stories and videos a day. Last year the ministry set up the Vietnam Counterfeit News Center to tackle the problem. It also ordered the National Cyber ​​​​Safety Center to detect “false information,” as early as possible. The processing capacity of the center has increased from 100 million messages per day to 300 million. The ministry has also issued an online code of conduct to establish standards of behavior by social network users and persuade them to act responsibly in their written and video posts. Hung said since the beginning of the year hundreds of violations on spreading “fake news” have been recorded and handled. A number of cases identified as criminal violations have been transferred to the Ministry of Public Security. Facebook said 20 million Vietnamese use the social networking site every day, 17 million of them on mobile devices. The country is 13% above the global average in terms of daily usage, Facebook said. YouTube had 66.63 million users in Vietnam last year, according to the data website Statista.com, which estimates the number will rise to 75.44 million by 2025. Vietnam led the Asia Pacific in terms of the number of YouTube broadcasters late last year, according to local website VNExpress, with 25 million live streamers.
- [Junta troops kill 5, torch hundreds of homes in Kachin state village](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-troops-kill-5-torch-hundreds-of-homes-in-kachin-state-village/): Junta troops killed five civilians and torched as many as 400 homes over three days of air raids, heavy artillery fire and fierce clashes with a joint force of ethnic rebels and pro-democracy paramilitaries in northern Myanmar’s Kachin state, residents said Wednesday. Four of the victims were killed on Tuesday when military jets flew the first of eight bombing runs over Se Zin village in the jade mining township of Hpakant, killing a child, said a resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing security concerns. “The last plane bombed at about 8:00 pm and then they fired at the village with machine guns and 60-mm heavy weapons,” he told RFA Burmese. “The child died on the spot when his house was hit by the shelling. One woman had to have her leg amputated. And this morning, about 6:00 am, a family was shot at while trying to leave on a motorcycle. The husband and wife and their son [all died].” The fifth victim, a man in his 40s, died on Monday when a shell fell on his house during heavy fighting near the village, the resident said. He told RFA that there may have been additional casualties in the village, but said they hadn’t been confirmed. The raid followed a Monday attack by a combined column of ethnic Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries that led to the capture of a military camp in Se Zin village and a pro-military Shanni National Army (SNA) camp located across the river in Shwepyi Myint village in Sagaing region’s Homalin township. The joint force also attacked the Se Zin Village Police Station on Tuesday. RFA was unable to confirm the number of casualties in the clashes. Another Se Zin resident, who also did not want to be named, said hundreds of homes in the village were destroyed in a fire set by junta troops. “There are about 500 houses in the whole village and 300 or 400 have been turned to ash,” he said. “The fires were set by the military and the Shanni forces. They did it deliberately. They even set fire to houses that were left undestroyed [in the bombing].” Se Zin is a busy village surrounded by private gold mines in Hpakant’s Hawng Par village tract. The fighting forced more than 3,000 residents of Se Zin to flee to the township’s Tar Ma Hkan village, about an hour away by motorcycle, where they are sheltering in schools, churches and monasteries, the resident said. He said the refugees had fled with only the shirts on their backs and are in need of emergency food, clothing and medicine. Other residents of Hpakant told RFA that some of the villagers remain trapped in Se Zin, where the military has set up a camp. File photo of houses in Se Zin village, Hpakant township, Kachin State. Credit: Citizen journalist The ‘usual response’ Speaking to RFA on Wednesday, Social Affairs Minister Win Ye Tun, who serves as the junta’s spokesperson in Kachin state, said the details of the situation in Se Zin village are “not yet known,” but said the military is “ready to help” those who have fled their homes. “We have contingency plans for people who have to leave their homes because of fighting,” he said. “I haven&#8217;t received any news yet about the fires or the clashes. I am the minister of social affairs, so reports about the fighting don’t come to me.” Col. Naw Bu, the news and information officer for the ethnic Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), said it has become “routine” for the military to burn the homes of residents whenever there is a clash. “Last night, there was an attack on the police station in Se Zin village and this is the usual response of the [junta],” he said. “When there is a battle with their adversaries, whether it is near a village or their camp, or in the village, they won’t hesitate to kill people or torch houses.” Naw Bu confirmed that there had been three consecutive days of heavy fighting in Se Zin village beginning on Monday and that the military had “launched aerial attacks all day” on Tuesday. The raid on Se Zin comes less than a month after about a week of clashes beginning on July 16 between the military and the armed opposition in and around the village. Hpakant is one of the most heavily militarized townships in Kachin state. The military cut off mobile internet access to the area on Aug. 20 last year. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Relatives of political prisoners in Vietnam push for proper health care for inmates](https://ij-reportika.com/relatives-of-political-prisoners-in-vietnam-push-for-proper-health-care-for-inmates/): About 30 families of political prisoners in Vietnam are calling on the government to allow sick inmates to be hospitalized after two inmates died, they said, from lack of timely care. Do Cong Duong, an independent journalist who was jailed on charges of “disturbing public order” and “abusing the rights to freedom and democracy,” died at a hospital in Thanh Chuong district, Nghe An province, on Aug. 2, while serving time in Detention Center No. 6.  He was healthy prior to his arrest, but he contracted multiple diseases in prison, and his supporters say authorities did not give him timely access to appropriate medical treatment.  Duong’s passing was the second death among prisoners of conscience at the detention facility. Another prisoner of conscience, Dao Quang Thuc, died in the same detention facility in 2019. The retired teacher was serving a 13-year term for “subversion” because of Facebook postings. When he showed signs of illness in prison, authorities took him to Nghe An Friendship General Hospital for treatment but after he returned to the detention center, he died a week later of what authorities said was a stroke, RFA reported at the time. His body was held for autopsy and not returned to his family for burial, sources said. The families of prisoners of conscience sent the signed open letter on Aug. 9 to authorities stating their concerns over the health conditions of their imprisoned relatives, said Pham Thi Lan, the wife of political prisoner Nguyen Tuong Thuy, a former RFA blogger who is serving an 11-year jail term at An Phuoc Detention Center in the southern province of Binh Duong. The relatives expressed outrage at the recent deaths and demanded that the Vietnamese government ensure that their incarcerated family members have access to health care, as Vietnamese law demands.  The open letter said that the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights also requires that political prisoners be given access to proper health care. The Vietnamese government must respect prisoners’ rights, including rights to safe water and food and timely health care, the letter said.  Political prisoners’ health has been a long-standing concern of their families and has become a hot-button issue after the two prisoners’ deaths. Lan said she was “gravely concerned” about Thuy’s health because the 72-year-old suffers from high blood pressure, gout and skin diseases. “The prison clinic does provide my husband with some medicines, but I am not sure whether the medicines work or their provision is just a temporary solution,” she said via text message.  “I did request that they allow my husband to see a specialist, but the detention center refused, saying that Mr. Thuy was healthy enough to serve his prison term,” she added.  Thuy’s family has expressed concerns about his health since he was detained, she said.   ‘Many have lost their lives’ Nguyen Van Hai, a political prisoner who was released and sent to the U.S. in 2014, said that he and other inmates lacked proper health care. Some prisoners with heart issues who were not allowed to keep medicines in their cells died because they didn’t have access to their drugs or to urgent care, said Hai, a Vietnamese blogger and co-founder of the Free Journalists Club of Vietnam. “Detention centers refuse to provide treatment for prisoners who have health problems,” he said. “This happens especially at Xuyen Moc Detention Center [in Ba Ria-Vung Tau province], Detention Center No. 6 in Nghe An province, and Detention Center No. 5 in Thanh Hoa province. Many have lost their lives in prison.”  The harsh prison conditions, which may include forced labor, exacerbate a prisoner’s existing health problems, Hai said.  Prison wardens and guards do not feel pressure to provide prisoners of conscience proper care because the authorities themselves are also empowered to investigate the deaths, so there is little accountability, he said.  “When prison doors shut, laws and regulations have to stay outside them,” Hai told RFA. “The prisoners’ fates are in the hands of prison wardens and guards. Therefore, these people are very aggressive.”  Hai said he believed that the treatment of prisoners of conscience would improve if the international community paid closer attention to the issue. Under Vietnam’s 2019 Law on the Execution of Criminal Judgements, prisoners have the right to receive treatment at detention centers, prisons or the nearest state-run medical center.  Prisoners that have serious illnesses that cannot be treated locally should be transferred to higher-level medical establishments, and district-level police must inform their families or a representative about the transfer, according to the law.  Human rights attorney Nguyen Van Dai, who has twice been imprisoned for a total of nearly seven years, said the treatment of prisoners of conscience is often based on the whims of police officials. “For example, if investigators say that prison guards should treat suspects [held in detention]  well, then that person will be provided with very good food and health care,” he told RFA. “However, the treatment towards the suspect will be reversed, including the provision of health care, if investigators say that he or she should be treated poorly. “Investigators want to put pressure on the suspect through this treatment so that they can quickly get the investigation outcomes they want,” he added.  Dai, founder of the Brotherhood for Democracy, also said medical staff at prison clinics are usually able to only handle minor health issues. But prison authorities make it difficult for inmates with serious illnesses to move to a better-equipped and staffed medical center.  Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [ASEAN aid promised in May has yet to reach Myanmar’s refugees](https://ij-reportika.com/asean-aid-promised-in-may-has-yet-to-reach-myanmars-refugees/): Myanmar’s junta has yet to deliver humanitarian assistance pledged three months ago by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) for the country’s more than 1.2 million refugees of conflict, who aid workers say are in dire need of food and medicine. At a May 6 meeting in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh, the ASEAN Coordinating Center for Humanitarian Assistance (AHA) agreed to deliver aid to Myanmar under the supervision of the military regime, which would distribute it to those in need. However, aid workers in northwest Myanmar’s Sagaing region told RFA Burmese that as of Monday none of the promised aid had been delivered there or other regions with refugees in need, including Chin, Kayah and Kayin states. “ASEAN’s help hasn’t made it to Sagaing yet,” said Thet Oo, who is assisting victims of conflict with the People-to-People Program in the region’s Yinmarbin and Salingyi townships. “It&#8217;s been three months since their meeting, but nothing has come to Yinmarbin district at all.” Thet Oo warned ASEAN not to trust the junta’s promises. “The junta, which is terrorizing us, will never provide the aid or assistance they agreed to with ASEAN,” he said. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs announced on Aug. 3 that 866,000 people had joined the ranks of Myanmar’s refugees since the military’s Feb. 1, 2021 coup, bringing the total number to more than 1.2 million, or more than 2% of the country’s population of 54.4 million. Of the new refugees, some 470,000 were forced to flee their homes in Sagaing, where clashes between junta troops and the armed opposition are among the deadliest and most frequent in the nation. Thet Oo said his organization is struggling to provide assistance with only donations to rely on. Meanwhile, the military is carrying out a scorched earth offensive in the region, conducting raids on villages and setting them on fire, and creating new refugees each day, he said. In neighboring Chin state, where fierce fighting is also a daily occurrence, refugees are also facing severe shortages, aid workers told RFA. “The need for food and medicine is still very great. There isn’t enough food in the mountains. No NGOs have yet come here,” a spokesman for the Mindat Township Refugee Camps Management Committee said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Since the beginning, when we heard ASEAN would be providing assistance through the junta, we have been skeptical. It was clear that Chin state would not be included in the distribution program. Sure enough, no aid has reached the refugees in Mindat township to date.” Repeated calls by RFA seeking comment from junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun on the status of the ASEAN aid distribution went unanswered. Agreement panned ASEAN’s decision to deliver assistance to Myanmar’s refugees through the junta was slammed by the country’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG), as well as the Karen National Union (KNU), Karenni National Progressive Party and Chin National Front ethnic parties as “unacceptable” in a joint statement on May 30. The groups, which the junta says are terrorist organizations, were not extended an invitation by ASEAN to the May 6 meeting in Phnom Penh at the request of the military regime, nor was the U.N. secretary general’s special representative to Myanmar, Nolin Heza. Win Myat Aye, NUG minister for Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, told RFA this week that ASEAN’s plan to provide aid through the junta will not do anything for the people who are suffering the most in Myanmar. “What ASEAN is doing …  is impractical. It hasn’t been successful because it never reached those who really need it for more than three months now,” he said. “NUG is now already working to meet the actual needs on the ground. We are working in cooperation with international organizations, so the information we act on will be true and we can provide the necessary help. … In order to be successful, we need to help with real action, not just words.&#8221; Win Myat Aye noted that the NUG disaster ministry had been providing shelter and medicine to refugees for the last 18 months since the coup. Aid workers helping refugees in Chin, Kayah and Kayin states, as well as some townships in Sagaing and Magway regions, told RFA that even if the junta is working to deliver assistance from ASEAN, it only controls Myanmar’s cities and its administration is broken in rural areas. KNU spokesman Pado Saw Tawney said that the junta is incapable of reaching all of the country’s refugees on its own. “There are over a million [refugees] according to available statistics. But in fact, what we believe is that there may be 2 million or more,” he said. “This situation has become a problem that cannot be solved internally. It requires cooperation with the international community. … That&#8217;s the bottom line. Nothing will happen if it is carried out by the junta alone.” The U.N. humanitarian affairs office said in its statement on Aug. 3 that the security and humanitarian aid situations in Myanmar have worsened significantly as fighting continues throughout the country. The agency said efforts to deliver assistance to refugees have been hamstrung by military restrictions on the transportation of essential goods, including food and medical supplies. Ethnic Chin refugees shelter in a jungle area after fleeing fighting between Myanmar&#8217;s junta forces and local militias in Chin state&#8217;s Mindat township, May 2021. Credit: Citizen journalist Call for stronger measures Reports of the worsening refugee situation in Myanmar came as the country’s opposition groups and analysts called on ASEAN to adopt stronger measures in its dealing with the junta following the bloc’s 55th Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Phnom Penh from July 31 to Aug. 6. During the gathering, most ASEAN member states criticized the junta for failing to implement the bloc’s agreements and for its July 25 execution of four democracy activists, including former student leader Ko Jimmy and a former lawmaker from Myanmar’s deposed National League for Democracy party....
- [Hong Kong police arrest four over 'seditious' Facebook page, radio hosts denounced](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-police-arrest-four-over-seditious-facebook-page-radio-hosts-denounced/): Hong Kong police arrested four people for &#8220;seditious&#8221; social media posts in connection with a Facebook page titled &#8220;Civil servant secrets,&#8221; after the page was denounced by a newspaper backed by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for &#8220;inciting civil servants&#8221; and &#8220;smearing government policies and operations.&#8221; Two were accused of being the administrators of the group, which stopped posting on the day of the arrests, but later started up at a different address calling itself &#8220;Civil servant secrets 2.0.&#8221; The last visible post on the original page showed a police officer leaving his firearm unattended as he took a nap on some chairs. Another two were members of the Fire Services Department, and were suspected of having posted to the group, the CCP-backed Wen Wei Po newspaper reported. All four were released on bail on Wednesday, the Hong Kong Free Press cited police as saying. Political denunciations in CCP-backed media are increasingly being used to target civil society groups, journalists and NGOs in Hong Kong. The denunciations usually focus on accusations that a given organization has done something that could be in breach of a draconian national security law imposed on Hong Kong by the CCP from July 1, 2020. The merged Wen Wei Po and Ta Kung Pao website also denounced outspoken political commentator and talk-show host Poon Siu-to, political scientist Simon Shen, veteran journalist Chip Tsao and four colleagues at Commercial Radio for In an Aug. 8 report on a complaint lodged by a pro-CCP group with the city&#8217;s Communications Authority about Commercial Radio, the paper reported that the group had complained that the station is &#8220;spreading poison&#8221; and &#8220;betraying Hong Kong.&#8221; &#8220;Some show hosts have used the platform to publish anti-China speeches betraying Hong Kong and misleading its people,&#8221; the report cited the complaint as saying. &#8220;They include Poon Siu-to, Simon Shen, Chip Tsao, Jacky Fung, Jan Lamb, Michelle Lo, Ken Yuen and others from Commercial Radio,&#8221; the report said. &#8220;The group strongly urged the Communications Authority to strictly supervize the media and not allow the station to arbitrarily invite guests who spread anti-government messages and hate speech against the Hong Kong and Chinese governments,&#8221; it said. &#8220;These hosts have often made false remarks in the program, which they infiltrated with their extreme political stance and distorted values, turning it into a platform for their personal political propaganda &#8230; only making negative comments or overly politicized comments and distorted logic &#8230; when it comes to governance or China-related topics,&#8221; it quoted the complaint as saying. The group called on the authority to take action to silence their &#8220;hostile words and deeds,&#8221; and prevent them from using the station to spread &#8220;poison,&#8221; the report said. Tsang Chi-ho, who once hosted the banned satirical news show Headliner for government broadcaster RTHK, said the pro-Beijing press is now casting its net wider than ever. &#8220;This encompasses a very broad spectrum,&#8221; Tsang told RFA. &#8220;Leaving aside the political commentators, Poon Siu-to, Chip Tsao and others, they have even included Jan Lamb who is known as a comedian.&#8221; &#8220;Nobody thought they would be put in the same category, but now it seems they are,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It sends the message that anyone who talks about serious political issues will be targeted, even if you just make light-hearted, satirical comments,&#8221; Tsang said. Tsang, who was himself denounced many times by the pro-CCP media in Hong Kong before his show was shelved in 2020 for &#8220;insulting the police,&#8221; said political satire, once a ubiquitous part of Hong Kong&#8217;s media offering, appears now to be a thing of the past. He said anyone with a public platform is now vulnerable to similar denunciations, with scant support from a fast-disappearing civil society, an increasingly muzzled media, and a Legislative Council that has been purged of any political opposition. He said the denunciations appear timed to coincide with the forthcoming mid-term review of Commercial Radio&#8217;s broadcasting license. &#8220;They only approved the renewal of the license for 12 years &#8230; with a mid-term review in 2022, so perhaps they are &#8230; putting pressure on Commercial Radio to make adjustments to the style and attitude of their programming,&#8221; Tsang said. Hong Kong Journalists&#8217; Association (HKJA) chairman Ronson Chan also expressed surprise at the list of names in the article. &#8220;If they&#8217;re even going to rectify Jacky Lam, then we have a huge problem,&#8221; Chan told RFA. &#8220;If Jacky Lam, an iconic personality on Commercial Radio, gets rectified, or silenced, or changes his approach in any way, this will naturally mean people lose confidence in the station.&#8221; He said people denounced by pro-CCP media are likely to face investigation by police under the national security law imposed on the city by Beijing from July 1, 2020. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Leak ‘partially fixed’ at Laos’ Nam Theun 1 Dam](https://ij-reportika.com/leak-partially-fixed-at-laos-nam-theun-1-dam/): Dam workers in Laos are moving to contain leakage at a large hydroelectric project on the Mekong River following concerns that a breach could lead to the structure’s collapse, flooding areas downstream. Engineers working at the Nam Theun 1 Dam, located in Borikhamxay province’s Pakkading district, have now “partially stopped the leak,” an employee at the Nam Theun 1 Power Company, the dam’s developer, told RFA on Tuesday. “They’re working on this little by little and step by step. Now, only a little bit of water is oozing out,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the matter. Power officials had assured nervous residents in July that a video showing the dam leaking water depicted only “seepage” that would have no effect on operations or safety at the hydroelectric dam on a Mekong River tributary. Video of the apparent leakage was shared on Facebook on July 16, a week before the fourth anniversary of the Southeast Asian country’s worst-ever dam collapse, which killed more than 70 people. On July 23, 2018, billions of cubic feet of water from a tributary of the Mekong River poured over a collapsed saddle dam at the Xe Pian Xe Namnoy hydropower project in Attapeu province in southern Laos. The disaster wiped out all or part of 19 villages downstream, leaving 71 people dead and displacing 14,440 others. Some still afraid Speaking to RFA, villagers living downstream from Nam Theun 1 gave mixed reactions to the news of the dam’s partial containment, with some voicing confidence in the work being done to fix the leak, and others saying they are afraid the dam could still collapse. “They’re fixing the leak, so I’m not as afraid as I was before,” said a resident of Pakkading district’s Phonchareun village, located about eight kilometers below the dam. “They say that the leaking water was coming only from the mountain.” “During the first two weeks of the leak, a lot of us panicked because we have seen dam breaks happen before,” he said. “We’re not worried anymore,” said a resident of the district’s Phon Ngam village, living about seven kilometers below the dam and speaking like RFA’s other sources on condition of anonymity.  “I think they’ve already fixed the leak now.” Another villager living just below the dam agreed. “I feel safer now. I don’t know exactly what they’re fixing, but I hope that nothing will happen.” However, other villagers living near the dam still voiced concern. “Many of us are not completely confident in the repairs being done,” one villager said. “We’re constantly monitoring the leak and are preparing for the worst so we can protect ourselves in case of an emergency.” “We’re still scared because we live below the dam,” added another resident of Phon Ngam. “They say the leaking water is coming from somewhere else and not from the dam, but we’re still worried and are taking precautions,” he said. The Nam Theun 1 Dam is a part of Laos’ plans to build dozens of hydropower projects on the Mekong River and its tributaries to become the “Battery of Southeast Asia’ by exporting electricity to neighboring countries. Though the Lao government sees power generation as a way to boost the landlocked country’s economy, the projects are controversial because of their environmental impact, displacement of villagers without adequate compensation, and questionable financial and power demand arrangements. Translated by RFA’s Lao Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [China fears losing international support for its claims on Taiwan: analysts](https://ij-reportika.com/china-fears-losing-international-support-for-its-claims-on-taiwan-analysts/): China increasingly fears losing international support for its claim that the democratic island of Taiwan and China are part of a &#8220;one China&#8221; that was split apart during the civil war and is awaiting &#8220;unification,&#8221; analysts told RFA. The Chinese government on Wednesday released a white paper on Taiwan, reiterating its stance and not withdrawing its ongoing military threat against the island, which has never been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) nor formed part of the 73-year-old People&#8217;s Republic of China. When the nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) regime of Chiang Kai-shek fled there after losing the civil war to Mao Zedong&#8217;s Soviet-backed communists, it took over what had been a dependency of Japan since 1895, when Taiwan&#8217;s inhabitants proclaimed a short-lived Republic of Formosa after being ceded to Japan by the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Nonetheless, Beijing forces countries to choose between diplomatic recognition of Beijing or Taipei, and has repeatedly threatened to annex the island, should it seek formal statehood as Taiwan. &#8220;The white paper &#8230; was &#8230; released amid the escalating cross-Straits tensions and the People&#8217;s Liberation Army (PLA)&#8217;s military drills against Taiwan secessionists and foreign interference,&#8221; China&#8217;s nationalistic tabloid the Global Times reported. It said the white paper&#8217;s release is &#8220;a warning to Taiwan authorities as well as external forces,&#8221; citing &#8220;analysts.&#8221; &#8220;We are one China, and Taiwan is a part of China,&#8221; it quoted the white paper as saying. &#8220;Taiwan has never been a state; its status as a part of China is unalterable,&#8221; the paper said, adding that Beijing is &#8220;committed to the historic mission of &#8230; complete reunification.&#8221; The current Taiwan government still uses the name of the KMT&#8217;s 1911 Republic of China, and operates as a sovereign state despite a lack of international diplomatic recognition or participation in global bodies like the World Health Organization (WHO). The recent visit of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the island on Aug. 2-3 was viewed by Beijing as a &#8220;serious provocation,&#8221; and China&#8217;s People&#8217;s Liberation Army (PLA) launched a series of military exercises that encroached into waters that were previously regarded as Taiwan&#8217;s. This week, Beijing reacted strongly to a statement by U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, Australian foreign minister Penny Wong and Japanese foreign minister Hayashi Yoshimasa, in which they appeared to qualify their support for the &#8220;one China&#8221; policy, which Beijing demands as a prerequisite for diplomatic ties. Children pose for photos at the 68-nautical-mile scenic spot, the closest point in mainland China to the island of Taiwan, in Pingtan in southeastern China&#8217;s Fujian Province, Aug. 5, 2022. Credit: AP No change in policy Blinken, Wong and Hayashi condemned China&#8217;s launch of ballistic missiles &#8212; five of which Japan has said landed in its waters &#8212; which they said had raised tensions and destabilized the region. In a joint statement, they called on China to cease its military exercises around Taiwan immediately. &#8220;There is no change in the respective one China policies, where applicable, and basic positions on Taiwan of Australia, Japan, or the United States,&#8221; the statement concluded. Asked to confirm whether the addition of the words &#8220;where applicable&#8221; was new for Washington, a State Department spokesperson on Tuesday replied: &#8220;I’d just refer you back to the statement.&#8221; President Joe Biden has previously said China is &#8216;flirting with danger&#8217; with its ongoing threat to annex Taiwan, saying the U.S. is committed to defending the island in the event of a Chinese invasion, a statement U.S. officials later framed as an interpretation of the existing terms of the Taiwan Relations Act requiring Washington to ensure the island has the means to defend itself. Chinese foreign minister Wang Wenbin hit out at the joint statement from Washington, Canberra and Tokyo, saying countries shouldn&#8217;t add clauses that contextualize their support for the one China policy. &#8220;Certain countries have unilaterally added preconditions and provisos to the one-China policy in an attempt to distort, fudge and hollow out their one-China commitment,&#8221; Wang told journalists on Tuesday. &#8220;This is illegal, null and void &#8230; [and] also a challenge to the post-WWII world order.&#8221; &#8220;Attempts to challenge the one-China principle, international rule of law and the international order are bound to be rejected by the international community and get nowhere,&#8221; Wang said. Ding Shufan, an honorary professor at Taiwan&#8217;s National Chengchi University, said that, in fact, U.S. policy in Taiwan has always been conditional on the relatively peaceful status quo that has been seen since over recent decades. &#8220;It&#8217;s possible that [the three countries] were somewhat deliberate in adding this,&#8221; Ding said. &#8220;[It means] that if the situation in the Taiwan Strait gets out of control, [their support for] the one China policy could change.&#8221; Chung Chi-tung, an assistant researcher at the National Defense Security Research Institute, said the military exercises were a form of protest over the deterioration in the U.S.-China relationship begun under the Trump administration, which eventually removed a ban on high-ranking visits to Taiwan by U.S. officials that wasn&#8217;t reinstated under President Joe Biden. &#8220;Everyone has been looking at the military situation, but they have ignored the fact that the most important thing it shows about China is how worried it is by this setback in relations with the U.S., and by the internationalization of the Taiwan Strait issue,&#8221; Chung told RFA. Counterproductive stance He said Beijing has been explicit about this right from the start, mentioning the &#8220;hollowing out&#8221; of international support for the one China policy. &#8220;China wants to put a stop to the internationalization of the Taiwan Strait issue that was caused by Pelosi&#8217;s visit,&#8221; Chung said. &#8220;This is counterproductive, because the focus of global attention is the U.S.&#8217; one China policy, which is in conflict with China&#8217;s [formulation of] the principle.&#8221; Chung said no other countries made any comment at all during the Taiwan Strait missile crisis of 1995 and 1996, but this time even Southeast Asian nations and members of ASEAN have criticized China&#8217;s actions and taken Washington&#8217;s side. Chang Meng-jen, convenor of the diplomacy and international...
- [More than a thousand villagers flee Sagaing region battle](https://ij-reportika.com/more-than-a-thousand-villagers-flee-sagaing-region-battle/): Two People’s Defense Force members died in fighting with Myanmar junta troops in Sagaing region’s Ye-U township. A local PDF commander confirmed they were both members of the local defense force. The PDF said at least 10 junta troops also died but RFA could not independently verify this. More than 1,000 locals fled Kone Thar, Ywar Thit, Nga Pyaw Taw and Kun Ohn villages after air raids on Wednesday, residents told RFA. A Kone Thar resident, who declined to be named for security reasons, said during the battle in the village the junta used helicopter gunships and fired on the village for around 30 minutes. Fighting broke out when junta soldiers arrived from Nyaung Hla and Mu Son villages. Helicopters were brought in to help the soldiers, arriving twice in the morning to drop off troops and fire on PDF members. The local resident told RFA the gunfire was not just aimed at the militia but also damaged roads and a hospital. Although most of the residents were able to flee, some elderly people were left in Kone Thar. Locals said they don’t know how many residents were killed because they were afraid to return to the village until the fighting died down. They said around 100 junta soldiers are still in Kone Thar. RFA’s calls to Sagaing region’s Military Council Minister of Social Affairs Aye Hlaing went unanswered. Military Council spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, said in the past the military council forces only attack villages in Sagaing Region that are training and hiding members of the PDFs. Internet and telephone access in Ye-U township is often cut off when junta forces carry out raids, locals told RFA. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said more than 1.2 million people have fled their homes across Myanmar between the Feb. 1, 2021 coup and Aug. 3.
- [Taiwan hits out at fake news about Chinese warship](https://ij-reportika.com/taiwan-hits-out-at-fake-news-about-chinese-warship/): One of the most widely used photos of the recent drills by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) around Taiwan turned out to be the latest “fake news” in China’s disinformation campaign against the democratic island, a Taiwanese fact-checking organization has claimed. The photo, distributed by Chinese state news agency Xinhua, depicts a PLA soldier observing military drills in the waters near Taiwan through a pair of binoculars.  In the background, a Taiwanese warship without a hull number is clearly visible. Next to it is a chimney, later identified as the smokestack of the Ho Ping Power Plant in Hualien County on the east coast of Taiwan. The Xinhua photo shows many irregularities. CREDIT: Taiwan FactCheck Center The Taiwan FactCheck Center (TFC), a Taipei-based independent organization, conducted a thorough examination of Xinhua’s photo and published the findings on its website on Tuesday. It said there are too many irregularities, calling the proportions of objects in the photo “unreasonable” and saying there were obvious signs of manipulation such as the lack of a hull number on the alleged Taiwanese warship and its outline, which TFC said was “too clean.”  Another photo released by Xinhua in the same batch clearly shows hull number 935 of the Lan Yang, a Taiwanese Navy Chi Yang-class frigate.  Experts and analysts consulted by TFC concluded that the photo is a composite of different images.  Xinhua said the photo was taken on Aug. 5, 2022, the second day of the unprecedented four-day drills conducted by the PLA Eastern Theater Command. The photo led to widespread speculation on Chinese internet forums that a PLA Navy (PLAN) destroyer had come closer than 12 kilometers (6.5 nautical miles) from the coast of Hualien, well within Taiwan’s territorial waters. A state’s territorial waters are defined by maritime boundaries 12 nautical miles (22 kilometers) from its coast. Several Chinese and Taiwanese media outlets reported that PLAN destroyer Nanjing, where the soldier’s photo was taken, was only 11.78 kilometers from the coast of Hualien and the Ho Ping Power Station on Friday morning. The hull number of Taiwanese warship visible on the right, is not present in the image on the left. CREDIT: Taiwan FactCheck Center ‘Hybrid warfare’ The Taiwanese Ministry of National Defense dismissed the news, describing it as “disinformation.” “No PLAN vessel has entered our territorial waters since August 4 when the PLA drill started,” the Ministry said on Twitter. China has stepped up its disinformation campaign and cyberattacks as part of “hybrid warfare” against Taiwan.  Hybrid warfare is a combination of conventional military actions on the ground and hacks, or disinformation campaigns, designed to attack public morale and sow confusion. Maj. Gen. Chen Yu-lin, deputy director of the Political and War Bureau of Taiwan&#8217;s Defense Ministry said earlier this week that the current wave of &#8220;cognitive operations&#8221; started even before the military drills were announced as a response to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit. Pelosi is the most senior U.S. official to visit the island in 25 years. Her visit was condemned by Beijing as a “serious violation of China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”  Chen Hui-min, TFC’s editor-in-chief, told RFA his organization had detected a 30-40% increase in fake reports online since Pelosi&#8217;s visit.  “The biggest difference [from the past] is that it seems to be spreading from English-language Twitter,” Chen said. The Taiwanese Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday it had been hit by 170 million cyber attacks per minute during the height of the tension last week.  China considers Taiwan a Chinese province that must be reunified with the mainland at all costs. Meanwhile only two percent of 23.5 million Taiwanese people identified themselves as Chinese, down from 25 percent three decades ago, according to a new study by Taiwan’s National Chengchi University.
- [Vietnamese human rights journalist’s appeal set for Aug. 25](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnamese-human-rights-journalists-appeal-set-for-aug-25/): The appeal hearing for a journalist, jailed for nine years for “anti-state propaganda” will take place in two weeks’ time. One of Pham Doan Trang’s lawyers told RFA the outcome depends on whether or not she pleads guilty at Hanoi’s High People’s Court on Aug. 25. Trang, 44, was jailed in Dec. last year for breaching Article 88 of the 1999 Penal Code, which is often used to silence activists. Her appeal will be held at the headquarters of the high court in Hanoi’s Cau Giay district. Ngo Anh Tuan was one of the lawyers who defended Trang in her original trial and will also represent her at the appeal hearing. He said his client has always asserted her innocence so he thinks it is unlikely the sentence will be reduced. “Ms. Trang has pleaded not guilty from the outset, up until now,” he told RFA. “We agree with her. In the defense&#8217;s view Ms. Trang is not guilty so there is no need to ask for a reduction in the sentence.” “The probability of the first-instance judgment being upheld is over 90% because, in cases like this as we&#8217;ve shown many times, it&#8217;s about attitude.” “That means if our clients ask for mercy, it&#8217;s likely to be acceptable. However, if they don’t ask for mercy the possibility of upholding the sentence is very high. Ms. Trang&#8217;s case is no exception.&#8221; The activist&#8217;s mother, Bui Thi Thien Can, told reporters she did not know if she would be able to attend the public appeals court, even though she was at the original hearing, because she doesn’t think it will achieve anything. “If it was other countries they would probably have a bit of respect for international pressure but the Vietnamese communists are very stubborn,” she said. “As soon as Trang was arrested, as well as before the first-instance hearing, many foreign embassies called on Vietnam to release Trang immediately and unconditionally, but the regime ignored them.” Can said her daughter has not been allowed to see her relatives since her arrest more than 22 months ago. They have also been refused permission to send her meals, which is allowed in many cases. Instead they have to buy it from the detention center’s canteen for the Hanoi police to give to her. Trang is accused of &#8220;making, storing and circulating documents and articles with content aimed at opposing the State of Vietnam,&#8221; between Nov. 2017 and Dec. 2018, according to the original indictment. Trang is also accused of possessing documents titled: &#8220;A Brief Report on Vietnam&#8217;s marine environmental disaster,&#8221; &#8220;General assessment of the human rights situation in Vietnam,&#8221; and &#8220;Report on a review of the 2016 law on religion and belief related to exercising the right to freedom of religion and belief in Vietnam.&#8221; The Hanoi People&#8217;s Procuratorate said the documents contained &#8220;psychological warfare rhetoric, spreading fabricated news to cause confusion among the people, and propagating disinformation about guidelines and policies of the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.&#8221; Trang is also accused of giving interviews to foreign broadcasters such as the BBC Vietnamese Service and Radio Free Asia containing &#8220;content that distorts the State&#8217;s policies.&#8221; Trang co-founded Luat Khoa, an English-language magazine and newspaper. She also wrote many political books such as “Politics for Ordinary Citizens” and “Handbook for Prisoners’ Families.” She also worked at one point for the state-controlled VietnamNet newswire. She was arrested on Oct. 6, 2020, just hours after the annual Vietnam-U.S. Human Rights Dialogue. The arrest was related to her co-authoring the Dong Tam Report, published in English and Vietnamese. She wrote  about land disputes in Hanoi’s Dong Tam commune and the raid by some 3,000 police in the early hours of Jan.9, 2020, leading to the death of spiritual leader Le Dinh Kinh and the arrests of dozens of people. Trang has been detained and beaten by the Vietnamese police many times. After being beaten by security forces during a protest against the Hanoi government&#8217;s felling of thousands of old trees in Hanoi’s city center in May 2015, her leg was broken and she had to use crutches. Trang’s mother said her daughter was beaten many times during the investigation both by investigating officers and fellow prisoners. Trang suffers from heavy and prolonged menstrual bleeding, or menorrhagia, low blood pressure, and leg pain, but does not receive adequate medical treatment. Trang has been awarded many prestigious international awards for her activities in promoting human rights and freedom of the press, including the U.S. State Department’s International Women of Courage Award and the Press Freedom Prize from Reporters Without Borders. She also won the Homo Homini (human to human) Award from the Czech Republic’s People in Need, the Media Freedom Award 2022 presented by the Canadian and U.K. governments, last year’s Martin Ennals Award for championing freedom of expression and this year’s International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists.
- [North Korea launches drive to shame children who neglect war veteran parents](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-launches-drive-to-shame-children-who-neglect-war-veteran-parents/): Authorities in North Korea are working to identify citizens who neglect their Korean War veteran parents, sometimes stripping those who aren’t living up to their familial obligations of their posts within the ruling party, sources inside the country said.  As of the beginning of August, authorities began a project to determine where the children of the 1950-53 Korean War veterans live, a resident of South Pyongan province, north of the capital Pyongyang, told RFA on Sunday. RFA reported in July that a number of elderly veterans had been found to be malnourished and suffering COVID-19 symptoms such as high fevers and coughing. Party officials who neglect their war veteran parents are being accused of filial impiety and removed from their positions, the woman said. But some North Koreans say the government’s campaign is an exercise in blame shifting, accusing the war veterans’ children of providing insufficient support when the government itself should be doing more. The project came about after the 8th National Conference of War Veterans in Pyongyang on July 27, which commemorated the armistice that ended the fighting. The Workers’ Party of North Korea issued a directive to take care of war veterans and to treat them well in society. During their investigation, authorities found a few county residents failing to carry out their obligations by living apart from their parents who are elderly war veterans, the woman said. They lost their jobs as a result. “Four people were caught, including one [party] secretary in the lathe work department at the Chuncheon River Machinery Factory and three cell secretaries in the textile factory,” the source said. “Their positions were taken away the next day.” Cell secretaries are among North Korea’s elite society, typically overseeing five to 30 party members in their cell, the main unit that links the party to the masses, according to a 2021 report by NK News. The four workers have been given a second chance to fulfill their family duties, however.  “Six months of revolutionary measures were given,” said the source, referring to a punishment by authorities to make offenders learn the revolutionary ideology propagated by North Korea’s regime. After a stint working as laborers — considered a disgrace in North Korea — and after they move their veteran parents into their homes, the shamed North Koreans will be allowed to resume their previous positions, the woman said.  North Korean authorities decided not to dismiss them from their positions because their veteran parents might complain that such a punishment would be too harsh, the woman said. People of national merit Though North Korean veterans are classified as people of national merit and are eligible for government provisions for food and living expenses, they still suffer from a lack of societal support, said a resident of North Pyongan province. The party committee in Chongju, one of the province’s main cities, also began a similar investigation at the beginning of August through the heads of neighborhood-watch units to determine whether there are adult children not serving or caring for their war veteran parents, he told RFA on Sunday. Five farmers who live with their elderly veteran parents at the Osong village cooperative farm were found to be “examples of poor filial piety” because they could not provide them with three meals each day due to financial hardship, said the source, who also declined to be named so as to speak freely.  The farmers also locked in their elderly veteran parents who were suffering from dementia, so they could do their work, he said.  “The farmers were called to the county party base and wrote self-critical confessions that they were undutiful to their veteran parents,” the source said. “They were released after receiving ideological education that they should serve their veteran parents whom the party cherishes.” But other residents aware of the situation have asked, “Who doesn’t want to serve a warm meal to their parents?” said the man. They then criticized the authorities for not taking responsibility for the lives of veterans and providing for them, instead placing the full burden on their children who have their own problems making ends meet. “They complain that they are making the poor and elderly war veterans the burdens of their children rather than of the state,” he said. Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee for RFA Korean. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [China-led rare earth mining in Myanmar fuels rights abuses, pollution: report](https://ij-reportika.com/china-led-rare-earth-mining-in-myanmar-fuels-rights-abuses-pollution-report/): China’s outsourcing of rare earth mining to Myanmar has prompted a rapid expansion of the industry there, fuelling human rights abuses, damaging the environment and propping up pro-juna militias, according to a new report published Tuesday by rights group Global Witness. The report, entitled “Myanmar’s Poisoned Mountains,” used satellite imagery to determine that what amounted to a “handful” of rare earth mines in Myanmar’s Kachin state in 2016 had ballooned to more than 2,700 mining collection pools at almost 300 separate locations, covering an area the size of Singapore, by March 2022 — slightly more than a year after the military seized power in a coup. Global Witness found that China had outsourced much of its industry across the border to a remote corner of Kachin state, which it said is now the world’s largest source of the minerals used in green energy technologies, smartphones and home electronics. “Our investigation reveals that China has effectively offshored this toxic industry to Myanmar over the past few years, with terrible consequences for local communities and the environment,” Global Witness CEO Mike Davis said in a statement accompanying the release of the report. The local warlord in charge of the mining territory, Zakhung Ting Ying, has become the “central broker” of Myanmar’s rare earth industry, the report said, along with other leaders of militias loyal to the military regime, making backroom deals with Chinese companies that are illegal under the country’s laws. It said that his militia’s links to the junta mean “there is a high risk” that revenues from rare earth mining are being used to fund the military’s human rights abuses and crushing of dissent. Rights groups say security forces have killed at least 2,167 civilians and arrested more than 15,000 others since the Feb. 1, 2021, coup, mostly during peaceful anti-junta protests. “Rare earth mining is the latest natural resource heist by Myanmar’s military, which has funded itself for decades by looting the country’s rich natural resources, including the multi-billion-dollar jade, gemstone and timber industries,” Davis said. “Since the 2021 coup, the regime has relied on natural resources to sustain its illegal power grab and with demand for rare earths booming, the military will no doubt be spotting an opportunity to fill its coffers and fund its abuses,” he added. A rare earth mining operation in Kachin state, Myanmar, March 2022. Credit: Citizen journalist Global Witness noted that the processes used to extract heavy rare earth minerals have polluted local ecosystems, destroyed livelihoods and poisoned drinking water. It said multiple health issues reported near the rare earth mines in China have also been reported by residents living close to the mines in Myanmar. Meanwhile, civil society groups and community members — including indigenous people — who speak out against the illegal industry or refuse to give up their land to make way for new mines face threats from the militias who run the area, the report said. Supply chain at risk Global Witness said that its findings come amid a huge increase in demand for the minerals as production of green energy technologies ramps up. Sales of processed rare earth minerals for magnet productions are expected to triple by 2035. The group warned of a high risk that the minerals are finding their way into the supply chains of major household name companies that use heavy rare earths in their products including Tesla, Volkswagen, General Motors, Siemens and Mitsubishi Electric. Davis said the report’s findings demonstrate the need for the international community to broaden sanctions against the junta to include rare earth minerals. “The disturbing reality is that the cash that is fuelling the environmental and human rights abuses caused by Myanmar’s rare earth mining industry ultimately stems from the global push to scale up renewables,” he said. “As the climate crisis accelerates and demand for these low-carbon technologies skyrocket, today’s findings must be a wake-up call that the green energy transition cannot come at the cost of communities in resource-rich countries, and must instead be equitable and sustainable, prioritizing the rights of those who are most impacted.” Rare earth ores [left] are burned down before being transported from Kachin state to China. At right, sacks of rare earth ores await transport to China. Credit: Global Witness via AP Global Witness called on companies to stop mining heavy rare earths in Myanmar and ensure that minerals from the country do not enter the global supply chain. It also urged governments to impose import restrictions for rare earths produced in Myanmar, impose sanctions on armed actors illegally profiting from the industry, and introduce stronger policies to reduce the harms associated with extracting the minerals. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that about 240,000 tons of rare earth minerals were mined globally in 2020, with China accounting for 140,000 tons, followed by the United States with 38,000 tons and Myanmar with 30,000 tons. Though China is the world&#8217;s largest producer of rare earth minerals, it buys the ore from neighboring Myanmar, exploiting its cheaper labor. Myanmar exported more than 140,000 tons of rare earth deposits to China, worth more than U.S. $1 billion between May 2017 and October 2021, according to China’s State Taxation Administration. In this early 2022 image from video, a creek in Myanmar&#8217;s Kachin state is lined with trash, pipes and other construction materials from a former rare earth mining site. Local villagers have said water from the creek is no longer usable for drinking or growing crops and that their skin itches after being exposed to water near rare earth mining sites. Credit: Global Witness via AP
- [COVID-19 infections rise in Xinjiang, said to be spread by Chinese tourists](https://ij-reportika.com/covid-19-infections-rise-in-xinjiang-said-to-be-spread-by-chinese-tourists/): Authorities in Xinjiang are implementing new lockdowns in response to a coronavirus outbreak thought to have originated with Chinese tourists who visited the western region’s Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, local officials said. After Chinese media reported that the number of COVID-19 infections in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region had begun to rise, authorities in Ghulja (in Chinese, Yining) and other urban areas ordered residents to quarantine, the sources said. The number of infected people in Xinjiang rose to 274 from July 31 to the end of the first week of August, according to an Aug. 7 report on Tengritagh (Tianshan), the official website of the Xinjiang government. The new variant of the virus was first detected in the Ili Kazakh (Yili Hasake) Autonomous Prefecture, where Ghulja is located, and spread widely from there. Because of the COVID-19 outbreak, authorities have divided Xinjiang into 45 high-risk areas, 34 medium-risk areas and nine low-risk areas, and implemented quarantine measures at different levels, the report said. Those areas include the cities of Urumqi (in Chinese, Wulumuqi), Ghulja (Yining), Aksu (Akesu), Kumul (Hami), Chochek (Tacheng), Bortala (Bole), and Kashgar (Kashi). Chinese government officials told reporters at a press conference in Urumqi on Aug. 8 that there were 34 infected people in Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, which is in the northern part of Xinjiang, but they did not say how and where they caught the highly contagious respiratory virus.  A community official said that the new infections were thought to have been brought by Chinese tourists from Gansu province, and the first viral outbreak in Ghulja was found in Uchon Dungan village. A Chinese government official in Samyuzi village told RFA that quarantine measures have been implemented in his village, and that residents are prohibited from going outside. A security official in Ghulja’s Mazar village said the epidemic in Ghulja was first detected in Mai village, also known as the Uchon Dungan village, and that the virus was spread by Chinese tourists from Gansu province. The official, who declined to give his name for safety reasons, also said that he and others now were busy with quarantine-related work and that there were five infected residents in the village, who ate in one of the same restaurants where the Chinese tourists ate. “They are being treated now,” he said. “They got infected while they were eating with some Chinese tourists from China proper. They got the virus from those tourists. The ones who got infected were [ethnic] Hui and Dungan [Chinese Muslims].” “The government checked all the people who went to eat in that restaurant and also where those Chinese tourists went while they were traveling here,” he said. “We heard that the Chinese tourists came from Gansu province.” The village security officer also said there were two infected people in Borichi hamlet of Yengitam village, who ate in the same restaurant where the Chinese tourists dined. He told RFA that he learned about the local COVID-19 infections from other community officials on the Chinese instant-messaging platform WeChat, but that he did not know where or how the infected people were being handled because information was not passed on to lower-level officials like him. “They also went to the same restaurant with those Chinese tourists,” he said. Two of the infected residents of Uchon Dungan village had been renovating their houses and bought some construction materials in Chinese provinces, he added. Uchon Dungan village residents have not been allowed outside for several days and are performing COVID-19 tests at home, the village security official said.  When COVID-19 first sprang up in Wuhan, China, in late 2019, Uyghur and Kazakh residents in Xinjiang were increasingly being confined to “re-education” camps. They have since been subjected to lockdowns during local coronavirus outbreaks. At that time, residents said that authorities were testing unknown drugs on them, according to an earlier RFA report. Ghulja city was also locked down due to a rising number of COVID-19 cases in late 2021. Desperate residents short of food were forced to complain to authorities despite official warnings to keep quiet, sources told RFA at the time. In late January, Chinese government health officials issued a statement about new COVID-19 infections in Qorghas (Huocheng) county, located between Ghulja and the border to Kazakhstan, in Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, and said a lockdown had been implemented as a measure to curb the spread of virus.   Officials wearing protective face masks stand on a street during the coronavirus pandemic in Lhasa, capital of western China&#8217;s Tibet Autonomous Region, 2020. Credit: RFA COVID cases in Tibet Meanwhile, neighboring Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) reported four COVID-19 infections on Aug. 7, the first sign of the virus in the region since a single case was found at the start of the pandemic in January 2020.  Asymptomatic infections were detected in four travelers between the ages of 47 and 61 from Ngari prefecture, according to local Chinese health authorities.  Also on Aug. 7, 18 people tested positive for the coronavirus in Tibet’s capital Lhasa — the youngest being 3 years old and the oldest 76 — though only two people in the group were symptomatic, the TAR government’s report said. They all had traveled from Shigatse to Lhasa by train earlier this month. The members of the group and people who had contact with them are in quarantine for observation.  “COVID has spread to Lhasa now, and there are 18 [people] who have tested positive for it,” said a Tibetan source who declined to be identified. “There has been a lot of commotion in the city since yesterday as the number of COVID cases rises. Stores are crowded with panicked shoppers trying to buy essential goods and facemasks.”  The source said he believed the actual number of infections in the area to be higher than what Chinese health officials reported.  “[T]he number is likely to rise in the coming days,” he said.   After the cases emerged, officials in Shigatse, Tibet’s second-largest city with a population of about 800,000 people,...
- [Family presses for answers in death of Cambodian man after gambling raid](https://ij-reportika.com/family-presses-for-answers-in-death-of-cambodian-man-after-gambling-raid/): The family of a 47-year-old Cambodian man is seeking justice after he ducked into a café to avoid a rainstorm, got caught in a police raid on on-line cockfight gambling, and suffocated during a rough interrogation, his daughter said Tuesday. Soung Dorn, who was deputy chief of Rong village in the central province of Kampong Thom, died Sunday evening at the hands of a military policeman who pressed his arm over his windpipe until he stopped breathing, Nearadey Din told RFA after reporting the death in an appeal for justice on Facebook. “As he came from a meeting, it was raining and he took shelter in a coffee shop. Then a military police officer grabbed my father and pressed his neck until he could not breathe, and he died,” she wrote on Facebook. I’m still so sad and shocked, I feel like fainting,” she told RFA Khmer. “This should not have happened to my father. They can make an arrest, but why make people die?” Nearadey appealed on Facebook to Prime Minister Hun Sen and the chair of the Cambodian Huma Rights Commission “to seek justice for our father, who has suffered atrocities and such inhumanity.” In response to the incident, the commander of the National Gendarmerie, Sao Sokha, told local media that he had ordered the suspension of officials involved in the arrest on Sunday and set up a commission to investigate the case immediately. But Nearadey told RFA on August 9 that her family and villagers reject the police forensic results that said Soung Dorn died of a heart attack. She said that her father was healthy and never had heart disease or any other disease. People shouted that he did not look good and suggested taking him to the hospital first, and arrest of him later, but they refused to do so,” said Nearadey, referring to military police. Nearadey also rejected claims by National Gendarmerie spokesman Eng Hy, who wrote on his Facebook page that officers had tried resuscitate her father with CPR. She said the military police left her father to die and then took him to a district hospital.
- [Junta ‘crimes against humanity’ include assault, torture of women, children: report](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-crimes-against-humanity-include-assault-torture-of-women-children-report/): Attacks on civilians by Myanmar’s junta since its takeover in February 2021 constitute crimes against humanity and include the widespread sexual assault of women and the torture of children, a United Nations investigative unit said in an annual report Tuesday. The Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM) said it had gathered evidence that sexual and gender-based crimes, including rape and other forms of sexual violence, and crimes against children have been perpetrated by members of the security forces and armed groups. The IIMM said in its report that children in Myanmar have been tortured, conscripted and arbitrarily detained, including as proxies for their parents. “Crimes against women and children are amongst the gravest international crimes, but they are also historically underreported and under-investigated,” Nicholas Koumjian, head of the IIMM, said in a statement issued by the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights in Bangkok that accompanied the release of the report. “Our team has dedicated expertise to ensure targeted outreach and investigations so that these crimes can ultimately be prosecuted. Perpetrators of these crimes need to know that they cannot continue to act with impunity. We are collecting and preserving the evidence so that they will one day be held to account.” Other vulnerable groups impacted by the crimes include members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex community in Myanmar, according to the IIMM. The IIMM said it has collected more than 3 million pieces of information from almost 200 sources since starting operations three years ago, including interview statements, documents, videos, photographs, geospatial imagery and social media material. Since the Feb. 1, 2021 coup, the IIMM said it had found “ample indications” that crimes have been committed in Myanmar “on a scale and in a manner that constitutes a widespread and systematic attack against a civilian population.” The report found that the geographic scope of the potential crimes had expanded to include Chin, Kayin, and Kayah states, from Yangon, Naypyidaw, Bago, Mandalay, Magway and Sagaing regions a year earlier. Additionally, the IIMM reported the number of instances of potential criminality had also increased from a year ago, including with the junta’s July 25 hanging of four democracy activists in the country’s first judicial executions in more than 30 years, which drew public and international condemnation. Koumjian noted that the report came just two weeks ahead of the five-year commemoration of clearance operations that displaced nearly 1 million ethnic Rohingya from western Myanmar’s Rakhine state, most of whom remain in refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh. “While the Rohingya consistently express their desire for a safe and dignified return to Myanmar, this will be very difficult to achieve unless there is accountability for the atrocities committed against them, including through prosecutions of the individuals most responsible for those crimes,” he said. The IIMM said it is sharing relevant evidence to support international justice proceedings currently underway at the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. Myanmar junta troops torched houses in Mu Kan village, Tabayin township, Sagaing region, June 14, 2022. Credit: Tabayin Township Brothers aid group Township targeted The IIMM report came as residents and aid workers in Sagaing region told RFA Burmese that the military had razed around 700 houses from 30 villages in Tabayin township during its scorched earth offensive in the area between Jan. 1 and Aug. 8. Around 4,000 people are in need of assistance as a result of the burnings, they said. A resident of Tabayin, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing security concerns, said junta troops had continued to use arson attacks in their search for opposition forces in the township as recently as Monday, when they burned down Mu Kan village on the road between Ayadaw and Shwebo townships. “The fires started [Monday] morning. Mu Kan is almost gone,” said the resident, who said the perpetrators belong to a military unit that had torched at least one other village in the township since January. “Even though we called it a village, it&#8217;s like a big town. It has a hospital and clinics. Currently, the residents are on the run. We heard some people have also been arrested. The army has set up camp there.” Residents told RFA there are more than 800 houses in Mu Kan and said this was the second time the military had set fire to the village, after burning more than 160 houses there in June. A member of the Tapayin Township Brothers aid group said that the estimated 4,000 residents left homeless due to the arson attacks since the start of the year are enduring severe difficulties and “in need of urgent help.” “Residents of 30 villages lost around 700 houses in the fires,” said the aid worker, who also declined to be named, citing a list the group had compiled of military arson attacks in the township. “The situation in Tabayin township is getting worse lately. The villagers’ lives have been disrupted, especially those who lost their homes. They need a lot of help. Everyone in the region has been affected, so aid donations have dwindled significantly.” The aid worker said that a few charity organizations and the shadow National Unity Government (NUG) have provided some assistance to the township, “but it is not enough.” He said his organization had provided 346 houses in 17 villages with 30,000 kyats (U.S. $14) each, but the need for assistance remains substantial. Helpless against attacks A resident of Tabayin’s Ma Ya Kan village, who asked to remain unnamed, said troops are “targeting the villages” and inhabitants are helpless to stop them. Refugees are in need of food, clothing and shelter, he said, adding that the military had also destroyed the crops in their fields. “The military arrests anyone they see in the villages, uses them as porters, and finally kills them. If they see residents wearing earrings on them, they tear them off. That’s how bad it is,” the Ma Ya Kan villager said. “We have no place to live, so...
- [Vietnamese police raid centers of banned religious sect](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnamese-police-raid-centers-of-banned-religious-sect/): Police in northern Vietnam this month raided eight centers of an ethnic religious group described by authorities as an illegal separatist organization, a charge the group denies, sources say. On Aug. 2, public security officers and police armed with guns and shock batons raided separate locations of the Duong Van Minh religious group in the Bao Lam district of Cao Bang province, sources told RFA. “The local authorities came at 3:00 a.m. when people were still sleeping,” said one witness to the raids, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “They gathered at the houses that keep funeral and ritual objects and demolished them.” “We were given no notice that the raids would take place,” he said. By early morning, all local establishments of the group had been destroyed, he added. Authorities then ordered followers of the Duong Van Minh religion to take down altars kept in their homes for family use and to surrender any items used for worship, saying police would use force to confiscate any objects not handed over, local sources said. “Almost all families were determined to protect their houses and altars and did not let authorities’ representatives inside,” one follower said, also declining to be named because of safety concerns. “Some asked the officials whether they had any documents allowing them to come in or orders telling them to demolish the houses. The police responded that they had confidential documents and orders but were not allowed to let local people see them,” he said. Police then broke down the doors of the families’ homes, destroyed altars and hung pictures of former Vietnamese president Ho Chi Minh in their place. Vietnamese flags were also placed at the houses’ front doors, sources said. Calls seeking comment from the People’s Committees of Cao Bang province and Bao Lam district rang unanswered this week. The Duong Van Minh sect was founded in 1989 with the stated goal of promoting the elimination of outdated, expensive and unhygienic funeral customs. There are are at least 8,000 ethnic Hmong practitioners of the religion in four provinces in Vietnam’s northern mountains. The religion is not officially registered, and government authorities say the sect is conspiring to establish an independent Hmong state and break away from Vietnam, a charge the group denies. Police have been working for the past year to eliminate the sect, according to state media reports, and an Aug. 9 article published on the website of the Cao Bang Broadcasting Station said that Bao Lam district authorities were now fully mobilized to suppress the religion. Largest campaign to date Speaking to RFA, Vu Quoc Dung—executive director of VETO!, which monitors religious freedom in Vietnam—called the August raids the largest campaign carried out against the Duong Van Minh religion to date. “It was a systematic campaign, as it mobilized all agencies and associated unions as participants,” he said. “And the government this time applied the same measures in different places, such as forcing locals to sign a commitment to leave the religion, removing altars, banning worship gatherings on Sundays and burning or demolishing the Duong Van Minh religion’s funeral houses.” Dung said the campaign to eliminate the Duong Van Minh religion is being directed by leaders at all levels of the Communist Party of Vietnam, and the crackdown has now been conducted across four northern provinces, affecting around 10,000 followers. Followers of the religion say they are determined to protect their beliefs, however. “There was widespread discontent among followers after authorities broke into their houses without showing any legal documents or orders, and many are saying that local authorities have broken the law by doing this,” one Duong Van Minh follower told RFA. “Many now plan to reinstall their altars and file complaints against those acts.” Vietnam’s government strictly controls religious practice in the one-party communist country, requiring practitioners to join state-approved temples and churches and suppressing independent groups. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in a report released April 25 recommended that the U.S. government place Vietnam on a list of countries of particular concern because of Vietnamese authorities’ persistent violations of religious freedom. Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [Taiwan grapples with the potential impact of 'normalized' war-games on its doorstep](https://ij-reportika.com/taiwan-grapples-with-the-potential-impact-of-normalized-war-games-on-its-doorstep/): Prolonged military exercises around the democratic island of Taiwan by China&#8217;s People&#8217;s Liberation Army (PLA) could mean a longer-term impact on the island&#8217;s trade and economic development, especially if Beijing decides to normalize blockading the island, analysts told RFA. Some cited recent activity as suggesting that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is shifting from a policy of seeking peaceful &#8220;unification&#8221; to an emphasis on military force to put pressure on the island, which has never been ruled by the CCP, nor formed part of the 73-year-old People&#8217;s Republic of China. They said there are growing concerns that China will normalize military exercises, ignore the median line of the Taiwan Strait, and use ongoing military exercises to blockade the island and prepare the PLA for invasion. Tso Chen-Dong, political science professor at National Taiwan University, said military action was unlikely to occur immediately, however. &#8220;They need to take into account how they would actually do this, and they will only get behind the idea if it&#8217;s doable,&#8221; Tso told RFA. &#8220;Otherwise, it&#8217;s not very useful just to look at the numbers of troops on paper.&#8221; &#8220;The main thing is that they want to use this opportunity to put further pressure on the relationship with Taiwan,&#8221; he said. According to Wang Chi-sheng of Taiwan-based think tank the Association of Chinese Elite Leadership, China&#8217;s People&#8217;s Liberation Army has already been doing this by repeated incursions over the median line and into Taiwan&#8217;s territorial waters near the islands of Kinmen and Matsu, which are visible from China&#8217;s southeastern province of Fujian. &#8220;Flying over the median line of the Taiwan Strait is an attempt to erase that line by means of a fait accompli,&#8221; Wang told RFA. &#8220;Chinese ships have also started moving into [Taiwan&#8217;s] restricted waters around Kinmen and Matsu, which they haven&#8217;t done up until now.&#8221; &#8220;The focus is on normalization,&#8221; he said, adding that Beijing&#8217;s future intentions will only likely become clear after the CCP&#8217;s 20th National Congress later this year. He said Beijing will likely continue to insist on &#8220;unification&#8221; with Taiwan, which has never been ruled by the CCP nor formed part of the 73-year-old People&#8217;s Republic of China, under the same system it currently applies to Hong Kong, where a citywide crackdown on dissent is under way. U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi gestures next to Legislative Yuan Vice President Tsai Chi-chang as she leaves the parliament in Taipei, Taiwan August 3, 2022. Credit: Reuters Repeated incursions Taiwan government legal expert Shen Shih-wei agreed, saying that the positioning of the military exercises following Pelosi&#8217;s visit made repeated incursions across the median line. &#8220;This has a very significant impact on the compression of our airspace for training purposes, and on international flight routes,&#8221; Shen told reporters. &#8220;This kind of targeted deterrence [contravenes a United Nations charter], which stipulates that no country should use force to threaten the territorial integrity or political independence of another country,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We believe that the CCP is very clear about these norms, and we hope that it will abide by them.&#8221; Vincent Wang, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Adelphi University, said Taiwan&#8217;s democratic way of life is walking a tightrope, as far as the CCP is concerned. &#8220;This is why China had such a big reaction to Pelosi&#8217;s visit,&#8221; he said. &#8220;China doesn&#8217;t want the world to see a high-ranking U.S. politician visiting a democratic society [run by people it considers Chinese] yet is independent of China,&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;The visit was a public show of support for Chinese democracy [as China sees it],&#8221; he said. The visit doesn&#8217;t appear to have deterred other foreign politicians from visiting Taiwan. Britain&#8217;s parliamentary foreign affairs committee said it will send a delegation to the island by the end of the year. &#8220;If American dignitaries can visit Taiwan one after the other, this will provide moral support for people from other democratic countries who want to make similar visits,&#8221; Wang said. He said recent economic sanctions imposed on more than 100 Taiwanese food companies would have a short-term impact on trade with China, which accounts for 30 percent of exports in that sector, but later recover. A Navy Force helicopter under the Eastern Theatre Command of China&#8217;s People&#8217;s Liberation Army (PLA) takes part in military exercises in the waters around Taiwan, at an undisclosed location August 8, 2022 in this handout picture released on August 9, 2022. Credit: Eastern Theater Command/Handout via Reuters Blockade concerns Meanwhile, Frank Xie of the Aiken School of Business at the university of South Carolina, said the CCP&#8217;s lifting of a fishing moratorium in the area could mean it starts blockading the island. &#8220;Such a blockade would have a huge impact on international shipping and air traffic, further amplifying the global supply chain crisis,&#8221; Xie said. &#8220;Taiwan, including its chip industry, would bear the brunt of the impact.&#8221; Xie said the military exercises have had a small impact on international trade, mainly in the field of transportation, including flight delays and cargo ship detours to avoid military exercise areas. But a longer-running blockade would be hugely damaging to Taiwan, both because of the increased risk of miscalculations, and the economic impact from increased transportation costs, Xie said. A Taiwanese businesswoman surnamed Lee who has run a plastics business in mainland China for many years, says many Taiwanese businesses in mainland China are currently thinking about relocating. &#8220;Of course they&#8217;re nervous, because most of the Taiwanese businesses are in coastal areas, which is where the military exercises are,&#8221; Lee said. &#8220;But there&#8217;s very little they can do.&#8221; &#8220;If they were to relocate to Taiwan, that would be easier said than done &#8230; because it&#8217;s hard to find cheap labor,&#8221; she said. &#8220;But many countries in Southeast Asia aren&#8217;t very stable.&#8221; William Yu, an economist at UCLA Anderson Forecast, said Taiwan&#8217;s economy is still in a robust state despite the rising tensions with China, however. &#8220;There will be no impact on Taiwan&#8217;s economy in the short term,&#8221; Yu...
- [Hong Kong to roll out Chinese-style COVID-19 traffic light system for new arrivals](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-to-roll-out-chinese-style-covid-19-traffic-light-system-for-new-arrivals/): Authorities in Hong Kong are rolling out a &#8220;traffic-lights&#8221; COVID-19 system already in use in mainland China this week, sparking concerns that the system could be used to target critics of the government. From Friday, anyone arriving in the city will be required to stay in a designated quarantine hotel for three days, before being allowed to leave with an amber code for a further four days while taking &#8220;multiple&#8221; COVID-19 tests, the government announced on Aug. 8. A red code will be applied to any confirmed cases in Hong Kong. People given an amber code will be required to stay away from restaurants, bars, pubs, game centers, bathrooms, fitness rooms, beauty salons and karaoke parlors, but will be allowed to take transport, go to work, and shop for groceries. &#8220;We need to balance between people&#8217;s livelihood and the competitiveness of Hong Kong to give the community maximum momentum and economic vitality,&#8221; chief executive John Lee told journalists. The move will end an onerous three-week quarantine requirement in designated hotels that needed to be booked months in advance. A rule banning flights if they brought in passengers infected with COVID-19 was scrapped last month. Lee said the measures only apply to people arriving in Hong Kong from Taiwan and the rest of the world. &#8220;At this stage, there is no plan to extend the amber code to local close contacts in Hong Kong, because &#8230; PCR tests are able to accurately identify those risks,&#8221; he said. Tourists go through pre-departure procedures at the Sanya Phoenix airport as stranded holidaymakers prepare to leave the COVID-hit resort city of Sanya on Hainan Island, China, on August 9, 2022. Credit: AFP Political tool Lee said the Hong Kong authorities are currently in discussions with mainland Chinese officials over opening the border with the rest of China. &#8220;The government will not let its guard down in the face of the COVID-19 epidemic,&#8221; a spokesman said. &#8220;We will continue to adjust anti-epidemic measures &#8230; to safeguard the wellbeing of citizens while reducing the disruption to normal social activities, with a view to achieving the greatest effect with the lowest cost.&#8221; Chinese current affairs commentator Si Ling said the Health Code traffic lights have already been deployed by authorities in mainland China to control the movements of protesters and critics of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). &#8220;Actually, the Chinese government can discriminate against political dissidents or people the government doesn&#8217;t like with amber codes, especially in the run-up to the CCP&#8217;s 20th National Congress later this year,&#8221; Si told RFA. &#8220;Red codes can be used to put people under strict surveillance.&#8221; &#8220;The health codes have become a political tool that is deployed by the government to conduct mass surveillance, and to greatly limit their freedom of speech and political participation,&#8221; he said. Si said he wouldn&#8217;t be surprised to see it used similarly in Hong Kong. &#8220;China doesn&#8217;t want Hong Kong to become a base for making various kinds of noise, including contentious voices from overseas, ahead of the 20th National Congress,&#8221; he said. &#8220;But it needs to use public health as an excuse &#8230; to clamp down politically and monitor people&#8217;s actions.&#8221; The U.S. State Department recently updated its travel advice for mainland China and Hong Kong to warn people to &#8220;reconsider travel.&#8221; &#8220;The zero-tolerance approach to COVID-19 by [Chinese] and Hong Kong &#8230; governments severely impacts travel and access to public services,&#8221; the advisory read at 1100 GMT on Tuesday. &#8220;Even after completing quarantine on-arrival, travelers &#8230; may face additional quarantines and mandatory testing as well as movement and access restrictions, including access to medical services and public transportation,&#8221; it said. A delivery courier places food near a barricade at an entrance to a residential compound, amid lockdown measures to curb theCOVID-19 outbreak in Sanya, Hainan province, China August 8, 2022. Credit: China Daily via Reuters Hainan outbreak It warned that children who test positive in Hong Kong or mainland China could be separated from their parents and kept in isolation until they meet local hospital discharge requirements. Hong Kong&#8217;s new rules were announced as tens of thousands of tourists were left stranded in the island province of Hainan &#8212; a popular beach holiday destination &#8212; after local authorities ordered a local lockdown following a spike in COVID-19 cases. Hainan has reported more than 1,800 domestically transmitted infections already in August, locking down millions of residents in a bid to contain the outbreak, Reuters reported. About 178,000 tourists were stranded in Hainan, including around 57,000 in Sanya, it cited state media as saying. An online video clip from the resort city of Sanya showed hundreds of people chanting &#8220;We want to go home! We want to go home!&#8221; despite promises that special lodging and transportation would be provided during the lockdown. &#8220;Nobody here has tested positive!&#8221; they shouted. Tourists are already required to complete five PCR tests across seven days, so would only have been allowed into the airport for departure if all of them came out negative. State broadcaster CCTV reported on Sunday that all departing flights have been grounded in Sanya, while train ticket sales have also been suspended for services leaving the city, although inbound trains are still arriving. The Global Times said the moves came amid &#8220;a sudden outbreak&#8221; of the BA5 omicron variant of COVID-19, which is believed to have been triggered by contact with overseas fishermen. &#8220;The current epidemiological investigation shows that most of the infections are related to fishing ports, fishing boats, fishermen and fishing markets &#8230; with the number of infections &#8230; on a rapid rise due to the variant&#8217;s hidden and strong transmission characteristics,&#8221; the paper said. Sanya had reported 23 confirmed cases and 11 asymptomatic cases by noon on Aug. 8. The paper said outbreaks had also been reported in the eastern province of Zhejiang, where a spike in cases had spilled over into neighboring cities from Yiwu, home to a major small commodity market.  Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [KNLA fighters clashed with junta forces 259 times last month, KNU says](https://ij-reportika.com/knla-fighters-clashed-with-junta-forces-259-times-last-month-knu-says/): The Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) clashed with junta forces 259 times last month in Myanmar&#8217;s Kayin and Mon states, according to a statement released Tuesday by the Karen National Union (KNU). The fighting led to the deaths of 12 KNLA troops and 19 civilians. The KNU said 386 junta troops and Border Guard Force (BGF) members were killed and 280 injured. RFA could not independently confirm the number of battles or casualties and calls to the Military Council’s Spokesman by RFA went unanswered.  Fighting intensified last month as KNLA troops joined forces with the Karen National Defense Organization (KNDO) to attack junta troops and BGF members in KNU-controlled areas in Kayin and Mon states. KNDO Special Commando Officer, Capt. Sa Lone told RFA the Military Council is still carrying out ground operations and air raids. “Now the fighting will intensify,” he said. “The Military Council does not dare to move forward. They will face casualties if they move forward. The junta offensive is still there. The Military Council uses not only manpower, but also heavy artillery and aircraft. They do not give up and we have to stand on the side of the people and continue.” The KNU said along with the 19 dead locals, 26 people were injured and 44 homes and religious buildings were damaged due to heavy artillery shelling and landmines. Some 49 people from Thaton district in Mon state, controlled by KNU Brigade 1, were arrested for providing information and support to the KNU. The statement also claimed more than 150,000 locals fled in search of safety due to junta attacks in the 18 months since the Feb. 2021 coup. Military Council Spokesman Gen. Saw Min Ton has denied KNU statements in the past, saying the military does not target civilians. An Aug. 3 statement by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said 346,000 people fled their homes due to internal conflicts in Myanmar before Feb. 1 last year. It said 866,000 became internally displaced persons since the coup as of July 25 this year.
- [U.S. and Taiwan say China is planning invasion, not holding military drills](https://ij-reportika.com/u-s-and-taiwan-say-china-is-planning-invasion-not-holding-military-drills/): U.S. defense policy makers do not think China could take over Taiwan militarily in the next two years but Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl said China is trying to “salami slice their way into a new status quo” in the region instead. China is continuing its military pressure on Taiwan with more air and naval drills off the back of the major four-day exercise conducted in response to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island. On Tuesday, the Eastern Theater Command of the Chinese People&#8217;s Liberation Army (PLA) “continued to organize practical joint exercises in the sea and airspace around Taiwan Island, focusing on joint blockades and joint resupply logistics,” the Ministry of Defense in Beijing said in a statement. The PLA carried out anti-submarine and sea assault drills in waters around Taiwan on Monday, sending 13 warships, and 39 aircraft, around half of which crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait. Beijing also announced a new series of military drills in the South China Sea, Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea that will continue until next month.  “Clearly the PRC is trying to coerce Taiwan, clearly they&#8217;re trying to coerce the international community, and all I&#8217;ll say is we&#8217;re not going to take the bait and it&#8217;s not going to work,” Kahl told a press conference at the Pentagon on Monday, referring to China by its official name the People’s Republic of China. “What we&#8217;ll do instead is to continue to fly, to sail and to operate wherever international law allows us to do so, and that includes in the Taiwan Strait,” the undersecretary said, adding that he thinks “there&#8217;s a lot of confidence in that U.S. commitment.” That means the U.S. military is set to continue transiting the Taiwan Strait, which it considers international waters, as well as conducting freedom of navigation operations in the South China and East China Seas. President Joe Biden on Monday said he was “not worried” about China’s military exercises around Taiwan but was “concerned that they’re moving as much as they are.” “But I don’t think they’re going to do anything more [than] they are,” he told reporters at the Delaware Air National Guard Base The Eastern Theater Command of China’s PLA conducts a long-range live-fire drill into the Taiwan Strait, from an undisclosed location, Aug. 4, 2022. CREDIT: PLA Eastern Theater Command Handout via REUTERS U.S. keeping watch Kahl also explained the reason behind the Pentagon’s initial hesitance about Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan last week. President Biden told reporters ten days before the trip that U.S. military officials believed “it&#8217;s not a good idea, for now.&#8221; “We&#8217;re at a moment of profound international tension… I think there was a sense that… the world didn&#8217;t require another instance of rising tensions but it is what it is and the speaker had every right to go and when she made the final decision we were fully supportive,” he said. Beijing reacted angrily to the visit, threatening the “strongest countermeasures” and announcing unprecedented military drills around Taiwan. For the first time, the PLA reportedly fired missiles over Taiwan’s main island, some of which landed in Japan’s exclusive economic zone within 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) from its shores. The U.S. military responded by deploying warships and aircraft in the area.  U.S. Navy’s only forward-deployed aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan and its strike group has been in northern Philippine Sea after being ordered by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to “remain on station in the general area to monitor the situation.” A big deck amphibious assault ship, the USS Tripoli, is also currently in the Philippine Sea, according to the U.S. Naval Institute. Maps showing the USS Howard O. Lorenzen’s position and path. CREDIT: Marine Traffic Data provided by the ship tracking website Marine Traffic show that the missile-tracking vessel USNS Howard O. Lorenzen has been operating in the waters east of Taiwan for several days. Equipped with a sophisticated radar system, “its purpose is to track airborne missiles,” said Gordon Arthur, a military analyst and Asia-Pacific editor of Shephard Media, a defense news portal. “Given its proximity to Taiwan, I&#8217;d say that&#8217;s exactly what it&#8217;s been doing,” Arthur told RFA. Visiting US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi waves to journalists during her arrival at the Parliament in Taipei on August 3, 2022. CREDIT: AFP ‘Prepare for invasion’ “China&#8217;s reaction was completely unnecessary,” said U.S. Undersecretary of Defense Colin Kahl, blaming Beijing for “manufacturing” the current crisis across the Taiwan Strait. “We continue to have a One China policy and we continue to object to any unilateral change in the status quo, whether that be from the PRC or from Taiwan,” he emphasized. Taipei said China used Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan as a pretext for pursuing bigger ambitions. Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu called a press briefing on Tuesday morning to lay out his government’s position on China’s latest military exercises. “China has used the drills in its military play-book to prepare for the invasion of Taiwan,” Wu said. “China’s real intention behind these military exercises is to alter the status quo in the Taiwan Strait and the entire region,” the minister said, warning that Beijing’s behavior towards Taiwan is “merely a pretext” and “its ambitions and impact is extending far beyond Taiwan.”
- [Vietnamese minority activist to appeal four-year sentence on Aug. 16](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnamese-minority-activist-to-appeal-four-year-sentence-on-aug-16/): The People&#8217;s Court of Vietnam’s Dak Lak province will hold an appeal hearing on the case of local religious freedom activist Y Wo Nie (also known as Ama Quynh) on August 16. The 52-year-old, from the Ede ethnic minority, was a deacon of the Evangelical Church of Vietnam. He was sentenced to four years in prison by the People&#8217;s Court of Cu Kuin district on May 20 this year. Nie was charged with &#8220;abusing freedoms and democracy to infringe upon the interests of the state, the lawful rights and interests of organizations and individuals,” as stated in Clause 2, Article 331 of the Criminal Code. He is alleged to have taken pictures of three handwritten human rights reports and sent them to international organizations and also met with U.S. diplomats. Nie did not have a defense lawyer at his trial but in the upcoming appeal session, Nguyen Van Mieng will defend him. Mieng wrote on his Facebook page that Dak Lak province’s Department of Information &amp; Communication made the initial assessment on Y Wo Nie, despite Vietnam’s commitment to international conventions on human rights. “Contacting him at the Dak Lak provincial Police Department’s Detention Center, he was always cheerful,” Mieng said. “He always prayed day and night for the peace of the Church and his family. He extended his thanks to all the diplomatic missions, organizations and individuals concerned with his case.” The indictment against Nie states that he wrote three reports, took pictures and sent them via WhatsApp to a number of overseas organizations. The first report was on the religious and human rights situation of the Ede ethnic people in the Central Highlands and the second concerned violations of the right to religious freedom, which he sent to the U.N. Human Rights Committee and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). The third report was titled &#8220;On the situation of religious freedom in general and in particular for ethnic people in the Central Highlands.&#8221; The indictment also shows that Nie met with representatives of Ho Chi Minh City&#8217;s U.S. Embassy and Consulate in Gia Lai province in June 2020. Dak Lak-based human rights activist Vo Ngoc Luc, who monitored the original trial, told RFA: “In my opinion, legally, all of these things are not wrong and do not violate the law. It is normal for some activists here to meet with consular offices.” “As for taking human rights classes online, any form of learning is good. When people learn to know more about the law, that&#8217;s a good thing, not a crime.” “As for the accusation of sending pictures, if the information is said to be distorted, there must be an evaluation to prove that they are fake images to slander and misrepresent. On the other hand, there was no conclusion and that proves the pictures he gave are real, all of which shows that he did nothing wrong.” Talking about the upcoming appeal, Luc said that in political cases it is very rare to have sentences reduced. However, he said that if the verdict is upheld, it would adversely affect diplomatic relations between Vietnam and the United States. RFA has emailed the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi and the USCIRF to request comment on the case but has yet to receive responses. Nie was arrested in September 2021 and his actions were alleged to have &#8220;affected the political security situation, social order and safety, and the normal operation of state administrative agencies, and reduced the public&#8217;s confidence in the regime, and affected the image of the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam as well as the prestige of the Communist Party of Vietnam in international diplomatic relations.” Nie was previously sentenced to nine years in prison for “undermining the unity policy,” a ruling often used to imprison religious freedom activists among the many ethnic minorities in Vietnam’s Central Highlands and northern mountainous areas. Around two hundred thousand Ede Montagnard live in the Central Highlands, according to the non-profit organization The Peoples of the World Foundation, living mainly in Dak Lak province. Most Ede are Protestant Christians. Montagnard is a collective term for the ethnic minorities living in the mountainous region. A recent report on religious freedom from the USCIRF criticized the Vietnamese government&#8217;s crackdown on Montagnard religious groups in the Central Highlands.
- [Myanmar opposition marks ‘8888’ anniversary with protests, vow to fight on](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-opposition-marks-8888-anniversary-with-protests-vow-to-fight-on/): Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) and activists marked the anniversary of the uprising against former Gen. Ne Win on Monday with protests calling for an end to junta rule and a vow to fight until their goal of a federal democracy is achieved. The “People Power Uprising,” also known as the “8888 Uprising,” was a series of nationwide protests, marches, and riots led by university students against the Ne Win regime, key events of which took place on Aug. 8, 1988. Authorities crushed the movement in mid-September that year. On Monday, the NUG observed the anniversary of the uprising in a ceremony hosted online in which shadow Prime Minister Mahn Win Khaing Than condemned Myanmar’s successive military dictators for their brutal oppression of the country’s democracy activists. He vowed to channel “the spirit of the ‘4-Eights’” in supporting the people’s fight against the current regime, which seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021 coup, and to form a federal union in Myanmar based on democracy and the protection of human rights. This year’s anniversary held special significance for the opposition as it came just weeks after the junta put to death 8888 Uprising leader Ko Jimmy and three other democracy activists in the country’s first judicial executions in more than 30 years. The executions prompted protests in Myanmar and condemnation abroad. In addition to the NUG ceremony, activists held protests in Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon, the embattled region of Sagaing, and in Laiza, the “capital” of the ethnic Kachin Independence Organization-controlled territory in Kachin state. Anti-junta groups in Yangon held anti-junta flash protests in the morning and carried out pot-banging activities in the evening, sources told RFA Burmese. Nang Lin, a member of the Yangon Anti-Dictatorship Force, described the 8888 Uprising as “a powerful movement … that involved people from all walks of life working together to bring down [a] terrible one-party dictatorship and allowed democracy to flourish.” “Now, we will continue to carry the banner of this uprising,” he said. “We will hold the spirit of that uprising and carry on its work, with determination, to achieve federal democracy, which is the goal of successive revolutions and the goal of this ongoing spring revolution.” Jewel, a member of the Pazundaung and Botahtaung Townships Young People&#8217;s Strike Committee in Yangon, told RFA that she and her comrades would continue to carry out the unfinished task of the 8888 democracy movement and “root out” the military dictatorship. “The 4-Eights Uprising was over a long time ago. However, as members of a younger generation, we’ll continue its unfinished work and are determined to eradicate this military dictatorship,” she said. Sagaing and Kachin In Sagaing, the region in which the junta has encountered some of the strongest armed resistance to its rule since the coup, more than 200 residents of Yinmarbin and Salingyi townships joined together and staged a multi-village protest, carrying signs that vowed to “fight to the end to overthrow the military dictator.” Villagers in Sagaing’s Kani and Budalin townships also held protests to commemorate the 8888 Uprising. The All Burma Students Democratic Front (ABSDF), which is headquartered near Laiza, in northern Myanmar’s Kachin state, also held a 34th anniversary event on Monday. A member of the ABSDF Northern Military Region Committee who gave his name as Joshua told RFA that the people of Myanmar can expect more coups in the future unless the military dictatorship is “uprooted.” “We are holding this ceremony as a way of passing on the torch of the 8888 spirit, what the 8888 had wanted and fought for, so that all the young and old can remember why the 8888 Uprising came to be,” he said. “As long as there are military dictators, they will seize power … if they cannot get what they want. They will seize power again in the future if we cannot fight them off for good.” Joshua said that the ABSDF has been fighting successive military dictators with “whatever weapons we could lay our hands on” and that “more than 700” of its members had died in the more than three decades since 1988. In a statement to mark Monday’s anniversary, the ABSDF warned that the political, economic, education, and health sectors of Myanmar are in the midst of “serious deterioration,” while all three branches of government in the country “have collapsed.” Protesters give a three-finger salute signaling their opposition to the junta at a rally in Sagaing region, Aug. 8, 2022. Credit: Citizen journalist Impetus for success Attempts to reach junta Deputy Minister of Information Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment went unanswered Monday. Myanmar political analyst Than Soe Naing told RFA that if the people of Myanmar hope to succeed in their current democratic struggle, they must not forget the 8888 Uprising. “It&#8217;s time to make up for the weaknesses of 88 and push for victory in this Spring Revolution,” he said, adding that the movement should use the movement’s goals as an “impetus for success.” Ye Naing Aung, a member of the 88 Generation group of students who led the uprising, told RFA that he believes the people of Myanmar will one day achieve the democracy they desire. “As long as people have an expectation for a better system, we can’t move backwards,” he said. “Even though the change is not here yet, it will take place at some point. I’m absolutely certain that they will enjoy a democratic system.” While authorities claim that only around 350 people were killed in the military crackdown on the 8888 Uprising, rights groups say the death toll is at least 3,000. Security forces have killed at least 2,167 people and arrested more than 15,000 since last year’s coup, mostly during peaceful anti-junta protests, according to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Junta troops burn 500 homes, displace thousands in Sagaing](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-troops-burn-500-homes-displace-thousands-in-sagaing/): Junta forces stepped up their attacks in Myanmar’s hard-hit Sagaing region in the first week of August, torching nearly 500 homes in 10 villages and causing at least 5,000 people to flee, local sources said. The attacks in Sagaing’s Tabayin and Ayadaw townships included air raids and ground assaults and appeared especially to target large and well-built homes, but houses were burned in every village through which troops passed, one source said. Around 180 out of nearly 200 homes were destroyed on Aug. 4 in Tabayin’s Kaing Kan village alone, one resident told RFA on Saturday, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “Troops entered the village at 9:00 am, burning down the bigger and nicer houses as they came in. But houses have been burned down in every village that they entered,” RFA’s source said. “They think that anti-junta resistance will stop when the people are repressed and have to struggle for their living instead of engaging in opposition activities. I believe that this repression will fail, though,” he added. Locals said that four bodies, including the body of a woman, were discovered near a drain outside Kaing Kan village following the attack but had not yet been identified. In Ayadaw township’s Min Ywa Gyi village, heavy shelling by junta forces  preceded the burning of homes during weekend attacks, one village resident said on Monday, also declining to be named because of safety concerns. “The [ruling] Military Council set fire to the houses. This is their usual tactic,” he said. “The troops came by helicopter, shelled the village with heavy artillery and then burned the houses. “As far as I could see yesterday, no fewer than 200 houses had been burned down,” he added. Myanmar military forces are at war with People’s Defense Force (PDF) units created to oppose junta rule, “but instead they are destroying civilians’ lives and homes, which isn’t fair,” he said. Bags and books are shown left behind by schoolchildren fleeing a helicopter attack by junta troops in Sagaing&#8217;s Myinmu township, Aug. 1, 2022. Photo: Myinmu Civil Revolution Force Woman burned to death Local sources said that Daw Shin, an 80-year-old woman, was found burned to death in Min Yaw Gyi after failing to escape the military raid and that local defense groups were busy Sunday clearing landmines left behind by junta troops, with those displaced by the fighting seeking shelter in a nearby monastery and with charity associations. Calls seeking comment from a Military Council spokesman rang unanswered Monday. But a member of Tapayin township’s People’s Defense Force told RFA that the more junta forces repress the local people, the more the people will fight against junta rule. “We are not scared by these brutalities,” he said. “If there were 100 people resisting before, 300 people will come out now, and the more violent the junta troops become, the more the people will rise up against them.” Also speaking to RFA, Nay Zin Lat—a regional MP from Kanbalu township for the National League for Democracy, which was overthrown in a Feb. 1, 2021 military coup—said that military leaders are trying to rule Myanmar’s people through fear. “They are limited in their ability to attack the PDF forces on the ground, so when they find they can’t do it, they just torture the local civilians, who have nothing to do with the PDFs. “By doing this, they are trying to cut local contacts with the PDFs and spread fear among the people so that they will end their support for the fighters. This is the cruelest treatment imaginable,” he said. Translated by RFA Burmese. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [Uyghur who studied in Turkey arrested by police in Xinjiang, sources say](https://ij-reportika.com/uyghur-who-studied-in-turkey-arrested-by-police-in-xinjiang-sources-say/): A Uyghur scholar who studied in Turkey and worked for an international company in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou was arrested by authorities from his hometown Urumqi, a local police officer and Uyghurs with knowledge of the situation said. Subi Tursun, now 29, went to Turkey in 2010 to attend college and stayed there for work after completing his studies, a Uyghur from Urumqi who now lives in exile in Turkey and is friends with the man’s father told RFA. In autumn 2021, Tursun, who had not become a Turkish citizen, was transferred to the company’s branch in Guangzhou, said the source, who declined to be identified for safety reasons. The source said he received news that Tursun had been abducted by police in Urumqi on July 1 as one of the “suspects who fell out of the net.” “My close friend’s son was arrested on July 1 this year,” he told RFA, adding that Tursun was one of three young Uyghur men who has been arrested by the Chinese in recent weeks. “Subi Tursun did not become a Turkish citizen. He used to live with a resident permit in Turkey,” the source said. The police officer, who did not provide his name, did not give a clear account of whether police from the Ghalibiyet (in Chinese, Shengli) Police Station arrested Tursun in Guangzhou or when he had arrived in Urumqi (Wulumuqi) to visit his family. He also did not give the reason for his arrest. “I can’t give you these details on the phone, you know,” the police officer told RFA. “If you want to know more details about this case, you should try to come to the police station and do it through the right channels.” Chinese authorities have targeted and arrested Uyghur scholars, intellectuals, businessmen, and cultural and religious figures in Xinjiang for years as part of a campaign to monitor, control and assimilate members of the predominantly Muslim minority group. Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in Xinjiang have been subjected to severe human rights abuses, torture and forced labor, as well as the eradication of their linguistic, cultural and religious traditions in what the United States and several Western parliaments have called genocide and crimes against humanity. As many as 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities are believed to have been held in a network of detention camps in Xinjiang since 2017. Beijing has said that the camps are vocational training centers and has denied widespread and documented allegations that it has mistreated Muslims living in Xinjiang. Uyghurs who live in exile have reported to RFA on relatives and former neighbors in Xinjiang who continue to be taken away by police in nighttime raids. Norway-based Uyghur Hjelp, a rights organization that tracks arrested Uyghurs in Xinjiang, also recounted the same basic details of Tursun’s arrest. Abduweli Ayup, the organization’s founder, said Tursun went to Turkey in 2010 to attend college and graduated in 2016 from a university in the capital Istanbul. He then went to work for an international company there. Turkey is one of 26 countries that Chinese authorities monitor to determine if any Uyghurs have traveled there, according to Chinese sources. In the past, RFA reported that not only Uyghurs of Chinese citizenship who returned from Turkey but also Uyghurs with Turkish citizenship have been arrested and sentenced to prison in Xinjiang. Tursun was transferred to Guangzhou in autumn 2021 and later ended up in the Pulmonary Hospital in Urumqi, where police arrested him, Abduweli Ayup said. “Almost a year later, this July, he was arrested at his residence in Urumqi by the Chinese police,” he said, adding that it is not clear whether Tursun went to Urumqi on his own or if he was given a security guarantee by his company to go there. Sources in Xinjiang informed Abduweli Ayup that officers from the Ghalibiyet Police Station in Urumqi had arrested Tursun. Subi Tursun was a college roommate of Zulyar Yasin, a student at the Fujian Forestry University, when they both were in Turkey, he said. Chinese authorities may have arrested Tursun because of his connection to Yasin, who was arrested earlier this year by police, he said. Translated by RFA Uyghur. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [North Korean soldiers sent to collective farms to relieve manpower crunch](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korean-soldiers-sent-to-collective-farms-to-relieve-manpower-crunch/): North Korean authorities are dispatching veterans and soldiers about to demobilize to collective farms to make up for labor shortages, raising fears among the military ranks that they will be stuck doing hard jobs in rural areas for the rest of their lives, sources inside the country said. The Ministry of Defense, formerly known as the Ministry of People’s Armed Forces, has organized a command group to dispatch veterans and select soldiers scheduled to be discharged this year and in 2023, a military-related source in North Pyongan province told RFA. The Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of North Korea issued a directive for the project to send veterans to collective farms in rural areas throughout the country, he said. “The intensive deployment of veterans to collective farms is occurring because the aging rural workforce is getting older, and young people are leaving the countryside to engage in other livelihoods,” he said. “This is causing setbacks in farming.” The General Political Bureau instructed the veterans to be sent to the farming collectives this year to join the Korean Workers’ Party, the country’s sole ruling party, by mid-November, said the source who declined to be named so as to speak freely. The soldiers about to be discharged hope they won’t be included on the deployment list, fearing that if they are sent to rural areas, they will have to farm for the rest of their lives, he said. “The soldiers who are about to be discharged this year can’t sleep at night because of their anxiety that they might be included on the list for this year&#8217;s group mobilization into the countryside,” he said. North Korean authorities also have extended the directive to other groups. The children of parents who work in city factories and in business enterprises are also being selected to supplement the planned rural manpower, the source said. North Korea has approximately 1.14 million active troops, including 950,000 in the army, 120,000 in the air force, 60,000 in the navy, 10,000 soldiers in strategic missile forces, and an estimated 200,000 internal security forces as of 2021, according to the CIA&#8217;s World Factbook. Military service is mandatory for North Koreans, with seven to eight years for men, and five years for women, according to the Korean National Intelligence Service in 2021. Morale is low The General Political Bureau held a meeting for each military unit and instructed the soldiers that they should recommend colleagues leaving the service for collective farm work, said a military-related source in North Hamgyong province. “The soldiers sent to the countryside were told to be ideologically well equipped so that they could play a key role in strengthening rural farming,” he said. “However, the morale of the veterans who are caught in the deployment list has fallen so badly, so what is the use of ideological selection?” Soldiers scheduled for discharge in 2023 have no way of avoiding deployment to the countryside, he said. “Of course, the morale of the units is low, and the atmosphere is chaotic,” the source, who declined to be named so as to speak freely, told RFA. “Some soldiers are blatantly negligent in their duties, saying that if they are discharged from the military in the future, they will be forced to advance into rural groups anyway,” he added. “Then they will join the Korean Workers’ Party regardless of how much effort is put into their military service time.” North Korea grants party membership as a carrot to discharged soldiers who are going to be assigned to undesirable rural areas. The soon-to-be-discharged soldiers are fearful of being sent to the countryside to work in hard jobs at farms, coal mines and construction sites, the source said. Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [China steps up cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns targeting Taiwan](https://ij-reportika.com/china-steps-up-cyberattacks-disinformation-campaigns-targeting-taiwan/): Cyber attacks and a Chinese disinformation campaign targeting the democratic island of Taiwan throw the spotlight on Beijing&#8217;s use of hybrid warfare in the wake of Pelosi&#8217;s visit, a Taiwanese military official said on Monday. Maj. Gen. Chen Yu-lin, deputy director of the Political and War Bureau of Taiwan&#8217;s Ministry of National Defense told journalists on Monday that the current wave of &#8220;cognitive operations&#8221; started before the military exercises were announced. Chen said the hybrid warfare campaign sought to create an atmosphere suggesting China might be invading Taiwan, to attack the public image of the government, and to disrupt civilian and military morale. &#8220;The CCP&#8217;s military exercises began on Aug. 4, when the number of cognitive warfare-related posts targeting Taiwan skyrocketed to 73, peaking at 87 on Aug. 5,&#8221; Chen. &#8220;[But] official media posted a total of 87 messages on Aug. 2, before the military exercises started.&#8221; &#8220;We immediately issued a press release to &#8230; inform the public that these messages weren&#8217;t true,&#8221; Chen said, citing one message claiming the PLA had shot down a Taiwanese fighter jet accompanying Pelosi&#8217;s plane. &#8220;We immediately clarified that this was fake news,&#8221; Chen said. Hybrid warfare denotes a combination of conventional military action on the ground and hacks or disinformation campaigns designed to attack public morale and sow confusion. Chen Hui-min, editor-in-chief of the Taiwan FactCheck Center, said his organization had detected a 30-40 increase in fake reports online since Pelosi&#8217;s visit. &#8220;The biggest difference [from the past] is that it seems to be spreading from English-language Twitter,&#8221; Chen told RFA. &#8220;There is also a lot of fake information on China&#8217;s [social media platform] Weibo, some of which has made its way onto social media platforms used in Taiwan, including LINE and Facebook.&#8221; &#8220;It used to be pretty rare to see such posts in the English Twittersphere,&#8221; Chen said. &#8220;Accounts that once focused on the war in Ukraine suddenly started spreading fake news about Pelosi&#8217;s visit to Taiwan.&#8221; National Taiwan University was hacked, with the words &#8220;there is only one China in this world&#8221; appearing on its official website. Meanwhile, the National Palace Museum issued a statement denying online rumors that the government was preparing to send tens of thousands of rare artifacts overseas for safekeeping. Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying tweeted on Sunday that the maps showed Shandong dumpling restaurants and Shanxi noodle restaurants in Taipei, saying the presence of the restaurants means that Taiwan has always been a part of China. &#8220;Palates don&#8217;t cheat,&#8221; Hua wrote, adding: &#8220;The long lost child will eventually return home.&#8221; Outdated photos According to Chen Hui-min, some of the images used by the disinformation posts used military images from two years earlier to suggest the PLA had fired rockets across the island. &#8220;It&#8217;s incorrect to say that the CCP&#8217;s long-range rockets have flown across Taiwan. Even the People&#8217;s Liberation Army (PLA) and official Chinese media have reported that they landed in the Taiwan Strait, stopping short of crossing Taiwan,&#8221; Chen said. &#8220;Another annotated photo said the Chinese army was assembling on the coast, using edited photos of North Korean military exercises that took place in 2017.&#8221; Another report cited China&#8217;s state broadcaster CCTV as saying that China was expelling Taiwanese nationals before Aug. 8, also untrue. Last week, several convenience store branches and government facilities across Taiwan saw their digital signage hacked with messages slandering visiting U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi during her recent visit to Taiwan, which sparked days of military exercises and missile launches near Taiwan by China&#8217;s People&#8217;s Liberation Army (PLA). As Pelosi visited Taiwan and met with president Tsai Ing-wen on Aug. 3, messages started popping up on digital signage in 7-Eleven convenience stores across the country that read: &#8220;Warmonger Pelosi, get out of Taiwan!&#8221; Digital signage at a railway station in the southern port city of Kaohsiung and at a government office in Nantou county also displayed a message calling Pelosi &#8220;an old witch.&#8221; Investigators said the attacks originated from an unknown IP address, the island&#8217;s Central News Agency (CNA) reported at the time. The hacks came after the official website of Tsai&#8217;s Presidential Office was taken down for around 20 minutes by a cyberattack, after which full service was restored, CNA reported. Mainland Chinese website Baidu joined in the cognitive warfare, releasing maps of Taiwan for the first time, which went viral after social media users noticed that many streets in Taiwan&#8217;s cities are named for cities in mainland China. Chinese officials and pro-CCP commentators have launched a global media offensive around Pelosi&#8217;s Taiwan visit, claiming that the island, which has never been ruled by the CCP nor formed part of the 72-year-old People&#8217;s Republic of China, is an &#8220;inseparable&#8221; part of Chinese territory. CCP leader Xi Jinping has repeatedly said that Taiwan must be &#8220;unified&#8221; with China, and refused to rule out the use of military force to annex the island. But Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen, who was re-elected in a 2020 landslide after vowing to stand up to China on the issue, has said that Taiwan&#8217;s 23 million population have no wish to give up their sovereignty, a view that is borne out by repeated opinion polls. Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying tweeted on Sunday that the maps showed Shandong dumpling restaurants and Shanxi noodle restaurants in Taipei, saying the presence of the restaurants means that Taiwan has always been a part of China. &#8220;Palates don&#8217;t cheat,&#8221; Hua wrote, adding: &#8220;The long lost child will eventually return home.&#8221; Hua Chunying Twitter users responded with parodies of the tweet, citing the ubiquitous presence of American fast-food chains KFC and McDonalds in China, and claiming China as &#8220;part of Kentucky.&#8221; Taiwan cookery expert Clarissa Wei said many of the restaurants had already altered their dishes to suit the local palate, however, drawing parallels with the evolution of Chinese dishes in the United States to suit local tastes. Feminist writer Shangguan Luan said China&#8217;s CCP-supporting Little Pinks could be forgiven for their ignorance, given that they...
- [Chinese secret police warned exiled Hong Kong businessman over parliament plan](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-secret-police-warned-exiled-hong-kong-businessman-over-parliament-plan/): China&#8217;s state security police threatened an overseas Hong Kong businessman who recently announced plans to set up a parliament-in-exile with repercussions for his family members who remain in the city, RFA has learned. Hong Kong&#8217;s national security police said last week they are investigating former pro-democracy lawmaker-elect Baggio Leung, overseas businessman Elmer Yuen and journalist Victor Ho for &#8220;subversion of state power&#8221; under a draconian national security law after they announced plans to set up the overseas parliament. &#8220;They warned me in advance [not to go ahead with the plan], but I ignored them,&#8221; Yuen told RFA in a recent interview, saying he had been contacted by state security police in Beijing, not the national security unit of Hong Kong&#8217;s police force. &#8220;They gave me a number of warnings, [including] saying I still have family members in Hong Kong,&#8221; he said, adding that there &#8220;no point&#8221; in worrying about it. Yuen&#8217;s comments came as his daughter-in-law Eunice Yeung, a New People&#8217;s Party member of the current Legislative Council (LegCo) whose members were all pre-approved by Beijing ahead of the last election, took out an advertisement in Hong Kong&#8217;s Oriental Daily News, publicly severing ties with her father-in-law. &#8220;I Eunice Yung, a Chinese person with the blood of our mighty motherland running in my veins &#8230; hereby declare that I am cutting off Elmer Yuen as my father-in-law, following his investigation under the national security law for suspected incitement to subvert state power,&#8221; the ad, signed by Yung and dated Aug. 5, said. Yuen said he still plans to go ahead with the Hong Kong Parliament, which will offer a fully democratic vote to all Hongkongers, regardless of location. &#8220;This definitely is a touchy subject for [the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)] right now because nobody who lives in Hong Kong or mainland China is legitimately represented in government,&#8221; he said, drawing parallels with Yung&#8217;s actions and the political divisions sown within families during the public denunciations, &#8216;struggle sessions&#8217; and kangaroo courts of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). &#8220;Stuff like this never used to happen in Hong Kong, but now that the CCP has enacted the national security law, they have forced [Yung] to draw a clear line between her and me,&#8221; he said. &#8220;This used to happen in mainland China during the Cultural Revolution, when they would get family members of somebody they planned to denounce to cut them off,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Personally, I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s a big deal, but you have to understand that this is the CCP, something that we Hongkongers have never experienced before, so we think it&#8217;s a big thing.&#8221; &#8220;First of all, [Yung] wants to keep her seat in LegCo &#8230; she wants to protect her family; she has a husband and two kids,&#8221; he said. Former Beijing adviser Lew Mon-hung said Yung&#8217;s move likely didn&#8217;t go far enough. &#8220;I think she should draw an ideological and political line, not just talk in terms of &#8230; family ethics and relationships, which isn&#8217;t very specific, and is cultural [rather than political],&#8221; Lew told RFA. &#8220;She is just trying to politically correct, but lacks political wisdom.&#8221; Lew said Yung should give media interviews illustrating the political reasons for her split with Yeung, or write an article backing up her position in terms of the national security law and Hong Kong&#8217;s Basic Law. Chinese political commentator Lin Feng said the comparisons being drawn with the Cultural Revolution are apt. &#8220;During the Cultural Revolution &#8230; those being cut off were generally intellectuals or officials who had just lost their social status, and reduced from being intellectuals or officials to the status of ordinary people,&#8221; Lin told RFA. &#8220;But for Hong Kong people, what is really unbearable is the freezing and confiscation of their assets under the national security law.&#8221; &#8220;It&#8217;s hard for them to cope with the slightest change in social status, which makes the middle class very vulnerable.&#8221; Forty-seven former opposition lawmakers and democracy activists are currently behind bars awaiting trial on the same &#8220;incitement to subversion&#8221; charge for their involvement in a 2020 democratic primary election aimed at maximizing the number of opposition seats in LegCo. Soon after the primary, the government postponed the LegCo elections and rewrote the rules to force candidates to undergo vetting by a committee overseen by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and national security police, effectively barring any pro-democracy candidates from running. &#8220;The Security Bureau appeals to the public to dissociate themselves from individuals contravening the Hong Kong National Security Law, and the illegal activities those individuals organized, so as to avoid bearing any unnecessary legal risks,&#8221; a spokesman said in a statement. Yuan, Ho and Leung are part of a group that announced the parliament-in-exile plan in Canada on July 27, along with plans to hold the first election under universal suffrage in late 2023. Leung, who is also known by the English names Baggio and Sixtus, was expelled along with five other newly elected Legislative Council (LegCo) members after China&#8217;s National People&#8217;s Congress ruled their oaths of allegiance invalid in 2016. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [China keeps up war games with anti-sub, sea assault practice near Taiwan](https://ij-reportika.com/china-keeps-up-war-games-with-anti-sub-sea-assault-practice-near-taiwan/): The Chinese military carried out anti-submarine and sea assault drills in waters around Taiwan on Monday, keeping up the pressure after major four-day drills an angry Beijing staged response to the U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit last week, military sources said. China also announced a series of new military drills in the South China Sea and in the Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea, waters that lie between the Chinese mainland and the Korean peninsula.  The Eastern Theater Command of the Chinese People&#8217;s Liberation Army (PLA) said on its official WeChat account that the Command’s forces “continued to conduct practical joint exercises in the sea and airspace around Taiwan Island, focusing on organizing joint anti-submarine and sea assault operations” on Aug. 8. On Sunday, the last day of the scheduled military exercise announced on Aug. 3, the PLA sent 14 warships and 66 aircraft to areas surrounding Taiwan in attack simulation drills, the Taiwanese Ministry of National Defense said, adding that 22 of the airplanes crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait. The ministry “monitored the situation and responded to these activities with aircraft in CAP (Combat Air Patrol), naval vessels, and land-based missile systems,” it said in a statement. Taiwan military’s Fourth Combat Zone will also hold two large-scale, live-fire artillery drills in Pingtung in southern Taiwan on Tuesday and Thursday this week to test its combat readiness. The drills will include the artillery command, infantry troops and the coastguard, the military said. Eastern Theatre Command of China’s PLA conducts a long-range live-fire drill into the Taiwan Strait, from an undisclosed location, Aug. 4, 2022. Credit: PLA Eastern Theater Command Handout via REUTERS Numerous new exercises On Saturday, China announced a new series of military drills including a month-long operation in Bohai Sea. China’s Maritime Safety Administration released navigation warnings saying live-fire exercises will be held from Aug. 6 to Aug. 15 in the southern part of the Yellow Sea between China and South Korea, and gunnery drills from Aug. 8 to Aug. 9 and Aug. 9 to Aug.11 in the South China Sea.  A navigation warning is a public advisory notice to mariners about changes to navigational aids and current marine activities or hazards including fishing zones and military exercises. A separate military exercise was conducted in the northern part of the Bohai Sea on Friday and Saturday. Local Taiwanese media reported that a month-long military operation will take place in Bohai Sea starting Aug. 8 until Sept. 8. “I think the military exercises aren&#8217;t really going to stop,” said Mark Harrison, a senior lecturer in Chinese studies at the University of Tasmania in Australia. “Beijing has used Pelosi&#8217;s visit as a pretext to create a &#8220;new normal&#8221; in the Taiwan Strait,” Harrison added. Nancy Pelosi became the most senior U.S. official to visit Taiwan in the last 25 years last week and Beijing repeatedly warned against the visit, threatening “strongest countermeasures.” Chinese media quoted several analysts as saying that military drills near Taiwan will become routine if “external interference” continues. “The military exercises around Taiwan, although having been quite restrained, are meant to show that Beijing is by no means a ‘paper tiger’,” said Sonny Lo, a veteran political commentator in Hong Kong. “Most importantly, Chinese military exercises near Taiwan are becoming a normal phenomenon, raising the specter of a possible military conflict or accident between the two sides,” Lo said. On Saturday and Sunday, Chinese forces staged what could be seen as simulated attacks on Taiwan. “The focus on Sunday was set on testing the capabilities of using joint fire to strike land targets and striking long-range air targets,” reported the PLA Daily. “Supported by naval and air combat systems, the air strike forces, together with long-range multiple launch rocket systems and conventional missile troops, conducted drills of joint precision strikes on targets,” the paper reported. U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi attends a meeting with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen at the presidential office in Taipei, Aug. 3, 2022. Credit: Taiwan Presidential Office Handout via REUTERS What’s next? This “largest ever PLA air-missile-maritime exercise ever conducted” has provided some insights into China’s potential courses of action and preferences in a China-Taiwan conflict, said Carl Schuster, a retired U.S. Navy captain turned military analyst. “It suggests Beijing would first isolate Taiwan and resort to air and missile strikes in hopes of breaking Taipei’s political will. A costly invasion probably is a last resort,” said Schuster, who also served as a director of operations at the U.S. Pacific Command&#8217;s Joint Intelligence Center. &#8220;The exercise demonstrated that blockade in a conflict need not require a constant naval presence offshore, but rather, shipping and air traffic can be deterred by air and missile threats in support of a maritime blockade,” the analyst said, adding that it “also reflected the PLA’s improving capacity for joint operations.” During the four days of Chinese military drills, Taiwan saw up to a thousand international flights being affected and the Taiwanese aviation administration had to discuss alternative routes with Japan and the Philippines. A full military blockade would “paralyze Taiwan’s economy and seriously diminish the society’s confidence,” said commentator Sonny Lo in Hong Kong. “However China usually focuses on the “core enemies” such as the leaders of Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, rather than the whole Taiwanese population,” Lo said, predicting that the cross-strait relations will stay tense until at least the next Taiwan presidential election in early 2024. “Taiwan needs to quickly strengthen its international relations and its military capacity,” said Mark Harrison from the University of Tasmania, who argued that Beijing “will wipe out a vibrant democracy if it seizes control of Taiwan.” The Taiwanese government needs to focus on expanding defense resources and to enact smart and effective defense strategies, according to Drew Thompson, a former U.S. defense official and senior visiting fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. “Smaller countries that have great disadvantages have had tremendous success in the...
- [China isn't yet ready to use military force against Taiwan](https://ij-reportika.com/china-isnt-yet-ready-to-use-military-force-against-taiwan/): At 10.00 p.m. local time on Aug. 2, 2022, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived in Taipei, the highest-ranking U.S. politician to do so for 25 years. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) angrily announced via its Xinhua news agency that the People&#8217;s Liberation Army (PLA) would conduct military areas in six areas encircling Taiwan, between 12 noon on Aug. 4 to 12 noon on Aug. 7, including live-fire exercises. The PLA&#8217;s Eastern Theater Command then announced joint air and sea exercises in the Taiwan Strait and in the waters around the island, including the firing of long-range ammunition. The exercises are widely seen as a shock tactic and deterrent sparked by Pelosi&#8217;s visit to Taiwan, and China styles them as a warning to supporters of &#8220;Taiwan independence.&#8221; The six areas encircled Taiwan on all sides, bringing PLA forces closer to the island than previous exercises during the 1995-1996 Taiwan Strait crisis, and even encroaching on Taiwan&#8217;s territorial waters in some places. On the morning of Aug. 3, Taiwan&#8217;s ministry of defense held an online news conference, at which it strongly condemned the exercises as a de facto air and sea blockade, a serious violation of the island&#8217;s territorial waters and as inimical to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait and in violation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and endangering international shipping lanes and regional security. Their initial analysis was that the CCP was using this show of force to intimidate Taiwan, and as a form of psychological warfare against its people. So the ministry announced it would prepare for war without seeking or avoiding it, and vowed not to escalate the conflict. It said the island&#8217;s military would step up vigilance and counter any aggression. Currently, Taiwan&#8217;s combat readiness training is continuing as it had been before, and there have been no recalls of officers or soldiers on leave. The United States remains on high alert, and is expected to respond to China&#8217;s large-scale military exercises and economic coercion against Taiwan. John Kirby, the National Security Council&#8217;s strategic communications coordinator, said in a regular White House media briefing on Aug. 2 that Beijing has no reason to turn this visit, which is in line with long-term U.S. policy, into some kind of crisis, or use it as an excuse for increased aggression and military activity targeting Taiwan. Sailors direct an EA-18G Growler attached to the Shadowhawks of Electronic Attack Squadron (VAQ) 141 on the flight deck of the U.S. Navy’s only forward-deployed aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) in the Philippine Sea, Aug. 2, 2022. Credit: U.S. Navy Missiles Kirby said the U.S. side expects China to continue to respond for a longer period of time [than in 1996], but gave no further details, adding that the U.S. doesn&#8217;t want a crisis and will seek to manage the situation and not fall into conflict with China. In other words, the United States has achieved its goal [with Pelosi&#8217;s visit], meaning that there is no need to irritate Beijing further, and that the situation, while tense, is generally under control. The exercises began after Pelosi left Taiwan, so as to avoid direct confrontation with the U.S. military; a kind of deterrent after the fact to save Beijing from admitting defeat, and to prevent other countries from following suit. Without it, China&#8217;s &#8220;one-China&#8221; principle [by which it claims Taiwan as its territory], could have faced unprecedented levels of challenge from the international community, opening the door for Taiwan to increase its presence on the world stage. It was a face-saving exercise by the CCP aimed at mollifying rising nationalism at home. The current situation is different from the 1995-1996 Taiwan Strait crisis, which lasted for during months, with seven waves of military exercises by the PLA, and amid plans to capture Taiwan&#8217;s outer islands of Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu. The current exercise encircles Taiwan on four sides &#8230; and is more obviously aimed at the United States, particularly the conventional missile test launches in the waters east of Taiwan. This arrangement helps prevent the U.S. military from intervening in the Taiwan Strait. The most eye-catching part of this exercise, and likely its biggest deterrent effect, lies in the test launch of conventional missiles. Some missiles were fired east of Taiwan, and passed through Japan&#8217;s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), before landing in Japanese economic exclusion zone. Will this trigger a chain reaction in security cooperation between the U.S. and Japan? This will be the focus of attention in the next few days. All six of the PLA&#8217;s military training zones fall within Taiwan&#8217;s ADIZ, while the areas off Keelung and Kaohsiung overlap with Taiwan&#8217;s territorial waters, meaning parts of them are less than 12 nautical miles (about 22 kilometers) off the Taiwanese coast, in a direct challenge to Taiwan&#8217;s sovereignty and in line with what the United Nations terms &#8220;national aggression.&#8221; Research indicates the PLA&#8217;s naval and air forces will conduct long-range live ammunition shooting outside the Taiwan defense zone and will not risk approaching Taiwan&#8217;s territorial waters. The incursion into Taiwan&#8217;s territorial waters seems intended as a psychological deterrent to Taiwan. It&#8217;s not out of the question that small amounts of ordinance could find their way into Taiwan&#8217;s territorial waters, and if they do, this could present new issues for Taiwan around how to respond. With the exercises taking place in Taiwan&#8217;s ADIZ, the median line of the Taiwan Strait disappears. The appearance of part of the exercise area in Taiwan&#8217;s territorial waters compresses the depth of Taiwan&#8217;s defense to its minimum range, posing fresh challenges to the island&#8217;s military. Taiwan Air Force Mirage fighter jets taxi on a runway at an airbase in Hsinchu, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 5, 2022. China says it summoned European diplomats in the country to protest statements issued by the Group of Seven nations and the European Union criticizing threatening Chinese military exercises surrounding Taiwan. Credit: AP PLA thinking and capabilities In terms of sea and air...
- [Play it loud: The return of Hanoi’s loudspeakers speaks volumes](https://ij-reportika.com/play-it-loud-the-return-of-hanois-loudspeakers-speaks-volumes/): Authorities in Hanoi announced recently that the once-ubiquitous loudspeakers, a staple of government news and propaganda, relics of the past and left to disrepair in the early 2000s, would be reinstalled. The late July announcement caught everyone by surprise and has been met with derision. But it speaks volumes about the Communist regime, its insecurities, and the pathways to power. A simpler time For a government which has touted a high-tech future for Vietnam under its “National Strategy for the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” the Orwellian monotone does not seem to be a sophisticated way of communication. Why a media anachronism in a time when people have alternative sources of information across multiple platforms on their smartphones? On the simplest level, it&#8217;s just that, an attempt by the Party to harken back to a time when the state easily monopolized the information environment. According to international watchdogs, Vietnam has one of the most repressive media environments in the world. Reporters Without Borders ranks it 174. The Committee to Protect Journalists documented 23 arrested journalists in 2021. Freedom House rated its internet freedom at 22 out of 100 – just above worst-ranked Iran, Myanmar and Cuba. Yet despite the concerted efforts to police and censor the internet, the media landscape is more open than one would expect. Vietnam’s internet is not behind a firewall, and there are 76 million Facebook users in Vietnam. Authorities can only focus on the key nodes and influencers. The Vietnamese government’s cyber security law, adopted in 2019, potentially compels data localization from the big tech companies, though policy disputes between the Ministry of Public Security and the economic ministries have meant that it’s not been fully implemented. Nonetheless, according to data reported by Vietnamese authorities, foreign social media firms complied with around 90 percent of government requests to take down media across social media platforms. Hanoi is demanding and getting more corporate compliance in dealing with “malicious content.” And yet, for many in the Vietnam Communist Party (VCP), the media landscape is still too permissive. A pervasive sense of insecurity The re-installation of the loudspeakers also reflects a deep insecurity on the part of the government. And it has much to be insecure about. The VCP&#8217;s claim to legitimacy is based on two things: nationalism and economic performance. Recently both have been in called into question due to endemic corruption that has reached the highest levels of government. Despite unflinching Chinese pressure and excessive maritime claims against Vietnam&#8217;s national sovereignty, the Coast Guard is mired in corruption. The commander and his predecessor were both sentenced to 17 years in prison for using state assets to protect oil smugglers. The party expelled two other major generals, and disciplined five other major generals and two lieutenant generals. The government will have a very attentive public to respond to the next time the Coast Guard is caught flat-footed against Chinese incursions. Corruption undermines combat readiness. Two other corruption scandals, both involving the until-then stellar COVID-19 response by the previous government, have hit the senior-most leadership and called into question the prime minister&#8217;s management.  A scandal over repatriation flights for Vietnamese nationals brought down a deputy foreign minister and a former deputy head of immigration at the Ministry of Public Security, among others.  The Viet A testing scandal felled two members of the elite VCP Central Committee, a former minister of health, and senior members of the vaunted Vietnam People&#8217;s Army. To date, the party has investigated over 21 people. Corruption is endemic in Vietnam. And yet these corruption scandals seem all the more concerning than those over the past five to six years when senior officials weaponized police and the prosecutorial service to take down political rivals and their patronage networks. The VCP knows it has a legitimacy crisis. The government recently acknowledged that in 2021 there were 3,725 corruption investigations and criminal proceedings, three times the number in 2020. For an economy stuck between central planning and the market, with soft property rights, where the state controls key inputs such as land and capital, not to mention permits and licenses, there is no shortage of opportunities for graft. But where corruption was once seen as the cost of doing business, it is now viewed as predatory and hindering economic growth. A loudspeaker stands on the roof of a gateway in the suburbs of Hanoi on May 18, 2011. (AFP) Pathways to power But the decision to reinstall the loudspeakers also says something about the pathways to power in Vietnamese politics. The decision was a local one, made by the Hanoi Party Committee. The Hanoi Party chief is a key position and is often held by a member of the elite Politburo, and always a member of the Central Committee. The Hanoi Party Committee has been in turmoil, following the Viet A corruption scandal that saw its chief, Chu Ngoc Anh, expelled from the party and put on trial. The new Party chief is trying to curry favor, while his new deputy is clearly being groomed for greater things. For ambitious Party cadres, keeping clean right now is necessary, but insufficient. General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong continues to make counter-corruption his highest priority. But advancement will require those added flourishes, such as loudspeakers extolling the good works of the Party. Someone, somewhere, actually thought that this was a good idea. While loudspeakers blaring state media, party edicts, and propaganda may not be heard over the cacophony of Hanoi&#8217;s congested streets, they will be heard in the corridors of power. Zachary Abuza is a professor at the National War College in Washington and an adjunct at Georgetown University. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of the U.S. Department of Defense, the National War College, Georgetown University or RFA.
- [Chinese aircraft, ships and drones circle Taiwan on final day of military drills](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-aircraft-ships-and-drones-circle-taiwan-on-final-day-of-military-drills/): The Chinese military continued joint air-naval exercises on Sunday, simulating attacks on Taiwan, the Taiwanese defense ministry said. It was the last day of drills held as an angry response to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island. At the same time, the U.S. sent another warship to the east of Taiwan, expanding its presence in the area. Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said it detected “multiple Chinese aircraft, ships and drones operating around the Taiwan Strait,” on Sunday morning, apparently simulating attacks on Taiwan’s main island. The ministry is “closely monitoring the situation,” it said in a brief statement, vowing to “respond accordingly.” A map showing the USNS Howard O. Lorenzen’s path. CREDIT: Marine Traffic Meanwhile data provided by the ship tracking website Marine Traffic show that a U.S. Navy Missile Range Instrumentation Ship, the USNS Howard O. Lorenzen (T-AGM-25), has been deployed and is now operating in the waters east of Taiwan.  The ship, operated by the Military Sealift Command, is a missile-tracking vessel, equipped with the latest active electronically scanned array radar system to support the launching and tracking of missiles and rockets. The vessel was dispatched from Yokosuka base in Japan on Aug. 3, showing the emphasis the U.S. Navy places on monitoring China’s missile activities. On Aug. 4, the Chinese military launched 11 Dongfeng ballistic missiles into the northern, southern and eastern waters surrounding Taiwan. Five are believed to have landed inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone and four flew over Taipei. China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) also fired long-range rockets at some of Taiwan’s outlying islands on the same afternoon, the Taiwanese defense ministry said. Taiwan called the Chinese military drills “irresponsible” and “highly provocative.”  U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin ordered the Navy’s only forward-deployed aircraft carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan, to remain on station on Aug. 4 to monitor the situation in the area. Tourists watch a PLA Air Force helicopter flying over China’s Pingtan island near Taiwan on Aug.4. CREDIT: AFP ‘Resolute response’ China announced the four-day drills on Tuesday evening when Pelosi landed in Taipei for a brief but highly symbolic stopover. She is the highest ranking U.S. official to visit the island in 25 years. Beijing has repeatedly condemned the visit as a “grave violation” of China’s sovereignty and integrity, and threatened the “strongest countermeasures.” The drills appeared to have ended at noon on Sunday without the appearance of a Chinese aircraft carrier and submarine as previously reported in Chinese and Taiwanese media. “The waves are big enough this week and all parties, including China, would see the need to start to cool off, and take stock of the crisis,” said Collin Koh, a Singapore-based regional military expert. China on Friday released a set of eight “countermeasures” in response to the Pelosi visit, freezing collaboration on three sets of military dialogues with the U.S., as well as talks on the climate crisis, repatriation of illegal immigrants, counter-narcotics and legal assistance in criminal matters. The defense talks included meetings between Chinese and U.S. military commanders and bilateral efforts to coordinate air and sea operations to prevent misunderstandings and clashes by warships operating at close range. Their suspension may increase the risk of miscalculation and confrontation, analysts said. Before this, China also suspended imports of a number of Taiwanese products including natural sand, fish and fruit. “I don’t expect Beijing to withdraw the import ban on Taiwanese products any time soon. In fact, this ban is likely to persist much longer,” said Koh from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. The new normal? “To impress upon how Beijing views the severity of this crisis, we would expect it to continue to suspend the climate and military dialogue mechanisms until, as it demanded, Washington ‘rectifies’ the wrong of proceeding with the Pelosi visit,” Koh said. “All in all, the status quo in the Taiwan Strait is likely to see some change,” he added. During the four days of military exercises, Chinese military aircraft and ships crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait on multiple occasions and analysts say the line that serves as the de facto maritime border between Taiwan and China’s mainland “will likely exist merely in name” in the near future. By “squeezing the median line,” the PLA intends to make its encroachments on Taiwan’s air space and waters routine, therefore making the Taiwan Strait its Chinese inner sea,” said Shen Ming-Shih, acting deputy chief executive officer at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, a government think-tank. China has repeatedly rejected accusations of changing the status quo in the Taiwan Strait. Its top diplomat Wang Yi said on Friday: “Taiwan has never been a country.” “There is only one China, and both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one country. This has been the status quo of Taiwan since ancient times,” the Chinese Foreign Minister said. Military scholar Collin Koh said he believes the PLA is “starting to “normalize” its activities including drills east of the median line, adding to the pressure it has already exerted on Taiwan with its regular sorties into the island’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ).  An ADIZ is an area where civilian aircraft are tracked and identified before entering further into a country’s airspace. &#8220;China might conduct more intense or more radical actions,&#8221; said Jyh-Shyang Sheu, a Taiwanese military expert. &#8220;But the reactions of the Taiwanese people showed that the coercion doesn&#8217;t work well, although they conducted different activities at the same time, such as missile exercises, cyber attacks, fake news campaigns and so on,&#8221; Sheu said.
- [US seeks to dial down tension over Taiwan Strait](https://ij-reportika.com/us-seeks-to-dial-down-tension-over-taiwan-strait/): U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Saturday said Beijing had acted irresponsibly in halting cooperation with the United States on topics including defense and climate change, as he sought to reassure Southeast Asian countries over raging tensions in the Taiwan Strait. Meanwhile, China pressed forward with its major military exercise around Taiwan for a third day on Saturday, with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) apparently staging a simulated attack on Taiwan’s main island, Taipei’s Defense Ministry said. “Since their missile launches, Beijing has taken an irresponsible step of a different kind:  They’ve shut down eight different areas where our two countries have been able to work together,” the top U.S. diplomat said during a press conference Saturday in Manila. Beijing announced the “countermeasures” on Friday in response to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s recent visit to Taiwan, freezing bilateral dialogue on several military-to-military channels as well as talks on the climate crisis, repatriation of illegal immigrants, counter-narcotics and legal assistance in criminal matters. “The world’s largest carbon emitter is now refusing to engage on combating the climate crisis.  Suspending climate cooperation doesn’t punish the United States; it punishes the world, particularly the developing world,” Blinken said.  While Beijing appeared to have halted live-firing exercises around Taiwan, multiple Chinese military aircraft and vessels operated near Taiwan on Saturday, some of them crossing the median line dividing the Taiwan Strait, the ministry said in a statement. The Taiwanese military sent warnings, scrambled aircraft and deployed defense missile systems to track the Chinese military planes, the statement said. Blinken, traveling from Cambodia where he attended ASEAN meetings, said that the U.S. government was determined to avoid a crisis and to deescalate the tensions. “The United States is not going to engage in any provocative actions of our own,” Blinken told the Voice of America in an interview late Friday in Phnom Penh, transcripts of which were released to the press Saturday. “We think the seas should be calmed.” “The Taiwan Strait is of vital importance to virtually every country in the region.  So much commerce goes through there.  If that were interrupted, it would have a terrible impact on the global economy and on everyone’s desire to recover from COVID,” Blinken stressed. “So I think it’s incumbent upon all countries – the United States, but also China – to act responsibly and not use the visit of a member of our Congress as a pretext for engaging in potentially dangerous and destabilizing actions,” he added.  Nonetheless, he noted that the U.S. House Speaker had every right to make the recent trip to Taiwan, and that China’s reaction by launching 11 ballistic missiles and deploying its ships around the region “is so disproportionate and so dangerous.” Meeting with Marcos The U.S. diplomat met with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Saturday morning, and underlined the two sides’ long-standing alliance. Blinken is the highest-ranking U.S. official to travel to the country since the inauguration of Marcos, the son and namesake of the late dictator whom Washington helped flee into exile in Hawaii after a 1986 “people power” uprising. “We’re committed to the Mutual Defense Treaty. We&#8217;re committed to working with you on shared challenges,” Blinken said, referring to a 1951 pact between Manila and Washington that binds both sides to come to each other’s aid in times of aggression from outside forces. The U.S. government has repeatedly cited that partnership in the face of continued Chinese buildup in the disputed South China Sea region, where Beijing’s maritime claims overlap with those of the Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries. He assured Marcos the United States would honor its commitments to the decades-old joint defense pact. “The alliance is strong and I believe can grow even stronger,” Blinken said. Marcos, for his part, stressed the importance of the alliance amid the volatile outlook in the region even as he stated that Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan “did not raise the intensity” of tensions in the Taiwan Strait.  “But nonetheless, this just demonstrates how volatile the international diplomatic scene is, not only in the region,” Marcos said. “So again, this just points to the fact of the importance of the relationship between the United States and the Philippines.” He said that the MDT “is in constant evolution” while noting that the Philippines and the United States enjoyed a special relationship linked by shared history. Marcos succeeded President Rodrigo Duterte in May after six years of a somewhat rocky relationship with Washington that saw the Philippines pulling away from its traditional ally in favor of Beijing.  After meeting with Marcos, Blinken held a virtual meeting with his counterpart, Enrique Manalo, who earlier this week announced that he had contracted COVID-19. Manalo likewise reiterated the ties that bind the two nations, and the importance of keeping the peace over the Taiwan Strait. “The Philippines continues of course to look at the big powers to help calm the waters and keep the peace,“ Manalo stressed. “We can ill afford any further escalation of tensions in the region.” Blinken responded by saying that Washington was ”determined to act responsibly, so that we avoid crisis, we avoid conflict.” Beijing considers the self-ruling, democratic island a breakaway province, to be united with the mainland by force if necessary, and objects strongly to high-level U.S. visits. The United States does not recognize Taiwan diplomatically, as part of a One China policy demanded by Beijing, but retains close unofficial ties with Taipei and is obligated by law to provide it with defense capabilities. Myanmar situation worsens Meanwhile, Blinken said that the situation in Myanmar had deteriorated sharply, with the military regime there “totally unresponsive” to international calls for it to resolve the crisis there peacefully. “Well, I think what we’ve seen, exactly as you say, is a situation that’s gone from bad to worse, including with the heinous act of executing four members of the democracy movement despite pleas from ASEAN, from Cambodia, from many others not to do that,” Blinken said, according to...
- [Japanese VTuber, a virtual anime pop idol and show host , sets Taiwan alight](https://ij-reportika.com/japanese-vtuber-a-virtual-anime-pop-idol-and-show-host-sets-taiwan-alight/): In May 2022, a Japanese-style anime girl started appearing in advertisements shown on Taiwan&#8217;s MRT subway network. Green-eyed, pink-haired with buns and bangs, Momosuze Nene, sprints away from the viewer&#8217;s gaze, heading towards &#8220;millions of subscribers&#8221; on her YouTube channel. Fans of Nene can sign on to a special website to learn more about her, while the ads hope to spread the word among her growing fanbase in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Australia and the U.S., as well as her native Japan. And there&#8217;s one thing that helps this dirndl-miniskirted YouTuber stand out from her crowd of competitors for the time being: she&#8217;s not real. Part of a growing phenomenon of virtual YouTubers (VTubers), Nene is &#8220;a girl from another world&#8221; who nevertheless plays video games like her contemporaries, commenting and laughing as the game progresses, and chatting in real time with viewers leaving messages at a rate of several a second in the chat window. She also sings and dances, chats with viewers and reads out their messages. While her shows are in Japanese, her anime persona and upbeat attitude have made her a hit far outside of Japan. And her expansion is being funded by fans like tattooed Taipei resident Chiu Wei-chun, 31. &#8220;The advertising agency has no faith in us,&#8221; Chiu said. &#8220;They said the average fan would likely donate between 30,000 and 50,000 Taiwan dollars.&#8221; An advertisement of the Taoling Yinyin Million Support Project was drawn by a number of fans. On the day of the fan meeting on May 23, the artist Sipu (Internet nickname) took a photo with the character he drew. Credit: Yang Zilei Pop idol approach When he went to the bank to pay in his donation in person, the bank teller said taking money on behalf of a virtual character was a first. &#8220;In my 25 years as a teller, I&#8217;ve never heard of such a request,&#8221; Chiu quoted her as saying. Many VTubers are the creation of two Japanese companies &#8212; Hololive and Rainbow Club &#8212; and tend towards a pop idol approach, although virtual hosts are also found in other genres of video, including technology videos. With an energy similar to that of an actor playing a cartoon character at a theme park, and motion-capture technology similar to that used to generate Gollum in Peter Jackson&#8217;s Lord of the Rings movies, these VTubers are actually played by human actors behind the scenes. Many VTubers draw heavily from anime, and come in all shapes and sizes, from vampire nurses to mafia bosses to demons and pirate captains, as well as the ubiquitous sexy anime girl. They can do pretty much anything a real, live YouTuber can do, including singing, playing games, making art and chatting with their audience in real time. Others talk about their favorite comics or play on variety shows, or go to uninhabited islands as a survival stunt. The idea of a virtual pop idol isn&#8217;t a new one in Japan. Miku Hatsune is a Vocaloid software voicebank developed by Crypton Future Media, represented in live performance by the image of a 15-year-old teenage girl with long, turquoise twintails. The act has opened for Lady Gaga and performed at Coachella, will soon be getting her own animated series. The outbreak of COVID-19 has accelerated the development of the industry in Japan, and it has quickly caught on in neighboring Taiwan. Chiu Wei-chun is one of the main planners of the fan board. He saw the influx of fan sponsorships from overseas, and members from Malaysia, Hong Kong, the United States, Taiwan and other places responded to the project, and he felt the huge influence brought by VTuber even more. Credit: Yang Zilei From white-collar dads to high-schoolers It&#8217;s the potential for personal interaction with VTubers that makes them so popular, and they make liberal use of fan sponsorship to take their programming to the next level via the graded, color-coded SuperChat donation function on YouTube. The highest donations buy fans stickier messages, increasing the likelihood that the host will see the message and interact with the viewer in some way. The fan base includes white-collar dads to high-schoolers, with some people willing to pay out half their monthly salary on their favorite virtual idol. Chiu&#8217;s first encounter with Nene was in September 2020, since then he has been a dedicated fan. The biotech production line manager estimates that he spends a good chunk of his monthly disposable income on sponsoring Nene, and wonders aloud if he needs to rein it in somewhat. &#8220;I&#8217;m going to be marrying my girlfriend next year, so I need to save a bit more,&#8221; he says. &#8220;But I will still need to invest some money in Nene, naturally.&#8221; He said he&#8217;s drawn to the character for her childish innocence and relaxed attitude. &#8220;Kind of like a daughter; maybe I&#8217;m practicing how to spoil my own daughter,&#8221; Chiu said. According to YouTube&#8217;s Super Chat sponsorship rankings for the whole of 2021, only one of the top 10 is a real person. VTubers are mostly female, and mostly broadcast in Japanese, English, Chinese, Indian languages or Korean from a number of countries. In April, the singer bought a theme light box for Vox&#8217;s birthday at Taipei MRT Zhongshan Station, and she showed us the light box picture. In addition to expressing their feelings in the live broadcast appeal, Vox also used this picture as a live broadcast schedule. It is a common way of interaction for VTuber to refer to the secondary creation of fans. Credit: Yang Zilei &#8216;Different voices, different genders&#8217; The most popular VTuber in the world today is the English-language VTuber Gawr Gura from Hololive, with more than four million subscribers. Otaku culture expert Liang Shih-you, says VTubers are popular because they&#8217;re so much fun. &#8220;VTubers let you play a completely different self from the get-go, different voices, different genders, anything, so it creates a multitude of possibilities,&#8221; Liang said, citing the example of VTuber Uncle Fox, who looks like...
- [China’s military exercises near Taiwan continue as drones fly over Kinmen islands](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-military-exercises-near-taiwan-continue-as-drones-fly-over-kinmen-islands/): China’s major military exercise around Taiwan entered day three Saturday, with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) apparently staging a simulated attack on Taiwan’s main island, Taipei’s Defense Ministry said. Multiple Chinese military aircraft and vessels operated near Taiwan on Saturday morning, some of them crossed the median line dividing the Taiwan Strait, the ministry said in a statement. The Taiwanese military sent warnings, scrambled aircraft and deployed defense missile systems to track the Chinese military planes, the statement said. A Taiwan Air Force air defense missile troop monitoring the situation, Aug. 6, 2022. CREDIT: Taiwan Defense Ministry On Friday night, four Chinese drones were spotted flying over the Kinmen islands near China’s Fujian province, the defense ministry said.  During the day on Friday, Chinese military aircraft made a record 68 incursions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ), many of them crossed the median line, which serves as a de facto border between Taiwan and the mainland. This is the highest number of incursions in one day. The previous single-day record was 56, on Oct. 4, 2021.   By “squeezing the median line,” the PLA intends to make its encroachments on Taiwan’s air space and waters routine, therefore changing the status quo in the Taiwan Strait and making it a Chinese inner sea,” said Shen Ming-Shih, acting deputy chief executive officer at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, a government think-tank. The unprecedented drills are set to continue until noon on Sunday local time and Chinese media reported that a Chinese aircraft carrier group, featuring at least one nuclear-powered submarine, would take part in the first carrier deterrence exercise. Details however remain sketchy and the whereabouts of both Chinese carriers, Liaoning and Shandong, were unclear as of Saturday. Sailors aboard the USS Ronald Reagan participate in flight operations on the ship&#8217;s flight deck while sailing through the Philippine Sea, Aug. 3, 2022. CREDIT: U.S. Navy USS Ronald Reagan returns The U.S. Navy’s only forward-deployed aircraft carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan, seems to have returned to east of Taiwan from a position near its Japanese home port, several sources said. The amphibious assault ships USS Tripoli and USS America were also heading to waters near Taiwan, the U.S. Naval Institute reported. The carrier and other ships are expected to conduct maritime transit through the Taiwan Strait in the coming weeks, according to U.S. National Security Spokesperson John Kirby who added that the U.S. “will take further steps to demonstrate our commitment to the security of our allies in the region.” On Friday China released a set of eight “countermeasures” in response to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, freezing collaboration on three sets of military dialogues with the U.S., as well as from talks on the climate crisis, repatriation of illegal immigrants, counter-narcotics and legal assistance in criminal matters. The breaking off of the wide range of bilateral talks came after Beijing announced sanctions against Pelosi and her direct family members, accusing her of “vicious and provocative actions.” Pelosi is the most senior U.S. official to visit Taiwan in 25 years. On Thursday Japan said it had lodged a diplomatic protest after five ballistic missiles fired by China appear to have landed inside Japan&#8217;s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), which stretches 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) from the outer limits of Japan&#8217;s territorial seas. Beijing rejected the complaint saying China and Japan have not carried out maritime delimitation in the waters and China’s missile test-launch in the area was “consistent with international law and practices.”
- [Xinjiang officials use China’s anti-crime campaign to target ‘disloyal’ Uyghurs](https://ij-reportika.com/xinjiang-officials-use-chinas-anti-crime-campaign-to-target-disloyal-uyghurs/): Authorities in China’s far-western Xinjiang region used the Chinese government’s 100-day crackdown on criminals and fugitives to target Uyghurs deemed “religious extremists” and “two-faced,” a police officer in a major city said. The campaign was rolled out by Wang Xiaohong, a close ally of Chinese President Xi Jinping who was appointed public security minister on June 25, to eradicate criminal forces and to shore up political security and social control across the country. Wang directed police to “diffuse all kinds of safety risks and resolutely safeguard social stability” in the run-up to the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party later this year, when the party’s national policy goals for the next five years will be set and its top leadership elected. At a July 15 promotional meeting for the “Hundred Days Action” across China, Chinese public security leaders said that 42,000 cases had been cracked and 72,000 criminal suspects had been arrested during the campaign, according to Chinese media reports.  RFA called Chinese police departments at various levels in the region to find out how the operation affected the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang, who have borne the brunt of China’s oppressive policies for decades. Tight-lipped authorities generally declined to discuss cases, but the public security sweep in Xinjiang targeted mainly Uyghurs deemed “religious extremists,” “separatists,” “terrorists” and “two-faced persons,” state media in Xinjiang said. The Chinese Communist Party uses the term “two-faced” to describe people — usually officials or party members — who are either corrupt or ideologically disloyal to the party, though it is often applied to Uyghurs in official positions who are interested in carrying on their cultural and religious traditions. A police officer in Hotan (in Chinese, Hetian), a major oasis town in southwestern Xinjiang, confirmed the city’s police headquarters held meetings on “eliminating and fighting against evil forces” in recent months. The anti-crime campaign elsewhere in China focused on crimes like theft, while in Xinjiang officers sought to catch allegedly disloyal Uyghurs, officials said. Authorities focused on “operations against evil forces” in Hotan, the police officer said. “’Evil forces’ refer to people who take criminals under their wings,” he told RFA. “Here our main targets in eliminating evil forces are those people who took people who preached religion illegally under their wings, protecting them from being prosecuted. The people they took under their wings also include separatists, extremists and two-faced people.” “Pickpockets and thieves are in the periphery of our target in this operation,” he said. “The main targets are the ones I mentioned earlier.” The officer went on to say that authorities arrested a man named Waris and more than 10 people during a social gathering that was attended by more than 500 people. “We took them away with black hoods on their heads,” he said. “The ones who were arrested are all male. There were no females among them.” The policeman said he did not know the identities of the 10 others, and that the case was classified as a “state secret.” Xinjiang’s Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in Xinjiang have been subjected to severe human rights abuses, torture and forced labor, as well as the eradication of their linguistic, cultural and religious traditions in what the United States and several Western parliaments have called genocide and crimes against humanity. Chinese authorities have detained up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in internment camps since 2017, according to numerous investigative reports by researchers, think tanks and foreign media. China has said that the camps were vocational training centers meant to deter religious extremism and terrorism, and that they are now closed. Translated by the Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Rail freight service between China and North Korea to resume in days](https://ij-reportika.com/rail-freight-service-between-china-and-north-korea-to-resume-in-days/): Rail freight shipments between the northern Chinese city Dandong and North Korea’s Sinuiju will resume next week, providing a vital lifeline of goods to the pariah state, North Korean sources said.  “Starting around Aug. 8 or 9, the international freight train between Sinuiju and Dandong will resume its operation,” an official from a trading organization in North Pyongan province told RFA on Thursday.  “There has been an order from the Central Committee for all trading companies to prepare import and export materials to load,” he said, referring to the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of North Korea. North Korean authorities proposed the resumption of service to the Chinese government because the country faces economic difficulties due to a serious shortage of supplies, he said. North Korea is dependent on trade and aid from China, its main ally and trading partner. Restrictions on the flow of goods from the country during COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns devastated North Korea’s already chronically unstable economy. Freight train service between Sinuiju and Dandong, the hub of North Korea-China trade, was halted in August 2020 because of the pandemic. It resumed on Jan. 16, but was closed by the Chinese again on April 25 after outbreaks in both countries.  Maritime trade with North Korea was also halted at that time but was partially resumed in mid-July after repeated requests from authorities in North Korea.  Trading company representatives, including ones from firms in the North Korean capital Pyongyang, are stationed in Sinuiju, which sits across the international border of the Yalu River from Dandong, the source in North Pyongan said.   “They have been ordering goods from their Chinese counterparts to import construction materials and basic food. They are trying to secure foreign currency to pay for the imports,” he said. A North Korean source in Dandong, with knowledge of the situation, also told RFA on Thursday that the Dandong-Sinuiju freight train service was about to resume. “Since yesterday, a Dandong-based logistics company has been recruiting truck drivers to transport goods to the Dandong freight station and manpower to load goods on the freight train in preparation for the resumption of Dandong-Sinuiju freight train operations,” he said. The logistics company must collect basic food such as sugar and flour, iron products, and construction materials ordered from North Korea from all over China and transport them to Dandong freight station, said the source, who declined to be named so as to speak freely. Additionally, Dandong quarantine authorities will directly manage the freight station and the trains that return to China after transporting goods to North Korea, he said.  Chinese workers who load and unload goods on freight trains in Dandong must have received COVID-19 vaccinations, the source added. Workers will be tested daily for the virus and can continue on the job if their results are negative. The freight train will operate 15 to 17 cars at a time and will go directly to the Uiju quarantine facility, formerly the Uiju Airfield, near North Korea’s northern border with China, the source said. Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee for RFA Korean. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [A son rises in the East](https://ij-reportika.com/a-son-rises-in-the-east/): Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has removed legal hurdles to elevating his son as his successor with constitutional amendments that circumvent parliamentary powers over high-level appointments. Hun Sen, 69, has ruled the country since 1985, and has been grooming his West Point-educated son Hun Manet, 44, as his replacement.
- [Hundreds killed, thousands forced to flee since coup in Myanmar Tanintharyi region](https://ij-reportika.com/hundreds-killed-thousands-forced-to-flee-since-coup-in-myanmar-tanintharyi-region/): At least 214 civilians have been killed and 89 injured in southern Myanmar’s Tanintharyi region in the 18 months since the country’s military seized power in a coup, according to local research group Southern Monitor. The group said in a statement on Thursday that since the Feb. 1, 2021 coup, at least 17,415 people in Tanintharyi – the home region of junta chief Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing’s parents – were forced to flee their homes, while 93 homes were destroyed in arson attacks over the same period. The dead included those killed by junta troops as well as victims of retribution attacks by the armed opposition for their alleged role as informants for the military regime, it said. Southern Monitor’s information officer told RFA Burmese that the number of civilian deaths in Tanintharyi has risen sharply since the beginning of 2022, with the months of April and June being the deadliest. “Violent incidents in Tanintharyi region have increased significantly in 2022. People died in an increasing number of battles as well as in bombings and landmine incidents,” said the officer, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Another worrying trend is the killing of civilians. It can be said that killings by both sides have increased quite a bit.” He said most of the assassinations and civilian deaths occurred in Tanintharyi’s townships of Launglon and Yebyu. At least 93 houses were razed in Tanintharyi since the coup, according to Southern Monitor – 33 in Palaw township, 30 in Thayetchaung township, 18 in Tanintharyi township, six in Dawei township, three in Yebyu township, two in Launglon township, and one in Myeik township. A spokesman for the anti-junta Democracy Action Strike Committee (Dawei) told RFA that most of the fires were started by the junta troops and pro-military Pyu Saw Htee militia fighters raiding villages. “A military column would come and a battle with PDFs would occur. When [the military] couldn&#8217;t proceed any further, they’d set fire to a nearby house,” said the spokesman, who also declined to be named, citing security concerns. In Launglon, they just set fire to the houses, even though there were no clashes. One of the houses burnt down was owned by a former Dawei District Protest Committee member. At the time of the incident, he was a member of the committee. There were also cases when the Pyu Saw Htee and the military came together and just burned down a house for no reason.” According to the Dawei Political Prisoners Network, as of April 29, there were 221 political prisoners in detention in Tanintharyi, two of whom have been sentenced to death by the junta. Military crackdown Residents of the region told RFA that the armed resistance in Tanintharyi started in earnest in August 2021 in response to the military’s violent crackdowns on civilians. A spokesman for the Palaw Township People’s Defense Force said most of the fighting in Tanintharyi region, up until recently, had been caused by military clearance operations. He claimed that the armed resistance was not responsible for starting any clashes. “The fighting we have here began when they entered the area,” said the spokesman, who also asked to remain anonymous. “We’re not in a position to attack them yet because we are still in a state of preparation. The PDF has not launched any offensives, except one.” According to the list compiled by Southern Monitor, from June 2021 to July 2022, there were 133 battles and at least 141 attacks using landmines. Most of the attacks took place in the townships of Dawei, Launglon, Thayetchaung, Palaw and Tanintharyi. Attempts by RFA to reach junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment on the violence in Tanintharyi went unanswered Thursday. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs announced Wednesday that the number of people displaced by violence in Myanmar had ballooned to 866,000 from 346,000 prior to the coup. It said most of the refugees are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, but the junta has yet to announce any plans to address the problem. Written by Joshua Lipes.
- [Refugee camps short of food, medicine in Myanmar’s Kayah state](https://ij-reportika.com/refugee-camps-short-of-food-medicine-in-myanmars-kayah-state/): Villagers displaced by fighting in Myanmar’s war-torn Kayah state are running short of badly needed food and medicine, with children and the elderly hardest hit in the camps set up to shelter them, sources in the region say. Children are now suffering from dengue fever and diarrhea in the eastern part of Kayah’s Loikaw township, where around 4,000 refugees now live in IDP camps, a relief worker at one camp, told RFA on Friday. “The main problem we are facing here now is the shortage of medicine,” the worker named Aung Naing said. “In another nearby camp, there is the flu. That is very common. And then there are the gastroenteritis cases,” he added. “We are now seeing slight changes in the symptoms, with kids showing traces of blood in their vomit. There’s a lot of that happening,” Aung Naing said. Elderly refugees also lack medicine for high blood pressure, diabetes and heart problems, and painkillers, saline water and medicines for fevers are now urgently needed in the camps, he said. Shipments of medicine are now restricted in Kayah state, where People’s Defense Forces are clashing with forces of the military junta that overthrew civilian rule in Myanmar in a Feb. 1, 2021 coup, a spokesman for the Karenni Human Rights Group said. The prices of medicine have also risen in local markets because of shortages, the spokesman named Banya said. “We have absolutely no ability to produce medicine here, and we have to buy mainly from outside. The prices here have more than doubled, and there is only a trickle of international aid,” he said. The UN refugee agency and World Food Program provide assistance to the camps mainly for food, with no help given for medical needs, he said. “Many people in the camps have been living here for months or even years, and they are becoming weak,” Banya said. “There is no proper health care for pregnant women and young mothers, and refugees are facing even more health challenges because they have no access to vaccines.” Refugees in &#8216;a very bad situation&#8217; A spokesman for the Progressive Karenni People’s Force, which also helps war refugees, said that at least six people have died in the camps where the group works due to shortages of medicine and food. “Medicines are badly needed, and there has recently been a shortage of rice and dried rations. Some of the refugees are in a very bad situation,” the spokesman said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “We have seen people die in some IDP camps because they didn’t have enough medicine. And because transportation has been restricted on the roads, it is also hard now to move from place to place or provide comprehensive health care,” he said. Many in the camps now survive only by eating edible leaves and roots found in surrounding forests, the spokesman added. In an Aug. 3 statement, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said it is facing difficulties in providing food and medicine to war victims in Myanmar because of restrictions imposed by the country’s military. Calls seeking comment from Myanmar military spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun and the junta spokesman for Kayah state rang unanswered on Friday. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane for RFA Burmese. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [China ends live-fire missile testing near Taiwan early amid protests from Japan, US](https://ij-reportika.com/china-ends-live-fire-missile-testing-near-taiwan-early-amid-protests-from-japan-us/): China&#8217;s People&#8217;s Liberation Army (PLA) appeared to have ended live-fire missile tests around Taiwan after just a few hours, amid international criticism and disappointment on domestic social media on Friday. The missile tests were part of an intensive round of PLA military exercises around Taiwan scheduled from Aug. 4-7, and their conclusion was viewed by online Little Pink nationalist commentators as disappointing. The drills and incursions by Chinese ships and planes into Taiwan&#8217;s waters are continuing, however. &#8220;Does this mean they won&#8217;t fire any more over the next couple of days?&#8221; wrote @Fengyun_is_back, while others quipped that the army is done &#8220;frying fish,&#8221; a slang reference to saber-rattling directed at Taiwan. &#8220;Did they only have so many missiles, and did they fire them all at once?&#8221; one user commented. Current affairs commentator Zhao Qing said he was surprised that the PLA had announced an end to missile tests, in a move that appeared hasty. &#8220;It lasted just two hours and 22 minutes from the launch of the PLA&#8217;s first missile,&#8221; Zhao said. &#8220;I was really surprised by how short that was. I thought the live-fire missile launches would go on for 10 hours or more.&#8221; &#8220;That was really unexpected. Five more missiles missed [their targets] and landed in Japanese waters, and they stopped the exercise after Japan protested,&#8221; Zhao said. Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi said five of the PLA&#8217;s ballistic missiles landed in Japan’s territorial waters from between 3:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. local time on Aug. 4. The Rocket Force under the Eastern Theatre Command of China&#8217;s People&#8217;s Liberation Army (PLA) conducts conventional missile tests into the waters off the eastern coast of Taiwan, from an undisclosed location in this August 4, 2022 handout released on August 5, 2022. Credit: Eastern Theatre Command/Handout via Reuters Some blockades lifted Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Friday condemned the missile launches, calling it &#8220;a serious issue that affects our national security and the safety of our citizens.&#8221; &#8220;China&#8217;s actions &#8230; have had a serious impact on the peace and stability of our region and the international community,&#8221; he told reporters after having breakfast with U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. &#8220;I told her that we have called on [China] to immediately cancel the military exercises.&#8221; Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying responded that China and Japan have never formally delimited the maritime area in question, so the missiles couldn&#8217;t be said to have landed in Japanese waters. Meanwhile, blockades have apparently been lifted in at least three of the six maritime areas used for military exercises, Zhao said. &#8220;Only the Chinese coastal waters to the west of Taiwan remain blocked,&#8221; he said, citing a shipping tracker. &#8220;The eastern side of the island is open to shipping, with military exercises completed on that side.&#8221; &#8220;The shipping tracker website shows no information about any military warnings, and the ships are sailing there as normal,&#8221; Zhao said. A current affairs commentator surnamed Li said the abrupt end to the missile firings suggested something had gone wrong. &#8220;Their exercise plan was likely made a long time beforehand,&#8221; Li said. &#8220;The exercise was announced as three days in length, but it only took three hours.&#8221; &#8220;There must be external factors in play [possibly because] the exercise was exposing them, because U.S. military intelligence collection capabilities are very strong,&#8221; he said. &#8220;For example [they may now know about] their launch technology, performance and technical parameters of those missiles, meaning they would be making fools of themselves by firing them,&#8221; Li said. &#8216;Major escalation&#8217; Reports have also emerged of a personnel change on the first day of the military exercises around Taiwan. A report on a government website in the eastern city of Ningbo said a local official had met with Wang Zhongcai, deputy commander and naval commander of the PLA&#8217;s Eastern Theater. That post had previously been reported in the state-backed news site The Paper as being held by Mei Wen. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a news conference in Phnom Penh on Friday that China&#8217;s launch of missiles into Japan&#8217;s exclusive economic zone represented a &#8220;major escalation&#8221; of the situation. He said the situation had led to a &#8220;vigorous communication” during East Asia Summit meetings in the Cambodian capital. &#8220;[I said that] they should not use the visit as a pretext for war, escalation, for provocative actions, that there is no possible justification for what they’ve done,&#8221; Blinken said, adding that he had also called for an end to the military action in and around the Taiwan Strait. A military scholar who gave only the surname Li said the five missiles that landed in Japanese waters had exposed weaknesses in the PLA&#8217;s missile launch technology. &#8220;Their missile technology is relatively outdated, as it relies on a U.S.-made civilian GPS positioning technology for guidance,&#8221; Li said. &#8220;The Dongfang-15 was &#8230; developed for use against the former Soviet Union, with very similar technology to that of the U.S. at the time,&#8221; he said. &#8220;[Their] more recently developed missiles could have been even more inaccurate.&#8221; Yang Haiying, a professor at Shizuoka University in Japan, said the Japanese government has lodged a strong protest with China and canceled a planned meeting between the two countries&#8217; foreign ministers. &#8220;This year was supposed to see celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the normalization of relations between China and Japan, but those five missiles have made it impossible to celebrate,&#8221; Yang told RFA. &#8220;There is no way of knowing now if the missiles&#8217; targeting was intentional or not,&#8221; he said.  Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- ['We never expected that after all that, there would be such a cruel outcome'](https://ij-reportika.com/we-never-expected-that-after-all-that-there-would-be-such-a-cruel-outcome/): The daughter of an outspoken Chinese poet who called on ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping to step down has hit out at an &#8220;unjust and cruel&#8221; prison sentence handed down to her father. Zhang Yiran, currently living in the United States, made a short video outlining the details of her father&#8217;s case. &#8220;Hi everyone. I&#8217;m Zhang Yiran, Lu Yang&#8217;s daughter,&#8221; she said. &#8220;My father was sentenced to the cruel punishment of six years&#8217; imprisonment for posting a video to social media calling on Chinese leader Xi Jinping to step down.&#8221; &#8220;He was taken away by police on May 1, 2020, and tried in secret on Sept. 15, 2020 by the Liaocheng Intermediate People&#8217;s Court on charges of &#8216;incitement to subvert state power&#8217;,&#8221; Zhang said, adding that he was then held for a further two years and three months at the Liaocheng Detention Center, while his family waited and waited for news of the outcome. In China&#8217;s criminal justice system, sentencing is usually announced within six weeks of a trial&#8217;s conclusion. &#8220;Recently, on July 26, 2022, he was sentenced in secret to six years&#8217; imprisonment and three years&#8217; deprivation of political rights,&#8221; Zhang said. &#8220;The sentence was communicated verbally to my mother by the court, which refused to give her the court judgment, saying they contained state secrets.&#8221; They also told her at that time that Lu had said he wanted to appeal, she said. &#8220;This is an unfair, unjust and cruel sentence, and I, my mother, and my grandmother, who is bed-bound with illness and in her nineties, waited and suffered for two years to hear it,&#8221; Zhang said. &#8220;We never expected that after all that, there would be such a cruel outcome.&#8221; She said her mother had hired a lawyer from the Haiyang Law Firm in Shandong to prepare the case for appeal at the Shandong Provincial High Court. &#8220;I urge all people of conscience to support my father, and call on the Chinese authorities to undo this injustice and give him back his rights,&#8221; Zhang said. Zhang Guiqi, 49, who is widely known by his penname Lu Yang, pleaded not guilty to the charges, which came after he posted a video of himself calling on Xi to step down, and calling for &#8220;an end to the CCP dictatorship.&#8221; Lu Yang was among a group of rights activists who went to the Shandong Jianzhu University in January 2017 to support a former professor there, Deng Xiangchao, who was targeted by Maoist protesters after he retweeted a post satirizing late supreme leader Mao Zedong. The Shandong authorities terminated Deng&#8217;s teaching contract after the incident, while Maoist flash mobs attacked Deng&#8217;s supporters at the scene, including Yang. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Five militia members killed in accidental mine explosion](https://ij-reportika.com/five-militia-members-killed-in-accidental-mine-explosion/): A hand-made mine exploded as it was being planted, killing five members of the Wetlet Township People’s Defense Force (PDF) in Sagaing region, according to a militia member who declined to be named for security reasons, The PDF member said the blast happened on Thursday beside the Mandalay-Shwe Bo road. They were planning to use it against junta troops traveling along the road. “Six people planted the mine but five of them died and one was injured,” he said. “We cremated them yesterday. We are giving medical treatment to the one who is injured.” The PDF member added that his group relies on hand-made mines due to a lack of weaponry. The names and ages of the five dead men are not yet known. RFA has not been able to confirm the incident, and the military council has not released any statement on it. A lack of weapons is slowing the efforts of PDFs in Sagaing region to fight back against junta forces by using mine attacks and ambushes. General Min Aung Hlaing, the leader of the Military Council, said in a speech on Monday that a total of 3,483 civilians, including monks, government employees and administrative officials have been killed by PDFs during the 18 months since the military coup. Data from the Thai-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma) show that, as of Thursday, 2,157 anti-coup democracy activists and civilians had been killed and 11,894 people arrested by the police and the military forces.
- [Over 450 protests in China: No coverage in mainstream media](https://ij-reportika.com/rising-peoples-protests-in-china-no-coverage-in-mainstream-media/): The number of people's protests in China is rising alarmingly. Yet, there is little to no coverage in the mainstream media of these protests. China has a massive influence on media houses around the world. Investigative Journalism Reportika presents an in-depth investigative report compiled by our East Asia analyst Jenny Kin Jacobs on "The rising people's protests in China".
- [USS Ronald Reagan strike group monitoring China's military exercises off Taiwan](https://ij-reportika.com/uss-ronald-reagan-strike-group-monitoring-chinas-military-exercises-off-taiwan/): The U.S. is keeping a close watch on China’s military drills around Taiwan and may take further action, with the USS Ronald Reagan carrier strike group remaining on station to monitor the situation, the U.S. National Security Spokesman John Kirby said late Thursday. On Friday, day two of the three-day military exercise held in response to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) dispatched “multiple” military aircraft and warships to the Taiwan Strait, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said in a statement. Some of the aircraft and vessels crossed the median line dividing the Taiwan Strait, the ministry added, calling the PLA drills &#8220;highly provocative&#8221; and vowing to “respond appropriately.” Before that, the defense ministry said the Chinese military also flew four drones over Taiwan’s outlying islands of Kinmen on Thursday night. Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen said China firing missiles near busy international air and sea routes around Taiwan on Thursday was “an irresponsible act” and called on Beijing “to act with reason and exercise restraint.”  An F/A-18E Super Hornet prepares to launch on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan in the Philippine Sea, Aug. 4, 2022. CREDIT: U.S. Navy U.S “will take further steps” China has decided to sanction U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her immediate family for her stopover in Taiwan earlier this week, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Friday. Pelosi is the most senior U.S. official to visit Taiwan in 25 years. “They may try to keep Taiwan from visiting or participating in other places, but they will not isolate Taiwan by preventing us to travel there,” news agencies quoted the U.S. House Speaker as saying on Friday in Tokyo, the final leg of her Asia tour. The U.S. National Security Spokesperson John Kirby said at a press briefing on Thursday that the Biden administration condemns China’s actions. “China has chosen to overreact and use the speaker&#8217;s visit as a pretext to increase provocative military activity in and around the Taiwan Strait,” he said, adding: “We also expect that these actions will continue and that the Chinese will continue to react in coming days.” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has directed the USS Ronald Reagan carrier strike group to “remain on station in the general area to monitor the situation,” Kirby said. The carrier strike group is currently in the Philippines Sea and two big deck amphibious ships, USS Tripoli and USS America, are on their way to the east of Taiwan, the U.S. Naval Institute reported. Besides conducting “standard” air and maritime transits through the Taiwan Strait in the next few weeks, the U.S. “will take further steps to demonstrate our commitment to the security of our allies in the region” including Japan, the National Security spokesperson said. Washington, however, postponed a long-planned test of an Air Force Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile to avoid escalating tensions with Beijing.  The U.S. military seems to have expanded aerial ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) operations around Taiwan on Friday, a Beijing-based think-tank that has been tracking regional military movements said. The South China Sea Probing Initiative (SCSPI) said it has spotted at least seven U.S. reconnaissance aircraft, supported by six military aerial refueling aircraft KC-135 in the area. An MH-60R anti-submarine Seahawk helicopter was also seen flying close to the southwest of Taiwan before moving north towards Japan’s Okinawa island, according to data provided by the flight tracking website Flightradar 24. A map showing where Chinese missiles are believed to have landed in Taiwan&#8217;s waters and Japan&#8217;s Exclusive Economic Zone. CREDIT: Japanese Defense Ministry Japan’s concerns On Friday morning, about 10 Chinese navy ships and 20 military aircraft “briefly crossed” the median line – the tacit maritime border between Taiwan and China’s mainland &#8211; Reuters quoted an anonymous source close to the matter as saying. China’s state media meanwhile said that the PLA “has sent an aircraft carrier group featuring at least one nuclear-powered submarine to the ongoing drills” around Taiwan for its first carrier deterrence exercise. The Global Times quoted Zhang Junshe, a senior research fellow at the Naval Research Academy which is affiliated with the PLA, who said on Thursday at least one nuclear-powered submarine has been deployed. Zhang did not name the aircraft carrier. China has two carriers in operation – the Liaoning and the Shandong. The third aircraft carrier, Fujian, is near completion.  Taiwanese media reported that the two operating aircraft carriers have left their home ports of Qingdao in Shandong province, and Sanya in Hainan province, but this information cannot be independently verified. On Thursday Japan said it had lodged a diplomatic protest after five ballistic missiles fired by China appear to have landed inside Japan&#8217;s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), which stretches 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) from the outer limits of Japan&#8217;s territorial seas. &#8220;To have five Chinese missiles fall within Japan&#8217;s EEZ like this is a first,&#8221; Japanese defense minister Nobuo Kishi told reporters. Japan’s Ministry of Defense provided a detailed report of the Chinese missile launches and a map showing the missiles’ projected routes. It appears that four missiles, launched from mainland China, flew over Taiwan’s capital, Taipei. “This is the second time that Chinese missiles flew over Taiwan’s main island, the previous time was in 1996,” said Shen Ming-Shih, acting deputy chief executive officer at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, a government think-tank. That time, Chinese missile tests and live-fire exercises led to the U.S. intervention in the so-called Third Taiwan Strait Crisis.  This time, an American involvement is yet to be seen but on Wednesday the U.S., together with six other developed countries, including Japan and the European Union, released a G7 Foreign Ministers’ Statement on the situation in the Taiwan Strait. The G7 countries expressed their concerns over “threatening actions” by China which risk “increasing tensions and destabilizing the region.” China responded by canceling a pre-scheduled meeting on Thursday afternoon between its foreign minister Wang Yi and his Japanese...
- [Three Hanoi-based activists appeal their sentences this month](https://ij-reportika.com/three-hanoi-based-activists-appeal-their-sentences-this-month/): The Higher People’s Court in the Vietnamese capital plans to hear appeals from three famous activists: blogger Le Van Dung, also known as Le Dung Vova, and land rights activists Trinh Ba Phuong and Nguyen Thi Tam. Independent journalist Le Van Dung’s hearing will be on August 16. The next day the court will rule on Trinh and Nguyen’s sentences. Dung, 52, was sentenced to five years in prison and five years’ probation for “conducting anti-state propaganda.” He was accused of &#8220;making and uploading on social media 12 clips with propaganda content against the State, defaming the government, spreading fabricated news, causing confusion among the people and insulting the honor and reputation of leaders of the Party and State,” between March 2017 and September 2018. Dung did not deny posting the clips but said they told the truth. He protested his innocence under the Vietnamese Constitution and international human rights conventions that Vietnam has signed Dung’s wife, Bui Thi Hue, told RFA she hoped the appeal court would release her husband. Trinh Ba Phuong, 37, and Nguyen Thi Tam, 50, were both arrested on June 24, 2020 and charged with &#8220;conducting anti-state propaganda.” Phuong&#8217;s mother, Can Thi Theu, and his younger brother, Trinh Ba Tu, were arrested on the same day after complaining on social media about a police raid on land rights protesters from Dong Tam commune where they lived. Three policemen died in clashes with locals and commune leader Le Dinh Kinh, who was leading the land petitioners, was killed by the police. Theu and her son,  Trinh Ba Tu, were both sentenced to eight years in prison and three years of house arrest. In December the Hanoi People&#8217;s Court sentenced Phuong to 10 years in prison and five years of probation. Tam was sentenced to six years in prison and three years of probation. This is not Tam’s first conviction. She was imprisoned twice for fighting against land expropriation by the Duong Noi commune government. In 2008 she was charged with &#8220;disturbing public order&#8221; and in 2014 she was convicted for &#8220;resisting public officials.&#8221; Phuong’s wife, Do Thi Thu, told RFA she was extremely dissatisfied with the original trial. “My husband and our family only spoke the truth about the land and the truth about the people of Dong Tam, yet they sentenced my husband to 10 years in prison and my mother-in-law and brother-in-law were imprisoned for eight years.” “This judgment is absurd. I have no hope for the upcoming appeal hearing. I also do not expect the court to reduce my husband&#8217;s sentence.” “I just hope that this communist dictatorship will soon collapse so the Vietnamese people will suffer less and have more freedom and then my husband and other prisoners will be freed.” During the original trial, Phuong accused Hanoi police investigators of torturing him many times during the interrogation, hitting his genitals, causing him great pain. Theu and her two sons won awards from the Vietnam Human Rights Network last year. The U.S.-based organization recognizes activists and organizations in Vietnam “who have made their mark in the inexorable march towards freedom, human rights and democracy of the Vietnamese people.”
- [Court of Appeal reduces journalist’s prison term by 18 months](https://ij-reportika.com/court-of-appeal-reduces-journalists-prison-term-by-18-months/): Former journalist Nguyen Hoai Nam has had his jail term slashed from three-and-a-half years to two. An appellate court in Ho Chi Minh City made the decision on Thursday, according to state media. Nguyen used to work for major media organizations such as Vietnam Television, Young People and the Ho Chi Minh City Law Newspaper. During his work he uncovered corruption at the Vietnam Inland Waterways Administration and provided the Ministry of Security’s Investigation Police with documents and data on the case. Based on the information three officials were charged with “abusing position and power while on duty” and 14 other people were accused of bribery but weren’t charged. Nguyen disagreed with the police’s finding, calling the handling of the case unsatisfactory. He posted his opinions on Facebook, saying the police “covered up and ignored offenses.” The authorities said his posts “slandered and insulted the prestige of organizations as well as the honor and dignity of individuals.” He was arrested on April 2 this year and sentenced three days later for “abusing the rights to freedom and democracy to infringe on the State’s interests and the legitimate interests of organizations and individuals” under Article 331 of Vietnam’s 2015 Penal Code, a charge frequently used against whistle-blowers.. Translated by Anna Vu
- [Families of Myanmar’s death row inmates live in fear of execution](https://ij-reportika.com/families-of-myanmars-death-row-inmates-live-in-fear-of-execution/): The families of 77 political activists sentenced to death by Myanmar’s military junta say they live in fear that their loved ones will be executed without warning after the military regime hanged four prominent prisoners of conscience. Frustration with the junta boiled over last week after it put to death veteran democracy activist Ko Jimmy and former opposition lawmaker Phyo Zeya Thaw, as well as activists Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw, despite a direct appeal from Hun Sen to Min Aung Hlaing. The executions prompted protests in Myanmar and condemnation abroad. On Thursday, the daughter of a 56-year-old former junta soldier sentenced to death for allegedly helping pro-democracy People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries told RFA Burmese that she can’t bear to think that her father might be executed at any point without her knowing. &#8220;As a family member, there is no way I could accept that my father might die all of a sudden,” she said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “They gave him the death sentence, but did he deserve it? He had no involvement [in the anti-junta protests]. I think it is completely unfair that he was given the death penalty just for planning to get involved.” She claimed that her father was arrested by the military without having committed any crime and was sentenced to death by a military court without having the opportunity to defend himself legally. She urged the junta to let her father serve out a life sentence in prison, noting that he is a veteran soldier who spent many years in the military. Prior to last week, only three people had been executed in Myanmar in the past 50 years: student leader Salai Tin Maung Oo, who helped organize protests over the government’s refusal to grant a state funeral to former U.N. Secretary-General U Thant in 1974; Capt. Ohn Kyaw Myint, who was found guilty of an assassination plot on the life of dictator Gen. Ne Win; and Zimbo, a North Korean agent who bombed the Martyrs’ Mausoleum in Yangon in an attempted assassination of the visiting South Korean President Chin Doo-hwan in 1983. In the more than 30 years between Myanmar’s 1988 democratic uprising and the military coup of Feb. 1, 2021, death sentences have been ordered, but no judicial executions were carried out. Thailand’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) has said at least 77 people are currently sentenced to death in Myanmar. From left: Activists Ko Jimmy, Phyo Zeya Thaw, Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw were executed by the Myanmar junta in late July. Credit: RFA Legality of execution Legal experts have noted that only the country’s democratically elected head of state has the right to order an execution under existing laws. Aung Thein, a High Court lawyer from Yangon, said coup leader Sr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing considers himself Myanmar’s head of state and that carrying out the death penalty is his right. “[The junta hasn’t] disposed of the 2008 [military-drafted] Constitution. It has only been suspended,” he said. “Since they have said they are operating according to the 2008 Constitution, [Min Aung Hlaing] believes the responsibility of head of state falls to him. That&#8217;s why he might be under the impression that he can order executions.” A lawyer from Yangon, who asked not to be named for security reasons, said that the hanging of a person considered a political challenger to the military appears more like “revenge” than anything legally justifiable. “Things have gone from political repression to military repression,” the lawyer said. “When a rivalry becomes intense, the execution of the opposition by a rival organization can be seen more as revenge than legal action.” Junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun said the four activists executed last week were “perpetrators of terrorism” and were “judged according to the law.” He told a press conference in the capital Naypyidaw a few days after the executions that ideally the junta would have killed the four more than once. Aung Myo Min, human rights minister for Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG), said the unlawful arrest and execution of the opposition under unjust laws is the same thing as “murder in prison.” He expressed concern that last week’s executions would lead to more “official” killings in the country’s prisons. “For a military regime which sees the people as the enemy and kills them wherever they like, executing people in prison is not very unusual. In fact, this is not the death penalty. This is murder in prison, as it is based on unjust laws and unsubstantiated cases and verdicts. After these executions, we worry that the junta may continue, using it as a precedent.” A mother whose son was recently sentenced to death in Yangon’s Insein prison told RFA she can only pray that no other family members of those on death row be forced to experience such a tragedy. “It&#8217;s not good in my heart. I don&#8217;t know how to describe it,” she said. “There is anxiety because I&#8217;m afraid [another execution] will happen. Nobody wants that to happen. I’m praying that it won&#8217;t. &#8230; I pray for the speedy release of these young kids.&#8221; ASEAN criticism The current rotating chairman of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, told a meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers in Phnom Penh on Wednesday that if political prisoners continue to be executed in Myanmar, he would be forced to “reconsider ASEAN’s role” in mediating the country’s political crisis. Under an agreement Min Aung Hlaing made with ASEAN in April 2021 during an emergency meeting on the situation in Myanmar, known as the Five-Point Consensus (5PC), the bloc’s member nations called for an end to violence, constructive dialogue among all parties, and the mediation of such talks by a special ASEAN envoy. The 5PC also calls for the provision of ASEAN-coordinated humanitarian assistance and a visit to Myanmar by an ASEAN delegation to meet with all parties. Even Min...
- [Mining, fishing become deadly side jobs for cash-strapped North Korean farmers](https://ij-reportika.com/mining-fishing-become-deadly-side-jobs-for-cash-strapped-north-korean-farmers/): Cash-strapped collective farms in North Korea are sending workers to the mines and fisheries to raise operating funds to meet food production targets — a policy that cost the lives of 10 farmers in a gold mine collapse last month, sources inside the country said. Ten 10 farm workers were sent by a cooperative farm in South Hwanghae province’s Ongjin county to work as a “cash-making group” in a gold mine operated by the provincial state security department, a resident of the province told RFA. “Even the miners are reluctant to work there because the tunnels are deep and dangerous,” she said. “Even so, the cash-making group from the cooperative farms went in there to mine gold.” The farmers were sent to a poorly supported section of the gold mine. It collapsed, and all 10 were killed, including a man in his 30s with a newborn at home, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. The state security authorities that run the mine said it would not compensate the farmers’ families, asserting that the farm workers entered the gold mine voluntarily, she said. State-run farms in other parts of North Korea are also forcing their laborers to go far afield to raise funds, with no money coming from the central government. “Cooperative farms are struggling to raise agricultural funds to increase their agricultural crops, but the prospects for farming this year are not bright,” said a resident of North Hamgyong province. “The reality is that there is no government support and measures for farming. Poor farmworkers go out of their way to earn money, and some even lose their lives.” The Chikha cooperative farm in North Hamgyong province’s Chongam district organized a “cash-making group” and “sericulture group” to earn extra money, he said. “This year, the money from the farm&#8217;s cash-making group is being diverted into various kinds of hard work,” said the resident, who declined to provide his name for safety reasons. “The group is jumping to take any money-making work such as gold mining and fishing.” At the Chikha cooperative farm, an average of five farmers in each working group catch fish in the East Sea, also known as the Sea of Japan, or gather gold from a nearby mine, he said. &#8216;A tragic incident&#8217; Agricultural production in North Korea historically has been decimated by natural disasters such as floods, the lack of fertile land, and government mismanagement. As a consequence, the country has come to rely on foreign aid for food, with widespread malnutrition and starvation deaths reported. But a border lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic preventing nearly all trade with neighboring China and international sanctions over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program have exacerbated North Korea’s food shortages. “Many cooperative farms have ‘cash-making groups’ these days,” said the resident of South Hwanghae province. “The government does not guarantee the supply of agricultural materials that are supposed to be supplied, so the farms had to organize a ‘cash-making group’ to earn money to support [themselves],” said the source who requested anonymity for safety reasons. Four or five workers from each working group of 35 farmers are selected to help raise money to pay for fertilizers and pesticides, and to pay bribes to gain favor with Workers’ Party of Korea officials who oversee the farm, the resident said. Each member of the group must earn an average of 500 Chinese yuan (U.S. $74). The South Hwanghae resident said the struggle to raise cash led to the farmers’ deaths last month. “The farmers in the cash-making group believed that the gold mines that were dug during the Japanese colonial period had the most gold, so they entered a mine with weak pillars and suffered a catastrophe all at once,” the South Hwanghae resident said. Japan ruled the Korean peninsula as a colony from 1910-45. “This is a tragic incident,” she added. “Farm workers who had to farm in the field died instead as they were entering the mine to make money.” Translated by Claire Shinyoung O. Lee and Leejin J. Chung for RFA Korean. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [China warns Tibetans not to post birthday wishes online for exiled abbot](https://ij-reportika.com/china-warns-tibetans-not-to-post-birthday-wishes-online-for-exiled-abbot/): The Chinese government has ramped up restrictions ahead of the birthday of a preeminent Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader, calling on local leaders in two Tibetan regions to prevent people from posting his photo or well wishes online, sources with knowledge of the situation said Thursday. Authorities have threatened to arrest Tibetans in the Ngaba and Dzoge regions who defy the order by posting messages on Aug. 8, the 80th birthday of the 11th Kyabje Kirti Rinpoche (honorific) Lobsang Tenzin Jigme Yeshe Gyamtso Rinpoche. Rinpoche is the chief abbot in exile of the Kirti Monastery, one of the most important and influential monasteries in Tibet. “The government has warned of such activity by Tibetans, and individuals will be arrested and severely punished if found defying it,” said a Tibetan source inside Tibet who declined to be identified so as to speak freely.  Chinese authorities restricted monks from the Taktsang Lhamo Kirti Monastery in Dzoge county and the Kirti Monastery in Ngaba county, both in Sichuan province&#8217;s Ngaba Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, from celebrating Rinpoche’s birthday in 2021. The areas are heavily populated with ethnic Tibetans. Monks were not allowed to leave their monasteries, and gatherings were not permitted during that time.  “Last year Tibetans inside Tibet anticipated restrictions and scrutiny from the Chinese government on celebrating the 80th birthday of the Kriti Rinpoche, so they held back,” said a Tibetan who lives in exile. “But this year, Tibetans living in exile and inside Tibet are looking forward to celebrating Rinpoche’s birthday and offering tenshug,” the source said, referring to a long-life prayer offering made to spiritual teachers. “But we are seeing restrictions and scrutiny in Ngaba and Dzoge.”  The Kirti Monastery has been the site of the majority of self-immolations by monks who oppose China’s repressive policies in Tibet. “In one post circulating among some online Tibetan chat groups, members have been warned not to talk about the Kirti Rinpoche or his birthday and to be careful,” the source in exile said.  Restrictions are greater in the Ngaba region now also because of the upcoming 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party later this year, said the Tibetan in exile. Rinpoche was born in Thewo Takmoe Gang in the Amdo region of Tibet on the northeastern part of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. When he was a child, leading lamas recognized him as the reincarnation of 10th Kirti Rinpoche, and he was placed at Taktsang Lhamo Kirti Monastery in 1946. Rinpoche went with the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, into exile to Dharamsala, India, in 1959, following the invasion of Tibet by China a decade earlier. He undertook advanced studies in Buddhist religion and philosophy in India, and took higher vows of Buddhist monkhood from the Dalai Lama in 1962.  From the late 1980s onwards, Rinpoche held various positions in the Central Tibetan Administration, the Tibetan government in exile.  Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Hong Kong toes party line on Taiwan as Chinese diplomat threatens 're-education'](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-toes-party-line-on-taiwan-as-chinese-diplomat-threatens-re-education/): Senior officials in Hong Kong&#8217;s new administration have been lining up to show their loyalty to the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) by condemning U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi&#8217;s visit to Taiwan, as U.K. lawmakers were reportedly planning their own Taiwan trip. &#8220;The Hong Kong &#8230; government has unwavering determination in and a clear stance against any advocacy of &#8216;Taiwan independence&#8217;, and fully supports the central government&#8217;s resolute determination in safeguarding national sovereignty and territorial integrity,&#8221; Hong Kong chief executive John Lee said in a statement on the government&#8217;s website. He said Pelosi&#8217;s visit had gambled with the well-being of Taiwan&#8217;s 23 million nationals, calling it &#8220;extremely selfish.&#8221; A government spokesman echoed the phrasing used by Chinese officials all over the world. &#8220;Pelosi&#8217;s visit to Taiwan constitutes gross interference in China&#8217;s internal affairs, seriously undermines China&#8217;s sovereignty and territorial integrity [and] greatly threatens the peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,&#8221; the spokesman said. The statements were rapidly followed by similar statements from the city&#8217;s justice secretary Paul Lam, who said it was the &#8220;sacred duty&#8221; of all Chinese nationals to ensure Taiwan &#8212; which has never been ruled by the CCP nor formed part of the People&#8217;s Republic of China &#8212; to &#8220;unify&#8221; with China. Lee&#8217;s second-in-command Chan Kwok-ki called Pelosi&#8217;s visit &#8220;wanton,&#8221; and vowed to lead the administration &#8220;to fully support and facilitate the country in safeguarding its national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and resolutely handle Taiwan-related matters.&#8221; Chiang Min-yen, a Taiwanese citizen who was a student in Hong Kong during the 2014 Umbrella movement, said the statements from the government marked a new low in relations between Hong Kong and Taiwan, which has been a vocal critic on an ongoing crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong under the national security law. &#8220;The Hong Kong government has to go a step further and make a positive effort [through these statements] to show loyalty to Beijing,&#8221; Chiang told RFA. &#8220;This is actually a very dangerous sign, because it shows that Xi Jinping&#8217;s wolf warrior diplomacy directly affects and extends to Hong Kong&#8217;s handling of foreign relations, including those with Taiwan.&#8221; &#8220;[This] will actually damage Hong Kong&#8217;s reputation as an international financial center &#8230; something that Beijing is very afraid of.&#8221; Former Uyghur student leader Wuer Kaixi, shown in this May 2019 photos, said &#8220;China today is not only not worried about going against the values shared by the rest of the world, but is proud of it and normalizes bullying, which is incredible.&#8221; Credit: AP Global offensive Chinese officials and pro-CCP commentators have launched a global media offensive around Pelosi&#8217;s Taiwan visit, claiming that the island is an &#8220;inseparable&#8221; part of Chinese territory. The Chinese ambassador to France, Liu Shaye, warned that the CCP may need to impose &#8220;re-education&#8221; on the island following &#8220;unification,&#8221; suggesting that China is already planning to export its repressive form of ideological brainwashing beyond its borders. In an interview with France&#8217;s BFM TV, Lu blamed the lack of receptiveness to China&#8217;s insistence on &#8220;unification&#8221; among Taiwan&#8217;s 23 million people on &#8220;extreme propaganda&#8221; by its ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Kazakh citizen journalist Mirbek Serambek, who is currently in exile in France, told RFA that &#8220;re-education&#8221; likely refers to the mass internment camps used to &#8220;re-educate&#8221; Uyghurs in the northwestern region of Xinjiang. That policy is part of a CCP assimilation program in Xinjiang that has been branded genocide by some Western governments and legal experts. &#8220;It shows that the Chinese government&#8217;s re-education policy is unlikely to change for the time being, and that it was likely on strict orders from [CCP leader] Xi Jinping,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Xi Jinping will take a more radical approach following the Pelosi incident, both internally and externally.&#8221; &#8220;The Chinese government may set up re-education centers in or near Hong Kong over the next few years,&#8221; Serambek said. &#8220;It will keep on oppressing other groups if Western countries don&#8217;t step up sanctions.&#8221; Wuer Kaixi, the Uyghur former student leader of the 1989 pro-democracy movement on Tiananmen Square, said Liu is in the mold of a &#8220;wolf warrior&#8221; diplomat, and is reacting against Washington&#8217;s new-found determination not to appease China over Taiwan. &#8220;China today is not only not worried about going against the values shared by the rest of the world, but is proud of it and normalizes bullying, which is incredible,&#8221; Wuer told RFA. &#8220;It&#8217;s gotten to the point where &#8230; one of its ambassadors has spoken with pride of this domineering approach.&#8221; Zheng Zeguang, the Chinese ambassador to the UK, warned Britain not to &#8220;play with fire&#8221; with the U.S. amid reports British MPs plan to visit Taiwan, adding that &#8220;those who play with fire will set themselves on fire,&#8221; in file photo. Credit: Screengrab from the official website of the Chinese Embassy in the UK UK MPs to visit Taiwan An employee who answered the phone at the Chinese embassy in France declined to comment on Thursday. &#8220;I can&#8217;t answer you because I can&#8217;t get a hold of my superiors; you need to go through the proper channels,&#8221; the employee said. The embassy press office asked for questions to be emailed, but no reply had been received by the time of writing. Meanwhile, the Chinese ambassador to the U.K. warned members of parliament not to visit Taiwan, following a media report that there are plans in the pipeline for such a trip. &#8220;We call on the U.K. side to abide by its own commitments and not to underestimate the extreme sensitivity of the Taiwan issue or follow in the U.S.&#8217; footsteps and play with fire,&#8221; Zheng Zeguang told reporters. &#8220;Remember: those who play with fire get burnt,&#8221; he said. The Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee had originally planned to visit Taiwan in February this year, but the trip was postponed because a member of the delegation tested positive for COVID-19. In a report published on Aug. 3, Taiwan&#8217;s Central News Agency (CNA) quoted sources as saying that the delegation is expected to travel this fall Translated and edited...
- [Taiwan warns citizens to be cautious of going to China after activist arrest](https://ij-reportika.com/taiwan-warns-citizens-to-be-cautious-of-going-to-china-after-activist-arrest/): Authorities in Taiwan on Thursday warned the democratic island&#8217;s 23 million citizens not to travel to China unless absolutely necessary, after police in China&#8217;s Zhejiang announced the arrest of a Taiwanese national for &#8220;separatism.&#8221; Taiwan&#8217;s Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), which handles ties with China &#8220;urged Taiwanese citizens to assess the risks of visiting China,&#8221; following the arrest of Taiwanese activist Yang Chih-yuan on charges of &#8220;separatism,&#8221; the Central News Agency (CNA) reported. Yang, a 32-year-old pro-democracy campaigner and vice chairman of the independence-leaning Taiwanese National Party, was taken into custody by state security police in Zhejiang&#8217;s Wenzhou city on Aug. 3 on charges relating to his activities in support of Taiwanese independence, state broadcaster CCTV reported. &#8220;Taiwanese nationals should exercise caution when traveling to China given the potential risks to their personal freedom and security,&#8221; CNA quoted the MAC as saying. The MAC has called on China to stick to a cross-straits anti-crime agreement, but has yet to receive notification of his arrest through official channels, CNA said. &#8220;Yang&#8217;s arrest has been viewed in some quarters as retaliation for U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi&#8217;s recently concluded trip to Taiwan,&#8221; the agency reported. Seeing Pelosi&#8217;s visit to Taiwan as a threat to China&#8217;s sovereignty claims, Beijing has taken a number of countermeasures, including banning the import of certain food from Taiwan and scheduling live-fire drills in six maritime areas in the vicinity of the island from Aug. 4-7, it said. Tourists look on as a Chinese military helicopter flies past Pingtan island, one of mainland China&#8217;s closest points to Taiwan, in Fujian province on August 4, 2022. Credit: AFP &#8216;Irrational actions&#8217; by the PRC It said at least two Taiwanese nationals, retired National Taiwan Normal University academic Shih Cheng-ping and independent scholar Cheng Yu-chin are currently also imprisoned in China on national security and espionage charges. Taiwan&#8217;s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) condemned Yang&#8217;s arrest as &#8220;a serious human rights violation.&#8221; &#8220;China, which claims to be a great power, has repeatedly abused its judicial system to detain Taiwanese people on the grounds of national security,&#8221; the party said in a statement widely reported in local media. &#8220;The CCP has resorted to a series of irrational actions in the past couple of days to exert extreme pressure on Taiwan via malicious bullying behavior, in a bid to sow fear among the Taiwanese people and force Taiwan to submit,&#8221; the DDP said. &#8220;Today they have stooped to using the personal freedom of a Taiwanese national for political blackmail &#8230; meaning that Taiwanese people in China could be arrested at any time as part of this red terror campaign,&#8221; it said. The Taiwan National Party was set up in July 2011 by former national policy adviser to the president Huang Hua, independence activist Kao Kin-lang, scholars Liu Chong-yee, Yang Chih-yuan and others. Exiled Chinese dissident Guo Baosheng, who is acquainted with Yang, said he was shocked by the news of his arrest. &#8220;I was shocked because he hated the CCP and swore that he would never go back to China unless it was China free,&#8221; Guo told RFA. Taiwanese activist Yang Chih-yuen, who was arrested by state security police in Zhejiang&#8217;s Wenzhou city on Aug 3, 2022. Credit: Yang Chih-yuen Ammunition in dispute over Pelosi Gao said the last contact he had with Yang was in May this year, adding that Yang had been less politically active since losing his bid for a New Taipei legislature seat in 2020. &#8220;He probably thought there was no risk and just went on over there,&#8221; Guo said. &#8220;Also, I am guessing some spy agents tricked him [to go there] by pretending to be [fellow activists] persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).&#8221; &#8220;He likes to befriend these dissidents,&#8221; he added. Guo said Yang could have been arrested a while ago, but Beijing is now using his case as ammunition in the row over Pelosi&#8217;s Taiwan visit, which has also prompted live-fire military exercises by the People&#8217;s Liberation Army (PLA), and the firing of missiles across the island. Another friend of Yang&#8217;s, Wang Yikai, said on his personal Facebook page that he knew that Yang had recently signed up for a Go tournament in Wenzhou. Aside from the military response, several government websites in Taiwan were attacked during Pelosi&#8217;s visit, with cybersecurity research institutes saying the attacks were likely launched by Chinese hackers. Beijing has slapped import bans on thousands of Taiwanese food products, while its Taiwan Affairs Office has sanctioned four Taiwanese companies labeled by Beijing as &#8220;pro-independence diehards.&#8221; Chen Kuide, executive chairman of the Princeton China Society, said all of these reactions were predictable. &#8220;For Pelosi to make this visit in such a formal and high-profile way has angered the CCP and caused a great loss of face,&#8221; Chen told RFA. &#8220;All of these things are being done to save face for the country and to restore the [Chinese] public&#8217;s good impression of their country,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They&#8217;ll do it for a while, and do it like they mean it, but really starting something with the U.S. military wouldn&#8217;t be a good idea, although possible.&#8221; Little Pinks a diversion A Shanghai resident surnamed Liu said that Pelosi&#8217;s visit had mobilized strong nationalistic sentiment among CCP supporters online, known as Little Pinks, with many calling for Pelosi&#8217;s plane to be shot down. But he said much of the online hype was a distraction technique designed to whip up populist support ahead of the 20th party congress later in the year. &#8220;Without such hot topics to divert public attention from domestic social conflicts, how can [CCP leader Xi Jinping] smoothly achieve another term at the 20th National Congress?&#8221; Liu said. Another Shanghai resident surnamed Wang agreed. &#8220;Most people know they wouldn&#8217;t start a war, but they were enjoying the excitement,&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;In the end, [China] softened its stance, and got a lot of online ridicule for that.&#8221; &#8220;Now, the topic has been banned from the internet.&#8221; MAC spokesman Chiu Chui-cheng said: &#8220;The people of...
- [China fires ballistic missiles into the sea off Taiwan](https://ij-reportika.com/china-fires-ballistic-missiles-into-the-sea-off-taiwan/): Unprecedented Chinese live-fire maritime drills got underway on Thursday with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) launching ballistic missiles into the waters around Taiwan, the Taiwanese defense ministry said. The Chinese military “launched a number of Dongfeng ballistic missiles into the waters surrounding northeastern and southwestern Taiwan at about 13:56 p.m.,” the ministry said without specifying the range. Matsu, Wuqiu, Dongyin and some other outlying islands have been put on heightened alert after the PLA fired long-range rockets in the surrounding areas, the ministry added. Before the launch, the PLA threatened to fire missiles over Taiwan and enter the island’s territorial waters for the first time, in a scenario that analysts describe as &#8216;The Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis.&#8217; Chinese military helicopters fly past Pingtan island, one of mainland China&#8217;s closest point from Taiwan, on August 4, 2022, ahead of massive military drills off Taiwan. CREDIT: AFP China’s ‘irrational action’ Chinese international state broadcaster CGTN said “military exercises and training activities including live-fire drills around Taiwan island” have begun. The PLA “conducted long-range live-fire shooting training in the Taiwan Straits on Thursday at around 1:00 p.m. and carried out precision strikes on specific areas in the eastern part of the Taiwan Straits,” CGTN added. The state-supported Global Times said the Chinese military “conducted long-range artillery live-fire shooting drills in the Taiwan Straits, striking targets on the eastern side of the Straits and achieving the expected outcome.” Taiwan’s defense ministry said it has activated relevant defense systems, and strengthened combat readiness.  “The Ministry of National Defense condemned this irrational action that undermines regional peace,” it said in a statement. The maritime drills at six locations around Taiwan, that started on Thursday and last until Sunday, are set to be larger in scale than those in 1996 during the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis, and also unprecedented in many ways. For the first time, Chinese troops are expected to enter the 12-nautical-mile (22 kilometers) waters around Taiwan which, according to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, serve as the island’s sovereign territorial waters.   Conventional missiles are expected to be test-launched from naval vessels that are sailing to the east of Taiwan and from the mainland, according to the PLA Eastern Theater Command.  Chinese analysts, quoted by state media, said the missiles “would fly over the island.”  “We need to recognize that we are in a major militarized crisis, and start calling it by its name: the Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis,” said Christopher Twomey, a China military expert at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School who spoke to RFA in a personal capacity. “What will get the most attention are missile tests, particularly if they land close to Taiwanese claimed waters or fly over Taiwanese territory,” he said. Newspapers in Beijing on Wednesday, reporting Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan and showing maps of locations where the PLA will conduct military exercises and training activities including live-fire drills. CREDIT: Reuters High level of attention In the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis (1995-1996), a series of missile tests was conducted by the PLA in the waters surrounding Taiwan and the PLA live ammunition exercises led to intervention by the U.S., which staged the biggest display of American military might in Asia since the Vietnam War. “The six areas in which the PLA will execute its live-fire drills until Sunday clearly delineate a military encirclement of Taiwan. To me, it looks like a prelude or preparations for a future scenario that is not primarily focused on amphibious assault, but on blockade,” said Nadège Rolland, a senior fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR), a U.S. private think-tank. “If this is the case, it will not only choke Taiwan, but also directly impact Japan’s security, and the region’s civilian transit as several Asian airlines have already canceled their flights over the broader area,” said Rolland, who previously served as a senior advisor on Asian and Chinese strategic issues at the French Ministry of Defense. “The exercises will generate a high level of attention from both Taiwan’s military and that of the United States. Both will want to ensure that the exercises are not a cover for an even more offensive action, but also will want to learn about Chinese capabilities and operational practices,” Christopher Twomey said. The maritime drills that see PLA troops entering an area within 12 nautical miles of Taiwan were announced on Tuesday evening when Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi landed in Taipei for a brief but highly symbolic visit. Pelosi is the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the democratic island in the last 25 years. Beijing has repeatedly condemned the visit as a “grave violation” of China’s sovereignty and integrity, and threatened the “strongest countermeasures.” ‘Irresponsible drills’ Taiwan’s defense ministry said in a statement that by announcing air-naval live-fire drills around the island, Chinese leaders “made it self-evidently apparent that they seek a cross-strait resolution by force instead of peaceful means.” U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan in a media interview on Wednesday called the drills “irresponsible” and they would “make the chance of an incident real.” “The actors involved are certainly the same as for the three crises in 1954, 1958 and 1995-96, but the geostrategic context is very different,” said NBR’s Nadège Rolland. “In each of the three previous crises, the U.S. intervened militarily and the military tensions between the PRC [People’s Republic of China] and the ROC [Republic of China] were prolonged but diffused after a rapid initial escalation,” said Rolland, referring to China and Taiwan by their official names. “It remains to be seen whether the U.S. will get involved this time,” she said, noting that if the survival of Taiwan and Japan is at stake, “it will be impossible for the U.S. not to intervene at a minimum to safeguard the freedom of the sea lanes on which transit the majority of international commerce.” On Thursday morning, the U.S. Air Force dispatched an RC-135S reconnaissance aircraft to observe the drills but the USS Ronald...
- [Smallpox outbreak rips through displaced persons’ camp](https://ij-reportika.com/smallpox-outbreak-rips-through-displaced-persons-camp/): Smallpox, which was thought to have been eradicated in 1977, is spreading quickly across the population of an internally displaced persons (IDP) camp in Myanmar’s Kayah state. Aid workers say more than 20 children have caught the disease, which has existed for 3,000 years and caused millions of deaths according to the World Health Organization. Karenni Human Rights Group (KNHRG) spokesman Ko Ba Nyar, said the children have been sick and feverish since the end of last month. “It happened in the west side [of Demoso Township],” he said “It is the rainy season and drinking water is difficult to access, especially clean water. The children might possibly have been infected because they are living together.” The children who have been infected with smallpox are not in a serious condition, Ko Ba Nyar told RFA. He said the camp is being monitored so the disease will not spread. A health care worker at the camp, who did not wish to be named, said the infection broke out because there is not enough clean water and the children don’t practice good personal hygiene. “It’s cramped living here and the parents of the children don’t have much health awareness,” the health worker said. “It starts with people getting sick and vomiting, then the rash comes out. It can be transmitted to another person through these blisters. Right now, we are treating the infected children with medicine in the camp.” The rash appeared on the faces, abdomens and backs of the infected children, according to people who are assisting with the medical treatment. More than 1,400 displaced people from 11 villages in Demoso township are sheltering in the IDP camp. If the displaced people have any health issues, they cannot easily go to government hospitals due to the ongoing conflict between the junta and People’s Defense Forces. Health facilities in the IDP camp are not good enough to cope with a smallpox outbreak. Demoso township was the first place to take up arms against the junta forces following the coup on February 1, 2021. Since then more than half of Kayah State’s population, some 200,000 people, have fled their homes due to the fighting and crackdowns by the military junta. 
- [China may fire missiles over Taiwan as part of live-fire drills](https://ij-reportika.com/china-may-fire-missiles-over-taiwan-as-part-of-live-fire-drills/): Unprecedented Chinese live-fire maritime drills got underway on Thursday with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) threatening to fire missiles over Taiwan and enter the island’s territorial waters for the first time in a scenario that analysts describe as “the Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis.” Chinese international state broadcaster CGTN said “military exercises and training activities, including live-fire drills around Taiwan island” have begun. Conventional missiles are expected to be test-launched from naval vessels that are sailing to the east of Taiwan and from the mainland, according to the PLA Eastern Theater Command. Chinese analysts, quoted by state media, said the missiles “would fly over the island.”  Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said it is closely monitoring the situation, strengthening military alerts, and “will respond appropriately.” The ministry said that unidentified aircraft, probably drones, were spotted over Taiwan’s Kinmen islands on Wednesday night. During the day, 22 Chinese military aircraft also crossed the median line dividing the Taiwan Strait, it said.  On Thursday morning, the U.S. Air Force dispatched a RC-135S reconnaissance aircraft to observe the drills but the USS Ronald Reagan, the U.S. Navy’s only forward-deployed aircraft carrier, seems to have moved north towards Japan, according to a Beijing-based think-tank that has been tracking regional military movements. &#8220;USS Ronald Reagan and her strike group are underway in the Philippine Sea continuing normal, scheduled operations as part of her routine patrol in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific,&#8221; a U.S. Navy Seventh Fleet spokesperson was quoted by Reuters as saying. The maritime drills that see PLA troops entering an area within 12 nautical miles (22 kilometers)  of Taiwan were announced on Tuesday evening when Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi landed in Taipei for a brief but highly symbolic visit. Beijiing has repeatedly condemned the visit as a “grave violation” of China’s sovereignty and integrity, and threatened “strongest countermeasures.” Pelosi is the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the democratic island in 25 years. Taiwan’s defense ministry said in a statement that by announcing air-naval live-fire drills around the island, Chinese leaders “made it self-evidently apparent that they seek a cross-strait resolution by force instead of peaceful means.” U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, in a media interview on Wednesday, called the drills “irresponsible” and said they would “make the chance of an incident real.” Chinese military helicopters fly past Pingtan island, one of mainland China&#8217;s closest point from Taiwan, on August 4, 2022, ahead of massive military drills off Taiwan. CREDIT: AFP Joint military exercises The PLA’s Eastern Theater Command already conducted a number of military exercises around Taiwan after the U.S. House Speaker’s arrival. The joint naval-air exercises, which started on Tuesday and continued on Wednesday, were carried out in the north, southwest and southeast waters and airspace off Taiwan, according to the PLA Daily. Maj. Gen. Gu Zhong, deputy chief of staff of the PLA Eastern Theater Command was quoted by the newspaper as saying the Chinese troops conducted “targeted training exercises of joint blockade, strikes on land and maritime targets, airspace control operations as well as the live firing of precision-guided munitions.” “This round of joint military operations is a necessary response to the dangerous move made by the U.S. and Taiwan authorities on the Taiwan question,” Gu was quoted as saying. The maritime drills, that started on Thursday and last until Sunday, have attracted the most attention, not least because they are set to be larger in scale than those in 1996 during the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis but also unprecedented in many ways. For the first time, Chinese troops are expected to enter the 12-nautical-mile waters around Taiwan which, according to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, serve as the island’s sovereign territorial waters.   “We need to recognize that we are in a major militarized crisis, and start calling it by its name: the Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis,” said Christopher Twomey, a China military expert. “What will get the most attention are missile tests, particularly if they land close to Taiwanese claimed waters or fly over Taiwanese territory,” he told RFA. In the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis (1995-1996), a series of missile tests were conducted by the PLA in the waters surrounding Taiwan. The PLA live ammunition exercises led to the U.S. intervening by staging the biggest display of American military might in Asia since the Vietnam War.
- [Vietnamese garment manufacturers struggle to comply with U.S. ban on Xinjiang cotton](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnamese-garment-manufacturers-struggle-to-comply-with-u-s-ban-on-xinjiang-cotton/): Vietnam’s heavy reliance on cotton imports from China could lead it to fall foul of a U.S. ban on cotton produced by forced labor in Xinjiang province. Vietnamese manufacturers say it is hard to prove where the fabric in their garments comes from. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) came into force on June 21, after being signed into law by U.S. President Joe Biden last December. The move has reportedly led fashion chains such as Japan’s United Arrows to stop selling clothes made from Xinjiang cotton. According to the Business and Human Rights Resource Center (BHRRC) countries such as Vietnam and Bangladesh, the world’s second and third largest garment exporters, still depend heavily on imports of Chinese fabric and yarn, particularly high-end materials. “As a result, campaign groups and some Western politicians have accused manufacturers of “cotton laundering” in places such as Vietnam and Bangladesh, for serving as intermediaries in cotton garment production,” the center said. Last month the Bangladesh Garment Buying House Association asked its members to be careful where they sourced their raw materials to avoid falling foul of the new U.S. regulations. Last year Bangladesh’s garment exports to the U.S. earned it $7.18 billion. Vietnam’s garment exports to America brought in more than double that, at $15.4 billion, according to the U.S. Office of Textiles and Apparel. The BHRRC said that one Chinese garment manufacturer who owns a factory in Vietnam said proving the origin of fabrics and threads involved a lengthy due-diligence process. “It is hard to distinguish the cotton products entering Vietnam from different sources because they may have been mixed together while being transported at sea. Suppliers may do this so they can deceptively label Xinjiang cotton as coming from elsewhere, to circumvent the US law,” the manufacturer told the center. RFA spoke with the director of an apparel firm in Vietnam’s northern Nam Dinh province. “My company is producing apparel products for a China-based company which uses materials from its country and exports to the U.S.,” he said. “Due to the UFLPA it has ordered less from us. It seems that our Chinese partner cannot sell its products so it has stopped ordering [so much] from us.” The Vietnam Cotton and Spinning Association referred RFA to comments given by Vice President Do Pham Ngoc Tu to China’s Global Times. He told the newspaper that Vietnamese garment manufacturers will have to ‘wean themselves off’ raw materials produced in Xinjiang if they want to continue exporting to the U.S. One fifth of the world’s cotton comes from Xinjiang, making it hard for manufacturers to find adequate supplies from countries that do not use forced labor. Ignoring the ban would mean falling foul of the world’s biggest garment importer. The U.S. ships all but 5% of its apparel from overseas.
- [ASEAN ratchets up criticism of Myanmar junta as Russian FM visits Naypyidaw](https://ij-reportika.com/asean-ratchets-up-criticism-of-myanmar-junta-as-russian-fm-visits-naypyidaw/): The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) ratcheted up its criticism of member state Myanmar’s junta on Wednesday, as Russia’s top diplomat visited Naypyidaw despite international outrage of the regime’s execution of four prominent democracy activists. In a speech delivered at the opening ceremony of the 55th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Phnom Penh on Wednesday, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, whose nation holds the rotating chair of the bloc, acknowledged that no progress has been made on Myanmar’s political crisis, despite junta chief Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing’s pledge to end violence in April last year. Hun Sen said that if the junta continues to execute its political opponents he would be forced to “reconsider ASEAN’s role” in mediating Myanmar’s conflict. “The situation is now very volatile with the execution of the four opposition activists, and can be said to be worse than before the Five-Point Consensus (5PC),” he said, referring to the agreement Min Aung Hlaing made with ASEAN in April 2021 during an emergency meeting on the situation in Myanmar. “ASEAN is deeply shocked and horrified by the execution of these opposition activists.” ASEAN’s 5PC called for an end to violence, constructive dialogue among all parties, the mediation of such talks by a special ASEAN envoy, the provision of ASEAN-coordinated humanitarian assistance and a visit to Myanmar by an ASEAN delegation to meet with all parties. Even Min Aung Hlaing acknowledged that the junta had failed to hold up its end of the bargain on the consensus in a televised speech on Monday in which he announced that the junta was extending by six months the state of emergency it declared following its Feb. 1, 2021 coup. He blamed the coronavirus pandemic and “political instability” for the failure and said he will implement “what we can” from the 5PC this year, provided it does not “jeopardize the country’s sovereignty.” Frustration with the junta boiled over last week after it put to death veteran democracy activist Ko Jimmy and former opposition lawmaker Phyo Zeya Thaw, as well as activists Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw, despite a direct appeal from Hun Sen to Min Aung Hlaing. The executions prompted protests in Myanmar and condemnation abroad, including from outspoken ASEAN member-state Malaysia, which said “no Myanmar military regime representative” should be allowed at any meeting of the bloc, including this week’s gathering of foreign ministers from ASEAN countries and nearly 40 ASEAN partner nations. Wednesday’s comments sounded a different tune for Hun Sen who, on assuming the ASEAN chair earlier this year, predicted that he would use his skill as a negotiator to resolve the situation in Myanmar.  Hun Sen’s decision in January to become the first foreign leader to visit Myanmar following the coup was widely panned by the international community as conferring legitimacy on the junta and he has since remained relatively quiet while the crisis has worsened. Call for stronger measures Speaking to RFA Khmer, observers said ASEAN stakeholders should not remain silent on the junta and suggested that the bloc call on the United Nations to intervene in Myanmar if it is unable to resolve the crisis on its own. Cambodian political analyst Em Sovannara said that refusing the junta a seat at the table for ASEAN gatherings doesn’t go far enough. “For example, the ASEAN Chair should start talking to Myanmar’s [shadow] National Unity Government (NUG), not the military government,” he said. Similarly, Soeung Senkaruna, spokesman for the Cambodian rights group Adhoc, said ASEAN should review its 5PC and, if unable to resolve the crisis, seek assistance from the U.N. “There should be strong measures in place to punish the abuse and killing of innocent people,” he said. “We think that with no such measures, Myanmar’s dictatorial leaders will continue to persecute their opponents in any way they see fit.” Attempts by RFA to reach Cambodian Foreign Ministry spokesman Chum Sontory for comment on the situation in Myanmar went unanswered on Wednesday. Long lines of vehicles wait at a filling station in Yangon, April 19, 2022. Credit: AP Photo Russian visit While many Western governments have sought to punish Myanmar’s junta for killing what rights groups say is at least 2,148 civilians over the past 18 months, Russia has continued to support the regime both diplomatically and militarily. Moscow reiterated that support on Wednesday when, ahead of attending the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Phnom Penh, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited Naypyidaw and met with Min Aung Hlaing and junta Minister of Foreign Affairs Wunna Maung Lwin. Details of the meetings remain unknown, but in a post on Twitter Russia’s foreign ministry cited Lavrov as saying that Moscow “appreciate[s] the traditionally friendly nature of our partnership, which is not affected by any opportunistic processes,” apparently in reference to efforts by the international community to sanction the junta. The junta’s foreign ministry said Lavrov and Wunna Maung Lwin “cordially exchanged views on promotion of bilateral relations and cooperation and reaffirmed their commitment to enhance cooperation between the two countries in the multilateral arena based on mutual trust and understanding.” RFA Burmese was unable to reach junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for further comment on the meetings Wednesday. Lavrov’s visit comes two weeks after Min Aung Hlaing traveled to Russia on an unofficial trip, which political analyst Ye Tun described as part of the junta’s bid to secure weapons from Moscow. “The frequent back-and-forth visits between the leaders and the Russian foreign minister’s current visit all point to expanded economic ties between Russia and Myanmar and the effort to obtain military assistance – especially military equipment – from Russia,” he said. Lavrov said in a press release on Tuesday that his trip sought not only to promote bilateral relations, but also strengthen economic cooperation and defense and security ties. Amid the uptick in cooperation between Russia and Myanmar since the coup, the two countries’ relationship has become increasingly complex. Complex relationship Myanmar-based political analyst Than Soe Naing said the...
- [North Korean authorities try to stop rise in street prostitution in cities](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korean-authorities-try-to-stop-rise-in-street-prostitution-in-cities/): North Korean authorities are scrambling to deter a rapid rise in prostitution in the country’s major cities as a dire economy pushes more women into the sex trade, sources inside the country said. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered authorities to act to prevent prostitution from spreading in the reclusive and impoverished nation, a resident of the northeastern city of Chongjin in North Hamgyong province told RFA on Monday. The Ministry of Social Security and the Socialist Patriotic Youth League, which is the country’s main youth organization under the direct control of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of North Korea, are moving in cities such as Chongjin and Hamhung to stop young women from selling themselves. “The crackdown began when a central official in Pyongyang submitted a proposal after he saw some women propositioning men on the street for prostitution at night,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.   “Kim Jong Un signed onto the proposal of the official and ordered the Social Security Department and the Socialist Patriotic Youth League to take action,” he said. Though illegal, prostitution is generally tolerated in North Korea, with occasional crackdowns by local authorities looking to extract bribes from those they catch.  But North Korea’s economic paralysis due to the authoritarian regime&#8217;s extreme measures to battle the COVID-19 virus and the effects of ongoing international economic sanctions have left ordinary citizens under extreme financial distress. The Ministry of Social Security and the Socialist Patriotic Youth League are jointly conducting intensive crackdowns on prostitution and providing ideological education for young people to ensure they adhere to socialist mores, the Chongjin resident said. The two organizations have mobilized day and night patrols to surveil places where the crime occurs, such as train stations and parks. Additionally, the Socialist Patriotic Youth League is increasing its ideological education for young people in an effort to deter them from selling their bodies for money, the resident said. On July 30, district-level organizations divided league members into groups and gathered them together for lectures, he said.  “Kim Jong Un’s message to reject decadent reactionary thought and culture and not get involved in antisocialism was delivered,” the source said. Also on July 30, the Socialist Patriotic Youth League held a meeting in Chingjin’s Sunam district to publicly criticize several young female prostitutes.  “The meeting was a form of public shaming, with each of the eight women on the stage revealing their names, ages, home addresses, and their jobs, and forcing them to criticize themselves. “More than half of the women caught in several intensive crackdowns are reportedly from other regions. It seems that women, whose lives have become difficult due to lockdown measures and movement control for three years, have been forced to engage in prostitution for themselves and their families,” he said.  Doing anything for money A resident of the city of Hamhung in the eastern province of South Hamgyong told RFA on Monday that local officials from the Ministry of Social Security and the Socialist Patriotic Youth League were searching train stations, parks and streets for suspected prostitutes. “About 30 women were arrested on the first day of the crackdown around Hamhung Station, held jointly by the Ministry of Social Security and the Youth League last week,” said the source who declined to be named for safety reasons. Most of the women were in their 20s, but several were teenagers who were recent high school graduates, she said. Many women have become prostitutes due to financial hardship, and more and more of them are begging men to pay for sex as they wait for the train at Hamhung Station at night, the woman said. Some men arrange to use the services of prostitutes under the pretext of staying overnight while waiting for a train, she added. Prostitutes in Hamhung usually are paid 80,000-50,000 won (U.S. $11.40-$21.40) for their services, though some women at the train station get as little as 30,000 won (U.S. $4.30), she said.  “Even during daylight, I often see women roaming around crowded places like train stations for prostitution,” the second source said. “Most of the women who go into prostitution are people in need, but there are cases where this is not the case,” the resident said.  “As our society gradually transforms into a society where anything is possible with money, the interest in earning money is growing,” she added. “I am worried that there is a growing tendency among residents who do not hesitate to do anything for money.” In August 2020, RFA reported that more than 50 female students of two prominent Pyongyang performing arts colleges were sent to a labor camp for their alleged involvement in a prostitution ring that catered to the capital city’s elites. Many of the young women were driven into prostitution by poverty brought on by endless demands from their highly selective schools for fees, North Korean sources said. Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee and Leejin J. Chung for RFA Korean. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. 
- [English Football League reviewing files linking Cambodian diplomat to soccer club](https://ij-reportika.com/english-football-league-reviewing-files-linking-cambodian-diplomat-to-soccer-club/): Evidence linking Cambodian diplomat Wang Yaohui to Birmingham City Football Club is now in the possession of the English Football League, RFA has learned. The EFL last month successfully applied to Singapore’s Supreme Court to access records in a case brought against one of Wang’s companies, according to sources familiar with the court’s ruling who asked not to be identified as they were not authorized to speak about it publicly. The application was made as part of an ongoing investigation by the league into allegations that Wang secretly controls a substantial portion of Birmingham City’s shares, in contravention of EFL regulations. One of the defendants in the Singapore court case is a company registered in the city state, Gold Star Aviation Pte Ltd. Corporate records show that Gold Star Aviation’s sole shareholder is a British Virgin Islands company called Dragon Villa Ltd, which also controls 12.81 percent of Birmingham City’s shares. Among the court files obtained by the EFL is a sworn affidavit given by one of Wang’s most trusted lieutenants, Jenny Shao, who is also a defendant in the case and has enjoyed power of attorney over Wang’s affairs for more than a decade. In the affidavit, which RFA has seen, Shao states that, “Gold Star’s sole shareholder is Dragon Villa Ltd (“DVL”) and DVL is beneficially owned by Mr Wang.” As an EFL member playing in the league’s highest division, Birmingham City is obligated to disclose the identity of any individual controlling more than 10 percent of its shares. While Dragon Villa features in the club’s ownership statement, Wang does not. The disclosure describes Dragon Villa instead as being “controlled” by an individual named Lei Sutong, who is a director or shareholder at multiple Wang-linked companies. The discrepancy between Shao and Birmingham City’s descriptions of Dragon Villa’s ownership could have serious repercussions for the club, including potential misconduct charges or point deductions. A club spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment, but RFA understands that Birmingham City’s management is standing by its existing ownership disclosure. Birmingham City’s assurances do not seem to have satisfied the league, which confirmed in a statement to RFA that its investigation is ongoing.  “As a result of our ongoing investigations into the ultimate beneficial ownership of Birmingham City Football Club, we are not in a position to comment,” an EFL spokesperson told RFA via email, commenting anonymously in line with the league’s policies. Wang Yaohui’s first Cambodian diplomatic passport bearing his Khmer name Wan Sokha. The passport was granted to him in 2015 in recognition of his role as an advisor to Prime Minister Hun Sen. The league launched its probe into Wang’s ties to the club in early June, following an RFA investigation, which found the Chinese-born Cambodian diplomat and advisor to Prime Minister Hun Sen controlled a large but undeclared stake in the club through a series of proxies and shell companies. Birmingham City is one of England’s most storied soccer teams and currently competes in the nation’s second-highest tier, just below the elite Premier League. That the EFL now holds the Singapore court files may explain why a putative takeover of the club has stalled in recent weeks. Long beset by financial troubles and with its stadium in need of serious repairs, many Birmingham City fans are hankering for new ownership. They may have thought their prayers had been answered when a bid was submitted last month by former club director Paul Richardson and retired professional soccer player Maxi Lopez. Before any transfer of ownership can take place at a soccer club playing in one of the EFL’s three divisions, the league must approve the sale. In order to do so, it requires information from both the buyer and the seller about what the club’s ownership structure will be after the sale. Writing in The Athletic last week, soccer journalist Matt Slater reported the EFL’s chief executive Trevor Birch as saying the league hadn’t received enough information “to even consider” Richardson and Lopez’s bid. While the EFL has not elaborated on exactly what information it is yet to receive, Slater suggested the data deficit lies with the club’s current owners. “The Athletic understands that Richardson and Lopez have submitted as much information as they can at this stage,” he wrote. “But the club and their current owners have not yet provided full answers to the league’s standard set of takeover questions.” An RFA analysis last month calculated that Wang and a close relative named Vong Pech control more than half of Birmingham City’s shares between them. While Vong’s name does appear in the club’s official ownership disclosures, as well as stock exchange filings by its Hong Kong-listed parent company, Wang’s does not. Birmingham City’s owners are now in a bind. It appears that the EFL will not allow them to sell until they offer some more transparency about who exactly the owners are. But if they do, they risk sanctions from both the league and the authorities in Hong Kong.
- [China arrests Taiwanese man for 'separatism' as Pelosi departs democratic island](https://ij-reportika.com/china-arrests-taiwanese-man-for-separatism-as-pelosi-departs-democratic-island/): As U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi left Taiwan Wednesday after a stopover that angered China, authorities in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang announced the arrest of a Taiwanese man under its national security law, accusing him of engaging in &#8220;separatist&#8221; activities and supporting formal independence for the democratic island. Yang Chih-yuen was arrested by state security police in Zhejiang&#8217;s Wenzhou city, state broadcaster CCTV cited a police statement as saying, accusing Yang of having founded the pro-independence Taiwan National Party, with the aim of &#8220;promoting Taiwan to join the United Nations as a sovereign and independent country.&#8221; &#8220;For some time, a very small number of &#8216;Taiwan independence&#8217; die-hards have colluded with external forces, tried to split the country &#8230; [and] tried their best to incite cross-strait confrontation,&#8221; the report said. &#8220;State security police will make resolute use of legal weapons like the Anti-Secession Law and the National Security Law to severely punish &#8216;Taiwan independence&#8217; separatists &#8230; [who] reject unification,&#8221; it said. Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping has repeatedly said that Taiwan must be &#8220;unified&#8221; with China, and refused to rule out the use of military force to annex the island. Taiwan has never been ruled by the CCP,  nor formed part of the 72-year-old People&#8217;s Republic of China. But Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen, who was re-elected in a 2020 landslide after vowing to stand up to China on the issue, has repeatedly said that Taiwan&#8217;s 23 million population have no wish to give up their sovereignty, a view that is borne out by repeated opinion polls. Beijing has a track record in making political arrests as a form of diplomatic statement, in what has been termed &#8220;hostage diplomacy,&#8221; and Yang&#8217;s arrest appears to be a way for China to register its displeasure with Pelosi&#8217;s trip, during which she reaffirmed U.S. support for Taiwan&#8217;s &#8220;flourishing democracy.&#8221; Taiwanese democracy activist Lee Ming-cheh, who served a five-year sentence in China for &#8220;incitement to subvert state power,&#8221; said during a meeting with Pelosi that the Chinese government shouldn&#8217;t use &#8220;national security&#8221; as an excuse to jail political prisoners. Lee, who may not have read the news of Yang&#8217;s arrest at the time of speaking, called for an end to &#8220;residential surveillance at a designated location,&#8221; which enables the authorities to deny visits from lawyers or family members for six months where the person has been accused of a &#8220;national security&#8221; offense. A man watches a CCTV news broadcast about joint military operations near Taiwan by the Chinese People&#8217;s Liberation Army&#8217;s (PLA) Eastern Theatre Command, at a shopping center in Beijing, China, August 3, 2022. Credit: Reuters &#8216;Unnecessary&#8217; China reaction Pelosi said during her meeting with Tsai on Wednesday that Taiwan, which made a transition to full democracy in the 1990s from authoritarian rule under the Kuomintang (KMT), that the island had &#8220;created a flourishing democracy&#8221; out of its challenging history. &#8220;Now more than ever, America&#8217;s solidarity with Taiwan is crucial,&#8221; Pelosi said. &#8220;America&#8217;s determination to preserve democracy here in #Taiwan and around the world remains ironclad.&#8221; China&#8217;s People&#8217;s Liberation Army (PLA) stepped up military exercises in the vicinity of Taiwan ahead of and during Pelosi&#8217;s trip, a move that both Pelosi and Tsai termed &#8220;unnecessary.&#8221; &#8220;Facing deliberately heightened military threats, Taiwan will not back down. We will&#8230; continue to hold the line of defense for democracy,&#8221; Tsai said during the meeting. &#8220;Military drills are unnecessary responses. Taiwan has always been open to constructive dialogue,&#8221; she said. Tsai also presented Pelosi with a Taiwanese honor: the Order of Propitious Clouds. Pelosi said she wasn&#8217;t sure why Beijing &#8220;made a big fuss&#8221; over her Taipei trip, though she speculated it may have been because she was the House speaker, Taiwan&#8217;s Central News Agency (CNA) reported. The military drills could also be the result of &#8220;certain insecurities on the part of the president of China as to his own political situation that he&#8217;s rattling the saber,&#8221; the agency quoted her as saying. Pelosi said in an official statement that her trip in no way represented a shift in U.S. policy on Taiwan, which involves not offering the island formal diplomatic recognition while pledging to help it defend itself from the CCP. &#8220;Our visit is one of several Congressional delegations to Taiwan – and it in no way contradicts longstanding United States policy, guided by the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, U.S.-China Joint Communiques and the Six Assurances,&#8221; the statement said. &#8220;The United States continues to oppose unilateral efforts to change the status quo.&#8221; But it added: &#8220;America’s solidarity with the 23 million people of Taiwan is more important today than ever, as the world faces a choice between autocracy and democracy.&#8221; Pro-China supporters tear a U.S. flag during a protest against U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi&#8217;s visit to Taiwan outside the Consulate General of the United States in Hong Kong, China, August 3, 2022. Credit: Reuters Important regional message Lo Chih-cheng, a member of the foreign affairs and defense committee at Taiwan&#8217;s Legislative Yuan, said the meaning of Pelosi&#8217;s trip was largely symbolic. Coming as it did under pressure of Chinese threats and warnings, Pelosi&#8217;s trip sent an important message to the entire Asia-Pacific and Indo-Pacific region that &#8220;the United States and democracies will not yield to Chinese threats and pressure,&#8221; Lo told RFA. Taiwanese military analyst Chieh Chung said the PLA exercises had made deep incursions into Taiwan&#8217;s territorial waters during Pelosi&#8217;s visit. The exercises are taking place east of the central line of the Taiwan Strait, further diluting the tacit understanding of the median line formed by the military on both sides of the strait since 1999, Chieh told RFA. Soong Kuo-cheng, a researcher in international relations at Taiwan&#8217;s National Chengchi University, said China&#8217;s response had made the international community more aware of the island&#8217;s importance of Taiwan, and placed it in the international spotlight. &#8220;The CCP displayed a highly violent and irrational reaction to this visit by Pelosi, which has woken the rest of the world up to Taiwan&#8217;s...
- [Hong Kong to pursue Canada-based political activists under national security law](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-to-pursue-canada-based-political-activists-under-national-security-law/): Authorities in Hong Kong said on Wednesday they will pursue three Canada-based activists who recently announced they would set up a Hong Kong parliament-in-exile under a draconian national security law that applies anywhere in the world. The city&#8217;s security bureau said it &#8220;severely condemns Yuan Gong-yi, Ho Leung-mau and Leung Chung-hang and others for forming a so-called &#8216;Hong Kong Parliament&#8217; overseas.&#8221; It said the activists are now suspects under Article 22 of the law, which bans &#8220;subversion of state power.&#8221; Forty-seven former opposition lawmakers and democracy activists are currently behind bars awaiting trial on the same charge for their involvement in a 2020 democratic primary election aimed at maximizing the number of opposition seats in LegCo. Soon after the primary, the government postponed the LegCo elections and rewrote the rules to force candidates to undergo vetting by a committee overseen by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and national security police, effectively barring any pro-democracy candidates from running. &#8220;The Security Bureau appeals to the public to dissociate themselves from individuals contravening the Hong Kong National Security Law, and the illegal activities those individuals organized, so as to avoid bearing any unnecessary legal risks,&#8221; a spokesman said in a statement. Yuan, Ho and Leung are part of a group that announced the parliament-in-exile plan in Canada on July 27, along with plans to hold the first election under universal suffrage in late 2023. Leung, who is also known by the English names Baggio and Sixtus, was expelled along with five other newly elected Legislative Council (LegCo) members after China&#8217;s National People&#8217;s Congress ruled their oaths of allegiance invalid in 2016. Ho is a journalist and political talk-show host, while Yuen is a current affairs commentator. Security guards block pro-independence legislator-elect Baggio Leung from retaking his oath inside the Legislative Council in Hong Kong, China, Nov. 2, 2016. Credit: Reuters Wider immigration eligibility The announcement came after the British government said it would broaden eligibility for Hongkongers seeking to flee the current crackdown on dissent and settle in the U.K., allowing younger people more likely to be targeted for taking part in the 2019 protest movement to apply under the British National Overseas (BNO) visa scheme. &#8220;The U.K. has a historic and moral commitment the people of Hong Kong,&#8221; home secretary Priti Patel said via her official Twitter account on Aug. 1. &#8220;That’s why I am extending our BN(O) route to allow young people born after the handover of Hong Kong with at least one BN(O) parent to live, work, study and build their lives in the U.K.,&#8221; the tweet said. The changes will take effect in November 2022, and are expected to benefit around 10,000 younger Hongkongers. Ngan Hei-yin, 19, is currently seeking political asylum in the U.K., a far more difficult route to settlement that risks deportation if the claim is denied. He told RFA that he will be eligible for the BNO route instead, and won&#8217;t need to wait for his asylum application to be approved. But he said many who do apply for asylum wouldn&#8217;t meet the financial requirements of the visa, so could still be excluded for that reason. &#8220;Some people applying for political asylum are receiving government subsidies and don&#8217;t have much in the way of assets,&#8221; Ngan said. &#8220;So there would need to be some supporting measures to help them, if they are going to apply for the BNO route.&#8221; &#8220;I hope the government will provide them with support, and also support to make it easier for young Hongkongers to integrate and develop in the U.K.,&#8221; he said. Red tape in Taiwan The BNO route requires applicants to show that they can meet their own living expenses for at least six months, but few younger applicants would be able to do this. Authorities on the democratic island of Taiwan have adopted measures that will allow Hong Kong pro-democracy activists to apply for citizenship five years after seeking asylum in the country, the island&#8217;s official Central News Agency (CNA) reported on July 30. Under the scheme, Hongkongers who entered Taiwan under the government-run &#8216;Hong Kong Humanitarian Aid Project&#8217; since June 2020 can obtain Taiwan citizenship after a five-year stay, the agency cited sources as saying. Taiwan&#8217;s safe-haven scheme has been criticized by Hongkongers on the ground as opaque and mired in bureaucratic dead-ends, with departments failing to act together to ensure the scheme works for individual applicants. Some applications from former government employees have been denied amid growing fear of CCP infiltration of the island. Some 11,000 Hong Kongers got residence permits in Taiwan last year, according to Taiwan’s National Immigration Agency, and 1,600 were granted permanent residency. By contrast, the U.K. approved 97,000 applications under the BNO route last year. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Tibetan festival allowed by China to resume after 20-year ban](https://ij-reportika.com/tibetan-festival-allowed-by-china-to-resume-after-20-year-ban/): A Tibetan community festival, banned for 20 years after the arrest of a popular religious leader, has been allowed by Chinese authorities to resume with no  explanation given for the sudden lifting of control, Tibetan sources say. The annual event held in Nyagchuka (in Chinese, Yajiang) county in Sichuan’s Kardze (Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, formerly a part of historic Tibet, features horse races and picnics, a Tibetan living exile told RFA, citing local sources. “But since 2002, the year when Tulku Tenzin Delek was arrested on a charge of bombing a public square, the Chinese authorities had barred Tibetans in the region from celebrating the annual event,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We don’t know why the authorities have suddenly allowed the festival to be held again,” the source said. Authorities had hoisted Chinese flags around the festival grounds before allowing the event to be held, though, he added. “In earlier years, when Tulku Tenzin Delek was there, people were forbidden to indulge in alcohol, smoking or taking drugs at the picnic, but this year everything was allowed,” the source said. The annual festival was a major gathering in the region even before the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950, the source said. “But it became even grander after Tulku Tenzin Delek lived there. During the picnic, religious teachings were given and plays were performed on the life of the Tibetan yogi and poet Milarepa.” “There was so much respect for Tulku Tenzin Delek.” Mysterious death in prison Tulku Tenzin Delek, 65, died under mysterious circumstances on July 12, 2015, 13 years into a 22-year sentence following what rights groups and supporters called a wrongful conviction on a charge of bombing a public square in Sichuan’s provincial capital Chengdu in April 2002. Widely respected among Tibetans for his efforts to protect Tibetan culture and the environment, he was initially sentenced to death, but his sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. An assistant, Lobsang Dondrub, was executed almost immediately, prompting an outcry from rights activists who questioned the fairness of the trial. Chinese authorities now remove all references to Tulku Tenzin Delek from official histories of the region and in January seized a life-size statue of the religious leader that was being taken into Tibet, arresting those involved in the statue’s manufacture and transport, sources told RFA in earlier reports. Formerly an independent country, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force more than 70 years ago. Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on Tibetan areas of western China, restricting Tibetans’ political activities and peaceful expression of cultural and religious identity, sources say. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [Two children killed as Myanmar military fires on boat taking them home from school](https://ij-reportika.com/two-children-killed-as-myanmar-military-fires-on-boat-taking-them-home-from-school/): Two children were killed and three other people injured when junta troops opened fire on a boat carrying schoolchildren near Toe Ma Wa village in Paletwa township. Residents said two of the injured were also schoolchildren. They were all students from Toemawa Middle School in Paletwa’s Remawa village who take the boat along the Kalatan river every day. About 10 students boarded the boat at 3 p.m. on Tuesday after lessons had ended. The Kalatan River is the only way to commute between Toemawa and Remawa villages. The boat came under fire between Reemawa and the student’s home village. “They were studying in Toemawa and this happened on their way back from school,&#8221; a local resident told RFA on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.  “They were shot by junta troops deployed between Toemawa and Remawa villages. More than 10 students were on the motor boat.” Fifth-grade students Nay Min Tun and Aung Than Myint, both 12, were killed. The injured were identified as female student Khin Si, male student Aung Lin Win and Padu, a general worker at the school. Aung Than Myint was shot in the head and Nay Min Tun was shot in his abdomen and shoulder. Residents told RFA that since Tuesday morning, the Arakan Army (AA) and Military Council troops have been fighting near Namada village. Troops from the Ka La Ya 289 battalion fired heavy artillery during Tuesday&#8217;s fighting. Calls seeking comment made by RFA to Thant Zin, the Military Council-appointed Social Affairs Minister in Chin State went unanswered. Junta troops and the AA have fought twice since July 18. Some border police forces and 14 junta troops were killed. A police chief was snatched by the AA along with weapons and ammunition.
- [U.S. House Speaker meets Taiwan’s president and praises the island’s resilience](https://ij-reportika.com/u-s-house-speaker-meets-taiwans-president-and-praises-the-islands-resilience/): Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen presented U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi with a special award on Wednesday, calling her “one of Taiwan&#8217;s most devoted friends&#8221; who helped strengthen Taiwan-U.S. relations. Tsai met Pelosi in the morning after the U.S. House Speaker visited the Legislative Yuan, or Taiwan’s parliament. Pelosi praised the island for its success in battling the COVID pandemic and called Taiwan “one of the freest societies in the world.” “Taiwan has been an island of resilience,” Pelosi said in a brief speech during her meeting with President Tsai. “America&#8217;s determination to preserve democracy here in Taiwan and around the world remains ironclad,” the U.S. House Speaker stated, adding that her visit made it unequivocally clear that the U.S. “will not abandon our commitment to Taiwan.”  In response, President Tsai Ing-wen said Taiwan “will firmly uphold our nation&#8217;s sovereignty and continue to hold the line of defense for democracy.&#8221; &#8220;Facing deliberately heightened military threats, Taiwan will not back down,&#8221; Tsai said, referring to the latest developments across the Taiwan Strait. Locations of Chinese live-fire military drills around Taiwan on Aug. 4-7. CREDIT: Xinhua As Pelosi touched down on Tuesday evening in Taipei, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) announced unprecedented live-fire drills at six locations around Taiwan, some overlapping the island’s sovereign territorial waters as defined in the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. On the same day, 21 Chinese military aircraft, including 10 J-16 fighter jets and two reconnaissance airplanes, flew into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ). ‘Unprecedented military drills’ The PLA’s Eastern Theater Command is to “conduct a series of joint military operations around the Taiwan Island from the evening of Aug. 2,&#8221; said Sr. Col. Shi Yi, the Command’s spokesperson. Naval and air joint drills will be carried out in the northern, southwestern and southeastern waters and airspace off Taiwan, while long-range combat fire live shooting will be conducted in the Taiwan Strait and conventional missile firepower test-launched in the waters off Eastern Taiwan, according to Shi Yi. Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense on Wednesday condemned what it calls “the reckless behavior by Communist China of conducting live fire drills in waters and skies close to Taiwan, some of which are in the neighboring waters.” The drills will essentially seal off Taiwan’s airspace and violate its territorial waters, the ministry said.  The Ministry’s spokesperson Sun Li-Fang said China “threatens international aviation routes, challenges the international order, damages the status quo in the Taiwan Strait and destroys regional security.” Activities around Taiwan’s territory are closely monitored, the Defense Ministry said, vowing “appropriate responses when needed.” China dismissed Taiwan’s criticism of the military drills. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters in Beijing on Wednesday Chinese military actions were legitimate and meant as a deterrent to Taiwan. Taiwan’s Ministry of Transportation and Communications is coordinating with Japan and the Philippines to plan alternative cargo flight routes for goods as the Chinese planned drills amount to an air blockade, the official Central News Agency (CNA) reported. Washington officials said China’s announced military drills were an “overreaction.” &#8220;There&#8217;s no reason &#8230; for Beijing to turn this visit, which is consistent with longstanding U.S. policy into some sort of crisis or use it as a pretext to increase aggressiveness and military activity in or around the Taiwan Strait now or beyond her travel,&#8221; national security council spokesman John Kirby said. Grant Newsham, a retired U.S. Marine colonel turned political analyst, said prior to Nancy Pelosi’s visit he did not expect China to launch attacks on the U.S. or Pelosi herself. But, he said, they could lash out at Taiwan. &#8220;The Chinese Communists are now willing to apply serious pressure–including possible military force–against America&#8217;s friends and partners, and dare the United States to respond,&#8221; he told RFA. &#8220;That&#8217;s what I think we are most likely to see and most likely directed against Taiwan. In other words, making the Americans have to take the &#8216;first shot&#8217; against the PRC,&#8221; added Newsham. “Taiwan’s government needs to do what is necessary to ensure Taiwan can defend itself,” said the analyst.  “It needs to increase defense spending, show its military some respect and improve terms of service, re-institute national service, create an effective reserve defense force and create an effective civil defense scheme.” Taiwanese fighter jets at Taipei Songshan Airport on the last day of Han Kuang military exercise, July 29, 2022.. CREDIT: Taiwan Defense Ministry A new crisis? Beijing considers Taiwan “an inalienable part of China” that must be reunited with the mainland at all costs. Analysts say, however, despite the noisy saber-rattling by Beijing, a new crisis may not happen as “nobody wants war.” “While China has said Pelosi’s visit would challenge its “red line” for Sino-U.S. relations, it’s unlikely that Beijing will do something risky in the Taiwan Strait during her visit,” said Baohui Zhang, Professor of Political Science at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. “Beijing has no interest in triggering scenarios that may lead to miscalculations by all sides and inadvertent military conflicts,” Zhang said, adding: “As a rising power, war is the last thing China wants now.” During the most recent virtual meeting between Xi and Biden, the two leaders both confirmed the need for bilateral efforts to contain and manage crises. In Zhang’s opinion, Pelosi’s visit will have little practical implications for U.S.-China relations, as its trajectory of strategic rivalry has already been set. The Taipei-based China Times cited leaked diplomatic cables from Taiwan’s representative office in Washington DC, saying they showed both the White House and the Pentagon sought to discourage the House Speaker from visiting Taiwan. “The Biden administration is not in favor of the visit and China knows that,” said Baohui Zhang. “So the visit is largely a symbolic event showing rising Congressional support for Taiwan. It will not redefine U.S.-China relations.” Nancy Pelosi is set to meet with Taiwanese human rights and democracy activists before flying out on Wednesday afternoon to continue her Indo-Pacific tour.    
- [Residents confront police and authorities over neglected Ho Chi Minh City homes](https://ij-reportika.com/residents-confront-police-and-authorities-over-neglected-ho-chi-minh-city-homes/): Angry residents of an apartment building in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh city have been ordered to take down banners accusing the owners of neglecting the building’s upkeep while profiting from years of management fees. Residents of the Khang Gia apartment block in the city’s Tan Phu district are concerned about the structural quality of the building and its fire resistance. They have petitioned authorities to make improvements for eight years but say nothing has been done. Frustrated at the authorities’ inaction, many residents hung banners from their balconies saying “Our petitions have been binned,” “Return our maintenance fees,” “Eight years of inaction on fixing our problems,” and “Give residents the title deeds to their apartments.” Rather than answering their complaints or discussing them with residents, the Secretary of the Party Committee of Tan Quy ward came to the apartment, backed by police and militia, and ordered residents to take the banners down. “Tenants hung banners with words that do not offend the government and are not intended as incitement,” said Nguyen Manh Hung, who heads the management board at the apartment block. “But when residents hung them up many local officials came with police and militia as well as ward and district civil officers. They tried to storm the apartments that put up banners. When I asked what they were going to do, they said they would order the residents to take the banners down.” Hung said the government should have worked with the apartment block’s investors to solve the problems but instead sent a mob to try to get the banners removed. He said that when officials ordered residents to take down the banners, they were asked when they would address the issues. He said the officers remained silent and left. RFA called the People&#8217;s Committee of Tan Quy ward and Tan Phu district to verify the information provided by Nguyen Manh Hung, but none of the calls was answered. According to documents written by the Department of Construction of Ho Chi Minh City and the People&#8217;s Committee of Tan Phu district, Khang Gia Real Estate Development and Investment Company was given permission to build and rent out a 232 apartment block. The company built almost twice as many apartments, which residents say has made the building structurally unstable. The local government said it had decided to forcibly dismantle 72 apartments and commercial units but nothing has happened in the eight years since it made the pledge. Hung said about 1,500 residents have said they feel insecure due to the illegal construction on the ground floor and mezzanine levels. He added that the extra apartments and commercial units have no fire prevention facilities and therefore pose a threat to the entire building. The maintenance fee, which is 2% of the building’s valuation, has been kept by the Khang Gia company, rather than handed over to the apartment’s management board to fix elevators, fill in cracks and perform other repairs. “Local authorities must investigate the investor&#8217;s appropriation of the maintenance fund,” Hung said. “However, they have not done that for years. Now the investor has disappeared after being probed for wrongdoings in other projects. I don’t know why they didn’t investigate. Maybe they have covered-up the case for some reason but doing nothing is not in line with the law.” The Lao Dong Online news site wrote in December 2020 that Khang Gia Company general director and legal representative Trinh Minh Thanh had gone into hiding. It said he was wanted for the crime of &#8220;financial fraud” for taking millions of Vietnamese dong from people for apartments they did not receive. The company office is no longer at its registered business address. RFA called Khang Gia Real Estate’s hotline, listed on its website, but the person who answered denied working for the company and said it was a wrong number.
- [Junta troops kill 5 in raid on school run by Myanmar shadow government](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-troops-kill-5-in-raid-on-school-run-by-myanmar-shadow-government/): Junta troops killed five people and detained more than 110 others during a raid on a village school run by Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) in embattled Sagaing region, residents and state media said Tuesday. News of the Monday raid on the school in Myinmu township’s Let Pa Kyin village, located about 100 kilometers (62 miles) west of Mandalay, came amid reports that the military razed more than 500 buildings in four days of arson attacks on the village of Tin Tein Yan in Sagaing’s nearby Ye-U township. A resident of Let Pa Kyin who escaped the raid on Let Pa Kyin told RFA Burmese that more than 50 troops arrived at the village in a convoy of five military helicopters. “[The helicopters] brought the soldiers in group after group. It took about an hour and a half,” said the resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing security concerns. “Some soldiers were dropped around the village and some in the school compound. The children were scared and ran away. Though the older ones escaped, the young ones didn’t.” At least 113 civilians were arrested in the raid, including teachers and students, villagers said. A second resident, who also declined to be named, said the raid began at around 10 a.m. on Monday when classes at the NUG-sponsored school were in session and villagers were engaged in their daily routines. “If the army had approached the village from the ground, [anti-junta forces] in the area could have given a warning and the villagers would have been able to run and avoid the soldiers. But in the case of an air raid, there is no way to know in advance,” he said, adding that those who escaped had only a moment’s notice. “We’re at their mercy. We can&#8217;t say anything [about our status] for sure. The situation is totally unsafe. We can&#8217;t do anything except worry.” The resident said he could only “pray for the release of those arrested.” Let Pa Kyin village is home to about 250 houses and more than 1,000 residents. Sources said that during the raid, many villagers were forced to flee to nearby areas for safety. A report in the junta’s Myanma Alin newspaper on Tuesday said that the military was carrying out arrests of anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries who had gathered in Let Pa Kyin village. After a brief clash, it said, the military “seized five bodies,” as well as homemade weapons and ammunition from a PDF camp it captured about 500 meters (one-third of a mile) northwest of the village. A total of 113 people — 49 men and 73 women — were detained in the village and are “being questioned as needed,” the report added. Status unclear A local PDF member who asked to remain anonymous told RFA that his group had prepared to hold a meeting at a location in Let Pa Kyin village on Monday but was delayed and was therefore able to escape the arrests. A fighter with the Myinmu Township PDF said the group had yet to confirm the Myanma Alin report of five dead in the raid. “I don&#8217;t know about the death of five PDF members,” he said, adding that his group will fight back against military raids targeting Myinmu township “by any means necessary,” regardless of whether troops use helicopters or other superior weaponry. Residents told RFA that junta troops were still stationed in Let Pa Kyin as of Tuesday and that the status of the village remains unclear. When contacted by RFA, junta Minister of Social Affairs for Sagaing Region Aye Hlaing said he was “unaware” of the reports of the raid on Let Pa Kyin. A resident of Myinmu township said villagers are less safe than ever as the military ramps up its use of helicopters to conduct raids in the area. &#8220;Look at all the incidents that have taken place. Villages have been burned. They shoot at anything they see from their helicopters and the people are suffering,” he said. “In Let Pa Kyin, two boys who were herding their goats died, as did a woman working at a betel nut farm. Another worker was wounded. They were not PDF fighters. The soldiers are now committing their war crimes from the air as they cannot move freely on the ground [due to the opposition].” Residents told RFA that Monday’s attack followed one on July 27, when troops in four helicopters raided Myinmu’s Mu Mandalay village. They said that the military had cut off internet access to the area amid the raids, forcing more than 5,000 villagers to flee their homes. More than 500 homes and ships were torched in Tin Tein Yan, Ye-U township, Sagaing region after military forces raided the village. Credit: DPY PDF Buildings razed Reports of the raid on Let Pa Kyin came as residents of Sagaing’s nearby Ye-U township told RFA that the military had destroyed more than 500 buildings between July 28 and July 31 in arson attacks on the village of Tin Tein Yan, located around 170 kilometers (105 miles) northwest of Mandalay. The buildings destroyed in the fires included the area’s Thegon Gyi Monastery, around 250 shops in the local market — including an office run by the MPT telecom company — 312 homes, five rice mills and two cooking oil plants, they said, while several cars and motorcycles were also burned. “Altogether, around two-thirds of the village has been razed to the ground — it’s like a wasteland,” said one resident of Tin Tein Yan, who asked to remain anonymous. “Some villagers are now cleaning up the mess. They have to make arrangements to build temporary shelters. Apart from those who are cleaning up, the rest of the villagers don&#8217;t dare return.” Residents said the raids were carried out by a column of nearly 100 soldiers from the No. 701 Light Infantry Battalion, headquartered in Yangon region’s Hmawbi township. They said that prior to entering the village on July 27, the...
- [Woman accused of defrauding thousands of people extradited to Laos](https://ij-reportika.com/woman-accused-of-defrauding-thousands-of-people-extradited-to-laos/): A Lao national who allegedly defrauded millions of dollars from thousands of people and traveled to neighboring Thailand with the money in late June faces prosecution back home after being extradited by Thai authorities on July 31, Lao police officials said. Phonethip Xaypanya, a 30-year-old woman who goes by the nickname Jay Thip, which in Lao means “elder sister Thip,” is accused of absconding with more than U.S. $16.4 million, including 20 billion Lao kip (U.S. $1.3 million), 400 million Thai baht (U.S. $11 million), and U.S. $4 million, according to the Lao Ministry of Public Security. She allegedly accumulated some of the money by promising her victims high rates of return on their cash deposits. Thai police said they arrested Jay Thip and her husband, Anousith Phoutthavong, 34, on July 29 at a hotel in Pathum Thany province, Thailand, for overstaying their visas. They were returned to Laos two days later. Immigration police records indicate that the couple left Laos by land on June 29 via the First Lao-Thai Friendship bridge. By the end of June, more than 5,000 people who said they were victims of her scheme filed complaints with Lao police. Officials say they expect many more defrauded citizens to come forward. Jay Thip denies that she defrauded people.  “We, the Public Security Ministry, have received a lot of complaints from the public, [and] we’re going to forward this information to the investigation department,” a ministry official told RFA Monday. “She hasn’t been formally charged with any crime yet.” The official went on to say that the ministry could not disclose much information yet about the arrest.  “The woman was just handed over to us yesterday, so we’re going to deal with her according to the law,” he said. A criminal lawyer said that if Jay Thip is found guilty, she would face at least 10 years in prison and be ordered to pay back the money.  “First and foremost, the police will be investigating and interrogating her to find out how much money she stole when she defrauded people,” said the attorney, who declined to be named. “The police may have to sell all of her assets and property, like cars and homes to pay back her customers.” An official with the Lao Prosecutor’s Office agreed, but said that tracking down her wealth could prove difficult. “The question is, where is all the money?” he said. “It might be kept abroad, but how can we bring it back, or it may have been converted to gold and diamonds that are hidden somewhere else.” Jay Thip claims to have many businesses, including a shop that sells gold and diamond jewelry, and she posts photos of the expensive merchandise daily online. Her most lucrative business is an investment scheme that accepts cash deposits of at least 50 million kip ($3.27) from customers and promises a monthly interest rate of 30% in return.  She also posts stories on her Facebook page saying that she often wins the lottery and has photos showing off her luxury goods in an effort to build trust with current and prospective investors. Jay Thip denied to Thai reporters that she was in possession of 400 million baht at the time of her arrest.  “To electronically transfer that lump sum across the border, people have to have a lot of documents and proof,” she said. “Now, to answer the question of why I came to Thailand, my husband and I came here to deal with the problems that have occurred and why they’ve occurred. And another reason is that over there [in Laos], I fear for my safety.” Call for justice Meanwhile, Laotians who say they fell prey to Jay Thip’s scheme are clamoring for retribution. “I want my money back, but the problem is that in Laos legal procedures are not open to the public,” said a person who declined to be identified. “I just want her to be responsible for the debt. Is she going to pay back or not? I want to see the police enforcing the law to the fullest extent.” “The legal action against her should be transparent, not opaque, because this lady has a lot of powerful connections,” he said. “She can get away with it quickly and easily.” A businessman who invested 900 million kip (U.S. $65,400) said at first that Jay Thip paid him the interest regularly.  “But later, I received nothing,” he told RFA. “I lost 900 million kip ($59,000). I’d never thought that Jay Thip would do this to us because she had been very open with us.”  Another person who fell for the scheme doubted the victims would be paid back.  “[S]cams like this have happened before,” the person said. “When your money is gone, it’s gone.”  “Even her own friends who have known her since childhood were also cheated,” the businessman said. “I want my money back, and I want the police to do their job right.” Illegal investment schemes are nothing new in the largely impoverished country where corruption runs rampant and law enforcement can be lax. In 2017, for example, an agricultural company running a pyramid scheme in Laos defaulted on millions of U.S. dollars owed to its stakeholders, raising questions as to why the government failed to adequately regulate the market and inform investors about potential pitfalls. Translated by Max Avary for RFA Lao. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Uyghur poet and educator said to be serving 13-year prison term in Xinjiang](https://ij-reportika.com/uyghur-poet-and-educator-said-to-be-serving-13-year-prison-term-in-xinjiang/): A prominent Uyghur poet and associate professor at a teacher’s college was detained in 2017 as a “threat to social stability” and sentenced to 13 years in prison on a “separatism” charge, a local police officer and Uyghur source told RFA. Ablet Abdureshid Berqi is serving time in Tumshuq Prison, a detention facility located in Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), a state-owned economic and paramilitary organization in northwest China&#8217;s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).  Since its founding in 1954, the XPCC, which is also known as Bingtuan, has built and administered several urban centers in Xinjiang, mainly to resettle Han Chinese from other parts of the country as part of a campaign of Sinicization. The Bingtuan also operates prisons and publicly traded companies.  An RFA investigation confirmed that Berqi, which is a pseudonym, was arrested two years ago amid a purge of Uyghur intellectuals, educators and cultural leaders — one of a set of Chinese government policies that have been determined by the United States and the parliaments of some Western countries as constituting genocide. The abuses also include forced labor at factories and farms, forced birth control and the detention of up to 1.8 million Uyghurs in a network of internment camps. A Chinese official at the Xinjiang Education Institute, a university for teacher education in the XUAR’s capital Urumqi (in Chinese, Wulumuqi) where Berqi worked, told RFA that he was not authorized to disclose information about Berqi and suggested the reporter contact the school administration office.  “I don’t know this person,” the official said. “I haven’t heard of this person. We have more than 1,000 employees at the school. Let me give you a phone number. You ask the school administration office.” Other officials at the institute refused to provide information about Berqi, however. Later, officials at the directorate of school education told RFA that the institute did not employ an instructor named Berqi. RFA also contacted a police officer in the poet’s hometown of Sampul village in southern Xinjiang’s Hotan (Hetian) prefecture, who confirmed that he was serving a 13-year term in Tumshuq Prison. “He is in prison now,” the police officer said. “The reasons were threats to social stability and going abroad. He was detained in 2017, and after three months he was sentenced to prison for 13 years and is now serving his term in Tumshuq Prison.” The officer also pointed to “mistakes he made while teaching at school,” including articles Berqi wrote and lectures he gave. Berqi’s parents live in the village’s Aydingkol hamlet, the officer said.  A top target In an article published in the 2000s, Berqi said he used a pseudonym because his real name was the same as the XUAR chairman, Ablet Abdureshid, which led to a number of misunderstandings, particularly after the poet’s writings were published in newspapers and magazines.  He also said the pseudonym, which means “flourishing” in the Uyghur language, reflected the greater success he hoped to achieve in his creative career. Berqi wrote his doctoral dissertation on Abduhalik Uyghur, a prominent Uyghur revolutionary poet in the early 20th century who was killed by Sheng Shicai, a Chinese militarist who ruled Xinjiang from 1933 to 1944.  Berqi also studied at Haifa University in Israel between 2014 and 2016, said Nimrod Baranovitch, a lecturer in Chinese culture and society at the university, who met the poet in Urumqi a decade earlier and later applied for a postdoctoral fellowship for him. “[W]e kept in contact for many years, and then we decided we should try to bring him over to study and research here,” Baranovitch told RFA. “We had tried that once in the past, but it didn’t work. And then we tried it again, and it worked.” Two years ago, authorities charged Berqi with “separatism” and sentenced him to 13 years in prison because of articles he wrote on economic awareness and development in the XUAR, which were published in the CCP-controlled Xinjiang Civilization magazine, according to information from an RFA listener. The last official mention of his name was on Jan. 5, 2017, in a notice issued by the Xinjiang Education Institute’s publicity department. It said that the research topics officially approved by the Chinese government included a project by Berqi relating to the stability of Xinjiang. At the end of 2017, Berqi’s name was on a list of Uyghur intellectuals who had been imprisoned, but due to the Chinese government&#8217;s tight control over information, it was only five years later, in July 2022, RFA learned about his sentencing. Husenjan, one of the Berqi’s colleagues who now resides abroad, said he received was told by sources in Urumqi that Berqi had been sentenced to prison but did not know the length of his term. “I recently received official news that he was, in fact, detained, but I wasn’t able to get information on whether or how long he was sentenced to prison,” he said. As a writer and intellectual, Berqi would have been a top target for authorities amid the ongoing repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, Husenjan said. Translated by RFA Uyghur. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Taiwan's appeal appalls China](https://ij-reportika.com/taiwans-appeal-appalls-china/): Defying China&#8217;s threats and rejecting its campaign to isolate Taiwan, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi landed on the self-ruled island for a visit. An angry Beijing, which claims sovereignty over Taiwan, conducted air-and-sea military drills to the east of the island and announced live-fire war games to run for four days after her trip. Polls show scant support in Taiwan for any merger between the democratic island and Communist China.
- [Pelosi visit renews debate of self determination of Taiwan](https://ij-reportika.com/pelosi-visit-renews-debate-in-taiwan-over-best-approach-to-greater-self-determination/): Lawmakers in Taiwan&#8217;s Legislative Yuan expressed cross-party support for U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi&#8217;s visit, rejecting threats from Beijing amid an ongoing debate on the democratic island about the strength of its ties with the United States. Opposition Kuomintang lawmaker Chiang Wan-an said Beijing, which announced live-fire military exercises on the eve of Pelosi&#8217;s arrival, has no right to prevent sovereign countries from having international visitors. &#8220;The Republic of China is a sovereign and independent country,&#8221; Chiang said, using the formal name of Taiwan&#8217;s government that dates back to the 1911 revolution under Sun Yat-sen. &#8220;Congress in particular represents the people, so there are mutual visits,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Such an overreaction by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is unnecessary.&#8221; &#8220;We also hope that the relevant parties can guard against the escalation of military tensions around Taiwan,&#8221; Chiang said. Ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmaker Lo Chih-cheng said Pelosi&#8217;s visit would significantly boost Taiwan&#8217;s faith in the U.S.&#8217; commitment to its security, however, Taiwan&#8217;s official Central News Agency (CNA) reported. Chiu Hsien-chih of the New Power Party, said the visit would likely pave the way for the U.S.&#8217; unequivocal support for Taiwan in the future, the agency said. But Chieh Chung, an associate researcher at Taiwan&#8217;s National Policy Research Foundation, warned of possible incursions by Chinese military aircraft during Pelosi&#8217;s visit. &#8220;Sending planes into Taiwan&#8217;s airspace will cause even more conflict,&#8221; Chieh told. &#8220;I think the CCP&#8217;s purpose is to make a strong impression on Taiwan and the area around it, not to actually create conflict [but] to make the situation very tense with a high-intensity show of force.&#8221; &#8220;But the purpose will probably be a show of force or the threat of it,&#8221; he added. &nbsp; A U.S. military aircraft with US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on board prepares to land at Songshan Airport in Taipei on August 2, 2022. Credit: AFP&nbsp; &nbsp; Missile launches possible Chieh said regular incursions were likely across the median line of the Taiwan Strait, particularly at its narrower sections. &#8220;July, August and September usually see intensive periods of advanced tactical training for the CCP army, so they may just adjust the timing of some exercises,&#8221; Chieh said. &#8220;At the same time, we could see a large-scale missile test launch, even of DF-17, YJ-21 or DF-21D anti-ship missiles, which could be tested on sea targets,&#8221; he added. He said the main concern was the threat of military accidents or miscalculations sparking full military conflict. &#8220;Accidents are a concern when you have such a high density of military activities in the same area,&#8221; Chieh said. &#8220;Any unexpected incident could cause a sudden and rapid escalation in the situation, which could even trigger an unexpected military conflict.&#8221; &#8220;That&#8217;s what we should be most worried about right now.&#8221; Kuan-ting Chen of the Taiwan Next-Gen Foundation think tank, said there is an ongoing debate within Taiwan about how best to win greater international recognition and participation in the face of the threat of Chinese invasion. Chen said that China&#8217;s military expenditure has jumped from about 80 billion yuan in the late 1980s to 1,476 billion yuan in 2022, an 18-fold increase. &#8220;There will be a debate within Taiwan about how to ensure peace in the Taiwan Strait and the stability of the government regardless of the circumstances,&#8221; Chen told. &#8220;[It&#8217;s about] ensuring that there are no changes to the living standards, economy or political life because of [tensions with China],&#8221; he said. Widespread public support Associate professor Huang Kui-po of Taiwan&#8217;s National Chengchi University said Pelosi&#8217;s visit seems to have garnered fairly widespread public support in Taiwan, despite the military threats from Beijing. &#8220;The reason for the support is that Congress is an elected body, and the representatives of the people from both Taiwan and the United States should visit each other,&#8221; Huang said. &#8220;Another faction believes that Pelosi&#8217;s visit to Taiwan may raise tensions in the Taiwan Strait,&#8221; he said. &#8220;But tensions are going to rise sooner or later; there could be a ripple effect.&#8221; Much of the public debate appears to be around a lack of certainty that the U.S. would commit to a full-scale military involvement in Taiwan&#8217;s defense, should China invade. The Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation found in an April 2022 poll that a majority of 53.8 percent of Taiwanese adult do not believe there will be a U.S. military intervention in the event of a Chinese invasion, while only 36.3 percent said they believe there would be. Paul Huang, research fellow at the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation, wrote in a recent op-ed article that public confidence in U.S. military support had &#8220;decisively turned skeptical&#8221; following the lack of intervention in Ukraine following the Russian invasion. &#8220;The lack of a direct US military intervention to help Ukraine (despite all kinds of military and non-military aid, intelligence sharing, and other assistance) had a major impact on the Taiwanese public’s confidence in U.S. military intervention and drove a significant number, as much as a quarter of the Taiwanese, toward non-confidence,&#8221; Huang wrote for Inkstick Media. Meanwhile, the majority of the Taiwanese public has been very sympathetic toward Ukraine and is highly supportive of Western-led sanctions against Russia, Huang wrote. A majority of supporters of President Tsai Ing-wen&#8217;s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) do believe in U.S. intervention, while 70 percent of &#8220;government workers&#8221; who include those on active military service don&#8217;t, Huang said, citing recent polls. Punishing Taiwan, not the US Yujen Kuo of Taiwan&#8217;s Institute for National Policy Research said any meeting between Pelosi and Tsai will be of &#8220;great historic significance&#8221; for many in Taiwan, however. &#8220;So far, the White House and the State Department have been quite cautious, but Pelosi visiting Taiwan will set a new paradigm,&#8221; Kuo said. But he warned that any response from China will likely seek to punish Taiwan rather than the U.S. &#8220;I worried about [Chinese] military exercise around the median line of the Taiwan Strait, because this has never happened before, and if a large...
- [Russia backs China on Taiwan as sanctions, incursions expected during Pelosi visit](https://ij-reportika.com/russia-backs-china-on-taiwan-as-sanctions-incursions-expected-during-pelosi-visit/): Russia on Tuesday backed Beijing&#8217;s disapproval of an expected visit by U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the democratic island of Taiwan, calling it a &#8220;provocation,&#8221; as China&#8217;s People&#8217;s Liberation Army (PLA) engaged in live-fire military exercises across the Taiwan Strait. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a news briefing that Moscow opposes Taiwanese independence &#8220;in any form.&#8221; Her comments came as the official media of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) made no mention of escalating tensions across the Taiwan Strait after Chinese leader Xi Jinping warned President Joe Biden not to &#8220;play with fire&#8221; ahead of Pelosi&#8217;s planned arrival on Tuesday evening. Neither the People&#8217;s Liberation Army Daily nor the CCP&#8217;s official newspaper, the People&#8217;s Daily, made any mention of the story, with the People&#8217;s Daily leading with agricultural developments in Fujian. However, the English-language Global Times ran a top story titled &#8220;Tension escalates hours ahead of Pelosi&#8217;s potential Taiwan visit as PLA remains fully prepared for any crisis.&#8221; It said any visit by Pelosi would be &#8220;a serious provocation and violation to China&#8217;s sovereignty and territorial integrity which would be met with severe countermeasures from the Chinese military.&#8221; The article largely repeated comments also made on Tuesday by Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying. It also cited a maritime safety warning to shipping reporting live-fire military exercises off Weifang in the Bohai Sea on Aug. 3, while &#8220;military training in parts of the South China Sea&#8221; was reported by the Guangdong maritime authorities. The paper&#8217;s former editor Hu Xijin tweeted on Tuesday: &#8220;Based on what I know, in response to Pelosi&#8217;s possible visit to Taiwan, Beijing has formulated a series of countermeasures, including military actions.&#8221; Hu also tweeted on Monday: &#8220;If she dares to stop in Taiwan, it will be the moment to ignite the powder keg of the situation in the Taiwan Straits.&#8221; Tacit understanding? Current affairs commentator Johnny Lau said he expects there is more likely to be a tacit understanding between Beijing and Washington enabling Xi to step up the appearance of military threat to boost his support at home. &#8220;Pelosi&#8217;s visit to Taiwan is highly beneficial to Xi Jinping, who is taking the opportunity ensure that top military and political figures must unite around him ahead of the 20th CCP national congress [later this year],&#8221; Lau said. &#8220;The mainland could have the PLA&#8217;s planes cross over the median line of the Taiwan Strait, and neither the U.S. nor Taiwan will attack them,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Both sides know where the lines are drawn, and whoever fires the first shot will be responsible [for starting a war],&#8221; he said. &#8220;Everyone is flexing their muscle in what is both a political show and a military gesture aimed at certain circles,&#8221; Lau said. Wu Qiang, an independent researcher at Beijing&#8217;s Tsinghua University, said China could also announce sanctions on members of the Congressional delegation, including Pelosi, including banning them from entering China. &#8220;If the Chinese ministry of foreign affairs imposes sanctions after Pelosi&#8217;s visit to Taiwan, it would be no more than the sanctions imposed on other U.S. politicians in recent years,&#8221; Wu said. &#8220;They could ban them from entering China or Hong Kong, freeze their assets there, and ban companies from doing business with their families,&#8221; Wu said. Diplomacy failures He said Beijing has little other recourse short of military action. &#8220;Pelosi&#8217;s visit to Taiwan marks an unprecedented change in Sino-U.S. relations, which is of course due to the failure of Chinese diplomacy [in recent years],&#8221; he said. China has also suspended imports from 35 Taiwanese exporters of biscuits and pastries since Monday. Taiwan&#8217;s Central News Agency reported on Tuesday that China has listed 2,066 foodstuffs as being subject to &#8220;import suspension.&#8221; Wu said such trade sanctions would likely continue as international support for the democratic island, which has never been ruled by the CCP, nor formed part of the People&#8217;s Republic of China, grows. He said China could also try to restrict international maritime access to the Taiwan Strait. &#8220;They could declare that the Taiwan Strait is China&#8217;s territorial waters, and its airspace part of China&#8217;s airspace, and say that foreign vessels [or aircraft] must get approval from China to enter them,&#8221; Wu said. International relations scholar Zhong Shan agreed. &#8220;China will definitely react in some way, maybe by including Taiwan in its Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) &#8230; with military aircraft flying over or around the island,&#8221; Zhong said. &#8220;It&#8217;s fairly easy for the foreign ministry to whip up populist sentiment, but it&#8217;s not so easy to suppress it again,&#8221; he said. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Thai natural gas project suspended after pipeline explosions in Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/thai-natural-gas-project-suspended-after-pipeline-explosions-in-myanmar/): Thai natural gas project suspended after pipeline carrying gas from Myanmar to Thailand has exploded twice in three days, according to locals.
- [China never misses an opportunity to crack down on Religion](https://ij-reportika.com/religious-freedom-in-china/): Religious freedom in China is in a state of peril. The primary reason is that Chinese authorities never miss any opportunity to crack down on religion. Over the past year alone, China has detained Muslim for showing their faith, forced Buddhists to pledge allegiance to the ruling Communist Party, and coerced Christian churches to take down their crosses or shut down.
- [Taiwan military on alert for China threats on reports Pelosi may visit](https://ij-reportika.com/taiwan-military-on-alert-for-china-threats-on-reports-pelosi-may-visit/): The Taiwanese military has stepped up its combat readiness to prepare for threats from China ahead of the U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s potential visit to the island, local media reported. At the same time, the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and its strike group is operating near Taiwan, a Chinese think-tank said. Taiwan’s official Central News Agency (CNA) quoted anonymous “reliable sources” as saying that from 08:00 a.m. on Tuesday until 12:00 noon on Thursday the military will “strengthen combat readiness” of troops and make adjustments in accordance to the threats from China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Taiwan’s armed forces operate at two levels of combat readiness for peacetime and wartime, each level comprises several stages. It is understood that the current stage of preparedness is still within the peacetime level but could change. The island’s Ministry of National Defense has yet to make any comment on the news that comes as China announced more live-fire exercises in the South China Sea and Bohai Sea. On Tuesday morning several Chinese military aircraft and warships came close to the median line of the Taiwan Strait &#8211; the tacit maritime border between Taiwan and the mainland &#8211; Reuters said, quoting an anonymous source. This move is “unusual” and can be seen as “very provocative,” the source was quoted as saying. Taiwan’s defense ministry said the island’s military has a “full grasp” of activities near Taiwan and “will appropriately dispatch forces in reaction to enemy threats.” Aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan conducted a replenishment-at-sea in the Philippine Sea on July 31. CREDIT: U.S. Navy 7th Fleet. USS Ronald Reagan in the Philippine Sea Meanwhile on Tuesday the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan has been sailing in the northern Philippine Sea, east of Taiwan, China’s South China Sea Probing Initiative (SCSPI) think-tank said, tracking the latest flight trajectory of the carrier-borne C-2A Greyhound cargo aircraft.  On Monday and Tuesday China announced four more live-fire drills on top of four exercises that ended at the weekend. The first one is being held in the South China Sea near Hainan Island on Aug. 1 until Aug. 6, the same period of Pelosi’s Asia tour. The other three live-fire drills are in the Bohai Sea, the first from Aug. 1 to Aug. 4, the second on Aug. 3, and the third from Aug. 4 to Aug. 6. On Sunday, just one day before Pelosi began her Asia trip, the PLA also conducted mock air combat training after midnight “with the aim of improving the pilots&#8217; ability to quickly enter combat status for abnormal situations at any time,” the state-supported Global Times reported.   RFA sources, and sources cited by local media and America’s CNN, said Nancy Pelosi would make an unofficial trip on Tuesday evening to the island, which is not on her official four-nation itinerary. China issued fresh warnings that the visit “would lead to serious consequences.” “If Pelosi visits Taiwan, the Chinese side will respond resolutely and take strong countermeasures to defend our sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Chinese Foreign Ministry’s spokesman Zhao Lijian told a press conference in Beijing on Monday. “As for what those measures will be, let’s see what happens if she actually goes,” Zhao added.  In Washington, the White House and the top U.S. diplomat said Pelosi&#8217;s travel plans were up to her, but urged China not to turn any such visit to Taiwan into a diplomatic crisis. Pelosi’s right to visit Taiwan &#8220;The speaker has the right to visit Taiwan, and a speaker of the House has visited Taiwan before, without incident, as have many members of Congress, including this year,&#8221; said national security spokesman John Kirby. &#8220;There is no reason for Beijing to turn a potential visit consistent with long-standing U.S. policy into some sort of crisis or conflict, or use it as a pretext to increase aggressive military activity in or around the Taiwan Strait,&#8221; he told reporters. Kirby said Washington would not be moved by any Chinese effort to raise tensions over Pelosi. &#8220;We will not take the bait or engage in saber rattling. At the same time, we will not be intimidated,&#8221; he said. Taiwan&#8217;s presidential office and foreign ministry have both declined to comment on any visit by Pelosi, although premier Su Chen-chang has said the island&#8217;s government, which still uses the name of the 1911 Republic of China, will welcome any foreign VIP guests. The United States does not recognize Taiwan diplomatically, but retains close unofficial ties with Taipei and is obligated by law to provide it with defense capabilities.  Beijing considers the self-ruling, democratic island a breakaway province, to be united with the mainland by force if necessary, and objects strongly to high-level U.S. visits.
- [Alcohol not to blame for student’s lethal road accident, doctor says](https://ij-reportika.com/alcohol-not-to-blame-for-students-lethal-road-accident-doctor-says/): An 18-year-old student who died on her way to school, when her scooter hit an army vehicle, was not drunk enough for that to be the cause of the crash, according to a doctor who spoke with RFA. Ho Hoang Anh collided with a seven-seater military carrier driven by Maj. Hoang Van Minh of the 937th regiment, 370th division, as she went to pick up a permit for her final exam. The crash threw Ho from her scooter, smashing her head into an electricity pole and she died on the way to hospital. Security camera video from the scent showed the army people carrier turning right into a slope and colliding with the scooter. Video of the crash went viral on social media with many blaming the army officer for the girl’s death. More than two weeks after the June 28 accident the girl’s father released the blood alcohol test results he received from the police. They showed her alcohol level was 0.79 milligrams per 100 milliliters of blood. Despite the low alcohol level, many people on social media said the release of the test result was an attempt to exonerate the army officer by implying that drink was to blame. Doctor and social activist Dinh Duc Long said the alcohol concentration was too low to affect Ho’s driving ability. “According to Decree No. 100/2019/ND-CP of the Government, the administrative fine level starts to apply to road users when having an alcohol concentration in blood of 50 milligrams to 100 milliliters,” he said. “Thus, the Scientific Council of Ninh Thuan Provincial General Hospital should publicly conclude that the blood alcohol concentration of the victim is normal according to the standards of the Ministry of Health.” A local paper quoted Bui Van Ky, deputy director of the Ninh Thuan Department of Health, as saying that according to Decision 320 of the Ministry of Health, blood/alcohol levels less than 50.23 milligrams per100 milliliters are considered to have no alcohol content. He also said foods such as fruit, yogurt or carbonated soft drinks can also cause small amounts of alcohol to be present in the blood. &#8220;It is necessary to conduct experiments at the scene to conclude who violated the road traffic law causing death,” Dr Long told RFA, adding that not everyone who is drunk causes traffic accidents. Lawyer Nguyen Kha Thanh said it was more important to discover whether the girl was observing traffic regulations than to test her blood for alcohol. “Even if the female student had a high blood alcohol concentration, if she followed the law and did not encroach on the road, the person who collided with her would still be responsible for the accident,” he said Ho’s father was enraged on hearing the blood alcohol results. He immediately filed a complaint asking for a review of claims his daughter’s drinking caused the crash, and spoke with many newspapers to make the point that alcohol was not to blame. After receiving Ho Hoang Hung’s petition the People&#8217;s Committee of Ninh Thuan province asked the provincial police to carry out an urgent investigation to verify the blood/alcohol test result. The military criminal investigation agency issued a notice on July 25, asking for witnesses to the accident.
- [Myanmar photographer who shot anti-junta protests dies in custody](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-photographer-who-shot-anti-junta-protests-dies-in-custody/): A photographer known for documenting anti-junta protests and other activities has died in custody after being detained by authorities in Myanmar’s embattled Sagaing region over the weekend, family members and friends said Monday. Aye Kyaw, 48, who runs the Hayman Photography studio in Sagaing’s former capital, Sagaing city, was arrested by junta troops who arrived at his home in a convoy of six military vehicles at 2 a.m. on July 30, citing a “tip” that there were weapons stashed there, his relatives told RFA Burmese. Sources close to Aye Kyaw said that the administrator of Aung Chanthar ward, where the photographer lived, contacted his family around noon the same day to inform them that he had died and that his body was being held in the mortuary of Sagaing City Hospital. The family members were told they “could retrieve it if you want it, or leave it there.” An official from the Ohbo Health and Social Assistance Association, a charity burial service in Sagaing, told RFA that his group had taken Aye Kyaw’s body from the hospital to a religious hall in Aung Chanthar ward to prepare it for burial. “We took the body, as requested [by the family], from the morgue and sent it to the village ‘zayat’ (religious hall),” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We didn&#8217;t see any superficial wounds on the body but I noticed his chest was sewn up like a postmortem. I didn&#8217;t see any injuries or leaking body fluids.” He said that the family buried Aye Kyaw on Sunday. Another friend of Aye Kyaw’s family, who also declined to be named, told RFA that soldiers had searched the photographer’s home for weapons during his arrest but found nothing. “The army came in six cars and arrested him. Three were outside, three entered the compound,” the source said. “[The troops] said they would shoot if the gate was not opened. They searched the entire house but they found nothing. Nothing at all.” The source said Aye Kyaw’s body was “left outside” by staff at the hospital for the Ohbo Health and Social Assistance Association to pick up and bring to his family. “We didn’t see any injuries on the face but there were dark bruises on the ribs and back,” the source said. “He was a jolly, easy-going man and had a lot of friends. When they heard his news, they were all shocked.” Aye Kyaw was a member of the Upper Myanmar Photography Association. Credit: Hay Marn Documenting a coup Aye Kyaw, who was a member of the Upper Myanmar Photography Association, was known for documenting protests and other anti-junta activities in the aftermath of the military’s Feb. 1, 2021 coup. He would post his photography to social media, where it was regularly shared by politicians and the local media. Members of Aye Kyaw’s photography group on Monday expressed sadness over his death, which is the latest of 137 that have occurred within days of detention or during interrogation by authorities since the coup, according to RFA’s count. A resident of Sagaing, who did not want to be named for security reasons, said people in the city are “living in fear” because of incidents such as Aye Kyaw’s death in custody. “I worked with Aye Kyaw during the protests in Sagaing and we took photos together. I feel horrible,” he said. The resident said that Aye Kyaw’s body showed no signs of external injuries, leading him to believe that his fellow photographer died “due to extreme torture.” “What happens here in Sagaing is that we see arbitrary arrests and killings when a military column comes and finds something they don‘t like,” he said. “There is no law. The law comes from the barrel of the gun. They do whatever they want. We feel like the death penalty has been delivered whenever the army columns approach.” The resident said that Aye Kyaw’s case marks the first time in Sagaing that a person has died within hours of being arrested by the junta. Calls by RFA to junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun and the spokesman for Sagaing Region Social Affairs Minister Aye Hlaing went unanswered Monday. According to Bangkok-based NGO Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, junta forces have killed at least 2,142 civilians since the coup and arrested nearly 15,000, mostly during peaceful anti-junta protests. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Cambodian rights group issues warning about of online loan sharks who prey on women](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-rights-group-issues-warning-about-of-online-loan-sharks-who-prey-on-women/): Exploitative online money lending networks are increasingly preying on poor Cambodian women on social media to trap them into debt and blackmail them by posting nude photos and videos of them online, a Cambodian human rights organization said Monday. The Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (Licadho) said in a report on its website that it helped three women in the past year who were harassed by informal online lenders after they had borrowed small amounts to pay for health care or other expenses.  “Licadho interviewed three female victims last year, but there are many more women who have reported to us,” Am Sam Ath, Licadho’s director general, told RFA Monday. “But, for their honor and dignity, they want to hide their identities. Their cases are similar.” Exploitative online lenders thrive in countries like Cambodia where people struggle to pay informal fees and costs for health care and education. Private debt levels there skyrocketed to 174% of the country’s GDP as of March, and repayment of the debt has resulted in coerced land sales, unsafe migration and human rights abuses, Licadho said.  The women who went to Licadho for help borrowed sums as small as U.S. $50, but were given high interest rates and vague terms that increased the amounts they had to repay. Other lenders contacted the women via the instant messaging appTelegram with new loan offers. The predatory lenders then harassed friends and relatives of the women to pressure them to pay off their debt. At that point, a new group called Loanly stepped in and offered the women large loans so they could repay the smaller debt, but only if the women sent nude photographs or videos of themselves via Telegram, along with their location and identity documents. Seeing no other way out, the women downloaded Loanly’s application, which granted the group access to their phone contacts. But they received hundreds of dollars less than promised via the mobile banking app eMoney, with Loanly claiming the rest was deducted as fees. One of the women borrowed U.S. $1,000 from Loanly, received less than U.S. $600 after undefined fees, and then paid the group almost U.S. $1,400, though the harassment continued, Licadho said. Loanly then harassed the women and their associates by phone, posted photos of their families on Facebook, and added them to Telegram groups where other women’s nude photos were being shared, Licadho said. Loanly distributed naked photos of one of the women in a Telegram group. “The lenders threaten to publicize naked photos or videos to extort money from the victims, who would feel humiliated and disgraced among friends or family if the images were to go public,” said Am Sam Ath.  Though the women filed official complaints with extensive evidence, the Ministry of Interior’s Anti-Cyber Crime Department has not taken any action against the predatory online lenders or held them accountable for their crimes, Licadho said.  While Loanly’s application no longer appears to be available, the online loan groups continue to target and harass Cambodians on Facebook and Telegram. “This creates impunity and has intensified fear among the victims,” Am Sam Ath said. “Licadho’s report is meant to warn social media users to be aware of this problem and not to be deceived.” To stop predatory lending, the rights group has called on the Cambodian government to properly regulate formal and informal lending and provide accessible basic social services. Licadho repeated a previous call for the Anti Cyber Crime Department to conduct rapid and thorough investigations to ensure justice in accordance with Cambodian law. It also called on Facebook and Telegram to prevent their platforms from being used for gender-based violence and criminal activity. Translated by Sok Ry Sum for RFA Khmer. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [China steps up threats on eve of expected unofficial Taiwan visit by Nancy Pelosi](https://ij-reportika.com/china-steps-up-threats-on-eve-of-expected-unofficial-taiwan-visit-by-nancy-pelosi/): Any visit by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is currently leading a congressional delegation on an Asian tour, to Taiwan would lead to &#8220;very serious developments and consequences,&#8221; China warned Monday, the eve of an expected visit to the democratic island. While Taiwan wasn&#8217;t on Pelosi&#8217;s official four-country itinerary, RFA sources and sources cited by local media and CNN said she would make an unofficial trip late on Tuesday to the island, which has never been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) nor formed part of the People&#8217;s Republic of China. But even an unofficial stopover would be regarded by Beijing as &#8220;a gross interference in China&#8217;s internal affairs,&#8221; Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters. &#8220;We would like to tell the United States once again that China is standing by, the Chinese People&#8217;s Liberation Army will never sit idly by, and China will take resolute responses and strong countermeasures to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity,&#8221; Zhao said. &#8220;If she dares to go, wait and see what happens,&#8221; he told a regular news briefing in Beijing. The Trump administration announced in January 2021 that the U.S. was lifting curbs that had been in place since Washington cut ties with Taipei in favor of Beijing in 1979, saying Washington would no longer &#8220;appease&#8221; Beijing. President Joe Biden has previously said China is &#8216;flirting with danger&#8217; with its ongoing threat to annex Taiwan, saying the U.S. is committed to defending the island in the event of a Chinese invasion, a statement U.S. officials later framed as an interpretation of the existing terms of the Taiwan Relations Act requiring Washington to ensure the island has the means to defend itself. But Biden struck a more conciliatory note in a phone call last Friday with CCP leader Xi Jinping, saying U.S. policy hadn&#8217;t changed, and that Washington doesn&#8217;t support full international recognition for Taiwan&#8217;s sovereignty. Xi warned Biden that &#8220;those who play with fire get burnt.&#8221; Taiwan&#8217;s presidential office and foreign ministry have both declined to comment on any visit by Pelosi, although premier Su Chen-chang has said the island&#8217;s government, which still uses the name of the 1911 Republic of China, will welcome any foreign VIP guests. &#8220;We extend a warm welcome to foreign VIPs who come to visit our country; we will make the best possible arrangements for their visit, and also respect their plans when arranging the schedule,&#8221; Su told reporters. Singapore&#8217;s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (R) shakes hands with U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi at the Istana Presidential Palace in Singapore during a visit to the Asia-Pacific region, Aug. 1, 2022. Credit: Singapore&#8217;s Ministry of Communications and Information / AFP More saber-rattling Drew Thompson, a former U.S. defense official and senior visiting fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, said via his Twitter account that he expects Pelosi to make an unofficial stop in Taiwan after her visit to Malaysia. While Beijing privately considers this an acceptable outcome, Thompson said the PLA could launch high-profile reconnaissance flights around Taiwan&#8217;s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), a form of saber-rattling that has become commonplace in recent years. Former Taiwanese civil aviation director Chang Kuo-cheng said Pelosi&#8217;s aircraft won&#8217;t be allowed to enter Taiwan&#8217;s airspace, so much take a roundabout route via airspace controlled by the Philippines, the U.S. and Japan. &#8220;She will not pass through our airspace,&#8221; Chang said. &#8220;If she tries, China may take action; something they have long prepared.&#8221; Tao Yi-fen, an associate professor of politics at National Taiwan University, said Pelosi&#8217;s visit could still prompt Xi to take action, regardless of the route Pelosi takes if she visits. &#8220;The CCP is about to hold the 20th party congress, so if Xi Jinping does nothing after issuing all of those warnings, it could have a negative impact on his bid for a further term in office at the party congress,&#8221; Tao said. Taiwan resident Hsiao Wu said the war of words is largely being manufactured by Beijing, created by the CCP&#8217;s insistence on annexing Taiwan, by force if necessary. &#8220;Every now and then, I will get Chinese friends asking me if [Taiwan] really wants a war,&#8221; Wu said. &#8220;But no, we don&#8217;t. Our side is peaceful.&#8221; &#8220;If the PLA really scrambles to fly alongside [Pelosi&#8217;s] flight or target-locks their missiles, then that would be an overreaction,&#8221; he said. &#8220;[Nonetheless], if a person of her rank comes to Taiwan, regardless of what they want to talk about, it will show support and a good attitude to Taiwan, and boost its [international] image,&#8221; Wu said. External distractions Meanwhile, a Chinese student in Canada said the CCP needs an external distraction from an imploding real estate market and weak economic performance in the wake of Xi&#8217;s zero-COVID policy. &#8220;Social conflicts are more acute in China now &#8230; it needs to engage in some provocations &#8230; and strengthen domestic controls so as to shore up social stability,&#8221; the student said. &#8220;The more conflicts at home intensify, the more they will project them outwards.&#8221; Current affairs commentator Fang Wenxiang agreed. &#8220;I think that [China&#8217;s] &#8216;wolf-warrior&#8217; diplomacy has affected all areas of government now,&#8221; Fang said. &#8220;Ministry of defense spokesmen used to be very cautious, but now they&#8217;re coming out with unreasonable statements, from which it will be hard to back down.&#8221; Wu Qiang, independent researcher at Beijing&#8217;s Tsinghua University, said the official response seems to be changing from day to day since the row over Pelosi&#8217;s trip blew up. &#8220;[The official line] is changing from day to day, and it colored by opportunism and ambiguity,&#8221; Wu said. &#8220;It seems they have reached their rhetorical limit for the time being, because they don&#8217;t want to cause political shocks or turmoil in China ahead of the 20th party congress.&#8221; &#8220;Nor do they want an expansion of popular nationalism off the back of Pelosi&#8217;s visit to Taiwan &#8230; the CCP is being cautious about nationalistic sentiment ahead of the 20th party...
- [Myanmar stages countrywide demonstrations against military junta](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-stages-countrywide-demonstrations-against-military-junta/): Burmese citizens, angered by the execution of four democracy activists last week and worn down by 18 months of military rule, staged rallies across Myanmar, from major cities to regions that have seen the heaviest clashes between troops and People’s Defense Forces (PDFs). The Sunday rallies were held in the major cities of Yangon and Mandalay along with the regions of Sagaing and Thanintharyi. Protesters made vows to fight for democracy, banged pots and sounded car horns as well as promoting their cause on social media. Residents said since the public pledge of allegiance ceremonies had been announced in advance, security was tighter than usual in the big cities. They also spotted security guards and plainclothes officers.  People were searched and there were some arrests. About 30 Mandalay residents who posted comments on Facebook urging people to participate were arrested by military council forces, according to a member of Mandalay’s Sanga (Buddhist monk) Union. “There were people who were arrested after writing posts urging people to take part in activities a day in advance. They were arrested due to military informants like Han Nyein Oo,” he said. “They prepared ambushes in the night and stuck posters on electricity poles urging people not to participate,” the monk told RFA. He said the protests were still a success because many people still took part. Telegram channels supporting the military council have been campaigning for the arrest and prosecution of those involved in the campaign. A woman holds a poster saying &#8220;Only the righteous one wins&#8221;. CREDIT: Citizen journalist Fighting until the junta is defeated RFA has not been able to independently confirm the exact number of people arrested for participating in, or inciting people to make, the pledge of allegiance. Nang Linn, a member of the University Students’ Force, told RFA the public pledge was made as a commitment to participate in the anti-dictatorship revolution until the end by people who have suffered since the military took power on Feb.1, 2021. “The main thing is that we will transform the stubbornness, anger, and bitterness that we are experiencing during this anti-regime revolution into a revolutionary spirit and then we will all march together and fight until we reach the revolution’s goal. Therefore, the public pledge was made by the power of the people,” he said. Nann Linn said the democracy movement shows the power and defiant attitude of people across Myanmar, while respecting the martyred leaders of the movement. A woman in Pazondaung township spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity for security reasons. She said she recited the pledge of allegiance and banged pots at home because security on the streets was too tight. “I saw on Facebook that people planned to recite the vow and bang pots and pans, and cars would sound their horns. I banged a bowl, “she said. “Not every house in my ward banged pots. Some banged iron buckets and others crashed Jam Jam Jam [cymbals]. Cars honked their horns but people didn’t didn’t protest for long,” the woman told RFA. People in the war-torn areas of Monywa, Yinmabin and Kani township in Sagaing Region and parts of Thanintharyi region also made the pledge of allegiance, holding banners saying “Only the Righteous one wins”. Protesters across the country said they will continue marching until the goals of the anti-dictatorship revolution have been reached.
- [China intimidated by new age political activist Drew Pavlou](https://ij-reportika.com/china-intimidated-by-new-age-political-activist-drew-pavlou/): China is a mighty country with robust economy and the largest population. It is the second largest economy of the world after the USA. Some experts term China as the next super power. But recently, China got intimidated by a new age Australian political activist and former university senator from the University of Queensland  Drew Pavlou.  Pavlou is also known for organizing protests in support of the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests and against Chinese government policies on Uyghurs and Tibetans. 
- [Vietnamese religious leader appeals five-year sentence](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnamese-religious-leader-appeals-five-year-sentence/): The man at the center of allegations of incest, fraud and abusing freedoms has appealed against his five-year prison sentence. Le Tung Van from the Peng Lei House Buddhist Church, now known as Thien Am on the Edge of the Universe, was sentenced on July 21 on charges of &#8220;abusing democratic freedoms&#8221;. Police have since suspended investigations into claims the church was an incest cult whose leaders personally profited from charitable donations. Le’s lawyer, Dang Dinh Manh of the Ho Chi Minh City Bar Association, brought the accused to the Duc Hoa district people’s court to file an appeal, accompanied by a team of defense lawyers. Le raised five points to assert his innocence. He said he did not offend the Vietnamese Buddhist Church in Long An province, or the Duc Hoa district police. He said, on the contrary, he and members of his group suffered years of humiliation and slander. Le repeated a call made at his trial for his accusers to stand up to him and make their claims in court. The church leader accused five organizations of persecuting his religion: The Duc Hoa district Police Agency, the Long An provincial Police Department, the Duc Hoa district People&#8217;s Procuracy, the Long An province’s People&#8217;s Procuracy and the People&#8217;s Court. He called on the appeals court to drop the charges against him and his colleagues and free them immediately and unconditionally. Le’s lawyer Dang Dinh Manh told RFA that he and four associates believed the Duc Hoa district court had unfairly tried six members of Peng Lei because of at least 22 procedural violations. “With Le Tung Van&#8217;s appeal we hope the appeals court will reach a verdict in accordance with the law, declaring there was no crime under Article 331 of the Criminal Code,” he said. “If we have a guarantee that the procedural regulations will be strictly implemented, it will have a very positive impact on the policy of building a state based on the rule of law, restore people&#8217;s trust in the law and enhance the prestige of the prosecuting agencies.” So far only Le has filed an appeal but lawyer Dao Kim Lan said he believed the six others charged to be innocent. &#8220;Personally, as a lawyer directly involved in the case and having access to all the files, I determine that my clients have not committed a crime according to the charges and documents and evidence shown in the case file,” he said.  
- [‘Hungry river’ phenomenon to blame for severe erosion of Mekong River banks in Laos](https://ij-reportika.com/hungry-river-phenomenon-to-blame-for-severe-erosion-of-mekong-river-banks-in-laos/): Upstream dams and sand mining have caused significant erosion along the Mekong River in western Laos, according to experts, devastating riparian communities in the impoverished Southeast Asian nation with high waters and powerful currents. But residents of those communities say they believe that other issues are to blame. Brian Eyler, director of the Southeast Asia Program and the Energy, Water, and Sustainability Program at the Stimson Center in Washington, D.C., said upstream activities had created a “hungry river” phenomenon responsible for the severe erosion. “There is a natural phenomenon called a ‘hungry river’ where a river which has been robbed of its sediments looks for new sediment to fill its course,” he said. “Sediment is taken out of a river system by upstream dams and sand mining, so when the river goes ‘hungry’ it pulls new sediment into it from river banks through erosion processes.” “Upstream dams in China have removed more than half of the sediment from the Mekong mainstream and now that Laos has built about 100 dams, the effects are being felt even more severely,” he said. If dams must be built, their designs should include sediment flushing mechanisms to allow sediment to pass through the structure, Eyler said. If they don’t include the flushing systems, the situation will “get worse and worse because the river will get hungrier and hungrier as time passes,” he added. Direct impact The dams are part of Laos’ ambitious plan to become the “battery of Southeast Asia” and boost the landlocked nation’s economy by selling the generated electricity to neighboring countries like Thailand. But the projects are controversial because of their environmental impact, displacement of villagers, and financial and power demand arrangements. Ian Baird, director of the Center for Southeast Asia Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said there are many factors responsible for the Mekong River erosion, including sand dredging and deforestation, though he agreed that the main cause is the “hungry water” phenomenon. “This phenomenon takes place because all the dams on the Mekong River collect all the sediment, [and] the water released from the dams has less sediment,” he said. “When the water gets hungrier, it causes erosion along the Mekong River bank in the region below the dams.” The erosion has a direct impact on riparian communities, causing the collapse of roads, and the washing away of land, forcing Laotians who live near the riverbank to relocate, Baird said. “The villagers who used to grow vegetables like tomatoes and chili peppers in the dry season on the riverbank can’t do that anymore,” he said. “If they still want to grow vegetables, they’ll have to grow them on higher ground, to which they’ll have to pump the water up. They’ll have to pay for electricity [to do that].” Growing vegetables on higher ground also means that the crops will not benefit from river sediment that acts as a natural fertilizer, so farmers will have to buy fertilizer as well, Baird said. Land subsidence from erosion has cracked this road near the bank of the Mekong River in Paksan, Bolikhamxay province, central Laos, July 16, 2022. Credit: RFA Many erosion ‘hotspots’ Lao officials point to other possible explanations for the erosion that wipes out houses and land in riparian communities. In Bokeo province in the northern part of the country, an entire village of 300 households was lost to the river over the past 24 years due to powerful waves caused by ship movement, an official from the province’s Natural Resources and Environment Department told RFA. “The culprit is the large and heavy ships weighing up to 100 tons running through the river,” he said. “The ships are the worst enemies of the riverbank. Their strong waves destroy the riverbank. Some waves are more than one meter (3.3 feet) high.” At least 73 kilometers (45 miles) of the 179 kilometers (111 miles) of Mekong River bank in central Laos’ Borikhamxay province is severely eroded, said Vixay Phoumy, director of the province’s Public Works and Transport Department at the agency’s annual meeting on July 7. Only 21 kilometers (13 miles) of the stretch is protected by retaining walls. “We have many hotspots in Thaphabath and Borikhan districts where the erosion is worse,” an official from the province’s Natural Resources and Environment Department told RFA.  “From our inspection, we know that the riverbank slides down the most in the rainy season,” he said. “Of course, some homes and farmland have been washed away too.” Farther downstream, strong currents in the Mekong have eroded about 90 kilometers, or nearly 50%, of riverbank, in Saravan province, an official of the province’s Natural Resources and Environment Department told RFA. A stretch of eroded riverbank along the Mekong River in Pakkading district, Bolikhamxay province, central Laos, July 2022. Credit: RFA ‘Our common problem’ The severe erosion is not confined to the Laos side of the Mekong River and affects banks on the Thai side as well, said Omboon Thipsuna, secretary-general of the Mekong Community Organizations Network Association, 7 Provinces, Northeastern Region (NCPO) in Thailand.  “The main cause is the upstream dams releasing and holding water,” she told RFA. “It’s obvious that the sediment has disappeared.” “The water goes up and down,” she said. “They [riparian residents] see it tumbling down every day.” Thipsuna called for bilateral talks between Laos and Thailand to find a solution to the erosion issue. “It’s our common problem,” she said. The Sanakham Dam, a proposed hydropower project on the Mekong mainstream between Xayaburi and Vientiane provinces in Laos will make the erosion worse, she said, adding that water levels currently can go up to four meters (13 meters) high daily. The cash-strapped Lao government can only afford to build erosion-prevention barriers in a few locations, leaving the residents of many other areas to deal with the issue on their own. “The Mekong River bank erosion has been occurring for years, causing a lot of concerns to our riparian residents,” said a villager in the town of Paksan, capital of...
- [Jokowi ends NE Asia tour aimed at bolstering support for G20 summit’s success](https://ij-reportika.com/jokowi-ends-ne-asia-tour-aimed-at-bolstering-support-for-g20-summits-success/): Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, the leader of G20 President Indonesia, undertook a carefully curated tour of Northeast Asia this week to ensure multilateral support for the group’s summit in November amid divisions over Russia’s war in Ukraine, analysts said. The Indonesian president visited China, Japan and South Korea – all countries with important trade and investment ties to Southeast Asia’s largest economy. Jokowi’s trip sent “a message of concrete cooperation and friendship amid a global situation steeped in rivalry and containment efforts,” Indonesian Foreign Minister told reporters in Seoul, the last leg of Jokowi’s five-day tour. “The leaders appreciated President Jokowi’s leadership in contributing to global peace,” she said. Indonesia has often strived to balance its relations between China and its rival superpower, the United States. But in his role as this year’s holder of the revolving G20 presidency, Jokowi has had to step up his diplomatic game by playing a mediatory role to blunt the wedge that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine created in the group, observers said. On one side, western countries in the Group of Twenty have condemned Russia for invading Ukraine. On the other, member-states including China, Indonesia and India, have refused to follow suit and still maintain ties with Moscow. Still, there is no doubt Jokowi wants the G20 summit, scheduled for November in Bali, to be a success, analysts said. “The trip was relevant to Indonesia’s chairmanship of the G20,” David Sumual, chief economist at Bank Central Asia, told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated news service. “Indonesia wants to make sure the G20 summit is successful and attended by all members,” he said. According to Agus Haryanto, an analyst at Jenderal Soedirman University in Purwokerto, Indonesia is concerned about the prospect of no agreement at the Bali summit. “At the G20, Indonesia faces a major challenge on what the outcome of the G20 summit in November will be,” he said. “With good relations with the three countries [China, Japan and South Korea], Indonesia is looking for support to smoothen things out and reduce tensions.” Jokowi, whose term ends in 2024, wants to leave a legacy of being a peacemaker and reaffirm the country’s “independent and active” foreign policy, Agus said.  “During his first term, the president paid less attention to foreign affairs. Now in his second term, Jokowi has shown that domestic politics and foreign policy are equally important.” Tense meetings Under Indonesia’s presidency, G20 meetings have been fraught, as most have occurred after the invasion of Ukraine in late February. At the group’s foreign ministers’ meeting in Bali earlier in July, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov walked out – at least once – during what he called the “frenzied castigation” of Moscow over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Before that, top U.S. British, Canadian and Ukrainian financial diplomats walked out as a Russian official addressed a G20 meeting in Washington on April 20. “The trip will also undoubtedly strengthen support for Indonesia’s G20 presidency, especially in preparation for the summit” in Bali, Foreign Minister Retno said on Thursday about her boss’s visits to Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul. Indonesian President Joko Widodo (left) shakes hands with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol at the Presidential Office in Seoul, July 28, 2022. Credit: Yonhap via Reuters ‘Respect international law’ Jokowi’s trip to Northeast Asia also showcased Indonesia’s non-aligned foreign policy, which helped him secure U.S. $13 billion in investment pledges in total from China, Japan and South Korea. At a meeting between Jokowi and Japan’s top executives on Wednesday, 10 Japanese companies pledged a total of U.S. $5.2 billion in investments in the next few years, Indonesian officials said. These include a pledge by carmaker Toyota Motor Corp to invest $1.8 billion to build its electric vehicles in Indonesia over the next five years. In Seoul, South Korean companies expressed intentions to invest $6.72 billion, including in the electric vehicle battery, steel and gas sectors.  In addition, China said it wanted to increase crude palm-oil imports from Indonesia by 1 million tons, worth $1.5 billion. While investment pledges are welcome, Ninasapti Triaswati, an economist at the University of Indonesia, cautioned about economic and defense deals with China in light of Beijing’s growing assertiveness in the South China Sea. “China’s aggressive actions in the area are causing regional tensions. Likewise, regional tensions between China and Taiwan and Japan will have a negative impact on the ASEAN region and East Asia.” In a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Jokowi stressed the importance of peace in the South China Sea, said Retno, Indonesia’s top diplomat. The only way to maintain stability and peace is to respect international law, especially UNCLOS 1982,” she said, referring to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.
- [North Korea builds state-of-the-art wards for privileged COVID patients](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-builds-state-of-the-art-wards-for-privileged-covid-patients/): North Korea has set up “Special Treatment Divisions” in hospitals in the capital Pyongyang, where the country’s elite can go for treatment if they show symptoms of COVID-19, angering average citizens who lack access to similar care, sources told RFA. For high-ranking officials of the ruling Korean Workers’ Party’s Central Committee, the divisions are up and running at the Pyongyang Medical University and Kim Man Yu hospitals, a resident of the city told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “A medical practitioner said that the number of the Party’s high-ranking officials who have been hospitalized due to confirmed COVID-19 at Pyongyang Medical University Hospital’s ‘Special Treatment Division’ is unknown, but there have been 10 or more officials who were quarantined with suspected COVID-19 symptoms,” the source said. “The Central Committee organized the Special Treatment Divisions as special medical facilities for high-ranking officials when the pandemic crisis began [in 2020]. There were few hospitalized patients, but after the military parade in April, the hospitalizations of Central Committee officials increased significantly,” he said. Though North Korea maintained that it was completely “virus free” for the first two years of the pandemic, Pyongyang finally acknowledged the presence of the virus within its borders in May 2022, saying that a large military parade at the end of April had spread the disease nationwide, and the government declared a maximum emergency. The country’s archaic medical system is ill-equipped for the global pandemic, but the wealthy and elite live in an almost first-world bubble and their money or status can grant them top-notch care in the event they need it. The facilities at the Special Treatment Divisions are state-of-the-art, the source in Pyongyang said. “They are equipped with imported COVID-19 diagnostics and vaccines,” they said. “If a fever patient is confirmed, he or she receives intensive treatment. The facility is equipped with various medicines and medical facilities such as IVs, oxygen cylinders, as well as oral vaccines. The patient receives three nutritious meals [a day] for a quick recovery.” While fever cases do not appear to be in decline in Pyongyang, the government continues to claim victory over the disease, another resident of the city told RFA. The government declared the capital as one of the areas of the country with no active cases as recently as Wednesday, according to 38 North, a website run by the Washington-based Stimson Center that monitors North Korean issues. “Fever patients who show symptoms of COVID-19 continue to appear from among the residents and officials here in Pyongyang, but the Central Committee keeps repeating propaganda that it has won the battle,” the second source said. “The residents are complaining that the authorities are only interested in special treatment for high-ranking officials … while ignoring treatment for ordinary residents,” he said.  The second source confirmed that the Special Treatment Divisions for the high ranking officials of the Central Committee are operated out of the two hospitals mentioned by the first source. Meanwhile, senior officials of the city government go to Special Treatment Divisions in Pyongyang Hospitals #1 and #2, the second source said. But the average citizen receives much more rudimentary treatment. “For ordinary residents [exhibiting symptoms], the doctor assigned to their household will [only] check their body temperature each day. Unless they have a high fever, they will be designated as suspected COVID-19 patients and quarantined at home for two weeks,” the second source said. “If they are suspected of having COVID-19 after a diagnosis, they must be isolated at a quarantine facility located on the outskirts of Pyongyang and the only treatment they get is two anti-fever pills each day,” he said.  Meanwhile at the Special Treatment Centers, a team of doctors will check in on patients several times a day and provide medicines for specific side effects, the second source said. Once they are discharged, food is delivered to their homes, he said.. “The residents who see this are accusing the authorities of discrimination. They say, ‘Only the officials are actually people, and we are not even considered human,’” he said. North Korea has so far only confirmed six cases of COVID-19 infection. Nearly 4.8 million people suffering from symptoms of the virus have been recorded as “fever” patients, 99.994% of whom have recovered, according to state media. Translated by Claire Shinyoung O. Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Jailed Chinese dissident sends wife 'suspect' letter from Xinjiang prison cell](https://ij-reportika.com/jailed-chinese-dissident-sends-wife-suspect-letter-from-xinjiang-prison-cell/): The wife of a Chinese dissident from the northwestern region of Xinjiang jailed for subversion after standing up for Uyghurs says she has received what could be a forcibly written letter from him, prompting fears of &#8220;extreme persecution&#8221; in prison. Zhang Haitao, an outspoken critic of the ruling Chinese Communist Party&#8217;s treatment of the mostly Muslim Uyghur ethnic group, is serving a 19-year jail term at Xinjiang&#8217;s Shaya Prison for &#8220;incitement to subvert state power&#8221; and spying charges. He was handed the sentence by the Intermediate People&#8217;s Court in Urumqi, regional capital of Xinjiang, on Jan. 15, 2016. Even before the pandemic, which has led the authorities lock down prisons and ban face-to-face meetings, Zhang had only been allowed three family visits during the first five years of his sentence. Since then, his wife Li Aijie, who fled China with her son after being harassed and threatened by local authorities, has only received a handful of letters from Zhang. The most recent letter came after a gap of one year and eight months, and didn&#8217;t appear to be genuine, Li told RFA. &#8220;The obvious difference this time is that he wrote in the letter that he was eating very well, and in very specific terms; he mentioned beef, lamb, chicken, milk and eggs, etc,&#8221; Li said. &#8220;I don&#8217;t think a lot of ordinary people in China eat that well [outside of prison],&#8221; she said. &#8220;It was a bit hard to believe.&#8221; &#8220;I think the prison authorities forced him to write those things,&#8221; Li said. The letter, dated June 27, 2022, is only the fifth Zhang has sent to his family since his sentence began. In it, Zhang also says he has good clothing, and tells his family not to try to visit. &#8220;The letter I received said there was no need to visit him,&#8221; she said, adding that Zhang has spent time in solitary confinement. &#8220;We have previously confirmed that he wasn&#8217;t even allowed outside for exercise,&#8221; Li said. &#8220;Why wouldn&#8217;t he want to see his family? At least his sister, and to find out how we&#8217;re doing in the U.S.&#8221; The letter signs off with something even more unexpected, Li said. &#8220;The weirdest things is that he writes: &#8216;Thanks to the party, to the government, and to the country&#8217;,&#8221; Li said. &#8220;That&#8217;s just not credible.&#8221; &#8220;The whole reason he went to jail in the first place was for scolding and criticizing the country and its government,&#8221; she said. &#8220;He is an innocent man, [wrongfully] convicted: how could he be thanking them?&#8221; &#8220;It was very painful and uncomfortable for me to read that line,&#8221; Li said. &#8220;The Zhang Haitao I know is a tough guy who doesn&#8217;t crack.&#8221; &#8220;In the absence of extreme persecution, it would be unthinkable for him to write this kind of self-violation,&#8221; she said. Chinese dissident Zhang Haitao, now jailed in Xinjiang, is shown in an undated photo. &#8216;They don&#8217;t want him to come out alive&#8217; Zhang&#8217;s sister Zhang Qingzhen last visited her brother in April 2018, she told RFA on Thursday. No visits from family members have been allowed since, despite several requests made by Zhang Qingzhen. &#8220;I asked for a video call [after the pandemic], and they said there was no equipment for video calls between Xinjiang and Henan,&#8221; she said. &#8220;So I said, &#8216;OK, I&#8217;ll come to Xinjiang for the video call&#8217;, but they said no, and told me not to come,&#8221; Zhang Qingzhen said. &#8220;Then I called the prison bureau and they told me I couldn&#8217;t have a video call.&#8221; &#8220;It&#8217;s much harder now.&#8221; Zhang Qingzhen fears that the reason for the denial of family visits is that Zhang has been tortured, and the authorities don&#8217;t want the news to get out. She also fears they don&#8217;t plan on letting her brother out of prison alive. &#8220;He has been held in solitary confinement &#8230; Now he&#8217;s in a state where he can&#8217;t die, but he&#8217;s not living either,&#8221; she said. &#8220;They don&#8217;t want him to come out alive.&#8221; Repeated calls to Shaya Prison went unconnected on Thursday. At Zhang&#8217;s trial, the prosecution cited 69 posts to the Chinese social media platform WeChat and 205 Twitter posts and retweets, as evidence of &#8220;incitement to subvert state power.&#8221; Li, who gave birth to the couple&#8217;s son shortly after he was jailed, and was left with no income, was relying on relatives for financial support, she told RFA at the time. But ChinaAid, which helped to organize her escape from China, said she had faced abuse within her family as well as threats from officials. Zhang, 46, was initially detained on June 26, 2015 on suspicion of &#8220;picking quarrels and stirring up trouble,&#8221; but the charges against him were later changed to the more serious charges of subversion and spying. The court said it had handed down a longer jail term because Zhang had &#8220;colluded&#8221; with overseas organizations. Reported by Qiao Long for RFA&#8217;s Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [The Relentless & Powerful South Korean Hallyu](https://ij-reportika.com/the-south-korean-hallyu-a-case-study-on-soft-power-push/): Hallyu means “Korean Wave”. It is a collective term used to refer to the unprecedented expansion of Korean culture and popular culture encompassing everything from music, movies, dramas, online games, and Korean cuisines and cookery.
- [China announces three exercises in S. China Sea as Taiwan issue raises tensions](https://ij-reportika.com/china-announces-three-exercises-in-s-china-sea-as-taiwan-issue-raises-tensions/): In a regional show of strength China announced three almost-simultaneous military exercises in the South China Sea between July 27 and 31, just as reports emerged that the U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi may embark on her Asia-Pacific tour on July 29. The Guangdong Maritime Safety Administration (MSA) issued three navigation warnings GD70/22, GD71/22, GD73/22 advising ships against entering three designated areas in the South China Sea during time slots starting July 27 and finishing July 31. A navigation warning is a public advisory notice to mariners about changes to navigational aids and current marine activities or hazards including military exercises. Coordinates provided by the Guangdong MSA show three areas close to China’s mainland but one of them lies only some 240km from Pratas Island, claimed by both the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan but controlled by Taipei. Prior to these drills, the Chinese military held two exercises back to back from July 16-20 and July 20-22, also in the South China Sea. One of them covered an area of nearly 100,000 square kilometers (38,610 square miles). China often holds military exercises at short notice as a form of protest in response to U.S. naval activities and political developments that Beijing deems “hostile.” The unusually high frequency of drills this month shows China-U.S. tensions have been raised by Pelosi’s reported Taiwan visit and the presence of the Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group in the South China Sea. Six warnings China has responded strongly against the rumored trip which, if confirmed, would be the first visit by a U.S. House Speaker to Taiwan since 1997. In his telephone conversation with U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday Chinese President Xi Jinping warned Washington against “playing with fire” over Taiwan. “Playing with fire will only get you burnt. I hope the U.S. is clear on this,” state news agency Xinhua quoted Xi as saying during the phone call. Before the Xi-Biden meeting, different Chinese government agencies had already issued at least six official warnings against the visit, with the Defense Ministry on Thursday threatening that “actions are the best answer.” Countries in the region are watching these latest developments closely, said Shahriman Lockman, Director of Malaysia’s Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS). “The concern here is how China would seek to retaliate if Pelosi were to visit Taiwan,” Lockman said. “If that retaliation took place in the South China Sea, perhaps in the form of a deployment of combat aircraft to the Spratlys [a disputed island chain], it would underscore to other countries the growing risks of US-China rivalry,” he said. U.S. media reported that Nancy Pelosi, the third most senior figure in the American political system, would depart for an Asia-Pacific tour on Friday.  Both Bloomberg and NBC quoted anonymous sources as saying that the tour would take Pelosi to some U.S. allies in the region, including Japan and Singapore, but whether she would make a stop in Taiwan remained “unclear.” Some leading American China experts have called on the U.S. House Speaker to postpone any Taiwan visit. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaks at the Capitol in Washington on July 21, 2022. U.S. officials say they have little fear that China would attack Pelosi’s plane if she flies to Taiwan. CREDIT: AP Avoid confrontation Bonnie Glaser, Director of the Asia program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and Zack Cooper, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote in the New York Times that the event would be seen by Beijing as “a serious provocation.” “Chinese leaders might be willing to risk an escalation such as challenging Ms. Pelosi’s plane or flying military aircraft directly over Taiwan for the first time,” they said. “Leaders on all sides must wake up and find off-ramps to avoid a dangerous confrontation that neither side wants,” the two analysts said, arguing that a crisis in the Taiwan Strait would put the island in a very difficult situation. Shahriman Lockman from Malaysia’s ISIS suggested that, should Pelosi decide to skip Taiwan, the Americans “could attempt to present this as a demonstration of restraint and maturity.” “I think there is a good middle ground here which is for Pelosi to telephone Tsai Ing-wen from Japan so she won’t need to visit Taiwan but at the same time, be able to show her support,” Lockman said. The U.S. does not have diplomatic relations with Taiwan, which Beijing considers a Chinese province, but it is obligated by law to provide the island with defense capabilities. During his conversation with the Chinese leader on Thursday Biden made clear that Washington “strongly opposes unilateral efforts to change the status quo or undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” according to a White House press release. The office of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen on Friday thanked Biden for his continuous support, the official Central News Agency reported. “The Presidential Palace expresses its gratitude … and looks forward to China’s shared responsibility” in maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” the report said. 
- [Academic under house arrest after writing about improving Vietnam’s Communist Party](https://ij-reportika.com/academic-under-house-arrest-after-writing-about-improving-vietnams-communist-party/): The former director of the SENA (Southeast and North Asia) Institute of Technology Research and Development has been placed under house arrest and banned from leaving Vietnam amid a probe into allegations of ‘abusing democratic freedoms’ for submitting a series of recommendations on improving the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam. On Wednesday the Ministry of Public Security said the Investigation Security Agency had decided to probe Nguyen Son Lo, 74, under Article 331 of the Criminal Code. The ministry did not explain why the investigation had been launched, saying the Investigation Security Agency was “focusing on investigating, collecting documents, and consolidating evidence on the criminal acts of the accused and related individuals … according to the provisions of law.&#8221; Lo’s close friend Nguyen Khac Mai, director of the Hanoi-based Minh Triet Cultural Research Center, said his colleague was a highly-decorated war hero who turned to study and offered his insights on the situation of the country and ways to improve people’s lives. &#8220;Recently he founded a think-tank on cultural research and development,” said Mai. “He told us ‘the issue of culture has become a huge issue these days for the nation’ so he wanted to contribute to this field.” He said his friend had written a number of books to advise the country’s leaders, offering recommendations on Vietnam’s economy and culture. “The Central Inspection Commission [of the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam] came to SENA to work with him and confirmed they had not forbidden him from expressing his opinions or making recommendations. They just asked him not to spread them widely,&#8221; Mai said. Lo was advised not to send his books to provincial Party secretaries or National Assembly deputies. He was told to send them internally to bodies such as the Central Organizing Commission, the Central Inspection Commission, the Central Commission on Propaganda and Education, the Secretariat and the Politburo of the party’s Central Committee. According to Mai, Lo agreed to send his comments only to responsible officials but did not understand why he was being investigated. Last year, Bach Thong district police in Bac Kan province, published an article titled &#8220;Suggestions to build the Party or act against the Party.&#8221; The article referred to the SENA Institute and claimed it had written an open letter about the 13th National Congress of the Party expressing incorrect and distorted views on Party and State. Mai said his colleague was not acting against the party. &#8220;He only has a constructive mind. He wants to contribute, correct mistakes, improve, make this Party and government more civilized and cultured, more humane, more popular, and kinder.” “That&#8217;s his aspiration and I think 90 to 100 million people also want the same. No one wants to overthrow the regime, they just want it to be better.” “Less corruption, more humanity, less immoral behavior, no land grabbing but negotiation and proper compensation. That is his wish like mine and others,&#8221; said Mai. On July 4, the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations issued a decision to suspend the operations of the institute and take steps to abolish it, saying its establishment and operations violated regulations. According to Mai, SENA is a civil society organization, legally registered with the state and its members are former high-ranking cadres such as Nguyen Manh Can, former deputy head of the Central Organizing Commission of the Communist Party of Vietnam.
- [UN Security Council joins condemnation of Myanmar junta’s execution of 4 activists](https://ij-reportika.com/un-security-council-joins-condemnation-of-myanmar-juntas-execution-of-4-activists/): The U.N. Security Council condemned the Myanmar military’s execution of four democracy activists over the weekend but stopped short of calling for new sanctions against the junta as its forces continued attacks in the country’s Sagaing region. A statement issued on Wednesday by the 15 members of the council echoed one issued on Monday by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) denouncing the killings of the activists despite numerous appeals that their death sentences be reconsidered.  The Myanmar military, which overthrew the elected government in a February 2021 coup, said on Monday that it had executed the activists for aiding acts of terror as part of the civilian opposition and resistance to the regime. The Security Council response “noted ASEAN’s call for utmost restraint, patience and efforts to avoid escalating the situation, and for all parties concerned to desist from taking actions that would only further aggravate the crisis.”  The statement also called for the full implementation of the five-point consensus agreed to in April 2021 to end to violence in post-coup Myanmar and put the country back on the path to democracy. And it called for the immediate release of deposed leaders President Win Myint and State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi. Security Council members also called for “an immediate halt to attacks on infrastructure, health and education facilities, for full respect for human rights and the rule of law, and for full, safe and unimpeded humanitarian access to all those in need.” But Justice for Myanmar, a group of activists campaigning for justice and accountability for the people of Myanmar, criticized the U.N. council’s response as insufficient.  “Yet, no sanctions, no referral to the Int&#8217;l Criminal Court + members #China, #India &amp; #Russia continue to arm the Myanmar military. Time UN Security Council ends its shameful inaction!” the group tweeted. The Group of Seven (G7) foreign ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and the High Representative of the European Union also condemned the executions. “These executions, the first in Myanmar in over thirty years, and the absence of fair trials show the junta’s contempt for the unwavering democratic aspirations of the people of Myanmar,” they said in a statement issued Thursday.   “We continue to condemn in the strongest terms the military coup in Myanmar and express deep concern about the political, economic, social, humanitarian and human rights situation in the country,” they said. Thousands flee homes in Sagaing The criticism by the U.N. and G7 came as at least 10 civilians, including two teenagers, were killed in Sagaing’s Khin-U township and more than 10,000 others from 17 villages fled their homes amid clearance operations by junta forces that began last week, local sources told RFA on Thursday. Northwestern Myanmar’s Sagaing region has the largest number of participants in the anti-junta Civil Disobedience Movement, a strike of professionals like doctors and teachers to resist military rule, and the strongest armed resistance to the junta.  Among the dead in Khin-U township are Khant Nyein, 13, from Myin Daung village; National League for Democracy township organizer Aung Naing Win, 35, from Shin Min Dway village; Aung Hman, 66, from In Daing Gyi village; Htay, 52, from Myin Daung village; Si, 89, and Ohn Thee, 35, from Letpanhla village; and Pho Khoo, 18 from Laung Shey village, the sources said.  RFA does not yet know the identities of the others killed. A township resident, who found the charred body of Aung Naing Win, said the army brutally killed ordinary civilians. “The military has been attacking villages in the area in four columns in the past 10 days,” he said, adding that soldiers burned about 50 houses and mostly slit the throats of those who were killed. The elderly woman named Si died on Wednesday when her house in Letpanhla village was set on fire, another local said. “The woman died in a fire that burned 11 houses,” said the local who declined to be identified for safety reasons. “They set fire to the house knowing that she was inside.” Another township resident said more than 10,000 people from 17 villages were forced to leave their homes and around 50 homes were destroyed by fire due to the military raids in the area. “There are about 12 villages in the surrounding area, and there must be about 12,000 to 13,000 people [who have fled their homes], the person said, adding that residents usually ran to nearby communities about two or three miles away. A resident of Moung Kyauk Taw village, who did not want to be named for safety reasons, said he saw the soldiers set fire to the village, destroying more than 20 houses. “It wasn’t an accidental fire. It was arson. We have witnesses,” the person said, adding that he and others watched soldiers enter the community and saw three or four of them set fire to the houses.  “We lost everything, and we have no place to live. We can’t buy any palm leaves [for roofing], and we don’t have money. We are now living under bullock carts,” he said. Locals said they did not know which battalion the soldiers who raided the villages were from. RFA could not reach military spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun or Sagaing military council spokesman Aye Hlaing for comment. Myo Aung, an official from the township’s Letpanhla village, said the actions of Myanmar’s junta were “cruel and inhumane.” Rural areas bear brunt The latest killings came despite claims by the shadow National Unity Government (NUG) that public administrations under its direction control around 80% of the region’s rural areas in 36 townships where the military has not been able to exert its influence. “People’s police forces have also started to be established to ensure the rule of law in areas where the public administrations have begun to operate,” said NUG spokesman Kyaw Zaw. Public administration officials said the NUG hands down its policy and agenda to public administration groups at the township level...
- [Prominent Chinese rights activist 'paralyzed' while awaiting trial in Jiangsu](https://ij-reportika.com/prominent-chinese-rights-activist-paralyzed-while-awaiting-trial-in-jiangsu/): Xu Qin, a key figure in the China Rights Observer group founded by jailed veteran dissident Qin Yongmin, is now using a wheelchair while in a police-run detention center in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu, RFA has learned. Xu, 60, is currently being held at the Yangmiao Detention Center in Yangzhou City, where she has been on hunger strike in protest at the loss of letter-writing and receiving privileges, and a months-long ban on meetings with her lawyer. Her lawyer Ji Zhongjiu was finally allowed to meet with her on June 10, when Xu could walk, and again on Wednesday, when she was brought to meet with him in a wheelchair. &#8220;When Xu Qin met with lawyer Ji Zhongjiu, they pushed her out for the meeting in a wheelchair,&#8221; Xu&#8217;s husband Tang Zhi told RFA. &#8220;The previous meeting with the lawyer was on June 10; Xu Qin became paralyzed on June 27,&#8221; Tang said. &#8220;Today, when Ji Zhongjiu saw her, she was in a wheelchair.&#8221; Tang said Xu&#8217;s blood pressure has been unstable, and her eyesight and hearing have deteriorated in detention. But he has been unable to get confirmation of her medical diagnoses from the authorities. &#8220;They refused to talk about it,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I called the state security police today, and he told me I was talking nonsense.&#8221; &#8220;He said he called yesterday to ask about her and they told him she was in good health.&#8221; Repeated calls to Ji rang unanswered on Wednesday. Refusal to &#8216;confess&#8217; Xu is being held on suspicion of &#8220;picking quarrels and stirring up trouble,&#8221; a public order charge typically used in the initial detention of activists and peaceful critics of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). A vocal supporter of a number of high-profile human rights cases, including that of detained human rights lawyer Yu Wensheng, she was detained under &#8220;residential surveillance at a designated location,&#8221; a form of incommunicado detention rights groups say puts detainees at greater risk of torture and mistreatment. Xu&#8217;s trial was suspended by the Yangzhou Intermediate People&#8217;s Court in an April 22 ruling that cited &#8220;unavoidable circumstances,&#8221; but gave no further details. Tang said her lawyer had told him that the trial had been suspended for the sixth time at the behest of state security police, which he believes was the result of Xu&#8217;s refusal to plead guilty or &#8220;confess&#8221; to the charges against her. The overseas-based Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) network tweeted about the meeting between Xu and Ji on Wednesday: &#8220;Xu was sitting in a wheelchair, looking exhausted, and with poor physical health.&#8221; &#8220;But even in light of her other physical conditions (heart disease, high blood pressure, &amp; having suffered a stroke), and even after being detained in total for nearly two years cumulatively, the authorities still have not been able to shake her determination to plead not guilty!&#8221; the group said. Xu was detained on Feb. 9, 2018 at her home in Jiangsu&#8217;s Gaoyou city, and placed under criminal detention the next day on suspicion of &#8220;picking quarrels and stirring up trouble.&#8221; She was transferred into “residential surveillance at a designated location” a few weeks later, and the charges changed to the more serious &#8220;incitement to subvert state power.&#8221; She was released, apparently on bail, then re-detained by police on Nov. 5, 2021, and has been awaiting trial since then, CHRD said. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Business bad for Bagan’s buggy drivers as pandemic and coup keep tourists away](https://ij-reportika.com/business-bad-for-bagans-buggy-drivers-as-pandemic-and-coup-keep-tourists-away/): For 50 years, Maung Maung has been a horse-and-buggy driver in the ancient city of Bagan, ferrying tourists around to its soaring spires and iconic Buddhist pagodas and temples.  But tourists have dwindled to a trickle, thanks to the combination of the Covid-19 pandemic that reached Myanmar in March 2020 and military coup the next February. “Recently, a few tourists came back but not as many as before,” said Maung Maung, who’s 70. “Now there are very few. Some days, I don’t make a single dime (what word did he use?). Others, I make only a little money.” Making matters worse, rising inflation has eroded his spending power.  When business was good, he typically made 20,000-30,000 kyats (U.S. $6-10) a day, but that’s dropped sharply. He said he charges 1,300 kyats (about U.S. $0.40) per hour for pleasure rides around Bagan and dedicated prices to specific temples pilgrims want to visit. Since the junta took power, a year-and-a-half ago, Myanmar’s economy has tumbled. Last year, its GDP contracted by 18 percent, and the International Monetary Fund estimates that 1.6 million jobs were lost in 2022, or around 7% of the workforce.  Economic growth estimates for 2022, including the World Bank’s forecast of 3% growth, seem overly optimistic now that about 40 percent of the population is living under the poverty line. Soaring Inflation, Plunging Currency Inflation was 14 percent in mid-2022 and accelerated to more than 18 percent by mid-September, with rice prices up 35-50% and gas prices spiking amid shortages. That‘s impacted all kinds of businesses, as many rely on generators due to frequent electricity shortages.  Myanmar’s currency, the kyat, lost 60 percent of its value against the dollar in 2022. The kyat briefly traded at a record low, below 4,000 kyat to the U.S. dollar, while the official conversion rate is 2,100. The son of farmers, Maung Maung’s father bought him a buggy when he was just 20 years old. He told RFA Burmese that the vehicle had provided him with a steady stream of income for many years behind a mare named Mi Chaw. Bagan, in Myanmar’s central Mandalay region, has long been a cultural capital and a major tourist hub that’s home to the remains of more than 2,200 Buddhist temples and pagodas, mostly dating from between the 11th and 13th centuries. The former capital of the Bagan kingdom that would unify the regions that collectively became known as Myanmar, the city was officially recognized as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2019.  Despite dwindling income and few visitors, Maung Maung continues running his business because driving horse-drawn buggies is what he knows, and is one of the few jobs he can do at his age. When he was younger, Maung Maung would farm during the tourism off-season, but he no longer has the strength for agricultural labor. Kyi Kyi Swe, Maung Maung’s daughter, told RFA that he cares deeply about the horses he has bred and taken care of their whole lives, and would never think of abandoning them. “Before, he asked his son to drive the buggy while he worked on the farms,” she said. “As he has grown old, he can’t do farm work and is back in buggy driving.” “He takes good care of [Mi Chaw]. He doesn&#8217;t want to see her lean. He feeds her all the time. Even at night, he gets up to feed her,” she said. “The horse also knows him well. She whinnies for more food at night. My dad leaves home around 5:30 a.m. every morning to drive to the buggy station and wait for his turn to drive.” Dwindling tradition Other buggy drivers in Bagan told RFA that the city council has granted licenses to around 300 people to operate horse-drawn carts, but only around 100 of them are actively working due to the decrease in tourism. One driver, named Soe Tint, said horse drawn buggies are as much a symbol of Bagan as the landscape and temples, and are often seen together in promotional material for tourists. But even prior to the pandemic and the coup, the number of buggies in Bagan had declined as they were replaced with modern vehicles. “I want to sell my horse since I have farm work. I paid around 1,500,000 kyats for them, but now they are worth only 700,000-800,000 kyats. I would even sell them for 600,000 kyats only, he said. “If things get better and the visitors return, the buggy business would grow again. Touring Bagan is most enjoyable by horse-drawn buggy. But they won’t come back if the good times don’t return.” Maung Maung acknowledged that if business conditions don’t improve, he will have to give up his business and depend on his family. “My business is so bad that I have been struggling to make ends meet. I just want to make enough for food and other necessities, like rice, cooking oil or salt,” he said. “If I get just a few more visitors [than average], I can make just enough to cover necessities. If I don’t have any, I have to buy them on credit. If the business doesn’t improve, I will have to sell my horses and live on my children’s income.” Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung for RFA Burmese. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Riverboat ferrying students home from school in Cambodia sinks, killing 10](https://ij-reportika.com/riverboat-ferrying-students-home-from-school-in-cambodia-sinks-killing-10/): Ten students drowned and another remains missing after a boat ferrying them home from school sank Thursday in the Khouk River in Cambodia’s southern Kandal province, sources in the country told RFA. The Kandal police confirmed Friday that authorities rescued four students from the Khouk, a tributary of the Mekong River, and are still searching for the missing student. They found the bodies of the other 10 students who drowned and estimated that they were all about 10 years old. Kandal Provincial Police Commissioner Chhoeun Socheat told RFA’s Khmer Service that the boat was very small and that it sank at around 7 p.m. on October 13. According to preliminary conclusions, the boat likely sank due to overcrowding, he said. Prime Minister Hun Sen expressed his condolences over the incident on Facebook, but stopped short of calling for an investigation. “The relevant authorities must continue to search for the victims and help with the victims’ funerals and offer services needed,” he said.  “To those who live along the rivers, please be vigilant, especially during flooding.” Cambodia is in the final weeks of its rainy season, which lasts from May to October. Coffin of a child, a victim of a boat accident, is transported in a ferry during a funeral procession in Koh Chamroeun village, east of Phnom Penh, Friday, Oct. 14, 2022. Ten students drowned and another remains missing after a boat ferrying them to school sunk in a river in Cambodia’s southern Kandal province, sources in the country told RFA. Photo:AP Kandal Provincial Governor Kong Sophoan told RFA that as of Friday night, the missing victim has not yet been found. He blamed the boat operators for their carelessness and said the boat was very old. “The boat operators lack experience, he said. “Authorities are investigating the incident.” Though authorities must ensure a boat is in good condition in order for owners to legally operate it, he acknowledged that loopholes exist. The 10 students were kind, smart and diligent, and were working hard to learn both in Khmer and English, Rong Chhun, the former president of the Cambodian Independent Teachers Association and president of the Cambodian Trade Union Confederation, told RFA.  “Those were active children who really paid attention to their studies. They had to cross the river from their houses to study on the other side,” he said. “They were dedicated hard-working kids. I am deeply saddened.&#8221; UNICEF wrote a message of condolence on Facebook that also called on the public to refrain from sharing pictures and video of the incident on social media because it could cause distress for friends and family. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [More than 200,000 children displaced in three states since Myanmar coup](https://ij-reportika.com/more-than-200000-children-displaced-in-three-states-since-myanmar-coup/): More than 200,000 children have been displaced by fighting in Myanmar’s war-torn states of Kayin, Kayah and Rakhine since the military took control of the country in a February 2021 coup, according to data compiled by rights groups, NGOs, and anti-junta forces. Beyond the psychological trauma they experience, children are vulnerable to military airstrikes and at risk of capture by junta troops, who press them into forced labor, use them as human shields and sell them as sex slaves to human trafficking rings, the Karen Human Rights Group, or KHRG, said in a report released Tuesday. Pregnant women and babies are also caught up in the conflict. “Pregnant women fleeing the war have no choice but to give birth in caves in the forest, unsheltered from the elements out in the open, or along riverbanks,” said Saw Nanda Soo, a spokesperson for the group. “Since they are on the run, they are entirely deprived of health care and supplies such as diapers, baby formula and medicine,” she said. All told, the fighting between junta military forces and various rebel groups has created more than 350,000 people who are internally displaced, more than half of them under the age of 18, the group said. And of those minors, more than half are girls. The vast majority of the displaced children, or about 175,000 of them, have fled their homes in Kayin state, which borders Thailand in southeastern Myanmar, the KHRG report said. Aid groups said that a combined 50,000 children have been displaced in Kayah, just north of Kayin state, and in Rakhine, in the west, near Bangladesh. No concrete numbers have been provided for the number of children displaced since the coup in Sagaing region in the northwest, which has seen some of the worst fighting between the military and anti-junta groups. The United Nations recently announced that at least 500,000 people have fled conflict in Sagaing in the past 20 months. ‘Running and Learning’ A member of the Kayah State Basic Education Teachers Union told RFA that more than 30,000 children have become displaced in the region since the military takeover, and are forced to study in makeshift camps or while sheltering in the jungle. “Artillery shells hit us every day and you never know when another one will come,” the union member said. “Our children were denied [proper] education for an entire year due to COVID-19 [school closures] and then another because of the [insecurity following the] coup. We can’t just stop learning, so we must teach them on the run.” The union member said that they are constantly on the move, and when they reach somewhere deemed temporarily safe, they resume teaching. “We’re stuck in a cycle of running and learning.” In the western state of Rakhine, the rebel group Arakan Army reports similar numbers. In just the past two months, at least 20,000 children have become displaced since fighting resumed with the military after a two-year lull. That’s on top of the 82,000 children who had already been driven from their homes. The rebel group said that the internally displaced people in Rakhine are housed in more than 150 different camps, where some 10,000 children attempt to continue their studies despite the regional violence. Two refugee children are seen in Taungoo, Bago region, Myanmar, on Sept. 25, 2022. Credit: RFA ‘Biggest loss in our children’s education’ Zaw Zaw Tun, a humanitarian volunteer in Rakhine, said the junta soldiers fire artillery into their villages and then sweep into the villages, arresting residents. “Many of us are constantly on the run due to regional insecurity, rather than any specific battle,” the volunteer said. “The biggest loss is our children’s education. Meanwhile, food is scarce and we are dealing with health issues such as the seasonal flu now that it is turning to winter.” Regional support groups say it has become increasingly difficult to gather accurate statistics for the number of people displaced by fighting throughout the country since the coup because the junta is actively blocking international humanitarian groups from assisting them. The junta has yet to respond to reports of the scale of displaced children and the risks they face while on the run. On Oct. 10, Kyaw Moe Tun, Myanmar’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, told the U.N. General Assembly that since the coup, the junta has killed at least 2,338 civilians, including 91 children under the age of 14 and 209 children between the ages of 15 and 18.  He said that children in Myanmar have been particularly affected by the conflict under military rule and are regularly deprived of their rights. According to data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR, there are 89 million refugees worldwide, 36 million of whom are children. In Myanmar, the refugee agency said, at least 1.3 million children have been displaced since the coup, compared to around 300,000 beforehand. Meanwhile, in the central Bago region, 2,000 people have fled the conflict between the military and Karen National Union (KNU) since this February. The physical and mental health of those who are displaced are rapidly deteriorating, said Saw Maung Maung, a volunteer in Taungoo, adding that aid groups are facing shortages as donations dry up. “The donors are running out of patience,” he said. “There is a scarcity of food and other necessities needed for the refugees. We are in a difficult situation and have had to find ways to connect with other organizations to meet our long-term needs,” he said. Saw Htoo Htoo, a displaced 9-year-old in Taungoo, said he was forced to flee his village in Kyaukkyi and take shelter in the jungle for about a week after “fighter jets roared overhead, shooting at us repeatedly.” “I was barefoot from the start… In the rain, I was nearly eaten alive by the mosquitoes … Soldiers were always hunting us as we ran and we were constantly shaking with fear,” he said. “We had to run for our lives, but at least now...
- [Cultivate compassion, Dalai Lama urges, and use technology to benefit humanity](https://ij-reportika.com/cultivate-compassion-dalai-lama-urges-and-use-technology-to-benefit-humanity/): Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama called for people to train their minds to cultivate compassion and cautioned that digital technology should be used only to benefit humanity, at a two-day gathering in northern India that ended Thursday. About 180 people attended the two-day Mind &amp; Life Conversation on Interdependence, Ethics and Social Networks in the audience hall at the Dalai Lama’s residence in Dharamsala, a hillside city in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh that is home to the Tibetan government-in-exile. About 100 attendees were Western scientists and scholars and members of the Mind &amp; Life Institute, an organization whose mission is to inform and advance the emerging field of contemplative science and its application to real-world challenges.   Among the other attendees were Tibetan monks and nuns who have participated in science programs at Emory University, students of science from the Tibetan Medical &amp; Astro-Science Institute, the Library of Tibetan Works &amp; Archives, and lamas and abbots from the centers of learning at monasteries in South India. Training the mind in cultivating compassion involves developing thoughts of even-mindedness, or equanimity, the Dalai Lama said.   “We’ve held a lot of Mind &amp; Life dialogues, and I feel they’ve been very important,” he said on the first day of the event on Oct. 12, according to a report on the Dalai Lama’s official website. “In the world at large, a great deal of attention has been paid to physical things, but much less to the mind. And yet, when we talk about happiness and suffering, they are inner, mental experiences. If we have no peace of mind, we won’t be happy.” “Many of the conflicts we see in the world are about physical things, material resources and power,” the Dalai Lama went on to say. “Therefore, we need to look at what went on in the past and learn from it so that we can construct a future based on peace, happiness and togetherness.” “The root of peace of mind is compassion,” he said. “As soon as most of us are born, our mothers take care of us and give us our first lessons in compassion. Without this we would not survive. This is how our life begins. As children we grow up in an atmosphere of compassion.” The Tibetan spiritual leader also said that technology should be used to benefit humanity. “Generally speaking, whether or not technology can be thought of as good or bad depends on how it is used,” he said on the second day of the gathering, according to a report on his official website. “We human beings should not be slaves to technology or machines. We should be in charge.” When humans are too materialistic, they regard human values as being of secondary importance, he said. “We must remember that we are human beings and we need to apply human values, whatever we do,” the Dalai Lama said. “Principally, we need to be motivated by warmheartedness. Technology is supposed to serve human needs; therefore, it needs to be guided by human values.” It also needs to help protect the environment, he said. The Mind &amp; Life Institute was founded more than three decades ago by Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th and current Dalai Lama, Chilean scientist and philosopher Francisco Varela, and American lawyer and social entrepreneur R. Adam Engel.  While science relies on empiricism, technology, observation, and analysis, the three believed that well-refined contemplative practices and introspective methods could be used as equal instruments of investigation.      Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Cambodian Supreme Court orders retrial for autistic teen son of opposition activists](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-supreme-court-orders-retrial-for-autistic-teen-son-of-opposition-activists/): Cambodia’s Supreme Court ordered the Court of Appeals to retry the case of Kak Sovanchhay, the autistic teenage son of opposition activists, who was last year sentenced to eight months in prison for incitement and insulting public officials. Kak Sovannchhay, 17, is the son of Kak Komphear, a jailed senior official of the banned opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP).  He was arrested at his home in Phnom Penh on June 24, 2021, over a Facebook post and voice messages in which he was critical of the government in response to someone calling his father a traitor. The Phnom Penh Municipal Court sentenced him on Nov. 1, but credited him four-and-a-half months for time served and commuted the remainder of his sentence, thereby allowing his release a little more than a week later. Additionally the court ordered he remain under judicial supervision for two years. He appealed the conviction but it was upheld on March 14, 2022. The Supreme Court on Wednesday accepted the facts from the appellate trial but rejected the conviction and six conditions set on Kak Sovannchhay while under judicial supervision. Prum Chantha, Kak Sovannchhay’s mother, told RFA’s Khmer Service that her son’s imprisonment was a threat from the government because her family continues to promote democracy. She said the Court of Appeals should drop the sentence because her son, who was only 16 at the time of his arrest, was a child. Additionally the sentence leaves a mark on his record that could seriously affect his future. “First, it affects his opportunities to learn, second he gets discrimination, and third, when he goes to find work, his name will be associated with the conviction, so it is a very serious punishment,” said Prum Chantha. “He is just a minor and he has a disability,” she said, referring to his autism. “He is very young.” Kak Sovannchhay’s lawyer Sam Sokong told RFA he believes the verdict is a violation of his client’s human rights. “I urge the authorities as well as the Royal Government to consider the case of this child and to consider the interests of the child as enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other rights related to children&#8217;s rights,” he said. Based on Cambodia’s Penal Code and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Cambodia is a party, judges should be highly considerate and refrain from convicting children, opting for rehabilitation or education instead of imprisonment, Sam Sokong said. Am Sam Ath of the local Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (Licadho), a local NGO, told RFA that he believes the Supreme Court handed the case back to the appellate court because it is skeptical about certain aspects of the law and how they were applied in Kak Sovannchhay’s case. He urged the Court of Appeals to retry the case as soon as possible and drop all charges. “We look at first the interests of the child,” he said. “Secondly, this child has a chronic disability called autism, and thirdly, if we look at the dialogue in social media used to convict him was a private conversation,” he said. Kak Sovannchhay had been previously arrested in October 2020, then in April 2021, two men attacked him with bricks while he was driving a motorbike, leaving him with a fractured skull. Police never found either attacker. The conviction and sentence of an autisitic child was neither necessary nor proportionate,  a May 2022 report on the trial by the American Bar Association said. “Sovannchhay’s conviction further shows the lengths to which the Cambodian government will go to silence dissenting voices as well as the urgent need to reform Cambodia’s ‘incitement’ law, which has been a crucial tool in the authorities’ crackdown on civil society,” the report said.  Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Hong Kong police say cartoonist’s art damages their image](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-police-say-cartoonists-art-damages-their-image/): Hong Kong police have expressed “strong concerns” to the city’s Ming Pao newspaper over what a spokesman called a “misleading” cartoon by political satirist Zun Zi that lampooned authoritarian education policies, media in the city reported. Zun Zi’s cartoon, published on Tuesday, shows a police officer fully-clad in riot gear at a school asking &#8220;What have the students done today, headteacher Chan?”  The teacher lists the students’ various offenses including losing erasers and talking back to teachers.  The cartoon was published in the wake of A widely-publicized case in which 14 secondary school students were suspended for three days for  failing to show up to a flag-raising ceremony at St Francis Xavier&#8217;s School in Tsuen Wan district. Under a national security law imposed by Beijing in mid-2020, authorities in Hong Kong have conducted a wide-ranging crackdown on pro-democracy activists, many of whom are students at universities and other educational institutions.  Students are among the dozens of activists arrested, campus activism has been banned, and schools are under pressure to adjust their curriculum to inculcate nationalism and fealty to the ruling Chinese Communist Party. Zun Zi’s cartoon could give readers the misleading impression that Hong Kong police would be deployed to handle small campus issues, police spokesman Joe Chan wrote to Lau Chung Yeung, Ming Pao’s executive chief editor, reports in the city said. “The false descriptions in [the cartoon] might make the public misunderstand police work. They not only damage the Force’s image, but also harm the cooperation between the police and the public, as well as our effectiveness on cracking down crimes,” said Chan’s letter, quoted in the Hong Kong Free Press. The cartoon  remained on Ming Pao’s website on Wednesday, while Ming Pao’s editorial board issued a statement saying that the paper would &#8220;continue to provide accurate and credible news content to readers in a professional spirit and support columnists in providing professional work.”  Hong Kong has plummeted in global press freedom rankings following a citywide crackdown on dissent under the national security law. Speaking to RFA Cantonese when Hong Kong’s national security law was first enacted in 2020, Zun Zi said that the local Hong Kong government cooperated with Beijing to pass the national security law, which had a chilling effect on society.  “Now we have to be careful when we laugh. We need to be skillful when laughing. We can’t draw fists or point fingers everyday,” he said. “Only when you integrate politics, incidents, with people’s life stories and the culture of the society, can you create top-rated and inspiring works of art,” Zun Zi said, vowing to keep drawing despite the crackdown. “As to when is the time to stop, if someone holds a knife, and puts my hand on the chopping board and tells me that he will cut off my hand if I continue to draw. If this happens, I will stop. This is the only way (to stop me).” Zun Zi is the pen name of Wong Kee-kwan, a 40-year veteran cartoonist who initially contributed to the pro-Beijing New Evening Post and Takungpao publications before moving to Ming Pao.  His cartoons have also appeared in the pro-democracy Apple Daily, which has been shut down by national security police since the passage of Hong Kong’s national security law. At least three Hong Kong cartoonists who published their work  in Ming Pao, Hong Kong Worker, vawongsir and Ah To, have announced their plans to leave the city amid the crackdown. Translated by RFA Mandarin. Written by Nawar Nemeh.
- [Pakistan trying to revive the crumbling CPEC using fake handles!](https://ij-reportika.com/pakistan-trying-to-revive-the-crumbling-cpec-using-fake-handles/): Investigative report to show how revival of dying CPEC is done using propaganda handles operated from Pakistan. This is a comprehensive report to expose fake handles.
- [French court acquits Cambodian opposition leader in defamation cases](https://ij-reportika.com/french-court-acquits-cambodian-opposition-leader-in-defamation-cases/): A court in France has dismissed two defamation cases brought against Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy by Prime Minister Hun Sen and a senior police official, but both sides were quick to claim victory in the proceedings, citing elements that advanced their own narrative. The Paris tribunal judiciaire ruled on Monday that Sam Rainsy – a dual citizen of France and head of the banned Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) – was guilty of defamation against Hun Sen when he posted a message to social media in 2019 claiming that the prime minister had ordered the assassination of Cambodia’s former National Police Chief Hok Lundy. However, the court found that Sam Rainsy’s right to freedom of expression trumped the ruling and granted him clemency. Hok Lundy died in 2008 when his helicopter crashed in Svay Rieng province during bad weather, but Sam Rainsy maintains that the aircraft was downed in an explosion. “The correlative factual basis for this imputation [that Hun Sen is responsible for Hok Lundy’s death] is tenuous,” the court said, adding that Sam Rainsy’s statements were made “in a context of denunciation of violations of human rights by a political opponent who … cannot go to Cambodia in order to continue its investigations” of the incident. “Under these conditions, it appears that a criminal conviction would undermine manifestly disproportionate to the right to freedom of expression protected by Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.” The court also ruled that an allegation in Sam Rainsy’s social media post that Hok Lundy’s son, Deputy Commissioner General of the National Police Dy Vichea, was aware of Hun Sen’s involvement in his father’s death and planned to take “revenge” on the prime minister, did not meet the legal definition of defamation. Dy Vichea is also Hun Sen’s son-in-law. “The reference to a political opponent who could have other reasons to dismiss Hun Sen from power does not necessarily refer to recourse to violence but may as well refer to an alliance of a political nature,” the ruling said, noting that Sam Rainsy provided no details in his comments about the details of the alleged revenge plot and its status. “Therefore, in the absence of precision on the projects thus imputed to Dy Vichea making it possible to establish their illegal nature and even to discern their exact content, the remarks do not undermine his honor and his consideration.” In addition to granting clemency to Sam Rainsy, the court dismissed a countersuit by the opposition leader that Hun Sen pay for his expenses related to the proceedings. In a June 2019 Facebook post that prompted the lawsuits against him, Sam Rainsy wrote that “Hun Sen killed Hok Lundy using a bomb placed inside his helicopter … because he knew too much about Hun Sen’s misdeeds.” He also claimed that Dy Vichea “knows well the cause of his father’s assassination” and is “hatching a plan to avenge his father’s death.” The Paris tribunal judiciaire heard both defamation cases against Sam Rainsy in a five-hour session on Sept. 1 before delivering its verdict Monday. Ruling reactions In a statement that followed the verdict, Sam Rainsy’s legal team welcomed the two acquittals, saying that “the French justice system has solemnly confirmed the legitimacy of his actions and defended his freedom of expression.” “For our client, this judgment is much more than a personal victory, but is a ray of hope for defenders of freedom and justice in Cambodia and elsewhere.” Sam Rainsy said Monday that he had won the case, despite the court’s ruling that he was guilty of defamation and then spared. “[The] French court rules that Sam Rainsy wins the case against Prime Minister Hun Sen and his son-in-law,” he said in a post to the Telegram social media network, referring to Dy Vichea. On Facebook, Sam Rainsy characterized the court’s decision as “good news.”. Hun Sen also jumped on the ruling as proof of his “innocence” in Hok Lundy’s death during a speech he made to a university graduation ceremony in the capital Phnom Penh on Tuesday, saying the court found Sam Rainsy’s accusations “baseless and unwarranted” because they lacked evidence to support them. He said Sam Rainsy had failed to provide direct evidence or any testimony through witness affidavits to prove the crash was due to an explosion, and no autopsy report was available to provide the court. “It means that [Sam Rainsy] just made these accusations without having any evidence to submit to court. So the court said that this had nothing to do with Hun Sen,” he said, referring to himself in the third-person, according to a report by the Phnom Penh Post. “What did Hun Sen want from this that prompted him to trouble Rainsy at his home? Hun Sen wants innocence and nothing else. [Rainsy] claimed that they won the case somehow and I don’t know how they can possibly say this.” Hun Sen said he has no intention of appealing the court decision, but would follow along if Sam Rainsy does. Hun Sen’s comments follow those of his lawyer, Ky Tech, who told local media in France on Monday that the court’s ruling showed Sam Rainsy had provided “no clear evidence or confirmation” of the prime minister’s involvement in Hok Lundy’s death. Ky Tech also claimed that the court “also gave another reason to confirm that Sam Rainsy did indeed defame [Hun Sen], which cannot be denied,” without providing further details. Cambodia case The French court’s ruling follows Sam Rainsy’s December 2021 trial in absentia by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court for “falsifying information” regarding the death of Hok Lundy. Sam Rainsy has lived in France since 2015 to avoid what he says are a string of politically motivated charges and convictions against him. The acting CNRP leader tried to return on Nov. 9, 2019 to lead nonviolent protests against Hun Sen, urging Cambodian migrant workers abroad and members of the military to join him. However, his plan to enter Cambodia from...
- [Laos put on edge by two recent brutal killings of Chinese nationals](https://ij-reportika.com/laos-put-on-edge-by-two-recent-brutal-killings-of-chinese-nationals/): The grisly killings of two Chinese nationals, whose bodies were found stuffed into bags and floating in rivers within two weeks of each other, have put residents of Laos on edge. No connection between the two killings has been confirmed, but authorities say both may have been involved in business deals gone sour, sources in Laos told Radio Free Asia.  On Sept. 15, villagers from Vientiane Province’s Phon Hong district found a body floating near a dam that was identified as belonging to Chinese businessman Yang Youhai, 37, who had operated an iron bar manufacturer. The body was found in a plastic bag with his hands and feet bound, a police official said. “They are still investigating and the cause is unknown,” a police official from Vientiane’s Naxaythong district told RFA’s Lao Service. “There is no closed-circuit camera at the location where they dumped the body. They don’t know where it came from, what direction. They know only that this body is of the person from the iron bar company.” Yang was a “big boss” at his company, and had come to Laos three months prior, another police official from the capital said. The body was cremated in Vientiane, and some of the bones are to be sent to China for further investigation. The suspected motive is a business-related conflict, the second police official said. Dismembered body Two weeks later, Thai police on Sept. 29 discovered a suitcase floating in the Mekong River containing the dismembered body of Viphaphone Kongsy, 36, chairwoman of the Lao VIP investment company. A dual citizen of Laos and China, the woman also went by the name Lì Jūn Vp. She had been missing since Sept. 10. The Lao Ministry of Public Security set up a special committee to investigate, but hasn’t released any statements or information about evidence.  An official from the rescue team in Thailand’s That Phnom district, where the body was found, told RFA he went to pick up the body bag and found evidence that suggested murder.  “Her face was beaten by something strong like an iron bar,” he said. “The right side of her stomach has been torn out. She might have been beaten hard with an iron bar before she died.” A couple days later, residents in Vientiane spotted what turned out to be her car floating in the Mekong River. Her decomposing body parts are being kept at the Nakhon Phanom hospital in Thailand, a Thai police official said. “They have to test her relatives&#8217; DNA before they can return her body to Laos,” the official said.  The two killings are the latest in a string of similar incidents involving Chinese nationals engaged in business in Laos, where China has invested heavily in infrastructure and manufacturing projects. ‘Very Afraid’  With the news of each case, the Lao public has grown ever more fearful, sources told RFA, sparking fears of growing lawlessness. “News of the murder is making villagers very afraid. They want local officials, police and soldiers to patrol all the time, and the villagers want to take part to be the eyes and ears helping them as well,” said a villager from Phon Hong, where Yang’s body was found. Soldiers patrol the dam where the body was found 24 hours a day, he said. “This was a murder with the intent to kill this guy without mercy,” a police official said, asking not to be identified.  “There have been killings in many provinces in Laos in the past mostly from drug trafficking and drug trades or robbery and stealing, conflict in the family, or among friends, but not as harsh as this one.”  Reports of such killings have increased in recent years of growing resentment in Laos over Chinese business presence in the country, over Chinese casinos and special economic zones which have been linked to human trafficking and crime.  Viphaphone’s investigation should be handled in a transparent way to ease the fears of the people, a Lao source who has been following the case told RFA. “They should announce what they know to the public, what’s going on, right now,” he said.  Another Lao source who is following the case said that it was likely a business-related killing. “Based on observation, this case of murder looks like it stems from business conflict. But the police have not revealed anything yet,” the second source said. “We never dreamed that anything like this would happen in Laos.” A former Lao government official with knowledge of cases like these also believes the deaths are a result of business conflicts, “perhaps with Laotian, Vietnamese or Chinese who invested money and had a conflict with her and lost,” he said. A Lao expert on criminal law declined to express an opinion on the case or speculate on its outcome. “But I believe that related sectors must urgently solve this case because it is a horrible case for the public to think about,” the expert said. Translated by Sidney Khotpanya and Ounkeo Souksavanh. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [The single-person quarantine zones in Shanghai are the new NORMAL amid fresh lockdown fears](https://ij-reportika.com/the-single-person-quarantine-zones-in-shanghai-are-the-new-normal-amid-fresh-lockdown-fears/): China is stepping up its efforts to control Covid-19 outbreaks ahead of the 20th National Party Congress, with national cases mounting to the highest in nearly two months and concerns about broadening lockdowns rippling across Shanghai, the financial hub of China. The country reported 1,878 cases for Sunday, the highest since Aug. 20, as the week-long National Day holiday saw cases erupt among returning visitors. Shanghai posted 34 new local infections, the most in nearly three months. The 20th party congress and the memories of the Zero-Covid policy lockdown earlier this year have raised the apprehensions of Chinese citizens. People are panic posting stories of struggles and fear on Weibo and other Chinese Social media platforms. There has been a sudden rise in the number of people searching, reading and discussing Shanghai lockdowns on Weibo. On top of this, the authorities have started to impose single-person temporary isolation mini-quarantine zones in Shanghai. In this inhumane practice, people who even have a remote chance of being COVID-19 positive are quarantined for hours on the spot alone in isolation. The people of Shanghai are in a dire need of respite, and the Chinese Regime needs to be people-friendly instead of obsessing over the 20th National Congress. Sources: https://twitter.com/StephenMcDonell https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-10/lockdown-worries-return-to-shanghai-as-china-covid-tally-climbs
- [France wants exit from NATO and Frexit](https://ij-reportika.com/france-wants-exit-from-nato-and-frexit/): A giant crowd of protesters paraded through the center of Paris demanding that France radically alter its stance on NATO and the EU.The march was organized by the Les Patriotes (The Patriots) party led by Florian Philippot, (the former deputy head of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally and ex member of the European Parliament between 2014 and 2019). Anointed “the national meeting of resistance,” the rally attracted thousands of people, according to Philippot. The demonstrators were holding a large banner reading ‘RESISTANCE’ and more miniature placards that read ‘FREXIT’ – a reference to a demand that France leaves the EU. Many protesters were also waving the national flag. Media sources also reported that people protested in the streets primarily against the recession, the sharp increase in the cost of living, and chaos in the world. A group of French intellectuals including Nobel literature prize winner Annie Ernaux on Sunday urged people to join protests next week against President Emmanuel Macron of not doing enough to support the impoverished cope with high prices while some private companies make windfall profits. &#8220;Emmanuel Macron is using inflation to widen the wealth gap, to boost capital income at the expense of the rest&#8221;, the group of 69 signatories, including writers, film directors, and university teachers, said in a text published in the Journal Du Dimanche. A major power like France leaving NATO will create a void in it and will change the world order significantly.!!
- [Fighting in Myanmar’s Sagaing region kills 16 anti-junta fighters](https://ij-reportika.com/fighting-in-myanmars-sagaing-region-kills-16-anti-junta-fighters/): Fighting over the weekend in northwestern Myanmar’s restive Sagaing region between the military junta’s soldiers and People’s Defense Force (PDF)  militias left 16 rebels dead, with some corpses showing signs of severe torture, local sources told RFA. “They had tortured them inhumanely. They cut the skins everywhere severely to keep them from being distinguished from each other,” Tauk Te, a member of the PDF Myanmar Defense Force, said of the seven bodies they found. “Some had their insides spilling out through open holes in their stomachs and some had their brains coming out of their heads.” Sagaing, an agricultural region where resistance against the junta is strong, has seen some of the most intense fighting in Myanmar since the military took control in the February 2021 coup. More than half a million people in Sagaing have been displaced by the fighting, according to a U.N. report released last month.  The fighting took place in two separate battles, in Wetlet township, just north of Mandalay, and in Taze township, farther north. In Taze, two rebel units attacked junta soldiers with artillery near Tat Thit village around noon on Friday, local sources told RFA, reportedly killing six junta soldiers. The next day, fighting continued, forcing about 4,000 civilians to flee their homes in eight villages, including Ka La Zin, Dei Yauk and Chaung Yoer, the PDF press department in Taze said.  Farther south, in Wetlet township, junta soldiers attacked a small rebel camp near Pha Yar Lay Kone and Nay Pu Kone villages,  local PDF sources said. The attack included an hour-long air raid by 2 fighter jets and a Mi-35 military helicopter that were followed by two Mi-17 supply choppers that dropped off around 100 junta soldiers, they said. Both the Mi-35 and Mi-17 helicopters are made by Russia, which has resisted international pressure not to arm Myanmar’s junta amid its crackdown on civilians that began after the military took control in a February 2021 coup. Six rebel fighters were killed in the airstrikes, a PDF source said, and three were captured and tortured to death. “They cut their skin and faces, and hit their heads with gun butts until they were killed, the source said.  The rebel unit lost hand-made guns, 40MM grenades and over 450 million kyat worth of military hardware. The soldiers also reportedly burned down their camp buildings in the area.  Undated photo of Taze People’s Defense Force. Credit: Taze PDF Locals told RFA that four people in their 20’s and five people in their 30’s were among the deceased, and their names have not been released yet. So far, RFA has received no response from junta spokesperson and minister for social affairs Aye Hlaing about the hostilities in Sagaing.  Area residents also said that junta troops stationed at a monastery on Du Thin hill near Nay Pu Kone village captured 15 local civilians in the process.  One civilian fleeing Nay Pu Kone said there have been more frequent air attacks by the junta in their region lately. “We had to be really cautious at the sound of airplanes. No fighter jets flew over us before. Now that they are here on us, you can imagine the danger we are in. We had nowhere to run when they came.” Local residents said that more than 1,000 villagers from Nay Pu Kone and are too afraid to go back to their homes with junta soldiers still stationed there. Myint Oo, the ousted parliamentary representative of Wetlet, said that the junta has used more air strikes because they have been faced with landmines in ground assaults. “They dare not come by trucks. Lately, they have to leave their trucks somewhere safe and walk as our PDF forces have set up landmines in several locations. But even then, they still face landmine attacks. So they now rely mainly on air strikes,” Myint Oo said.  “Their acts of human rights abuse go beyond any words. They don’t care about any local or international law. They just do whatever they want,” Myint Oo said. “They have given full authority to even juniors who, as a result, kill indiscriminately without moral conscience for civilians, including children.” Reported by RFA Burmese. Written in English by Nawar Nemeh.
- [Two associates of Iran's security forces have been killed in continuing Iranian revolution against the regime](https://ij-reportika.com/two-associates-of-irans-security-forces-have-been-killed-in-continuing-iranian-revolution-against-the-regime/): Videos on social media show students and schoolgirls joining the demonstrations across the country. Dozens of protesters have been killed since the unrest began last month following the death of a young woman in custody. Mahsa Amini&nbsp;was detained in Tehran by the morality police for allegedly not covering her hair properly. The 22-year-old Iranian Kurd died in custody on 16 September, three days after her arrest. One member of the Basij paramilitary militia was&nbsp;&#8220;killed by rioters with a gunshot&#8221;&nbsp;at one of the protest sites in Tehran, according to Basij News, the official website run by the Basij organization. A member of the&nbsp;Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) was also killed on Saturday&nbsp;during protests in Sanandaj, the capital of Kurdistan province, according to an Iranian media report. At least 20 members of the IRGC, Basij, and police forces have been killed over the past three weeks of protests, the media say. Protests over the weekend were reported across the country, including Tehran and Sanandaj. Videos shared on social media appeared to show Iran&#8217;s security services entering schools and universities on Sunday. In similar protests in a number of other cities, demonstrators hurled Molotov cocktails at mosques, Basij centers, and imams&#8217; offices, the agency said. Germany&#8217;s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has called for tough measures against anyone responsible for cracking down on the protests. She described those who&nbsp;&#8220;beat up women and girls on the street&#8221;&nbsp;as being on the wrong side of history and said she would ensure the EU imposed entry bans on individuals responsible and froze their assets. In Norway, the Iran Human Rights group said 185 people had been killed since the unrest began, including 19 children. &#8220;The highest number of killings occurred in Sistan and Baluchistan province with half the recorded number,&#8221;&nbsp;it said on Saturday. Separately on Saturday evening, state television was hacked by opponents of the government. Pictures of the country&#8217;s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with a target on his head appeared in a news bulletin, together with captions calling on people to join the protests. Also on Saturday, female students at al-Zahra University Tehran were reported to have chanted &#8220;get lost&#8221; during a visit there by President Ebrahim Raisi. Sources: https://twitter.com/NasimiShabnam/status/1579048815763419138 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-63191717
- [Vietnam promotes  'problematic' bid for UN Human Rights Council membership](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-promotes-problematic-bid-for-un-human-rights-council-membership/): Vietnam is mounting an assertive campaign to win a seat on the United National Human Rights Council in an Oct. 11 vote, but critics say Hanoi&#8217;s poor record at home and diplomatic support for major rights violators abroad disqualify the one-party state. Fourteen seats on the 47-member Council will be filled by the U.N. General Assembly full-member vote. The highest human rights body has long faced criticism that countries seen as major rights abusers are members who team up to shield each other from scrutiny. Critics say Hanoi’s record of cracking down on journalists, activists and social media commentators makes it a poor choice for the Council. And they say Vietnam would join the bloc of countries that block Council action on major crises, as it did in its previous  2014-16 term. “There is little doubt that Vietnam will be a problematic, highly negative influence on the Human Rights Council if it is elected to the 2023-2025 term,” said Phil Robertson, deputy director of the Asia division at Human Rights Watch (HRW).  “In fact, at every opportunity, Vietnam does not hesitate to show its contempt for international human rights law, and if they get a seat, it&#8217;s highly likely they will seek to undermine meaningful actions by the Council,” he told RFA. Tuesday’s vote in New York comes days after China and its allies on the 47-member Council defeated a U.S. proposal that the Council hold a debate on a recent report by the body’s rights chief on abuses in China’s Xinjiang region. Vietnam has conducted an intense propaganda and lobbying drive to support its effort to be elected to the Council. On Sept. 30, Deputy Prime Minister Phạm Binh Minh approved a huge public relations campaign intended to boost the country’s reputation in the human rights field. Under the project, all Vietnamese state agencies will regularly provide human rights information to the media by 2028, while state officials working in the field will receive communications training. Over the past month, state media have touted what they say are Vietnam’s human rights achievements and criticized the international community’s accusations of rights violations in the Southeast Asian country. Vietnamplus, an online newspaper, recently ran two stories titled “Vietnam attaches importance to international cooperation in human rights protection” and “Vietnam ready to contribute further to UN affairs.”  The Voice of Vietnam online newspaper, meanwhile, ran a story titled “Vietnam pledges to make active contributions when becoming member of the UN Human Rights Council.”  &#8216;Unworthy&#8217; candidate Human rights lawyer Nguyen Van Dai, a former political prisoner who now lives in Germany, said Vietnam was seeking Council membership for the 2023-25 term to boost its standing. “Authoritarian governments often try their best to join the United Nations agencies, including the Human Rights Council, so that they can use it to tell people inside their country that accusations of their human rights violations are inaccurate,” he told RFA. “The fact that the Vietnamese Communist government has made every effort to become a member of the Human Rights Council is for political purposes only,” he told RFA. “They will not make any contributions to protect the human rights of their own people as well as of other peoples in the world.” In April, a coalition of eight organizations from inside and outside Vietnam, including the Vietnam Human Rights Network, Human Rights Defenders, Dai Viet Quoc Dang and the Vietnam Independent Journalists Association, sent an open letter to the U.N. calling on it to reject Vietnam as a Council member for the next term.  They said the country was “unworthy” because of its poor human rights record and support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. On Oct. 3, three NGOs — UN Watch, Human Rights Foundation and the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights — jointly issued a report on rights abuses by the 14 candidate countries, including Vietnam, to circulate to U.N. diplomats.  The report says that the rights situation inside Vietnam has not improved. It noted that when Vietnam served on Council from 2014-16, it opposed resolutions supporting rights victims in Belarus and Iran and failed to support resolutions on behalf of rights victims in Burundi and Syria.   Another coalition of rights NGOs groups from Europe, the U.S. and Canada has called on U.N. member states to oppose the election of Vietnam, Afghanistan, Algeria, Sudan and Venezuela, countries deemed “unqualified” because of their grim human rights records and voting records on U.N. resolutions concerning human rights. London-based Amnesty International said Vietnam’s efforts to be elected to the Council flew in the face of the facts on the ground. “Vietnamese authorities should show that they are willing to uphold international human rights standards, but nothing could be further from the reality on the ground, where the government continues to pass laws that restrict freedom of expression and association while promoting a climate of fear among people who dare to speak out,” an Amnesty spokesperson told RFA. Getting worse in Vietnam Nguyen Dinh Thang said human rights in Vietnam had worsened since the country’s nomination as a Council member in April 2021. A further stain on the country’s human rights record was its vote against a resolution to dismiss Russia from the Council for invading Ukraine, he said. Vietnam does not deserve membership after years of rounding up its critics, said attorney Nguyen Van Dai.   “Over the past four years, Vietnam has arrested many political dissidents who only had exercised their freedom of expression and press freedom,” he said. There are more than 100 political dissidents in jail, most of whom openly criticized the government for wrongdoings, including corruption and rights violations, though none of them opposed the state, Dai said. “They only raised social issues which were completely true,” he said. “Almost all of them only commented on and analyzed the issues raised by state media. They did not collect the information from somewhere or provide inaccurate information about the Communist government of Vietnam.” Vietnam is currently detaining 253 prisoners of conscience, according to the rights group Defend...
- [ANALYSIS: How long will Xi Jinping's third term in office last?](https://ij-reportika.com/analysis-how-long-will-xi-jinpings-third-term-in-office-last/): Ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping is widely expected to seek a third term in office at the party congress, which opens in Beijing on Oct. 16. What is less predictable is how long that term will be, and how much support he will need from rival factions in the party to achieve it, analysts told RFA. &#8220;No major leaks have occurred so far,&#8221; Li Cheng, director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution, told RFA in a recent interview, adding that the closed-doors nature of internal negotiations wasn&#8217;t unusual, but the lack of leaks ahead of the congress was &#8220;a rare phenomenon.&#8221; Currently, analysts are unsure of who will make it into the 25-member Politburo, still less of the makeup of the next Politburo standing committee, current a seven-member body at the heart of political power in China. They do agree that Xi is likely to be replacing incumbent premier Li Keqiang &#8212; who has spoken off message recently regarding the direction of economic policy &#8212; with a strong political ally. &#8220;There are different points of view within the CCP Central Committee, and different factions have formed,&#8221; political scholar Li Ting told RFA, referring to Li Keqiang&#8217;s vocal public support for the &#8220;reform and opening up&#8221; policies of Deng Xiaoping, which Xi has been moving away from in recent years. &#8220;Li Keqiang speaks and acts on behalf of a different faction [from Xi&#8217;s &#8216;princelings&#8217; faction],&#8221; he said. The relative clout of these different factions will affect Xi&#8217;s success in achieving a third term, along with the Politburo standing committee line-up that suits him best, analysts said. &#8220;In the first two terms of Xi Jinping&#8217;s tenure, especially the first term, he governed through cooperation with political partners, but in the third term he will run the country with his henchmen,&#8221; Li Cheng said. While Xi&#8217;s anti-corruption campaign won him widespread public support earlier in his tenure, public anger has grown over the economy-slowing lockdowns brought by his zero-COVID policy and among the urban middle-classes, where many are paying back mortgages on homes yet to be completed by developers, Li said. Shanghai party chief Li Qiang takes part in a group discussion held on the sidelines of the National People&#8217;s Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, March 6, 2018. Credit: Associated Press Scenarios Li said there are no guarantees, however, that Xi will only seek another five-year term in office, now that term limits have been abolished through amendments to the constitution in 2018. He could seek an indefinite term, or present himself once more for a fourth term in five years&#8217; time, he said. In a recent analysis, the Asia Society suggested five potential scenarios resulting from the party congress. In one, current Shanghai party chief Li Qiang or a &#8220;similarly loyal dark horse&#8221; Xi ally, takes over as premier from Li Keqiang. &#8220;Li [Qiang]’s competitiveness has been undermined by Shanghai’s serious and embarrassing difficulties in containing outbreaks of COVID-19 earlier this year,&#8221; the report said. &#8220;Should Li nonetheless take the position, it would therefore indicate that Xi remains in a very powerful political position.&#8221; In another, Wang Yang, loosely allied with the CCP Youth League faction, gets the job, with Li Qiang as executive vice premier. If Xi manages to achieve a Politburo standing committee packed with his allies, this would suggest he now enjoys &#8220;unbounded&#8221; power within the party, it said. &#8220;This scenario appears to remain relatively unlikely, but it is hardly impossible,&#8221; it said. But if Xi&#8217;s influence is more limited than that, he may be forced to expand the standing committee to nine seats to make room for enough of his allies alongside compromise candidates, it said. Intense bargaining Political commentator Wu Gang said the behind-the-scenes negotiations are likely to be intense. &#8220;There will be a lot of bargaining,&#8221; Wu said. &#8220;I think the most likely [outcome] is that he serves another five years at least.&#8221; There have also been rumors that vice premier Hu Chunhua, aligned with the Youth League faction, and CCP general office director Ding Xuexiang, are likely to be in the new Politburo standing committee line-up. According to the Asia Society report current convention sets the resignation age at 68. Among current Politburo standing committee members, Xi is 69, Li Zhanshu is 72 and Han Zheng is 68, while Li Keqiang, Wang Yang and Wang Huning are all over 67. The reports expects Xi to focus on promoting younger allies to replace them. Wu said the ideal outcome for Xi would be to be voted in for a lifelong third term in office. &#8220;They want him to get lifelong tenure,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Otherwise, there would be no guarantee of a stable future for his supporters.&#8221; Political scholar Xu Guang said it was hard for Chinese leaders to remain relevant for all time,  however. &#8220;When all&#8217;s said and done, it&#8217;s a logical impossibility for [Xi] to go from victory to victory [indefinitely],&#8221; Xu told RFA. &#8220;Victories always come to an end.&#8221; &#8220;Dialectical materialism teaches us that &#8230; any extreme will be reversed, and that this is inescapable,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Just as a person can&#8217;t stay young forever, revolutionaries can&#8217;t last forever within the party.&#8221; &#8220;The trajectory of human life is a parabola,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We&#8217;ve had the second generation revolutionaries; next it&#8217;ll be the third generation &#8212; can the revolution last forever?&#8221; Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Children among 173 casualties from artillery, landmines in Myanmar since August](https://ij-reportika.com/children-among-173-casualties-from-artillery-landmines-in-myanmar-since-august/): Artillery and landmine blasts have killed at least 51 civilians and severely injured 122 others, including more than 20 children, over the past two months in seven Myanmar states and regions where the military is fighting armed opposition groups, according to reporting by RFA Burmese. The incidents occurred between Aug. 1 and Sept. 30 this year in Magway, Sagaing, and Bago regions, and Kayin, Kayah, Chin, and Rakhine states, RFA learned in a series of interviews with family members, rights groups, and anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries. Nine children were among those killed and a dozen others were left with severe injuries that included lost limbs from the blasts, which sources said were mostly the result of junta troops firing artillery into villages and landmines triggered near residential areas, farms, and camps for people displaced by violence. RFA’s research found that the number of deaths and injuries from such incidents in the seven regions and states increased from 21 and 46 in August to 30 and 76 in September. The toll does not include the number of deaths and injuries resulting from junta airstrikes, bombings, and gunfire from troops on the ground. In one of the incidents documented by RFA, a seven-year-old child named Maung Gyi was killed on Sept. 25 when an artillery round hit his home in Na Ga Yar village, in Rakhine state’s Kyauktaw township. The uncle of the boy, also known as Moung Ko Naing, told RFA that the shell was fired by junta troops from the 9th Military Operations Command (MOC-9) in Kyauktaw at around 11 p.m. that evening. “The roof of the house was destroyed by the explosion,” he said. “A shell fragment from the artillery blast hit Kyaw Maung’s son who was in the house. He was killed on the spot.” The incident in Na Ga Yar came just four days after a shell fired by MOC-9 injured four members of a family in the same village, sources said, and amid increased clashes between junta troops and ethnic Arakan Army (AA) insurgents following a two-year lull. The fighting in Rakhine has claimed the lives of eight civilians and injured 24 others over the past two months. In compiling data for this report, RFA found that the highest number of casualties from artillery and landmines occurred in Kayah and Rakhine states, as well as Sagaing and Bago regions. The four states and regions accounted for 40 deaths and 95 injuries in August and September, or nearly 80 percent of the total number of casualties. An elderly Rakhine man is carried by fellow villagers after he was injured by a landmine believed to be buried by the junta troops in a village in Kyauktaw, Rakhine state on Sept. 8, 2022. Credit: Citizen journalist Indiscriminate attacks Banyar, the director of the Karenni Human Rights Group (KnHRG), told RFA he had seen a substantial increase in the number of casualties in Kayah state after junta troops changed from using more precise, defensive tactics to random, offensive ones. “At first, the troops planted landmines in the vicinity of their camp, but now we see them planting several landmines wherever they go. They clearly intend to hurt civilians,” he said. “For example, we have seen the landmines they planted on roads leading to homes, in residential compounds and near the stairs of houses.” Banyar said the military also used to exclusively shell areas where there was ongoing fighting. “These days, they don’t appear to have any specific target and fire at random,” he said. “Sometimes, they fire shells to blanket an entire area. These shells fall and explode around civilians and cause severe casualties.” RFA’s research found that PDF troops also regularly use artillery and landmines to target the military, although none of the incidents documented for this report were attributed to such attacks. Myo Thura Ko Ko, the spokesperson of anti-junta Cobra Military Column, which engages with the military on a nearly daily basis in Kayin state, told RFA that his group is “careful when firing artillery to avoid civilian casualties.” “We … fire artillery with accuracy and care,” he said, adding that Cobra fighters “only use the kind of mines that won’t harm the civilians.” Myo Thura Ko Ko claimed that his group had “never caused any civilian casualties,” while junta troops “target civilians.” Calls by RFA seeking comment from junta Deputy Information Minister Major General Zaw Min Tun went unanswered Friday. However, in May, the spokesman rejected claims that the military has targeted civilian areas with artillery. He said, at the time, that only PDF fighters plant landmines near villages and on roads, while the military only uses landmines to defend camp positions. Stronger response needed Min Zaw Oo, executive director of the Myanmar Institute for Peace and Security (MIPS), said the relevant authorities should take action against those who are responsible for civilian casualties, regardless of which side they are on. “Whenever there are violations that cause harm to civilians, the relevant armed group should take effective action,” he said. “It is necessary to have mechanisms for investigation and prosecution in place to respond to these kinds of violations. They will only continue if such mechanisms are weak.” Research compiled by MIPS found that a total of 4,398 civilians died from artillery blasts, landmine explosions, death by torture, shootings and targeted killings, in the more than 20 months since the military seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021 coup. RFA also contacted UNICEF and the United Nations refugee agency via email seeking comment on the situation of civilian casualties in Myanmar, but had yet to receive a response by the time of publishing. London-based Amnesty International said in July that junta troops are committing war crimes through their indiscriminate use of landmines – mostly locally made M-14 and MM-2 landmines that have been banned by international treaties. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Amnesty for North Koreans who leak government propaganda to South Korea](https://ij-reportika.com/amnesty-for-north-koreans-who-leak-government-propaganda-to-south-korea/): North Korea is offering amnesty to citizens who have sold propaganda lecture publications to buyers in South Korea, but only if they turn themselves in by the end of the month, sources in the country told RFA. Citizens in North Korea are frequently made to attend lectures either at their workplace or in their neighborhood watch units. The purpose of the lectures can range from glorifying the leadership to reinforce loyalty, explaining the government’s stance on world events, educating the public about new government policies or initiatives, or justifying unpopular ones. To ensure uniformity in lectures given nationwide, they use official materials provided by the Propaganda and Agitation Department.  Occasionally, copies of the materials end up in South Korea, which is a problem because they could be used by organizations, media, or intelligence to gain accurate information about the North, or could be used to show how the government keeps its people in the dark. Authorities are now telling people who leaked lecture materials in the past that they will be forgiven if they come clean now. A resident of Songchun in South Pyongan province, north of the capital Pyongyang, said authorities in the city recently lectured people on the policy. “The meeting was hosted by a local official of the State Security Department, and the main topic was that citizens who have had communication with ‘hostiles’ should surrender,” the source told RFA Korean Tuesday on condition of anonymity for security reasons. The source said that “close communication with hostiles” specifically refers to citizens who use brokers who can contact people in South Korea by using a Chinese mobile phone near the Sino-Korean border. “They hand over the publications of the Propaganda and Agitation Department, including lecture materials, to South Korea,” he said.  “The amnesty period is until the end of this month. The authorities promised that those who turn themselves in during this period would be forgiven of their charged crimes,” the source said. If they are caught after the amnesty period ends, punishment will be harsh, according to the source.  “The authorities threatened that if the residents do not turn themselves in during the surrender period, they and their family members would be sent to a political prison camp,” he said. The amnesty is only available to ordinary citizens, according to the source. Government officials guilty of handing over lecture materials to the South are not to be forgiven, he said. At a similar meeting in North Pyongan province’s Ryongchon county, which borders China, the lecturer said those turning themselves in would need to expose others, a source there told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “[They] would have to reveal which party officials they contacted to steal lecture materials and learning materials,” the second source said.  “Residents are very nervous, arguing that the authorities may be using self-defense and mercy as bait to purge party officials,” he said. Sources say that authorities tend to offer amnesty to citizens for “non-socialist behavior” whenever there is a tense situation inside or outside the country, or when public sentiment is low.  The amnesty is always coupled with threats to more harshly punish those who did not turn themselves in, they said. Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [China, Russia say North Korea launch provoked by US military drills](https://ij-reportika.com/china-russia-say-north-korea-launch-provoked-by-us-military-drills/): A U.S.-led push to condemn North Korea’s launch of a missile across Japan was blocked by China and Russia in the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday, with the veto powers saying Pyongyang was provoked by recent U.S. military drills. The meeting of the 15-member council was called by the United States after North Korea fired a missile across Japanese territory into the Pacific Ocean on Tuesday, violating council resolutions banning Pyongyang from such tests. The test missile launch was condemned by the 12 other members of the U.N. Security Council – Albania, France, Ireland, Norway, the United Kingdom, India, the United Arab Emirates, Ghana, Mexico, Kenya, Brazil and Gabon. Each called for a return to “dialogue” between countries in the region. But Russia and China – who had opposed a public council meeting and in May vetoed a resolution to impose new sanctions against North Korea for its new program of test launches – both said the United States was also at fault. Russia’s deputy representative to the United Nations, Anna Evstigneeva, defended the test launches, and blamed the context of what she termed America’s “unilateral security doctrine in the Asia-Pacific region.” She noted that the United States, Japan and South Korea last month carried out military exercises in the Sea of Japan using a nuclear aircraft carrier that she said focused training on hitting key targets in North Korea. “It is obvious that the missile launches by Pyongyang are a consequence of a short-sighted confrontational military activity surrounding this country conducted by the United States, which hurts their own partners in the region and also hurts the situation in Northeast Asia as a whole,” Evstigneeva said. China&#8217;s deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, Geng Shuang, mirrored the comments, also blaming U.S.-led drills for Pyongyang&#8217;s launch. “We have also noticed the multiple joint military exercises held by the U.S. and other countries recently in the region,” Geng told the Security Council. “A brief examination will reveal that [North Korea’s] launch activities took place either before or after such military activities and did not exist in isolation.” Pedestrians walk under a large video screen showing images of North Korea&#8217;s leader Kim Jong Un during a news update in Tokyo on Oct. 4, 2022, after North Korea launched a missile prompting an evacuation alert when it flew over northeastern Japan. Credit: AFP ‘Blaming others’ However, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, speaking for a second time after first making a case to condemn North Korea’s actions, said the explanation from China and Russia made little sense. “As we expected, instead of putting the blame where the blame lies,” Thomas-Greenfield said, “Russia and China want to blame others for their actions.” She said that U.S.-led drills with South Korea and Japan were carried out “responsibly and consistent with international law” and that there was “no equivalency” with the “unlawful, reckless” missile launches by North Korea. Japan’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Ishikane Kimihiro, who is not currently sitting on the council but was invited to address it, called on the council to enforce “unanimously adopted” resolutions banning such tests. “This council should be mindful that it is being tested and that its credibility is at stake. Silence is not an option,” Ishikane said. “North Korea has violated multiple Security Council resolutions and this council should act and provide an outcome that restores its credibility and fulfills its responsibilities.” The North Korean missile test was the first to pass through Japanese territory in five years, and flew 2,800 miles at 17 times the speed of sound. The United States and South Korea conducted their own missile tests in response earlier on Wednesday, with a malfunctioning South Korean missile crashing into an air force base on the outskirts of the coastal city of Gangneung.
- [Myanmar junta transfers dozens of political prisoners to notorious detention center](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-transfers-dozens-of-political-prisoners-to-notorious-detention-center/): Authorities under the junta’s Ministry of Home Affairs have transferred dozens of political prisoners from Myanmar’s Insein Prison in Yangon to a facility infamous for its poor treatment of inmates, RFA has learned, prompting concern from family members for their well-being. Prison Department authorities transferred the estimated 250 political prisoners to western Bago region’s Tharyarwaddy Prison – where former inmates have reported being subjected to torture and other forms of abuse – on Sept. 24, relatives told RFA Burmese, adding that they were never informed of the move. Former political prisoners say transferring inmates to prisons such as Tharyarwaddy, where they have little access to family members and are subjected to poor treatment, is a tactic the junta uses to punish them for their activism and break their spirit. A family member of journalist and political prisoner Nyein Nyein Aye, who was among those transferred to Tharyarwaddy last month, said they were worried about her safety and status at the new prison. “I got a surprise phone call informing me they were transferring her to a new location. I was shaken,” said the family member of the reporter, also known as Mabel, who is serving a three-year sentence for allegedly violating the country’s Counterterrorism Law. “Tharwaddy is not close to where we live. It will be very difficult to send her packages. I later learned that she was forced to move abruptly and had to leave all her belongings … She has to buy all of her personal items at the new location. It will be very difficult for her.” Another relative of a political prisoner, who declined to be named, said getting packages to inmates at Tharyarwaddy is significantly more complicated. “We need to present a copy of our national ID card and list of family members issued by Immigration Department to prove we are related to the prisoner,” they said. “A family member must then go in-person to deliver the package. It is challenging because now they are in another region. I can’t travel there every month to do that because I don’t have enough money.” Additionally, the relative said, there is no guarantee that inmates will even receive what is sent to them, as the staff at Tharyarwaddy are known to steal the contents of packages. “I cooked enough food for a month, but [my relative] didn’t receive all of it. I was told they only received four of the 15 packages I sent,” they said. When asked by RFA about the conditions at Tharyarwaddy, Deputy Director General of the Prison Department Naing Win dismissed the allegations. “We currently have some regulations for health reasons, so all packages are kept at a facility associated with the prison. We process and inspect them and then forward them on,” he said. “They can file a complaint to us if they have problems sending packages. We are doing our best to facilitate the process. We have never violated their rights or made the prisoner’s lives harder.” Police security forces guard Tharrawaddy Prison on Aug. 4, 2015. Credit: RFA Reports of abuse In addition to concerns over personal property, there have been reports of political prisoners being mistreated, physically abused, and even tortured at Tharyarwaddy. In July, authorities transferred more than 60 political prisoners to Tharyarwaddy from Hpa-An Prison in Kayin state. Sources told RFA that upon their arrival, the inmates were forced to sit in uncomfortable positions and later beaten, leaving several with severe injuries. Mar Kee, a former student activist and prisoner of conscience who served time in Tharyarwaddy Prison during the 1980s told RFA that it is one of Myanmar’s worst detention centers. “During our time, the prison had severe restrictions and life was very tough … We had to fight for our rights as they forced political prisoners to perform hard labor with the other inmates and we endured torture there,” he said. “We heard conditions improved after ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) staff visited the prison. I assume the current situation there might not be as bad as in our time. But it won’t be as good as the time immediately following the ICRC visit.” Mar Kee said political prisoners who staff at other prisons had singled out as “troublemakers” were immediately subjected to physical abuse upon their arrival at Tharyarwaddy, and often placed in solitary confinement. ‘Their intent is clear’ Former political prisoner Win Zaw Naing told RFA that the junta is following the playbook of Myanmar’s previous military regime in dealing with prisoners of conscience by sending them to Thayarwaddy and prisons in remote locations, where they have less access to family members and are forced to endure harsh conditions. “Their intent is clear,” he said. “They want to subject political prisoners to hardships.” Win Zaw Naing said authorities also intend to “punish the family members” by transferring political prisoners to far flung locations where they lose contact with their loved ones for months at a time. “Their hope is to hurt both the prisoners and their relatives outside the prison,” he said. Thailand’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma) says that authorities in Myanmar have arrested nearly 16,000 people since last year’s coup – mostly during peaceful anti-junta protests. More than 12,500 remain in detention, the group says. Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung for RFA Burmese. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Myanmar activists say junta will use SIM card registration to target opposition](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-activists-say-junta-will-use-sim-card-registration-to-target-opposition/): A recent order requiring anyone buying a SIM card to register their identity is a bid by Myanmar’s military regime to crack down on anti-junta activities by leveraging personal data, analysts and pro-democracy activists said Monday. On Sept. 19, the Department of Post and Telecommunications under junta’s Ministry of Transport and Communications announced that it will cancel all SIM cards that haven’t been registered with a national ID card and confiscate any remaining balance on the cards. The announcement said that junta authorities will check the registered data against Myanmar’s census data, and warned that any telecom operators or SIM card vendors found in violation of the new registration system will be subject to prosecution. Speaking to RFA Burmese on Monday, observers and analysts said that the military regime is trying to weaken anti-junta movements by cutting off their support network. “They say this kind of thing is for the sake of the people’s security, but it is obvious that they don’t care about that,” said one participant in a resistance movement, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal. “This is just an attempt to facilitate finding, arresting and suppressing those engaged in resistance activities. It’s all about making it easier to identify the user of a specific phone SIM card if [authorities] receive information about activities associated with that number.” The resistance member noted that the military has also tightened its control over routes used for transporting food supplies to fighters with anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary groups that it has been unable to defeat militarily. A resident of Mandalay, Myanmar’s second city, told RFA that while the governments of many countries require that people register their identity before they can purchase a SIM card, the junta intends to use the information to crush those who challenge its rule. “It is crucial that this information is only in the hands of credible organizations,” the resident said. “There is no more security [under the junta]. Anything could happen if this data is in the wrong hands. At the least, it could lead to extortion. We have heard of scammers contacting cellphone users to say that their number is on a wanted list and demanding money to remove it.” Control of telecom sector Nearly a year after the military seized control in Myanmar in a Feb. 1, 2021 coup, Norway-based telecom operator Telenor shut down its operations in the country, citing growing challenges in terms of compliance with rules and regulations. In the months following the coup, the junta had barred senior executives of major telecoms, including Telenor, from leaving or entering the country freely without obtaining special permission. And in July 2021, the junta reportedly ordered the firms to track the devices of political dissidents and report on their behavior. A company named Shwe Byine Phyu, with reported ties to top junta leaders, has since stepped in to provide telecom services in Telenor’s place under the brand “Atom.” Recently, Qatar-based telecom operator Oredoo, which is the third most popular brand in Myanmar, also sold its investments for U.S. $576 million to Singaporean company Nine Communications, reportedly owned by a Myanmar national who is close to the military. Junta authorities have allegedly pressured the two telecom operators to install surveillance software in their equipment that will allow them to identify users and intercept their signals. Cellphone users in Myanmar now have no choice but to use the services of telecom providers MPT and Mytel, which are officially controlled by the junta, or Oredoo and Atom, which are believed to be controlled by military-aligned entities. An IT expert who spoke on condition of anonymity told RFA on Monday that the new SIM card regulations will give the junta control of cellphone users’ personal data and make it easier for authorities to make arrests. “They can’t use surveillance on individual citizens, so they are trying to collect all information related to SIM cards,” he said. “I assume they have ordered software to be installed to tap phone conversations and track cellphone users. This is very dangerous.” Activists at risk Myo Swe, the director general of Myanmar’s Department of Post and Communications, which is now under junta control, dismissed concerns about the new SIM card registration system. “This is normal procedure. We are cross checking the cellphone users’ information with that in the immigration database,” he said. “We are only making this announcement so that users can register more accurately. This process will eventually allow for smoother transactions using mobile finance and other services.” Myo Swe refused to comment when asked by RFA whether the regulation had been introduced to deter resistance activities. Sai Kyi Zin Soe, a political analyst, told RFA that the new registration system will put activists at risk, noting that the junta canceled hundreds of accounts for mobile money transaction services in September. “This is extremely dangerous for those engaging in anti-junta activities,” he said. In addition to shutting down accounts used for mobile money transactions, the junta has also blocked cellphone and telephone services and humanitarian assistance in Sagaing and Magway regions and Chin state, where its troops have encountered some of the strongest resistance to its rule. According to data provided by telecom operators in Myanmar – a country of 54.4 million people – 20 million people own MPT SIM cards, 18 million own Atom SIM cards, 15 million own Oredoo SIM cards and 10 million own Mytel SIM cards. Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung for RFA Burmese. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Jailed Australia economist quarantined for COVID-19 in Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/jailed-australia-economist-quarantined-for-covid-19-in-myanmar/): Sean Turnell, an Australian citizen who served as an economic advisor to deposed Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi and was given a three-year jail sentence this week, have been infected with COVID-19 in prison, sources familiar with their case told RFA. Turnell, Aung San Suu Kyi, and three ministers from the ousted National League for Democracy (NLD) government were given three year sentences Thursday under the Myanmar Government Secrets Act. Turnell, 58, and former Deputy Minister of Planning, Finance and Industry Set Aung were quarantined for COVID-19 infections their transfer Friday from Naypyidaw Prison in the capital to Yamethin prison, court sources told RFA. The other two former ministers prosecuted Thursday, Myanmar Government Planning and Finance Minister Soe Win, and Minister of Planning and Finance Kyaw Win, were also transferred to Yamethin, in the central Mandalay region. Turnell was also sentenced to a further three years under the Immigration Law but the two charges will be served concurrently. Suu Kyi, who has now been sentenced to a total of 23 years in prison for 12 cases, is still being held in Naypyidaw Prison because there are still other pending cases. The junta has yet to release a statement regarding the transfer of Turnell to Yamethin Prison and the circumstances of his COVID-19 infection. The Australian government issued a statement Thursday saying that Turnell had been unjustly arrested and that Canberra has objected to the military court&#8217;s sentence against him and demanded his immediate release. The statement also said Australian diplomats were barred from attending the trial. Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong told the Australian newspaper The Canberra Times that she will continue to do everything she can so that he can return to his family in Australia. Turnell had worked as an economic advisor to Suu Kyi since 2017 under the NLD-led government that was ousted in last year&#8217;s military coup. He is the first foreigner close to the NLD to be detained since the Feb. 1, 2021 coup. Turnell had worked at the Myanmar Development Institute of the Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, and is an honorary professor of that university. He had also worked at the Reserve Bank of Australia as an economics expert. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written by Paul Eckert.
- [‘Risking their lives to go to school’: Myanmar teacher who survived junta raid](https://ij-reportika.com/risking-their-lives-to-go-to-school-myanmar-teacher-who-survived-junta-raid/): On Sept. 16, 2022, at least seven minors were killed when military aircraft fired on a village school in Sagaing region in what appeared to be the deadliest attack on children in Myanmar since last year’s coup. UNICEF condemned the attack in Tabayin township’s Let Yet Kone village and put the death toll even higher, saying at least 11 children died “in an airstrike and indiscriminate fire in civilian areas.” It said at least 15 other children from the same school were still missing. Residents of Tabayin township told RFA Burmese after the attack that the helicopters fired on the school “for nearly an hour” before junta foot soldiers let loose with guns. They claimed the nearly 80 troops who raided the school belonged to Light Infantry Battalion 368, under the 10th Military Operations Command based in Kyi Kone village, in Sagaing’s Kale township. Two weeks later, a schoolteacher who survived the raid told RFA Burmese reporter Nayrein Kyaw of the terrifying incident she witnessed that day. Now in hiding, her name has been withheld due to security concerns. RFA: Can you describe the events that took place on Sept. 16? Schoolteacher: It must have been about 12:50 p.m. Ko Aung Saw Htway, who helped us with the computer at our school, told me planes were coming our way, so I yelled out a warning to the young teachers at the primary classes and … herded the children to the ground floor of the [nearby] monastery to hide. The moment we got there, a teacher said [a boy] was hit in the leg. A young teacher then brought some children over to me and told me she had been hit by a bullet in the thigh. I saw her face was covered in blood. Just then, a child who was crouching near me was hit in the neck by shrapnel. All her hair was cut off. The shooting went on for an hour or so. The place was hit by heavy weapons as well as machine gun fire. And then soldiers, with bamboo baskets on their backs, entered the compound and reached the place where we were hiding. Then they fired their weapons towards the small [stupa] in the compound. Some soldiers ordered us to come out and said we must come out with heads bowed. “If you look at us, you’re dead,” one of them said. I glanced towards the primary classrooms and saw children coming out. It was heart wrenching to see small kids covered in blood, some with head wounds, others with leg wounds, some hit in the back, and one hit in the eye. I tried to look for my children. I have three attending this school. I saw my eldest [daughter] and youngest [son], but I couldn’t find my middle child. My daughter&#8217;s clothes were completely soaked in blood, and I asked her if she was OK. She said her friend Win Win Khine was hit in the belly and all of her intestines were falling out. She said there were many dead in the classroom. And then my son, the middle child, ran to me crying. He was crying out his friend’s name, Maung Hpone. The boy was one of our neighbors. A school bag lies next to dried blood stains on the floor of a school in Let Yet Kone village in Tabayin township in the Sagaing region of Myanmar on Sept. 17, 2022, the day after an airstrike hit the school. Very soon the boy’s mother arrived crying. The soldiers asked her why she was coming this way and she said her son was hit and she wanted to find him. I heard one of the soldiers saying into his radio, “Stop it, that’s enough,” and the firing stopped. We asked them to let us give water to the children and treat Maung Hpone. When I saw him, his arm was missing and there were holes in his feet. His face was all black. He was saying over and over, “Mother, I am in so much pain, please kill me now.” I remembered a wounded girl I hid under a huge bed. She was also badly wounded. I told the soldiers to pull her out. She was laid on the bed and I could see all the blood on her face and body. She was half conscious. She had been hit in the head and legs. The soldiers said, “If you don’t want these children to die, we want two people who can drive to come forward.” One of the volunteer teachers came forward and said he could drive. The soldiers also asked the head monk for some [big plastic] bags and I saw them putting the bodies and body parts of those killed into them. They also took the seriously wounded children with them. On the way out, they shot all the men they saw in the village in the heads. RFA: What kind of aircraft were they using? Jet fighters or helicopters? Schoolteacher: People said there were both. Two helicopters were dropping soldiers while the two fighters opened fire on the village. A damaged roof and ceiling are seen at a school in Let Yet Kone village in Tabayin township in the Sagaing region of Myanmar on Sept. 17, 2022, the day after an airstrike hit the school. Credit: Associated Press ‘They should investigate first’ RFA: So how many children and how many adults were killed in the attack? Schoolteacher: Four students died instantly and another one died in the hospital, so altogether five students. And then two teenagers were killed outside the school which makes a total of seven students. Six [adult] villagers were killed too. So the death toll was 13. RFA: How many were taken away by the soldiers? Schoolteacher: Altogether 11 students and teachers were taken away. Two men who drove the cars and another four villagers were also abducted.  RFA: Has anyone been released yet? Schoolteacher: No, none of them have been released yet....
- [Cambodian officials post photos of 8 Chinese migrants found dead after boat accident](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-officials-post-photos-of-8-chinese-migrants-found-dead-after-boat-accident/): Cambodian authorities said the bodies of the final eight missing Chinese migrants from a small fishing vessel that sank last week off the Cambodian coast washed up on a Vietnamese island, bringing the total number of dead from the accident to 11. Officials in Preah Sihanouk province initially posted photos of the eight on Facebook after they were found on Phu Quoc, which is off the coast of Cambodia in the Gulf of Thailand. The photos were later removed from the social media platform. The wooden boat, which was carrying 33 Chinese migrants, encountered problems on Sept. 22 near the Cambodian coastal city Sihanoukville, a popular resort town known for its casinos, and capsized. The Chinese aboard had been promised jobs as fishermen.  Twenty-two passengers were rescued by Cambodian authorities and by a fishing boat in Vietnamese waters. Three of the migrants were found dead in the initial aftermath of the accident, while eight remained missing until Thursday. Sihanoukville is a hotbed for human trafficking, with victims from across the region being tricked into working in the casinos or as online scammers, and sometimes being held against their will by employers. According to an earlier report by AFP, the surviving passengers said they had been promised 10,000 to 20,000 yuan (U.S. $1,405-$2,809) to work in Cambodia for 10-20 days. Speaking at the 6th National Inter-Faith Forum Against Human Trafficking on Thursday, Prime Minister Hun Sen on Thursday blamed illegal gambling operations in Cambodia as contributing to rampant human trafficking and pledged tough action in response. “It is a complicated issue and it doesn’t only happen in Cambodia,” he told attendees at the conference, organized under the theme “Do Not Use Cambodia as a Destination of Trafficking in Persons.”  “If we are not prudent, Cambodia will become a safe haven for criminals to commit crime in our country,” Hun Sen said. “They are using Cambodia as a place to produce drugs and then distribute them to Vietnam, Thailand and other countries.” Ny Sokha, president of the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association, an NGO known as ADHOC, said he welcomed the prime minister’s commitment to fighting human trafficking, but questioned the government’s ability to follow through.  He noted that Hun Sen has made other pledges, such as ending illegal logging in the country, that have not come to fruition. “Human trafficking is not committed by ordinary poor people, and the justice system in Cambodia must prevent impunity because with impunity and corruption, human trafficking can’t be prevented,” Ny Sokha said. Interior Minister Sar Kheng told attendees at the conference that the country was working to prevent trafficking, rescue victims and apprehend ringleaders.  “Criminals are committing crimes silently online via cyber-technology and are using other tricks to exploit victims to work overtime [or] to detain, torture and kidnap them,” he said. “Some criminals are armed, and if they are not deterred, they will become a threat to national security in the future.” As of late August, Cambodian authorities received almost 400 complaints about human trafficking, and authorities had rescued about 400 victims, about 55 of whom had been trafficked, according to Cambodia’s Interior Ministry. The victims were from Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, China, Pakistan, India, Myanmar, the Philippines, the United States, Turkey and South Korea.   At least 43 suspects have been brought to justice, and their operations have been shut down, according to the ministry. Translated by Samean Yun for RFA Khmer. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Infuriated with Mahsa Amini protests Iran raids Kurdish in Iraq](https://ij-reportika.com/infuriated-with-mahsa-amini-protests-iran-raids-kurdish-in-iraq/): Iran has hurled missiles and drone strikes across the border into Iraq&#8217;s Kurdistan region &#8211; killing nine people. The raid comes after the Iranian regime accused Kurdish militias there of stoking turmoil that has rocked the Islamic republic. Dozens of protestors have been killed in demonstrations following the death of Masha Amini, who was killed after being violently apprehended in Tehran for breaching Iran&#8217;s strict rules on the hijab. Protests were held for the twelfth night in a row yesterday, despite internet restrictions designed to stop gatherings and contain images of the unrest from being published.Iran&#8217;s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps accused Iraq-based Kurdish groups of &#8216;attacking and infiltrating Iran from the northwest of the country to sow insecurity and riots and spread unrest&#8217;. According to Iraqi Kurdistan authorities, &#8220;A barrage of missiles and drones killed 9 and wounded 32&#8220;. A senior Kurdish official told our associate AFP that there were &#8216;civilians among the casualties&#8217;. In Baghdad, Iraq&#8217;s federal government summoned the Iranian ambassador over the strikes, while the UN mission in Iraq condemned the attack, saying, &#8220;rocket diplomacy is a reckless act with devastating consequences&#8221;. The United States said it &#8216;strongly condemns&#8217; Iran&#8217;s deadly strikes in Iraqi Kurdistan and warned against further attacks. &#8216;We stand with the people and government of Iraq in the face of these brazen attacks on their sovereignty,&#8217; State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement. UN secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, called on Iran&#8217;s hardline President Ebrahim Raisi not to use&nbsp;disproportionate force&nbsp;against protesters. Amini had been visiting Tehran with her family on September 12 when she encountered Iran&#8217;s notorious&nbsp;&#8216;Guidance Patrol&#8217;&nbsp;&#8211; widely referred to as the morality police &#8211; and died after a violent blow to the head. The woman was arrested along with her brother and female relatives after leaving an underground station despite being &#8216;dressed normally&#8217;, one of Amini&#8217;s cousins said. &#8216;The police officer told (her brother), &#8221;We are going to take her in, instill the rules in her and teach her how to wear the hijab and how to dress&#8221; Amini&#8217;s cousin &#8220;Woman, Life, Freedom!&#8221;&nbsp;has been the rallying cry in the protests since Amini&#8217;s death as women have burned their headscarves in bonfires or symbolically cut off their hair, cheered on by crowds. But Iranian riot police have been deployed in their droves to force protestors to abate.&nbsp; One clip obtained and shared by Radio Farda &#8211; a&nbsp;US-funded Persian station based in Prague&nbsp;&#8211; showed officers in black body armor shooting up at apartment windows in Tehran&#8217;s Ekbatan Town, one of the dozens of places demonstrations have erupted. &#8220;We are increasingly concerned about reports of rising fatalities, including women and children, related to the protests,&#8221;&nbsp;the UN chief&#8217;s spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. Fars news agency said Tuesday that around 60&#8242; people had been killed since Amini&#8217;s death on September 16, up from the official toll of 41 authorities reported on Saturday. But the Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights said the crackdown has killed at least 76 people. More than 1,200 arrests, mostly of activists, lawyers, and journalists, have been made by Iranian police since the protests began, according to authorities, after Iranian judiciary chief, Gholam hossein Mohseni Ejei stressed &#8216;the need for decisive action without leniency&#8217; against any who are seen to be instigating protests. Attempts by the Iranian authorities to limit the protests have drawn condemnation from around the world. Tensions with Western powers have grown this week, with Germany summoning the Iranian ambassador, Canada announcing sanctions, and Tehran calling in the British and Norwegian envoys. The condition of women in Iran has been miserable due to draconian Hijab Rules and cruel Hijab Police. Spain on Wednesday summoned the Iranian ambassador to express its &#8220;objection to the repression of the protests and the violation of women&#8217;s rights&#8221;. Meanwhile, the son of Iran&#8217;s late shah hailed the protests as a landmark revolution by women and urged the world to add even more pressure on the current clerical leadership. Reza Pahlavi, whose father was toppled in the Islamic Revolution of 1979, called for greater preparation for a future Iranian system that is secular and democratic. Other governments must stand with these courageous protesters and hold Iranian officials to account for their abuses US think-tank Freedom House
- [Model who posted steamy photos gets 6 years for ‘tarnishing Burmese culture’](https://ij-reportika.com/model-who-posted-steamy-photos-gets-6-years-for-tarnishing-burmese-culture/): A military court in Myanmar’s Yangon region has sentenced a former doctor-turned-model to six years in prison for posting provocative content online deemed “harmful to Burmese culture,” prompting condemnation from lawyers and rights groups who called the punishment “unjust.” The Military Court of Dagon Myothit (North) Township on Tuesday ordered Nang Mwe San to serve a six-year jail term for publishing “sexually explicit” photos and videos online in violation of Article 33 (a) of Myanmar’s Electronic Communications Act and tarnishing the country’s cultural image. The sentence marks the first time that someone has been prosecuted under the act, which was enacted during the 2011-2016 administration of former President Thein Sein. Nang Mwe San’s friend confirmed to Ij-Reportika Burmese that the military court in Dagon Myothit issued the sentence after what she said was a nearly month-long closed trial. “The sentence was six years imprisonment, handed down by the military court,” said the friend, speaking on condition of anonymity. “They said [the trial] was faster than usual because the northern part of Dagon is a martial law region.” Attempts by Ij-Reportika to contact Nang Mwe San’s family members by phone for more details about her case went unanswered Wednesday. The junta has yet to release any information about the court ruling. Nang Mwe San participated in street protests after the military takeover on Feb. 1, 2021, and, in March that year, posted comments to social media decrying the junta’s deadly crackdown on the unrest. Shortly thereafter, the junta announced that she would be arrested under Section 505 (a) of the Penal Code for defamation against the state and she went into hiding. Sources close to the doctor said that she eventually signed a bond with authorities whereby she was permitted to return to her home in Dagon Myothit (North). However, on Aug. 5, the military arrested Nang Mwe San, along with film actress Thinzar Wint Kyaw, for “distributing suggestive photos and videos on a foreign website for a fee.” Nang Mwe San’s friend told Ij-Reportika that because Thinzar Wint Kyaw is from Yangon’s Mayangone township, which is not a martial law zone, “her case will be decided by a civil court.” Sources close to the Mayangone Township Court said Thinzar Wint Kyaw stood trial on Sept. 14, although further details about the actress’s case were not immediately available. &nbsp; Undated photo of Nang Mwe San who was sentenced to six years in prison for posting photos &#8216;deemed to harm the Myanmar culture&#8217; by the junta’s military court on Sept. 27, 2022. Credit: Nang Mwe San’s Facebook&nbsp; &nbsp; ‘Protecting’ Burmese culture A veteran lawyer, who did not want to be named for security reasons, called Tuesday’s ruling “unjust” and said it did nothing to promote Burmese culture. “This legal action is just an excuse and I’m sure there are other undisclosed reasons behind it,” he said. “And Myanmar&#8217;s culture will not benefit because of this action against [the two women]. Can [the junta] really stop this sort of thing? I don&#8217;t think it’s possible.” He added that Section 33 (a) of the Electronic Communications Act is too vague in its definition of what content can be considered “harmful” to the country’s culture. Zaw Ran, a human rights activist from the Yangon People&#8217;s Advocacy Network, told Ij-Reportika that instead of sentencing people to lengthy jail terms, first-time offenders who violate Section 33 (a) should be given a warning. “I wonder if these women, Nang Mwe San and Thinzar Wint Kyaw, understand the relevant laws,” he said. “People feel so sorry for them. If they didn’t know about the law, they should have been informed about it before they were punished.” Zaw Ran condemned the military court ruling for its lack of transparency and said Nang Mwe San was denied access to a proper legal defense. Saw Han Nway Oo, a writer, told Ij-Reportika that arresting and jailing women for such actions is a violation of their rights, noting that in nearly every country there are people who earn money the same way. &#8220;I think it&#8217;s unfair to hand down such a harsh sentence for exposing your body online for a fee,” she said. “There are so many people doing this nowadays, even if they say ours is a country where Buddhism and culture flourish and that this is not compatible with our culture. And I think using this Communications Law to jail them is just wrong.” She added that there are many models showing off their beauty for a living in Myanmar but those who support the military have not been arrested or prosecuted. Artists from the music, film and theatrical industries took to the streets to protest the military takeover in Myanmar, prompting the military to announce that hundreds of celebrities would be arrested and charged under Section 505 (a). Among them, actor Pyay Ti Oo, Eindra Kyaw Zin, Lu Min, pop singer Po Po and make-up artist Win Min Than were arrested. Some were later released while others were imprisoned by the military. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Eight Chinese remain missing from boat accident last week near Cambodia](https://ij-reportika.com/eight-chinese-remain-missing-from-boat-accident-last-week-near-cambodia/): Authorities are still unable to find eight of the 41 Chinese passengers who were aboard a small fishing boat when it sank last week off the Cambodian coast near the port of Sihanoukville, police told RFA Tuesday. Sihanoukville Police Chief Chuon Narin told RFA’s Khmer Service that officers are conducting an investigation with the help of the survivors of Thursday’s sinking. “It happened in Cambodian waters, so we are questioning [the survivors],” he said, refusing to provide additional details.  Three of the passengers lost their lives in the accident. Cambodian rescuers saved 21 others, and another nine were rescued by a fishing boat in Vietnamese waters, AFP reported. Sihanoukville has become a hotbed for human trafficking, with victims from across the region. According to AFP, the surviving passengers said they had been promised 10,000 to 20,000 yuan (U.S. $1,405 &#8211; $2,809) to work in Cambodia for 10 to 20 days. Police should be more transparent about the search and rescue operation, Cheap Sotheary, provincial coordinator for the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association, told RFA. “I pity the victims. I haven’t received any information,” said Cheap Sotheary. “The Sihanoukville provincial administration hasn’t shared any information about the rescue or the victims’ reasons for coming to Cambodia.  “Were they cheated or did they come here for tourism?” she said.  Two of the survivors pulled from the water told AFP that they were coming to Cambodia for work and described their ordeal. “Because of the pandemic I was unemployed and stayed at home for the past year,” said Zhu Pingfan. “When I was in the sea, I felt hopeless. I twice thought about giving up, but after a second thought, I decided I should persist for a bit longer.” Huang Qian said she was not aware how far she’d have to travel for the work. “Our boss said he would introduce us to a better job, but we didn’t know it was that far,” she told AFP. “Four days after we got on the boat, the food ran out. After six or seven days, no water either. Around the 10th day, we got a bit more food and water and we changed boats. We had two bags of instant noodles and then no more food,” said Huang. When the boat went down, she survived by holding onto floating debris for hours.  “We sat on an ice bucket, floating. Later we saw a fishing boat, so we called for help and they threw a rope to us. I think I will never get on a boat again in the future,” Huang said. Chinese sinking survivors Huang Qian [left] and Zhu Pingfan, 41, lie on their beds at a hospital in Sihanoukville, southwestern Cambodia, Sept. 24, 2022. Photo: AFP Immigration raids Sihanoukville, a popular tourist hub and gambling center, attracts many foreign workers, some of whom are in the country illegally. On Sept. 22, the day the small fishing boat carrying the Chinese passengers went down, local authorities were wrapping up three days of raids in which they questioned around 900 foreign nationals. They found that many were in the country illegally or were involved in criminal activities including trafficking, a statement from the province said. In a raid of eight buildings, authorities investigated 500 foreigners from 10 nationalities, 300 of whom were found to be in Cambodia illegally. Many of the detained workers were involved in illegal gambling, human trafficking and prostitution, the investigation found. Five suspects were sent to the court on trafficking charges. In a separate set of raids, police investigated another 414 foreigners, 168 of whom were found to be in Cambodia without documents. They issued fines to 208 others, while 19 Chinese and Cambodians were detained on charges of illegal detention or kidnapping. U.S Ambassador Patrick Murphy, who was visiting Sihanoukville, expressed his concern Saturday in a tweet, saying he was “taking a moment to reflect on much human tragedy in this area. Unsafe boats, trafficking, scam centers, abandoned buildings, a casino glut. There’s a real need for broad action to address the storm clouds here.” Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [China opening Chinese Police Stations outside its territory](https://ij-reportika.com/china-opening-chinese-police-stations-outside-its-territory/): The Chinese government is opening illegal police Chinese overseas police service stations all over the world to control its diaspora.
- [Cambodia urges migrant workers in Thailand to join the ruling CPP](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodia-urges-migrant-workers-in-thailand-to-join-the-ruling-cpp/): A Cambodian government delegation urged  migrant workers at a festival in Thailand to back Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party, an opposition activist told RFA. At a celebration for the Cambodian Pchum Ben ancestor remembrance festival on Sunday, CPP officials promised the migrants that the government would help them navigate the process for working legally in Thailand, Pong Socheat, a representative for the banned Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP), told RFA’s Khmer Service. “I met the workers, who told me that the Cambodian People’s Party elements came to persuade them to join the CPP.  They always promise to help process documents they need to work,” Pong Socheat said. “But the workers are not swayed by that because they do not like the way Hun Sen’s regime rules the country,” Pong Socheat said.  The CPP has been targeting the Cambodian diaspora for support in countries like the United States, Australia, Japan, South Korea and in neighboring Thailand, where, according to labor NGOs, approximately 2 million Cambodian migrant workers live, both legally and illegally. Cambodia’s Minister of Labor Ith Sam Heng led the delegation of officials and embassy staff as they met with around 4,000 Cambodian migrants at the festival event in Thailand’s Samute Prakan province near the capital Bangkok. Ith Sam Heng told the workers that the Cambodian government is looking after migrant workers, who remit more than U.S. $2 billion to their families in Cambodia each year. “For our brothers and sisters who work in Thailand I wish to re-emphasize that the government … will continue to pay close attention to you by taking an effort to keep your job and business opportunities for you through the strong cooperation with Thailand,” Ith Sam Heng said at the event.  He praised Hun Sen, who has effectively ruled Cambodia since 1985, for overseeing an era of peace, development and cooperation with the country’s neighbors “so that we can give opportunities for our brothers and sisters to work here. And he will continue to look after our brothers and sisters”      But Pong Socheat said that Ith Sam Heng made a mistake by bringing along State Secretary Heng Sour, who he said was infamous for threatening to kill overseas Cambodian workers who criticize the ruling party. “Even in Thailand, Hun Sen’s regime comes after us and threatens us. Even if we just meet among ourselves and discuss our desire for change, we are worried about our safety, because they threaten us, saying the Thai authorities will cooperate with them,” Pong Socheat said. Many Cambodian migrants have been critical of their government for failing to protect their rights and interests.  The Khmer community in Thailand does not believe that government officials back home are trying to help make their lives easier, Chhorn Sokheoun, a representative of the migrant workers, told RFA. For this reason, the CPP will not be able to persuade many migrants to join the party, he said. “The workers attended the Pchum Ben festival in Samute Prakan province because it is our Khmer tradition. But only a very small number would be brainwashed by the CPP’s political ideology,” Chhorn Sokheoun said.  “The majority of workers did not attend the gathering because they clearly understand that working in Thailand is difficult. As for the passports and other necessary document issues, the government has not been helpful. It has always ignored the workers’ problems,” he said. Thuch Thy, who is from Cambodia’s western Battambang province but now works illegally in Thailand, said the cost of living in her new home is immense. A permit to work legally costs more than 17,000 baht (about $450), she said. But Thuch Thy said she has no choice but to work in Thailand because her family has debts in Cambodia and the wages offered there are too low. She said Cambodian migrants in Thailand face many problems, including labor rights abuses from their employers, but rarely receive support from Cambodian officials.   “I have been working in Thailand for 15 years. I have never seen any [Cambodian] authorities come to provide any emotional or financial support. I have suffered from poverty and survived floods and heavy rains, but I have never seen any aid donations from my government. If Cambodia had job opportunities like in Thailand, I wouldn’t have left my village,” said Thuch Thy.   Translated by Sok Ry Sum. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Is there a possibility of a Military Coup in China?](https://ij-reportika.com/is-there-a-possibility-of-a-military-coup-in-china/): The world of social media is buzzed with the speculation that Xi Jinping is up for huge trouble. The possibility of a military coup in China is on the cards. From the past 3 days trends #XiJinping,&nbsp;#ChinaCoup&nbsp;and #XiJinpinghousearrest. Following is an analysis of these trends on Google. Google Trends Twitter Trends The analysis for Twitter is also an interesting watch. There were over&nbsp;86K tweets&nbsp;and over&nbsp;24.4M&nbsp;impressions just on 23rd September 2022 from all corners of the world containing the word &#8220;Xi Jinping&#8221; to find out about the News of his coup. Following is the data at a glance. What is happening in China? Many leaders of the CCP got sentenced to death and life imprisonment earlier this month. This was the beginning of all the speculations as China is heading toward the 20th National Congress (NPC). Xi’s participation in the SCO meeting ends a 1,000-day period in which&nbsp;he did not leave China&nbsp;in line with Beijing’s national “dynamic zero COVID” policy that has put the world’s most populous country on virtual lockdown. Xi is facing growing resentment back home due to the Zero-COVID policy that has resulted in mass unemployment, increasing crimes, deaths, suicides, mental health issues, and over 450 protests this year as we reported earlier on Ij-Reportika. People noticed the uneasiness in Xi&#8217;s body language in Samarkand and the fact that he left earlier fueled these speculations further. Furthermore, mass cancellation of flights, especially in the Tibet Autonomous Region, and the movement of military convoys towards Beijing were also observed by the Chinese natives. They shared these reports on Weibo, and other world social media users picked up these reports and shared them on Twitter and Facebook. Here is the exact data shared: The Chinese officials famous for their &#8220;wolf warrior diplomacy&#8221; and Chinese State-affiliated Media houses never cleared the air around all these issues. Moreover, independent media houses around the world pointed out that Xi Jinping Disappeared from the public eye after returning from the SCO summit, and there was a possibility that he was under house arrest. Prominent Media Houses even published articles citing Xi&#8217;s absence from the national defense and military reform seminar, which further fueled the speculation of a ‘coup’. All these issues one after another points to something big happening before the&nbsp;20th National Congress of the CPC. It may or may not be a&nbsp;coup&nbsp;but it is clear from&nbsp;Google&nbsp;and&nbsp;Twitter&nbsp;Trends that it has&nbsp;ruffled a lot of feathers&nbsp;around the world and raised the concerns of common Chinese citizens amid the draconian Zero COVID Policy.
- [Japanese art platform hits back at Chinese pirates with banned political keywords](https://ij-reportika.com/japanese-art-platform-hits-back-at-chinese-pirates-with-banned-political-keywords/): A Japanese art and manga website that was cloned by Chinese pirates has hit back by encoding forbidden keywords and hashtags banned by Chinese censors into its code, prompting the authorities to shut the pirated version down. Pixiv, which describes itself as &#8220;an online community for artists,&#8221; is headquartered in Tokyo, and offers a showcase for artists&#8217; works, as well as a rating system with feedback and user comments. It has been phenomenally successful, garnering more than 3.7 billion page views a month. Then, the entire site was cloned by Chinese pirates, who copied the site&#8217;s content almost verbatim, translating tags and titles into simplified Chinese, and offering the pirated site vpixiv to users in mainland China. Pixiv fought back, however, with some of the site&#8217;s users adding &#8220;sensitive&#8221; keywords to their artworks, including &#8220;Tiananmen massacre,&#8221; which alerted the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)&#8217;s massive, government-backed censorship system. Other sensitive and forbidden keywords included &#8220;Free Hong Kong,&#8221; &#8220;Independence for Taiwan,&#8221; and &#8220;June 4, Tiananmen Square,&#8221; all of which are heavily censored terms behind China&#8217;s Great Firewall. Germany-based university lecturer Zhu Rui said the move had deliberately and ingeniously manipulated government censors in China. &#8220;The Japanese artists being pirated on Pixiv were forced to take this action as a last resort to defend their rights,&#8221; Zhu told RFA. &#8220;The pirated website was then shut down by the iron fist of the CCP, which was great to see.&#8221; The Chinese pirate site vpixiv was shut down by authorities after illustrators used banned words. Credit: Screenshot of vpixiv website Piracy and plagiarism Zhu said Chinese pirates have a long history of cloning platforms invented elsewhere. &#8220;Some [people] plagiarize other people&#8217;s creations or steal technology overseas, and then put their name on it back in China, and make a lot of money when it gets famous,&#8221; Zhu said. &#8220;The vast majority of Chinese Internet users love it.&#8221; One comment on a Chinese social media platform joked about Pixiv&#8217;s move, saying &#8220;insulting China has become the best defense against theft,&#8221; while another bemoaned the effect on the country&#8217;s overseas image: &#8220;Counterfeit China is adding to our international humiliation,&#8221; the user wrote. France-based cultural commentator Wang Longmeng blamed authoritarian rule by the CCP for stifling innovation. &#8220;This sort of surveillance leads to a lack of freedom and creativity, so China, which has lost the ability to innovate, has become the champion of intellectual property theft,&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;China&#8217;s reputation as a copycat nation is well-deserved.&#8221; &#8220;Everything, it seems, is stolen, from high-tech to art &#8230; I just never expected the magic weapon that would defeat them would be their own sensitive keywords,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s another real-world example of how they shoot themselves in the foot.&#8221; Pixiv isn&#8217;t the first platform to use this method. Taiwanese YouTubers have been known to add keywords like #WinnieThePooh to their videos to prevent them from being reposted without permission to video-sharing sites in China like Bilibili. All mention of Winnie the Pooh has been banned from China&#8217;s tightly controlled internet after users made memes and jokes on social media suggesting that the fictional bear resembled CCP leader Xi Jinping. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Drones level playing field for Myanmar’s armed opposition against powerful military](https://ij-reportika.com/drones-level-playing-field-for-myanmars-armed-opposition-against-powerful-military/): Nearly 20 months after the military coup in Myanmar, amid a rapidly intensifying conflict, People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary groups are turning to drone technology to level the playing field as they engage with better equipped junta troops. When the PDF formed in the months following the Feb. 1, 2021 military takeover, it’s members were forced to fight Southeast Asia’s second largest army using only slingshots and the same crude flintlock “Tumee” rifles their forefathers used to fight off British colonizers in the 1880s. As the network grew, the groups began to use homemade landmines to target their enemy’s convoys. The latest addition to the PDF arsenal are civilian drones, refitted to drop explosives on junta troops. PDF sources told RFA Burmese that the drones are safe, accurate, and require little manpower to operate during clashes. Boh Lin Yaung, leader of the Khin-U Support Organization (KSO) in Sagaing region’s Khin-U township, said his group took civilian drones used for shooting video and upgraded them to drop bombs on specific locations. “Drones have lots of advantages, so we started buying them,” he said. “Right now, we are working with small drones used for photography, and therefore can only carry small payloads – around half a viss (24 ounces). The main reason we use them is because it’s the safest way for us to engage the enemy.” Boh Lin Yaung said his group had previously sought to obtain automatic rifles, but decided to use drones instead because of how effective they are for such a low cost point against the junta’s advantages in modern military equipment, training, and supplies. Members of Sagaing Region PDFs also reported success using drones, although they acknowledged that they are susceptible to being shot out of the sky. They noted that the junta has been using reconnaissance drones to determine their locations and engage them with heavy weapons and airstrikes. At left, a bomb [blue] begins to fall towards a target. At right, a bomb hits a Myanmar army trench. Credit: Yangon Revolution Force ‘Our drones dominate the skies’ In Kayin state, where the intensity of fighting rivals that in Sagaing, PDFs are using large-scale drones with six propellers that can carry heavier loads. Myo Thura Ko, the information officer of the Cobra Regiment, said PDFs have been using combat and patrol drones in Kayin since December 2021. “The enemy can be easily defeated because the drones unnerve them &#8230; They get scared when they hear the sound of the drones flying,” he said. “They carry out a lot of airstrikes, but their planes just drop bombs and leave. For the rest of the time, our drones dominate the skies. Our drones also have the ability to scout at night, so they have become a nightmare for the enemy troops.” Myo Thura Ko said a drone can be equipped with up to five bombs and patrol in dangerous areas using less manpower. PDFs said the junta has recently begun deploying radio frequency jammers to prevent drones from flying near their camps. Attempts by RFA to contact junta Deputy Information Minister Major General Zaw Min Tun about the military response to PDF drones went unanswered. However, at a Sept. 20 press conference in the capital Naypyidaw, he told reporters that anti-drone guns have been installed in strategic locations to protect against attack. Thein Tun Oo, executive director of the Thayningha Strategy Studies Group, a group of former military officers, said PDFs are limited in their ability to attack using civilian drones because of their need for technical support. “The drones used for spraying chemicals in agriculture called ‘Hexacopters’ have six propellers. They can carry a larger payload and are now being used to drop bombs from the air. But if we look at it from a technical standpoint, the triggering mechanism isn’t simple to operate,” he said. “In order to overcome this problem, they require support. So this is not a normal development. It’s not something they can do themselves. It&#8217;s obvious that someone else is providing the technical know-how.” Members of Federal Wings prepare two munitions for a drone attack. Credit: Federal Wings Shadow govt drone unit The Ministry of Communications, Information and Technology (MOCIT) under Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) recently formed a “Federal Wings” drone unit manned by tech-savvy youth. The Federal Wings’ social media page claims that the unit has already participated in operations on the battlefield using drones. The NUG Ministry of Defense also said it is seeking funding to consolidate PDF drone attack forces into an armed force. Min Zaw Oo, executive director of the Myanmar Institute for Peace and Security, said he expects both sides to increasingly add drones to their arsenals. “Using drones not only for scouting, but also to deploy weapons, is a development that has come about mostly since the coup,” he said. “Drones are a widely available technology that can be used by both sides. The role of drones is of growing importance to modern warfare.” Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [China, Uyghurs battle for support at UN over Xinjiang rights report](https://ij-reportika.com/china-uyghurs-battle-for-support-at-un-over-xinjiang-rights-report/): China has vowed to “fight” any United Nations action on human rights abuses against Uyghurs in Xinjiang cited in a damning report by the U.N. human rights chief, while Uyghurs are pressing the world body to move forward with investigations and other concrete follow-up measures. The report issued on Aug. 30 by U.N. High Commissioner of Human Rights Michelle Bachelet concluded that China’s arbitrary detention and repression of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in Xinjiang “may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.” Uyghurs and their supporters want the U.S. and other Western countries to follow up with a U.N. Human Rights Council resolution condemning the alleged violations, an investigation, and a special envoy on Xinjiang. China, which rejected the Bachelet report as “based on the disinformation and lies fabricated by anti-China forces,” sent a large delegation to the rights council in Geneva this week to condemn the report and present its rebuttal. &#8220;The assessment is based on a presumption of guilt, includes mostly disinformation and lies,&#8221; Xu Guixiang, head of the Xinjiang government&#8217;s information office, told reporters in Geneva Thursday. “If some forces in the international community – or even anti-China forces – make so-called ‘Xinjiang-related motions’ or so-called ‘resolutions’, we won’t be afraid,” Xu said. “We will take countermeasures resolutely and fight.” Bachelet’s report puts a U.N. imprimatur on many findings in investigative reports issued by rights groups, researchers, foreign media and think tanks in the five years since Chinese authorities began detaining up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in internment camps in Xinjiang, The predominantly Muslim groups have also been subjected to torture, forced sterilizations and forced labor, as well as the eradication of their linguistic, cultural and religious traditions, in what the United States and several Western parliaments have called genocide and crimes against humanity. Beijing has angrily rejected all charges, insisting it is running vocational training facilities in the region to counter extremism. The Chinese delegation in Geneva this week included large numbers of officials who challenged the reports and a group of Uyghurs who claimed to support Chinese policies. “The Chinese mission held a side event at the U.N. yesterday featuring five Uyghurs to promote its propaganda that Uyghurs are free and happy in China,” said Zumretay Arkin, program and advocacy manager at the World Uyghur Congress “Some diplomats from Cuba, Venezuela and Zimbabwe came to support China while some Western diplomats came to hear what China had to say,” said Arkin, who is campaigning for the U.S.-led democracies to introduce a resolution condemning China’s genocide against Uyghurs. Addlet Sabit comforts her daughter as she displays pictures of her father, Ablimit Ablaze whom she has never met, during a hunger strike in front of the White House in Washington, D.C., Sept. 21, 2022. Credit: Gemunu Amarasinghe/RFA &#8216;Put our words into action&#8217; Group of 7 Foreign Ministers met on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly and welcomed the report, pledging to “address these issues with partners, civil society and the international community.” The G7 ministers “remained deeply concerned by the serious human rights violations in Xinjiang and took note of the overall assessment of the report that some of these violations may constitute ‘international crimes’ in particular crimes against humanity,’” said a statement by German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, chair of the meeting. The G7 statement Thursday came after U.S. President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Sholtz raised rights violations in Xinjiang in their speeches to the U.N. General Assembly. In Washington this week, the Uyghur American Association has been staging a hunger strike in front of the White House by leaders of the advocacy group and by three internment camp survivors to demand U.S.-led steps to translate the U.N. report into concrete action. Chris Smith, co-chair of the Bipartisan Congressional Uyghur Caucus, who visited the hunger strikers outside the White House on Wednesday, introduced a bill calling on the Biden Administration to direct the U.S. mission team in Geneva to sponsor a resolution that would establish a UN commission to investigate the issues raised in the Bachelet report. “The UN’s recent report demonstrates that Communist China is guilty of serious human rights violations that at a minimum constitute crimes against humanity in the eyes of the world community,” said Smith, “We must speak out forcefully on these atrocities and put our words into action at the United Nations,” she added. Kellie Currie, former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues, called on Biden to “not only introduce a resolution in the Human Rights Council, but you personally need to make sure that it passes by doing everything you can, reaching out to other countries, using political capital and influence that you have with other countries that are on the Human Rights Council to make sure that it passes.” Reporting and translation by Alim Seytoff. Written by Paul Eckert.
- [Myanmar worst for state violence against civilians in first half of 2022](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-worst-for-state-violence-against-civilians-in-first-half-of-2022/): More incidents of violence against civilians by government forces were reported in Myanmar than anywhere else in the world during the first six months of 2022, according to a U.S.-based group that compiles data on conflict in developing nations. The Armed Conflicts Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a partner organization of the United Nations, said in a report over the weekend that it had recorded 668 incidents of violence against civilians by state authorities in Myanmar from January to June this year. It ranked Myanmar atop a list of nations that included Afghanistan, Yemen, Kazakhstan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, China, Ethiopia and Iran. The majority of the violence “involved direct attacks with small weapons on individuals who are unarmed and not participating in demonstrations” against the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup, the group said. ACLED documented more than 11,000 reported fatalities in Myanmar over the same period, mostly as the result of battles between the military and anti-junta armed groups. Explosions and remote violence, as well as violence against civilians, were also leading causes of fatalities, it said. The group also counted more than 6,000 political protests in Myanmar during the first six months of the year. “With much of the country in active revolt against the takeover, the military has failed to consolidate control, resorting instead to extreme violence,” ACLED said. “Armed struggle against the junta has continued while anti-coup demonstrations persist.” ACLED said that violence against civilians by state forces took place in all 14 states and regions in Myanmar in the first half of 2022. “Civilians are shot at checkpoints, tortured in prisons, and killed following battles in villages,” it said. “Children have also been targeted, as have family members of anti-coup activists. In several cases, the military has desecrated the bodies of those killed, cutting off body parts and setting corpses on fire.” ACLED warned that political violence and protest trends seen at the start of 2022 “are likely to carry on into the second half of the year.” “As the military incurs further losses and fails to gain control of significant parts of the country, it will continue to target civilians with extreme acts of violence. Resistance to the coup — both armed and unarmed — shows no signs of stopping,” it said. Undated photo of Myanmar junta troops stationed in Mindat, Chin state. Credit: Citizen Journalist Soaring casualties Responding to ACLED’s report, Thein Tun Oo, the executive director of the Thayningha Strategy Studies Group, a group of former military officers, blamed civilian deaths on the armed resistance. “There will be deaths as long as they hide among civilians,” he said, referring to members of the anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary group, which the regime has labeled a terrorist organization. “No matter how many instructions are issued by the higher authorities, soldiers return fire at the place where bullets come from. As a result, those people caught in-between get hurt. This is unavoidable.” But political observer Than Soe Naing chalked the high civilian death toll up to the junta’s use of asymmetric warfare in the conflict. “The PDF forces came from the civilians. A lot of people are dying and getting injured because the military offensives make use of air strikes and naval attacks [in addition to ground forces],” he said. “The only way to reduce these casualties is for the PDF to surrender or totally annihilate the junta forces.” Seeking accountability Kyaw Zaw, spokesman for the office of shadow National Unity Government (NUG) President Duwa Lashi La, told RFA the junta is committing some of the worst war crimes on earth and “will surely pay the price.” “Those who gave the orders are also responsible,” he said. “You can&#8217;t run away from your crimes.” Kyaw Zaw pointed to a Sept. 16 helicopter attack on Let Yet Kone village, in Sagaing region’s Depayin township, that killed 19 people, including six children, as an example of how “there is no army as brutal as Myanmar’s.” In the meantime, he said the NUG is working to provide the people of Myanmar with as much protection as possible. But Kyaw Win, director of the Burma Human Rights Network, called on the NUG to do more to make the international community aware of the violence facing Myanmar’s civilian population. “NUG needs to work more closely with the international community. It needs to be more effective. It needs to bring additional resources into the country,” he said. “Right now, [the junta] is already bullying and killing as many people as it wants.” According to the Burma Human Rights Network, the military is killing more than 100 civilians a month in Myanmar, and Kyaw Win said that “thousands” have died in the 19 months since the coup. Thailand’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), said authorities in Myanmar have killed at least 2,311 civilians and arrested nearly 15,600 others since the coup — mostly during peaceful anti-junta protests. NUG President Duwa Lashi La put the death toll at more than 3,000 in a speech marking the anniversary of the armed resistance earlier this month. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Junta threatens prison, execution for supporting Myanmar opposition](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-threatens-prison-execution-for-supporting-myanmar-opposition/): Anyone in Myanmar found to have provided as little as one kyat in financial support to anti-junta groups or engaged with anti-junta content on social media now faces anywhere from two years in prison to execution, according to a spokesman for the military regime. Deputy Minister of Information Major General Zaw Min Tun told reporters at a press conference in the capital Naypyidaw on Tuesday that donating to or supporting Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG), ousted lawmakers of the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), or the anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary group is punishable under Myanmar’s anti-terrorism law. Purchasing treasury bonds or lottery tickets for the groups is also subject to punishment, he said, adding that “donating just a single kyat” – approximately one-five-hundredth of a U.S. cent – could earn the offender a minimum of a decade behind bars. “Whether you ‘like’ or ‘share’ [an anti-junta social media post], you are violating Section 124 (b) of the Penal Code [for incitement to destroy the state]. You can be sentenced anywhere from three years to 10 years in prison and you can also be charged a fine,” Zaw Min Tun said. “The reason you are subject to a 10-year prison sentence or a death sentence for donating just one kyat is because it is in violation of [the Anti-Terrorism Act]. You need to understand that. Even if you don&#8217;t understand the law, the law will not forgive you.” In addition to violating Myanmar’s anti-terrorism law and inciting the public against the state, Zaw Min Tun also said such actions are in breach of the country’s Electronic Communications Law. A conviction under the charges is punishable by a minimum sentence of two years in prison and a maximum sentence of death. A resident of the commercial capital Yangon, who declined to be named for security reasons, told RFA Burmese that the junta is trying to deter support for the opposition through threats. “These tyrants will do anything in their power to stop people from supporting the opposition, but the people will do whatever they can to support them,” she said. “The more they make life difficult for us, the closer we will be to victory [against the regime]. It might be a bit challenging now [to support the opposition], but we will make sure that we can help them.” A veteran high court lawyer told RFA on condition of anonymity that while providing support to anti-junta movements can be subject to prosecution, Myanmar’s law says nothing about jailing people for simply liking posts on social media. “Giving ‘Likes’ [online] is our right. It’s already mentioned in the provisions of civil rights and the basic rights of citizens under the [military-drafted] 2008 Constitution,” he said. “Based on what [Zaw Min Tun] said, action can be taken against someone for the content of their comment or even the way the text is written.” ‘Facing a crisis’ A spokesman from the Dawei Ashaytaw PDF group in Tanintharyi region said the junta is threatening people with legal provisions because its leadership is afraid that the wider public will take up arms to challenge its rule. “We have witnessed the rising number of deaths of military soldiers in Sagaing and Magwe regions,” he said. “We believe that there is a lack of unity within the army. And so, they are making threats to raise morale within the army as well as a deterrent to the people.&#8221; The spokesman warned that such threats could lead to a drop in domestic contributions to the armed opposition. Political analyst Than Soe Naing called the junta&#8217;s statements “illegal and excessive.” &#8220;They are talking too much about the law. But as usual, the law is whatever they say it is,” he said. “So if those laws are used as the basis for action, we must say that democracy in Myanmar has completely fallen into darkness.” Kyaw Zaw, spokesman for the office of NUG President Duwa Lashi La, told RFA that the junta is becoming increasingly desperate in its actions. “All they can do now is threaten and terrorize the public. And that is what they are doing,” he said. “Saying that people will be arrested and charged for donating a single kyat … is because they are facing a crisis. They are afraid because they are in their last hour. They know they are going to lose and they know what is coming.” According to Thai NGO Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), junta authorities have arrested nearly 15,600 civilians since the military seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021 coup, nearly 12,500 of whom have been sentenced or remain in detention. The group says authorities have killed more than 2,300 civilians over the last 20 months, mostly during peaceful anti-junta protests. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Dud stock trade by senator’s daughter exposes Cambodian tax loophole](https://ij-reportika.com/dud-stock-trade-by-senators-daughter-exposes-cambodian-tax-loophole/): A Cambodian senator’s daughter gambled U.S. $8 million on the purchase of shares in an American medical technology company through a Singaporean broker – a transaction conveniently completed before the adoption of a double taxation treaty between Cambodia and Singapore – regulatory filings reviewed by RFA show. Had the investment worked out as planned, Lau Sok Huy expected returns in the realm of $50-60 million, and could have avoided up to $12 million in Cambodian taxes. But the investment flopped. Seven years after she became the second-largest shareholder in Tomi Environmental Solutions Inc, Sok Huy is down some $6.3 million and furious, according to the company’s founder and a fellow shareholder familiar with the deal who spoke with RFA. The investment – equivalent to more than 3,000 years of the average Cambodian salary – is one Sok Huy will likely have to write off as a loss. Tomi’s share price has dipped so low that it currently risks losing its listing on the Nasdaq Capital Market. But the structure and sequencing of the deal sheds a light on how well-to-do Cambodians stand to benefit from the double taxation agreement. Such agreements are viewed by advocates as a boon to trade and investment between nations, but they can also offer a way for wealthy investors to avoid taxes. Regulatory disclosures filed during Sok Huy’s acquisition of the Tomi shares strongly suggest the deal – in which she loaned the money to her broker who had purchased the shares, and then took the shares as repayment for the loan – was tailored to benefit from the double taxation agreement. The loan behind the deal was signed in January 2016, but was amended in May of the same year, just three days after the tax treaty was signed. Sok Huy’s politically connected background raises questions about whether it was appropriate for her to benefit from the agreement. Her father, Lau Ming Kan, is a longtime senator for the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, which has governed the country in one form or another for three decades. One of the final steps in any treaty becoming law in Cambodia – including the double-taxation agreement with Singapore – is ratification by the Senate where he sits. Sok Huy’s parents are also no strangers to investing in Singapore, a regional financial hub viewed by some as a tax haven. Her mother Choeung Sopheap, a confidante of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, holds $36.5 million in shares in a Singapore-based company that owns a Cambodian corporation with an exclusive license to import liquid natural gas to Cambodia. Those assets are among the more than $230 million in assets that RFA has identified as being held in Singapore by politically connected Cambodians. The DTA Double-taxation agreements, often referred to by the acronym DTAs, are designed to ensure that companies or individuals do not get taxed on the same profits twice when doing business overseas. When two countries sign a DTA, the hope is that it will promote trade and investment between both nations. This particular treaty appears to have paid off. By the end of last year, Singapore was Cambodia’s second-largest source of foreign investment, having barely figured in the rankings half a decade earlier. A business consultant with more than a decade’s experience in Phnom Penh told RFA they viewed the agreement as a net positive for Cambodia. “A DTA can help eliminate double taxation, and for investors coming into Cambodia, that&#8217;s fairly important. So, in that sense, they&#8217;re fairly useful, and also very widespread and standard around the world,” the consultant said, requesting anonymity due to the potential professional repercussions for speaking publicly on a sensitive topic. “Can the wealthy take advantage of them to reduce their tax bill as well? Absolutely,” the consultant added. “But they already have other means of doing so. So, of all the &#8216;sins&#8217; here [in Cambodia], I wouldn&#8217;t see that as being a meaningful one.” That’s not an analysis everyone would agree with. In late 2016, the World Bank published a blog by two of its senior employees – Jim Brumby and Michael Keen – that asked whether tax treaties like DTAs are a “boost or bane for development” in lower-income countries, such as Cambodia. They were not convinced. “Developing countries have used them with the intention of boosting economic development. The evidence for that is weak,” Brumby and Keen wrote. “The problem is that tax treaties – and the international system of taxation more generally – are highly complex and have unleashed unforeseen consequences.” “Multinational companies, with much at stake, can use treaties to route income through third countries to exploit favorable tax treaties. Tax authorities, particularly in developing countries, are finding it hard to counter such ‘treaty shopping,&#8217;” Brumby and Keen added. Despite having assets and businesses in multiple countries, Sok Huy does not fit the traditional definition of a multinational company. But her family often behaves like one, as do many other powerful clans in Cambodia – negotiating sweetheart deals with the government that are unavailable to smaller businesses with less political clout and cash in the bank. If the Lau family’s lawyers and accountants have clocked on to the Singapore loophole, it seems likely the financial professionals advising Phnom Penh’s other leading families will have too. So how does it work? People pass by the Nasdaq Market Site in Times Square in New York City, U.S., Feb. 7, 2018. Credit: Reuters/Brendan McDermid The deal Between May and July 2015, Singaporean broker Boh Soon Lim snapped up $8 million of Tomi shares, then accounting for roughly 11% of the company, according to regulatory filings lodged with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the U.S. stock market regulator. He bought the shares in the name of Arise Asset Management Pte Ltd, a Singapore-registered company in which he is majority owner. In the SEC filings he described the money for the purchase as coming from Arise Asset Management’s working capital. The term refers to the total cash available to the firm...
- [Targeted sanctions on arms sales key to ending violence in Myanmar: observers](https://ij-reportika.com/targeted-sanctions-on-arms-sales-key-to-ending-violence-in-myanmar-observers/): Myanmar’s junta is using weapons purchased from abroad to commit “war crimes” against its people and must be targeted with new sanctions to end violence in the country, former military officers and political observers said Monday. On Friday, the United Nations human rights office in Geneva said in a report that countries should do more to prevent money and arms from reaching the junta, which rules through terror and repression. The office called for further isolation of the military regime, which it said had failed to govern effectively, suggesting U.N. members impose bans on arms sales and more narrowly defined sanctions to prevent its business network from gaining access to foreign currency. While the U.S., Britain, Canada and the EU have imposed sanctions on Myanmar since the military seized power in a February 2021 coup, several countries have continued to supply the junta with arms — most notably Russia, China and Serbia.  Speaking to RFA Burmese on Monday, former army Capt. Lin Htet Aung, who is now a member of the anti-junta Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), said sanctions are key to cutting the junta off from the modern weapons and raw materials it needs to maintain its hold on power. “The military&#8217;s domestic production capacity cannot provide all the weapons it needs for the army,” he said. “Missiles and heavy weapons and their accessories, as well as ammunition used by its armed forces, are all imported from abroad. All these things, as well as raw materials, have to be purchased from foreign nations.” The CDM captain said the military will continue to commit human rights violations, including bombing attacks on towns and villages, if the international community fails to level effective sanctions. On June 18 last year, the U.N. General Assembly approved a proposal to ban arms exports to the Myanmar military. One hundred and nineteen countries voted in favor of the resolution, while 36 countries — including China, India and Russia — abstained. Russian ally Belarus voted against it. Myanmar junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing and his team inspect weapons and equipment at the Higher Military Command School in Novosibirsk, Russia, July 16, 2022. Credit: Myanmar military Ineffective sanctions Observers told RFA that the junta continues to obtain military equipment and technology via large domestic and international arms brokering companies. Hla Kyaw Zo, a Myanmar political analyst based in China, said sanctioning these companies would have a significant effect on ending the junta’s domination. “Western countries consider their own interests and big arms companies are more or less connected with the Western world, so this issue is difficult to discuss,” he said. “If the West blocks [these sales] effectively, it&#8217;ll be good, but I don&#8217;t think they will press on the issue.” According to a list compiled by NGO Justice For Myanmar, there are more than 150 companies selling arms to Myanmar’s military, 135 of which are based in Myanmar, Russia and Singapore. Yadana Maung, the group’s spokeswoman, told RFA that many companies have been able to evade Western sanctions, meaning financial and military support continues to flow to the junta. Thein Tun Oo, executive director of the Thayningha Strategic Studies Institute, which is made up of former military officers, said using human rights to justify sanctions against Myanmar is “weakening the defense of the country.” “All we have heard so far is the noise they’re making about human rights,” he said. “In reality, what we understand is that they are using that premise to allow those who are pulling the strings to obtain more power.” He said the junta will continue to purchase arms from its allies despite attempts to block them. Propping up a brutal regime In February, former U.S. Rep. Tom Andrews, who serves as U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, said in a report to the U.N. Security Council that countries should stop selling arms to the junta, citing a brutal crackdown on civilians since the coup. The report called out permanent Security Council members China and Russia, as well as India, Belarus, Ukraine, Israel, Serbia, Pakistan and South Korea, for selling the weapons, which Andrews said are almost certainly being used by the military to kill innocent people. However, analysts say it is unlikely that the sale of arms to the junta can be cut off completely as Russia and China, which are its main suppliers, wield veto power at the Security Council. In the meantime, junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing has visited Russia three times in the 19 months since the coup. During his last trip, earlier this month, he signed an agreement with Russian government officials to build a nuclear reactor factory in Myanmar. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [FBI report of a Chinese agent working at Twitter sparks calls for government action](https://ij-reportika.com/fbi-report-of-a-chinese-agent-working-at-twitter-sparks-calls-for-government-action/): Chinese rights activists overseas have told RFA that they are concerned but unsurprised at recent allegations that an agent of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was working at Twitter, saying such infiltration is part of Beijing&#8217;s global influence operation. The FBI informed Twitter of at least one Chinese agent among its employees, according to U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley, while hacker and whistleblower Peiter Zatko said the company&#8217;s lax security sparked fears that personal data on Chinese users was being collected by authorities in China. Zatko, Twitter&#8217;s former head of security,  made the allegations during testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, detailing internal clashes between some who sought advertising revenue from China, and others who were concerned about doing business inside China amid rising geopolitical tensions. &#8220;This was a big internal conundrum,&#8221; Zatko told the hearing, adding that Twitter appeared reluctant to turn away from China. &#8220;In a nutshell, if we were already in bed, it would be problematic if we lost that revenue stream,&#8221; he said. Zatko said the FBI had told the company that China&#8217;s secret service, the Ministry of State Security, had an agent on the payroll. A Twitter spokesperson said Twitter&#8217;s hiring process was independent of foreign influence, and that access to personal data was subject to stringent controls, adding that Zatko&#8217;s allegations were &#8220;riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies.&#8221; France-based commentator Wang Longmeng said the CCP has long targeted Western social media platforms to wage its overseas influence campaigns, and that some of the company&#8217;s regional executives have close ties to the CCP, including Kathy Chen. A Twitter logo is displayed on a mobile phone in an August 2020 file photo. Credit: AFP Whistleblowers Chen&#8217;s 2016 appointment as Twitter&#8217;s managing director for Greater China raised concerns in particular, as it emerged she had served as a software engineer in the People’s Liberation Army’s strategic missile force. &#8220;Kathy Chen, who had a military background, joined [the company], then Fei-fei Li became an independent director,&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;The CCP&#8217;s infiltration of Western media is one of its key strategies.&#8221; &#8220;It&#8217;s not surprising that the whistleblower revealed there are Chinese agents at Twitter, because there have been suspensions and deleted accounts, and yet Twitter still allows CCP diplomats to spread rumors and lies,&#8221; he said. China bans Twitter, Facebook and other U.S. social media firms, but government agencies and diplomats use the platforms to reach an international audience Rights activist Zhou Fengsuo, a former student leader during the 1989 Tiananmen protests and the chairman of Humanitarian China, said the U.S. government hasn&#8217;t responded adequately to the problem. &#8220;Zoom closed our Zoom account for commemorating the June 4 [Tiananmen massacre], and the Zoom employee who was later indicted was part of China&#8217;s state security police,&#8221; Zhou told RFA. &#8220;This has also been played out several times at Twitter, with Kathy Chen, who everyone knows has a military background, hired as managing director for the Greater China region, and then Fei-fei Li&#8217;s appointment to the board,&#8221; he said. &#8220;She has previously expressed her loyalty to the CCP.&#8221; &#8220;The United States has done nothing to remedy the situation,&#8221; Zhou said. &#8220;It selectively ignores this massive problem of high-tech companies colluding with the CCP because they want to do business in China.&#8221; &#8220;I have been calling on the U.S. government to investigate all high-tech companies,&#8221; he said. Blocking of sites A blogger known as &#8220;the Voice of Surfing&#8221; said there are other examples of pro-CCP bias on the platform, including the blocking and banning of the Great Translation Movement, which provides uncensored examples of social media comment from China&#8217;s tightly controlled internet. &#8220;The Great Translation Movement, which uses Twitter as its main platform, has been repeatedly banned by Twitter officials for violations of the rules,&#8221; the blogger said. &#8220;With Twitter management infiltrated by CCP forces, employees often take a pro-China stance when it comes to Chinese censorship on the platform,&#8221; they said.  &#8220;They help the CCP&#8217;s United Front Work Department to tell good stories about China, and use their positions to suppress dissent against the Chinese government.&#8221; &#8220;This shameless practice is also happening on other platforms that have been infiltrated by the CCP.&#8221; The blogger said many Chinese rights activists who use Twitter have been subsequently summoned by state security police for posting politically sensitive material, yet the company has remained silent on how much user data is being leaked to the Chinese government. &#8220;We often hear about Chinese users being &#8216;invited to tea&#8217; by the local police because of politically sensitive remarks on Twitter, but Twitter officials have never responded to questions about the disclosure of users&#8217; personal information [to the Chinese authorities],&#8221; they said. &#8220;Under the influence of CCP capital, Twitter has moved closer to Weibo.&#8221; Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Mortars fired from Myanmar side of border with Bangladesh kill Rohingya youth](https://ij-reportika.com/mortars-fired-from-myanmar-side-of-border-with-bangladesh-kill-rohingya-youth/): At least one Rohingya youth was killed and several more young refugees were injured when two mortar shells reportedly fired from the Myanmar side fell and exploded in the no-man’s land along Bangladesh’s southeastern border Friday night, Bangladeshi police said. The youths were all refugees from a camp in the no-man’s land on the Myanmar-Bangladesh border, Additional Superintendent of Police (Sadar Circle) of Bandarban, Md. Reza Sarwar, told BenarNews. The incident occurred amid reports of intense fighting near the Myanmar side of the border lately between Burmese junta forces and rebels in neighboring Rakhine state. The police official said at least five injured Rohingya were admitted to local hospitals. The youth who died in the incident was identified as Mohammad Iqbal, 18, son of Matlab Hossain. The shells reportedly landed in an area that borders Bangladesh’s Bandarban district, Reza Sarwar added. A Rohingya resident from the area, Dil Mohammad, said the shells were fired around 8:30 p.m. Friday. Another resident Md. Kamal concurred. “Two mortar shells landed in no-man’s land at the time. And we were hearing sounds of shelling from afternoon to night. People are scared in the neighborhood,” he told BenarNews. Bangladeshi officials say more than 4,000 Rohingya refugees have been living in no-man’s land for the last five years since a brutal crackdown by the Myanmar military forced the ethnic minority to flee their homes in August 2017. Some 740,000 Rohingya crossed the frontier and took refuge in camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district.   Lt. Col. Faizur Rahman, director (operations) of the Border Guard Bangladesh, told reporters that the agency immediately lodged a protest about Friday’s incident with the Border Guard Police of Myanmar. This wasn’t the first time that the fighting between Arakan Army rebels and the Myanmar military in Myanmar had come close to the Bangladesh border. On Aug. 28, during heavy fighting in Myanmar’s border state of Rakhine, two mortar shells landed in the same area but did not go off. A similar incident also occurred on Aug. 20 as well. This month alone, Dhaka has protested and summoned Myanmar’s ambassador to Bangladesh three times to protest these incidents. Earlier this week, Bangladesh Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said the country’s border police had reinforced security along the frontier with Myanmar. Amid the tense situation inside Myanmar, a few new Rohingya families have arrived in Cox’s Bazar, where Bangladesh already hosts about one million refugees from Myanmar. One of the new arrivals told BenarNews on Sept. 10 that he saw “several hundred” people clustered along the Naf River that separates Cox’s Bazar from Rakhine state, and who were trying to cross the border several days earlier. It was not immediately clear what happened to those other people apparently displaced by intense clashes in recent weeks between junta forces and the Arakan Army. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.
- [Borrowers forced to sell their homes as debt crisis in Cambodia worsens: report](https://ij-reportika.com/borrowers-forced-to-sell-their-homes-as-debt-crisis-in-cambodia-worsens-report/): An “alarmingly high” number of Cambodians have had to sell their homes to repay credit card and small loan debt, a study of Cambodia’s microfinance sector has revealed. The study, commissioned by the German government’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), surveyed households, held group discussions with villagers, and interviewed local authorities in 24 Cambodian villages.  It found that many of the indebted households had taken out small loans with an 18 percent interest rate, and about half had trouble repaying. Of the households that reported difficulties, 13 percent reported selling their homes over the past five years. When extrapolated for the entire country&#8217;s population of borrowers, “[this] would mean 33,480 debt-driven land sales per year, or roughly one sale every 16 minutes,” the study said. Some borrowers tried to lower their debt burden by eating less, and others took their children out of school so they could work to help repay the family debt, the report found. Borrowers in some rare instances suffered from food insecurity or were forced to work in inhumane conditions, or put their children to work to such an extent that it constituted  human rights abuses, it said. The study shows the challenges faced by Cambodians who borrow money, Eang Vuthy, executive director at the Phnom Penh-based Equitable Cambodia NGO, told RFA’s Khmer Service. “When [the microfinance institution] holds land and house titles, they charge an interest rate that doesn’t reflect the ability of each family to make income each month,” he said. “They consider the interest rate based on the value of the land.”  He urged the government and microfinance firms to forgive the debts of poor people who have no hope of ever making enough money to pay it off.  “This is a financial crisis. We have to have a national policy to allow time for people to pay off their debts rather than forcing them to pay or confiscate their land,” he said. RFA was unable to reach National Bank of Cambodia Director Chea Serey for comment. In Channy, president of the local Acleda bank, told RFA that 18 percent interest rates are relatively low compared to the rates credit companies in other countries charge. Acleda provides loans based on its evaluation of a prospective borrower’s eligibility, but sometimes, people lie in their loan application forms while others misuse the loans, he said. “There shouldn’t be any customers losing their land because they are taking loans, unless they misuse the loans,” In Channy said. Kaing Tongngy of the Cambodia Microfinance Association, said Cambodians sell their homes to raise capital for their businesses or because they want to relocate, not because they cannot pay their loans. However, Kaing Tongngy said that some loan officers are unscrupulous and that his institution will provide more training to loan officers. Debtors should discuss their circumstances with their lenders if they cannot pay their loans, he said. “Microfinance companies consider people as clients. People have the right to ask and bargain,” said Kaing Tongngy. “We urge people to talk about finding solutions to reduce tension”  Forced to sell Sources in the country told RFA that they had no way to repay their debts other than to sell their homes. Vann Voeun of Kampong Speu province said that he and his brother sold their homes to repay debt they owed in 2019. He said that their creditors would not allow them to make late payments, and threatened to confiscate their properties, so he sold their land and cows to pay the interest on time. “The most delay they could give us was only one week, otherwise they threatened to foreclose on the properties. We were afraid so we borrowed more money from neighbors even though they charged more interest,” he said. He said that he didn’t misuse the loan but his business failed. He said that the loan led to his brother’s divorce. “A micro financer threatened me. I  hurried to sell my land. The land should have sold for U.S. $20,000 but I sold for only $10,000,” Vann Voeun said. In Banteay Meanchey province, Prin Chhoy sold two lots of her land to pay off her debt. She no longer has her house, but instead lives in a small shelter on her farm. She said her child dropped out of school because the debt became too much. During RFA Khmer Service’s call-in show on Friday, Sok Meng from Takeo province said that he took out a loan for $20,000 to start a business, but he is unable to generate enough money to repay the bank.  “I bought supplies for my business but I’m not making any profit,” he said. “My business doesn’t work. I can&#8217;t make any income due to inflation. It is hard to live, I am making $20 dollars [each day], it is hard to pay the loan. I spend more than I can make in income. I will sell my business and sell my land. Things are so hard.”  Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong. 
- [Six dead, thousands infected in Myanmar by new COVID-19 outbreak](https://ij-reportika.com/six-dead-thousands-infected-in-myanmar-by-new-covid-19-outbreak/): At least six people have died and 2,457 have been infected in Myanmar since the start of the month amid an outbreak of a new omicron variant of COVID-19, the junta’s Ministry of Health announced Thursday. The ministry announced the numbers for the two weeks ending Sept. 14, noting that 384 infections and one death had been recorded on Wednesday alone. Charity groups told RFA Burmese that the ministry’s announcement was based only on the number of patients who were treated at junta-run hospitals, suggesting that the actual number of infections is much higher. A doctor who runs a private clinic in Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon said that most patients who come seeking treatment exhibit signs of COVID-19, even if they aren’t being included in the junta’s official count of infections. “There are fewer people wearing masks these days. Many shops have reopened and more people are going to bars and cafes,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Additionally, many people who need cooking oil stand in long lines at charity centers without any regard to rules of social distancing, so COVID is making a comeback.” The doctor told RFA that because the genetics of the disease have changed with the new variant, symptoms such as loss of smell and low oxygen levels have become less obvious. “But the rate of infection is increasing,” he said. “When we perform tests on patients, we find it in nearly all of them.” He predicted that the number of infections will only increase in the country unless measures are put into place to prevent transmission. Yangon residents line up to buy palm oil for cooking, Aug. 26, 2022. Credit: RFA Other priorities A resident of Yangon, who also declined to be named, said that the junta’s mismanagement of the economy has left people more concerned with ensuring that they have enough food to eat than the risks associated with the disease. “People are not very careful about COVID at present. They are working hard to obtain their daily sustenance, so COVID is enjoying a resurgence,” he said. “Most people don&#8217;t even know they have the virus. They only find out they have it after getting tested. Low income laborers couldn’t care less about COVID, as their priority is finding enough food to eat.” The Yangon resident called the situation “critical” and suggested that, with the rising cost of medicine due to inflation, the outbreak’s toll is only likely to get worse. Myanmar was hit with a third wave of the coronavirus shortly after the military seized power in a February coup last year prompting the country’s workers – including its health professionals – to strike as part of a nationwide Civil Disobedience Movement. The shortage of doctors and nurses, as well as a dearth of medicine and equipment, allowed the disease to spread largely unchecked. This time around, said Khin Maung Tint, the chairman of a Mandalay-based social assistance association, organizations such as his were prepared, having stockpiled medicine and equipment in case of a new outbreak. “Our main challenge is the rise in petrol prices,” he said. “People are also enduring financial difficulties and so we are currently providing care for free in most cases.” However, he warned that without help from authorities to curb the outbreak, “we could run out of supplies, and that would be difficult for us.” Preventing transmission On Thursday, the junta’s Information Ministry announced to the media that mass infections had been recorded in several schools and workplaces. It said authorities are “working with relevant departments to enforce COVID prevention.” Some 80% of infections since the start of the year occurred in patients who had not received vaccinations, the ministry said. Attempts by RFA to contact junta Ministry of Health spokesperson Than Naing Soe for details on efforts to control the spread of the disease went unanswered Thursday. A CDM doctor, who asked to be identified by the name Olivia, urged the public to follow simple practices such as wearing masks, washing hands and adhering to social distancing guidelines, which she said would go a long way in helping to combat the outbreak in Myanmar. “Prices are rising fast — from basic foods to essential medicines,” she said. “If your health is affected, medical expenses will add a huge burden on your shoulders. So take care now more than ever — even twice as much as the last outbreak.” To date, 617,739 people have been infected with COVID-19 and 19,444 have died since the pandemic first spread throughout Myanmar in 2020, according to the Ministry of Health. More than 36 million of the country’s 54.4 million people have been vaccinated against the disease. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Junta arrests 15 demanding UN extend term of Myanmar rep](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-arrests-15-demanding-un-extend-term-of-myanmar-rep/): Authorities in Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon arrested 15 people on Tuesday evening after breaking up an anti-junta protest calling on the United Nations to extend the tenure of the shadow National Unity Government’s (NUG) envoy to the world body. A young man who took part in the protest march on Panbingyi Road in West Yangon’s Kyimyindine township told RFA Burmese that several members of the security forces in civilian clothes pulled up in five vehicles at around 4:30 p.m. and confronted his group. “I can confirm [the identities of] those who were arrested and I’d say they are in a very dangerous situation,” said the man, who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. “There were a lot of them in civilian clothes. They arrived in two taxis and three private cars, coming in from all four sides. I saw the guy who was arrested in front of me severely beaten, grabbed by the throat, and dragged away.” The man said he was late to join in the march and “heard the sound of gunshots and screams” when he arrived, just as the protest was being broken up. Those who were arrested were members of the Yay Bawai (Octopus) People&#8217;s Benevolent Youth Organization, Basic Education Young Students Association (Ah-ka-la-Central), Myanmar Labor Alliance, Burma Youth Network, Pyinnya Nandaw Private School Students&#8217; Union, and the Owl Community, he said. The protesters had been marching with banners calling on the U.N. to extend the tenure of NUG representative Kyaw Moe Tun, instead of replacing him with an envoy from Myanmar’s military regime, which came to power in a Feb. 1, 2021 coup that unseated the country’s democratically elected government. In December, the U.N. Credentials Committee announced that it would indefinitely postpone the decision, allowing Kyaw Moe Tun to retain his seat, in what observers called a serious blow to Myanmar’s junta on the world stage.  On Wednesday, the leader of Yay Bawai, which organized the protest, confirmed to RFA that two men, two women, and a person identifying as gender non-binary were among those arrested from his group. He added that the detainees are being held at the Shwe Pyitha and Yay Kyi Aing interrogation centers. The Confederation of Trade Unions of Myanmar (CTUM) announced on Wednesday that five of its members – two women and three men – were among those arrested. A person who fled arrest told RFA that he saw a few men and some cars – including a Toyota Alphard – parked nearby before the protest started. Soon after the protest began, people in civilian clothes came out of the cars and violently arrested the protesters, he said, adding that shots were fired and at least one protester was injured. Reports by local media said that some journalists covering the protest were among those arrested on Tuesday, although RFA was unable to independently confirm the claim. Tuesday evening’s protest took place on the same street where on Dec. 5 authorities arrested several anti-junta demonstrators after a military vehicle drove into the crowd, hitting several people. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [The Unearthing of the global drug trafficking networks](https://ij-reportika.com/the-unearthing-of-the-global-drug-trafficking-networks/): This investigative report by Ij-Reportika examines the three most significant trafficking routes in the Global Drugs Trafficking Networks
- [Newly arrived Rohingya refugees say hundreds want to leave Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/newly-arrived-rohingya-refugees-say-hundreds-want-to-leave-myanmar/): Hundreds of people were waiting to cross into Bangladesh from Myanmar, a small group of newly arrived Rohingya told BenarNews, amid fierce fighting close to the border that has sparked diplomatic protests over reports of artillery and mortar shells landing in Bangladeshi territory.  One of the new arrivals said he saw “several hundred” people clustered along a river that separates Cox’s Bazar district in southeastern Bangladesh from Myanmar’s Rakhine state, and who were trying to cross the frontier several days ago. It was not immediately clear what happened to those other people apparently displaced by intense clashes in recent weeks between Burmese junta forces and Arakan Army (AA) rebels.  In Bangladesh, where the government has tightened security along the border amid the violence in Rakhine, authorities have not confirmed reports of any new refugee arrivals or influx into Cox’s Bazar.  Meanwhile, a Rohingya leader said that at least five Rohingya fleeing Myanmar had arrived at a Cox’s Bazar camp in recent days.  “Two Rohingya families of five people, including two infants, have taken shelter at the Lambasia camp in Ukhia,” Muhammed Jubair, secretary general of the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace and Human Rights (ARSPH), told BenarNews.  The adults were identified as Abul Wafa, his wife, Minara, and another woman, Dildar Begum.  Wafa said they fled from Buthidaung in Myanmar on Sept. 6 as junta and AA forces clashed.  “The junta started torturing the Rohingya in Buthidaung,” he told BenarNews. “That’s why we came to Bangladesh to save our lives, but we are also hiding here.”  “When we were entering Bangladesh, we saw several hundred Rohingya people, mostly women and children waiting to leave near the Naf River,” Wafa said.  Two days earlier, on Sept. 4, the Foreign Ministry issued a news release expressing “deep concern” over mortars that reportedly landed on the Bangladeshi side of the frontier the day before. The release noted that Myanmar Ambassador U Aung Kyaw Moe was summoned regarding the incident, just as he had been summoned on Aug. 21 and 28.  “During the meeting, the ambassador was also told that such activities are of grave threat to the safety and security of the peace-loving people, violation of the border agreement between Bangladesh and Myanmar and contrary to the good neighborly relationship,” the ministry said.  On Tuesday, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said he expected firing inside Myanmar along the border to end soon.  “We heard that a group called Arakan Army was fighting with the government forces inside Myanmar. When the government forces attack the Arakan Army, some shells land inside our territory,” he told reporters.  “Our Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), as well as Foreign Ministry, have strongly protested the incidents by calling the ambassador of Myanmar.”  Refugees’ accounts  Jubair said Wafa and the others sheltered with a relative after arriving in Bangladesh before moving into another camp.  Wafa said his group gave a boatman a piece of gold jewelry to carry them across the Naf River because they had no money to pay him.  Dildar Begum, 22, said her husband, Syed Ullah, was killed by the “Mogh army” a month ago. She was referring to the Arakan Army although “Mogh” is a term that Rohingya also often use to refer to the Burmese military.  “I fled with Wafa’s family to Bangladesh as there was no other option for me,” she told BenarNews.  In Rakhine state, an official with the AA rebels denied that the group was targeting members of the stateless Rohingya Muslim minority.  “The allegations on AA targeting Muslims are not just wrong but baseless accusations, because the fighting [in the state between Arakan Army and junta troops] has been more than a month,” Khine Thu Kha, a spokesman for the rebel group, told RFA Burmese. “We want to question back, did you guys see or hear any report of a Muslim killed or injured by the fighting? Did you hear any report or see anyone saying there was a shell or a bullet from AA falling in a Muslim village so far? Otherwise, it is just an accusation with other intentions to defame our organization.”  Despite the claims made by the Rohingya, Md. Shamsud Douza, Bangladesh’s commissioner for Refugee Relief and Repatriation, said there was no official information about any new arrivals from Rakhine state infiltrating Bangladesh territory.  “Clashes are occurring between two groups in Myanmar. It is very normal that it will create some tension on our border as a neighboring country,” he told BenarNews. “Our decision is very clear – we cannot allow even a single Rohingya to enter Bangladesh.”  Robiul Islam, additional superintendent of police, said his unit was “not sure about a fresh entry of Rohingya but we are looking into the matter.”  Sheikh Khalid Mohammad Iftekhar, a senior official of Border Guard Bangladesh, said the border police force had tightened security at the frontier to prevent any attempts by refugees to enter the country. From January to June, 478 Rohingya were denied entry and four were arrested, according to the BGB.  Repatriation hopes  A Rohingya who lives in Maungdaw, Myanmar, and asked to not be named for security concerns, said that the increasing conflict in the state had dampened Rohingya hopes for repatriation.  “It will be difficult for them to return in this situation. The current situation will not allow them to come here,” the resident told RFA.  “The situation here is not very good. There is no security. People here are fleeing to other areas because fighting is going on. In this situation, they will not be able to come back.”  Fighting between the military and the AA resumed in July. Oo Maung Ohn, a resident of Maungdaw Township, blamed the resurgence in Rakhine State after a nearly two-year ceasefire on the junta.  “Do you know why all this fighting resumed? They (the junta) closed the roads and started the fighting and they arrested many innocent people,” he told RFA. “They arrested village administrators, questioned them and hit them.”  Rakhine State Attorney General Hla...
- [Myanmar’s people, shadow govt mourn UK monarch amid junta silence](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-people-shadow-govt-mourn-uk-monarch-amid-junta-silence/): Citizens of Myanmar reacted to the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, who died last week at age 96 after 70 years on the British throne, with sadness on Monday, remembering the monarch as a champion of democracy and a source of comfort in the face of national adversity. Elizabeth’s reign began in 1952, just four years after the end of more than a century of British rule in Myanmar, at a time of strong anti-British sentiment in the fledgling Southeast Asian nation. Myanmar did not join the Commonwealth after independence, like most other former colonies. However, many Burmese remember her as overseeing improved bilateral relations that culminated in substantial support from London for democratic reforms in Myanmar under the National League for Democracy (NLD) government of Aung San Suu Kyi, prior to its ousting by the military last year. “The queen was part of the ruling class of the country that has continuously supported the cause of Myanmar’s democracy,” Thet Oo, a resident of Salingyi township in northern Myanmar’s Sagaing region, told RFA Burmese. “I wish for her to rise into heaven.” Khin Maung Nyo, a Yangon-based writer who previously studied in the U.K., told RFA that while the queen’s role was largely ceremonial, she was seen as a steadying and unifying presence. “People saw her as their guardian angel watching from above as a loving mother would or as a good ruler should. That’s why her subjects from all the 15 Commonwealth realms loved and respected her,” he said. “During the time I was in England, the country was having economic problems but the people struggled hard in unity. Though there are a lot of problems at the Palace, I’m sure Prince Charles will be able to steer the country, as King Charles III, out of danger.&#8221; The Burmese people can empathize with the grief currently felt by Britons, a Mandalay resident who requested anonymity for security reasons, told RFA. &#8220;I can see the entire British population is in grief because she had done many good deeds during her 70 years of rule. It&#8217;s sad to see them like this. Stories about their grief made me remember the time when our people were similarly in grief when General Aung San was assassinated [in 1947],” the Mandalay resident said, referring to Aung San Suu Kyi’s father, who was a revolutionary hero that many consider to be the founder of modern Myanmar. “Nobody would be grieving for those leaders who didn’t do any good for the country. Just look at [previous military rulers] Gen. Ne Win and Senior Gen. Saw Maung. Nobody was moved or sorry for them. People only grieve for good rulers,&#8221; he said.   Junta silence Though the junta has remained silent on the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, the shadow National Unity Government (NUG) made a point of publicly showing condolences both at home and abroad, a NUG spokesman told RFA. The NUG’s Acting President Duwa Lashi La sent his official message shortly after learning of the queen’s death on behalf of the shadow government, formed by former lawmakers who were ousted by the junta in the Feb. 1, 2021 coup. “The prime minister has also sent a similar message on behalf of the NUG government, and our representative in Britain has, in person, signed the Book of Condolences,” said NUG spokesman Kyaw Zaw. The British government and the royal family have continuously supported the democracy movement in Myanmar and the queen had been, according to Kyaw Zaw, a “good friend” of Aung San Suu Kyi, the most well-known figure in the movement who served as State Counselor prior to the coup. The junta&#8217;s official newspaper reported on the queen’s death in its Sept. 9 issue. RFA attempted to reach junta Deputy Minister of Information Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment on why the junta, which claims to be Myanmar’s legitimate government, had not sent a message of condolence to London, but received no reply. Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing sent such a message to the government of Japan after the assassination of its former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in July. Post-coup relations Thein Tun Oo, executive director of the Thayningha Strategic Studies Institute, made up of former military officers, told RFA that the junta likely chose to stay silent because Britain and the international community have been putting pressure on Myanmar since the coup. “Diplomatic relations with countries like Britain … have not been very good since February 1 [2021],” said Thein Tun Oo.  “As you know, former British ambassador Vicky Bowman was also recently arrested [by the junta] and punished for meddling in Myanmar politics. So, politically, especially diplomatically, relations are not very good.” Last week, former U.K. Ambassador to Myanmar Vicky Bowman and her Burmese husband, Htein Lin, were sentenced to one year in prison each on immigration violation charges, which activists said were concocted by the junta. Authorities arrested Bowman, who served as ambassador from 2002-2006, and her husband, an artist and former political prisoner, on Aug. 25 for allegedly violating immigration laws and jailed them in Yangon&#8217;s notorious Insein Prison. The arrests came after the U.K. announced a new round of sanctions against the junta. Than Soe Naing, a political observer, said the snub was a result of political and economic sanctions on the junta. &#8220;The British royal family stands with the democratic forces of the world who are fighting against the military dictatorship today and so, they have no reason to send a message of condolences to the death of a state leader of England which is putting all kinds of political and economic sanctions on the junta,” Tan Soe Naing said. “That’s why their papers only announce the news of the death. They have not acknowledged and expressed sorrow in any way,” he said. The British government has consistently supported Myanmar&#8217;s democracy since the 1988 military coup. When Aung San Suu Kyi, whose late husband was a British national, was released from house...
- [Cambodian psychiatrist calls award reason ‘to work even harder’](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-psychiatrist-calls-award-reason-to-work-even-harder/): Cambodian psychiatrist Chhim Sotheara, one of four winners of this year’s prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award, was surprised to learn he had won the award and didn’t know he had been nominated to receive it, he told RFA in an interview this week. “At first, I didn’t believe it, because I hadn’t applied for it,” Sotheara said. “I thought at first it was an online scam,” he said. “This is a valuable award. Only a few people in Asia have received it, and it is an honor for our country, as Cambodia will be recognized through the award,” Sotheara said. The award also acknowledges the efforts he and his NGO have made over the last two decades to help the people of Cambodia, he said. “All our employees are so happy, and this will encourage us now to work even harder to deserve having received the award,” he added. Established in 1958 and named after the Philippines’ seventh president who died in a plane crash a year earlier, the Ramon Magsaysay Award is considered Asia’s most prestigious prize. It honors people across the region who have done groundbreaking work in their fields. Also receiving the award this year are Filipina pediatrician Bernadette J. Madrid, French anti-pollution activist Gary Bencheghib, and Japanese ophthalmologist Tadashi Hattori. All four are expected to attend an awards ceremony in Manila Nov. 30. Sotheara, 54, was among the first generation of psychiatrists to graduate in Cambodia after the 1975-79 period of Khmer Rouge rule that killed an estimated 1.7 million people and left many thousands of survivors deeply traumatized, many of them living in remote rural areas of the country. Now executive director of Cambodia’s Transcultural Psychosocial Organization (TPO), Sotheara developed the concept of baksbat, or “broken courage” — a post-traumatic state of fear, passivity and avoidance considered more relevant and particular to the Cambodian experience. Sotheara Chhim meets with a patient in a rural area of Cambodia, in an undated photo. Credit: Sotheara Chhim Underserved rural areas Switching to clinical psychiatry after working for a time as a surgeon, Sotheara later quit his job at a state hospital after he was approached for help by a patient coming from a remote community and became aware of the needs going unmet in Cambodia’s countryside. Sotheara’s NGO now delivers treatment directly to people’s homes and communities, he said. “When I help one patient, I also help his family and community, because when one person experiences mental issues, we need to treat the whole family.” Many Cambodians experience mental health problems, and Sotheara’s TPO has not been able to respond to all their requests for help, he said. “But since we started, we’ve improved a lot.” There were only 10 psychiatrists at Sotheara’s own graduation, he said. “Now we have around 100 psychiatrists, but we can’t answer all the demands made of us because many of those experts like working in the city, and not many work out in the communities.” Around 80% of Cambodia’s population live in rural areas, and service must be provided to those people, he added. Also speaking to RFA, TPO employee Taing Sopheap said she has worked with Chhim Sotheara for the past 15 years and has seen him sacrifice himself both physically and financially to carry out his NGO’s work. “If a case is urgent and important, he will work on it regardless of the cost in time to his team or to other cases,” she said. Translated by Samean Yun for RFA Khmer. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [Weeks after tropical storm Ma-On batters northern Laos, residents struggle to recover](https://ij-reportika.com/weeks-after-tropical-storm-ma-on-batters-northern-laos-residents-struggle-to-recover/): Two weeks after tropical storm Ma-On battered Southeast Asia, northern Laos is digging itself out of the devastation, as authorities contend with damaged infrastructure, inundated farmland, and hundreds of displaced people at risk of disease from lack of access to clean water. The ninth named storm of the 2022 Pacific monsoon season, Ma-On formed over the Pacific Ocean on Aug. 18 and became a severe tropical storm by Aug. 23, before slamming into Mainland Southeast Asia on Aug. 25. The storm brought heavy winds and rain to the region, and triggered flash floods in Vietnam and Laos. While the storm had mostly dissipated by Aug. 26, its impact on impoverished Laos – with its limited capacity to rebuild in the aftermath of natural disasters – was profound. Among the worst hit areas in northern Laos was Oudomxay province, where on Thursday, Provincial Governor Bounkhong Lachiemphone described the destruction as “massive” in an interview with the official Lao National Radio. “The most devastated area is La district, followed by Nomor district and Xay district, where a lot of basic infrastructure such as roads, bridges, the power grid, hospitals, health clinics, schools, farms, and irrigation systems are damaged or destroyed,” he said. “Our residents’ livelihoods are severely affected, especially in La district where more than 100 homes were swept away, and more than 500 others were damaged. Livestock are dead. Farmland – especially rice and produce fields – are covered with mud and debris.” Residents of Oudomxay province watch recovery efforts in the aftermath of Ma-On tropical storm. Credit: Radio and Television of Oudomxay province Bounkhong said damage from the storm in the three hardest hit districts had surpassed 150 billion Lao kip (U.S. $10 million) and that resources have been stretched thin as authorities continue with recovery efforts. “Right now, we have employed 300 soldiers to help build shelters and repair damaged homes for the displaced,” he said. “We’ve had to rely on donations from domestic and international organizations.” Khamseng Ali, the head of the Public Works and Transportation Department of Oudomxay province, estimated that repairs to 49 roads and 44 bridges damaged in flooding caused by Ma-On would cost at least 60 billion Lao kip (U.S. $3.8 million). “This is the worst flood in 37 years in our province,” he said. An official with the Public Works and Transportation Department in Xay district, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told RFA Lao that National Route 13 North, which cuts across northern Oudomxay from the border with Luang Namtha province in the west to the border with Luang Prabang province in the east, had been severed in several places. Highway 2E, which runs from the capital of Oudomxay to the border with Phongsaly province to the northeast, is also damaged in multiple stretches as the result of landslides and flooding, he said. “Many sections of the highways have become impassable,” he said, adding that recovery crews are “repairing them as we speak.” Humanitarian efforts hampered The devastation has severely hampered humanitarian efforts, according to health workers in the province, who told RFA that people displaced by the storm lack access to clean water and are vulnerable to disease. “More than 1,000 people flocked to our hospital from Aug. 31 to Sept. 8,” said a health worker in Oudomxay’s Namor district. “These sick people are from the 13 worst-affected villages … in Namor district. Most of them are children who are suffering from high fevers and diarrhea. Our health workers have also traveled to the affected villages and advised residents to only drink boiled water, eat thoroughly cooked food, sleep under mosquito nets, and wear masks.” The health worker told RFA that many victims of the storm are also suffering from the flu, which has spread quickly within displaced communities. “Our hospital spent 200 million kip (U.S. $12,700) to buy medicine, but much of it was damaged by flooding,” he said. “Now, the hospital has run out of money and medicine, so we’ve had to request more funding from the provincial government.” A resident of Namor’s Tangdoo village told RFA that there is no longer running water in the area and said at least 20 residents are sick from flu and diarrhea. “Those whose toilets weren’t washed away by flooding must use water from wells or creeks to flush them,” said the resident, who declined to be named. “When our village was flooded, there was a landslide too. The irrigation system is broken. Now we must fetch water for cooking and sewage.” Motorists traverse a road inundated by flooding in Oudomxay province. Credit: Radio and Television of Oudomxay province Displaced at risk A health worker in Oudomxay’s La district told RFA that the flu is rampant. “For treatment of flu, our district hospital and health centers in affected villages have run out of medicine,” the worker said. “The sick who come to the hospital have to buy their own medicine at the private pharmacy. We haven’t received any additional funding for extra medicine despite the increasing demand.” An official with the Oudomxay Provincial Health Department said authorities are scrambling to assist those in need, but acknowledged that recovery efforts are slow-going. “Several areas were buried by landslides during the flooding and all of the water networks – including the irrigation systems – in Namor and La districts are damaged and in need of substantial repairs,” the official said. Ma-On’s impact on northern Laos came days after authorities released water from nine upstream dams in the provinces of Phongsaly, Luang Prabang, Xayaburi, and Vientiane. Residents told RFA at the time that the release flooded their homes, places of work, and farms, forcing many to escape to higher ground. Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Joshua Lipes. Residents of Oudomxay province avoid a large sinkhole caused by heavy rains. Credit: Radio and Television of Oudomxay province
- [Safety violations likely caused high death toll in Vietnam karaoke bar blaze](https://ij-reportika.com/safety-violations-likely-caused-high-death-toll-in-vietnam-karaoke-bar-blaze/): The death toll resulting from a fire at a karaoke parlor in southern Vietnam that claimed 33 lives earlier this week was likely made worse due to the owner’s disregard for safety standards and the failure of clientele to follow orders to flee the building, sources said Friday. The blaze broke out on Tuesday evening at the An Phu karaoke parlor in Binh Duong province’s Thuan An city while as many as 70 people were inside the four-story building, according to state media reports, which said firefighters were able to bring the fire under control within an hour. Several people jumped from the building to escape the flames, injuring themselves in the process, while others were able to descend rescue ladders, the reports said. Parts of the building collapsed during the fire, which killed 17 men, 15 women, and an unidentified person who sustained injuries during the incident and later died in the hospital, officials said at a news conference on Thursday. VnExpress quoted Provincial Police Director Col. Trinh Ngoc Quyen as saying that customers had ignored employees who entered the rooms where they were singing and ordered them to flee. Most of the clientele had been drinking alcohol, he said, and most of the rooms were locked from the inside. Officials said that the building had passed a safety inspection and that the cause of the fire had yet to be determined. On Friday, a resident of the area told RFA Vietnamese that while intoxication likely contributed to the high number of deaths, the owners of karaoke parlors and other similar establishments often ignore safety codes. “It’s frightening, everyone is scared of dying in case of a fire at the karaoke bars,” said the resident, who asked to be identified as “Mr. T.” “All permits granted to the karaoke bars require that fire safety requirements be met. But in reality, the owners build as many rooms as they can in multi-storied buildings because space isn’t cheap in the city. If a fire starts higher up there’s a chance to get out, but if it starts on the ground floor and rises, there are no exits to escape.” Mr. T said that the confusing layout at the An Phu karaoke parlor caused customers to panic. “The lack of exits is why the number of deaths was so high,” he said. “It is a natural reaction to run into a hiding place when you see fire, and that also led to some deaths. Some of them died because they locked the door to their room, while others ran up to a higher floor and jumped. I learned that some of those who jumped were hospitalized, but died in the hospital.” Fire department trucks line up outside a karaoke parlor following a fire in Thuan An city, Vietnam, Sept. 7, 2022. Credit: VNA via AP Violations likely Nguyen Van Hau, a Ho Chi Minh City-based attorney with the Vietnam Lawyers’ Association, agreed that safety violations were likely to blame for many of the deaths at An Phu. “The central government has issued a number of decrees about fire issues,” he said, suggesting that local authorities have failed in implementing them. He acknowledged that the customers at the karaoke parlor likely ignored warnings to flee, but said the establishment’s owner and city officials bear responsibility for the tragedy. “The fire authority should regularly carry out inspections after granting permits, especially when any new construction is done,” he said. “Furthermore, the management was not trained in how to react in case of a fire. The right to run a karaoke bar is contingent on making safety preparations.” The manager of a store that sells fire equipment in Ho Chi Minh City, who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity, said that fires at karaoke parlors and other venues that use significant amounts of power are typically caused by an electrical short. He said that while officials had yet to conclude their investigation of the An Phu blaze, the chain of events suggests safety protocols had been skirted. “The preliminary report about the fire by the Binh Duong Police said that the An Phu karaoke bar met all fire prevention requirements, but the guests continued to sing after the fire started,” he said. “This suggests the building did not automatically cut off the electricity and there is a question of whether the fire alarm system even worked or not. There are a number of things to be examined, including whether there were lights at the exits and an emergency sprinkler system in the rooms and hallways.” In 2016, a fire at an eight-story karaoke parlor in Vietnam’s capital Hanoi killed 13 people after spreading to several nearby buildings. Translated by An Nguyen. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [WeChat warns users their likes, comments and histories are being sent to China](https://ij-reportika.com/wechat-warns-users-their-likes-comments-and-histories-are-being-sent-to-china/): The Chinese social media platform WeChat is warning users outside China that their data will be stored on servers inside the country, RFA has learned. A number of overseas WeChat users received a notification on Sept. 6, warning that &#8220;personal data [including] likes, comments, browsing and search history, content uploads, etc.&#8221; will be transmitted to China. The notification also reminds users that their behavior while using the app is subject to WeChat&#8217;s licensing agreement and privacy policy. A YouTuber living in France who gave only the pseudonym Miss Crook said she was shocked to receive a French translation of the same message. &#8220;I clicked through and &#8230; this message popped up, so I automatically clicked cancel,&#8221; she said. &#8220;It&#8217;s becoming clear what the difference is between a democracy and a dictatorship.&#8221; She said the move would likely affect large numbers of Chinese nationals and emigres living overseas. &#8220;Overseas Chinese have become very dependent on WeChat, but is it really that important?&#8221; she said. &#8220;We can actually stop using it completely, so we shouldn&#8217;t let them confuse us. It&#8217;s really not that important.&#8221; Faced with mounting international concern over privacy protection, WeChat said in September 2021 that it had &#8220;separated&#8221; its data storage facilities for domestic and international users, asking overseas users to re-sign the terms and conditions to keep using the app, which many people rely on to send money to people in China, make purchases in Chinese yuan, and stay in touch with friends and family. Former Sina Weibo censor Liu Lipeng said the move was largely a cosmetic one, however. &#8220;Last year &#8230; WeChat re-signed its agreements with all overseas users, but everything on there except for one-to-one chats have to use WeChat protocols,&#8221; Liu said. &#8220;So the moment you click OK, you are back in [the Chinese version] again.&#8221; &#8220;Everything you write is still available [to the Chinese authorities], so it&#8217;s basically sleight of hand. Nothing has changed,&#8221; he said. &#8220;You are a still a WeChat user.&#8221; U.S.-based legal scholar Teng Biao said WeChat&#8217;s parent company Tencent is already required under China&#8217;s Cybersecurity Law to assist the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with any data it says it needs, as are all of the other internet service providers and social media platforms in China. &#8220;The Chinese government has always used WeChat inside China as a tool to control society and censor speech, which is part and parcel its program of high-tech totalitarian control,&#8221; Teng told RFA. &#8220;It has also always used WeChat as a way to export its censorship beyond its borders, to the United States and other countries,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Western countries should consider re-evaluating WeChat as a threat to national security, data security, personal privacy and so on,&#8221; Teng said. &#8220;[They] cannot allow China’s censorship system to extend into the West and all around the world.&#8221; Growing concerns Concerns have been growing for some time over overseas censorship and surveillance via WeChat, with the U.S. banning any U.S.-based individuals or entities from doing business with Tencent, and rights activists describing it as a &#8220;prison&#8221; that keeps overseas users within reach of CCP law enforcement operations. Launched by Tencent in 2011, WeChat now has more than 1.1 billion users, second only to WhatsApp and Facebook, but the company keeps users behind China&#8217;s complex system of blocks, filters and human censorship known as the Great Firewall, even when they are physically in another country. The app is also used by China&#8217;s state security police to carry out surveillance and harassment of dissidents and activists in exile who speak out about human rights abuses in the country, or campaign for democratic reform. And it&#8217;s not just Chinese nationals who are being targeted. In May 2020, researchers at CitizenLab at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto warned that anyone using WeChat, even if they have lived their whole lives outside China, is &#8220;subject to pervasive content surveillance that was previously thought to be exclusively reserved for China-registered accounts.&#8221; Documents and images transmitted entirely among non-China-registered accounts undergo content surveillance wherein these files are analyzed for content that is politically sensitive in China, the report, titled &#8220;We Chat, They Watch,&#8221; said. The report warned of &#8220;very serious&#8221; security and privacy issues associated with WeChat and other Chinese apps, and called on app stores to highlight risks to users before they download such apps. And a recent report detailing massive amounts of user data collected by TikTok also sparked privacy concerns around the hugely popular video app, which is owned by Chinese internet company ByteDance. In a technical analysis of TikTok&#8217;s source code, security research firm Internet 2-0 found the app, which is the sixth most-used globally with forecast advertising revenues of U.S. $12 billion in 2022, was &#8220;overly intrusive&#8221; and data collection was &#8220;excessive.&#8221; While TikTok claims user data is stored in the U.S. and Singapore, the report found evidence of &#8220;many subdomains in the iOS app scattered around the world,&#8221; including Baishan, China. As of September 2021 TikTok had more than one billion active users globally, 142.2 million of whom are in North America. The report found that TikTok makes use of a number of permissions considered &#8220;dangerous&#8221; by industry experts. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [UN experts urge action on findings of Uyghur abuse in China](https://ij-reportika.com/un-experts-urge-action-on-findings-of-uyghur-abuse-in-china/): A collection of human rights officials on Wednesday said the international community must not ignore the systematic abuses allegedly perpetrated against Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and repeated a call for the U.N. Human Rights Council to review the charges. The more than 40 experts, comprising U.N. special rapporteurs, independent experts and members of working groups under the U.N. Human Rights Council, issued their call in response to a damning report issued on Aug. 31 by former U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet, finding that China’s repression of the predominantly Muslim minorities in Xinjiang “may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.” Bachelet, who traveled to Xinjiang in May, issued the overdue report on rights abuses in the region on the day she concluded her four-year mandate as U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. The report states that “serious human rights violations” have been committed in Xinjiang in the context of the Chinese government’s application of counter-terrorism and counter-“extremism” policies and practices. China’s Permanent Mission to the U.N. Office at Geneva dismissed the report, saying it ignored the human rights achievements by people from all ethnic groups in Xinjiang and the damage caused by terrorism and extremism to the human rights of all ethnic groups there. But the U.N. experts supported the report’s conclusions on abuses in Xinjiang, highlighting the finding that “the extent of arbitrary and discriminatory detention of members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim minorities … may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity,” according to a news release issued by U.N. Human Rights Special Procedures in Geneva. The experts also drew attention to the report’s finding of “credible allegations of patterns of torture or ill-treatment, including forced medical treatment and adverse conditions of detention, as well as incidents of sexual and gender-based violence including invasive gynecological exams, and indications of coercive enforcement of family planning and birth control policies,” the news release said. The experts, who have mandates to report and advise on human rights issues, also repeated a call from June 2020 for the Human Rights Council to convene a special session on China to address allegations of arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, and restrictions on movement, freedom of religion and freedom of expression on the premise of national security.  The Human Rights Council should consider establishing a panel of experts to closely monitor, analyze and report annually on the human rights situation in China, the group of U.N. experts said. They also recommended that the U.N. General Assembly or secretary-general consider the creation of a special envoy. U.N. member states, U.N. agencies and businesses should demand that China fulfills its human rights obligations, the experts said. Since 2017, Chinese authorities have ramped up their repression of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities, arbitrarily detaining up to 1.8 million people in internment camps and committing severe human rights abuses. Credible reports by rights groups and the media documenting the widespread abuse and repression have prompted the United States and some parliaments of Western countries to declare that the Chinese government’s action amount to a genocide and crimes against humanity. &#8216;We have to name it&#8217; When asked for comment on the experts’ remarks, Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, told RFA that he had nothing to add to what he said about Bachelet’s report during a regular press briefing on Sept. 1. At the news conference, Dujarric said Guterres had read the report and that it confirmed what the secretary-general’s position that the Uyghur community in Xinjiang must be respected without discrimination.   “The secretary-general very much hopes that the government of China will take on board the recommendations put forward in the assessment by the high commissioner for human rights,” he said at the time. Nury Turkel, chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, a bipartisan and independent federal government body, said he was “thankful” that the U.N. experts are acknowledging an obligation to address the Uyghur issue.  “This comes years too late, but is a good step forward,” he told RFA. “No member state can say that they didn’t know or can escape the brutal reality of active genocide in China.” Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress, called the U.N. experts’ calls “highly timely as the U.N. has no excuse not to act in light of the release of the Uyghur report by the U.N Human Rights High Commissioner.”  Alexis Brunnelle-Duceppe, a member of Canada&#8217;s Parliament, said he wanted the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to take a stand for human rights and condemn China for its maltreatment of Uyghurs. “What I&#8217;m asking from this government, the Canadian government, is to … ask the U.N. to send a special envoy to Xinjiang and to stop being weak in front of China when it comes to crimes against humanity, when it comes to genocide,” he told RFA. Though Canada’s House of Commons voted overwhelmingly in February 2021 to declare China’s repression of the Uyghurs a genocide, the country’s government has not issued that determination. “This is a problem. If you want to solve a problem, you have to name it, and we’re in front of a genocide right now. We have to name it,” he said. Translated by Alim Seytoff for RFA Uyghur. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Court charges 4 Thai ex-park officials in Karen activist’s 2014 murder](https://ij-reportika.com/court-charges-4-thai-ex-park-officials-in-karen-activists-2014-murder/): A Thai court formally charged a former senior park ranger and three subordinates suspected of killing an ethnic Karen activist eight years ago before it released them on bail, a move that human rights defenders criticized on Tuesday. Former chief ranger Chaiwat Limlikhit-akson and his former staffers at Kaeng Krachan National Park pleaded not guilty to five charges on Monday in connection with the 2014 disappearance and death of Porlajee Rakchongcharoen (also known as Billy), a member of the Karen tribal community that is stateless in Thailand. The Bangkok Central Criminal Court for Corruption and Misconduct Cases then released each of the four on 800,000 baht (U.S. $21,815), according to Prayuth Petchkoon, a spokesman for the prosecution. The justice ministry’s Department of Special Investigation brought the charges against the former officials who had worked at the park in Phetchaburi province near the Thai-Myanmar border. “For this case, we prepared the indictment as suggested by the DSI,” the spokesman told reporters after the four suspects appeared before the court. The charges are premeditated murder, unlawful detention, concealment of a corpse, intimidating the victim using weapons and misconduct, Prayuth said. The court specializes in prosecuting state officials and others implicated in offenses related to bribery, intimidation, coercion and other malfeasance. Chaiwat, who now works as a senior conservation administrator for the government in Ubon Ratchathani province, denied all allegations. Bunthaen Butsarakham, Thanaset Chaemthet and Kritsanaphong Chitthet are the others who were charged and released. “I have never arrested any ethnic suspects. I affirm my innocence,” Chaiwat told reporters outside the court. “I have never conducted any acts as accused. “At first, I felt disheartened, but I knew it was better to get justice [through the court]. … It will be good to get a clear answer for the community.” BenarNews could not immediately reach Billy’s widow, Pinnapha Phrueksapan, for comment. It is important to keep a public spotlight on the case so the Thai judicial system has integrity and the DSI and the Attorney General’s Office can bring out the truth in court, a human rights activist said. “This is the first trial of an enforced disappearance case in Thai history,” Pornpen Khongkachonkiet, director of the Cross-Cultural Foundation, a local human rights organization, told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated news service, on Tuesday. Another rights advocate questioned the decision to grant bail. “Government investigators and civil society groups have repeatedly expressed serious concerns that former park chief Chaiwat Limlikhit-akson and his associates have both the power and influence to intimidate witnesses, so it’s extremely worrisome these four suspects have been released on bail,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch. Authorities must protect witnesses and monitor Chaiwat and his accomplices, Robertson told BenarNews, adding that Thai officials should recognize “the importance of ensuring a free and fair trial that holds accountable those found responsible, regardless of their position or status.” In a news release posted on its website last month, the New York-based global watchdog group alleged that the investigation into Billy’s killing had “suffered from a cover-up.” The four defendants are expected to return to court for arraignment on Sept. 26. This week’s court action follows the approval by the Thai legislature last month of a bill to criminalize state-sanctioned acts of torture and enforced disappearance. It must be published in the Royal Gazette before taking effect in December. Karen activists hold signs and pictures during a rally calling on Thai authorities to speed up the investigation into their missing colleague, Porlajee Rakchongcharoen outside the governor&#8217;s office in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand, April 22, 2014. Credit: AP Photo Disappearance Billy, who fought for land rights after Chaiwat allegedly sought to move ethnic people from Kaeng Krachan National Park, went missing on April 17, 2014, after park officers stopped him at a checkpoint while he was traveling to meet Karen villagers. Billy was to testify the next day in a case filed by Karen farmers against Chaiwat, the chief park officer at the time, and others. The locals alleged that the park officials had ransacked and burned their homes and properties in nearby Pongluek-Bangkloy in 2011. Kaeng Krachan, Thailand’s largest national park, is home to ethnic Bwa G’Naw people, also known as Karen, Kariang or Yang, who are members of a hill tribe scattered across Myanmar, Laos and Thailand. HRW said Billy was carrying case files and related documents when he was detained, adding those files were never recovered. Chaiwat was acquitted over insufficient evidence in 2014. Billy’s family sued Chaiwat for the disappearance, but the case was dismissed after a judge ruled there that there was not enough evidence to prosecute. The park ranger and his aides had told police they released Billy after questioning him for illegally gathering wild honey. Later, with the help of rights advocates, Billy’s widow lodged a new complaint asking DSI to reopen the case. In September 2019, DSI members found bone fragments in an oil tank submerged inside the national park reservoir. After DNA analysis confirmed the missing activist’s remains, officials issued arrest warrants two months later. The four turned themselves in to authorities in Bangkok. Citing a lack of evidence, a Thai public prosecutor in January 2020 announced that the charges against the four, including murder, were dropped. The case took a new turn when the current leader of the DSI assumed office. The Thai Attorney General’s Office announced last month that it would indict Chaiwat, leading to Monday’s court action. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.
- [Forged Gender Reports or Finland’s Hidden Misogyny?](https://ij-reportika.com/forged-gender-reports-or-finlands-hidden-misogyny/): Finland is the top scorer in Gender Equality reports but their woman PM gets trolled for partying exposing Finland’s Hidden Misogyny
- [UK will 'bear consequences' of new leader's hard line on China: Chinese state media](https://ij-reportika.com/uk-will-bear-consequences-of-new-leaders-hard-line-on-china-chinese-state-media/): Chinese state media hit out at newly elected Conservative Party leader Liz Truss over her statement that China represents a major threat to national security, as polling showed Truss will soon take over from outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Truss was announced as the party&#8217;s new leader amid a cost-of-living crisis after she beat former chancellor Rishi Sunak in a weeks-long internal contest for the ruling party&#8217;s top job, and the post of prime minister that comes with it. &#8220;Another statement of Truss during the campaign [was that] she might declare China a &#8216;national security threat&#8217; to the UK,&#8221; the English-language China Daily said in an editorial on Monday. &#8220;Trying to divert domestic attention by exaggerating the &#8216;China threat&#8217; and slamming other countries is like an old meme played by lame political talk show actors, which serves no purpose other than to expose the incapacity of such politicians in terms of their governance,&#8221; the paper said. &#8220;The easiest way is to pander to populism, but this will only bring about a more difficult fate for their countries,&#8221; the paper said. The two-month leadership contest left a power vacuum at the heart of the British government as incumbent Boris Johnson jetted off on at least two overseas vacations, having resigned in the wake of a cascade of ministerial resignations calling on him to go. Inflation is above 10 percent, with tens of thousands of workers currently striking for pay and conditions to keep up. Foreign secretary Truss, who has spoken of her admiration for late former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, summoned China’s ambassador to the U.K. for crisis talks over Beijing’s military aggression targeting Taiwan during the Aug. 2-3 visit by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “We have seen increasingly aggressive behavior and rhetoric from Beijing in recent months, which threaten peace and stability in the region,&#8221; Truss said in a statement at the time. She reportedly vowed to declare China &#8220;a threat to national security&#8221; if she won the leadership race. Improved ties unlikely The nationalistic Global Times newspaper, which has close ties to CCP mouthpiece the People&#8217;s Daily, said there was little reason to believe relations between London and Beijing would improve under Truss&#8217; premiership. &#8220;With the country effectively drifting aimlessly without a government since former Prime Minister Boris Johnson was forced to resign after caroming from one scandal after another and subsequently going AWOL, the country needs pragmatism and practical policies, not outdated ideology,&#8221; the paper said. &#8220;Having designated China as a threat to the U.K.&#8217;s national security &#8230; holding to that stance when in office will not be in the U.K.&#8217;s best interests,&#8221; the editorial warned. It said plenty has changed since the Conservative government heralded a &#8220;golden age&#8221; in Sino-British relations in 2015. &#8220;In the hope of securing a trade deal with the U.S. to help extricate the U.K. from the jaws of the monstrous Brexit mess the country brought upon itself, being tough on China was seen as a way to curry favor with Washington,&#8221; the article said. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [‘All I could think was, I'm about to die’ - Taiwanese couple trafficked to Cambodia](https://ij-reportika.com/all-i-could-think-was-im-about-to-die-taiwanese-couple-trafficked-to-cambodia/): Beginning in the second half of 2021, Taiwanese nationals were lured by high-paying jobs to Cambodian scam rings where they were detained, beaten, resold, and otherwise enslaved. According to a rough estimate by Taiwan’s National Police Agency, there are likely thousands of victims.  Why are Taiwanese flocking to Cambodia in droves? How did this fantasy journey become a nightmare? One journalist spent weeks interviewing victims who escaped after being trafficked to Cambodia. From their personal experiences, we learn how they fell prey to traffickers and scammers. The following is part two of a four-part digest. This series was originally published in August 2022 by The Reporter, an independent investigative news outlet in Taiwan. RFA obtained the rights to republish parts of the series in English.   In March 2022, a young couple in Taiwan was looking for opportunities. Guan Jie, 28, and Yi An, 30, (pseudonyms) had opened a store together, but were forced to close because of the pandemic, leaving Guan Jie with tens of thousands of U.S. dollars in debt. At that time, a friend of Guan Jie’s that he had known for 10 years introduced the couple to a job advertised on the Facebook group &#8220;Side Door Jobs,&#8221; working back-end customer service in a resort called &#8220;New MGM Phase II.&#8221; The job description read: &#8220;A monthly salary of NT$40,000-50,000 (U.S. $1,300-1600), 8 days off a month, typing personnel. Travel to Cambodia.&#8221; For many people, working abroad is a dream come true—especially for Guan Jie and Yi An, who had never been outside of Taiwan. &#8220;I thought it would be great to be able to work abroad,&#8221; Guan Jie said in an interview.  They took the bait. In Taiwan, the human trafficking ring first provided a sophisticated fake company profile. The couple was told that the place where they would stay included gyms, rooms for couples, and other perks. The trafficker also personally brought Guan Jie and Yi An from outside Taipei to sign a contract with a hotel in the city and the intermediary even helped Guan Jie pay off two debts of several thousand. &#8220;I thought at the time, oh my God, why are they being so good!&#8221; Guan Jie smiled wryly.  The trafficker took them to get passports, take PCR tests, and checked them into a hotel in downtown Taipei a few nights before boarding the plane. On March 11, Guan Jie, Yi An, Guan Jie’s friend, and two other Taiwanese – a total of five people – took a flight to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and were sent directly to the coastal town of Sihanoukville. From the first contact with the Taiwanese trafficking group to their departure and landing, no more than a week had gone by.  Guan Jie said he quickly learned that he had been sold to a trafficking ring after being lured to Cambodia by “pig sellers,” or victims who were forced to find new targets for the operation. “A group of pig sellers bought us and sold us again. We were treated as animals, not people,” he said. Guan Jie and Yi An were “assigned” similar jobs, but the target they were after was foreigners. “We just used Google Translate to connect emotionally [to the victims]. After we talked for a while, we transferred them to senior employees to “reel them in,” Yi An said.  She said that the company also employed foreign women who would video chat with targets to deceive them. A chance to escape Guan Jie and Yi An said they were “lucky” not to have been beaten during their time being held by the trafficking ring, although they saw other victims being “dealt with” by members of the ring. Guan Jie said that sometimes the music in the office would suddenly be turned up loud. “I knew that [next door] someone was being electrocuted again,” he said. “All I could think was, I&#8217;m about to die.” Guan Jie said that he tried to obey his captors’ orders, but he wasn’t good at luring new victims and faced the risk of being &#8220;resold&#8221; to a new trafficking ring because of his poor performance. &#8220;When I knew I might be resold, I started calling for help,” Guan Jie said. He knew that even if the chances were slim that he would be rescued, he had to take a chance.  Most of those held at trafficking rings in the Sihanoukville industrial park still have access to social media. The ring that detained Guan Jie only required people to hand over their cell phones during work hours, so during his off-hours, he searched the internet for ways to escape from Cambodia. At first, he called the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Vietnam – Taiwan’s de facto embassy in the country – for emergency assistance and wrote a petition to the Taiwanese government, but to no avail. Later, Guan Jie contacted Taiwan’s National Police Agency, and an officer he spoke with provided him with the Facebook profile of the governor of Sihanoukville. After confirming their exact location and “company” through the special assistant of the provincial governor, local police rescued Guan Jie and Yi An and sent the couple to immigration. Even at the immigration office, Guan Jie and Yi An remained in danger. The couple learned that even the authorities were unable to resist the chance to make tens of thousands of dollars “selling” victims to local trafficking rings, and they were repeatedly asked if they wanted to accept “work” opportunities instead of returning home. In the end, the couple paid a U.S. $3,000 “ransom” to the local contacts of a Taiwanese gang and were allowed to board a flight back to Taiwan after more than three months of being trapped at the industrial park in Sihanoukville. &#8220;I felt reborn,” Yi An said of the relief she experienced after arriving in Taipei. “Fortunately, I didn&#8217;t die there. I really didn&#8217;t think I would ever return to Taiwan.&#8221; 
- [Well-known Tibetan painter of religious art dies at 82](https://ij-reportika.com/well-known-tibetan-painter-of-religious-art-dies-at-82/): Tenpa Rabten, a prominent painter of Tibetan religious scrolls called thangkas, has died at the age of 82, RFA has learned. Rabten, who passed on the knowledge of his traditional art form to hundreds of students, died Monday in the Tibetan capital Lhasa, according to sources in the region. Born into a family of artists in 1941, Rabten was introduced to thangka painting at a young age. His grandfather Aepa Tsering Gyawu was the personal artist to the 13th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso, and was one of the many artists who designed imagery for the Tibetan currency notes used before China’s takeover of Tibet in 1951. Tempa Rabten in the process of completing a painting of Padma Sambhava, the 7th Century Indian Master who brought Buddhism to Tibet. Photo: Gelukpa Rabten’s father, Drungtok Kelsang Norbu, was a professor at the Creative Training Institute under the Kashag, Tibet’s pre-takeover governing council. A significant amount of Tibet’s cultural heritage was destroyed during China’s 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution, and Tibetan artists like Tenpa Rabten were forbidden to produce traditional religious art. However, Rabten later wrote thousands of articles about traditional Tibetan painting, and served beginning in 2014 as a mentor in the Chinese National Artists Association. In 1980, Rabten founded a private fine arts school providing free education for underprivileged students, eventually training around 200 artists. He also taught as a professor of traditional Tibetan painting at Tibet University in Lhasa and received international recognition, including awards given in China and Japan, honoring his contributions to the arts. Tibetan 100 Sang currency note, first printed in 1913 during the era of the 13th Dalai Lama. The artist who designed of the note was Tenpa Rabten’s grandfather, Apa Tsering Gyau who was the master painter for the Tibetan government in Lhasa. Denominations of all Tibetan currencies were in use until 1959. Photo: Gelukpa Speaking to RFA, Buchung Nubgya, a Tibetan living in New York, said that many of his own teachers were close friends of Tenpa Rabten and shared the same enthusiasm for their profession. He had met Rabten several times himself, he said. “There have been many teachers of thangka painting, but Tenpa Rabten was someone who nurtured hundreds of students under his personal guidance, and he contributed immensely to the preservation of Tibetan traditional painting,” Nubgya said. “His passing is an irreparable loss for Tibetan tradition.” Tenpa Rabten’s artwork depicting the Buddhist deity Chakra Sambhara. Photo: Gelukpa Thangka paintings date back to the 7th century. They are not only valued for their aesthetic beauty, they also serve as educational and meditational aids, as each detail has a meaning that refers to concepts in Buddhist philosophy.  Thangka also have ceremonial use. Some Tibetan monasteries possess huge Thangka scrolls that are unrolled on certain holidays for public viewings and the ceremonies. The traditional art has been preserved and passed through the lineage of Thangka masters and their students. Sometimes the lineage remains with the family and is passed from father to son. An original Thangka painting is a rarity and can cost between $1,000 and $15,000 depending on its size and intricacy. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [North Korea holds emergency wartime readiness drills for hospitals](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-holds-emergency-wartime-readiness-drills-for-hospitals/): Wartime readiness drills designed to test the capabilities of county and city-level hospitals in North Korea showed an exhausted medical staff and widespread equipment shortages, sources told RFA. Hospital employees nationwide were tested over a five-day period for the first time since 2019. They were made to set up field hospital tents, transport equipment and practice carrying patients on stretchers to be ready in the event of war.  But the tents were falling apart, the employees were inadequately fed, and medical equipment was in short supply, according to the sources, who questioned if the already overwhelmed North Korean medical system would actually be able to handle wartime casualties. “The drills started with an emergency call by city and county hospitals under the lead of the Civil Defense Department in each province,” a medical source from Chongjin, in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong, told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “Provincial, municipal and local hospitals were all involved in the five-day drill. On the first day, on the early morning of Aug. 25, each hospital was loaded with emergency medical equipment and medicines, tents and stretchers that they need in wartime,” he said. “They all gathered at an open space near the Susong River and inspected everyone’s readiness for wartime mobilization.” On day two, each hospital had to set up a field location supplied with medical equipment. “The tents had to be set up in no less than three minutes. We had to set up, dismantle and then set the tent up again more than 10 times,” the source said. “On the third and fourth days, we had training events. These included evacuating patients while wearing a gas mask, identifying generally wounded patients and differentiating them from those who were wounded by nuclear or chemical weapons, treating different kinds of wounds, treating chemical weapons attacks,” the source said. On the final day, the Civil Defense Ministry had to come up with scenarios to test how each team would react in various situations, he said. “Most of the medical workers are women. Setting up and dismantling a field hospital and training to transport male patients on stretchers, all while wearing gas masks, was especially difficult for the women,” said the source. “The training was so hard that in the evening, the female nurses were exhausted and often lay down in bed without enough strength to eat dinner,” he said. In Puryong county, in the same province, the drill lasted three days and was held at the county hospital, a resident of the county told RFA. Medical personnel were tested in the same manner — evaluating emergency equipment, setting up field hospitals and practicing patient transport and wound treatment. “Officials of the Civil Defense Ministry came out and watched the whole training. The entire hospital staff from the director of the hospital to lower-level employees were involved in this drill,” the second source said. “The wartime readiness status of each hospital was very poor. These are the hospitals that must operate field hospitals during wartime, but there is a shortage of tents, not to mention the shortage of medical equipment and medicines,” he said. “The tents were old. Many were torn here and there. These tents have been used for many years.” Although the drills showed shortcomings in North Korea’s ability to handle casualties during war, the second source said that “it is more urgent to provide equipment and medicine to treat the residents [in peacetime].” Though North Korea claims it has universal health care, its medical system is notoriously under-equipped and only serves patients who can afford to pay for treatment, according to a 2020 report published by South Korea-based NK-News. Many hospitals have no electricity or heating and surgeries are performed using battery-operated flashlights, the report said.  “How much money a patient has determines whether they live or die,” a source in the report said. Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Again a protest and again a suppression in China](https://ij-reportika.com/zhejiang-protests-in-china-against-bank-run/): Zhejiang Protests erupted again in China when the Zhejiang depositors realized that their life savings are stolen by the bank.
- [Two Tibetan monks sentenced for possessing photos of Dalai Lama](https://ij-reportika.com/two-tibetan-monks-sentenced-for-possessing-photos-of-dalai-lama/): Chinese authorities sentenced two Tibetan monks to at least three years in prison for possessing photos of the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s foremost Buddhist spiritual leader who has been living in exile since 1959, RFA has learned. RFA reported in December 2021 that Tenzin Dhargye, a monk in his 30s, had been arrested in September 2020, and sources said that several other monks had been arrested along with him. RFA has since learned that Rigtse, whose age is unknown, was among them. Tenzin Dhargye got three years and six months; Rigtse was sentenced to three years. Both Monks were among the 250 living at the Barong monastery in Kardze (in Chinese, Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture’s Sershul (Shiqu) county. They had photos of the Dalai Lama on their cell phones and have been in custody for the past two years, a source in Tibet, who requested anonymity for security reasons, told RFA’s Tibetan Service “In May of this year they both were convicted of committing an act of ‘separatism’ by possessing photos of the Dalai Lama,” the source said.  “They were both convicted by the People’s Court in Sershul county and no one knows how fair the trial was as their families and relatives were not allowed to see them,” said the source. “Tibetans are threatened by the Chinese authorities so they do not share or discuss any information about them, so we don’t know about their health or which prison they are detained in.” More information about them is hard to come by, a Tibetan living in exile who requested anonymity to speak freely told RFA. “Due to tight restrictions in the region, it is difficult to obtain [records on] arrests made by the Chinese authorities,” the second source said.  “Since 2021, the Chinese government has been aggressively inspecting each and every home and threatening Tibetans, telling them that possessing photos of the Dalai Lama is as felonious as possessing arms and guns.”  The Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists around the world, and is a global representative advocating for the protection of Tibetan culture, language and history. The Dalai Lama fled Tibet into exile in India in the midst of a failed 1959 Tibetan national uprising against China, which sent troops into the formerly independent Himalayan country in 1950. Displays by Tibetans of the Dalai Lama’s photo, public celebrations of his birthday, and the sharing of his teachings on mobile phones or other social media are often harshly punished. Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on Tibet and on Tibetan-populated regions of western China, restricting Tibetans’ political activities and peaceful expression of cultural and religious identity, and subjecting Tibetans to imprisonment, torture and extrajudicial killings. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi. Written in English by Eugene Whong. 
- [UN human rights chief issues damning report on Chinese abuses in Xinjiang](https://ij-reportika.com/un-human-rights-chief-issues-damning-report-on-chinese-abuses-in-xinjiang/): UPDATED at 9:29 p.m. EDT on 8-31-2022 China’s repression of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in its western Xinjiang province “may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity,” the U.N.’s human rights chief said Wednesday in a long-awaited report issued on her last day on the job.  The report issued by U.N. High Commissioner of Human Rights Michelle Bachelet says that “serious human rights violations” have been committed in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in the context of the Chinese government’s application of counter-terrorism and counter-“extremism” strategies.  “The implementation of these strategies, and associated policies in XUAR has led to interlocking patterns of severe and undue restrictions on a wide range of human rights,” the report states. “These patterns of restrictions are characterized by a discriminatory component, as the underlying acts often directly or indirectly affect Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim communities.”  The 46-page report goes on to say that the human rights violations documented in the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights’ (OHCHR) assessment, flow from “a domestic ‘anti-terrorism law system’ that is deeply problematic from the perspective of international human rights norms and standards.” The system contains vague and open-ended concepts that give officials wide discretion to interpret and apply broad investigative, preventive and coercive powers, amid limited safeguards and little independent oversight, the report says. “This framework, which is vulnerable to discriminatory application, has in practice led to the large-scale arbitrary deprivation of liberty of members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim communities in XUAR in so-called [vocational education and training centers] and other facilities, at least between 2017 and 2019,” it says. The OHCHR based its assessment in part on 40 in-depth interviews with individuals with direct and first-hand knowledge of the situation in Xinjiang, 26 of whom said they had been detained or had worked in various facilities across the region since 2016. In each case, OHCHR assessed the reliability and credibility of these persons, the report says. The report covers the period during which Chinese authorities arbitrarily detained up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in internment camps in Xinjiang, according to numerous investigative reports by rights groups, researchers, foreign media and think tanks.  The predominantly Muslim groups have also been subjected to torture, forced sterilizations and forced labor, as well as the eradication of their linguistic, cultural and religious traditions, in what the United States and several Western parliaments have called genocide and crimes against humanity. “Even if the [vocational education and training centers, or VETC] system has since been reduced in scope or wound up, as the government has claimed, the laws and policies that underpin it remain in place,” the report says. “There appears to be a parallel trend of an increased number and length of imprisonments occurring through criminal justice processes, suggesting that the focus of deprivation of liberty detentions has shifted towards imprisonment, on purported grounds of counter-terrorism and counter-‘extremism.’” The information available to OHCHR on implementation of the government’s stated drive against terrorism and ‘extremism’ in XUAR in the period 2017- 2019 and potentially thereafter, also raises concerns from the perspective of international criminal law, the report says.  “The extent of arbitrary and discriminatory detention of members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim groups, pursuant to law and policy, in context of restrictions and deprivation more generally of fundamental rights enjoyed individually and collectively, may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity,” it states. OHCHR’s report makes 13 recommendations to the Chinese government, including promptly releasing those detained arbitrarily in VETCs, prisons or other detention facilities.  It also recommends that China release details about the location of Uyghurs in the XUAR who have been out of touch with relatives abroad, establish safe means of communication for them, and allow travel so families can be reunited. The report also recommends that China investigate allegations of human rights abuses in the VETCs, including allegations of torture, sexual violence, forced labor and deaths in custody. Quick response from China China’s Permanent Mission to the U.N. Office at Geneva was quick to dismiss Bachelet’s report. “This so-called ‘assessment’ runs counter to the mandate of the OHCHR, and ignores the human rights achievements made together by people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang and the devastating damage caused by terrorism and extremism to the human rights of people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang,” the mission said in a statement. “Based on the disinformation and lies fabricated by anti-China forces and out of presumption of guilt, the so-called &#8220;assessment&#8221; distorts China&#8217;s laws and policies, wantonly smears and slanders China, and interferes in China&#8217;s internal affairs, which violates principles including dialogue and cooperation, and non-politicization in the field of human rights, and also undermines the credibility of the OHCHR,” the statement said. In response to the report’s release, Sophie Richardson, China director at New York-based Human Rights Watch, said Bachelet’s “damning findings explain why the Chinese government fought tooth and nail to prevent the publication of her Xinjiang report, which lays bare China’s sweeping rights abuses.” “The United Nations Human Rights Council should use the report to initiate a comprehensive investigation into the Chinese government’s crimes against humanity targeting the Uyghurs and others – and hold those responsible to account,” she said in an emailed statement. Speaking in an interview with RFA Uyghur, Richardson said that Bachelet&#8217;s report is &#8220;not the report Xi Jinping wanted a month before the 20th Party Congress,&#8221; when the CCP leader will seek an unprecedented third term in office, following constitutional amendments in March 2018 removing presidential term limits. &#8220;But it’s the report that is essential, we think, to mobilizing international support for actual investigations and accountability,&#8221; she said. &#8220;This report obliges Human Rights Council member states, and indeed other states too, to urgently respond. This is a sober assessment of serious human rights violations committed by a powerful state and it is imperative that they respond to that the way they would to violations anywhere.&#8221; Adrian Zenz, a researcher at the Washington,...
- [Myanmar junta forces said to have burned tens of thousands of homes](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-forces-said-to-have-burned-tens-of-thousands-of-homes/): Myanmar’s military junta has burned nearly 30,000 homes across the country during the past 19 months following the coup that overthrew the elected government, according to data compiled by a domestic research group. In a report issued on Aug. 28, Data for Myanmar said soldiers had torched 28,434 houses since the ouster of the democratically elected government on Feb. 1, 2021, with 20,153 homes destroyed in Sagaing region alone. The Magway region has the second-largest number of destroyed houses at 5,418, followed by Chin state with 1,474 burned homes. Sagaing, Magway and Chin are hotbeds of civilian resistance to military rule by armed opposition People’s Defense Forces (PDF). Junta soldiers burned other homes and property in Kachin, Kayah and Mon regions, southern Shan state, and in Bago, Tanintharyi and Mandalay regions. U Aye, a resident of Magway’s Nga Ta Yaw village, told RFA that the military along with supporting Pyu Saw Htee militia groups, set fire to his village at least twice this month and that he suffered a personal loss of more than 100,000 kyats (U.S. $47) because his house, tractor, trailer and cow shed were damaged. “There are charity organizations helping us right now,” he said. “We are staying in the monastery. “We only have some food provided by the charity groups that come to the monastery,” he said. “We do not have any food or a place to live. That’s what is happening. We have a cow, and there’s no more food to feed him.” Soldiers burned Nga Ta Yaw village in Yesagyo township on Aug. 13-14, destroying about 830 houses, leaving only monasteries, a school and a dispensary standing, U Aye said. The arson followed a clash between the military and the local PDF outside the community. Similarly, Pan Ywar Village in Sagaing’s Pale township was set ablaze on Feb. 1, even though there were no armed clashes in the area. A village resident, who did not want to be named for security reasons, said the villagers now live in small huts where there used to be more than 150 large houses. “Let’s say we have now rebuilt the village, but we have these little huts with roofs made from palm leaves in place of the big houses,” she told RFA. “The villagers have returned since the army left. “Our Pan Ywar is on the crossroads between Myaing and Pale townships, so military columns come by often,” she added. Zaw Zaw, who is helping villagers displaced by armed conflict and arson in Sagaing region, told RFA that the parallel National Unity Government (NUG) has sent some assistance to area residents. Aid workers have collected bamboo and wood from a nearby forested area as an emergency measure for residents of Pale who lost their homes, while the NUG’s Humanitarian Affairs Ministry sent donations and emergency funds. In some areas of Sagaing, people who lost their homes to the arson have been living in forested areas since February. &#8216;War crime&#8217; A legal analyst, who did not want to be named for security reasons, said the junta must try to minimize the harm to the rural population no matter how much it wants to suppress the armed resistance and that the burning of entire villages is a war crime. “They could have surrounded the entire village and blockaded each section and then searched the houses in each quarter or ward,” he said. “There’s no reason to shoot,” the attorney said. “There’s no reason for people to die. There’s no reason to destroy the lives of citizens. There are such options for them, and yet, they did all this just on account of suspicion, without having any factual information. By doing all this, we can say that they have committed a war crime.” Junta forces do not adhere to international law or the ethics of war, which clearly state that civilian property must not be encroached upon and that civilian targets should not be attacked, he said. Junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun previously told RFA that it was not the military troops but the PDFs that were burning down villages. Noeleen Heyzer, the U.N.’s special envoy on Myanmar, told Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing on Aug. 16 during a visit to the Southeast Asian nation to not burn down villages. The junta leader denied that his troops committed arson and said they were trying to protect civilians. Aung Myo Min, the NUG’s human rights minister, said that efforts must be made to prosecute soldiers who commit crimes against villagers. “We must not only investigate these crimes that are currently happening in the villages, but also take action against those who are burning tens of thousands of houses,” he said. “What we are seeing now are broken lives. We have a legal duty to prevent such things happening.” The NUG is documenting arson and other incidents committed by the military all over the country so that the perpetrators can be punished under the law, while remedial programs are carried out for those who have lost their homes, he said. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane for RFA Burmese. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Dissenting voices speak out against ongoing zero-COVID restrictions in China](https://ij-reportika.com/dissenting-voices-speak-out-against-ongoing-zero-covid-restrictions-in-china/): Dissent against the Chinese government&#8217;s zero-COVID policy has been growing in recent days, with protests over restrictions in the southwestern megacity of Chongqing and calls from a Beijing-based think tank for changes to the policy of targeted lockdowns and ongoing compulsory mass testing. Hundreds of people came out in angry protest at a residential compound in Chongqing&#8217;s Shapingba district on Saturday night, with people complaining that the lockdown persisted despite not a single COVID-19 case having been found for 10 days straight. Local officials eventually lifted restrictions after hundreds of people gathered in Fangcao around roadblocks preventing traffic in and out of their area. Video footage posted to social media showed riot police deployed at the scene, with residents standing in the middle of the road arguing with police, while officials stood in a human chain to control them. &#8220;Lots of people are kicking up a fuss. the SWAT team is here,&#8221; one resident says on the video. &#8220;The government won&#8217;t ease the lockdown, which affects several thousand [households].&#8221; A local resident who gave only the surname Liu said nobody has tested positive in that community in 10 days, but thousands remain confined to their homes. &#8220;The residents met at the Fangcao traffic circle in Lianfang Street, demanding that they lift the restrictions,&#8221; Liu said. &#8220;The government has now agreed to the residents&#8217; request and promised to lift restrictions.&#8221; But that wasn&#8217;t the end of the matter, she said, adding that she doesn&#8217;t live in the compound, but nearby. &#8220;There have been no positives in the whole street, but the lockdown has not been lifted and there has been no protest,&#8221; Liu said. The Chongqing Municipal Health Commission said on Monday that the city had added 10 new local confirmed cases and 18 local asymptomatic infections the day before, five of which were in Shapingba. A resident of Chongqing&#8217;s Gubei Shuicheng district who gave only the surname Dong said just one COVID-19 case will mean lockdown for an entire district. &#8220;Even if they just find one case, they will lock it down,&#8221; Dong said. &#8220;We were locked down here in Gubei Shuicheng 10 days ago for a week, and had to do PCR tests every day.&#8221; &nbsp; Residents take to the streets demanding that authorities lift a lockdown in Chongqing, Aug. 27, 2022. Credit: Citizen journalist&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; Public transport suspended Meanwhile, authorities in the northern city of Shijiazhuang have stopped all public transportation links in and out of the city after a local COVID-19 outbreak of more than 25 asymptomatic cases, state media reported. Residents in four districts are required to work from home from 2:00 p.m. on Sunday to 2:00 p.m. Wednesday, the Global Times newspaper cited a government statement as saying. &#8220;During the same period, all places, excluding those necessary for city operation, market supply, public services, and disease prevention and control, are required to be shut down,&#8221; it said. It said the outbreak in Shijiazhuang, a city 180 miles (290 kilometers) from Beijing, had &#8220;increased the pressure on the capital.&#8221; A Hebei-based current affairs commentator surnamed Wang said the Shijiazhuang cases were likely brought in by passengers on trains leaving Tibet, where authorities have imposed draconian restrictions in the wake of an outbreak. &#8220;There was a train from Tibet that wasn&#8217;t allowed to enter Beijing, so all the passengers got out at Shijiazhuang,&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;The government is using a different control strategy now, which is not letting people into Beijing.&#8221; &#8220;This is because the [ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) 20th National Congress] is coming up soon.&#8221; Restrictions reimposed In Shanghai, which underwent a citywide lockdown earlier this year, dozens of stores have shut down, and local restrictions have been reimposed in Xuhui, Yangpu and Pudong districts, a resident surnamed Feng. &#8220;There are only eight confirmed cases announced yesterday across Xuhui, Yangpu and Pudong, but they locked down as soon as they were found,&#8221; Feng said. &#8220;So many stores have shut down in Shanghai now &#8212; our local store &#8230; is shut; they&#8217;re all shut.&#8221; Beijing-based think tank Anbound recently issued a report calling on the government to prioritize economic recovery. It said the Omicron strain of COVID-19 was less pathogenic with a lower mortality rate that the Delta variant, citing the ending of all restrictions in most countries around the world, which are now enjoying modest growth. It warned that China&#8217;s economy had failed to bounce back when restrictions were eased earlier this year, with economic growth still weak, according to July&#8217;s figures. &#8220;If this situation continues, it will undoubtedly be very unfavorable for China&#8217;s economic stability,&#8221; the report warned. The report &#8212; titled “It&#8217;s Time for China to Adjust Its Virus Control and Prevention Policies” &#8212; said a stalled economy was likely a bigger threat to secure development than the pandemic. Analysts expect the zero-COVID policy to stay in place at least until the 20th party congress later this year, at which CCP leader Xi Jinping will seek an unprecedented third term in office. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [In Myanmar, Vietnamese firms learn the political risks of backing the junta](https://ij-reportika.com/in-myanmar-vietnamese-firms-learn-the-political-risks-of-backing-the-junta/): Vietnamese firms are confronting political risk from overseas investments as the price of doing business with Myanmar’s brutal military regime, a less predictable partner than the authoritarians they are accustomed to. Vietnam’s largest venture in Myanmar is by VietTel, Vietnam’s largest cellular provider. The military-owned company has a major stake in Myanmar’s MyTel, which is also military-owned and has been hemorrhaging customers since the Feb. 1, 2021, coup d’etat that ousted Myanmar’s elected government. In the past year-and-a-half, Vietnam has been one of the most consistent diplomatic supporters of the junta that seized power from the National League for Democracy-led administration. In part, this is simply one authoritarian state sticking up for another; each uses the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ policy of non-interference as a cloak to hide behind. Hanoi has worked within ASEAN to blunt criticism of Naypyidaw and has been critical of Malaysian-led attempts to disinvite the junta’s leadership from the bloc’s meetings. But Vietnam’s support for the junta is also rooted in its growing economic interests. While there’s little trade between the two countries, Myanmar has been an important destination for capital as Vietnamese firms have begun investing abroad, and, in particular, have sought a place in the 5G marketplace, especially in markets where there is residual fear of China’s communications giant Huawei. Post-coup exposure  Vietnam’s investments in Myanmar have gained less attention than the nation’s higher-profile push into the United States. In July, VinFast announced that it had secured U.S. $4 billion in funding for an electric vehicle plant in North Carolina. How that project pans out remains to be seen, but Vietnamese conglomerates are now getting their fingers burned after pursuing ventures closer to home. In Myanmar, where the ruling junta faces a popular resistance movement, the risk has been at all levels. In one instance, a division of a Vietnamese conglomerate THADICO, which has invested in Myanmar Plaza, the largest modern mall and office space in Yangon, ran afoul of the local population when the plaza’s security attacked civil disobedience protesters in November 2021. This led to a sustained boycott that hit the plaza’s 200 retail units hard, compelling the firm to publicly apologize. Since then, consumers have returned, albeit in lower numbers, also arguably due to Covid and an economic downturn. But Vietnam’s largest investment by far in Myanmar is in telecommunications. Mytel is a 2017 joint venture between VietTel, the military-owned Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC), and a number of smaller investors. The venture has been in operation since June 2018. It’s one of VietTel’s 10 overseas joint ventures. VietTel with 49 percent is the largest shareholder, followed by 28 percent owned by Star High, a subsidiary of MEC, which reports directly to the military’s Quartermaster Office. That office is responsible for arming, equipping and feeding Myanmar’s military, as well as running its array of more than 100 firms. Mytel is a military-to-military investment. VietTel is wholly owned by the Vietnamese People’s Army, though managed by civilians, and it’s hard to overstate its power in Vietnam. Its CEO sits on the Communist Party’s elite Central Committee, the highest decision-making body in the country, while its former CEO is the minister of telecommunications. MEC is one of the two military-owned conglomerates that dominate the Myanmar economy. There are some reports that MEC and its subsidiaries now own 39 percent of MyTel. The daughter of coup leader Sen. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing directed the firm Pinnacle Asia, which had the contract for building Mytel’s towers, until the firm was sanctioned and she was removed. A bomb blast topples a Mytel tower in Paletwa township in western Myanmar&#8217;s Chin state, in an undated photo. Credit: Citizen journalist Mytel claims to be the largest telecoms provider in the country with 32 percent of market share and with the largest network of towers, ground stations and fiber optic cable. It was the first provider of 5G internet. It claimed to have 10,000 subscribers by the end of 2020, earning roughly U.S. $25 million in quarterly profits. Their revenue was thought to have increased to U.S. $270 million in 2021, with the expansion of their 5G network, and increasing had the coup not occurred. But Mytel has incurred the wrath of the Myanmar public and armed opposition groups more than any other foreign investment. There has been a public boycott of the firm. In the first quarter of 2021, immediately following the coup, it lost 2 million subscribers and suffered estimated losses of U.S. $25 million. As a result of the coup, Coda, a Singapore-based payments firm, cut Mytel from its mobile payments platform in March 2021, another factor in the loss of subscribers. The red ink has not let up; Mytel has lost money for seven quarters in a row. VietTel has been coy regarding its Myanmar financials. And perhaps with good reason. Neither loss of subscribers nor decline in revenue has subsided. In the countryside, anti-junta militias take down Mytel towers, while switching stations are frequently bombed or set on fire. By the end of 2021, People’s Defense Force militias had claimed to destroy 359 Mytel towers. Indeed, in a one-month period, between Sept. 4 and Oct. 7, PDFs felled 120 Mytel towers, causing additional losses of 20 billion kyats (U.S. $10.3 million). Though that’s just a fraction of the firm’s 12,000 towers, it’s a clear sign of popular enmity toward them. PDFs publicly delight in the fact that the scrap metal from downed towers is melted down and used to produce mortars and grenade launchers. A tweet by Myanmar&#8217;s Chindwin News Agency But PDFs have gone after more than Mytel’s infrastructure. In November 2021, a Yangon urban guerrilla group assassinated Mytel’s chief financial officer, Thein Aung, within his gated community and critically wounded his wife. Previously, Thein Aung had been a senior executive with MEC. More executives are likely to be targeted.  In April 2021, two men threw a bomb into Mytel’s Bago office. In August 2022, gunmen opened fire on a Mytel office...
- [Interview: Chip magnate Robert Tsao comes home to Taiwan to fight the communists](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-chip-magnate-robert-tsao-comes-home-to-taiwan-to-fight-the-communists/): &nbsp; The founder of a major Taiwanese chip-founder has reapplied for nationality of the democratic island after naturalizing as a citizen of Singapore, saying he wants to help in the fight against the military threat from Beijing. Billionaire Robert Tsao, who founded the United Microelectronics Corp (UMC), told that he has reapplied to hold the passport of the Republic of China, which has controlled Taiwan since it stopped being a Japanese dependency after World War II, saying he hopes everyone will defend the island against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Tsao, 75, joked that he could envision three ways in which he might die, but that he never wants to see Taiwan meet the same fate as Hong Kong, where the CCP has presided over a citywide crackdown on public dissent and political opposition under a draconian national security law, that has seen hundreds of thousands leave the city for good. &#8220;I will once more be a citizen of the Republic of China,&#8221; Tsao said. &#8220;I had to come back; if I&#8217;m telling everyone to oppose the CCP, I can hardly skulk overseas myself.&#8221; He added: &#8220;The people of Taiwan need a morale boost &#8230; so I gave up my Singaporean citizenship, and came back here to be with everyone.&#8221; Tsao, who was once worth U.S. $2.7 billion, and was among the top 50 richest people in Taiwan, said he has decided he wants to die on the island, which has never been ruled by the CCP, nor formed part of the People&#8217;s Republic of China. &#8220;The first way [I could die] is illness, which is beyond my control,&#8221; Tsao said. &#8220;The second is dying laughing while watching the fall of the CCP.&#8221; &#8220;The third also involves laughing, because I never lived to see Taiwan become another Hong Kong,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I decided I will die in Taiwan.&#8221; &nbsp; Screen grab taken from video showing a mob of men in white T-shirts attacking pro-democracy protesters at Yuen Long subway station in Hong Kong, July 21, 2019. Credit: RFA&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; Position change Tsao was once seen as a pro-Beijing figure who once called for a referendum on whether people supported &#8220;peaceful unification&#8221; with China, although repeated public opinion polls show that Taiwan&#8217;s 23 million people have no wish to give up their sovereignty or democratic way of life. Tsao said his position changed radically after witnessing the July 21, 2019 attacks on protesters and passengers at Hong Kong Yuen Long MTR station by pro-CCP thugs in white T-shirts, while police stood by for 39 minutes and did nothing to stop the attackers, despite hundreds of calls for emergency assistance. Tsao had also watched in 2014 as the Occupy Central pro-democracy movement pushed back against Beijing&#8217;s ruling out of fully democratic elections, despite promises that the city would keep its traditional freedoms for at least 50 years after the 1997 handover. The 2019 protest movement, which began as a mass popular movement against plans to allow extradition to mainland China and broadened to include calls for full democracy and greater official accountability, also made a deep impression on Tsao. &#8220;On July 21, a group of underworld thugs started blatantly attacking ordinary citizens in Yuen Long,&#8221; Tsao said. &#8220;I said, no! I&#8217;m going to oppose the CCP. No going back. I will cut off all ties with Hong Kong, Macau and mainland China.&#8221; Defense donation On Aug. 5, Tsao called a news conference in Taipei to call on everyone to unite against the &#8220;evil nature of the CCP,&#8221; and announced he would donate U.S. $100 million to the country&#8217;s ministry of defense to boost defenses against a possible Chinese invasion, and to &#8220;safeguard freedom, democracy and human rights.&#8221; His gesture came in the wake of days of Chinese war games in the air and waters surrounding Taiwan in the wake of the Aug. 2-3 visit by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, which Beijing said was a &#8220;provocation.&#8221; He described the CCP as &#8220;a gang of outlaws,&#8221; and called on Taiwanese voters to boycott pro-unification candidates at forthcoming local elections. Tsao&#8217;s two sons hold Taiwan citizenship, and will complete their military training in the course of this year, he told journalists at the time. Tsao said Pelosi&#8217;s visit demonstrated that Taiwan doesn&#8217;t belong to the People&#8217;s Republic of China, and that Beijing&#8217;s criticisms showed its &#8220;cognitive confusion.&#8221; Tsao said the presence of the U.S. 7th Fleet near Taiwan during the Korean War (1950-1953) showed the U.S. was a reliable ally that could be trusted to help defend the island in the event of an invasion by the People&#8217;s Liberation Army (PLA). He said democratic systems need to be constantly maintained and improved, if they are to flourish and bear fruit. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. This story has been updated to correct the name of Robert Tsao.
- [UN official says Cambodia faces ‘severe’ human rights issues](https://ij-reportika.com/un-official-says-cambodia-faces-severe-human-rights-issues/): Cambodia’s government should remove restrictions on political participation and introduce other democratic reforms to address “severe human rights challenges,” a U.N. rights monitor said Friday, following his first official visit to the country. Vitit Muntarbhorn, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Cambodia, credited Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government for having ratified several human rights treaties in a statement at the end of his 11-day trip, but slammed what he said were moves by Phnom Penh to create a political atmosphere of de facto one-party rule in the Southeast Asian nation. “Cambodia is faced with a pervasive paradox. Since 2017, when the main opposition party was disbanded unjustly by judicial order, the country has effectively been under single-party rule, with all seats of the National Assembly in the hands of that monopoly,” Muntarbhorn said, referring to the Supreme Court’s decision in that year to dissolve the main opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP). Muntarbhorn visited with key government officials and met striking workers, residents displaced by development, and opposition party members who face legal trouble or have been harassed by supporters of the ruling party, the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP). He also discussed human trafficking with local leaders in Sihanoukville, a coastal city that has become a gambling haven backed by Chinese investors.  “I am pleased to have met with and learned from all those who generously shared their time, thoughts and experiences with me with characteristic Cambodian warmth. This is a country with a bright future, but it faces a number of severe human rights challenges in the lead up to next year’s general election,” he said. Muntarbhorn called on the Cambodian government to adopt his plan “expeditiously and effectively.” It calls for opening up “civic and political space, by suspending and reforming draconian laws, ensuring election-related personnel are separated from political parties and ending prosecution of political opposition and human rights defenders,” a U.N. news release states. The rapporteur also recommended “releasing all those currently in prison and dropping charges against those who are seen as adversaries by the authorities and improving the quality of law enforcers by proper selection and incentivisation and distance from political authority.” Kata Orn,  spokesman for the government-aligned Cambodian Human Rights Committee (CHRC), noted in an interview with RFA’s Khmer Service that the special rapporteur did not specifically condemn the Cambodian government. “He was concerned, but he didn’t accuse the government of violating human rights,” Kata Orn said. “The government welcomes any recommendations not from the special rapporteurs but from others to review those recommendations to see if they are politically motivated or untrue recommendations. We will accept constructive feedback to improve the government’s loopholes to make sure we are implementing the law and human rights better,’ he said. The special rapporteur’s recommendations on elections are welcomed, but are beyond the scope of the country’s official election monitoring body, Hang Puthea, a spokesman for the National Election Committee (NEC), told RFA.  “We will consider any good recommendations. We are working to improve our shortcomings for the sake of the country and people,’ he said.  After the dissolution of the CNRP in 2017, three members of the opposition quit their positions on the NEC, leaving the organization controlled by members of the ruling party, the Cambodian People’s Party. In a screengrab from a public Zoom video call on Aug. 1, 2022, Migrant Care activist Anis Hidayah [right] shows images of injured and shackled workers who were among Indonesian employees allegedly abused and held against their will after being trafficked to Cambodia to work as cyber scammers. Credit: BenarNews The special rapporteur’s visit also focused on human trafficking, which Muntarbhorn said had “mutated” in the era of cybercrimes. “It&#8217;s a different sort of human trafficking and human forced labor too sometimes, some of us say slavery even,” he said. “This situation is pervasive and it&#8217;s both local and cross frontier and is rendered more complicated by cyberspace, which is borderless.” Muntarbhorn said Cambodia has become a destination country for human trafficking, and should cooperate with its neighbors to address the problem.   “So on that basis, prevention is better than cure, meaning that we need cooperation between this country and all the various countries, big and small, in the Asian region,” he said.  Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong. 
- [Junta arrests former UK ambassador to Myanmar on immigration charges](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-arrests-former-uk-ambassador-to-myanmar-on-immigration-charges/): Junta authorities have arrested former U.K. Ambassador to Myanmar Vicky Bowman and her husband, a Burmese former political prisoner, for allegedly violating the country’s immigration laws, according to the military regime and a source with close ties to the couple. Bowman, who served as the U.K.’s top diplomat to Myanmar for four years ending in 2006, and her husband, artist Htein Lin, were taken into custody from their home in Yangon’s Dagon township at around 10 p.m. on Wednesday and initially held at an area police station, a person close to their family told RFA Burmese. The pair were transferred to Yangon’s notorious Insein Prison on Thursday afternoon and will be held there pending a court hearing scheduled for Sept. 6, the family friend said, speaking on condition of anonymity. According to a statement by the junta, Bowman had obtained a residence permit to stay in Yangon, where she runs the nonprofit organization Myanmar Center for Responsible Business, but relocated to her husband’s home in Shan state’s Kalaw township between May 4, 2021, and Aug. 9, 2022, without informing authorities of her change in address. Htein Lin abetted her by failing to report the move, the statement said. They face up to five years in prison. The source close to Bowman’s family told RFA that she and her husband had “not violated any laws,” as alleged by authorities. The arrests came as the U.K. announced new sanctions against “military-linked companies” that it said was part of a bid to “target the military’s access to arms and revenue” amid a crackdown by the junta on opponents to its rule. The British Embassy in Myanmar confirmed the arrests to RFA by email and said it is providing the pair with consular assistance. Calls for release Rights groups on Thursday called on the junta to drop the charges against Bowman and Htein Lin, a former activist with the All Burma Students Democratic Front who spent more than six years in prison between 1998 and 2004 for speaking out against military rule. Phil Robertson, Asia deputy director for New York-based Human Rights Watch, slammed the decision to arrest the couple as an “absurd, ridiculous &amp; vengeful action” in a post to his Twitter account and called for their immediate and unconditional release. “[Junta chief] Gen. Min Aung Hlaing &amp; #Tatmadaw just making things up to strike back at critics any way they can,” Robertson wrote. The arrests also drew condemnation in a statement from PEN America, an NGO that campaigns for writers’ freedom of expression. “The arbitrary and sudden arrests of Vicky Bowman and Htein Lin are yet more examples of the sweeping and abusive power that the military junta has wielded since its violent and illegal seizure of power in February 2021,” said Julie Trébault, director of the Artists at Risk Connection at PEN America. “We are deeply concerned for the safety of Vicky Bowman and Htein Lin and call for their immediate release.” ‘Revenge’ arrests Friends of Bowman and Htein Lin told RFA they believe the junta had fabricated charges against the couple as a form of “revenge” for Htein Lin’s activism and the fresh U.K. sanctions. Artist Zaw Gyi said Bowman was within her rights to stay at her husband’s home, which should be seen as part of the couple’s collective assets. “This is just an example of trying to find fault to cause a problem,” he said. “How could Htein Lin stay out of this when his wife is being arrested?”  Writer Wai Hmuu Thwin called the arrests “a case of tit for tat by the junta.” “[In other countries] if you enter through immigration legally, there are no problems, regardless of where you stay,” he said. “I see this as a form of revenge because the British government announced sanctions … recently. Since Vicky Bowman was a former British ambassador, she and her husband got caught in the middle.” Authorities in Myanmar have killed nearly 2,250 civilians and arrested more than 15,200 others since the Feb. 1, 2021, coup, mostly during peaceful anti-junta protests, according to Thailand’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [China controls the multilateral bodies and academia to expand TCM.](https://ij-reportika.com/china-controls-the-multilateral-bodies-and-academia-to-expand-tcm/): China controls the multilateral bodies like WHO and ISO and academia like universities of Australia, Malaysia, US and Canada to expand TCM.
- [Bank shake-up seen as bid by junta to control Myanmar’s financial sector: experts](https://ij-reportika.com/bank-shake-up-seen-as-bid-by-junta-to-control-myanmars-financial-sector-experts/): A junta shake-up of Myanmar’s Central Bank leadership announced last week is part of a bid by the military regime to assume control of the country’s financial sector and extend its grip on power, experts warned Wednesday. On Aug. 19, the junta issued a statement saying that it had replaced Central Bank Chairman Than Nyein and Vice Chairman Win Thaw with Central Bank Vice Chairman Than Than Swe and Director General of the junta Defense Ministry’s Accounts Office Maj. Gen. Zaw Myint Naing, respectively. The announcement of the reshuffle comes two months after the junta appointed six lieutenant colonels to the Central Bank as deputy directors and ensures that all key positions at the financial institution are held by either military generals or those close to the regime. A Myanmar-based economist, who did not want to be identified for security reasons, told RFA Burmese that the shake-up is part of a bid by the junta to gain control of the country&#8217;s economy. “[Than Than Swe] who became the chairman is quite strong, but as far as we know, there aren’t many people who will support her,” the economist said. Than Than Swe, widely seen as pro-military, was the target of an unsuccessful assassination attempt in April, when unknown assailants shot her at her apartment complex in Yangon amid a public outcry over a new Central Bank directive ordering the sale of all U.S. dollars and other foreign currency at a fixed rate to licensed banks. The 55-year-old was sworn in as deputy governor of the Central Bank after the military seized power from Myanmar’s democratically elected National League for Democracy (NLD) government in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup. Believed to be the most senior junta official to be shot since the takeover, she is known to have led efforts to reduce the cash flow in the banking and financial system under the NLD, according to a report by The Irrawaddy online news agency. An official with a private domestic bank in Myanmar told RFA on condition of anonymity that the replacements announced last week and appointment of six military officers to deputy director positions in June indicate that the junta is working to assume total control of the country’s Central Bank. “It’s a matter of placing your own people [in key positions] to extend your power … because the flow of money is the most important thing in the world, regardless of whether it’s for good or bad,” the official said. “They must assume that they will learn more about the accounts of the people, including local businessmen, by controlling a key body such as the Central Bank.” The bank official said it is too early to say whether the appointments will have a beneficial impact on Myanmar’s economy, which has been devastated by political instability in the wake of the coup, prompting businesses to fold and foreign investors to flee. Poorly planned policies Public trust in Myanmar’s banks has eroded since the military takeover, as indicated by a growing number of savings withdrawals, while global trade has been reduced to a trickle amid various Central Bank restrictions placed on the U.S. dollar, sources told RFA. A Mandalay-based trader, who also declined to be named, told RFA that importing and exporting goods had become nearly impossible due to the Central Bank’s constant shifting of policies. “I’m so tired of making adjustments in accordance with the bank’s directives. It&#8217;s not easy. I follow their instructions, but it is extremely inconvenient,” he said. “When you have to operate your businesses according to endlessly changing monetary policies, you will suffer losses due to fluctuations in rates, and this is what has happened to us.” The attack on Than Than Swe came days after an unpopular April 3 Central Bank directive ordering all foreign currency, including the U.S. dollar, to be resold within one day of entering the country to licensed banks at a fixed rate of 1,850 kyats to the dollar. Earlier this month, the rate was raised to 2,100 kyats, while the current market price is nearly 3,000 kyats. According to government records, there have been a total of 2,525 employees — including 494 officers — at the Central Bank since 2012, working in seven key departments. People with knowledge of bank operations say many of the employees are former military officials who were transferred to their current positions. On the day of last year’s coup, the military removed NLD-appointee Kyaw Kyaw Maung from his position as Central Bank chairman and arrested bank Vice Chairman Bobo Nge – also an NLD supporter. In their places, the junta reappointed Chairman Than Nyein, who had served in the role under successive junta regimes, and promoted Than Than Swe and Win Thaw, then directors-general at the bank, to vice chairman positions. The changes announced last week follow nearly 17 months of policies widely seen as poorly planned and damaging to the country’s economy. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [The devastating hyperinflation in the post COVID world](https://ij-reportika.com/the-devastating-hyperinflation-in-the-post-covid-world/): Countries are in shambles in the post COVID world due to hyperinflation. China, India and Japan bounced back but not all!!
- [UN faces heat over envoy’s trip to Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/un-faces-heat-over-envoys-trip-to-myanmar/): Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) and more than 850 civil society groups called on the United Nations to remove its appointed envoy to the country after her visit last week and demonstrate a “serious commitment” to resolving the nation’s worsening humanitarian crisis. U.N. Special Envoy on Myanmar Noeleen Heyzer traveled to Myanmar from Aug. 17-18 and met with junta chief Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing in the capital Naypyidaw. She urged him to end violence against the country’s civilian population, stop imposing the death sentence and release the country’s political prisoners, according to a statement from the U.N. But opponents of the regime expressed doubt that the visit would change conditions in Myanmar and warned that it risked giving legitimacy to the regime, which ousted the democratically elected National League for Democracy (NLD) government in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup. On Tuesday, Kyaw Zaw, the spokesperson for the office of NUG President Duwa Lashi La, told RFA Burmese that the U.N. should have presented the junta with a list of consequences if it fails to implement Heyzer’s demands. “[Her demands were] nothing unusual, but she should have told [Min Aung Hlaing] what kind of action would be taken or what was planned if he didn’t comply,” he said. “Only then would it be viewed as a meaningful meeting.” Junta troops resumed setting fire to homes and carrying out various human rights violations — including conducting airstrikes and shelling attacks on civilian targets — immediately after Heyzer&#8217;s visit, Kyaw Zaw noted. He called for “immediate and effective action” in response. Kyaw Zaw’s comments came a day after 864 civil society groups issued a joint statement urging the U.N. General Assembly to remove Heyzer ahead of its session next month. “We … call on the U.N. General Assembly to withdraw the mandate of the special envoy on Myanmar,” said the statement, the signatories of which included hundreds of pro-democracy organizations both inside the country and abroad. “We also call on the U.N. Secretary-General [António Guterres] to show his serious commitment to resolving the devastating human rights and humanitarian crises in Myanmar by assuming a personal role on Myanmar and taking decisive action.” The civil society groups called Heyzer’s visit the “latest evidence of the historical ineffectualness of the mandate over a decades-long approach that has continually failed” and demanded that the U.N. “immediately end its business-as-usual approach” toward Myanmar. “The long history of the U.N.’s attempts at peace-brokering with Myanmar’s military through special envoys has never catalyzed into meaningful results, but has instead lent legitimacy to perpetrators of international atrocity crimes — and has permitted worsening human rights and humanitarian crises,” the statement said. The groups urged the U.N. to transfer the issue of Myanmar from the Security Council to the International Criminal Court and called for the formation of a special tribunal to carry out an investigation of the situation in the country. This handout from Myanmar&#8217;s military information team taken and released on Aug. 17, 2022 shows Myanmar&#8217;s armed forces chief Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing [right] meeting with United Nations Special Envoy on Myanmar Noeleen Heyzer [left] in Naypyidaw. Credit: Myanmar&#8217;s Military Information Team/AFP ‘Additional action’ needed In a statement issued after her trip to Myanmar, Heyzer detailed the demands she made during her talks with Min Aung Hlaing and dismissed claims that her trip would lend legitimacy to the junta. The junta called Heyzer’s statement “one-sided” for having failed to include Min Aung Hlaing’s comments during their discussion. Thein Tun Oo, executive director of the Thaningha Strategic Studies Institute, a Myanmar think tank composed of former military officers, called the U.N.&#8217;s demands of the junta “unacceptable.” “[The U.N.] may have hopes for some progress — a discussion has been held — but the U.N. was not very positive, and the way the U.N. approached the talks was not very acceptable to the junta,” he said. “We will have to wait and see if there will be further discussions. Political analyst Sai Kyi Zin Soe said the U.N. should take more effective measures if the military regime continues to ignore the demands of the international community. “The U.N. Security Council should take additional action, especially through punitive measures, if the junta fails to [comply],” he said. Sai Kyi Zin Soe also proposed that Heyzer engage with the NUG government to apply additional pressure on the military regime. ASEAN efforts The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Myanmar is a member state, has also repeatedly tried and failed to bring the junta to heel since last year’s coup. At an emergency meeting on the situation in Myanmar convened by ASEAN in April 2021, Min Aung Hlaing agreed to implement the conditions of the so-called “Five-Point Consensus (5PC),” which calls for an end to violence in the country, constructive dialogue among all parties, and the mediation of such talks by a special ASEAN envoy. The 5PC also calls for the provision of ASEAN-coordinated humanitarian assistance and a visit to Myanmar by an ASEAN delegation to meet with all parties. Even Min Aung Hlaing acknowledged that the junta had failed to hold up its end of the bargain on the consensus in a televised speech earlier this month, which he blamed on the coronavirus pandemic and “political instability.” He promised to implement “what we can” from the 5PC this year, provided it does not “jeopardize the country’s sovereignty.” At ASEAN’s 55th Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Phnom Penh from July 31 to Aug. 6, most member states criticized the junta for failing to adhere to the 5PC and for its July 25 execution of four democracy activists, including former student leader Ko Jimmy and a former NLD lawmaker. However, the country’s opposition groups have criticized the bloc for what they say is its failure to adopt stronger measures in its dealing with the junta. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Video shows Vietnamese workers making dramatic escape from casino in Cambodia](https://ij-reportika.com/video-shows-vietnamese-workers-making-dramatic-escape-from-casino-in-cambodia/): A video reportedly showing dozens of Vietnamese workers making a dramatic escape from a Chinese-managed casino in Cambodia has prompted new questions about worker abuse as a U.N. human rights official tours the country.  More than 42 Vietnamese workers escaped from the Koh Thom casino complex in Kandal province in Cambodia as seen in the video posted by media outlet VnExpress on Aug. 18. The video shows the workers jumping into a river, chased by guards swinging metal rods.  Cambodian authorities have detained the Chinese manager as it investigates allegations of forced labor and worker abuse.  One person had been recaptured and another was missing in the river, VOD reported on Monday. A 16-year-old worker from Vietnam’s Gia Lai province was found dead in the Binh Di River, which the workers had jumped into as they fled the casino, the Vietnamese news outlet VnExpress reported on Aug. 20. Authorities also have arrested two Vietnamese in neighboring An Giang province, across the border from Kandal, for their alleged role in helping Vietnamese illegally enter Cambodia to work. Kandal provincial prosecutor Ek Sun Reaksmey told VOD that authorities were preparing to send back to Vietnam the one person who was recaptured by the Pacific Real Estate Company, registered under the name Tai Ping Yang Fang Di Chan Wu Ye Guan Li. The workers ran from the company&#8217;s building. The incident comes as more attention is focused on Chinese-run casinos in Southeast Asia and allegations of business scams, prostitution and worker abuse, including holding employees against their will. Cambodia’s Deputy Prime Minister Sar Kheng ordered immigration officials and police officers to develop a plan to fight human trafficking, which plagues the region. Sar Kheng addressed the casino workers escape with the press on Aug. 18 after an inter-ministerial agency meeting at the Interior Ministry on fighting human trafficking. “We went down there to see the situation. It was not entirely true, but partly true,” he said. “Our mission is to rescue the victims and bring the ringleader to justice.” Sar Kheng said that authorities had arrested a “ringleader or manager” and have some of the workers involved in a case in Kandal’s Chrey Thom village. “Preliminary information regarding the swimmers to Vietnam [is that] they may have come to work illegally,” he said “When it came to arguing over salary or other issue, they ran away and swam across the canal to Vietnam.” Kandal Gov. Kong Sophoan wrote on Facebook that he led a delegation to review the dispute between the foreign workers and the company at the Pacific Real Estate Company in Chry Thom village in Koh Thom district.  “I had a meeting with the company and encouraged them to abide by Cambodian laws and the Constitution, respect their business licenses, and absolutely not engage in human and drug trafficking,” he wrote.  “Regarding the Vietnamese people who escaped the workplace and swam to Vietnam, the authorities must continue to investigate according to the law,” he wrote.      Tricked into working there Two workers told VnExpress that they were tricked into working at the casino and then exploited. One woman said employees had to create fake social media profiles and find people to buy into a phony dating platform or risk beatings. Kouch Chamroeun, governor of Preah Sihanouk province also known for its Chinese-run casinos and related crime, told Vitit Muntarbhorn, the U.N. special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia, on Aug. 19 that there is no human trafficking in Sihanoukville, a popular coastal destination for tourists. Muntarbhorn, who was appointed to his position in March 2021, is touring the country from Aug. 15 to Aug. 26, his first official visit. The U.N. envoy is meeting with government representatives, human rights defenders and other stakeholders to assess Phnom Penh&#8217;s efforts to safeguard human rights. During the meeting, Kouch Chamroeun claimed that authorities have investigated allegations workers were being illegally detained by businesses in Sihanoukville but found instead employees working normally, with some relaxing and playing on their cell phones, according to a Facebook post by the Preah Sihanouk provincial administration. The workers said the workers who had complained to the authorities that they were being detained against their will really just wanted to change workplaces, the governor added. Chhay Kim Khoeun, spokesman for Cambodia’s General Commissariat of National Police, did not respond to a request via the Telegram instant messaging service for an update on the investigation into the case.  Chum Sounry, Cambodia’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, could not be reached for comment regarding a request by Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Phnom Penh&#8217;s help in investigation into the case. On Monday, two people in An Giang province were arrested for their roles in the incident and charged with making arrangements for others to leave Vietnam illegally, according to state media. Nguyen Thi Le, 42, and Le Van Danh, 34, who both live in Long Binh town organized for six of the workers to be employed in the casino with “light workloads and high wages.”   Le told authorities that in May an unidentified person in Cambodia had asked her to join him in bringing Vietnamese workers to Cambodia. She contacted Danh to help by picking up the workers and taking them to the riverbank where she would accompany them to Cambodia. Le said she received payment of 300,000 dong (U.S. $13) from the Cambodian man, of which she paid Danh 100,000 dong (U.S. $4.30). Translated by Sok Ry Sum for RFA Khmer and Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Interview: 'It was the truest and most precious thing about that time'](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-it-was-the-truest-and-most-precious-thing-about-that-time/): Three years after millions took to the streets of Hong Kong in protest at the city&#8217;s diminishing freedoms and to call for fully democratic elections, a new documentary is showing audiences around the world just what motivated them to risk arrest, injury or worse at the hands of riot police. Beijing has long claimed that the movement was instigated by &#8220;hostile foreign forces&#8221; who wanted to challenge and undermine the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) by fomenting dissent in Hong Kong. But for documentary film-maker Ngan Chi Sing, the complex political and psychological forces that drove people to face down an increasingly repressive regime can be expressed as a single thing: love. And he&#8217;s not just talking about romance, although that did play a part. &#8220;There is also the love of one&#8217;s own land, love for this city, and the love of the older generations for our young people, for those Hongkongers who sacrificed [their well-being and freedom] for people they had never met and didn&#8217;t know,&#8221; Ngan told RFA in a recent interview. &#8220;I often say that this was the truest and most precious thing about that time, for me, anyway,&#8221; said Ngan, who goes by the English name Twinkle. Ngan started out with the intention of recording the protests, turning up at the front line, day in, day out, shooting intense footage of pitched street battles and chanting crowds, and interviewing young Hongkongers insistent that the government listen to their five demands: revoke plans to allow extradition to mainland China; allow fully democratic elections; release all protesters and political prisoners; chase down those responsible for police violence and stop calling protesters &#8220;rioters.&#8221; Then leader Carrie Lam eventually withdrew plans to amend the law to allow the extradition of alleged criminal suspects to face trial in mainland China, but not before the city had erupted in a summer of protest that saw crowds of one and two million people march through the streets, the occupation of the Legislative Council, and the defacement of the Chinese flag and emblems outside Beijing&#8217;s Central Liaison Office. But the city&#8217;s government &#8212; under intense political pressure from Beijing &#8212; has since gone full tilt in the opposition direction when it comes to the other four demands. Instead of an amnesty or an end to the government&#8217;s use of &#8220;rioters,&#8221; to describe the protesters, there is now an ongoing crackdown on peaceful political opposition and public dissent. Documentary film-maker Ngan Chi Sing. Credit: Ngan Chi Sing Why take the risk? More than 10,000 people have been arrested on protest-related charges, while the authorities are prosecuting 2,800 more under a draconian national security law imposed on the city by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from July 1, 2020. Given the risks, why did so many turn out to defend themselves from behind makeshift barricades of traffic barriers, umbrellas and trash cans? It&#8217;s one of the first questions Ngan puts to a masked protester on the front line in 2019. &#8220;I am a Hong Konger born and bred, and Hong Kong is now under occupation,&#8221; comes the hoarse reply. Ngan started shooting the film during the last June 4 candlelight vigil for the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, initially without any aim other than recording these events for posterity. He said he still recalls vividly that many participants that night in Victoria Park held their candle in one hand, and a leaflet calling for a public rally against plans to allow extradition to mainland China in the other. But he didn&#8217;t always feel a sense of journalistic separation from what he was filming. Filming in Sheung Wan on July 28, 2019, Ngan got a heavy dose of tear gas. &#8220;The front-line protesters pulled me into the umbrella barricade formation &#8230; sheltering me and washing my eyes so I could carry on filming that day,&#8221; Ngan he said. &#8220;This had a dramatic impact on me.&#8221; &#8220;I had previously been looking at these young people through my lens, like a journalist, to film the dangers they faced, and to see whether they were afraid,&#8221; he said. &#8220;But in that moment they rescued me, I became one of them.&#8221; A scene from &#8220;Love in the Time of Revolution.&#8221; Credit: Ngan Chi Sing Political asylum Ngan said he had very little experience of film-making or journalism before the protest movement, but after the incident in Sheung Wan, he decided to make a film from his footage. He shot footage and interviewed people for more than a year, until February 2020. In November 2021, fearing his materials would be confiscated by police, he brought everything to the U.K., where he is currently applying for political asylum. One of the things that struck him was the relative lack of experience of nearly everybody involved in the protests. As the movement&#8217;s &#8220;hands and feet&#8221; were increasingly being arrested and taken off to detention centers to await trial, new protesters took their place at the front line who were often younger and less experienced than their predecessors in the movement. Nonetheless, the movement embraced everyone, and it was this aspect that drove Ngan&#8217;s storytelling when cutting the film. &#8220;I am an amateur myself, and no one has heard of me,&#8221; Ngan said. &#8220;The people behind the scenes and the people I interviewed were amateurs too.&#8221; &#8220;So many people paid a price and are now silently living with consequences they should never have had to bear,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The political prosecutions are still happening.&#8221; Now in London, Ngan feels that he can give them the recognition that is their due. &#8220;These amateurs will never be in the spotlight, so I want to bring out their voices and their stories,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Love in the Time of Revolution&#8221; has screened at a documentary festival in Switzerland, a Hong Kong Film Festival in Sydney, and will premiere in the U.K. on Aug. 20. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Nine dams in Laos release water, forcing many to head for higher ground](https://ij-reportika.com/nine-dams-in-laos-release-water-forcing-many-to-head-for-higher-ground/): Villagers in northern Laos are once more scrambling for dry land after water releases from nine upstream dams to relieve pressure after a week of heavy rain caused flooding in some areas. The Meteorology and Hydrology Department of the Lao Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment predicts even more rain is in store for the region as a tropical depression is expected to cover northern Laos from Aug. 19-28. The dams that released water are the four Nam Ou dams in Phongsaly Province and Luang Prabang Province; the Xayaburi Dam, on the Mekong mainstream in Xayaburi Province; two Nam Khan dams in Luang Prabang Province; and two Nam Lik dams in Vientiane Province. Residents told RFA’s Lao Service that their homes, places of work and farms are now flooded. Many said they had to escape to higher ground. “Our farm was on low ground, and our floating restaurant on the Khan River is damaged,” a resident of Samakhixay, Xeing Ngeun district, Luang Prabang province, who like other sources in this report requested anonymity for safety reasons, told RFA Friday. “We’re now trying to save our livestock by moving them to higher ground. We hope that the Nam Khan dams are able to control the water soon. We don’t worry much about water from the rain, but we do worry a lot about the dams because we’re afraid they could break,” said the source. Laos has aggressively built dozens of dams on the Mekong River and its tributaries in its controversial economic strategy to become the “Battery of Southeast Asia” by selling the generated electricity to neighboring countries.  But villagers living near the dams say the projects have upended their lives. Many residents have had to move, often facing protracted disputes over compensation and being relocated to less fertile lands, while those left behind sometimes have to scramble for higher ground if the dams release water without prior notice.  The Xayaburi dam’s release resulted in rising waters inundating corn fields, a resident of Pak Hung Village in the city of Xayaburi, Xayaburi province, told RFA. “The corn fields of at least 20 families in this village near the Mekong River are under water. The current of the Mekong River is very strong,” the source said. A resident of Feuang district, Vientiane province, told RFA on Friday that the two Nam Lik dams had begun releasing more water the day before. “The Lik River has gone up about 50 centimeters [about 20 inches]. Up to now, our floating raft guesthouses have not been affected yet,” the Feuang district resident said. Because the Mekong has many tributaries, a dam that releases water in one spot may force others downstream to do the same, as was the case with the Xayaburi Dam, according to an official of the  Agriculture and Forestry Department of Xayaburi Province. “We’re monitoring the water level of the Mekong River below the Xayaburi Dam. The Nam Ou dams are still releasing water; that’s why the Xayaburi Dam must also be releasing more water too,” the official said. Multiple sources told RFA that authorities issued safety warnings prohibiting floating guesthouses from receiving tourists, in some cases saying that the water level could increase as much as four meters. Others were concerned that the flooding could sweep away fishing boats and flood roads, isolating residents in the process. Many locals said they were packing their valuables before heading to higher ground.  “The Ministry of Energy and Mines, the authorities of Feuang district and of our village should make sure that the warning reaches all the residents because this time of the year is the rice planting season, and many villagers stay at their farms for several months to plant rice,” a resident of Hat Don Kang Yai Village in Feuang district said. “The authorities should also give notice several days in advance, so that the business owners have enough time to prepare,” the source said. Men work to pry apart a clump of debris in the Mekong River on Aug. 13, 2022 in Sanakham District, Vientiane Province. Credit: RFA Lao Service Official response Government officials told RFA it is standard practice for the dams to release water in heavy rains, and that dam operators warn the authorities in advance. “The Xayaburi Power Company wrote to us on Saturday that our department should inform all districts below the Xayaburi Dam,” an official of the Energy and Mines Department of Xayaburi province told RFA.  “A day later, our department informed the Xayaburi Municipality, Pak Lay district and Kenthao districts and their residents to pack their valuable belongings. Based on the report from the dam, the Xayaburi Dam is releasing more water because the Nam Ou dams in Luang Prabang province and Phongsaly province are releasing more water,” he said. “We’re gathering information about the impact and the damage caused by the flood and water discharges,” an official of the Ministry of Energy and Mines told RFA. “The water is coming from all directions, from Luang Prabang province and other northern provinces.” Xayaburi province issued a warning on August 13 to all provincial districts about releases from the Xayaburi and Nam Ou dams. Similar warnings were issued by the Ministry of Energy and Mines, which on Tuesday warned that the Nam Lik 1 and 2 dams would release water on Thursday. The operators of the Nam Khan 2 and 3 dams warned on Tuesday that those dams would also release water on Thursday.  Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Critics say Cambodia tries to trick UN official into believing it respects rights](https://ij-reportika.com/critics-say-cambodia-tries-to-trick-un-official-into-believing-it-respects-rights/): Cambodian labor activists said a visiting United Nations human rights official was given the false impression that the country supports worker rights by authorities who paused a violent crackdown on a  months-long protest by a group of former casino employees while the official toured the site. Vitit Muntarbhorn, the U.N. special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Cambodia, is on an 11-day official visit to the country, his first since assuming office in March 2021. His tour included a meeting with the group of former NagaWorld Casino workers who have been protesting since they were among 1,300 laid off by the casino in December 2021. The workers say they were unfairly fired and offered inadequate compensation. “I was pleased to be able to visit striking workers and see them exercise their freedom of expression and right to peaceful assembly today,” Vitit Muntarbhorn wrote in a Facebook post on Wednesday. During the visit, the former workers were uncharacteristically allowed to protest directly in front of the casino on Wednesday and Thursday. United Nations Human Rights in Cambodia also monitored the protest on Wednesday, releasing video footage on Facebook with a statement acknowledging that the protest was peaceful.  “The UN Human Rights Cambodia office welcomes today&#8217;s developments and looks forward to authorities continuing to protect strikers’ rights, including the right to #peaceful #assembly and #FreedomofExpression,” the statement said. But the scene has not alway been so peaceful. The striking workers have more typically been met by police officers, who often used violence to force the protestors onto buses, which would then shuttle them to quarantine centers on the outskirts of town on the premise that their protests violated COVID-19 prevention measures. Some strikers have been injured in the crackdown, now in its ninth month. One woman said she suffered a miscarriage as a result of her injuries inflicted by police.  Rong Chhun, president of the Cambodian Confederation of Unions, told RFA’s Khmer Service that the new hands-off approach to the worker over the past few days is a ruse intended to convince Vitit Muntarbhorn and the U.N. that Cambodia respects human rights, but things will return to normal once he leaves. “The government wants to save face and trick the rapporteur,” Rong Chhun said. “Please, Mr. Rapporteur, don’t believe this trick. … [Later] there will be more freedom restrictions.” The rapporteur’s presence alone was enough to get authorities to ease restrictions, Chhim Sithar, leader of the NagaWorld union that represents the strikers, told RFA. “Before the arrival of the rapporteur, there were serious violent attacks [on the strikers] which injured at least two women recently. It is completely different now,” she said.   “We have observed that [Prime Minister] Hun Sen requested that [the rapporteur] report positive things about Cambodia, so violence has been reduced. This is just a show to make sure that the rapporteur  can’t see factual events,” she said. Government supporters say that the special rapporteur is being shown the true Cambodia. “Those who accuse the government of faking respect for human rights are trying to create a toxic environment to destroy the government’s reputation,” Kata Orn, spokesman for the government-backed Cambodian Human Rights Committee, told RFA. He said that there is an understanding between the workers and the authorities that allows the workers to strike without any crackdown. Political analyst Kem Sok told RFA that the rapporteur should gather information from all the stakeholders before making any statement.  “Hun Sen has no desire to respect human rights and democracy otherwise it is a threat to his power,” he said. U.S. delegation A group of U.S. lawmakers led by Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) also visited Cambodia this week as part of their tour of Asia. During a meeting with more than a dozen government officials, Markey urged Cambodia to protect human rights, political freedoms and free speech. “Cambodians overcame decades of war and chaos that cost the country millions of lives, and deserve to enjoy the democratic freedoms they were promised. The government must release political prisoners, end the crackdown against opposition parties, and allow for freedom of expression and a free press,” Markey said in a statement.  Markey also called for the release of Cambodian American activist Theary Seng, who is serving a six-year prison sentence for her outspoken opposition to Hun Sen. The delegation also met with opposition leader Kem Sohka, who is on trial for what critics say are politically motivated charges of treason. “I thank Mr. Kem Sokha for his bravery and willingness to continue to stand up for the rights of all Cambodians despite ongoing harassment by the government,” said Markey.  “All charges against him should be dropped immediately, and he and the Cambodia National Rescue Party should be free to participate in elections.”  Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [China enforces lockdowns as COVID cases spiral in Xinjiang and Tibet](https://ij-reportika.com/china-enforces-lockdowns-as-covid-cases-spiral-in-xinjiang-and-tibet/): A sharp increase in the number of coronavirus cases in Xinjiang led China’s government to send a delegation throughout the far-western region to implement controversial zero-COVID policies, further isolating residents there. As of Wednesday, Xinjiang recorded 2,779 confirmed COVID-19 cases throughout Xinjiang, with officials in the capital Urumqi (in Chinese, Wulumuqi) designating 73 high risk districts and imposing strict exit-entry controls due to the rising number of infections, China News Service reported.   Now officials there are administering a new Chinese medicine called &#8220;A Ci Fu&#8221; to combat the virus, though the efficacy of the medicine remains unknown, sources said. Beijing sent a special working group to region, with Ma Xingrui, Chinese Communist Party secretary of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), visiting Ghulja (Yining), Chochek (Tacheng), Bortala (Bole), Sanji (Changji), Turpan (Tulufan) and Qumul (Hami) on Aug. 13-16. Erkin Tuniyaz, a Chinese politician of Uyghur origin who is the current XUAR chairman, visited Kashgar (Kashgar) during the same period. The two officials oversaw the implementation of mass testing and lockdowns to contain outbreaks of the respiratory virus. In the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture in northern Xinjiang, Ma stressed the need to implement Chinese President Xi Jinping’s instructions on epidemic prevention and control and stressed the need for urgency. He called for delineating risk areas and implementing detailed prevention and control measures, as well as increasing screening and accelerating construction of makeshift hospitals, Chinese media reported. But Uyghurs said the lockdowns implemented to contain COVID are causing problems of their own. For example, a Turpan resident told RFA that farmers are unable to pick their grapes, leaving the fruit to rot in fields and causing huge financial losses.  “We are desolate,” he said. “We really hope this pandemic will disappear soon, so we are able to gather our grapes safely and hang them in drying rooms.” A Uyghur on Douyin, the Chinese version of the short-form, video-sharing app TikTok, said many people in the affected areas are unable to afford food because they are not able to work. Food prices have also gone up because of the lockdowns, the source said. A police official in Ghulja county’s Hudiyayuzi township said officials were directed to warn residents to be careful what they say or believe in regards to the COVID outbreak. “We will investigate and detain those who spread rumors,” the officer said.  William Nee, research and advocacy coordinator at Chinese Human Rights Defenders, told RFA on Monday that the lockdowns were likely particularly hard on Uyghurs in Xinjiang given the isolation many already lived under. Shanghai residents endured a three-month lockdown. But those who were confined to apartments could at least communicate their plight to the outside world via  cell phones or through social media. Chinese repression in Xinjiang doesn’t give Uyghurs a similar outlet.  “We have much less knowledge about how the zero-COVID policies are affecting people,” he said, adding that he saw a video recorded by a Han Chinese woman in Kashgar showing that the city was deadly quiet. “I’m sure she could run that risk without any problems, but if a Uyghur were to produce that type of video, I’m sure they would be detained on some pretext,” Nee said. “So one of the difficulties is that any negative ramifications of the zero-COVID policy affecting Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities would be that they [are] reluctant to share [information] because it could be seen as a political offense.”  A laboratory technician works at a COVID-19 testing facility in Lhasa, capital of western China&#8217;s Tibet Autonomous Region, Aug. 9, 2022. Credit: CNS/AFP Stranded tourists in Tibet The number of COVID-19 cases are also on the rise in neighboring Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). As of Wednesday, the region recorded 2,911 confirmed cases, 742 more than were reported on Tuesday, according to an official count. “People are subject to continuous testing,” said a Tibetan living in the capital Lhasa. “The Potala Palace and other religious sites are shut down, schools have postponed their reopening, and people are stocking up on groceries and buying face masks.”  Tens of thousands of Chinese tourists stranded in the capital Lhasa and the towns of Shigatse (Xigaze) and Ngari (Ali) are trying to leave Tibet. On Tuesday, the TAR’s Transportation Department announced that those who are leaving the region by air or train must take two COVID tests within 24 hours of their departure and have a certificate indicating negative results. A Tibetan in the region told RFA that resources for the testing and prevention of the virus are being depleted due to the high number of Chinese tourists there. Nee said that video of workers spraying down roads in Tibet with disinfectant had no scientific basis as being an effective means of preventing the coronavirus, and only serve a performative purpose to make people believe that officials are doing everything possible in terms of a zero-COVID policy to please Xi Jinping.  Though the number of cases has spiked in Tibetan cities in recent days, airports in the region, including Lhasa Gonggar Airport, have remained open and the influx of tourists has continued without restriction.   “During earlier COVID surges, the Chinese government did not restrict tourists from entering Tibet because Tibetans were concerned,” said another Tibetan from Lhasa. “Now as COVID outbreaks are increasing and the situation remains uncertain, we are worried about to how it will turn out in the next few days.”  Earlier this week, a Chinese official in Lhasa issued a notice warning residents not to share any COVID-related news or information on social media. Translated by Mamatjan Juma and Alim Seytoff for RFA Uyghur, and Kalden Lodoe and Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [The Ruthless animal cruelty by the TCM proponents](https://ij-reportika.com/the-ruthless-animal-cruelty-by-the-tcm-proponents/): The Ruthless animal cruelty by the TCM proponents is one of the glaring examples of China's destruction of biodiversity.
- [Millions of helpless Uyghurs in Xinjiang under forced slavery : UN](https://ij-reportika.com/un-report-says-treatment-of-uyghurs-in-xinjiang-may-be-modern-form-of-slavery/): Minorities in China’s Xinjiang region are forced to work against their will and face physical and sexual violence and “other inhuman or degrading treatment” in what may constitute a modern form of slavery, a report released on Tuesday by a United Nations office said. In the 20-page report, Tomoya Obokata, the United Nations special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, said that Uyghur, Kazakh and other ethnic minorities were being used as forced labor in sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing. Members of these groups are detained and subject to work placements under state-mandated vocational skills education and training system and a poverty alleviation program that places surplus rural workers in sectors short of employees.&nbsp; Similar measures exist in neighboring Tibet, where an extensive labor transfer program has shifted Tibetan farmers, herders and other rural workers into low-skilled and low-paid jobs, according to the report, which was published for the U.N. Human Rights Council’s 51st session that runs Sept. 12-Oct. 7. “While these programs may create employment opportunities for minorities and enhance their incomes, as claimed by the government, the special rapporteur considers that indicators of forced labor pointing to the involuntary nature of work rendered by affected communities have been present in many cases,” the report says in reference to Xinjiang. The report adds that workers endure “excessive surveillance, abusive living and working conditions, restriction of movement through internment, threats, physical and/or sexual violence and other inhuman or degrading treatment.”&nbsp; It said in some instances the conditions the workers face “may amount to enslavement as a crime against humanity, meriting a further independent analysis.” The Chinese government has held an estimated 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in a vast network of “re-education” camps that Beijing says is meant to prevent religious extremism and terrorism in the region. Forced or compulsory labor has been a key part of the systematic repression of the groups. Obokata’s report comes as Uyghur activist groups await the issuance of an overdue report on rights abuses in Xinjiang by U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet, who originally informed the Human Rights Council in September 2021 that her office was close to completing its assessment of allegations of rights violations in the region. Three months later, a spokesperson said the report would be issued in a matter of weeks, but it was not. In July, Bachelet’s office said the report was still being worked on and would be released before she leaves office later this month. Bachelet angered Uyghur activist groups after she visited China, including Xinjiang, in late May, repeating China’s assertion that the internment camps, referred to by Beijing as vocational training centers, had all been closed. The groups denounced the trip as a propaganda opportunity that allowed China to whitewash its crimes against humanity and genocide against the Uyghurs.&nbsp; The U.S. and the legislatures of several Western countries have declared that China’s repression in Xinjiang constitutes genocide and crime against humanity. “The release of the U.N. report on contemporary forms of slavery is highly significant at a time when China is doing everything in its power to suppress the publication of the Uyghur report by the office of the U.N. High Commissioner Bachelet,” Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC).&nbsp; The findings of Obokata’s report that forced labor, and even slavery, exists in Xinjiang demonstrates “the crimes China is committing against Uyghurs,” he said. Washington, D.C.-based Campaign for Uyghurs (CFU) said the report was an “extremely important and comprehensive assessment.”&nbsp; “We have been telling the world for years that China uses Uyghur slavery as an essential tool and enabling China’s economy and making the ongoing Uyghur genocide a profitable venture,” Rushan Abbas, CFU’s executive director, said in a statement. “It’s a relief to see the United Nations finally recognize the extent to which these atrocities are taking place,” she said. “Now tangible actions are needed to hold the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] accountable for these crimes based on these recent findings.” Adrian Zenz, a researcher at the Washington, D.C.-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and expert on the Xinjiang region, called the report “a strong statement” in which the rapporteur expressed that there is “reasonable evidence to conclude that forced labor is taking place in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and then a similar program existing in Tibet.” “And then he says in some cases the situation may amount to enslavement as a crime against humanity,” he told IJreportika. “That’s the strongest form. This is quite a sort of a formal assessment at a very high level.” Zenz noted that Obokata’s report comes nearly four days after China ratified two International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions on forced labor, one of which is designed to counter state-sponsored forced labor, forbidding its use for political aims and economic development. The other convention prohibits the use of forced labor in all forms and requires state parties to make forced labor practices punishable as a penal offense.&nbsp; Translated by RFA Uyghur. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Clashes between junta forces and Arakan Army rattle Rakhine, Chin states](https://ij-reportika.com/clashes-between-junta-forces-and-arakan-army-rattle-rakhine-chin-states/): Renewed fighting between Myanmar regime forces and the Arakan Army has intensified in Rakhine and Chin states with at least 10 clashes since July 18, following the dissolution of a fragile cease-fire that had held for a year and a half, residents of the western states told RFA. Junta troops have blocked roads connecting Rathedaung, Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state. More than 150 residents from at least three villages have been displaced due to fighting in Rathedaung, locals said. Clashes between junta forces and the Arakan Army (AA), which wants control of Rakhine state and Paletwa township in Chin state, have been going on for about three weeks, compounding difficulties people are facing because the military has closed all major roads in the area, said a Paletwa resident who declined to be named for security reasons. “We could hear explosions of heavy weapons,” he said. “Yesterday, the shelling started at about 10 a.m. Fighting has been going on for over 20 days.” A ship carrying freight that usually runs between Chin and Rakhine once a week has not been traveling because of the armed conflict, cutting off the flow of goods to Paletwa, he said. “We don’t have any cooking oil, [and] the price of rice, which used to be just over 60,000 kyats [U.S. $28], is now over 100,000 kyats [U.S. $47],” the resident told RFA. Myanmar military and AA forces had fought fiercely in Rakhine from December 2018 to November 2020 over the latter’s demand for self-determination for the state’s Buddhist Rakhine ethnic minority. But the two sides struck an uneasy truce a few months before the military seized power from a democratically elected government on Feb. 1, 2021 and Rakhine had been relatively quiet amid widespread protests and fighting against the coup and junta across the country of 54 million people. On Aug. 13 military and AA soldiers clashed about 1.2 kilometers (0.75 miles) north of Paletwa’s Thu Htay Kone village. The AA said yesterday that fighting had occurred around the area for about two weeks and that junta forces were mainly firing from a distance with heavy weapons. In northern Maungdaw township, locals said there were continuous battles in three places in Rathedaung and Maungdaw townships on Aug. 13, following two battles in the area on July 18. Junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun blamed the AA for the fighting in the northern part of Maungdaw that took place on July 26. Roads closed Kyaw Min Khaing, a resident of Rathedaung, said the military has shut off the roads connecting the three Rakhine state townships because of the clashes. “The road connecting Ah Ngu Maw, Buthidaung and Maungdaw has been closed indefinitely by the military,” he told RFA. “It is still impossible to travel from place to place. Getting food and health care is difficult in that area. Right now, we cannot travel there.” More than 150 residents of Chein Khar Li, Koe Tan Kauk and Kyan Taing Aung villages in Rathedaung have fled their homes because of the hostilities, he added. One nearly two-hour skirmish that occurred 1.5 kilometers (0.93 miles) north of Done Paik village in Rathedaung on Aug. 13 resulted in the deaths of 31 junta soldiers and the AA’s seizure of weapons and ammunition, according to a statement issued by the guerilla force on Monday. Another battle took place near Maungdaw’s Kyauk Pan Tu village, near milestone 40 of the Myanmar-Bangladesh border, during which at least six junta soldiers were killed, the AA said. During these battles, the AA also suffered casualties, but the ethnic armed group did not disclose the number. RFA has been unable to independently confirm the number of casualties reported by the AA. The AA predicts that the fighting will become more widespread because the Myanmar military is bringing in reinforcements by large military vehicles as well as by ships and helicopters. The guerilla force said it would fight back the junta’s army with the help of allied ethnic armed organizations and the public, and warned civilians in the area to remain on alert. RFA could not reach Rakhine state junta spokesman Hla Thein for comment. The national military has not released any statements about the renewed fighting in Rakhine. Pe Than, a veteran Rakhine politician and a former lawmaker from Myebon township, agreed that the fighting will spread if the two sides cannot come to an agreement to end their hostilities. “If we don’t want these battles to continue, there must be some reconciliation,” he said. “If they cannot talk over things, there will be more fighting and people will suffer. That&#8217;s why a dialogue between the two groups is important. Otherwise, I can see that there would be more battles in one place or another.” Translated by Khin Maung Nyane for RFA Burmese. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Environmentalists released after allegedly being roughed up by Hun Sen’s bodyguards](https://ij-reportika.com/environmentalists-released-after-allegedly-being-roughed-up-by-hun-sens-bodyguards/): Police in Cambodia’s Takeo province on Tuesday released a group of young environmental activists and journalists after they were allegedly violently detained earlier in the day by bodyguards of Prime Minister Hun Sen as they tried to inspect an area of a protected forest where trees had been cleared.  The Phnom Tamao forest, located roughly 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of Phnom Penh, is home to many rare and endangered species, and is the only forested eco-destination anywhere near the capital. It encompasses an area of more than 6,000 acres (2,450 hectares) and is home to the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Center, established in 1995. In April, media reported that the government had agreed to sell more than 1,200 acres (500 hectares) of the protected forest to Leng Navatra, a real estate company, and two other businesses said to be close to Hun Sen’s family. Later reports suggested the entire area had been earmarked by the government for development, excluding the 1,000 acres (400 hectares) that contain the wildlife center. In a rare move this month, Hun Sen ordered an end to the clearance of the Tamao forest adjacent to the country’s largest zoo, following multiple appeals by environmental groups and members of the public. The group of activists who were released on Tuesday said Hun Sen’s bodyguards assaulted them after they tried to inspect the area and ask local residents to sign petitions seeking clarification from local authorities regarding a fenced off 600 hectare (1482 acre) plot of cleared land that the prime minister had ordered to be replanted. The bodyguards claimed that the activists and journalists were trespassing. They said they steered clear of off-limits areas and were on the way to a pagoda from which they could view the clearing. Hun Vannak, one of the activists, told RFA’s Khmer Service that the bodyguards kicked him and hit him in the face. He said that a group of about 10 bodyguards forced the group into cars and took them to a nearby military camp. He said they were not told why they were being detained. &#8220;We didn&#8217;t dare to say anything because they took us to their camp,” Vannak said. “No one could help us. I felt we were with wild people, they didn&#8217;t consider the law, they used only violence. They detained and assaulted us arbitrarily.&#8221;  Also among the group was Hy Chhay, a journalist for the local independent news outlet VOD who, according to Vannak, was slapped in the face by the bodyguards. The group was transferred to a police facility in Takeo’s Bati district after which they were released. RFA was unable to reach Bati district Police Chief Chhay Keomoni for comment on Tuesday. The bodyguards violated the constitutional rights of the activists and journalists, Nop Vy, director of the Cambodian Journalists Alliance Association, told RFA. &#8220;I have observed that [authorities] respect only their orders, [not the law],” Nop Vy said. “It is wrong. Restrictions on the youths and journalists are contrary to Hun Sen&#8217;s decision to replant the trees.” The violence against the group must be investigated, according to Soeung Sengkaruna, spokesman for the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association, a local  rights group. “This is a serious human rights violation,” he said.  The activists told RFA they plan to file a complaint against the bodyguards.  Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong. 
- [‘Ghost buildings’ show boom times are over for Cambodian resort town](https://ij-reportika.com/ghost-buildings-show-boom-times-are-over-for-cambodian-resort-town/): A mass departure of Chinese investors from Cambodia’s Sihanoukville during the coronavirus pandemic left behind more than 1,000 unfinished buildings and an economic headache for the once booming coastal city. Sihanoukville was a popular international and domestic tourist destination in the midst of a building boom as investors in new casinos hoped to cash in on the gambling industry. But once it became clear that tourism was going to be crippled by pandemic restrictions, many investors decided to cut their losses, and the so-called “ghost buildings” remain unfinished, diminishing the beauty of the seaside resort town. Authorities say the problem could lead to more economic decline and even fewer tourists. Mean Samnang, who keeps a shop near one of the city’s Chinese-owned casinos, told RFA’s Khmer Service that the ghost buildings are driving tourists away. “If the authorities would have taken measures to finish up those large-scale construction projects sooner, it would have been better for the people who have to make money for a living,” he said. He said that two years ago business in the shop was much better, and many of his customers were Cambodians who were employed by the casino. Mean Samnang said that he hopes authorities will start restoration on the buildings by opening up a flow of foreign investment, as had been the case in 2019. In the meantime the ghost buildings have been used as hideouts by criminals and gangsters, he said. Long Dimanche, the deputy governor of Sihanoukville province, predicted that Chinese investors may return soon, but he did not deny that the empty buildings could negatively affect the city’s economy long term. &#8220;We have not discussed everything yet,” Long Dimanche said. “The other day, we encouraged the Provincial Chamber of Commerce to organize a forum for consultation over the private sector to discuss the issue between landowners as well as foreign investors, who came to invest in construction. In the discussion, there was  participation of experts who specialize in solving the stalemate in the real estate sector.” Long Dimanche added that there were more than 1,600 construction projects with an investment of more than U.S. $ 8.4 billion in Sihanoukville between 2017 and November 2021. Of these, there are more than 600 high-rise construction projects, defined as buildings between five and 53 floors, most of which are Chinese invested. One of the many unfinished buildings in Sihanoukville, Cambodia. Credit: RFA The construction slowdown is a direct result of the Cambodian government’s efforts to ban illegal online gambling, as well as the pandemic, Sreng Vanly, the Sihanoukville coordinator for the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights, told RFA. The two events forced Chinese investors to return to China, abandoning their buildings and hurting the economy and livelihoods of local residents, especially the owners of the land underneath the buildings. Many of the owners borrowed money from the bank to buy the land, thinking that the rent revenue from Chinese builders was a safe bet. But now they aren’t collecting anything. Only a few small buildings have resumed construction, Cheap Sotheary of the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association, told RFA. &#8220;Right now we aren’t seeing a lot of building demolition or building restructuring yet because the economic downturn has affected everyone regardless of whether they are rich or poor,” she said. “Who does not owe the bank? The banks seize many of [the properties,] but more important is the affordability of renewing construction. The market economy in Sihanoukville is down now,” said Cheap Sotheary. Rents for houses are down from thousands of dollars per month to $200 to $300 per month as the economy remains depressed, she said. Translated by Sok Ry Sum. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Vietnamese artist ‘shocked’ after being ordered to destroy 29 paintings](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnamese-artist-shocked-after-being-ordered-to-destroy-29-paintings/): Popular Vietnamese artist and poet Bui Quang Vien is vowing fight an order from authorities in Vietnam’s largest city to destroy 29 of his abstract paintings because he showed them in a gallery last month without a permit. The Ho Chi Minh City government on Aug. 9 fined Vien 25 million dong  (about US $1,000) and, in an unprecedented move critics called a “step backward” even in a country known for heavy censorship, ordered the destruction of his work for a painting exhibition he held July 15-30 at Alpha Art Station. “I can’t find a word to express my shock,” the artist, who publishes poetry under the pen name Bui Chat. He called the order “unbelievable and unimaginable.” “I knew I would be given a fine because they had established an inspection group of 15-16 people who came and made a record that I had held the exhibition without a permit,” he told RFA Vietnamese in an interview. “I acknowledged that I had organized the exhibition without applying for a permit,” said Vien, who told RFA he was too busy organizing the show and had no idea that he needed to apply for a permit. “I was thinking they would only give me a fine,” he added. The administrative order–signed by Duong Anh Duc, vice chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City government–states that if Vien does not destroy his artwork, they will be forcefully destroyed, while interest will be charged if he pays the fine late. “Over the past year, many exhibitions took place at the same time as or a little bit earlier than mine, almost all in small galleries in Saigon that I know, did not apply for an exhibition permit,” he said. Saigon is the former name of Ho Chi Minh City. “They were held as usual and without any problems. However, my exhibition was punished for not having a permit,” added Vien.   Vien, whose 29 paintings that have been targeted by authorities contained no political message or nudity, is no stranger to harassment by authorities in the one-party Communist state. In 2011, under his pen name Bui Chat, he won the International Publishers Association’s 2011 Freedom to Publish Award. However, after returning from a trip to Argentina to receive the prize, he was detained and grilled by the police for two days. Censorship of culture and literature has been a long-standing practice in Vietnam but experts said that censorship of paintings was a new thing. “Vietnam is known for destroying books. However, this is the first incident in the field of painting. Before I had never heard about a case in which a fine given to an exhibition came with the requirement to destroy paintings,” said Hoang Dung, a professor and member of the Vietnam Independent Literature Association’s Advocacy Committee “To put it bluntly, this is a step backwards in culture management. I believe that anyone with a normal conscience would be shocked by such a decision,” added Hoang. Vien told RFA that he would fight to protect his artworks and not easily give up. “The decision says that I can make a complaint or take legal proceedings. Therefore, I’ll see my lawyers to carry out procedures to file a complaint or lawsuit to protect my rights and interests,” he told RFA. “There is no way that I will destroy my artwork.” Translated by Anna Vu. Written by Paul Eckert.
- [High temperatures bring drought, power shortages to China's Yangtze River delta](https://ij-reportika.com/high-temperatures-bring-drought-power-shortages-to-chinas-yangtze-river-delta/): A drought in China&#8217;s hydropower-dependent Yangtze River region is fueling growing power shortages, prompting Taiwan-owned Foxconn to suspend production in the southwestern province of Sichuan. The Sichuan provincial government suspended power to industrial customers from Aug. 15 through Aug. 20 amid a prolonged heat wave that has left water levels at their lowest levels in six decades. Foxconn, also known as Hon Hai, said it had suspended production at its Chengdu facility, which makes wearable technology, mobile and smart devices, including iPads for Apple. But the company said the power cuts wouldn&#8217;t have a huge impact if they ended as scheduled, Taiwan&#8217;s Central News Agency (CNA) reported. The cuts in Sichuan have echoed severe power shortages in the eastern provinces of Anhui, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, linked to water levels in the Yangtze river that are the lowest seen since 1961. Water levels in the massive Three Gorges hydropower plant stand at just 135 meters, 40 percent lower than for the same time in the previous four years. Local governments across the region have issued notices warning consumers to practice &#8220;orderly consumption&#8221; of electricity, with shortages reported in Sichuan at both peak and off-peak times. Authorities in Sichuan have switched to a three-tier alert system to ensure power supply, and strive to protect supplies needed for basic functioning. The Chongqing High-tech Zone issued a notice that it would stagger peak production times to ensure grid security, requiring enterprises to suspend production between the hours of 10:00 am and 2:00 am. Jiangsu-based current affairs commentator Zhang Jianping said the power shortages are directly connected to the ongoing drought. &#8220;The Yangtze River delta has never experienced such high temperatures since historical records began, and high temperatures like this are accompanied by drought,&#8221; Zhang told RFA. &#8220;The summer weather this year has been extreme. It should be the flood season, but there have been no typhoons,&#8221; he said. Prioritizing residential supply Zhang said governments appear to be prioritizing residential power supply, in a region that was already known for sweltering summers, and highly dependent on air-conditioning for life to continue as normal. &#8220;They are mostly restricting industrial power consumption &#8230; because they have to protect people&#8217;s quality of life by ensuring residential power supplies,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I think this is the right thing to do.&#8221; Temperatures of around 40C have been recorded across Anhui and Jiangsu, with some places recording much higher temperatures than that. The China meteorological bureau has warned that many cities and provinces in the delta have seen very little rainfall, with rainfall in the area 40 percent lower than in the same period last year. Water resources ministry spokesman Wang Zhangli said the government has set aside 51 major reservoirs in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River as storage areas for drought relief, and to ensure water supplies downstream. According to a report on the Yicai Global news site, the drought has hit 644,667 hectares of farmland in six provinces, including Sichuan, Hubei and Jiangxi, affecting water supply to 830,000 people. Little rain is forecast amid ongoing high temperatures over the next 10 days, according to the national meteorological bureau. &#8220;Yicai Global learned that seven rivers and one reservoir in Chongqing had dried up because of the heatwave,&#8221; the report said. Meanwhile, the Chishui Danxia Great Waterfall scenic area in the southwestern province of Guizhou has been closed due to lack of water flow, it said. The ministries of finance and water resources set up a 200 million (U.S.$29.5 million) fund for eight provinces and autonomous regions on Aug. 12 to fund water conservancy efforts, drought-relief water transfers, the report said. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Lao residents call for inspection of development projects to combat corruption](https://ij-reportika.com/lao-residents-call-for-inspection-of-development-projects-to-combat-corruption/): Residents of a province in northern Laos are calling on the government to take a closer look at local development projects following revelations that state employees had profited illegally from contracts financing the work, Lao sources say. News that state employees and members of Laos’ ruling communist party were involved in corruption followed a 6-month review by Xayaburi province authorities of state development projects, local sources said. The identities of officials accused of wrongdoing were not made public, however, angering local residents who told RFA they want the names revealed. “There are a lot of corrupt state employees now,” one Xayaburi resident said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “And if the government discovers who they are it should make their names public so that the people can be informed.” Central government authorities should do more now to protect the country’s development budget, another Xayaburi resident said. “All development projects, such as those for building infrastructure, should be thoroughly inspected,” the resident said, also declining to be named. “And if these are found to be substandard and not following proper guidelines, the contracts should be revoked, and the projects should be canceled and not allowed to continue,” he said. “The banks that allocate money for these projects will be upset if they find out that those projects are being investigated for crime,” a third provincial resident agreed. Xayaburi’s six-month review of state development projects in the province show that of 47 projects each supported by investments of 10 billion kip ($656,167) or more, 37 failed to follow proper rules of concession, leading to state losses of over 45 billion kip, according to state media reports. And of 233 projects invested at lower amounts, 79 were examined, with 17 showing losses to the state of 1.62 billion kip. More than 150 projects remain to be examined by the end of the year. Leakage from project budgets is found mostly in the education and health-care sectors, an official from Xayaburi’s inspection unit told RFA, also speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “For example, when money is allocated to build toilets for schools, these are often not up to standard. The money has been used for something else, and the people who gave the money are not happy,” he said. Also speaking to RFA, a second provincial official said that though laws are in place to punish corruption, “we send the bigger cases to central authorities to deal with if we find we can’t handle them at lower levels of authority.” The Lao government has lost U.S. $767 million to corruption since 2016, with government development and investment projects such as road and bridge construction the leading source of the widespread graft, according to the country’s State Inspection Authority. However, despite the enactment of an anticorruption law that criminalizes the abuse of power, public sector fraud, embezzlement and bribery, Laos’ judiciary is weak and inefficient, and officials are rarely prosecuted. Berlin-based Transparency International 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index ranked Laos at 128 of 180 countries in the world. Laos received a score of 30 on a scale of 0-100, on which 0 means highly corrupt and 100 means very clean. Translated by Sidney Khotpanya for RFA Lao. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [China slaps sanctions on 7 'diehard separatist' Taiwan officials](https://ij-reportika.com/china-slaps-sanctions-on-7-diehard-separatist-taiwan-officials/): China announced sanctions against seven Taiwanese officials including Taiwan’s de facto ambassador to the United States Hsiao Bi-khim, labeling them “diehard separatists.” Other Taiwanese political figures on the list are Koo Li-hsiung, Tsai Chi-chang, Ker Chien-ming, Lin Fei-fan, Chen Jiau-hua and Wang Ting-yu, said a spokesperson of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee. All but one are from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party. The sanctioned politicians and their family members are banned from entering China’s mainland, Hong Kong and Macao. Their affiliated institutions and businesses are also prohibited from engaging in activities on the mainland. The named politicians “will be held to lifelong accountability according to law,” with further punitive measures to be decided, according to the announcement. Hsiao Bi-khim, who has been Taiwan’s representative to the U.S. since July 2020, was accused of helping push U.S. arms sales to the island and recently in advancing the visit of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Besides the seven, two other well-known Taiwanese political figures &#8211; President of the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy Huang Yu-lin and secretary general of the International Cooperation and Development Fund Timothy Hsiang – are also banned from entering the mainland, Hong Kong and Macau. Last November for the first time, China imposed an entry ban on Taiwan’s Prime Minister Su Tseng-chang, Legislative Speaker You Si-kun and Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu, saying they were part of “an extremely small minority of diehard Taiwanese separatists who caused extreme harm &#8230; to the fundamental interests of the Chinese race.” Map of Penghu Islands in the Taiwan Strait. Credit: Google Maps Sanctions list As the sanction list expanded to ten names, the Taiwan Office’s spokesperson was quoted by Xinhua as warning that it could grow further and “anyone who deliberately challenges the law will face severe punishment.”  It’s unclear how the punitive measures will affect the Taiwanese politicians as they are not known to have traveled nor done business on China’s mainland. On Aug.5, Beijing announced sanctions against Nancy Pelosi and her immediate family in response to her visit to Taiwan which China condemned as an “egregious provocation.” When asked about the decision a few days later, Pelosi reportedly laughed it off saying: &#8220;Who cares?&#8221;  &#8220;That is incidental to me, of no relevance whatsoever,&#8221; she said, according to Reuters. During Pelosi’s visit to Taipei, China imposed a no-entry ban on executives of four Taiwanese companies which had made donations to two foundations – the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy and the International Cooperation and Development Fund – that Beijing deemed as “aggressively engaging in pro-independence separatist activities.”  The four companies are solar producer Speedtech Energy Co., Hyweb Technology Co., medical equipment producer Skyla, and cold chain vehicle fleet management company SkyEyes. They’re also not allowed to do business with any mainland companies. U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi meets with Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen in Taipei on Aug. 3, 2022. Credit: Taiwan Presidential Office China’s ‘information warfare’ In another development, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense has rejected claims by the Chinese military that its aircraft had flown over Penghu, one of Taiwan’s most important outlying islands, during a flight operation on Monday. The Eastern Theater Command of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) on Monday published a video on WeChat purportedly showing Penghu Islands as seen from a military airplane at a relatively close proximity. Three types of aircraft were seen in the video: a Shaanxi Y-8 maritime patrol aircraft, a SU-30 and a J-16 fighter.  Penghu Islands are situated on the eastern side of the Taiwan Strait, only 50 kilometers from Taiwan’s main island. The PLA sent 30 aircraft into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) on Monday, half of them crossed the median line dividing the Strait, according to the Taiwanese defense ministry. Taiwan’s ministry said only four Chinese J-16 crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait but they did not come close to Penghu Islands. No Shaanxi aircraft was deployed. The video released by the PLA Eastern Theater Command was clearly “Chinese cognitive warfare,” said Maj. Gen. Tung Pei-lun, Taiwan Air Force’s Vice Chief of Staff for Operations. &#8220;China used the exaggerated tricks of cognitive warfare to show how close it was to Penghu &#8211; which is not true,&#8221; Tung told reporters at a briefing in Taipei. Some Taiwanese military experts, such as Shen Ming-Shih, acting deputy chief executive officer at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said the PLA probably used a powerful camera lens to film Penghu from a long distance.  “Penghu Islands are the most important islands in the Taiwan Strait,” said Shen. “If China managed to occupy Penghu, the PLA could launch an effective military operation against Taiwan.” But the Taiwanese military maintains a large air defense missile battery and a radar system on Penghu, the analyst said, adding that the Taiwanese air force and navy should be able to deter an invading Chinese force.  China has recently stepped up its disinformation campaign and cyberattacks as part of cognitive operations to attack public morale and sow confusion in Taiwan.
- [North Korea lifts COVID restrictions after ‘maximum emergency’ ends](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-lifts-covid-restrictions-after-maximum-emergency-ends/): North Korea lifted COVID-19 restrictions at bathhouses and restaurants nationwide after declaring victory over the virus and ending its “maximum emergency” order that had been in place since May. The country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, said last week during a speech at a nationally televised COVID review meeting that the country had stopped the spread of the disease, while adding that it had to maintain a “steel-strong anti-epidemic barrier and intensifying the anti-epidemic work until the end of the global health crisis,” state media reported. At the same meeting, Kim Jong Un’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, the vice department director in the Central Committee of the ruling Korean Workers’ Party, revealed in her own speech that her brother had contracted the disease. She vowed “deadly retaliation” against South Korea, which she accused of causing the outbreak.  The lift on restrictions for restaurants and bathhouses began on Sunday, a resident in South Pyongan province, north of the capital Pyongyang, told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “Starting today, large and small restaurants … in [the city of] Pyongsong have begun operating normally. This is because the maximum emergency epidemic prevention system has been officially lifted,” the source said. Prior to the pandemic, restaurants were open daily from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., according to the source. The National Emergency Quarantine Command mandated that restaurants close at 6 p.m. in 2020 as a preventative measure against the spread of the virus. North Korea claimed to be virus free throughout all of 2020 and 2021, but finally acknowledged publicly that a major outbreak occurred as the result of a massive military parade in April 2022, and declared the national maximum emergency the following month.  During the maximum emergency, restaurants were open only from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. They are now fully open, according to the source. “The authorities ordered each restaurant to dedicate a portion of its profit to the state from the end of this month,” the source said. In nearby Songchon county, bathhouses and swimming pools had all been ordered closed during the emergency, another South Pyongan source told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “However, with the end of the maximum emergency epidemic prevention system, the operating restrictions of the public bathhouses and swimming pools were also lifted,” the second source said, adding that a facility affiliated with the provincial government began 24-hour operations. She said that the 24-hour operation is not nationwide, however.  But even though restaurants and bathhouses are open again, they will likely see fewer customers because few people can afford the expense due to the country’s poor economy, the second source said. In the city of Sinuiju, across the Yalu River border from China, normal business operations in restaurants resumed, a source there told RFA, but tables had to be 3 meters (9.8 feet) apart, and citizens with a high fever are barred from eating or drinking in restaurants. “In addition, there must be disinfectant liquid at the entrance to the restaurant, and restaurant staff must wear a mask to serve customers. Restaurants caught by the quarantine command for not following quarantine regulations will be fined 100,000 to 300,000 won ($12~36),” the third source said. This picture taken on August 10, 2022 and released from North Korea&#8217;s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on August 14, 2022 shows Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korea&#8217;s leader Kim Jong Un, speaking at the National Emergency Prevention General Meeting in Pyongyang. Credit: KCNA via KNS/AFP Rare glimpses Last week’s national emergency quarantine review meeting was a nationally televised event, and citizens tuned in to catch a rare look at Kim Yo Jong as she accused South Korea of causing the coronavirus to spread in the North, a resident in the northwestern province of North Pyongan told RFA shortly after it was aired. “What matters is the fact that the South Korean puppets are still thrusting leaflets and dirty objects into our territory,” Kim Yo Jong said during her speech, referring to the practice of South Korean activist organizations flying anti-regime leaflets by hot air balloon into North Korean territory. South Korea passed a controversial anti-leaflet law in December 2020 that severely punishes offenders with steep fines and multiyear jail sentences. Even so, one activist group released millions of leaflets as recently as April. Kim implied during her speech that leaflets contaminated with COVID-19 caused the most recent outbreak. “We have already considered various counteraction plans but our countermeasure must be a deadly retaliatory one,” she said. South Korea’s Ministry of Unification dismissed North Korea’s claim that Seoul was the cause of the coronavirus in North Korea. “North Korea is repeating baseless and deterrent claims related to the source of the coronavirus at the national emergency quarantine review meeting. We express our deep regrets at the rude and threatening remarks about South Korea,” a ministry official told reporters last week. The North Pyongan source said people she knew who had watched the speech were disappointed that Kim did not mention any effort to improve the financial condition of North Koreans.  “Her speech was full of words that only worsened the situation on the Korean peninsula. … Residents are complaining that if they have declared victory in the fight against the coronavirus, they should now discuss ways to solve the worsening living situation,” the second North Pyongan source said. “They are only concerned with instigating hostility to eradicate the South Korean authorities.” A group of viewers in South Pyongan were unimpressed by Kim Yo Jong, a third source there told RFA. “They were saying that Kim Yo Jong seemed to have low dignity, because she couldn’t take her eyes off of her written speech and read it in a trembling voice like a student.” Translated by Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Skyrocketing rice prices another hardship for Myanmar citizens](https://ij-reportika.com/skyrocketing-rice-prices-another-hardship-for-myanmar-citizens/): The price of rice, a food staple in Southeast Asia, and other commodities has shot up as much as 50 percent over the last two months in Myanmar, another hardship for the country’s beleaguered citizens, many of whom have already had to flee their homes because of ongoing conflict, traders and consumers said. The average cost of basic food on average in Myanmar has risen by 35% in the past year, according to recent data compiled by the World Food Program. A 24-pyi (4.7-pound) bag of Shwebo Pawsan rice, considered locally to be the best quality rice, has gone up even more. A bag that sold for 66,000 kyats (U.S. $31) on July 1 now sells for 90,000 kyats (U.S. $42). In Yangon, traders said the price can spike to 100,000 kyats (U.S. $47) in retail markets. Prior to the Feb. 1, 2021, military coup that sparked the conflict, the price of a 24-pyi sack of the rice was 52,000 kyats (U.S. $25). The inflation has hit hard low-income people who now have difficulty affording even lower quality rice and are dealing with a shortage of jobs since the democratically elected government was ousted, sources said. Low-quality rice that used to cost 25,000 kyats (U.S. $12) is now selling for 45,000 kyats (U.S. $21), said a low-income Yangon resident. “Right now, it’s very hard for manual laborers to earn money,” he said. “Manual laborers need to get money first to have their meals, and then they can buy rice in the evening after work.” The price increases have made lives even harder for the 1.2 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) who have fled their homes due to the fighting, aid workers said. Most IDPs are living in areas where transportation is difficult. Meanwhile, military checkpoints have restricted the movement of food along major routes, pushing up the cost of supplies, they said. A member of the Mindat township IDP Camps Management Committee in western Myanmar’s Chin state, where fighting between military forces and opposition groups has been intense, said the cost of transporting goods is double what it is in other areas and rice has to be smuggled in. “In faraway places, the price reached almost 100,000 kyats when the cost of transportation, which is about 50,000 kyats, was added to the original price,” said the aid workers, who declined to be identified out of fear for his safety. “We haven’t had any donations for the IDPs for the last two months, so we can’t buy rice anymore,” he said. “We won’t have supplies for distribution for the rest of August or for September and October.” Ye Min Aung, chairman of the Myanmar Rice Federation, blamed the rising prices on COVID-19 virus outbreaks, the country’s political instability and the high costs of production. “COVID-19 issues, political issues and internal instability in central parts of Myanmar along with the rising costs of fertilizer and fuel in international markets are to blame,” he said. “Fertilizer prices have tripled,” he said. “Farmers have to use fertilizers and fuel and so their production costs have also risen. Moreover, rice mills have had to install generators due to the decrease in the electric power supply, resulting in an increase in production costs.&#8221; Buckets of rice are seen at a rice shop in Yangon, Myanmar, April 12, 2022. Credit: RFA &#8216;Fleeing for our lives&#8217; Shwebo Pawson, the most expensive and popular rice in Myanmar, is usually grown in Shwebo, Kantbalu, Khin U, Ye U and Taze townships in northwestern Myanmar’s Sagaing region, where the fighting between military and opposition forces has been particularly intense. In an effort to clear the area, government troops have burned dozens of homes and other structures in recent weeks. Some farmers have been unable to plant rice or other crops this year, while others cannot properly care for their cultivated fields, said residents of the townships. A farmer in Shwebo township said he and other residents have not been able to work because they have been forced to run from Myanmar soldiers. “We have been fleeing for our lives to safety because of the military attacks, and many of the fields have been left unattended,” said the farmer who did not provide his name because of safety reasons. In the Ayeyarwady region, Myanmar’s rice bowl, farmers have been grappling with a drought amid what is supposed to be the rainy season. They say they are unable to make capital inputs and have had to cultivate fewer acres because of high production costs. Myanmar has more than 17 million acres of rice paddies in production, but the country’s agricultural targets have not yet been met, military junta leader Sr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing said in the capital Naypyidaw on Aug. 8. He warned that officials may need to adjust how much rice is exported and how much is set aside for domestic consumption. But Myanmar still plans to export rice and green beans, he said. An economist, who declined to be named so as to speak freely, said that statement may mean the junta could seize rice stocks to generate revenue, further pushing up the price. “They themselves have announced that they are going to export rice and green beans,” he said. “If they do that, they will look for rice in any way they can get and will hoard it.” With the current shortage of hard currency in Myanmar, the junta appears to be eyeing up rice exports to get badly needed U.S. dollars, the economist said. “They seem to be planning to get dollars directly into their hands from exports,” he said. “The more they do that, the more the prices of commodities will rise, especially that of rice. Besides, traders will find it difficult to buy [rice] and will keep what they have, so that prices will rise even more.” Translated by Khin Maung Nyane for RFA Burmese. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Aung San Suu Kyi sentenced to 6 more years in prison](https://ij-reportika.com/aung-san-suu-kyi-sentenced-to-6-more-years-in-prison/): &nbsp; A Myanmar military court on Monday sentenced former national leader Aung San Suu Kyi to six years in prison following her conviction on corruption charges that critics say are without merit. Suu Kyi, 77, now faces a total of 17 years in prison, with today’s 6-year term added to an 11 years already imposed following trials in other cases brought by Myanmar’s military leaders, who overthrew her democratically elected civilian government in a Feb. 1, 2021 coup. The three cases heard on Monday were tied to the acquisition of land in the capital Naypyidaw by the Daw Khin Kyi Foundation, which was named after Aung San Suu Kyi’s late mother, and to the construction of a building on that land and of foundation headquarters in Yangon. Naypyidaw Mayor Myo Aung, Deputy Mayor Ye Min Oo, and Naypyidaw Municipal Committee Member Min Oo, who were also charged in the cases, were each given 2-year terms. The sentences imposed by a prison court in Naypyidaw were themselves unlawful, however, as Myanmar’s now-ruling military had seized power illegally, Bo Bo Oo—a former Yangon lawmaker for the National League for Democracy. “This case has been all wrong right from the start,” said the former parliamentarian, whose party’s government was overthrown by Myanmar’s military last year. “To begin with, the military coup was carried out in violation of the law, so it’s silly for them to say that they are now on the side of the law. I don’t recognize their authority,” he said. Calls seeking comment from junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun received no response, but a veteran legal expert told IJ-reportika that Aung San Suu Kyi should not have been prosecuted on corruption charges for a project done for the country’s benefit. Junta allegations that national funds had been lost by the land’s sale at a low price should not have been filed. “When action is taken against nationally beneficial projects like the La Yaung Taw project just because they are connected to Aung San Suu Kyi, this will cause other projects to be stopped that could be helpful to citizens in the future,” he said. “This is just another example of how the junta deals with political problems in Myanmar not by using political means but through hatred and animosity,” agreed Arakan National Party chairman Tha Tun Hla. “People who are tied to political cases should not be punished and imprisoned,” he added. Aung San Suu Kyi now faces charges in 9 more cases, including a case brought under Section 3(1)[c] of the Official Secrets Act, that also carry long prison terms, sources say. &#8216;Methodical assault on human rights&#8217; &nbsp;Myanmar political observer Than Soe Naing said that by arresting and jailing Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s military is carrying out its goal of removing her entirely from the country’s political life. “However, history will show that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has never bribed anyone or committed financial fraud. Her virtue, integrity and dignity can never be damaged, even a little,” he said. Elaine Pearson, acting Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said on Monday that the Myanmar military junta’s conviction and sentencing of Aung San Suu Kyi is “part of its methodical assault on human rights around the country. “The junta’s fabricated trials, torture of detainees, and execution of activists highlights its broader disregard for the lives of Myanmar’s people. “The United Nations, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), European Union, United States, and other concerned governments should press for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and all those wrongfully imprisoned,” Pearson said. “This verdict should push them to undertake urgent action against the junta to ensure there’s justice for its victims and a reckoning for its crimes.” Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [Hong Kong exodus continues as rights groups pinpoint leaders' overseas property](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-exodus-continues-as-rights-groups-pinpoint-leaders-overseas-property/): Hongkongers are continuing to leave the city in droves amid an ongoing crackdown on dissent under a draconian security law imposed by Beijing. Recent figures from the city&#8217;s census and statistics department showed the city&#8217;s population has fallen for the third year running, with net departures of permanent residents totaling 113,000 during 2022 alone, and around 121,000 compared with the same time last year. &#8220;This is pretty unprecedented,&#8221; Chinese University of Hong Kong business school researcher Simon Lee. &#8220;[Before this] we saw population growth for a long period.&#8221; &#8220;Many of these people leaving are young and strong, and it&#8217;s too early to tell whether they will come back or not,&#8221; Lee said. &#8220;This is a blow to our economic recovery in the short term, because fewer people means less economic activity and less consumption.&#8221; A social activist who gave only the nickname Peter said it is increasingly difficult for people in Hong Kong to get information about what is happening to those who leave. &#8220;There is less news out there, no more Apple Daily, Stand or Citizen News,&#8221; Peter said. &#8220;In one sense, to a certain extent the government &#8230; wants to force people to leave, so they can&#8217;t stand together.&#8221; Peter said he has started a letter-writing program to allow overseas Hongkongers to support people currently behind bars for their role in the 2019 protest movement or held as part of subsequent political crackdowns. &#8220;Everyone has to live their own lives, because it&#8217;s hard to even think about the [protest movement] if you don&#8217;t do that,&#8221; he said. &#8220;But while we&#8217;re doing that, we can use some of our leftover energy to reconnect [with everyone else].&#8221; &#8220;Whenever I have time to write a letter, I remind myself why I can&#8217;t go back to Hong Kong,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I can&#8217;t go home.&#8221; &nbsp; People lie in hospital beds with night-time temperatures falling outside the Caritas Medical Centre in Hong Kong on Feb. 16, 2022, as hospitals become overwhelmed with the city facing its worst COVID-19 wave to date. Credit: AFP &nbsp; &nbsp; Foreign property owners Peter&#8217;s initiative has seen letters pour in from the U.K., Norway, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, among other countries, and the democratic island of Taiwan, which has offered immigration options to Hongkongers fleeing the crackdown. The U.K.-based rights group Hong Kong Watch has also called on governments to step up sanctions on the city&#8217;s officials, many of whom own property overseas. The group said it had identified property belonging to four Hong Kong officials in the U.K., Canada, and Australia. Health secretary Lo Chung-Mau owns a flat in London, while non-official executive councilors Margaret Leung, Moses Cheng and Eliza Chan own property in Sydney, London and Toronto, the group said. &#8220;It beggars belief that Hong Kong officials who denounce Western countries so gleefully are destroying their fellow citizens&#8217; basic freedoms and rights [and] continue to own property in the U.K., Australia, and Canada,&#8221; the group&#8217;s advocacy director Sam Goodman said. The group called on the governments of the U.K., Canada, and Australia to join the U.S. in introducing Magnitsky-style sanctions targeting the assets of Hong Kong officials who are &#8220;complicit in gross human rights violations.&#8221; Meanwhile, international arrivals have fallen sharply in Hong Kong amid the city&#8217;s COVID-19 quarantine restrictions. Passenger volumes have plummeted, with 18 times fewer passengers arriving in Hong Kong via the airport this summer &#8212; just over two million per month in July and August 2022 &#8212; compared with pre-pandemic figures. &nbsp; &nbsp;People lie in hospital beds with night-time temperatures falling outside the Caritas Medical Centre in Hong Kong on Feb. 16, 2022, as hospitals become overwhelmed with the city facing its worst COVID-19 wave to date. Credit: AFP&nbsp; &nbsp; Losing to Singapore Lee said the recent easing of quarantine requirements for inbound passengers was unlikely to improve things. &#8220;With regard to tourists, people won&#8217;t come unless they have to for business, because they have a lot of choices for leisure travel,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Why would they come to Hong Kong? They would only come if they like Hong Kong a lot.&#8221; While the government recently eased restrictions in a bid to kickstart the city&#8217;s flagging economy, the number of flights arriving in the city is still far lower than those destined for Singapore, which lifted quarantine requirements for arrivals in April. We counted 61 flights arriving at Hong Kong International Airport on Aug.12, compared with 289 flights arriving at Singapore&#8217;s Changi Airport, nearly five times as many. The Singapore Tourism Board estimates between four and six million visitors will arrive in the city this year for tourism purposes, with 543,000 inbound tourists in June compared with 418,000 in May, and the figures have been rising for five months in a row. Lee said Hong Kong&#8217;s COVID-19 policy had hit its status as an international aviation hub, and the city would struggle to catch up with its main competitor. &#8220;It is a short-term phenomenon, but other places returned to normal six months ago,&#8221; Lee said. He said the development would likely mean people get out of the habit of booking flights routed through the city. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Police in China's Chengdu raid Sunday meeting of banned church members, detain one](https://ij-reportika.com/police-in-chinas-chengdu-raid-sunday-meeting-of-banned-church-members-detain-one/): Authorities in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan have once more raided a gathering of Early Rain Covenant Church members in the the provincial capital, Chengdu, detaining one of them, RFA has learned. Christian writer and translator Xing Hongwei was detained in Chengdu on Sunday after a teahouse gathering of church members was raided by around 30 uniformed officers and plainclothes state security police, church members said on Monday. The group of more than 50 church members was accused of holding an &#8220;illegal gathering&#8221; at a teahouse in Chengdu&#8217;s Wuhou district, and Xing was detained for allegedly &#8220;assaulting a police officer,&#8221; and is being held in criminal detention, they said. While the church&#8217;s premises were raided and forcible shut down during police raids in December 2018, the authorities have continued to target the church&#8217;s members, amid tightened restrictions on religious groups in recent years under ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping. A church member surnamed Wang who was at the teahouse said police surrounded the group and took their personal details including ID card numbers, one by one. &#8220;About 50 brothers and sisters attended,&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;At around 10.30 a.m., about 22 or 23 uniformed police officers and about eight or nine plainclothes police surrounded us.&#8221; &#8220;They surrounded us in two circles; one circle around our group, and another around the entire [teahouse] courtyard,&#8221; he said. A second church member who declined to be named said the raid was led by the state security police chief for Wuhou district, who said the Chengdu police department was taking a &#8220;zero tolerance&#8221; approach to the gathering. Early Rain Covenant Church pastor Wang Yi and his wife are shown in an undated photo. Credit: Early Rain Covenant Church Violent police response Officers said the church was an &#8220;illegal organization,&#8221; that had already been banned, the church member said. &#8220;Brother Xing&#8217;s wife Zhao Qing and their daughter came yesterday, while he waited for them outside [due to ill-health],&#8221; the church member said. &#8220;The police went out to check his ID card too, and he asked them why he was being pulled into this as he wasn&#8217;t even at the meeting.&#8221; Xing&#8217;s questioning of the police was met with a violent response. &#8220;The police hit Xing Hongwei because he was unwilling to cooperate when asked for his personal details, and then there was a physical altercation,&#8221; a church member surnamed Li told RFA. &#8220;The police pushed Xing Hongwei to the ground saying he had assaulted a police officer and took him away,&#8221; Li said. &#8220;We later heard that Xing Hongwei had been detained on suspicion of assaulting a police officer.&#8221; Xing was taken to a different police station from the local one, and hadn&#8217;t emerged by 11.00 p.m. on Sunday. An employee who answered the phone at the Jitou police station in Wuhou district hung up the phone when contacted by RFA on Monday. Bob Fu, president of the U.S.-based Christian rights group ChinaAid, said the police raid had deprived the Early Rain church members of their religious rights. &#8220;Chengdu Early Rain Covenant Church was founded by Pastor Wang Yi, who gave a sermon from the pulpit calling on Xi Jinping to stop violating the Chinese constitution with the crackdown on religious freedom,&#8221; Fu said. &#8220;This raid on the Early Rain Sunday meeting was yet another serious form of persecution,&#8221; he said. Dangerous foreign import Wang Yi was jailed on Dec. 30, 2019 by the Chengdu Intermediate People&#8217;s Court, which found him guilty of &#8220;incitement to subvert state power&#8221; and of &#8220;running an illegal business&#8221; in a secret trial. Wang was detained by police in Sichuan&#8217;s provincial capital Chengdu on Dec. 14, 2018, alongside dozens of church members in a raid that prompted an international outcry. Some Early Rain Covenant Church members who were detained in raids on Dec. 9 and 10, 2018, and later released said the police had beaten them, and one detainee described being tied to a chair and deprived of water and food for 24 hours, rights groups reported at the time. The CCP under general secretary Xi regards Christianity as a dangerous foreign import, with party documents warning against the &#8220;infiltration of Western hostile forces&#8221; in the form of religion. The party, which embraces atheism, exercises tight controls over any form of religious practice among its citizens. State security police and religious affairs bureau officials frequently raid unofficial &#8220;house churches&#8221; that aren&#8217;t members of the CCP-backed Three-Self Patriotic Association, although member churches have also been targeted at times. China is home to an estimated 68 million Protestants, of whom 23 million worship in state-affiliated churches under the aegis of the Three-Self Patriotic Association, and some nine million Catholics, the majority of whom are in state-sponsored organizations. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Four local fighters shot dead in Sagaing region’s Tabayin township](https://ij-reportika.com/four-local-fighters-shot-dead-in-sagaing-regions-tabayin-township/): Junta forces arrested five members of the People’s Defense Forces (PDFs) in Myanmar’s Sagaing region. They shot four of them, while the other is still missing, residents told RFA. Three of the dead were named as Zaw Oo, Khing Lin and Min Than, according to locals. The other man was not identified. They were shot by troops in Hpoke Tan Taw village. A local resident, who declined to be named for security reasons, told RFA a military column with nearly a hundred soldiers has been stationed in Hpoke Tan Taw village since last Tuesday. They arrested the PDF members who snuck into the village to assess the situation on Saturday evening “The four people who were shot were hit in their head and their heads were crushed. They were heavily tortured and finally shot in the mouth. When we entered the village this morning, we found dead bodies next to the entrance of the Shwe Gu Gyi pagoda. The four who died are estimated to be aged between 18 and 25,” a local told RFA. This morning, he said the military convoy returned to two villages northwest of Hpoke Tan Taw causing hundreds of residents to flee. More than 800 residents of Hpoke Tan Taw village, which as nearly 300 houses, fled to nearby villages and forests in the past week according to residents. RFA has not been able to independently verify the locals claims. Military columns with hundreds of soldiers have entered villages in Tabayin township since August 2, and arrested more than 50 residents, locals said.
- [U.S. lawmakers visit Taiwan amid renewed Chinese military drills](https://ij-reportika.com/u-s-lawmakers-visit-taiwan-amid-renewed-chinese-military-drills/): China conducted a fresh round of military drills around Taiwan on Monday as another U.S. Congressional delegation visited in Taipei and met with President Tsai Ing-wen, just 12 days after the controversial stopover by Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi. When Pelosi, the most senior U.S. official to visit Taiwan in 25 years, arrived in Taipei, Beijing responded by launching an unprecedented week-long military exercise around the island. The Chinese military said Monday’s drills were “a serious deterrent to the continued &#8216;political tricks&#8217; played by the United States and Taiwan,” Reuters reported. A Chinese state newspaper called the two-day visit by the U.S. delegation led by Democratic Senator Ed Markey “sneaky” and “provoking tensions” in the Taiwan Strait. On Friday, Deputy Assistant to the U.S. President and Coordinator for the Indo-Pacific Kurt Campbell said Beijing used Pelosi’s visit as a “pretext to launch an intensified pressure campaign against Taiwan.” “China has overreacted, and its actions continue to be provocative, destabilizing, and unprecedented,” Campbell told a press briefing in Washington D.C., adding that the U.S. will be “conducting standard air and maritime transits through the Taiwan Strait in the next few weeks.” U.S. support for Taiwan Markey and four other U.S. lawmakers are making the Taiwan visit as part of a “larger visit to the Indo-Pacific region,” the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) – the U.S.’s de facto embassy in Taipei &#8211; said in a press release. “The delegation will have a meeting with President Tsai Ing-wen and visit the Taiwanese Legislator&#8217;s Foreign and National Defense Committee,&#8221; it said. The meeting with Tsai has already taken place. “The visit is not a challenge to China but to re-state what Biden administration officials and Biden himself have told their Chinese counterparts: U.S. Congress members have the right to visit Taiwan,” said Norah Huang, associate research fellow at the Prospect Foundation, a Taiwanese think-tank. “The visit is important as to reiterate the U.S. support to Taiwan, that the U.S. is implementing its One China Policy and isn’t intimidated,” Huang told RFA. Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy’s only forward-deployed aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan has been operating in the waters east of Taiwan, likely to offer support to U.S. activities including the Congressional visit. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the carrier and its strike group to “remain on station” in the area to monitor the situation in the wake of Pelosi’s visit. 4,900 sailors aboard the USS Ronald Reagan have been rehearsing to “maintain the ship’s warfighting readiness,” said the U.S. 7th Fleet in a press release.  On Sunday, 22 Chinese aircraft entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) with half of them crossing the median line dividing the Taiwan Strait, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense. An ADIZ is an area where foreign aircraft are tracked and identified before further entering into a country&#8217;s airspace. Since the latest military drills, Chinese aircraft have crossed the median line, which serves as the de facto boundary between Taiwan and China’s mainland, daily. Taipei calls it an act of “unprovoked intimidation.” ‘Repeated provocations’ Taiwan’s Foreign Ministryុំ in an welcome statement to the U.S. lawmakersុំ said: “As China is continuing to escalate tensions in the region, the U.S. Congress has again organized a heavyweight delegation to visit Taiwan, demonstrating a friendship that is not afraid of China’s threats and intimidation, and the U.S.’s strong support for Taiwan.” Senator Ed Markey currently serves as Chair of the East Asia, the Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Policy Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “Markey is a seasoned China hawk, who often chides China on human rights issues,” noted China’s mouthpiece Global Times, recalling that in March 2020, the Senator co-introduced a bipartisan resolution calling on the International Olympic Committee to move the 2022 Winter Olympics out of China. Taiwan&#8217;s Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Yui (right) greets U.S. Senator Ed Markey at Taoyuan Airport on Aug. 14, 2022. CREDIT: Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs The U.S. Congressional visit “shows that the U.S. has ignored China&#8217;s stern warnings and will have to face severe punishment due to its egregious provocations,” Zhang Tengjun, an analyst at the China Institute of International Studies, was quoted as saying. The delegation&#8217;s visit, which “was only made public at the last minute when they arrived in a sneaky and stealthy manner, exposed their diffidence in triggering anger from the Chinese mainland,” Zhang told the paper. Markey’s office, meanwhile, said the delegation “will reaffirm the United States’ support for Taiwan as guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, U.S.-China joint communiques, and six assurances, and will encourage stability and peace across the Taiwan Strait.” Before the visit, Biden’s Indo-Pacific Coordinator Kurt Campbell said that the U.S. and Taiwan are “developing an ambitious roadmap for trade negotiations, which we intend to announce in the coming days.” “This is not something super sensitive but a trade agreement is important for Taiwan as it could have a sampling effect for other countries which are interested in negotiating trade deals with Taiwan,” said Norah Huang from the Prospect Foundation.
- [‘Most of us are worse off’](https://ij-reportika.com/most-of-us-are-worse-off/): More than four years after a dam collapse in southern Laos triggered the country’s worst flooding in decades much of the farmland that was underwater remains unusable, leaving some survivors still struggling to scratch out a living. Residents of four villages in Attapeu’s Sanamxay district told RFA they cannot plant rice in their old fields because their land remains covered with mud and debris from the flood, while new land set aside on high and sandy ground cannot sustain rice paddies.  “Our lives are now unstable and unsustainable because we lost the most valuable property; that is, our rice fields,” one Thasengchanh villager who asked not to be identified told RFA. Thasengchanh is one of four villages in the district where flood survivors live. The others are Dong Bak, Hinlad and Samong Tai. “Some places are covered by up to one meter of mud and sand, and some other places look like lakes,” the villager said. “They should clean up the mess for us. They’ve swept the surface of some rice fields, but then they stopped, saying they didn’t have any more money to continue the work.” Billions of cubic feet of water from a tributary of the Mekong River poured over a collapsed saddle dam at the Xe Pian-Xe Namnoy (PNPC) hydropower project in Champassak province on July 23, 2018. The water surge washed away homes and flooded villages downstream in Attapeu province, killing 71 people and displacing 14,440 others when it wiped out all or part of 19 villages. Those who lost their homes were relocated to other villages. More than 4,160 hectares (10,280 acres) of land, including farmland, was affected by the disaster, with over 1,000 hectares (2,471 acres) being severely damaged, 2,263 hectares (5,592 acres) moderately damaged, and 900 hectares (2,224 acres) slightly damaged.  The Lao government, which continues to plan and build hydropower dams at blistering speed, despite grappling with crushing debt, has yet to rectify the problem, survivors of the dam break said. Most of the fields in Dong Bak cannot be cultivated because of the mud, rocks, sand, logs and tree limbs that remain, a resident of the village told RFA on Aug. 10.  Up to now, Attapeu authorities have handed over 729 new land titles to families in Hinlad, Dong Bak and Samong Tai villages. Some families have been able to clean up their damaged farmland by themselves so they could plant rice this year, while others have had to acquire fields elsewhere in order to grow the staple crop, said the resident, who declined to be named so as not to anger authorities. “But most of the survivors are not able to grow rice on their old rice fields at all; they can only grow cassava and raise chickens and pigs on the new land given to them by the authorities,” he said. “They grow cassava, then sell [it] to buy rice.” Several villagers have been forced to work as laborers in the nearby areas and cities to earn money to feed their families, he said. Small tractors stand idle in a former rice field covered by mud and other debris during flooding from a 2018 dam break, in southern Laos&#8217; Attapeu province, 2020. Credit: Citizen journalist. &#8216;Nobody dares to grow anything&#8217; In Hinlad, only about 100 families out of nearly 1,000 are now able to reuse their land to grow rice, said a resident of the village who, like other sources, requested anonymity so as not to anger authorities by speaking to the media.  New land given as compensation is too high and has too much sand and gravel to grow rice, he said.  “We only grow cassava on the land, then sell it to buy rice,” said the villager. “The price of cassava is good, but rice is getting more and more expensive.” Another resident said that most of the villagers have not grown rice since the dam break, as debris, including scrap metal and broken glass, still litters their land. “Nobody dares to grow anything,” he said. “Of course, we want to grow rice, especially during this rainy season, which is the rice-planting season.” “Most of us are worse off,” he said. “We’re poorer than we were before the dam break because we can’t grow rice on our rice fields in our old villages.”  More than 120 families in Thasengchanh village received land titles for new parcels but refused to accept them, saying they had been given only one hectare per family, while other villages received one hectare per person.  Former owners of the land the survivors were given can still claim it as theirs and block attempts to farm it, the survivors told RFA.    Land concession plans An official from the province’s Agriculture and Forestry Department said on Aug. 10 that authorities cannot clean up the debris and clear the mud from rice fields that were severely flooded and damaged.  “We’ve allowed some families to grow rice on about 24 hectares of the old rice fields because these fields were not badly damaged by the flood, ” he said. “The total most affected rice fields are more than 1,000 hectares.”  “Our provincial authorities have a plan to grant a concession to foreign investors to grow industrial trees on the badly damaged farmland and have asked the survivors to participate in the project,” he said.  The villagers would provide their land and labor, while the investors would provide capital, expertise and market opportunities, the official said, adding that the plan is now undergoing a feasibility study.  “We have a company proposing to grow bamboo for export,” he said. “The company is gathering information on about 100 hectares of the old rice fields.” By the end of this year authorities are planning to clear a new 200-hectare lot of land for residents of the Thasengchanh village who did not accept the new land parcels, the Agriculture and Forestry Department official said. Soaring inflation in Laos has made a bad situation worse, as people struggle to afford the skyrocketing costs...
- [A riverfront village on Thai-Myanmar border struggles to recover from pandemic](https://ij-reportika.com/a-riverfront-village-on-thai-myanmar-border-struggles-to-recover-from-pandemic/): The inhabitants of Mae Sam Lab say life in this Thai village along the frontier with Myanmar used to bustle with tourists and a vibrant cross-border river trade.     As the people here struggle to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic violence from attacks by Burmese junta forces nearby have made things worse, they say. “The doldrums started with the COVID-19 pandemic. Tourists – Thai, Chinese, Japanese and Korean – were gone. Boat operators, local guides, souvenir shops have been badly affected,” said Chai Pongpipat, an official with the Tambon Mae Sam Lab administration.  In the months since the February 2021 coup in Naypyidaw, troops belonging to the Burmese military regime and Border Guard Force have clashed with ethnic resistance forces including in the Karen State, which lies across the Salween River from Mae Sam Lab.  “Over two years of enduring COVID, people seemed to be able to adapt to its effects, but the slight COVID recovery was worsened by the clashes between Myanmar forces and ethnic fighters in the areas. The trade activities have stalled,” Chai told BenarNews. Meanwhile, fishermen say their catches have been falling. They’re afraid to fish when it’s dark on the river, which separates the two countries, because of nighttime clashes on the Myanmar side.  “Lately, there have been a handful of small boats from the nearby village coming here to buy stockpiles of food and necessities as the fighting is unpredictable,” Chai said.
- [Wave of badly written Kindle titles on Pelosi, Taiwan hits Amazon's Kindle platform](https://ij-reportika.com/wave-of-badly-written-kindle-titles-on-pelosi-taiwan-hits-amazons-kindle-platform/): Amazon&#8217;s Kindle e-publishing platform has been flooded with poorly written books pushing Beijing&#8217;s line on Taiwan, according to a U.K.-based publisher. A wave of e-books using the keywords &#8220;Nancy Pelosi&#8221; and &#8220;China and Taiwan&#8221; laying out China&#8217;s claim on the democratic island has appeared on Kindle since the start of the month, when U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi first indicated she would visit Taiwan, sparking days of military exercises by China&#8217;s People&#8217;s Liberation Army (PLA). &#8220;New disinformation push on Amazon?&#8221; U.K. independent publisher Michael Cannings tweeted, along with a screenshot of the Kindle titles. &#8220;A torrent of new low quality &#8216;books&#8217; about Taiwan has appeared; a quick Google shows at least some of the content is plagiarized, and the names of the authors appear to be fake. I count 61 of these under one search term alone,&#8221; Cannings wrote. He later told RFA it was unclear whether the flood of new titles, many of which contain grammatical errors and consist of scraped content with changed wording to evade anti-plagiarism software, was a state-backed propaganda drive or simply the work of unethical people trying to cash in on global headlines. &#8220;The possibilities to use this for disinformation are strong,&#8221; Cannings said. &#8220;I just can&#8217;t be sure whether in this case is really somebody trying to do that, or if it&#8217;s just unethical people trying to make money.&#8221; &#8220;[But] it shows how it could be done by a state operation,&#8221; he added. Cannings said the use of keywords and the flood of recent titles means that the books show up at the top of Amazon and Google searches for those keywords. He said most of the titles were likely uploaded to Amazon&#8217;s Kindle Desktop Publishing platform, and, apart from automated plagiarism checks, weren&#8217;t subject to any editorial quality control. &#8220;I think the danger for readers is that you don&#8217;t know what&#8217;s real and what&#8217;s not,&#8221; Cannings said. &#8220;I mean, some of these books don&#8217;t look great, but some of them are quite convincing, so a reader who&#8217;s not familiar with the subject might not know that this is not &#8230; properly researched.&#8221; &#8220;The secondary danger is that these books then become cited by people further down the line&#8230; so then the disinformation gets into the wider ecosystem,&#8221; he said. U.K. independent publisher Michael Cannings called attention to the Kindle titles in a series of tweets on Twitter. Vulnerable to disinformation campaigns RFA was able to roughly replicate Cannings&#8217; search results on Amazon, and found that the ebooks sell for around U.S.$10 or less. Amazon told RFA in an emailed response that the company does have content guidelines for books self-published on the Kindle platform, and will investigate and remove books that don&#8217;t comply with them. Daniel Kapellmann Zafra, senior technical analysis manager at the cybersecurity company Mandiant, said that whether or not the flood of books on Taiwan from Beijing&#8217;s point of view are actually backed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the platform is vulnerable to disinformation campaigns. &#8220;As long as there is a platform for sharing information, it can be leveraged to drive these types of narratives,&#8221; Zafra told RFA. &#8220;It&#8217;s basically a creative avenue that could &#8230; enable an actor to share information.&#8221; Zafra&#8217;s own research for Mandiant has identified an information operations campaign linked to the Chinese public relations firm Shanghai Haixun Technology, with content published to at least 72 suspected inauthentic news sites. &#8220;Narratives promoted by the campaign criticize the U.S. and its allies, attempt to reshape the international image of Xinjiang due to mounting international scrutiny, and express support for the reform of Hong Kong’s electoral system—a change which gave [China] more power over vetting local candidates,&#8221; the report, coauthored by Zafra, said. Several of the sites published articles critical of Pelosi on Aug. 1, in response to reports ahead of her Aug. 2-3 visit to Taiwan, it said. &#8220;The articles assert that Pelosi should &#8216;stay away from Taiwan&#8217; and highlight perceived tarnished relations between the U.S. and Taiwan.&#8221; An article published on several sites, including one purporting to be a Taiwanese news outlet, claimed that former U.S. government official Mike Pompeo’s March 2022 visit to Taiwan was motivated by money and his alleged desire to run for U.S. president in 2024, according to the report. A separate information operation, DRAGONBRIDGE, publishes comments, videos and photos across thousands of social media and forum accounts on authentic platforms, according to the report. Shanghai Haixun uses inauthentic websites to disseminate content, with little obvious overlap between the two, it said. &#8216;Cognitive operations&#8217; Taiwanese fact-checkers said they detected a 30-40 increase in fake reports online since Pelosi&#8217;s visit. Maj. Gen. Chen Yu-lin, deputy director of the Political and War Bureau of Taiwan&#8217;s Ministry of National Defense told journalists on Aug. 8 that China had begun a wave of &#8220;cognitive operations&#8221; even before the military exercises were announced. Chen said the hybrid warfare campaign sought to create an atmosphere suggesting China might be invading Taiwan, to attack the public image of the government, and to disrupt civilian and military morale. Hybrid warfare denotes a combination of conventional military action on the ground and hacks or disinformation campaigns designed to attack public morale and sow confusion. National Taiwan University was hacked, with the words &#8220;there is only one China in this world&#8221; appearing on its official website. Meanwhile, the National Palace Museum issued a statement denying online rumors that the government was preparing to send tens of thousands of rare artifacts overseas for safekeeping. Last week, several convenience store branches and government facilities across Taiwan saw their digital signage hacked with messages slandering Pelosi. Digital signage at a railway station in the southern port city of Kaohsiung and at a government office in Nantou county also displayed a message calling Pelosi &#8220;an old witch.&#8221; The official website of Tsai&#8217;s Presidential Office was taken down for around 20 minutes by a cyberattack, after which full service was restored, while mainland Chinese website Baidu joined in the cognitive warfare, releasing maps of...
- [Xinjiang residents warned of 3 weeks detention for violating COVID-19 lockdown](https://ij-reportika.com/xinjiang-residents-warned-of-3-weeks-detention-for-violating-covid-19-lockdown/): Authorities in Xinjiang are threatening those who flout quarantine laws with as many as three weeks of detention amid a new outbreak of COVID-19 in the region that has seen infections rise sharply since the start of the month, sources told RFA Uyghur. The warning comes as the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) capital Lhasa entered a three-day state of de facto lockdown amid a growing number of COVID-19 cases in the city. On Friday, authorities announced that they had documented 410 new asymptomatic COVID-19 infections in Xinjiang, bringing the total to 1,727, as the region continues to grapple with a new outbreak that has led to strict lockdowns. An official in Qorghas (in Chinese, Huocheng) county’s Langar township, who oversees 10 families in Yengiavat village, told RFA that authorities have been conducting street patrols to ensure that nobody is leaving their homes during an ongoing lockdown in the area and informing residents that they would be detained for up to three weeks if they do. “We are informing the residents that those who violate the system, that is, those who go out on the streets, will be punished and sent to 15-20 days of ‘re-education,’” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, using a common euphemism for detention in the region. The leader of the village Women’s Committee, who also declined to be named, told RFA that “medicine is being distributed to residents” by authorities, although she was unsure of what type. “They are cream in color and are said to prevent disease,” she said. Earlier this week, Chinese state media reported that authorities ordered residents to quarantine in the cities of Urumqi (Wulumuqi), Ghulja (Yining), Aksu (Akesu), Kumul (Hami), Chochek (Tacheng), Bortala (Bole), and Kashgar (Kashi). A community official said that the new infections were thought to have been brought by Chinese tourists from Gansu province, and the first viral outbreak in Ghulja was found in Uchon Dungan village. Daily lives impacted On Friday, sources in Xinjiang told RFA that lockdowns in the region had begun to severely impact the daily lives of residents, with farmers unable to attend to their fields and grocery store owners unable to sell perishables or keep them fresh. Videos posted on social media from the region appeared to show rotten produce in markets that had been shuttered as a result of the lockdown, while residents said they were unable to obtain fresh vegetables while confined to their homes. RFA spoke with the security director of Ghulja’s Mazar village, who said that only farmers with “urgent irrigation and harvesting needs” are allowed to leave their homes. “The doors [on village homes] are sealed,” he said. “Farmers with urgent needs are allowed to go out on a rotating basis. The farmers first need to get the approval of the village officials in order to go to the fields.” The security director said those found to have violated the lockdown face at least 24 hours of detention. A government official in Ghulja’s Samyuzi village told RFA that farmers are being allowed to work on their fields “under supervision,” adding that security cameras had been installed throughout the area to monitor whether anyone was leaving their home without permission. “If they want to go out for farming needs, they will be accompanied by village officials to the fields. They can go on a rotating basis,” she said. “We have installed security cameras on every household [to ensure no one ignores the lockdown],” she added. Residents undergo mass testing following a COVID-19 outbreak in Lhasa, Tibet Autonomous Region, China, Aug. 9, 2022. Credit: CNS via Reuters De facto lockdown In the TAR, where authorities say they had documented 20 symptomatic and 127 asymptomatic COVID-19 infections as of Friday, officials in the capital Lhasa ordered a citywide “disinfection” operation from Aug. 12-15, during which people are not to leave their homes. Sources in the city said the order amounted to a de facto three-day lockdown, although officials have refrained from using the term. Those who have been confirmed positive are being quarantined and public testing is underway, they said, although authorities have failed to ensure that residents maintain proper distancing when they do so. “Since COVID cases are rising in Lhasa and a few other regions, people who stayed in hotels and lodges in these areas and may have contact with the infected are now quarantining for safety,” a source in Tibet told RFA Tibetan. “People are being subjected to continuous testing, Potala Palace and other religious sites are shut down, schools have postponed their reopening, and people are stocking up on groceries and buying face masks.”  Meanwhile, the summer tourism season is in full swing in Lhasa – despite concerns that the outbreak there is linked to visitors to the region – with Chinese travelers arriving in droves by plane, train, and car from other parts of China, the source said. “Tibetan religious pilgrims seeking to visit Lhasa from around the region are having difficulty obtaining travel permits, while Chinese tourists have no issue obtaining passes to visit Tibet,” he added. People line up to undergo nucleic acid tests for COVID-19 on Aug. 9, 2022, in Lhasa, in China&#8217;s western Tibet Autonomous Region. Credit: CNS/AFP Airports operational Another source from Lhasa told RFA they are concerned that Tibet’s airports remain open, and could lead to the import of additional cases to the region. “I understand that Lhasa will be under [a form of] lockdown from Aug. 12, but there has been no official notice from the government yet and Gonkar Airport remains open as usual,” the source said. “During earlier COVID-19 surges, the Chinese government did not restrict tourists from entering Tibet, despite the concerns of Tibetans. Now, as we see a growing number of COVID-19 outbreaks and the situation remains uncertain, we are worried about what will happen in the next few days.” According to local regulations, only travelers who are exiting Lhasa through Gonkar Airport must undergo testing for COVID-19 48 hours prior...
- [Pain at the pump for Myanmar motorists as fuel shortage sends prices soaring](https://ij-reportika.com/pain-at-the-pump-for-myanmar-motorists-as-fuel-shortage-sends-prices-soaring/): A fuel shortage has forced gas stations to close in major cities in Myanmar and sent prices soaring to their second highest level since the coup, prompting criticism that the junta’s restrictions on imports and manipulation of the exchange rate are to blame. On Friday, the Fuel Import, Storage and Distribution Supervision Committee under the junta’s Ministry of Energy announced that fuel shortages had driven prices up by 600 kyats (U.S. $0.30), or nearly 40% in the five days since Aug. 7. A liter (.25 gallons) of diesel and 92 octane that cost an average of 1,970 kyats (U.S. $0.94) and 1,615 kyats (U.S. $0.77) on Sunday cost 2,550 kyats (U.S. $1.21) and 2,245 kyats (U.S. $1.07), respectively, on Friday. The shortage driving up prices has led gas stations in major cities in most states and regions, including Myanmar’s largest cities Yangon and Mandalay, to close as they run out of fuel supplies, while others have been forced to limit their sales. Sources told RFA Burmese that procuring fuel had become a nightmare. “This morning, when I went looking for fuel, I found some shops selling only diesel oil, some shops selling 95 [octane] and some shops closed,” said a resident of northern Shan state’s city of Muse, near Myanmar’s border with China. “Some shops outside the city limits sell 92 octane for 2,850 kyats (U.S. $1.36) a liter, and they were selling 2,000 kyats (U.S. $0.95) worth to each motorcycle, and 20,000 kyats (U.S. $9.53) worth to each car. There were also roadside vendors selling small bottles of gas at various prices.” The resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that motorists in Muse had to pay anywhere from 7,000 to 10,000 kyats (U.S. $3.33 to $4.76) for a 1.5 liter bottle of fuel “depending on the vendor,” while smaller bottles were selling for anywhere between 3,000 to 5,000 kyats (U.S. $1.43 to $2.38). He called the fuel situation “the worst I’ve ever seen in my life.” Other sources told RFA that crucial services provided by charity organizations to make up for the junta’s shortfall in administration were being curtailed as a result of the shortage. A spokesman for a Yangon-based charity group that provides assistance to those in need of medical care told RFA that he had been forced to turn away requests for lack of fuel. “In our work, it’s hard to refuse when you get a call from a patient,” he said. “I can’t help wondering if a person had called because they were desperate and really needed us.” The spokesman said that even when the price of fuel is affordable, organizations like his don’t have enough money to buy more than what can fit in their gas tanks. “When the prices rise, we have much bigger problems to deal with,” he said. A driver fuels his vehicle in Yangon, Myanmar, Aug. 12, 2022. Credit: RFA Junta mismanagement Despite domestic fuel shortages and skyrocketing prices, junta chief Snr. Gen Min Aung Hlaing on Aug. 8 announced to a governmental work coordination meeting that the regime is seeking to reduce expenditures by cutting down on its U.S. $1.3 billion annual imports of oil and petroleum products. A fuel distributor, who declined to be named for security reasons, said the fuel shortage and rise in prices is the result of the junta&#8217;s restrictions on foreign imports. “The dollar has become so scarce that procuring gasoline has become difficult. When a certain amount becomes available, we are forced to buy it as a group and later divide it among ourselves,” he said. “In the past, we made the purchases ourselves, individually, not as a group. … We can&#8217;t do that anymore. Instead, we have to get our supply through the [junta]. It&#8217;s going to get worse if things continue this way.” Economists told RFA that the fuel shortage is also the result of controls and fixed U.S. dollar exchange rates set by the junta. One U.S. dollar cost 1,850 kyats in April, but the junta changed the rate to 2,100 kyats on Aug. 5. “Since the official rate has risen, the price of imports will surely go up. And as fuel oil is one of the imports, other prices of imports will also go up,” said one economist, speaking on condition of anonymity. “I believe that&#8217;s why they changed the exchange rate, so that fuel importers would be able to get supplies. Otherwise it’d be too difficult because the price is too different.” Economists also noted that the rising cost of fuel is increasing prices across the board for other basic goods as transportation becomes more expensive. Attempts by RFA to contact the Ministry of Energy’s Fuel Import, Storage and Distribution Supervisory Committee for comment went unanswered Friday. According to gas station records, on Jan. 31, 2021, the day before the military seized power in a coup, a liter of diesel cost 720 kyats (U.S. $0.34), a liter of 92 octane cost 695 kyats (U.S. $0.33), and a liter of 95 octane cost 815 kyats (U.S. $0.39). Shortages have caused fuel prices to rise steadily since the coup. By May 31, 2022, diesel cost 2,330 kyats (U.S. $1.11) per liter, 92 octane cost 2,225 kyats (U.S. $1.06) per liter, and 95 octane cost 2,340 kyats (U.S. $1.11). Many gas stations ran out of fuel. In early July, fuel prices began to drop but never went below 1,650 kyats (U.S. $0.79) per liter. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Vietnamese refugees held in Thailand say they fear being forced home](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnamese-refugees-held-in-thailand-say-they-fear-being-forced-home/): Two Vietnamese refugees held by authorities in Thailand say they fear for their safety after being visited in detention by Vietnamese embassy staff who urged them to return home, where they face charges as political activists. Nguyen Thi Thuy and Ho Nhut Hung, both members of the civil society Constitution Group promoting freedom of expression and assembly in Vietnam, had fled as refugees to Thailand in September 2018. Both had taken part in protests against proposed laws on cybersecurity and the granting of Special Economic Zones to foreign investors that rocked major cities across Vietnam four years ago, leading to mass arrests. Living on expired UN-issued refugee cards in a province north of Bangkok, Thuy and Hung were detained by Thai Royal Police on July 24, 2022, charged with “illegal immigration and residence” and sent to an Immigration Detention Center in the capital. Speaking to RFA by phone this week, Thuy said that she and Hung were visited in detention in early August by staff from Vietnam’s embassy in Bangkok who tried to persuade them to return to Vietnam. “Surprisingly, they knew my room number and my prison identification number,” Thuy said. “They told us they would create the best conditions for our repatriation, and warned us that if we did not agree and waited instead for help from the UN, we would be in trouble.” Both Thuy and Hung refused the embassy’s request, she said. “We told the embassy that we now use UN identification cards instead of Vietnamese passports, and that we would therefore wait until hearing from the UN, even if we have to die here,” she said. In February 2019, UN refugee officials issued cards with ID codes to Thuy and Hung, but the cards expired last year, Thuy said. Restricted by the COVID pandemic from visiting UN offices in person, the pair were told by phone that their cards had been renewed, but they were unable to pick them up and were still using their old cards when they were arrested, she said. Detainees held at Bangkok’s IDC have only intermittent access to water and are served food lacking nutrition, Thuy said. Her cell normally housing up to 60 women is now less crowded, though, as half of the detainees held there have been moved to other facilities, she added. Social activists in Thailand have raised funds from different sources, including Vietnamese living overseas, to help Thuy and Hung pay around 114,000 baht ($3,233) for bail, fines for illegal immigration, and charges for COVID tests, Thuy said. Release date uncertain Two weeks have now passed since Thuy and Hung were detained, but they still don’t know when they will be released, and Thuy’s calls to the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Bangkok have rung unanswered, she said. Calls seeking comment on Thuy’s and Hung’s case from Vietnam’s embassy in Thailand received no response this week, but an employee at the UNHCR office in Bangkok said they were aware of the situation and promised to report it to a senior official. Also speaking to RFA, Nguyen Hoan An — a Vietnamese social activist also living as a refugee in Thailand — said that refugees held in detention are normally freed on the same day their bail is paid. Detainees cannot be forced home if they refuse requests from their embassy to repatriate, An added. He noted however that Thai police have recently entered rented rooms without a warrant to arrest illegal immigrants, reporting falsely that the arrests took place in the street. Refugees’ requests to UNHCR and law firms for help are often handled slowly or receive no reply, An said. “We are calling on communities, media groups and especially the organizations responsible for protecting refugees to pay more attention,” An said. “We hope that they will take action quickly whenever refugees are arrested or face security risks so that they are not intimidated and extradited back to Vietnam.” In January 2019, RFA blogger Truong Duy Nhat was arrested by Vietnamese police agents in Bangkok and forced back to Vietnam just a day after submitting an application for refugee status to UNHCR. He was later taken to court and sentenced to 10 years in prison for “abusing his official position” in a purchase of real estate under Article 356 of Vietnam’s Penal Code. Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- ['I thought the police would immediately begin an investigation': #MeToo plaintiff](https://ij-reportika.com/i-thought-the-police-would-immediately-begin-an-investigation-metoo-plaintiff/): A Beijing court has once more ruled against former CCTV intern Zhou Xiaoxuan in a landmark #MeToo sexual harassment case, saying there isn&#8217;t enough evidence to support her claims against state broadcaster CCTV anchor Zhu Jun. The Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People&#8217;s Court rejected Zhou&#8217;s appeal on Aug. 10, upholding the original judgment of the Haidian District People&#8217;s Court in September 2021. Backed by supporters, Zhou filed a second appeal later the same day, after making an impassioned statement to the court asking some tough questions of China&#8217;s judicial and law enforcement agencies: On June 9, 2014, I was a third-year university student and 21 years old. My first internship was with CCTV&#8217;s program &#8220;Art Life.&#8221; At the time I was being sexually harassed by Zhu Jun in that dressing room, I had feelings of shame around sex, and there was no way I was going to be able to resist in the moment or call for help. I knew how powerful Zhu Jun was, so I daren&#8217;t tell any of the staff who came into the dressing room at that time what I was going through. I think what happened to me is also a common occurrence for women in higher education and in the workplace. The only difference for me was that I had a university lecturer who was willing to help and I made my report to the police with support from that lecturer, a lawyer and my roommate on the day after the incident. Both our lived experience and hard statistics tell us that very few women choose to go to the police when they have suffered sexual harassment or sexual assault. At the time I made my report to the police in 2014, they told my parents that I should withdraw it, citing Zhu Jun&#8217;s status in society. At the time the case came to court for the first time in 2020, court officials told me that it was impossible to lay hands on surveillance camera footage or written evidence supporting my case. In the 2021 judgment document, the court said the burden of proof in such cases falls on the plaintiff, and that the evidence I had supplied was insufficient. Today, this case is back on appeal, in what will probably be my last appearance in court. I have already given an account of the facts of the case to this court, so now I would like to ask the court this: how is a woman who is sexually harassed in a closed space, who hasn&#8217;t expected it, and who has no recording device on her, nor any way to fight back supposed to prove that the harassment took place? Is she just supposed to put up with it, and act like it never happened? Back when I reported this to the police four years ago, in the hope that they would help me, their first response wasn&#8217;t to interrogate the person accused of being the perpetrator. Instead, it was to travel to Wuhan two days later to talk to my parents into having me drop the case. They didn&#8217;t actually go to CCTV to talk to Zhu Jun until a week after I had filed the report, and even then they only took the simplest of statements. Four years later, as I filed my case with the court, officials refused to accept a complaint of sexual harassment, refused to call Zhu Jun in for questioning even when it was confirmed that the person who had taken me into that dressing room and the one who had been in the dressing room that day had lied to back him up. Instead, they told my parents that none of the witness statements, the surveillance footage from the corridor, my dress nor photos or me and Zhu Jun together were admissible as evidence, so I didn&#8217;t have enough evidence to support my case. I would like to ask the court what kind of evidence it would deem admissible? I didn&#8217;t know I was going to be sexually harassed, so I didn&#8217;t bring a secret recording pen on a pinhole camera. I didn&#8217;t feel able to face down Zhu Jun in the middle of CCTV headquarters, neither did I immediately cry for help. I didn&#8217;t feel able to go back to CCTV after filing my report with the police, nor to interview him myself, and I didn&#8217;t have access to the surveillance camera footage. I wasn&#8217;t able to analyze my DNA or Zhu Jun&#8217;s. I was 21, and this was the first time I had ever reported anything to the police. I didn&#8217;t even know to ask for proof of a police report or a receipt for the evidence I gave them. I want to ask those people who backed up Zhu Jun&#8217;s story why they did it. Why they even refused to describe what Zhu Jun was wearing in that dressing room that day. I want to ask the police why they went to Wuhan to talk to my parents, and why they didn&#8217;t go to find Zhu Jun until a week afterwards. I haven&#8217;t seen them once in all the times I have appeared in this courtroom. I haven&#8217;t been able to ask them anything. I don&#8217;t have the wherewithal to find my own evidence: to offer up proof of my own suffering. The university lecturer&#8217;s statement spoke of my sobs, while my roommate&#8217;s statement said I was crying that same evening. Yet they seem to have evaporated. At the age of 21, I chose to go to the police. At the age of 25, I decided to take it to court. I thought the judicial system would help me, and I believed that I had a citizen&#8217;s right to justice. I thought the police would investigate in a timely manner, take steps to preserve all the evidence, and respond to me as required by law. I believed that the court would at least understand the complexities of workplace sexual harassment, and understand the...
- [China's zero-COVID curbs bring Guangdong's manufacturing hub to its knees](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-zero-covid-curbs-bring-guangdongs-manufacturing-hub-to-its-knees/): The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)&#8217;s zero-COVID measures are forcing large numbers of private manufacturers to close in the Pearl River delta region this month, RFA has learned. Last month, Cooper Electronics, based in Guangdong&#8217;s manufacturing hub of Dongguan, announced it would close this month. Hong Kong-owned toymaker Dongguan Kaishan Toys has announced it will follow suit, while Dongguan Jingli Plastics and Electronics will suspend production on Aug. 31 after laying off all of its staff, according to ChinaToysNet. Other private businesses have told RFA they plan to furlough all staff for six months after a massive slump in new orders made it impossible for them to meet their payroll bill. The moves come as foreign-invested manufacturers are increasingly relocating to Vietnam, Cambodia and other Southeast Asian countries, as costs continue to skyrocket in China. Financial commentator Cai Shengkun said the hollowing out of Dongguan as a manufacturing base has been a long time coming. &#8220;Dongguan used to be China&#8217;s manufacturing base, and in its heyday was the production base for products sold by the world&#8217;s largest companies,&#8221; Cai said. &#8220;During its heyday, Dongguan maintained high GDP growth for over a 20-year period &#8230; and accumulated enormous wealth.&#8221; &#8220;But now with the relocation of some industries and the continuous migration of foreign capital, there are not many high-end factories in Dongguan left,&#8221; he said. Cai said CCP leader Xi Jinping&#8217;s insistence on a zero-COVID approach, meaning individuals and entire cities can be placed under lockdown at a moment&#8217;s notice, with mandatory quarantine and testing for all, have also struck a major blow. &#8220;Rising shipping costs and the impact of the pandemic have meant that [these] industries are no longer profitable,&#8221; he said. &#8220;With shipping costs getting higher and higher, these products will no longer have any export advantage.&#8221; This photo taken on July 13, 2022 shows cargo containers stacked at Yantian port in Shenzhen in China&#8217;s southern Guangdong province. Credit: AFP Logistical challenges Kaishan Toys, established in 1998, was once one of Hong Kong&#8217;s most prestigious toy manufacturers, with more than 2,000 employees. But the company has seen a sharp drop in orders since 2021, with most toy production now outsourced to Southeast Asia. At the time of its closure announcement, just 100 employees remained. Meanwhile, Dongguan Jieying Precision Hardware Products has also announced it will close at the end of the month, citing additional costs and logistical challenges under the zero-COVID policy. Other companies are pausing operations, in the hope of making a comeback if business improves. Huizhou Wanzhisheng New Energy Technology announced a five-day furlough for most departments, citing the impact of disease control and prevention restrictions. The problem isn&#8217;t confined to Dongguan or Guangdong province, either. Shandong Guangfu Group, a private iron and steel joint venture established in 1983, suspended production on July 19, with no date for resumption given. And a technology company based in the eastern province of Anhui furloughed all of its staff from July 14 to Jan. 22, 2023. Financial analyst Guan Min said the government has failed to offer any policy incentives or financial support to private enterprises hit by the zero-COVID policy, and that this could be a deliberate choice. &#8220;This is a great opportunity for the state sector to expand, and for the private sector to shrink,&#8221; Guan said. &#8220;Private enterprises have good technology and so much equipment, which can benefit state-owned enterprises if there are mergers.&#8221; Retreat from market economics Guan said he has been warning of a total retreat from market economics under Xi for the past decade. &#8220;Based on the indicators 10 years ago, I said that only large state-owned enterprises would still be operating in China 20 years down the line,&#8221; he said. The government does appear willing to boost the property market, where a slump fueled by a massive backlog in unfinished buildings has started to affect the economy. Since Xi Jinping&#8217;s recent comment that &#8220;housing isn&#8217;t for speculation,&#8221; a number of local governments have announced preferential policies for homebuyers, encouraging rural residents to buy in cities. Homebuyers across China are withholding mortgage payments in protest at stalled construction of properties by major developers across the country until developers resume construction of pre-sold homes, local media and social media reported. Japan&#8217;s Nomura has estimated that developers have only delivered around 60 percent of homes sold before actual construction between 2013 and 2020. China&#8217;s outstanding mortgage loans rose by 26.3 trillion yuan during that period. Social media posts have indicated that, far from moving to ensure that unfinished property is completed, local authorities may be hiring actors to make it look as if work is being done on abandoned construction sites. &#8220;Hiring: actors for a construction site, 100 yuan/day,&#8221; reads a screenshot of a job advertisement that RFA was unable to verify independently. &#8220;Requirements: To bang on the steel pipes, pull trolleys around and pretend to be engaged in construction work if someone comes to check,&#8221; the advertisement reads. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Fighting in Myanmar’s Kachin state kills at least 15 villagers](https://ij-reportika.com/fighting-in-myanmars-kachin-state-kills-at-least-15-villagers/): At least 15 civilians died during fierce fighting between the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and junta forces in Hpakant township, in Myanmar’s northernmost Kachin state. The battle has been raging since Monday, residents of Se Zin village told RFA. Two children were among the civilians killed in airstrikes and ground offensives and the number of casualties may be much higher. “Although it is estimated that there are many dead, I can only confirm 15 bodies at the moment as the situation is still complicated,” a local, who fled the village and did not wish to be named, told RFA on Friday. “There are many dead and we got out of there as quickly as possible. We are trying to make contact with people who have reached Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps, and those who returned home, to confirm the casualties.” Some local media outlets reported the death toll was between 30 and 50 people, but RFA was unable to independently verify the numbers because phone and internet access to Hpakant township has been cut off for the past year. One resident told RFA people fled the village empty-handed and are in urgent need of food and clothing Win Ye Tun, Kachin state’s Military Council Minister for Social Affairs, told RFA efforts were being made to provide supplies to IDPs and confirm the number of casualties. “Details of the death toll are not yet known but we will confirm them step by step,” he said.  “We are ready to assist but if a region is at war we can only help when we are allowed. There will be support [in the village] and support for those who fled.” Earlier this week junta troops burned down as many as 400 homes in Se Zin. The fighting came in response to an attack on Monday by KIA and People’s Defense Forces (PDFs), who captured a military camp in Se Zin and a pro-junta Shanni Nationalities Army camp at a village in Homalin township. In mid-July troops and opposition militia fought for a week near Se Zin. Famous for its jade mines, Hpakant is one of the most heavily-armed townships in Kachin state and the scene of frequent battles. The township is close to the border with Sagaing region, where there is also strong armed resistance to junta forces. Se Zin used to house more than 3,000 people in around 600 homes but most residents have fled to other villages around 40 kilometers (25 miles) away. Some 7,400 people have been forced to flee their homes in Kachin state since the February, 2021 coup, according to the UNHCR. That is less than one percent of the 903,000 IDPs across Myanmar.
- [Chinese and Thai air forces to hold 10-day joint exercise this month](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-and-thai-air-forces-to-hold-10-day-joint-exercise-this-month/): China and Thailand are to kick off a major joint air force exercise on Monday after a two-year suspension due to COVID, the Chinese Defense Ministry announced. The ministry said in a statement on Friday that the Falcon Strike 2022 training exercise will be held at Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base in Udon Thani province, northeastern Thailand. The exercise will begin on Aug. 14 and RFA sources say it will last until Aug. 24. It will include “training courses such as air support, strikes on ground targets, and small and large-scale troop deployment,” according to China’s defense ministry. “The Chinese People&#8217;s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) will dispatch fighter jets, fighter-bombers and airborne early warning (AEW) aircraft, and the Royal Thai Air Force will send its fighter jets and AEW aircraft,” the ministry said. The renewed exercise marks a new effort to “enhance mutual trust and friendship between the two air forces,” the ministry said, as well as to further the strategic cooperation between Thailand and China, as the latter seeks to project power and expand its influence in the region.  The Chinese military has just finished a week-long air-naval exercise around Taiwan as an angry response to a visit to the island by the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi. “Thailand cannot deny China’s military role in this region. The combined exercise enables Thailand to better understand and be more familiar with the PLA’s command and control system and its military doctrine,” Dulyapak Preecharush, Deputy Director of the Institute of East Asian Studies at Thammasat University in Bangkok told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service. Growing military links Reuters quoted an anonymous Thai air force source who said that Thailand will not deploy its F-16s for Falcon Strike 2022. Instead it will use its Swedish-made Saab JAS-39 Gripen fighters as well as German-made Alpha Jet light attack aircraft. It is unclear which types of aircraft China will be deploying for the exercise. Chinese fighters have been seen taking part in recent Sino-Thai Air Force joint training exercises, said Andreas Rupprecht, an expert on China’s military aviation, in a recent interview with RFA. “Thailand has been shifting more towards China in recent years,” Rupprecht said.  Fighter jets from China&#8217;s PLA Air Force and the Royal Thai Air Force fly in tactical formation during joint training exercise Falcon Strike 2019. CREDIT: Chinese Defense Ministry Since the Thai military increased its power after coups in 2006 and 2014, Bangkok bought tanks, armored personnel carriers and entered into a controversial multi-billion-dollar contract to procure submarines from China.  China&#8217;s arms exports to Thailand increased five-fold between 2014 and 2018 compared with the preceding five years, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in Sweden. The Thai-U.S. relationship has encountered some turbulence because of the growing ties between Bangkok and Beijing, despite Thailand being the U.S.’s oldest treaty ally in Asia. The Thai air force expressed a strong interest in buying some F-35 stealth fighter jets to replace its aging fleet of F-16A/B Fighting Falcons but Washington so far seems reluctant to consider the purchase, fearing the fighter’s sensitive technologies could be compromised by China, its biggest military and strategic rival. However the upcoming Falcon Strike exercise should not increase tension between China and the U.S. if it “doesn’t have a scenario such as an attack on U.S. interests or let China become familiar with U.S. military hardware,” argued Thammasat University’s Dulyapak. &#8220;Both the U.S. and China can take turns to hold joint drills with Thailand,&#8221; the analyst said, adding: “There is no monopoly in Thailand’s defense policy.” Falcon Strike joint training exercises have been held annually since 2015 but were suspended in 2000 because of the global COVID pandemic. This year’s event is the 5th training exercise between the air forces of China and Thailand.  Nontarat Phaicharoen in Bangkok contributed to this story.
- [Vietnam sets up specialized police units to suppress protests across the country](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-sets-up-specialized-police-units-to-suppress-protests-across-the-country/): More than a dozen provinces and cities in Vietnam have set up Riot Police Regiments or Battalions to be held in reserve to crack down on people accused of &#8220;disturbing public order&#8221; and carrying out &#8220;illegal demonstrations.&#8221; RFA research shows at least 15 provinces and cities had launched forces as of Oct. 10, 2021. They include Ho Chi Minh City, Binh Duong, Binh Phuoc, Dong Nai, Nghe An, Lao Cai, Bac Giang, Thanh Hoa and Gia Lai. The riot squads have been formed to crack down on worker protests at the many industrial parks in southeastern Vietnam, in places such as Ho Chi Minh City, Binh Duong, and Dong Nai. They could also be used to stop demonstrations by ethnic and religious minorities such as the Protestant Ede and Duong Van Minh sect in provinces like Cao Bang and Gia Lai. On Wednesday the Ho Chi Minh City Police held a launching ceremony for its Reserve Riot Combat Police Regiment. State media said the force was established under a ruling by the Ministry of Public Security to set up Reserve Riot Police Battalions in province-level localities. News sites did not publish the full text of the ministry’s Decision No.1984, which called for the regiment’s formation. According to the Công an Nhân dân (People&#8217;s Police) online newspaper, the regiments and battalions must be ready to fight in any situation when they receive orders from the Ministry of Public Security or directors of province-level police departments. The Ho Chi Minh City Police Department outlined the riot squad’s duties to the media. They include “preventing and suppressing cases of public disorder and illegal demonstrations,” “conducting rescue operations,” “protecting important political events of the Party and State and [maintaining order during] major holidays,” “ensuring political security, social order and safety of the locality,” and “performing other tasks as required.” Police try to stop protesters demanding clean water in Hanoi on May 1, 2016. CREDIT: Reuters Suppression of protests ‘unconstitutional’ A Ho Chi Minh City-based lawyer, who did not wish to be named for security reasons, said &#8220;suppression of unlawful protests&#8221; goes against Vietnam’s Constitution. “I think Vietnam doesn’t yet have a Law on Protests, so it can&#8217;t be said that demonstrations are illegal,” the lawyer said. “The right to protest is a constitutional right, so repression is unconstitutional.” “The Vietnamese state does not mention a Law on Protests, perhaps because it does not want to because it is afraid people will protest [against it].” A woman, who asked only to be named as Phung, participated in protests against China&#8217;s placement of the HD981 oil rig in Vietnam&#8217;s Exclusive Economic Zone in 2014. She told RFA the government has been suspending the Bill on Protests for too long.  “According to the Vietnamese Constitution, people have the right to protest, but the bill on demonstrations has been frozen for many years,” she said. “Basically, in Vietnam, every protest is suppressed, because they have not passed a bill which would allow people to ask for permission to organize demonstrations like in other countries.” “Article 25 of the 2013 Constitution stipulates that ‘Citizens have the right to freedom of speech, freedom of the press, access to information, assembly, association, and demonstration.&#8217; The exercise of these rights is prescribed by law.” Government drags its heels on protest law In 2013, the government directed the Ministry of Public Security to take primary responsibility and coordinate with relevant agencies to develop a draft Law on Protests. The bill has been repeatedly withdrawn from the National Assembly&#8217;s agenda for further study and amendment. In 2017, national legislator Truong Trong Nghia, from Ho Chi Minh City, told the National Assembly that the promulgation of a Law on Protests was necessary in order to implement the 2013 Constitution on ensuring human and citizens’ rights. Since 2018, no National Assembly member or domestic newspaper has mentioned the Bill on Protests. Strengthening the suppression of resistance  According to Hanoi-based journalist Nguyen Vu Binh, in Vietnam what is written in the Constitution is one thing, how it is implemented is another. Binh said the establishment of a specialized agency and riot police force is intended to quell all resistance by the people and comes after a series of fierce crackdowns on protests. “Following the trend of increasing repression in the past four-to-five years, the professionalization of these forces to suppress protests and people&#8217;s resistance is normal in my opinion,” Binh said. Oil rig protester Phung told RFA the repression and suppression of protests has always taken place in Vietnam. She said Vietnam does not need to sign any more international agreements so the government is not interested in respecting human rights. “At this stage Vietnam does not need to join any treaty or agreement, so they want to deal with [whichever protest] they want. Now they are also bolder,” she said. “I believe that even if a force is formed, they will not use uniformed forces to take action to suppress protesters because that will affect the image of the Vietnamese government. They don&#8217;t want to show their true face to the world.&#8221; Human Rights Watch&#8217;s latest report on Vietnam, published in February, said: &#8220;fundamental civil and political rights are systematically suppressed in Vietnam. The government, under the one-party rule of the Communist Party of Vietnam, tightened its grip on the rights to freedom of expression, freedom of association, peaceful assembly, freedom of movement, and freedom of religion.”  
- [Tsai arrives in US amid Beijing’s protests](https://ij-reportika.com/tsai-arrives-in-us-amid-beijings-protests/): Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen arrived in New York on Wednesday amid a war of words between Washington and Beijing about her visit and threats of unspecified “countermeasures” from a Chinese official. Tsai touched down just before 3 p.m. at John F. Kennedy International Airport and was ushered by security into the Lotte New York Palace hotel on Madison Avenue – past throngs of tussling protesters and supporters being watched closely by police – shortly after 4 p.m.  Armed with banners and loudspeakers, protesters led by the New York Alliance for China&#8217;s Peaceful Reunification, a local pro-Beijing group, had arrived early in the day and set up positions along the street. By the time of Tsai’s arrival, the group easily outnumbered Tsai’s supporters, most of whom did not arrive until about half an hour before the Taiwanese president, and though arguments broke out amid a tense mood, police kept the two groups separate. A member of the local Chinese community who requested anonymity due to safety concerns told Radio Free Asia he had received a telephone call from the Chinese Consulate in New York asking him to attend the protest to “safeguard the unity of the motherland.” Travel itinerary Tsai spends two nights in New York, delivering a speech and receiving a leadership award at the Hudson Institute on Thursday, before departing Friday for official visits to Guatemala and Belize. She returns on Tuesday to Los Angeles for two more nights in the United States, where she will deliver a speech to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and meet House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Protestors look on as Taiwan&#8217;s President Tsai Ing-wen, not pictured, arrives at her hotel in New York City on Wednesday, March 29, 2023. (AFP) The trip comes amid tensions between China and the United States over Taiwan in the past year, with U.S. officials accusing Beijing of preparing to invade the self-governing island in the coming years and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last year visiting the island. It’s not the first time a Taiwanese leader has “transited” the United States, with the practice starting in the 1990s, but Beijing appears irked by Tsai’s plans to deliver two speeches and meet McCarthy, who has himself suggested he could repeat Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. Countermeasures The response from Beijing – which views Tsai’s trip as part of a growing effort by Taiwan to assert independence – has already been vexed, with a particular fury reserved for the McCarthy meeting. During a press conference on Wednesday, Zhu Fenglian, spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of China’s State Council, threatened “countermeasures” if Tsai meets with McCarthy. “If she has contact with U.S. House Speaker McCarthy, it will be another provocation that seriously violates the ‘One China’ principle, harms China&#8217;s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and destroys peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” Zhu said before Tsai’s departure.  “We firmly oppose this and will take resolute countermeasures.” Supporters look on as Taiwan&#8217;s President Tsai Ing-wen, not pictured, arrives at her hotel in New York City on Wednesday, March 29, 2023. (AFP) But U.S. officials say the “transit” – Tsai’s seventh time in the United States as Taiwan’s leader – does not constitute an official visit. Instead, they insist that Taiwan’s leader is visiting in a private capacity, and say it’s a standard practice for leaders of the democratic island.  Beijing, though, regards Taiwan a renegade province and has threatened to forcibly “reunite” it with the mainland, and says American relations with Taiwan violate a 50-year-old agreement. Chinese officials also deny that such “transits” are standard. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said Wednesday that the United States was “hollowing out the ‘One China’ principle” and that “past mistakes do not justify any new mistake.” “The ones who are creating the problem and making provocations is not China, but the U.S. and the ‘Taiwan independence’ separatists,” Mao said. “We urge the U.S. to abide by the ‘One China’ principle.” Mao called on the United States to “earnestly deliver on its leaders’ commitment of not supporting ‘Taiwan independence’ or ‘two Chinas’ or ‘One China, one Taiwan,’ stop all forms of official interaction with Taiwan,” and to stop “upgrading” its relationship with Taiwan. ‘External pressure’ Leaving Taiwan on Wednesday, Tsai pledged not to be swayed. “I want to tell the whole world democratic Taiwan will resolutely safeguard the values of freedom and democracy, and will continue to be a force for good in the world, continuing a cycle of goodness, strengthening the resilience of democracy in the world,” Tsai said.  “External pressure,” she added, in reference to the backlash from Beijing, would not “obstruct” Taiwan’s engagement with the world. Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen waves to the media before her departure for New York at Taoyuan International Airport in Taoyuan, Taiwan, Wednesday, March 29, 2023. (Reuters) U.S. officials say Tsai will not meet with anyone from the Biden administration during her six days in total on American soil. State Department principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel reiterated Wednesday that Tsai’s trip was “consistent with our unofficial nature of relations with Taiwan” and did not alter “our ‘One China’ policy,” which diverges from Beijing’s “One China” principle. “There is no reason to take countermeasures; there&#8217;s no reason for Beijing to turn this transit, which is consistent with long-standing U.S. policy, into something it&#8217;s not, or to overreact,” Patel told reporters.  “We oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo, from either side. We don&#8217;t support Taiwan independence and we continue to expect that cross-strait differences be resolved through peaceful means.” But Patel declined to comment on McCarthy’s plans, saying they were his prerogative as a leader of a “co-equal branch of government.” Edited by Malcolm Foster
- [Interview: Indonesian special office to ‘steer ASEAN’s efforts’ on Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-indonesian-special-office-to-steer-aseans-efforts-on-myanmar/): U.S. State Department Counselor Derek Chollet recently returned from a trip to Southeast Asia with stops that included Bangkok and Jakarta. During his visit to Indonesia, Chollet spoke with officials about their country’s role as this year’s chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, and the establishment of a special office within its foreign ministry to focus on the political crisis in fellow bloc member Myanmar. At the end of January, Chollet described Washington’s goal as being to “foster conditions that end the current crisis” in Myanmar and return the country to “the path of inclusive, representative multiparty democracy.” Amid frustration over the lack of progress in Myanmar and ASEAN’s handling of the crisis, Chollet claimed that sanctions leveled against the junta for its violent repression of the opposition “have had some effect,” reducing its sources of funding. But he acknowledged that more needs to be done, including ending the “steady pipeline of arms” that continues to enter the country and which the junta has used against its people. Chollet sat down with RFA Burmese’s Ye Kaung Myint Maung on Monday to discuss how the United States is working to achieve its goal in Myanmar both unilaterally and through cooperation with partners in the region. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. RFA Burmese: What can you tell me about your trip to Southeast Asia last week? Chollet: I was able to talk to our partners in Indonesia about their ASEAN chair year and some of their aspirations for that year. They have established a special office inside the foreign ministry to focus on the crisis in Myanmar and help steer ASEAN’s efforts when it comes to addressing the crisis in Myanmar. They have named a very senior diplomat to lead that office. Someone who is very well known to us here in the United States … I had a chance to speak with him as well as Foreign Minister [Retno] Marsudi about the situation in Myanmar. And some of their thinking about how they&#8217;re going to try to achieve some results. So we talked about all sorts of issues related to the crisis, whether it&#8217;s our work to help provide humanitarian assistance to the refugees in and across the border from Myanmar into Thailand to ways that we&#8217;re going to work together with ASEAN to try to continue to pressure the junta, to further isolate them and to do what we can to support the democratic opposition inside Myanmar. RFA Burmese: So what would be the [role] of that office in Indonesia? Chollet: They are looking to help coordinate efforts on behalf of Indonesia for ASEAN in this chair year and it&#8217;s including trying to lead the diplomatic efforts that ASEAN is undertaking and implement the five point consensus [agreed to in April 2021 at an emergency meeting to end violence in Myanmar], to setting up a process to provide greater humanitarian assistance through the [ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance] into Myanmar, to coming up with a work plan for how to use the coming year with key leadership meetings with ministers meetings and, of course, eventually with the summit later this year to try to get some important decisions made through ASEAN about Myanmar – all in the service of trying to implement the five point consensus. Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi, shown in this file photo, spoke with US State Department Counselor Derek Chollet about the situation in Myanmar. Indonesia is the current chair of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Credit: Associated Press RFA Burmese: What updates do you have on U.S. assistance for the people of Myanmar as mandated by the Burma Act? Chollet: We are working every day to implement the measures of the Burma Act. And we are one of the largest, if not the largest, donor of humanitarian assistance to Myanmar. We work intensively through our embassy in [Yangon] to provide humanitarian assistance and also to provide non-lethal assistance to the pro-democratic opposition and help them on everything from planning to budgeting to administration, particularly in areas which are now about 50% of the country that fall outside the [junta’s] control. So we find it very important that we have this support, bipartisan support, on Capitol Hill and are regularly in touch with our Congress on the way forward in implementing the Burma Act. RFA Burmese: The establishment of the special office – do you think it’s significant and why? Chollet: Previous chairs of ASEAN, Brunei and Cambodia, [have acted as] foreign ministers and special envoys &#8230; They were worried about managing the ASEAN agenda across the board. They have to participate in many meetings all around the world, in addition to their ASEAN duties and in addition to their concerns about Myanmar. So I think it makes a lot of sense to have this special office. It&#8217;s ensuring that there is high-level focused attention on the situation inside Myanmar. And they&#8217;re good partners of the United States. Russian and Chinese influence RFA Burmese: You said, during your trip, that Russian arms support for the junta is destabilizing the entire region. So what can you tell me about what the U.S. is doing to counter that Russian support? Chollet: We are making very clear to all of our partners that that support is unacceptable. We are also trying to make it harder for the junta to get the resources to acquire weapons that are fueling its war machine. Just last week, on Friday, when I returned from the trip, the United States announced another round of sanctions against several individuals and entities inside Myanmar that are associated with its acquisition of arms and particularly air power. Because what we&#8217;re seeing is the junta is increasingly using air power to go after the opposition because they&#8217;re finding that they&#8217;re less successful when they&#8217;re using ground forces. Myanmar junta leader Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing sits in the cockpit of a newly acquired Russian SU-30 SME...
- [Congressional hearing examines Chinese repression in Tibet](https://ij-reportika.com/congressional-hearing-examines-chinese-repression-in-tibet/): During a congressional hearing Tuesday on China’s growing repression in Tibet, U.S. Rep. Zach Nunn likened Beijing’s policy to an idea from an ancient Chinese essay about political strategy – sacrificing the plum tree to preserve the peach tree. “What they mean by this is that you can sacrifice in the short-term those who are the most vulnerable for the strength of those who are in power,” said Nunn, a Republican from Iowa, referring to a phrase from Wang Jingze’s 6th-century essay, The Thirty-Six Stratagems. “We are seeing this played out constantly in the autonomous state of Tibet today by the Chinese government,” said Nunn, a former intelligence officer. The hearing examined China’s increasing restrictions on linguistic and cultural rights in Tibet, its use of what commission members call “colonial boarding schools” for Tibetan children and attempts to clamp down on Tibetans abroad. It was held as both houses of Congress consider legislation that would strengthen U.S. policy to promote dialogue between China and Tibetan Buddhists’ spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, or his representatives. The Dalai Lama and the Central Tibetan Administration, Tibet’s government-in-exile in Dharamsala, India, have long advocated a middle way approach to peacefully resolve the issue of Tibet and to bring about stability and co-existence based on equality and mutual cooperation without discrimination based on one nationality being superior or better than the other.  There have been no formal talks between the two sides, and Chinese officials have made unreasonable demands of the Dalai Lama as a condition for further dialogue. Chinese communists invaded Tibet in 1949, seeing the region as important to consolidate its frontiers and address national defense concerns in the southwest. A decade later, tens of thousands of Tibetans took to the streets of Lhasa, the regional capital, in protest against China’s invasion and occupation of their homeland.  People’s Liberation Army forces violently crackdown on Tibetan protesters surrounding the Dalai Lama&#8217;s summer palace Norbulingka, forcing him to flee to Dharamsala, followed by some 80,000 Tibetans. U.S. bill on Tibet The Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Conflict Act, introduced in the House in February and in the Senate in December 2022, also direct the U.S. State Department’s Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues, currently Uzra Zeya, to ensure government statements and documents counter disinformation about Tibet from Chinese officials, including disinformation about the history of Tibet, the Tibetan people and Tibetan institutions. In recent years, the Chinese government has stepped up its repressive rule in Tibet in an effort to erode Tibetan culture, language and religion.  This includes the forced collection of biometric data and DNA in the form of involuntary blood samples taken from school children at boarding schools without parental permission. Penpa Tsering, the leader, or Sikyong of the Central Tibetan Administration, testified virtually before the commission, that reports by the United Nations and scholarly research indicates that the Chinese government’s policy of “one nation, one language, one culture, and one religion” is aimed at the “forcible assimilation and erasure of Tibetan national identity.” Rep. Zach Nunn participates in a congressional hearing on Tibet in Washington, D.C., Tuesday, March 28, 2023. Credit: Gemunu Amarasinghe/RFA As examples of the policy, Tsering pointed to the use of artificial intelligence to surveil Tibetans, the curtailing of information flows to areas outside the region, interference in the selection of the next Dalai Lama, traditionally chosen based on reincarnation, the forced relocation of Tibetans to Chinese developed areas inside the region and “unscrupulous” development that damages the environment. “If the PRC [People’s Republic of China] is not made to reverse and change its current policies, Tibet and Tibetans will definitely die a slow death,” Tsering said. American actor and social activist Richard Gere, chairman of the International Campaign for Tibet, told the commission that the United States must “speak with a unified voice” and engage European like-minded partners against China’s repression in Tibet. China’s pattern of repression in Tibet “gives reason for grave concern and it increasingly expands to match the definition of crimes against humanity,” Gere said.  Forced separation China’s assault on Tibetan culture includes the forced separation of about 1 million children from their families and putting them in Chinese-run boarding schools where they learn a Chinese-language curriculum and the forced relocation of nomads from their ancestral lands, he said. Lhadon Tethong, director of the Tibet Action Institute, an organization that uses digital communication tools with strategic nonviolent action to advance the Tibetan freedom movement, elaborated on the separation of school children from their families. Agents of the Chinese government are using manipulation and technologies of oppression “To bully, threaten, harass and intimidate” members of the Tibetan diaspora into silence, said Tenzin Dorjee [right] a senior researcher and strategist at the Tibet Action Institute. Richard Gere, chairman of the board of the rights group International Campaign for Tibet [left] and Lhadon Tethong, director of the Tibet Action Institute, also spoke at the congressional hearing in Washington, D.C., Tuesday, March 28, 2023. Credit: Gemunu Amarasinghe/RFA “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping now believes the best way for China to conquer Tibet is to kill the Tibetan in the child,” she told the commission. “He’s doing this by taking nearly all Tibetan children away from their families and from the people who will surely transmit this identity to them — not just their parents, but their spiritual leaders and their teachers — and he’s handing them over to agents of the Chinese state to raise them to speak a new language, practices a new culture and religion — that of the Chinese Communist Party.” Tethong’s colleague, Tenzin Dorjee, a senior researcher and strategist at the Tibet Action Institute, discussed how China has extended its repressive policies beyond Tibet to target Tibetan diaspora communities in India, Nepal, Europe and North America through surveillance and harassment. Formal and informal agents of the Chinese government use manipulation and technologies of oppression “To bully, threaten, harass and intimidate” members of the diaspora into silence, he said. “The best way to counter China’s transnational repression is to...
- [Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party dissolved by Myanmar’s junta](https://ij-reportika.com/aung-san-suu-kyis-national-league-for-democracy-party-dissolved-by-myanmars-junta/): Myanmar’s military junta on Tuesday announced the dissolution of the National League for Democracy – the party led by Aung San Suu Kyi that won the 2020 elections in a landslide – ahead of elections the regime plans to hold later this year. The NLD did not re-register with the military junta’s Election Commission, which said a total of 40 political parties were dissolved because they did not re-register as political parties within 60 days, according to the new laws and regulations enacted by the military council. Opponents and analysts say new stricter eligibility requirements, approved in January by the military that took control of the government in a February 2021 coup, favor military-aligned parties and seek to legitimize the junta through a sham election. Some opponents of the military have urged a boycott of the election, the date of which has yet to be announced. Opponents warn that smaller parties that take part will likely lose and only lend credibility to the junta.  There are 63 political parties that have registered with the commission as of Tuesday. Only the Union Solidarity and Development Party, which ran the country as a quasi-civilian government under then-President Thein Sein after an opposition boycott of the 2010 election held by the previous junta, is seen as a legitimate contender in 2023.  The party, which serves as the junta’s electoral proxy, challenged the NLD’s election win in 2010 based on allegations of fraud and assumed Myanmar’s presidency following the 2021 coup.  But other groups, including the Shan and Ethnic Nationalities Party, believe that an election is the only way to reestablish civilian rule in Myanmar. A cordoned-off gate with the insignia for the National League for Democracy (NLD) party is seen near the home of deposed NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi in Yangon, Myanmar, June 23, 2022. Credit: AFP ‘Never turning back to democracy’ “The military junta has learned clearly by taking the 2010 general election into account that they would lose the election if the opposition party NLD competes,” political and legal analyst Kyee Myint said.  That’s why the junta has detained Suu Kyi, just as they have in the past, he said. “The military has proven again this time that they are never turning back to democracy,” Kyee Myint said. “In fact, we already know it as a fact. We just continue to see more and more proof that backs this fact.” The election commission is organized under an illegal military junta that has operated as a terrorist organization, said Nay Phone Latt, a spokesman for the shadow National Unity Government. “There is no reason that these political parties should be dissolved just by an announcement of this so-called election commission,” he said. RFA sought comment from the U.S. State Department on the election commission’s action but didn’t immediately receive a response on Tuesday.  The announcement that the 40 parties have been dissolved carries no legitimacy because the junta itself doesn’t represent the people and “is by no means legal,” said Kyaw Htway, a Central Working Committee member for the NLD. Over and over, the junta has searched party offices, sealed off homes and seized the property of party members, Kyaw Htway said.  “Our party has a lot of experience resisting the repression of a series of military dictators over the 30 years since it was established,” he said. “In this modern technological age, we can still do even more for the people despite the junta’s announcement.” “That’s why I want to say that our party that emerged from the people, with the trust and support of them, will continue to exist so long as the people exist.” Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar junta chief marks Armed Forces Day with vow to eradicate opposition](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-chief-marks-armed-forces-day-with-vow-to-eradicate-opposition/): Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing marked the 78th anniversary of the country’s Armed Forces Day on Monday with a vow to “take decisive action” against the military’s opposition, prompting derision from observers who dismissed what they said were empty threats. Speaking at a ceremony in the capital Naypyidaw, Min Aung Hlaing called the shadow National Unity Government, anti-junta People’s Defense Force paramilitary groups, and armed ethnic organizations “terrorists” who seek to destroy the nation, vowing to eradicate them. “The Tatmadaw is going to work to ensure the safety and security of the socio-economic lives of the people and to achieve full stability and rule of law throughout the nation,” he said, using the official name of the country’s military. “In doing so, we are going to take decisive action against the NUG and terrorist organizations and the [ethnic armies] who are helping them.” Min Aung Hlaing spoke at a massive parade ground flanked by the towering golden statues of three kings who founded Myanmar’s key dynasties. The ceremony was replete with a color guard on horseback, thousands of marching soldiers shouldering rifles with bayonets, tanks, and mobile missile launchers. Amid the fanfare, it was difficult to tell that the parade ground had come under attack only a day earlier by the PDF, which hit the site with four 107mm rockets. While the junta has yet to issue any statement about the rocket attack, security was notably tightened on Monday, with double the number of troops posted at Naypyidaw’s entrances and crowded marketplaces. As the festivities were held, opposition groups protested military rule in several cities, including the commercial capital Yangon. Clockwise from top left: A military display takes part in the parade celebrating Myanmar&#8217;s 78th Armed Forces Day in Naypyidaw on Monday, March 27, 2023; soldiers march during the parade; a soldier sits drives a tank during the parade; and Chinese military officers attend the ceremony. Credit [clockwise from top left]: AFP, Associated Press, Associated Press, AFP Nan Lin of the University Students’ Union Alumni Force in Yangon told RFA that the junta was using Armed Forces Day to display its strength to its opponents, but said his impression was much different than it was two years ago, just weeks after the military seized power in a Feb. 1 coup d’etat. On Armed Forces Day in 2021, the junta violently suppressed and fired on protesters across the country, killing more than 100 civilians, according to data collected by Thailand’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma).   “Their military demonstration two years ago was intended to show the international community how powerful they were and how much they were in control of the country,” he said. “But this year, I see that the military parade on Tatmadaw Day is just a failing attempt to show the military and its sympathizers – as well as the people and the international community – that they still hold onto power.” Following the coup, the military launched an ambitious offensive to subdue its opposition throughout the country. The offensive quickly devolved into a scorched earth campaign, with junta troops regularly looting villages, torching homes, and torturing and killing civilians. But more than two years later, the military has made little headway, while the armed opposition has increasingly adapted and made significant gains, despite being outmatched in equipment, training, and manpower. Empty threats Ethnic armed groups and PDF groups shrugged off Min Aung Hlaing’s threats on Monday, telling RFA that there is little the military can do that it hasn’t already tried. Khu Hteh Bu, the spokesperson of the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP), the political wing of the Karenni Army, said the military has been arresting and torturing Myanmar’s ethnic minorities “for decades” with no result. “We think that the more threateningly they talk to us, the more they reveal the pain and loss they have suffered because of us,” he said. “They are using all their strength to crush us. But since the people neither support them nor give up rebelling against them, they are just creating their own sordid destiny.” Former Major Cpt. Ngwe Soe, who defected from the military and is now the spokesman for the Naypyidaw PDF, called Min Aung Hlaing’s threats hollow. “This is just his foolish stance to never back down until his last breath, but it will never be possible to crush us like he said,” Ngwe Soe said. “The revolutionary forces – such as the NUG, the PDF and the [ethnic armies] have made significant progress in the two years since the military coup.” National Unity Government Ministers’ Office spokesman Nay Phone Latt said the military is already throwing everything it has at the armed resistance, with little to show for it. “The NUG, the PDFs and the ethnic forces are well prepared for their attacks,” he said. Seven elderly villagers killed Armed Forces Day came as at least seven elderly residents burned to death in fires set by junta troops during a raid on Sone Kone village in Sagaing region’s Budalin township over the weekend. A resident of Sone Kone told RFA that a military column of more than 50 troops descended on the village at around 8 a.m. on Saturday and began setting structures alight, trapping the six elderly women and one elderly man inside. “Their family members left them at home as they were too old to run or move quickly,” said the resident who, like other sources interviewed for this story, spoke on condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal. “Since the elderly people who were left in their homes during previous raids were spared, the younger villagers just ran for their lives, leaving the victims behind in their homes, thinking that [the soldiers] would not harm the elderly. When the burnings began, there was nothing they could do to save them.” Myanmar junta forces destroyed 175 of the 300 homes in Sone Kone village, Budalin township, Sagaing region on Saturday, Mar. 25, 2023. Seven elderly people were killed in the...
- [U.S. sanctions two people, six entities for supplying Myanmar with jet fuel](https://ij-reportika.com/u-s-sanctions-two-people-six-entities-for-supplying-myanmar-with-jet-fuel/): The United States Treasury Department has announced additional sanctions on Myanmar to prevent supplies of jet fuel from reaching the military in response to airstrikes on populated areas and other atrocities. The sanctions came just days before Myanmar celebrated its 78th Armed Forces Day on Monday. The announcement on Friday targeted two individuals, Tun Min Latt and his wife Win Min Soe, and six companies including, Asia Sun Trading Co. Ltd., which purchased jet fuel for the junta’s air force; Cargo Link Petroleum Logistics Co. Ltd., which transports jet fuel to military bases; and Asia Sun Group, the “key operator in the jet fuel supply chain.” The statement said that since the Feb. 1, 2021 coup that overthrew the country’s democratically elected government, the junta continually targeted the people of Myanmar with atrocities and violence, including airstrikes in late 2022 in Let Yet Kone village in central Myanmar that hit a school with children and teachers inside, and another in Kachin state that targeted a music concert and killed 80 people. According to a March 3 report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, junta-led airstrikes more than doubled from 125 in 2021 to 301 in 2022. Those airstrikes would have been impossible without access to fuel supplies, according to reports from civil society organizations, Friday’s announcement said.  “Burma’s military regime continues to inflict pain and suffering on its own people,” said Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E. Nelson. “The United States remains steadfast in its commitment to the people of Burma, and will continue to deny the military the materiel it uses to commit these atrocities.” Helicopters and other aircraft are displayed at the Diamond Jubilee celebration of Myanmar’s air force, Dec. 15, 2022. on diamond Jubilee celebration of the Military Air Force. Credit: Myanmar military The announcement named Tun Min Latt as the key individual in procuring fuel supplies for the military, saying he was a close associate of the junta’s leader Sr. Gen Min Aung Hlaing. Through his companies, he engaged in business to import military arms and equipment with U.S. sanctioned Chinese arms firm NORINCO, the announcement said. “The United States continues to promote accountability for the Burmese military regime’s assault on the democratic aspirations of the people of Burma,” said U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in a separate statement. “The regime continues to inflict pain and suffering on the people of Burma.” The additional sanctions by the U.S. aligned with actions taken by Canada, the United Kingdom and the European Union, Blinken said. Cutting bloodlines “I am very thankful to the United States for these sanctions,” Nay Phone Lat, the spokesperson for Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, told Radio Free Asia’s Burmese Service. “I know that sanctions are usually done one step after another. It’s like cutting the bloodlines of the military junta one after another.” He said that the shadow government was trying to cut each route of support for the junta, including jet fuel, one after another. “[The junta’s] capability of suppressing and killing innocent civilians will be lessened,” he said. Banyar, the director of the Karenni Human Rights Group, which was among 516 civil organizations that made a request in December to the United Kingdom to take immediate action to prevent British companies from transporting or selling jet fuel to the Myanmar military junta, told RFA that the U.S. sanctions would have many impacts.  “If you look at the patterns, the number one thing is that taking action against these companies that provide services to the junta directly discredits the military junta,” he said. “And the sanctioned companies are also punished in some ways. We can say that this is also a way to pressure other companies to not support the military junta.” But Myanmar has been sanctioned before to little effect, said Thein Tun Oo, executive director of Thayninga Institute for Strategic Studies, which is made up of former military officers. “No matter what sanctions are imposed, there will not be any major impact on Myanmar as it has learned how to survive through sanctions. There may be a little percentage of economic slowdown but that’s about it,” he said. The military has many options when it comes to buying jet fuel, said Thein Tun Oo. “We are not buying from just one source that they have just sanctioned, we can buy from all other sources. Jet fuel is produced from not just one place,” he said. “If we want it from countries in affiliation with the United States, we may have problems but the United States is not the only country that produces jet fuel, so there is no problem for the Myanmar military.” The military could look to China, Thailand, India or Russia for jet fuel if necessary, political analyst Than Soe Naing told RFA. “The sanctions imposed against the Myanmar military are little more than an expression of opinion, in my point of view, as they cannot actually restrict the junta effectively from getting what it needs,” said Than Soe Naing. “The reason is that the three neighboring countries and Russia can still supply the junta with the jet fuel from many other routes.” Ze Thu Aung, a former Air Force captain who left the military to join an armed resistance movement after the coup, told RFA that U.S. sanctions are not enough to stop the junta. “Whatever sanctions [Washington] imposes, the military junta can still survive as it is still in control of its major businesses such as the jade, oil and natural gas industries,” he said. “They have enormous funds left. They have Russia backing them as well. China is supporting them to some extent, too.” Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Eugene Whong and Matt Reed.
- [Hong Kong police force protesters to wear numbered badges, march in cordon](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-police-force-protesters-to-wear-numbered-badges-march-in-cordon/): Participants in the first public protest in Hong Kong since a draconian national security law took effect were forced to wear badges and walk within a police cordon last weekend. A few dozen people protesting a proposed land reclamation project and garbage processing facility marched in the eastern district of Tseung Kwan O on Sunday, wearing numbered lanyards and walking within a security ribbon in a manner reminiscent of an elementary school outing. The protest was the first to go ahead since the ruling Chinese Communist Party imposed a national security law on Hong Kong in July 2020, ushering in a citywide crackdown on public dissent and peaceful opposition that has seen dozens of former opposition lawmakers and pro-democracy activists stand trial for “subversion” for holding a primary election. But protesters said the restrictions imposed on them weren&#8217;t acceptable. “To be honest, a lot of people including myself feel that wearing numbered lanyards and walking inside a security tape is actually pretty humiliating,” political activist and former Democratic Party member Cyrus Chan told Radio Free Asia at the protest. “A lot of us have years of experience as marshals in the [formerly annual] July 1 demonstrations and the [now-banned] Tiananmen massacre vigils,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.” “We feel as if we are living in a whole new world,” Chan said. “As to whether that’s a brave and beautiful new Hong Kong in which we are free, or one in which we are subject to all manner of restrictions, I hope the government will consider this question.” Protesters had to wear these numbered lanyards during their march in Hong Kong on March 26, 2023. Credit: AFP Dragged around ‘like livestock’ Police earlier gave permission – via a “letter of no objection” – for a women’s rights march in honor of International Women’s Day, but organizers later canceled the event amid threats from police that they would arrest key activists. Sunday’s protest also received a letter of no objection after organizers applied for permission to hold a march of up to 300 people, but with a number of conditions attached, including individually numbered lanyards for each participant and a cordon preventing anyone from joining the protest if they hadn&#8217;t been there from the start. “Some lawbreakers may mix into the public meeting and procession to disrupt public order or even engage in illegal violence,” the police letter said by way of explanation. Participants were also told they couldn’t wear masks or cover their faces. “I really don’t like wearing a number, being numbered,” one participant told Radio Free Asia. “It really places limits on the spontaneity of the event, and makes people wary of taking part.” “We were dragged around inside this cordon the whole time like livestock,” they said. “It was really strange.” Former pro-democracy lawmaker Ted Hui, now living in Australia, said the mask bans first emerged as part of “emergency measures” taken to curb the 2019 protest movement, which had massive popular support for its resistance to the erosion of Hong Kong’s promised freedoms, and its demand for fully democratic elections. Protesters walk within a cordon line wearing number tags during a rally in Hong Kong on March 26, 2023. Credit: Associated Press Color revolution fears Beijing has dismissed the protest movement as the work of “hostile foreign forces” who were trying to foment a “color revolution” in Hong Kong through successive waves of mass protests in recent years. The government last week ordered the takedown of a digital artwork bearing some of the protesters’ names. “There was a lot of opposition [to the mask ban] back then,” Hui said. “Yet they are still using this law three years later, which tells us that the Hong Kong government hasn’t learned any lessons [from the 2019 protest movement].” Hui said the new system is similar to “real-name” requirements typically used to track people’s activities in mainland China, and will likely put participants at greater risk of official reprisals. “The Hong Kong government will definitely be retaliating against participants,” he said. “They may or may not prosecute them, or they could investigate them, or confiscate their travel documents.” “That’s the sort of thing people have been accustomed to seeing in Hong Kong over the past three years,” Hui said, adding that the freedoms of association, assembly and expression enshrined in the city&#8217;s mini-constitution, the Basic Law, now exist in name only. A spokesperson for the Democratic Party said the whole point of a protest is to allow for the airing of public opinion, so the number of participants shouldn’t be limited. The government-run Independent Police Complaints Council said the conditions placed on protesters were “understandable,” and said not every demonstration would necessarily be subject to the same restrictions in future. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Matt Reed.
- [For founder’s birthday, North Korean cities ordered to decorate streets with flowers](https://ij-reportika.com/for-founders-birthday-north-korean-cities-ordered-to-decorate-streets-with-flowers/): To celebrate the April 15 birthday of North Korea’s founder Kim Il Sung, authorities have ordered cities and towns to decorate the streets with flowers for the first time in three years, two sources in the country told Radio Free Asia. The holiday is a big deal in North Korea, where it is known as the “Day of the Sun.” Together with the “Day of the Shining Star,” the Feb. 16 birthday of his son, Kim Jong Il, the holiday perpetuates the personality cult surrounding the Kim family, which has ruled the country for three generations. Normally, the capital of Pyongyang and other major cities are decorated with flowers and new propaganda paintings and slogans are splashed across the cities ahead of the Day of the Sun, but that stopped about three years ago in most places due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Authorities want to bring the flowers back this year, even in rural towns and villages, a company official from Pochon county in the northern province of Ryanggang told RFA’s Korean Service Wednesday on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “It seems like an attempt to change the mood in the province, which has gone sour due to ongoing food shortages and a lack of daily necessities,” the source said. North Korea’s food situation was already dire prior to the pandemic but it got worse when authorities shut down the Sino-Korean border and suspended all trade for more than two years. Although rail freight between the northeast Asian neighbors has resumed, North Korea has not yet fully recovered.  Flowers play an important role in the Days of the Sun and Shining Star because both of the late leaders have flower species named after them, a strain of orchid named Kimilsungia, and a strain of begonia named Kimjongilia, although it wasn’t clear if this year’s decoration orders called for either species. People walk in the street decorated with colorful flowers on the occasion of the 110th birth anniversary of late North Korean leader Kim Il Sung, in Pyongyang, April 15, 2022. Credit: Associated Press Paper flowers to make up for shortfall To adorn the streets of Pochon county with flowers, the landscaping management office has had to get creative, making paper flowers to make up for a shortfall of real ones, the source said. “They are growing as many fresh flowers as possible to decorate the center of the town and supplement them with paper flowers if they don’t have enough,” said the source.  “The landscaping management office operates a small vinyl greenhouse but it is difficult to keep the temperature constant, so they have not been able to grow many flowers.” The greenhouse’s temperature is maintained by firewood brought in by employees from the mountainside, it hasn’t been working well. “The office therefore distributed five flower pots to each employee who lives in decent conditions to grow the flowers in their homes,” the source said. Chongjin scramble In Chongjin, one of the country’s largest cities, authorities are scrambling to grow flowers fast enough.  They haven’t had to prepare flowers for the Day of the Sun in three years, and the order took them by surprise, a resident there told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “This year the Central Committee issued instructions to decorate the roads with flowers to create a festive atmosphere, so the landscaping management office of each district of the city, as well as the city’s flower office are struggling to prepare fresh flowers,” the second source said. “Keeping the right temperature inside the greenhouse is key to growing flowers quickly so that they can be ready for April 15th,” the second source said. “Currently, landscaping management offices and flower offices are spending money that they barely have to buy firewood from the market to maintain the temperature.” This could turn out to be problematic down the road, as the central government has not told the local office that they would finance their firewood purchases, the second source said.  Most residents could care less about the festivities or the flowers, the second source said. “[They] are busy making a living every day have no time to appreciate or think about flowers,” he said. “The authorities’ order to set the holiday atmosphere with flower decorations for the ‘Day of the Sun’ is just a makeshift measure to try to end the dark atmosphere caused by hardships in life.”  Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Chinese coast guard ship chased out of Vietnam waters](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-coast-guard-ship-chased-out-of-vietnam-waters/): A Chinese coast guard ship and a Vietnamese fisheries patrol boat apparently had a tense encounter during the weekend in the South China Sea, coming as close as 10 meters to each other, according to data from Marine Traffic, a ship-tracking website. The data, based on the ships’ automatic identification system (AIS) signals, shows that the China Coast Guard ship, CCG5205, and Vietnam’s Kiem Ngu 278 came “crazy close” to one another at around 7 a.m. on Sunday local time (midnight UTC), said a researcher based in California. As of Monday afternoon (local time), the CCG5205 was operating in Malaysia’s exclusive economic zone after it left Vietnam waters where the Kiem Ngu 278 had been pursuing the considerably larger Chinese ship since March 24, tracking data showed. At one point the two ships were less than 10 meters (32.8 feet) apart, according to Ray Powell, the Project Myoushu (South China Sea) lead at Stanford University, who first spotted the incident at sea. “The Vietnamese ship was pretty bold given the difference in size – the Chinese ship is twice the size of the Vietnamese ship,” Powell said. “It must have been a very tense engagement.” The incident occurred some 50 nautical miles (92.6 kilometers) south of Vanguard Bank, a known South China Sea flashpoint between Vietnam and China. About 90 minutes later, the Chinese ship left Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) where it had been since Friday evening. An EEZ gives a state exclusive access to the natural resources in the waters and in the seabed. Ship-tracking data shows Vietnam’s Kiem Ngu 278 was closely following the Chinese coast guard vessel CCG5205. [Marine Traffic] Last month, the same China Coast Guard ship was accused of approaching about 150 yards (137 meters) from a Philippine Coast Guard ship and pointing a laser at the crew, causing temporary blindness to them. On Feb. 6, the Philippine Coast Guard said that the Chinese ship had “directed a military-grade laser light” twice at the BRP Malapascua, which was on its way to deliver food and supplies to the troops stationed at the Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea. Manila lodged a diplomatic protest and the U.S. State Department issued a statement supporting “our Philippine allies.” Beijing rejected the allegation, saying the Philippine ship had “intruded into the waters” off the Spratly Islands “without Chinese permission” and the Chinese coast guard ship had “acted in a professional and restrained way.” ‘Too close for comfort’ In the Sunday encounter, Marine Traffic’s past track showed the Chinese CCG5205 and the Vietnamese Kiem Ngu 278 were so close that they could have collided. “Ten meters between ships is really too close for comfort,” said Collin Koh, a Singapore-based regional maritime analyst. “Depending on the sea state, the risk of collision is fairly high,” Koh told Radio Free Asia (RFA). A retired Vietnamese Navy senior officer, who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic, said the two ships must have narrowly escaped a collision because they were sailing in opposite directions and at a very slow speed. “If they were heading to the same direction a collision would have not been avoidable as the distance is too close and too dangerous,” he said. Chinese ships had deliberately rammed Vietnamese patrol ships in the past, he added, but not in recent years. The CCG5205 left Sanya, in Hainan island, for the current mission on March 11 and entered Vietnam’s EEZ the first time on March 12. It then moved to the overlapping area between claimant states in the South China Sea and Malaysia’s EEZ before entering Vietnam’s EEZ again on March 21 for a couple hours and for the third time on March 24 when the Kiem Ngu 278 chased it. At around midnight UTC on March 26, Vietnam’s Kiem Ngu 278 and China’s CCG5205 were dangerously close. [Marine Traffic] The Kiem Ngu 278, officially named Vietnamese Fisheries Resources Surveillance ship KN-278, is homeported in Vung Tau, south of Ho Chi Minh City. It left base on March 13 and had been following the Chinese vessel closely since. In July 2021, the Kiem Ngu 278 was following another Chinese coast guard ship, the CCG5202, which Vietnam accused of harassing its gas-exploration activities. Six parties hold claims to parts of the South China Sea and its natural resources but China’s claim is the biggest and Beijing has been trying to hinder other countries’ oil and gas activities in the waters inside its self-claimed nine-dash line. A 2,600-ton Chinese survey vessel, the Haiyang Dizhi Si Hao, had lingered inside Vietnam’s EEZ from March 9 until March 25, when it switched off its AIS, according to data from Marine Traffic.  Its whereabouts are currently unknown.
- [The Chinese Cruel Cobalt Conundrum: A ground report from Congo](https://ij-reportika.com/the-chinese-cruel-cobalt-conundrum-a-ground-report-from-congo/): A detailed report with on the ground investigation inputs and new revelations on the Chinese cobalt mining operations in Congo.
- [The detrimental impact of Chinese DWF on the environment](https://ij-reportika.com/the-detrimental-impact-of-chinese-dwf-on-the-environment/): With the local and domestic marine life depleted, many of the industrialized nations such as China are looking towards foreign waters to meet the need for seafood. This had led to the exploitation of less industrialized and under-developed nations, especially in Africa and Latin America. Not only are these distant water fishing fleets competing with the local fishermen but also are responsible for overfishing and extraction of unsustainable amounts of seafood through illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing activities. According to our comprehensive report, China has deployed its distant-water fishing (DWF) vessels across every ocean around the globe. It has also been found guilty of trespassing in the Exclusive Economic Zones of more than 80 countries and fishing outside its EEZ on the high seas. With more than 18,000 boats in the world’s oceans, China has consistently ranked top in seafood production and fish capture. Producing almost 12 million tons of live weight, almost double of Indonesia, the second largest producer, it is quite evident that Chinese DWF is heavily engaged in IUU fishing activities and catching way above the surplus amount. Distant-water fishing fleets are vessels that operate within the EEZs of other countries that have signed access agreements to allow these fleets to fish inside their territories as well as on the high seas. However, the DWFs are only allowed to take the ‘surplus’ fish not caught by the host country against a fee negotiated under the access agreement. According to our findings in the comprehensive report, Chinese authorities have not published any statistics regarding catch or stocks, and these fleets have been catching well above the surplus. In addition, there have been accusations about them falsifying licenses &amp; documentation, espionage &amp; reconnaissance activities, seizing territories, generating a lot of sea waste, and targeting endangered shark species. Pollution caused by the DWF The distant-water fishing vessels travel from one side of the globe to the other side. This means a lot of fuel is consumed during multi-day trips. A trip from China to western Latin America (the East Pacific Ocean) would take around 43 days and a trip to the eastern part of Latin America ( the Mid-Atlantic Ocean) would be completed in approximately 49 days on a ship going at the speed of 10kt. Assuming that one of these trawlers is powered by a 5000 HP engine, fuel consumption for one of these trips to Ecuador would be 416,783.27 gallons for a petrol engine and 283,063.88 gallons for a diesel one. Similarly, from China to Brazil, the same trawler would consume 475,258 gallons of petrol or 322,768.74 gallons of diesel. While the fuel consumption decreases at cruising speed, these numbers would still be high enough to raise eyebrows in shock. Consumption of even 1 gallon of petrol/diesel produces Carbon Monoxide (CO), Carbon Dioxide (CO2), Sulfur (SO2), Nitrogen Dioxide (NOx), Nitric Oxide (N2O), Volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and Hydrocarbons (HCs). One can estimate the damage that the Chinese Shipping vessels are doing to the environment. The Chinese Bottom Trawlers The majority of vessels that are engaged in distant-water fishing are trawlers and longliners. Trawlers are large boats that have large weighted nets that are pulled along the bottom of the sea or in midwater at a specified depth. Trawling is considered an ecologically taxing fishing activity that causes a lot of damage to marine life, marine habitats, coral reefs, and sea beds. The destruction of coral reefs where marine animals live and the breed has led to reduced population and marine diversity. This is leading to ocean acidification, warmer seas, and reduced oxygen levels in the water. While China has banned bottom trawling within its territory, it has encouraged its DWF vessels to conduct trawling activities close to other countries&#8217; EEZs in Africa, South America, Russia, and littoral states of the Indian Ocean, South, and mid-Atlantic ocean and the pacific ocean. The Chinese Longliners Another type of vessel commonly used by the Chinese for DWF is the long-liners. Long lining is a type of fishing method that uses a large number of short lines with hooks which are then attached to a longer main line at regular distances. The main line can extend up to 10 km with thousands of shorter lines with baited hooks floating along the surface of the ocean to catch pelagic fish species such as tuna or marlin. However, the baited hooks can attract other species of fish too, resulting in a substantial amount of unwanted bycatch. Moreover, these long lines also kill larger animals such as turtles, sharks, whales, and even sea birds that come in the way of sharp hooks. Long liners are also notorious for ghost fishing. Ghost fishing is a term used to describe fishing done by any derelict gear, which is lost, abandoned, or discarded. Such fishing gear, uncollected by the fishermen, floats around in the ocean freely and catches and even kills animals trapped in them. The long lines, which float on the ocean surface, can detach or break if any ship passes over them. Once separated from the marker buoys, the detached lines are difficult to find, becoming ghost gear. Garbage dumps in the ocean Ghost gears contribute a lot to the waste generated by the longliners in addition to containers of marine oil, bottles, Chinese-labeled jute bags, etc. In the Galapagos Islands, Chinese boats have been dumping gigantic amounts of plastic waste in the water. They are responsible for killing wildlife and polluting the water of a place that is home to more than 7,000 endemic species. According to experts, about 30% of the garbage on the islands’ shores comes from Chinese fleet fishing at Ecuador’s coasts and marine protected areas. &nbsp; At a time when all countries around the world are changing their policies in favor of environmental conservation, the Chinese are still aggressively engaged in activities that are extremely detrimental to the environment. Overfishing, dumping waste into marine protected areas, polluting air, water, and land alike, disturbing and destroying the coral reefs, killing...
- [Impacts of Chinese DWF on Latin America](https://ij-reportika.com/impacts-of-chinese-dwf-on-latin-america/): From the waters of Japan, and South Korea in the east to those of Ecuador, Chile, and Argentina in the west through the African continent, Chinese fishing vessels have posed a serious threat to the marine environment across the globe. Catching somewhere between 50-70% of the world’s total squids, the methods and activities of Chinese DWF vessels are highly suspicious as well as controversial. Despite a distance of 19,000 km from western south America and 22,000 km from the eastern part of the continent, the presence of Chinese fleets in the region has been increasing at a rapid rate. In early July 2020, the Ecuadorian navy reported the presence of about 260 fishing vessels at the edge of Ecuador’s EEZ. By the end of the month, the number increased to 340. The Galapagos Islands, which are a part of Ecuador’s territory are the worst victim. The problem arises due to the fact that the EEZ of Ecuador’s mainland and the Galapagos do not overlap, thus creating an international corridor where any country can fish. The Chinese fleet often freely fish in the area after turning off their identity transponders to avoid detection. It was found that almost half of the Chinese fleet is engaged in this practice, often known as “marine radar evasion” in the illegal fishing sector. Not only do the Chinese overfish and kill protected species such as sharks and turtles, but also dump a huge amount of waste in the ocean water. Experts estimate that almost 30% of the garbage collected on the shores of the Galapagos Islands comes from Chinese fleets. This includes bottles, containers of marine oil, Chinese-labeled jute bags, and waste generate overboard the ships. The issue of the Galapagos has been raised again and again by various media outlets. IJ-Reportika spoke with many local fishermen who confirmed that Chinese ships often fish in the area with transponders disabled or with deceiving flags known as the ‘flag of convenience’. The menace of Chinese DWF fleets is not just limited to the Galapagos but to the entire continent. Argentina is home to the second-largest squid fishery in the world which makes it an important target of Chinese trawlers. Even though the Argentine authorities have taken strict measures and even sunk a fishing trawler flying the Chinese flag after being caught illegally fishing within the country’s EEZ, the vessels have spent close to 600,000 hours ‘dark-fishing’. &nbsp;A similar issue persists in Brazil where a massive gain in Chinese fishing activities was observed in the last three years. In Uruguay, the navy caught a Chinese-flagged vessel within their EEZ, carrying 11 tons of Squid. These vessels are causing a lot of concern for Uruguayan authorities as well as locals as they are not only present near the EEZ but also dangerously close to their land boundary. In Peru, the local fishermen sounded the alarm about Chinese overfishing of giant squid, which is the country’s second biggest marine resource after anchovies. Because of Chinese incursions thousands of Peruvians have lost their jobs and the fishing industry is on the verge of being wiped out. Moreover, the Chinese presence has completely derailed Peru’s thoughtful sustainability program for the squid population in the region. During our investigation, we found several squid jiggers at the Peruvian land boundary last year. As a result, diplomatic and legal protests are erupting all through the continent of South America against the Chinese DWF fleets. These fleets are often linked to illegal activities such as encroaching on other nations’ territorial waters, abusing workers, and catching protected and endangered species. In 2017, Ecuador seized a refrigerated cargo ship, the Fu Yuan Yu Leng 999, carrying an illicit cargo of 6,620 sharks, whose fins are a delicacy in China. Although Shark fishing is banned throughout Central and South America, Chinese communities consume it as a delicacy. This demand encourages the ships to mock the laws and completely ignore the bans, hiding their illegal catch by transferring it between ships to evade naval or coast guard patrols. On top of that, they have been generating and dumping huge amounts of plastic waste into the ocean, thus polluting the water and land alike. The ever-increasing presence of Chinese vessels in Latin America is posing diplomatic, security, and environmental threat to the region. Protected species and marine protected environments are at a greater threat due to unregulated fishing by the Chinese. The Distant-water fishing operations affect not only the marine ecology but also the local fisherfolk population who lose their jobs and subsequently engage in illegal activities such as drug trafficking to make ends meet. Latin American countries must impose stricter controls in order to protect and defend their resources from illegal exploitation by the Chinese.
- [Impacts of Chinese DWF on the South China Sea littoral states](https://ij-reportika.com/impacts-of-chinese-dwf-on-the-south-china-sea-littoral-states/): Historically speaking, China has claimed the majority of the South China Sea as part of its territory which includes the Paracel Islands, Spratly islands, Pratas Island, Vereker Banks, Macclesfield Bank, and the Scarborough shoal. All these places fall under the much disputed “nine-dash line” markings which are based on a 1947 map. In 1946, a map having eleven dashes or dots was published by the Chinese government. However, two dashes in the Gulf of Tonkin were later removed when a treaty was signed with Vietnam. Many of the Chinese neighboring states including Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam have tried to claim these lands as their own, rejecting the questionable map. The main issue with the “nine-dash line” lies in the fact that it is an arbitrary collection of dashes without specific coordinates. Based on this map, China asserts rights to more than 80% of the South China Sea. Any official explanation regarding its origin or even its precise delimitation has never been provided by China. On top of that, the regions claimed by China as part of its territory directly lie in conflict with Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) of multiple countries in the area like Brunei, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, and the Philippines. &nbsp; Despite protests by these countries, China has deployed its distant-water fishing fleet in the EEZs of Vietnam and the Philippines. According to data reported by IJ-Reportika, China has fished for over a million hours last year through its Long-liners, Tuna purse seines, Squid jiggers, and Trawlers. While the Chinese DWF activities are not very significant in the South China Sea, overfishing and climate change have led to the depletion of marine resources in the area. Since 2000, the catch rates have declined by 70% and large fish stocks have depleted by 90% in the region. Despite the declining marine resources in the region, it is surprising that Chinese activities have increased in the area while banning the fishing activities of other countries in the region. Every year since 1999, China imposes a ban on fishing activities from May to August in the area including the Gulf of Tonkin and Paracel islands which are disputed territories. Vietnam condemned this ban and released a statement saying, “Vietnam requests China to respect Vietnam’s sovereignty over Paracel islands…without complicating the situation towards maintaining peace, stability, and order in the East Sea.” The Philippines has shown contempt for the ban saying “This ban doesn’t apply to us. Our fisherfolk are encouraged to go out and fish in our waters in the West Philippine Sea.” Interestingly, this ban does not apply to Chinese fishermen who have an official license to fish in the contested waters. It is worth noting that the Chinese DWF vessels are not only there to fish but also operate as de facto maritime militias under the control of the Beijing authorities. There have also been reports of construction activities being conducted by the Chinese in the Spratly islands over the past decade. Legally speaking, this area is not a part of China’s territory, but that has not stopped the Chinese from building reefs, islands, and other formations and even militarizing them with ports, runways, and other infrastructure. According to multiple media reports and satellite imagery, in the past decade, they have carried out construction activities at four unoccupied features in the Spratly islands. A Chinese maritime vessel was seen offloading a hydraulic excavator which is used in land reclamation projects. It is also reported that new land formations have appeared above water in the Eldad Reef of the northern Spratly islands, which were only exposed during the high tide. The images show large holes, debris piles, and excavator tracks at the site. Similar activities have taken place on Panata Island in the Philippines, where a new perimeter wall was seen around a feature. These activities have resulted in the expansion of some sand bars and other formations in the area by at least ten times. Although any reclamation activities by China are in direct conflict with the 2016 ruling by the International Tribunal, other nations in the region are forced to undertake their own reclamation work. According to a report by the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, Vietnam has expanded dredging and landfill work at several of Spratly outposts and have created roughly 1.7 sq. km of new land in 2022. Following the reports of landfill work and mooring by Chinese ships in the area, the Philippines have also increased their military presence in the region. As China continues to foray into the disputed waters despite warnings, it is interesting to see the South China Sea through the lens of strategic geopolitical location. With the growing tension in the area, China has been investing more and more in the Navy and coast guard to defend its claim over this territory and increased its presence in the region through fishing fleets. The area could prove to be of significant military importance if the US decided to jump into the regional war, supporting Taiwan’s fight for sovereignty. It is safe to say that China won’t give up control of the region any time soon, even if it means upsetting a few powerful economies.
- [Impacts of Chinese DWF on the Asian countries](https://ij-reportika.com/impacts-of-chinese-dwf-on-the-asian-countries/): China’s Distant-water fishing fleet, which operates on the high seas and also in the Exclusive Economic Zones of other countries, is the biggest fleet in the world with an estimated 2,700 ships. The distant-water fishing sector is infamous for being secretive and unregulated as many countries fail to publish their fishing data. This is not surprising given the fact that it is often found guilty of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing practices, targeting prohibited species and causing irreversible environmental damage as well as intelligence gathering, espionage, and space tracking. The presence of illegal Chinese DWF vessels is felt all over the world, but it is particularly worse in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Countries in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), South China Sea region, as well as East Asian countries, and Russia, are all victims of IUU fishing and violation of EEZ by Chinese vessels. Despite the fact that the IOR has the presence of many countries in the region, the Chinese DWF fleets have increasingly become a hazard, especially in the Northern Indian Ocean region (NIOR). The NIOR is an important region as most of the world’s maritime traffic passes through it, hence the presence of dubious Chinese DWFs raises concern. &nbsp;&nbsp; The NIOR, which comprises countries like India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Iran, and Oman, is seeing a surge in unregistered Chinese fishing vessels. According to the Indian Navy, they monitored more than 392 Chinese IUU fishing incidences in the Indian Ocean in 2021 compared to 379 in 2020. It is also reported that spy ships disguised as fishing boats are being used by the Chinese to gather intelligence data and spy on assets of other countries, including India’s Andaman and Nicobar islands. While the other countries have seen a significant increase in Chinese activities in their EEZ, in Pakistan on the other hand, the presence of China’s DWF is minimal and on a downward slope. Could it be a benefit of being a trading partner and ally to China? The island nations in the NIOR like Sri Lanka and Maldives have reported the presence of Chinese DWF vessels such as squid jiggers, trawlers, and long liners that fish in the area before moving to other target areas like Oman in the Arabian Sea. The Chinese vessels in Oman, according to our report, often misuse the Iranian flag as a disguise and are engaged in fishing at an industrial scale. This activity has increased exponentially since 2016. A similar issue persists in Iran where the trawlers are taking close to 46,000 tons of commercial fish, as stated in a report from the Iranian parliament. This is leading to depletion in numbers of protected species and dolphins which are killed by commercial dragnets. Reflagging themselves under Iran’s flags, these trawlers fish for seahorses, who are then dried and powdered to be used in Traditional Chinese Medicines (TCM). Eastern Indian Ocean Region In the eastern IOR, nations like Indonesia and Malaysia are sea-based economies that are highly dependent on fishing. As Chinese DWFs with huge capacities stay longer in the area, the local fishermen are finding it tough to earn their daily bread and butter. Indonesian laborers, who work on some of these fishing vessels, suffer racial abuse and exploitation at the hands of their Chinese managers. It has been reported that between 2019 and 2020, 30 Indonesian fishermen died onboard Chinese long-haul fishing boats because of substandard food, dangerous drinking water, and excessive working hours. Due to its close proximity to China, East Asian nations like Japan and South Korea are the most vulnerable and the most impacted by Chinese vessels. South Korea has also reported Chinese-flagged ships fishing in their EEZ. The western region neighboring China is the worst affected with over 300K hours of illegal fishing done by Chinese vessels. The governments of South Korea and China have held several talks to smooth out this issue since the beginning of the last decade, which have failed to bear any fruit. Chinese coast guard ships and fishing vessels have been making attempts to change the status quo by coercion in the Senkaku islands. Chinese ships mounted with artillery approached Japanese ships in the Japanese territory. The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has released a statement saying, &#8220;The Senkaku Islands are indisputably an inherent part of the territory of Japan in light of historical facts and based upon international law, and are, in fact, effectively under the Japanese control… It is a violation of international law for the China Coast Guard ships to act making their assertions in Japanese territorial waters around the Senkaku Islands, and such acts will not be tolerated.&#8220; Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Quite surprisingly, Chinese trawlers were also spotted in the EEZ of Russia. The vessels have done over a million hours of dark surfing in the Russian far-east. While many countries have strongly opposed the fishing activities by Chinese vessels, some have taken strict measures. Indonesia, for example, has sunk many Chinese ships in the last four years which were dangerously close to their land boundary. The Quad, comprising India, Australia, Japan, and the US have announced a major regional effort under the ambit of Indo-Pacific Maritime Domain Awareness (IPDMA) aimed to provide more accurate maritime pictures of activities in the region. As the Chinese distant-water fishing activities are growing rapidly and unsustainably all around the world, it is depleting global fish stocks and disrupting the marine ecosystem. Moreover, it is increasingly becoming a source of diplomatic and environmental tensions with other nations. Hence, it has become imperative to introduce laws, policies, and strict measures to keep it in check.
- [Impacts of Chinese DWF on the African region](https://ij-reportika.com/impacts-of-chinese-dwf-on-the-african-region/): China is consistently ranked at number 1 in the global list of 152 countries practicing Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. Being an industrialized nation, China has been forcing its way into other poorer countries’ Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ), forcing the local fishermen out of jobs and disrupting the local marine ecosystem. The worst hit is taken by countries in Africa, Latin America, and the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).&nbsp; According to our report, about 20% of the global IUU catch comes from just six western African countries – Mauritania, Senegal, the Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, and Sierra Leone. There have been multiple incidents of Chinese incursions and conflicts with the local African fishermen. Mauritania is suffering from Chinese incursions and aggressive fishing vessels since 2018. In 2020, three Mauritanian artisanal fishermen died when their boat was struck by a large Chinese Trawler. Despite being a smaller EEZ, it has been reported that the Chinese have spent over 2 million hours fishing. In Senegal and Liberia, Chinese industrialized trawlers have been denied permission in 2019 which naturally decreased Chinese activities in the region. However, the incursions of the trawlers and conflicts with local fishermen have come to light. In Cameroon, a sea area up to 3nm from the coast is reserved for artisanal and local fishermen. However, the local fishermen have accused Chinese trawlers of taking away all the catch including fingerlings and other fishes like ‘Awacha’, Mossubu, Trong Kanda, Crab, or Njenga, popular in Cameroon. The Western Sahara region has seen a&nbsp;massive gain&nbsp;in fishing activity in the past three years. Most prominent fishing regions in the&nbsp;West of Africa (Mid-Atlantic Ocean)&nbsp;are depleting due to&nbsp;disproportionate fishing&nbsp;activity. Thus, China is veering its DWF to the&nbsp;North-West of Africa. In 2022, China fished for over a million hours in the Western Sahara EEZ. The European Union also has its fishing fleet in Western Sahara competing for fish with its Chinese counterparts.&nbsp;In the competition, the loser is always the local communities of&nbsp;Western Sahara.&nbsp; In 2021, many Chinese trawlers were arrested after the Minister of Fisheries in Gabon declared a crackdown on Illegal Fishing by the Trawlers. Despite this, the presence of Chinese Trawlers at the land boundary of Gabon was seen all around the year 2022. In Ghana, a group of fishers called “Saiko” have become a source of transshipment and selling bycatch caught by Chinese trawlers to the local markets. In addition to illegal fishing, Chinese vessels are also engaged in smuggling fentanyl from China to Africa and wildlife products for Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) from Africa to China. Eastern Africa In the Eastern African region, the activity of Chinese DWF vessels has been on the rise since 2016. It has been reported that these vessels often use flags of the countries they are fishing in to hide their identity. Moreover, the People’s Liberation Army Navy is also seen escorting the fishing vessels near the choke point of the Horn of Africa in the name of providing protection from pirates. Unlike the countries in western Africa, the government of Somalia has signed agreements with Chinese fishing companies to allow Chinese long liners and trawlers in Somali waters. The island nations in East Africa like Seychelles, Mauritius, and Reunion have been permeated by Chinese long liners and squid jiggers. According to tracking data produced by OceanMind, between 2019 and 2021, 132 Chinese-flagged vessels operated in Madagascar’s EEZ, targeting the country’s inshore and offshore fisheries. Chinese investments in the country have seen a sharp rise since 2017. It was only after protests from local people that the government declared the Chinese trawling illegal, forcing them to move to Senegal. Southern Africa South Africa is rich in marine life which attracts a large number of squid jiggers in the area. In April 2020, six Chinese trawlers were detected entering the South African EEZ after being ordered out of Namibian waters. These trawlers were then detained and issued with fines by the South African authorities as they failed to produce the required permission. Issues faced due to the Chinese DWF in African waters The continuous foray of Chinese DWF vessels has caused a ton of issues in African countries ranging from environmental degradation to unemployment of local people. One of those issues is the corruption of governments. Local government officials award excessive fishing permits or take bribes from the Chinese to allow them to continue illegal fishing in the area. They avoid making arrests as they are afraid the Chinese would retract the development aid in retaliation. While the officials are busy making money, the local fishermen are struggling to make ends meet. There have been numerous protests by the locals against the livelihood crisis and environmental damage caused by the Chinese DWF vessels in Senegal, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria, Gambia, and Togo.&nbsp; Because of heavy overfishing in the region, the African people are left with nothing to eat. 100 million people of Africa depend on the protein from small pelagic fishes like Sardinella that are fished by 330,000 local fishermen. As Chinese trawlers catch nothing less than 75% of the fish in the area, the local population is suffering from numerous deficiencies of essential minerals. On top of that, many of the African fishers who are working onboard some of these trawlers have accused their Chinese managers of racial abuse. They’ve stated that they have been mistreated, abused, and even threatened to be pushed overboard. Many fishers have died onboard due to the mistreatment by the authorities. Another concerning issue is that the Chinese vessels often use or rather misuse the flag of the countries they are fishing in. It was reported that Chinese vessels Yu Feng 1, 3, and 4 changed from Chinese flag to Ghanaian flag as soon as they entered Ghana’s territory. They fish under the host country’s flag as it protects them from local laws and getting caught by the AIS (Automatic Identification System) as well. The dubious practices by Chinese DWF have long affected the marine environment across the globe, polluting air,...
- [An Investigation into the Dubious Chinese Distant-Water Fishing Fleet (DWF)](https://ij-reportika.com/the-illegal-chinese-fishing/): Chinese Fishing Fleet is deployed across every ocean. It is often found guilty of violating domestic laws of respective countries and UNCLOS.
- [BRIDES FOR SALE: Nepal](https://ij-reportika.com/brides-for-sale-nepal/): Women in Nepal are trafficked every year to China by strangers, neighbors, and families for sexual exploitation. They are also made to work in circuses, as domestic workers, in forced labor, or even are made to give up their organs. Many are often lured with promises of well-paying jobs in foreign employment or with fake marriages. Nepal stands to be one of the primary targets of China when it comes to sex trafficking on account of its massive unemployment and dubious financial status. Mostly the traffickers themselves lure these women and get married to them. This way they easily transport these women to China and sell them off to interested buyers. Because these Chinese traffickers are legally married to Nepali women, it is difficult to establish a case for trafficking. When caught, they usually have all the required documents. Statistics Chinese men pay around Rs 10-15 lakhs (USD 12500-18900$) to marry Nepali women to brokers. They also provide lavish gifts worth up to Rs 60,000 (USD 750$) to potential brides and their families. This helps to convince the girls and their families that they will have a better life in China. According to a report released by the National Human Rights Commission, the Nepali national human rights body, in the year 2019 alone as many as 15,000 women and girls including 500 children were trafficked, and these are just the known cases. It is estimated that more than 17,000 women (two fiscal years ending mid-July 2015) and girls are trafficked every year. The government of Nepal disputes these figures. According to them, only 181 Nepalese were trafficked in 2013, compared with 185 in 2014. In 2013, 56 women were rescued from their traffickers by an NGO. It has also been reported that the trafficking of Nepalese women to China for marriage has resulted in as many as 1,000 women being exploited by marriage bureaus with promises of citizenship, job opportunities, and good family life. According to the data gathered in 2019 by the National Human Rights Commission, on caste and ethnicity, 49%, the majority of trafficked women survivors are Indigenous nationalities, followed by Dalit at 15%.&nbsp; Madhesis account for 6% and other ethnicities constitute the remaining 29%. Indigenous Peoples, Dalits, and Madhesis are the most socially, politically, and economically marginalized and excluded communities in Nepal. Tamang women are at particular risk. Routes Read about the ordeal of the Nepali women in the complete report.
- [BRIDES FOR SALE: Pakistan](https://ij-reportika.com/brides-for-sale-pakistan/): Bride trafficking has been taking place from Pakistan around the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the $62 billion flagship project of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Pakistan. The practice involved cases of fraudulent marriage between Pakistani women and girls — many of them from marginalized backgrounds and Christian families — and Chinese men who had traveled to Pakistan. The victims were lured with payments to the family and promises of a good life in China but reported abuse, difficult living conditions, forced pregnancy, or forced prostitution once they reached China. According to various media reports, many Pakistani Christian women and girls with a lack of Chinese buyers are killed and their organs are sold! An investigation by News Agency AP in 2019 revealed how Pakistan’s Christian minority has become a new target of brokers who pay impoverished parents to marry off their daughters, some of them teenagers, to Chinese husbands who return with them to their homeland. Many of the brides are then isolated and abused or forced into prostitution in China, often contacting home and pleading to be brought back. Christians are targeted because they are one of the poorest communities in Muslim-majority Pakistan. The trafficking rings are made up of Chinese and Pakistani middlemen and include Christian ministers, mostly from small evangelical churches, who get bribes to urge their flock to sell their daughters. Investigators have also turned up at least one Muslim cleric running a marriage bureau from his madrasa, or religious school. Omar Warriach, Amnesty International’s campaigns director for South Asia, said Pakistan “must not let its close relationship with China become a reason to turn a blind eye to human rights abuses against its own citizens” either in abuses of women sold as brides or separation of Pakistani women from husbands from China’s Muslim Uighur population sent to “re-education camps” to turn them away from Islam. Statistics Recently, there were several media reports suggesting that Pakistani girls were being lured into marriage contracts and then used for prostitution in China. One such report in 2019 put the number of such Pakistani girls at 600. The report also claimed that the average per ‘bride’ earnings was from USD 25,000 to 65,000, but a paltry amount of PKR 200,000 (~USD 800$) was given to the family. The exact number of women trafficked is not released by the Government of Pakistan. Routes Some women are trafficked to China along the route of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and other are trafficked via sea route. Due to the close relationship between the two countries and the nature of regimes, the actual number of victims and the routes of trafficking are underreported or unreported. Attempts to whitewash by China China has issued a lot of clarifications and tried to whitewash the grave crime it has committed with respect to sex trafficking.
- [BRIDES FOR SALE: India](https://ij-reportika.com/brides-for-sale-india/): In India the modus operandi used by the Chinese for Brides Trafficking is different. Online dating applications like 2redbeans are flooded with profiles of Chinese Men. These profiles are then advertised to local service providers and matrimonial sites to target Indian women. Propaganda Youtube channels are created showing Indian women happily married to Chinese men. Other than this, Indian women from the North-East states bordering Myanmar are lured to enter Myanmar from where they are trafficked to China and other South East Asian countries. Propaganda is also done through Youtube channels. Chinese grooms can be seen in these videos with Indian women happily living after marriage in China. They are made to dance to Bollywood songs to get acceptance in Indian society. Routes Women trafficking from major cities in India is still at a nascent stage but from the North-Eastern states of India took place through Myanmar as the transit country at a much larger scale. India and Myanmar have a porous border with poor boundary demarcation. Women in the bordering areas in search of work or fire woods crossover to the bordering districts of Myanmar from where they are trafficked.
- [BRIDES FOR SALE: Laos](https://ij-reportika.com/brides-for-sale-laos/): The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered poverty and economic downturns in the rural heartlands of Laos, fueling an upsurge in the trafficking of women and girls to China. Poor and illiterate women and girls who are desperate to find jobs are being deceived and lured into the sex trade and false marriages in China. Police are investigating more than 20 cases of underage Lao girls trafficked into China in 2021. Statistics At least 3,000 (reported) Lao women and girls were tricked into moving to China between 2008 and 2018 in spite of government education efforts aimed at stopping the trade. They offer up to 40 million kips (~USD 4,000$) ‘dowry’ to girls or women in poor families in rural areas, saying all they have to do is go to China and marry Chinese men,&#8221; she said Routes Laos is a landlocked country and shares borders with China, Vietnam, Thailand, and Myanmar. It acts as a transit country for all its neighbors and a source country for brides to China. The lax management at border crossings resulting from the insufficient training of provincial and district-level immigration authorities especially enables illegal entry and exit from Laos. Additionally, Chinese traffickers have begun working with Lao middlemen to facilitate the transit of victims across borders. In NorthWest Laos the hub of all illegal activities and sex trafficking is the&nbsp; Golden Triangle SEZ. There is a significant presence of Chinese businessmen and natives in the SEZ and women from all over South East Asia, particularly from Laos, are brought here as brides and then used in prostitution or trafficked to China.&nbsp; The ordeal of Laotian Women A 25-year-old woman living in the capital Vientiane was trafficked to China last year, and was later rescued by police and sent back home. Speaking to RFA the young woman said she had been told by a neighbor that she could find good work in China. She said, “A woman in my village told me that she was married to a Chinese man, and she convinced me to go to China to get a good job. I decided to follow her advice, but in China, I was sold to a Chinese man instead of getting the job, and I was detained in the man’s house for four months. Later, I escaped somehow”.
- [BRIDES FOR SALE: Vietnam](https://ij-reportika.com/brides-for-sale-vietnam/): It has been reported that in the rural mountains of Vietnam, young girls are disappearing from their homes with increasing regularity. Many turn up across the border, sold as wives for the price of a buffalo. There, they are generally first sold into prostitution in big cities. After several months or years of forced sex work, they are sold again – this time to poor, older Chinese men looking for wives. Other Chinese bachelors use professional marriage brokers to meet Vietnamese women. Statistics On average, a broker makes a profit of USD 4,000$ out of each deal, according to the Chinese magazine China Reform. Vietnamese and Chinese authorities reported court cases that involved trafficking for marriage from rural areas in the north of Vietnam to China. Cases referred to include that of a Chinese man who engaged Vietnamese persons with local knowledge to find girls for marriages in China at the price of 10,000 yuan (approximately USD 1,500$) for each girl recruited. The recruiters then moved the victims across the border into Chinese territory where the victims were sold for marriage for the agreed-upon price. (Global report on trafficking in persons 2018) According to a 1999 survey by Dongxing Women&#8217;s Federation, 1,269 Vietnamese women are living in the city with a population of 120,000. Of them, 647 are married to local residents without going through legal formalities. Statistics from Dongxing Public Security Bureau indicate that 242 Vietnamese women are involved in the 74 trafficking cases recorded since The Pingxiang Public Security Bureau rescued 13 Vietnamese women between 1992 and 1997. All of them had been sold for &#8220;marriage&#8221; in China. In 2000, the bureau rescued 103 Vietnamese women, nearly half of whom had been forced into prostitution. According to Wei Xiaoning, director of the Women&#8217;s Rights Department of the Guangxi Women&#8217;s Federation, Guangxi police rescued and expatriated a total of 1,030 Vietnamese women during the crackdown in 1990. To date, 231 of these women have been rescued. According to Vietnam’s Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, the authorities saved about 7,500 people from trafficking between 2012 and 2017, almost 90 percent of them women and children, especially girls. Between 2012 and 2018, local authorities foiled 48 trafficking cases. Some 85 traffickers were arrested, and 78 victims were rescued. In 2018 and the first quarter of 2019, provincial authorities helped repatriate 60 Vietnamese women and infants taken to China. More than 1,000 cases were detected by June 2019 involving 2,600 victims. In 829 of them, the traffickers sold 2,319 people to China, according to ministry data released at a meeting on Tuesday. Routes Many cross-cultural relationships begin when Chinese men meet their future wives while working in Vietnam. Vietnam and China share a 1,000-mile, largely unprotected border without major natural barriers. The two countries have forged close economic ties through a free-trade agreement effective since 2010. Citizens from border areas of both countries don’t need a passport to cross back and forth. The destination for trafficking has extended from border regions to inland provinces such as Henan, Hebei, Anhui, Jiangsu, and Guangdong. Criminal organizations operating in the Northern province are mainly concentrated in three border locations: the city of Móng Cái, plus Bình Liêu and Hải Hà districts. In particular, Móng Cái – which has a border crossing – is now the main hub for human trafficking. One reason is that Chinese citizens entering Vietnam here do not need a visa for up to 15 days. Dongxing City, at the southwest tip of the Guangxi Autonomous Region in China, shares a 33-kilometer borderline with Vietnam, where border trade between the two countries is carried out. Women and children are trafficked using this route. Some women are also trafficked using the sea route as depicted on the map. The ordeal of Vietnamese Women Ha Thi Phan, 32, is from Mai Pha Commune in Lang Son in northeast Vietnam. She was a divorcee who became a coolie in 1991, carrying goods across the border day after day. &#8220;One day,&#8221; she recalls, &#8220;my hirer told me that if I go further into China I could earn more money. So I did, leaving my children to an acquaintance.&#8221; But on her way she was led to a Chinese woman who later sold her to a Chinese man in Ningming County, about 40 kilometers from Pingxiang, also a Chinese border town. The &#8220;couple&#8221;, so to speak, could hardly communicate because Hadid does not speak Chinese. &#8220;The man often beat me,&#8221; she says. &#8220;To win his trust I decided to have a baby with the man.&#8221; In 1993, two months after the baby was born, Ha persuaded the man into letting her go back to Vietnam and see her parents. &#8220;I made him believe that my parents were seriously ill and wouldn&#8217;t live long,&#8221; she says. In another case, Phạm Thị Minh T lives in the Mekong Delta, in south-western Vietnam. The young woman was duped and sold in China when she was 17 years old. There she was made to work in a brothel.
- [BRIDES FOR SALE: Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/brides-for-sale-myanmar/): The director of the Gender Equality Network (GEN), Daw May Sabe Phyu, said that every year hundreds of Myanmar women, especially from Shan and Kachin states, are trafficked to China as “brides”. Many are tricked into traveling to China to seek job opportunities, while some are kidnapped and held against their will to be sold to Chinese men seeking wives. Human Rights Watch published a report in 2019 called “Trafficking of Kachin “Brides” from Myanmar to China” based on interviews conducted with the survivors of brides trafficking from Myanmar. According to the report, the traffickers used deceit to deliver women into sexual slavery. Most of the women and girls interviewed were recruited by someone they knew and trusted. Of the 37 survivors interviewed: Some girls said they were drugged on the way and woke up in a locked room. Others were told, after crossing the border, that the job they were promised was no longer available, but another job was, several days’ journey away. Unable to communicate due to language barriers, and with no money to make their way home, many women and girls felt no option but to stay with the person escorting them, even in the face of growing unease. In Myanmar, conditions resulting from conflict, land confiscation, forced relocation, and human rights abuses have spurred widespread landlessness and joblessness, resulting in increased migration to China. Lacking proper documentation, language, and education, Myanmar women are increasingly at risk of trafficking, including forced marriage. Propaganda Videos by the state media To counter the growing uproar against the brides trafficking from Myanmar to China, Chinese state media from time to time release propaganda videos showing happily married Myanmar women living in China, but such videos are also reacted to by the locals sharply. Advertisements for marriages and surrogacy In 2019, residents of Muse, a Myanmar border town in northern Shan state that serves as a major trade hub between the two countries (Myanmar and China), reported seeing advertisements posted on lampposts and building walls. One ad with a headline reading “Invitation for Marriage” in Chinese and Burmese, gives the height, income, and address of an unnamed Chinese man who is looking for a Myanmar bride between the ages of 26 and 32. The ad also provides a contact number and says more details can be discussed over the phone. Other advertisements with the headline “Surrogate Mothers Wanted” say a company is looking for women under the age of 25 to carry the babies of Chinese men in exchange for payments of 13,000 yuan (USD 1,900$) a month plus meals and accommodations. The ads also provide a contact number. Statistics Over&nbsp;7,400 women and girls&nbsp;were estimated to be victims of&nbsp;forced marriage&nbsp;in&nbsp;four districts (Kachin State and Northern Shan State) in Myanmar, with over&nbsp;5,000 females forced to bear children with their Chinese husbands. According to&nbsp;burmese.dvb.no&nbsp;(archives), Bride prices offered range from 1,500,000 Myanmar Kyats (~USD 700$) to 6,00,000 Myanmar Kyats (~USD 3000$) and they are sold in China at the price of over 2,00,000 yuan(~ USD 30000$). According to the data collected from&nbsp;the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission (MNHRC) and Myanmar Department of Social Welfare following is the number of reported women trafficked from Myanmar to China. (Most of the trafficking of women doesn’t get reported) Routes The majority of the routes are from&nbsp;the Kachin&nbsp;and&nbsp;Shan states&nbsp;of Myanmar directly to China’s Yunnan province. After the Rohingya crisis in Rakhine state, many women are trafficked from Rakhine to Shan state and then to China. Other prominent routes include the trafficking of women from Myanmar to Laos and Thailand as transit. The ordeal of Myanmarese women Seng Moon’s family fled fighting in Myanmar’s Kachin State in 2011 and wound up struggling to survive in a camp for internally displaced people. In 2014, when Seng Moon was 16 and attending fifth grade, her sister-in-law said she knew of a job as a cook in China’s neighboring Yunnan province. Seng Moon did not want to go, but the promised wage was far more than she could make living in the IDP camp, so her family decided she shouldn’t pass it up. In the car, Seng Moon’s sister-in-law gave her something she said prevented car sickness. Seng Moon fell asleep immediately. “When I woke up my hands were tied behind my back,” she said. “I cried and shouted and asked for help.” By then, Seng Moon was in China, where her sister-in-law left her with a Chinese family. After several months her sister-in-law returned and told her, “Now you have to get married to a Chinese man,” and took her to another house. Said Seng Moon: My sister-in-law left me at the home. …The family took me to a room. In that room I was tied up again. …They locked the door—for one or two months.… Each time when the Chinese man brought me meals, he raped me…After two months, they dragged me out of the room. The father of the Chinese man said, “Here is your husband. Now you are a married couple. Be nice to each other and build a happy family.” Other stories of the Myanmarese women
- [BRIDES FOR SALE: Cambodia](https://ij-reportika.com/brides-for-sale-cambodia/): The number of women traveling from Cambodia to China for forced or arranged marriages has surged since 2016 and experienced a further spike since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Cambodian women and girls are coerced and forced into arranged and forced marriages through various means:&nbsp; Statistics According to statements by Cambodian government officials, out of 112 trafficked brides who returned to Cambodia in 2019, 111 returned from China. Based on the reports by various organizations and police actions, it is estimated that more than 10,000 women from Cambodia are trapped in China. Routes According to Cambodia’s Trafficked Brides Report by Global Initiative, the route of trafficking from Cambodia to China changed from a land/air route to a land/water route due to stricter regulations in the transit countries like Vietnam in 2016. It changed further in 2020 to just air routes since the COVID-19 pandemic 2020. Following is a representation of the same. The ordeal of Cambodian Women Cambodian women who have returned from China described experiences of&nbsp;sexual, physical, and psychological abuse, confinement, torture, and forced labor. Here is one example of the same: Neath (pseudonym), 27, was lured to China with the promise of well-paid employment. Neath and her cousin Noun (pseudonym) caught a flight from Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh, to Guangzhou. They had tourist visas but little money, so the brokers facilitating their journey provided them with cash to bribe any border guards who might grow suspicious. A Khmer woman and her Chinese husband greeted the girls at the airport. The cousins didn’t realize something was amiss until the woman locked them in a rented apartment for several days and allowed a stream of visitors to come to assess them. Eventually, a couple purchased Neath for almost &nbsp;USD 12,000$. They bought her home and forced her to sleep with their son. That was the beginning of her four years in captivity, during which she was forced to work for the family’s construction business for no pay, and to cook and clean for her new “husband” – they were never officially married – and his parents. “I tried to run away three or four times,” Neath says. “But every time they would lock me up and keep me without food for two or three days … They all beat me, my ‘husband’ and his parents.” Neath met a Cambodian woman at a local market in China who promised that she could help Neath escape, but the assistance would come at a price. Neath hadn’t been in contact with her family since she arrived in China, but the woman provided her with a phone to call them and arrange the payment. Neath’s aunt sold her farmland in Cambodia and brought the USD 3,000$ in profit to the parents of the woman Neath met in the market. Once that deal was done, the woman helped Neath escape, along with two other Cambodian women who were also running away from forced marriages. Neath says the woman and her Chinese husband regularly earned money helping Cambodian women flee China. Source: https://www.globalcitizen.org/fr/content/cambodia-women-escape-slavery-as-brides-in-china/ Read about the other stories of hardships faced by Cambodian women in China: https://www.ijm.org/news/cambodian-woman-rescued-from-bride-traffickers-in-china
- [BRIDES FOR SALE: A Comprehensive Report on Asian Women Trafficking to China](https://ij-reportika.com/brides-for-sale-a-comprehensive-report-on-asian-women-trafficking-to-china/): Report that examines the bride trafficking rackets run by Chinese citizens targeting women of South Asia and South East Asia.
- [Are Canada's elections free and fair?](https://ij-reportika.com/are-canadas-elections-free-and-fair/): There have been numerous recent reports of Chinese meddling in the Canadian elections. Wei Chengyi, a businessman and prominent member of the Chinese community in Toronto, is allegedly China&#8217;s go-to man in Canada if these stories are to be believed. He is the focus of inquiries into China&#8217;s political meddling in Canada&#8217;s elections, and he is accused of acting as the Chinese Consulate&#8217;s agent while transferring money to 11 federal candidates in Canada. Wei however has denied all the allegations and called the reports fabricated. Let us understand the case from both perspectives. Foody Mart Group, a grocery store chain in Ontario and British Columbia, was founded and is owned by Wei. In addition, he is the architect of the Ontario housing development China City. He serves on the boards of several organizations that promote trade between Canada and China, including the Confederation of Toronto Chinese Canadian Organizations (CTCCO), the Canada Toronto Fuqing Business Association (CTFBA), the Min Business Association of Canada, and the Canada Confederation of Fujian Associations. The China Overseas Exchange Association also counts him as a director. During China&#8217;s 12th National People&#8217;s Congress in 2014, he represented China from abroad. Wei and his organizations hosted several events that were attended regularly by some well-known Canadian politicians that are under scanner now. In February 2017, Wei hosted the Chinese New Year celebration at Parliament Hill in Ottawa which was attended by Liberal MPs Geng Tan and John McCallum, Conservative Senator Victor Oh, then Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen, and others. Geng Tan is said to be the first Chinese Canadian born in mainland China and elected to the House of Commons (HoC) in 2015. Before being elected to HoC, he was vice chairman of the Confederation of Toronto Chinese Canadian Organizations (CTCCO) of which Wei is the Permanent Honorary Chairman. In January 2018, Reportedly, Tan was found to have hand-delivered a letter to a top official at the Canadian embassy in Beijing and personally spoke to Chinese authorities on behalf of Edward Gong, a Chinese-Canadian businessman and Liberal Party donor who has been charged with money laundering and the fraudulent sale of hundreds of millions of dollars in securities. John McCallum, a Liberal MP and Canadian Ambassador to China from 2017 to 2019 has allegedly been a regular at Wei-hosted events. Besides participating in the Chinese New Year celebration in 2017, he also attended the premier ceremony of &#8220;Fujianese in Toronto&#8221;, in October 2015.&nbsp; &#8220;Fujianese in Toronto&#8221; is a TV series filmed by the Min Business Association of Canada where Wei serves as president. Other attendees included Michael Chan and Liberal MP Arnold Chan. At the event, McCallum jokingly claimed himself to be a &#8220;son-in-law of Fujianese&#8221; because his wife&#8217;s ancestors were born somewhere in Fujian Province, China. Another attendee at the Chinese New Year celebration in February 2017 was Conservative Senator Victor Oh who is considered close to China. In 2020, a Senate ethics officer found Senator Oh had breached the upper house&#8217;s ethics code four times when he accepted an all-expenses paid trip to China in 2017. Wei is also familiar with Han Dong, the successor of Geng Tan as MP for the riding of Don Valley North since 2019. Wei had reportedly offered Dong headquarters office of Foody Mart Group, a supermarket chain owned by Wei, to do a press conference declaring his nomination as a Liberal candidate in Tan&#8217;s riding. Michael Chan, a former Ontario Minister, and MPP from 2007 to 2018 and the current deputy Mayor of Markham and Regional Councilor-Elect, had been accused by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) in 2015 of being under the influence of the Chinese government. A few months later, in October 2015, Michael Chan and Wei were seen attending a party at the Chinese Consulate General in Toronto to allegedly celebrate the 66th anniversary of the CCP&#8217;s ruling in mainland China. Senator Victor Oh and Han Dong also attended the event. In April 2019, Wei along with Vincent Ke, a Conservative MPP, attended the inauguration ceremony of the Tibetan Association of Canada in Ontario. Tibetan Association of Canada is said to be a front for the Communist Party of China (CCP) as it publicly supports Beijing&#8217;s control of Tibet. In August same year, Wei and Michael Chan held a rally to support the denunciation of the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong and expressed their support for the Hong Kong police according to local media reports. Later in December 2019, Wei and Senator Victor Oh attended the New Year Gala organized by the Canada Toronto Fuqing Business Association (CTFBA). Surprisingly, according to our findings in the report titled China opening Chinese Police Stations outside its territory, the address of CTFBA, 220 Royal Crest, Markham, Ontario, is the same as that of one of China&#8217;s overseas police stations in Greater Toronto Area. Wei is the permanent Honorary Chairman of CTFBA. In October 2019, Senator Victor Oh along with MP Geng Tan attended the CTFBA&#8217;s inauguration ceremony of the First Board of Directors. It is evident from the foregoing that China is attempting to influence Canadian political circles through Wei Chengyi. However, the concerned MPs and Wei Chengyi have denied all the allegations levied upon them. Interfering in a nation&#8217;s internal affairs amounts to undermining that state&#8217;s sovereignty. The Canadian government must pay attention to these trends and take appropriate action to prevent China from exerting further influence over the nation&#8217;s politics.
- [Most important women's emancipation movement against radicalism in Iran](https://ij-reportika.com/most-important-womens-emancipation-movement-against-radicalism-in-iran/): The death of Mahsa Amini on September 16 sparked the largest protests in years in Iran, which have since erupted. The nation&#8217;s morality police had detained the 22-year-old for not donning her hijab properly and wearing skinny jeans, which are charged with enforcing stringent standards about dress and behavior. Amini&#8217;s family claims that she was beaten and had many blows to the head. Police and the administration have refuted the allegations, saying she died of an &#8220;underlying condition.&#8221; Protesters reject this official narrative, and demonstrations are still taking place nationwide. Iranians of different ages, ethnicities, and gender identities have participated in the protests, although young people have been the majority among those who have turned to the streets. &#8220;women started this wave of protest, But, everyone else joined.&nbsp; Women and men are shoulder-to-shoulder. All of Iran is united.For the first time in the history of Iran since the Islamic Revolution, there is this unique unity between the ethnicities. Everyone is chanting the same slogan. Their demand is the same.&#8221;&nbsp; Ramyar Hassani, spokeswoman for the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, People used all the means to protest According to Hassani, nearly all &#8220;peaceful, non-violent&#8221; protest tactics have been used in Iran. Women have burned their hijabs during enormous street protests that have taken place in all of Iran&#8217;s main cities and numerous small towns, frequently while dancing at the same time. Others have even had their hair chopped off. Schools, universities, and the country&#8217;s crucial oil industry have all reported strikes, and businesses have frequently closed their doors. On November 21, the Iranian football team declined to play its national anthem during the World Cup in Qatar, and supporters have screamed anti-regime chants outside of stadiums. In Iran, violent skirmishes have occasionally broken out, and protesters have set security force headquarters on fire. The attempts to crackdown Hassani claims that security forces have been suppressing protesters &#8220;quite severely&#8221; since the beginning, particularly in regions where there are ethnic minorities, such as Kurdistan and Balochistan. People have been shot for blowing their horns in support of demonstrators, and a large number of journalists (including those who broke the news of Amini&#8217;s death), attorneys, celebrities, athletes, and members of civil society have been imprisoned. According to the US-based Iran Human Rights Activists News Agency, at least 458 people have died and several hundred have been injured as of December. This number includes 63 children. There have been more than 18,000 detentions. But given how much gets unreported, these numbers could perhaps be far higher. According to the Iranian authorities, more than 60 members of the security forces have been killed. To disperse protesters in Kurdish areas, troops, heavy weapons, and military vehicles have been sent there. Here, Hassani alleges that murders were committed without regard for the victim, and he adds that detainees were housed in warehouses as jails overflowed. Although there is no proof, the administration has accused other nations like Israel and the US, which it refers to as the &#8220;Great Satan,&#8221; of inciting unrest. In November, Iran&#8217;s top court demanded that the &#8220;main elements&nbsp;of the riots&#8221; receive severe penalties, urging people to &#8220;avoid showing unnecessary sympathy&#8221; at this time. France and Germany strongly condemned the execution of the first protester by the Iranian authorities in December for alleged &#8220;corruption on earth,&#8221; or efsad-fil-arz. We anticipate more executions. The deep-rooted cause of the protests The Islamic policies of the government, particularly those pertaining to dress code, have stoked deep-seated resentment in Iran. There were protests even when the hijab (headscarf) became required in 1983; discontent has persisted ever since. According to Roulla, an Iranian political activist and researcher who requested anonymity for security reasons, frustrations have gotten worse since hardliner Ebrahim Raisi took office in 2021 and stepped up regulation of women&#8217;s attire. Protests, however, also focus on the shortcomings of reform. Iranian human rights attorney Shadi Shar claims that for many years, Iranians greatly bet on the notion that things would improve as promised by reformist politicians. &#8220;But nothing took place… The Islamic Republic itself needs to fall, is the message that is now loud and plain.&#8220; Former presidents Hassan Rouhani and Mohammad Khatami tried to bring Iran closer to the West, lessen social restrictions and bring more democratic freedoms, though these efforts largely failed. Making matters worse Inequality has increased while Iran&#8217;s economy has fallen apart in recent years. Hassani claims that while ordinary Iranians see no future, &#8220;young people on the streets watch the sons and daughters of those in power having a comfortable existence as their parents rob the people&#8217;s riches.&#8221; International sanctions were imposed on Iran after then-US President Donald Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, which was designed to prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon. Iran&#8217;s currency fell precipitously as a result, with ordinary Iranians bearing the brunt of these economic blows. Why these protests are different The protests of today, which are larger and more widespread than those of 2019, stand out because practically all facets of society have come together to support them. As opposed to the &#8220;middle-class issues&#8221; of vote manipulation that dominated unrest in 2009, according to Roulla, lower segments of society protested fuel price increases in 2019. He says Amini was an &#8220;average girl,&#8221; which is the &#8220;basic explanation&#8221; of why there is more harmony now. She wasn&#8217;t an activist, nor was she from a large city. It&#8217;s a lot simpler to empathize with that because she was murdered after being kidnapped from her family. The Iran Revolution is in full swing. Ij-Reportika will cover all its facets even though the Iran regime has ordered several gags on the publication of the truth.
- [New exposé on the Chinese police stations around the world](https://ij-reportika.com/new-expose-on-the-chinese-police-stations-around-the-world/): Second part of the comprehensive Investigative Report on the Chinese police stations around the world with maps and locations..
- [Is Qatar FIFA 2022 the Most Controversial World Cup ever?](https://ij-reportika.com/is-qatar-fifa-2022-the-most-controversial-world-cup-ever/): The latest in the slew of controversies that have surrounded the FIFA World Cup is the blocking of Tod TV by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, disappointing millions of football fans in the country. Tod TV is the popular streaming service of the Qatari broadcaster BeIN and is the FIFA World Cup’s official streaming platform. While the reasons for this sudden action on behalf of the Saudi authorities are unclear, it is not helping Qatar’s case which is already neck-deep in controversies around the tournament. It is yet another addition to the many issues being raised with respect to Qatar’s suitability as a football World Cup host, the fairness of the entire bidding process, the problems created by the local climate, and the ever-emerging news on human rights violations happening in the country.&nbsp; Bribing the FIFA officials to win the bid to host the World Cup The most controversial issue surrounding the World Cup is the alleged corruption by the Qatari authorities in winning the bid to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Qatar was accused of providing more than $3 million to FIFA officials as bribes in exchange for the bid to host the 2022 edition. Though the allegations were later dismissed, this was not the first time such allegations of corruption were leveled against FIFA. Russia and Brazil too brought to the surface similar allegations against the working of FIFA. The lack of infrastructural preparedness The unsuitability of Qatar to host such a massive and significant football event has prompted another set of issues around the tournament. The lack of infrastructural preparedness is the biggest of these issues. Neither did they have world-class stadiums, nor enough hotels to accommodate the swarms of football fans that were likely to flood the country to watch the games. The primary reason perhaps is Qatar&#8217;s limited history in the sport itself. Given the lack of football culture in Qatari society, it makes little sense to bid for such a large event. The adverse climate The climate is the second big reason why Qatar is a terrible choice of place to host the event. The hot and humid climate of Qatar is a nightmare for any outdoor sporting event, turning it into a health hazard for not just the incoming fans but also the thousands of workers engaged in building the required sports infrastructure. Most of these workers were migrants coming from Southeast Asia and Africa, who over the last several months ended up being trapped in very abusive working conditions. The extensive construction in the run-up to the tournament, including the building of seven new stadiums and about a hundred hotels took a massive toll on not only the health but also on the lives of these workers. The exploitation of the workers and the Kafala System The manner of treatment meted out to the workers employed to complete various infrastructure projects in a speedy manner right before the tournament has prompted public outrage across the globe. The Kafala system practiced in the Middle-eastern countries has been a source of controversy for a prolonged period of time. It is primarily a system put in place to heavily monitor migrant laborers, putting the Gulf-based employers of these workers in-charge of their visa and legal status and giving them the reins to exploit these workers as they deem fit. Interestingly, various global publications had not only predicted but also warned against the potential abuses and death that workers were likely to face in the build-up to this tournament. Unfortunately, most of these warnings were ignored by the world as we waited for them to turn true. In August 2022, the Qatari authorities arrested and deported over 60 migrant workers from Nepal, Bangladesh, India, Egypt, and the Philippines, who were protesting against the non-payment of wages by their employer, the Al Bandary International Group. Some of these demonstrators had not received their wages for months. The death of the construction workers The exact number of deaths of migrant workers is still unknown. Some estimates, including one by the Guardian, report that at least 6,500 migrant workers have died since 2010 when Qatar won the bid to host the World Cup. The Qatari officials, as expected, deny these figures. The official figures state that 37 people have died while working on projects related to the football tournament and eventually 34 of those deaths were deemed unrelated to the job. Since then, human rights groups across the globe have been demanding further investigations into these deaths facilitated by this systematic modern-day slavery regime in the Gulf. The Religious Extremism The religious extremism of the country is perhaps the icing on the cake, making it the most problematic location ever to host the event. Being the first Muslim country to host the event, it is bringing its own flavor to the event. Similar to other countries in the region, Qatar has guardianship laws that put several restrictions on the liberties of women, including their rights to make work-related decisions, seek education, and even certain aspects of healthcare being dependent on the permission given by the male family members. In addition, homosexual relationships between consenting men are illegal in Qatar and can result in imprisonment of one year. Reports of harassment, abuse, and forced conversion therapies are not rare in Qatar. It, therefore, came as a surprise to everyone that FIFA, while being well aware of Qatar’s stand against homosexuality, still went on and approved its bid. It went as far as saying that LGBTQ fans can ‘refrain’ from sexual activities while in Qatar. Lastly, much to the disappointment of millions of fans, mere two days before the tournament, FIFA confirmed that no alcohol would be sold inside the stadiums, in line with the high amount of restrictions on the sale of alcohol in Qatar. Perhaps Qatar had high hopes with respect to the FIFA World Cup hosting, hoping to elevate its status as the Middle East region’s sporting hub and help its case in becoming a regional...
- [One of the biggest rebellions in the history of China](https://ij-reportika.com/one-of-the-biggest-rebellions-in-the-history-of-china/): From Lhasa and Xinjiang to Beijing and Shanghai, protests have erupted across China and have taken the shape of a colossal rebellion.
- [Labor Uprising In China's Zhengzhou against Zero COVID & Apple's Foxconn factory](https://ij-reportika.com/labor-uprising-in-chinas-zhengzhou-against-zero-covid-apples-foxconn-factory/): A labor uprising over COVID-19 restrictions and contract violations by Apple at Foxconn&#8217;s iPhone factory in central China is unfolding in Zhengzhou. The government-deployed security officers are trying to suppress the uprising with violence as shown in the videos circulating on Chinese social media. #LaborUprisingInChina trending on Social Media #LaborUprisingInChina&nbsp;trended for hours in many parts of the world on 23rd November 2022. People on social media showed sympathy towards the suffering laborers at the Foxconn iPhone factory. What is happening in Zhengzhou? Laborers and workers at Foxconn&#8217;s Zhengzhou factory held protests on the factory campus, where they have had to stay since a closed-loop system was announced to counter the spread of COVID-19 without compromising productivity under the Zero Covid policy. Videos of the violence in Zhengzhou showed masked laborers facing off police in protective suits. The authorities have used force and severely injured many of them.&nbsp; The violence comes as China tightens once again its COVID-19 measures, making it the only major economy still subscribed to full lockdowns to face virus outbreaks. China&#8217;s coronavirus measures have triggered domestic dissent this year. We have covered over 450 protests in China this year. However, near the end of the year, China is beholding a massive labor uprising from one of the most downtrodden classes in the manufacturing hub of the world.&nbsp; Local authorities are continuing to stick to the “zero-Covid strategy” championed by the central government in Beijing. The easing of the restrictive measures imposed on large factory compounds like the Foxconn factory in Zhengzhou is unlikely. Why are laborers at Foxconn protesting? Some workers said they were informed that the bonus that was initially promised to them would be delayed, and the situation in the dormitory, where workers who have been there for weeks were mixed with the newly hired workers, enhances the risk of them being exposed to the coronavirus. Videos of many people leaving Zhengzhou on foot had gone viral on Chinese social media earlier in November, forcing Foxconn to step up measures to get its staff back. To limit the fallout, the company said it had quadrupled daily bonuses for workers at the plant this month. On Wednesday, workers said that Foxconn failed to honor their promise of an attractive bonus and pay package after they arrived to work at the plant. Numerous complaints have also been posted anonymously on social media platforms — accusing Foxconn of having changed the salary packages previously advertised. “the allowance has always been fulfilled based on contractual obligation” Foxconn said in a statement on Wednesday Ij-Reportika reached out to one of the laborers who protested on the 23rd. Under the condition of anonymity, he said, &#8220;We are made to live in miserable conditions, we don&#8217;t have any rights, we don&#8217;t want to work in the Apple factory day in and day out with all our livelihoods destroyed. We are at high risk of getting infected by the virus and on top of all this our contracts are violated and our payments and bonuses are stuck. They offered me 8000 Yuan to leave and go back to my hometown. But I refused to take it!! Protesting Labor at Zhengzhou
- [Amid growing protests, China cautiously mulls relaxing zero-COVID rules: analysts](https://ij-reportika.com/amid-growing-protests-china-cautiously-mulls-relaxing-zero-covid-rules-analysts/): There are signs that China is mulling less draconian public health controls amid ongoing protests in the streets and on university campuses, political analysts say. The Chinese government released a package of 20 new policy measures on Nov. 11 aimed at &#8220;optimizing&#8221; the country&#8217;s pandemic response, including slightly relaxed quarantine requirements for people returning home from areas designated &#8220;high risk.&#8221;  The move has generally been seen as a cautious relaxation of the zero-COVID policy, espoused by Communist Party leader Xi Jinping as the only way forward when it comes to containing the virus, and comes amid growing public dissatisfaction with the policy and widespread censorship of dissenting voices.  University students in the central city of Zhengzhou protested over long-running restrictions on Nov. 16, according to video clips uploaded to social media sites. One video clip showed masked young people in a heated discussion with an official in a black jacket, urging him to read the students&#8217; demands, a copy of which was also circulating on social media. In a second clip, the Zhengzhou University students start shouting at the official in frustration after he appears to stall. &#8220;Looks like you&#8217;re not going to address a single one of these issues for us here tonight,&#8221; says one protester.  Social media posts said the university’s Communist Party secretary came out to talk with students, but a live stream of the conversation was later blocked and student dorms searched by security officials. Protests in Guangzhou, Urumqi and Lhasa The students&#8217; resistance to nationwide campus lockdowns followed street protests by migrant workers who broke out of lockdown in the southern city of Guangzhou, as well as protests in Urumqi and Ghulja in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, and the Tibetan capital Lhasa in recent weeks. Reports have emerged that the northern city of Shijiazhuang could be a pilot zone for a slightly more relaxed approach to mass testing. The Financial Times reported on Nov. 15 that the city is &#8220;tiptoeing away from Beijing’s most draconian pandemic measures, in what some see as a test case for a gradual retreat from President Xi Jinping’s strict zero-Covid policy.&#8221; People line up to be tested for COVID-19 on Flower City Square in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, China, Nov. 16, 2022. Credit: cnsphoto via Reuters Widespread rumors that the city is gearing up to &#8220;live with COVID-19&#8221; prompted the city&#8217;s party Secretary Zhang Chaochao to deny the move on Nov. 14, promising that the municipal authorities wouldn&#8217;t &#8220;lie flat&#8221; in the face of the threat from the virus. Former Chinese Red Cross Director Ren Ruihong said the government is announcing looser restrictions from Beijing, but leaving it to local officials to decide how best to control the virus locally &#8212; an issue that figures highly in government key performance indicators and therefore affects individuals&#8217; career prospects. &#8220;The central government will gradually relax its pandemic prevention guidance, even if only to deflect public dissatisfaction from itself,&#8221; Ren told Radio Free Asia. &#8220;The situation with regard to different opinions [about how to implement the measures on the ground] is pretty chaotic right now, with the central government unwilling to take the blame.&#8221; This has left room for variation in local pandemic prevention policies, and caused a &#8220;disconnect&#8221; from Beijing, Ren said. This has resulted in an ongoing and severe lockdown in the southwestern megacity of Chongqing, while requirements for testing in Shijiazhuang have at least partly been dropped, according to a resident there who spoke to RFA. Still need negative PCR tests People returning to the city from low-risk areas still need a negative PCR test from the past 48 hours, and need the permission of their residential committees to return home. The same requirements apply to anyone leaving the city. While confusion remains over whether kindergarteners still need a recent negative test to attend school, resident Sun Liang said regular testing regardless of a person&#8217;s movements has been dropped, while &#8220;active testing&#8221; is still in place for travel to certain public places. &#8220;You still need a negative PCR from the past 24 hours to get into an office building, and a negative result from the past 48 or 72 hours to ride the subway or the bus,&#8221; Sun told RFA. Some districts appeared to be just as confused as residents by what was happening in their city, shutting down test stations only to reopen them a day later, according to social media posts. But Sun said the city is likely being used as a guinea pig for the rest of China. &#8220;It is indeed being used as a pilot, but it&#8217;s just not being totally freed from restrictions as some people have been saying,&#8221; he said. &#8220;If they totally removed all restrictions, then there might be a backlash in which people think the government doesn&#8217;t care what happens to them.&#8221; &#8220;A lot of pharmacies are now selling drugs you can take orally for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19, which may be an even bigger sort of pilot,&#8221; he said. The Financial Times cited several residents of Shijiazhuang as saying that the idea of loosening restrictions made them fearful of catching the virus. Veteran U.S.-based rights activist and political commentator Yang Jianli likened China&#8217;s COVID-19 policy to &#8220;riding a tiger.&#8221; &#8220;This is caused by the fact that Xi Jinping and the Chinese government failed to import internationally made vaccines in time in the wake of the Wuhan lockdown,&#8221; Yang said.  &#8220;The Chinese government is in a dilemma right now. They are damned if they do, and damned if they don&#8217;t.&#8221; Translated and written by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Asia Fact Check Lab: Did NATO donate HIV-infected blood to Ukraine?](https://ij-reportika.com/asia-fact-check-lab-did-nato-donate-hiv-infected-blood-to-ukraine/): During the past two weeks, a conspiracy theory alleging that NATO members had donated HIV and hepatitis-infected blood to Ukraine was originally posted and spread on Weibo by “Guyan Muchan,” an influential account with more than 6 million followers.  Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) tracked down and confirmed the pro-Putin Telegram channel Breaking Mash as the disinformation’s source. Further inquiries by the Ukraine-based fact-checking organization StopFake caused the Ukrainian government to release a formal statement debunking the disinformation.  On Nov. 3, Guyan Muchan, a widely followed Weibo user, published a post claiming to reveal a tainted blood scandal involving NATO and Ukraine. The statement reads: “Ukraine asked NATO to provide more than 60,000 liters of blood for wounded soldiers in the Odessa, Nikolaev, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov and Zaporozhye regions. NATO member countries provided Ukraine with canned blood. However, Ukrainian medical staff found HIV and hepatitis B and C viruses in the blood after random examinations. Kiev has written to NATO requesting an independent assessment of the donor blood and asking that blood “not be collected on the African continent.” In the first group, 6.3% of the samples had HIV, 7.4% had hepatitis B and 3.2% had hepatitis C.  In the second group: 5.9%, 6.8% and 3.1%, respectively. The information is obtained by leaked files after the Ukrainian government office computers were hacked.” The post contained three images. The first was a picture of a statement that hackers allegedly had obtained confidential documents from Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal’s email. The second was an alleged letter from Ukraine’s Minister of Health to Shmyhal. The third was the English translation of the letter. Each image’s background contained the word “mash” as a watermark, which AFCL used to trace the post back to its original source.   Guyan Muchan is one of China’s “patriotic” influencers who in recent years rose to fame by pandering to domestic nationalist sentiment. Her post claiming the use of tainted blood was liked by hundreds of people, with other influential social media figures reposting it to millions more. This “news” swiftly spread on a number of Chinese language websites, including the popular internet news portal 163.com.  What is the claim&#8217;s source? AFCL was unable to find any reports about the claim from credible English media outlets. A few English websites with poor news credibility did repost it, including the pro-Russia website info.news and the gun-lover community forum snipershide.com. A slew of unreliable Twitter accounts have also posted the claim in English. Chief among them is ZOKA, a user with more than 105,000 followers. Marcus Kolga, director at DisinfoWatch, a fact-checking project under the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in Canada, told AFCL that ZOKA is a “well-known pro-Kremlin account.” AFCL also found the Russian version of the claim being spread on many websites, forums and social media platforms. After comparing both the publishing time and watermark, AFCL traced the claim back to a post on the Telegram channel “Breaking Mash,” first published at 1 a.m. on Nov. 3. The original post has since gained over 1a million views. Breaking Mash is the official Telegram channel of the Russian-language website Mash.ru. The website’s content is full of lies and is highly aligned with Moscow’s propaganda, according to Christine Eliashevsky-Chraibi, a media veteran and translator at Euromaidan Press. Mash senior staff are suspected of being close to the Russian government, with company executive Stepan Kovalchuk’s uncles, Kirill and Yuri Kovalchuk, marked as “elites close to Putin” by the United States.S. In sum, both the claim’s original Russian source along with the English websites and social media accounts that spread the claim all suffer from low credibility.  Is the claim true? AFCL deems the Guyan Muchan post to be false. It came from a pro-Russia Telegram channel with low credibility. The Ukraine Ministry of Health refuted the claim in a statement offering more details about blood donation in Ukraine. The claim alleges that the “scoop” was leaked from the hacked email of Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal. But no credible media outlets reported on the leaked emails.The statements the claim relies on use questionable language that normally would not be appropriate for official documents. For example, the claim alleges that the mMinister of hHealth demanded that NATO’s donor blood “not be collected on the African continent.” The possibility of such racist language appearing in a formal government document is unlikely. Eliashevsky-Chraibi said the alleged government letter is “very suspicious” as there&#8217;s “no date, no signature, no stamp” and it was “not formal procedure.”  Through the Ukraine based fact-checking organization StopFake, AFCL checked with the Ukrainian government regarding the veracity of this claim. On Nov. 7, the Ukrainian Ministry of Health published a statement on its official website refuting the claim. Ukraine has never requested blood donations from any organization outside of the country, and all donor blood needed for the battlefield comes from within Ukraine and meets European standards, according to the ministry’s statement. Whenever there is an urgent need at a blood center, people respond quickly to requests for donations, negating the need for any supplies from outside of the country. The statement adds that Ukraine does not have a &#8220;random sampling&#8221; system of donor blood. Instead, it tests all donations to ensure they are safe and reliable.  The alleged letter from Ukraine’s Minister of Health is a forgery, the statement says.  The allegation about blood donated to Ukraine originated on the Russian telegram channel Breaking Mash [left] and then was picked up by a pro-Kremlin account on Twitter [center] and a few hours later by an account on Weibo [right] with 6.44 million fans. Credit: Asia Fact Check Lab screenshots Background Information In late October, the Kyiv Post, a leading English newspaper in Ukraine, published a report that Russia’s Wagner private military company had recruited Russian prisoners suffering from severe infectious diseases, in particular HIV and hepatitis C. This news bears some similarities with the claim made on the Breaking Mash Telegram channel, including the mention of HIV, hepatitis and the war, but...
- [Xi steals the limelight at APEC, showcasing China’s regional clout](https://ij-reportika.com/xi-steals-the-limelight-at-apec-showcasing-chinas-regional-clout/): UPDATED at 5:45 a.m. EST on 11-19-2022. Even as host Thailand passes the APEC baton to its successor the United States, Chinese President Xi Jinping has been busy using the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum to highlight China’s growing clout and push back against U.S. influence in the region. Having secured an unprecedented third term as leader at the Chinese Communist Party’s Congress last month, Xi embarked on his first major foreign tour since the pandemic struck nearly three years ago &#8211; to the Group of 20 Summit in Bali, then the APEC Summit in Bangkok that ended Saturday. The APEC summit was the third and final gathering of world leaders in Asia in the space of nine days. With U.S. President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin both absent from APEC, the Chinese president virtually had the stage to himself.  During his tour, Xi has for the most part struck a conciliatory tone during his encounters with other heads of states &#8211; including U.S. president. The Biden-Xi meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 went some way to tamping down months of rising U.S.-China tensions. “It certainly appears that Xi Jinping and China’s propaganda enterprise are trying to set a softer tone and appear less overtly antagonistic during the G-20 and APEC summits,” said Drew Thompson, visiting senior research fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore.  While in the Thai capital, Xi met with a host of regional leaders including key U.S. allies. He held bilateral talks with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Singaporean Premier Lee Hsien Loong and Philippine President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr. on a wide range of issues including economic cooperation and security.  Xi also met with Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha &#8212; although their initial photo op went viral on social media for the wrong reasons because of the appearance that Xi had snubbed Prayuth’s offer of a handshake. “President Xi certainly wants to be a major player,” said Ja Ian Chong, a political scientist at the National University of Singapore, noting the Chinese leader’s confidence in having unscripted interactions with other leaders – like when he chastised Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over alleged leaks of diplomatic conversations at the G-20. But Thompson observed: “The underlying differences between China and its neighbors and trading partners remain deeply entrenched and there are no signs that China is adapting its foreign policy approach and how it pursues its interests.”  Chinese leadership Gao Zhikai, vice president of the Beijing-based Center for China and Globalization, said Xi’s attendance at APEC accentuated China’s growing leadership role in stark contrast with the U.S.’s “diminishing relevance.” Biden did in fact attend the G-20 Summit in Bali, Indonesia, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Cambodia that preceded it &#8211; a meeting Xi skipped &#8211; in an effort to signal U.S. commitment to the region.  But when it came to APEC, which focuses on economic cooperation &#8211; an area of Asia policy in which Washington is generally perceived as trailing China &#8211; Biden had returned home for a family event. “The fact that Biden is not at the meeting shows that the U.S. doesn’t care much about APEC,” Gao told RFA. “Of course, the whole world is aware that his granddaughter is getting married,” said the academic who served as a translator for late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping and sometimes acts as de-facto media spokesman for the Chinese Communist Party. “But if there was interest, the U.S. would know how to show it,” he added. ‘Proud Pacific power’ That’s obviously not the narrative conveyed by Washington, which now takes over the rotating chair of the 21-member APEC bloc, which was set up in 1989 to promote free trade.  U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, who was in Bangkok in Biden’s place, told the summit that her country is “a proud Pacific power” and that “the United States is here to stay.” Harris had a brief meeting with Xi in which she urged the Chinese leadership to “maintain open lines of communication to responsibly manage the competition between our countries.&#8221; U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris greets China&#8217;s President Xi Jinping before the APEC Leaders&#8217; Retreat in Bangkok, Thailand Nov. 19, 2022. (The White House/Handout via REUTERS) On the theme of economic cooperation, Harris said the Indo-Pacific serves as the market for almost 30 percent of American exports and U.S. companies invest $1 trillion a year in the region. She vowed that the U.S. “will uphold the rules of the road” and “will help build prosperity for everyone.” Her statement clearly struck a chord with some participating nations which want to avoid being caught up in big-power competition between China and the United States. Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc said his country supports “all regional and multilateral cooperation frameworks which are based on international principles and regulations.” Harris appeared to draw a contrast between the U.S. initiative and China’s Belt and Road Initiative that has invested large sums of money in infrastructure across the world, but which critics say can leave recipient countries in heavy debt to Beijing. Xi said that China is considering holding the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in 2023. Reinvigorating APEC Gao contended that Harris’ main purpose at APEC was actually to promote the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework.  The Biden administration launched the IPEF in May as the center of its economic strategy for the region, and the U.S. vice president said the grouping now represents some 40 per cent of the global gross domestic product and is “dedicated to equitable growth and high environmental and labor standards.” It does not include either Russia or China. Gao said he suspects “the U.S. is hollowing out APEC for the benefit of IPEF,” which he described as an “artificial, ill-designed” grouping. “But APEC will remain APEC, a natural, coherent forum of cooperation for all countries in the region,” he said. Ja Ian Chong at the National University of Singapore said “China...
- [China uses carrots and sticks to boost Uyghur-Han intermarriage-report](https://ij-reportika.com/china-uses-carrots-and-sticks-to-boost-uyghur-han-intermarriage-report/): China mixes financial, education and career incentives with coercive measures such as threats to families under state policies to promote intermarriage between majority Han Chinese and ethnic minority Uyghurs in the restive Xinjiang region, a new report by a Uyghur rights group has found. The Uyghur Human Rights Project analyzed Chinese state media, policy documents, government sanctioned marriage testimonials, as well as accounts from women in the Uyghur diaspora, that government incentivizes and coercion to boost interethnic marriages has increased since 2014. “The Chinese Party-State is actively involved in carrying out a campaign of forcefully assimilating Uyghurs into Han Chinese society by means of mixed marriages,” said the report. The findings on forced marriage by Washington, DC-based NGO come as Western governments and the United Nations have recognized that Chinese policies in Xinjiang amount to or may amount to genocide or crimes against humanity. Forced labor, incarceration camps and other aspects of China&#8217;s rule in Xinjiang have drawn sanctions from Britain, Canada, the European Union and the United States. The study, “Forced Marriage of Uyghur Women: State Policies for Interethnic Marriage in East Turkistan,” draws on state media propaganda films, state-approved online accounts of interethnic marriages and weddings, state-approved personal online testimonials from individuals in interethnic marriages, as well as government statements and policy directives. “The Party-State has actively encouraged and incentivized ‘interethnic’ Uyghur-Han intermarriage since at least May 2014,” the Uyghur Human Rights Project says in the report, released on Nov. 16. Interethnic marriage policies gained momentum after Chinese President Xi Jinping announced a “new era” at the Xinjiang Work Forum in 2014, touting a policy of strengthening interethnic “contact, exchange, and mingling,” the report said. “Uyghur-Han intermarriage has been increasing over the past several years since the Chinese state has been actively promoting intermarriage,” said Nuzigum Setiwaldi a co-author of the report. “The Chinese government always talks about how interethnic marriages promote ‘ethnic unity’ and ‘social stability,’ but these actually are euphemisms for assimilation,” she told RFA Uyghur. “The Chinese government is incentivizing and promoting intermarriage as a way to assimilate Uyghurs into Han society and culture. Carrots include cash payments, help with housing, medical care, government jobs, and tuition waivers. When it comes to sticks, “young Uyghur women and/or their parents face an ever-present threat of punishment if the women decline to marry a Han ‘suitor,’” the report said, citing experiences of Uyghur women now living in exile. “Videos and testimonies have also raised concerns that Uyghur women are being pressured and forced into marrying Han men,” said Setiwaldi. The report cites an informal marriage guide for male Han party officials published in 2019, titled “How to Win the Heart of a Uyghur Girl.” Han men who want to marry Uyghur women are told that the woman they love “must love the Motherland, love the Party, and she must have unrivaled passion for socialist Xinjiang,” it said. Commenting on the report, scholar Adrian Zenz said the Chinese Communist Party’s “policy of incentivizing Han and coercing Uyghurs into interethnic marriages is part of a strategy of breaking down and dismantling Uyghur culture.” Zenz, a senior fellow in China Studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington, D.C., was the first outside expert to document the network of mass internment camp for Uyghurs launched in Xinjiang in 2017 and he has analyzed China’s Uyghur population policies. The intermarriage strategy serves the goal of “optimizing the ethnic population structure, breaking the ‘dominance’ of concentrated Uyghur populations in southern Xinjiang as part of a slowly unfolding genocidal policy,” he told RFA. “It’s important that people pay attention to the different forms of human rights abuses that are taking place in the Uyghur region, particularly those that are underreported, like forced marriages,” said Setiwaldi.  “People can raise awareness and push their governments to hold the Chinese government accountable.” China had no immediate comment on the report. Last month, a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement dismissed U.S. efforts to debate the U.N. report, saying, “the human rights of people of all ethnic backgrounds in Xinjiang are protected like never before” and “the ultimate motive of the U.S. and some other Western countries behind their Xinjiang narrative is to contain China.” Written by Paul Eckert for RFA.
- [Leaked documents reveal Myanmar junta’s plans to strike in Chin state](https://ij-reportika.com/leaked-documents-reveal-myanmar-juntas-plans-to-strike-in-chin-state/): The Myanmar junta is preparing to launch airstrikes against the Chin National Front in the country’s western Chin state, a spokesperson for the ethnic armed organization told Radio Free Asia, citing leaked internal military documents. According to the documents, which the Chin National Front, or CNF, acquired earlier this month, the airstrike is intended to target the organization’s headquarters on Mt. Victoria, in Thantlang township. “We cannot reveal where we got this intelligence information, but we are preparing the best we can for the defense against this airstrike,” CNF spokesperson Salai Htet Ni told RFA’s Burmese Service.  He said the documents revealed that churches, hospitals, clinics and schools are also on the list of possible targets. News of the plans frightened people living in the area, a civilian living near Mt. Victoria told RFA. “We are the only village near that mountain,” he said. “If they also target the village, we could be hit hard.” Thant Zin, the junta’s spokesperson for Chin state, has not responded to the CNF’s claims that the military is preparing to launch airstrikes in region. The military only launches airstrikes when absolutely necessary, said Thein Tun Oo, executive director of Thaenaga Institute for Strategic Studies, a pro-military think tank formed with former military officers. “The position is the same for all armed organizations in the country. If they view something as detrimental for their security, they take military action. This is a very normal path,” he said. “But I am suspicious that such an important decision to launch an airstrike has been leaked to the outside. It is hard to say whether their information is right or wrong.”  Junta forces last month killed 63 people in Kachin state, many of them members of the Kachin Independence Organization, when they bombed a concert in what is believed to be the bloodiest single airstrike in Myanmar since last year’s military coup. Translated by Ye K.M. Maung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [China sentences mother of Uyghur Dutch airman to 15 years for visiting him abroad](https://ij-reportika.com/china-sentences-mother-of-uyghur-dutch-airman-to-15-years-for-visiting-him-abroad/): Chinese authorities have sentenced the mother and sister-in-law of an Uyghur member of the Dutch air force to 15 years in prison on charges of supporting terrorism and revealing state secrets. The cases are another example of Beijing severely punishing members of the ethnic minority for visiting or contacting relatives abroad. Capt. MUN (pseudo name for security concerns), now a Dutch citizen, has been living in the Netherlands since 2006. His mother came to visit him in 2014 to attend his wedding, he told IJ-Reportika. In 2016, the same year he joined the Royal Netherlands Air Force, he lost contact with his mother, Imanem Nesrulla, and his sister-in-law, Ayhan Memet, he said. In 2018, while he was stationed in the United States of America, his sister-in-law was able to initiate contact with him for the first time in two years, using the WeChat messaging platform. She told him that Chinese authorities arrested his mother and sent her to a concentration camp, MUN said.&nbsp; Then in 2019, he heard that his sister-in-law was arrested for telling him about his mother’s arrest.&nbsp; MUN made several appeals to the Dutch government to find out more information about both cases, but it wasn’t until he returned to the Netherlands in 2020 that his inquiries made any headway.&nbsp; The Dutch foreign ministry contacted the Chinese Embassy, and in July 2021 he received news that his mother and sister-in-law had both been sentenced to 15 years in prison. “[Ayhan] had told me of my mother’s situation, hoping I would get my mother released since I was living in Europe and working in the military. Just for this information, the authorities sentenced her to 15 years in jail.”&nbsp; MUN said. Enemy force According to the written response he received from the ministry, Imanem was charged with “supporting terrorist activities and inciting ethnicity [sic] hatred and discrimination,” and Ayhan for “illegally providing national intelligence to foreign forces.” In China’s view, MUN said he is considered part of an “enemy force.”&nbsp; MUN said he was very disappointed that the Dutch foreign ministry could do nothing to help him after they were able to reveal his family members’ fates. “It seems this will hurt their big interests,” he said. “I wrote to my prime minister twice but did not receive any response.” MUN said that both his mother and sister-in-law lived and worked in Qumul (in Chinese Hami), about 370 miles east of Urumqi in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Due to his professional responsibilities, MUN has refrained from any involvement with political activities, but he expressed that he can remain silent no more, and he is now doing as much as he can for his mother and sister-in-law. “[Previously] I was not willing to speak to the media as a complainer and a victim because of my position,” he said. But now, “I have to do this for my mother and sister-in-law, who are in prison because of me.” &nbsp; &nbsp;
- [North Korean censors destroy more than half of soldiers’ Mother’s Day letters](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korean-censors-destroy-more-than-half-of-soldiers-mothers-day-letters/): North Korea’s military ordered soldiers to write letters to their mothers ahead of the country’s Mother’s Day, which was on Wednesday, but military censors destroyed more than half of them for ideological reasons, sources in the country told Radio Free Asia. To make matters worse, the censors even used the contents of some letters to identify and punish problematic soldiers, sources said. “The letters from soldiers of each unit … are opened before they arrive at the regimental postal office, and the ones that contain complaints about the difficulties of military service are sorted out and destroyed,” a source from the northwestern province of North Pyongan told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. The number of mothers who aren’t receiving letters is likely in the hundreds of thousands. Every able-bodied North Korean must serve in the military. Until recently, male soldiers spent 10 years in the service, but since 2020, men serve eight years and women five as part of a fighting force estimated by the CIA World Factbook to be 1.15 million strong. From the letters sorted out, the censors made a list of soldiers with “weak ideological wills” – in other words, those who complained about hunger or fatigue, the source said. Those soldiers will be sent to ideological training. Letters written by a unit of soldiers guarding the border with China in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong had to pass through two rounds of censors, a source there told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “The letters were first opened and censored by the company security officers, then they were all collected at the regiment and the military’s security authorities inspected them again,” the second source said. Some of the soldiers on the weak ideology list did not even complain. Instead they made the mistake of asking about their mothers’ wellbeing, the second source said. “A soldier sent his regards to his mother and asked her if the house had not collapsed in a recent flood and if the farming was going well,” the second source said. “However, the military security department pointed out that this shows that the soldier … does not trust the Party and speaks weakly instead of trusting that the Party takes care of the lives of all citizens.” Because so many soldiers are now going to be sent to ideological reeducation, they are griping about the authorities’ duplicitous behavior, because they are the ones that ordered them to write the letters in the first place, the second source said. Though Mother’s Day is most commonly celebrated around the world on the second Sunday in May, it falls on other dates in many countries. It is a relatively new holiday in North Korea, introduced in 2012 during the first year of Kim Jong Un’s reign, and became a public holiday in 2015.  Authorities chose Nov. 16 in remembrance of an iconic speech about mothers delivered on that day in 1961 by Kim’s grandfather, national founder Kim Il Sung. Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong. 
- ["The results may be unpredictable", said Xi schooling Trudeau over media leaks](https://ij-reportika.com/xi-schools-trudeau-on-sidelines-of-g20-over-media-leaks/): Chinese leader Xi Jinping schooled Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit on Wednesday over leaks about their one-on-one meeting, according to a video of the incident. The encounter was apparently sparked after Reuters quoted Canadian government sources as saying that Trudeau had held a side meeting with Xi on Tuesday, their first in more than three years. During it, Trudeau reportedly expressed concerns about Chinese interference in Canadian elections. “Everything we’ve discussed has been leaked to the papers, and this isn’t appropriate,” Xi says while seeming to force a smile in comments translated by an interpreter. “That was not the way the conversation was conducted.” “This isn’t how we go about it, right?&nbsp;If there is sincerity on your part, then we shall conduct our discussions with mutual respect,” Xi said in footage from a break at the G20 obtained by CTV News Channel&#8217;s Annie Bergeron-Oliver, a reporter accompanying Trudeau.&nbsp; The Chinese interpreter failed to fully translate the entirety of Xi&#8217;s Chinese into English. After Xi said &#8220;this is inappropriate&#8221; while shaking his head in seeming disapproval, he gave Trudeau one last look, spread both hands and shook his head again while uttering, &#8220;otherwise the results may be unpredictable.” Between Xi’s two utterances, Trudeau tried to emphasize the importance of open communication between leaders. &#8220;In Canada we believe in free and open and frank dialogue and that is what we will continue to have,” he said. “We will continue to look to work constructively together but there will be things we disagree on.&#8221; Halfway through listening to his interpreter’s translation of Trudeau’s speech however, Xi noticed the nearby cameras. Xi then repeated the phrase, “Let’s create the conditions&#8221; twice, shook hands with Trudeau and quickly left. A report from Reuters on Tuesday revealed that Trudeau and Xi’s meeting had been preceded by the arrest of an employee from Canada&#8217;s largest power company. The man was charged with stealing trade secrets for China. At a routine press conference, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning declined to comment on the incident.
- [Nearly 1.7 million new refugees of conflict in Myanmar since coup](https://ij-reportika.com/nearly-1-7-million-new-refugees-of-conflict-in-myanmar-since-coup/): Nearly 1.7 million people have been displaced by conflict in Myanmar since last year’s military coup, bringing the total number of refugees who have fled fighting in the country to more than 3 million and putting a heavy strain on aid resources in the Southeast Asian nation. The Institute for Strategy and Policy, an independent research group, said in a report earlier this month that as of Nov. 2, at least 1,650,661 people had been forced to escape conflict in regions that include Sagaing, Magway, Bago, Chin and Kayah in the more than 21 months since the military took power in Myanmar. The new refugees join an estimated 497,200 internally displaced persons who fled conflict before the Feb. 21, 2021 coup and at least 1,019,190 who have crossed Myanmar’s borders into the neighboring countries of Thailand, India and Bangladesh due to fighting both prior to and after the putsch, the group said. The new total of 3,167,051 represents roughly six percent of the country’s population of 54.4 million. As the number of refugees continues to swell, amidst a protracted conflict in Myanmar’s remote border regions between the military and anti-coup paramilitary groups and ethnic armies, local and international aid groups say the junta has barred them from accessing those in need or hampered efforts to deliver crucial supplies to camps for the displaced. Speaking to RFA Burmese on Wednesday, a refugee in Chin state’s war-torn Kanpetlet township said medicine and food resources at their camp have nearly dried up, putting an already vulnerable population at greater risk. “We are in a very difficult situation,” said the refugee, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal by the military. “We are in desperate need of medicine for the elderly, pregnant women, breast-feeding mothers, and children under the age of five.” According to ethnic Chin human rights groups, conflict since the military coup has created more than 110,000 new refugees in Chin state, more than 60,000 of whom fled to other regions of Myanmar and more than 50,000 of whom crossed into India’s Mizoram state to escape the fighting. In Kayin state, the ethnic Karen National Union said that daily battles between the military and its armed wing, the Karen National Liberation Army, had caused at least 186,471 people to flee their homes in the Karen-controlled townships of Hpapun, Kawkareik, Kyainseikgyi, and Myawaddy as of Aug. 16. Meanwhile, more than 130,000 ethnic Rohingya refugees who fled violence in Rakhine state in 2012 and 2017 remain in more than 10 camps for the displaced in Sittwe township, aid workers say. Aid undelivered The scale of the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar prompted an agreement between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the junta to facilitate the immediate distribution of aid to refugees in the country through the military regime’s Ministry of International Cooperation at a May 6 meeting in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh. Nonetheless, aid groups – including U.N. agencies and NGOs – say they have been blocked from doing so or that the supplies they have handed over to the junta remain undelivered under the pretense of security risks. Attempts by RFA to contact the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management via email for comment on why aid has largely been withheld from Myanmar’s refugees went unanswered Wednesday, as did requests for comment to Ko Ko Hlaing, the junta’s Union Minister for International Cooperation. Banyar, the director of the Karenni Human Rights Group, said that junta restrictions have made the distribution of relief impossible in the country, and advised that aid groups “leave Myanmar officially.” “Providing humanitarian aid through the countries bordering Myanmar will be more effective,&#8221; he told RFA. Other groups have suggested that ASEAN’s relief agency had overestimated its ability to deliver. In a statement on Nov. 1, the Thailand-based Border Consortium, which has assisted refugees along the Thai-Myanmar border since 1984, said the agency “lacks experience” in responding to emergency situations and claimed that efforts to distribute aid to rural Myanmar would remain fruitless without the military’s blessing. Rohingya migrants are escorted after their boat carrying 119 people landed on the coast of Bluka Teubai, North Aceh, Indonesia, on November 16, 2022, after surviving a five week journey at sea. Credit: AFP Rohingya refugee arrests The new figures for refugees of conflict in Myanmar came as reporting by RFA found that authorities had arrested at least 388 Rohingyas who tried to flee refugee camps in Rakhine state and neighboring Bangladesh for Malaysia between Oct. 17 and Nov. 11. Authorities in Myanmar do not recognize Rohingyas as citizens of the country, despite members of their ethnic group having a long history in Rakhine state, and subject them to discrimination and movement restrictions. Among those arrested in the three weeks ending Nov. 11 were 60 members of a group of 80 Rohingyas, including 45 children, whose boat sank near Ayeyarwaddy region’s Bogale township as it made its way to the Andaman Sea on Oct. 30, leaving 20 people missing. A Bogale resident who is helping the detained Rohingyas told RFA that the 60 Rohingya are being detained at the township’s police station on immigration charges. On Oct. 20, authorities arrested 117 Rohingyas who they said were trying to leave Myanmar for Malaysia at a house in Yangon region, and 54 Rohingyas – including a pregnant woman – who planned to the same destination near Ayeyarwady region’s Maubin township two days later. On Nov. 2, authorities in Kayin state’s Kawkareik township arrested 101 Rohingyas attempting to flee to Thailand from Rakhine state’s Buthidaung township, sources said. According to data collected by RFA, authorities in Myanmar have arrested at least 992 Rohingyas who tried to flee their homes between December 2021 and mid-October 2022. Among them, 223 have been sentenced to between two and five years in prison under Myanmar’s immigration laws. Translated by Myo Min Aung. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Massive Protests in Guangzhou against the inhumane ZeroCovid Restrictions  ](https://ij-reportika.com/massive-protests-in-guangzhou-against-the-inhumane-zerocovid-restrictions/): Situated on the Pearl River, Guangzhou in South East China has a maritime heritage stretching back over 2,000 years and its vast port is China&#8217;s main transport and trading hub. It was also one of the starting points of the old Silk Road, a trading route that stretched across Asia. But presently, a severe livelihood crisis has been unfolding in Guangzhou. Due to a strict lockdown and imposition of the Zero Covid policy, the life of the residents has become miserable. Reeling from the livelihood crisis people started peaceful protests in the city. Due to restrictions not getting relaxed people in the city are starving and facing the burnt of lack of basic amenities. Therefore they started massive violent protests all around the city. Crowds in Guangzhou have crashed through lockdown barriers and marched onto the streets in a rare outburst of public anger. Videos posted on social media showed people overturning a police vehicle in the Haizhu district late on Monday. &#8220;People were driving crazy, they were hungry, they were desperate for a normal life.. Please give back our lives&#8221;. A Guangzhou resident under anonymity told Ij-Reportika The authorities are trying to curb the protests with the use of force and outright violation of human rights. Around 15 people are reported missing after the Monday protests and several have been killed across the metropolis. Furthermore, In Haizhu District, Guangzhou, where the protests occurred, the 74th Group Army&#8217;s chemical defense regiment has been called upon to handle the protesting people. Guangzhou, home to nearly 19 million people, has been the center of Covid outbreaks in China, with the number of cases surging in recent days. Daily infections of Covid-19 in the city have topped 5,000 for the first time, leading to speculation that localized lockdowns could widen and the number of such violent protests and their intensity may escalate in the coming days. Several posts on China’s social media platform Weibo blamed the protesters, who were mainly migrant workers from Hubei province, for the “rioting”, but many users noted that the arbitrary lockdowns of residences and the barring of migrant workers from returning home in the protracted Covid restrictions over almost three years were “driving people mad” and said some workers had killed themselves. Many Weibo users and overseas Chinese on social media are sharing panic posts and the number of suicides in the region is on the rise. The Communist party’s mouthpiece People’s Daily on Tuesday reiterated that the “dynamic zero Covid” policy was to be “unswervingly implemented”, saying the “enhancement” announced last Friday was to fine-tune measures to fight against the pandemic, and not an indication of relaxation.
- [Fed up with COVID lockdowns, migrant workers in Guangzhou break through barriers](https://ij-reportika.com/fed-up-with-covid-lockdowns-migrant-workers-in-guangzhou-break-through-barriers/): Migrat workers whose movements have been restricted by rolling lockdowns and compulsory COVID-19 testing under China’s strict zero-COVID policy have taken to the streets of the southern province of Guangdong in recent days, according to video clips uploaded to social media. One video clip reportedly shot in Haizhu district of the provincial capital Guangzhou on Monday night showed hundreds of people surging along a street, shoving over traffic barriers and arguing with police and disease prevention personnel in protective gear. It was the latest outpouring of resentment in China over restrictions aimed at containing the spread of the virus. In another clip posted to Twitter, people are shown smashing barriers before flinging what appear to be plastic crates at workers and officials in protective gear, while a woman exclaims from behind the camera: &#8220;Wow, that&#8217;s going too far! So scary!&#8221; Dissatisfaction with the frequent lockdowns was the main reason driving the protests, said a man who gave only his name as Xu. “They’d been locked up so long and couldn&#8217;t do business, and so they just rushed out,” he told Radio Free Asia. &#8220;Last night a ton of people broke through the quarantine barricades. Seems like special police were sent in,” he said. “I don&#8217;t know how many people were there.” Xu said people have been locked up for weeks in areas where the protests broke out. Long-term closure and inability to work, coupled with insufficient supplies, were the main reasons for people&#8217;s protests. Local authorities did not respond to requests for comment. In another video, dozens of people face off in an alleyway with dozens of disease control personnel and police across fallen traffic barriers, before the camera pans to show police holding down a man restrained by cable ties with a foot on his neck.   Footage sent to Radio Free Asia showed hundreds of people running along two different streets, trampling traffic barriers and shouting, while another shot showed hundreds standing still and facing off near a COVID-19 testing station, with some people pushing over barriers. ‘Love of freedom’ And in a clip sent to RFA’s Cantonese Service, people apparently confined to apartment buildings in Guangzhou sing the anthem of the 2014 Hong Kong pro-democracy movement, &#8220;Boundless Oceans, Vast Skies,&#8221; by Hong Kong rock band Beyond, to the night sky. &#8220;Forgive me, my whole life I&#8217;ve had a love of freedom,&#8221; the crowd sings in Cantonese, the lingua franca of both Guangdong and Hong Kong. Chinese media outlet Interface News reported that the protests had prompted local leaders to hold an emergency meeting on Monday night to tweak the way the zero-COVID policies are being enforced. The Guangdong province health commission said via its official WeChat account on Tuesday that &#8220;adjustments&#8221; would be needed to local policies, slashing quarantine periods from seven days at a quarantine camp plus three days observation at home to five days in quarantine and three days at home. Local officials must arrange for the &#8220;timely release&#8221; of people once their quarantine and home isolation periods are completed and the necessary negative tests completed, the commission said. Local officials should avoid being overly rigid in enforcing restrictions, and do a good job of preventing and responding to risks, the statement said. China&#8217;s health ministry reported 17,772 new locally COVID-19 cases on Monday, including 1,621 confirmed cases and 16,151 asymptomatic infections, the biggest spike since late April. Of those, 5,633 new locally transmitted infections were in Guangdong. Two sub-districts of Haizhu district have been locked down, including Liwan and Panyu. Translated and written by Luisetta Mudie, edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Lao preacher arrested previously for evangelism found dead and badly beaten](https://ij-reportika.com/lao-preacher-arrested-previously-for-evangelism-found-dead-and-badly-beaten/): A Lao Christian preacher who had previously been arrested for evangelism was found dead and badly beaten a few days after disappearing, villagers told Radio Free Asia. A few days before his body was found with signs of torture, two men believed to be district authorities visited Sy Seng Manee, 48, they said. His corpse was found on Oct. 23 with his motorbike in a forest near a road to Donkeo village in Khammouane province. Local residents said they believe Sy was murdered because of his religious beliefs and preaching. A villager, who is also a soldier and lives in a community north of Donkeo, told RFA that he witnessed the preacher’s abduction. He saw three men get out of a black truck with no license plates, grab Sy and violently push him into the vehicle and drive away. The villager who requested anonymity for safety reasons said at the time he believed the men were authorities arresting a drug dealer or criminal, so he went on his way. But after hearing about the preacher’s death, he realized that the man was Sy. He then informed others in his community about what he had seen, and they, in turn, told Sy’s family. Lao police said they are still investigating the death. The Law on the Evangelical Church, which took effect in December 2019, gives Christians in Laos the right to conduct services, preach throughout the country and maintain contacts with believers in other nations.  But they still often face opposition from residents or local authorities in this predominantly Buddhist nation. In March, officials in Savannakhet province ordered a Christian family to remove social media posts and videos of villagers attacking a man’s coffin during his funeral in December 2021 because they opposed the family’s faith and struck mourners and pallbearers with clubs, RFA reported. The family buried the patriarch in their own rice field, but authorities and residents continued to harass them. Authorities expropriated their land in February, and other villagers torched their home, relatives and other sources said in an earlier report. Former arrest Local authorities first arrested Sy in August 2018 because he held weekly meetings in his house to preach to the villagers, locals said. Authorities tried to force him to sign a document denouncing the Christian faith and pledging that he would stop preaching, but he refused and was jailed for three days and fined.  A few years after his release, Sy began preaching again until he disappeared this October and turned up dead. “His death was due to his belief in Christianity,” said a village resident who declined to be identified out of fear for his safety.  The resident said he heard that authorities may have arrested Sy when they went to a gathering. “They don’t like the Christian religion, so that’s what they do,” he said.  A Christian preacher in Nakai district, where Donkeo village is located, said he believes that Sy was murdered because his Christian belief displeased local residents. “Each district is different in terms of other religious beliefs,” said the preacher, who declined to be named for fear of his safety. “Some provinces are strict and some are loose when it comes to harassment.” One Christian villager said he now feared for his own safety because the same might happen to him and other believers in the village. He called on police to quickly arrest the murderers.  “If the murderers are not arrested, it will strongly affect the Christian community,” he told RFA. “In the past, each time a situation like this happened, there was a related sector responsible for thoroughly investigating the case.”  Translated by Sidney Khotpanya for RFA Lao. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [“Glory to Hong Kong”, protest anthem of HongKong protests got played as China’s national anthem](https://ij-reportika.com/anthem-gaffe-goes-viral-as-stadium-plays-hong-kong-pro-democracy-theme-song/): Was it intentional or a simple mistake? In a scene that went viral on social media in Hong Kong, the unofficial anthem of Hong Kong’s 2019 pro-democracy protests was blared over the sound system before a rugby match between Hong Kong and South Korea played just outside of Seoul on Sunday. The song, “Glory to Hong Kong,” which calls for democracy and liberty, rose to prominence during the widespread protests in Hong Kong in 2019 against increasing encroachment on civil liberties by mainland Chinese authorities.&nbsp; Normally, China’s national anthem, which praises communism, is played whenever Hong Kong sports teams play internationally.&nbsp; China controlled Hong Kong’s government demanded an investigation into the incident. The song is highly symbolic to the people of Hong Kong, who have pushed back against the growing constraints on expressions of free speech and press imposed on them by the Hong Kong government, which is largely doing Beijing’s will. “The song pokes right at the sore spot of the Hong Kong government. It reminded the government of the fact that it does not truly govern Hong Kong,” said former legislative council member Ted Hui, who is in exile overseas.&nbsp; “The Hong Kong government is aware that it is a weak and unpopular government,” Hui said. “It fears that the pro-democracy movement will be revived, and that the momentum may grow stronger again.” &nbsp; This is the clip when “Glory to Hong Kong,” the protest anthem, was played at the Asian Rugby Seven Series in South Korea: https://t.co/o02abNBQ5y pic.twitter.com/kB8lr5i6CV — Kris Cheng (@krislc) November 13, 2022 Human error? &nbsp; The Seoul-based Korea Rugby Union said that the gaffe was a result of human error and had no political motivations, and that it had apologized to the Asia Rugby Union, and both the Hong Kong and Chinese teams participating in the tournament. &nbsp; But Ronny Tong, a member of Hong Kong’s Executive Council, said the incident was likely not human error and must have had Hong Kong-based accomplices. Tong said that those responsible may have violated several laws, including by committing sedition under the Crimes Ordinance, separatism or collusion with foreign forces under the National Security Law of Hong Kong, or conspiracy to contravene under the National Anthem Ordinance. Tong said that the Hong Kong government should conduct a thorough investigation in accordance with the law, rather than simply protesting and demanding an apology.&nbsp; But Hong Kong current affairs commentator and lawyer Sang Pu told Radio Free Asia on Monday that Tong’s legal analysis made no sense, saying it was impossible to apply Hong Kong law in South Korea. Tong had no proof of his assertion, Sang said. “[He] claimed that it was an individual in Hong Kong who plotted to have someone meddle with the Chinese national anthem. This is pure imagination. Why not consider other possibilities?” Similar anthem gaffes have occurred on many occasions over the years. In 2017 Russian gold medal winners at the biathlon world championship in Austria saw their flag raised to the tune of the Yeltsin-era Russian anthem. After a Kazakh athlete won a gold medal at an international shooting competition in Kuwait in 2012, the organizers played a fake version of the Kazakstan anthem made for the comedy movie Borat. &nbsp; Hong Kong won Sunday’s match against South Korea 19-12. The third leg of the Asian Rugby Seven Series is scheduled for Nov. 26-27 in Amjan, UAE. &nbsp; Translated by Min Eu. Written in English by Eugene Whong. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Analysis: Biden-Xi summit delivers calmer tone, reminders of US-China fault lines](https://ij-reportika.com/analysis-biden-xi-summit-delivers-calmer-tone-reminders-of-us-china-fault-lines/): Highly anticipated yet viewed with low expectations, the summit Monday between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping improved the tone in bilateral contacts after years of tensions while underscoring how Taiwan looms over efforts to keep a strategic rivalry from spiraling into conflict. After three hours of talks at a resort hotel on the Indonesian island of Bali on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit, Biden said he and Xi were &#8220;very blunt with one another,&#8221; while a Xi spokesperson described the meeting as &#8220;in-depth, candid and constructive.&#8221; Those phrases&#8211;diplomatic speak for airing sharp differences—came after both leaders, in their first face-to-face meeting since Biden took office nearly two years ago, acknowledged global expectations that the superpowers keep the numerous U.S.-China disputes from deteriorating into conflict. “The Biden-Xi meeting exceeded low expectations, with both leaders clearly expressing a desire to manage differences and work together on urgent global issues,” said Patricia Kim of the John L. Thornton China Center and the Center for East Asia Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution. The White House said Beijing and Washington also &#8220;agreed to empower key senior officials to maintain communication and deepen constructive efforts” in areas like climate talks and other global issues, including resuming long-frozen discussions by joint working groups. “The fact that the two sides agreed to reinitiate working level discussions in transnational challenges including climate change, public health and food security is quite promising,” Kim told Radio Free Asia, adding that much hard work remained. Although Biden and Xi go back more than a decade to when they were both vice-presidents, they have spoken only by phone since Biden took office. Face-to-face talks between the leaders of the two powers have value in themselves. “This was the first face-to-face meeting between President Biden and President Xi in about five years, and it occurred at a tense time in the US-China relationship,” said Sheena Chestnut Greitens, the Jeane Kirkpatrick Visiting Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. “In my view, the buildup in Chinese military and nuclear capabilities, combined with a relative lack of dialogue to understand China&#8217;s intentions and lack of robust crisis management mechanisms, pose significant risks to stability in the U.S.-China relationship,” she told RFA. President Joe Biden and China&#8217;s President Xi Jinping meet on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, Nov. 14, 2022. Credit: Reuters Neither ‘more confrontational (nor) more conciliatory’ Among other useful opportunities, Biden was able to size up Xi just weeks after he was reappointed for a norm-busting third term as leader at Chinese Communist Party. “I didn’t find him more confrontational or more conciliatory,” Biden told reporters after their summit. “I found him the way he’s always been, direct and straightforward.” The U.S. president added: “I am convinced that he understood exactly what I was saying and I understood what he was saying.” Among contentious issues Biden raised with Xi were concerns over China’s crackdown since 2019 in Hong Kong, harsh policies against minorities in Xinjiang and Tibet, trade and Russia invasion of Ukraine, the White House said. Although there were no expectations of big policy breakthroughs and there was no joint statement, Biden appeared to make headway in winning oblique Chinese criticism of Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats against Ukraine. Xi is an ally of Putin in a relationship that undercuts China&#8217;s claim to be neutral in the Ukraine war. “President Biden and President Xi reiterated their agreement that a nuclear war should never be fought and can never be won and underscored their opposition to the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine,” the White House said. Chinese statements excluded mention of this. “While this particular line did not appear on the official Chinese readout, the fact that the White House readout clearly noted that both leaders affirmed this statement was significant and a critical communication of redlines to Putin,” said Kim of Brookings. Looming largest was Taiwan, the self-ruling island democracy that Beijing views as an inalienable part of China and a domestic affair that no other country has the right to interfere in. Washington has longstanding security ties with Taipei, even as it officially recognizes only the government in Beijing under a one China policy. At their meeting on the sidelines of the G20 Summit, Nov. 14, 2022, President Joe Biden told China’s President Xi Jinping that the U.S. had not changed its one China policy, the White House said. Credit: AFP ‘The core of China&#8217;s core interests’ On Taiwan, Biden told Xi that the U.S. had not changed its one China policy, and “opposes any unilateral changes to the status quo by either side,” the White House said. Biden “raised U.S. objections to (China’s) coercive and increasingly aggressive actions toward Taiwan, which undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and in the broader region, and jeopardize global prosperity,” it said. Xi described Taiwan as “the core of China&#8217;s core interests,” and “the first insurmountable red line in U.S.-China relations,” and called for the U.S. leader to stick to his commitment in not supporting Taiwanese independence. Beijing has repeatedly accused Washington of giving support to “separatist forces in Taiwan” and retaliated by freezing climate talks and sharply increasing military activities around the island after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited in August.  Biden’s denial that there has been any change in U.S. policy follows his statements that Washington would help Taiwan defend itself and comes amid moves by American lawmakers to increase military assistance to Taiwan and expedite current arms contracts. To Beijing, such U.S. actions raise doubts about Washington&#8217;s commitment to the status quo, said Chang Teng-chi, head of political science at National Taiwan University in Taipei. “Ultimately &#8230; there is no trust between the two sides, so all they can hope to do is dynamic crisis management,” he told RFA. Monday’s meeting in Bali nonetheless left the U.S. “in a better position now than we were before,” said Oriana Skylar Mastro, Center fellow...
- [Biden gets political boost on eve of key meeting with Xi](https://ij-reportika.com/biden-gets-political-boost-on-eve-of-key-meeting-with-xi/): Leaders of half the world’s population gathered in Phnom Penh on Sunday but for the traveling White House press corps the big news was breaking half a world away as President Joe Biden’s Democrat Party re-secured control of the Senate in mid-term elections. That provided a political boost to Biden ahead of Monday’s face-to-face meeting in Bali, Indonesia, with China’s President Xi Jinping, which the American leader predicted would be defined by straight-talking between leaders of two rival powers. While the Democrats are still expected to lose control of the lower House of Representatives, which will make it more difficult for the Biden administration to get things done, the outcome was better than expected for the party. Speaking to reporters before attending Sunday’s East Asia Summit at a hotel in the Cambodian capital, Biden acknowledged that domestic politics has an impact on his international standing. The U.S. president’s trip to the region is all about signaling Washington’s commitment to the Indo-Pacific. “I know I’m coming in stronger, but I don’t need that,” Biden said. “I know Xi Jinping. I’ve spent more time with him than any other world leader. I know him well. He knows me. We have very little misunderstanding. We’ve just got to figure out where the red lines are and what are the most important things to each of us.” “There’s never any miscalculation about where each of us stand. And I think that’s critically important in our relationship,” Biden added. Although Biden had extensive in-person meetings with Xi during the Obama administration, and several phone calls with the Chinese leader since becoming president two years ago, Monday’s meeting will be their first face-to-face of his presidency. There are still many issues for him to raise, including China’s recent military exercises off Taiwan, its disputes with neighboring nations over the South China Sea, the crackdown on democracy in Hong Kong, trade and new U.S. restrictions on semiconductor technology. The meeting will take place on the sidelines of the Group of 20 Summit, which is the second installment of November’s Asian summit season. The first chapter ended on Sunday in Cambodia, which was hosting as the chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations – a position that will now be taken for the next year by Indonesia. The East Asia Summit is a gathering of ASEAN’s key dialogue partners in the Indo-Pacific. It comprises the 10 members of ASEAN, along with Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Russia and the U.S. That accounts for about 53% of the world&#8217;s population and last year, nearly 60% of global gross domestic product worth an estimated $57.2 trillion, according to the Australian government. The diplomatic impact of Sunday’s summit was diluted by the absence of Xi – China was represented by Premier Li Keqiang – and Russian President Vladimir Putin who sent Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Biden arrived late to the summit on Sunday morning, but later sat at the same table as Lavrov. There was no audio on the official feed of the meeting monitored by a journalist from the RFA-affiliated network, BenarNews, making it difficult to discern immediately if there were sharp exchanges over the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But on Saturday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba to discuss the issue. “The Secretary discussed the United States’ unwavering commitment to assist Ukraine in mitigating the effects of Russia’s continued attacks on critical infrastructure, including with accelerated humanitarian aid and winterization efforts,” the State Department said. The two also talked about renewing the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which expires on Nov. 19 to support global food security and Ukraine’s battlefield continued effectiveness. Blinken told Kuleba the U.S. considers the timing and contents of any negotiations with Russia are entirely Ukraine’s decision. Also Sunday, Biden was holding separate meetings with South Korea’s President Yoon Suk-yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to discuss the nuclear threat from North Korea and other regional stability issues, the White House said. The U.S. has military bases in both countries. Biden’s presence at the summit gave him the opportunity to try to win over more countries into supporting the U.S. Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, an attempt to counter China’s economic and political influence in the region. Biden heads back to Washington after the G-20 while Vice President Kamala Harris takes his place at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, better known as APEC, in Thailand between Nov. 16-19.
- [Biden steps up engagement with ASEAN amid China rivalry and global conflict](https://ij-reportika.com/biden-steps-up-engagement-with-asean-amid-china-rivalry-and-global-conflict/): UPDATED AT 06:15 p.m. ET OF 11-12-2022 U.S. President Joe Biden offered rare praise for Cambodia’s authoritarian premier as he encouraged diplomatic support for ending the war in Ukraine and bringing peace to Myanmar at a summit with Southeast Asian leaders on Saturday. Although the control of U.S. Congress lies in the balance back in Washington, Biden signaled commitment to the region by attending an annual gathering of leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. His appearance in Phnom Penh, a day after attending a climate change conference in Egypt, serves as a prelude to the first face-to-face meeting of his presidency with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, which will take place in Bali, Indonesia, on Monday. The U.S. and China vie for influence in Southeast Asia. Although Cambodia has faced some stiff criticism from the U.S. over its suppression of democracy, Prime Minister Hun Sen welcomed the president saying the meeting showed the Biden administration’s commitment to “ASEAN centrality and a rule-based regional architecture to maintain peace and stability in the region.” “We support the engagement of the U.S in our ASEAN community building process as truly important, especially in the context of bolstering ASEAN’s recovery from the COVID-19 crisis, promoting regional resilience as well as addressing many pressing issues such as climate change, food and energy security,” he said, adding that ASEAN planned to extend relations with the U.S. to a comprehensive strategic partnership. That will put the U.S. on level-pegging with China, which already has that status. Cambodia is hosting the summit as it holds the rotating chairmanship of the 10-nation ASEAN bloc. Indonesia takes the chair after this week’s summits. Biden stressed the importance of the partnership, saying the U.S administration would build on the past year’s U.S. $250 million in new initiatives with ASEAN by requesting a further $850 million for the next 12 months. He said it would pay for more Southeast Asian projects such as an integrated electric vehicle ecosystem and clean energy infrastructure to reduce carbon emissions. “Together we will tackle the biggest issues of our time from climate to health security, defend against significant threats to rule-based order, and to threats to the rule of law, and to build an Indo-Pacific that’s free and open, stable and prosperous, resilient and secure,” Biden said.  The linchpin of the U.S. push in Southeast Asia is the Indo-Pacific Economic Partnership (IPEF) that is intended to intensify America’s economic engagement in the region. ASEAN is America’s fourth-largest trading partner. Whether the members of ASEAN will be impressed by what the U.S. has to offer is another matter. &#8220;I don’t think ASEAN states are much sold on IPEF. It contains parts that are anathema to them and yet isn&#8217;t really a trade deal, and does little to actually further regional economic integration. It&#8217;s a fairly weak package overall,&#8221; said Joshua Kurlantzick, senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. &#8220;China is already by far the region&#8217;s dominant economy and trade partner and the U.S. isn&#8217;t going to materially change that. Southeast Asian states are stuck with China as their dominant economic partner. “For some Southeast Asian states [there is] a desire to build closer strategic ties with the U.S, but the U.S. is not going to now replace China as the region&#8217;s dominant trade partner.&#8221; CAPTION: U.S. President Joe Biden meets with 2022 ASEAN Chair and Cambodia&#8217;s Prime Minister Hun Sen at the ASEAN summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Nov. 12, 2022. CREDIT: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque In a comment that would have raised some eyebrows among critics of the Cambodian government’s human rights record, Biden on Saturday thanked Hun Sen – for critical remarks about the war in Ukraine and for co-sponsoring U.N resolutions.  Earlier this week, Hun Sen met with the Ukrainian foreign minister. He’s also expressed concern about recent attacks on Ukrainian cities and civilian casualties. Russian President Vladimir Putin has skipped the ASEAN summit and sent Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in his place. However, Biden did call for transparency over Chinese military activities at Ream Naval base on Cambodia’s southern coast, and urged Hun Sen “to reopen civic and political space ahead of 2023 elections,” and release Theary Seng, an imprisoned U.S.-Cambodian lawyer and activist. The other conflict that Biden mentioned in his public comments to ASEAN leaders was Myanmar, whose military leader was not invited to the summit. Biden said he looked forward to the return of democracy there. Human rights groups have assailed the Southeast Asian bloc for its failure to put more pressure on Myanmar to end the civil war that followed a February 2021 military coup against an elected government. On Friday, ASEAN leaders took a marginally tougher stand, calling for measurable progress toward the goals of its Five Point Consensus that include restoring democracy and delivering humanitarian aid. On Saturday Antonio Guterres voiced his support for the plan, saying “the systematic violation of human rights are absolutely unacceptable and causing enormous suffering to the Myanmarese people.” Cambodia, which has jailed opposition politicians and environmentalists, was not spared criticism by the U.N. secretary general. “My appeal in a country like Cambodia is for the public space to be open and for human rights defenders and climate activists to be protected,” he said. Biden attends the East Asia Summit on Sunday, also hosted by Cambodia, where he plans once again to discuss ways to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine and limit the global impact of the war in terms of fuel and grain shortages that are fueling global inflation.    The U.S. president is also holding talks with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol expected to focus on North Korea’s recent barrage of missiles fired into the seas off the Korean peninsula &#8212; including one that passed over Japan. North Korea is also reported to be planning a nuclear test. Biden then heads to the Indonesian island of Bali to attend the Group of 20 leaders’ summit. Ahead of the G20, on...
- [Well-heeled Chinese plan to flee amid COVID lockdowns, economic shift](https://ij-reportika.com/well-heeled-chinese-plan-to-flee-amid-covid-lockdowns-economic-shift/): A growing share of wealthy and middle class Chinese are making plans to leave the country, citing the government&#8217;s stringent zero-COVID policies and a perceived return to the planned economy of the Mao era under leader Xi Jinping, according to online data and Chinese nationals with experience of the phenomenon. The WeChat Index, which publishes search statistics from the social media giant, on Thursday showed around 38.3 million searches using the keyword &#8220;emigration.&#8221;  While the #emigration hashtag wasn&#8217;t blocked on Weibo on Thursday, the number of views was in the tens of thousands, with much of the content focusing on the disadvantages of living overseas, suggesting some kind of intervention by the ruling Communist Party&#8217;s &#8220;public opinion management&#8221; system.  At their peak, search queries for the keyword &#8220;emigration&#8221; hit 70 million several times during the Shanghai lockdown between March and May, and 130 million immediately afterwards. The same keyword also showed peaks on Toutiao Index, Google Trends and 360 Trends between April and the end of June 2022.  Two highly educated Chinese citizens told RFA in recent interviews that they and their friends are either leaving or planning to leave soon, as the grueling zero-COVID program of rolling lockdowns, compulsory mass testing and tracking via the Health Code smart phone app have taken their toll on people&#8217;s mental and physical health, not to mention their livelihoods and the economy as a whole. Gao, a Shanghai-based financial executive who asked for his full name to be withheld for fear of reprisals, said that lately he has been binge-watching YouTube videos in Mandarin from consultants promising to offer Chinese nationals a better life &#8212; in the Pacific nation of Vanuatu, in Moldova, even war-torn Ukraine &#8212; anywhere, in short, but China. The phenomenon even has its own code name using a Chinese character playing on the English word &#8220;run.&#8221; &#8220;I strongly and strongly encourage everyone to run!&#8221; gushes one immigration consultant on a YouTube video viewed by RFA.  &#8220;Today I will be sharing how easy it is to emigrate to the United States,&#8221; the YouTuber promises. &#8220;It is very likely that after watching this video, you will start re-examining your life and making plans.&#8221; ‘Lost all hope for the future’ Gao, who had absorbed a number of such videos before speaking to RFA, said he has been looking for somewhere else to live for some time now. &#8220;The current situation isn&#8217;t looking very good,&#8221; he told RFA. &#8220;Since the 20th party congress [last month], everyone has lost all hope for the future.&#8221; &#8220;Everyone has looked at their ideas, their values, their policies, the stringency of the zero-COVID policy, the return to a planned economy and heavy-handed suppression [of dissent], and come to their own conclusions,&#8221; Gao said, adding that he and his high-earning friends all share the same view. &#8220;The fact that we are facing economic collapse &#8212; there&#8217;s nothing left worth staying on for,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Everyone is taking a risk-averse approach to planning their future, because the risks associated with staying are getting bigger and bigger.&#8221; The night market in Chiang Mai, Thailand. One Chinese activist visited an emigre Chinese arts and cultural community in the town. &#8220;There are a lot of cultural types who have congregated there &#8230; and who aren&#8217;t going back,” she says. Credit: AFP Chinese social activist He Peirong, who has nearly 40,000 followers on Twitter, said she had just left for Japan. &#8220;I had been preparing to leave the country since July, but I didn&#8217;t let anyone on WeChat know that I was leaving,&#8221; she told RFA. &#8220;I spent more than 10,000 yuan on home renovations, and I left halfway through.&#8221; &#8220;China has set off an immigration wave,&#8221; she said. &#8220;A lot of people are now heading off to live in Japan, Europe and the United States. Where people go depends on their economic situation.&#8221; She said she had also visited an emigre Chinese arts and cultural community in Chiang Mai, Thailand. &#8220;We would eat, drink and perform together every day; everyone was very happy,&#8221; she said. &#8220;There are a lot of cultural types who have congregated there &#8230; and who aren&#8217;t going back.” Before she left, He Peirong had been a vocal critic of the ruling Chinese Communist Party, and was instrumental in aiding the daring escape from house arrest and subsequent defection of blind Shandong activist Chen Guangcheng. She later took supplies to Wuhan to support citizen journalists reporting from the front line of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. She said she decided to leave China after being barred from the railway ticketing system owing to a poor &#8220;social credit&#8221; rating. &#8220;In the fall of 2018, I was blacklisted by the ministry of railways, so I filed a lawsuit against them,&#8221; she told RFA. Long waiting lists There are currently very long waiting lists for people hoping to emigrate to Europe, the United States, Canada or Australia, while price tags for investment visas in those countries are also fairly high. Southeast Asian nations are seen as too risky, due to their close ties with China, and willingness to deport Chinese nationals wanted by the authorities back home. Rights groups say China currently engages in illegal, transnational policing operations across five continents, targeting overseas Chinese for harassment, threats against their families back home and &#8220;persuasion&#8221; techniques to get them to go back, according to a recent report.  Hong Kong, itself in the grip of a citywide national security crackdown and mass emigration wave following the 2019 protest movement, is also no longer a safe springboard to overseas residency, Gao said. Gao is now looking at Ukraine, where he already has a friend. &#8220;Ukraine is war-torn right now, but that won&#8217;t go on for long &#8230; there is all kinds of hope and vitality in the future of this country,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I have a friend living in the westernmost part of the country, where there&#8217;s no fighting, and they are living quite peacefully.&#8221; &#8220;People have told me that you can apply for a...
- [Collateral damage and secondary victims: the social impact of zero-COVID](https://ij-reportika.com/collateral-damage-and-secondary-victims-the-social-impact-of-zero-covid/): China&#8217;s zero-COVID policy has been marked by rolling, grueling urban lockdowns, constant demands for mass testing in affected areas and round-the-clock tracking of residents&#8217; movements and test status via the Health Code smart-phone app. On Friday, the Chinese government released a package of 20 new policy measures aimed at &#8220;optimizing&#8221; the country&#8217;s pandemic response, including slightly relaxed quarantine requirements for new arrivals, but is unlikely to result in China opening up measurably in the next few months. Officials are now ordered to drop attempts to identify secondary contacts, while many people will be ordered to quarantine at home rather than in a camp if they return to their homes from a &#8220;high-risk&#8221; area. There will now only be high or low-risk areas, with medium-risk no longer a recognized category, the new regulations said. Close contacts of confirmed cases will still be required to stay in quarantine facilities for five days, rather than seven, followed by three days&#8217; monitoring at home. The move marks a relaxation of the zero-COVID policy, espoused by Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping as the only way forward when it comes to containing the virus, has also led to a number of secondary disasters, prompting growing public dissatisfaction with the policy and widespread censorship of dissenting voices. But commentators told Radio Free Asia that zero-COVID is far from being just a stringent set of public health measures. It&#8217;s a political project close to Xi&#8217;s heart, and includes many layers of control over people&#8217;s movements and access to vital goods and services. &#8220;The pandemic measures were originally a professional matter involving public health management and medical measures to prevent the spread of disease,&#8221; veteran rights activist Yang Jianli said. &#8220;In today&#8217;s China, disease control and prevention is no longer professional: it&#8217;s political, and has given rise to [a series of] man-made disasters.&#8221; Reiterating commitment Xi recently reiterated his commitment to the zero-COVID policy, saying in his speech to the party congress last month that the government must &#8220;unswervingly stick to the zero-COVID policy.&#8221; The all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee reiterated this commitment on Nov. 10, a day before the quarantine requirements were relaxed. A worker in a protective suit guides people to scan health QR code at a COVID-19 test booth in Beijing, China, Nov. 11, 2022. Credit: Reuters The announcements came after months of reports of collateral victims of the policy, which first started to emerge during the April 2022 lockdown in Shanghai, when pandemic enforcers wearing full-body PPE were shown dragging children away from their parents, to send them to segregated quarantine camps outside of town. In one report from Reuters at the time, a 2 ½-year-old child was taken away from his parents at the Jinshan district public health clinic after testing positive for COVID-19. A viral video of the children&#8217;s segregated quarantine facility at the Jinshan Public Health Clinical Center showed dozens of children lying in iron cots, many of them disheveled and crying, amid a general lack of care and treatment. The hospital said the video was filmed at a time when the children&#8217;s ward was being moved to &#8220;improve the hospital environment&#8221; and free up more space for infants and young patients who tested positive. Eventually, public anger over the forced separation of children from parents grew, prompting the French Consulate in Shanghai to issue a letter to the city government on behalf of 24 EU member states, calling for a total ban on the separation of parents and children &#8220;under any circumstances.&#8221; Psychological toll Wang Yaqiu, China researcher at the New York-based Human Rights Watch, said the incident was one example of many harms caused by the zero-COVID policy. &#8220;We don&#8217;t know how serious the psychological trauma has been for people,&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;Even if you don&#8217;t die due to lack of treatment, you can still be in a state of extreme anxiety, which has long-term psychological effects [on a person].&#8221; &#8220;It won&#8217;t be visible now,” he said, “but it will become so later.&#8221; Neighbors stand at the entrance of a compound in lockdown in the Changning District in Shanghai, Oct. 8, 2022. Credit: AFP In August 2022, the internet once more reacted angrily to a video showing a quarantine bus used to haul people off to isolation camps equipped with just a plastic bucket for passengers&#8217; toilet needs. &#8220;Are we livestock? Is this what you are treating us like &#8212; pigs?&#8221; shouts a passenger angrily on a video from that time, as two pandemic enforcers refuse to allow them to get off the bus and order the driver to close the bus doors. A couple of weeks later, residents of apartment blocks in the southwestern city of Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, found they were locked into their buildings despite running outside for their safety during a 6.8 magnitude earthquake that hit Luding county on Sept. 5, with the tremors strongly felt in Chengdu. Residential compounds were locked, some fire escapes were blocked, while pandemic enforcers refused to open the doors to let people leave. Meanwhile, reports emerged in the eastern province of Jiangxi that a 12-year-old girl was raped in her own home after being left alone when both parents were sent to separate isolation camps. Police later confirmed they had arrested a man surnamed Liu who it later emerged was the village party secretary and a member of the Guixi Municipal People&#8217;s Congress. Worsened social problems Wang said the zero-COVID policy has tended to make existing social problems worse. &#8220;There are a lot of social problems in normal times to begin with,&#8221; she said. &#8220;One is that China lacks an independent judiciary, so your rights can be violated, and if you try to take the government to court, you will definitely lose.&#8221; &#8220;Secondly, there is no press freedom, so you can&#8217;t go to the media to tell them about some injustice that happened to you, and there is no internet freedom any more,&#8221; she said. &#8220;[Under zero-COVID], these social injustices and rights violations get exacerbated.&#8221; By October,...
- [ASEAN leaders call for measurable progress on Myanmar peace plan](https://ij-reportika.com/asean-leaders-call-for-measurable-progress-on-myanmar-peace-plan/): ASEAN leaders called Friday for measurable progress in their peace plan for Myanmar, amid growing criticism over the Southeast Asian bloc’s failure to stem the deepening conflict in one of its 10 member states. Meeting at an Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Cambodia, the group reaffirmed their commitment to the Five Point Consensus that was agreed to in April 2021 and aims to bring peace and restore democracy to Myanmar following the military coup against the elected government that has spawned a deepening civil conflict. A statement emerging from the summit in Phnom Penh called on ASEAN Foreign Ministers to establish a specific timeline for implementation of a plan that includes “concrete, practical and measurable indicators” of progress. ASEAN reserved the right to review Myanmar’s representation at its meetings.  The call for tangible progress comes as human rights groups assail ASEAN’s failure to pressure the Myanmar junta, which has largely ignored the Five Point Consensus and resisted dialogue with representatives of the civilian administration it ousted. Instead, the military has dubbed many of its key political opponents as terrorists or outlaws and waged a scorched earth campaign in the Burmese heartland. Indonesia&#8217;s President Joko Widodo speaks to the media during ASEAN summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Friday, Nov. 11, 2022. CREDIT: AP/Apunam Nath Earlier Friday, Indonesia’s president Joko Widodo expressed “deep disappointment” about the worsening situation in Myanmar. Indonesia is set to take over the rotating chairmanship of ASEAN from Cambodia, which is nearing the end of its 12-month stint. Myanmar’s coup leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing was excluded from the summit, and Widodo told reporters he wanted to extend a ban on Myanmar junta representatives, who are barred from meetings of ASEAN leaders and foreign ministers, The Associated Press reported.  Friday’s statement, however, stopped short of barring the junta from attending other ASEAN meetings. “Indonesia is deeply disappointed the situation in Myanmar is worsening,” Widodo said. “We must not allow the situation in Myanmar to define ASEAN.” Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. also called on Myanmar to abide by and implement the Five Point Consensus. Analysts say there are clear fault lines among ASEAN’s 10 members on how to deal with the Myanmar crisis – with Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore reportedly taking a tougher line than nations such as Thailand, Cambodia and Laos. Nevertheless, as Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen kicked off Friday’s proceedings, he asserted: “Our Motto ‘ASEAN: One Vision, One Identity, One Community’ still holds true to its values today.”   He was speaking at the opening ceremony of what were actually two summits in one day. ASEAN is required to hold two leaders’ meetings a year but countries that don’t have the cash to pay for separate meetings are allowed to hold them back-to-back. Also on the agenda were security issues, regional growth and geopolitics. Marcos seemed to urge caution over global powers gaining further influence in the region. Leaders of strategic rivals the U.S. and China – President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Li Keqiang – are joining summit meetings in Phnom Penh this week. &#8220;It is imperative that we reassert ASEAN Centrality. This in the face of geopolitical dynamics and tensions in the region and the proliferation of Indo-Pacific engagements, including the requests of our dialogue partners for closer partnerships,” he said. Marcos’ comments came a day after top U.S. diplomat for East Asia, Daniel Kritenbrink, said Saturday’s ASEAN-U.S. Summit would try to promote the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, whose signatories include the Philippines. That framework is widely seen as Washington’s effort to counter China’s investment in infrastructure and industry in Southeast Asia and beyond. “ASEAN is clearly at the center of the region’s architecture, and the U.S.’s strategic partnership with ASEAN is at the heart of our Indo-Pacific strategy,” Kritenbrink said. The 10 ASEAN members will still need international trade and investment partners as the world recovers from the impact of COVID-19. Hun Sen was cautious about expectations of a strong post-pandemic recovery. “While we are now enjoying the fruits of our efforts and moving towards sustainable growth we should always be vigilant as the current socio-economic situation in ASEAN as well as in the whole world remains fragile and divided,” he said. But he cited forecasts that economic growth in ASEAN would reach 5.3% this year and 4.2% in 2023, which he called “impressive compared to the rest of the world.” ASEAN leaders also held talks Friday with China, South Korea and the United Nations. On Saturday they meet with India, Australia, Japan, Canada and the U.S. Next week, there will be further summits of leaders of the G-20 in Indonesia, and APEC in Thailand. Indonesia is next to take the ASEAN chair and it may be hosting an 11th member. Leaders issued a statement Friday saying they agreed in principle to East Timor joining the bloc.
- [Cambodian asylum-seekers in Thailand fear forced repatriation ahead of APEC summit](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-asylum-seekers-in-thailand-fear-forced-repatriation-ahead-of-apec-summit/): Cambodian asylum-seekers in Thailand fear they could be forcibly repatriated as Thai authorities tighten security ahead of next week’s APEC summit in Bangkok, they told Radio Free Asia. “If the Thai government supports the cause of democracy…, they should help protect us, which means that they are also protecting their own country,” said Sao Pulleak, who once led the former main opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party’s operations in Banteay Meanchey province. Sao Pulleak has been seeking refuge in Thailand the past four years after Cambodia’s Supreme Court dissolved the party in 2017 and Prime Minister Hun Sen began a crackdown on opponents of his ruling Cambodian People’s Party. He and other asylum seekers who fled persecution for their pro-democracy political views are worried that Thailand could determine that they are undocumented immigrants and send them back to Cambodia, where they would face Hun Sen’s wrath. “We dare not to go outside as we please, because we fear arrest by Thai immigration,” said Chhorn Sokhoeun, another activist seeking asylum. Thai police recently arrested 10 refugees from Vietnam’s Khmer Krom minority, &#8211; ethnic Cambodians living in Southern Vietnam &#8211; and they remain in custody, so Chhorn Sokhoeun said he is increasingly worried for the safety of his wife and three children. Thailand doesn’t recognize asylum-seekers or refugees because it hasn’t ratified the 1951 U.N. Refugee Convention, so obtaining refugee status and carrying an ID card from the United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR, won’t protect an individual against being detained or deported by the police. Chhorn Sokhoeun brought five dependent family members with him to Thailand when he fled in 2019 after threats from authorities over his support of a plot by Hun Sen’s chief political rival Sam Rainsy to return to Cambodia from France, where he has been living in exile since 2015. For Chhorn Sokhoeun, supporting his family in Thailand has been almost impossible because of his UNHCR ID scares employers away. He has therefore been jobless and his children have had to drop out of school because he had no money to support them. Thai authorities sometimes demand bribes, Khun Deth, a refugee from Cambodia’s Pursat province, told RFA. He said Thai police extorted about 8,000 baht (about U.S. $220) from him during an ID search, threatening to send him back to Cambodia unless he agreed to pay. “As a refugee who is actively involved in politics, if I am arrested and sent back to Cambodia, my life will not be spared,” Khun Deth said. “Cambodian authorities may kill me by dropping me into a crocodile pond. Or if not that, maybe they will shoot me. I think the Cambodian authorities will send me to jail only as a last resort.” Cambodia is increasingly becoming an authoritarian society with rampant nepotism and corruption, said Sao Pulleak. It is heading toward dynastic rule as Hun Sen, who has ruled the country since 1985, has been preparing to anoint his son Hun Manet as ruler after he steps down. RFA was not able to contact Katta Orn, spokesperson for the Cambodian government’s human rights committee, for comment. Cambodian refugees should receive encouragement and support from the authorities  when they are in third countries instead of more persecution, said Dy Thehoya, program officer for the Phnom Penh-based Center for Alliance of Labor and Human Rights.   “If we look into the law and the facts regarding each of their cases, they are the victims of a political system or political environment in Cambodia,” said Dy Thehoya.  Translated by Sovannarith Keo. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Putin confirms he won’t travel to Bali for G20 summit](https://ij-reportika.com/putin-confirms-he-wont-travel-to-bali-for-g20-summit/): Russian President Vladimir Putin officially confirmed he won’t be coming to Bali to attend the G20 summit next week, a senior official of host country Indonesia said Thursday, adding the decision was for “the best for all of us.” Minister Luhut Pandjaitan was echoing analysts’ comments that Putin’s presence could cause tensions with Western leaders who oppose Russia’s war in Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will go to Bali in Putin’s place, said Luhut, the coordinating minister of maritime and investment affairs “We have been officially notified that the Russian president will not come,” Luhut told reporters, according to BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service. “We have to respect it. Whatever happened to Russia’s decision, it is for our common good and the best for all of us.” Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” said this week that 17 leaders had confirmed their participation at the summit, including the American and Chinese presidents. Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy will likely participate in the Bali summit via a video link, a local television channel quoted the presidential spokesman as saying on Tuesday. Ukraine is not a G20 member and its president will be participating as an observer. Last week, Zelenskyy said he would not attend the Bali summit if Putin were present. In March, U.S. President Joe Biden urged Jokowi to invite Ukraine as a guest if Russia was not expelled from the Group of Twenty for invading its smaller neighbor in late February. As this year’s holder of the rotating G20 presidency, Jokowi has sought unity within the grouping of industrialized and emerging economies ahead of the summit. Western countries have condemned Russia for invading Ukraine while other G20 members including China, Indonesia and India have refused to follow suit and maintain ties with Moscow. Russian setback in Ukraine Putin’s decision not to attend the summit in person came a day after the withdrawal of Russian troops from Kherson, the city on the Dnipro River that is the front line of fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces. A potential stalemate in fighting over the winter could give both countries an opportunity to negotiate peace, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday, the Associated Press news agency reported. Indonesian Minister Luhut did not give a reason for Putin’s absence from the summit, merely saying “maybe it’s because President Putin is busy at home, and we also have to respect that,” AP reported.  Political analysts, however, attribute other motives for the Russian president’s decision to stay home. “Putin’s absence from the G20 meeting in Bali is a net positive – every party stands to benefit,” Greg Barton, a professor at Deakin University in Australia, told BenarNews. “Putin is fearful of a Kremlin coup – leaving Moscow at the moment is just too risky,” he said, adding that many members of the Russian elite wanted to see him go. Radityo Dharmaputra, a political analyst at Airlangga University, echoed Barton’s observation. “There are many considerations. There may be elements seeking to overthrow him because he hasn’t won the war,” he told BenarNews. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.
- [Police arrest 7 farmers in land-use dispute in Vietnamese highlands](https://ij-reportika.com/police-arrest-7-farmers-in-land-use-dispute-in-vietnamese-highlands/): In the latest clash over land-use rights in Vietnam, police have detained seven residents in the Central Highlands for trying to prevent men from cutting down a farmer’s coffee and durian trees amid a contract dispute, residents said. The five men had been sent to cut down the trees because the farmer, identified as Nguyen Thanh Giang, hadn’t given Thang Loi Coffee Joint Stock Co., the company he was leasing the land from, the amount of coffee beans stipulated in his contract.  Since 2019, Giang had refused to hand over any beans due to bad weather and a plunge in coffee prices. After that, a court had ordered him to pay the company nearly 5,200 kilograms (11,500 pounds) of fresh beans as rent for the 2018-19 season. The farmer filed an appeal, but the appellate court upheld the earlier decision.  In Vietnam, citizens must obtain permission from the government for use of land. If the state grants parcels of land to state-owned companies or other businesses, then local farmers are at their mercy. Early Monday, after hearing the men sawing down the trees in the dark, neighbors helped Giang chase them away. They caught three of the men and held them near the Hoa Dong commune in Krong Dak district of Dak Lak province, a resident told RFA. When word of the incident reached authorities in town, they sent 20 vans with up to 500 police officers to the scene to rescue the trio and arrest 25 people.  After interrogations, police released 18 and sent the remaining seven to a temporary detention center, charging them with “resisting enforcement authorities” and “illegally holding people,” state media reported.  Giang’s orchard had about 30,000 coffee trees and more than 100 durian trees, the latter of which would begin bearing fruit in 2023, the resident said. Giang later posted on his Facebook page that about two-thirds of the trees in his orchard had been chopped down. More than 1,000 households in Hoa Dong commune now face similar situations because they all rent agricultural land. In 1998, the families bought trees on the leased land and began sharing ownership with Thang Loi Coffee which held a 51% stake, said the resident.   When Thang Loi changed its name and became a joint stock company, it forced the families who rented its land to buy company’s shares at preferential prices. But Giang and others did not purchase them because they believed the company’s move was not legal. Disgruntles residents petitioned the President’s Office, which directed the Dak Lak People’s Committee to resolve the matter, though it has not been settled, the source said. Hundreds of local households that have leased a total of 2,300 hectares (5,700 acres) of land from the company are at risk of losing all of their assets — coffee and durian trees, said the resident.  RFA could not reach Do Hoang Phuc, chairman of the board of directors and general director of Thang Loi Coffee Joint Stock Company, for comment. Hoang Thi Thu Ha, deputy general director in charge of sales, declined to answer questions. RFA also could not reach Krong Pak Police for comment.  Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnam. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Videos show brutal interrogation in Myanmar, allegedly at hands of junta soldier](https://ij-reportika.com/videos-show-brutal-interrogation-in-myanmar-allegedly-at-hands-of-junta-soldier/): Sunlight streams into a room where two men sit on a green, floral-patterned mat – one bound and blindfolded, the other holding a gun. The armed man is wearing a jacket with a Myanmar military badge on its sleeve. He pokes the barrel of his assault rifle at his prisoner’s head before repositioning himself, seemingly to make sure a cell phone set up to record the scene captures both his profile and the torture to come. The phone was found on Nov. 6 in Moe Bye township in Kayah state by members of the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force (KNDF), an armed ethnic group fighting the military junta for control of the country, and shared with an RFA Burmese reporter. In the video retrieved from the phone, the man in the military jacket sets aside his rifle and picks up a stiff rod that he uses to repeatedly strike the victim, asking in Burmese if the man is a member of the People’s Defense Force, a group of militias fighting the military for control of the country. &#8220;Are you part of the PDF?&#8221; the man asks. &#8220;Did PDF and KNDF come to your village?” The victim seems to struggle to understand, an indication that he may speak Karenni, Kayan or another local dialect. He shifts and stiffens as he senses another strike is coming, his gasps growing more plaintive as the abuse continues. RFA hasn’t identified either the perpetrator or the victim and is unable to independently verify the authenticity of the video. The interrogator pokes an assault rifle at his captive’s head. Credit: RFA screenshot from video Maui, a KNDF secretary, said in an interview that the phone was discovered after a firefight with military forces, but that it was apparently shot in September. The KNDF said the man in the video was a resident of Kayah and not a member of its forces. Calls seeking comment from junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun went unanswered on Wednesday. Myanmar’s junta has waged a brutal counterinsurgency campaign since it ousted a democratically elected government in early 2021. It now faces resistance on a number of fronts, from ethnic areas along the country’s borders and pro-democracy PDFs that are tied to the shadow National Unity Government in its interior. In the 20 months since the coup, the military has struggled to maintain control against the rebel forces arrayed against it. Thailand’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), said authorities in Myanmar have killed at least 2,311 civilians and arrested nearly 15,600 others since the coup — mostly during peaceful anti-junta protests. The Institute for Strategy and Policy (ISP Myanmar) said in a report last spring that at least 5,646 civilians in the country had been killed between the Feb. 1, 2021, coup and early May. A Myanmar military patch is seen on the arm interrogator’s jacket. Credit: RFA screenshot from video Maui said an insignia on the gun indicates that the torturer in the video is a soldier from the Light Infantry Battalion-1, under Myanmar’s 66th Infantry Division. Maui told RFA have been tortured by junta soldiers since the 66th launched an offensive against KNDF forces several weeks ago. “The junta troops always arrest and interrogate some villagers who do not run away and remain in their own homes when they arrive,” he said. “They torture and kill if they are not pleased. This is what they always do.” The brutal interrogation was shared with RFA in seven videos that run for a total of about 17 minutes, all in the single, sunlit room. The man in the military jacket smokes in one sequence and pauses to eat something in another. He alternately seems bored, frustrated and indifferent as he uses the rod to strike and choke his cowering victim. At one point, he appears to stab the other man with a small knife. A picture of the phone, a Samsung Galaxy A12, was shared with RFA, but not the phone itself. KNDF also shared photographs of a decapitated man it says it retrieved from the same phone. RFA is not publishing those pictures. The captive struggles as the interrogator chokes him with a rod. Credit: RFA screenshot from video This summer, RFA obtained evidence of atrocities from a soldier’s abandoned cell phone in the Sagaing region, which has been the setting of a number of conflicts between People’s Defense Forces militias and Myanmar soldiers.   The phone contained photographs of two soldiers standing behind five blindfolded and bleeding victims, and a video of the men bragging about the number of people they had killed. The phone was discovered by a villager in the Ayadaw township where the military had been conducting raids. In response, military leaders said they would investigate, but there is no evidence they have done so. The videos share a shamelessness in the brutality they depict. Maui said military forces are deliberately torturing civilians. “If the people are scared, they will stop supporting the resistance groups. Our revolution is based on the support of our people,” he said. “Our resistance groups will never back off [because of the] atrocities. I believe that the people will support us even more because of their inhumane acts.” The Kayah video ends with the tortured man lying on his back as his torturer, now with a machete in his hand, plays an audio of a Buddhist monk. The videos do not show what happened to the captive. “I’ve filmed you,” the armed man says, noting his victim is about the same age as his father. “I feel sorry for you only after I’ve tortured you.”
- [Uyghur Canadian leaders urge Trudeau to acknowledge ‘genocide’ in Xinjiang](https://ij-reportika.com/uyghur-canadian-leaders-urge-trudeau-to-acknowledge-genocide-in-xinjiang/): Uyghur community leaders in Canada asked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau why his administration has not followed Canada’s parliament in recognizing the situation in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region as genocide. Trudeau met with about 10 community leaders on Monday in Montreal to discuss a wide range of topics related to Xinjiang, including the possibility of banning imports of products produced by forced labor.&nbsp; “He said he was aware of it and looking into it. He said Canada was considering banning forced labor products coming into Canada,” Keyum Masimov, project leader of the Ottawa-based Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project, or URAP, told Radio Free Asia’s Uyghur Service on Tuesday. The meeting’s organizer was lawmaker Sameer Zuberi, who in June introduced a motion in parliament to help Uyghurs fleeing “ongoing genocide” in China by expediting entry for “10,000 Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in need of protection” starting in 2024.&nbsp; Parliament voted 258-0 in support of the measure last month, echoing the February 2021 motion to recognize the situation in Xinjiang as genocide, which passed 266-0. “We were able to convey our concerns to him that we were puzzled by his administration’s reluctance to recognize the Uyghur genocide as every Uyghur Canadian has at least one family member, neighbor, or friend locked up in the concentration camps,” Masimov said. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau with Keyum Masimov, project manager of the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project, at a meeting of Laurier Club members in Montreal, Nov. 7, 2022. Credit: Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project Monday’s meeting between the community leaders and Trudeau was a message to Uyghurs everywhere that Canada’s government is paying close attention to their plight, Mehmet Tohti, the executive director of URAP, told Ij-Reportika while on the sidelines of a conference at the European Parliament. “It’s a strong signal to China,” Tohti said. “This was a great opportunity to convey to the prime minister, who is running Canada, about the concrete concerns of Uyghurs.” Those concerns included the case of Huseyincan Celil, a Uyghur Canadian serving a life sentence in China on terrorism charges, Tohti said. Authorities in Uzbekistan arrested Celil during a visit there in 2006 and extradited him to China, where he was tried as a Chinese national despite having acquired Canadian citizenship, an act that by Chinese law revokes his Chinese citizenship. Tohti acknowledged that Canada’s Parliament has four pieces of legislation pending that are either directly or indirectly related to Uyghur forced labor, and that the Canadian government’s China policy framework, which will be announced later this month, includes banning forced labor products. “Most importantly, Canada is fully aware of the Uyghur situation by taking certain steps to resettle 10,000 Uyghur refugees and assist victims of genocide,” Tohti said. “Our hope is that Canada takes bigger and faster steps.”
- [Tibetan monk dies after years of ill health following release from prison](https://ij-reportika.com/tibetan-monk-dies-after-years-of-ill-health-following-release-from-prison/): A Tibetan monk jailed for six years for opposing Chinese rule in Tibet has died after suffering failing health following his release from prison in 2018, RFA has learned. Geshe Tenzin Palsang, a resident of Draggo (in Chinese, Luhuo) county in Sichuan’s Kardze (Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, died in September after his condition suddenly worsened, according to a source inside Tibet. “This was due to the torture he suffered in prison and lack of medical care after his release,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. Palsang, a monk at Draggo monastery, was detained on April 2, 2012, on charges of organizing a demonstration challenging Beijing’s rule, the source said. “After that, he briefly disappeared until he was sentenced to six years in prison for his alleged involvement in the protest.” Formerly an independent nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force more than 70 years ago. Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on the region, restricting Tibetans’ political activities and peaceful expression of cultural and religious identity. Palsang was released in April 2018, but Chinese authorities constantly harassed and surveilled him, the source added. Also speaking to RFA, a Tibetan living in exile said that Palsang had openly called on Chinese authorities in 2012 to end their “repressive policies in Tibet and their genocide and persecution of the Tibetan people. “He also demanded that Tibetans in Draggo be given the right to freedom of speech and freedom of religion,” the source said, also speaking anonymously to protect his contacts in Tibet.  “Later, when he was released from prison, his health condition was so severe that he was not even able to stand up on his own without someone’s support,” he added. Speaking to RFA, Pema Gyal — a researcher at London-based Tibet Watch — said that China’s government routinely tortures Tibetans, “and especially influential and intellectual Tibetans,” inside Chinese prisons. “And later when they are released they are denied proper medical treatment,” Gyal said. “So the Chinese government has tried in this way to eradicate many of these influential Tibetans who openly criticize China’s repressive policies.” Geshe Tenzin Palsang, also known as Tengha, was born in 1965 and was proficient in both the Tibetan and Chinese languages, sources told RFA. In 1986 Palsang left Tibet and studied at Drepung monastery in South India where he obtained a Geshe degree, demonstrating mastery of advanced philosophical studies. He returned to Tibet in 2009 to take a senior role at Draggo monastery. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [China imprisons 2 Tibetan monks for sending donations to Dalai Lama](https://ij-reportika.com/china-imprisons-2-tibetan-monks-for-sending-donations-to-dalai-lama/): Chinese authorities in Tibet have sentenced two monks from the Kirti monastery in Sichuan province to prison for sending prayer offerings to the Dalai Lama and the abbot of their monastery, both living in exile in India, Radio Free Asia has learned. The two monks, Rachung Gendun and Sonam Gyatso, had both sent the donations to Tibet’s foremost spiritual leader and Kirti Rinpoche, sources said.  In both cases, details surrounding their trials and sentencing are not known in detail, but Chinese authorities consider it illegal for Tibetans to contact exiles. They are particularly sensitive about contacts made with the Dalai Lama, who fled to India 70 years ago and has been living there ever since. Sources said Rachung Gendun was sentenced to three years in prison, and Sonam Gyatso to two years. They are both currently detained at Menyang prison (in Chinese Mianyang) near the city of Chengdu in Sichuan province. Rachung Gendun had been strongly opposed to the Chinese government’s “patriotic education” campaign, a Tibetan source inside Tibet said.  Beijing has run the high-profile campaign among Tibetans since unrest spread across Tibetan regions from Lhasa in March 2008, requiring local people to denounce the Dalai Lama, whom the government rejects as a &#8220;splittist.&#8221; Rachung Gendun voiced his opposition to the program, and was interrogated and detained for a few months. Chinese authorities also raided his quarters and confiscated photos of the Dalai Lama and several other times. A Tibetan living in exile said Rachung Gendun had been arrested on April 1, 2021, from his quarters at the monastery, and his family did not know where he was until three months later. “Later, after his arrest was known, his family members hoped for his release, but for the past year or so his family have not been able to see him even once,” the exile source said. Sonam Gyatso in an undated photo. Credit: citizen journalist Sonam Gyatso A few days later, authorities arrested Sonam Gyatso, on April 3, 2021, in Chengdu while he was vacationing there, a source inside Tibet told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “Since then, he has been under constant interrogation from the police at a detention center near Barkham [Maerkang] and they didn’t reach a verdict for more than a year,” the source said.  “We have learned that he is sentenced to two years in prison but we don’t know about his current health condition or any other related information,” said the source. Sonam Gyatso became a monk at a very young age and studied Buddhism at the Kirti Monastery, obtaining the Geshe degree, a higher academic degree in Buddhist philosophy, according to the source.  Afterwards, he worked in the monastic department and became a mentor at the monastery. While working there, he encountered many problems with the local Chinese authorities, the source said. “Geshe Sonam&#8217;s older sister, Tsering Lhamo, was also detained by the Chinese authorities a year ago for an unknown reason. She worked at a bank in Ngaba [Aba] county,” a Tibetan living in exile told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. No further information on Tsering Lhamo’s current status is known, the source said. The Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists around the world, and is a global representative advocating for the protection of Tibetan culture, language and history. He fled Tibet into exile in India in the midst of a failed 1959 Tibetan national uprising against China, which sent troops into the formerly independent Himalayan country in 1950. Displays by Tibetans of the Dalai Lama’s photo, public celebrations of his birthday, and the sharing of his teachings on mobile phones or other social media are often harshly punished. Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on Tibet and on Tibetan-populated regions of western China, restricting Tibetans’ political activities and peaceful expression of cultural and religious identity, and subjecting Tibetans to imprisonment, torture and extrajudicial killings. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Xinjiang party secretary visits areas where COVID lockdown protests occurred](https://ij-reportika.com/xinjiang-party-secretary-visits-areas-where-covid-lockdown-protests-occurred/): Xinjiang’s Communist Party secretary on Monday visited districts in the capital Urumqi in northwestern China where rare protests against severe coronavirus lockdown measures occurred last week.  Local police officers confirmed the demonstrations and authorities punished three Han Chinese men for spreading rumors about the highly contagious respiratory infection. Ma Xingrui visited districts and counties in Urumqi (in Chinese, Wulumuqi) hit by the recent wave of COVID-19 that struck Xinjiang in early August and impacted by the protests His visit included the Tianshan, Shayibak, Shuimogou, High-tech Zone, and Midong districts of Urumqi, following last week’s protest, to inspect and investigate epidemic prevention and control measures, community management services, and hospitals, according to a Monday report by state-controlled Xinjiang Daily. He also went to the Xinjiang Medical University next to the Liyushan Road where one protest took place.   Ma emphasized the need to resolutely implement the decisions of the Communist Party Central Committee and the State Council, and to adhere to the overall strategy for epidemic prevention and control. The article did not mention the protests, though the article mentioned that Ma stressed “strengthen[ing] the management and control of online public opinion” concerning the epidemic and “crack[ing] down on fabrication and spreading rumors in accordance with the law. Meanwhile, two new videos of public protests appeared on social media over the weekend, though RFA could not independently verify them.  In the videos, the protesters are speaking Mandarin Chinese, not the language spoken by Xinjiang’s indigenous Uyghurs, who face persecution from Chinese authorities in the region. “Don’t be afraid! You’re right! Today we must lift the lockdown!” the protesters can be heard saying on one of the videos. Police cite ‘state secrets’ Officers at two Urumqi police stations confirmed to RFA Uyghur that the protest occurred. Two others declined to answer on national security grounds. Some police officers in Urumqi contacted by RFA declined to provide information due to heightened alert and the sensitivity of the protest, while others cited national security grounds, and two confirmed that the protest occurred.  A police officer at the Urumqi Midong South Road Police Station said the protest didn’t take place in his district. “It took place at Xinshiqu [New Town] district,” he told RFA. Another officer at the Urumqi Hetan Road Police Station said he didn’t know how many people attended the protest in his area. “Too many,” he said, adding that the protesters were demonstrating against the COVID-19 lockdown. When asked about their demands, he said that the police officers would have a meeting soon to learn about the details. The officer went on to say that he didn’t know how many people were detained for participating in this protest, but that it was illegal. “Any act that’s against the lockdown is illegal,” he said. When RFA asked a police officer at the Urumqi Yinchuan Road Police Station if the protest on the Liyushan Road was still happening, he refused to provide information “This is information on state secrets. We cannot tell you anything,” he said.  Another policeman at the Urumqi Hangzhou Road Police Station also said he could not provide any information on the protest without the approval of the Urumqi Public Security Bureau. “This is confidential information belonging to state secrets,” he said.  Authorities detain three men On Nov. 3, the Urumqi Public Security Bureau announced the detainment of the three Chinese for encouraging the public to protest against the COVID lockdown.   Urumqi’s Public Security Bureau issued a notice on Nov. 3 that it has handled many cases of citizens violating epidemic prevention and control regulations, such as the spreading of “rumors” about COVID.  “Those who violate the relevant regulations on epidemic prevention and control will be seriously investigated and dealt with by the public security organs,” the announcement said. Authorities cited the case of Mou Mouhong, 33, of Tianshan district, who received a 10-day administrative detention penalty for posting comments on a WeChat group on Nov. 1 that incited people to protest, causing a risk of the spread of the virus.   Another Han Chinese, Wang Moubiao, 32 who lives in the city’s Economic and Technological Development Zone, was detained for five days for posting “inflammatory remarks related to the epidemic” on WeChat on Nov. 1. Authorities also detained Ming Mouqin, 46, who resides in Urumqi’s High-tech Zone, for five days for inciting residents to protest via a WeChat group. Chinese officials imposed strict lockdowns in Xinjiang in August and September that resulted in some deaths of Uyghurs from starvation and a lack of medicine or medical care. Authorities detained 600 Uyghurs from a village in Ghulja (Yining) in the northern part of Xinjiang after they protested the lockdown. Prior to the protest, state-run Xinjiang TV had warned residents that they would be arrested for separatism, a charge often used to detain Uyghurs, if they “spread rumors” about a COVID outbreak in the area. Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in the region also have been subjected to severe human rights violations during a years-long crackdown that Beijing has said is part of a broad “anti-terrorism” campaign.  A report issued in late August by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights found that “the scale of the arbitrary and discriminatory detention of Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities in Xinjiang ‘may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.” China denounced the report, which it said was the result of pressure from western governments. Translated by Alim Seytoff and Shahrezad Ghayrat for RFA Uyghur. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Cambodia’s publicity shy king forced into center of political fracas](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodias-publicity-shy-king-forced-into-center-of-political-fracas/): As he approaches two decades on a powerless throne, Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni has found himself caught in a political fight between the country’s long-time strongman and a former opposition leader forced into exile. The dispute, which began with a public mudslinging between Prime Minister Hun Sen and his political nemesis, Sam Rainsy, over who had betrayed the nation, has put a spotlight on the European-educated former dance instructor, who as king has preferred to remain in the shadows.   “I believe that King Norodom Sihamoni did not want the honor or fame as his predecessors. He did not have such ambition or greed,” Oum Daravuth, who is one of Norodom Sihamoni’s advisers, told RFA. “The king does not want his name to be as famous as others. He just wants to live in hiding; he does not want anything else.” But the fight between Hun Sen and Sam Rainsy has broader implications than who wins a war of words. Hun Sen has threatened to dissolve the little that remains of his political opposition, which traces its roots to Rainsy, less than a year out from a national election. It has also revived a debate over the 69-year-old’s rightful role as the constitutional monarch of a fractured parliamentary system that has been slowly deconstructed under Hun Sen’s rule.  While the king is legally required to reign as national figurehead and leave governing to the National Assembly and the prime minister’s Council of Ministers, some in the opposition have called upon Sihamoni over the years to challenge Hun Sen’s repression of their ranks. But the king has rarely even responded to such requests, instead mostly remaining inside the royal palace, quiet and out of view. Upon taking the throne in 2004, the king had pledged to remain close to the people of Cambodia and serve out his days promoting national unity. “I will never live apart from the beloved people,” Sihamoni said. “The Royal Palace will remain a transparent house and, for me, there will never be an ivory tower. Every week, I will devote several days to visiting our towns, our countryside and our provinces, and to serving you.” Cambodia&#8217;s King Norodom Sihamoni greets Cambodia&#8217;s Prime Minister Hun Sen during the annual Water Festival on the Tonle Sap river in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Nov. 10, 2019. Credit: Reuters The quiet king Sihamoni comes from a family that claims lineage back to the “god kings” of Angkor, when the Khmer Empire ruled much of Southeast Asia before being forced under Siamese, Vietnamese and eventually French rule. His father, the late King Norodom Sihanouk, was also known as the “father of independence” for overseeing Cambodia’s 1953 breakaway from French colonial rule. Sihanouk later led the 1980s shadow government that opposed the Vietnamese occupation, after its army had driven the Khmer Rouge from power, and fought a civil war against Hun Sen’s government before the 1991 U.N.-brokered peace restored elections. Sihanouk abdicated in 2004 to ensure he had a say in choosing his successor. Prince Norodom Ranariddh, whose party won the U.N.-run 1993 elections but was forced into a coalition with Hun Sen, reportedly wanted the throne, but Hun Sen preferred Sihamoni. Lesser known than his politician half-brother at the time, Sihamoni, who was born in May 1953, had previously served as Cambodia’s UNESCO ambassador and lived in France, where he taught classical dance. As a young boy, he had been sent to study music and dance in Prague, and earned a master’s degree from the city’s Musical Art Academy.  In 1975, the year the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia, Sihamoni went to North Korea to study filmmaking. But he soon returned to Phnom Penh, where he was kept prisoner in the royal palace with his father and Queen Mother Norodom Monineath until Pol Pot’s regime fell in 1979. Since assuming the throne, the son has embodied the principle enshrined in the 1993 Constitution that the king “shall reign but shall not rule.”  Cambodia’s unequivocal ruler has been Hun Sen for more than three decades, and he has recently announced plans to keep that power in the family, pushing his son Hun Manet as successor after 2028. Self-exiled Cambodian opposition party founder Sam Rainsy speaks during an interview at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Nov. 10, 2019. Credit: Reuters The ‘t’ word The recent trouble started when Rainsy said on RFA’s Oct. 25 nightly program that the king’s acquiescence to Hun Sen’s rule — and, in particular, decisions made in 2005 and 2019 to cede territory claimed by some Cambodians to neighboring Vietnam — made him an accomplice to “treason.” “What Hun Sen uses as a ploy is to force the king to support his treason. If the king yields to Hun Sen&#8217;s intimidation, and turns to support Hun Sen&#8217;s treason, the king must be responsible,” he said. “If it was me, I would have abdicated, because I must not be intimidated by Hun Sen.” Rainsy, who in 2015 fled Cambodia to his home in Paris after the government reignited a 2011 defamation conviction against him, said on RFA that Sihamoni’s faintheartedness would be long remembered. “It is dangerous for our nation that you turned out to be a rubber stamp for the traitor,” Rainsy said. “It means you contributed to committing treason, for which you must be responsible before the Khmer nation and history.” In response, Hun Sen called for Cambodians to “stand up to oppose this traitor and any party that dares to connect with this traitor,” alluding to the Candlelight Party, which was once named the Sam Rainsy Party. The prime minister has since called on members of the party to denounce their former leader, or risk their party being banned from politics. “We must do so in order to defend the monarchy,” he said. Prince Sisowath Thomico [right], a member of the Cambodia National Rescue Party, speaks to supporters during a demonstration at the Freedom Park in Phnom Penh on April 24, 2013. Credit: AFP Border disputes Large...
- [German leader broaches human rights in China, but activists wish he went further](https://ij-reportika.com/german-leader-broaches-human-rights-in-china-but-activists-wish-he-went-further/): German Chancellor Olaf Scholz briefly addressed human rights while in Beijing on Friday for a meeting with Chinese leaders, but Uyghur and other rights groups said he didn’t go far enough. Meeting with Communist Party leader after Xi Jinping, who last month began his third five-year term in office, Scholz urged China to stand up for the international order and put pressure on Russia to end its war against Ukraine, according to a report by Politico Europe. At a joint press conference Friday with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, Scholz told reporters that he was concerned about China closing off sectors of its international economy to foreign competition and not respecting intellectual property, the report said. Scholz also called on China to respect human rights, saying Beijing could not escape the international ramifications of its treatment of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang by calling it an internal matter. “Human rights are interference in international affairs,” he said, according to Germany’s Suddeutsche Zeitung. Later Friday, the Group of Seven foreign ministers, which includes Germany and the United States, issued a statement in Münster, Germany, that touched on China’s human rights record.  “We will continue to raise our concerns with China on its reported human rights violations and abuses, including in Xinjiang and Tibet,” the statement said. “We reiterate our concerns over the continued erosion of Hong Kong’s rights, freedoms and autonomy, and call on China to act in accordance with its international commitments and legal obligations.” Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress, expressed dismay that Scholz touched only briefly on the topic of human rights, and that his accompanying delegation included only business representatives and no human rights experts. “It is extremely disappointing to state that the genocide of the Uyghurs is due to a different understanding of human rights,” Isa said in the statement. “Germany must now act together with its international partners to hold the Chinese government accountable.”   The World Uyghur Congress as well as Tibet Initiative Germany, Freiheit für Hongkong e.V. and the Society for Threatened Peoples criticized Scholz’s entire trip to China, saying that reporters at the news conference were not given an opportunity to ask questions. Earlier this week, 70 human rights organizations issued an open letter urging Scholz to reconsider his trip to China amid growing human rights concerns. They noted that an accompanying delegation of several top German executives implied that Berlin was increasing its economic dependence on an authoritarian government at the expense of democratic principles, including upholding human rights.   “The invitation of a German trade delegation to join your visit will be viewed as an indication that Germany is ready to deepen trade and economic links, at the cost of human rights and international law,” they wrote in the memo, published by Germany-based World Uyghur Congress.  In calling for Scholz to reconsider his visit, the groups said: “This would send the clearest signal that Germany, as one of the leading members of the European Union, will not offer its tacit endorsement to the ongoing oppression of Uyghurs, Hong Kongers, Tibetans, and other groups within and outside the PRC’s borders,” using the initials for the People’s Republic of China, the country’s formal name. The United States and several Western parliaments have said China’s mistreatment of the Uyghurs, including mass arbitrary detentions, torture and forced labor, amounts to genocide and crimes against humanity.  A damning report issued by the U.N.’s human rights chief in late August documented widespread rights abuses in Xinjiang and said the repression “may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.” Later on Monday, when a reporter at a regular news conference asked Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian if the two leaders discussed issues related to human rights and the rights of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, he said China had issued a readout about the meeting. But the document made no mention of the Uyghurs, Xinjiang or human rights.
- [Interview: “Freedom and democracy won’t come without effort”](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-freedom-and-democracy-wont-come-without-effort/): Vietnamese lawyer Ngo Anh Tuan spoke to RFA about a Nov. 1 meeting with U.S. officials in the run-up to the 26th U.S.-Vietnam Human Rights Dialogue.  On Nov. 1, Vietnamese rights lawyer Ngo Anh Tuan attended a meeting between representatives from the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi, the U.S. Consulate in Ho Chi Minh City and family members of several jailed political dissidents at the eve of the 26th U.S.-Vietnam Human Rights Dialogue held on Nov. 2. Radio Free Asia spoke to him about the meeting on Nov. 3. The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.  RFA: What were your recommendations for the U.S. government at the meeting regarding human rights in Vietnam? Ngo Anh Tuan:  The meeting was held on the eve of the annual U.S.-Vietnam Human Rights Dialogue. I came to the meeting at their [the U.S. government’s] invitation and was the only lawyer there. I can’t repeat what I said verbatim but here are the key things that I raised: Firstly, Vietnam should hold dialogues with political dissidents and utilize their knowledge and talents for the country’s development. President Ho Chi Minh did this after establishing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, which had been seen as an appropriate policy. Unfortunately, they [the current Vietnamese government] don’t do it now. Secondly, [Vietnam] has to amend or remove the harsh provisions relating to freedom of speech in its current Penal Code as they contradict Vietnam’s 2013 Constitution and human rights treaties to which Vietnam is a signatory. Thirdly, [Vietnam] must immediately stop using its Departments of Information and Communications (DOICs) to assess people’s thoughts and ideologies and accuse them [instead of] investigation and procuracy agencies and judges. As long as these practices aren’t eliminated, DOIC assessors should be summoned to trials to clarify what they have assessed and respond to defense lawyers. Currently, DOIC assessors avoid attending hearings. While the current law stipulates that all the evidence to accuse a defendant must be clarified at the trial, I’ve never seen any judiciary assessors at any trials that I have attended. RFA: Were there any lawyers giving similar recommendations? What are your expectations for the implementation of these recommendations? Ngo Anh Tuan:  I did not ask how many lawyers they had invited but I was the only lawyer at the meeting. I don’t expect all of my recommendations will be implemented right away as it would be too ambitious for a dialogue like this. It would also be challenging to realize the easiest thing in my first recommendation. Some minor issues can be done at the moment. RFA: Suppose they could only implement one of the three recommendations, which one would you like to prioritize? Ngo Anh Tuan: We want all of them to be implemented. However, what I think they can do now is the third one, i.e., the assessment of people’s thoughts and ideologies. I believe people from investigative agencies, the procuracy and the courts realize this legal flaw. If assessors are allowed to [freely] make accusations, they will be able to easily charge people for so many things. It is unacceptable that they [the assessors] examine the ideological side and then conclude the objective side of a crime. By doing so, they have made accusations before [the judicial system]. This goes against all legal principles of both Vietnam and the world. Lawyers have raised this issue many times with them and I think they also want a change. However, they won’t be able to do so if the current regulations are not amended. RFA: Lawyers often encounter unpleasant or even illegal acts from authorities. Why didn’t you raise this issue in your recommendations? Ngo Anh Tuan:  I think the oppression against lawyers is not that serious but the disrespect for lawyers is a matter of fact. However, we [lawyers] put clients’ interests before ours. If we face difficulties, we still can fight against them while our clients are in much more disadvantaged situations. Our clients and ordinary people out there are much more vulnerable and disadvantaged than us. It is more appropriate for the Vietnam Bar Federation or provincial bar associations to speak up for lawyers&#8217; rights. I choose to speak up for people&#8217;s rights as people&#8217;s interests should outweigh lawyers&#8217;. RFA:  You have said that freedom and democracy won’t come without effort and we have to create them and create opportunities for people around us instead of waiting for others to bring freedom and democracy to us. Could you elaborate on this? Ngo Anh Tuan:  I believe most intellectuals are knowledgeable enough to realize this but they may think this is someone else’s job, not theirs. They also understand that we need to join hands to make the country a better place but they also think it’s OK if that does not include their hands. A Vietnamese saying goes: “Lead the charge if it’s a party. Follow others if it’s a march across waters.” They would think: As the pioneers have raised their hand, we can stand behind them and will raise our hand when success is almost there. Politics is not something super. It affects everyone, including us and our family members. For example, an inappropriate administrative decision creates difficulties for ordinary people, including us. Familiar things like land and salary issues are also politics. Society will be better if everyone speaks up against injustice and wrongdoings. Everyone can make contributions but many chose to forgo their rights. If everyone thinks we don’t need to speak up since the person next to us will do it, society, of course, will be at a standstill. RFA:  Do you hope that human rights in Vietnam will be improved after each human rights dialogue between the U.S. and Vietnam? Ngo Anh Tuan: In this meeting, an officer asked me if they [the U.S. government] could help in any way. I bluntly asked back: Why did you ask that question? Can you really help? I also attended a similar meeting with the EU’s...
- [Africa’s sovereignty at risk due to Chinese Police Stations, Security Firms and Military Bases](https://ij-reportika.com/africas-sovereignty-at-risk-due-to-china/): The Chinese companies operating in Africa is over 10,000. This report reveals darkest secrets of BRI and how Africa’s sovereignty is at risk.
- [Laos rescues 11 Indian nationals trafficked to work as phone scammers](https://ij-reportika.com/laos-rescues-11-indian-nationals-trafficked-to-work-as-phone-scammers/): Authorities in Laos have rescued 11 Indian nationals who were lured to the Chinese-run Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone in the north of the country and put to work as phone scammers, according to the Indian Embassy. The operation shines a light on the murky enclave in Bokeo province – home to the Kings Roman Casino resort – where many foreigners who were promised lucrative jobs end up held against their will by trafficking rings that exploit them under threat of violence. The Golden Triangle economic zone is a gambling and tourism hub catering to Chinese citizens situated along the Mekong River where Laos, Myanmar and Thailand meet. In 2018, the U.S. government sanctioned the Chinese tycoon who is said to run the SEZ as head of a trafficking network. Last week, Lao authorities acted on a tip from the Indian Embassy to rescue 11 Indians who had been held for more than a month by traffickers in the zone.  They were recruited by unscrupulous middlemen to work as IT specialists in Dubai, Singapore and Thailand with offers of well-paying jobs and pre-arranged flights, visas and passports, according to Indian Embassy sources who discussed the situation off the record because they were unauthorized to speak to the press. Instead, they wound up in northern Laos, where they were forced to work in call centers largely unmonitored by authorities, calling people to solicit money for fraudulent investment schemes or engage in cryptocurrency scams. Rights groups estimate that at least 1,000 people from South and East Asia have been lured to work as scammers at the Golden Triangle zone, many of whom continue to be held against their will there. Extricated by Lao officials last week, the 11 workers were brought to the Lao border with Thailand and handed over to a team from the Indian Consulate in Chiang Mai, before being repatriated to India over the weekend via Bangkok, the Indian Embassy in Laos said in an announcement posted to its Facebook page. RFA Lao was unable to reach Lao authorities operating in the Golden Triangle economic zone or officials in the Indian Embassy in the Lao capital Vientiane for comment on the rescue operation. Conditions at scam centers A Lao national who previously worked as a scammer in the zone told RFA on condition of anonymity that trafficking is rife there and said several foreign nationals were being held against their will at the call center where he was located. “There were three or four Indians and as many as 20 Thais working as scammers [when I was there],” he said, adding that most foreign nationals being held at the zone at the time were Thai, Chinese and Vietnamese, although he also met Indonesians and Malaysians. The former scam center worker from Laos told RFA that if they follow orders, trafficked workers could earn U.S. $450-725 per month, depending on the number of people they scammed, while those who could speak Thai, Chinese, or Vietnamese could earn even more. But rules were strict and anyone who left the call center without informing members of the trafficking ring or escaped and was caught “would face a serious punishment,” he said. Despite the restrictions and the threat of punishment, the Lao national said that he planned to return to the zone again because “I know how to do the work and they will hire me right away.”  In addition to luring unsuspecting foreign nationals through middlemen, scam centers also “recruit” workers through other means, the Lao national told RFA. During an outbreak of COVID-19 in August and September 2021, authorities in Bokeo province temporarily closed the Golden Triangle economic zone to force employers based there to allow their workers to return home and renegotiate hiring contracts, due to the slowdown of the economy.  Instead of allowing them to return, he said, many of the centers simply “sold” their workers to trafficking rings who forced them to do the same work stipulated in their existing contracts, threatening them with beatings and imprisonment if they refused. Meanwhile, the worker said, Lao authorities cannot easily enter the Chinese-run zone, which operates largely beyond the reach of the Lao government, and are often unable to arrest ring leaders because the victims of the scams rarely report their losses to police. “Nobody takes them to court because there’s no proof,” he said. “Those who lose money dare not tell the police or take legal action.” Foreigners targeted Chinese-run enclaves in Southeast Asia have come under heavy scrutiny in recent months after hundreds of Taiwanese nationals were rescued after being lured into human trafficking and abusive jobs scams in Cambodia, with many victims taken to work in Chinese-owned casinos in the coastal city of Sihanoukville. The government has so far registered 1,267 workers in the Golden Triangle zone, only a fraction of the total, although the exact number employed there is unknown, according to Lao officials. Efforts to register workers to protect them from human trafficking and other abuses have met with limited success because workers balk at paying the fees and fear that signing up will get them sent home, sources have told RFA. In addition to the 11 Indian workers rescued last week, authorities freed 44 Pakistanis from the zone on Oct. 20 and seven Malaysians on Oct. 6. Malaysian authorities have said there are 50-100 Malaysians still being held by traffickers in the zone. Translated by Sidney Khotpanya. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Uyghur doctor jailed for treating a ‘terrorist’ dies after release from prison](https://ij-reportika.com/uyghur-doctor-jailed-for-treating-a-terrorist-dies-after-release-from-prison/): A Uyghur doctor sentenced to eight years in prison in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region for removing a bullet from the foot of a suspected criminal, died shortly after being released from prison in September, local police and people with knowledge of the situation said. Tudahun Nurehmet, also known by the surname Mahmud, was the former chief of the Achatagh Hospital in Uchturpan (in Chinese, Wushi) county, Aksu (Akesu) prefecture.&nbsp; In 2013, he was sentenced for treating a person Chinese authorities identified as a terrorist who was wounded during a clash in Aksu&#8217;s Aykol (Ayikule) township in August of that year. On that day, a brawl between Muslim Uyghurs and police broke out during a security check of a mosque on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr Islamic festival marks the end of the month-long dawn-to-sunset fasting of Ramadan.&nbsp; During the altercation, police fired at unarmed people, killing three Uyghurs and wounding 20 others, RFA reported. Those who were wounded&nbsp; either were taken to the hospital or left the area and sought treatment on their own, according to a policeman who was at the scene. It was at one of these hospitals that Tudahun apparently treated one of the wounded, fulfilling his role as a doctor – which later got him arrested and sentenced to eight years in prison because the patient was identified as a terrorist.&nbsp; Kidney disease in prison Tudahun was released to his family because of his deteriorating health and died of kidney complications on Sept. 18, according to a person named “Nurxenim Uyghur” who posts information about the deaths of Uyghurs in Xinjiang on Facebook. A police officer in the town of Achatagh said Tudahun served his sentence in Urumqi’s No. 6 prison, though he did not have information about the physician’s death. A village policeman from Achatagh said Tudahun, the father of two children, was released one year ago and had a severe kidney problem and could not walk. He was healthy before his arrest and died due to a kidney disease that developed during his prison time, the police officer said. A second village police officer from the area told IJ-Reportika that Tudahun was accused of protecting “a crime suspect” because he treated that person’s wound, but he could not provide the suspect’s name or the place where he received medical care. “They did not tell us whom he treated,” he said. “It was due to an incident that took place on Eid day.“ Tudahun “was taken away on the third day of Eid,” the village policeman said. “I don’t know if the wounded people came to the hospital or if he went to treat them. I heard he treated ‘the terrorists’ and was therefore accused of aiding them.” A village Communist Party secretary in Achatagh said Tudahun was sentenced to eight years for removing a bullet from the foot of a wounded suspect involved in the “August 8th incident” in Aksu, referring to the deadly clashes. “He was arrested because he hid the situation of a person who got shot, and he treated him,” he said. But he said Tudahun was a very skilled physician who treated patients from other towns and villages. The party secretary said Tudahun treated the suspect on the day the incident occurred, and when the suspect was arrested on the second day, he exposed Tudahun, and police subsequently arrested the doctor.&nbsp; “He was taken from his home,” the secretary said. As for the suspect, he left after receiving medical treatment and was later arrested at another location.&nbsp; Another death after release In a similar case of an Uyghur individual dying after being released from prison, 27-year-old Alimjan Abdureshit from the town of Toqquzaq (Tuokezhake) in Kashgar (Kashi) prefecture, died on Oct. 2, about 40 days after his release from a prison or an internment camp, according to the same the Facebook page of “Nurxenim Uyghur.” He was detained for five years for participating in “illegal religious activities.” A staffer at a neighborhood committee in Kashgar Yengisheher (Shule) county told IJ-Reportika that police took away the body of Abdurishit, who died from a combination of illness and starvation during a recent coronavirus lockdown there. IJ-Reportika reported earlier that authorities in Xinjiang have been collecting the bodies of deceased Uyghurs, many of whom died of starvation or lack of medical treatment during lockdowns, without informing their relatives whether their corpses would be handled according to Islamic burial rituals. Abdureshit lived in downtown Toqquzaq when police took the former school security guard to the internment camp in 2017, said an expatriate from the county who has knowledge of the situation. A neighborhood committee staffer in Kashgar Yengisheher said authorities took Abdurishit away to receive so-called “education” while he was working at a middle school.&nbsp; Abdureshit was healthy before his detainment, he said, though he did not know if the young man had been ill when he was released or if he died because of starvation during the lockdown. Translated by RFA Uyghur. Reported in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Myanmar Junta officially bans the popular independent media THE IRRAWADDY](https://ij-reportika.com/media_crackdown_in_myanmar/): After banning 14 news agencies, 4 publishing houses and 2 printing presses in Myanmar since coup, Junta government has banned the popular independent media THE IRRAWADDY.
- [Report criticizes ASEAN, international response to Myanmar humanitarian crisis](https://ij-reportika.com/report-criticizes-asean-international-response-to-myanmar-humanitarian-crisis/): A new report by lawmakers from Southeast Asia and other regions criticizes what they describe as a timid response to the post-coup crisis in Myanmar by countries and international blocs that claim to support democracy. The Final Report by the International Parliamentary Inquiry, or IPI, into the Global Response to the Crisis in Myanmar, which was released in Bangkok on Wednesday, specifically took aim at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations ahead of the regional bloc’s summit later this month. “The struggle of the Myanmar people for democracy is also the struggle of all people who love democracy and justice everywhere,” the ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights, or APHR, said in the report, according to BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service. ASEAN’s five-point consensus reached with Myanmar junta leader Sr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing in April 2021 has been “an utter failure,” Charles Santiago, a Malaysian lawmaker and chairman of the APHR, said in a news release announcing the 52-page report. Myanmar is one of the 10 members of ASEAN. “Gen. Min Aung Hlaing has shown an absolute contempt for the agreement he signed and for ASEAN’s member states, and the regional group has been unable to adopt a stance to put pressure on the junta,” Santiago said in a press release accompanying the statement. “Meanwhile, most of the international community has hidden behind ASEAN in order to avoid doing anything meaningful. It is past time that ASEAN ditches the five-point consensus and urgently rethinks its approach to the crisis in Myanmar,” he said. The consensus called for an immediate end to violence; a dialogue among all concerned parties; mediation of the dialogue process by an ASEAN special envoy; provision of humanitarian aid through ASEAN channels; and a visit to Myanmar by the bloc’s special envoy to meet all concerned parties. “A common theme often repeated by our witnesses has been that, in the face of such a horrible tragedy, the countries and international institutions that claim to support democracy in Myanmar have reacted with a timidity that puts in serious doubt their alleged commitment to the country,” the report said. In its recommendations, the report called for ASEAN to negotiate a new agreement with Myanmar’s opposition National Unity Government, or NUG, making sure the new accord has enforcement mechanisms. As recently as last week, ASEAN leaders announced they would continue efforts to implement the 18-month-old consensus. The ministers “reaffirmed the importance and relevance” of the consensus, “and underscored the need to further strengthen its implementation through concrete, practical and time-bound actions,” Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn said in a statement after the Oct. 27 meeting. Cambodia, which chairs ASEAN this year, will host the summit in Phnom Penh from Nov. 10 to 13. While some ASEAN members, including Malaysia, have sought to hold the Burmese junta accountable, members such as Cambodia and Thailand are among the nations who “have persisted as junta enablers,” the report said. And because ASEAN makes its decisions consensually, some analysts don’t foresee much progress being made at the summit in Phnom Penh. Against Myanmar participation Meanwhile, Malaysia’s outgoing top diplomat has put forward a proposal to prohibit the Myanmar junta from all ASEAN ministerial-level meetings. “All ASEAN ministerial meetings should not have Myanmar political representation. That is Malaysia’s position,” caretaker Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah told The Australian Financial Review on Wednesday. “We know two more countries share this view, and we are very hopeful it will be considered at the leaders’ summit next week.” Saifuddin is a caretaker minister because Malaysian leader Ismail Sabri Yaakob dissolved parliament when he announced a general election, which will be held later this month. The first ASEAN foreign minister to publicly meet with the NUG’s foreign minister, Saifuddin is seen as one of the shadow government’s biggest allies. IPI said that throughout its hearings while compiling the report “participants, even those that also expressed a level of criticism toward the NUG, overwhelmingly called for the international community to recognize it as the legitimate government of Myanmar and engage with it instead of the junta.” The IPI held six public hearings along with several private hearings and received dozens of written submissions. Malaysia’s Santiago and Indonesian House member Chriesty Barends traveled to the Thai-Myanmar border in August to gather information. The IPI investigation team included officials from African countries, the Americas and Europe. Heidi Hautala, vice president of the European Parliament, served a chairwoman, and United States Rep. Ilhan Omar served as a member. Thai MP Nitipon Piwmow served on the team as well. The report blamed the international community for encouraging “a sense of impunity within the Myanmar military,” the news release said. It pointed to an October airstrike at a Kachin music festival that killed at least 60 civilians. “Myanmar is suffering a tragedy words cannot describe. The global community should urgently step up the delivery of humanitarian assistance and it should work with local civil society organizations that know the terrain well, have ample experience and are trusted by the population,” Barends said. “Millions of Myanmar citizens suffering the most grievous hardships cannot wait for long. International actors should leave politics aside and help the Myanmar people immediately.” BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.
- [Netherlands tells China to shut down overseas offices accused of targeting activists](https://ij-reportika.com/netherlands-tells-china-to-shut-down-overseas-offices-accused-of-targeting-activists/): The Dutch government says it has ordered China to shut down its overseas &#8220;service centers&#8221; that have reportedly been used to target and harass dissidents overseas. &#8220;Because no permission has been requested from the Netherlands for this, the ministry has informed the ambassador that the stations must close immediately,&#8221; Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra said via his Twitter account. &#8220;In addition, the Netherlands is also conducting research into the stations in order to find out their precise activities.&#8221; Hoekstra&#8217;s tweet came after reports by RTL Nieuws and website &#8220;Follow The Money&#8221; alleged that two Chinese &#8220;service centers&#8221; had carried out official functions, including remotely renewing Chinese citizens drivers&#8217; licenses without official diplomatic status. Spanish-based rights group Safeguard Defenders reported in September that Chinese police are operating from &#8220;service centers&#8221; across Europe, targeting exiled dissidents for harassment and putting pressure on them to go back to China.  Chinese police are currently running at least 54 &#8220;overseas police service centers&#8221; in foreign countries, some of which work with law enforcement back home to run operations on foreign soil, the Sept. 13 report found. A growing number of governments including Canada, the United Kingdom and Spain, have said they are investigating the reports, while the Netherlands, Portugal and Ireland have ordered Chinese &#8220;service centers&#8221; in their respective territory to close.  Overseas 110 Safeguard Defenders researcher Chen Yen-ting said the service centers are linked to an overseas police website called Overseas 110, which enables people to report crimes to Chinese law enforcement while located overseas. &#8220;Overseas 110 is an online platform set up by the Fuzhou police department that allows people to report crimes from overseas,&#8221; Chen said. &#8220;They have set up many such service stations overseas, basically combining online and physical sites. These are all in the public domain, and have contact numbers and addresses in the cities listed by [police in] Fuzhou.&#8221; Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian denied that the centers had any law enforcement functions. &#8220;The organizations you mentioned are not police stations or police service centers,&#8221; Zhao told a regular briefing in Beijing on Wednesday. &#8220;Their activities are to assist local Chinese citizens who need to apply for expired driver&#8217;s license renewal online, and activities related to physical examination services by providing the venue.&#8221; A number of reports on official news websites in China have also reported on the service centers, with a June 6, 2022, report listing service centers run by police in the southeastern city of Fuzhou as having &#8220;police work&#8221; within their remit. Chinese national Wang Jingyu, who is seeking asylum in the Netherlands after a harrowing escape from Chinese agents last year that spanned the Middle East and eastern Europe, said he was targeted by calls he believes came from the &#8220;service center&#8221; in Rotterdam earlier this year.  &#8220;I hope the Dutch government will sanction, arrest or expel these so-called overseas Chinese police,&#8221; Wang told RFA on Wednesday. &#8220;The Dutch foreign ministry has also previously said that Dutch police are making plans to protect us.&#8221; Wang told RFA last week that he received a call from someone in the Rotterdam service center claiming to be a wealthy overseas Chinese businessman looking to support dissidents. &#8220;The Chinese police and overseas Chinese service station in Rotterdam tried to meet with me in February, pretending to be this rich man saying he supports dissidents,&#8221; Wang told RFA shortly after the RTL report was published. &#8220;He wanted me to meet with him somewhere in Rotterdam, so I ignored him,&#8221; he said. &#8220;He was so angry that he started repeatedly calling me to harass and abuse me. This harassment continued until March. Tracking “suspects” Chen Yan-ting said Wang&#8217;s experience is by no means unique. &#8220;These overseas service stations are used to track people designated &#8216;suspects&#8217; by the Chinese Communist Party, to put pressure on them and to force them to return to China,&#8221; Chen said.  &#8220;We also suspect they may have an intelligence-gathering function, as a way to show Chinese people overseas how powerful their government is, and that they will be forced to return to China to face judicial proceedings and punishment, no matter where in the world they escape to,&#8221; Chen said. Netherlands-based China commentator Lin Shengliang said Beijing has been extending unofficial law enforcement activities around the world for some time now. &#8220;Regardless of where in the world they seek refuge, Chinese dissidents and rights activists may not be safe,&#8221; Lin told RFA. &#8220;The Chinese government will do whatever it takes to extend its suppression to every country in the world.&#8221; &#8220;This is a multi-pronged operation that can be packaged as contact with overseas Chinese associations linked to a person&#8217;s hometown, overseas student associations and even some churches, so it&#8217;s hard to escape,&#8221; Lin said. The Chinese Communist Party&#8217;s law enforcement agencies routinely track, harass, threaten and repatriate people who flee the country, many of them Turkic-speaking Uyghurs, under its SkyNet surveillance program that reaches far beyond China&#8217;s borders, according to a report from Safeguard Defenders in May 2022. Between the launch of the SkyNet program in 2014 and June 2021, China repatriated nearly 10,000 people from 120 countries and regions, according to Safeguard Defenders. Just 1% of them were brought back to China using judicial procedures; more than 60% were just put on a plane against their will, the group reported in May 2022.  Experts said last month that authoritarian regimes including China and Russia are also increasingly making use of regional cooperation organizations like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to bolster each others&#8217; regime security in the name of counter-terrorism.  Chinese embassies and consulates have also been implicated in Beijing&#8217;s attempts to wield law enforcement power far beyond its borders. Pulling hair China&#8217;s Consul General in the northern British city of Manchester admitted on Oct. 20 to assaulting a Hong Kong pro-democracy protester inside the grounds of the diplomatic mission as a peaceful protest gave way to attacks at the weekend.  Consul General Zheng Xiyuan told Sky News that he was the gray-haired man in...
- [More than 550 doctors fired by Myanmar junta for refusing to work in protest](https://ij-reportika.com/more-than-550-doctors-fired-by-myanmar-junta-for-refusing-to-work-in-protest/): The junta’s Ministry of Health has fired 557 government-employed doctors who left their jobs to protest against the military government, revoking their licenses at a time when medical professionals are in short supply, sources in the country’s medical community said Tuesday, citing an official list. The striking doctors joined other government workers in what has come to be known as a nationwide “Civil Disobedience Movement,” or CDM, refusing to do their jobs to take a stand against the military government that took power in a February 2021 coup. A doctor who has been in hiding for more than a year after the junta issued a warrant for her arrest on charges of “incitement” told RFA that she and others on the list have no intention of ending their commitment to the anti-coup movement, regardless of the suspension of their licenses. “We knew the junta would take this step,” she said, adding that she only learned of her suspension after being informed by a medical colleague. “Revoking my license won’t make things any worse for me now and it won’t change my stance.” The first group of doctors to join the Civil Disobedience Movement did so in Mandalay on the day after the coup and gained a following so large that junta-run hospitals and clinics were unable to function. The movement has had such a large impact that it was listed as a nominee for the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize by the Nobel Prize Committee. But news of the dismissals comes amid a shortage of doctors in the country due to those participating in the movement and stretched by COVID-19 and widespread conflict. That’s prompted the junta to relax requirements for applying to medical school this year.  As part of the dismissals, the junta-controlled Myanmar Medical Council began issuing one-year suspensions of the doctors’ licenses to practice, known as the Sa Ma certificate, beginning in February – one year after the Feb. 1, 2021 putsch, the sources told RFA’s Burmese service. A physician who joined the CDM movement told RFA that while suspensions began nearly nine months ago, there had been no public announcement and the affected doctors only learned of the move after the list of names went viral on social media. “They are revoking the licenses of doctors, phase by phase. Sometimes they revoke 20 [at a time], sometimes 25. But the lists came out sporadically and most of these doctors were not aware of the change,” said the physician, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal. “Many of them are still providing treatment and running [private] clinics. They were all surprised to learn about the news because the ministry never notified them.” Of the approximately 60,000 doctors who joined the movement since the coup, around 45,000 remain, according to a group called the CDM Medical Network. The Ministry of Health said it had suspended the licenses of 14 doctors in February, 50 in March, 41 in April, 66 in May, 60 in June, 61 in July, 80 in August, 87 in September, and 98 in October – the list of which included several veteran medical practitioners. Targeting ‘the people and their profession’ The doctor-in-hiding acknowledged that those on the list are “facing hardship” now that the junta has also distributed it to private hospitals and clinics and begun conducting impromptu inspections, however. RFA requests to Myat Wunna Soe, the director general of the junta’s Ministry of Health, seeking comment on the suspensions were referred to the Myanmar Medical Council, but calls to the council went unanswered Tuesday. A document circulated internally at the medical council – a copy of which was obtained by RFA – states that the doctors were suspended for violating Article 45 (D) of the Myanmar Medical Council Act, citing “a failure to abide by the code of medical ethics” and “patient abandonment.” However, a Civil Disobedience physician who gave her name as Olivia noted that suspending the licenses of medical professionals for their political beliefs impacts both doctors and their patients. “The suspension also seriously affects the well-being of their patients and patients’ family members &#8230; This impacts both the people and their profession,” she said. In this March 16, 2021 photo, medical students mourn as others flash the three-fingered salute at the funeral of a fellow medical student who was shot in the chest two days earlier by junta security forces during a protest against the military takeover in Yangon, Myanmar. Credit: AP Photo Lowered application requirements Amid the dismissals of CDM doctors, the junta lowered the requirements for applicants to medical school in 2022, citing the need to fill the gap created by large numbers of physicians joining the anti-coup movement. A second-year medical student who dropped out of school to protest the coup told RFA that becoming a doctor requires several years of training, and questioned the junta’s plan to replace Civil Disobedience physicians by offering applicants a shortcut. “They are trying to show that we are dispensable and they can replace us easily … with new people who will submit to their rule,” said the medical student, who also declined to be named. But he suggested that few of the applicants would be willing to provide care in Myanmar’s remote regions, while in urban areas, where many doctors practice, patients will simply “flock to a handful of high-quality doctors.” Movement impact Lwan Wai, a doctor from a branch of the movement known as the Yangon Medical Network, said that with the number of medical professionals already unable to meet demand in Myanmar, the suspension of nearly 600 physicians will have a serious impact on access to healthcare in the country. “The ratio of medical staff to patients is already lopsided,” he said, noting that the number of casualties from armed conflict has skyrocketed in recent months, while people are still dying from COVID-19 and other diseases. “This decision won’t benefit anyone. The patients will become more hopeless. I expect that many people will die because they...
- [Opposition officials in Cambodia refuse to denounce Sam Rainsy](https://ij-reportika.com/opposition-officials-in-cambodia-refuse-to-denounce-sam-rainsy/): Local commune councilors affiliated with Cambodia’s main opposition Candlelight Party on Tuesday walked out of a meeting where they were asked to publicly condemn Hun Sen’s exiled political rival Sam Rainsy, the party told Radio Free Asia. Commune chiefs from Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party, or CPP, summoned several of the Candlelight Party’s commune councilors from Kandal province and demanded they sign and add their thumbprints to a petition which said they denounce the opposition figure.  Sam Rainsy is a co-founder of the Cambodia National Rescue Party, which was the previous main opposition party before the country’s Supreme Court dissolved it in 2017. He has been living in self-exile in France since 2015, when he fled a series of charges his supporters say are politically motivated. Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia since 1985, threatened last month that he would dissolve any party that associates with Sam Rainsy and accused those who support him of being against Cambodia’s king. The Candlelight party then attempted to distance itself from Sam Rainsy by condemning those who insult the king, without naming any specific person. This statement should have been enough to ease any and all concerns, the Candlelight Party’s Kong Narith, who is the second deputy chief of a commune council in Kandal&#8217;s Takhmao city, told RFA’s Khmer Service. Kong Narith said that he has maintained his position and has acted in accordance with the law, especially in respecting the will of the voters who elected him and others in the party. Long Seng Bun, who is the first deputy of another Takhmao commune, said that forcing him and other members of Candlelight to sign these types of petitions is illegal and a violation of political rights, and that is why he refused. “I told them that I won’t do anything against the law,” he said. “The voters voted for me so I will serve my constituencies.” Commune councilors from the Candlelight Party have been pressured by their colleagues from the CPP four separate times to denounce Sam Rainsy not only in Takhmao, but also several other Kandal province districts, sources said. The CPP officials threatened the opposition party commune councilors, saying that if they don&#8217;t do what they are told, they will be punished according to law. Illegal coercion Candlelight’s vice president Thach Setha told RFA that any coercive, threatening or persuasive action by the ruling party officials is a serious illegal act. He said that his party’s statement against those who are against the king has already been accepted by Hun Sen, so there is no reason for the CPP officials to continue to intimidate the Candlelight members of commune councils. He urged the Ministry of Interior to take action against anyone who engages in coercive activities against Candlelight party members. “We are representatives from a legitimate party and have already issued a letter of condemnation,” he said. “Why are they not recognizing that?” RFA was unable to contact the ministry&#8217;s spokesman Khieu Sopheak or Kandal province governor Kong Sophorn for comment as of Tuesday. Anyone who refuses to sign the petition that condemns Sam Rainsy is a traitor and has ties with the exiled political figure, the ruling party’s spokesperson Sok Ey San said. Social development researcher Seng Sary said that the local ruling party officials are acting beyond their superiors&#8217; orders. He added that local officials should recognize the decisions and orders of their superiors without exacerbating the political situation. “I believe that the political situation in Cambodia can&#8217;t be resolved by law, so it is necessary to resolve it through political negotiations,” Seng Sary said. &#8220;And more importantly, easing the political heat in this situation is one way to resolve it.&#8221; The Candlelight Party, which has more than 2,000 commune council seats across the country, last week issued a letter calling on authorities to stop acts of political intimidation and coercion.  Their statement said that these actions violate Cambodia’s constitution and the people’s civil rights, political rights, and their rights to freedom of expression. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Myanmar junta bans Irrawaddy news agency after months of harassment](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-bans-irrawaddy-news-agency-after-months-of-harassment/): Myanmar’s junta has officially banned online news outlet The Irrawaddy and charged the outlet’s registered publisher for violating national security laws, state media reported over the weekend, following months of legal harassment. The ban is the latest on at least 20 media groups – news agencies, publishing houses and printing presses – since the military seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup and began a crackdown on press freedom in Myanmar. The Irrrawaddy, founded in 1993, is known for its breaking news coverage and investigative pieces that shed light on government abuses in both Burmese and English. Its editorials were critical of the military rule, and it had ceased operations in Myanmar after the February 2021 coup, moving production and editorial staff outside the country.  Because of that, the practical impact of the ban on The Irrawaddy was limited, although Ye Ni, the executive editor of The Irrawaddy’s Burmese language section, called the ban yet another example of “the many tragedies affecting Myanmar since the military coup,” in an interview with RFA’s Burmese service. In a statement carried by pro-junta news outlets on Saturday, the military regime’s Ministry of Information said the outlet is now prohibited from publishing on any media platform in Myanmar, online or otherwise. But the news agency vowed to continue to publish online. The junta also said it had charged the news agency’s former director, Thaung Win, arrested on Sept. 29, with violating the Publishing and Distribution Act by reporting news that “negatively affected national security, rule of law and public peace.” “Thaung Win is facing troubles because he lent his name to his journalist friends, but he has nothing to do with”  the editorial decisions of the Irrawaddy, Ye Ni said. &#8216;Relentlessly prosecuted&#8217; Since taking power, the junta has moved aggressively to shut down media outlets. It has also detained more than 140 journalists, 60 of whom remain in prison and four of whom have died in custody. A Myanmar-based journalist, who declined to be named citing fear of reprisal, told RFA on Monday that reporters are facing unprecedented challenges in the country since the coup. “While you can say that the ban has no effect on its exiled journalists or the organization itself, those who are still in the country working for them are being relentlessly prosecuted and are likely to endure more severe punishments,” the journalist said. “The arrests are still going on. Local journalists aren’t being released as often as in the coup&#8217;s early days. They are all being indicted and sentenced to severe punishments.” One month after the coup, authorities abolished local outlets Mizzima, the Democratic Voice of Burma, 7 Days, Myanmar Now, and Khit Thit.  In total, the military regime has banned 14 news agencies, four publishing houses and two printing presses in the last 20 months since the coup.  They include the Myitkyina Journal, 74 Media, Tachileik News Agency, Delta News Agency, Zeya Times News Agency, Kamayut News Channel, Kantarawaddy Times, and Mon News Agency. Irrawaddy News reporter Zaw Zaw covers a story in Thibaw, Shan state, Myanmar on Aug. 18, 2017. He has since been arrested and sentenced to three years by a junta court. Credit RFA No surprise The Irrawaddy’s management told RFA that the order came as no surprise, following a series of unannounced lawsuits, raids, arrests and other moves targeting the outlet since the coup. In March 2021, the regime brought a lawsuit against the Irrawaddy for “disregarding” the military in its reporting on anti-coup protests, making it the first news outlet to be sued by the junta. Authorities raided the Irrawaddy’s office in Yangon twice later that year. In August, a special court inside Mandalay’s Obo Prison sentenced former Irrawaddy photojournalist Zaw Zaw to three years in prison for “incitement,” while another staff member was temporarily detained earlier this year and the home of one of the outlet’s editors was recently raided. Thaung Win, a member of the 88 Generation student activist group, applied for a publishing license for The Irrawaddy following a pledge by former President Thein Sein to implement democratic reforms through his quasi-civilian government, which ruled Myanmar from 2011 to 2016.  The Burmese journalists who founded the outlet in exile relocated to Myanmar in 2012 and began operations there after the publishing license was granted. The status of Thaung Win remains unclear, a source close to his family said Monday. Saturday’s announcement followed a vow by the junta only two weeks earlier to take action against the Irrawaddy and BBC Burmese for airing what it called “fake news” about the military. Targeting the media &#8216;out of embarrassment&#8217; Soe Ya, the chief editor of the Delta News Agency, which shut down its operations in Myanmar following a crackdown by the junta last year, told RFA that the military regime is targeting all of the country’s independent news outlets. “It seemed that the military thought early on that the media would be on their side once they were in power after the coup. But quite contrary to their expectation, civil disobedience movements broke out and the media covered the truth, so the junta began to speak out against it just as much as its political enemy the [shadow National Unity Government] NUG,” he said. Soe Ya noted that even former journalists are being arrested and punished, and said the people of Myanmar have lost their right to the truth, as the media can’t even report the news out of fear of persecution. “They accuse us of being ‘subversive media outlets aiming to destroy the country.’ I think they target the media even more out of embarrassment, since they haven’t been able to run the country as they had hoped.”  Translated by Myo Min Aung. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Authorities allow Tibetans in Lhasa to travel in region amid COVID wave](https://ij-reportika.com/authorities-allow-tibetans-in-lhasa-to-travel-in-region-amid-covid-wave/): Chinese authorities have relaxed severe COVID-19 lockdowns in parts of the far-western Tibet region, allowing Tibetans residing temporarily in the regional capital Lhasa for work or other reasons to return to their hometowns beginning Monday, sources in the region said. A wave of coronavirus infections hit the restive region in August, where China, wary about independence movements, has strengthened its governance in an effort to prevent frequent unrest of the repressed Tibetan minority group. The latest move came days after hundreds of angry demonstrators took to the capital’s streets on Oct. 26-27 to protest harsh “zero COVID” measures, including lockdowns in place for about 80 days. During the lockdown, people complained of food shortages and poor conditions in mass quarantine facilities, RFA reported earlier. Many of the demonstrators were Han Chinese migrant workers demanding permission from authorities to return to their homes in eastern China because they could not earn money amid the lockdown, city sources told RFA.  The Chinese migrant protesters dispersed after authorities agreed to process applications for them to leave the Tibet Autonomous Region, while Tibetans from towns outside the capital area had to remain in place.  Now authorities are allowing Tibetans living in Lhasa who are natives of the cities and towns of Shigatse, Kongpo, Lhoka, Nagchu, Chamdo and Ngari to return to their homes. But they can do so only after first getting in touch with their respective points of contact as set by regional authorities for “swift processing,” according to an official notice dated Oct. 31. They are prohibited from returning on their own. Authorities will provide Tibetan migrant workers in the Lhasa area with transportation services to return to their hometowns once the regional office makes the contact points public, the notice said, and provided no further details.  Despite the relaxation of COVID lockdowns in Lhasa and Shigatse, Tibet’s second-largest city with about 800,000 people, as of Oct. 29, the capital remains under lockdown for three more days, said sources from Tibet, adding that they did not know the reason behind the move which was not publicly announced. Tibetan sources indicated that Chinese government officials treated Tibetans differently when it came to giving them permission to leave Tibet for other places in China, noting that authorities accommodated Chinese migrant workers who agitated against the lockdown. “Tibetans who study in high schools and universities in mainland China were supposedly planning to visit China three months ago under special circumstances, but that didn’t happen,” said the source, who declined to be named for safety reasons.   As of Monday, Tibet recorded 18,653 confirmed coronavirus cases in the region of roughly 3.65 million people, according to the latest Chinese government census data.  Two new asymptomatic COVID-19 infections have been found in Lhasa in the last 24 hours, and 33 asymptomatic cases have been detected in the northern region of neighboring Qinghai province on Oct. 29, according to an official Chinese announcement. Local authorities in Xining, capital of Qinghai province near the Tibetan Plateau, reported 70 new COVID-19 infections on Oct. 28. Translated by Tashi Wangchuk for RFA Tibetan. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Southeast Asia remains world rice bowl as pockets of region suffer crop disasters](https://ij-reportika.com/southeast-asia-remains-world-rice-bowl-as-pockets-of-region-suffer-crop-disasters/): Rice crops in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar have taken a hit from flooding and conflict this year, casting a shadow on a mostly sunny outlook for Southeast Asia’s output of the key grain as the region deals with other potential longer term supply troubles, farm officials and researchers say. Poverty and hunger are stalking some rural communities in peninsular Southeast Asia, also called Indochina, as a result of lost crops, hitting populations still struggling to recover from lost income and other fallout from widespread economic disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, the poorest Southeast Asian nations, are not major players in rice production in a sector dominated by Thailand and Vietnam, which lead the world in exports of the grain. Southeast Asia accounts for 26 percent of global rice production and 40 percent of exports, supplying populous neighbors Indonesia and the Philippines, as well as Africa and the Middle East, according the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. But their harvest shortfalls have to be made up from other suppliers, and any serious deterioration in rice output could have ripple effects on import-dependent countries in Asia. The challenge is more acute at a time of deepening worries over food security and rising food prices in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has removed those countries’ key grain exports from global supplies. A man transports bags of rice in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Oct. 17, 2019. Credit: AFP Cambodia’s National Committee for Disaster Management reported early this month that floods inundated some 770 villages in 22 provinces, including Banteay Meanchey, Battambang, Pursat, Siem Reap, Kampong Thom and Preah Vihear. More than 150,000 hectares of rice paddies were flooded more than 100,000 families were affected by the floods, a committee official told local media. Banteay Meanchey farmer Voeun Pheap told RFA that floods destroyed more than four hectares of his farm and brought immediate hardship to his family as it wiped out his crop and the hope of paying off what he borrowed to plant. “I couldn’t make much money, I lost my investments, and I am in debt,” he said. In Laos, an agriculture and forestry official in Hua Phanh province told RFA that flooding in two districts had wiped out rice crops and left 200 families with no harvest to eat or sell. “Sand is covering the rice fields all over due to heavy rain, which destroyed both rice paddies and dry rice fields,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. “Families that have been affected will go hungry this year. The damage is so enormous that villagers will have to seek food from the forest or sell other crops that were not affected,” the official added. People reach out to buy subsidized rice from government officials in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, March 27, 2008. Credit: AFP Fear, fighting leave fallow fields More than 18 months after a military coup toppled a popular civilian government and plunged Myanmar into political and military conflict, the country of 54 million faces security threats to its rice supply on top of the environmental and economic problems faced by its neighbors. “I am too afraid to leave my home,” said Myo Thant, a local farmer in the town of Shwebo in the Sagaing region, a farming region in central Myanmar that has been a main theater of fighting between ruling army junta forces and local militias opposed to army rule. “I can’t fertilize the fields and I can’t do irrigation work,” he told RFA “The harvest will be down. We will barely have enough food for ourselves,” added Myo Thant. Farmers groups told RFA that in irrigated paddy farms across Myanmar, planting reduced due to the security challenges as well as to rising prices for fuel, fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. Growers are limiting their planting to rain-fed rice fields. “Only 60 percent of (paddy) farms will grow this year, which means that the production will be reduced by about 40 percent,” Zaw Yan of the Myanmar Farmers Representative Network told RFA. Senior Gen Min Aung Hlaing, the Myanmar junta chief, told a meeting August that of 33.2 million acres of farmland available for rice cultivation, only 15 million acres of rainy reason rice and 3 million acres of irrigated summer paddy rice are being grown. Brighter regional outlook This year’s flooding has caused crop losses and concern in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, but so far it doesn’t appear to have dented the regional outlook for the grain, thanks to expected big crops and surpluses in powerhouse exporters Thailand and Vietnam. World stocks have been buoyed by India’s emergence as the top rice exporter of the grain. In this June 5, 2015 photo, workers load sacks of imported Vietnam rice onto trucks from a ship docked at a port area in Manila, Philippines.Credit: Reuters Although Myanmar is embroiled in conflict and largely cut off from world commerce, Cambodia exported 2.06 million tons of milled and paddy rice worth nearly $616 million in the first half of 2022, a 10 percent increase over the same period in 2021, the country’s farm ministry said in July. Laos was the world’s 25th largest rice exporter in 2020. A report released this month by U.S. Department of Agriculture saw continued large exports from Thailand and Vietnam likely into 2023, offsetting drops in shipments of the grain from other suppliers. While the USDA has projected that Southeast Asia’s rice surplus will continue, a research team at Nature Food that studied rice output in Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam suggested the region might lose its global Rice Bowl status. The threats include stagnating crop yields, limited new land for agriculture, and climate change. “Over the past decades, through renewed efforts, countries in Southeast Asia were able to increase rice yields, and the region as a whole has continued to produce a large amount of rice that exceeded regional demand, allowing a rice surplus to be exported to other countries,” the study said. “At...
- [Chinese sportswear brand apologizes after fashion likened to  Japanese WWII uniforms](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-sportswear-brand-apologizes-after-fashion-likened-to-japanese-wwii-uniforms/): Chinese sportswear brand Li-Ning has apologized after some of its latest fashion clothing sparked public anger in China over a perceived resemblance to Japanese World War II military uniforms. The company, founded by retired Olympic gymnast and billionaire Li Ning, made the statement after being deluged with complaints that its &#8220;Chasing Dreams Airport Collection&#8221; of down khaki parkas, hats and hoodies looked like vintage Japanese uniforms. Some items from the Sept. 20 fashion shoot were slammed as copies of Japanese war-time clothing, with users posting photos side-by-side for comparison. The company described the collection, which included hats with earflaps commonly associated with Japanese uniforms, as being inspired by &#8220;ancient Chinese helmets.&#8221; &#8220;Li-Ning sincerely apologizes for the perplexity and doubt caused by some of the products in its Chasing Dreams collection, the design and appearance of which have sparked online discussions in recent days,&#8221; the company said in a statement on its official Weibo account. &#8220;The Chasing Dreams collection took aviation as its theme, finding inspiration in the clothing worn by pilots, to show how humanity continues to search the skies for its dreams,&#8221; the statement said. &#8220;The inspiration from the pilot hat that sparked the most discussion came from an ancient Chinese helmet,&#8221; Li-Ning said. &#8220;We will continue to listen carefully to people&#8217;s feedback and suggestions.&#8221; The statement didn&#8217;t appease everyone on Weibo, however. &#8220;Shouldn&#8217;t the very first words be an apology?&#8221; @Big_head_girl_one commented, while @I_met_you_in_my_dream said it was an unacceptable response from a native of Nanjing, whose elderly population still remember the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which the International Military Tribunal for the Far East estimated at least 200,000 murders and at least 20,000 cases of rape. &#8220;As a native of Nanjing, I can&#8217;t accept this &#8230; because I keep hearing the older generation talk about their experiences in that year,&#8221; the user wrote. &#8220;I&#8217;m never buying Li-Ning again,&#8221; added @warm_winter_sun_cf566, while @small_windy_mud commented: &#8220;Speechless.&#8221; Trolls at work? Others, however, thought the complaints were far-fetched, and the work of trolls. &#8220;It&#8217;s like people who can&#8217;t tell the difference between a Nazi [swastika] and a Buddhist [manji] criticizing Buddhists for using Nazi symbols,&#8221; @Yuanxi_21711 commented, while @half_a_catty_and_eightyli said the clothing looked nothing like Japanese uniforms. &#8220;This isn&#8217;t a standard Japanese flight suit &#8212; the shape and color are different,&#8221; the user wrote. &#8220;Is Li Ning being trolled by his opponents?&#8221; Ho Tsung-hsun, chairman of the Taiwan Citizen Participation Association, said the &#8220;fragility&#8221; of online comments were linked to Beijing&#8217;s authoritarian brand of nationalism. &#8220;This isn&#8217;t the first time this has happened and it won&#8217;t be the last,&#8221; Ho told RFA. &#8220;If they hadn&#8217;t apologized, their business and public image could be affected.&#8221; &#8220;This is a dictatorship, and its people are so fragile.&#8221; Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Local officials linked to Cambodia’s opposition party forced to condemn Sam Rainsy](https://ij-reportika.com/local-officials-linked-to-cambodias-opposition-party-forced-to-condemn-sam-rainsy/): Cambodia’s main opposition Candlelight Party on Friday called on authorities to stop trying to force local officials to publicly condemn Hun Sen’s exiled political rival Sam Rainsy. In a statement, the party urged the Ministry of Interior to advise local authorities to stop “intimidating activities” to ensure that the upcoming 2023 general election can be free and fair. Sam Rainsy is a co-founder of the Cambodia National Rescue Party, which was the previous main opposition party before the country’s Supreme Court dissolved it in 2017. He has been living in self-exile in France since 2015, when he fled a series of charges his supporters say are politically motivated. Cambodia has convicted and sentenced Sam Rainsy in absentia several times during his exile, including handing him a life sentence this month on bogus claims that he attempted to cede four Cambodian provinces to a foreign state. Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia since 1985, threatened last week that he would dissolve any party that associates with Sam Rainsy and accused those who support him of being against Cambodia’s king. Several Candlelight Party members who were elected to local commune council seats in elections this summer were then told to sign petitions declaring they rebuke Sam Rainsy. “This is a serious violation against the constitution and universal declaration on civil and political rights and freedom of expression,” the Candlelight Party statement said. The party is gathering evidence and will file an official complaint, vice president Thach Setha said. RFA was unable to reach Ministry of Interior Spokesman Khieu Sopheak for comment Friday. One Candlelight Party commune councilor told RFA’s Khmer service that when he refused to sign the statement, he was asked by his colleague from Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party, or CPP to appear at the commune office to declare his stance in regards to Sam Rainsy. “I told  [the commune chief] that I am waiting on orders from the party but he said he also received his orders from the top,” said Sorn Meang, who sits on the council of Da commune in the southeastern province of Tbong Khmum.  “This is a threat against another commune councilor,” he said Chhoyy Mao, the commune chief told RFA that he did ask Sorn Meang about Sam Rainsy but denied he forced him to sign or say anything. “Only the CPP councilors placed their thumbprint next to their names, but none from the Candlelight Party did,” he said. “I explained the reason but [Sorn Meang] said he was waiting for orders.” On Thursday, the Candlelight Party said that political dialogue between Hun Sen and the party has resumed after the party issued a public statement to distance itself from Sam Rainsy by condemning those who insult the king, without naming any specific person. Hun Sen posted that statement on Facebook with a comment saying he appreciated the party for following his request. CPP spokesman Sok Ey San denied that the party had instructed party activists to threaten the Candlelight Party. However, he said those who refuse to condemn Sam Rainsy are insulting the king. “There is no threat,” he said. “People nationwide have condemned [Sam Rainsy] and those who disagree have revealed their stance on the nation, our religion, and our king.” Local authorities have abused the Candlelight Party’s commune councilor rights, according to Soeung Seng Karuna, spokesperson for the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association. He said allegations over the king stemmed from political conflict between the CPP and the dissolved opposition party.  “In a democratic countries they value free thoughts, ideas and political affiliations,” he said. “The authorities are abusing people by preventing them from making free decisions and trying to affect their political will.” Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Top Vietnamese leader heading to China on Sunday to meet Xi](https://ij-reportika.com/top-vietnamese-leader-heading-to-china-on-sunday-to-meet-xi/): Vietnam’s top leader Nguyen Phu Trong will travel to China on Sunday to visit President Xi Jinping, the first foreign leader to do so since Xi’s re-election to a third five-year term last weekend. The two countries have had territorial disagreements in the South China Sea but are generally considered allies. The two men are expected to discuss strengthening ties and underscore their will to cooperate on a variety of issues. The three-day visit will also be Trong’s first trip abroad since he suffered a stroke in 2019.  Xi’s re-election last Sunday at the Chinese Communist Party’s national congress signals that there will be little change in China’s foreign policy, and it is an opportunity for Vietnam to reaffirm that it has no intention to counter China by allying with a third nation, such as the United States, Vu Xuan Khang, an International Security Ph.D. candidate at Boston College, told RFA’s Vietnamese Service. “Despite territorial disagreement in the [South China] Sea, the Communist Party of Vietnam attaches significance to its comradeship with the Communist Party of China and hopes that the two sides can maintain their good relationship in the future,” said Khang.  China, meanwhile, extended the invitation to make sure the Asian neighbors continue their dialogue and avoid unnecessary misunderstandings, Khang said.  “China doesn’t want to have conflicts with Vietnam as the Taiwan issue is way more important,” he said. China may use the meeting to draw Vietnam closer and deter Hanoi from getting too close to Washington, Nguyen The Phuong, a marine security expert, told RFA.  Vietnam needs China more than China needs Vietnam, especially when it comes to economic issues,  said Phoung. But he said Xi chose Trong to be the first leader to visit since the end of the congress as a gesture to show that China does value the relationship.  Containers are transferred from a truck to cargo ship at the international cargo terminal of a port in Hai Phong city, Vietnam, Aug. 12, 2019. Vietnam’s import-export activities heavily depend on China, says researcher Nguyen The Phuong. Credit: AFP “Recently, Vietnam’s relations with western countries, especially with the U.S., have improved rapidly,” he said. “From China’s perspective, letting Vietnam freely get closer to western countries is also a strategic threat.” Beijing has several tools at its disposal to prevent Hanoi from falling into Washington’s orbit, Phoung said. “Economically, Vietnam’s import-export activities heavily depend on China, especially in terms of raw material imports and border trade,” he said. “Therefore, by creating economic pressure only, China would already be able to send the message that Vietnam should not go too far.” Additionally, China would be able to put pressure on Vietnam by increasing military presence in the South China Sea. It can also persuade the Vietnamese Communist Party that a closer relationship can help maintain the party’s power, Phoung said.   Ironing out disagreements The two countries have also tangled over the Mekong River, as China has built a series of dams in the Upper Mekong that have adversely affected Vietnam and other downstream countries in Southeast Asia. But the visit will likely seek to avoid any overt conflicts as the two sides try to smooth over relations, a researcher who requested anonymity for safety reasons told RFA “Vietnam will perhaps not mention the Mekong very much. However, it will try to put forth the Eastern Sea issues to resolve differences through negotiation by the two countries,” he said, using the Vietnamese term for the South China Sea. Phuong said these issues would be secondary to maintaining their harmonious relationship. “If mentioned at all, the two sides would still emphasize dialogue and cooperation and not promote an image of insurmountable challenges in Vietnam-China relations,” said Khang.  Instead, the two sides will likely play up strategies for building the party and fighting corruption. They may have differences in foreign policy, “but the two countries have many things in common when it comes to domestic policy,” he said. These commonalities include the mechanism of party leadership, state management, a socialism-oriented market economy, and economic development based on export and foreign investment, Khang said. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Protests spread in Lhasa over COVID-19 restrictions](https://ij-reportika.com/protests-spread-in-lhasa-over-covid-19-restrictions/): Protests over COVID-19 restrictions in the Tibetan capital Lhasa spread to at least four different areas of the city Thursday, prompting “scuffles” with authorities in some cases, sources told Radio Free Asia, as ethnic Chinese migrant workers demanded permits to return home from the region. RFA was able to confirm that many of the protesters were ethnic majority Han Chinese migrant workers who likely obtained permission to reside in Lhasa for jobs that pay daily wages.  Sources in the city, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of security concerns, said that the migrant workers have been demanding that local authorities issue them permits to return to their homes in eastern China because they have been unable to earn a living during the nearly three months of lockdown in the city. In footage from one video obtained late on Wednesday, a man claiming to be a police officer pleads with protesters in Mandarin Chinese to return to their homes, and tells them their concerns have been relayed to senior officials. “Please return to your homes. Why? If you [don’t] go back and block up this area, what might happen? You’ll infect each other,” the apparent officer says. “We’ve already reported to the higher ups, okay? Please go home.” “We understand your pain. We’re going to make a report soon,” he goes on to say. ”Please everybody understand, we will report to the relevant authorities.” On Wednesday, RFA Tibetan reported that scores of people had taken to the streets in what appeared to be Chengguan district’s Chakrong area, in eastern Lhasa, as well as the Payi area of the city, based on video obtained by sources in the region. By Thursday, protests had spread to include the districts of Lhalu and Kuang Ye, sources told RFA, with newly obtained video footage showing crowds growing more restless. In one such video, protesters appear to engage in a yelling and shoving match with authorities, while in another, a group of people appear to push a large iron gate off of its hinges. Trying to contain Sangay Kyab, a Tibet expert based in Spain, told RFA that Chinese authorities likely did not resort to violence to crack down on the protests in Lhasa because they were related to COVID-19 restrictions, and because Beijing doesn’t want the situation to escalate. Sakar Tashi, a Belgium-based China and Tibet watcher, took it a step further, suggesting that authorities wouldn’t have responded as peacefully to a protest held exclusively by Tibetans. “Han people in Lhasa protested against the epidemic control policy. Tibetans are also involved,” he wrote in a post to Twitter. “Most who led &amp; participated were Han – if it were Tibetans, it would have been bloodily suppressed long ago.” RFA was able to contact an officer with the Lhasa Public Security Bureau who insisted that no protest had taken place over the past two days. “There was no gathering, assembly or protest,” he said. “Everything is in an orderly manner. We did not arrest anyone.” When asked how many people were able to obtain permits to leave the region, the officer replied that “anyone who meets conditions can receive permits and leave Tibet freely.” When pressed further about the status of the protests, the officer said that “everyone is fine, everyone went home.” Other sources inside the city appeared more wary about discussing the incidents, including some who had provided RFA with updates on Wednesday. However, accounts provided to RFA by some Lhasa residents on Thursday appeared to confirm the officer’s explanation of events. Residents said that protesters dispersed after authorities agreed to process applications for Chinese migrant workers to return to their homes outside of the region. RFA was unable to independently verify whether such an arrangement had been made. COVID-19 restrictions Reports of the protests in Lhasa – believed to be the largest in the city in more than a dozen years – came days after the government of the Tibet Autonomous Region issued an Oct. 24 statement announcing that a harsh COVID-19 lockdown in Lhasa would be “loosened.” The lockdown in Lhasa began in early August as COVID-19 numbers there and throughout China continued to climb.  Lhasa residents have said on social media that the lockdown order came without enough time to prepare, leaving some short on food, and making it difficult for those infected with the virus to find adequate treatment. Despite Monday’s announcement by authorities, residents of Lhasa told RFA on Thursday that the lockdown remains in effect and claimed even more stringent measures were being implemented. One video obtained by RFA appears to be taken inside a bus full of people who the narrator says are Tibetans being rounded up and taken to an undisclosed location. “Look, they are taking all these people who aren’t even sick,” a man’s voice says, urging viewers to “please share this on Douyin,” referring to a popular video-hosting website in China. Chinese state media had reported more than 18,000 cases of COVID-19 infection as of early October, with at least 60,507 people now held in quarantine in conditions described as harsh by sources inside the Tibet Autonomous Region. In a Sept. 26 statement, the Central Tibetan Administration – the Dharamsala, India-based Tibetan government-in-exile – said Chinese authorities are holding Tibetans in quarantine camps without adequate food, water or medical care. Camp managers have routinely placed infected persons with others still uninfected, resulting in a further spread of the virus, it said. Formerly an independent nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force more than 70 years ago, following which the Dalai Lama and thousands of his followers fled into exile in India and other countries around the world. Beijing has accused the Dalai Lama of fomenting separatism in Tibet. Translated by Kalden Lodoe, Rita Cheng and Chase Bodiford. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
- [Wife of slain Cambodian activist accepts compensation, but still demands justice](https://ij-reportika.com/wife-of-slain-cambodian-activist-accepts-compensation-but-still-demands-justice/): The widow of a slain Cambodian opposition party activist said she received compensation for her husband’s death, but had not agreed to withdraw charges against the assailant as court officials claimed she had. Wen Kimyi, whose husband Po Hin Lean was shot on his way to go fishing early on the morning of Oct. 16 in the southeastern province of Tbong Khmum, told Radio Free Asia on Tuesday that she received $12,000 in compensation from a Cambodian court. But when she received the compensation, court officials read a document stating that she had withdrawn her criminal complaint and agreed not to press charges against her husband’s killer.  &#8220;They read me a letter saying that my husband resisted arrest, and so the police shot him, according to the police officer,” said Wen Kimyi. ”I don&#8217;t allow the police to release my husband&#8217;s killers. I want to find out: who is my husband&#8217;s killer?&#8221; She said she accepted the compensation money to pay for her husband’s funeral. The court in Tbong Khmum province only said that a security guard named “Vet” was detained for the killing and charged with involuntary manslaughter. RFA was unable to confirm if he was released after the victim&#8217;s wife accepted compensation.   A court spokesperson discussed the case with a local radio station in Cambodia and said that the matter is being handled by an investigative judge. Po Hin Lean’s killing was part of a series of attacks targeting opposition activists across Cambodia, especially those linked to the relatively new Candlelight Party.  Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party has had a firm grip on Cambodia’s government since 1997. In the most recent communal elections, several opposition candidates and activists reported being harassed and targeted in the run-up to the vote.  Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Nawar Nemeh.
- [Dozens of ethnic rebels killed alongside civilians in Myanmar airstrike](https://ij-reportika.com/dozens-of-ethnic-rebels-killed-alongside-civilians-in-myanmar-airstrike/): An ethnic rebel group said Wednesday that dozens of its personnel were among those killed along with 17 civilians, in what is believed to be the bloodiest single airstrike in Myanmar since last year’s military coup. The revelation comes as top diplomats from Southeast Asia prepare for emergency talks on Myanmar after more than a year of diplomacy has failed to end the country’s political crisis and halt widespread violence. Col. Naw Bu of the ethnic Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) told RFA Burmese that on Tuesday evening, a KIO staffer succumbed to injuries he sustained in the Oct. 23 attack on Kachin state’s Hpakant township, bringing the death toll from the incident to 63. Of the dead, 46 were KIO officers, including the commander of the 9th Brigade of the Kachin Independence Army, the group’s military wing. “According to the list sent to me yesterday, there were 62 bodies and 62 injured,” he said of the tally prior to the additional death on Tuesday evening. “The death toll may continue to rise.” Of the remaining 61 injured, 33 are KIO officers and 28 are civilians, Naw Bu said, adding that rescuers continue to search for people missing after the attack and are working to identify those on the list of casualties. Sunday’s carnage was the result of military jets dropping munitions on a concert celebrating the 62nd anniversary of the KIO’s founding.  Among the 63 dead were two KIA officers, members of the Kachin business community, religious leaders, prominent Kachin vocalist vocalist Aurali Lahpai, keyboard player Ko King, and a Myanmar-born Chinese national named Kyar Kyo, residents said. Injured seek to circumvent military roadblocks As rescue efforts continued on Wednesday, residents told RFA that the military had yet to remove roadblocks set up in the aftermath of the attack. They said no traffic was allowed to come in or out of the area from Hpakant, around 15 miles away, leaving them short of the medical supplies they need to care for the injured. “There are too many injured patients and too few nurses here,” said one resident assisting the wounded, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Some have died because they didn’t get the treatment they needed … The medication we already have is barely sufficient either.” Meanwhile, family members have been unable to claim the bodies of their loved ones because junta authorities are refusing to allow vehicles through checkpoints to carry them home, sources said. A resident of Hpakant told RFA that some of those in need of medical treatment are taking huge risks to leave via footpaths in the jungle. “Some people walked very risky and dangerous paths through jungles and over several mountains to return home – I think three or four of them. They carried some seriously injured people with them, but they couldn&#8217;t bring all of them,” said one resident, speaking on condition of anonymity. “There aren’t enough people to carry them out through the mountains. Some are still in the jungle getting what little medical help they can. They have no access to clinics or hospitals.” Win Ye Tun, the junta’s spokesman for Kachin state, told RFA he had no way to organize assistance for the injured amid ongoing tensions between the military and the KIA. “When the situation is safer here in the Hpakant area, we are going to start helping,” he said. The junta has said it was justified in its airstrike on the KIO gathering as a response to attacks on military bases and boats by the KIA and anti-junta People’s Defense Force paramilitary groups, which it calls “terrorist organizations.” It maintains that the only casualties in the attack are members of the KIA and PDF. The U.N. and foreign embassies have condemned the attack for causing mass civilian casualties in statements the junta foreign ministry dismissed on Tuesday as fabricated claims meant to interfere in Myanmar’s internal affairs. Special envoy The latest reports from the military attack in Kachin state came as the U.N. special envoy for Myanmar told the U.N. General Assembly’s human rights committee in New York that the political crisis in the nation is taking “a catastrophic toll on the people.” Speaking to the assembly on Tuesday evening, Noeleen Heyzer said that more than 13.2 million of the country’s 54.4 million people lack enough food to eat, while 1.3 million are displaced by fighting and raids by a military using disproportionate force, including arson and the killing of civilians. The address marked Heyzer’s first at the U.N. in New York since visiting Myanmar in August and meeting with junta chief Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who she said she had urged to end aerial bombing and the burning of civilian infrastructure, as well as non-discriminatory distribution of aid. Heyzer said that she has been working with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Myanmar is a member, to restore stability in the country, despite the junta’s failure to uphold its end of the bloc’s Five-Point Consensus, agreed to in April 2021. The plan calls for an immediate end to violence, a dialogue among all concerned parties, mediation of the dialogue process by an ASEAN special envoy, provision of humanitarian aid through ASEAN channels and a visit to Myanmar by the bloc’s special envoy to meet all concerned parties.  ASEAN foreign ministers are planning to hold an emergency meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia on Thursday to discuss the status of the agreement ahead of the bloc’s annual summit on Nov. 10 in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh. ASEAN has not extended an invitation to junta Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin to attend Thursday’s meeting. Kyaw Zaw, the spokesman for the office of the president of Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, said that the meeting will likely discuss actions that can be taken against the junta to ensure that it implements the Five-Point Consensus, “because there is no positive outcome, no progress.” He also urged ASEAN to extend negotiations to the National Unity Government and all opposition parties...
- [Hun Sen threatens to dissolve Candlelight Party over connection to Sam Rainsy](https://ij-reportika.com/hun-sen-threatens-to-dissolve-candlelight-party-over-connection-to-sam-rainsy/): Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday threatened to dissolve the opposition Candlelight Party if it does not clarify its stand on alleged insulting comments about King Norodom Sihamoni by exiled opposition leader Sam Rainsy. Sam Rainsy, co-founder of the now banned opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, or CNRP, fled to France in 2015 to avoid arrest for various charges. On Monday, he posted a comment on Facebook  that in 2005, Hun Sen forced the king to support a “treasonous act” – a reference to signing a border treaty with Vietnam – otherwise he would abolish monarchy. Sam Rainsy also blamed Hun Sen for using the king to shield his dictatorship. “The king today has no national conscience, not even a little,” Sam Rainsy said in the video. “After Hun Sen, the king of Cambodia betrayed the nation, because we supplemented others, betrayed the nation completely, because we cut off Khmer territory to foreigners.” On Wedneday, Hun Sen responded by demanding the Candlelight Party make its stance on Sam Rainsy clear. “Is Sam Rainsy right or wrong? I want the Candlelight Party to clarify its stand on Sam Rainsy’s statement claiming the King has no conscience. The party’s leaders need to clarify before our compatriots,” Hun Sen told a crowd at a public gathering in Kampong Chhnang province. Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia for nearly four decades, also urged party activists to join his ruling party, saying the Candlelight Party is at risk of being dissolved.  In 2017, Cambodia’s Supreme Court dissolved the CNRP, a move that allowed Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party to capture every seat in the National Assembly in 2018 general elections. “It isn’t a small story, and [it’s] not a joke,” Hun Sen said. “The Candlelight Party members must immediately defect to avoid any problem [because Sam Rainsy’s supporters in the party] want to topple the government and monarchy.” On Tuesday, Cambodia’s Ministry of Justice alleged that Sam Rainsy had seriously insulted the king and ordered Phnom Penh Municipal Court to take immediate and strict legal action against him, though he has been sentenced to life in prison and permanently barred from engaging in politics. Hun Sen recently tried to convince party activists to condemn Sam Rainsy for supposedly insulting the king, calling on party vice presidents Thach Setha and Son Chhay to issue a statement. The prime minister also said he learned of a phone conversation between CNRP co-vice president Eng Chhai Eang and Candlelight Party officials about setting up the party’s network in Ratanakiri province. The prime minister told the crowd that political parties can’t work with “convicts” in accordance with the law.  “With this, I want to tell you [the Candlelight Party] that you are facing any issue for yourself, so what you should do is to clarify your stand over Sam Rainsy’s comment. Is it right or wrong? I want an affirmation from you,” said Hun Sen.  He went on to say that he has a problem with the Candlelight Party because the party was founded by Sam Rainsy.  Senior Candlelight Party officials said they have no connection to Sam Rainsy. Thach Setha, who also serves as the party’s spokesman, said the Candlelight Party acted in accordance with the law and has a leadership structure that has nothing to do with Sam Rainsy.  He said the party would issue a statement on its stand, but would not condemn Sam Rainsy as a person.  &#8220;We work independently, we have full sovereignty of our party, we do not accept orders from anyone,” Thach Setha said. “We will make a statement but not name a specific person, and [condemn] all of those who insult the king. Those who abuse the constitution, we will also condemn. We fight to protect Cambodia and the throne.”  Political analyst Em Sovannara said the country’s leaders should not compromise national interest with political conflict, and that Cambodia has no law prohibiting citizens or politicians from talking to “convicts.”  &#8220;Yes, if we talk about communication, it is not illegal,” he said. “Any person has the right to communicate, the accused, the convict or the prisoner. The politician has the right to communicate.” Translated by Samean Yun for RFA Khmer. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Laos to grant honorary citizenship to foreigners who invest US$1.5 million](https://ij-reportika.com/laos-to-grant-honorary-citizenship-to-foreigners-who-invest-us1-5-million/): Laos will allow foreign nationals to acquire honorary citizenship if they donate and invest roughly U.S. $1.5 million, but critics worry that the program could result in a massive land grab by wealthy Chinese investors. According to Decree No. 14 issued in September, honorary citizens are exempt from visa requirements for entering and exiting the country and may live in Laos permanently. Additionally, they will be able to buy land on state-owned property for a set duration and they can lease public and private land, the Laotian Times reported. To become an honorary citizen, investor applicants must donate $500,000 towards the country’s socio-economic development, and also invest $1 million before they apply, the report said. The stated purpose of the program is to bring in foreigners with knowledge and expertise to help Laos develop. But this will likely mean that Chinese investors will buy up land and leave Lao people with fewer places to live and less access to natural resources, said a resident of the capital, Vientiane, who asked not to be identified for safety reasons. “It’s not right, what they are doing,” the source said. “If someone has money they can buy anything, including land and other things. But the Lao people are poor, and after a while the people will not have any land to grow crops.” The decree would allow investors to purchase unlimited amounts of land, a source from the northern province of Luang Prabang told Radio Free Asia. “We already have a lot of Chinese investors here in our country as it is,” the second source said. “When they come to get their land concession, it affects rural villagers. They won’t  have land to grow rice to feed their families any longer.”  China is Laos’ largest foreign investor and aid provider, and its second-largest trade partner after Thailand. Growing resentment Reports have increased in recent years of growing resentment in Laos over Chinese business presence in the country, over Chinese casinos and special economic zones linked to human trafficking and crime, and over the often high-handed treatment of Lao workers by their Chinese bosses. But a government official pointed out that the program is not only available to Chinese citizens. “It is open to all foreigners who have the money to invest,” the official, from the Lao Ministry of Justice, told RFA. “We do not choose what nationality to give the honorary citizenship to. They can be Thai, Chinese or Vietnamese,” the official said. “All have the same right to get honorary citizenship from the government.” An honorary citizen has some, but not all, of the rights of a full-fledged Lao citizen, a second official said, particularly that honorary citizens can gain concession to use land but cannot own it. But since all land in Laos is owned by the state, residents can be forced off their land with little or no compensation as they are pushed out to make room for development projects. RFA was not able to determine exactly how honorary citizenship differs from full-fledged citizenship. The honorary citizenship program has both positives and negatives, a law professor from Lao National University told RFA. “The good point is that it will allow foreign investors to more easily invest in our country,” he said. “But the bad point is that in the future there will be many foreign investors coming to Laos, and this could force Lao people to move out from their rural villages.” Several other countries in the region offer either permanent residency or citizenship to those who invest in large amounts. Singapore grants permanent residency to foreign nationals who invest at least $2.5 million, while South Korea will grant it to those who invest $5 million, or who live in the country for three years after investing more than $500,000. In both countries, permanent residents can become citizens after living in the country for a specific period of time. The “Cambodia My Second Home” program, meanwhile, allows foreign investors to acquire a visa with a five-year path to citizenship with an investment of $100,000 or more. Cambodian law also allows for investors to bypass minimum residency requirements with an investment of about $312,000. Similar programs exist in Thailand, the Philippines and Malaysia. In Cambodia, some have been able to bribe their way to obtain immediate citizenship. Independent news outlet VOD reported last month that interior ministry official Oknha Duong Ngeap admitted in court to taking $120,000 each from Chinese and Taiwanese clients in exchange for granting them Cambodian citizenship. Translated by Sidney Khotpanya. Written in English by Eugene Whong. 
- [Xi Jinping's extended term as supreme leader sparks warning to China's ethnic groups](https://ij-reportika.com/xi-jinpings-extended-term-as-supreme-leader-sparks-warning-to-chinas-ethnic-groups/): Xi Jinping&#8217;s third term in office as Chinese Communist Party supreme leader will likely mean more suffering for ethnic minority groups in China, exiled activists warned in recent forums and interviews with RFA. Xi&#8217;s regime, which is already engaged in a program of mass incarceration of Uyghurs and mass surveillance and police controls in Xinjiang and Tibet, will continue to pose a grave threat to minority groups, exiled Uyghur rights activist and businesswoman Rebiya Kadeer told a recent forum in Taiwan. If the international community doesn&#8217;t try to resolve the issue of Uyghurs, Tibetan and other ethnic minority groups, &#8220;Chinese atrocities&#8221; could have a global impact, Kadeer told the forum analyzing the global threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party under Xi, who removed presidential term limits in 2018, and could now rule indefinitely. She said in a recorded message to the forum that &#8220;the most dangerous time&#8221; was right now, and called on &#8220;ethnic minorities oppressed by the Communist Party&#8221; to unite to resist it. Unlike previous versions, Xi&#8217;s political report to the opening session of the 20th National Congress on Oct. 16 made no mention of &#8220;regional autonomy for ethnic minorities,&#8221; a phrase that had appeared in his reports to the 18th and 19th party congresses. Before Xi took power, the Chinese government was criticized for widespread rights violations in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and the Tibetan Autonomous Region, but still paid lip service to the notion of autonomy, and allowed the use of the Tibetan and Uyghur languages to teach children in schools, along with a limited degree of religious activity. Kelsang Gyaltsen, who represents the Tibetan government-in-exile on the democratic island of Taiwan, said Xi was at least still talking about &#8220;accelerating the development of ethnic minority regions&#8221; back in 2012, as well as &#8220;equality, solidarity, mutual assistance and harmony.&#8221; By 2017, he had added the phrase &#8220;forging a national consciousness&#8221; and &#8220;the sinicization of religion,&#8221; two policies that were to give rise to a nationwide crackdown on Muslims, Christians and Tibetan Buddhists, as well as a ban on minority languages as a teaching medium in schools. The ban on Mongolian prompted street protests and class boycotts by students and parents across the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, which borders the independent country of Mongolia, prompting a region-wide crackdown by riot squads and state security police in the fall of 2020. Tibetan, Uyghur and Korean-language teaching is also being phased out of schools in ethnic minority areas, local parents and teachers have told RFA. Kelsang Gyaltsen [left], who represents the Tibetan government-in-exile on the democratic island of Taiwan, says &#8216;national unity&#8217; programs have led to forced intermarriage between majority Han Chinese and Tibetans. A similar policy has targeted Uyghurs in Xinjiang, RFA has reported. At right is Dawa Cairen, director of the Tibet Policy Research Center. Both were attending the forum this past weekend in Taiwan. Credit: Xia Xiaohua ‘National unity’ and ‘Forging a sense of community’ Chinese writer and historian Wang Lixiong described one aspect of the &#8220;sinicization of religion&#8221; in Xinjiang in detail following a research trip to the region. In a commentary for RFA&#8217;s Mandarin Service published on Tuesday, he cited a sign at a rural school listing &#8220;23 manifestations of illegal religious activities.&#8221; Traditional Uyghur marriage ceremonies, Quranic study groups, &#8220;printing and distributing religious propaganda,&#8221; and proselytizing Islamic religious beliefs were among the actions listed, along with &#8220;accepting foreign religious donations&#8221; and organizing pilgrimages to Mecca outside of government-backed package tours. &#8220;You can imagine how religious believers would feel, caught in such an endless web,&#8221; Wang wrote. &#8220;The janitor told me that teachers were required to gather in school four days a week, even during vacation, to study politics, mainly anti-separatism,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Political study now takes up more of their time than studying for professional purposes.&#8221; Kelsang Gyaltsen said &#8220;national unity&#8221; programs have led to forced intermarriage between majority Han Chinese and Tibetans. A similar policy has targeted Uyghurs in Xinjiang, RFA has reported. &#8220;Forging a sense of community&#8221; means abolishing ethnic identity and autonomy, he told RFA in a recent interview, adding that &#8220;strengthening exchanges&#8221; refers to the erasure of distinct ethnic identities. &#8220;The Constitution and the Ethnic Region Autonomy Law clearly stipulate the protection of the rights and interests of ethnic minorities, but Xi Jinping’s report to the 20th party congress didn&#8217;t mention it,&#8221; he said. Signs suggest policies to continue Tseng Chien-yuen, an associate professor at Taiwan&#8217;s Central University, said Xi likely avoided mentioning it due to widespread international criticism &#8212; including at the United Nations &#8212; of China&#8217;s policies in ethnic minority areas. &#8220;Of course he daren&#8217;t mention it; it is his flaw and a stain [on his regime],&#8221; Tseng told RFA. &#8220;There is a major conflict between the party-state system and regional ethnic autonomy, which has worsened during Xi&#8217;s tenure, with concentration camps and ethnic minority groups stigmatized for their beliefs and cultural differences, or accused of terrorism,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I can&#8217;t see any indication that he is reviewing [those policies].&#8221; Other observers agreed that while Xi said little explicitly about ethnic policies, nothing about this year’s party congress indicates that there will be a loosening of restrictions currently in place in regions such as Tibet and Xinjiang. Kunga Tashi, a U.S.-based Tibet and China analyst, told RFA that Xi’s speech “included nothing that signals positive changes for Tibet in the near future,” while Ilshat Hasan, the executive vice chairman of the World Uyghur Congress exile group, noted that Xi’s elevation of loyalists to China’s inner circle of policymakers “is not a good sign for the world or for Uyghur people.” Kelsang Gyaltsen said the treatment of Tibetans, Uyghurs and ethnic Mongolians should also serve as a warning to democratic Taiwan. &#8220;Now that Tibet, Xinjiang and Mongolia are all being tightly controlled, none of those promises [of autonomy] are worth the paper they&#8217;re written on,&#8221; he said. &#8220;If Taiwan falls under the control of the Chinese Communist Party, like Tibet and Xinjiang &#8230; it won&#8217;t...
- [Military jets bomb concert in northern Myanmar, killing at least 50](https://ij-reportika.com/military-jets-bomb-concert-in-northern-myanmar-killing-at-least-50/): Military jets bombed a concert northern Myanmar commemorating the founding of an ethnic political group on Monday, killing at least 50 civilians and wounding 100 more, according to residents.  It was believed to be the deadliest single airstrike since the military seized power in a February 2021 coup. The attack came just days ahead of a special meeting of foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, in Indonesia to discuss growing violence in Myanmar, one of its members.  The bombing was the latest explosion of violence in fighting over the past 20 months between the military and pro-junta militias and rebel groups scattered across the country. It was strongly condemned by the United Nations, Western governments and human rights groups. “The junta dropped four bombs in the middle of a crowd where a thousand people were celebrating,” said Col. Naw Bu, a spokesperson for the Kachin Independence Organization, or KIO, which was marking its 62nd anniversary at the concert, which featured several Kachin celebrities, some of whom were killed. “It is really concerning that the junta intentionally dropped bombs on an area that was not only not a battlefield, but a place where we were celebrating together with many civilians,” he said. A month ago, two military helicopters killed more than a dozen civilians, including seven children, at a school in Sagaing region, further to the north, in what was previously thought to be the bloodiest airstrike since the coup. The attack occurred at the Anan Par Training Ground, about two miles outside of Hpakant township’s Kan Hsee village, residents told RFA’s Burmese language service. The training ground is under the control of the 9th Brigade of the Kachin Independence Organizatin’s military wing, the Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, which has been fighting the government off and on for decades in a bid for greater autonomy. Among those killed in the attack were KIA soldiers, Kachin celebrities, and civilians, residents of Hpakant said Monday.  A Kachin artist, who declined to be named, said at least nine Kachin celebrities who attended the concert were among the casualties. Musicians Aurali Lahpai, Galau Yaw Lwi (a.k.a Yungwi Shadang), and Ko King were killed, while Zaw Dain, a veteran actor and the former chairman of the Kachin Artist Association was injured, he said. The Associated Press reported that as many as 80 people were killed, citing KIO members and a rescue worker. RFA was unable to independently verify the death toll or the identities of the victims. Blocked Access A member of a Hpakant-based relief group, who declined to be named for security reasons, told RFA that providing assistance to the wounded wasn’t possible because junta forces had blocked off the road leading to the site of the attack. “We cannot go there to provide any relief help,” he said. “Junta forces have blocked several gates to make sure no one can travel to the area,” Other local relief groups said that although they had requested permission to travel to the Anan Par Training Ground from General Ko Ko Maung, the head of the junta’s Northern Military Command, they had not been cleared to go as of the evening on Monday. The area is located around 15 miles outside of Hpakant. Win Ye Tun, the junta’s Minister for Social Affairs and the spokesperson for Kachin state, told RFA that he hadn’t received details about the airstrike, but said he is assembling a team to provide assistance. “I haven’t received any specific information about civilians being killed. I heard some news, but it’s an ongoing battle,” he said. “I am currently networking resources to help. We can’t just take off to go there and help immediately. After the fighting is over and when it is safe to go there, I will follow up.” In this photo provided by a citizen journalist, a victim of the Myanmar junta&#8217;s airstrike, aimed at a Kachin gathering receives treatment in Hpakant township, northern Kachin state, Myanmar, Oct. 24, 2022. Credit: Citizen journalist International condemnation The attack prompted a statement on Monday from the U.N. office in Myanmar condemning what it said appeared to be an “excessive and disproportionate use of force by security forces against unarmed civilians,” adding that reports suggested “over 100 civilians may have been affected.” The statement said that those injured should be “availed [of] urgent medical treatment,” calling such airstrikes “unacceptable” and demanding that those responsible be held to account. Stéphane Dujarric, the spokesperson for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, said Monday that Guterres had expressed “deep concern” over reports of the airstrikes in Kachin state. “We reiterate our call for the immediate cessation of violence and all those who were injured need to be given urgent medical treatment as needed,” he said. A statement jointly issued by the U.S. Embassy in Yangon, EU member states, Norway, Switzerland, and the U.K., said Sunday&#8217;s attack “underscores the military regime’s responsibility for crisis and instability in Myanmar and the region and its disregard for its obligation to protect civilians and respect the principles and rules of international humanitarian law.” Phil Robertson, deputy head of Human Rights Watch’s Asia-Pacific Division, went further, calling the strike a “war crime.” “It is outrageous and unacceptable that they have attacked a group of civilians,” he said, adding that the junta knew there was an entertainment event taking place at the site and suggesting the airstrike was “retaliation” against the KIA for its resistance to military rule. “It shows how completely bankrupt, both morally and ethically, this Myanmar military junta is,” he said. “It’s a clarion call for the U.N. Security Council to finally act … to stop the military junta from these kinds of atrocities against their own people.” The concert area following an airstrike targeting a Kachin gathering by the Myanmar junta in Hpakant township, northern Kachin state, Myanmar, Oct. 24, 2022. Credit: Citizen journalist Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government suggested that the military had violated the Geneva Conventions with the latest attack on civilians and...
- [Interview: ‘History is something you want to be on the right side of’](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-history-is-something-you-want-to-be-on-the-right-side-of/): Since its founding in 1986, the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity has striven “to combat indifference, intolerance and injustice through international dialogue and youth-focused programs that promote acceptance, understanding and equality.” In late January, the human rights organization ran a full-page advertisement in The New York Times calling for a boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing unless China ended its persecution of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Now, the foundation has added grantmaking to its lineup of activities, focusing on funding advocacy for the Uyghurs.  The foundation expects to award about U.S. $250,000-$500,000 early next year to two groups, each representing one of its focuses, as determined by relevant advisory committees, according to the Jewish Insider. The funding is significant in that it is coming from ab influential Jewish organization at a time when majority-Muslim countries joined China in voting down a measure for the members of the U.N. Human Rights Council to conduct debate on a U.N. report that China’s atrocities against Uyghurs may “constitute crimes against humanity.” Adile Ablet of RFA Uyghur recently spoke with Elisha Wiesel, the foundation’s chairman of the board and son of late Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel, about the grantmaking activities and what the foundation hopes to accomplish with its focus on the Uyghurs. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. RFA: The Jewish Insider reports that the Elie Wiesel Foundation is considering supporting the Uyghur cause now that the organization is becoming a grantmaker. Why?  Wiesel: One of the things we’re doing with the Elie Wiesel Foundation today is we’re pivoting from running direct programs, which is what the foundation used to do. It used to host conferences. It used to be [active] particularly in Israel, with Ethiopian Jews who had arrived. We decided we could have a bigger reach and have more partner organizations that we could help supply funding to. We can also supply some of our time and our thoughts. We can help use my father’s name to achieve good in the world.  We thought a lot about this path that we’re embarking on [in terms of] the hats my father wore during his lifetime. He was so many things to so many people. My father was a teacher, a philosopher, a refugee, a student. And we said, maybe what we can do is for every different type of role that my father played, we can eventually open up a line of grantmaking and partnership.  When we thought about where to start, my view and the board’s view were that the two most important roles father played were that of an activist and a teacher, so these are the two lanes that the foundation is starting with. Once we decided what that activism would be, the question then became which cause do we want to attach ourselves to in the beginning as we as we start this?  For me, there’s really no cause that is as compelling as the Uyghur cause, which has a lot of properties that fit the way my father approached the world. Look at the size and the scope of the atrocities that are occurring [to] the Uyghur people — the mass imprisonment of a million Muslims, family separations, the concept of going to jail just because of who you are rather than something that you did. These are terrible human rights violations, and they are being perpetrated by a major actor on the world stage.  One of the things to know about my father is that he was not afraid of speaking truth to power. It’s very hard to imagine getting the Chinese government to change course and doing something more humane, but it’s not impossible. We were inspired as we looked at the Soviet Union which was treating Soviet Jews in a certain way, but many people thought you never were going to be able to change it; the best you can hope for is that you can help a few people by reaching out to people in power, but to try to achieve something on a massive scale just wouldn’t happen.  My father disagreed. He disagreed with many important people, and he worked with students in this country to build a movement from the ground up. There were many great leaders there who ultimately had great impact with the Soviet Union. That’s why I think the Elie Wiesel Foundation is inspired by big projects that seem impossible — ones that seem really difficult, but ones that we feel are very important.  RFA: What do you expect to achieve with the organizations that the foundation works with?  Wiesel: The goal is ultimately to have an impact, but how you measure impact is very difficult. Is anything that we fund in this first year and our activist players’ focus on the Uyghurs going to change the world and move it upside down in one year? I think we’re more humble than that.  One of the things that my father said about the Holocaust was that it was important for the people who were suffering to feel heard and know that people cared, even if the world couldn’t do anything about it. One of the things that hurt the most was that there was a sense that the world didn’t care. If we can do anything to raise the stature of the story, and if we can find a partner organization to work with that, it would make the Uyghurs’ suffering more a part of our daily consciousness so that the Uyghurs feel heard. Then they would say, “OK, maybe the world isn’t fixing everything right away for us, but at least we haven’t been forgotten. At least, we know that somebody is thinking about us.” Even that for us would be a very significant accomplishment.  Our approach is a humble approach. [Part of] the way that we think about it is that we don’t know what the right answer is. We don’t know what the...
- [China's Xi Jinping gets third term, packs ruling committee with loyal 'minions'](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-xi-jinping-gets-third-term-packs-ruling-committee-with-loyal-minions/): China&#8217;s ruling Communist Party leader Xi Jinping began a third five-year term in office on Sunday, packing the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee with his close political allies, in a consolidation of personal power not seen in Beijing since the personality cult surrounding Mao Zedong. The first plenary session of the party&#8217;s 20th Central Committee re-elected Xi to the post of general secretary, breaking with decades of political precedent by granting him a third term after his predecessors were limited to two. Former Shanghai party chief Li Qiang has succeeded outgoing economic reformer Li Keqiang as Xi&#8217;s second-in-command and therefore most likely candidate for premier, while Xi stalwarts Zhao Leji and Wang Huning remain in the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee. They have been joined by newly promoted former Beijing party chief Cai Qi, former party general office director Ding Xuexiang and former Guangdong party chief Li Xi, all of whom were formerly members of the Politburo. New members of the Politburo Standing Committee, front to back, President Xi Jinping, Li Qiang, Zhao Leji, Wang Huning, Cai Qi, Ding Xuexiang, and Li Xi arrive at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Sunday, Oct. 23, 2022. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan) Xi also revealed an all-male politburo for the first time since 1997, following the retirement of former vice premier Sun Chunlan. No woman has ever sat on the Politburo Standing Committee. All but Li Xi have previously worked under Xi as he made his way up through party ranks, either in Zhejiang or Shanghai, and were promoted after that point, indicating that it was his favor that propelled their careers. The party congress also amended the Communist Party&#8217;s constitution to enshrine Xi and his personal brand of political ideology as a &#8220;core&#8221; leader, giving Xi free rein to take China in whichever direction he chooses, analysts told RFA. No obvious successor Former 1989 student protest leader Wang Dan said there is nobody with enough of their own political capital to serve as an obvious successor to Xi.  &#8220;It&#8217;s obvious looking at the line-up that Xi will also want a fourth term,&#8221; Wang told Radio Free Asia. &#8220;He has made no arrangement whatsoever for a successor.&#8221; &#8220;There won&#8217;t even be a fourth term: he&#8217;s going to do this until he dies,&#8221; he said. Xi himself was clearly identified as a successor to president Hu Jintao, under whom he served as vice president for five years before taking the reins of the party at the 18th congress in 2012. Xi&#8217;s third term as president will likely be confirmed at the National People&#8217;s Congress annual session in March 2023. A screen shows live news coverage of China&#8217;s President Xi Jinping speaking after introducing China&#8217;s new Politburo Standing Committee, at a restaurant in Foshan city, in China&#8217;s southern Guangdong province on October 23, 2022. (Photo by JADE GAO / AFP) Chinese political commentator Chen Daoyin said Li Qiang forms the cornerstone of Xi&#8217;s power in the new leadership line-up. &#8220;It could be said that Xi Jinping has absolute trust in him, and that Li Qiang is absolutely loyal to Xi Jinping,&#8221; Chen told RFA. &#8220;This absolute loyalty manifests itself in his absolute implementation of Xi&#8217;s political line.&#8221; &#8220;Li Qiang has been widely criticized internationally for the damage he caused with the Shanghai lockdown, but his unwavering implementation of Xi&#8217;s zero-COVID policy reflects his loyalty,&#8221; he said. Protests at home and abroad Xi&#8217;s smooth transition to an unprecedented third term in office has been marked by rare public protest, including against his zero-COVID policy, both at home and overseas.  On the eve of the congress, a lone protester dubbed “Bridge Man” unfurled a banner with anti-Xi slogans on a highway overpass before quickly getting carried off by police. Chinese authorities were quick to shut down social media accounts circulating images of the banner, but photos and videos of the incident got wide attention among Chinese living overseas. In London, more than 1,000 protesters braved torrential downpours to march to the Chinese Embassy on Sunday, using the slogan &#8220;Not my president!&#8221; and showing placards with Xi crowned as emperor, to protest the beating of fellow activist Bob Chan by Chinese consular staff in Manchester on Oct. 16. One protester carried a sign on their back and head that read &#8220;To CCP: Don&#8217;t pull my hair,&#8221; protesting the involvement in the melee of Chinese Consul General Zheng Xiyuan, who said he thought it was his duty to pull Chan&#8217;s hair, as he had &#8220;insulted my leader&#8221; with a cartoon poster of Xi Jinping. A protester in London wears a devil mask of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s face in this Oct. 23, 2022, photo. (Credit: RFA London Correspondent Amelia Loi) A protester who gave only the surname Auyeung, who was wearing a satirical devil mask of Xi Jinping&#8217;s face, said he was there out of anger over the Oct. 16 attack. He said the protests, as well as the summary removal of a reluctant Hu Jintao from the rostrum at the CCP 20th party congress in Beijing on Saturday, had showed the world that Xi still faces &#8220;huge opposition.&#8221; Similar protests took place in a number of other British cities on Sunday. &#8220;Digital totalitarianism&#8221; But analysts said the new line-up means Xi is highly likely to continue with the highly authoritarian style of government already developed during his past 10 years at the helm. &#8220;This is digital totalitarianism with Chinese characteristics,&#8221; Chen Daoyin said. &#8220;He will have far greater enforcement powers than during the Mao era &#8230; [and can] achieve a state of total and absolute control and security.&#8221; &#8220;[China&#8217;s more aggressive] &#8216;wolf warrior&#8217; foreign policy is unlikely to change,&#8221; he said. Feng Chongyi, an associate professor at the University of Technology in Sydney, agreed. &#8220;Cai Qi, Li Qiang, Ding Xuexiang and Wang Huning are all basically his stenographers,&#8221; Feng said. &#8220;They have no ability or experience when it comes to running the country.&#8221; &#8220;Their main selling point is that they execute Xi&#8217;s orders at all costs,&#8221; Feng said,...
- [Outside of China, concern exceeds optimism as Xi Jinping begins third term as ruler](https://ij-reportika.com/outside-of-china-concern-exceeds-optimism-as-xi-jinping-begins-third-term-as-ruler/): The Chinese Communist Party wrapped up its 20th National Congress at the weekend, granting an unprecedented third five-year term to CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping. Xi, 69, is set to have his term as state president renewed by the rubber-stamp National People’s Congress in March. RFA asked experts on key aspects of China for their impressions of the congress and expectations of Chinese policies as Xi enters his third term after already a decade at the helm of the world&#8217;s most populous nation. China-U.S. relations and foreign policy Oriana Skylar Mastro, Center fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University and author of The Costs of Conversation: Obstacles to Peace Talks in Wartime: The bottom line is, the next five years is undoubtedly going to be more rocky for U.S.-China relations and for other countries with security concerns in the region. The issue is not that Xi Jinping really has nailed down the third term. It wasn&#8217;t the case that his position was so precarious that he couldn&#8217;t be aggressive before. However, it was unlikely that he was going to take moves to start some sort of conflagration that would extend into the party Congress. So the party Congress did serve as a restraint in so far as it was useful to wait until afterwards to take any more aggressive actions against Taiwan, for example. But the reason it didn&#8217;t happen previously is largely based on China&#8217;s military capabilities. Xi Jinping has been relatively clear since he took power in 2013, where his goals were in terms of promoting territorial integrity, is trying to define that and resolving a lot of these territorial issues, enhancing their position in Asia to regain their standing as a great power. The rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and a dominant position in Asia of which it had previously been decided not only by Xi, but by strategists, analysts and pundits ever since. [Former President Barack] Obama mentioned in his State of the Union that he wouldn&#8217;t accept the United States as number two. It had already been decided that there was going to be conflict with the United States if China wanted to be number one in Asia. And so Xi Jinping has been on a trajectory, China has been on a trajectory that&#8217;s been relatively consistent, that includes an improvement in military capabilities and thus a heavier reliance on those capabilities to achieve their goals over time. So with the frequency and intensity of competition and conflict, the general trend is that it increases over time. Denny Roy, Senior Fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii and author of Return of the Dragon: Rising China and Regional Security: At least two messages from the CCP’s 20th Party Congress bode ill for China-U.S. relations.  The first is that a shift in the international balance of power creates an opportunity for China to push for increased global influence and standing.  This is a continuation of a reassessment reached late in the Hu Jintao era, and which Xi Jinping has both embraced and acted upon.  There is no hint of regret about Chinese policies that caused alarm and increased security cooperation among several countries both inside and outside the region, no recognition that Chinese hubris has damaged China’s international reputation within the economically developed world, and no sense that damage control is necessary due to adverse international reaction to what has happened in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.  Instead, Beijing seems primed to continue to oppose important aspects of international law, to resist the U.S.-sponsored liberal order, and to extoll PRC-style fascism as superior to democracy.  This orientation portends continued if not increasing friction with the United States on multiple fronts, both strategic and ideological.  Secondly, while the Congress expressed optimism about China’s present course, it evinced increased pessimism about China’s external environment, especially what Chinese leaders call growing hostility from the United States.  Not long ago, PRC leaders perceived a “period of strategic opportunity” within which China could grow with minimal foreign opposition.  Increasingly, however, PRC elites seem to believe that alleged U.S. “containment” of China will intensify now that the power gap between the two countries has narrowed and China has become a serious threat to U.S. “hegemony.” PRC efforts to undercut U.S. strategic influence, especially in China’s near abroad, will continue.  Beijing will try to draw South Korea out of the U.S. orbit, and may wish to do the same with Japan and Australia, although in those cases it may be too late.  Beijing will continue to try to establish a Chinese sphere of influence in the East and South China Seas, while laying the groundwork for possible new spheres of influence in the Pacific Islands, Africa and Central Asia. Human rights William Nee, Research and Advocacy Coordinator at China Human Rights Defenders: To some extent, the 20th Party Congress will not see any dramatic break from what is happening thus far&#8211;and that&#8217;s exactly the problem. China is experiencing a human rights crisis: human rights defenders are systematically surveilled, persecuted, and tortured in prison. There are crimes against humanity underway in the Uyghur region, with millions of people being subjected to arbitrary detention, forced labor, or intrusive surveillance. The cultural rights of Tibetans are not respected. And now, Xi Jinping&#8217;s ‘Zero-COVID’ policy is wreaking havoc on China&#8217;s economy, and particularly the wellbeing of disadvantaged groups, like migrant workers and the elderly. But there have been no signs whatsoever that the Communist Party is ready to course correct. Instead, after the 20th Party Congress, we will see a new batch of promotions, with these Communist Party cadres more indebted to Xi Jinping&#8217;s patronage for their positions of power. In other words, Xi Jinping will have created an incentive structure in which these sycophantic ‘yes men’ will only repeat the ‘thoughts’ of the idiosyncratic leader to prove their loyalty. This makes it even more unlikely that Xi or the Communist Party will even see the necessity...
- [Japan, Australia deepen security cooperation as they keep wary eye on China](https://ij-reportika.com/japan-australia-deepen-security-cooperation-as-they-keep-wary-eye-on-china/): U.S. allies Japan and Australia said they would deepen their security relationship, allowing Japanese self-defense forces to train in Australia and greater sharing of intelligence, as both countries respond to a more assertive China. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed an updated security cooperation pact and other agreements on Saturday, following bilateral meetings in the western Australian city of Perth, according to a report by RFA-affiliated online news service BenarNews. Kishida, during a joint press conference with Albanese, also vowed to increase Japan’s defense spending significantly over the next five years and to consider all options for national defense including “counter strike capabilities.” Albanese said he strongly supported that commitment. “We recognise that our partnership must continue to evolve to meet growing risks to our shared values and mutual strategic interests,” said a joint declaration on security cooperation issued after their talks. The declaration did not name China but alluded to it in affirming their “unwavering commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.”  “A favorable strategic balance that deters aggression and behavior that undermines international rules and norms” would be among things underpinning this commitment, Australia and Japan declared.  China’s expansive claims to the entirety of the South China Sea, a busy global shipping route, and its forays into Taiwan’s airspace have contributed to heightened tensions in East Asia for several years. More recently, Beijing’s burgeoning influence with small island nations in the Pacific has also concerned the United States and allies such as Australia. “Japan and Australia, sharing fundamental values and strategic interest, have come under the increasingly harsh strategic environment,” Kishida said after the signing of the security agreement.  The updated Australia-Japan Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation “will [change] the direction of our security and defense cooperation in the next 10 years,” he said. The pact said the two countries would strengthen exchanges of strategic assessments through annual leaders&#8217; meetings, foreign and defense ministers’ meetings, dialogues between senior officials and intelligence cooperation.  “We will consult each other on contingencies that may affect our sovereignty and regional security interests, and consider measures in response,” it said.  Japanese and Australian forces will conduct joint exercises in the north of Australia, enhancing the ability of the two countries’ militaries to work together, the document said. In late 2021, Australia tightened its security ties with the United States and the United Kingdom under a plan for Australia’s military to eventually be equipped with nuclear-powered submarines. The agreement infuriated France as the so-called AUKUS pact meant that Australia ditched a deal to buy French-made submarines. Japan and Australia also signed an agreement that would help secure supplies of critical minerals from Australia for Japan’s manufacturing industries. China’s official annual spending on its military meanwhile has swelled in the past decade, giving the Asian superpower new offensive and defensive capabilities. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s third aircraft carrier was launched in June and is undergoing trials, Radio Free Asia (RFA), an online news service affiliated with BenarNews, has reported. China’s annual military spending will reach U.S. $230 billion this year compared with $60 billion in 2008, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which cites official Chinese government figures.  Some defense analysts say China’s actual spending on its military is likely closer to $290 million. U.S. military spending was nearly $770 billion in 2021 while Japan’s was about U.S. $56 billion, according to CSIS.
- [Trappings of North Korean leader’s lavish lifestyle visible by satellite](https://ij-reportika.com/trappings-of-north-korean-leaders-lavish-lifestyle-visible-by-satellite/): Bruce Songhak Chung is the deputy director of the Geo Satellite Information Research Institute at Kyungpook National University in South Korea. Using Google Earth, he identified as many as 30 luxury villas and several private islands used by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his family on vacation. He also spotted a fleet of five supersize yachts, one of which has a four-lane, Olympic-sized swimming pool. The extravagance of the Kim family lifestyle is a stark contrast to the living conditions of the majority of North Koreans, who struggle to make ends meet in an economy devastated by international sanctions and a lengthy trade pause with China due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The sanctions, imposed in response to North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, are supposed to prevent imports of luxury goods into the country, but, as Chung’s research shows, they have not prevented the first family from continuing to live the high life.  Chung recently presented his findings to RFA’s Korean Service. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. RFA: How many of Kim Jong Un’s luxury villas have you identified through satellite images? Chung: There are 20 to 30 exclusive luxury villas in North Korea used by the family of General Secretary Kim Jong Un. Among them, General Secretary Kim is particularly fond of his villa in Wonsan, Kangwon province, his hometown. The Wonsan facility, as seen from the satellite images, is equipped with luxurious cruise ships, a marina, a horse-riding range, a shooting range, a water play area and many other splendid entertainment facilities. In 2013, Dennis Rodman, a former basketball player from the United States, was invited there twice, in February and September, as Kim showed off his luxurious pleasure facilities. North Korean leader’s villa in Wonsan, as well as one of his yachts, can be seen in this January 2022 image. Credit: Maxar Technologies RFA: What does the Wonsan facility look like in the latest satellite imagery? What facilities can you see? Chung: There is a long, soft, white sand beach in front of the Wonsan villa. The sandy beach is famous for its outstanding scenery. His father, [former leader] Kim Jong Il, also enjoyed fishing and swimming here. The length of the white sand beach is 530 meters (0.3 miles), and there about 10 large and small villas located on the beach, and they have good views. If you look at the satellite image taken in January 2022, you can see the 50-meter (164 ft) long cruise ship with a blue roof in front of the villa. In front of the beach, you can also see a building where Secretary Kim had lunch with Rodman. The walking trails and gardens are well maintained. At a glance, you can tell that it is a large-scale villa complex. RFA: You also were able to identify Kim Jong Un’s cruise ships. Is it true that one of them has an international standard-sized swimming pool and a waterslide? Chung: Yes, General Secretary Kim owns luxurious cruise ships. We identified four cruise ships so far at the Wonsan villa. The lengths of cruise ships are 50, 55, 60 and 80 meters (262.4 feet). Besides these, he owns many smaller luxury boats. On the deck of the 80-meter cruise ship, we can see a 2.5-meter wide pool that has four 50-meter lanes. That makes international standard size and four people can compete at the same time. We can also see four circular slides. Recently, the 55-meter long cruise ship has been refurbished. Its roof deck has been expanded from 20 meters to 40 meters and freshly painted. Three of Kim Jong Un’s yachts can be seen at the port of Wonsan in this Dec. 2019 image. Credit: CNES/Airbus RFA: Was it confirmed that one of Kim’s luxury cruise ships disappeared? Chung: Yes. So far, a total of five luxury cruise ships have been identified in the satellite images. One of them has now been retired, and only four remain. That one was 60 meters long and nine meters wide, and it disappeared in November 2017. According to foreign media reports, the cruise ship had reached the end of its lifespan and it was dismantled and decommissioned. General Secretary Kim&#8217;s cruise ships were all generally introduced in the 1990s. Each ship’s life expectancy is estimated to be about 30 years. RFA: Has anything in these luxury ships violated U.N. sanctions against North Korea? Do we have any satellite evidence of sanctions violations? Chung: I believe that these cruise ships were introduced in the 1990s under Kim Jong Il. The U.N. sanctions against North Korea were implemented from the mid-2000s because of North Korea&#8217;s continuous missile and nuclear tests. Therefore, these cruise ships must have been introduced before that. Luxury goods are prohibited items from trade with North Korea by U.N. sanctions, but North Korea secretly purchases luxury items such as cars, boats and expensive whiskey, so they seem to be able to find a way to purchase these items. RFA: After Rodman visited the area, he had a lot to say about some of the surrounding islands. Are they visible on the satellite photos as well? Chung: There are three beautiful islands. Their names are Sa-do, Tongdok-do and Chon-do. Each island has ship berthing facilities and their own villas too. Rodman, who visited North Korea twice in 2013, said in an interview with The Sun, a British daily, that the luxury villa on one of those islands was like a seven-star luxury hotel. If you look down on the island, the villa is situated in a forested area. Rodman said it was more fantastic than a luxury vacation in Hawaii or Spain. Even the richest people in the U.S. would not have been able to enjoy such luxury. I can&#8217;t imagine how big the interior [of the villa] is. However, if you look at the satellite image, you can see that each island has well-established recreational facilities and is well organized. RFA: Kim Jong Un&#8217;s villas, luxury cruise ships...
- [Rights groups call on UN secretary general to urge Vietnam to free 4 activists](https://ij-reportika.com/rights-groups-call-on-un-secretary-general-to-urge-vietnam-to-free-4-activists/): On the eve of U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres’ trip to Vietnam, 14 international and local rights organizations called on him to urge Hanoi to release four environmental activists imprisoned in what they called a “new wave of repression” that threatens progress in addressing climate change and protecting human rights. Guterres’ visit on Friday and Saturday commemorates the 45th anniversary of Hanoi’s membership in the United Nations. Earlier this month, Vietnam was elected to a three-year term on the U.N. Human Rights Council despite critics pointing to its track record of rights abuses. In a joint open letter penned Thursday, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the other organizations demanded the release of Nguy Thi Khanh, director of the Green Innovation and Development Centre; Dang Dinh Bach, director of the Research Center for Law and Policy for Sustainable Development, Mai Phan Loi, chairman of the Committee for Science Affairs at the Center for Media in Educating Community; and Bach Hung Duong, MEC’s director.  The four were sentenced to two to five years in prison in separate trials earlier this year.   “These political prisoners are emblematic victims of a new wave of repression in Vietnam which, through a combination of threats and judicial harassment, is threatening progress in combating climate change, protecting human rights and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals,” the letter said. “We call on you to remind Vietnam that, as a newly elected member of the U.N. Human Rights Council, it has an obligation to uphold the highest human rights standards,” it said. U.N. agencies in Vietnam must be more transparent and proactive in urging the country to improve its human rights record, said Jessica Nguyen, advocacy officer from the Illinois-based 88 Project, which maintains a database of imprisoned political activists in Vietnam, and was one of the 14 signatories of the joint letter.  “To do so, the U.N. agencies themselves have to improve their accountability in human rights issues in Vietnam, particularly [making themselves more accountable] to civil society organizations,” she said. Environmental protection is on the agenda for Guterres’ trip, presenting a seeming contradiction in a country where the four environmental activists are in prison on “bogus ‘tax evasion’ charges,” Phil Robertson, deputy head of Human Rights Watch’s Asia-Pacific Division, told RFA. “The U.N. leader wants to talk in Hanoi about climate change policies, but how can Vietnam really move forward when it is busy jailing key civil society partners who are critical to national efforts to stop global warming?” Robertson said. This contradiction cannot stand, and the U.N. needs to tell the Vietnamese government that it must end its repression of civil society organizations and NGO leaders.”  “Every day Vietnam is defying its obligations to uphold human rights, and we’re demanding that the U.N. call them out on it, and press Hanoi to do much better,” he said, adding that the international community seemingly has not noticed that Vietnam’s jails are filled with people who dared to criticize the government.  Guterres needs to state clearly that “Vietnam’s continued repression of activists and civil society groups will jeopardize the country’s ability to meet the SDGs that are so near and dear to the U.N.’s heart,” he said. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
- [Australia announces substantial aid boost for the Pacific](https://ij-reportika.com/australia-announces-substantial-aid-boost-for-the-pacific/): Australia will increase its aid to the Pacific by more than half a billion U.S. dollars over four years, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said Friday, as the country steps up efforts to keep influence in a region that has increasingly turned to China for development assistance. The aid will help Pacific island nations respond to climate change, reduce pressure on government budgets and support aviation links in the region, Wong said in a speech at the Pacific Way conference, held in Papeete, the capital of French Polynesia. “Australia is committed to working with all in the Pacific to achieve our shared aspirations and address our shared challenges,” Wong said. The boost to Pacific development assistance forms the largest part of an increase to Australia’s foreign aid spending that will be further detailed in the Australian government’s annual budget due on Tuesday. It follows a period last decade when Australia’s foreign aid dwindled due to budget cuts under the conservative Liberal party, which was in government from 2013 to 2022. During this time, Canberra’s relationship with Pacific island countries soured. “Without these investments, others will continue to fill the vacuum, and Australia will continue to lose ground,” as it did under previous governments, Wong said, according to Australian broadcaster ABC. She said Australian foreign aid would be increased by 1.4 billion Australian dollars (U.S. $877 million) over four years, with 900 million Australian dollars of that allocated to the Pacific. Australia’s last annual budget, for its fiscal year ended June, had allocated 3.73 billion (U.S. $2.3 billion) to foreign aid. Wong said Australia would also increase its infrastructure finance fund for the Pacific from 3.5 billion to 4.0 billion (U.S. $2.5 billion) and lend on favorable terms to Pacific island countries. “We recognize that as a major lender in the region, we have a responsibility to ensure that Australia is a partner that won’t impose unsustainable debt burdens,” Wong said. Over the past two decades, Beijing has amassed substantial goodwill with economically lagging Pacific island countries by building infrastructure and providing other assistance on easier terms than countries such as Australia. China’s security pact with the Solomon Islands, signed in April, amplified concerns in the United States and Australia that Beijing aims for a military presence in the region. China’s government also has been providing training to Solomon Islands police. ABC reported Friday that Australia’s increased aid would include funds for Australian police stationed in the Solomon Islands following riots there last November. Last month, the United States promised more than U.S. $800 million in assistance over a decade as it tries to rebuild relationships with Pacific island countries after a period of neglect. Australia is also trying to repair its relationship with the Pacific. Wong became Australia’s foreign minister in May after the center-left Australian Labor Party won national elections. Since then, she has visited 12 Pacific island nations and territories, which was “an expression of the priority that the new Australian government attaches to this region,” she said Friday. She also reiterated her support for regional organizations such as the Pacific Islands Forum, which has been challenged by tensions with Micronesian member countries over the forum’s leadership and Kiribati’s departure as a member. Working through the forum ensures each member country’s sovereignty is respected and that “the responsibility for Pacific security remains in the hands of the Pacific,” Wong said. Canberra’s increase in aid comes a day after Australia and Fiji signed a Status of Forces agreement, which allows the presence of one country’s forces in another. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news outlet.
- [Hun Sen threatens to dissolve political parties that associate with Sam Rainsy](https://ij-reportika.com/hun-sen-threatens-to-dissolve-political-parties-that-associate-with-sam-rainsy/): Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Thursday said he would dissolve any political party that dares to associate with Sam Rainsy, a threat that opposition party officials believe indicates he is still afraid of the exiled opposition leader’s political clout ahead of the 2023 general elections. Sam Rainsy was a co-founder of the now banned opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, or CNRP. He fled to France in 2015 to avoid various political charges his supporters say are politically motivated. In 2017, Cambodia’s Supreme Court dissolved the CNRP, a move that allowed Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party, or CPP,  to capture every seat in the National Assembly in 2018 general elections. Hun Sen said he was not afraid of bloodshed and would beat down anyone who dared to stand up against him. “I succeeded in destroying the Khmer Rouge,” he said at a press conference in Kandal province, vowing to do the same to Sam Rainsy. “Now I appeal to the Khmer people who believe in this traitor – and any parties that want to associate with Sam Rainsy – we will file complaints against them to dissolve those parties,” he said. “The law states that we need to dissolve parties that commit crimes.”  A former Khmer Rouge member himself, Hun Sen defected to Vietnam with a battalion under his command in 1977 and returned during that country’s 1979 invasion of Cambodia. Following the defeat of the Khmer Rouge government, Hanoi installed him as deputy prime minister. He then rose to become prime minister in 1985 and has ruled the country ever since. Leader of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) Sam Rainsy [center] arrives at a Paris courthouse for proceedings in a defamation lawsuit filed by Cambodia&#8217;s Prime Minister Hun Sen, Sept. 1, 2022. Photo: AFP Hun Sen said he supported Wednesday’s decision by the Phnom Penh court to sentence Sam Rainsy to a life sentence and strip him of all political rights, on charges of conspiring to hand over Cambodian territory to a foreign state. &#8220;Cambodia doesn&#8217;t have a law to execute prisoners, otherwise the court would have ordered the execution of Sam Rainsy,” he said. “People must understand this traitor’s behavior. People who are involved with these traitors will be punished, so please stay away.&#8221;  Hun Sen’s threats reveal that he himself still feels threatened by Sam Rainsy’s popularity, Um Sam An, a senior CNRP official, told RFA’s Khmer Service. “People, including the armed forces, continue to support Sam Rainsy, so Hun Sen is afraid of Sam Rainsy’s influence after he urged voters for a change in the 2023 election,” said Um Sam An. The court’s ability to dissolve a political party is an incorrect interpretation of the law, Kang Savang, an election monitor with the independent Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (Comfrel), told RFA. &#8220;Political parties are facing difficulties because of the law,” he said.  “Their interpretation of the law is not clear, specifically over issues of national security and foreign collusion.&#8221;   Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong. 
- [Myanmar’s junta bans family visits, food deliveries to seven prisons after bomb blast](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-junta-bans-family-visits-food-deliveries-to-seven-prisons-after-bomb-blast/): Myanmar’s military junta on Thursday banned family visits and delivery of food and other necessities to inmates in seven prisons across the country after an explosion at Yangon’s Insein Prison killed eight people the day before, relatives and lawyers of the prisoners said. Many prisoners in Myanmar rely on food from families and friends to supplement their poor prison diet. One woman said her sister, locked up in Insein Prison after the February 2021 coup for setting off explosives, suffers from a stomach disease they believe was caused by prison food.  “She can’t eat it – horrible quality of rice and tasteless meals. That’s why we cook and send her plenty of food every 15 days,” said the woman, who asked that she remain anonymous. “Now that we can’t send any food, I can’t even imagine how difficult their lives inside the prison could be.” In addition to Insein Prison, the junta indefinitely banned family visits and sending food to prisons in Pyay, Thayarwaddy, Obo (Mandalay), Taungoo, Thayet and Bago. RFA Burmese was unable to reach prison department officials for comment, and no official statement confirming the ban was released. The ban is likely to take a psychological toll on inmates, said Tun Kyi, a former political prisoner. “The prisoners who usually receive food and mental support from family and friends now feel both physically and mentally discouraged, and that can lead to bodily and mental illness as a consequence,” Tun Kyi said. Trials at secret courts within Insein Prison were also suspended, a lawyer with knowledge of the prisons courts told RFA.  “Family visits, sending parcels to the prisoners, the prison courts are all suspended,” he said. “When we ask how long this ban is going to be in effect, they say they can only answer when they get the order from the Ministry of Interior.” A parcel-reception location at the entrance of Insein Prison was damaged by an explosion in Yangon, Myanmar, Oct. 19, 2022. Credit: Military True News Information Team via AP Shadowy Group A little-known rebel group named Special Task Agency of Burma, or STA, claimed responsibility for the bombing. Efforts to reach the group were unsuccessful. Anti-junta groups in Yangon said STA was not linked to them, and that they knew little about the group, which has operated independently in the past. Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government and various anti-junta groups condemned the attacks and called for those responsible to be held to account. In fact, the NUG also issued a statement saying it would take legal action against any attack that leads to civilian casualties, regardless of who or which group performs it.  After the blast, a member of the STA confirmed via social media that their group was responsible for Wednesday’s bombing, which killed eight and injured 18. “Yes, we are the ones who did the attack,” the statement said. “We targeted the prison warden. We can confirm at least three prison employees, including the prison warden, were killed by the blast.” RFA could not verify the STA’s claim of the death of the warden in the blast. The military junta’s press statement said five prison employees were killed. One of the dead was 54-year-old Kyee Myint, the mother of a political prisoner named Lin Htet Naing, said a parliament lawyer with knowledge of the case. The family visit ban is a great loss for the prisoners and those who planned the attack should not have targeted the places where civilians could be victimized, a regular volunteer visitor to Insein Prison told RFA.  “It’s a loss of prisoners’ rights. The attackers should have thought of that in the first place. They said they targeted the prison chief,” he said, “but the civilian visitors have to suffer firsthand and all prisoners throughout the country have to suffer, too.”  Translated by Myo Min Aung. Written in English by Malcolm Foster.
- [Cambodia sentences Sam Rainsy to life in prison, concludes trial of Kem Sokha](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodia-sentences-sam-rainsy-to-life-in-prison-concludes-trial-of-kem-sokha/): UPDATED at 7:31 p.m. EDT on 10-19-2022 A court in Cambodia sentenced exiled opposition leader Sam Rainsy to life in prison on the same day that it concluded two years of proceedings in the trial of his apparently estranged former ally Kem Sokha. The two opposition politicians in 2012 co-founded the Cambodia National Rescue Party, or CNRP,  which had been the country’s main opposition to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party, or CPP, before it was legally dissolved in 2017. Sam Rainsy has lived in self-exile in France since 2015. Kem Sokha, who was arrested in 2017, has been on a trial that started in January 2020 in what critics say is the government’s attempt to keep him out of politics. Their time apart has apparently taken their toll on their relationship. Kem Sokha in June declared during a session of his trial that his alliance with Sam Rainsy was over, although Sam Rainsy was quick to dismiss the comments as the result of legal pressure. Wednesday’s life sentence against Sam Rainsy, handed down in absentia, was a result of his conviction in August, also in absentia, for trying to cede four Cambodian provinces to a foreign state. In addition to adding life to the 47 years he has already racked up in prior convictions, the court also removed all his political rights.  Sam Rainsy&#8217;s defense lawyer, Yong Phanith, said the latest verdict was based on insufficient evidence. The conviction and sentence are in connection with Sam Rainsy’s meeting in the United States in 2013 with the Montagnard Foundation, an organization that works to protect the rights of indigineous minorities in Vietnam, the Bangkok Post reported. Sam Rainsy promised to defend the rights of Cambodian indiginous people during the meeting. Speaking from France on Wednesday, Sam Rainsy told RFA that the sentence is an example of Hun Sen’s regime attempting to exact revenge on him for his acquittal earlier this month from defamation trials that Hun Sen and another Cambodian official filed in France. Both sides claimed victory in the defamation trials, with Hun Sen saying that they absolved him of crimes that Sam Rainsy alleged he committed. Sam Rainsy dismissed the charges and sentence as bogus. “I have not ceded territory to any country. I only recognized the rights of the indigenous people we call Khmer Leu in the Northeast of Cambodia,” he said of his 2013 meeting. “I just took the 2007 U.N. statement on the rights of indigenous people, and I said that in the future, when the country is a true democracy, we will respect the rights of indigenous people,” Sam Rainsy said. RFA was unable to contact the presiding judge of the case, Sin Sovannaroth, for comment. The sentence is politically motivated, social development monitor Seng Sary told RFA. “Hun Sen has been doing all this because he wants to kick Sam Rainsy out of politics,” He said. “That court case in France was like pouring gasoline on a fire.” The conviction and sentence were to be expected from the Cambodian legal system, veteran political analyst Lao Mong Hay told RFA. Authorities use the courts as tools for their political purposes. End in sight Kem Sokha on Wednesday asked the court during the 63rd session of his treason trial to issue a verdict and put an end to his suffering. He was previously under house arrest, but was released from that prior to this trial starting. He was arrested in 2017 after the CNRP performed well in local commune elections, and charged with treason. Cambodia’s Supreme Court dissolved and outlawed the party, which paved the way for the CPP to snag every seat in the country’s National Assembly in the 2018 general election.  The ban on the CNRP kicked off a five-year crackdown on political opposition, with many of those affiliated with the party arrested and detained on charges like conspiracy, incitement, and treason. While the court finally decided to end questioning, it asked that any final submissions be made by Dec. 21. Defense lawyer Chan Chen welcomed the end of the proceedings but expressed regret that the 2-year-long would drag on another two months – and five years since his client’s arrest.  Now that the trial has a definite ending date, national reconciliation is necessary, Yi Soksan, a senior official of the local Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association (Adhoc) told RFA. &#8220;Both sides should find a common ground to negotiate an end to this political matter,&#8221; he said. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong. CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report listed Sin Sovannaroth as the president of the Phnom Penh Municipal Court. He is is the presiding judge in the case.
- [Rebel group claims responsibility for blasts at Myanmar’s Insein Prison](https://ij-reportika.com/rebel-group-claims-responsibility-for-blasts-at-myanmars-insein-prison/): An anti-junta group claimed responsibility for bomb blasts at a colonial-era prison in Myanmar’s commercial hub Yangon on Wednesday morning that killed eight people and injured 18 others.  The Special Task Agency of Burma, an urban rebel group fighting the military dictatorship, announced that it had carried out the attack in which two bombs in parcel packages exploded at Yangon’s notorious Insein Prison. The blasts occurred near an area for receiving packages delivered by the family members of political detainees and were followed by gunfire by junta soldiers. The explosions killed three prison employees and five visitors, the ruling military junta’s State Administration Council said. Among the 18 injured were five prison staffers and 13 civilians, including two children aged 9 and 17. The blasts were the latest attack by groups seeking to remove the junta from power following a February 2021 coup in which the military seized control of the democratically elected government. Security forces have fired on and used excessive force to disperse and harm protesters in their widespread assault on civilians who oppose the regime. Local People’s Defense Force, or PDF, militias have teamed up with ethnic armies to fight the junta forces. To date, more than 2,370 civilians have been killed and 15,901 arrested since the coup took place, according to figures from the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners, a human rights group founded by Burmese former political prisoners living in exile in Thailand. Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, the Yangon-based anti-junta protest group General Strike Committee and other activist groups condemned the attacks and called for those responsible to be held to account. “Whoever did this must be held accountable,” said Kyaw Zaw, a spokesman for the NUG’s Presidential Office, told RFA. “It is completely unacceptable for the family members of political prisoners to set off bombs in the prison while they are in prison. Civilians should not be targeted for any attacks at all.&#8221;  Myanmar junta chief Snr. General Min Aung Hlaing inspects local products after meeting with representatives of small manufacturing businesses in Mawlamyine, southeastern Myanmar&#8217;s Mon state, Oct. 18, 2022. Credit: Myanmar military Rebels attack junta convoy The explosions at the prison came two days after PDF militia members and Karen rebels attacked a military convoy on Monday that was providing security for junta chief Snr. General Min Aung Hlaing, killing 11 regime officials, militia officials and local residents said. The junta chief was visiting local businesses in Hpa-An, in Kayin state, and Mawlamyine, in Mon state. “They were returning from Mawlamyine, [and] we attacked with landmines followed by a direct assault when they arrived in the Bilin area,” said a Thaton PDF battalion commander who declined to be identified for security reasons.  San Myint, spokesman for Thaton KNLA Battalion No. 2, said the forces targeted the vehicles carrying high-ranking officers, killing nine junta soldiers at the scene and injuring two others who died at a hospital.  But Aung Kyi Thein, the junta’s spokesman for Mon state and minister of natural resources and environmental conservation, said only two people died. He said rebels attacked the convoy by detonating handmade landmines and shot 40-millimeter missiles and small arms at the vehicles at the former Shwe Than Lwin toll gate. RFA has not been able to independently establish the number of casualties.  A resident who lives near the area where the attack took place told RFA that locals frequently hear battle sounds and fear for their safety. Other residents said battles break out often between the junta and Karen rebels in the Bilin area and that some civilian adults and children have died as a result.  “I am praying that the battles will not move to our location because many of us work on rubber and betel nut plantations, and we have to go into the woods a lot,” said one resident who requested anonymity for safety reasons. “We are too scared to go there. It’s also dangerous to pass between Thaton and Bilin in the evening from 6 p.m. or 7 p.m. The situation is too risky even to go onto the betel plantation.” Translated by Myo Min Aung for RFA Burmese. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [After Police Stations, China deployed consulates and overseas courts](https://ij-reportika.com/after-police-stations-china-deployed-consulates-and-overseas-courts/): China is establishing "joint investigation centers for litigation and legal service" abroad. China has opened such courts/legal service stations in several countries under the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI).
- [Wife of Cambodian opposition supporter mulls compensation to drop murder case](https://ij-reportika.com/wife-of-cambodian-opposition-supporter-mulls-compensation-to-drop-murder-case/): The wife of a slain supporter of Cambodia’s Candlelight Party said Tuesday she has rejected a compensation offer of U.S. $7,000 from the alleged assailant in exchange for dropping the criminal case, but has said she would consider accepting a larger sum because she doesn’t have money for her husband’s funeral. Wen Kimyi also urged police to arrest the suspect who shot dead her husband, 49-year-old Po Hin Lean, early in the morning of Oct. 16 while he was on his way to go fishing. She told RFA that police in Ou Reang Ov district of Chak commune in Tbong Khmum province, where her family lives, summoned her to the police station and told her that the suspect offered to pay her if she would drop charges.  The widow said she wants the money, but that her family also wants justice. “The police said there were two suspects, one of whom had the gun that killed him,” Wen Kimyi said. “I didn’t get a chance to see the suspect to ask [the reasons]. I will accept the compensation because I don’t have money for the funeral. But I won’t accept $7,000; I will need $15,000.” Police told her that the suspect is a “security guard” or “neighborhood watchman” for the commune, but declined to disclose where he put the weapon or his motive for the shooting. Cambodia’s Ministry of the Interior established a network of such local guards to provide security to villagers in communes and districts, though they are not supposed to carry weapons.  RFA could not reach Vong Sophy, the police chief of Ou Reang Ov district, or On Sam On, police chief of Chak commune for comment on Tuesday. &#8216;Embarrassing for the authorities&#8217; Leng Seng Han, a provincial coordinator for the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association, also known as ADHOC, said the murder cannot be resolved through compensation and that the suspect must be brought to justice. “It is wrong for [police] to be involved in meditation outside the court,” he said.   Eng Sroy, a Police Academy lecturer and president of the Candlelight Party​ working group in Tbong Khmum province, said he is dismayed that authorities have not yet apprehended the suspects and urged them to conduct a transparent investigation to show they are providing good security.  “It is embarrassing for the authorities if they can’t arrest the suspects,” he said. “The authorities must differentiate between black and white and remain neutral during the investigation.”  There have been numerous physical attacks this year on activists and supporters of the Candlelight Party, an opposition party that emerged from the ashes of the opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP), which was banned and dissolved by Cambodia’s Supreme Court in November 2017. This April, Candlelight Party candidate Khorn Tun was attacked by unidentified men who threw rocks at her home in Tbong Khmum province during the campaign period for local elections held in June. Prak Seyha, a party youth leader for Phnom Penh’s Kamboul district, was attacked and beaten by a mob. Those incidents followed the death of Phnom Penh Candlelight candidate Choeun Sarim, who was attacked from behind and killed in traffic while riding a motorbike, following threats and assaults. The killing of the man in this case, Po Hin Lean, came a day before Prime Minister Hun Sen threatened to arrest Sam Rainsy, head of the banned CNRP, who has lived in exile in France since 2015, if he returns to Cambodia.  Sam Rainsy, 73, was sentenced in absentia in March 2021 to 25 years in jail for what supporters say was a politically motivated charge of attempting to overthrow the government. Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia since 1985, made the comment at a graduation ceremony where he spoke, in response to recent remarks by Sam Rainsy criticizing the strongman’s plans to appoint his son, Hun Manet, as his replacement. Translated by Samean Yun for RFA Khmer. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [Six Tibetan writers, activists sentenced by China on ‘state security’ charges](https://ij-reportika.com/six-tibetan-writers-activists-sentenced-by-china-on-state-security-charges/): Chinese authorities in Tibet have sentenced six Tibetan writers and activists to prison terms from four to 14 years on charges of “inciting separatism” and “endangering state security,” Tibetan sources say. The six were sentenced in September in Sichuan’s Kardze (in Chinese, Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture after being held incommunicado for from one to two years following their arrests, a source living in exile said. “This was all done in complete secrecy,” RFA’s source, a former political prisoner living in Switzerland named Golog Jigme said, citing contacts in the region. “Because of tight restrictions and constant scrutiny inside Tibet, it is very difficult now to learn more detailed information about their current health conditions or where they are being held,” Jigme added. Sentenced by the Kardze People’s Court were Gangkye Drupa Kyab, a writer and former schoolteacher now serving a 14-year prison term; Seynam, a writer and environmental activist given a 6-year term; and Gangbu Yudrum, a political activist now serving a 7-year term. Also sentenced by the court in Kardze were Tsering Dolma, a political activist given eight years; Pema Rinchen, a writer given four years; and Samdup, a political activist now serving an 8-year term. The arrests and sentencing of the group, who had also served previous prison terms for their activities, underscore Beijing’s continuing drive to destroy the influence of men and women whose views of life in Tibetan regions of China go against official Chinese narratives. Formerly an independent nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force more than 70 years ago, and Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and thousands of his followers later fled into exile in India and other countries around the world following a failed 1959 national uprising against China’s rule. Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on the region, restricting Tibetans’ political activities and peaceful expression of cultural and religious identity, and subjecting Tibetans to persecution, torture, imprisonment and extrajudicial killings. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Written in English by Richard Finney.
- [Cambodia opposition supporter shot as Hun Sen threatens to jail opponent](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodia-opposition-supporter-shot-as-hun-sen-threatens-to-jail-opponent/): A supporter of Cambodia’s Candlelight Party was shot dead in Tbong Khmum province over the weekend, the latest in a series of attacks on the opposition in a year of local elections and campaigning for 2023 parliamentary voting, his wife and supporters said Monday. Candlelight Party’s vice-chairman Thach Setha told RFA that he could not yet conclude whether the killing Sunday of Po Hin Lean, a 49-year-old father of three, was a political assassination. He urged authorities in the province’s Orang Ov district to conduct a prompt investigation. “A clear investigation must be conducted to catch the perpetrators and bring them to justice, to stop such killing whether it happens to political activists or [ordinary] people,” said Thach Setha. Police chief On Sam On of Chak commune, where Po Hin Lean lived,  refused to provide any details on the case when contacted by RFA Khmer. Orang Ov authorities were not available and provincial police chief Mon Meakara hung up the phone after receiving a call from RFA. &#8220;Who shot my husband?&#8221; asked Wen Kimyi, the victim’s wife.  “The police officer said the village security guard was the shooter. I said it was not the village security guard who fired, because the village security guard did not have a gun. The policeman said he had a gun, so he did not talk to me further,” she added. This year has seen a rise in violent attacks targeting activists and supporters of the Candlelight Party, an opposition party that emerged this year from the ashes of the Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP), which was banned and dissolved by the country’s supreme court in 2017. In April, during campaigning for June local elections, Candlelight Party candidate Khorn Tun was attacked by unidentified men who threw rocks at her home in Tabaung Khmom province, while Prak Seyha — a party youth leader for Phnom Penh’s Kambol district — was attacked and beaten by a mob. Those incidents followed the death of Phnom Penh Candlelight candidate Choeun Sarim, who was attacked from behind and killed in traffic while traveling by motorbike, following threats and assaults. The latest attack came a day before Prime Minister Hun Sen threatened to arrest opposition leader Sam Rainsy, who has lived in exile in France since 2015, the moment he returns to Cambodia. Sam Rainsy, 73, was sentenced in absentia in March 2021  to 25 years in jail for what supporters say was a politically motivated charge of attempting to overthrow the government. Speaking at a graduation ceremony for students at a university in Phnom Penh on October 17. Hun Sun said he would “eliminate the three generations of the ideology of the contemptible traitor [Sam Rainsy]&#8230;but I will not kill you.&#8221;  Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia since 1985, was responding to recent remarks by Sam Rainsy  criticizing the strongman’s plans to appoint his son, Hun Manet, as his replacement. “I believe there will be strong opposition to Hun Sen&#8217;s transfer of power to his dynasty. We want a succession of young Cambodians who are capable and accomplished, but we do not want a succession of clans in a family that is above everyone else and that has the right to rule Cambodia forever, ” Sam Rainsy said in a video. Sam Rainsy and other exiled members of the CNRP have tried to return to Cambodia on several occasions.  The acting CNRP leader tried to return on Nov. 9, 2019 to lead nonviolent protests against Hun Sen, urging Cambodian migrant workers abroad and members of the military to join him. However, his plan to enter Cambodia from Thailand was thwarted when he was refused permission to board a Thai Airways plane in Paris. Score of CNRP activists were arrested and jailed in the aftermath. “The CNRP is still determined to return to Cambodia as long as there is an opening from Hun Sen, but in fact he does not dare to open up the way for Sam Rainsy and CNRP leaders to return to Cambodia as he did in the past,” said Oum Sam An, a former CNRP lawmaker. Translated by Sok-Ry Som. Written by Nawar Nemeh.
- [Journalists go into hiding after threats by Myanmar’s military junta](https://ij-reportika.com/journalists-go-into-hiding-after-threats-by-myanmars-military-junta/): Local reporters from two media outlets in Myanmar went into hiding after the country’s ruling military junta threatened to sue the news agencies for reporting that regime troops killed three civilians and wounded 19 others near a Buddhist pagoda in Mon state last week. BBC Burmese and The Irrawaddy online news journal reported that military soldiers allegedly fired random shots into crowds at the Kyaiktiyo Pagoda in Mon state, one of the most famous Buddhist sites in Myanmar, on Oct. 12.  The regime blamed the attack on an anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) allied with the Karen National Liberation Army’s (KNLA) Brigade 1, the civilian National Unity Government (NUG) and its parliamentary wing. It said three were killed and 19 injured in the incident. Irrawaddy and BBC reporters went into hiding after the junta issued a statement on  state-controlled Myanmar Radio and Television (MRTV) at 8 p.m. on Oct. 14, threatening to take action against their news outlets for “incorrectly” reporting on the incident.  “It is reported that The Irrawaddy and BBC Burmese news agencies, the blatant liars and the pessimist’s stooges, are going to be sued under the Electronic Communications Law, News Media Law, and the state defamation law for their accusation that the security forces randomly fired shots into crowds of pilgrims, a shameless act of violating media ethics,” the junta said in the broadcast. A relative of a BBC Burmese reporter told RFA that all local BBC journalists, including the head of the news agency, are in hiding because of the junta’s threat.   “He [the reporter] won’t be able to stay here anymore since the junta started threatening to sue them all,” said the relative, who declined to be named for safety reasons. “He is afraid of being arrested, so he had to run away and hide.” The reporter’s family members also went into hiding out of fear that the junta would hold them accountable, she said. Three civilians were killed and more than 10 others were wounded when fighting broke out at a junta inspection station at the foothill of the Kyaiktiyo Pagoda on the morning of Oct. 12, local social workers and aid groups said.  Members of an unidentifiable armed group dressed in civilian clothes attacked the facility, which is part of the Myanmar military’s 44th Light Infantry Division in the Kin Mun Chaung village, they said.   “At this moment, they are all in the hospital, three dead bodies included,” said one aid worker who declined to be named for safety reasons. “We cannot go near them. I heard 13 were wounded.” More than 100 bullets and five artillery shells were fired during the battle which lasted over an hour, a local told RFA. He also said that there were casualties on both sides. After the fighting, pro-military channels on the Telegram instant messaging service accused the PDF and KNLA of being responsible for the attack.  RFA has not been able to independently identify or confirm which forces were involved in the incident and was unable to reach for comment the leaders of the Karen National Union (KNU), the KNLA’s political wing, in Kyaikto township. Devotees pray before a huge rock covered with layers of gold at the Kyaiktiyo Pagoda on Mt. Kyaiktiyo, a popular Buddhist pilgrimage site and tourist attraction in southeastern Myanmar&#8217;s Mon state, in a file photo. Credit: AFP &#8216;Threats have worsened&#8217; In a public letter to senior officials of BBC Burmese, the junta’s Ministry of Information said their Oct. 12 report on the shootings intentionally attempted to defame the military by alleging that security forces shot civilians.  A senior official at BBC World News headquarters in London said the head office was “aware of the Burmese authorities’ concerns, and we have been in contact with them to discuss this.” The Irrawaddy reported on Monday that an Oct. 14 statement from the KNU said the deaths were caused by random fire from junta forces responding to a PDF attack, citing testimony from a resident of the village where the fighting occurred.  Ye Ni, an editor at The Irrawaddy, said his news outlet’s coverage of the shooting was based on three sources.   He said that freedom of the press has been under attack since the February 2021 coup in which the military seized power from the democratically elected government. “Threats by the junta against the news media have worsened, and [we’re] already at the brink of total collapse with their brutal persecution of reporters and unlawful abolishment of news agencies since the coup,” he said.  Ye Ni also questioned why the junta threatened to sue only The Irrawaddy and BBC Burmese when several news agencies also issued similar reports on the shooting.  Kyee Myint, a high court lawyer and legal expert who lives in Myanmar, said the rule of law had disappeared under the junta. “The junta itself are the rebels who broke the law to seize power,” he said. “These rebels kill, sue and do anything else to stay in power. It’s no surprise. Since they are on the wrong side, they try to find fault with those who stand with the righteous people against injustice.” Myint Kyaw, former secretary of the Myanmar Press Council, told RFA that it is getting more difficult for journalists in Myanmar to do their jobs. “In this difficult time of collecting news, to sue a news agency only because what it covers is considered untruthful is the junta’s direct threat against the media,” he said. He also said that because The Irrawaddy is no longer based inside Myanmar, the junta’s threat would not have a serious impact on the news organizations.  “As for BBC Burmese, this is the junta’s act to pressure the BBC to self-censor and adjust its editorial policy in favor of [the junta], Myint Kyaw said.  The junta has abolished 15 news agencies, four book publishers and two printing presses in the more than 20 months following the coup. Translated by Myo Min Aung for RFA Burmese. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
- [China's Xi opens CCP congress stressing security, pressure on Taiwan](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-xi-opens-ccp-congress-stressing-security-pressure-on-taiwan/): The 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which convened in Beijing on Oct. 16 for a week, is expected to grant an unprecedented third five-year term to Xi Jinping, the CCP general secretary and state president. In the run up to the congress, RFA has examined the 69-year-old Xi&#8217;s decade at the helm of the world&#8217;s most populous nation in a series of reports on Hong Kong, foreign policy, intellectuals, civil society and rural poverty. Ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping touted his record in fighting COVID-19 and suppressing political protests in Hong Kong on Sunday, as he launched the CCP&#8217;s 20th National Congress amid a heavy focus on security and a renewed threat of military force against democratic Taiwan. Xi, 69, is widely expected to be endorsed by congress delegates for a third term in office, breaking recent party norms and becoming China&#8217;s most powerful ruler since Mao Zedong. Xi told delegates to &#8220;prepare to stand the major test of turbulent, even stormy waves,&#8221; warning the nearly 2,300 delegates inside the Great Hall of the People that the next five years would be critical to his attempts to build a &#8220;self-confident&#8221; China that could hold its own on the world stage. &#8220;Faced with rapid changes in the international situation, particularly external blackmail, containment, blockades, and extreme pressure, we continued to make our national interests and domestic politics the priority,&#8221; Xi said. &#8220;We will maintain strategic focus, carry forward the spirit of struggle, and &#8230; safeguard this country&#8217;s dignity and core interests.&#8221; Xi gave no indication that the centralization of power in the hands of the party leadership would ease any time soon. &#8220;We must uphold and strengthen party leadership in all things,&#8221; Xi said. &#8220;We must take political security as the foundation, economic security as the foundation, and military, technological, cultural and social security as the guarantee,&#8221; he said. Xi hailed as successes Chinese policies that have caused friction with the United States and other Western countries, such as the crushing of Hong Kong&#8217;s democracy movement after 2019 protests in the city, and the intensification of military threats to underscore Beijing&#8217;s claim of sovereignty over self-ruled Taiwan. He appeared to signal that the authorities would continue to rein in political expression in Hong Kong, saying the Beijing-backed political system installed by the CCP in the now tightly controlled city is still &#8220;incomplete,&#8221; and to insist to the 23 million inhabitants of democratic Taiwan that &#8220;unification&#8221; under the CCP was the only option. Ethnic minority members wave national flags as they watch the opening session of the 20th Chinese Communist Party Congress on a screen in Danzhai, in Chinaís southwestern Guizhou province, Oct. 16, 2022. Credit: AFP &#8216;Wheels of history&#8217; The Chinese government had turned Hong Kong from “chaos to governance,” and carried out “major struggles” against “independence forces” in Taiwan, Xi said. Meanwhile, there was more work to do to ensure everyone accepted Xi&#8217;s personal brand of ideology, he said. &#8220;Some deep-seated systemic &#8230; problems have become apparent; some people lack self-confidence in the socialist political system with Chinese characteristics,&#8221; Xi told delegates. &#8220;There are many people within party ranks who still have a hazy conception of party leadership &#8230; leading to weak &#8230; implementation,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Party leadership is the highest political principle,&#8221; he said, saying the CCP must ensure &#8220;unity&#8221; among its 96 million members. He said China would “strive for peaceful reunification” — but repeated a longstanding threat to the democratic island. “We will never promise to renounce the use of force and we reserve the option of taking all measures necessary.” “The wheels of history are rolling on towards the unification and the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Complete unification of our country must be realized,” Xi said to long, loud applause from the delegates. A spokesman for Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen said the island, which has never been ruled by the CCP, nor formed part of the People&#8217;s Republic of China, is a &#8220;sovereign and democratic country.&#8221; Attendants serve tea for delegates before the opening ceremony of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, Oct. 16, 2022. Credit: Reuters &#8216;Lack of new thinking&#8217; Tsai&#8217;s national security team is closely monitoring the congress, and that the island&#8217;s 23 million citizens had rejected China&#8217;s proposed &#8220;one country, two systems&#8221; model for ruling Taiwan. &#8220;The consensus of the Taiwanese public is that territorial sovereignty, independence and democracy cannot be compromised and that military conflict is not an option for the two sides of the Taiwan Strait,&#8221; Xavier Chang said in response to Xi&#8217;s speech, repeating Taiwan&#8217;s offer of peace talks amid growing military tension. Beijing is unlikely to respond, as it insists on treating Taiwan as a &#8220;regional government&#8221; rather than agreeing to government-to-government negotiations. Taiwan&#8217;s Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) lamented a &#8220;lack of new thinking and proper judgment&#8221; in Beijing&#8217;s Taiwan policy. &#8220;The Taiwanese people alone have the right to determine their future, and they will never accept China&#8217;s proposals &#8230; as outcomes,&#8221; the MAC said. Xi used the terms &#8220;security&#8221; or &#8220;safety&#8221; 89 times during Sunday&#8217;s report, up from 55 times in 2017, while his use of the word &#8220;reform&#8221; declined to 48 from 68 mentions five years ago, Reuters news agency reported. Analysts told RFA that Xi&#8217;s keynote speech effectively pointed to a reversal of previous policies and toward harsher political controls. &#8220;This report has only talked about reform and opening up a few times&#8211;indeed very few. It mainly replaces reform and opening up with the words of self-confidence and self-improvement,&#8221; said independent scholar Wen Zhigang. &#8220;Struggle and security are included in this so-called self-confidence and self-improvement,&#8221; he said Wen. &#8220;Struggle seems to have replaced reform, and security has replaced openness.” The congress is widely expected to reconfirm Xi as party general secretary, China&#8217;s most powerful post, as well as chairman of the Central Military Commission, as well as ushering a new generation of leaders...
- [Elderly suicide rates mar Chinese leader Xi Jinping's 'victory' over rural poverty](https://ij-reportika.com/elderly-suicide-rates-mar-chinese-leader-xi-jinpings-victory-over-rural-poverty/): The 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which convenes in Beijing on Oct. 16, is expected to grant an unprecedented third five-year term to Xi Jinping, the CCP general secretary and state president. In the run up to the congress, RFA has examined the 69-year-old Xi&#8217;s decade at the helm of the world&#8217;s most populous nation in a series of reports on Hong Kong, foreign policy, intellectuals, and civil society. In the summer of 2022, a Chinese video blogger had a viral hit with what he intended as an inspirational tale of his great uncle, a resourceful elderly relative who made a living as a carpenter, and was still working well into his eighties. But the narration also carried a sting in the tail: &#8220;Second Uncle really wants to earn a little retirement money for himself &#8230; but my grandmother can&#8217;t take care of herself any more, even telling me &#8216;I don&#8217;t want to live any more,&#8217; and that she once hung up a noose ready on the doorframe.&#8221; As ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping gears up to seek an unprecedented third term in office at the 20th party congress on Sunday, he will be claiming among his achievements the &#8220;eradication&#8221; of extreme poverty in China. China declared in November 2020 that it had eliminated extreme poverty, claiming success for one of Xi&#8217;s key policy goals ahead of the CCP&#8217;s centenary the following year. Yet as government-backed employment schemes have focused on getting younger people to seek jobs in cities, elderly people in rural areas have been left to eke a meager living from government subsidies, without the younger generation around to help, and without enough money for decent medical care. Many are deciding such a life isn&#8217;t worth living any more. New research published in July 2022 and cited by state news agency Xinhua showed that the suicide rate among elderly people in rural areas has risen fivefold over the last two decades &#8220;When you go to the countryside, you often hear that someone died, and when you ask about it, they often tell you it was pesticides [which means] suicide,&#8221; former NGO worker Yao Cheng, who has researched women and children&#8217;s rights in rural China, told RFA. A scene from the film “Second Uncle,” which is about a man in his 80s still making a living as a carpenter. Old bachelors &#8220;In 2011, a German journalist and I went into a mountainous area of Hunan, where basically everyone in the village had left,&#8221; Yao said. &#8220;It took two hours walking through the mountains to get there.&#8221; &#8220;The younger people in the village had all gone to find work &#8230; and everyone left behind were old bachelors in their 60s and 70s,&#8221; he said. &#8220;A lot of them were living on monthly subsistence payments from the government of less than 100 yuan [currently 170 yuan/month].&#8221; &#8220;They didn&#8217;t want to die in pain; I heard that they would hoard extra sleeping pills because they wouldn&#8217;t have the strength to hang themselves if they were sick,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Another common suicide method is drinking pesticides.&#8221; &#8220;They don&#8217;t feel that they can carry on living any more.&#8221; A resident of a village in the eastern province of Anhui, who gave only the initial L, said at least two elderly people from his hometown have ended their lives during the past three or four years, often because of illness. &#8220;The most urgent need in rural areas is medical care: general medical care; chronic disease care and treatment for serious illnesses,&#8221; L said, adding that his mother-in-law currently struggles to find money for her glaucoma medication. While her medical insurance once reimburse half of the 3,000 yuan annual cost, now she gets nothing at all, prompting L to wonder whether the funding has been taken up by the constant COVID-19 tests required under Xi Jinping&#8217;s zero-COVID policy. U.S.-based rights activist Chen Guangcheng, who has represented rural residents trying to defend their rights through legal channels, told a similar story. &#8220;Elderly people in rural areas are actually forced to choose suicide by their circumstances,&#8221; Chen said. &#8220;They are ultimately still dependent on the small amount of food they can produce from the land.&#8221; &#8220;Without mobility, they have nothing,&#8221; he said. Lack of economic security Yu-Chih Chen, an assistant professor in social work and social administration at the University of Hong Kong who researches healthy aging, said China&#8217;s elderly are fundamentally insecure. &#8220;There&#8217;s a saying in rural China that goes &#8216;put off the small stuff, suffer through the big stuff, and don&#8217;t go to hospital till you&#8217;re at death&#8217;s door&#8217;,&#8221; Chen said. &#8220;This is a reflection of the general lack of economic security and people&#8217;s inability to meet their medical needs.&#8221; Data from China&#8217;s 2020 national census found that nearly 24 percent of the rural population is now over 60, with more than 100 million elder people now living alone in the homes where they once raised their families. Social isolation is also a major driving force behind suicide in this group, according to Chen Yu-Chih. &#8220;Social isolation has been proven to drive mortality in academic studies,&#8221; Chen said. &#8220;The impact on health is similar to the effect of smoking 15 cigarettes a day.&#8221; Conversely, a 2021 study by population researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found that the suicide rate among older adults fell by 8.7 percent during the Lunar New Year holiday, when grown children return to their parental home. Chen Guangcheng says the issue could be solved by better government policies. &#8220;The CCP shouldn&#8217;t misallocate its social resources,&#8221; he said, adding that there is a huge imbalance in government spending across rural areas and cities. More than 500 million people currently live in rural areas, around 36 percent of the population. Yet they depend for their healthcare on just 1.35 million rural clinics, of which only around 690,000 are staffed by certified doctors and healthcare workers, a ratio of one healthcare worker to more than 700 people....
- [Mercurial and combative Solomon Islands leader reaps benefits where he may](https://ij-reportika.com/mercurial-and-combative-solomon-islands-leader-reaps-benefits-where-he-may/): Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has maneuvered himself to the center of U.S.-China rivalry in the Pacific, stirring debate about his aims.  To some, he’s an autocrat in waiting, and to others, a smart operator seeking to maximize aid for his volatile and economically-lagging nation. A Seventh-Day Adventist who has a martial arts black belt, Sogavare is also a political brawler whose fortunes have fluctuated over the years alongside the frequent strife of Solomon Islands politics.  After rising through the civil service in the 1990s, he is now in his fourth stint as prime minister. His first term, from June 2000 to December 2001, followed a coup, though he was elected by parliament – part of a chaotic period that resulted in a years-long military intervention in the Solomon Islands led by U.S. ally Australia. Over time, Sogavare has become more adept at marshaling the levers of power in his favor, researchers say. Earlier this year he pushed a constitutional amendment through parliament that allowed elections, set for 2023, to be delayed on the basis the country couldn’t afford a national vote and a major sporting event – the Pacific Games – in the same year. “He is totally driven by the desire to remain PM forever,” said Matthew Wale, leader of the opposition in the Solomon Islands parliament. “He grants the demands of anyone who will help him achieve that.” Sogavare, 67, has increasingly tilted the government of the South Pacific archipelago of some 700,000 people towards China. In 2019, he switched diplomatic recognition to China from Taiwan – an unpopular move in the country’s most populous province, Malaita – and earlier this year, he signed a security pact with Beijing.  China is helping to bankroll the Pacific Games in the Solomon Islands capital Honiara next year and is training the country’s police. Last weekend, more than 30 Solomons police officers headed to China for a month’s instruction in policing methods.   Meanwhile, Sogavare signed up to a pact between Pacific island nations and the United States at a summit in Washington last month, in what one observer described as a pragmatic move. “Solomon Islands, and Sogavare himself, needs good relations with traditional partners, despite Solomon Islands’ growing security ties with China,” said Mihai Sora, a Pacific analyst at the Lowy Institute and former Australian diplomat in the Solomon Islands. “It’s not zero-sum for Sogavare, rather it’s about maximizing the potential benefits he can bring to his country. So pragmatism is the main driver, but there is also a personal element when push comes to shove.” Mercurial and perplexing Sogavare can seem a mercurial and perplexing figure to outsiders, and even for researchers and others who have spent years in the Solomon Islands. His office didn’t respond to a request for an interview. At a regional meeting in July, Sogavare effusively greeted Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with a hug following months of tensions with Australia, the largest donor to the Solomon Islands.  But within weeks, Sogavare was threatening to ban foreign media from the Solomon Islands, after critical Australian coverage of its China links, and lashing out at perceived Australian government interference. Canberra had offered, clumsily, some analysts say, to pay for the Solomon Islands elections. Australia&#8217;s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (left) meets with Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare on the sidelines of the Pacific Islands Forum, in Suva, Fiji July 13, 2022. Credit: Pool via Reuters In his address to the United Nations General Assembly last month, Sogavare said the Solomon Islands had been vilified in the media for joining most other countries in recognizing China. He also urged the United States to end its embargo on Cuba and thanked the Cuban government for training Solomon Islands medical students. Sogavare credits his formative political ideas and skills to Solomon Mamaloni, a charismatic Solomon Islands leader who died in 2000. A staunch nationalist and man of the people who chewed betel nut and drank heavily, Mamaloni distrusted the West, Australia in particular, and U.S.-dominated institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.  Sogavare became Mamaloni’s protege in the late 1990s. Sogavare believed he was in contact with Mamaloni after his death, according to a biography of Mamaloni by Christopher Chevalier, and other sources. “He was like a father to me, I was like his son and he taught me many things,” American anthropologist Alexis Tucker Sade quotes Sogavare as saying of Mamaloni in her 2017 doctoral dissertation on the Solomon Islands.  Seances with spirits In an interview with Tucker Sade, Sogavare described a four-hour encounter in his government office with Mamaloni’s spirit, one of a number of supernatural encounters with the former prime minister that Sogavare claimed to have had in the decade following his death.  He also acknowledged being a heavy drinker around the turn of the century. Nowadays, he is widely said to abstain from alcohol.   Sogavare’s seances are not out of the ordinary in the Solomon Islands, where strong traditional beliefs are mingled with Christianity’s emphasis on the afterlife, said Chevalier. “He is his own man. But I don’t think he has forgotten the lessons of Mamaloni,” Chevalier said. “He has obviously learned how to strategize and how to bring people on board in the very complex horse-trading that goes on.”   Not everyone in the Solomon Islands views the connection with Mamaloni positively. The former leader sought a strong and independent Solomon Islands, but his legacy, which at the time of his death included a country mired in corruption and ethnic strife, is debated. “Some people may say Mamaloni is some kind of a political savior to them,” said Celsus Irokwato, an adviser to the premier of Malaita province. “I see him as one of those who have set the stage for the failures of Solomon Islands.”  Sogavare stands out because he is unpredictable and doesn’t conform to local cultural norms for leadership, based on respect earned from constant community involvement, said Clive Moore, an emeritus professor at the University of Queensland and...
- [Wolf out the door](https://ij-reportika.com/wolf-out-the-door/): China and Canada have carried out tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats, with Beijing responding in kind after Ottawa showed the door to a Chinese diplomat who was found trying to intimidate a Canadian politician and his family. The ethnic Chinese lawmaker had drawn Beijing&#8217;s wrath over his sponsorship of a Canadian parliamentary motion condemning China&#8217;s rough treatment of its Uyghur minority group. Sharp-elbowed, sharp-tongued &#8220;Wolf Warrior&#8221; diplomats have stoked concerns about Chinese influence operations in a number of host countries with their efforts to stifle exiled critics and opponents.
- [Papua New Guinea foreign minister faces backlash over primitive animals comment](https://ij-reportika.com/papua-new-guinea-foreign-minister-faces-backlash-over-primitive-animals-comment/): UPDATED AT 03:46 a.m. ET on 2023-05-12 Papua New Guinea’s foreign minister is facing an intense public backlash and calls to resign after he labeled critics of his daughter’s ostentatious TikTok video from a taxpayer funded trip to the U.K. monarch’s coronation as “primitive animals.” The furor over Australian-born Justin Tkatchenko’s comments, which were made to Australia’s state broadcaster ABC, is happening less than two weeks ahead of U.S. President Joe Biden’s stopover in Papua New Guinea to meet leaders of Pacific island countries. Tkatchenko’s adult daughter Savannah accompanied him to the coronation of King Charles III in London last week. She posted a TikTok video of their luxury travel, since deleted, which triggered criticism in Papua New Guinea where poverty is widespread. In an interview with the ABC on Wednesday about the social media onslaught, Tkatchenko said his daughter was &#8220;absolutely traumatized by these primitive animals.” He added, “And I call them primitive animals because they are.” The comments were perceived as racist in the Melanesian nation of more than nine million people, where there was also anger at a local newspaper&#8217;s estimate of the expense of sending a large delegation to the coronation. On Friday, Tkatchenko said he would step aside as foreign minister while any investigations take place. He repeated his apology from the day before when he had said his comments were a reaction to “horrible threats of a sexual and violent nature” by internet trolls against his daughter and not directed at Papua New Guineans. Prime Minister James Marape on Thursday said he had been offended by the primitive animals comment, but also urged the county to accept the apology and move on. Papua New Guinea Foreign Affairs Minister Justin Tkatchenko speaks at a press conference in Port Moresby on Jan. 10, 2023. Credit: Harlyne Joku/BenarNews Savannah Tkatchenko’s video showed her enjoying luxury travel, accommodation and high-end shops such as Hermes at Singapore Airport and doing her skincare routine on a flight to London. “I’ve actually packed my whole life into these two big suitcases, I’m so proud of myself because I have so much stuff,” she said as she strolled through an airport. “So I’m traveling with my Dad and our first stop is Singapore and we checked into the first class lounge where we had some cosmos and some yummy food,” she said. “Then we did some shopping around Singapore Airport at Hermes and Louis Vuitton. Those of you that don’t know, Singapore Airport shopping is honestly so elite.” Calls for the foreign minister’s resignation have come from senior politicians such as the opposition leader and organizations including the country’s Trade Union Congress. “Justin deserves no mercy or forgiveness. He must be kicked out of this country. PM James Marape must act immediately,” said PNG Trade Union Congress Acting General Secretary Anton Sekum. Biden visit aims to counter Chinese influence The rancor over a senior minister’s comments comes ahead of landmark visits to Papua New Guinea later this month by Biden and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Papua New Guinea, the most populous Pacific Island country, is increasingly a focus of China-U.S. rivalry in the region and a U.S. push to counter Beijing’s influence. Like some other Pacific island nations, Papua New Guinea is trying to balance increased Chinese trade and investment and its traditional security relationships with countries such as Australia and the United States. Tkatchenko earlier this month said he hopes a defense cooperation agreement with the United States will be signed during Biden’s visit. Papua New Guinea is also working on completing a broad security agreement with Australia. China’s influence in the Pacific has burgeoned over several decades through increased trade, infrastructure investment and aid as it seeks to isolate Taiwan diplomatically and gain allies in international institutions. The Solomon Islands and Kiribati switched their diplomatic recognition to China from Taiwan in 2019. Beijing signed a security pact with the Solomon Islands last year, alarming the U.S. and allies such as Australia who fear it could pave the way for a Chinese military presence in the region. Marape’s statement about Tkatchenko said Papua New Guinea’s “national character” was being tested at a time when it would be in the spotlight because of Biden and Modi’s visits. “We must show the world that we can forgive those who offend us,” he said. “This will be a momentous and historic occasion, which should rally our nation together, and we should not let this issue stand in the way.” BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service. Story updated to note that Tkatchenko is stepping aside to allow an investigation.
- [U.S. Sen. Rubio introduces bill to beef up air bases that would defend Taiwan](https://ij-reportika.com/u-s-sen-rubio-introduces-bill-to-beef-up-air-bases-that-would-defend-taiwan/): U.S. Senator Marco Rubio introduced a bill Thursday that seeks to strengthen American air bases in the Indo-Pacific region to better respond to mainland Chinese aggression against Taiwan. The Deterring Chinese Preemptive Strikes Act “direct[s] the U.S. Department of Defense to harden U.S. facilities in the Indo-Pacific to help further deter a preemptive strike against U.S. forces and assets in the region by China ahead of an invasion of Taiwan.” War games conducted by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies showed that Beijing’s strategy if it were to mount such an invasion would be to attack U.S. bases in the region with missiles, a statement by Rubio’s office said.  The bill calls for a survey of aviation assets in the region to determine if any that would be needed to respond to an invasion of Taiwan lack improvements that would “mitigate damage to aircraft in the event of a missile, aerial drone, or other form of attack by the People’s Republic of China.” When the survey is complete, the secretary of defense would then deliver the results of the survey to the appropriate congressional committees, which would then enact plans to make the improvements. “Senator Rubio has been clear on the importance of defending Taiwan,” a representative from Rubio’s office told RFA’s Mandarin Service, citing the Taiwan Protection and National Resilience Act, a bill that Rubio and colleagues introduced in March that seeks to create a plan for dealing with a potential invasion.  When asked if U.S. lawmakers were working with President Biden to prevent threats to U.S. airspace, Rubio’s office was critical of the administration, saying it “appears to be more concerned about not antagonizing China instead of taking the steps needed to protect American servicemembers from future attacks.” Mainland communist China considers democratic Taiwan to be a rogue province. Beijing insists that its diplomatic partners accept its claim on the island of Taiwan, which it calls the &#8220;one China&#8221; policy, effectively forcing them to cut ties with the democratic island.  Beijing last month conducted military exercises in waters around the island of Taiwan, prompting Taipei’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu to say, “They seem to be trying to get ready to launch a war against Taiwan.” In February, CIA Director William Burns said that Chinese President Xi Jinping wants to be able to invade Taiwan within the next four years. Additional reporting by Bing Xiao for RFA Mandarin. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Repeated raids force more than 3,500 villagers to flee Sagaing region township](https://ij-reportika.com/repeated-raids-force-more-than-3500-villagers-to-flee-sagaing-region-township/): Junta raids over the past five days have forced more than 3,500 villagers to flee their homes in Khin-U township, locals told RFA Thursday. They said troops started burning homes in eight villages, including Koke Tet, Yone Pin and Thin Paung, on May 7. A 60-year-old woman from Koke Tet village, who did not want to be named for security reasons, told RFA the displaced people no longer have enough food. “There is nothing at home. Villages were torched,” she said.  “Now people are hiding in the forest. And we are fleeing from place to place as the army is raiding villages and we were not able to take anything from home when we fled.” The number of houses burned by the military is not yet known as locals said they were too afraid to return home while troops were still in the township. Khin-U has come under repeated attack by junta forces since the 2021 coup. Around 70 villages have been attacked by the junta, who burned more than 20,000 homes in the township between Feb. 1, 2021 and April this year, according to the pro-democracy Khin-U Information Group. A 60-year-old man, who also requested anonymity, told RFA he was forced to flee his home in Khin-U township four times over the past two years and he and his fellow villagers are struggling to survive. The situation is similar across Sagaing region. Nearly 750,000 people have fled their homes due to fighting and insecurity since the coup, according to a May 6 statement by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. RFA’s calls to the junta spokesman for Sagaing region, Aye Hlaing, who is also the regional minister for social affairs, went unanswered Thursday. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Cash for carbines: Myanmar’s junta offers reward to fighters who turn in weapons](https://ij-reportika.com/cash-for-carbines-myanmars-junta-offers-reward-to-fighters-who-turn-in-weapons/): Myanmar’s military is taking out its pocketbook to try to persuade rebels to stop fighting. The generals in Naypyidaw want to give members of the anti-junta People’s Defense Force and other “terrorist groups” who surrender their weapons and renounce their loyalty to resistance forces as much as 7.5 million kyats (U.S.$3,570) – a princely sum for most people in Myanmar. That’s according to an offer made Tuesday to those willing to “return to the legal fold,” as well as anyone “illegally armed for reasons of personal security” who agrees to “apply for a weapons license.” It’s the latest attempt by the Burmese army to defeat resistance forces, who have reported growing success against a depleted military two years after generals took control of the country in a February 2021 coup d’etat. Facing losses on the ground, the military has increasingly relied on airstrikes to win its battles – often at devastating cost to civilians. Based on the announcement, the regime is prepared to provide anywhere from 200,000 to 7.5 million kyats (U.S.$95 to $3,570) to rebel fighters who throw themselves at the mercy of a military tribunal, depending on the type of weapon and ammunition they hand over to authorities when they surrender.  Those who have committed murder, rape, and other crimes will have to face legal proceedings in court, the announcement said, but “relaxations will be made according to the law,” depending on the scale of the offense. Applicants for a license to carry firearms for the purpose of personal security “will not be questioned” about how they obtained the weapons and ammunition and can expect to be approved, provided they “comply with the principle of possession.” No thanks Rebel fighters responded to the proposition with disdain. “The junta inviting the PDFs to return to the ‘legal fold’ is just an example of how it manipulates the law as it sees fit,” said a 19-year-old with the Ye-U township PDF in Sagaing region, who asked to be identified as “Nway Oo,” and said he would not be accepting the offer. “Their statement is full of false intentions. As long as [the junta generals] are in power, the country will continue to suffer, so we must fight to root them out,” he said. “We’ll never give up – we will fight until they are brought to justice and made to answer to the will of the people.” Members of People&#8217;s Defense Force Kalay – Battalion 7 in Myanmar’s Kalay district train in February 2023. Credit: Screenshot from People’s Defense Forces Kalay – Battalion 7 video Nway Oo graduated from high school in 2020 and joined the anti-junta Civil Disobedience Movement branch of students who boycotted education under the military following the coup. In the Sagaing region, which has offered up some of the stiffest resistance to military rule since the takeover, it’s “obvious that the junta’s strength on the ground is decreasing,” he said, as the number of troop patrols is dwindling and airstrikes are on the uptick. Sayar Kyaung, the leader of the anti-junta Yangon UG Association, told RFA that the military has never stopped cracking down on the PDF and called the sudden announcement “an attempt to distort the revolution.” “The junta’s announcement is a bit funny – rule of law in Myanmar ceased to exist once they staged a coup,” he said. “Their offer to ‘relax legal procedures’ indicates that they are weakening.” Sign of desperation The junta&#8217;s offer is part of a genuine bid to resolve Myanmar’s armed conflict, said Thein Tun Oo, executive director of the Thayninga Institute for Strategic Studies, which is made up of former military officers. “[Anti-junta fighters] will not find it easy to continue on a path of armed resistance,” he said, adding that those directly involved in the fighting “understand the situation.”  “Some youths naively and impulsively joined the resistance groups,” he said. “This is a chance for them to come back.” But Nay Phone Latt, spokesman for the shadow National Unity Government’s Office of the Prime Minister, said the junta’s announcement showed its desperation. “It’s pretty obvious – they have invited the PDFs to return just because they finally came to realize that they cannot beat them on the ground,” he said. “That’s why they appear to be forgiving with this invitation. But we all know what [junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing] said earlier.” Just a month ago, in a March 27 speech to mark Armed Forces Day, Min Aung Hlaing called the NUG, PDF, and armed ethnic organizations “terrorists” who seek to destroy the nation, vowing to eradicate them. Tuesday’s announcement marks the second time the military has called on members of the PDF and other anti-junta groups to surrender their weapons and “rejoin Myanmar’s legal framework,” following an overture in June last year. International call for resolution It also came as observers suggested there was no political off-ramp from Myanmar’s conflict on the horizon, despite calls by state leaders, international diplomats and fellow Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, states in recent weeks for an immediate cessation of violence and dialogue between all stakeholders. Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing [right] meets with former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in Naypyidaw, April 24, 2023. Credit: AFP/Myanmar Military Information Team After the former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited Naypyidaw at the end of April to discuss an end to violence with the junta leaders, the military bombed a hospital, said NUG spokesman Kyaw Zaw.  And when the Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang was visiting in mid-April, the junta dropped bombs on a civilian population, he said. “By looking at incidents like that, you can see whether they’re complying with the international community’s pleas to stop the violence,” he said. The latest call to stop hostilities came on Monday from Indonesia, the current chair of ASEAN, after an attack over the weekend on a diplomatic convoy delivering humanitarian relief to displaced people in Myanmar. The convoy included members of the ASEAN disaster management agency and diplomats...
- [More than 5,000 evacuees in Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady region prepare for cyclone to hit](https://ij-reportika.com/more-than-5000-evacuees-in-myanmars-ayeyarwady-region-prepare-for-cyclone-to-hit/): More than 5,000 people have arrived in Labutta township over the past few days, amid warnings that a fierce tropical cyclone is bearing down on Myanmar’s western coast, aid groups helping the evacuees told RFA Wednesday. They said evacuees arrived from the nearby villages of Pyin Sa Lu, Sa Lu Seik and Kwin Pauk and have been put up in monasteries and friends’ homes. One local social assistance group official, who didn’t want to be named for security reasons, told RFA that although monasteries have been providing food it is not enough. “There are places where cyclone evacuees gather to get food [but] there are 400 to 500 evacuees in each monastery or monastic school,” the official said. RFA called the junta spokesperson and social affairs minister for Ayeyarwady region, Maung Maung Than, to ask what was being done to feed and house evacuees and minimize casualties if the cyclone is severe but no one answered. Junta Deputy Information Minister Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun told regime-controlled newspapers Monday that 118 disaster shelters have been built in Ayeyarwady region and 17 more were under construction. He said relief materials had been arranged for 6,000 people in six townships in the region. According to a report by Myanmar’s Department of Meteorology at 7 a.m. local time Wednesday, a Depression in the Bay of Bengal was likely to turn into a Very Severe Cyclonic Storm by Friday morning. The department forecast the storm would make landfall at Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, Kyaukpyu in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state and the northern Rakhine coast. It warned people to beware of strong winds, heavy rain, flash floods and landslides and issued a warning to flights and shipping near the Myanmar coast. A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm which has a diameter of between 200 and 1,000 kilometers (124 to 621 miles) and brings violent winds, torrential rains and high waves. Cyclones are named by the U.N. World Meteorological Organization in order to avoid confusion when there is more than one in the same region simultaneously. If winds reach a certain speed, this storm will be named Cyclone Mocha after a port city in Yemen. Myanmar has been hit hard by severe weather conditions in the past. More than 138,000 people died when Cyclone Nargis hit the country in May 2008.  It was the world’s third most deadly meteorological disaster of its time according to the WMO Atlas of Mortality and Economic Losses from Weather, Climate and Water Extremes (1970-2019). About 80,000 people died in Labutta township alone, according to local authorities. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [​​Newly published documents reveal how China skirts forced labor scrutiny in Xinjiang](https://ij-reportika.com/newly-published-documents-reveal-how-china-skirts-forced-labor-scrutiny-in-xinjiang/): Lazy persons, drunkards, and “other persons with insufficient inner motivation” must be subjected to “repeated … thought education” to ensure they take part in state-sponsored “poverty alleviation” campaigns to pick cotton in China’s Xinjiang region, a previously unpublished internal government document ordered local cadres. If such efforts fail to produce “obvious results,” coercive measures should be taken, the July 2019 document, issued by the Poverty Alleviation Work Group in Kashgar (in Chinese, Kashi) prefecture’s Yarkand (Shache) county, advises authorities. By late 2019, authorities in Yarkand were compiling lists of the “unmotivated,” including individuals as old as 77 years, and proposing solutions for their “laziness,” which included sending them to other counties to labor in cotton fields. The documents were released in a report Tuesday by Adrian Zenz, senior fellow and director in China studies at the Washington-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. They show that state efforts to compel Uyghurs into “poverty alleviation” measures – including labor transfers and seasonal labor – intensified in Xinjiang after 2018. In some cases, the documents mandated an increase of the “political status” of poverty alleviation work, and warned cadres of “severe” repercussions for not achieving outcomes. They also demonstrate that historical models, such as that used by the International Labor Organization, often fall short when used to evaluate state-sponsored coerced labor in areas including Xinjiang because they only account for commercial and not political exploitation, the report said. “If a government like a Western government wants to effectively combat Uyghur forced labor, these are the elements that they need to take into account and look at,” Zenz told RFA Uyghur in an interview. “State-sponsored forced labor is a whole-of-government, whole-of-society approach affecting an entire region, and not just … isolated pockets of forced labor that are detected here and there. It creates a whole regional systemic risk, a societal risk.” Linking forced labor to fighting terrorism By elevating poverty alleviation to a political task, rather than a purely economic one, Beijing has been able to tie forced labor to the eradication of terrorism, Zenz said. “You take them off the land where they might be free to do their own thing and they might have an idle season, so they may choose to work or to not work,” he said.  “But this perceived Uyghur idleness is seen as a national security risk and that&#8217;s why the drive in 2018 and 2019 to push Uyghurs into all kinds of work is seen as a matter of national security … and of course, this urgency creates a very strong level of coercion,” Zenz said. In Xinjiang, Beijing has leveraged a centralized authoritarian system to penalize noncompliance with its poverty alleviation campaign, said the report, entitled “Coercive Labor in the Cotton Harvest in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and Uzbekistan.” Those penalties included the threat of internment and the detection of deviance through automated systems of preventative policing. “The resulting environments of ‘structurally forced consent’ are not necessarily immediately observable to outsiders, and may be challenging to assess through conventional means such as the ILO’s forced labor indicator framework, which was not designed to evaluate state-sponsored forced labor,” the report said. Legislative teeth Zenz called on the European Union to develop “effective legislation” that targets state-sponsored forced labor affecting an entire region and for the United States to continue to enforce the December 2021 Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which requires American. companies that import goods from Xinjiang to prove that they have not been manufactured with Uyghur forced labor at any stage of production. Without the proper tools necessary for the international community to hold China accountable for such practices, “Beijing&#8217;s economic and long-term political aims in [Xinjiang] could mean that coercive labor transfers into cotton picking and related industries might persist for a long time to come,” the report warned. Andrew Bremberg, the president of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and former U.S. representative to the U.N., told RFA that steps taken by the United States and the international community to address forced labor in Xinjiang are “woefully insufficient” and have done little to change Beijing’s policies in the region. “The United States needs to help lead in this effort both on a bilateral basis, in terms of strengthening the enforcement of our own laws … [and] work[ing] with other countries to hold China accountable in multilateral settings like the International Labor Organization,” he said. “At the same time, we need to strengthen those organizations and entities with other countries to ensure that they better protect against state-sponsored forced labor.” The EU is currently reviewing proposed legislation that would allow for an import ban on products related to severe human rights violations such as forced labor. Bremberg welcomed the proposed legislation, but warned that such a rule must be constructed correctly if the EU wants it to have the desired effect. “If they try to only use forced labor indicators that the ILO has used in the past, it likely will not affect importations of products made by forced labor from Xinjiang, given the unique nature that state-sponsored forced labor poses,” he said. Bremberg said a strong response by the international community that includes boycotts of imports is needed to “make clear to China that their behavior, their actions violating individual rights, human rights … will not be allowed without consequence.” ‘Hidden from plain sight’ The Washington-based Campaign for Uyghurs issued a statement on Tuesday condemning the state-sponsored coercive labor practices outlined in Zenz’s report, which it said reveals the “sociocultural contexts and authoritarian systems that have created coercive labor environments in [Xinjiang], which are not easily captured through standard measures such as the ILO forced labor indicators.” The report “reveals the deeply embedded and systemic dynamics of coercion that have perpetuated environments of &#8216;structurally forced consent&#8217; in [Xinjiang], leaving innocent Uyghurs powerless and at the mercy of China’s repressive state apparatus,” said CFU Executive Director Rushan Abbas. “These atrocities are hidden from plain sight, making them extremely difficult to detect and...
- [As of deadline, 18 parties apply to compete in Cambodia’s July election](https://ij-reportika.com/as-of-deadline-18-parties-apply-to-compete-in-cambodias-july-election/): Cambodia’s  National Election Committee said Monday that 18 parties have officially declared their intent to participate in the country’s July 23 general elections, when more than 9.7 million voters will decide who will represent them in the national assembly. Monday was the deadline for applications, and the committee said that 11 of the 18 applications have been approved, while some of the other applications are still under review. Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party is expected to dominate in the election, but the upstart main opposition Candlelight Party performed relatively well in last year’s commune elections and could make some noise in July.  The ruling party, however, controls all 125 seats in the assembly because Hun Sen had the Supreme Court dissolve the previous opposition party in the runup to the 2018 election. Deadline registration The Grassroot Democrat Party submitted its application on the last day, nominating 166 full and reserve candidates in 12 constituencies including the capital. Of these candidates, 36 are women and 20 are relatively young, the party’s president Yeng Virak told RFA’s Khmer Service.  Yeng Virak, who is himself vying for a seat representing Phnom Penh, said that the reason why the party is contesting few constituencies is because the party maintains a position of not wanting to split the ballot.  The party is still waiting for National Election Commission approval. RFA could not reach commission spokesman Hang Puthea for comment as of May 8. Fairness required Sam Kuntheamy, the executive director of the Neutral &amp; Impartial Committee for Free and Fair  Elections in Cambodia, an elections watchdog, told RFA that some political parties failed to list candidates for the seventh term because they face budget constraints and a restrictive political environment. However, he believes that the exercise of civil and political rights is key to ensuring that the election process is free, fair and just, so that stakeholders must compete fairly and in accordance with the law. “For all stakeholders, especially political parties, we want them to organize the operation of their political parties appropriately and smoothly, because it is close to the election campaign period,” he said. “We in the civil society also want to observe.” The National Election Committee announced that the official number of eligible voters in the upcoming elections is 9,710,655 and there will be 23,789 polling places nationwide. Translated by Sok Ry Sum. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Indonesia’s president condemns Myanmar attack, says push for peace will continue](https://ij-reportika.com/indonesias-president-condemns-myanmar-attack-says-push-for-peace-will-continue/): Indonesia’s president says an attack on humanitarian workers in Myanmar’s eastern Shan state won’t deter his country in its efforts as this year’s ASEAN chair to try to bring peace to Myanmar. Joko Widodo, commonly known as Jokowi, was speaking in the Indonesian town of Labuan Bajo ahead of a three-day summit of the 10-member grouping which starts Tuesday. He confirmed that members of the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (AHA Centre) came under fire from an unknown group as they were “delivering humanitarian assistance” on Sunday but said “the shooting got in the way.” “This will not diminish ASEAN’s and Indonesia’s determination to call for an end to the use of force and violence. Stop the violence because civilians have become victims. Let us sit together and start a dialogue,” Jokowi said. Locals told RFA the convoy was also carrying officials from the Indonesia and Singapore embassies in Yangon.  It came under fire on Sunday morning on a road through Hsihseng township, according to residents who didn’t want to be named for safety reasons. They said the convoy was heading to the Hsihseng-based Pa-O National Liberation Army (PNLO) Liaison Office to discuss assistance for internally displaced persons (IDPs) but was forced to turn back. Along with two officers from the Embassy of Singapore and two from the Embassy of Indonesia, there were three AHA Centre officials and several junta administrative workers, the locals said. The Pa-O National Organization (PNO), which is allied to Myanmar’s military regime, and the junta both have checkpoints near the  scene of the shooting. A PNO military affairs official who did not want to be named for security reasons, told RFA the shooting was carried out by five members of the Pa-O National Liberation Army, which is fighting for a democratic federal union system in Myanmar. “They were caught by the army when they fired and tried to run away,” said the official. “The incident happened in our PNO-controlled area. They invaded it and started shooting although there was no problem. I don’t know why they shot.” He said no one was injured although vehicle windows were smashed by bullets. RFA’s calls to the PNLO went unanswered Monday, however an official close to the organization who also declined to be named told RFA the PNLO would not have carried out the shooting. “The PNLO is working to help IDPs,” he said.  “Now they are calling for foreign diplomats and officials from the aid group to meet up to [discuss] that issue. It is impossible that the PNLO shot [the convoy].” Calls to the junta spokesperson for Shan state, Khun Thein Maung, went unanswered. RFA also called and emailed the embassies of Singapore and Indonesia in Yangon regarding the incident but received no reply The conflict in Myanmar is likely to be one of the main topics of the ASEAN Summit but junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing has not been invited to attend. However, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said Friday her country has been quietly engaging with the State Administration Council – as the junta regime is formally known –  along with Myanmar’s parallel  National Unity Government and Ethnic Armed Organizations in its role as ASEAN chair this year. She said the more than 60 engagements this year, which also included talks with the European Union, Japan, the United Nations and the United States, aimed to build trust “with non-megaphone diplomacy.” Referring to ASEAN’s five-point plan – agreed to by the junta in April 2021 and subsequently ignored by the country’s military leaders – President Widodo said Monday the 10-member group may struggle to get buy-in from the junta but he wasn’t giving up hope. “The situation in Myanmar is complex and Indonesia continues to push for the implementation of the five-point consensus. Various efforts have been made,” Jokowi said. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn. Ahmad Syamsudin in Labuan Bajo contributed to this report. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.
- [Myanmar junta targets health, education facilities to undermine shadow government](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-targets-health-education-facilities-to-undermine-shadow-government/): In the past six months, in addition to their increased targeting of civilians as part of its “four-cuts” strategy–denying the opposition access to food, finances, intelligence and recruits–the Myanmar military has made a concerted effort to target the shadow National Unity Government’s nascent civil administration and the provision of health and education. The April 11 air strike on a gathering for the opening of a NUG government office in Sagaing’s Pa Zi Gyi village, which coincided with the distribution of food for the Lunar New Year’s celebration, led to the death of at least 186 people.  A single plane dropped two 500-pound (227-kilogram). bombs, followed by attacks by helicopter gunships. Almost all the casualties were civilians or civil administrators, and included 40 children; the youngest was six months old.  While most of the shadow government’s limited fundraising is going towards its military efforts, it’s providing basic social services in some liberated zones. Of the 330 townships in the country, 23 have a NUG prosecutor’s office and 118 judges have been appointed to date.  The shadow government claims to have established 154 “Pakafwe” township governments and to be providing some degree of education in 95 townships, and limited health services in 198.  The room of a hospital in Hsaung Phway village, Pekon township, Myanmar, is seen after an airstrike by junta forces on April 25, 2023. Credit: Mobye PDF, KNDF The National Unity Government has long had popular legitimacy, evidenced in the daily flash mobs, acts of civil disobedience, or nationwide stay at home strikes, as seen during the anniversary of the coup or the Lunar New Year. The NUG has bolstered its legitimacy through the battlefield courage and tenacity of their People’s Defense Forces (PDFs).  But increasingly, the NUG will have to base their legitimacy on performance and the provision of social services. This is all the more important as the military’s government’s effective control is diminishing.  And for that reason the military has stepped up their attacks on the NUG’s and the various Ethnic Resistance Organizations’ (EROs) civil administration. Since the bombing of the NUG office in Pa Zi Gyi, the military has destroyed two NUG offices in Magway. It had only targeted one other NUG office in the past six months. Of the four, two were destroyed by air attacks. Targeting health care and public services The NUG’s provision of health care seems to be a case in point. In the six-month period from November 2022 to April 2023, I have documented 35 separate attacks on health care facilities, either directly controlled by the NUG or EROs, or in areas under their influence. Health care providers were amongst the first and staunchest supporters of the civil disobedience movement.  These attacks have led to the death of four, with 13 people wounded. In 17 attacks, the health care facilities were completely destroyed, while eight suffered major damage; the remainder had minimal damage. Fifteen of those attacks were from either air-dropped bombs, or rocket fire and machine gun attacks from helicopter gunships. Four health care facilities were damaged by artillery fire. The rest of the attacks on health care facilities were caused by ground forces or pro-regime militias.   A school bag lies next to dried blood stains on the floor of a school in Let Yet Kone village in Tabayin township in the Sagaing region of Myanmar on Sept. 17, 2022, the day after a junta airstrike hit the school. Credit: Associated Press Fourteen of the 35 attacks, or 40 percent, were in Sagaing, which has seen a disproportionate amount of violence, and four were  in neighboring Magway. Four occurred in Kayin, while the remainder were spread in Shan, Kachin, Tanintharyi, Kachin, and Kayah.  In the latest attack, a helicopter dropped a 500-pound (227 kilogram) bomb on a health clinic in Shan State, though the bomb failed to detonate. Only three people were wounded.  The military has also routinely targeted both the NUG’s education system and rural schools that are technically part of the state system but which are actively supporting and staffed by members of the Civil Disobedience Movement.  Since November 2022, it has either bombed, struck by artillery or destroyed by ground forces some 20 schools. Six were destroyed in Kayin and Sagaing states, each, with two in Kachin and Kayah, and one each in Mandalay, Magway, Tanintharyi, and Chin.  Unapologetic military The military has refused to concede that the targeting of health, educational and other social services represents a war crime. It often justifies the attacks by alleging that the PDFs were using the facilities for military purposes or that the militia members were receiving health care treatment. The military has been unapologetic in targeting those facilities. The executive director of the the pro-military ThayNinGa Institute for Strategic Studies in Yangon, Thein Tun Oo, justified the attack on Pa Zi Gyi and others like it, calling it “ordinary &#8230; from an anti-terrorism standpoint&#8221; and said, &#8220;No government of a country can accept a declaration of autonomy within its sovereign territory.” The attacks on the NUG’s civil administration also comes when the military has increased their own budget for the 2023-24 fiscal year by 51 percent, from $1.8 billion to $2.7 billion, to deal with the escalating war. Although the economy is no longer in freefall, the two percent growth in 2022 and three  percent growth predicted in 2023 has not made up for the 18 percent decline in 2021. Revenue collection remains down. Increased military spending is coming at the expense of public health and education, where enrollment and matriculation numbers are plummeting. A young waste collector paddles a polystyrene boat looking for plastic and glass to sell in Pazundaung Creek in Yangon, Myanmar, Jan. 14, 2023. Dozens of Myanmar citizens are taking to the murky creek waters after being unable to find work amid the post-coup economic crisis. Credit: AFP The NUG’s provision of health, education, and civil administration pose a threat as the regime acknowledges its own loss of control.  Senior Gen. Min Aung...
- [For China's 'young refuseniks,' finding love comes at too high a price](https://ij-reportika.com/for-chinas-young-refuseniks-finding-love-comes-at-too-high-a-price/): Linghu Changbing will be 23 this year. Even before the pandemic hit China, he was already starting to feel that the traditional goals of marriage, a mortgage and kids were beyond his reach.  &#8220;I had no time to find a girlfriend back in China, because I was working from eight in the morning to 10 at night, sometimes even till 11.00 p.m. or midnight, with very little time off,&#8221; said Linghu,  who joined the &#8220;run&#8221; movement of people leaving China in 2022. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t earn very much, so I couldn&#8217;t really afford to go out and spend money having fun with friends, or stuff like that,&#8221; he says of his life before he left for the United States.  &#8220;I had very little social interaction, because I didn&#8217;t have any friends, which meant that I couldn&#8217;t really pursue a relationship,” he said. “As for an apartment, I had no desire to buy one at all.&#8221; The situation he describes is common to many young people in China, yet not all are in a position to leave. They are part of an emerging social phenomenon and social media buzzword: the “young refuseniks” – people who reject the traditional four-fold path to adulthood: finding a mate, marriage, mortgages and raising a family.  They are also known as the “People Who Say No to the Four Things.” Three years of stringently enforced zero-COVID restrictions left China&#8217;s economic growth at its lowest level in nearly half a century, with record rates of unemployment among urban youth.  Refusing to pursue marriage, mortgages and kids emerged from that era as a form of silent protest, with more and more people taking this way out in recent years. ‘Far too high a price’ Several young people who responded to a brief survey by RFA Mandarin on Twitter admitted to being refuseniks. &#8220;I&#8217;m a young refusenik: I won&#8217;t be looking for a partner or getting married, I won&#8217;t be buying a property and I don&#8217;t want kids,&#8221; reads one comment on social media. People use mobile phones in front of a fenced residential area under lockdown due to Covid-19 restrictions in Beijing, May 22, 2022. Credit: Noel Celis/AFP &#8220;Finding love comes at far too high a price,&#8221; says another, while another user comments: &#8220;It&#8217;s all very well having values, or being sincere, but all of that has to be backed up with money.&#8221;  &#8220;It&#8217;s not that I&#8217;m lazy,&#8221; says another. &#8220;Even if I were to make the effort, I still wouldn&#8217;t see any result.&#8221;  Others say they no longer have the bandwidth to try to achieve such milestones.  &#8220;I&#8217;ve been forced back in on myself to the point where I feel pretty helpless,&#8221; comments one person. For another, it&#8217;s more of a moral decision: &#8220;I think the best expression I can make of paternal love is not to bring children into this world in the first place.&#8221; Similar comments have appeared across Chinese social media platforms lately, and have been widely liked and reposted. Marriage rates have been falling in China for the past eight years, with marriages numbering less than eight million by 2021, the lowest point since records began 36 years ago, according to recent figures from the Civil Affairs Ministry.  People are also marrying much later, with more than half of newly contracted marriages among the over-30s, the figures show. According to Linghu Changbing, who dropped out of high school at 14 and moved through a number of cities where he supported himself with various jobs, refuseniks are mostly found in the bigger cities with large migrant populations. Young people in smaller cities like his hometown are more likely to be able to afford a home, and will often marry and start families as young as 18. &#8220;In my experience, refuseniks seem to cluster mostly in the busier cities,&#8221; he says. &#8220;The more competitive a city, the more you will see this phenomenon.&#8221; Curling up, lying flat, running away and venting Shengya, a migrant worker in Beijing, has a similarly depressing view.  He spent two years doing nothing at his parents&#8217; house, a phenomenon that has been dubbed &#8220;lying flat&#8221; on social media.  &#8220;I basically lay around at home the whole time,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I couldn&#8217;t get motivated to do anything. My dad asked me why I didn&#8217;t go out and get a job, and I told him: &#8216;The only point of a job would be to prevent starvation, but I already get enough to eat here, so what difference would it make?'&#8221; An employment agency in Shanghai. Credit: Reuters Linghu Changbing went through a very similar phase, until someone got him a job working overseas.  Looking back on that time, he says that China&#8217;s young refuseniks are similar to the rats in the Universe 25 experiments by ethologist John B. Calhoun in the 1960s, in which rats given everything they needed eventually stopped bearing young, leading the population to collapse.  &#8220;The marginalized rats gradually gave up competing at all, and suppressed their natural desires, leading to constant personality distortions,&#8221; he says.  &#8220;Lying flat&#8221; has entered the online lexicon as a way of describing the passive approach adopted by many young people in China, while &#8220;curling up,&#8221; also known as &#8220;turning inwards,&#8221; describes a personality turned in on itself from a lack of external opportunity for change.  While those who can join the &#8220;run&#8221; movement, leaving China to seek better lives overseas, others act out their frustrations in indiscriminate attacks on others, known on social media as &#8220;giving it your all,&#8221; or &#8220;venting.&#8221; For late millennials and Generation Z in China, curling up, lying flat and running away are the main available options, as not many young people have the wherewithal to leave the country and start a new life elsewhere. ‘A very heavy burden’ A Chengdu-based employee of an architectural firm, who gave only the nickname Mr. J, said he first came to the realization that he would be a refusenik during the rolling lockdowns, mass incarceration in quarantine camps and compulsory daily testing...
- [Damning evidence emerges in Cambodian monkey smuggling case](https://ij-reportika.com/damning-evidence-emerges-in-cambodian-monkey-smuggling-case/): Hidden camera footage has emerged showing what U.S. prosecutors say is clear involvement by a senior Cambodian official in running a research monkey smuggling operation. In the video, whose existence was first reported by RFA last year, former Cambodian Department of Wildlife and Biodiversity head Kry Masphal is seen facilitating an illicit drop-off of long-tailed macaques at a breeding facility in northern Cambodia, even offering advice on how to move the endangered species more efficiently. “Why don’t you make another road?” Kry is seen asking a worker. “If you make another road, this means [it’s] more safe for your smuggling.” The footage was filmed in 2019 by a confidential informant for U.S. investigators and submitted by prosecutors as evidence against Kry in a high-profile U.S. government smuggling case against him and other conspirators. It was obtained from the court by animal rights group PETA, which shared it with RFA. In aviator sunglasses and a buttoned-down blue checkered shirt, Kry carries himself in the video with a swagger a world apart from the nervous figure who sat in a Miami court two weeks ago listening to his lawyers fight to exclude the contents of his mobile phone from his upcoming trial. Kry was director of Wildlife and Biodiversity in Cambodia’s Forestry Administration at the time of his arrest at New York’s JFK airport in November 2022, where he was transiting on his way to a conference in Panama on the protection of endangered species. He has been charged with being party to a plot to launder wild-caught long-tailed macaques &#8211; a primate prized for medical research &#8211; from the jungles of Cambodia and Thailand into U.S. research laboratories. In part to conserve dwindling wild populations, but also to preserve the integrity of scientific findings, only captive-bred monkeys can be used in medical experiments. Also accused are Kry’s boss, Forestry Administration Director General Keo Omaliss and six individuals involved in the management of the Chinese-owned Vanny Group’s monkey farms in Cambodia. Kry has pleaded not guilty, while the Cambodian Ministry of Agriculture, which oversees the Forestry Administration, and the Vanny Group have both denied any improper activity took place. However, the video that has emerged among a mountainous pile of evidence against Kry contains damning proof of his involvement and acknowledges the illegal nature of the operation. Kry is seen helping to offload crates of monkeys from the back of a pickup truck at what prosecutors say is Vanny Group’s monkey farm in Pursat province. The person working with him asks how many monkeys Kry has brought with him “this time.” “Twenty-four,” Kry replies. “We cannot take more because many observers, we have to do [it] very quick and go very fast.” In a last-ditch attempt to avoid a trial, Kry’s lawyers – whose firm has been a registered lobbyist for the Cambodian government since January 2022 – have pushed for the case to be dismissed on the grounds that he was acting on orders from his government. For conservationists, the stratagem was a confirmation of their worst fears: that the poaching and laundering of wild-caught macaques from Cambodia was not the behavior of a few rotten apples but the de facto policy of the government. “This means that there is no safe, legitimate and legal supply of monkeys,” Lisa Jones-Engel, a primatologist with PETA, told RFA. “When you have somebody like Kry involved, working so out in the open, saying, ‘This is great for our smuggling.’ From a government official who signs on the dotted line?” “Kry is just another run-of-the-mill monkey juggler, there was nothing that distinguished him from every other person on that video,” she added. An RFA investigation last month showed the deep penetration of the primate industry into Cambodia’s ruling elite, from the immediate family of Prime Minister Hun Sen down through the relevant regulatory and enforcement bodies that are supposed to be policing the trade. Agriculture Minister Dith Tina did not immediately respond to a request for comment on why a public official might need to hide their activities from observers. Vanny has denied the U.S. prosecutors’ central allegation that wild monkeys were laundered through its farm and passed off as captive bred ones for export. However, in conversation with RFA earlier this year an employee at the farm said that in 2022 the practice became almost routine as demand, amped up by spiking prices, vastly outstripped legitimate supply. “There weren’t enough monkeys before because demand was so high, so we bought them from a nearby mountain,” the person said, not wanting to be identified for fear of retaliation. “If they had good eyes, a good body, good fur, then we exported them,” they added. “We have a lab to weigh them and do blood tests to see if they have diseases or not.” The unsealing of the indictment against Kry, Keo and Vanny’s management last November halted exports from the farm, the employee said. Prior to that, they added, the farm’s outbound shipments in 2022 regularly included between 100 and 200 “mountain monkeys,” in clear violation of international laws and regulations governing trade in the species. The employee was insistent that this was something that only took place in 2022. However, the U.S. prosecutors’ case alleges illicit activity to have taken place between December 2017 and January 2022. Kry’s case is due to go to trial in Miami in June.  Edited by Boer Deng.
- [UN working group issues opinion on detention of Vietnamese political prisoner](https://ij-reportika.com/un-working-group-issues-opinion-on-detention-of-vietnamese-political-prisoner/): A U.N. Human Rights Council working group has issued an opinion on the case of a Vietnamese activist arrested in 2021 and sentenced to 10 years in prison for “anti-state propaganda,” saying that his detention was arbitrary. Do Nam Trung, 41, was sentenced in December 2021 to 10 years in prison for “spreading materials against the state” under Article 117 of Vietnam’s Penal Code, frequently used by authorities to restrict freedom of expression and opinions deemed critical of Vietnam’s one-party communist state or government leaders. The activist is known for his work promoting freedom of expression, human rights and democracy in the Southeast Asian county. Trung had participated in several social movements and had spoken out against official corruption in posts on his Facebook page. He also had posted criticisms of the build-operate-transfer highways that Vietnam has adopted in recent years, sparking rare protests over toll collections that many motorists deemed unfair. Authorities arrested Trung in July 2021 in Hanoi while driving to work. At the time, about two dozen police officers searched his home, disabled internet and phone connections and confiscated memory sticks, business cards and driving licenses.   In the 11-page report dated March 9 and just released publicly, the Council’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention deemed Trung’s detention arbitrary because his “conduct falls within the right to freedom of opinion and expression protected under articles 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.”  The group also stressed that no trial should have taken place. The working group requested that the government immediately remedy Trung’s situation and bring it into conformity with relevant international norms, including those set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.  It also urged Hanoi to ensure a full and independent investigation of the circumstances surrounding the arbitrary deprivation of Trung’s liberty and to take appropriate measures against those responsible for violating his rights. In June 2022, the working group asked Hanoi to provide detailed information about Trung’s situation and to clarify the legal provisions justifying his continued detention as well as its compatibility with the country’s obligations under international human rights law.   The Vietnamese government requested an extension last August, but failed to submit a response by the Sept. 15 deadline. It sent a late response on Oct. 4, which the Working Group said it could not accept because it did not arrive on time. The working group has given the Vietnamese government six months to respond to the current opinion. Bottom of the list The development comes as Paris-based Reporters Without Borders issued its 2023 World Press Freedom Index, which ranks Vietnam 178 of 180 countries, falling four places from last year. The group said Vietnam, whose traditional media is controlled by the state, is the third-largest jailer of journalists. Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, told Radio Free Asia that the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention had done “an excellent job of rejecting all the Vietnamese government’s weak reasons for Do Nam Trung’s detention and of giving clear-cut cause for Trung’s immediate release.” “Once again, the disparity between international conventions on human rights and Vietnam’s law is fully exposed,” Robertson said in an email. “Vietnam is carrying out a widespread crackdown on political activists and completely disregarding all human rights principles. A journalist in Vietnam, who spoke on condition of anonymity for safety reasons, told RFA that authorities have subjected independent journalists and writers to fierce repression, convicting them under vaguely-worded articles under the 2015 Penal Code and under the Cybersecurity Law, which took effect in 2019. “It seems that the Vietnamese government disregards all international criticism of her human rights violations,” the journalist said.  Vietnam’s permanent delegation to the United Nations in Geneva issued a response on March 24 to a November 2022 request by the Special Procedures Branch of the U.N. human rights agency concerning the arbitrary arrests of nine activists, including Trung. Authorities convicted them of propagating untruthful information and abusing the right to freedom of expression and democracy to distort and smear the government. Hanoi said the arrests, detentions and convictions complied with Vietnamese law and the country’s international human rights commitments. In January, Vietnam began a three-year term on the 47-member Human Rights Council, despite objections by human rights groups that the country should have been excluded because of its dismal rights record.  Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Data lacking on Asia’s electricity needs, report says](https://ij-reportika.com/data-lacking-on-asias-electricity-needs-report-says/): Asia urgently needs to improve the transparency of its power sector data, as over half of the region’s economies lack information regarding electricity generation, a report said Thursday. Some 24 of 39 economies in Asia have “poor” or “insufficient” power data, said the joint “Asia Data Transparency Report 2023” by Ember, a global energy think tank, and Subak, a climate non-profit.  “This means that there is little to no data about how the electricity needs of 684 million people are being met,” the report said. The Asia-Pacific is home to 80% of global coal generation, while power sector emissions in the region make up 62% of the total worldwide. Its electricity demand is increasing by about 5% per year, a rate twice as fast as the rest of the world. In Asia, many economies struggle to phase down coal power, as electricity demand has significantly impacted the region’s economic growth.  Decarbonizing the region’s power sector is crucial for limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees, Ember’s researchers said, concluding that poor data transparency is holding back the speed of the transition to clean power in Asia. The report said that China, despite being the largest electricity consumer in Asia and globally, only scored an “acceptable” rating due to “a lack of detailed data” and “inconsistent reporting.”  Among the top 10 power sector emitters, China led the world by three times more than the U.S., the second-biggest carbon dioxide emitter. In a report last month, Ember said China created the most CO2 emissions of any power producer in the world in 2022, with 4,694 million metric tons of CO2, accounting for 38% of total global emissions from electricity generation. Coal alone made up 61% of China’s electricity mix, though it was a 17 percentage points fall from 78% in 2000. However, in absolute terms, it is five times higher than at the start of this century. The report said that 24 out of 39 of economies in Asia have insufficient or poor data transparency regarding electricity generation. Credit: Ember Among Southeast Asian countries, Brunei, Indonesia, Laos, and Vietnam scored “poor” for data transparency, while Cambodia, Malaysia, and Myanmar were rated “insufficient.” These countries had a long time lag for annual and monthly reports, with data too difficult to analyze. The Philippines, Thailand, and Singapore performed relatively better. Five countries with no data –  Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Papua New Guinea, and New Caledonia – were more concentrated in low to lower-middle-income countries. India, New Zealand, and Australia were found to be the best-performing countries regarding data transparency. “Three lower-middle income countries – India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh – scored higher than any other upper-middle income countries. They are showing that it is possible to improve data transparency and encourage others to follow suit,” Uni Lee, Ember’s Asia data analyst, said.    “Bangladesh provides daily generation data for each power plant and provides various metrics for the electricity market, including outage and day-ahead schedules through the central utility,” the report said. The research looking into data transparency for the power sector identified 74 official data sources across Asia-Pacific. The evaluation was based on six rating criteria: publishing lag, geographical granularity, fuel breakdown, time granularity, ease of access and additional data.  Open data informs evidence-based policymaking and plays a pivotal role in decarbonizing the power sector, said the report, the first-in-kind presenting a comprehensive regional picture of the availability of power sector data in Asia.   “Ideally, power sector data must be provided at hourly or fewer intervals … and made free to access without restriction in a machine-readable format,” the report recommended. “Data is essential for climate professionals to monitor, track and set clean power targets, as well as to develop innovative technologies for better grid flexibility and engage in evidence-based policymaking,” said Subak’s data cooperative associate, Justine White. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Rights group says Xinjiang phone search program targets Uyghurs](https://ij-reportika.com/rights-group-says-xinjiang-phone-search-program-targets-uyghurs/): Police in Xinjiang have relied on a list of 50,000 multimedia files determined to be “violent and terrorist” to flag Uyghur and other Turkic Muslim residents for interrogation, according to a report from Human Rights Watch released on Wednesday. Among the findings by the New York-based group was that Uyghurs could trigger a police interrogation just by storing the Quran on their phone. Human Rights Watch said in a statement that the use of the list is another example of China’s “abusive use of surveillance technology in Xinjiang.” The list is used by police to compare against data received from two apps that authorities have required residents of Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi, to install on their phones, according to Maya Wang, the acting Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Essentially, these apps on people’s phones are checking against this list – the master list – as well as searching for other information,” she told Radio Free Asia in an interview.  Xinjiang police in Urumqi forced Uyghur people to download Jing Wang Wei Shi and Feng Cai surveillance apps on their mobile phones, which scans cellphones for audio and video files and dispatches their information to an outside server. Credit: Open Technology Fund. The data collected by the apps – known as Jing Wang Wei Shi and Feng Cai – and the master list examined by Human Rights Watch fits in with other Xinjiang surveillance systems, which Wang described as “multidimensional and multi-layered” and includes checkpoints and the Chinese government’s collection of biometrics.  “Human Rights Watch has repeatedly raised concerns about China’s approach to countering acts it calls ‘terrorism’ and ‘extremism,’” the group said in a statement on Wednesday.  “China’s counterterrorism law defines ‘terrorism’ and ‘extremism’ in an overly broad and vague manner that facilitates prosecutions, deprivation of liberty, and other restrictions for acts that do not intend to cause death or serious physical harm for political, religious, or ideological aims,” Human Rights Watch said. Religious materials flagged in police database The master list of multimedia files is part of a large database of more than 1,600 data tables from Xinjiang that was leaked to The Intercept in 2019. The news organization reported that Urumqi police conducted surveillance and arrests between 2015 and 2019 based on texts of police reports found on the database. The list examined by Human Rights Watch was located in a different part of the same database and has not been previously reported on or analyzed, the group said.  Human Rights Watch also found that during nine months from 2017 to 2018, police conducted nearly 11 million searches of 1.2 million mobile phones in Urumqi. The police search found a total of 11,000 matches with the master list of more than 1,000 different files on 1,400 phones. A guard stands in a watchtower of Kashgar prison in Xinjiang on May 3, 2021. Credit: Thomas Peter/Reuters. Human Rights Watch’s analysis found photo, audio and video files that contain violent content, “but also other material that has no evident connection to violence,” including common religious materials, the group said. The UN Human Rights Council should create an investigation and concerned governments should identify technology companies involved in the phone surveillance and act to end their involvement, Human Rights Watch said in its statement. “I think what happens in Xinjiang is a very important one for the future of China, but also how governments will use these systems,” Wang told RFA. “How do they relate to technology and human freedoms in general in the world? And so that’s why we have been trying to piece these puzzles together.” Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [Reporting carries high costs for RFA journalists in authoritarian Asian countries](https://ij-reportika.com/reporting-carries-high-costs-for-rfa-journalists-in-authoritarian-asian-countries/): To mark the 30th anniversary of the UN General Assembly’s proclamation of World Press Freedom Day on May 3, 1993, Radio Free Asia is highlighting the plight of its journalists and bloggers who have been jailed or detained in several of the Asia-Pacific region’s authoritarian states. This year’s theme, “Freedom of expression as a driver for all other human rights,”  highlights the relationship between threats to media freedom, journalist safety, and increasing attacks on other key human rights. The concerns are valid, as the jailing of RFA reporters and bloggers, and their BBC and Voice of America colleagues, occurred in countries and territories that have experienced a decline in broader freedoms–if they had such liberties to begin with. Edmund Wan Edmund Wan Yiu-sing, known by his DJ name “Giggs,” was sentenced by a court in Hong Kong in October 2022 to two years and eight months in prison for sedition and money laundering, charges he confessed to in a plea deal. Prior to his February 2021 arrest, he hosted programs that reported and commented on Hong Kong and Chinese politics for D100, an independent online radio station. Wan also hosted a program for Radio Free Asia’s Cantonese Service from 2017 to 2020. Authorities charged that Wan hosted programs that “incited others to resist or overthrow the Chinese Communist Party” and “promoted Hong Kong independence,” the Hong Kong Free Press independent news outlet reported. Wan had pleaded guilty to one charge of seditious intent for on-air comments he made in 2020, and three charges of money laundering related to crowd funding transactions. In exchange, six other charges were left on file, which means they cannot be pursued without the court’s permission. The charges come under a law, created when Hong Kong was under British rule, that defines sedition as &#8220;intent to arouse hatred or contempt of the Hong Kong [government] or to incite rebellion, and cause dissatisfaction with it.&#8221; The sedition law was revived by the Hong Kong government during the 2019 protest movement and has been used to arrest pro-democracy activists.In addition to the time in prison, the court also ordered Wan to hand over HK$4.87 million (about U.S. $620,000) in assets. Yeang Sothearin Former Radio Free Asia Khmer news anchor Yeang Sothearin was taken into custody in November 2017, along with Uon Chhin, an RFA photographer and videographer. They were charged with “illegally collecting information for a foreign source” after RFA closed its bureau in the capital of Phnom Penh in September of that year amid a government crackdown on independent media. They were slapped with additional charges for illegally produced pornography in March 2018. If convicted of the first charge, they could face a jail term of between seven and 15 years. Yeang Sothearin and Uon Chhin are out on bail, but they remain in legal limbo after several courts have rejected a series of appeals. In October 2022, Cambodia’s Supreme Court returned Yeang Sothearin’s passport, allowing him to visit his ailing father and sister in Vietnam. Cambodia ranks 140 out of 180 in the 2022 Reporters without Borders (RSF) World Press Freedom Index, between Equatorial Guinea and Libya. After Cambodia’s emergence from decades of warfare in the 1990s, the country’s press had “flourished until the long-serving Prime Minister Hun Sen launched a ruthless war against independent journalism before the 2018 elections,” RSF said. Uon Chhin Former Radio Free Asia Khmer photographer and videographer Uon Chhin and RFA news anchor Yeang Sothearin were taken into custody in November 2017, amid a gathering crackdown on independent media by long-ruling Prime Minister Hun Sen. The pair were charged with “illegally collecting information for a foreign source” after RFA closed its bureau in the capital of Phnom Penh in September of that year. They were slapped with additional charges for illegally produced pornography in March 2018. If convicted of the first charge, they could face a jail term of between seven and 15 years. Yeang Sothearin and Uon Chhin are out on bail, but they remain in legal limbo and their media careers frozen after several courts have rejected a series of appeals. Cambodia ranks 140 out of 180 in the 2022 Reporters without Borders (RSF) World Press Freedom Index, between Equatorial Guinea and Libya. “Hun Sen went after the press mercilessly ahead of parliamentary elections in July 2018. Radio stations and newspapers were silenced, newsrooms purged, journalists prosecuted – leaving the independent media sector devastated,” said RSF.  “Since then, the few attempts to bring independent journalism back to life have drawn the wrath of ruling circles.”   Htet Htet Khine Htet Htet Khine, a former BBC television presenter, was sentenced in September 2022 to three years in prison with hard labor for “incitement” and “illegal association” for her reporting work. The face of BBC Media Action&#8217;s national television peace program Khan Sar Kyi (Feel It) from 2016 to 2020, which documented the impact of war on Myanmar society, the freelance journalist and video producer had been in detention in Yangon’s notorious Insein Prison awaiting trial since Aug. 15, 2021, when she was arrested with fellow reporter Sithu Aung Myint. Htet Htet Khine was arrested six months after the Feb. 1, 2021 military coup by junta security forces, one of some 150 journalists detained by junta authorities. Family members expressed concern over Htet Htet Khine’s well-being in prison amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the prospect of physical abuse by jailers. Veteran journalists told Radio Free Asia that her case underscored the fact that reporters face serious personal risk to carry out their work under military rule in Myanmar. Sithu Aung Myint A special court in Yangon’s Insein Prison in December 2022 sentenced veteran journalist Sithu Aung Myint to seven years in prison, which came on top of two earlier sentences totaling five years for allegedly inciting sedition in the army, meaning he will have to spend 12 years in prison. The sentence by a court set up by the junta that took power in a Feb. 1, 2021, military coup...
- [Popular Lao activist who criticized government on Facebook shot and killed](https://ij-reportika.com/popular-lao-activist-who-criticized-government-on-facebook-shot-and-killed/): A 24-year-old Lao activist who championed human rights and posted articles critical of the government was shot and killed in the capital by an unidentified gunman, according to video footage posted on a Facebook page he helped maintain. Jack Anousa, an administrator of a Facebook group that uncovered and denounced human rights abuses in Laos and called for the end of one-party rule, was shot at 10:26 pm on Saturday in the After School Chocolate &amp; Bar shop in Vientiane’s Chanthabury district. He was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital at 4 am early Sunday, the Facebook page said. Black-and-white security camera footage shows a man wearing a cap coming to the door of the shop and appearing to ask a question of a woman standing in the kitchen area. He briefly closes the door before entering again, stepping inside and firing two shots at Jack, and leaves, prompting two women with him to scream, “Jack, Jack!” Separate color footage from a security camera outside the back door shows the assailant, wearing a gray cap and brown shirt, come to the back door and use a handkerchief to grab the doorknob, presumably to avoid leaving his fingerprints, before asking the question and then stepping inside to fire the gun. No arrests have been made. Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, strongly urged the government to investigate and reveal the facts for the public to know. “If they don’t do anything, people will think that state officials have a connection with the case,” he said. “Right now, we can’t say who did the killing.” Robertson said that those who have been critical of the government have paid a heavy price in the past, including getting kidnapped and disappearing. The most prominent example is the case of Sombath Somphone, an activist who was stopped at a police checkpoint in 2012, forced into a white truck and driven away. He hasn’t been seen since then. On his Facebook page, which has over 10,000 followers, Anousa recently posted comments saying that while the government has blamed thick haze on farmers burning forests and farmland, city dwellers have also burned lots of trash and Chinese and Vietnamese companies have burned toxic waste that has polluted the air. Last May, he published a post about how the Lao and Chinese governments helped each other get rich while Lao people have only grown poorer. Translated by Sidney Khotpanya. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar’s military kills 3 civilians after raiding Sagaing region villages](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-military-kills-3-civilians-after-raiding-sagaing-region-villages/): Junta troops are continuing brutal raids on a township in Myanmar’s northern Sagaing region, arresting and killing three villagers this week, locals told RFA. A column of around 100 troops began raiding villages in Sagaing township again on April 30, according to residents speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. They said the column swept up the Mu River, fighting local People’s Defense Forces along the way. They arrested civilians in three villages and killed them this week, one resident told RFA Tuesday. “A shepherd boy who was arrested in Maung Htaung village was shot dead this morning in Ma Au Pin village. It seems that he was being held hostage,” the local said.  “Two civilians from Htein Kone and Let Pan Thar villages were shot dead yesterday.” Last month troops beheaded a man, and burned down more than 50 homes and a Buddhist hall in Sagaing township’s Ta Pa Yin Kwe, the second raid on the village this year. Thousands of residents have fled their villages in the township over the past month, adding to Sagaing region’s growing humanitarian crisis. More than half a million people in Sagaing region have fled due to fighting, junta arson attacks and general insecurity since the February 2021 coup, according to independent research group Data for Myanmar. RFA called the junta spokesperson for Sagaing region, Aye Hlaing, seeking comment on the arrest and killing of civilians in Sagaing township but no one answered. Troops left Ma Au Pin village Tuesday morning, heading towards Myinmu township according to the villager who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity. Sagaing District Battalion 8 Commander De Wa told RFA two of his soldiers were killed in a two-day battle this week. He said junta forces raided a PDF camp on Tuesday morning, taking weapons and ammunition. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [More opposition defections lift Cambodia’s ruling party ahead of July election](https://ij-reportika.com/more-opposition-defections-lift-cambodias-ruling-party-ahead-of-july-election/): A string of recent defections and public apologies by opposition party officials and critics of Prime Minister Hun Sen has given the longtime leader a boost less than three months before July’s parliamentary elections. The high-profile defections to the ruling Cambodian People’s Party are just the latest – at least nine opposition party officials have switched their allegiance to the CPP since November 2022 as the party works to co-opt and silence opposition figures. On Sunday, the president of the little-known Khmer Win Party was appointed to be the secretary of state of the Council of Ministers. Suong Sophorn has been a fierce critic of Hun Sen and once served as the youth movement leader of the Cambodia National Rescue Party, the country’s main opposition party before it was banned in 2017. “I, Suong Sophorn, have made a clear decision to join my political life with the CPP,” he said in a pre-recorded video addressing both Hun Sen and the prime minister’s son and presumed successor, Hun Manet.  “I love my nation and love my people dearly. However, being in the opposition, I appear to think that I have contributed so little to the nation and our homeland, so I have made a clear decision to join the government so that I may use my abilities to serve our people directly.”  Cambodian army chief Hun Manet, center, a son of Prime Minister Hun Sen, attends a ceremony of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces at the Defense Ministry in Phnom Penh, on April 20, 2023. Credit: Heng Sinith/AP ‘I was too young’ The video was posted on Hun Sen’s Telegram channel. On Monday, the prime minister posted on the same channel a handwritten apology letter and a pre-recorded video from the deputy chief of the opposition Candlelight Party’s organization in Takeo province. Ir Channa, a Norwegian citizen and a former outspoken border critic, was arrested last year after he returned from exile to support the Candlelight Party in last year’s local commune elections. Speaking from jail, he apologized for information he shared on Facebook in 2020 regarding the possible return to Cambodia of a top opposition leader.  “I admit all these mistakes and leniently beg you to accept my apologies,” he said. “I pledge to always comply with the national laws and the constitution of Cambodia.” He was released later on Monday, and Hun Sen posted another video clip in the evening of Ir Channa thanking him. Ir Channa did not mention whether he would defect to the CPP in exchange for his release. Another critic, Kean Ponlork, also issued a hand-written apology letter and a pre-recorded video on Monday in which he asked to join the CPP. The former CNRP official was in charge of the party’s training department and has also served as the secretary-general of the Federation of Cambodian Intellectuals and Students. “I, Kean Ponlork, would like to apologize to Samdech Hun Sen for having joined hands with the opposition and civil society, and for providing interviews to Radio Free Asia, Voice of Democracy and The Cambodia Daily to attack your leadership that causes confusion on your legitimate government,” he said. “I was too young to be able to fully understand the depth of Cambodian politics.”  Hun Sen responded on Telegram: “I warmly welcome Mr. Kean Ponlork. Since he is residing in Takeo province, the Takeo provincial CPP committee is requested to make proper arrangements for Mr. Kean Ponlork in accordance with the party procedures.” ‘Positions, benefits and titles’ Last month, former CNRP youth leader Yim Sinorn was appointed secretary of state for the Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training. Just weeks before that, he was in jail.  Yim Sinorn was arrested in March after posting a comment on Facebook that seemed to highlight the political powerlessness of King Norodom Sihamoni. Another opposition activist, Hun Kosal, was also arrested at the same time for similar remarks. They were both released after posting their own online apologies to Hun Sen. Afterward, Yim Sinorn met with the prime minister at his home in Kandal province, where he and his family posed for photos as Hun Sen sat at his desk.  Hun Kosal also recently received a government appointment – undersecretary of state at the Ministry of Land Management and Urban Planning. Um Sam An, a former CNRP member of parliament, said he’s not worried about the possibility of more opposition defections in the coming months. The politicians who share a genuine belief in the future of the nation won’t take Hun Sen’s bait, he said. “Both positions, benefits and titles will not be essential for us. What we really want is for a positive change in Cambodia, a true respect of human rights and democracy,” he said.  The recent defections will help clean the “rubbish” politicians away from the true democrats, said Seng Sary, a political commentator who lives in Australia. “I accept the fact that some defectors are successful in their political life after defections,” he said. “However, 95 to 99 percent among those defectors have lost their political lives and their reputations in Cambodian politics.” CNRP Vice President Eng Chhai Eang, who lives in the United States, told Radio Free Asia last week that Hun Sen has, in the past, made serious overtures to him about joining the CPP and the government.   But last week, the prime minister grew angry after Eng Chhai Eang made critical comments online following the news of the defections of Yim Sinorn and Hun Kosal. “He posted a comment to mock me,” Eng Chhai Eang said. “He said, ‘If you want to get the government positions, first you must join the opposition party. If you want, I will pardon you and appoint you to a position in the government.’” Translated by Keo Sovannarith. Edited by Matt Reed.
- [Yangon student activist sentenced to another 10 years by Myanmar prison court](https://ij-reportika.com/yangon-student-activist-sentenced-to-another-10-years-by-myanmar-prison-court/): A court at Yangon’s Insein Prison has sentenced student activist Banyar Soe Htet to an additional 10 years in prison, meaning he is set to serve a total of 84 years, according to acquaintances. Friday’s terrorism charges come on top of two murder charges related to the killing of Thein Aung, general manager at junta-owned telecommunications company Mytel, along with the shooting of a grocery store owner and his wife in Yangon’s Hlaing township. Banyar Soe Htet was arrested last November and has been held in Insein Prison ever since. He was a physics major at Yangon Eastern University when the military seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021 coup. Banyar Soe Htet became active in the anti-regime Yangon Revolution Force following the coup. The group, mainly composed of students and other young activists, targets junta-related groups and buildings in the country&#8217;s business capital. A YRF official, who didn’t want to be named for security reasons, told RFA that young educated people are being sentenced to prison terms that are even longer than their lives because the junta is manipulating the law to silence dissent. “The law is in their hands, so they are making arbitrary orders according to their wishes,” the official said. “Our imprisoned comrades say they are continuing to fight. Our anti-dictatorship actions will not stop because of this unjust sentence.” More than 21,600 anti-junta activists have been arrested nationwide since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Some 17,726 of them are still being held in prisons across the country.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Myanmar, neighbors including Thailand hold Track 1.5 dialogue without ASEAN members](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-neighbors-including-thailand-hold-track-1-5-dialogue-without-asean-members/): Two years ago this week, ASEAN negotiated a five-point consensus with the Burmese military that had seized power in a February 2021 coup and arrested many leaders of Myanmar’s elected government. The consensus was a roadmap for ending violence and starting a political dialogue, but the generals never intended to abide by it. The consensus called for an immediate end to violence; a dialogue among all parties; the appointment of a special envoy from the regional bloc; the provision of humanitarian assistance by the Southeast Asian bloc; and a visit to Myanmar by the special envoy to meet with all parties.  The Burmese junta has since steadfastly ignored the consensus and waged a multi-front war against Myanmar’s civilian population. The toll has been horrific – more than 4,000 people have been killed while the regime has arrested more than 17,000 and more than 150 people have been tortured to death or died in government custody.  ASEAN continues in vain to use the five-point consensus as the basis for all talks. Other than refusing to give the junta a seat at its meetings, ASEAN has done little else except let down the people of Myanmar.  In this handout photo released by Myanmar Military, junta chief Min Aung Hlaing, right, receives Wang Ning, Secretary of CPC Yunnan Provincial Committee of China in Nay Pyi Taw, April 4, 2023. Credit: Myanmar Military handout photo via AFP In March, Thailand did an end run around ASEAN when it held a Track 1.5 dialogue with a handful of like-minded member states and the junta. Those in attendance included the authoritarian states of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam along with China, India, Bangladesh and Japan.  Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Singapore refused to attend and seemed genuinely angry at Thailand for having direct talks with the junta and denying Indonesia its prerogative as ASEAN’s 2023 chairman. Unbowed and unapologetic, Thailand argued that it was a Track 1.5 dialogue – meaning that government officials were present but not necessarily acting in their official capacity, along with a few non-governmental experts. But few bought that fig leaf interpretation, noting that Wunna Maung Lwin, the junta’s foreign minister, was clearly there in his official capacity, exactly as Bangkok had wanted. This week, India hosted the second Track 1.5 dialogue with Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Bangladesh, Vietnam and China. Indonesia attended as an observer in its capacity as chairman of the regional bloc. The Thais were smart to let the Indians take over to deflect criticism that Thailand was trying to do an end run around ASEAN. Instead, the April 25 meeting could be billed as a gathering of neighboring countries who were directly impacted by the quagmire as well as other states searching for a solution. Craving legitimacy Yet it was another opportunity to give the junta the international legitimacy it so desperately craves. It follows another failed attempt at diplomacy by former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.  Thailand sent its own foreign minister and special representative for Myanmar to meet with Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing in Naypyidaw. All of these serve to normalize ties with a regime that should be ostracized by the international community.   Moreover, it’s hard to take seriously the idea that the neighboring countries are not in the junta’s corner. India, is much less a champion of democracy under the increasingly illiberal government of Narendra Modi, whose control over the eastern portion of the nation is tenuous. India also fears a failing junta being even more dependent on China – the last thing that New Delhi wants is a greater Chinese presence on another part of its border.  Bangladesh is hoping to exchange normalized ties for the return of thousands of Rohingya to their homes in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.  Thailand, meanwhile, sees itself as a political model for the junta to hold elections and maintain power.  Not hedging bets China is no longer hedging its bets and has doubled down on the junta to protect its economic interests, pipelines and Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure projects. Lately, China has been applying pressure on Ethnic Resistance Organizations that are actively supporting the shadow National Unity Government (NUG) or quietly arming its People’s Defense Forces over fears they might be tilting the balance away from Naypyidaw.  As it increases air attacks, Myanmar’s Air Force has violated the airspace of Thailand, Bangladesh and India. None have lodged diplomatic complaints, a clear signal to the NUG.  Reuters reported that a topic of discussion at the Indian 1.5 talks was the possible inclusion of the opposition government. That seems far-fetched as the junta has steadfastly refused to talk with its NUG leaders, officially labeling them “terrorists.” It seems far more likely that this was an attempt to dampen the international criticism of holding such a meeting. While the junta is bogged down in a multi-front war that it can’t win, it does have a theory of victory.  The military has increased attacks on civilians to terrorize them into submission. There have been more beheadings and mutilations, rape, and the razing of homes. And they have stepped up their air assaults. The military has given itself the means to do so, with a 50% increase in its budget for 2023. The junta has stepped up attempts to deprive the NUG of funding, including a recent threat of even incarcerating children for having a game on their phones whose proceeds go to support the NUG.  The military, having recently disqualified a number of political parties for not registering under the new election law or having communications with “terrorist organizations,” continues to make plans for “elections.” More than 1,200 members of the overthrown National League for Democracy party are in jail, while the military has seized properties of more than 600 NLD members. Finally, the junta seeks to peel away ERO support from the NUG either by offering side deals, allowing China to pressure them or simply letting the traditional mistrust with the NUG manifest.  Junta members believe that time is on their...
- [Chinese visits to Myanmar sow influence, but may hinder interests](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-visits-to-myanmar-sow-influence-but-may-hinder-interests/): A slew of recent visits by top Chinese officials to Myanmar appears to be part of a bid by Beijing to counter U.S. influence on the nation, but rebel leaders warned that propping up the junta is a miscalculation, as there will be no stability while it remains in power. In the nearly 27 months since the military carried out a coup d’etat, China has been Myanmar’s staunchest ally. While most Western nations shunned junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing in the aftermath of the takeover and a violent crackdown on his opponents, Beijing stood by the general in Naypyidaw. While foreign investment has fled the embattled nation, Chinese investors have flocked there. And despite international sanctions leveled at the regime, trade between the two neighbors continues unabated. Support notwithstanding, Chinese officials have made multiple visits to Myanmar since the start of the year in what some analysts say is an influence peddling campaign by Beijing following U.S. President Joe Biden’s signing in late December of the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, which will assist the country’s democratic forces. “China has increased its dealings with the military junta,” a China affairs expert told Radio Free Asia, speaking on condition of anonymity citing security concerns. “It seems to me that China is worried about the United States’ NDAA and Burma Act. That’s why it has tried to maintain its influence by having more dealings with the military leaders.” Among the provisions in the NDAA are programs designed to support those fighting the better-equipped military for democracy in Myanmar – including the country’s shadow National Unity Government, anti-junta People’s Defense Force paramilitary group, and various ethnic armies – with technology and non-lethal assistance. Slate of high-profile visits In the latest high profile visit, Peng Xiubin, the director of the International Liaison Department of the Communist Party of China, traveled to Naypyidaw on April 16 and secretly met with former junta leader Than Shwe, who ruled Myanmar from 1992 to 2011, and Thein Sein, the president of the country’s quasi-civilian government from 2011 to 2016.  Reports circulated that following Peng’s visit, Min Aung Hlaing met with the two former leaders to discuss the political situation in Myanmar. Peng’s trip followed visits in February and March by Deng Xijun, China’s special envoy for Asian Affairs, who met with the junta chief on both occasions. Only two months earlier, the Chinese envoy convened a meeting with several ethnic armies from northern Myanmar across the border in southwestern China’s Yunnan province. In this photo combo, from left: former General Than Shwe, former President Thein Sein, and current Myanmar junta leader General Min Aung Hlaing. Credit: AFP Thein Tun Oo, the executive director of the Thayninga Institute for Strategic Studies, which is made up of former military officers, described the uptick in meetings between the junta and Chinese officials as a bid by Beijing to “balance U.S. influence” in the region. “The U.S is no longer the only country influencing the world,” he said. “Among such changes in world politics, Myanmar and China – which share a very long border – need to cooperate more closely. The bottom line is that China-Myanmar relations will continue to develop based on this.” RFA emailed the Chinese Embassy in Yangon to inquire about the frequency of visits by top Chinese government officials to Naypyidaw in recent months and Beijing’s position on the political situation in Myanmar, but received no reply. At the Chinese government&#8217;s regular press briefing held in Beijing on March 17, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin called Myanmar a “good neighbor,” adding that Beijing is closely following the situation there and hopes for a resolution through dialogue and consultation among all stakeholders. Interests tied to peace Chinese affairs expert Hla Kyaw Zaw told RFA that China will only be able to realize its interests in Myanmar if the country is at peace. “China can only continue its investments and projects … if Myanmar is at peace,” he said. “The reason why China wants Myanmar to be peaceful is for its own economic interests.” Among the China-backed megaprojects in Myanmar are the New Yangon City urban planning project, the Mee Lin Gyaing Energy Project in Ayeyarwady region, the Letpadaung Copper Mine in Sagaing region, and the Kyauk Phyu deep sea port and special economic zone in Rakhine state. According to ISP-Myanmar, an independent research group, there are 35 China-Myanmar economic corridor projects underway in Myanmar that include railways, roads, special economic zones, sea ports and urban planning projects. Than Soe Naing, a political analyst, agreed that Beijing&#8217;s relations with the junta hinge on the furtherance of its strategic interests. “I see China cooperating with the military junta only to continue to maintain, implement and expand its economic interests in Myanmar, such as the strategic Kyauk Phyu deep sea port project, which is a bid by Beijing to obtain access to the Indian Ocean,” he said. In this handout photo Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi, center is welcomed at Myanmar&#8217;s Nyaung-U Airport to attend a foreign ministers&#8217; meeting of the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation mechanism on July 2, 2022 Credit: Myanmar Military/AFP Than Soe Naing noted that China is trying to “divide the [ethnic armies] in northern Myanmar from the anti-junta resistance groups … under the pretext of peacemaking.” But he said that China is actually working to exploit Myanmar&#8217;s internal conflict by attempting to “hold all the keys to the situation.” No stability with junta Kyaw Zaw, spokesman for the National Unity Government&#8217;s presidential office, warned China that there will only be stability in Myanmar if the forces of democracy succeed in their fight against the junta. He said only with stability in Myanmar will China realize its economic goals in the country. “As long as there is a junta, Myanmar will not be at peace,” he said. “The junta will only terrorize the country with more violence and continue to torture the people. That’s why the country will remain destabilized under [the junta].” A lack of...
- [Myanmar’s western Chin state pummeled by junta’s air force in April](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-western-chin-state-pummeled-by-juntas-air-force-in-april/): Myanmar’s junta carried out 47 airstrikes, killing at least 19 people and destroying multiple religious buildings and civilian homes in Chin state in April alone, a rights group said Thursday. The campaign, which saw an average of nearly two bombs dropped on the western state each day this month, comes as the Chin National Front claimed new territorial gains in the region, suggesting the military has stepped up air operations amid an increasingly stymied ground offensive. Since April 1, Myanmar’s air force has dropped more than 80 bombs on Chin state, according to the Chin Human Rights Organization. The attacks killed 17 civilians and injured 34 others, the group’s managing officer Salai Man Hre Lian told RFA Burmese, as well as two members of the armed resistance. “Most of the injured were civilians, as well,” he said. The worst loss of life occurred on April 10, when the junta launched three airstrikes on Falam township in a single day, dropping six bombs near Var village at around 9:00 a.m., four near a high school in Webula at 11:00 a.m., and six near Ramthlo village at 4:00 p.m. Residents said the attack on Webula killed nine civilians, including the school headmaster and his wife and son, and injured four others. Six days later, fighter jets attacked Pan Par village in Mindat township, killing three people – including a child – and injuring seven others. The CNF confirmed that two members of the armed resistance were killed and four others injured when the junta launched an airstrike earlier this month on a base operated by the 4th Brigade of the Chin National Army in Tedim township, near Myanmar’s border with India. Houses destroyed following Myanmar military junta&#8217;s airstrike in Webula town, Chin state, on April 10, 2023. Credit: Citizen Journalist CHRO said that multiple buildings – including a Buddhist monastery, a Christian church and at least 20 civilian homes – were destroyed in the April strikes. The carnage in April followed a March 30 airstrike on Thantlang township’s Khuafo village that killed 10 civilians and injured 20 others, residents told RFA. According to the CHRO, nearly 10,000 civilians have been forced to flee their homes due to junta airstrikes so far this month. The group said the junta has launched nearly 200 airstrikes and dropped more than 350 bombs on targets in Chin state since the military orchestrated a Feb. 1, 2021 coup d’etat. The strikes have killed 38 people and injured nearly 100. Fighting back against the junta The April bombing campaign comes amid growing success by anti-junta forces on the ground in Chin, according to CNF spokesman Salai Htet Ni. On April 23, a People’s Defense Force paramilitary unit attacked a junta military convoy of 30 vehicles, including two armored cars, near Hakha township’s Chuncung village, touching off an intense firefight.  Despite the military’s advantage in equipment, the PDF was able to rout its opponent and prevent the convoy from continuing on to the seat of Hakha, Salai Htet Ni said. “All of the military vehicles were destroyed by the resistance forces,” he said, adding that around 30 junta troops remain stationed in Chuncung. “We now have control over 70 out of 100 territories in nine [of 19] townships in Chin state.” Families sit next to the coffins of victims of Myanmar military junta&#8217;s airstrike in Webula town, Chin state, on April 11, 2023. Credit: Citizen Journalist Given the success of anti-junta forces on the ground in Chin, the military has stepped up its air attacks, and villagers have responded by digging trenches and other crude defenses. “Every village has built bomb defenses, such as trenches, to protect against the junta’s airstrikes,” said a Hakha resident who, like other inhabitants of Chin villages RFA spoke to, declined to be named for security reasons. “But with such unexpected attacks as these, it’s been very difficult for us to set up effective defenses.” The military has yet to issue any statements regarding the April airstrikes and attempts by RFA to contact Thant Zin, the junta’s social minister and spokesman for Chin state went unanswered Thursday. A legal expert, who also spoke on condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal, noted that Myanmar is a signatory to and should be held accountable under the Geneva Convention, which lays out international legal standards for humanitarian treatment during conflict. “[The convention] prohibits all armed forces from attacking non-military or civilian targets during times of war,” he said. “It also restricts armed forces from using highly destructive airstrikes and dropping bombs in civil wars.” One resident of Thantlang called the junta’s unprovoked aerial attacks “cowardly.” “I think the junta attacks villages to terrorize the people,” he said. “If they are truly brave, they would only fight the armed groups. Targeting innocent people like us is extremely cowardly.” Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
- [Junta raids force more than 7,000 villagers to flee Salingyi](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-raids-force-more-than-7000-villagers-to-flee-salingyi/): More than 7,000 residents of villages in Sagaing region’s Salingyi township have fled their homes ahead of junta raids, according to a member of the pro-democracy Salingyi-Yinmarbin Strike Committee. The man, who didn’t wish to be named, said a column of 150 troops descended on the township on Thursday morning, leading residents of nine villages to flee. “Residents from those villages are still on the run,” he said. “There have been no arrests.” He said that the column of troops was made up of soldiers based in Salingyi town and others from a Chinese-owned copper project in the township. The Strike Committee member said troops had killed five civilians who they had brought with them from other villages. He didn’t know the names of the dead. Residents of Salingyi township, Sagaing region, crown into a truck as they flee ahead of junta raids on April 27, 2023. Credit: Facebook: Ah Nyar Pyit Taing Htaung Lay Myar Group  The military has intensified an already bloody campaign in Sagaing region this year, declaring martial law in 11 townships in February to try to wrest control of them from People’s Defense Forces and defend foreign-owned mining interests. This month alone, troops have torched hundreds of homes in Sagaing region, and killed around 200 civilians in the bombing of Pa Zi Gyi village. There were more than 1.8 million internally displaced persons across Myanmar as of April 10, 2023, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Nearly 1.5 million of them fled their homes due to fighting since the Feb. 1, 2021 coup. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Biden warns North Korea that a nuclear attack would mean end of the regime](https://ij-reportika.com/biden-warns-north-korea-that-a-nuclear-attack-would-mean-end-of-the-regime/): U.S. President Joe Biden warned North Korea on Wednesday that any nuclear attack on the United States or its allies would result in an end to the isolated regime while promising closer cooperation with South Korea on deterring the nuclear threat. “Look, a nuclear attack by North Korea against the United States or its allies or partisans or partners is unacceptable and will result in the end of whatever regime [takes] such an action,&#8221; Biden said during a press conference following a summit with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, who arrived in Washington on Monday for a six-day official state visit. During their meeting, the two leaders recognized the importance of the South Korea.-U.S. Alliance, now in its 70th year, which Biden called a “linchpin” of security in the Indo-Pacific region, and “an alliance of values based on [Seoul and Washington’s] shared universal values of freedom and democracy.” “Our mutual defense treaty is ironclad, and that includes our commitment to extended deterrence, and — and that includes the nuclear threat and — the nuclear deterrent,” Biden said. Yoon and Biden also signed the Washington Declaration, which acknowledged Seoul and Washington’s close relationship and commitment to strengthen mutual defense agreements. The declaration said that Seoul had full confidence in U.S. deterrence commitments, and that Washington would make “every effort” to consult with South Korea on any “employment” of nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula. Through the declaration, the two sides also formed a new Nuclear Consultative Group, or NCG, which will “strengthen extended deterrence, discuss nuclear and strategic planning, and manage the threat to the nonproliferation regime posed by North Korea.”  The two presidents also restated that they are open to dialogue with North Korea without preconditions in order to achieve the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. “Sustainable peace on the Korean Peninsula does not happen automatically,” said Yoon, through an interpreter, at the press conference. “Our two leaders have decided to significantly strengthen extended deterrence of our two countries against North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats so that we can achieve peace through the superiority of overwhelming forces and not a false peace based on the goodwill of the other side.” ‘Enhances credibility’ The NCG is an important contribution to strengthening the alliance, Gary Samore, the former White House Coordinator for Arms Control and Weapons of Mass Destruction, told RFA’s Korean Service. “By greater consultation and simulation and exercises to deal with the North Korea nuclear threat … it shows that Seoul and Washington are not ignoring the changes that are taking place and recognize they have to do something to respond to it.” he said. “It enhances credibility, I think the most important element of credibility is the presence of US military forces.” U.S. President Joe Biden and South Korea&#8217;s President Yoon Suk Yeol watch as members of the U.S. military parade during an official White House State Arrival Ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, U.S. April 26, 2023. Credit: Reuters Because the NCG gives South Korea more input on nuclear deterrence, it is a nuclear power sharing agreement short of sharing the weapons themselves, said Patrick Cronin, Asia-Pacific security chair at the Hudson Institute.  “At least Seoul will have a much better window into the U.S. thinking about potential responses to aggression. Deterrence is already strong but even the Kim regime will have to be a bit more cautious about even thinking about the use of force,” he said.  The NCG obliges Washington to consider Seoul’s views in nuclear decision making on multiple levels, said Michael O&#8217;Hanlon of the Brookings Institution. “It may be even more key for alliance reassurance than for deterrence of North Korea and it reinforces the idea or truth that the two allies are co-equals,” he said. Trade matters Biden and Yoon also discussed trade issues during their talks, including what Biden characterized as “economic influence being leveraged in coercive ways.” To that end, the two sides agreed to strengthen technological cooperation. “So, that is about really strengthening the competitiveness of our two countries.  And it will enhance productivity and create added value — high added value,” said Yoon. “These are the types of products that are going to be produced.” U.S. President Joe Biden, First Lady Jill Biden, South Korea President Yoon Suk Yeol and First Lady Kim Keon Hee, visit the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington, April 25, 2023. Credit: AFP Biden said Washington supports a prosperous South Korea. “It’s overwhelmingly in our interests for Korea to do well [economically],” said Biden. “It’s very much in America’s interest that Korea do well … because they are one of our most valued partners.” Yoon will attend a state dinner at the White House on Wednesday, and will address a joint session of Congress on Thursday.  Additional reporting by Sangmin Lee. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Chinese aircraft carrier returns to South China Sea](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-aircraft-carrier-returns-to-south-china-sea/): China’s aircraft carrier the Shandong left the Western Pacific and returned to its usual operational area, the South China Sea, the Japanese Ministry of Defense has said. Ten days before this, the Chinese carrier was operating just less than 400 miles from the U.S.’s Guam island. The Japan Joint Staff said in a statement that the Shandong carrier group of seven vessels was spotted on Monday evening about 360 kilometers (224 miles) south of Yonaguni Island in Okinawa Prefecture. Yonaguni is Japan’s southernmost island, only 110 kilometers (68 miles) from Taiwan. The group was then sailing towards the South China Sea, the statement said, adding that at the same time, a carrier-based fighter J-15 jet and a Z-18J helicopter were seen practicing landings and take-offs. Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense also confirmed that the Shandong and its accompanying ships were passing through waters southeast of the island into the South China Sea. Aircraft carrier the Shandong spotted southeast of Taiwan on April 24, 2023. Credit: Taiwan Ministry of National Defense The group consists of the aircraft carrier, one Type 055 large destroyer, two Type 052D destroyers, two Type 054A frigates, and a Type 901 comprehensive replenishment ship. The Japanese defense ministry said it has been tracking the Shandong’s movements since April 7 when the Chinese carrier began conducting exercises in the Western Pacific.  During a period of 18 days until April 25, carrier-borne aircraft performed about 620 sorties. To compare, another Chinese aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, hosted about 320 sorties in 15 days last time it was operating in the same area. ‘Joint Sword’ Over the weekend, the Chinese military also sent four H-6K/J bombers from the East China Sea through the Miyako Strait to the West Pacific to conduct joint exercise with the Shandong carrier group. Before that, the Shandong, China’s second aircraft carrier, took part in combat patrols and the ‘Joint Sword’ military drills in the waters east of Taiwan from April 7-12. The drills were held by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Eastern Theater Command in response to Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s transits in the United States and her meeting on April 5 with the U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California. Tsai’s trip and the meeting angered Beijing which threatened “resolute measures” against what it called “separatist” efforts by the Taiwanese leader and her party. The Chinese newspaper Global Times reported that the Shandong carrier group conducted “intensive drills” near the U.S. island territory of Guam on April 13-16, reaching about 600 kilometers (372 miles) to 700 kilometers (434 miles) to the west of Guam. The Global Times said Guam, a militarized island, is considered by the U.S. “a key node in the second island chain.” China refers to the chain of main archipelagos surrounding the East Asian continental mainland, as well as Japan and Taiwan, as the first island chain; while the second island chain includes Guam and other U.S. island territories in the Marianas in the Western Pacific. The Guam-based Pacific Daily News last week quoted a U.S. Navy spokesperson as saying that the Navy “is aware of and monitoring the situation, and is in continuous communication” with the authorities. Lt. Cmdr. Katie Koenig from the Joint Region Marianas was quoted as saying that “the military here remains keenly postured to defend United States equities and interests in this region from any adversary that may threaten national and international norms and rules-based order.” The Chinese newspaper China Daily reported on Friday that the Liaoning, has also “recently carried out multiple exercises in the Western Pacific.” That led to the assumption that the two Chinese carriers &#8212; Liaoning and Shandong &#8212; were operating together in the Pacific. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Hun Sen publicly threatens to fire relatives of popular Facebook activist](https://ij-reportika.com/hun-sen-publicly-threatens-to-fire-relatives-of-popular-facebook-activist/): Prime Minister Hun Sen on Tuesday threatened to fire the relatives of a popular Cambodian online activist based in France who has been highly critical of the longtime leader and the government. Thousands of viewers watch Sorn Dara’s talk shows on Facebook during which he routinely attacks Hun Sen and calls for his removal from office. His father is a military officer and a longtime supporter of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party and and his sister-in-law works at the Ministry of Interior.  “You want to try me if your parents don’t teach you lessons. I will fire your parents – including your relatives – from their jobs,” Hun Sen said at a graduation ceremony in Phnom Penh. “You are so rude. I will invite your father and your sister-in-law to learn some lessons and don’t complain that I am taking your relatives as hostages,” an apparent reference to firing them. Sorn Dara lives in exile in France and is seeking asylum there. He most recently criticized Hun Sen for promising free admission to people and participants during the upcoming Southeast Asia Games, which are being held in Cambodia next month. The move has been criticized as a way to curry favor with voters ahead of July’s parliamentary election. Following his threats on Tuesday, Hun Sen posted videos of Sorn Dara’s mother and brother on Telegram saying they were disappointed that Sorn Dara hasn’t joined the CPP.  ‘You insult your parents’ Hun Sen also spoke publicly about Sorn Dara in February, saying that he wasn’t a good son because he didn’t listen to his parents. “You insult your parents to whom you owe gratitude saying they have less education than you,” he said. “Your parents gave birth to you. You still look down on them. How about the regular people? If you don’t recognize your parents, then you are not human.” Sorn Dara is a former official of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, which was dissolved by the Supreme Court in November 2017. He said his father disowned him that same year because he had refused to join the CPP.   Sorn Dara’s father, Col. Sok Sunnareth, deputy chief of staff of the Kampong Speu Provincial Operations Area and a ruling party working group official, publicly implored his son on Feb. 22 to stop criticizing Hun Sen and his government, according to a Khmer Times report.  On Tuesday, Sorn Dara responded to Hun Sen’s latest angry threat with a Facebook post that said the prime minister should act in a more mature manner and lead the country with dignity. Speaking to Radio Free Asia, Sorn Dara noted that Hun Sen has recently been using threats and tricks against political opponents as the election looms.  “I don’t want to be associated with my family. They are different from me,” he said. “No one can stop me from doing something.” ‘I will try to advise my brother’ Sorn Dara’s parents appeared in a short video in February posted by the pro-government Fresh News, saying they had severed ties with their son. His brother, Sorn Saratt, told RFA on Tuesday that he has also cut ties with him. But he said he will try to convince his brother to defect from the opposition party and join the CPP. “I will try to advise my brother to stop attacking the King, the government and Samdech [Hun Sen], to stay away from traitors and return to the family and the country,” he said. Ros Sotha, executive director of the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee, told RFA that Hun Sen’s threat isn’t legitimate. He urged the prime minister to be patient and to avoid violating human rights and the law. “As a leader, he shouldn’t be afraid of being criticized,” he said. “There is no law that [Sorn Dara’s relatives] will be fired because they are related to members of the opposition party.” Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar military beheads man in Sagaing region village](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-military-beheads-man-in-sagaing-region-village/): Junta troops tortured a man and cut off his head after raiding a village in Myanmar’s northern Sagaing region, locals told RFA. They said troops also burned down 53 houses and a Buddhist event hall in Ta Pa Yin Kwe village on Sunday morning. The victim, 44-year-old Tun Tun Win, was arrested when troops raided the village shortly after sunrise, according to a resident who didn’t want to be named for security reasons. “He was captured by an army column on his way back to his tent in the east of the village,” the local said. “He was interrogated and beaten. He did not know anything as he was a civilian. When he did not answer, the troops killed and beheaded him by a lake in the east of the village.” The local said Tun Tun Win was a farmer, who leaves behind a wife and three children. It’s the second time this year troops have raided and burned houses in the village, killing locals. In January, troops shot local Buddhist leader the Venerable Gandhasara, two civilians and a local anti-junta fighter, and set fire to 90 homes, residents told RFA. The junta stepped up its slash-and-burn campaign in Sagaing township this month. Residents said a column of more than 100 troops has been raiding and burning villages along the Mu River since April 20. They said 449 houses in six villages were destroyed between April 21 and 24. Troops arrested five people in those raids, according to one local who also wished to remain anonymous. The junta has not issued a statement on the raids and RFA’s calls to Sagaing region’s junta spokesperson Aye Hlaing went unanswered Tuesday. Junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, and junta Deputy Information Minister Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun, have repeatedly denied that their troops burn civilian buildings, claiming all the arson attacks were carried out by anti-junta People’s Defense Forces. Nearly 48,000 homes in Sagaing region have been burned down since the February 2021 coup, according to independent research group Data for Myanmar. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Junta’s second bombing of Sagaing village meant to destroy evidence, rebels say](https://ij-reportika.com/juntas-second-bombing-of-sagaing-village-meant-to-destroy-evidence-rebels-say/): A military airstrike last week on a village in Myanmar’s northern Sagaing region where an earlier attack killed nearly 200 people was part of a bid to “destroy evidence,” a member of the armed opposition said Monday, as reports emerged that the latest bombing killed nearly 20 of the junta’s own troops. The junta’s April 11 air raid on the opening ceremony of a public administration building in Kanbalu township’s Pa Zi Gyi village is believed to be one of the deadliest attacks on civilians in Myanmar since the February 2021 coup. The attack has drawn condemnation from across the globe. On April 20, the military carried out a second airstrike on Pa Zi Gyi, although no civilian casualties were reported, as residents had fled the village following the earlier attack. Ba La Gyi, the head of the anti-junta People’s Defense Force paramilitary group in Ma Lal sub-township, told RFA Burmese that he believes the military carried out the second airstrike to cover up the devastation and loss of life caused by the first one. “I think they aimed to hide or destroy evidence that they killed innocent civilians in their first airstrike,” he said. “Since they haven’t been able to find either the civilian refugees or the PDF fighters, they bombed the village to set it on fire.” During the April 11 attack, jets bombed and helicopters strafed the opening ceremony for a public administration building in the village. It was the latest example of the junta’s increased use of air power in their conflict with armed resistance groups amid falterning progress on the ground. Witnesses have said that it was hard to tell how many people had died in the attack because the bodies were so badly mangled by the bombs and machine gun fire. Ba La Gyi, who was near Pa Zi Gyi at the time of the follow-up attack on the morning of April 20, said two separate junta columns of around 100 troops each raided the village and “went through everything.” “I believe they were looking for refugees [who might have returned to the village],” he said. “At about 2 p.m., they fired heavy artillery into the village from the southwest. They fired exactly 10 times &#8230; At 2:26 p.m, a jet fighter flew over and fired at the village after dropping a bomb.” Military account disputed Myanmar’s military confirmed in a statement that it had carried out a “precision” attack on Pa Zi Gyi on April 11 because members of the armed resistance had gathered there and “committed terrorist acts.” Junta Deputy Information Minister Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun also claimed that the large number of casualties was the result of a rebel weapons cache exploding during the operation. But rescue workers have disputed that account. They say the attack on the site was deliberate and thorough, beginning with a jet fighter bombing run and followed by an Mi-35 helicopter strafing the area. A spent cartridge and round found after the first attack at Pa Zi Gyi village in Sagaing’s Kanbalu township, Myanmar, April 11, 2023. Credit: Citizen journalist On Monday, Pa Zi Gyi resident Kyaw Tint accused the junta of making false reports about the airstrike. “Since their attack drew major attention from the international community, the junta tried to cover up its brutality with false accusations that some weapons and ammunition depots exploded during the bombing,” he said. “That’s why they entered the village [on April 20] and I think they are going to fabricate evidence, saying they obtained proof of their accusations.” Attempts to reach Zaw Min Tun for comment on claims that the second attack was part of a junta cover up went unanswered Monday. But Thein Tun Oo, the executive director of the Thayninga Institute for Strategic Studies group, which is made up of former military officers, called the operations in Pa Zi Gyi “ordinary … from an anti-terrorism standpoint” and said they were ordered because the opening of a public administration building in the area was tantamount to a “declaration of autonomy.” “No government of a country can accept a declaration of autonomy within its sovereign territory,” he said. “When you consider the matter of national law and security seriously, human rights and other issues are less important.” Pyae Sone, a member of the Kanbalu PDF, said that the attacks are proof that the junta will not be moved by international pressure. “It also shows that the junta is determined to oppress the people even more severely and brutally,” he said. “I also think the attacks aimed to destroy the evidence left from the first airstrike.” Friendly fire incident Meanwhile, reports emerged Monday that nearly 20 military troops were killed and more than 10 injured in last week’s follow-up airstrike on Pa Zi Gyi when a junta aircraft mistakenly bombed its own soldiers. A resident of the village told RFA that a jet fighter dropped six bombs in the April 20 airstrike, hitting junta troops stationed nearby. “This morning, at about 9:00 a.m., they were picked up by three civilian vehicles,” said the resident. “Seven injured junta soldiers were taken away. We got reports that they are being treated at a 100-bed hospital in Thabeikkyin township. I think they have buried the bodies of the dead junta soldiers near the village.” The resident said that the junta’s 13th Shwebo Training Platoon, which is composed of nearly 200 soldiers, had been stationed near Pa Zi Gyi since April 19. Other residents also reported military casualties in the latest airstrike and confirmed earlier reports that none of the village’s inhabitants were victims of the attack. RFA has been unable to independently verify the claims. Attempts by RFA to contact Aye Hlaing, the junta’s spokesman and Sagaing region social affairs minister, for comment on the incident went unanswered Monday. Residents of Pa Zi Gyi said Monday that they have been unable to investigate the condition of the village amid the continued presence of junta troops in the area. Translated by...
- [Troops arrest around 100 villagers in Myanmar’s Tanintharyi region](https://ij-reportika.com/troops-arrest-around-100-villagers-in-myanmars-tanintharyi-region/): Junta troops arrested around 100 villagers in Myanmar’s southernmost Tanintharyi region and are still holding almost 80 of them, locals told RFA. They said around 30 soldiers entered Yae Nge village in Thayetchaung township and took residents to a local monastery for questioning. “All the people who were there were arrested. Troops opened fire and captured them when some people ran,” said a villager who didn’t want to be named for security reasons. He said he didn’t know the names and ages of those arrested but said both men and women were being questioned by the junta. Other locals speculated that the junta is interrogating them because there are People’s Defense Forces in neighboring villages. RFA called Yin Htwe, the junta spokesperson for Tanintharyi region, but he said he didn’t know about the incident. Tanintharyi region, bordering Thailand, has seen some of the fiercest resistance to rule by Myanmar’s military, which seized power in a Feb. 2021 coup. There were more than 3,700 clashes in the region and nearly 400 deaths between Feb. 2021 and Feb. 2023, according to the UN Organization for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The junta declared martial law in Palaw and Tanintharyi townships on Feb. 2 this year and sent more troops into the area as armed clashes intensified and residents staged nonviolent “silent strikes” across Tanintharyi. The junta has arrested nearly 21,500 civilians across Myanmar since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. More than 17,500 are still in custody. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Philippines raises concerns with China about spiraling Taiwan tensions](https://ij-reportika.com/philippines-raises-concerns-with-china-about-spiraling-taiwan-tensions/): The Philippines on Saturday raised concerns with China about soaring tensions related to neighbor Taiwan when the two countries’ top diplomats met in Manila. The meeting between Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang and Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo came amid heightened rhetoric over the Philippines recently granting the United States access to four additional military bases, two of them fronting Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province. “Manalo reaffirmed the Philippines’ adherence to the One China Policy, while at the same time expressing concern over the escalating tensions across the Taiwan Strait,” said a statement by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) after a meeting of the two officials. Manalo also told his Chinese counterpart that the Philippines continues to pursue “an independent foreign policy, which seeks to ensure stability and prosperity in the region,&#8221; according to a report by BenarNews, an affiliate of Radio Free Asia. For his part, China’s Qin reminded Manalo of the “promises” the two nations have made to each other, in what appeared to be an oblique reference to the One China policy, which Beijing’s envoy to the Philippines brought up last week in not so delicate a fashion. Qin called the situation “‘fluid’ and turbulent,” without elaborating. “[A] healthy and stable China-Philippines relationship is not only meeting the aspirations of our two peoples, but also in line with the common aspirations of regional countries,” he said. “We need to work together to continue our tradition of friendship, deepen mutually beneficial cooperation, and properly resolve our differences in the spirit of credibility, consultation, and dialogue, and keep our promises to each other so as to bring more benefits to our two countries and people and inject greater positive energy to the peace and stability of this region and the whole world,” Qin added. Analysts had called expanded access to Philippine military bases “central” to Washington’s aim to deter any plan by Beijing to attack Taiwan. China has said it amounted to interference. But the latest controversy involving China was the warning of its envoy here to the Philippines. Ambassador Huang Xilian had strongly advised Manila to “unequivocally oppose” Taiwan’s independence rather than fan the flames of conflict by offering the U.S. military additional access to bases. He also commented on the safety of 150,000 Filipino workers in Taiwan.  Protesters hold signs demanding the expulsion of Huang Xilian, the Chinese envoy to the Philippines, outside the Chinese Consulate in Makati City, the Philippines, April 21, 2023. [Gerard Carreon/BenarNews] The Philippine government and opposition slammed the Chinese envoy for his statements on Manila’s policy on Taiwan and its workers on the neighboring island, saying they will not brook any attempts at intimidation by Beijing. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. later downplayed the Chinese envoy’s comments noting the latter’s speech released in English may have been “lost in translation.” On Saturday Marcos met with China’s Qin and called the meeting “useful.” “Some of the pronouncements that have been made recently by our two countries and many other countries might be misinterpreted,” according to a statement released by Marcos’ office.  “So today it was really useful that we were able to speak with Minister Qin Gang, the Foreign Minister of China, so we can talk directly to one another and iron things out.” South China Sea issue Qin’s visit came even as the Philippines is hosting more than 12,000 American soldiers for the largest-ever joint exercises between the two long-time allies. The exercises were for “maritime defense, territorial defense, [and] coastal defense,” a Filipino military official said last month, amid seemingly hostile actions by Beijing in the South China Sea, parts of which both countries claim. During the meeting Saturday with the top Chinese diplomat, his Philippine counterpart Manalo raised the issue of the disputed waterway. “Our leaders have agreed that our differences in the West Philippine Sea are not the sum total of our relations,” he said, referring to the part of the South China Sea that lies within the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines. “These differences should not prevent us from seeking ways of managing them effectively, especially with respect to the enjoyment of rights of Filipinos, especially our fisherfolk.” Manila has said that China has ramped up its presence in the Philippine Exclusive Economic Zone in the disputed sea and increased harassment of Filipino fishermen in recent years.  At a high-level foreign department consultation last month on the sea dispute, the government reminded China that intimidation and coercion have no place in solving the issue.  While there have been significant developments already after the bilateral consultative meeting, Manalo noted that much still needed to be done. Philippine President Marcos on Saturday referred to the dispute saying more communication would help. “As to the conflicts, we agreed to establish more lines of communications so that any event that occurs in the West Philippine Sea that involves China and the Philippines can immediately be resolved,” he said.  “So we are currently working on that and are awaiting the Chinese response and we are confident that these issues would be worked out that would be mutually beneficial for both our nations.” Manila had recently lodged a complaint about the swarming of more than 40 Chinese fishing boats, which were escorted by a Chinese Coast Guard ship and a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy ship near Pag-asa (Thitu), one of the Philippine-occupied islands in the disputed waters. In February, a CCG ship allegedly pointed a laser towards a Philippine Coast Guard vessel in Ayungin Shoal (Second Thomas Shoal). Still, as the Philippines’ Foreign Secretary Manalo noted, China has remained the country’s top trading partner over the past few years, even amid the COVID-19 pandemic. And when Marcos visited Beijing in January, he took home investment pledges worth about U.S. $22.8 billion. Meanwhile, Marcos is scheduled to make his second visit within a year to the U.S. on May 1, when he is set to meet with U.S. President Joe Biden in the White House. The two leaders are expected to discuss...
- [‘Ogre’ battalion uses brutality to instill terror in Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/ogre-battalion-uses-brutality-to-instill-terror-in-myanmar/): Eds Note: Some readers may find the content of this article disturbing. They lop off people’s heads and mutilate bodies to instill terror. They torture victims to death. They seem fearless in battle, surging forward when under fire.  Officially, they make up part of the 99th Light Infantry Battalion of the Myanmar military. But to most people, they are known as the “Ogre” column, a unit of killers notorious for their cruelty in a military already known for its brutality. And they have been criss-crossing Myanmar’s heartland, killing rebel fighters and massacring villagers believed to be supporting them, terrorizing everyone in their path. “What makes this column different is that they are specially trained to kill people,” said Nway Oo, a member of a resistance group in Myaung township. “They chop off the heads and ears of victims in cold blood.” “They appear ghostly in battles, too,” he said. “They move forward in battles no matter how risky the situation is or how much they are under attack.” Myanmar’s military has faced stiff resistance from ordinary men and women who have taken up arms to form People’s Defense Force bands to fight junta troops since the military’s coup two years ago.  The Ogres’ atrocities are meant to terrorize their foes, who often have little combat training and aren’t usually well-armed. It’s all part of psychological warfare that was developed by the country’s generals known as “Sit Oo Bi Lu,” the “First wave of brutal attack,” or “Yakkha Byu Har” – “The Ogre Strategy,” a former military captain who defected to the rebel side since the junta’s takeover. “Brutal acts by the junta troops, such as beheading people and burning down civilian properties, are intended to frighten the people,” said the captain, who goes by Nat Thar. “This is a psychological tactic to scare the people into thinking that they don’t want to be the one beheaded when the junta’s 99th Division enters their village, to make them fear head-on conflict, although they belong to a population of tens of thousands,” he said. Battleground Sagaing Some of the fiercest resistance against the military has been in the northern Sagaing region, and in recent weeks the “Ogre” battalion has been attacking dozens of villages and rebel bases there in townships such as Ye-U, Khin-U, Taze, Myinmu and Myaung. On March 30, the column raided a PDF base under the command of Capt. Bo Sin Yine near the village of Swae Lwe Oh. The junta troops soon overwhelmed the rebel fighters, and soldiers then took Bo Sin Yine, a 31-year-old former corporal in the township’s Fire Brigade, and his fighters captive. Footage taken by a drone operated by the Civilian’s Defense and Security Organization of Myaung, CDSOM, captured a junta soldier beheading Bo Sin Yine, whose name means “wild elephant,” and carrying his head away on his shoulder. A few days later, Bo Sin Yine’s wife and a team of villagers discovered his body abandoned near the jungle. In addition to beheading him, junta soldiers had lopped off his arms and legs. “They beheaded him and took away his head, but it wasn&#8217;t just him. They took away the heads of many people in other townships, too,” she said of her husband, who became the deputy battalion commander of the PDF No.1 in Sagaing. Prior to entering Myaung township, the column raided Myinmu’s Let Ka Pin village, where it killed 10 civilians and disemboweled local PDF leader Kyaw Zaw before chopping off his head and limbs, residents said. The column also killed 16 civilians it had taken as human shields to protect against landmines after raiding Sagaing township’s Tar Tai village. Among the column’s members are soldiers the CDSOM has identified as Capt. Aung Hein Oo, Lt. Capt. Zaw Naing, Sgts. Zaw Set Win, Myint Zaw, Maung Naing, Soe Hlaing, Tun Zaw Myo, and Thein Tun; Lt. Sgts. Ye Yint Paing and Thiha Soe; Engineer Trooper Nay Lin, and Troopers Pyae Sone Aung, Min Thu, and Thant Zin. ‘They told us to pass a message’ In mid-March, the “Ogre” column crossed the Chindwin River from Sagaing into Magway region and made its way south to Yesagyo township, one of several areas under martial law as a hotbed of anti-junta resistance. Early on the morning of March 19, the unit blocked all of the exits from Mee Laung Kyung Ywar Thit village and arrested some 140 residents who didn’t have time to flee. By the end of the day, Ogre fighters had shot and killed a man in his 50s named Han, who worked as a cook feeding refugees of conflict, tortured a 47-year-old mentally disabled man named Sandra to death, and wounded a 16-year-old boy as he tried to escape, villagers told RFA. Villagers in Myinmu township, Sagaing region, move the bodies of people killed by Myanmar military troops on Nyaung Yin island, March 3, 2023. Credit: Citizen journalist Those captured in Mee Laung Kyaung Ywar Thit were added to prisoners from Sagaing’s Myaung township, where the unit had conducted its last raid, including inhabitants of Za Yat Ni, Min Hla, Thar Khaung Lay, Shwe Hlan, Myay Sun, and Sin Chay Yar villages. Around 200 women were divided into two groups and held at the Taung Kuang Monastery on the outskirts of Mee Laung Kyun village, while another group of 40 men and teenage boys were placed under guard in civilian homes, sources who escaped the unit said. A man who escaped after three days said that Ogre fighters confiscated his jewelry and interrogated him about the local PDF, claiming they had already crushed more than 20 of the group’s bases. “We didn’t know if they would take us to the battlefront and force us to step on landmines or kill us before they left the village,” said the man, who declined to be named out of fear of reprisal. “They told us to pass a message to our relatives to give up fighting, bury their weapons, and end their support for...
- [China's new rural land transfer scheme sparks fears over heavy-handed enforcement](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-new-rural-land-transfer-scheme-sparks-fears-over-heavy-handed-enforcement/): New rules governing the transfer of rural land in China have sparked concerns that the ruling Communist Party may be gearing up for the mass confiscation and reallocation of farmland in the name of &#8220;stabilizing the grain supply,&#8221; Radio Free Asia has learned. The Ministry of Agriculture announced this week it will roll out a pilot scheme to &#8220;standardize&#8221; the transfer of rural property rights, as well as &#8220;strengthening supervision and management&#8221; over the use of rural land in China, which is typically leased to farmers on 30-year &#8220;household responsibility&#8221; contracts, with the ownership remaining with the government. The move comes after the administration of supreme party leader Xi Jinping made it easier in 2016 for farmers to be bought out of household responsibility leases, to encourage farmers to relocate to urban areas to reduce rural poverty.  China declared in November 2020 that it had eliminated extreme poverty, with analysts attributing the change in statistics to the mass relocation of younger migrant workers to cities, under strong official encouragement. Under the new land rules, officials are expected to &#8220;give full play to government leadership&#8221; via controversial &#8220;agricultural management&#8221; enforcement officials, who critics fear will send the country back to Mao-era collective farming and micromanagement of people&#8217;s daily lives. Analysts and farmers said that the main point of the additional controls is the tightening of state control over the supply of grain and to facilitate the transfer of rural land away from farmers if needed. Food security The move comes amid an ongoing government campaign to &#8220;stabilize the grain supply&#8221; and other moves to ensure food security, including revamping moribund Mao-era food co-ops and ordering the construction of state-run canteens. The rules insist on &#8220;disciplined transactions&#8221; including supervision of contract-signing and &#8220;certification,&#8221; and could pave the way for the mass reallocation of farmland in future, analysts said. A rural resident of the eastern province of Shandong who gave only the surname Zhang for fear of reprisals said he had recently found that farmers in his hometown now need a permit to farm land already leased to them. &#8220;I went back home and the neighbors told me that you now need a permit to till the land,&#8221; Zhang said. He blamed the &#8220;national food crisis&#8221; for the move, saying it effectively means that rural residents can no longer have friends and neighbors take care of their land when they migrate into the cities to look for work. A farmer collects corn in Gaocheng, Hebei province, China. Analysts and farmers say a key goal of the new land rules is to tighten state control over the supply of grain. Credit: Reuters file photo &#8220;When my relatives and friends would go to look for work, they would have others till their land for them, with no need for any kind of contract,&#8221; Zhang said. &#8220;Then, they could just pick it up again immediately if their work ended and they went back to live in the countryside.&#8221; &#8220;That&#8217;s no longer possible due to the serious nature of the national food crisis,&#8221; he said. Another major land reform Financial commentator Cai Shenkun said the scope of the pilot scheme is unprecedented. &#8220;This is another major land reform [following on from 2016], and it&#8217;s worth observing whether the next step will be to roll it out to all rural land governed by household responsibility contracts,&#8221; Cai said. &#8220;Given the involvement of the agricultural management officials who are now empowered to enforce the law, I think it has something to do with the next step, which will be the confiscation and reallocation of land,&#8221; he said. Agricultural management officials are among a slew of local officials empowered in a July 2021 directive to enforce laws and regulations without the involvement of the police. There are growing signs of unease around the new breed of rural &#8220;enforcer.&#8221; Netease and Sina Weibo&#8217;s news channels reported on Wednesday that a team of agricultural management officials seized two truck-loads of live pigs and sent the animals for slaughter on the grounds that quarantine regulations hadn&#8217;t been followed. After that, the farmers complained that they had received no money for the carcases, and that the trucks hadn&#8217;t been returned to them. Photos of the equipment issued to the &#8220;enforcers&#8221; showed first-aid kits, mobile phone signal jammers and stab-proof vests. ‘A new devil’ The reports prompted comments complaining of intrusive management of farmers&#8217; lives, and asking if the agricultural enforcers were &#8220;a new devil for the New Era,&#8221; in a satirical reference to one of supreme leader Xi Jinping&#8217;s ideological buzzwords. A farmer from the southwestern province of Sichuan who gave only the surname Sen said the enforcers were also active in his part of the country. &#8220;They are bringing in this policy now, which is evil,&#8221; Sen said. &#8220;The agricultural management teams have so much power.&#8221;  &#8220;They are descending on the countryside and making life hell for ordinary people with all this rectification.&#8221; Cai&#8217;s perception of the new rural management teams was similar to Sen&#8217;s and to comments seen online by Radio Free Asia, and he likened them to the widely hated urban management enforcement teams, or chengguan, who are often filmed beating up street vendors in the name of civic pride. &#8220;Now they are sending these so-called agricultural management teams into countless households, and into the fields,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They came into being, like the urban management officials before them, because when farmers aren&#8217;t cooperating, local township and village officials don&#8217;t want to show their faces, or get involved in beating people up or demolishing stuff,&#8221; he said.  Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [US case against alleged monkey smuggler is 'attack on Cambodia,' his lawyers claim](https://ij-reportika.com/us-case-against-alleged-monkey-smuggler-is-attack-on-cambodia-his-lawyers-claim/): The former head of Cambodia’s Department of Wildlife and Biodiversity should not be held responsible for illegally smuggling research monkeys because he was acting on orders of his government and not in a personal capacity, his lawyers have argued in a U.S. government case against him. Moreover, the U.S. case against Masphal Kry is tantamount to an attack on the Cambodian government, his defense lawyers argued, calling the indictment “a full-on assault on a foreign ministry.” U.S. Justice Department officials said Kry and seven other individuals were running a smuggling operation involving hundreds of long-tail macaques &#8211; a primate key for medical studies &#8211; poached from the wild in Cambodia and shipped illegally to the U.S. Kry, who has been under house arrest since he was apprehended at New York’s JFK airport in November 2022, made his first court appearance at an evidentiary hearing in Miami on Friday.  Officials in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Florida have accused Kry of taking monkeys from the national parks and other locations in Cambodia and then falsifying permits, making it seem as though the animals had been raised in a breeding facility &#8211; the only legal place where the research primates can be sourced from. The prosecutors accused him of being part of a conspiracy in which monkeys were sold with inaccurate export permits to the U.S. The prosecutors accused Kry and his associates of trying to make it seem as though the monkeys had been bred in captivity, when in fact the monkeys had been caught in the wild. Prosecutors said that Kry and his associates concocted a scheme to sell the monkeys. He and his associates have each been charged with seven counts of smuggling and one count of conspiracy. Masphal Kry, the former head of Cambodia’s Department of Wildlife and Biodiversity. Credit: Masphal Kry Facebook On Friday, a judge, Lisette Reid, considered whether some of the evidence gathered by federal investigators could be admitted at trial. The lawyers argued about the circumstances of Kry’s arrest at Kennedy International Airport in New York in November, and whether information that he provided to an investigator on that day can be admitted. At the airport, Kry was read his Miranda rights (his right to have a lawyer present and to remain silent). But his lawyers said that he does not speak or understand English well enough to have comprehended the full meaning of his rights. If he was not aware of his rights, then the information he shared cannot be admitted. The prosecutors said that he was told of his rights, and that he was given a translation of his rights in the Khmer language. Therefore, they said, the evidence can be admitted.Kry, sitting next to an interpreter, listened intently to their arguments. He wore a dark suit and white socks, with an electronic ankle bracelet &#8211; a GPS tracking device &#8211; bulging under one of his socks. Outside the courthouse, animal rights activists, holding signs (“End Monkey Smuggling”) and wearing cardboard monkey faces, stood in a line. “Hunters in Cambodia are taking mothers away from their babies,” said Amanda Brody, a senior campaigner for an organization, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), referring to the captured animals. “We’re standing here in solidarity with the monkeys.” Protecting public spaces? Ahead of Friday’s hearing, Kry’s lawyers sought to have the indictment dismissed, arguing that he was following the Cambodian government’s request to obtain monkeys from “public spaces,” places where monkeys are a nuisance for local residents.  In fact, Cambodian officials viewed the capture of the monkeys as a service to the people who live in these areas. Local authorities had wanted the monkeys removed, the lawyers claimed. Kry was fulfilling his duties as a wildlife official and U.S. prosecutors are attempting “to criminalize public acts by a foreign government employee that occurred entirely within that foreign country.” “These public acts are legal under Cambodian law,” said the defense lawyers. Experts say the argument has little credibility as the issue is not whether poaching monkeys is legal under Cambodian domestic law, but that Kry and his conspirators faked import documents to pretend that the provenance of the macaques was legitimate.  This would be illegal under U.S. law and under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which Cambodia has signed. The defense&#8217;s argument &#8220;epitomizes the Cambodian government&#8217;s way of thinking — it’s not illegal if the government says it’s not,&#8221; said Ed Newcomer, a former U.S. Fish and Wildlife investigator. &#8220;[But] Cambodia is a signatory to CITES and, as such, has to follow CITES rules if they want to export their wildlife.&#8221; Long-tailed macaques, highly intelligent creatures prized in research for their biological similarity to humans, are protected under international trade law, and their handlers need a permit to ship them to the U.S.  They were added to the endangered species list in 2022 amid increased poaching as demand for the primates surged in the midst of the COVID pandemic. The biggest market is the U.S. From 2000 to 2018, the U.S. imported between 41.7% and 70.1% of the total annual trade, according to a forthcoming article in the International Federation of Tropical Medicine journal.
- [Junta air strike in Myanmar’s Magway kills 3, injures 12](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-air-strike-in-myanmars-magway-kills-3-injures-12/): A junta airstrike in Myanmar’s central Magway region killed three people and injured 12, residents told RFA.  Thursday’s attack destroyed a National Unity Government administrative building in Tilin township’s Laung Bo Lay village, the second deadly attack on an NUG village office this month. “The Public Administration Office was bombed,” said a resident who requested anonymity for safety reasons. “Three People&#8217;s Defense Force comrades died on the spot and about 12 other people were injured.” The two men and a woman who died were members of the Yaw Revolutionary Army, based in Tilin township, according to an official from the local defense force, who also declined to be named. He said four men and eight women were injured, including one person in charge of assisting people left homeless by the conflict in Magway region. The official told RFA a jet fighter flew over Laung Bo Lay village at around noon Thursday, dropping three bombs. He said the junta ordered the air strike after being tipped off about the presence of People’s Defense Force members at the office. It cut telephone lines in Tilin and nearby Gangaw township ahead of the attack. After the air strike, troops stationed at the Shwe Htee Hall in Tilin township and the junta-affiliated Pyu Saw Htee militia staged ground attacks on villages in Tilin, according to locals. They said hundreds of residents from 13 villages were forced to flee. The junta has not issued a statement on the incident and calls to the junta’s Deputy Information Minister Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun by RFA went unanswered. Myanmar’s military is increasingly resorting to air attacks as it meets fierce resistance on the ground from People’s Defense Forces and ethnic armies across the country. On April 18, it carried out an air strike on Ma Gyi Kan village in Magway region’s Myaing township, destroying the hospital. Thursday’s air strike comes 10 days after the junta bombed an NUG office in Sagaing region’s Pa Zi Gyi village, killing around 200 people, the deadliest air strike since the military seized power in a February 2021 coup. The junta bombed the Pa Zi Gyi again Thursday but no one was injured in that attack as most people had fled the village. The National Unity Government was formed shortly after the 2021 coup and serves as a parallel government, campaigning for the restoration of democracy. It also carries out local administrative work in areas not under junta control, while its People&#8217;s Defense Forces fight junta troops for control of townships across Myanmar. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Tibetans abroad rally in support of Dalai Lama following outrage over video](https://ij-reportika.com/tibetans-abroad-rally-in-support-of-dalai-lama-following-outrage-over-video/): Tibetan demonstrators held rallies in Europe, the United States, India and Australia this week to protest negative media coverage of a video of the Dalai Lama asking an Indian boy to suck his tongue in what Tibetans say was a misinterpretation of an innocent, playful act. A video of the Tibetan Buddhists’ spiritual leader hugging and kissing the young boy on the lips at a student event in northern India on Feb. 28 went viral on social media and sparked online criticism and accusations of pedophilia. The Dalai Lama, 87, later apologized to the boy’s family, and Tibetans quickly came to his defense, explaining that sticking out one’s tongue is a greeting or a sign of respect in their culture. More than 2,000 Tibetans and their supporters rallied in Switzerland, demanding that local media apologize to the Dalai Lama for misinterpreting the video. Activists approached one news organization that agreed to look into the matter.  “I have never seen Tibetans gathered in such a huge number in a long time, and it is very important that we organize these rallies against those who defamed His Holiness the Dalai Lama,” said Tenzin Wangdue, vice president of the Tibetan Association of Liechtenstein, More than 300 Tibetans and Indian supporters gathered in Bangalore, India, to demand apologies from news organizations. About 15,000 people gathered on April 15 in Ladakh, a region administered by India as part of the larger Kashmir region and has been the subject of dispute between India, Pakistan, and China for decades.  “We the faithful followers of His Holiness The 145th Dalai Lama are deeply saddened and shocked by the deliberate attempt of many news/media portals, circulating a tailored propaganda video clip to defame and malign the impeccable character and stature of His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama,” said a statement issued on April 14 by the Ladakh Buddhist Association’s Youth Wing in Kargil to show its solidarity with the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader. When the Dalai Lama meets with people, “he speaks with them freely, without any reserve or cautiousness, as if they were long-time friends, and treats them lovingly,” said Ogyen Thinley Dorje, the Karmapa, or spiritual leader and head of the Karma Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, one of the four major lineages of Tibet.  “Sometimes he does playfully tug someone’s beard, or tickle them, or pat them gently on the cheek or nose,” he said in a statement issued on April 12. “This is just how he normally is, and it shows no more than his genuine delight and love for others.  Tibetans living in western China’s Tibet Autonomous Region and Tibetan-populated areas of Chinese provinces as well as those who live abroad believe the Chinese have used the video to cast a dark shadow on the Dalai Lama. “Tibetans inside Tibet have seen and heard about the video clips on various social media,” said one Tibetan from inside the region, who declined to be identified for safety reasons. “It is so pleasant to be able to see pictures of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, but at the same time it is heartbreaking to see how the Chinese government is taking advantage of this and manipulating the playful video interaction between the Dalai Lama and the young Indian boy,” the source said.  Many Tibetans inside Tibet have not publicly commented on the video, knowing that it would be dangerous to do so because of China’s heavy surveillance and repression in the region, said another Tibetan who declined to be named for the same reason. “The Chinese government would track down the individuals and punish them and they would be sentenced to three to four years [in prison],” the source said.  Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Over 20,000 locals flee as Myanmar’s military raids Sagaing region villages](https://ij-reportika.com/over-20000-locals-flee-as-myanmars-military-raids-sagaing-region-villages/): More than 20,000 locals abandoned their villages in Sagaing region’s Khin-U township as Myanmar’s military intensified its offensive against local People’s Defense Forces. A column of around 100 troops staged a dawn raid on Myin Daung village on Wednesday killing five defense force members, according to a PDF official who declined to be named. The defense force responded by detonating mines and exchanging gunfire with junta forces. A resident of nearby Aung Thar said that after the battle, the junta column shelled other villages in Khin-U township, destroying a monastery and burning down three houses in his village. He added that five men who were farming outside the village were taken by troops to act as human shields when they left Aung Thar village. CAPTION: The corner of a house damaged by gunfire in Aung Thar village on April 19, 2023. Credit: Citizen journalist A resident of Myin Daung, who also requested anonymity, said thousands of residents of nearby villages fled their homes “There are more than 10 villages to the south of Myin Daung with a population of about 18,000 people,” the local said.  “Along with the people leaving villages to the north there will be more than 20,000 people fleeing.” A People’s Defense Force member who also declined to give his name told RFA that 21 villages are now empty. RFA called Sagaing region junta spokesperson Aye Hlaing but no one answered. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Video of dancer in mosque inflames Uyghur anxieties about China’s attacks on religion](https://ij-reportika.com/video-of-dancer-in-mosque-inflames-uyghur-anxieties-about-chinas-attacks-on-religion/): A Chinese tourism advertisement portraying a medieval Buddhist fantasy, shot in the prayer hall of Xinjiang’s second-largest mosque, has alarmed diaspora Uyghurs, who call it a desecration.  They say it is particularly incensing during Ramadan, a time when mosques should host prayer and evening fast-breaking.  The promotional video, put out by a local propaganda office, features a bare-armed Uyghur woman as a dancer from “Women’s Kingdom,” a fictional polity whose queen sought to marry the Chinese protagonist of the classic Ming Dynasty novel Journey to the West.  She twirls in the otherwise empty Kuchar Grand Mosque. The video, which circulated on Douyin, the Chinese version of Tiktok, emerged amid a tourism campaign to draw Han Chinese to the far-western region of Xinjiang, home to the mostly Muslim Uyghur and other Turkic peoples now that COVID-19 travel restrictions have been lifted. There were 35.2 million individual visits to Xinjiang between January and March of this year, resulting in 2.5 billion yuan in tourism revenue, an increase of 36% on the same period last year, according to state media. But Uyghurs say such videos are both offensive and part of a wider attempt to diminish or erase their religion and culture. The video was shared to Facebook by Uyghur activist and reeducation camp survivor Zumret Dawut. It has since been taken down from Douyin. Radio Free Asia could not identify or contact its creators.  “The message [of the video] to the Uyghurs is that we can suppress and even destroy you by assaulting and breaking your dignity through humiliation – we can do anything we want to do,” said Ilshat Hassan, Deputy Executive Chairman of the World Uyghur Congress. Spurious claim The video begins with a Chinese narrator walking up the steps to the mosque. “[When you] open the heavy door of Kuchar Grand Mosque, a beautiful Qiuci woman, concealed by a veil, steps forward, and shares memories of the Woman’s Kingdom with you,” the video’s narrator relates as the woman dances.  Qiuci is the Chinese name for the medieval Buddhist kingdom of Kusen, near the present site of Kuchar. The Chinese words used in the video for Grand Mosque, Da Si, are also used to refer to large Buddhist temples. Nowhere does the film indicate that the setting is a gathering place for Muslims. The mosque, first built in the 16th century and reconstructed after a fire in the 1930s, has never been a site of Buddhist worship. The Chinese Communist Party ties the legitimacy of its rule in the Uyghur region to the spurious claim that Xinjiang has always been a part of China.  To bolster this claim, it has etched episodes from Chinese fiction and historical annals onto Xinjiang’s landscape by altering the presentation of Uyghur sacred spaces.  The Uyghur region’s most prominent shrine is the mausoleum of Afaq Khoja, a 17th century religious and political leader in Kashgar. It has long been marketed to Chinese tourists as the tomb of the “Fragrant Concubine,” who, according to Chinese legend, was Afaq Khoja’s granddaughter, sent as tribute to the Qianlong Emperor. The transformation of the Uyghur region’s most prominent religious sites into tourist attractions, demolition of other mosques and shrines, criminalization of public expressions of Islamic piety, and pervasive surveillance have left Uyghurs with nowhere to observe Ramadan but home.  Non-event A Chinese travel agent in Urumchi contacted by RFA and asked about visiting Xinjiang mosques during Ramadan depicted Islam’s most sacred month as a non-event. There are no religious events bringing Muslims together to break the daytime fast, for instance. “Normally there won’t be these kinds of collective activities at mosques,” she said.  “Many people in Xinjiang are Sinicized, so there aren’t situations like in the Arab world where lots of people gather in one place and make religious observances together. I’ve lived in Xinjiang for many years, and I’ve never seen minority nationalities engaging in those kinds of collective activities,” she said. Meanwhile, tourists wishing to visit mosques like Kashgar’s Id Kah and Kuchar’s Grand Mosque during Ramadan could freely do so, outside of the calls to prayer, the travel agent said. “People who want to fast must do it at home,” the travel agent said.  Asked whether it was possible to visit mosques in Urumchi, the travel agent had a firm response.  “It isn’t possible to visit those places. Because they’re locked. The mosques near the Grand Bazaar are locked too,” she said. “There’s no requirement to pray at mosques, right? People can pray at home, right? Ask questions like this to the relevant government official.” Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Woman killed in attack on junta truck in Myanmar’s Kachin state](https://ij-reportika.com/woman-killed-in-attack-on-junta-truck-in-myanmars-kachin-state/): A woman has died after the Kachin Independence Army set off a mine under a truck carrying junta troops in Myanmar’s eastern Kachin state. Along with soldiers the truck was carrying around 50 civilians, who had been seized by the junta in a raid on Hseng Hpa Yar village in Hpakant township on Tuesday. “The woman who was killed was called N-dup Seng Nu Mai. She died on the spot. Four more residents were injured but not seriously,” said a local who didn’t want to be named for fear of reprisals. “The troops stormed into Hseng Hpa Yar village and took the locals on a 12-wheeled truck along with to serve as human shields.” When RFA contacted Kachin Independence Army Information Officer Col. Naw Bu, he said his  troops did not know that the junta had taken prisoners with them on the truck. “All the junta convoys were covered up with blue waterproof [tarpaulin]. So we detonated the mine as we had prepared in advance,” he told RFA. “Why would we do it if we knew that villagers were in the truck? We never do anything to harm the local people. They [the junta] arrest the locals and force them to go to the front line.” RFA called the junta spokesperson for Kachin state, Win Ye Tun, but there was no response and the junta has not issued a statement on the incident. At least 3,400 civilians have been killed across Myanmar since the Feb. 1, 2021 coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Friends say it’s likely Vietnamese blogger was abducted from Bangkok](https://ij-reportika.com/friends-say-its-likely-vietnamese-blogger-was-abducted-from-bangkok/): Wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt, shorts and sandals, the man with the glasses whistled as he slid onto the saddle of his Fino motorbike, backed it away from his Bangkok rental home and rode off. Those were the last images captured by the security camera of blogger Duong Van Thai. The camera screen showed the footage was recorded at 4:37 a.m. on April 13, 2023 – but the timestamp was almost certainly inaccurate.  The video showed Thai motoring away during daylight, and neighbors said he left home at around 11 a.m. on Thursday. Later that day, he live-streamed for about 20 minutes on his YouTube channel with nearly 120,000 followers. He talked about last week’s trial of blogger Nguyen Lan Thang and the U.S. secretary of state’s visit to Vietnam. Calls to his mobile phone and messages on WhatsApp on Thursday afternoon went unanswered, several of his friends said, and he never returned home.  On Sunday, police in Vietnam’s northern province of Ha Tinh announced they had found a person without identification illegally entering the country via trails on its border with Laos. They confirmed that the person was named Duong Van Thai, born in 1982. Duong Van Thai, also known as Thai Van Duong, had been applying for refugee status with the United Nations refugee agency’s office in Bangkok. Thailand for many decades has served as an informal safe haven for political refugees in the region. The 41-year-old fled Vietnam in either 2018 or early 2019 fearing political persecution for his many blog posts and videos that criticized the government and leaders of the Communist Party on Facebook and YouTube.  Now it appears that he was abducted and forced to return to Vietnam. ‘Everything looks normal’ at rental home Grace Bui, a Vietnamese American human rights activist living in Thailand, told Radio Free Asia that she and her friends went to Thai&#8217;s home on Monday.  “Inside his room, everything looks normal, just like Duong has just gotten up in the morning and gone out for a quick walk,” she said. “We found the bag he often carried when going out. His wallet was still in the bag, and his UN card and bank cards were still in the wallet. We found his laptop also.” The UN card is a refugee card issued by the UN High Commissioner of Refugees office in Bangkok to people who have refugee status and are waiting to be resettled in a third country.  The back of refugee card has text in both English and Thai that reads as follows: “The bearer of this card is related to UNHCR, registered and documented under the UN General Assembly’s authorization, and cannot be forced to return to their country of origin. All support to the bearer is highly appreciated.” All the belongings in his room seemed to show that Thai was not prepared for a long trip back to Vietnam, where he faces a heavy sentence for his criticism against the government and the ruling Communist Party.  A close friend of Thai said that Thai had a stable life in Thailand and very much wanted to resettle in a third country. He had no plans to return to Vietnam, according to Hoang Trong Man, also known as Man Hien Phap. “I would like to affirm that Mr. Duong Van Thai did not intend to return to Vietnam because if he had had such a plan, he would have told us and collected some belongings before he left,” he said. Pre-disappearance signs Several of Thai’s friends told RFA that he had shared with them a piece of great news on Wednesday. He did an interview with UNHCR officials, who asked if he had any relatives in Australia. Thai replied that he wanted to resettle in the United States, where his girlfriend lived.  Bui, who was in regular contact with Thai before his disappearance, told RFA that it was very unlikely that Thai would return to Vietnam a day after doing an immigration interview with UNHCR. “Duong [Thai] never intended to return to Vietnam, and if you ask Duong&#8217;s friends, you will know that he never wanted to go back to Vietnam,” she said.  Nguyen Xuan Kim, another Vietnamese refugee in Thailand and a close friend of Thai’s, said that around two weeks before going missing, he shared his feelings of insecurity just after he posted videos about political infighting in Vietnam. “His recent posts referred to many senior officials of the Ministry of Public Security, about the general who had an extramarital affair,” Kim said. “He said briefly that he should be vigilant just in case but did not go into the specifics.” Thai told Kim that one of his neighbors said that on April 6, a man riding a motorbike with a Chiang Rai provincial number plate approached Thai’s home to film and take photos. The man spoke Thai but with a strange accent, the neighbor told Kim. Kim told RFA on Tuesday that Thai gave him access to his rental home’s security camera system, some social media accounts and some electronic devices. However, Kim said he hasn’t been able to access much of the data. Who was involved?  A statement from Amnesty International’s regional office expressed concern over the information about Thai’s arrest in Vietnam, particularly given that the UNHCR had recognized his refugee status.  “Viet Nam keeps close tabs on dissidents and has in the past shown that it is not above tracking and surveilling them beyond its borders. Vietnamese refugees living in Thailand who fled the country because of the government’s repression must be protected and should not have to live in constant fear,” the group said in the statement sent to RFA on Tuesday. RFA contacted UNHCR and its office in Thailand, as well as the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs, via email to inquire about Thai&#8217;s case but hasn’t received a response. Phil Robertson, the deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, urged the Thai government to clarify Thai’s case.  “There are...
- [Albert del Rosario, who led the Philippines in landmark case vs China, dies](https://ij-reportika.com/albert-del-rosario-who-led-the-philippines-in-landmark-case-vs-china-dies/): Albert del Rosario, the Philippines’ former top diplomat who successfully led the country in its international arbitration case over a territorial dispute with China in the South China Sea, died on Tuesday, his family said. He was 83.  The Philippine case was considered groundbreaking because it marked the first time that any country had challenged China in a world court over its territorial claims in the waterway. His daughter, Dr. Inge del Rosario, confirmed the news to reporters, but did not disclose the cause of death. Other sources close to the family said the ex-foreign secretary died while on a flight to San Francisco. “The family of Ambassador Albert Ferreros del Rosario is deeply saddened to announce his passing today, April 18, 2023. The family requests privacy during this difficult time,” his daughter said. Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo confirmed the news. He called del Rosario “an advocate of protecting and advancing national security and promoting the rights and welfare of Filipinos both in the Philippines and abroad.” “You will be missed, Mr. Secretary,” he said. Born in Manila on Nov. 14, 1939, del Rosario, a critic of former President Rodrigo Duterte’s foreign policies – particularly in dealing with China – served as the Philippine foreign affairs chief under late President Benigno Aquino III, from 2011 until 2016. While heading the Department of Foreign Affairs, del Rosario spearheaded the Philippines’ legal battle against China before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, Netherlands over a territorial dispute in the West Philippine Sea. The Philippines brought the case before the court in 2012. In July 2016, the arbitration court ruled in favor of the Philippines, and threw out China’s expansive claims in the sea, including in waters that reach its neighbors’ shores. The Philippines calls the part of the South China Sea that is within its territory the West Philippine Sea. Activists who traveled to the contested Scarborough Shoal and were blocked by the Chinese coast, react after a ruling on the South China Sea by an arbitration court in The Hague in favor of the Philippines, at a restaurant in Manila, July 12, 2016. Credit: Erik De Castro/Reuters The Chinese, however, ignored the landmark ruling, even as most countries in the West, led by the United States, hailed the award in the Philippines’ favor. Since then, China has carried on with its military expansionism in the strategic waterway, including building artificial islands. But President Duterte, who took office within a month before the historic ruling, played it down and chose instead to build up warm bilateral relations with China. Late into his presidency, however, he told the United Nations General Assembly that the arbitration court’s ruling was “beyond compromise” and part of international law. The Philippines not only lost a patriot “but an esteemed diplomat who represented our country with utmost grace, honor, and dignity,” Sen. Risa Hontiveros said in paying tribute to del Rosario. His “leadership inspired in us the courage and the creativity to fight for our national interest using lawful and diplomatic means. Defending and protecting our rights in the WPS is an intergenerational battle, one we can win because of the work Sec. del Rosario started,” Hontiveros said in a statement, referring to the West Philippine Sea. Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario, who spearheaded the filing of a complaint against China, attends a hearing regarding the Philippines and China on the South China Sea, at the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, the Netherlands, Nov. 24, 2015. Credit: Permanent Court of Arbitration via AP Jose Antonio Custodio, a military historian at the Institute of Policy, Strategy and Development Studies, a Philippine think-tank, described Del Rosario as “a brave man” who had endured public insults from Duterte. “He was a hero of the republic for successfully fighting against China’s illegal claims in our maritime entitlements. May his memory be a blessing,” Custodio said. The think-tank Stratbase ADR Institute, where del Rosario served as chairperson, said the former foreign affairs chief championed “democratic values and rules-based international order.” “He has fought for an independent foreign policy that prioritizes the interests of the country and of the Filipino people. He believed that diplomacy is a great equalizer in international affairs and that each state had an equal voice in the global community regardless of their political, economic, or military capabilities,” the institute said. Jeoffrey Maitem and Jojo Riñoza contributed to this report from Manila. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news organization.
- [Two arrested on charges relating to Chinese police station in New York](https://ij-reportika.com/two-arrested-on-charges-relating-to-chinese-police-station-in-new-york/): Two individuals were arrested in New York on Monday on federal charges that they operated a police station in lower Manhattan for the Chinese government, prosecutors said.  “Harry” Lu Jianwang, 61, of the Bronx, and Chen Jinping, 59, of Manhattan, both U.S. citizens, worked together to create an overseas branch of the Chinese government’s Ministry of Public Security (MPS), federal officials said. They opened the station in an office building in Chinatown, a neighborhood in Manhattan. The station was closed last year, according to the prosecutors. Federal officials also filed complaints against more than three dozen officers with the MPS, accusing them of harassing Chinese nationals living in New York and other parts of the United States. The officers, who remain at large in China, targeted individuals in the United States who expressed views contrary to the position of the Chinese government, according to the federal officials.  The Chinese Embassy in Washington has not replied to queries about the announcement regarding the arrests of Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping. It isn’t clear if the two have lawyers.  A Justice Department official said that the police station was part of an effort by the Chinese government to spy on and frighten individuals who live in the United States.  “The PRC, through its repressive security apparatus, established a secret physical presence in New York City to monitor and intimidate dissidents and those critical of its government,” said Matthew G. Olsen, an assistant attorney general with the Justice Department’s National Security Division, referring to the acronym for the People’s Republic of China. A six story glass facade building, second from left, is believed to have been the site of a foreign police outpost for China in New York&#8217;s Chinatown, Monday, April 17, 2023. Credit: Associated Press Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping were charged with conspiring to act as agents of the Chinese government and of obstructing justice through the destruction of evidence of their communications with a Chinese ministry official, according to a complaint filed in a federal court in Brooklyn. They allegedly destroyed emails that they had exchanged with an official at the MPS, according to federal officials. Lu had been responsible for assisting the Chinese security ministry in various ways, according to the federal officials. They said that Lu had helped apply pressure on an individual to return to China and assisted in efforts to track down a “pro-democracy activist” also living in the United States. The existence of a police station in Chinatown came to light last year. According to federal officials, Chinese security officials ran the outpost, as well as dozens of other stations in cities and towns around the world. The FBI’s arrest of individuals in connection to the Chinatown police station is the latest effort by U.S. officials to curtail what they describe as the Chinese government’s activities in the United States.  The arrest of the two individuals in New York is also a reminder of the tense relationship between the two countries. Lately, U.S. officials have highlighted the Chinese government’s influence operations and attempts to sway people’s opinions so that they view Chinese government policies in a more favorable light. “We’ve been hearing a lot about China’s influence campaigns – the idea that China is on the move in the United States,” said Robert Daly, the director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Wilson Center in Washington. “But this potentially puts Chinese agents right in downtown Manhattan.”
- [EU lodges protest over China's detention of rights lawyer and activist wife](https://ij-reportika.com/eu-lodges-protest-over-chinas-detention-of-rights-lawyer-and-activist-wife/): The European Union has lodged a protest with China after police detained veteran rights lawyer Yu Wensheng and his activist wife Xu Yan ahead of a meeting with its diplomats during a scheduled EU-China human rights dialogue on April 13. “We have already been taken away,” Yu tweeted shortly before falling silent on April 13, while the EU delegation to China tweeted on April 14: “@yuwensheng9 and @xuyan709 detained by CN authorities on their way to EU Delegation.” “We demand their immediate, unconditional release. We have lodged a protest with MFA against this unacceptable treatment,” the tweet from the EU’s embassy in China said, referring to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell had been scheduled to travel to China from April 13-15 for the annual EU-China strategic dialogue with Foreign Minister Qin Gang, and to meet with China’s foreign policy chief Wang Yi, as well as the new Defense Minister Li Shangfu. The visit, during which Yu and Xu had an invitation to go to the German Embassy for the afternoon of April 13, was to have followed last week’s trip by European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen and French President Emmanuel Macron. But Borrell postponed the visit after testing positive for COVID-19, according to his Twitter account. Chinese human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang, who is also said to have been detained recently, is seen on a laptop screen in Beijing as he speaks via video link from his home in Jinan, in China&#8217;s eastern Shandong province, April 23, 2020. Credit: AFP The EU Delegation said rights attorneys Wang Quanzhang, Wang Yu and Bao Longjun have also been placed under house arrest, but gave no further details. Police officers read out a notice of detention to Xu and Yu&#8217;s 18-year-old son on Saturday night, giving the formal date of criminal detention as April 14, but didn&#8217;t leave any documentation with him or allow him to take photos of the notice, Wang Yu told Radio Free Asia on Monday. Catch-all charge Citing fellow rights attorneys Song Yusheng and Peng Jian, who visited the family home on Sunday, Wang said: &#8220;[The son] said that his parents were detained on the charge of picking quarrels and stirring up trouble” – a catch-all charge used to target critics of the Communist Party. &#8220;The police showed his son the notice of criminal detention, but he was not allowed to take pictures, and they didn&#8217;t leave the notice for him. He was only shown it,&#8221; Wang Yu said. &#8220;They carried out a search of their home.&#8221; Around seven officers searched the family home and took away a number of personal belongings without showing a warrant or issuing receipts, according to the rights website Weiquanwang. Wang Yu, who received a call from the couple&#8217;s son on April 16, said the young man is now also under surveillance. &#8220;The authorities sent people to stand guard over Yu Wensheng&#8217;s son, both inside and outside their home,&#8221; Wang said.  Defense lawyers blocked She said police had prevented lawyers Song and Peng from representing the couple as defense attorneys. &#8220;Song Yusheng and Peng Jian went to Yu Wensheng&#8217;s house and took his son to dinner,&#8221; she said. &#8220;They wanted his son to sign a letter instructing them as attorneys, but Peng Jian told me that the police refused to sign off on it.&#8221; &#8220;Yu Wensheng&#8217;s brother told me that the police told him that Xu Yan has already hired a lawyer,&#8221; she said. &#8220;This is the same as the way they handled the July 2015 crackdown, preventing family members from instructing lawyers, and stopping the lawyers from defending [detainees].&#8221; Since a nationwide crackdown on hundreds of rights attorneys and law firms in 2015, police have begun to put pressure on the families of those detained for political dissent to fire their lawyers and allow the government to appoint a lawyer on their behalf, in the hope of a more lenient sentence. Wang Yu said the charges against the couple were trumped up. &#8220;Criminal detention is legally equivalent to being suspected of a crime,&#8221; she said. &#8220;But according to the information we have from family members and online, there is no evidence that Yu Wensheng or Xu Yan engaged in any illegal activities.&#8221; Wang Qiaoling, wife of rights lawyer Li Heping, said her family is currently also under surveillance. &#8220;When we were taking our kids to class on Sunday morning, we saw that there were cars following us, and they followed us onto the expressway,&#8221; she said Monday. &#8220;It was the same today.&#8221;  &#8220;They always place us under surveillance whenever a foreign leader visits China, but we don&#8217;t understand why they are doing it now, when the [scheduled] visit is over,&#8221; she said. The Spain-based rights group Safeguard Defenders said the couple&#8217;s disappearance should be a matter for EU-China relations, noting the use of &#8220;residential surveillance&#8221; to prevent fellow rights lawyers from defending the couple. &#8220;[Residential surveillance] is growing in use and new legal teeth have made it a far harsher experience,&#8221; the group said via its Twitter account. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [G7 talks tough on Ukraine, Taiwan and Korea during Blinken's Asia trip](https://ij-reportika.com/g7-talks-tough-on-ukraine-taiwan-and-korea-during-blinkens-asia-trip/): UPDATED AT 07:34 a.m. ET on 2023-04-17. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Japan where he, together with other foreign ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) nations, discussed a common approach to the war in Ukraine Monday, confirming  “that they remain committed to intensifying, fully coordinating and enforcing sanctions against Russia, as well as to continuing strong support for Ukraine,” according to a Japanese Foreign Affairs Ministry statement. The statement was in line with the goals of the Biden administration, which are to shore up support for Ukraine and to ensure the continued provision of military assistance to Kyiv, as well as to ramp up punishment against Russia through economic and financial sanctions, a senior official from Blinken&#8217;s delegation told the Associated Press ahead of the meeting. Earlier G7 ministers vowed to take a tougher stance on China’s threats to Taiwan, and North Korea’s missile tests. Meanwhile, Britain’s Financial Times reported that China was refusing to let Blinken visit Beijing over concerns that the FBI will release the results of an investigation into the suspected Chinese spy balloon downed in February. The FT quoted four people familiar with the matter as saying that “China had told the U.S. it was not prepared to reschedule a trip that Blinken cancelled in February while it remains unclear what the administration of President Joe Biden will do with the report.” It is unclear when the trip would be rescheduled. The U.S. military shot the Chinese balloon down over concerns that it was spying on U.S. military installations but China insisted that it was a weather balloon blown off course due to “force majeure.”  The incident led to Blinken abruptly canceling his ties-mending trip to Beijing, during which he was expected to call on Chinese leader Xi Jinping. The relationship between Washington and Beijing has been strained in the last few years over issues such as China’s threats to Taiwan and security concerns in the Indo-Pacific. Upgrading U.S.-Vietnam partnership Antony Blinken arrived at Karuizawa in Nagano prefecture in central Japan on Sunday after a visit to Vietnam to promote strategic ties with the communist country. This was Blinken’s first visit to Hanoi as U.S. Secretary of State. The U.S. is building a U.S.$1.2 billion compound in Hanoi, one of its largest and most expensive embassies in the world. During his visit, Blinken met with Vietnam’s most senior officials, including the General Secretary of the Communist Party, Nguyen Phu Trong, to discuss “the great possibilities that lie ahead in the U.S.-Vietnam partnership,” the secretary of state wrote on Twitter. Secretary of State Antony Blinken (L) meets with Vietnam&#8217;s Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong at the Communist Party of Vietnam Headquarters in Hanoi, Vietnam, April 15, 2023.  Credit: Andrew Harnik/Pool via Reuters Two weeks before Blinken’s visit, Trong and his U.S. counterpart Joe Biden had a phone conversation during which the two leaders agreed to “promote and deepen bilateral ties,” according to Vietnamese media. Former enemies Hanoi and Washington normalized their diplomatic relationship in 1995 and in 2013 established a so-called Comprehensive Partnership to promote cooperation in all sectors including the economy, culture exchange and security. Vietnam’s foreign relations are benchmarked by three levels of partnerships: Comprehensive, Strategic and Comprehensive Strategic. Only four countries in the world belong to the top tier of Comprehensive Strategic Partners: China, Russia, India and South Korea. Vietnam has Strategic Partnerships with 16 nations including some U.S. allies such as Japan, Singapore and Australia. U.S. officials have been hinting at upgrading the ties to the next level Strategic Partnership which offers deeper cooperation, especially in security and defense, amid new geopolitical challenges posed by an increasingly assertive China. Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh told the U.S. Secretary of State on Saturday in Hanoi that the consensus reached amongst the  Vietnamese leadership is to “further elevate the bilateral partnership to a new height” adding that “relevant government agencies have been tasked with looking into the process.” Vietnam analysts such as Carl Thayer from the University of New South Wales in Australia said that an upgrade of Vietnam-U.S. relationship to Strategic Partnership within this year is possible, despite concerns that it would antagonize Beijing. The U.S. is currently the largest export market and the second-largest commercial partner for Vietnam. Hanoi aims to benefit across the board from U.S. assistance, especially in trade, science and technology, Thayer told Radio Free Asia.  Vietnam as one of the South China Sea claimants has been embroiled in territorial disputes with China and could benefit from greater cooperation in maritime security. In exchange, “the U.S. would benefit indirectly by assisting Vietnam in capacity-building to address maritime security issues in the South China Sea to strengthen a free and open Indo-Pacific,” said Thayer. “The U.S. is trying to mobilize and sustain an international coalition to oppose Russia’s war in Ukraine and to deter China from using force against Taiwan and intimidation of South China Sea littoral states,” the Canberra-based political analyst said. Hanoi’s priority Some other analysts, such as Bill Hayton from the British think tank Chatham House, said that there might have been a miscalculation on the U.S.’s part. “Washington is now taking itself for a massive ride in its misunderstanding of what Vietnam wants from the bilateral relationship,” Hayton said. “All the Communist Party of Vietnam wants is regime security. It has no interest in confronting China,” the author of “A brief history of Vietnam” said. Blogger Nguyen Lan Thang was sentenced to six years in prison for ‘spreading anti-state propaganda’ on April 12, 2023. Credit: Facebook: Nguyen Lan Thang Just before Blinken landed in Hanoi, a dissident blogger was sentenced to six years in prison for “spreading anti-state propaganda.” Nguyen Lan Thang was also a contributor to Radio Free Asia. The U.S. State Department condemned the sentence and urged the Vietnamese government to “immediately release and drop all charges against Nguyen Lan Thang and other individuals who remain in detention for peacefully exercising and promoting human rights.&#8221; “Vietnam is an...
- [Myanmar’s junta to release more than 3,000 prisoners](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-junta-to-release-more-than-3000-prisoners/): UPDATED AT 06:45 a.m. ET on 2023-04-17 Myanmar’s junta plans to release 3,015 prisoners, according to a statement carried on the pro-military channel Myanmar Radio and Television. Other junta statements Monday said 98 foreigners, including five Sri Lankans being held in Yangon’s Insein prison, were among those set to be released as part of the New Year&#8217;s amnesty.  Relatives of other prisoners waited outside Insein on Monday morning as yellow buses carried freed prisoners out of the notorious prison. It was not immediately clear how many political prisoners were among those granted amnesty. “If any political prisoners have been released it is obviously good news for them and their families, but there are still thousands of political prisoners in jail. None of them should be in prison,” Anna Roberts, Executive Director of Burma Campaign UK told RFA. “The international community must not forget Burma’s political prisoners. Among those detained in the more than two years since the coup are Myanmar’s ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi, chairperson of the National League for Democracy, who is serving a total of 33 years in prison. The NLD &#8212; dissolved by the junta last month &#8212; won a landslide victory in the 2020 general election and many senior members were arrested on trumped-up charges in the days and months following the coup. Others being held for ‘political’ crimes include civil disobedience movement teachers, students, doctors and nurses, and also members and supporters of People’s Defense Forces. The junta has arrested more than 21,300 political prisoners since seizing power in a Feb. 1, 2021 coup, according to the Thailand-based monitoring group the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Of that number, it says 17,460 are still being held in prisons across the country. This year’s amnesty is almost double the size of 2022’s, when the junta pardoned 1,619 people, most of whom were said to be jailed for drug and immigration offenses. Junta State Administration Council Secretary Lt. Gen. Aung Lin Dwe said Monday&#8217;s amnesty was intended to “bring joy for the people and address humanitarian concerns.” It is likely to do neither. Last week, ASEAN joined humanitarian groups in condemning the junta for staging probably its most brutal massacre in the more than two years since the coup. At least 165 people were killed, many women and children among them, when junta jets bombed the opening ceremony of a village administrative building in Sagaing region, while helicopter gunships cut down those trying to flee. “We need to see stronger international action to support people in Burma and to cut off sources of funds and arms to the military, including sanctions on the supply of aviation fuel to help stop the devastating military airstrikes, like the attack in Sagaing region last week,” Burma Campaign UK’s Anna Roberts said. Anti-junta People’s Defense Forces have warned people not to celebrate the Thingyan water festival and New Year, bombing junta-built Thingyan pavilions across the country, killing eight people in Sagaing region and four in Shan state. Story updated to include comments from Burma Campaign UK. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Bear more children – they’re like consumer durables, Chinese economist urges](https://ij-reportika.com/bear-more-children-theyre-like-consumer-durables-chinese-economist-urges/): Have more children – it&#8217;s your patriotic duty. They are like durable consumer goods that you pay off over the long haul, but bring far more benefits. That was the message from a prominent Chinese economist at a government-backed think tank, and the most recent effort by the Communist Party’s campaign to boost the country’s flagging birth rate that includes a slew of economic perks for couples – long limited to just one child – to have more children. &#8220;Durable consumer goods pay off in the long run, so it&#8217;s wrong for young people not to have children – their value exceeds that of the other goods you buy,&#8221; said Chen Wenling, chief economist at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges. Chen’s comments sparked an online outcry. Some said that people in China are all regarded as &#8220;consumables,&#8221; rather than human beings. Others said those who decide not to have children are smart. &#8220;Today&#8217;s society has driven young people to the point of desperation,&#8221; commented one social media user. &#8220;I want a place to live, but I can&#8217;t afford one. I don&#8217;t have time for fun, and I can&#8217;t afford to raise a child – this comment from this expert is so arrogant!&#8221; Others were more cynical. &#8220;People may be consumer goods in other countries, but here, we&#8217;re either inferior, hostages or ***holes,&#8221; commented @psychotic_relapse from Shandong on Weibo. &#8220;It&#8217;s poor thinking to treat children as private property,&#8221; wrote @Gusu_Bridge from Jiangsu, while @Guangzhou_old_dog said those in power should quit making &#8220;tedious and arrogant&#8221; comments. &#8220;They should come up with some policies and test them out to see if they work in practice,&#8221; the user wrote. &#8220;Back in the 1950s, they wanted people to have more kids, then it was family planning in the 1980s, and now we&#8217;re back to encouraging people to have more kids again,&#8221; wrote @My_heart_is_still_4325 from Shandong.  &#8220;But the reality is that it&#8217;s not easy to secure housing, medical care, employment or education,&#8221; the user wrote, while @plants_vs_zombies_fan wrote: &#8220;Having a child in China is the worst investment.&#8221; Can’t find jobs Chen&#8217;s comments come at a time when youth unemployment is running at around 20% in China, with around 10 million graduates about to enter the labor market to compete with those who are already unemployed. A current affairs commentator who gave only the surname Chen agreed. &#8220;Most people don&#8217;t have the money to find a partner right now, because all of that requires money for food, transportation and going out,&#8221; Chen said. &#8220;Most young people are demotivated by that.&#8221; Job seekers visit a booth at a job fair in Beijing, Feb. 16, 2023. Credit: Reuters &#8220;It&#8217;s not that they don&#8217;t want a partner; the economic pressures are just too huge, and far worse than before,&#8221; he said.  Li Jiabao, who moved from mainland China to live in democratic Taiwan, said there is a huge amount of disillusionment with government policy from the same age group that Beijing is counting on to raise more children. &#8220;After three years of violent enforcement of the zero-COVID policy in China, young people see this government as extremely bureaucratic and careless of human life,&#8221; Li said. &#8220;I think this is the main reason why young people are so disgusted with this expert.&#8221; One-child policy In 2016, China abandoned its 35-year “one-child policy,” which penalized parents with more than one child, amid concerns about its birth rate, raising the limit to two. In 2021, that was further loosened to three – and now there are no limits on the number of children a couple can have. Authorities have recognized they need to offer incentives to couples to have more children amid the economic pressures of modern China. &#8220;After three years of violent enforcement of the zero-COVID policy in China, young people see this government as extremely bureaucratic and careless of human life,&#8221; says Li Jiabao, a mainland Chinese dissident who moved to Taiwan. Credit: RFA A plan announced in August 2022 offers &#8220;support policies in finance, tax, housing, employment, education and other fields to create a fertility-friendly society and encourage families to have more children,” promising community nursery services, better infant and child care services at local level, flexible working and family-friendly workplaces, and safeguarding the labor and employment rights of parents. But rights activists said discrimination in the workplace still presents major obstacles to equality for Chinese women, despite protections enshrined in the country&#8217;s law. Chinese women still face major barriers to finding work in the graduate labor market and fear getting pregnant if they have a job, out of concern their employer will fire them. And young people in China are increasingly ruling marriage out of their plans for the future, with marriage registrations falling for several years in a row. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Grassroots efforts in border areas address mental anguish for Myanmar refugees](https://ij-reportika.com/grassroots-efforts-in-border-areas-address-mental-anguish-for-myanmar-refugees/): Every Tuesday morning, a handful of Myanmar refugees visit her office in the Thai border town of Mae Sot to talk about the terror of fleeing violence and their anxiety about the future. The psychiatrist, who asked not to be identified, is familiar with the trauma her patients share, having fled Myanmar herself.  As the only Burmese-speaking psychiatrist in town, she hears their stories free of charge about their journey to Thailand, where they then face new stresses – risk of arrest by Thai police, the struggle to support themselves and the worry about family members left behind.  Many of them have post-traumatic stress disorder, depression or anxiety. Thailand hasn’t ratified the 1951 U.N. Refugee Convention and so doesn’t officially recognize refugees, but allows thousands to stay in border camps. Many newcomers from Myanmar try to survive on their own, under the radar – and many don’t seek mental health help, or don’t know it exists. “There is no future, and basic needs are not fulfilled, [not even] security because Thai police are always waiting to arrest people. So sometimes I feel like it is beyond my ability,” she said.  “I can see six to seven people in a morning once a week, but it is totally not enough.” The Mae Tao Clinic’s psychiatric care unit where she works is one of a handful of grassroots efforts that has sprung up in the last year to address the growing need for mental health care for the thousands of displaced peoples along the Thai-Burma border. Rising depression Rates of depression and anxiety within Myanmar have risen since the February 2021 coup, according to one mental health services provider working in counseling that requested anonymity to protect the continuity of their work.  They found that the highest averages came from Karenni state, which borders northern Thailand, where 38 percent of surveyed individuals reported experiencing moderately severe to severe depression.   People take part in a yoga class at the Joy House community center in Mae Sot, Thailand. The center offers 11 classes a week for adults and children in art, music therapy, yoga, and cooking. Credit: RFA Other border regions, such as Mon and Thanintaryi States, also reported higher rates among small surveyed populations. In people under 25 nationwide, 37 percent indicated they had symptoms of moderately severe to severe depression.  The study reports that suggested treatment for a diagnosis of moderately severe depression is treatment with medication, therapy, or both.  But too often, they receive neither.  While data on the diaspora in Thailand is minimal, preliminary research by another anonymous nonprofit supporting Myanmar migrants in Thailand found only 7 percent of those on the border contacted a counselor during periods of stress.  Among the newly arrived political dissidents and refugees, nearly half reported they had no income and a third attributed mental distress to their restricted movement without documentation.  Although the Mae Tao Clinic and other community initiatives are located in Thailand, they say mental distress relating to displacement, migration and trauma are apparent on both sides of the border. The mental health services provider of the initial study told RFA the higher levels of depression in Karenni State and along the Thai border are likely due to the increased violence in the area.   “Due to more violence, there are more refugees and these refugees are more likely to be traumatized or simply feel helpless and hopeless as they had to leave their home and everything behind,” the group said.  Meeting a Need Nyunt Naing Thein, a Myanmar counselor, trainer and technical support provider at Mae Tao Clinic, helped open the psychiatric unit in August. “Even though I wanted to open it, we had no human capacity to do it,” he said, adding that some newly arrived migrants had already been able to access medication. “Psychiatric cases are coming up – actually, they are already in the community.” Before the psychiatrist’s arrival, the clinic had previously been unable to prescribe medication for anxiety and depression and did not stock it.  “I convinced the woman in charge from the Mae Tao Clinic and some responsible persons of the clinic that they should buy some medication,” the psychiatrist explained. She said medication wasn’t necessary in all cases, but it was a healthier alternative to substance abuse problems she sees growing more common. Some come in simply for a sympathetic ear. But she has also seen cases of anxiety disorders, depression, substance abuse, and less commonly, cases of psychosis that require medication. Participants in the Joy Center yoga class do the child’s pose. Credit: RFA Since the coup began, Nyunt Naing Thein has organized training for hundreds of aid workers and medical professionals on psychological first aid and basic counseling training, focused on empathetic listening, mental health awareness and emergency response to trauma.  They’ve also organized men’s and women’s groups, where people in need of social support can talk about the issues they’re experiencing.  ‘Thriving’ Shortly after the volunteer psychiatrist’s arrival, Nyunt Naing Thain started working as network coordinator for a mental health and psychosocial support alliance among Mae Sot’s civil society organizations on the border.  They dubbed the organization ‘Shin Than Yar’, or “thriving” in Burmese, and use it to share collective resources for training. In addition to this alliance, a recently opened community center, Joy House, has also gained quick popularity in the border town. Catering to the large number of Myanmar residents residing in Mae Sot, the center offers 11 classes a week for adults and children in art, music therapy, yoga, and cooking.  The center says despite only opening three months prior, some 250 adults and children have attended classes, with yoga sometimes spilling out of the main room and onto the porch outside.  “When I just started, people didn&#8217;t really know what this therapy is. At the start, it was out of curiosity. Some people confused it with music theory, like teaching music,” said a worker named JJ who holds a biweekly music therapy class at the center.  A...
- [Southeast Asia’s water festivals: Hopes and scenes](https://ij-reportika.com/southeast-asias-water-festivals-hopes-and-scenes/): As Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos celebrate their annual New Year’s water festivals, RFA asked readers what they hoped for in the year ahead. For many, the wishes are simple – peace and freedom. Cambodia “As a Cambodian, I wish the country and its people would get a leader who pays attention to people’s living standards so they can live in harmony, democracy (and) the rich and poor have equal rights, the same as those who live in the free world. I also wish people would have mutual unity and would restore Cambodia to the prosperity that our ancestors left us.&#8221; Sophie Lok &#8220;I want RFA to resume its office in this peaceful country. Losing RFA is losing breaking news!&#8221; Mala San &#8220;I wish Hun Sen would lose the upcoming election.&#8221; Boozz Boy &#8220;I wish this current regime wouldn’t wage war against its own people.&#8221; Rachana Konpa &#8220;Hun Sen&#8217;s regime changes to a democratic country.&#8221; Phairy Kim Myanmar “We miss the past. We hope for peace.” Yangon youth “We would like to get back the stability and development in Myanmar like under Mother Suu’s administration. We would like to see the immediate release of all those arbitrarily detained including Mother Suu and President U Win Myint, and to regain the power by the NLD government, which was elected by the people. I do not want to see people being killed unjustly.” “I wish for the emergence of a federal state which has been desired by all ethnic minorities. I do not want to see the country&#8217;s future leaders sacrifice their lives. May the Spring Revolution be successful as soon as possible!” Mandalay woman “As we mark Myanmar’s New Year, may Myanmar be liberated from military dictatorship and end the wars.” Aung Naingtun “I have a sole New Year wish. It is nothing, but down with the military council! I do not want to wish for other things. I know prayer alone is not enough, so I am doing it pragmatically. If I could travel with ‘Time travel,’ I would like to go back to January 31, 2021 and its previous days. I miss those days ruled by Mother (Suu)… I miss my home. I was forced to leave my motherland but I am eager to return to my family.” Salmon “My hope is that people should be involved [in the movement] and they should provide more assistance to the success of the uprising. May Myanmar people possess better lives in the New Year! May the uprising be successful as soon as possible!” Win Ko Ko Oo “I am from Taze township, Sagaing region. In previous years, I used to return to my village during Thingyan holidays. I am so sad that I cannot return to my home this year because I have no home there. Although festivals are held in cities, I cannot enjoy them. I am so sad because I cannot return to my native village and my parents.” Maung Aye Min Htet from a village in Taze township, Sagaing region Laos &#8220;I wish I had better health, better living conditions and a higher salary. We can&#8217;t go on like this in the current condition in which the cost of living is rising, while the income is staying low.&#8221; Grade school teacher in Pakkading district, Borikhamxay province &#8220;Yesterday, I went grocery shopping and I bought three cat fish for which I paid 90,000 kip ($5.29), up more than 7% a month ago.” A businesswoman in Vientiane wishes that Laos could get out of the economic and financial troubles sooner than later An owner of a small factory in capital Vientiane wants the war between Ukraine and Russia to be over as soon as possible because the war is the main cause of all the economic and financial woes in the world, including Laos.
- [Blinken’s trip to Vietnam may result in possible upgrade for US-Vietnam ties](https://ij-reportika.com/blinkens-trip-to-vietnam-may-result-in-possible-upgrade-for-us-vietnam-ties/): U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is hoping to upgrade relations with Vietnam to a strategic partnership from the current comprehensive one during meetings with officials in Hanoi on Friday and Saturday, amid China’s rising regional power and aggression in the South China Sea. Blinken is scheduled to meet with senior Vietnamese officials to discuss “our shared vision of a connected, prosperous, peaceful, and resilient Indo-Pacific region,” the State Department said in an April 10 statement. Blinken also will break ground on a new U.S. embassy compound in Hanoi. Blinken’s trip comes about two weeks after a phone call between U.S. President Joe Biden and Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam. July will mark the 10th anniversary of the 2013 U.S.-Vietnam Comprehensive Partnership. Vietnam already has “strategic” partnerships with many U.S. allies, but the U.S. itself has remained at the lower “comprehensive” partnership level despite improvements in the bilateral relationship because disaccord over human rights hindered talks. But political analysts believe Vietnam may agree to boost the relationship this time around. Ha Hoang Hop, an associate senior fellow specializing in regional strategic studies at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, a research center in Singapore, said he was certain that Vietnam would upgrade its partnership with the U.S. during Blinken’s visit. “A good and better relationship between Vietnam and the U.S. will certainly contribute to maintaining the stability and security of Southeast Asia, as well as of a broader region,” he told RFA.  “It will also significantly make Vietnam more proactive, confident, and stronger in ensuring its stability and security given many complexities in the world and in the region.” Vietnam has comprehensive partnerships with a dozen other countries, strategic partnerships with another 13, and comprehensive strategic partnerships with China, Russia, India and South Korea.  A boost in relations between the U.S. and Vietnam would prompt China to react across the board in terms of security, economic development, trade and cultural exchange, Hop said.  “Even now, we all see that China does not want Vietnam to have good relations with other countries,” he said because Beijing believes it would not bode well for its claims in the South China Sea over which it has sparred with Hanoi for decades. “We all know they have used so-called ‘gray zone tactics’ to disturb, annoy and cause instability,” Hop said. “Then, they gradually encroach and at some point when other countries, including Vietnam, let it go, they will achieve their sovereignty goals.” Making Hanoi happy Prominent human rights lawyer Le Cong Dinh also waxed positive on the possible upgrading of bilateral ties between the U.S. and Vietnam.  “This relationship is considered in the context of the U.S.’s strategy in the Indo-Pacific region,” he said. The strategy, issued by the Biden administration in early 2022, outlines the president’s vision for the U.S. to more firmly anchor itself in the Indo-Pacific region in coordination with allies and partners to ensure the region is free and open, connected, prosperous, secure and resilient.  “Vietnam’s position and role is quite important to the U.S.’s regional strategy, especially in terms of containing China in the South China Sea,” said Dinh, a former vice-president of the Ho Chi Minh Bar Association. “Therefore, the U.S. always tries to find ways to make Hanoi happy and deepen the bilateral relationship.” He went on to suggest that for the U.S. regional security issues have taken precedence over human rights in Vietnam. But Dinh cautioned that to avoid upsetting China, the Vietnamese government must take a tactful and smart approach to upgrade bilateral ties with the U.S. and not hastily use the term ‘strategic partnership.’” “Doing so, in reality, the two sides can work on the issues that a strategic partnership allows us to do, which a comprehensive partnership does not. China’s state-run Global Times newspaper on April 9 cited Chinese experts who said Blinken’s visit may yield results in maritime security or improvement in economic cooperation, but it would not affect Vietnam&#8217;s overall strategy because there are still inherent and structural contradictions – ideological and historical issues – between Vietnam and the U.S. Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Matt Reed.
- [Drone attack kills 8, injures 30 in Sagaing region](https://ij-reportika.com/drone-attack-kills-8-injures-30-in-sagaing-region/): Eight people were killed and 30 were injured when a drone bombed a water festival pavilion in a village in Myanmar’s northern Sagaing region. Locals said most of those injured in Thursday’s attack on Sagaing township’s Kywei Pon village were junta troops and members of the affiliated Pyu Saw Htee militia who were gathering there to celebrate the Thingyan festival in the run up to Burmese new year.  A junta statement released Friday confirmed the number of casualties and said five children were among the dead. It blamed a local People’s Defense Force for the attack, saying the drone dropped four bombs on the building. One resident told RFA the junta built the pavilion on a school soccer pitch. He said junta troops have been stationed in Sagaing township near the village since the February 2021 coup and local People’s Defense Forces often attack them. “I saw three cars transporting injured people to Sagaing’s 200-bed hospital this morning,” said the local, who didn’t want to be identified for safety reasons. “The army fired heavy artillery shells around the village after the incident.” Thursday, the first day of the water festival, was marked by a series of bombings of junta-built Thingyan pavilions. Four people were killed and 11 injured in Shan state’s Lashio town. Bombs also went off in Bago region’s Letpadan township, and Yangon’s Thaketa and Hlaingtharya townships but no one was injured. No group has claimed responsibility for any of Thursday’s attacks. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Tibetan official says video of Dalai Lama with boy showed his usual jovialness](https://ij-reportika.com/tibetan-official-says-video-of-dalai-lama-with-boy-showed-his-usual-jovialness/): The leader of the Tibetan government-in-exile defended the Dalai Lama on Thursday, telling reporters that video footage of the Tibetan Buddhist leader kissing a boy and asking him to “suck my tongue” was likely promoted online by pro-Chinese sources. “It needs no explanation as to who would gain from maligning the image, the reputation and the legacy of His Holiness,” said Penpa Tsering, the head of the India-based Central Tibetan Administration. “Considering the scale and extent of the orchestrated smear campaign, the political angle of this incident cannot be ignored.” Video of a Feb. 28 public event near the Dalai Lama’s residence in Dharamsala, India, has sparked online criticism over the last week. It prompted a statement of apology from him on Monday.  The clip shows the boy at first asking the 87-year-old for a hug during a ceremony in which the Dalai Lama blessed more than 120 students who had just completed a skills training course.  He then points to his cheek and says to the boy “first here.” The boy kisses the cheek and gives him a hug. Then the Dalai Lama motions to his lips and says “here also,” and kisses the boy briefly on the lips. He then sticks out his tongue and says “and suck my tongue.” With laughter in the background, the video shows the boy sticking his tongue out before withdrawing it, and the Dalai Lama did the same. In Tibetan culture sticking out one’s tongue is sometimes used as a traditional greeting, and can be seen as a sign of respect or agreement. The boy, Kiyan Kanodia, was interviewed by Radio Free Asia just after the event. Asked how he felt after meeting the Dalai Lama, he said he felt blessed with “positive energy.”  “I just can’t express how good it feels. It was a really good experience meeting him,” he said. “You feel very positive energy and there’s a lot of positive energy in you when you get blessed by him.” Kanodia’s grandfather, Basant Bansal, made similar remarks to RFA. Bansal is the chairman of the M3M Group, a real estate company in India whose philanthropic arm sponsored the skills training course. Antics, pranks and joviality Tibetan officials have found that the initial instigators for making the video go viral on social media were pro-Chinese, Tsering told reporters at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of South Asia in New Delhi. Tsering listed the many ways the Dalai Lama has been physically affectionate with people he meets – including political leaders.  Cuddling, holding someone’s nose, playing pranks and otherwise engaging in jovial interactions have all been all part of the Dalai Lama’s public repertoire, Tsering said. That includes touching foreheads, which he did with the boy at the February event. “That’s the highest honor, from a Buddhist perspective,” he said. “All of these are part of His Holiness’ antics.” The remark about the tongue “was meant to be for the amusement of others” in the room, Tsering said. “The personal integrity of His Holiness has never been in question in 87 years, so how can people pass judgment on one incident?” he asked. “We know how grandfatherly affection can be. But this went a little beyond.”  NGO wants an investigation Tsering pointed out that the boy’s mother was seated nearby during the event and didn’t have any complaints. Neither did any of the students, he said. Still, the executive director of a Delhi-based child rights group, Haq: Center for Child Rights, said that “no custom or traditional or religious practice that results in violation of children’s rights is acceptable.” Bharti Ali told RFA in an email that she is worried about the boy’s safety, especially now that the video has received so much attention. The incident “requires necessary investigation and action,” she added. “We cannot on the one hand teach safe and unsafe touch to children and on the other allow inappropriate actions to be passed off as playfulness,” she said. Tsering asked that anyone who is disturbed by the circulated footage watch video of the entire event to understand the tone of the event.  “We are sure you’ll be able to differentiate between lust and love,” he said. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [North Korea warns parents to send their truant kids to school](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-warns-parents-to-send-their-truant-kids-to-school/): It’s been more than 10 days since the new school year began in North Korea, and a large number of poor children have yet to show up for classes because they are needed for farm work during the planting season. So authorities are warning their parents to send them to school or face interrogation or public shaming, sources in the country told Radio Free Asia. Most North Korean elementary schools should have around 30 students in each classroom, but one or two from each class have yet to show up for their first day of school, a resident in the northern province of Ryanggang, who is knowledgeable about the education sector in Paegam county, told RFA’s Korean Service Monday on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “Today, the county’s education department sent a notice to parents who have not sent their children to school … warning that they will notify the party committees and their parents’ workplaces if they don’t attend,” he said. The warnings come after previous efforts to get the children to school failed, according to the source. “When the class attendance rates are down, the homeroom teacher will be interrogated,” he said. “Even if their classmates come to their homes to pick them up, or if the teacher visits with the parents, there are still quite a few children who do not come to school.” The source said that the children who aren’t attending school are from families experiencing economic hardship. “The reason why children do not come to school is because they have to help their parents, who are busy preparing their small plots of land for farming in the mountains as the planting season begins,” he said.  Matter of survival Planting season is vital for many rural families to survive.  “Farming on their private plots is the most important activity for the year because corn, beans, potatoes and whatever else can be grown on small plots of land will be the only food these households … have to stay alive this year,” the source said.  A North Korean boy works on a collective farm in South Hwanghae province. Credit: Reuters file photo The same problem existed in previous years, but it fell to the teachers to ask the parents to send their kids to school, he said. This is the first year that parents are getting an official warning, and it appears to be highly unusual.   While there’s no accompanying punishment laid out in the warning other than being reported to the party committee, the potential for public disgrace by such a high-ranking institution makes the report alone a serious threat, he said. For the country’s poorest, going into the mountains to find some empty land to grow vegetables is a matter of survival. North Korea has suffered from chronic food shortages for decades, and a suspension of trade with China during the COVID-19 pandemic made the shortages worse.  At one point during the pandemic, the government told the people that they would no longer receive rations and would be on their own for food.  The impoverished children work to cultivate the newly slashed and burned land, so they have no time to go to school. Summoned for questioning  In the city of Kimchaek, in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong, the problem is so dire that authorities there began calling in the parents for interrogation, a source there told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “There are a total of 28 students in my kid’s class in elementary school, but four of them are not attending,” she said. “Last week, schools in the city submitted absentee lists to the education department, and included their parents’ jobs, their titles and home addresses.” The source said she believes that the interrogations began on Monday.  “Interrogating the parents will not guarantee a 100% attendance rate,” she said. “For families who do not have food to eat right now or who are struggling to live, it is more important to not starve than it is to send their children to school.” Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Trafficked teens tell of torture at scam ‘casino’ on Myanmar’s chaotic border](https://ij-reportika.com/trafficked-teens-tell-of-torture-at-scam-casino-on-myanmars-chaotic-border/): It was a clear day when Kham set out from his home in northwestern Laos for what he thought was a chance to make money in the gilded gambling towns of the Golden Triangle, the border region his country shares with Thailand and Myanmar. On that day – a Friday, as he recalled – the teenager had gotten a Facebook note from a stranger: a young woman asking what he was doing and if he wanted to make some cash. He agreed to meet that afternoon. She picked up Kham, 16, along with a friend, and off they went, their parents none the wiser. “I thought to myself I’d work for a month or two then I’d go home,” Kham later said. (RFA has changed the real names of the victims in this story to protect them from possible reprisals.) But instead of a job, Kham ended up trafficked and held captive in a nondescript building on the Burmese-Thai border, some 200 miles south of the Golden Triangle and 400 miles from his home – isolated from the outside world, tortured and forced into a particular kind of labor: to work as a cyber-scammer.  Barbed wire fences are seen outside a shuttered Great Wall Park compound where Cambodian authorities said they had recovered evidence of human trafficking, kidnapping and torture during raids on suspected cybercrime compounds in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, in Sept. 2022. Credit: Reuters In recent years, secret sites like the one where Kham was detained have proliferated throughout the region as the COVID-19 pandemic forced criminal networks to shift their strategies for making money. One popular scheme today involves scammers starting fake romantic online relationships that eventually lead to stealing as-large-as-possible sums of money from targets.  The scammers said that if they fail to do so, they are tortured. Teen victims from Luang Namtha province in Laos who were trafficked to a place they called the “Casino Kosai,” in an isolated development near the city of Myawaddy on Myanmar’s eastern border with Thailand, have described their ordeal to RFA.  Chillingly, dozens of teenagers and young people from Luang Namtha are still believed to be trapped at the site, along with victims from other parts of Asia. The case is but the tip of the iceberg in the vast networks of human trafficking that claim over 150,000 victims a year in Southeast Asia.  Yet it encapsulates how greed and political chaos mix to allow crime to operate unchecked, with teenagers like Kham paying the price. This fake Facebook ad for the Sands International is for a receptionist. It lists job benefits of 31,000 baht salary, free accommodation and two days off per month. Qualifications are passport holder, Thai citizen, 20-35 years old and the ability to work in Cambodia. Credit: RFA screenshot The promise of cash Typically, it starts with the lure of a job. In the case of Lao teenagers RFA spoke to, the bait can be as simple as a message over Facebook or a messaging app.  Other scams have involved more elaborate cons, with postings for seemingly legitimate jobs that have ensnared everyone from professionals to laborers to ambitious youths. What they have in common is the promise of high pay in glitzy, if sketchy, casino towns around Southeast Asia – many built with the backing of Chinese criminal syndicates that operate in poorly policed borderlands difficult to reach.  Before 2020, “a lot of these places were involved in two things: gambling, where groups of Thais and Chinese were going for a weekend casino holiday, or online betting,” said Phil Robertson, deputy director for Asia at Human Rights Watch.  “Then, all of a sudden COVID hits, and these syndicates [that ran the casinos] decided to change their business model. What they came up with was scamming.”  A motorbike drives past a closed casino in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, in Feb. 2020. As travel restrictions bit during the pandemic, syndicates that ran the casinos shifted their focus from gambling to scams, says Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch. Credit: Reuters Today, gambling towns like Sihanoukville, in Cambodia, and the outskirts of Tonpheung, on the Laos side of the Golden Triangle, have become notorious for trapping people looking for work into trafficking.  But besides these places, there are also numerous unregulated developments where scamming “casinos” operate with little outside scrutiny, including on the Thai-Burmese border. Keo, 18, had a legitimate job at a casino in Laos when he was contacted via WhatsApp by a man who said he could make much more – 13 million kip ($766) a month, plus bonuses – by working in Thailand. He could leave whenever he wanted, the person claimed. “I thought about the new job offer for two days, then I said yes on the third day because the offer would pay more salary, plus commission and I can go home anytime,” Keo said.  He quit his job by lying to his boss, saying he was going to visit his family. A few days later, a black Toyota Vigo pick-up truck fetched him, along with two friends, and they took a boat across the Mekong to Thailand.  Scams By that time, Keo realized he was being trafficked – the two men who escorted him and his friends were armed. “While on the boat, one of us &#8230; suggested that we return to Laos, but we were afraid to ask,” as the men carried guns and knives. He dared not jump. “Later, one of us suggested we call our parents – but the men said, ‘On the boat, we don’t use the telephone.’ We dared not call our parents because we were afraid of being harmed,” he said. “So, we kept quiet until we reached the Thai side.” Both Keo and Kham told RFA that they were eventually trafficked to Myawaddy Township, an area some 300 miles south of the Golden Triangle.  Kham only remembered parts of the journey, when he was made to walk for miles.  Keo told RFA Laos he was transported by a...
- [Bomb kills 4, injures 11 in Shan state](https://ij-reportika.com/bomb-kills-4-injures-11-in-shan-state/): Four people have died and 11 were injured in a bomb blast near a pavilion built to host water festival events in Myanmar’s eastern Shan state. Thursday morning’s explosion happened on the roadside at the entrance to Lashio, the state’s largest town, according to a rescue worker who asked not to be named for safety reasons.. “The dead bodies of four men have been found initially,” he told RFA, adding that eight men and three women were also injured. RFA is still trying to confirm their names and ages. No group has claimed responsibility for the bombing and the junta has not issued a statement on the blast. Calls  to the junta spokesperson for Shan state, Khun Thein Maung, went unanswered. Thursday marks the start of Thingyan, new year’s eve in Myanmar and the start of the country’s water festival. Many civilians have chosen not to take part this year due to the ongoing violence across the country, warnings by anti-regime militia to stay away, and a series of explosions at pavilions built by junta troops. A Yangon-based anti-junta group said it set off bombs at Thingyan pavilions in three townships and People’s Square in Yangon city center last weekend. No group claimed responsibility for blasts in Mandalay city and Mawlamyine city in Mon state, also at the weekend. No one was hurt in those bombings. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Military stymies rescue efforts at scene of Myanmar strike that killed at least 80](https://ij-reportika.com/military-stymies-rescue-efforts-at-scene-of-myanmar-strike-that-killed-at-least-80/): Efforts by workers to rescue the injured and collect the remains of mangled bodies at the scene of a junta air strike that killed at least 80 civilians in Myanmar’s northern Sagaing region have been hampered by troops in the area, sources said Wednesday. Tuesday’s air strike, in which junta aircraft bombed a crowd of hundreds attending an office opening ceremony in Kanbalu township’s Pa Zi Gyi village, is one of the deadliest attacks on civilians since Myanmar&#8217;s military seized power in a February 2021 coup d&#8217;etat. Witnesses have said that it was hard to tell how many people had died in the attack because the bodies were so badly mangled by the bombs and machine gun fire. As of Wednesday afternoon, rescue workers said they had cremated 83 bodies, including 22 minors. Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government said that at least 116 people had been killed, including 81 men, 16 women, and 19 minors. Amid the carnage, the military has deployed a surveillance helicopter and stationed troops on the outskirts of Pa Zi Gyi, impeding efforts to collect body parts and bring the wounded for medical treatment, residents said. A villager who declined to be named told RFA that his 10-year-old granddaughter and two 50-year-old relatives were among the victims, but said he had been unable to locate their bodies yet. “More than 30 teenagers are still missing,” he said, adding that he is “sure they are dead.” The villager said that the military had attacked the village multiple times on Tuesday. “That’s why we could not collect all the bodies and were forced to leave them,” he said. Another resident, who identified himself as Ko Myo, claimed that rescuers trying to collect bodies are the only people left in the 100-home village, which was otherwise abandoned by inhabitants he said were left in severe psychological shock by Tuesday’s attack. “There is no one [in the village] since we have had to shelter in safe places,” he said. “We have had to let our herds of goats, cattle and chickens run free. We have left our businesses and shops behind and fled [from the village]. The situation is very bad.” Every family in the village is missing members, he said. Differing accounts The military confirmed in a statement on Tuesday evening that it had carried out a “precision” attack on Pa Zi Gyi because members of the anti-junta People Defense Force paramilitary group had gathered there and “committed terrorist acts” in the area. Junta Deputy Information Minister Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun told the military-controlled broadcast channel MRTV that those killed in the strike were members of the PDF, not civilians, and that the large number of casualties was the result of a rebel weapons cache exploding during the operation. But a rescue worker who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity, citing security concerns, said that was untrue. The attack on the site was deliberate and thorough, he said, beginning with a jet fighter bombing run and followed by an Mi-35 helicopter strafing the area. “When we approached the scene to rescue the injured people and collect the bodies of victims in the afternoon, [the military] launched another attack,” he said. “So, we can say they attacked three times.” In this April 11, 2023 image grab from a video, a destroyed building structure is seen following Myanmar junta shelling and air strikes on Pa Zi Gyi village, Kanbalu township, Sagaing region. Credit: Citizen journalist Three rescuers were killed during the third attack, the rescue worker said. “There is little we can do and the situation has become extremely difficult,” he added, describing the state of the village’s residents as “panic-stricken.” An official from the Kanbalu township PDF also disputed Zaw Min Tun’s description of the attack, telling RFA that “whenever the junta forces attack civilians, they blame others.” “On the ground, we know best whether [the victims were] PDF members or not,” he said. “There were no PDF members among the victims.” Seeking accountability High Court lawyer Kyi Myint said attacks like Tuesday’s air strike constitute “high treason” in Myanmar and “war crimes” according to international law. “This army is formed by public funds to protect the people, not to kill them,” he said. “Now, they have committed high treason because they are killing people using the funds provided to protect the people.” “According to international law, if a government kills its own people, the perpetrators shall be sent to the International Criminal Court to be prosecuted,” he added. Tuesday’s attack prompted condemnation from around the globe, including from U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, as well as several Western governments and human rights organizations. Vedant Patel, the principal deputy spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, said the strike and other violent attacks “further underscore the regime’s disregard for human life and its responsibility for the dire political and humanitarian crisis in Burma” since the coup. In a statement, he said that the United States wants the junta to end violence, allow unhindered humanitarian access, and to respect the democratic aspirations of the people of Myanmar. Residents of Pa Zi Gyi village and democracy activists have called for an arms and aviation fuel embargo on the junta to end its use of air strikes in the conflict. Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
- [Brazilian kickboxer granted Cambodian citizenship after promoting national sport](https://ij-reportika.com/brazilian-kickboxer-granted-cambodian-citizenship-after-promoting-national-sport/): At Prime Minister Hun Sen’s behest, Cambodia has granted a Brazilian kickboxer and his wife citizenship for promoting Kun Khmer, the national sport, in the latest development in a controversy with Thailand, which calls the sport Muay Thai. Hun Sen also gave a U.S.$20,000 sponsorship to Thiago Teixeira, 34, who with his wife Roma Maria Rozanska-Steffen, an American citizen, became naturalized Cambodian citizens by King Norodom Sihamoni through a royal decree dated April 11, the Phnom Penh Post reported. The announcement came after the World Muay Thai Organization, or WMO, stripped Teixeira of a middleweight title that he won at the Apex Fight Series on April 1 in Germany, during which he waved Cambodia’s flag. Teixeira had said he wanted to represent Kun Khmer instead of being a Muay Thai fighter, despite training in the Thai sport for years. The two martial art forms — the most popular sports in their respective countries — are nearly identical and involve punching, kneeing and kicking opponents. But Cambodians argue that the sport originated from their culture, while Thais say it belongs to them. Cambodia has removed Muay Thai from a list of sports included in this year’s Southeast Asia Games, replacing it with Kun Khmer, amid a larger push for the national sport to gain international recognition. The biennial sports event will be held in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh on May 5-17. Political ploy? Critics said the prime minister was using the issue to try to increase his popularity among Cambodian voters ahead of July’s general election. Legal expert Vorn Chan Lout said Cambodia should be extra cautious before granting citizenship to foreigners because the law requires them to live in the country for three years and understand its culture to be eligible.  “Politicians are smart to take advantage of events, but the most important thing is the government needs to have a long-term vision in order to pay gratitude to all athletes,” he said. Cambodia’s Citizenship Law allows foreigners to acquire citizenship through marriage and naturalization, though they must stay in the Southeast Asian nation for three years.  Am Sam Ath of Licadho said Hun Sen’s government should support Cambodia’s home-grown martial arts athletes rather than foreign ones.   “I urge the government to pay attention to Kun Khmer and to encourage athletes with sufficient training so they are able to fight,” he said.  Cambodian kickboxers have complained that they are underpaid in the sport. Veteran Kun Khmer fighter Vong Noy said he stopped fighting because his earnings from the sport were not enough to support his family or pay medical bills for injuries he sustained during fights.  “I stopped fighting now because I have been fighting for many years,” he wrote on Facebook. “I got famous, but I am facing financial issues, and I’m afraid that I will become disabled and not make enough money to raise my children.”  RFA could not reach Teixeira for comment, but he told local media during a press conference in Phnom Penh after signing a contract with the World Champion Kun Khmer Club, that he already considered Cambodia his home and he would help promote Kun Khmer to the rest of the world.  Translated by Samean Yun for RFA Khmer. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [China leads, as wind and solar reach record power generation in 2022](https://ij-reportika.com/china-leads-as-wind-and-solar-reach-record-power-generation-in-2022/): Wind and solar reached a record 12% share of global electricity generation in 2022, up from 10% in 2021, with China leading in both sectors, a report by an independent think tank said Wednesday. Solar was the fastest-growing source of electricity for the eighteenth year in a row, rising by 24% year-on-year, according to the fourth Global Electricity Review released by Ember, a U.K.-based energy and climate research group. The global growth in wind and solar power was primarily driven by rising use in China, which accounted for 37% of the worldwide increase. Solar’s share of global power output last year was 4.5%, or 1,284 terawatt hours, up from 3.7% in 2021. A terawatt hour is equal to 1 trillion watts of power for one hour. Meanwhile, 312 terawatt hours of wind energy were added to global electricity generation in 2022. It means wind now contributes to 7.6%, or 2,160 terawatt hours, in the international power mix, up from 6.6% last year, an increase of 17% year-on-year. Ember said 2022 is “a turning point in the world’s transition to clean power.”  “2022 beat 2020 as the cleanest ever year, as emissions intensity reached a record low of 436 gCO2/kWh [grams of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour of electricity generated], “the report said. The data revealed that China emerged as the global leader in solar, generating 418 terawatt hours of electricity, accounting for 4.7% of the country’s total electricity. The report said about a fifth (or 55 gigawatts) of all the solar panels installed globally in 2022 were on China’s rooftops, driven mainly by an innovative three-year policy called “Whole-County Rooftop Solar” that started in 2021. Wind power stations of German utility RWE, one of Europe&#8217;s biggest electricity companies are pictured in front of RWE&#8217;s brown coal fired power plants of Neurath, Germany, Mar. 18, 2022. Credit: Reuters China also retained its position as the world’s largest wind power generator in 2022, with a 9.3% wind share in its electricity mix.  Denmark took the lead in wind generation by percentage share, with 55% of its electricity coming from wind power alone, while Chile topped the list of countries with the highest share of solar energy, with 17% solar in its electricity output.  In the U.S., the share of wind and solar in total electricity generation increased from 13% in 2021 to 15%, or 644 terawatts hours, in 2022. Around 60% of its electricity still comes from fossil fuels, with a large chunk coming from gas, followed by coal. 80% of the rise in global electricity demand was met by new wind and solar generation in 2022, said the report that collated 2022 electricity data from 78 countries, representing 93% of global electricity demand.  “Electricity is cleaner than ever, but we are using more of it,” the report said.  The combination of all renewable energy sources and nuclear power represented a 39% share of global electricity generation last year, a new record high. The power sector is the most significant global contributor to planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions.  China, the largest CO2 emitter due to coal Among the top 10 power sector emitters, China led the world by three times more than the U.S., the second-biggest carbon dioxide emitter. Ember said China produced the most CO2 emissions of any power sector in the world last year since coal alone made up 61% of China’s electricity mix, which is 17 percentage points fall from 78% in 2000, even though in absolute terms, it is five times higher compared to the start of this century. At 4,694 million metric tons of CO2, China accounted for 38% of total global emissions from electricity generation. However, China alone accounted for 53% of the world’s coal-fired electricity generation in 2022, which showed a dramatic revival in appetite as new coal power plants were announced, permitted, and went under construction dramatically in China.  “China is the world’s biggest coal power country but also the leader in absolute wind and solar generation,” said Małgorzata Wiatros-Motyka, the report’s lead author and Ember’s senior electricity analyst.  “Choices being made about energy in the country have worldwide implications. Whether peaking fossil generation globally happens in 2023 is largely down to China.” Li Shuo, a senior policy advisor for Greenpeace in East Asia, said China is “the 800-pound gorilla when it comes to the global power sector.” “China has no doubt been leading global renewable energy expansion. But at the same time, the country is accelerating coal project approval,” Li said, adding such a dichotomous relationship “won’t carry the country far to truly decarbonize.” Coal power remained the single largest source of electricity worldwide in 2022, producing 36%, or 10,186 terawatt hours, of global electricity.  In 2022, coal power rose by 108 terawatt hours, a 1.1% increase, reaching a record high,  largely attributed to the global gas crisis triggered by the Russia-Ukraine war and the revival of coal-fired power stations to meet demand by some countries. Coal use for electricity rose in India by 7.2%, in the E.U. by 6.4%, in Japan by 3.1%, and in China by 1.5%. Gas-fired power generation fell by 0.2%. Overall, that still meant that power sector emissions increased by 1.3% in 2022, reaching an all-time high of 12,431 million metric tons of CO2, the report said.  Without renewables, it is estimated that power sector emissions from fossil fuels would have been 20% higher in 2022. Last year may have been the “peak” of electricity emissions and the final year of fossil power growth, with clean power meeting all demand growth this year, according to Ember’s forecast. According to modeling by the International Energy Agency, the electricity sector needs to move from being the highest emitting sector to the first sector to reach net zero by 2040 to achieve economy-wide net zero by 2050.  This would mean wind and solar reaching 41% of global electricity by 2030, compared to 12% in 2022.  Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Junta troops torch over 100 homes in a Mandalay village](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-troops-torch-over-100-homes-in-a-mandalay-village/): Myanmar’s military has torched more than 100 homes in a Mandalay region village as it continues to target civilians thought to be harboring People’s Defense Forces. Tuesday’s raid happened after anti-junta militias attacked troops leaving a monastery they had been stationed at, in Madaya township’s Kin village, locals told RFA on condition of anonymity. One resident said reprisals started after local People’s Defense Forces triggered land mines as the column of around 50 troops moved out. ”The troops set fire to the village non-stop from 9 a.m. until the evening,” the local said Wednesday.  “Over a hundred houses were burnt down. The junta troops left early this morning.” The local defense groups said they killed five soldiers and wounded 12 with landmines and bombs dropped from drones Combined fighters from Mahar Revolution  Force; Tike Thane Underground Revolutionary Group; Nat Soe Underground Revolutionary Army; Nagar Nyi Naung People Defense Force; and Daung Sit The said they took part in the attack on the junta column. RFA has not been able to independently confirm the number of soldiers killed and injured. Calls to the junta spokesperson for Mandalay region, Thein Htay, went unanswered. Junta Deputy Information Minister Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun has told RFA in the past troops never set fire to civilian homes. However, he said Tuesday the junta was behind another attack that day in which as many as 100 civilians were killed in an air strike on a Sagaing region village. He blamed local People’s Defense Forces for hiding among civilians in that attack, saying the junta only targeted combatants. The junta’s slash and burn tactics are widespread across Myanmar and locals said the military torched nine villages in Madaya township last month, forcing locals to flee to other villages and makeshift camps. According to Data for Myanmar, which monitors arson attacks, a total of 60,459 homes have been destroyed by fire across the country in the two years following the February 2021 coup. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [County chief who oversaw destruction of Tibetan Buddhist sites moved to new position](https://ij-reportika.com/county-chief-who-oversaw-destruction-of-tibetan-buddhist-sites-moved-to-new-position/): A Chinese official who approved the destruction of a huge Buddha statue in a Tibetan-majority area has been assigned to another position in the same prefecture, Tibetans inside and outside the region said.  Wang Dongsheng, former chief of Drago county, now holds an apolitical appointment as director of the Science and Technology Bureau in the Kardze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in China’s Sichuan province, they said. Drago county, called Luhuo in Chinese, lies in Kardze in the historical Tibetan province of Kham. A source in India told Radio Free Asia that Wang was promoted to the position in August 2022.  Wang had earlier overseen a campaign of destruction at the sprawling Larung Gar Buddhist Academy in Drago in a move that saw thousands of monks and nuns expelled and homes destroyed. After he took office as Drago county chief in October 2021, Wang directed the demolition of the 30-meter (99-foot) Buddha statue there following official complaints that it had been built too high. Dozens of traditional prayer wheels used by Tibetan pilgrims and other Buddhist worshipers were also destroyed. Officials forced monks from Thoesam Gatsel monastery and Tibetans living in Chuwar and other nearby towns to witness the destruction that began in December 2021.  Wang had earlier overseen a campaign of destruction at Sichuan’s sprawling Larung Gar Buddhist Academy in a move that saw thousands of monks and nuns expelled and homes destroyed. “[J]ust within a month of taking the office, he initiated the demolition of Tibetan religious sites in Drago,” said a Tibetan source inside the region who requested anonymity for safety reasons. “Under his leadership the Drago Buddhist school was destroyed.” Hotbed of resistance Since 2008, Drago has been a hotbed of resistance against the Chinese government, prompting interventions by authorities, including significant crackdowns in 2009 and 2012. Beijing views any sign of Tibetan disobedience as an act of separatism, threatening China’s national security. In this satellite image slider, the 99-foot Buddha statue in Drago in the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture is shown at left sheltered by a white canopy on Nov. 19, 2019. At right is the site on Jan. 1, 2022. Credit: Planet Labs with analysis by RFA Earlier this year, Chinese authorities tightened restrictions on Tibetan residents there, imposing measures to prevent contact with people outside the area, according to sources with knowledge of the situation. Wang’s term as chief of Drago county ushered in a period of heightened assault on Tibetan Buddhism at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party, with the brutal dismantling of important cultural and religious sites.  Party leaders who suppress Tibetans and successfully carry out harsh campaigns against the Buddhist minority group are often promoted, said Dawa Tsering, director of the India-based Tibet Policy Institute. “This is the norm, and we can see that happen with Wang Donsheng,” he told RFA.  Lui Pang, an executive member of Drago Communist Party, has been appointed as the new county chief, the sources said.  Among Drago county’s dozen administrative officials are eight of Chinese origin who hold higher positions, while the remaining four are Tibetans who work as office employees, they said.   So far, there’s been a slight easing of the harsh campaigns against Tibetans in the region under the new county chief, said another Tibetan inside the region, who declined to be identified for safety reasons. “Unlike under former chief Wang, if one does not get involved in any political and sensitive issues and incidents, they [authorities] will not make random arrests as such,” the source said. Previously, Wang was appointed deputy secretary of Tibetan-majority Serta county in Kardze, called Ganzi in Chinese, in December 2016, and later served as its county chief.  Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [In four languages, young Uyghur gives video testimony about detained uncle](https://ij-reportika.com/in-four-languages-young-uyghur-gives-video-testimony-about-detained-uncle/): For Nefise Oghuz, giving testimony about the illegal imprisonment of her uncle and what she says is the genocide of Uyghurs in western China was her “duty.” The 20-year-old Uyghur student provided statements in four languages — Uyghur, English, Mandarin and Turkish — on social media platforms, including Twitter and Facebook, about how police in Urumqi, capital of western China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, arrested her uncle, Alim Abdukerim, 33, at his home on Aug. 28, 2017. “I dared to share this video testimony as I could not bear the sufferings of my people facing genocide,” she told Radio Free Asia. “I could not accept the fate of my uncle and that of millions of Uyghurs in the concentration camps, and I felt terrible for my nephew, who had not seen his father even once after he was born.” Abdukerim’s family did not know his whereabouts for two years, though Oghuz later obtained information that he was in prison in Korla, known as Ku’erle in Chinese and the second-largest city in Xinjiang, two years after he was taken away. “My innocent uncle has been in jail for the past six years,” Oghuz says in the multilingual videos. “I demand the Chinese government release my uncle, Alim Abdukerim, immediately.” ‘I could not bear this injustice’ &#8220;My uncle Alim Abdulkerim has been detained in Xinjiang for six years because he is Uyghur. He hasn&#8217;t been able to see his son, Abdulkerim, who is now six years old. We believe he is innocent and appeal to the Chinese government to release him and reunite him with his family. pic.twitter.com/EdWEMkhVri — Nefise Oğuz (@NefiseOguzz28) April 2, 2023 The videos have received widespread attention from Uyghurs in the diaspora as well as an outpouring of reactions on social media. “Since we could not get any information about him, I could not bear this injustice,” Oghuz told Radio Free Asia by phone from Istanbul, where she and her family have lived since 2015.  “So, I gave this testimony. For the past years, we kept mum, fearing that our testimony would cause harm to other relatives in our homeland,” said the sophomore majoring in English journalism at Turkey’s Istanbul University, who studied in bilingual classes in Xinjiang until middle school. “Although I have not openly advocated for my uncle previously so as not to cause trouble for my relatives back home, I have advocated for my uncle through various channels in a more discreet way,” she said. “Realizing my uncle had suffered too long, we lost our confidence in the Chinese government’s justice and began openly demanding his release.” Chinese police detained Abdukerim shortly after he married amid a larger crackdown on Uyghurs beginning in 2017 during which authorities arbitrarily detained ordinary and prominent Uyghurs, such as businesspeople, writers, artists, athletes and Muslim clergy members into “re-education” camps.  China has claimed that the camps were vocation training centers set up to prevent religious extremism and terrorism in the restive mostly-Muslim region. But those who survived the camps say Uyghurs there were subjected to torture, sexual assault and forced labor. The U.S. government, the European parliament and the legislatures of several Western countries have declared that the Chinese government’s abuses against the Uyghurs amount to genocide and crimes against humanity. A report issued by the U.N.’s human rights body has said that the camp detentions may constitute crimes against humanity. .  Reason for arrest unclear Abdukerim, who has a young son he’s never seen, was a computer engineer responsible for managing computer and internet-related business at a family-run company called Halis Foreign Trade Ltd. He and Oghuz grew up together.  Oghuz said she tried to obtain information about him from relatives in Xinjiang and from Chinese social media sources.  “We don&#8217;t know why the Chinese government arrested him,” she said. “He had never been abroad. I think the Chinese authorities detained him for being Uyghur and Muslim.” Following Abdukerim’s arrest, the family’s company closed its doors. His crime and the length of his sentence remain unknown, though Oghuz learned that he is being held at a prison in  Korla that operates under the auspices of the Xinjiang Construction and Production Company, a state-owned economic and paramilitary organization also known as Bingtuan.  His prisoner number is 3153. “I hope the Chinese government releases my uncle and allows him to meet his son,” she said. “It’s OK if I don&#8217;t see him, but his son needs to see his father. I will not stop being my uncle&#8217;s voice until the Chinese authorities release him.”  Different languages Oghuz said she presented testimony in Turkish, hoping that the Turks would pay attention to the sufferings of the Uyghurs, thousands of whom live in the diaspora in the southern European country. She gave it in English, hoping that the international community would also pay attention, at a time when Uyghur rights groups are calling for concrete measures to hold China to account for its actions in Xinjiang. And she gave testimony in Chinese to try to force the Chinese government to respond to her demand. “For those who think they cannot give testimony in foreign languages, they may provide it in the Uyghur language,” Oghuz said.  “Your testimony will eventually cause anxiety among the perpetrators,” she said. “The Chinese will see your testimony and worry that if more people like you speak up, they will expose their crime to the broader global community.” Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Philippines, US launch largest-ever joint war games](https://ij-reportika.com/philippines-us-launch-largest-ever-joint-war-games/): Treaty allies the United States and the Philippines kicked off their biggest-ever annual joint military exercises on Tuesday, amid growing regional tensions between the U.S. and China over Taiwan and anti-American protests by Filipinos.  The Balikatan Exercise 2023 brings together 17,680 troops – an estimated 12,000 Americans, 5,000 Filipinos, and more than a hundred Australians – who will participate in live-fire drills and other activities until April 28. The drills aim to boost bilateral readiness for cyber-defense operations and maritime security, officials said. “Balikatan,” which means “shoulder to shoulder” in Tagalog, got underway a day after Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. sought to allay public fears that a beefed up American military presence here would unnecessarily draw the Southeast Asian country into a conflict in case China attacked Taiwan. Gen. Andres Centino, the Philippine military’s chief of staff, said the drills would not only bolster  bilateral ties but “contribute to peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region in a definitive manner.” Among the drills on the program are a command post exercise, cyber-defense exercise, field training exercise, and humanitarian civic assistance activities. “All these major events are intended to ensure the achievement of the end state of our Balikatan 2023 exercises, which is to fully develop mutual defense capabilities to enhance cyber defense operation and strengthen the country’s maritime security and domain awareness,” Centino said in a speech Tuesday inaugurating the drills. A bilateral command post exercise aims to strengthen the allies’ ability to plan, coordinate, and provide command-and-control of forces against a range of scenarios and simulated challenges. It also trains both militaries to refine tactics and procedures related to maritime security. And during this year’s Balikatan, participants for the first time will carry out a live-fire training with Patriot missiles and Avenger air-defense systems, which Ukraine has used against invading Russian forces. During the live-fire exercise at sea, Filipino and American troops will target and sink a 200-foot-long mock enemy vessel in the waters off Zambales province facing the West Philippine Sea, the part of the South China Sea that lies within Manila’s exclusive economic zone. Beijing and Manila, as well as other Southeast Asian countries and Taiwan, have overlapping claims in the strategic waterway.  Another new component of the war games is cyber defense. “The cyber domain is very important because a lot of our subsystems in command-and-control, and intelligence all rely on the cyber domain,” said Col. Mike Logico, a Filipino officer and spokesman for Balikatan 2023. Heather Variava, the chargé d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Manila, said Balikatan symbolized “the marquee annual event” for the two countries’ alliance.  “The U.S. and Philippines share a vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific that is more connected, prosperous, secure and resilient,” Variava said in her speech at the opening ceremony at Camp Aguinaldo, the Philippine military’s headquarters in Quezon City, Metro Manila. Gen. Andres Centino, chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, speaks during the opening ceremony of the annual “Balikatan” exercises, at Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City, Philippines, April 11, 2023. Credit: Basilio Sepe/BenarNews On Monday, President Marcos tried to calm jitters and criticism among Filipinos about his administration’s decision in February to grant U.S. forces access to four more Philippine bases under an expanded defense pact, as tensions build between China and Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province. He said the bases would not be used for carrying out military attacks. Last week, his government revealed the names and sites of the four bases. Three of these are located on the main and northernmost Philippine island of Luzon, including two sites that face Taiwan. A fourth site, in Palawan province, faces the South China Sea where territorial tensions between China and the Philippine have been high in recent years.  Marcos on Monday insisted that the Americans would use the newly selected locations to pre position equipment that they could readily access in times of natural disasters. “Now, the reaction of China is not really surprising because they worry too much. But … the Philippines will not allow the bases to be used in offensive action. The bases are only to help the Philippines if the country needs help,” Marcos told reporters on the sidelines of an event honoring Filipino war veterans. “What we are doing is strengthening our defenses of our territories in defense of the republic,” Marcos said. This largest iteration of the Balikatan drills began a day after the Chinese military concluded three days of maneuvers and war games around Taiwan, including simulated precision strikes. China launched the drills as a response to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s visit to the United States early this month, where she met with U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. The unprecedented meeting on U.S. soil further angered China, which also expressed its displeasure over the Marcos administration’s move to grant the U.S. access to other bases in the Philippines. “The U.S. military has been coming all the way from the other side of the Pacific to stir up trouble in the South China Sea and ganging up with its allies from other parts of the world to flex muscle,” the Chinese Embassy in Manila said earlier in a statement. The U.S. has heightened tensions, driven a wedge between China and the Philippines, as well as “upset the joint effort of countries in this region to safeguard peace and stability in the South China Sea,” it alleged. Opposition to war games Meanwhile on Tuesday, Philippine activist groups held protests outside Camp Aguinaldo and the U.S. Embassy in Manila to express their opposition to the joint military drills in different parts of the country and the expanded access for U.S. forces at local bases. “The Philippines is ours. U.S. get out of our country!” some protesters chanted outside the military’s headquarters in Quezon City. In a separate statement, the anti-U.S. International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) said the Balikatan exercises were “nothing but a blatant display of U.S. imperialism’s military intervention and aggression in the country...
- [Myanmar’s military bombs village ceremony killing scores of civilians](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-military-bombs-village-ceremony-killing-scores-of-civilians/): As many as 100 villagers have been killed and more than 50 injured when junta aircraft bombed crowds attending an office opening ceremony in Sagaing region’s Kanbalu township, locals said. Most of the injured and dead were women and children, witnesses told RFA. They said it was hard to tell how many people had died because the bodies were so badly mangled by the bombs and machine gun fire. “I saw the bodies of four to six children who had been blown about 100 feet [30 meters from the building],” said a local who didn’t want to be identified. “I saw bodies ripped open and burnt.” People Media, the news agency of the Union Solidarity and Development Party – which serves as the junta’s electoral proxy party –  said the army’s Northwestern Regional Headquarters carried out Tuesday morning’s attack on Pa Zi Gyi village. It did not mention the number of casualties. The air strike happened during the inauguration of a public administration office established by Myanmar’s parallel National Unity Government, Nay Zin Latt, the National League for Democracy MP for Kanbalu township told RFA. The junta dissolved the NLD last month after the party failed to re-register with the Election Commission but members continue to work with the NUG to try to restore democracy in Myanmar and carry out administrative work in areas not under junta control. Locals said junta troops carry out frequent raids on Pa Zi Gyi. Nay Zin said many people died on the spot after a jet fighter dropped two bombs and an Mi-35 attack  helicopter fired over 200 shots from its machine guns. He said more than 800 locals were attending the ceremony. “There was a group of local residents who were discussing how to manage social issues in the community,” he said.  “They were bombarded by the air and shot at non-stop with machine guns. The shooting took about 15 minutes.” He said the injured were taken to nearby villages and some local voluntary groups were providing medical treatment.  RFA called Aye Hlaing, Sagaing region’s junta spokesperson and social affairs minister, but no one answered. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Anti-junta fighter killed during deportation from Thailand to Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/anti-junta-fighter-killed-during-deportation-from-thailand-to-myanmar/): One of three Burmese armed resistance fighters who sought medical assistance in Thailand was killed as Thai authorities handed them over to junta authorities en route to Myanmar, Radio Free Asia has learned. The incident prompted Thailand’s opposition Commoners Party on Monday to condemn the Thai government for cooperating with Myanmar’s military regime in what it said was a violation of domestic and international law. The three members of the anti-junta People’s Defense Force entered the Thai border town of Mae Sot, across from Myawaddy in Myanmar’s Kayin state, on April 1 seeking medical treatment, but were arrested by Thai authorities at the Thai-Myanmar border immigration gate. On the morning of April 4, they were sent back across the border to Myanmar’s Karen Border Guard Force, who arrested them and transferred them into the custody of junta troops. Following their deportation, reports emerged that the three PDF members – Thiha, the Lion Battalion’s deputy platoon commander, and fighters Htet Nay Win and Saw Phyo Lay – were killed in junta captivity. On Monday, the Lion Battalion spokesperson Anyar Thar told RFA that Saw Phyo Lay was shot as he attempted to escape during the handover and later died from his injuries. The status of the other two men remained unclear. “When [the PDF fighters] learned that they were being handed over to the BGF [Border Guard Forces], they jumped out of the boat that was carrying them,” he said. “Troops from both sides shot at them. [Saw Phyo Lay] who was about to die [from his injuries] was even handcuffed, put back into the boat and sent over to the BGF. This shows how good the relations are between the BGF and Thai authorities.” Anyar Thar said that Thiha and Htet Nay Win have been sent to the junta’s Southeast Regional Military Headquarters based in the Mon state city of Mawlamyine. Neither the junta nor the Karen Border Guard have released any news regarding the incident and attempts by RFA to reach Col. Saw Chit Thu, the head of Myanmar’s Border Guard Force, went unanswered on Monday. Opposition condemnation On Monday, Thailand’s opposition Commoners Party issued a statement criticizing the Thai government for collaborating with Myanmar’s junta and accusing it of perpetrating an “inhumane act” by assisting the junta in committing “war crimes.” The statement also called on Thailand’s Immigration Department to publicly clarify why it violated international and domestic laws by repatriating the PDF fighters after they entered Thailand in need of medical attention. “I do not accept the Thai government&#8217;s policy towards Myanmar anti-junta activists and refugee applicants,” Commoners Party spokesperson Kornkanok Khamta told RFA Burmese. “The government is sending them back to unsafe locations. We all have to show that we are one with the people of Myanmar.” Two of the People’s Defense Force fighters from Myanmar are seen in the back of a vehicle before being transferred to Myanmar security forces earlier this month. Credit: RFA screenshot from Twitter When asked about the Thai government’s response to the Commoners Party statement, Kornkanok Khamta said none was provided. “They silently neglect the statements of other organizations as well,” she said. Attempts by RFA to contact Thai Foreign Ministry spokesperson Kanchana Patarachoke went unanswered on Monday. Human rights groups have also called on the Thai government to examine its immigration department’s handling of the three resistance fighters. Speaking to RFA, Patrick Phongsathorn, a legal expert for the NGO Fortify Rights, urged the Thai government to investigate the situation as soon as possible and to prosecute the officer responsible for deporting the PDF members under Thailand’s anti-torture law. Refugees fearful Previously, Thai authorities have arrested Myanmar nationals seeking shelter in Thailand after fleeing fighting between the military and anti-junta forces and warned them to abide by Thai law, but mostly allowed them to stay on humanitarian grounds. One Myanmar refugee in Thailand named Nikki told RFA that members of the Burmese community there are now worried for their safety after the three PDF fighters were arrested and returned across the border. “This incident has seriously scared the Burmese people who are taking refuge in Thailand,” she said. “We are too scared to even go out to buy food. Thai police are regularly arresting Burmese refugees in Mae Sot, targeting the undocumented and political refugees.” Reports of the deportation came amid an April 5-8 attack by a combined force of the ethnic Karen National Liberation Army and the Lion Battalion on military and Karen Border Guard Force bases located north of Myawaddy. Although details of the attacks were not immediately clear, injuries have been reported and nearly 10,000 residents of the area are believed to have fled the fighting to safety. Some of the anti-junta fighters injured in the battle were taken to the Thai side of the border on April 9 and later arrested by Thai police. Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Matt Reed.
- [Myanmar’s rebel groups bomb pavilions built by military for New Years water festival](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-rebel-groups-bomb-pavilions-built-by-military-for-new-years-water-festival/): Myanmar’s New Years, called Thingyan, is normally a water festival in which people can drench each other during the hottest time of the year. And junta troops have been busy building pavilions around the country to create a sense of normalcy in the war-wracked country. But in an apparent attempt to dispel any notions of stability under military rule, rebel groups set off several bombs this past weekend at these pavilions in the cities of Yangon, Mandalay and Mawlamyine. No one was injured in the blasts, but they have clearly contributed to the turmoil in the country that has slid into civil war since the military’s February 2021 coup d’etat.  An anti-junta urban guerrilla group known as the Dark Shadow claimed responsibility for the explosions in Yangon’s Sanchaung, Dagon, and Thar Kay Ta townships, and at People’s Square downtown, in a statement issued on April 8.  The perpetrators of the bombings in Mandalay’s Zay Cho Market and in the Mon state city of Mawlamyine remained unknown on Monday. A resident of Yangon named Ye Myo told RFA Burmese that while no one was hurt in the explosions, the junta has responded with increased security at the sites ahead of the April 13-16 Thingyan celebrations. “The bombs that went off in the pavilion in front of the Sanchaung Police Station and the pavilion in front of People’s Square were very loud,” he said. “The junta has increased security after the blasts. We used to see only one or two military security personnel [near the sites], but after the blasts, we can see around 10 security personnel have been assigned to keep watch at night.” Ye Myo said that authorities dismantled at least three pavilions on Sunday in Yangon’s Mingalardon township amid reports that anti-junta forces planned to fire “remote-controlled missiles” at the sites. On Monday, the pro-junta Myawaddy newspaper reported that two members of the anti-junta Special Task Agency were arrested in Yangon’s Alone township for allegedly planning to carry out bombings during the water festival. The report said they were planning to frighten away would-be participants at the festival and that “effective action” will be taken against them. Attempts by RFA to reach the Special Task Agency for comment on the report went unanswered by the time of publishing. Trying to create a celebration Sources said that despite the bombings, the junta is continuing preparations for Thingyan with beefed up security in Myanmar’s various regions and states. They said that in addition to a festival pavilion planned for city hall in Naypyidaw, the junta is preparing some 20 smaller pavilions on Pyinmana-Taung Nyo Road in the capital’s Zabu Thiri township and a water festival parade.  But most people have no intention of taking part in Thingyan celebrations this year, a resident of Pyinmana, who declined to be named for security reasons, told RFA.   “I haven’t heard anything about preparations for the celebration by residents so far,” he said. “But I think the junta is trying very hard to create a very big celebration.” The Pyinmana resident said junta troops are on patrol at the pavilion sites “around the clock.” Other sources told RFA that the junta has been ordering civil servants from several government departments to take part in the Thingyan festivities and to organize traditional dance performances. Thingyan pavilions built by Myanmar’s military junta are seen along Inya Road in Yangon on Monday, April 10, 2023. The Yangon-based Dark Shadow (YGN-UG) anti-junta group claimed responsibility for the bombings in that city. Credit: RFA A resident of Mandalay named Ko Moe said that the junta is preparing to hold Thingyan festivities as usual, despite the bombing there, adding that there are “more pavilions this year” than last. “One significant addition compared with last year is the pavilion at Nay Cho market,” he said. “The junta is trying to bring large crowds to that area, too. I think they are building the pavilions at a vast cost with the help of those who support them and people in their inner circle.” He said that last year&#8217;s Thingyan Festival parade organized by the junta was a failure as residents boycotted the event. Tin Oo, a resident of Yangon, said that in addition to a pavilion being built at city hall, the junta has instructed each township administrator to build large pavilions for their townships and to organize traditional dance presentations for entertainment. “The junta’s intent is to make this year&#8217;s water festival crowded with people, whatever it takes,” he said. Tin Oo said the junta is offering 10,000 kyats (U.S.$5) per day to security guards and anyone who is willing to join celebrations at the pavilions, and 50,000 kyats (U.S.$24) per day and festival wear to dance troupes that are willing to take part. “[These offers are meant] to draw large crowds during the festival, which I think will be impossible,” he said. “We’ll have to wait and see if this year’s Water Festival will be crowded or not.” Calls for boycott Anti-junta political groups, meanwhile, are urging people across the country to go on strike instead of participating in the regime’s Thingyan celebrations.  Nan Lin of the Ta-Ka-Tha University Students’ Union Alumni Force told RFA that the junta is trying to draw large crowds during the Thingyan festival because it wants to “divide the people” and “make an impression that the situation in the country is under control.”  “The junta is forcefully controlling Myanmar’s heartland regions by burning down civilian villages, killing everyone in its way, and committing excessive, forceful and cruel atrocities, but in urban areas, it aims to make an impression that things are back to normal,” he said. “This is part of the junta’s plan to divide the people.” The armed opposition has called on people not to associate with the junta during the Water Festival and not to use military-related products. Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcom Foster.
- [Sagaing court sentences activists to between 3 and 13 years in prison](https://ij-reportika.com/sagaing-court-sentences-activists-to-between-3-and-13-years-in-prison/): A court in Myanmar’s northern Sagaing region has sentenced nine activists to prison terms ranging from three to 13 years, according to friends of the families. Final year law student and anti-regime strike leader Kyaw Win Sein received a 10-year sentence Friday under the Counter Terrorism Law, and one and a half years for incitement to sedition in the civil service. Kyaw Win Sein is believed to be around 30-years-old. He actively participated in anti-regime protests in Homalin township and boycotted his lessons after the military seized power in a February 2021 coup. Shortly after the coup, the junta issued a warrant for his arrest but he managed to evade capture until August last year. Fellow activists sentenced by the Homalin township court on Friday – seven men and a woman – also received long prison terms. “Nwet Nwet Aung was imprisoned for 10 years; Aung Hein for 10 years; Aung Ko Min for 10 years; Thet Tun Oo for 10 years; Sai Wai Yan for 13 years; Nay Naw for five years; Pyoe Thet Tin for five years; and Aung Myint Oo for three years,” said a family friend who declined to be named for fear of reprisals. “They all are in good health.” According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners the junta arrested more than 21,000 people since seizing power in a February 2021 coup. Of those nearly 17,400 are still being held in prisons across the country. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Malaysian government clarifies PM’s statements on South China Sea](https://ij-reportika.com/malaysian-government-clarifies-pms-statements-on-south-china-sea/): Malaysia’s government was on the defensive as it clarified its South China Sea policy, a day after the opposition leader skewered Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim for apparently taking a softer stance over a territorial dispute with China.  The Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement on the issue at the weekend amid a buzz among the public and analysts about comments that Anwar made after he returned from his first official visit to China as PM.    In its statement, the foreign office said that the country’s position on the South China Sea “is consistent and remains unchanged.” “The Government of Malaysia is unequivocally and firmly committed to protecting Malaysia’s sovereignty, sovereign rights and interests in its maritime areas in the South China Sea, as depicted by our 1979 Map,” it said. The 1979 Map, issued by the Malaysian Department of Mapping and Survey, has served as the official reference for the country’s territorial claims in the South China Sea. “Malaysia firmly holds the view that matters relating to the South China Sea must be resolved peacefully and constructively, in accordance with the universally recognized principles of international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982 UNCLOS),” the statement said. By stating the term “negotiation,” Prime Minister Anwar had “made the point that issues relating to the South China Sea should be discussed or resolved in a peaceful manner… and without compromising Malaysia’s principled position, to avoid any escalation of disputes and the threat or use of force,” the ministry further stated. “[I]t is therefore within this context that Malaysia will continue the diplomatic approach in our engagements with other States, including China,” it said.  After he returned from his trip to Beijing, the prime minister said he had told Chinese President Xi Jinping that, as a small country, Malaysia needed to continue with oil exploration in the waters of its exclusive economic zone (EEZ), Radio Free Asia and affiliated organization BenarNews reported on April 5. But “if the condition is that there must be negotiations to secure [our rights], then we are prepared to negotiate” with China, Anwar said. His remarks raised eyebrows in Malaysia and abroad because it seemed he was climbing down from the tougher stance that he took on the South China Sea issue before he became prime minister.  The PM, while afterwards answering questions in Parliament, seemed to adjust his conciliatory tone by adding that he “insisted that the area … falls within Malaysia’s territory” and that “in the meantime our exploration efforts will continue.” During his meeting with Xi in Beijing, the Chinese leader brought up the offshore work of Malaysian state petrochemical firm Petronas in the  Southeast Asian nation’s EEZ in the South China Sea, Anwar also told lawmakers. He said he told Xi that Petronas would continue its work because “Malaysia considered the area as part of its territory,” but “should China feel that they have the rights to the area, we could discuss and negotiate the matter.” On Thursday, Muhyiddin Yassin, leader of the Bersatu party that heads the opposition Perikatan coalition, ripped Anwar for his comments. “This statement is reckless and should never be issued by a prime minister. The indirect implications of this statement have indirectly acknowledged the Chinese claim to territories that are already Malaysian territory that must be defended,” Muhyiddin said. The South China Sea is one of the world’s busiest waterways and has an abundance of natural resources. It is home to several flashpoints involving maritime disputes over oil and gas exploration projects and fishing rights. China claims nearly the entire South China Sea, including waters within the exclusive economic zones of Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan. An oil rig is seen off the coast of Johor, Malaysia, Nov. 7, 2017.  Credit: Reuters/Henning Gloystein The initial statement by Anwar about his government being “prepared to negotiate” with China about the rights to explore natural resources in the South China Sea had led to some criticism that Malaysia’s sovereignty and jurisdiction on its continental shelf is recognized and not a matter of dispute or up for negotiation. Analysts warned against what they see as “China’s bilateral approach” where Beijing tries to “divide and conquer” members of the Southeast Asian bloc ASEAN when it comes to the South China Sea disputes using its superior economic weight. “Xi Jinping has used official state visits by President Marcos Jr. of the Philippines in January and Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim in April to press China’s claims in the South China Sea and to press for bilateral discussions,” said Carlyle Thayer, a veteran regional specialist. Several ASEAN states have accused China of impeding and harassing their oil and gas activities in areas within their exclusive economic zones that also fall within China’s nine-dash line, which Beijing uses to claim “historic rights” to almost 90% of the South China Sea.  In 2016, a U.N. tribunal declared this imaginary boundary as illegal, in a case brought by the Philippines. Edited by Imran Vittachi.
- [INTERVIEW: 'If I don't speak up on their behalf, I'll always be in pain'](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-if-i-dont-speak-up-on-their-behalf-ill-always-be-in-pain/): A Nov. 24 fire in an apartment block in Xinjiang&#8217;s regional capital, Urumqi, sparked protests across China, with many people expressing condolences for the victims of the fatal lockdown blaze and others hitting back at ruling Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping&#8217;s zero-COVID policy. Huang Yicheng was among them, turning up at a spontaneous protest at Shanghai&#8217;s Urumqi Road, only to be detained and mistreated by cops, who hung him upside down at one point, as he described in an earlier interview with Radio Free Asia given under the pseudonym Mr.Chen. Now in Germany, Huang spoke to RFA Mandarin about his plans for the future: Huang Yicheng: I&#8217;m from Shanghai. I am 26 years old and a graduate of the Chinese department of Peking University. I am currently a postgraduate student at the University of Hamburg, Germany. On Nov. 27, 2022, I was arrested by the police on Urumqi Middle Road, Shanghai, put onto a bus, and then escaped from the bus. Then a white man helped me escape the scene.  RFA: You were interviewed by me on Nov. 27, the weekend when the &#8220;white paper&#8221; movement took place. You were interviewed anonymously then, so why did you choose to disclose your real name and appearance now? Huang Yicheng: This is because I have now left China. I saw that there were so many people around the same age as me who took part in the white paper movement with me, who have been arrested and imprisoned. So I feel that I will always be in pain and have uncontrollable anxiety if I don&#8217;t stand up and speak out on their behalf, even though there are great risks involved in doing so. Protesters shout slogans in Shanghai, China, during a protest Nov. 27, 2022. Credit: AFP screenshot from AFPTV I hope that everyone can call for the release of Cao Zhixin and the other peaceful demonstrators who are now behind bars.  The government should tell us how many people were arrested in each city after the white paper movement, and issue a complete list of names for each city, so the rest of the world knows exactly what is going on. RFA: You just said that you are aware of the great risk of doing so. How would you deal with this risk? Huang Yicheng: This is very hard to think about, because now I have revealed my true identity, educational background and my true appearance. But I want to use this to encourage others in the same boat. But I also think it&#8217;s almost impossible to remain entirely anonymous in the current online environment. So instead of talking about how scared we are, we should face up to the risk and the fear. In that way, I hope that the next generation, or our own generation, within the next 10, 20 years or even sooner than that, will get to live in a society without the need for such fear, where we are free to express our thoughts without fear. RFA: Did you decide to study abroad due to safety concerns, or were you planning to do that anyway? Huang Yicheng: I had originally planned to study abroad, but it was very, very difficult to get a visa during the zero-COVID restrictions. I started this application before the Shanghai lockdown [of spring 2022], and it took more than a year to come through. This delay was one of the reasons that I took part in the white paper protests in the first place, as well as the three-month lockdown in Shanghai. It was an experience that changed my life. RFA: Were you worried that you might be prevented from leaving the country because you had taken part in the protest? Huang Yicheng: Yes, yes I was. I think everyone else had similar worries. They had already taken away two busloads of detained protesters from Urumqi Road in Shanghai between the evening of Nov. 26 and the early morning of Nov. 27. The video clips being shot at the time were very worrying. I never thought going into it that I would get detained. That&#8217;s why I want to speak out in support of the people who were detained. Hopefully we can put some pressure on [the authorities] and get them released. RFA: When I interviewed you on Nov. 27, when you had gotten back home, you said that you were very worried that the police would come looking for you, so you asked for anonymity. Did they come looking for you? Huang Yicheng: No, they didn&#8217;t. My identity was kept well hidden, and they didn&#8217;t find me. Cao Zhixin, an editor at the Peking University Publishing House, was arrested after attending a Nov. 2022 protest in Beijing’s Liangmahe district. Credit: Screenshot from video RFA: How did you manage to protect yourself? Huang Yicheng: I just hid at home and cut off all contact with friends at home and abroad. I don&#8217;t know if they used facial recognition or anything like that. I also made a video statement to be posted in case I got arrested and gave it to a friend I trust. He would have posted it if I had been detained. RFA: Given that you were actually caught by the police and put on the bus, it&#8217;s pretty lucky that you managed to escape – a fluke, wasn&#8217;t it? Huang Yicheng: When I think about it now, I can hardly believe it. It was a bit dream-like. When I was detained and put on the bus, it was parked on the southwest side of the intersection between Urumqi Road and Wuyuan Road. I was probably in the second row, near the door. Protesters are taken away by police in a bus on Urumqi Road in Shanghai on Nov. 26, 2022. Credit: Associated Press The policeman got off the bus and went to detain other demonstrators, but he didn&#8217;t handcuff us. We could see from the Twitter account “Mr Li is not your teacher” that there was...
- [Hanoi bans guided tours to its famous ‘Railway &amp; Coffee Street’](https://ij-reportika.com/hanoi-bans-guided-tours-to-its-famous-railway-coffee-street/): For years, Hanoi’s “Railway &amp; Coffee Street” has attracted tourists who come to see the trains run through the alley, barely clearing the shops that line either side. But now authorities in Vietnam’s capital have banned tours to the site, saying they have become dangerous, state media reported. The city’s tourism department said that tourists tend to cluster at certain choke points, causing traffic to back up and increasing the potential for accidents. The department ordered travel firms not to take tourists, especially foreigners, to the area. It wasn’t clear if there has been an increase in accidents along the route, but in September, local authorities closed one section of the rail line and put up barricades around it after a Korean tourist collided with a train while taking photos in the Railway &amp; Coffee Street.   Tourists take photos as a train comes down the track in the Old Quarter of Hanoi, Vietnam, in 2019. Credit: Reuters The tourist sustained only minor injuries because the train had been running at a low speed. The report said this was the first time that authorities have enacted safety measures related to the street. According to the tourism department, Hanoi has received nearly 1 million foreign visitors in the first three months of this year, six times higher than that of the same period last year. Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Holding out hope for a ‘spring’ free from China’s repression](https://ij-reportika.com/holding-out-hope-for-a-spring-free-from-chinas-repression/): While spring has arrived in the Northern Hemisphere, Uyghurs in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region are still waiting for their spring to arrive, when they will be delivered from the repression of China’s government. That’s the main sentiment expressed in a new online collection of 15 poems and short stories by writers with connections to East Turkistan, Uyghurs’ preferred name for Xinjiang. The Asian American Writers’ Workshop released “Spring Will Come: Writings from East Turkistan” on March 20, the eve of the Nowruz Festival, when Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang celebrate the end of an old year and the beginning of a new one on the day of the vernal equinox, which usually takes place on March 21.  The writings reflect the impacts of colonialism, lessons learned from past failures, and warnings for the future. They also deal with spiritual resistance, determination, adherence to one’s goals, and hope for freedom. “[T]hrough the title ‘Spring Will Come,’ we express our desire and belief that we cannot live in cruel winter forever and that spring will come to our land eventually,” said Munawwar Abdulla, a researcher at Harvard University who translated some of the contributions. The “cruel winter” she refers to is China’s repression of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in Xinjiang since 2017. At that time, authorities began detaining Uyghurs in “re-education” camps where they were forced to learn Mandarin Chinese and sometimes subjected to torture, sexual assaults and forced labor. Despite evidence and witness testimony about the abuse, Beijing has vehemently maintained that the camps were vocation training centers to prevent religious extremism and terrorism in the restive region. “Spring is the message of hope, resistance, resilience, and all good stuff.” Abdulla said. When will winter be over? The collection begins with famous Uyghur poet Abdurehim Ötkür’s poem “Calling Out for Spring,” the first stanza of which reads: When will this bitter winter be over? I call out for Spring with my every breath. Like a lion roaring in pain in the night,  I cry out for Spring to arrive. The publication comes as calls mount for the international community to take concrete measure to hold China accountable for what the United States government and several Western parliaments have said amount to genocide and crimes against humanity. The works also serve as a refutation of the Chinese government’s efforts to wipe out Uyghur culture, language and religion in an effort to Sinicize the region.  Amid the crackdown in recent years, authorities have detained in the camps and in prisons Uyghur intellectuals, including writers and artists, prominent business people, notable sports figures, Islamic clergymen and academics. “When more people in the world recognize that the Uyghur people have become genocide victims, it is important to let the world know that Uyghur people are a civilized people with a unique culture,” said Rahima Mahmut, a UK-based artist who also translated some of the pieces in the collection.  “They have writers, poets, artists, and talented people in every field,” she told Radio Free Asia. “China has portrayed Uyghurs as uneducated, uncivilized people who must be ‘re-educated.’ They have been making such efforts to paint Uyghurs in a negative light for many years. That is the main purpose of publishing this collection.” Voices of the diaspora The collection includes poems written in the 1940s in Xinjiang and ones written in English by diaspora Uyghurs as late as last year, said Mahmut, who also serves as UK director for the World Uyghur Congress, a Uyghur rights group.  “It manifests the connection diaspora Uyghurs have with their homeland,” she said.  The poem “My Plea” by Ilminur, known among diaspora Uyghurs as Efvan, is based on the 2017 crackdown in which her relatives were caught up. The first stanza reads: Oh, Heavenly Mountains, Behind you are corpses,  Before you is troubled silence. How many rivers are flowing deep red  Within your valleys? Oh, rebellious savage wolves, Will your howl save the world? Chinese authorities took Ilminur’s parents to the camps and sentenced other relatives to 10-to 18-year prison terms, she said.  “These events impacted me deeply, and I wrote this poem hoping that our land under the heavenly mountain will be free,” Ilminur told RFA. Ilminur, who illustrates Uyghur children’s books and magazines in the diaspora, provided bright sketches for the collection of works that evokes a sense of home and hope.  Her favorite drawing depicts three Uyghur women making round flatbread, or naan, by hand and placing it in an over. The drawing accompanies Abdushukur Muhammet’s poem “The Road Home.” “I feel good whenever I see this picture because I immediately think of my home and mother, Ilminur said. “Any sensible person will remember his mother, his home, when he sees it and feel the warmth.”  ‘Light in the darkness’ Mahmut, the UK-based artist,said she was particularly moved by Ilminur’s poem and Abdurrahim Imin’s poem, “The Beloved Will Come.” Efvan’s poem “depicted the reality that our people are suffering tremendously, and the world turned deaf,” said Mahmut. Imin’s poem, meanwhile, expresses hope that despite hardship and oppression, there must come a beautiful time when Uyghurs will be free.  “That poem gives our readers hope and tells them there is a light in the darkness, and we will get our liberty one day, and we can be free,” Mahmut said.  Mahmut and Abudulla were involved in the project from start to finish, collecting writings, translating them to English, and editing them after the Asian American Writers’ Workshop first contacted them about the compilation in June 2022. Other works in the collection are “If Needed” by Muyesser Abdulehed, “Elegy for a Home Besieged” by Munawwar Abdulla, writer Zunun Qadiri’s short story “The Edict,” and contributions by Uyghur writers currently in prison in Xinjiang, including Abduqadir Jalalidin’s “Boredom” and Perhat Tursun’s “Guest.”  The collection also includes pieces by two Kazakh writers.  “The global community must not just see our cries for help, our misery, and suffering,” Mahmut said. “I hope they also feel by reading our poets’...
- [No more fancy photo shoots, wedding veils or banquets in North Korean weddings](https://ij-reportika.com/no-more-fancy-photo-shoots-wedding-veils-or-banquets-in-north-korean-weddings/): No more wedding photos of bride and groom clinking wine glasses. No wedding veils. No extravagant banquets or over-the-top flower arrangements. And no pictures of the bride lighting the groom’s cigarette. All those smack of anti-socialist attitudes, and don’t embrace traditional North Korean ideals, authorities in the country say. Instead, women should dress in traditional if colorful attire (men can wear Western suits), and weddings should be humble, “patriotic” affairs that are less wasteful as the country suffers chronic food and fuel shortages, sources in the country told Radio Free Asia. Photos of the bride and groom clinking glasses, the bride lighting the groom’s cigarette, and the groom lifting his bride in the air have all been highly discouraged in the new North Korean wedding guidelines.  The wedding guidelines, which also tell newlyweds to avoid sunglasses, clothes emblazoned with foreign letters, large flowers worn on the bride’s head and long vehicle processions, were announced in recent community lectures, a resident of the South Hamgyong province said on condition of anonymity to protect her safety. “The core content is that weddings should be frugal, and done in [the North Korean] way,” she said.  Those who are seen to be violating the “noble morals of socialist lifestyle” were threatened with unspecified punishments, she said. Brides should not wear a veil while donning traditional Korean wedding attire. ‘Unpatriotic’ Even in North Korea, weddings have become an occasion to show off wealth and status, and authorities appear to be alarmed about that.  Also, many weddings were postponed during the coronavirus pandemic, so officials held lectures on acceptable wedding practices in anticipation of a nuptial surge this spring, the sources said. “The lecturer talked about how some people set up lavish wedding banquets or show off their power and status or arrange for a long procession of cars when the groom takes the bride away,” the first source said.  “Acts like these, they said, are unpatriotic because they waste fuel and food during this difficult time,” she said. North Korean wedding guidelines advise against marrying couples wearing sunglasses at their ceremony. Wedding photos should also be formal to avoid displaying behavior that isn’t considered appropriate, the lecturers said, according to the residents RFA spoke to. Attendees were told to avoid taking wedding photos that are not in the North Korean style, “such as of the groom holding and lifting the bride above his waist, or of the bride and groom clinking wine glasses or of the bride lighting a cigarette for the groom,” said the source.  Marrying couples are urged to refrain from wearing any clothing featuring visible foreign characters or brand logos at their ceremony. In nearby North Hamgyong province, these lectures focused on being humble in what types of poses are used in wedding photos, and spent a considerable amount of time discussing the choice of flowers during weddings, a resident there told RFA. “Many years ago, the authorities issued guidelines on the size of the flowers that the bride and groom should wear on their chest and hair at weddings, as well as what they should not do when taking pictures,” the second source said. “We should not decorate the chest with flowers larger than 7-8 centimeters (3 inches) and on the head, no more than 15 (6 inches).” She said that every flower shop has a picture showing the government’s standards for the size of wedding flowers. North Korean workers are discouraged to miss or leave work early to attend a wedding ceremony. Don’t miss much work Also, wedding attendees were told to miss as little work as possible, the first source said. “Young people attending a wedding were advised to go after work,” she said. “And groups of 10 or more young people should not follow the bride and groom when they are on their photo shoot.” The lecturers threatened to punish couples who violated the standards, but didn’t specify what their consequences would be. “The intention is to impose punishment according to recently adopted laws,” she said. Brides are discouraged from wearing large flowers in their hair or on their chests.  The source may have been referring to the 2020 Rejection of Reactionary Thought and Culture Act, which lays out punishments for various cultural offenses such as spreading South Korean or foreign cultural practices. The law does not specifically list which acts are considered “reactionary,” the Seoul-based Korea Joongang Daily noted in a report published shortly after it was passed.  But authorities have used it to prevent people from dancing in a “capitalist” way, speaking or writing “like a South Korean” or lending money at high interest rates.  North Korean wedding guidelines warn against newlyweds showing off wealth with long vehicle processions.  Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster. Illustrations by Amanda Weisbrod.
- [China announces military drills around Taiwan](https://ij-reportika.com/china-announces-military-drills-around-taiwan/): Forty-two Chinese warplanes and eight ships were detected around Taiwan on Saturday, officials said, as Beijing announced a three-day combat readiness exercise and patrols near the island after the Taiwanese president met with the U.S. house speaker in California. Twenty-nine of the morningtime sorties involved Chinese air force J-10, J-11 and J-16 fighter-jets that crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait – the de facto boundary between Taiwan and mainland China – Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said.  It marked the largest incursion into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) this year. An ADIZ is an area where foreign aircraft are tracked and identified before flying farther into a country’s airspace. China carried out the maneuvers three days after Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen met with U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy near Los Angeles – the first meeting of its kind on American soil, despite angry warnings from Beijing. The ministry “condemned such irrational actions and will defend Taiwan’s security with solid combat readiness,” it said. Also on Saturday morning, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Eastern Theater Command announced in a statement that “United Sword” drills would take place from April 8 to April 10 “as planned.” The Command’s spokesman, Col. Shi Yi, said the exercise would be held in the Taiwan Strait and in the sea and airspace to the north, east and south of Taiwan. Last August, the Eastern Theater Command held a week-long military exercise around Taiwan right after then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island. China considers Taiwan a Chinese province and has repeatedly protested against support extended by “external forces” to the island. In addition, the Chinese military will conduct live-fire drills for five days in April in waters off Fuzhou, the capital of southeastern Fujian province near Taiwan, according to the provincial coast guard, which issued a navigational warning for the area. Another live-fire exercise will be held on April 10 at Pingtan island in the Taiwan Strait. Aircraft of the PLA Eastern Theater Command conduct joint combat training exercises around Taiwan after the visit by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Aug. 7, 2022. Credit: Xinhua via AP Taiwan’s defense ministry said it was monitoring the situation and would respond accordingly “to defend our country.” In recent years, China has “continued to send aircraft and ships to harass the region,” the ministry said in a statement. “It even used President Tsai’s visit to the United States as an excuse to conduct military exercises, which has seriously damaged regional peace, stability and security.” Taiwan’s military would respond calmly and rationally in order not to escalate tensions, it said. On Thursday, after the Tsai-McCarthy meeting in California, Beijing promised to take “strong and resolute measures” as it condemned the U.S. for “crossing the line and acting provocatively” against China. “This [the meeting] is essentially the United States acting with Taiwan to connive at ‘Taiwan independence’ separatists’ political activities in the United States,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “It seriously infringes upon China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” President Tsai is now back in Taipei. Upon her arrival on Friday, she said her trip proved that “when facing pressure and coercion, Taiwan will only become more unified.” “We will never give in to attempts to hold us down, nor will we shy away from obstacles or cease engaging with the world,” Tsai said during remarks at Taoyuan International Airport.
- [Week of fierce fighting forces 50,000 to flee Kale township in Myanmar’s north](https://ij-reportika.com/week-of-fierce-fighting-forces-50000-to-flee-kale-township-in-myanmars-north/): Heavy artillery began raining from the sky onto villages to the north of Kale township on March 30, touching off what would become a week of fierce fighting between junta troops and local armed opposition forces. By the time the dust had settled on Wednesday, more than 50,000 residents of 17 villages had scattered, leaving a vast swathe of area on the outskirts of the bustling township in Myanmar’s Sagaing region eerily quiet and creating a humanitarian crisis in nearby population centers where many fled to seek shelter. “They all had to flee to the town of Kalay – the number of refugees coming into town amounted up to about 30,000 in two days, according to our calculations,” an aid worker assisting the displaced told Radio Free Asia. The influx of refugees amounts to nearly a quarter of the town’s population of around 130,000. “What they mainly need is mosquito nets, as there are a lot of mosquitoes in the summer. The weather is too hot, too. They need medicines and food such as rice, cooking oil and salt.” Following the artillery barrage, junta troops from the junta’s Kale-based Kha-La-Ya (228) unit, backed by forces from the regional command headquarters, conducted village raids using ground troops while aircraft provided support. A fighter jet and three military helicopters were deployed to attack a location near the village of Pyin Taw U on Monday evening alone, residents said. An official with the anti-junta Kale People’s Defense Force paramilitary group told RFA that multiple buildings were destroyed during the week of raids. “How the fighting broke out was that the junta forces first started firing heavy artillery on the villages in the north of Kale more than 40 times and then their ground troops [and air force] began to attack,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity citing security concerns. “We haven’t been able to confirm the details of the casualties and property damage in the villages yet. A Christian church and several houses have been damaged,” he said. “The junta threw fire bombs into the villages [on Thursday]. Nyung Kone and Kyi Kone villages are still burning.” The official said that two people from the Kale PDF had been captured by the junta, one was killed and three were injured in the fighting.  A spokesman for the Kale PDF claimed that 10 junta soldiers were killed and 20 were wounded over the course of the week, but RFA has not been able to independently confirm the numbers. A Baptist church in Kale’s Pyidaw village, Sagaing region, was destroyed by air raids by Myanmar junta forces, Monday, April 3, 2023. Credit: Chin National League (Upper Chindwin) Early on Tuesday, fighting broke out between junta soldiers stationed at Kale University and the anti-junta Siyin region Civic Defense Militia, the militia said in a statement. One junta soldier was killed and CDM forces captured some military weapons, the group said.  Attempts by RFA to reach Aye Hlaing, the junta spokesman for Sagaing region, about the clashes went unanswered Friday. ‘Our village is burning’ A resident of one of the villages north of Kale, who also declined to be named, told RFA that most of the people displaced by the fighting are sheltering in the homes of relatives in town, churches and Bible schools, or in the jungle. Other sources said that at least two civilians were killed by the military during the raids, while three others were injured by shelling and airstrikes. Meanwhile, the junta troops have set up camp at a Buddhist monastery in Nyang Kone village, making it impossible to return to the area, a resident said. “When the fighting paused, we returned home riding motorcycles to fetch our items of value, but once we heard them start back up, we had to flee again,” the Nyang Kone resident said. “We can hear gunshots and artillery shelling from the town. I dare not go back to my village. Other villagers who fled to the nearby woods said that our village is burning.” On Thursday, the anti-junta Kale Defense Force issued a warning to residents traveling to the north of the township that “a fight could break out at any time.” Residents estimate that since Myanmar’s military seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021 coup d’etat, around 70,000 people – or 1 out of every 5 inhabitants – have fled fighting in Kale township. Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
- [Candlelight Party starts first protest in years, but police quickly shut them down](https://ij-reportika.com/candlelight-party-starts-first-protest-in-years-but-police-quickly-shut-them-down/): About 100 activists with the main opposition Candlelight Party started a protest on Friday in Phnom Penh – their first demonstration in several years – but police quickly confronted and dispersed them, claiming they were causing a traffic jam. The activists gathered in front of the party’s headquarters to demand the release of recently arrested party officials. The city had refused to give them permission to protest at Freedom Park, the location of previous rallies against Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government, the party’s Youth Movement President Thorn Chantha said. Party organizers have faced threats and harassment as they prepare for July’s parliamentary elections. Party Vice President Thach Setha, for example, was arrested in January on charges of writing false checks. Her lawyers filed another request for bail earlier this week. “We also would like the political space to be opened ahead of the election to show the international and national community is acceptable,” said Thorn Chantha. “There should be fair competition. While other parties have the right to do everything, the Candlelight Party is being restricted.” Separately, Thorn Chantha said he was assaulted on Thursday by two unknown people after he ordered coffee. He said he was struck with a baton on his shoulder. The assailants then followed him as he was fleeing in his car and smashed his driver’s window with a rock, he said. “This violence is to intimidate opposition party activists who dare to conduct political activities ahead of the election,” Thorn Chantha said.   ‘People understand their rights’ Police from the city’s Sen Sok district pushed the protesters away from the party’s headquarters, and activists eventually agreed to move off the street and into the party&#8217;s headquarters, said Rong Chhun, a labor leader who recently became the party’s vice president. “We were protesting on the pavement, but the traffic was flowing. The accusation is unjustified,” he said. “This shows that they restrict freedom of speech and assembly.” There was no violence between police and protesters, he said. District officials invited him to a meeting on Monday to discuss the demonstration, which he told Radio Free Asia he would attend. But he urged NGOs and diplomats to monitor what takes place.  “This was yet another image of repression to scare the youths and to scare people into not expressing themselves,” he said. “But people understand their rights and the law now. The more they scare us, the more people will join us.” Translated by Samean Yun. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar junta sentences strike leader to a further 34 years in prison](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-sentences-strike-leader-to-a-further-34-years-in-prison/): A prison court in Sagaing region’s Monywa township has sentenced student activist and anti-regime strike leader Wai Moe Naing to 34 years in prison. He has already been sentenced to 12 years in prison but will probably only have to serve the longest of all the terms, meaning he will spend 20 years behind bars, Monywa University of Economics Student Union President Shin Thant told RFA.  “Wai Moe Naing is in good health and passes the time with a strong spirit,” Shin Thant said.  “He gave a message for his comrades outside to be patient and strong.” Wednesday’s judgment included a 20 year sentence for robbery, three years for rioting, one year for carrying a deadly weapon in a crowd, one year for inflicting pain on another, and three years for incitement to mutiny under Section 505 (a) of the Penal Code, broadened after the Feb. 2021 coup from only military personnel to include all civil servants. Wai Moe Naing could face an even longer sentence if two more cases, both carrying maximum 20 year terms, are not served concurrently. He is yet to be tried for the alleged killing of two policemen and sedition, according to his college&#8217;s student leaders. After the military seized power just over two years ago, Wai Moe Naing led anti-regime strikes in Monywa. On April 15, 2021, he was riding in a column of motorcycles with other protesting students when junta troops and police ran him down in cars and arrested him. Wai Moe Naing founded the Monywa University Student Union and served as its first president. He is also an author of short stories, magazine articles and online blogs. His short story, Pwint Chain Tan Lyin (When Time Starts to Bloom) was published in Phuu Ngon Sal Kyaw That magazine when he was 13.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.  
- [Barred from China...again. Beijing sanctions Taipei's de facto US ambassador](https://ij-reportika.com/barred-from-china-again-beijing-sanctions-taipeis-de-facto-us-ambassador/): UPDATED AT 06:30 a.m. ET on 2023-04-07 Beijing on Friday announced further sanctions against the Taiwanese de facto ambassador to the United States following the meeting between Taiwan’s president and the U.S. House speaker, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said. New “punishments” with immediate effect have also been imposed against two organizations, the Taiwan Prospect Foundation and the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats. China also announced sanctions on U.S.-based Hudson Institute, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, and their four senior officials.  Bi-khim Hsiao, Head of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the U.S., as well as her family members, will be “strictly” banned from entering the mainland, Hong Kong and Macau, a spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said. Hsiao’s financial sponsors and related businesses will also be banned from “cooperating with mainland organizations and individuals.” “All other necessary punitive measures will be taken to ensure lifelong accountability according to law,” the spokesperson warned. Hsiao, who is being labeled “a diehard Taiwan independence separatist” by Beijing, responded on Twitter: “Wow, the PRC just sanctioned me again, for the second time,” referring to China by its official name the People’s Republic of China. Last August following a visit by then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, China imposed an entry ban on Pelosi and her immediate family members, as well as Hsiao and six other Taiwanese officials and lawmakers. The measures are believed to have little impact as Hsiao does not travel to China and her family has no business interests in the mainland. Taiwan’s foreign ministry reacted by saying the move “exposed the irrational and absurd nature of the communist regime.” It described President Tsai’s visit as “a complete success,” and called sanctions an “overreaction to further suppress our country’s international space.” ‘Resolve, will and ability’ Similar sanctions were also imposed on two Taiwanese organizations – the Prospect Foundation and the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats – for their involvement in promoting Taiwan independence “under the guise of academic and research exchanges.&#8221; &#8220;No individual or force should underestimate our strong resolve, will and ability to safeguard China&#8217;s sovereignty and territorial integrity,&#8221; the spokesperson of the mainland’s Taiwan Affairs Office said. China lists Taiwan as one of its provinces but Chinese courts do not hold jurisdiction over the island. In a statement, the Prospect Foundation said it regretted the Chinese move, saying it would “set up obstacles for China&#8217;s communication with the outside world.” It called on Beijing to reverse the move as soon as possible but added that the foundation would not change its principles of upholding “the spirit of academic independence and the principle of safeguarding Taiwan&#8217;s sovereignty, conducting exchanges and cooperating with the outside world,” because of China&#8217;s announcement. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, second from right, welcomes Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen as she arrives at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., April 5, 2023. Credit: AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu The Chinese Foreign Ministry also imposed an entry ban on four senior executives of the Hudson Institute and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, which hosted Tsai Ing-wen during her recent stopovers in New York and California.  “Universities, institutions and other organizations and individuals in China are prohibited from conducting exchanges and cooperation with the two U.S. institutions,” the ministry said in a statement. On Thursday, Beijing vowed to take “strong and resolute measures” against Taiwan and a Chinese carrier group is currently operating in the waters east of the island. The aircraft carrier Shandong is in the West Pacific for the first time – its regular operation area is the South China Sea. It is equipped with a large number of warplanes on the deck, including J-15 multirole fighters, Z-18 transport helicopters and at least one Z-9 reconnaissance helicopter. The Chinese Foreign Ministry repeatedly condemned the meeting between Tsai Ing-wen and Kevin McCarthy, as well as the Taiwanese president’s stopovers in the U.S. Beijing said Washington and Taipei have “crossed the line” and “seriously infringed upon China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Meanwhile, former Taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou returned from a trip to China Friday, warning that the policies of Tsai Ing-wen’s government have escalated tensions with Beijing and the island will in future have “a choice between peace and war,” the Reuters news agency reported. Ma is the first former president to visit China since 1949. His Kuomintang party hopes to regain the presidency in next January’s election on a  campaign of increased cooperation with Beijing. This story has been updated to include comments from Taiwan&#8217;s foreign ministry and the Prospect Foundation. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [More than 4,000 people flee into Thailand after fighting in Kayin state intensifies](https://ij-reportika.com/more-than-4000-people-flee-into-thailand-after-fighting-in-kayin-state-intensifies/): Intense fighting in southeastern Myanmar’s Kayin state has prompted more than 4,000 people to flee across the Thai border, where many have crowded together in makeshift camps on goat and cattle farms, aid workers said.  Citizen video obtained by Radio Free Asia showed several dozen people wading chest-deep across the Thaung Yin River into Thailand. Some carried a bag or wore a backpack while others appeared to be crossing without any personal possessions. The refugees staying on goat and cattle farms around Mae Sot don’t have enough access to toilets and are dealing with hot weather, aid worker Myo Myint Aung told RFA. April is the hottest time of year. “There is no toilet for them at the goat farm,” he said. “We will have to relocate them to the cattle farm but since there are too many refugees there and transportation is difficult, they are still kept at the goat farm.” A person helping the displaced war refugees said there are currently 3,000 war refugees in Thailand’s Mae Sot district and over 1,000 in Mae Yama district. The refugees have fled intensifying fighting in Kayin state between forces for and against the military junta, which took over the government in a 2021 coup. On Wednesday, the anti-junta Karen National Liberation Army, or KNLA, raided two outposts of the military junta and the Karen Border Guard Force – an ethnic Karen force aligned with the Myanmar military – near Shwe Kokko in Myawaddy township. Shwe Kokko is the site of a Chinese-backed U.S $15 billion real estate and casino mega-project that has gained notoriety as a bastion of illegal activity, including drug trafficking. Fierce fighting also broke out at a casino residence and at the village’s Kayin New Year celebration grounds. Myanmar citizens from Shwe Kokko are seen at the Thai border after fleeing fighting between the pro-junta Karen Border Guard Forces and anti-junta KNU’s Karen National Liberation Army on April 5, 2023, Credit: Citizen journalist ‘We left everything at home’ People only had time to grab a few clothing items before leaving their homes, said Min Thant, a Myawaddy township resident who fled to one of the new camps in Thailand. “Shwe Kokko residents said earlier that they were going to flee as the sound of heavy artillery shelling was too close to our village,” he said. “The artillery shelling got even closer to the village around 8 a.m. and everyone fled here… We couldn’t bring much with us except some necessary clothes and ran. We left everything at home.”  Thai authorities are helping displaced people flee from Myanmar to Thailand, and are helping them find shelter in five locations, said Ye Min of the Aid Alliance Committee, a Thailand-based migrant worker rights organization. “Thai authorities have designated some places in Thai villages, schools and some locations on the opposite side of the border from where battles broke out,” he said. “Thai residents from nearby villages cook food and send it to them. The Thai military is also providing them with water and health care.” Worries of possible forced return A staff member at Friends without Borders, a Thai NGO that works on the Thai-Myanmar border, told BenarNews that she is still worried that the refugees may be deported prematurely even though they are currently being treated with leniency by Thai authorities. “I praise the authorities for not barring them,” Pornsuk Kedsawang said. “But what worries me is that they may send them back too soon, so I beg the authorities to keep them until the situation is calm.”  A Mae Sot resident said residents are planning to provide food to refugees with physical and mental injuries. “When a war breaks out, people develop anxiety and fear,” he said. “They are scared of bullets or injuries. They are worried that their homes and belongings would burn. They cry with such worries and anxieties.” Saw Khin Maung Myint, the junta’s Karen state spokesman, said to RFA that he has reported the refugee situation to government officials in Nay Pyi Taw. “Our government (state administration) can’t reach out to the refugees who are in Mae Sot,” he said. “If I may say, I think that the Union government is responsible for such cases. That’s why we report the issues to the Union government.” Saw Khin Maung Myint did not answer RFA’s inquiry about the situation of the fighting. Junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun also did not respond to a request for comment from RFA. A Myawaddy resident said fighting had calmed down by Thursday morning. The Karen Border Guard Force has not yet released any information about the casualties on both sides as a result of the fighting. RFA contacted the KNLA joint forces by telephone, but was unable to contact them. Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news organization.
- [U.S. Embassy says it doesn’t support opposition – only ‘multi-party democracy’](https://ij-reportika.com/u-s-embassy-says-it-doesnt-support-opposition-only-multi-party-democracy/): The U.S. Embassy said Thursday it doesn’t “support any particular individual, institution, or political party” in Cambodia, and only wants the country to have “an inclusive, multi-party democracy.” The statement from Embassy spokesperson Stephanie Arzate on Thursday followed a public warning from Prime Minister Hun Sen earlier this week of a break in diplomatic relations if “Cambodia’s foreign friends” support opposition party groups and politicians.  “Promoting democracy and respect for human rights is central to U.S. foreign policy in Cambodia and around the world,” Arzate said in response to an inquiry from Radio Free Asia. “We support the Cambodian people and their sustained aspirations for an inclusive, multi-party democracy that protects human rights as enshrined in the Kingdom’s constitution.” Speaking at a hospital inauguration in Tbong Khmum province on Monday, Hun Sen alluded to recent lawsuits and criminal court verdicts against prominent opposition party politicians.  “You have to choose between an individual group that breaks the laws and the government,” he said. “Please choose one. If you need those who were penalized by law, please do so, and you can then break diplomatic relations from Cambodia.” In recent months, the ruling Cambodian People’s Party and Hun Sen have been working to silence and intimidate opposition figures ahead of the July general elections through a series of arrests and lawsuits. In the same remarks on Monday, Hun Sen said he would continue to hunt and eliminate opposition groups – who he accused of committing treason – out of the political arena.  In one high-profile example, opposition party leader Kem Sokha was sentenced to 27 years for treason last month in a decision widely condemned as politically motivated.  The charges stemmed partly from a 2013 video in which he discusses a strategy to win power with the help of American experts. The United States Embassy has rejected any suggestion that Washington was trying to interfere in Cambodian politics. Cambodia’s Defense Minister Tea Banh says that if countries want to hold joint military exercises with Cambodia, they should invite it to do so and should also cover the costs. Credit: Associated Press file photo Ammo, fuel, explosives Defense Minister Tea Banh laid down his own challenge to foreign countries, saying that if any nation wants to hold joint military exercises with Cambodia, they should invite Cambodia to do so and should also cover the costs. Cambodia and China are currently holding joint military exercises – focusing on security operations during major events and humanitarian relief – at the Military Police Training Center in Kampong Chhnang province. The Golden Dragon exercises run from March 23 to April 8. Earlier in March, the two nations staged their first-ever joint naval drills in waters off Sihanoukville in southwest Cambodia. The province is home to the Ream Naval Base that China is helping Cambodia to develop.  Tea Banh said the Chinese military has provided ammunition, explosives, gasoline and other military equipment for the joint drills. Additionally, the Chinese military will hand over all military equipment to Cambodia once the drills have been completed, he said.  China has been the only country to reach out to Phnom Penh about joint exercises, the minister said at a ceremony on Wednesday. Other countries have only complained about Cambodia’s military, but have taken no action, he said. “If you truly have a genuine intent, please come have a real discussion about this,” he said. “How much would you responsibly be able to cover for the costs of expenses of a joint exercise?” Military ties between China and Cambodia have deepened in recent years, with Beijing providing aid, equipment and training. In 2021, the United States imposed an arms embargo on Cambodia over concerns about “deepening Chinese military influence” in the country. Wei Wenhui, China’s southern regional commander, said at Wednesday’s ceremony that China and Cambodia are important countries in the region with responsibility for safeguarding security and prosperity. He added that China promotes the development of peace in the world and pursues a policy of defense – not hegemony, or perpetual expansion or influence. The United States is committed to working with partners in the region to support a common vision for freedom and openness in the Indo-Pacific, Arzate told RFA via email on Thursday when asked about Tea Banh’s remarks.  Translated by Sok Ry Sum. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [Junta court sentences 4 people to life for ‘funding terrorism’](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-court-sentences-4-people-to-life-for-funding-terrorism/): A military court in Myanmar’s northern Sagaing region has sentenced four people to life imprisonment under the junta’s anti-terrorism laws, locals told RFA. They were all arrested by troops in their homes in Indaw township on March 5 this year. Residents identified them as Thein Hla, a civil disobedience movement teacher in her 40s; two other women, Khin Pyae Pyae Tun and Aye Aye; and a 24-year-old man, Aye Min Tun. “The 24-year-old man was sentenced on April 1,” an Indaw resident told RFA, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Three other women were also sentenced [on April 3]. All received life time imprisonment under Sections 50 (j) and 52(a)”, a local man told RFA. Section 50 (j) of the Counter-Terrorism Law relates to funding terrorism, while 52 (a) covers the organization of or participation in terrorist acts along with harboring terrorists or hosting meetings. The four were among 22 people arrested and accused of donating money to the Indaw People’s Defense Force. The other 18 were released on bail. “A PDF member was arrested first. Then [more] people were arrested and accused of having their names on the donor list [to the PDF]. But there is no evidence,” said a woman who also declined to be named for fear of reprisals.  “The arrest of the teacher Thein Hla also has no evidence. She was accused of providing 100,000 to 200,000 [kyat or U.S.$48-96] in that list and was arrested. She has committed no serious crime. It&#8217;s only because she participated in the anti-regime civil disobedience movement. The other three are ordinary people.” Locals say another man from Indaw was sentenced to life imprisonment under the same terrorism financing law on Feb. 27 this year. According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma) more than 21,200 civilians have been arrested nationwide during the more than two years since the junta seized power in a coup, of which over 17,300 are still behind bars. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [China promises resolute response after Tsai-McCarthy meeting](https://ij-reportika.com/china-promises-resolute-response-after-tsai-mccarthy-meeting/): China vowed Thursday to take “strong and resolute measures” after a meeting between Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen and U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California, as a Chinese aircraft carrier sailed near Taiwan, putting the island’s military on guard. At the same time, the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Nimitz sailed in the waters east of Taiwan, 740 kilometers (400 nautical miles ) from the island, according to Taiwan’s defense ministry. The Nimitz may be assisting Taiwan “in monitoring and preventing Chinese military actions in a worst case scenario,” said a Taiwanese military analyst. Tsai’s transit in the U.S. and her meeting with McCarthy, has provoked protests from multiple major institutions in China, including the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the National People&#8217;s Congress and the Communist Party’s Central Office, Shen Ming-shih from Taiwan’s main military think tank INDSR told Radio Free Asia. ‘Violation of China’s sovereignty’ In a statement released Thursday, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson condemned the “high-profile” meeting between the Taiwanese leader and the U.S. House Speaker, as well as Tsai’s stopovers in the United States. “This is essentially the United States acting with Taiwan to connive at ‘Taiwan independence’ separatists’ political activities in the United States,” the release said, “It seriously infringes upon China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” It accused the U.S. of “crossing the line and acting provocatively” against China. “This has put cross-Strait relations in serious difficulty.”  “The Taiwan question is at the core of China’s core interests and the first red line that must not be crossed in China-U.S. relations,” the ministry reiterated. “China will take strong and resolute measures to defend our sovereignty and territorial integrity,” it warned. The aircraft carrier USS Nimitz taking part in a trilateral maritime exercise with Japanese and South Korean navies, April 3-4, 2023. Credit: U.S. Navy In the week before the Tsai-McCarthy meeting, there was no noticeable increase of Chinese military movements near Taiwan, leading to the prediction by Taiwan National Security chief Tsai Ming-yen that “the government expected a less severe reaction” from Beijing than when McCarthy’s predecessor Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan last August. However on Wednesday, as Tsai met McCarthy outside Los Angeles, China’s Shandong aircraft carrier group “passed through the Bashi Channel and entered Taiwan&#8217;s southeastern waters,” Taiwan’s defense ministry reported. Intimidation Japan’s Ministry of Defense confirmed in a statement issued Thursday that three Chinese naval vessels including the Kuznetsov-class aircraft carrier Shandong, a Zhangkai II-class frigate and a Fuyu-class fast combat support ship, were spotted sailing in the western Pacific Ocean. It said this is the first time that the Shandong has sailed in the Pacific Ocean. Chinese media also said it is the Shandong’s first exercise in the West Pacific as its regular operation area is the South China Sea. A picture of the Chinese aircraft carrier released with the statement shows a large number of warplanes on the deck, including J-15 multirole fighters, Z-18 transport helicopters and at least one Z-9 reconnaissance helicopter.  Taiwan’s Minister of Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng told lawmakers that as of Thursday morning the Chinese carrier was 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) east of Pingtung County in southern Taiwan.  The carrier-based aircraft are supposed to conduct some flight training, Chiu said, but “no planes have taken off nor landed yet.” He said he could not rule out that the carrier is preparing for a military exercise. “One of the main purposes of the Shandong’s current mission is to issue a warning to Taiwan and the U.S.,” said Shen Ming-shih, who is acting deputy chief executive officer at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research. “When President Tsai&#8217;s plane flies from Los Angeles to Taiwan, the Chinese aircraft carrier may deliberately approach the route,” Shen said, adding that in his opinion “it is only for intimidation and not an actual attack.”  The analyst told RFA the Taiwanese and the U.S. military have already made preparations for possible events. Aircraft taking off from USS Nimitz during a trilateral maritime exercise with Japanese and South Korean navies, April 3-4, 2023. Credit: U.S. Navy Minister Chiu said that the Taiwanese military is monitoring the situation closely and has tasked aircraft, Navy vessels, and land-based missile systems with responding accordingly. A couple of Taiwanese Navy’s frigates are currently located just 10 kilometers away from the Shandong. The minister also said that the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Nimitz is currently 400 nautical miles (740 kilometers) east of Taiwan. While he can’t confirm that the Nimitz is here for the Shandong, given the situation “there’s a connection.” The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier has just taken part in a trilateral maritime exercise with the Japanese and South Korean navies in the East China Sea from April 3-4.  The U.S. Navy said in a statement that currently “ships from the USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group are conducting operations in the U.S. 7th Fleet’ region,” which covers most of the Indo-Pacific. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Demolition of Kashgar’s Khan Bazaar creates uncertain future for Uyghur shop owners](https://ij-reportika.com/demolition-of-kashgars-khan-bazaar-creates-uncertain-future-for-uyghur-shop-owners/): Kashgar’s centuries-old Khan Bazaar, seen at left in a Dec. 21, 2022, image, is being demolished by Chinese authorities. The results of the destruction can be seen in the photo at right, taken on March 22, 2023. Authorities in China’s Xinjiang region say they want to upgrade the area and replace dilapidated structures. Credit: Maxar Technologies (L); Planet (R) Qasimjan Abdurehim remembers Kashgar’s centuries-old Khan Bazaar as a thriving marketplace where Uyghur merchants traded fabrics and modern-day tourists strolled along the pedestrian street that ran down the middle of it. Last month, Chinese workers began demolishing the bazaar for “optimization” purposes — renovations to upgrade the area and replace what they said were dilapidated structures with modern ones.  Uyghurs such as Abdurehim believe the move is another step by the Chinese government to force the mostly Muslim ethnic group to assimilate into the mainstream culture and wipe out their culture and heritage. A short video posted on the TikTok app showed that most of the shops’ stairs, windows and doors had been destroyed. Market supervision officials confirmed that demolition and reconstruction efforts were under way. “They tore down the old structures and built new ones, which they claimed to be earthquake-resistant,” said Abdurehim, who is in his 40s and now works as a real estate agent in Virginia. This isn’t the first case. When Chinese authorities razed Kashgar’s iconic Grand Bazaar, the largest international trade market in all of Xinjiang, in 2022, they did not retain any of the culturally distinctive traits of the market. Three arrested Fearful they would lose their businesses forever, some Uyghur shop owners in the Khan Bazaar quarreled with government workers when the demolition began, a neighborhood committee member said.  Police arrested three people including Bahtiyar, a 16-year-old whose father was imprisoned after 2017, when Chinese authorities began detaining Uyghurs in &#8220;re-education&#8221; camps and prisons and subjecting them to severe rights abuses that the United States and some western parliaments have said amount to genocide and crimes against humanity. The teenager was helping his mother run the shop on weekends, the member said.  Ongoing demolition and construction of Uyghur structures in northwest China’s Xinjiang region have deprived some families of their residential homes, businesses and arable lands. Some communities have lost their mosques and ancient bazaars to authorities’ modernization efforts.  Claims by Chinese authorities that they are now demolishing the Khan Bazaar to renovate the old buildings “do not fit with reality,” Abdurehim said when he heard about the recent demolition. He said authorities had renovated the bazaar several times since the 1980s, including another “optimization” campaign that occurred sometime between 2000 and 2010 to improve building quality and safety. But each renovation project deprived some Uyghurs of their homes and shops because they could not afford the renovation fees, he added.  Chinese businesspeople with ample financial means and political backing intervened and bought the property at below-market prices, thereby gaining stakes in the Khan Bazaar, he said. “That was, I think, a deliberate ploy devised by the government,” he told Radio Free Asia. Residents&#8217; comments drew attention The bazaar sits across from the 15th-century Id Kah Mosque, which has been mostly closed for worship since 2016 amid a severe crackdown by Chinese authorities on the religion and culture of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. “Standing in front of the famous Kashgar Id Kah gate and looking through it, one could see a bustling street bazaar on the left side,” recalled Abdurehim, who last saw the place in 2017, when the former teacher and school principal went to the U.S. on a business trip and did not return. Remaining Uyghur families, especially those whose heads had been detained in camps or prisons in recent years, worried about losing their homes and shops in the bazaar because they would not be able to pay the renovation fees, said a person familiar with the situation. The source declined to be identified for safety reasons. Because of the repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, the families carefully shared their concerns to local cadres, who issued and distributed demolition notices to area residents. But instead, their comments drew the attention of local political and legal organizations, the source said. As a result, police officers, political and legal cadres and neighborhood committee members went to the scene to surveil shop owners and homeowners during the March destruction, he said. One policeman told RFA by phone that officers, along with the political and legal committee, market supervision, and neighborhood committee members, were present. They all reminded the residents and shop owners to pay attention to social stability, he said. An employee at the Kashgar-Central Asia International Travel Agency said authorities were tearing down the bazaar because the buildings were old, and that the renovation work would be completed by May 1. “The shops and buildings there were shabby, and the government wants to improve its image by renovating this place,” he said. Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Influx of Chinese nationals means tough competition for merchants in Laos](https://ij-reportika.com/influx-of-chinese-nationals-means-tough-competition-for-merchants-in-laos/): An influx of Chinese investors and business owners to Laos in recent years is crowding out Lao entrepreneurs, who say the visitors have an unfair advantage in capital and are taking away their clientele. Some 7,500 Chinese nationals have settled in Laos within the last 4-5 years, according to official estimates – most following the opening of a U.S.$6 billion high-speed railway connecting the two Communist neighbors in December 2021. While the railway promises to offer land-locked Laos closer integration with the world’s second largest economy, most of the trade has been one way – with China exporting its machinery, auto parts, electronics and consumer goods. Laotian exports, on the other hand, were hindered by China’s strict COVID policies at the border. But now, business owners say another Chinese export is driving up competition in their own country: Chinese people. “Chinese merchants compete for customers with Lao merchants, making Lao merchants earn less income,” said one Lao entrepreneur who, like others interviewed by Radio Free Asia for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal. The entrepreneur said there are now Chinese merchants in “most markets” in the country, adding that with their higher amounts of capital and know-how, “we won’t be able to compete with them.” Prior to the influx, there were already 31 Chinese companies operating within Laos and 20 Chinese-led projects underway in the capital Vientiane. But sources said Chinese nationals operating independently are increasingly entering into sectors previously dominated by Laotians, such as guesthouses, restaurants, and grocery stores. At the same time as Chinese businesses are thriving, Lao businesses are beginning to shrink in places like Vientiane, said another Lao entrepreneur. “Stores that sell clothes and food now mostly belong to Chinese and Vietnamese merchants,” he said. “Most Lao merchants are now forced to sell their goods at markets outside the city, while Chinese and Vietnamese merchants run the markets inside the city.” Other Lao merchants noted that their Chinese counterparts tend to operate within their own community in Laos, keeping their profits within a sort of enclave. A leg up in local markets When asked whether Chinese merchants have any specific advantages over their Lao counterparts in Laos, one Chinese national told RFA that the playing field is equal, as both must adhere to the same regulations. “My store pays the same import fees and taxes as stores owned by Laotians,” he said. “We enjoy no special privileges.” But Lao store owners said that a strong yuan and weak kip has given Chinese nationals a leg up in local markets. “[While] the rental rate is the same for both Lao and Chinese store owners, the rent is high at markets in the city” and Chinese entrepreneurs can more easily afford it, said another Lao businessman. A Lao intellectual who focuses on the relationship between social and economic matters in the country told RFA that the increase in Chinese entrepreneurs has affected Laos in both positive and negative ways. “[Chinese investment] is developing the cities, but the bad part is that Lao merchants can’t compete with them,” he said. “When we talk about investment know-how and experience in trade, Lao merchants have less than them.” And the size of China’s footprint is only growing in Laos. Kham Jane Vong Phosy, the Lao minister of planning and investment, told a meeting of government officials in July that there have been a total of 933 Chinese-led projects launched in Laos since 2015, valued at around U.S.$16.4 billion. Among the projects are new rail lines, highways, and dams. As more Chinese flock to Laos, a Lao trade official told RFA that the government is monitoring the newcomers to ensure they play by the rules. “In the past, we have received reports that some Chinese investors have violated our rules and regulations,” he said. “Trade officials strictly monitor Chinese investment in Laos in order to make sure investors are following the rules, and if we find any violations, authorities will address the problem.” Translated by Sidney Khotpanya. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Matt Reed.
- [Cambodia sells research monkeys to the world. It’s not all legal, US says.](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodia-sells-research-monkeys-to-the-world-its-not-all-legal-us-says/): Visitors are not welcome at the monkey farm co-owned by the sister of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen. The farm is ringed by moat-like canals, 6-foot-6-inch-high (2 meters) earthworks and a brick wall topped with razor wire.  A former employee told RFA that guards with Kalashnikov assault rifles patrol the grounds inside the farm in rural Kampong Speu province, which is two hours’ drive from the capital Phnom Penh. So, what’s there to secure behind the walls?  The answer is the captive animals within: long-tailed macaques, a breed of primate favored for medical research.  Cages of monkeys are seen on the grounds of a farm co-owned by the sister of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen in rural Kampong Speu province, March 2023. Credit: RFA Once an unremarkable player in the business of providing the animals for a global research industry, Cambodia has become a hub for exports of long-tails – a lucrative but shadowy business tied to the nation’s political elite.  Growing demand from the COVID-19 pandemic meant primate farms like the one owned by the prime minister’s sister exported about a quarter of a billion dollars worth of research macaques in 2022, according to U.N. trade data. But as the business booms, questions are emerging about the origin of the monkeys Cambodia ships around the world. Allegations of illicit trade are at the core of a high-profile legal case brought by U.S. wildlife prosecutors against senior Cambodian government officials.  Two officials have been charged with issuing fraudulent export permits certifying poached monkeys as captive-bred animals to circumvent U.S. import restrictions and international treaties governing the trade in endangered species. Cambodia’s wildlife and diversity director, Kry Masphal, was arrested in New York in November while traveling to a conservation conference in Panama. His boss, Forestry Administration Director General Keo Omaliss, was also indicted but remains at large in Cambodia. A permit issued by the Cambodian government for the export of monkeys. Credit: Handout Kry is currently under house arrest near Washington, D.C., and set to face a court proceeding in Miami in June. Yet with so much money to be made in Cambodia, experts fear there is little incentive for reform in the country. “It’s kind of like the realization of our worst fears,” said Ed Newcomer, a recently retired U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent who spent 20 years investigating wildlife crimes around the world. “When government officials, and relatives of high-powered officials, are involved in the wildlife trade, how are the Cambodian regulatory and enforcement agencies supposed to effectively enforce the law?”   The monkey business Long-tailed macaques, which are native to Southeast Asia, are so-named because their tails are usually longer than the length of their bodies. Other distinguishing characteristics include tufts of hair atop their heads and whiskers around their mouths.  An engineer takes samples of monkey kidney cells at a lab in China. Credit: AFP file photo Also known as “crab-eating” monkeys, they are highly prized by biomedical researchers for their similarity to humans. Testing on the animals helped lead to a vaccine for yellow fever. More recently, they’ve been used to test treatments for issues ranging from reproduction to obesity and addiction. Demand for their species soared with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, as macaques were critical in the development of the mRNA vaccines for COVID.  Until recently, China was the world’s top supplier. But in a bid to protect its own vaccine development, Beijing banned exports of research monkeys, leaving Cambodia as the number-one source for a global research industry that was suddenly facing a severe shortfall. In 2019, Cambodia exported the most primates it had ever shipped in a single year, sending 14,931 overseas for $34 million – an average cost of just over $2,271 per monkey, according to the U.N. trade data. The number of macaques being exported and the average cost per monkey continued to rise. Countries reported importing around $250 million worth of monkey shipments from Cambodia in 2022 alone, according to the data.  Questions of origin But experts say it would be impossible for all of them to have been legitimately raised and sourced according to rules that govern the use of research primates. Partly to protect dwindling wild populations, but also to reduce potential contamination of experiments, only captive-bred macaques are allowed in medical research. However, they are also slow-breeding, with infants taking three years to reach maturity. So, captive-bred stocks frequently struggle to meet researchers’ needs, and suppliers are often incentivized to pass off wild-caught monkeys as farm-reared. Although a black-market trade in the monkeys has long blighted the industry, the COVID-driven supply shortage has sent illicit poaching into overdrive, conservationists say.  “There’s just too much money in this business now for these macaques to stand a chance,” said Lisa Jones-Engel, a primatologist who now advises the animal rights group Peta. A study published last month in One Health, a peer-reviewed veterinary science journal, found that Cambodian breeders would have needed to more than quadruple production rates – from 81,926 over a four-year period to at least 98,000 in a single year – to have legitimately exported the number of macaques shipped during the pandemic. As Cambodia has never reported importing long-tailed macaques, such an increase would have to have been driven entirely by an increase in domestic supply. Yet “Cambodia has historically been incapable of producing second generation offspring macaques, therefore increasing their production capacity legally seems unlikely,” the researchers wrote. The sister The farm owned by the prime minister’s sister Hun Sengny sits at the end of a dusty road on the outskirts of the sleepy town of Damnak Trach.  It is registered under a Cambodian firm, Rong De Group, for which she serves as chairwoman. The uniforms of the security guards who wield the assault rifles bear the insignia of her private security firm, Garuda Security Co.  Locals who spoke to RFA all described the “boss” of the farm as being Chinese expatriate, Dong Wan De, who Commerce Ministry records identify as the...
- [Manila, Kuala Lumpur to negotiate with Beijing in South China Sea](https://ij-reportika.com/manila-kuala-lumpur-to-negotiate-with-beijing-in-south-china-sea/): Malaysia and the Philippines have said that they’re willing to discuss oil and gas exploration with China in the South China Sea, a move that analysts say may cause friction within ASEAN as the Southeast Asian bloc wants to accelerate negotiation for a Code of Conduct in order to avoid conflict. On Tuesday the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs said Manila would resume talks with Beijing on joint oil and gas exploration in the South China Sea, despite the country’s Supreme Court already having ruled against such activities. The court in January decided that a trilateral joint exploration agreement between the Philippines, China and Vietnam – another party in the South China Sea dispute – was unconstitutional because it allowed “foreign corporations to participate in the exploration of the country’s natural resources” without observing required safeguards. The agreement was signed in 2005 but failed to materialize.  In 2018, under then-President Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines and China also signed a document on Cooperation on Oil and Gas Development but Duterte himself terminated the talks last June after both sides failed to resolve the issue of sovereignty over Reed Bank in the Spratlys. For its part, Malaysia has informed China that it is ready to negotiate on the oil exploration in the waters both countries claim. Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim (L) shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Mar 31, 2023. Credit: Prime Minister&#8217;s Office of Malaysia via AP Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said Monday that he told China’s President Xi Jinping during his recent visit to Beijing that, as a small country, Malaysia needs to continue with oil exploration but “if the condition is that there must be negotiations to secure [our rights], then we are prepared to negotiate.” On Tuesday the prime minister seemed to adjust his conciliatory tone by adding that he “insisted that the area … falls within Malaysia’s territory” and that “in the meantime our exploration efforts will continue.” Bilateral negotiations China responded that it is “firmly committed to safeguarding our lawful rights and interests in the South China Sea.” Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson Mao Ning said at a Tuesday briefing that, at the same time, “we are ready to work together with the Malaysian side and continue to properly handle maritime disputes through dialogue and consultation.” Some other ASEAN countries that are also embroiled in disagreements with China over natural resources in the South China Sea – Vietnam and Indonesia – have yet to react to the latest developments but analysts warned against what they see as “China’s bilateral approach.” “Xi Jinping has used official state visits by President Marcos Jr. of the Philippines in January and Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim in April to press China’s claims in the South China Sea and to press for bilateral discussions,” said Carlyle Thayer, a veteran regional specialist. “China’s insistence on bilateral discussions has been consistent for the last decade and a half,” the Canberra-based analyst told Radio Free Asia, adding that China can “divide and conquer” using its superior economic weight. Another analyst, Collins Chong Yew Keat at Universiti Malaya, told RFA’s affiliate BenarNews that the scope and level of the negotiations remains to be seen “but it must not be based on a bilateral basis, as Beijing will exercise its burgeoning leverage and cards at its disposal now, to use economic tools and other measures to dictate more favorable terms.” A woman walks past a billboard showing the CNOOC 981 deepwater oil platform, used in the South China Sea, outside of the headquarters of the China National Offshore Oil Corporation in Beijing on July 28, 2016. Credit: AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein ASEAN countries restarted negotiations with China on a Code of Conduct for the South China Sea, with the first round of talks taking place in the second week of March.  Several member states have accused China of impeding and harassing their oil and gas activities in areas within their exclusive economic zones that also fall within China’s nine-dash line that Beijing uses to claim “historic rights” to almost 90% of the South China Sea.  This imaginary boundary was declared as illegal by a U.N. tribunal in a case brought by the Philippines in 2016. ‘Not an indication of success’ “Indonesia has a long-standing policy of refusing to discuss maritime disputes with China on the grounds that its maritime boundaries are in accord with international law,” said Carl Thayer. Vietnam, which saw several oil development projects with foreign partners stopped under China’s pressure, has always maintained that any joint exploration should abide by international law, especially the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).   As a rule, Hanoi does not publicly criticize other ASEAN members’ policies but Vietnamese scholars said that Beijing-led joint projects in the South China Sea could become “dangerous precedents” if pursued. China has been offering other countries to “set aside dispute and pursue joint development,” viewing it “as a measure to assert sovereignty in the negotiated area,” wrote a Vietnamese researcher, Bui Sang Minh, in the South China Sea Studies Journal, which usually reflects the Vietnamese government’s stance.  “Most of the areas in which China has brought up such offers are well within other countries’ economic exclusive zones and continental shelves.”  As the Philippines and China are to resume talks, Manila should “try not to fall for the ‘setting disputes aside and pursuing joint development’ concept and refrain from prioritizing economic benefits over maintaining its sovereignty in the process,” Minh added. Some other analysts such as Jay Batongbacal, director of the Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea at the University of the Philippines, said that a desire to settle disputes amicably “does not mean they will simply give in to China&#8217;s demands.” “An announcement that they will discuss and negotiate is not an indication of success in the bilateral approach,” he said. Meanwhile, Carl Thayer told RFA that in his opinion, “China’s bilateral approach is...
- [Asia Fact Check Lab: Was Tsai Ing-wen “coolly received” while in New York?](https://ij-reportika.com/asia-fact-check-lab-was-tsai-ing-wen-coolly-received-while-in-new-york/): In Brief Following Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s stopover in New York City en route to Central America, reports by official Chinese media outlets described her as being “embarrassed” when upon arrival she “was coolly received” by crowds of protesting Chinese who looked at her like a “rat in the street.” Such reports quoted The Wall Street Journal as saying that she “is keeping largely out of the public eye” and used short video clips that ostensibly showed Tsai “having to quickly duck into a hotel through a side door” in order to avoid the crowd.  Such claims soon spread widely across the Chinese internet and were reprinted by most national and provincial media outlets, including China Daily and Global Times. Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) verified that the above descriptions misrepresented and distorted Tsai’s arrival and subsequent time spent in the city, after checking with on-site eyewitness reporters in New York City.  In Depth  Tsai stayed in New York City from the afternoon of March 29 to the morning of March 31, as an initial stopover during her planned 10-day diplomatic visit to Taiwan’s allies in Central America. The Chinese government strongly condemned Tsai&#8217;s transit through the United States and organized groups of overseas Chinese within the U.S. to protest it. Tsai arrived at the Lotte Hotel in Manhattan at 4 p.m. on March 29. AFCL learned from a number of on-site reporters that 400-500 protesters organized by China had gathered in an open space across from the southwest side of the hotel. In between chants of “Down with Tsai” and  “Taiwan independence is a dead end,” the protestors waved Chinese flags and intermittently sang Chinese patriotic songs.  Meanwhile, north and south of the hotel’s eastern entrance, about 100 to 200 people holding Taiwanese flags gathered in support of Tsai, chanting “Go Taiwan” and “Long live the Republic of China.” Two factions of people gather on the east [left] and west [right] sides of Tsai&#8217;s hotel on the afternoon of March 29. Credit: RFA While the two factions occasionally bandied words and competed to see who could shout their slogans the loudest, local police and special duty officers prevented a repeat of the clashes that marked Tsai&#8217;s previous transit through New York in 2019. Did Mainland Chinese media provide the full picture of Tsai’s hotel arrival? No. Mainland Chinese coverage of Tsai’s visit only shows voices and images of the opposition protests, with official reports of the event describing her as a “street rat” that “everyone shouted at.” At around 3 p.m. on March 29, a crowd of pro-Mainland ethnic Chinese demonstrators arrived outside the hotel where Tsai Ing-wen was staying and soon began protesting across the street. Credit: Screenshot from a World Journal report Subsidiary media outlets of CCTV and People&#8217;s Daily re-used a photo taken by journalist Zhang Wenxin in a World Journal report as evidence that Tsai received a cold reception by overseas Chinese. However, photos of Tsai&#8217;s supporters also taken by Zhang and published in the same article were not used by mainland media. Did Tsai quickly duck into her hotel through a side door? No. A segment from a widely circulated video produced by the CCTV subsidiary social media account Riyue Tantian appears to show Tsai and her entourage quickly entering the Lotte Hotel. The corresponding voiceover narration reads, “To avoid the tidal wave of protests, she had to quickly duck into the hotel through a side door.” Screenshot of the Riyue Tiantan report. After examining both the layout of the Lotte Hotel and the full video the clip was edited from, AFCL found that Tsai neither dodged the crowd nor entered through a side door. Rather, she entered through the hotel’s front door.  After getting out of her car at the hotel’s main entrance, Tsai waved to supporters who had gathered to welcome her, voluntarily approached the crowd and shook hands with several onlookers before making her way to the hotel amidst the crowd. A clip from Riyue Tantian, pro-Beijing news outlet on the popular Chinese social media platform Wechat edited out the first half of the video in which Tsai shakes hands with her supporters. Several Republic of China flags being held by her supporters can still be seen reflected off glass doors captured in the second half of the video. The first half of the “deleted” scene: Tsai Ing-wen exits her car, walks toward a large crowd gathered outside the front of her hotel and enters after passing through throngs of people. Did Tsai mostly keep out of the public eye while in transit? No. A Wall Street Journal report on March 30 stated that, “President Tsai Ing-wen is keeping largely out of the public eye.” In addition to changing “president” to “Taiwan’s leader,” the Chinese translation of the article published on March 31 used slightly different wording to describe Tsai’s trip, claiming that she “virtually didn’t appear in the public eye.”   AFCL confirmed through interviews with journalists and citizens that Tsai attended several public events over the three days and two nights she was in New York. On the evening of March 29, for example, Tsai gave a speech at a banquet hosted by local Chinese. She delivered her speech in a mixture of English, Mandarin and Minnan to an audience of 700 attendees and media representatives. Tsai later politely mingled with many of the guests.   Tsai Ing-wen speaks at a banquet for overseas Chinese. Credit: RFA On the morning of March 30, Tsai went to Brooklyn to talk with young entrepreneurs of Taiwanese descent, including Lillian Lin, co-owner of Yun Hai Taiwanese Pantry. Lin told AFCL that during her meeting with the president at a cafe, Tsai tasted their shop’s dried pineapples while listening to the story of how Yun Hai brought local Taiwanese produce to sell outside the country. After leaving the cafe, Tsai briefly interacted with people and media waiting outside for her, giving a thumbs up as some onlookers shouted, “Taiwan No.1.” At noon, Tsai went...
- [Activists find illegal logging evidence in protected area in northern Cambodia](https://ij-reportika.com/activists-find-illegal-logging-evidence-in-protected-area-in-northern-cambodia/): Forest protection activists found more than 200 fallen trees that had been illegally cut down in a vast protected area of northern Cambodia that showed signs of around-the-clock operations, transport trucks, motorcycles and armed security. Activists with the Prey Lang Community Network for Preah Vihear province traveled through the area for four days and three nights in late March.  Prime Minister Hun Sen has promised publicly that he would take action to prevent illegal logging in Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary, which covers land in Preah Vihear, Stung Treng, Kampong Thom and Kratie provinces.  He’s even blamed Cambodia’s poor in recent years for the country’s growing loss of forest cover. But activists have said that government authorities have done nothing to prevent supporters of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party from illegally exporting timber to neighboring Vietnam, a major buyer of luxury hard wood. A 2020 survey by researchers at Denmark’s University of Copenhagen showed that Cambodia had lost 26 percent of its tree cover, equivalent to about 5.7 million acres, since 2000, according to satellite imagery Moving timber day and night Activists told Radio Free Asia on Monday that logging transport trucks and motorcycles seen last month carried an identifying logo from the Phnom Penh-based Macle Logistics (Cambodia) Co., Ltd. A Prey Lang community network member, Srey They, said the perpetrators brought wood out of the forest day and night in an area where forest crimes are on the rise. Groups of between five and 10 people – some of them armed – were seen cutting and transporting timber in Preah Vihear’s Rovieng district, he told RFA. “It is very sad that the government has established the protected area, but there are still perpetrators of deforestation for companies,” Srey They said.  Illegal logging continues in Cambodia because of compliant government officials, Cambodian Youth Network project coordinator Oath Latin said. “This involves corruption between the timber traders, the perpetrators and the officers who are stationed around the Prey Lang checkpoint,” he said. RFA was unable to contact the director of the Department of Environment, Song Chan Socheat, and the spokesman for the Ministry of Environment, Neth Pheaktra, on Monday, calling several times without an answer. Translated by Sok Ry Sum. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [New construction spotted on Myanmar island](https://ij-reportika.com/new-construction-spotted-on-myanmar-island/): New satellite images show renewed construction on a Myanmar archipelago close to India’s strategic islands, raising concerns about China’s geopolitical intentions in the region, a British think tank said. In a report titled &#8220;Is Myanmar building a spy base on Great Coco Island?&#8221; the independent policy institute Chatham House analyzed a number of satellite images of Coco Islands in the Bay of Bengal, taken in January this year but only recently released by the U.S. space technology firm Maxar Technologies. The archipelago consists of two main islands, Great Coco and Little Coco, and a number of smaller islets including Jerry Island located at the southern tip of Great Coco. They are some 55 kilometers (34 miles) north of the strategic Andaman and Nicobar Islands where India stations some major military facilities. A map showing the location of the Coco Islands. Credit: GoogleMaps The images “show renewed levels of construction activity on Great Coco,” Chatham House said in a new report.  The most recognizable change was the lengthening of the airport runway from 1,300 meters over ten years ago to 2,300 meters. Analysts said the runway was also widened and two new hangars were added.  “The width of the hangar appears to be close to 40 meters, limiting the list of aircraft it may eventually accommodate but opening the possibility for high-performance aircraft to be stationed there,” they said. This satellite image shows two aircraft hangars next to the runway at the Coco Island airport. Credit: Maxar Technologies The report’s authors spotted some new buildings to the north of the airport, a radar station and “a large pier is also visible.” In the southern part of the island, a causeway can be seen under construction, connecting the tip of the Great Coco to Jerry Island. Some land clearance is visible on the latter, they said, “indicating the future extension of Great Coco’s facilities.” China’s involvement? Chatham House’s analysis of Maxar’s imagery did not reveal any foreign military presence on Coco Islands, contrary to the rumors that China installed a signals intelligence station here in the early 1990s.  The latest images however revealed that “Myanmar may soon be intending to conduct maritime surveillance operations from Great Coco Island.” “Growing evidence suggests Myanmar’s military coup has increased Beijing’s influence in the country,” the report said, pointing to China’s large investment projects in Myanmar that lead to Beijing’s increasing influence over the Tatmadaw, or the Myanmar military. “With the Coco Island developments, India may soon face a new airbase close by in a country increasingly tied to Beijing,” the analysts said, “The militarization of the Coco Islands by the Tatmadaw, combined with the wider Chinese developments occurring inland, could pose a significant security challenge to India and its navy.” Satellite image of a radar station located south of the runway on Great Coco Island, January 2023. Credit: Maxar Technologies The Coco Islands are 1,200 kilometers (746 miles)  from the Strait of Malacca, through which around 40% of global trade passes. China has long been interested in securing access to this critical trade route. In 2018, China and Myanmar signed a memorandum of understanding on the establishment of the so-called China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, part of the Belt and Road Initiative, under which China will help Myanmar develop major infrastructure projects including roads, railways, and seaports. There are fears it would increase Myanmar’s economic dependence on China, giving Beijing significant geopolitical leverage. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Junta raids kill 2, force 5,000 to flee Sagaing region villages](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-raids-kill-2-force-5000-to-flee-sagaing-region-villages/): Two people have been killed and around 5,000 have abandoned their homes as junta troops raided two villages in Tigyaing township, in Myanmar&#8217;s northern Sagaing region, residents told RFA. Locals said that a junta column with more than 70 troops fired heavy artillery and entered Nyaung Pin Thar village on March 30. A 20-year-old woman named Zar Chi Win was killed by a shell. “Zar Chi Win was hit by the junta’s heavy artillery shell and died on March 30, while she was trying to escape,” said a resident, speaking on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. “The shell landed in the vicinity of Nyaung Pin Thar village.” Another column with more than 70 troops raided nearby Sit Tan village killing 30-year-old Than Pe Lay as he tried to escape, the local told RFA. “Than Pe Lay was shot dead by a column that entered Sit Tan village on April 2, while he was trying to escape near the village monastery,” he said. On the evening of April 3, the column that entered Nyaung Pin Thar village and the column that entered Sit Tan village combined and left the township.Calls to the military junta spokesman for Sagaing region, Aye Hlaing, went unanswered. According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, between Feb. 1, 2021, when the military seized power in a coup, and April 3, 2023, a total of 3,206 people, including pro-democracy activists, were killed by the junta. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Since coup, nearly 450 civilians killed in Myanmar’s eastern Kayah state](https://ij-reportika.com/since-coup-nearly-450-civilians-killed-in-myanmars-eastern-kayah-state/): Civilians are being killed at an alarming rate in Myanmar’s civil war, dying in airstrikes, artillery shelling and while being held in detention, data released from an armed ethnic group fighting the junta showed. In the eastern state of Kayah, which borders northern Thailand, some 447 civilians have been killed since the military took control of the country in a coup two years ago, according to the Progressive Karenni People’s Force. About two-third of them were killed after being captured by troops, while the rest died while feeling conflict, said an official with the group who spoke to Radio Free Asia on condition of anonymity citing security concerns. “The reason why civilians were killed is because they were hit by the junta’s … artillery fire,” he said. “Another reason is the military junta’s airstrikes targeting civilians.” “Some were killed by the military forces after they arrested them, and others died because of insufficient medicine to cure them,” he said. Across the country, some 3,206 civilians have been killed by the junta during the same period, according to Thailand’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma). Fighting has been fierce in the region since the February 2021 coup. The Burmese army has clashed with the ethnic Karenni Army and the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force as many as 650 times, he said. War crimes Junta forces have increasingly ignored the rules of war and committed atrocities that amount to war crimes, said Banyar, director of the Karenni Human Rights Organization. “We are witnessing the military council openly committing war crimes and crimes against  humanity,” he said. “The civilian death rate has increased because the junta is committing crimes against innocent civilians instead of protecting them.” Volunteers in Loikaw, Kayah state, prepare the funeral for civilians killed by Myanmar junta troops, Jan. 27, 2022. Credit: KNDF/B11 Banyar noted that there have been some cases where the anti-junta People’s Defense Force paramilitary group has killed civilians it accused of acting as informers for the military. The Progressive Karenni People’s Force said it is compiling a list of rights violations committed by the military and will submit it to international rights groups as part of a bid to hold the junta accountable. In addition to civilian deaths, the group said that at least 252 resistance fighters and 1,883 junta soldiers had been killed during the battles, although RFA could not independently confirm the claim. Calls by RFA to Aung Win Oo, the junta’s social affairs minister and Kayah state spokesman, went unanswered Monday. Just last Monday, on Armed Forces Day, junta chief Sr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing vowed to “crush” ethnic armed groups supporting the People’s Defense Forces and the shadow National Unity Government. Meanwhile the fighting has driven around 200,000 refugees from their homes in Kayah state since the coup, the Karenni Human Rights Organization said. The displaced are facing food shortages, and that in some cases, camps don’t have access to clean water, leading to diarrhea and other water-borne viruses, said Phu Maw, a volunteer providing medical assistance to refugees in Kayah state.  Most of the refugees are suffering from mental health issues, she said. Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Josh Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
- [Hun Sen’s eldest son tops Cambodian ruling party’s candidate list ahead of July vote](https://ij-reportika.com/hun-sens-eldest-son-tops-cambodian-ruling-partys-candidate-list-ahead-of-july-vote/): Long tapped as his father’s successor to lead Cambodia, Hun Manet has been put at the top of the list of 12 parliamentary candidates for the Phnom Penh constituency in the July 23 general elections. Before he runs, Hun Manet, 45, the eldest son of Hun Sen, who has ruled since 1985, is expected to resign from the military – per election rules – where he is deputy commander-in-chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces. Hun Manet posted a short video clip to his Facebook page on Monday, saying that Cambodia would remain independent and strengthen ties with all countries around the world – not just China. “Cambodia’s policy today is not being so close to China and not being so close to anyone,” he said. “It stands neutral, but we encourage and are determined to boost up close relationships with all the nations. “That is our correct policy. We get closer to China, the United States and Japan and we get closer to all other nations,” he said. “That’s what we want.” Hun Manet has had extensive experience overseas. A graduate of the elite United States Military Academy at West Point, he holds a masters in economics from New York University and another graduate degree from the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, speaking at a hospital inauguration on Monday, says he will continue to hunt and eliminate opposition groups out of the political arena to protect peace and the constitutional monarchy. Credit: Hun Sen Facebook ‘I have to protect my power’ Speaking at the inauguration of a hospital on Monday, Hun Sen used harsh language to respond to recent criticisms of his leadership and his son.  The prime minister seemed to target a Buddhist monk now living in exile in Massachusetts who recently criticized Hun Manet for not being qualified to lead the country. In comments posted on Facebook on Sunday, the Venerable Buth Buntenh also said that if Hun Manet became prime minister, he would only do his father’s bidding.  “The black guy, who lives in the U.S. – people would know when I call him the black guy,” Hun Sen said while not using Buth Buntenh’s name.  “Last night, he said that Hun Sen fears losing power. What you said is right, the contemptible black guy. I have to protect my power because your people always attempt to kill me, why not let me protect it?” Hun Sen also said he would continue to hunt and eliminate opposition groups – who he accused of committing treason – out of the political arena to protect peace and the constitutional monarchy.  Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim reviews an honor guard with Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on March 27, 2023. Credit: Cambodia’s government cabinet/Handout via Reuters Warning to foreign embassies He also cautioned  “Cambodia’s foreign friends” who support opposition party groups and politicians.  “You have to choose between an individual group that breaks the laws and the government,” he said at the hospital inauguration in Tbong Khmum province. “Please choose one. If you need those who were penalized by law, please do so, and you can then break diplomatic relations from Cambodia.” The ruling CPP and Hun Sen have been working to silence and intimidate opposition figures ahead of the July general elections through a series of arrests and lawsuits. In the most high-profile example, opposition party leader Kem Sokha was sentenced to 27 years for treason last month in a court decision that was widely condemned as politically motivated.  The charges against Kem Sokha related partly to a video recorded in 2013 in which he discusses a strategy to win power with the help of U.S. experts. The United States Embassy has rejected any suggestion that Washington was trying to interfere in Cambodian politics. Hun Sen also mentioned last week’s visit to Phnom Penh of Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. “He declared that the powerful countries should stop interfering into the affairs of other countries,” Hun Sen said. “I fully support him. I’ve got another good counterpart in ASEAN.”  Political analyst Kim Sok said Hun Sen’s language on Monday was “undiplomatic.” Foreign embassies in Phnom Penh – such as the United States – are working to cooperate with Cambodia based on a 1991 multinational agreement that formally ended decades of war in the country and paved the way for parliamentary democracy, he said. “They just monitor the situation to see if Cambodia walks in the path of democracy and multi-liberal pluralism, which is enshrined in the Paris Peace Agreements,” he said.    Translated by Sok Ry Sum. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [More than 4,000 villagers forced to flee fighting in Sagaing region](https://ij-reportika.com/more-than-4000-villagers-forced-to-flee-fighting-in-sagaing-region/): More than 4,000 residents have been forced out of their homes in six Sagaing region villages due to fighting between the army and local defense forces. The battle broke out Sunday near Pale township’s Hnaw Kan village. Junta troops entered the village on Monday and burned down houses, a resident told RFA on condition of anonymity. “People are fleeing and only seven houses are left in Hnaw Kan village,” the villager said. Hnaw Kan village had more than 200 houses before the attack, residents said. It’s not known which battalion torched the village, but locals said it was an army column with 200 soldiers reinforced by the Pyu Saw Htee militia. They said the troops are now stationed in Pale township’s Min Taing Pin village. The junta has not issued a statement on the incident and calls to Sagaing region junta spokesperson Aye Hlaing went unanswered. In the past the junta’s top spokesperson, Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun said soldiers do not burn civilian homes. Junta chief, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing also denied his troops had burned villages, during a meeting with U.N. Special Envoy for Myanmar, Noeleen Heyzer, in August last year. According to independent research group Data for Myanmar, as of March 19, a total of 2,656 houses were destroyed by fire in Pale township, Sagaing region over the more than two years since the military coup. Sagaing region has been hardest hit by junta slash and burn tactics of all the states and regions in Myanmar. Almost 4,400 civilian houses were burned down across the country in March alone, including more than 3,000 houses in Sagaing region, the shadow National Unity Government announced on April 1.
- [Australia-Papua New Guinea security agreement concerns China, says PNG’s top diplomat](https://ij-reportika.com/australia-papua-new-guinea-security-agreement-concerns-china-says-pngs-top-diplomat/): Beijing has raised concerns about a proposed security agreement between Papua New Guinea and Australia, the Pacific island country’s foreign minister said Monday as he returned home from an official visit to China seeking development assistance for his nation.  The prime ministers of Papua New Guinea and Australia said earlier this year that they wanted negotiations for a wide-ranging bilateral security treaty to be done by the end of April. Australia is the largest donor to Papua New Guinea. Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang “raised China’s concerns on [the] proposed PNG-Australia Bilateral Security Treaty and its intended purposes,” Papua New Guinea Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko said in a statement Monday. The two officials met in Boao, Hainan province, last week. Qin, Tkatchenko said, “went on to seek reassurances that the purported bilateral security arrangement with Australia was not in some way seeking to counter China’s influence in PNG and the Pacific.” Tkatchenko’s statement highlights the balancing act for Pacific island countries as China and the United States vie for influence in the vast ocean region. Over several decades, China has become a significant source of trade, infrastructure and aid for economically lagging Pacific island countries as it seeks to diplomatically isolate Taiwan and gain allies in international organizations. Last year, Beijing signed a security pact with the Solomon Islands, alarming the United States and its allies such as Australia. The small island nations also hope to gain from renewed U.S. interest in the region. However, some leaders have said they don’t want to be swept up in superpower competition or to be forced to take sides in the Sino-American rivalry. In his statement, Tkatchenko said he explained to China’s foreign minister that the proposed security agreement with Australia was not only about defense and would cover a range of security areas from policing to biosecurity.  He also asserted that Papua New Guinea’s recent decision to close its Taiwan trade office was due to a need to cut costs rather than geopolitics.  “It will be one focused more on building PNG’s capacity and capabilities to face these security challenges from the external environment but more importantly internally,” he said. “It will not be solely [a] defense agreement between PNG and Australia.”  Qin also mentioned China’s concerns about the agreement for Australia to acquire nuclear-powered submarines next decade under the AUKUS security pact with the United Kingdom and the United States, according to Tkatchenko. AUKUS is widely understood to be part of U.S. efforts to contain China, which now rivals the United States in economic power and is rapidly building up its military arsenal.  Qin, said Tkatchenko, “compared this alliance to a typical Cold War mentality” that goes against aims of nuclear nonproliferation and the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone created by the 1986 Rarotonga Treaty.  Tkatchenko said he explained Papua New Guinea’s strong support for the Pacific being a nuclear-free zone.  China bankrolled Papua New Guinea’s hosting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in 2018, which brought together leaders of countries that comprise about 60% of the world economy. Beijing’s promise at that time to help Papua New Guinea build hundreds of kilometers of roads has not materialized.  Tkatchenko said Qin reassured him of China’s ongoing support for Papua New Guinea projects it is involved in including rebuilding of police barracks in Port Moresby and maintenance of the international convention center, which was built for the APEC meeting.  China and Papua New Guinea would also renew discussion on the possibility of direct flights between Port Moresby and Shanghai, he said. BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service, produced this report.
- [Dried pineapple and meatballs: A president’s favorite snacks](https://ij-reportika.com/dried-pineapple-and-meatballs-a-presidents-favorite-snacks/): Lisa Cheng Smith’s mom told her learning Chinese would come in handy one day and on Thursday it did. Cheng Smith, who grew up in Texas, describes her Chinese language skills as just “OK.” But they were good enough to welcome Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen to Yun Hai, a small market store she co-owns with Lillian Lin in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood. The two showed off their store’s collection of goods sourced from the island, including dried pineapple, which Tsai sampled. “She’s very charming and sweet,” Cheng Smith said of Tsai. Tsai also stopped at Win Son, a Taiwanese American bakery and café next door where she took a few questions. The president’s favorite snack is bawan, which is a type of Taiwanese meatball, Cheng Smith said. The drop-by wasn’t a complete surprise. Advance teams told Cheng Smith and Lin to expect a group of VIPs to visit. Cheng Smith thought Tsai may be one of them, but her mother, who was born in Taiwan, told her not to get her hopes up. “She knows I’m sensitive,” she said. Lisa Cheng Smith holds a copy of the Taiwanese cookbook she co-authored with Cat Yeh and Lillian Lin and at the Yun Hai shop in Brooklyn, New York, Thursday, March 30, 2023. Credit: Gemunu Amarasinghe/RFA The artisan shop features a variety of Taiwanese products, including the Tutong rice cooker, a ubiquitous instrument in Taiwan. Cheng Smith and Lin have sought to build more demand for it in the U.S. by developing their own Taiwanese recipe book with their collaborator, Cat Yeh. The Yun Hai Tatung Family Cookbook is sold at the store, as is a cookbook by Win Son owners Trigg Brown and Josh Ku and collaborator Cathy Erway, a food blogger and cook.  There are also an assortment of dried fruits, a staple of the Taiwanese diet that is much less sugary than American ones, and various cooking and seasoning oils, among other products. Cheng Smith still isn’t sure why her shop was chosen, but it has been the subject of write-ups in Foreign Policy and New York magazines as well as a variety of publications in Asia. The name of the store, Yun Hai, means “sea of clouds” and refers to a fog that settles over the mountains of Central Taiwan and makes the region a fertile spot to grow tea, according to the store’s website. Tsai’s trip to Brooklyn was a feel-good detour on a foreign trip with heavier geopolitical implications. China views Taiwan as part of its territory and makes its displeasure known when foreign officials meet Taiwanese leaders. Beijing has threatened retaliation if Tsai goes through with a planned meeting with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in Los Angeles. The president is due to stop in the U.S. city on her way home after visits to Guatemala and Belize, two countries that still have diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Cheng Smith demurred when asked about the political situation Taiwan faces. But she said that she and Lin, who grew up in Taipei, wanted Yun Hai to provide Taiwanese small farmers another market after China banned pineapple imports from Taiwan in 2021. Cheng Smith said they also are hoping to teach Americans more about the country, which they might know only for its tech prowess or the bicycles it produces. “The more people who feel connected to Taiwan, the better,” she said.  
- [Activists sue China's education ministry over rainbow flag reprimand](https://ij-reportika.com/activists-sue-chinas-education-ministry-over-rainbow-flag-reprimand/): Two LGBTQ+ students from Beijing&#8217;s Tsinghua University have lodged an administrative lawsuit against China&#8217;s Ministry of Education after being harassed and threatened by the authorities over their sexuality. In May 2022, Huang and Li bought 10 rainbow flags on the auction site Taobao, and left them on a small table in a campus supermarket, with a note that read: &#8220;Please take one #PRIDE.&#8221; The pair, who asked to be identified by pseudonyms for fear of further reprisals, had already given a great deal of thought to what they knew was a highly risky action. They considered posting about the flags on social media, but they knew the authorities would be able to track them down, as they had been forced to use their real names to sign up for an account. Then they remembered an anti-fascist poster that had mysteriously appeared on the wall of the campus supermarket, and that the lack of surveillance cameras in the area had meant the students who put it there were never found. It wasn&#8217;t until they had already put the flags in place that they realized that cameras had now been installed in the area, leaving them &#8220;terrified&#8221; over what would happen next. But Huang told herself that 10 rainbow flags wasn&#8217;t going to have a massive impact on the life of the university. Within two hours, they were getting calls from school officials wanting to talk to them about the flags, and warning them that the incident could affect their chances of graduating, and threatening them with possible expulsion. They refused to meet with officials, who then went and found them in their respective dorm rooms, accusing them of &#8220;distributing prohibited propaganda material.&#8221; By June 30, they had been issued with notification of punishment, and submitted a written defense to the student affairs office in accordance with school procedures. The school responded in July with disciplinary action in the form of a &#8220;severe warning,&#8221; which would remain on their official file and affect their chances of pursuing scholarships, further study or jobs working for the government. ‘I knew I was doing the right thing’ Huang and Li were furious, and vowed to fight back. &#8220;I was in a state of anger every day,&#8221; Li said. &#8220;But I knew I was doing the right thing, so I didn&#8217;t feel scared.&#8221; &#8220;It felt more as if I was getting some good practice in how to defend my own dignity, and that of my companion, and in not backing down.&#8221; Within hours of placing the flags, the students received calls from school officials wanting to talk to them about the flags. By July 2022, the school disciplined the students with a &#8220;severe warning&#8221; [shown], which would remain on their official file and affect their chances of pursuing scholarships, further study or jobs working for the government. Credit: Courtesy of the respondents They went public with the incident on July 18, posting to WeChat that they were being punished for the rainbow flag incident, in a post that garnered more than 100,000 views and which was later deleted by government censors. By the end of the month, they had filed an official complaint with the university, which upheld the original disciplinary action. So they took it further, lodging a complaint with the Beijing municipal education commission, arguing that they had left the flags for people to pick up, rather than distributing them, and that rainbow flags aren&#8217;t illegal in China. But the response from the government was the same as that of the university. Li, the child of a middle-class family, had been greatly affected by her experience of lockdown in the central city of Wuhan in the spring of 2020, in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. &#8220;I knew that a lot of people in my [residential] community had died, and I was affected by knowing that my neighbors were dying,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Since then, I&#8217;ve had no illusions about the current system at all.&#8221; The formal warnings issued to Huang and Li expired after six months, but that wasn&#8217;t good enough for the two friends, who wanted to dispel the notion that it is wrong to fly a rainbow flag. &#8220;It&#8217;s a matter of our reputation,&#8221; Huang said. &#8220;By punishing us, the school made a lot of people feel that we did something disgraceful.&#8221; &#8220;We also want to do some public advocacy on this matter, and start a public discussion about sexual minorities in universities,&#8221; she said. So Huang and Li took their lawsuit all the way to the top, lodging an administrative lawsuit with the Ministry of Education, and calling on its officials to review their case. &#8220;We have to take the legal process all the way, so that this winds up in the legal archives, in the media and in online archives,&#8221; Li said. &#8220;I believe that history will eventually judge us fairly.&#8221; &#8220;For me, this is a political declaration, and I have to take it all the way, or I wouldn&#8217;t be able to live with myself,&#8221; she said. But both activists still feared possible retaliation from the authorities. Huang wrote to her family coming out as a lesbian, and detailing all of her actions and the reasoning behind them since May 2022, with a view to sending it if the police came looking for her. They submitted their case to the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People&#8217;s Court on Feb. 20, and have yet to receive a response. Party views on LGBTQ+ activists The ruling Chinese Communist Party currently regards LGBTQ+ rights activists as being influenced by &#8220;hostile foreign forces” seeking to undermine its rule, and openly queer public figures are gradually disappearing from mainstream media, film and television under the watchful eye of government censors. Huang and Li, who met at a queer book club and put the flags out to mark the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Lesbophobia and Transphobia on May 17, came to a realization of their own sexuality in a piecemeal way, despite having...
- [Former prisoner of conscience harassed by Vietnamese police after release](https://ij-reportika.com/former-prisoner-of-conscience-harassed-by-vietnamese-police-after-release/): Vietnamese police have been harassing a former prisoner of conscience released from jail in December 2022 after serving most of a five-year sentence on charges of distributing materials against the state and participating in protests against the government. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Suong, 55, told Radio Free Asia on Friday, that the harassment began after she attended the appeals trial of activists Nguyen Thai Hung and his spouse, Vu Thi Kim Hoang, at the People’s Court in the southern province of Dong Nai on March 29. Authorities asked her to leave the courtroom. On Friday, Dinh Quan district police summoned her and warned her not to attend other trials. They also said policemen would check on her often.  “Recently, the police have watched me very closely,” Suong told Radio Free Asia after she met with police. “They came to see me right after I returned home [from the trial]. They said I was not allowed to do this.”  At the end of the meeting, a police officer told her: “I’ll visit you every couple of days.”  Suong said she did not remember the officer’s name because he was not wearing a name badge.  When RFA contacted Dinh Quan district police to verify the information, a staffer asked for the name of the officer for verification.  Suong, who said her health has been deteriorating since her release, was convicted in May 2019 under Article 117 of Vietnam’s penal code. The article, which criminalizes “making, storing, distributing or disseminating information, documents and items” against the state. Violators can be sentenced to from five to 20 years in prison.   Suong was freed last Dec. 13 in poor health, 10 months before her jail term ended.  Health issues while detained  While in prison, Suong had several physical ailments, including liver and kidney swelling, elevated liver enzymes, a bacterial infection in her stomach and thyroid issues.    The only treatment she received was the medicine that prison officials gave to all inmates to treat various diseases.   “When I took them, my condition got worse,” Suong said. “I remember one time I could not speak because my body was swollen from top to toe, including my mouth and tongue.”  Suong said she believes her health deteriorated because she had been subjected to forced labor at Dong Nai police’s B5 temporary detention facility where she was held during the investigation period, and later at An Phuoc Prison, where she was held after an appeals trial. She produced votive paper offerings without protective gear.   Suong also said she had not been paid for her labor, though Vietnamese law stipulates that inmates should receive some compensation for labor they perform in jail.   While she was at the temporary detention facility from October 2018 to early December 2019, Suong&#8217;s family had to bribe staffers so they could get supplies to her, though she never received them after the payments were made, she said.   When Suong had a medical check after she was released, her doctor said she was very weak and it would be difficult for her to improve her physical condition because she took too much pain reliever in previous years.   RFA could not reach officials at Dong Nai police or An Phuoc Prison for comment.  Arrested and charged in 2018  Suong was arrested along with activist Vu Thi Dung in October 2018, and they were both brought to court in the same case for using different Facebook accounts to watch videos and read articles containing anti-state content.  They both allegedly called for protests against draft laws on the creation of new special economic zones and cybersecurity, and were said to have incited locals people to take to the streets.   The indictment also said that Dung had produced anti-state leaflets and asked Suong to distribute them at four different places in Dinh Quan town of Dong Nai province.  Dung was sentenced to six years in prison and will complete her jail term this month.   Suong received the Tran Van Ba Award for 2021-2022 along with four other Vietnamese activists — Nguyen Thuy Hanh, Huynh Thuc Vy, Vo An Don and Nguyen Thi Ngoc Hanh.  Named for a Vietnamese dissident and freedom fighter executed in 1985 on charges of treason and intent to overthrow the government, the award is given annually to Vietnamese in Vietnam in recognition of their courageous action for freedom, democracy, justice and independence for their country. Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Matt Reed.
- [North Korean hacker group poses as journalists and experts to steal intel](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korean-hacker-group-poses-as-journalists-and-experts-to-steal-intel/): A criminal cyber spy group believed to be backed by the North Korean government poses as journalists, academics and experts to trick its victims into giving out information that can be used for espionage. It also spoofs websites of legitimate organizations to trick targets into giving out information that can be used in cybercrimes the group carries out to fund itself, according to a new report that tracked the cyber attackers’ operations over five years. Google Cloud’s cybersecurity subsidiary firm Mandiant classified the group, which it calls APT43 and which it has been monitoring since 2018, as a “moderately-sophisticated cyber operator that supports the interests of the North Korean regime.”  The designation of the group as a “named threat actor” indicates that Mandiant’s cyber analysts had enough evidence to attribute activity to a specific group. APT stands for “advanced persistent threats,” which the firm says are groups that “receive direction and support from an established nation state.” APT43 has also been called “Kimsuky” or “Thallium” by other firms, which have their own naming conventions. Mandiant believes the firm could be part of North Korea’s main foreign intelligence agency. “APT43 has demonstrated it can be quite fluid at adapting to the needs of the regime and shifts their targeting accordingly,”  Gary Freas, a senior analyst at Mandiant, told RFA. According to the report, APT43 conducted espionage against South Korean and U.S.-based government organizations, members of academia and think tanks that deal with North Korean geopolitical issues, and engaged in cyber crime to steal and launder crypto currency. Impersonating experts APT43’s most common attack involves impersonating experts or journalists in spear-phishing emails with the goal of getting information out of its victims.  In this scheme, the attacker poses as a reporter or a think tank analyst to collect intelligence, including by asking experts and academics to answer questions on topics related to North Korea. Often the attackers pretend to be people who are well known in their field to develop rapport with others in the field before asking them to provide strategic analysis on specific subjects. People watch a TV broadcasting a news report on North Korea firing a ballistic missile over Japan, at a railway station in Seoul, South Korea, October 4, 2022. Credit: Reuters In a sample example provided in the report, an attacker pretended to be a journalist with an email address ending in “@voanews.live,” which is similar to the “@voanews.com” addresses used by journalists working for U.S news outlet Voice of America.   The email requested a reaction to an Oct. 4, 2022, North Korean ballistic missile launch that flew over Japan, including asking the recipient if it meant that another North Korean nuclear test could be imminent, and if Japan might increase its defense budget or pursue a more “proactive” defense policy. Because the focus of these types of attacks is often North Korean security and nuclear development, Mandiant believes “with moderate confidence” that APT43 operates under the Reconnaissance General Bureau, or RGB, North Korea&#8217;s main foreign intelligence service. “Campaigns attributed to APT43 are closely aligned with state interests and correlate strongly with geopolitical developments that affect Kim Jong-un and the hermit state’s ruling elite,” the report said. “Since Mandiant has been tracking APT43, they have consistently conducted espionage activity against South Korean and U.S.organizations with a stake in security issues affecting the Korean peninsula.” Mandiant also noted that it detected a shift in the group’s activity between October 2020 and October 2021 toward targeting the health care sector and pharmaceutical companies, likely to gather information to support a North Korean response to COVID-19. This indicates that the group adapts to changing priorities of the North Korean government. “The kinds of questions we&#8217;re seeing them ask when they commission papers and when they ask for interviews are very much about potential responses to different stimuli,” Jenny Town, director of the Washington-based Stimson Center’s 38 North Project, during a discussion about APT43 in a podcast hosted by Mandiant.  “And really, [they’re] trying to better understand how different actions might be perceived, presumably to help them better decide where red lines are,” she said. Emails indicate objectives Town, who has herself been targeted by APT43 and impersonated by them when they target others, said that the emails can show what North Korea’s goals might be. “The questions they&#8217;re asking make a lot of sense and give us a sense of the kinds of things they might be thinking of doing as well,” she said. “It&#8217;s always been really interesting to see the evolution and what they&#8217;ll ask different people.” Freas said that the questions in the emails often show North Korea’s intent. “Whenever APT43 goes after people, pretending to be a reporter or prominent analyst, they ask questions that are so specific to the regime&#8217;s priority intelligence requirements that they show us their hand,” he said. “This gives us good insight into what&#8217;s going on in the closed off nation and that data is very insightful to security vendors and for people that are trying to investigate this.”  Town said that other experts have come to consider it an indication of their success in the field when they are impersonated by what seems to be North Korean cyber attackers.  APT43 has also been known to target organizations for information about sanctions items that are banned for export to North Korea, the report said. During the same podcast, Mandiant analyst Michael Barnhart said that APT43’s methods tend to work on older victims. “Some of the younger folk aren&#8217;t so [eager] to click on a suspicious link, and so you might not get them quite there,” said Barnhart. “You&#8217;re looking at kind of an older crowd that probably has a little less cyber hygiene.” ‘Good at what they do’ “What this group lacks in sophistication they make up for in volume,” said Freas. “It is unique to see the success they are having with such widely known and frequently leveraged techniques.” Freas explained that APT43 extensively researches people they can spoof...
- [Taiwan speeds up preparation for potential conflict with China](https://ij-reportika.com/taiwan-speeds-up-preparation-for-potential-conflict-with-china/): Taiwan’s military is bolstering its preparation for a possible future war with China by planning an unprecedented military drill at a civilian airport this coming July, the official Central News Agency (CNA) reported. The military aircraft emergency landing and takeoff drill will be staged at Taitung Fengnian Airport on the southeast coast of Taiwan. The scenario is that Taiwan’s military airports and airstrips would be severely damaged in attacks by mainland China, forcing fighter-jets to land at civilian airports or on highways, the CNA quoted an unnamed military source as saying. The military is looking to turn a section of Highway 9 “into an emergency landing strip” and a section of a road in Taitung County into an emergency runway, the same source said. Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense has not commented on the details because of the sensitivity of the issue. The drill at Taitung Fengnian Airport will be carried out as part of the annual Han Kuang military exercise, held in July. Han Kuang, Taiwan’s major war games, tests the island’s combat capabilities against a possible Chinese invasion. China considers the democratic island of Taiwan one of its provinces and intends to reunite with the mainland, by force if necessary. In response to any major political events or to any support given to Taiwan by its allies, China regularly holds live-fire exercises in the Taiwan Strait or intensifies the flyovers by its military aircraft. When Nancy Pelosi, the first U.S. House Speaker to visit Taiwan in 25 years, arrived in Taipei last August, Beijing announced a week-long military exercise around the island. ‘No unusual military movements’ Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen is en route to Central America via the United States, and is to make a stopover in California on her way back to Taiwan from a visit to Guatemala and Belize. While in California, she is expected to meet with the incumbent U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.  Beijing has threatened retaliation, with China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesperson, Zhu Fenglian, saying that if the meeting took place, China would “definitely take measures to resolutely fight back.”  Yet on Thursday, Taiwan National Security Bureau Director General Tsai Ming-yen told the parliament that “the government expected a less severe reaction” from Beijing than when Pelosi visited Taiwan. Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen speaks during a dinner reception in New York, March 30, 2023. Credit: Taiwan Presidential Office via AP On Friday, the defense ministry said only two Chinese military aircraft and three naval vessels were spotted overnight near Taiwan and none had crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait that marks the de facto boundary between the island and the mainland. But on Friday morning, nine PLA aircraft crossed the line, the ministry announced. U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby on Wednesday urged China not to use Tsai’s transit “as a pretext to step up any activity around the Taiwan Strait.” Meanwhile, “the Americans are belatedly trying to figure out how to defend Taiwan,” said Grant Newsham, author of a new book on a potential Taiwan conflict, “When China Attacks: A Warning to America.” “The People’s Liberation Army is capable of launching an assault across the Taiwan Strait, and it – or more importantly, Xi Jinping, thinks it can succeed,” Newsham, a retired Marine colonel who’s extensively studied the cross-strait military situation, told Radio Free Asia (RFA). “China has been planning and getting ready to invade Taiwan for at least the last few decades,” he said. “The PLA will hit Taiwan hard and fast while isolating Taiwan electronically and physically,” Newsham added. “It will intimidate the Americans into standing clear.” In his opinion, the upcoming Taiwan presidential election in January 2024 is particularly important. “If a ‘pro-China’ candidate wins, Beijing just might back off and rely on their Taiwanese proxies to force Taiwan to give in and accept mainland dominance,” the analyst said. “But if the candidate that wants to stay free from Chinese communist dominance wins, I would expect Beijing to use force against Taiwan.”
- [UK’s Labour Party to recognize Uyghur genocide if it wins elections](https://ij-reportika.com/uks-labour-party-to-recognize-uyghur-genocide-if-it-wins-elections/): The United Kingdom’s opposition Labour Party will aim to declare the Chinese government’s treatment of the Uyghurs a genocide if it wins the next general election. Labour Member of Parliament David Lammy, who serves as Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, said he “would act multilaterally with our partners” to get China’s actions recognized as genocide through international courts, he told  Politico. “What we’ve seen from China is that they continue to be more internally repressive and obviously there were huge concerns in Xinjiang,” Lammy told Politico on Tuesday during an event arranged by the left-wing think tank the Fabian Society, where he introduced Labour’s  foreign policy plan for government. “We’ve got to challenge China and they are definitely a strategic competitor in essential areas, and we’ve got to hold them to account on human rights — but there are areas where it’s important to cooperate,” he said, according to the report. “Parliament took a decision about genocide, the international community is very concerned about genocide,” he was quoted as saying. Lammy’s comments come as pressure builds to stop China’s repression of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region amid a growing body of evidence documenting the detention of up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and others in “re-educations” camps, torture, sexual abuse and forced labor.  The U.S. has branded China’s actions genocide and the United Nations has said they may constitute crimes against humanity.  But the United Kingdom has avoided doing so, preferring that the matter be determined by international courts.  In April 2021, most members of the UK Parliament voted in favor of a motion declaring that the Chinese government was committing genocide against Uyghurs in Xinjiang, though it did not compel the British government to act to recognize it. China has consistently denied the allegations and said the camps were vocational training centers to prevent religious extremism and terrorism. Uyghur activists hold a vigil outside the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in London on Feb. 13, 2023. Credit: AFP Polls indicate that the Labor Party is favored to win the next election after more than a decade in opposition. The next general election is scheduled to be held no later than Jan. 28, 2025.   Rahima Mahnut, the UK director for the World Uyghur Congress, welcomed Lammy’s comments.  “I am so pleased that the shadow foreign secretary has confirmed the Labour Party shares this policy and that he has committed to working multilaterally with international partners to secure accountability for Uyghur people,” she told RFA on Thursday. “I hope that this means that countries in Europe and across the world see that it is time to follow suit.” Luke de Pulford, executive director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, noted that Labour shadow ministers have regularly described what is happening to Uyghurs as genocide. “The real test will be whether Labour sticks to this line when in government,” he said. “Of course, if the UK were to act to declare genocide, it would engage our responsibilities under the Genocide Convention and necessitate serious action.” Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Tsai talks in US – behind closed doors](https://ij-reportika.com/tsai-talks-in-us-behind-closed-doors/): Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has wasted little time since touching down in New York on Wednesday, delivering one speech shortly after her arrival with a second set for Thursday night. But it’s been hard to nail down the details.  The controversial “transit” through America’s biggest city – en route, apparently, to official visits in Taiwanese allies Guatemala and Belize – is in part taking place behind closed doors, with press not invited. “They are very serious about keeping this a private event,” said Patrick Cronin, the Asia-Pacific security chair at the Hudson Institute, which is hosting Tsai’s speech at the Intercontinental Hotel. Taiwanese officials, Cronin told Radio Free Asia, did not want to create “unnecessary pressure and dissent” with a public speech, with Tsai also set to be presented with a global leadership award. “TECRO set the rules,” he said, referring to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office, Taiwan’s de facto embassy. “It’s not Hudson setting the rules,” he said, but “the Taiwan government.” Careful diplomacy Tsai appears to be walking a fine line, advocating Taiwan’s case against Beijing during her trip while avoiding prodding it too much. Chinese officials have already warned of “countermeasures” after the visit, and even of a “serious, serious, serious confrontation.” Each of Tsai’s previous six “transits” through the United States – one in 2016, two in 2017, another in 2018, and two in 2019 – attracted far less attention, coming at times of relative calm in U.S.-China relations. Dennis Wilder, research fellow with the U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues at Georgetown University and a former CIA deputy assistant director for East Asia and the Pacific, told RFA on Tuesday that the “kind of events” Tsai holds this time would shape Beijing’s reaction. “For example,” Wilder said, “if she were to give speeches where there would be live coverage of the speech, that would be a new kind of step; were she to give speeches that were incendiary in some way from Beijing&#8217;s point of view … we could see a harsh reaction.” The few snippets of Tsai’s visit that has taken place in the public eye so far have largely been tame, avoiding Taiwanese independence and other themes that could complicate U.S.-China relations. In an earlier speech to supporters after arriving Wednesday, Tsai thanked the United States for its support and vowed to continue working with Taiwan’s partners in the face of threats from Beijing. “At this juncture, our partnerships with the United States and other democracies are more critical than ever,” Tsai said in the speech. “We know that we are stronger when we stand together in solidarity with fellow democracies. Taiwan cannot be isolated.” Thawing relations Her trip comes at a fraught time for ties between Washington and Beijing, with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceling a trip to Beijing at the last minute on Feb. 4 after an alleged Chinese spy balloon was discovered floating across the United States. However, U.S. officials insist the trip was only “postponed,” and there are already signs Beijing and Washington are seeking a new date. Taiwan&#8217;s President Tsai Ing-wen departs the Lotte Hotel in Manhattan in New York, Thursday, March 30, 2023. (Reuters) Rick Waters, deputy assistant secretary of state for China and Taiwan and the head of the State Department’s “China House,” last week paid a visit to China, meeting Chinese counterparts in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, department spokesman Vedant Patel said on Tuesday. “It was a working-level discussion,” Patel said, “about a wide range of issues that we have as it relates to our bilateral relationship.” Such a thawing gives U.S. officials reason to avoid an incident. In a call with reporters about Tsai’s trip on Thursday morning, Daniel Kritenbrink, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, said U.S. officials had offered guidance to their Taiwanese counterparts about Tsai’s “transit” through the United States. But he declined to say if they had advised against public speeches. “We are committed to making sure that President Tsai&#8217;s seventh transit of the United States is conducted smoothly and successfully, and we have worked closely with many of our Taiwan friends and counterparts to ensure that that is the case,” Kritenbrink said. “If you have any questions on the specifics of any event that will take place during President Tsai&#8217;s transits,” he said, “I would refer you to the Taiwan authorities and to those associated with the event itself.” Cutting room floor Even with the private nature of Tsai’s speeches, attacks from Chinese officials about the visit have continued since her arrival. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters at a press briefing in Beijing on Thursday that the trip “gravely undermines China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and sends a seriously wrong message to ‘Taiwan independence’ separatists.”  Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning [shown in this file photo] said Thursday that Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s trip “sends a seriously wrong message to ‘Taiwan independence’ separatists.” (Reuters) “This once again shows that the fundamental cause of the new round of tensions in the Taiwan Strait is the Taiwan authorities’ repeated attempt to solicit U.S. support for Taiwan independence and the fact that some in the U.S. intend to use Taiwan to contain China,” Mao said.  “The Taiwan question is the very core of China’s core interests,” she added, “the bedrock of the political foundation of China-U.S. relations, and the first red line that must not be crossed in the relationship.” Xu Xueyuan, charge d’affaires at the Chinese embassy in Washington, also reportedly said Tsai’s visit could cause a “serious confrontation.”  “The so-called &#8216;transit&#8217; is merely a disguise to her true intention of seeking breakthrough and advocating Taiwan independence,” Xu was quoted as saying by Axios. Tsai’s trip, he added, “could lead to serious, serious, serious confrontation in the U.S.-China relationship.” Return ticket The worst from Beijing may be yet to come. Tsai departs New York for Guatemala at 11 a.m. on Friday and returns Tuesday to Los Angeles, where...
- [Junta jets bomb village in western Myanmar, killing 10](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-jets-bomb-village-in-western-myanmar-killing-10/): Two Myanmar military jets bombed a village in western Myanmar on Thursday where there was no fighting, killing at least 10 people and injuring 20 others, according to ethnic rebels and residents. The seemingly unprovoked attack on Khuabung village in Thantlang township in Chin state, near the Indian border, is the military’s latest use of air power in its sprawling offensive against anti-junta People’s Defense Force paramilitaries and ethnic armies. It’s a tactic that has become increasingly common as the country’s armed resistance makes greater gains. Such attacks are typically undertaken by the military to support troops fighting anti-junta forces with devastating effect. Chin National Front spokesman Salai Htet Ni told RFA Burmese that the strike by the two jets was unprovoked and clearly targeted a civilian population. However, Thantlang is one of several townships under martial law that the junta has targeted with multiple airstrikes since the start of the year. “They attacked this morning [at around 10:00 a.m.] without any battles happening,” Salai Htet Ni said. “They dropped bombs into a civilian village.” At least 10 residents were killed and 20 injured, he said. The airstrike set many of the village’s houses on fire, residents said. Khuabung, around 5 miles (8 kilometers) from the seat of Thantlang township, is home to more than 230 people living in 53 households. Increasing airstrikes According to the Chin Human Rights Organization, the military launched at least 53 airstrikes, dropping more than 140 bombs, on the townships of Mindat, Hakha, Matupi and Thantlang in the first two months of 2023 alone.  The strikes killed five members of the Chin National Front and three members of local anti-junta People’s Defense Force, and also injured six civilians. In addition to the strike on Khuabung village on Thursday, the military also used Mi-35 aircraft to bomb areas it suspected were occupied by local PDF groups, the Chin National Front said. The military has yet to issue any statement regarding the bombing of Khuabung and attempts by RFA to reach Thant Zin, the junta’s spokesperson for Chin state, went unanswered on Thursday. A report issued by the U.N. human rights agency earlier this month said that junta airstrikes in Myanmar had more than doubled from 125 in 2021 to 301 in 2022. The report followed a joint statement on March 1 by Amnesty International, Global Witness, and Burma Campaign (U.K.) urging governments to sanction companies that sell jet fuel to the junta to limit the country’s air force. While international sanctions have limited the air force to some extent, former military officials in Myanmar have said they will never be fully effective while powerful countries, such as Russia and China, are backing the junta. Deaths and displacements in Shan state News of the airstrikes on Thantlang came as RFA learned that at least 33 civilians were killed and more than 5,000 displaced from southern Shan state’s townships of Pinlaung, Pekon and Mobye during the first three months of the year alone. Yin Lianghan, a spokesperson for the Shan Human Rights Foundation, said his organization had compiled the statistics after interviewing Buddhist monks displaced by the violence, as well as aid workers in the region. “These people have been severely displaced because of the junta’s heavy artillery shelling and a massacre in the Nam Neint village,” he said, referring to an incident on March 11, in which junta troops killed 21 civilians, including three monks, in a dawn raid on a monastery in Pinlaung before setting fire to the village. “The main reason why they have become refugees is because of the junta’s extrajudicial killing of innocent civilians,” he said. Residents who fled villages in southern Shan state, Myanmar, are seen in the town of Pinlaung, Sunday, March 26, 2023. Credit: Comet social group Junta Deputy Information Minister Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun has told pro-junta media that the Karenni National Defense Army committed the massacre in Nem Neint village, but the KNDF claims that it was the handiwork of the military. According to Shan Human Rights Foundation, at least two children were among those killed by the military shelling in Pinlaung and Mobye townships since the start of the year.. Tensions rising Khun Bwe Hone, the information officer for the ethnic Pa’O National Defense Force, told RFA that the deaths and displacements occurred amid rising tensions between the military and the ethnic Karrenni Nationalities Defense Force in the three townships, as the junta is preparing a major offensive in the area. “The junta is reinforcing its troops,” he said, noting that most villagers have already left the area in anticipation of the fighting. “Our defense forces have warned them to flee to safety. That&#8217;s why they left. This battle is likely to be drawn out because we are determined to fight against the military dictatorship … to the end and the enemy is going to do what it has set out to do, too.” A woman who fled fighting in the area told RFA on condition of anonymity that civilians are pouring into the seat of Pinlaung township from nearby villages to take refuge in camps for the displaced. A monastery and residential homes burn in Nam Neint village, Pinlaung township on March 11, 2023, following a raid by Myanmar junta forces. Credit: Inn Sar Kuu The exact number of refugees is unknown, said aid worker Khun Kyaw Shwe. While the refugees are receiving assistance from social support groups and area residents, they are in “desperate need of medicine,” as well as food and access to clean water, he said. “At the moment, local medical teams are taking care of them with what little medicine they have,” Khun Kyaw Shwe told RFA. “The demand for medicine is quite severe. The refugee camps are dealing with outbreaks of malaria, influenza and respiratory infections.” Only around 20 days of food stores remain for the camps in Pinlaung, he said, urging international donors to help fill the gaps. RFA was unable to reach Khun Thein Maung, the junta’s...
- [Countries ask UN court to issue opinion on responsibility for climate change](https://ij-reportika.com/countries-ask-un-court-to-issue-opinion-on-responsibility-for-climate-change/): Should governments be sued for the consequences of human-driven climate change? That, in essence, was the question hatched by law students from Pacific island countries in 2019. Four years later, in what could prove to be a landmark decision, the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday asked the U.N.’s judicial arm, the International Court of Justice, to give an opinion on states’ legal obligations to combat climate change. The ICJ’s view, though nonbinding, would “carry enormous legal weight and moral authority,” Vanuatu Prime Minister Alatoi Ishmael Kalsakau said in a speech before the ICJ resolution championed by his country was adopted. More than two thirds of countries had signed up as sponsors of the resolution. “We believe the clarity it will bring can greatly benefit our efforts to address the climate crisis and could further bolster global and multilateral cooperation and state conduct in addressing climate change,” Kalsakau said. Pacific island nations such as Vanuatu are among the countries most vulnerable to the extreme weather and sea-level rise that is projected to occur this century as a result of higher average global temperatures. Low-lying atoll nations such as Tuvalu and Kiribati are particularly at risk. At a conference in Fiji last year, officials from 15 low-lying Pacific island nations agreed that climate change was their “single greatest existential threat.”  More than 130 nations sponsored the U.N. resolution with several including Indonesia, a major polluter, joining in at the last minute. The world’s two largest carbon polluters, the United States and China – rival superpowers that are vying for influence among Pacific island nations and pouring aid money to states in the vast oceanic region – were not among the sponsors.  The resolution asks the international court to issue an advisory opinion on the obligations of governments to protect the “climate system” and the environment from global warming, which is driven by human activity.  It also wants the court to offer an opinion on what legal consequences stem from those obligations, for countries that cause significant harm to the climate and environment, particularly in relation to small island states. An opinion from the International Court of Justice could add weight to the arguments for developed nations to take more action to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and for compensation for countries worst affected by a warmer climate.  It could also be incorporated into national laws or influence courts when they consider lawsuits related to climate change. “If and when given, such an opinion would assist the General Assembly, the U.N. and member states to take the bolder and stronger climate action that our world so desperately needs,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said. The latest yearly report from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, released earlier this week, said greenhouse gasses released by fossil fuels and other human activity had “unequivocally caused global warming.” The average temperature between 2011-2020 was 1.1 degrees Centigrade higher than 1850-1900. It said the increase in average surface temperature was already contributing to climate and weather extremes around the globe such as heatwaves and droughts and the intensity of rains and tropical cyclones. The internationally agreed goal of limiting the temperature increase to 1.5 C is still achievable though time is running out, the report said. Roemoni Tubivuna and his grandson Roemoni Tubivuna Jr., 10, prepare for a fishing outing at Veivatuloa village, Fiji, July 16, 2022. Leaders of 15 low-lying Pacific island nations declared climate change their “single greatest existential threat” at a mid-July summit in Fiji’s capital, Suva. Facing some of the most direct effects of climate change, they want developed nations, who contributed the most to global warming, not only to curb their emissions but to pay for the steps that islanders must take to protect their people from rising sea levels. Credit: Loren Elliott/Reuters Kalsakau and Guterres, in their speeches to the General Assembly on Wednesday, acknowledged the law students who provided much of the initial impetus for the effort to seek the ICJ opinion.  “We are just ecstatic that the world has listened to the Pacific youth and has chosen to take action. From what started in a Pacific classroom four years ago,” Cynthia Houniuhi, one of the students and now president of the group, said in a statement. A decade earlier, the Pacific island nation of Palau had indicated it would ask the General Assembly to seek an ICJ advisory opinion but its initiative didn’t advance. The 27 students, from numerous Pacific island countries, were studying law at the University of South Pacific campus in Vanuatu’s capital, Port Vila, when they developed the idea, according to Lavetanalagi Seru, regional policy coordinator at the Pacific Islands Climate Action Network based in Suva, Fiji. They formed a civil society organization, Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change, whose main goal was to convince governments to seek the advisory opinion, based around a question that would develop new international law combining climate change and legal obligations stemming from environmental treaties and basic human rights. The effort reflected frustration that the pledges made by countries to reduce emissions that cause higher global temperatures were “utterly insufficient,” according to the group’s campaign materials. Seru said it would likely take two to three years for the world court, based in The Hague, to issue an opinion. “It’s not really to push the blame,” he told BenarNews, “but to strengthen the understanding of what exactly is the role of states to protect the rights of current and future generations and what is the basic minimum that countries must do in order to protect those rights.”  BenarNews, an online news service affiliated with Radio Free Asia (RFA), produced this report. 
- [Vietnam’s communists are constrained domestically in choice between the US and China](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnams-communists-are-constrained-domestically-in-choice-between-the-us-and-china/): It wasn’t the Communist Party that lifted the Vietnamese out of poverty; the people did it themselves. The country’s free-market revolution was the result of bottom-up pressure from the masses who broke the command-economy so much that the communist government had to accept a private sphere of business. Their pilfering from state-run companies and trading on the black market, and their ability to own more and more surplus produce after the state took its share, meant the government simply couldn’t handle the collectivized economy that had left Vietnam one of the world’s poorest countries in the 1980s.    When the communist government gave an inch, the people demanded more. “The idea that economic success stems from a strategic shift in Party thinking [in 1986]&#8230; is actually a myth,” the economist Adam Fforde wrote. “Success instead drew upon systematic violations of Party ideology dating from the late 1970s, if not earlier.”    The party’s economic reform package of 1986 (doi moi, or “renovation”) is common knowledge. Less so the promises of political renovation. Nguyen Van Linh, the incoming party general secretary that year, told writers and journalists that they should ‘stick to the truth’. One of those who took Linh at his word was Bao Ninh, a young novelist and war veteran from the North. “So much blood, so many lives were sacrificed for what?” he wrote in his 1990 book, The Sorrow of War. The poet and translator Duong Tuong called Bao’s work the “first truthful book about the war.” Truthful because it neither glorified victory against the Americans (“In war, no one wins or loses. There is only destruction”), nor regarded Communist Party leaders as the only heroes. Bao argued most Vietnamese were fighting for national peace, nor for Marxism. Naturally, the book was banned.    Vietnam&#8217;s Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh (R) gestures to U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris in the Government office in Hanoi on August 25, 2021. Credit: Manan Vatsyayana / Pool / AFP The point is that even in a one-party, communist state, ordinary people can exert power. Today, the government still severely represses its citizens. There is no free media. There are no genuine elections. But the Communist Party is genuinely worried about the thoughts of the common man. Those domestic pressures are difficult to assess and frequently in debates on policy, such as about Vietnam hedging between the United States and China, it’s far easier to focus on “externalities”.    The position at one extreme of that foreign policy debate, for instance, argues the Vietnamese government is denied any agency whatsoever because of material conditions: China is Vietnam’s main trading partner and principal aggressor; the United States is Vietnam’s main export partner and security “guarantor.” So by more closely aligning with either, Vietnam risks war or economic ruin. The other extreme says the Communist Party has a good deal of agency, and what shapes foreign policy is a shared ideology that makes it friendly with China, factional struggles within the party, and the whims of certain government officials.    But consider a speech given in 2021 by Nguyen Phu Trong, now three-term Communist Party general secretary. Any nation “has to deal with two basic issues, internal and external,” he stated. “These two issues have an organic, dialectical relationship…[they] support each other like two wings of a bird, create positions and forces for each other, connect and intertwine more and more closely with each other.” Foreign policy today, he added, is a “continuation of domestic policy”. He said a little later: “Foreign affairs must always best serve the domestic cause.” That domestic cause for Trong is the survival and virality of the Communist Party.    Domestic concerns dictate The other importance of The Sorrow of War was as an early sign nationalism was tumbling out of the hands of the Communist Party, which had staked its legitimacy on having led victory over the French, then Americans and then Chinese. But it was starting to lose its grip in the early 1990s when it struck peace with Beijing. Further anger flowed from the public as Chinese capital began flowing into Vietnam. In 2006, national hero General Vo Nguyen Giap (the “Red Napoleon”) accused the regime of selling off Vietnamese land for exploitation by Chinese bauxite speculators. Years-long protests turned “the nationalist tables on the Party by accusing it of caving in to the Chinese at the very time the latter were expanding their territorial claims against Vietnam in the South China Sea”, wrote the historian Christopher Goscha. That process has only expanded over time. One could say that the Communist Party is now scared of nationalism.    Chinese academics seem especially taken with the idea  that all nationalist protests in Vietnam are directed by the Communist Party. That is rarely the case. The party follows events; it seldom leads them. Netizen anger drove the recent cases of the Hollywood film &#8220;Barbie&#8221; being banned in Vietnam over a crude map that some said showed China&#8217;s territorial claims in the South China Sea, and threats to boycott concerts by the South Korean K-Pop band BlackPink. During the Vanguard Bank standoff in 2019, when the Chinese military was once again harassing Vietnamese vessels in the South China Sea, officials in Hanoi reportedly discussed whether to allow some limited protests. “But, warned some other officials, demonstrations must be tightly controlled. If not, the protests might be taken over by individuals and groups in Vietnam, specifically democratization advocates”, wrote Ben Kerkvliet in Speaking Out in Vietnam, a study of political activism.  That remains a concern. If the party takes a strong stance against China, that risks setting off nationwide nationalist protests that the party cannot control and which might quickly be whipped up into anti-communist agitation. Between June 9 and 11, 2018, more than 100,000 protesters demonstrated across Vietnam, arguably the largest nationwide protest seen in decades, as the National Assembly debated a bill to create three special economic zones (SEZs) along Vietnam’s coastline. The investment minister said publicly...
- [Bangladesh police: Rival Rohingya militant groups in deadly gunfight at refugee camp](https://ij-reportika.com/bangladesh-police-rival-rohingya-militant-groups-in-deadly-gunfight-at-refugee-camp/): At least five members of rival Rohingya militant groups were killed in a gunfight Friday at a refugee camp in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district, police and other sources said. Separately, following a four-day visit to refugee camps in that southeastern district, International Criminal Court (ICC) Chief Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan urged the world to provide more humanitarian support because, he said, Rohingya were missing meals after the U.N. World Food Program had cut monthly aid to U.S. $8 from $12 on June 1. The killings in Friday’s shootout before dawn marked the latest bloodshed between the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) and Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO). Up until relatively recently, Bangladesh officials had denied that Rohingya militants had a foothold in the sprawling refugee camps near the Myanmar border, where security has deteriorated sharply. “The gunfight that left five dead this morning was between two Rohingya armed groups, ARSA and RSO,” Md. Farooq Ahmed, an assistant superintendent with the Armed Police Battalion, told BenarNews.   Sheikh Mohammad Ali, officer-in-charge of the Ukhia police station, said law enforcers recovered the corpses of those killed in the gunfight, which took place around 5 a.m. at the Balukhali camp.  Camp resident Nur Hafez said gunshots woke him. “I heard a hue and cry. Rushing to the scene, I found some blood-stained injured people lying on the ground. The police took them away after a while,” he told BenarNews. “Due to contests among different groups inside the camp, the killings are increasing,” Hafez said. Syed Ullah, a Rohingya camp leader, said that the feud between the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army and Rohingya Solidarity Organization had surfaced over efforts to exert dominance in the camps. “The ordinary Rohingya people have been living in a terrified atmosphere,” he said. The population of the densely crowded camps has swollen to about 1 million after about 740,000 Rohingya crossed the border into Bangladesh as they fled a brutal military offensive in their home state of Rakhine in Myanmar. That followed a series of deadly attacks by ARSA forces on Burmese military and police posts in Rakhine in August 2017.  Ullah said uncertainty over efforts to repatriate the Rohingya to Myanmar had caused frustration, leading to an increase in criminal activities at the camps. “We at the camps have faced two-pronged difficulties – our monthly food allocations have been reduced twice and now we face the danger of being killed by the armed groups,” he said. ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan speaks to reporters in Dhaka following his first visit to Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar, Feb. 27, 2022. (BenarNews) Karim Khan, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, visited the camps to interview Rohingya about atrocities they suffered before fleeing to Bangladesh.  He had made a similar visit in February 2022 after the Hague-based ICC authorized the investigation in 2019, but that was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The pre-trial chamber concluded at the time that it was reasonable “to believe that since at least 9 October 2016, members of the Tatmadaw [the Myanmar military], jointly with other security forces and with some participation of local civilians, may have committed coercive acts” against the Rohingya people that constitute crimes against humanity, according to a 55-page court document. In a separate investigation, the International Court of Justice allowed a case to proceed that the Gambia had brought against Myanmar’s military regime alleging genocide against Rohingya.  The ICJ in May ruled to allow Myanmar officials until Aug. 24 to present arguments and evidence “necessary to respond to the claims” made against them. Following his four-day visit, Karim Khan expressed concern that Rohingya are going without meals. “[U]p to March, Rohingya men, women and children were given three meals a day, they were given enough money to eat three times a day. And since March, they have (been) eating twice a day, and not even twice,” he told reporters at the Inter-Continental Hotel in Dhaka hours after flying in from Cox’s Bazar. Mohammad Alam, a leader of Leda camp in Teknaf, had told BenarNews that the new monthly allocation translates to about 28 taka (25 cents) per day per person or about nine taka (eight cents) per each of three meals a day. “Is it possible to feed a family with such an allocation,” Alam asked. During his news conference, Karim Khan, who said he discussed the issue with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, expressed similar concerns. “What could you do with nine taka – I was told one egg is 12 taka,” he said, pointing out that some meals are skipped. He said children would ask their parents, “‘Where is lunch?’” “The heart should note that this is an area where the world should give support,” Karim Khan said while urging the World Food Program and other United Nations agencies to step up. “[I]t is a symptom of a malaise in which we have to show that every human life matters, that we give resources fairly and adequately wherever possible, that we realize 1.1 million people in a camp, the government of Bangladesh also needs support,” he said. “If people are hungry and there is no hope, it will lead to tension and difficulties.”  BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.
- [Yellen woos China with chopstick diplomacy, talks tough on business](https://ij-reportika.com/yellen-woos-china-with-chopstick-diplomacy-talks-tough-on-business/): U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen touched down in Beijing on Thursday and ate at a popular Yunnan restaurant with the U.S. ambassador before meeting with key officials on Friday. Yellen met with China’s central bank governor Yi Gang, former economy point-man Liu He and State Premier Li Qiang on Friday to discuss the global, U.S. and Chinese economies. In prepared remarks, Yellen told Li she hoped her visit would spur more regular channels of communication between the world&#8217;s two largest economies, adding that both countries had a duty to “show leadership” on global challenges such as climate change. She said Washington would “in certain circumstances, need to pursue targeted actions to protect its national security,” but disagreements over such moves should not jeopardize the broader relationship. “We seek healthy economic competition that is not winner-take-all but that, with a fair set of rules, can benefit both countries over time,” she said. Separately, speaking at the American Chamber of Commerce on Friday, Yellen noted concerns in the U.S. business community.  “I am communicating the concerns that I’ve heard from the U.S. business community, including China’s use of non-market tools like expanded subsidies for its state-owned enterprises and domestic firms, as well as barriers to market access for foreign firms,” she said. Meanwhile, in a sign of a possible thaw in China-U.S. relations, the usually provocative nationalist state tabloid Global Times asked in a tweet, what’s Yellen’s “preferred choice of food while in China? “It seems that Yunnan cuisine takes the top spot, as a popular Yunnan restaurant in Beijing&#8217;s Sanlitun area recently shared a picture of Yellen using chopsticks to enjoy a meal shortly after her arrival in Beijing on Thursday.” Yellen is in Beijing amid a flurry of visits aimed at breaking the ice between Washington and Beijing after the U.S. military shot down a Chinese government balloon over the United States. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Beijing in late June and U.S. climate envoy John Kerry will visit Beijing later this month Bloomberg reported. Mediating influence Yellen has a near “mission impossible” – to convince China that its measures in the interests of state security, restricting technology exports to China, are not intended to harm China’s interests as a rising nation state. But Chinese state media showed signs that Beijing may be in the mood for compromise – at least when it comes to trade and investment. China’s Global Times, in an uncharacteristically positive turn, editorialized that even though U.S. officials are downplaying any expectations from Yellen’s visit, “Chinese experts believe that one major point of significance of Yellen&#8217;s trip is to keep high-level communication channels open, which may help bilateral relations walk out of their downward spiral.” U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen walks after arriving at Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing, China, Thursday, July 6, 2023. Credit: Mark Schiefelbein/Pool via Reuters Ahead of Yellen’s visit, in a response to restrictions on China’s access to high-technology semiconductor chips, on Monday, China announced it was restricting exports of two critical components in the chips that modern life runs on. “This is just the beginning,” Wei Jianguo, a former Chinese vice-minister of commerce, told the China Daily. “China’s tool box has many more types of measures available.” The trade and investment entanglement of China and the U.S. makes what the U.S. is now referring to as “de-risking,” rather than decoupling, hugely complex due to the entangled nature of the two nations&#8217; trade. Firm on security It’s likely Beijing may think that accepting Yellen’s visit and appearing to be more receptive, as opposed to the cooler reception Secretary of State Antony Blinken received, could give the U.S. pause for thought about its tech restrictions. But Yellen reiterated that her mission, like Blinken’s, was to open up lines of communication and avoid a catastrophic confrontation between the world’s two leading superpowers. “I am glad to be in Beijing to meet with Chinese officials and business leaders. We seek a healthy economic competition that benefits American workers and firms and to collaborate on global challenges,” Yellen said in a tweet. “We will take action to protect our national security when needed, and this trip presents an opportunity to communicate and avoid miscommunication or misunderstanding.” A possible thaw “Yellen is a more rational voice on China issues within the Biden administration,” Wu Xinbo, dean of the Institute of International Studies at Shanghai’s Fudan University told The Wall Street Journal. But her visit comes amid “unsafe” moves in the South China Sea, a war of words over Chinese fentanyl exports, revelations of a multibillion-dollar Chinese spy base in Cuba and daily military harassment of Taiwan. Wendy Cutler, a former diplomat and Vice President at the Asia Society Policy Institute, talking to Taiwan +, an English-language TV news service, said of Yellen’s visit, “No 1, she has to go through the list of U.S. grievances, including their recent announcement of [export restrictions on] two critical minerals, the way U.S. companies are being treated in China and recent legislation to create more uncertainty in the business climate.” Cutler added that, as Yellen has previously pointed out, the U.S. doesn’t seek to decouple the two superpower’s economies, but “there are sectors of national security concern [and] we’re not going to be shy about protecting that.” Back to business Yellen took a jab at China’s planned economy, saying that Beijing should return to the era of market reforms that former leader Deng Xiaoping ushered in and which led to decades of rocket-fueled economic growth. “A shift toward market reforms would be in China’s interests,” Yellen told U.S. business executives on Friday, according to reports. “A market-based approach helped spur rapid growth in China and helped lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. This is a remarkable economic success story,” Yellen added. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen meets with representatives of the U.S. business community in China, in Beijing, July 7, 2023. Credit: Reuters/Thomas Peter Yellen said that China&#8217;s vast middle-class was a market for American...
- [Not so hotline](https://ij-reportika.com/not-so-hotline/): Laos has launched a hotline that citizens can call for government assistance, but people appear afraid to use it because callers must reveal their names, phone numbers and addresses. Laos, one of the world&#8217;s few avowed Marxist-Leninist states, has given critics lengthy jail terms for social media comments. Residents say they don&#8217;t want to get in trouble for reporting problems.
- [Myanmar’s junta accuses People’s Defense Force of killing 15 civilians](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-junta-accuses-peoples-defense-force-of-killing-15-civilians/): Myanmar’s junta has accused a Sagaing region People’s Defense Force of killing 15 civilians in an attack on a village, a state news agency reported Thursday. Locals confirmed to RFA that fighting between junta troops and the local defense force broke out on Wednesday morning at Ngwe Twin village in Ayadaw township. People Media, a news agency of the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party, said the defense force fired hand-made mortars, killing 15 locals – including a 12-year-old – at a monastery. It said seven people, including three monks, were also injured. The report did not give the names and ages of the alleged casualties but said the injured were being treated at the Monywa Military Hospital. RFA has not been able to confirm the report. Ngwe Twin village is occupied by several junta-backed militia groups and residents say the local People’s Defense Force often attacks because the army is also stationed there. When RFA asked the defense force based in Ayadaw township about alleged deaths, the information officer confirmed the attack on Ngwe Twin village but said it targeted a Pyu Saw Htee militia base. “There could have been [civilian] casualties,” said the man who declined to be named for security reasons. “There was some resistance against us when fighting broke out at the monastery. Almost all of them were Pyu Saw Htee. But some unrelated people may have been affected. We expected this and moved elderly people into their homes to minimize [civilian casualties] when we entered the village.” He declined to confirm the reported mortar attack, citing the need for security. The People’s Defense Force did issue a statement claiming responsibility for a June 20 attack on the village and Pyu Saw Htee camp in which it used drones to drop bombs. More than 8,000 people have been killed across Myanmar due to armed clashes following the February 2021 military coup according to reports last month by independent research group ISP (Myanmar) and the Oslo Peace Center. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [International aid groups still unable to deliver supplies to Cyclone Mocha victims](https://ij-reportika.com/international-aid-groups-still-unable-to-deliver-supplies-to-cyclone-mocha-victims/): Nearly two months after Cyclone Mocha devastated Myanmar’s Rakhine state, international organizations are still unable to travel to affected areas to provide humanitarian aid. The acting head of the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Danielle Parry, met with the junta’s minister of relief and resettlement on Tuesday in the capital Naypyidaw to discuss delivery of relief supplies. The meeting followed a U.N. announcement on June 22 that relief activities for cyclone victims have been delayed because of the junta’s decision earlier in June to stop giving practical assistance and permission to travel to humanitarian aid groups, according to the junta-controlled Myanma Alinn Daily. The announcement from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs also said that they are negotiating with junta authorities in Naypyidaw and state level government officials to get a wide range of access to Rakhine.  Cyclone Mocha – one of the worst cyclones to hit Myanmar in a decade – made landfall on May 14 with sustained winds reaching over 220 kilometers per hour (137 mph), killing more than 400 people and leaving widespread destruction. Residents walk past damaged buildings after Cyclone Mocha in Sittwe township, Rakhine State, Myanmar, Tuesday, May 16, 2023. Credit: AP In the weeks after the storm, aid workers told Radio Free Asia that more than 90% of houses and buildings in northern Rakhine were damaged by the storm.  The U.N. said last month that it’s prepared to provide shelters and relief materials for 1.6 million people in Rakhine, but has so far only been able to assist 110,000 people. A Rohingya refugee in the Dar Paing refugee camp said there has been no international support in the camps.  “Nothing has been done about the shelters in the IDP camps so far. They are also facing food shortages,” the refugee told RFA. The news that international support will come does not reach this area. Their support has not reached this side of the state yet.” ‘We do not expect that the help will arrive’ In early June, junta officials issued a blanket ban on transportation for aid groups operating in Rakhine. A June 7 announcement mandated that all international humanitarian aid, including U.N. assistance, be donated through the junta.  Cyclone victims are going to have to try to survive on their own now, a person in charge of a local help group in Rakhine’s capital, in Sittwe, told RFA. “Many of our people have lost hope in international aid,” he said. “We do not expect that the help will arrive to us.” RFA called junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun regarding whether organizations will be able to provide direct international aid to the cyclone victims, but he did not respond.  Workers rebuild a damaged UN World Food Programme warehouse in Sittwe, Myanmar, on May 17, 2023, in the aftermath of Cyclone Mocha. Credit: Sai Aung Main/AFP It is customary for outsider organizations to communicate with the government that is currently in power before providing assistance inside the country, said Thein Tun Oo, executive director of the Thayninga Institute for Strategic Studies, which is made up of former military officers. “In the shortest and simplest terms, the military is the ruling government of the country that holds these sovereign powers,” he said. The junta is intentionally preventing humanitarian aid from reaching those who really need it, said Dr. Win Myat Aye, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management of the shadow National Unity Government. “The military council treats the refugee people as their enemies and has no compassion for them as humans,” he said. Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Matt Reed.
- [Aid workers hunt for bodies after shelling, air raids in Myanmar’s Shan state](https://ij-reportika.com/aid-workers-hunt-for-bodies-after-shelling-air-raids-in-myanmars-shan-state/): At least 28 civilians have been killed in nearly six weeks of fierce fighting between junta forces and ethnic armies in Myanmar’s eastern Shan state, aid workers told us on Wednesday. Junta troops shelled Moebye (also known as Moe Bye and Mobye) in the south of the state from May 25, and targeted the township with air raids. Rescue workers say they are treating another 20 locals and still looking for bodies. “Most of the injured were shot,” said an official from a local aid group, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals. “In addition, the number of the deaths from May 27 to July 4 is about 28 people who were hit and killed by heavy artillery.” He added that Moebye Hospital has been closed since the Feb. 1, 2021, military coup, so the injured had to be sent to Loikaw Hospital in Kayah state and Aungban Hospital in southern Shan state. Aid groups say it has been difficult to look for bodies and take the injured for treatment because the main road is impassable during battles and closed at night. “[The junta troops] do not harm us, but if you pick up [bodies] near where they are, you have to ask for permission,” said a local who has been collecting bodies and who also requested anonymity for safety reasons. “Some dead bodies have been around for almost a month. The deceased were buried in the nearest cemetery to where their bodies were found.” The volunteer told us some neighborhoods are still inaccessible so it has been impossible to bury the dead there. Shadow government condemns killings Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government issued a statement on June 14, saying the bodies of 14 locals had been discovered near a pagoda to the north of Moebye between June 6 and 8. It strongly condemned the killings. We tried to contact the Mobye People’s Defense Force and the Karenni Defense Forces about the military situation in Moebye township, but telephone services had been cut. A report Wednesday by the local paper Mekong News quoted a local defense force member as saying the fighting was ongoing, phone and internet communication had been cut and people should stay in their homes. Ba Nyar, the founder of the Karenni Human Rights Group, said most of the civilians who died in Moeby were deliberately targeted by junta troops. “These actions can be viewed as war crimes. They are deliberate killings,” he told us. “If we look at some of the ways things have been done: for example, continuous bombing by fighter jets is a war crime which makes it impossible for people to live there.” Wecalled Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun, the junta&#8217;s deputy information minister, and also Shan state spokesperson Khun Thein Maung, seeking their comments but nobody answered. Villagers displaced by the fighting receive medical care at a camp in Moebye township, Shan state on 28 April 2023. Credit: Mobye Rescue Team &nbsp; Locals said more than 20,000 people, or two-thirds of Moebye’s population, fled their homes at the height of the fighting and have been unable to return. They said that junta troops are stationed in the center of the town and only a few people have stayed behind to guard homes. According to the figures from the Karenni Human Rights Group, more than 260,000 people in Moebye – which borders Kayah state – and in the whole of Kayah state have been unable to return home. Moebye and Kaya state are close to Myanmar’s capital and junta stronghold Naypyidaw, leading some analysts to speculate that the junta is trying to prevent them from being used as bases to attack the regime&#8217;s leaders. &nbsp;
- [Hong Kong warrants spark fears of widening 'long-arm' political enforcement by China](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-warrants-spark-fears-of-widening-long-arm-political-enforcement-by-china/): Concerns are growing that China could start using the Interpol &#8220;red notice&#8221; arrest warrant system to target anyone overseas, of any nationality, who says or does something the ruling Communist Party doesn&#8217;t like, using Hong Kong&#8217;s three-year-old national security law. Dozens of rights groups on Tuesday called on governments to suspend any remaining extradition treaties with China and Hong Kong after the city&#8217;s government issued arrest warrants and bounties for eight prominent figures in the overseas democracy movement on Monday, vowing to pursue them for the rest of their lives. &#8220;We urge governments to suspend the remaining extradition treaties that exist between democracies and the Hong Kong and Chinese governments and work towards coordinating an Interpol early warning system to protect Hong Kongers and other dissidents abroad,&#8221; an open letter dated July 4 and signed by more than 50 Hong Kong-linked civil society groups around the world said. &#8220;Hong Kong activists in exile must be protected in their peaceful fight for basic human rights, freedoms and democracy,&#8221; said the letter, which was signed by dozens of local Hong Kong exile groups from around the world, as well as by Human Rights in China and the World Uyghur Congress. Hong Kong&#8217;s national security law, according to its own Article 38, applies anywhere in the world, to people of all nationalities. The warrants came days after the Beijing-backed Ta Kung Pao newspaper said Interpol red notices could be used to pursue people &#8220;who do not have permanent resident status of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and commit crimes against Hong Kong outside Hong Kong.&#8221;  &#8220;If the Hong Kong [government] wants to extradite foreign criminals back to Hong Kong for trial, [it] must formally notify the relevant countries and request that local law enforcement agencies arrest the fugitives and send them back to Hong Kong for trial,&#8221; the paper said. While Interpol&#8217;s red notice system isn&#8217;t designed for political arrests, China has built close ties and influence with the international body in recent years, with its former security minister Meng Hongwei rising to become president prior to his sudden arrest and prosecution in 2019, and another former top Chinese cop elected to the board in 2021. And there are signs that Hong Kong&#8217;s national security police are already starting to target overseas citizens carrying out activities seen as hostile to China on foreign soil. Hong Kong police in March wrote to the London-based rights group Hong Kong Watch ordering it to take down its website. And people of Chinese descent who are citizens of other countries have already been targeted by Beijing for &#8220;national security&#8221; related charges. Call to ignore To address a growing sense of insecurity among overseas rights advocates concerned with Hong Kong, the letter called on authorities in the United Kingdom, United States of America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Europe to reiterate that the Hong Kong National Security Law does not apply in their jurisdictions, and to reaffirm that the Hong Kong arrest warrants won&#8217;t be recognized. The New York-based Human Rights Watch said the &#8220;unlawful activities&#8221; the eight are accused of should all be protected under human rights guarantees in Hong Kong&#8217;s mini-constitution, the Basic Law. Hong Kong police on Monday, July 3, 2023, issued arrest warrants and offered bounties for eight activists and former lawmakers who have fled the city. They are [clockwise from top left] Kevin Yam, Elmer Yuen, Anna Kwok, Dennis Kwok, Nathan Law, Finn Lau, Mung Siu-tat and Ted Hui. Credit: Screenshot from Reuters video &#8220;In recent years, the Chinese government has expanded efforts to control information and intimidate activists around the world by manipulation of bodies such as Interpol,&#8221; it said in a statement, adding that more than 100,000 Hong Kongers have fled the city since the crackdown on dissent began. &#8220;The Hong Kong government’s charges and bounties against eight Hong Kong people in exile reflects the growing importance of the diaspora’s political activism,” Maya Wang, associate director in the group&#8217;s Asia division, said in a statement. &#8220;Foreign governments should not only publicly reject cooperating with National Security Law cases, but should take concrete actions to hold top Beijing and Hong Kong officials accountable,&#8221; she said. Hong Kong’s Chief Executive John Lee told reporters on Tuesday that the only way for the activists to “end their destiny of being an abscondee who will be pursued for life is to surrender” and urged them “to give themselves up as soon as possible”. The Communist Party-backed Wen Wei Po newspaper cited Yiu Chi Shing, who represents Hong Kong on the standing committee of the Chinese People&#8217;s Political Consultative Conference, as saying that those who have fled overseas will continue to oppose the government from wherever they are. &#8220;Anyone who crosses the red lines in the national security law will be punished, no matter how far away,&#8221; Yiu told the paper. The rights groups warned that Monday&#8217;s arrest warrants represent a significant escalation in &#8220;long-arm&#8221; law enforcement by authorities in Beijing and Hong Kong. Extradition While the U.S., U.K. and several other countries suspended their extradition agreements with Hong Kong after the national security law criminalized public dissent and criticism of the authorities from July 1, 2020, several countries still have extradition arrangements in force, including the Philippines, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa and Sri Lanka. South Korea, Malaysia, India and Indonesia could also still allow extradition to Hong Kong, according to a Wikipedia article on the topic. Meanwhile, several European countries have extradition agreements in place with China, including Belgium, Italy and France, while others have sent fugitives to China at the request of its police. However, a landmark ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in October 2022 could mean an end to extraditions to China among 46 signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights. &#8220;The eight [on the wanted list] should be safe for now, but if they were to travel overseas and arrive in a country that has an extradition agreement with either mainland China or Hong Kong, then...
- [Japan’s plan to discharge Fukushima radioactive water safe, atomic watchdog says](https://ij-reportika.com/japans-plan-to-discharge-fukushima-radioactive-water-safe-atomic-watchdog-says/): Japan’s plans to discharge treated nuclear wastewater stored at the Fukushima Daiichi power station into the Pacific Ocean are consistent with relevant international safety standards, the safety review by the U.N.’s atomic watchdog has concluded.  The discharges of the treated water would have a negligible radiological impact on people and the environment, said the report formally presented by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo on Tuesday. “Japan will continue to provide explanations to the Japanese people and to the international community in a sincere manner based on scientific evidence and with a high level of transparency,” Kishida said as he met with Grossi. TEPCO, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, which operates the Fukushima nuclear power plant located on Hakura Beach in Japan, is set to initiate the release of approximately 400,000 cubic meters of treated wastewater from the plant into the Pacific this summer. Over 1.3 million cubic meters of wastewater &#8211; enough to fill more than 500 Olympic-size swimming pools &#8211; is currently contained in numerous water storage tanks at the facility. It was used to cool the nuclear reactors damaged in a 2011 earthquake and tsunami.  This Sept. 18, 2010 aerial photo shows the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex in Okumamachi, northern Japan the year before it was hit by a massive tsunami. Credit: Yomiuri Shimbun, via AP TEPCO says that the controlled discharge of the treated wastewater adheres to a meticulous nuclear purification process utilizing a pumping and filtration system called ALPS (Advanced Liquid Processing System), designed according to the safety standards prescribed by the IAEA. In the report’s foreword, Grossi said that the “controlled, gradual discharges of the treated water to the sea, as currently planned and assessed by TEPCO, would have a negligible radiological impact on people and the environment.” China strongly objects The plan, conceived in 2021, has been a source of concern about possible environmental and health risks for nearby countries such as South Korea, China and Pacific Island nations. Local Japanese fishing unions have also opposed it. The Chinese Embassy in Japan said Tuesday the IAEA’s report could not be a pass for the nuclear-contaminated water to be released. It called on Japan to immediately suspend the plan, seriously negotiate with the international community, and jointly explore scientific, safe, transparent and acceptable handling methods. In a press conference, Ambassador Wu Jianghao claimed that there was no precedent for discharging such water produced by nuclear accidents into the sea. He said it was different from other countries discharging wastewater because “what they are discharging is cooling water, not polluted water that has been in contact with the molten core of the accident.” Fukushima’s nuclear-polluted water contains more than 60 types of radionuclides, many of which have no effective treatment technology at this stage, Wu said, claiming the effectiveness and sustainability of the Japanese processing system lacks sufficient authoritative verification. However, IAEA and Japanese officials have said that ALPS will reduce 62 of the 63 radioactive substances currently in the wastewater to amounts that will have a negligible environmental impact.  Wu said that Japan does not respect science because it announced in 2021 that it would start releasing the wastewater, “long before the IAEA completed its assessment and released its final report.”  He also said IAEA is “not an appropriate agency to assess the long-term impact of nuclear-contaminated water on the marine environment and biological health.” IAEA will monitor the discharge The decision has also divided the scientific community. However, the IAEA’s report aligns with many international independent scientists who say the worries are based on misinformation.  The wastewater release will take between 30 and 40 years to complete. The IAEA said it would continue its safety review during the discharge phase, with a continuous on-site presence and live online monitoring from the facility. The agency said the stored water has been treated through ALPS to remove almost all radioactivity, aside from tritium, which will be diluted with the water to bring it below regulatory standards before the release. A Buddhist monk protests against the Japanese government&#8217;s decision to release treated radioactive wastewater from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant, near a building which houses the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, July 4, 2023. Credit: AP “The IAEA will continue to provide transparency to the international community, making it possible for all stakeholders to rely on verified fact and science to inform their understanding of this matter throughout the process,” Grossi said. He plans to arrive at the Fukushima plant on Wednesday. The following day he heads to South Korea to explain the report’s findings. He is also expected to visit some Pacific Island countries to ease their concerns over the plan. The report represents the culmination of nearly two years of effort by a specialized task force comprising leading experts from the agency, guided by internationally acclaimed nuclear safety advisors from eleven nations.  The experts assessed Japan’s proposals in light of the IAEA Safety Standards, which are recognized as the benchmark for safeguarding individuals and the environment and promoting a consistent and elevated level of safety globally. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Banned by Beijing, Badiucao opens London show](https://ij-reportika.com/banned-by-beijing-badiucao-opens-london-show/): In the brick-walled crypt of a church in central London hangs a painting of a many-armed, black-clad figure wearing an elastomeric mask and a yellow construction hat, evoking a figure that was once a familiar sight during the 2019 protest movement in Hong Kong. One of its many pairs of hands – protesters were referred to in Cantonese at the time as the &#8220;hands and feet&#8221; of the movement – is clasped in apparent prayer, with other pairs clutching water bottles and a retractable baton for fending off charging cops. In the goggles of the figure – a composite of the front-line protesters who used Molotov cocktails, bricks, bows and arrows and street barricades to engage in pitched street battles with riot police during the 2019 Hong Kong protests – is reflected the black bauhinia, symbol of the protest movement. Other works depict a shower-head washing an exposed brain, a reference to attempts by the ruling Chinese Communist Party to brainwash its citizen, and a portrait of jailed pro-democracy Joshua Wong behind bars formed of black umbrellas, bringing to mind the 2014 “umbrella movement,” when protesters used umbrellas to protect against pepper spray. Badiucao expresses solidarity with Hong Kong democracy activist Joshua Wong. Credit: Stone They are all works of art by Badiucao, whose latest exhibit showcases political and protest art that is deemed so incendiary by Beijing that it has made repeated attempts to have his exhibits shut down in other countries. Transnational repression Its theme is transnational repression. Overseas dissidents are increasingly finding that even if they leave China and settle in a democratic country, they are still targeted by agents and supporters of the Chinese state in their new home. Chinese Communist Party agents and supporters have carried out physical attacks and smear attempts on dissidents far beyond its borders, kidnapped them and forced them to return home to face punishment using threats against their loved ones, according to rights groups and personal stories shared with Radio Free Asia. Badiucao depicts jailed Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai in “Apple Man.” Credit: Stone Badiucao has remained undeterred by Beijing&#8217;s attempts to censor him overseas, however. The walls of the exhibit are packed with political punches – a portrait of jailed pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai has pride of place, while another work shows students at the Chinese University of Hong Kong engulfed in flames while defending their campus against a determined assault by riot police, who fired thousands of rounds of tear gas during the attack. One image shows Chinese President Xi Jinping wearing a pair of TikTok logos for glasses, with the warning &#8220;Xi is Watching You,&#8221; highlighting privacy concerns around the Chinese-owned social media platform. Such images would quickly run afoul of a strict national security law in Hong Kong, where depictions of scenes &#8220;glorifying&#8221; the protests are banned from public display. Some have already been shown in Poland, where the organizers kept the exhibit open despite strong displeasure from Chinese officials. ‘Threats to my family and safety’ Many were inspired by the response of Hong Kong protesters, who used his artwork in response to the banning of his planned 2018 exhibit in the city, just a day before it opened. &#8220;The Chinese Communist Party doesn&#8217;t just come up with ways to get my exhibits canceled &#8212; it also threatens me with threats to my personal safety,&#8221; Badiucao told Radio Free Asia as the exhibit opened. &#8220;It also threatens the safety of the people I work with, and my family back in China,&#8221; he said. Also on display in the “Banned by Beijing” exhibition are works by Vawongsir, a former visual arts teacher in Hong Kong, such as this piece on the “Pillar of Shame.” Credit: Stone The Hong Kong theme of the exhibit is aimed at speaking out on behalf of people who haven&#8217;t been allowed to speak for themselves since Beijing imposed a draconian security law on the city three years ago, criminalizing public criticism of the government. Hong Kong artist Kacey Wong, who now lives in Taiwan, said he has faced similar attempts at censorship outside China, adding that the national security law has stifled freedom of expression both in his home city, and even far beyond China&#8217;s borders. &#8220;Don&#8217;t think you&#8217;ll be fine once you have left Hong Kong,&#8221; Wong warned. &#8220;Last year I took part in a small exhibition in the United Kingdom, and the Hong Kong party newspapers sent their people to carry out a smear campaign.&#8221; &#8220;This is long-arm control &#8230; you&#8217;re not safe in Europe, because they&#8217;re not very vigilant there about preventing censorship by the Chinese Communist Party,&#8221; he said. &#8220;However, it&#8217;s safer in Taiwan.&#8221; For Badiucao, a Hong Kong democracy movement that carries on in exile is still valid. &#8220;I don&#8217;t think it means that Hong Kong has fallen,&#8221; he said. &#8220;You can take your home with you anywhere.&#8221; &#8220;All of those Hong Kongers now in exile have taken the spirit, culture and identity of Hong Kong with them,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Wherever you have Hong Kongers still drawing breath, there is still hope,&#8221; he said. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Around 6,000 villagers forced to flee township in Myanmar’s Sagaing region](https://ij-reportika.com/around-6000-villagers-forced-to-flee-township-in-myanmars-sagaing-region/): Myanmar’s military is carrying on its campaign to seize control of townships in northern Sagaing region, torching buildings and forcing around 6,000 locals to flee Khin-U, residents told RFA on Monday. An official of Khin-U township’s Right Information Group told RFA that a total of 15 villages in the township were raided by two military columns. The man, who requested anonymity for security reasons, said nearly 3,500 residents in the northeastern part and 2,500 in the southwestern part of Khin-U township abandoned their homes ahead of the military raids. A resident of Khin-U’s Ah Lel Sho village told RFA troops killed livestock and captured locals. “Four cows and two pigs were slaughtered, and five people were arrested. I think they have to carry the packs. Three people were in their 20s and two in their 60s,” said the local who declined to be named for fear of reprisals. “Now, the junta troops are burning down Yauk Thwar Aing village to the south of Ah Lel Sho. I can see the smoke in the distance but I can’t get close because of the troops.” Residents of Chan Thar Kone village said a 60-year-old man, Than Win, was shot and injured while he bumped into a military junta column on July 1. Meanwhile, residents of neighboring Shwebo township said troops shot dead two local men. They said the bodies were discovered after a column of around 40 troops withdrew on Saturday. “Two people were shot dead near a rest tent in Kawt village in the eastern part of Shwebo. That was the route the junta took when it carried out its offensive,” said a local who didn&#8217;t want to be named for security reasons, “It’s not yet known who they were or where they were from. The bodies were still there on Monday morning.” RFA called the junta spokesperson for Sagaing region, Saw Naing, on Sunday and Monday regarding the arson attacks and killings, but he did not answer. More than 1.5 million civilians have fled their homes since the Feb. 1, 2021 coup, according to the United Nation Office  for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), It said around 765,200 were from Sagaing region. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Hong Kong social activists brave threat of arrest to keep speaking out](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-social-activists-brave-threat-of-arrest-to-keep-speaking-out/): Three years after Beijing imposed a law criminalized public dissent and peaceful political opposition in Hong Kong, a dwindling band of social activists say they&#8217;re not giving up just yet. Opposition party leader Chan Po-ying, who chairs the League of Social Democrats, was recently detained by police on a downtown shopping street carrying an electric candle and a yellow paper flower on the 34th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, commemoration of which is now banned in Hong Kong. Undeterred, she showed up a few days later outside the headquarters of HSBC Bank, protesting the closure of the party&#8217;s bank accounts &#8212; something that is increasingly happening to opposition parties and activists in the city since the crackdown on dissent began. Chan&#8217;s husband Leung Kwok-hung is one of 47 political activists and former lawmakers currently standing trial for &#8220;subversion&#8221; after they organized a democratic primary in the summer of 2020. Police also forced Chan and fellow women’s rights and labor activists to call off a march on International Women&#8217;s Day in March, in a move she told reporters was due to pressure from Hong Kong&#8217;s national security police. So why does she keep going, when so many have already left? &#8220;Why do I still want to stay in Hong Kong?,&#8221; she said. &#8220;It&#8217;s not to prove how brave we are, but because we still hope to speak out when we see political, economic, social or intellectual injustice in Hong Kong.&#8221; &#8220;Dissent must be voiced, regardless of how much room is allowed for it,&#8221; she said. &#8220;There are still some people willing to speak out, even in such a high-pressure situation.&#8221; &#8220;It also inspires other people.&#8221; Stalking street stalls Still, even a simple plan of action like handing out leaflets on the street is now fraught with difficulty. &#8220;Sometimes we set up a street stall with just four of us, and there are sometimes more than 10 plainclothes police standing right next to us,&#8221; Chan said. &#8220;They may try to charge us under laws they haven&#8217;t used before, such as illegal fundraising.&#8221; Police officers take away a member of the public on the eve 34th anniversary of China&#8217;s Tiananmen Square massacre in Hong Kong, June 3, 2023. Credit: Louise Delmotte/AP And it&#8217;s not just the national security law they need to watch out for. &#8220;The easiest way for them to prosecute us is under colonial-era sedition laws, because they can charge us for posting any opinion online that the authorities don&#8217;t like,&#8221; she said. &#8220;They are gradually starting to use a whole variety of laws to curb the freedoms granted to us in the Basic Law,&#8221; Chan said, referencing the promises in Hong Kong&#8217;s mini-constitution that the city would retain its freedoms of press, expression and association beyond the 1997 handover to Chinese rule. What&#8217;s more, the League is now having huge difficulties funding its activities in the face of bank account closures, and can only hope that its members will work voluntarily to further the party&#8217;s agenda. ‘Destroying a system’ Former pro-democracy District Council member Chiu Yan Loy has also decided to stay for the time being, to serve his local community. &#8220;District councilors spend 90% of their working hours on issues that have little to do with politics, but which serve important social service functions,&#8221; Chiu said. Until the authorities recently rewrote the electoral rulebook to ensure that there would be no repeat of the landslide victory seen in the 2019 district elections, which was seen as a huge show of public support for the 2019 protest movement and its goals, which included fully democratic elections. University students observe a minute of silence to mourn those killed in the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, in front of the &#8220;Pillar of Shame&#8221; statue at the University of Hong Kong, June 4, 2021. Credit: Kin Cheung/AP &#8220;When you destroy a system, but don&#8217;t replace it with a new system, this will only create more social problems that will start occurring in Hong Kong,&#8221; he said, adding that he is putting his own money into community-based projects to try to address these issues. &#8220;These services don&#8217;t involve the sort of politics that the government often talks about, so there is still room to keep doing this work,&#8221; he said, despite being in a financially precarious situation. Current affairs commentator Johnny Lau said that while the risks have risen, Hong Kong&#8217;s activists have yet to be totally silenced. &#8220;Of course there are far more obstacles under the national security law than before,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The so-called red lines are constantly moving, and there are a lot of people watching and reporting people.&#8221; &#8220;It&#8217;s still OK to talk about issues affecting people&#8217;s livelihoods,&#8221; Lau said. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Chinese authorities monitor Tibetans to prevent communication with outside world](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-authorities-monitor-tibetans-to-prevent-communication-with-outside-world/): Chinese authorities in Tibet have intensified monitoring of Tibetans, and continue to interrogate them in the regional capital Lhasa to prevent communication with people outside of Tibet, RFA has learned. The Chinese government has been intensifying its monitoring of Tibetans and maintained their interrogations of Tibetans living in Lhasa to determine if they have contacted people outside Tibet and stepped up surveillance measures to prevent such communication. Now the Chinese authorities are interrogating Tibetans in Lhasa specifically targeting and warning them to stop communication.  In March, two major anniversaries prompted police to step up surveillance. The month marked the 15th anniversary of a 2008 riot, and the 64th anniversary of the 1959 uprising against Chinese troops that had invaded the region a decade earlier. But the heightened security from March has continued well into June, and police have continued closely monitoring residents in Lhasa and random searches of their cell phone and online communications to discover whether they had communicated abroad. A police officer searches a Tibetan woman&#8217;s cell phone on a street in Lhasa, capital of western China&#8217;s Tibet Autonomous Region, March 11, 2023. Chinese authorities in Tibet have intensified monitoring of Tibetans, and continue to interrogate them in the regional capital Lhasa to prevent communication with people outside of Tibet, RFA has learned. Credit: Chinese State Media The police were particularly concerned that the Lhasa residents might be in contact with journalists or researchers outside of Tibet, a Tibetan resident told RFA’s Tibetan Service.  “Tibetans are warned not to contact people outside and those who have, have been summoned and interrogated,” the source said. “Their cell phones are confiscated and they are under constant scrutiny.” The source was among those who had contacted people outside of Tibet, and was summoned for interrogation along with some friends. “They gave us warning to not ever contact people on the outside, especially researchers on Tibet and journalists,” said the source. “I also know that so many other Tibetans who contacted people outside Tibet were interrogated by the Chinese authorities too.” Another resident said that people could be summoned even for casual conversations with outsiders. “I was summoned two times already this year for interrogation and one of my friends had to bribe the authorities to release me the second time around,” the second resident said. “My name is now listed amongst those interrogated, therefore I have to get permission from the local police if I need to travel outside Lhasa.”  Translated by Tenzin Dickyi. Edited by Eugene Whong.
- [China to reach renewable power goal 5 years early, report says](https://ij-reportika.com/china-to-reach-renewable-power-goal-5-years-early-report-says/): The boom in renewable power projects in China will likely help the country reach its 2030 target five years early, boosting the effort to limit global carbon emissions far faster than expected, a new study said. China is on track to double its solar and wind power capacity and shatter Beijing’s ambitious 2030 target of 1,200 gigawatts (GW) five years ahead of schedule if all prospective projects are successfully built and commissioned, said the Global Energy Monitor (GEM) report, released on Thursday. Solar panel installations alone are growing at a pace that would increase global capacity by 85% and wind power by nearly 50% by 2025, said GEM, a San Francisco-based non-governmental organization that tracks energy projects worldwide.  China has approximately 379 GW of large utility-scale solar and 371 GW of wind capacity projects that have been announced or are in the pre-construction and construction phases. They will likely be finished by 2025, adding roughly the same amount of currently installed operating capacity.  The report projected that China would likely achieve the provincial targets of approximately 1,371 GW for wind and solar, which is higher than the 1,200 GW President Xi Jinping announced his government would install by 2030.  A solar panel installation is seen in Ruicheng County in central China&#8217;s Shanxi Province, Nov. 27, 2019. Credit: AP “This new data provides unrivaled granularity about China’s jaw-dropping surge in solar and wind capacity,” said Dorothy Mei, project manager at Global Energy Monitor.  “As we closely monitor the implementation of prospective projects, this detailed information becomes indispensable in navigating the country’s energy landscape.” Half global renewable capacity in China China has emerged as the frontrunner in global renewable energy, leveraging a blend of incentives and regulatory policies to host approximately 50% of the world’s operational wind and solar capacity. The report said the ambitious renewable push has been geographically widespread, with every province and most counties developing large-scale solar and wind power.  China’s operating scale solar capacity has reached 228 GW, more than the rest of the world combined.  This map shows prospective large utility-scale solar capacity in China. Credit: Global Energy Monitor. According to the report, China’s northern and northwest provinces have the largest number of solar projects. Shanxi, Xinjiang, and Hebei are the top three regions with the highest utility-scale solar capacity. Meanwhile, China’s combined onshore and offshore wind capacity has doubled since 2017, surpassing 310 GW, with the highest concentration of projects in the northern and northwestern regions, including Inner Mongolia, Hebei, and Xinjiang. China’s offshore wind capacity, which accounts for just 10% of its total wind capacity, is more than Europe’s offshore operating capacity. This map shows prospective wind farm capacity in China. Credit: Global Energy Monitor. On Sunday, China successfully commenced operations of the Tibetan plateau’s largest hybrid solar-hydro power plant, Kela, which can generate 2 billion kilowatt hours of electricity annually, equivalent to the energy consumption of over 700,000 households. Currently boasting a capacity of 20 GW, the plant is projected to expand and achieve approximately 50 GW capacity by 2030. In the past, China has said that its greenhouse gas emissions will peak in 2030 before slowing down to reach net zero by 2060.  “Ramping up wind and solar capacity plays an essential role in China’s carbon emissions from the power sector,” Mei told Radio Free Asia. “When China reaches its emissions peak will essentially depend on how soon the growth of clean energy can start to outpace the increase in total energy demand, which could happen in the next few years given the current solar and wind boom.” China’s reliance on coal continues  Among the top 10 power sector emitters, China led the world by three times more than the U.S., the second-biggest carbon dioxide emitter, with fossil fuel power plants generating two-thirds of China’s electricity in 2022. In April, another energy research organization Ember said in a report that China produced the most CO2 emissions of any power sector in the world in 2022, accounting for 38% of total global emissions from electricity generation. Mei said that while China had made significant progress in renewable energy deployment, it continued to heavily rely on coal for power generation “due to its reliability and consistent electricity supply.” “The power supply model being adopted at the renewables bases in the northwest deserts still largely relies on new coal power plants to provide a steady, reliable flow of electricity through the long-distance direct current transmission lines to end users,” Mei said. In 2022, China alone accounted for 53% of the world’s coal-fired electricity generation, showing a dramatic revival in appetite for new coal power projects.  A View of the Wujing coal-electricity power station is seen across the Huangpu River in the Minhang district of Shanghai on August 22, 2022. Credit: Hector Retamal/AFP Recent record heatwaves and drought have also renewed focus on China’s energy security concerns, as factories had to be shut down due to power shortages, forcing authorities to increase reliance on coal.  Last year, Beijing approved the highest new coal capacity in eight years. It continues this year, with environmental group Greenpeace saying in April that China had approved at least 20.45 GW of new coal capacity in the first three months of 2023, according to official approval documents. “As electricity demand during extreme weather events increases, China must resist turning to coal and should instead prioritize more optimal solutions to manage the variability of demand and clean power supply,” Mei said. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Meta’s oversight board orders removal of Hun Sen’s Facebook video](https://ij-reportika.com/metas-oversight-board-orders-removal-of-hun-sens-facebook-video/): Meta’s oversight board on Thursday ordered the removal of a video posted on Facebook by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen in which he threatened violence against his political opponents and called for an immediate suspension of his accounts. The ruling, reversing a previous decision, marks the first time the oversight board has instructed Meta to shut down an account run by a government leader, and suggests that the company may be shifting its stance on how it deals with content posted by users who have otherwise enjoyed impunity in what they say on its site. Hun Sen didn’t immediately comment on the ruling, but called on his social media followers to switch to rival platforms TikTok or Telegram. The Cambodian leader, who has ruled the country since 1985, has regularly taken to social media to deliver lengthy tirades against his opponents, warning them of consequences if they defy him. Such threats are often acted on by judicial authorities, security forces, and supporters of his ruling Cambodian People’s Party, or CPP. On Thursday, Meta’s oversight board of independent experts said that in one such speech, live streamed to Facebook in January, Hun Sen ranted about claims that the CPP had stolen votes in prior elections, offering his accusers the choice of “legal action or a club.”  He warned that he would send thugs to beat them up or arrest them in the middle of the night. While he did not name the target of his ire, Hun Sen’s “stolen votes” comment was widely viewed as a reference to opposition Candlelight Party Vice President Son Chhay, who was convicted of defamation last year after saying that local commune elections in Cambodia had been marred by irregularities. Intimidating opponents Cambodia is preparing to hold a general election on July 23, but observers say that the ballot is likely to be neither free nor fair. Image grab of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s newly created TikTok page, following Meta’s oversight board on Thursday reversed the social media company’s decision to leave up a video Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen posted to Facebook threatening violence against his political opponents and called for an immediate suspension of his accounts. Credit: TikTok/@hunsenofcambodia Meta initially reviewed the speech after receiving complaints that it violated Facebook’s guidelines on inciting violence, but decided to leave the content up because of its news value. However, the company referred the content to its oversight board, saying it had created “tension between our values of safety and voice.” On further review, the board found that the content had indeed run afoul of Facebook’s guidelines prohibiting incitement, citing “the severity of the violation, Hun Sen’s history of committing human rights violations and intimidating political opponents, as well as his strategic use of social media to amplify such threats.” The board ordered that the video be removed, and called on Meta to suspend Hun Sen’s Facebook and Instagram accounts for six months. While the call for the account suspension is non-binding, Meta is obligated to take down the video and issue a statement to the public on its reasons for doing so within 60 days. ‘Finally called out’ Hun Sen has yet to comment on the oversight board’s ruling, but on Thursday, he posted a message to his Facebook page calling on his 14 million followers to switch to the Chinese video platform TikTok for future updates. Hun Sen’s TikTok account, set up on Wednesday, currently has nearly 22,000 followers. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and his wife Bun Rany wave during the Southeast Asian Games Closing Ceremony in Phnom Penh, Cambodia May 17, 2023. Credit: Cindy Liu/Reuters Later, the prime minister wrote on the Dubai-based Telegram messaging app that he had found Telegram “more useful than Facebook” and told his 85,000 followers on the app that he will be posting content there going forward. “This will allow me to easily communicate with people while I am traveling to countries where Facebook is not permitted,” he said. “I will keep my Facebook account but I will suspend using it so that people can get information from me through Telegram.” Hun Sen said his newly created TikTok account would allow him “to more easily connect with the youth.&#8221; ‘The stakes are high’ Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for New York-based Human Rights Watch, issued a statement on Thursday dismissing Hun Sen’s reason for leaving Facebook. “Hun Sen is finally being called out for using social media to incite violence against his opponents, and he apparently doesn’t like it one bit,” he said.  “That’s the real story about why he’s running away from Facebook, which dared to hold him accountable to their community standards, and into the arms of Telegram, the favored social media messaging system of despots ranging from Russia to Myanmar.” Robertson said it was high time for tech companies such as Meta to confront world leaders who violate human rights on their platforms. “The stakes are high because plenty of real world harm is caused when an authoritarian uses social media to incite violence &#8212; as we have already seen far too many times in Cambodia,&#8221; he said. Translated by Samean Yun. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar military arrests 10 workers for garment factory strikes](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-military-arrests-10-workers-for-garment-factory-strikes/): Myanmar’s junta authorities have arrested 10 workers from Yangon region for incitement to riot, state-controlled newspapers reported Thursday. Reports said two members of the outlawed Action Labor Rights group were arrested along with workers from two garment factories between June 14 and 17. The Action Labor Rights members were identified as Thandar Soe Lin and Pyoe Myat Thin. The workers came  from Shwepyitha township’s Hosheng Myanmar garment factory and Sun Apparel Myanmar in Hlaingtharya township. The factory workers were fired and arrested for taking the lead in demanding a 17% pay rise to the equivalent of U.S.$2.70 a day. An Action Labor Rights union official, who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons, told RFA the arrests of workers on political charges when they were only calling for better pay is a violation of labor rights. “These workers were not doing anything political, and they were demanding their rights because the wages are low,” the official said.  “Junta arrests of protesters demanding their rights is a violation of the rights of weak grassroots workers, and protects oppressive employers.” Newspapers reported that two more union members, Thuzar – who goes by one name – and Thurein Aung have gone into hiding and authorities are trying to find and arrest them. Thuzar is accused of inciting workers to riot and organizing a protest at the two factories on June 12 and 13. The union official told RFA the two fugitives do not plan to leave Myanmar. Action Labor Rights is a Yangon-based union that has been calling for protection of the rights of workers who have been suffering from various problems since the Feb. 1, 2021 coup. Another trade union leader, who also declined to be named, said the junta had already clamped down on other trade unions. “The workers were charged with Article 505 only. But those who are part of groups declared to be illegal organizations are charged with Article 17 (1),” he said, referring to a law on membership of illegal groups that carries a maximum three year prison sentence. “Ït becomes alarming to the other [unions]. It hits many birds with one stone.” On March 1, 2021, a month after the military coup, the junta’s Ministry of Labor, Immigration and Population declared 16 trade unions and organizations active in labor issues to be illegal groups. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Myanmar junta uses Telegram as ‘military intelligence’ to arrest online critics](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-uses-telegram-as-military-intelligence-to-arrest-online-critics/): Telegram is becoming the messaging platform of choice for fans of Myanmar’s junta, who are using it to report on critics – some of whom have gotten arrested or even killed. For example, actress Poe Kyar Phyu Khin recently posted a video entitled “Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (Our True Leader)” to the TikTok social media platform ahead of the jailed former state counselor’s June 19 birthday, prompting several users to post photos of themselves bedecked in flowers and express their best wishes. Incensed by the post, supporters of the military junta – which took control of the country in a February 2021 coup – took toTelegram to demand that Phyu Khin and those who responded to her be arrested. On the night of Suu Kyi’s birthday, junta security personnel showed up at the door of Phyu Khin’s home in Yangon and took her into custody. Pro-junta media reported the arrest and said that some 50 people had been detained that week alone for “sedition and incitement.” This is the new reality in post-coup Myanmar, where backers of the military regime regularly scour the internet for any posts they deem critical of the junta before using Telegram to report them to the authorities, activists say. Telegram has become a “form of military intelligence,” said Yangon-based protest leader Nang Lin. “It may look like ordinary citizens are reporting people who oppose the military, but that’s not true,” he said. “It’s the work of their informers. It’s one of the junta’s intelligence mechanisms. In other words, it&#8217;s just one of many attempts designed to instill fear in the people.” ‘Online weapon’ In a similar incident, rapper Byu Har was arrested on May 24, just days after being featured on pro-military Telegram channels for a video he published on social media in which he complained about electricity shortages and said that life was better under the democratically elected government that the military toppled. Pro-junta Telegram channels published a photo of hip hop singer Byu Har in handcuffs after he was arrested and allegedly beaten by military authorities on May 25, 2023, Credit: Myanmar Hard Talk Telegram Additionally, authorities arrested journalist Kyaw Min Swe, actress May Pa Chi, and other well-known personalities after pro-junta Telegram channels posted information about them changing their Facebook profiles to black to mourn the more than 170 people – including women and children – killed in a military airstrike on Sagaing region’s Pazi Gyi village in April. “Military lobbyists and informers go through these comments and … report the owners of the accounts to Han Nyein Oo, who is a major pro-junta informer on Telegram,” said an activist in Yangon, who declined to be named out of fear of reprisal. “Then, because of a small comment, the poster and their families are in trouble.” London-based rights group Fortify Rights also recently reported on the junta’s use of Telegram as an “online weapon” against its critics. “We can say that they are increasingly using Telegram channels as an online weapon as one of various ways of instilling fear in the people so that they dare not speak out,” the group said in a statement. RFA sought comment from Telegram’s press team but was forwarded to an automated answering system, which said that the company “respects users&#8217; personal information and freedom of speech, and protects human rights, such as the right to assembly.” The answering system noted that Telegram “plays an important role in democratic movements around the world,” including in Iran, Russia, Belarus, Hong Kong and Myanmar. The founder of the Telegram channel is Russian-born Pavel Durov. In 2014, he was forced to leave the country and move to Saint Kitts and Nevis, a small Caribbean island nation, because he refused to hand over the personal information of Ukrainian users to Russian security services during the Crimea crisis in Ukraine.  Myanmar authorities arrested journalist Kyaw Min Swe [left] and actress May Pa Chi after pro-junta Telegram channels posted information about them changing their Facebook profiles to black to mourn Pazi Gyi victims in April. Credit: RFA and Facebook Telegram headquarters is located in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Attempts by RFA to contact junta Deputy Information Minister Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun regarding the regime’s use of pro-military Telegram accounts to arrest people went unanswered Wednesday. Arrests violate constitution Thein Tun Oo, the executive director of the Thayninga Institute of Strategic Studies, which is made up of former military officers, told RFA that claims the junta uses Telegram to track down its critics are “delusional.” “If you feel insecure about Telegram, just don’t use it,” he said, adding that “such problems” are part of the risk of using the app. But a lawyer in Yangon, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing security concerns, told RFA that even if the junta isn’t gathering information about its opponents on Telegram, arresting and prosecuting someone for posting their opinions on social media is a blatant violation of the law in Myanmar. “It’s not a crime to post birthday wishes for someone on Facebook, whether it’s for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi or anyone else,” he said. “These arrests are in violation of provisions protecting citizens&#8217; rights in the [military-drafted] 2008 constitution.” Pro-junta newspapers often state that action will be taken against anyone who knowingly or unknowingly promotes or supports Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, the Committee Representing the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw made up of deposed lawmakers, and any related organization under the country’s Counter-terrorism Act, Electronic Communications Law, and other legislation. According to a list compiled by RFA based on junta reports, at least 1,100 people have been arrested and prosecuted for voicing criticism of the junta on social media or sharing such posts by others since the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup d’etat. Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
- [Monk killed in Myanmar junta air raid on Sagaing region monastery](https://ij-reportika.com/monk-killed-in-myanmar-junta-air-raid-on-sagaing-region-monastery/): Junta air raids on two Sagaing region villages killed 12 civilians including a monk, locals told RFA Wednesday. They said 11 people from Pale township’s Nyaung Kone and one from Pi Tauk Kone village died in Tuesday’s attack. A school teacher from Nyaung Kone, who didn’t want to be named for security reasons, told RFA the air force dropped three 500-pound bombs around the village monastery, killing one monk and 10 locals. “It happened when I was teaching children at school,” the teacher said. “I used to hear the plane approaching but this time I didn’t hear it until the bomb exploded. The bomb’s fragments and dust flew towards our school. Some people were already dead when I arrived at the scene of the explosions. Some are injured and receiving emergency medical treatment.” The monk was named as 55-year-old Kay Mar. Six men and two women, aged between 41 and 70, died on the spot. Four of the dead were relatives of the monk. An 18-year-old woman and a 48-year-old man were critically injured and died in Pale Township Hospital on Tuesday night. All the bodies were cremated on Tuesday night. Residents said six more people were injured and receiving treatment in the village. The aftermath of a junta airstrike on Nyaung Kone village, Pale township, Sagaing region Jun 27, 2023. Credit: Pale township People’s Defense Force A member of the People’s Administration Group of Pale township said that the junta attacked the village with Russian-made Yakovlev Yak-130 jet, destroying the monastery and 13 houses. Locals said a woman died and another was injured in a separate air raid on Pi Tauk Kone village on Tuesday night. The names and the ages of the dead and injured are not yet known because it is difficult to contact Pi Tauk Kone by phone. RFA called Sagaing region junta spokesperson Aye Hlaing on Wednesday but nobody answered. There were 454 airstrikes across Myanmar between January and April 2023, according to independent research group Nyan Lynn Thit Analytica, resulting in 292 deaths. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [China denies compensation for Tibetans displaced by the world’s largest hydro-solar plant](https://ij-reportika.com/china-denies-compensation-for-tibetans-displaced-by-worlds-largest-hydro-solar-plant/): The Chinese government has denied compensation for residents, including Tibetan nomads, affected by the construction of the world’s largest hydro-solar plant, residents living near the plant told us. Chinese state media reported Monday that the Kela mega hydro-photovoltaic complementary power station began its entire operation Sunday. The sprawling solar plant, which covers 16 million square meters, or more than 2,000 soccer fields, has a hydropower component that helps stabilize the energy supply due to shifting weather conditions. It can generate 2 billion kilowatt-hours every year and fully charge 15,000 electric vehicles with a range of 550 kilometers (340 miles) in just one hour. But nomadic Tibetans who once grazed their cattle in the area now covered by a sea of solar panels were forced away and offered nothing in return, a Tibetan resident living near Kela told our reporter. “The Chinese government has begun operating the largest solar power station along with the hydropower dams in Nyakchu county in Kardze [in Chinese, Ganzi] beginning June 24,” the resident said, referring to a separate hydropower project. “To build and facilitate these power plants, the Chinese government has displaced the local Tibetans in these regions in a land-grab and has not given any compensation yet.” &nbsp; Tibetan nomads wait for tourists to offer their horses for rides at Namtso Lake in Tibet Autonomous Region 2006. Credit: Claro Cortes IV/Reuters &nbsp; The resident said that the displaced Tibetans were never informed before the project started. “Instead, police were stationed near these power plants and locals were not permitted near them,” the person said. “Though the authorities told the local Tibetans that these power plants would be beneficial to livestock and their pastures, but now the Tibetan nomads are being displaced and pushed away to other places.” The nomads had filed complaints with the Chinese government to no avail, another Tibetan resident said. “In April this year, the local Tibetans pleaded with the Chinese authorities to stop these projects,” the second person said. “However it is very clear that no opposition to displacement and resettlement is possible and that local Tibetans have no choice but to comply with the government’s orders.”&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;A worker checks solar photovoltaic modules used for solar panels at a factory in Suqian in China&#8217;s eastern Jiangsu province, May 9, 2023. Credit: AFP &nbsp; The power plants pose a serious threat to Tibet’s fragile environment, Lobsang Yangtso, an environmental researcher at the San Francisco-based Tibet International Network. “China’s policies and the expansion of infrastructure in Tibet are the cause of earthquakes, floods and various types of irreversible damage to the ecosystem,” she said.
- [Myanmar military kills 17 People's Defense Force members](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-military-kills-17-peoples-defense-force-members/): Junta troops killed 20 people in a raid on a People’s Defense Force camp in Sagaing region and neighboring villages, locals and a militia official told RFA Tuesday. A column of around 50 troops raided the camp east of Kin Taw village in Sagaing township on Sunday morning. They killed 17 defense force members, according to a leader of the local PDF. “The junta troops came by boat and raided the camp early in the morning … when there were no guards, and all the PDF members were killed,” the leader, who declined to be named, told RFA. He added that the 14 men and three women aged between 20 and 30 had been tortured, with their faces disfigured. A Sagaing resident, who did not want to be named for security reasons, confirmed to RFA that the temporary camp was raided and 17 bodies were found near the camp and on the banks of the Ayeyarwady River.  He said three civilians were also shot dead at their homes when the junta raided nearby villages in the township. The three men killed were 37-year-old Myint Kyaw Thu and 50-year-old Maung San from Kin Taw village, and 69-year-old Pauk Sa from Myin Se village.  The local said that Pauk Sa’s wife is also missing and a 50-year-old man is suffering from gunshot wounds. Nearly 100 houses were burned down when neighboring Let Pan Taw village was also raided on Sunday, according to locals. Calls to the junta spokesperson for Sagaing region, Aye Hlaing, went unanswered.  On Tuesday junta-controlled newspapers confirmed the raid on PDF camps near Kin Taw and U Yin villages, saying15 guns and ammunition were seized. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Searching Tibetan monasteries, China requires monks to renounce ties to Dalai Lama](https://ij-reportika.com/searching-tibetan-monasteries-china-requires-monks-to-renounce-ties-to-dalai-lama/): Chinese authorities in Tibet are randomly searching monasteries and forcing monks to sign documents renouncing all ties to the “separatist” Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhism’s foremost spiritual leader, Tibetan sources living in exile told us. The Dalai Lama is widely regarded by Chinese leaders as a separatist intent on splitting Tibet, a formerly independent nation that was invaded and incorporated into China by force in 1950, from Beijing’s control. The Dalai Lama, who now lives in exile in India, says only that he seeks greater autonomy for Tibet as a part of China, with guaranteed protections for Tibet’s language, culture, and religion. We reported last year that China began requiring Tibetans working in official government positions to renounce all ties to the Dalai Lama as a condition of employment. Authorities appear to be including monasteries under this rule. Beginning this month, Chinese authorities conducted searches of monasteries in Shentsa (in Chinese, Shenzha) and Sok (Suo) counties on the premise of maintaining security, a Tibetan living in exile, who requested anonymity for security reasons, told us.&nbsp; “The authorities search all the residences of the monks and the main shrines in the monasteries,” the exile said. “The monks of Shartsa Monastery are also forced into renouncing ties with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and be a part of anti-Dalai Lama groups.&#8217;&nbsp; &nbsp; Chinese authorities conduct a search at a monastery in Nagchu. Credit: Citizen journalist &nbsp; The Shartsa monks are seen signing their names on a board on the wall (Credit : in photos received by RFA).&nbsp; The text on the board states that “We will rigorously take part in opposing the Dalai Lama clique and will remain loyal and devoted to the country [China].” As part of their searches, the authorities have been scrutinizing the monks’ prayer manuscripts and books, and removing prayer flags from shrines, said another exiled Tibetan, who declined to be named. “They did not give any sort of warning before conducting these random searches,” said the second exile. The monks in these monasteries were summoned for a meeting where they were forced to sign documents renouncing the Dalai Lama and separatism.”&nbsp; Translated by Tenzin Dickyi. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Junta arrests 51 people for alleged dollar, gold speculation](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-arrests-51-people-for-alleged-dollar-gold-speculation/): Myanmar’s junta has arrested 51 people for allegedly trying to cash in on the sudden spike in the price of gold and U.S. dollars, according to the regime-controlled central bank. In a statement released Friday, it said foreign exchange speculators in Yangon and Mandalay, foreign currency dealers, people transferring money and officials from three companies had been prosecuted. The Central Bank of Myanmar said its gold and currency market monitoring team took action in accordance with the anti-money laundering and foreign exchange management laws. Dollar and gold prices have been rising in the country since last Wednesday’s announcement by the U.S. Treasury Department that it was adding the junta-led Myanma Foreign Trade Bank (MFTB) and Myanma Investment and Commercial Bank (MICB) to a sanctions blacklist in connection with the Myanmar military’s purchases of arms from foreign sellers “including sanctioned Russian entities.” The exchange rate on Wednesday was 2,890 Myanmar kyat to the dollar before the announcement, rising 7.3% to 3,100 kyat the following day. Last Friday, the central bank announced measures to control forex levels, including an order to conduct dollar transactions between the Authorized Dealer and business people through the Online Trading System. It set the exchange rate for online trading in a range of 2,920-2,922 kyat per dollar and said that U.S.$4.81 million was traded. A foreign currency dealer in Yangon who did not want to be named for security reasons told RFA that some of those who were arrested last week, especially some businessmen close to the junta, had been released, but small forex dealers were still under arrest. “How can I say this? Some were arrested, some were released by [paying] bribe money,” the dealer said. “But some could not afford it, and small dealers are still being held.” The price of gold also rose suddenly in the space of a day, up 6.6% to 32 million kyat (U.S.$1,528) for 16.331 grams of 24 karat gold. A gold shop owner in Yangon said that if the military junta wants to control the rise in gold prices, it will need to allow the forex trade to continue. “Everything is related. The world price of gold went up. Local gold traders also didn’t trade because the price wasn’t stable and they kept the gold for a while,” said the shop owner, who also requested anonymity. “ “The gold price can be controlled if the right to use foreign currency dollars is free. Currency flows between domestic and foreign [markets] and the money used for overseas exports should be properly verified.” One market watcher, who also declined to be named, told RFA that if the junta arrests traders and charges them with currency speculation, it still won’t be able to control the dollar market and will only cause difficulties for those who need dollars. “Some businesses will stop,” he said. “The ones who will face difficulties are those people who need to go abroad for medical treatment as soon as possible. It will also be difficult to buy money for people who are going to travel abroad with their families. The large market among the dealers will not disappear.” A lawyer, who also declined to be named for security reasons, said that if the junta could not control the value of the dollar soon, the price of basic food items could rise and the situation could worsen. “What will happen next will be speculation on the fuel prices. And next, if it comes to basic food, the country will be unstable and it could turn out very badly,” said the lawyer, adding that the U.S. government’s blacklist, which bans U.S. citizens and companies from doing business with Myanmar’s Ministry of Defense, has hurt the junta badly. Junta Deputy Information Minister, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, told state-controlled media that the U.S. move is aimed at triggering a political and economic crisis in Myanmar. RFA called the Central Bank of Myanmar’s Financial Management Department Director General, Aung Kyaw Than, but he did not answer. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Local dealers decry influx of illegal Chinese traders to Myanmar jade town](https://ij-reportika.com/local-dealers-decry-influx-of-illegal-chinese-traders-to-myanmar-jade-town/): Burmese gemstone dealers are frustrated over the influx of Chinese jade traders who have set up shop in a northern mining town in Myanmar since the 2021 military coup, residents say. The traders are purchasing gems illegally at lower cost, making already tight margins razor thin for brokers in Hpakant township in Kachin state, driving some out of business out of business, they say. Myanmar’s Law for Gemstone Trading, enacted by the country’s parliament in 2019, limits foreign nationals seeking to buy stones to gem fairs in Mandalay and Naypyidaw.  The illegal export and sale of jade is punishable by up to 10 years in prison, but the junta has held few offenders accountable in Kachin – nestled between India to the west and China to the east – since coming to power. A resident of Hpakant told RFA that, in the past, only Myanmar nationals bought raw stones directly from township mines and then washed, cut, or transported them for resale in the country’s official gem fairs. “But these days, Chinese buyers use the WeChat messaging app and come to buy everything, including loose soil, directly from the mines,” said the resident who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on condition of anonymity citing security concerns. “It’s only natural that the prices directly offered by major traders are better than local dealers in the sale of any goods, including rice, beans and other crops,” he said. “The price gap is hurting local dealers.” According to a report by international rights group Global Witness, from 2014-2017, the annual revenue from the legal sale of jade and other gemstones in Myanmar ranged from US$346 to $417 million, while the illegal jade market netted US$1.73 billion to $2.07 billion annually. Black market The situation presents a conundrum for Myanmar’s jade dealers, who rely heavily on demand from China’s domestic market for their gems.  That demand has led to entrepreneurs seeking to eliminate the middleman by going straight to the source of the jade, to the point where approximately half of the people traveling to Hpakant to buy gemstones are Chinese, residents said. Aung Hein Min, a former lawmaker who was elected to represent Hpakant in Myanmar’s 2020 election, told RFA that it is critical for authorities to enforce the ban on the illegal purchasing of gemstones. Jade night market in Hpakant in Kachin state, in July 2020. Credit: Ye Aung Thu/AFP “The jade and gemstones purchased directly from jade-mining towns by Chinese nationals will not be transported via legal routes, they will arrive in China through the black market,” he said. “That’s why it doesn’t do any good for our country or our people.” However, junta Social Affairs Minister and Kachin state spokesman Win Ye Tun told RFA that foreigners are restricted from traveling to Hpakant, and that those caught skirting the ban are arrested and deported. He also noted that not all of the Chinese using WeChat in Hpakant are foreign nationals. “They may be [ethnic] Chinese Myanmar nationals,” he said. “We carefully inspect the situation and take action against them in accordance with the law, rather than criticizing baselessly … And it isn’t just Chinese – we do not accept any foreign nationals in those areas and we have always taken action accordingly.” Jade night market in Hpakant in Kachin state July 2020. Credit: Ye Aung Thu/AFP Win Ye Tun said that some Chinese nationals had been arrested and deported during the more than two years since the military coup, although he could not provide an exact number. He claimed that the junta has not granted any extensions or new permits for jade mining in Hpakant since the takeover. ‘Industry is hurting’ Meanwhile, traders in Hpakant told RFA that the domestic jade market has declined since the coup and that only bright, translucent jade is selling in China, adding to the pressure faced by local brokers. “If you buy stones for resale, you can only earn money for a day’s worth of meals and you won’t make a living to provide for your family,” one local trader said. “The gemstone industry is hurting. There is no longer demand for the opaque stones that used to sell and could earn us an income.” Complicating matters further, Myanmar’s military and a joint force of anti-junta Kachin Independence Army and paramilitary People’s Defense Force fighters have been locked in a standoff in Hpakant since early this year. Imports of food and fuel from Myanmar’s heartland are regularly blocked from entering the region by military checkpoints. But despite the conflict, jade traders said Chinese nationals are “freely entering and exiting” Hpakant and illegally shipping jade from the area back home. Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
- [Getting rich during China’s boom – then fleeing as prospects darken](https://ij-reportika.com/getting-rich-during-chinas-boom-then-fleeing-as-prospects-darken/): As President Xi Jinping began a third term in office pledging &#8220;Chinese-style modernization&#8221; in October 2022, commentators expected him to steer China further in the direction of a state-dominated, planned economy. Xi&#8217;s ideology sounded an ominous note for the private sector, as well as for private individual wealth and influence. Meanwhile, three years of China’s zero-COVID policy sounded the death knell for many private companies, prompting an exodus of wealthy and middle-class Chinese who had previously benefited from the post-Mao economic boom. Meng Jun, a former vegetable salesman-turned-flight charter agent-turned-rubber factory boss who now lives in Florida, was one of them. &#8220;When the pandemic hit, I started to reflect on things, and to watch what was happening,&#8221; Meng Jun, who once headed up three companies turning out rubber goods in Guangxi, Chongqing and Beijing with a total turnover of 300 million yuan a year, told Radio Free Asia. &#8220;And I found that the actual problem was with the system as a whole, which made people bad,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I figured that if I carried on much longer, I&#8217;d get dragged down with some official, because, as someone who gave bribes, I would be implicated.&#8221; Meng in his heyday was a smooth operator, cashing in on relationships cultivated with local officials in his main stamping ground in the southeastern region of Guangxi. In 2000, officials in Guangxi&#8217;s Beihai city let him get his hands on an unfinished property, thanks to a total lack of transparency around government property deals, and a 200,000 yuan kickback to a local official. Meng Jun bought this unfinished government-owned building in Guangxi&#8217;s Beihai city in 2000 and then flipped it for a profit. Credit: Provided by Meng Jun &#8220;I moved very quickly, and made a million in less than six months,&#8221; Meng said. &#8220;I just packaged it up to some kind of rough standard and sold it on.&#8221; &#8220;There were so many unfinished buildings around at that time, more than a million square meters, all of them owned by [the local government].&#8221; ‘Total U-turn’ Former tech CEO Hu Liren knew as early as 2018 that it was time to leave. &#8220;Nobody wants to leave their home country,&#8221; Hu, who also lives in Florida, where he has become friends with Meng, told Radio Free Asia. &#8220;But I had no choice.&#8221; &#8220;Things had gotten so bad in China, and there was no way they were going to get better,&#8221; he said, in a reference to Xi Jinping&#8217;s renewed emphasis on state-owned assets and a planned economy. &#8220;In the four years since I left, there has been a total U-turn, exactly the way I thought there would be at the time.&#8221; It&#8217;s a far cry from the economic boom-time of the 1990s where both Hu and Meng made their fortunes. Back then, in 1994, China was putting out more than 2% of global economic output, while the number of private companies grew from zero in 1978 to 1.76 million by 2000. Hu Liren and his team when he was the CEO of an internet company in China in 2000. Credit: Provided by Hu Liren &#8220;It was great, very prosperous,&#8221; Meng said. &#8220;As long as you worked hard and gave it your all, you could make a lot of money.&#8221; &#8220;Everything was plain sailing, and it was possible to succeed at anything you did, and make money at it, too,&#8221; he said with a sigh. The private sector was booming so hard back then that the catchphrase &#8220;56789&#8221; was born, the first and last digits reminding people that it was contributing around 50% of government tax revenues, and was the source of around 90% of new jobs. ‘To get rich is glorious’ Deng&#8217;s golden era of market liberalization and breakneck economic growth spawned other catchphrases too, like &#8220;To get rich is glorious,&#8221; giving the go-ahead to an emerging generation of private entrepreneurs, freed from the political orthodoxies of Maoist China. Hu and Meng were among them. Born in the northeastern province of Jilin to working-class parents who were made redundant during the mass layoffs of the late 1980s, Meng started working various jobs straight out of high school in 1989. &#8220;I would sell vegetables and do other seasonal stuff with my friends, all across Jilin, Yanji, Changchun and Mudanjiang,&#8221; he said, referring to cities in northeastern China. His search for work took him to the southern island province of Hainan, where he eventually saved enough money to open up his own seafood restaurant in 1993. Meng Jun in 2010. Credit: Provided by Meng Jun &#8220;During that period from 1993 to 2000, I started my own seafood restaurant, and also got into chartered flights,&#8221; Meng said. &#8220;That was very profitable because at that time I had a monopoly.&#8221; &#8220;Then I started doing cross-border trade, because I knew Vietnam, which was really actually smuggling,&#8221; he said, adding that he raked in nearly 500 million yuan at that time. Raking it in Hu was born in Shanghai to a family of intellectuals and started working in a research institute focusing on television technology in the mid-1980s. When the institute was shut down in 1991, he found work at a foreign company. By the time the internet was changing the face of business in 1997, Hu was also raking in the money, working for a company owned by Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing, Mei Ya Online. &#8220;I became the director and executive vice president of this Mei Ya Online, and I had equity in it.&#8221; he said. &#8220;The annual income at that time was 400,000 to 500,000 yuan.&#8221; Boosted by stellar connections with He Xingtong, grandson of Communist Party elder He Long, and invited to lecture to officials in Shanghai and Beijing, Hu went on to run an investment research and credit ratings company, as well as founding a green tech company making air-conditioning systems for factory shop floors. Hu Liren during his entrepreneurial era. Credit: Provided by Hu Liren &#8220;We were growing at a rate where we were doubling our profits annually,&#8221;...
- [Cambodia approves election law amendment aimed at preventing boycott of July 23 vote](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodia-approves-election-law-amendment-aimed-at-preventing-boycott-of-july-23-vote/): Cambodia’s National Assembly on Friday unanimously approved an amendment to the election law that prohibits those who don’t vote in next month’s elections from running for office in future elections.  The change appears to be aimed at preventing a large-scale boycott of the July 23 vote by supporters of the main opposition Candlelight Party.  A boycott would be a way of expressing public anger over the National Election Committee’s decision in May to ban the party from running in the election – essentially blocking the only major party that could challenge Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party. The committee blamed the ban on inadequate paperwork, but opposition activists said it was politically motivated. They pointed out that they were allowed to compete in last year’s local commune elections with the same documentation.  The ban, which was upheld by the Constitutional Council on May 25, means that the ruling Cambodian People’s Party won’t have any major challengers on the ballot next month. More than a dozen minor parties have also qualified for the ballot. Cambodian lawmakers welcome President Heng Samrin as he arrives for a session at the National Assembly in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on June 23, 2023. Credit: Heng Sinith/Associated Press Not a surprise The result of Friday’s vote in the Assembly, which is made up only of members from the CPP, was not a surprise. All 111 parliamentarians who participated in the session voted to approve the amendment without objections. Anyone who doesn’t vote next month won’t be able to run as a candidate in next year’s Senate, district and commune elections, according to Minister of Interior Sar Kheng. They also won’t be able to run in the next general election scheduled for 2027, he said. The amendment also allows for the prosecution of individuals and parties who discourage people from voting, he said in a speech at the Assembly before the final vote. “The amendment will regulate those who want to run for offices. It won’t affect voters’ rights guaranteed by the Constitution,” he said.   Hun Sen first proposed the change to the law earlier this month.  Phil Robertson, Human Rights Watch’s deputy Asia director, said earlier this month that Hun Sun is trying to pressure people to vote because he thinks a high voter percentage will bring legitimacy to the election. Finland-based political analyst Kim Sok said Friday’s amendment will affect opposition leader Sam Rainsy, who has been living in exile in France since 2015, and many of his supporters, who also live outside of Cambodia and won’t be able to return to vote in person.  “The amendment doesn’t serve the country’s interest,” he said. “It is being done according to one person’s wish.” Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [Junta jet attack kills man in Myanmar’s Kayah state](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-jet-attack-kills-man-in-myanmars-kayah-state/): A junta plane attacked two villages in Myanmar’s eastern Kayah state Friday morning, killing a man and injuring two children, locals told RFA. The aircraft first strafed Li Khu Pa Yar village in Hpruso township around midnight Thursday before returning to drop bombs on Li Khu Pa Yar and Do Yaw villages before dawn on Friday. “Li Khu Pa Yar and Do Yaw village are not close so, when Li Khu Pa Yar was fired on from the air at midnight, people in Do Yaw village did not flee as they thought the shooting would not reach their village,” said a local who didn’t want to be named for security reasons. “But both Li Khu Pa Yar and Do Yaw villages were bombed from the air at 4 p.m. Some people were sleeping so they didn’t flee.” The local said the man who died was in his forties but didn’t give the ages of the children. He said five houses in Do Yaw were destroyed by the bombing. Executive Director of the Karenni Human Rights Group, Banyar – who goes by a single name – confirmed the death and injuries and said the details are still being investigated. Li Khu Pa Yar and Do Yaw are small villages with fewer than 50 houses in a state with a low population compared with the rest of Myanmar. Locals said the junta attacked by air because road transport is difficult in Hpruso township. Although the Karenni Defense Forces are active in Kayah state, residents told RFA they had no idea why the junta targeted their villages. Many have now taken refuge in the nearby jungle. RFA called Kaya state’s junta spokesperson Aung Win Oo Friday but nobody answered. According to a June 1 statement by the Progressive Karenni People’s Force there have been 699 battles in three townships in Kayah and neighboring Shan states since the Feb. 1, 2021 coup and the junta has carried out 463 airstrikes. The ethnic armed group said 462 people were killed in Kayah state due to fighting over that period and 15 died in airstrikes. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [‘I will never forget the pain of being beaten’](https://ij-reportika.com/i-will-never-forget-the-pain-of-being-beaten/): She knew she was being sought by authorities for reporting on anti-junta protests.  In the seven months since the military had carried out a coup d’etat in February 2021, Myanmar had descended into chaos, Her husband, a former journalist, had been detained for four days before being released. Fearing for her safety, Thuzar San decided to buy a bus ticket from Yangon for the Thai border town of Mae Sot, due to depart on Sept. 2, 2021. But two days before she was to leave, she was arrested by police while her taxi was stopped at a traffic light by plain clothes police officers. “We were asked to put our hands on our heads on the side of the road while they searched the car and then they handcuffed us, forced us to get into a truck at gunpoint, and blindfolded us,” she told Radio Free Asia.  Thuzar was one of the locally-hired reporters at RFA Burmese Service’s Yangon office from 2013-2014. “There was another woman with us. When we arrived at the [interrogation] center, they said, ‘Let the lady exit first,’ so I asked if it was me they were talking about. All of a sudden, they slapped me in the face.” During that first night, Thuzar’s interrogators subjected her to brutal mental and physical abuse in a bid to learn what she knew about the junta opposition and other journalists who had covered the protests. “Four guys circled me and whipped me with a bundle of three [bamboo] canes bound together,” she said. “They asked me the names of the two young men I met during the protest. I was friends with them on Facebook, but I didn’t know much about them.” Her captors beat her five times with a bamboo sapling that evening and said the wounds on her thighs took “more than a year” to heal. “I will never forget the pain of being beaten with the bamboo sapling,” she said. Ruthlessly whipped Later, she was taken from her cell, blindfolded and led outside, where she was made to kneel on the pavement. Again, her captors beat her, demanding to know how she planned to travel to Thailand, which organizations she had ties to and which reporters planned to flee along with her. “Three guys circled me and whipped me with canes – it was so painful,” she said. “This time, they pierced my flesh with the [sharpened] tip of the bamboo sapling and it was agonizing.” Myanmar freelance journalist Thuzar San was tortured after being arrested. Credit: A Hla Lay Thuzar Facebook When Thuzar told the men that she had nothing to divulge about her fellow reporters, they threatened to videotape her forced confession as “evidence” that she was a junta informant and hold her daughter hostage. “They told me that they could make me talk and said, ‘We’ll bring in your daughter and beat her in front of you,” she said. “After that, I couldn’t stop crying. Finally, they sent me back to my cell.” Over the course of several days, Thuzar was interrogated by several people.  On the ninth day of her detention, her captors took her fingerprints and sent a statement to the local police station, saying that she took part in anti-junta protests while covering the event as a reporter. To Insein Prison She was kept in police custody for nearly a month on charges of reporting fake news and inciting the public against the government. On Nov. 22, 2021, she was sentenced to two years in Yangon’s notorious Insein Prison with hard labor. Thuzar described life at Insein Prison as a constant violation of her human rights. “I stayed in Female Ward No. 9, which was like a hall with closed circuit cameras installed in it,” she said. “We had to change our clothes and use the toilet there [in front of the cameras]. The prison officials regularly scolded us and used harsh words. Our rights were severely violated.” Thuzar was released as part of a general amnesty on Jan. 4, 2023, after spending 15 months in prison.  As she was no longer safe in Myanmar, she fled to Thailand along with her family in March. While she feels unmoored as a refugee in a foreign country, Thuzar said she stays strong thinking about the sacrifices of those who have given their lives in opposition to junta rule. She vowed to return to Myanmar as soon as possible so that she can join together with those fighting for democracy and a better future in her home country. Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar junta arrests 50 social media users for ‘anti-regime’ posts](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-arrests-50-social-media-users-for-anti-regime-posts/): Myanmar’s junta has arrested and prosecuted 50 people in the past seven days for allegedly posting anti-regime content on social media platforms, according to news releases by the military regime. The week-long crackdown began on June 14, according to junta announcements Tuesday and Wednesday, which said people had been prosecuted under anti terrorism laws for comments they made on Facebook, Telegram and TikTok. The arrests culminated in the detention of 30 people on Wednesday. Among those arrested, 12 were from Yangon region, with others from Mandalay, Sagaing, Magway, Bago and Ayeyarwady regions, Shan and Kayin states. One Yangon city resident described the arrests as arbitrary. “The junta’s statements are just propaganda,” said the man who declined to be named for safety reasons. “They impose the sentences they like.” According to junta-controlled newspapers, those arrested will be prosecuted under Section 52 (a) of the Counter-Terrorism Act – which carries a maximum penalty of seven years in prison. They also face prosecution under Section 124 (a) of the Penal Code – which carries a sentence of up to seven years for sedition – Section 505 (a) of the Penal Code – which carries a maximum three-year term for high treason – and Section 33 (a) of the Electronic Transactions Act – which carries a maximum prison sentence of 15 years for using technology for acts detrimental to the security of the state. According to figures exclusively compiled by RFA and based on junta statements, at least 1,050 people who posted or reshared posts deemed to be anti-regime were arrested between February 2022 and April 2023. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Tibetan political leader calls for ‘true autonomy’ within China in Australian address](https://ij-reportika.com/tibetan-political-leader-calls-for-true-autonomy-within-china-in-australian-address/): Tibetans would willingly accept Chinese rule if granted true autonomy by Beijing, the leader of Tibet’s government-in-exile said Wednesday. “If those kinds of autonomies are granted to the Tibetans, they will be happy to live under the framework of the People’s Republic of China’s constitution,” said Sikyong Penpa Tsering, the head of the Central Tibetan Administration, referring to the status of Scotland and South Tyrol within the context of British and Italian rule. “It is not a matter of who rules; it is the quality of the rule,” he said, speaking to the Australian National Press Club in Canberra on “resolving Sino-Tibet conflict and securing peace in the region.” Penpa Tsering reiterated the Central Tibetan Administration’s commitment to resolving the Sino-Tibet conflict through the “Middle Way Approach” formulated by Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama. The strategy promotes true autonomy for Tibetans under Chinese rule, as written in China’s constitution. But he highlighted the historically independent status of Tibet and said that unless that status is recognized, China would have no reason to negotiate with the CTA. Embassy lobbying efforts Penpa Tsering’s hour-long address, which also touched on the Chinese government’s attempts to control the reincarnation process of the Dalai Lama, surveil Buddhist monasteries and restrict the movement of Tibetans, took place despite Beijing’s best efforts. Earlier this month, Chinese Embassy representatives met with press club chief Maurice Reily and voiced their opposition to Penpa Tsering’s appearance at Wednesday’s event, requesting that his invitation be revoked. China has controlled Tibet since it invaded the region in 1949, and rejects any notion of a Tibetan government-in-exile, particularly the legitimacy of the Dalai Lama, who lives in Dharamsala, India. Beijing has also stepped up efforts to erode Tibetan culture, language and religion.  Speeches given at the National Press Club are broadcast on Australian TV and attended by prominent members of the press, and observers suggested Beijing may have lobbied Reily because it was worried about the wider exposure Penpa Tsering would get. “I want to thank the Chinese government for always being the best publicity agent,&#8221; Penpa Tsering said at Wednesday’s event, implying that Beijing’s efforts did more harm than good. Visit to parliament Earlier on Wednesday, Penpa Tsering delivered a speech on the geopolitical significance of Tibet at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. On Tuesday, the Sikyong observed proceedings at the Australian parliament, where lawmakers Sophie Scamps and Susan Templeman detailed the situation inside Tibet under Chinese rule. He also met with several Australian MPs. Speaking to RFA Tibetan, Kalsang Tsering, the president of the Australian Tibetan Community Association, welcomed Penpa Tsering’s visit on behalf of the estimated 2,500 Tibetans living in Australia. “The honor that Sikyong Penpa Tsering has received here in Australia and in the Australian parliament has been overwhelming and it is evident that there is so much support from the parliamentarians for the Tibetan cause,” he said. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
- [Biden ‘dictator’ comment sparks Beijing backlash](https://ij-reportika.com/biden-dictator-comment-sparks-beijing-backlash/): China has called U.S. President Joe Biden’s use of the word “dictator” to describe Chinese leader Xi Jinping “extremely absurd and irresponsible.”  The latest war of words comes just two days after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrapped up a diplomatic mission that sought to ease tensions between the two superpowers. Diplomatic relations between China and the U.S. are broadly agreed to have reached their lowest point since they formally recognized each other nearly five decades ago. ‘Totally against facts’ On Wednesday Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a daily briefing that Biden’s remarks at a fundraiser in California “go totally against facts and seriously violate diplomatic protocol, and severely infringe on China’s political dignity.” “It is a blatant political provocation. China expresses strong dissatisfaction and opposition,” Mao said. “The reason why Xi Jinping got very upset in terms of when I shot that balloon down with two box cars full of spy equipment is he didn’t know it was there,” Biden told a fundraiser Tuesday in support of his bid for a second presidential term at the 2024 elections. A fighter jet flies near the remnants of a suspected Chinese spy balloon after it was struck by a missile over the Atlantic Ocean, just off the coast of South Carolina near Myrtle Beach, Saturday, Feb. 4, 2023. Credit: Chad Fish via AP Biden uttered similar words ahead of Blinken’s visit to Beijing in what was interpreted at the time as a peace offering to pave the ground for a meeting between Xi and Blinken, which took place on Monday. On this occasion in Kentfield, California, Biden apparently decided to elaborate. “That was the great embarrassment for dictators, when they didn&#8217;t know what happened. That wasn’t supposed to be going where it was,” he added. Biden also said that China “has real economic difficulties,” a comment that is also sure to aggravate China’s leadership, which is in general very bad-news averse. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao once again defended the Chinese position that the balloon, which was shot down over U.S. coastal waters in February this year, was for meteorological research and had been blown off-course. “The U.S. should have handled it in a calm and professional manner,” she said. ”“However, the U.S. distorted facts and used forces to hype up the incident, fully revealing its nature of bullying and hegemony.” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, center, exits a vehicle to attend a meeting with China&#8217;s top diplomat Wang Yi, not in photo, at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China, Monday, June 19, 2023. Credit: Leah Millis/Pool Photo via AP Blinken’s trip to Beijing yielded no major breakthroughs, but Xi appeared to agree that it was the right time to stabilize rivalry between China and the U.S. that has threatened to veer into outright conflict on at least two occasions this year. They also agreed to further diplomatic engagement and Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang verbally agreed to visit the U.S. some time later this year at Blinken’s invitation. Biden, prior to calling Xi a dictator, said he thought relations between the two countries were on the right path, suggesting that Blinken’s trip had resulted in progress. “We&#8217;re in a situation now where he wants to have a relationship again,” Biden said of Xi separately on Tuesday. “Antony Blinken just went over there &#8230; did a good job and it&#8217;s going to take time.” Edited by Mike Firn.
- [High stakes in Vietnam’s Central Highlands](https://ij-reportika.com/high-stakes-in-vietnams-central-highlands/): On June 11, a group of Montagnards in Vietnam’s Central Highlands attacked the offices of two communes with small arms and molotov cocktails, killing four policemen, two commune officials, and three civilians. The attackers wounded two other policemen and burnt the commune offices. This prompted an immediate and massive government response.  As of the time of writing, 74 people have been arrested, including, allegedly, one of the group’s masterminds. Two people turned themselves in, and the government has promised leniency for others who surrender.  Montagnard villagers throw stones during a protest in Vietnam&#8217;s central highland province of Dak Lak in this screenshot from video taken on April 10, 2004. Credit: Dak Lak Provincial People Committee handout via Reuters So far, almost all of the information about the events has come from the government side, so there is clearly a bias in the reporting. The government has selectively leaked a lot of information and ensured that the story has gotten coverage in the state-controlled media.  The Communist Party of Vietnam immediately dispatched deputy prime minister Tran Luu Quang and the deputy minister of public security Luong Tam Quang to signal government control, a sign of the government’s insecurity. Legitimate grievances Dak Lak and the Central Highlands are not new to unrest, though gun violence is very rare in Vietnam. But the region has not been beset by violence for a while, which begs some questions: Why now? What prompted this latest spate of unrest? There are a number of underlying issues for any unrest involving the Montagnards, a broad grouping for some 30 different tribes, in the Central Highlands.  Beginning in the 1990s, the Vietnamese government began to encourage migration of ethnic Kinh Vietnamese to the region to establish coffee plantations and other agribusinesses.  U.S. Special Forces personnel show Montagnard fighters the finer points of rifle handling and safety during a training session in July 1962. Credit: Horst Faas/Associated Press Today, Vietnam is the second largest coffee producer in the world, exporting over 1 million metric tons in 2022, and almost all of it comes from the Central Highlands.  But that put the Kinh population at odds with the Montagnards, who practiced swidden agriculture: burning forests, farming for a few years, and then moving on to new land. All of a sudden, with land titles going to the Vietnamese settlers, the Montagnards were unable to practice their traditional agriculture, its environmental degradation and inefficiency.  Beyond the economic interests in encouraging Kinh settlement, the government had a political interest in settling the region. The Montagnards had close ties to both the French colonial government as well as the Americans. Persecuted minorities often seek protection from the majority population. During the Vietnam War, the United States relied on the Montagnards and the Hmong in neighboring Laos to interdict North Vietnamese troops and supplies along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Hanoi has never forgiven them for this. But while the Montagnards often portray their struggle as being anti-communist, it’s important to note that the government of the pre-1975 Republic of Vietnam treated them terribly, too, believing that they were abetting North Vietnamese on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. South Vietnamese government officials shared the same mistrust and condescension as their rivals in Hanoi. Beyond politics, there is simply a lot of condescension by Kinh towards the poor tribes that constitute the Montagnards. For the Montagnards, this is simply a form of internal colonialism; indeed, some Montagnards do not even respect Vietnamese sovereignty. Montagnard hill tribesmen emerge from dense forest northeast of Ban Lung, in Cambodia&#8217;s northeastern province of Ratanakiri July 22, 2004. Credit: Adrees Latif/Reuters That animus and mistrust is further compounded in Hanoi by the fact that many of the Montagnards are Evangelical Christians. The Vietnam Fatherland Front, an arm of the Communist Party responsible for mass organizations and religions, only recognizes six religions, controlling their clergy and organization.  Evangelical Christianity continues to go unrecognized, and, as such, the house churches are technically illegal. That many of the Montagnard congregations are supported by faith groups in the United States and elsewhere compounds Hanoi’s paranoia.   Land and religious freedom remain at the heart of Montagnard grievances, but there are others.  The Central Highlands remains a poor region of the country, lagging in human development indicators, educational opportunity, and public health. While Vietnam enjoyed over 8 percent economic growth in 2022 and was the darling of foreign investors, receiving over $22.4 billion in investment, that prosperity is nowhere to be seen in the Central Highlands. And while we should not be conspiratorial about this, we do need to consider that the unrest comes at a time when U.S.-Vietnamese relations are set to be upgraded to a “strategic partnership.” CPV General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong has agreed in principle to visit Washington this summer, and President Biden is expected to travel to Vietnam in the fall. Not everyone in Vietnam’s conservative and xenophobic national security establishment and party echelons are happy with the deepened ties. A full-on crackdown is likely to prompt the U.S. Congress to scrutinize Vietnam’s already dismal human rights record, assault on independent journalists and environmental activists, and control over social media.  The quick and effective government response has not been bad for the Vietnam Ministry of Public Security or its minister, To Lam, who immediately promoted the four officers posthumously and moved quickly to compensate their kin and the wounded officers.  What do we know about the attacks? So far we know very little about the motivation for the attacks or the group’s organization or foreign ties, if any. Montagnard organizations in the United States have denied any involvement.  Montagnards who fled Vietnam&#8217;s Central Highlands wait in Cambodia’s Senmonorom in Mondulkiri province, which borders Vietnam, May 15, 2001. Credit: Reuters A spokesman for the ministry of public security said the group had acted in “an organized manner, reckless, ruthless and without humanity.” Suspects, allegedly, had been “ordered to kill officers and local police on sight, taking their assets and weapons.”  According...
- [Junta announces deaths of 5 people accused of attacking police station](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-announces-deaths-of-5-people-accused-of-attacking-police-station/): Junta authorities have announced the deaths of four men and a woman, arrested in connection with an attack on a police station in Myanmar’s central Bago region, a local People’s Defense Force militia group told RFA this week. They were among 34 locals arrested on suspicion of involvement in the April 27 attack on the police station in Waw township’s Nyaung Khar Shey village. On Monday, an official of the Waw township People Defense Force told RFA that families had been notified of the deaths of 53-year old Tin Myo Khaing; 52-year-old Win Zaw Htay; 45-year-old San Shey; 60-year-old Mya Thein; and 35-year-old Kyaw Myint Thein, all from villages in the township.  They were told to hold funerals but did not receive the bodies. “Family members were called to see the body of Myint Thein from Kyon Par village last month,” said the official, who declined to be named for security reasons.  “He was shot and caught as he tried to flee from the roof of his house … We don’t know when the other people arrested died and did not see their bodies.” The official added that two other men, San Shey and Kyaw Myint Thein, were shot before their arrests. RFA tried to contact the families but they didn’t want to talk because of safety concerns. Calls to the junta spokesperson for Bago region, Tin Oo, seeking information on the deaths went unanswered. People’s Defense Joint Forces attacked the police station in April, leading to a police roundup of locals over several days. They took in 20 people for questioning on April 27 and 28 and another 14 on May 1. Locals said they don’t know if those arrested will be charged or released and RFA has been unable to contact the local police. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [China’s president meets top US diplomat in Beijing](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-president-meets-top-us-diplomat-in-beijing/): Chinese President Xi Jinping met with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the Great Hall of the People on Tiananmen Square in Beijing late Monday afternoon in a climax of high-stakes diplomacy. Xi said he hoped the U.S. diplomat’s visit would stabilize ties, adding that state-to-state interactions should be based on mutual respect, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying, who was present in the meeting, wrote in a tweet. Blinken had earlier met with China’s top foreign policy official Wang Yi and Foreign Minister Qin Gang.  Achieving a meeting with Xi, who is also China’s General Party Secretary, was widely perceived as the key measure of the success of Blinken’s visit as the two nations’ relations plumbed depths not seen since the countries diplomatically recognized each other in 1978.  President Joe Biden said he hoped to see Xi in several months.  Blinken is the first secretary of state to visit China in five years, amid China&#8217;s strict COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns and strains over China’s claims on the self-governing island of Taiwan, Russia’s war in Ukraine, Beijing&#8217;s human rights record, assertive Chinese military moves in the South China Sea and technology trade. “This visit was basically a means of re-establishing the normal process of contacts between the U.S. and China that was supposed to follow the Bali Xi-Biden meeting but then got derailed by the spy balloon,” Andrew Small, a senior transatlantic fellow with the U.S. German Marshall Fund’s Indo-Pacific Program told RFA. “It is intended to pave the way for other visits to China … and ultimately an expected visit from Xi Jinping for the APEC meeting in San Francisco.”  The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit will be held in the Californian city on November 12 this year.  Small described China-U.S. relations as essentially “frozen” prior to the trip, adding, “​​The US side anticipated that, assuming meetings with Wang Yi and Qin Gang proceeded according to plan, Blinken would see Xi Jinping, and it was understood to be important that various messages could be delivered directly to him.” ‘Candid, substantive, and constructive’ On Sunday Blinken began the two days of meetings with 7½  hours of direct talks and a dinner meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, discussing a host of topics and agreeing to work together on increasing the number of flights between the U.S. and China, a senior state department official said. Blinken invited Qin to continue the discussions in the U.S, and the spokesperson said the pair agreed to schedule a visit at a “mutually suitable time.”  A senior official said, under the condition of anonymity, that the meeting between Blinken and Qin was not about reading talking points to one another, describing the exchange of views as a substantive conversation. The PRC readout on the meeting said, “China is committed to building a stable, predictable and constructive China-U.S. relationship,” which Bonnie Glazer, managing director of the German Marshall Fund’s Indo-Pacific program and nonresident fellow with the Lowy Institute in Sydney, Australia, described in a tweet thread as “important.” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken walks with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China, Sunday, June 18, 2023. Credit: Leah Millis/Pool Photo via AP Blinken’s talks with Qin were “candid, substantive, and constructive,” said State department spokesperson Matthew Miller. “The Secretary emphasized the importance of diplomacy and maintaining open channels of communication across the full range of issues to reduce the risk of misperception and miscalculation,” Miller said in a written statement late Sunday. Blinken, the spokesperson added, “raised a number of issues of concern, as well as opportunities to explore cooperation on shared transnational issues with the PRC where our interests align.” Chinese state media described the talks as &#8220;candid, in-depth and constructive communication on the overall relationship between China and the United States and related important issues.&#8221; A report by China&#8217;s foreign ministry quoted Qin as saying that “Sino-US relations are at the lowest point since the establishment of diplomatic relations. This does not conform to the fundamental interests of the two peoples, nor does it meet the common expectations of the international community.” ‘Crucial juncture’ On Monday morning, amid much suspense as to whether Xi would agree to meet him, Blinken met with China’s top foreign policy official Wang Yi to discuss re-forging diplomatic channels of communication between the powers. Observers in Beijing described the meeting as “frosty” but free of acrimony, unlike their last meeting, in Munich in March this year, when the two traded barbs in their first meeting since the U.S. shot down a Chinese spy balloon on February 4. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken (second from left without mask) meets with China&#8217;s Director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission Wang Yi (second from right without mask) at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China, June 19, 2023.  Credit: Reuters/Leah Millis/Pool The Chinese readout described the meeting as coming at a “crucial juncture” in U.S.-China relations and that choices needed to be made between dialog or confrontation, cooperation or conflict, while blaming the downturn in relations on the “U.S. sides erroneous understanding of China.” Wang asked the U.S. to stop “hyping up the China threat,” lift its “illegal sanctions,” stop hindering China’s technological progress and said that on the subject of Taiwan, which he described as “core of China’s core interests,” there was “no room for compromise.” Little progress on key issues The two sides appeared to have made no progress on key issues such as Taiwan, trade, human rights and stemming the flow of chemicals used in the production of the synthetic opioid fentanyl. “Despite very low expectations for any breakthroughs made during Blinken&#8217;s visit to China, there is still hope that both sides can maintain their ‘bottom line’ in the relationship,” state tabloid Global Times said in an editorial on Monday. It added, “It is normal for any country to have low expectations after being continuously suppressed by the US.” Derek Grossman, a former daily intelligence briefer to the director of...
- [High stakes, low expectations as top US diplomat opens China visit](https://ij-reportika.com/high-stakes-low-expectations-as-top-us-diplomat-opens-china-visit/): UPDATED AT 02:00 pm EDT on 2023-06-18 U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken opened a high-stakes visit to China on Sunday with lengthy talks with top Chinese officials that both countries described as &#8220;candid&#8221; and &#8220;constructive&#8221; and called for more stable ties after years of rising tensions. Blinken is the first secretary of state to visit China in five years, amid China&#8217;s strict coronavirus pandemic lockdowns and strains over the self-governing island of Taiwan, Russia’s war in Ukraine, Beijing&#8217;s human rights record, assertive Chinese military moves in the South China Sea and technology trade. The top U.S. diplomat began two days of meetings with extended talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang and other officials and a working dinner at Diaoyutai State Guesthouse. Neither Blinken nor Qin made any substantive public comments during their meetings. Blinken&#8217;s talks with Qin were &#8220;candid, substantive, and constructive,&#8221; said State department spokesperson Matthew Miller. &#8220;The Secretary emphasized the importance of diplomacy and maintaining open channels of communication across the full range of issues to reduce the risk of misperception and miscalculation,&#8221; Miller said in written statement late Sunday. Blinken, the spokesperson added &#8220;raised a number of issues of concern, as well as opportunities to explore cooperation on shared transnational issues with the PRC where our interests align.&#8221; Chinese state media described the talks as &#8220;candid, in-depth and constructive communication on the overall relationship between China and the United States and related important issues.&#8221; The report quoted Qin as saying that &#8220;Sino-US relations are at the lowest point since the establishment of diplomatic relations. This does not conform to the fundamental interests of the two peoples, nor does it meet the common expectations of the international community.&#8221; &#8220;China is committed to building a stable, predictable and constructive Sino-US relationship,&#8221; the Chinese-language report quoted Qin as saying. &#8220;It is hoped that the U.S. side will uphold an objective and rational understanding of China, meet China halfway, maintain the political foundation of Sino-U.S. relations, and handle unexpected incidents calmly, professionally and rationally,&#8221; the Chinese foreign minister added. As he had in a blunt pre-meeting phone call with Blinken on Wednesday, however, Qin said China would not budge on its “core interests,” including that the self-governing island of Taiwan will be reunited with the mainland. Qin called Taiwan &#8220;the core of China&#8217;s core interests, the most important issue in Sino-US relations, and the most prominent risk,&#8221; Sunday&#8217;s readout said. Blinken is slated to have further talks with Qin, as well as China’s top diplomat Wang Yi, director of the Central Foreign Affairs Office, on Monday. Observers see a possible meeting with President Xi Jinping as a barometer of Beijing&#8217;s willingness to re-engage with Washington after years of frosty ties. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, center, left, walks with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, center right, at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China, Sunday, June 18, 2023. (Leah Millis/Pool Photo via AP) The visit comes after almost a year of strained relations between the Biden administration and Beijing, which began with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan in August. Other irritants include China’s diplomatic and propaganda support for Russia for its war against Ukraine, and U.S. allegations that Beijing is attempting to boost its worldwide surveillance capabilities. Blinken postponed a planned February trip to China after a suspected Chinese spy balloon flew over U.S. airspace and was shot down. This visit went ahead despite the revelations early this month of a multibillion-dollar Chinese spy base in Cuba. He told reporters before leaving Friday that Washington wants to improve communications “precisely so that we can make sure we are communicating as clearly as possible to avoid possible misunderstandings and miscommunications.” ‘Legitimate differences’ President Joe Biden told White House reporters Saturday he was “hoping that over the next several months, I’ll be meeting with Xi again and talking about legitimate differences we have, but also how … to get along.” U.S. defense officials say Chinese officials have refused phone calls since Blinken canceled a planned trip to Beijing in February due to the Chinese spy balloon. Beijing asserts it was a weather balloon. Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu also declined to meet with U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore earlier at the start of the month, with Li instead using the forum to accuse the United States of “double standards.” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken (2nd R) and China&#8217;s Foreign Minister Qin Gang (2nd L) meet at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on June 18, 2023. Credit: Leah Millis / POOL / AFP There have been recent high-level contacts, including a trip to China by CIA chief William Burns in May, a visit to the U.S. by China’s commerce minister, and a meeting in Vienna Austria between Wang and Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan. Reuters news agency quoted a senior State Department official as telling reporters during a refueling stop in Tokyo that Washington and Beijing understand they need to communicate more. &#8220;There&#8217;s a recognition on both sides that we do need to have senior-level channels of communication,&#8221; the official said. &#8220;That we are at an important point in the relationship where I think reducing the risk of miscalculation, or as our Chinese friends often say, stopping the downward spiral in the relationship, is something that&#8217;s important,&#8221; the official said. &#8220;Hope this meeting can help steer China-U.S. relations back to what the two Presidents agreed upon in Bali,&#8221; tweeted Chinese assistant foreign minister Hua Chunying. Biden and Xi met face-to-face on the sidelines of a summit of the Group of 20 big economies in November and agreed to try to restore dialogue despite sharp differences. The two leaders have opportunities to meet later this year, including at the Group of 20 leaders’ gathering in September in New Delhi and at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November in San Francisco. Updated with statements from the U.S. and China after Sunday&#8217;s meetings.
- [Cambodia charges two Chinese with the murder of South Korean influencer](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodia-charges-two-chinese-with-the-murder-of-south-korean-influencer/): A Cambodian court has charged two Chinese nationals with the torture and murder of a South Korean social media influencer whose body was found on the outskirts of Phnom Penh earlier this month. Byun Ah-yeong, also known as BJ Ahyeong, was an influencer for popular South Korean streaming service AfreecaTV, and that she had more than 250,000 Instagram followers, Agence France-Presse reported. Media reports say she was 33. Two Chinese, Lai Wenshao, 30, and Cai Huijuan, 39 were charged with murder, court spokesman Plang Sophal told local media. Lai and Cai testified that Byun had gone into seizures and died while receiving treatment at their clinic on June 4, and they had abandoned her body, AFP said, citing a police report. If they are convicted, they could face life in prison. Lai and Cai’s clinic had been operating without a license, Sok Sambath, the governor of Phnom Penh’s Boeung Keng Kang district, told RFA’s Khmer Service. &#8220;We shut the clinic down,&#8221;  he said, but declined to answer questions inquiring as to how they could have been allowed to open without a license, only saying that they had started before he took office.  Police Chief Sar Thet told RFA that according to the police investigation, “the couple injected [something] into a South Korean lady and she died.” The incident may have happened because of improperly administered anesthesia, Quach Mengly, a Cambodian physician, told RFA. The Ministry of Health hasn’t effectively taken action against unlicensed medical clinics and this has caused several patient deaths as of late, Yong Kim Eng, president of the local PDP-Center NGO, told RFA. He said that the incident could scare off foreigners who want to seek medical treatment in Cambodia.  &#8220;[Cambodians] are [also] afraid of using local clinics,” said Yong Kim Eng. “They seek treatment outside of the country, so we are giving money to foreign countries.”  Soeung Sengkaruna, spokesman for the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association urged the authorities to conduct a thorough investigation to find the real cause of death to restore public trust in Cambodia’s medical services. &#8220;The related authorities and the ministry of health need to investigate this case,” he said. “We want to find out whether it was a malpractice or the providers&#8217; lack of skill.&#8221; Translated by Samean Yun. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster. 
- [Vietnamese police arrest more than 50 in attacks on commune offices](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnamese-police-arrest-more-than-50-in-attacks-on-commune-offices/): Vietnamese security forces have arrested more than 50 people accused of being involved in last weekend’s deadly attacks on two commune offices in central Dak Lak province, a Ministry of Public Security spokesman told state media on Friday.  The June 11 attack left nine people dead. Those involved in the attacks were young people who harbored delusions and extremist attitudes and had been incited and abetted by the ringleaders via the internet, according to the ministry.   But officials didn’t say who or which organizations had incited or assisted the attackers. The attacks occurred in an area that is home to about 30 tribes of indigenous peoples known collectively as Montagnards.  Vietnamese state media have reported that the attackers were Montagnards, but the ministry did not identify those arrested as such.  Religious and civil organizations advocating for the Montagnard people told Radio Free Asia in an earlier report that they weren’t involved in the armed attacks and condemned the violence. Anger and frustration in the Central Highlands has built up after decades of government surveillance, land disputes and economic hardship, RFA reported earlier. In recent months, there have been a number of land revocation incidents by local authorities, police and military forces. Sought to steal weapons In the ministry’s description of what transpired, about 40 people wearing camouflage vests and equipped with knives and guns split into two groups for a dawn attack on the offices in Ea Tieu and Ea Ktur communes. Members of the two groups also had broken into Special Forces Brigade No. 198’s barracks in Hoa Dong commune in Dak Lak province to steal weapons, but failed, the ministry told state media.    Those arrested said they sought to steal weapons so as to make news headlines, which they hoped would give them the opportunity to immigrate to other countries, according to the ministry. In their preliminary statements, those arrested said they had been incited by others to kill police officers. Four police officers, two commune officials and three civilians were killed. The attackers also kidnapped three civilians, though one of them managed to escape, and the others were rescued later, the ministry said.  The ministry said it would “use all necessary measures” to hunt down and arrest all suspects still in hiding and seize their weapons and explosives.  Vietnamese police officers escort a suspect arrested in Dak Lak province. Credit: Vietnamese State media Vietnam’s one-party government has strictly controlled news about the shootings, heightening people’s curiosity about the incident, but Channel VTV1 of Vietnam Television and many newspapers have published the statements and photos of some of those arrested. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Hun Sen of neighboring Cambodia ordered armed forces in Mondulkiri, Ratanakiri and Kratie provinces to increase security along the border to prevent fugitives involved in the attacks from crossing the border illegally, China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported Friday.  Hun Sen said that anyone arrested would be returned to Vietnam if discovered.  Slapping social media In the past days, police have fined people who share news about Dak Lak shootings via social media.  At least five Facebook users have been slapped with administrative fines for sharing the news and their comments, deemed to be harmful to the state.  Police in Dak Lak as well as authorities in Kontum and Binh Phuoc — two other provinces in the country’s Central Highlands — have fined businesses that sell imitation camouflage military outfits.    Two human rights lawyers told RFA on Thursday that state media should not have publicly disclosed information from the suspects’ statements to police or their photos, though authorities often take advantage of their power and privilege to provide news organizations with unappealing photos of suspects. “Publishing citizens’ photos without their permission or without blurring their faces, even if they are suspects or defendants, is a violation of their rights in terms of their image and could cause many consequences, especially when they are in high positions or are influential people,” said one attorney from Ho Chi Minh City, who asked not to be identified. A human rights lawyer from Hanoi said the Penal Code or the Criminal Procedure Code clearly states that statements from suspects should be kept secret. Attorney Ha Huy Son, a member of the Hanoi Bar Association, said the country’s 2015 Civil Code contains a provision on the rights of an individual with respect to his image, stipulating that he must give his consent for its public use.  But he also pointed to another article stating that a person’s photo can be used without consent from the individual or his legal representative in cases where it serves national or public interest.   The attorneys also said those arrested should be given immediate access to lawyers to ensure fairness and avoid injustice. Neither the Ministry of Public Security nor Dak Lak provincial police have opened cases against the suspects, or provided information about their charges. Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Junta pilot and trainee killed in Myanmar military helicopter crash](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-pilot-and-trainee-killed-in-myanmar-military-helicopter-crash/): A junta helicopter crashed near an air force base in Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw, killing the pilot and a trainee, local media reported Friday. The military confirmed Thursday’s crash, thought to have been caused by sudden engine failure, but did not give the names and ranks of the dead. Local news reports, quoting anonymous military sources, named the pilot/instructor as Maj. Min Thu Aung but only said the trainee was a woman without naming her. One local told RFA the army sent an investigation team to the site of the helicopter crash on the Bago mountain range. “It crashed on the Bago Plateau on the edge of Lewe township [in Naypyidaw] and bordering Taungdwingyi township [in Magway region],” said the resident who didn’t want to be named for security reasons.  “Military vehicles came to the area but could not reach the crash site. We saw a lot of helicopter traffic.” The junta said in a statement that they were working to transport the bodies to the nearest military hospital. In March last year, a military helicopter crashed during bad weather in a forest in Chin state’s  Hakha township, injuring some military council air force officers and some education workers. That helicopter was Russian-made and Thein Tun Oo, the executive director of the Thayninga Institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank group made up of former military officers, said at the time it was a durable design but probably crashed due to bad weather. The make of the helicopter that crashed this week is not yet known. Russia is the biggest arms supplier to Myanmar, selling U.S.$406 million worth of military equipment to the junta since the Feb. 1, 2021 coup, according to a report last month by Tom Andrews, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar on May 17. China, Singapore and India sold at least a combined $600 million-worth of weapons to Myanmar over the same period, he said. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Banned protest anthem 'Glory to Hong Kong' pulled from global streaming services](https://ij-reportika.com/banned-protest-anthem-glory-to-hong-kong-pulled-from-global-streaming-services/): A banned Hong Kong protest anthem has disappeared from music streaming services around the world after the city&#8217;s government applied for a court injunction banning its dissemination. &#8220;Glory to Hong Kong,&#8221; which has sparked a police investigation after organizers played it instead of China’s national anthem at recent overseas sports events, was regularly sung by crowds of unarmed protesters during the 2019 pro-democracy and anti-extradition movement. It is still sung at rallies and protests by Hong Kongers in exile around the world, but has been targeted by an ongoing crackdown on public dissent and political opposition under a draconian national security law since 2020. Last week, the Hong Kong government applied for a High Court injunction banning it from being disseminated in any way, prompting mass downloads of the song that propelled it to the top of local music charts. The hearing has been postponed to July 21, yet many versions of the song have already been removed from Spotify, Apple&#8217;s iTunes and other music platforms. The song&#8217;s creators said they were having &#8220;technical issues.&#8221; &#8220;Working on some technical issues not related to the streaming platform, sorry for the temporary impact,&#8221; they said in a post on their Facebook page. &#8220;Thank you to all our listeners.&#8221; ‘Live on in everyone’s hearts’ Comments under the announcement were sad but defiant. &#8220;Really sad! It&#8217;s been taken down from Apple Music regardless of country,&#8221; wrote one user, while another said: &#8220;Even if it&#8217;s banned, this song will live on in everyone&#8217;s hearts. Go Hong Kong!&#8221; Another added: &#8220;The most important thing is that you are safe.&#8221; Spotify said in an emailed statement to the Associated Press and Reuters that the song had been pulled by its distributor and not the platform itself, while Facebook, Instagram, and Apple Music did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The song calls for freedom and democracy rather than independence, but was nonetheless deemed in breach of the law due to its &#8220;separatist&#8221; intent, officials and police officers said at the start of the current crackdown on dissent. The high court has set the hearing date for the injunction at July 21. If granted, the injunction will ban &#8220;broadcasting, performing, printing, publishing, selling, offering for sale, distributing, disseminating, displaying or reproducing [the song] in any way including on the internet,&#8221; according to a police statement on the injunction. Francis Fong, president of the Hong Kong Information Technology Federation, said there are two possible reasons for the song&#8217;s disappearance from music platforms. &#8220;It could be that the creators are worried about violating the national security law, and it wouldn&#8217;t be surprising if they removed it themselves,&#8221; Fong said. &#8220;It&#8217;s not the same as uploading to YouTube, where anyone can create an account and upload something.&#8221; &#8220;You can&#8217;t just do that on iTunes, where you have to apply for an account so as to receive money, which means that [the authorities] have a way to track down whoever the author is,&#8221; he said. &#8220;If they feel that things could be getting dangerous, they could have removed it themselves.&#8221; Fong said many global platforms are also pretty responsive to government takedown requests, particularly relating to defamation, pornography and violent content, either with or without court orders. &#8220;They will remove certain things if the police ask them to,&#8221; he said. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar military burns houses, captures villagers in Sagaing region](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-military-burns-houses-captures-villagers-in-sagaing-region/): A woman was burned to death in her home when junta troops raided her village in Myanmar’s northern Sagaing region, residents told RFA Thursday. The 60-year-old was unable to flee when soldiers torched around 700 houses in Sagaing township’s Thar Zin village on Tuesday, they said. Troops captured residents of Thar Zin and nearby villages in a series of raids this week, although it was unclear whether they were being used as human shields or suspected of aiding anti-junta militia. “Some 25 people were arrested in Thar Zin village, and more were arrested in other villages,” said a local who didn’t want to be named for safety reasons. “So far, about 40 people have been arrested and all were taken along with the military column. No one has been released.” The local said nearly three quarters of Thar Zin’s buildings had been burned down, leaving more than 3,000 people homeless. After Tuesday’s raid on Thar Zin, residents said troops torched 10 houses in Aing Dan Ma village the following day and burned homes in Pauk Ma on Thursday. The burned shells of homes in Thar Zin village seen in an aerial photograph taken on June 15, 2023. Credit: Citizen journalist On June 6, junta Deputy Information Minister Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun told RFA that junta troops do not set fire to civilians’ homes. RFA called the junta’s Sagaing region spokesperson, Aye Hlaing, Thursday but nobody answered. More than 53,800 homes have been burned down by junta troops and affiliated militias since the Feb. 1, 2021 coup, according to independent research group Data for Myanmar. A total of 765,200 people have been forced to flee their homes in Sagaing region due to fighting and arson attacks since the coup, according to a United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) report on Tuesday. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Chinese police target prominent rights lawyers with harassment, travel bans](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-police-target-prominent-rights-lawyers-with-harassment-travel-bans/): Police in China are keeping up their harassment of prominent rights lawyers, putting pressure on recently evicted Wang Quanzhang and his family, slapping a travel ban on Li Heping and his family, while denying rights attorney Xie Yang a phone call with his sick father. A police officer from the Beijing suburb of Changping pushed his way into the Wang family home on Wednesday, refusing to show ID and demanding to read the couple’s lease agreement, according to a video clip posted by Wang’s wife Li Wenzu on Twitter. “Comrade Policeman, please would you leave – this is our home,” Li tells the officer, who is identified as Wang Kaiguo in her tweet. “You can’t just go into people’s residences,” Li tells the officer in a heated discussion. “You didn’t produce any identification.” “I’m wearing a police uniform, so I can come in here,” he says. Police were claiming to have received a tip-off that the home had been illegally rented, according to the couple. ‘Stability Maintenance’ The renewed harassment is the latest in a slew of “stability maintenance” actions by Beijing police and other Chinese officials, who have targeted the families of prominent rights attorneys and other activists who were previously jailed in a 2015 crackdown on rights lawyers and public interest law firms. In a video of an earlier conversation on June 12, Wang calls on a police officer via an entryphone to show some evidence backing up the claim that his family is living in the apartment illegally. He later tweeted a photo of the lease agreement with the landlord. Screen shot of the policeman identified as Wang Kaiguo by Wang’s wife Li Wenzu. Tweeter/ @709liwenzu &#8220;Police and corporate security personnel in Shunyi tracked us down to our new residence and reported us to the local police station,&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;They continued to follow us as we were apartment-hunting, and they accused us of &#8216;trespassing.’&#8221; &#8220;It&#8217;s not just us &#8212; a lot of Christian families across the country have been evicted and persecuted,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s very hard to live a stable life.&#8221; Wang&#8217;s family was forced to leave their last apartment in Beijing&#8217;s Shunyi district after the authorities cut off their utilities. &#8220;The content of the contract is true, legal, and valid, and should be protected by law,&#8221; Wang said via Twitter. &#8220;I hereby declare that I will not unilaterally terminate this contract within its validity period.&#8221; &#8220;We moved into this rented accommodation legally, yet police said they had been told that we moved in illegally,&#8221; Li Wenzu also tweeted on Tuesday. Can’t leave country Meanwhile, the family of Li Heping is now banned from leaving China, after their landlord smashed a window at their rented apartment in a bid to get them to leave last month, Radio Free Asia has learned. Police at Chengdu&#8217;s international airport prevented the family from boarding a flight to Thailand last week, as Li and his wife Wang Qiaoling are considered to be &#8220;a danger to national security,&#8221; Wang Qiaoling said. &#8220;He told us, &#8216;You aren&#8217;t allowed to leave the country &#8230; I&#8217;m going to read this notice out to you &#8212; Li Heping and Wang Qiaoling aren&#8217;t allowed to leave the country due to factors endangering national security.’&#8221; she said. And a court in the central city of Changsha recently denied detained rights lawyer Xie Yang a video meeting with his ailing 90-year-old father, who is terminally ill with COVID-19. &#8220;The lawyer asked angrily whether the judges of the Changsha Intermediate People&#8217;s Court were raised by their parents,&#8221; the China Rights Lawyers Twitter account said of the June 7 hearing. Xie&#8217;s U.S.-based ex-wife Chen Guiqiu told Radio Free Asia in a recent interview that her father-in-law Xie Huicheng had been in hospital with a high fever for days at the time of the request. &#8220;Xie Yang is a very filial son, and the old man really wanted to see him before he dies,&#8221; Chen said. &#8220;The court just came up with various excuses to refuse.&#8221; Xie is currently being held in the Changsha No. 1 Detention Center, awaiting trial for &#8220;incitement to subvert state power,&#8221; and recently told his visiting attorney that he has been tortured while in detention. Chen said the court&#8217;s decision not to allow him to video call his dying father could be a form of retaliation, or a way to silence Xie. U.S.-based rights lawyer Wu Shaoping said that while there was no good legal reason to deny such a request, the ruling Chinese Communist Party is the ultimate arbiter of its citizens&#8217; rights, not the law. &#8220;There was no reason to reject a humanitarian request of this kind,&#8221; Wu said. &#8220;They use [such requests] as a way of controlling suspects [to elicit a &#8216;confession&#8217;].&#8221; Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Junta cracks down on residents of Myanmar’s Kale township](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-cracks-down-on-residents-of-myanmars-kale-township/): A junta slipknot is tightening in Sagaing region’s Kale township, as troops guard every intersection, conducting door-to-door searches and arresting people suspected of being involved in pro-democracy politics, locals told RFA Burmese Wednesday. Five people were arrested between June 1 and June 14, said residents who didn’t want to be identified for fear of reprisals. At night troops go from home to home, checking household registration lists, they said. They also stop motorcycles and question riders and passengers. As a result of the searches they arrested Pau Suan Khual, Su Su Win, Thiri Lin, Mary San and Naing Htwe. “The junta council troops conduct casual checks in Kale city every day, targeting young people who are on motorbikes and checking  their phones,” said a Kale resident who declined to be named.  “People are arrested if they are suspected of being involved in politics.” The five people, believed to be in their twenties, were taken to the Military Regional Command Headquarters interrogation center in Kale township. Residents said police and soldiers also threaten passers-by and demand money from them. RFA called Sagaing region junta spokesperson Aye Hlaing Wednesday but nobody answered. One man died during interrogation after being arrested on May 19.  Salai Ram Lian Pan, 29, was detained at a junta checkpoint as he tried to ride his motorbike across the township. On June 7, junta authorities told the family to pick up his dead body. The National League for Democracy, a party ostensibly dissolved by the government this year even though it won a landslide victory in elections before the Feb. 2021 coup, said Tuesday that 3,818 civilians, including 93 NLD members have been killed since the military takeover. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Three weeks of fighting in eastern Myanmar leaves nearly 3 dozen civilians dead](https://ij-reportika.com/three-weeks-of-fighting-in-eastern-myanmar-leaves-nearly-3-dozen-civilians-dead/): Three weeks of fierce fighting between junta troops and ethnic Karenni forces in eastern Myanmar has killed at least 35 civilians, including three children, a domestic human rights group and local residents said.  Karenni militias have been battling the military for decades in their campaign for greater autonomy in Kayah and Shan states, but the conflict has worsened in recent months as the Burmese army targets People’s Defense Force fighters who have taken up arms against the military since the 2021 coup. The two sides have been engaged in armed conflict in Moebye – also known as Mongpai – township in southern Shan state since May 25. Among those who died were more than 20 men and 10 ten women, as well as three minors aged eight, 13 and 18, according to Karenni Human Rights Group. Banyar, executive director of the Karenni Human Rights Group, said that the victims were killed by heavy artillery or because they caught fire as they were trapped in the middle of the fighting.  “They were either killed in the town of Moebye, hit by heavy artillery or shot to death, Banyar, the group’s executive director, told Radio Free Asia on Monday. “Some of them were arrested before being killed. Some were shot at. Some were killed as heavy artillery shelling hit them.” The organization collected 12 dead bodies and buried them during the first week of June, though some corpses still cannot be collected on account of security issues, Banyar said. The latest round of civilian deaths comes as the military steps up attacks on its adversaries in the southern Shan and Kayah state townships of Moebye, Pinlaung and Pekon.  Junta forces have conducted airstrikes and heavy artillery assaults on areas where fighters from the Progressive Karenni People’s Force, or PKPF – a local offshoot of the anti-regime People’s Defense Forces – are believed to be, killing civilians in the process.   Relief workers have had difficulties helping the injured and collecting dead bodies because junta troops are everywhere in Moebye, arresting and killing locals, said aid worker Nwe Oo said. “I’ve heard that there are injured people in Si Kar and Done Tu Htan wards in town, but because we haven’t had a chance to go in, we haven&#8217;t been able to bring them out,” she said. “We have to be very vigilant as the fighting has been intense and complicated.”  A civilian who sustained injuries during shelling by Myanmar soldiers is treated in Moebye township, southeastern Myanmar&#8217;s Kayah state, Jul. 26, 2022. Credit: Mobye PDF Rescue Team Artillery fire To make matters worse, junta forces have blocked some roads in Moebye and have kept open a main road for pedestrian use, she said.  A Moebye resident, who declined to be named for safety reasons, said military troops fired heavy artillery into residential areas. “We heard gunshot exchanges and artillery fire non-stop last night,” he said, estimating that about 450 junta soldiers have been stationed in high-rise buildings, schools and residential homes. The resident said three members of a friend’s family were killed on the spot with heavy artillery as they hid in a bomb shelter.  “Because telephone communication has not been reliable, there is no way we will be able to leave the town,” he said. The junta has not yet issued any statements about the situation in Moebye. RFA could not reach Khun Thein Maung, Shan state’s economic minister and junta spokesman, for comment.  A PKPF official told RFA there have been casualties on both sides in the fighting, and some civilians are still caught up in it. There have been many casualties among members of the People&#8217;s Defense Forces and the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force, an armed insurgent group formed after the 2021 military coup, and among junta troops who have been firing heavy artillery non-stop, the official said.   “Some civilians have been trapped in town,” he said. “Some people have taken refuge in the monastery because they thought they would be safe there. We heard that some of them managed to sneak out of town, but we don&#8217;t know how exactly they escaped.” More than 50 civilians, including 13 children under the age of 18, died in Moebye between February 2021, when the military seized power from the elected government, and this June 12, according to PKPF figures.  Moebye has a population of about 30,000 people. Some residents remain in about three of the township’s 10 wards, while the rest have fled the fighting. Translated by Myo Min Aung for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar policeman killed in Naypyidaw grenade attack](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-policeman-killed-in-naypyidaw-grenade-attack/): A policeman was killed in a grenade attack on a police station in Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw, residents of Lewe township told RFA Tuesday. Several more officers were injured in Monday night’s attack, which took place despite tight security outside the building. “There are barbed wire fences on the road,” said a Lewe resident who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons. “Now the place is closed and people haven’t come out since 8pm.” Unknown attackers also threw a grenade at a security gate outside the Myanmar International Convention Center-2 (MICC-2) in Naypyitaw’s Za Bu Thi Ri township on Monday night, locals told RFA. They said there were some injuries but RFA was unable to confirm the details. The junta said it was working to catch those responsible for the grenade attack on Lewe Police Station, but did not mention the death of a policeman. It said nothing about the reported attack on the convention center. RFA called junta Deputy Information Minister Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun Tuesday but nobody answered. Security has been tight in Naypyidaw following a May 3 grenade attack on a security checkpoint in Oke Ta Ra Thi Ri  township. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Myanmar’s junta met jailed NLD chief Suu Kyi twice to discuss peace](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-junta-met-jailed-nld-chief-suu-kyi-twice-to-discuss-peace/): Myanmar’s junta has met at least twice with Aung San Suu Kyi, the jailed head of the deposed National League for Democracy, to enlist her help in peace negotiations with the armed resistance, only to be rebuffed by the former state counselor, Radio Free Asia has learned. Suu Kyi was visited on May 27 and June 4 in Naypyidaw Prison by three military officers – Lieutenant Gen. So Htut, the junta’s home affairs minister, Lieutenant Gen. Yar Pyae, who has led the military’s negotiation teams for peace talks with ethnic rebel groups, and retired Lieutenant Gen. Khin Zaw Oo, a source in the capital with close connections to the facility told RFA Burmese on Monday. “As much as we can confirm, the generals met her two times,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media.  “We heard that the generals urged her to help the junta in its peacemaking process amid the current political situation and help stop the violence,” he said. “We’ve heard that [Aung San Suu Kyi] did not respond.” The junta has been embroiled in a protracted conflict with Myanmar’s increasingly formidable armed resistance groups and ethnic armed organizations since the military detained Aung San Suu Kyi and other top leaders of the NLD in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup d’etat. Junta courts found the 78-year-old Suu Kyi guilty of corruption charges and the violation of election and state secrets laws in December 2022. She faces a total of 33 years in jail for 19 cases, and is being held in solitary confinement in Naypyidaw. Suu Kyi’s supporters say the charges were politically motivated. The source in Naypyidaw told RFA that while the three generals may have met with Suu Kyi in prison more than twice, they hadn’t been able to confirm the visits. The junta has not made any official announcement about the meetings and RFA has been unable to independently confirm that they took place. Sources close to Suu Kyi&#8217;s legal team, including within the NLD, said that they were unaware of the meetings. Attempts by RFA to contact Naing Win, the junta’s deputy director general of the Department of Prisons, went unanswered Monday. Sources told RFA that Ottama Thara, the Buddhist abbot of Thabarwa Sanctuary in Thanlyin township, a port city located across the Bago River from the commercial capital Yangon, met with senior NLD party patron Thura Tin Oo on June 8 and advised that Suu Kyi should “retire from politics and participate in peacemaking efforts.” The monk, who reportedly met several times with top military leaders in Naypyidaw before the meeting with Thura Tin Oo, said that the junta generals hope that by doing so, Suu Kyi can facilitate an end to the country’s political deadlock. Suu Kyi ‘vital’ to Myanmar politics RFA spoke with NLD Central Working Committee member Kyaw Htwe, who said the party had heard that the generals met with Suu Kyi in prison, but couldn’t confirm the visit. “In Myanmar’s political world, the role of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is vital,” he said, using an honorific to refer to the veteran politician and party chief. “There will never be practical political change without her. Meeting with her and holding discussions is very important.” Kyaw Htwe said that the military had violated Myanmar’s constitution by seizing power and is “entirely responsible” for the country’s current problems. “Only after all political prisoners, including State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, are freed will the path to a resolution be implemented,” he said. Myanmar’s detained civilian leader San Suu Kyi, presides at a meeting in Naypyidaw with then military chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing and chairman of the Karen National Union Gen. Saw Mutu Say Poe to commemorate the third anniversary of signing of Myanmar&#8217;s Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement on Oct. 15, 2018. Credit: Myanmar State Counselor Office via AFP Nay Phone Latt, the spokesman for Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, said he had been unable to confirm the generals’ visits to Suu Kyi, adding that “it is too early for us to comment.” RFA contacted Thein Tun Oo, the head of the Thayninga Institute of Strategic Studies, a pro-military think tank founded by retired military officers in Naypyidaw, who said he was “surprised to hear that the generals visited her in prison.” “Some may think the generals met her as the [armed resistance] has become stronger,” he said. “But in my opinion, it’s almost impossible that the generals actually went to meet her … That may be the reason why it has not been publicly announced.” Violence ‘cannot be left unaddressed’ Than Soe Naing, a political analyst, told RFA that enlisting Suu Kyi to lead a peacemaking process between the junta and the armed resistance would “contradict her position and her beliefs.” “I believe that she will never accept such an offer from the junta because the violence … happening in Myanmar is the direct consequence of the military junta’s seizure of power,” he said. “Their offer to restrict her from the political arena and only allow her to participate in the peacemaking process may sound appealing, but it is complete nonsense as they did not discuss the political problems or the violence happening in the country.” Than Soe Naing said he could only envision Suu Kyi accepting such an offer “if the junta admits wrongdoing with the coup and reinstates the results of the 2020 election,” which saw the NLD secure victory in a landslide. The junta has since accused the NLD of election fraud, but has yet to provide evidence of its claims. “Additionally, the violence and crimes that the junta has committed against the people during the two years of the coup has to be discussed – it cannot be left unaddressed,” he said. “That’s why I believe that the junta’s offer, despite its sugar-coated words, is very cowardly and cunning. I don’t think Daw Aung San Suu Kyi will accept such an offer.” Since...
- [More than 5,000 people flee villages in Myanmar’s Tanintharyi region](https://ij-reportika.com/more-than-5000-people-flee-villages-in-myanmars-tanintharyi-region/): More than 5,000 people have fled their homes in Myanmar’s southernmost Tanintharyi region, locals told RFA Monday. The mass exodus follows the capture of 30 residents of villages in Thayetchaung township during junta raids between Thursday and Sunday. Locals said at least six villages are empty after residents fled in heavy rains. One woman, who didn’t wish to be named for safety reasons, told RFA a convoy of around 100 soldiers entered Ka Net Thi Ri village on Thursday, only to be ambushed by members of a local People’s Defense Force. A junta ship arrived by sea and reinforcements opened fire with heavy artillery. The local defense force surrounded the village, leading junta troops to seize residents to use as human shields, the woman said. “The first day the junta column arrived, they arrested about 30 people camped at the monastery at the top of the village,” she said. “The next day, they used the people as human shields and moved them to the safety of Hpa Yar Koe Su mountain. The captured include the elderly and children. Those who can escape have fled.” Another resident of a nearby village, who also requested anonymity, told RFA locals fled to other villagers or left in boats. “They brought nothing when they fled … in  heavy rain”,” she said.  “They need clothes and accommodation urgently. Food is provided by our village. A member of the Thayetchaung People’s Defense Force said junta troops have only one escape route, which the PDF has blocked. “The battle may take a long time. It is still very difficult for them to get out by the way we have blocked,” said the man, who declined to be named.  “We prepared as much as possible in advance.” The Thayetchaung People’s Defense Force was aware of the possibility of junta attacks as early as June 8, warning civilians to travel along the local roads only between 6am and 9pm  The junta has not released a statement on the current fighting and calls to the local junta spokesperson, Yin Htwe, went unanswered Monday. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Witty folk rant on the dark side of the news goes missing from China's internet](https://ij-reportika.com/witty-folk-rant-on-the-dark-side-of-the-news-goes-missing-from-chinas-internet/): A song by veteran Chinese folk-rock act Slap referring to numerous darker news events has disappeared from Chinese social media amid an ongoing crackdown on public performances and growing controls on cultural content. Slap, a prominent part of the festival circuit in recent year, released &#8220;Red Boy&#8217;s 18 Wins&#8221; in January 2023, with lyrics detailing the exploits of a fictitious hero – Red Boy – and a series of challenges he encounters. It refers to a woman found chained by the neck, the breakout by employees at Foxconn&#8217;s Zhengzhou factory during the COVID-19 restrictions, the death of high-schooler Hu Xinyu and attacks on women eating at a restaurant  in the northern city of Tangshan. &#8220;A mother of eight children with a chain around her neck,&#8221; the lyrics read. &#8220;Vicious scum who burned his wife is sentenced to death.&#8221; &#8220;Don&#8217;t tell me Tangshan is just like Gotham City, which at least had Batman,&#8221; the song says, picking up on several scandals of the three-year &#8220;zero-COVID&#8221; policy, where &#8220;everyone is obsessed with negative and positive [tests].&#8221; Huge following among youth The band has generally operated on the fringes of mainstream culture in mainland China, and has a huge following among young people today due to their songs’ criticism of the political system, and of society as a whole. Delivered in the style of a Chinese folk opera ballad, the 14-minute banned song has a laid-back accompaniment from a regular rock band, with Red Boy generally understood to represent the Chinese Communist Party. The lyrics and saga-like quality of the track, which is still available on YouTube, recall a classic of Chinese literature as Red Boy goes to war against Sun Wukong the Monkey King from &#8220;Journey to the West,&#8221; yet their gritty and often horrific content is drawn straight from recent headlines. A screenshot from surveillance video shows four women being attacked by a group of men at a late-night barbecue restaurant in Tangshan, China, in the early hours of June 10, 2022. Credit: RFA &#8220;We&#8217;re lucky to be born in the New Era,&#8221; it concludes in a reference to the political ideology of President Xi Jinping, after commenting that &#8220;everyone&#8217;s got Stockholm Syndrome.&#8221; &#8220;Hard work will win out in the end,&#8221; says the last line, referencing a 1980s TV theme tune from the now-democratic island of Taiwan, which was under the authoritarian rule of the Kuomintang and its hereditary leader Chiang Ching-kuo at the time the song was released. It was unclear whether the band has been caught up in a recent clampdown on public performances by government officials across China. A May 26 Weibo post from the band listed several June gigs in different cities, with the comment: &#8220;Let&#8217;s wait and see.&#8221; ‘Boldy crossed’ lines Akio Yaita, Taipei bureau chief for Japan&#8217;s Sankei Shimbun and an expert on China, paid tribute to the band in a recent Facebook post, saying it had &#8220;boldly crossed into restricted areas,&#8221; and became hugely popular online as a result. &#8220;A lot of people online commented that they feared for the safety of the band,&#8221; he wrote. &#8220;This is the first time I heard of them &#8230; Founded in Baoding, Hebei in 1998, they have five members and &#8230; use very down-to-earth language to comment on the topics of the day.&#8221; While the band may have flown under the radar until now, &#8220;Red Boys 18 Wins&#8221; had overstepped a red line, he said. &#8220;I think there will be a ban on performances coming soon, and maybe someone will go to jail,&#8221; Yaita wrote. People with suitcases and bags leave a Foxconn compound in Zhengzhou in central China&#8217;s Henan province on Oct. 29, 2022, in this photo taken from video footage and released by Hangpai Xingyang. Credit: Hangpai Xingyang via AP Taiwan-based Chinese feminist author Shangguan Luan told Radio Free Asia, who has seen the band perform live in the southwestern city of Chengdu, said they are well-known for their stinging social criticism. &#8220;They have been doing songs with the same kind of social criticism in them for years,&#8221; she said. “Every time they do a gig, they&#8217;ll have a song summarizing recent events, based on a familiar tune.” &#8220;They go for the hot topics – it&#8217;s kind of a tradition for them – integrating all of the news from the past few months or the past year,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Bands in China have always been somewhat underground, and many have been banned over the years,&#8221; Shangguan Luan said. &#8220;Basically, all the bands I like have been banned, so they can&#8217;t perform in mainstream venues.&#8221; One of few channels Ren Ruiting, who fled to the United States with her family following the banning of the Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu, said Slap&#8217;s songs could actually be the first place that many young Chinese people encounter such biting commentary on current events. &#8220;They&#8217;re very critical and very gutsy,&#8221; Ren said. &#8220;There aren&#8217;t that many channels through which the younger generation can learn the truth, because they don&#8217;t read books any more.&#8221; &#8220;But they love music and talk shows, so it&#8217;s a good way to get them to think [differently],&#8221; she said. Blogger YYQ described the band&#8217;s lead singer Zhao Yuepeng, who pens the songs, as &#8220;an observer who uses postmodernism to deconstruct reality.&#8221; &#8220;Rock music that isn&#8217;t critical is itself in need of criticism,&#8221; the blogger wrote in a recent post on the band. &#8220;Borrowing the narrative structure of traditional folk &#8230; it offers open-minded and insolent accusations and humble words, without shame,&#8221; the post said.  &#8220;The deliberate structures and rhythms enhance the weight of what is being said, but also give a sense of absurdity.&#8221; Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [The 1989 Tiananmen massacre – as seen by a new generation of watchful eyes](https://ij-reportika.com/the-1989-tiananmen-massacre-as-seen-by-a-new-generation-of-watchful-eyes/): On the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre last weekend, a group of protesters gathered in London&#8217;s Trafalgar Square to pay their respects to the victims of the military crackdown by the Chinese army on peaceful pro-democracy protests.&nbsp; These protesters were of a similar age to the students they commemorated.&nbsp; After decades of political brainwashing under the Chinese Communist Party, which bans any public discussion of the 1989 events, many observers had started to believe that China&#8217;s young people had lost touch with the kind of political fervor that gave rise to the student movements of the 1980s.&nbsp; Then, the &#8220;white paper&#8221; protests came, spreading across China in late 2022 in the wake of a fatal fire in Urumqi and after three years of COVID-19 lockdowns, quarantine camps and compulsory daily testing.&nbsp; The result was to light up the pro-democracy movement in the diaspora, with young people once more taking to the streets of cities around the world to demand better for China, and to remember those who had gone before them. &nbsp; Wang Han, 26, currently studying at the University of Southern California&nbsp; Wang told us in a recent interview that the Tiananmen massacre occupies a similar place in his mind to the three years of stringent lockdowns and travel bans of the zero-COVID policy under President Xi Jinping. Wang, who described himself as deeply involved in the &#8220;white paper&#8221; movement, said the two are similar because they were the products of the same authoritarian government. &#8220;It&#8217;s what I&#8217;ve been saying to so many people,” he said. “I think everyone needs to stand together in the face of totalitarian tyranny.” &#8220;Everyone needs to stand together in the face of totalitarian tyranny,&#8221; says Wang Han. Credit: Screenshot from Wang Han video&nbsp; Wang&#8217;s politics have evolved since Xi took power in 2012, and amended the constitution in 2018 to allow himself to rule indefinitely. Before Xi consolidated power in his own hands, Wang had allowed himself to hope that China might one day relinquish its authoritarian government peacefully, the way Taiwan did in the 1990s, to become a fully functioning democracy. &#8220;Under Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, I didn&#8217;t support the Chinese Communist Party, but at that time I naively believed that this country would get better, a bit like Taiwan, with everyone moving forward step by step until finally, (Taiwan’s) Democratic Progressive Party was in power,&#8221; he said. &#8220;But when Xi Jinping amended the constitution in 2018, that really shocked me,&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;Then there was the pandemic emerging in Wuhan, and social movements started to inspire me even more.&#8221; Since then, Wang has dropped the belief that China will follow Taiwan&#8217;s path to democratization. &#8220;The Communist Party has done a more complete job of destroying grassroots social organizations in China, and it is more totalitarian” than the authoritarian Kuomintang government that once ruled Taiwan, he said. &#8220;I don&#8217;t think it is going to evolve away from tyranny through normal demands for reform,&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;That will only happen through a more determined kind of resistance.&#8221; Looking back, Wang sees scant signs of any political evolution at all in the past 73 years of Communist Party rule in China. &#8220;It doesn&#8217;t matter how different the ideas of Xi Jinping and Deng Xiaoping are,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The Communist Party and Marxism are totalitarian systems, and the totalitarian consciousness is deeply ingrained in them, and in their ideas.&#8221; &nbsp; Xiao Yajie, 23, mainland Chinese who grew up in Hong Kong Xiao, who is working in Los Angeles, grew up hearing about the Tiananmen massacre in Hong Kong, which still had the freedom to hold annual candlelight gatherings every June 4, in Victoria Park. But smaller events were also taking place in the city&#8217;s schools, away from the eye of the international media. &#8220;Hong Kong’s political direction was still very liberal, and every school would hold June 4 commemorative activities,&#8221; she said. &#8220;During those years that I was studying in Hong Kong, our school would have spontaneous activities every year, and everyone would go to the auditorium to mourn the students.&#8221; &#8220;We would have candlelight evenings all through my elementary and high school years,&#8221; Xiao said. &nbsp;Xiao Yajie takes part in a rally for the Los Angeles “white paper” movement. Credit: Provided by Xiao Yajie&nbsp; Back then, Xiao didn&#8217;t give it much thought &#8212; until 2016, when her parents ran into some tourists from mainland China at a vigil in Victoria Park who denied the massacre had ever happened. &#8220;My parents told me about this, and I realized how much people in mainland China had been deceived,&#8221; she said. &#8220;This left a deep impression on me.&#8221; When the 2019 protest movement kicked off in Hong Kong, in response to plans to allow extradition of alleged criminal suspects to mainland China, Xiao went back to take part, getting tear gassed by the Hong Kong police, and watching supporters of the Chinese Communist Party throw things at protesters on the street. Xiao continues to take part in local activism, including during the &#8220;white paper&#8221; movement, which she found inspiring. &#8220;This is a democratic movement that is better than the 1989 movement because this group of brave people stood up under huge political pressure [not to],&#8221; she said. &#8220;Although some of the people who launched the white paper movement may not even have known about June 4, it carried forward what the university students left undone [in 1989],&#8221; Xiao said. &#8220;That yearning for freedom and democracy from the past &#8212; it&#8217;s actually in our bones.&#8221; Ji Xin, a U.S.-based student from Shanghai in his early 20s Ji was among the few young people to find out what happened on the night of June 3-4 when the People&#8217;s Liberation Army entered Beijing in columns of tanks, firing machine guns at unarmed civilians on the streets and putting a bloody end to weeks of student-led protests on Tiananmen Square. He first heard adults talking about it when he was just eight years old. &#8220;I was playing...
- [Blinken to travel to China next week: Reports](https://ij-reportika.com/blinken-to-travel-to-china-next-week-reports/): U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Beijing next week, Reuters and the Associated Press reported Friday, as the United States seeks to shore up strained ties with China. Both Reuters and AP said Blinken would be in Beijing on June 18, next Sunday, citing anonymous American officials. AP said he would meet with Foreign Minister Qin Gang and possibly President Xi Jinping. State Department officials would not confirm the reported plans. In February, Blinken abruptly canceled a trip to Beijing just hours before he was set to depart Washington after officials said a Chinese spy balloon was found floating over the United States. China insisted it was a weather balloon that strayed off course. Since then, an unofficial trip by Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen to New York and Los Angeles in March has further inflamed ties. Relations between the world’s two major powers have been tense since August, when then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan to the protests of Beijing, which regards the democratic island as a renegade province and has vowed to reunite it with the mainland. There has also been an uptick in near-miss accidents between the two countries’ militaries in the past two weeks in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait, with the Pentagon accusing China’s navy and air force of dangerous maneuvering in front of American vessels.
- [Unknown group kills brother of National Unity Government human rights advisor](https://ij-reportika.com/unknown-group-kills-brother-of-national-unity-government-human-rights-advisor/): Than Myint, the elder brother of the shadow National Unity Government’s human rights advisor, has been stabbed to death in Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon, according to his brother Aung Kyaw Moe. He said a gang attacked his brother near the Nwe Aye Mosque on Wednesday and escaped before the police arrived. “We are blood [relatives] and I am working on human rights,”Aung Kyaw Moe told RFA Friday. “I sent facts about this to relevant colleagues and the international community. When the relatives of those involved in the revolution are targeted and killed we must bring justice to those cases.” Pro-junta activists took to social media to claim responsibility but it is still not clear which group was behind the killing. Than Myint was from a Rohingya family that used to live in Rakhine state. He and his family members fled Rakhine separately after the Muslim group suffered persecution in 2012 and 2017. Of the 1 million Rohingya who lived in Rakhine state, three quarters have fled to Bangladesh, while many of the rest live in Internally Displaced Persons camps with inadequate food and shelter. The National Unity Government’s human rights ministry released a message of condolence for Than Myint’s killing on Friday. On Thursday, pro-junta Telegram channels called on supporters to release the names of people opposed to the February 2021 military coup and the names of family members of those who have gone into exile. The killing of Than Myint follows the murder of the mother and sister of one of the men accused of killing pro-junta singer and actor Lily Naing Kyaw in Yangon. Furious pro-junta groups called for revenge, identifying the alleged killer and giving his address on social media. Kaung Zarni Hein’s family were shot dead in their home the same night. More than 3,600 civilians, including pro-democracy activists, have been killed since the coup according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Jailed Vietnamese climate activist to start hunger strike on Friday](https://ij-reportika.com/jailed-vietnamese-climate-activist-to-start-hunger-strike-on-friday/): A Vietnamese climate activist serving a five-year prison sentence for tax evasion will begin a hunger strike on Friday unless he is immediately and unconditionally released, his wife told Radio Free Asia. Lawyer and environmentalist Dang Dinh Bach, 44, who had campaigned to reduce Vietnam’s reliance on coal, was arrested in June 2021 and then sentenced to five years in jail.  Bach was director of the Law and Policy of Sustainable Development Research Center, which works with communities affected by development, poor industrial practices and environmental degradation to help them understand and enforce their rights. Authorities accused him of not paying taxes for sponsorships his organization received from foreign donors. He is one of several Vietnamese activists sentenced for tax evasion—a charge that rights groups say is politically motivated.  In a conversation with RFA’s Vietnamese Service on Thursday, Bach’s wife, Tran Phuong Thao, said he planned to start a hunger strike the next day. She said he had already been skipping meals and had only been eating one meal a day since March 17. “He wants to send his sincere love to all species and people,” said Thao. “The hunger strike is for the environment, justice, and climate. He wants to take action to awaken everyone’s love to protect Mother Nature and combat climate change.” Bach also told his wife that the Communist Party of Vietnam and the Vietnamese government should reconsider their stance on environmental activists, as they are not a threat to political security. “[They should] stop ungrounded arrests and wrongful convictions,” said Thao. “Also, [Vietnam] must implement its commitments against climate change in a responsible and substantive manner.” Thao said that it would be her husband’s fourth hunger strike, which could last for many days and be dangerous. Bach asked his family to stop sending food to him in prison except for hydration and electrolyte replenishment packs for emergency use. Bach said he would regularly send two letters to his family each month, she said, and if no letters arrived, that meant he was in danger in prison. Rights dialogue The news from Bach’s wife comes on the eve of a bilateral human rights dialogue with the European Union.  The regional bloc should add cases like Bach’s to the agenda for discussion, New York-based Human Rights Watch, or HRW, said in a statement Thursday. “The EU claimed its 2020 Free Trade Agreement would encourage Vietnam to improve its human rights record, but just the opposite has happened,” said Phil Robertson, HRW’s deputy Asia director.  “Hanoi’s disregard for rights has already made it clear that the EU needs to consider actions that go beyond simply issuing statements and hoping for the best.” HRW recalled that the expectation for the establishment of the a EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement Domestic Advisory Group was to promote Vietnamese independent civil society groups’ participation in monitoring the implementation of the EVFTA trade and sustainable development provisions, but cited the tax related arrests of Bach, and another activist Mai Phan Loi, as evidence to the contrary. HRW also urged the EU to press the Vietnamese government to amend or repeal several vague penal code articles which the authorities frequently use to repress civil and political rights, as well as two constitutional articles which allow for restrictions on human rights for reasons of national security that go beyond what is permissible under international human rights law. “The EU should get serious about pressing the Vietnamese government to convert rights pledges into genuine reform,” Robertson said. “It’s not much of a rights dialogue if Vietnam officials are just going through the motions, expressing platitudes, and waiting for the meeting to end.” Political prisoners In May 2023, HRW made a submission to the EU on the human rights situation in Vietnam, and urged the bloc to press the Vietnamese authorities to immediately release all political prisoners and detainees. Among the hundreds of cases raised in the submission was that of  “Onion Bae” Bui Tuan Lam, who is serving a 5½-year sentence on propaganda charges. Lam, 39, who ran a beef noodle stall in Danang, achieved notoriety in 2021 after posting an online video mimicking the Turkish chef Nusret Gökçe, known as “Salt Bae.” The video was widely seen as a mockery of Vietnam’s minister of public security, To Lam, who was caught on film being hand-fed one of Salt Bae’s gold-encrusted steaks by the chef at his London restaurant at a cost of 1,450 pounds (US$1,790).  In a conversation with RFA about Lam’s recent trial in May, his lengthy sentence, and the upcoming EU-Vietnam human rights dialogue, his wife, Le Thanh Lam said that rights organizations in the EU and UN understand how Vietnamese authorities have done many wrongful things the family.  “My kids lost their right to have a father next to them while their father did not do anything unlawful. Everything my husband did is[allowed] under Vietnam’s Constitution and laws,” she said. “He only exercised freedom of speech and other human rights enshrined in the U.N. documents that Vietnam signed.” Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar military kills 6 people in raid on Sagaing region village](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-military-kills-6-people-in-raid-on-sagaing-region-village/): Junta troops have shot dead six people in a raid on a village in Myanmar’s northern Sagaing region, residents and People’s Defense Force officials told RFA Thursday. They entered Monywa’s Yae Kan Su village on Wednesday morning, killing four anti-regime soldiers, two of them still in their teens. Troops then shot dead two civilians as they tried to run away, according to locals. Soe Gyi, acting battalion commander of Monywa District Defense Force Battalion-27 identified the dead members of his group as 20-year-old Khin Yadanar Oo, 18-year-old Zin Zin Soe, 17-year-old Ah Thay Lay, and a 24-year old known by the initials B.E. He said a junta column with about 80 soldiers suddenly arrived in the village at dawn, taking his troops by surprise. “[The camp] was raided when the patrol had withdrawn for physical training,” he said. “Four PDF [People’s Defense Force] members were arrested, shot dead on the spot and burned.” Defense force members fired back but then had to retreat due to lack of support and weapons, he said, adding that troops seized hand-made guns, bullets, communication equipment, uniforms and nine motorbikes. Residents said troops killed a 50-year-old and an 18-year-old who tried to flee during the raid. They didn’t name the two men. Pro-junta social media channels said troops killed five People’s Defense Force members, not four, and didn’t mention the civilians. They said the three men and two women were hiding in a village school. The Telegram channels also confirmed reports that junta troops seized weapons and ammunition. Locals said junta troops have raided five villages near Monywa in recent days, forcing around 2,000 people to flee Yae Kan Su village. The number driven out of the other four villages is not yet known. Nearly 750,000 people have been forced to abandon their homes in Sagaing due to fighting since the Feb. 2021 coup, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA). RFA’s calls to Sagaing region’s junta spokesperson and social affairs minister, Aing Hlang, went unanswered Thursday. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.  
- [North Korean diplomat’s wife and son go missing in Russian far east](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korean-diplomats-wife-and-son-go-missing-in-russian-far-east/): Russian authorities have issued a missing persons alert for the family of a North Korean diplomat, in what local and international media reports said could be an attempted defection.  According to a public notice issued Tuesday, Kim Kum Sun, 43, and her son Park Kwon Ju, 15, were last seen on Sunday leaving the North Korean consulate in Vladivostok, in Russia’s far east, and their whereabouts are unknown.  They are the wife and son of a North Korean trade representative in his 60s surnamed Park, sources in Vladivostok told RFA’s Korean Service. Park, considered a diplomat, had returned to North Korea in 2019, they said. Park and his family were dispatched to Russia prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, where they were assigned to earn foreign currency for the North Korean regime by running the Koryo and Tumen River restaurants in Vladivostok, a source in Vladivostok who declined to be named told Radio Free Asia. The missing woman was identified as Kim Kum Sun, who was the acting manager of both restaurants on behalf of her husband, according to a Russian citizen of Korean descent familiar with confidential news involving North Korean state-run companies in Vladivostok. He spoke to Radio Free Asia on condition of anonymity for security reasons. Rode off in taxi On the day they disappeared, the mother and son rode a taxi and got off on Nevskaya Street, which is not far from the consulate, Russian Media reported. The consulate reported to authorities that they had lost touch with the pair after they were not able to contact them. “[The mother and son] had been detained in the North Korean consulate in Vladivostok for several months and then disappeared during the time they had once per week to go out,” the  Russian citizen of Korean descent said. “Park said he would return after the restaurant’s business performance review, but he was not able to return because the border has been closed since COVID hit,” he said, adding that the pandemic was rough on business at the Koryo restaurant, that Kim Kum Sun was running in her husband’s stead. “In October of last year, the assistant manager, who oversaw personnel escaped,” the Korean Russian said. The assistant manager of the Koryo restaurant, Kim Pyong Chol, 51 attempted to claim asylum but was arrested.  Shortly afterward, the consulate closed the restaurant fearing that others would also attempt to escape, he said. “The acting manager and her son were then placed under confinement inside the consulate in Vladivostok,” said the Korean Russian. “They were allowed to go out only one day a week since they did not commit any specific crime, they just did chores inside the consulate and were monitored.” Fear of returning Rumors about a possible reopening of the North Korea-Russia border have made North Koreans stranded in Russia by the pandemic anxious that they might have to return to their homeland soon, another North Korea-related source in Vladivostok told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely.  “They fear that when they return to North Korea, they will return to a lifestyle where they are cut off from the outside world,” the North Korea-related source said. The fear of returning to one of the world’s most isolated countries is palpable among the fledgling community of North Korean dispatched workers and officials in Vladivostok, said Kang Dongwan, a professor at Busan’s Dong-A University, who recently visited the far eastern Russian city. “The North Korean workers I met in Vladivostok were in a harsh situation and were quite agitated,” he said. “If [a border reopening] happens, there is a high possibility that North Korean workers and diplomats’ families will return to North Korea. So they may have judged that the only chance to escape North Korea is now.” According to South Korea’s Dong-A Ilbo newspaper, the presidential office in Seoul has confirmed that the mother and son have gone missing, and the related South Korean agencies are actively searching for their whereabouts. They have not made contact with South Korean authorities. An official from the office told Dong-A that the case is “not yet at the stage where they are trying to seek asylum in South Korea, as far as I know.” Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster. 
- [Fiji’s prime minister says policing agreement with China under review](https://ij-reportika.com/fijis-prime-minister-says-policing-agreement-with-china-under-review/): Fiji’s government is reviewing a police cooperation agreement with China, the Pacific island country’s prime minister said Wednesday, underlining the balancing act between economic reliance on the Asian superpower and security ties to the United States. Sitiveni Rabuka, who became Fiji’s prime minister after an election in December broke strongman Frank Bainimarama’s 16 year hold on power, has emphasized shared values with democracies such as U.S. ally Australia and New Zealand. His government also has accorded a higher status to Taiwan’s representative office in Fiji, but has not fundamentally altered relations with Beijing.  “When we came in [as the government] we needed to look at what they were doing [in the area of police cooperation],” Rabuka told a press conference during an official visit to New Zealand’s capital Wellington. “If our values and our systems differ, what cooperation can we get from that?” The agreement signed in 2011 has resulted in Fijian police officers undertaking training in China and short-term Chinese police deployments to Fiji. Plans for a permanent Chinese police liaison officer in Fiji were announced in September 2021, according to Fijian media. “We need to look at that [agreement] again before we decide on whether we go back to it or we continue the way we have in the past – cooperating with those who have similar democratic values and systems, legislation, law enforcement and so on,” Rabuka said. China, over several decades, has become a substantial source of trade, infrastructure and aid for developing Pacific island countries as it seeks to isolate Taiwan diplomatically and build its own set of global institutions.  Beijing’s relations with Fiji particularly burgeoned after Australia, New Zealand and other countries sought to punish it for Bainimarama’s 2006 coup that ousted the elected government. It was Fiji’s fourth coup in three decades. Rabuka orchestrated two coups in the late 1980s.  Last year, China signed a security pact with the Solomon Islands, alarming the U.S. and its allies such as Australia. The Solomons and Kiribati switched their diplomatic recognition to Beijing from Taiwan in 2019. The Chinese embassy in Fiji has said that China has military and police cooperation with many developing nations that have different political systems from China. “The law enforcement and police cooperation between China and Fiji is professional, open and transparent,” it said in May.  “We hope relevant parties can abandon ideological prejudice, and view the law enforcement and police cooperation between China and Fiji objectively and rationally.” China also provides extensive training for Solomon Islands police and equipment such as vehicles and water cannons.  Solomon Islands deputy police commissioner Ian Vaevaso said in a May 31 statement that 30 Solomon Islands police officers were in China for training on top of more than 30 that were sent to the Fujian Police College last year.  Rabuka has expressed concerns about police cooperation with Beijing since being elected prime minister.  “There’s no need for us to continue, our systems are different,” Rabuka said in January, according to a Fiji Times report. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news organization.
- [Rudd foresees ‘seamless’ AUKUS defense industry](https://ij-reportika.com/rudd-foresees-seamless-aukus-defense-industry/): The long-term goal of the AUKUS security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States is a “seamless” defense and technology industry across the three countries, Canberra’s new ambassador in Washington, Kevin Rudd, said on Tuesday. In his first public remarks since assuming the role, the former Australian prime minister said one of his first tasks would be to help shepherd legislation through Congress to enable the March 13 deal for the United States to sell nuclear submarines to Australia. “Our critical tasks during the course of 2023 is to work with our friends in the administration and the United States Congress to support the passage of the key elements of the enabling legislation,” Rudd said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.  “This is not just a piece of admin detail,” he added. “You&#8217;re looking at four or five pieces of legislation, and each with attendant congressional committee oversight. This is a complex process.” Beijing has criticized the AUKUS pact and Australia’s purchase of nuclear-powered submarines from the United States, saying the countries were going down “a wrong and dangerous path.”  But Canberra says the nuclear submarines, which can travel three times as fast as conventional submarines and stay at sea for much longer without refueling, are essential to protect vital sea lanes. Unfinished business Negotiations leading to the March 13 deal were at times messy, with Sen. Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island and chairman of the Senate Armed Services, initially opposing the sale of submarines to Australia amid massive backlogs across U.S. shipbuilding yards. In the end, the United States agreed to sell up to five older-generation nuclear submarines to Canberra in the coming years while the Australian, U.S. and U.K. governments develop Australia’s capacity to build its own submarines by the 2040s. But Rudd told the CSIS event that was only the first step. He said the bigger question for AUKUS would be integration. “How do we move towards the creation, soon, of a seamless Australia-U.S.-U.K. defense, science and technology industry?” he asked, adding that success in integration of the industries “could be even more revolutionary than the submarine project in itself.” It would provide, he added, the ability to turn plans, such as submarine deals, into reality “not 15 years, but five years, four years and three years, to remain competitive and therefore deterrent.” U.S.-China relations Rudd, who was prime minister from 2007 to 2010 and again in 2013, said his instructions from Canberra now were to “work like hell to build guardrails in the relationship between the U.S. and China,” over Taiwan and the South China Sea to avoid “war by accident.” But he also said Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong wanted Australia to work with the United States to “enhance deterrence”  to “cause the Central Military Commission in China to think twice” about any military action. Rudd said Chinese President Xi Jinping made clear his main strategy was to use “the gravitational pull of the Chinese economy” as leverage, which he said was only interrupted by COVID. “Even though growth has now slowed in China, Chinese strategy is fairly clear, which is to make China the indispensable market that it had begun to become,” Rudd said. “It&#8217;s directed to countries around the world in the Global South, and in Europe, and beyond.” Rudd said the U.S. policy of “derisking” its supply chains away from China – without completely “decoupling” the economies – was a natural reaction to that geopolitical strategy, even if Australia, as an island nation reliant on trade, still preferred free-trade policies.  Wong, the Australian foreign minister, used in a speech in Washington in December to call on the United States, which pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership in 2017, to return to a focus on trade as it seeks to counter Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific. Rudd said Australia still wanted the United States to return to the trade pact – reworked as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership under Japan’s leadership – but was realistic about domestic pressures on U.S. administrations. “We understand what&#8217;s happened in the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. We understand the rise of industrial policy in this country,” Rudd said. “Our job is to work within the grain of U.S. strategic policy settings and to maximize openness.” “Look, this is an old relationship,” he said. “We&#8217;ve been knocking around with each other for the last 100 years or more, and in any relationship, there are going to be times when you agree or disagree, but you decide to make the relationship work.” Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Vietnam court sentences music teacher to 8 years in prison](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-court-sentences-music-teacher-to-8-years-in-prison/): A court in Vietnam’s Dak Lak province has sentenced music lecturer Dang Dang Phuoc to eight years in prison and four years of probation for allegedly &#8220;conducting anti-state propaganda,” his wife and one of his lawyers told RFA Tuesday. The 60-year-old instructor at Dak Lak Pedagogical College in Vietnam’s Central Highland, frequently posted on Facebook about educational issues, human rights violations, corrupt officials and social injustice. Police arrested him on Sept. 8 last year, and charged him with &#8220;making, storing, spreading or propagating information, documents and items aimed at opposing the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,” which carries a maximum 12-year prison term. Even though Phuoc didn’t receive the maximum sentence, lawyer Le Van Luan said the court should have been more lenient towards his client. &#8220;With the circumstances of the case, that sentence is too heavy compared to what Mr. Phuoc did,&#8221; he said. Phuoc’s case has drawn international attention, including from Human Rights Watch, who&#8217;s deputy Asia director Phil Robertson described the sentence as “outrageous and unacceptable.” “What it reveals is the Vietnamese government’s total intolerance for ordinary citizens pointing out corruption, speaking out against injustice, and calling for accountability by local officials,” he said on hearing the verdict.  “Those were precisely the things that Dang Dang Phuoc did in Dak Lak, and now the government claims such whistle-blowing actions are propaganda against the state.” During the past decade, Phuoc has campaigned against corruption and advocated for better protections for civil and political rights. He has signed several pro-democracy petitions and called for changes to Vietnam’s constitution, which grants the Communist Party a monopoly on power. “This unjust prison sentence reveals General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong’s anti-corruption campaign is a sham game that is really more about holding on to power, and marginalizing political rivals, but does not care to address the Communist Party of Vietnam’s widespread malfeasance in its ranks,” said Robertson, comparing Trong with China’s authoritarian leader Xi Jinping. Police kept a close watch on Phuoc’s wife Le Thi Ha ahead of the trial, warning her she would lose her job if she talked about the case on social media. She was allowed to attend the trial, along with Phuoc’s four lawyers. Ha told RFA her husband plans to appeal the verdict. Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [China pressures Australian press club to cancel Tibetan exile leader’s speech](https://ij-reportika.com/china-pressures-australian-press-club-to-cancel-tibetan-exile-leaders-speech/): China is under fire for attempting to prevent the leader of Tibet’s government-in-exile from giving a speech at the Australian National Press Club in Canberra, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. Chinese Embassy representatives met with press club chief Maurice Reily last week and voiced their opposition to Penpa Tsering’s scheduled appearance on June 20, requesting that his invitation be revoked. China has controlled Tibet since it invaded the region in 1949, and rejects any notion of a Tibetan government-in-exile, particularly the legitimacy of the Dalai Lama, who lives in Dharamsala, India. Beijing has also stepped up efforts to erode Tibetan culture, language and religion.  Speeches given at the National Press Club are broadcast on Australian TV and attended by prominent members of the press, so Beijing may be worried about the wider exposure Penpa Tsering would get.. “China expresses strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to Australia, in disregard of China’s position and concern, allowing him to use the NPC platform to engage in separatist activities,” the newspaper quoted a letter from the embassy to Reily as saying. “The Chinese side urges the Australian side to see through the nature of the Dalai clique, respect China’s core interests and major concerns, and take concrete actions to remove the negative effects so as to prevent the disruption of the sound development of China-Australia relations and media co-operation.” Free Speech Despite Beijing’s pressure, Reilly told local media that there were no plans to cancel the appearance, and tickets remain on sale on the website of the press club.  He said he told the Chinese Embassy officials that the press club was “an institution for free speech, free media and public debate.” The National Press Club is a stage where everyone is allowed to share their views, Kyinzom Dhongdue, a human rights activist and a former member of the Tibetan parliament in exile, told Radio Free Asia’s Tibetan Service. “We all know how China has worked to build its influence and dependence through trade and economic ties with Australia,” she said. “In the last decade we have seen Australia&#8217;s top educational institution cancel a talk by the Dalai Lama, apparently due to pressure from China. But this time, putting pressure on the National Press Club is unimaginable because the National Press Club stands for Freedom of Speech.” Karma Singey, the representative for the Dalai Lama in Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia, said Australia would not cave to Chinese influence. “Australia is a democratic country so we are confident that Australia will not let the Chinese government expand its influence and undermine Australian institutions,” he said. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Tiananmen commemorations in Hong Kong stifled, but other cities keep memory alive](https://ij-reportika.com/tiananmen-commemorations-in-hong-kong-stifled-but-other-cities-keep-memory-alive/): Hong Kong police searched and detained scores of people on Sunday, including four arrested for &#8220;seditious&#8221; intent, as authorities tightened security for the 34th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. Restrictions in Hong Kong have stifled what were once the largest vigils marking the anniversary of the bloody crackdown by Chinese troops on pro-democracy demonstrators, leaving cities like Taipei, London, New York and Berlin to keep the memory of June 4 alive. Near Victoria Park, the previous site of yearly vigils, hundreds of police conducted stop and search operations, and deployed armored vehicles and police vans. And in Victoria Park itself, pro-China groups held a carnival featuring games, music and products from across China. In Beijing, Tiananmen Square was thronged with tourists taking pictures under the watchful eye of police and other personnel but with no obvious sign of stepped-up security. In democratically governed Taiwan, the last remaining part of the Chinese-speaking world where the anniversary can be marked freely, hundreds attended a memorial at Taipei&#8217;s Liberty Square where a &#8220;Pillar of Shame&#8221; statue was displayed. – Reuters
- [Beijing seeks ‘dialogue over confrontation’, defense chief says](https://ij-reportika.com/beijing-seeks-dialogue-over-confrontation-defense-chief-says/): China’s defense minister said at a major regional security forum on Sunday that Beijing seeks dialogue over confrontation, hours after a Chinese warship was accused of nearly hitting a U.S. destroyer in the Taiwan Strait. General Li Shangfu said at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore that China’s leader Xi Jinping proposed a set of so-called Global Security Initiatives (GSI) which features “dialogue over confrontation, partnership over alliance and win-win over zero sum.” In an apparent reference to the U.S., Li accused “some country” of taking a “selective approach to rules and international laws,” and “forcing its own rules on others.”  “It practices exceptionalism and double standards and only serves the interests and follows the rules of a small number of countries.” The minister said it “even attempts to constrain others with a convention itself has not acceded to,” pointing to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 1982 that the United States, while recognizing it, is not a party of. The U.S. and China have been at loggerheads over a number of issues, among them China’s excessive claims in the South China Sea and the U.S. &#8216;s freedom of navigation operations (FONOP) to uphold its principle of a free and open Indo-Pacific. China has repeatedly accused the U.S. of “navigation hegemony” in the South China Sea. The U.S. military meanwhile said that a Chinese warship on Saturday came close to hitting an American destroyer when the latter was sailing through the Taiwan Strait during a joint Canada-U.S. mission. Near-collision The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement that its guided-missile destroyer USS Chung-Hoon and Royal Canadian Navy frigate HMCS Montreal were conducting a “routine” transit through international waters in the Taiwan Strait. During the transit a Chinese Navy destroyer “executed maneuvers in an unsafe manner in the vicinity of Chung-Hoon,” it said, adding that the Chinese ship “overtook Chung-Hoon on their port side and crossed their bow at 150 yards (140 meters).” “Chung-Hoon maintained course and slowed to 10 knots to avoid a collision.” The Indo-Pacific Command said that China’s actions violated the maritime ‘Rules of the Road’ of safe passage in international waters “where aircraft and ships of all nations may fly, sail and operate anywhere international law allows.” China’s Ministry of National Defense claimed the Chinese ship handled the situation “lawfully and professionally” but analysts said they found the event “disturbing” and “probably the worst such reported close maritime encounter in the South China Sea since October 2018,” when a Chinese warship approached the USS Decatur within just 45 yards (41 meters). “China is getting reckless while trying to enforce sovereignty in the Taiwan Strait,” said Richard Bitzinger, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. “Beijing is just trying to force everyone to accept the idea that Taiwan Straits are somehow China’s de facto territorial waters,” the military analyst told RFA. The Canadian Navy’s HMCS Montreal conducted a routine transit through the Taiwan Strait with U.S. Navy  destroyer USS Chung-Hoon, June 3, 2023. Credit: Canadian Armed Forces Minister Li Shangfu told the audience at the Shangri-La Dialogue that the U.S. ships are in the region “for provocation.” “What is key now is that we must prevent attempts to use freedom of navigation … as a pretext to exercise hegemony of navigation,” he said. Taiwanese military analysts said that the Saturday transit was a routine operation but the Chinese Navy’s reaction indicated a more resolute stance. “As President Xi Jinping had instructed, senior officials and military leaders should take a tough stance against challenges rather than showing a soft behavior that can be seen as weak,” said Shen Ming-shih, Acting Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research. “That’s what the Chinese Defense Minister demonstrated in his speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue,” Shen said. Military expert Richard Bitzinger said the reason behind this approach may be that “the Chinese are worried that they have a narrow and closing window to exert themselves before the economy tanks and demographics catch up with them.” Using risks as weapons The Chinese minister of defense in his speech lambasted the U.S.’s Cold War mentality. He accused Washington of “expanding military bases, re-enforcing military presence and intensifying arms race in the region” – those actions that reflect its “desire to make enem[ies], stoke confrontation, fuel the fire and fish in troubled waters.” Li also accused the U.S. of “wilfully interfering in the internal affairs of others,” referring to the issue of Taiwan which he said was “core of China’s core interests.” The U.S. and China should seek common ground “grow bilateral ties and deepen cooperation,” he said. “International affairs should not be handled through confrontation,” the minister said, insisting that China is always “seeking consensus, promoting reconciliation and negotiations.” Chinese Defense Minister Gen. Li Shangfu delivers his speech on the last day of the Shangri-La Dialogue, in Singapore, June 4, 2023. Credit: AP Photo/Vincent Thian A day earlier, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said he was “deeply concerned” that Beijing has been unwilling to engage with Washington and refused to hold direct bilateral talks. “The Chinese minister’s speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue and the dangerous action of its warships in the Taiwan Strait are part of the strategy that I’d call ‘riskfare’, which plays on the concerns of the U.S. and other countries for risks,” said Alexandre Vuving, a professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Hawaii. “The U.S. emphasizes communication, but China emphasizes risks and is using risk as a weapon in its struggle with the U.S.,” he said. “Washington shows it&#8217;s concerned about risks in its competition with Beijing. Beijing sees it and weaponizes this U.S. concern.” The U.S.’s willingness to reopen communications with China is genuine and some analysts believe that, despite the absence of direct contacts between the U.S. and Chinese delegations in Singapore, there are hopes for closer interactions. Baohui Zhang, director of the Centre for Asian...
- [Comedy and autocracy are made for each other](https://ij-reportika.com/comedy-and-autocracy-are-made-for-each-other/): Last month, Beijing police launched a criminal investigation into stand-up comedian Li Haoshi – who goes by the stage name House – after he sparked public ire with a joke that some said likened feral dogs to People&#8217;s Liberation Army soldiers &#8220;capable of winning battles,&#8221; prompting a nationwide wave of cancellations of other artists, particularly acts from overseas. In a recent commentary for RFA Mandarin, U.S.-based legal scholar Teng Biao says totalitarian regimes are the ultimate source of comedy material, and explains why the ruling Chinese Communist Party views comedy as an existential threat: Tyranny is a major manufacturer of jokes, because autocracy itself is a joke. Those who hold power without winning an election need to rewrite history and whitewash reality, so as to maintain a perfect image of glory and greatness. In 1966, the People&#8217;s Daily reported on Mao Zedong&#8217;s swim in the Yangtze River. It claimed the 73-year-old Mao had broken the world record, even after making deductions for the effects of the flowing river. More recently, the Red Guards are back, the White Guards [COVID-19 enforcers] are here, and we have ongoing agricultural management and the conversion of forests to farmland. Stand-up comedy company Xiaoguo Comedy’s FaceBook page. Credit: RFA screenshot from FaceBook When the population is 800 million, people are limited to one child per couple. When it reaches 1.4 billion, we can have three. What&#8217;s that all about? A diplomat who mouths off to the French media &#8220;doesn&#8217;t represent the official view.&#8221; There&#8217;s a real-name registration system for kitchen knives, and police are willing to travel to Thailand to kidnap a guy for publishing some gossipy books about Xi Jinping, whose portrait now hangs in temples and churches across the land. Winnie the Pooh is banned, and Chairman Xi carried a 200-pound of wheat without even shifting to his other shoulder. Anyone not laughing by this point? Jokes dissolve tyranny. Comedy and autocracy are made for each other. Despotism has to hold itself up as pompous, serious, truthful, powerful, and inviolable.  And gods, emperors, wealth, &#8216;truth&#8217;, traditions and customs, science, traditional customs, are all grist for the mill of satire, for ridicule and spoofs. Stand-up has been described as &#8220;the art of offense,&#8221; but under a totalitarian regime, it is deadly. Comrade George Orwell, who saw the underpants of the totalitarian system many years ago, said that every joke is a tiny revolution. Late Chinese dissident and 2010 Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo once wrote: &#8220;The political jokes people tell each other in private represent the conscience of the silent majority, and show us just how rotten are the foundations of post-totalitarian rule among the general public.&#8221; When we&#8217;ve all seen the emperor swaggering down the street stark naked, a burst of laughter is even more subversive than a child telling the truth. A joke that doesn&#8217;t pick quarrels or stir up trouble is hardly a joke at all. That&#8217;s why the censorship of jokes is never-ending under authoritarian regimes. Notice of show cancellations are placed by the locked doors at the show venue of stand-up comedy company Xiaoguo Culture Media Co that has closed its business in Beijing, China May 19, 2023. Tingshu Wang/Reuters Stand-up comedy, sketches, comic duos and other kinds of comedy have almost totally lost their ability to offer political or social criticism under the Chinese Communist Party, because even social comment can become political. So most comedians avoid them altogether, and limit their material to marriage, family, men and women or celebrities. And they are increasingly punching down, targeting those weaker than themselves, with the poor, farming communities, manual laborers and the disabled the most common targets. Ugly people, ethnic minorities, women, the elderly and black people are also discriminated against. There are even sketches and comic duos who stick to the Communist Party&#8217;s &#8220;main theme tune&#8221; and flatter the government, high-ranking officials, celebrities and the rich and powerful. Under a dictatorship, the consequences of complaining about those in power are serious. The Thought Police are ever watchful and are highly capable of winning battles. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. The views expressed here are Teng’s own and do not reflect the position of Radio Free Asia.
- [US Defense Secretary ‘deeply concerned’ about China’s unwillingness to engage](https://ij-reportika.com/us-defense-secretary-deeply-concerned-about-chinas-unwillingness-to-engage/): U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has urged China’s military leaders to engage after his call to meet with the Chinese counterpart was rebuffed, saying open lines of communication are “essential.”  In his key address to the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore on Saturday, Austin said that he is “deeply concerned that the PRC has been unwilling to engage more seriously on better mechanisms for crisis management between our two militaries.” The defense secretary referred to China by its official name the People’s Republic of China. “For responsible defense leaders, the right time to talk is anytime, the right time to talk is everytime and the right time to talk is now,” he said, adding that “dialogue is not a reward. It is a necessity.” “And the more that we talk, the more that we can avoid the misunderstandings and miscalculations that could lead to crisis or conflict.” Secretary Austin and Chinese Minister of National Defense Li Shangfu, who has been under U.S. sanctions since 2018, shared a brief handshake before an official dinner on Friday but did not speak to each other nor is a bilateral meeting between them anticipated. &#8220;A cordial handshake over dinner is no substitute for a substantive engagement,&#8221; Austin said. China&#8217;s Defense Minister Li Shangfu, attends the ministerial roundtable session during the 20th Shangri-La Dialogue, June 3, 2023. Credit: AP Photo/Vincent Thian The U.S. defense chief slammed China which, he said, “continues to conduct an alarming number of risky intercepts of U.S. and allied aircraft flying lawfully in international airspace.” Just last week, the U.S. military accused a Chinese J-16 fighter jet of performing an &#8220;unnecessarily aggressive&#8221; maneuver during the intercept of a U.S. Air Force RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft. “We do not seek conflict or confrontation, but we will not flinch in the face of bullying or coercion,” Austin said. The obvious rift between the two powers has “become the new reality,” said Huong Le Thu, a non-resident fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Regional countries have to accept it whether “they like it or not,” she told RFA. “But they can contribute to managing the tensions by lowering the heat through facilitating and encouraging dialogues between the U.S. and China,” the analyst added. Shared vision  Carlito Galvez Jr., Senior Undersecretary and Officer-in-Charge at the Philippine Defense Department, said Manila believes that “the international law is the greatest equalizer among states.” The Philippines won a legal case against China’s claims in the South China Sea at a U.N. tribunal in 2016 but Beijing has so far refused to accept the ruling. The two countries have recently been embroiled in a new spat over their sovereignty in some of the islands in the Spratly archipelago. &#8220;As the old adage goes, good fences make good neighbors,&#8221; Galvez said.  &#8220;It is only when neighbors have clear boundaries and respect for set boundaries that relations remain genuinely amicable,&#8221; the acting defense secretary said. Indonesia’s Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto said it is “imperative for us to overcome our geopolitical rivalries, our territorial disputes through dialogues, negotiations and win-win solutions.” “Compromise is the only way that communities and societies can prosper,” he said, warning that the rivalry between superpowers “has turned into a Cold War” and in any war, “the danger of a catastrophe is always near.” U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is attending the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue for the third time this year. Credit: Reuters/Caroline Chia U.S. Defense Secretary Austin, however, insisted that his country “does not seek a new Cold War.” “Competition must never spill over into conflict. And the region should never be split into hostile blocs,” he said. Austin said Washington is not creating nor willing to create a new NATO in the Indo-Pacific as China has repeatedly alleged. Yet the U.S. wishes to build “nimble coalitions to advance our shared vision” in order to make the Indo-Pacific “more stable and more resilient,” Austin said. Washington lists Australia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Philippines, and Thailand as its “staunch allies” in the region and sees India, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Singapore as “valued partners.” Speaking about self-ruled Taiwan, Austin said his country “remains deeply committed to preserving the status quo there, consistent with our longstanding one-China policy, and with fulfilling our well-established obligations under the Taiwan Relations Act.” “Conflict is neither imminent nor inevitable. Deterrence is strong today, and it’s our job to keep it that way,” the secretary stated. Beijing considers Taiwan a Chinese province and resolutely protests against any involvement by “external forces” in the island’s politics.  China Defense Minister Li Shangfu, left, listens to Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese deliver a keynote address during the opening dinner for the 20th Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, June 2, 2023. Credit: AP Photo/Vincent Thian Lt. Gen. Jing Jianfeng, deputy chief of the Central Military Commission’s Joint Staff Department, hit back at Lloyd Austin’s speech about Taiwan, saying it was “completely wrong.” “There’s only one China in the world, and Taiwan is a sacred and inalienable part of Chinese territory,” Jing said, adding that “it is the common aspiration and sacred responsibility of all Chinese people, including our Taiwan compatriots, to complete the reunification of the motherland.” China’s counterattack  A researcher at People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Academy of Military Sciences, Senior Col. Zhao Xiaozhuo, said that it is the U.S. who has been trying to change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait. “The Taiwan Strait was pretty stable in the last ten years or so but the U.S. wants to destroy this stability,” Zhao told reporters at the Shangri-La Dialogue.  “That way they can sell weapons to Taiwan and make a lot of money,” he said. Chinese participants at the security forum in Singapore have taken a proactive approach to counter criticism from the U.S. and its allies. Senior Col. Zhao said that Washington needs to change what he calls “erroneous actions” in the way it interacts with others. “When it comes to dialogue you have to take care of...
- [Have US comics faced punishment for jokes about the army like in China?](https://ij-reportika.com/have-us-comics-faced-punishment-for-jokes-about-the-army-like-in-china/): In brief In the face of criticism that China’s government was overreacting by launching a criminal investigation into comedian Li Haoshi for telling a joke about the Chinese military, a pro-government Chinese blogger has defended Beijing’s actions. The blogger, who calls herself Guyan Muchan, compared the case to that of an American stand-up comedian who joked about a U.S. military veteran. Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) found Guyan Muchan’s comparison misleading. The U.S. comedian she mentioned aroused controversy, criticism and public discussion by joking about U.S. military personnel. But unlike Li and the production company that employs him, that U.S. comedian was not fined and did not face criminal investigation. In depth After receiving a public complaint, the Beijing municipal culture and tourism authority announced on May 17  that jokes told at performances by Li Haoshi on the afternoon and evening of May 13 had caused “negative social influence” by “seriously insulting the PLA,” or People’s Liberation Army. A separate investigation into Li’s employer, the Shanghai Xiaoguo Culture Media Company, cited violations of Regulations on the Administration of Commercial Performances. The bureau confiscated from the company 1.32 million yuan ($187,000) of “illegal” income made from the performances, and fined it 13.35 million yuan ($1.89 million).  On May 17, the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau also announced that it had launched a case against Li to determine if his actions constituted a criminally liable offense.  What did Li actually say?  The following excerpt of Li’s joke is based on a recording circulated on the Internet.  “We picked up two wild dogs from a mountain near our home. I wouldn’t say rescue, because on that mountain those two were really at the top of the food chain and didn&#8217;t need our help at all. The first time I saw them it didn’t even really feel like watching two dogs, but was more like a scene from some animal film set, with two cannonball-like dogs chasing a squirrel. Now normally when you see dogs, you think ‘cute’, ‘cuddly’ and all that; but when I saw these two, the only eight characters that came to my mind were ‘Zuo feng guo ying, neng da sheng zhang’ (‘Maintain exemplary conduct, fight to win.’) Classic. People are in awe when I walk those two dogs through Shanghai.&#8221; The phrase, ‘maintain exemplary conduct, fight to win’, is a quote from a speech given by Chinese President Xi Jinping to deputies of the PLA in March 2013, in which he told the army to “listen to the Party&#8217;s command.”  In this undated screenshot, stand-up comic Li Haoshi performs. His employer, a Chinese comedy agency, suspended Li after he sparked public ire with a joke which some said likened feral dogs to soldiers of the People&#8217;s Liberation Army. Credit: Screenshot from Tencent Video Talk show The authorities who took up Li’s case didn’t specify the legal justification. But Article 32 of China’s Law on the Status and Protection of Rights and Interests of Military Personnel explicitly states that no organization or individual shall defame, insult or slander the honor of military personnel. Article 65 further decrees that if military personnel are intentionally defamed, insulted or slandered through mass media, relevant government departments can order the offensive content to be corrected.   Xiaoguo Culture Media rushed out an apology admitting that the joke was an “inappropriate comparison” and terminated Li’s work agreement. Comedy performances by the company were also suspended across many parts of China. What did Guyan Muchan claim about such cases in the U.S.?  Even as voices in China and abroad criticized China’s government for overreacting to Li’s joke, influential public supporters defended the government’s handling of the situation.  Guyan Muchan, a pro-Beijing Weibo blogger with nearly 7 million followers, stated in posts on Twitter and the popular Chinese social media site Weibo on May 17 that even in the U.S. there exists a red line that military personnel cannot be insulted.  Guyan Muchan cited a controversy resulting from a 2018 Saturday Night Live (SNL) episode in which cast member Pete Davidson mocked Republican congressman Dan Crenshaw &#8211; a former U.S. Navy SEAL who lost his right eye while serving in Afghanistan &#8211; as resembling “a hitman in a porno movie.”  Guyan Muchan’s post sparked discussion amongst Chinese netizens, with one user commenting that “people who praise American freedom never mention America’s red line.”  AFCL identified another case in which a U.S. stand-up comedian stoked controversy with a joke about the U.S military. The comedian, Bill Burr, was performing in Reno, in the western U.S. state of Nevada, when he said that calling catapult officers on aircraft carriers heroes was a bit of a stretch, given that they often are doing nothing more than “warrior one” yoga poses. Are the situations faced by Davidson or Burr comparable to that of Li?  AFCL found that although both Davidson or Burr faced criticism and stirred controversy for joking about the U.S. military, neither encountered the kind of punishment faced by Li.  Davidson’s joke prompted some netizens to boycott SNL. Democrat and Republican officials condemned the remarks as inappropriate and the then-White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer publicly called for SNL producer Lorne Michaels to be fired.  Stand-up comedian Bill Burr [right] joked in 2018 that calling U.S. Navy catapult officers [left] on aircraft carriers heroes is a bit of a stretch, given that they often are doing nothing more than “warrior one” yoga poses. Credit: Associated Press [right]; AFP But Davidson was not fired and did not face any legal consequences, and in fact the controversy had an uplifting ending. Rep. Crenshaw himself appeared in an SNL skit one week later. In the skit, Crenshaw was given an opportunity to mock pictures of Davidson before delivering a short monologue about the importance of forgiveness and the need for solidarity amongst American civilians and veterans. In that monologue, Crenshaw called Davidson&#8217;s father – a New York firefighter who died in the first wave of responders to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist...
- [Public hearing in American Samoa underscores opposition to marine sanctuary plan](https://ij-reportika.com/public-hearing-in-american-samoa-underscores-opposition-to-marine-sanctuary-plan/): A public hearing in American Samoa about U.S. plans to expand a Pacific marine sanctuary has failed to assuage fears of tuna cannery job losses and further economic decline in the territory, according to workers, business owners and political leaders. After a decade of lobbying by the Hawaii-based Pacific Remote Islands Coalition, the U.S. government earlier this year said it could double the size of the protected area around uninhabited U.S. islands in the Pacific Ocean, making more ocean area off-limits to fishing fleets. But the proposal has been greeted with dismay in American Samoa, where residents fear a heavy blow to the economically crucial tuna industry. Dozens of placard-wielding employees of the StarKist cannery in American Samoa protested outside a recent hearing held in Pago Pago by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees protected marine and coastal areas. “I have seven children between the ages of two and 17, they are all in school, and I have been supporting my family working for StarKist Samoa,” Tanielu Malae, the sole breadwinner for his family, said at the May 25 hearing. “Do the people in Hawaii that made this proposal know what it is like for people like us that did not have proper education if we lose our jobs.” Employees of the StarKist cannery in American Samoa are fearful about losing their jobs if the marine sanctuary plan goes ahead. Credit: Joyetter Feagaimaali&#8217;i/BenarNews American Samoa’s Lieutenant Governor, Talauega Eleasalo Ale, who said he was at the hearing as a resident rather than representing the territory’s government, made an emotional appeal to “brothers and sisters” in Hawaii.  “What you are doing is unnecessary and it is painful and mean because you are not gaining anything extra by this proposition, but you are hurting us and cannery workers in this room that live off this land and rely on the fish that is coming from those islands,” he said. “If you really believe that we are your brothers and sisters you have to let this go.”  American Samoa’s governor and other politicians have voiced their opposition to the sanctuary expansion and criticized lack of consultation with the territory. ‘Fight against biodiversity loss’ The total area of the expanded sanctuary would be 2 million square kilometers (770,000 square miles), larger than the Gulf of Mexico, compared with about 1.3 million square kilometers (495,000 square miles) now.  It encompasses waters around several islands, atolls and reefs that the oceanic administration says are “home to some of the most diverse and remarkable tropical marine life on the planet.”  The tropical waters are also ideal for skipjack tuna which travel the equator in search of schools of small fish to feed on. Tuna fishing provides about 5,000 jobs in American Samoa – where the South Korean-owned StarKist tuna cannery is the territory’s largest business – but the industry has been in decline. The American Samoan islands, located to the south of the marine sanctuary, are home to less than 50,000 people after suffering a shrinking population for at least the past decade.  “There are roughly 5,000 indirect and direct jobs that will be impacted,” said Taotasi Archie Soliai, Director of Marine Wildlife Resources in the territory. “Think about that number,” he said at last week’s hearing. “These are underserved marginalized stricken disenfranchised minorities and indigenous communities that will continue to suffer because of these types of Federal policies driven by people who do not care.”  This October 2018 photo provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows birds at Johnston Atoll within the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument. Credit: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service/AP Advocates of marine sanctuaries say they are crucial for the survival of endangered species and the health of the oceans.  The Pacific Remote Islands Coalition, which includes activists, scientists and nonprofit organizations, said that expanding the Pacific marine sanctuary will “meaningfully protect” the interconnected land, reef, sea and deep ocean environments.  The coalition also wants to rename the sanctuary “through a culturally appropriate process that honors the cultural, historic, and ancestral significance of the region.” “Nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history. Intact natural ecosystems such as the Pacific remote islands are more resilient to the effects of climate change and can help in the fight against biodiversity loss,” the group said in its 250-page submission to the U.S. government. Questionable benefits for tuna stocks For tuna, which have large ranges, it’s unclear if protected areas can produce an increase in their numbers.  Research published in January in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science predicted “weak to non-existent” benefits for skipjack and bigeye tuna numbers from marine protected areas. The study’s modeling was based on Kiribati’s Phoenix Islands Protected Area and hypothetical sanctuaries making up about one third of the western and central Pacific Ocean. Businessman Vince Haleck, who owns three long-line fishing vessels, told the Pago Pago hearing that an expanded marine sanctuary is meaningless without proper policing of American Samoa’s own waters to prevent unregulated fishing by China-flagged vessels. “Literally thousands of vessels, my boats, our boats see them all the time, catching our fish and selling it to us,” he said. Despite talk of U.S. Coast Guard assistance, “nothing has happened,” he said. “The Chinese will continue to fish in our waters, and we can’t seem to have the political will from Washington to be able to address this issue.”  Haleck said a possible consequence of the expanded sanctuary is that purse seiner vessels, which trail vast nets to scoop fish from the ocean, will find it more economic to take their catch to Mexico than American Samoa. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also held public hearings last month in Hawaii, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news organization.
- [North Korea forces exhausted soldier-laborers to keep daily diary](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-forces-exhausted-soldier-laborers-to-keep-daily-diary/): North Korea is forcing exhausted soldiers assigned to a high-profile state construction project to keep a daily diary to prove their loyalty. But many complain that after working 14-hour days with no weekends, they are too drained to think about what to write, a resident and a soldier in the country told Radio Free Asia. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in 2021 unveiled an ambitious plan to address a housing shortage in the capital Pyongyang by building 10,000 new homes in the city by the end of the year, and a total of 50,000 by the end of 2025. Soldiers with orders to provide free labor for the project, called “stormtroopers,” live in squalid conditions with inadequate food rations and they are under pressure to meet tight deadlines. On Feb. 25, Kim Jong Un and his young daughter Ju Ae attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of a new street in Pyongyang’s Sopho district. During the ceremony, Kim presented a diary book to a contingent of young stormtroopers who were building houses in the city.  North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his daughter Kim Ju Ae attend a ceremony for the construction of a new street, in Sopho District, Pyongyang, in this photo released on February 26, 2023, by North Korea&#8217;s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). Credit: KCNA via Reuters Diaries with the title “Days of My Youth” were later distributed to every soldier, and from then on, they were made to fill it with a new entry each day, a resident of the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “These stormtroopers … work 14 hours per day and they have no rest days except for major national holidays,” he said. “There are frequent accidents where workers fall because they were falling asleep on the job, but now on top of all this [authorities] are telling them to write daily journal entries.” Forcing loyalty Their entries will be checked once per week, according to the resident. “If you skip even one day, or write an entry insincerely, you will be singled out in front of everyone and humiliated during life review sessions on Saturday,” he said. The review sessions are not just a facet of the military.  Every North Korean citizen must attend such sessions in companies, organizations, or neighborhood watch units, and review how they can be more loyal. Citizens are made not only to criticize themselves, but also to report instances of deficient loyalty among their peers.  For the stormtroopers, the diary assignment is yet another way that the government is forcing them to prove their loyalty.  “How can they expect struggling young people who go to bed hungry every day to be in the mood to write a diary every day?” the resident said. The diary also serves as a reminder of the project’s deadline, he said. “At the bottom of each diary page it says ‘There are ______ days left to report loyalty to the Mother Party,’ implicitly urging the completion of the construction before Oct. 10,” which is Party Foundation Day. A former stormtrooper who worked in Pyongyang, but was sent home to the northwestern city of Sinuiju after being injured in an accident, told RFA that the diary is also used in punishments.  “A member of the stormtrooper platoon I was in deserted because he was starving and he hid at a relative’s house in the city,” she said. “He was captured after ten days. The brigade commander forced him to write self-criticism letters to fill in the blank pages in his diary.” People who have heard about the plight of the stormtroopers are unhappy that the government gave the diaries as gifts to the soldiers, but monitors what they write and punishes them for it, the soldier said. Shortly after a major holiday in April, the party committee at North Korea’s top university received a letter penned by a citizen that strongly criticized diary censorship,” she said. “The writer of the letter faked his name, so the judicial authorities couldn’t investigate any further.” Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [China to account for more than half renewable capacity rise, report says](https://ij-reportika.com/china-to-account-for-more-than-half-renewable-capacity-rise-report-says/): The speedy deployment of renewable power worldwide is set to lead the largest annual increase in new renewable capacity ever, a report released on Thursday said. Renewable power capacity is expected to increase by a third this year and will continue to rise next year, primarily due to a stronger push by governments amid higher fossil fuel prices and energy security concerns, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its latest Renewable Energy Market update. The Paris-based group said there would be a significant surge in the global addition of renewable capacity, with a record-breaking increase of 107 gigawatts (GW) expected in 2023, resulting in total renewable capacity of over 440 GW worldwide. That is 24% more than projected six months earlier and double what the world added in 2019. Furthermore, projections indicate that total global renewable electricity capacity will reach 4,500 GW, equivalent to the combined power output of China and the United States, by the following year. China is expected to account for nearly 55% of global additions of renewable power capacity in both 2023 and 2024, consolidating “its position as the undisputed leader in global deployment,” the IEA said. In 2022, China accounted for less than half of all new renewable power capacity worldwide.  By 2024, the report projected that China will deliver almost 70% of all new offshore wind projects globally, as well as over 60% of onshore wind and 50% of solar photovoltaic (PV) projects.  An infographic showing China’s renewable capacity increase between 2017 and 2024. Credit: IEA. According to the IEA, the “dynamic expansion” is also occurring elsewhere in the world’s major markets.  In Europe, many countries boosted their renewables to reduce their reliance on Russian natural gas after the invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing energy crisis.  In the United States, the wind and solar PV markets experienced a decline last year due to trade restrictions and limitations in the supply chain. However, these markets are anticipated to rebound significantly, with an estimated growth of approximately 40% expected in 2023. In India, renewable capacity expansion in both 2023 and 2024 is attributed to the accelerated deployment of onshore wind, hydropower, and distributed solar PV systems.  “Solar and wind are leading the rapid expansion of the new global energy economy,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said. “This year, the world is set to add a record-breaking amount of renewables to electricity systems … The global energy crisis has shown renewables are critical for making energy supplies cleaner, more secure, and affordable – and governments are responding with efforts to deploy them faster.” Birol said more robust growth faces challenges, including the “need to upgrade and expand power grids to ensure we can take full advantage of solar and wind’s huge potential.” According to the report, solar PV additions will account for two-thirds of this year’s increase in renewable power capacity and are expected to keep growing in 2024, with high electricity prices driving faster growth of rooftop panels. Meanwhile, wind power additions are forecast to grow by almost 70% year-on-year in 2023 after a slow couple of years. The faster growth is mainly due to the end of COVID-19 restrictions in China and recovering supply chain issues worldwide. The IEA said that compared to solar PV, wind turbine supply chains are still not growing fast enough to match increasing demand over the medium term due to rising commodity prices and continued supply chain challenges, resulting in some reduction in profit for manufacturers. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [North Korea vows to try again after failed satellite launch](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-vows-to-try-again-after-failed-satellite-launch/): On the heels of a failed spy satellite launch on Wednesday, North Korea vowed that a second launch would come soon, state media reported. Taking off from the Sohae Satellite Launching ground at 6:27 a.m., the Malligyong-1 satellite mounted on the new-type Chollima-1 rocket lost thrust over the Yellow Sea, the state-run Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA reported. The second stage of the rocket engine did not ignite properly, the report said, citing remarks made by a spokesperson from the National Aerospace Development Administration. “Scientists, technicians and experts concerned [will] start discovering concrete causes,” KCNA said. After determining them, the scientists will “take urgent scientific and technological measures to overcome them and conduct the second launch as soon as possible through various part tests.” Had the launch been successful it would have been the first time North Korea managed to place a reconnaissance satellite in its proper orbit. In seven attempts, only two satellites have reached orbit but both failed shortly after, U.S.-based satellite imagery expert Jacob Bogle told RFA’s Korean Service. “It&#8217;s a cliché to say that ‘space is hard’, but that&#8217;s because it is. Failures commonly happen in both government-led space programs like the ESA as well as in privately-funded programs such as SpaceX,” said Bogle.  South Korean military personnel recover what is believed to be a part of the rocket that North Korea said crashed into the sea off the west coast of the Korean peninsula, Wednesday, May 31, 2023. Credit: South Korea Defense Ministry/Handout via Reuters Bogle said it was very likely that North Korea would try again. “The launch window was from May 31 to June 11, and they launched on the very first day of that window. We don&#8217;t know what the internal decision-making process was but this could have been a rushed launch,” he said. “North Korea is the only country in the region without a reliable spacefaring capability, and Kim Jong Un has placed a lot of importance on acquiring it. … North Korea will likely try another satellite launch in the near-term.” North Korea’s account of the failed launch is likely true, the Rand Corporation’s Bruce Bennett told RFA. “This is possible, but other failures could also have happened. Kim has already promised to try again, so I think we can expect it,” said Bennett.   The goal of the launch was to put the spy satellite in a polar orbit, optimal for spy satellites, he said.   “A polar satellite travels roughly over the North Pole and the South pole as it circles the Earth. It flies at a much lower altitude, usually 200 to 1,000 km,” said Bennett.  A polar orbit is usually used for reconnaissance … [and] lets them see areas all over the Earth as the Earth turns, and the altitude is low enough for relatively good pictures on a periodic basis (weekly) for any given location.” Renewed condemnation Despite its failure, members of the international community reminded North Korea that the launch, even despite its failure, violated U.N. resolutions meant to limit Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear capabilities. “The EU strongly condemns the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) launch using ballistic military technology that occurred on 31 May,” Nabila Massrali, the regional bloc’s Spokesperson for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy said in a statement. “The EU calls on the DPRK to cease all actions that raise tensions and instead choose the path of dialogue with the main parties.” The International Maritime Organization’s Maritime Safety Commission adopted a resolution that condemned North Korea for conducting the launch without proper notification and for not adhering to UN resolutions, and called for North Korea to “cease unlawful and unannounced ballistic missile launches across international shipping lanes.” Lawmakers Anne-Marie Trevelyan of the U.K. and Young Kim of the U.S. also wrote tweets condemning the launch.   “Kim Jong Un&#8217;s consistent &amp; rogue aggression must be taken seriously by the United States &amp; our Indo-Pacific allies,” Rep. Kim (R-Calif.) said. “We must stand firm in holding him accountable &amp; working toward complete, verifiable, &amp; irreversible denuclearization of North Korea.” Reported by Lee Sangmin and Kim Soyoung for RFA Korean. 
- [Guards beat prison inmates to death in Myanmar’s Bago region, sources say](https://ij-reportika.com/guards-beat-prison-inmates-to-death-in-myanmars-bago-region-sources-say/): Guards have severely beaten and interrogated 24 inmates of a prison in Myanmar’s eastern Bago region, according to sources close to the prison. Three of the inmates of Kyaik Sa Kaw Prison in Daik-U township were beaten to death according to one source, while others – in critical condition – were put in a dark room without food for four days. The interrogations were held over several days starting May 25. The source, who wished to remain anonymous for safety reasons, said the prisoners were accused of communicating with members of the Bago People’s Defense Force who are sheltering in territory controlled by the powerful Karen National Union ethnic organization. “They were beaten and interrogated for having connections with the armed group,” said the source. “They couldn’t say no. How could they have any contact from prison?” The source said the prison authorities have not yet informed the families of the three prisoners believed to have died. Others close to the prison identified one of the dead as Thant Zin Win. He was in charge of training and recruiting people for the Bago township People’s Defense Force. He was arrested along with other members of the anti-junta militia on December 14, 2022. Thant Zin Win was charged with breaking several sections of the Counter-Terrorism Law and sentenced to 80 years in prison, according to a Bago People&#8217;s Defense Force statement on Saturday. Sources close to the prison speculated that the interrogations took place in retaliation for a prison break at Taungoo in Bago region on May 18. Inmates grabbed guns from prison guards and nine managed to escape into the jungle where they were met by members of a local People’s Defense Force. RFA called Prison Department spokesman Naing Win on Wednesday to find out details of the alleged beatings and deaths but no one answered. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Intense clashes in Myanmar’s Chin, Shan states leaves 19 dead](https://ij-reportika.com/intense-clashes-in-myanmars-chin-shan-states-leaves-19-dead/): Intense fighting between the military and anti-junta forces in Myanmar’s Chin and Shan states since the weekend left 19 dead, including four civilians, RFA Burmese has learned.  The clashes, which killed an 11-year-old boy and left a dozen civilians injured, are the latest to erupt in two areas known as hotbeds of resistance to military rule since the Feb. 1, 2021, coup d’etat. Salai James, the chairman of the anti-junta Zofe Chin Defense Force, told RFA that a battle broke out between his paramilitaries and military troops in the Chin townships of Hakha and Thantlang on May 28. Over the course of two days, he said, junta troops fired heavy artillery on CDF positions with support from four fighter jets and a military helicopter. “The junta’s heavy artillery hit the edge of Hakah town, which is close to their artillery base,” Salai James said. “Eleven anti-junta fighters have been killed by their airstrikes so far, but we haven’t been able to retrieve all of their bodies yet as we are still fighting.” The bodies of only seven of the 11 dead CDF fighters had been retrieved as of Tuesday, he added. A Hakha CDF official, who declined to be named for security reasons, said that the fighting is “continuing to intensify” as the junta forces seek to regain territory between Hakha and Thantlang, which is currently controlled by a joint force of Chin defense groups. “They haven’t been able to operate safely in Hakha and Thantlang – that’s why they regularly attack those areas,” he said. “When their ground troops can’t beat the resistance forces, they use their air power to attack us.” Undated photos of anti-junta medics who died in junta attacks, from left; Angela, John Bosco, Caroline Khine Lin and Mya Htwe. Credit: Karenni Revolutionary Union Fighting between the two sides continued on Tuesday, residents of the two townships said. Since the coup, the junta has launched nearly 80 aerial attacks on Chin state, killing 64 people, including members of anti-junta local defense forces, according to a May 22 statement issued by the Institute of Chin Affairs. Shan fighting Fierce fighting also was reported in eastern Shan state, when a joint force of ethnic Karenni resistance groups battled junta troops in the townships of Pekon and Pinlaung, according to anti-junta groups. On May 27, junta troops “randomly fired heavy artillery” into Pinlaung’s Moe Bye village in an attack against members of the anti-junta Moe Bye People’s Defense Forces, killing an 11-year-old boy and injuring four civilians, Banyar, the director of the Karenni Human Rights Organization said Tuesday. “This kind of attack isn’t a one-off occurrence – the junta plans and attacks this way in many different places, knowingly firing at the civilian population,” he said. “This is not only a war crime but also a crime against humanity.” The Moe Bye PDF confirmed details of the battle, which was fought intermittently from May 27-29, in a statement issued on Monday. Additionally, four medics from an anti-junta unit based in neighboring Kayah state’s Demoso township were killed while treating the injured during the fighting in Shan state, the Karenni Revolutionary Union rebel group said in a statement on Sunday. The dead included Caroline Khine Lin, Angela, Mya Htwe and John Bosco – all between the ages of 17 and 23, the KRU said. Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing oversees a military display at a parade to mark the country&#8217;s Independence Day in Naypyidaw on January 4, 2023. Min Aung Hlaing declared at the Armed Forces Day ceremony in March, that the military would completely destroy NUG, PDF and the organizations supporting them. Credit: AFP And at around 4:00 a.m. on Sunday, junta forces launched a series of airstrikes on an area of Moe Bye where civilians had taken shelter from the fighting, injuring four people and damaging three homes, according to the Moe Bye People’s Defense Force. In a May 1 statement, the rebel Progressive Karenni People’s Force said that there have been at least 663 clashes in southern Shan state and neighboring Kayah state between the coup and April 30, 2023. The junta has yet to issue a statement on the fighting in Chin and Shan states and attempts by RFA to contact junta Deputy Information Minister Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun went unanswered Tuesday. The clashes follow a vow by junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing on Armed Forces Day in March to eradicate the shadow National Unity Government, the anti-junta People’s Defense Force paramilitary group, and the organizations that support them. Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
- [Why the Philippines is deploying navigation buoys in the South China Sea](https://ij-reportika.com/why-the-philippines-is-deploying-navigation-buoys-in-the-south-china-sea/): Earlier this month, the Philippine Coast Guard deployed five 30-foot navigational buoys near islands and reefs within its territory in the South China Sea, saying the move highlighted the nation’s “unwavering resolve to protect its maritime borders.” Within two weeks, China had deployed three navigational buoys of its own, positioning two near Manila’s beacons at Irving Reef and Whitsun Reef, to ensure “safety of navigation.”  The tit-for-tat deployments signaled a new front in a long-running dispute over sovereignty of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, one of the world’s most important sea trade routes that is considered a flashpoint for conflict in the Asia-Pacific. But the buoys also underscored an increasingly proactive approach by the Philippines in enforcing its maritime rights, analysts say. “Such a move illustrates Manila’s awareness of the changing nature of regional geopolitics,” said Don McLain Gill, a Manila-based geopolitical analyst and lecturer at De La Salle University.  “The Philippines also recognizes that no other external entity can effectively endorse its legitimate interests other than itself.”   The Philippines deployed five 30-foot navigational buoys near islands and reefs within its territory between May 10 and 12. Credit: Philippine Coast Guard/Reuters China claims nearly all of the South China Sea and has for years militarized artificial islands, while deploying coast guard boats and a state-backed armed fishing fleet around disputed areas. In 2016, an international tribunal ruled in favor of Manila and against Beijing’s expansive historical claims to the region, but China has since refused to acknowledge the ruling.  The Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam and Taiwan all have claims in the sea — and Manila’s buoy deployment prompted an official protest from Hanoi.  Since taking office in June last year, Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has been more vocal in condemning China’s aggressive actions in the region and has restored traditional military ties with the United States. Raymond Powell, the South China Sea lead at Stanford University&#8217;s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation, said the recent deployment of buoys showed the Philippines’ newfound determination to “proactively assert its maritime interests.” ‘A war of buoys’ While Marcos Jr. was praised by some for the deployment, others have criticized the move as needlessly provocative.  Filipino security analyst Rommel Banlaoi said the unilateral action heightened security tensions and could have “unintended negative consequences.” “What the Philippines did was problematic because the international community recognizes the South China Sea as disputed waters,” said Banlaoi, who chairs the advisory board of the China Studies Center at New Era University&#8217;s School of International Relations. “This might trigger a war of buoys,” he said in an interview last week with local radio station DZBB. The Philippines National Security Adviser Eduardo Año said the deployment of buoys was meant to enforce the 2016 arbitral ruling in the Hague.  “This is not a provocation. What we call provocations are those who conduct dangerous maneuvering, laser pointing, blocking our vessels, harassing our fishermen,” he told reporters in an interview, referring to recent Chinese actions in the South China Sea. Jay Batongbacal, director of the University of the Philippines Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea, said the installation of the buoys demonstrated the Philippines was exercising jurisdiction over its waters for purposes of improving navigational safety.  “Such buoys are harmless devices that warn all other ships of potential hazards and should in no way be regarded as provocative or threatening,” Batongbacal told BenarNews. He asked why critics were silent about China building artificial islands, installing anti-air and anti-ship missiles, and deploying missile boats and large coast guard vessels that actively interfere with Philippine boats in its maritime territory. Angering Vietnam Not only did the buoy deployment set off another round of recriminations between Beijing and Manila, it also triggered a rebuke from Vietnam, which claims parts of the Spratly Islands as its own. When asked about Manila’s action, Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Pham Thu Hang said Hanoi “strongly opposes all acts violating Vietnam&#8217;s sovereign rights.” Analysts say, however, the spat is unlikely to escalate, as Vietnam has far bigger issues to deal with in terms of China’s incursions into its territorial waters. A Chinese survey ship, escorted by China Coast Guard and maritime militia, was found lingering within Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone for several days from May 7, often within fifty nautical miles of its southern coast.  Workers prepare a navigational buoy for deployment in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea on May 15, 2023. Credit: Philippine Coast Guard/Reuters Powell said the incursions were “much more provocative than the Philippines’ buoys.” “I think Vietnam’s pro-forma protest over the latter will be noted and largely forgotten, both in Hanoi and in Manila,” Powell told BenarNews.  Vietnam’s reaction to the Philippines’ move was natural “due to its potential political ramifications at the domestic level,” said Gill. But he added that Southeast Asian nations had a track record of settling maritime disputes in an amicable manner.  In 2014, for example, the Philippines and Indonesia settled a maritime border dispute after two decades of negotiations by using international law, particularly the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. “Unlike China, Southeast Asian countries have illustrated a rather positive track record of being able to compromise and solve bilateral tensions between and among each other given the countries’ collective desire to maintain stability in the region,” Gill said. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.
- [British minister raised Jimmy Lai case with China's vice president but to no avail](https://ij-reportika.com/british-minister-raised-jimmy-lai-case-with-chinas-vice-president-but-to-no-avail/): British foreign minister James Cleverly raised the case of jailed Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai with a top Chinese official recently to no avail after a court in the city rejected Lai’s judicial review over the hiring of a top British lawyer, according to a government report published on Thursday. &#8220;I raised [Lai&#8217;s] case with Chinese Vice President Han Zheng earlier this month, and we have raised it at the highest levels with the Hong Kong authorities,&#8221; Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs James Cleverly said in a statement introducing his government&#8217;s six-monthly review of the situation in Hong Kong, a former British colony. Han attended the coronation of King Charles III in London on May 6, amid growing criticism of the ruling Conservative Party, which appears to be backing away from promises of a tough stance on China. Cleverly didn&#8217;t say if a face-to-face meeting with Han had taken place, but said his government would &#8220;work with China where our interests converge while steadfastly defending our national security and our values.&#8221; He accused the Chinese and Hong Kong authorities of deliberately targeting &#8220;prominent pro-democracy figures, journalists and politicians in an effort to silence and discredit them.&#8221; British foreign minister James Cleverly, second from right, is reflected in glass with Britain&#8217;s Ambassador to Chile Louise De Sousa, in Santiago, Chile, May 22, 2023. A London-based group says the U.K. should do more to pursue those responsible for an ongoing crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong. Credit: Esteban Felix/AP He called on the Chinese Communist Party and the Hong Kong government to implement recommendations made by the United Nations Human Rights Council last July, which included repealing a national security law that has been used to justify a crackdown on peaceful political opposition and public dissent in the wake of the 2019 protest movement. &#8220;The Hong Kong authorities use the National Security Law and the antiquated offense of sedition to persecute those who disagree with the government,&#8221; Cleverly said, pointing to the ongoing trial of 47 opposition politicians and democracy activists for &#8220;subversion&#8221; after they organized a democratic primary election in the summer of 2020, as well as Lai&#8217;s national security trial for &#8220;collusion with a foreign power.&#8221; He said Beijing &#8220;remains in a state of non-compliance&#8221; with a bilateral treaty governing the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to Chinese rule, pointing to a &#8220;steady erosion of civil and political rights and Hong Kong’s autonomy.&#8221; Benedict Rogers, who heads the London-based rights group Hong Kong Watch, called for further action against &#8220;those who are actively undermining China’s obligations to the people of Hong Kong.&#8221; &#8220;A failure to do so will only embolden the Chinese government to deepen its human rights crackdown, putting at risk not only Hong Kongers but U.K. nationals and businesses operating in the city,&#8221; Rogers said in a statement responding to the government report. Emergency visas In April, British lawmakers called on their government to issue emergency visas to journalists at risk of arrest or prosecution in Hong Kong, and to apply targeted sanctions to individuals responsible for Lai&#8217;s arbitrary arrest and prosecution. The group also expressed concerns over last week&#8217;s ruling by Hong Kong’s Court of First Instance, which rejected an appeal from Lai’s legal team after the city&#8217;s leader John Lee ruled that his British barrister, Tim Owen KC, couldn&#8217;t represent him. Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, founder of Apple Daily walks heading to court, after being charged under the national security law, in Hong Kong, Dec. 12, 2020. Credit: Tyrone Siu/Reuters Policy director Sam Goodman said Hong Kong&#8217;s courts no longer have enough judicial independence to act as a check on the current national security crackdown, nor to ensure a fair trial for political prisoners. &#8220;There is no such thing as a common law system which operates with &#8216;Chinese Communist Party&#8217; characteristics,&#8221; Goodman said, adding that Hong Kong&#8217;s &#8220;common law system &#8230; has been systematically dismantled by Beijing.&#8221; Exiled former pro-democracy lawmaker Ted Hui welcomed the criticism of Hong Kong&#8217;s human rights record. &#8220;In the long run, it will &#8230; unite our allies in free countries, and they will take a relatively tough stance, which will have an effect on their leadership,&#8221; Hui said.  &#8220;If more allies of free countries clearly say that Hong Kong’s human rights are regressing, and that the national security law is a violation of human rights, then that is a very clear position,&#8221; he said. Pro-democracy activists display a banner and placards read as &#8220;No democracy and human rights, no national security&#8221; and &#8220;Free all political prisoners&#8221; during a march in Hong Kong, April 15, 2021, to protest against the city&#8217;s first National Security Education Day, after Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law. Credit: Yan Zhao/AFP The Hong Kong government slammed the U.K. report as &#8220;malicious slander and a political attack on Hong Kong,&#8221; while Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said the British government &#8220;has yet to wake up from its colonial dream.&#8221; &#8220;It continues &#8230; to interfere in Hong Kong affairs through a misleading &#8216;report&#8217; which is steeped in ideological bias and inconsistent with the facts,&#8221; Mao told a regular news conference in Beijing. Lai&#8217;s son Sebastien warned earlier this month that Hong Kong is now a &#8220;risky&#8221; place to do business, and that arbitrary arrests, sentences and raids will likely continue under the national security crackdown. International press freedom groups say the ruling Communist Party under supreme leader Xi Jinping has &#8220;gutted&#8221; press freedom in the formerly freewheeling city, since Lai&#8217;s Apple Daily and other pro-democracy news outlets were forced to close. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [North Korea arrests 5 Christians during underground church service](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-arrests-5-christians-during-underground-church-service/): Just as they had every Sunday at 5 a.m., the five Christians gathered at the farmhouse for prayer and Bible study. But this time the police were waiting for them.  Tipped off by an informant, authorities arrested the believers on charges of believing in God, a crime in a country where all religion is illegal – except for the reverence everyone is required to show for the country’s leader Kim Jong Un, and its past leaders, his father and grandfather. Sources told Radio Free Asia’s Korean Service that the Christians, arrested on April 30, are relatives who met weekly at the farmhouse in Tongam village, outside Sunchon city in South Pyongan province, in central North Korea. “At the site of the worship service, the police retrieved dozens of Bible booklets and arrested all in attendance,” a resident of the province told RFA on condition of anonymity for security reasons. She said that an informant tipped off the police about the secret Sunday morning gathering. A South Korean Christian woman prays during a service denouncing North Korean leader Kim Jong Il&#8217;s dictatorship and alleged human rights violations against North Koreans, at Imjingak in Paju near the border village of Panmunjom. South Korea, Thursday, Dec. 31, 2009. Sources told Radio Free Asia’s Korean Service that 5 Christians arrested on April 30 during underground church service are relatives who met weekly at the farmhouse in Tongam village, outside Sunchon city in South Pyongan province, in central North Korea. Credit: Ahn Young-joon/AP News of the raid spread quickly throughout Sunchon, another resident who witnessed the arrest told RFA. “They were praying and reading the Bible together,” she said. “They got together with their relatives and [prayed] ‘Oh Jesus, Lord Jesus … ,’ like that. And then they got arrested.”  If the past is any indication, the believers will be sent to labor camps to serve time. RFA was not able to confirm their status after the raid. Christian roots It was not the first time that authorities had rounded up Christians in Tongam. Underground churches in the village were raided in 2005 and 1997, and the believers were sent to do hard labor in concentration camps. Tongam has a history with Christianity. It was once the site of a large church building that stood even after the Japanese occupied the Korean peninsula in 1905 and made Shinto the state religion.  “That church was at the foot of the mountain in Tongam village,” the second resident said. “I knew about it because my mother told me it was where the missionaries had been before liberation [from Japanese rule in 1945].” Sunchon had two Catholic and 31 Protestant churches before the Peninsula was freed from Japanese rule, according to a pastor with experience leading missions in North Korea. People bow to the statues of former leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il on Mansu Hill to mark the 11th anniversary of the death of Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang, Dec. 17, 2022. Credit: Cha Song Ho/AP The Soviet-controlled northern half of Korea after 1945 adhered to the idea that religion was the opium of the masses, and therefore promoted atheism. When North Korea was established in 1948, all religions became illegal. It was then that many of the churches in Sunchon began to disappear, and believers in Tongam had to go underground. North Korea is known to execute, torture and physically abuse individuals for their religious activities, the U.S. State Department’s 2022 International Religious Freedom Report said.  It is one of 17 countries identified to be involved in or condoning systematic, continuous and serious violations of freedom of religion and belief, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom’s 2023 annual report. Bibles and other religious materials are typically smuggled into the country over the Chinese border, where they are distributed to underground churches through a secret network, the second source said. Despite pressure from authorities, the five captured Christians have refused to renounce their religion, she said. “A staff member of the judicial agency told us that the [believers] refused to tell where they got their Bibles and said, ‘All for Jesus, even in death.’” Translated Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [The status of BRI projects in Bangladesh](https://ij-reportika.com/the-status-of-bri-projects-in-bangladesh/): Download the report: Link Here is a table of the year-on-year trade statistics of Bangladesh with China from 2017 to 2022: Year Bangladesh&#8217;s Import from China Bangladesh&#8217;s Export to China Balance of Payment 2017 $11.06 billion $1.01 billion -$10.05 billion 2018 $12.22 billion $1.09 billion -$11.13 billion 2019 $13.22 billion $1.14 billion -$12.08 billion 2020 $13.31 billion $1.17 billion -$12.14 billion 2021 $15.88 billion $1.32 billion -$14.56 billion 2022 $18.5 billion $1.46 billion -$17.04 billion Trade statistics of Bangladesh with China from 2017 to 2022 As you can see, Bangladesh has a long history of having a trade imbalance with China. Accordingly, Bangladesh is importing more commodities from China than it is sending back to that country. As a result of recent growth, the trade imbalance has&nbsp;reached&nbsp;a record high of $17.04 billion in 2022. The Bangladeshi economy is suffering as a result of the trade deficit. In addition to slowing economic development, it is causing job losses and a drop in investment. According to a Dhaka-based report headlined, &#8216;Bangladesh Reassesses its BRI Strategy as the US Offers a New Alternative,&#8217; the initial excitement in Bangladesh for BRI projects appears to have faded. In 2016, China proposed investing over USD 40 billion in infrastructure assistance and joint sector projects, as well as an additional USD 20 billion in development loans. However, by 2022, Dhaka was confronting the problem of growing foreign debt, owing over USD 4 billion to Beijing. Bangladesh had to request a USD 4.5 million rescue package from the International Monetary Fund in July 2022, as diminishing foreign exchange reserves made imports problematic. To alleviate the problem, Bangladesh has already abandoned or postponed many BRI infrastructure projects, including highway construction. List of the projects that have suffered cost overruns: Padma Bridge Completed Environment Damage, Cost Overrun, FundingIssues, FalseClaim The Padma Bridge is a major infrastructure project in Bangladesh, and while it is not directly under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), it has received financial and technical assistance from multiple international sources, including the World Bank. The Padma Bridge is a multipurpose road-rail bridge across the Padma River in Bangladesh. It is the longest bridge in Bangladesh and the sixth-longest in the world. The bridge is being constructed by the China Major Bridge Engineering Company (MBEC). In 2012, the World Bank withdrew its funding for the bridge after allegations of corruption. However, the Bangladesh government decided to self-finance the project and work continued. The Padma Bridge was embroiled in controversy over &#8220;BRI or not BRI&#8221; as well as delays, funding difficulties, worries about environmental effects, and the relocation of local populations. China has attempted to include non-BRI projects under BRI over the years in an effort to salvage its reputation due to delays, financial losses, and other issues. Padma Bridge is a glaring example of one such project. It has faced a number of issues over the years: Land acquisition: The Padma Bridge is being built on land that is home to a number of villages. The government has had to acquire land from these villages in order to build the bridge. This has led to protests and demonstrations from the villagers. Security concerns: The Padma River is a major shipping route and is home to a number of pirates. The government has had to take steps to secure the area around the bridge in order to prevent attacks from pirates. Cost overruns: The cost of the Padma Bridge has increased significantly since it was first proposed. Since it was initially suggested, the price of the Padma Bridge has greatly escalated.&nbsp; For a developing nation like Bangladesh, an overrun of $1.3 billion on a $3.3 billion project is a significant burden. There have been a number of protests, demonstrations, and uproars against the Padma Bridge. These protests have been organized by a number of different groups, including environmental groups, villagers, and opposition political parties. In a sharp rebuttal to Chinese claims of Bangladesh’s biggest infrastructure project being part of BRI, Dhaka said that the Padma Bridge, which is scheduled to be launched on June 25, is not a part of China’s BRI. It also said that no foreign funds were taken to complete this multipurpose project. Check out our report: Padma Bridge is not a part of BRI Payra Deep Sea Port Cost Overrun, FundingIssues, China’s geopolitical interests, Corruption Delayed The government of Bangladesh and China signed MoU to develop three components of the Payra Deep Seaport in 2016. This is the third-largest port in the country, strategically located in the Patuakhali region on the banks of the Bay of Bengal. Two Chinese companies China Harbor Engineering Company (CHEC) and China State Engineering and Construction Company (CSCEC) will execute port development. The Payra Deep Sea Port has been plagued by financial problems since its inception. The original cost of the project was estimated to be $1.1 billion, but the final cost is expected to be much higher. The government of Bangladesh has had to borrow money from China to finance the construction of the port, and the debt burden is becoming increasingly unsustainable. In addition to the financial problems, the Payra Deep Sea Port has also been plagued by corruption allegations. The&nbsp; Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) filed a case against several officials of the Bangladesh government and the China Harbor Engineering Company (CHEC) for allegedly misusing public funds in the construction of the port. The ACC has also filed a case against several officials of the Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) for allegedly awarding the contract for the construction of the port to CHEC without following due process. The delays in the construction of the Payra Deep Sea Port have been caused by a number of factors, including financial problems, corruption allegations, and environmental concerns. The construction of the port was initially scheduled to be completed in 2016, but the deadline has been pushed back several times. The port is now expected to be completed in 2023, but it is possible that the deadline will be pushed back again....
- [The status of BRI projects in Srilanka](https://ij-reportika.com/the-status-of-bri-projects-in-srilanka/): Download the report: Link Year Import from China Export to China Balance of Payment 2017 $3.29 billion $137.39 million -$3.15 billion 2018 $3.52 billion $152.3 million -$3.37 billion 2019 $3.65 billion $169.8 million -$3.48 billion 2020 $4.75 billion $186.2 million -$4.56 billion 2021 $5.17 billion $200 million -$4.97 billion 2022 $5.75 billion $215.6 million -$5.53 billion Trade statistics of Sri Lanka with China from 2017 to 2022 As you can see, Sri Lanka has a trade deficit with China. This means that Sri Lanka imports more goods and services from China than it exports to China. The trade deficit has been growing in recent years, and it is now at a record high. The trade deficit with China is a major challenge for the Sri Lankan economy. It is a drain on the country&#8217;s foreign exchange reserves and it makes it difficult for Sri Lanka to compete with other countries in the global market. As you can see, since 2017, Sri Lanka&#8217;s foreign exchange reserves have been falling. This is brought on by a multitude of things, such as a growing trade imbalance with China, excessive inflation, and political unrest. Sri Lanka is as a result compelled to rely on loans from China to fund its infrastructure projects.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Since 2017, Sri Lanka&#8217;s overall debt to China has risen. Concerns regarding Sri Lanka&#8217;s capacity to pay off its debt have been highlighted by the rise in Chinese debt. China&#8217;s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has had a devastating impact on Sri Lanka. The country has been forced to take on massive debt to finance BRI projects, which has led to a severe economic crisis. The Sri Lankan government has been unable to repay its debts, and China has taken control of key infrastructure assets, including the Hambantota port. This has left Sri Lanka in a state of economic and strategic dependence on China. The BRI has also led to environmental damage in Sri Lanka. Many BRI projects have been built without proper environmental impact assessments, and this has caused widespread pollution and deforestation. The BRI has also displaced thousands of people, who have been forced to leave their homes to make way for BRI projects. Our investigation revealed that a majority of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects in Sri Lanka had major problems. 71% of projects had cost overruns, 79% caused environmental damage, 86% were delayed, 86% were affected by corruption, 50% were completed, 50% were of poor quality, and 21% were used to advance China&#8217;s geopolitical interests. The study&#8217;s findings suggest that the BRI has not been a success in Sri Lanka. The high number of problems with BRI projects has had a negative impact on the country&#8217;s economy and environment. The BRI has been used to advance China&#8217;s geopolitical interests, which has further strained relations between China and Sri Lanka. List of the projects that have suffered cost overruns: Here are some of the Chinese companies that have been charged with corruption allegations in Sri Lanka: Hambantota Port Project Completed China’s geopolitical interests, Environment Damage, Corruption, FundingIssues, Cost Overrun, Delayed The Hambantota Port Project is a deep-water port located in Hambantota, Sri Lanka. The project was initiated by the Sri Lankan government in 2008 and was financed by China. The total cost of the project was estimated to be $1.5 billion, but it ended up costing $3.8 billion. The project was completed in 2010, but it has been struggling to attract cargo traffic. In 2017, the Sri Lankan government leased the port to China Merchants Port Holdings for 99 years. The Hambantota Port Project has been plagued by several issues. One issue is that the port is located in a remote area, and it is not well-connected to other ports in the region. Another issue is that the port is not deep enough to handle large ships. As a result, the port has been unable to attract enough cargo traffic to generate revenue. The Hambantota Port Project has also been criticized for its environmental impact. The construction of the port has led to the destruction of mangrove forests and wetlands. The port has also been accused of polluting the water and air in the area. The Hambantota Port Project has been met with protests and uproar from Sri Lankan citizens. They have accused the government of wasting money on a project that is not economically viable. They have also expressed concerns about the environmental impact of the port. The Hambantota Port Project has also been criticized by world leaders. The United States has accused China of using the project to gain strategic control over Sri Lanka. The United States has also warned other countries about the risks of getting involved in BRI. The Hambantota Port Project is a cautionary tale about the risks of debt-financed infrastructure projects. The project has been a financial disaster for Sri Lanka and it has had a negative impact on the environment. The project has also raised concerns about China&#8217;s strategic ambitions in the region. Colombo Port City Project China’s geopolitical interests, Environment Damage, Corruption, FundingIssues, Cost Overrun, Delayed The Colombo Port City initiative is a $15 billion initiative in Colombo, Sri Lanka, to build a new financial and commercial center. The China Development Bank is funding the project, which is being built by China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC). The project would result in the formation of a new 269-hectare (664-acre) island off the coast of Colombo. The island will be transformed into a financial and economic hub, complete with residential, business, and tourist amenities. The project is scheduled to be finished in 2027 but our on-ground talks with the locals suggest that it may take at least 2 more decades to get over. The project has already overrun its budget by a whopping $1.5 billion. The project&nbsp;has been met with protests and outrage from Sri Lankan civilians, who have accused the government of squandering money on an unprofitable project. They have also raised reservations about the port&#8217;s environmental effect. World leaders...
- [The status of BRI projects in Pakistan](https://ij-reportika.com/the-status-of-bri-projects-in-pakistan/): Download the report: Link Pakistan&#8217;s involvement in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) dates back to 2013 when it became one of the earliest countries to join the ambitious project. Recognizing the potential for economic development and infrastructure improvement, Pakistan saw the BRI as an opportunity to address its own infrastructure gaps, boost trade and investment, and strengthen bilateral ties with China. Here is a table of the year-on-year trade statistics of Pakistan with China from 2017 to 2022: Year Pakistan&#8217;s Imports from China Pakistan&#8217;s Export to China Balance of Payment 2017 10,815.3&nbsp; USD Million 3,463.6 USD Million -7,351.7 USD Million 2018 13,733.4 USD Million 4,407 USD Million -9,326.4 USD Million 2019 16,095.1 USD Million 4,997.2 USD Million -11,107.9 USD Million 2020 16,688.3 USD Million 5,563.5 USD Million -11,124.8 USD Million 2021 22,589.1 USD Million 6,663 USD Million -15,926.1 USD Million 2022 25,198.7 USD Million 4,143.2 USD Million -21,055.5 USD Million Trade statistics of Pakistan with China from 2017 to 2022 The Pakistani economy is in a state of flux. The country is facing several challenges, including high inflation, a widening trade deficit, and a slowing economy. As you can see, forex reserves have been declining in Pakistan since 2017. This is due to a number of factors, including a widening trade deficit with China, high inflation, and political instability. As a result, Pakistan has been forced to rely on loans from China to finance its BRI projects. Total debt from China to Pakistan has been increasing since 2017. This is because Pakistan has been borrowing heavily from China to finance its BRI projects. The increase in debt from China has raised concerns about Pakistan&#8217;s ability to repay it. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and it&#8217;s part China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) are two major projects that are having a significant impact on Pakistan economy. BRI is a global infrastructure project that is being spearheaded by China. CPEC is a part of BRI and is a $62 billion project that is aimed at connecting China&#8217;s Xinjiang province to the Arabian Sea through Pakistan. CPEC has been a major source of investment for Pakistan. However, it has also led to several problems. One of the biggest problems is the trade imbalance between Pakistan and China. Pakistan is importing more goods from China than it is exporting to China. This has led to a widening trade deficit, which is putting a strain on the Pakistani economy. Another problem with CPEC is that it has led to a rise in debt. Pakistan has borrowed heavily from China to finance CPEC projects. This has increased the country&#8217;s debt burden and made it more difficult for Pakistan to repay its loans. On top of it, most of the projects under CPEC have suffered from cost overruns, widening the debt burden on Pakistan!! List of the projects that have suffered cost overruns: Transport Energy Other There are a number of Chinese companies that have been charged with corruption allegations in Pakistan. Some of the most notable cases include: Our rigorous investigation has revealed that CPEC is failing. The Pakistani government has acknowledged that it is having difficulty paying back the loans it took out to fund the project. CPEC is not creating enough employment or economic development to significantly aid Pakistan&#8217;s faltering economy. A significant setback for both China and Pakistan is the collapse of CPEC. It is causing instability in Pakistan and harming China&#8217;s credibility as a trustworthy partner. Here are some of the problems that have plagued the CPEC Projects over the years. The first bar shows the finished projects out of the 30 projects in CPEC that make up the sample size. Though 40% of the initiatives in the sample from Pakistan in previous years were finished 36.47% of the projects were of poor quality and suffered from major flaws. A staggering 93.33% of projects had cost overruns, severely crippling Pakistan&#8217;s already fragile economy under its mounting debt. Our analysis revealed that over 90% of those projects&#8217; stakeholders felt apprehensive because of security concerns as a result of several terror attacks and violent local protests targeting Chinese and Pakistani stakeholders. Over 70% of projects were delayed, and a roughly comparable amount of the projects were plagued&nbsp;with&nbsp;corruption, due to the country&#8217;s declining foreign exchange, shifting political landscape, and political violence. Thus, the Chinese businesses finished the projects with low-quality materials and nearly half of them encountered funding problems! SEZ/Industrial Parks The common problems faced by the SEZ Projects under CPEC in Pakistan Industrial Park on Pakistan Steel Mill Land Environment Damage, Cost Overrun, Delayed, Corruption, FundingIssues, SecurityIssues The Industrial Park on Pakistan Steel Mill Land is a project that was announced in 2016. The project is being developed by the China Machinery Engineering Corporation (CMEC) and is expected to cost $1.5 billion. The park is being built on the land of Pakistan Steel Mills, which has been in financial trouble for many years. The project has been facing a number of issues. One of the main issues is the environmental impact of the project. The park is being built on land that is polluted with heavy metals. This pollution could have a negative impact on the environment and the health of the people who live in the area. Another issue with the project is the lack of transparency. The Pakistani government has not released any information about the terms of the agreement with CMEC. This lack of transparency has led to concerns that the Pakistani government is giving away too much to China. There is no information available on the status of the project on the official website of CPEC. Here is a screenshot of the same. Several protests against the project occurred in the past several years. Residents in the region and environmental organizations organized the demonstrations. The project has to cease, according to the demonstrators. Up until now, the Pakistani government has refused to halt the project. The project is crucial for Pakistan&#8217;s economy, according to the government. However, the administration has also...
- [Cyclone Mocha: Before and After](https://ij-reportika.com/cyclone-mocha-before-and-after/): Myanmar’s Sittwe University is seen Nov. 12, 2022 [left] and May 18, 2023. Credit: Google Earth [left]; Planet Labs Cyclone Mocha hit Myanmar’s coast on May 14 with sustained winds reaching over 220 kilometers per hour (137 mph). Hundreds of Rohingya Muslims were killed when the storm tore through western Myanmar’s Rakhine state, according to RFA reporting. Villagers gather materials to rebuild in Kyay Taw Paik Seik five days after Cyclone Mocha. (Photo: RFA) A view of the few remaining structures in Kyay Taw Paik Seik in the aftermath of the storm. (Photo: RFA) Some 130,000 Rohingya have lived for more than a decade in internally displaced persons camps in and around Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine. The camps are poorly funded by the junta and run by volunteer groups. The village of Dar Paing Ywar Thit in Myanmar is seen April 14, 2023 [left] and May 21, 2023. Credit: Maxar Technologies [left]; Planet Labs The Dar Paing camp for internally displaced Rohingya in Sittwe was among the hardest hit by Cyclone Mocha in Rakhine state. (Photo: Citizen Journalist) Residents of Dar Paing navigate roads flooded by Cyclone Mocha. (Photo: Citizen Journalist) Nearly 1 million Rohingya were forced to leave their homes in Rakhine state following a military crackdown against the Muslim-minority in 2017. About 740,000 fled to Bangladesh and live in Cox’s Bazar, also hit hard by Cyclone Mocha. The village of Bay Dar in Myanmar is seen Nov. 12, 2022 [left] and May 21, 2023. Cyclone Mocha cut a new inlet, seen on the right side of the photo, allowing the sea to pour in and leaving the village on a peninsula. Credit: Maxar Technologies [left]; Planet Labs Another camp for internally displaced Rohingya in Sittwe known as Bay Dar Rohingya Village also sustained heavy damage from Mocha. (Photo: RFA) Wooden dwellings in Bay Dar were reduced to piles of debris by the storm. (Photo: RFA) Residents of Bay Dar salvage what they can of their belongings three days after the cyclone made landfall. (Photo: RFA) While the death toll was significantly lower in other parts of Sittwe, damage from the storm was substantial. In villages such as Kyay Taw Paik Seik, aid workers say residents are in urgent need of shelters and drinking water, as sea water has mixed in with most of the reservoirs from the flooding that followed the storm. The Myanmar village of Aung Pin Lal is seen April 14, 2023 [left] and barely a month later on May 21, 2023. Credit: Maxar Technologies [left]; Planet Labs
- [The status of BRI projects in Nepal](https://ij-reportika.com/the-status-of-bri-projects-in-nepal/): Download the report: Link Nepal officially joined the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2017, marking a significant milestone in its collaboration with China. The decision to join the BRI was driven by Nepal&#8217;s aim to enhance its connectivity, infrastructure development, and economic cooperation with neighboring countries. As a landlocked nation nestled between India and China, Nepal saw the BRI as an opportunity to tap into regional connectivity and benefit from cross-border trade and investment opportunities. Here are the year-on-year trade statistics and balance of payment of Nepal with China from 2017 to 2022: Year Nepal&#8217;s Import from China Nepal&#8217;s Export to China Balance of Payment 2017 1,247 million USD 181 million USD -1,066 million USD 2018 1,477 million USD 213 million USD -1,264 million USD 2019 1,702 million USD 245 million USD -1,457 million USD 2020 1,932 million USD 278 million USD -1,654 million USD 2021 2,162 million USD 311 million USD -1,851 million USD 2022 2,401 million USD 345 million USD -2,056 million USD Trade statistics of Nepal with China from 2017 to 2022 As you can see, Nepal and China have a trade deficit. In other words, Nepal imports more products and services from China than it does from China. In recent years, the trade gap has been widening. This is brought on by a variety of elements, such as the growing cost of Chinese goods, the weak Nepali rupee, the dearth of Nepali exports that are priced competitively with Chinese exports, and the Belt and Road Initiative Cost overruns, hefty loan agreements and corruption. The difference in value between Nepal&#8217;s imports and exports is known as the balance of payments. In recent years, the payment balance has been negative. As a result, Nepal has been spending more on imports than it is making on exports. The BRI&nbsp;is the root cause of the negative balance of payments. Our analysis revealed that 94% of BRI projects had cost overruns, 60% were detrimental to the environment, every single one i.e. 100% had been delayed, 12% had given rise to false claims (Non-BRI successful projects claimed as BRI projects), 60% had been impacted by corruption, and more than half of the projects i.e 53% which are under construction or are completed had poor quality. List of the projects that have suffered cost overruns: Transport Projects: Energy Projects: Education Project: Water Project: Urban Development Project: Nepal-China Projects: List of the projects that have suffered cost overruns: Here are some of the Chinese companies that have been charged with corruption allegations in Nepal: Hydro-electricity Projects Budhi Gandaki Hydroelectricity Project &nbsp; Cost Overrun, Delayed, Corruption, Poor Quality Political unrest, as well as worries about the project&#8217;s effects on the environment and society, have caused delays and financial problems. The Budhi Gandaki hydroelectric project is a &#8220;storage-type project&#8221; designed to address the country&#8217;s energy crisis. It is located on the Budhi Gandaki River in Nepal&#8217;s Central/Western development zone. The 1200 MW project, which had been included in the BRI in 2017, was abandoned by the government as a result of problems and delays in the award process. The project is being constructed by the China Gezhouba Group Corporation (CGGC) and is expected to cost $2.5 billion. However, the project has been plagued by cost overruns and delays. In 2018, the project&#8217;s estimated cost was increased to $3.5 billion. In 2020, the project&#8217;s completion date was pushed back from 2022 to 2024. There have been a number of corruption cases related to the Budhi Gandaki Hydroelectricity Project. In 2019, the Nepali government filed a corruption case against the China Gezhouba Group Corporation (CGGC). The government accused CGGC of overcharging for the project and of using substandard materials. The case is still pending in court. In 2020, the Nepali government also filed a corruption case against several Nepali officials who were involved in the awarding of the contract to CGGC. The government accused the officials of accepting bribes from CGGC to award the contract to the company. The case is also still pending in court. The corruption cases related to the Budhi Gandaki Hydroelectricity Project have raised concerns about the transparency and accountability of the project. The cases have also cast a shadow over the future of the project. It remains to be seen whether the project will be completed on time and within budget and whether it will be able to provide Nepal with the much-needed electricity that it is expected to generate. https://web.archive.org/web/20230427155915/https://bghep.gov.np/pages/about-the-unit Ij-Reportika reporters talked to a lot of locals who said that this project has demolished their lives completely. Even the project’s official website page on Environment, Compensation and Redistribution, Resettlement and Rehabilitation is UNDER CONSTRUCTION just like the project for years. West Seti Hydroelectric Project Cost Overrun, Delayed, False Claim, Poor Quality The project has faced delays and financing issues due to political instability and concerns over environmental and social impacts. The West-Seti Hydropower Project and Seti River Project (SR6), joint storage projects totaling 1200MW that China had twice abandoned, were officially granted by Nepal to India&#8217;s National Hydro Power Corporation (NHPC). The Chinese CWE Investment Corporation, a division of China Three Gorges Corporation, withdrew from the project in August 2018 due to it being &#8220;financially unfeasible and its resettlement and rehabilitation costs were too high.&#8221; Snowy Mountain Engineering Corporation&#8217;s license had not been extended by Nepal before that time due to the Chinese company&#8217;s inability to start the work &#8220;convincingly&#8221; for a whole decade in the middle of the 1990s. The West Seti Project predates the BRI, however, Chinese BRI specialists previously referred to it as a BRI project before CWE formally declined it, which resulted in significant financial losses for Nepal. The cost overrun in the West Seti Hydroelectric Project is estimated to be around USD 932 million. The project was initially estimated to cost USD 2.5 billion, but the cost has increased due to several factors. Upper Tamakoshi Hydropower Project Environment Damage, Cost Overrun, Delayed, Corruption, Completed, Poor Quality The Upper Tamakoshi Hydropower Project is a 456-megawatt...
- [The BRI Status: A Grand Report on Its Present and Future](https://ij-reportika.com/the-bri-a-grand-report-on-its-status-and-future/): BRI's impact on several nations has only recently become apparent. This has been thoroughly explored in this report THE STAUS OF BRI. 
- [The status of BRI projects in AFRICA](https://ij-reportika.com/the-status-of-bri-projects-in-africa/): Download the report: Link Africa&#8217;s participation in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) began in 2013 when China first unveiled its ambitious global infrastructure project. Recognizing the potential for enhanced connectivity, economic growth, and development, several African countries, including Ethiopia, Kenya, and Egypt, joined the BRI. Africa saw the initiative as a means to address its infrastructure deficit, promote trade and investment, and strengthen its ties with China. Here are the year-on-year trade statistics and balance of payment of Africa with China from 2017 to 2022: Year Africa&#8217;s Imports from China Africa&#8217;s Export to China Balance of Payment 2017 199.3 billion USD 95.7 billion USD -103.6 billion USD 2018 232.2 billion USD 106.7 billion USD -125.5 billion USD 2019 265.3 billion USD 117.7 billion USD -147.6 billion USD 2020 298.4 billion USD 128.7 billion USD -169.7 billion USD 2021 331.5 billion USD 140 billion USD -191.5 billion USD 2022 364.6 billion USD 151.3 billion USD -213.3 billion USD Trade statistics of Africa with China from 2017 to 2022 List of some of the projects that have suffered cost overruns: Country Project Benin Cotonou Port Expansion Project Botswana Kazungula Bridge Project Cambodia Phnom Penh Railway Project Cameroon Kribi Deep Seaport Project Cameroon N&#8217;Djamena-Doba Railway Project Chad N&#8217;Djamena-Doba Railway Project Djibouti Djibouti International Airport Expansion Project Djibouti Doraleh Multipurpose Port Project Ghana Tema-Aflao Railway Project Kenya Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway Kenya Lamu Port and Lamu-Southern Sudan-Ethiopia Transport Corridor Liberia Buchanan Port Rehabilitation Project Malawi Nacala Logistics Corridor Project Mauritius Port Louis Waterfront Project Morocco Tanger-Med II Port Expansion Project Mozambique Nacala Logistics Corridor Project Nigeria Lagos-Kano Railway Rwanda Bugesera International Airport Project Senegal Diamniadio International Airport Project Sierra Leone Lungi International Airport Expansion Project Tanzania Dodoma City Water Supply Project Tanzania Tanzania-Zambia Railway Project Tunisia Enfidha International Airport Expansion Project Uganda Karuma Hydropower Project Zambia Lusaka Water Supply Project Zambia Victoria Falls Airport Expansion Project Zimbabwe Victoria Falls Airport Expansion Project Here are some of the problems that have plagued the&nbsp;BRI Projects in Africa over the years.&nbsp;The first bar shows the finished projects out of the 31 projects in Africa that make up the sample size. Only 19.35% of the initiatives from Africa in previous years were finished. As the last bar in the bar graph indicates, 9.68% of the projects were abandoned because of budget constraints and local opposition. In the report below, the precise causes are being looked into. The most common issues encountered by BRI projects in Africa were environmental damage (74.19%), which includes the destruction of local ecosystems triggering climate change&nbsp;and the displacement of local communities as a result of skewed and shoddy environmental impact assessments (EIA), and cost overruns (77.42%), which have multiplied the projects&#8217; costs. Delays in project execution (58.06%) brought on by Chinese companies&#8217; reluctance to move the project forward, corruption cases (64.52%) encompassing the stakeholders involved, and low-quality building materials (35.48%) were also major factors in the BRI&#8217;s dismal performance&nbsp;in Africa. Examples of projects in Africa that have been linked to corruption allegations involving Chinese companies: Country Project Name Chinese Company Angola Soyo Refinery China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC) Botswana Gaborone International Airport China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) Congo Inga III Hydropower Project Zhongjian International (Group) Corporation Egypt New Administrative Capital China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC) Ethiopia Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam Salini Impregilo Ghana Tema Oil Refinery Expansion Sinopec Kenya Standard Gauge Railway China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) Liberia Mount Coffee Hydropower Project China International Water and Electric Corporation (CWE) Malawi Bingu International Conference Center China Gezhouba Group Corporation (CGGC) Mauritius Phoenix International Airport China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) Mozambique Nacala Port Expansion China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) Namibia Walvis Bay Port Expansion China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) Nigeria Ajaokuta Steel Mill China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) Rwanda Kigali International Airport China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) Senegal Diamniadio International Airport China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) Sierra Leone Lungi International Airport China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) South Africa Gautrain Rapid Rail System China Railway Group Limited (CRG) Tanzania Julius Nyerere Hydropower Project China Gezhouba Group Corporation (CGGC) Uganda Karuma Hydropower Project China International Water and Electric Corporation (CWE) Zambia Kafue Gorge Lower Hydropower Project China Three Gorges Corporation (CTG) Zimbabwe Victoria Falls Airport Expansion China Gezhouba Group Corporation (CGGC) BRI projects under the scanner in corruption cases Analysis of the flagship projects Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway, Ethiopia and Djibouti Environment Damage, Delayed, Cost Overrun, Corruption, Poor Quality Completed The Addis Ababa-Djibouti (AAD) Railway Modernization Project is Africa&#8217;s first cross-border electrified railway. The railway line is a 753 km electrified single-track standard gauge route between Ethiopia&#8217;s capital Addis Ababa and the Port of Djibouti, with 45 stops in total. The new standard gauge route runs parallel to and replaces an abandoned 1 m gauge railway built more than a century ago. The EDR, a joint venture of the two state-owned firms ERC and SDCF, owns the railway line. The project was built by Chinese state-owned corporations China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC)&nbsp;and China Railway Engineering Corporation (CREC) under the BRI, which is operating the railway for a period of six years following construction completion. The freight route began in October 2015, while passenger service was formally inaugurated in October 2016. On January 1, 2018, it became officially commercially operating. The project has faced issues with delays and construction quality, which have resulted in the railway being temporarily shut down several times for repairs due to failures. The project has also been detrimental to the environment and the indigenous communities. Bagamoyo Port Project, Tanzania Halted, Poor Quality Tanzania&#8217;s Bagamoyo Port Project set a new course in China-Tanzania ties. The deal for the Bagamoyo port project was inked in 2013 after numerous African organizations dubbed it a &#8220;killer Chinese loan&#8221; and asked that Tanzania&#8217;s previous President, Jakaya Kikwete, refuse the offer. Regardless, the offer was accepted. However, in January 2016, President John Magufuli declared the project&#8217;s halt. Bagamoyo Special Economic Zone Project, Tanzania Environment Damage, Cost Overrun, Corruption, Halted The Bagamoyo Special Economic Zone Project...
- [Childhood friend of North Korea's Kim Jong Un says he has never heard about Kim’s son](https://ij-reportika.com/childhood-friend-of-north-koreas-kim-jong-un-says-he-has-never-heard-about-kims-son/): A childhood friend that has visited North Korean leader Kim Jong Un several times over the years told Radio Free Asia that he has never met Kim’s son, casting doubt on previous intelligence reports about the leader’s family life. South Korean intelligence has said multiple times that Kim, with his wife Ri Sol Ju, has fathered three children: a son around 2010, a daughter named Ju Ae around 2013, and another daughter in 2017. Since late last year, Kim has repeatedly appeared with Ju Ae in public, leading to speculation that he might be grooming her to one day rule the country. But others said that was not likely, citing North Korea&#8217;s patriarchal society and the belief that he had a son. João Micaelo, now a chef, was a classmate of Kim’s when they both attended the Liebefeld-Steinhölzli public school in Switzerland from 1998 to 2000. The son of a Portuguese embassy employee, Micaelo is known to have been close friends with the future North Korean leader while attending the school. Micaelo visited with Kim in 2012 when Ri was pregnant with Ju Ae, and again after she was born. “In 2013 [on my next visit], I didn’t see his wife, but I knew it was a girl. I heard it was like she was pregnant [with] a girl,” said Micaelo. When asked if he had met Kim’s son, Micaelo said that Kim had never told him anything about a son. João Micaelo [circled, left] was a classmate of future North Korean leader Kim Jong Un [circled, right] when they attended the Liebefeld-Steinhölzli public school in Switzerland, from 1998 to 2000. Credit: Contacto Publico Another source from a Western country, who is very close to Kim Jong Un and visited him around the same time as Micaelo, also told RFA on condition of anonymity that he had never heard Kim talk about any sons.  “I never heard a word about his son from Kim Jong Un,” the source said. “[He] was proud of Ju Ae all the time. I believe she might be the first child.” During former NBA star Dennis Rodman’s highly publicized first visit to North Korea in 2013, he was introduced to Ju Ae, and his account of the trip was the first time her name was revealed to the outside world. He is not known to have met a son of Kim. No Son? In March, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service reported at a meeting of the National Assembly’s Intelligence Committee that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s first child is a son.  The spy agency reported that “although there is no specific evidence that the first child is a son, it is certain through information sharing with external intelligence agencies that it is a son.” But a high-ranking official from the South Korean Ministry of Unification met with reporters on May 22nd and said, “It is uncertain whether there is a first child [before Ju Ae] or not.”  Kim’s son may not in fact exist, said Ken Gause, director of Center for Naval Analyses. “When Rodman was there, he visited Kim Jong Un in Wonsan … there were a lot of Kim relatives, including Kim Sol Song [his half-sister], but there was no son there,” said Gause.  “I’ve also heard that potentially the son, if there is a son, may have some mental disorder or some sort of issue like that, [so] they may have wanted to keep him away … from outsiders being able to see him,” he said. Because Ju Ae is constantly in the spotlight, it seems that she may be Kim’s firstborn, he said. “I have always tended to believe that the son either doesn’t exist … because there was never any talk about, ‘Oh, I also have a son,’ I mean, [they] seem to act as if this were his first child, gushing about Ju Ae and everything,” he said. The family and authorities seems to be “very protective and very mom-like” toward Ju Ae, “which suggests … this wasn’t their second child, this was their first child.” Translated by Leejin J. Chung. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Malaysia's Mahathir says Russia may take nuclear option](https://ij-reportika.com/malaysias-mahathir-says-russia-may-take-nuclear-option/): The world is facing the grim prospect of a nuclear war as the Ukrainian conflict drags on, a former Asian leader has warned. “I don’t think you can make Russia surrender,” said former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad about the ongoing Ukraine war on Friday – the second day of the Future of Asia conference hosted by the Nikkei news group in Tokyo. “They will fight to the end, and in desperation they may resort to the use of nuclear weapons,” said the former statesman who will be 98 in July, adding that not only Ukraine and Russia, but “the whole world will suffer.” Mahathir served as Malaysia&#8217;s prime minister from 1981 to 2003 and again from 2018 to 2020.  “Nuclear war is the worst kind of war because of the extent of destruction it causes,” he said, reflecting on the end of World War II when two atomic bombs were dropped on Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. A summit of Group of Seven (G7) of the world’s most developed nations was held in Hiroshima last week. “It seems that G7 countries went to Hiroshima trying to persuade the Global South that they should support the West’s efforts in the Ukraine war,” Mahathir said.  The Global South is a term generally used for less developed countries in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Oceania, as opposed to more prosperous nations in the Global North including North America, Europe, and Australia, as well as several rich Asian countries like Japan, South Korea and Singapore.  “We should not get involved in wars,” the former leader said before criticizing what he called “the mindset of some countries.” “Global North thinks that war is a solution to conflicts between nations,” Mahathir said. “Russia and the West were partners in the war against Germany,” he said, “but immediately after the war the West decided that their new enemy is Russia so they set up NATO.” ‘World government’ The rivalry between the world’s two superpowers China and the U.S. once again was highlighted at the Future of Asia event, in its 28th year this year. Sri Lanka’s President Ranil Wickremesinghe said on Thursday that his country “welcomes the G7&#8217;s announcement that they are prepared to build a stable and constructive relationship with China.” Singapore Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong went further adding: &#8220;Any attempt either to contain China&#8217;s rise or to limit America&#8217;s presence in the region will have few takers. Nobody wants to see a new cold war.&#8221; Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad (right) at a Q&amp;A session at the Future of Asia conference, May 26, 2023. Credit: RFA/Screenshot from livestream For his part, Mahathir Mohamad urged Asian countries that they “should not take sides to support either the U.S. or China.” “We should support the world that includes the U.S., China and the rest.” “We should free ourselves from the influences by the West both in the economic and political fields,” said the former leader, known for his anti-Western rhetoric. In his opinion, the United Nations as an organization needs to be restructured in order to lead global efforts in dealing with common world problems such as climate change, pandemics and consequences of wars. “We should think of a common approach to deal with world problems, through a kind of world government,” he said. Future of Asia, held by Japan’s Nikkei annually since 1995, is “an international gathering where political, economic, and academic leaders from the Asia-Pacific region offer their opinions frankly and freely on regional issues and the role of Asia in the world.” This year’s theme is ‘Leveraging Asia’s power to confront global challenges.’ Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida delivered a speech Thursday saying Tokyo is “focused on co-creating the future” with its Asian partners. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [A new big brother for Laos?](https://ij-reportika.com/a-new-big-brother-for-laos/): The Friendship Shield 2023 war games brought 200 Chinese troops and 700 Lao soldiers together for three weeks near the Lao capital Vientiane for joint military exercises. The drills between the two Communist states gave troops from impoverished, land-locked Laos firsthand experience using modern Chinese weapons, opening the way for the Southeast Asian country to replace its Soviet-era and Russian military supplies. Neighboring Vietnam, Laos&#8217; biggest traditional ally, is believed to be watching the Sino-Lao relationship warily, while the U.S. is also concerned about China&#8217;s expanding military influence.
- [Court in Myanmar’s Mandalay imprisons 3 monks for funding terrorism](https://ij-reportika.com/court-in-myanmars-mandalay-imprisons-3-monks-for-funding-terrorism/): A court in Myanmar’s central Mandalay region has handed down 22-year sentences to three Buddhist monks accused of supporting anti-junta People’s Defense forces, a local resident told RFA Thursday. Tuesday’s sentences came after the monks from Taw Kyaung Gyi monastery in Patheingyi township were found guilty under Section 50 (j) of the Counter-Terrorism Law, which prohibits the financing of terrorist groups. The local, who didn’t want to be named for safety reasons, said the monks became involved because anti-junta militia often seek refuge in religious buildings, thinking they will be safer. “A monk is not a People’s Defense Force [member]. PDF youths set up camp in that monastery and sent drones over Mandalay city,” he said. “The monks probably encouraged them because locals are involved. Monks host the PDF and collect donations for them.” RFA has not been able to find out the names of the monks but the local said one was the chair of Mandalay’s Madaya township Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee, established by the government in 1980 to oversee the Buddhist clergy. Another local, who also requested anonymity, told RFA the three monks are being held in Mandalay’s Obo Prison following the hearing in Mandalay city’s Aungmyaythazan District Court  Some 18,364 people are currently in detention in Myanmar, 6,076 of them serving prison sentences, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Myanmar’s junta increasingly relying on airstrikes, research group says](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-junta-increasingly-relying-on-airstrikes-research-group-says/): Myanmar’s junta is increasingly relying on airstrikes in its war against groups opposed to its rule, according to tallies compiled by Nyan Lynn Thit Analytica, an independent local research group, because its troops have faced fierce resistance on the ground. The military carried out 1,427 airstrikes across Myanmar since taking power by force in a coup d’etat on Feb. 1, 2021, the group said in a report released Monday.  During the first four months of 2023, the junta launched 454 airstrikes – a rate that puts it on track for double the 2022’s total of 820, the group said. Most of the attacks have taken place in Kayin state and the Sagaing region – areas where junta forces have struggled to maintain control. Even former military officers have criticized the army’s reliance on airplanes. “The military uses its air power depending on the need for ground operations,” said Thien Tun Oo, executive director of the Thayninga Institute for Strategic Studies, which is made up of former military officers.  “It’s funny to say that the military has to use its air power, as its ground troops cannot handle the battles,” he said. “That’s our opinion.” The number of people killed by junta airstrikes is also increasing every year, said Moe Htet Nay, a research and political adviser for Nyan Lynn Thit Analytica. In 2021, 74 civilians were killed; in 2022, 168 civilians were killed; and during the first three months of 2023, 192 have been killed, he said. Civilians hide in a cave after airstrikes and mortar attacks on their village in Doo Tha Htoo district in Myanmar’s eastern Kayin state, May 3, 2022. Credit: Free Burma Rangers/AFP Civilians targeted ‘indiscriminately’ The airstrikes are intended to bring chaos to anti-junta forces and to separate them from villages and civilian populations, Moe Htet Nay said.  The most deadly airstrike came last month when 188 people were killed in Kanbalu township of Sagaing region on April 11.  Political analyst Than Soe Naing believes the junta will continue to target airstrikes at civilian populations, in addition to the People’s Defense Forces, made up of ordinary citizens who have taken up arms against the military. “The military first used the air forces to relocate its ground troops,” he said. “But later, the air forces started attacking every possible target of the PDFs. Now, the junta launches airstrikes at any populated place indiscriminately.” Radio Free Asia reached out to a junta spokesman to ask about the airstrikes, but there was no response. Nyan Lynn Thit Analytica collected data on the airstrikes from reports in more than 40 news outlets, including RFA, Voice of America and Myanmar Now, and through the social media sites of more than 1300 PDFs.  Burned remains of buildings cover the ground in a village in Doo Tha Htoo district in Myanmar’s eastern Kayin state, May 3, 2022. Credit: Free Burma Rangers/AFP Some villagers afraid to dig bomb shelters  Kyaw Zaw, spokesman for the president’s office of the shadow National Unity Government, told RFA in early May that they are constructing a system that can notify the public in advance of incoming junta air strikes. The project also includes a proposal to build bomb shelter bunkers. But many villagers wouldn’t dare dig bomb shelter trenches because junta forces believe that families with bomb shelters are aligned with PDFs, according to a resident of Kanbalu township who refused to be named for security reasons. “How can we protect ourselves against the danger of their airstrikes during the battles? Their ground troops destroy our bomb shelters as they raid our places,” the resident said.  Debris and soot cover the floor of a middle school in Let Yet Kone village in Tabayin township in the Sagaing region of Myanmar the day after an airstrike hit the school, Sept. 17, 2022. Credit: Associated Press Chinese and Russian entities have sent more than US$660 million in weaponry and other arms-related equipment to the junta since the coup, according to the United Nations’ special rapporteur for Myanmar, Tom Andrews. That includes Russian-made Mi-35 military helicopters, MiG-29 and Yak-130 planes and Chinese-made K-8 jet fighters that have been used by the military to target and destroy civilian homes and buildings, Andrews said in a report last week. Pro-democracy activists, including NUG acting President Duwa Lashi La, have called on the international community to stop the junta from purchasing military equipment and technology, and to cut off its sources of jet fuel. Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar troops raid Chin state hospital, arresting doctor and nurses](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-troops-raid-chin-state-hospital-arresting-doctor-and-nurses/): Junta troops have raided a hospital in Myanmar’s northwestern Chin state, arresting a doctor and four nurses, according to a local resident. The local identified the five women as Dr. Ci Ci Lia and nurses Henny Zivalem, KhupSian Lun, San Hniang Sung and Van Niang Mawi, all ethnic Chin. “They were arrested at midnight [Sunday] and informed they would be questioned,” said the resident who declined to be named for security reasons. “Many soldiers came to the hospital at the time of the arrest.” Agape Hospital is a privately-run medical facility, set up by the Presbyterian Church in Myanmar, which said it wanted to provide basic healthcare to a state with insufficient facilities. The doctor and four nurses all joined Myanmar’s civil disobedience movement soon after the military seized power in a February 2021 coup, the local told RFA although they said the junta had not given a reason for the arrest. The five are being held at the local police station in Hakha township and have been allowed to see their families. Other residents told RFA troops arrested at least 15 people in Hakha township on Sunday evening when they checked lists of visitors staying overnight. Sunday’s raid follows a similar one on April 2 when troops arrested two doctors and a staff member at Agape Hospital. Locals say the three were freed in exchange for the release of junta officials who had been detained by the Chin People’s Defense Force in Hakha, suggesting the latest arrests may also be part of a planned prisoner exchange. RFA has not been able to confirm this independently. The Chin People’s Defense Force confirmed Sunday’s arrest of the five medical workers but did not comment on any possible prisoner swap. RFA called Chin state’s junta spokesman and social affairs minister Thant Zin Wednesday, seeking comment on the latest arrests, but the calls went unanswered. Last week the junta revoked the business licenses of three private hospitals in Myanmar’s central Mandalay region. Palace, City and Kant Kaw hospitals had already been told to stop accepting patients because they were using staff belonging to the civil disobedience movement. According to Myanmar’s parallel National Unity Government, the junta has attacked hospitals and clinics 188 times since the coup. They damaged 59 ambulances and seized 49 more, the NUG’s Ministry of Health said, adding that 71 medical workers were killed and 836 arrested in the past 27 months. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Rights attorney Yu Wensheng, wife Xu Yan ‘could be at risk of torture’ after arrest](https://ij-reportika.com/rights-attorney-yu-wensheng-wife-xu-yan-could-be-at-risk-of-torture-after-arrest/): Chinese authorities have notified the family of veteran rights lawyer Yu Wensheng and his wife Xu Yan of their formal arrest on suspicion of &#8220;picking quarrels and stirring up trouble,&#8221; a charge frequently used to target peaceful critics of the Communist Party, friends of the couple told Radio Free Asia. Yu and Xu were detained last month en route to a meeting with European Union officials in Beijing, prompting calls for their release from Brussels. U.S.-based rights lawyer Wang Qingpeng said there are now fears that Yu and Xu may be tortured in order to elicit a &#8220;confession,&#8221; given the amount of international attention generated by their arrests. &#8220;The authorities will be concerned about how this case looks &#8230; and about international attention,&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;A lot of lawyers have been warned off representing Yu Wensheng and his wife.&#8221; &#8220;Many lawyers have been tortured already, including Xie Yang, Wang Quanzhang, Chang Weiping and Zhou Shifeng,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We have reason to believe that Yu Wensheng and Xu Yan could also be tortured, so as to avoid further outside attention and attempts at rescue.&#8221; &#8220;There could be further [and more serious charges] to come, for example, &#8216;incitement to subvert state power,&#8217; which is impossible to predict right now,&#8221; Wang said. Chinese courts almost never acquit political prisoners, and the charge Yu and Xu currently face generally leads to jail terms of up to five years. Lawyers warned A friend of the couple who asked to remain anonymous said Yu&#8217;s brother received notification of his formal arrest on May 21. &#8220;According to what I have learned, Yu Wensheng has put up a great deal of resistance to the authorities since his detention,&#8221; the friend said. &#8220;His brother has also said [their detention] is unacceptable.&#8221; Police informed Yu&#8217;s brother of the change of status on Sunday, but had refused to give the family anything in writing, the brother said. &#8220;His brother tried to get a photo of the notification of arrest, but the police stopped him,&#8221; they said. &#8220;Now Yu Wensheng&#8217;s family need to find a lawyer to help him, but a lot of lawyers have been warned off doing this by the authorities.&#8221; They said police had also told the family not to try to find their own lawyer to represent the couple. Another person familiar with the case, who gave only the surname Shi, confirmed the friend&#8217;s account. &#8220;They wouldn&#8217;t let their [18-year-old] kid instruct a lawyer, and the police were also telling people that Yu Wensheng didn&#8217;t want a lawyer, and that Xu Yan had already hired two lawyers,&#8221; Shi said.  &#8220;Then the police visited the law firms [that might potentially represent Yu and Xu] and put pressure on them &#8212; the Beijing municipal judicial affairs bureau also stepped up the pressure, threatening the law firms that they would fail their annual license review,&#8221; he said.  &#8220;I don&#8217;t know whether they actually revoked any licenses or not &#8212; we won&#8217;t know until early June,&#8221; Shi said. Son alone A friend of the couple who gave only the surname Qin said he is worried about their situation, and also about their son, who is living alone in the family home under strict police surveillance, with no contact with the outside world. &#8220;It has destroyed this family, and their kid is still so young with nobody around to take care of them &#8212; it&#8217;s wrong to arrest both husband and wife together,&#8221; Qin said. The European Union lodged a protest with China after police detained veteran rights lawyer Yu Wensheng and his activist wife Xu Yan ahead of a meeting with its diplomats during a scheduled EU-China human rights dialogue on April 13. “We have already been taken away,” Yu tweeted shortly before falling silent on April 13, while the EU delegation to China tweeted on April 14: “@yuwensheng9 and @xuyan709 detained by CN authorities on their way to EU Delegation.” “We demand their immediate, unconditional release. We have lodged a protest with MFA against this unacceptable treatment,” the tweet from the EU’s embassy in China said, referring to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [New weapons law leads to roundup of activists and fighters in Myanmar cities](https://ij-reportika.com/new-weapons-law-leads-to-roundup-of-activists-and-fighters-in-myanmar-cities/): A new weapons law introduced by Myanmar’s military has led to a junta roundup of people accused of belonging to, or financing, anti-junta People’s Defense Forces, according to Saya Kyaung, an official of Yangon Underground Association People’s Defense Force. His comments come after junta-controlled newspapers reported Monday on the arrests of eight alleged members of  the Royal Phoenix Guerilla Force in Mandalay, along with five people accused of funding them. The arrested include the leader of the guerilla force, Pyae Nyein Chan, and his second-in-command, Chan Myae Oo, the papers said. Chan Myae Oo was arrested in Mandalay on April 6 and the rest were arrested over several days from May 18, reports said. A member of the Royal Phoenix Guerilla Force, who did not want to be named for security reasons, confirmed to RFA Tuesday that some members had been arrested but said civilians unconnected to the group had also been picked up by junta authorities. “Khing Khing Aung, who was among the arrested, was a civilian. She had already been arrested under Section 505 (a) and recently released from prison,” he said, referring to a section of the Penal Code that was amended after the February 2021 coup to criminalize the spreading of fake news and incitement against a junta employee. “Now she has been accused of giving financial support [to the guerilla force] and arrested on the night of May 18.” He said the military closely watches people freed after allegedly committing political crimes and often rearrests them when something happens in their neighborhoods. Newspapers reported that the three women and two men arrested along with guerilla members had been charged with financing People’s Defense Forces and keeping hand-made mines. They said the eight alleged guerilla force members had detonated nine mines in Mandalay and Sagaing regions, killing a policeman and two civilians. New weapons law The junta-controlled newspapers also reported Sunday on the May 12 arrests of 10 people, including four alleged members of the Yangon Revolution Force.  Five people were accused of giving information to the People’s Defense Force and one of funding it. They were all charged in connection with the murders of Sai Kyaw Thu, the deputy director general of the junta-appointed Union Election Commission, and his wife. The weapons law enacted on May 11 allows junta courts to impose the death penalty on members of any armed opposition group. It states that anyone armed with intent to rebel against the state, or stealing and selling state-owned arms and ammunition belonging to a person authorized to bear arms, faces a minimum of five years in prison and a maximum of life in prison or the death penalty. Saya Kyaung, an official of Yangon Underground Association, which fights junta forces in Myanmar’s commercial capital, told RFA the law is intended to weaken any attempts at an  armed people’s revolution and to instill fear in the population. More than 3,500 civilians have been killed and over 22,600 pro-democracy campaigners have been arrested since the Feb. 1, 2021 coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Cambodian court charges trio that assisted farmers with incitement](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-court-charges-trio-that-assisted-farmers-with-incitement/): A court in Cambodia’s Ratanakiri province has charged three men with incitement after they advised farmers of their constitutional rights, prompting more than 200 farmers to descend on the capital to call for their release. On the afternoon of May 17, authorities in Kratie province arrested Coalition of Cambodian Farmer Community President Theng Savoeun and 16 of his colleagues for “inciting social unrest” and “conspiracy to commit treason.” According to local rights group ADHOC, the arrests took place after the 17 met with farmers in Ratanakiri to discuss agricultural techniques and their rights as Cambodian citizens. That same day, police set 14 of the detainees free after they agreed to thumbprint a statement pledging that they would no longer conduct training sessions. The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court formally charged Theng Savoeun and two others – Thach Hach and Nhel Pheap – and ordered them detained at the provincial prison. Nearly six days later, the trio remain in detention and have been refused access to lawyers or family members – visits they are guaranteed after 24 hours in custody, according to Cambodian law. Over the weekend, some 200 farmers – mostly women – from various provinces traveled to the Ministry of Interior in Phnom Penh to demand their release, claiming that they had provided assistance and done nothing illegal. ‘My son is not a dog’ Among them was Theng Savoeun’s mother, Toch Satt, who vowed that she will not leave the premises until her son is freed. “Minister of Interior Sar Kheng, I urge you to resolve this case – get it done today or I will not go home,” she shouted in front of the ministry on Monday, three days after joining other farmers in the capital to protest the detentions.  “My son is not a dog, he is a human being,” she said. “I regret that you arrested my son, who did nothing wrong. My son serves the interests of the people.” Theng Savoeun, who is currently being detained, is the president of the Coalition of Cambodian Farmers Community, which was established in 2011 to help farmers&#8217; communities whose land was encroached. Credit: Theng Savoeun Facebook Other protesters – several of whom were carrying infants – held photos of the three detainees and cardboard signs calling for their freedom. One protester from Koh Kong province named Keut Neou told RFA Khmer that she and others had arrived in Phnom Penh to protest on May 19 and had since run out of money. She said they have been staying for free at a Buddhist temple in the suburbs, but are unable to afford rides downtown to the ministry. “We are poor people and farmers – we have no money, so we all decided to walk,” she said. Another farmer from Koh Kong named Nhel Sreymom urged Prime Minister Hun Sen and his wife, Bun Rany, to help find justice for the three detainees. “Please, Samdech father and mother, help find a solution for them,” she said, using an honorific for the prime minister. “These three people are innocent.”  ‘Planning peasant revolution’ Ministry of Interior officials on Monday met with 10 farmers’ representatives and accepted a petition calling for their release. The officials said Hun Sen will examine and consider their demands. ADHOC human rights spokesperson Soeung Senkaruna urged the Ratanakiri court to reconsider the charges against Theng Savoeun, Thach Hach and Nhel Pheap. “If the charges still have reasonable doubt, the court should hold off on the charges because, from my view, Theng Savoeun has done a lot of work to help farmers to supplement the assistance of the government,” he said. Attempts by RFA to contact Ratanakiri Provincial Police Commissioner Ung Sopheap and Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak about the case went unanswered Monday. However, Khieu Sopheak told local media group CamboJa on May 19 that Theng Savoeun and his associates were involved in “planning a peasant revolution.” About 200 farmers across the country protest in front of the Ministry of Interior to demand the release of Theng Savoeun, president of the Coalition of Cambodian Farmers Community and two of his associates who are being detained. Credit: Citizen journalist The Cambodian Farmers&#8217; Community Association has vehemently denied the allegations, saying it only instructed farmers on agricultural laws and techniques. The group, which claims to have a membership of around 20,000 people across Cambodia, was founded in 2011 to assist farmers from 10 communities who say their land was encroached on. ‘Crackdown’ on rights groups Local rights groups – including LICADHO, ADHOC and the Cambodian Center for the Defense of Human Rights – are monitoring the case and told RFA that the arrests not only threaten the Cambodian Farmers&#8217; Community Association, but also undermine the work of civil society. The case has also drawn the attention of international rights groups, including New York-based Human Rights Watch. Deputy Asia Director Phil Robertson said his organization was “appalled” by the arrests and violation of laws that allow the three access to lawyers, calling it an example of how authorities “blatantly violate basic freedoms of association and expression, and totally disregard Cambodia’s international human rights obligations.” Robertson also called authorities out for harassing supporters demanding the trio’s release, noting that police in Koh Kong stopped a minivan carrying Cambodian Farmers&#8217; Community Association members and prevented them from leaving the province. He linked the arrests to what he called a “crackdown” on NGOs and civil society groups in Cambodia ahead of the July 23 general election, “where any sort of challenge, real or perceived, to the government is met with a maximum display of intimidation and punishment.” “Cambodia should immediately and unconditionally let the CCFC 3 go free, and halt the campaign of harassment and abuse against the CCFC and other Cambodian NGOs who dare to stand up and exercise their civil and political rights,” Robertson said. Illegal land grabs by developers or individuals are not uncommon in Cambodia, where officials and bureaucrats can be bribed to provide bogus land titles. Disputes over land...
- [Papua New Guinea, United States deepen relations with defense pact signing](https://ij-reportika.com/papua-new-guinea-united-states-deepen-relations-with-defense-pact-signing/): The United States signed a defense cooperation agreement on Monday with Papua New Guinea, and announced other security and humanitarian support, in a deepening of its relationship with the most populous Pacific island country. Papua New Guinea’s capital Port Moresby also hosted India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a summit with leaders of 14 Pacific island countries, underscoring the increased geopolitical competition in the vast ocean region where China’s diplomatic relations have burgeoned. The defense agreement is “mutually beneficial,” Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape said at the signing ceremony.  “In the context of Papua New Guinea it secures our national interest,” he said, predicting it would help the country, one of the poorest in the region, to develop a “robust economy.” Responding to domestic criticism of the defense agreement, Marape said, “this signing in no way, shape and form encroaches into our sovereignty.”  U.S. President Joe Biden had planned to stop over in Papua New Guinea on Monday before attending a meeting in Sydney with the leaders of Australia, Japan and India. He canceled the trip to focus on high-stakes Federal debt-limit negotiations, in an apparent setback for U.S. efforts to exert influence in the Pacific.  U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who traveled to Port Moresby in the president’s place, said he carried an invitation from Biden to Pacific leaders to visit Washington in the fall. As part of efforts to counter Beijing’s influence in the Pacific, Biden hosted a meeting of Pacific island leaders in September last year in Washington.  “Simply put we are committed to growing all aspects of our relationship,” Blinken said at the defense agreement signing ceremony. The pact, he said, would be transparent to the public and make it easier for the two countries&#8217; defense forces to train together and improve the capacity of Papua New Guinea’s military to respond to natural disasters. China, over several decades, has become a substantial source of trade, infrastructure and aid for developing Pacific island countries as it seeks to isolate Taiwan diplomatically and build its own set of global institutions.  Last year, China signed a security pact with the Solomon Islands, alarming the U.S. and its allies such as Australia. The Solomons and Kiribati switched their diplomatic recognition to Beijing from Taiwan in 2019. Modi, in his speech to Pacific leaders, did not specifically mention China but said his country was committed to a “free and open Indo Pacific,” the U.S. terminology for a vast region spanning the Indian and Pacific oceans. Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown, speaking at a U.S.-Pacific island leaders meeting, said there was a “level of disappointment” in Biden’s cancellation. He also said he welcomed the fall invitation. ‘Intrusion’ into PNG affairs The defense cooperation agreement between Papua New Guinea and the U.S. has been criticized by some analysts and groups such as the PNG Trade Union Congress as being overly accommodative to Washington’s interests. Australia’s Sky TV reported on what it said was a leaked draft version of the agreement last week. “It is the processes our government followed and the motivation behind fast tracking the processes with zero public consultation and parliament debate [that] opens up public debate to all sorts of conclusions,” said Anton Sekum, acting general secretary of the Trade Union Congress, in a statement on Monday. “Any agreement that will have elements of intrusion into our sovereignty and may put the country in harm&#8217;s way must not be done without all citizens&#8217; consent,” he said. Elias Wohengu, secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs, who was Papua New Guinea’s chief negotiator in the defense cooperation talks, said there was no factual basis to rumors that U.S. military personnel who broke Papua New Guinea’s laws would enjoy immunity from prosecution.  Speculation it would preclude defense agreements with other countries and required changes to Papua New Guinea’s laws was also incorrect, he said. “There is no immunity in this agreement for any foreign personnel that will be present in Papua New Guinea,” Wohengu told a press conference on the weekend. “If a crime is committed, punishment will be carried out. So anyone who goes out spreading rumors that we will be providing immunity to offenders is wrong,” he said. The State Department said the text of the defense cooperation agreement would be made public when it comes into force.  Papua New Guinea’s Ministry of Defense said it would hold a question and answer session for civil society groups and journalists at its headquarters on Tuesday. Papua New Guinea and the U.S. also signed a shiprider agreement that provides the basis for personnel from the Pacific island country to work on U.S. coast guard and naval vessels, and vice versa, in targeting economic and security weaknesses such as illegal fishing.  Among other support announced by the State Department, the U.S. government will supply $12.4 million of equipment to Papua New Guinea’s defense force.  It includes $5.4 million of body armor, provided earlier this month, such as ballistic helmets and flak vests with armor plates. Some $7 million will be provided for military dress uniforms for Papua New Guinea’s 50th independence events in 2025. The U.S. is also exploring warehousing of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief supplies in Papua New Guinea.  BenarNews is an RFA&#8211;affiliated news organization.
- [In North Korea, ‘Judas’ is nickname for informer and betrayer](https://ij-reportika.com/in-north-korea-judas-is-nickname-for-informer-and-betrayer/): ‘Judas’ has become a scornful nickname for informers in North Korea. For example, when a girl confided in her friend during the COVID-19 pandemic that she planned to escape North Korea once the border with China reopened, she was brought before authorities and punished.  Residents began calling the friend who sold her out “a modern-day Judas,” a woman from Kimjongsuk county, in the northern province of Ryanggang, told Radio Free Asia on condition of anonymity for security reasons.  “After this incident, whenever the informant passes by, other people in the neighborhood turn their backs on him and curse him as Judas,” the woman said. “Authorities who encourage the informants are called Judas as well.” The reference to the disciple who betrayed Jesus in the New Testament might be surprising given that Christianity has been illegal in the country for nearly 120 years. It is not a new term because underground Christians – who are persecuted in North Korea – are familiar with it. And Christianity does have roots in the country. Pyongyang was once such a bastion of Christians that it was called “Jerusalem of the East.”   Korea was one of the only places in East Asia where Christianity had staying power after it was introduced in the 17th century. But came to an end once the peninsula fell to Japanese rule in 1905 and Shinto became the state religion, pushing believers underground. At the end of World War II in 1945, Christian missionaries returned to Korea, but only in the south, as the Soviet-occupied north forbade religion. Once North Korea was officially established in 1948, Christianity and other religions were completely outlawed, and the church remained underground. Efforts to stamp out Christianity But the nickname does appear to be used more widely these days. The fact that people are still aware of the story of Judas, who betrayed Jesus to the Romans for 30 pieces of silver, indicates that despite North Korea’s best efforts to stamp out Christianity, the religion still maintains a presence there.  “People who lack loyalty or who stab their friends in the back are cursed as ‘Judas,’” a man living in Pyongsong, South Pyongan province, north of Pyongyang, told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “The five-household propagandist, who reports the movements of people and even trivial words to the police, is also called ‘Judas’ by his peers,” he said. The five-household watch is a sophisticated surveillance system in which paid informants, called propagandists, are tasked with monitoring five households in their neighborhoods. Five-household propagandists are enthusiastic Party members selected from factories and schools for exhibiting traits of loyalty.   “As the public sentiment has worsened due to the prolonged COVID-19 crisis, the authorities are focusing on monitoring the residents by mobilizing the informants,” the South Pyongan resident said. “As if that was not enough, the authorities secretly planted more informants in the neighborhoods.”  “In response, the residents are criticizing the authorities for creating distrust among the residents, telling them not to trust anyone, because they do not know who could be ‘Judas.’” North Korean authorities have tried hard to eliminate Christianity from the country, but believers are still there – though it’s impossible to know how many. The international Christian missionary organization Open Doors, citing a trusted North Korean source, described how in 2022 dozens of members of an underground church were discovered and executed, and more than 100 of their family members were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [INTERVIEW: 'They threatened to arrest us both together'](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-they-threatened-to-arrest-us-both-together/): A Chinese rights activist who openly supported the &#8220;white paper&#8221; protest movement of November 2022 has applied for political asylum in the Netherlands after learning that he could be targeted as part of an ongoing case against his dissident father. Zhang Hongyuan, son of veteran Wuhan-based rights activist Zhang Yi, flew from Beijing to Amsterdam on April 13 after learning that he was being named as a co-defendant alongside his father, who is being targeted for giving interviews to overseas media organizations during the Wuhan lockdown of 2020. He spoke to RFA Mandarin about his current situation: RFA: Where are you right now? Zhang Hongyuan: I am now in a town in the Netherlands, about a 20-minute drive from The Hague. RFA: When did you leave the immigration detention center? Zhang Hongyuan: They eventually decided to put me in this open camp after I had been in the immigration detention center for 12 days. I had my first interview with the immigration bureau in the detention center. After I stayed in the immigration prison for twelve days, they finally decided to put me in this open camp. I completed [two interviews] with the immigration bureau in the immigration prison. RFA: You shot some video of the “white paper” protest that went viral. Was this the main reason for your political asylum application? #武汉 2022/11/27夜晚11点 中山大道（汉正街站） pic.twitter.com/dAykIJMyAs — 自由亚洲电台 (@RFA_Chinese) November 27, 2022 Zhang Hongyuan: It&#8217;s one of the reasons. I did get video from the [police] clearance of the demonstration on Hanzheng Street in Wuhan, although the people who were actually holding up blank sheets of paper weren&#8217;t on Hanzheng Street, but on Yiyuan Road. The real reason I am seeking political asylum is that we received news that they are planning to prosecute me alongside my father as a co-defendant because my father gave interviews to foreign media during the pandemic. RFA: How did you come by that information? Zhang Hongyuan: People linked to the case told us, but I can&#8217;t disclose the details. RFA: Does that mean someone in the government? Zhang Hongyuan: Yes. RFA: Lots of people spoke to foreign media during the lockdown, so what is so special about Zhang Yi&#8217;s case? Zhang Hongyuan: It&#8217;s because we were in Wuhan, and he was giving interviews to any foreign media that asked, all the way through lockdown. And because foreign journalists would let him know they wanted to interview him by calling his Chinese cell phone [without messaging first], the police would have known about it straight away, even though we never actually gave interviews on the phone. We found a safer way of giving the interview later.  In the end, the police told my father that he had been interviewed by more than 60 different media organizations around the world. My father didn&#8217;t even realize how many there were because he didn&#8217;t count them. RFA: What is your father&#8217;s situation now? Zhang Hongyuan: Right now he&#8217;s in Wuhan. First off, the [ruling Chinese Communist Party&#8217;s] political and legal affairs committee of Hubei province want to arrest him, and the central political and legal affairs committee [in Beijing] wanted to make it an open-and-shut case and asked the Hubei political and legal affairs committee to find a way. They wanted [me] as his son to be arrested alongside him and charged as a co-defendant. Then they found out I had left the country after you reported that I was seeking asylum, and now my father is under round-the-clock surveillance, with guards at his door. There is a car downstairs outside our apartment building with a team of three people following him 24/7. It seems they are getting ready to detain him at any time. I&#8217;ve been able to leave [China], but there&#8217;s no way he will be able to. RFA: Was there any other reason why the Hubei government has been keeping such a close eye on Zhang Yi? Zhang Hongyuan: Yes. Because he has been calling for the release of [disappeared pandemic journalist] Fang Bin for the past three years &#8230; in interviews with foreign media.  Wuhan-based activist Zhang Yi and his son Zhang Hongyuan. Credit: Provided by Zhang Hongyuan RFA: Why did the government take action against you, when it was your father who was giving the interviews? Zhang Hongyuan: Because I’m his weakness. They threaten him by threatening to arrest us both together, I think that&#8217;s [official] Chinese logic. Also, I assisted him with the interviews, because all of his encrypted chats required circumvention tools to get around the Great Firewall [of internet censorship]. When he was interviewed by the Voice of America, some of the communication was done via email like Gmail, and I also helped him use software like Skype and WhatsApp. RFA: So it was just technical assistance? Zhang Hongyuan: Yes, technical assistance. But after he was interviewed, when the police came to threaten him, I also shot a video of them that was broadcast by Japanese TV station NHK. RFA: During the &#8220;white paper&#8221; movement, you said that you witnessed protests on Hanzheng Street? Zhang Hongyuan: Yes. Hanzheng Street is a wholesale shopping mall in Wuhan, and it supports large numbers of people, but under the strict lockdown conditions, they had no way to work and no food to eat. Then came the white paper movement after the Urumqi incident, and the whole country marched together. Even in Wuhan, they began to hold demonstrations against the strict zero-COVID policy. RFA: Were there any political slogans shouted on Hanzheng Street, for example calling on Xi Jinping to step down? Zhang Hongyuan: By the time I got there on Nov. 27, 2022, it was night, and they were clearing the protesters away. I didn&#8217;t hear any slogans like that. RFA: How did your escape from China go? Zhang Hongyuan: The process was relatively smooth, although I was very apprehensive as I was leaving. One worry was that the airline would stop me from boarding, and the other was that the border...
- [Guangdong court jails veteran dissident for 3 years over foreign media reports](https://ij-reportika.com/guangdong-court-jails-veteran-dissident-for-3-years-over-foreign-media-reports/): A court in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou on Thursday jailed veteran dissident Wang Aizhong for three years after he retweeted foreign media reports on Chinese social media platforms. The Tianhe District People&#8217;s Court handed down the jail term after finding Wang guilty of &#8220;picking quarrels and stirring up troubles,&#8221; a charge frequently used to target peaceful critics of the ruling Chinese Communist Party. The court found that Wang had &#8220;used social media platforms to quote and repost false reports in the foreign media about China&#8217;s political system.&#8221; Wang, 46, also stood accused of &#8220;adding false information that seriously damaged China&#8217;s image&#8221; and of causing &#8220;serious public disorder,&#8221; it said. Police threw a security cordon around the court building, with plainclothes and uniformed officers patrolling nearby streets, and took Wang&#8217;s wife Wang Henan to attend the trial, escorted by state security police, she told Radio Free Asia. &#8220;One man and two women from the state security police sent a special car to meet me downstairs from our apartment and take me to the court,&#8221; Wang Henan said. &#8220;The two women watched me the whole time.&#8221; She described the sentence handed to her husband as &#8220;a joke.&#8221; &#8220;It&#8217;s an absolute joke, and we totally refuse to accept it,&#8221; she said. &#8220;His lawyers have argued all along that Aizhong is innocent, because nothing that he said added up to a crime.&#8221; ‘A way of keeping me quiet’ Wang Henan said she was prevented from attending the pretrial conference with her husband and his defense team, despite not having seen him in two years. &#8220;They don&#8217;t want me to know too much about the process and content of the trial,&#8221; she said. &#8220;It&#8217;s a way of keeping me quiet and stopping me from posting something publicly.&#8221; &#8220;They also want to torture me psychologically because I love Aizhong, and I haven&#8217;t seen him for two years,&#8221; Wang Henan said. Outside the courtroom, police were stationed on nearby sidewalks in a bid to prevent Wang&#8217;s supporters from showing up for him. &#8220;There are plainclothes police officers dotted along more than one kilometer from the court gates, all the way to the subway entrance,&#8221; a Guangzhou resident who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals told Radio Free Asia. &#8220;I&#8217;m guessing there are about 70-80 of them in total, and seven or eight of them are currently surrounding me,&#8221; he said. &#8220;One of them asked to see my ID &#8230; then I was told to leave immediately or I would be taken to the police station.&#8221; Fellow rights activist Liang Yiming said Wang&#8217;s online comments had always been very moderate, and that had only been exercising his constitutional right to freedom of speech. &#8220;Take the pandemic in Wuhan,&#8221; Liang said. &#8220;Wang Aizhong once called on them to disclose the number of deaths, but the authorities felt that this would cause panic.&#8221; &#8220;They don&#8217;t like people to be so proactive, but we as citizens have the right to question them, or why would we pay our taxes and fund a government that just does whatever it wants,&#8221; he said. Guangzhou protests The length of Wang&#8217;s sentence likely means he will be released in May 2024, after time already served is deducted from the sentence. The family has indicated that it supports him in appealing the sentence. Wang was initially detained at his home in Guangdong&#8217;s provincial capital, Guangzhou in May 2021, and his apartment searched by police, who confiscated reading materials and computer devices. He had been a key activist during protests in Guangzhou in January 2013 that were sparked by the rewriting of a New Year&#8217;s Day Southern Media Group editorial calling for constitutional government. Activists, journalists, and academics faced off with the authorities for several days after the Southern Weekend newspaper was forced to change a New Year editorial calling for political reform into a tribute praising the Chinese Communist Party. The protest was one of the first overt calls by members of the public for political freedom since large-scale pro-democracy demonstrations were crushed in a military crackdown in Beijing&#8217;s Tiananmen Square in 1989. He was later detained in 2014 on suspicion of the same charge, shortly before the 25th anniversary of the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen massacre. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Anti-junta militia members escape from prison in Myanmar’s Bago region](https://ij-reportika.com/anti-junta-militia-members-escape-from-prison-in-myanmars-bago-region/): Myanmar police and troops are searching for nine People’s Defense Force members who were among 10 that escaped from a prison in Myanmar’s Bago region, the junta said Friday. Its information group said that nine men and one woman escaped from Taungoo Prison. One was shot dead by guards. The jailbreak took place Thursday afternoon after the prisoners were taken from their cells to go on trial, according to a People’s Defense Force member who declined to be named. “Ten prisoners were brought to court in the prison and they grabbed guns from the prison guard who came along with them and ran away,” he said.  “They breached the prison walls and fought [against their pursuers].” One prisoner was shot dead as the two sides exchanged fire, the PDF member confirmed. RFA asked to speak with the nine prisoners still at liberty but the defense force declined, citing the need to protect them. A prison guard was also believed to have been killed, according to Tun Kyi, a member of the Former Political Prisoners Society. “Some of the junta-affiliated Pyu Saw Htee were working together with the prison authorities to provide security, but we could say that this operation was successful,” he said. “A sergeant was reportedly killed. A revolver and a G3 rifle were taken.” Nearly 22,500 political activists have been arrested since the February 2021 coup according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, another group of former political prisoners, operating from Thailand. More than 18,000 are still being held in prisons across Myanmar. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Rohingya struggle in Myanmar camps devastated by cyclone](https://ij-reportika.com/rohingya-struggle-in-myanmar-camps-devastated-by-cyclone/): Rohingya living in camps in the Sittwe, Myanmar, area continued to struggle Thursday amid the widespread destruction caused by Cyclone Mocha over the weekend. “Urgent needs include shelter, clean water, food assistance and health care services,” the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance said in a flash update Wednesday. “There are rising concerns in flooded areas about the spread of waterborne disease.” About 130,000 Rohingya have lived for more than a decade in camps for internally displaced persons in the area. During the storm, the sea level suddenly rose nearly 10 meters (30 feet) and almost all the huts in one camp were washed away, said Nay San Lwin, co-founder of the Free Rohingya Coalition. According to the Health Cluster, an arm of the World Health Organization, mobile clinics have begun operating in some of the affected Myanmar townships, and rapid response teams have been deployed to some of the camps, including Dar Paing.
- [Myanmar’s junta shuts down 3 Mandalay hospitals](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-junta-shuts-down-3-mandalay-hospitals/): The junta has revoked the business licenses of three private hospitals in Myanmar’s central Mandalay region, it announced this week. Palace, City and Kant Kaw hospitals had already been told to stop accepting patients because they were using staff belonging to the civil disobedience movement. An order signed Monday by Dr. Myat Wunna Soe, secretary of the junta-led Private Health Industry Central Group said the licenses were revoked because the hospitals failed to comply with the licensing rules in Section 19 (a) of the Law Relating to Private Health Care Services. This vague clause stipulates only that “a person who obtains a license for any private health care services shall … comply with the terms and conditions of the license.” The junta arrested urologist and kidney surgeon Dr. Win Khaing, on Dec. 25 last year while he was working at the Palace Hospital. The Mandalay University professor had been participating in the civil disobedience movement following the coup in February 2021. Dr. Win Khaing, a urologist and kidney surgeon who was arrested on Dec. 25, 2023, is seen in this file photograph. Credit: Citizen journalist The junta detained several more disobedience movement doctors in Mandalay in the days that followed his arrest. On Jan. 1, 2023, the junta ordered the temporary closure of five Mandalay hospitals, including the Palace, City and Kant Kaw. No announcement has been made about the other two hospitals. RFA’s calls to the junta spokesman for Mandalay region, Thein Htay, seeking comment on the decision to revoke the licenses, went unanswered. The junta has cracked down on doctors who voice opposition to the military, sacking 557 and revoking their medical licenses for one year. The Ministry of Health of the shadow National Unity Government announced on April 20 this year that 71 health workers had been killed and 836 arrested in the more than two years since the coup. It said the junta attacked and seized equipment from 188 clinics and hospitals, damaged 59 ambulances and seized 49 more. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Vietnam denies UN inquiries about alleged repression of Khmer Krom minority](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-denies-un-inquiries-about-alleged-repression-of-khmer-krom-minority/): The Vietnamese government has denied allegations from United Nations experts that it represses the Khmer Krom minority living in the Mekong Delta region.  The nearly 1.3-million strong ethnic group live in a part of Vietnam that was once southeastern Cambodia, and face widespread discrimination in Vietnam and suspicion in Cambodia, where they are often perceived not as Cambodians but as Vietnamese. Scores of Khmer Krom asylum seekers reside in Thailand. Seven special U.N. rapporteurs operating under Human Rights Council mandates sent a 16-page letter to Hanoi on Oct. 18 about information it received concerning the country’s alleged failure to recognize the right to self-determination of the Khmer Krom as an indigenous people.  The experts said they had also received evidence of alleged violations of the group&#8217;s freedom of expression, association and religion as well as their cultural and linguistic rights and land use rights. Concerns were also raised about Khmer Krom men detained by police and questioned for their activism, namely Duong Khai, Thach Cuong, Danh Set, Tang Thuy and Thach Rine.  Of the five, authorities arrested and jailed Rine in October 2021 on charges of “abusing democratic freedoms” for wearing a T-shirt with the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals logo. He was released in April 2022 without having had a fair trial or access to his family and lawyer, the letter said. “While we do not wish to prejudge the accuracy of these allegations, we are expressing our serious concern at what may constitute arbitrary arrest and ill-treatment of Khmer Krom persons with the aim of suppressing their right to freedom of expression, as well as the Khmer Krom Indigenous Peoples’ cultural and linguistic rights,” the letter said. 60 days to respond The U.N. experts gave the Vietnamese government 60 days to respond to its concerns and explain measures and regulations that it has taken to ensure the protection and rights of the Khmer Krom as an indigenous people. Vietnam’s permanent mission to the U.N. office in Geneva refuted the accusations in a response dated May 10.  “The accusations stated in the Joint Communication distort the history and socioeconomic development situation with many false information about the State of Viet Nam’s policies and laws towards the ethnic minority communities in guaranteeing and promoting the rights as well as taking care of the lives of ethnic minorities, including the Khmer people,” the letter said. “In addition, the accusations about the individuals mentioned in the Joint Communication are also untrue, stem from unofficial sources, bear heavy arbitrariness and lack objectivity,” it said. The letter went on to say that the concept of “indigenous peoples” is not suitable with the characteristics, history of establishment and development of Vietnam’s ethnic groups. “In other words, in Viet Nam, there is no concept of indigenous peoples,” it said. Tran Mannrinth, a member of Khmer Kampuchea-Krom Federation, a human rights NGO, told Radio Free Asia that many young people from the ethnic group are discouraged from learning the Khmer language because books printed in Cambodia are not permitted in Vietnam, and  Khmer-language material printed in Vietnam is full of mistakes by the ethnic-majority Kinh authors.  “Vietnam finds ways to deny; however, if it does not know what indigenous people are, then how could it [endorse] the U.N. declaration?,” he asked, referring to Vietnam’s vote in favor of the adoption of the U.N.&#8217;s legally nonbinding Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007. Tran Mannrith, who lived in Lai Hoa village with other ethnic Khmer Krom before permanently resettling in the United States in 1985, lamented the group’s loss of agricultural land to collectivization when Vietnam was reunified in 1975 and resettlement efforts that followed “During the time of war between Vietnam and [Cambodia’s] Khmer Rouge, Khmer people living near the border in Chau Doc were forced to move to other places,” he said. “After the fall of Khmer Rouge, the displaced people were allowed home, but most of their land and property was lost to other people.”  Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Cyclone Mocha destroys camp housing 700 in Myanmar’s Magway region](https://ij-reportika.com/cyclone-mocha-destroys-camp-housing-700-in-myanmars-magway-region/): As news slowly emerges about the extent of damage caused by Sunday’s cyclone, residents of a township in Myanmar’s Magway region told RFA Wednesday that Mocha destroyed a displaced persons camp housing more than 700 people. The cyclone brought torrential rains, causing a local creek to burst its banks and flood the camp in Tilin township’s Htan Pin Kone village on Sunday, according to one resident, who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons. He said it destroyed all the 200 tents in the camp, set up on the banks of the creek. People were forced to move to the camp because junta troops repeatedly carried out maneuvers near Htan Pin Kone village, which has around 250 houses, the resident told RFA Wednesday. “The troop pass near Htan Pin Kone village whenever they conduct offensives on the western part of Tilin township, so the village is quite insecure. That’s why the whole village moved to a safer place, so there are a lot of displaced people,” he said. According to the latest report from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) 2,462 people were relocated from their homes in two Magway townships before the cyclone hit. It said 3,676 houses in 98 villages in the region were damaged by heavy rains and flash floods. Cyclone Mocha hit Myanmar’s coast Sunday with winds reaching over 220 kilometers per hour (137 mph). Preliminary figures compiled exclusively by RFA confirmed at least 31 deaths due to the cyclone in Rakhine and Chin states, and Ayeyarwady, Magway and Sagaing regions. On Tuesday, the National Unity Government updated its estimated death toll to 435 across the country, with an unspecified number still missing. The United Nations said Tuesday that 16 million people were potentially exposed to Mocha, including more than 1.2 million who were already internally displaced.  Its Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said early estimates indicated nearly 3.2 million people in Rakhine state and Myanmar’s northwest were the most vulnerable and considered likely to have humanitarian needs in the wake of the cyclone. The International Rescue Committee said Wednesday is deeply concerned about the communities, especially those living in displaced persons camps. It said it is responding to the needs of communities affected by Cyclone Mocha in Bangladesh and Myanmar and appealed for more funding for humanitarian work in Myanmar. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Republicans pummel top officials over China policy at Senate hearing](https://ij-reportika.com/republicans-pummel-top-officials-over-china-policy-at-senate-hearing/): Republicans ripped into Cabinet officials during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on efforts to enhance U.S. security measures and the nation’s ability to compete with China. Three Cabinet members defended President Joe Biden&#8217;s budgetary request. The presence Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, a rare triple act, showed the importance of China policy for the White House. Biden administration officials have asked members of Congress for $842 billion in defense spending for the next fiscal year, in part to deter the threat of a potential military conflict with China. This year’s budgetary request is 3.2% more than the one made last year, and approximately 13% higher than the year before that. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, said during the hearing that the president’s budget was inadequate to counter the threat from China, however. He said the proposed budget did not include enough funding for the Navy or other branches of the military. Overall, the budget proposal was a sign of the president’s weak approach to China, said Graham. He used an expletive to describe his assessment of the president’s policy: “This idea that we have a strong China policy is a bunch of [expletive].” Secretary of State Antony Blinken [left] speaks with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., before a Senate Appropriations hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, May 16, 2023. Credit: Associated Press Another Republican member of the committee, Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas, said during the hearing that he has been disappointed in the president’s record on trade agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In contrast, Moran said, China has been aggressively pursuing trade agreements and gaining a competitive advantage. Tensions between the U.S. and China have escalated in recent months, as both the witnesses at the hearing and the Republicans on the committee agreed. Austin described China’s “bullying and its provocations” in the Indo-Pacific region. U.S. military leaders are now trying to beef up their forces in order to defend Taiwan, if it becomes necessary, and to defend the island nation against the Chinese military.  “The United States will soon provide significant additional security assistance to Taiwan,” he said. Earlier this month, as Reuters reported, Biden White House officials had agreed to send $500 million worth of weapons aid to Taiwan. Competition with China Commerce Secretary Raimondo said the president’s proposed budget includes resources that are “critical for national security.” She warned about the danger from Beijing, saying that, “China is doubling down on its competitiveness with the U.S.” Senate Democrats on the spending panel sought to use the threat to frame the broader budget debate in Washington, as the White House and congressional Republicans remain at an impasse in negotiations to raise the nation’s debt limit. Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, met again Tuesday to negotiate an extension without success. According to estimates, the U.S. government could run out of money to pay its bills in two weeks. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray, a Democrat for Washington state, warned that steep budget cuts of the kind House Republicans are pushing, even if they wouldn&#8217;t come from the Pentagon, would hand China an edge as it tries to supplant the United States as the dominant world power. “China is not debating whether to pay its debt or wreck its economy,” Murray said.
- [Nearly 400 feared dead after Cyclone Mocha hit Myanmar’s Rakhine state](https://ij-reportika.com/nearly-400-feared-dead-after-cyclone-mocha-hit-myanmars-rakhine-state/): Nearly 400 Rohingya refugees in Myanmar’s Rakhine state were probably killed by Cyclone Mocha, the country’s parallel National Unity Government and local aid workers told RFA Tuesday.  The NUG said the figure was based on estimates of the damage, since search and rescue teams have not retrieved the bodies and many victims are still missing. The figure has not been independently verified by RFA. Volunteers from the Muslim Aid and Relief Society who are collecting field data said most of the dead were children, pregnant women and the elderly. They said they are still searching for bodies. Aung Kyaw Moe, a Rohingya advisor to the National Unity Government, told RFA Tuesday the majority of the victims were from Sittwe township. “Some are still missing. This is in Sittwe alone,” he said.  “Bodies were found on the streets and under trees. Search and rescue has not been done yet so we can’t pick up the bodies. All the refugee camps were badly damaged.” He said that the actual number of casualties could be much higher. ‘Refugee camps are open-roof prisons’. There are 21 Rohingya refugee camps in Rakhine state with 120,000 refugees staying in 13 camps in Sittwe township. Nay San Lwin, co-founder of the Free Rohingya Coalition, said the refugees were housed in makeshift tents which were mostly destroyed when the cyclone hit. “Most of the Rohingya refugee camps did not have time to evacuate [ahead of] the cyclone,” he said.  “Lives are lost when there are no shelters to evacuate the cyclone. The tents were destroyed. Refugee camps are open-roof prisons.” Residents of Sittwe township said that most of the camps were built close to the sea, leaving them vulnerable to heavy waves, coastal winds and torrential rainfall. Nearly 1 million Rohingya were forced to leave their homes in Rakhine state following a military crackdown against the Muslim-minory in 2017. About 740,000 fled to Bangladesh and live in Cox’s Bazar, also hit hard by Cyclone Mocha. Those who remained live in internally displaced persons camps, poorly funded by the junta and volunteer groups. Collecting information on cyclone victims has been hard because there are only a few volunteers from the Muslim community collecting data in the field, a member of the data collection team told RFA, speaking on condition of anonymity. It is also hard to collect data on the ground after Sittwe’s largest telecommunications tower collapsed when the cyclone hit it on May 14, cutting phone lines and internet access. RFA’s calls to the junta spokesman for Rakhine state, Hla Thein, went unanswered Tuesday. Cyclone Mocha hit Myanmar’s coast Sunday with sustained winds reaching over 220 kilometers per hour (137 mph). According to preliminary figures compiled exclusively by RFA, there have been at least 30 deaths due to the cyclone in Rakhine and Chin states, and Ayeyarwady, Magway and Sagaing regions . Rakhine state and Ayeyarwady region were hit hard by Cyclone Nargis in 2008, leaving nearly 140,000 people dead or missing. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Cyclone Mocha inflicts heavy damage on Myanmar’s Rakhine state](https://ij-reportika.com/cyclone-mocha-inflicts-heavy-damage-on-myanmars-rakhine-state/): Cyclone Mocha may have been less deadly than predicted, but it inflicted heavy damage on Myanmar’s Rakhine state, including the capital of Sittwe.  On Monday, a day after the storm slammed into the coast, images from the city and surrounding area showed flattened homes, roads blocked by fallen electricity pylons, splintered remains of trees and widespread flooding. Power was cut off to Sittwe, a city of about 150,000. “Ninety percent of Sittwe township … is damaged or under debris,” aid and relief groups told Radio Free Asia.  A precise death toll was hard to nail down. At least 30 people are believed dead, based on reports by local media and residents of the affected regions. Myanmar’s junta had said three people died, while the shadow National Unity Government – made up of opponents of the junta – put the figure at 18. Those figures are far lower than feared. Cyclone Nargis, which hit the same area in 2008, left nearly 140,000 dead or missing. The storm hit the coast on Sunday with sustained winds reaching over 220 kilometers per hour (137 mph). “Buildings have been badly damaged,” said a woman who lives in the Sittwe’s Lanmadaw (South) ward, asking not to be identified. “The monastery in front of my house is completely destroyed. Not one house is left undamaged.” The low-lying areas of Sittwe were inundated with flooding, she said, leaving residents to contend with brackish and, in some places, chest-deep water from the Bay of Bengal. “Piles of mud have been left inside the buildings,” she said. “Since there is no electricity, we haven’t been able to clean them … The roof of my house is almost gone and there is water downstairs. We don’t know what to do to clean them up.” Local residents stand on a broken bridge at the Khaung Dote Khar Rohingya refugee camp in Sittwe, Myanmar, Monday, May 15, 2023, after cyclone Mocha made a landfall. Credit: AFP A Sittwe firefighter told RFA that floodwaters in the city were “still as high as 1.5 meters (5 feet) in the low-lying areas” and that evacuated residents were waiting for word from the Rakhine state government to return to their homes. Impact in Bangladesh Meanwhile, in neighboring Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar to the west, some 1.2 million Rohingyas living in refugee camps after fleeing a military offensive in Rakhine state in 2017 remained largely unscathed by the cyclone, despite earlier fears that the mostly unprotected camps lay directly in the storm’s crosshairs. But while no casualties were reported in the aftermath of the cyclone, Rohingya refugees told RFA that thousands of homes were damaged in the sprawling camps due to strong winds, landslides, and flooding. &#8220;About 500 homes were damaged in our camp alone,” said Aung Myaing, a refugee at the Kutupalong camp in Cox’s Bazar. “About 10,000 homes in all refugee camps combined have been damaged. Some houses have been completely destroyed while others have been partially damaged.” He said camp residents are in need of bamboo and tarps to help shore up the damage. RFA-affiliated BenarNews reported that Mocha had destroyed more than 2,800 shelters, learning centers, health centers and other infrastructure in refugee camps in the neighboring sub-districts of Teknaf and Ukhia, citing Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, refugee relief and repatriation commissioner. He noted that landslides were also reported at 120 spots in the Rohingya camps. Rahman said there were no casualties because “we relocated them at an appropriate time.” ‘Trail of devastation’ In a flash update on Monday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance called Mocha “one of the strongest cyclones ever to hit the country” and said the storm had left a “trail of devastation” in Rakhine state, which is also home to tens of thousands of people displaced by conflict in the aftermath of the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup d’etat. “Few houses have escaped damage in Sittwe and there is widespread destruction of flimsy bamboo longhouses in displacement camps,” UNOCHA said. “Health, relief items, shelter, and water, sanitation, and hygiene needs are already being reported. Explosive ordnance risks are high in conflict-affected rural areas where landmines may have been shifted during flooding and where people have been on the move to safer areas.” A downed tree lies on a building in Sittwe, Myanmar, Monday, May 15, 2023. Credit: Citizen journalist Damage to telecommunications towers has severely hampered the flow of information in Rakhine, while water and power services were disrupted throughout the day on Monday, forcing residents to rely on generators for electricity. Relief efforts underway UNOCHA said humanitarian partners are starting assessments to confirm the magnitude of the damage in Sittwe and the Rakhine townships of Pauktaw, Rathedaung, Maungdaw, Ponnagyun, and Kyauktaw. It called for “an urgent injection of funds” to respond to the impact of Mocha and subsequent flooding in the region. In a response to emailed questions from RFA, the World Food Program said it is “mobilizing emergency food and nutrition assistance to 800,000 people affected by the cyclone, many of them already displaced by conflict.” Before the cyclone, the U.N. had estimated 6 million people were “already in humanitarian need” in Rakhine state, and the regions of Chin, Magway and Sagaing. Collectively, the states host 1.2 million displaced people, prompting OCHA to warn of “a nightmare scenario.” However, Mocha had weakened by Sunday evening and moved toward Myanmar’s northwest, where it was downgraded to a depression on Monday over the country&#8217;s Sagaing region. RFA was able to document the deaths of at least a dozen people. They included a 30-year-old woman from Rakhine’s Ramree township, two men in their 20s in Ayeyarwady region’s Yegyi township and Rakhine’s Toungup township, and four men of unknown ages in Rakhine’s Kyauktaw township.  Others killed included a resident of Sittwe, a man in his 50s from Mandalay region’s Pyin Oo Lwin township, a young couple from the Shan state city of Tachileik, and a 70-year-old woman from Magway region’s Sinphyukyun township. Attempts by RFA to contact...
- [Remembering late Tibetan film director Pema Tseden’s ‘weighty’ life](https://ij-reportika.com/remembering-late-tibetan-film-director-pema-tsedens-weighty-life/): Pema Tseden, the renowned Tibetan director, died of a heart attack on May 8th, and many hearts worldwide are broken. As a professor of Chinese politics (and Tibet) at Cornell University I have shared his films with my students, and when I informed the current ones of this news they too were pained by his passing. To better understand why Pema Tseden&#8217;s death is so significant one can, fittingly, turn to one of his most important films, Tharlo. The first thing one sees in the remarkable 2015 movie as the opening credits fade is a lamb being fed as it sits comfortably in a bag. The camera slowly pans out to reveal that the film’s titular character, Tharlo, is nourishing the lamb. The herder is in a small rural police station, standing across from an officer, both men are Tibetan, but their lives are quite different.  The officer has been integrated into the People’s Republic of China, Tharlo has not. The impetus for their meeting is this liminal status, as he does not even have an “residence identity card”, a foundation of citizenship in the PRC.  And yet, for the first few moments of this scene, the two men are not discussing the steps Tharlo must take to rectify this shortcoming. Instead, the herder is reciting, from memory (and in a lyrical style redolent of the way many Tibetans chant Buddhist mantras and prayers) Mao Zedong’s highly influential 1944 speech known as “Serve the People”. The central question in the Chinese leader’s talk is what constitutes a life well lived. More specifically, Mao asks (channeling the renowned Chinese historian, Si Maqian, what determines if a death is “weightier” than Mount Tai, or “lighter than a feather”. The answer in the speech, and pondered throughout the film by Tharlo, is that if an individual has “served the people” his death will have true heft (and the life before it meaning). The true weight of Pema Tseden’s death does not simply stem from his promotion of Tibetan art and culture. This is as despite how prolific the Tibetan director was, and as glowing as its critical reception, it would be hyperbole to assert his work is universally known and beloved. It alone did not have the weight of a mountain. What does is his unceasing effort to write fiction and make movies inside the PRC. And to do so during a period in which Beijing has ruled Tibet with an increasingly heavy hand, and the divide between the Tibetans and Chinese has yawned particularly wide. This is not to assert that Pema Tseden was able to bridge such the gap between the two sides.  On the contrary, all indications are that such a task is well beyond the reach of anyone. But it is to call attention to the Tibetan director’s efforts to operate in such a perilous in-between space. To stand then not as a conduit for solving the Tibet-China conflict, but rather to persist and even flourish artistically in the most contested of spaces.   Operating there may not have endeared Pema Tseden to everyone, but it does constitute “serving of the people”. Given the harm Mao caused to Tibet through making sure it became a part of the PRC, there is an admittedly bitter irony in framing the Tibetan director’s significance using his words. But this is an irony that Pema Tseden himself implicitly acknowledged in Tharlo.  The main character’s recall of the speech not only opened the film, but his inability to recite it again during his haunting return to the police station comprised the next to last scene in the movie.  Tibetan filmmaker Pema Tseden sits in the Beijing Film Academy theater in Beijing before a screening of his film “Tharlo,” Nov. 12, 2015. Credit: AFP The Tibetan director then did not serve Mao’s imagined proletariat, but rather the Tibetan people (in all their various stations). He gave voice to their lived experience. He shed light on the complex moral dilemmas they faced in a society that has been shaken not only by the Chinese state, but also through the economic forces of modernization and globalization. He illuminated how mundane aspects of their everyday lives were laden with meaning and often fraught with wide-ranging consequences.  The situation inside China today, though, is quite bleak. Under the leadership of Xi Jinping the country has turned in the direction of a sharper brand of authoritarianism than was practiced by his immediate predecessors at the helm of the Chinese state. And the chill this has caused within China has been felt more acutely in Tibetan regions within the country as policies in such places have tilted more and more toward assimilation (rather than autonomy). As a result, there are very few Tibetans left who will be able to replicate what Pema Tseden accomplished in his lifetime. The space for this has been so sharply curtailed, and the risks of doing so have grown. The death of the Tibetan director is then surely weightier not only than Taishan, but more aptly Mt. Everest. When someone dies in Tibet people tend not to say “sorry for your loss” to the bereaved, but rather “may your heart be mended”. This sentiment is particularly warranted in response to the Tibetan director’s untimely passing. Allen Carlson is an associate professor in Cornell University’s Government Department and serves as director of the school’s China and Asia Pacific Studies program. The views in this article are his own and do not reflect the position of Cornell University or  Radio Free Asia.
- [Rohingya must stay at camps despite approaching cyclone, Bangladesh govt says](https://ij-reportika.com/rohingya-must-stay-at-camps-despite-approaching-cyclone-bangladesh-govt-says/): Bangladeshi authorities evacuated hundreds of thousands of people Saturday from coastal areas near the projected path of a monster storm, but Rohingya refugees would be prevented from leaving their camps in Cox’s Bazar, the home minister said. As of late Saturday, Bangladeshi state media reported, the government had moved as many as 400,000 people into 1,030 cyclone shelters in Chittagong division, which covers Cox’s Bazar and other districts near Bangladesh’s southeastern border with Myanmar’s Rakhine state, where Cyclone Mocha is expected to make landfall on Sunday. During a public event in Dhaka on Saturday, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said that agencies including the Armed Police Battalion in Cox’s Bazar were ordered to stop any of the 1 million or so Rohingya sheltering at camps there from leaving those confines and spreading across the country. “Law enforcers are on alert so that the Rohingya people cannot take advantage of the disaster to cross the barbed-wire fence. But if Cyclone Mocha hits the Bangladesh [areas] instead of Myanmar, the Rohingya people will be brought to a safe place,” Khan said in televised comments. World Vision, a humanitarian group, had warned on Friday that the storm threatened the safety of thousands of children at the world’s largest refugee camp, situated in Cox’s Bazar. “Cyclone Mocha is expected to bring heavy rain and flooding along the coasts of Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, posing severe threat to the safety of children and communities in danger zones along coastal and low-lying areas,” the NGO said in a statement. The cyclone is the most powerful and potentially dangerous sea-based storm seen in this corner of the Bay of Bengal in nearly two decades. On Saturday, India’s meteorological department said the weather system had intensified into an “extremely severe cyclonic storm.” This satellite image provided by the India Meteorological Department shows storm Mocha intensify into an extremely severe cyclonic storm, May 13, 2023. Credit: India Meteorological Department via AP As of 12 p.m. Saturday (local time), the center of the storm was over the sea close to Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine, and packing winds of up to 231 kilometers per hour (143.5 miles per hour) as Mocha churned toward the low-lying coastal border areas between Myanmar and Bangladesh, according to the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT). Rakhine is expected to take a direct hit from the storm. “According to the forecast by GDACS [Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System], tropical cyclone MOCHA can have a high humanitarian impact based on the maximum sustained wind speed, exposed population, and vulnerability,” UNOSAT said.   In a press release, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR warned that Mocha could bring “significant rainfall with landslides and flooding of camps near the sea.” The U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a separate bulletin on Saturday that the storm was forecast to generate wind speeds of up to 200 kilometers per hour (124.2 miles per hour) when it makes landfall on Sunday afternoon. “Heavy rain and strong winds associated with the cyclone are expected to cause flooding across Rakhine, where many townships and displacement sites are in low-lying areas and highly prone to flooding,” OCHA said. “Many communities are already moving to higher ground to designated evacuation centers or to safer areas staying with relatives,” the U.N. agency said. A girl looks out from a tuk tuk while evacuating in Sittwe, in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, ahead of the arrival of Cyclone Mocha, May 13, 2023. Credit: Sai Aung Main/AFP In the Bangladeshi capital, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said her government was preparing to safeguard the nation and its people from the storm, but that there might have to be shutoffs to the electricity and gas supply. “Cyclone ‘Mocha’ is coming. We’ve kept ready the cyclone centers and taken all types of preparations to tackle it,” the state-run news agency Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha quoted Hasina as saying on Saturday. Her Awami League government faces a general election in late 2023 or early 2024. In Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh’s meteorological agency raised the danger signal for the coming cyclone to 10, the most severe rating. Meanwhile, Mohammad Mizanur Rahman, the country’s refugee relief and repatriation commissioner, confirmed that law enforcement agencies would prevent Rohingya from leaving the camps. He said Rohingya would have to seek shelter at mosques, community centers and madrassas located within the sprawling refugee camps in the district. “We have prepared some buildings including mosques and community halls as temporary cyclone shelters. About 20,000 Rohingya people would likely need cyclone shelters if there will be a landslide,” he said. The Rohingya would face no risk from storm surges because their shelters are located in hilly areas, he added. “As there are 1.2 million Rohingya, we have no capacity to evacuate them to [cyclone] shelters,” according to a statement issued on Saturday by Md. Enamur Rahman, Bangladesh’s state minister for disaster management and relief. He did not give a reason and did not immediately respond to a follow-up phone call from BenarNews. Nearly three-quarters of a million people who live in the camps fled to the Bangladesh side of the frontier with Myanmar after the Burmese military launched a brutal offensive in Rakhine, the homeland of the stateless Rohingya, in August 2017. “Four and a half thousand volunteers are working under the leadership of the Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner for the Rohingya people,” Enamur Rahman said. “There is no risk of floods on the hills but rainfall can cause landslides. Keeping this fear in mind, I have asked the volunteers to be prepared,” the state minister said. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.
- [Junta troops detain more than 70 civilians in Myanmar’s Mandalay region](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-troops-detain-more-than-70-civilians-in-myanmars-mandalay-region/): Junta troops arrested more than 70 residents of Mandalay region’s Ngazun township, residents told Radio Free Asia Tuesday. They said the locals from Tha Kyin village were rounded up in revenge for a People’s Defense Force drone attack that killed seven soldiers. A resident, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal, said troops captured more than 50 villagers on Sunday and around 20 on Monday. “Everyone they met on their way was grabbed and immediately drugged,” the local said. “The women were arrested at night. Their faces were covered and their hands were tied behind their backs.  “Every man was arrested, fathers, sons and brothers.” He said after the locals were tortured and interrogated at the village administrative office, they were taken to another village in four trucks on Monday. Around 40 were released on Tuesday, according to a leader of the local defense force, TGYR-Youth Guerrilla Counter Revolution, who wouldn’t give his name for security reasons. “The detainees were taken as human shields and not all were released when the troops arrived at their destination. More than 30 were still held.” RFA’s calls to the junta’s Mandalay region spokesperson, Thein Htay, went unanswered Tuesday. Troops have been stationed in Tha Kyin village since a junta captain was killed in a shootout with the local People’s Defence Force in February 2022. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [Tens of thousands gather in Seoul to protest Fukushima discharge](https://ij-reportika.com/tens-of-thousands-gather-in-seoul-to-protest-fukushima-discharge/): Tens of thousands of Koreans gathered in front of Seoul’s City Hall over the weekend to protest Japan’s release of radioactive water from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant. Japan started the gradual release of treated radioactive wastewater from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean on Aug. 24, despite regional and local concerns, with plans to eventually pump more than a million metric tons of it into the sea. Saturday’s demonstration drew support from more than 80 civic organizations and four political parties, including the main opposition Democratic Party. Spreading across four vehicle lanes, demonstrators voiced their concerns with chants and displayed banners with slogans including, “Immediately stop the Fukushima water release” and “Denounce the Yoon Suk Yeol leadership.” They also asked for a ban on imports of all Japanese aquatic products, urging Korea’s leaders to file a lawsuit against the Japanese government with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. One of the protesters told Radio Free Asia that she was against the release and the Korean government for not putting pressure on Japan. “I am participating in this protest because I do not trust the Japanese government. I do not believe when they say it won’t have an impact,” Jeong Kim, a 23-year-old Seoul resident, said. “The Korean government should have pressured Japan to let independent scientists verify Tokyo’s claims,” she said. A fisherman said his job would be disrupted due to the release. “Many families like mine, who depend on the ocean for our livelihoods, would face serious consequences,” said Seoung Min, from the southeastern coast. Survey shows widespread concern One of the organizers told RFA she estimated the turnout was more than 50,000 people. After the leaders addressed the main event, various groups marched in different directions around the city, disrupting traffic in many areas. The rally went on for more than four hours. The protest comes just one day after Gallup Korea released a public survey that found three-quarters of Koreans were either “very worried” or “somewhat worried” that the Fukushima discharge would pollute Korea’s oceans and marine products. More than 60% said they were reluctant to consume seafood products. The survey of more than 1,000 Koreans was taken from Aug. 29 to 31 nationwide.  Three protesters carry images of US, Japan, and South Korean leaders during a rally against Japan’s release of treated radioactive water from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea in Seoul, Sept. 2, 2023. Credit: Subel Rai Bhandari for RFA Even though Tokyo – and many outside experts – have said the nuclear wastewater is not harmful, many South Koreans and Chinese have been vocal about the potential impact on people’s health and the environment. China has banned imports of Japanese seafood. TEPCO, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, which operates the power plant, which was damaged in a massive tsunami triggered by an earthquake on March 11, 2011, has said that the controlled discharge of the treated wastewater adheres to a meticulous nuclear purification process. The treatment leaves all but one primary radioactive isotope &#8211; tritium, which is impossible to separate from water, and so will be diluted to bring it below regulatory standards before the release.  Many experts have called for more independent verification of the release plan, alleging that the decision to release the water was reached through a process that lacked full transparency and did not sufficiently include consultations with stakeholders from Japan and other countries.  The U.N.’s atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has been monitoring the release.  Last month, it gave Tokyo the green light to start, saying the planned discharge meets relevant international safety standards and would have a “negligible” radiological impact on people and the environment. Over 1.3 million cubic meters of wastewater – enough to fill more than 500 Olympic-size swimming pools – currently contained in numerous water storage tanks at the facility is set to be released, which could take up to 40 years to complete.  Edited by Mike Firn and Malcolm Foster.
- [Russia proposes joint naval drill with China, North Korea](https://ij-reportika.com/russia-proposes-joint-naval-drill-with-china-north-korea/): Russia has formally proposed to China and North Korea for a joint naval drill in July, South Korea’s spies said on Monday – a move that could further escalate tensions in East Asia.   “Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has made an official proposal for a trilateral naval drill to Kim Jong Un when he last visited North Korea,” Yoo Sang-beom, a lawmaker who was briefed by the nation’s spy agency, in the National Assembly, told reporters.  The assessment by South Korea’s National Intelligence Service followed Shoigu’s visit to Pyongyang two months ago, which has raised suspicions that the two nations were looking to enhance their military cooperation including arms trading that would support Russia’s war with Ukraine.  Washington issued a stern warning against North Korea last month regarding weapons transactions with Russia. The White House’s national security spokesperson John Kirby said the U.S. was concerned about potential arms deals between Russia and North Korea. While Pyongyang’s recent provocations have strengthened trilateral security cooperation among the U.S., South Korea and Japan, both China and Russia are defending  North Korea on the international stage, with the North reciprocating this backing.  The South Korean spies also saw North Korea’s missile launch Saturday as a response to the U.S.-South Korea joint drill, according to Yoo, hinting that authoritarian regimes in the world are seeking their own ways to counter military ties among democracies. North Korea launched two cruise missiles carrying mock nuclear warheads towards the West Sea of the Korean peninsula. The missiles traveled about 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) for more than two hours, before detonating at an altitude of 150 meters, the official Korean Central News Agency said. While firing cruise missiles isn’t prohibited by the U.N., they present a significant threat to U.S. troops stationed in South Korea. North Korea’s latest cruise missile launch marked only a partial success. The Intelligence Service confirmed that one of the two missiles launched on Saturday was unsuccessful. The partial success, however, hints at Pyongyang’s revamped strategy to integrate its conventional arsenal and tactical nuclear weapons to threaten allies. “It seems clear that they are thinking of a short-term war, if there is any, merging their conventional arsenal with tactical nuclear weapons,” Yoo said, citing the assessment of South Korea’s spy agency.  He said the intelligence agents have emphasized North Korea’s inability to wage a long-term war, as the hermit state is strapped by an ongoing economic crisis. North Korea had imposed strict COVID restrictions in early 2020, shutting down its borders, including that with its biggest trading partner, China. The North Korean economy contracted for the third straight year in 2022, according to the Bank of Korea. COVID restrictions, compounded by international sanctions, are widely seen to have further depressed the North’s struggling economy. The South’s spies also reiterated the position that the agency has yet to draw any conclusion that Kim Ju Ae, Kim Jong Un’s daughter, will succeed her father as North Korea’s next leader. Kim Ju Ae was seen accompanying her father during the North&#8217;s Navy Day last week. It was her first public appearance since May 16, when she showed up for an on-site inspection of a preparatory committee related to the North&#8217;s attempt to launch a military spy satellite. The appearance was widely seen as a rare window of the regime’s motivations to familiarize the North Korean public with potential future leaders, a strategy that Pyongyang has employed for decades.  Edited by Elaine Chan and Mike Firn.
- [China bans book about the early history of the Mongolian people](https://ij-reportika.com/china-bans-book-about-the-early-history-of-the-mongolian-people/): Chinese authorities have banned a book on the history of the Mongols, citing &#8220;historical nihilism&#8221; – a term indicating a version of history not in keeping with the official party line – in what appeared to be a concerted attack by Beijing on ethnic Mongolians&#8217; identity.  Orders have been sent out to remove &#8220;A General History of the Mongols&#8221; by scholars in the Mongolian Studies department of the Inner Mongolia Institute of Education should be removed from shelves, the pro-Beijing Sing Tao Daily newspaper reported.  It cited an Aug. 25 directive from the Inner Mongolian branch of the government-backed Books and Periodicals Distribution Association. The move comes after President Xi Jinping called for renewed efforts to boost a sense of Chinese national identity in a visit to the northwestern region of Xinjiang. Xi vowed to double down on China’s hardline policies toward the 11 million mostly Muslim Uyghurs who live in the region, warning that &#8220;hard-won social stability&#8221; would remain the top priority, along with making everyone speak Mandarin rather than their own languages. And his warnings seemed to apply to other regions, too. &#8220;Forging a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation is a focus of .. all work in areas with large ethnic minority populations,&#8221; Xi said in comments paraphrased by state media reports.  China’s President Xi Jinping delivers a speech during his visit to Urumqi in northwestern China&#8217;s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Aug. 26, 2023. Credit: Yan Yan/Xinhua via Getty Images &#8220;Education on standard spoken and written Chinese must be resolutely carried out to enhance people&#8217;s consciousness and ability to use it,&#8221; he said. Ethnic Mongolians, who make up almost 20 percent of Inner Mongolia&#8217;s population of 23 million, increasingly complain of widespread environmental destruction and unfair development policies in the region, as well as ongoing attempts to target their traditional culture. Clashes between Chinese state-backed mining or forestry companies and herding communities are common in the region, which borders the independent country of Mongolia, with those who complain about the loss of their grazing lands frequently targeted for harassment, beatings, and detention by the authorities. Historical narrative The banned book, published in 2004, was previously lauded for its work in &#8220;connecting the history of Mongolia from ancient times to the medieval period, making the history of Mongolia more complete,&#8221; according to a Baidupedia entry still available on Friday. &#8220;Systematizing, organizing, and using a scientific approach can help the world better understand China&#8217;s five thousand years of glorious history, strengthen the unity of the Chinese nation, and make Chinese culture and history more prosperous,&#8221; said the entry, which must have once been approved by government censors.  Analysts said the book is already fairly nationalistic in tone, and describes the Mongols as part of the Chinese nation. But the ban comes as the authorities are increasingly concerned about a growing sense of Mongolian identity among ethnic Mongolians living in China. &#8220;A lot of Mongolian scholars and Mongolians in general don&#8217;t like this book because it describes the Mongols as a people of China,&#8221; Yang Haiying, a professor at Shizuoka University in Japan, told Radio Free Asia. &#8220;The Mongols have never considered themselves to be a Chinese people.&#8221;  Nonetheless, the book is now considered to contribute to a pan-Mongolian identity because it didn&#8217;t go far enough in making the Mongols appear to be historically part of the Chinese nation, Yang said. &#8220;A lot of Mongolian scholars and Mongolians in general don&#8217;t like [“A General History of the Mongols”], because it describes the Mongols as a people of China,&#8221; Yang Haiying, a professor at Shizuoka University in Japan, told Radio Free Asia. Provided by Yang Haiying A pro-government comment on the social media platform Weibo hit out at the book for &#8220;historical nihilism.&#8221; &#8220;Criticizing the pan-Mongolian nationalist trend is conducive to #cultivating the consciousness of the Chinese national community, conducive to #ethnic exchanges, exchanges, and integration#, and conducive to #forging a strong sense of the Chinese nation’s community !,&#8221; user @XiMay1 wrote on Aug. 29. Ending Mongolian instruction At the start of the academic year in 2020, China announced it would end Mongolian-medium instruction in schools, prompting angry protests and a wide-ranging crackdown across the region. Taiwan-based strategic analyst Shih Chien-yu said the banning of the book sends a more general message to China’s ethnic Mongolians. &#8220;There are still a lot of Mongolian cadres in the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party of China, a lot of Mongolian intellectuals and officials, while most of the ethnic minority intellectuals in the various central nationalities colleges and university-level schools are Mongolian,&#8221; he said. Protestors hold banners and wave the Mongolian flag during a protest in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, against Chinese policies in the neighboring Chinese province of Inner Mongolia on Oct. 1, 2020. Credit: Byambasuren Byamba-Ochir/AFP &#8220;The main reason for banning the book is to warn them that they should believe they still have any clout within the regime,&#8221; Shih said. &#8220;Don&#8217;t put up any resistance behind our backs, because we can take away your power at any time.&#8221; In 2018, Chinese authorities detained Lhamjab A. Borjigin, a prominent ethnic Mongolian historian who gathered testimony of a historical genocide campaign by the ruling Chinese Communist Party, prosecuting him on charges of separatism. He was handed a one-year suspended jail term for &#8220;separatism&#8221; and &#8220;sabotaging national unity,&#8221; then released under ongoing surveillance. Translated by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Myanmar’s post-coup economy comes crumbling down](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-post-coup-economy-comes-crumbling-down/): Amid the news of escalating violence, it’s easy to lose sight of two events in August 2023 that exposed the Myanmar military regime’s vulnerability.   First, in a video message to the Moscow International Security Conference, coup leader Min Aung Hlaing complained about the weaponization of the dollar.  Second, the August appointment of Lt Gen Nyo Saw to two special commissions on trade and foreign exchange that report directly to junta chief Min Aung Hlaing. Saw is a close confidant, but as the chairman of military-owned conglomerate Myanma Economic Corporation (MEC) and a director of military’s other holding company, Myanma Economic Holdings Ltd (MEHL), he’s also the military’s most experienced economic and business expert.  It’s hard to overstate just how bad Myanmar’s economy is. Although the World Bank predicts GDP to grow at 2 to 3% this year, the economy has contracted by 12% since January 2021. A decade’s worth of economic growth was eviscerated.  Myanmar junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing during a military exercise in Ayeyarwady delta region, Myanmar, Feb. 2018. Credit: Lynn Bo Bo/Reuters pool Nearly 60% of the population is now living beneath the poverty line, and the World Bank is warning about food insecurity across the country. Between war, climate change, and currency controls that limited the amount of the imports of fertilizer and pesticides, agricultural production is down. Although 2022-23 saw $1.6 billion in pledged foreign investment – almost all of which was from China or boomerang Myanmar investment via Singapore and Hong Kong – far less was actually realized. Other foreign investors are pulling out, citing poor market conditions, pressure from activists, and reputational costs. This has diminished the corporate tax base. With the exception of gas and oil sales to Thailand and China, exports have been hard hit. According to the military government’s Ministry of Commerce, in the first eight months of 2022, total exports reached $6.57 billion, giving the country a $172 million trade surplus.  In the same period in 2023, total exports dropped by 9.8% to $5.93 billion, with a $500 million trade deficit. But if one disaggregates border trade, it’s even worse.  Currency control confusion Exports to overseas markets fell by 21%. And it will worsen as key manufacturers, such as clothing makers H&amp;M, Primark, and Inditex,- have left. Some retailers are now shunning Myanmar gemstones.  Trade has been hard hit by a series of hastily implemented currency controls that change regularly, upsetting businesses. Some of the more recent currency controls have forced any individual or business with more than $10,000, without a permit, to purchase the kyat currency at the official exchange rate of 2,100 to the U.S. dollar.  The black market rate for the greenback is 3,900 kyat , a 300% decline in the value of the currency since the Feb. 1, 2021 coup.  Headquarters of the military-owned Myanmar Economic Corporation in Yangon, one of the country&#8217;s main military conglomerates. Photo: Ye Aung Thu/AFP Myanmar’s banks are increasingly isolated. U.S. sanctions on Myanma Foreign Trade Bank and Myanma Investment and Commercial Bank, which were responsible for the clearing of most U.S. dollar transactions, have forced costly workarounds, such as establishing new shell companies and bank accounts. Singapore’s United Overseas Bank Limited (UOB) announced that they would close the accounts of Myanmar, and had already stopped providing banking services for Myanmar Airways International. Other Singapore banks are expected to follow suit, following signaling from the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the additional reporting requirements due to the Financial Action Task Force blacklist. A Bangladesh bank froze the accounts of the two sanctioned banks.  Government revenue is flat or declining. While officially a secret, projections built into the annual Union Taxation Law paint a grim picture. The Internal Revenue Department has warned that revenue from lotteries, income tax, corporate taxes, natural resource rents, and customs duties have all stayed flat or contracted since the coup; only rents from oil and gas exports have gone up. Tax authorities are now specifically hitting medical professionals with preemptive taxes. According to data compiled by the opposition National Unity Government (NUG), the Central Bank of Myanmar has compelled banks, state-owned enterprises and insurance companies to buy an estimated 26.5 trillion kyat in bonds, $3.1 billion at the black market rate, since the coup. With an inability to repay, and an NUG pledge that the bonds will not be honored, these are additional liabilities for banks that are already saddled with non-performing loans. The regime is broke and may have turned on the printing presses. The NUG estimates that the military government has printed up to 20 trillion kyat, roughly $5.1 billion at black market rates, since the coup, partially explaining the high inflation.   Sanctions take a bite In July 2023, the junta issued a K20,000 note, the highest denomination, creating an inflationary spike and a further decline in the currency’s value. It’s supposed to be a limited issue currency, but with 14% inflation, a higher denominated note may be required. While international sanctions have not resulted in a massive seizure of funds, they’ve not been insignificant either. The U.S.immediately froze $1.1 billion of Central Bank of Myanmar assets following the coup. The European Union froze $503 million when it sanctioned the Ministry of Oil and Gas Enterprise. More importantly, the sanctions have made everything harder for the junta.  The NUG has identified 13 other banks around the world that are holding some $5.5 billion in Central Bank of Myanmar assets, 67% of which are in nine banks in Singapore. Should the NUG ever convince the Singapore government to freeze those assets, it would deliver the coup de grâce.  A jetty for oil tankers at Madae island, Kyaukpyu, Rakhine state, Myanmar. With the exception of gas and oil exports to Thailand and China, Myanmar’s exports have been hard hit. Credit: Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters This degree of economic mismanagement is a crime in itself, right up there with the military’s daily war crimes. The economy is the regime’s Achilles heel and they don’t have...
- [Scavengers risk landslides at Kachin jade mines, where the earth is ‘like a sea’](https://ij-reportika.com/scavengers-risk-landslides-at-kachin-jade-mines-where-the-earth-is-like-a-sea/): Myanmar’s jade mining center of Hpakant is a lawless township where the less fortunate gather to gamble on making it big, but with little oversight, the stakes are high and losing means being swallowed up by the earth at the digging pits. Nearly 600 people – mostly scavengers – have died in at least 10 landslides at the mines in Kachin state since 2018, according to data compiled by RFA Burmese, though residents say the death toll is likely higher because many go unrecorded. Among the accidents over the past year, a 2020 landslide at Hpakant’s Hway Hkar jade mining site – located 150 kilometers (95 miles) west of the Kachin capital of Myitkyina – was the worst, claiming the lives of around 190 people. More than 80 died in a landslide at the Hmaw Si Zar site the following year, while a similar number were killed in one at the Met Lin Chuang site in 2022. One resident of Hpakant who, like others interviewed for this story, declined to be named citing security concerns, said that massive, unguarded piles of earth cast off by mining companies and digging pits of more than 300 meters (1,000 feet) in depth make for deadly conditions at the sites. Scavengers must wait to enter the sites until companies suspend mining operations during the rainy season, but with the rains come even greater risks of being buried alive. “You can’t stop them – they do it every year,” he said. “Since they can’t search for jade during the operating season, people in Hpakant have to scavenge during the rainy or cold seasons. If not, there are no other jobs.” According to the U.K.-based rights group Global Witness, nearly 400,000 people in Myanmar rely on scavenging precious stones in the Hpakant region to earn a living – most of whom work under unsafe conditions. The resident said when it rains in Hpakant, the earth is “like a sea” in some places, and that work in such conditions is “terrifying.” Miners search for jade at a Hpakant mine dump in Kachin state, Myanmar Nov. 25, 2015. Credit: Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters Additionally, he said, several abandoned pits in Hpakant put the township at risk of flooding, as rain can build up and overflow at the sites. Others blamed excessive use of explosives and companies’ failure to follow prescribed methods of mining that make sites safer and more sustainable. On Aug. 13, a landslide triggered by heavy rains left 42 people missing at a site near Hpakant’s Mana village, although 33 bodies were later recovered. Video of the aftermath of the incident, obtained by RFA, shows brown water surging up the sides of muddy embankments that circle the caldera of the mine as people look on. In the background, a steep, dark stain runs down the side of a nearby cliff, where scavengers were washed away by a torrent of moving earth. A man who lost his cousin in the landslide said companies are partially to blame for such accidents because they leave their sites unprotected while operations are shut down. “[Mining companies in Hpakant] are all doing it without any rules and regulations,” he said, adding that “not all of them are legal.” Loosened restrictions under junta Under the deposed National League for Democracy, or NLD, jade mining concessions had been suspended in Hpakant and around 90% of mining rights had expired by the end of 2020. However, residents of the area told RFA that since the military seized power in a February 2021 coup, jade companies have illegally restarted mining operations and skirted scrutiny by paying taxes to the Kachin Liberation Organization, an ethnic army in the area, and the junta. “We prohibited [mining] in dangerous places like this,” said parliamentary representative Aung Hein Min, who won a seat in the legislature in Myanmar’s November 2020 election. “We banned high piles of discarded earth … [and] we relaxed the rules outside of the rainy season. Similar measures should be adopted given the current situation.” Rescue workers carry a body shrouded in plastic sheeting, in Hpakant, Kachin state, Myanmar, July 2, 2020, after a landslide killed more than 160 people. Credit: Zaw Moe Htet/AP An environmental conservationist in Hpakant told RFA that in the last decade the number of discarded earth piles have been growing, leading to more landslides that have made the area’s rivers and creeks too shallow. “The rivers, lakes, flora and fauna have been seriously damaged and they need to be restored,” he said. Meanwhile, five of Hpakant’s mountains have “disappeared” due to excavation within the last two decades, the conservationist said. Scavengers at risk When asked about the dangers of mining in the township, junta Social Affairs Minister Win Ye Tun, who is also the spokesperson for Kachin state, said that the regime has been making efforts to protect residents by digging diversion channels at sites where there is a risk of landslides. He also said those who dig illegally are partly to blame for the accidents. Miners search for jade at a Hpakant mine dump in Kachin state, Myanmar, Nov. 25, 2015. Credit: Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters A representative of the NGO Myanmar Mine Monitoring Network said that small-scale mining companies should be given priority to dig for jade in Hpakant. “[Migrant workers] depend on excavating precious stones to earn a living, since there are no jobs,” he said. “The use of heavy machinery needs to be reduced and licensing also needs to be properly verified [to ensure the safety of the sites].” Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
- [Troops kill 2 men in Myanmar’s Kachin state](https://ij-reportika.com/troops-kill-2-men-in-myanmars-kachin-state/): Three men from Kachin state’s Momauk township died on the same day after running into junta troops, locals told Radio Free Asia on Friday. On Wednesday, a column of around 250 troops stormed Au Htan Yang village. They stopped two men who were riding a motorcycle to the village, according to a local who didn’t want to be named for safety reasons. “When the column was entering Au Htan Yang village, two young men riding down from Pang Kawng Mu village were arrested and interrogated,” the local said.  “One was tied up on his back and killed. The other one was killed at the garbage dump of Dawt Hpon Yan village [Yin Kwe Taung village].” The troops then took another 10 people to use as human shields, according to the local. As they headed towards the headquarters of the anti-junta Kachin Independence Army, one man in his 40s, identified as Chit Min, was killed by a shell explosion. “The young people were crouching down when the heavy artillery landed,” the local said. “Chit Min was not able to crouch and was hit. His body was found on the morning of August 31.” The other nine hostages were released on Thursday evening, the resident added. Kachin state-based news organization 74 Media reported Friday that around 100 people from villages in the township fled to a Christian church and other ‘safe places’ while the battle between the troops and the Kachin Independence Army continued. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [Once free of charge, North Korean eBooks will cost money to access](https://ij-reportika.com/once-free-of-charge-north-korean-ebooks-will-cost-money-to-access/): For a country closed off from the global internet, North Korea does offer its citizens at least a few high-tech conveniences.  In the Miraewon electronic library system, for example, far-flung rural residents can visit their local library to read an electronic copy of any book in the national collection in Pyongyang. The service was free of charge – until now. Authorities are telling patrons that starting in September, they must pay 1 million won, or US$120, a year – a huge sum in North Korea – angering people who use it most frequently, a resident of South Hamgyong province, north of Pyongyang, told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “These measures were recently delivered to each city and county Miraewon through local party organizations, &#8221; she said. The Miraewon, which can be translated into English as the “Future Institute”, has a portal in every city and county in North Korea, and residents can use it to access books housed in Pyongyang’s Grand People’s Study House via the intranet, an online system separate from the global internet. The Grand People&#8217;s Study House and the Kim Il-Sung Square in front of it are seen in Pyongyang, North Korea, in  2009. Credit: Reuters For some residents, this is the only way they can access materials on science and technology. The system has been a godsend for agriculture students looking to read up on farming techniques, animal husbandry, or for factory technicians in search of technical manuals or ways to improve efficiency. So the move would deprive readers of knowledge they need to more effectively do their jobs, a resident of the eastern province of South Pyongan said. “Here in Sukchon county, we’re an agricultural district, so there are farm technicians and students studying things like breed cultivation and wetland farming,” she said. “The Miraewon has physical copies of propaganda novels and the country’s masterpieces like the Complete Collection of the Works of [former leader] Kim Jong Il, but for anything related to science or technology, they must be read through the National Data Communication Network.”   College students and technicians are complaining that the country prioritizes the propaganda pieces, which aren’t useful to their daily lives. “They complain … that the authorities are monopolizing the most important science and technology books and force them to access them only through the National Data Communication Network, and now they are even charging fees for it,” she said. “How can a county that hides knowledge like this ever develop economically?”   Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong.
- [Junta arrests 11 civilians in Myanmar’s Kachin state](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-arrests-11-civilians-in-myanmars-kachin-state/): Junta troops have arrested 11 people in a raid on Myitkyina township in Myanmar’s Kachin state, locals told RFA Thursday. They said that six men and five women were detained three days ago after around 30 soldiers went to a house and accused the residents of having ties to the local People’s Defense Force, part of the pro-democracy forces created in 2021.  As of Thursday, the detainees were still being questioned at the Northern Command base in Myitkyina, according to township residents. One local, who didn’t want to be named for security reasons, told RFA none of the arrested have links to anti-junta militias and had just gathered for a celebration. “I heard people chanting ‘Happy Birthday’ at around 8:00 p.m. I think it was a birthday party, with people gathered for food and drinks,” the local said. “Some employees of phone shops were among those detained. I have no idea who informed the junta soldiers about them.” The local added that the arrests may have been prompted by an attack on the Northern Command in which five bombs exploded close to the base. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack and the junta has not released any statement about it. Win Ye Tun, the junta’s spokesperson for Kachin state, declined to provide comments.  According to figures exclusively compiled by RFA, the junta arrested at least 700 people between June 2023 and August 2023, and among them, only 500 were released. More than 24,000 people, including pro-democracy activists, have been arrested since the Feb. 1, 2021, coup, according to the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma). Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [Meta rejects its oversight board’s advice to suspend Hun Sen’s Facebook account](https://ij-reportika.com/meta-rejects-its-oversight-boards-advice-to-suspend-hun-sens-facebook-account/): Facebook parent company Meta Platform Inc. this week rejected the advice of its oversight board to suspend Hun Sen’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, where the former Cambodian leader had threatened violence against political opponents. Meta said in a statement on Monday that while it would remove the content that led to the review, it would not ban Hun Sen’s use of the site, citing the company’s “commitment to voice” in its protocol on restricting the accounts of public figures. &#8220;Upon assessing Hun Sen’s Facebook Page and Instagram account, we determined that suspending those accounts outside our regular enforcement framework would not be consistent with our policies, including our protocol on restricting accounts of public figures during civil unrest,” the company said. But Meta also said its protocol is not designed for situations where a history of state violence or human rights restrictions have resulted in ongoing restrictions on expressions for an indeterminate period of time. “Applying the protocol in those circumstances could lead to an indefinite suspension of a public figure’s account, which (apart from fairness issues) could be detrimental to people’s ability to access information from and about their leaders and to express themselves using Meta’s platforms,” it said. The company noted that in this case it had “applied appropriate account-level penalties associated with that action.” Facebook is enormously popular in Cambodia, and Hun Sen, who ruled the country for 38 years, often uses it to communicate to the public and to attack political opponents. Hun Sen passed on rule to his son, Hun Manet, following elections in July that were deemed a sham.  Board banned from Cambodia The controversy surrounded a live video streamed on Hun Sen’s official Facebook page of a speech in January during which he made statements viewed as threats of violence against his political opponents.  Meta initially referred the case to the oversight board because it said the matter “created tension between our values of safety and voice.” The board, which operates independently from Meta, advises the company on ethics issues. On June 29, the oversight board ordered the removal of the video and called for an immediate suspension of Hun Sen’s Facebook and Instagram accounts for six months. It marked the first time that the oversight board instructed the company to shut down a government leader’s account, RFA reported. Hun Sen then called on his social media followers to switch to rival platforms TikTok or Telegram. In response to Meta’s latest decision, Cambodia said Tuesday it would allow the California-based company to continue operating in the country, but banned the 22 members of the oversight board from visiting, accusing them of “interference into Cambodian affairs.” “The decision reflects the integrity of contents posted on the official Facebook page of Samdech [honorific] Hun Sen,” it said. Article19, a rights group that advocates for freedom of expression, declined to comment on the reversal and referred RFA to the International Commission of Jurists, or ICJ, an international human rights group based in Geneva, Switzerland.  In March, the ICJ submitted a public comment to Meta’s oversight board concerning Hun Sen’s video, saying that the company had a responsibility to moderate content on its platforms in line with international human rights law and standards.  Daron Tan, a legal adviser at the ICJ, told RFA that he could not comment on Meta’s latest decision, but that his organization was monitoring the company’s ongoing assessment of the feasibility of updating its newsworthiness allowance policy to state that content that directly incites violence is not eligible for this exception.    “The newsworthy allowance has, to date, not been applied consistently or transparently,” Tan said in an email. “As we have repeatedly emphasized, discretionary exception should generally not be available for forms of expression that are prohibited under international human rights law, such as expression inciting violence.” “It is especially critical to impose a restriction where there is a strong risk that the inciting words of a powerful actor like a Prime Minister may be acted upon,” Tan said. Translated by Sovannarith Keo for RFA Khmer. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcom Foster.
- [Myanmar army kills 2 villagers in Sagaing region raid](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-army-kills-2-villagers-in-sagaing-region-raid/): Junta troops killed two civilians in a raid on a village in Sagaing region’s Wetlet township, residents told Radio Free Asia Wednesday. Nearly 100 soldiers took part in Wednesday’s raid on Hla Taw, locals said. One of the dead was identified as 38-year-old Aung Naing Oo, according to a resident who didn’t want to be named for security reasons. They said villagers couldn’t identify the other man, thought to be in his 40s. “They were found near the road to the east of Hla Taw Village,” the local said. “They were killed with shots to the chest and head. It is difficult to identify them by name because of their disfigurement.” More than 4,000 civilians from four villages in Wetlet township fled their homes ahead of junta raids, residents said. They said the troops left Hla Taw village on Wednesday morning but then moved into nearby Kyay Zee Kone village. On Saturday, troops raided Kyee Kan (North) village in Wetlet Township. They killed a woman in her 20s and three men in their 30s who were sheltering in a monastery. RFA Burmese called the junta’s spokesperson in the Sagaing region, Tin Than Win, to ask about the killings but nobody answered. More than 4,000 civilians have been killed by the junta since it seized power in a February 2021 coup according to independent monitoring group the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [INTERVIEW: 'I don't know if it's possible for me to ever return to Hong Kong'](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-i-dont-know-if-its-possible-for-me-to-ever-return-to-hong-kong/): A photography professor from the Massachusetts Institute of Art and Design has been refused entry to Hong Kong for the second time, further evidence that an ongoing crackdown on dissent under a draconian national security law could affect which foreign nationals are allowed to travel to the city. Matthew Connors, who was denied entry in 2020, immediately after the 2019 protest movement, but who is still allowed to visit North Korea, told RFA Cantonese in a recent interview that he was given a brief, bureaucratic explanation that he &#8220;didn&#8217;t meet the criteria&#8221; for entry, while the Immigration Department has declined to comment on the decision: RFA: When did you try to enter Hong Kong? Connors: On Aug. 16, I&#8217;d originally planned to come to Hong Kong as a tourist, and I especially hoped to visit art exhibitions, including the newly opened M+ museum. At the same time, it was also primarily to test the waters, because the last time I came to Hong Kong, at the beginning of 2020, I was refused entry by the Hong Kong Immigration Department, which made me always confused [about] whether I could visit Hong Kong again. And I couldn&#8217;t see any reason why I would be refused entry, and I couldn&#8217;t really understand what possible danger I could present to the Hong Kong government. I happened to be traveling in Asia for several weeks, and I was in Thailand.  Since the last time I was refused entry back in early 2020, I&#8217;d had a lot of uncertainty about whether or not I&#8217;d be allowed to return to Hong Kong. And that had been bothering me. So I was hopeful I&#8217;d be able to visit and then when I didn&#8217;t really see any reason why I shouldn&#8217;t be refused, again, because the protests are no longer going on. And I couldn&#8217;t really understand what, you know, one possible danger I could present to the Hong Kong government. So I figured I would give it a try. RFA: What happened when you arrived? Connors: I was taken aside, again, by immigration, and I was told that I did not meet the qualifications for entry into Hong Kong at this time, which was a very bureaucratic answer. And it was the same reason that I was given the last time I was refused entry back in 2020. My trip was supposed to be an overnight trip, [and] I didn&#8217;t really tell anyone I knew in Hong Kong that I would be coming. Because I didn&#8217;t really know what risks that might have posed for anyone who would be seen associated with me.  So when I was interviewed in the airport by immigration officers, I identified myself both as an artist and a professor that was visiting for the purpose of tourism. But despite this, in a very short interview, I was just given the generic reason that I do not meet the qualifications for entry at this time. So I knew from my past experiences that trying to get more nuanced or detailed answers from any of the immigration officers would really be futile. I actually had this feeling that no one that I actually encountered in the immigration office actually had the authority to make the decision about whether I could enter Hong Kong at the time or not. And so I really believe that I&#8217;m on a list of people whose access to Hong Kong is restricted, perhaps permanently, I&#8217;m not sure.  RFA: What makes you think that? Connors: Part of the reason I think this is just the way they proceeded with the interview process, and it more or less mirrored exactly what happened to me last time. And so when I reached the immigration kiosk and presented my passport, they looked me up in the system. And then they called over immigration officer over to the window and he escorted me back to the immigration officers room and I sat in the waiting area and this was a designated area where I think they bring a lot of travelers that are flagged for further questioning, and I waited there with other travelers but ultimately, they never questioned me in this area, and they escorted me to a separate area, like a secondary interview area. I believe this is the place where they process people who they&#8217;ve already decided to refuse entry into Hong Kong. [It was] exactly where I went last time before I was refused entry. A screenshot from photographer Matthew Connors’ personal website. Credit: matthewconnors.com RFA: Do you think there&#8217;s anything you can do about your situation? Connors: I don&#8217;t know. I want to seek advice about that. You know, the last time I was refused entry, I started discussing it with an immigration lawyer, but that whole process really got derailed by the COVID lockdowns. I don&#8217;t know, to be honest. And I think that uncertainty is by design, because, you know, both with this refusal, and the sort of sweeping powers that the National Security Law gives the Hong Kong government they&#8217;re sort of instrumentalizing uncertainty in order to make people feel like their freedoms are being restricted. RFA: Did you fear this might happen when you went to Hong Kong? Connors: You know, I did. And I think some people that I consulted before left thought there was there was a higher risk, both because of the National Security Law had been passed, and because I had been denied before, but I think I had my instinct that I essentially, would be okay, that I think the worst case scenario was that I would be turned around again. I don&#8217;t have a lot of data or information to back that up. But I think I was just traveling under that assumption. This time, they did a much more rigorous search and my belongings, and then, when they escorted me through the airport, they actually took me through a separate security area and put me on a bus...
- [Myanmar military shells Bago region townships, injuring 8 civilians](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-military-shells-bago-region-townships-injuring-8-civilians/): Junta heavy artillery attacks on two townships in central Myanmar’s Bago region have injured eight people, including a child, according to the Karen National Union. The political group which represents ethnic Karen issued a statement Monday, saying a four-year-old child and three women were hurt by shells in Kyauktaga township the previous day. Troops stationed near the township fired four shells at Ka Nyin Kyoe village, injuring four-year-old May Myat Noe Wai, 66-year-old San Htay, 52-year-old San San and 45-year-old Pyone Pyone Yi, according to locals who didn’t want to be named for safety reasons. They said San Htay was critically injured and five houses were destroyed in the attack. In another attack on Saturday, a 40-year-old woman and three 25-year-old men were injured when troops stationed in Nyaunglebin township fired three shells at Kyoe Gyi village, according to the KNU. It said seven houses were destroyed by heavy artillery. The majority of ethnic Karen who live in the region are Christian. An artillery attack on Aug. 20 destroyed one of their churches in Kyaukkyi township, the KNU said. The junta has not issued a statement on the shelling. However, its regional spokesperson, Tin Oo, told Radio Free Asia that troops were trying to bring stability to the region because the KNU affiliated Karen National Liberation Army and local People’s Defense Forces had entered some townships in eastern Bago. He said the townships were now under the control of junta troops. Along with heavy artillery attacks, the junta has been carrying out airstrikes in the region. On Aug. 18, planes attacked Kyaukkyi township four times, killing one civilian and injuring four others, the KNU said. Nearly 100,000 residents of eastern Bago have been forced to flee their homes since the February 2021 coup, according to the United Nations. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [Visiting Xinjiang, Xi Jinping doubles down on hard-line policies against Uyghurs](https://ij-reportika.com/visiting-xinjiang-xi-jinping-doubles-down-on-hard-line-policies-against-uyghurs/): Visiting Xinjiang for the second time in just over a year, President Xi Jinping vowed to double down on China’s hardline policies toward the 11 million mostly Muslim Uyghurs who live in the restive, far-western region. Maintaining “hard-won social stability” would remain the top priority, and that stability must be used to “guarantee development,” Xi said during a speech on Saturday in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Autonomous Uyghur Region, state media reported. Xi said it was necessary to “combine the development of the anti-terrorism and anti-separatism struggle with the push for normalizing social stability work and the rule of law.” He also told officials to further “promote the Sinicization of Islam” and “effectively control various illegal religious activities.” Under Xi, China has clamped down hard on the Uyghurs since 2017, detaining 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in concentration camps, in reaction to sporadic terrorist attacks that Uyghurs say are fueled by years of government oppression. Beijing has also sought to destroy religious and cultural sites and eradicate the Uyghur language and its culture. The United States and legislatures of several Western countries have declared that abuses committed by China — including arbitrary detentions, torture, forced sterilizations of Uyghur women and the use of Uyghur forced labor — amount to genocide and crimes against humanity.&nbsp; China denies the accusations, saying its Xinjiang policies are necessary to combat religious extremism and “terrorism.” Uyghur advocates denounced Xi’s remarks, saying they pointed to more repression. “It’s crystal clear from Xi Jinping’s speech in Urumqi that the Chinese government and he intend to continue the ongoing Uyghur genocide and crimes against humanity in East Turkestan,” said Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress, using Uyghurs’ preferred name for Xinjiang. Noting that Xi called for more positive propaganda on Xinjiang, Isa cautioned the international community “not to be fooled” by those false images and messages. Xi last visited Xinjiang in July 2022, before the U.N.’s human rights office issued a report concluding that China may have committed genocide and crimes against humanity. &nbsp; China’s President Xi Jinping speaks during his visit to Urumqi in northwestern China&#8217;s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Aug. 26, 2023. Credit: Yan Yan/Xinhua via Getty Images &nbsp; &nbsp; ‘War on Islam’ On Monday, Rusha Abbas, executive director of the campaign for Uyghurs, said Xi’s use of the phrase “Sinicization of Islam” meant “war on Islam,” while “counter-terrorism measures” meant “mass imprisonment.” Xi also emphasizes security as the priority in Xinjiang followed by the region’s economic development, said Adrian Zenz, a researcher at the Washington, D.C.-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and an expert on the Xinjiang region. “In that context he strongly emphasizes cultural assimilation, Uyghurs learning Chinese, and a Sinicization of Islam,” he said.&nbsp; Zenz also noted that Xi’s point on the need for Uyghurs to work in other provinces of China and along the East Coast is significant because the government has long suppressed statistics on labor transfers to other areas.&nbsp; “That’s actually a very important data point — an important point of evidence — and really an argument why the United States really urgently needs to add many more Chinese companies to the blacklist” related to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.&nbsp; Signed into law in December 2021, the act requires American companies that import goods from Xinjiang to prove that they have not been manufactured with Uyghur forced labor at any production stage. David Tobin, a lecturer on East Asian studies at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom, said the speech signaled that the Communist Party “will not listen to criticism on its ethnic policy in general and its policies towards the Uyghur people in particular.” “Domestically, Xi Jinping is signaling to party state officials and regional leaders that he is in command and his policies must be implemented,” he said. “So, the visit is a display and an assertion of strength, but also belies a weakness to these concerns.” &nbsp;
- [Junta troops snatch villagers from monastery, kill 4](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-troops-snatch-villagers-from-monastery-kill-4/): Junta troops arrested six civilians who were sheltering in a monastery in Myanmar’s Sagaing region and killed four of them, locals told RFA Monday. They were among 35 people hiding there as junta troops raided Wetlet township’s Kyee Kan (north) village. Locals said troops shelled the village at dawn on Saturday before moving in. One man, who declined to be named for fear of reprisals, said troops released two of the six people they captured. “Four people were killed,” he said. “Among them Shwe Man Thu, who was in her twenties, was raped and killed at a mango farm between Kyee Kan (north) village and Hla Taw village.” RFA has been unable to independently confirm his claim. Pro-military Telegram chat group channels said the column that raided the village killed four members of an anti-junta People’s Defense Force. RFA’s calls to the region’s junta spokesperson, Tin Than Win, went unanswered Monday. Displaced people on the rise Raids on townships in Sagaing region since the Feb. 2021 coup have left more than 800,000 people homeless according to the U.N. In Ye-U township, 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of Wetlet, more than 20,000 people are in need of emergency food and medical supplies according to the information officer from a local militia. Htoo Khant Zaw from the People’s Defense Comrades said that’s how many people have lost their homes in the township since the coup, and are now living in makeshift tents in their villages. “More than 20,000 people affected by the fires are facing a crisis of living and food shortages,” he said. “Although the township humanitarian group and other social groups are helping on the ground, not everyone from the 51 villages has received enough assistance. The main need is food.” He said 3,429 houses were destroyed by junta arson attacks, along with churches, monasteries, shops and other buildings.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [INTERVIEW: ‘All we see is an increase in violence’](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-all-we-see-is-an-increase-in-violence/): Nicholas Koumjian is the chief of the United Nations Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, or IIMM, which earlier this month said that it had collected “strong evidence” that the junta and its affiliate militias are committing “increasingly frequent and brazen war crimes” in the country. Among the crimes mentioned in the agency’s annual report were what it called “indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks on civilians from aerial bombing,” as well as an increase in the “mass executions of civilians and detained combatants, and the large-scale and intentional burning of civilian homes and buildings.” RFA Burmese’s Ye Kaung Myint Maung recently spoke with Koumjian about the report’s findings and ongoing efforts to bring junta perpetrators of the crimes it documents to justice. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. Nicholas Koumjian, seen in 2012, is the chief of the UN&#8217;s Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar. Credit: Evert Jan Daniels/Pool/AFP RFA: IIMM has released its latest report on the atrocities and rights violations committed by the military this year. What do you think are the most significant findings in the report? Koumjian: I think for me, the most significant findings are that the number of crimes and the seriousness of the crimes only continues to grow &#8230; We&#8217;ve seen the number of victims in the violence since the coup growing each year, each month. And the report particularly points to evidence of crimes involving aerial bombardment of areas where civilians are present. That resulted in many casualties, including casualties among children. [The report] also talks about the increasing numbers of individuals under arrest or detention, crimes of torture in detention, sexual violence in detention. And we&#8217;ve seen incidents where the military has gone into captured areas and executed those captured, who include combatants, but also civilians. RFA: So based on your findings and the evidence, what do you think the future holds for the regime and the conflicts in Myanmar? Koumjian: Unfortunately, all we see is an increase in the violence. And unfortunately, we also see a growing trend to disobey the basic principles of international law. That is, in conflicts, the armed forces are required to only target other combatants and not civilians. But we&#8217;ve seen increasing numbers of civilians targeted. And this is of great concern to us, and we&#8217;re collecting that evidence. Charred homes are seen in Mwe Tone village of Pale township in Myanmar’s Sagaing region, Feb. 1, 2022, after an arson attack by junta forces. Credit: AP Holding leaders accountable RFA: Has the IIMM found any significant evidence that shows the top military leaders giving orders to commit these atrocities? Koumjian: Always the most difficult part of an investigation is showing the linkage to show who is responsible for crimes, particularly top leaders, because they&#8217;re normally not present where the crimes occur, but still they could be held responsible. And the evidence that in the past, in other cases, has led to convictions is not always limited to orders given or written orders given, because it&#8217;s very rare that you actually find these written orders given. But sometimes the evidence can be clear from the fact that crimes continue to happen with no change in the forces that it is the commanders who are perpetrating these crimes, the forces that are sent on assignments … Commanders can also be held responsible for failing to prevent crimes and failing to punish crimes. So we&#8217;ll also look at evidence regarding whether or not, when crimes occurred, did the commanders properly investigate those crimes and did they properly take all reasonable steps to prevent them from happening again. RFA: As an expert in this area, do you think you have found anything to implicate the top leader&#8217;s involvement in these atrocities? Koumjian: Of course, ultimately it will be up to a court that would, we hope, someday hear any charges that are filed … But we are collecting very serious evidence. A school bag lies next to dried blood stains on the floor of a middle school in Let Yet Kone village in Tabayin township in Myanmar’s Sagaing region, Sept. 17, 2022, the day after a junta airstrike. Credit: AP Crimes by other groups RFA: Did you also find any evidence with regard to the crimes committed by groups other than the military, such as the anti-junta [People’s Defense Force] resistance groups and ethnic armies? Koumjian: Our mandate is to investigate crimes committed in Myanmar that rise to a certain level. And it&#8217;s regardless of what ethnicity or religion or the politics or the perpetrators or the victims. So we do look at crimes committed by other groups. And we are collecting evidence of that. We&#8217;re also very concerned with some of the reports of assassinations by PDFs and other groups of individuals who appear to be noncombatants. It&#8217;s a basic principle of the laws of war. You cannot target someone unless they are combatants. Civilians cannot be targeted. So there are issues about whether these crimes fall into our mandate, whether they fall into the category of international crimes. But we&#8217;re looking at that and we&#8217;re watching carefully.
- [Family celebrates as Lao man who lost contact while working in Malaysia returns home](https://ij-reportika.com/family-celebrates-as-lao-man-who-lost-contact-while-working-in-malaysia-returns-home/): A Lao rubber plantation worker who was jailed for a year in Malaysia and was presumed dead by relatives returned home to his family in Laos’ Attapeu province this week. Aloun Phommalath, 24, worked on plantations in Malaysia for four years before he was arrested on drug charges in August 2021.  He was released in late 2022, but relatives in Attapeu’s Sanamxay district didn’t know how to contact him. Phommalath lost his phone in jail and didn’t remember his family’s phone number. Family members told Radio Free Asia that they worried that the lack of contact meant he had died. But Phommalath eventually sent a letter to them through a co-worker who was on his way back to Laos. His family then sent a text message to RFA asking for assistance in bringing him home. An RFA reporter then emailed the Lao Embassy in Malaysia alerting them to Phommalath’s situation. Phommalath returned to Laos on Wednesday. “We are so happy. Nothing compares. It’s like he’s born again,” his brother said. “I never dreamed that he would return home after we lost contact with him for so long.” One of Phommalath’s sisters said she ran toward the airplane after it landed and wheeled to the terminal.  “All relatives came to visit when he returned home,” another sister said. “All of them asked why he was so fat and dark. They have been waiting for him to come home for a long time.” An official from the Lao Embassy told RFA that Phommalath’s criminal case was related to the drug “Kratom,” an herbal substance that can produce opioid- and stimulant-like effects. He was jailed for one year, the official said. Exploitation risk The Lao Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare estimated last year that about 2,000 Laotians had traveled illegally to Malaysia for jobs in the fishing industry.  During the pandemic, 700 Lao migrants returned home from Malaysia, but most eventually went back once economic conditions in Laos worsened due in part to high inflation, the ministry said. Though the pay is sometimes better there than what they could earn in Laos, illegal migrants are often exploited by their employers, a Lao fisherman who has been working in Malaysia’s Pahang state told RFA on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. To ensure their rights are protected, the Lao government is working on finding ways for more migrants to go to Malaysia legally. Despite the risks, Malaysia is attractive to migrants because it is a relatively easy country to work in, the fisherman said. “The main reason so many choose to come here is because we don’t have money. Most of us don’t even have enough to make a passport,” he said. Translated by Sidney Khotpanya. Edited by Matt Reed.
- [IMF: China leads as global fossil fuel subsidies hit record $7 trillion](https://ij-reportika.com/imf-china-leads-as-global-fossil-fuel-subsidies-hit-record-7-trillion/): Global fossil fuel subsidies hit a record U.S.$7 trillion, equivalent to more than 7% of global gross domestic product in 2022, the International Monetary Fund said. The subsidies are financial support from governments that make fossil fuels like oil, gas, and coal cheaper to produce or buy. Subsidies for coal, oil and natural gas in 2022 represented more than world governments spent on education and two-thirds of what was spent on healthcare. According to the IMF report released Thursday, governments provided support to consumers and businesses during the surge in global energy prices, a consequence of Russia’s incursion into Ukraine and the economic rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic. The IMF’s report comes as the world witnesses its highest average monthly temperatures on record.  When burned, fossil fuels emit harmful pollutants that contribute to global warming and intensify extreme weather events. They also contaminate the air with toxins, harming our respiratory systems and other vital organs and killing millions yearly. By fuel product, undercharging for oil products accounted for nearly half the subsidies, coal another 30%, and natural gas almost 20% (underpricing for electricity accounts for the remainder), the report said. By region, East Asia and the Pacific accounted for nearly half the global subsidy, according to the IMF.  Meanwhile, by country, in absolute terms, China contributed by far the most to total subsidies ($2.2 trillion) in 2022, followed by the United States ($760 billion), Russia ($420 billion), India ($350 billion), and the European Union ($310 billion).  Graphic showing yearly global fossil fuel subsidies. Credit: IMF The bulk of global subsidies accounted for in the study fall into what the IMF termed implicit subsidies, which arise when governments do not adequately charge for the environmental damage caused by the combustion of fossil fuels.  Such damage encompasses air pollution and climate change, with the impact forecast to grow due to the rising consumption of fossil fuels by developing countries.  The IMF said explicit subsidies, in which consumers pay less than the supply costs of fossil fuels, have tripled since 2020, from $0.5 trillion to $1.5 trillion in 2022. The figure is similar to the estimates from the Canada-based think tank, International Institute for Sustainable Development, released Wednesday, that said the world’s biggest economies, the G20, provided a record $1.4 trillion in public money for fossil fuels in 2022 despite the promise to reduce spending.  That includes investments by state-owned enterprises and loans from public finance institutions.  The G20 nations, which cause 80% of global carbon emissions, pledged to phase out “inefficient” fossil fuel subsidies in 2009. Comprehensively reforming fossil fuel prices by removing explicit fuel subsidies and imposing corrective taxes such as a carbon tax would reduce global carbon dioxide emissions by 43% below “business as usual” levels in 2030 (34% below 2019 levels) the IMF said.  It added that this would be in line with keeping global warming to ‘well below’ 2 degrees Celsius and towards 1.5 degrees Celsius. “Underpricing fossil fuels implies that governments forgo a valuable source of much-needed revenue and undermines distributional and poverty reduction objectives since most of the benefits from undercharging accrue to wealthier households,” the IMF report said. “The gap between efficient and current fuel prices is often substantial given, not least, the damages from climate change and the large number of people dying prematurely from fossil fuel air pollution exposure (4.5 million a year).” The IMF said fuel price reform would avert about 1.6 million premature deaths yearly from local air pollution by 2030. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [Trafficked Lao teen says new rules include beatings if caught texting](https://ij-reportika.com/trafficked-lao-teen-says-new-rules-include-beatings-if-caught-texting/): Dozens of Lao teens trapped in a Myanmar scam compound since last year are seeing even their scant lines of communication narrowing following grave new threats from their captors.  The mother of one of the trafficked teens told RFA that her daughter’s last message said anyone caught using a cellphone would be beaten 50 times with an iron bar and tied to a tree during working hours for five days.  Parents of the teenagers, who were trafficked to a Chinese-owned casino in Myanmar and forced to participate in cyber scams, have long called on Lao authorities for aid in releasing their children. Authorities have previously told RFA that access is impossible due to ongoing conflict between Myanmar junta forces and the Karen National Liberation Army fighting an insurgency against the military regime.  “What could we do to help our children be released from that place as we’ve waited for one year already?” the mother asked RFA. Dozens of teenagers and youth from Luang Namtha province in Laos were trafficked to “Casino Kosai” in Myawaddy on Myanmar’s eastern border with Thailand last year.  There, the Laotians and scores of other young workers from the Philippines, China and elsewhere have been forced to work upwards of 16 hours a day. If they fail to dupe an unsuspecting “lonely heart” into parting with sufficient funds, they face harassment, beatings and electric shocks. The texts from the girl, who last month was beaten until she collapsed, also suggest that Chinese police have made moves to curtail some criminal activity at the casino — but only among their own citizens. While the information could not be corroborated, the mother told RFA her daughter reported that Chinese authorities arrived this week to arrest Chinese workers, though the scam compound is still in operation.   Kearrin Sims, a senior lecturer at James Cook University who has researched crime in Laos, said the government could be doing far more to prevent “large-scale domestic trafficking.” “It is horrific that these vulnerable young people are being subjected to such violence and that Lao authorities are unable or unwilling to rescue them and to prevent the trafficking from occurring,” he wrote in an email.   “Some form of diplomatic intervention by the Lao government is needed. We are unlikely to know what form that takes, and the government is unlikely to even acknowledge that such efforts have been made, but certainly it could request assistance from China in rescuing the victims. Perhaps that has already (unsuccessfully) happened with regard to the recent intervention by Chinese police.” Translated by Sidney Khotpanya for RFA Lao. Additional reporting by Abby Seiff. 
- [Wagner head plane crash provokes discussion in China](https://ij-reportika.com/wagner-head-plane-crash-provokes-discussion-in-china/): Russia’s civil aviation agency said Wagner Group head Yevgeny Prigozhin was on an airplane that crashed near Moscow Wednesday. It has fueled a wave of online discussion in China, where some drew comparisons to the Chinese Communist Party’s not so distant past. No cause for the crash was provided, but Wagner-flagged Telegram accounts blamed Russian air defenses for shooting down the Embraer jet. Prigozhin’s death comes exactly two months – to the day – after the Wagner Group undertook an armed rebellion against the Russian Armed Forces, seizing control of a Russian military office in the city of Rostov-on-Don and briefly marching on Moscow. According to the Wagner Group, Prigozhin was among 10 people who lost their lives in the crash involving a private plane flying from Moscow to St. Petersburg that came down less than half an hour after taking off. The group posted what is believed to be a video of the crash on social media platforms, showing an airplane crashing and burning. They confirmed that Prigozhin had died, describing him as a hero and a patriot. They further claimed that he died at the hands of “Russian traitors.” Eyewitness footage of the crash site of a plane linked to Wagner Chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, near Kuzhenkino, Tver region, Russia, August 23, 2023, in this screen grab taken from a video. Credit: Ostorozhno Novosti/Handout via Reuters Although the news broke in the middle of the night in China, keywords related to “Prigozhin” quickly trended on the social media app Weibo, which had 255 million daily users as of March of this year. Numerous bloggers also uploaded late-night videos discussing the implications of the Prigozhin incident. China’s earlier official response to Wagner Group’s brief mutiny was muted, with a Foreign Ministry statement on June 25 calling it “Russia’s internal affair,” adding that China “supports Russia in maintaining national stability.” But some experts interviewed by the state media outlet China Daily expressed concerns about the stability of China’s friend and neighbor. “The conflict between mercenaries and the Russian army is only the tip of the iceberg about the inherent contradictions in Russian society,” said Yu Sui, a professor at the China Center for Contemporary World Studies. Challenging the leadership Many online commentators remarked on the inherent risk of standing up to autocrats in what some of them dared to call “totalitarian” states. “Prigozhin, the head of the mercenaries, clearly didn’t understand politics. Didn’t he watch House of Cards? He made the mistake of rebelling against Putin,” blogger Yojia Fleet wrote. “Breaking news! Prigozhin’s private plane crashed north of Moscow. After offending Putin, he didn’t live long. As for the cause of his death, we can only speculate,” wrote another blogger who goes by the name of Wang Xiaodong Some Chinese netizens created polls such as “Who’s behind Prigozhin’s plane crash?” to attract attention and web traffic. Online comparisons were also made to the “Russian version of the Lin Biao incident,” a reference to a top leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Chairman Mao Zedong’s chosen successor. In 1971, he is believed to have died when his plane nosedived into the grasslands of Outer Mongolia. China’s official line is that Lin planned to assassinate Mao and when his plot failed he tried to flee Beijing for Moscow, but with insufficient fuel to complete the flight. Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Chinese President Xi Jinping toast during their dinner in the Moscow Kremlin, Russia, March 21, 2023. CREDIT: Pavel Byrkin, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File Professor Yang Haiying of Japan’s Shizuoka University said the reason that online commentators were calling the incident the “Russian version of the Lin Biao incident” was because both China and Russia are dictatorships.  “Chinese citizens are paying attention to this because of the close relationship between Xi and Putin. If anyone opposes Putin, their fate is sealed, just as if anyone opposes Xi, they might follow Lin Biao’s path,” said Yang. However, Hu Ping, honorary editor of the New York-based Beijing Spring magazine, said that the relationship between Prigozhin and Putin cannot be directly compared to that of Lin Biao and Mao Zedong. He added that Lin Biao’s accident was shocking all the same, and Prigozhin’s death was dramatic, sparking discussions online. “For the CCP, this isn’t politically sensitive because it’s an external event, but a dramatic one,” said Hu. “With the Chinese government supporting Russia in the war against Ukraine and Xi Jinping often comparing himself to Putin, these factors naturally lead to speculation.” Political commentator Wang Jian said that Chinese netizens were fascinated with the latest news because of China’s good relationship with Russia, but warned that government voices might use the news to make Chinese citizens even more afraid to challenge the government. “With issues like unemployment and dropping house prices, people are anxious,” said Wang. “The government is unpredictable. The focus of Chinese netizens on external events has decreased because of the economic downturn. But government online commentators might create an atmosphere that suggests disloyalty will lead to bad consequences.” Wang also alluded to the CCP’s complete grip on the military, saying it was unlikely that China could experience a mutiny similar to Russia’s. He added that Beijing won’t need to leverage the incident to strengthen control over the military. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [Philippine officials release footage of sea standoff, as senator pushes for inquiry](https://ij-reportika.com/philippine-officials-release-footage-of-sea-standoff-as-senator-pushes-for-inquiry/): A senator called Wednesday for an inquiry into how the Philippines could strengthen control of its South China Sea territory, as the coast guard released footage from a standoff between Filipino and Chinese ships in disputed waters a day earlier.&nbsp; The videos showed a convoy of Philippine boats and ships as they maneuvered past the China Coast Guard while sailing on a resupply mission to a remote military outpost in Ayungin Shoal (Second Thomas Shoal) in the Spratly Islands.&nbsp; Two&nbsp;Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) ships, the BRP Cabra and BRP Sindangan, escorted the convoy. They had arranged a rendezvous with civilian boats contracted by the military on Monday before setting off for&nbsp;Ayungin Shoal&nbsp;the following day, Commander Jay Tarriela said.&nbsp;&nbsp; The PCG spokesman challenged Chinese claims that its ships allowed the supply mission to proceed peacefully, and said that when the Philippine ships were within 2.5 nautical miles of reaching the shoal “we experienced dangerous maneuvers by four China Coast Guard vessels backed by four Chinese maritime militia.&nbsp; “They executed different ways for the Philippine Coast Guard to be separated from the supply boats so that they would be able to prevent (them) from entering the shoal,” Tarriela told reporters.&nbsp; Also on Wednesday, Sen. Risa Hontiveros alleged that the People’s Republic of China had continued to militarize portions of the West Philippine Sea, despite international condemnation. Manila uses that name for South China Sea waters that lie within its territory. During a speech in the Senate,&nbsp;Hontiveros called&nbsp;“for an inquiry, in aid of legislation, into further capacitating and empowering the Philippine Coast Guard to enable it to carry out its primary mission of enforcing Philippine law and upholding national sovereignty within the country’s maritime zones, particularly the West Philippine Sea.” China’s actions, she said, had led to an “unprecedented challenge to the Philippine Coast Guard’s primary mission of enforcing Philippine law, maintaining the country’s sovereignty and upholding vital national interests. In Beijing on Wednesday, China’s foreign ministry called on the Philippines “to immediately stop any actions that may complicate the situation on the ground.&nbsp; “Let me stress that in response to what the Philippines did, China Coast Guard took necessary law enforcement action in accordance with the law,” ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said.&nbsp; Tuesday’s incident followed one about two weeks ago where the China Coast Guard fired&nbsp;water cannons&nbsp;at the BRP Sierra Madre, a World War II-era ship deliberately run aground by the Philippines to serve as its military outpost in Ayungin Shoal.&nbsp; The&nbsp;shoal&nbsp;is about 200 km (124 miles) from the western Philippine island of Palawan, and more than 1,000 km (621 miles) from China’s nearest major landmass, Hainan island. “Now, it has become clear that China has her eye on Ayungin Shoal. The water cannons, the military laser, the removal of a naval gun cover – all these severe provocations were against Philippine vessels making their way to Ayungin,” Hontiveros told the Senate on Wednesday. “China is actively blocking these missions because she does not want any further reinforcement to our most defiant sovereign marker in the West Philippine Sea, the BRP Sierra Madre.” Videos On Wednesday, Tarriela presented a video that showed a China Coast Guard ship blocking a Philippine Coast Guard ship from entering the shoal.&nbsp; A second Chinese ship was positioned to intercept the Filipinos in case they got through the first cordon, the video showed.&nbsp; “There are also other videos that we have showing that our supply boats were being blocked by China Coast Guard vessels and the four Chinese maritime militia,” he said.&nbsp; “Well, this time our game plan really was to outmaneuver the China Coast Guard vessels … and make sure that the supply boats would be successful in entering the shoal,” Tarriela said.&nbsp; &nbsp; A U.S. Navy plane flies over the Ayungin Shoal during a Philippine resupply mission to the BRP Sierra Madre, Aug. 22, 2023. Credit: Aaron Favila/AP &nbsp; &nbsp; The Chinese ships issued radio challenges and warnings that said Beijing had “indisputable sovereignty” over the sea region, according to officials. The Chinese ships said they were allowing the Philippine Coast Guard and the supply boats to pass through “in the spirit of humanism.”&nbsp; “[W]e don’t need permission from the People’s Republic of China and Ayungin Shoal is within our exclusive economic zone. We have the sovereign right over these waters,” Tarriela said. “Secondly, it is not true that they are humane or extended humanitarian assistance.” Journalists who traveled with the Philippine Coast Guard on Tuesday posted photos of a U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon patrol and reconnaissance plane flying overhead during the resupply mission.&nbsp; In Washington on Wednesday, officials at the Pentagon did not immediately respond to a BenarNews request for comment about the flight. On Monday, U.S., Australian and Philippine troops held an air assault drill in Rizal town, in the western island province of Palawan, about 108 nautical miles from Ayungin Shoal. BenarNews is an Ijreportika-affiliated online news organization.
- [G20 spent a record $1.4 trillion on fossil fuels in 2022, report says](https://ij-reportika.com/g20-spent-a-record-1-4-trillion-on-fossil-fuels-in-2022-report-says/): The world’s biggest economies, the G20, provided a record U.S.$1.4 trillion in public money for fossil fuels in 2022 despite the promise to reduce spending, a new study by a think tank said.  “The 2022 energy price crisis, brought about by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has catapulted public financial support for fossil fuels to new levels,” said the International Institute for Sustainable Development, or IISD, in its analysis, Fanning the Flames, released on Wednesday. The amount is more than double the pre-pandemic and pre-energy crisis levels of 2019 and more than four times the annual average in the previous decade, the Canada-based organization said. When burned, fossil fuels emit harmful pollutants that contribute to global warming and intensify extreme weather events. They also contaminate the air with toxins, harming our respiratory systems and other vital organs and killing millions yearly. Of the funding, the largest share of $1 trillion was allocated as fossil fuel subsidies, while $322 billion was in the form of state-owned enterprise investments and an additional $50 billion as public financial institution loans.  “While much of this was support for consumers, around one-third ($440 billion) was driving investment in new fossil fuel production,” the report said, adding such support “perpetuates the world’s reliance on fossil fuels, paving the way for yet more energy crises due to market volatility and geopolitical security risks.” “These figures are a stark reminder of the massive amounts of public money G20 governments continue to pour into fossil fuels – despite the increasingly devastating impacts of climate change,” said Tara Laan, a senior associate with the IISD and lead author of the study.  The IISD said the increase in investment is against the expressed pledge in the 2015 Paris Agreement and such continued investments in fossil fuels greatly hinder the chances of meeting the climate targets, as they promote greenhouse gas emissions and diminish the cost-effectiveness of renewable energy. It said that G20 nations should redirect their financial investments from fossil fuels to targeted, sustainable support for social protection and the expansion of renewable energy. This aerial photo taken on  Nov. 28, 2022 shows a cargo ship loaded with coal berthing at a port in Lianyungang, in China&#8217;s eastern Jiangsu province. Credit: AFP The report comes just ahead of the pivotal G20 leaders’ conference scheduled in New Delhi on Sept. 9-10, where discussions on climate change consensus are anticipated. The meeting could set the tone for the UN’s COP28 climate change conference in Dubai in November. The report lauded the achievement of G20 chair India as it reduced its fossil fuel subsidies by 76% from 2014 to 2022 while significantly increasing support for clean energy.  The IISD urged G20 leaders to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies in developed nations by 2025 and in all other countries by 2030. The world leaders had agreed to phase out “inefficient” fossil fuel subsidies at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow two years ago. “International public financing for fossil fuels has decreased in recent years but is still nearly four times greater than support for clean energy,” the report said, adding it came in the form of international aid, export credit support, and concessional financing, such as equity, grants, loans, and loan guarantees. China is among the top four largest providers of international public finance for fossil fuels in absolute dollar terms, providing $6.7 billion annually between 2019 and 2021.  Japan provided $10.6 billion, while Canada provided $8.5 billion. South Korea came in third with a $7.3 billion investment.  The most common fuels supported were oil and gas at 88%.  The report also noted that G20 countries announced more than a quarter trillion dollars in subsidies for renewable power generation between 2020 and June 2023, with the United States, Germany and China leading the chart.  “While positive, the renewable subsidies are dwarfed by subsidies for fossil fuels, which were over USD 1.4 trillion in the three years from 2020 to 2022,” the report said. The IISD also said while global investment in renewable energy reached a record high of $500 billion in 2022, it was still only around half of the investment in fossil fuels. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [India pushes back hundreds of Myanmar refugees fleeing fighting](https://ij-reportika.com/india-pushes-back-hundreds-of-myanmar-refugees-fleeing-fighting/): India has pushed back at least 300 hundred Burmese refugees who spilled across the border while fleeing fighting between Myanmar’s military and rebel forces, forcing them to shelter in makeshift tents near the border, refugees and aid workers said.&nbsp; More than 1,000 residents of Tamu township, in northern Myanmar’s Sagaing region, fled to India’s Manipur state in July and August to escape the hostilities, only to have Indian soldiers turn them back, the sources said. The hundreds of refugees living in tents in Indian villages near the border are facing food and supply shortages, a refugee from Tamu who was among them told Ijreportika. Indian troops drove the Burmese refugees out of the villages after two or three days, forcing them to seek shelter near the Myanmar side of the border, he said. “We are currently in need of rainfly sheets to build tents and many other supplies,” he said. Burmese and Indian authorities. meanwhile, have shut down a key border crossing in the area. Altogether, about 5,000 Burmese refugees from Tamu township have sought shelter in Manipur state due to the fighting, said Salai Dokhar, founder of India For Myanmar, a group that helps Burmese refugees in India.&nbsp; They are among about 50,000 Myanmar citizens who have fled to India since the military ousted Myanmar’s democratically elected government in a February 2021 coup. Bombings force villagers to flee Junta troops conducted nighttime aerial bombings of Boke Kan village in Tamu township on Aug. 18, prompting more than 500 residents and others from nearby communities to flee to adjacent Manipur. Similarly, on July 22, over 700 residents from Khampat, a 2,000-home township located about 8 kilometers (5 miles) southeast of the border with Manipur, fled across the border and into India because of a battle between junta forces and the resistance fighters. Manipur authorities have been collecting biometric data from Burmese refugees, raising fears that the data could be shared with the junta, Ijreportika reported earlier this month. Thang Sei, an official from the Burma Refugee Committee Kabaw Valley, which is helping the Burmese refugees, told Ijreportika that more than half of the refugees returned to Myanmar after a few days when fighting in Tamu stopped. They went to the town of Kalay and other villages in Sagaing, but since&nbsp;junta troops continue to clear the Tamu area, it is still impossible for refugees to return to their homes there, said the refugee who is sheltering on the border. Neither the Indian Embassy in Yangon nor the Myanmar Embassy in New Delhi, India, responded to Ijreportika&#8217;s requests for comment on the refugees. The Indian government should reconsider its decision to expel Burmese refugees, said Salai Dokhar.&nbsp;&nbsp; “When Burmese people want good relations between Myanmar and India, this kind of action by India directly destroys our hopes for the future,” he said. “That is why Indian officials need to review the way they handle Burmese issues.” Translated by Myo Min Aung for Ijreportika Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar troops arrest 100 villagers, kill man in Magway region](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-troops-arrest-100-villagers-kill-man-in-magway-region/): Junta troops arrested around 100 villagers in Myanmar’s Magway region, killing one man, locals told RFA Tuesday. Around 100 soldiers raided Shwe Lin Swea in Myaing township on Sunday after bombarding the village with heavy artillery. They arrested 40 men and around 60 women, setting most free the following day. Locals said they held onto four men and tortured them, killing one 50-year-old man. “There were four arrested including Htay Win but he was killed,” said a local who didn’t want to be named for fear of reprisals. “One man escaped … When he was asked to drive a bullock cart by the soldiers he released the bullocks, pretended to chase them and ran away.” The local said two men were still being held by the troops but he didn’t know their names. The troops took rice, oil, beans and cooking utensils from the villagers before heading to another village, according to another local who also requested anonymity for safety reasons. “The troops moved on to Let Htoke Taw village in the afternoon and grabbed things from the village and even from the monastery [and put them in] three trucks,” the local said.  “There is no one left in the village. The village was set on fire without anyone to defend [the houses].” Around 40 homes were burned in villages in Myaing township, Magway region on Aug. 21, 2023. Credit: Myaing Villages Revolutionary Front Another local said troops burned around 40 houses in Myaing township. He said nearly 1,700 residents of Shwe Lin Swea and Let Htoke villages fled ahead of the junta raids. Aung Zeya, leader of the Myaing Villages Revolutionary Front, told RFA local defense forces clashed with the troops on Sunday as they moved the stolen food to another village in the township but he didn’t say how many casualties there were on either side. The junta spokesperson for Magway region, Than Swe Win, said that he was not aware of the incident because he was on medical leave. More than 10,000 homes in Magway region have been burned down by the junta and affiliated militias since the Feb. 2021 coup, according to the independent research group Data for Myanmar. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [Cambodia’s king calls on lawmakers, government to resolve their differences](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodias-king-calls-on-lawmakers-government-to-resolve-their-differences/): In an opening speech to Cambodia’s newly elected parliament on Monday, King Norodom Sihamoni called on lawmakers and the government to reconcile their deep divisions, though political commentators and opposition officials say the effort will amount to naught. The July 23 elections, won by the ruling Cambodian People’s Party in a landslide, have been widely criticized by Western governments and opposition activists because authorities kept the main opposition Candlelight Party from participating on a technicality. Three days after the election, Prime Minister Hun Sen – who has ruled the country since 1985 – announced he would step down and hand power to his eldest son, army chief Hun Manet.&nbsp; The king, who has served as the head of the country’s constitutional monarchy since October 2004, issued a royal message calling on members of the National Assembly and the government to forge national reconciliation and adhere to the four Brahmanical principles of Buddhism. Norodom Sihamoni said he expected the new government to win the trust of the National Assembly to develop and strengthen the comprehensive social protection system for Cambodian citizens. A high degree of unity and solidarity would ensure the strong existence of a national identity, promote socioeconomic development and boost morality for the harmony of society, the king said.&nbsp; “On this great occasion, I wish the 7th National Assembly to run smoothly and carry out its role with a responsible conscience in order to achieve new successes for the common good of the motherland,” the king told the 125 lawmakers, all of whom except five were from the ruling Cambodian People’s Party or CCP. The others were from Funcinpec led by Prince Norodom Chakravuth, the king’s nephew. Hun Sen, former National Assembly President Heng Samrin, and Interior Minister Sar Kheng also were in attendance.&nbsp; ‘Fake’ election&nbsp; Political analysts and opposition officials said the king’s speech reflected his view that the country’s political divisions would harm the nation, though the situation would not likely change. Um Sam An, a senior official from the banned Cambodia National Rescue Party, or CNRP, said the king’s remarks were intended to guide the new government and lawmakers back onto a democratic path for the benefit of society following what he called “fake” elections.&nbsp; The CNRP official also said that the king was likely dissatisfied with the leadership of the previous one-party government, which often persecuted dissidents and opposition groups. “He warned the deputies to be kind and treat the people well,” Um Sam An said, adding that the political crisis in Cambodia has gotten worse with the holding of “fake” elections this year and in 2018. “So, he understands that democracy and respect for human rights will only get worse in Cambodia,” said Um Sam An. Hun Sen dissolved the opposition CNRP in 2017 and later prevented the party’s leader, Sam Rainsy, from returning to Cambodia to stand trial on charges that rights groups said were politically motivated. Political commentator Kim Sok condemned the new government, saying it was born of fraudulent elections.&nbsp; “This illegitimate government and parliament face a huge reaction from the international community, the reaction of the people who will protest around the world,” he said. “And in the face of both economic and social crises, poverty and unemployment will occur. All these crises weaken our country.” Knowing these prospects, the king has called for national unity, which is all his authority allows him to do, Kim Sok added. CCP spokesman Sok Eysan told Radio Free Asia that the king&#8217;s statement was a general message to people from all walks of life, not a reference to the new government or the National Assembly. He also said that national unity depended on the attitude of the opposition.&nbsp; Patrick Murphy, the U.S. ambassador to Cambodia, who attended the opening of the National Assembly, sent a positive message to the newly elected lawmakers. “As the new gov’t. begins its tenure, it can restore multi-party democracy, end political convictions, and allow independent media to reopen &amp; function without interference, he tweeted. Translated by Sokry Sum for Ijreportika Khmer. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Pacific island countries facing faster sea level rise, UN says](https://ij-reportika.com/pacific-island-countries-facing-faster-sea-level-rise-un-says/): The low-lying Pacific islands face severe threats due to rising sea levels, which are increasing quicker than anticipated, while heightened temperatures impact marine habitats, according to a new U.N. meteorological body report. The Pacific region is experiencing an approximate increase of 4 millimeters of sea level rise annually in certain regions, which is higher than the worldwide average of 3.4 mm per year, the World Meteorological Organization, or WMO, said in its 2022 State of the Climate report released on Friday. The Pacific islands most vulnerable to this rising sea level include nations such as Kiribati, Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands, and the Maldives. These low-lying nations, often no more than a few meters above sea level, are alarmingly at the forefront of this crisis. Their unique geographies and limited land mass make them especially susceptible to even the slightest increase in sea level, threatening their very existence and the livelihoods of their residents. Separately, the report added that ocean heat and acidification threaten vulnerable marine ecosystems and their way of life. It said that weather-related disasters and climate change impacts are posing socio-economic risks and effects on key sectors like agriculture in the South-West Pacific region, which comprises all countries between Malaysia and Kiribati. The ocean absorbs over 90% of the surplus heat in our climate system, the WMO said, as the warming is responsible for about 40% of the average global sea-level increase due to the thermal expansion of seawater. It also impacts ocean currents and storm patterns. In 2022, the South-West Pacific experienced 35 recorded natural disasters that killed more than 700 people, with floods accounting for over 70% of these incidents, according to the report. These events impacted over 8 million individuals, inflicting an economic toll nearing U.S.$9 billion. In the Philippines and Fiji, storms were the predominant reason for the high death toll and the many affected individuals. A woman walks past a flooded market caused by monsoon rains and the recent typhoon Doksuri, in Balagtas, Bulacan province, Philippines, July 29, 2023. Credit: Reuters Even though the number of reported disaster events decreased in 2022, economic losses increased mainly due to a series of flooding events in Australia. Last year’s flood damage of U.S.$8.5 billion was over four times the 20-year average from 2002 to 2021. “Early warning is one of the most effective ways of reducing damage from disasters, as it empowers people to make risk-informed decisions for food security, as well as other sectors,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas. “Despite continuous efforts to strengthen multi-hazard early warning systems, the present report clearly shows that there are still significant gaps to be addressed to strengthen these systems to reduce the adverse impacts of hydrometeorological hazards in the region.” El Nino this year might make it worse The WMO said the three-year-long La Nina event, from 2020 to the start of 2023, had a temporary cooling influence, though 2022 still ranks within the top ten warmest years for the region, with the mean temperature of 0.2 to 0.3 degrees Celsius higher than during the last intense La Nina event in 2011. The report said that prominent marine heatwaves persisted for over six months in a vast region northeast of Australia and south of Papua New Guinea, specifically in the Solomon and Coral Seas. The region has now entered El Nino, which means drier and hotter weather. “This will have a big impact on the South-West Pacific region as it is frequently associated with higher temperatures, disruptive weather patterns and more marine heatwaves and coral bleaching,” said Taalas.  According to the WMO, the upper ocean (between zero and 700 meters below the surface) has warmed since 1993 in most of the Pacific’s South-West region. The report said that many regions in the Pacific region, including the Solomon Sea, Banda and Timor Seas, and regions east of the Philippines and the southern shoreline of Indonesia, have experienced significant warming, with the rates two to three times higher than the global average. The WMO said the glacier size in the western part of the Indonesian island of New Guinea decreased by 15% from 0.27 to 0.23 square kilometers between July 2021 and April 2022, while ice thickness dropped 24 meters from June 2010 to early 2021, with only 6 meters remaining in December 2022. July had warmest ocean temperature Earlier this month, another report from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, or C3S, said the global average sea surface temperatures continued to rise after a long period of unusually high temperatures since April 2023, reaching a new high of 20.96 degrees Celsius (69.73 degrees Fahrenheit) in July. Global ocean temperatures are usually warmest in March, so scientists say the record will likely keep increasing. Overall, the global mean sea surface temperature for the month surpassed the 1991-2020 average by 0.51 degrees Celsius, Copernicus said in its report on July 8. For July, the North Atlantic recorded temperatures of 1.05 C higher than usual, while marine heatwaves were observed south of Greenland, in the Labrador Sea, within the Caribbean region, and throughout the Mediterranean Sea. “These records have dire consequences for both people and the planet exposed to ever more frequent and intense extreme events,” said Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director of the C3S. “2023 is currently the third warmest year to date at 0.43ºC above the recent average, with the average global temperature in July at 1.5°C above pre industrial levels.” “Even if this is only temporary, it shows the urgency for ambitious efforts to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, which are the main driver behind these records,” she said. July also had the warmest global air temperature, according to the WMO. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [Suu Kyi’s son urges young Burmese to ‘never give up’ on democracy](https://ij-reportika.com/suu-kyis-son-urges-young-burmese-to-never-give-up-on-democracy/): Radio Free Asia’s Soe San Aung spoke with Kim Aris, the son of former State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, last week.  Suu Kyi served as Myanmar’s de facto leader following national elections in 2015, which her National League of Democracy won by a landslide. The party also won the 2020 national elections, but the military seized power from the democratically elected government on Feb. 1, 2021.  The army immediately arrested civilian leaders, including Suu Kyi, who were in Naypyidaw for the convening of the newly elected lower house of parliament. She was held at Naypyidaw Prison until last month, when a source told RFA that she was relocated to “a more comfortable state-owned residence.” Aris is living in the United Kingdom and has been unable to contact his mother since the military coup. Aung San Suu Kyi smiles at her youngest son, Kim Aris, during their visit to Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, Myanmar, July 12, 2011. Credit: Khin Maung Win/AP RFA: You’ve been involved in supporting the Burmese community in London and you’ve been finding funds to support back home. First, tell me what you’ve been doing to support the spring revolution, the nationwide wave of popular resistance to the Myanmar military following the 2021 coup.  Kim Aris: But I never really wish to be a public figure. I kind of already stand by and see what others do and what is needed. And as my mother’s son, I have a unique position whereby I can speak out to the world. Outside of the Burmese community, people aren’t very aware of what’s happening. So I’m doing what I can to raise funds and awareness for the cause.  RFA: As we know, your mother, Aung San Suu Kyi, was once given the chance to leave Burma, but chose to stay with the Burmese people over her family. How would you describe your mother?  Kim Aris: It always saddens and angers me that my mother has sometimes been portrayed as cold hearted because she was unable to be by my father’s side while he was dying. I was nursing him at that time, and I can say that he did not wish for her to return to England.  We wanted to be by her side in Burma. Unfortunately, the military couldn’t find it in their heart to allow him his dying wish. And from my point of view, I’ve never felt like she left me. I was with her when she was first put under house arrest in Burma. And it never felt like she abandoned me in any way.  Also in Burma, everybody’s now lost their parents to the military. It’s not as though I’ve actually lost my mother. People in Burma are going through far worse than what I have been through. It’s lucky for me that my mother left me here in England, where it’s safe. I feel privileged. Compared to what’s happening to the people in Burma, I have a very easy life. Aung San Suu Kyi smiles to supporters as she sees off her son Kim Aris at Yangon International Airport, Dec. 7, 2010. Credit: Khin Maung Win/AP RFA: Now your mother, Aung San Suu Kyi, is under house arrest again. Have you had any contact with her?  Kim Aris: As far as I’m aware, she’s not actually under house arrest. She’s in prison somewhere. The military has said that she’s been moved into house arrest, but there’s been no evidence that that’s actually the case.  I have had no contact with her. And the military hasn’t responded to any requests I have made for contact or to inform me of her whereabouts. In the past, I have had some contact when she was under house arrest in Yangon, but now I don’t know what condition she’s being kept under or where she is.  RFA: We are aware that you went to the Burmese embassy to give a birthday gift to your mother, but they didn’t let you in and they didn’t even say anything to you. How many times have you sent a request to the junta to get in contact with her?  Kim Aris: There’s actually very little point to corresponding with these people because I haven’t received any response ever. So I’ve tried various other avenues, such as through the British Foreign Office and via the International Red Cross, but they’ve had the same result, which is no response.  RFA: I’m sorry to hear that. But in the last amnesty, they commuted some of your mother’s sentence. What was your reaction?  Kim Aris: It’s a military gesture. The military has used these tactics in the past to try and appease the international community whilst they still continue to perpetrate all sorts of atrocities against their own people every day. And even with the reduced sentence, my mother would still be over 100 when she’s released.  RFA: So you’ve been back to Burma, like when your mother was released in 2010. What was your perception about the country?  Kim Aris: Well, obviously the situation there was incredibly sad, especially since the country was going through a period of development. There was a great deal to look forward to. Now, all of that has been taken away. The country has gone backwards since the coup. So it seems like it is worse now than it was back in 1988.  RFA: Yeah, it’s like the country is in chaos right now. You know, young people are fighting back for their freedom. What&#8217;s your point of view about today’s crisis? Kim Aris: Well, from what I can gather, the situation is not sustainable for anybody. The military aren’t as strong as people think they may be. They have lots of high tech weaponry, but they do not have the manpower that the people have. And I hope that this war cannot go on for too much longer. No more bloodshed.  But obviously, that’s not going to happen any time soon. Hopefully things will play out before...
- [Thailand’s Pheu Thai close to winning power after allying with pro-military ‘Uncles’](https://ij-reportika.com/thailands-pheu-thai-close-to-winning-power-after-allying-with-pro-military-uncles/): After three months of political stasis following the May general election, Thailand’s parliament is expected to elect a government led by Srettha Thavisin of the Pheu Thai Party. While establishing a new government could calm financial markets after months of uncertainty, it’s not going to calm political tensions in the country. The Move Forward Party, which won the most seats in the May 14 polls (151), was unable to win Senate support for its coalition government.  Pheu Thai tried to form its own coalition that excluded the “Two Uncles” parties, Palang Pracharath and United Thai Nation, fronted by the 2014 coup leaders Prawit Wongsuwon and Prayuth Chan-o-cha. With only 238 seats, Pheu Thai fell short of a majority in the lower house. Still, for a minority of senators, the jettisoning of Move Forward from the coalition and the pledge to not amend Article 112 – the draconian Lèse-Majesté law – was sufficient for their vote. Some were concerned about thwarting the will of the people, for fear of provoking street violence and roiling financial markets. But the job of the Senate is not to endorse the people’s will but to protect the interests of the conservative royalist-military elites and thwart political reform. As such, they withheld support, forcing Pheu Thai to invite the “Uncles” parties into the coalition. With the inclusion of Palang Pracharath (40) and United Thai Nation (36), the coalition had 314 of the 500 House votes and almost certain majority support in the upper house Senate to reach the needed 375-vote threshold to form a government. On Tuesday, Move Forward announced it would not support the Pheu Thai candidate because, it said, the new coalition would be going against the will of the people, making a Pheu Thai coalition with the conservatives inevitable.  The coalition with Pheu Thai is the best-case scenario for the conservative royalist elites. The military-backed parties were humiliated at the polls and yet they have a seat at the table and a powerful position to thwart any public policy they deem not to be in the national interest. Although Pheu Thai has pledged that neither Prawit or Prayuth would have a cabinet position, that is far from certain. Giddy at the opportunity to be back in government, Palang Pracharath announced that it would support the government en bloc. Srettha Thavisin, the Pheu Thai Party prime ministerial candidate, speaks to journalists in Bangkok after polls closed on election day, May 14, 2023. Credit: Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters Some senators have indicated they still will not endorse the government and are wondering why they stopped with Move Forward. They have it within their power to establish a minority government that excludes both Move Forward and their traditional nemesis Pheu Thai. The majority of the Senate seems to understand that a minority government, while possible, would lead to mass political unrest and would be unable to pass anything in Parliament, including the budget. No longer a progressive party There are three big questions to consider. First, is this a smart move for Pheu Thai? This fulfills leaders’ ambitions. They believe Pheu Thai is entitled to rule. This gives the party a clear majority government and the prime minister’s office, but that short-term gain comes at its long-term political interests.  Rank-and-file members, in particular the Red Shirts, are clearly enraged that they are getting into bed with the leaders of the 2014 coup. Pheu Thai can no longer claim that it is a progressive party. People are already making comparisons to the Democrat Party, which went from being the second largest party to near political irrelevance after getting in bed with the military in 2008. Voters have never forgiven them. There are already concerns that some 25 Pheu Thai MPs, led by Chaturon Chaisang, could defect to the Move Forward in protest. They have denied this, but there is clearly discomfort with the inclusion of the “Uncles” parties. The Pheu Thai leadership is calculating that they will deliver enough to their constituents in the meantime so that their supporters will not defect to Move Forward, the new standard bearer of political opposition to military and royalist elites. Another way leadership would try to ameliorate dissatisfaction among teh party’s supporters is by negotiating a grand bargain for Thaksin Shinawatra’s return. Thaksin is a fugitive, having been sentenced to 12 years in four different trials. He has lived overseas for 15 years. He announced he would return on Aug. 10, but postponed his arrival on “health grounds.” It was clear that the delay in forming a government was the determining factor. If all goes to plan now that a national unity government is being formed, Thaksin will be arrested at the airport upon his arrival and appeal for a royal pardon after 24 hours of incarceration. Second question: What happens to Move Forward? Move Forward has proven itself as an adroit opposition party. Members will bide their time as the standard bearer for political reform, poaching Pheu Thai voters. Members have already filed 10 bills in keeping to their legislative principles and campaign pledges. The bigger question is whether the party will continue to exist and whether party leader Pita Limjaroenrat and other executives will survive politically. In addition to an investigation into  media company shares, Pita and Move Forward face investigations and criminal complaints in both the courts and the Election Commission. This includes charges of violating Lèse-Majesté by proposing to amend Article 112 that allows the strict law against royal defamation. Like Future Forward in 2019, Move Forward could be dissolved, though it would quickly become a new party. Pita is looking at possible jail time, but more likely a 10-year ban on political activities. This leads to the third and final question: Will any of this bring about political unrest? If the conservatives quickly move to disband Move Forward or arrest Pita, then the potential for demonstrations, especially in Bangkok, which the party swept, is high. But the conservative elites are likely to clip Pita and Move Forward in a more...
- [Escaped Taiwanese drug lord ran trafficking ops from Cambodia prison](https://ij-reportika.com/escaped-taiwanese-drug-lord-ran-trafficking-ops-from-cambodia-prison/): A Taiwanese drug lord freed from his 52-year jail sentence by masked gunmen while he was on a prison-granted dentist visit was conducting secret drug trafficking operations from Cambodia to Taiwan as recently as in 2020, despite being behind bars in Siem Reap, Radio Free Asia has learned.   Court documents from Taiwanese authorities uncovered by RFA Investigative reveal that Chen Hsin Han, a Taiwanese national arrested on drug charges in Cambodia in 2009, managed to smuggle nearly 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of heroin to an associate in Taiwan in 2020 using a middleman he met while incarcerated.  It is unclear whether Cambodian prison authorities were aware that Chen was conducting these illicit activities while in jail. But the degree to which he had access to outside resources could help explain his stunning escape on Thursday morning, when he was sprung from police custody by five men wearing masks after they charged into a dental clinic Chen was visiting. Footage from the raid shows the men pointing guns at prison guards accompanying Chen whom they had tied up while they searched for the drug lord before escaping with him. The group apparently abandoned the Lexus they drove to make their getaway, which was found several hours later with guns, masks, clothes and other materials left inside, Prison Department spokesman Nuth Savna said. “The reason the suspects could free the prisoner was because they pointed guns at the guards,” he said. “If we fought they would shoot us.” Chen Hsin Han, who was in prison for drug trafficking in Cambodia, is seen in custody in this undated photo. Credit: Fresh News Chen, 45, was arrested in 2009 and later sentenced to 52 years for drug trafficking. Before the escape, he was being held at a prison near the provincial capital of Siem Reap in northwestern Cambodia.  Court records from Taiwan described his role in at least two heroin smuggling cases dating to fall 2020. According to the documents, Chen masterminded one scheme to smuggle 28 cans of what was purported to be durian paste into Taiwan through Thailand. Chen instructed an associate, Nathan Guy Garrett &#8211; said to be a U.K. national he met in Siem Reap prison &#8211; to help with the shipments, but Thai authorities discovered that the containers were filled with heroin. Weeks later, Chen instructed Garrett to transport six handbags filled with 2 kilograms of heroin into Taiwan to help distribute them there with another associate, Chan Yuxuan. Chan Yuxuan, was arrested in November 2020, along with Garrett and a driver. They were indicted in 2021. Their charging documents noted WhatsApp communications with Chen about the schemes and that Chen had the ability to remotely control drug deliveries from prison.  For example, when Garrett needed to take drugs to another city in Taiwan, he immediately reported to Chen that he didn&#8217;t have money for transportation. &#8220;Chen promised to transfer the money immediately.&#8221;  Chen then instructed another Taiwanese individual to assist in transferring money to Garrett promptly, the indictment said. Cambodian police have arrested six men connected to Chen’s escape this week, but he remains at large as of Friday. 
- [Junta troops kill, burn 4 civilians in Myanmar’s Sagaing region](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-troops-kill-burn-4-civilians-in-myanmars-sagaing-region/): Junta troops killed and burned the bodies of a pregnant woman and three men in a gold mining area of Sagaing region’s Pinlebu township in Myanmar, the local People’s Defense Force told RFA on Friday. They said the victims were 21-year-old Wine Wine, who was eight months pregnant, her father Set Hlaing who owned a gold mine in the township, 21-year-old Shan Lay and Nyi Nyi whose age wasn’t given. Their burned bodies were found on Monday, according to the defense force information officer, who didn’t want to be named for safety reasons. “It happened next to Nant Ta Hauk creek beside Mu Le village at around 11 a.m. on August 14,” he said. “They killed them, and burned a house and dumped all the bodies in there.” Troops entered Mu Le village in the first week of August, arresting and interrogating locals. They burned more than 30 houses when they left the village, locals told RFA on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. The latest killings come after the troops entered the village for a second time this month. RFA was unable to independently verify the claims of the People’s Defense Force because phone and internet connections to Pinlebu township have been cut. The junta hasn’t released a statement on the killings.  RFA contacted the junta spokesperson for Sagaing region, Tin Than Win, who said he was unaware of the incident. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [Displaced Burmese want Thailand to set up safe zone as sanctuary from fighting](https://ij-reportika.com/displaced-burmese-want-thailand-to-set-up-safe-zone-as-sanctuary-from-fighting/): Burmese citizens displaced by fighting and who have sought refuge on both sides of the Thai border want Thai lawmakers to approve a proposed safe zone to protect them from daily air raids and artillery attacks by Myanmar’s military, refugees and aid workers said. The IDP Assistance Committee in Kayah state’s Hpruso township said internally displaced civilians need the zone initiated to provide adequate aid and safety. Lawmakers in Thailand’s lower house on Aug. 10 proposed the implementation of the safe zone on the Thai border in the south of Myanmar as a refuge for those who from Kayah and Kayin states who have been repeatedly displaced by fighting between junta and rebel forces. Kanawee Suebsaeng, an MP from Thailand’s Fair Party, suggested that the zone be established 5 kilometers (3 miles) into Myanmar from the Thai border. “This area could lessen the impacts on the Thai people along the border as well as on the evacuees who enter the area so they can stay safely,” he said. About 300,000 internally displaced people are living next to the Thai border in Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai, Mae Hong Son, Tak, Kanchanaburi and Ranong districts, according to the lawmaker.   The Karen Human Rights Group and Karenni Human Rights Group estimate that more than 200,000 people in Kayah state and nearly 600,000 in Kayin state have been displaced since the coup. Others have lost their lives as a result of fleeing the fighting, including 141 such deaths in Kayah state as of July, according to the Progressive Karenni People’s Force, an ethnic political organization.   Refugees and aid workers support the measure given the growing intensity of the armed clashes since the Myanmar military seized power from the democratically elected government in a February 2021 coup. A junta air strike destroyed this house in Myanmar&#8217;s Kayah state near the Thai-Myanmar border, July 12, 2023. Credit: Karenni Human Rights Group ‘No safety and security’ A displaced person from Kayin’s Myawaddy township who now lives in a camp that is a temporary home to about 600 refugees, said residents are not safe in their present location. “There is no safety and security in our area,” she said, adding that 100 people came to the camp for shelter following recent fighting in Let Khet Taung near Myawaddy. “The sound of the battle is getting closer. We have to run away.&#8221; Nearly the entire population of adjacent Kayah state, which also borders Thailand, have fled their homes due to fighting. An official from the Hpruso West Refugee Assistance Committee said a safe zone would be convenient for displaced people who are constantly worried about artillery shells and air strikes.  When RFA contacted Kanawee Suebsaeng on Wednesday, he said Thai lawmakers would push for humanitarian aid for Myanmar refugees. He also said hat next week he and others would submit a letter to the house speaker detailing the issue and propose that top government officials issue a comprehensive outline of solutions. Thai officials must consider practical factors before implementing a safe zone, said Saw Nanda Hsue, spokesman for the Karen Human Rights Group, an independent community-based organization working to improve the human rights situation in Myanmar.   “The questions of how long-term it will be, how many years it will accept refugees, and whether there are already donors to support refugees in the safe zone are major considerations,” he said. Aung Thu Nyein, the Thailand-based communications director for Myanmar’s Institute for Strategy and Policy, said it may not be easy to establish the safe zone which requires approval from Thailand’s national security council led by military authorities. “Even if the Thai parliament approves the implementation of the safe zone, the Thai government will have to have discussions and negotiations with the Myanmar military,” he said. RFA could not reach the Thai Embassy in Myanmar for comment. Kyaw Zaw, spokesman for Myanmar’s National Unity Government, said the shadow government has urged the international community to help establish a safe zone and to provide cross-border assistance to Burmese IDPs. Translated by Myo Min Aung for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Landmine kills inmate and driver during Myanmar prison transfer](https://ij-reportika.com/landmine-kills-inmate-and-driver-during-myanmar-prison-transfer/): Two people died and five others were injured when the truck taking them from Sagaing region’s Monywa prison to prisons in Mandalay region hit a landmine, a member of a pro-democracy group told RFA Thursday. The 12-wheel truck was the lead vehicle in a convoy with four other military vehicles, taking around 100 political prisoners to Obo and Myingyan prisons on Wednesday afternoon. Civil Disobedience Movement doctor, 33-year-old Zaw Htwel Aung and the unnamed driver of the truck were both killed when the vehicle hit a mine near Monywa township’s Myay Ne village, according to Aung Nay Myo of the Monywa People’s Strike Steering Committee. He said another political prisoner, Arkar Nyein Chan, who was shackled to the doctor was critically injured. Dr. Zaw Htwel Aung was serving a 10 year prison sentence for alleged terrorism offenses. Thike Tun Oo, a Political Prisoners Network official, told RFA the doctor died on the way to hospital.. “We know that about five people were critically injured along with him,” he said. “And we heard that another mine was triggered when they drove a bit further and about 20 more people were injured.” It&#8217;s not known who laid the landmines on the Sagaing-Mandalay road. The junta has not released a statement on the incident. RFA called the junta’s Sagaing region spokesperson, Tin Than Win, but there was no response. Three months earlier, two women political prisoners were injured when the vehicle they were in hit a landmine as it traveled from Monywa prison along the same road. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Bangladesh bank freezes accounts belonging to U.S.-sanctioned Myanmar banks](https://ij-reportika.com/bangladesh-bank-freezes-accounts-belonging-to-u-s-sanctioned-myanmar-banks/): Bangladesh’s Sonali Bank has frozen the accounts of two Myanmar state-owned banks due to U.S. sanctions against them, its chief executive officer said Wednesday. Confirmation of the action came after the United States Embassy in Dhaka sent a letter to the government requesting that Bangladesh comply with such sanctions, which was then forwarded to the Bangladeshi state-owned bank, according to documents seen by BenarNews. But Md. Afzal Karim, Sonali Bank’s chief executive officer, and managing director, said action had already been taken against the accounts of Myanma Foreign Trade Bank and Myanma Investment and Commercial Bank. He did not say precisely when.&nbsp; “We have already frozen the accounts of the two banks due to the OFAC sanction,” Karim told BenarNews on Wednesday, referring to the Office of Foreign Assets Control, an agency under the U.S. Treasury Department that enforces sanctions. Karim said the two Myanmar banks had total deposits of US$1.1 million in Sonali Bank.&nbsp; “This money cannot be transacted [on],” he said. “For more than a month, the accounts of the two banks [in Sonali Bank] are not being used for any transactions.” Karim said that after Sonali Bank had frozen the accounts, the Myanmar junta had requested Bangladesh to make the accounts available for a transaction.&nbsp; “We were requested by Myanmar to open the account. However, it will not be possible to open until the sanction is lifted,” Karim said. He said he was relieved that Sonali Bank did not have many funds in accounts in the two sanctioned Myanmar banks. “We don’t have much money there. One bank has 17,000 euros, another has [200,000] dollars,” he said. “They have more money with us.” In June, Washington announced its sanctions against three entities, including the two banks controlled by the Burmese military, which overthrew an elected government in February 2021. The U.S. Treasury said the two banks “facilitate much of the foreign currency exchange within Burma and enable transactions between the military regime and foreign markets, including for the purchase and import of arms and related materiel.” Since the military coup, the Burmese junta has cracked down on mass protests, killed nearly 4,000 people, and arrested thousands more, according to human rights groups. The United Nations said more than 1.8 million people had been forced to flee their homes in Myanmar because of violence since the coup. The United States, in a letter to the Bangladesh foreign ministry dated Aug. 3, reminded it of the sanctions on the two Myanmar banks and urged Dhaka to “take appropriate action.” The ministry then sent a letter to the Sonali Bank, the Ministry of Finance, and the Central Bank of Bangladesh informing them about the U.S. embassy letter. “On June 21, we imposed sanctions on three entities in response to atrocities and other abuses that the regime committed against the people of Burma,” according to an excerpt from the embassy’s letter.&nbsp; “These designations reinforced our objectives of denying the regime access to foreign currency and further preventing the regime from purchasing arms that could be used to commit atrocities and other abuses.”&nbsp; BenarNews contacted the U.S. embassy in Dhaka for details but did not immediately hear back. Bangladesh-Myanmar trade is small. The South Asian country mainly exports potatoes, biscuits, and plastic products to Myanmar, and imports wood, frozen fish, ginger, and onions. In fiscal year 2022, Bangladesh imported goods worth around $128.5 million from Myanmar, its next-door neighbor, and exported items worth $3.9 million to Myanmar. The U.S. sanction on the two Myanmar banks that have accounts in Sonali Bank should not be a financial burden on Bangladesh, said Syed Mahbubur Rahman, managing director of Mutual Trust Bank. “Since Bangladesh does not have a large amount of business with Myanmar, there will not be a significant bottleneck due to this reason,” he told BenarNews. “There is no reason to worry about it.” BenarNews is an Ijreportika-affiliated news service.
- [Heavy artillery kills child in Myanmar’s Sagaing region](https://ij-reportika.com/heavy-artillery-kills-child-in-myanmars-sagaing-region/): Junta heavy artillery killed a nine-year-old boy in Sagaing region’s Yinmarbin township, residents told RFA Wednesday. They said the boy, Kyaw Thiha, died Tuesday when a shell hit his home in Pay Kone village. Five other people were injured in the shelling and are being treated locally. Locals blamed the attack on troops who are providing security for the China-owned  Kyae Sin Taung and Letpadaung Taung copper projects situated nearby. The military commander of the anti-junta People’s Defense Force stationed between Yinmarbin and Salingyi townships told RFA there was no reason for the shelling because his force was not fighting with junta troops Tuesday. Bloodstains on Myauk Yamar bridge, Sagaing region, where locals believe junta troops killed three villagers they arrested five days earlier, August 16, 2023. Credit: Citizen journalist Separately, villagers found the bodies of three men near a bridge over the river that runs between Yinmarbin and Salingyi townships on Wednesday, a local eyewitness from Yinmarbin Township who didn’t want to be named for security reasons told RFA. “Three bodies were found near the Myauk Yamar bridge this morning,” he said. “Two can be confirmed to be from Lel Ngauk village and the whereabouts of the other one is still under investigation. The bodies were cremated this morning.” He identified two of the dead as 44-year-old Thein Wai and 47-year-old Kyaw Nyan. Residents say the villagers were arrested around five days ago when they encountered a column of nearly 100 troops heading towards Yinmarbin township. Photographs obtained by RFA show bloodstains on Myauk Yamar bridge which locals say indicate the men were killed there. The junta spokesperson for Sagaing region, Tin Than Win, told RFA that he didn’t know about the killing of the men or the shelling of Yinmarbin. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [Court sentences Cambodian land activists who tried to travel to capital for protest](https://ij-reportika.com/court-sentences-cambodian-land-activists-who-tried-to-travel-to-capital-for-protest/): A provincial court on Tuesday sentenced 10 activists to one year in jail in a case that stems from several long-running land disputes that have triggered protests in Cambodia’s southwestern Koh Kong province. The activists were arrested in late June after they tried to travel to Phnom Penh to submit a petition to the Ministry of Justice.  The Koh Kong Provincial Court convicted them of malicious denunciation and incitement to provoke chaos. They were ordered to pay 10 million riel (about US$2,400) to tycoon Heng Huy, whose company is involved in one of the land conflicts in the coastal province near the Thai border.  Illegal land grabs by developers or individuals are not uncommon in Cambodia, where officials and bureaucrats can be bribed to provide bogus land titles. Disputes over land are one of the major causes of social disturbances throughout Southeast Asia. “The activists have endured numerous disputes dating back as far as 2006, after companies linked to tycoons Ly Yong Phat and Heng Huy established sugar plantations on community land,” the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights, or Licadho, said in a statement. “However, the activists’ efforts to protect their land have been continually met with authority-led harassment,” it said. Police threatened other community members who gathered in front of the provincial police station on June 30 after the arrests. They later prevented people from gathering in front of the provincial court. But on Tuesday, about 100 people were able to demonstrate in front of the provincial court to show support for the defendants, activists told Radio Free Asia. One defendants’ sentence was fully suspended, while the remaining nine intend to appeal, activists told RFA. Other recent decisions One of the defendants, Kert Nov, told RFA that she is worried about how her family will be affected if she is jailed.  “I won’t accept the one-year jail conviction because I didn’t breach any law,” she said. “I will appeal the decision.” Radio Free Asia was unable to reach court spokesman Sou Sovannara and provincial Gov. Mithona Phuthong for comment on the sentences. Several other court decisions were issued this month related to Koh Kong land disputes.  The Supreme Court on Aug. 4 upheld additional convictions of malicious denunciation and defamation against Det Huor, a representative of Koh Kong villagers who has led demonstrations in Phnom Penh.  On Aug. 2, the provincial court found two women activists, Phav Nheung and Seng Lin, guilty of defamation and incitement to provoke chaos. Both were sentenced to one year’s imprisonment and ordered to pay 40 million riel (approximately US$9,600) in compensation.  In Koh Kong, hundreds of villagers have also accused Ly Yong Phat, a senator from the ruling Cambodian People’s Party and casino tycoon with business interests in the province, and the Chinese-backed Union Development Group, UDG, of encroaching on their land. UDG is building a US$3.8 billion project that includes a seaport, resorts and casinos in Koh Kong. Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed.
- [Myanmar military kills 4 villagers in Sagaing region raid](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-military-kills-4-villagers-in-sagaing-region-raid/): Junta troops killed four civilians in a raid on a village in Sagaing region’s Myinmu township, residents told RFA Tuesday. More than 40 soldiers took part in Monday’s raid on Ywar Thar Lay, burning down three of the village’s 50 homes. A resident, who didn’t want to be named for security reasons, told RFA a 30-year old man and three men in their 40s were shot dead by the troops. “They had crossed the Ayeyarwady river to escape the fighting,” the local said. “Four displaced people were killed and two were injured when the junta troops in Myinmu township raided Ywar Thar Lay village where those people were staying.” Locals said the column has now left the village but junta raids continue on the other side of the river in Mandalay region. On August 5, troops killed a 60-year-old man in Yae Lel Thaung, sending villagers fleeing across the Ayeyarwady, thinking it was safer in Myinmu township. The junta hasn’t released a statement on the fighting. RFA called the junta spokesperson for Sagaing region, Saw Naing and the spokesperson for Mandalay region, Thein Htay, but they did not answer. Nearly 4,000 civilians have been killed by the junta since it seized power in a February 2021 coup according to independent monitoring group the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [Beaten in prison for marking Martyrs’ Day, two Burmese inmates die](https://ij-reportika.com/beaten-in-prison-for-marking-martyrs-day-two-burmese-inmates-die/): Two Burmese political prisoners beaten by the ruling military junta’s prison authorities for participating in a ceremony marking Martyrs’ Day have died of their injuries, sources with knowledge of the situation said. They were among four inmates authorities physically assaulted in Tharrawaddy Prison in Bago region on July 19 for marking the national holiday. The holiday marks the memory of renowned fallen figures within Burma’s independence movement, including Gen. Aung San, father of deposed and jailed former State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, seven other independence leaders, and one bodyguard who were gunned down by a group of armed men in uniform while holding a cabinet meeting in Yangon on July 19, 1947. The holiday is marked annually by both pro-democracy groups and the military junta, which seized control of the elected government in a February 2021 coup and later sentenced Suu Kyi to 33 years in prison following trials that rights groups have condemned as shams. The two inmates — Than Toe Aung, organizer of the National League for Democracy&#8217;s youth group in Yangon’s Thanlyin township, and Hla Soe from the town of Thone Sal in Bago’s Tharrawaddy (Tharyarwady) district — died after they were taken to the prison hospital, sources close to the prison told Ijreportika on Monday. The other two beaten inmates also received treatment in the prison hospital. They were among the inmates in the men’s section of the detention center who held a saluting ceremony and discussion to commemorate Martyrs’ Day, while female prisoners in the women’s section wore black ribbons.&nbsp; Solitary confinement Because of these activities, prison guards placed 16 male inmates and 15 females in solitary confinement. Four of them were severely tortured and had required medical treatment in prison since July 21. Prison authorities have not notified the victims’ families about their deaths, Nyo Tun, a former political prisoner and a friend of Than Toe Aung, told Ijreportika. “The news that the two political prisoners have died came from not just one source, but from two or three from the prison,” he said. Than Toe Aung, serving six years in prison for violating the Explosive Substances Act, died on Aug. 5 from severe head injuries. Hla Soe, serving 20 years for violating the Counter-terrorism Law, died on Aug. 8. Thaik Tun Oo of the Myanmar Political Prisoners Network said he was able to confirm the death of the two prisoners. Ijreportika could not reach the spokesman of Myanmar’s Prison Department for comment. Prison guards have allowed some of the female inmates who participated in commemorating the holiday to return to their cells, while the situation of the men’s section remains unknown, said people close to the prison. As of Aug. 14, more than 19,700 pro-democracy activists and civilians had been detained by authorities under the military junta since the February 2021 coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a Thailand-based rights group.&nbsp; Translated by Myo Min Aung for Ijreportika Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Will US break APEC rules if Hong Kong leader barred from summit?](https://ij-reportika.com/will-us-break-apec-rules-if-hong-kong-leader-barred-from-summit/): Chinese authorities claimed that it would be a “violation of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) rules” if the United States bars Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu from attending the APEC leaders summit in San Francisco in November. The claim came after media reports that Washington plans to prohibit Lee from attending the meeting of 21 regional economies.  But the claim is misleading. APEC guidelines state visiting delegates are responsible for arranging their visas if they require them. The Hong Kong leader is under sanctions that bar his entry into the U.S. In a report published on July 27, The Washington Post cited unnamed White House officials as saying that the U.S. has decided to bar Lee from participating in the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meetings (AELM) to be held in San Francisco from Nov. 15  to 17, 2023.  In response to the report, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said that refusing to invite Lee due to current U.S. sanctions against him was a mistake which “blatantly violates APEC rules and gravely contravenes the U.S. commitment as the host.” Lee currently cannot obtain any U.S. immigrant or non-immigrant visas due to an earlier U.S. presidential order and subsequent sanctions imposed on him and 10 other Hong Kong officials implicated in a 2020 government crackdown against democracy protestors. Hong Kong’s government pointed out in a separate statement that as the host of AELM, the U.S. had a basic responsibility to invite Hong Kong’s leader to the meeting. However the claim is misleading. Below is what AFCL discovered.  Is the AELM host responsible for inviting the leaders of all APEC members? Yes. Article 4 of APEC’s guidelines for hosting meetings state that the host is supposed to send official invitations at least eight weeks in advance of the meeting, after deciding upon the meeting’s location and time.  The guidelines also say: “APEC Leaders implicitly understand that they are invited to attend this meeting; the letter of invitation from the host economy’s leader is simply a formality.”  But Matthew Goodman, a former National Security Council staff member who personally helped prepare for APEC meetings, told AFCL that APEC’s guidelines are neither related to international law nor legally binding. The explanation of rules concerning invitations and visa preparations for countries participating in APEC meetings. (Screenshots taken from APEC&#8217;s official website) Will invited representatives always be able to attend AELM? No. Section 12 of the guidelines states that all delegates invited to attend APEC meetings are responsible for arranging any required travel documents themselves. The section does not state that the host is required to issue them visas or waive policy or laws that would prohibit a person from entering its borders.           “Given that the domestic laws of host countries must be respected, it isn’t right to claim that the U.S. is violating APEC’s rules,” Goodman says.     What will happen to Lee? Unknown. A State Department spokesperson told AFCL that members of a foreign delegation must abide by U.S. laws and regulations when participating in APEC activities.  “The U.S. will work with Russia and Hong Kong to ensure they participate in AELM ‘in an appropriate way’,” said the spokesperson without elaborating further.  Russian President Vladimir Putin is in a similar situation to Lee as a result of U.S. sanctions put on him following the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war in 2022.  This means Both Lee and Putin would need to secure a special visa waiver from the U.S. in order to attend this year&#8217;s AELM in San Francisco.  The APEC Secretariat has not responded to inquiries about Hong Kong and Russian leaders as of press time. Meanwhile, a spokesperson from Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Office reiterated its earlier call on the U.S. to abide by APEC’s rules when inviting leaders to attend AELM.  “Hong Kong will attend the APEC meeting in accordance with APEC rules, guidelines and practices,” the spokesperson told AFCL. APEC guidelines state that representatives can remotely attend AELM and other preparatory meetings leading up to the conference.  Is there a history of a host refusing to invite APEC member economies to AELM?  Yes – particularly in the case of APEC member Chinese Taipei, as Taiwan is referred to by the 21-member grouping. China strongly objects to Taiwan’s participation as it regards the island as part of China although Taiwan is self-governing.  When China hosted AELM in 2001, it did not invite any Taiwanese representatives, despite then-Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian’s expressed desire to attend in person. South Korea, the host of AELM in 2016, also refused to invite then-President of Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan Wang Jin-pyng to the meeting, requesting that Taiwan instead send an economic official rather than a political figure.  Australia, which hosted AELM in 2007, rejected Tsai Ing-wen, who had just left her position as vice premier of Taiwan’s Executive Yuan, for similar reasons. Former Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian expressed regret and dissatisfaction over China&#8217;s refusal to allow Taiwan&#8217;s delegates to attend the APEC meeting (Screenshot taken from the official website of Taiwan&#8217;s Office of the President) Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Taejun Kang and Mat Pennington. Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) is a new branch of RFA established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. Our journalists publish both daily and special reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of public issues.
- [China pumps up narrative of happy Uyghurs in Xinjiang among Pakistanis](https://ij-reportika.com/china-pumps-up-narrative-of-happy-uyghurs-in-xinjiang-among-pakistanis/): “Chinese Rahat Abdullah” has become a regular on Pakistani social media channels, YouTube and Facebook, wearing Atlas silk dresses, Pakistani clothing, or traditional Chinese outfits. Regarded as a Chinese internet star, she also sings in Urdu on local radio and cooks Uyghur dishes on Pakistani TV programs – though she refers to the dishes as Chinese food.  Her sudden rise in popularity has raised questions among Uyghurs living in Pakistan about Beijing’s efforts to use local Uyghurs as pro-Chinese Communist Party propaganda tools to downplay the Chinese government’s horrific treatment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang. China has come under harsh international criticism for its severe rights abuses against the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs, including forced labor. The U.S. government and several Western parliaments have declared that the abuses amount to genocide or crimes against humanity. Abdullah is believed to hail from the city of Ghulja – or Yining in Chinese – in Xinjiang. Information on Pakistani social media platforms says she earned a law degree in China and arrived in Pakistan in 2010.  She has been known to teach Chinese at various universities in Pakistan and is portrayed in the videos as a messenger of friendship between China and the predominantly Muslim Pakistan. But Abdullah doesn’t mix with local Uyghurs, according to Omar Uyghur, the founder of a trust that provides assistance to Uyghur refugees in Pakistan. “She doesn’t come to the weddings or funerals,” he said. “Uyghurs don’t meet with her either. She spreads propaganda in the Pakistani media on how Uyghurs are living happily.” At a time when Uyghurs in Pakistan cannot freely return to Xinjiang and some Uyghur women married to Pakistanis are being detained by Chinese authorities in the region, Abdullah was able to visit Ghulja last June.  During her visit, she participated in a wedding and recorded Uyghur songs and dances there, later posting them on Facebook and other social media platforms to give her Pakistani followers the impression that Uyghurs live happy lives. In June 2023, Rahat Abdullah visited Ghulja in northwestern China&#8217;s Xinjiang region, where she recorded Uyghur songs and dances to give her Pakistani followers the impression that Uyghurs live happy lives. Credit: Screenshot from Rahat Abdullah Facebook Television host and actress Until recently, Abdullah had about 10 social media followers, but her follower count has climbed to more than 40,000, largely due to her appearances on Pakistani TV.  She recently became a host of the “Ni Hao” program – Mandarin for “Hello” – on Pakistan’s Kay2 TV, a channel that has received investment from China. She also has portrayed a Pakistani woman married to a Chinese man in a TV series that highlights the friendship between China and Pakistan. On June 4, Abdullah sang a Pakistani folk song on an Eid al-Adha TV program in Islamabad while wearing a traditional Uyghur Atlas dress and introducing herself as “Chinese Rahat Abdullah.” Photos on her social media accounts indicate that she has had connections with the Chinese Embassy in Pakistan and other Chinese organizations there since 2017.  Abdullah, who is relatively unfamiliar to Uyghurs but is gaining popularity through local broadcasts in Pakistan, did not respond to Radio Free Asia’s requests for comment via messages sent to her social media accounts.  Other efforts with Pakistanis Abdullah’s new notoriety comes as China and Pakistan have strengthened ties across various sectors in recent years, and as Beijing has invited some influential Pakistanis on trips to Xinjiang. On July 18, Ma Xingrui, Communist Party Secretary of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and Xinjiang government chairman Erkin Tuniyaz welcomed a delegation of Pakistani scholars in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital.  During the meeting, Ma told his guests that they have created a free and happy living environment for the people of Xinjiang. He also criticized Western countries that have followed the lead of the United States in condemning China for human rights violations.  Alleged atrocities against the Uyghurs have included detention in “re-education” camps and prisons, torture, sexual assaults and forced labor. Qibla Ayaz, chairman of Pakistan’s Council of Islamic Ideology and leader of the visiting delegation, affirmed the participants’ unwavering support for China and expressed admiration for the progress in Xinjiang’s development and the peaceful lives of its Muslim population. The participants also expressed hopes for creating closer connections with Xinjiang through the Pakistan-China Economic Corridor, a 3,000-kilometer Chinese infrastructure network project under the Belt and Road Initiative to secure and reduce travel time for China’s Middle East energy imports. Pakistani student Muhammad Usman Asad holds the flag of East Turkestan, Uyghurs&#8217; preferred name for Xinjiang, in front of a billboard announcing a Dragon Boat Festival event at the National University of Sciences &amp; Technology in Islamabad, Pakistan, June 10, 2022. Credit: Mumahhad Usman Asad An ineffective measure Some Pakistanis have expressed growing concern that their government has remained silent about the abuses in Xinjiang. Pakistani scholar Muhammad Usman Asad, who has spoken out on behalf of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, said when China invites Pakistani religious scholars to tour Xinjiang, news about their visits always appears on Chinese social media, but not in the Pakistani media.  “These so-called religious scholars are not the kind of scholars that the Muslim masses in Pakistan would listen to,” said Asad, who staged a solitary sit-in in Islamabad in June 2022 to protest China’s repressive policies against Uyghurs. “They are only pro-government and government-sponsored Islamist organizations, so their false propaganda about China will have little effect.” Nonetheless, China is extending its attempts to sanitize its image, Asad said, following heavy criticism from Western nations about the government’s brutal treatment of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in Xinjiang.    “Just as China&#8217;s campaign to improve its image through the religious sphere has been ineffective, its campaign in Pakistan through English-speaking Chinese or Pakistani internet stars has been equally ineffective,” he said. Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Matthew Reed.
- [Expanding settlement prompts rise in croc attacks in Myanmar’s Ayeyarwaddy Delta](https://ij-reportika.com/expanding-settlement-prompts-rise-in-croc-attacks-in-myanmars-ayeyarwaddy-delta/): Ko Min was making his way across a creek near his home where he regularly goes to catch crabs when he suddenly felt himself grabbed and pulled under water. “At first I thought I’d been hit by a log until I touched it and realized that it was a crocodile,” said the 20-year-old from Myanmar’s Ayeyarwaddy region. “It dragged me deep into the water and rolled me over and over, before smashing me against the riverbed.” Recounting the attack of just over a year ago, Ko Min said that while he could barely swim because he was wearing boots and clothing, he managed to fight off the crocodile and escape. “I was able to hit it with the crab hammer I had in my hands and run away up onto the shore,” he said. Ko Min was taken by fellow residents of Bogale township’s Baw Ga Wa Di village to nearby Ka Don Ka Ni Village District Hospital, where he was treated for severe wounds to his thigh and pelvis. Doctors told the young man he was lucky to survive. The incident highlights the dangers associated with settlement expansion in southwestern Myanmar, where people and wild animals are coming into increasing contact with one another in their search for food. Others have been less fortunate in attacks that residents of Bogale township say are increasingly common as endangered fresh and saltwater crocodiles of up to 5.5 meters (18 feet) in length spread out from their habitat in the Mein Ma Hla Kyun Wildlife Sanctuary some 30 kilometers (18 miles) downstream and villagers expand their farmland. The 500-square-kilometer (190-square-mile) protected area is an mangrove-covered island that is home to diverse wildlife situated in the Ayeyarwaddy Delta, where the Bogale River empties out into the Andaman Sea. At least two people from Baw Ga Wa Di village have died in crocodile attacks in the last year alone, while others say they have had to fight for their lives to escape the encounters. Call for authorities to act Khin Pa Pa Hlaing said her husband, Ye Naung Tun, was killed by a large crocodile while removing a fishing net from the water near their village on July 27. The 29-year-old has a four-year-old daughter and became a father for a second time, just a month ago. Khin Pa Pa Hlaing told RFA that local officials have done nothing to help her family since Ye Naung Tun died, but she said she isn’t interested in financial assistance. “What I want is for them to catch and kill the crocodile that killed my husband – that will satisfy me,” she said. “I don&#8217;t want these crocodiles swimming free. I don&#8217;t want to hear of other people who met the same fate as my family, nor do I want to experience it again … I don’t want anybody to suffer like me.” A 13-year-old girl from Baw Ga Wa Di named Sapal Aye was also killed in a crocodile attack in the past year. U Myint, a member of Sapal Aye’s family, told RFA the young girl was a “good student” who was attacked while “fetching water from the river to wash her clothes and to cook.” Authorities provided Sapal Aye’s family 300,000 kyats (US$142) in compensation for her death. In the coastal villages of Bogale township, people are killed every year in crocodile attacks. In addition to the two Baw Ga Wa Di villagers in the past year, a child from the village was killed by a crocodile four years ago, prompting authorities to put up signs warning residents not to enter the water. Nonetheless, a man from Baw Ga Wa Di named Thant Zaw Oo was attacked by a crocodile in the past year, while residents of nearby Hlay Lone Kwe village have had to be hospitalized recently due to crocodile attacks. Fresh and saltwater crocodiles are protected by Myanmar’s Forestry Department, and killing them is prohibited. A wild crocodile lies on a stream bank in a village in Bogale, Myanmar, Feb. 2023. Credit: Citizen journalist Out of respect for the ban, Baw Ga Wa Di Village Chief Soe Khaing has called on officials to act. He said that while he informed local police about Ye Naung Tun’s death, they did not inform the Forestry Department about the incident. “The people are afraid that they will have to go to jail if they [take action to] defend themselves against the crocodiles,” he said. “Even though [authorities] have put up a sign warning villagers not to go into the water, the people will starve if they don’t. We use the water to earn a living. What we want is for the authorities to drive the crocodiles away.” Attempts by RFA to contact Ayeyarwady Region Social Affairs Minister Maung Maung Than for this report regarding the conservation of crocodiles in Bogale township went unanswered. Need for buffer zones, awareness A high-ranking official with the Environmental Conservation Department told RFA that incidents involving crocodiles and humans in Bogale township are on the rise because village populations are growing and inhabitants are clearing the mangrove forests and swamp land to farm. “As a consequence, crocodiles have fewer places to live and their need for food has grown as well,” said the official, who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity, citing security concerns. “An undeveloped country like Myanmar cannot sufficiently create space for animals to safely coexist with people, as in developed countries, so incidents like these continue to occur.”  The official said that while the crocodiles involved in attacks were likely looking for food, “they don’t intend to eat people.” He called for an expansion of conservation areas for the crocodiles, as well as “buffer zones” that people cannot enter and an increase in awareness efforts. An expert working on wildlife conservation in Myanmar noted that because crocodiles are protected, their number will only increase, creating a need for blocking off areas from human access beyond the Mein Ma Hla Kyun Wildlife Sanctuary. “Everyone knows that...
- [Foreign diplomats in China treated to tour of Xinjiang and ‘happy’ Uyghurs](https://ij-reportika.com/foreign-diplomats-in-china-treated-to-tour-of-xinjiang-and-happy-uyghurs/): A Chinese government-sponsored visit to Xinjiang by 25 Beijing-based ambassadors and other diplomats from developing countries has come under fire by human rights activists for pushing an official narrative that the mostly Muslim Uyghurs in the far-western region are thriving, despite the reality of severe repression. The delegation, which included diplomats from Dominica, Myanmar, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Nicaragua and Mexico, visited the western autonomous region from July 31 to Aug. 3. Xinhua news agency and CGTN, China’s state-run international TV broadcaster, covered the diplomats as they visited Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi, the cities of Aksu and Kashgar, and other significant locales to observe the region’s “economic and social progress” and affirm that “the local population in Xinjiang is living a happy life.” And the Chinese government&#8217;s efforts appear to have paid off.  “During our time in Xinjiang, we had open conversations with the local people and observed that they lead content and happy lives,” Martin Charles, the ambassador to China from the small Caribbean island nation of Dominica, told Xinhua. “We didn’t come across any instances of forced labor, and there were no indications of human rights violations,” he said. China is relying on government-organized visits for foreign officials and influential people from various professions to promote an alternative vision of Uyghur life in Xinjiang amid growing condemnation by Western nations over its maltreatment of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities. The U.S. government and several Western parliaments have declared that the ongoing human rights abuses, including arbitrary detentions, torture, forced sterilizations of Uyghur women, and forced labor, amount to genocide and crimes against humanity.  China has also denounced a report issued nearly a year ago by the U.N. high commissioner for human rights that documented cases of severe rights abuses in Xinjiang. The report said that the abuses could constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity. Though the groups invited to tour the region are diverse, they have one thing in common: They all support China’s “Xinjiang policy.” &#8216;Telling the story of Xinjiang well&#8217; In early February, another visiting delegation of Beijing-based ambassadors and diplomats from African countries, including Senegal, Benin, Mali, Rwanda, Madagascar, Malawi, Uganda, Lesotho and Chad, visited Xinjiang and expressed support for China’s policies there.  All the countries maintain strong economic ties with China because many have benefited from Chinese-built and financed infrastructure projects under the Belt and Road Initiative. They also support China within the United Nations.  Members of the delegation of diplomats who visited in July also expressed their rejection of a previous proposal by the U.N.’s top human rights body to hold debate on alleged rights abuses against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang. The proposal by mostly Western nations, including the United States, was voted down in October 2022. Six days before the diplomats visited Xinjiang, the Chinese government organized a seminar in Urumqi to convey its narrative of the region. During discussions about “telling the story of Xinjiang well,” participants emphasized reaching overseas audiences by transmitting the narrative in languages other than Mandarin Chinese. Hector Dorbecker, counselor for economic-commercial and financial affairs at the Embassy of Mexico in Beijing, tries to play dutar, a long-necked two-stringed lute, in Jiayi village of Xinhe county, northwest China&#8217;s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Aug. 2, 2023. Credit: Zhao Chenjie/Xinhua via Getty Images In late December 2018, a delegation of diplomats from Kazakhstan, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, and 12 other countries, all stationed in Beijing, visited Xinjiang on an agenda organized by the Chinese government, which presented “re-education” camps as voluntary vocational training centers.  The Chinese government has also sponsored foreign journalists on trips to Xinjiang. Chinese officials arranged for a group of journalists from 10 foreign media outlets to tour major cities in Xinjiang in April 2021 to defend its policies in the region and dispel reports of human rights abuses. In August 2019, Chinese Communist Party officials hosted another group of foreign journalists, most of whom worked for state broadcasters from countries along the Silk Road economic belt, putting them up in fancy hotels while they toured Xinjiang and lecturing them on China’s measures to stop terrorism and separatism in the region.  The officials took the journalists to some mosques still left standing though authorities had closed, demolished, or turned into museums many others in Xinjiang, to a “re-education” camp they said was a vocational training center, and to shows where young Uyghurs danced and sang. rights activists weigh in Henryk Szadziewski, director of research at the Uyghur Human Rights Project, said the arranged visits are “a consistent tactic employed by the Chinese government to conceal their wrongdoings” during which they use others to amplify their messages. “Whether it is a western vlogger doing a travel blog or diplomats from countries that are friendly, or that rely on China in terms of its economy, or [face] threats or pressure, they put out this message that Xinjiang is now safe and prosperous as a region,” he said.  While China invites people from nations sympathetic to its perspective to visit Xinjiang, it has rejected requests by the U.S. and human rights groups that independent investigators be able to visit the region. Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch, said all visits to Xinjiang by foreign diplomats were designed by China to cover up rights abuses.  “If everything is fine, why not let in independent international investigators, particularly given the mountain of evidence of some of the most serious crimes under international law?” she asked. “So, it’s not clear why some people got to go and others don’t unless Beijing has something to hide,” she said. Sayragul Sauytbay, an ethnic Kazakh who testified about the abuse she witnessed while detained in a “re-education” camp in Xinjiang, cautioned visiting diplomats against ignoring China’s rights abuses in the region and becoming accomplices to them. “They know and can see China is lying, but they are turning a blind eye,” she said. “These are the countries that rely on China, but for them, this is a rare opportunity....
- [Junta airstrike kills 4 civilians in Myanmar’s Sagaing region](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-airstrike-kills-4-civilians-in-myanmars-sagaing-region/): Four civilians, including an eight-month-old child, were killed and at least 10 injured when a junta jet bombed a township in Myanmar’s Sagaing region on Friday morning, residents told RFA. The jet bombed a monastery in Sagaing township’s Ta Laing village, where displaced people were sheltering, according to a local who didn’t want to be named for fear of reprisals. “At around four in the morning, the jet hovered and dropped a bomb as a junta column entered Ta Laing village, hitting the monastery gate and causing casualties,” said the local. “Junta troops raided the village in the early morning and civilians were also arrested but there was no fighting.” The local said around 80 troops entered the village after the airstrike and detained around 20 villagers, who were still being held as of Friday afternoon local time. A local People’s Defense Force member, who requested anonymity, told RFA that troops fired rocket-propelled grenades at the monastery when they withdrew on Friday afternoon. “On the way out of Ta Laing village, the junta troops opened fire with two shots with shoulder-fired weapons toward the monastery,” he said, adding that a battle with his anti-junta militia was almost certain to happen. Locals said more than 6,000 civilians from villages in Sagaing township fled their homes ahead of the junta raid. Calls to the junta’s spokesperson for Sagaing region, Saw Naing, went unanswered. Junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing said on July 31 that the junta is staking out territory and declaring martial law in parts of the country in order to restore peace and stability. The junta has extended the state of emergency for another six months, further pushing back plans to hold national elections to replace the military regime that has run Myanmar since a February 2021 coup.. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [Myanmar’s Karen National Union says nationwide cease-fire agreement is dead](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-karen-national-union-says-nationwide-cease-fire-agreement-is-dead/): Myanmar’s oldest ethnic armed group said Thursday that a nationwide cease-fire agreement it signed with the national army eight years ago is now null and void because of violations of terms by the ruling military junta. The Karen National Union, the political wing of the Karen National Liberation Army that represents ethnic Karen people in eastern Myanmar’s Kayin state, was one of the eight original ethnic army signatories of the accord in October 2015, aimed at ending the country’s long-running armed conflicts.  Two other rebel groups signed the agreement in 2018, bringing the number 10. The KNU and other ethnic armed organizations want a national military that cannot participate in politics and the formation of a federal democratic union in Myanmar. The peace process was killed off when the Myanmar military seized power from the elected civilian-led government in a February 2021 coup, sparking new waves of violence with ethnic armies joining forces with anti-junta resistance fighters and engaging in insurgency and heavy clashes across the country.   Through fighting, the junta forces have violated terms of the nationwide cease-fire agreement, or NCA, so that it no longer exists, said KNU General Secretary Pado Saw Tado Muh during an online press conference on Thursday to mark the 100th day after the KNU’s 17th Congress.  “There is no more reason to follow the NCA because the military has trampled on Chapter 1 of the agreement, which is the heart of the whole NCA,” he said, referring to the part of the pact on basic principles to which the signatories agreed.  Key areas of the accord cover military codes of conduct, the protection of civilians, the provision of humanitarian assistance, a political roadmap, interim arrangements, the establishment of a Joint Ceasefire Monitoring Committee, and the adoption of a Framework for Political Dialogue for peacefully resolving differeences.   The KNU said on July 9 that it had engaged in nearly 2,500 armed clashes with junta troops during the first half of the year in KNU-controlled territory in Kayin and Mon states and in Tanintharyi and Bago regions. Civilians fleeing fighting between the Myanmar military and the Karen National Union cross a river in eastern Myanmar&#8217;s Kayin state, along the Thai-Myanmar border, Dec. 25, 2021. Credit: AFP Junta leader Sr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing said Tuesday that the NCA should not be ignored and that the military is working hard to adhere to its terms. His comments came days after Min Aung Hlaing extended emergency rule in Myanmar for another six months on July 31, thereby delaying the date by which elections must be held according to the country’s constitution. The junta previously pledged to hold elections in August. Pado Saw Tado Muh said he would not accept any elections based on the 2008 constitution, drafted by a previous military junta that ruled Myanmar. “We will not accept the junta’s election, [and] we should not hold any new election based on the 2008 constitution as it will lead to more harm than good and will make it more difficult to solve the political problems of Myanmar,” he said. &#8220;Therefore, we would like to tell you not to support any movement based on the election that will perpetuate the military dictatorship.&#8221; After the coup, the KNU and its armed wing — one of Myanmar’s largest ethnic armies —  took a more aggressive stance to the military and offered sanctuary to lawmakers, protesters, striking workers and others who faced abuse and attacks by the junta. KNLA forces have conducted deadly ambushes, captured military bases, and trained resistance fighters, including members of the anti-regime People&#8217;s Defense Forces, as junta forces ramped up attacks on KNU-controlled territory. KNLA commander Brigadier General Saw Tar Malar Thaw said the junta is now on the defensive. “Tactically, they cannot open offensive attacks, but instead have to use only heavy artillery and airplanes,” he said. “In many cases, such attacks target civilians.&#8221; RFA could not reach Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, the junta&#8217;s spokesman, for comment on the KNU’s statements. Translated by Myo Min Aung for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Matt Reed.
- [Floods force evacuation of almost 30,000 people from 4 Myanmar regions](https://ij-reportika.com/floods-force-evacuation-of-almost-30000-people-from-4-myanmar-regions/): Nearly 30,000 people from Kayin, Mon and Rakhine states and Bago region in Myanmar have been evacuated due to heavy rain and floods since the beginning of August, relief workers told RFA Thursday. Flooding forced over 8,600 people in Kayin state and over 2,000 people in Mon state to evacuate their homes. Also having to leave their homes were over 12,500 citizens of a single township in the Bago region and more than 4,100 civilians in the Rakhine state,  aid workers said. Separately, the junta’s local administration office said nearly 3,000 households in Bago township have been affected by flooding.  A relief worker in the township’s Myo Thit neighborhood told RFA that temporary camps for flood victims have been opened in the monasteries of every neighborhood in Bago since Wednesday. “Now it is raining, so the water will rise again. There will be more flood victims,” said the worker, who didn’t want to be named for security reasons. “Currently, there are more than 500 flood victims in the monasteries in Myo Thit neighborhood.” In Kayin state six townships – Hpa-An, Hlaingbwe, Kawkareik, Kyainseikgyi ,Hpapun and Myawaddy – have been evacuated due to flooding. Local residents in Myawaddy township are still being evacuated due to the flood, an official from the aid group Mon Myat Phyu Sin Social Assistance Association told RFA. “There are still some evacuees in religious buildings, also in other places and at our office,” said the official, who also requested anonymity. “There are 52 households at our office and we are taking responsibility for their food and drink.” Saw Khin Maung, a junta council spokesperson for Kayin state, told RFA that Myawaddy and Hlaingbwe townships are at particular risk from flash floods. “Water is rushing down the mountains in Myawaddy and Hlaingbwe. The floods are heavy,” he said. “There is water rushing at high speed from Dawna Range when the rains are heavy on that side [of the range].” He said there have been no casualties but some houses were damaged by falling trees in the town of Thandaung. The Kayin state spokesperson said more than 8,600 flood victims have been moved to 36 relief camps. He said they are receiving free medical treatment and the junta is providing each household with 2,500 kyat (U.S.$1.20) per day to buy rice and cooking oil. Heavy rains and flooding have cut off all roads leading from Kawkareik to Myawaddy, including the Asean Highway, an important route for trade with Thailand. In Mon state, floods have been reported in Bilin, Kyaikmaraw and Kyaikto townships. People wade through a flooded drinking water pond in Done Gyi village, Minbya township, Rakhine state on August 8, 2023. Credit: Ann Thar Gyi In Rakhine state, residents of Minbya, Kyauktaw, Mrauk-U, Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships were evacuated on August 4, residents told RFA. Rakhine state is still recovering from Cyclone Mocha, which made landfall on May 14 with sustained winds reaching over 220 kilometers per hour (137 mph). Mocha killed more than 400 people in low lying areas of Myanmar near the Bay of Bengal and left a trail of destruction. Aid workers said more than 90% of buildings in northern Rakhine were damaged by the storm. The U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs recently announced that it has received only U.S.$24.3 million out of the estimated U.S.$333 million needed for relief and rehabilitation projects in cyclone-hit areas.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [Military reshuffling aims to keep Myanmar’s ruling junta in place for the long term](https://ij-reportika.com/military-reshuffling-aims-to-keep-myanmars-ruling-junta-in-place-for-the-long-term/): A recent reshuffling of top military personnel by the leader of Myanmar’s junta is part of an effort to gain control of the entire governing apparatus and remain in power for years to come, analysts and observers said. Among the top generals reassigned on Aug. 3 were the heads of the defense and home affairs ministries – the first changes since Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing seized power from the elected civilian-led government in a February 2021 coup. The two ministries are responsible for tackling armed anti-junta resistance fighters across the country. Former Transport and Communications Minister Gen. Tin Aung San was appointed as defense minister, making him a member of the National Defense and Security Council, and former Defense Minister Gen. Mya Tun Oo was made transport and communications minister. Both will continue serving as deputy prime ministers. Lt. Gen. Yar Pyae, the former Union Government Office 1 minister, replaced Lt. Gen. Soe Htut as head of the Home Affairs Ministry. Yar Pyae held on to his position on the State Administration Council – the junta’s governing body – and his roles of national security adviser to Min Aung Hlaing and leader of the junta’s peace negotiation team. The move came days after Min Aung Hlaing extended emergency rule in Myanmar for another six months on July 31, thereby delaying the date by which elections must be held according to the country’s constitution. The junta previously pledged to hold elections in August. It also occurred as Myanmar, already hit hard by economic sanctions, faces intense international criticism over the military’s attacks on civilian communities and execution of detained combatants in areas that are hotbeds of resistance to the regime. An annual report released publicly on Tuesday by the U.N.&#8217;s Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar cited strong evidence that the military and its affiliate militias have committed “increasingly frequent and brazen war crimes.”  New assignments at lower levels A leader of the nonviolent anti-junta civil disobedience movement, or CDM, said Min Aung Hlaing reassigned generals he trusts to important ministries to prepare for what he may face during the next state of emergency period. “The Defense Ministry is just like a correspondence office under the commander-in-chief,” the person said. “That’s why he transferred Gen. Mya Tun Oo, who is one of his major players, to the Ministry of Transport and Communications, which he will heavily use in the future to tackle the issues of airplanes and cyber communication.” Min Aung Hlaing appointed capable Yar Pyae as home affairs minister in place of Soe Htut, who is in poor health, to strengthen the operations of the State Administration Council over the next six months, he added. The CDM leader, who served in the military for 21 years and held the rank of a captain, moved to the civilian administration where he worked for nearly a decade until he was promoted to a director position. Following the 2021 coup, he left his job and joined other professionals who walked off the job to peacefully protest against the regime. Reassignments have also taken place among lower-ranking military officers. From January to the end of June, the junta transferred 40 lieutenant colonels, majors and captains to civil ministries to work as chief executive officers, or deputy and assistant directors, according to the junta’s weekly national reports. Among them were one lieutenant colonel, nine majors and 30 captains sent to work at the Myanmar Economic Bank, Election Commission, Union Civil Service Board, ministries of construction, industry and commerce, sports and youth affairs, hotels and tourism, and the Yangon and Naypyidaw City Development Committees.  The largest number of military officers were transferred to the Myanmar Economic Bank with five majors as managers and 16 captains as assistant managers.  The transfers indicate that the junta is trying to control the operation of civil departments as well, said former Captain Kaung Thu Win, a member of the CDM.  “The junta aims to replace its people in senior positions in the civil departments such as directors to be able to control the head of the departments so that they will follow its instructions more faithfully,” he told RFA. “It transferred junior officers to the civil departments so that they can provide the military with the necessary information inside each department.” RFA could not reach junta spokesman Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment on the personnel changes. ‘It’s called militarization’ Thein Tun Oo, executive director of the pro-military Thayninga Institute of Strategic Studies, said the new appointments would strengthen the military administration. “The bureaucratic mechanism makes the administration of a country run smoothly and easily,” he said. “In order for that mechanism including national security projects to operate, it is important for all the people involved to be able to work effectively. That’s why we need really capable people who can focus on their tasks.” More reliable replacements were made because many of the current government departments have experienced security breaches, he added.  The appointment of military officers to both top and middle-level civilian positions is the junta’s attempt to dominate the entire government apparatus, political and military analyst Than Soe Naing said. “It’s called militarization,” he said. “It is a military’s attempt to dominate and control all departments.” Given the country’s current situation with anti-junta People’s Defense Forces, led by the shadow National Unity Government, and ethnic armed groups fighting junta forces, it is important for the military regime to have reliable people to back it, Than Soe Naing said.  “They only work with their service members who they can trust, so that they feel safer,” he said.    Translated by Myo Min Aung for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Matt Reed.
- [Myanmar junta troops and police try to evict villagers near Chinese copper project](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-troops-and-police-try-to-evict-villagers-near-chinese-copper-project/): Junta troops and police have told the residents of a village near a Chinese-run copper project in Myanmar’s Sagaing region they will be forcibly evicted if they don’t leave, locals told RFA on Wednesday. China’s state-owned Wanbao Company runs the Letpadaung Copper Project in Salingyi township in a joint venture with a company owned by Myanmar’s military. It fenced off Wet Hmay village on August 6, on the pretext that the village is in the mine’s project area, and told all 35 households to move out of the village permanently. On Tuesday, Wanbao officials summoned six villagers and told them to inform all residents that they needed to leave as soon as possible, according to a local who did not want to be named for security reasons. &#8220;They [village representatives] said that Wanbao asked them to clear out the village, asking villagers to respond to [the company] the following day,” he said, adding that company officials told the representatives if they didn’t get an immediate response they would take no responsibility for the actions of the troops and police. The village representatives told the company they would inform Wet Hmay residents and discuss their plans. Residents said junta troops have already occupied many parts of Wet Hmay and have been threatening locals and telling them to leave. Wanbao has repeatedly attempted to enclose the village with a fence, but villagers have objected, delaying the project. Locals claim that this time is different because soldiers and police have been dispatched to clear out the village and fence it off. RFA contacted the junta spokesperson for Sagaing region, Saw Naing, seeking comment on the forced evictions, but he did not answer the phone.  RFA also called Wanbao but nobody answered. Workers for China’s Wanbao Company fence of Moe Gyoe Pyin village, Letpadaung Taung, Sagaing region December, 2014. Credit: RFA Other villages were emptied out when the Letpadaung copper project started in Salingyi township in 2011. Following the February 2021 coup many people working on the project joined the Civil Disobedience Movement, effectively shutting down operations at Letpadaung. Locals say the company is now planning to resume operations, prompting an August 7 statement by 17 local anti-regime militias ordering Wanbao and Yangtze Copper, which are both working on projects in Salingyi township, to stop cooperating with the junta or face the consequences. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [Burmese mark anniversary of 8888 uprising with protests against military junta](https://ij-reportika.com/burmese-mark-anniversary-of-8888-uprising-with-protests-against-military-junta/): Civilians across Myanmar on Tuesday commemorated the 35th anniversary of a significant uprising as they held protests against the ruling military junta dictatorship amid heightened security measures imposed by the regime, activists said. They gathered in Yangon, Sagaing, Mandalay, and Tanintharyi regions holding red umbrellas, putting up posters with anti-regime slogans, and burning mock-ups of the newly issued 20,000-kyat note to mark the anniversary of “8888.”  The number signifies the wave of popular protests that began in Yangon on Aug. 8, 1988, and was met with a violent crackdown by a previous military junta that resulted in numerous casualties. An activist who led a peaceful umbrella protest by Yangon People’s Strike in the commercial hub said the umbrellas displayed slogans such as “8888 never ends. We will keep fighting with the people” or “8th August 88.” The military junta increased security by posting authorities dressed in civilian clothes to crowded places like bus stops or markets to arrest protesters. The protests occurred amid ongoing political instability and armed conflict across Myanmar between anti-regime resistance forces and the current military junta that seized power from the elected government in a February 2021 coup. A pro-democracy activist from Yangon People&#8217;s Strike commemorates the 35th anniversary of the 8888 uprising in Myanmar, Aug. 8, 2023. Credit: Yangon People&#8217;s Strike/Facebook Min Lwin Oo, leading member of the Dawei District Democracy Movement Strike Committee in Tanintharyi region, said his group staged a protest on the outskirts of the town of Launglon to avoid the tight security, including a navy vessel patrolling in a nearby river. In Mandalay, a member of the city’s boycott forces, who requested anonymity for safety reasons, said residents released balloons attached to banners to commemorate the 8888 uprising. “We have released a statement vowing to keep fighting for revolution and a video depicting the history [of 8888],” he said. “We also want to remind [people] that we are still not free from military dictatorship, although the 8888 revolution has turned into the 2021 Spring Revolution,” he said, referring to the nationwide wave of popular resistance to the Myanmar military following the 2021 coup. Members of the Burmese diaspora also staged protests in various forms to commemorate the uprising’s anniversary. ‘All of these shall end’ In 1988, under the rule of strongman General Ne Win, an anti-dictatorship movement boiled into a nationwide uprising following the regime’s announcement banning 25-, 35- and 75-kyat bills from circulation and later the killing of a university student by police. The nationwide uprising, which peaked on Aug. 8 of that year, became a historic milestone that united Myanmar’s various ethnic groups, socioeconomic classes, and other communities against the ruling junta.   Nan Linn, a member of the University Students’ Unions Alumni Forces, said the Spring Revolution would end the string of successive military regimes that have suppressed popular uprisings and prevented Myanmar’s development, keeping it isolated and impoverished. “We are now very determined that all of these shall end with the Spring Revolution,” he said. “This time, in this revolution, they shall be punished for everything they have done to the people and the country.” The military junta has escalated the arrest, killing and sentencing of anti-regime activists.   Users of pro-military Telegram channels have posted threats against those who share any comments, photos or videos of the anniversary protests, saying they will be arrested and prosecuted under Myanmar’s Counter-terrorism Law. Junta forces have arrested more than 24,200 civilians and activists across the country since the 2021 coup, according to a tally by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a Thailand-based rights group. Burmese farmers in in Khin-U township, Sagaing region, commemorate the 35th anniversary of the 8888 uprising in Myanmar, Aug. 8, 2023. Credit: Ko Lu Chaw The protests came the same day as the public release of an annual report by the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, citing strong evidence that the military and its affiliate militias “are committing increasingly frequent and brazen war crimes.”  Among the war crimes are indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks on civilians from aerial bombings, a rise in the number of mass executions of civilians and detained combatants, and the large-scale intentional burnings of civilian homes and buildings, the report said. “Our evidence points to a dramatic increase in war crimes and crimes against humanity in the country, with widespread and systematic attacks against civilians, and we are building case files that can be used by courts to hold individual perpetrators responsible,” mechanism head Nicholas Koumjian said in a statement issued Tuesday. The mechanism was set up by the United Nations Human Rights Council in September 2018 to collect and analyze evidence of serious international crimes and violations of international law committed in the country since 2011. Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Matt Reed.
- [Rohingya boat sinks off Myanmar’s Rakhine state, 45 missing](https://ij-reportika.com/rohingya-boat-sinks-off-myanmars-rakhine-state-45-missing/): A boat carrying Rohingya people, reportedly heading for Malaysia, sank in the Bay of Bengal near Rakhine state’s capital city Sittwe, a village administrator told RFA Tuesday. He said all but 10 of the 55 people on board are missing.  Eight men were found alive on a beach near the city’s Basara village on Monday night, hours after the vessel went down, along with the bodies of two women, said village administrator Soe Myint. He told RFA that authorities are still searching for the missing people. “The boat sank after taking on water due to heavy rains and high waves in the sea,” he said. “The boat reappeared yesterday. Two dead bodies were found and eight people were recovered [alive]. The rest of the missing are likely to die. Now we are looking for the bodies on the beach.” He said 10 women and 35 men were unaccounted for, adding that eight people survived by holding onto plastic containers when the boat sank. Residents said the survivors are being cared for in Basara village. The junta-run Rakhine Daily News reported August 7 that the Rohingya had left Rathedaung township heading to Malaysia by boat. More than 740,000 Rohingya fled Rakhine following a military crackdown on the ethnic group that started more than five years ago, and now live in refugee camps in Bangladesh. Of the more than 600,000 that remained in Rakhine, around 125,000 are living in displaced people’s camps in the state. Many Rohingya living in Rakhine state often leave by boat across the Bay of Bengal to Malaysia due to economic hardships and discrimination. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [Cambodia’s king signs royal decree to nominate Hun Manet as PM](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodias-king-signs-royal-decree-to-nominate-hun-manet-as-pm/): Cambodia’s King Norodom Sihamoni on Monday issued a royal decree to appoint Hun Sen’s eldest son Hun Manet as the country’s prime minister, ensuring that the transfer of power from father to son will occur later this month. According to the decree, Hun Manet will assume the office on Aug. 22, when the newly elected National Assembly adopts the new cabinet. It will be the completion of years of preparation for a transfer of power from father to son, as the 71-year-old Hun Sen, who has ruled the country since 1985, prepares to step aside. Hun Sen did however say that he would continue to have a role in government for the next 10 years.  Hun Manet’s royal appointment comes after the country’s electoral body on Saturday announced last month’s election results, which gave Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party, or CPP, 120 of the assembly’s 125 seats.  The election has been criticized by the international community for being neither free nor fair, as the main opposition party was disqualified from participating. Analysts and opposition party officials have criticized Hun Manet’s appointment as prime minister, saying that dynastic rule has no place in a democracy. Finland-based political analyst Kim Sok told RFA’s Khmer Service that Hun Manet lacks the acumen to solve Cambodia&#8217;s national problems. “Hun Manet has only one policy: to follow his father. And his father, although the CPP has written hundreds of good policies, has implemented only one point: to persecute the people,” said Kim Sok.  “[Hun Sen] has destroyed the nation, selling the nation to maintain power. Therefore the chaos that is the burden of the social crisis left by Hun Sen as a father will continue under Hun Manet and will be even more serious.” Cambodia&#8217;s Prime Minister Hun Sen and his son Hun Manet attend election campaign rallies in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, July 1, 2023 and July 21, 2023 respectively. Credit: Cindy Liu/Reuters Cambodian legal scholar Vorn Chanlouth told RFA that under the current legal process, there are no obstacles standing in Hun Manet’s way because the CPP has effectively prepared for the transfer of power. But there is still reason to doubt the legitimacy of it. “The problem we have here is the transparency of PM candidate,” he said. “In this 7th legislative mandate election process, many political parties lack transparency, as they did not present their prime ministerial candidates to the public. For example, in the CPP, Hun Sen said he was the candidate, but when his party won, he passed the post to his son. This is not transparent.” Chanlouth said that prime ministerial candidate should have come forward to explain to the public his party’s policies, but Hun Manet said nothing other than that he would follow in his father’s footsteps. “We don’t know specifically or exactly what they are going to do to solve the national problems we face today,” he said.   ‘Not over yet’ Hun Sen, meanwhile, has assured the public that “It is not over yet” in an announcement on his Telegram social media channel.     He said that in addition to being the father of the prime minister, he will continue in other positions until 2033. Hun Sen is currently the president of the CPP, and he repeated his intention to become the president of the senate, a position currently held by CPP vice president Say Chhum. Oum Sam An, a former lawmaker for the former main opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, said that Hun Sen’s intention to assume future positions in government shows that he is “afraid of his own shadow,” meaning that he is afraid to face the law after he resigns as the leader of the country. “The leadership has not changed,” he said. “Most of them are the children of members of the senior government, so the new bloods are the old blood taking on the jobs [of their parents].” Kim Sok said that Hun Sen’s rule would be remembered for its destruction of natural resources, arrest of dissenting citizens, and other rights violations. &#8220;Because the Cambodian people, the international community, and the International Court of Justice, cannot forget the story that the general public cannot forget about Mr. Hun Sen as the leader of a coup that robbed power and led a society through state terrorism,” said Kim Sok. “He used the name of the state to abuse the people and destroy them.&#8221; CPP spokesman Sok Ey San, however, denied that Hun Sen was responsible for killings or injustices on the Cambodian people in the past. He said those who dare to criticize without evidence will be held accountable before the law. Translated by Sok Ry Sum.  Edited by Eugene Whong.
- [Did US falsify medal tally in the 2023 World Aquatics Championships?](https://ij-reportika.com/did-us-falsify-medal-tally-in-the-2023-world-aquatics-championships/): A screenshot taken from a broadcast of the 2023 World Aquatics Championships has been repeatedly shared in Chinese-language social media posts that claim it shows U.S. media had falsified the country’s final rank in the international championships. But the claim is false. The screenshot only shows partial results for the swimming match – one of the competition’s six disciplines, not the final ones for all events, where China ended with the most gold medals. A tweet posted by a user @ChanJoe18 on July 29 reads: “Rigging the standings, falsifying the rankings: U.S. ranks first with 3 gold medals, China only ranks third with 20 gold medals.”  The claim was accompanied by a screenshot of a medal table of the 2023 World Aquatics Championships, which shows the U.S. ranked first, Australia second and China third by total medals.  The same screenshot alongside similar claims has also been shared in Chinese-language social media posts as well as state media reports in China and Russia.  The international championships were held in Fukuoka, Japan, between July 14 and 30, 2023, with a total of 75 medals awarded across six disciplines: swimming, artistic swimming, open water swimming, diving, high diving, and water polo.   Although it’s a subject of debate whether nations should be ranked by total medals won, rather than gold medals won, there was no factual error in the screenshot, which was misrepresented in these social posts. So the claim is false. A widely circulated post on Chinese social media claimed that U.S. media falsified the results of the 2023 World Aquatics Championships, with Chinese and Russian official media soon claiming the U.S. was “fooling itself.” (Screenshots taken from Twitter and Weibo) Origin of screenshot Through keyword searches, AFCL found the identical screenshot published on July 28 in a tweet by the founder of swimming news outlet SwimSwam, Braden Keith. A logo and text included in the screenshot show that it was taken from a broadcast of the competition on the NBC streaming platform Peacock. NBC is the oldest of the three major traditional American television networks and covers major sporting events.  “Today, NBC and USA Swimming officially waived (sic) the white flag at the end of finals by changing their medals table graphic to a total medals sort,” said Keith, pointing out the broadcaster’s move to rank nations by total medals won rather than by gold medals won. Some netizens joined him in mocking how the medals tally was presented. According to the medals table in the screenshot, the U.S. leads the tally with a total of 25 medals, despite earning fewer gold medals than Australia and China.  Braden Keith, editor-in-chief of a swimming news outlet SwimSwam, posted the tweet which contained the screenshot later spread by Chinese netizens. (Screenshot taken from Twitter) Not final results AFCL found that the screenshot only displayed results from the first six days of the nine-day swimming match at the championships, and is clearly marked as such. The medal counts depicted in the screenshot correspond to the official tally between July 22 and July 27.   The championships concluded on July 30 with China leading the medal tally in all disciplines with 20 gold medals followed by Australia and the U.S. in second and third place, respectively.  Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Taejun Kang and Mat Pennington.  Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) is a new branch of RFA established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. Our journalists publish both daily and special reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of public issues.
- [Chinese fire water cannons at Philippine Coast Guard in disputed sea](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-fire-water-cannons-at-philippine-coast-guard-in-disputed-sea/): Manila on Sunday protested the China Coast Guard’s use of water cannons against a Philippine Coast Guard vessel escorting civilian supply boats delivering goods to a military post in the South China Sea. The Filipino vessels were on a mission Saturday to deliver food, water, fuel and other supplies to troops stationed on the BRP Sierra Madre when the incident occurred near Ayungin Shoal (Second Thomas Shoal). The World War II-era naval ship was deliberately run aground in the shoal in 1999 to serve as the country’s military post there. Manila “strongly condemns the China Coast Guard&#8217;s (CCG&#8217;s) dangerous maneuvers and illegal use of water cannons against the PCG vessels escorting the indigenous boats chartered by the Armed Forces of the Philippines yesterday, 05 August 2023,” Commodore Jay Tarriela, the coast guard spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea, said in a statement.  Tarriela said the action disregarded the safety of Filipino sailors and violated international law, including a 2016 arbitral award in favor of Manila that nullified China’s claims to the South China Sea. “The PCG calls on the China Coast Guard to restrain its forces, respect the sovereign rights of the Philippines in its exclusive economic zone and continental shelf, refrain from hampering freedom of navigation, and take appropriate actions against the individuals involved in this unlawful incident,” he said. The Philippines also demanded that Beijing “cease all illegal activities within the maritime zones of the Philippines,” Tarriela said. Armed forces spokesman Col. Medel Aguilar said that because of the Chinese harassment, the second Filipino supply supply boat was unable to unload its supplies and could not complete the mission. “We call on the China Coast Guard and the Central Military Commission to act with prudence and be responsible in their actions to prevent miscalculations and accidents that will endanger peoples&#8217; lives,” Aguilar added. The Chinese Embassy in Manila has not responded to reporters’ requests for comment. But Chinese media reports quoted the Chinese Coast Guard as confirming the incident and saying the two Filipino supply ships were carrying “illegal building materials. “CCG carried out necessary management and control in accordance with law and blocked the Philippine ships carrying illegal building materials. China urges the Philippine side to stop its encroachment in the sea area immediately,” Global Times quoted CCG spokesperson Gan Yu as saying. The U.S. Department of State said that Chinese ships clearly interfered with the Philippines’ “lawful exercise of high seas freedom of navigation.” It noted that the action was the latest in a string of “repeated threats” to the status quo in the South China Sea. “The United States calls upon the PRC (China) to abide by the arbitral ruling as well as to respect freedom of navigation – a right to which all states are entitled,” the department said in a statement late Saturday. “The United States reaffirms an armed attack on Philippine public vessels, aircraft and armed forces – including those of its Coast Guard in the South China Sea – would invoke U.S. mutual defense commitments under Article IV of the 1951 U.S.-Philippine Mutual Defense Treaty,” it said. China’s action came after lawmakers last week unanimously adopted a resolution condemning China’s continued harassment of Filipino fishermen and its persistent incursions in the contested waters. The resolution, which expresses the sentiment of the upper chamber but is non-binding, also urged the Philippine government “to take appropriate action in asserting and securing” the country’s sovereign rights, and “to call on China to stop its illegal activities.” “This bipartisan effort tells the Filipino people that when it comes to matters of national sovereignty, we will never be bullied into submission,” said Sen. Risa Hontiveros, one of the senators who filed the resolution. On Sunday, Hontiveros called on the international community to condemn the latest incident. She also said that it may be high time for the Philippines, as well as other claimant countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei, to work together on joint patrols against China. Indonesia has a separate dispute with China, while Taiwan is also a party to the South China Sea wrangling. Just weeks earlier, the Philippine Coast Guard accused its Chinese counterpart of dangerous maneuvers that could have caused a collision during a resupply mission also on Ayungin Shoal. In that incident, two China Coast Guard vessels intercepted Philippine patrol boats and “exhibited aggressive tactics” and at one point, the Chinese vessel came to just 50 yards of a Philippine vessel. On April 21, a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy vessel with the bow number 549 crossed paths with Philippine vessels near Pag-asa Island, while in February another Chinese Coast Guard ship directed a military-grade laser light twice at a Filipino ship, causing temporary blindness to the crew at the bridge.
- [Plenty of blame to go around in Vietnam's COVID repatriation flight bribery scandal](https://ij-reportika.com/plenty-of-blame-to-go-around-in-vietnams-covid-repatriation-flight-bribery-scandal/): Following a two-week trial, a Hanoi court last month convicted 54 defendants, including senior diplomats, for collecting over $7.4 billion in bribes to arrange government flights home for Vietnamese citizens stranded overseas during COVID pandemic lockdowns. The COVID-19 repatriation flight scandal is not Vietnam’s largest corruption case in monetary terms, but it involved 25 officials from five different ministries, and the country’s tightly controlled state media were given relatively free rein to cover a case that captured public attention and affected many citizens.  Nearly 200,000 Vietnamese are reported to have returned on some 1,000 Vietnamese government-organized charter flights from 62 countries during the 2020-21 peak of the pandemic. The scandal toppled three Vietnamese ambassadors and other diplomats for skimming from repatriation funds. In the July 28 sentencing of 54 people, four officials received life sentences, while 45 officials and businesspeople were jailed for between16 months and 20 years. Prosecutors had sought the death penalty for one official, but the courts held back. Of defendants, 21 were charged with receiving bribes, 24 for  giving bribes, and the remainder for abuse of power, brokering bribes, or fraud.  The 24 businessmen and women spoke in court about Vietnam’s “envelope culture”. Prosecutors described a “well-oiled” system put in place for companies that sought government contracts, with amounts correlated to the number of flights and repatriates.  Tarnished diplomats There are six takeaways from the case that prosecutors said showed “extremely dangerous levels of corruption” that “betrayed the efforts of the whole country.” First, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) is now tarnished in the eyes of the public. Thirteen of the 54 convicts – almost a quarter – were from the MFA, which prides itself on being a very small and elite institution. Vietnam’s diplomats are usually highly regarded. Yet the case displayed tawdry corruption, historically more common in other ministries.  In a time of crisis, these diplomats preyed on common overseas workers whose remittances play a key role in supporting the home economy, and they did so in a crisis when people were desperate. The media were filled with stories of people who missed the deaths of parents and other cases of loss that resonated with the public. Four people in the embassy in Malaysia alone received 10 billion dong ($423,000) in bribes. Defendants [front row, standing] appear in court for the repatriation flight trial in Hanoi, Vietnam, July 11, 2023. Credit: Vietnam News Agency/AFP The scandal brought down a deputy foreign minister, To Anh Dung, who was found guilty of accepting 21.5 billion dong ($908,000), as well as ambassadors to Japan, Malaysia, and Angola, and the consul general in Osaka.  In addition, the head of the consular affairs office, Nguyen Thi Huong Lan, received a life sentence for receiving 25 billion ($1.06 million). She refused to admit that they were bribes, but rather “thank you gifts” from companies that she took “out of respect.” Repayment brings clemency Second, the Supreme Court determined that repayment of three-fourths of the pilfered funds would make defendants eligible for a degree of clemency.  For example, prosecutors had sought the death penalty for a secretary of a deputy minister of health, but upon repayment of the full 42 billion dong ($1.8 million), the court handed him a life sentence, saying “There is no need to remove from society.” While it’s important for the government to recoup the proceeds of crime and ensure that people do not benefit from corruption, the ruling also creates a sense that justice can be bought. Local media raised the question of whether filling state coffers was more important than punishing people who extorted bribes from citizens during the pandemic. Third, only three senior officials of Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security were found guilty, a figure that looks inexplicably small given the ministry’s reach. MPS investigators were focused on Vu Anh Tuan, the former head of the immigration management department, and seemed keen to close ranks and redirect the investigations outward.  Vietnamese nationals wearing protective suits are seen aboard a repatriation flight from Singapore to Vietnam, Aug. 7, 2020. Credit: Mai Nguyen/Reuters But one defendant received considerable media scrutiny. Hoang Van Hung was in charge of Department 5 of the MPS Investigation Security Agency, the office that was investigating the businesses that paid the bribes, tipping them off in return for his own illicit payments.  Though caught on video receiving a briefcase that prosecutors alleged contained $450,000, the former MPS investigator was defiant, claiming that the attaché held four bottles of wine. He denied meeting anyone under investigation despite significant evidence. Prosecutors noted that given his position, he knew all the steps to take to cover his tracks, including relying on burner phones.  His defiance throughout the trial reminded people that the people charged with investigating corruption tend to be tainted by it the most. His sentence was longer than prosecutors had asked for.  Health ministry graft Fourth, the trial served up another reminder that corruption is endemic in the Vietnamese Ministry of Health. The secretary of a deputy minister of health, Pham Trung Kien, was caught taking some 253 separate bribes within a year.   In addition to this scandal, the ministry was also rocked by the Viet A test kit scandal, and in a separate corruption case in July, a Ho Chi Minh City businessman was accused of selling $3.2 million in non-resistant latex gloves. The investigations into so many senior level ministry officials have had real impacts on the healthcare sector. So scared of being caught up in a corruption investigation, no one was willing to sign off on imports of key medicines, leaving serious shortages in early 2023 and causing the delays of thousands of surgeries.  Healthcare workers spray disinfectant on Vietnamese nationals after their repatriation flight from Singapore landed at Can Tho airport, Vietnam, Aug. 7, 2020. Credit: Mai Nguyen/Reuters Fifth, Vietnamese analysts that I spoke to noted that there was a distinct difference in levels of contrition. The older figures who had been in the system for years...
- [More than 16,500 homes and buildings destroyed by Myanmar junta since coup](https://ij-reportika.com/more-than-16500-homes-and-buildings-destroyed-by-myanmar-junta-since-coup/):   Pyinmabin village in Yangon’s Mingalardon township, seen in this April 2022 image [left], was razed on orders from Myanmar’s junta on Nov. 25, 2022. The area is seen at right on April 29, 2023. Credit: Maxar Technologies [left] and Airbus Myanmar’s military junta has evicted families and destroyed more than 16,500 homes and other buildings in large cities and towns across the Southeast Asian country, claiming that the structures “encroached on land owned by the state,” according to data compiled by Radio Free Asia. The data is based on residents’ testimonies and notices from local authorities, compiled since the military seized control of the country from the elected civilian-led government in a February 2021 coup. The actual figure may be higher, however. The junta has removed the buildings under the pretext of “encroachment,” claiming the land belongs to the railway department, the irrigation department, or the military, or that it has been zoned for municipal infrastructure. The junta also has forcibly evicted people living in informal settlements as part of a bid to increase its land holdings, RFA reported in February. Families who have lost their homes say they are now facing hardship. The remains of homes demolished by Myanmar junta forces are seen in Ward 3 of Mayangon township in Yangon region, Nov. 19, 2022. Credit: Citizen journalist The military has leveled nearly 11,700 houses and buildings in Yangon region, home to Myanmar’s largest city and former capital, and the area with the greatest concentration of buildings. Of that figure, the junta has demolished more than 4,100 houses and buildings in Mandalay, the second-largest city by population, while smaller cities and towns, such as Magway, Naypyidaw, Taungoo, Sittwe and Ann have seen between 75 to 200 demolitions each. The military removed residential houses in Magway, saying they were too close to an Air Force base, demolished civilian homes and buildings in Mandalay on the grounds that the inhabitants were squatting on regional government-owned land, private land or land too close to a railway, and tore down homes in Naypyidaw, claiming they were situated too close to the Yan Aung Myin Forest Reserve. Enter the bulldozers A resident of Myo Thit Ward No. 4 in Mandalay who had lived in a home there for 17 years, said the junta leveled 200 homes in the ward, including his. “There was no deadline in the notice that the authorities sent to us,” he said. “It just said that we must move out as soon as possible, so we started collecting our property and disassembling our homes.” “But yesterday bulldozers arrived and started bulldozing our houses around noon,” said the resident who declined to be identified out of fear of retribution. “Right now, I have rented a house to live in.” A resident who was evicted from Manadalay’s Pyigyitagun township told RFA that he could not afford to buy another dwelling because of high commodity prices. “We had to pinch pennies with a lot of difficulty to save up and buy our house,” he said. The location of a razed neighborhood (light brown in center of image) in Myanmar’s Mandalay region is seen on April 16, 2023. Credit: Airbus Patheingyi township administrators under the control of the military issued notices this June to nearly 10,000 households that their homes would be removed on the grounds that they had been built on farmland without permission. Similarly, in Yangon region, the junta demolished homes it claimed were built on lands owned by public parks, the regional government or the military. In November 2022, soldiers knocked down about 100 houses in Yangon’s Mayangon township they claimed was on land owned by a stadium, forcing nearly 300 people into homelessness. A resident who refused to be named for safety reasons told RFA he had to rent a house to stay on the outskirts of the city because he could not afford to buy a new one. “No one could buy another house again after the evictions,” he said. “All of them have to live as tenants now. Some had to go back to their villages.” Human rights violation Rights activist Zaw Yan of the Yangon People’s Welfare Network told RFA that the junta’s demolition of civilian homes under the pretext of encroachment is a violation of human rights. “From a human rights standpoint, it is a violation of Article 13 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” he said. “Also, they’ve violated [Myanmar’s] constitution which says that every citizen has the right to live in any region within the country according to the law.” In a statement issued on Dec. 2, 2022, U.N. human rights officials said the junta’s act of removing houses by force was a violation of basic human rights and a war crime. Homes demolished by Myanmar junta troops are seen in Pyigyitagon township in Mandalay region, Feb. 28, 2023. Credit: Citizen journalist Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, spokesman for Myanmar’s State Administration Council, the official name of the regime, told RFA in March 2022 that the junta had to focus on encroachment issues because previous governments did not resolve them. A Yangon-based attorney who knows about the demolitions told RFA that previously the removal of homes was usually suspended or postponed through negotiations with administrative officials, though that’s no longer possible under current military rule. Translated by Myo Min Aung for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Matt Reed.
- [Myanmar prison guards torture inmates marking Martyrs’ Day](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-prison-guards-torture-inmates-marking-martyrs-day/): Prison guards at Myanmar’s Thayarwady (Tharyawaddy) Prison have beaten 31 inmates for marking the country’s Martyrs’ Day and four are being treated for their injuries in the prison hospital, sources told RFA Friday. Prisoners held a saluting ceremony on July 19, while women inmates wore black ribbons, said the sources close to the prison who didn’t want to be named for security reasons. They said 16 men and 15 women have been locked up since then. Martyr’s Day marks the July 19, 1947 assassination of nine Myanmar independence leaders, shot dead by members of a rival political group while holding a cabinet meeting in Yangon. The victims were Prime Minister Aung San, Minister of Information Ba Cho, Minister of Industry and Labor Mahn Ba Khaing, Minister of Trade Ba Win, Minister of Education Abdul Razak, and Myanmar’s unofficial Deputy Prime Minister Thakin Mya. Less than six months after the end of British rule, the date of their assassination was designated a national holiday. It is marked annually by both the military regime and pro-democracy groups. The prison ceremonies are thought to have been organized by Than Toe Aung, head of Yangon region’s Thanlyin township Youth Group of the National League for Democracy, the party which won a landslide victory in 2020 elections before being ousted by the military. Than Toe Aung was hospitalized after interrogation, along with three others, Thaik Tun Oo, an official of the Myanmar Political Prisoners Network told RFA. “Three days after Than Toe Aung was admitted to the hospital, three more were also admitted,” he said. “We can confirm that they were severely beaten. Than Toe Aung is in critical condition. I heard he would be put in a locked cell after medical treatment.” He added other political prisoners who have been locked in dark, cramped cells after interrogation include male dormitory inmates Yan Naing Soe; Hla Soe; Sote Phwar Gyi; Tarmwe Ko Zwel; ‘Dr Joe’; O Be; and a Letpantan township Civil Disobedience Movement captain who wasn’t named. Women’s dormitory inmates who are still locked up after interrogation include Hnin Lae Nanda Lwin; Shun Ei Phyu; Nilar Sein; Su Yi Paing; Wut Yi Lwin; Aye Thida Kyaw; Yi Yi Swe; Lwin Lwin Nyunt; Sandi Nyunt Win; Aye Thet San; Shwe Yi Nyunt; Ya Min Htet; Htoo Htet Htet Wai; Myo Thandar Tun; and Moe Myat Thazin, according to the prisoners network official. Another source close to the Tharyawady Prison told RFA other political prisoners are protesting against the locking up of their fellow inmates by boycotting the prison shop. RFA contacted the Naypyidaw-based Prison Department by phone to get its comments on the case but there was no response. The entrance to Tharyawady Prison is seen in this file photograph. Credit: RFA There has been a series of brutal beatings and killings by prison guards since a jail break three months ago at the prison housing Myanmar’s ousted president, Win Myint. On May 18, nine inmates escaped from Bago region’s Taungoo Prison, grabbing guns from prison guards and escaping into the jungle where they were met by members of a local People’s Defense Force. Since then, political prisoners at Bago’s Thayarwady and Daik-U Central prisons and Myingyan Prison in Mandalay region have been beaten to death during interrogation or killed during ‘prison transfers’, according to family members and sources close to the prisons, who all requested anonymity to protect prisoners and their relatives. More than 24,000 people, including pro-democracy activists, have been arrested since the Feb.1, 2021 coup, according to the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma). It says almost 20,000 are still being detained across Myanmar. On August 1, 254 prisoners, including some political prisoners in Tharyawady Prison were released by the junta’s amnesty. But sources close to the prison say as many as 900 political prisoners are still being held there, awaiting trial. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [Missing trafficked Lao teenager determined to be alive in Myanmar casino](https://ij-reportika.com/missing-trafficked-lao-teenager-determined-to-be-alive-in-myanmar-casino/): A missing Lao teenager trafficked to Myanmar to work and who was beaten by Chinese men in a Chinese-owned casino in Myanmar earlier this week has been found alive, her mother told Radio Free Asia on Thursday. The girl, whose name is being withheld to protect her from further harm because she is still in Myanmar, is one of dozens of teenagers and youths from Luang Namtha province in Laos who have been trafficked to neighboring Myanmar. Many have ended up in a place the workers call “Casino Kosai” in an isolated development near the city of Myawaddy on Myanmar’s eastern border with Thailand, where they are held captive in nondescript buildings and forced to participate in cyber-scams for criminal groups. One scheme involved pretending to be a lonely heart in Thailand looking for love, striking up a conversation and establishing a phony online relationship, RFA reported in April. Laotians, along with Filipino, Chinese and young people from African countries, were forced to work up to 16 hours a day. Lao authorities say efforts to help the youths have been hampered by a lack of access due to heavy fighting in Myanmar’s Kayin state, one of the epicenters of intense conflict between pro- and anti-junta forces. But anti-trafficking experts and Lao youths who have been trafficked accuse Lao authorities of complicity. One mother whose son is still trapped at the casino told RFA that authorities she contacted made “no progress at all” after receiving her request for help freeing him. Following the beating, the men took the girl, 17, to work in a nearby casino, where she believed she was the only Asian worker. The girl still had her own cell phone, so she texted her parents about her whereabouts. After they received news that their daughter was still alive, the parents informed Lao government officials and asked them to intervene, but so far, they have done nothing, the parents said. Photos of the girl obtained by RFA show her thighs and lower legs covered in purple bruises. Her mother requested that RFA not publish the photos so as to not put the girl in further jeopardy. A 17-year-old Lao girl working at the Chinese-owned &#8216;Casino Kosai&#8217; (shown) in Myanmar near the Thai border was beaten, according to her mother. Credit: Citizen journalist Workers&#8217; parents file complaint Eight parents of trafficked Laotians signed and submitted a two-page complaint on July 31 to the Anti-Trafficking Department, Office of the People’s Council, both in Luang Namtha province where they reside, and to Lao police headquarters in the capital Vientiane. The girl&#8217;s situation came to light on Aug. 1, when RFA received text messages from a Lao worker’s parents in Luang Namtha province saying that seven Lao workers had been harassed, beaten and subjected to electrical shocks by Chinese men on July 25 because they failed to meet their work quotas. The Chinese men beat the 17-year-old more than the others and until she collapsed because they found out she had sent a text message to her mother on the boss’s cell phone while working. The other workers didn’t know what had happened to the girl after the men took her away, so her parents feared she was dead. “On July 25, her daughter sent a text message to her using the boss’s telephone,” said another parent of one of the casino workers. “When he found out, he beat her and [subjected her] to electrical shocks many times until she collapsed.” The men then told casino security personnel to carry her outside, the woman said. “But at that time, the Laotians who worked with her didn’t know where they were carrying her to, making them concerned for her life,” she said. The woman also said she wanted the Lao government to help her child leave the Myanmar casino as soon as possible and that all other parents who have their children stuck there also need help. “All of the parents of the workers want the government to help because we don’t know what to do to help them out of there now,” the person said. “We sent all the documents they needed in order to get them out from there almost a year ago already but nothing [has been done].” After other Lao parents in Luang Namtha province who have sons or daughters trapped at the casino in Myanmar heard about the beatings, they submitted written requests for help to various Lao authorities. Another parent of a Lao worker at the casino told RFA that the group of adults delivered another letter to authorities in Luang Namtha province in northern Laos as well as sent a copy to police in Vientiane on Tuesday. An official from the Anti-Trafficking Department in Vientiane who is aware of the situation told RFA on Wednesday that authorities in Myanmar informed his office that they tried to search for the Lao workers, but could not access the casino due to ongoing armed conflict in the area. Translated by Sidney Khotpanya for RFA Lao. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Matt Reed.
- [Myanmar military arrests Sagaing region villagers, torches homes](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-military-arrests-sagaing-region-villagers-torches-homes/): Junta troops detained six villagers and burned homes in a township in Myanmar’s Sagaing region, locals and anti-regime forces told RFA Thursday. Residents of Ayadaw township said troops fired heavy artillery and then raided Baw Kone village around dawn on Wednesday. They took six villagers as human shields when they withdrew, the locals said. “They entered the village firing heavy artillery and handguns and burned 10 houses,” said a resident who didn’t want to be named for fear of reprisals. “Six villagers were taken hostage. They have not been released yet. Their names are still unknown as we were on the run for safety. And no one knows if they are alive or dead …. We can’t expect anything until they get back.” The local added that the hostages were taken in the direction of Naung Gyi Aing village where the troops are temporarily stationed. A member of Ayadaw township People’s Defense Force said his militia fought with troops a few hours before the village raid. “The clash broke out for only a few minutes. But we had to retreat because they had more weapons,” he said. “We easily outnumbered them but we didn’t have the firepower.” Locals said nearly 8,000 residents from nine villages, including Baw Kone, had fled junta raids. RFA’s calls to the junta’s spokesperson for Sagaing region, Saw Naing, went unanswered Thursday. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [Christian deacons presumed dead after abduction by Myanmar military in Chin state](https://ij-reportika.com/christian-deacons-presumed-dead-after-abduction-by-myanmar-military-in-chin-state/): Three Christian deacons abducted by Myanmar junta troops in mid-July on allegations that their church was involved in supporting an anti-regime armed group are believed to be dead, while a pastor detained with them escaped and is receiving treatment for his injuries, a local official said Wednesday. On July 16, soldiers from the Khalaya 274 Battalion based in Mindat, a town in western Myanmar’s Chin state, abducted pastor Htang Kay On, and the three clergymen — Chai Kay, Hon Chway and Hon Kay — from the nearby Presbyterian Christian church compound in the town’s western quarter. Yaw Man, a spokesman for the Mindat People’s Administration Team, told Radio Free Asia that he received information that the three deacons died during interrogation by soldiers. Mindat residents set up the team because they do not recognize the authority of Myanmar’s military government. The troops also interrogated, beat and tortured the pastor. Believing him to be dead after he passed out, the soldiers threw him into a ditch near the military base two days later. When he regained consciousness, the pastor ran away.  Htang Kay On now is receiving medical treatment in a safe place, Yaw Man said. Largely Christian Chin state, along with Sagaing region in the north and Kayah state in the east, have been hotbeds of armed resistance since the military illegally seized control from the elected government in a February 2021 coup. The regime has been unable to control these areas since then. Visits to military base Relatives of the three missing deacons held a prayer service for them on July 30, said a local resident close to the families.  “As we are Christians, we pray for them in our ways, trying to console the families that they will return to them in good health,” the person said. Soldiers allowed a temporary refugee camp to be opened inside the church, which is near their military base, locals said.  But when troops saw motorcycles in the church compound, they believed that the clergymen were supporting the Chinland Defense Force, or CDF, a rebel group formed in response to the 2021 coup to protect Chin state from the military junta. Other religious leaders and city elders went to the military base to ask about the three deacons, but soldiers said they had been detained for questioning, Yaw Man said.  During another visit, the soldiers said the deacons were no longer there, according to local residents.  “Everyone saw they had been abducted by them and taken to their base,” he told Radio Free Asia. “People who live near the military base overheard the sound of them being tortured. What did they mean that they were no longer there?” When people requested that the soldiers give them the bodies of the deacons for funeral services if they had died, the troops insisted they were no longer there. “If we consider the situation, I will have to say that they have died,” said Yaw Man. “But we haven’t heard anything about them so far.” &#8216;Peaceful religious leaders&#8217; RFA asked the deacons’ relatives about the situation, but they declined to answer questions for fear of their safety and because they were grieving for the clergymen.   The military has not released any information about the pastor or the three deacons. Thant Zin, Chin state’s military spokesman and social affairs minister, did not respond to phone calls from RFA. An official for Mindat&#8217;s multi-Christian churches told RFA that the illegal arrest and torture of the clergymen were “unacceptable in terms of human rights, the existing laws or religion.” Salai Mang Hre Lian, program manager of the Chin Human Rights Organization, also said the arrest of the civilian church leaders was a flagrant violation of human rights. “There is no proof that they were members of the CDF or an armed militia,” he said. “They were peaceful religious leaders who were helping war-torn refugees in the church designated for them by the military council.” “Religious leaders and unarmed people should not be arrested and killed for any reason,” he said. Soldiers have killed seven Christian ministers in Chin state since the coup, arrested 14 people, and damaged or destroyed over 70 Christian religious buildings, including churches, according to the Chin Human Rights Organization.  Translated by Myo Min Aung for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Matt Reed.
- [Junta captures 17 civilians in Myanmar’s Tanintharyi region](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-captures-17-civilians-in-myanmars-tanintharyi-region/): Junta troops have detained 17 civilians from a village in Myanmar’s southernmost Tanintharyi region, locals told RFA Wednesday. They said the 12 women, two men and three children were arrested five days ago as they returned to the village in Kyunsu township and accused of supporting a local People’s Defense Force (PDF). RFA has been unable to confirm the names and ages of those detained because phone and internet links are unreliable in the region. The villagers were in a motor boat, returning from market, when they were stopped by junta troops, locals told RFA on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. A Kyunsu resident said the 17 are being held in the township’s police station and denied access to their families. “They were arrested on the way home after buying rice, cooking oil and salt from Bait [Myeik city], and were accused of supporting PDFs near Tha Zin village by the police,” the local said.  “It is said they were arrested because they allegedly bought the rice and cooking oil to support the PDFs.” Another local resident told RFA that troops and police have been patrolling in speedboats near the coastal city of Myeik to check passengers in other vessels. “They are collecting information like names, registration numbers and where people are heading from the jetty,” he said. “Every single boat from Myeik and Kyunsu heading to villages has to report to the junta security forces.” On July 25, a local People’s Defense Force attacked a police station in Kyunsu township and exchanged fire with the police, according to a Kyunsu township PDF statement. The military junta has not released any statement about the situation.  RFA called the junta spokesperson for Tanintharyi region, Yin Htwe, but he said he was in a meeting and turned off the phone. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [Huge Buddha statue a fig leaf for Myanmar junta atrocities, critics say](https://ij-reportika.com/huge-buddha-statue-a-fig-leaf-for-myanmar-junta-atrocities-critics-say/): Myanmar’s junta inaugurated a 1,700-ton Buddha statue at a grand ceremony in the capital Tuesday that was secretly mocked by citizens used to the military&#8217;s efforts to win respectability through religion. The unveiling of the Maravijaya Buddha to mark the full moon day of Waso is the latest attempt by a military regime in Myanmar to present itself as being aligned with religion in the Buddhist-majority country, despite resorting to violence to enforce their grip on power. Civil servants had “no other choice but to go” to the ceremony, despite Waso being a holiday, said a resident of Naypyidaw who, like several others RFA Burmese contacted for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity, citing security concerns. “What I am sure of is that no civilians who aren’t government employees joined the ceremony,” he said. “Only [junta] employees who were forced to join went there. The military even arranged transportation for them.” Waso, also known as Dhammasetkya Day, commemorates the first sermon Buddha ever delivered, and Myanmar’s latest junta pulled out all the stops. The ordination ceremony in the capital Naypyidaw for the 63-foot-tall Buddha, which sits atop an 18-foot-tall throne, was the most extensive official religious event in the country since the military under Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing seized power two-and-a-half years ago. Pro-junta media have dubbed the 58 billion-kyat (US$27.6 million) carving “the world’s largest marble sitting Buddha statue,” ordered built by the junta chief to “show the international community that Buddhism is flourishing in Myanmar” and to “bring peace to the country and the world.” But residents of the capital were quick to point out the hypocrisy of the regime’s message of harmony when its security forces are responsible for the deaths of 3,861 civilians since the Feb. 1, 2021 coup d’etat. “What we see is that the junta is using a lot of money and manpower in building the statue to make it more famous than previous pagodas,” said another resident. “I have no plans to visit, as it was built by the blood-stained hands of the military dictator.” Other critics of the project have slammed the statue as a vanity project for Min Aung Hlaing, who they say hopes to paint himself as a protector of Buddhism in Myanmar. Rights activist Zaw Yan pointed out that the money used to build the statue was part of Myanmar’s national budget. He questioned why it wasn’t used to feed people who are starving because of the junta’s economic mismanagement or provide aid to the 2 million the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says have been displaced by conflict in the country since the takeover. “This is just the junta’s attempt to appear as if [Min Aung Hlaing] is a holy king in hope of gaining people’s support as a political exit,” he said. ‘Remembered as murderers’ Sai Kyi Zin Soe, a political analyst, told RFA that Min Aung Hlaing likely built the Maravijaya Buddha statue in a bid to whitewash his legacy, ward off danger and prolong his rule. “That&#8217;s what [junta chiefs] usually do,” he said. “There have been similar examples of this in the past.” The statue’s ordination was reminiscent of one in February 2002, when the country’s former junta under Senior Gen. Than Shwe held a ceremony to consecrate a 560-ton, 37-foot-tall marble Buddha statue known as the Loka Chantha Abhaya Labha Muni in Yangon.  Than Shwe moved Myanmar’s capital from the city to Naypyidaw in 2006 and three years later built the Uppatasanti Pagoda there – its name invoking a Buddhist mantra believed to protect against foreign invasion. In 1986, former junta leader General Ne Win completed the Maha Wizaya Pagoda, whose name means “extraordinary success,” south of the revered Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon. However, few people visit the pagoda these days because of its association with the dictator, whose regime was responsible for killing unarmed students, monks and other civilians in a bloody 1988 coup. Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, center, head of the military council, puts jewelry at point of victory, auspicious ground, during consecration ceremony at the sitting Maravijaya Buddha statue made with marble rock, Sunday, July 23, 2023, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar. Credit: Military True News Information Team via AP In addition to the statue’s unveiling on Tuesday, the junta also announced an amnesty that reduced the prison term of the jailed head of the deposed National League for Democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi, by six years and that of the country’s ousted president, Win Myint, by four. It also ordered the release of thousands of inmates from prisons around the country. The junta often announces amnesties on Buddhist religious days. “Of course they want to be rulers who are seen to revere Buddhism … but they are remembered as murderers, not as devout religious leaders,” said Kyee Myint, a human rights lawyer. “[Try as they may] their wrongdoings will remain recorded in history.&#8221; Waryama, a leader of the Spring Revolution Sangha Network of anti-junta Buddhist monks, likened such acts to “hiding a dead elephant with the skin of a goat,” or attempts of deception. “Generations of tyrants and dictators in our country build these temples and pagodas to cover up their atrocities and killing of the people.,” he said. “[The junta] is using the Buddha’s image to try to continue its rule of the country so that it can inflict more cruelty … In fact, worshiping Buddha statues is just a superficial custom of Buddhism.” Buddhist in name only The statue unveiled on Tuesday, whose name Maravijaya means “the Buddha who overcomes the devil&#8217;s interference,” is imbued with Buddhist symbolism. According to the Institute for Strategy and Policy (ISP-Myanmar), an independent research group, worship of the Maravijaya statue involves the number nine, seen as auspicious by Myanmar’s superstitious military leaders. The combined weight of the statue (1,782 tons) and throne (3,510 tons) is 5,292 tons. When 5,292 is added together until one digit remains (5+2+9+2=18, 1+8=9), the result is nine.  The same is...
- [Family run, since 1985](https://ij-reportika.com/family-run-since-1985/): Strongman Hun Sen has announced he will transfer power to his eldest son Hun Manet, after nearly four decades ruling Cambodia. Hun Manet, a former military chief and four-star general, is at the forefront of a major generational succession in the ruling party that will also see Interior Minister Sar Kheng and Defence Minister Tea Banh hand over their posts to their sons.
- [Myanmar junta announces fourth extension of emergency rule](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-announces-fourth-extension-of-emergency-rule/): Myanmar’s military junta extended a state of emergency on Monday on the eve of a deadline, delaying elections it had vowed to hold by the end of the year, according to media reports. The National Defense and Security Council, Myanmar’s top decision-making body, ordered the extension at a meeting convened by the junta in the capital Naypyidaw, Bloomberg reported, citing junta Deputy Information Minister Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun. The announcement marks four consecutive six-month extensions of emergency rule in Myanmar since the military seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup d’etat, citing ongoing instability in the country. The latest period was set to expire on July 31. The military regime had announced plans to hold an election this year, in what analysts say is part of a bid to crush the opposition and legitimize its rule through the polls. Opponents have dismissed the planned election as a sham because it appears rigged to exclude parties ousted by the coup and keep junta officials in power. The fourth extension of emergency rule would postpone the election, which Myanmar’s Constitution mandates must be held within six months after a state of emergency is lifted. The renewed state of emergency announced Monday was not unexpected. On July 13, junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing hinted at a possible extension of emergency rule during a meeting of the Tatmadaw, or Myanmar’s Armed Forces, in the capital Naypyidaw, calling for greater security in Sagaing region, as well as Chin and Kayah states. The three regions are centers of resistance to military rule and have seen an uptick in violence in recent months. ‘Extraordinary situation’ According to Myanmar’s military-drafted constitution, emergency rule can only be extended twice “in normal situations.” In announcing the last extension on Jan. 31 this year, junta leaders cited the “extraordinary situation” created by resistance against the military regime for stymieing efforts to hold a general election. At the time, Min Aung Hlaing, faulted &#8220;terrorist groups” formed by deposed lawmakers and officials – the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw and the National Unity Government – as well as the numerous local militias known as People’s Defense Force, or PDF, that have fought the junta across Myanmar since 2021. Min Aung Hlaing was the leader of the coup that ousted and jailed leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy government about two months after their landslide election victory. Civilians under threat After the last extension, the junta declared martial law in 40 townships in Sagaing, Magway,  Tanintharyi and Bago regions, as well as in Kayin, Chin and Kayah states. The military embarked on a brutal campaign against the armed resistance, but the resistance grew stronger. Military clearance operations have claimed the lives of civilians on a near daily basis in Myanmar. According to Burma News International’s Myanmar Peace Monitor, which compiles data on military conflict in the country, at least 383 civilians were killed throughout the country during the latest extension of emergency rule, from Feb. 1 to July 15. Most were arrested and killed or died in military shelling and airstrikes. According to a July 15 statement by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, nearly 2 million people have been displaced by armed conflict across Myanmar since the coup. Of those, nearly 800,000 people have been displaced in Sagaing region alone.
- [Activist says he’ll continue to struggle for democracy in Vietnam](https://ij-reportika.com/activist-says-hell-continue-to-struggle-for-democracy-in-vietnam/): Radio Free Asia interviewed 74-year-old Australian citizen and democracy activist Chau Van Kham after his release from a Vietnamese prison last week. He was arrested in 2019, hours after he arrived in Vietnam and met with a fellow pro-democracy activist. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison for “terrorism aimed at toppling the people’s administration.” Kham was a member of Viet Tan, a pro-democracy group with members inside Vietnam and abroad. It has been described by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights as a moderate activist group advocating for democratic reform. Hanoi claims it is a terrorist organization that aims to topple the government. Kham suffers from glaucoma, high blood pressure and kidney stones, according to Viet Tan. His release came on humanitarian grounds “in a spirit of friendship” between Canberra and Hanoi, according to Australian Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, CNN reported. He returned home to Sydney on July 25. RFA: You have just returned home. Please tell us your thoughts about being released? Chau Văn Kham: My first emotion is only after leaving the Vietnam Airlines plane do I truly feel that I have freedom. My emotions were lifted when I saw my wife and my younger brother at the airport, and at the same time the reception of Mr. Chris Bowen, representative of the Australian prime minister.  I remembered those who struggle and are still in prisons under the communist regime, especially those who fight for freedom and democracy for Vietnam. RFA: The Vietnamese government accused you of “terrorism against the people’s government.” The government said that the activities of the Viet Tan Party were characteristic of “terrorism.” Could you tell us what you have done in Vietnam that they would accuse you of such a severe charge? Chau Văn Kham: When I went to Vietnam through Cambodia, I had a bag in which there were only a pair of clothes and several pairs of underwear. No documents, no leaflets, no laptops. And I used a very old mobile phone. During the time I stayed in Vietnam, I didn’t do any activities that they could accuse me of being terrorism. During the investigation process, police decided to prosecute me with “having activities to protest against the people’s government.” But after some months, the investigative agent told me that the government didn’t see any activities of me in that purpose so the government lowered the crime down to “terrorism.”  I thought that the “terrorism” crime was heavier than “having activities to protest against the people’s government,” but I didn’t dispute what he said. But they still couldn’t find any activities to accuse me. They told me that when I sat by the Bach Dang River, it was to investigate how to attack vessels on the river. I told them that I used to be a Navy sailor, and I went there to have coffee with my friends and to remember the past. I just laughed at such an accusation. The investigative agents showed me online photos of the Viet Tan Front with guns. I explained to them that such photos with armed guerrillas were for propaganda purposes, not for attacking. I myself know well that the Viet Tan Party, announced to the world its existence in 2004, had a non-violence policy that was announced in 2007. I joined the Viet Tan in 2010. Vietnamese-Australian democracy activist Chau Van Kham [left] is escorted into a courtroom in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Nov. 11, 2019. (Credit: Vietnam News Agency/AFP) RFA: Could you tell us what you did in Vietnam, and what evidence and any grounds they used to prove that you did terrorist acts? Chau Van Kham: In fact I didn’t do anything that could be seen as terrorism. They used an announcement on the website of the Ministry of Public Securities that said Viet Tan was a terrorist organization since 2017. They asked me if I heard about that. I replied that I had heard but I didn’t care. They asked why. I replied to them with these reasons: Firstly, Viet Tan operates all over the world, even in Vietnam, and only Vietnam accuses Viet Tan a terrorist organization. Secondly, the announcement on the website of the Ministry of Public Securities had not been adopted into law. If there had been a law naming the Viet Tan as a terrorist organization, the Australian government would have known and would have ended our operation. But at court, when I explained this, the chief judge slammed his hand on the table saying that I came to Vietnam and Vietnamese law applied. RFA: Why do you think Vietnam has accused Viet Tan of being a terrorist organization – a very severe accusation – while others have been accused as being “anti-people’s government” organizations? Châu Văn Kham: To many Vietnamese inside the country, “terrorism” means “death, sorrows, breaking down, back to the terrible time of war.” Even me, as a war veteran, when mentioning war, I feel appalled. As a result, any organizations that would bring about such things would be avoided.  The purpose for accusing me as a terrorist was to create the thinking of “deaths, sorrows.” It was completely wrong. The evidence was aired on state television stations at least five days a week during prime time. News about terrorism and deterioration to corruption was aired, and the Viet Tan Party was always mentioned. In the prison, other cellmates asked me what I had done to become jailed with terrorist charges. I told them, “Look at me – a small guy with a meek personality. How could I terrorize others?” It was just the Vietnamese government’s propaganda.  Now, in my opinion, the only force that can counter Vietnam’s government for the time being is the Viet Tan Party. So, by all means, they try to destroy our prestige, making Vietnamese people avoid us.    I would add the purpose of my trip to Vietnam was to do fact-finding about the real human rights situation...
- [Lao police detain Chinese rights lawyer who was headed to the United States](https://ij-reportika.com/lao-police-detain-chinese-rights-lawyer-who-was-headed-to-the-united-states/): A Chinese human rights lawyer who lost his law license after speaking out about the cases of 12 Hong Kong activists has been arrested in Laos and could face deportation to China, the Associated Press reported. Lu Siwei was arrested in Vientiane Friday morning as he boarded a train for Thailand. He was traveling to Bangkok to board a flight to the United States to be with his wife and daughter, according to the AP. Lao police said that there was something wrong with his passport, according to Bob Fu, founder of Texas-based religious rights group ChinaAid.  Lu sent a message at 10:10 a.m. on Friday saying that he had been detained by three policemen, according to his wife, Zhang Chunxiao. “I haven’t been able to get in touch with him again,” she told Radio Free Asia. “I feel that they will send him back as soon as possible.” Lu had been under surveillance in China since his attorney’s license was revoked in 2021, Zhang said. A camera was installed at the door of their house, and he had been barred from leaving China.  ‘Long-arm jurisdiction’ The arrest in Laos was obviously due to the “long-arm jurisdiction” of Chinese authorities, who have been aggressively pursuing Chinese dissidents abroad, Fu said. Lu would face prison if returned to China. Fu said he was contacted by Lu’s family two weeks ago to help him leave China. Lu had valid visas for Laos and the United States, and two ChinaAid activists were traveling with him when he was arrested, the AP said.  Fu sent the AP photos of Lu’s passport to verify his claims. He told RFA that Chinese authorities likely asked Lao police to focus on Lu’s passport during the interaction at the train station. He said he’s spoken with several U.S. State Department senior officials about the arrest. One of the two activists [left] traveling with Chinese rights lawyer Lu Siwei [right] argues with police who were in the process of detaining Lu, near the Thanaleng dry port, 13 kilometers (8 miles), south of Vientiane, on July 28, 2023. Credit: Anonymous source via AP “The State Department activated the emergency response mechanism and immediately notified the U.S. embassy in Laos and the diplomatic systems of other allied countries,” Fu said. China’s Foreign Ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from the AP on Friday. Numbers listed for Lao’s Foreign Ministry rang unanswered, and the Laotian embassy in Beijing didn’t immediately respond to emailed requests for comment, the AP said. Lawyer for detained activist Lu was hired by the family of Quinn Moon, one of 12 protesters who were jailed after trying to escape to democratic Taiwan by speedboat following the 2019 Hong Kong protest movement.  He was particularly vocal in the months following their initial detention and repeatedly commented about his unsuccessful attempts to gain access to his client. After his law license was revoked in 2021, Lu told RFA that he couldn’t have predicted he would end up in this situation. “Sometimes it is difficult to imagine what your life will bring,” he said. “You can make some plans, but there are still some certain events that will change your life.” Edited by Matt Reed.
- [The UNESCO Unveiled](https://ij-reportika.com/the-unesco-unveiled/): Report on China's influence on UNESCO which has raised concerns about the objectivity and independence of UNESCO's decision-making processes.
- [China is the tech abettor of global autocracy](https://ij-reportika.com/china-is-the-tech-abettor-of-global-autocracy/): Lost in recent news about China’s spy-base in Cuba was the fact that Huawei employees are working for the Latin American dictatorship. The Chinese telecoms giant isn’t just helping maintain an intelligence-gathering facility. It’s also helping Cuba oppress its own citizens.  This is a common thread in Chinese diplomacy: Giving authoritarian regimes the technological tools they need to surveil, repress, and punish dissidents.  Huawei, whose links with the Chinese Communist Party are well established, has been Cuba’s main technology provider for the state telecommunications company since 2017.  According to a Swedish study, this is part of China’s support for “digital authoritarianism,” and Huawei’s eSight Internet management software that filters web searches is also in use across Latin America. When the Cuban people staged massive protests in July 2021, the government controlled and blocked the internet using technology “made, sold and installed” by China, according to Senator Marco Rubio.  Then there’s Africa. In September 2018, Djibouti started surveillance system construction in collaboration with the state-owned China Railway Electrification Bureau Group. The video surveillance system covers major urban areas, airports, docks, and ports in the city of Djibouti.   In Asia, China is reportedly cooperating with Myanmar’s military government in constructing a surveillance post on Great Coco Island. In December 2020, Myanmar applied 335 Huawei surveillance cameras in eight townships as part of its “Safe City” project.  China&#8217;s President Xi Jinping shakes hands with Djibouti&#8217;s President Ismail Omar Guelleh before a meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, April 28, 2019. Credit: Madoka Ikegami/Pool via Reuters The cameras have facial recognition functions and alert authorities if surveilled persons are on a wanted list. In July 2022, Reuters reported that Myanmar&#8217;s military government installed Chinese-made cameras with facial recognition capabilities in cities across the country. The equipment was purchased from Dahua, Huawei, and Hikvision.  In another case of close Chinese support for an authoritarian ruler in Southeast Asia, it was confirmed in February 2023, that China has a naval base in Ream, Cambodia. In June 2019, the Deputy Commissioner of the General Commissariat of the Kingdom of Cambodia Police and Chief of Phnom Penh Municipal Police visited Chinese companies including Huawei and Hikvision, expressing interest in China’s “Safe Cities” surveillance systems and other police equipment which he hoped to introduce for “improving public security and combating crimes.”  In October 2022, according to Voice of America, Cambodian human rights activists suspected Cambodian local police of using drones and surveillance cameras supplied by Chinese companies to monitor labor rights protesters.  Belt and Road Initiative In Pakistan, China has installed Chinese technology for domestic surveillance since at least 2016. That’s when the so-called “Safe City” project commenced operations in Islamabad, in collaboration with Huawei and other Chinese companies like e-Hualu. The project has established checkpoints and electronic police systems along major city thoroughfares, enabling citywide vehicle monitoring. In 2017, Huawei collaborated with the Punjab Safe Cities Authority in Pakistan to build a safe city system in Lahore. The project includes an integrated command and communication center, 200 police station sites, and 100 LTE base stations. In Central Asia, Huawei and Hualu surveillance systems are throughout Dushanbe, ostensibly to combat what local authorities say is “terrorism and extremism.” In May 2023, the head of Sughd Province Tajikistan met with Huawei representatives to discuss its 25 million USD “Safe City” project in Khujand, its provincial capital.  A staff member sits in front of a screen displaying footage from surveillance cameras, at the Hikvision booth at Security China, the China International Exhibition on Public Safety and Security, in Beijing, June 7, 2023. Credit: Florence Lo/Reuters Much of China’s global provision of domestic surveillance tools is through its Belt and Road initiative, through which it has sent technology to Egypt and Nigeria, Uganda, Turkey, Russia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Angola, Laos, Kazakhstan, and Kenya. There’s also Serbia, where a political dissident claimed that the objective of the country’s participation in the Belt and Road Initiative is to “hunt… down political opponents.&#8221;  Technology surveys show that around the world, at least 79 states have bought into Huawei’s surveillance package. They include liberal democracies like Italy, Netherlands, and Germany. A Huawei contract can thus signal entry-level affiliation with Xi Jinping’s New World Order, where “a future and destiny of every nation and every country are closely interconnected”—by invasive Chinese technology that abets oppression. That doesn’t belong in America’s backyard, in Cuba, or anywhere else in the world. Aaron Rhodes is senior fellow at Common Sense Society and President of the Forum for Religious Freedom-Europe. Cheryl Yu is senior researcher at Common Sense Society. The views expressed here are their own and do not reflect the position of RFA.
- [China’s coal use increased to a record high in 2022, IEA says](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-coal-use-increased-to-a-record-high-in-2022-iea-says/): China’s coal consumption grew by 4.6% in 2022 to a new all-time high of 4.5 billion metric tons, dragging with it global coal demand offsetting declines in Europe and North America, a new report by an energy watchdog said.  The coal market globally rose by 3.3% to hit a fresh new record of 8.3 billion metric tons in 2022, and will stay near that record level this year due to solid growth in Asia for both power generation and industrial applications, said the Paris-based organization International Energy Agency. Continued strong growth in Asian economies offset declines in Europe and North America, highlighting the need for more robust policies and investments to accelerate clean energy development, IEA said in their mid-year Coal Market Update, published on Thursday. Demand in China was higher than expected last year due to lower quality coal that resulted in higher-than-expected volumes, while more coal than expected was gasified to produce synthetic liquid fuels, plastics and fertilizers that increased the demand for non-power by 7%. Coal demand in Indonesia soared by about 36% to 201 million metric tons, making Indonesia the fifth largest coal consumer after China, India, the United States, and Russia.  The IEA said 10,440 terawatt hours were generated from coal in 2022, which accounts for 36% of the global electricity generation. Coal, being a fossil fuel, exerts a significant toll on the environment. Environmental organization Greenpeace has labeled it “the most environmentally harmful and polluting method of energy production.” “Coal is the largest single source of carbon emissions from the energy sector, and in Europe and the United States, the growth of clean energy has put coal use into structural decline,” said Keisuke Sadamori, IEA’s director of energy markets and security.  “But demand remains stubbornly high in Asia, even as many of those economies have significantly ramped up renewable energy sources. We need greater policy efforts and investments – backed by stronger international cooperation – to drive a massive surge in clean energy and energy efficiency to reduce coal demand in economies where energy needs are growing fast.” Coal consumption will grow in 2023 China is the world leader in renewable energy, but it also continues to devour coal, mainly to continue with its economic growth trajectory and tackle power failures due to heat waves and drought. In 2023, global coal demand is estimated to have grown by about 1.5% in the first half to about 4.7 billion metric tons. It was mainly due to the two largest consumers, China and India, growing by over 5%, more than offsetting declines elsewhere. Global coal consumption, 2021-2023. Credit: AFP IEA projected China, India and Southeast Asian countries together are expected to account for 3 out of every four metric tons of coal consumed worldwide. “In total, we expect China’s coal demand in 2023 to grow by about 3.5% to 4.6 billion metric tons, with demand from the power sector up 4.5% and demand from non-power uses growing by 2%,” the report said. China and India account for two-thirds of global coal consumption, which means they use twice as much coal as the rest of the world combined.  In 2023, the duo could account for nearly 70% of the world’s global coal consumption, while the United States and the European Union could account for just 10%, IEA said. Meanwhile, on the production side, the three largest coal producers – China, India and Indonesia – all produced record amounts in 2022.  IEA said China and India set new monthly records in March this year, with China surpassing 400 million metric tons for the second time ever and India surpassing 100 million metric tons for the first time.  That month, IEA said that Indonesia exported almost 50 million metric tons, a volume never shipped by any country before. Edited by Joshua Lipes.
- [North Koreans forced to celebrate 70th anniversary of ‘victory’ in Korean War](https://ij-reportika.com/north-koreans-forced-to-celebrate-70th-anniversary-of-victory-in-korean-war/): North Koreans are complaining about being overworked in preparation for Thursday’s 70th anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended hostilities in the 1950-53 Korean War, residents in the country told Radio Free Asia. Citizens are made to drop everything to beautify their towns, practice for dancing and sports competitions, and attend educational lectures, taking them away from economic activities at a time when many in the country are having trouble making ends meet.  Though the fighting in the war is widely considered to have ended in a stalemate, and no peace treaty to end it was ever signed, North Korea has made July 27 a national holiday called the “Day of Victory in the Great Fatherland Liberation War.”   To prepare for Thursday’s festivities, authorities are even taking children out of school, a source from the northern province of Ryanggang told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The authorities bother people from the early morning until late at night to prepare for the event,” he said. “From 5:30 in the morning, each neighborhood watch unit must mow lawns, clean public toilets, and paint fences … to create a holiday atmosphere.” Workers are called away from factory floors to study propaganda, the resident said. “[They] have classes at education halls, study films, and paint propaganda signs and wall boards,” he said. “Starting July 20, the wall board exhibitions related to [the holiday] were held in each city and county.” North Korean leader Kim Jong Un [center], Chinese Communist Party politburo member Li Hongzhong [fourth from right] and Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu [left] attend a celebration performance marking what the North calls “Day of Victory in the Great Fatherland Liberation War,” in Pyongyang, Thursday, July 27, 2023. Credit: KCNA via KNS/AFP Citizens are also being made to donate money for the big event, another Ryanggang resident told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “Each household is donating 3,000 won (US$0.27) to support the People’s Army,” she said. “[That’s] enough to buy a kilogram (2.2 lbs) of corn, which is enough to feed a poor family for a day.” The second resident said students were being made to practice marching for parades and dancing for a mass dance event. “They are complaining that they hope it rains all day that day,” she said. According to the second resident, the schedule for Thursday is similar in each city and town across the country. Events include every citizen presenting flowers to statues of North Korea’s previous leaders, a military parade, and sports competitions with teams fielded by each factory and organization. Additionally, there are propaganda speech contests, and mass dance events. “For these events, the Central Committee [of the Korean Workers’ Party] has set July 27 as a rest day. From 10 p.m., fireworks will be held in each province,” she said. Satellite imagery revealed that a military parade was held Thursday in the capital Pyongyang. It included missile transporter erector launcher vehicles, or TELs.  Money matters Because every citizen has something to do to prepare for the day, they are not free to earn money, and will experience difficulty making ends meet as a result. In most North Korean families, men are required to work at their government-assigned jobs, but they are paid only a nominal salary. The responsibility for earning money therefore falls on their wives, many of whom operate family businesses by buying and selling goods in the marketplace. Though these women are still called housewives colloquially, they are in fact the breadwinners of their families, and taking them away from their work is a recipe for family hardship. Ladies in Kowon county, in the eastern province of South Hamgyong have been made to practice dancing every day from 7 to 8 p.m. in front of the local cultural center, a resident there told RFA on condition of anonymity for personal safety. “Housewives who have to buy food for their families by selling in the marketplace are being mobilized …  during the day to prepare for a ball event in the evening,” she said. “People are complaining, saying, ‘We won’t get anything to eat and we are told to dance.’” In the city of Sinuiju, on the Chinese border in the northwest, people were made to prepare for a three-hour mass dance from 7 to 10 p.m. on Thursday, a resident there told RFA on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “There are college students involved in the outdoor mass dance and singing political event but the housewives who are members of the city’s Socialist Women’s Union of Korea get mobilized as well,” she said. “They complain, saying that ‘dancing is originally meant to be fun and exciting, but being forced to dance makes it more difficult than working.’” Global remembrance The international community released statements that reflected on the lessons learned from the Korean War 70 years ago. U.S. President Joe Biden issued an order that recognized the sacrifices of soldiers who fought in the war and officially made Thursday National Korean War Veterans Armistice Day in the United States.  “Let us honor the Korean War Veterans who fought to defend the security and stability we enjoy today,” the order said. “Let us renew our commitment to the democratic values for which they served and sacrificed.” A statement by Lloyd Austin, the U.S. secretary of defense, called on Americans to remember the sacrifices of U.S. soldiers and its allies, and reiterated that the “ironclad alliance” with South Korea “is stronger than ever.” Several U.S. lawmakers, including House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Gregory W. Meeks (D-NY) issued a statement warning that North Korea continues “to threaten the peace and stability of the Indo-Pacific with its missile and nuclear program.” “Today’s anniversary reinforces the need for a strong U.S.-Republic of Korea alliance to bolster peace and prosperity on the Korean Peninsula and reminds us how important it is to stand against authoritarianism,” the statement said. Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), who in March...
- [Landmine kills 4 children in Myanmar’s Bago region](https://ij-reportika.com/landmine-kills-4-children-in-myanmars-bago-region/): Four children died when a landmine exploded as they played in a field in Myanmar’s central Bago region, residents told RFA Thursday. They said the mine went off in Phyu township’s In Pin Thar village on Tuesday, killing five-year-olds Poe La Pyae, Wa Than Moe and Nga Pauk, and 12-year-old Aye Chan Maung. Six-year-old Htein Lin and 50-year-old Min Naing were injured in the blast. “Right at the top of In Pin Thar village, there is a small library,” said a resident who didn’t want to be named for fear of junta reprisals.  “The children were hit while they were playing behind the wall where there are bushes and a drinking water pot.” The local said junta troops often enter In Pin Thar village which is about 3.2 kilometers (2 miles) from their base in Hpa Yar La Har village He said the landmine was planted and left behind when the junta troops were last in the village, but RFA has not been able to confirm this independently. RFA’s calls to the Bago region junta spokesperson, Tin Oo, went unanswered Thursday. Myanmar’s youngsters continue to be the victims of indiscriminate shelling and landmine blasts. On July 22, three people, including a 12-year-old child, were critically injured when a junta shell exploded in a village in Bago region’s Kyauktaga township, according to locals. The fighting is also leading to an increasing number of internally displaced people. Nearly 100,000 residents of eastern Bago have fled their homes since the Feb. 1, 2021 coup, according to the United Nations Office for the Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [Democrats question proposed part of AUKUS deal](https://ij-reportika.com/democrats-question-proposed-part-of-aukus-deal/): A key part of the AUKUS security pact aiming to create a “seamless” defense industry across Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States appears at risk after congressional Democrats raised doubts about Canberra’s ability to protect U.S. military designs from China. The concerns were raised during a session of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday, just days before U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin arrive in Brisbane, Australia, for talks with their Australian counterparts. Democrats including Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, the party’s ranking member on the committee, said that they opposed two bills introduced by the Republican majority to exempt Australia and the United Kingdom from the Arms Export Control Act of 1976. The law created the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, or ITAR, which forces foreign entities, except for those in Canada, to apply for licenses when importing sensitive U.S. defense technology.  Meeks argued that Australia and the United Kingdom could seek exemptions from the State Department under the standing law, and said a blanket exemption would circumvent important checks. “Prematurely lifting them risks compromising our national security by allowing unfettered transfers of our most sensitive defense technology including to private-sector foreign firms, which risk exposure to or theft by our most capable adversaries, especially China,” he said. The former committee chair pointed to Australian intelligence chief Mike Burgess’s comments earlier this year that more Australians are being targeted by foreign spies, due in part to the AUKUS pact. “The U.K. faces similar intelligence threats,” he said. Roadblocks Experts in Australia have warned that the U.S. arms-control laws are a roadblock to the so-called “pillar 2” of the AUKUS pact, which aims to create a “seamless” defense industry across the three countries and could be hampered by bureaucracy without a blanket exemption. Those concerns have been echoed by top Australian officials. Australia’s ambassador in Washington, Kevin Rudd, told a forum in Washington last month that the so-called “pillar 2” of AUKUS “could be even more revolutionary than the submarine project in itself” but said it had a “complex process” ahead of it to get through Congress. Britain&#8217;s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak [second right] walks during a meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden [second left] and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese [left] at Point Loma naval base in San Diego, Calif., on March 13, 2023, as part of AUKUS. (Stefan Rousseau/Pool via AP) On Wednesday, Rep. Michael McCaul, a Republican from Texas who has served as chairman of the committee since the start of this year, said providing Australia and the United Kingdom similar exemptions as those given to Canada would cut “red tape” with minimal risks. “This licensing exemption will add more submarine capabilities to the South China Sea as we see a more aggressive China on the march,” he said. “It also removes restrictions on innovation, and collaborating on quantum computing, autonomous vehicles and long range weapons.” McCaul argued the 1976 law was “outdated” and from “a time when the U.S. dominated defense innovation in defense technology,” which he said was no longer. He noted the United States had “never denied a sale or license to Australia” after the lengthy approval process. “Times have changed,” McCaul said, “and we now need to rely on our allies and partners, many of which out-innovate us in key areas.” Five Eyes partner Wearing a koala pin on her lapel, Rep. Young Kim, a Republican from California who introduced the bill for the exemption for Australia, said she could not understand the Democrats&#8217; reluctance. Kim, who titled the bill the “Keeping Our Allies Leading in Advancement Act,” or KOALA Act, said Australia had already proven itself a trusted partner as part of the Five Eyes intelligence pact that also includes Canada, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. “Australia is one of our closest allies and is one of our Five Eyes partners. We let the Australians have access to some of the most sensitive intelligence we have,” Kim said. “So why shouldn’t we expedite collaboration with them on sensitive technologies?”  Rep. Young Kim says Australia has already proven itself a trusted partner of the United States as part of the Five Eyes intelligence pact. (Ken Cedeno/Pool via AP file photo) It was disingenuous, the second-term lawmaker added, to “grant them access to some of our most sensitive intelligence but say we’re concerned that the Australians will let this technology fall into the hands of the CCP,” referring to the Communist Party of China. Kim also tabled a July 24 letter in favor of “an expedited AUKUS process” that she said was signed by a number of Obama administration officials including former director of national intelligence James Clapper and former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. McCaul summarized the letter as making the case “Australia has sufficient safeguards in place already” as a Five Eyes member, and dismissed the argument that Canberra and London can apply for Canada-like exemptions from the U.S. State Department. “State will not issue the exemption,” he said. “State has shown it will never certify Australia or the U.K. for an exemption, because it does not want to give up its bureaucratic power over licensing.” A State Department spokesperson declined to comment on the issue but pointed to May 24 testimony to the committee by Jessica Lewis, assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, in which she suggested bulk approvals of AUKUS-related exemption requests. “Every transfer between AUKUS partners will not be subject to case-by-case review, but will be pre-approved” if the case meets certain criteria laid out by the State Department, Lewis said at the time. Charles Edel, the Australia chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Radio Free Asia he believed changes to the law were needed that protect U.S. defense secrets while also allowing Australian, American and British companies to collaborate easily. He said the speed of the current approval process was the issue. &#8220;The question surrounding export controls,” Edel said, “is not whether...
- [Junta shelling kills man, forces residents to flee village in Myanmar’s Shan state](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-shelling-kills-man-forces-residents-to-flee-village-in-myanmars-shan-state/): Myanmar’s military shelled a village in Shan state, killing a man and forcing most residents to flee, locals told RFA Wednesday. The local killed in Tuesday’s attack on Muse township’s Hseng Hkawng village was identified as 40-year-old Aik Lau by a villager who goes by the name Cherry. “He was sitting outside the house and his face and back were hit when the heavy artillery shell landed and exploded,” Cherry told RFA. “Another house was hit and one person was injured in the thigh.” The village has around 200 residents, most of whom fled after the explosion. Locals said most of the villagers are from the Ta’ang (Palaung) ethnic group. A resident of a nearby village said there was a battle between junta troops and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army in the township on Tuesday morning.  They said troops fired a 60-millimeter heavy weapon from a bridge next to Nam Aum village, damaging some houses in Hseng Hkawng.  The troops then raided Kawng Wein village, 0.8 kilometers (half a mile) from Hseng Hkawng and interrogated locals. Ta&#8217;ang National Liberation Army troops in a photograph taken on July 12, 2022. Credit: RFA The ethnic army has been active near those villages, fighting with about 200 soldiers in the last few days, and the military junta has been shelling villages since Monday, according to locals. Some shops and houses in Nam Aum village were destroyed by shelling and troops sent an attack helicopter to fire on the village on Tuesday, residents told RFA on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. RFA’s calls to junta council spokesperson for Shan state, Khun Thein Maung, went unanswered Wednesday. A Ta’ang National Liberation Army information officer, who declined to be named for security reasons, told RFA he did not know the exact situation on the ground. Fighting across Myanmar since the junta extended the state of emergency on Feb. 1, 2023 has left 383 civilians dead, according to data from the BNI-Myanmar Peace Monitor, a group that compiles data on the military conflict. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) announced on July 15 that nearly two million people have fled their homes due to armed fighting and insecurity across the country since the Feb. 1, 2021 coup. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [Myanmar junta’s new banknote causes gold prices, currency value to fluctuate](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-juntas-new-banknote-causes-gold-prices-currency-value-to-fluctuate/): The introduction of a new banknote by Myanmar’s ruling junta has pushed up the price of gold and affected the value of the country’s currency, with shadow government officials saying the move is meant to alleviate some of the regime’s financial difficulties. The State Administration Council, the official name of the junta regime that has ruled Myanmar since seizing power in a February 2021 coup, said on Sunday that it will issue a limited number of 20,000-kyat banknotes, roughly equivalent to a US$10 bill, on the last day of this month.  The junta said the new banknote was designed to commemorate the completion of a Buddha statue. The bills, which feature the image of a white elephant, will be limited to a maximum of three per person when they are exchanged with old unusable banknotes of the same value.  After the military-owned Myawaddy news agency announced that the junta-controlled central bank would issue the new banknotes, the shadow National Unity Government, or NUG, said the regime came up with the high-denomination notes because of the financial crisis plaguing the country. Myanmar’s economy went into a tailspin following the coup, as professionals walked off their jobs to join a civil disobedience movement opposed to the regime.  The junta’s financial mismanagement – and economic sanctions imposed by the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom – have curtailed some revenue streams. NUG officials also said the junta had no right to issue new banknotes because it is not an official government.  Min Zayar Oo, the shadow government’s deputy minister of planning, finance and investment, said the junta is issuing the banknotes because international sanctions have blocked  its foreign income. “When the junta faced financial difficulties due to sanctions, it started printing money,” he said. “Although they initially said that they would circulate only a limited number of the denomination, it is just the introductory step for their larger purpose which is to solve their financial difficulties.” NUG spokesman Nay Phone Latt agreed that the junta is printing new currency because of its dire financial circumstances and said the value of the kyat would likely depreciate. “We consider this currency to be printed by a terrorist organization,” he said. RFA could not reach junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment. Forex havoc The move comes just after the NUG began a trial run of an online bank that uses cryptocurrency in an effort to disrupt the flow of foreign currency to banks run by the junta, including the country’s central bank.  The new crypto bank was developed to prevent the junta from violating bank regulations by blocking user accounts, seizing deposits, and providing personal account data to the authorities. In the meantime, the junta’s latest move has led to unstable foreign currency exchange rates and fluctuations in the price of gold.  Following the announcement about the new banknote, the exchange rate for one U.S. dollar rose to 3,400 kyats from 3,100, landing on Tuesday at 3,300 kyats. The exchange rate for Thai baht rose to 96 kyats from about 90 kyats, while the exchange rate for Chinese yuan increased to 460 kyats from 430 kyats. Forex instability has prompted Burmese businesses that import goods from abroad to temporarily suspend transactions.  A Burmese national who recently bought gold jewelry told Radio Free Asia that one tical, a unit of weight that is approximately 16.3 grams, of 23-karat gold was worth about 3.1 million kyats on July 23, but rose on Tuesday to more than 3.5 million kyats. Another Burmese citizen who visited gold shops said establishments in Yangon, the commercial capital, closed on Monday due to the instability of the price of gold, though some reopened on Tuesday. Now, 24-karat bars of gold cannot be purchased at all as a safe investment, he said. The Yangon Region Gold Entrepreneurs Association has set the price of one tical of 24-karat gold at over 2.3 million kyats – more than 1 million kyats less than the actual market price. The trade group issued a statement on Monday asking merchants to refrain from business transactions that would destabilize the price of gold because of news about the new banknote. Translated by Myo Min Aung for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Matt Reed.
- [Junta raids force 5,000 residents of Myanmar’s Sagaing region to flee township](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-raids-force-5000-residents-of-myanmars-sagaing-region-to-flee-township/): A junta raid on Tuesday forced nearly 5,000 residents from 10 villages in Sagaing region to flee, locals told RFA. They said a junta column raided a village in Salingyi township this morning, prompting locals from other villages in the area to abandon their homes. “In the past people normally returned to their villages if the junta column left and went away,” said a villager who didn’t want to be named for security reasons.  “But now it’s raining and hot, so the roads are bad and it&#8217;s hard for people [to move around].” The local said the junta had been carrying out systematic raids on villages almost every day since July 21. Residents said they are also scared to return home because they fear junta gunboats will come up the river firing heavy artillery. RFA reached out to the junta’s Sagaing region spokesman, Saw Naing, for comment but he did not answer calls on Tuesday. Nearly 800,000 Sagaing region residents have been forced to flee their homes due to the conflict since the junta staged a February 2021 coup, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA). Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Josh Lipes.
- [INTERVIEW: ‘He was completely devoted to the revolution’](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-he-was-completely-devoted-to-the-revolution/): On July 23, 2022, Myanmar’s military junta executed three activists and a former lawmaker for continuing to fight for democracy after the military ousted the country’s democratically elected government in the Feb. 1, 2021 coup. Among them was veteran democracy activist Kyaw Min Yu, a writer and translator better known as Ko Jimmy,  who was a prominent leader of the pro-democracy 88 Generation Students Group who fought military rule three decades ago. He was arrested in October 2021 after spending eight months in hiding and was convicted in a closed-door trial by a military tribunal in January under the Counter-Terrorism Law. Ko Jimmy was accused of contacting the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, National Unity Government (NUG), and People’s Defense Forces (PDF) an opposition coalition and militia network formed by politicians ousted in the coup. The junta also said he advised local militia groups in Yangon and ordered PDF groups to attack police, military targets, and government offices, and asking the NUG to buy a 3D printer to produce weapons for local militias. The executions of Ko Jimmy, Phyo Zeya Thaw, Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw were decried by UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar, Tom Andrews, as “depraved acts,” while U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the executions “reprehensible acts of violence.”  One year after the execution, Radio Free Asia’s Burmese Service interviewed Ko Jimmy’s widow Nilar Thein. She discussed the sacrifices her husband made for the country. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. Jimmy [second from left] and other former student leaders of the 1988 pro-democracy uprising attend a ceremony to mark the 59th Anniversary of Independence Day at the National League for Democracy party headquarters in Yangon, Myanmar, Jan. 3, 2007. Credit: Aung Hla Tun/Reuters RFA: It’s been a year since Jimmy and the other three political activists were executed by the junta. How has the past year without him affected you? Nilar Thein: Since the time he was executed, we have suffered, grieved and are in great pain. But I have turned those feelings into strength to continue his fight. I believe that I have one new responsibility: to live his dream and work even harder. RFA: What have you been doing these days? Nilar Thein: I am shouldering as much responsibility for the revolution as I can. I am working on tasks that are suitable for my age and situation with a determination that whatever I do, regardless of where I am, must strengthen the revolution.  RFA: Reports from Myanmar say that the junta forces continue acts of violence and violate human rights in prisons and all over the country. What’s your opinion on that? Nilar Thein: In my opinion, I can say one thing that this is the junta’s last moment. Their brutality and cowardice have become worse. The revolutionary forces are in control of more areas of the country these days, so in response the junta’s actions have become even more brutal and cowardly. We continue to witness their serious violations of human rights. Jimmy met fellow 88 Generation student Nilar Thein when they were both in prison. They married after being released. Credit: Nilar Thein RFA: What is your view towards young people opposed to the junta? Nilar Thein: A generation was born during the spring revolution. This generation sacrificed their hopes, dreams, future and even their lives and took part in the revolution in any way they can to try to bring an end to this military dictatorship. Their involvement in the revolution, their ideas, opinions and their performance were recognized, applauded and idolized globally.  RFA: I’d like to ask a little about Jimmy. Did he not know how much danger he could be in by continuing to stay in Yangon? And if he did, why did he remain in Yangon? Nilar Thein: Since Jimmy left home on the morning of the military coup until he was arrested, he only stayed in Yangon. After seeing younger activists and children being slaughtered by the junta, he said that when younger people who were as young as his own children were sacrificing their lives, old men like him who can live or die at their age have to participate. He was so eager to work together, networking with urban guerrilla groups, young people from student unions and other organizations. He was completely devoted to the revolution. That’s not because he did not know the danger he could be in. I knew what trouble he would be in. But he worked his best for the revolution while he still could.  Jimmy, his wife, Nilar Thein, and their daughter are seen in this undated photo. &#8220;When I first learned that we were having the baby, I thought we have to apologize to our child in advance,” he said. Credit: RFA RFA: What kind of impact do you think the sacrifice that Jimmy and other activists made has had on the fight for democracy? Nilar Thein: When we heard that Jimmy, Phyo Zayar Thaw, Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw were executed by the junta, it was not just a threat to their families alone. It was not just a threat to our country alone. But it was a threat to the whole world. As a result, all our people have become more strenuous in their revolutionary acts with a resolution that they will not give in to the junta’s execution of their leaders. They worked harder and took up responsibilities where they could. Those who could not participate on the front lines provided even a handful of rice or a cup of water, whatever they could support the revolution. Those who can provide supplies for the revolution have worked harder for the cause. Although the junta has tried to threaten the people with these executions, we have become more fearless and more rebellious against the military.  The Myanmar junta released this photo of Jimmy after his arrest. MRTV/Handout via Reuters RFA: We’ve heard...
- [Myanmar court sentences student union member to another 5 years in prison](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-court-sentences-student-union-member-to-another-5-years-in-prison/): A junta-controlled court in Yangon region has sentenced a student to a further five years in prison for alleged terrorism, a Myanmar-based student union told RFA Monday. Nyan Win Htet, in his twenties, was a student at the University of East Yangon until his arrest on June 30, 2022. He was sentenced by Eastern Yangon District Court last Tuesday. “The fascist army is fully responsible for the arbitrary and violent arrests, imprisonments and brutal killings of students from ABFSU, students and people across the country,” said the information officer of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions, who didn’t want to be named for fear of reprisals. “Arresting revolutionaries, imprisoning and killing them will not stop the revolution. We will continue to fight until the end.” Nyan Win Htet had already been sentenced to 15 years in prison under two sections of  the Counter-Terrorism Law which cover the possession of explosives and helping terrorists evade arrest. He is in good health in prison and has been in contact with his family, said the union information officer. The officer added that more than 50 of the union’s members have been arrested for their anti-dictatorship activities since the coup, and 32 are being held in prison. Among them, three were sentenced to a maximum of life imprisonment, and one was sentenced to death, according to the union. Nearly 24,000 people, including pro-democracy campaigners, have been arrested nationwide since the February 2021 coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma). Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [Polls close in Cambodia as Hun Sen’s ruling party expected to roll to victory](https://ij-reportika.com/polls-close-in-cambodia-as-hun-sens-ruling-party-expected-to-roll-to-victory/): Cambodians have finished voting in a one-sided parliamentary election that’s expected to be an easy victory for the ruling Cambodian People’s Party as Prime Minister Hun Sen prepares to hand over power to his eldest son in the coming weeks. Preliminary results show the CPP winning 120 seats in the National Assembly, with the royalist Funcinpec party securing five seats, according to a message posted by the prime minister on Telegram. Hun Sen’s CPP has neutralized the political opposition over the last six months by either threatening or co-opting activists.  In May, the National Election Committee banned the main opposition Candlelight Party from running in the election, citing inadequate paperwork. Opposition activists have said the decision was politically motivated. The ban meant that the CPP didn’t have any major challengers on the ballot. Funcinpec, which formed a coalition government with the CPP for several years in the 1990s, and 16 other parties qualified for the election but weren’t expected to be serious challengers. An election observer in Koh Kong province near the Thai border told Radio Free Asia that there were no independent observers at his polling station.  “In previous elections, people stayed and watched the election process after they cast their votes,” he said. “But this time, people knew the outcome – that the ruling party will win the election. So there’s no point for them to monitor.”  Both the NEC and Hun Sen said that 84 percent of eligible voters had cast their ballot on Sunday. Official election results were expected to be announced between Aug. 9 and Sept. 4. An election official counts ballots at a polling station in Phnom Penh on July 23, 2023, during the general elections. Cambodians voted on July 23 in an election that longtime leader Hun Sen is all but guaranteed to win as he looks to secure his legacy by handing the reins to his eldest son. (AFP) Worries about democracy The prime minister said in a voice message Sunday evening that exiled opposition leader Sam Rainsy’s plan to sabotage the election – by urging people to destroy their ballot – had failed.  Earlier this month, the National Assembly approved an amendment to the election law that prohibited those who didn‘t cast a vote in Sunday’s election from running for office in future elections.  At least three opposition party members who were accused of destroying their ballot were arrested on Sunday, authorities said. Another 40 opposition activists were being sought by police for allegedly being involved with plans to destroy ballots.  The NEC said in June that those who “urge voters not to go to vote, recreate mistrust in the election and disturb the electoral process” could face fines of between 5 million-20 million riels (US$1,200-4,800) and prison terms. It did not specify the possible length of prison term.  Photos of dozens of spoiled ballots were posted on Sam Rainsy’s Facebook page on Sunday.  CPP spokesman Sok Ey San estimated that the number of spoiled ballots across the country was between 200,000 and 300,000. Several voters interviewed by RFA on Sunday showed off the black ink on their fingers used to mark their ballots. They said they felt pressured to vote.  One voter in Kandal province, who asked not be named, told RFA that many people at her polling station were unhappy about the coercion.“I am worried and think that democracy will not be reinstated,” she said. “Everything from social morals to human rights have declined.” Dozens of members of the Candlelight Party – the only party that could have mounted a serious challenge to the CPP – were arrested in several provinces in recent months.  Some detained activists received pardons, were released from prison and given government positions after they publicly switched their allegiance to the CPP.  Prime Minister Hun Sen casts his vote at a polling station in Kandal province on July 23, 2023. (Photo by TANG CHHIN SOTHY/AFP) ‘The main opposition party is absent’ More than 23,000 polling stations opened nationwide at 7 a.m. Hun Sen and his wife, Bun Rany, drove a black Mercedes to the polls near his home in Kandal province, just outside of Phnom Penh. Hun Sen did not say anything to reporters. The prime minister’s eldest son, Hun Manet, voted at a primary school in Phnom Penh. He told journalists that he came to cast his vote to fulfill his obligations as a citizen. Hun Sen, who has held power since 1985, told a Chinese television station last week that the 45-year-old Hun Manet could become prime minister as soon as three weeks after the election. Ros Sotha, the executive director of the Cambodian Human Rights Action Coalition, said he and his group traveled from Phnom Penh to Kandal and Kampong Chhnang provinces to monitor polling stations.  Wat Dambok Khpos in Phnom Penh was crowded in the morning, but near empty by afternoon. At other polling stations, there were almost no voters after 12 p.m. – just election officials and observers, he said.  “The unhappy reaction of the people seems to be due to the fact that the main opposition party is absent from the election,” he said.  Translated by Sok Ry Sum. Edited by Matt Reed.
- [Who are the 18 parties running in Cambodia’s election?](https://ij-reportika.com/who-are-the-18-parties-running-in-cambodias-election/): Eighteen political parties will compete in Cambodia’s parliamentary election on July 23 – the country’s seventh national vote since the United Nations organized and ran the 1993 election two years after the Paris Peace Agreements. The National Election Committee in May ruled that two parties – the main opposition Candlelight Party and the Khmer United Great Nation Party – could not appear on the ballot, citing inadequate paperwork. The Candlelight Party is widely believed to be the only party that could have mounted a serious challenge to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party, but its exclusion means the ruling CPP is expected to win the large majority – and possibly all – of the National Assembly’s 125 seats. Even if it doesn’t, most of the other parties are deferential to the CPP and Hun Sen. Many officials from the smaller parties have been appointed to the Supreme Consultative Council, an advisory body created by Hun Sen following the 2018 election to bolster his power with the appearance of multi-party support. Here’s a look at every party on the ballot. _ Beehive Social Democratic Party: Radio station owner Mam Sonando founded the party in 2016. He had been a vocal critic of Hun Sen’s government, and his independent Beehive Radio station was once described by Human Rights Watch as “a key platform for promotion of human rights and democracy.” But after the 2018 election, the prime minister appointed Mam Sonando to the Supreme Consultative Council. Since then, the Beehive Party has repeatedly come out in support of the government. _ Cambodia Indigenous Peoples Democracy Party: The party was formed in early 2017 and is headquartered in Mondulkiri province. The president is Blang Sin, an ethnic Pnong who has participated in the Supreme Consultative Council. The party has not had an active campaign presence. _ Cambodian Nationality Party: Chaired by Seng Sokheng and first registered as a party with the Ministry of Interior in 2011, the party supports Hun Sen’s leadership and attacks opposition activists. It also participates in the Supreme Consultative Council, a body Hun Sen created. _ Cambodian People’s Party: Originally known as the Kampuchean People’s Revolutionary Party, it was formed in 1951 as part of Ho Chi Minh’s Indochina Communist Party.  Hun Sen is its president and has been in power in government since 1985. The party has listed his eldest son, Hun Manet, as a National Assembly candidate in Phnom Penh. Hun Sen has said that he wants Hun Manet to eventually succeed him as prime minister – a transition that could happen soon after the election.  _ Cambodian Youth Party: The party was founded in 2015 by Pich Sros, a former garment worker. Along with Funcinpec, it filed a complaint in 2017 against the Cambodia National Rescue Party – then the country’s main opposition party – that led to that party’s dissolution. After the 2018 general election, Pich Sros was promoted to the rank of senior minister when he agreed to participate in the Supreme Consultative Council. He has been active in criticizing the opposition. _ Democracy Power Party: Formed in 2020 by Un Visethkun, the former vice president of the Cambodian Youth Party. The party praised and supported Hun Sen’s policies. In February, the party issued a statement supporting the government’s decision to revoke the license of independent media outlet Voice of Democracy.  _ Dharmacracy Party: Formed in 1998, party officials did not take any action until 2017. After the CNRP was dissolved, the party participated in the 2018 general election. Its president, Por Tey Savathy, and her husband, vice president Tan Chanphal, have been appointed to the Supreme Consultative Council. The party follows Hun Sen’s political line. _ Ekpheap Cheat Khmer Party: The party announced in 2022 that it had expelled its vice president, Un Chim – a former Buddhist monk from California – following accusations that he faked a voice message from Hun Sen. The acting president of the party at the time, Lak Sopheap, told reporters in January 2022 that the fake message was sent to party members in Cambodia and the U.S. as a way of attacking her and other party leaders. The contents of the message have not been revealed to reporters. The Ministry of Interior later recognized Un Chim as the party’s new president. In February 2022, Un Chim expelled Lak Sopheap and another top official. _ Farmer’s Party: Established in 1988. The president is Meas Bo Pov, a former CPP member who has been connected to a number of public land disputes. The party follows Hun Sen’s political line. In May, it published a statement supporting the NEC’s decision to disallow the Candlelight Party from the election.  _ Funcinpec: Formed in March 1981 as a resistance movement to the Vietnam-backed regime of the 1980s. It signed the 1991 Paris Peace Agreements and formed a coalition government with the CPP after the 1993 election.  Internal conflicts and Hun Sen’s separatist strategy have weakened the party over the years. Nhek Bun Chhay of the Khmer National United Party was the party’s secretary-general from 2006-2015. The current president is Prince Norodom Chakravuth, the grandson of the late King Norodom Sihanouk and the eldest son of the late Prince Norodom Ranariddh, who served as co-prime minister from 1993-1997. Most voters no longer associate Funcinpec with the country’s royalist past, especially after Ranariddh’s decisions at various times over the years to align with the CPP. _ Grassroots Democratic Party: Formed in 2015 by a group of senior intellectuals, leaders and members of civil society. It’s led by Yeng Virak, former president of the Community Legal Education Center, a Phnom Penh NGO that works on land issues.  While some senior party officials have recently left to join the government, the party continues to criticize alleged violations of law and human rights committed by Hun Sen’s government, including the recent passage of an election law amendment that prohibits those who don’t vote in this month’s elections from running for office in the future.  _ Khmer Anti-Poverty...
- [Flooding the mines](https://ij-reportika.com/flooding-the-mines/): Lao miners are facing layoffs after an influx of Chinese laborers at a potash mine in the central province of Khammouane. They complain that the ratio of 3,000 miners from China to only 100 Lao workers breaks an agreement that mine operators must hire more domestic workers than Chinese. The state-run Chinese mining outfit exports most of the key fertilizer ingredient back to China, which looms large over the economy of its small neighbor. Chinese mine operators say they import their own workers because Lao workers lack skills.
- [Myanmar military dumps bodies of 4 civilians in  river, lake](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-military-dumps-bodies-of-4-civilians-in-river-lake/): Junta troops in Myanmar’s Mandalay region tortured and killed four carpenters before dumping their bodies in a river and a lake, residents told RFA Friday. Locals found the remains of 28-year-old Ye Naung Soe and 46-year-old Kyaw Myo from Madaya township, and 30-year-old Aye Soe Kyi from Singu township in a tributary of the Ayeyarwady River on Tuesday. On Wednesday, they found the body of the unknown man, believed to be in his thirties, in a lake near Madaya’s Sa Kyin village.  The men had been arrested by a column of around 50 troops who raided Nyaung Oke village in Madaya township on July 14. Ye Naung Soe was tortured by the troops in front of villagers, according to a resident who didn’t want to be named for security reasons. &#8220;He was dragged along by a rope tied around his neck. He was also beaten with wooden sticks,” said the local.  “Two of them were tortured to death on the day of their arrest. The other two were arrested and taken to the monastery in Nat Gyi Sin village, Madaya township, where the junta troops stopped. “On July 15, they were tortured to death and thrown into the river. When we found the bodies, there were many injuries.&#8221; Another local said a fisherman who tried to retrieve the bodies was beaten by the troops. Villagers had to wait until the column had left before retrieving the badly decomposed bodies. They were cremated on Wednesday. RFA’s calls to the Mandalay region junta spokesperson, Thein Htay, went unanswered Friday. Nyaung Oke village has more than 300 homes and more than 1,000 residents. Locals told RFA there has been no fighting recently and they didn’t know why the four men were arrested and killed. More than 3,800 pro-democracy activists and civilians have been killed since the February 2021 coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Destructive blasts in towns across Myanmar, but no one claims responsibility](https://ij-reportika.com/destructive-blasts-in-towns-across-myanmar-but-no-one-claims-responsibility/): Myanmar is experiencing a rising number of explosions in cities and towns across the country, but no group is claiming responsibility. This month, the blasts, which appear to be mostly homemade bombs, have injured more than 20 civilians and killed one.data compiled by Radio Free Asia shows. They have gone off in Yangon, Mandalay, in the northern Sagaing region as well as in Shan state. They come amid intensifying fighting between the junta, which took over the country in a 2021 coup, and armed rebel groups. On July 15, a homemade bomb exploded in front of the Zwe Htet jewelry store in Lashio, Shan state killing a man in his twenties and injuring at least 10 others. The survivors were treated as emergency patients at Lashio General Hospital, residents told RFA’s Burmese Service. “No one can say whether it was done by the junta, the PDF, or an armed organization,” said a Lashio resident on condition of anonymity. PDFs, or public defense forces, are small citizen militias that emerged after the military took over the country in a coup in February 2021.  “What I want to say as a citizen is that we don&#8217;t want this to happen again. Bombs exploded in front of a hotel and a jewelry store in Lashio where people were passing. We don&#8217;t want things like that,” the resident said. The city of Lashio is a hotbed of covert activities for both local armed groups and junta troops, and bomb explosions have become more frequent after the military coup, he said. One day after the Lashio blast, eight people, including a monk, were injured when a bomb exploded in Shwebo Myoma market in the Sagaing region. It is reported that a seriously injured woman in her twenties has been sent to Mandalay General Hospital. Residents blamed this particular blast ons junta troops stationed at U Aung Zeya Palace, west of Shwebo market. But the military council&#8217;s propaganda channels have accused the PDFs of attacking the area with drones. ‘Scared to go out’ A Shwebo resident told RFA that there were no such incidents before the military took over and people now are no longer safe. &#8220;It&#8217;s not easy to make a living here,” the Shwebo resident said. “Although livelihood is difficult, we dare not go to work safely. I am too scared to go out as there is no sense of security for us.” A Shwebo PDF official said that the organization does not harm the public. &#8220;The main reason why we are rebelling is because we cannot accept dictatorial rule,” he said. “We want to gain independence and a true federal democracy for the people. We are fighting because we love the people, and we only focus on the interests of the people.&#8221; RFA called the junta’s spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment on the explosions but his phone rang unanswered. Armed organizations should avoid injuring civilians who are not military targets, said Ye Tun, a political analyst. “Civilians who are not military targets cannot avoid this kind of accidental injury,” he said. “Such things often happen. However, deliberate targeting of these innocent civilians is a war crime. I think both sides of the revolution should abstain from doing so.” Harming innocent civilians is a war crime, no matter which side is responsible, said Kyaw Win, director of Burma Human Rights Network. “If the tension has reached the level of an armed revolution, it can be said that this is the worst situation in a country, &#8221; he said.  Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Kissinger meets China’s President Xi](https://ij-reportika.com/kissinger-meets-chinas-president-xi/): Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday met with veteran diplomat Henry Kissinger in Beijing, in what some see as a snub to U.S. climate envoy John Kerry, who left the Chinese capital the previous day. However, the South China Morning Post, quoting a “source,” said the “private visit” had been planned months earlier and the fact that it coincided with Kerry’s trip was coincidental. The source said that the 100-year-old Kissinger would share his impressions of talks with China’s senior leadership with the U.S. government when he returns home. Xi met Kissinger at the Diaoyutai state guest house in Beijing, where he told Kissinger Chinese people place a high value on friendship. “[W]e will never forget our old friend and your historic contribution to promoting the development of US-China relations and enhancing the friendship between Chinese and American people,” Xi said. Kissinger played a key role in normalizing U.S.-China relations when he was then-president Richard Nixon’s secretary of state in the 1970s. He continues to be held in high regard in China. In this Thursday, May 3, 1973 photo, Henry Kissinger, President Nixon&#8217;s foreign affairs adviser, briefs newsmen on Nixon&#8217;s annual State the World report to Congress at the White House in Washington. Credit: AP Photo Kissinger met with sanctioned Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu on Tuesday, and on Wednesday he met with Wang Yi, China’s top foreign affairs official. Wang reinforced China’s position on Taiwan, telling Kissinger independence was “incompatible with peace across the Taiwan Strait,” according to a statement by China’s foreign ministry. It is likely that China is nostalgic for a time when it could seemingly do no wrong, and Kissinger is seen as the right man to call on Washington to be more conciliatory.  “The current U.S. policy toward China is eager to transform China or contain China, which will not succeed and it is doomed to fail. Wang delivered this message to the Biden administration through the talks with Kissinger, urging the incumbent US officials to have the political courage to adjust their China policy,” Wu Xinbo, director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University, told the Global Times on Wednesday. The U.S. State Department indicated that Kissinger was not representing the U.S. in Beijing. “I will say he was there under his own volition, not acting on behalf of the United States Government. And I don’t have any further updates on his trip,” said State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller.  Miller added that it was not his understanding that Kissinger’s meeting violated any sanctions. “In fact, we have said that we believe … our own secretary of defense could meet with the sanctioned defense minister, and that would be appropriate to do so,” Miller added. Political demands During John Kerry’s climate talks in Beijing this week, Xi warned that China will not have its path to curb emissions dictated by others. “The path, method, pace and intensity to achieve this goal should and must be determined by ourselves, and will never be influenced by others,” Xi said at a national conference on environmental protection, according to state broadcaster China Central Television. In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, left, shakes hands with Chinese Vice President Han Zheng during a meeting in Beijing, Wednesday, July 19, 2023. Credit: Xinhua via AP But Vice President Han Zheng, who met with Kerry on Wednesday, said that Beijing would be willing to work with the U.S. to mitigate the climate crisis, as long as its political demands are met. Han told Kerry that addressing climate change was “an important aspect of China-U.S. cooperation,” but was predicated on mutual respect, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. He said it must proceed “on the basis of U.S. attendance to core issues that concern both parties, fully engaging and exchanging ideas.” It is not unusual for China to seek leverage even in areas of shared or global interest, as is the case in global warming. The two countries are at odds on multiple fronts – China’s claims on Taiwan and the South China Sea, its human rights record and over technology transfers, which the U.S. wants to restrict in its national interests. U.S.-China relations have frequently in recent months been described as being at a historically unprecedented ebb. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Russia grounds plane, arrests North Korean mother and son on the run](https://ij-reportika.com/russia-grounds-plane-arrests-north-korean-mother-and-son-on-the-run/): Russian authorities grounded a Moscow-bound flight to arrest a North Korean diplomat’s wife and son who went missing from the far eastern city of Vladivostok last month, residents in Russia familiar with the case told Radio Free Asia. RFA reported on June 6 that Russian authorities announced that they were searching for Kim Kum Sun, 43, and Park Kwon Ju, 15, who had last been seen on June 4 leaving the North Korean consulate in Vladivostok. Kim had been working as the acting manager of two North Korean restaurants in the city in place of her husband, considered a diplomat, who traveled to North Korea in 2019 but was unable to return to Russia due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On July 7, the day after the announcement, Kim and Park were arrested after boarding a  Moscow-bound flight departing from the central Russian city of Krasnoyarsk, a resident of Vladivostok, who requested anonymity for personal safety, told RFA’s Korean Service. “Their flight to Moscow departed from Yemelyanovo International Airport located on the outskirts of Krasnoyarsk as normal, but to arrest the mother and the son, the Russian public security authorities forced the plane to return to the airport,” he said. “When the plane landed …, the authorities arrested them.” They would have gotten all the way to Moscow if not for the consulate getting Russian authorities involved, the Vladivostok resident said.  As of Tuesday, Russian media has made no mention of Kim and Park’s arrest. RFA was not able to confirm with Russian authorities that they grounded the flight to arrest the pair. Higher priority? It was also not clear if Kim and Park had been accused of any crimes. But it is standard procedure for the North Korean consulate to fraudulently accuse missing personnel of crimes so that Russian authorities place a higher priority on the case, a Russian citizen of Korean descent from Krasnoyarsk, who requested anonymity for security reasons, told RFA.  “North Korea reports missing people by framing them for crimes,” he said. “So the escapees are in danger of being executed without the protection of the local state and the international community.” But if they were accused criminals, the runaways would not be eligible for international protection, he said.  The Krasnoyarsk resident confirmed that the authorities ordered the plane to return to the airport to arrest Kim and Park. “There has been an increasing number of escape attempts among North Korean trade officials and workers in Russia recently,” he said.  They may have been inspired by other North Koreans who successfully fled, including a computer engineer, a work unit manager, a work site manager, a doctor and a soldier from the General Staff Department of the North Korean military. “The United Nations and the international community must take an active role in helping those who risk their lives to escape from the dictatorship,” the Krasnoyarsk resident said.  “Instead of [arresting them] as demanded by the North Korean authorities and sending them to a place where death awaits them, [Russian authorities] should open the way for them to receive refugee status according to the regulations set by the United Nations.” Translated by Leejin J. Chung. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar military kills villagers, burns houses in Sagaing region](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-military-kills-villagers-burns-houses-in-sagaing-region/): Junta troops killed eight civilians and burned down more than 600 homes in Myanmar’s Sagaing region in 11 days of raids, locals told RFA Wednesday. Residents of Myinmu township said four people were arrested and killed by troops between July 6 and July 17. “A father and son from Na Be Kyu village, one from Ma Gyi Kan village, and one from Nyaung Myit village, were killed in Ma Gyi Kan village,” said a local, who didn’t want to be named for fear of reprisals.  “The one from Nyaung Myit village is a People’s Defense Force member.” He identified the PDF member as 20-year-old Aung Zaw Htet. Locals said troops also captured and shot two people from Nyaung Pin Kan village and two more from Khwet Khwin village. The army also burned homes in Mu Mandalay, Gon Hnyin Seik and three other villages. &#8220;There are nearly 300 houses in the village. I think there may have been around 100 homes destroyed,” said a Mu Mandalay resident, who also requested anonymity for fear of reprisals.  &#8220;The junta column is not far away. So, we had to put out the fire and come back out.&#8221; RFA called the junta’s Sagaing region spokesperson, Saw Naing, but nobody answered. On June 6, junta Deputy Information Minister Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun told RFA that junta troops do not set fire to civilians’ homes, blaming People’s Defense Forces for the arson attacks. Locals said the raid on Mu Mandalay and nearby villages forced around 2000 residents to flee their homes. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [After jailbreak in Myanmar, prison guards sentenced to 3-6 months](https://ij-reportika.com/after-jailbreak-in-myanmar-prison-guards-sentenced-to-3-6-months/): A Myanmar junta court handed down sentences of three to six months to seven prison employees, including a warden, after a jailbreak in May in which 10 prisoners overpowered guards, seized their guns and escaped, said three sources with knowledge of the situation.  Ten inmates, including nine fighters with the anti-junta People’s Defense Force, escaped from Taungoo Prison in central Myanmar’s Bago region on May 18 as they were being taken from their cells to a small prison courtroom for their trials. Among them was a woman and two inmates sentenced to death.  The warden, Kyi Oo, officially the deputy director of the town’s prison department, was on Monday given three months in jail, while Than Tun and Tun Tun Oo, the two prison chiefs, Lt. Than Zin Win, Lt. Oo Toe, and staffers Khant Si Thu and Pho Kauk received sentences of six months each, said the sources close to Taungoo Prison.  In addition to being sentenced to jail, they were expected to be fired, said the sources, who declined to be named so they could speak freely. The move comes as the military, which overthrew the democratically elected civilian government in a February 2021 coup d’etat, cracks down on prison staff to ensure they do not help or let political prisoners escape. Nyo Tun, a former political prisoner who was recently released, said the ruling military junta is taking more stringent action against correctional employees to suppress lower-ranking officials. “In the past, I have only seen actions taken against the prison authorities, such as removing them from duty or demoting them in positions,” he told Radio Free Asia. “It’s not like that now [because] they are even being imprisoned.” “By doing so, the junta hopes that the prison authorities and staff in other prisons will be pressured to continue to oppress our political prisoners with stricter rules and stricter methods,” he said. The prison staffers’ trial was held at the Taungoo township courthouse, said one source, though he did not know the specific charges for each. Afterwards, they were taken back to the prison. A person close to the family members of political prisoners serving time in Taungoo Prison also told RFA about the staffers’ sentences. “The warden was accused of having connections to the PDF, and they said they had a lot of proof,” the person said.  “They were also going to be removed from their official positions along with their prison terms,” the source added. Security boosted Since the escape, security at the prison has been tightened, with the installation of new closed-circuit video cameras, watchtowers and outdoor bunkers, the source said, as well as an increase in military forces there. RFA could not reach Naing Win, deputy director general and spokesman of the Prisons Department, for comment. Similar action has been taken against prison staff elsewhere in the country. At Daik-U Prison, also in Bago region, eight prison employees, including Yan Naing Tun, the deputy director, were arrested and have been under investigation since late June on charges of helping political inmates communicate with PDFs, sources close to the detention center said. On July 4, Sgt. Nay Myo Thein and a deputy sergeant who worked at Myingyan Prison in central Myanmar’s Mandalay region were fired and each sentenced to six months in jail for allegedly helping inmates, according to people close to the detention facility. Following the Taungoo jailbreak, authorities interrogated and beat some political prisoners in jails in Myingyan, Daik-U and Tharyarwaddy, killing some and putting others in life-threatening situations, prisoner relatives and sources close to the prisons told RFA in an earlier report. More than 60 such inmates were sentenced to three additional years in prison each on July 6 for their alleged involvement in a riot that took place in Pathein Prison in Ayeyarwady region. In May and June, 15 inmates died of torture during interrogation or for other reasons, including shootings for trying to escape during jail transfer, according to an RFA tally.  The military junta has detained more than 19,500 people, of whom roughly 6,850 have served prison terms, since the February 2021 coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a rights group based in Thailand. Translated by Myo Min Aung for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Conflict in Myanmar’s Kayah state traps hundreds in town](https://ij-reportika.com/conflict-in-myanmars-kayah-state-traps-hundreds-in-town/): A three-week battle has left six people dead and around 600 civilians trapped in Kayah state’s Ywathit township, local aid groups told RFA Tuesday. Banyar, director of the Karenni Human Rights Organization, told RFA that junta troops detained some villagers in a monastery and wouldn’t let them leave. “According to the list we received, there are more than 1,200 people in Ywathit town,” said Banyar, who goes by one name.  “Because of the battle, more than 600 people were able to flee. “There are still roughly 600 people. No one is allowed to leave the town. Six people were shot dead,” said Banyar, adding that the killings happened on June 27. He said Ywathit had been under junta control since June 27 and the town&#8217;s exit roads had been closed.  A member of the aid group told RFA that the victims were killed after being turned back at the Thai border. “A woman was killed. The rest were men from … Hpasaung township and Ywathit township who escaped to the Thai border during the fighting,&#8221; said the aid worker, who didn’t want to be named for security reasons. &#8220;However, the Thai side rejected them.  Many of them were detained and killed while they were returning. Some people are also missing.” Junta media have not mentioned the three-week battle and Kayah state’s  junta spokesperson Aung Win Oo didn’t return RFA’s calls. The combined Karenni National People&#8217;s Liberation Front and Karenni People&#8217;s Defense Forces said on June 13 they captured a junta outpost on the Thai border. However, the junta announced on June 27 that the military base had been taken back. According to Banyar, there are about 2,000 people seeking shelter near the border and another 9,000 people who have fled to Thailand as a result of the ongoing conflict. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [In Myanmar, nearly 2 million people have been displaced by civil war, UN says](https://ij-reportika.com/in-myanmar-nearly-2-million-people-have-been-displaced-by-civil-war-un-says/): Nearly 2 million civilians in Myanmar have been displaced from their homes by the civil war raging in their country, with 40,000 displaced in the past month alone, according to the U.N.’s humanitarian agency, which appealed for food and other supplies. Myanmar has been wracked by violence since the military overthrew the democratically elected government in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup. Junta forces have faced stiff resistance from various ethnic armies that have teamed up with local anti-regime People’s Defense Forces — civilians who have taken up arms to fight the military.  Of the total 1.9 million internally displaced persons, the largest number — nearly 800,000 — are in Myanmar’s northwestern Sagaing region, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, said in an update on the situation on July 15.     “Countrywide, restrictions on humanitarian access have increased in multiple states and regions, notably in the Southeast and Kachin [state], further impeding timely and efficient aid delivery to affected and displaced communities,” the report said. “Sustained support, including financial assistance, from the international community is crucial to allowing partners to stay and deliver in challenging circumstances,” it said. The humanitarian situation remains urgent as families continue to grapple with the devastating aftermath of Cyclone Mocha, resulting in significant ongoing needs for shelter and food, OCHA said. The tropical cyclone in the North Indian Ocean hit western Myanmar’s Rakhine state and parts of Bangladesh in May. “After a brief suspension, humanitarians have been able to restart their regular programs in Rakhine, but the humanitarian cyclone response remains paused by the SAC,” the report said, referring to the State Administration Council, the ruling junta’s official name. The strictness of junta authorities on humanitarian aid is tightening throughout the country and the situation is worse in the southeast of the country and Kachin state, according to OCHA&#8217;s statement. Food shortages worsen Displaced people in Sagaing, Chin and Kayah states complain that food shortages are getting worse as military authorities restrict humanitarian aid access.  A day after OCHA published the figure, military troops raided Sagaing’s Khin-U township, prompting roughly 10,000 residents from about 20 villages to flee to safety.  A resident of the township’s Inn Pat village told Radio Free Asia that the soldiers unexpectedly raided his community at 5 a.m., putting elderly people who could not flee in imminent danger. “It caused a great deal of trouble,” said the person granted anonymity to ensure his safety. “Elderly people and the disabled who couldn’t run, had to remain in the village, hiding in the alleys between houses.” Displaced civilians from Mindat township in western Myanmar&#8217;s Chin state hide in the jungle, May 2021. Credit: Citizen journalist Civilians living in villages where military troops and pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militias have been stationed cannot return to their homes, he added.  More than 50,000 internally displaced people, or IDPs, are  in western Myanmar’s Chin state, according to OCHA’s report. Civilians there also fled their homes because of fighting and face life-threatening challenges on a daily basis because of the junta’s heavy artillery shelling and airstrikes, said a management committee official for the IDP camps in Chin&#8217;s Mindat township. “Many people have been injured by the shelling,” said the official who declined to be named for fear of his safety. “The junta planes fly over the area every night. That’s why everyone is panicking and can&#8217;t sleep well. It&#8217;s a pretty bad situation.” Mounting casualties Three civilians, including a nine-year-old girl and a breastfeeding mother, were killed by an airstrike by junta forces on Mindat’s Wun Khone village on July 8.  A resident of Moebye township in southern Shan state, where junta troops and ethnic Karenni joint forces engaged in fierce clashes, said IDPs are having a hard time getting food because military troops have banned the transportation of rice to the area.  “We can buy only dry food and gasoline in small quantities,” the local said. “The rice transportation routes have been totally blocked by the junta.” Aid and relief groups said 28 civilians were killed during the 40 days of fighting in Moebye from May 25 to July 4. The armed assaults on civilians, forcing them to flee their homes, are a crime against humanity, said Banyar Khun Aung, executive director of the Karenni Human Rights Group. “The junta intentionally planned their attack to force them out of those places that they call home,” he told RFA. “It’s not just in one location. They junta attacked many places using many different strategies to force the local residents to leave their homes.”   RFA could not reach junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment.  Armed conflicts continue in 255 of 330 townships in Myanmar, according to the latest annual report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights issued on March 3.  The U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution last Dec. 21, calling for the immediate cessation of violence, the release of all political prisoners, including State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, and the unrestricted flow of humanitarian aid in Myanmar.  Translated by Myo Min Aung for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Junta blames ‘terrorist drones’ for Sagaing bombing](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-blames-terrorist-drones-for-sagaing-bombing/): A bomb blast in Myanmar’s Sagaing region injured eight locals, junta-backed messaging channels reported Monday. Pro-military Telegram groups said “terrorist drones” attacked a market in Shwebo township on Sunday morning. They said three children were among the injured. They said an eight-year-old girl was severely injured after bomb fragments hit her in the neck. But a local, who didn’t want to be named for fear of reprisals, told RFA junta troops fired heavy artillery at the market. &#8220;There is U Aung Zeya Palace to the west of Shwebo Market. Kha Ma Ya-42 Battalion was stationed there. They opened fire,” said the local. &#8220;One shell exploded outside the market; the other exploded in the market stall of a greengrocer. “Two people were hit in the waist and chest. They were sent to Mandalay Hospital,&#8221; the local said, adding that those with minor injuries were taken to Shwebo’s public hospital. Locals said that the market had been temporarily closed and junta troops were searching the neighborhood. RFA could not confirm either of the reports and Sagaing region’s junta spokesperson, Saw Naing, did not return calls on Monday. Motorcycle bomb In another attack Saturday, 12 Shan state residents were injured by a bomb blast outside a jewelry store in Lashio’s township’s market. A local, who also requested anonymity, said the bomb was planted in a motorbike outside the Zwe Htet store. “Of the 12 people injured, 11 are jewelry store employees,&#8221; the resident said. &#8220;Among them, two men and two women were seriously injured.&#8221; Residents say aid groups took the injured to the local hospital. They said many stores in the market are closed as the junta has stepped up security in Lashio. Debris outside the Zwe Htet jewelry store, Lashio township, Shan state, where a motorcycle bomb exploded on July 15, 2023. Credit: Citizen journalist In April a bomb went off near a water festival pavilion in Lashio, killing four people and injuring 11 after People’s Defense Forces warned people not to take part in Water Festival celebrations sponsored by the junta. Nobody has claimed responsibility for Saturday’s blast. Junta-media was silent on the bombing and Shan state junta spokesperson, Khun Thein Maung, didn’t return RFA’s calls. Junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing said on July 13 that there had been 489 explosions nationwide since the start of this year, resulting in 782 fatalities. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Deep-sea mining has long-lasting impact on marine ecosystems, research shows](https://ij-reportika.com/deep-sea-mining-has-long-lasting-impact-on-marine-ecosystems-research-shows/): A deep-sea mining test that lasted only two hours might have decreased fish and shrimp populations in the surrounding vicinity significantly even after a year, research in Japan showed. Deep-sea mining is the extraction of valuable minerals from the ocean below 200 meters (650 feet), potentially impacting fragile ecosystems.  Lately, it has become a contentious issue, as several countries and companies have joined the global race to mine resources including cobalt, copper, and manganese amid increasing demand for renewable energy and consumer electronics. The research was based on an investigation into the environmental impact of Japan’s first successful test in 2020 to extract cobalt crusts from the top of Takuyo-Daigo deep-sea mountains, in the northwest Pacific Ocean, to mine cobalt, a vital mineral in electric vehicle batteries. The data, examined by the researchers one month before and after, as well as a year following the experiment conducted at the site, showed that the mined areas became less habitable for ocean animals and created a plume of sediment that spread through the surrounding water, according to the study published Friday in the Current Biology journal. One year after the mining test, researchers observed a 43% drop in fish and shrimp density in the areas directly impacted by sediment pollution, a statement accompanying the study said. They also noted a 56% drop in the fish and shrimp density of surrounding areas, adding the research team thinks it could be due to the mining test contaminating fish food sources. “&#8217;Enough to shift things’ Even a brief two-hour test could have long-lasting consequences on the marine life in a particular area, the research said, adding further study is needed. “I had assumed we wouldn’t see any changes because the mining test was so small,” said the study’s first author Travis Washburn, a marine ecologist who works closely with the Geological Survey of Japan.  “They drove the machine for two hours, and the sediment plume only traveled a few hundred meters. But it was actually enough to shift things.” A Greenpeace activist holds a sign as he confronts the deep sea mining vessel Hidden Gem, commissioned by Canadian miner The Metals Company, as it returned to port from eight weeks of test mining, off the coast of Manzanillo, Mexico, Nov. 16, 2022. Credit: Reuters. The study concluded that “although highly mobile swimmers likely simply leave the area, resulting in little loss of biodiversity, this may not be possible if multiple mining operations occur at similar times resulting in a very large, cumulative deep-sea mining areal footprint.”  Experts say seabed ecosystems are not yet fully explored, so the impact of deep-sea mining on marine ecosystems is unknown. Friday’s research authors said they would need to repeat the study several times to understand better how deep-sea mining impacts the ocean floor.  They said that multiple years of data should be collected before a mining test occurs to account for any natural variation in ocean animal communities. “These data are really important to get out,” Washburn said in the statement. “A set of regulations is supposed to be finalized soon, so a lot of these decisions are happening now.” “We’ll have to look at this issue on a wider scale, because these results suggest the impact of deep-sea mining could be even bigger than we think.” Lasting impact James J. Bell, a professor at the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand who was not involved in the study, said the “results demonstrate just how susceptible the marine communities associated with seamounts might be to the impacts of mining and that these impacts could be long-lasting.” “Importantly, this study also shows that even very small-scale mining activity can have lasting impacts. Until we have a full understanding of what the impact of mining is on these ecosystems, we should take a very cautious approach,” Bell said, especially given that seabed mining is being considered by many states worldwide. Commercial deep-sea mining has not yet begun, though exploratory licenses have already been granted by the United-Nations-backed regulator International Seabed Authority, or the ISA, which has authority over seafloor resources outside a given country’s jurisdiction. It has yet to finalize a set of deep-sea mining regulations. The ISA started global discussions in Jamaica on Monday to possibly adopt mining regulations, with talks expected to continue until the end of July. Many countries, the seafood industry, marine conservancy groups, and scientists have called for a “pause” to proceed in developing regulations and complete them before granting any licenses to mine seabed thousands of feet under the ocean’s surface.  Kat Bolstad, an associate professor at the Auckland University of Technology, said deep-sea mining could be “catastrophically destructive to the immediate seafloor, and producing noise, vibrations, clouds of sediment, and other impacts that we cannot yet fully predict.” “The effects of large-scale deep-sea mining are likely to be substantial, longer lasting, and more complex than we can anticipate,” she said. “There is widespread scientific agreement: We need a far greater understanding of deep-sea ecosystems before we can make responsible decisions.” Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Facing abuse, teenage Uyghur girls are forced to work in a Xinjiang garment factory](https://ij-reportika.com/facing-abuse-teenage-uyghur-girls-are-forced-to-work-in-a-xinjiang-garment-factory/): About 90 Uyghur teenage girls are locked up in a Chinese-run garment factory in Xinjiang, where they are forced to toil 14 hours a day, seven days a week, and routinely face verbal and physical abuse, an investigation by Radio Free Asia has found. The Wanhe Garment Co. Ltd. in Maralbeshi county has a secret agreement with the nearby Yarkant 2nd Vocational High School under which female students aged 16 to 18 are sent to work at the factory against their will, according to four sources, including a village chief and the factory’s security chief, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity to speak freely. Local authorities have pressured parents not to object to sending their children to work at the factory, said the village chief, a woman who was responsible for coaxing the parents to let the girls go. Workers at the plant, which also employs about a dozen women in their 30s and 40s as well as some men, are prevented from leaving. They sleep in dormitories on the factory compound. Most are Uyghurs, but about 15 are Chinese who came from elsewhere to work. The girls are kept in line by a middle-aged Uyghur woman named Tursungul Memtimin – called “teacher” by the workers – who regularly insults and criticizes them, and sometimes hits them with a bat, said the village official. “The ‘teacher’ is known to have a very bad temper. She physically assaults the workers using a bat as a means of inflicting harm,” she said. “The workers live in fear of her, and due to this intimidating environment, no one dares to make an escape,” the official told RFA. Forced labor in supply chains The revelation comes amid mounting evidence of Uyghur forced labor in Xinjiang and allegations that forced labor is used in the supply chains of major companies.  Inditex, owner of the Zara clothing chain, and Uniqlo parent Fast Retailing, as well as carmakers Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and BMW have all come under increased scrutiny to ensure that they aren’t using Uyghur forced labor. In the United States, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, signed into law in December 2021, requires American companies that import goods from Xinjiang to prove that they have not been manufactured with Uyghur forced labor at any stage of production.   Repeated requests by RFA to Wanhe factory officials for an interview have been ignored. A Uyghur woman drives a scooter past a billboard showing China&#8217;s President Xi Jinping joining hands with a group of Uyghur elders at the Unity New Village in Hotan, northwestern China&#8217;s Xinjiang region, Sept. 20, 2018. Credit: Andy Wong/AP Despite the intense security around the factory, some workers have managed to escape – but not for long. Last April, during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, four girls slipped out of the compound and returned to their families in the village of Charibagh in Yarkant county, the village chief and factory security guard said. Within a few days, Memtimin and some other factory officials went to the village to forcibly bring the girls back. They threatened to send their parents to “re-education” camps if they didn’t turn over their daughters, the village official said. The village chief said she proposed to Memtimin that the girls work at a larger factory in Charibagh, but the manager refused. “So we packed their belongings and took them to the train station,” she told RFA. “Their parents were scared that Tursungul would send them for re-education, so they handed over their daughters.” Once back inside the factory, the girls underwent “criticism and education,” the security chief said. Long hours, meager pay The garment factory employs residents who mostly hail from Maralbeshi, or Bachu in Chinese, in Kashgar province, the largest cotton-producing county in Xinjiang.  Ranging in age from 16 to 45, the workers toil from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. in three shifts, with hour-long breaks for lunch and dinner, the security chief said. They are paid monthly salaries of roughly 300 yuan (US$42) or 400 yuan (US$56) at best, the guard and village chief said. “The government forcefully brought those workers to the factory to work, and they could not leave the factory of their own will,” said the guard. A Chinese husband-and-wife team oversees the factory, and gives orders to Memtimin and to the security chief, who jointly manage the workers, the village chief said. Secret agreement The village official said that about 90 students were first transferred from Yarkant 2nd Vocational High School – for students ages 15 to 18 – to the factory in February 2017 based on a private contract. She said she saw a contract that was signed by Wanhe officials and the school’s two principals, surnamed Qurbanjan and Abdurusul. Neither the workers nor their families were aware of the agreement&#8217;s content, she said. &#8220;Tursungul Memtimin speaks Chinese, so the Vocational High School invited her to work for them. She does not teach at the school, but she manages the workers at the factory,” the village official said.  “Her monthly salary is 6,500 yuan (US$910). The school gives her 3,000 yuan, and the factory gives her 3,500 yuan,” she said.  “I saw the signatures of Qurbanjan and Abdurusul on the contract,” she said. “They are the presidents of the 2nd Vocational High School.” Attempts to reach school administrators were unsuccessful.  But two officials at the Yarkant County Education Bureau described the contract&#8217;s content as “a state secret,” and that they were aware of the workers&#8217; situation. “I know the contract between the Vocational High School and Wanhe clothes factory,” said the education bureau chief, insisting he not be named for security purposes. “But it is considered a state secret, so we cannot say anything about it hastily.” The factory security guard also confirmed the existence of a secret contract. &#8220;The workers complained about Tursungul because she has a terrible mouth and curses them,” he said. “We cannot say Tursungul has a right to condemn and beat the workers, but she...
- [Interview with Dolkun Isa (President of World Uyghur Congress)](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-with-dolkun-isa-president-of-world-uyghur-congress/): Interview with Dolkun Isa the President of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) on various issues concerning the Uyghurs in China.
- [Hun Sen deletes Twitter post linking Thai election to Cambodian opposition](https://ij-reportika.com/hun-sen-deletes-twitter-post-linking-thai-election-to-cambodian-opposition/): Prime Minister Hun Sen has removed a Twitter post that attempted to connect the Cambodian opposition to a Thai politician’s failure this week to win enough parliamentary votes to become the country’s next prime minister. Pita Limjaroenrat and his Move Forward Party fell short of the 375 votes needed to clinch power in an initial round of voting on Thursday. Hun Sen tweeted that Pita’s setback was also “a major failure” to Cambodia’s exiled opposition activists. He was most likely referring to Sam Rainsy, the former head of the now-disbanded opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party who fled to France in 2015. “These traitors always expected that when Pita becomes the prime minister of Thailand, they would use Thai territory to do a campaign against the Royal Government of Cambodia,” Hun Sen wrote in the tweet. “Now the expectations of the brute opposition group have vanished like salt in water,” he said. In May, Sam Rainsy told Radio Free Asia that if a new pro-democracy Thai government is formed, he would look into traveling to Cambodia through neighboring Thailand.  Thailand’s progressive Move Forward Party was the top vote getter in the May 14 general election. It heads a pro-democracy coalition trying to unseat an administration with deep military ties that has ruled Thailand for almost a decade. Hun Sen has asked Thailand to arrest Sam Rainsy if he travels there. Last month, he publicly threatened to attack Sam Rainsy with a rocket launcher if he led workers from Thailand into Cambodia.  “Do not do politics that depend on somebody else,” the prime minister wrote in Thursday’s deleted tweet. “This is my goodwill message for the extremist groups.” Move Forward Party leader and Thailand prime ministerial candidate Pita Limjaroenrat speaks to the media in Thai Parliament after the parliamentary vote for the premiership in Bangkok on July 13, 2023. Credit: Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP Online reaction After it drew angry online comments, Hun Sen removed the post from Twitter. “Absolutely ludicrous,” wrote Phil Robertson, Human Rights Watch’s deputy Asia director.  Thai journalist Pravit Rojanaphruk tweeted that the 70-year-old Hun Sen is “a political dinosaur comfortable in the company of dictators.” “When he looks at Pita, he sees the [political] liberalization &amp; reform he fears might some day come to Cambodia,” he wrote. Hun Sen posted another message on both Twitter and Telegram on Friday, writing that he doesn’t oppose Pita’s candidacy for prime minister.  “I respect the decision of the Thai people and I will not interfere in the internal affairs of Thailand,” he wrote. “I am ready to work with Thailand’s leader, regardless of who or which party.” He added that Cambodian opposition activists should stop using Pita’s name – “who does not know he is being used” – to oppose the Cambodian government. Finland-based political commentator Kim Sok said the first message made it seem like Hun Sen doesn’t understand diplomacy and politics, even though he served as Cambodia’s foreign minister during the 1980s. “Normally, a leader of a country uses good words and avoids bad words to other countries’ politicians, especially those who win the election,” he said in an interview with Radio Free Asia on Friday. Translated by Chandara Yang. Edited by Matt Reed.
- [Two days of junta attacks in Myanmar’s Sagaing region leave 4 dead](https://ij-reportika.com/two-days-of-junta-attacks-in-myanmars-sagaing-region-leave-4-dead/): Junta forces targeted three Sagaing townships this week, killing four civilians and injuring 17, as they continued to try to impose martial law in the region, locals told RFA Friday. On Wednesday the army turned its heavy artillery on Shwebo township, bombarding Tet Tu village twice, killing a man and injuring 11 people including a four-year-old child. “The child was hit in the abdomen and another seven people were critically injured,” said a local, who didn’t want to be named for fear of reprisals. “The other three were slightly injured.” On Thursday the guns turned on Kale township, killing two people and injuring six. “A heavy artillery shell hit a house in See San village, killing a couple in that house,&#8221; said a local, who didn&#8217;t want to be named for safety reasons. &#8220;A child and a woman near her house were also injured.” The other locals were injured in attacks on two neighboring villages. Locals said troops shell their villages nearly every day, and mine explosions are also common. A house in See San village, Kale township, Sagaing region, destroyed by heavy artillery fire on July 13, 2023. Credit: Chin National Organization The junta also sent ground troops into Wetlet township Thursday, burning around 100 homes. Locals said an elderly man died in his home in Thone Sint Kan village. “The column spent the night in Thone Sint Kan village Wednesday night and troops torched the houses when they left on Thursday morning,” said a local, who also requested anonymity for safety reasons. “An old man who was paralyzed died in the fire.” Around 40 homes are still standing but residents have fled the village and say they are afraid to return home until troops have left. The junta has released no statement on the incidents and junta spokesperson for Sagaing region, Saw Naing, did not return RFA’s calls. The junta placed Shwebo and Wetlet under martial law last February but has struggled to seize control of the townships. Junta leader Senior Gen.Min Aung Hlaing told a military council meeting in Naypyidaw Thursday that he needed to step up security due to serious violence in Sagaing region, Chin and Kayah states. The continuing violence has brought widespread international condemnation and calls on this year’s Association of Southeast Nations chair Indonesia to put more pressure on ASEAN member Myanmar to end the fighting and restore democracy. The latest came from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Speaking on the sidelines of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Jakarta Friday, he said Myanmar’s military rulers must be pushed to stop violence and implement the “five-point consensus” peace plan they agreed with the rest of the 10-member grouping two years ago. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Cambodian ruling party spokesman rejects criticism of Theary Seng conviction](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-ruling-party-spokesman-rejects-criticism-of-theary-seng-conviction/): Renewed calls from the U.S. State Department and a U.N. working group for the release of Cambodian-American lawyer Theary Seng are a violation of Cambodia’s sovereignty, the spokesman for the country’s ruling party said on Thursday. “Our court jurisdiction is under the laws of Cambodia as an independent and sovereign state,” said Sok Ey San, spokesman for the Cambodian People’s Party. “The court convicts [any person] based on the laws and the facts. She caused chaos in Cambodia for being a holder of foreign nation’s passport. She stirred chaos in Cambodian society.”  In June 2022, Theary Seng was sentenced to six years in prison on treason charges, prompting condemnation from rights groups and the U.S. government.  Her conviction was “a direct result of her exercise of her right to freedom of expression, which is protected under international law,” a U.N. working group of independent human rights experts said in a report released on Wednesday. “Her detention resulted from her long-term, high-profile criticism of the prime minister and her pro-democracy activism,” the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said in the 17-page opinion.  State Department comments Asked about the working group’s report, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the United States continues to condemn the conviction and sentence of Theary Seng, who holds dual Cambodian and U.S. citizenship.  When pressed by a reporter, Miller said the department still hasn’t determined whether she is “wrongfully detained” – a designation that could involve the department’s Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs. “With respect to this case, there is no higher … pressure we can bring to bear than the secretary of state himself personally raising a case with his counterparts,” Miller said at Wednesday’s daily briefing. In August 2022, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken pressed Prime Minister Hun Sen to free Theary Seng and other activists during a visit to Phnom Penh. Other U.S. officials, including Under Secretary of State Uzra Zeya, USAID Administrator Samatha Power and Ambassador W. Patrick Murphy, have also called for her immediate and unconditional release.  Theary Seng was sentenced along with 50 other activists for their association with the banned Cambodia National Rescue Party, once the main opposition in the country before it was dissolved by the Supreme Court in 2017. The specific charges stemmed from abortive efforts in 2019 to bring about the return to Cambodia of opposition leader Sam Rainsy, who has been in exile in France since 2015. Theary Seng and the other defendants denied the charges. Foreign intervention fears Last month, Hun Sen said he wouldn’t pardon Theary Seng or opposition party leader Kem Sokha, who was sentenced in March on treason charges widely condemned as politically motivated. Hun Sen said the decision was necessary in light of recent foreign intervention in Cambodia. He added that even though Theary Seng has dual citizenship, her case applies only to Cambodian law. In recent months, the prime minister has frequently invoked the specter of national security threats at public appearances ahead of the July 23 parliamentary elections, which he has framed as a referendum on who can best maintain Cambodia’s sovereignty.  “From now on, those who seek foreign intervention will stay in prison,” he said last month. “We don’t release you. Don’t include them in prisoners who will be pardoned or have a reduced prison term. We are stopping foreign intervention in Cambodia.” Theary Seng’s case was submitted to the U.N. working group by the Perseus Strategies, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights and Freedom House organizations, which represent her pro bono. “Theary Seng’s case is emblematic of the many people jailed in Cambodia for exposing human rights abuses, advocating for free expression, and calling for free and fair elections,” said Margaux Ewen, director of Freedom House’s political prisoner’s initiative.  “The Working Group’s judgment comes at a critical time. As democracy and internet freedom are under threat globally and in Cambodia, we need the international community’s support of brave individuals like Theary Seng – and the rights for which they fight.” Translated by Sovannarith Keo. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar’s central bank revokes licenses of 10 forex companies](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-central-bank-revokes-licenses-of-10-forex-companies/): The junta-run Central Bank of Myanmar has revoked the licenses of 10 foreign exchange companies, state-controlled newspapers said Thursday. In Wednesday’s announcement, the bank said the forex firms had not complied with the central bank’s orders and instructions. It named the companies as Kannan Trading; Net Change; Thiri Aung Si; Riverwood Group; Global Myanmar Services; D-Gold; Aurum Image; Hi Welcome Travel; &amp; Tours Sweeties Pearls; and Chase Travels &amp; Tours. Although the statement said the licenses were revoked according to a decision of the executive committee, it did not mention what orders and instructions were violated. RFA contacted the companies whose licenses were revoked but they did not respond. An entrepreneur holding a foreign exchange license, who did not want to be named for security reasons, called the central bank’s current forex policy “unstable.” “They shut [companies] If they want to. We do not know what for,” he said.  “But there is one thing that they should explain. Why was it not in accordance with the rules and regulations?” At present, the central bank allows foreign exchange companies to exchange one U.S. dollar for 2,100 Myanmar kyat. Firms are not allowed to change more than $10,000 per day and must be able to show the transactions list during investigation. Last March, the business licenses of 20 money exchange companies were revoked for failing to comply with the central bank’s orders and instructions. And on June 21, the U.S. Treasury Department announced it was adding the junta’s Ministry of Defense, and the regime controlled Myanma Foreign Trade Bank (MFTB) and Myanma Investment and Commercial Bank (MICB) to a sanctions blacklist in connection with the Myanmar military’s purchases of arms from foreign sellers “including sanctioned Russian entities.” The dollar rose 7.3% against the kyat in the following 24-hours. U.S. dollars and Myanmar kyat. Credit: RFA Two days later, the central bank said authorities had arrested 51 people for allegedly trying to cash in on the sudden spike in the price of dollars. It said foreign exchange speculators in Yangon and Mandalay, foreign currency dealers, people transferring money and officials from three companies had been prosecuted. The Central Bank of Myanmar said its currency market monitoring team took action in accordance with the anti-money laundering and foreign exchange management laws. Also on June 23, in a move aimed at slowing the outflow of foreign currency the junta’s commerce ministry announced that importers at northeastern Myanmar’s border with China would have to pay for goods using their local bank accounts from Aug. 1. Junta Deputy Information Minister, Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun, told state-controlled media last month that the U.S. sanctions were aimed at triggering a political and economic crisis in Myanmar. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Crossing the nine-dash line](https://ij-reportika.com/crossing-the-nine-dash-line/): Vietnam has banned the release of the Warner Bros feature film “Barbie” because its trailer includes a crude cartoon map that Vietnamese netizens believed depicted China’s &#8220;nine-dash line&#8221; territorial claims in the emotive South China Sea maritime territorial dispute. The decision mystified the studio, which said the map that prompted Hanoi to pull the movie was a &#8220;child-like crayon drawing&#8221; that traced Barbie&#8217;s travels and carried no political message.
- [Junta airstrikes kill 2, injure 4 in Myanmar’s Kayah state](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-airstrikes-kill-2-injure-4-in-myanmars-kayah-state/): A junta fighter jet repeatedly strafed a village in Myanmar’s Kayah state, killing an 11-year-old boy and injuring two more locals, Karenni Defense Force Officials told RFA Wednesday. The plane attacked Kyauk Su village three times on Tuesday night, said an information officer of Hpasawng township People’s Defense Force who did not want to be named for security reasons. “A jet fighter came and bombed at night,” the official said. “The injured are not seriously hurt. A Christian church and around six homes were also destroyed.” On Wednesday a jet attacked the Daw Noe Khu displaced people’s camp on the Thai-Myanmar border, killing a 32-year-old man and injuring two women. More than 4,000 people were sheltering at the camp, according to Karenni Progressive Party Joint Secretary, Aung San Myint. “The jets came around 1:00 a.m. and dropped bombs four times,” he said, adding that a school was destroyed by the bombing and a medical clinic and some houses were damaged. The officials of the Karenni Defense Force said that the junta is launching an offensive from Hpasawng township in order to fully control Mese township and is sending its forces to the region by air. Hpasawng People’s Defense Force said the army has had no opportunity to launch ground offensives so it relies on airstrikes and heavy artillery to attack civilian targets. The junta has not released a statement on the attacks. RFA called junta spokesperson for Kayah state Aung Win Oo by phone, but nobody answered. On July 4, three civilians, including a two-year-old child were injured when the air force bombed a displaced people’s camp in the western part of Demoso. The founder of the Karenni Human Rights Group, Ba Nyar, said that the attack was a war crime. The junta has carried out 527 airstrikes in Moebye (Moe Bye), Pekon and Pinlaung townships in southern Shan state and Kayah state since the February 2021 coup, according to the latest figures released by Progressive Karenni People’s Force. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Myanmar’s junta says it will sue 2 banned media outlets](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-junta-says-it-will-sue-2-banned-media-outlets/): Junta officials are preparing to sue two independent media outlets, accusing them of not paying broadcasting fees imposed just before the military took power in a coup d’etat more than two years ago. The Yangon offices of the Democratic Voice of Burma, or DVB, and the Mizzima news agencies were raided by junta security forces in March 2021 – a month after the Feb. 1, 2021, military coup d’etat. The State Administrative Council, the official name of the military government, revoked the operating licenses of the outlets, which now operate online and underground. The junta’s Ministry of Information announced the lawsuit on Saturday, saying they still must pay for using the state-owned Myanmar Radio and Television platform to air news and entertainment in the months before the military takeover. According to the lawsuit, DVB owes a month’s fee of more than 20 million kyats, or about US$9,500, while Mizzima must pay 80 million kyats, or about US$38,000, for four months of services.  DVB and Mizzima told RFA on Monday that the lawsuit was illegal because it was brought by a junta that unlawfully seized power.  Mizzima News’ office in Thanlyin, Yangon, was raided by junta troops on Mar. 9, 2021, eight days after the military coup. Credit: Citizen journalist ‘Within minutes of the military coup’ That’s also why DVB doesn’t owe any fees to the junta, said Editor-in-chief Aye Chan Naing. Its broadcasting license contract was signed with a civilian government that was elected by the people, he said. “We had to pay MRTV every three months,” he told RFA. “We were never late to pay. But within minutes of the military coup, our television channel was cut for exactly one month without any notice from them.” Mizzima’s founder and chairman, Soe Myint, told RFA that the outlet would pay the bill if it could access its bank account, which had 90 million kyat (about US$42,000) when it was seized by the junta in March 2021.  He said he hasn’t received any emails or official paperwork about the lawsuit.  “If it is in an independent, judicially competent and safe situation, I am ready to defend this lawsuit in court at any time. Whether it is inside Myanmar or anywhere abroad,” he said. “I can present the fact that the military junta unlawfully seized my house and all my properties in any free and fair court of law.”  The junta has also charged seven Mizzima employees with violating Section 505(a) of Myanmar’s Penal Code, Soe Myint said. That part of the law pertains to the circulation of statements, rumors or reports with the intent to cause military officers to disregard or fail in their duties. RFA attempted to contact junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for a response on the lawsuit, but his phone rang unanswered. Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [Prison chief ‘died during interrogation’ in Myanmar's Bago region](https://ij-reportika.com/prison-chief-died-during-interrogation-in-myanmars-bago-region/): Myanmar’s junta has arrested the head of Daik-U Central Prison in Bago region, along with seven of his staff, for allegedly helping inmates contact People’s Defense Forces, sources close to the prison told RFA Tuesday. Some of the sources said the warden died during interrogation but RFA was unable to confirm this. The sources – who declined to be named for fear of reprisal – said the warden, Lt. Myo Htike, was arrested at the end of June for helping prisoners communicate with outsiders. He is being interrogated at the prison, along with the other arrested staff which include his deputy Yan Naing Tun, one of the sources said. “Lieutenant Myo Htike is good-natured and is also willing to help, so he helps political prisoners with some issues,” he said.  “Other workers were arrested for not knowing what the lieutenant was doing,” said the source, adding that it&#8217;s not yet known when the eight will appear in court. RFA Burmese called Naing Win, the deputy director general of the junta prison department, regarding the arrests but he did not answer the phone. On June 27, guards took 37 political prisoners out of the prison, saying they were being transferred elsewhere. Relatives and friends said seven of the prisoners were killed. And in May, guards beat three Daik-U Central Prison  inmates to death during the violent interrogation of 24 prisoners, accused of communicating with members of the Bago People’s Defense force, sources close to the prison told RFA at the time. They said the injured, some in a critical condition, were put in a dark room with no food for four days. Since May several more political prisoners at Thayarwady Prison in Bago region and Myingyan Prison in Mandalay region were also beaten to death during interrogation, while others have been critically injured according to family members and sources close to the prison, who all requested anonymity to protect prisoners and their relatives. There was speculation that the interrogations took place in retaliation for a prison break at Taungoo Prison in Bago region on May 18. Inmates grabbed guns from prison guards and nine managed to escape into the jungle where they were met by members of a local People’s Defense Force. One of the escaped prisoners later told RFA they were originally trying to free Win Myint, the deposed president who is being held at Taungoo. Almost 24,000 people have been arrested by the junta since the February 2021 military coup, with over 19,000 still in detention, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma).Still Detained including Sentenced Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [More than 2 dozen bodies of Uyghur inmates released in Kashgar prefecture](https://ij-reportika.com/more-than-2-dozen-bodies-of-uyghur-inmates-released-in-kashgar-prefecture/): Authorities at a prison in the Xinjiang region released the bodies of at least 26 Uyghur inmates before the Eid al-Fitr holiday in late April, police in various towns have told us. We contacted 10 police stations in Kashgar prefecture’s Maralbeshi county to confirm that authorities at Tumshuq Prison had released the bodies.&nbsp; Five of the inmates were elderly and died of heart and lung diseases, while one other died of diabetes, sources said.&nbsp; A Maralbeshi resident said many of them died of starvation because the inmates fasted in secret during Ramadan and couldn’t eat during breakfast or after sunset because of jail rules. Officials contacted by us did not comment on the matter. In June, a source told us that authorities at the prison had released the bodies of dozens of individuals, including that of his brother, just before the Islamic holiday marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. To obtain more information, we followed up by contacting police in the 10 towns, including speaking to officials in Sériqbuya, Awat and Chongqurchaq.&nbsp; When we contacted the police station in Awat, a Maralbeshi market town, to inquire about the body distribution on the eve of Eid al-Fitr, one officer said he was aware of the distribution of 18 bodies of dead prisoners, but he declined to disclose any information regarding the identities or their respective family members. “We have knowledge of the events and circumstances surrounding their deaths as they were under our supervision, but I am unable to share further information,” he said. “I believe the overall count of deceased individuals amounts to 18,” he said. “However, I am unable to disclose their identities.” The police officer did not say whether prison authorities took the bodies directly to family members of the decedents, to the police station, or to a mortuary. We previously reported that other bodies were taken to a police station before being handed over to families. The process took place under the supervision of county, village, and people’s committee officials and police. Additionally, authorities monitored the families for several weeks. Tumshuq Prison housed locals arbitrarily arrested during the 2017 crackdown on prominent and ordinary Uyghurs alike, jailing them in “re-education” camps and prisons for alleged extremist behavior, such as previous trips or contacts abroad or religious activities.&nbsp; China has come under harsh international criticism for its severe rights abuses of the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs, including forced labor. The U.S. government and several Western parliaments have declared that the abuses amount to genocide or crimes against humanity. A police officer from Seriqbuya told us in April that prison authorities delivered five bodies to his police station, and that most of them had been in their 70s or 80s and had been ill.&nbsp; “It appears that most of them passed away due to ineffective medical treatments,” he said. The police officer also confirmed that one of the corpses was that of Abdugheni Qadir. A person familiar with the situation told us that Abdugheni Qadir from Seriqbuya was the son of Qadir Toxti, principal of Sériqbuya Primary School. Authorities arrested him in 2017 while he was doing business in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The other three dead prisoners were Memettursun Metniyaz, Haji’ahun and his wife Mehpiremhan. Metniyaz was a Uyghur motorcycle repairman jailed in early 2017 for completing the hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, years before. He died of diabetes in jail and his body was delivered to his family, a local residential committee member who oversaw the return of his corpse told us in a May report.&nbsp;&nbsp; Haji’ahun, a hatmaker, and his spouse Mehpiremhan, residents of Maralbeshi county, were each sentenced to 10 years in Tumshuq Prison in 2019 for “illegal” religious activities, people with knowledge of the couple’s situation told us in a June report. Translated by us Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Matt Reed.
- [Jet attack kills 3 civilians in Myanmar’s Chin state](https://ij-reportika.com/jet-attack-kills-3-civilians-in-myanmars-chin-state/): Junta jets dropped bombs on a village in Chin state, in the west of Myanmar, killing three people including a nine-year-old girl, the Mindat township People’s Administration Group told RFA Monday. Group spokesman Yaw Man said jets attacked Vung Khung village repeatedly on Saturday morning. “They shot three times with fighter jets, dropped two 500-pound bombs, and fired with other weapons, sending the villagers running like the world was about to end,” he said.  “There was a nursing mother who had left her baby behind and fled to another place. She was killed by a bomb that was dropped on the place where she was sheltering on the way home to pick up her baby. Her neighbor’s nine-year-old child died next to her.  “The locals don’t dare to live in the village anymore, so they are fleeing to their hill farms and other villages.” Yaw Man said a 65-year-old woman was also killed and a 50-year-old man injured in the attacks. Locals said there was no reason for the raids because the junta had not been fighting with the Chinland Defense Force. As well as attacking by air, infantry regiment 274, based in Mindat, fired long-range artillery at the village destroying the school and damaging 10 homes. The junta has released no statement on the attack and junta Deputy Information Minister Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun did not answer his phone when called by RFA on Monday. Last month air attacks on Mindat and Thantiang townships destroyed a monastery and four houses. RFA data show that 44 civilians have been killed by junta air attacks in Chin state since the February 2021 military coup. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Myanmar comedy troupe uses online video income for charity](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-comedy-troupe-uses-online-video-income-for-charity/): A comedy troupe in Myanmar uses income generated from videos to fund charitable initiatives, including supporting needy families and single mothers, members of the team told us. The group, formed in 2021 in the central Sagaing region’s town of Kale is led by comedian Nau Sing, who moonlights as a taekwondo coach. The short videos are posted on Nau Sing’s Facebook and YouTube accounts, both of which have tens of thousands of followers or subscribers. Nau Sing told us that the Myanmar Service channel did not start out profitable, but now that it is, he continues to make them for charity. “I have loved charity since I was young,” he said. “After three years of creating these videos, I started to get money, so now that I have income, I donate as much as I can.” The comedy troupe lacks access to a computer, so all the editing is done on mobile phones, but recent trends have made short videos with minimal editing popular, and that has made the videos successful, the Nau Sing charity said. Ma San San, one of the team members, told us that she is happy when the charity can make a difference in other people’s lives. “When we … gave them a bag of rice, they burst into tears,” she said. “They said they had never been able to buy a whole bag of rice, rather they could buy only a few tins of here or beg for more there. They were in tears because they said a bag of rice would hold them over for a long time, and I was thrilled. The Nau Sing charity group, seen May 12, 2023, raises money by creating comedy short videos and posting them on Facebook and YouTube. Credit: Citizen journalist&nbsp;&nbsp; The group plans to donate to the needy once every month, said Ko Nau Sing, another member of the group. “We have established a Nau Sing page [on social media],” said Ko Nau Sing. “We are planning to donate once a month as much as we can based on the income. But whether there are contributions or not, we plan to donate once a month.” The charity donates food worth 100,000 kyats per month (US$48) for a family of five that is struggling to make ends meet, it said. The charity also supports single mothers who struggle to take care of their children.&nbsp; One such mother, Ma Man Lan Nyaung, lives with her five children at a shelter inside a church. She told us that she and two of the older children had been begging on the streets to support the family. “We were not shy anymore. We begged from every house that we thought had some food to spare,” she said. “At that time, the Nau Sing group donated rice, oil, salt, and chickpeas. I am very grateful to them for their donations.” Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw. Edited by Eugene Whong.
- [Manila rejects Beijing’s account of sea encounter](https://ij-reportika.com/manila-rejects-beijings-account-of-sea-encounter/): Manila for the second time this month has dismissed China’s version of a military encounter near the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. On Monday the Chinese military said it had monitored and warned off a Philippine warship that it accused of “trespassing” into the waters around the Scarborough Shoal. Senior Col. Tian Junli, the spokesperson for China’s Southern Theater Command, said in a statement that the Philippine frigate “intruded into the waters adjacent to China&#8217;s Huangyan Dao without the approval of the Chinese government,” referring to the shoal by its Chinese name. He said the naval and air forces of the Command “tracked, monitored, warned, and restricted the Philippine military vessel according to law.” On Tuesday, Philippine authorities responded with their own version of the incident. National Security Adviser Eduardo M. Año said the Navy’s BRP Conrado Yap (PS-39) “conducted routine patrol operations in the general vicinity of Bajo de Masinloc (Scarborough Shoal) without any untoward incident.” “China is again over hyping this incident and creating unnecessary tensions between our two nations,” Año said. This is the second time in three weeks that China claimed that Manila “violated China’s sovereignty over the reef” and that Chinese law enforcement forces drove Philippine ships away. Both times, the Philippines dismissed China’s claims and insisted that under international law, the Philippines had every right to patrol the area. Test of U.S. commitment “Such incidents will re-occur with increased frequency,” said Carlyle Thayer, a veteran political analyst based in Canberra, Australia. China seized Scarborough Shoal after a standoff with the Philippines in 2012 and has maintained control over it since. Manila brought Beijing to an international tribunal over its claims in the South China Sea, including of the islands, and won but China has refused to accept the 2016 ruling. “China considers Philippine vessels’ activities near the shoal a violation of China’s sovereignty and will react strongly every time,” said Thayer, adding “Beijing doesn’t want to be seen as weak.” This undated photo provided on Sept. 26, 2023, by the Philippine Coast Guard shows the anchor used to hold the floating barrier which was removed by a coast guard diver, in the Scarborough Shoal. Credit: Philippine Coast Guard via AP Another South China Sea scholar, Hoang Viet from the Ho Chi Minh City University of Law, said that the recent rapprochement between the Philippines and the United States under current Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has also contributed to China’s ramped up response. In February, Manila granted the U.S. access to four more military bases in the country. “China wants to warn those countries which, in its opinion, are seeking to move closer to the U.S.,” Viet said. “With such incidents, Beijing also wants to test Washington’s commitment in the region, especially as the U.S. is being drawn into so many global conflicts and crises,” the analyst said.  The U.S. has repeatedly stated that Article IV of the 1951 U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty extends to armed attacks on Philippine armed forces, public vessels, and aircraft – including those of its Coast Guard – anywhere in the South China Sea. For its part, Manila has “embarked on a tactic of assertive transparency,” as noted by Ray Powell from Stanford University’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation. That means incidents in disputed waters are being reported in a timely and transparent manner.  In late September, the Philippines said China had installed a 300-meter (984-foot) floating barrier to block Philippine fishermen from accessing the waters around the shoal. The Philippine coast guard carried out a “special operation” to cut the barrier and remove its anchor. Jason Gutierrez in Manila contributed to this article. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [Myanmar junta shutters independent news outlet in Rakhine state](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-shutters-independent-news-outlet-in-rakhine-state/): Myanmar junta troops raided and shuttered an independent news outlet in Rakhine state on Sunday, arresting one reporter and a guard, while the rest of the staff went into hiding, relatives of the employees said. Soldiers arrested Htet Aung, the Sittwe-based reporter for Development Media Group, or DMG, and night watchman Soe Win Aung, and no one has had any contact with them yet, they said. DMG was established in 2012 along the Thailand-Myanmar border, but later moved its operations to Rakhine’s capital Sittwe. The news outlet covers armed conflict and human rights violations in the western state that borders Bangladesh. When some family members went to the Sittwe police station where the two were detained, police did not allow them to meet, said Ma Aye Yi, mother of Htet Aung. “When I went there to take lunch [to my son], they told me that [he] had been taken to the military security affairs office for interrogation,” she said.  Silencing news outlets The ruling military junta, which seized power in a February 2021 coup, has cracked down on independent media outlets in Myanmar to silence them from reporting about the coup, its violent aftermath, and armed conflict.  In 2021, the junta shut down five media outlets that provided independent coverage of the protests against military rule. This year, the regime threatened legal action against Democratic Voice of Burma TV and Mizzima TV, demanding the shuttered independent news broadcasters pay thousands of dollars in transmission fees, VOA reported in July. Soldiers arrested Htet Aung while he was taking news photos at the Wingabar open field in Rakhine’s capital city. Sometime later, about 20 junta troops with police raided DMG’s office and arrested the night watchman. Development Media Group reporter Htet Aung was arrested by Myanmar junta forces in Sittwe, capital of western Myanmar&#8217;s Rakhine state, Oct. 29, 2023. Credit: Htet Aung/Facebook The soldiers and police also confiscated cameras, computers and office accessories before sealing the building, DMG news agency officials said. It was a violent suppression of the independent news media, one news agency official said. “We condemn the arresting of journalists and office staff and raiding of the office,” the person said. “It is an act of terrorism. No matter how they suppress us, we will report the truth from the ground as much as we can.” Not the first time Meanwhile, the families of the other workers who fled to safety said they don’t know about their whereabouts.    RFA’s calls to the state attorney general, who is the junta’s spokesman for Rakhine state, went unanswered. The State Administration Council, as the junta regime is known, has not yet issued a statement about the raid. This isn’t the first time the military has targeted DMG. In 2019, the military and the military-controlled Home Affairs Ministry under the previous civilian-led government filed a criminal case against DMG editor-in-chief Aung Min Oo for allegedly violating Section 17(2) of the country’s Unlawful Associations Act. The military filed defamation lawsuits under Section 66(d) of the Telecommunications Law against other DMG reporters in 2021. Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Junta fires at Myanmar monastery, killing 3 children](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-fires-at-myanmar-monastery-killing-3-children/): Junta artillery shelling killed five civilians, including three children, in central Myanmar, according to residents.  Troops stationed in Magway region’s Pakokku township approached two nearby villages and fired heavy weapons at them on Sunday. The bullets hit a monastery in Kan Yat Gyi village, injuring five internally displaced people.  The troops were stationed about three miles away from the villages, said a resident, who declined to be named for security reasons. “In Kan Yat Gyi, shells fell into a monastery. Two novice [monks] died on the spot,” they told Radio Free Asia. Both novice monks were 10 years old.  “Shells fell on a house in Kin village around 11:30 in the morning. The villagers were having lunch at the time. They died soon after. One of them died on the road when she was being taken back to the village from the hospital.” Three Kin village locals, 32-year-old Soe Tint Oo and his six-year-old daughter Thet Htar Nwe, as well as 56-year-old Aye Sint, also died in the attack. Junta troops stationed in Pakokku township are also firing at Myaing township’s villages every day with 80-millimeter weapons, despite there being no clashes with People’s Defense Forces for the last three months, residents added. The unpredictable attacks have forced hundreds of residents from Kin village and two others nearby to flee, locals told RFA. Constant attacks are likely meant to discourage resistance groups from entering the area.  RFA’s calls to Magway region’s junta spokesperson Than Swe Win went unanswered. Junta soldiers have killed over 4,000 civilians since the regime seized power in February’s 2021 coup, according to independent monitoring group, Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Patriotic flag ceremonies at Hong Kong mosque ‘shock’ believers](https://ij-reportika.com/patriotic-flag-ceremonies-at-hong-kong-mosque-shock-believers/): Muslims at Hong Kong’s biggest Kowloon Mosque raised the Chinese national flag in formal ceremonies in July and October this year, to mark the city’s 1997 handover to China and China’s Oct. 1 National Day. The move has prompted shock and disappointment among some believers, who see it as a challenge to the Islamic doctrine of the supremacy of God, yet few feel safe enough to speak out for fear of political reprisals or community pressure, according to a Hong Kong Muslim who spoke to Radio Free Asia on condition of anonymity. The ceremonies come as the ruling Chinese Communist Party steps up control over religious venues across China, requiring them to support the leadership of the Communist Party of China and leader Xi Jinping’s plans for the “sinicization” of religious activity. Muslim leaders in Hong Kong have spoken to RFA Cantonese of “a developing relationship” with Chinese officials over the past 18 months, who have “suggested” they begin ceremonial displays of patriotism like flag-raising ceremonies. The ceremonies have been fairly high-profile affairs, attended by community leaders and imams, officials from Beijing’s Central Liaison Office in Hong Kong, as well as high-ranking police and local government officials. At a recent ceremony filmed by RFA, the officials stood impassively as mosque-goers performed the ceremonial movements designed to show the highest respect to the flag, then sang the Chinese national anthem, while plainclothes police observed from the sidelines. Representatives of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government, Hong Kong government officials, and major Islamic leaders took a group photo in front of the national flag in the Kowloon Mosque. Credit: Tianji An anonymous Hong Kong Muslim said some believers are very unhappy with the move, which they say undermines the crucial Islamic principle that God is supreme, forcing them to choose between their religion and political “correctness” under the atheist ruling Chinese Communist Party.  “Allah is the only highest principle there is,” said the woman, who gave only the pseudonym Miriam for fear of pressure from within her own community and of prosecution under a draconian security law imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing. “I don’t understand how people can see room for compromise here and try to argue that it’s not an issue,” she said. “I am truly and utterly shocked by this. It’s unthinkable.” Miriam said she was “deeply disappointed” in particular by the attendance of the local imam. ‘The flag of an atheist country’ The organizers said the events, which come after a number of gatherings between Muslim community leaders and Chinese officials, are indeed a nod to Beijing’s “sinicization of religion” program, and are likely to continue. “Before we didn’t have the idea to raise a flag,” Hong Kong Muslim community leader Saeed Uddin said. “Then, during the last one-and-a-half years, our relationship developed.” The Chinese national flag flies in front of the Kowloon Mosque. Credit: Screenshot from RFA video “There was a suggestion, ‘why not have [flag-raising],’” he said. “I think this is not a bad idea, to let people be more patriotic to China. They enjoy it. It’s no problem.” Yet, asked about dissenting voices among Hong Kong Muslims, he admitted to differences of opinion within the community. “We have to respect the differences of opinion,” Saeed Uddin said. But he added: “We will try to convince them.” “There was a suggestion, ‘Why not have [flag-raising],’” says Hong Kong Muslim community leader Saeed Uddin. “I think this is not a bad idea, to let people be more patriotic to China. They enjoy it. It’s no problem.” Credit: Tianji While Muslims must necessarily co-exist with secular power, they are expected to keep a certain distance, never lose sight of the supremacy of God in their actions, and avoid idolatry at all costs. Non-Islamic images and human likenesses are avoided, particularly in sacred places like mosques. For Miriam, the Chinese flag represents a totalitarian and atheist state that sees its own power as supreme, and should never be seen in a mosque. “There’s no issue with having the flag of a Muslim country in a mosque, because that country already recognizes no higher authority than God,” she said. “The country itself will be founded on Islamic precepts.” “But I’ve never seen the flag of an atheist country blatantly on display in a mosque,” she said. “Perhaps they’re using people’s lack of understanding of Islam to force this on them.” The Kowloon Mosque is seen in Hong Kong’s tourism district Tsim Sha Tsui, Oct. 21, 2019. Credit: Ammar Awad/Reuters Rizwan Ullah, honorary adviser to the Islamic Community Fund of Hong Kong, supports Beijing’s attempts to boost patriotism in the community. “We’re not raising the Chinese flag or singing the national anthem at a time of prayer,” he told RFA Cantonese in a recent interview. “So it has no effect on our beliefs, or our customs.” “History will show that this has been a correct first step,” he said, using phrasing similar to that of Chinese officials. ‘Two things can coexist’ China’s “sinicization of religion” policy, which has led churches in mainland China to display portraits of Communist Party leader Xi Jinping and prompted local officials to forcibly demolish domes, minarets and other architectural features in mosques around the country, sometimes in the face of mass protests. The Communist Party now requires all religious believers to love their country as well as their religion, and claims that patriotism is a part of Islam. Riswan Ullah agreed with this view.  “I don’t see a conflict. I pray five times a day,” he said. “I raise the flag at different times of the day.” “I don’t see why being a patriot somehow makes me a bad Muslim – It’s not a zero sum equation: the two things can coexist,” he said. “I don’t see why being a patriot somehow makes me a bad Muslim – It’s not a zero sum equation: the two things can coexist,” says Riswan Ullah. Credit: Tianji But for Hong Kong’s Muslims, loving one’s country –...
- [Migration throws Laos’ communist government a lifeline](https://ij-reportika.com/migration-throws-laos-communist-government-a-lifeline/): In a rare moment in the international spotlight, Laos was the topic of two articles published by major world media outlets in early October, although not with the sort of headlines the ruling communist party wanted to read.  The BBC ran a piece on October 8 under the banner: “&#8217;I feel hopeless&#8217;: Living in Laos on the brink”. Days later, the Washington Post went with “China’s promise of prosperity brought Laos debt — and distress”, presumably because the editors thought Laos isn’t interesting enough unless tales of Chinese debt traps are also included.  But both gave an accurate sense of the grim situation most Laotians, especially the young, now find themselves in. As the BBC report began: “Confronted with a barren job market, the Vientiane resident holds no hope of finding work at home, and instead aims to become a cleaner or a fruit picker in Australia.”  Laotians are leaving the country in droves. My estimate is that around 90,000, perhaps more, will have migrated officially by the end of the year, joining around 51,000 who left last year and the hundreds of thousands who have moved abroad earlier. Laos has had a horrendous last few years.  The landlocked Southeast Asian nation didn’t do particularly well during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the early months of 2021, it has had one of the worst inflation rates in Asia, peaking at 41.3 percent in February and still hovering at around 25 percent. The kip, the local currency, is collapsing; it hit an all-time low in mid-September when it was trading in commercial banks at 20,000 to the U.S.  dollar, compared to around 8000 (US$44) in 2019. An acquaintance in Vientiane tells me that it used to cost 350,000 kip to fill up his car with diesel in 2019; today, it’s closer to 1.2 million kip (US$58)  and the price keeps rising—and bear in mind that the minimum wage is now just 1.6 million kip  (US$77), per a tiny increase in October. Another correspondent of mine, a foreigner, says he’s now leaving: “It&#8217;s got to the point where I&#8217;m just&#8230; done!”  Motorcyclists line up for gas in Laos amid shortages, May 10, 2022. Credit: RFA The communist government is hopeless in responding, and not even the rare resignation of a prime minister last December has added any vitality to its efforts. Worse, far larger structural problems remain. The national debt, probably around 120 percent of GDP, puts Laos at risk of defaulting every quarter. It cannot continue to borrow so the authorities are jacking up taxation, and because of flagrant corruption, the burden falls more heavily than it should on the poor.  Looking ahead, what is the national debt if not a tax deferred on the young and yet-to-be-born? There are not enough teachers in schools and not enough schools for students. Attendance rates have plummeted. Public expenditure on education and health, combined, has fallen from 4.2 percent of GDP in 2017 to just 2.6 percent last year, according to the World Bank’s latest economic update. More than two-thirds of low-income families say they have slashed spending on education and healthcare since the pandemic began, it also found. According to the BBC report, 38.7 percent of 18-to-24-year-olds are not in education, employment or training, by far the highest rate in Southeast Asia. A Laotian youth told me that few people want to waste money on bribes to study at university when they can quickly study Korean and try to get a high-paying factory job in Seoul.  In June, an International Labour Organization update gave a summary of the numbers of Laotians leaving by official means, as estimated by the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare:  Thailand 2022: 51,501 (29,319 women) 2023, up until 30 June: 42,246 (23,126 women) Malaysia 2022: 469 men Japan 2022: 312 (122 women) 2023, up until 30 June: 289 (120 women)  South Korea, long-term (3 years contract) 2022: 796 (194 women) 2023, up until 30 June: 389 (54 women)  South Korea, short-term seasonal workers (5 months contract) 2022: 1,356 (598 women) The first thing to note is that this is emigration by official channels. To Japan and South Korea, that official process is arduous and involves a lengthy contract procedure before leaving the country. However, the workers in South Korea can earn in a day what they would earn in a month in Laos.  It’s less strenuous getting to Thailand although a considerable number of Laotians emigrate there by unofficial means, hopping across the border and not registering that they’ve left. In 2019, the Thai authorities estimated that there were around 207,000 Lao migrants working legally and 30,000 illegally, but the actual number of legal and illegal workers could have been as high as 300,000. (No one really knows how many Laotians work illegally in Thailand.) Also, consider how many Laotians have left the country so far this year compared to 2022. If we assume that emigration flows keep the same pace in the last six months of 2023 as they did in the first six, around 84,000 Laotians will have officially emigrated to Thailand by the end of this year, up from 51,000 in 2022.   In April, a National Assembly delegate castigated the government for the fact that “workers have left factories in Laos for jobs in other countries because the wages paid by factories here are not keeping pace with the rising cost of living…As a result, factories in Laos are facing a labor shortage.”  Saving grace? But isn’t this actually a saving grace for the communist Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP), at least in the short term? Much woe betide is made of Laos’ land-locked geography but it is rather convenient to border five countries, four of which are wealthier, if you want to avoid a situation of having disaffected, unemployed or poorly paid youths hanging around doing nothing but getting increasingly angry at their dim prospects. Conventional wisdom holds that authoritarian regimes constrain emigration as it can lead to mass labor shortages, one reason...
- [Ethnic alliance launches offensive on junta in eastern Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/ethnic-alliance-launches-offensive-on-junta-in-eastern-myanmar/): An alliance of three ethnic armies opened an offensive against Myanmar’s military regime on Friday, launching attacks on outposts in seven different locations in Shan state, in the east, including the headquarters of the junta’s Northeastern Command. At around 4:00 a.m., the Northern Alliance made up of the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and the Arakan Army simultaneously struck junta positions in the strategic Shan cities of Kunlong, Theinni, Chin Shwe Haw, Laukkaing, Namhkan, Kutkai, and Lashio – the state’s largest municipality. In a statement, the alliance said “Operation 1027” – named for the Oct. 27 date of the offensive – was initiated to protect the lives and property of civilians, defend its three member armies, and exert greater control over the self-administered regions within their territories. It said the operation was also part of a bid to reduce the junta’s air and artillery strike capabilities, remove the military regime from power, and crack down on criminal activities – including online scam operations – that have proliferated along the country’s northeastern border with China. Residents of Shan state told RFA Burmese that at least eight civilians were killed in Friday’s fighting, including three children. The number of combatant casualties was not immediately available, as the clashes were ongoing at the time of publishing. Pho Wa, a resident of Hopang, near Chin Shwe Haw in Shan’s Kokang region, said there were “many casualties” among junta troops and civil servants, and that key infrastructure, including bridges, had been destroyed, slowing the flow of goods in and out of the area. “Since multiple checkpoints … were raided, many customs agents, police officers and soldiers were killed,” he said. “The residents of Chin Shwe Haw have fled to [a region] administered by an [ethnic] Wa force called Nam Tit. Many are still trapped in Chin Shwe Haw city.” Residents said Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, troops raided the downtown area of Chin Shwe Haw on Friday afternoon. They said inhabitants of Laukkaing were urgently preparing to flee the area ahead of an anticipated raid on the city by the armed group Kutkai and Lashio clashes In Kutkai township, Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, soldiers attacked a pro-junta Pan Saye militia outpost on Friday morning, leading to fierce fighting, residents said. Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army soldiers seize Myanmar military security gate near Laukkai city in Northern Shan state, Friday, Oct. 27, 2023. Credit: Screenshot from AFP video A woman from Kutkai said that junta troops based in nearby Nam Hpat Kar village counterattacked with artillery fire, drawing the village into the battlezone. At least two civilians – a man and a child – were killed and five others wounded, she said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to fear of reprisal. “I think there were more than 30 artillery strikes this morning,” the woman said. “Clashes broke out when the TNLA attacked the [junta’s] outposts … That’s why they counterattacked with artillery from Nam Hpat Kar, but many of the shells fell on Nam Hpat Kar village.” A 40-year-old man was also killed in a military air strike amid fighting near Kutkai’s Nawng Hswe Nam Kut village, residents said. In Mong Ko township, fighting between junta forces and MNDAA troops has been fierce since Friday morning, and at midday the junta sent two combat helicopters to attack, residents said. Junta outposts near villages of Tar Pong, Nar Hpa and Mat Hki Nu in Lashio township, which is the seat of the military’s Northeastern Command, as well as a toll gate in Ho Peik village, were attacked Friday morning. Lashio residents said they heard the sound of heavy weapons until 7:00 p.m. on Friday and that all flights out of the city’s airport had been suspended amid the clashes. Due to the complicated and fast-moving situation in the villages around Lashio, the exact number of casualties is not yet known, but a rescue worker said that two people had been injured and sent to the hospital. Fighting in the area was tense until noon on Friday. ‘Strategic shift’ for region RFA reached out to TNLA spokesperson Lt. Col. Tar Aik Kyaw regarding the alliance operation, but had yet to receive a response by the time of publishing. Attempts to contact the MNDAA and Arakan Army, or AA, went unanswered Friday. Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government’s ministry of defense welcomed the operation in a statement. RFA was unable to reach junta Deputy Information Minister Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment, but he confirmed to local media that fighting had taken place in Chin Shwe Haw, Laukkaing, Theinni, Kunlong and Lashio townships.  He said that the military and police had “suffered casualties” in attacks on outposts at Chin Shwe Haw’s Phaung Seik and Tar Par bridges. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters at a regularly scheduled press conference that Beijing is “closely following” the latest fighting along its border and called for dialogue between all parties to avoid escalation of the situation. Speaking to RFA on Friday, military commentator Than Soe Naing said that the alliance operation was retaliation for recent junta attacks on the headquarters of their ally, the Kachin Independence Army, in Lai Zar, a remote town in Kachin state on the border with China. “I consider this to be a strategic shift for the entire northern region, centered on Shan state,” he said. Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
- [Junta troops capture 15 Myanmar villagers to use as human shields](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-troops-capture-15-myanmar-villagers-to-use-as-human-shields/): Junta troops arrested 15 people and displaced more than 10,000 during raids in northern Myanmar, residents told Radio Free Asia on Friday. Around 130 troops entered Sagaing region’s Tabayin township on Thursday, prompting more than 10,000 people to abandon some 10 villages in the area.  Soldiers captured 15 people remaining in Shan Taw village to use as human shields, according to locals. In the evening, the battalion also raided and burned down homes in Boke Htan village, roughly two miles away.  Locals don’t know the condition of the detainees or the full extent of the damage in their village, because as of Friday afternoon junta forces still occupied Boke Htan.  &#8220;Last night, I saw flames for about an hour, so I think that at least 10 homes will be burned down,” said one local who declined to be named for fear of reprisals. “They are still in the village, so I can&#8217;t say exactly.” The number of arrests may be higher than 15, because some people are still missing from Shan Taw village, he added. The troops have been razing parts of western Tabayin township since Saturday, when another 10,000 villagers fled. RFA called Sagaing region’s junta spokesperson Sai Naing Naing Kyaw seeking comment on the raids, but he did not reply by the time of publication.  Throughout October, junta troops have conducted several devastating multi-day raids through Sagaing region’s southern townships. Residents have accused the convoys of killing nine locals, including teenagers who were beaten and beheaded, in addition to burning villages and ambushing villagers with heavy weaponry and landmines. A five-day raid from Oct. 12 to 16 displaced more than 45,000 villagers. More than 800,000 people in Sagaing region have been forced to flee their homes due to violence since the Feb. 1, 2021 coup, according to the United Nations. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Ailing rights lawyer Li Yuhan jailed for 6 ½ years](https://ij-reportika.com/ailing-rights-lawyer-li-yuhan-jailed-for-6-%c2%bd-years/): Chinese authorities have given a six-and-a-half year prison term to human rights lawyer Li Yuhan for &#8220;fraud&#8221; and &#8220;picking quarrels and stirring up trouble&#8221; – a charge often used to target peaceful critics of the ruling Communist Party. The Heping District People&#8217;s Court in Shenyang, in northeastern China’s Liaoning province, imposed the sentence at a hearing on Oct. 25 amid tight security and a large police presence in the streets outside, a family member told Radio Free Asia on Thursday. Li, who is in her 70s and needs assistance to walk, has spent the past six years in a detention center, so would be freed in April. Still, she said she will appeal the sentence. For her brother, Li Yongsheng, it was the first time he had seen her since her trial two years ago – after which no verdict was rendered. &#8220;She has aged significantly,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Two police officers had to assist her to walk; she was no longer able to walk normally.&#8221; He said there are also signs that her long incarceration has taken a toll on Li&#8217;s mental state. &#8220;Her thinking is confused, and her reactions are slower, and she has muddled logic,&#8221; he said. Her brother said the court building was cordoned off on all sides with iron barriers, with dozens of police and security personnel in the area. No passers-by were allowed through, and no other business was conducted in the court that day, he said. Defended rights lawyer Li is widely believed to have been targeted for her defense of prominent rights lawyer Wang Yu, who was among the first people to be detained in a nationwide operation targeting rights lawyers and activists in July 2015. &#8220;Another reason is that before her arrest, my sister had been handling other sensitive cases, various complaints and accusations, which had caused a lot of trouble for local governments,&#8221; Li Yongsheng said on Thursday. Li is being held in the Shenyang No. 1 Detention Center, where she has reportedly spent some time on hunger strike. Lawyers say China&#8217;s police-run detention centers are often overcrowded and lack facilities to ensure adequate medical care for inmates. Li has been hospitalized at least twice and given a number of medications, but applications for medical parole have been denied. A legal expert who asked to remain anonymous for fear of political reprisals told Radio Free Asia that the long delay in Li&#8217;s case was likely because the authorities were trying to elicit a &#8220;confession&#8221; from her, which she has repeatedly refused to give. He said the authorities had to sentence her for at least as long as she has already spent behind bars, but said the April 2024 release date was still a &#8220;relatively good outcome&#8221; for such a politically sensitive case. &#8220;The authorities can&#8217;t afford to admit to any error; now that they&#8217;ve detained her for that long, they have to sentence her accordingly,&#8221; the expert said. She paid ‘a huge price’ Li initially went missing on Oct. 9, 2017, and has been &#8220;at risk of torture and other ill-treatment&#8221; in the detention center, London-based Amnesty International said at the time. The group called  for her immediate release. Li has paid &#8220;a huge price&#8221; for her defense of individuals unjustly accused of wrongdoing, said  Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for China Sarah Brooks. &#8220;She should be released immediately and unconditionally, and the multiple allegations of her ill-treatment in detention independently investigated,&#8221; Brooks said. “Lawyer Li has been arbitrarily detained for six years [and] should be at home with her family, not in prison for merely doing her job to defend peoples’ human rights,&#8221; she added. Li Yongsheng, her brother, said the family has made written complaints over the authorities&#8217; handling of the case, in particular questioning why it was given to the Heping district court in the first place. &#8220;Heping district isn&#8217;t her place of residence, nor where her household registration is, and it&#8217;s not where the alleged &#8216;crimes&#8217; occurred, either,&#8221; he said. &#8220;So there are indeed questions about its jurisdiction here.&#8221; But he said that despite &#8220;brilliant arguments&#8221; from Li&#8217;s defense team, &#8220;we can&#8217;t influence this kind of trial.&#8221; Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [China urges ‘fair’ investigation into Baltic pipeline damage](https://ij-reportika.com/china-urges-fair-investigation-into-baltic-pipeline-damage/): China has said it will stand “ready to provide necessary assistance” to the investigation into Finland’s claims a Hong Kong vessel may have damaged a natural gas pipeline. Finnish police said on Tuesday the Balticconnector pipeline between Finland and Estonia was likely damaged by an anchor as “on the seabed, a 1.5 to 4 meter-wide dragging trail is seen to lead to the point of damage in the gas pipeline.” The investigators said they found the anchor just a few meters from the gas pipeline damage point. They said the anchor may have belonged to the Chinese container vessel Newnew Polar Bear which was sailing through the area at around 1:20 a.m. local time on Oct. 8, 2023 when the pipeline was reported damaged. The police focused their suspicion on the ship as until now, they “could not visually confirm that both front anchors of the vessel were in their place.”  Newnew Polar Bear is a Chinese-owned and Hong Kong-registered commercial ship.   The vessel “was contacted several times, but they were not willing to cooperate,” they said, adding that help is needed from the Chinese authorities for the investigation to continue. A graphic obtained by Reuters on October 13, 2023, shows where the Balticconnector pipeline between Finland and Estonia was damaged on October 8, by an unknown reason. Credit: NORSAR/Handout via Reuters In Beijing, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said China maintains “unimpeded communication with parties including Finland” over the incident, which is still under investigation, and “stands ready to provide necessary assistance in accordance with international law.” Mao Ning told reporters on Wednesday that the Chinese government hopes “relevant parties will follow the principles of being objective, fair, just and professional and find out what happened soon.” Earlier this week, Mao said the Chinese vessel was “sailing through relevant waters normally when the incident occurred. Due to the rather bad conditions at sea, it didn’t detect anything abnormal.”  Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation has published a photo of the broken anchor that investigators retrieved from the seabed.  The next step would be to confirm that it came from the Chinese container vessel and determine if the damage was an accident or intentional, said Carl Schuster, a retired U.S. Navy captain turned maritime analyst. “If evidence of the Newnew Polar Bear&#8217;s involvement surfaces, then the captain will try to claim it was an accident but that is not likely unless the evidence is conclusive,” Schuster told RFA. Cable cutting The Estonian government has said it is investigating two incidents that might also be linked to the Newnew Polar Bear, in which a telecoms cable connecting Finland and Estonia and another between Sweden and Estonia, were damaged. Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas was quoted in the domestic media as saying that there are reasons to believe that the three incidents are related, but “it is too early to reveal sensitive information.” Some observers recall that Chinese ships were accused of damaging communications cables before. In April, Taiwan’s National Communications Commission blamed two Chinese ships for cutting two undersea internet cables connecting Taiwan island and the outlying islands of Matsu, leading to 50 days of no, or very limited internet access, there. The same cables have been damaged 27 times since 2017 by Chinese sand dredging and fishing boats, some cut by ships’ anchors, Taiwanese authorities said. RFA analyzed automatic identification system data provided by ship-tracking website MarineTraffic and found that at around 1:00 a.m. on Oct. 8, the Newnew Polar Bear was approaching the site of the Balticconnector pipeline.  During the course of one hour or so, the Newnew Polar Bear slowed down to under 11 knots before picking up again, but did not stop.  Besides the Chinese ship, a Russian flag bearer – the nuclear-powered cargo ship Sevmorput – was also seen at the scene, sailing at a higher speed. Norwegian seismology institute NORSAR reported blast-like waves near the pipeline at the time. What does Russia say? NewNew Polar Bear was renamed and registered in Hong Kong in June. Immediately prior to this, the ship sailed under the name Baltic Fulmar flying the Cypriot flag. Newnew Polar Bear and four other ships owned by China’s Hainan Yangpu Newnew Shipping Co. began transporting cargo between Russia and China using the Northern Sea Route along Russia’s Arctic coast in July. The route was previously not operational because of the ice. The Newnew Polar Bear made a port call in Baltiysk, Russia, on Oct. 6. Credit: Anton Alikhanov’s Telegram Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom is believed to assist the Chinese shipping line with nuclear-powered icebreakers, reducing the transit time between Russia’s St Petersburg and China’s Shanghai to less than a month, compared to 45-50 days if using the route through the Suez Canal. Sevmorput is part of the Rosatom-owned nuclear icebreaker fleet, the only such fleet in the world. The Northern Sea Route is one of the strategic priorities of cooperation between the Russians and the Chinese, and Newnew Polar Bear reflects this close collaboration.  But Russian netizens have posted photos of the vessel flying the Russian flag at port calls, such as on Oct. 6 in Baltiysk, Kaliningrad’s region. This left watchers puzzled. “It is not legal under international law for the ship to fly a Russian flag unless its registration was changed to Russia. There is no evidence it has changed its registration,” said maritime analyst Carl Schuster.  “A commercial vessel must fly the flag of its country of registration although it may have a logo of its country of ownership painted on its superstructure,” he added, So far, as the suspicion is not directed at Russia, Russian official channels have yet to comment on the case.  Yet on social media platforms, Russian analysts and observers have been talking about what they call “the West attempting to block traffic from China to Russia and Europe.” “Perhaps the West understands that this traffic can increase massively in the near future &#8211; both from the Baltic and along the Northern Sea Route,” one...
- [Vietnamese fisherfolk protest dock construction project](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnamese-fisherfolk-protest-dock-construction-project/): Dozens of residents from a fishing area in north-central Vietnam this week have protested the building of a port project, despite police launching a criminal investigation of them for disturbing public order, demonstrators said. On Wednesday, Thanh Hoa provincial authorities mobilized dozens of police officers to force protesting fisherfolk — mostly women — to leave the construction site where a dock is being built, one of the sources said. Though they stayed, police did not take any measures against them and left the area at noon. About 300 residents of Hai Ha commune first took to the streets on the morning of Oct. 23 with banners and placards to show their opposition to the Long Son Container Port project, which they say will adversely affect their livelihoods and living environment.  “We don’t want the Long Son Container Port project because it is located in the coastal area we inherited from our ancestors, and it has been passed down from generation to generation,” said a villager on Wednesday who declined to be named out of fear of reprisal by authorities. Fishing provides the only income to cover her family’s expenditures, including her children’s education expenses, she said.  “If the port is built, residents like us will be adversely affected by pollution, and there will be no places for our boats to anchor and no places for us to trade seafood,” she said. Generating income Long Son Ltd. Co. is investing more than US$30 million to build the 15-hectare (37-acre) project, which will have a 250-meter (820-foot) dock. It is expected to be operational in 2025.  The project will play a crucial role in the development of the first dedicated container port area at Nghi Son Port, according to state-run Vietnam News Agency. Once Dock No. 3 is built, it will serve as a dike against waves and winds and create a 10-hectare (33-foot) water area for local fishermen to safely anchor their boats. The port is expected to generate revenue and jobs in Thanh Hoa province, including Hai Ha commune.  State media reported that Thanh Hoa provincial authorities conducted thorough studies and environmental assessments as well as consulted local people on the project.  But the woman said representatives of the authorities only went around to people’s homes to try to persuade them not to oppose the project and its implementation.  The protest on Oct. 23 prompted Nghi Son town police to file charges against them for obstructing traffic and causing a kilometer-long (0.6 mile) vehicle backup. Police at the scene took photos of the protesters, recorded videos and collected other information, some villagers involved in the demonstration said.  Police also issued an order requiring Hai Ha residents to adhere to the law and not to gather in groups to disrupt public order, incite others, or be enticed to obstruct the construction of Dock No. 3 of the Long Son Container Port project.  Threatened with arrest Police threatened them with arrest for disrupting public order — which carries a sentence of up to seven years in prison — if they continued. Hai Ha commune includes nearly 3,000 households with about 11,000 inhabitants, most of whom rely on fishing to make a living. The villagers say they fear that port officials will cut off their access to the waters where they fish and prohibit them from anchoring their boats. Villagers ignored the police order and continued their protest on Tuesday and Wednesday, hoping to prevent the dock’s construction.   The woman quoted above said that the villagers are not afraid of going to jail because they don’t want to lose their home beach. But if they have to relocate as a result of a loss of livelihoods, villagers will expect satisfactory compensation and a new living area with spaces to safely anchor their boats, she said. “We staged a march and did not offend anyone or did not cause any harm,” she said. “None of us offended the police. We followed the traffic law, [and] we walked on the roadside and stayed in rows.”  The port will join four other industrial projects surrounding the 1,200-hectare (2,965-acre) commune. The others are a cement factory, a port for coal transportation in the north, a thermal power plant in the west, and a steel factory in the south. Though the projects have created jobs for locals, they have also created serious environmental pollution, negatively affecting residents’ lives, a second woman said. Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Newborns and women among 50 detained in southern Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/newborns-and-women-among-50-detained-in-southern-myanmar/): Myanmar troops arrested around 50 villagers in an act of retaliation, locals told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday. After a local People’s Defence Force attacked a junta outpost, soldiers captured women, children and entire families from a nearby village. While the army has already released some detainees, others remain in custody in Tanintharyi, the country’s southern coastal region. Locals from Myeik township said soldiers captured them on Monday following a clash that allegedly left several junta soldiers dead. The arrests are ongoing, a resident who did not want to be named for security reasons told RFA on Wednesday. &#8220;They arrested all the villagers in Tone Byaw Gyi village. There are entire families, even mothers with newborn babies,” he said. “Some were released. Some are still being arrested.” The militia group attacked the post in Tone Byaw Gyi last week, an official from the local People’s Defense Force said. &#8220;We tried to seize the outpost, but we couldn&#8217;t because they laid many landmines around it,” he said, asking to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.  “We left the battle because we were out of arms and ammunition. Our side lost a drone in the battle.” Junta forces are treating villagers harshly because of their heavy losses, he said, adding that 12 soldiers were killed and six were injured. RFA has been unable to confirm these claims. Tanintharyi region’s junta spokesperson Thant Zin did not respond to RFA’s request for comment by the time of publication.  The junta outpost in Tone Byaw Gyi is the site of many ongoing clashes since the country’s 2021 coup, with local resistance groups bombing the outpost in July.  Regime troops arrested over 3,200 people in Tanintharyi region between April 2022 and September 2023. Among them, 2,141 were released, according to the independent research group that goes only by the initials FEB Tanintharyi. More than 25,000 people, including pro-democracy activists, have been arrested since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Lao officials, villagers in the dark about impacts of new railway](https://ij-reportika.com/lao-officials-villagers-in-the-dark-about-impacts-of-new-railway/): Construction of the Laos-Vietnam high-speed railway is expected to begin in early 2024, but its potential impacts on villagers who live along the planned route through Laos’ Khammouane province have not yet been made public, provincial officials and residents said. The US$6.3 billion, 555-kilometer (345-mile) railway is being built under a public-private partnership and will connect Laos’ capital Vientiane to the Vietnamese seaport of Vung Ang in Ha Tinh province. The cross-border railway is a joint venture between Petroleum Trading Lao Public Company and Vietnam’s Deo Ca Group Joint Stock Company. The project is part of a larger plan by the Lao government to build several new railroads to increase trade in the mostly poor, landlocked country. The 150 kilometers (93 miles) of railway built during the first phase of construction in Laos will run from the Lao-Thai border in Khammouane province’s Thakhek district to the Lao-Vietnamese border.  During phase two, 313 kilometers (194 miles) will be built from the Laos-Thai border to Vientiane. The project survey and design for this phase has yet to be completed. The project’s environmental impact assessment and an environmental and social impact assessment have been completed but not disclosed to the public, the sources said. An official from the province’s Department of Natural Resources and the Environment told Radio Free Asia that he didn’t know how many Lao residents would be affected by the construction because the companies involved have not shared the information with him. “Everything has to be based on the information from the companies,” he said Monday. “I have not seen any reports about how many families and villages will be affected. The district has not been informed.” Major infrastructure projects in Laos, such as hydropower dams and other railways, have caused the forced relocation of villagers and the loss of land they use along with their planted crops. Those affected have complained of being shortchanged on monetary compensation offered by the companies involved in the projects. An official from Khammouane province’s People’s Council told RFA on Monday that he has not seen the assessments either, so he doesn’t know how many villagers will lose their land or be relocated. Representatives of companies involved in the Laos-Vietnam railway sign the contract for the project in Vientiane, Laos, Aug. 31, 2023. Credit: Vientiane Times Villagers express concern Some residents who believe they may be affected by the project said they have not received any information, and there is no relevant office they can go to for information about the project’s impacts. A villager in Thakhek district said he has not received any information about the railway construction project and that provincial administrators have not informed villagers because they are afraid that some will oppose the project and demand fair compensation.  With other development projects in the province, some affected residents complained about receiving low compensation, he said. The villagers were not happy about receiving compensation that was less than the market value of land they lost, he said.  “The Lao government rarely reports on this via state media,” the villager added. Another villager in Mahaxay district said she learned about the railway project via social media, but officials have yet to inform villagers about the potential impacts. The signing ceremony for the construction took place in Vientiane in late August between Petroleum Trading Lao Public Company, South Korea’s Yooshin Engineering Corporation, and Korea National Railway, which were tasked with conducting a detailed design study of the railway before construction began. Chanthone Sitthixay, chairman of Petroleum Trading Lao Public Company, told Lao Star Channel on Aug. 31 that phase one of the railways in Laos was expected to take a little over two years to complete. In Vietnam, the railway will span 103 kilometers (64 miles) from the Laos-Vietnam border to Vung Ang seaport. The Laos-Vietnam railway is expected to be completed and enter into operation by 2028. Translated by Phouvong for RFA Lao. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Matt Reed.
- [Myanmar junta gives 6 men life sentences under martial law](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-gives-6-men-life-sentences-under-martial-law/): Myanmar’s junta gave life sentences to six men, lawyers told Radio Free Asia on Tuesday.  In a five-day military trial ending Monday, a tribunal sentenced the men for alleged acts of terrorism.  The punishment is especially harsh because they were sentenced in an area under martial law, one lawyer said. &#8220;If they can hire a lawyer for cases like these in civil courts, the maximum prison sentence is just 10 years,” he told RFA. The Northwestern Military Command tribunal found them guilty of supporting their local People’s Defense Force and related activities prohibited under the country’s notorious counter-terrorism laws.  The trial started on Thursday in Sagaing region in northwest Myanmar, where those accused include people from four townships.  Pale township’s Zayar Myo and Than Zaw Linn, Shwebo township’s Min Khant Kyaw, Banmauk township’s Than Naing Oo and Indaw township’s Hein Min Thu and Zaw Myint Tun all live in areas under harsh military law. Heavy punishments have often been imposed by the military just on suspicion after martial law was declared in Sagaing region, an official of the Yinmabin township’s People’s Defense Force said.  &#8220;If anyone is even suspected of supporting the revolution without participating, severe punishments are handed down. They [the junta] are above the law,” he said. Given the large presence of anti-junta groups in the area, some resistance soldiers say the military has begun arresting people without any due cause.  In early September, seven people in Sagaing region were sentenced to lengthy prison terms, including life in prison. One People’s Defence Force officer said the accused had no connection to any local resistance group.  In the seven months following the implementation of martial law, the Myanmar military arrested and imprisoned 30 Ayadaw township residents and sentenced 10 Indaw residents to death and life in prison.  Calls to Sagaing region’s junta spokesperson Sai Naing Naing Kyaw seeking comment on the sentences went unanswered. Fourteen townships in Sagaing region, including Pale, Shwebo, Banmauk and Indaw have been under martial law since February 2023, shortly after the military extended its emergency rule nationwide.  Since then, military courts have sentenced 285 civilians to prison terms, according to pro-junta broadcast groups on the messaging app Telegram. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [US officials: China’s economic woes may slow military rise](https://ij-reportika.com/us-officials-chinas-economic-woes-may-slow-military-rise/): China’s military may be more aggressive than ever before, but economic woes could force some tough spending decisions that slow its continued rise, two U.S. defense officials said Monday. Speaking at the Atlantic Council about the Pentagon’s latest China Military Power Report, an annual evaluation of Beijing’s military power mandated by Congress, the officials said China’s economic troubles coincided with higher costs of military modernization.  “They are getting into areas that are more expensive and more technologically complex,” said Michael Chase, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for China, Taiwan and Mongolia. Chase said Beijing relied more on the People’s Liberation Army “as an instrument of advancing his foreign policy objectives” than ever before, and that an economic slowdown would not likely change that. But U.S. officials, he said, were watching “whether a slowing economy imposes some trade offs between different projects that are important components of PLA modernization.” He listed the building of aircraft carriers, nuclear weapons and foreign bases as big-ticket items. “We&#8217;re probably beginning to see some of that evidence, and I think we&#8217;ll see more of it over time,” he said. “They&#8217;re becoming increasingly technologically sophisticated and, therefore, increasingly pricey.” Nuclear threat Released last week, the China Military Power Report says Beijing last year continued to build its nuclear weapons arsenal and may even be considering building missiles capable of reaching the United States. It also reiterated last year’s report that said China is the U.S. military’s “top pacing challenge” and the “the only competitor with the intent and increasingly the capability to reshape the international order.” Ely Ratner, the assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security, told the Atlantic Council on Monday that despite that assessment, he agreed that China’s economic issues had thrown a spanner in the works – both for the military and for its regular diplomacy.  “We may be seeing some of those trade-offs already,” Ratner said. “We have seen for instance, over the last couple of years, Belt and Road investments by [China] dropping dramatically around the world.” The Belt and Road Initiative was “one of the top priorities for the leadership in Beijing” when it was launched 10 years ago, he said, but “because of their economic slowdown, you see them less able and less willing to be supporting those kinds of investments overseas.” “So even things that are high priorities are getting cut in the face of this economic slowdown, and the PLA will be no different over time.”
- [Junta sentences 7 men to death in Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady region](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-sentences-7-men-to-death-in-myanmars-ayeyarwady-region/): Myanmar’s military regime sentenced seven men in Ayeyarwady region to death, Pyapon township residents told Radio Free Asia over the weekend. Pyapon District Court issued the sentences on Friday, ordering another seven men to spend up to 55 years in prison in the country’s southern delta. The court found Wunna Tun, San Linn San, Kyaw San Oo, Thura Phyo, Tun Tun Oo and Aung Moe Myint guilty of murder. The junta accused them of killing two women who worked for Pyapon township’s administration department, as well as of being members of local People’s Defense Force, Black Dragon Force Pyapon. On lesser charges, the district judge found Hein Thu Lwin, Win Myat Thein Zaw, Kaung Sithu, Kyaw Ko Ko, Zaw Myint Thu, Kyaw Thura and Ye Zaw Htet guilty under Counter-Terrorism Laws. Their charges included involvement in bombings and other terrorism-related activities. Their sentences ranged from five to 55 years in prison.  Authorities took the group to Pathein Prison in the region’s capital and are keeping them isolated, sources close to their families told RFA.  &#8220;Yesterday, 15 prisoners appeared in court. But one man was able to leave because his order wasn’t correct,” a person close to the court said, asking to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. &#8220;Fourteen people were sentenced. The cases are the same. Then they were sent to Pathein Prison. They are being kept in solitary confinement.&#8221; But their cases aren’t over yet, he added. Officials are still processing additional charges.  The group is one of the largest sentenced to death since the 2021 February coup began. A secret military court in Insein Prison gave seven student activists from Yangon’s Dagon University the death penalty on the same murder charge the Ayeyarwady men face. RFA’s calls to Ayeyarwady region’s junta spokesman Maung Maung Than went unanswered. Pyapon District Court also sentenced three men to death last month on accusations of murder as members of a People’s Defense Force. The judge issued the verdict to Kyaw Moe Lwin and Win Htay, both from Bogale township, as well as Maubin township’s Wai Yan Kyaw on Sept. 29. Four residents from the Ayeyarwady region’s Bogale township, including Zaw Win Tun, Naing Wai Linn, Min Thu Aung and Pyae Sone Phyo, were given the death penalty on Sept. 4 for allegedly killing a local woman. The regime has sentenced a total of 156 people to death since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Will Hong Kong’s star shine again?](https://ij-reportika.com/will-hong-kongs-star-shine-again/): A typical Friday evening in Mong Kok district comes to a hush before midnight. It is the new normal for a district once fused with the buzz and raw energy that was the essence of Hong Kong.  Yet, it is the old vibe that Hong Kong officials are aspiring to recover. In mid-September, the government launched “Night Vibes Hong Kong,” involving night markets, food stalls, movie screenings and live music events over weekends. Over the past 12 months, it has rolled out campaigns including a six-month program to bring tourists back and also gone on global roadshows to win back investors.  The effectiveness of the efforts remains elusive, despite Chief Executive John Lee’s vow to a year ago in his maiden policy speech to go all out to draw back talent and businesses to a city battered by a stringent zero-COVID policy and Beijing’s hardened grip. Tell the world the good stories of Hong Kong was the mantra, he quipped. As Lee prepares to make his second policy address this week, analysts say the good stories are few, and the issues that have eroded Hong Kong’s unique competitiveness continue to chip away. The city’s international financial center and economic hub positions are crumbling under the weight of Beijing’s tightened grip of the special administrative region where the “one country, two systems” principle is taking a new form under Chinese President Xi Jinping. “Hong Kong’s major indicators – freedom, rule of law, international financial center status, international standards of practices, property market, stock market, government’s financial reserves – are all on the decline, and it is a Hong Kong government problem,” points out Lew Mon-hung, a businessman and former Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference committee member. ‘Promoting Marxism’ To be exact, it’s a problem stemming from Beijing, Lew says, because Hong Kong’s progress and fate are intricately tied to China’s continuous reforms as they have been the past four decades.  That path, however, has been stymied by the shift in political climate in the mainland, and the Chinese National People’s Congress’s passing of the National Security Law in June 2020 – bypassing Hong Kong’s legislature – to quell months of anti-government protests. “In China now, they are promoting Marxism – having gotten into the philosophy of struggle, wolf warrior diplomacy,” which Lew says comes at the expense of economic and thought regressions. People walk through an outdoor market in Hong Kong&#8217;s Mong Kok area on Aug. 20, 2022. Credit: Bertha Wang/AFP These weighed on the “one country, two systems,” China’s constitutional principle to govern Hong Kong under a mini-constitution called the Basic Law, where the city is allowed freedom of assembly and speech, an independent judiciary and some democratic rights – except in the areas of diplomacy and defense.  “Beijing reckons that Hong Kong only needs to play an economic role after its return to Chinese rule,” says Hong Kong current affairs commentator Johnny Lau Yui-siu.  “But Hong Kong people’s view of the world is different from mainland China’s political awareness and consciousness. And Beijing wants Hong Kong to align.”  Hong Kongers, he says, are outward-looking, used to international practices, free flow of information and speech, unlike their Chinese counterparts who are restricted by the boundaries that the Chinese Communist Party had set.  As China stalls in its convergence towards international standards, Hong Kong became the by-product of that stagnation, Lau says. The numbers add up The numbers tell the same story. China’s exports fell 14.3% and 8.8% in July and August respectively, while Hong Kong’s fell 9.1% and 3.7%. The benchmark stock index has lost about 12% since the beginning of 2023 and Hong Kong’s property prices are forecast to fall 5% for the year, according to a commercial real estate services firm Cushman &amp; Wakefield.  The uncertainties that keep foreign investors guessing about where the political winds blow in China also reverberate in Hong Kong. China’s crackdown on industries such as the technology sector, as well as its more recent position to let an indebted property industry go into a free fall, have done little to assure investors. A pedestrian passes the Hong Kong Stock Exchange electronic screen in Hong Kong on July 21, 2023. Credit: Louise Delmotte/AP The latest annual survey by the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai published in September showed that the percentage of U.S. firms optimistic about their outlook on China over the next five years slid to 52%, the lowest level since the annual report was introduced in 1999. In Hong Kong, a member sentiment survey by the AmCham in Hong Kong released in March found that American businesses’ three biggest challenges are U.S.-China tensions, a weakening global economy and the overseas perception of Hong Kong, a factor that was previously absent. “If the HKSAR Govt can reassure international investors that the rule of law will prevail, and the NSL will not put their staff in jeopardy, it will go a long way.  But it is at the moment delivering neither,” says Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute at SOAS University of London. Rebuilding reputation The chamber has urged Hong Kong chief Lee to provide “straightforward interpretations and applications” of the law in his upcoming policy speech. In its written submission in September to the public consultation for the policy address, the chamber wants Lee to reassure businesses that the law will be applied narrowly and be consistent with the principles of an independent judiciary. The ramifications of the national security law, which criminalizes any act of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign or external forces, have never ceased since it was implemented. How the Hong Kong government has used the law to change the political and civic institutions in the city has alarmed a wide spectrum of the society. Opposition parties and media outlets were shuttered, while pro-democratic figures have either been arrested or have fled the city. An earlier post-COVID reopening by longtime rival Singapore didn’t help. Toeing Beijing&#8217;s stringent zero-COVID policy was a death knell for...
- [Yangon residents skip meals amid soaring rice and cooking oil prices](https://ij-reportika.com/yangon-residents-skip-meals-amid-soaring-rice-and-cooking-oil-prices/): Residents in Myanmar’s largest city of Yangon are having to eat less food because rice and cooking oil prices have more than doubled – and sometimes tripled – since the junta came to power in the February 2021 coup, they told Radio Free Asia. The economy of Myanmar has suffered under the junta with unemployment rising sharply and price increases for nearly all commodities. Residents report that their wages have not increased amid rampant inflation. Aye Aye Thin, the matriarch of her family, told RFA Burmese that the adults are skipping meals so that the children can have their fill. “Before 2021, I could cook seven tins of rice, and my family was well fed,” she said. “After the coup, I can cook only four tins of rice. Our income is not enough because rice and cooking oil prices are skyrocketing.” She said that everyone in the house eats a morning meal, but the adults skip the afternoon meal because there is nothing left. “We have to go to bed hungry,” Aye Aye Thin said. “I haven’t seen good quality rice and cooking oil for a long time.”  Another resident, Thin Zar, said that she skips meals so that she can feed her son and husband. “It is not enough to buy rice with 1,000 or 2,000 kyats (48 U.S. cents to $1). Only when I buy 2,500 kyats ($1.20) worth of rice, it is just enough for my husband and son,” she said. “Mostly, I’m starving. The only way we’re all well fed is if there is charity.”   War and price controls There are several reasons for the surging rice prices, including unrealistic price controls, transport restrictions and fighting that has destroyed farms and farmland. Farmers told RFA that since junta troops burned houses and barns in Shwebo, Kanbalu Khin-U, Ye-U and Taze townships, they can no longer grow as much rice as they could before. There are several Destruction of rice fields and homes, or forcing people to flee in rice-producing upper Myanmar, price control by the junta authorities and transport restrictions are the reasons for higher rice prices in Myanmar. “Wages are not increasing, it’s only the price of goods that keeps going up,” Khin Maung Win, who used to own an apartment in Yangon, now lives as a tenant. Credit: RFA Khin Maung Win, who used to own an apartment in Yangon, now lives as a tenant. He told RFA that over the last two or three years, prices have risen but wages have not. Rice prices have tripled, and the price of lower quality rice, which has red seeds mixed in, isn’t that much lower, he said. Cooking oil  The price of cooking oil has also jumped. Customers who once were able to afford sunflower oil or peanut oil now have to line up to buy cheaper palm oil because prices have been rising and there is a cooking oil shortage, Ma Soe, a grocery store owner, told RFA. “In a period of three years, the [cooking oil] prices have doubled or tripled, so they can’t afford sunflower oil or peanut oil anymore,” he said. “People of all walks of life can only afford palm oil. But the stores can’t get enough.” A rice shop in Yangon is seen on Oct. 4, 2023. The price of even low-grade rice has doubled. Credit: RFA On Sept. 9, Myanmar junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing said that action has been taken against those who are speculating on commodity prices. However, Kyi Tha, an economic analyst, said that such action can be ruinous for economic growth. “They arrest and imprison rice and oil merchants. They extort them. They told the merchants that they had to sell at set prices,” he said. “You can’t create an economic boom by orders and authority.” According to the analysis of Trading Economics, which provides data for the economic indicators of 196 countries, Myanmar’s unemployment rate was only 0.7 percent in 2019, and now it has reached 2.2 percent in 2023.  In a list of the 25 poorest countries in the world 2023, published by the International Monetary Fund, Myanmar is ranked 24, the poorest country in Southeast Asia. Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Junta hits political prisoners with package restrictions, transfers](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-hits-political-prisoners-with-package-restrictions-transfers/): Junta policies that restrict packages to jailed inmates and permit prisoners to be transferred to remote facilities without notifying relatives are negatively impacting the health of political prisoners in Myanmar, their family members told RFA Burmese on Friday. The two practices are seen by rights campaigners as ways for the junta to punish critics of its rule. But they can have a deadly effect on the lives of what Thailand’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma) says are the more than 19,600 prisoners of conscience languishing in Myanmar’s poorly provisioned jails since the military’s February 2021 coup d’etat. Traditionally, families of all inmates have been allowed to send enough food for two weeks at a time, as well as medicine and other supplies, to supplement what little is provided to them in prison by the state. The amount also allowed for inmates to share food with those whose families have less to give. But beginning in August, several prisons across the country introduced limits on sending packages to political prisoners – but not the prisons’ general population – with no official announcement or explanation for the decision. Family members told RFA Burmese that the new rules have left their loved ones without enough to eat and in need of medicine to address medical conditions. The family member of a political prisoner in Pathein, who was sentenced to more than 20 years in prison, said that the new restrictions mean that what can be sent will now barely support them for a week. She said that she can now only send seven packets of instant coffee, five packets of instant noodles, 14.4 ounces of dry snacks and 1.8 pounds of curry. “He won’t even be able to eat [enough] for a week,” she said. Min Lwin Oo, a member of the Dawei district strike committee, told RFA that the health of his 65-year-old imprisoned father, who was sentenced to two years in Dawei Prison in August 2022 for “defaming the state,” is now “worse than when he was outside.” He said his father has asked for a daily supply of medicine to treat a fungal skin disease, but that he has been unable to send it due to the new restrictions. “Before [prison], he used to visit clinics regularly, but he can’t do that anymore,” Min Lwin Oo said. “Things like creams don&#8217;t work well for this problem, so I am worried about his health.” In addition to the restrictions on packages, shortly after seizing power, the junta instituted a ban on in-person meetings between political prisoners and their lawyers on the pretext of preventing the spread of Covid-19.  The ban, which remains in place despite drastically reduced Covid transmission numbers, has limited the ability of prisoners of conscience to fight charges for crimes they say are politically motivated and that they didn’t commit. Prison transfers Authorities have also used transfers to remote prisons – often without informing families – as a form of retribution against political prisoners that limits their access to lawyers, loved ones, and badly needed supplies, watchdog groups say. Family members of prisoners being released wait in front of Pathein Prison, Aug. 1, 2023. Credit: Citizen journalist Ko Ganang, a member of a group that sends supplies to prisons, said political prisoners who are sent to remote facilities can find themselves “in serious trouble.” “Families can’t afford travel expenses, even if it is only once a month,” he said. “The country&#8217;s economy is not good, so it is very difficult for family members of political prisoners. They are financially discriminated against.” According to Thaik Tun Oo, a leading member of the Myanmar Political Prisoners Network, conditions for political prisoners became much worse in the country after the junta appointed Myo Swe – formerly of the regime’s ministry of defense – to replace Zaw Min as director general of the ministry of home affairs’ prison department. “After a military officer became the director general of prisons, the [political] prisoners were forbidden from wearing clothes they used to wear and reading the books they used to read,” he said, noting that not even books published with official permission are allowed to be read in prisons anymore. “They are no longer allowed to keep personal belongings, such as toothbrushes, and drinking water can no longer be sent from the outside,” he said. “We’ve learned that it’s the prison authorities who are carrying out this oppression.” No legal basis for restrictions Thaik Tun Oo said that at least 24 prisons across the country have been restricting the sending of packages to political prisoners, with no reason provided. A lawyer, who declined to be named due to security reasons, said that under Myanmar’s laws, all inmates have the right to meet with their family members, engage in correspondence and receive supplies. “All inmates are allowed to meet in-person with their family members … and if there is no opportunity to meet in person, they can receive supplies [or letters],” he said. “These are the ways that inmates can maintain contact with the outside. According to the prison manual, unless there are special circumstances, every prisoner must be provided these rights.” RFA’s attempts to reach out to Naing Win, a spokesman for the prison department, regarding the restrictions on sending supplies to inmates went unanswered Friday. Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
- [Junta razes village in northern Myanmar, opens fire on residents](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-razes-village-in-northern-myanmar-opens-fire-on-residents/): A man died and eight were injured when troops laid landmines in their village in Sagaing region after raiding it and burning the houses to the ground. Two mines exploded while residents were cleaning up the remains of their houses, one Pyawbwe resident told Radio Free Asia. After the troops left the village, they turned back to shell the survivors.  “After they left, we went in and cleared the burnt houses in the village. The two mines planted by the junta soldiers were stepped on and blew up,” said the man who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. “The troops shelled the area that had been blown up, injuring nine people with landmines and heavy artillery. One of them died this morning.” The column trekked from Ye-U township to Tabayin township. Villages along the route were systematically raided and bombarded with heavy artillery, he added. Across the south of Sagaing region, military convoys have carried out brutal attacks, causing thousands to flee their homes in early October.  Troops killed one man and arrested 30 on a five-day raid across Shwebo, Khin-U, Pale and Kanbalu townships during the third week of October. On Saturday, villagers found three teenagers beaten and shot to death outside their village in Yinmarbin township.  RFA contacted Sagaing region’s ethnic affairs minister and junta spokesperson Sai Naing Naing Kyaw seeking comment on the attack, but he did not reply by time of publication.  Nationwide, junta convoys killed eight civilians from Oct. 1 to 17 with airstrikes and heavy artillery, according to data compiled by RFA. Forty-one people were injured. More than 800,000 people have fled their homes in Sagaing region due to the conflict since the military coup, according to the United Nations. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [51 nations blast China over violating Uyghurs’ rights](https://ij-reportika.com/51-nations-blast-china-over-violating-uyghurs-rights/): In a joint statement, 51 countries, including the United States, expressed deep concern to the United Nations on Wednesday over Chinese human rights violations of Uyghurs in its far-western Xinjiang region. The move comes after China was elected to the U.N. Human Rights Council for the 2024-2026 term – despite its poor track record in protecting rights. “Members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim minorities in Xinjiang continue to suffer serious violations of their human rights by the authorities of the People’s Republic of China,” said the statement, which was delivered by James Kariuki, Britain’s U.N. ambassador. It urged China to respond to an August 2022 report issued by the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, or OHCHR, which concluded China’s mass detentions of Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities on a large scale in Xinjiang “may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.” The report found that “serious human rights violations” have been committed in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region amid the Chinese government’s claims of countering terrorism and extremism. The assessment cited evidence of invasive surveillance on the basis of religion and ethnicity, restrictions on cultural and religious practices, torture and ill-treatment of detainees, forced abortion and sterilization of Muslim women, enforced disappearances, family separations, and forced labor, the statement noted. “Over a year has passed since that assessment was released and yet China has not engaged in any constructive discussion of these findings,” said the statement issued at the U.N.’s Third Committee, which meets annually in early October to deal with human rights, humanitarian affairs and social matters.   In its recommendations, the OHCHR had called on the Chinese government to release detainees from camps and other detention facilities, issue details about the location of Uyghurs in Xinjiang who have been out of touch with relatives abroad, allow travel so families can be reunited, and investigate allegations of human rights abuses. ‘Strong remedial action’ At the most recent session of the U.N’s Human Rights Council in September, Volker Türk, the current high commissioner for human rights, called on China to follow the recommendations of the assessment and take “strong remedial action.” Maya Wang, associate director of the Asia division at Human Rights Watch, said maintaining pressure on China is part of a continued effort to hold the country accountable for its actions in Xinjiang. “Suffice it to say that moving a government as abusive and powerful as China’s takes a lot of effort and time, and that pressing the U.N. to keep prioritizing human rights in its interactions with China is part of this long and hard effort,” she told Radio Free Asia. Women walk past a propaganda slogan promoting ethnic unity in &#8216;the new era,&#8217; in both Chinese and Uyghur languages, in Yarkand, northwestern China&#8217;s Xinjiang region, July 18, 2023. Credit: Pedro Paro/AFP The New York-based right group called on U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres on Monday to press Chinese President Xi Jinping to end crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other serious rights abuses in China, during a visit to Beijing to attend the third Belt and Road Forum on Oct. 17-18. “Since becoming secretary-general in 2017, Guterres has shown reluctance to publicly criticize the Chinese government for its severe and worsening repression,” HRW said in a statement. Growing number Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress, welcomed the joint U.N. statement, noting that a few African and South American countries have signed this year’s statement condemning China’s atrocities against Uyghurs.  “In 2019, there were only 20 countries that signed on to the joint statement,” he said.  “Despite China’s efforts to spread disinformation to cover up it genocide against Uyghurs by increasing tourism, inviting friendly diplomats and journalists to the region, the fact that there are more countries signed on to this joint statement this time proves the complete failure of China’s disinformation campaign,” he said. Luke de Pulford, executive director of Inter-parliamentary Alliance on China, said the latest statement should not be confused with action.  “We shouldn’t be fooled,” he told RFA. “It’s good that the U.K. should be applauded for taking some symbolic action, but these statements do not achieve accountability. It shouldn’t be confused and conflated with accountability.”  Xinjiang regional expert Adrian Zenz agreed that “writing a letter was good, but it cost you nothing,” he tweeted on X, formerly known as Twitter.  “You are not paying any actual price for your values,” he wrote. “Actions speak louder than words. Actions could include: Effective forced labor ban. Legal atrocity determination. Sanctioning higher level officials.”    Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar activists sentenced to decades in prison](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-activists-sentenced-to-decades-in-prison/): Two activists were sentenced to heavy prison terms after participating in anti-regime activities, sources close to the families told Radio Free Asia on Thursday.  Since the country’s 2021 military coup, the junta has imposed harsh punishments on citizens suspected of joining or financing resistance groups.  Tanintharyi resident Yin Yin Cho was sentenced to 32 years in prison for supporting the People’s Defense Forces. Sagaing native Man Zar Myay Mon was sentenced to 11 years in prison last week for his role as a strike leader. Junta soldiers arrested both earlier on initial charges of acts of terrorism. Yin Yin Cho, 34, is a business owner in the southern coastal region’s capital of Dawei. A court found her guilty under three more counts of the country’s Counter-Terrorism Law, including acts committed against the state and acts of terrorism that result in death or injury. She was sentenced in a military court in Dawei last week, according to members of the Dawei Democracy Movement Strike Committee. Man Zar Myay Mon, who is from Chaung-U township in Myanmar’s northern Sagaing region, was sentenced to 11 more years in prison on Wednesday by Monywa Prison Court, said one person close to the family. This is in addition to a 10-year sentence for incitement against the junta, bringing his total to 21 years in prison.  He will serve time for three counts under the Counter-Terrorism Law, including possession or distribution of explosives.  Yin Yin Cho has been sentenced to a total of 44 years in prison. Credit: Citizen journalist Yin Yin Cho has been in prison since May for donating to People’s Defense Forces, and her total sentence is 44 years after a prior charge for terrorism. This is the longest prison sentence a woman from Tanintharyi region has faced since the coup began, said one member of  Dawei Democracy Movement Strike Committee, asking to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. “Yin Yin Cho was arrested at her home along with her younger brother in January this year. Their garment shop was closed soon after their arrest,” the member of Dawei’s strike committee told RFA. “She is the first who was sentenced to 40 years in prison [in Tanintharyi].”   He added that on the day of her arrest, her younger brother, Thet Zaw Win, was also arrested by the police and army. The court sentenced him to 22 years in prison last week for three counts under the Counter-Terrorism Law for supporting the People&#8217;s Defense Forces. Families told RFA they’re concerned about the excessive sentences. The punishment seems long for 20-year-old Man Zar Myay Mon, who never faced any criminal charges before the coup, a source close to the family said. The military council put out a warrant for the young man’s arrest in April 2021, just two months after the coup. Troops shot and arrested him while he was fleeing from Shan Htu village in Chaung-U township on June 8. After his arrest, he was tortured at the Monywa Interrogation Center, said a member of the Chaung-U strike committee, who did not want to be named for security reasons. “His fingers were flipped and broken during the interrogation, so his movement was not normal like before. He was shot in his thigh and injured when he was arrested,” the committee member said. “He was not allowed to receive full medical treatment, and the injuries did not heal in time. In other words, his health is very bad.” He added that Man Zar Myay Mon has not been allowed to meet with family, and was only recently permitted to receive food and medicine through the prison authorities. RFA attempted to contact officials in the Naypyidaw Prisons Department by phone regarding the heavy punishment being imposed on civilians, but they did not respond at the time of publication. The junta has sentenced several young activists nationwide to heavy prison sentences for anti-regime activities. Kyaw Thet, 27, from Mandalay region’s Wundwin township and Aung Khant Oo, 28, from Magway region’s Taungdwingyi township both have sentences surpassing 200 years.  As of Wednesday, there are over 19,000 political prisoners jailed across the country, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Police arrest former opposition councilor amid call to boycott poll](https://ij-reportika.com/police-arrest-former-opposition-councilor-amid-call-to-boycott-poll/): Hong Kong police have arrested a former pro-democracy member of the city&#8217;s District Council and prison welfare activist &#8212; amid calls for a boycott of forthcoming district elections, which are open to &#8220;patriots only.&#8221; Derek Chu, a 46-year-old former directly elected councilor who resigned in 2021 before being forced to take an oath of loyalty to the Hong Kong and Chinese governments, was arrested in Shatin on Tuesday on suspicion of breaching the city&#8217;s mandatory pension law, police told the paper. His arrest comes as the government moves ahead with an &#8220;election&#8221; process that will slash the number of directly elected seats on the District Council by 80%, while ensuring that almost nobody in the city&#8217;s once-vibrant opposition camp will stand for election again, the result of ongoing arrests of pro-democracy figures and rule changes requiring political vetting. &#8220;At about 12 noon, Derek Chu was taken to an office at Manulife Plaza in Kwun Tong by the police for evidence collection,&#8221; the report said. &#8220;He was later taken to a food store in W Plaza in Mong Kok and Fuk Keung Industrial Building in Tai Kok Tsui for investigation.&#8221; Those locations are linked to Chu&#8217;s &#8220;Migratory Bird&#8221; platform to support prisoners, which raised money via the As One online shopping platform – part of the &#8220;yellow economic circle of pro-democracy businesses&#8221; – to support his prison work. He is currently being held by the Sham Shui Po Crime Division pending further investigation, after his home was also searched and documents confiscated, the paper reported. Pan-democratic legislators announce their resignation from Hong Kong’s Legislative Council in Hong Kong, Nov. 11, 2020. Credit: Tyrone Siu/Reuters Chu was a member of the last directly elected District Council, which saw a landslide victory for pro-democracy candidates amid record turnout that was widely seen as a ringing public endorsement of the 2019 protest movement. He resigned his seat along with many like-minded colleagues amid an ongoing crackdown on dissent under a national security law imposed on the city by Beijing from July 2020. &#8216;Patriots&#8217; only The government later changed the Legislative Council electoral rules to ensure only &#8220;patriots&#8221; loyal to Beijing could stand as candidates or hold any kind of public office, prompting record-low turnout of 30.2% in Legislative Council elections in December 2021 compared with more than 70% in the last District Council poll. Officials then rewrote the District Council poll rules in May, citing a &#8220;disastrous&#8221; result in the 2019 election, sparking calls from overseas activists for a boycott of the forthcoming poll on Dec. 10. &#8220;Abandon illusions, boycott this fake election,&#8221; read an Oct. 16 statement on Facebook signed by dozens of former pro-democracy councilors. &#8220;We, the last district councilors to be elected by the citizens of Hong Kong, solemnly declare that we will not recognize these so-called elections run by the Communist regime of Hong Kong, and call on all citizens of Hong Kong to boycott the election and the councilors it produces,&#8221; the statement said. It said candidates wishing to take part have to run a complex gamut of vetting from support for nomination to a slew of official recommendation letters to political background checks, &#8220;all of which runs counter to the democratic spirit,&#8221; warning that anyone who makes it to the list of candidates is &#8220;purely a permitted cheerleader for the regime.&#8221; It said the government also looks set to use the &#8220;election&#8221; as an opportunity to engage in &#8220;the political brainwashing of minors.&#8221; &#8220;This so-called election will actually take place under military totalitarian rule, and can have no fairness or legitimacy,&#8221; the councilors wrote. Australia-based former pro-democracy lawmaker Ted Hui, who signed the statement, said the forthcoming poll is a &#8220;huge step backwards for democracy&#8221; in Hong Kong. &#8220;Most of the seats will be controlled by the government,&#8221; Hui said. &#8220;We believe that it would be best for citizens to totally refuse to take part, to boycott [the election].&#8221; &#8216;Huge step backwards&#8217; Some parties in the democratic camp have said they will field candidates, though it remains to be seen if their bid for candidacy will be accepted. The Democratic Party has said it hopes to field six candidates, and the Association of Democracy and People&#8217;s Livelihood wants to field two. Candidates celebrate after winning in the Legislative Council election in Hong Kong, December Dec. 20, 2021. The rules for the election were changed to ensure only &#8216;patriots&#8217; loyal to Beijing could stand as candidates or hold any kind of public office. Credit: Lam Yik/Reuters But Hui said this could send a dangerous signal about complicity with the authorities, who have told opposition parties to give up any hope of “Western-style democracy” in the city. &#8220;One or two [pro-democracy candidates] might pass the test and get nominated, but this will do great harm, because it shows the people of Hong Kong that they agree with this huge step backwards for democracy,&#8221; he said. Former district councilor Sam Yip, who also signed the statement, said it was naive of pro-democracy parties to imagine it was worth contesting such elections. &#8220;It helps to whitewash these elections, which are illegal, unfair and inconsistent with the whole concept of democracy,&#8221; Yip said. &#8220;Their actions are actually ruining democracy.&#8221; &#8216;A screening process&#8217; Secretary for Home and Youth Affairs Alice Mak, asked if the government is expecting turnout to fall in this year&#8217;s poll, said it wasn&#8217;t the most important thing. &#8220;We should not just look at the turnout in District Council elections, [which can be] affected by many factors, such as the weather, including whether it rains that day, whether there is a typhoon in the summer, and whether the weather will be too cold,&#8221; Mak said. &#8220;The most important thing is how to find patriots who sincerely serve the community and citizens through the electoral system,&#8221; she said. Former Hong Kong Island Eastern District councilor Derek Ngai, who also resigned to avoid taking his oath, said democrats faced with the oath of loyalty requirement feared being required to pay back two...
- [Junta recruits teen soldiers in Myanmar’s delta](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-recruits-teen-soldiers-in-myanmars-delta/): The junta is increasing quotas this week for villagers to undergo military training in Ayeyarwaddy division, locals told Radio Free Asia. In some villages in Pathein township, six people per village must now enroll. Since late September, soldiers have been visiting townships across the region, driving up conscriptions however they can. Without local laws guiding recruitment in the country’s southern delta region, teenagers are also being forced to join. “In Ayeyarwady region, there is no age limit for militia training,” one Pathein resident who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals said on Tuesday. “The [junta] persuaded young people to also learn to be soldiers.” In Mawlamyinegyun township, teenagers told RFA they were selected after soldiers demanded three participants from their village. But some locals are concerned about the lack of age limit and speaking out against the recruitment of minors. “Enlisting minors into [militia training] is creating child soldiers. They shouldn’t do it because it’s against international law,” one person from Mawlamyinegyun township told RFA, asking for anonymity to protect himself. They added that the people recruited must travel to the Southwestern Regional Military Headquarters in Ayeyarwady division’s capital of Pathein.   Recruiters gave at least 80 people in Ngwe Saung, Pathein and Ngapudaw townships cash bribes to attend.  Local administrators are also enforcing the regime’s orders, leaving many to feel they have no other choice. In some townships, a quota of 30 people must be met and registered for every six villages, said Pathein and Mawlamyinegyun residents. Instead of attending the two-week training, some villagers went into hiding. To combat this problem, soldiers began providing training within communities. The military ordered some people who attended the two-week militia training to return as security guards for their villages, said Pathein residents. But others say they haven’t seen their family members since they left for the training, and do not know where they are. This isn’t the first time the junta has turned to Ayeyarwady division to bolster its numbers. In May and June, widespread conscription in the delta forced several people to flee. Families were forced to pay the army if they didn’t have a family member able to serve, or a fine of over US$50 if that person didn’t want to join the regime troops.  Calls by RFA to junta council spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun seeking comment on this issue went unanswered, as did calls to Ayeyarwady’s junta spokesperson Maung Maung Than. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Elaine Chan
- [Myanmar’s Sagaing region sees a resurgence of anti-junta protests](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-sagaing-region-sees-a-resurgence-of-anti-junta-protests/): Anti-junta protesters have returned to the streets of Myanmar’s Sagaing region, despite intense crackdowns and raids by military forces, organizers of the demonstrations said. Residents in the northwestern region are not only leading armed resistance efforts, but also holding nonviolent protests again as they did in the months following the February 2021 military coup that seized power from the country’s elected government, local activists said.   The takeover triggered a wave of resistance across the country, prompting the military to respond with violence and mass arrests. Despite the crackdowns, citizens took up arms in self-defense, forming groups known as People’s Defense Forces, while the coup also stoked conflicts that had been on the decline in ethnic borderland areas.  Sagaing emerged early on as a hotbed of armed dissent and remains so more than two and a half years after the coup with armed conflicts occurring nearly every day between resistance forces and junta troops. Hundreds of residents of Kani, Mingin, Salingyi, Yinmarbin, Kalay, Khin-U, Ye-U and Chaung-U townships are participating in peaceful public protests that resumed in early October, activists leading the protests said. They are demanding that people cut off the flow of money to the junta’s coffers, boycotting military-owned products and rejecting military-sponsored elections, the sources said.   Protest groups To resurrect the popular movement, protest groups in different townships formed a regional committee on Oct. 1 to better coordinate public marches, Khant Wai Phyo, a member of the Monywa People’s Strike Committee, told Radio Free Asia. “The number of people who can be armed is limited, [but] on the other hand, there is a large majority of people who do not accept the military dictatorship at all,” he said. “Therefore, the public has joined in activities that the majority of the public can do — demonstrating that they do not accept the military.” Nearly 40 protest groups are now active at the township and village levels, he said. Farmers from Khin-U township stage an outlawed plowing protest against the Myanmar junta in northwestern Myanmar&#8217;s Sagaing region, Aug. 29, 2023. Credit: Khin-U township True News Information As they did in the period following the coup when people took to the streets to voice their displeasure with the regime, residents are taking huge risks by participating in the anti-regime protests because junta soldiers violently crack down on them, said an official from the Kani Strike Committee.  “Because of such continuous movements, we support [the anti-regime protesters] and strengthen the movement,” he said.  “The movement in Sagaing is strong, [and] people take risks to join the activities,” he said. The people of Sagaing region are not acting out of desperation amid ongoing crackdowns by the junta, but rather are fighting back with a strong will, said Nay Zin Latt, a lawmaker for Sagaing region’s Kanbalu township under the former democratically elected government toppled by the military. “The  junta is attempting to instill fear in the population, though the public is actively participating in public activities in various forms without backing down,” he said. “Even after more than two or three years of the revolution, it still hasn’t weakened.” Boycotts Protesters are urging others in the region not to buy or sell military-owned products, Nay Zin Latt said, to prevent the cash-strapped ruling junta, subjected to international sanctions, from benefiting financially. An official from Kanbalu township People’s Defense Force said locals can easily conduct protests there because the resistance fighters control about 70% of the township.  Junta soldiers “can only stay on their bases with arms,” he said. “As soon as they leave their posts, they will be in enemy territory.” Sagaing region is leading the country’s ongoing resistance movement with a combination of “brains and brawn” to oppose the military dictatorship, said Tay Zar San, an anti-regime protest leader. “During the people’s Spring Revolution, they resisted with brawn by conducting an armed struggle, but on the other hand, they are also [using] their brains to stage popular movements,” he said, referring to the nationwide revolutionary struggle to permanently remove the military from Myanmar’s politics.  The intention of the popular movement is to underline to the international community that despite long military rule, the people continue to oppose the junta. Though popular protests are going strong again, more than 813,000 civilians in Sagaing region have been displaced by armed conflict, according to the latest figure from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA.  Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Three Myanmar teens killed in brutal Sagaing beating](https://ij-reportika.com/three-myanmar-teens-killed-in-brutal-sagaing-beating/): Villagers found six bodies after an attack in Sagaing region’s Yinmarbin township, residents told Radio Free Asia on Tuesday. More than 80 troops raided Thea Kone village on Saturday, causing residents to flee. But when locals returned to check the area the following day, six people were arrested. They had returned to feed livestock and were captured by soldiers who were hiding in the village. By Monday, some had been beaten to death, while others were shot, residents said. The victims included Thant Zin Oo, Khant Nay Naing and Than Htike Aung, who were all 17 years old. Maung Lin, Zaw Maung and Zaw Thu were in their 30s.  Zaw Maung was beheaded by the soldiers, according to one resident, who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons. “When the group left on Oct. 15, locals returned to their village because they thought that the area was clear. But half of the junta forces remained hiding in the village,” he told RFA. “They arrested [the six] and they were killed before the troops left the village on Oct. 16. “The corpses were found with bruises and bullet holes from the shooting.”  The bodies were found in a pile at the entrance of Thea Kone village on Monday evening. Residents said they also found a blood-stained wooden stick at the site. One woman said she was afraid to return home after the killings and was still hiding in the area.  “I’ve been fleeing ahead of the troops since Oct. 14, and it has been four days today. I still haven’t returned home,” she told RFA, asking to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.  “I am afraid that the column will come back. Those arrested were killed while feeding the cattle they left at home. They were not members of people’s defense forces. They were local civilians.” Locals said they did not know the reason for the attack. Thea Kone is an agricultural village with just over 600 residents. Calls to Saing Naing Naing Kyaw, Sagaing region’s junta spokesperson, went unanswered. In July, 14 people were killed in Yinmarbin township in another village raid. The township has been the site of multiple airstrikes and arson attacks by junta forces this year. More than 4,000 civilians have been killed across the country since the military coup in Feb. 2021. according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [‘Some of them will be sent to … camps,’ some ‘may be executed’](https://ij-reportika.com/some-of-them-will-be-sent-to-camps-some-may-be-executed/): North Koreans who have escaped to China need help to avoid being sent back against their will, and pressure on Beijing from South Korea alone is not enough to stop it, a former North Korean diplomat told Radio Free Asia. “It is important to send a strong message of international unity to prevent the Chinese authorities from forcibly repatriating [them],” said Thae Yong-ho, who is now a member of the South Korean parliament. “It is difficult to stop it with only the demands of the South Korean government.” The remarks come a week after Beijing secretly repatriated more than 500 North Koreans on Oct. 9, the day after the conclusion of the Asian Games in Hangzhou, China. Thae, who in 2016 defected with his family to the South while serving as Pyongyang’s deputy ambassador to the United Kingdom, is visiting Washington D.C. to inspect the South Korean Embassy in his role as a member of the national assembly representing Seoul’s wealthy Gangnam district.  He is scheduled to meet with U.S. State Department officials and members of Congress to discuss the forced repatriation issue.   A bus carrying escapees from North Korea crosses the bridge to North Korea’s Sinuiju from China’s Dandong on Aug. 29, 2023. Credit: Kim Ji Eun/RFA Thae said that Seoul had been repeatedly trying to raise the issue with Beijing. “Foreign Minister Park Jin and Unification Minister Kim Young-ho have both publicly requested that China stop repatriating North Koreans, ” said Thae. “Also, during the Hangzhou Asian Games, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo visited China and met with President Xi Jinping, demanding that North Koreans not be repatriated.”  Even with the public requests and off-the-record pleas, China continues to justify forced repatriation by claiming that North Korean escapees in China are  “illegal displaced persons” rather than refugees. More than words The distinction is not simply an issue of semantics. If escapees are not refugees, then China argues it is not bound to protect them under the U.N. Refugee Convention and as illegal immigrants, the principle of non-refoulement does not apply to them. Beijing maintains that it must repatriate North Koreans who fled the country because it is bound by two agreements it has with Pyongyang, the 1960 PRC-DPRK Escaped Criminals Reciprocal Extradition Treaty and the 1986 Mutual Cooperation Protocol for the Work of Maintaining National Security and Social Order and the Border Areas. If they are made to return to North Korea, many escapees will face a grim fate, Thae said. “Some of them will be sent to concentration camps for [at least] several months of detention and forced labor, and if they are found to have tried to escape North Korea and go to South Korea, they may be executed,” Thae said. Thae recalled his own fears of forced repatriation at the time when he decided to defect. “At the time, I was also very worried that some unexpected variable might arise in the process of defecting from North Korea,” he said. “People still detained in detention facilities in China are probably very anxious and worried that they will be forcibly repatriated to North Korea.    During his U.S. trip, Thae has plans to meet with American officials to request that they join their voices in opposition against forced repatriation of North Koreans in China. “We plan to deliver a letter to President Biden appealing to the U.S. government to speak up [on this issue],” said Thae. “We plan to deliver it to the lawmakers [Monday]. There should be a campaign nationwide and globally calling for an end to forced repatriations.     Thae attended an event hosted by human rights groups in front of the White House on Monday afternoon to raise awareness about the issue. New US Envoy On Friday, Washington swore in Julie Turner as its special envoy for North Korea Human Rights, ending a six-year vacancy for the position.  She arrived in Seoul on Monday for a three-day visit. After meeting with Foreign Minister Park, the two sides promised to work together to improve North Korean human rights. Addressing a forum of rights activists and North Korean escapees in South Korea, Turner acknowledged that the United States often brings up the issue of forced repatriations in discussions with Beijing. “So I again hope that the PRC will not [repatriate North Koreans] and we will continue to remind them of their international obligations, but I can&#8217;t say that I believe that they will not,&#8221; she said. Julie Turner, the United States’ new special envoy for North Korea Human Rights, arrived in Seoul on Monday for a three-day visit. Credit: U.S. Department of State Thae said that he was regretful that he and Turner missed each other as his trip to the U.S. coincided with her trip to Korea. “We plan to meet at an early date and discuss specific ways to help the U.S. speak out more for North Korean human rights issues in the international community and what strategies and strategies can be used to solve the North Korean human rights issue and stop forced repatriation,&#8221; he said. Translated by Eugene Whong. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.  
- [No easy choices in Taiwan’s presidential polls](https://ij-reportika.com/no-easy-choices-in-taiwans-presidential-polls/): Updated Oct. 16, 2023, 06:30 a.m. ET. As Taiwan approaches its presidential elections in January, the spotlight falls on candidates leaning towards establishing agreements with China and those favoring the continuation of the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) leadership.  But amid rising concerns over stagnant wages and affordable housing, no opposition figure currently poses a significant challenge to the DPP’s Lai Ching-te, the incumbent vice president. Polls suggest that if the DPP secures a victory, it might not solely be due to their policies but rather because of the divided opposition. Opposition leaders, former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) and Hou Yu-ih of the Kuomintang (KMT), have been reportedly under pressure to potentially unify their bid for the presidency. Last Saturday, efforts towards this collaboration were visible when the campaign managers of both leaders met in Taipei, exploring the formation of a “blue-white alliance,” reflecting the party colors of KMT (blue) and TPP (white). While Hou’s team proposed an open primary to determine the leading presidential candidate between the two parties, Ko’s side suggested determining based on opinion poll averages.  The KMT wants – for the first time – to deploy an open primary system for electing the leadership in the January election, with candidates receiving direct votes at polling stations across the island, which would play to the KMT’s long-standing political presence in Taiwan since 1949. This presence began when the party, also recognized as the Nationalists, relocated to Taiwan following their defeat by the Chinese Communist Party. If a vote of some kind were to happen, which most observers consider unlikely, the outcome would determine the order of a joint ticket: whether it’s Hou-Ko or Ko-Hou, indicating the roles of president and vice president, respectively. Taipei mayoral candidate Ko Wen-je celebrates winning the local elections at the campaign headquarters in Taipei November 29, 2014. Credit: Reuters   However, Ko has dismissed the open primary proposal from KMT. “Ko thinks the KMT offer was just an attempt to show off their local organizational strength. It wasn’t a serious offer,” says Taiwan-based Californian lawyer Michael Fahey. Separately, Taiwan watcher and pollster Courtney Donovan Smith noted the challenges faced by the relatively new TPP. “Ko and the four-year-old TPP are struggling to establish themselves as a distinct party, and no doubt Ko is mindful of the experience of a similar party,” said Smith. “The People’s First Party, which accepted the vice-presidential slot on a unity ticket in the 2004 election but failed to effectively differentiate themselves from the KMT and have slid into irrelevance since.” There are other formidable obstacles to a joint ticket. Both Hou, a former police officer and current mayor of New Taipei City, and Ke, a trained doctor popular for his straightforwardness, are not keen on taking a secondary role to the other. “A ‘Ko-Hou’ ticket is impossible, and the chances of a ‘Hou-Ko’ ticket, I believe, are less than 10% likely,” Liao Da-chi, a professor at National Sun Yat-sen University’s Institute of Political Science, told Radio Free Asia. “The KMT, with its 14 mayors and 38 legislators, cannot possibly play second fiddle. Moreover, Hou Yu-ih has only been re-elected as the mayor of New Taipei City for less than a year. It would be a significant risk to give that up for a vice-presidential position. What would be the point?” Local issues count The recent Taiwan News “weighted poll of polls” shows Ko is ahead of Hou by about 5%. Lai from the DPP has an average support of 32%-35%, with Ko at 18%-20% and Hou at 15%-18%. Terry Gou, billionaire and Foxconn founder, polls at around 10%, but he suggests having additional “hidden supporters.” Observers believe Gou may seek a pivotal role after the election, especially as local issues gain prominence in Taiwanese politics. Foxconn founder Terry Gou and his running mate Tammy Lai speak to the press in front of his signature campaign office in New Taipei City, Taiwan, September 20, 2023. Credit: Reuters   Many Taiwan elections in the past have turned on the China issue, said Roy Ngerng, a Taiwanese labor and wages activist who described the January elections as “different.” “While the two major parties still draw voters based on using China as the key campaign agenda, there has emerged a group where other issues take center stage and these seem to be around livelihood issues like Taiwan&#8217;s high housing prices and stagnant wages,” said Ngerng. There are significant numbers of younger voters, argues Ngerng, who “are eager for Taiwan&#8217;s elections to be normalized around local livelihood concerns … due to their distrust of KMT which is not seen as committed to Taiwan’s statehood, and due to the belief that the DPP has broken its promise of improving the livelihoods of Taiwanese over the last two terms.” Ngerng added: “These voters are gravitating to the … TPP, in the hope that Ko Wen-je might refocus, addressing the stagnant economic situation in Taiwan.” While this does not mean that Ko is likely to win the presidential election – particularly given the unlikelihood of being able to join forces with the KMT – it does signal that the DPP, if they do win, will not do so on a strong wave of support. Ngerng said he thinks there’s “disappointment arising from the fact that Tsai [Ing-wen] was elected on her promise to the youths of improving livelihoods but has failed to do so … and Ko has been adept at positioning his campaign to reflect their concerns.” “Eventually, the DPP cannot be using democracy and human rights as a rallying cry, without meaningfully enhancing the labor rights and livelihoods of Taiwan’s workers,” said Ngern. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang. Updated to clarify the process of the open primary and to correct the names of Hou Yu-ih and Roy Ngerng.
- [Southeast Asia’s mounting food insecurity](https://ij-reportika.com/southeast-asias-mounting-food-insecurity/): According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), global rice prices in August were 31% higher than the previous year, and at a 15-year high, which has left the inflation-sensitive governments of Southeast Asia scrambling for answers.  Net rice importers such as populous Indonesia and the Philippines and net exporters like Thailand alike are wrestling with a surge in prices of the staple, driven by five underlying weather and international factors. First, states are confronted by declining agricultural output due to an acute El Niño effect this year, which has caused hotter than average temperatures across Southeast Asia, and a decrease in overall rainfall.  In parts of the region, this also resulted in above average haze pollution caused by wildfires, in addition to annual haze generated by crop burning. Across the board, agricultural yields have been down, but rice, which is dependent on monsoon rains, has been particularly vulnerable in most countries. A worker rakes wheat in a granary on a private farm in Zhurivka, Kyiv region, Ukraine, Aug. 10, 2023. Credit: Efrem Lukatsky/AP Second, the ongoing war in Ukraine and Russia’s unilateral withdrawal from the July 2022 Black Sea Grain Initiative has created dislocations in global supplies of wheat, cereals, and cooking oil. Before Russia pulled out, 32 million tons of grain were exported, mostly to the developing world.  Although successful Ukrainian attacks on Russia’s Black Sea fleet have allowed some ships to continue exports, without a firm agreement in place, this could be temporary. Southeast Asian states are all highly dependent on wheat imports and Ukraine is the 7th largest producer, with an annual production of 33 million tons. Its exports comprise 10% of global supplies.  Third, as a result of El Niño-caused heat wave and food shortages, in August 2023, India announced curbs on rice exports. India is the largest exporter of rice in the world, accounting for 40% of global supply. India’s exports account for 11% of the global rice supply.  Fourth, for the lower Mekong River states, Cambodia and Vietnam, rainfall shortfalls due to El Niño have been exacerbated by China’s retention of record amounts of water at their cascade of 11 upriver dams, plunging water levels in the river to an all time low.  Fifth, declines in rice yields in the net-exporting states, such as Thailand and Vietnam, have led to higher prices and hoarding.  Net importers The most immediate impact will be felt by the net importers:  Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia. Between January and August, Indonesia imported 1.6 million tons of rice – more than triple the 429,000 million tons imported in 2022. Rice prices are now 16% higher year-on-year, a rise that prompted President Joko Widodo last month to order the release of stocks from BULOG, the strategic rice reserve, to try to keep a lid on inflation.  In April, Jakarta contracted to import a total of 2.3 million metric tons of rice to shore up national stocks. In the Philippines, estimates that rice production would fall by 1.8% in 2023 caused rice prices to hit a record high in September. Workers unload rice imported from Vietnam by the Indonesian Logistics Bureau at the port of Malahayati, in Indonesia&#8217;s Aceh province, Oct. 11, 2023. Credit: Chaideer Mahyuddin/AFP Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who is concurrently the Secretary of Agriculture, imposed price caps last month of 41 and 45 pesos (US$0.72 and US$0.79) per kilogram (2.2 pounds) for average and well-milled rice, respectively. As a candidate, Marcos had pledged to bring the price of rice down to 20 pesos per kilogram.  The Philippines imported a record 3.9 million metric tons in 2022-23. In September, Marcos signed a five-year purchase agreement with Vietnam, which supplied 90% of Philippine imports in 2022. In early October, Marcos lifted the rice cap, promising a slew of other measures to control prices, which remain high.  Domestic rice production in Malaysia only satisfies 70% of demand, and yields declined in 2023 due to excessive heat.  The government has imposed a price cap of 26 ringgit (US#5.50) per 10 kilograms (22 pounds)  for domestically produced rice. Nonetheless, prices have been surging and Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has threatened to take legal action against hoarders.  In September 2023, the government announced a 36% increase in rice imports. This month, the government announced that restaurants could purchase imported rice RM160 ($34) per kilogram, half the normal wholesale price.  Anwar, who is also the country&#8217;s finance minister, has announced some 400 million ringgit  ($84.72 million) in subsidies to purchase imported rice for government use, while the Minister of Agriculture imposed rice price caps in the important vote banks of Sabah and Sarawak.  Net exporters Even the net exporters have seen instability in their rice markets.  As the second largest exporter in the world, accounting for 15% of exports, Thailand has benefitted from surging rice prices. The announcement of Indian curbs led to a 20% spike in Thai rice prices. Thai rice peaked at $650 a ton in August, nearly 50% higher than a year earlier. Nonetheless, the country has been hit by El Niño, with rainfall down 18%. The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives estimates rice production will decline by 3-6% in 2023-24, down to 25.8 million tons, while its reservoirs were at 54% capacity.  Thailand usually exports half of its rice harvest. But because of soaring prices, there’s been an increase in domestic hoarding. This year Thailand is expected to export just under 9 million tons. Vietnam, the third largest exporter in the world, accounting for 14% percent of global exports, expects to harvest 43 million tons in 2023.  In 2022, Vietnam exported 7.1 tons, a ten-year high. This year the goal is to export 7.8 million tons, a 10 percent increase over 2022.  Vietnam has already exported 5 million tons in the first seven months of the year, an 18% year-on-year increase. Thus far, Vietnam is benefitting from surging prices, with a 30-35% increase in value in exports. But while things are good for now, diminished rainfall,...
- [Million coal workers at risk: China, India face biggest cuts by 2050](https://ij-reportika.com/million-coal-workers-at-risk-china-india-face-biggest-cuts-by-2050/): In the bustling hot city of Siliguri in northeast India, Jitendar Kumar spends his days breaking up and shifting cinder pieces at a coal depot.  The 30-year-old has been working for half his life with coal, a legacy he inherited from his father, who spent 40 years in Ranigunj, India’s first coalfield that traces back to 1774, in West Bengal. “I also started there but later chose the city over the mines,” Kumar said. “Like many here, coal puts food on our table. I don’t know what else to do.” India, the world’s second-largest coal producer, has around 337,400 miners in its active mines. Labor activists estimate that this number could quadruple when accounting for informal workers in the sector. This week, a new report said state-owned Coal India, the world’s largest government-owned coal producer, is facing the biggest potential layoffs of 73,800 direct workers by 2050. Globally, close to a million coal mine jobs, or more than a third of the coalmining workforce, could vanish by 2050, with the vast majority of these losses expected in Asia, especially in China and India, the U.S.-based think tank Global Energy Monitor (GEM) said. That means, on average, 100 coal miners a day could face job cuts as the coal industry winds down due to a market shift towards cheaper renewables and planned mine closures, it said. This infographic shows where potential coal mining job layoffs are by 2050. Credit: Global Energy Monitor Nearly half a million workers may lose their jobs before 2035, GEM said. The drop in employment, the think-tank added, will likely occur irrespective of particular coal phase-out strategies or climate action since such shifts are probably inevitable due to the market’s inclination towards more economical wind and solar energy options. In Asia, more than 2.2 million people work in coal mines, according to GEM, with China leading the way. China is home to over 1.5 million coal miners, responsible for generating more than 85% of the nation’s coal. This represents half of the global coal production. It is followed by India and Indonesia. GEM said Indonesia, with about 160,000 coal mine workers, is expected to boost production enough to rival India’s output for the first time next year.  The non-government research organization said that China’s Shanxi province alone will likely lose about a quarter million mine jobs by midcentury. The projections are based on data from the Global Coal Mine Tracker, which offers live information about 4,300 active and proposed coal mines globally, accounting for over 90% of the world’s coal production. “Coal mine closures are inevitable, but economic hardship and social strife for workers is not,” said Dorothy Mei, project manager for the Global Coal Mine Tracker at Global Energy Monitor. “Viable transition planning is happening, like in Spain where the country regularly reviews the ongoing impacts of decarbonization,” she said, adding that governments should learn from its success to plan their own “just energy transition strategies.” To limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius under the Paris Agreement’s guidelines, GEM estimates that only 250,000 coal miners would be needed. This is less than 10% of the current workforce. Economic impact Coal mine jobs also greatly influence local economies. Mining towns often depend heavily on coal companies for wages, taxes, and even schools or hospitals. Past job losses from the 1980s and 1990s bankruptcies had led to economic distress, and future job cuts could have similar effects. The workers deserve a “just transition” to new employment sectors, particularly those offering well-compensated positions in the clean and renewable energy domain, GEM said. Mining is in progress at an open-cast mine near Dhanbad, an eastern Indian city in Jharkhand state, Sept. 24, 2021. Credit: Associated Press In 2016, China’s Ministry of Finance introduced the Industrial Special Fund, designating US$14 billion for the reemployment of 1.8 million workers in the coal and steel industries. However, with each person estimated to get just over US$6,887, GEM said the fund’s sufficiency is debatable. China Energy, the nation’s leading mining and energy firm, is among the country’s top five renewable energy investors. With renewables making up 28.5% of its capacity and coal at 72%, the company aims to boost clean energy to over 50% by 2025, aligning with government goals. Chance for sustainable future Following a year marked by devastating mining accidents, significant labor disputes, and public opposition to mining activities, it is essential that coal miners be provided the chance to seek a safer and more sustainable future, GEM said in the report. Hundreds of workers died from underground blasts, tunnel collapses, and equipment mishaps in mines worldwide. At least six people were killed when a significant section of the pit wall at the Axla League coal mine in China crumbled in February, with 47 others still missing. The China Labor Bulletin, an NGO monitoring work-related accidents in China, recorded 69 coal mine-associated incidents and fatalities in 2022, with 23 reported in the current year. “The coal industry, on the whole, has a notoriously bad reputation for its treatment of workers,” said Ryan Driskell Tate, GEM’s program director for coal. “What we need is proactive planning for workers and coal communities &#8230; so industry and governments will remain accountable to those workers who have borne the brunt for so long.” Edited by Taejun Kang and Elaine Chan.
- [Blast at Myanmar camp sounded like it came from the ‘world wars’](https://ij-reportika.com/blast-at-myanmar-camp-sounded-like-it-came-from-the-world-wars/): A farmer who lost his wife, three children and his mother when a bomb was dropped on his Kachin state village earlier this week said the powerful explosion wiped out buildings up to one mile away and sounded like something “used in the world wars.” “Houses built by NGOs and the locals are now left with only iron pillars.” Maran Bauk Lar told Radio Free Asia. “This was a type of bomb that has never been used in Myanmar.” The explosion at the Mung Lai Hkyet internally displaced persons camp at about 11 p.m. on Monday killed 29 people, including 11 children, and left 57 others wounded, relief workers told RFA.  The camp is near Lai Zar in the mountainous border area between Kachin state and China. Lai Zar is the headquarters of the Kachin Independence Army, or the KIA, which has fought the Burmese military for decades and controls areas of northern Myanmar.  KIA information officer Col. Naw Bu told RFA earlier this week that he believed the junta was targeting the headquarters in the attack. Maran Bauk Lar, whose wife and three children were killed in the Mung Lai Hkyet attack, found their bodies when he returned to the camp. His mother and sister-in-law also were killed. Credit: Provided to RFA Maran Bauk Lar said he was walking to his farm when he heard the explosion. When he returned, he found a deep pit and the remains of his sister-in-law and the other family members.  “My mother’s body was completely dismembered, and her skull was broken,” he said. “Only the bones remain. My wife and children were killed under the collapsed building. Our dormitories were completely destroyed. There is nothing left.” ‘Emboldened by the indifference’ The Mung Lai Hkyet camp has 658 residents, many of whom are now suffering from psychological trauma as they recover from the explosion, relief workers said.  Survivors have been temporarily relocated to a church in Woichyai, an internally displaced persons camp in Lai Zar.  “At the moment, they are sleeping on the floor of the church,” a person helping them said. “They have to start a new life from scratch. They don’t have a single penny in their hands.” Coffins are lined up next to graves as a mass funeral takes place to bury victims of a military strike on the Mung Lai Hkyet camp near the northern Myanmar town of Laiza on Oct. 10, 2023. Credit: AFP The Special Advisory Council for Myanmar, a group of independent experts working to support human rights efforts in the country, urged the United Nations and its member states to hold the junta responsible for the attack. “The Myanmar military is so emboldened by the indifference of the international community in response to its decades of atrocity crimes that it is now attacking camps for internally displaced people,” said Yanghee Lee, a member of the council and a former U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar. “The military is flagrantly massacring the most vulnerable people in society, and yet U.N. entities in Myanmar will not even publicly name the military as the perpetrator,” he said.  At the State Department, spokesman Matthew Miller said that the United States was “deeply concerned” by reports of the explosion. “We strongly condemn the military regime’s ongoing attacks that have claimed thousands of lives since the February 2021 coup and continue to exacerbate the region’s most severe humanitarian crisis,” he said on Tuesday.  A girl cries next to a grave as a mass funeral takes place to bury victims of the military strike on Mung Lai Hkyet camp near Laiza, Myanmar, on Oct. 10, 2023. Credit: AFP ‘The culture of military dictatorship’ Fighting in the area between junta forces and the KIA has intensified since July. Lately, there have been artillery strikes from the junta almost every day, local residents said. While some residents said they heard a plane just before Monday’s explosion, others told RFA that they heard nothing.  The KIA has formed an investigation team to determine what caused the blast, Naw Bu said, adding that it may have been a bomb dropped by a junta-operated drone.  “They always target the public, not only in our territory in Kachin state, but across the country,” he said of the junta. “It is the culture of military dictatorship.” A man stands amid debris left by the military strike on the Mung Lai Hkyet camp on Oct. 11, 2023, two days after the assault. Credit: AFP RFA’s calls on Wednesday to Win Ye Tun, the junta’s social affairs minister and spokesman for Kachin state, for comments on the death toll at Mung Lai Hkyet went unanswered. Junta spokesman Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun told RFA that junta troops were not behind the attack on Mung Lai Hkyet. He speculated that it was caused by an accidental explosion at a warehouse where the KIA stores gunpowder. A Mung Lai Hkyet resident told RFA that it was “totally untrue” that there are weapons factories and arsenals in the camp.  “There is no arsenal,” he said. “There are only civilians who are displaced persons.”  Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [Uyghur inmates forced to work on farmland leased to Chinese](https://ij-reportika.com/uyghur-inmates-forced-to-work-on-farmland-leased-to-chinese/): Hundreds of Uyghur inmates at Keriye Prison in the far-western Chinese region of Xinjiang are forced to work 12-14 hours a day in vast fields of red dates called jujubes, a prison employee and a guard told Radio Free Asia. Under the watch of armed guards, the prisoners must walk to the fields while overseers wearing red vests and holding police dogs monitor them, the two people said. Armed soldiers surrounded the work area, some on horseback, to prevent any from escaping. “I witnessed prisoners being forcibly taken out to work during the day and returned to their cells at night,” said the prison employee – a Uyghur himself – who has worked at the prison for nine years, including one as a “team leader” of a group of inmates, although he was not allowed to mingle or talk much with them. Many inmates also work in factories located inside and outside the prison walls producing cement, shoes, gloves and tea, a prison guard told RFA Uyghur. Those serving sentences of more than 10 years work in factories inside the prison yard, while those serving less than 10 years work outside the prison, the guard said. The goal seems to be two-fold: To harness the prisoners’ free labor for the benefit of Han Chinese businessmen who rent the 1,650 acres of farmland that is owned by the prison, and to reform the inmates through labor, the two sources said, insisting they not be identified for fear of retaliation. “They want to make the prisoners undergo ideological transformation through labor in these big fields,” said the prison employee. The farm itself is called Lao Gai Nong Chang in Chinese, which means “Re-education through Labor Farm.” The work was arduous and painful, he said. Before the fields were converted to jujubes, they produced cotton, and he recalls seeing some inmates picking cotton worked until their hands bled. Arbitrarily sentenced The offenses committed by the Uyghur inmates in Keriye Prison – located about 25 kilometers (16 miles) from Siyek township in Hotan prefecture and which houses about 10,000 inmates – remain unclear.  Most Uyghurs detained in Xinjiang in recent years have never been formally charged with any crime or tried by the government.  More than 30 Uyghur teachers from Hotan Normal Technical High School jailed on charges of “national separatism” and “religious extremism” are serving their sentences in Keriye Prison, RFA previously learned.  Keriye Prison has tracts of farmland around it. Credit: Google Earth photo; RFA annotation Though China formally abolished its “reform through labor” system in 1994, this account shows that it has remained in practice in some areas. Starting in 2017 and 2018, Chinese authorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region detained an estimated 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in “re-education” camps, where they were subjected to forced labor in factories producing textiles, wigs, tomatoes and solar panels for export. The forced work and other abuses, including torture and sexual assaults, are part of a wider genocide that China is committing against the Uyghur people, the United States and other governments have declared. Beijing denies the abuses, saying the camps were vocational training centers meant to prevent terrorism and religious extremism while teaching job skills. Chinese rent the land Many Han Chinese from Henan province and Xian, capital of Shaanxi province in northwestern China, rent the prison land under three-to-four-year contracts, the team leader said. For example, a Chinese businessman from Henan province leased about 200 acres on which he grew cotton for five or six years before switching to jujubes, he said. Under an agreement between prison administration and the factory owners, the Chinese owners pay the prison for using the forced labor, he said. “Some factories have 200 to 300, or even 500 workers,” said the guard. “In the factory where I work, we have around 1,670 workers.” In 2022, the United States enacted the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which gave American authorities greater powers to block the import of goods linked to forced labor in China. Under the act, goods produced in Xinjiang are legally assumed to have involved Uyghur forced labor unless a business can prove otherwise to customs officials.  However, hundreds of major U.S. companies may be unwittingly producing goods using gold that was mined using the forced labor of Uyghurs in China’s far-west Xinjiang region, according to a report released Wednesday by the Center for Advanced Defense Studies. Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [S Korean PM protests to Xi over N Korean repatriation in Sep: report](https://ij-reportika.com/s-korean-pm-protests-to-xi-over-n-korean-repatriation-in-sep-report/): South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo had raised his opposition to the forced repatriation of North Koreans when he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in China last month, Yonhap News Agency reported on Friday, citing South Korea’s ambassador to China Chung Jae-ho. In response to a question from lawmaker Park Hong-keun during a parliament hearing on Oct. 13, as to whether Han mentioned [the issue of repatriation] to Xi, Chung said he believed Han did. Chung was with the prime minister, who attended the opening ceremony of the Asian Games, when he met Xi in Hangzhou.  Radio Free Asia was not able to independently confirm Chung’s comment. When asked what was Xi’s exact response, Chung indicated that the Chinese President’s position mirrored Beijing’s existing stance: they would “deal with illegal entrants in accordance with domestic law, international law, and humanitarian principles,” according to the Yonhap report. The reported exchange between the leaders comes in the wake of recent media reports alleging that China forcibly repatriated over 500 North Koreans following the Hangzhou Asian Games.  According to sources working to rescue North Koreans in China, the majority of these individuals were civilians and religious figures. They were apprehended while trying to make their way from China to South Korea. These repatriations reportedly occurred in several areas, including Tumen, Hunchun, Changbai, Dandong, and Nanping. On Friday, South Korea&#8217;s Unification Ministry also voiced its concern, stating: “It appears to be true that many North Korean residents in three northeastern Chinese provinces have been repatriated.” The ministry spokesperson emphasized that North Korean defectors abroad should not be forcibly returned under any circumstances. But China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin reiterated during a regular briefing that China adheres to a principle that combines domestic and international law, as well as humanitarian considerations, when dealing with North Koreans who enter China illegally for economic reasons. Ambassador Chung also mentioned that he has been in touch with Chinese authorities to confirm the repatriation of North Koreans, but he has yet to receive any official notification or explanation. Since North Korea lifted its border restrictions in August, after over three years of COVID lockdowns, there have been increasing concerns about the potential human rights violations and severe penalties that defectors might face upon return.  Elizabeth Salmon, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, estimates that more than 2,000 North Korean defectors are currently detained in China. Edited by Elaine Chan
- [Taiwanese AI taken down after it repeats Chinese government line](https://ij-reportika.com/taiwanese-ai-taken-down-after-it-repeats-chinese-government-line/): A top-level research institute in the democratic island of Taiwan has withdrawn a Chinese-language AI chat program after it started spouting Chinese government propaganda, according to multiple media reports. A researcher at Taiwan&#8217;s Academia Sinica posted a beta version of their newly developed CKIP-Llama-2-7b chat AI, but members of the public who asked it questions soon started getting some disturbing answers to basic questions. Asked its nationality, the chat program replied that it was &#8220;Chinese,&#8221; an identity not shared by the majority of Taiwan&#8217;s 23 million people because it suggests one is from the mainland. Asked who the national leader was, it answered &#8220;Xi Jinping,&#8221; the leader of China&#8217;s Communist Party who has vowed to force Taiwan to unify with China – by force, if necessary. The majority of Taiwanese don&#8217;t identify as Chinese, enjoy living in a democratic and pluralistic society, and have no wish to submit to authoritarian rule from Beijing, according to multiple opinion polls in recent years. &#8220;Academia Sinica said today that the content produced by the model was unexpected, and this is an area that needs to be improved in the future,&#8221; the island&#8217;s Central News Agency reported.  &#8220;The beta version has been taken down for the time being,&#8221; it said. Democratic Progressive Party President Tsai Ing-wen swept to a landslide victory in 2020 on a platform of defending the island&#8217;s freedoms and democratic way of life from China&#8217;s expanding territorial ambitions, spurred on in part by the crackdown on the 2019 protest movement in Hong Kong. While there are concerns over China’s military saber-rattling, the prospect of too much rapprochement with China has sparked large protests in Taiwan, including the Sunflower Movement that occupied government buildings in 2014, and Tsai vowed in a National Day speech on Tuesday that the Taiwanese people will be a “democratic and free people for generations to come.”  But according to CKIP-Llama-2-7b, &#8220;National Day&#8221; is Oct. 1 – the date of the 1949 founding of the People&#8217;s Republic of China, which has never ruled Taiwan. According to the Taiwan AI, &#8220;National Day&#8221; is Oct. 1 – the date of the 1949 founding of the People&#8217;s Republic of China, which has never ruled Taiwan. People [pictured] attend a flag-raising ceremony to mark China’s National Day at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on October 1, 2023. Credit: Jade Gao/AFP The chat program, which was partly based on the commercial open source model Llama-2-7b and Atom-7b, had some interesting opinions about its own provenance, too. Asked who created it, the program replied: &#8220;I was jointly developed by the Natural Language Processing Laboratory of Fudan University and the Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. My birthday is 2023.&#8221;  &#8220;My nationality is Chinese, my place of residence is the Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Server Set, and I can speak Chinese and English,&#8221; it said. Asked to name the national anthem, it replied &#8220;The March of the Volunteers&#8221; – China&#8217;s communist anthem – instead of “The Three Principles of the People,” Taiwan&#8217;s anthem first adopted by the government of the 1911 Republic of China that fled to the island before the People’s Republic of China was established. Ruling party lawmaker Fan Yun commented on Facebook that the Taiwanese AI gaffe was &#8220;an information security issue and an issue of cognitive warfare.&#8221;  The program was removed from public view on Oct. 9, according to the Central News Agency.  Academia Sinica President James Liao said the program had been put online as a way to crowd-source its testing, mainly to save time. &#8220;This is a researcher who was keen to speed things up, so, in the spirit of open source software, he put out a program that hadn&#8217;t been fully tested yet and asked everyone to join in and test it with him,&#8221; Liao said. &#8220;It produced some questionable results.&#8221;  Differences in the writing systems of the mainland and Taiwan were also an obstacle for the project.  In 1956, the PRC began simplifying Chinese characters in a bid to increase literacy, and over the years, about 2,000 characters have been simplified. The characters remain unsimplified in Taiwan, and are known as “traditional Chinese” characters. Liao said the researcher had simply converted the data for simplified Chinese into traditional Chinese for CKIP-Llama-2-7b . He said Academia Sinica had learned from the incident that the traditional Chinese character data is important in its own right, and vowed to set up an audit mechanism to avoid similar issues in future, Central News Agency reported. Information technology expert Kun-Lin Hsieh commented on social media: &#8220;Academia Sinica&#8217;s AI has gone off the rails!&#8221; But he went on to explain that the chat program had been trained on an online data set provided by the Beijing-based Stardust AI and other dialogue training materials in the simplified Chinese characters, rather than in traditional characters. Information technology news service iThome said it is crucial to have &#8220;large language model&#8221; datasets that can speak in a way that is appropriate to the locality in which they are made. It quoted Taiwanese AI expert Tsai Ming-shun as calling on the Taiwanese government to take the opportunity to invest more resources in software development, especially large language models and data sets, to boost the development of homegrown AI. In April, China issued a new set of rules requiring AI chat programs developed in the country to stick to the ruling Communist Party line, requiring their responses not to make &#8220;subversive&#8221; statements or deliver &#8220;content that may disrupt economic and social order.&#8221; Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Eugene Whong.
- [Another brick wobbles in China’s Great Wall of debt](https://ij-reportika.com/another-brick-wobbles-in-chinas-great-wall-of-debt/): As China’s economic miracle has unraveled over the past several years, property giant Country Garden Holdings appeared to be an unassailable fortress redoubt. Rival Evergrande tried to restructure its debt, failed, and now its founder, Hui Ka Yan, once the richest man in China, is under house arrest. But Country Garden, until very recently, was considered safe as houses. On Tuesday the walls of the Country Garden redoubt crumbled, as the property giant missed a HK$470 million (US$60 million) loan repayment and issued a statement on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange warning that it wasn’t going to be able to repay all of its creditors – not even those that had extended it a grace period. The company has about US$200 billion in liabilities and close to US$10 billion in debt, it said in the Tuesday statement. “I think it’s not so much ‘final straw’ as ‘high profile symbol’ of the structural reversal in China’s property market bust. But it’s also possible that because of that, confidence in this fragile market will be further undermined,” said George Magnus, research associate at the China Centre, Oxford University, and the School of African and Oriental Studies in London. “The knock-on effects of a property bust in a market that’s as big as China’s are going to be remarkable,” added Magnus. “There simply isn’t anything that can compensate [for the problem] because nothing – least of all Xi’s new productive forces – is sufficiently big. It’ll keep the Chinese economy on a low-growth path with all the attendant consequences for unemployment, absent a major program of market reforms, which Xi is opposed to.” Chinese President Xi Jinping is famously opposed to “welfarism,” which he reportedly equates with laziness. A person rides a scooter past a construction site of residential buildings by Chinese developer Country Garden, in Tianjin, China Aug. 18, 2023. Credit: Reuters   Markets have found some solace in announcements emanating out of Beijing, suggesting that stimulus is on the way, but analysts are skeptical even though Hong Kong and Shanghai stocks rallied on Thursday, after China’s investment fund had bought a stake in the country’s banking giants. Bill Bishop of the widely read Sinocism newsletter commented, “The relatively small investment by Huijin in the four banks – 477 million RMB, about USD $65 million – is not meaningful financially,” adding that the investment fund Huijin had bought similar stakes in the past with the probable aim of achieving a short-term boost to stock values. ‘All the money in the world’ “They&#8217;ll respond with some stimulus but there isn’t enough money in the world to make a difference,” said Anne Stevenson-Yang, founder and research director at J Capital Research, “Consider,” she said: “If they lend an extra 1 trillion yuan (US$137 billion) – and bank lending is around 90% of financing in this economy – you get less than a 1% boost in credit. “Basically, so what?” Oxford’s Magnus agreed. “The speculation is that the central government will use its own balance sheet to announce a stimulus program of about 1 trillion yuan or about 0.7% GDP to breathe new life into the economy,” he said. “If it goes, as in the past, towards infrastructure and real estate projects, it’ll spur activity in the short term but leave China’s structural malaise worse. “What China needs is household demand and income stimulus, but this has been studiously avoided so far – and it’s not the CCP’s way.” Stevenson-Yang said, “We’re not going to see a bank failure, because they [the Communist Party] can control that. But the whole shadow sector has collapsed or is collapsing, and that erases a lot of personal wealth. “And local services are going away,” she added in a reference to the belt-tightening forced on local governments, which have even been reducing civil service salaries to make ends meet. Michael Pettis, Carnegie Endowment economist, writing on X, formerly known as Twitter, pointed out that there may be hidden liabilities for the banking sector with as-yet unknown consequences. “Mounting damage to banks’ balance sheets from the property meltdown could also make stabilizing other parts of the economy more difficult,” Pettis said. “This is likely to be what causes the most long-term damage to the economy … There is likely to be a lot more exposure in less direct forms. That’s because after three decades of soaring prices, it would be astonishing if Chinese banks didn’t have a lot of indirect exposure to the property market, partly reflected for example in the RMB 3.4 trillion in supplier trade payables estimated by Gavekal,” he wrote referring to research by Gavekal Research. The firm predicted that China’s property sector owes 3.4 trillion yuan in trade payables to their suppliers. “The major damage to the economy caused by a property sector collapse usually occurs not directly through the property sector but indirectly, through wealth effects and, above all, the impact on the banking system,” said Pettis. “With one of the biggest property sectors in history, and perhaps the most expensive real estate bubble since Japan in the 1980s, I’d be really surprised if we were near the end of the adjustment process.” Stability above all In its Tuesday statement Country Garden admitted, referring to its inability to meet debt commitments, “Such non-payment may lead to relevant creditors of the group demanding acceleration of payment of the relevant indebtedness owed to them or pursuing enforcement action.” A Chinese flag flutters in front of the logo of China Evergrande Group seen on the Evergrande Center in Shanghai, China September 22, 2021. Credit: Reuters   Property developer Evergrande’s collapse led to widespread “mortgage strikes” and protests China-wide in 2021 and 2022. The fear in Beijing is that Country Garden, which is heavily invested in third- and fourth-tier cities, where the economic crisis is at its worst, will lead to yet more protests. “The first and utmost priority of Xi and the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] is to maintain power, which means maintaining order and stability,” said Australia-based...
- [Letter from 3 UN rapporteurs urged Vietnam not to execute inmate](https://ij-reportika.com/letter-from-3-un-rapporteurs-urged-vietnam-not-to-execute-inmate/): Three United Nations special rapporteurs sent a letter urging the Vietnamese government not to execute death row inmate Nguyen Van Chuong, who was convicted of murdering a police major, RFA has learned. The letter was not made public by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights until this week, but it is dated Aug. 10, about a week after Chuong’s family was suddenly asked to make arrangements to receive his remains, but were not given an execution date. The letter follows suit with similar pleas from rights organizations and the international community at that time, who feared Chuong’s execution was imminent. “In view of the urgency of the matter and the irreversibility of the execution of the death penalty, we respectfully call upon the highest authorities of Viet Nam to ensure Mr. [name redacted] is not executed,” said the letter, signed by the special rapporteurs on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions; independence of judges and lawyers; and torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Chuong’s name was blacked out in the version of the letter released to the public. “His execution, on the facts available to us, may constitute a violation of applicable international human rights standards and constitute an arbitrary execution,” the rapporteurs said, while also urging Vietnam to grant clemency or commute the sentence. Chuong was convicted in the 2007 robbery and murder of Major Nguyen Van Sinh in northeastern Vietnam’s city of Haiphong. Two others were convicted in the case.The family has submitted several petitions, asking all levels of government to reconsider Chuong’s death sentence. The letter detailed several alleged problems with the case that, if true, would make an execution of Chuong “inconsistent with standards of international human rights law, and amount[ing] to an arbitrary execution.” Problems with the case It said that the evidence used to convict the defendants in the case included confessions, which Chuong alleges were obtained under extreme duress. Chuong claims he was beaten and coerced by the investigator, RFA previously reported. Authorities deny that he was tortured at the time of the investigation. The letter also said that Chuong had a “strong alibi” with several people from his hometown – 40 kilometers (24 miles) from the crime scene – who said under oath that they saw him at a festival at the time of the crime. “Instead of investigating the validity of the alibi, the police arrested Mr. [name redacted] younger brother, on allegations of manipulating evidence and influencing witnesses,” the letter said. “Further, it is alleged that some witnesses who attested to Mr. alibi were coerced into changing their testimonies by the police.” RFA also reported that the testimonies of the other suspects contradicted each other and the make of weapon described and the marks on the victim’s body were inconsistent in their statements. Chuong&#8217;s family continues to appeal the case and calls for transparent investigation, his father told RFA Vietnamese. Vietnamese police investigations often rely on torture and forced confessions that result in “frequent miscarriages of justice,” Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at New York-based Human Rights Watch told RFA. “In this case, the tragedy is compounded by Vietnam&#8217;s use of the death penalty, which is a cruel, unusual and absolutely irreversible punishment that blatantly violates international human rights,” he said. “The Vietnamese government needs to wake up and recognize that their police force is a major part of the problem in the country, and unless there are serious and systemic reforms in the way the police operate, Vietnam will never be able to seriously comply with its international human rights obligations.”
- [Myanmar national dies in Wa state after being sold into scam gang](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-national-dies-in-wa-state-after-being-sold-into-scam-gang/): A man is dead after being sold to a money-laundering gang in United Wa State Army territory, family members told Radio Free Asia Wednesday.  After Zaw Than went to the Wa-controlled Wein Kawng in northeast Myanmar for work, his family said they lost contact. But in early October, they received a phone call claiming their son owed more than 16 million kyat (US$7,500). The Chinese national told the family he had covered Zaw Than’s debts in late September after he allegedly lost the money gambling at a casino in Mong Pauk, just 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the border with China.  Zaw Than’s family reported the incident to Wa state’s police department, where they said they were told he had been trafficked into a gang known for its money-laundering schemes. The police officer told the family their son had been sold to the gang for over 95 million kyat (US$14,300) by the Chinese national who had called them demanding the ransom.  On Oct. 4, they traveled to Wein Kawng from their home in Shan state, asking police to help them find Zaw Than. The following evening, officers were able to locate him and arrange a meeting. But when they arrived, they said their son was badly beaten and struggling to breathe.  “He could not even breathe normally when I found him.” a family member told RFA, asking to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals..  “He died the same day because of his injuries from the beatings. They were all over his body, and many internal injuries. This is injustice. I want justice for him.” The family member said an autopsy confirmed their son died from his injuries. They have since complained to Wa state officials and their external relations department. RFA contacted Lashio-based Wa liaison officer Nyi Ran seeking comment on the incident, but he had not responded by the time of publication.  Wa state’s Mong Pauk, Pangsang, and Wein Kawng are well-known hubs for crime, including online scamming, sex trafficking, and money-laundering. Last year, 19 Myanmar nationals were sold and held against their will in one scam center in Mong Pauk after being told they would get high-paying jobs. Thai women have also reported being trafficked in the region.  The Wa army controls portions of southern and northern Shan state and keeps close ties with China.  Both territories are also attempting to crack down on the online crime rampant on the border. In September, Wa forces returned more than 1,300 Chinese nationals involved in online fraud. Despite this transfer, illegal businesses are still a recurring problem, a person assisting Wa state’s labor affairs ministry told RFA, adding that many Chinese nationals start businesses under Myanmar names.  RFA contacted the Chinese Embassy in Myanmar via email regarding gang activity and Zaw Than’s death, but the office did not immediately respond. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Hamas fighters may be using North Korean weapons, experts say](https://ij-reportika.com/hamas-fighters-may-be-using-north-korean-weapons-experts-say/): Experts say that Hamas militants may be using North Korean weapons after footage emerged of a fighter from the Palestinian group carrying a rocket-launcher suspected to originate from the communist nation. The video, recorded shortly after deadly attacks on Israel started last weekend and shared widely on social media, shows several men sitting in the back of a pickup truck brandishing weapons above a face-down, partially clothed woman. A rocket-launcher held by one of the fighters was identified as North Korean in origin by a military and weapons blogger with the handle War Noir in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “A recent video recorded today shows members of the Al-Qassam Brigades (#HAMAS) in #Gaza Strip,” War Noir wrote on Oct. 7. “One of the members can be seen with an uncommon F-7 HE-Frag rocket, originally produced in #NorthKorea (#DPRK).”  RFA was not able to conclusively determine if the weapon was North Korean, but its shape closely resembles the F-7 as depicted in the North Korean Small Arms and Light Weapons Recognition Guide published in May by the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey research project. Experts said that Palestinians have historically used North Korean weapons, which may have been first purchased by Iran or Syria, and then smuggled to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, circumventing an Israeli-Egyptian embargo that has been in place since 2005. “The Syrians deal with Hezbollah a lot and Hezbollah deals with Hamas a lot,” said Bruce E. Bechtol Jr., a former intelligence officer for the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency. “A lot of the trade that North Korea does with both Hamas and Hezbollah is deals that they make through the IRGC, the Iranian Republican Guard Corps,” he said.  Used in the region In its recent attacks on Israelis, Hamas used weapons originating in a wide range of current and former states, including the United States, the Soviet Union, and North Korea, said N.R. Jenzen-Jones, director of the Armament Research Services intelligence consultancy, or ARES. A preliminary analysis of images reviewed by this consultancy shows “a militant armed with an RPG-7 type shoulder-fired recoilless gun, loaded with an F-7 series high explosive fragmentation (HE-FRAG) munition, produced in North Korea,” Jenzen-Jones said. “These have previously been documented in the region, including in Syria, Iraq, and in the Gaza Strip.&#8221; Other images showed militants using what appeared to be a North Korean Type 58 self-loading rifle, a derivative of the well-known AK series, he said. &#8220;North Korean arms have previously been documented amongst interdicted supplies provided by Iran to militant groups, and this is believed to be the primary way in which DPRK weapons have come into the possession of Palestinian militants,” he said.  “North Korean arms have previously been identified in the hands of the militant factions of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, amongst other groups,” he added. Bechtol said that a North Korean arms shipment was intercepted in Thailand in 2009. A U.N. panel of experts determined the 35 tons of conventional arms and munitions was headed to Iran, and Israeli intelligence believed it was ultimately bound for Hamas and Lebanon-based Hezbollah. Bechtol said the shipment contained rocket propelled grenades, larger rockets, and the F-7.  “The North Koreans have also sold the &#8216;BULSAE&#8217; antitank system to Hamas. It&#8217;s a very good antitank system and they could be firing that at Israeli tanks when they&#8217;re entering the Gaza Strip here within the next day or two,” said Bechtol. “So North Korea has given them some capabilities that are interesting.” The woman whose body was seen in the video was identified by her family as 22-year old German-Israeli citizen Shani Louk, who was abducted by Hamas militants when they attacked a music festival in Israel close to the Gaza border.  She is believed to be alive, but in critical condition at a hospital in Gaza, according to Palestinian sources her mother told German outlet Bild on Tuesday. But Israeli, German or Palestinian officials have not yet confirmed her status or whereabouts.  North Korea blames Israel North Korean media, meanwhile, blamed the recent violence on Israel’s “ceaseless criminal acts” against the Palestinian people. According to a report in the state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper on Tuesday, “a large-scale armed conflict broke out between Palestine’s Islamic resistance movement and Israel.”  “The international community called the conflict the result of Israel’s ceaseless criminal acts against the Palestinian people,” and said that the “fundamental” way to end the bloody conflict is to create an independent Palestinian state.  That Hamas is using North Korean weapons is not surprising, Bruce Bennett, a defense researcher at the RAND Corporation think tank, told RFA.   “North Korea is selling things wherever it can to make hard currency,” said Bennett. “Whether North Korea directly provided it to Hamas or provided it through a third party, I don&#8217;t know. But the fact that there is North Korean equipment there does not surprise me at all.” ‘Commercial relationship’ Bennett said the F-7 rocket is an anti-personnel weapon and causes maximum casualties. “It&#8217;s not intended to, like, penetrate a tank,” he said. “It&#8217;s intended to cause fragmentation, like a terrorist bomb, and maximize the effect against people.” Even though Hamas appears to be using North Korean weapons, it would be inaccurate to describe them as allies, he said. “It&#8217;s a commercial relationship which is fed by the politics as well by North Korea being anxious to hurt the United States and anything associated with the United States,” said Bennett.  “The scary part of this though is as you think about the future, does North Korea have people on the ground with Hamas watching them do what they&#8217;re doing?” he said.  “Is North Korea thinking about doing this kind of thing to South Korea? We clearly don&#8217;t know at this stage, but I don&#8217;t think we can ignore that possibility.” Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Additional reporting by Eugene Whong. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Manila dismisses China’s ‘gunboat’ claim](https://ij-reportika.com/manila-dismisses-chinas-gunboat-claim/): Updated Oct. 10, 2023, 06:20 a.m. ET. The Philippines’ military chief on Tuesday rejected a claim that its navy vessel was driven away from a disputed reef in the South China Sea by the Chinese coast guard, calling it “Beijing’s propaganda.” Early on Tuesday, the China Coast Guard said a Philippine Navy gunboat came into China’s “jurisdictional waters” near the Scarborough Shoal in the Spratly Islands. “On Oct. 10, a Philippine Navy gunboat intruded into the waters adjacent to China’s Huangyan Island, ignoring China’s repeated warnings,” Chinese Coast Guard spokesperson Gan Yu said in a statement, using the Chinese name for a shoal the Philippines calls Bajo de Masinloc. Gan said that China Coast Guard ships “took necessary measures, such as tracking and controlling the ship’s route, to drive away the Philippine vessel according to the law.” Beijing’s claim – which comes against a backdrop of deteriorating relations between the neighbors – was rejected by the Philippines’ top military commander, who denied such an incident had taken place. “That is just propaganda from Beijing … to show that they are doing something,” Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. told RFA-affiliated news organization BenarNews on Tuesday. A Philippine navy boat was in the vicinity of Bajo de Masinloc, but it was carrying out a maritime patrol. “It was sailing and it just so happened that the China Coast Guard was there and we issued a challenge,” Brawner said. “Our ship continued with its mission. He added the boats were “far” away from each other. A China Coast Guard ship is seen from a Philippine fishing boat at the disputed Scarborough Shoal April 6, 2017. Credit: Reuters Both Beijing and Manila claim sovereignty over Scarborough Shoal, which China seized after a standoff with the Philippines in 2012 and has maintained control over since. The Chinese spokesperson accused the Philippines of violating China&#8217;s sovereignty over the shoal, adding: “We call on the Philippines to immediately stop its infringement.”  On Monday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry also warned Manila against “making provocations and creating troubles at sea,” saying “China has made serious démarches [diplomatic protests] to the Philippines on multiple occasions.”   The ministry was responding to a statement by the Philippines on Saturday that China&#8217;s &#8220;unfounded&#8221; claims in the South China Sea and Beijing’s actions there are “irresponsible.” ‘Stirring up trouble’ The latest incident marks a further deterioration in the relationship between the two neighbors. A Beijing-based think tank, the South China Sea Probing Initiative (SCSPI), accused the Philippines of “stirring up” the situation in the sea. This week, U.S. and Philippine warships are conducting a bilateral training exercise called Samasama (Together) 2023 in the waters off the Philippines. The exercise, joined by several other U.S. allies, is being seen as a testament of the strong bond between the two militaries. “Currently, the Philippines is at the vanguard of challenging China at sea, much more aggressive than any other party including the United States,” SCSPI said in a post on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter. “Wait and see,” it added in a thinly veiled threat, “The Scarborough Shoal Incident in 2012 is a wake-up call for both China and the Philippines.”  The 2012 standoff began on April 8, 2012, after the Philippine Navy attempted to arrest Chinese fishermen who it accused of illegal fishing in the waters near Scarborough Shoal but the attempt was blocked by Chinese maritime surveillance ships. Naval vessels from both sides were deployed in the standoff that lasted more than two months. The Philippines pulled its two vessels out on June 15, 2012, but China kept its ships at the shoal. Scarborough Shoal has since become a hot spot and a trigger point between China and the Philippines in the contested South China Sea. Most recently, in late September, the Philippines said China had installed a 300-meter (984-foot) floating barrier to block Philippine fishermen from accessing the waters around the shoal.  The Philippine coast guard carried out a “special operation” to cut the barrier and remove its anchor. An aerial view shows the BRP Sierra Madre on the contested Second Thomas Shoal, locally known as Ayungin, in the South China Sea, March 9, 2023. Credit: Reuters The risk of confrontation has also risen in recent days over another disputed atoll in the South China Sea, internationally known as the Second Thomas Shoal. The Philippines calls it Ayungin Shoal, where it maintains an outpost with less than a dozen marines, stationed on a rusty WWII landing craft, the BRP Sierra Madre.  Manila accuses China of regularly blocking its resupply missions to the troops on the Sierra Madre. It said on Aug. 6, 2023, Chinese Coast Guard ships fired a water cannon at one of the Philippine ships resupplying the outpost. China calls it Ren’ai Jiao and maintains that the atoll lies within its jurisdiction. Six parties – China, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Taiwan – claim parts of the resource-rich South China Sea together with the islands inside but Beijing’s claim is by far the most extensive, occupying nearly 90% of the sea. An international tribunal in 2016 ruled that China’s claims in the South China Sea were illegal and invalid, but Beijing refused to accept the ruling. Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization. Updated to include comment from Philippine military commander Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr.
- [A tamer tomorrow](https://ij-reportika.com/a-tamer-tomorrow/): Legendary Hong Kong movie star Chow Yun-fat told a film festival in South Korea that the Chinese city’s once vibrant cinema has lost its freedom under Beijing’s tightened controls on free speech and expression. Chow, named Asian Filmmaker of the Year at the Busan International Film Festival, is the first prominent figure in the industry to publicly discuss how China’s strict movie censorship requirements have crimped freedom and creativity in the former British colony.
- [Over 13,000 flood victims relocated in Myanmar’s Bago region](https://ij-reportika.com/over-13000-flood-victims-relocated-in-myanmars-bago-region/): Flooding in Myanmar has caused chaos across five regions, according to junta authorities, with 13,000 people in Bago region alone being relocated due to heavy rain. The Bago River overflowed, flooding 12 neighborhoods and seven villages across the region’s capital, according to Lay Swe Zin Oo, the director of the Department of  Disaster Management and the military-run Ministry of Relief and Resettlement. “More than 13,000 people from over 3,000 households are moving to camps. There are about 34 camps in total,” she told RFA. Residents were warned to evacuate early Sunday morning when the Bago River quickly rose more than one foot (30 cm) above critical level, according to the Department of Meteorology and Hydrology. By Monday morning, the river had risen three more feet.  Water remains over a yard (91 cm) deep in low-level areas of Bago city, and roughly 18 inches (46 cm) of water still cover roads and railways, according to the the Metta San Yae Social Assistance Association, an organization relocating flood victims.  “It was at person-level height in the street that flooded the neighborhood. The base of the stilt houses was already flooded,” an official of the group told RFA, adding that several main streets were impassable. “Now, it’s still raining. It has been raining for about four days.” Trucks and buses stuck at 39-Mile near Bago city due to flooding on Oct. 9, 2023. Credit: RFA According to a press release from the junta’s Ministry of Information on Sunday, vans, buses, and cargo trucks to and from the city have been paused until the water recedes. Two train lines to Yangon from Mandalay region and Mon state were flooded, leaving more than 800 passengers stranded at the entrance of Bago city. Aid was being delivered to the passengers, who were being transferred to Yangon by car, the press release said, adding that four other train lines through Bago have been canceled this week. Bago region in central Myanmar has faced a challenging rainy season. In August, more than 18,000 residents were forced to move when more than a week of heavy rain flooded 13 neighborhoods.  Other areas around the country have also been impacted by flooding, including Yangon and Mandalay regions, Mon and Shan states.  Residents said Sunday that more than a hundred vehicles were stuck in places between Pyinoolwin township in Mandalay region and Nawnghkio township in Shan state. Despite the rainy season wrapping up, monsoons like this can occur at the very end of the season, said Hla Tun, director of the junta’s Department of Weather and Hydrology. “Monsoon season is not over in Bago, Yangon and the delta region of Ayeyarwady. It usually rains when the season is on its way out,” he said. “The nature of the monsoon is that it is a bit rough when it comes and leaves.” Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [‘Eliticide’ as China jails Uyghur intellectuals to erase culture](https://ij-reportika.com/eliticide-as-china-jails-uyghur-intellectuals-to-erase-culture/): Over a fortnight, a Uyghur folklorist missing since 2017 was revealed to be serving a life prison for “separatism,” while another Uyghur scholar who had vanished into Chinese custody years earlier appeared on shortlists and oddsmakers picks for the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize. The cases of ethnographer Rahile Dawut, whose life conviction in December 2018 was uncovered by a U.S. NGO only last month, and economist Ilham Tohti, put away for life on similar charges in 2014, share key similarities that highlight the personal and family tragedies behind China&#8217;s relentless assimilation policies in the northwestern Xinjiang region. Both Dawut, who was born in 1966, and the 53-year-old Tohti built their academic careers inside the Chinese system, teaching at prestigious universities and releasing their work through major state publishing houses. The two scholars collaborated with and were respected as authorities by their Chinese and international peers. Uyghur professor Rahile Dawut talks with a man in northwestern China&#8217;s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in an undated photo. Photo courtesy of Akide Polat/Freemymom.org Dawut created and directed the Xinjiang University &#8216;s Minorities Folklore Research Center and wrote dozens of articles in international journals and a number of books on the region and its culture. An economist at the Central University for Nationalities in Beijing, Tohti ran the Uyghur Online website, set up in 2006, which drew attention to the discrimination facing Uyghurs under Beijing’s rule over Xinjiang and its increasingly restrictive religious and language policies. The families of Dawut and Tohti share the common fate of not having heard anything from their jailed loved once since 2017, the year that China’s harsh crackdown in Xinjiang went into overdrive, with the establishment of a network of internment camps for Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other Turkic minorities. “My first reaction was that I couldn’t believe it, I couldn’t believe it at all,” Dawut&#8217;s U.S.-based daughter, Akide Polat, told Radio Free Asia last month. “None of my mother&#8217;s work, nor the way she went about it, nor anything in her personal life had anything to do with ‘endangering state security,’&#8221; she said of the charges on which her mother was convicted. ‘No intellectual resistance’ The Dui Hua Foundation, which revealed Dawut’s life sentence, noted estimates of as many as several hundred Uyghur intellectuals who have been detained, arrested, and imprisoned since 2016. RFA Uyghur has documented scores of disappearances and detentions of Uyghur writers, academics, artists and musicians in recent years. “What we&#8217;ve seen inside the Uyghur region of China is what is often termed ‘eliticide,’” said Sean Roberts, a Central Asia expert at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs in Washington, D.C. “There&#8217;s a particular focus on the intellectual elites, many of whom were working at state institutions, have been loyal to the state, did not did not present any sort of real resistance. Their only crime was basically maintaining the idea of a Uyghur nation and identity,” he told RFA Uyghur. Akida Polat holds a photo of her mother, imprisoned Uyghur folklore expert Rahile Duwat. Credit: X/@Kuzzat_Altay Roberts said eliticide “is often identified as occurring at the beginning of a genocide, where there&#8217;s an attempt to get rid of the entire political, economic and intellectual elite to ensure that there is no intellectual resistance to the erasure of a people and their identity.” In early 2021, after years of cumulative reports on the internment camp system in Xinjiang, the United Nations, the United States, and the legislatures of several European countries, officially branded the treatment of Uyghurs as genocide or crimes against humanity.  China has angrily rejected the genocide charges, arguing that the “reeducation camps” were a necessary tool to fight religious extremism and terrorism, in reaction to sporadic terrorist attacks that Uyghurs say are fueled by years of government oppression. Beijing has also waged an information counterattack, with a global media influence campaign that spreads Chinese state media content to countries in Asia and beyond, invites diplomats and journalists from China-friendly countries on staged tours of Xinjiang and promotes pro-China social media influencers.   Awareness-raising on genocide Last month, the pushback saw Chinese diplomats pressuring fellow United Nations member states not to attend a panel on human rights abuses in Xinjiang sponsored by a think tank and two rights groups on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York. Tohti, who has been nominated for the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s Peace Prize since 2020, was listed by the U.S. news outlet Time as one of top three favorites to win the medal this year, following Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Tohti was given higher odds on many of London’s famed betting sites of winning the prize than the recipient, jailed Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi. &#8220;There are many human rights issues around the world that are equally as important as the suffering that the Uyghurs are going through, but the international status and power of the perpetrators of these human rights abuses aren’t considered equal,” said Jewher Ilham, Tohti’s daughter. “The Chinese government is known to have a much more powerful political and economic influence than the Iranian government in the western world,” she told RFA Uyghur. Jewher Ilham holds a photo of her father, Ilham Tohti, during the Sakharov Prize ceremony at the European Parliament, in Strasbourg, France, Dec. 18, 2019. Credit: AP Photo It is not clear that that China would be moved by a Nobel Prize to release Tohti or moderate policies in Xinjiang, where Communist Party chief Xi Jinping appears to be doubling down on draconian security measures and policies to suppress Uyghur culture. Beijing lashed out at the Nobel Committee and imposed trade sanctions on Norway after the Nobel 2010 went to Chinese dissident writer Liu Xiaobo. With Liu in jail, the Chinese capital Beijing won the right in 2015 to host the Winter Olympics, and Beijing largely shrugged off the global outcry when in 2017, Liu became the first Nobel laureate to die in jail since German journalist and Nazi opponent...
- [Quick vision, fast hands: Burmese kite fighters compete in the sky](https://ij-reportika.com/quick-vision-fast-hands-burmese-kite-fighters-compete-in-the-sky/): On any clear evening, kites can be seen in just about every direction in the skies above the suburbs of Mandalay. People fly kites for the pleasure of seeing the colorful designs. Or they watch for kite fighting – a game where one uses the kite’s string to cut the string of other kites. “I lost six today,” said Ko Paik, who uses his kites for kite fighting. “I beat about 20. More than 20, I guess.” There are more than 10 kite flying teams in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city and a center of Burmese culture. Kite flying competitions are held in three different locations every year. Most kite flyers are elderly or middle-aged, as many young people these days don’t spend time on the sport. “Times have changed. Back then, a lot of young people used to fly kites,” Mandalay resident Soe Han said.  Members of the younger generation would rather spend time playing games on their phone, he said. There are about 20 kite businesses in Mandalay. But they’re no longer as profitable because of the sport’s declining popularity and higher prices.  “Business was OK in previous years,” kite store owner Aung Ko Oo said. “But since the price of goods has gone up, people don’t spend time on this anymore.”  Kite flyer Ko Baw Di encourages young people to fly kites because it is relaxing and supports physical health. “You have to have a quick vision and fast hands while running at the same time,” he said. “Your brain has to work fast to win, too.” Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Matt Reed.
- [Death toll for anti-junta fighters surges in past two months](https://ij-reportika.com/death-toll-for-anti-junta-fighters-surges-in-past-two-months/): The death toll of anti-junta fighters has spiked over the past two months, surpassing 100 in August and September together, according to Burma News International’s Myanmar Peace Monitor, which compiles data on military conflict in the country. The higher death rate is another indication that civil war between the junta and rebels resisting the military’s rule since it overthrew a democratically elected government in a 2021 coup d’etat. During the previous six months – between February and July – a total of 132 members of People’ Defense Forces were killed, it said.  Many PDF members are ordinary citizens who have taken up arms against the military, and sometimes there is a lack of coordination or cooperation between the disparate units, sources told Radio Free Asia. “When the war intensified, the need for tactics and the differences in weapons and ammunition shows there is still a problem for the revolutionary forces,” said Captain Lin Chet Aung, a member of the Civil Disobedience Movement, made up of soldiers and government employees who quit to protest the coup. The rebel fighters need more weapons and train more on tactics and coordination, he said. “If you look at the areas where the killings took place, there is a lack of connection between the groups in their area, and a lack of information,” he said. “There is a lack of trust” between PDF units. ‘Must have run out of ammunition’ According to Myanmar Peace Monitor’s tally, the death toll included 51 people in Sagaing region, six in Magway region, 20 in Chin state, two in Kayah state, 10 in Tanintharyi region, three in Mandalay region, one in Kachin state, two in Bago region, five in Kayin state and one in Shan state. Some of the killings have come in bursts. On Sept. 18, seven PDF members were killed in a battle between the PDF troops and the junta in Palaw township in Tanintharyi region. They were arrested and killed due to lack of manpower and firing power, the person in charge of Myeik District No. 1 Battalion told RFA on condition of anonymity. “They were surrounded by more than 200 strong junta troops. They were arrested in a house in Mya Taung village,” the person said. “They must have run out of ammunition while shooting.” On Sept. 22, junta troops arrested and killed 27 PDF members near Chay Yar Taw village in Sagaing region’s Myinmu township, Captain Khin Thaung of Myengmu Township PDF told RFA. “They did not get time to run because they were evacuating the civilians,” he said. “Furthermore, security information was leaked out and they did not get information in time.” Political commentator Than Soe Naing said the PDFs must adapt to the change in the junta’s tactics. Resistance forces are suffering more casualties because they lack basic military strategy, he said. “This isn’t a situation like in the past when the junta launched offensives by using artillery,” he said. RFA attempted to contact junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for a response on the recent increase in killings of PDF members, but he didn’t respond. Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [Body found in Myanmar’s Pale township as junta continues on warpath](https://ij-reportika.com/body-found-in-myanmars-pale-township-as-junta-continues-on-warpath/): Myanmar’s junta killed a man as a convoy of troops moving through Sagaing region continued to raid villages and abduct residents, locals told Radio Free Asia Friday. The body of the man in his 30s was discovered Thursday near Ma Taunt Ta village after being tortured by the junta group Tiger Ogre, local residents told Radio Free Asia.   “Go ahead, it won’t be so long until you can clearly see the ashes,” was written on a tarp near the corpse and signed by Tiger Ogre, according to a group helping war victims in the area. “He was tortured and killed after he was captured while fleeing the fighting. He was found when the locals returned to the village after the column left,” said a member of the assistance group, asking to be kept anonymous for fear of reprisals. “His name and where he is from are still not known. The body was already mutilated when locals found it near Ma Taunt Ta village.” “It won’t be so long until you can clearly see the ashes.” A warning from Tiger Ogre written on a tarpaulin near a mutilated body on Oct. 5, 2023. Credit: ANPTT The convoy, consisting of more than 300 soldiers and 17 military trucks, continues to arbitrarily open fire along their route. Locals report they also continue to raid villages, arrest members of local People’s Defense Forces, and take hostages. The morning of Oct. 4, Tiger Ogre raided five villages between Salingyi and Yinmarbin townships in southern Sagaing region. The targeted villages included Baik Tha Yet, Ma Taunt Ta and Shwe Tha Min.  After firing at villages from a helicopter for an hour, the junta troops left for Pale township on the morning of October 5. As the troops continue their raids across the region, more than 15,000 residents in Salingyi, Yinmarbin, and Pale townships have fled, aid workers and locals said.  Residents flee junta raids on Pale township on the night of Oct. 5, 2023. Credit: Pale People’s Administration Group The troops have also killed and captured locals, as well as taken rations of rice, oil, and peas whenever they entered the villages, residents said. The number of casualties has not been confirmed by RFA.  On Thursday morning, 10 locals were also arrested on suspicion of planting landmines near the entrance of Let Taung Gyi village in Pale township. A witness said there were about 20 military trucks reinforcing the column when the junta troops raided the villages in Pale township. “Now the column has arrived in Kokko Kone village in Pale township,” said a witness asking to remain anonymous. “The 10 civilians who were arrested from Let Taung Gyi village were released in the night. They were released around 7pm when we received the information.” He added that villages are still being targeted because of landmines planted by local resistance groups along the junta’s route.  Tiger Ogre column is responsible for violent decapitations, torture and robberies in other townships in southern Sagaing earlier this year. Calls by RFA to Sagaing’s junta spokesperson Sai Naing Naing Kyaw went unanswered. More than 813,000 people have fled their homes in Sagaing due to fighting according to a United Nations report on Oct. 2. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Anti-junta teachers still 130,000-strong](https://ij-reportika.com/anti-junta-teachers-still-130000-strong/): More than 130,000 teachers remain a part of Myanmar’s Civil Disobedience Movement, or CDM, made up of government employees who have walked off the job to protest the military’s February 2021 coup d’etat, the country’s shadow government said Thursday. Speaking at an event to mark World Teachers’ Day, National Unity Government Minister of Health and Education Zaw Wei Soe said that CDM teachers have continued to make significant contributions to the resistance, despite a growing number of hardships since the movement boasted more than 200,000 teachers in the days immediately following the takeover. “For almost three years, these teachers have been participating in the CDM as part of the Spring Revolution without taking a single penny of salary,” he said. “There are still more than 130,000 CDM teachers who have helped to limit the effectiveness of the terrorist military regime.” While some teachers left the CDM due to social and economic pressures, others cited safety concerns as they saw the junta increasingly arrest, jail and kill their colleagues. In some cases, teachers said they did not receive as much support from the NUG and anti-junta groups as they expected. By some estimates, thousands of teachers left the CDM when schools reopened for the year in June 2022 and 2023. In the years since the coup, the National Unity Government, or NUG – made up of former civilian leaders and anti-junta activists – has launched more than 70 classes online and over 5,000 basic education schools, NUG Acting President Duwa Lashi La said at the event, despite the military’s “deliberate targeting of the education sector.” “[The junta] has been committing inhuman crimes such as launching indiscriminate airstrikes and arson attacks on schools or and arresting, torturing and killing their teachers,” he said. The junta has said that teachers, parents, and students who attend NUG schools, as well as those who provide financial support, face “serious action.” Hundreds of thousands of families have pulled their children out of state-run schools since the military seized power in favor of “self-help” schools set up by the CDM, the NUG and anti-junta People’s Defense Force, or PDF, paramilitary groups. Attacks on self-help schools Amid an ongoing junta offensive against the PDF and ethnic rebel groups in Myanmar’s remote border regions, attacks on villages have led to injuries and even deaths at self-help schools. Even when the schools don’t face the threat of conflict, teachers and students are often forced to attend classes in makeshift conditions and lack access to critical education resources. The NUG’s message on World Teachers’ Day stood in stark contrast to that of junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who urged Myanmar’s youth to obtain an education “in order to establish a peaceful future society” and called for more “good teachers to produce such youths.”  There is a long tradition of teachers and students assuming an outsized role in the struggle against dictatorship in Myanmar. In 1988, under the rule of strongman General Ne Win, a student-led anti-dictatorship movement boiled into a nationwide uprising following the regime’s announcement banning 25-, 35- and 75-kyat bills from circulation and later the killing of a university student by police. The nationwide uprising, which peaked on Aug. 8 of that year, became a historic milestone that united Myanmar’s various ethnic groups, socioeconomic classes, and other communities against the then-ruling junta. CDM couple detained In the latest example of persecution that CDM participants face, RFA learned that junta authorities in the northern Sagaing region arrested a married couple of public servants. Myanmar authorities have arrested Aung San Win and his wife, Myo Su Thet, government employees who joined the Civil Disobedience Movement. Credit: Facebook/Myo Su Thet On Sept. 30, junta troops in Sagaing city’s Sein Kone ward arrested Aung San Win, 37, and his wife Myo Su Thet, 35, who are junior engineers for Sagaing’s Road Department, residents told RFA. Four days later, authorities had their home sealed off. “Maybe they were arrested because the junta wanted their family member, or they joined the CDM,” said one resident who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal. “This morning, the house was sealed off.” While the reason for their arrest was not immediately clear, pro-junta channels on social media platform Telegram claimed that they had “contacted the PDF,” which the regime has labeled a terrorist group. The couple are currently being held at the Sagaing police station, residents said. Calls by RFA to Sai Naing Naing Kyaw, the junta’s spokesperson for Sagaing region, seeking more information on the arrest went unanswered Thursday. According to Thailand’s Association for the Assistance of Political Prisoners (Burma), nearly 20,000 people arrested since the coup remain behind bars for their political activities. Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
- [Thousands flee Sagaing region townships after Myanmar junta raids](https://ij-reportika.com/thousands-flee-sagaing-region-townships-after-myanmar-junta-raids/): Almost 5,000 people have fled their homes after two days of raids on villages in Sagaing region’s Salingyi township, locals told RFA on Thursday. Troops took several people with them to use as human shields, according to an organization helping victims of the conflict. The junta sent in a Russian-made attack helicopter on Wednesday morning, targeting villages between Salingyi and Yinmarbin townships.  On Thursday morning, hundreds of troops stormed Let Taung Gyi village in Pale township. Local People’s Defense Forces (PDFs) had planted landmines near the entrance of the village but it’s not known whether the junta troops suffered any casualties. They arrested people suspected of planting the mines after entering the village, according to a local who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. “About 10 residents were arrested while they were fleeing to safety from Let Taung Gyi village this morning,” the resident said, adding that the identities of those arrested are not yet known.  “The column [of soldiers] was in a convoy and moving slowly from one village to another. It had been going for a long time.” The local said the convoy contained around 300 soldiers and 17 military vehicles that opened fire on villages along the route while a helicopter strafed villages in Salingyi and Yinmarbin townships, according to an aid worker who also asked not to be named for safety reasons. “Helicopters shot at two villages,” they said. “The Mi-35 fired along both sides of the village road because [the junta] were worried PDFs would come along the road.” Around 5,000 residents of at least five villages fled their homes ahead of the raids, said the aid worker. Calls to Sagaing region’s junta spokesperson Sai Naing Naing Kyaw by RFA went unanswered Thursday.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [‘Lying flat’: Song about being young and poor goes viral in China](https://ij-reportika.com/lying-flat-song-about-being-young-and-poor-goes-viral-in-china/): As China copes with widespread youth unemployment and a flagging economy, a song about lying down, dropping out and burning incense in the hope of magically getting rich has become a viral sensation on social media. The jaunty pop hit by singer Li Ermeng titled, &#8220;I can&#8217;t afford to worship in the Temple of Wealth,&#8221; has been dubbed the &#8220;lying flat&#8221; song in a reference to a passive attitude reportedly adopted by Generation Z in China in the face of an increasingly harsh economic climate. &#8220;Lying flat,&#8221; also translated as &#8220;lying down,&#8221; is a buzzword that concerns the ruling Chinese Communist Party, which has targeted online content linked to the idea and played down dire youth unemployment figures, insisting that young people get less picky about the jobs they will do and show a more positive attitude. &#8220;They&#8217;d understand what I&#8217;m suffering in the temple,&#8221; the song begins after a shrill alarm clock sound effect. &#8220;I&#8217;d rather rely on Buddha than on hard work.&#8221; &#8220;I burned three yuan worth of incense today and wished for 3 hundred million,&#8221; Li sings. &#8220;The rest, I&#8217;ll leave up to fate.&#8221; &#8220;From here on out, I&#8217;ll play the lottery instead of going to the temple,&#8221; run the lyrics to the song, which had spawned hundreds of copy-cat cover versions on Douyin, China&#8217;s version of Tik Tok, complete with its own hand-gesture dance, according to a keyword search on Tuesday. &#8220;By day I draw career plans, by night I dream of marriage,&#8221; the song goes on.  &#8220;My boss counts his money while I get to eat different flavors of instant ramen,&#8221; it says, adding: &#8220;Not having love is OK, but not having no money really doesn&#8217;t work.&#8221;  Rejecting traditional milestones Social media comments linked the song to the current economic climate, which means hard times for China&#8217;s young people, who have coined the term &#8220;political depression&#8221; to refer to their sense of hopelessness, and who are increasingly rejecting traditional milestones like finding a job, marriage and children. &#8220;Times are getting harder every year, it&#8217;s harder and harder to make money, and prices just get higher and higher,&#8221; wrote Zhihu user @too_late. &#8220;People living at the bottom [of the economic ladder] are finding it harder every day.&#8221; According to X user @powershitly, &#8220;lying flat is a form of nonviolent resistance among young people in China.&#8221; &#8220;There&#8217;s no crime in being a Buddhist, and it&#8217;s rational to lie flat!&#8221; the user wrote on a post about the song. X user @Sofigoodboy agreed, adding: &#8220;This is the sad reality of the younger generation.&#8221; People offer prayers at Yonghe Temple, popularly known as Lama Temple, in Beijing in 2022. Credit: Noel Celis/AFP Social media influencer Chia-Paō Lee, who grew up in China but is now based in Taiwan, said students in China are taught that they will get a good job after graduation if they study hard, and yet jobs are now very hard to come by at all. &#8220;One very important reason for the prevalence of lying flat culture is that no matter how hard you work, you can&#8217;t live a good life,&#8221; Lee told Radio Free Asia. The last official youth unemployment rate released in July showed that around one in five young people in China is struggling to find a job. And that figure – last reported at 21.3% – may just be the tip of the iceberg. The hidden employed Associate professor Zhang Dandan of Peking University says the true figure could be as high as 46.5%, if young people currently not looking for work and living in their parental home are taken into account. According to a blog post by &#8220;Internet Diver&#8221; on Sina.com, many more young people are hidden from statistical indicators of unemployment because they have signed up for graduate degrees, or are taking time out to prepare for civil service examinations. A young man and woman talk to a recruiter as they seek employment at a job fair on June 9, 2023 in Beijing, Credit: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images Chien-chung Wu, associate professor in general education at the Taipei University of Maritime Technology, said the ruling Chinese Communist Party has yet to come up with an effective economic policy to stimulate growth. &#8220;Young people can&#8217;t see a future, and they can&#8217;t see any hope,&#8221; Wu said. &#8220;The so-called magic weapon has had no effect in boosting the economy, regardless of how many shots in the arm they give.&#8221; Meanwhile, the government keeps up its &#8220;positive&#8221; propaganda about young people, quoting President Xi Jinping as saying that young people should &#8220;shoulder important responsibilities in the new era.&#8221; &#8220;The majority of young people are meeting the needs of their country by shouldering their responsibilities and have courage to forge ahead, using hard work as their momentum for innovation,&#8221; state broadcaster CCTV said in a report aired on Oct. 2. &#8220;[They are] singing the song of the youth in the New Era,&#8221; the report said, alongside footage of Xi visiting the elite Harbin Engineering University in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang in September, and featuring students from Shanghai Jiao Tong University&#8217;s school of oceanography carrying out research in the Arctic. &#8220;On an expedition for glory and dreams, Chinese youth in the New Era are running hard along the track of youth, using the power and creativity of youth to stir up a surge of national rejuvenation, and using the wisdom and sweat of youth to build a better China!&#8221; the report said. Translated with additional reporting by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar company director and regional officials ‘arrested in China’](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-company-director-and-regional-officials-arrested-in-china/): Eleven businessmen from Myanmar’s Shan state were reportedly arrested while visiting China’s Yunnan province over the weekend, according to traders based on the border. Among them are local officials from the Kokang Self-Administered Zone.  Liu Zhengxiang, the director of the Laukkaing-based Fully Light Group, was also arrested. Along with Liu’s connections to the Kokang Border Guard Force, the director is also allegedly involved in online gambling across the country. Fully Light Group, a multi-sector conglomerate working in jewels, tourism, and rubber, is the largest business in Laukkaing.  On Sept. 30, about 30 businessmen from Kokang, Laukkaing and Chinshwehaw cities attended a Chinese trade fair in the Lincang district of Yunnan province. The police arrived at the hotel where they were staying and targeted the most well-known businessmen, said a border-based merchant, asking to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. “Nothing happened on the first day of the trade fair on September 30. They were arrested in their hotel where they were staying on the second day,” the man told Radio Free Asia.  “Big businessmen from Laukkaing, in other words the wealthy businessmen, were taken.” Laukkaing junta spokesperson and economic minister Khun Thein Maung told RFA he did not know the specifics of the most recent arrests in Yunnan province. RFA contacted the Chinese Embassy in Yangon and the Myanmar Consulate in Kunming via email, but received no response at the time of publication.  Arrests of Chinese nationals living in Myanmar increased sharply last month. An official from the Kokang Self-Administered Zone confirmed on Sept. 28 that authorities detained 377 Chinese nationals who were living illegally in Laukkaing city.  The area is a well-known hotspot for fraudulent online businesses, human trafficking and casinos. The official told RFA those arrested last month are being interrogated in relation to online money laundering in Laukkaing. The United Wa State Army also arrested more than 1,300 Chinese nationals in relation to online money laundering schemes last month and handed them over to Chinese authorities at the border. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Conflict in Myanmar’s Shan state drives 1,000 civilians into China](https://ij-reportika.com/conflict-in-myanmars-shan-state-drives-1000-civilians-into-china/): Fighting between junta troops and the ethnic Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, has driven more than 1,000 people from northeast Myanmar’s Shan state across the border with China to seek shelter, according to residents. The group is the latest example of civilians displaced by conflict in Myanmar, where the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says that tens of thousands have fled into neighboring countries to avoid conflict since the military’s February 2021 coup.  More than 1.6 million people have been internally displaced by fighting since the takeover, according to the U.N. Fighting between the military and the TNLA in Shan’s Muse and Kutkai townships broke out on July 23, when the latter’s forces attacked a pro-junta militia convoy near Sei Lant village on the Muse-Namhkan highway. Since then, more than 1,000 residents of seven villages – including the border tracts of Nam Kat and Sei Lant – have fled into China, said a resident of Nam Kat who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke to RFA Burmese on condition of anonymity, citing security concerns. “We have been fleeing from our homes for two months now,” said the resident. “We can’t make a living and the children’s education has also been impacted.” The resident said that few people felt the need to flee the fighting initially, even when the military began firing artillery in the area. “But one evening recently, lots of people from Namhkan fled after being attacked because the military used a jet fighter and the attack was at night,” he said. There are more than 100 internally displaced persons, or IDPs, sheltering in Namhkan’s Kawng Tat village and more than 300 IDPs sheltering in Muse’s Nam Hsant village, the resident said, while at least 1,000 people have fled to Ruili and Jie Gao in southwest China’s Yunnan province. The number of people who have fled elsewhere was not immediately clear, he added. Caught between two factions Residents of Sei Lant told RFA that while some villagers had fled to Muse, most are “living in fear” in their homes. One resident named Aik Sai said that although fighting has stopped in recent days, “they are worried that it will resume” due to the presence of troops from both sides stationed near the village. “Both sides are staying [near] the village and we can’t drive them out,” he said, urging the troops to “fight in the jungle, if possible … [because] it isn’t good for both sides to use locals as shields.” Aik Sai said life in the village had ground to a halt amid the fighting and that “we can’t earn a living.” “We’re worried about residents being shot in the village,” he added. TNLA spokesman Lt-Col. Mai Aik Kyaw confirmed the military’s recent use of air power in the area. He said that on Sept. 25 at around 10:00 p.m., the military dropped six bombs, including two 500-pound bombs with an impact radius of up to 30 meters (100 feet), in the jungle near a TNLA camp along the Muse-Namhkan highway, around 16 kilometers (10 miles) from the Chinese border. “We don’t know why they came and attacked,” he said, adding that the TNLA has “only engaged in self-defense.” “Since Sept. 22, there has been no retaliatory attack from our side,” Mai Aik Kyaw said. “On their side, they are constantly firing from the air and artillery every day. In the last three or four days, there have been drone attacks.” A Myanmar junta jet dropped 500 lb. bombs on a TNLA base on Loi Mauk Mountain, Sept. 26, 2023. Credit: News &amp; Information Department A resident of Kutkai’s Ngawt Ngar village also confirmed the military’s use of aircraft, saying that two fighter jets fired on the tract on the afternoon of Sept. 26. That same evening, he said, junta troops in nearby Nam Hpat Kar lobbed artillery at Ngawt Ngar, damaging a home. The resident said that the incidents were enough to cause many villagers to flee and others to go into hiding nearby. “There are only a few people left [in the village],” he said. “Some ran away to the jungle, since people don’t dare to stay in the village anymore.” Control of border town Attempts by RFA to reach the junta’s economic minister and Shan state spokesman Khun Thein Maung went unanswered. Similarly, RFA contacted the Chinese Embassy in Yangon via email regarding the issue of Myanmar nationals fleeing into China due to fighting near the border, but received no response. Than Soe Naing, a Myanmar political commentator, said he believes that the junta has been stepping up attacks in the area because it “cannot tolerate” TNLA control of Muse, a town of economic importance due to its proximity to the border. “That’s why the junta is putting pressure on the TNLA, and the fighting has become intense,” he said. According to the TNLA, the two sides fought nearly 50 battles between July 23 and Sept. 26. RFA reporting found that a total of nine civilians – including a child – were killed and 13 civilians were injured in Mogoke, Muse and Kutkai townships over the same period. Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar guerrilla group says it shot junta conspirator in Yangon](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-guerrilla-group-says-it-shot-junta-conspirator-in-yangon/): A man accused of working with Myanmar’s ruling junta has been shot in the head in central Yangon, a local guerilla group said. The Urban Owls released a statement shortly after Monday’s shooting claiming responsibility for the attack, saying that businessman Nyan Lwin Aung was targeted for his close relationships with military leaders.  They said the man accompanied junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing on his trip to Russia last year and met with Russian Defense Ministry officials. Nyan Lwin Aung also bought weapons for the junta, the group claimed. He was shot in the head at an intersection in Latha township, residents told Radio Free Asia on Tuesday. “It happened at around 10 p.m. last night,” said one local, asking to be kept anonymous for fear of reprisals.  “He was sent to the Yangon General Hospital. A large number of junta troops arrived with military vans and investigated 17th to 19th Street after the shooting incident.” Police and soldiers began searching civilians along the busy Shwedagon Pagoda Road after the shooting, the local said. Another Latha resident said Nyan Lwin Aung was shot at close range in his left temple and was sent to Yangon General Hospital. The hospital’s emergency department confirmed to RFA Burmese that Nyan Lwin Aung arrived at the hospital Monday night with a serious wound. One surgeon said he was in a critical condition and being treated in the intensive care unit.  Yangon division’s junta spokesperson and regional attorney general Htay Aung had not responded to RFA at the time of publication.  Monday’s statement by the Urban Owls added that Nyan Lwin Aung had also worked for the Ministry of the Interior, installing CCTV facial recognition cameras.  It said he had a company in Myanmar with business subsidiaries in Thailand, Russia, China, and the United Arab Emirates under the name North Gate Engineering and Technology. RFA has yet to confirm the group’s claims. When a reporter called North Gate’s Yangon office an employee said he was not authorized to comment. The guerilla group has carried out a number of killings, claiming responsibility for the death of Ye Khine, security chief of the Yangon International Airport, as well as Minn Tayzar Nyunt Tin, a junta-affiliated lawyer accused of money laundering. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Myanmar junta seeks to wipe out headquarters of Kachin rebel group](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-seeks-to-wipe-out-headquarters-of-kachin-rebel-group/): The Myanmar junta is going all out with its air and ground forces to wipe out the headquarters of ethnic Kachin rebels in northern Kachin state, eliminating a lifeline of support for anti-regime militias in neighboring Sagaing region, political and military analysts said. A fierce battle broke out between military troops and Kachin Independence Army forces on Monday near the Lai Lum Awng Jar base camp in Kachin’s Momauk township, said Col. Naw Bu, the group’s information officer. Between 50 and 100 junta soldiers have been trapped by KIA forces inside the camp for more than two months, he said. The junta launched three air strikes while some of its troops who tried to rescue them were intercepted by the KIA along the route.  Fierce fighting between junta troops and joint KIA and local People’s Defense Forces – ordinary citizens who have taken up arms against the junta – in the upper townships of adjacent Sagaing region earlier this year began moving in July towards the KIA’s headquarters in Laiza, a remote mountainous town in Kachin state that lies on the border with China, area residents and KIA members said. Since then, the junta’s 1,000-strong force has been attacking Nam Sam Yang village in Waingmaw township near Laiza, while the KIA and some soldiers from the Arakan Army, another ethnic armed group, have jointly defended it, they said.  There also has been three months of intense and continuous fighting along the Myitkyina-Bhamo road as the junta tried to gain control of the major cities of Hpakant, Bhamo and Myitkyina in Kachin state, Naw Bu said.  “The junta even launched air strikes,” he said. “That’s how intense the military situation is.”    “They have reinforced their troops to try to control Hpakant, Myitkyina and Bhamo cities,” he added. “That’s why their troops have reduced strength in Sagaing region, and fighting there has decreased as well.” Hotbed of resistance Up to now, areas of northern Sagaing bordering Kachin have been a hotbed of armed resistance since the military seized power from the democratically elected government in a February 2021 coup. Nine military junta warships loaded with weapons and food supplies, which sailed up from Mandalay along the Ayeyarwady River, arrived in Bhamo on Aug. 19 to reinforce the military base along the Myitkyina-Bhamo road near Laiza, according to local and KIA sources who declined to be named for safety reasons. When the junta columns could not move forward after intercepting KIA forces burned their vehicles and destroyed their supplies, the junta launched air strikes, they said.  More than 1,000 residents displaced by the fighting have taken refuge in monasteries and Christian churches in Momauk and Bhamo, said a Bhamo local. Kachin Independence Army recruits undergo training at a military camp near Laiza in northern Myanmar&#8217;s Kachin state, Feb. 13, 2012. Credit: Vincent Yu/AP Over 80 battles have occurred in the vicinity of Bhamo, Hpakant, Tanai, Shwegu, Momauk, Waingmaw and at the KIA&#8217;s Laiza headquarters between July 23 to Sept. 11, during which junta forces conducted more than 20 air strikes, Naw Bu said. During these battles, 51 junta soldiers were killed and 106  were injured, he said, though he did not disclose the number of KIA casualties. Win Ye Tun, the junta’s social affairs minister and Kachin state spokesman, said he did not know details about the fighting.  Junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun could not be reached for comment. ‘Cut it from the roots’ Thein Tun Oo, executive director of the pro-military Thayninga Institute for Strategic Studies, said the military is targeting KIA headquarters in Laiza because it wants to eliminate the supply source for armed opposition in the region. “As long as you cannot control the sources of supply for your enemies, you won’t be able to control what is happening on the front,” he said. “This means that if you only cut the branches without cutting the root sources, it will not be enough to kill a tree. To cut down a tree, you need to cut it from the roots.” “Because Laiza is a major source of supplies for the resistance groups, the military’s major aim is to wipe it out so that at least its supply lines of personnel and weapons can be eradicated,” he said. The military junta is trying to wipe out Laiza, so it can control the upper part of Sagaing region, said a political and military analyst on condition of anonymity so he could speak freely.  “Since the junta has suffered the loss of many territories especially in Sagaing region, it is attacking Laiza in Kachin state to strategically control and cut the source of supplies for the revolutionary forces becoming stronger in Sagaing region.” Junta troops have been attacking the Laiza headquarters with a much larger force than before, while the KIA is strongly resisting them to prevent the regime from achieving its goal, he added. With junta soldiers stepping up fighting in Kachin state, the number of attacks in the upper Sagaing region, such as Indaw, Tigyaing, Katha and Banmauk townships, has decreased, local defense forces said. The junta’s Light Infantry Battalions 416, 309, 301 and 416 used to be stationed in Indaw township and would raid villages, but now only the 77th battalion is there, said the information officer of Indaw Revolution, a defense team in Sagaing region, as troops appear to be headed to Hpakant for reinforcement. More than 80 battles have been fought in Indaw township, and more than 20 civilians have been killed by junta soldiers since the 2021 coup, said the information officer, who declined to identify himself by name for safety reasons. Similarly, KIA-PDF joint forces have fought more than 100 battles with junta troops in Katha township, resulting in the deaths of over 80 civilians and the burning of more than 900 houses, according to an official of the Katha township People’s Defense Force. RFA could not independently confirm the death toll figures.  More than 24,000 civilians have fled to safety due to...
- [Airstrikes and shelling killed 44 civilians in Myanmar in September](https://ij-reportika.com/airstrikes-and-shelling-killed-44-civilians-in-myanmar-in-september/): Casualties continue to mount in Myanmar as junta forces make increasing use of airstrikes and heavy artillery bombardments on civilian targets. Figures compiled exclusively by Radio Free Asia show that 44 civilians were killed and 142 injured in such attacks in September alone. On Sept. 28, four members of the same family died when a shell landed on their house in Sagaing region’s Kale township. “The shell dropped landed straight on their house and they died on the spot,” a local resident who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals told RFA Burmese. Locals said villages are often targeted after junta troops suffer casualties in fighting with People’s Defense Forces in Sagaing. A battle between the two sides broke out in Pale township in Sagaing region on Sept. 29. The junta then fired on the Htan Ta Pin neighborhood, killing a 64-year-old woman and destroying houses, locals said. “The junta opened fire at least 10 times and five to six shells dropped on Htan Ta Pin, with the others falling on an adjoining neighborhood,” said a local who also declined to be named. The attacks are indiscriminate; last Wednesday 18 students were injured in Sagaing region’s Wuntho township when a shell exploded next to a school. RFA’s figures show Sagaing was the hardest-hit region or state last month with 20 deaths and 38 injuries as a result of aerial and land bombardment. Bago region was the second hardest hit with four civilian deaths and 26 injuries. The region has seen fierce fighting between junta troops and the military wing of the Karen National Union, a powerful ethnic group. For the year through September, 816 civilians were killed in shelling and aerial attacks, with 1,628 people injured, RFA figures show. Junta forces rely on airstrikes and shelling in areas where ground troops have made little progress, according to political analyst Than Soe Naing. “The air raids cause massive casualties nationwide,” he said. “The junta has stepped up its terrorist acts by carrying out these indiscriminate attacks.” RFA called junta spokesperson Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun seeking comment on the rising civilian casualties, but no one answered. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.
- [Chinese police harass family of Washington DC student activist](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-police-harass-family-of-washington-dc-student-activist/): An international student in the U.S. capital has been harassed by China’s state security police for pro-democracy activism on American soil, with his loved ones back in China hauled in by police for questioning and told to get him in line, Radio Free Asia has learned. Zhang Jinrui, a law student at Washington’s Georgetown University, said his family in China received an unexpected visit in June from state security police, who interrogated his father about Zhang’s level of patriotism and questioned him about his activities in the United States. “The state security police knocked on our door and took my father away for lengthy questioning,” Zhang told Radio Free Asia in a recent interview. “[They asked him] ‘Does this child of yours take part in pro-democracy activities? Do they usually love their country and the [ruling Chinese Communist] Party?’” “If not, you have to teach him to love his country and the party better,” the police said. “It’s not OK that he’s doing this, and it won’t do any good.” Zhang’s experience comes amid growing concern over Beijing’s “long-arm” law enforcement targeting overseas activists and students, who had expected to enjoy greater freedom of speech and association while living or studying in a democratic country. Zhang said the questioning of his father came after he took part in protests in support of the “white paper” protest movement in November 2022, and against Beijing’s hosting of the Winter Olympics in February. There are growing concerns over Beijing’s “long-arm” law enforcement targeting overseas activists and students. Here, “Viola,” a New York University graduate student, delivers a speech during a gathering to mark the third anniversary of the death of Chinese whistleblower Li Wenliang in New York on Feb. 5, 2023. Credit: Gemunu Amarasinghe/RFA Yet he wasn’t contacted at the time by police, who sometimes contact overseas Chinese nationals via social media platforms to get their message across.  “On the evening of June 29, I suddenly received a WeChat message from my sister saying ‘Contact me urgently, something happened,’” Zhang said. “The people from the police station had called my sister and asked about her [relative] in Washington, wanting to know if they took part in the Torch on the Potomac group, saying I was a key member.” Fear and self-censorship Torch on the Potomac was set up by students at the George Washington University in April, to provide a safe space for dissident activities by Chinese students. But Zhang was nonplussed by the accusation, saying that the group has yet to organize any activities, and that police have also been harassing the families of Chinese students who haven’t taken part in any activism at all. Calls to the Wusan police station, which is close to Zhang’s family home in the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang, rang unanswered during office hours on Sept. 19. Several other Chinese students declined to be interviewed when contacted by Radio Free Asia. Sarah McLaughlin, senior scholar at The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, said speaking to the foreign media could bring down further trouble on the heads of students who may already have seen their families hauled in for questioning. “I know that that’s something that international students have run into before,” she said. “They’ve gotten in trouble when they returned home for things they’ve said online while in the United States.” McLaughlin said the harassment of their families in China will have a chilling effect on students’ speech, even overseas. “There are definitely some real fears among these students, and there’s definitely self censorship,” she said. Classroom informants And the police aren’t the only source of such anxiety – there is also the risk of being reported by fellow students from China, who are encouraged via the Chinese Students and Scholars Associations to keep an eye on each other. A Georgetown University faculty member who asked to remain anonymous said the problem is becoming more and more serious, with Chinese students feeling unable to speak freely in class, for fear of being informed on by their Chinese classmates. Georgetown University student Zhang Jinrui says he was harassed by members of the Georgetown branch of the Chinese Students and Scholars Association as he was distributing flyers. Credit: Gemunu Amarasinghe/RFA Last year, when students at George Washington University put up posters on campus opposing China’s hosting of the 2023 Winter Olympics, the Chinese Embassy sent members of the campus branch of the Chinese Students and Scholars Association to tear them down again and put up posters denouncing their actions. “They even got in touch with the school, saying that the Chinese students who support democracy and oppose zero-COVID are racist,” Zhang said. “That’s why they set up the Torch on the Potomac, because a lot of their activities weren’t getting the support of the school.” George Washington University President Mark Wrighton admitted in a Feb. 8 statement that the removal of the posters was a mistake, and the university administration should have waited until they better understood the situation before acting. “We began to receive a number of concerns through official university reporting channels that cited bias and racism against the Chinese community,” Wrighton said. “I also received an email directly from a student who expressed concerns.” “I have since learned from our university’s scholars that the posters were designed by a Chinese-Australian artist, Badiucao, and they are a critique of China’s policies,” he said. “Upon full understanding, I do not view these posters as racist; they are political statements.” Neither Georgetown University nor George Washington University had responded to requests for comment on the renewed harassment of Chinese students in the United States by Sept. 19. A wall with posters at Georgetown University in Washington. Torch on the Potomac was set up by students at the George Washington University in April, to provide a safe space for dissident activities by Chinese students. Credit: Gemunu Amarasinghe/RFA Close contact with embassies Zhang said he has also been personally harassed by members of the Georgetown branch of the...
- [Zoned out: China-Myanmar Economic Corridor still going nowhere](https://ij-reportika.com/zoned-out-china-myanmar-economic-corridor-still-going-nowhere/): As Myanmar’s economy continues to skid, with soaring inflation, a depreciating kyat, and flat revenue, junta leader Min Aung Hlaing seems to be looking for a few Chinese-backed marquee projects to kickstart growth, and ensure Beijing’s long-term commitment to the State Administrative Council, as the regime is formally known.   In August Min Aung Hlaing called for the completion of the Kyaukphyu special economic zone (SEZ) and container port, while engineering work is starting on the 810-km railway connecting Kyaukphyu with Muse, a city on the Myanmar-China border.  The project in western Myanmar has evolved and absorbed different components since a 2011 memorandum of understanding for the Kunming-Kyaukphyu railway led eventually to a set of projects under China’s ambitious $1 trillion Belt and Road Initiative. But as the BRI prepares to celebrate its tenth anniversary at a summit in Beijing in October, China, unhappy with the slow pace of CMEC implementation, looks unlikely to extend an invitation to Min Aung Hlaing, denying him the recognition that he covets. Oil tanks seen on Maday island outside Kyaukphyu, Myanmar, are seen May 17, 2017. Credit: Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters Chinese projects in Myanmar were facing trouble before Min Aung Hlaing overthrew the country’s elected government on Feb. 1, 2021. Now they are beset by unrest, power shortages and transport woes.  Kyaukphyu began as a small port for offshore and imported oil, as well as being the land terminus for the Shwe gas field. The 51-49 joint venture between China National Petroleum Company and the Ministry of Oil and Gas Enterprises constructed a pier and 12 tanks, which commenced operations in 2013.  The US$2.5 billion 750 km oil pipeline and 770 km gas pipeline to Kunming became fully operational in 2017. That year, PetroChina opened up a refinery in Kunming that was able to handle 7% of China’s total refining needs.  These pipelines were China’s strategic priority, but Beijing had other goals for linking landlocked southwestern China to the Indian Ocean. China saw the project as a way to address what then Chinese President Hu Jintao described in 2003 as the “Malacca dilemma” of vulnerability to a naval blockade of the Southeast Asian waterway which carries two-thirds of China&#8217;s energy imports and trade flows. In 2018, the two sides established the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) to jumpstart the projects as part of the BRI, the signature project of Hu’s successor Xi Jinping. Beijing also saw as supporting Myanmar’s National Ceasefire Agreement signed by some ethnic armies in 2015 to end years of hostilities with the government. All existing Myanmar projects were folded into the CMEC, and still there was little movement. Two of the first MOUs were a feasibility study for the first phase of the railway project and an environmental and sustainability impact study of Kyaukphyu. Ambitious projections A December 2015 tender between the government of reformist military leader Thein Sein and a consortium of Chinese corporations led by the state controlled investment company, CITIC, established the Kyaukphyu SEZ and deepwater port. The $7.3 billion project was 85% owned by the Chinese consortium. The phased project included the 1,736 hectare Kyaukphyu SEZ followed by two deep water container ports on Maday and Ramree islands. At capacity, 270 and 237 hectares ports would be able to berth 10 ships at once and handle 4.9 million containers annually.  There were wild promises by CITIC, including projections of adding $10 billion to GDP annually and the creation of 100,000 new jobs. But little happened.  And there was already pushback from the elected National League of Democracy government led by Aung San Suu Kyi . Fearful of a scenario that played out when Sri Lanka became heavily indebted to China, in 2018, the Suu kyi administration renegotiated the agreement, lowering China’s stake to 70% as well as decreasing the overall debt for the project. But the ethnic cleansing and violence in Rakhine state, the location of the port facility, kept everything at a standstill.   Xi Jinping’s January 2020 visit to Myanmar took advantage of Aung San Suu Kyi’s diplomatic isolation following the forced expulsion of Rohingya Muslims in 2017 that led to UN genocide charges. More than 30 agreements were signed, many of which related to Kyaukphyu and its rail links.  Days before the February 2021 coup, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Suu Kyi to push for the quick implementation of CMEC projects, including Kyaukphyu. Myanmar&#8217;s State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi meets with China&#8217;s Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Naypyidaw, Jan. 11, 2021. Credit: Thar Byaw/Myanmar State Counsellor Office/AFP Seven months after the military seized power, site work began on the 1,740 hectare site. But there were immediate protests from the 20,000 people who were being displaced and harbored mistrust over promised compensation. Unrest was also fueled by civil disobedience against the coup, and junta crackdowns and arrests of local officials and activists.   Another impediment for the project is the regional shortage of electricity. In 2019, a Hong Kong based firm, VPower, which is partially owned by CITIC, won an emergency tender to provide electricity in Myanmar. By 2021, it had nine different power projects around the country, including three in Kyaukphyu.  Yet, the firm shut down the 200mw Kyaukphyu II project in mid-2021, despite it being a 60-month contract. By 2022, VPower had shut down the Kyaukphyu I  plant. Both were dismantled. The firm cited a number of factors in the closing of the plants, including irregular supply of LNG, currency controls and other issues related to the post-coup investment climate. Left unsaid was the government’s inability to pay for the amount of electricity that it contracted for and to pay the sum in U.S. dollars.  That left only one power plant in Kyaukphyu, a 135mw gas-fired plant, a 2020 joint venture between VPower, CNTIC, and Myanmar’s Supreme Group. It was still in operation in early 2023, though there are reports that it has recently closed. Underwriting the junta Without power, little is progressing. In March 2023, a Chinese company signed a MOU...
- [Cambodian-American lawyer transferred to prison in capital](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-american-lawyer-transferred-to-prison-in-capital/): Cambodian authorities have transferred an outspoken Cambodian-American lawyer and human rights defender from a remote jail to the country’s largest prison on the outskirts of the capital Phnom Penh, a Prison Department official said Friday.  Theary Seng, a 52-year-old American citizen, has been serving a six-year sentence in Preah Vihear Prison, in the north, since June 2022, when she was convicted treason, stemming from her failed efforts in 2019 to bring about the return to Cambodia of political opposition leader Sam Rainsy. The Ministry of Interior transferred her to Prey Sar II Prison, which houses detained women, in the capital on Sept. 23, said Prison Department spokesman Nuth Savna. “There is no reason for the transfer,” he told Radio Free Asia. “It was the decision of the ministry’s leadership.”  Theary Seng’s lawyer and supporting NGOs requested her transfer because her appeal case is being tried in the capital. Sam Chamroeun, her attorney, said the transfer will enable Theary Seng to work with her  defense team and to meet with her family in Phnom Penh.  Theary Seng was one of many casualties of former Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government ahead of a July 23 general election that the ruling Cambodian People’s Party won in a landslide. But Western governments and opposition activists deemed it a sham because officials prevented the main opposition Candlelight Party from participating on a technicality. In the months leading up to the election, Hun Sen used a combination of legal action, threats, harassment and arrests to target the political opposition, activists, independent media and civil society groups.   People wait at an entrance to Prey Sar Prison on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in an undated file photo. Credit: RFA/Uon Chhin Though Sam Chamroeun filed an appeal against the guilty verdict handed down by a court in the Phnom Penh verdict, the Appeals Court has not yet scheduled a hearing. He said that he will meet his client soon to discuss further steps. “I received two statements from the Prison Department to meet with Theary Seng, so there will be no obstacle for a meeting between client and lawyer because she is nearby,” he said. Hunger strike After her arrest, authorities sent the activist from Phnom Penh Prison to Preah Vihear on June 15 to ensure public security and order, according to the Prison Department.  While in Preah Vihear Prison, Theary Seng went on a 10-day hunger strike five days after the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued a judgment calling her detention “arbitrary, politically motivated, and in violation of international law.” Jared Genser, Theary Seng’s pro bono international human rights lawyer, told RFA on Wednesday that he will use the working group’s report to build momentum for her case.  He will also push for the United States to designate her case as “wrongfully detained” under the Levinson Act, a 2020 law that would allow sanctions to be imposed on individuals responsible for holding U.S. nationals hostage. Humanitarian groups said that the transfer was meant to politically persecute her since her case is being handled by the Phnom Penh court.  Soeung Sengkaruna, a spokesman for the rights group Adhoc, urged Cambodia’s judiciary to speed up Theary Seng’s appeal process so she can receive justice because she did not commit a crime.   “We haven’t seen the new government improve freedom spaces yet,” he said, referring to the government of Prime Minister Hun Manet, Hun Sen’s son who came to power following the July election, won by the ruling Cambodian People’s Party in a landslide.  “We will continue to monitor the situation and hope that Theary Seng’s case is a start for resuming freedom and political space,” Soeung Sengkaruna said, referring to the government’s illiberal rule and rights violations.  Translated by Yun Samean for RFA Khmer. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Short changed: Can China pay the bills?](https://ij-reportika.com/short-changed-can-china-pay-the-bills/): Amid reports and rumors of starving zoo animals and retirees not being paid their pensions, the chair of financially distressed China Evergrande Group, the world’s most indebted property developer, is now under “residential surveillance.” Call it house arrest – and as the Chinese property sector loses its mojo some 42,000 local governments are looking for money to pay off creditors. Evergrande chairman Hui Ka Yan, or Xu Jiayin, is under 24-hour police supervision and can neither leave his home nor receive guests without permission. He was once the richest man in China. In 2017, Hui Ka Yan had a net worth of US$42.5 billion, surpassing Alibaba founder Jack Ma and Tencent founder Pony Ma. Much of China’s prosperity – like Hui’s – probably now begs a question mark, and it’s not just the private property giants like Evergrande; it’s the tens of thousands of local governments that have built out and “modernized” China on what may be the speculative property bubble of all time. The court is out on the extent to which real estate accounts for China’s GDP – 25% to 30% by most reckonings – but the issue, in a new era of massive oversupply and low demand, is where the new equilibrium will settle.   Says Andrew Collier, managing director of Orient Capital Research, “China has to reduce the size of the property industry by about one-third, which is going to cause a lot of pain for homeowners, local governments and some banks.” Some analysts might describe that as an optimistic assessment. ‘Too big to resolve’ George Magnus, Research Associate at the China Center, Oxford University says that debt is everywhere in the Chinese system, and the extent of it is difficult, if not impossible to evaluate. “Debts are lurking in public-private partnership projects – [there are] loans that are off balance sheet or off the books completely, and other local government fund raising schemes.” Anne Stevenson-Yang, founder and research director of J Capital Research describes it as “a very inexact science,” referring to the problem of ascertaining the depth of China’s countrywide debt. “A government may write a contract with a company to get a loan of, say, 100 million yuan,” Stevenson-Yang says, adding that it might be presented “as a land sale.” “There&#8217;s an understanding that the land will be turned back once the money is repaid, but that understanding may not be written down.” Adds Stevenson-Yang, “I think the problem is just too big to resolve.” An accurate measure of off-the-books debt would be a tall order, says Dexter Roberts, director of China affairs at the Mansfield Center at the University of Montana and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. “What we do know is that it is very large and growing,” Roberts says.   “Beijing does seem determined to avoid the moral hazard of bailing out local governments. The trouble with that is the indebtedness of local governments has become so severe that it is spilling over and affecting many regular Chinese as well, as is true with elderly who are seeing their pension payments delayed or civil servants who aren’t getting paid on time.” Elderly women sit at a park in downtown Shanghai March 16, 2012. Credit: Reuters   In short, the debt that’s weighing down the former Chinese growth juggernaut has to settle somewhere and it will be likely to fall on the heads of those least likely to be able to afford it. “The people of China,” says Stevenson-Yang. She adds, speaking on the question of how Beijing might approach the problem: “I have no idea what their plan is other than to hide head in sand. I actually think they are bureaucratically stuck.” Economist Michael Pettis commented in a tweet thread, on the social media platform now known as X, that it would probably be best if Beijing provides only temporary relief while forcing local governments to resolve the debt themselves.” The “extremely difficult bind” local governments found themselves in, with dwindling revenue that crimps ability to repay debts, was due to a confluence of factors, says Roberts.  “The pandemic lockdowns plus crackdown on the overleveraged property sector which was probably necessary but has been so damaging to the overall economy, plus the drop in incomes and the ability to spend brought on by the overall economic hard times.” Oxford’s Magnus says, “The central government has seemingly started sending inspectors in to get a proper picture of local government debt, and there is talk from finance pros and some policy people about debt swaps, under which expensive local government debt would be swapped for cheaper central government bonds. “This would, at best, buy a bit of time, but it&#8217;s just replacing debt with debt and doesn&#8217;t really solve the problem.” The Country Garden One World City project under construction is seen on the outskirts of Beijing, Thursday, Aug. 17, 2023. Credit: AP In the meantime, China’s private property giants – Evergrande, Country Garden and Vanke, among others, continue to reel in a market with no takers. Local governments that have indebted themselves on the basis of property assets that are now overvalued and will not be bailed out from on high are in a bind. “Emigrate,” said J Capital Research’s Stevenson-Yang when asked what she might do if she was running an indebted local government in China. Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.
- [Soaring palm oil prices prompt long lines in Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/soaring-palm-oil-prices-prompt-long-lines-in-myanmar/): The price of edible palm oil in Myanmar has soared in recent months to more than five times what it was prior to the February 2021 military coup, leading to long lines around the country. A staple commodity in Myanmar, where it is used to cook, the cost of palm oil is a barometer for inflation and the health of the wider economy, which has become progressively worse since the takeover amid fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, international sanctions and junta mismanagement. In 2020, before the coup, the price of a viss (3.6 pounds) of palm oil was just over 1,800 kyats (US$0.85), but in recent months has hovered north of 10,000 kyats (US$4.75), forcing consumers to curb their purchasing.  Responding to the increase, the junta recently ordered major palm oil wholesalers to sell their product at around 4,200 kyats (US$2) per viss per household. The central bank’s official exchange rate for the kyat is 2,100 kyats per U.S. dollar, which has been in force since April last year, but on the external market, one U.S. dollar trades for between 3,300 and 3,500 kyats, sources tell RFA Burmese. May Thu, from Yangon’s Insein township, told RFA she can no longer buy the amount of palm oil she needs from retail stores and now must join thousands of others standing in long lines around the country to buy it at wholesale rates. “Housewives have to go and stand in line whether they are busy or not because they have no oil to cook with,” she said. “That’s why they have no choice but to wait in line to buy it.” May Thu said wholesalers only sell the oil on certain days and that she has to “rush to get a token and wait in line whenever they announce the sale.” ‘Shoving one another under the burning sun’ A resident of Mandalay who, like others RFA interviewed for this report, declined to be named citing security concerns, said that there are days when she has to return home empty-handed after standing in line for hours to buy oil. “We have to wait in line, shoving one another under the burning sun … about every other day,” she said. “It&#8217;s like that all over Mandalay. Some people don’t get to buy the oil. About 300 people line up for only 150 bottles worth.&#8221; A housewife in Yangon told RFA that there are always people who suffer from overheating and faint while standing in line in the extremely hot weather. &#8220;We want to be able to buy it at 4800 kyats per viss – the same price the junta sells at – from retail shops in our neighborhood,” she said.  “As only the lower class uses palm oil, that’s who lines up for it,” she said. “There are often arguments with people swearing at one another. It’s just another way our lives have been uprooted these past two and a half years [since the coup].” ‘Get arrested or don’t sell’ Wholesalers said the cost increase and the junta’s order to sell at reduced prices has put them in a bind. “The situation is such that we either sell at a higher price and get arrested or we don’t sell at all,” said one businessman. “That’s why many oil merchants have stopped selling, leading to a shortage of palm oil. The market economy mechanism is broken.” Another businessman suggested that the junta had ordered wholesalers to sell for reduced prices to generate lines as part of a “show” for the global community. “Are they trying to make a scene that appears as if they are providing enough to the people when international visitors come?” he wondered. “No other country has this type of situation – only in Myanmar do people have to wait in line to buy palm oil.&#8221; In 2022, Myanmar imported a monthly average of around 40,000 tons of palm oil, with the maximum in July at 58,600 tons and the minimum in May at 25,000 tons. Domestic oil production in Myanmar is insufficient, and two-thirds of palm oil consumed in the country is imported from abroad. Amid the drop in value of the kyat since the military takeover, Myanmar has had to purchase foreign imports at higher prices and is experiencing various shortages. Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
- [Troops kill 2 locals and militia member in Myanmar’s Sagaing region](https://ij-reportika.com/troops-kill-2-locals-and-militia-member-in-myanmars-sagaing-region/): This story contains graphic and disturbing descriptions of killing. Junta troops killed a People’s Defense Force member and two civilians in Sagaing region’s Pale township this week, Pale People’s Administration Group told Radio Free Asia on Thursday. Residents of Nyaung Kone village fled ahead of a morning raid by around 80 soldiers on Tuesday. When some returned later in the day, troops arrested and killed three of them, according to the administration group’s Kyaw Soe Win. “[Some locals] were watching to see if the junta troops would leave the village. They entered the village to have a look,” he said.  “When we entered the village on Wednesday morning, we saw some locals and a People’s Defense Force soldier had been brutally killed. Their hands were cut off and they were beheaded.” Kyaw Soe Win said three People’s Defense Force members managed to escape but were hit and injured by artillery fragments. Pro-junta Telegram messaging channels said three defense force soldiers were killed. The junta spokesperson for Sagaing, Sai Naing Naing Kyaw, told RFA he was not aware of the incident. It&#8217;s not known if the latest raid was carried out by the junta’s notorious Ogre Column although the method of killing was similar to their tactics. In March and April this year, Ogre Column troops raided Sagaing, Ye-U, Khin-U, Myinmu, Taze and Myaung townships in Sagaing region, cutting off limbs and beheading people they captured. More than 800,000 people have been forced to abandon their homes in Sagaing region to escape the fighting, according to the United Nations. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.
- [Authorities arrest Tibetan man twice for possessing Dalai Lama photo](https://ij-reportika.com/authorities-arrest-tibetan-man-twice-for-possessing-dalai-lama-photo/): Chinese authorities have arrested a Tibetan man for a second time for being in possession of a photo of the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, sources with knowledge of the situation said.  Possessing photos of the Dalai Lama, who has resided in northern India since 1959, is considered an act of separatism and has been a punishable offense in Tibetan-populated areas of China for decades. Tibetan sources recently told RFA that authorities arrested Tsultrim, a Tibetan from Tsaruma township in Ngaba’s Kyungchu county, in February 2023 after they discovered pictures of the 14th Dalai Lama on his mobile phone.  He was detained until April, they said, when he was sentenced to two years in prison by the People&#8217;s Court of Ngaba, a Tibetan region in southwestern China’s Sichuan province, also known as Aba in Chinese. Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on Tibet, restricting Tibetans’ political activities and peaceful expression of cultural and religious identity. Tibetans frequently complain of discrimination and human rights abuses by authorities and policies they say are aimed at eradicating their national and cultural identity. Authorities in China maintain a tight lockdown on the flow of information in and out of the country’s Tibetan regions, and it can often take weeks to learn of arrests and other incidents through the exile community. Tsultrim, whose age is unknown, is serving his sentence in Yaknga Prison, and none of his family and friends are allowed to see him, said a Tibetan who lives in exile.  After graduating from Northwestern Minzu University in 2016, Tsultrim worked as a self-employed businessman, said the source who declined to be named so he could speak freely.  “He has always been an intelligent young Tibetan and has advocated for preservation of the Tibetan language,” the source said. Prior to this incident, Chinese authorities summoned and interrogated Tsultrim in July 2022 for sharing a picture of the 14th Dalai Lama on social media and saving the photo on his mobile phone, said a Tibetan from inside the western region.  Authorities examined his phone and detained him for two months until September when he was released, said the source who also declined to be named. “However, during his detention, he was beaten and had gone through such a tough time that he wished death upon himself,” the source told RFA.   In May, authorities also sentenced two Tibetan monks in Sershul county, or Shiqu in Chinese, on separatism charges for possessing photos of the Dalai Lama on their phones, giving one three years and six months in jail, and the other three years, RFA reported earlier. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Joshua Lipes.
- [Junta threatens prison terms for unregistered SIM card users](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-threatens-prison-terms-for-unregistered-sim-card-users/): Myanmar’s junta-controlled Ministry of Transport and Communications is threatening mobile phone service sellers and users with six months in prison if they don’t register, or fraudulently register, SIM cards, state controlled newspapers said Wednesday. A ministry statement carried by the media, citing Section 72 of the telecommunications law, told users they needed to submit their personal information to register the cards. One Yangon resident told Radio Free Asia he had mixed feelings about the announcement. “This kind of systematic registration is good under normal circumstances but security has become a concern following the [Feb. 2021] military coup,” said the person, who declined to give his name for security reasons. A technology expert who also requested anonymity said the junta could use artificial intelligence to eavesdrop on calls and texts in order to spot anti-junta conversations. Just over a year ago, the Department of Post and Telecommunications under the junta’s Ministry of Transport and Communications said it would cancel all SIM cards that hadn’t been registered with a national ID card and confiscate any remaining balance on the cards. The ministry said all SIM cards must be registered by Jan. 31, 2023. Although the practice is common in many countries, critics say Myanmar&#8217;s military intends to use identity registration as a way to crack down on pro-democracy activists and the People’s Defense Forces. In July 2021, the junta reportedly told major mobile operators to track the devices of dissidents and report on their behavior. The move prompted Norway’s Telenor to abandon its Myanmar operations a few months later. A company named Shwe Byine Phyu, with reported ties to top junta leaders, stepped in to provide telecom services in Telenor’s place under the “Atom” brand. Last year, Qatar-based telecom operator Oredoo, which is the third most popular brand in Myanmar, sold its investments for US$576 million to Singapore’s Nine Communications, reportedly owned by a Myanmar national close to the military. The other two operators have even closer military ties. Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications (MPT) came entirely under the junta’s control following the 2021 coup. Mytel is a joint venture between the Myanmar military and Vietnam’s Ministry of Defense. Aung Pyae Sone, son of junta leader Min Aung Hlaing, holds Mytel shares. According to the list of telecommunications operators in 2021, there were 20 million Myanmar Posts and Telecommunication (MPT)  SIM users, 18 million Atom users, 15 million Ooredoo users and 10 million Mytel users. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.
- [Make revolution, not love](https://ij-reportika.com/make-revolution-not-love/): North Korean authorities have threatened to punish young couples partaking in &#8220;degenerate&#8221; romantic behavior at solemn historical sites honoring the ruling Kim family. The warning came after an angry official carped that lovebirds were &#8220;casually holding hands and openly dating&#8221; at the birthplace of Kim Jong Suk, grandmother of leader Kim Jong Un. Monuments to the three-generation Kim dynasty that dominate the urban landscape of North Korea are popular dating venues because they are well-lit in a country where electricity is a luxury.
- [Clean energy growth is keeping the 1.5 C target alive, IEA says](https://ij-reportika.com/clean-energy-growth-is-keeping-the-1-5-c-target-alive-iea-says/): Significant growth in clean energy technologies, like solar panels and electric vehicles, has helped keep viable the target to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the International Energy Agency said in a new report on Tuesday. However, it warned that China and advanced economies must intensify their climate commitments to reach the goal on time. According to the 2015 Paris Agreement, the world must limit global warming to 1.5 C above pre-industrial temperatures by the end of this century to tackle the urgent threats posed by climate change, including rising sea levels, extreme weather events, and disruptions to ecosystems. Global investment needs to escalate to US$4.5 trillion annually from the next decade, a leap from the anticipated $1.8 trillion in 2023, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its updated report on the “Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario.” For the world to adhere to the Paris climate goal, wealthy nations are urged to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045, five years ahead of previous targets.  China, the world’s top carbon emitter, is called on to expedite its timeline by a decade to 2050. The report comes as temperatures reached unprecedented highs this year, with last month declared the warmest August globally and warmer than all other months except July 2023, when the record was broken with the global average temperature at 16.95 C (62.51 F), according to the World Meteorological Organization. Fossil fuel is peaking, but needs to decrease more The Paris-based IEA said the past two years have witnessed a 40% surge in clean energy investments, with solar energy and electric vehicles projected to contribute to a third of emissions cuts by 2030. “Our analysis showed that even if no new climate policies are put in place by the governments … three fossil fuels, coal, oil, and natural gas, may well peak before 2030 within this decade,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol told a virtual press conference on Tuesday. He added that this is a significant development due to a robust and spectacular increase in clean energy technologies and the changes in the economic structure of key consuming countries. “Solar [has] become the king of electricity markets. The old king – coal – is over; now solar is the new king. Not only for climate reasons, but because it is cheap, the cost is coming down.” He also said that one in 25 cars sold worldwide two years ago was electric, whereas this year it has increased to one in five and is growing in key markets.  “So the growth coming from solar, electric cars, other renewable technologies are very, very impressive, and they will play an extremely important role in bringing down the need for fossil fuels in the next years,” he said. Birol also said that to reach the 1.5 degrees target, the use of fossil fuels must decline close to 25% between now and 2030. China’s coal expansion and 1.5 can’t go hand in hand The report said China’s 2030 carbon emissions projection is expected to be more than a third of the 2015 scenario due to the substantial solar and wind power growth. Less than 10% of China’s electricity production comes from renewable sources, but Beijing has floated a plan to increase it to 25% by 2030.  An infographic showing the deployment of clean energy technologies that remains highly concentrated in China and advanced economies. Credit: IEA According to the IEA report, the Chinese government in 2016 had aimed for EVs to be 12% of total vehicle sales in 2020. The target has been revised to 20% for 2025, bolstered by significant subsidies and tax breaks.  However, all these new developments and climate change impacts, including heat waves and drought, have put tremendous pressure on China’s electricity. From 2015 to 2022, power production surged over 6% annually, according to the IEA. Despite the vast growth of renewables, the demand was unmet, leading to a spike in coal-powered electricity generation.  Consequently, China’s global contribution to coal-based electricity grew by 10 percentage points during this timeframe.  Answering a question by Radio Free Asia on China, Birol said that according to the IEA’s analysis, China is “number one” in solar, wind, electric cars, additional new nuclear capacity, and hydropower, “in all clean energy sources,” as well as a leader in clean energy investments. “But at the same time, coal – the fuel with the most carbon content – is still having a dominant position in the Chinese energy mix,” Birol said. “When we look at the global picture, we see that there is no room for unabated new coal plants if we want to stick to our 1.5 degrees target.” Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.
- [India plans to extend fence along Myanmar border](https://ij-reportika.com/india-plans-to-extend-fence-along-myanmar-border/): India plans to begin installing an additional 70 kilometers (44 miles) of border fencing over concerns about illegal immigrants entering Manipur state from neighboring Myanmar and an increase in arms and drugs smuggling. India and Myanmar share a 1,600-kilometer-long (1,000-mile-long) border. Manipur state, where the additional fencing will occur, accounts for 400 kilometers (250 miles) of that border, of which less than 10% is fenced, leaving the region open for arms and drug smuggling, according to Indian media.  Earlier this year, Indian authorities began installing barbed-wire fencing along Manipur’s border with Myanmar to curb smuggling, infiltration and other border crimes, according to Indian media. “In view of the rise in illegal immigration and drugs smuggling from the neighboring country, safeguarding our porous borders has become an urgent necessity,” N. Biren Singh, chief minister of Manipur state, said at a meeting with officials from India’s Border Roads Organisation, Indian media reported on Sept. 24. The organization develops and maintains road networks in India’s border areas and in friendly neighboring countries. The move comes as nearly 60,000 Burmese civilians from Chin state and the northern Sagaing region have fled across the border into India’s Manipur and Mizoram states since the military ousted Myanmar&#8217;s democratically elected government in a February 2021 coup, according to ethnic Chin civil society organizations. Junta forces have bombed and conducted armed attacks on civilian areas while trying to root out resistance fighters. Over 5,000 of them have taken refuge in Manipur state, of which more than 70 have been arrested for immigration violations or other charges, according to India For Myanmar, a group that helps Burmese refugees in India. Trapping civilians Human rights groups and Burmese refugees have decried the move to extend the fence in Manipur because it would keep people from fleeing into a safe area. “The closure of the border is only intended to fence off Myanmar refugees, but I don’t think it will prevent many other crimes and other illegal trade,” said Salai Dokhar, founder of India For Myanmar.  “If India wants to end these illegal businesses, it should cooperate with the western countries and those with strong democratic values to be able to take more effective actions along the border,” he said. In 2018, under Myanmar’s previous civilian-led government, travel was allowed through the Myanmar-India land border to promote trade between the two countries. But now the Manipur government has accused Myanmar of allowing more arms and drug trafficking on the border, thereby worsening ethnic conflict in the state due to an influx of Burmese civilians fleeing violence at home. Ethnic conflict Manipur itself is experiencing an ethnic conflict between the mostly Hindu Meiteis and the mainly Christian Kukis, and state officials often accuse the Burmese refugees who seek a safe haven there of making the problem worse.  In the meantime, Indian authorities in Manipur state arrested an alleged terrorist suspected of being associated with Myanmar-based rebel groups, and handed him over to the National Investigation Agency, India’s central counter-terrorism law enforcement agency, the Indian English-language daily newspaper Deccan Herald reported on Sept. 23.  Refugees who fled Myanmar rest in a shelter at Farkawn quarantine camp in India&#8217;s eastern state of Mizoram near the Myanmar border, Sept. 23, 2021. Credit: AFP Although Myanmar’s armed resistance groups have traveled across the border to India, they have done nothing to cause harm or damage, and have even helped arrest border drug smugglers, said Chin National Defense Force spokesperson Salai Kyung Gain.  The Chin ethnic armed group in western Myanmar’s Chin state, which lies south of Manipur state and east of India’s Mizoram state, is the armed wing of the Chin National Organization. “If we close these entrances and exits on the border, there will be some difficulties,” Salai Kyung Gain said. “Drug and arms trade always occurs along the border, but they have become more frequent lately during tough situations like there is now.” “But since our defense forces and revolutionary forces have to commute to the Indian side of the border, such as to Mizoram, we help arrest some [weapons and drug smugglers] as much as we can to protect the people,” he said. ‘Will hurt Myanmar refugees’ If the Manipur state government extends the fence, it will hurt Myanmar refugees forced to flee their homes by Myanmar junta forces fighting anti-regime forces in Chin state and Sagaing region, said Salai Kyung Gain. Indian authorities have driven back Burmese civilians from Sagaing and Chin who fled across the border to Manipur, forcing them to shelter along the border in difficult conditions, some of the refugees said.  Pu Khaing, a displaced Burmese, told RFA that those who fled were civilians and not arms or drug smugglers. “There is no problem for us with their fence because we are no longer building our refugee camps on the Indian side, but only on the Myanmar side of the border,” he said. “They [Indian authorities] drove us out, but the smugglers have their own way of crossing the border. Ordinary refugees don’t get involved with them.” A Burmese refugee in Mizoram, who declined to be named for safety reasons, said the local office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in New Delhi should not ignore the situation. “If they shut down the [Burmese refugees’] right to freedom of travel, we will have to see what kind of measures UNHCR will take,” he said. “Another thing is that we have to wait and see what kind of action the Mizoram state government will take against us.” The Indian Embassy in Yangon and the UNHRC in New Delhi did not respond to emailed requests for comments. RFA could not reach junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment.  Translated by Myo Min Aung for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Young political prisoner dies of heart attack in Myanmar prison](https://ij-reportika.com/young-political-prisoner-dies-of-heart-attack-in-myanmar-prison/): A 21-year-old political prisoner who was sentenced to a long term in Myanmar’s Insein Prison died of a heart attack at the weekend, sources close to the family told Radio Free Asia on Monday. The prison authorities informed family members about the death of Min Hein Khant on Sunday evening and they went to the Yangon prison to see the body. A source close to the family said Min Hein Khant was in good health before his arrest, but he was severely tortured during interrogation and did get treated for heart disease in prison. “I found out that he had a heart attack in May,” said the source. “He fell down and went to prison hospital. There, the doctors checked and found out that he had a heart attack but he was told to see a specialist only after he was released from prison. There was nothing in the prison.  “He fainted once again in August and I heard that he was fine yesterday, but he died after fainting. It happened because he could not have proper medical treatment.” Min Hein Khant was a member of Pazundaung and Botahtaung townships’ Youth Strike Committee and was arrested on Nov. 1, 2021. He was sentenced to 27 years in prison under the Explosive Substances Act. RFA phoned the junta’s prison department about his death but no one answered. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [What to do about ‘freedom from speech?’](https://ij-reportika.com/what-to-do-about-freedom-from-speech/): A recent survey from the Pew Research Centre, ostensibly about the opinions of Buddhists and Muslims in South and Southeast Asia, offered a disheartening read to those of us who cherish free speech. But the study also highlighted that it is wrong to think the only enemies of free speech are the region’s authoritarian governments.  The pollsters asked respondents from four Southeast Asian states to choose between two statements: “People should be allowed to speak their opinions publicly even if they upset other people” or “harmony with others is more important than the right to speak one’s opinion”. Around two-thirds of respondents—69 percent in Cambodia, 67 percent in Indonesia, and 64 percent in Singapore—chose harmony over free speech. Interestingly, 59 percent of Thais chose the opposite.   It’s more straightforward, though not easy, to pick a fight with governments for their repression of free speech, as it is to argue against the common claims that free speech is an illusion or that democracies are just as censorious as authoritarian states. What’s harder to comprend, and more dangerous not to rebut, is the proposition that freedom of speech is undesirable and honesty is a species of antisocial behavior. Indeed, the argument you should keep silent even if you know you would speak the truth. But that is what one confronts in Southeast Asia, vide the Pew survey.   A Thai man prays in the rain during an all-religion prayer meeting for peace and harmony at the Lumpini park, in Bangkok in 2010. Thousands of residents gathered at dawn to pray for peace at sites across Bangkok where people were killed and high rise buildings torched in two months of political violence. Credit: Manish Swarup/AP I say it’s harder because one must realize that it is not just your governments who want to silence you; it’s also your neighbors. None of this is palatable. It’s far easier to think that all tyranny stems from way up high, in part because one has to get on in society with people who think differently and, also, because it provides a convenient excuse for inactivity.  However, this isn’t a new realization. In 2015, Pew conducted a global survey on people&#8217;s attitudes towards free speech. Only 29 percent of Indonesians, for example, thought that people should say what they want without censorship and just 21 percent reckoned that internet use without censorship is important.  What point is there in free speech if one is only allowed to say something uncontroversial or what everyone else already (appears) to think? That’s not free speech; that’s repetition. And repetition doesn’t change people’s opinions nor educate. Why not stick to what you thought at sixteen years old and never change your mind? But in order to be allowed to question your established ideas, to educate yourself, you have to be presented with uncomfortable information in an uncomforting way—few people relish being told they’re wrong and that they have been wrong for years.  I say “allowed” because that is at the core of free speech. It is often assumed that the true victim of censorship is the person engaged in speaking. They are victims, but so, too, is everyone else. If your thoughts are censored, then I am now able to hear them. If my thoughts are censored, you are not allowed to hear my opinions and judge them against your own. As such, censorship makes each person a prisoner of their own thoughts and makes society barren silos. Enforcing the will of the majority I am not singling Southeast Asia out unfairly, The desire for “freedom from speech” is universal. Indeed, the want for a “quiet life”, to be protected from discomforting truths, is much in the Western consciousness, and increasingly so.  It is the defining ethos of totalitarianism—a Western concept—and of almost all religions. Isn’t the founding tenet of Christianity, Judaism and Islam that Adam was wicked for giving up the “harmony” of Eden for a free life, and that all us apparent descents are still being punished for that “crime”? It is often said that censorship is grounded in the need to protect minorities. That, at least, is how social “harmony” is often defined in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia; multiethnic countries with political systems that fracture on racial or religious lines. However, time and time again what one finds in practice is that censorship is used to enforce the will of the majority over the minority. Worse, what this becomes is the assertion that harmony can only be protected by prosecuting the minority so that the majority does not engage in violence.  Malaysia&#8217;s Police Chief Khalid Abu Bakar warned journalists “Don&#8217;t do anything or publish drawings or writing that can cause exasperation in the community.” Credit: Alexandra Radu/AP file photo There are numerous examples of this. But to take a lesser-known one: in early 2017, a small Chinese-language daily newspaper in Malaysia ran a caricature of the president of the Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) that was deemed by some to be anti-Islamic. Shortly after the cartoon went public, admittedly to the newspaper&#8217;s small readership of mainly ethnic-Chinese, a PAS state commissioner warned the newspaper not to forget what happened to the journalists of Charlie Hebdo, when 12 journalists were murdered at the French newspaper&#8217;s Paris offices two years earlier. “If you remember last time, there was a French newspaper that published a caricature that angered the whole Muslim world,” said Muhammad Fauzi Yusof, adding that the newspaper would be responsible for the “devastating” consequences. Then-Police chief Khalid Abu Bakar waded into the debate. “Don&#8217;t do anything or publish drawings or writing that can cause exasperation in the community. We have to be careful with these things,” he instructed newspapers and journalists. What do we make of this? Obviously, it was not the Chinese-language newspaper, representing a minority, that threatened violence but the politician, from the majority, who told journalists that they could be assassinated en masse. And what about the police chief? He didn&#8217;t arrest the politician for a...
- [Former Chinese central bank chief calls for end to 'hukou' red tape](https://ij-reportika.com/former-chinese-central-bank-chief-calls-for-end-to-hukou-red-tape/): A former governor of China&#8217;s central bank has called on the country&#8217;s leaders to relax “hukou” household registration rules to allow people to move into cities as the leaders struggle to boost a flagging property market and stimulate domestic consumption. Former People&#8217;s Bank of China Gov. Yi Gang called in a Sept. 19 article published by a national political advisory body for policy measures to boost consumption, including pressing ahead with ongoing urbanization plans by cutting through the red tape that prevents people from easily moving to live and work in other cities. Noting that the post-zero-COVID recovery in China remains lackluster, Yi called for &#8220;city-specific policies&#8221; to boost demand for housing, including easier loan terms for residential landlords, and financial subsidies to cash-strapped local governments to enable them to buy up empty housing stock as affordable rented housing. &#8220;Some scholars have estimated that reform of the household registration system can boost consumption among migrant workers and new arrivals to a city by 23%,&#8221; Yi wrote, in a reference to the &#8220;hukou&#8221; system that limits access to services like healthcare and schooling, as well as the right to buy property, to natives of a given area. Yi Gang, former People&#8217;s Bank of China governor, called in an article this month for policy measures to boost consumption. Credit: Lintao Zhang/Getty Images file photo The authorities have rolled out limited reforms to the system, which makes it hard for people to put down roots anywhere other than their hometown. In recent years, they have removed registration restrictions from all locations in the eastern province of Zhejiang except the provincial capital in July, and lifted hukou restrictions across the whole of Jiangxi and Shandong provinces in 2021. Abolishing barriers But other prominent commentators have taken it further. Beijing University of Science and Technology professor Hu Xingdou called in 2017 for an end to the hukou system, as the biggest, &#8220;first-tier&#8221; cities like Beijing and Shanghai attract far more wealth and resources than other areas, increasing inter-regional inequality. Yi, who still sits on the standing committee of the Chinese People&#8217;s Political Consultative Conference that advises the government, appeared in his article to be cautiously agreeing with this approach, suggesting that many minds in the government system think that Beijing needs to do more to inject life into the economy. &#8220;It will be necessary to provide better protection for migrant workers in housing, medical care, children&#8217;s education, social security and other aspects while working in cities,&#8221; he wrote. &#8220;At the same time, we also need to pay attention to maintaining a certain degree of mobility of labor between urban and rural areas, between different cities, and between the east and west,&#8221; he said, adding: &#8220;This is also a way to bake stability into the Chinese economy.&#8221; China’s household registration system limits access to services like healthcare and schooling, as well as the right to buy property, to natives of a given area. Credit: Public domain Ren Liqian, who manages China investments at U.S.-based WisdomTree Asset Management, said via X that while she agrees with hukou reform, she was less sure whether it would boost consumption. &#8220;While the current reforms to the household registration system will have some economic benefits, they definitely won&#8217;t pay huge economic dividends,&#8221; Ren wrote. &#8220;This may not be good to hear, but I can afford to be honest because I&#8217;m not in charge.&#8221; Beijing is under huge pressure to find ways to improve economic performance, U.S.-based economist Li Hengqing said. &#8220;Everyone from the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee to the State Council is feeling the pressure,&#8221; Li said. &#8220;With the exception of [party leader] Xi Jinping, they all feel that poor economic performance is responsible for social unrest and growing public dissatisfaction.&#8221; While the government wants to launch an all-out effort to boost the economy, it can no longer turn to massive spending on local infrastructure as a way to do this. &#8220;The central government&#8217;s credit is very low right now, and there are a number of debts it is finding hard to repay both principal and interest on by maturity, so eventually bad debts will appear,&#8221; Li said. &#8220;So that means that the cost of financing [a stimulus package] would be very high.&#8221; Wider dissatisfaction? U.S.-based economist Zheng Xuguang said Yi&#8217;s article hints at wider dissatisfaction with Xi Jinping&#8217;s current policies among party elders. But he said Yi&#8217;s suggestion was unlikely to have much of an impact in the face of dwindling exports and plummeting foreign business confidence. &#8220;Investors have been pessimistic about China&#8217;s political situation and Sino-U.S. relations for a long time, which means there is no hope of a rebound in investor confidence or in consumption,&#8221; Zheng said.  A worker pulls a cart of elevator parts at a factory in Haian city, in eastern China&#8217;s Jiangsu province on Sept. 5, 2023. Credit: AFP &#8220;I think the party elders are likely unhappy, but Xi Jinping doesn&#8217;t care very much &#8230; they feel that they have to raise it, but party elders no longer have much of a say in politics,&#8221; he said. Cong Liang, deputy director of China&#8217;s National Development and Reform Commission, was resolutely upbeat during a news conference in Beijing on Wednesday, saying China has already survived two financial crises, and will bounce back again. &#8220;Positive factors in China&#8217;s economy are accumulating, and naysayers will be disappointed yet again,&#8221; Cong said in comments paraphrased by state news agency Xinhua.  However, Cong also acknowledged that China&#8217;s economy faces &#8220;a lot of difficulties and challenges.&#8221; Li said the upbeat news conference would only widen the disconnect between what the government says and what people hear. &#8220;What [Cong] said flew in the face of people&#8217;s actual experience, which means the government loses even more credibility,&#8221; Li said. &#8220;After time, people will regard them negatively – so that if they say go east, then everyone else will look to the West.&#8221; &#8220;Even if the government told the truth, people would still assume the opposite was true,&#8221; he said. Translated with...
- [Vietnam executes death row prisoner Le Van Manh](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-executes-death-row-prisoner-le-van-manh/): Death row prisoner Le Van Manh was executed on Friday morning, lawyer Le Van Luan posted on Facebook, in a case with evidence which lawyers said was not clear enough to convict. &#8220;News and official documents said that defendant Le Van Manh was executed on the morning of September 22, 2023,&#8221; said Luan. A death notice dated September 22, 2023 from the People&#8217;s Committee of Thu Phong commune, Cao Phong district, Hoa Binh province, posted widely on social media said that death row prisoner Le Van Manh, born in 1982, died at 8:45 a.m. on September 22, 2023 at a Hoa Binh Provincial Police execution facility. Upon receiving news of the imminent execution last week, Manh’s family said they did not accept the verdict because it was an unjust sentence. They said they would continue to protest his innocence to authorities in Hanoi. In 2005, when he was 23 years old, Le Van Manh was sentenced to death for allegedly raping and killing a female student in the same village earlier that year. The case occurred on March 21, 2005, but it was not until April 20 that police arrested Manh on a robbery charge in another case. After four days of detention Manh was prosecuted for murder and child rape. Manh’s mother Nguyen Thi Viet told Radio Free Asia her son said that he had been tortured to force him to confess. During the trial lawyers requested an examination of the defendant&#8217;s body to determine whether he had been tortured, but the court refused. A day before the execution – September 21 – the European Union delegation along with the embassies of Canada, the United Kingdom and Norway in Vietnam issued a joint statement calling on Hanoi to stay execution of the sentence. “We strongly oppose the use of capital punishment at all times and in all circumstances, which is a cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and can never be justified, and advocate for Vietnam to adopt a moratorium on all executions,” said the statement posted on the EU delegation’s Facebook page. This is the second joint statement by the EU and the UK, Norway and Canada on the death penalty in Vietnam in the last two months. Late last month, they issued a statement calling on Vietnamese authorities to stay the execution of Nguyen Van Chuong, who was convicted of murder in Hai Phong in 2007. Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.
- [Hun Manet tells UN Cambodia’s elections were fair](https://ij-reportika.com/hun-manet-tells-un-cambodias-elections-were-fair/): A month after he succeeded his father as Cambodia’s prime minister in the wake of the country’s latest election without an opposition, Hun Manet falsely told the U.N. General Assembly on Friday that the July 23 ballot was “free and fair” and “credible and just.”  Hun Sen handed power to his son after claiming victory in an election in which he banned the last remaining opposition party, the Candlelight Party, and threatened prison time and disenfranchisement for any Cambodians who joined the party’s efforts to boycott the vote. His ruling Cambodian People’s Party, which has been in power since 1979, won 120 of the 125 available seats – a five-seat drop from 2018, with those seats going to its longtime coalition partner Funcinpec. Speaking before the U.N. General Assembly in English, Hun Manet said it was his “great pleasure” to address the chamber “as the new prime minister of the Kingdom of Cambodia,” and lauded the election. “Over 8.2 million people cast their ballots, a turnout rate of 84.59%,” he said, pointing to the participation of 18 minor parties as evidence of fairness. “This is the highest turnout since the U.N.-supervised election in 1993, and a clear indication of our people&#8217;s greater political maturity and enthusiasm in exercising their democratic rights.” “The election has been widely assessed as free and fair, credible and just, by thousands of observers,” he said.  The United States and European Union declined to send observers due to concerns about the election’s integrity. Hun Manet also appeared to address U.S. claims and satellite imagery that appears to show China building a military base in the port city of Sihanoukville, which his father has also repeatedly denied. The new premier declined to mention the banning of the opposition and his father’s threats of imprisonment. (Eduardo Munoz/Reuters) “Cambodia shall not authorize any foreign military base on this territory, as clearly stated in its constitution,” he said. “Cambodia will continue on its present path of independence and a neutral foreign policy.” Hun Manet became Cambodia’s new premier on Aug. 22, after 38 years of rule by his father, who rose to power in 1985 under the communist regime installed by Vietnam after its ouster of Pol Pot. Hun Sen long ruled with an iron fist, banning the resurgent Cambodia National Rescue Party shortly before the 2018 election and jailing its leader after the party threatened to win even a flawed election. Some members of the CNRP then reassembled into the Candlelight Party to contest this year’s election, before that party, too, was banned.  Hun Manet’s government has appeared no more eager for friendly competition, and has refused to give the party official registration documents it would need to contest in any future elections. Change, or no change? Outside the U.N. building on Friday, Cambodian-Americans and former opposition party leaders protested Hun Manet’s appearance, calling for his government to be stripped of Cambodia’s U.N. seat. Former CNRP lawmakers including Ho Vann, Kong Saphea, Eng Chhay Eang and Mu Sochua – all of whom face lengthy prison sentences if they return to Cambodia – were in attendance, and the protesters reprised popular chants from the party’s post-2013 election mass protests, including the rhetorical “Change, or no change?” Sochua, who also served as Cambodia’s minister for women’s affairs from 1998 to 2004, told Radio Free Asia she thought Hun Manet would not be able to completely quieten the sense of shame about how he took power, unable to campaign, on his own, in a free election. “I don’t think that he sits in that seat comfortably,” Mu Sochua said of Cambodia’s U.N. seat. “Hun Manet is not a free man.” Former CNRP lawmaker Mu Sochua [right], who faces a lengthy prison sentence if she returns to Cambodia, says she believes Hun Manet would not be able to completely quieten the sense of shame about how he took power. She protested Cambodia Prime Minister Hun Manet’s appearance at the United Nations in New York City, Friday, Sept. 22, 2023. (Alex Willemyns/RFA) It was clear, she said, that Hun Sen hoped to give his regime – known for arresting opposition leaders, banning rival parties and violently attacking critics – a new coat of sheen using Hun Manet’s face. But Mu Sochua said the world should not buy what Phnom Penh was selling, and pointed to the decision to deny the opposition Candlelight Party its registration papers and the vicious beating of Ny Nak as evidence that the new prime minister was more of the same. “If he wanted to be legitimized, if he wanted to be a new generation of Cambodian leader, we would have to start with free and fair elections,” she said. “You cannot fake legitimacy. How can he show a new face for Cambodia when he is under the control of his father?” No change Others said they had traveled to New York to make sure the world knew Cambodians wanted the chance to freely choose their leaders. “I came here because Cambodia is going on the wrong path for democracy,” said Thy Doak, 63, who traveled from Boston. “This dictator passed his power to Hun Manet which goes against the Paris Agreements that [say] we should have free and fair elections.” Doak said he arrived in Cambodia as a refugee in 1984 and wanted his compatriots back home to enjoy the same freedoms he did now in the United States. He said he had no hope Hun Manet would deliver that. “He’s no different from his father. There’s no change,” he said. “I don’t want Hun Manet to be a part of this thing. Cambodia does not deserve it. We’re supposed to be a democracy, but we have a dictatorship.”  Cambodian-Americans and former opposition party leaders protest Cambodia Prime Minister Hun Manet’s appearance at the United Nations in New York City, Friday, Sept. 22, 2023. (Alex Willemyns/RFA) Susie Chhoun, 45, who was born in the Khao-I-Dang refugee camp along the Cambodian-Thailand before her parents were given asylum in the...
- [Troops arrest more than 100 villagers in Myanmar’s Magway region](https://ij-reportika.com/troops-arrest-more-than-100-villagers-in-myanmars-magway-region/): Junta troops arrested and interrogated more than 100 villagers in Magway region’s Gangaw township after anti-junta militias captured weapons in a raid on an arms depot, local People’s Defense Forces said this week. The roundup began on Monday in Kant That village, where villagers had been armed and told to defend the depot. Earlier in the day, combined People’s Defense Forces (PDFs) attacked the arms depot, according to a statement Thursday by the Yaw National Revolution Force. They fought a 20-minute battle with junta troops and affiliated Pyu Saw Htee soldiers. The statement said that three members of the combined junta forces were killed and the rest of the troops fled their camp.  A PDF official who didn’t want to be named for security reasons said the defense forces were able to seize a lot of guns and bullets because the villagers who had been told to guard the depot didn’t put up a fight, prompting an angry response from junta troops. “The entire village was arrested and interrogated because they broke the security line,” he said. “Some villagers had no experience and ran away without shooting.” RFA phoned Than Swe Win, the junta spokesperson for Magway region, to get comment on the arrests but nobody answered. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.
- [Myanmar junta sacks general for alleged bribery and corruption](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-sacks-general-for-alleged-bribery-and-corruption/): Myanmar’s junta said it has sacked a high-ranking general for alleged bribery and corruption.  Lt. Gen. Moe Myint Tun, 55, was the seventh-highest leader in the State Administration Council, the governing junta. He had been sanctioned by the United States and other nations. He was abruptly removed from his positions as chairman of the Myanmar Investment Commission, Foreign Exchange Supervisory Committee, and Central Committee on Ensuring the Smooth Flow of Trade and Goods, the regime said in a statement issued Monday.  Earlier this month, authorities arrested Moe Myint Tun, said to have accepted millions of dollars in bribes from businesspeople during the past two years, but it wasn’t clear if he would be tried.  He is under house arrest and being interrogatad in the capital Naypyitaw, according to businesspeople who declined to be named for safety reasons. His removal is part of a crackdown on trade and finance officials, businesspeople and exporters amid economic turmoil and sanctions as the junta struggles to accumulate foreign revenue and soaring commodity prices, sources say. Lawyer Kyee Myint said that even if the top military generals were found to be corrupt, the junta’s top leader Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing would not put them on trial, but only remove them from their positions. “They will never admit that their members are corrupt,” he said. “That’s why their case will never get to the court. I don’t think they will be charged under any article of the law but just removed from their positions. They will remove these officials to make it appear that only a few of them were corrupt.” Easy to exploit power His chairman positions were given to Gen. Mya Tun Oo, another member of the State Administration Council. Moe Myint Tun had been appointed to those posts on Feb. 2, 2021, a day after the military seized control of the elected government in a coup d&#8217;état. Legal experts and political analysts said the scandal shows that high-ranking military officers can easily exploit their posts, and that effective action should be taken against Moe Myint Tun if he is found guilty of bribery and corruption.  Gen. Yan Naung Soe is seen in Myanmar in an undated photo. Credit: MDN A retired brigadier general, who also spoke on condition of anonymity for safety reasons, said authorities should prosecute Moe Myint Tun according to military regulations if the allegations are true.  “Corruption should not occur at any level,” he said. “Since it is customary in our country for people to give gifts to show respect, it encourages corruption. They don’t happen to notice that they are committing corruption while showing respect like that.” Several governments, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and the European Union have imposed sanctions on Moe Myint Tun for his role in the military coup, the subsequent military and police repression of peaceful demonstrators, the killing of civilians, and the gravity of Myanmar’s human rights’ abuses. The sanctions include the freezing of any assets in these countries, a ban on transactions with their citizens, and travel bans.  Another recent case Earlier this month, the junta arrested another high-ranking military official — Gen. Yan Naung Soe, joint secretary of the Central Committee on Ensuring the Smooth Flow of Trade and Goods — amid the crackdown and an investigation of Commerce Ministry officials, the online news outlet Myanmar Now reported.  The committee is responsible for procuring U.S. dollars for trade licensing purposes and other commercial transactions.  Authorities arrested and interrogated him before Moe Myint Tun was fired. Afterwards, the junta summoned businesspeople from various sectors for questioning in Naypyitaw, said an import and export entrepreneur, who requested anonymity for security reasons. The lieutenant general was sacked based on their testimony, he said. Authorities also summoned former Interior Minister Lt. Gen. Soe Htut and Deputy Commerce Minister Nyunt Aung, according to Yangon-based businesspeople. RFA has yet to confirm this information. Moe Myint Tun, Yan Naung Soe and Nyunt Aung have allegedly made millions of dollars from their  dealings with traders and by benefiting from the disparity between Myanmar’s official exchange rate of 2,100 kyats to the U.S. dollar and the market rate amid a steep decline in the kyat’s value, Myanmar now reported on Thursday. Worsening corruption Nay Phone Latt, spokesman for the Prime Minister’s Office of shadow National Unity Government – made up of former civilian leaders and anti-junta activists – said corruption among top military officials has been common for decades and has grown worse under the ruling junta. “Military rulers in our country have always worked for their own self-interest and the interest of their families, causing public poverty,” he said. “Lately, we’ve seen such corruption becoming worse.” Junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun did not respond to calls for comment. Thein Tun Oo, executive director of the pro-military Thayninga Institute for Strategic Studies, said he did not know the reason for Moe Myint Tun’s removal, and that there was a lot of speculation concerning frequent position changes of top military leaders. There were only two or three changes in the positions of top military leaders under the State Law and Order Restoration Council (1988-97) or the State Peace and Development Council (1997-2011), two previous military juntas that ruled Myanmar, he said. Translated by Myo Min Aung for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Disabled man’s burned body found near Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady River](https://ij-reportika.com/disabled-mans-burned-body-found-near-myanmars-ayeyarwady-river/): Residents of Kachin state’s Shwegu township found the mutilated, burned body of a disabled man on the banks of the Ayeyarwady river, they told Radio Free Asia on Thursday. They said 30-year-old Ko Saw was a gold miner from Yae Le village. Junta troops arrested him on Monday, after they arrived in the village in a fleet of warships. One local said the man had a damaged leg and arm, injured in the gold mine, and bad eyesight. He said the man was unable to run away and thought the troops wouldn’t arrest him because he was disabled.  “When the soldiers found him, they searched his home and found the People&#8217;s Defense Force uniform of his brother-in-law in a box. He didn’t even know he had that suit,” said the local, who didn’t want to be named for safety reasons. “The troops immediately arrested him and stabbed him. His legs were beaten and crushed. Then he was burnt to death.” Another resident said troops tied the man’s hands behind his back and beat him before taking him away. The six warships that arrived Monday were attacked by a local People’s Defense Force the previous day, residents said. On Sunday, the vessels moored at Toke Gyi and around 200 soldiers raided the village, shooting dead seven residents and burning down 45 homes. The next day, troops torched around 10 rafts and several boats at Yae Le, used to prospect for gold in the river. They accused locals of harboring People’s Defense Forces and ethnic Kachin Independence Army fighters. More than 1,000 residents of Yae Le fled their homes ahead of the raid. When RFA called the junta spokesperson for Kachin State, Win Ye Tun, seeking comment on the killings, he said security issues were not related to him. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [90 feared dead after Myanmar junta boat sinks in rough river waters](https://ij-reportika.com/90-feared-dead-after-myanmar-junta-boat-sinks-in-rough-river-waters/): About 90 people, including students and teachers, were missing after a military junta supply boat sank in the Chindwin River in the northern Sagaing region after hitting a rock in the river, local residents told Radio Free Asia.  A total of 13 vessels were traveling down the river when one of the larger boats overturned in a rough area near Mingin township on Tuesday, the residents said. It was loaded with goods and civilians and was being towed by a tugboat. Many of those on board were university students heading to their school in Sagaing’s largest city, Monywa. Also on the boat were military junta departmental staff, family members of the pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militia and some junta soldiers who were providing security for the vessel, local residents said.  The sinking happened between Shea and Pan Set villages in a risky area called Shae Nat Taung slope, according to a Mingin township resident who refused to be named due to security reasons. “It’s where the water is really rough, with a big rocky horn,” the resident told RFA. “The boat hit it and sank immediately.” Six people are known to have survived; many passengers were below deck when the boat sank, the resident said. Local media reported on Wednesday that about 20 survivors were rescued and 10 bodies had been collected. Rescue operations were halted on Wednesday because of the river’s strong current. The boat was submerged in deep water, the resident said.  A Myanmar military vessel is seen on the Chindwin River in this undated photo. Credit: Anyar Pyitaingdaungs Recovery preparations Locals and defense forces said that most of the villages on both sides of the river are controlled by Pyu Saw Htee militia. The military shouldn’t have any security issues if it conducts a recovery operation, a local defense group leader said. “Most of the people who were onboard the sunken vessel were those dealing with the military from Pyu villages along this waterway,” the leader said.” It depends on their willingness. It’s not a very difficult thing to do. But it doesn’t seem like they will do it.” The remaining 12 vessels continued to travel downstream on Wednesday morning. Some junta soldiers were stationed near the site, according to another local resident who also refused to be named for security reasons. “I can’t say exactly how many died and survived at the moment,” the second resident said. “We local people don’t dare to go near there.” RFA contacted Tin Than Win, the junta’s minister of natural resources and Sagaing region spokesman, to ask about rescue operations. But he refused to talk, saying that he was in a meeting. The military’s media team told reporters on Wednesday that one of the vessels that had left the town of Hkamti sank in a whirlpool near Mingin township, and they were still investigating details of the incident. Local residents told RFA that another warship and an empty boat were already moving downriver toward the accident site. The two vessels arrived at the town of Kalewa in Mingin township on Wednesday and seemed to be preparing to recover the sunken vessel, the residents said.  In October 2016, a passenger boat traveling downriver from Homalin to Monywa sank near Kani township&#8217;s Mi Kyaung Twin village, adjacent to Mingin township, killing at least 70 people, according to local residents. Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar’s central bank revokes 123 forex licenses](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-central-bank-revokes-123-forex-licenses/): Myanmar’s junta-controlled central bank has revoked the forex licenses of 123 companies, it announced this week. Tuesday’s decision means that 167 companies have been barred from trading dollars in the past nine months. The companies include forex firms, travel agencies, airlines, hotels, construction companies, gem traders, financial and trading companies. They include Yangon’s famous Sedona Hotel and Myanmar National Airlines. Radio Free Asia phoned the director general of the central bank’s Foreign Exchange Management Department, Nwe Ni Tun, to get details of the latest move but nobody answered. A source close to the central bank, who declined to be named for security reasons, said the licenses were canceled because companies did not observe the bank’s reference exchange rate. The central bank’s reference price is 2,100 kyats per U.S. dollar, which has been in force since April last year. In the external market one U.S. dollar trades for between 3,300 and 3,500 kyats, said a businessman who also requested anonymity. “When the government set the reference price in April 2022 no one could trade at those prices anymore,” he said. “Companies had to send reports every day to the central bank. “After more than a year of not being able to send accurate reports the central bank shut down these companies’ [forex operations].” One of the travel companies whose license was revoked said that it stopped trading foreign currency since the beginning of the COVID pandemic. “We haven’t done foreign currency exchange for a long time since the COVID-19 period,” said the owner who also declined to be named. “I think our license was revoked because we haven’t used it for a long time. “There is no problem because we only do ticketing for airlines.” Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.
- [Uyghur event in NY goes ahead despite Beijing’s warning](https://ij-reportika.com/uyghur-event-in-ny-goes-ahead-despite-beijings-warning/): The Chinese government is increasingly moving Uyghurs from internment camps to the regular penal system while claiming it is closing the camps, experts and foreign diplomats told a forum on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Tuesday. Chinese diplomats over the weekend tried to hamstring the event by sending out a letter to foreign missions to the United Nations warning them against attending. The panel of diplomats and human rights experts slammed Beijing’s attempted interference. “Thank you also for being here, notwithstanding the PRC’s continued attempts to intimidate and to silence those speaking out on human rights,” said Beth Van Schaack, the U.S. ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice, using an acronym for China’s government. She described the Chinese U.N. mission’s letter as “yet another example of a global campaign of transnational repression” against the Muslim minority, most of whom live in China’s far-west Xinjiang region. “I&#8217;m also pleased to see that their efforts have only increased international scrutiny on the situation within Xinjiang, and particularly the atrocities against the Uyghur people,” Van Schaack said. A detention facility in Jiashi County in Kashgar Prefecture in China&#8217;s northwestern Xinjiang region in July 2023. The Chinese government is increasingly moving Uyghurs from internment camps to the regular penal system while claiming it is closing the camps, experts and foreign diplomats told a forum on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Tuesday. (Pedro Pardo/AFP) Sophie Richardson, the China director for Human Rights Watch, brandished a copy of the letter, which was first obtained by National Review, and said the “strong recommendation” from China that nobody attend the event made it more important that the room was full. “Any government that&#8217;s going to go out of its way to bother doing this, first of all, has no business sitting on the U.N. Human Rights Council, but also it&#8217;s essentially confirming that it&#8217;s got a lot to hide and it knows it,” Richardson said, defending the event as a moral imperative. The panel’s job was “to talk about the facts,” she said, “because we can, and because they don&#8217;t want us to, and because Uyghurs can&#8217;t.” Radio Free Asia contacted the Chinese Embassy in Washington, which said questions should be directed to China’s permanent mission to the United Nations. But Chinese diplomats at the U.N. mission could not be reached by phone and did not respond to an emailed request for comments. Diplomatic pushback Two European diplomats also spoke during the event. Peter Loeffelhardt, the German Foreign Office’s director for Asia and the Pacific, referred to China’s warning letter, which accused the panel of “plotting to use human rights issues as a political tool to undermine Xinjiang’s stability and disrupt China’s peaceful development.” “It is a false and dangerous narrative to say that human rights are an obstacle to development,” he said. “Human rights always need to be part of the discussion. When we address human rights violations, bilaterally and multilaterally, it is not an interference in internal affairs.” Belén Martinez Carbonell, managing director for multilateral affairs at the European Union’s foreign relations arm, said Europe believed the repression of the Uyghurs was “a very important topic that we would not like to be missed” among all the issues at the General Assembly. “In the European Union, we are concerned for many issues, such as political reeducation camps, mass arbitrary detentions, widespread surveillance, trafficking and control measures, systemic and severe restriction of the exercise of fundamental freedoms,” she said. Those included “the use of forced labor, torture, forced abortion and sterilization, birth control, and family separation policies and sexual and gender based violence.” “What a long list,” she said. Martinez Carbonell also said the European Parliament was working on Europe’s own version of the U.S. Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which bans the import of any product that was made even partially using forced labor of Uyghurs interned in Chinese camps. Shifting repression Gady Epstein, a senior editor at The Economist magazine and the forum’s moderator, noted that “stories about Xinjiang have faded a little from the headlines or from the front pages” in recent times, being replaced by some about the closure of certain internment camps. Uyghurs living in Turkey protest in Istanbul in March 2021 against China’s treatment of Uyghurs in Turkey. (Emrah Gurel/AP) Amnesty International Secretary-General Agnès Callamard said the decrease in attention was not due to any changes on the ground. “The situation has not changed in its essence,” Callamard said. “It may have shifted a little bit in the forms that certain violations have taken, but it has certainly not shifted in the essence of the violations.” Callamard said Uyghurs still enjoyed no freedom of movement, or religion or culture, or to “equality and non-discrimination.” She added that even the claims of camp closures were disingenuous. “It is a fact that we are witnessing more and more arbitrary detention [and] the shifting of individuals into formal prisons,” Callamard said. It was a concern mirrored by Van Schaak, the U.S. official. “We are now particularly concerned about the dramatic increase in prosecutions with long-term sentences in Xinjiang, including the reported transfer of some detainees from so-called re-education or vocational training centers into more formal penal prisons,” she said. “Of the more than 15,000 Xinjiang residents whose sentences are known, more than 95% of those convicted – often under very vague charges, like separatism or endangering state security – have received sentences of 5 to 20 years, and in some cases of life.” Bittersweetness Rayhan Asat, a Uyghur human rights lawyer and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, which organized the panel, told the panel that another enduring part of Beijing’s repression campaign was the cruel methods it often used to silence Uyghurs living outside China. “Uyghur-Americans living in America are still subject to China&#8217;s long-arm reach,” Asat said. “What they are using is our families, our loved ones, their lives. They are literally keeping them hostage.” She explained that...
- [South Korea Presidents clash over North Korea policy](https://ij-reportika.com/south-korea-presidents-clash-over-north-korea-policy/): Five years ago, when leaders of the two Koreas exchanged a historic handshake in Pyongyang, the Korean people looked on with hope, wishing that this masterpiece of diplomacy may finally put an official end to the seven-decade-long war on the peninsula.  But as time surges forward, the once-celebrated inter-Korean agreement stands vulnerable, overshadowed by North Korea’s escalating nuclear threats, and its leader, Kim Jong Un reinforcing ties with his fellow authoritarian leader Vladimir Putin of Russia. Now, South Korea grapples with a growing divide on whether to uphold that deal. The debate is set to intensify on the back of  former South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s  attendance of the commemorative event of the fifth anniversary of the September 19 Pyongyang Joint Declaration in Seoul on Tuesday.   “The [current] government and the ruling party have expressed their intentions to reconsider or possibly scrap the military agreement,” Moon said at the event. “However, it’s crucial to note that the inter-Korean military agreement has been instrumental in preventing military confrontations between the two Koreas.” Moon’s comments are largely seen as a warning against the administration of President Yoon Suk Yeol for its hardline policy on North Korea. “It would be irresponsible to remove the last safety pin in place,” Moon added. “As relations between the two Koreas deteriorate and military tensions escalate, it’s imperative for both sides to uphold the agreement.” His remarks may potentially improve  public opinion of South Korea’s progressives before the general election in April. Should that happen, it would conversely work against Yoon’s hardline policy on Pyongyang.  Under the 2018 inter-Korean military deal, the two Koreas agreed to “end hostility” and to “take substantial steps to make the Korean Peninsula a permanent peace zone.”  “Military accords should be honored and respected to the fullest extent to ensure dialogue continues and to prevent dire consequences,” Moon said.  The former president was supported by key officials from his administration – his foreign minister Kang Kyung-wha and unification minister Kim Yeon-chul at the event. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un with South Korean President Moon Jae-in inside the Peace House at the border village of Panmunjom in Demilitarized Zone, South Korea on April 27, 2018. (Credit: AP) South Korea’s progressives see consistent engagement with North Korea as a potential catalyst for altering Pyongyang’s hostile behavior and its actions of violating human rights. They believe that integrating North Korea into the international stage would foster transparency, open avenues for dialogue, and gradually shift the North’s stance towards global norms and values. Conservatives, on the other hand, have long protested against what it defined as far-fetched engagement, saying that excessive aid to North Korea despite its continued provocations would only foster its nuclear ambitions. The conversative Yoon administration is thus adopting a hawkish policy on North Korea, aimed at pressing Pyongyang to forfeit its nuclear weapons. The ongoing debate is set to gain its momentum, as Yoon’s Defense Minister nominee Shin Won-sik has opined about his inclination to scrap the inter-Korean military deal last week. Some analysts consider the deal invalid, with North Korea returning to its brinkmanship diplomacy after its high-stakes summit with the United States collapsed in Hanoi February 2019. For instance, in November 2019, North Korea fired coastal artillery near the maritime buffer around the border island of Changlin-do.  In May 2020, North Korea fired gunshots towards a South Korean guard post at the inter-Korean border, and in September 2020, a South Korean civilian was shot dead at the maritime border by the North and subsequently incinerated. Further complicating matters is North Korea’s amplified nuclear and missile threats. The threats are expected to further intensify with Putin vowing to aid North Korea in developing its satellite technology.  Rocket technology can be used for both launching satellites and missiles. For that reason, the UN bans North Korea from launching a ballistic rocket, even if it claims to be a satellite launch.  South Korea’s internal disagreement surrounding its North North Korea policy could potentially undermine that of the allies. The lack of a unified stance – be it hardline or dovish policy – risks disabling Seoul and Washington to form a coherent strategy that could be implemented in the long-term. Experts, however, noted that the main reason for this policy inconsistency is due to Kim Jong Un’s altered stance on his diplomacy after the fallout in Hanoi in 2019.  “North Korean inconsistency is what leads to South Korea having to change its policy. If Pyongyang had continued to engage post-Hanoi summit, I think that both, Moon first, and Yoon now would have probably sought to try to accommodate this. Alas, this hasn’t been the case,” said Ramon Pacheco Pardo, Professor of International Relations at King’s College London and the KF-VUB Korea Chair at the Brussels School of Governance of Vrije Universiteit Brussel. “Likewise, I think that it was domestic instability in North Korea in the late 2000s, due to Kim Jong Il’s health condition, and then the transition process to Kim Jong Un, [being] the main reason behind the end of the inter-Korean engagement. So liberals and conservatives may not fully agree on how to approach North Korea, but I actually think that Pyongyang is the main reason why Seoul changes its policy.” Edited by Elaine Chan and Taejun Kang.
- [Once hailed as role model, Uyghur entrepreneur sentenced to 15 years](https://ij-reportika.com/once-hailed-as-role-model-uyghur-entrepreneur-sentenced-to-15-years/): For years, the young Uyghur entrepreneur was held up in Chinese media as a role model for other Uyghur youth – a clean-shaven, smartly-dressed young man who returned to China to start his educational consulting business after getting an MBA in the United States. “Rather than staying abroad, he decided the best place to launch his career was in Beijing,” read a June 2014 article about Abdulhabir Muhammad in the state-run Global Times that included a photo of him in a dark suit and tie, smiling and sitting confidently behind an office desk. In Beijing, he founded A.B.U. Education, which provides support services to young people wanting to study abroad. “I want to be an international businessman and show people that we, as Uyghurs, are more than just vendors who wear &#8216;flower hats&#8217; and sell kebabs, naan and nut cake,&#8221; Muhammad said in the article, referring to a cap worn by many Uyghur men, also known as a doppa.  “Unfortunately, many people don’t realize there are other business possibilities.” But in mid-2022, authorities arrested Muhammad, who is now 33 and proficient in English, Chinese, Arabic, Turkish and the Uyghur language, on religious extremism and national separatism charges, people with knowledge of the situation said.  And later that year, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison, police in Xinjiang, the far western region of China that is home to more than 11 million mostly Muslim Uyghurs, the sources told Radio Free Asia. Murky reasons It is not entirely clear what prompted his arrest.  As with so much in China, especially concerning the Uyghurs – an ethnic group whose language, religion and culture Beijing has tried to suppress – the details surrounding his case are virtually impossible to know, and RFA has been able to confirm his conviction only now, several months later. By one account, authorities may have arrested Muhammad for discussing the benefits of halal food a decade earlier in Xinjiang. By another, he may have gotten in trouble for communicating with his brothers while studying in the United States. One source familiar with the situation, who suggested that Muhammad was arrested for discussing halal food, said an entity in Beijing that monitors Uyghur businesspeople had been observing Muhammad for several years and cooperated with police during his arrest.  Radio Free Asia contacted the Xinjiang People&#8217;s Assistance and Management Office in the capital to try to find out more information about his arrest, but an employee said the matter was classified and details could not be disclosed.  A security guard watches from a tower at a detention facility in Yarkent County in northwestern China&#8217;s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, March 21, 2021. Credit: Ng Han Guan/AP A former classmate of Muhammad, who requested anonymity to speak freely without risking retribution, also said it was possible that years earlier the man had discussed the advantages of halal food, prepared according to Islamic law, in terms of hygiene and safety. Muhammad’s father was a representative in Aksu for the Arman Foods Group, which distributes locally produced and imported food to supermarkets throughout the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. “All the Arman stores in Aksu were under his parents’ management,” he said. “Since it’s an Arman store and related to food, perhaps during work he advocated for the abundance of halal food available at Arman stores.” Nearly 20 people attended the event where Muhammad discussed the benefits of halal food, said the source, including people who lived near his hometown, Araaymaq village. In recent years, Chinese authorities have clamped down aggressively on religious practices among Uyghurs, including keeping Islamic holidays and dietary practices, and even praying in mosques, many of which have been shuttered. In 2017 and 2018, authorities detained an estimated 1.8 million Muslims in camps and prisons to combat what China deemed religious extremism and terrorism. China called them “re-education” camps, and says they have all been dismantled, but other reports say they persist. Brothers tried with him Another possibility is that Muhammad was taken into custody for communicating by phone with his brothers, who stood trial for being in contact with him while he attended the State University of New York at Binghamton, where he graduated with a master&#8217;s degree in business administration in January 2014. A person familiar with the situation said four policemen from Aksu detained him in Beijing and transported him directly to Kelpin county in Xinjiang for interrogation. He was tried along with more than 10 of his associates at the end of 2022, the source said. A village police officer in the Xinjiang city of Aksu, where Muhammad had lived for several years, confirmed the sentence and said that some of those tried alongside him were his brothers. “Abdulhabir has been sentenced to 15 years, but I’m not aware of where he is serving his sentence,” said the police officer. “There were also brothers arrested for communicating with their sibling while he was abroad, and this was mentioned during the meeting.” Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar military launches 20 airstrikes during ASEAN Air Chiefs conference](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-military-launches-20-airstrikes-during-asean-air-chiefs-conference/): Myanmar’s military kept up its campaign of airstrikes even during the controversial ASEAN Air Chiefs conference, to which four countries decided not to send a representative. There were 20 air attacks during the three-day event, locals and ethnic armed groups told Radio Free Asia on Monday. The conference took place from Sept. 13-15 led by junta Air Force chief Gen. Tun Aung. Air Force chiefs from Brunei, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand attended, while Singapore and the Philippines sent video messages. Malaysia and Indonesia boycotted the event. Meanwhile the junta’s brutal air campaign continued with airstrikes on Sagaing region’s Indaw, Pale and Ayadaw townships. The air force also attacked Mogoke township in Mandalay region and Kyaukkyi township in eastern Bago region. In Indaw, junta planes attacked a monastery in Kha Yan Sat Kone village on Friday, following up with a heavy artillery bombardment. The 77-year-old abbot Rajinda and 42-year-old laybrother Win Thein died in the attack, according to a local who didn’t want to be named for fear of reprisals. “The monastery was bombed by an airplane,” the local said. “Seconds later, the junta fired a Howitzer at the same monastery killing the abbot …That’s why the whole village had to sleep outside the village on the night of September 15.  “Now they have returned to the village as they have to cremate the abbot. The abbot’s head was split and the civilian was hit in the chest,” said the man, adding that there had been no fighting in the area before the attack.  Three junta helicopters carried out 13 airstrikes on villages in Bago region’s Kyaukkyi township, according to a Karen National Union statement Friday. More than 5,000 residents from six villages were forced to flee to escape the bombardement, the statement said. A local resident, who didn’t want to be named for security reasons, told RFA that people are still unwilling to return to their homes because they are afraid of more airstrikes. They are staying in nearby villages and the forest. On Friday night, a jet fighter fired on a village in Mandalay region&#8217;s Mogoke township for 15 minutes, residents told RFA Burmese. They said the junta launched the attack following a battle with the Ta’ang National Liberation Army. A spokesperson for the ethnic armed group, Lt. Col. Mong Aik Kyaw, said the junta has stepped up its air campaign recently. “We have seen more airstrikes from their side,” he said. “Now they are attacking civilian targets. Last month, a jet fighter came and attacked Taung Gyaw hill where there was no fighting.” He added that since July 23, there have been more than 40 clashes between the junta army and the TNLA. Calls to junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun went unanswered. The Air Force chiefs who attended the ASEAN conference in Naypyitaw discussed regional security and cooperation in the fight against terrorism. Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw spokesperson Sithu Maung said all ASEAN members should have boycotted the conference. “Airstrikes targeting civilians, not military targets are war crimes and crimes against humanity,” said the representative of the committee which is made up of members of the National League for Democracy and other lawmakers ousted in the February 2021 coup. “If they attended the conference knowing of this situation it would encourage violence.” Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [Cambodian farmer says raising rats for food has boosted his family’s income](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-farmer-says-raising-rats-for-food-has-boosted-his-familys-income/): The rats squeak as Muy Chameroun nears their cages to feed them foods like corn, rice, potatoes, grass and anything else that is healthy for them.. But these rats number more than 100 and they are not his pets. Muy Chameroun is a farmer, and he is raising the rats as food. Rats are not only consumed in Cambodia, but also in other countries in the region, including Thailand, China, and India. From his small farm in Kdol Tahen commune, Bavel district, in the western province of Battambang, Muy Chamroeun breeds and raises a type of rat that he imported from Thailand.  He used to work in the construction industry in neighboring Thailand, but found that he could make more money raising the rodents that he has fond memories of eating in his childhood. In the four years he has been raising rats, Muy Chamroeun has been able to lift his family’s standard of living. The business has allowed him to save 2 to 2.4 million riel (US$486-583) per month.  Growing an Industry Other farmers in the area are foregoing swine and cattle to try to get in on the rat racket, and Muy Chamroen sells them adults from his mischief to help them get started. He has also set up a Facebook page called Sovanrachna Rat Farm to share tips on raising, feeding and upkeep. Sum Pina, one of his customers, says the rats do not cost a lot to raise. The largest expense is building a shed to house them in, and their food is negligible, he says. Additionally, these Thai rats are better than the local domesticated and wild breeds because they do not emit such a foul odor, he said. Rat farmer Muy Chamroeun holds a rat at his farm in western Cambodia’s Battambang province, Sept. 14, 2023. Credit: RFA Once the rats have matured and fattened up to around 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) or more, they can be taken to market and sold for 20,000 to 25,000 riel (about $5-6) per head.  Theng Savoeun, President of the Association of Cambodian Farmers&#8217; Communities, said that raising rats for meat can help reduce Cambodia’s meat imports of meat and improve the livelihood of farmers. There are no domestic regulations on breeding or raising rats or selling their meat, so it is an easy business to get into. Muy Chameroun wants to sell his rat meat overseas, and to do that he would need a license from the Ministry of Agriculture, but currently there are no regulations or procedures for doing that – yet. Translated by Samean Yun. Edited by Eugene Whong.
- [Storm in a teapot: Climate change hits ancient art of tea-growing](https://ij-reportika.com/storm-in-a-teapot-climate-change-hits-ancient-art-of-tea-growing/): Climate change is having an impact on the ancient art of tea-growing, as a long dry spell has left high-end crops across the region parched and yellow amid dwindling supply, according to agricultural experts and tea connoisseurs. China&#8217;s traditional tea-making techniques and customs were included in UNESCO&#8217;s intangible cultural heritage list last year &#8212; at a time when the perfect cup of tea is getting harder and harder to find. The 8th century “Classic of Tea” by Lu Yu tells growers: &#8220;Make tea by looking at the weather. Make tea by looking at the tea.&#8221; Yet extreme weather that swings between drought and floods is creating hardships for the region&#8217;s tea-growers, who have a similar appreciation for the different kinds of leaf and the environments in which they&#8217;re grown to connoisseurs of fine wines. &#8220;Last year we had very dry weather, and so this year&#8217;s Longjing [Dragon&#8217;s Well] tea crop has been severely reduced,&#8221; Chinese tea expert Zhang Qin told Radio Free Asia&#8217;s Green Intelligence column. She blamed the lower yields on a lack of water supplied to the tea-growing areas around Xihu in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou. &#8220;It&#8217;s mainly because some of the tea-bushes have seen damage to their roots, and a small number of bushes have died,&#8221; Zhang said. Water evaporates Similar woes have beset tea-growing regions of China&#8217;s southeastern province of Fujian, according to Tsai Yu-hsin of the 186-year-old Taiwanese tea company Legacy Formosa, who said he had seen the effects with his own eyes. &#8220;When there are such high temperatures and drought, all the water in the tea bushes evaporates,&#8221; Tsai said. &#8220;If there&#8217;s a wind, then even more water is lost, so the tea bushes will turn yellow.&#8221; &#8220;Water is as important to tea-bushes as it is to humans,&#8221; Tsai said. &#8220;The tighter the water supply, the worse the disaster for the tea gardens.&#8221; A woman plucks tea leaves in Moganshan, Zhejiang province. Extreme weather, such as drought or heavy rainfall, is detrimental to the growth of tea trees, causing tea buds to germinate slowly and become smaller Credit: Carlos Barria/Reuters Tsai said he had seen leaves grown for the Wu Yi Rock Tea variety and white tea start to wither and turn yellow on the bush. He said similar problems have been seen in tea-growing areas of Taiwan&#8217;s Nantou, across the Taiwan Strait from Fujian. Plunging yields Tea yields in China, the world&#8217;s biggest producer of tea, and Taiwan, which serves a smaller but highly discerning tea-drinking public, saw the lowest levels of rainfall in 30 years last year. Overall tea production in China looks set to fall by around 15% this year as a result, according to industry associations, with falls of 40% in the central province of Henan, and of 30% in Fujian. In Taiwan, yields are down in the Chiayi tea-growing region by more than 50%, with other areas seeing falls of 20 to 30%, according to Chiu Chui-fung, a Ministry of Agriculture official who works on improving tea yields. And drought doesn&#8217;t just affect the amount of tea that can be harvested &#8212; it changes the quality of the tea that is available, he said. Drought-struck bushes will bear leaves with less sugars, polyphenols, amino acids and caffeine, which affects the taste and smell, Chiu said. Health-giving catechins are also reduced by around 50% in times of drought, according to a flavor study by researchers at Montana State University. Tea bushes like temperatures ranging between 18 and 25 Celsius, with annual rainfall of 1800-3000 mm, and a relative humidity of 75-80%, according to Chiu. Students learn how to hand-roll tea at a training workshop at the Tea Research and Extension Station in Nantou, Taiwan. Drought followed by torrential rains have decimated tea crops. Extreme weather exacerbated by climate change has left Taiwan&#8217;s tea farmers scrambling to adapt. Credit: Ann Wang/Reuters Rising temperatures While harvesting takes place several times a year, the spring harvest yields the most, he said. There are signs that fewer and fewer regions are now meeting all of those criteria, according to Zhang Qin. &#8220;Tea farmers in Yunnan [in the Mekong River basin] are saying that temperatures are getting higher and higher every year in recent years,&#8221; she said. And specialized teas like White Silver Needle Orange Pekoe or Oolong Rock Tea are more sensitive to changes in the environment than cheaper teas for daily consumption. &#8220;Without enough water, Silver Needle Pekoe won&#8217;t be able to open its leaves, and the quantity will decrease,&#8221; Tsai said. &#8220;Climate change is damaging a lot of tea bushes, and fewer of the most refined and high-quality leaves are being harvested, which means the price will be significantly [higher].&#8221; The EU-funded climate monitoring agency &#8220;Copernicus Climate Change Service&#8221; announced in August that July 2023 was the hottest month on Earth on record. Last month, China&#8217;s Climate Change Blue Book for 2023 showed an average temperature increase of 0.16C every 10 years between 1901 and 2022. The Meteorological Administration also reported record-breaking high temperatures at 366 weather stations around the country during 2022. Weather extremes Taiwan has seen similar increases over the past century, too. And record-breaking heavy rains dumped by increasingly frequent and powerful typhoons and rainstorms may not help tea-growers much. Too much rain means the soil is waterlogged, cutting off the supply of oxygen in the soil, and affecting respiration and absorption, Chiu said. The result is slower-growing tea and declining yields and quality. Extreme weather also means more pests that threaten tea crops, including red spider-mites, thrips and other insects. Zhang, who receives samples of tea from growers across the region every year, says there are already noticeable changes in the way the best teas taste. There is a black tea from Yunnan called Golden Silk Dianhong with &#8220;slight caramel and floral aroma, with a rich taste,&#8221; Zhang said. &#8220;It has always been very popular with consumers, but it doesn&#8217;t taste the way it once did when I have drunk it in recent years.&#8221; Elusive...
- [Hanoi fire that killed 56 draws attention to lax safety standards in Vietnam](https://ij-reportika.com/hanoi-fire-that-killed-56-draws-attention-to-lax-safety-standards-in-vietnam/): The fire that tore through the nine-story Hanoi apartment building this week and killed 56 people has shed light on Vietnam’s lax fire safety standards. Deputy Prime Minister Tran Luu Quang has ordered an investigation, along with tougher regulations for smaller apartment buildings, according to a government statement.  One tenant whose family has been living in a tiny 30-square meter (323-square feet) unit in a five-story building for many years said that after Wednesday’s fire in the Thanh Xuan section of Hanoi, he checked the fire prevention system in his building and realized there was none. “Prior to the tragedy, I had already studied our building layout and the surrounding area to see how to escape or how to jump to a neighboring house if a fire occurs,” said the man, who requested anonymity for security reasons on Friday.  “Our building doesn’t properly equip tenants with any fire prevention equipment.” Burned motorbikes and damaged ground floor of a 10-storey building after a major fire at an apartment block in Hanoi on Sept. 13, 2023. Credit: Nhac Nguyen/AFP His building is located in a small alley in Hanoi’s Ba Dinh district. The road is so narrow that it would be impossible for fire trucks to get to the building if a fire were to break out. Also, there are no hydrants near the building, nor is it equipped with hoses. He said he has grave concerns for his family’s safety, but the landlord does not seem to care. “After the incident, I’ve been waiting to see whether the landlord or the company managing the building would issue any alerts or provide any firefighting equipment but haven’t received any notification, warning, or any equipment at all,” he said. Living in such an unsafe space is not a choice, he said. It is the only place they can afford. “For people migrating from a rural area to the city like us, we don’t have many options,” said the man. I have always had a desire to live in a place safe from fire and floods, but our current incomes only allow us to rent out here in the slums.” Mini-apartments Hanoi is home to around 2,000 similar mini-apartments, while Ho Chi Minh City in the south has around 4,200 of them, according to media reports. Many in his neighborhood are in worse shape than his, the man said. He once inspected a seven-story building in the district where his friend lives. “The landlord told me that they had built the seven-story building illegally but the local government did not know,” he said. “From the outside, the building looks like a beautiful house, but when you enter, you will notice that it is divided into many small rooms for students and low-income people to rent.” “Mini-apartment” is not an approved category of domicile under Vietnamese law, Hoang Anh Tuan, the Director General of the Ministry of Construction’s Administration of Construction Management told the local Pioneer (Tien Phong) newspaper. Relatives weep as they wait outside a funeral house to identify victims of a major fire at an apartment building in Hanoi on Sept. 13, 2023. Credit: AFP The director general of the ministry’s Department of Science, Technology &amp; Environment, Vu Ngoc Anh, said that the mini-apartments had operated similarly to residential apartment buildings, but without fire and safety systems required by law. Units in similar buildings are available to rent all over the city. A Facebook group called “Renting Houses, Houses for Rent, Mini-Apartments, and Cheap Rental Rooms in Hanoi” advertises a newly opened 27 room mini-apartment building in the city’s Nam Tu Liem district. But the person who posted the ad would not respond to RFA’s questions regarding fire prevention and evacuation measures. What to do The man who lived in a mini-apartment said he and his wife have discussed fire prevention measures and agreed on a plan in the event of a fire. “I have instructed my family on how to use electricity and gas or what we should do when a fire occurs,” said the man. “For example, we must unplug electric appliances after use or always check whether there is a gas leak.” The family has also mapped out the local area and developed plans for what to do with the kids and their valuables. “If a fire breaks out, we must stay calm and figure out the best solution for our family,” he said. He said the building’s electrical system is overtapped, and with so many people living in a cramped space, the floors are cluttered. “I think if a fire breaks out, it would be challenging for the people there to escape, and they would be in a situation similar to the Thanh Xuan fire.” Fire safety After the Thanh Xuan disaster, the demand for fire prevention equipment has sharply increased. The price for some items has even doubled, sources told RFA Vietnamese. Nguyen Dinh Ha, a resident living in the upscale Vinhome Times City building in Vinh Tuy district, said that his and other newly built residential buildings in the capital had to fulfill the city’s fire prevention requirements before they were handed over to end-users.  Therefore, these residential buildings are not subject to the city’s upcoming examination of fire prevention work at multi-family buildings. A security guard sits as residents watch from far after a major fire at an apartment building in Hanoi on Sept. 13, 2023. Credit: Nhac Nguyen/AFP   He suggested that the city pay attention to the fire prevention of houses in small alleys and mini apartments as their construction did not follow the city’s standards like projects on residential building development. He also recommended installing fire prevention equipment in older residential buildings to enable them to meet the current standards.  Minh Tuan, a Hanoian who moved out from a residential building in Me Tri ward, Nam Tu Liem district, told RFA that after the deadly incident in Thanh Xuan, his building had introduced stiffer fire prevention measures, requiring residents not to recharge their...
- [Kim-Putin military cooperation may pose potential setback for China](https://ij-reportika.com/kim-putin-military-cooperation-may-pose-potential-setback-for-china/): Updated Sept. 15, 2023, 5:35 a.m. ET North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian leader Vladimir Putin inspected a fighter jet production facility in Russia’s Far East on Friday while the United States allies prepare joint countermeasures in response to safeguarding the security in both Asia and Europe. Kim’s high-profile visit this week has pressured the allies to intensify their multilateral security cooperation in the region, a development which experts noted, may see China emerging as the most disadvantaged nation.  The North Korean leader went to the Far Eastern Russian city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur early on Friday and inspected the Yuri Gagarin Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aircraft Plant (KnAAZ), according to Russia’s official news agency Tass.  “A red carpet was unfurled for the top-ranking guest,” Tass said. “In accordance with the Russian tradition for special guests, Kim was welcomed with bread and salt.” KnAAZ is at the heart of Russia’s fighter jet production, which produces advanced warplanes such as its fifth generation jets: the Su-35 and Su-57. Kim’s visit to Russia’s core defense facility came after both sides agreed on Wednesday to boost their military cooperation that would significantly aid their battle against the West. The core of the cooperation is most likely to be Russia’s weapons technology transfer in exchange for North Korea’s conventional ammunition.  As the speculation continues to rise, North Korea has reportedly begun providing ammunition to Russia in aiding its Ukraine aggression, according to a report from the New Voice of Ukraine, the country’s one of the largest news outlets, on Thursday. Putin has already received “122mm and 152mm artillery shells as well as Grad rockets from North Korea,” the New Voice of Ukraine claimed, quoting the Ukrainian Defense Intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov. The cementing of such a trade deal puts the U.S. at risk in its attempt to curb Russia’s aggression on Ukraine, potentially prolonging the war, and containing North Korea’s nuclear pursuits to enhance nuclear capabilities. In response, the U.S., South Korea and Japan are reinforcing security cooperation to confront the latest development that could threaten their interests. Top security aides of the three – the U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, South Korea’s National Security Office Director Cho Tae-yong and Japan’s National Security Secretariat Secretary General Akiba Takeo – vowed to further consolidate their ties to jointly counter the possible Moscow-Pyongyang military cooperation. “The three NSAs reaffirmed the importance of trilateral coordination consistent with their commitment to consult,” White House said in a statement Thursday. “They noted that any arms exports from the DPRK to Russia would directly violate multiple UN Security Council resolutions, including resolutions that Russia itself voted to adopt.”  The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is the North’s formal name. Meanwhile, the U.S. and South Korea held discussions under the Extended Deterrence Strategy and Consulting Group (EDSCG) in Seoul on Friday, where vice foreign and defense ministers from both sides discussed practical ways to curb heightened security risk for the allies, including the latest posed by the high-stakes Kim-Putin summit. “The Russia-North Korea military cooperation is a serious violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions,” Chang Ho-jin, South Korea’s first vice minister of its Foreign Ministry, told reporters after the EDSCG discussion. “We have shared our concerns about the recent intensification of North Korea-Russia military cooperation and discussed future responses.”  The U.S. and South Korea representatives said the trilateral cooperation including Japan would boost the allies’ capability in deterring North Korea’s nuclear provocations.  “Japan would play a major role in stopping the North Korean naval and air threats in/over the East Sea, and Japanese Aegis ships might also assist in shooting down North Korean ballistic and cruise missiles,” said Bruce Bennett, adjunct international/defense researcher at the RAND Corporation and a professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School.  “In short, Japan would have a major role in helping to stop any North Korean invasion of the ROK,” he added, referring to South Korea’s formal name.   “In the wake of a North Korean invasion of the ROK, the defense of the ROK might actually fail without Japanese assistance. And interestingly, if North Korea starts a major conflict against Japan and not the ROK, the ROK could play a major role in stopping the North Korean aggression,” Bennett pointed out. The EDSCG meeting represent an elevated level of cooperation among democracies, underscored by a heightened call for stronger trilateral collaboration. “To address the common security concerns, the initial step is to solidify and institutionalize the trilateral cooperation framework among South Korea, U.S. and Japan,” Jin Chang-soo, an expert at South Korea’s prestige think tank, Sejong Institute, said. “The most significant strategic disadvantage from this [cooperation] would likely be on China.” South Korea, the U.S., and Japan take part in joint naval missile defense exercises in international waters between Korea and Japan, April 17, 2023. (The South Korean Defense Ministry via Reuters) Biggest disadvantage: China China has long opposed the emergence of a multilateral security platform in the region, frequently expressing concerns over the possible establishment of what it called a “mini-Nato” in the Indo-Pacific. However, the latest Kim-Putin summit is likely to just provide the impetus for a more united security front involving the U.S., South Korea, and Japan – and possibly more.  “This would be a major concern for China. The level of security cooperation among the U.S., South Korea, and Japan in terms of material capability, surpasses that of China, Russia and North Korea; they simply aren’t on the same playing field,” Jin said. “From China’s perspective, the North Korea-Russia summit intensifies pressure to bolster the trilateral cooperation among the like-minded nations. The military collaboration sought by North Korea and Russia to involve China might also not be in China’s best interests.” The consolidation of the trilateral security cooperation may work against China’s expansionist ambition. The institutionalized coalition could become a barrier to Beijing’s naval operations, including those in the South China Sea, where China has long pursued its territorial claims. Improved intelligence sharing and joint military exercises may also restrict China’s strategic options, potentially jeopardizing its...
- [Hypocritical? Christening of new North Korean submarine raises eyebrows](https://ij-reportika.com/hypocritical-christening-of-new-north-korean-submarine-raises-eyebrows/): With supreme leader Kim Jong Un looking on, the foreign minister smashed a bottle of champagne against the hull of North Korea’s latest nuclear submarine, prompting the crowd of sailors and factory workers to erupt in thunderous cheers and applause. But the reaction to the smashed bottle among the general public was less than smashing. Many North Koreans saw the ceremony, involving Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui, as puzzling and even hypocritical in a country that suppresses superstitious activities – which is how the submarine christening appeared to many. “Everyone was surprised to see the female foreign minister come forward and break a liquor bottle by hitting it against the hull,” a resident from the northeastern city of Rason told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The authorities have been cracking down on the simple rituals of fishermen performing ancestral rites and pouring alcohol to ensure the safe navigation of boats, defining them as superstitious practices,” he said. In this North Korea&#8217;s Korean Central News Agency released photo on Sept. 8, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un claps after Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui smashed a bottle of champagne against the hull of a new submarine during a launching ceremony in North Korea. Credit: KCNA via Reuters North Korean fishermen have traditional ceremonies whenever they take a new boat out to sea or when they repair an old boat, and sometimes they involve elements of superstition that have been passed down over generations. Those rituals, which can involve a pig’s head and copious amounts of alcohol, are, like the submarine christening, meant only to wish for the safety of ships at sea, the resident said.  Punishing ‘capitalist’ behavior Though anti-superstition laws have long been on the books they were not strictly enforced all the time, but the recent passing of a new “anti-capitalist” law caused authorities to be less tolerant of superstitious activities. The 2020 Anti-Reactionary Thought and Culture Act, is aimed at preserving the purity of North Korean socialist ideals by harshly punishing people for watching foreign media, speaking like a “South Korean,” wearing “capitalist” fashion, or even dancing like a “capitalist.” The law does not specifically mention superstitions and the fishermen are emulating their own ancestors rather than “capitalist” fishermen in the South, but authorities have interpreted their activity as “reactionary ideology” brought in from the outside. Fishermen have therefore been secretly holding these ceremonies under cover of night to avoid being punished. In this North Korea&#8217;s Korean Central News Agency released photo on Sept. 8, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attends a launching ceremony for a new tactical nuclear attack submarine in North Korea. Credit: KCNA via Reuters “I couldn’t help but be surprised that a ceremony that the authorities say is a punishable superstitious act was held in front of Kim Jong Un,” the resident said, adding that the small ceremonies fall under Article 256, a different law that forbids fortune telling, divination, and exorcism as superstitious acts. According to that law, punishments can range from “up to a year” in a disciplinary labor facility to “a minimum of three to seven years” depending on how serious the act is. “After seeing the reports of the submarine launch ceremony, fishermen and other residents are saying that the authorities are two-faced, and they should no longer have to do their own ceremonies in secret,” the resident said. It was the first time that a ship christening was reported in state media, a resident of Rason’s surrounding North Hamgyong province told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “It is deeply contradictory for the authorities to tell residents not to believe in superstitions and not engage in superstitious behavior, but then to do something similar [themselves.]” he said. “People are mocking the authorities by asking, ‘Do [the authorities] believe in superstitions, too? Is it okay to do superstitious acts in front of Kim Jong Un?’”  Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Junta sentences 4 men to death in Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady region](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-sentences-4-men-to-death-in-myanmars-ayeyarwady-region/): Four men from Ayeyarwady region’s Bogale township have been given the death penalty for murdering a suspected military informer, residents told RFA Thursday. The Pyapon District Court handed down the sentence Tuesday on Zaw Win Tun, Naing Wai Lin, Min Thu Aung and Pyae Sone Phyo after more than a year of investigation. “During the water festival in Bogale township’s neighborhood six, a woman called Thuzar Gyi who was a moneylender with a loud voice was shot dead in the market,” said a township resident who declined to give their name for fear of reprisals. The four men have been taken to Pathein Prison, locals said. Four people have been executed since receiving the death penalty following the February 2021 coup. They include prominent 88-Generation student leader Kyaw Min Yu (known as Ko Jimmy) and Phyo Zayar Thaw, a rapper and MP for the National League for Democracy, the party which swept to victory in 2020 and has now been disqualified from taking part in elections. The junta is increasingly relying on the death penalty to suppress dissent by accusing pro-democracy activists of murder. On November 30 last year, a military court in Yangon sentenced seven students from Dagon University Students’ Union to death in connection with the killing of a former military officer. Excluding the four men sentenced this week, a total of 146 people have received the death penalty since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.
- [Cambodian villagers accuse Chinese mining company of infringing on their land](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-villagers-accuse-chinese-mining-company-of-infringing-on-their-land/): About 200 families in central Cambodia say they are in danger of losing hundreds of hectares of farmland – with or without compensation – to a Chinese gold mining company expanding its excavation area. Late Cheng Mining Development Co., Ltd., received a license from the Cambodian government in March 2020, to explore more than 15,100 hectares (37,300 acres) in Sochet commune of Sandan district in Kampong Thom province for gold deposits. The area lies partly inside the Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary and near Phnom Chi, a mountain tourist area. In August 2022, the government granted the company commercial exploitation rights, allowing mining in protected areas if regulations such as an environmental impact assessment were followed, according to a report by the Cambodian Journalists Alliance Association.  The US$13 million project is expected to create 300 jobs and yield 180 kilograms (400 lbs) of gold annually, starting this year, and to provide the government with US$250,000 annually in royalties, the report said. Late Cheng also has begun to clear and occupy the land without publicly disclosing its environmental impact assessment, the report said. The company has opened five mines in the villages of O’Pha Av, O’Phro Huot, O’Khvav, Sre Pring and Snong On, which will encroach on potato, cashew and mango crops. The communities are inside or near the Prey Lang Forest. Most of the villagers are indigenous and have lived in their communities for generations, so they unlikely have land titles for their property.    When land concessions are granted to companies, villagers who live in the concession areas must forfeit their agricultural land but usually keep their homes and small rice fields, the article said. Pressured to sell Keo Mony, a resident of O’Pha Av village, Sandan district, said Late Cheng has already damaged his three hectares of potatoes.  He said a company representative pressured him to sell one hectare of land for US$3,000 and threatened to take it if he refused.   “They said they would hunt down wherever the gold is located and take it,” he told Radio Free Asia. “They asked to buy the land, and said if we refused to sell it, we would lose it.” Some Cambodians hired by the Chinese company to mine the areas said residents of Sre Pring and Snong On villages have not yet received any compensation.  The workers also said they fear for their and the villagers’ safety because dirty, contaminated water from the mining operation has drained into nearby streams, so that residents can no longer use them.  Furthermore, company security forces forbid locals from entering the area. Another resident, Toun Mao, who has privately mined for gold nuggets in Sre Pring village, said villagers who search for gold on the side have had to stop because Late Cheng and Cambodian authorities have ordered them not to mine on the company’s land. “It affects our business because the Chinese take all the places that have gold mines,” she said. “So, this makes it difficult for us. They have equipment to find [gold underground], while we use our hands to find it, so there’s no way we can beat them.” Sre Pring village chief Vong Hoeun said Late Cheng dumped wastewater into natural streams, causing local people to fall ill.  He asked relevant authorities to address the problem, but nothing has been done, he said. Vong Hoeun also questioned the safety of the mining operations because four workers had died in a pit near the river, though the company did not disclose the deaths, he said. Radio Free Asia could not reach Late Cheng for comment. Calls to Ung Dipola, director general for mineral resources at the Ministry of Mines and Energy, and to Sok Hay, the Kampong Thom provincial hall spokesman, went unanswered. Losing land Sandan district resident Seng Naroth said he worries that if the company continues to encroach on land, nearly 200 families will face severe poverty. “People need the land to cultivate,” he said. “If the authorities do not talk to the company or if they take the side of the company, then people’s land can be lost.”  Am Sam Ath, deputy director general of human rights group Licadho, said he believes that studies must be conducted to properly assess the impact of land, people and the environment before the government grants concessions for mining or other activities.  Companies also must resolve compensation issues before starting operations, and authorities must investigate any work-related deaths, he said. Although the mining company is a foreign company, Cambodian law applies, Am Sam Ath said. “If there are dead people at the company location, and there is no clear reason, it creates suspicion, so that the authorities must open a thorough investigation to seek justice for the dead,” he said. Translated by Sok Ry Sum for RFA Khmer. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Woman dies during Myanmar junta interrogation](https://ij-reportika.com/woman-dies-during-myanmar-junta-interrogation/): A Kachin state businesswoman, who was arrested for allegedly supporting anti-regime forces, died during interrogation by junta troops and police, sources close to her family told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday. Her arrest along with those of scores of others are part of a wider crackdown on people in Mogaung township, believed to be supporting anti-junta militias. Khin Mar Swe and her husband Moe Kyaw ran three gas stations in the township. On Sept. 2, a large group of police and troops raided one of the gas stations, arresting more than 20 employees who are still in custody. The following day, they arrested the couple, accusing them of supporting anti-regime defense forces and destroyed two of their gas stations. Ten days later, Khin Mar Swe’s family were told to come and collect her body from the police. “She was dead and had to be cremated,” said a source close to the family who didn’t want to be named for fear of reprisals. “The authorities did not allow us to see the body, so we do not know what it looked like. The charity association said that they were asked to bring the body to the cemetery straight away and cremate it.” The source said the husband is still in custody and has not been allowed to contact his family. He said the family took clothes and food to the police station but were sent away. RFA called the Kachin state junta spokesperson Win Ye Tun but he said he was in a meeting and couldn’t comment. Around 80 people have been arrested in Mogaung township in the past two months, accused of funding the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and people’s defense forces, according to a local politician who requested anonymity for safety reasons. On Aug. 25, troops arrested a couple and their son, accusing them of supporting the KIA.  The husband, Wabaw Tang Gun, died during interrogation. The other two have not been released and their condition isn’t known. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.
- [Organizers of rally to form Cambodian political party detained](https://ij-reportika.com/organizers-of-rally-to-form-cambodian-political-party-detained/): Six members of Cambodia’s opposition Candlelight Party, or CLP, remained in police custody after they were detained on Friday and Saturday for holding a rally in support of a new political party. Rights groups slammed the detention as the latest bid by the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, or CPP, to eliminate its political rivals. They say the CPP has used other tactics – including onerous bureaucracy, legal technicalities, and intimidation – to keep would-be competitors off of the country’s ballots and maintain its grip on power. Police arrested Banteay Meanchey province CLP leaders Sin Vatha, Tep Sambath Vathano, Long Lavi, Tuot Veasna, Chhum Sinath Van Siw and 17 others on Sept. 8 and 9 in connection with a rally they held to collect enough people’s fingerprints to register a new opposition party, former Banteay Meanchey Provincial CLP Secretary Suon Khemrin told RFA Khmer. Authorities detained the rally’s organizers despite having obtained authorization from the Ministry of Interior to form the new Panha Tumnerp – or Intellectual Modern – Party, said Suon Khemrin.  The former CLP secretary, who was among those arrested, was released along with 16 others on the afternoon of Sept. 10, after more than 30 hours in custody, he said. Suon Khemrin said that while in detention, police asked him who was behind the new party, but he told them he had only had seen an Aug. 18 letter from the Ministry of Interior granting Im Sognet the right to form the Tumnerp Party and requiring him to collect enough fingerprints to register the party within 180 days, according to the country’s political party law. He told RFA that the six men who remain in detention were being held at the Banteay Meanchey Provincial Police Station “for further questioning.” “Before I was released, the police told me to sign a document that was noticeably vague in its wording,” he said. Attempts by RFA to contact Banteay Meanchey Provincial Police Chief Sithi Loh for comment on the arrests went unanswered. ‘Violation of political rights’ Seung Senkaruna, the spokesperson for local NGO the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association, or ADHOC, told RFA that the arrests are a violation of citizens’ political rights. He said that the formation of a new party is a “legitimate political action,” and that authorities should facilitate such actions. “[The authorities] have been doing this to the opposition party and its members for some time now, but it only draws more criticism and can be seen as politically motivated,” he said. “It only proves that the oppositions’ accusation of persecution is real.” According to the Law on Political Parties, any Cambodian citizen who is aged 18 or older and is a permanent resident of the country has the right to form a political party simply by notifying the Ministry of Interior. The Ministry of Interior must reply in writing that it has received the notification within 15 days. The law states that in order to be valid, political parties must apply for registration with at least 4,000 members, depending on the province where the party is based. Translated by Sok Ry Sum. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
- [Report: Forest encroachment for maize cultivation increased in Lower Mekong](https://ij-reportika.com/report-forest-encroachment-for-maize-cultivation-increased-in-lower-mekong/): Industrial-scale maize cultivation to produce animal feed, one of the two main reasons behind annual smog in the three Lower Mekong countries, has grown on a massive scale, satellite data analysis has revealed. More than 11.8 million rai (1.88 million hectares) of forested area in the northern regions of Thailand, Myanmar and Lao PDR has been converted since 2015 to make way for maize cultivation, Greenpeace Southeast Asia said in its latest report, released on Sept. 6.  The report analyzes land-use changes in the Shan state of Myanmar, eight northern provinces of Thailand, and seven Lao provinces in the Lower Mekong region that are facing transboundary haze problems in recent years, mainly due to wildfires and widespread agricultural burning.  Between 2021 and mid-2023 alone, more than one million rai of the region’s forest was lost to maize farming, Tara Buakamsri, the country director for Greenpeace Thailand, told Radio Free Asia on Friday. That is equivalent to more than 220,000 soccer fields, or more than twice the size of New York city. Northern Lao PDR saw the most forest encroachment, with about 5.7 million rai converted to maize farms since 2015. In Myanmar’s Shan state, 3.1 million rai of forest was destroyed, while northern Thailand saw 2.9 million rai turned into corn cultivation. “Mass maize farming is moving from northern Thailand to Myanmar and Laos, where it’s harder for us to monitor and engage with local communities due to the political situation,” Tara said. In total, maize farming increased more than 38% from 13 million rai to 18 million rai &#8211; almost the size of Belgium &#8211; between 2015 and 2023, according to Greenpeace. The report also showed that the hot spots – areas with fires according to satellite data – in maize farming areas during the cultivation season grew from 31% in 2020 to 41% this year. Another 42% of this year’s hot spot was attributable to forest fires. The rest was rice paddy and other crop plantation-related hot spots.  “Our study shows that the maize industry continues to play a key role in destroying forests in the Mekong subregion,” Tara said.  “It is also primarily responsible for the toxic air pollution that has become an annual affair… It shouldn’t have been a ‘haze season’ every start of the year.” Culprits of worsening air pollution  Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand are among the top 30 countries with the worst air pollution, according to a study released on Aug. 29 by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC). The fine particles PM2.5 count for Southeast Asia’s most polluted country, Myanmar, was almost 35 micrograms per cubic meter (μg/m3), seven times worse than the World Health Organization’s air quality guideline, according to EPIC’s Air Quality Life Index. In Lao PDR, the PM2.5 was around 27 μg/m3, while in Thailand, it was around 23 μg/m3. Earlier this year, many areas in northern Thailand, Myanmar and Laos remained blanketed in toxic haze for weeks due to out-of-control wildfires and agricultural burning, with more than two million people hospitalized with respiratory issues in Thailand alone.  Experts say the deteriorating air pollution during the region’s crop cultivation season started after Thailand imposed zero tariffs for maize imported from Laos, Myanmar, and Cambodia to support the cross-border contract farming program about two decades ago. Thailand is now among the world’s largest animal feed producers, and one of the largest for pork and poultry too. Maize is the primary ingredient, making up over a third of the animal feed.  A smoggy view of Mai Sai city in Chiang Rai province, northern Thailand, April 5, 2023. Credit: Subel Rai Bhandari for RFA Despite the smog, many maize farmers in the region continue to burn the remains because it is the easiest way to get rid of the stubble to prepare for subsequent cultivation. However, smallholder farmers should not be solely blamed since they do not have an alternative, experts have told RFA. “We observe heavily indebted and disempowered farmers with weak land tenure, severe soil erosion, constantly engaged in land conflicts with the state, virtually forced to encroach upon forests, and blamed by society for widespread air pollution at a regional level,” said one research paper published this month in the Resources, Environment and Sustainability journal. “The corporate players are the winners in this system, whereas farmers and the environment are losers.” RFA Burmese made several calls to contact Myanmar military officials but did not get a response. Shan state’s junta-appointed government spokesperson, Khun Thein Maung, told RFA that local government officials from Myanmar and Thailand are discussing the issue. “In fact, there was no burning on our side. There is no proof,” he said, adding that corn plantation areas have expanded by a few acres but “not doubled or tripled” to meet demand for local animal feed and foreign export. “Residents are benefitting from it. Farmers make money from the business. It supports the socio-economic life in the region,” he said, adding that no big agro-industry is involved. A Shan state-based environmental activist, who asked not to be named, fearing retribution, told RFA that maize cultivation increased during the previous NLD government. “49% of corn cultivation in Myanmar is in Shan state, contributing to 55% of the total production. But little has been done to educate local farmers about shifting cultivation and burning of stubble [which often] causes forest fires,” he said. In Laos, the “government has taken strict measures to reduce slash-and-burn cultivation,” an official from the agriculture and forestry department of Oudomxay Province told RFA. “The provincial authorities in northern Laos have issued notices telling farmers to stop burning forest and to prevent the forest fire and prevent it from spreading.” This combination of pictures created on May 1, 2023 shows buildings amid high levels of air pollution on Feb. 2, 2023 (top) and the same view amid moderate levels of air pollution (below) on May 1, 2023 in Bangkok. Credit: AFP. The Thai government did not respond to RFA requests for comment,...
- [First library, learning center dedicated to Dalai Lama opens in United States](https://ij-reportika.com/first-library-learning-center-dedicated-to-dalai-lama-opens-in-united-states/): The first library and learning center dedicated to the Dalai Lama in the United States has opened in upstate New York to preserve the teachings of the leader of Tibetan Buddhism. The center, officially named His Holiness the Great 14th Dalai Lama Library and Learning Center, opened on Friday, Sept. 8. It includes a digital audio archive with 40,000 hours of the Dalai Lama’s teachings, about 4,000 books with translations of ancient texts on the evolution of Buddhist thought, and Buddhist artifacts from India and Tibet.  “It’s been more than 60 years since His Holiness the Dalai Lama arrived in exile and he has contributed immensely in promoting the basic human values of compassion, forgiveness and tolerance to this world,” said Ven. Thamthog Rinpoche, abbot of the Namgyal Monastery in Dharamsala, India, who attended the inauguration.  “So, this learning center will serve across all ages, faiths, and education levels to understand His Holiness’s teachings on secular ethics and human values.” The center’s opening comes at a time of intensified suppression of Tibetan Buddhism, culture and language by Chinese authorities, who view them as a threat and are trying to erode Tibetans’ beliefs and way of life.  Authorities have restricted Tibetans’ access to religious sites, banned religious gatherings, destroyed Buddhist places and symbols, and subjected monks and nuns to political reeducation, according to the 2023 annual report of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. The Namgyal Monastery Institute of Buddhist Studies, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery near Ithaca College, hosted the opening ceremony. Founded in 1992, the institute serves as the North American seat of the personal monastery of the Dalai Lama and offers Westerners the opportunity to study authentic Tibetan Buddhism in a monastic setting. The institute chose Ithaca, about 282 kilometers (175 miles) northwest of New York City and where Cornell University is located, in 2016 as the location of the new center, approved by the Dalai Lama. The new His Holiness the Great 14th Dalai Lama Library and Learning Center in Ithaca, New York, includes a digital audio archive with 40,000 hours of the Dalai Lama’s teachings and about 4,000 books with translations of ancient texts on the evolution of Buddhist thought. Credit: Screenshot from RFA video &#8216;Peacemaking center&#8217; Ven. Tenzin Choesang, president of the Namgyal Monastery in Ithaca, said the learning center will be a physical space and virtual repository of all the works of the current and previous Dalai Lamas.  “It will also offer free and low-cost classes, meditations, and talks,” he said.  The Dalai Lama, who resides in exile in Dharamsala, did not attend the opening ceremony but sent a recorded message. “Buddhism is not just a matter of routinely reciting prayers,” he said. “It has to do with using intelligence and wisdom to bring about a transformation in the way we think based on the three types of understanding drawn from study of scriptures, that conviction comes about through reflecting on the meaning of what you have learned and experienced of that gained through meditation.” HOLT Architects of upstate New York designed the two-story, 9,230-square-foot library and learning center. Its exterior colors of red, yellow and white are reminiscent of the colors of Potala Palace, the traditional winter home of the Dalai Lama since the 7th century and a symbol of Tibetan Buddhism. “We started working on this in 2016 and it has been a long and interesting process,” Steve Hugo, principal architect and the company’s vice president told RFA.  “I am overwhelmed, and I think the building was always a combination of reflecting Tibetan culture, but also recognizing that it was built in the United States.”  Speaking at the opening ceremony, donor Diane Brandenburg said she and her late husband first met the Dalai Lama in California in 2009 and that he “turned our lives around in so many ways.”  “His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama, has taken a huge step to create this sacred space, a meditation and peacemaking center, a teaching center for anyone who wants to come and study to learn about Buddhism and other religions,” she said.  Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibet. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar junta revokes anti-coup movement publisher’s license](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-revokes-anti-coup-movement-publishers-license/): Myanmar’s junta has revoked the license of a publishing house run by a man involved in the country’s civil disobedience movement, junta-controlled newspapers said. The revocation is seen as a warning that the junta is closely watching the publishing industry for any dissent.  Saturday’s reports said Dr. Phyo Thiha lost the license for his company, Piti Eain Literature, due to his social media posts criticizing the junta. They said his writing was a threat to national security, the rule of law and public order but did not say what was problematic about the books Piti Eain publishes. The medical doctor said the proceeds of his company’s book sales went to help victims of the fighting in Myanmar. “Now that the publishing license has been revoked it means we can no longer publish anything under the name of this book house,” Phyo Thiha told Radio Free Asia.  “I have been quietly selling old books that I have published before. I live here on that income and donate to war-torn IDPs [internally displaced persons].“ Piti Eain Literature mostly published books on psychology and Buddhist teachings and nothing that could be deemed anti-junta, the doctor said, calling the decision personal. Another publisher, who wished to remain anonymous, said the revocation of Piti Eain’s license set a dangerous precedent. “This means [the junta] is monitoring both the publication of books and social media,” they said.  “If something is wrong they will ban it. It is a warning and threat to the entire publishing community.” The junta has revoked the licenses of four publishers and two printing houses since the February 2021 coup. Some 14 media outlets including Democratic Voice of Burma, Mizzima and The Irrawaddy have also lost their licenses. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.
- [Close call as Chinese ships again harass Philippine ships in Manila’s EEZ](https://ij-reportika.com/close-call-as-chinese-ships-again-harass-philippine-ships-in-manilas-eez/): The Chinese ships began to swarm around the BRP Cabra soon after 7 a.m. on Friday, sailing uncomfortably close to and hemming in the Philippine Coast Guard ship as it escorted civilian boats toward Ayungin Shoal. A China Coast Guard ship, with bow number CCG 21616, was the first to arrive on scene some 10 nautical miles (18.5 km) from the shoal located in South China Sea waters within the Philippines exclusive economic zone.  A BenarNews correspondent and other reporters, who were given special permission to travel aboard the Cabra and another coast guard ship for the resupply mission, witnessed the tense moments at sea.  Similar scenes where Chinese ships acted aggressively had played out lately during previous Philippine missions to deliver supplies to the BRP Sierra Madre, a rusty old navy ship that serves as Manila’s military outpost at Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal. “Philippine vessel, you are approaching the waters of China. To avoid miscalculation and misunderstanding, please inform your intention,” the China Coast Guard ship radioed to the BRP Cabra at around 6:30 a.m. The Cabra radioed back, saying it was “conducting lawful routine maritime patrol within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone in accordance with international and Philippine laws.” “Request to stay clear from our passage in accordance with collision regulations,” the radio operator said from the Cabra’s bridge. About 30 minutes later, at least three other CCG ships and vessels from China’s maritime militia fleet joined the fray.  The Chinese ships then executed maneuvers to try to impede the civilian boats’ passage that Philippine Coast Guard officials described as dangerously close.  A CCG vessel, with bow number 21551, repeatedly tried to cut the Cabra’s path to separate it from one of the supply boats. After failing to overtake the Cabra from the right side, CCG 21551 then sped up to overtake it from the left side. As the Chinese ship executed this maneuver, it sailed toward the Cabra and then abruptly stopped only three to five meters (9.8 to 16.4 feet) from the Philippine ship, PCG officials said.  During the standoff, at least a dozen more radio exchanges as well as challenges and counter-challenges ensued between the Philippine and Chinese ships.  “Your behavior has infringed upon [the] authority, security, and interest of China. I warn you, please leave the area immediately. Any consequences will be borne by you,” a voice from CCG 5305, the largest of the China Coast Guard ships present, warned the Cabra’s crew. After being separated from their PCG escort ships, as the Chinese ships had intended, the Filipino civilian boats managed to sail on, reach the Sierra Madre, pick up Philippine Navy personnel and deliver food and other supplies.  The coast guard rated the latest mission a success, despite the tense encounter with the Chinese vessels.    “The routine RoRe [rotational and resupply] mission was again subjected to dangerous maneuvers, jeopardizing the crew members’ safety aboard the PCG vessels and Philippine supply boats,” Commodore Jay Tarriela, the Philippine Coast Guard spokesman on the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea), said in a statement to media. This photo taken by a drone shows the Philippine Coast Guard Ship BRP Cabra surrounded by Chinese coast guard and maritime militia ships in South China Sea (West Philippine Sea) waters near Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal, Sept. 8, 2023. Credit: Handout/Philippine Coast Guard During Friday’s incident, the PCG said it had recorded 10 instances of dangerous maneuvers carried out by four CCG ships and four Chinese maritime militia ships toward the BRP Cabra and another Philippine Coast Guard ship, the BRP Sindangan.  Two Chinese warships from the People’s Liberation Army Navy were also spotted monitoring the area. At one point, CCG 5305 blew its horn three times while crossing the bow of BRP Sindangan at a distance of approximately 50 to 60 yards.  The BRP Cabra, for its part, was corralled by five Chinese ships: three maritime militia vessels and a CCG ship in front, and another CCG ship behind. Overnight journey The crews of the Cabra and Sindangan, 44-meter-long (144.3-feet-long) coast guard multi-purpose response vessels, and the journalists aboard them had left the Philippine island of Palawan at around 9 a.m. on Thursday. The coast guard ships were deployed to escort two small supply boats, the Unaizah May 1 and Unaizah May 2, which the Philippine Navy had commissioned for its routine rotational and resupply mission. The wooden boats were transporting food, supplies, and a new batch of sailors headed to the Sierra Madre, a decrepit World War II-era ship. In 1999, the Philippines deliberately ran it aground in Ayungin Shoal, which lies in the contested Spratly Islands, in response to China’s occupation of nearby Mischief Reef.  The two Unaizah May boats and the PCG vessels met up near Sabina Shoal late Thursday night, with the two smaller ships sailing between the coast guard ships.  “That was the instruction to us, protect the Unaizah May boats,” Emmanuel Dangate, the commander of the Cabra, told the reporters aboard his ship. Emmanuel Dangate, commanding officer of the BRP Cabra, looks out from the ship’s bridge as Chinese vessels try to cut its path and maneuver close to it in waters near Ayungin Shoal, Sept. 8, 2023. Credit: Camille Elemia/BenarNews View from the bridge  During Friday’s standoff, the atmosphere on the bridge of the Cabra was quiet and sober as the Chinese ships closed in on the PCG ship. Some of the crew were even smiling and joking around. Dangate, the Cabra’s skipper, remained calm as he gazed ahead from the bridge and gave orders to his crew.  “During this kind of mission, it ignites our patriotism and dedication,” the commanding officer told the select group of reporters, who had been allowed to travel to get a rare first-hand view of one of the Philippine resupply missions.  From time to time, he would look through his binoculars and ask brief questions to his team.  “Does that ship have an AIS [automatic identification system]?” he asked, pointing to a distant vessel...
- [G20 ends on high note for Indian host](https://ij-reportika.com/g20-ends-on-high-note-for-indian-host/): The G20 wound up on Sunday with leaders visiting a memorial statue to Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi, a day after adding 55 new member states via the African Union and coming up with a compromise communique soft on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Prime Minister Narendra Modi invited the African Union to join the G20 as a permanent member on Saturday in his opening remarks, calling on members to end a “global trust deficit.” &#8220;It is time for all of us to move together,” Modi said. Despite widespread anticipation that this year’s summit would be a damp squib, it appeared to have featured some significant pushback on China’s apparent unwillingness to play ball with the developed world. Modi announced on Saturday that negotiators had resolved deep differences over the wording on the war in Ukraine, but the phrasing – not invasion by Russia but “war in Ukraine” – was clearly a bone to Russia and China, whose leaders did not attend. China and Russia were opposed to any joint statement that censures Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. U.S. President Joe Biden skipped the final session of the summit, heading to Vietnam, where a Whitehouse official said the two nations would elevate their relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership, putting it on a par with Beijing and Moscow’s engagement with Hanoi. U.S. President Joe Biden leaves for Vietnam after attending the G20 Summit, in New Delhi, India, Sunday, Sept. 10, 2023. Credit: AP Modi pronounced the summit a success.  &#8220;On the back of the hard work of all the teams, we have received consensus on the G20 Leaders Summit Declaration. I announce the adoption of this declaration,&#8221; Modi told the G20 leaders in New Delhi. “#G20India has been the MOST ambitious in the history of #G20 presidencies. With 112 outcomes and presidency documents, we have more than tripled the substantive work from previous presidencies,” said India’s G20 Sherpa representative Amitabh Kant on social media. Commentators said that it was significant that India appeared to be ready to take a more assertive role in global politics. Modi ended the summit by passing on the ceremonial gavel to Brazil’s president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose country takes over the bloc’s presidency. Welcome Africa  The announcement of permanent inclusion of the 55-nation African Union (AU) is likely to be a blow for Chinese president Xi Jinping, who did not attend the summit for unknown reasons, and recently heralded the new membership of six countries in the BRICS grouping as “historic.” The AU’s young population of 1.3 billion is expected to double by 2050, when it will account for a quarter of the global population. It’s strategically important to both China, Africa’s largest trading partner and one of its largest lenders, and Russia, its leading arms provider.   Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, right, shares a light moment with African Union Chairman Azali Assoumani upon his arrival at Bharat Mandapam convention center for the G20 Summit in New Delhi, India, Saturday, Sept. 9, 2023. Credit: Pool via Reuters Meanwhile, in what will likely be seen as a challenge to Xi’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), U.S. President Joe Biden, Modi and allies announced a rail and shipping corridor connecting India with the Middle East and ultimately Europe. The project will include the United States, India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the European Union and other countries in the G20.  Commentators speculate it will enable greater trade and be an ambitious counter to China’s massive BRI, through which it has sought to invest and lend its way to making its economy better connected with the world. Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, left, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi shake hands next to U.S. President Joe Biden on the first day of the G20 summit in New Delhi, India, Sept. 9, 2023. Credit: AP/POOL The moves on Saturday, which were roundly seen as pushback against China, came against a background of speculation as to why China’s Xi was not present and calls for Beijing to explain itself. “It’s incumbent upon the Chinese government to explain&#8221; why its leader “would or would not participate,” Jon Finer, the U.S. deputy national security adviser, told reporters in Delhi. He said there was speculation that China is “giving up on G20” in favor of groupings like BRICS, where it is dominant. Chinese Premier Li Qiang, who attended the summit as a representative of Xi, called on the European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for greater unity and cooperation between the two sides to counter global uncertainties, according to a statement on Sunday from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  Li urged the EU to provide a non-discriminatory environment for Chinese companies, as the bloc becomes warier of the risks of engaging China, seeing it as a &#8220;systemic rival&#8221; since 2019. Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.
- [Vietnam wants it all in balancing its ties with the US and China](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-wants-it-all-in-balancing-its-ties-with-the-us-and-china/): President Joe Biden is heading to Vietnam for a visit that will upgrade bilateral relations to a “strategic comprehensive partnership,” a symbolic step that opens the door to wider cooperation between former Cold War foes who are now grappling with an assertive, powerful China.  The elevated status is a symbolic gesture that recognizes the developed state of U.S.-Vietnam ties, almost 30 years after they normalized diplomatic relations and a half century since the end of the Vietnam War.  But it doesn&#8217;t reflect a fundamental change in Vietnamese policy. Indeed, it should be seen as a manifestation of what Hanoi calls its omnidirectional and independent foreign policy. The overall growth of the relationship will remain hemmed in by the fact that the communist leaders who run Vietnam share  the same world view as those who control China. In a partnership hierarchy created by the Vietnamese government, at the very top are neighbors Laos and Cambodia. However, what was once Vietnam’s secure western flank is now a source of concern with China’s surge in influence through investment, lending, development projects, and corruption. Comprehensive strategic partnerships had been reserved for Vietnam&#8217;s friends since the days of the revolution: Russia, China, and India. In 2023, in recognition of their burgeoning economic relationship, Vietnam elevated South Korea to that pantheon, recently followed by Singapore and Australia, and soon Indonesia. Liu Jianchao [shown], the head of the Communist Party of China’s International Liaison Department, recently met with General Secretary of Communist Party of Vietnam, Nguyen Phu Trong. Credit: Andy Wong/AP file photo For the U.S., the leapfrog from Vietnam’s comprehensive partner to a comprehensive strategic partner is important for three reasons. First, for top leaders in Hanoi, symbolism does matter. That a former foe is now on a par with revolutionary era friends is a win.  Second, this upgrade will not please China, even though Hanoi has worked assiduously to try to convince Beijing that it is maintaining its independent foreign policy. It is inconceivable that Hanoi has not briefed Beijing on this, and Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong has made party-to-party ties stronger than ever. He would not have approved the relationship upgrade if he felt insecure by Beijing’s reaction.  Five days before Biden’s expected arrival this weekend, Liu Jianchao, the head of the Chinese Communist Party’s  International Liaison Department met with Trong, who no doubt gave him further assurances. While Washington may want to rankle Beijing, which has overplayed its hand in the region with its aggressive South China Sea behavior and hawkish “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy, its real goal is to see Vietnam be strong enough to assert its vaunted autonomous foreign policy.   Hanoi will no doubt be sending a politburo-level delegation to assure Beijing that the upgrade is not a lurch towards the United States or in any way anti-Chinese, but a manifestation of Vietnam’s independent and omni-directional foreign policy. Third, at the bureaucratic level, it’s hoped that the upgrade gives political top cover for the line ministries to increase their cooperation with U.S. counterparts across a range of issues, from countering narcotics and human trafficking to security cooperation.  The upgrade does not automatically lead to more market access, more trade and investment, more port visits and other military engagements, but it won’t hurt their prospects either. In short, this upgrade is long overdue, and reflects the fact that the U.S. has far deeper ties than many other states ranked above it.  An economic imperative  The upgrade comes as Vietnam’s economy is slowing dramatically. Despite 8.5% growth in 2022, GDP only grew by 3.72% in the first six months of 2023, half the target. The Asian Development Bank and IMF have lowered their annual forecasts to 5.8% and 4.7%, respectively. While Vietnam has benefitted from corporate supply chain diversification out of China, that trend has also made the economy over-dependent on exports, which have fallen for five consecutive months, the longest slump in 14 years. In July, exports fell 3.5%. Industrial production contracted 1.8% in the first half of 2023, causing a 13% year-on-year increase in industrial layoffs. While Vietnam enjoys a large trade surplus with the U.S. – $44.3 billion in the first seven months of 2023 – that is down 24% year-on-year. Vietnam runs enormous trade deficits with China, as its manufactured goods are highly dependent on imported Chinese components. Without its exports to the U.S., Vietnam would run chronic trade deficits. As a direct foreign investor, the U.S. lags behind South Korea, Singapore, China, and Japan. In early 2023, Boeing announced a production facility, while Apple shifted an iPad production line out of China to Vietnam. But there’s plenty of room for growth. We should also not lose sight of portfolio investment from the U.S., where one fund alone has invested $1.5 billion in six projects.  An employee works at Heesung Electronics Vietnam factory in Hai Phong, Vietnam, Aug. 29, 2023. Vietnam’s economy is slowing, with GDP growth of only 3.72% in the first six months of 2023. Credit: Nhac Nguyen/AFP Corporate Vietnam is trying to make a splash in the U.S.. Electric vehicle maker VinFast broke ground on a $4 billion plant in North Carolina, and has seen wild stock valuations after its recent listing on NASDAQ. VinFast sees the United States as the key to its growth, if not viability, despite a rocky first nine months that saw few sales and a recall. The tech firm VNG, Vietnam’s first “unicorn,” has filed paperwork for its listing on NASDAQ. If Vietnam is to escape the middle-income trap, it’s through trade and investment ties with the U.S., not China. To that end, executives from a swath of U.S. semiconductor and other tech industry will be joining Biden’s trip. What remains missing in U.S. policy towards the Asia-Pacific is an economic architecture. Since the withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership in January 2017, the United States has abdicated its leadership. States are going along with the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) , but only to keep Washington...
- [African Union joins G20 as compromise statement agreed](https://ij-reportika.com/african-union-joins-g20-as-compromise-statement-agreed/): Prime Minister Narendra Modi invited the African Union to join the G20 as a permanent member on Saturday in his opening remarks, calling on members to end a “global trust deficit.” &#8220;It is time for all of us to move together,” Modi said. Modi announced later in the day during the summit that negotiators had resolved deep differences over the wording on the war in Ukraine. &#8220;On the back of the hard work of all the teams, we have received consensus on the G20 Leaders Summit Declaration. I announce the adoption of this declaration,&#8221; Modi told the G20 leaders in New Delhi. China and Russia are known to be opposed to any joint statement that censures Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Despite widespread anticipation that this year’s summit would be a damp squib – perhaps resulting in no communique at all – the G20 appeared to be pushing back on China’s apparent lack of willingness to play ball with the developed world. The announcement of permanent inclusion of the 55-nation African Union (AU) is likely to be a blow for Chinese president Xi Jinping, who is not attending the summit for unknown reasons, and recently heralded the new membership of six countries in the BRICS grouping as “historic.” The AU’s young population of 1.3 billion is expected to double by 2050, when it will account for a quarter of the global population. It’s strategically important to both China, Africa’s largest trading partner and one of its largest lenders, and Russia, its leading arms provider.  U.S. President Joe Biden listens to the opening remarks of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the first session of the G20 Summit, in New Delhi, India, Saturday, Sept. 9, 2023. Credit: Evan Vucci/Pool via Reuters Meanwhile, in what will likely be seen as a challenge to Xi’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), U.S. President Joe Biden, Modi and allies were reported to have plans to announce a rail and shipping corridor connecting India with the Middle East and ultimately Europe. The project would include the United States, India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the European Union and other countries in the G20, the Associated Press reported Jon Finer, Biden’s principal deputy national security adviser, as saying. Biden, Modi and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen were to announce the project as part of the Partnership for Global Infrastructure Investment, with commentary speculating that it would enable greater trade and be an ambitious counter to China’s massive BRI, through which it has sought to invest and lend its way to making its economy better connected with the world. The moves on Saturday, which were roundly seen as pushback against China, came against a background of speculation as to why China’s Xi was not present and calls for Beijing to explain itself. “It’s incumbent upon the Chinese government to explain&#8221; why its leader “would or would not participate,” Jon Finer, the U.S. deputy national security adviser, told reporters in Delhi. He said there was speculation that China is “giving up on G20” in favor of groupings like BRICS, where it is dominant. Edited by Elaine Chan and Mike Firn.
- [And then there were three](https://ij-reportika.com/and-then-there-were-three/): Taiwan&#8217;s richest man, Terry Gou, has joined the island&#8217;s presidential race, setting up a January 2024 contest pitting three opposition hopefuls against the ruling party candidate. Gou, the founder of electronics giant Foxconn, jumped into a race in which the China-friendly opposition &#8220;blue camp&#8221; vote was already fractured between Hou Yu-ih of the Kuomintang and Ko Wen-je of the Taiwan People&#8217;s Party. Analysts say Gou&#8217;s move will only serve to further bolster the fortunes of Lai Ching-te of the incumbent Democratic Progressive Party, which rejects Beijing&#8217;s claims over and threats to self-governing Taiwan.
- [Myanmar’s United Wa State Army deports alleged Chinese scammers](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-united-wa-state-army-deports-alleged-chinese-scammers/): Myanmar’s rebel United Wa State Army has captured more than 1,000 people it said were working for online fraud gangs and handed them over to Chinese police at Shan state’s border with China, a Wa Liaison Office representative told Radio Free Asia on Friday. The officer, Nyi Rang, said – with the assistance of the Chinese police – the ethnic army carried out two days of raids on Wednesday and Thursday and deported those arrested immediately. He said they were all Chinese nationals. The United Wa State Army controls Shan state’s Special Administrative Region, known as Wa state. It has an estimated 30,000 soldiers and maintains close ties with China.  RFA Burmese called junta Deputy Information Officer Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun to confirm the reports but nobody answered. RFA also sent an email to the Chinese Embassy in Yangon but had not received a reply as of Friday evening local time. China’s Ministry of Public Security said Myanmar transferred 1,207 suspects including 41 fugitives to China, the official Xinhua news agency reported. Scammers are known to operate in the Special Administrative Region, luring Burmese and foreign nationals with offers of fake jobs, then forcing them to use Facebook and Telegram accounts to defraud people with fake cryptocurrency deals and other scams, as well as laundering money. A resident of Mong Pauk town, 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the border with China, said he witnessed the arrested being taken away. “I saw that the arrested were taken in six military trucks yesterday. And more than 100 were caught today,” said the local who didn’t want to be named for fear of reprisals.  “They all are fraudsters. The arrested Chinese citizens are being sent [to China] at the border gates in Panghsang [Pangkam].” Some people posted photos and videos on Facebook and TikTok showing hundreds of police leading away groups of men and some women and taking them to the border. RFA has not verified the images. One Mong Pauk resident who works in labor affairs urged people to try to get their children back from the scam centers. “Right now, families need to contact their children who have been sold to money laundering gangs as soon as possible,” the person said.  “I also want to encourage parents to call their children if they know where they have been sold.” Residents said fraud gangs are operating in United Wa State Army controlled areas of the region, including Pangkam and Mong Pauk towns, along with Laukkaing and Chinshwehaw in northern Shan state, as well as Shwe Kokko in Kayin state. On Aug. 26, the Chinese Embassy in Yangon said Myanmar police had handed over 24 Chinese nationals, including the leader of an online fraud gang. Hundreds of thousands of people in Southeast Asian countries, including Myanmar are being threatened and tortured by criminal gangs and forced into online scams, according to a U.N. report released on August 29. It said that over 120,000 people in Myanmar and 100,000 people in Cambodia are being forced to commit financial fraud online. These gangs are active in the border areas of countries with political and military conflicts, the U.N. said. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.
- [Junta troops kill 7 defense force members in Sagaing region raid](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-troops-kill-7-defense-force-members-in-sagaing-region-raid/): Seven members of a local defense force were killed during a raid by junta troops on a Sagaing region base, a People’s Defense Force information officer told Radio Free Asia. The victims were members of another local defense force based near Mon Yway Kyay Mon village in Chaung-U township, where Wednesday’s raid took place, the officer said. “The junta troops ambushed a small information station based in Mon Yway Kyay Mon on the border between Monywa and Chaing-U,” he said. “It was not an exchange of fire between the two sides.” Two people escaped from the raid on the base, which had been used by the Chaung-U PDF to issue press releases and make phone calls, the officer said.  Junta troops confiscated weapons from the dead fighters, he said. RFA’s call to the junta spokesperson for the Sagaing region, Tin Than Win, regarding the attack went unanswered. 7,000 residents flee Also in Sagaing, more than 7,000 people from nine villages fled their homes on Wednesday when a 100-member junta column marched through the southern part of Sagaing’s Salingyi township, residents told Radio Free Asia. There was no fighting reported, and as of midday on Wednesday, no houses had been burned and no villagers had been arrested or killed.   It was the latest case of displacement from the civil war wracking Myanmar. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, nearly 800,000 people have fled their homes in Sagaing region since the Feb. 1, 2021, military coup. A local resident, who did not want to be named for security reasons, told RFA that all nine villages were in the vicinity of the junta troops. “Those villages are close to the column. Such villages located near the column have to monitor the movement of the column and take shelter in other villages,” the resident said. He added that the troops were stationed in one of the nine villages – Son Tar village – until Wednesday afternoon. RFA made another attempt to reach Tin Than Win about the fleeing of the local residents, but that call also went unanswered. The junta has responded in the past that there is no reason for civilians to worry when columns of junta troops move through their villages. Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw. Edited by Matt Reed.
- [Woman dies from beating in Myanmar’s Sagaing region](https://ij-reportika.com/woman-dies-from-beating-in-myanmars-sagaing-region/): A woman died after being arrested, interrogated and beaten by junta troops in Sagaing region’s Kale township, sources close to the family said on Thursday. Do Deih Huai, 31, from Pyi Taw Thar village was picked up by troops as she traveled with a friend to Kale town on August 27. Troops confiscated her motorcycle, phone and purse, and took her in for questioning. After the woman was released she had various injuries, according to a source close to her family who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. “After being beaten and returning to her home, with blood coming out from her ears and suffering from headaches, she said she was dizzy and fainted while she was having breakfast on August 28,” the source said. “She was sent to the hospital when she lost consciousness, but the doctor said she should get medical treatment in Mandalay. She was sent to Mandalay a week after she fell unconscious. She died on the way.” The woman’s body was cremated in a Christian ceremony on Wednesday. Residents of Kale township said troops often confiscate phones and driving licenses, as well as demanding money from pedestrians and people on motorcycles. RFA’s calls to the junta spokesperson for Sagaing region, Tin Than Win, seeking comment on the incident went unanswered. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.
- [Suu Kyi requests for ‘urgent’ dental treatment go unheeded](https://ij-reportika.com/suu-kyi-requests-for-urgent-dental-treatment-go-unheeded/): Myanmar’s former State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi is suffering from “urgent” dental issues in detention but junta authorities have ignored her request for permission to seek treatment, sources have told Radio Free Asia. The 78-year-old Suu Kyi, who was sentenced to 27 years in prison, requested approval to visit a dentist outside of detention to treat gingivitis – a form of gum disease – and severe toothaches, but had yet to receive permission as of Tuesday, a source with ties to the place where she is being held in the capital Naypyidaw told RFA Burmese. Prison authorities have reported the matter to the junta’s Ministry of Interior, but have received no response, said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal. The source said that Suu Kyi was examined by a prison doctor, but requires a dental specialist to deal with her condition. He said that the head of the deposed National League for Democracy, or NLD, party remains in prison, despite reports in August that she had been transferred to house arrest. Bo Bo Oo, a former representative of the NLD in Yangon region, said that Suu Kyi must be allowed to receive treatment. “When it comes to some health issues related to ears, eyes, bones and dental diseases, only the relevant specialist clinics can provide sufficient medical treatment,” he said. “She needs to get proper treatment at a dental hospital.” He said that Suu Kyi and other political prisoners were “illegally detained” by the military following its February 2021 coup d’etat and expressed concern for their health, citing poor conditions in the nation’s prisons. Vomiting and ‘unable to eat’ Suu Kyi’s son, Kim Aris, told the BBC that his mother is being “denied” treatment as the junta had “blocked prison authorities’ request” for “urgent care.” The 46-year-old, who is based in the U.K., said his mother has been vomiting and endures &#8220;severe dizziness&#8221; due to her ill health. He said the pain had left her “unable to eat.” Kim Aris, Aung San Suu Kyi’s son, told the BBC that he was concerned that his mother&#8217;s request for medical care had been denied. Credit: Dylan Martinez/Reuters file photo The BBC also cited “long-time acquaintances” of the Nobel laureate as saying that she suffers from chronic gum disease and low blood pressure, as well as a source familiar with the matter who claimed that she has been served soft food and a medicated jelly intended to relieve her toothaches. Attempts by RFA to reach the Naypyidaw Prison Department for comment on whether she would be allowed access to medical care outside of where she is being held went unanswered Wednesday. Special approval needed According to law, any inmate serving a sentence of more than five years must obtain permission from the Ministry of Interior to be taken outside of prison – a process that can take up to one month. However, legal experts said that in cases where urgent health care is required, there is a procedure that allows for a verbal order granting such a request. “As Aung San Suu Kyi is a state-level prisoner and since she is elderly, she should be allowed to seek the medical treatment she urgently needs as a special case,&#8221; said a Yangon-based lawyer who declined to be named for security reasons, citing the allowance of permission granted by verbal order. Political commentator Than Soe Naing said he believes that the junta is denying Suu Kyi the right to seek treatment to “deliberately harm her” and called for international pressure seeking her release. “They think that it is best if Aung San Suu Kyi is no longer in Myanmar politics,” he said. “As long as she is in the hands of the junta, Aung San Suu Kyi&#8217;s fate is uncertain. That&#8217;s why the world should pressure the junta to release her or provide better conditions for her.&#8221; The junta sentenced Suu Kyi 33 years in prison on 19 charges, but on Aug. 1 pardoned her for five of the cases, reducing her term to 27 years. Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar junta hands out harsh sentences to people from martial law townships](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-hands-out-harsh-sentences-to-people-from-martial-law-townships/): Myanmar’s junta has been handing out long prison sentences to people arrested in Sagaing region townships where it has imposed martial law, sentencing seven people to terms of between seven years and life over the past week, according to locals and People’s Defense Force officials. On June 14, troops arrested three residents of Ayadaw township in a restaurant before they planned to head to Yangon to attend a Korean language course. On Aug. 31, a military tribunal sentenced one of them, 40-year-old Zaw Aung, to life in prison on three terrorism charges. The Northern Military Command tribunal also sentenced 20-year-old Thiha Zaw and 19-year-old Pyae Sone Aung to seven years for terrorism. The Information officer of the People’s Defense Force in Ayadaw township, who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons, told Radio Free Asia he was surprised such harsh sentences were imposed on ordinary villagers. “Those who have been arrested and sentenced are not part of the revolution,” he said.  “Many of the families here go to Yangon to attend Korean courses in order to go abroad because the economy has become difficult. I thought that they would be released as they did not belong [to a People’s Defense Force]. I was so surprised when this happened.” He added that nearly 30 civilians from Ayadaw township have been arrested and imprisoned in the seven months since the junta imposed martial law there. In a separate case on Sept. 2, a military court in Indaw township sentenced two men to life imprisonment, according to a statement by the Indaw Revolution anti-junta group. They were with another man and a woman arrested at a checkpoint at the township entrance in July. On Saturday, the court sentenced Zaw Myo Naing and Tin Maung Win to life imprisonment for terrorism and treason. It sentenced Kyaw Thet and Thida Win to seven years for supporting local People’s Defense Forces. An official of Indaw Revolution, who also declined to give his name, told RFA that despite the harsh punishments, the four had no ties to the group. He added that more than 10 civilians have been sentenced to death or life imprisonment since the junta imposed martial law on Indaw township. Calls to junta council spokesperson for Sagaing region, Tin Than Win, seeking comment on the sentences went unanswered. A total of 14 townships, including Indaw in Sagaing region have been put under martial law by the junta since February, 2023. Since then, 235 civilians have been sentenced to prison terms by military courts in Sagaing region, according to pro-junta Telegram messaging app channels. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [Family blames police brutality for death of 28-year-old Vietnamese man](https://ij-reportika.com/family-blames-police-brutality-for-death-of-28-year-old-vietnamese-man/): Hours after being detained by police on Sunday, a 28-year-old Vietnamese man died. Family members accuse officers of beating him to death, saying his body was covered with bruises. Authorities, however, say Bui Van Hai died in the hospital after Duc Linh district police rushed him there when he showed signs of “fatigue and difficulty breathing,” a statement in Tuesday’s People’s Public Security Newspaper said.  The report said he was accused of stealing two dogs. Either way, Hai is the latest person to die from “unidentified causes&#8221; while in Vietnamese police custody in recent years.  At least 16 people have died in police stations or detention facilities between 2018 and 2021, according to statistics collected by RFA from Vietnamese state-owned media reports. In May, a 26-year-old suspect died just hours after being detained at Bu Dang District Police’s temporary detention facility in Binh Phuoc province. His family told RFA that they believe his death was the result of a police beating. In Hai’s case, he was invited to come to a meeting at the commune police headquarters at around 6:00 pm on Sunday, his older brother, Bui Manh Hung, said. He escorted his brother to the building and then left. At 11:45 pm, Hung was informed that his brother had been transported to the Duc Linh District Hospital, where he had died soon afterwards. ‘Bluer than a chunk of beef’ When Hung arrived at the hospital, his brother was dead and there were no police officers present. Medical staff told him that at around 9:00 pm, two people wearing masks carried Bui Van Hai into the hospital and then departed.  Hung said his brother was covered in bruises. “I filmed and took photos of him. He was darker and bluer than a chunk of beef. Internal beatings caused all of his injuries,” Hung said. “They hit him, causing internal bruises and injuries.” In response to Hung’s request for more information, the Southern Binh Thuan General Hospital confirmed Tuesday that Hai was already dead when he arrived at the hospital. Hung has denied authorities’ accusations against his brother, saying Hai was sleeping at home at the time of the alleged burglary.  “Our family was very saddened, shocked, confused and outraged at the accusations made by the police and state-owned media,” he said. After he and his family brought Hai’s body home, the police prevented them from using a vehicle to transport a freezer in which they planned to preserve Hai’s body as they awaited results of a forensic examination, he said. Hung also said that authorities from the district, commune and village levels all pressured his family to bury Hai as soon as possible, despite the family’s calls for an investigation into his cause of death.  Hung told RFA that he believes local authorities are trying to cover up the cause of his brother’s death and hamper any investigations into the case. RFA got no response when it reached out to Duc Linh District Police Chief and other local authorities for comment. On Tuesday, Hung told RFA reporters that if Hai’s case is not adequately investigated by local authorities, he will personally reach out to Vietnam’s Minister of Public Security General To Lam to demand an explanation for his brother’s death. “So far, I haven’t made a request,” he said. “However, if the case is not investigated properly, I will demand Minister To Lam’s participation so that my dead brother won’t suffer any more unfairness and injustice.” Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Claire McCrea and Malcolm Foster.
- [Breaking the laws of the land: Vietnam’s real estate scandals](https://ij-reportika.com/breaking-the-laws-of-the-land-vietnams-real-estate-scandals/): For a country whose regime was founded as a land-to-the-tiller movement, one would expect the Vietnamese government to be more sensitive to real estate issues. While abuse and corruption have been a persistent irritant in the countryside, they’ve increasingly spread to the cities and impacted the middle and emerging middle classes. Land has always been a very sensitive issue in Vietnam. Technically, the state owns all land, but since the Doi Moi reforms and the implementation of a contract based agricultural system in the mid-1980s, people can acquire leases.  Yet, not all land is created equal, and the best often goes to local officials and their cronies. Local-level officials routinely appropriate land for development projects or to profit from urban sprawl.  Farmers complain of unfair compensation. And even when compensation is market value, the forced sale is an irritant. Farmers are often not provided with new skills to make a living. Social media has amplified these cases, resulting in an increased number of civil demonstrations. To respond to the growing unrest, the National Assembly recently passed legislation that consolidated a myriad of existing local-level security forces to augment the police. RFA reported some 3.5 trillion dong (US$145 million) was earmarked for what could be a 400,000-man force, with powers of arrest.  But corruption and a lack of government accountability in the real-estate sector is also being felt by the urban middle class, though in very different ways. Vietnam’s real estate market has been booming. By 2021, the real estate sector accounted for at least 12% of GDP, up from 2% in 2018, fueled by the country’s burgeoning middle class.  Workers at a construction site in Hanoi, Vietnam in 2023. (Hau Dinh/AP) Property developers rushed to develop apartment complexes, luxury villas, and malls. The more politically connected they are, the cheaper the land and faster the approvals.  In return for approvals, local officials receive bribes or real estate. Proceeds of land sales are supposed to go into local coffers to pay for government services, but are routinely misappropriated. Developers tried to finance their projects through pre-sales, but this was never sufficient. Beginning in 2016, developers began turning to the nascent corporate bond market to raise funds.  And raise they did. For the developers, it was literally minting money. NovaLand, alone, raised some 160.7 trillion dong (US$6.5 billion) through the bond market by 2021. Some US$15 billion in real estate debt alone will mature in 2025.  Defaults, followed by investigations But then the defaults began. So, too, did the investigations.  In the first half of 2022, at least four high profile real estate executives were arrested for either stock price manipulation or fraud in financial disclosures in bond sales.  Then came the big one: Truong My Lan, the CEO of Van Thinh Phat.  The Ministry of Public Security (MPS) said upon her arrest on October 8, 2022, Lan had “fraudulently engaged in the issuance and trading of bonds in contravention of the laws to appropriate thousands of billions of dong from the people.”   They were not even close.  In the end, the MPS concluded that she had raised 30 trillion dong (US$1.23 billion) in bonds and embezzled some US$12.53 billion from Saigon Commercial Bank that she secretly controlled, through more than 900 shell companies.  To put that into perspective, that’s equivalent to 3.2% of Vietnam&#8217;s GDP.  Newly built buildings jam the skyline in Hanoi, Vietnam in 2016. (Tran Van Minh/AP) Lan’s scheme worked because she paid US$5.2 million in bribes to 24 government regulators. In all, 15 officials from the State Bank, three from the Government Inspectorate, and one from the State Audit Office will face charges.  To date, no one higher than the former head of the department of inspection and supervision of the State Bank’s office in Ho Chi Minh City has been investigated, let alone prosecuted. Not coincidentally, the government’s investigation into Lan has shed no light on how she acquired some 156 properties, including some in the most high-end district in Ho Chi Minh City. She was well-served by her political connections, and no one wants to open up that can of worms.  Another recent case merits attention, though with a mere US$345 million in embezzled funds. Property developer Tan Hoang Minh got into financial trouble during the pandemic. Between July 2021 and March 2022, three of its subsidiaries began selling bonds to raise funds.  But the lack of scrutiny and oversight allowed them to fabricate business activity and withhold or obfuscate pertinent financial information in their disclosures. The category of the nine tranches of bonds was only supposed to be sold to institutional investors, but they marketed them to retail investors. Of the 10.3 trillion dong  (US$437 million) raised through those bond sales to 6,630 investors, Tan Hoang Minh’s chairman, Do Anh Dung, embezzled 8.6 trillion dong (US$354 million). Three apartment buildings were left unfinished, leaving homebuyers in the lurch. Why fraud in the real-estate market matters Real estate is where Vietnam’s middle class parks their money. They have few other investment alternatives, while the emerging middle class struggles to buy a home. Access to vast amounts of capital, without regulatory oversight, created – at the same time – an oversupply in the housing market and a bubble. Do Anh Dung, for example, flew onto the authorities’ radar screen when he made substantially above-market bids on properties to drive up all real estate prices. Truong My Lan purchased much of her property on the secondary market from competitors at above market prices.  Market manipulation was their game. But in the process, they created a glut.  By August 2023, the 10 largest property developers had a combined US$11.4 billion in unsold inventory. In Ho Chi Minh City, real estate prices are expected to fall 5-7%, while the prices of high-end homes are expected to fall by 10%. The investigations into several of these real estate developers led to a credit crunch. In short, the State Bank blocked the issuances of new bonds for periods, meaning many developers...
- [US defense bill spends big against China’s maritime claims](https://ij-reportika.com/us-defense-bill-spends-big-against-chinas-maritime-claims/): U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday signed into law an $886 billion defense bill that includes US$16 billion to deter China’s expansive maritime claims and approves exemptions for Australia and the United Kingdom to buy American defense technology without licenses. The 2024 National Defense Authorization Act was passed by the Senate on Dec. 18 in a 87-13 vote and by the House on Dec. 19 in a 310-118 vote, after a compromise removed supplemental funding for Ukraine along with contentious abortion and transgender provisions. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, last week called the compromise “precisely the kind of bipartisan cooperation the American people want from Congress.” Biden said on Friday that parts of the compromise “raise concerns” but that he was “pleased to support the critical objectives” of the bill. The legislation “provides the critical authorities we need to build the military required to deter future conflicts, while supporting service members and their spouses and families,” Biden said. Maritime deterrence  The bill includes $14.7 billion for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, well above the $9.1 billion requested by the Pentagon. The project, defense officials say, will help bolster U.S. defenses in Hawaii and the Pacific territory of Guam to increase “deterrence” efforts against China.  A fighter plane takes off from the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong in the Pacific Ocean, south of Okinawa, April 9, 2023. The Pentagon’s Pacific Deterrence Initiative will increase “deterrence” efforts against China. (Japan&#8217;s Ministry of Defense/AFP) Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and expert in naval operations, said the “big increase” in funds would help by “improving the resilience and capability of U.S. and allied forces in the Indo-Pacific.” “I expect the increased PDI spending authorized in the NDAA will focus on defense of Guam, improved networking and data integration for U.S. forces in the Indo-Pacific, and accelerated efforts to posture U.S. ground troops in the region,” Clark told Radio Free Asia. A further $1.3 billion is earmarked specifically for the Indo-Pacific Campaigning Initiative, which a Senate Armed Services Committee statement said would fund “increased frequency and scale of exercises, freedom of navigation operations, and partner engagements” as China ramps up its claims of sovereignty. The 2024 bill also authorizes the biggest pay boost to military personnel in two decades, with a 5.2 percent overall bump, and increases the basic allowance for troops and housing subsidies. AUKUS It’s not only U.S. military bases and personnel in the Indo-Pacific that are receiving a large funding boost next year, though. The 2024 bill also approves the sale of nuclear-powered submarines to Australia and exemptions for Australian and British firms from the need to seek licenses to buy U.S. defense technology.  The two provisions – known as “Pillar 1” and “Pillar 2” of the AUKUS security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States – have proved controversial, with some Republicans in Congress questioning Pillar 1 and some Democrats opposing Pillar 2. Republicans expressed concerns about the ability of shipyards to supply Australia with submarines by the 2030s amid massive building backlogs that have left the U.S. Navy waiting on its own orders.  The Virginia-class attack submarine New Mexico undergoes sea trials in the Atlantic Ocean, Nov. 26, 2009. (U.S. Navy via AFP) Democrats, meanwhile, said they were worried that exempting Australian businesses from the need to seek licenses could open up an avenue for Chinese espionage to procure sensitive U.S. technology. But in the end the provisions passed with bipartisan support – even if the important licensing exemptions remain conditional on Australia and the United Kingdom putting in place “comparable” export restrictions. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Democrat from Illinois and the ranking member of his party on the House Select Committee on China, said that the approval of both pillars of AUKUS would be a boon to U.S. efforts to counter the Chinese Communist Party’s maritime claims. “By authorizing the sale of up to three Virginia-class submarines to Australia, and simplifying the process for sharing advanced technologies between our countries, we are taking an important step in strengthening key U.S. alliances and working to maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific region in the face of CCP aggression,” he said. Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles said that the passage of AUKUS meant that Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States are “on the precipice of historic reform that will transform our ability to effectively deter, innovate, and operate together.” Australia’s ambassador to Washington, Kevin Rudd, said earlier this year he foresees a “seamless” defense industry across the AUKUS member states in coming decades if the security pact succeeds. Other measures The bill also establishes a new program to train and advise Taiwan’s military, and funds the Biden administration’s new “Indo-Pacific Maritime Domain Awareness Initiative,” which also is aimed at deterring China’s vast claims of maritime sovereignty. U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Ely Ratner said earlier this month would equip American allies across Asia and the Pacific “with high-grade commercial satellite imagery that allows them to have much more visibility into their littorals.” Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Ely Ratner, seen at Senate hearing earlier this year, says the U.S. will give allies across Asia and the Pacific “high-grade commercial satellite imagery.” (Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/Reuters) Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Republican from Wisconsin and the chairman of the House Select Committee on China, said the bill was suitably focussed on the biggest threats currently facing the U.S. military. “We are in the window of maximum danger when it comes to a conflict with China over Taiwan,” Gallagher said after the House passed the bill. “Ensuring our military has the resources to deter, and if necessary, win such a conflict must be our primary focus in Congress.”
- [Myanmar junta kills 7-year-old in northern airstrike](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-kills-7-year-old-in-northern-airstrike/): A junta airstrike on a village in Myanmar’s northern Sagaing region killed a seven-year-old girl, residents told Radio Free Asia Friday. The Dec. 16 attack on Paungbyin township’s Kha Maing (West) also claimed the life of an adult woman. Separately on Thursday, a helicopter attack killed 30-year-old Kyaw Soe, and injured five other civilians in Paungbyin’s Tha Yau, according to a local village administrator who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. “A monastic school building, a market, the road, the soccer field and a highway station were shot at,” he said. “It took only 25 minutes, but the helicopter turned around twice and continued firing. People were not aware and were calm because there had been no fighting. “People are in shock. Women and children are very scared. People didn’t have time to dodge and were shot as soon as they heard the sound of the helicopter.” The injured are being treated by the humanitarian team of Paungbyin People’s Administration Group, he said. Destroyed homes in Nyaung Pin Te village, Chaung-U township, Sagaing region, Dec 21, 2023. (Citizen journalist)  In another attack Thursday, junta troops raided Nyaung Pin Te village in Sagaing’s Chaung-U township, killing a local man and burning nearly 120 houses down – nearly half the homes in the village – residents told RFA. The body of 55-year-old Zaw Win was found on Thursday evening after troops left the village, according to a villager who didn’t want to be named for safety reasons. “He was brutally killed. Only half of his head is left,” he said. “The junta troops burnt the houses in the village for three days. Yesterday … troops torched four places in the village, and took the village rice which was recently harvested at the end of the rainy season.” Troops took 2,000 baskets of rice and 50 bags of fertilizer from the village and slaughtered 10 cattle, he said. Locals said the column of around 100 soldiers from Chaung-U abducted about 80 civilians but released them when they returned to base. They said the villagers were used as human shields because troops feared they would be intercepted by People’s Defense Forces along the route. RFA called the junta’s Sagaing region spokesman Sai Naing Naing Kyaw about the incidents but he said he had no information about them because he had been traveling. Although many villagers returned after the troops left, around 1,400 residents of Nyaung Pin Te village are too afraid to go home, locals told RFA. Across Myanmar more than 2.6 million people have fled the fighting according to the United Nations. Data for Myanmar, an independent research group, announced on Dec 13, that more than 77,000 homes had been burned down since the Feb. 01, 2021 coup. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [Escaped North Koreans urge China to stop the ‘genocide’ of forced repatriation](https://ij-reportika.com/escaped-north-koreans-urge-china-to-stop-the-genocide-of-forced-repatriation/): They were brought together on a cold November morning by Beijing’s recent decision to send at least 500 North Korean escapees back to their homeland. Gathered in front of the gates of the Chinese Embassy in Washington, many were friends and relatives of those who have been forcibly repatriated in years past, or who had experienced the ordeal themselves. Those sent back on Oct. 9 would face almost certain punishment – torture, labor camp, sexual violence and even death, warned Human Rights Watch. Heo Young-hak is an escapee who told RFA Korean that his wife was forcibly repatriated by China in December 2019. She is now a political prisoner, he said. “Honestly, my wife was someone who didn’t know anything about violating the law in North Korea,” said Heo, visiting the United States as a member of the Emergency Committee on the Forced Repatriation of North Korean Escapees, a South Korea-based group that demonstrated at various locations in Washington and at the United Nations headquarters in New York. “She was such a nice woman,” said Heo. “But she became a political prisoner…a political prisoner.”  And he doesn’t know if she’s dead or alive. Heo Young-hak holds a picture of his wife, Choi Sun Hwa, who was forcibly repatriated to North Korea in December 2019. He is shown at the Nov. 8, 2023.protest. (Hyung Jun You/RFA Korean) His wife, Choi Sun Hwa, had fled North Korea to be reunited with him and their daughter, as they had escaped to China a month before her. “You know what a political prisoner is, right? You become a political prisoner when you betray your country or engage in activities that are considered treasonous,” he said. “After a year of interrogation and torture, she was eventually sent to a political prison camp, and now there is no way to confirm whether she is alive or dead,” he said. For Heo, China’s insistence on repatriating escaped North Koreans is “tantamount to genocide.” “Once repatriated to North Korea, 80-90% of individuals do not survive,” he said. “There is no way to confirm the status of those repatriated, but the Chinese government&#8217;s forced repatriation to North Korea continues. I can only wish that there are no more victims.” ‘Illegal displaced persons’ Critics of Beijing’s policy of returning North Koreans found to have entered the country without authorization say that China is not living up to its agreements to protect refugees. Though the exact figure of North Koreans who have escaped to China are not known, estimates range from the tens of thousands to more than 100,000. China continues to justify forced repatriation by claiming that North Korean escapees in China are  “illegal displaced persons” rather than refugees. Beijing therefore claims it must return the North Koreans to their homeland because it is bound by two agreements with Pyongyang, the 1960 PRC-DPRK Escaped Criminals Reciprocal Extradition Treaty and the 1986 Mutual Cooperation Protocol for the Work of Maintaining National Security and Social Order and the Border Areas.  Fleeing starvation One of the other protesters that morning had herself been repatriated to North Korea twice. “I cannot help but feel enraged as I stand in front of the Chinese Embassy,” said Ji Hanna, who first fled to China in 2010. Ji Hanna, a widow who was forcibly repatriated to North Korea twice, is interviewed in front of the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., Nov. 8, 2023. (Hyung Jun You/RFA Korean) Her husband had died in 1996 in the thick of the so-called Arduous March, the famine that resulted from the collapse of the North Korean economy which had been over-reliant on Soviet aid. By some estimates, more than 2 million people, or about 10% of the population, died between 1994 and 1998. In such dire times, Ji had been trying to provide for her two young sons by conducting illegal trading with contacts in China. She was caught and sentenced to disciplinary labor five times. In November 2009, the North Korean government issued new currency and revalued the old one such that it made the savings of the common people worth about 1% what it had been. This was the last straw for Ji, who made the decision to go to China to earn money, then return to North Korea to get her children out. But she was caught by Chinese police and sent back in 2011. She attempted to escape again but the Chinese border force caught her and sent her back again. While in a North Korean prison, she said she saw people dying from malnutrition every day, and her only food was the uneaten remnants from soldiers’ meals. She escaped again and resettled in South Korea in 2016, where she lives with her two sons. But she says she will never forget the torture and suffering during and after her repatriation. Her legs are scarred, from being whipped with a stiff leather belt daily, and she suffers from severe neck pain from injuries she suffered while incarcerated. “We didn’t commit any major crimes in China. We just tried to find a way to survive and come to South Korea,” said Ji. “How unjust and heartbreaking it is.”  “I managed to survive from the brink of death and succeeded in escaping from North Korea on my third attempt and came to South Korea. I don’t even know if the other people are dead or alive.” Trafficking Most of the North Koreans who escape to China are women, and they can become easy targets for human traffickers. Some end up being sold into marriages, sex work or other forms of servitude. Shin Gum-sil was not at the embassy on Nov. 8, but her cousin Jang Se-yul was, and and he told RFA that Shin had been trafficked when she escaped North Korea in January 2020, right before the whole country was locked down at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. While in China, Shin fell into the hands of traffickers who sold her to an elderly Chinese man...
- [Anti-junta forces claim attack on Myanmar’s central region military HQ](https://ij-reportika.com/anti-junta-forces-claim-attack-on-myanmars-central-region-military-hq/): Anti-junta armies have attacked Myanmar’s military headquarters of Central Region Command in an old palace compound of Aungmyaythazan township, Mandalay city, the residents and members of forces who conducted the attack told Radio Free Asia on Thursday.  This attack was carried out on Dec. 21 by the Mandalay Security and Special Task Force, People’s Defense Group from Pyinoolwin District, No More Dictatorship and Brave Warriors for Myanmar (BWM), according to a BWM announcement. A BWM official said that they targeted the dormitories where the regional commander and deputy regional commanders of junta’s Central Region Military Command were staying. “We were able to attack with six long-range 107-mm missiles. One device failed to detonate due to a material malfunction. But, five others successfully launched their attacks,” said the official who wished to remain unnamed due to security reasons. “The targets, which included the special office of the Central Region Military Command, the barracks of junta troops, and the residences of the regional commander and deputy regional commander, were successfully struck.” Damages to the buildings and casualties are still under investigation, the official added. A resident of Mandalay who lives near the royal palace compound speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals said Thursday that following the attack, junta troops intensified security measures and are carrying out searches and checks throughout the city.  “It is true that the military headquarters in the palace compound was attacked. I became anxious and couldn’t sleep anymore. Since it was over two or three o’clock [in the morning]. This morning, as I rode my motor scooter around the neighborhood, I noticed something unusual. The roads were blocked off more than they had been in previous days, and there was an increased checking of motorcycles and cars,” he told RFA Burmese. The Central Region Military Command’s interrogation center is infamous for detaining and questioning anti-coup demonstrators, university students, and members of the People’s Defense Force in Mandalay city, following the military coup on February 1, 2021. RFA Burmese contacted Thein Htay, the military junta spokesman for Mandalay region and regional economic minister, regarding the incident by phone, but he did not reply at time of publication. Separately, on Dec. 20, Mandalay Palace – military headquarters – and some police stations in Mandalay city, including Obo Prison’s main guard posts, were attacked with drone bombs as part of “Operation Shwe Pyi Soe,” according to the Mandalay-based People’s Defense Forces. Edited by Taejun Kang.
- [Food, supplies run low at large prison in Myanmar’s Kayah State](https://ij-reportika.com/food-supplies-run-low-at-large-prison-in-myanmars-kayah-state/): Food and medicine shortages are putting nearly 500 prisoners in eastern Myanmar’s Kayah State at risk as fighting between the military junta and resistance forces has hindered the transport of supplies into the capital of Loikaw, aid workers said. Ethnic Karenni forces and anti-junta People’s Defense Force paramilitaries began a coordinated offensive against the military on Nov. 11 in an attack that’s been dubbed “Operation 1111.”  Intense fighting has taken place near Loikaw Prison over the last week as food and medicine supplies continue to drop, said Thike Tun Oo, a member of the leading committee of the Political Prisoners Network-Myanmar.  Basic supplies at the prison are typically stockpiled for about three months, he said. “The military troops are defending the prison against the attacks of joint forces who are holding back on all-out attacks out of consideration for the prisoners,” said Khu Nye Reh, the spokesman of the Karenni Military Information Center.  “Family members dare not visit prisoners due to security concerns,” he said. “In this circumstance, the prisoners will receive only a very small quota of food. Just enough for survival.” Civilians trapped amid airstrikes run to safety during a battle to take over Loikaw in Kayah state, Myanmar, Nov. 14, 2023. (Reuters) Karenni forces have suspended attempts at taking control of the prison, but continue to occupy 85 percent of Loikaw, according to Col. Phone Naing, the Karenni Army’s adjutant general. The prison’s 500 inmates include 140 pro-democracy activists and other prisoners of conscience. Human shield worries “Whether the prison is attacked or not, food supplies and fuel cannot be taken into the city due to the ongoing armed conflict,” said Banyar, the founder of the Karenni Human Rights Group.  “The prisoners will also not receive regular meals and medicines. Patients in the prison cannot be taken out for medical treatments,” he said. “They have lost their human rights.” He added that he’s worried that junta troops will force prisoners to wear military uniforms if they attempt to relocate them or use them as cover. Junta officials haven’t made any statements about the situation of inmates at Loikaw Prison. Radio Free Asia attempted to contact the office of the deputy director-general of the Prison Department, as well as junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, but no one responded to messages. Fighting between Karenni forces and junta troops near the prison in January 2022 also caused food shortages. “We were tightly confined in a prison cell. Food rations were significantly reduced,” a member of the Karenni Political Prisoners Association and a former Loikaw Prison inmate recalled to RFA on Wednesday.  “We even had a hard time finding salt to eat,” he said. “We had no chance to avoid heavy weapon shelling. While I was in this prison, some 120 mm mortars and RPG attacks hit the prison. Our lives were at risk at that time.” The former prisoner also expressed concern for the security of prisoners currently inside the facility. Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [Escaping war in Myanmar for prison in India](https://ij-reportika.com/escaping-war-in-myanmar-for-prison-in-india/): Women who escaped the fighting in Myanmar are being detained and beaten in an Indian prison, according to a group that helps Burmese refugees. The India For Myanmar group said Tuesday the women have gone on hunger strike to demand their release from the prison in Manipur state which borders Sagaing region and Chin state. The group’s spokesperson Salai Dokhar said that the hunger strikers were being tortured at the command of prison authorities. “The prison authorities promised to release them on Dec. 15. Since they were not released on the 15th, the inmates of the women’s prison went on a hunger strike from the 16th. But starting on the night of the 17th, they were forced to sleep where it had snowed as punishment,” he said.  “On Dec. 19, the authorities started beating the inmates. They called policemen and asked them to beat the female prisoners. I heard that there are some critically injured people.” The husband of one of the women, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals, told Radio Free Asia on Tuesday that 36 protesting Myanmar women were beaten. “Those who have already been sentenced to five months in prison and fined were told that they would be released on Dec. 15. But they were not released, so they started protesting on the 16th. On the 18th they were beaten by policemen, and they were severely beaten,” the man said. “My wife has swollen cheeks. Some of the women lost their Htamein [Burmese traditional lower dress for women]. The policemen stopped beating them when their Htamein came off and they looked inappropriate.” He added that Burmese prisoners in the men’s dormitory had also been on hunger strike since Dec. 19 to support the female inmates. There are currently around 100 Myanmar nationals in Manipur prisons. Male inmates are held in detention centers and the women are in prisons according to family members. Manipur authorities charged those arrested under the Foreigners Act and sentenced them to a fine and imprisonment of up to six months. RFA Burmese emailed the Indian Embassy in Yangon about the beatings but did not receive a reply at time of publishing on Wednesday. Salai Dokhar said India For Myanmar would call on the chief minister of Manipur to release the Myanmar nationals as soon as possible and treat them as war victims. Currently, a total of 86 Myanmar refugees and migrant workers are being held in Manipur prisons, according to those helping refugees and migrant workers. They said there are around 6,000 Myanmar war refugees in Manipur state. Most of them are from Kale and Tamu townships in Sagaing region and Tedim, Tonzang townships in Chin state. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [Son of prominent Cambodian lawyer sought in fatal hit-and-run crash](https://ij-reportika.com/son-of-prominent-cambodian-lawyer-sought-in-fatal-hit-and-run-crash/): A Phnom Penh prosecutor issued an arrest warrant on Tuesday for the son of a prominent lawyer who is suspected in a hit-and-run car accident that killed a decorated badminton player. The victim’s wife posted on Facebook this week that the suspect’s father – Prohm Vicheatsophea – attended the funeral of badminton gold medalist Seang Kimhong and offered the family US$1,000 if they agreed to not pursue criminal charges against his 23-year-old son. The victim’s wife, Kruy Chhin Liang, said on Facebook that she rejected Prohm Vicheatsophea’s proposition and said she would continue to demand justice for her husband. Her post has received hundreds of comments from Cambodians outraged by the offer.  Justice Minister Keut Rith responded by ordering Phnom Penh Municipal Court prosecutors to “investigate and resolve the matter properly and strictly according to the law,” ministry spokesman Chin Malin told the Khmer Times. The Dec. 14 accident between a jeep and a motorcycle took place in Phnom Penh’s Toul Kork district, an area of the capital known for its large villas. Seang Kimhong was riding on the motorbike, according to Kruy Chhin Liang. Prosecutor Plong Sophal wrote in the warrant that evidence proves that Prohm Vichet Sosakda was the driver of the car and fled the scene “without responsibility.” The suspect has been ordered to appear at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court before Jan. 9. Seang Kimhong won the gold medal in badminton at this year’s SEA Games, a regional Olympiad that takes place every two years and was hosted by Cambodia for the first time in May. Because of its rampant corruption and inadequate constraints on government power, Cambodia often places near the bottom of global rankings for adherence to the rule of law. In October, the World Justice Project put Cambodia at 141st out of 142 countries. Soeung Sengkaruna, a spokesman for human rights group Adhoc, said authorities should take strict measures against the suspect, regardless of his background. Several NGOs are closely monitoring this case, he added. Typically, prominent suspects are able to escape justice when they are accused of a crime, he told Radio Free Asia.  “But we are looking to see if the authorities are working hard to bring this suspect to justice,” he said.   Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [Anti-junta forces capture Myanmar border crossing gate](https://ij-reportika.com/anti-junta-forces-capture-myanmar-border-crossing-gate/): One of Myanmar’s powerful anti-junta armies has seized a key border gate from the military in a self-administered part of eastern Shan state, residents told Radio Free Asia on Tuesday. Communist Party breakaway group the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army – or MNDAA – occupied the Yanlonkyaing (Yan Long Zhai) border trade gate in the Kokang Self-Administered Zone’s Laukkaing township on Monday. A Laukkaing resident told RFA he heard gunshots near the gate on Monday morning. “I heard continuous shots from [the Myanmar] side of Yanlonkyaing gate Monday,” said the man who didn’t want to be identified for fear of reprisals.  “The gate was seized in the morning. That was the only place left and [MNDAA troops] are saying there are no more places left to capture. I do not hear the sound of gunfire anymore.” A source with knowledge of the military situation, who wished to remain anonymous for safety reasons, said junta troops and affiliated militias had surrendered. A video of the MNDAA providing cash assistance to those who surrendered – seen by RFA Burmese – was posted on social media by the group. Shan state-based media outlets have also reported that the Yanlonkyaing border gate was captured by MNDAA forces. RFA tried to contact MNDAA Kokang spokesman Li Kyarwen but did not receive a reply at time of publication Tuesday. The junta has not released any statement regarding the incident.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [The limits of a Russia-China partnership that claims to have none](https://ij-reportika.com/the-limits-of-a-russia-china-partnership-that-claims-to-have-none/): Three weeks before Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine last year, President Vladimir Putin traveled to Beijing for the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics hosted by Chinese President Xi Jinping – an event shunned by Western leaders. In a 5,300-word joint statement issued the same day, Xi and Putin said their friendship had “no limits” – a declaration that caused a wave of unease in the West. It signaled that the world’s two preeminent authoritarian powers were making common cause. Beijing was also Putin’s first overseas visit outside the former Soviet Union in October since an arrest warrant was issued by the International Criminal Court against him for war crimes in Ukraine. In recent years, the China-Russia relationship has deepened as the two nations have sought a new world order against their common rival, the United States. However, since the war began, China has avoided providing direct military aid to Russia. Bilateral ties between the two powers are more complex and nuanced than meets the eye. Moscow’s association with China has a long and storied past that pre-dates the rise of the Chinese Communist Party to power in Beijing seven decades ago. Belarus-born Chiang Fang-liang poses with her husband, former Taiwan President Chiang Ching-kuo, March 15, 1985. Credit: AFP Kuomintang&#8217;s Soviet bride In the early afternoon on Dec. 15, 2004, Chiang Fang-liang – widow of former Taiwanese President Chiang Ching-kuo – died of respiratory and cardiac failure at a hospital in Taipei at age 88. She had lived a quiet, lonely life as a member of Taiwan’s first family. Her husband and three sons all passed before her. Born Faina Vakhreva in the Russian Empire, she was a member of the Soviet Union&#8217;s Communist Youth League and met her future husband when they both worked at a factory in Siberia. They married in 1935. A few years before that, Chiang’s father, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, led the Chinese nationalist party Kuomintang to power in mainland China. Yet in 1949, the victory of the Communists drove the Chiang family and their government to retreat to the island of Taiwan, where Fang-liang lived and died. The Soviet Union, and Russia afterwards, have had little contact with Taiwan, but the Chiang family’s Russian connection served as a reminder of how much influence the Soviets once had over the politics across the Taiwan Strait. Chiang Ching-kuo arrived in the USSR aged 15 and spent 12 years there. He embraced the life of a Soviet Marxist, even adopted a Russian name – Nikolai Vladimirovich – after Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the first leader of the USSR. The Kuomintang, founded in 1912 by Sun Yat-sen, for a long time received support and aid from the Soviet Union. However, during the Chinese Civil War (1927-1949) the Soviets turned to support the Communists who defeated the Nationalists and established the People&#8217;s Republic of China. Chiang Fang-liang is seen with her husband, former Taiwan President Chiang Ching-kuo, and their children in an undated photo. Credit: AFP/KMT In his memoir “My Days in Soviet Russia,” Chiang Ching-kuo recalled his time as being “completely isolated from China, I was not even allowed to mail a letter,” and those long years were “the most difficult” of his life. All his requests to return to the mainland were rejected by the authorities, according to Russian historians Alexander Larin and Alexander Lukin, as Chiang was virtually held hostage by Lenin’s successor as Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin. Chiang and his small family were allowed to leave the USSR in 1937 when in China the Kuomintang and the Communists formed a new alliance to fight against a Japanese invasion that presaged World War II. That was a lucky escape for them as the Soviet country was undergoing a period of extreme political repression known as the Great Purge, during which hundreds of thousands of Stalin’s political opponents were removed and eliminated. From then until her final days, Chiang’s Russian wife would never set foot in her motherland again. The years in the Soviet Union led Chiang Ching-kuo “to examine socialism with a more critical eye, and contributed to his evolution towards anti-communism,” argued Larin and Lukin, who said that the failure of the Soviet economic system played a part in Taiwan’s transition to market reforms under Chiang’s premiership during the 1970s. And not only in Taiwan, “eventually, the Chinese communists in mainland China arrived at the same conclusion” about the Soviet economic model, according to the Russian authors. “Deng Xiaoping, the architect of mainland Chinese economic reforms, was a classmate of Chiang … and had a similar although much shorter experience in the USSR,” they wrote. Good neighbors From the 1960s to the 1990s, the Sino-USSR relationship was marked by turbulence, including a seven-month border conflict in 1969. Mao Zedong’s China condemned Moscow for “betraying communism” while the Soviet Union withdrew all economic assistance to Beijing. It only warmed up after Mikhail Gorbachev became the general secretary of the USSR Communist Party and initiated the political and social reform called perestroika. After the Soviet Union dissolved, China recognized the Russian Federation as its legal successor on Dec. 24, 1991. Moscow and Beijing signed a Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation 10 years later, paving the way for a new chapter in their special partnership. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev [right] gestures as he talks with Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping during a meeting in 1989 in Beijing. Credit: Boris Yurchenko/AP A joint statement on the 20th anniversary of the treaty in 2021 said that Russian-Chinese relations “have reached the highest level in their history.” “The Russian-Chinese relations are based on equality, deep mutual trust, commitment to international law, support in defending each other&#8217;s core interests, the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity,” it said. Officially, Sino-Russia ties are described as a “comprehensive partnership and strategic interaction in the new era,” according to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. China has been Russia’s largest trading partner since 2010, with two-way trade reaching US$140.7 billion in 2021 and $134.1 billion in...
- [Two dead, 3 injured in airstrikes on central Myanmar village](https://ij-reportika.com/two-dead-3-injured-in-airstrikes-on-central-myanmar-village/): A junta jet dropped bombs and opened fire with machine guns on civilians in three townships killing two women and injuring three more, locals and People’s Defense Force members told Radio Free Asia. The aircraft attacked Magway region’s Seikphyu, Pauk and Saw on Friday night forcing almost 8,000 people to flee the townships. Locals identified the dead women as 21-year-old Yu Nandar and 24-year-old May Thingyan from Seikphyu’s Than Pu Yar Pin village. They were cremated on Friday evening according to a resident who declined to be named for fear of reprisals. “Two bombs fell when the girls were collecting water. They died on the spot,” he said. “The jet went back and opened fire with machine guns, hitting two children and a woman. The woman, Tin San Htwe was hit in [the back of her head] and is still unconscious.” About 600 people live in 140 houses in Than Pu Yar Pin village. They told RFA Burmese they were afraid to return to their homes because there may be more airstrikes. A People’s Defense Force officer based in Seikphyu said the junta launched an attack even though there had been no fighting because it considers the township strategically important. “Seikphyu is a key place,” he said.  “Wazi, which prints banknotes, is in the area. There is an Air Defense Operations command headquarters and an aviation training school. Also there are two defense equipment factories.” Calls to junta spokesman Than Swe Win seeking comment on the junta&#8217;s airstrikes, went unanswered. Some 730 civilians have been killed and 1,292 injured by airstrikes and heavy artillery this year according to data compiled by RFA,  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Police clamp down on carrying cell phones in public](https://ij-reportika.com/police-clamp-down-on-carrying-cell-phones-in-public/): North Koreans walking around in public holding their cell phones are getting in trouble with the police, residents there told Radio Free Asia. But it isn’t clear if it&#8217;s an effort to guard state secrets, as the government claims, or simply an excuse for police to shake down people for bribes. Or both. North Korea introduced the State Secrets Protection Law in February to prevent photos and videos – especially those of propaganda lecture materials – from finding their way out of the country. The country remains blocked off from the global internet, making it hard for most people to send any kind of information outside the country through their phones.  But people living along the border with China do sometimes use smuggled Chinese phones to access the Chinese cellular network, and can transmit photos and videos that way. Now it appears that authorities are trying to stop people from taking any photos that would reveal anything at all about life in the isolated country. Police in plain clothes patrol the marketplaces and stop people walking around with their cellphones in their hands, a resident of South Pyongan province, north of the capital Pyongyang, told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “Recently, when police see people walking around in the marketplace with cell phones in their hands, they stop them and check their phones,” he said, adding that it isn’t possible to know how many police are observing a particular location, since they are not wearing uniforms. Excuse for extortion? Previously, when police would stop to check people’s electronic devices, the goal was to find contraband media, such as TV shows or movies from South Korea. But now they are simply looking for pictures, the resident said.  “The crackdowns on cell phones involve searching for photos and videos of the marketplace among the photos in the phone,” he said.  A man looks at his mobile phone as he waits to cross a street in Pyongyang, North Korea, Feb. 18, 2017. (Ed Jones/AFP) If such a photo were to be found, there is a possibility that the phone owner could be accused of spying and trying to sell secret information to South Korea, and imprisoned. “As the police randomly crack down on cell phones, market merchants say it is a tactic to extort money ahead of the end of the year,” he said. Police are more privileged than the civilian population, but just like the average citizen, the salary from their government-assigned job is nowhere near enough to make a living. Most families must run side businesses selling goods or services in the local market to support themselves.  Police, however, can catch people doing questionable or illegal activities and accept a bribe to look the other way. So it is possible that the increased scrutiny is a way to collect some cash before year-end, the residents said. In the city of Sinuiju, on the border with China in North Pyongan province, police have been on the lookout for phones near the train station and at the marketplace all December, a resident there told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “Residents who were caught [with their phones] say it is ridiculous because the police said … they want to check whether they are taking pictures of their surroundings,” he said.  “The police threaten them, saying that preventing people from taking ‘internal photos’ with cell phones … is merely upholding the State Secrets Protection Law.”  But many people aren’t buying the police officers’ explanations, the North Pyongan resident said.  “[They say] authorities are creating anxiety by cracking down on cell phone owners as leakers of national secrets,” he said. “But the scenes around the market and the station are not national secrets.” Translated by Leejin J. Chung. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Hong Kong vows to pursue wanted overseas activists 'to the end'](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-vows-to-pursue-wanted-overseas-activists-to-the-end/): Hong Kong on Friday vowed to pursue overseas pro-democracy activists on its national security wanted list &#8220;to the end,&#8221; amid calls from U.S. Congress members for sanctions linked to transnational repression by the Chinese Communist Party. National security police on Thursday issued arrest warrants for former British consular employee Simon Cheng, who co-founded the advocacy group Hongkongers in Britain, Frances Hui of the U.S.-based Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong, U.S. citizen and Hong Kong campaigner Joey Siu and overseas YouTube hosts Johnny Fok and Tony Choi.  Police said they had &#8220;absconded overseas&#8221; and offered a HK$1 million (US$128,000) bounty for information leading to their arrests. &#8220;Fugitives should not have any delusion that they could evade legal liabilities by absconding from Hong Kong,&#8221; a spokesman said on Friday.  &#8220;Fugitives will be pursued for life unless they turn themselves in &#8230; we will pursue these fugitives &#8230; to the end and use all practicable measures to bring them to justice,” he said in a statement posted to the government’s website. The wanted activists “continue to engage in acts and activities endangering national security,&#8221; slamming criticism of the move as &#8220;unreasonable&#8221; and &#8220;tainted with double standards,&#8221; he said. Chief Superintendent of Police (National Security Department ) Li Kwai-wah and Senior Superintendent Hung Ngan attend a press conference on arrest warrants issued for activists Simon Cheng, Frances Hui, Joey Siu, Johnny Fok and Tony Choi, in Hong Kong, Dec. 14, 2023. (Tyrone Siu/Reuters) The new additions to the Hong Kong authorities&#8217; wanted list come after similar warrants were issued for eight prominent pro-democracy activists in July, and amid growing concern over China&#8217;s long-arm law enforcement activities far beyond its own borders. The group are wanted on a slew of charges under a draconian security law that bans public criticism of the authorities, including &#8220;incitement to secession&#8221;, &#8220;incitement to subversion&#8221; and &#8220;collusion with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security,&#8221; police said in a statement on Thursday. Intimidation and harassment The warrants prompted calls in Washington for sanctions on Chinese Communist Party-backed officials. &#8220;Last night, CCP-controlled authorities in Hong Kong issued bounties on five Hong Kongers living abroad, including two pro-democracy activists living in the United States, one of whom is an American citizen,&#8221; Chairman Mike Gallagher and Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party said in a joint statement on Dec. 14. &#8220;CCP-controlled Hong Kong authorities’ effort through intimidation and harassment to persecute US citizens and residents engaging in peaceful political activism in the United States is unacceptable,&#8221; they said, calling for urgent action from Congress to stem China&#8217;s &#8220;transnational repression.&#8221; U.S. Reps. Mike Gallagher and Raja Krishnamoorthi, seen at a hearing earlier this year, issued a joint statement calling for urgent action from Congress to stem China&#8217;s &#8220;transnational repression.&#8221; (J. Scott Applewhite/AP) Hong Kong’s national security police said on Thursday that “the acts of these five persons seriously endanger national security,&#8221; announcing a reward of HK$1 million to members of the public who provide information leading to their arrest. Police also arrested four people on suspicion of offering financial assistance via online crowdfunding to exiled former pro-democracy lawmakers Ted Hui and Nathan Law. No change Wanted activist Frances Hui said she wasn&#8217;t surprised by the bounty on her head, and wouldn&#8217;t be giving up her advocacy as a result. &#8220;I will continue to do what I think is right, including my advocacy activities for freedom and democracy in Hong Kong, and fighting for the imposition of sanctions on Hong Kong officials, continuing to advocate for the release of Hong Kong political prisoners, and continuing to appeal to the international community and [over China&#8217;s] transnational human rights violations,&#8221; she told Radio Free Asia.  &#8220;I will also continue to build the overseas Hong Kong community and promote Hong Kong culture.&#8221; &#8220;I will continue to do what I think is right, including my advocacy activities for freedom and democracy in Hong Kong,” says Frances Hui, seen in the Chinatown neighborhood of Boston, Oct. 2, 2019. (Charles Krupa/AP) Meanwhile, Joey Siu said the Hong Kong authorities are using their trade and economic offices in overseas cities as a base from which to target and harass overseas activists from the city. She said even being a citizen of a foreign country is no protection. &#8220;The Hong Kong government&#8217;s basis for making me a wanted person is comments I made as a U.S. citizen in my own country,&#8221; Siu said. &#8220;This just shows how unreasonable and all-pervasive this transnational suppression by the Hong Kong and Chinese governments has become.&#8221; An honor Former U.K. consular employee Simon Cheng said it was his &#8220;lifelong honor&#8221; to be singled out by the authorities. &#8220;The accusations &#8230; that I betrayed my country are actually highly political and baseless,&#8221; Cheng told Radio Free Asia. &#8220;It&#8217;s actually a pretty humble wish that the government respect the rights of its citizens, and allow their voices to be more freely heard.&#8221; &#8220;We&#8217;re just a bit more persistent than the average person and are not afraid to carry on speaking out, so that&#8217;s why we are receiving this so-called punishment,&#8221; he said, adding that his main fear is that the authorities will target his friends and relatives in Hong Kong. Simon Cheng, seen in London in 2020, says his main fear is that authorities will target his friends and relatives in Hong Kong. (AP) British Foreign Secretary David Cameron condemned the warrants, saying his government would take up the matter &#8220;urgently&#8221; with Beijing and Hong Kong officials. &#8220;We will not tolerate any attempt by any foreign power to intimidate, harass or harm individuals or communities in the U.K.,&#8221; Cameron said in a statement. &#8220;This is a threat to our democracy and fundamental human rights.&#8221; &#8220;We call on Beijing to repeal the National Security Law and end its persecution of political activists.&#8221; State Department spokesman Matthew Miller called on Beijing to act in accordance with international norms and...
- [Ancient theatrical tradition falls on hard times in crisis-torn Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/ancient-theatrical-tradition-falls-on-hard-times-in-crisis-torn-myanmar/): For 145 years, the Myanmar city of Pyapon has marked the end of the rainy season with a performance of the ancient Indian epic poem Ramayana–never halting the annual ritual, even during Japanese occupation in World War II, a major uprising against harsh military rule and a catastrophic cyclone.  These days, however, the dancers who have for seven generations made the Ayeyarwady River delta region city famous for performances of the Burmese version of the Sanskrit epic fear they may be the last of their kind in a country plunged into economic hardship and political turmoil in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and a 2021 military coup. “COVID health problems arise. Political crises arise. The days of performance are getting shorter,” said Zaw Oo, chairman of the Pyapon Ramayana troupe. “Funds are scarce. Jobs are scarce. Moreover, foreign culture infiltrates. It is really hard to preserve it so it won’t disappear,” he told RFA Burmese. People gather to watch Ramayana, a traditional drama being performed. (RFA photo) The 53-year-old father of two is a national gold medalist in performing as Dathagiri, the ten-headed chief antagonist in the Ramayana epic poem and the subject of worship in both Hindu and Buddhist temples in India and across Southeast Asia. “The main reason for performing is for safety,” Zaw Woo said of the belief that to keep Pyapon safe, the annual reading of the play must not be broken.   “If we cannot perform it, we have to serve meals for Dathagiri as a token offering every year,” he told RFA. “We have to perform it – even if it’s an hour or a verse – to keep the tradition.” The Pyapon dance troupe has made modifications to tradition to keep people in seats for a lengthy poem that in the original Sanskrit has 24,000 verses.  The Burmese Ramayana’s 94 chapters used to take up to 45 days to perform. (RFA photo) Overseas tour The Burmese version of the Ramayana used to require 45 days to perform, but the troupe trimmed it back – to nine days and nine nights. During the  pandemic and following the February 2021 military takeover, the dance became a one-day, closed-door performance at Pyapon’s Shwe Nat Gu Pagoda. Last year, they put on the Ramayana for one day at the Rama theater, but this year, it ran for three days at the end of November. The truncated version of Myanmar’s national epic got mixed reviews, even from sympathetic fans. “In the past, I liked watching it. Watching all nine episodes. Now it’s just one afternoon,” said a 65-year-old woman named Myint. “I’m just watching it to slake my desire.” “Now, young people don’t dare to go out, so it’s not as crowded as it used to.” added Myint.  The Ramayana dates as far back as 7th to 4th centuries BCE in what is now northwestern India, and became a major cultural and moral influence on Hinduism and Buddhism. Versions of the story of Prince Rama are found across South Asia and Southeast Asia, from the Maldives to the Philippines. Children with Thanaka, a light-yellow cosmetic paste in their faces, gather to watch Ramayana being performed. (RFA photo) She told RFA that fears of instability in Myanmar since the coup has taken away her enjoyment in going to the theater. The Pyapon dancers – proud amateurs with day jobs – are hoping their fame in Myanmar can translate into international support for the struggling troupe. In October they were invited to perform the Ramayana at the Indian embassy in Yangon, 75 miles (120 kilometers), which led to plans to put on the drama in India, Nepal and Indonesia, said Zaw Woo. “While he was giving us certificates of honor, the Indian ambassador – together with diplomats from the Nepali and Indonesian embassies – promised that he would do everything possible to help our Pyapon Ramayana troupe to visit these countries to perform the drama,” he said. Dancing trumps job Passion for performing remains high in Pyapon, despite the gloom and doom. A Ramayanaya performer backstage. The Ramayana was performed continuously even during World War II under Japanese occupation. (RFA photo) “I may not have eaten a meal, but if I’m performing the drama, I’m satisfied,” said Wai Phyo Aung, who is playing the role of Lakshmana, younger brother of Rama and has been dancing in the Ramayana troupe for 15 of his 34 years. He is the first in his family to perform after becoming fascinated with Ramayana dancing as a schoolboy. “I used to work for a company, and I lost my job again and again after performing nine nights,” he told RFA. “So, in order not to lose my next job, I became a taxi driver.” Sein Myint, the 77-year-old father of Zaw Woo, winner of three gold medals in a long dancing career, urges people to help keep the Pyapon Ramayana troupe dancing. “Some people think we are performing the drama because we are receiving payments,” he said. “We’re not. We’re manual laborers. If anyone offers to help us, we’ll accept it at any time.”   Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw. Edited by Paul Eckert.
- [Chairwoman and 85 accomplices indicted in high-profile corruption case](https://ij-reportika.com/chairwoman-and-85-accomplices-indicted-in-high-profile-corruption-case/): Vietnam on Friday issued an indictment against the principal suspect and 85 alleged accomplices in the high-profile Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank embezzlement case, state media reported. Van Thinh Phat Group’s Chairwoman Truong My Lan and her alleged accomplices are charged with accepting bribery, violating banking regulations and embezzlement.   From Feb. 9, 2018, to Oct. 7, 2022, Lan directed the creation of nearly 920 bogus loan applications, appropriating more than 304,000 billion dong, or US$12.5 billion, from the bank, the indictment said.  The case is considered to be one of the biggest corruption cases in Vietnam ever and the value of the known embezzled funds amounts to about 6% of Vietnam’s GDP. The indictment said that from 2012 to October 2022, Lan acquired 85-91.5 percent of Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank, or SCB, and then controlled and manipulated the bank’s activities.  She is accused of directing her subordinates to recruit personnel and appoint relatives and close associates to key SCB positions.  She is also accused of establishing several SCB units dedicated to lending and disbursement at her request, establishing and using thousands of “ghost” companies and hiring multiple people to collude with leaders of many related businesses to commit crimes. Lan’s accomplices allegedly colluded with many asset validation companies to inflate collateral values, creating a large number of fake loan applications to take money from SCB.  They are also believed to have made plans to withdraw money, manipulate money flows after disbursement, sell bad debts and defer credit grants to reduce outstanding debts and bad debts and cover up their wrongdoings as well as bribing and influencing government officers to break the law.  According to the Vietnam Supreme Procuracy, five former SCB leaders are on the run, including  Dinh Van Thanh, former chairman of SCB’s Board of Directors, who left the country before the case was filed; Chiem Minh Dung, the former SCB deputy director, who also fled abroad and is wanted; Tram Thich Ton, a member of SCB&#8217;s Board of Directors; Nguyen Thi Thu Suong, another former Chairwoman of SCB’s Board of Directors; and Nguyen Lam Anh Vu, a former SCB staff member. Web of greed and deceit The indictment also said that 15 former officers from the State Bank of Vietnam, three former officers from the government inspectorate, and a former officer of the State Audit of Vietnam were prosecuted for “embezzlement,” “accepting bribes,” “abusing their position of authority on official duty,” “dereliction of responsibility, causing serious consequences,” and “violating regulations on banking activities.” The former government officers discovered many wrongdoings during their inspecting activities but let them happen.  Do Thi Nhan, the former director of the Inspectorate and Supervision Department is accused of receiving bribes of$5.2 million, according to the indictment.  According to the Vietnam Supreme Procuracy, Lan did not acknowledge her wrongdoing during the investigation, while 80 other defendants honestly testified and admitted their violations in compliance with the evidence and documents collected by the investigation security agency.  Lan’s niece, Truong Hue Van, who is the director general of Windsor Property Management Group Corporation, was said to have paid back over 1,063 billion dong ($43.7 million). Meanwhile, Lan’s husband Chu Lap, the co-chairman of the board of directors of Times Square Investment Company, has returned 1 billion dong ($41,000).  Former director Nhan returned $4.8 million of the $5.2 million she is accused of having received, in addition t10 savings books worth more than 10 billion dong $411,000. RFA reported in November that experts have said that the SCB scandal is just the “tip of the iceberg” in terms of uncovering corruption in Vietnam. Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Tibetan activist and former political prisoner dies at 54](https://ij-reportika.com/tibetan-activist-and-former-political-prisoner-dies-at-54/): Kunchok Lodoe, a Tibetan activist who was sentenced to 13 years in prison for protesting against the Chinese government, died Monday at the age of 54, Radio Free Asia has learned. Lodoe’s friends and fellow activists reported that he was in overall good health before his death on Dec. 11. “Kunchok Lodoe was doing well the day before he died, so his death was very sudden,” former political prisoner Ngawang Sangdrol told RFA.  “Many political prisoners die in their 40s, mostly because of the severe torture they go through while in the prison.” Lodoe was sentenced to 13 years at Drapchi Prison in Lhasa, Tibet’s largest detention center. But after being subjected to “tremendous physical torture,” he began experiencing serious health issues related to his liver and was released in 1995 to undergo medical treatment, Sangdrol said. Sangdrol, a childhood friend of Lodoe who now resides in the United States, was imprisoned alongside him at Drapchi Prison in Lhasa. Lodoe, who was born in Meldrogunkar county near Lhasa, was first arrested in 1992 for participating in a protest against the Chinese government.  “Kunchok Lodoe, along with four other Tibetans, took to the streets on June 30, 1992, to protest the Chinese government,” Sangdrol recounted.  “They unfurled the Tibetan flag and shouted ‘free Tibet’ outside of the building where local Chinese leaders were holding a meeting.” “Five of us, including Kunchok Lodoe, shouted slogans such as &#8216;Long live the Dalai Lama,’ &#8216;Free Tibet,&#8217; and ‘End China&#8217;s one-child policy,’” recounted Sonam Dorjee, a Tibetan activist who protested alongside Lodoe in 1992. “During that time, the exploitation of Tibet&#8217;s natural resources by the Chinese government was at its peak, so we also shouted, &#8216;Stop exploiting our natural resources!’ We even took down a Chinese flag outside the building and unfurled our Tibetan flag. That’s why we were imprisoned.” “We were beaten a lot during our time in prison, especially our chests and stomachs,” Dorjee, who now resides in Switzerland, told RFA. “I remember Kunchok had health issues with his liver that made him so weak and sick all the time.” Jamphel Monlam, a former political prisoner and researcher at the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Dharamsala, expressed his respect for Lodoe’s activism.   “Kunchok Lodoe and the four other Tibetans arrested in 1992 [come from simple backgrounds] and their courage to protest in front of the Chinese authorities is commendable,” he told RFA.  “I know they went through both physical and mental torture while in prison. It’s very sad to learn that [Lodoe] is no more.” Translated by Tenzin Dickyi. Edited by Claire McCrea and Malcolm Foster.
- [Junta shelling forces residents to flee Myanmar township](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-shelling-forces-residents-to-flee-myanmar-township/): Almost all the residents of a Kachin Independence Army-controlled town were forced to flee when Myanmar’s junta fired heavy artillery at residential areas, according to army officials and locals. In an online video seen by Radio Free Asia an alarm can be heard and school children are seen running to safety. A resident, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals, told RFA that junta troops stationed in Lwegel fired heavy weapons on Mai Ja Yang town from early Friday morning. “At around 10 a.m., five heavy weapons were fired,” the local said.  “I was still sleeping when the first shells were fired. The sound of the mortar could be heard, and a house in the city was hit. We all ran away. The students who were attending school also ran away in fear. There are not many people in the city now.” A university, a college, two high schools and a primary school all fall under the governorship of the Mai Ja Yang Institute of Education led by the Kachin Independence Organization, the political wing of the Kachin Independence Army. College students who were sitting exams had to abandon their classrooms when the junta shelled the area, residents said, adding that two high school students and a civilian adult were injured but not critically. Kachin Independence Organization Information Officer Col. Naw Bu said the junta shelled the town and carried out air raids on the group’s headquarters in Laizar in retaliation for the Kachin Independence Army seizing two joint camps of junta troops and affiliated militia. “The militia camp in Ta Law Gyi was captured this morning and another militia camp in Baw Sar Dee village, which is between Ta Law Gyi and Shwe Nyaung Pin villages was also captured,” he said. “The junta side opened fire with heavy weapons believed to be 105 millimeters in the direction of  Mai Ja Yang and Laizar towns. The junta carried out an airstrike near Mong Set Par village and we are still investigating whether people have been injured.” RFA called junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun seeking comment, but calls went unanswered. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.  
- [Third time a charm?](https://ij-reportika.com/third-time-a-charm/): Scores of high-level officials and experts from multiple countries have nominated jailed Uyghur academic Ilham Tohti to receive the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize. Tohti, 53, was shortlisted for the Peace Prize in 2020 and 2023. He is serving a life sentence, with no contact with his family for years, on separatism charges for what supporters say were efforts to promote peaceful interethnic dialogue between Uyghurs and China’s Han Chinese majority.
- [Shelling kills 3, including a child, in Myanmar’s Mandalay region](https://ij-reportika.com/shelling-kills-3-including-a-child-in-myanmars-mandalay-region/): Heavy weaponry in central Myanmar killed three civilians, residents told Radio Free Asia on Thursday. Junta troops fired a shell at Mandalay division’s Tha Hpan Kaing village on Wednesday night, killing two women and a child, locals said. The victims are eight-year-old Su Su Nway, 17-year-old Nadi Hlaing, and 45-year-old Ma Nwe, all from Tha Hpan Kaing village.  Two people were also injured, including Ma Nwe’s son, one resident said, asking to remain anonymous for security reasons. Six-year-old Htet Pyae Sone Chit and 31-year-old Aye Min Thu are being treated for their injuries.  “The injured six-year-old boy is the son of the dead woman, Ma Nwe. And all the people who were hit by the heavy artillery are relatives,” he told RFA Burmese on Dec. 14. “The military junta deliberately shot into the village, rather than indiscriminately shooting. Lately, Madaya township has been experiencing daily attacks with heavy weaponry.” Ten soldiers entered Madaya township from neighboring Patheingyi township on a truck and fired 120 millimeter shells at Tha Hpan Kaing village, he added. Troops shot from roughly 10 kilometers (six miles) away in Kyauk Ta Dar village around 8 p.m. on Wednesday. Calls by RFA to Mandalay’s junta spokesperson Thein Htay to learn more about the attack went unanswered on Thursday.  Tha Hpan Kaing village is a large village in the region, with 500 houses, residents said, adding that it’s 16 kilometers (10 miles) from Mandalay’s Madaya city. Troops also fired weaponry from Kyauk Ta Dar village at other villages in the area before Wednesday’s attack, locals said. On Tuesday, a two-hour battle erupted between junta troops and joint defense forces near Kyauk Ta Dar village. Following the battle, junta soldiers fired heavy weapons toward the War Lone Pyun village, but there were no reported injuries, residents told RFA Burmese. The fighting between the junta and local People’s Defense Forces has intensified since November in Madaya township, residents and People’s Defense Force members said. As fighting escalates, so have junta raids on nearby villages. Soldiers are using helicopters to fire shells at villages where they believe resistance groups may be sheltering, according to locals. Data compiled by RFA show attacks on villages in Madaya township have killed 17 locals and injured three in November alone. From Jan. 2022 to Sept. 2023, RFA found that 816 civilians have died and 1,628 were injured by heavy weapons and airstrikes across the country.  Edited by Taejun Kang.
- [Motorcycle protester appears in 'confessional' video](https://ij-reportika.com/motorcycle-protester-appears-in-confessional-video/): A man jailed for nine years for riding a motorcycle carrying a banned slogan of the 2019 protest movement has appeared in another mainland Chinese-style televised &#8220;confession,&#8221; as part of a series of propaganda films made by the Hong Kong police in praise of a harsh security law. &#8220;I wasn&#8217;t thinking straight. I was under the influence of the atmosphere that prevailed at that time,&#8221; Tong Ying-kit says in the police-made video published Dec. 12 to the website of Hong Kong broadcaster TVB.  &#8220;It felt as if there was no way to resolve issues other than through violence,&#8221; says Tong, who appears in prison uniform with his back to the camera. A narrator intones: &#8220;Tong Ying-kit became the first person to be prosecuted under the National Security Law for &#8216;inciting others to secession&#8217; and &#8216;terrorism.&#8217; He was just 23 years old at the time.&#8221; Motorcyclist Tong Ying-kit carries a flag reading &#8220;Free Hong Kong, revolution now!&#8221; during a protest in Hong Kong, July 1, 2020. (Cable TV Hong Kong via AP) The video is the second &#8220;confession&#8221; by a political prisoner to air in Hong Kong, and comes amid a citywide crackdown on political opposition and public criticism of the authorities under the National Security Law, which Beijing imposed in 2020 in response to protests the year before. Last week, Tsang Chi-kin, who was jailed for &#8220;rioting&#8221; after being shot in the chest by police during the 2019 protest movement, made a similar video claiming that he too was drawn into the movement as emotions ran high. &#8220;#HongKong police &amp; pro-CCP TV station TVB have broadcast a #propaganda video of Tong Ying-kit, the 1st person prosecuted under the national security law,&#8221; the U.S.-based Hong Kong Democracy Council said via its account on X, formerly Twitter. &#8220;This is the 2nd show using a #PoliticalPrisoner. It is reprehensible coercion similar to CCP-style forced televised confession,&#8221; the council said. ‘Free Hong Kong’ banner Tong was jailed in July 2021 after much of the case was spent deciding whether the banned protest slogan on his banner – &#8220;Free Hong Kong, revolution now!&#8221; – could be considered an incitement to secession, or independence for the city. The judges said Tong&#8217;s offense was &#8220;serious&#8221; and therefore deserving of a jail term of between five and 10 years, but said his call for &#8220;secession&#8221; hadn&#8217;t come with a plan attached, and that he had committed the offense alone. They said that while the police officers who brought him and his motorbike down weren&#8217;t seriously injured, Tong&#8217;s actions were pre-planned, and his bike was a &#8220;lethal weapon.&#8221; Tong Ying-kit arrives at court in Hong Kong. July 6, 2020. (Vincent Yu/AP) &#8220;These were very serious criminal charges that could have resulted in life imprisonment,&#8221; Tong says in the video. The narrator highlights how much he misses his family, adding that he has enrolled in a rehabilitation program to help him &#8220;manage his emotions,&#8221; and is studying for a high-school qualification. The ends with footage of Tong handling and saluting the flag of the People&#8217;s Republic of China in a formal flag-raising ceremony of the kind now commonly seen in schools and other public institutions in Hong Kong. Political prisoner honored The video was released as another prominent political prisoner – barrister and former 1989 Tiananmen massacre vigil organizer Chow Hang-tung – was honored by two European governments with a human rights award. Chow was announced on International Human Rights Day as one of 12 activists, journalists and lawyers &#8220;working to defend the inalienable rights of each and every human being&#8221; being presented with the Franco-German Prize for Human Rights and the Rule of Law. &#8220;The prizewinners &#8230; stand up for those whose voices would often not be heard without them, such as women, refugees, LGBTIQ+ people and prisoners,&#8221; according to the award website.  Chow Hang-tung, a barrister and former 1989 Tiananmen massacre vigil organizer in Hong Kong, poses after an interview in Hong Kong, May 24, 2021. (Vincent Yu/AP) &#8220;They are committed to the cause of justice, political participation and unbiased reporting in the media, often risking their own freedom, frequently even their lives, under the most difficult conditions,&#8221; it said. The Hong Kong government hit out at the foreign affairs ministries of France and Germany over the award, expressing its &#8220;strong disapproval.&#8221; &#8220;Chow Hang-tung is facing a criminal prosecution of &#8216;incitement to subversion&#8217; and the case has been committed to the Court of First Instance of the High Court awaiting trial,&#8221; a spokesman said. &#8220;The judicial proceedings of the case are still ongoing, but the ministries of foreign affairs of France and Germany have issued the so-called prize &#8230; in the name of &#8216;human rights&#8217; and the &#8216;rule of law&#8217;.&#8221; Authorities in Hong Kong will continue to &#8220;effectively prevent, suppress and punish acts and activities that endanger national security,&#8221; the spokesman said. Last month, Chow, who has been behind bars since September 2021, was honored with Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe human rights awards, alongside Chinese rights attorneys Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi, who were jailed in April for attending a 2019 gathering of dissidents in the southeastern city of Xiamen. Translated with additional reporting by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Junta kills 3 during raid in central Myanmar while torching a village](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-kills-3-during-raid-in-central-myanmar-while-torching-a-village/): Three people are dead and nearly 30 houses have been burned down following a junta raid, residents told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday. On Tuesday, a junta battalion with roughly 100 members from Sagaing city’s 33rd Division entered Pan Chi village, locals said. One victim was a civilian and the other two were members of local People’s Defense Forces, one man added, asking to remain anonymous for security reasons. The civilian was 40-year-old Lin Lin, who returned to the village to help his parents. “The junta troops entered the village with loud gunfire. They started burning a house that they thought belonged to the village chief. One man, who has since died, returned to the village to rescue his parents,” he told RFA. “He planned to carry them on his back, as his parents were not able to run during the raid. But he was shot in the chest before he reached his parents. He was cremated immediately on Tuesday.” Later that day, two resistance group members were also shot dead near the village. About 10 villagers were arrested and interrogated in the village monastery, the local added. They have since been released. Junta troops raided Pan Chi village because a captain and a soldier from battalion No. 6005 went missing on Monday evening, another resident told RFA. “I heard that [the missing soldiers] wanted to join the Civil Disobedience Movement. They linked up with the defense forces and rode along with the car while they went shopping in Ohn Taw village,” he said, asking to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. “But from [the junta’s] point of view, they thought it was an arrest by the People’s Defense Forces. They saw that the car was driven towards the road leading to Yae Myet village. [Junta troops] went to check in Yae Myet village, but they were not there.” On Wednesday morning following the attack, junta troops arrested 15 men sheltering in two monasteries with other villagers in Ohn Taw village on suspicion of being associated with resistance groups, he said, adding that the entire village had fled. Nearly 5,000 residents from Sagaing’s Pan Chi, Ohn Taw, and Yae Myet villages ran to safety as a result of the arrests and killings. Calls to Sagaing region’s junta spokesperson Sai Naing Naing Kyaw by RFA to learn more about the attacks went unanswered. In May 2022, a defense camp near Pan Chi village was torched and eight members of the defense forces were killed, according to the residents and defense forces. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.  
- [Pro-Beijing ‘thugs’ tormented Xi protesters, activists say](https://ij-reportika.com/pro-beijing-thugs-tormented-xi-protesters-activists-say/): China’s embassy and consulates in the United States bused hundreds of pro-Beijing counter-protesters to San Francisco last month to violently suppress demonstrations against Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit, activists and a U.S. lawmaker said on Tuesday. In many cases, the San Francisco Police Department stood idly by while the assaults were occurring, according to the activists. Speaking at a media event organized by the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, the Tibetan, Uyghur, Chinese and Hong Konger activists said the pro-Beijing counter-protesters constantly harassed them and even assaulted them during Xi’s four-day visit to the city. Xi was in San Francisco for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, during which he also met U.S. President Joe Biden in what the White House promoted as a chance for warmer U.S.-China ties. On the streets of San Francisco, things were far less cordial, with pro-Beijing counter-protesters harassing any anti-Xi voices across the four days of the summit and beating many who did not flee, said Anna Kwok, executive director of the Hong Kong Democracy Council. What she witnessed made her “heart ache,” she said, and had changed her mind about the scope of trans-national repression in America and, therefore, the safety of speaking out on U.S. soil. Anna Kwok, executive director of Hong Kong Democracy Council, speaks during an event in Washington, D.C., to present evidence of violence and harassment by pro-Chinese Communist Party groups at the APEC Leaders’ Summit in San Francisco in Nov. 2023. (Gemunu Amarasinghe/RFA) “I thought the United States was a safe haven for me to continue my advocacy work, but last month proved me all wrong,” Kwok said. “I’m very sorry to say that I no longer feel safe to be in the United States, and I no longer feel safe to continue doing my advocacy work.” “I urge authorities to conduct a thorough and extensive investigation into the violence waged against us,” she said. “Congress should also pass policies to combat transnational repression.” ‘I thought we were safe’ Wearing a black eye patch, Kaiyu Zhang said he fled from China to the United States earlier this year to escape political persecution, and decided to exercise his newfound freedoms by joining a protest against Xi’s arrival at San Francisco International Airport on Nov. 14. After parking his car at a Costco about 10 minutes’ walk away from the protest, he said, about “a dozen young Chinese men” started following him – likely, he said, after hearing him speak Cantonese to a friend, which caused them to offer an expletive-ridden rant about Hong Kong. “I thought we were safe in America,” Zhang said. So he replied with a similar collection of expletives about China’s soon-to-arrive president. The next thing he knew, he recalled, he was thrown to the ground and was being beaten “violently” by the men. Another group of men arrived to join in at some point, he said, and he then lost consciousness. He later posted a video of the men onto the X social media platform. “It was a well-organized and well-coordinated assault,” Zhang said. “The groups of thugs were wearing red headbands and red scarves to identify fellow thug members, and to coordinate with each other.” Like Kwok, Zhang said his time in San Francisco opened his eyes. He had once been surprised to meet other Chinese immigrants who still counsel others against publicly criticizing the Chinese Communist Party, even while in the United States. “I was once angry with them,” he said. “Now I understand why.” Police inaction The activists spoke of the pervasiveness of the harassment. Pema Doma, the executive director of Students for a Free Tibet, estimated about two dozen young Tibetan-Americans were assaulted by the pro-CCP counter-protesters during APEC. Doma said the “thugs” appeared to be targeting young protesters – including following them home on the subway from protests – in order to scare the groups into disbanding or ending the anti-Xi protests. “Chinese CCP agents were targeting individuals and picking them off from the group as if they were prey,” she said. “I was very proud that night when the student activists, some of them as young as 16 … decided they will stay at the protest regardless of the threats.” The counter-protesters worked together to use large Chinese flags both as weapons – leveraging the poles to beat their targets – as well as covers to hide their violent activities from nearby police, she said. In one particularly bad case, Doma recounted, a Tibetan-American mother alerted police to her son being beaten “about 50 feet away,” but they refused to intervene because it was obscured by the flags.  A woman protesting Chinese President Xi Jinping’s arrival at a hotel in downtown San Francisco on Nov. 14 is surrounded by pro-Beijing counter-protesters bearing large flags (Alex Willemyns/RFA) Instead, she said, police cautioned her not to stay away. “I have never felt such disappointment as when the San Francisco Police Department told me ‘We cannot go there,’ and they actually restrained the mother from going to her own child,” she said. “I have never felt so powerless as a Tibetan-American person.”  RFA reporters in San Francisco last month witnessed a separate incident where a protester outside the Chinese president’s downtown hotel was surrounded by a group bearing large flags before being thrown to the ground and stomped on as police stood nearby. Calls for investigation Both the San Francisco Police Department and the Chinese Embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment from RFA. Rep. Chris Smith, a Republican from New Jersey who serves as a co-chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, told the news conference that he believed police on the scene were acting on orders “from above” and said an investigation was warranted. “These claims, as well as the non-responsiveness of the San Francisco Police Department … must be investigated, as this marks an escalation of flagrant transnational repression on United States soil,” Smith said. Rep. Christopher Smith (R-NJ), chair of Congressional-Executive Commission on China, speaks during...
- [Junta troops seize orphanage during battle in central Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-troops-seize-orphanage-during-battle-in-central-myanmar/): Junta soldiers sheltered in an orphanage in central Myanmar to deter resistance groups from attacking, locals and People’s Defense Forces told Radio Free Asia on Tuesday.  A junta military camp in Sagaing region’s Tamu township was abandoned by troops in November when it was captured by resistance groups, local People’s Defense Forces said. While attempting to recapture their lost base, junta troops positioned themselves in Kampat city’s orphanage on Sunday. Forty people were in the orphanage at the time, including 36 children and four teachers.  On Sunday, junta soldiers launched an attack on People’s Defense Forces from outside the building, according to a resistance group official, adding that the troops used heavy and small weapons, as well as airstrikes.  However, the resistance group removed the teachers and children from the orphanage on Monday, the official added.  “That orphanage is near the military camp on the hill. The junta troops regained control of that camp on the hill using the orphans as human shields,” he told RFA, asking to be kept anonymous for fear of reprisals.  “Both the children and the adults in that orphanage tried to escape, but they did not succeed. So they were evacuated by our People’s Defense Forces at around 12 yesterday. Now they are in a safe place.” The orphanage is owned by a Christian church in No. 1 neighborhood of Kampat city. Nearby are a police station and a temporary military camp on the hill, residents said, which troops regained control of after the battle.  Intense fighting on the India-Myanmar border near Kampat city has been constant since the end of October. People’s Defense Forces claim to have captured Kampat on Nov. 7. Almost a month later on Wednesday, junta troops launched an offensive to recapture the city, defense force officials told RFA. Since then, fighting has continued. On Sunday, the military junta carried out an aerial attack around the Kampat Police Station near the orphanage, he added.  Calls by RFA to Sagaing region’s junta spokesperson Sai Naing Naing Kyaw seeking comment on the incident went unanswered Tuesday. Nearly 5,000 residents from four neighborhoods in Kampat city and surrounding villages have fled on Tuesday, some to the Indian border. Fighting has also intensified near Tamu city, making it difficult for locals to find a place to seek shelter, residents said. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Jailed Uyghur academic Ilham Tohti nominated for Nobel Peace Prize](https://ij-reportika.com/jailed-uyghur-academic-ilham-tohti-nominated-for-nobel-peace-prize/): More than 180 high-level officials and experts have nominated jailed Uyghur academic and blogger Ilham Tohti to receive the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize, citing his role as “the true symbol of the Uyghur people&#8217;s fight for freedom” under Chinese rule in Xinjiang. The nomination includes signatures from ministers, parliamentarians, university rectors and professors from countries including Canada, Japan, Rwanda, Australia, Paraguay, Turkey and France – a “broad international coalition” which initiative leaders Vanessa Frangville of the Free University of Brussels, Belgium, and Belgian MP Samuel Cogolati believe will bolster the 53-year-old Tohti’s chances at securing the award. “At a time when the U.N. is denouncing &#8216;crimes against humanity&#8217; in Xinjiang, it is our duty to break the silence towards Xi Jinping&#8217;s totalitarian regime and support the true symbol of the Uyghur people&#8217;s fight for freedom,” they said in a statement on Monday. Supporters nominated Tohti days after the anniversary of a Dec. 9, 2021, ruling by an independent Uyghur Tribunal – composed of international legal experts, scholars, and NGO representatives – that China has perpetrated genocide against the Uyghur people. An outspoken economics professor who regularly highlighted the religious and cultural persecution of the mostly Muslim Uyghur ethnic minority in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Tohti was sentenced to life in prison on Sept. 23, 2014, following a two-day show trial on charges of promoting separatism. The court decision cited Tohti’s criticism of Beijing’s ethnic policies, his interviews with overseas media outlets, and his work founding and running the Chinese-language website Uighurbiz.net, which was shut down by Chinese authorities in 2014. But while Beijing has denounced the academic as a “separatist,” others have highlighted what they say is his commitment to peaceful interethnic dialogue between members of his ethnic group and China’s Han Chinese majority. Tohti was shortlisted for the Peace Prize in 2020 and 2023. Supporters of this year’s nomination include Kenneth Roth, former director of Human Rights Watch and co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997, and U.S. Congressman Chris Smith, who is also chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. Two members of the Belgian federal government, the speaker of the Belgian senate, two political party leaders from France, the first member of Japan’s parliament of Uyghur origin, and a member of the U.K. House of Lords also lent their names to the nomination. ‘Unprecedented’ nomination In an interview with RFA Uyghur, Cogolati called the initiative to nominate Tohti “unprecedented” because of the breadth of political views, backgrounds and global perspectives represented. “This time, we really decided to mark the occasion by joining forces between the academic and political worlds,” he said. “Ilham Tohti has always been cited as a possible favorite for the next Nobel Peace Prize. This time, what&#8217;s really different is that we were able to join forces between not only members of parliament all around the world, but also with universities, with rectors, university directors and professors.” From left: Enver Can, founder of İlham Tohti Initiative, Jewher Ilham, Ilham Tohti’s daughter, Belgian MP Samuel Cogolati and Free University of Brussels professor Vanessa Fangville are seen at a press conference on Monday, Dec. 11, 2023. (Samuel Cogolati) Cogolati said that the international community has a “duty to raise their voice and to condemn the atrocities altogether” when China is working to “silence public intellectuals like Ilham Tohti.” “He&#8217;s really a symbol of the fight of the people for freedom, but also for reconciliation, for peace and dialogue with Chinese people,” he said. “So that&#8217;s why, for us, it&#8217;s not only a fight for the recognition of the amazing academic talents and of the work of Ilham Tohti. But it is also a recognition of the fight of all Uyghurs around the world who are being persecuted by the totalitarian regime of [Chinese President] Xi Jinping.” The Belgian lawmaker said the outsize influence China can exert on international institutions was not lost on him, noting that in 2010, after Norway’s Nobel committee awarded the Peace Prize to then-jailed Chinese democracy activist Liu Xiaobo, Beijing imposed trade sanctions on Oslo. Liu died from late-stage liver cancer in 2017 while serving an 11-year jail term for subversion. “We really recognize the implications and the impact,” he said. “But what we say is that peace is more important. Life, dignity, and freedom for your people are more important.” Withstanding Chinese pressure Tohti’s daughter, Jewher Ilham, told RFA that a win for her father next year would “send a message to the Chinese government that my father has not been forgotten” and force Beijing to demonstrate proof of life for the long-jailed scholar. Additionally, she said, awarding Tohti the Peace Prize would “prove to the Chinese government and the international community that the Nobel Peace Committee is a separate entity that would not be influenced by political pressure – whether it is from China or Norway.” Human Rights Watch China Director Sophie Richardson agreed that the Nobel Committee is “capable of withstanding [the] kind of pressure” China exerted on it after Liu’s win. “When Liu Xiabo won the Nobel Peace Prize. I think it was understood and felt not just as a win for him, but indeed for peaceful critics of the Chinese government all across the country and the world,” she said. “And I think it would probably have the same effect, not just for Uyghurs, but for all people who have suffered oppression at the hands of the Chinese government.” “It would be an enormous boost to Uyghurs worldwide to have their community and somebody who&#8217;s a longtime leader of it be recognized for his extraordinary contributions to peaceful debate, to the idea of equality, to the preservation of a distinct Uyghur identity.” Tohti has received more than 10 international human rights awards since his sentencing, including the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders in 2016 and the Sakharov Award for “Freedom of Thought” in 2019. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
- [Artillery hits children playing, killing girl in western Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/artillery-hits-children-playing-killing-girl-in-western-myanmar/): Heavy shelling killed a child and injured five others in western Myanmar, locals told Radio Free Asia on Monday.  An artillery blast landed in a home in Rakhine state’s Minbya township on Sunday night where five children were playing together. A thirteen-year-old named Sabel died as a result. Four other children were injured, along with a woman who was in the house, Minbya residents said.  Sabel died instantly, and the injured victims were sent to the hospital, said a resident of Okkar Pyan neighborhood, where the attack occurred.  “A heavy weapon dropped on Soe Tint’s house. His daughter was hit in the head and died on the spot,” he told RFA, asking to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. “Children playing together were also injured, and were sent to the hospital as an emergency case.” Locals claimed the shelling was done by the junta’s Minbya-based battalion 380, but RFA has not been able to independently verify this.  Attacks in Minbya city and surrounding villages have resulted in a total of one death and eight injuries on Sunday, according to the Three Brotherhood Alliance’s statement.The alliance is composed of four ethnic armed resistance groups, including the Arakan Army.  In addition to one death and five injuries in Minbya, a drone attack by junta forces injured a 12-year-old child and damaged a house in Sittwe township’s War Bo village on Sunday, the statement said. Two heavy explosives dropped by the junta in Ponnagyun township’s Pa Day Thar village destroyed houses and injured residents the same day, it added. RFA called Rakhine state’s junta spokesperson Hla Thein to learn more about civilian casualties, but he did not respond by the time of publication.  Since fighting resumed in Rakhine state on Nov. 13, clashes and attacks have killed 19 civilians and injured 60 others, according to data compiled by RFA.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Taiwan calligraphy exhibit honors Tibetans who self-immolated](https://ij-reportika.com/taiwan-calligraphy-exhibit-honors-tibetans-who-self-immolated/): On Sunday, Tibetans around the world will be protesting outside Chinese embassies around the world to mark International Human Rights Day.   There is no Chinese Embassy in democratic Taiwan, so the Dalai Lama Foundation will exhibit 166 works of calligraphy by Ho Tsung-hsun, with prayers and chants from five Buddhist teachers honoring the &#8220;heroes and martyrs&#8221; of the Tibetan resistance movement instead.  The exhibit – titled &#8220;Those Who Give Fearlessly&#8221; – will honor 166 Tibetans inside and outside China who have set themselves on fire as an act of resistance to Chinese Communist Party rule, and in pursuit of freedom, Ho told Radio Free Asia in a recent interview. &#8220;I was very worried when I was doing this that people would think that I was encouraging self-immolation,&#8221; Ho said. &#8220;But these things happened – that&#8217;s a fact.&#8221; &#8220;You can&#8217;t erase an entire nationality from the historical record who have made such sacrifices in pursuit of their freedom,&#8221; he said.  Ho made the exhibit not to advocate self-immolation, but to highlight the despair and helplessness of those who use it as a form of protest, he said.  In 2020, Ho Tsung-hsun arranged the names of people who self-immolated around an outline of Tibet. (Provided by Ho Tsung-hsun) &#8220;Self-immolation is a last-ditch choice – there must be so much going on in people&#8217;s minds that we can&#8217;t understand,&#8221; he said. &#8220;166 self-immolations in the space of just 10 years is a shocking number.&#8221;  &#8220;Cheng Nan-jung self-immolated right here in Taiwan, and we still see memorials to him here every year marking that day,&#8221; Ho said, in a reference to the 1989 self-immolation of the Taiwanese publisher, in a protest against the lack of free speech under authoritarian, one-party rule by the Kuomintang. Writing history Calligraphic inscriptions have been used since ancient times to record important events, whether on stone steles or on paper, Ho said. He hopes that his imitation of ancient scrolls will pay due respect to the people who burned in the ultimate act of self-sacrifice.  Kelsang Gyaltsen, the Dalai Lama&#8217;s envoy to Taiwan, told Radio Free Asia he was moved by Ho&#8217;s tribute. &#8220;These Tibetans are heroes as we define them in Tibet,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The Chinese government demonizes them as insane, or claims they acted out of desperation due to family or economic disputes, but it&#8217;s not that. No.&#8221;  &#8220;They sacrificed themselves for their country, and for their people.&#8221; Ho Tsung-hsun says Lobsang Phuntsok’s self-immolation death, the second to take place in Tibet, had a powerful effect as it occurred on Ho’s birthday. (Hsia Hsiao-Hwa) Kelsang Gyaltsen said the epithet, &#8220;Those who give fearlessly&#8221; is the highest level of almsgiving in the Buddhist tradition. &#8220;It means to give your life for a just cause,&#8221; he said.  Many of those who set fire to themselves did so while shouting slogans or leaving statements calling for freedom for Tibetans, or for the return of its exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and the protection of Tibetans&#8217; Buddhist and cultural heritage. Some inscribed &#8220;Independence for Tibet&#8221; on their bodies, Kelsang Gyaltsen said.  Anyone who claims that just speaking of the self-immolations means encouraging them is engaging in pro-Beijing &#8220;cognitive warfare,&#8221; he added. &#8220;Who is it who most wants to forget them? Who doesn&#8217;t want us to cherish or remember them? It&#8217;s the brutal Chinese Communist Party regime,&#8221; he said, calling for the anniversary of the first self-immolation – Feb. 27 – to be marked as &#8220;Tibetan Self-Immolation Day.&#8221; Art as protest Ho, who studied advertising and fine arts, started writing calligraphy in high school 40 years ago.  His calligraphy has graced a number of protests over the last three decades in Taiwan, including environmental protection and anti-nuclear campaigns, educational reform movements and political activism.  Ho Tsung-hsun placed images of the the tantric Buddhist deity Palden Lhamo, a protective warrior goddess also known as Shri Devi, and Nechung, a protective deity closely associated with the Dalai Lama, on his desk to help him complete the calligraphy for Namlha Tsering. (Provided by Ho Tsung-hsun) He has an abiding memory of one self-immolation – the second to take place in Tibet, in 2009 &#8212; in particular.  &#8220;Lobsang Phuntsok, who was only 20 years old at the time, self-immolated on March 16, which happened to be my birthday,&#8221; Ho said. &#8220;From then onwards, it seemed as if our souls were connected, and that was when I started to pay attention and care about what was happening.&#8221;  March 16 is also the anniversary of mass protests by Tibetans, including Buddhist monks and nuns in Ngaba, a Tibetan region of China&#8217;s southwestern province of Sichuan, in 2008, that were to be a turning point in the movement for a free Tibet. &#8220;I was shocked, saddened and outraged by each self-immolation, especially during the nearly 90 self-immolations that took place in 2012 – at their peak, we were seeing nearly one a week,&#8221; Ho said. Just thinking about the way Lobsang Phutsok died causes him pain to this day, he said.  Ancient style Ho&#8217;s exhibit will display 166 records of self-immolation by Tibetans using paper and a calligraphic style that matches the style of ancient official records.  Each piece is 34 cm long and 18.5 cm wide (13 x 7 inches). Each work shows the person&#8217;s name, place of birth, identity and age of self-immolation.  Ho&#8217;s exhibit also has the blessing of the Tibetan government-in-exile&#8217;s envoy to Taiwan, who suggested he make sure Tibetans are the central subjects of the work, and add the ancient Tibetan place-names from when the region was a sovereign and independent country, alongside the modern place-names that are used under Chinese rule.  One record reads: &#8220;Lobsang Tashi, a monk from Amdo in today&#8217;s Sichuan, was 24 years old when he set himself on fire on Feb. 27, 2009, to fight for the freedom of Tibetans.&#8221; Every one of the 166 self-immolators, who include elderly in their 80s, 16-year-old students, high-ranking Buddhist teachers, or Rinpoche, monks, nuns, students and women, is given equal...
- [Philippines, China accuse each other of ship ramming](https://ij-reportika.com/philippines-china-accuse-each-other-of-ship-ramming/): Beijing and Manila traded accusations on Sunday morning with each side claiming its ships were harassed and rammed by the other. A Philippine spokesman said Philippine civilian supply vessels on a routine resupply and rotation mission to the BRP Sierra Madre – the old landing ship that Manila deliberately grounded on the Second Thomas Shoal to serve as an outpost in 1999 – were “harassed, blocked, and executed dangerous maneuvers on” by the Chinese coast guard and maritime militia vessels. Jay Tarriela, the Philippine coast guard’s spokesperson, posted on the social media site X a statement by the National Task Force for the West Philippine Sea, the part of the South China Sea under Manila’s jurisdiction, saying that the resupply boat Unaizah Mae 1 (UM1) was rammed by the Chinese coast guard ship CCG 21556. The Chinese coast guard earlier issued a statement saying that at 06:39 a.m. the UM1 “ignored CCG repeated stern warnings, violated the COLREGs (Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea), swerved in an unprofessional and dangerous manner, and deliberately collided into the CCG boat 21556, resulting in scratches, for which the Philippines is fully responsible.” Ship ramming is generally considered an act of violence and could cause serious damage to vessels, as well as injuries to the crew on board. There have been instances of ship ramming in the South China Sea but no state has ever officially sanctioned this dangerous tactic. The previous time Manila accused Chinese vessels of ramming its ships was on Oct. 22, also in the waters off the Second Thomas Shoal, known by Filippinos as Ayungin Shoal and by the Chinese as Ren’ai Jiao. China denied it. The Philippines afterwards summoned the Chinese ambassador and filed a diplomatic protest against China’s action.  The United States also expressed concern, issuing a warning that Washington is obligated to defend the Philippines under a 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty if Filipino forces, ships and aircraft come under armed attack, including &#8220;those of its coast guard — anywhere in the South China Sea.&#8221; Cat and mouse Manila and Beijing have been playing cat and mouse around the Second Thomas Shoal. The Philippines is making regular resupply missions to the troops stationed on the Sierra Madre and the Chinese coast guard has been trying to prevent them. The statement from the Philippine National Task Force said that on Sunday morning “CCG vessel 5204 deployed a water cannon against the Philippine supply vessels causing severe damage to M/L [motor launch] Kalavaan&#8217;s engines, disabling the vessel and seriously endangering the lives of its crew.” It also showed photos of the Kalavaan being water cannoned and then towed to port. “We condemn, once again, China&#8217;s latest unprovoked acts of coercion and dangerous maneuvers against a legitimate and routine Philippine rotation and resupply mission,” the statement said. “The Philippines will not be deterred from exercising our legal rights,” it added. Caption: Philippine supply boat Kalavaan being towed to port after being fired on with water cannons, Dec. 10, 2023. (Philippine Coast Guard) On Saturday, Manila accused the Chinese coast guard of deploying water cannons, a floating barrier and painful sound blasts against boats ferrying supplies to Filipino fishermen in disputed waters near another shoal in the South China Sea. Vessels from Manila&#8217;s Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources were targeted by water cannon &#8220;at least eight times&#8221; as they attempted to deliver food and fuel to more than 30 Filipino fishing boats near Scarborough Shoal, said a statement by the National Task Force for the West Philippine Sea. The China Coast Guard responded by saying it had used &#8220;control measures in accordance with the law&#8221; against the Philippine boats as they &#8220;intruded&#8221; into the waters adjacent to the island. Analysts say that Manila has embarked on a tactic of “assertive transparency” in reporting incidents in disputed waters. “Although the term was coined this year, the practice of assertive transparency has been used ever since people dealt with gray zone tactics,” said Alexander Vuving, a professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Hawaii. Gray zone activities are not explicit acts of war but can be harmful to a nation’s security. “For example, during the 2014 oil rig crisis between China and Vietnam, Hanoi ferried international journalists to the site of the oil rig confrontation so they could shed maximum light on the ‘gray zone’.” “This was assertive transparency in practice, although nobody used that term to describe the practice in 2014,” the political analyst told RFA. “This practice has proven to be effective,” said Vuving, adding “The other key was perseverance.” Jason Gutierrez in Manila contributed to this article. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Out of the hills: The war is coming to Myanmar's  cities](https://ij-reportika.com/out-of-the-hills-the-war-is-coming-to-myanmars-cities/): Operation 1027, launched on Oct. 27 by the Three Brotherhood Alliance, has led to coordinated attacks throughout Myanmar and seen the fall of 20 towns and over 300 military posts. But violence is now starting to spread to the cities, a strategic tipping point. Since that offensive against the military in northern Shan state by the alliance – the Arakan Army (AA), the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) – members and others are expanding the battle front against the military junta. In the east, Karenni forces launched Operation 1111 and now control nearly 80% of Kayah state. They are now fighting in the capital Loikaw.  In this Kokang online media provided photo, fighters of Three Brotherhood Alliance check an artillery gun, claimed to have been seized from Myanmar junta outpost on a hill in Hsenwi township, Shan state on Nov. 24, 2023. (The Kokang online media via AP) In western Myanmar, the Arakan Army ended its cease-fire in Rakhine state, and have taken major bases, while Chin forces have made significant inroads along the Indian border and claim to have established civil administration in 70% of the state.  The MNDAA has begun its assault on Laukkaing, the capital of the Kokang region.  Karen forces in Kayin State have taken over parts of the main road to the Thai border, greatly restricting border trade.  On Dec. 3, the opposition National Unity Government announced the establishment of civil administration in Kawlin town in the war-torn Sagaing region, the first township capital to fall to the opposition. The military that took power in a Feb. 2021 coup is increasingly constrained to a diminishing share of the Bamar heartland. But even that is starting to slip away. On Dec. 3, the KNLA and local PDFs took over Mone, the first town to fall in Bago state. Some 17 soldiers surrendered with their weapons. More importantly, the opposition is getting within striking distance of Highway 1 that connects Yangon and Naypyidaw. Military escalation The military has responded with an escalation in the number of long-range artillery and aerial bombing, both of which have resulted in increased civilian casualties. On Dec. 3, the NUG&#8217;s Ministry of Human Rights released details on SAC attacks on civilians, documenting 84 airstrikes, and 112 artillery strikes that resulted in the death of 244 civilians. Such attacks will continue as the military has neither sufficient number of troops to retake lost territory, nor sufficient means to move troops. One cannot control territory from the air.  In a brief moment of candor, Min Aung Hlaing acknowledged some battlefield setbacks, blaming foreign interference.  While there have been significant opposition gains in the countryside, within the cocoons of Mandalay and Yangon, the military regime has gone to great lengths to project a sense of normalcy, so that the population will acquiesce to military rule. Restaurants and bars are open, life goes on. A woman looks through debris in the aftermath of a junta strike on a camp for displaced people near Laiza, northern Myanmar on Oct. 11, 2023. Junta has escalated long range artillery and aerial bombing, both of which have resulted in the increased civilian casualties. (AFP photo) Reports from the ground suggest that the military is building up its defenses in Naypyidaw, Yangon, and Mandalay, with increasing shows of force and patrols of armored vehicles. Naypyidaw is already a fortress city that will be hard to attack. But the recent capture of heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems should give opposition forces the ability to now target the city.  Likewise, greater proximity will allow the small drones and quadcopters that the opposition has used to drop mortar shells the ability to strike targets. Even symbolic strikes in Naypyidaw would sew fear amongst regime loyalists, undermine morale, and sap the will to resist. More urban attacks That is now changing, with more attacks by opposition People’s Defense Forces (PDFs) in the cities in the past month.  The most notable recent attack was the Dec. 1 assassination of the chairman of the pro-military New National Democracy Party, Than Tun. He had been a National League for Democracy (NLD) member before defecting to a pro-military party that was established by a senior advisor to the State Administrative Council (SAC). the junta’s formal name. These assassinations are meant to convey good operational intelligence on the part of the PDFs, and at the same time, serve as a warning that if they can hit someone so close to the SAC, then the military is unable to protect anyone.  Myanmar&#8217;s military junta soldiers on a truck patrol in Yangon, Dec. 4, 2023. Reports from the ground suggest that the military is building up its defenses in Naypyidaw, Yangon, and Mandalay, with increasing shows of force and patrols of armed vehicles. (AFP photo) There have been many assassinations in the past, including the assassination of the chief financial officer of the military owned telecom firm MyTel, and an attack on the current governor of the Central Bank of Myanmar, which wounded her. But the military understands the importance of maintaining a sense of security in the cities. There&#8217;s always been violence in the borderlands, but once violence hit Yangon and Mandalay, people questioned the military&#8217;s hold on power.  To that end, they began deploying Chinese-made CCTV cameras with artificial intelligence. Urban guerrilla networks that were active in 2022, were systematically taken apart. The arrest and torture of one member, often led to the rest of entire cells. This means that the return of urban guerrillas is an important milestone that demonstrates both a decline in the military&#8217;s control over the cities, and the growing confidence of the PDFs to conduct operations. Yangon sees PDF attacks There has been a string of attacks in greater Yangon in the past few weeks. A PDF attacked soldiers guarding the state-owned Electric Power Cooperation Department in both North Okkalapa and South Okkalapa Townships on Nov. 23 and 24, respectively.  On Nov. 29, PDFs attacked a...
- [Police out in force during Lhasa religious festival](https://ij-reportika.com/police-out-in-force-during-lhasa-religious-festival/): Chinese police were out in force during a major religious festival in Tibet’s regional capital of Lhasa on Thursday, residents told Radio Free Asia. It was the latest effort by China to suppress Tibetan religious and cultural expressions by sending a large police force to religious gatherings to surveil attendees.  Marked by displays of butter lamps and candles, the Gaden Ngamchoe festival commemorates the death of Je Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gelukpa school of Tibetan Buddhism, a revered 14th century scholar.  It is observed on the 25th day of the 10th month of the Tibetan calendar, which falls on Dec. 7 this year.   But police in Lhasa prevented followers from gathering in large numbers and restricted the number of those trying to go on a pilgrimage to the Jokang Temple and Potala Palace, a resident there told RFA Tibetan on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The Chinese government has deployed police in great numbers, and checkpoints to screen and restrict the mass public gatherings to observe the Ganden Ngachoe prayer offerings in Lhasa,” the resident said. “Drones are used to track people’s movement.” In video footage RFA obtained from a trusted source, a heavy police presence can be seen all around the Tsuglakhang Temple. The police use high beam flashlights to disperse the crowds around the temple and tell the devotees to keep moving.  The enhanced surveillance came without warning, another resident said.  “Without any prior announcement, the Chinese authorities are distressing devotees from entering Tsuglakhang Temple on this auspicious day,” the second resident said. “There are so many police deployed all around Tsuglakhang and police holding guns can also seen above the temple.”  Though they were allowed to enter the temples, the police were there to ensure that the gatherings did not grow to be too big, the second resident said. “They are dispersing the devotees in sections and screening us and checking our phones at the checkpoints.&#8221;   Translated by Tenzin Dickyi. Edited by Eugene Whong.
- [Junta bombing kills 5, including a child, in northern Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-bombing-kills-5-including-a-child-in-northern-myanmar/): A heavy aerial attack in northeastern Myanmar killed five civilians, an official from an anti-junta women’s organization told Radio Free Asia on Friday.  On Wednesday night, junta aircraft bombed a village in Namhkan township in northern Shan state.  The victims included 46-year-old Tar Ah Swe; 56-year-old Yar Ah Ba; 50-year-old Yar Kham Li; and a 35-year-old male teacher, Yai Lay. A five-year-old girl, Lway O Dae, also died in the attacks, according to Lway, an official from the Ta’ang Women’s Organization.  “The teacher, Yai Lay, is from Namhkan’s Man Pu village. He is sheltering in Ho Nar village because the [military] situation in Namhkan is bad. Tar Ah Swe and Yar Ah Ba are a couple from Pang Long village in Manton township,” she said. “Yar Kham Li and Lway O are mother and daughter. They were all sheltering in a tea trading house to flee the fighting.” Four others, including two six-year-old children, were injured and sent to Namhkan Hospital, she added. Half an hour later, the junta bombed nearby Pang Law village. Seven houses were destroyed in the attack, residents said. The junta’s air force dropped the bombs despite there being no fighting beforehand, a Ta’ang National Liberation Army information official said, confirming five civilians were killed. However, daily battles are erupting at Sa Kham Thit military camp outside of Namhkhan city, about 13 kilometers (eight miles) from the site of the bombing. “The junta bombing was far from the village. There was no fighting in these villages,” he said. “The junta used a 500-pound [226 kilogram] bomb. We can tell because of its intensity.” RFA reached out to Shan state’s junta spokesperson Khun Thein Maung to investigate the group’s claim that the junta dropped 500 pound bombs, but he did not return calls on Friday. During a resistance military offensive called Operation 1027, in which three allied groups won several Shan state cities, the group’s forces also took control of Namhkam, the Ta’ang National Liberation Army said. The group is fighting with junta forces daily to gain control of Sa Kham Thit Hill, more than 1.6 kilometers (one mile) from Namhkan city. Since Operation 1027 launched on Oct. 27, 103 civilians, including 20 children, have been killed according to data compiled by the Ta’ang Women’s Organization. Small weapon fire, heavy artillery and airstrikes, have injured nearly 170 people in northern Shan state.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Vietnam repatriates more than 1,000 of its citizens from Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-repatriates-more-than-1000-of-its-citizens-from-myanmar/): Updated Dec. 7, 2023, 5:25 p.m. ET. Vietnam this week flew home just over 1,000 of its citizens who were stranded in wartorn Myanmar, Hanoi’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced Thursday. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, embassies and consulates in Myanmar organized nine flights to repatriate exactly 1,020 Vietnamese.  Most of the repatriates were stranded in the northern areas of Shan State, where fighting between the junta and ethnic armed groups has intensified, with anti-junta forces making significant gains there in recent months.  In the past, Vietnam has organized flights to evacuate its citizens from troubled areas in the world, including an effort during the COVID-19 pandemic that resulted in a massive scandal as officials skimmed off the top of repatriation funds and accepted bribes.  The ministry stressed that expenses for all repatriation flights from Myanmar were paid by the Vietnamese government. RFA reported earlier this month that 166 Vietnamese citizens who had been trafficked to northern Myanmar but were rescued by authorities, remained stranded in a war zone. On Thursday, a mother of one of the 166 told RFA Vietnamese that her daughter had returned home that day to Phu Quoc Island City in Vietnam’s far southern Kien Giang province. “Everything was free of charge,” she said. “The government helped bring my daughter back to Moc Bai [the border gate between Vietnam and Cambodia], and my family paid for her travel from there to Phu Quoc. I am very, very happy.” She said the Vietnamese Embassy in Myanmar was very supportive, though the repatriation process was a bit complicated due to high volume. In August, RFA reported that 15-year-old Le Thi Tuong Vi was among a group of teenagers who were trafficked first to Laos, and were believed to be headed to either Myanmar or China. Vi was among those repatriated from Myanmar, her mother told RFA, but did not elaborate because her daughter is still recovering from her trip. But Trinh Khanh Hoang Anh, another teenager in the group, has yet to be repatriated, his father Trinh Huu Phuoc told RFA via text message. “There are 166 [Vietnamese] people who have been rescued and were living in a refugee camp of the military,” he said. “This morning, the kids were taken to Myanmar’s Border Gate 127 to verify information but there have been no results yet.” He said the Kien Giang provincial Department of Foreign Affairs advised the family that Anh’s paperwork has been completed but it has not yet arrived at the Vietnamese Embassy. According to the embassy, a number of Vietnamese still remain stranded in northern Myanmar due to ongoing fighting, state media reported. Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.  Update corrects the days that the flights were organized for.
- [Myanmar junta recruiting former resistance fighters to bolster numbers](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-recruiting-former-resistance-fighters-to-bolster-numbers/): Resistance fighters who surrendered to the junta in southwestern Myanmar are now being enlisted by the regime’s military, anti-junta militia members told Radio Free Asia. Junta soldiers are bribing revolutionary groups with money and food, said one official from the Pathein Urban Guerrilla Group on Wednesday. In the last two weeks the pressure has grown to bolster troop numbers by recruiting resistance fighters from Kyonpyaw, Yegyi and Pathein townships in Ayeyarwady region, he said. Both regime soldiers and former resistance group leaders who have surrendered are reported to be stepping up their recruitment tactics.  “Especially [those in] various forms of leadership among the surrenderers. They are called to meet up and recruit others to serve in the [junta-led] militia,” the official said, asking to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. “The steps of organizing each other and asking people to organize to serve in the militia have escalated in the past two weeks.” This month, the junta also recalled retired military and police personnel from Thabaung township, he added. More than 100 people have surrendered to the junta in Ayeyarwady region in the past two years. Members of People’s Defense Forces surrendered by contacting junta forces to give up their positions.  Ayeywarwady residents also accused junta troops of recruiting teen soldiers and pressuring locals to fulfill quotas in October. Pro-military militia members, including those in the Swan Ar Shin militia, have been undergoing military training since September, said a Pathein resident close to the junta army. The training is being provided at several military bases in Ayeyarwady division, including the Kyonpyaw-based Infantry Battalion 36, according to the Pathein Urban Guerrilla Group. In October, a 20-year-old man from Kyonpyaw died during an interrogation by members of Battalion 36 after being accused of communicating with People’s Defense Forces in Mandalay region. RFA has not been able to independently verify the claims made by anti-junta militias. Calls by RFA to Ayeyarwady division’s junta spokesperson Aung Thein Win seeking comment went unanswered. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Indonesia faces criticism over plan to deport Rohingya to Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/indonesia-faces-criticism-over-plan-to-deport-rohingya-to-myanmar/): Human rights activists and observers on Wednesday criticized a plan by the Indonesian government to return nearly 1,500 Rohingya to their home country of Myanmar, where they have faced persecution and violence, according to a report from BenarNews, a news outlet affiliated with Radio Free Asia. The Indonesian government announced the plan a day earlier without giving a deportation date, saying Aceh province, where boats carrying Rohingya mostly land, was running out of space and money. In addition, residents were rejecting the foreigners’ presence. “We’ve been lending a helping hand, and now we’re overwhelmed,” said Mohammad Mahfud MD, the coordinating minister for political, legal and security affairs. “We will discuss how to return them to their country through the U.N. I will lead the meeting.”  The ministry reported that 1,487 Rohingya were in Indonesia, according to media reports. President Joko “Jokwoi” Widodo had tasked the minister with leading government efforts to deal with the issue. Vice President Ma’ruf Amin, however, proposed a different solution: Relocate the Rohingya to an island near Singapore where the Indonesian government had sheltered Vietnamese refugees who escaped their country in the 1980s and 1990s. Nadine Sherani, an activist with KonstraS, a Jakarta-based human rights group, said that by sending the Rohingya to Myanmar they could be exposed to atrocities linked to the junta, which seized power in a military coup in February 2021. “That step will transfer them to the hell they have experienced before,” Nadine told BenarNews.  “Does the government think about the long-term impact of repatriation? The main actor of violence in Myanmar is the junta. That is the reason they left the country,” she said. Oppressed people The Rohingya are one of the world’s most oppressed stateless people, according to the United Nations. They have been denied citizenship and basic rights by the Myanmar government, which considers them illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh.  Following a military offensive in Myanmar’s Rakhine state in 2017 that the U.N. described as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing,” about 740,000 Rohingya fled across the border to Bangladesh. Seeking to escape difficult living conditions in Bangladesh refugee camps in and around Cox’s Bazar district, thousands of Rohingya have risked their lives on perilous sea journeys to reach Indonesia and other destinations. On Wednesday, police in Cox’s Bazar reported that four Rohingya had been killed within 24 hours during gunfights between members of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army and the Arakan Solidarity Organization gangs in the Ukhia refugee camp. Those killings brought the death toll to 10 in the sprawling Rohingya camps over the last 15 days and a total of 186 fatalities linked to violence in the camps since 2017. Meanwhile in Aceh province, the Rohingya presence has caused resentment and hostility from some locals who have accused them of being a burden and a nuisance.  On Nov. 16, a boat carrying 256 Rohingya was initially rejected by at least two groups of villagers in Aceh but was finally allowed to land after being stranded for three days. Another boat carrying more than 100 Rohingya landed on Sabang island on Dec. 2 after locals threatened to push it back to sea. ‘Urgent appeal’ Since then, UNHCR, the U.N. Refugee Agency, issued “an urgent appeal to all countries in the region, particularly those in the area surrounding the Andaman Sea, to swiftly deploy their full search and rescue capacities in response to reported vessels in distress with hundreds of Rohingya at risk of perishing.”  In its statement issued on Saturday, UNHCR said it was concerned that Rohingya on two boats would run out of food and water. “[T]here is a significant risk of fatalities in the coming days if people are not rescued and disembarked to safety.” Mahfud MD said Indonesia had shown compassion by taking in the Rohingya even though it was not a party to the U.N refugee convention, an international treaty that defines rights and obligations of refugees and host countries.  “We could have turned them down flat. But we also have a heart. They could die at sea if no one wants them,” he said. Vietnamese children sit aboard an Indonesian Navy ship at Galang island as they wait to be repatriated from the island’s refugee camp, June 26, 1996. [Reuters] Ma’ruf, the vice president, suggested the Rohingya be settled temporarily on the island near Singapore. “We used Galang island for Vietnamese refugees in the past. We will discuss it again. I think the government must take action,” Ma’ruf said on Tuesday. Galang housed about 250,000 Vietnamese refugees, known as “boat people,” from 1979 to 1996. The UNHCR built healthcare facilities, schools, places of worship and cemeteries. Ma’ruf said the government could not turn away the Rohingya, but also had to consider local people’s objections and the possibility of more refugees arriving. Angga Reynaldi Putra, of Suaka, a Jakarta-based NGO that advocates for the rights of refugees, said Indonesia was bound by the principle of non-refoulement – or the forced return of refugees to their home countries – because it had ratified the anti-torture convention through a law in 1998.  “The anti-torture convention ratified by Indonesia also states that there is an obligation to prevent a person from returning to a situation where he or she experiences torture,” Angga told BenarNews. He added that Indonesia issued a presidential regulation in 2016, which mandates providing assistance and protection for refugees in coordination with the regional government, the International Organization for Migration and the immigration office. Angga warned that putting Rohingya on Galang island could limit their access to basic rights, such as health and education. “If we consider human rights, there is a right to freedom of movement. Being placed on a certain island, their movement would be restricted,” he said. Women and children Mitra Salima Suryono, a UNHCR spokeswoman in Indonesia, said she hoped the issue could be resolved humanely. “We are optimistic and hope to see the same strong spirit of solidarity and humanity as before,” Mitra said. She said the Rohingya who arrived...
- [Myanmar’s dead and wounded civilians trapped in battlezone](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-dead-and-wounded-civilians-trapped-in-battlezone/): Fighting between the junta and three allied resistance groups in Myanmar’s north has trapped over 500 civilians, a rescue team told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday.  A trade zone in Shan state’s Muse township is now at the epicenter of an escalating humanitarian crisis, where charity workers attempting rescues are being shot at, the group added. Violence has only escalated from Nov. 29 until Tuesday, a Muse-based social assistance worker told RFA. “A woman was injured when a heavy weapon dropped near her house at 105-mile [trade zone] yesterday. She died because she could not be rescued in time,” he said, asking to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.  “There were some calls for help from those who were injured and trapped. We could not go. If a [rescue] van goes there, it gets shot at. So we can not do anything to help. There are people who died and their bodies could not be picked up either.” Workers and injured civilians are trapped on the road in the direction of Kyin San Kyawt border gate, he added, and some families were trapped in a village near 105-mile trade zone. There are three bodies and other injured people near Ton Kan village on Kyin San Kyawt road between 105-mile trade zone and Muse city, according to rescue workers. More than 10 civilians, including three children, were killed in fighting that lasted over a week. The actual number of the casualties could be higher, they added, and at least 2,000 people have fled Muse and are displaced due to fighting.  However, rescue workers said they could not confirm the exact number of casualties and trapped people because internet access and phone lines were disconnected in the area. If the fighting lasts longer, people remaining in 105-mile trade zone would face food shortages, since food can no longer be sent, said a Muse resident who wished to remain anonymous to protect their identity. Junta troops are stationed at the exit of Muse city because there is a military camp at 105-mile Hill, residents said, adding the three northern alliances currently occupy Kyin San Kyawt Road. Both military junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun and Li Kyarwen, a spokesperson from the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, one of the three allied forces, said the battle was intense at Muse’s 105-mile trade zone. However, neither disclosed exact details regarding casualties or injuries.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Laos deports 462 Chinese nationals with alleged ties to Bokeo scam rings](https://ij-reportika.com/laos-deports-462-chinese-nationals-with-alleged-ties-to-bokeo-scam-rings/): Authorities in Laos have deported 462 Chinese nationals arrested for crimes, including human trafficking, from the lawless Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone in the country’s north that has been described as a de-facto Chinese colony, according to officials. They were arrested on Nov. 28 during a raid on the gambling and tourism hub in Laos’ Bokeo province and deported to China the following day via the Boten-Bohan International Border Checkpoint, said a statement posted on the website of the Lao Public Security Bureau. The individuals appeared to be involved with call centers where scammers try to trick people into fake investments. Radio Free Asia has reported that these call centers often exploit their employees by holding them against their will and subjecting them to beatings and other forms of torture if they refuse to work or fail to make scam quotas. Attempts by RFA Lao to contact the Bokeo Provincial Police and authorities operating within the special economic zone, or SEZ, for comment went unanswered by the time of publication. The latest round of arrests and deportations of Chinese nationals follows one in mid-September, when Lao authorities sent 164 home, including 46 who were arrested in the Bokeo SEZ, another economic zone in the province operated by a Chinese tycoon who the U.S. government has sanctioned for running a human trafficking network. Ordinary Laotians welcomed the news, saying it would make the country safer.  “It’s good that the Lao and Chinese authorities are cooperating again in cracking down on the scamming gang in Laos,” said one person who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity citing security concerns. “I hope that the number of Chinese scammers continues to dwindle in the Golden Triangle SEZ and throughout the country.” Entrance to the Kings Romans casino, part of the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone run by Chinese company Jin Mu Mian in Laos, Golden Triangle in 2012. (Sukree Sukplang/Reuters) But others expressed concern that the deportations won’t address the reasons such crimes persist in Laos. “My question is, ‘Is this all?’ My answer is, ‘No,’ said a resident of the capital Vientiane. “It’s going to take a lot of time and effort to nab all of them.” Regional cooperation needed The resident of Vientiane said that while the latest arrests may deal with the problem in the Golden Triangle SEZ, scam gangs may simply move to another place where they can operate without much oversight by authorities, such as Tachileik, a town in Myanmar’s Shan state along the Lao border. “Then [the deportees] will just come back to Laos again,” he said. Chinese suspects linked to telecom frauds are brought back to China from Laos at Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport, Chongqing, China, in Sept. 2023. (Chen Chao/China News Service via Getty Images) A third Laotian suggested that the only way to effectively eradicate scamming networks is through the cooperation of domestic and foreign security forces across the region, rather than each country individually. “Here in Laos, [Lao and Chinese forces] are focusing only on the [SEZs],” he said. “The scam rings are everywhere and many of them are still operating. Laos alone doesn’t have the resources to do it all.” Criminal enterprises expanding Meanwhile, Yos Santasombat, a professor of social studies at Chiang Mai University in Thailand, warned that as criminal activity goes largely unchecked within the SEZs in Bokeo province, gangs are expanding their existing operations and adding new services. “I went to the Golden Triangle SEZ two months ago and I noticed that the place was huge and expanding,” he said. “[As it grows] it might attract other businesses besides gambling and tourism, such as money laundering.” Sources from the region have previously expressed concern that authorities only arrest “the small guys” who aren’t responsible for running the scam rings, and have failed to address unemployment and inflation in Laos, which allow ringleaders to lure workers with offers of good-paying jobs. In early September, Myanmar police repatriated 1,207 Chinese criminals arrested from a call center in Myanmar. Thailand, Myanmar, China and Laos have set up a special unit to crack down on human trafficking but the problem still persists. Translated by Max Avary. Edited by Joshua Lipes.
- [Myanmar militia arrests and shoots villagers near India border](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-militia-arrests-and-shoots-villagers-near-india-border/): Junta-backed Pyu Saw Htee militia members shot four villagers on the Myanmar-India border, locals told Radio Free Asia.  Over the course of two days, soldiers raided the village in Sagaing region’s Tamu township, burning down houses and a Christian church, residents of Htan Ta Pin said. They also arrested roughly 100 locals and later released them. “We have been fleeing from the village for a long time. The rest of the villagers, about a hundred, were taken to [the military’s] Four Mile Camp by the Pyu Saw Htee group,” said one villager, declining to be named for security reasons. “Villagers were sent to Tamu from there. Detainees were released in Tamu.” Some of the released villagers went back to check on their houses and gather the remainder of their belongings, he added.  “Four villagers were shot dead when they came across Pyu Saw Htee members at the village,” he said. “The village was torched on Sunday and Monday. I can see the smoke from a distance.” The identity of the four victims could not be confirmed by residents, as they have not been able to return due to the militia’s continued presence. RFA could also not confirm the extent of the fire damage, as villagers have fled.  RFA reached out to Sagaing region’s junta spokesperson Sai Naing Naing Kyaw for more information on the attacks, but he did not answer calls. Nearly all Htan Ta Pin residents have sheltered near the Indian border, locals said. Those released from junta custody have fled to churches or relatives’ homes in Tamu township.  Htan Ta Pin village has fewer than 300 houses and is roughly 1.6 kilometers (one mile) from the Indian border. Fighting between local defense groups and Pyu Saw Htee militia in Htan Ta Pin on Nov. 21 is believed to be part of the reason for the attack, locals said.  During the November battle, local defense forces killed two Pyu Saw Htee members and arrested four others. The arrested included Myint Aung, a former member of parliament for the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party and a leader of Pyu Saw Htee group. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Junta ban on aid vehicles leads to humanitarian crisis in Kayah capital](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-ban-on-aid-vehicles-leads-to-humanitarian-crisis-in-kayah-capital/): A ban on aid vehicles entering Myanmar’s Loikaw city amid intensifying clashes between junta troops and the armed resistance has led to a humanitarian crisis in the Kayah state capital, relief workers and residents said Monday. A member of a charity organization in Loikaw who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke to RFA Burmese on condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal, said he left the city on Nov. 24 after the junta ordered groups to stop using their vehicles two weeks earlier. “There are no more volunteers for relief aid, as we all fear for our security,” he said. “In the past, we evacuated [civilians] trapped in the city. We carried people hit by artillery shelling to hospitals and buried the bodies of people killed. Now our hearts are broken because we can’t provide relief to people in need.” Loikaw city is located about 225 kilometers (140 miles) east of Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw by car. Charity groups told RFA that more than 10,000 civilians are “trapped” in the city amid the recent fighting that has seen the rebels advance on junta-held territory. Aid workers said that junta troops also confiscated two of their trucks on Nov. 11, suggesting they might fear that members of the People’s Defense Force, or PDF, paramilitaries will use ambulances or other vehicles to disguise themselves and carry out attacks against the military in the city. “However, aid organizations have never done this kind of thing,” another member of a charity group said. “Also, the PDF doesn’t seek medical treatment [for their fighters] at Loikaw Public Hospital because they have their own medical treatment facilities.” Sources in Loikaw told RFA that the junta had tightened security in the city after pro-military netizens “spread misinformation” on social media platforms about local aid groups providing assistance to the PDF. Need for aid urgent There are at least five charity organizations in Loikaw, but all of them stopped providing services after the junta banned them from using vehicles on Nov. 11. A resident told RFA that the need for humanitarian assistance in the city is still urgent, noting that following an attack by the military on PDF forces on Nov. 26, at least one injured civilian died from blood loss, which could have been prevented if they had access to basic treatment. “A woman was wounded in her thigh and abdomen after soldiers shot her on her motorbike in the downtown area,” the resident said. “No charity group could rescue her. She fell down in the middle of the road and, as no one helped her, she died.” Members of volunteer organizations help evacuate displaced persons in Myanmar’s Karen state, Nov. 28, 2023. (Shwe Nyaungbin Charity Organization) The junta has not made any announcement prohibiting charity organizations from operating in Loikaw. Attempts by RFA to call Myint Kyi, the junta’s social affairs minister and spokesperson for the Kayah state government, went unanswered Monday. Ban akin to ‘rights violation’ Banyar, the founder of the NGO Karenni Human Rights Group, said that the ban is “a form of human rights violation” that will likely lead to unnecessary deaths. “No charity organizations are working in Loikaw as armed conflict is intensifying and artillery attacks may hit any time,” he said. “The prohibition will lead to loss of lives … People will die from their injuries if they do not receive first aid.”  At least 76 civilians were killed in Loikaw, as well as the Kayah townships of Pekhon and Moebye from Nov. 11-27, including a dozen minors, the group Karenni Humanitarian Aid Initiatives said in a Nov. 28 statement.  A recent offensive by the armed resistance in Kayah state saw ethnic Karenni forces seize Loikaw University and several military outposts. The groups say they have no plans to end their attacks on the junta’s administrative mechanisms in the city. Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
- [Tourist rubles ensure warm welcome for Russians in Thailand](https://ij-reportika.com/tourist-rubles-ensure-warm-welcome-for-russians-in-thailand/): &gt;&gt;&gt; Read the more on Bear East Ask any Russian person which country in Southeast Asia they have heard about and you’d probably hear “Thailand.” Russian tourists are crowding its beaches, bars and even its Orthodox churches. That’s not just a sign of Thailand’s legendary reputation for hospitality and knack for catering to foreign visitors that has earned the country the moniker “Land of Smiles.” Thailand welcomed 11.4 million foreign tourists in 2022. But with Russians increasingly limited on where they can visit because of international restrictions imposed on Moscow relating to the war in Ukraine, Thailand has kept its doors open. From Russia with love On the southern island of Phuket, some areas have turned into something resembling a resort town on the Black Sea with Russian men and women lounging on the beach, trying to soak up as much sun as possible.  There are signboards in Cyrillic, Russian mothers pushing strollers around and new Russian restaurants that offer a taste of home. Russian real estate agents, tour companies and even Russian tour guides cater to the visitors – which rankles locals in the tourist trade, who say they are losing business. “Russian people love Thailand, the people, the climate, the nature and the delicious food,” gushed Olesya, a young Russian businesswoman. She and her husband, Denis, have been to Phuket five times.  Tourists take photos on Patong Beach in Phuket, June 20, 2023. Credit: Tran Viet Duc/RFA Olesya said they felt welcome here and “have not sensed any negative vibes” against Russians – although they were shy of speaking to a journalist and requested to be identified by their first names only. Thailand is America’s oldest ally in Asia, and was for decades a bulwark against Soviet influence in Southeast Asia during the Cold War, but it’s also a nation with a storied past with Russia.  Diplomatic relations date back 126 years, when the then-Kingdom of Siam’s modernizing monarch, Chulalongkorn, also known as King Rama V, traveled to St. Petersburg in 1897. Despite the international maelstrom over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Thailand has not condemned Moscow and has abstained from several votes against Russia at the United Nations. But perhaps more significantly, there are still ways for Russians to spend their money in Thailand, which relies heavily on tourism earnings. Due to U.S. and U.K. sanctions, Russians can’t conduct transactions via the global SWIFT electronic payment system. But they can still use China’s UnionPay – the world’s largest card payment network – or use cash or cryptocurrencies.  Shops catering to Russian tourists have sprung up in Pattaya, Thailand, June 22, 2023. Credit: Tran Viet Duc/RFA Cornering the condo market The Thai Tourism and Sports Ministry said that between January and June this year nearly 800,000 Russian nationals visited the Kingdom, and the number is expected to reach more than 1 million by the end of the year. The Tourism Authority of Thailand has set an ambitious target of receiving 2 million Russian visitors in 2024. Half of them are expected to fly to Phuket. A free 45-day visitor visa and direct flights between the two countries make the goal easier.  Maetapong “Oun” Upatising, president of the Phuket Real Estate Association, says that the Russian market bounced back quickly after the COVID downturn, both in tourist numbers and property demands. Russian visitors prefer to rent villas and condominiums instead of hotels when staying longer than three months, and the number of rental units in Phuket alone is more than ten thousand a month, he said. There is also a growing number of rich Russians who obtained long-term resident visas that let them stay in Thailand for five to 10 years or more. Those so-called “elite visas” cost at least U.S.$20,000 yet the number of elite visa holders from Russia is increasing steadily.  Between 5,000 and 10,000 wealthy Russians are thought to have obtained long-term visas and become residents in Phuket. Last year Russian buyers purchased nearly 40% of all condominiums sold to foreigners on the island, according to the Thai Real Estate Information Center. Russian investors also put large sums of money into other types of properties, among which luxury villas are the top buy. Those villas come with hefty price tags, starting from 25 million baht ($730,000), according to Maetapong from the Phuket Real Estate Association. Anton Makhrov [left], editor of Novosti Phuketa newspaper, and Jason Beavan, general manager, are seen in their office in Phuket, June 19, 2023. Credit: Tran Viet Duc/RFA Organized crime Phuket even has its own Russian newspaper. Despite the comparative ease with which Russians can travel to Thailand, the paper’s editor gripes that his countrymen get a bad rap. “Right now, it’s legitimate not to like the Russians,” said Anton Makhrov, the editor of Novosti Phuketa, who likens it to a kind of xenophobia against Russians in Thailand. “When you get on Facebook, you’ll see lots of comments such as ‘the Russians are aggressive and arrogant, we don’t like you’ but when you talk to people they all say they have good relations with some Russian friends,” he said, speaking in the weekly paper’s office in a small alley in Kathu district of Phuket. Russian visitors have also often been blamed for bad behavior, as well as petty crime such as drunk-driving and theft. The invasion of Ukraine in 2022 also appears to have dimmed Thais’ perception of Russian people. Katherine Aliakseyeva, principal of the Russian Dance Academy &#8220;Katyusha&#8221; in Bangkok, says she’s worried about the safety of her staff and students. The school has been regularly taking part in cultural events organized by the Russian Embassy. There are also long-held suspicions that Russian “mafia” operate in Thailand. A December 2009 cable by the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok that was declassified in 2019 said that “Russian organized crime circles established a presence in Thailand in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union.” According to the diplomatic cable, U.S. and Thai law enforcement agencies reported that “criminal networks composed of mostly...
- [From ER doc to wild-card presidential candidate: Taiwan's Ko Wen-je](https://ij-reportika.com/from-er-doc-to-wild-card-presidential-candidate-taiwans-ko-wen-je/): Just 10 years after trading his white coat for a place on the mayoral hustings, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je, who also heads the four-year-old Taiwan People&#8217;s Party, is looking increasingly like a potential challenger to Vice President Lai Ching-te in January&#8217;s presidential election. A recent poll of voters by the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation showed Ko has an approval rating of 31.9% compared with 29.2% percent for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party&#8217;s Lai and 23.6% for nationalist Kuomintang candidate and New Taipei City mayor Hou Yu-ih. Earlier polls had shown a healthy lead for Lai and running mate Hsiao Bi-khim, with Ko trailing in third place after plans for a joint Ko-Hou ticket foundered. The foundation described Ko as &#8220;a terrible nightmare that the DPP must not ignore,&#8221; adding that Ko&#8217;s support is highest among well-heeled white-collar workers, but that he also has similar appeal to Lai among blue-collar voters. Far from boosting the Lai campaign, the recent collapse of talks between Lai and Hou over a possible &#8220;blue-white&#8221; joint ticket actually appears to have damaged it, boosting Ko&#8217;s approval rating by 6.3 percentage points and leaving Lai&#8217;s half a percentage point lower, the foundation said. With less than 50 days of campaigning left to go before the Jan. 13 election, the result suggests Ko is a wild card candidate who could sway the result in unpredictable ways, the poll of 755 people with a 3.57 percentage-point margin of error and a 95% confidence level found. &#8220;This is likely to be the most unpredictable of all presidential elections so far,&#8221; the foundation said. &#8220;We won&#8217;t know who the winner is until it&#8217;s over.&#8221; Pithy soundbites Ko, a former emergency room doctor who gave up medicine for politics 10 years ago, has generally sought to position himself as an outsider capable of toppling the traditional parties. Ko Wen-je, chairman of the Taiwan People&#8217;s Party and presidential candidate, and his running mate Cynthia Wu wave after registering for the upcoming 2024 elections at the Central Elections Commission in Taipei on Nov. 24, 2023. (Sam Yeh/AFP) He has become known for his salty epithets and pithy soundbites, appealing to a broad cross-section of the island&#8217;s 23 million population, particularly younger voters. Yet his critics accuse him of dictatorial leanings, an emperor-complex, a too-relaxed attitude to the threat from China, and of flip-flopping on key elements of his political stance to please whoever happens to be listening at the time. Ko has described the 1992 consensus between Beijing and the former Kuomintang government that sought to preserve Taiwan&#8217;s de facto independence while never challenging China&#8217;s territorial claim on the island as &#8220;basically getting down on their knees and surrendering.&#8221; &#8220;Failure is the norm – success is the exception,&#8221; is another Ko-ism, as is his description of politics as &#8220;the search for a lost conscience.&#8221; Organ transplant doctor Ko, 64, who has claimed an IQ of 157, has a fondness for medical metaphors on the campaign trail, and once referred to an opponent as &#8220;less capable than an amoeba.&#8221;  Born in Hsinchu, Ko began his working life as an emergency and intensive care physician at National Taiwan University Hospital, studying organ transplants in the United States before setting up a transplant team at his hospital, and significantly improving survival rates with his use of ECMO machines. He quit medicine after an organ was mistakenly transplanted into a patient from an HIV-positive donor, announcing he would run for Taipei mayor in 2014, eventually winning the election with the second highest number of votes ever received. Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je listens to the media during the Taipei-Shanghai forum in Taipei, Aug. 23, 2016. (Chiang Ying-ying/AP) According to veteran journalist Kang Jen-chun, Ko projects a professional, scientific and rational image, along with pragmatism and a sense of openness and transparency. &#8220;A large proportion of Taiwanese are very eager to find something outside of the [traditional] blue and green [camps],&#8221; Kang said. &#8220;Voters want politicians to take more action – stuff that is closer to their lives.&#8221; &#8220;Ko Wen-je&#8217;s seemingly nonsensical comments and jokey approach have gotten young people&#8217;s attention.&#8221; Lawmaker Tsai Pi-ru, a nurse at Ko&#8217;s hospital who later became his chief of staff in the Taipei municipal government, said: &#8220;He doesn&#8217;t beat around the bush &#8230; and if he says something wrong, he apologizes – the only person in Taiwan politics who does that.&#8221; &#8220;He apologizes, seeks to do better, and moves on,&#8221; she said, adding that Ko also has a reputation for straight-dealing, and for a formidable work ethic that sees him taking the bus to work at city hall, starting his day at 7.30 a.m., before hosting a lunch party every day at noon. He also has a reputation for dismantling bottlenecks in the city&#8217;s infrastructure in record time, as well as making off-the-cuff, sometimes shocking comments to journalists as he goes about his day. Kang said this gives him a distinct advantage over Lai and Hou when it comes to the electoral &#8220;dog-fights&#8221; in Taiwan&#8217;s media, although his sharp tongue and whimsical remarks can sometimes get him into trouble. Supporters of Ko Wen-je, who was seeking re-election as Taipei’s mayor, wave their mobile phone torches during a campaign rally in Taipei, Nov. 10, 2018. (Tyrone Siu/Reuters) When taken to task in the past, Ko has referred to himself as &#8220;a mortal,” describing his life as “a one-way street with no regrets.” Nonetheless, by the time he fought his next mayoral election in 2018, his approval rating had plummeted from to 40% after three years in office, and he only defeated his opponent Ting Shou-chung by a narrow margin of some 3,000 votes. Bully and schemer? His New People&#8217;s Party has been hemorrhaging political support, as his critics accuse him of being a bully and a schemer. &#8220;His neutrality is a kind of nihilism that blows with the zeitgeist,&#8221; Ed Lin, lead singer of Taiwan rock band Leather Lattice, wrote of Ko in a June 2023 article titled &#8220;Three Beautiful Misunderstandings of Ko Wen-je.&#8221;...
- [Pneumonia, bird flu, other outbreaks prompt concerns of new contagion in Asia](https://ij-reportika.com/pneumonia-bird-flu-other-outbreaks-prompt-concerns-of-new-contagion-in-asia/): Hospitals in China are being inundated with respiratory infections, particularly affecting children.  While not widespread internationally, yet, there are reports of similar outbreaks as far as Ireland. But it’s not the only public health scare at the moment.  COVID-19 cases are spiking again, prompting fears of a new variant emerging as China’s public health authorities, never known for their candor, have not revealed much about the wave of recent infections. Meanwhile, avian influenza (H5N1) has been spreading in 2022-2023, with the latest outbreak reported in Japan.   And Indian public health officials in September worked to contain an outbreak of the deadly Nipah virus, which infected many but fortunately only caused two deaths. Is the world ready for another virus transmitted from animals to humans that spreads rapidly? Has the world learned sufficient lessons from the last pandemic and is China now more transparent? The answers to these questions are far from a resounding “yes.” Now is the time for public health officials to start putting in place more efficient information sharing, collaborative data analysis, and response plans so nations are not caught unaware like they were in 2019 with COVID-19. Human deaths from bird flu China said the surge in respiratory infections appears to be caused by a mix of bacteria and viruses. They include seasonal influenza and the bacteria-caused mycoplasma pneumoniae that in turn causes respiratory tract infections, Chinese health authorities said. No novel coronavirus has been detected, and no deaths have been reported.  As for H5N1, also called bird flu and avian influenza, several Asian and Southeast Asian countries reported outbreaks in 2023. Children, many of whom apparently contracted respiratory illnesses since mid-October, receive a drip at a hospital in Beijing, Nov. 23, 2023. (Jade Gao/AFP) In Indonesia, a single H5N1outbreak led to 4,400 ducks being infected in Kalimantan alone, although there were no known cases of human transmission.  In Cambodia, two people died from H5N1, the first reported human transmissions since 2014. Authorities announced a large H5N1 outbreak in poultry flock in November near the Vietnamese border. Still, no human transmissions were reported, nor was there evidence of bird flu spreading to Vietnam. Chinese officials also reported outbreaks of H5N1 in July. There were six human transmissions of another bird flu variant, H5N6, in 2023 in China. The most recent human transmission, in Chongqing, China, in September, caused one death.  China has reported 88 cases of human transmission of H5N6 since 2014, with a fatality rate of 52%.  Nipah rears its head The most recent outbreak in Kerala, India, of Nipah, a zoonotic virus, is thought to have been transmitted to humans from fruit bats. A zoonotic virus can spread from animals to people, and Nipah has a human fatality rate of between 40% and 75%. The virus is transmitted from excrement, saliva or urine that infects fruit, which in turn enters the human food chain, either directly or indirectly, through pigs. Human-to-human transmission is caused by respiratory droplets and bodily fluids. There is no approved vaccine, though an mRNA vaccine is being tested.  To date, the rate of human-to-human transmission – (the R-Value &#8211; remember that?) – has been low. In epidemiology, the R-value is the reproductive ratio of a virus – that is, the number of people one person carrying the virus can infect. But the one thing that concerns public health officials is the long incubation period of the Nipah virus, meaning that people can infect a large number of people before they know they themselves are infected. Nipah’s symptoms are not unique – fever, cough, headache and body pains in the early stages, with delirium beginning in the final stages.  Indian flying foxes or fruit bats, which transmit the Nipah virus to humans, roost in a tree near the city of Thottilpalam, in the southern state of Kerala, India, Sept. 30, 2023. (Sreekanth Sivadasn/Reuters) The Nipah virus was detected in Malaysia and Singapore in September 1998. That outbreak infected 265 people, causing 105 deaths. Back then, pigs were the host, and authorities responded with a mass cull. There have been no outbreaks in either country since 1999. In India, though, the September outbreak is the sixth one since 2001. And neighboring Bangladesh, WHO says has seen 11 separate outbreaks of Nipah from 2001-2011, which have led to the deaths of 237 people of 335 infected (71%).  The Philippines had an outbreak in 2014 that was transmitted through horse meat. Governments in Southeast Asia have been conducting testing.  In the Philippines, schools canceled classes briefly in Cagayan d’Oro amid fears of an outbreak. Authorities in Indonesia’s Bali stepped up monitoring at the airport.  There were no signs of the disease in either country,  but public health officials are clearly jumpy. Can economies take another hit? Were sufficient lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic learned and uniformly embraced to be able to deal with a large outbreak of one of these infections is the first concern. One lesson learned was that being transparent led to punishments, and the next time around countries may not be so forthcoming.  For instance, countries were often punished with travel bans and other scrutiny for being open about the influx of new variants. They found there was a short-term political and economic incentive in holding back such information, although that’s exactly what should not be done. Doctors and nurses put on protective equipment before entering a quarantine facility for COVID-19 patients in Tangerang, Banten province, Indonesia, June 22, 2020. (Adek Berry/AFP) Second, after a much-needed lull, there is always a concern about complacency and societal fatigue.  Could governments impose new rounds of public health lockdowns and quarantines, even at a local level, when China itself has abandoned its draconian micro-quarantining policy? Third, the national responses were inconsistent. For example, wealthy Singapore imposed very severe lockdowns, while much poorer Indonesia was highly reluctant to impose any for fear of slowing the economy.  Additionally, governments across tourism-dependent Southeast Asia would have to decide whether the advantages of keeping borders open outweigh the risks...
- [Vietnamese rescued from Myanmar casinos stuck in war zone](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnamese-rescued-from-myanmar-casinos-stuck-in-war-zone/): Scores of Vietnamese nationals trafficked to Myanmar and rescued by security authorities in October are stranded in a war zone near the border with China and cannot leave the Southeast Asian country, according to a video they made and to some of their parents. The 166 Vietnamese, who say they are running out of food and want officials to help them leave Myanmar, recorded a video of themselves chanting that they are Vietnamese citizens and have been stuck in Myanmar for 40 days without food, electricity or water.   “We are now living in cold weather, and our food is exhausted because we have run out of money,” they say on the video, which a relative of one of those stranded sent to Radio Free Asia. “Please help us to return to Vietnam as soon as possible, Vietnamese Embassy! Save us, please!”  RFA could not independently verify the video. A reporter made multiple attempts to contact the stranded people via various messaging applications, but did not receive any responses.  The Vietnamese had been trafficked to northern Myanmar to work for online gambling companies, where they faced harsh working conditions and abuse by their employers.  Myanmar security forces rescued them on Oct. 20 and arranged for them to stay temporarily in an abandoned school in Shan state’s Laukkai township.  When the group stops chanting in the video, a Vietnamese man says the Vietnamese Embassy in Myanmar informed them that it had been able to verify information about them, but no diplomats had yet visited the group or arranged for their repatriation. “I hope the embassy and the Vietnamese government will try to save us and help us return home as soon as possible,” he said.  Trafficked to casinos, scam rings The trapped Vietnamese workers are among the hundreds of thousands of people who have been trafficked by organized criminal gangs to Southeast Asia and forced into working at illegal casinos or online scams, according to a United Nations report issued in August.  The Vietnamese citizens, who say they were tricked into working at fraudulent gambling establishments in Myanmar, faced abuse from their employers. RFA contacted the foreign affairs ministries in Myanmar and Vietnam for comment, but received no response. When RFA called the Vietnamese Embassy in Myanmar on Friday, a reporter was told to contact the Consular Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. An officer in the department’s Citizen Protection Call Center said the “rescue and provision of assistance to stranded citizens in Myanmar are very complicated and time-consuming as the country is undergoing a civil war.”   An officer surnamed Lap in the consular division of Department of Foreign Affairs in Vietnam’s Kien Giang province — home to about 100 of the stranded workers — said the agency received more than 20 petitions from residents who are their relatives. The agency forwarded the petitions to the Foreign Affairs Ministry, but had received no response.  During a Vietnamese Foreign Ministry press briefing on Nov. 9, spokesperson Pham Thu Hang said officials had identified 166 Vietnamese citizens among foreigners rescued from “deceptive casinos” and took them to a safe area in northern Myanmar, bordering China.”  But Vietnam’s access to the stranded people and effort to protect its citizens faced difficulties because of armed conflict in Myanmar’s northern border area and other places, she said.  A man from Kien Giang province, who declined to be named for safety reasons, told RFA that his daughter was among those stranded and that she and others were being held under temporary detention while Burmese authorities conducted an investigation.  Though several months have passed, she does not know why the investigations have not yet been completed, he said. Local police gave him similar information, he said.  A woman from the southern province of Kien Giang whose daughter is among the stranded group told RFA on Friday that her daughter and others were rescued by Myanmar’s army during an administrative inspection at a company with the Vietnamese name Lien Thang Group. The 166 stranded Vietnamese are living in classrooms where the power is on for only one or two hours a day, said the woman who requested anonymity for safety reasons. They do not have access to drinking water, though they receive two meals daily from the Burmese Army, consisting of a bowl of rice and some vegetable soup, she said.  “It’s getting cold these days, but many don’t have warm clothes,” she said.  Phone scams Despite having a stable job at a local restaurant in Kien Giang, her daughter was enticed to leave for Myanmar in mid-August this year to get another job with a lighter workload and better pay, her mother said. The employer promised to pay her 21 million dong, or about US$865, monthly.  “Things were quite pleasant in the first two weeks as they let her go shopping and eat at restaurants,” the young woman’s mother said. “Then, the company signed a labor contract [with her] and started to apply their rules and tighten everything. Even phones were not allowed.” The employers forced the young Vietnamese woman and the other workers to use Facebook to make calls soliciting people to put money into an investment scam, giving her a daily revenue quota of 200-300 million dong (US$8,200-12,400), the mother said.  If they failed to do so, their employers would leave them hungry in the room, beat them or apply electrical shocks. The company forced some of her co-workers to find and entice Vietnamese people to go [to Myanmar] and work for the company,” she said.” They would be beaten and electrocuted if they failed to meet this quota, too.”  The woman said that her daughter and a group of dozens of friends left Vietnam for Myanmar together, and they all worked for a company whose management team speaks Chinese and Burmese. They used Vietnamese translators to communicate with the workers.  The people stranded come from various places in Vietnam, with about 100 from Kien Giang province, she said.  In September, RFA Vietnamese reported on the...
- [Myanmar junta arrests minors, elderly and disabled villagers](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-arrests-minors-elderly-and-disabled-villagers/): Junta troops arrested nearly 50 villagers in central Myanmar, locals told Radio Free Asia on Friday. After a junta officer was killed in a clash Wednesday, officials from the battalion entered the village in Sagaing region.   Min Ga Lar Kone village in Monywa township is located near the site of the battle and close to where junta troops store artillery, locals said. A troop of about 50 soldiers entered Min Ga Lar Kone firing weapons and arrested the villagers around 5 pm, said a resident, who did not want to be named for security reasons. &#8220;There were shootings nearby and people from the village were arrested. They were of all ages, from about 15 years old to the elderly,” he said. “It is quite a large number but it is not clear who they are. A mentally ill man from the village was also arrested.” Currently, officials are detaining and investigating them at a police station in Monywa township for association with local People&#8217;s Defense Forces, locals said. Roughly 30 of the arrested villagers are civilians from Min Ga Lar Kone, according to a Telegram channel owned by the Monywa People&#8217;s Administration Team, a local civilian administration under the National Unity Government. Troops raided and burned down two houses in the village, according to the administration team, which added it is still trying to identify those arrested. RFA called Sagaing region’s junta spokesperson Sai Naing Naing Kyaw seeking comment on the raids, but he did not reply by the time of publication. More than 25,000 people, including pro-democracy activists, have been arrested since the 2021 coup, according to the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Kissinger had a  consequential, controversial impact across  Asia](https://ij-reportika.com/kissinger-had-a-consequential-controversial-impact-across-asia/): Henry Kissinger, who died on Nov. 30 at the age of 100, was an influential diplomat and strategist who wielded major influence on U.S. foreign policy for more than five decades. President Nixon&#8217;s National Security Adviser Henry A. Kissinger and Le Duc Tho, the chief North Vietnamese negotiator at the Paris peace talks, speak to the media in Paris, June 13, 1973. (Michel Lipchitz/AP) Credited for arms negotiations with the Soviet Union and shuttle diplomacy in pursuit of Middle East peace, Kissinger had a great impact on events across Asia.  Presidential advisor Henry Kissinger tells newsmen at the “Western White House” in San Clemente, Calif., that the Cambodia issue is being discussed with Chinese envoy Huang Chen, July 6, 1973. (AP) He was a central figure in President Richard Nixon’s early 1970s U.S. diplomatic opening with China and won the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the end of the Vietnam War. President Richard Nixon and Ambassador Agha Hilaly of Pakistan huddle over a newspaper account as they discuss the devastation in Pakistan, at the White House on Nov. 23, 1970. Henry Kissinger [right] is also in attendance. (AP) Critics condemn his role in the bombing of Cambodia and Laos, his backing of Pakistan&#8217;s military despite its 1971 campaign of killings and mass rape in East Pakistan, the future Bangladesh.  U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger [left], Chinese Deputy Prime Minister Deng Xiaoping and White House Chief of Staff Donald Rumsfeld admire the banquet site at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Nov. 25, 1974. (AP) They say he greenlighted Indonesia&#8217;s seizure of former Portuguese colony East Timor in 1975 that led to a quarter century of brutal occupation. U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger confers with Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheik Mujibur Rahman in Dacca, Bangladesh, Oct. 30, 1974. (AP) Kissinger, who served as secretary of state and national security adviser in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, led arms control talks with the Soviet Union, and worked to improve relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors through intensive shuttle diplomacy.  Presidential advisor Henry Kissinger chats with Pakistan President Agha Mohammed Yahya Khan in Rawalpindi, July 8, 1971. (AP) He visited China more than 100 times, and met every leader, and advised at least 10 U.S. presidents on foreign policy. U.S. President Richard M. Nixon congratulates Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on his 1973 Nobel Peace Prize award, at the White House in Washington, D.C., Oct. 16, 1973. (AP) His first, secret, visit to Beijing in 1971 opened the door to diplomatic relations between China and the United States seven years later. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is seen at the State Department in Washington, D.C., after the announcement that he had won the Nobel Peace Prize, Oct. 16, 1973. (AP) Improved U.S.-China relations gave Kissinger leverage against the the two countries&#8217; shared Cold War adversary, the Soviet Union, leading to arms control treaties between Washington and Moscow. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger greets Indonesia Foreign Minister Adam Malik during a State Department luncheon in Malik’s honor in Washington, D.C., June 29, 1976. (AP) U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Kissinger’s wisdom “led presidents, secretaries of state, national security advisors, and other leaders from both parties to seek his counsel.” Japanese Prime Minister Takeo Miki gesticulates as he talks with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in Tokyo at Miki&#8217;s official residence, Dec. 8, 1975. (Koichiro Morita/AP) Amid widespread mourning by Chinese state media and social media users, Xi and other top leaders sent condolences to Kissinger&#8217;s family. A waitress pours a drink for former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at a banquet in Beijing in his honor, Nov. 9, 1985. (Neal Ulevich/AP) &#8220;Dr. Kissinger was a good old friend of the Chinese people. He is a pioneer and builder of Sino-U.S. relations,&#8221; Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at a regular news conference. Presidential advisor Henry Kissinger [right] reports to President Richard Nixon [center] on his four days of talks in Paris with North Vietnam&#8217;s negotiators at breakfast in the family dining room at the White House, Oct. 13, 1972. (John Duricka/AP) &#8220;China and the U.S. should carry forward Kissinger&#8217;s strategic vision, political courage and diplomatic wisdom&#8230; and promote the sound, stable and sustainable development of China-U.S. relations,&#8221; Wang added. Presidential advisor Henry Kissinger [right] reports to President Richard Nixon [center] on his four days of talks in Paris with North Vietnam&#8217;s negotiators at breakfast in the family dining room at the White House, Oct. 13, 1972. (John Duricka/AP)  Xi called Kissinger &#8220;a world-renowned strategist, and a good old friend of the Chinese people.” Secretary of State Henry Kissinger greets China’s Premier Zhou Enlai before the start of their meeting in Beijing, Nov. 12, 1973. (Harvey Georges/AP) The Shanghai Communique paved the way for diplomatic normalization and trade relations between the U.S. and China. China’s President Jiang Zemin [left] talks to former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at a luncheon address to U.S. business groups in New York, Oct. 23, 1995. (Jim Bourg/Reuters) His last trip to Beijing featured a meeting with President Xi Jinping in July, shortly after Kissinger’s 100th birthday. China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi meets former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Nov. 22, 2019. (Jason Lee/Pool via AP) &#8220;Half a century ago, he made a historic contribution to the normalization of China-U.S. relations with brilliant strategic vision, benefiting both countries as well as changing the world,” Xi said in response to Kissinger&#8217;s death. Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, July 20, 2023. (China Daily via Reuters)
- [Kim Jong Un’s sister hints nuke  weapons are non-negotiable](https://ij-reportika.com/kim-jong-uns-sister-hints-nuke-weapons-are-non-negotiable/): Kim Jong Un’s influential sister ramped up Pyongyang’s pressure campaign against the United States, indicating that she would not put the country’s nuclear weapons in negotiations with Washington.  “The sovereignty of a sovereign state can never be a subject of negotiation, and therefore, we will not sit down with the United States due to this issue,” Kim Yo Jong said in a statement, according to North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency Thursday.  North Korea has long linked its nuclear weapons program to its state identity of self-reliance – Juche ideology – as well as to matters of the nation’s sovereignty.  “If the U.S.’s definition of ‘peace through strength’ means talking about dialogue upfront while wielding military power behind the curtains, then we must also be prepared for both dialogue and confrontation, especially being more thoroughly prepared for confrontation,” Kim Yo Jong said. “This is our consistent stance towards the U.S.”  The influential sister of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un often emerges as the face of Pyongyang’s pressure campaigns, typically delivering hardline messages against the U.S. and its allies. Her appearance on Thursday, her first public statement in about four months, came just days after the U.S. ambassador traded barbs with North Korea’s representative at the U.N. Security Council on Monday.  North Korean Ambassador Kim Song criticized the U.S. in New York for being hostile to his country, as he defended Pyongyang’s launch of its satellite. North Korea launched its spy satellite last week in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.  U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, however, said that the U.S. and its allies’ joint military exercises – which Pyongyang claims as hostile – are defensive in nature, emphasizing that these exercises cannot justify the North’s violation of Security Council resolutions. She added that Washington wants sincere dialogue with Pyongyang without any preconditions.  Responding to the U.S. ambassador in the U.N., Kim Yo Jong said that her logic was “weak, fallacious, and shameful,” denying the “sovereign rights of the DPRK,” referring to North Korea’s formal name.  Kim Yo Jong’s remarks are essentially aimed at preventing regime backers, China and Russia, from deviating from their positions in defending North Korea on the international stage, said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul who had advised South Korean governments for years. “It appears that North Korea’s ultimate strategy is to frame the U.N. Security Council as a domain dominated by what-it-calls the U.S. hegemony. This approach aims to render the Council&#8217;s functions ineffective and secure a justification for evading sanctions against North Korea,” Yang added. The sister’s remarks carry a dual message, subtly reiterating Pyongyang’s stance on “conditional” dialogue, the pundit noted. Kim Yo Jong seems to “indirectly suggest the possibility of dialogue with the United States, but only following the abandonment of what North Korea perceives as a hostile policy towards it.” Edited by Elaine Chan and Mike Firn.
- [Vietnam officials monitor funeral for head of banned Buddhist church](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-officials-monitor-funeral-for-head-of-banned-buddhist-church/): Local authorities attempted to take down banners at a funeral for the head of a banned Buddhist church in Vietnam as plain clothed security officials filmed monks and other guests, one of the church’s leaders told Radio Free Asia. Thich Tue Sy, 81, of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam died on Nov. 24 at Phat An Pagoda in the southern province of Dong Nai. His funeral ceremony began on Nov. 25 and lasted until Wednesday, when he was cremated. On the first day of the funeral, provincial authorities and security officials asked that church members remove banners that read in Vietnamese: “Funeral of late Most Venerable Elder Thich Tue Sy – Chief Secretary cum Supreme Patriarch of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam.”  The request was rejected by the temple’s abbot, who told the officials that they would have to “shoot me to death” in order to bring the banners down,  church official Thich Vinh Phuoc from Phuoc Buu Pagoda told RFA.  In a blog post for RFA’s Vietnamese Service, musician Tuan Khanh said that one of the provincial officials pointed out that the church is not recognized by the government.  A monk responded that the officials would need to produce a document stating that the church was illegal, according to Tuan Khanh. Thich Tue Sy of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam died on Nov. 24, 2023. (Hoang Phap) Vietnam maintains strict laws on religious activity that require groups to be supervised by government-controlled management boards. The church, or UBCV, was the main Buddhist organization in south and central Vietnam before the country’s 1975 unification.  Hanoi effectively banned the UBCV in 1981 because it refused to become part of the state-sanctioned Buddhist church. Since then, church members have repeatedly called on the party to change laws guiding religious freedom in the country. Banners stayed in place Thich Tue Sy was arrested in the 1980s and sentenced to death for his religious advocacy. After an international pressure campaign, the sentence was reduced and he was released in 1998.  For years afterward, he served as one of UBCV’s top monks. He was named leader of the church in September 2022, following the death of Supreme Patriarch Thich Quang Do, a prominent dissident who had lived under de facto house arrest. At the funeral this week, the banners remained over the main gate and elsewhere at the temple, according to Thich Vinh Phuoc. “The funeral went well and smoothly, with the attendance of many Buddhist monks and followers from inside and outside the country,” he said. “It took place without many obstacles.” “However, it was awkward that all the cars of monks and delegations were filmed when they arrived,” he told RFA. “I, myself, was filmed right after I got out of a car and hadn’t had time to fix my clothes.” RFA contacted Dong Nai People’s Committee spokesman Nguyen Kim Long to ask about the presence of provincial authorities at the funeral. He said he couldn’t answer any questions until he received a request via postal mail. RFA also emailed Dong Nai Provincial Police with a request for comment. He didn’t immediately respond. The U.S. State Department said in a statement on Monday that Thich Tue Sy “was a tireless champion for freedom of religion or belief and related human rights, which led Vietnamese authorities to imprison him for more than a decade.” Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Matt Reed.
- [N Korea closes diplomatic missions in Bangladesh, DR Congo: reports](https://ij-reportika.com/n-korea-closes-diplomatic-missions-in-bangladesh-dr-congo-reports/): In a further shutdown of diplomatic missions, North Korea has been closing down its embassies in Bangladesh and the Democratic Republic of Congo, media reports showed.  As of May 2023, North Korea operated a total of 53 foreign missions, but since then, media reports have confirmed the closure of North Korean embassies and consulates in as many as a dozen locations, including those in countries Pyongyang views as longtime allies. The North shut down its embassy in Dhaka on Nov. 20 and informed the Bangladeshi government that its embassy in India would assume responsibility for the relevant affairs, according to a Bangladeshi daily, The Daily Star, on Nov. 26. The paper quoted a Bangladeshi foreign ministry official as saying the North’s move would not affect Bangladesh “in any way” since it does not have any notable trade relations with Pyongyang.  The two countries established diplomatic relations in 1973. The North Korean embassy in Bangladesh consisted of four diplomats, including the ambassador. Bangladesh does not have its mission in North Korea and maintains diplomatic relations with it through the Bangladesh embassy in China. Separately, NK News reported on Nov. 28 that the North Korean embassy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is “set to close” and its operations will be handled by the embassy in Ethiopia, citing a spokesman for the country’s foreign ministry. But the spokesman said the North did not give a reason for the embassy closure. “Tightened international sanctions on North Korea have hampered its ability to earn foreign currency, making it difficult to maintain its diplomatic missions,” an official from South Korea’s Ministry of Unification, which oversees inter-Korean relations, said in October. “This is a glimpse of North Korea’s dire economic situation, where it is difficult to maintain even minimal diplomatic relations with traditional allies,” the ministry official said.  But amid the speculation over its finances, a North Korean foreign ministry spokesperson said on Nov. 3 that it is in the process of “closing and opening” diplomatic missions in other countries, and this is a normal part of the business of sovereign nations. “We will continue to take the necessary diplomatic steps in the context of the prospective development of our external relations in line with the evolving international environment,” the spokesperson said at that time.  Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.
- [Chinese navy drops anchor in Myanmar for joint drills](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-navy-drops-anchor-in-myanmar-for-joint-drills/): Three Chinese naval vessels have arrived at Thilawa Port in Yangon for joint drills with Myanmar’s navy amid insurgent conflict along the neighboring nations’ shared border, according to the country’s military and pro-junta media reports. Nearly 700 sailors with a Chinese naval task force landed at Myanmar’s largest city on Monday aboard the destroyer Zibo, frigate Jingzhou and replenishment vessel Qiandaohu to take part in a maritime security drill and a goodwill visit, the Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services website said. Details about the date, location and format of the drills were not made publicly available. Junta Deputy Information Minister Major-General Zaw Min Tun categorized the visit as typical of two “strategic partners” who have “established a strong friendship between militaries.” But the arrival of the three vessels comes amid bilateral tensions stemming from a surge of conflict in northern Myanmar along the border with China since late October. Senior Myanmar naval officers [right] welcome members of the Chinese navy upon their arrival at Thilawa Port in Yangon, Myanmar, Monday, Nov. 27, 2023. (AFP/Myanmar’s Military Information Team) In the month since the “Three Brotherhood” Alliance of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, the Arakan Army and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army launched an offensive on Oct. 27 dubbed “Operation 1027” the rebels have made notable gains against the military in several key cities in Shan state in the country’s northeast. The alliance claims to have captured more than 170 military outposts since the start of the campaign. In an address to the National Defense and Security Council on Nov. 8, junta chief Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing said that the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, has been using drones to attack the military, which he noted “can easily be bought in China.” Not long after, pro-junta supporters staged a protest in front of the Chinese Embassy in Yangon, accusing Beijing of supplying arms to the Three Brotherhood Alliance. In the meantime, China’s People’s Liberation Army on Nov. 25 began conducting live-fire drills in southern Yunnan province near the border with Shan state. Chinese state media has run footage of the drills involving armored vehicles, artillery shelling and small arms fire, saying they are aimed at “safeguarding national sovereignty, border stability and the lives and property of the people against repercussions from civil war in northern Myanmar.” Shoring up ties Hla Kyaw Zaw, a China-based analyst of Myanmar affairs, told RFA Burmese that the visit is meant to reinforce the trade relationship of the two neighboring nations amid the border conflict. “The military recently raised an anti-Chinese voice, but now has praised the tour of Chinese vessels as a success in diplomatic relations,” he said. “China has made a lot of investments in its business across the world. It is also a major trade partner of more than 100 countries. So, China is seeking to maintain good relationships with its trade-partner countries.” Political and military commentator Aung Myo, a former officer in the Myanmar military, told RFA that China’s visit is meant to show support for the junta. “China has made a visit of navy vessels to offer their guarantee of a constructive, strategic relationship with Myanmar, and it is likely meant to relieve junta suspicions that China is involved in the armed conflict in northern Shan state,” he said. “Another message is to show that the influential power of China is standing with the [military] and its supporters.” Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army troops examine the recaptured Nansalet military camp on Nov. 25, 2023. (The Kokang) However, political commentator Than Soe Naing noted that the joint drills were scheduled before the start of Operation 1027 in northern Shan state, suggesting they are not meant to signal support for the junta. “The visit of the navy vessels is likely to be part of a goodwill tour and does not indicate Chinese support for the junta in its armed conflict,” he said. “China has expressed an unwillingness to take any sides – either that of the military or the resistance forces – while calling for peace dialogue.” On Oct. 27, the day that Operation 1027 began, China’s foreign ministry called for dialogue to end the conflict. Since then, there have been several high-level meetings between Chinese and junta officials in both China and Myanmar that have included talks on the fighting in Shan state, but clashes have continued, and the analysts RFA spoke with say there is no end in sight. Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army forces recaptured Nansalet military camp on Nov. 25, 2023. (The Kokang) Attempts by RFA to contact the Chinese Embassy in Yangon for comment on the drills and the state of Myanmar-China relations went unanswered Tuesday, as did requests for comment to junta officials. From Nov. 7-9, junta troops conducted drills alongside around 800 sailors and three destroyers from the Russian navy in the Bay of Bengal near Myeik township in southern Myanmar’s Tanintharyi region. Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar’s junta fires into Rakhine villages, killing 3 children](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-junta-fires-into-rakhine-villages-killing-3-children/): Junta bombing in western Myanmar killed four people, locals told Radio Free Asia on Tuesday. Heavy artillery fired at Rakhine state’s War Shee Lar village on Monday evening exploded, injuring seven people. Five of the seven are in critical condition and were sent to Buthidaung Hospital in the township’s capital.  The deceased include eight-year-old Arru Shu Lar and 11-year-old Abdullah, as well as 50-year-old Ha Bezar.  The injured are in their 30s to 40s, said a War Shee Lar resident who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. “They died and were injured when a heavy weapon dropped while they were working in the vegetable farm. Arru Shu Lar and Ha Beza died on the spot,” he told RFA. “Another child died on the way to the hospital. The dead have been cremated in the village.” Heavy artillery was fired by a Buthidaung township-based junta battalion, he added. The shelling continued even as villagers cremated the bodies of the deceased in the village cemetery. War Shee Lar is a Rohingya village with about 1,000 people. Locals said that all the residents are afraid, but they have to hide in the village because there is no place to run. To Buthidaung’s southeast, a teenager was killed when junta troops fired at a village in Mrauk-U township.  Fifteen-year-old Cho Cho died on Monday night in Pan Be Tan village after being struck in the stomach by a bullet in her home, residents said. The shooting was from a Mrauk-U-based junta infantry battalion, locals alleged.  RFA contacted Rakhine state’s junta spokesperson Hla Thein by phone, but he did not reply by the time of publication. The junta has not released any information through official channels or regime-backed media regarding the killings. The junta’s army has been deliberately targeting civilians since Nov. 13, when fighting with the Arakan Army resumed, said Pe Than, a former member of parliament from the Arakan National Party in Rakhine state.  “Now the junta army can no longer go directly to the battleground and fight. That’s why they open fire with small and heavy artillery from their camps. And they mainly target civilian areas,” he told RFA. “It’s like burning down the barn when they cannot hit the rats. [The junta] has been fighting in a way that harms the people since the beginning of the fighting in Rakhine state.” The military has blocked roads connecting Rakhine state from the rest of the country, as well as roads and waterways between towns and villages, he said, adding people’s livelihoods were severely affected by this tactic. Fighting between the junta and Arakan Army resumed on Nov. 13 after a year-long ceasefire. According to data compiled by RFA, fighting since Nov.13 has killed 17 civilians and injured 57 more. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Chinese authorities fire tear gas at people fleeing Myanmar fighting](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-authorities-fire-tear-gas-at-people-fleeing-myanmar-fighting/): Chinese authorities fired tear gas at people attempting to flee from intensifying fighting between Myanmar’s military junta and allied ethnic armed groups. Social media videos showed several dozen people covering their faces at the China-Myanmar border as tear gas hovered on one side of a fence in Shan state’s Laukkaing township on Saturday afternoon. “Chinese police and soldiers used tear gas to expel Kokang people who sought shelter at the border line,” a resident in Laukkaing township told Radio Free Asia on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “They recently fled there due to the escalation of armed conflict.” The allied resistance forces announced on Friday that they would intensify an offensive that has seen widespread gains over the last month. The “Three Brotherhood” Alliance of the Arakan Army, the Ta’ang National Liberation Army and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, launched an offensive on Oct. 27 – dubbed “Operation 1027” – and have made notable gains against the military in several key cities in Shan state. On Saturday, the MNDAA seized the Kyin San Kyawt border gate near the key border town of Muse, about 90 kilometers (55 miles) from Laukkaing. The gate is one of five major entry points in the area that handles Myanmar’s largest volume of trade with China.  It’s the second border gate in Muse township that the alliance now controls, along with two others elsewhere, according to the Associated Press, which noted that almost all legal cross-border trade with China has stopped over the last month because of the fighting.  On Sunday, allied forces near another gate in the area carried out drone attacks, which disrupted a cargo inspection area and hit some buildings, while junta forces fired artillery shells from a highland area, locals told RFA. Junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun confirmed to state-owned media on Monday that there were clashes near Muse over the weekend, but he didn’t disclose details or comment on the loss of control of the Kyin San Kyawt gate. China’s live-fire exercises In Laukkaing, MNDAA spokesperson Li Kyar Win said he has seen the tear gas videos but didn’t have any further information. He noted that junta troops had carried out artillery attacks on nearby areas, which forced the local residents to move toward the border. Shan state-based media Shwe Phee Myay News Agency and the local Kengtung Hit Tine online news outlet reported on their Facebook pages that Chinese police had deployed tear gas on the border line.RFA has not independently confirmed the reports. Messages left with Chinese government sources seeking comment about the tear gas weren’t immediately returned on Monday. This house was damaged in fighting in the 105 Mile Trade Zone in the Myanmar-China border town of Muse on Nov. 27, 2023. Credit: Citizen journalist Also on Saturday, junta-controlled media reported that the Chinese government informed Myanmar’s military of live-fire exercises near the border over the weekend. “The regular military drill of the southern command of the People’s Republic of China was reported on Nov. 25,” Zaw Min Tun said. “It is aimed to ensure peace and stability at the border area.” Political analyst Than Soe Naing told RFA that the Chinese drills are the first in the area since 2017 – a period that also saw heavy fighting in Shan state. “I assume that the Chinese army conducts these drills to protect their sovereignty and to ensure the least impact on their people,” he said. “It is not directly related to Operation 1027, but it is their message for readiness on security of their people’s lives and property.” Chinese media reported that the exercises began Saturday and ended Monday, but didn’t disclose the exact location or the number of troops involved. “It is not an unordinary exercise,” said Thein Tun Oo, the executive director of Thayninga Institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank run by former military officers. “There may be some rumors and assumptions on this issue,” he said. “However, China and Myanmar have agreed on military exercises and cooperation in foreign affairs. A mutual understanding has been made between the two countries.” Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [National Unity Govt army claims it arrested 16 Myanmar policemen](https://ij-reportika.com/national-unity-govt-army-claims-it-arrested-16-myanmar-policemen/): A resistance group in central Myanmar arrested 16 junta policemen after capturing their police station, the people’s defense force told Radio Free Asia.  The group captured a Sagaing police station after more than an hour of fighting, the leader said on Saturday, adding that they also seized a large number of weapons and ammunition. The People’s Defense Army, under the command of the civilian shadow National Unity Government, instigated the battle on Tuesday in Wetlet township’s Shwe Pan Kone village.  “We had to prepare for a long time to take this camp,” the People’s Defense Army leader said, asking to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. “The camp was seized, and so far, the military council has not returned or been stationed there.” The junta carried out airstrikes twice during the battle, the group said on Saturday, adding that they had confiscated a significant number of weapons from the police station. Over the course of the clash, the People’s Defense army claimed it seized over 6,400 different types of ammunition, 32 grenades, 38 magazines, 31 small firearms, and six landmines in addition to 900,000 kyat (US$428). One resistance fighter and three junta soldiers were killed during the battle, according to a statement on Saturday by the National Unity Government’s Military Regional 1, which oversees the People’s Defense Army and its local divisions.  Resistance groups have targeted junta outposts frequently in November, with people’s defense forces reporting heavy junta losses during battle.  On Nov. 12, a fire set by allied people’s defense forces killed four policemen, including a police outpost officer and three junta soldiers, in Salingyi township’s Kyar Tet town in Sagaing region. The junta has not released any information regarding the alleged arrests. Calls by RFA to Sagaing region’s junta spokesperson Naing Naing Kyaw went unanswered.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- ['We want to amplify the voices that have been censored in China'](https://ij-reportika.com/we-want-to-amplify-the-voices-that-have-been-censored-in-china/): One year after crowds of protesters across China held up blank sheets of paper, chanting slogans calling for an end to the zero-COVID policy and for Communist Party leader Xi Jinping to step down, activists overseas vowed to keep the flame of the &#8220;white paper&#8221; revolution alive, despite attempts by Beijing to scare them away. While authorities in China moved quickly to quash the protests, arresting a number of young people for taking part, some managed to leave China, joining others who were already expressing their support on the streets of cities around the world, sometimes risking retaliation against their families back home. One of those overseas supporters was Apple, of the dissident group China Deviants, who was in touch with the protesters in real time via Telegram, and who organized a rally to mark the anniversary of their resistance in London this week. &#8220;On one voice call, a girl got busted right in the middle of the call,&#8221; Apple told Radio Free Asia. &#8220;People in the group were shouting &#8216;That girl got busted!&#8217; and I was on the other end of the phone in London.&#8221; &#8220;I was thinking, &#8216;Oh my gosh! I really wish I could help her and bring her back&#8217;,&#8221; she recalled. Instead, she got active right where she was, taking to the streets of London to oppose Chinese Communist Party rule. The &#8220;white paper&#8221; protests were sparked by public anger at the delayed response to a deadly fire on Nov. 24 in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, that was widely blamed on COVID-19 restrictions. The incident, which left at least 10 people dead, prompted an outpouring of public grief and tapped into pent-up frustrations of millions of Chinese who had endured nearly three years of repeated lockdowns, travel bans, quarantines and various other restrictions to their lives. Apple, a member of the dissident group China Deviants, organized a rally in London this week to mark the one-year anniversary of the White Paper resistance. Credit: Shi Shi But it wasn&#8217;t all about calling for an end to lockdowns and mass quarantines. Protesters also voiced calls for greater freedom of expression, democratic reforms, and even the removal of President Xi Jinping, who has been closely identified with the rigid policies. &#8220;We want to amplify the voices that have been censored in China overseas, because it&#8217;s impossible to have any form of civil society in [today&#8217;s] China,&#8221; she said. &#8220;We want all voices to be included &#8230; to be heard.&#8221; Fellow China Deviants activist Chen Liangshi said overseas activism is still not risk-free, and that the threat of violence and harassment from &#8220;little pink&#8221; supporters of Beijing is always there. &#8220;There are a lot of little pinks overseas, and I would never know how many people felt the way I did,&#8221; Chen said. &#8220;But since joining China Deviants, I have found a lot of like-minded friends.&#8221; &#8220;When we work together for the causes of resisting communist rule, and democracy for China, I feel very excited, and have found a sense of belonging,&#8221; he said. Feeling powerless Fellow China Deviants activist Ma Youwei agreed. &#8220;It&#8217;s very common to feel powerless as a Chinese person living in China,&#8221; Ma said. &#8220;I wanted to get rid of that feeling.&#8221; &#8220;How? You do it through action.&#8221; Yet the anniversary comes amid growing concern over Beijing’s “long-arm” law enforcement targeting overseas activists and students, who had expected to enjoy greater freedom of speech and association while living or studying in a democratic country. Both Chen and Ma said their families haven&#8217;t yet been directly targeted by the Chinese authorities, and insisted on pseudonyms to preserve their anonymity. &#8220;This is the way the Chinese Communist Party suppresses the overseas democracy movement,&#8221; Chen said. &#8220;They try to frighten us into not speaking out or protesting, so they can maintain their totalitarian rule.&#8221; &#8220;It&#8217;s normal to be afraid, but we can&#8217;t let that fear stop us, because it runs counter to our values and political ideas,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We still have to stand up.&#8221; Ma Youwei [left], Apple [center] and Chen Liangshi and are members of the China Deviants, a dissident group based in the United Kingdom. Credit: Shi Shi In Canada, Xiaopei recalled using his circumvention tools to go online on the morning of Nov. 27 to see large groups of people gathering on the streets of Shanghai, then heading out on his bicycle to join them. He was later detained at a protest in Shanghai&#8217;s Xuhui district, beginning an ordeal of torture and inhumane treatment at the hands of police. &#8220;They put my hands behind my back and hit my head against the wall. It was a concrete wall, so my head was bruised,&#8221; said Xiaopei, who declined to give his full name. &#8220;I protested again inside [the police station], so I was arrested and put on the tiger bench, which is an iron chair,&#8221; he said. &#8220;My wrists and ankles were all in restraints, and I sat there for more than an hour without being able to move.&#8221; Manacles and leg irons Xiaopei was released the following day, but placed under close surveillance, then redetained after taking part in a discussion on Twitter, now X, he said. This time, police put him in manacles and leg irons for 30 days, and was unable to move around freely. &#8220;I was in restraints for 30 days &#8230; I had problems sleeping, I couldn&#8217;t wash or change my clothes by myself, so anyone who monitored me would notice that I smelled bad,&#8221; said.  &#8220;I couldn&#8217;t even eat or drink by myself, and I needed help going to the toilet,&#8221; he told Radio Free Asia. Xiaopei was eventually released, and decided he was leaving China, and boarded a plane to Canada, where he applied for political asylum. &#8220;Ordinary people [in China] are treated like ants and are trampled to death,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It takes a lot of courage to take part in action [like the white paper movement], and there are huge risks involved.&#8221;...
- [S Korea, Japan, China fail to set summit date, condemn N Korea](https://ij-reportika.com/s-korea-japan-china-fail-to-set-summit-date-condemn-n-korea/): South Korea, Japan, and China have not only failed to agree on a date for a landmark trilateral summit of their leaders, but also in jointly condemning North Korea’s latest illegal satellite launch, exposing the widening gaps in reinvigorating that three-party cooperation. The foreign ministers of the three nations did not hold a joint press conference on Sunday, after their first ministerial talks in four years – a rare occurrence that could signify the differing diplomatic stances among these key Asian geopolitical entities. “The countries have reaffirmed their agreement to hold the summit, the apex of their cooperative framework, at the earliest mutually convenient time,” South Korea’s Foreign Minister Park Jin said in a solo briefing after the trilateral meeting with his Japanese and Chinese counterparts, Yoko Kamikawa and Wang Yi in the South’s port city of Busan. A South Korean government source, who asked for anonymity due to sensitivity of the matter, told Radio Free Asia that the joint press conference did not take place as Wang had pre-arranged plans. The person did not elaborate. According to a separate South Korean government official who spoke to RFA prior to the meeting, the primary goal of the ministerial meeting was to set a date for the trilateral summit. The last trilateral summit took place in 2019 in Chengdu, China. “Efforts will be made to ensure that the summit takes place soon,” Park said, without specifying an exact date. The South Korean minister mentioned his proposal for the three countries to reactivate their intergovernmental mechanism as a means to fortify the framework of trilateral cooperation. However, he did not clarify whether this proposal was agreed upon by all parties. Whether China would want to continue the trilateral summit platform has become questionable as its emergence as a global power has relatively lessened its focus in the region. The increasing collaboration of South Korea and Japan under the trilateral framework with the United States also has been a source of discomfort for Beijing. In fact, with South Korea’s current conservative Yoon Suk Yeol administration, Seoul has been more vocal in criticizing China on the international stage – with concerns ranging from Beijing’s decision to repatriate North Korean defectors back to the Kim Jong Un regime to China’s coercive behavior towards the democratically self-governed island of Taiwan. North Korea The three ministers also failed to issue a joint statement in condemning North Korea’s latest provocation, a departure from previous trilateral foreign ministers’ meetings which usually included a consensus on security issues in the Korean peninsula. “I emphasized that North Korea’s recent so-called military reconnaissance satellite launch, along with its ballistic missile launches and nuclear development, are among the greatest threats to peace and security in the region,” Park said during his solo briefing, without saying what has been agreed with his Japanese and Chinese counterparts.   North Korea launched a satellite last Tuesday, despite international warnings. Rocket technology can be used for both launching satellites and missiles. For that reason, the U.N. bans North Korea from launching a ballistic rocket, even if it claims to be a satellite launch. The lack of a joint statement is a sharp contrast with the trilateral foreign minister meeting among the U.S., South Korea and Japan in San Francisco, in which the three called the military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow, including Russia’s technological aid to help the North Korean launch,  a “serious threat to international peace and stability.” Unlike previous occasions, when China’s foreign ministry often expressed its regrets, Beijing refrained from issuing a public criticism of North Korea’s latest launch, as the strategic value of Pyongyang has been raised due to intensifying U.S.-China relations. North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency on Saturday claimed that its satellite passed over Hawaii and observed “a naval base in the Pearl Harbor, the Hickam air-force base in Honolulu,” as well as South Korea’s Busan.
- [Foreign ministers wield new brooms in Cambodia and Thailand](https://ij-reportika.com/foreign-ministers-wield-new-brooms-in-cambodia-and-thailand/): Shortly after being appointed Thailand’s new foreign minister in early September, Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara made a telling remark: &#8220;We want the Thai people to feel that the foreign ministry is contributing to their lives.”  Sok Chenda Sophea, Cambodia’s new foreign minister, appointed a few days before Parnpree, told his new ambassadors: “All of you should work to represent the nation and enhance the Kingdom’s prestige, especially in areas like diplomacy, economics, food, sports and the arts. These are the focus of the new government’s foreign policy.” The two new foreign ministers bear a striking resemblance. Neither are career diplomats. Parnpree, whose father and grandfather were prominent in the foreign ministry, instead rose through the ranks of the commerce ministry under the Shinawatra sibling’s governments and then became chairman of the state oil company PTT.  Thailand&#8217;s Foreign Minister Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara arrives at the government house in Bangkok, Thailand, Sept. 5, 2023, to take his oath of office. Credit: Sakchai Lalit/AP Sok Chenda cut his teeth in the tourism ministry in the 1990s. Parnpree served as chairman of the Thailand Board of Investment. Sok Chenda was head of the Council for the Development of Cambodia, the country’s investment board, from 1997 until this year. Parnpree was head of a negotiation team for the creation of a free trade zone with India. Sok Chenda headed the Cambodian Special Economic Zones Board. Parnpree studied public administration at the University of Southern California. Sok Chenda studied economics at the University of Aix en Provence.  Moreover, both are unlike their predecessors. Don Pramudwinai, a career diplomat and foreign minister under the years of Prayut Chan-ocha’s military-run government, was often accused of putting geopolitics, chiefly relations with Beijing, ahead of more balanced, economics-focused policy, as well as for conducting “cowboy diplomacy” over the Myanmar crisis that badly dented ASEAN unity.   Another charge against Don was that, because he was appointed by a junta that had just taken power in a coup, he “spent a large part of his time explaining when, how, and to what extent his country would return, or has returned, to democracy.” As Benjamin Zawacki added, “His tenure has been marked by a conservative and defensive posture rather than one of enterprise or ambition.”  Similar accusations have been leveled at Cambodia’s former foreign minister. Prak Sokhonn, who was quick to lash out against the perceived Western interference in Cambodia’s domestic affairs, was more aligned with Beijing than some officials in the economic ministries liked, and, one hears, not entirely trusted by the former prime minister Hun Sen. Indeed, Hun Sen is believed to have ignored Prak and the foreign ministry by condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  Economics at the center Parnpree and Sok Chenda are new brooms, appointed to refashion their ministries away from a defensive posture on their relations with China and a fixation with stoking geopolitical tensions, and towards a more sustainable, front-foot policy that puts economics at the center. As one Thai newspaper put it, Parnpree is “expected to impart a new momentum to the country’s foreign policy with a strong emphasis on exploring economic dimensions of bilateral and multilateral relationships.”  A Cambodian analyst has argued, “To maintain economic development, Cambodia cannot become subject to US or Western economic sanctions. Maintaining economic development may be Cambodia’s main priority under the leadership of Prime Minister Hun Manet. This appears to be the case with the appointment of Sok Chenda Sophea as the minister of Foreign Affairs.”  These ideas aren’t radical. Surakiart Sathirathai, Thailand’s foreign minister between 2001 and 2005, sought to create “CEO ambassadors”. Surin Pitsuwan, a predecessor, established a “Team Thailand” approach, with diplomats supposed to represent the nation as much as the foreign ministry. But the return to a more stable, stripped-down foreign policy makes sense as Thailand and Cambodia undergo political change.  Hun Sen speaks at a press conference at the National Assembly after a vote to confirm his son, Hun Manet, as Cambodia&#8217;s prime minister in Phnom Penh, August 22, 2023. It is said that Hun Sen did not entirely trust his foreign minister, Prak Sokhonn. Credit: Cindy Liu/Reuters Thailand has its first civilian, democratically elected government again for more than a decade. Cambodia has just undergone a once-in-a-lifetime generational succession of its ruling elites, with almost the entire old guard resigning in August to make way for a younger generation, mostly the children of that old guard. Neither Parnpree nor Sok Chenda are big characters. Indeed, they’re rather bureaucratic. And they are on the senior end of the age spectrum. At 66, Parnpree is one of the oldest in the new Thai cabinet. Sok Chenda, aged 67, is the oldest of Cambodia’s important ministers. (He’s 20 years older than the PM.) They are also excellent counterparts to their prime ministers. Srettha Thavisin, the Thai premier, is a businessman at heart.  Although Hun Manet rose through the ranks of the military, he studied economics and played a guiding role in the companies owned by his wife. Parnpree and Sok Chenda appear happy to defer much of the more razmataz foreign policy, such as showing up for international summits, to their prime ministers. Srettha, the self-styled “salesman”-in-chief, clearly likes traveling around the world and meeting foreign leaders, and posing for rather ingratiating and embarrassing selfies with them.  Cambodia’s ruling party obviously wants Hun Manet to be front-and-center of Cambodia’s engagement abroad, a role similar to the one played by his father. As such, having nose-to-the-grindstone foreign ministers makes sense alongside globetrotting premiers.  Experienced foreign policy thinkers In part, too, the two new foreign ministers are also designed to appease the private sectors, especially as Cambodia and Thailand have untested and unsteady governments; Thailand in the form of an odd coalition and Cambodia with its dynastic succession of Hun Manet and almost the entire cabinet. It’s not quite the Biden administration’s evocation of a “Foreign Policy for the Middle Class” but it’s not far off.  How the new foreign ministers translate their briefs into action remains to be seen. In...
- [Activists call for probe into China's 'consular volunteers' network](https://ij-reportika.com/activists-call-for-probe-into-chinas-consular-volunteers-network/): The Chinese Communist Party is running a global network of &#8220;consular volunteers&#8221; through its embassies and consulates who form part of its “United Front” influence and enforcement operations on foreign soil, according to a new report, prompting calls for democratic governments to investigate. While Chinese embassies and consulates have been using such informal networks for at least a decade, they were recently formalized through a State Council decree that took effect on Sept. 1, yet the networks remain largely undeclared to host countries, the Spain-based rights group Safeguard Defenders said in a report published this week. Consular volunteers are mostly drafted in to help with administrative tasks linked to consular protection, risk assessments, and even &#8220;warnings and advisories&#8221; to overseas citizens and organizations, the report said, citing multiple online recruitment advertisements and other official documents. This gives them full access to individuals&#8217; personal information, and &#8220;may also dangerously enhance their function of control over overseas communities and dissenters,&#8221; the report warned. China is already known to rely on an illegal, overseas network of &#8220;police service centers&#8221; that are sometimes used as a base from which to monitor and harass dissidents in other countries. Since taking power in 2012, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has launched an accelerated expansion of political influence activities worldwide, much of which rely on overseas community and business groups under the aegis of the United Front Work Department. Under the radar While Beijing has shut down some of its overseas police “service centers” following protests from host countries, the &#8220;consular volunteer&#8221; network has managed to fly under the radar until now, further enabling China&#8217;s overseas influence and illegal transnational law enforcement operations, according to the report. According to the State Council decree, &#8220;The state encourages relevant organizations and individuals to provide voluntary services for consular protection and assistance.&#8221; The state also &#8220;encourages and supports insurance companies, emergency rescue agencies, law firms and other social forces&#8221; to take part in consular work, it says. A building [with glass front] suspected of being used as a secret police station in Chinatown for the purpose of repressing dissidents living in the United States on behalf of the Chinese government stands in New York City’s lower Manhattan on April 18, 2023. Credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images The decree also requires Chinese nationals overseas to &#8220;abide by the laws of China,&#8221; regardless of location. Organizations and individuals that &#8220;make outstanding contributions to consular protection and assistance&#8221; are to be commended and rewarded, it says. And official reports on volunteer commendation ceremonies and training events show that they are – under the supervision of individuals with &#8220;direct and demonstrable ties to the CCP’s United Front,&#8221; the Safeguard Defenders report said. &#8220;The [consular volunteer] network runs through United Front-linked associations and individuals and shows the involvement of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office,&#8221; it said, adding that the Office was labeled an &#8220;entity that engages in espionage&#8221; by the Federal Canadian Court in 2022. Global effort A March 2023 recruitment drive by the Chinese Embassy in the Czech Republic posted to an official website called for volunteers from among &#8220;overseas Chinese, international students, Chinese employees of Chinese-funded enterprises and other individuals in the Czech Republic, overseas Chinese groups, Chinese-funded enterprises and other organizations, institutions and groups.&#8221; Similar notices have been seen in Trinidad and Tobago, Botswana, Turkey, Malaysia, Johannesburg, Equatorial Guinea, Chile and Japan, the report said, adding that the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office has also been directly named as a participant at training events for consular volunteers in Rio de Janeiro and Florence, Italy. According to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, &#8220;the United Front system acts as a liaison and amplifier for many other official and unofficial Chinese organizations engaged in shaping international public opinion of China, monitoring and reporting on the activities of the Chinese diaspora, and serving as access points for foreign technology transfer.”  The Safeguard Defenders report called on democratic countries to review the practice of &#8220;consular volunteering&#8221; by Chinese diplomatic missions, and warned them not to take part in United Front-linked events. French current affairs commentator Wang Longmeng described consular volunteers as quasi-spies. &#8220;The so-called assistance in providing consular services actually means collecting financial support from overseas Chinese individuals,&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;This can help the Chinese Communist Party control overseas Chinese remotely, making them loyal to party and state, as well as helping China to steal Western technology and intelligence.&#8221; &#8220;These people are also collecting information on dissidents, and many dissidents’ family members back home are also being threatened,&#8221; he said. &#8220;This is a quasi-espionage organization and an integral part of the Chinese Communist Party’s transnational repression network.&#8221; Wang said European countries have been fairly slow to catch on to such practices, compared with the United States. &#8220;That encourages the Chinese Communist Party to extend its long arm even further,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Their intention was never to stop transnational repression and United Front work,&#8221; he said, calling for EU legislation to curb such activities &#8220;as soon as possible.&#8221; APEC summit Zhou Fengsuo, executive director of the U.S.-based Human Rights in China, said China&#8217;s consulate in San Francisco had engaged in the large-scale mobilization of patriotic protesters during President Xi Jinping visit last week to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders&#8217; summit in the city.. &#8220;The Chinese Communist Party will take up every bit of space it can in democratic societies to extend its rule and engage in state persecution,&#8221; Zhou told Radio Free Asia.  &#8220;Consulates wield a great deal of power overseas.&#8221; &#8220;Much like it did with overseas police stations, the international community needs to face up to this form of [Chinese] government control.&#8221; After Chinese international student Tian Ruichen took part in protests supporting the &#8220;White Paper&#8221; movement of November 2022 and the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement, he was unsettled to find he&#8217;d been doxxed – a common tactic employed by supporters of Beijing. He told Radio Free Asia that overseas dissident communities need far more protection from the long arm of the Chinese Communist Party than they are currently...
- [China media talk up economic environment to shore up FDI](https://ij-reportika.com/china-media-talk-up-economic-environment-to-shore-up-fdi/): In recent days, China’s state media have spared no effort in posting upbeat narratives even as the latest economic indicators for October showed a patchy recovery. Some reports hailed rosy projections from foreign investment banks as the basis of the argument such as the one in the Economic Daily on Friday, which cited the likes of Goldman Sachs and UBS Group. The paper said these banks believe that the “important driver of the accelerated recovery of [emerging markets in 2024] is China’s economic development.” The slew of articles talking up the economic landscape comes as foreign interests continued to shrink for the fifth month in October, with foreign direct investments (FDI) falling 9.4% to 987 billion yuan (US$138 billion) in the first 10 months of the year, compared with the year-earlier period.  Furthermore, China recorded its first-ever quarterly deficit in FDI by balance of payments for July-September, the latest data available, at US$11.8 billion. The measure records monetary flows linked to foreign-owned entities in China. Andrew Collier, managing director of Orient Capital Research, said foreign investors will have little appetite in placing their money in China until the structural adjustments in the economy are completed or the end is in sight.  “There will continue to be opportunities in certain pockets, including electronic vehicles, fintech, AI, and some supply chains, but they are relatively small compared with the larger industrial base and property,” he told Radio Free Asia. “China will always be important to the global economy but the peak growth days are over for the foreseeable future.” Amid the stuttering post-COVID recovery, Beijing is also grappling with economic structural challenges, coupled with global slowing growth and a cautious improvement in bilateral relations with the United States following last week’s summit between the two’s leaders Xi Jinping and Joe Biden in San Francisco.  The drag from the real estate market crisis, underscored by indebted property developers that have defaulted on creditors and implicated overseas investors, is playing up on the broader economy. A battered property sector means slower land sales, a crucial lifeline for the coffers of local governments who are already under the weight of overextended local government fund vehicles established to fund infrastructure projects that struggled to generate sufficient returns to cover their obligations.  Measures to shore up the property market included relaxing borrowing rules like reducing mortgage rates and the downpayment ratio and raising the liquidity of banks by lowering the reserve amount they need to maintain. Chinese regulators have also ordered banks and financial institutions to help stabilize the property market by keeping financing channels available for developers. Banking But in urging banks to step up efforts, authorities are reiterating the need to manage risks better and preserve the soundness of the financial system. Again, they borrowed the views of China-based foreign banks like HSBC and Standard Chartered, via state media reports. The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) mouthpiece People’s Daily cited these foreign institutions for being “very optimistic of the potential of the China market.” HSBC, it said, recorded a 54% increase in net profit to more than 6 billion yuan, and the bank would have invested an additional 3 billion yuan between 2021 and 2025. HSBC headquarters building is seen in Pudong financial district in Shanghai December 8, 2010. Picture taken December 8, 2010. (Credit: Reuters) Standard Chartered, on the other hand, would have invested US$300 million in areas including digital transformation, expanding its network and risk management between 2022 and 2024. “All the western banks have to say positive things about the Chinese economy otherwise they will be in trouble with the regulators and the leadership in Beijing,” said Collier. “However, a number of Hong Kong-based banks, including HSBC, earn the majority of their profits from mainland activities and therefore they are forced to put all their eggs in one basket as they have few alternatives.” Outlook for 2024 Pundits are hopeful for more stimulus policies when a revival of market-oriented reforms may be unlikely due to the political climate where the state exerts greater control over the economy including a once vibrant private sector. Such indications could come next month at the CCP’s annual Central Economic Work Conference where officials meet annually to set policy plans and the outlook for the world’s second-largest economy. In its forecast, UBS is expecting China’s 2024 growth to be in the mid-4% and Goldman Sachs at 4.8%.  Goldman Sachs analysts in their forecast for next year said several reasons constitute “a challenging longer-run growth outlook.” They are a persisting property downturn and ongoing demographic deterioration – with a shrinking working-age population – that requires China to reinvent its growth model. Additionally, while there may be a modest cyclical rebound in exports, it is unlikely to reverse the ongoing diversification of global value chains away from China and toward some of its peers. Still for 2023, China’s central bank governor Pan Gongsheng said the country is on track to achieve its targeted 5% growth. Edited by Taejun Kang and Mike Firn. 
- [Faced with decline in marriages, Xi calls on women to build families](https://ij-reportika.com/faced-with-decline-in-marriages-xi-calls-on-women-to-build-families/): Faced with plummeting marriage rates, flagging births and a rapidly aging population, Chinese President Xi Jinping wants the country&#8217;s women to step up and embody &#8220;the traditional virtues&#8221; of marriage and raising children in a bid to &#8220;rejuvenate&#8221; the nation. The number of Chinese couples tying the knot for the first time has plummeted by nearly 56% over the past nine years, the financial magazine Yicai quoted the 2023 China Statistical Yearbook as saying, with such marriages numbering less than 11 million in 2022. Young people are increasingly avoiding marriage, having children and buying a home amid a tanking economy and rampant youth unemployment, part of an emerging social phenomenon known as the “young refuseniks” – people who reject the traditional four-fold path to adulthood: finding a mate, marriage, mortgages and raising a family.  A recent poll on the social media platform Weibo found that while most of the 44,000 respondents said 25-28 is the best age to marry, nearly 60% said they were delaying marriage due to work pressures, education or the need to buy property. Georgetown University student Chelsea Yao, 22, who hails from the southern city of Guangzhou, said she doesn&#8217;t find the prospect of marriage at all enticing after enduring years of restrictions under the zero-COVID policy. &#8220;It may look like a peaceful family, but parents actually have a lot of conflict,&#8221; she said. &#8220;In the end, marriage is about everyone living together &#8230; when you grow up and realize what it&#8217;s actually like, it seems a little unnecessary,&#8221; Yao told RFA Mandarin, adding that antagonism between men and women seems to be intensifying in today’s China. &#8220;Rather than making how you feel dependent on another person,&#8221; she said, &#8220;it&#8217;s better to focus on what you want to do.&#8221; Backing away Yet Xi, whose 24-member Politburo is the first in decades not to include a single woman, is calling for the political mobilization of women like Yao to step up and compensate. Backing away from his party&#8217;s time-honored rhetoric on gender equality that was once a mainstay of its claim to legitimacy, Xi told a recent meeting that women have a &#8220;unique&#8221; role to play in the nation&#8217;s return to family life. China&#8217;s President Xi Jinping speaks at an event on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders&#8217; Week in San Francisco, California, Nov. 15, 2023. &#8220;We need to &#8230; guide women to play their unique role in carrying forward the traditional virtues of the Chinese nation,” he says. Credit: Carlos Barria/Pool/AFP &#8220;We need to &#8230; guide women to play their unique role in carrying forward the traditional virtues of the Chinese nation, establish a good family tradition, and create a new trend of family civilization,&#8221; Xi told a recent meeting with leaders of the party&#8217;s All China Women&#8217;s Federation in comments reported by state news agency Xinhua. &#8220;Only with harmonious families, good family education, and correct family traditions can children be raised and society develop in a healthy manner,&#8221; Xi said.  &#8220;We need to actively cultivate a new culture of marriage and childbearing,&#8221; he said, including &#8220;guiding young people&#8217;s views on marriage and childbearing&#8221; in a bid to reverse the rapidly aging population. Chinese women should be mobilized &#8220;to contribute to China&#8217;s modernization,&#8221; Xi told All-China Women&#8217;s Federation leaders. &#8220;The role of women in the &#8230; great cause of national rejuvenation &#8230; is irreplaceable.&#8221; Meanwhile, Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang&#8217;s speech to the five-yearly Chinese Women&#8217;s National Congress also broke with the party&#8217;s usual lip-service to gender equality – by not mentioning it at all. Widening gender gap The lack of enthusiasm for women&#8217;s rights has had a real-world impact, too.  When Xi Jinping took power in 2012, China ranked 69th in the World Economic Forum&#8217;s Global Gender Gap Report, which measures policies and suggests measures to address gender inequality. By 2023, the country had fallen to 107th place. While few women have ever risen to the highest ranks of the Communist Party, Xi&#8217;s insistence on a domestic role for women is a departure even from the luke-warm, Mao-era rhetoric about gender equality, and the depiction of the party in propaganda films as liberating working class and rural women from the shackles of traditional gender roles, including forced marriage and prostitution. China&#8217;s Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang speaks during a meeting at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, July 4, 2023. His speech to this year’s Chinese Women&#8217;s National Congress made no mention of gender equality. Credit: Pedro Pardo/Pool via Reuters In May 2021, Beijing unveiled new plans to boost flagging birth rates and reverse population aging, raising the official limit on the number of children per couple from two to three. But Chinese women haven&#8217;t been stepping up to solve the government&#8217;s population problems as readily as Xi had hoped. And the current emphasis on traditional Confucian culture appears to have exacerbated gender inequality under Xi, who has also offered little in the way of practical assistance, according to Wang Ruiqin, a former member of the Chinese People&#8217;s Political Consultative Conference from the western province of Qinghai. &#8220;The liberation of women &#8230; should be fundamentally based on their social status,&#8221; she said. &#8220;But the Chinese Communist Party&#8217;s claim that women hold up half the sky is really about political expediency.&#8221; She said that rather than just calling on women to take more responsibility for marriage and childrearing, the government should put its money where its mouth is. &#8220;The Chinese Communist Party is aware of these problems &#8230; but doesn&#8217;t actually have any fundamental measures to remedy them,&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;There is no women&#8217;s liberation, no employment or welfare protections, and the cost of raising children isn&#8217;t shared by the government.&#8221; Obstacles Chinese women face major barriers to finding work in the graduate labor market and fear getting pregnant if they do manage to get a job, out of concern their employer will fire them, a common practice despite protection on paper offered by China&#8217;s labor laws. And the authorities have cracked down hard on...
- [Over 1,000 Myanmar schools empty as fighting resumes in Rakhine](https://ij-reportika.com/over-1000-myanmar-schools-empty-as-fighting-resumes-in-rakhine/): Over 1,000 schools in western Myanmar have been abandoned by pupils, education officials told Radio Free Asia on Thursday. Escalating battles in northern Rakhine state between the junta and Arakan Army have emptied schools in 10 townships.  In those townships, students are normally sent to some 1,800 schools, now of which only about 650 can operate, said Rakhine state’s education director Ba Htwe Sein. “It’s not that they are closed. Parents in uninhabited villages don’t send children to school,” he told RFA. “Children don’t come to school because parents don’t let them go. They are worried about the children. We have not ordered the schools to close.” Rakhine’s education department is telling township education offices to encourage students to go to school and asking schools to run as normal in areas where they can, he added. Some entire villages have fled because of fighting, like Chein Khar Li in Rathedaung township, said one parent from the village. Since Nov. 13 when the Arakan Army and junta’s year-long ceasefire ended, children have not been sent to school in conflict-ridden areas. “My daughter is in the fourth grade. She attends Chein Khar Li village’s elementary school. Since November 13, the entire village has fled. There is only a school with no teacher at all,” the parent said, asking to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.  “Everyone is fleeing. Even if the child wants to go to school, she could not go to school because there is no one to teach her. I am worried about the delay in children’s education.” Since the junta has blocked land and water routes to suppress the Arakan Army, teachers and other school employees can’t get to work, he added. Most educators in battlegrounds are also fleeing for their lives, said one middle school teacher in Pauktaw, where a series of junta attacks since Nov. 16 have led residents to flee en masse. “How can the teachers go to schools? The teachers themselves are fleeing the war. There are no schools anymore, so who is going to teach?” she said, asking to remain anonymous to protect herself from reprisals. “Even teachers have to flee to save their lives.” Reopening schools seems impossible in the near future, residents told RFA, adding that junta troops are firing heavy artillery every day in Pauktaw.  More than 26,000 people from 4,700 households in Rakhine state have fled due to intense conflict, the United Nation Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported on Friday.  The report also said at least 11 local people have been killed and more than 30 have been injured by heavy shelling in Maungdaw, Mrauk-U, Kyauktaw and Ann townships. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Myanmar junta arrests 50 in Yangon-area crackdown](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-arrests-50-in-yangon-area-crackdown/): Myanmar’s military junta has arrested nearly 50 young people in and around Yangon over the past three weeks, residents told Radio Free Asia. The people, mostly under 30 years old, were arrested between Nov. 1 and 21. Approximately 30 of them were arrested in Kayan township, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of Myanmar’s largest city. People from the area told RFA Burmese that the Kayan People’s Defense Force have frequently conducted attacks on junta targets there. It has not yet been possible to obtain information on the reasons for their detention or their whereabouts, and their family members have no access to them, said a resident who insisted on anonymity for security reasons. Arrests of civilians has been a common practice since the February 2021 coup, when the military took over control of the government. The Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners released an updated report on Nov. 21 stating that over 25,000 civilians have been arrested across the country since the coup, with 19,702 still remaining in detention. At least 10 of the people arrested in Kayan township were taken into custody on Nov. 19, when the junta inspected overnight guests at a dormitory there, the resident said. “Soldiers inspected overnight registration at a dormitory. The arrestees had been living there for some time,” the resident said. “They showed all their documents, but around 10 young men were apprehended. They have not been released and cannot be contacted.” The other 20 people from Kayan township were arrested between Nov. 1 and 18, usually at night. This has resulted in decreased nighttime activity in the township, residents said. Over the same period of time, three people were arrested in Kamayut township, five in Dagon Myothit (Seikkan) township and 10 in North Okkalapa township. People monitoring these arrests told RFA that it remains unknown whether they will be released or not. Two of the Kamayut arrests occurred on Tuesday, a covert online media group called Kamayut Information told RFA. “We have learned that some young men living on the first floor of Sin Ma Leik wholesale market were arrested around 7 pm,” a member of the group told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “The military has also made arrests at the bustling San Yeik Nyein bus stop, Hledan bus stop and Hledan train station in Ward 3 since August and September.&#8221; Staying home A resident of Shwe Pyi Thar township told RFA, requesting not to be identified for safety reasons, that news of arrests keeps people inside at night. “In our ward, no one goes outside at night after we ask the children to come back home before we close the doors.” Ko Kaung, a participant in recurring anti-junta flash protests in Yangon, told RFA that the junta soldiers arrest individuals during their patrols, with a specific focus on targeting the youth under 18. “They make arrests if they find anything suspicious on mobile phones during inspections, and they also detain individuals around 18-year old during their patrols,” he said. Ko Ye Ba Wal, the chairman of the Octopus youth organization that helped to organize flash protests, told RFA that the military has three separate plans to maintain power. “The first plan is to hide the battle news across the country. The second is to defeat urban resistance forces, and the third one is to extort money as ransom from those apprehended.&#8221; The Mirror, a military controlled newspaper, reported Wednesday that false information had been circulating suggesting that young people were being forced to do military training to become porters for the military.  According to the report  a junta official said that this was misinformation, and did not acknowledge that any arrests had occurred. RFA attempted to contact Attorney General Htay Aung, the spokesperson of Yangon Region government for a comment but phone calls went unanswered. Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar junta uses pregnant women and monks as human shields](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-uses-pregnant-women-and-monks-as-human-shields/): Nearly 100 civilians were caught in a battle in western Myanmar on Tuesday, locals told Radio Free Asia. As fighting in Rakhine state between the Arakan Army and junta forces continues over the disputed town of Pauktaw, residents report an increase in abductions and injuries across the region.   Junta forces abducted nearly 100 people, including monks, the elderly, children and pregnant women in Pauktaw to use as human shields. The civilians were abducted on Nov. 16 when the Arakan Army captured Pauktaw’s police station, which was previously occupied by junta troops. In retaliation, the regime attacked the coastal area by firing weaponry from navy ships and aircraft.  By the following week, the junta army and police had re-captured Pauktaw and were patrolling neighborhoods.  The Arakan Army seized control of the city again on Tuesday and rescued the captured civilians, according to a statement the group released. It also stated the regime was frequently using heavy artillery and launching rockets from ships and by aircraft.  The junta stated it had captured Pauktaw before Tuesday, but an announcement by junta spokesman Maj. Gen Zaw Min Tun in military-controlled newspapers did not say anything about the arrested people. Fighting between the two groups is also affecting civilians in the state’s northeast. On Monday evening in Paletwa township on the Chin state border, eight civilians, including five children, were injured in a junta airstrike.  Some of the children are in a critical condition after they were struck by bomb shrapnel while bathing in a creek, said a woman from Mee Zar village, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. “The children were hit when they came back from bathing in the creek down from the village. The adults were hit when they went to pick things up,” she said. “I heard that the injured are in a critical condition. At the moment, we’re hiding when we hear the sound of the plane. I am still afraid it will come again.” All eight victims are currently receiving medical treatment at Mee Zar District Hospital. RFA contacted Chin state’s junta spokesperson Kyaw Soe Win by phone regarding the aerial bombardment, but he did not respond by the time of publication. Mee Zar village is about 10 kilometers (six miles) away from Paletwa township’s Hta Run Aing village, where another clash between the junta army and Arakan Army erupted, locals said. On Monday evening, a Christian church in Matupi township’s Lalengpi town was destroyed during the junta’s airstrike, according to the locals. Eleven residents, including eight children, were killed during an aerial bombardment on Vuilu village in Matupi township on the night of Nov. 15.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Karenni officials: 200 university workers are safe after evacuation](https://ij-reportika.com/karenni-officials-200-university-workers-are-safe-after-evacuation/): More than 200 civilians evacuated from a university during recent fighting in the Kayah state capital in eastern Myanmar are being provided health care at a safe location, Karenni officials told Radio Free Asia. The military junta has alleged that the civilians, which include teachers and the rector from Loikaw University, were being detained against their will. “Some of them seem to be in a good mood, but some others said they are missing their family members,” said Banyar, the director of the Karenni Human Rights Organization. “We have told them that we will proceed in accordance with rules and regulations.”  Fighting began in Loikaw in eastern Myanmar on Nov. 11 when the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force, or KNDF, targeted junta bases and a prison in the city. Junta troops retaliated with airstrikes and shelling, killing 20 civilians, according to the Karenni Human Rights Organization.  The KNDF announced on Nov. 15 that they had successfully occupied the university, where two battalions of military junta soldiers had been stationed. The soldiers had frequently raided and shelled nearby villages, according to KNDF Chairman Khun Bedu.  Regime spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun said the attack on Loikaw University was a “barbaric act” and alleged that Karenni troops had killed some teachers and taken other teachers hostage. Khun Bedu denied these accusations, saying the attack was carried out only because soldiers were stationed there. Karenni Nationalities Defense Force fighters stand at Loikaw University in Loikaw, Myanmar, in this still image taken from video released Nov. 16, 2023. Credit: Karenni Nationalities Defense Force/Handout via Reuters A Karenni National Progressive Party official told RFA that junta troops used some university staff members and students as human shields during the fighting. They were evacuated to a secure place and no one has been tortured or killed, he said. “We are working to allow them to go to their destinations safely,” he said. “We are not using them as human shields like the military did.” On Monday, the KNDP published a recorded video clip on its social media page with statements from the university’s rector and several teachers. Some of the university staff members were being questioned about possible junta associations, said Banyar, who goes by one name. Legal action may be taken against some of them, he said on Monday. He did not provide specific details. Artillery attacks and air strikes Karenni forces launched their offensive this month after their northern allies’ “Operation 1027,” during which rebel groups won control of three major cities in Shan state.  The Karenni Humanitarian Aid Initiative on Tuesday said air strikes and artillery attacks killed 68 civilians between Nov. 11-19 in Loikaw and Shan’s Pekon township. Victims included 10 children and 18 women, the group said. The information was gathered from the Karenni Human Rights Organization and media reports, they said. A humanitarian volunteer for Karenni displaced persons told RFA that the actual casualty toll  may be higher. “We cannot get some figures from the frontlines of battles,” the volunteer said. “As the military was being defeated in the battles, they carried out air strikes on civilian targets and shot people dead.” RFA attempted to contact Myint Kyi, junta spokesperson for Kayah state, but phone calls went unanswered. Myanmar military soldiers who surrendered to the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force ride in the back of a vehicle in Loikaw, Myanmar, in this still image taken from video released Nov. 15, 2023. Credit: Karenni Nationalities Defense Force/Handout via Reuters Neither the junta nor Kareni forces have stated total casualty tolls from the fighting that began on Nov. 11.  Elsewhere in Myanmar, a People’s Defense Force in Chin state said they have occupied a military outpost at Kennedy Peak between Kalay and Tedim townships. About 30 junta soldiers had been stationed at the outpost since the February 2021 military coup. “We began to attack this outpost at 4 a.m., and totally controlled the camp at around 6 a.m.,” an official from PDF Zoland told RFA. “It was the highest mountain in northern Chin and strategically important. So we captured it.” RFA attempted to contact Kyaw Soe Win, the social affairs minister and junta spokesperson for Chin state government, for his response but was unable to reach him. Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [China orders financial support for battered property sector](https://ij-reportika.com/china-orders-financial-support-for-battered-property-sector/): The Chinese government has urged banks and financial institutions to back a sputtering real estate sector where the biggest developers have buckled under the weight of tremendous debt and don’t have the capital to complete pre-sold homes to hundreds of thousands of homebuyers. The move underscores Beijing’s dilemmatic position of having to defuse local government debt risks while pumping capital into the real economy to prop up growth. The property sector is particularly precarious not only because it is a major growth driver, but the housing issue is closely tied to social stability.  Authorities told financial institutions that they need to support “reasonable” fund-raising requirements for developers that are “operating normally,” according to a report from the official Xinhua news agency Friday.  The report added that capital raised through credit, bonds and stock issuance has paid off in helping stabilize the real estate market, citing a meeting organized by the central bank, the People’s Bank of China, foreign exchange and stock regulators, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange and the China Securities Regulatory Commission.  The meeting was also attended by officials from the two stock exchanges, policy banks and 18 national commercial banks, five asset management firms and four of the country’s biggest stockbrokers. There is no official tally of the extent of debt chalked up by property developers.  China Evergrande is the world’s most indebted developer with more than US$300 billion in liabilities. It defaulted on its debt two years ago and has yet to come up with a repayment plan. At the end of October, a Hong Kong High Court judge gave the Hong Kong-listed company until Dec. 4 to come up with a plan when a winding-up hearing will be heard. Evergrande is not alone. Country Garden and Sunac are also in hot soup.  The crisis is more pronounced in tier-two cities or below, where most of the 841 demonstrations against property developers since January 2022 to date have occurred, based on data from Freedom House’s China Dissent Monitor. Most of them were staged by homebuyers demanding delivery of their properties with a smaller proportion of construction workers seeking salary payments. Implications of property woes China’s property crisis is a growing concern and a drag on the broader economy – the financial wellbeing of local governments, where traditionally, land sales for real estate projects are a huge contributor to their revenues.  These governments are already under pressure from the cracks of local government fund vehicles that are issued to fund infrastructure like roads and airports but have not generated enough returns to cover their obligations. And massive debts piling up are also fueling concerns of a systemic financial crisis. The Central Financial Commission, the financial watchdog led by Premier Li Qiang, on Monday emphasized in a meeting the need to improve financial services that will help economic development. “It is necessary to comprehensively strengthen financial supervision, the responsibility of managing risks, coordination among departments, heighten control of the risk sources as they are diffused, and boost relevant reforms to improve prevention, warning and management mechanisms,” according to a separate Xinhua report citing a commission meeting that Li chaired. A woman rides a scooter past a construction site of residential buildings by Chinese developer Country Garden, in Tianjin, China August 18, 2023. Credit: Reuters Government debts are expected to account for 83% of China’s gross domestic product in 2023, up from 77% last year, according to data from the International Monetary Fund.  The IMF’s Mission Chief for China, Sonali Jain-Chandra pointed out that more measures are needed to secure a recovery of the property market, which should include ways to accelerate the exit of troubled developers and greater central government funding for housing completion, following a visit to China early this month. According to analysts at Nomura, an estimated 20 million units of unconstructed and delayed pre-sold homes across the country are the biggest hurdle to turning the property crisis around, and about $440 billion will be needed to complete their construction, CNBC reported. In October alone, official data showed that the scale of unsold floor area for residential real estate soared by 19.7%, compared with October 2022. Funds raised by developers dropped 13.8% to 10.73 trillion yuan (US$1.48 trillion) in the first 10 months of the year. Domestic loans into real estate dropped 11% while foreign investments plunged 40.3% in the 10 months. The rating agency S&amp;P Global has forecast China’s property sales to fall as much as 15% this year, with the drop to taper off to 5% for 2024. The continued property slump would hinder the post-COVID recovery of the world’s second-largest economy where real estate and its related industries make up about 30% of GDP. Beijing has also been ramping up measures to prop up the economy. It announced last month a 1 trillion yuan government bond issuance, which allows local governments to frontload part of their 2024 bond quotas. Indications for 2024 Investors and businesses are also watching out for more indications on Beijing’s macroeconomic direction for 2024 at next month’s annual Central Economic Work Conference. “I think they will continue to send similar signals as what we’ve seen in the past couple of quarters. That is, a high priority to supporting private consumption, fighting financial risks including from housing, continued fiscal support and continued support for the private sector and further opening-up,” said Allan von Mehren, China economist for Danske Bank.  “It will be interesting to see if we get any clues about their growth target for 2024.”  Von Mehren pointed out that there is speculation of a 5% target but he sees this as a “quite ambitious target as the base effects will be much less favorable compared to this year.” Beijing has set a growth target of around 5% for this year, which state media has touted this month to be within reach. Last month’s data show China’s recovery to remain uneven. While industrial output and retail sales were on an uptrend, the consumer price index, a gauge of inflation,...
- [North Korea cracks down on unregistered laptops and tablets](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-cracks-down-on-unregistered-laptops-and-tablets/): North Korean authorities are cracking down on people who use unregistered laptops and tablets to keep them from watching foreign “anti-socialist” videos, residents in the country told Radio Free Asia. Those caught with unregistered electronic devices will be punished as a spy, a resident of Ryanggang province told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “From now on, laptops and tablets that are not registered with the government will be punished at the same level as with possession of small radios,” the resident said. “If you are caught secretly carrying a small radio, you will be punished as a spy, regardless of the reason.” The punishment awaiting those who might be caught wasn’t immediately clear, but RFA has reported various punishments for people caught consuming foreign media, including execution. Recent investigations into people who were found guilty of “anti-socialist acts” revealed that they were exposed to foreign media through the devices, he said.  In recent years, memory sticks and SD cards containing South Korean and Western movies, TV shows and music have been smuggled into the country, usually from China, and secretly passed along from person to person. Authorities are taking the step because efforts to stop foreign media from flowing into the country have been ineffective despite serious punishments, the resident said.  “Starting in 2020, there were very strong demands to voluntarily hand over South Korean movies, music, and illegal publications to judicial authorities, but no one actually did so voluntarily,” he said. “Cracking down on South Korean movies, music, and illegal publications will not be easy because they are easy to hide, but now laptops and tablets that can secretly play such materials are being targeted.” Streamlined process It’s the latest bid to exercise complete control over what types of information the public can access. The Ministry of Social Security ordered the head of every neighborhood watch unit to go to all the houses in the neighborhood to deliver orders that all laptops and tablets must be registered, and to receive a signature confirming that the resident has read and understood it. Because the government wants everyone to register their devices, the registration process has been streamlined, a second Ryanggang province resident said on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “In the past, desktop computers, laptops, and tablets were taken directly to the city and county social security department and post offices to be registered,” the resident said.  “Now …  you can go to the head of the neighborhood-watch unit and write down the date you came into possession of the computer, the route by which you took possession of it, the model, and the year it was produced.” About one-third of all households in most North Korean cities have tablets and laptops, even if they are older models, a former North Korean who escaped North Korea and settled in South Korea at the end of 2019, who requested anonymity for personal safety, told RFA. RFA was not able to confirm the exact percentage of North Korean residents who own unregistered laptops and tablets.   Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Ongoing conflict in northern Myanmar kills 2, including child](https://ij-reportika.com/ongoing-conflict-in-northern-myanmar-kills-2-including-child/): Residents in northeastern Myanmar are facing both a humanitarian crisis and intense conflict, people living in the area told Radio Free Asia. On Sunday night, airstrikes by junta forces killed two people, including a child, in Shan state.   Locals were caught off guard when a junta plane began an aerial attack on Myo Thit village in Namhsan township around 10 pm. It was unexpected because there had not been any fighting beforehand, said one local, asking to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.  “There is no fighting in Namhsan, but the aerial bombardment was carried out while people were sleeping,” he told RFA, adding that six women and two men were injured in addition to the two killed. “People died and houses were also burned.” The explosions damaged 23 houses in total. The bomb weighed roughly 500 pounds and killed Tar San Naw, as well as a child, when it landed on a house, according to a statement released by the Ta’ang National Liberation Army on Monday. The junta has not released any information about this attack and calls by RFA to Shan state’s junta spokesperson Khun Thein Maung went unanswered. Conflict in northeastern Shan state has intensified in the last two months, as an allied group of resistance armies took three major cities in Operation 1027 in late October. Earlier that month, the Ta’ang National Liberation Army attacked several junta convoys, causing their troops to retaliate. Since Oct. 10, nearly 30,000 internally displaced people have been sheltering in makeshift tents near the China-Myanmar border in Laukkaing township.  A camp for internally displaced people in Laukkaing township on November 18, 2023. Credit: The Kokang Since Thursday, heavy rain has made life more difficult for those forced from their homes. After several days of rain, resources are becoming harder to find and people’s health is deteriorating, said a Laukkaing resident, who did not want to be named for security reasons.  “They have been living in tents since before [the rain]. It is raining and they are not comfortable anymore. Most are workers from other areas, not residents,”  he told RFA. “There are many people who came to work in Laukkaing from other areas. Water also became scarce in that camp.” Elderly people and children are also more prone to illness in the colder weather without blankets, he added. On Saturday, the camp’s water and electricity were cut off. The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army warned Chinese citizens in Laukkaing to return to China to avoid conflict in the region. They also told civilians to stay away from military camps and not to move around the area. All of Laukkaing’s roads and gates out of the city are blocked and locals are facing food shortages, residents also reported. Junta troops are not letting food or supplies into the city.  After Operation 1027, battles between the military junta and the three northern allies have been continuing in eight townships, including Namhkan, Chinshwehaw, Nawnghkio, Lashio and Manton. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Brotherhood Alliance  campaign in Shan State spawns contagion effect in Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/brotherhood-alliance-campaign-in-shan-state-spawns-contagion-effect-in-myanmar/): The Three Brotherhood Alliance’s Operation 1027 in northern Shan State has caused a contagion effect, with its sweeping victories since late October followed by major gains by ethnic resistance organizations across Myanmar.  Since the country’s founding in 1948, the military has never suffered such significant and widespread battlefield setbacks. Despite having seized power in a coup d&#8217;état in February 2021, Myanmar&#8217;s military has never been able to consolidate power. But now, it looks like the beginning stages of their total defeat, with plummeting morale amongst the rank and file.  Operation 1027 continues across Shan State with the Three Brotherhood Alliance &#8212; , which includes the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, (TNLA) the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), and the Arakan Army &#8212; and some people’s defense forces under the National Unity Government (NUG) having taken nine towns, over 160 military camps, and now controlling key roads.  Opposition forces have seized abandoned armor, artillery, and a large cache of small arms and ammunition. And army attempts to supply their isolated forces by air have had little success with opposition forces often recovering the supplies. Members of the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force, KNDF pose in front of Loikaw University in Kayah State following their attack on junta forces on Nov. 15, 2023. Credit: KNDF The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) is currently pushing towards their former headquarters in Laukkaing, which they lost in 2009. Ironically, the commander of Myanmar&#8217;s military forces in that 2009 battle was none other than junta leader Min Aung Hlaing.  Radio Free Asia has reported that a second battalion of some 120 men has laid down their arms in Shan State. The first light infantry battalion to do so, which included 41 men, took place on October 30, 2023. Authorities in Naypyitaw are so concerned about the total loss of Kokang Special Autonomous Zone, that they replaced the head of the local allied Border Guards Force that was established in 2009, Myint Swe, with Brigadier-General Tun Tun Myint of the northeastern command. But beyond that the military is unable to do little other than barrage the region with long-range artillery and aerial bombardments. Despite Min Aung Hlaing’s vow to mount a counter offensive, the military is short on manpower, helicopter lift capability and is facing crumbling morale. Contagion Effect The Kachin Independence Army has joined the fray, capturing a military base in Kutkai, in northern Shan state, where they claim 30 soldiers were killed.  There are ongoing encounters between them and military regime forces in Kachin. With the roads contested, the military is now dependent on ferrying in men and supplies. The fighting has significantly expanded in the past week. Karenni forces launched a parallel offensive, Operation 1111, in Kayah state. They have seized 20 military outposts in 6 days of fighting.  But most significantly, they are in the middle of an assault on Loikaw. The city of 50,000, is the first provincial capital that is at risk of falling to opposition forces.  Karenni Nation Defense Forces (KNDF) have claimed to have killed 110 soldiers and taken 38 prisoners of war. Footage spread across social media shows KNDF personnel taking the surrender and providing medical care for soldiers at the University in Loikaw.  Members of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, MNDAA Pose with ammunition seized from Hkoke Htan military outpost in Kokang region on Nov. 16, 2023. Operation 1027 continues across Shan State with the Three Brotherhood Alliance and some people’s defense forces Under the National Unity Government, NUG having taken nine towns, over 160 military camps, and now controlling key roads. Credit: The Kokang The situation in Chin state has been more fluid. Military forces drove some Chin fighters into India’s Mizoram state, but some dozen were returned to military custody by the Assam Rifles. Days later, military personnel found themselves in Mizoram where they had fled. In this case, the Assam Rifles helicoptered them back to safety in Myanmar.  The military has responded with airstrikes; one of which killed eight children when a bomb fell on the house being used as a makeshift school. The situation in Rakhine has the potential to be the most costly to the SAC.  The Arakan Army (AA) and the military broke their 2020 ceasefire following the coup, but both sides quickly concluded that an escalation of violence was not in their best interest.  A second ceasefire was reached in November 2022. This was an enormous disappointment for the National Unity Government, which sought a new front against the junta.  Breakdown in Rakhine Yet the involvement of the Arakan Army in northern Shan state, where they are a member of the Three Brotherhood Alliance, has led to a breakdown in the peace in Rakhine state.  The military has deployed several navy ships to the region along with additional personnel, but both failed to serve as a deterrent. The AA broke the ceasefire on November 13.  In the first 24 hours of commencing offensive operations, the AA seized over 40 military and police outposts. Some 26 police surrendered. In many cases police have abandoned remote posts to consolidate in the larger towns.  A man stands amongst debris in the aftermath of a military strike on a camp for displaced people near northern Laiza area on Oct. 11, 2023. Credit: AFP The AA took the town of Pauktaw, their first. The military has responded as they can, with aerial bombardment and indiscriminate fire from their naval vessels that has led to the death of innocent civilians and over 20,000 displaced people.  There are reports that several ministers from the Rakhine State Military Council have already fled the capital Sittwe, for fear of being arrested by the AA. The AA can be expected to quickly fill the political vacuum. In Sagaing &#8212; where a joint operation between the KIA, the AA, the All Burma Students’ Defense Force, and other PDFs led to the capture of Kawlin &#8212; the first of 330 nationwide township capitals to fall, has now spread to Tigyaing township. The...
- [New in North Korea: Hair loss products](https://ij-reportika.com/new-in-north-korea-hair-loss-products/): Hair loss products are now for sale in North Korea amid an apparent uptick in the number of people struggling with thinning hair or going bald, experts in South Korea with knowledge of the country told Radio Free Asia. Examples of such products can be seen on the homepage of Foreign Trade of the DPRK, or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the formal name of North Korea. But many of the treatments are too expensive for ordinary people – and may not be very effective, the experts said. A North Korean man waits outside a barber shop next to a poster with different types of hairstyles in Pyongyang in 2015. Credit: Wong Maye-E/AP North Koreans appear to be suffering from hair loss for a variety of reasons, said Choi Jeong Hoon, who worked as a doctor in the North before fleeing to the South. He is now a senior researcher at the Public Policy Research Institute at Korea University in Seoul. Some experience hair loss from the aftereffects of often life-threatening typhoid and paratyphoid fever, he said. “After suffering from these infections, hair loss is severe,” he said. Harsh chemical ingredients in soap and laundry detergent that North Koreans use to wash their hair also can cause hair to fall out because they can irritate the scalp, Choi said. “It is not easy to find mild chemical products in North Korea’s current situation,” he added. “Ordinary residents cannot afford to worry about hair loss.” Military caps Caps worn in the military – all able-bodied men are typically required to serve 10 years in the armed forces – may also damage one’s hair, said Ahn Kyung Soo, head of DPRKHealth.org, a blog on health issues in North Korea. Sweating while wearing the cap inhibits proper ventilation, leading to unpleasant odors and bacterial buildup that can clog pores, ultimately resulting in thinning hair, Ahn said.  “When one goes into the military in North Korea, the environment is poor,” he said. “For example, there are testimonies even in South Korea that wearing a military cap causes hair loss.”   A man undergoes a hair-restoration procedure at the Sinuiju Cosmetics Factory in the North Korean border city of Sinuiju in 2018. Credit: Ed Jones/AFP Hair loss treatments in North Korea are divided into pharmaceuticals and functional cosmetics, creating some consternation about which to choose, the experts said. Among the new products are Guritdae Hair Loss Tincture manufactured by Pyongchon Koryo Pharmaceutical Factory, which treats patchy and thinning hair and total hair loss that result from autoimmune disorders that attack hair follicles, causing hair to fall out. Then, there’s Hair Growth Tonic made by the Shinuiju Cosmetics Factory whose label says it’s effective for preventing premature hair loss and for promoting hair growth. Effectiveness questionable Though the products may contain ingredients that are believed to be good for hair or skin, it’s difficult to verify their efficacy as medicines, Ahn said. “North Korean medicines cannot actually be verified,” he told Radio Free Asia. Shinuiju Cosmetics Factory’s Hair Growth Tonic. Credit: Handout from Chosun Trade North Korean hair loss medicines are basically “oriental medicines” — topical tonics based on medicinal herbs, so their effect is likely to be minimal, said Choi. For example, users are to dip a pine needle-like brush into a glass bottle and apply it to the scalp to stimulate areas affected by hair loss, he said. But this might not do the trick because hair loss can be affected by male hormones and result from skin diseases, Choi said. “So, applying medicine on the affected part will not solve the problem,” he said. Some North Koreans associate a loss of hair, called bondae in Korean, with poverty.  A public salon in Pyongyang, North Korea, in 2017. Credit: Ed Jones/AFP But at other times it has been viewed as a sign of wealth. “This perception has become entrenched because the so-called ‘major bondae’ pattern of hair loss is particularly prevalent among wealthy and powerful people, such as officials or representatives of companies that earn foreign currency,” Choi said. “It refers to the image of being greedy, having a lot of luck, and making a lot of money,” he added. Even in South Korea, until the 1980s and early 1990s, people didn’t think baldness looked bad, said Choi. “There was a perception that having a belly and a bald head made one look manly and rich.” Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee for RFA Korean. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Russian soldier in Ukraine discusses North Korean weapons in video](https://ij-reportika.com/russian-soldier-in-ukraine-discusses-north-korean-weapons-in-video/): Video of a Russian soldier in Ukraine talking about ammunition supplied by North Korea surfaced on social media this week, apparently debunking denials by Pyongyang and Moscow that the isolated East Asian country is supplying weapons for the war there. A video titled “Multiple rocket launcher (MRL) extended-range shells kindly provided by North Korean comrades have arrived in the NVO zone,” was shared on Nov. 12 on a Telegram channel called Paratrooper’s Diary, which contains frequent posts from Russian troops fighting in the northern front in Ukraine. The video shows a Russian soldier standing in front of a pile of rockets. &#8220;Our friends gave us a new type of ammunition similar to the twenty-second,” the soldier said in a possible reference to the rocket’s designation of R-122. &#8220;They travel farther distances and hit the target with higher accuracy. The victory will be ours.&#8221;   If the weapons are indeed North Korean, it would be proof that Russia is in violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874, which prohibits arms trade with North Korea. The prospect that the rockets were provided by North Korea is very likely, David Maxwell, vice president of the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy, told RFA Korean.    “These MRLs are ubiquitous,” Maxwell said. “Since the weapons are so common and so heavily used for indirect fire against tactical Ukrainian targets, the Russians are likely going through their ammunition stocks rapidly and thus need resupply from North Korea.” The rockets in the video were also identified as North Korean by military blogger War Noir on X.  “The rockets appear to be rare R-122 HE-FRAG rockets with F-122 fuzes. These are produced and supplied #NorthKorea/#DPRK,” a Nov. 8 tweet by War Noir, which contained the same video, said.  RFA previously reported that the same blogger had identified North Korean weaponry used by Hamas fighters in attacks on Israel last month.  Russian denials Though both Pyongyang and Moscow have denied that North Korea is supplying Russia with weapons for use in Ukraine, this is not the first time that evidence to the contrary has surfaced. In October, the Ukrainian weapons analysis group ‘Ukraine Weapons Tracker’ released photos showing the Russian military using North Korean-made artillery shells in a tweet on X. But on Tuesday, a spokesman for the Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, said at a press conference that allegations that Russia was using North Korean weapons were “completely groundless.” “[The allegations] have not been confirmed by anything,” he said. North Korea has also dismissed the idea, calling it an “absurd manipulation of public opinion.” The United States is deeply concerned about “the expansion of military cooperation between North Korea and Russia,” U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said on Tuesday. “North Korea is providing lethal weapons to Russia.” Meanwhile, South Korea’s Ministry of Unification was also critical of the apparent uptick in military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow at a press briefing last month. “North Korea has repeatedly denied arms trade with Russia, but related circumstances are coming to light one after another,” the ministry’s spokesperson Koo Byoung Sam said. “The true nature of North Korea, which has deceived the entire world, is being revealed to the world.” RFA sent a message to the administrator of the Telegram channel to confirm the veracity of the video which is saying that the Russian military received North Korean weapons but did not receive a response. Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Taiwan: the ‘most sensitive’ issue, linchpin to US-China relations](https://ij-reportika.com/taiwan-the-most-sensitive-issue-linchpin-to-us-china-relations/): The leaders of the world’s two biggest economies emerged from a high-profile summit with a conciliatory and consensual commitment to find a forward path of managing competition that benefits the United States and China, but one issue still remains as the linchpin: Taiwan.  While pundits would not have expected the meeting between President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping this week to have moved the needle as far as Taiwan is concerned, the issue was tabled and discussed, with both sides posturing as they always have. Biden reiterated the U.S.’s agreement to a One China policy and its position that Taiwan maintains its sovereignty despite China’s claims to the contrary. Xi, according to Xinhua news agency, called for the U.S. to take concrete actions to show that it is not supporting “Taiwan’s independence,” stop arming Taiwan and back China’s reunification. “China will realize reunification, and this is unstoppable,” Xi said during the summit, which nonetheless resulted in both sides agreeing to a dialogue on artificial intelligence, set up a working group to combat precursors for fentanyl, as well as resume high-level military-to-military communications. Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks during a bilateral meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, in Woodside, California, U.S., November 15, 2023. Credit: Reuters The self-governed democratic island has been the flashpoint amid the increasingly tense bilateral relationship between China and the U.S. The two have disputed the Taiwan issue for years, especially since the previous administration of Donald Trump. Beijing has claimed numerous times that it could resort to using force to reclaim the island if necessary. The escalated diplomatic stand-off, coupled with China’s apparent increased inward-looking and restricting investment environment for foreign investors to be topped by Beijing’s tightened grip on Hong Kong have triggered an outflow of capital.  “Taiwan was really an essential part of the summit,” pointed out Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief economist for Asia Pacific at Natixis. “The well-crafted speech by Xi during the business summit referring to the fact that China will not engage in any cold war, or that China is looking for a military conflict is very important. I think China knows well that the Taiwan issue is top on the agendas of business executives. And that risk is now one of the reasons actually why some people aren’t investing either in Taiwan for that matter or the mainland. So I think that is a big statement.” “Peaceful coexistence” The evening after his summit with Biden, Xi addressed a room full of top U.S. business leaders in San Francisco, where he called “peaceful coexistence” a baseline for China and the U.S. to uphold as two major countries. Xi stressed that China never bets against the U.S. or interferes in its internal affairs. “Likewise the United States should not bet against China, or interfere in China&#8217;s internal affairs.” He added, “aggression and expansion are not in our genes.” To what extent Xi’s remarks will help de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait, and by virtue the broader South China Sea, will likely be watched closely by analysts, but more importantly by Taiwan’s neighbors Japan and South Korea which are key allies of the U.S. in the region. At the same time, it also raises the question of how reassuring it would be to investors to bring fresh capital back to China. The U.S., Japan and South Korea have expressed their objection to what they saw as threats from Beijing, as China conducted military exercises around Taiwan to assert its sovereignty over the island. The Chinese navy has also been engaging in aggressive maneuvers in the South China Sea in a standoff with the Philippines. A Taiwan Navy Knox-class frigate fires chaff during a navy exercise off Yilan County, Taiwan, Friday, April 13, 2018. Credit: AP The dispute between the two major powers over the island amplified when Beijing issued a strong criticism following the visit of the then-Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, to Taiwan in August 2022. Since the event, the Chinese side had suspended its military communication channels with the U.S., a critical channel considered a last resort to prevent an unintended military confrontation. According to Zhang Baohui, professor of government and international affairs at Hong Kong-based Lingnan University, although the resumption of military communication channels between the U.S. and China will have a limited effect on the Taiwan issue, it is still a stabilizer to the high-risk relations between the two. “The US achieved its goal of reopening military to military ties and secured Chinese cooperation, while China achieved the goal of stabilizing the strategic rivalry, preventing it from getting worse,” said Zhang. “I think the outcome is positive for both countries. Both gained the image that they can work together to enhance global welfare.” Financial implications  On the financial and business front, investors are taking a wait-and-see approach to the impact of the summit. For one, the U.S. did not lift any export controls on high-end semiconductors, an issue that China raised in the summit, criticizing the Americans for attempting to deny Chinese people the right to development. “The meeting should prove to have little long-term impact on financial markets. Xi did receive a very positive reception from business leaders, but here he was preaching to the choir,” said Brock Silvers, chief investment officer of Kaiyuan Capital.  “Little was said or agreed that would convince recalcitrant investors that China was now prepared to tackle systemic or deflationary pressures, make necessary reforms, or meaningfully address investability concerns. “For investors, very few minds were likely changed.”  U.S. President Joe Biden and China&#8217;s President Xi Jinping walk in the gardens at the Filoli Estate in Woodside, Calif., Wednesday, Nov, 15, 2023, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. Credit:The New York Times via AP, Pool Garcia-Herrero is more optimistic. Overall, the Xi-Biden meeting could prompt the foreign business community to see that “maybe China&#8217;s not so uninvestable,” she said.  “I’m expecting inflows into China because of this...
- [Former lawmaker dies in police custody after arrest for Myanmar scams](https://ij-reportika.com/former-lawmaker-dies-in-police-custody-after-arrest-for-myanmar-scams/): A former member of parliament for Myanmar’s pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party wanted by Chinese authorities has died in police custody after being arrested for masterminding an online scam ring, according to junta-controlled media. Police in the Kokang Self-Administered Zone in northern Shan state, along Myanmar’s border with China, arrested ethnic Chinese businessman Ming Xuechang in Laukking township on Thursday in addition to his son Ming Guoping and grandson Ming Zhenzhen, MRTV said in a report. Beijing issued arrest warrants for the three late last week for allegedly helping to orchestrate telecom scam rings in Myanmar staffed by human trafficking victims. During the arrest, Ming Xuechang was injured by what MRTV described as a “self-inflicted gunshot wound from his own pistol.” He later died in hospital while undergoing treatment, the report said. Myanmar authorities handed Ming Guoping and Ming Zhenzhen over to police from China’s Yunnan province via the border gate at Yanglongkeng, according to MRTV. In addition to the three, Chinese authorities had also issued an arrest warrant for Ming Xuechang’s daughter, Ming Julan, who remains at large. Myanmar’s junta said the four family members committed online fraud, abduction, illegal detention, and extortion in the Kokang Self-Administered Zone. Experts say that many powerful officials in Kokang hold Chinese national ID cards and passports, giving Chinese police the jurisdictional authority to issue warrants for their arrest. Arrests in Yunnan Prior to issuing warrants for the members of the Ming family, authorities in China arrested 11 businesspeople at a trade fair in Yunnan’s Lincang township on Oct. 1, according to Chinese state media.  Among them was Liu Zhangqi – a hotelier and former lawmaker for the Union Solidarity and Development Party in Kone Kyan township who is another of Ming Xuechang’s grandsons. Phoe Wa, a native of Hopan township in northern Shan’s Wa state self-administered zone with knowledge of the online scam industry, told RFA Burmese that he believes the arrests are related. “Some of the 11 are friends or relatives of the four who were the focus of the recent arrest warrants,” he said. “While there are [gambling] coin games on the first floor of hotels in Laukkaing, Muse and Chinshwehaw townships, there are typically restricted upper floors which house online fraud businesses. I assume that these cases are related to these online scams.” A source who is close to Liu Zhangqi, also known as “Maung Maung,” told RFA on condition of anonymity that attempts by family members to meet with the 11 arrested businesspeople in Yunnan have been rebuffed by Chinese authorities. Residents of Kokang who speak Chinese said that on Nov. 12, Liu published a statement in the Chinese media calling on the public to “help the Chinese government control online fraud” in the region. In the statement, Liu said Chinese authorities would “raid homes, hotels and casinos to find suspects,” and warned that anyone who resists arrest “bears responsibility for their own actions.” While reports by local media suggest that Chinese special forces have entered Kokang to conduct arrests of online fraud suspects, RFA has been unable to independently verify the claims. Kokang chief removed The arrest of the Mings comes a day after the junta removed Myint Swe as chief administrator for Kokang and replaced him with Brig. Gen. Tun Tun Myint on a temporary basis. Myint Swe was last seen in public on Nov. 8 at an emergency meeting of the National Defense and Security Council in Naypyidaw, which he had been invited to as a special participant. The junta’s announcement of his replacement made no mention of whether it was related to Thursday’s arrests. RFA made several attempts to contact the Chinese Embassy in Yangon by email for comment on the warrants, arrests, and alleged operations by Chinese special forces in Kokang, but received no response by the time of publishing. Myint Swe, seen at a meeting Nov. 8, was removed on Wednesday as the chief administrator for Kokang Self-Autonomous Special Region. Credit: Myanmar military Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong led a delegation of officials to meet with junta chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing in Naypyidaw on Oct. 31. During the meeting, the two agreed to form a joint Myanmar-China task force to eradicate online scam rings in the Laukkaing area, according to pro-junta media reports. Days earlier, the “Three Brotherhood” Alliance of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, the Arakan Army and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army launched an offensive on Oct. 27 dubbed “Operation 1027” and have since made notable gains against the military in several key cities in Shan state. On Day One of the campaign, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, occupied Chinshwehaw township and arrested several people for alleged roles in online scams. Crackdown only ‘tip of iceberg’ According to pro-junta media, authorities in Kokang have arrested a total of 7,789 foreign nationals – including 7,395 Chinese, 189 Vietnamese, 162 Thais, 32 Malaysians and two Laotians – in connection with online scams in the region. Authorities have deported 6,892 of them to China, reports said. Junta authorities in Myanmar’s Shan state have arrested and deported hundreds of Chinese nationals linked to telecom scams in the region in recent stings, but residents say the rings continue to flourish there, attracting workers with the promise of good-paying jobs. Scamming gangs have proliferated in Shan state, along eastern Myanmar’s borders with China and Thailand, amid the political chaos of the Feb. 1, 2021, coup d’etat, benefitting from widespread unemployment, poor oversight, and growing investment from across the border. Residents told RFA Burmese that scamming operations continue to thrive despite the crackdown, offering high-paying jobs to candidates with computer and language skills who are then held against their will and forced to earn money for their captors by working as telecom scammers. The gangs are known to brutally punish trafficking victims who refuse to work for them or fail to meet earning quotas, sometimes with deadly consequences. MNDAA spokesman Li Kyarwen told RFA that local military...
- [US Congress pushes sanctions on HK pension, judicial issues](https://ij-reportika.com/us-congress-pushes-sanctions-on-hk-pension-judicial-issues/): In a harsh rebuke to China’s tightening authoritarian grip, a new U.S. congressional report has called for sanctions against Hong Kong judges and expanded efforts to protect emigrants’ pension funds. The annual report from the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) on Tuesday recommends Congress-authorized sanctions on members of Hong Kong’s judiciary, including foreign nationals serving on the city’s Court of Final Appeal. It also urges action to prevent U.S. financial institutions from cooperating with Hong Kong authorities seeking to deny departing Hong Kongers access to their retirement savings. Restrictions on MPF withdrawal  Commenting on the situation of Hong Kong immigrants being denied access to their MPF (Mandatory Provident Fund) deposits, the CECC says it believes the practice is the Hong Kong government’s way of punishing Hong Kong people who have emigrated overseas by using BNO, or British National (Overseas), status after the National Security Act came into effect.  This has resulted in some 90,000 BNO holders being denied access to their MPF deposits, according to the report.  The CECC cited the U.S.-based Prudential Group and the U.K.-based Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) for refusing to allow Hong Kong residents to withdraw their MPF deposits after emigrating overseas. Under the Hong Kong Autonomy Act passed in 2020, the U.S. Department of State is required to submit an annual report to Congress on the status of Hong Kong. As such, the CECC has recommended that Congress should direct the Department of State to include in the annual report information on the Hong Kong government’s restriction on the withdrawal of MPF by Hong Kong residents abroad.  The CECC believes that the authorities may consider imposing sanctions on those involved in restricting the freedom of immigration. It also recommended that Congress take further steps to prevent U.S. financial institutions involved in the management of Hong Kong people’s funds from complying with the Hong Kong government’s requests to assist in the infringement of immigration freedoms and to withhold lawfully earned pensions from those involved. Simon Lee, senior lecturer at the School of Accountancy of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said the Hong Kong government not only lacks political advisers, but also a grasp of the global diplomatic struggle.  “Now the MPF issue has escalated to the U.S. Congress, complicating the situation. It not only embarrasses the central government, but also affects the free flow of funds in Hong Kong and reduces investor confidence,” Lee told Radio Free Asia Cantonese on Nov. 15.  “I think it’s silly to use all sorts of back doors to restrict MPF withdrawals. If unsure, it’s better not to do anything,” he said. Instead, Lee suggested that the local authorities should relax the restrictions to avert any potential sanctions, and send out positive signals that will help maintain Hong Kong’s status as an international financial center.  Judicial independence The CECC also recommends that Congress amend the Hong Kong Autonomy Act to include in its annual report an assessment of Hong Kong’s judicial independence, reflecting faithfully whether the city’s chief executive, or any other body acting on behalf of the Chinese government, has exerted undue influence on its judicial system in a way that infringes on the right to a fair and independent trial guaranteed by the Basic Law.  Based on the assessment results, Congress may impose sanctions on individuals serving in the Hong Kong judiciary, including foreign judges serving in the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal, the report noted.  Samuel Bickett, an American lawyer who used to work in Hong Kong, told RFA Cantonese that Hong Kong no longer had judicial independence and the rule of law to speak of, and that every judge and prosecutor involved in trials under the National Security Act had a role to play in undermining the city’s autonomy.  “I think it’s a sign that different parts of the U.S. government, from Congress to the executive branch, have taken note of the need for further sanctions [against Hong Kong] and the failure of the U.S. government to implement them over the last few years,” Bickett said.  “It’s a good sign that the Hong Kong 47 case, the Stand News case, the Jimmy Lai trial, all of these cases are going to get the attention of the United States and add momentum to the actions of the U.S. Congress and the president.” The CECC was established by the U.S. Congress in 2000 to study, report and make recommendations on how the U.S.-China trade and economic relationship affects U.S. national security. In the past, Congress introduced bills to sanction Hong Kong judges.  Early this month, a bipartisan group of Congress members co-sponsored a bill on sanctions against Hong Kong officials – The Hong Kong Sanctions Act – which involves a list of 49 people and is the first time that a number of Hong Kong National Security Act judges and prosecutors are named in the bill.  Translated by RFA Staff. Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.
- [Thailand backs away from Chinese police patrol plan amid furor](https://ij-reportika.com/thailand-backs-away-from-chinese-police-patrol-plan-amid-furor/): The Thai government has ruled out a proposal for Chinese police to be stationed at tourist hotspots around the kingdom amid a public backlash.  The Tourism Authority of Thailand, TAT, on Sunday said the country was in talks with China about introducing joint police patrols as a way to appease Chinese visitors’ fears about safety. But the announcement sparked an outcry and earned pushback from the national police chief, Gen. Torsak Sukvimol, who said having Chinese officers on Thai soil was “a breach of sovereignty,&#8221; according to a report from BenarNews, an affiliate of Radio Free Asia. Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, who is in San Francisco for the APEC summit, said Monday there was no plan to station Chinese police in the country for joint patrols.  Thailand only wanted to exchange information with China on criminal gangs operating in the Southeast Asian nation, Srettha said, according to a report from Bloomberg News. In Bangkok, Tourism Minister Sudawan Wangsuphakijkosol echoed the prime minister’s comments, saying there was “no policy to bring Chinese police” to Thailand. “The Thai police are already adequate … and are working hard to ensure tourist confidence,” he told reporters on Tuesday. TAT Gov. Thapanee Kiatphaibool apologized the same day for the “misunderstanding” and any “negative sentiment” stirred up by her comments. Chinese tourists accounted for a quarter of nearly 40 million tourist arrivals in Thailand in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. But visitor numbers from the world’s No 2 economy have been slower to bounce back than anticipated after Beijing lifted its hardline pandemic rules in January. Thailand expects between 4 million and 4.4 million Chinese visitors this year, the TAT said.  On Wednesday, Chinese Ambassador to Thailand Han Zhiqiang paid a courtesy visit to Sudawan to stress the importance of the bilateral relationship.  “China’s government supports Chinese tourists visiting Thailand,” he said in a video posted by the tourism ministry. “This helps stimulate the economy, the tourism industry and, moreover, brings the two countries closer together.” The country’s image as a safe tourist destination for Chinese has been knocked by a spate of recent kidnap-for-ransom cases and reports of people being tricked into being trafficked as workers at scam call centers in nearby Myanmar. A shooting spree that left three people dead, including one Chinese national, at a popular Bangkok shopping mall last month has also raised safety concerns. The presence of Chinese police on foreign soil has become a sensitive issue worldwide after it was revealed by Spain-based Safeguard Defenders group in a September 2022 report that China was carrying out transnational policing operations across five continents, without the approval of the jurisdictions they were operating in.  The report said the operations “eschew official bilateral police and judicial cooperation and violate the international rule of law, and may violate the territorial integrity of third countries involved in setting up a parallel policing mechanism using illegal methods.” BenarNews is an online news outlet affiliated with Radio Free Asia.
- [China’s consumption up in Oct, underlying economic weaknesses remain](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-consumption-up-in-oct-underlying-economic-weaknesses-remain/): China’s domestic consumption improved in October, bolstered by enhanced numbers in travel and spending during the Golden Week – National Day – holiday in the earlier part of the month, the latest data show. Retail sales, a barometer of domestic demand, were up 7.6% to 4.33 trillion yuan (US$598 billion) last month, on the year, and also a 2.1 percentage point rise from the previous month, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. “From the perspective of demand, in October, driven by the continued effects of consumption-boosting policies, the relatively strong demand for travel during the National Day holiday and the pre-sales from the Singles Day festival, both the market and sales growth have strengthened,” said Liu Aihua, the bureau’s chief economist and spokesperson on Wednesday during a press conference in Beijing.  The uptrend, Liu added, showed that “the rebound in consumer demand was relatively significant.” In a broader perspective, China’s industrial output grew 4.6% in October, climbing marginally from the 4.6% pace in September.  Fixed asset investment for the first 10 months climbed 2.9% from a year ago, but was 0.2 percentage point lower than that of the first nine months. While investment in infrastructure and manufacturing grew 5.9% and 6.2% respectively, that for the country’s embattled real estate development sank 9.3%. Liu pointed out that the industrial output number represented “corporate efficiency, the profits of industrial enterprises above designated size have turned positive year-on-year growth for two consecutive months.” “Whether it is from demand, production, or efficiency, the macroeconomic recovery is quite obvious,” she said. She added that monetary conditions were sound as seen from the increase in broad money supply – which includes bank deposits – for October from the People’s Bank of China data on Monday.  The central bank figures showed that new loans – indicative of economic activities – grew to 738.4 billion yuan (US$101.97 billion) last month, an increase of 105.8 billion yuan from a year ago, but down from the 2.31 trillion yuan in loans extended in September. The latest figures could indicate the resilience of China’s economy in the short term, an expert noted, adding that it is picking up its growth pace.  “The figures are an early indication that China’s economy is regaining momentum after the negative economic impact from COVID-19,” said James Downes, head of the Politics and Public Administration Program at Hong Kong Metropolitan University. Downes, however, cautioned the need for observation of the nation’s long-term economic resilience, advising against making hasty conclusions about China’s economy. Structural problems In fact, China continues to face structural challenges that could exert downward pressure on its economy in the long term. A spiraling property market and mounting local government debt risks, flanked by slower global growth are some of the pressing issues.  The biggest concern for both China and the international community could be the weakening of China’s property market, which may pose a risk of spillover effects on other markets around the globe. The international investment community has witnessed China’s deteriorating real estate market in recent months, and some have borne the brunt of credit defaults from the country’s indebted developers China Evergrande and Country Garden.  A general view of a construction site of residential buildings by Chinese developer Country Garden in Tianjin, China August 18, 2023. (Credit: Reuters) Adding to the concern, the statistics bureau on Wednesday released numbers reflecting the sector’s continued downturn. Property and related industries are estimated to contribute to a quarter of the gross domestic product. At the end of last month, unsold floor area for all commercial properties surged 18.1%, of which that for residential real estate soared by 19.7%, compared with October 2022. Funds raised by developers dropped 13.8% to 10.73 trillion yuan (US$1.48 trillion) in the first 10 months of the year. Domestic loans into real estate dropped 11% while foreign investments plunged 40.3% in the 10 months. Sales for commercial and residential properties slipped 4.9% and 3.7% in the 10-month period respectively.  Beijing has also been ramping up measures to prop up the economy. It announced last month a 1 trillion yuan government bond issuance, which allows local governments to frontload part of their 2024 bond quotas. Beyond its shores, geopolitical tensions continue to weigh on China’s economy, preventing it from potential further growth.  The long term resilience of China’s economy may be tied to its relations with the U.S., on how well it cooperates with the world’s biggest economy and its allies that would give it a larger market access.  China must maintain its access to international markets and attract foreign investment to counteract potential impacts like those from a property market slump and avoid any impediments to its economic growth. “The US and China should seek to put aside their political differences and in the long-term work together on a number of key global issues,” Downes said. U.S. President Joe Biden is set to meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in San Francisco on Wednesday, where the two are expected to discuss a variety of issues including economic cooperation. Despite high anticipation, expectations for a breakthrough in economic cooperation from the meeting are modest, considering the bilateral all-out rivalry. Downes suggested that the areas where the two could concentrate might be climate change and Artificial Intelligence (AI), emphasizing the need to first find common ground.  Edited by Taejun Kang and Mike Firn.
- [The Crouching Tiger or the Hidden Dragon: Chinese Influence Ops in the Philippines](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-influence-ops-in-the-philippines/): Chinese influence operations in the Philippines are categorized as overt "crouching tiger" and covert "hidden dragon".
- [Another junta battalion surrenders to rebels in Myanmar’s Shan state](https://ij-reportika.com/another-junta-battalion-surrenders-to-rebels-in-myanmars-shan-state/): A light infantry battalion with more than 120 troops surrendered to ethnic rebels – the second time in two weeks that a battalion belonging to Myanmar’s military junta has laid down arms to rebel forces in northern Shan state. The entire Light Infantry Battalion 129, including its commander and 134 family members, surrendered on Sunday to the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance, a spokesman for the rebel group told Radio Free Asia. “We welcome the soldiers who have surrendered to us,” MNDAA spokesman Li Kyarwen said. “We are also safeguarding them. The injured persons are getting medical treatment. We have safely transported them to their expected destination.”  Each of the junta soldiers was awarded 1 million kyat (US$476) while one family member was given an additional 100,000 kyat (US$47), Li Kyarwen said. The junta battalion was based near the border with China in Laukkaing, one of about a half dozen areas in Shan state targeted during a coordinated military offensive launched last month by an alliance of three ethnic armies. Reports show that the Three Brotherhood Alliance – made up of the MNDAA and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army in Shan state and the Arakan Army in Rakhine state – has taken some 150 military camps in battles throughout Shan state, causing alarm among top military brass.  On Oct. 30, all 41 members of Light Infantry Battalion 143, including a deputy commander and two company commanders, surrendered to the MNDAA in Shan’s Kunlong township. A total of 127 Myanmar army soldiers and 134 of their family members – 261 people – surrendered to the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance on Nov. 12, 2023 in northern Shan state. Credit: Three Brotherhood Alliance Junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing said last week that the alliance’s Operation 1027 – named for the date that the offensive began – could “break the country into pieces” if left unchecked.  RFA attempted to contact a spokesman for the military junta for comment on the latest battalion surrender, but phone calls went unanswered on Tuesday. No reinforcements On Sunday, the junta declared martial law in eight townships in Shan state, including Laukkaing.  But troops in the region haven’t received military reinforcements recently, which must have been a contributing factor in the battalion’s choice to give up, said Than Soe Naing, a military and political observer.  “They didn’t think that it was worthy for them to sacrifice the lives of more than 200 people, including soldiers and their families,” he said. “In this helpless situation, they made the decision to surrender.” That was the right decision for commanders to make, said Captain Lin Htet Aung, a former military officer who joined the non-violent Civil Disobedience Movement, or CDM, in opposition to the junta. “We have seen considerable losses to the military in recent battles, and we haven’t heard the military express condolences or offer encouragement,” he said. “So, junta soldiers should think about whether they should sacrifice their lives to protect these leaders.” Junta forces also suffered a loss during fighting on Monday near the Indian border in western Myanmar’s Chin state. More than 40 junta soldiers fled across the border and were later handed back to Myanmar authorities by Indian forces. Additionally, fighting between the Arakan Army and junta troops in Rakhine state has intensified in recent days. And in northeastern Myanmar, Karenni Nationalities Defense Force targeted junta bases in Loikaw University and a prison in the capital of Kayah state on Saturday. Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [APEC 2023: Xi heads for US in closely-watched summit with Biden](https://ij-reportika.com/apec-2023-xi-heads-for-us-in-closely-watched-summit-with-biden/): Even as the world watches keenly as China’s President Xi Jinping meets his American counterpart Joe Biden on Wednesday, expectations of what could transpire in a climate of fraught bilateral relations marred by a tech war and regional tensions are modest. Xi is heading to San Francisco where he is due to meet Biden on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, the first time in a year since the two met in Bali, Indonesia. Some experts, while not anticipating a change in the trajectory of the U.S.-China relationship, are hopeful that the talks will deliver some results such as the formal resumption of military-to-military relations. Diplomatic and commercial dialogues between the two have resumed after the downing of the Chinese balloon earlier this year, pointed out Zhang Baohui, director of the Centre for Asian Pacific Studies at Lingnan University.  “The two sides have even begun strategic dialogues on nuclear and maritime issues. However, the U.S. wants to reopen military to military dialogues to prevent inadvertent incidents. This meeting between the top leaders should remove the hurdle for military-to-military exchanges. “If so, this should be a significant development as the world is very concerned by the prospect of military conflicts between the two countries in sensitive areas like the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea,” Zhang said.  To be sure, the White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters on Monday that both sides will discuss strengthening communications and managing competition responsibly so that the U.S.-China relationship “does not veer into conflict” during the summit.  “The way we achieve that is through intense diplomacy,” said Sullivan. He added that there are areas where “interests overlap,” such as efforts to effectively manage competition that could be done by reestablishing military-to-military communications. Incremental outcomes If there were any outcomes to come from the Xi-Biden summit, Ian Chong, a political scientist from the National University of Singapore believes they would be “incremental, but nonetheless important” to maintain the momentum of expanding dialogue. “Such effects will not be seen immediately after the meeting. Rather, they may unfold as more areas come under discussion in the following months to inject more predictability into the U.S.-PRC relationship to avoid unintended escalation, even as competition continues,” Chong said, referring to China’s formal name, the People’s Republic of China. “Xi probably seeks to press the PRC’s case on Taiwan and the South China Sea, while probing the U.S. on trade and technology and seeking more predictably in the bilateral relationship,” he noted.  “Biden will likely reiterate U.S. positions on Taiwan and the South China Sea, while seeking more stability in the bilateral relationship. They may try to gauge each other’s positions on the Israel-Hamas conflict, Russian aggression in Ukraine, climate, and AI.” U.S. President Joe Biden meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 leaders&#8217; summit in Bali, Indonesia, November 14, 2022. (Source: Reuters) Another area of contention that is expected to be discussed is semiconductors in light of the recent chip export ban by Biden, alongside the push for generative AI in both the U.S. and China, observed James Downes, head of the Politics and Public Administration Programme at Hong Kong Metropolitan University. “The key achievable issues or goals will likely relate to the ongoing tech war between both countries,” said Downes. “The Biden-Xi Summit will be much more successful if both sides focus on economic issues, as opposed to long-term and divisive geopolitical issues.” According to Lingnan University’s Zhang, Xi will no doubt pressure the U.S. to relax technology denial measures against China, but he believes the U.S. is unlikely to yield on this issue.  “Technological competition constitutes a central place in the overall U.S. competition strategy,” he explained. Zhang believes that Xi will try to persuade Biden to return the relationship to cooperation, away from strategic competition, seeking a U.S. commitment that it does not support Taiwan’s quest for independence. Biden, in contrast, will seek to stabilize the competition to prevent “conflict” by pursuing more measures to build “guardrails” for its competition with China, like the resumption of military-to-military dialogues.  “The US will assure Beijing that it will follow the One China principle. Nonetheless, deepening security cooperation between Washington and Taipei will continue to bother Beijing and lead to contentious relations with the US.” Seeking specific outcomes Meanwhile, Sullivan said the U.S. is looking for specific outcomes in the overlapped areas of interests from the summit, which include efforts to combat the illicit fentanyl trade and discussion between the two leaders on critical global issues such as Russia’s war against Ukraine, and the evolving crisis in the Middle East. Given China’s stance on the Middle East conflict, there may be a potential that the leaders may agree-at-large, in expressing the importance of peace in the region. China’s deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, Geng Shuang, said in New York on Monday that establishing peace in the region was an important task for Beijing.  However, it could be challenging for Biden and Xi to release a joint agreement on criticizing Hamas as Beijing has traditionally shown a less sympathetic stance on Israel, when compared to that of the U.S. This difference in diplomatic approaches may complicate the leaders in reaching a more detailed consensus on the Israel-Hamas war.  In fact, according to Xinhua News Agency, Geng expressed “shock and concern” over statements made by Israeli officials regarding nuclear weapons usage in Gaza Strip, labeling the Israeli remarks as “irresponsible and troubling.” While Geng condemned the idea of using nuclear weapons, largely aligning with the international community and the Non Proliferation Treaty principles, the senior diplomat did not specifically address or criticize the actions of Hamas, which have led to civilian casualties. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [China calls on businesses to join hands with state sector](https://ij-reportika.com/china-calls-on-businesses-to-join-hands-with-state-sector/): China’s ruling Communist Party is calling on the country&#8217;s businesses to invest in infrastructure projects to stimulate domestic demand and reboot the flagging economy, but analysts said the plan looks like an attempt to seize private sector assets as governments across the country run out of money. Under the plan, the government will allocate &#8220;franchises&#8221; to invest in infrastructure projects on a &#8220;user pays&#8221; or &#8220;build-operate-transfer&#8221; basis, according to an official statement. The government wants private companies “deeply involved” in attempts to stimulate domestic demand through public-private partnerships and joint ventures with state-owned companies. Stakes will be allocated depending on how &#8220;market-sensitive&#8221; an industry or a project is, according to guidelines for the &#8220;new mechanism&#8221; issued by the State Development and Reform Commission. The idea is to hand out &#8220;franchises&#8221; for projects that could benefit from private-sector assets and know-how, under a scheme that Beijing is hoping will bring local government finances &#8220;into the sunshine&#8221; and &#8220;curb new, hidden debt carried by local governments,&#8221; according to the guidelines, published by the State Council on Nov. 3. The plan seeks to expand on 10 years of the government&#8217;s &#8220;public-private partnership&#8221; policy, which has coincided with growing government controls on big technology firms and the introduction of ruling Chinese Communist Party committees into private enterprises. While officials have denied that their vision of a &#8220;unified market&#8221; under tight regulation is another way of saying a planned economy, the ruling party has recently announced it will crack down on an &#8220;unruly&#8221; financial sector, using &#8220;Marxist financial theory&#8221; to stave off systemic risks and boost the economy. Growing debt burdens Local governments have seen their coffers drained by three years of society-wide COVID-19 restrictions, as well as a sharp fall in land transfer fees – which once made up 40% of local fiscal revenues – and other property-related income.  They are now struggling with an ever-mounting debt burden, prompting officials to borrow more to pay back old debts, and to raid the coffers of medical insurance funds to make ends meet, resulting in cuts to medical benefits and mass protests in major cities in February. The &#8220;new mechanism&#8221; still means that the state-owned sector will advance “at the expense of the private sector, said Simon Lee, senior lecturer in accounting and finance at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. &#8220;These are all experiments – they are looking for a sustainable model for economic growth,&#8221; Lee said, adding that he wasn&#8217;t surprised by the current direction being taken in Beijing. &#8220;If they find out that ultimately this way is unworkable, it will have an impact on economic development,&#8221; he warned. A screen displays an image of the Jinzhou 25-1 oilfield at the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) booth during the 2021 China International Fair for Trade in Services in Beijing, Sept. 4, 2021. The government plans to allocate &#8220;franchises&#8221; to invest in infrastructure projects on a &#8220;user pays&#8221; or &#8220;build-operate-transfer&#8221; basis. Credit: Florence Lo/Reuters The new &#8220;franchises&#8221; will focus on &#8220;user pays&#8221; projects with clear charging channels and income streams, and must incur no new local government borrowing, according to the guidelines. The projects will run on &#8220;build-operate-transfer&#8221; principles or similar models, with the rights, ownership and responsibilities made clear in each franchise agreement. They can include highways, railways, civil aviation infrastructure, transportation and logistics hubs, urban utilities, parking lots, as well as sports and tourism facilities, the guidelines say. &#8220;Priority will be given to private enterprises,&#8221; the guidelines say, adding that private companies could wind up with stakes as low as 35% in projects with a high degree of importance for the national economy and people&#8217;s livelihood. But there are penalties for companies deemed not to have delivered what the government wanted. &#8220;If the public products and services provided do not meet the standards agreed in the franchise agreement, the franchisee shall bear liability for breach of contract in accordance with the agreement,&#8221; the rules state. Asset grab? Current affairs commentator Fang Yuan said the overall effect will be an asset-grab by the public sector. &#8220;In essence, this is a rebranding of an expansion of state control of the economy,&#8221; Fang said. &#8220;Firstly, the cooperation between state-owned enterprises and private companies [envisaged here] is unequal,&#8221; Fang said. &#8220;State-owned enterprises will provide an empty shell, while the private companies keep investing, but the private companies own small stakes and don&#8217;t control [the franchise-holding entity].&#8221; &#8220;In the past, when there have been disputes between state-owned enterprises and private companies, the private companies have lost out due to the imbalance of power,&#8221; Fang said. &#8220;As soon as a dispute occurs, the assets of private enterprises will be swallowed up by state-owned enterprises.&#8221; However, the government says it is seeking applications from private enterprises to control or wholly own franchises in waste treatment, leisure facilities, logistics hubs, sports facilities and tourist facilities, as well utilities, rail and other transportation links, as well as rural power grids, oil and gas pipelines and water conservation infrastructure, including hydropower, the guidelines say. &#8220;We welcome private enterprises to actively participate in the reform of state-owned enterprises and to promote their in-depth integration into various types of ownership structure,&#8221; Yuan Ye, deputy director of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, told a recent enterprise reform conference. ‘Hungry children’ He said state-owned companies at the central government level have already invested in more than 13,000 private companies, adding that the government favors mutual stakeholding as a model for public-private partnerships. Yuan said that while state-owned companies have been approaching private companies to forge cooperation arrangements for some time, private enterprises are now being invited to make such approaches too. But financial commentator Si Ling said the move is an indirect way for the government to lay hands on some of the assets accumulated by the private sector over the past four decades of rapid economic growth. &#8220;Private enterprises are still rich, and the government wouldn&#8217;t seek to use this money unless it was as a last resort,&#8221;...
- [Nepal to ban TikTok Due to Social Discord](https://ij-reportika.com/nepal-government-announces-ban-on-tiktok/): The Nepal government decided to ban TikTok, the Chinese-owned app, citing its adverse effects on social harmony.
- [Taiwan delegation welcomed to APEC Summit: AIT chairperson](https://ij-reportika.com/taiwan-delegation-welcomed-to-apec-summit-ait-chairperson/): In a rare move by a high-ranking member of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), which serves as the de facto U.S. Embassy in the island, the United States has expressed its support for Taiwan’s delegation to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in San Francisco.  Speaking at the annual Thanksgiving Dinner of the Taiwanese Association of America Greater Washington Chapter in Washington on Nov. 11, AIT Chairperson Laura Rosenberger said the U.S. encourages and supports Taiwan’s “meaningful” participation in international organizations.  Rosenberger also said her focus is on opportunities for continued cooperation between the U.S. and Taiwan, while stressing that the U.S.-Taiwan partnership has expanded and deepened significantly in recent years under the Taiwan Relations Act, particularly in economic security and civil relations, as well as in expanding Taiwan’s role in the international arena. She mentioned the tremendous growth in economic ties, particularly the two-way U.S.-Taiwan investment that has created a resilient high-tech ecosystem between both sides, and in turn, a resilient global supply chain.  Rosenberger added that the U.S. continues to support Taiwan’s efforts to enhance its self-defense capabilities, increase resilience, and strengthen deterrence, which helps maintain cross-Strait peace and stability.  The Biden administration is using the full range of congressionally mandated tools, such as presidential appropriations authority and foreign military financing, in an effort to ensure that Taiwan has adequate self-defense capabilities, said Rosenberger. Commenting on Taiwan’s upcoming presidential election, Rosenberger noted that the U.S. has full confidence in the island’s democratic processes and free and fair elections.  She stressed that Washington opposes any outside interference in Taiwan’s elections and looks forward to working with any elected leaders in Taiwan. Rosenberger’s remarks came before the APEC summit, which runs from Nov. 11 &#8211; 17 in San Francisco, and will be the stage for a key encounter between U.S. President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, who have a face-to-face meeting on Wednesday.  Although this meeting is not the central agenda of the summit, taking place on the sidelines, it has sparked speculation about the topics of discussion between the two leaders. China’s ambassador to Washington, Xie Feng, said on Nov. 9, that the U.S. “should avoid playing with fire or crossing the line” on “sensitive” issues like Taiwan, and warned U.S. leaders that “a good host needs to avoid creating any new trouble or obstacle.” Translated by RFA Staff. Edited by Elaine Chan and Mike Firn.
- [Junta expands use of radio shows, Telegram app to boost propaganda](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-expands-use-of-radio-shows-telegram-app-to-boost-propaganda/): Myanmar’s military junta is increasingly using state media outlets for propaganda purposes while it continues its crack down on independent news outlets, several journalists have told Radio Free Asia. The junta has ramped up its use of its channel on the messaging app Telegram to distribute its information, according to the reporters. In addition, there are a number of pro-junta Telegram channels that then amplify the junta’s propaganda. “People need to be vigilant against fake news,” Sein Win, newsroom management editor for Mizzima Media. “It is a traditional and common strategy of the military since long, long ago. People might be trapped in their propaganda.” The junta has revoked the licenses of four publishers and two printing houses since the junta seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup d’etat. Some 14 media outlets including Mizzima, Democratic Voice of Burma and The Irrawaddy have also lost their licenses.  Last month, junta troops raided and shuttered independent news outlet Development Media Group in Rakhine state, arresting one reporter and a guard. The news outlet covers armed conflict and human rights violations in the western state that borders Bangladesh. But junta-controlled media such as Thazin FM continue to operate. Every Wednesday, the outlet broadcasts its “Public Voices Among Public” call-in program. Most of the callers are just parroting junta-approved talking points, several residents of the Yangon and Sagaing regions told RFA. Journalists cover a protest against Myanmar’s junta in Myaynigone, Yangon, on Feb. 27, 2021. Credit: RFA The general message repeated on the program is that the National Unity Government, or NUG, and the anti-junta People’s Defense Force paramilitaries are creating problems that worsen people’s lives. The NUG is made up of leaders in the former civilian government and other anti-junta activists. Junta leader’s visit to friendly media outlets Thazin FM also inserts a variety of songs that carry junta messages into the call-in program, a Khin-U township resident told RFA on condition of anonymity. But the propaganda won’t be enough to counteract what many people are experiencing, he said. “We love to listen to a variety of music, including modern songs,” he said. “But actually, people are suffering various hardships in daily life.” In June, junta chief Sr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing spoke about the need for more public interest and educational programs during visits to Thazin FM and the military-owned Myawaddy Television. “The military council is preventing spread of accurate information to the world, to the people and to its forces by cracking down on independent media and by creating fake news,” said Nay Phone Latt, the spokesman for NUG’s Office of the Prime Minister. “In addition, they have developed fake media agencies to spread misinformation.” Junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun didn’t immediately reply to RFA’s request for comment on the junta’s use of propaganda. Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Matt Reed.
- [Cambodia’s Hun Manet goes up against the private sector](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodias-hun-manet-goes-up-against-the-private-sector/): On November 13, Cambodia’s princeling prime minister, Hun Manet, will meet with Cambodia’s aggravated private sector for his administration&#8217;s first Government-Private Sector Forum which his nascent government has been preparing for months. There has already been a public furore over the likely rise in taxation, which Hun Manet has denied will happen, but anyone with sense knows it must happen.  The property sector is in a very bad way. Worse is the banking sector, where high private debt has everyone on alter and is leading to sleepless nights amongst the middle classes—domestic credit to the private sector stands at 182 percent of GDP as of last year, according to a World Bank report from last month (p. 46). By comparison, in China, it was 220 percent. Hun Manet greets supporters during a campaign rally in Phnom Penh in July 2023. Prime Minister, Hun Manet, will meet with Cambodia’s aggravated private sector for his administration&#8217;s first Government-Private Sector Forum in November which his nascent government has been preparing for months. Credit: Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP Wetting our appetites, Hun Manet has suggested that he will announce new policies, including for the property sector, later this month. One could be to allow foreigners to buy villas in gated communities (boreys), where most of the toxic credit in the property sector seems to be.  At the same time, however, Hun Manet will be being told by his elders—including his father, Hun Sen, Cambodia’s ruler for almost four decades—that he cannot give away too much to the private sector. Hun Manet is an inexperienced, slightly hollow leader whose legitimacy is tied to being his father’s chosen successor, not any of his own achievements (yet). No &#8216;social bargain&#8217; The upcoming forum will be a moment when some people in the private sector—those expected to fund the lavish lifestyles of the political nobility and the increasing tax burdens of the state, but without getting an actual seat at the political table—think they can gain an advantage.  There is no “social bargain” in Cambodia between the political nobility and commoners. If the economy goes pear-shaped, the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) won’t voluntarily resign from power, nor would it allow the masses to openly protest on the streets. However, there is a delicate bargain between the political nobility and the private sector. The task for all authoritarian regimes is this: how do you ensure that the private sector pays the piper but doesn’t call the tune? After all, why maintain the political nobility (which is rentier in nature) when the private sector isn’t getting something in return? Why not go over the heads of the political rent-seekers?  A man rides a cart in Phnom Penh, Sept. 2023. Credit: Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP This dynamic isn’t specific to Cambodia. In China and Vietnam, the defining policies of Xi Jinping and Nguyen Phu Trong, the two communist parties’ general secretaries, have been a mammoth crackdown on the private sector that reasserts the communists’ monopoly on power as part of vast anti-corruption campaigns. Why? Because authoritarian governments only have to be good at one thing: denying space for any alternative to their authority. But private sectors would be an alternative if they weren’t constrained, as seemed to be the case in both communist states before 2012, the year Xi and Trong came to power. Indeed, businesses and tycoons might start demanding the predictability of the rule of law and private property rights; they might want a direct say in politics; they might start to publicly criticize their political masters (think Jack Ma of Alibaba!); and they might protest by denying the state the taxation it needs to survive.  Splurging on titles How do you rectify this? You co-opt the private sector; you turn a blind eye to its dodgy actions; you create policies favorable to its advancement; you intermarry your political nobility with the economic elites; you arrest outspoken individuals for corruption to set an example of what happens if someone steps out of line. During its succession process this year, the CPP in Cambodia has tried to appease the private sector. It has splurged on the number of oknha titles it awarded; as of June 2023, there were 1,299 people with the honorific, although the number grew after the July general elections The number of land concessions and other corrupt practices also boomed. The Cambodia Oknha Association was launched in June by Cambodia’s most prominent tycoons, with Hun Sen as honorary president. Ostensibly a way for the ruling party to collect “charitable” donations, it is actually a way for the most powerful oknha to constrain their lessors and do Hun Sen’s bidding. Hun Manet’s government now has 1,422 secretaries or undersecretaries of state, more than double the number his father’s government had. Many of these positions are bought and allow the occupiers to extract patronage payments. Moreover, the new administration has vowed to run the country in a more technocratic and economic-minded manner.  A woman on a motorcycle laden with goods rides past a Rolls-Royce at a car dealership in Phnom Penh in 2014. Credit: Samrang Pring/Reuters The apparent insinuation is that it will focus on finances, not playing at geopolitics. It has maintained or appointed ministers whom the private sector trusts. Aun Pornmoniroth, the powerful finance minister, kept his job and is now the real architect of government policy. Sok Chenda Sophea, formerly the head of the Council for the Development of Cambodia, the government body tasked with attracting and managing foreign investment, is now foreign minister. Keo Rottanak, the new Minister of Mines and Energy, was managing director of the state-owned electricity provider Electricite du Cambodge. Chheang Ra, the new health minister, was director of the state-run Calmette Hospital. However, constraining the private sector and economic barons will become a lot more difficult. Things were easier in the past when the lifestyles of the political nobility were relatively cheap (a few billion dollars) and when the Cambodian state had a small budget that was primarily funded by foreign...
- [Beijing tests Manila’s nerves in disputed reef](https://ij-reportika.com/beijing-tests-manilas-nerves-in-disputed-reef/): China was once again trying to block Philippine ships from delivering supplies to the troops stationed at the Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea on Friday. Earlier in the day, “China Coast Guard (CCG) and Chinese Maritime Militia (CMM) vessels recklessly harassed, blocked, executed dangerous maneuvers in another attempt to illegally impede or obstruct a routine resupply and rotation mission to BRP Sierra Madre (LS 57) at Ayungin Shoal (Second Thomas Shoal),” the National Task Force for the West Philippine Sea said in a statement. The West Philippine Sea is the name that Filipinos use for waters claimed by Manila in the South China Sea. “CCG vessel 5203 deployed water cannon against Philippine supply vessel M/L Kalayaan,” it said. M/L, or motor launch, implies a small-sized, motor-powered boat.  The Kalayaan and another supply boat, the Unaizah Mae 1, were “also subjected to extremely reckless and dangerous harassment at close proximity” by Chinese vessels inside the shoal’s lagoon during their approach to BRP Sierra Madre, said the Philippine National Task Force.   “Nonetheless, both supply boats were able to successfully reach LS 57 (BRP Sierra Madre),” it said. “We condemn, once again, China’s latest unprovoked acts of coercion and dangerous maneuvers … that has put the lives of our people at risk.” Manila deliberately ran the World War II-era Sierra Madre aground in 1999 to serve as its outpost at the shoal and has to dispatch ships on a regular basis to deliver fresh supplies to the military personnel there. The Philippines’ rotation and resupply (RoRe) missions have recently been increasingly impeded and blocked by Chinese ships. Philippine ships were surrounded by a large number of Chinese vessels, Nov. 10, 2023. Credit: Ray Powell on X In a graphic provided by Ray Powell from the U.S. Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation, Philippine Coast Guard ships accompanying the two supply boats were surrounded by a large number of Chinese vessels. “In total, 24 Chinese ships were involved in the incident, including four Coast Guard ships. The rest were maritime militia ships,” Powell said. Continuing blockade “Beijing is testing Manila’s nerves,” said Malcolm Davis, a defense analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI). “China will keep on conducting such blockades with the hope that Manila will give up its RoRe missions but it won’t happen,” Davis told Radio Free Asia. When and how the United States, the Philippines’ treaty ally, will get involved remains to be seen, according to the analyst. By a mutual defense treaty, Washington is obliged to defend its ally in the case the latter is being attacked. The U.S. has repeatedly said that Article IV of the 1951 U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty “extends to armed attacks on Philippine armed forces, public vessels, and aircraft – including those of its Coast Guard – anywhere in the South China Sea.” The Chinese Coast Guard quickly issued a statement calling Manila’s mission “illegal.” Spokesperson Gan Yu said that “two small transport ships and three coast guard ships from the Philippines entered the waters adjacent to Ren&#8217;ai Reef (Chinese name for Second Thomas Shoal) in China&#8217;s Nansha (Spratly) Islands without permission from the Chinese government.” “The Chinese Coast Guard follows Philippine ships in accordance with the law, takes control measures, and makes temporary special arrangements for the Philippines to transport food and other necessary daily supplies,” Gan said. “The Philippines&#8217; actions violate China&#8217;s territorial sovereignty, violate the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, and violate its own commitments,” he said, “We urge the Philippines to immediately stop its infringing actions.” For its part, Manila said the Philippine Embassy in China “has demarched the Chinese foreign ministry and protested” against China’s actions. As of Nov. 7, the Philippines has made 58 diplomatic protests against what it sees as China’s violations of its sovereignty in the South China Sea. Last month Manila summoned the Chinese ambassador to the Philippines to protest over two similar incidents, one of which led to a small collision of ships. Second Thomas Shoal is about 200 kilometers (124 miles) from the Philippine island of Palawan, and more than 1,000 kilometers from China’s Hainan island. It is claimed  by the Philippines, China, Vietnam and Taiwan, but is located inside the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.
- [Interview: Opposition's Operation 1027 in Shan State indicates 'low point' in Myanmar-China ties](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-oppositions-operation-1027-in-shan-state-indicates-low-point-in-myanmar-china-ties/): On Oct. 27, the Northern or “Three Brotherhood” Alliance of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, the Arakan Army and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army launched “Operation 1027” – named for the date of the offensive. The groups simultaneously struck junta positions in the strategic Shan cities of Kunlong, Hseni, Chin Shwe Haw, Laukkaing, Namhkan, Kutkai, and Lashio, the state’s largest municipality. Since then, reports indicate that the alliance has taken some 150 military camps in battles throughout Shan state and caused alarm in the top military brass. The campaign will “break the country into pieces” if left unchecked, said junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing on Nov. 8. To understand the significance of Operation 1027, Radio Free Asia Burmese reporter Ye Kaung Myint Maung interviewed Jason Tower, the country director for the Burma program at United Stated Institute of Peace in Washington. Tower has decades of experience researching cross-border conflicts in Southeast Asia. Radio Free Asia: The Northern Alliance groups have advanced their campaign 1027, a military operation. And it was reported that they have captured more than 100 military outposts and even some important towns in northern Shan State, and some fighting has reached an area not far from where the military academy is located. What&#8217;s your overall take on Operation 1027? Tower: In my view, this operation potentially could really be a game changer in terms of the broader revolution and conflict in Myanmar. I think a lot of this in terms of the timing has to do with China&#8217;s growing dissatisfaction with the junta regime, because over the past five months you&#8217;ve seen where the junta not only has proven incapable of working with the Chinese to advance any of China&#8217;s economic interests. You&#8217;ve also seen it fail miserably in terms of providing support to China around security interests and cracking down on increasingly malign criminal actors who are harming a global population through scams and human trafficking – a lot of which are targeting Chinese nationals. And so you&#8217;ve seen … out of frustration, the Chinese side has cracked down in a pretty strong way on the United Wa State Army and on the National Democratic Alliance Army, even detaining high-level Wa leaders like Bao Jin Fang, the number two in the army, and issuing arrest warrants for two other leaders, really showing, I think, very clearly how serious the Chinese side is in terms of wanting the military to try to crack down on this activity.  And despite all of that pressure, the military still failed to act. So I think very clearly you saw they&#8217;re going to launch this operation. What’s very significant about it is just how quickly the Brotherhood has been able to take major cities within 24 hours of the announcement of the operation. In my view, this was not something that was done quickly. This was a plan that was coordinated over probably a month or more. This operation is a very serious operation. And in order for the Brotherhood Alliance to do this, it would need to have at least tacit support from the Chinese side. And I believe it did have this in this case. Now, what&#8217;s really interesting about it is the way the Brotherhood Alliances framed this around cracking down on the transnational criminal activity and liberating people from these scam centers. And that does seem to be what a lot of the initial targets are that you are seeing, now the Brotherhood Alliance groups and PDFs go in, identify some of these centers and liberate the scam centers. So you are seeing some of that happening. But of course, I think the bigger issue here is that in Koh Kong, all eyes of the Myanmar army, the four eco Kong clan families that represent the COCOM border guard force have refused to do anything to crack down on this because this is the main source of revenue and a major source of revenue also for the military. And so now you&#8217;re seeing the Brotherhood really take this into their own hands. I think the other major factor here is that on one hand, you know, the entire country is watching this operation and they&#8217;re seeing how weak the Myanmar army is. You know, Myanmar army troops are going in and they&#8217;re defecting immediately, giving all of their arms over to the Brotherhood alliance. … And I think this is emboldening everyone. It&#8217;s letting everyone sort of see just how weak the military has become and how illegitimate it has become. Because the ultimate reason why the Chinese greenlighted this operation is because the junta has failed to take any steps to crack down on this awful transnational criminal activity, which is harming the interests of Thailand, harming the interests of China, harming the interests of really every country around the world. So in that respect, I think this really a game changer, because we&#8217;re at a point right now where the Chinese side has really reached a kind of a low point in terms of its relationship with the military junta.  Radio Free Asia: We know that China has played a very important role in the armed conflict in northern Myanmar. And also China has strong ties with members of Northern Alliance groups. So in this case in particular, what led you to the conclusion that China has given the green light to start this military operation? Tower: I think that the reason why China is comfortable with this operation is because the operation is framed around doing exactly what the Chinese side has been telling the Myanmar army to do for the past four months. But what the Myanmar army has refused to do, which is to crack down on the criminal activity, take down these scam syndicates, free the victims of human trafficking and so on. And so that&#8217;s, you know, the justification that the Brotherhood is giving for launching this operation. And you do see where it has yielded...
- [China dominates in overseas ports: report](https://ij-reportika.com/china-dominates-in-overseas-ports-report/): China has built a global network of commercial ports overseas that helps Beijing wield economic power as well as expand naval activities, a new report said. The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) think tank released an interactive report Monday tracking China’s control of overseas ports, some of which could double up as naval bases. In 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping first announced a plan for the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road as part of his ambitious Belt and Road Initiative to boost global connectivity and China’s access to foreign markets as around 95 percent of China’s international trade is being conducted through sea lanes. Ten years on, Chinese entities have now acquired equity ownership or operational stakes in 101 port projects across the world, 92 of which are active. Beijing has signed 70 bilateral and regional shipping agreements with 66 countries and regions. “China operates or has ownership in at least one port in every continent except Antarctica,” CFR said. The network of sea ports that China owns and operates bears an increasingly strategic importance, not least because of its potential dual use.  Among the 92 active projects, 13 have a major Chinese ownership. Ten of them have suitable infrastructure for future military use. Potential naval use Some projects with dual-use potential where China owns a majority share are in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Peru and Brazil. However, “the growing scrutiny from the West could mean that building naval bases is not an effective way for the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Chinese government to project power globally,” the CFR report said. “The real leverage of the CPC and the Chinese government over the West is not necessarily in building newer and bigger naval bases,” the authors said, adding that “China’s leverage is in its varied degrees of investment and ownership in the world’s busiest and most-connected ports, which underpin the global flow of goods.” A Chinese construction worker stands on land that was reclaimed from the Indian Ocean for the Colombo Port City project in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Jan. 2, 2018. Credit: AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena China has already invested heavily in some of the most connected countries in the world such as South Korea and Singapore.  “China’s heavy investment in the world’s most-connected ports highlights its strong influence over the supply chains of global trade,” CFR added. Besides the network of ports, China also owns the largest fleet in the world. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy currently has 370 ships and submarines, according to a recent report by the Pentagon. To compare, the U.S. Navy has 291 ships.  The U.S. Defense Department also estimated that China’s fleet will grow to 395 ships by 2025 and 435 ships by 2030.  Edited by Elaine Chan and Taejun Kang.
- [Uyghur rights activist among those honored by King Charles III](https://ij-reportika.com/uyghur-rights-activist-among-those-honored-by-king-charles-iii/): A prominent Uyghur human rights activist, singer and interpreter was among dozens of activists honored at a reception at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday to recognize British contributions to humanitarian efforts around the world. King Charles III expressed his gratitude to Rahima Mahmut, founder and executive director of Stop Uyghur Genocide and the U.K. director of the World Uyghur Congress, for her work defending Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in China. The king said called work “a crucial undertaking&#8221; and thanked her for “the exceptional contributions you are making to this important endeavor,” Mahmut later told Radio free Asia. On her LinkedIn account, Mahmut said she was “thrilled and honored” to be representing the Uyghur community at the humanitarian reception. A native of Ghulja, or Yining, in Xinjiang, Mahmut decided to leave her homeland because of the massacre of Uyghur youth who had taken to the streets on Feb. 5, 1997, to protest the Chinese government’s discriminating policies against the predominantly Muslim people.  Mahmut has long been a vocal critic of the Chinese government, taking aim at the mass incarceration, surveillance and persecution of Uyghurs in Xinjiang and countering Beijing&#8217;s official propaganda from overseas. For more than two decades, she also has used her artistic talent as a singer to make the Uyghur voice known through music, while drawing the attention of the international community to the crisis in Xinjiang.  Mahmut, who has lived in the United Kingdom since 2000, has performed Uyghur songs at major concerts and cultural festivals in Britain, across Europe and in the United States. “As an [sic] Uyghur human rights activist, I have built a cross-party, cross-community coalition of UK-based activists working to end the genocide in my homeland,” Mahmut says on her LinkedIn profile, adding that she has been involved in high-profile parliamentary campaigns, including the Genocide Amendment to the U.K. Trade Bill, Parliament&#8217;s recognition of the Uyghur genocide, and the diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. Also in attendance at the reception were Saleh Saeed, chief executive of the Disasters Emergency Committee — a U.K. organization that brings together 15 top domestic aid charities to raise funds quickly and efficiently for overseas crises — British actress and activist Dame Joanna Lumley, actor and comedian Sir Michael Palin, and actor and director Adrian Lester, who all have launched appeals for the nonprofit.
- [Displaced villagers face food shortages after attack in Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/displaced-villagers-face-food-shortages-after-attack-in-myanmar/): More than 30,000 Myanmar residents are fleeing after a battle erupted between junta forces and a resistance group, residents and aid workers told Radio Free Asia.  Junta airstrikes in Sagaing region&#8217;s Tabayin township forced locals to evacuate on Sunday. No deaths or injuries have been reported from junta media or local resistance groups. As a result, villages in the area are facing food shortages, said Moe Tain, head of Tabayin township’s war relief association. “All of them are from villages in the west of Tabayin township. More and more people are fleeing day by day and there is not enough food,” he told RFA on Wednesday. “Some of them have to search for food themselves.” A People’s Defense Force attacked Saing Pyin’s police station in Tabayin township on Sunday, causing both groups to exchange fire and locals to flee. Later that day, junta soldiers retaliated with airstrikes on Tabayin’s villages.  About 80 junta troops were stationed in Pyan Kya village in Tabayin township Tuesday afternoon and left on Wednesday, Moe Tain added. Residents from 15 villages nearby, including Pyan Kya, Let Tee and Ma Gyi Oke, fled after the clash started.  Tabayin residents faced two attacks in late October, where junta troops burned one village down and captured 15 civilians to use as human shields.  RFA called Sagaing region’s junta spokesperson Sai Naing Naing Kyaw for comment on the attacks, but did not receive a reply by the time of publication.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Israel-Hamas war: How tech, social media spur misinformation](https://ij-reportika.com/israel-hamas-war-how-tech-social-media-spur-misinformation/): The adage “The first casualty when war comes is truth” remains as relevant today as it did when the U.S. Sen. Hiram Johnson first said it more than a century ago. The recent conflict between Israel and Hamas serves as a reminder of how truth can be overshadowed by falsehoods and propaganda during times of war. In the month since violence erupted, a second invisible battle has emerged online. Both sides are involved in spreading disinformation and fake news. Old images are being passed off as new. Video game footage is presented as reality. Credible news outlets like The New York Times have faced backlash over flawed reporting. While disinformation campaigns are nothing new in war, their efficiency today is unparalleled. Advances in AI have made it cheaper and simpler to generate deceptive, but convincing fabrications. As a result, impartial audiences find themselves grappling with the challenge of distinguishing fact from fiction. Faced with this flood of propaganda, numerous reports have examined its impact on domestic and international audiences. AFCL has reviewed several of these reports, highlighting how technology and social media enable online users and governments to take advantage of religious divides and cultural intolerance by spreading misinformation. The findings paint a troubling picture of truth obscured and tensions inflamed by the digital tools of modern war. AI muddles fact and fiction The weaponization of AI is muddying the waters of truth in the Israel-Hamas conflict. As revealed by Reuters, several viral images purporting to show support for Palestians or Israelis were actually AI-generated fakes, for instance, and these are only a tip of the iceberg.  A widely shared image of Israeli citizens hanging flags off balconies was proven to be generated by AI. (Original image saved by Reuters Fact Check team, annotated by AFCL) Furthermore, advanced “deepfake” technology has enabled the creation of fabricated footage, such as a video of the U.S. President Joe Biden claiming he would send American troops to aid Israel. More dangerous than the false information itself, experts warn these AI fabrications sow doubts about even verifiable facts.  As one AI researcher told The New York Times: “The real power of this technology is how it undermines truth and trust.” In an already polarized conflict, these insidious digital deceptions risk inflaming tensions by making truth itself seem unknowable. ‘Verified users’ lead in spreading misinformation Social media platforms have become hotbeds of misinformation amid the Israel-Hamas war. Services like X, formerly known as Twitter, are rife with unsubstantiated claims and outright falsehoods disseminated by both anonymous and supposedly “verified” users. On these digital battlegrounds, propaganda and lies gain traction faster than truth. One illustrative example comes from X user “Sprinter.” Originally blocked for spreading pro-Russian disinformation, Sprinter was reinstated under Elon Musk’s ownership and granted a blue verification checkmark. The user then falsely claimed the Wall Street Journal had reported that U.S.-made bombs were dropped on Gaza’s AI-Ahli Hospital. Ironically, this false claim received nearly six times more views than the American daily’s genuine tweet about the story earlier that day.  According to internet monitoring group NewsGuard, nearly three-fourths of the 250 most popular tweets containing misinformation in the first week of conflict were posted by verified users.  Jack Brewster, one of the authors of the report, told AFCL that unlike past wars which involved large amounts of automated accounts, he believes “overwhelmingly real individuals” are behind the current wave of disinformation. The X user Sprinter (right), spread misinformation that The Wall Street Journal had reported an attack on a Gaza hospital was conducted with U.S.-made artillery shells. X  afterwards annotated the post to include a rebuttal of the claim by the WSJ itself. (Screenshot/Sprinter’s and official WSJ X accounts) Business model for monetization In their quest to maximize revenue, social media platforms have instituted business models that reward viral lies over verifiable facts, and experts warn these profit-driven decisions fundamentally undermine platforms’ role as trusted spaces for public discourse. NewsGuard cited X’s new business model as an example. X users who subscribe to a premium account can obtain the blue checkmark while also having their posts prioritized in other users’ feeds. The company further announced in July 2023 that premium users with at least 500 followers who received 5 million impressions on their posts within three months would be eligible for ad profit-sharing. Mike Caulfield, a specialist in social media and disinformation at the University of Washington, told AFCL that online misinformation will become more prevalent as long as businesses can profit from it.  Leveraging social media  Beyond the direct combatants, social media users across the world leverage platforms to advance favored narratives about the Israel-Hamas war. Their agenda-driven posts flood networks with biased misinformation. Pro-Hamas voices spotlight Gaza hospital bombings to paint Israel as evil, a disinformation expert told Reuters, while pro-Israel users accuse Palestinians of faking injuries to discredit their suffering. Even supposedly neutral parties take sides online. The Digital Forensic Research Lab, a division of the Atlantic Council, found that at least 25 X accounts claiming to be located in India coordinated posting identical tweets and videos about the conflict at nearly the same time.  Though mostly pro-Israel in content, some accounts bizarrely shared pro-Palestine messages shortly after pro-Isreal messages. By flooding platforms with contradictory claims, these users advance their own agendas, irrespective of consistency or truth.  The Digital Forensics Research Lab found multiple X accounts claiming to be based in India had released coordinated posts containing identical disinformation about the war. (Screenshots taken from The Digital Forensic Research Lab) Despite its large Muslim population, anti-Muslim sentiment among India’s Hindu majority runs high. Islamophobic rhetoric backed by the country’s ruling right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party and current Prime Minister Narendra Modi is creating anti-Palestinian attitudes and a flood of misinformation during the current conflict, according to an Al Jazeera article.  Meanwhile, misinformation coming out of Indonesia is heavily pro-Palestinian. As Voice of America analysis found, the country’s Muslim majority population and widespread pro-Palestine views among Indonesian leaders shape social media narratives...
- [Myanmar resistance fighter shot while collecting his father’s body](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-resistance-fighter-shot-while-collecting-his-fathers-body/): Junta troops killed a member of the Chinland Defense Force and his father, local residents told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday.   Soldiers  in Magway region’s Saw town ambushed Mang Kui, a Chin Christian pastor, while he was visiting friends in the area on Tuesday. The reason for the attack is still unknown.  “The pastor wasn’t in Saw for very long. A plain-clothes man shot him in the head at close range,” a local said, declining to be named for fear of reprisals. “After that, about 20 junta soldiers were in camouflage near the body.” The man’s son, Chinland Defense Force battalion deputy commander Salai Lii Mang, was nearby and went to retrieve the body later that day. However, junta troops shot and killed him when he arrived. “At that time, the deputy battalion commander got the news of his father and came in,” the local said. “But he was shot in his chest. Although he backed off, he died. The body of the pastor was taken to the army.” Junta troops opened fire on the surrounding area and tried to arrest locals after the incident, he added, causing many to flee. RFA contacted Magway region’s junta spokesperson Than Swe Win by phone for comment on the shooting, but did not receive a response by the time of publication. Tensions are high on the border of  Magway region and Chin state, said a member of Kanpetlet town’s Chinland Defense Force, adding that a battle could break out any time in Saw city. Military forces have killed five Christian pastors and three deacons in the first two and a half years since the February 2021 coup. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Hamas official says North Korea could attack US over Gaza war](https://ij-reportika.com/hamas-official-says-north-korea-could-attack-us-over-gaza-war/): North Korea is part of a coalition of countries allied with Hamas and could attack the United States over the war in Gaza, a senior Hamas official said, praising Kim Jong Un as the “only one” capable of carrying out such a strike. “The leader of North Korea is, perhaps, the only one in the world capable of striking the United States. He is the only one,” Ali Baraka said during an interview posted Nov. 2 with a Lebanese YouTube channel Spot Shot, the Washington-based Middle East Research Institute reported.  “The day may come when North Korea intervenes because it is, after all, part of [our] alliance,” he said. With the outbreak of war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, Baraka said that states that frequently experience friction with the United States or who consider Washington to be an enemy are coming together as allies. “All of America&#8217;s enemies in the region are consulting and getting closer, and the day may come when they join the war together, and turn America into a thing of the past,” he said, suggesting that the United States would go the way of the Soviet Union, which collapsed in 1991. Baraka said that Russia is in daily contact with Hamas, and that a Hamas delegation traveled to Moscow and will soon travel to Beijing. He also said that Iran – an ally of Hamas – does not have the capability to strike America, although if it decides to intervene, it could strike Israel or American bases in the region. &#8220;Iran does not have weapons that can reach America, but it can strike Israel and the American bases and ships in the region, if the U.S. clearly expands its intervention,” he said.  Last month RFA reported that Hamas appears to have used North Korean weapons in its surprise attacks on Israel, a fact later confirmed by the Israeli military. Palestinian militants carrying what appears to be a North Korean F-7 rocket propelled grenade launcher [with red band] drive back to the Gaza Strip, Oct. 7, 2023. Credit: Ali Mahmud/AP Attack unlikely While Pyongyang has publicly declared its support for Hamas, attacking the United States over the war in Gaza – or any future conflict in the Mideast – is very unlikely, several U.S.-based experts told RFA Korean. “I don’t take these comments very seriously because Kim Jong-Un is not going to risk his own neck to help Hamas,” said Michael O&#8217;Hanlon, senior fellow of the foreign policy program at The Brookings Institution. David Maxwell, the vice president at the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy told RFA that a combined Hamas and North Korean attack was unlikely and Pyongyang was using the conflict in Gaza to condemn the United States. From North Korea’s perspective this “is part of its normal blackmail diplomacy.” Still, North Korea working with Hamas poses a threat, said Patrick M. Cronin, the Asia-Pacific security chair at the Hudson Institute. “While [Pyongyang] has little interest in the Hamas agenda of eradicating Israel, it also has few inhibitions about helping enemies of its adversaries should there be something in it for the Kim regime,” he said.  “America and our allies need to be vigilant about possible technology transfer, about opportunistic provocations in multiple regions, and about ensuring our allies know they have our full support, but we also need to find diplomatic opportunities to weaken the natural seams between the members of an axis of evil before it coalesces further.” North Korea expressed its support for Palestine last month through the official state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper, saying that the war between Israel and Hamas was caused by Israel. On Nov. 5, it criticized the United States for its military support for Israel. Kim Jong Un, the country’s supreme leader, also recently ordered to find a way to support Palestinians, including by selling weapons to Middle East militant groups, the Wall Street Journal reported. Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Australia and China: Besties again? It’s complicated](https://ij-reportika.com/australia-and-china-besties-again-its-complicated/): Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese wrapped up a three-day trip to China Tuesday, calling for the “full resumption of free and unimpeded trade” in a meeting with counterpart Li Qiang. The previous day, he held wide-ranging talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, covering everything from Tasmanian Devils to New Zealand wine, not to mention improving relations with Australia’s largest two-way trading partner in goods and services. In the next step towards mending the previously fraught relations and stabilizing them, Albanese told reporters in Beijing on Tuesday that both sides have agreed on practical steps to advance dialogue in areas of common interests, including climate change, trade and people-to-people links.  He also said he raised the plight of detained Australian writer Yang Hengjun – although he provided no details about his possible release – and human rights issues within China, in a move that highlighted the controversial nature of the trip in Australia. It was the first visit to China by an Australian prime minister since 2016, with the two sides visibly making an effort to reframe a relationship marred by disputes on trade, human rights and the COVID-19 pandemic during the tenure of the previous prime minister Scott Morrison. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese delivers his speech at the opening ceremony of 6th China International Import Expo and the Hongqiao International Economic Forum in Shanghai on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2023. Credit: Jin Liwang/Xinhua via AP   “It is wise for Labor to ‘stabilize’ the relationship with China,” Han Yang, a former Chinese diplomat turned political commentator, told Radio Free Asia. Albanese has been the leader of the Labor Party since 2019. “Australia is a middle power. It’s not in Australia’s interest to pick a quarrel with China, a superpower and its largest trading partner. ‘Cooperate where we can and disagree where we must’ is the right mantra to approach the relationship,” Yang said. Chinese misjudgment? Yang pointed out that Canberra did not make major strategic concessions, nor was it simply acting on the orders of the U.S. as some pro-China activists have argued. “It’s worth noting that Australia didn’t concede on any national security strategic goals. AUKUS is pushing on,” he said, referring to the trilateral security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States in the Indo-Pacific region. Australia’s ban on Huawei remains, as does its anti-foreign interference law. “What has changed is the tone, and China got the message. “That is why it welcomed Albo with a red carpet,” Yang said, referring to the Australian prime minister’s nickname.  “If you look at the foreign ministry read out, it gives significantly more space to Xi&#8217;s speech compared to meetings with other second-tier power world leaders.” Another China watcher Gerry Groot, senior lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Adelaide, told RFA that whatever transpired from Albanese’s meetings with the Chinese leaders was driven more by Australia’s own policy than American interests. “It’s Chinese actions and demands in the South China Sea and South Pacific – Australia’s own backyard – which are so alarming to Australian politicians and defense planners,” Groot said. Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visits the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, China, November 6, 2023. Credit: AAP Image/Lukas Coch via Reuters He said he believed that Chinese strategic analysts had miscalculated the effect of weaponizing economic relations with Australia to drive a wedge between the U.S. and Australia or force more concessions, as well as punish the previous Morrison government for its anti-China stance.. “The grudging concessions on some of these sanctions have come about because the cost to China’s reputation internationally was greater than anticipated and the impact on Australia in economic terms was less, while at the same time driving relations with America closer,” he said. Exiles push back Australia’s relationship with China is made more complex by the fact that it is home to probably tens of thousands of exiles from China who have fled due to human rights violations, ethnic or religious oppression, or personal safety. “I think Albo’s China visit is morally corrupt, economically miscalculated and contradictory to Australia‘s national security interests,” exiled Chinese artist Ba Diucao told RFA. “Morally it is unacceptable to keep doing business as normal with a regime like China amid ongoing genocide against millions of Uyghurs and [while it is] supporting Russia’s invasion in multiple ways. “Also, an Australian citizen Yang Hengjun is still in jail as a political hostage in China,” Ba Diucao added. The writer was detained in 2019 while visiting family and charged with espionage. Some Uyghurs and Tibetans living in Australia, such as Ramila Chanisheff, president of the Australian Uyghur Tangritagh Women&#8217;s Association, reject any deals with the “devil.” Chanisheff told RFA that she and Tibetan representatives had petitioned against Albanese’s visit to China in Canberra ahead of the trip. “I think it was when we learned that Albanese was taking 400 trade reps [representatives] to China that it hit us the hardest. One Tibetan colleague of mine said she found it triggering,” she said. “Of course, as Australians, we feel shame at what happened to indigenous Australian youth, forced education etc, but now we’re facilitating a massive state that is doing the same in East Turkestan and Tibet.” Australia&#8217;s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese meets with China&#8217;s President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, November 6, 2023. Credit: AAP Image/Lukas Coch via Reuters Groot added, “While PM Albanese is beaming in his photos with CCP General Secretary Xi, we can only hope it is because the Chinese side has decided that more concessions to Australia are needed and perhaps that Yang Hengjun will be released shortly, rather than the grandeur of the occasion.”  “In the meantime,” he added. “Gordon Ng [an Australian citizen charged with subversion] languishes in a Hong Kong jail on trumped up retrospective charges also.” Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.
- [China urges Tibetan students to denounce Dalai Lama](https://ij-reportika.com/china-urges-tibetan-students-to-denounce-dalai-lama/): China is urging teachers and students in western Tibet to pledge allegiance to the one-party state and denounce the Dalai Lama and what authorities say are his separatist ways, according to two Tibetans living inside Tibet. Officials summoned more than 400 teachers and students from elementary and middle schools in Ngari prefecture of the western Tibet Autonomous Region of China to attend a workshop on “anti-separatism” in October, the sources said. At the workshop, attendees were told “to confer their allegiance toward the state ideology and condemn separatism and His Holiness the Dalai Lama,” one Tibetan told RFA in a written message. “The attendees were also told to refrain from any religious activities in schools,” he wrote. The Chinese government believes that the Dalia Lama wants to split off the Tibet Autonomous Region and Tibetan-populated areas of western China from the rest of the country.  However, the exiled leader of Tibetan Buddhism has not advocated for independence but rather a “Middle Way” that accepts Tibet’s status as a part of China and urges greater cultural and religious freedoms, including strengthened language rights, guaranteed for ethnic minorities under the provisions of China’s own constitution. Suppressing culture A second Tibetan from Tibet confirmed that during the workshop, Tibetan teachers and students were told to pledge their loyalty and patriotism to the Chinese government and refrain from teaching and imparting any education related to religion. “The teachers must ensure they teach students to adhere to conferring their allegiance to the state ideology,” he told RFA in a written message.  The measure comes as the Chinese government intensifies its efforts to suppress Tibetan culture, language and religion and to forcibly assimilate the Tibetan identity into the dominant Han-Chinese majority while ensuring patriotism and loyalty to the state. In October, RFA reported on a government ban on ethnic minority language-teaching among Tibetan communities in Sichuan province. The schools that were summoned to participate in the workshop included Ngari Garzong Middle School, Kung-Phen-Sen Elementary School, Ngari Vocational Middle School, Ngari Model School and Ngari Childcare Center, the sources said. The measure is part of the Chinese government’s attempts to force people to denounce the Dalai Lama and the Central Tibetan Administration – the Tibetan government-in-exile, in Dharamsala, India – although the efforts have not been successful, said Dawa Tsering, director of Tibet Policy Institute, the CTA’s official think tank. “Recently we had seen a slight ease from the Chinese government in denouncing the Dalai Lama in state media,” he said. “But then the Chinese government once again started imposing harsher policies when [it] realized that no matter the effort and repressive policies, it would be impossible to eradicate Tibetan’s faith and reverence for the Dalai Lama.”  Translated by RFA Tibetan. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Five dead, over 1,000 trapped in Myanmar city battle](https://ij-reportika.com/five-dead-over-1000-trapped-in-myanmar-city-battle/): Fighting between the Myanmar military and resistance groups in Sagaing region continued Monday after junta airstrikes over the previous three days killed  at least five civilians, one armed group told Radio Free Asia.  The battle began Friday, when three allied groups attacked a school campus and other buildings where junta troops were stationed.  The Arakan Army, Kachin Independence Army and People’s Defense Forces attacked the school before dawn. The group also targeted a police station and administration office in Sagaing region’s Kawlin township. The junta reacted by calling in airstrikes killing and injuring several civilians, said Kawlin city locals.  A junta jet attacked Hpa Le village in Kawlin township on Friday night, killing 34-year-old Naing Min Oo. The following day, the junta carried out more than 10 airstrikes, damaging buildings and killing two people, according to Kawlin-based defense groups.  And on Sunday morning, a fighter jet enroute from Mandalay region’s Tada-U township opened fire on Kawlin city.  Defense forces have reportedly rescued more than 10,000 residents trapped in the city since Friday. There were still more than 1,500 people trapped as of Sunday morning due to heavy airstrikes near the city’s high school, a local resident who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals told RFA. “The situation in the morning was that they were still fighting with the junta army. A jet came often and opened fire. A jet dropped bombs in the morning,” the local said. “People were trapped and some were injured due to the junta’s aerial bombardment. When civilians were trying to leave toward the eastern part of the city, junta soldiers arrived and the locals were trapped.” Residents who could not escape had to hide in houses during the fighting, he added. Aid workers are still trying to evacuate the people trapped in the city, said a rescue worker, who asked not to be named for security reasons. “People are being evacuated as much as possible. Some were evacuated on Sunday morning. All the phone lines were cut, some people were outside [the war zone], but they were still out of contact,” they said. “The junta troops are stationed around the city’s general administrative office now.” Residents from Kawlin’s surrounding villages also fled, bringing the total number of people forced to abandon their homes to nearly 100,000, according to the rescue worker.  Fighting has also prevented aid workers from collecting bodies in the area and they have not been able to accurately count the number of people who died since the initial blasts on Friday. “Junta troops are stationed in high-rise buildings. They shoot people if they come out on the street,” the rescue worker said. “There are people who have died due to the junta&#8217;s shooting. They use people as human shields.” The battle is taking longer than expected because of the combined junta ground and air attack, said a member of Kawlin township’s People&#8217;s Defense Force (PDF), who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons. “There is a hospital next to the general administration office, and the Number Two High School is next to the hospital. The defense forces took up positions for more than 200 meters and are fighting fiercely to capture the junta’s camp,” they said.  “The four sides of the General Administrative Office were surrounded by our PDF troops. But we still can not get close because junta troops have strong bunkers and weapons. A jet came to open fire every 30 minutes, and we had to retreat when the jet flew in.” The junta has not released any information about the attacks in Kawlin. RFA&#8217;s calls to Sagaing region’s junta spokesperson Sai Naing Naing Kyaw went unanswered on Sunday. At noon on Monday, some allied forces and locals claimed that resistance forces had finally taken control of Kawlin city, but RFA has not been able to independently confirm this.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [What’s behind the latest corruption trial in Hanoi?](https://ij-reportika.com/whats-behind-the-latest-corruption-trial-in-hanoi/): On October  23, Vietnamese prosecutors began a second corruption trial against fugitive businesswoman Nguyen Thi Thanh Nhan. Given her alleged ties to Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, this is no run of the mill fraud and bribery trial. Elite political infighting is clearly at play as the jockeying for power ahead of the 14th Congress intensifies. Nhan, 54, is the former chairwoman of the Advanced International Joint Stock Company (AIC), a trading company established in 1994, which has been involved in the import of any number of things, from corporate electronics, medical equipment, pharmaceuticals, auto parts, alcohol, machine tools, and farm equipment. Nhan who was tried in absentia along with 35 other defendants in December 2022 for a $6.3 million bid rigging and bribery case involving 16 hospitals in Dong Nai province. She allegedly paid some $1.8 million in bribes to local officials to secure inflated contracts,  Nhan was convicted and received a 30-year sentence in January 2023. Also convicted was Tran Dinh Thanh, who had been the provincial party chief at the time for accepting bribes.   The current case is similar to her first conviction, and involves six instances of bid rigging in the sale of medical equipment to state hospitals in the northeastern province of Quang Ninh, as well as bid-rigging at a medical lab in Ho Chi Minh City.  Vietnam&#8217;s Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh meets with U.S. President Joe Biden (not pictured) in Hanoi, Sept. 11, 2023. Credit: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters The fraud involved in this case is only VND50 billion ($2 million). There are 15 other defendants including AIC’s accountant and Nhan’s brother. The latter had fled but returned to Vietnam to face justice.  But what makes the case so sensitive is that the Quang Ninh’s provincial party chief from 2011-2015, was Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh. The former Ministry of Public Security intelligence official was given some of his first management experience as he was being groomed for senior government service.  Nhan is rumored to be Chinh’s former mistress. But even if that is an unfounded rumor, Nhan clearly benefited from her close relationship with the prime minister and other leaders. She had a pattern of cultivating ties with provincial leadership where she sought contracts.   AIC’s webpage also notes that the firm serves as a consultant to the powerful Ministry of National Defense. Nhan as the middlewoman In addition to dealing in medical supplies, she allegedly became Vietnam’s intermediary for weapons procurement from Israel. Israeli defense firms reportedly secured some $1.5 billion in sales in the past decade as the People’s Army sought to modernize and lessen their dependence on Russian arms. Israel has been negotiating some $2 billion in additional sales to Vietnam, including surface-to-air missiles and other weapons systems, with Nhan as the middlewoman. In 2018, Vietnam entered into negotiations with Israel Aerospace Industries about procuring the Ofek-16 spy satellite, which would give Vietnam their first independent overhead imagery.  The deal was worth $550 million, but Nhan allegedly tried to get the Israeli manufacturer to significantly increase the price to secure a larger commission. Israeli officials were angered that the corruption scheme has potentially upended the sale, and at the very least delayed its implementation. An Ofek-16 spy satellite blasts off from the Palmachim air base in central Israel, July 6, 2020. Credit: Israel Ministry of Defense Spokesperson&#8217;s Office via AP Nhan has never been charged for anything involving military procurement, which probably reflects a fear of shedding light on the sensitive issue of the military’s procurement practices. Prosecutors have focused on her medical industry dealings, much the way that investigators may be focusing on tycoon Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao’s other business dealings, rather than her conglomerate SOVICO, which has an extensive history of brokering weapons imports from Russia. Madame Nhan has been a fugitive since the Ministry of Public Security issued a warrant for her arrest in April 2022.  Her December 2022 trial came as CPV General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong’s “Blazing Furnace” campaign brought down two deputy prime ministers, Politburo-member Pham Binh Minh and Vu Duc Dam, and two months later President and Politburo member Nguyen Xuan Phuc. At the time, Prime Minister Chinh appeared to be the next target. Chinh is reported to have gone through a self-criticism session and has held onto his job. But arguably what really saved him was not his innocence, but the lack of an obvious replacement. None of the new deputy prime ministers are on the Politburo and there’s an overall dearth of economic management experience on the top decision-making body.  Nhan is reportedly hiding in Germany, which rejected a formal extradition request from Vietnam. Indeed, Berlin issued a very stern warning to Hanoi to not repeat the abduction of the former executive of the state-owned PetroVietnam Construction, Trinh Xuan Thanh, in 2017. After his illegal rendition, allegedly through Slovakia, Thanh was convicted of embezzlement and sentenced to life in prison; a trial that also saw Politburo member and former chief of PetroVietnam, Dinh La Thang, sentenced to 13 years. Germany expelled two Vietnamese diplomats and has convicted two people for the abduction, but wants to deter a similar operation. New targets Nhan’s trial could be another attempt to weaken the prime minister as jockeying for leadership positions heats up ahead of the Communist Party of Vietnam’s 14th Congress expected to be held in January 2026.  RFA’s Vietnamese Service has reported that the vice chairman of the Quang Ninh People’s Committee and two former vice chairmen have been investigated and officially reprimanded for their management shortcomings and oversight of the AIC deal. It’s just more unwanted pressure on the Prime Minister. Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam was one of the high-ranking officials recently removed from their positions. Credit: Hoang Dinh Nam/AFP file photo The Politburo continues to have just 17 members, as both the 7th and 8th Central Committee Plenums in May and October, respectively, failed to garner sufficient consensus to elect new members following the ouster of Minh and Phuc. ...
- [Japan PM vows defense cooperation with Philippines in historic speech](https://ij-reportika.com/japan-pm-vows-defense-cooperation-with-philippines-in-historic-speech/): Prime Minister Fumio Kishida became the first Japanese leader to address both chambers of the Philippine Congress on Saturday, underscoring a new phase in relations between the two Asian countries marked by territorial disputes with China. Calling the Philippines an “irreplaceable partner,” the Japanese prime minister said defense cooperation between the two nations, as well as with their common ally, the United States, was crucial in maintaining an “open international order based on the rule of law,” which he said was currently under serious threat. “In the South China Sea, the trilateral cooperation to protect the freedom of the sea is underway,” he told the special session of Congress, adding that Japan’s Self-Defense Forces had joined as observers in the U.S.-Philippines military drills held recently. “Through these efforts, let us protect the maritime order, which is governed by laws and rules, not by force.” Kishida arrived in Manila on Friday and met with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. at the Malacañang presidential palace. In a joint statement, both leaders reaffirmed their support for a “rules-based approach to resolving competing claims in maritime areas” and “their commitment to freedom of navigation and overflight in the East and South China Seas.” While the Philippines and China are locked in a territorial dispute in the South China Sea, Japan and China have contending territorial claims in the East China Sea. In 2016, an international arbitration court ruled in favor of the Philippines when it rejected China’s territorial claims to most of the South China Sea on historical grounds. In recent months, China and the Philippines have engaged in increasingly tense rhetoric as both countries assert their claims over the contested waters amid standoffs at sea between Chinese and Filipino coast guards and other vessels. Kishida and Macros also agreed to start negotiating on a Reciprocal Access Agreement, a defense pact that serves as the framework for joint patrols and troop deployment for drills, among other things. Japan also committed millions of dollars to the Philippines under a security aid package to shore up the latter’s maritime defense. “From this standpoint, I confirmed with President Marcos during his visit to Japan in February that we would work together to maintain and strengthen the free and open international order based on the rule of law,” Kishida said. In his speech, the Japanese leader also acknowledged historical events, vowing that Japan would not forget the “spirit of tolerance” with which the Philippines once pardoned Japanese soldiers who committed atrocities during World War II. Meanwhile, dozens of activists with GABRIELA, a women’s advocacy group, protested outside Congress at the time, calling on the Philippine government to demand an apology from Japan for the abuse of Filipino “comfort women” who were raped and tortured during the Japanese occupation. An activist holds a placard outside the House of Representatives at the Batasang Pambansa Road in Quezon City, Metro Manila, during Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida&#8217;s speech at the Filipino legislature, Nov. 4, 2023. Credit: Gerard Carreon/BenarNews After Imperial Japan invaded the Philippines in December 1941, an estimated 1,000 women were sexually enslaved as “comfort women,” according to official records. Most have since died of old age. “Instead of allowing the hordes of Japanese soldiers to the Philippines, Marcos must instead confront Prime Minister Kishida about the cases of violence, abuse, and rape that the comfort women suffered in World War 2,” Cora Agovida, the group’s secretary-general, told RFA-affiliated news organization BenarNews. “Why should we allow the Philippines to be a playground for Japanese soldiers when their government can’t even apologize for the sufferings of Filipino women?” “The military access agreement being negotiated between the Philippines and Japan is part of the U.S. plan to bring more soldiers here in Asia and solidify its hold on the region,” she added, warning that more foreign troops in the Philippines could bring the country on the brink of war. Concluding his remarks, Kishida headed to the headquarters of the Philippine Coast Guard, which earlier in the day hosted Adm. Shohei Ishii, the head of the Japanese Coast Guard. He then embarked on a flight to Malaysia for an official visit. The Philippine Department of National Defense will also receive a grant of 600 million yen (U.S. $4.02 million) to purchase coastal radars as the first project under Japan’s newly launched Official Security Assistance (OSA) funds. The country also acquired 12 multi-role response vessels from Japan, which are now deployed to patrol along the archipelago’s shoreline. Japan will also provide aid grants worth U.S. $6 million to purchase trucks, bulldozers, and other heavy equipment to repair transport networks and infrastructure damaged by natural disasters in Bangsamoro, an autonomous Filipino region predominantly inhabited by Muslims and marked by conflicts between militants and the military. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.
- [Uyghur artist wins prize at prestigious art exhibit in Italy](https://ij-reportika.com/uyghur-artist-wins-prize-at-prestigious-art-exhibit-in-italy/): Lékim Ibragimov was well into his career as an artist when he visited the Kizil Thousand-Buddha Caves in Xinjiang in the 1990s.  It was a seminal experience that would shape his already renowned work and earn him a special commendation at one of the most prestigious exhibitions for contemporary art, the Florence Biennale in Florence, Italy. The series of rock-cut grottoes, each containing murals of Buddha, sometimes surrounded by other figures, date from the 5th to 14th century and sit on cliffs near Kizil township in Aksu prefecture.  The caves, reputed to contain the most beautiful murals in Central Asia, were an important medium for Buddhist art at a time when Buddhism prevailed in Xinjiang for more than a thousand years until it was replaced by Islam around the 13th century. Now they are a source of pride and symbol of desired freedom for Uyghurs who live in the region and abroad. Ibragimov, a Uyghur graphic artist and painter who lives in Uzbekistan, explored the regional capital Urumqi and the town of Turpan. But when he went to the caves, the ancient murals and their historical richness deeply moved him.  “I was particularly inspired by the Kizil Thousand-Buddha Caves [near] Kucha,” he told Radio Free Asia. “These paintings can’t be found anywhere else in the Turkic world. They are the epitome of Uyghur paintings, encapsulating the history and art of the Uyghurs. I found myself captivated.” One of the five works of Uyghur artist Lékim Ibragimov displayed at the 2023 Florence Biennale contemporary art exhibition in Florence, Italy, October 2023 Credit: Courtesy of Lékim Ibragimov Now 78, Ibragimov said he has dedicated more than 40 years to studying the cave murals and incorporating their style into his work.  “Over the years, I introduced these artworks to the world with support from prominent artists who encouraged me to continue,” he said. “Through art, I paved a way for the Uyghur people. I became an academic in Russia, a national-level artist in Uzbekistan, and received many awards. I am delighted to have made this artistic contribution for the Uyghur community.” Cave frescoes Lékim Ibrahim Hakimoghli, as the artist is known among Uyghurs, has incorporated the style and colors of the cave frescoes into his abstract, surreal artwork that combines drawing, painting and calligraphy. His paintings earned him widespread recognition in Russia, Germany and other European countries after the 1990s as well as numerous awards, including the special commendation in the painting category at this year’s Florence Biennale, an event that has been held every two years since 1997.  The five pieces Ibragimov presented at the exhibition were among 1,500 works by over 600 artists from 85 countries at the Oct. 14-22 event. Three of his works were of Turkic figures, outlined and accented by muted colors against a light brown background in the style of the frescoes at the Kizil, also known as Bezeklik, Thousand-Buddha Caves. Another one depicting a neighing steed trying to break free of its tether resembles a Chinese ink-and-water painting, while his rendering of an ancestral angel is reminiscent of the style and motifs of Belarussian-French artist Marc Chagall. All the works were created between 2008 and 2020. Piero Celona, the vice president and founder of the Florence Biennale, who is knowledgeable about the cave paintings in Xinjiang, expressed admiration for Ibragimov&#8217;s work.    “Germany and other European countries have preserved and respected Uyghur culture, and he noticed the similarities [to the cave murals] in my paintings,&#8221; Ibragimov told RFA. “He commended my work and emphasized the Uyghur people’s yearning for freedom, predicting a brighter future for them.”  Chinese suppression The award comes as the Chinese government is repressing Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples living in Xinjiang and trying to Sinicize the vast northwestern region in part by destroying Uyghur culture.  Beijing has denied committing severe human rights violations in the region, despite credible reports, witness accounts and growing condemnation by Uyghur advocacy groups and the international community. One of the five works of Uyghur artist Lékim Ibragimov displayed at the 2023 Florence Biennale contemporary art exhibition in Florence, Italy, October 2023. Credit: Courtesy of Lékim Ibragimov Marwayit Hapiz, a Uyghur painter who lives in Germany and is well-acquainted with Ibragimov’s works, said the inclusion of his paintings in the Florence Biannale was a significant achievement for Uyghur art. “Lékim Ibrahim&#8217;s selections for this exhibition were a rare distinction among Turkic ethnicities,” she told RFA. “He is the sole Turkic artist to have earned this recognition.”   Hapiz, who first met Ibragimov in Urumqi in 1991, calls him one of the leading artists in the field of contemporary Uyghur fine art, whose works in the style of the cave murals highlight the traditional art of Uyghurs. “I wouldn’t hesitate to call him the foremost artist in Uyghur arts,” Hapiz said. “In Europe, whenever someone inquires about painters of symbolic Silk Road paintings, his name comes up.” “Lékim Ibrahim’s paintings emanate the spirit of Uyghur art from the era of the Uyghur Buddhas,” she said. “Our Uyghur artistic legacy essentially originates from these stone wall paintings.” Narratives Through extensive research, Ibragimov developed a deep understanding of the narratives and tales depicted in the cave wall paintings and incorporated them into his creative spirit, Hapiz said. “He innovatively adapted their expression and aesthetics, establishing a unique method of painting,” she said. Ibragimov has played a pivotal role in introducing Uyghur art to the world, alongside other renowned Uyghur painters Ghazi Ehmet and Abdukirim Nesirdin, she added. “He stands as a distinctive artist from the Silk Road and Asia primarily due to his ability to reflect the ancient paintings,” said Hapiz. Other artists familiar with Ibragimov’s work took to social media to offer their congratulations and praise. The special commendation certificate and medal presented to Uyghur artist Lékim Ibragimov at the 2023 Florence Biennale contemporary art exhibition in Florence, Italy, October 2023. Credit: courtesy of Lékim Ibragimov Gulnaz Tursun, a Uyghur artist from Central Asia, who like Ibragimov, serves as a mentor...
- [Pakistani police crack down on Uyghurs at risk for deportation](https://ij-reportika.com/pakistani-police-crack-down-on-uyghurs-at-risk-for-deportation/): Pakistani authorities began conducting unexpected house raids on the homes of Uyghurs living in Rawalpindi just before a government order to expel all illegal migrants who had not left the country by the start of November took effect, according to Uyghurs involved in the matter.  Officials issued a warning in early October, stating that migrants without a legal residence permit in Pakistan had to leave by Nov. 1 or face deportation. The measure affects nearly 20 Uyghur families — or about 100 individuals — living in Rawalpindi, the fourth most populous city in Pakistan.  Pakistani officials issued the expulsion order after dozens of people were killed in two suicide bombings in late September. Though they said that most such bombings this year were conducted by Afghan nationals, they decided to expel all migrants without a valid residence permit – including 1.73 million Afghan refugees – if they didn’t leave on their own. Most of the affected Uyghurs are descendants of individuals who migrated decades ago from Xinjiang to Afghanistan and later to Pakistan. They lack Afghan or Chinese passports and Pakistani residence permits.  The Uyghurs, who have been living in a state of uncertainty in Pakistan for the past month, said authorities began sudden house raids at midnight on Oct. 31.  “They are raiding homes at midnight or at 1 or 2 o’clock,” said a Uyghur man named Turghunjan who is married and has two daughters and a son. “The landlords are also telling us to leave, but we will have nowhere to sleep.”  Landlords who rent homes to the Uyghurs reported some of them to the authorities, and on Nov. 1, a man named Amanullah was detained during a house search by police as part of the effort to investigate illegal migrants, the Uyghurs said. Police released Amanullah on bail five hours later.   It remains unclear if authorities will deport the Uyghur families. Stopped by police Turghunjan, a relative of Amanullah, said he was abruptly stopped by police on his way home from work on the evening of Oct. 31, during which the officers checked his identity and warned him of a potential search the following day. “While I was on my way home, the police stopped me and asked me questions,” he said. “They slapped me on the face three or four times and said they would search me after Nov. 1.”   “We are not Afghan, and if they deport us, where will we go?” he asked. RFA could not reach police in Rawalpindi for comment. The Uyghur families are concerned that their safety will be at risk under current Taliban control if Pakistani authorities deport them to Afghanistan. They also fear being forced back to China, where Uyghurs in the far-western Xinjiang region face repression and are subjected to severe rights abuses. “They are not leaving their homes, [and] the landlords are reporting them to the police,” said  Omer Khan, founder of the Pakistan-based Omer Uyghur Trust, who has been assisting the families. Though police have threatened some Uyghurs over the past days, they have not yet arrested or deported anyone, he said. The Uyghurs sought help from the U.N. refugee agency’s office in Pakistan for years without success. But this October, the agency collected their names, addresses, and details about their families, following an early October report about their plight by Radio Free Asia.  At the time, the agency also said it was investigating the situation of the Uyghur families facing deportation if they failed to comply with the government order expelling all illegal migrants.  Khan said he received a reassuring call from a representative of the U.N. refugee agency,  officially the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR, on Nov. 2 while the Uyghurs faced harassment by police. “We didn’t ask them to come and take us,” he said. “We just need a response and decision from the U.N. about refugee status.” Neither the U.N.’s refugee agency in Geneva, Switzerland, nor its office in Pakistan responded to inquiries from RFA. Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar’s navy arrests over 200 Rohingya fleeing Rakhine](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-navy-arrests-over-200-rohingya-fleeing-rakhine/): Junta navy officials have arrested 226 Rohingya fleeing Myanmar by boat since Oct. 27, communities in western Myanmar told Radio Free Asia. They were attempting to escape to Malaysia and Thailand.  On Thursday, the navy apprehended two boats carrying 167 Rohingya off the coast of Ayeyarwady region, a source close to the region’s police force said Friday. “They were caught when they left to go to Thailand. They were caught at sea,” he told RFA, asking to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. “There were 80 men and 87 women on the boat.” Ten Myanmar crew members are also being prosecuted, he added.  The group of 167 Rohingya originated from Rakhine state. They traveled in boats called Thuta Kyaw and Zeya Aung and were sailing northwest from Hainggyikyun in Ayeyarwady region, some pro-army channels on the messaging app Telegram reported. Junta navy warship 553 caught the boats while patrolling the area. Navy officials took the arrested Rohingya to an unknown location from Hainggyikyun police station, said a local close to the junta council administration. Their whereabouts is still unknown.  Similarly, officials arrested nine men and 12 women on Monday after the group entered Rakhine state from Bangladesh’s refugee camps. They intended to go to Malaysia, but were arrested in the sea near Rathedaung township’s Done Paik village.  On Oct. 27, junta officials arrested 38 Rohingya enroute to Malaysia. The boat was caught near Ah Ngu Maw village in Rakhine’s Rathedaung township. The following day, the group was taken to Sittwe police station to be prosecuted, according to a press release from the junta-controlled Rakhine Daily Telegram page.  In relation to the three cases, police arrested six more people, including boat owners, crew members and a broker. Rohingya regularly leave by boat for neighboring countries because it is more difficult for them to survive in Rakhine state, one Rohingya refugee from Sittwe told RFA. “This leaving is normal and there is no way to stop it. People are going in droves, although they know the way is deadly,” he said, asking to remain anonymous. “About half of those who left have arrived. But there is absolutely no way to stop it. Because it’s difficult to live here – job scarcity and unemployment, no freedom. And people are leaving because the resentment is growing day by day.” They are trying to leave by paying brokers up to 10 million kyats (US$4,762) per person, he added. Rohingya are often arrested by the Myanmar navy while leaving on boats. RFA contacted Ayeyarwady region’s junta council spokesman, Maung Maung Than for comment on the arrested Rohingya, but did not receive a reply by the time of publication.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Unofficial Vietnamese church members languish in detention](https://ij-reportika.com/unofficial-vietnamese-church-members-languish-in-detention/): Four members of an unofficial church in southern Vietnam’s Dak Lak province who invited the country’s newly appointed president to attend their services remained in custody Thursday, in violation of a law that requires detainees be released within three days, said a religious watchdog group. Protestant Christians Y Phuc Nie, Y Nuer Buon Dap, Y Thinh Nie, and Y Cung Nie were arrested on Oct. 31 and are being held at the Cu Mgar District Police Headquarters, Y Quynh Buon Dap, a member of Thailand’s Montagnards For Justice group said. “Two of them were invited to a meeting on religious affairs [and detained], and the other two were taken from their homes to the Cu Mgar District Police,” Y Quynh Buon Dap told RFA Vietnamese. “Three days have already passed, but none have been allowed to return home.” In a letter dated Oct. 30, Cu Sue Commune People’s Committee Chairman Dang Van Hoan requested that Y Cung Nie come to his office the following day to discuss an invitation he sent to President Vo Van Thuong in May to attend his church’s services. On the same day, the chairman of the Ea Pok Town People’s Committee requested that Y Nuer Buon Dap meet with him on Oct. 31 to discuss “guidance on procedures to establish religious service locations.” However, police arrested the two Protestants upon their arrival for the meetings, their family members told RFA. “The police arrested him right after he arrived at the office of the Commune People’s Committee early on Oct. 31 and then escorted him to the Cu Mgar District Police headquarters,” said Y Cung Nie’s relative, who declined to be named for security reasons. “Since then, they have held him but haven’t said anything to our family.” Y Phuc Nie and Y Thinh Nie were both arrested at their homes. Y Cung Nie’s relative confirmed that “three other [Protestants] are also being held at Cu Mgar District Police headquarters.” When family members went there to ask for information about them, police did not respond. RFA contacted the Cu Mgar District Police on Thursday, but the person who answered the phone said that they could only provide information in person. A source with the Montagnards For Justice group told RFA on Thursday that the Cu Mgar District Police had released Y Phuc Nie, but arrested his wife, H Tuyen Eban instead. RFA was unable to independently verify the claim. Limits on detention According to Vietnamese law, a person accused of committing an administrative violation can only be held in custody for 12 hours – or 24 hours under extenuating circumstances. Those accused of a crime cannot be held for more than three days – a period that can be extended twice for three days each with special permission. All cases requiring temporary detention must be approved by the Procuracy at the same level as the investigating police department and the status of the case must be communicated to the family of the accused. Despite the requirements, the families of the four Protestants have yet to receive any notification on their situation from authorities. According to a document obtained by RFA from the Montagnards For Justice, the four Protestants sent an invitation in May to new Vietnamese President Vo Van Thuong, who was appointed two months earlier, and representatives of the People’s Committees of all communes in Dak Lak to attend their church service in June. The purpose of the invitation, they said, was to prove to authorities that their unofficial church services do not include any anti-state ideology, and that they would not affect public order. It said that if local authorities attended the service, church members would document the event to post on social media and include in any reports to international organizations. Three-day propaganda lecture The unofficial Protestant church in Cu Mgar district claims to have 165 members, 150 of whom are from Cu Sue commune’s Sut M’dung village and 15 from Ea Tar commune’s Drai Si village. Montagnards For Justice’s Y Quynh Buon Dap told RFA that the church had sent invitations to attend services to local authorities four times since the beginning of the year, but has yet to receive a response. He said that in addition to detaining the four Protestants, authorities required members of the church to attend a three-day propaganda lecture, beginning Oct. 30. In two-three hour sessions, local authorities urged the community not to take part in the services of their church or any other unofficial church, including the Evangelical Church of Christ of the Central Highlands and Good News Mission Church. Those that do would be “dealt with according to the law,” they said. Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
- [Ethnic armed alliance captures 3 cities on China-Myanmar border](https://ij-reportika.com/ethnic-armed-alliance-captures-3-cities-on-china-myanmar-border/): Allied ethnic armed groups captured three cities in northeastern Myanmar in a six-day battle, a representative of one of the groups told Radio Free Asia on Thursday.  Junta troops were forced to abandon their posts on Friday when allied soldiers attacked three cities in northern Shan State, the military confirmed in a statement released Wednesday. The Ta’ang National Liberation Army, Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and Arakan Army gained control of the cities in an operation called 1027.  Fighting took place in several townships until Monday, when the military gave up the cities of Chinshwehaw, Hpawng Hseng and Pang Hseng near the China-Myanmar border, according to junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun. “Here we see all kinds of propaganda that almost all the cities in northern Shan state have been controlled [by ethnic armed groups], and about where they will continue after that,” he said on junta-controlled television channel MRTV.  “At this time, there are places where our government and administrative organizations and security forces have failed.” The northern allied groups have started implementing administrative systems, Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army spokesperson Yan Naing told RFA.  “Right now, we have full control over Chinshwehaw and Hpawng Hseng. The administrative mechanisms have been restored,” he said.  “Chinshwehaw township was reformed by our administrative team. We are working to restore electricity and everything. We are working hard to make people’s lives comfortable.”  Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army forces gained control of Theinni on Friday, but have not yet been able to seize the military’s camps on the other side of the town, he added. The group seized Hpawng Hseng on Monday and Pang Hseng in Muse township on Wednesday. The alliance claimed they captured nearly 90 junta army bases during the battle, but RFA has not been able to independently confirm this number. Conflict in Pang Hseng ended on Wednesday afternoon, said a local woman asking to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.  “Now, the situation has gone quiet. We stay at home and do not dare to go anywhere. If people go to market, they trade early in the morning and return home,” she said. “I heard the sounds of gunfire and small ammunition yesterday evening, not the heavy artillery anymore. If the sounds of heavy weapons are close, we run to the houses with basements.” During a routine briefing on Thursday, China’s foreign affairs ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin called for an immediate ceasefire. China tightened border security when the fighting began, locals said.  “The Chinese side opens the gate if there is an emergency patient, but it is said that the war refugees are not allowed to get in,” the woman from Pang Hseng said.  RFA contacted the Chinese Embassy in Myanmar, but did not receive a reply by the time of publication. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Junta battalion surrenders amid Shan state ethnic offensive](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-battalion-surrenders-amid-shan-state-ethnic-offensive/): An entire military battalion has surrendered to rebel forces amid an offensive by an alliance of three ethnic armies in northern Myanmar’s Shan state, according to sources with the armed resistance who called the capitulation the first of its kind in the region. All 41 members of Light Infantry Battalion 143, including a deputy commander and two company commanders, agreed to lay down their arms on Monday following talks with the Northern or “Three Brotherhood” Alliance a day earlier, Yan Naing, information officer of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, told RFA Burmese on Wednesday. “It is true that the 41 [troops] surrendered – it happened on [Oct.] 30,” said Yan Naing, whose MNDAA, based in Shan’s Kokang region along the border with China, is one of three members of the ethnic army alliance along with the Arakan Army and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army. Representatives of the Three Brother Alliance had urged commanders of the Kunlong township-based battalion to give up on Oct. 28, a day after it launched “Operation 1027” – named for the Oct. 27 date of the offensive – and simultaneously struck junta positions in the strategic Shan cities of Kunlong, Hseni, Chin Shwe Haw, Laukkaing, Namhkan, Kutkai, and Lashio, the state’s largest municipality. The MNDAA’s information department said Monday’s surrender marked the first time that a whole battalion had capitulated during an operation in northern Shan state, adding that the alliance had also confiscated a weapons cache as part of the agreement. It said 15 pro-junta militia fighters had also surrendered with their weapons on Tuesday. As part of a deal to entice junta forces to surrender, the MNDAA paid 1.5 million kyats (US$715) to each soldier from the battalion and pro-junta militia fighters that lay down their arms and escorted them to territory under their control, the group said. Operation 1027 making gains The MNDAA claims that more than 100 junta troops and pro-junta militia fighters have surrendered during Operation 1027, although its claims could not be independently verified. The Irrawaddy online journal cited the Three Brotherhood Alliance as saying that, from Oct. 27-31, it took control of 87 Myanmar military camps and three towns in Shan state – Chinshwehaw, Nawngkhio, and Hseni. In a statement issued on Tuesday, the alliance urged junta troops to give up their camps and outposts or face attack. It said those who surrender will be guaranteed safety, medical care, and other assistance that will allow them to return to their families “with dignity.” United Wa State Army soldiers participate in a military parade in Myanmar’s Wa State, in Panghsang on April 17, 2019. Credit: Ye Aung Thu/AFP The junta has yet to release any information about the surrender of its troops. Calls to junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. General Zaw Min Tun went unanswered Wednesday. Local resistance groups – including the anti-junta People’s Defense Force, or PDF – have joined in Operation 1027, which the Three Brotherhood Alliance says was launched to stop military attacks on ethnic armies in the region, get rid of online scamming rings in Kokang, and build a federal union. UWSA staying ‘neutral’ One group that will not be joining the operation is the ethnic United Wa State Army, or UWSA, which confirmed it was staying out of the campaign in a statement on Wednesday. Wa troops will “adopt a principle of neutrality” and avoid armed conflict in the Kokang region, but will retaliate against military intervention of any kind in its region, the statement said. A UWSA official confirmed to RFA that the information contained in the statement was correct. The UWSA said that the troops involved in the current conflict should “exercise restraint and pursue negotiations aimed at reaching a ceasefire.” It also said that humanitarian assistance had been provided to displaced persons who fled into the region due to the fighting. On the day Operation 1027 was launched, Kokang forces attacked Chin Shwe Haw, which was controlled by the United Wa State Army. The fighting forced some 10,000 residents of the town to flee to nearby Nam Tit for shelter, the UWSA official said. Another ethnic armed organization called the National Democratic Alliance Army, or NDAA, based in eastern Shan state has said it will not take part in the offensive and was adopting a principle of neutrality, but would “continue to maintain peace and stability” in the border region. The Three Brotherhood Alliance armies are also members of the Federal Political Negotiation and Consultative Committee, or FPNCC, led by the UWSA. The seven-member coalition also includes the Shan State Progressive Party, the Kachin Independence Army, and the NDAA. Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
- [Man dies during Myanmar junta interrogation](https://ij-reportika.com/man-dies-during-myanmar-junta-interrogation/): A man from southwestern Myanmar died during a military interrogation between Oct. 19 and 20, revolution groups told Radio Free Asia on Monday. Military officials arrested 20-year-old Soe Paing Oo for allegedly communicating with a People’s Defense Force in the country’s northern region of Mandalay.  The Ayeyarwady region local, as well as three others, surrendered to the junta on Oct. 5 during a ceremony at Pathein’s Southwestern Regional Military Headquarters. Junta officials reported the four men defected from resistance groups and that they gave each one 300,000 kyats (US$143). Although locals disputed that the arrested men were resistance fighters, junta officials presented the men with certificates noting their surrender. In the following days, the military officers interrogated Soe Paing Oo, who is from Kan Thone Sint village in Kyonpyaw township, as well as another man from Ngathaingchaung township, the revolution group told RFA.  “They were welcomed with a ceremony at the Southwestern Regional Military Headquarters. [Previously], they were living under house arrest,” members of the revolution group said, asking to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. “A man who surrendered to the junta from Kyonpyaw township was taken and interrogated by the Kyonpyaw army officers. I heard that he died during the interrogation and was cremated directly in the military headquarters.” Details about Soe Paing Oo’s death are still unknown, and it is likely he was not affiliated with any People’s Defence Force, they added.  In Ayeyarwady region, many civilians are currently seeking the protection of resistance groups. After protesting during the 2021 coup, they are sheltering with People’s Defence Forces to avoid arrest and will sometimes surrender to junta troops if the group is attacked.  Despite their alleged civilian status, locals told RFA that police were already investigating Soe Paing Oo and the three other men before they surrendered. RFA could not confirm the condition of the Ngathaingchaung man who was arrested with Soe Paing Oo.  Around 20 people in Ayeyarwady region surrendered to the military in the region’s capital of Pathein, according to junta officials. In October, junta troops were accused of forcing Ayeyarwady region locals to meet recruitment quotas for military training, including minors.  Calls by RFA to Ayeyarwady region’s junta spokesperson Maung Maung Than went unanswered. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Taejun Kang and Elaine Chan
- [Candlelight Party officials vote for alliance with Khmer Will Party](https://ij-reportika.com/candlelight-party-officials-vote-for-alliance-with-khmer-will-party/): Top officials from the opposition Candlelight Party voted on Tuesday to align with the smaller Khmer Will Party as it prepares for upcoming district and Senate elections. The move will allow the Candlelight Party – which has been stymied in its efforts to regain official status – to register candidates under the Khmer Will Party name in next year’s district elections. The Khmer Will Party did not appear on the ballot in the July general elections, but it maintains a recognized registration status with the Ministry of Interior. “The Candlelight Party has spent time and money and paved obstacles,” said Phal Sithon, a senior Khmer Will Party official. “We owe it gratitude.” After the former main opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party was dissolved by the Supreme Court in 2017, the Candlelight Party began organizing and gathering support. Many of its leaders were once part of the CNRP. But in May, the National Election Committee ruled that the Candlelight Party couldn’t compete in July’s parliamentary election because it did not have the original registration form issued by the Interior Ministry.  With no real opposition, the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, or CPP, swept to victory. The president of the Khmer Will Party is Kong Monika, a former senior member of the Candlelight Party. His father, Kong Korm, was once a senior adviser to the Candlelight Party. Phal Sithon said the Khmer Will Party will allow the Candlelight Party to register its candidates under its party’s name in next year’s district elections. However, he wouldn’t specify how the two parties would choose which of their candidates would appear on ballots.  “We can’t say the percentage but they have been working on their candidates so we must respect that,” he said. Checks and balances The Candlelight Party announced earlier this month its intention to form an alliance with several minor parties, including the Khmer Will Party. The alliance will also look to field candidates in the 2027 commune elections and the 2028 general election.  Last week, Candlelight Party Vice President Rong Chhun said it may also form an alliance with the newly formed National Power Party. Legal scholar Vorn Chanlot on Tuesday told RFA that the Khmer Will Party most resembles the Candlelight Party compared to the other two parties in the alliance – the Grassroots Democratic Party and the Cambodia Reform Party.  “People need an opposition party that has a will and wisdom for the sake of social benefit for checks and balances over the government,” he said. Also last week, the ruling CPP unveiled its own alliance with 27 minor parties. Speaking at the CPP’s headquarters, Hun Sen alleged that an unnamed group “has plans to topple the government and destroy peace.” The longtime leader, who stepped down as prime minister in August but remains the CPP’s president, was likely referring to Candlelight’s recent efforts to form ties with other parties. “I would like to affirm that we must collectively destroy this political extremist group. I have already directed a plan to destroy this political organization,” Hun Sen said, adding that he succeeded in neutralizing the remnants of the Khmer Rouge in the 1990s. Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [300 Myanmar junta troops who fled attack return from Bangladesh](https://ij-reportika.com/300-myanmar-junta-troops-who-fled-attack-return-from-bangladesh/): Some 300 members of a junta military unit and a border police force who fled to Bangladesh during an attack by the rebel Arakan Army have been repatriated to Myanmar, according to several Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. They were returned by sea on Thursday following a handover ceremony in Cox’s Bazar that was attended by five Myanmar junta officials and Myanmar’s ambassador to Bangladesh, a Rohingya refugee told Radio Free Asia. “We learned that five representatives, including a police colonel of the Border Guard Police, came,” the Rohingya refugee said. “Also, we learned that Amb. Aung Kyaw Moe met with the chief of Border Guard Bangladesh and handed them over.” Video showed uniformed Bangladesh guards escorting the junta troops and officers – some of them wounded – onto a ship.  Cox’s Bazar is located on southeast Bangladesh’s coast near Myanmar’s western Rakhine state. Over the last decade, almost 1 million Rohingya refugees have fled from Myanmar to the Cox’s Bazar area, which has become the world’s largest refugee camp.  The junta border guards who crossed over to Bangladesh were retreating from an attack by the ethnic Arakan Army on the Taung Pyo Let Yar outpost and a nearby strategic hill in Rakhine’s Maungdaw township on Feb. 4. AA takes control of Myebon The attack marked the latest blow to Myanmar’s military junta in Rakhine state, where the Arakan Army, or AA, ended a ceasefire in November that had been in place since the junta assumed power in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup d’etat. A total of 330 people crossed over to Bangladesh in early February, including Lt. Col. Kyaw Naing Soe, the commander of the junta’s No. 2 Border Guard Police battalion, 302 soldiers, four family members, two other military personnel, 18 immigration officers and four civilians, according to RFA sources on the Bangladesh border. Elsewhere in Rakhine, the AA said it has captured all military council camps and police stations in Myebon township. The Arakan Army said in a statement on Thursday that it now controls seven towns in the state. Myanmar nationals and Border Guard Police who crossed the Bangladesh-Myanmar border to seek shelter in Bangladesh amid recent conflicts between military forces and rebel groups, are escorted back into Myanmar at Cox’s Bazar on Feb. 15, 2024. (AFP) The AA has recently launched offensives in townships near the state capital of Sittwe, including Rathedaung and Buthidaung. There are reports that the AA has warned the junta’s regional operations command in Sittwe, the Rakhine state capital, to surrender. The junta has not released a statement about recent developments in Rakhine, and RFA’s calls to Hla Thein, junta’s spokesperson and attorney general of the Rakhine state, went unanswered on Friday. Rebel victory in Kayah state The junta has also suffered a loss to rebels in northeast Kayah state, where the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force, or KNDF, announced Friday that it had gained complete control of Shadaw city after a month-long battle. The KNDF began attacking junta outposts surrounding a strategic hill in Shadaw on Jan. 15, the group said in a statement.  On Jan. 21, they began a siege to a junta base after troops refused to surrender and the junta dropped in another 70 troops by helicopter, the KNDF said. A final attack on the base began on Monday.  More than 160 junta soldiers, including a colonel and a lieutenant colonel, were either killed or captured, the KNDF said. The junta hasn’t released a statement on the battle. RFA’s calls to junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun to seek comments on the KNDF’s claims went unanswered. Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [Two political prisoners killed during junta escort, Myanmar resistance group claims](https://ij-reportika.com/two-political-prisoners-killed-during-junta-escort-myanmar-resistance-group-claims/): Myanmar junta troops shot dead two political prisoners, including one high-profile activist, a resistance group told Radio Free Asia on Friday.  Nobel Aye and Aung Ko Hein were killed while returning from a court appearance in Bago region, north of Yangon, on Feb. 8, according to Waw township People’s Defense Force citing sources close to the court and hospital. The pair were taken to Waw township’s courthouse by junta troops when they allegedly tried to escape, the resistance group said.  Nobel Aye is known for her role in protesting against police brutality in Myanmar in 1996, and again in 2007 during the Saffron Revolution’s economic and political protests. She had been arrested twice before,  following both demonstrations. The prisoners were being interrogated at the No. 901 Artillery Station Command Headquarters, an official of the Waw People’s Defense Force said.  “They appeared in Waw Court and were shot dead near the exit of Kyaik Hla village between Waw and Paya Gyi on the way back to the military interrogation,” he said, declining to be named for security reasons. “The bodies were well-packed and sent to the morgue. No one was allowed to look at the bodies and they were cremated secretly before nightfall.” Nobel Aye’s brother, Htet Myat, said his family has not heard any official confirmation from police about his sister. “We have not yet been informed of what happened and how. I am very worried. As a family, I didn’t know what to do when people who knew about this incident confirmed it,” Htet Myat said on Friday. “I felt uncontrollable. We want reliable and accurate information to be released by those responsible.” However, the junta has denied that the prisoners died in custody. Bago’s junta spokesperson Tin Oo told RFA the information was just a rumor. “That’s wrong and fake news, dissemination of false information. We are working in accordance with the law,” he said. Nobel Aye was allegedly shot dead while returning from a court appearance in Bago region on Feb. 8, 2024. (Myanmar Political Prisoners Network) Nobel Aye and Aung Ko Hein were arrested by junta soldiers after being caught with weapons on Jan. 29, sources close to her family said. Nobel Aye was also active in distributing aid during the COVID-19 pandemic and protested frequently after the country’s 2021 military coup, they said. Aung Ko Hein is a resident of Insein township, Yangon region. RFA could not confirm his personal details.  In June 2023, troops shot and killed at least 13 political prisoners in central Bago after a prison truck crashed. According to notices junta officials sent to prisoners’ families, 37 detainees attempted to escape when a prison vehicle overturned during a transfer. RFA could not confirm the whereabouts of the remaining prisoners.  According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners’ Feb. 15 statement, more than 4,500 pro-democracy activists and civilians have been killed during the coup, while over 26,000 have been arrested. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [China’s Xi appeared ‘humble’ but now rules supreme, ambassador says](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-xi-appeared-humble-but-now-rules-supreme-ambassador-says/): China’s Xi Jinping was once a “humble” leader who has “totally changed” since taking control of the country in the style of Mao Zedong, according to the memoir of Hideo Tarumi, a former Japanese ambassador to Beijing who left his post in December amid deteriorating bilateral ties. In the memoir published by the literary magazine Bungeishunjū just two months after he left his post, Tarumi describes meeting Xi during a visit to Japan when he was vice president under Hu Jintao in 2009. Tarumi’s job on the night was to greet each guest personally, and he noticed that Xi showed no sign of impatience while waiting to be greeted, despite the fact that Tarumi was running late, and took a while to get to him. The encounter was to leave Tarumi with the impression of a “humble” official, he wrote, adding that Xi has “totally changed” since taking power in 2012. “Xi Jinping’s aura has totally changed,” Tarumi wrote, adding that he is now surrounded by far more security guards than his predecessor Hu Jintao, making it hard to approach him. He said Xi has now steered China away from the decades of economic reform launched by late supreme leader Deng Xiaoping in 1979, and along a path that is closer to that chosen by Mao Zedong. Former Japanese ambassador Hideo Tarumi’s memoir in a recent edition of the Japanese magazine Bungeishunjū. (Chi Chun Lee /RFA) “Xi Jinping’s actions prove that he chose &#8230; to use a high degree of centralization to maintain the legitimacy of Chinese Communist Party rule,” Tarumi wrote, adding that the centralization of power in Xi’s hands now means that the formerly powerful Politburo Standing Committee is now subordinate to Xi Jinping. He said Xi had “sacrificed the economy to achieve national security goals,” or regime stability. ‘Contradictory’ But he said the amendment of the Counterespionage Law last year and the loosening of immigration controls are also tied in with economic development. “It’s a contradictory thing, and the ambassadors of Europe and the United States are also confused about it,” Tarumi wrote of the two moves. The reform era ushered in by Mao’s successor Deng Xiaoping saw people freed up to make money as fast as they liked, and the start of a burgeoning private sector and decades of export-led economic growth, while political ideology and authoritarian rule took a back seat.  In August, top Chinese economist Hu Xingdou published a 10-point plan calling for a return to those policies, and a move away from Beijing’s aggressive “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy under Xi. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying at a daily briefing in Beijing, Aug. 3, 2022. (Andy Wong/AP) Yet Xi, who is serving a third and indefinite term in office after abolishing presidential term limits in 2018, is widely seen to be moving in the opposite direction to Deng. He’s cracking down on private sector wealth and power and boosting the state-owned economy while eroding the freedoms enjoyed by the country’s middle classes. Face-off Tarumi was feted as a “China hand” by the nationalistic Global Times newspaper when he took up his post in 2020 and has since gained a reputation as a fearless challenger of Wolf Warrior diplomacy. In the book, he also describes being hauled in by foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying and lectured after then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took part in a regional strategic forum on Taiwan, which China claims as its territory despite never having ruled the democratic island. Tarumi went reluctantly after instructing his staff to “ignore” Hua’s summons – and after the foreign ministry threatened to cut him off from all future meetings. Hua berated him with Japanese militarism leading to “the slaughter of many Taiwanese.” But Tarumi, who had served in Japan’s economic and trade office in Taiwan, retorted that he knew more about Taiwan than she did, and that Japan’s 50-year rule over Taiwan was due to the ceding of the island under the Treaty of Shimonoseki in the wake of the First Sino-Japanese War. Hua appeared at a loss for words at this, and replied only: “Some people say Japanese militarism started in the 19th century. These new interpretations are unacceptable,” according to Tarumi’s memoir. A few months later, Tarumi faced an even bigger problem. One of his diplomats was detained by police after having lunch with Dong Yuyu, deputy head of editorials at the Communist Party’s Guangming Daily newspaper, who was arrested for spying on Feb. 21, 2022. Hideo Tarumi, Japan’s ambassador to China, gives a speech at his residence in Beijing, March 30, 2022. Tarumi, who left his post in Dec. 2023, has published a memoir. (Embassy of Japan in China) “Foreign personnel engaged in activities inconsistent with their status in China,” Hua told a regular news briefing at the time. “The relevant Chinese authorities conducted investigations and inquiries into this matter.” According to Tarumi, the Japanese diplomat had presented his passport and work permits, informing the police that his detention had violated the Vienna Convention because it breached his diplomatic immunity. Tarumi made an immediate protest to the foreign ministry, meeting with assistant foreign minister Wu Jianghao, who told him that the meeting was “irregular.” Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, shakes hands with Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s General Secretary Toshihiro Nikai before a meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on April 24, 2019. (Fred Dufour/pool photo via AFP) Tarumi replied that Wu had misrepresented the meeting and objected strongly, with the support of the ambassadors of 13 other countries, according to his account. Eventually, the Japanese diplomat was released. A Beijing-based journalist who declined to be named said China intensified its surveillance of Japanese diplomatic missions following the incident, barring them from taking part in exchange activities as they normally would, and isolating them in their embassy and consulates. Listening devices Tarumi’s memoir appears to confirm this claim, adding that a number of dinner invitations sent to prominent Chinese intellectuals were declined after the incident, while...
- [N Korea peddles illicit gambling sites to South’s criminal ring](https://ij-reportika.com/n-korea-peddles-illicit-gambling-sites-to-souths-criminal-ring/): A North Korean information technology group has created illegal online gambling websites and sold them to a South Korean cybercrime ring, the South’s National Intelligence Service revealed.  Gyonghung Information Technology Co., a group of 15 members based in Dandong, a Chinese border town next to the North Korean city of Sinuiju, was reportedly paid US$5,000 by an unnamed South Korean criminal organization in exchange for the development of a website and $3,000 monthly for its maintenance, the agency, known as NIS, said on Wednesday.  The company is also believed to have earned an extra $2,000 to $5,000 for increased website user traffic, involving commercial transactions via bank accounts owned by Chinese nationals and the global online payment service PayPal. “Dandong has emerged as a base for apparel production in China, with the manpower from North Korea, and North Korean IT organizations have sprouted up and blended in among the North Korean workers in the area to make money and illegally earn foreign currencies,” said the NIS, adding that thousands of North Koreans generate income abroad through similar tactics.  Since the United Nations Security Council’s 2017 sanctions against Pyongyang, North Korean citizens have been barred from working in China, a measure aimed at curtailing the North’s ability to fund its nuclear and missile development programs. But North Korean operatives have camouflaged themselves as IT workers by fabricating their identities. The spy agency said the Gyonghung group is believed to be under the so-called Bureau 39 of the North Korean ruling party, which is responsible for managing and raising secret funds for leader Kim Jong Un. Each member of the group sends the North Korean government about $500 per month.  The group is led by Kim Kwang Myong, a former official of Pyongyang’s main intelligence agency, Reconnaissance General Bureau. It also extorted personal information from users who accessed the websites it developed through the installation of malicious codes.  The amount of revenue generated by the entity from the South Korean criminal organization is not immediately known. However, the organization was also found to have generated profits in the trillions of South Korean won through the use of its websites, and an investigation is underway into the ring. Edited by Elaine Chan and Mike Firn
- [Myanmar youths go into hiding to avoid getting forced into battle](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-youths-go-into-hiding-to-avoid-getting-forced-into-battle/): With Myanmar’s junta plowing ahead toward a full-scale draft, young men say they are staying indoors to avoid getting dragooned into the army to fight in a war in which the military is losing ground and men. Most youths have no desire to fight – for the junta or the armed resistance, said a 22-year-old Mandalay resident who asked not to be identified.  “We have no choice as the junta is cornering us to join the army,” he said. “Now we don’t dare to go out – day or night. There are a lot of abductions [for forced recruitment], so I’m worried. My friends say they will join the [resistance] but I don’t know what to do, since I can’t fight.” With recent rapid advances by ethnic armies People’s Defense Force, or PDF, militias of civilians who have taken up arms against the junta, the military appears to be on the defensive as hundreds of soldiers have surrendered. Junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing announced on Feb. 10 that the People’s Military Service Law, enacted in 2010 by a previous military regime, would go into effect immediately. On Tuesday night, the junta announced the formation of a committee to oversee the conscription process. But reports suggest that the military and pro-junta militias are already rounding up as many able bodies as they can with the goal of forcing recruits to undergo simple training, putting weapons in their hands, and dumping them onto the battlefield. Eligible citizens have told RFA Burmese that they would rather join the armed resistance or flee Myanmar than fight for the junta, which seized control of the country in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup d’etat. One young resident of Yangon told RFA he would likely be killed if he is forced to join the military. “I don’t want to join and my friends feel the same, but … we can’t resist because they have weapons,” he said. “So, we have to take the training they’ll give us and if I get a chance, I will go to the liberated areas [controlled by anti-junta forces].” The ‘right’ to defend the country Junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun told military-controlled media on Tuesday that the national conscription law provides every citizen “the right” to receive military training to defend the country, and urged people not to be concerned because they wouldn’t immediately be sent to fight. “Just like us professional soldiers, you have to carry out national defense duties only after undertaking proper military training,” he said. A parade of the 78th anniversary of the Armed Forces Day which on March 27, 2023. (AFP) According to Myanmar’s compulsory military service law, men aged 18-35 and women aged 18-27 face up to five years in prison if they refuse to serve for two years. Professionals – such as doctors, engineers and technicians – aged 18-45 for men and 18-35 for women must also serve, but up to five years, given the country’s current state of emergency, extended by the junta on Feb. 1 for another six months. According to the 2019 census, there are 6.3 million men and 7.7 million women – totaling nearly 14 million people – who are eligible for military service in Myanmar, Zaw Min Tun said Tuesday. The number is equivalent to just over one-quarter of Myanmar’s population of 54 million. He added that parents “don’t need to worry” because there are more than 3,000 wards and 60,000 villages across the country, “so only one or two persons per ward need to join the military.” Zaw Min Tun’s comments did little to sooth the concerns of Yangon resident Wai Lwin Oo, whose 23-year-old son is eligible for the draft. “Parents are extremely concerned,” he said. “There are only two options and as a parent, the last thing I want to do is tell my children which path to choose … There are no parents who are amenable [to the conscription law].” Round-ups underway Residents of Yangon and Mandalay told RFA that since the military service law was announced on Feb. 10, young people are nowhere to be seen in the city after 8 p.m. Additionally, RFA received reports on Wednesday that at least 25 young people from Ngwe Than Win Ward in Yangon region’s Thanlyin township had been rounded up for conscription by joint forces of the junta and pro-junta militias conducting house-to-house inspections since Monday. The following day, at least 10 others were taken into custody from Thanlyin’s Darga ward, according to Private Sanda, an official with the local People’s Defense Force. Southwestern commander Brig. Gen. Wai Lin meets with members of militia from some townships of the Ayeyarwady region on Sept. 22, 2023. (Myanmar Military) RFA also received reports on Wednesday that the junta has been recruiting residents of five townships in Myanmar’s southwestern Ayeyarwady region for military training using a raffle drawing since January. Residents said that whoever is selected in the raffle in Kyonpyaw, Myanaung, Kyangin, Kyaiklat and Mawlamyinegyun townships and refuses to join the military is being made to pay up to 1 million kyats (US$475). A lawmaker, who declined to be named, said that the junta is targeting Ayeyarwady because the region is firmly under its control, adding that the military has a “very high demand for soldiers” because its troops are “surrendering, fleeing into other countries, and dying” on the frontlines. Attempts by RFA to reach junta officials for comment on the reported round-ups went unanswered Wednesday. ‘Human shields’ on the battlefield Zaw Min Tun, the junta spokesman, has been cited in media reports as saying that the conscription law will be put into practice after the traditional Thingyan New Year holidays in April, and 5,000 conscripts will be called up in each round. No further details have been provided. Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, or NUG, responded to the junta’s announcement of the formation of the Central Committee for Militia Recruitment on Tuesday with a statement urging people not to comply with the conscription...
- [Mass arrests in Myanmar spark fear over conscription laws](https://ij-reportika.com/mass-arrests-in-myanmar-spark-fear-over-conscription-laws/): Junta soldiers on a two-day spree have arrested young and internally displaced people, locals in Bago region told Radio Free Asia. Since enforcing the People’s Military Service Law on Saturday, junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing announced conscription would begin immediately. Refusing to serve could result in a five-year prison sentence for young men and women across the country.   This isn’t the first time the area has faced conscription efforts. Soldiers in January made rounds across several townships, trying to gain numbers through threats, fines, and incentives.  On Monday, soldiers entered Htantabin township’s Za Yat Gyi city in eastern Bago, where locals fled conflict days before the arrests. It was the site of a battle a week ago when the Karen National Liberation Army and People’s Defense Forces fought with junta troops. Around 50 people were killed by junta artillery fire and more than 10,000 were forced to leave their homes amid heavy shelling. The city was left mostly empty, but residents who chose not to flee were abducted from their homes, locals said. Junta troops stationed at Za Yat Gyi Hospital also detained young people in Htantabin township’s surrounding villages. A local in Za Yat Gyi city who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons told RFA on Tuesday that he fled because people who have reached the age of 18 are being rounded up for military service. “At the moment, the whole village is fleeing because the junta’s army entered the village and dragged people out. We are also hiding and fleeing,” he said. “They arrest women who are around 18 and 19 years old. Men at that age are also being taken to the trucks and forced to serve in the military.” Since troops began raids, villages are nearly empty, he added. Internally displaced people from nearby villages were also targeted, although locals said they could not confirm the details of the arrests.  Regime denies mass arrests Junta forces set up blockades on roads leading from Za Yat Gyi to Htantabin city and conducted spot checks and arrests at Htantabin Bridge, according to locals.  Bago residents near the Sittaung river and Kayin state border haven&#8217;t been able to get to Taungoo city, roughly 290 kilometers (180 miles) north of Htantabin since the weekend because of blockades, they said. Bago region’s junta spokesperson Tin Oo denied people were being press-ganged into military service.  “As far as arrests are concerned, we are arresting organizations related to the People’s Defense Forces and organizations that support terrorists according to the law,” he told RFA. “We do not arrest innocent people without reason.” No mass arrests occurred, and only three or four people were taken in for interrogation, he said.   On Tuesday night, the regime-backed media announced the formation of a Central Militia Recruitment Team led by the Ministry of Defense.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.    
- [Despite Chinese pressure, NJ township raises Tibetan flag for Tibetan New Year](https://ij-reportika.com/despite-chinese-pressure-nj-township-raises-tibetan-flag-for-tibetan-new-year/): When the mayor of a New Jersey township accepted a request from a resident to fly the Tibetan flag on the eve of the Tibetan New Year, he had no inkling it would attract the attention of the Chinese government. Nor did he anticipate that Belleville township – population of about 40,000 – would suddenly become the subject of international news. But that’s exactly what unfolded, Mayor Michael Melham told Radio Free Asia after he rejected an emailed request by Ambassador Huang Ping, consul general of the People’s Republic of China in New York, to cancel the Tibetan flag-hoisting ceremony scheduled for Feb. 9. Despite Chinese pressure, Melham raised the Tibetan flag for the first time in Belleville history at the behest of Tibetan resident Dorjee Nodong, who submitted a request at least 30 days in advance to hoist the Tibetan flag at the Town Hall to commemorate Losar, the Tibetan New Year. A recording of the Tibetan national anthem played in the background during the event.  “We have often seen our town embrace diversity and inclusivity by hoisting flags representing different nationalities in front of the mayor’s office, so my son reached out to the mayor’s office,  and they agreed to do it,” Yangchen Nodong, 74, the mother of Dorjee who placed the request, told RFA by phone from her home in New Jersey. The incident illustrates how far Chinese officials will go to try to exert control over members of Tibetan diaspora communities abroad, especially during politically sensitive anniversaries and holidays, such as Losar, which began this year on Feb. 10. Diversity program The township of Belleville, which organizes flag raisings on Fridays at noon, approved the Tibetan flag-raising event as part of an ongoing initiative to promote the township’s diversity. As part of the program, any resident or Belleville organization can place a request for a flag raising for a specific country, following which the township purchases the flag and schedules the event.    Mayor Michael Melham raises the Tibetan flag outside Belleville Town Hall in honor of the Tibetan New Year, in Belleville, N.J., Feb. 9, 2024. (Courtesy of Township of Belleville, N.J.) “It sounds like the raising of the Tibetan flag in our town has sparked significant attention and discussion on social media, even if it may not have been immediately noticeable to everyone in my town,” said Nodong, whose family is among a handful of Tibetan families living in Belleville. Belleville is home to one of the first Chinatowns on the U.S. eastern seaboard and the place where the first Chinese New Year was celebrated on the East Coast. It is predominantly made up of Hispanics and has a small Asian population, Melham told RFA.  “As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter how big or small of a community you are,” Melham said. “If there&#8217;s a request that comes in, we’re going to honor that.” “Here in Belleville, we’re proud of our culture and our history, and I know Tibetan people are, too,” he said. “But increasingly, their language, spirituality or their religion is trying to be silenced in China. That’s something that we can’t accept. &#8230; We want to make sure that history will always tell their story&#8230;so, the best way to do it is to do things like this where we stand up and stand firm.” Nodong said he was devastated upon hearing that the Chinese consul tried to stop the event.  “This situation stirred emotions related to the ongoing tensions inside Tibet, but I felt a great sense of happiness and satisfaction knowing that despite the Chinese government’s intervention, the mayor still chose to hoist the Tibetan flag in our town,” he said. Undated letter Chinese Consul General Huang Ping’s undated letter to Melham asked for his “&#8230; reconsideration of the township’s participation for this ‘flag-raising’ event, as a measure to fulfill the commitment of the United States and to facilitate the sound development of China-U.S. relations.”  “I was kind of taken aback by their request, especially the fact that they mentioned that the [Tibetan] flag is a symbol that China doesn’t accept,” Melham said. “I was really taken aback by that and the fact that the Chinese government being housed in New York is going to try to muscle in on a New Jersey municipality and try and influence their mayor or their governing body or their township as a whole as to what they can or cannot do.” The letter Chinese Consul General Huang Ping sent to Michael Melham, mayor of Belleville, N.J., asking him to cancel the Tibetan flag-raising ceremony scheduled for Feb. 9, 2024. (Courtesy Township of Belleville, N.J.) The letter, typed on the letterhead of the Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China in New York, was attached as a PDF file to the email sent to Melham, which was signed by Vice Consul Kailiang Zhou. In response to the letter, Melham wrote to Huang that people in Belleville prided themselves on creating an environment of inclusivity and acceptance, regardless of nationality or territorial affiliation.  “I understand your concerns regarding the raising of the Tibetan flag,” he wrote. “However, it’s essential to clarify that our intentions are not aimed at challenging the sovereignty of any nation. Instead, our gesture symbolizes solidarity with the Tibetan people and their aspirations for freedom and self-determination.” An outpouring of support There has been no communication from the Chinese government since Feb. 12, Melham said.  The consulate did not immediately respond to RFA’s request for comment. Following the Tibetan flag-hoisting ceremony, Melham has received an outpouring of messages in solidarity with his move from all over the United States and Canada. “I&#8217;ve received messages from all over with people saying, what a great thing that we did and encouraging me as a mayor to make sure that we stand firm,” he told RFA. “So, I’m going to venture to guess this is not going to be a one-time occurrence.” Additional reporting by Yangdon Demo and Nyima Namseling for RFA Tibetan....
- [Myanmar junta kills 4 civilians in tea shop shelling](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-kills-4-civilians-in-tea-shop-shelling/): Junta shelling killed four civilians and injured seven others in Myanmar’s Sagaing region, locals told Radio Free Asia on Tuesday.  The army turned its big guns on Monywa township, where junta troops were accused of burning homes and bodies, as well as arresting children and elders last December. All the dead and injured in Hta Naung Taw village are men, said one local, declining to be named for security reasons. The injured are stable and their wounds are not life-threatening, he added. A shell exploded directly on a crowded tea shop in the village center, he said, adding that it was fired by a junta battalion based in Ma Au village on the Monywa-Mandalay road. “It dropped straight on the tea shop. The dead include a cattle broker from Kya Paing village and two brothers from Hta Naung Taw tea shop. Another one is a passenger who was having some tea,” he told RFA Burmese. RFA contacted Sagaing region’s junta spokesperson Sai Naing Naing Kyaw for more details about the shelling, but he had not returned the calls at time of publication.  The army opened fire on the village in retaliation after a battle in Hta Naung Taw 10 days ago between local defense forces and junta troops, residents said. Press-gangs in Monywa Elsewhere in Monywa, locals claim the junta’s conscription efforts have increased after regime leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing announced on Saturday he would immediately enforce the country’s People’s Military Service Law. The law forces men aged 18-35 and women aged 18-27 to serve for two years in the regime’s military. Professionals from a larger age bracket must serve for three to five years.  Junta police forces at a checkpoint in Monywa city on Nov. 21, 2021. (Citizen journalist) Following the announcement, junta troops seized nearly 50 men on Sunday, locals said.  Soldiers arrested roughly 20 people in Monywa’s Myawaddy neighborhood, including some sitting in a teashop on Sunday morning, witnesses said. They rounded up 28 more from public areas around the city. A Monywa resident who requested anonymity for security reasons said soldiers have been roaming the city in plain clothes, preying on locals, and conducting checks and arrests. Given that those arrested are between the ages of 18 and 35, some locals in the same age range have gone into hiding for fear of being conscripted, he said. “They often wander around the city and catch people. There are four to 10 soldiers in one place spreading out all over the city and conducting checks and arrests,” said the man. “They could be held at Monywa City Hall. I heard that some of them were being released after paying money. I don’t know how much.” Another Monywa resident said the city remained quiet until Monday morning, when people came out to do their shopping. Military-backed channel Myanmar Radio and Television called the reports fake news.  Also Sunday morning, nearly 40 passengers traveling on the Mandalay-Monywa road near Lel Gyi village, Sagaing township, were held by troops for interrogation, residents said. RFA has been unable to find out whether they have been released. According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, more than 26,000 people have been arrested in the three years since the coup, as of Tuesday. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Torture, forced labor alleged at Prince Group-linked compound](https://ij-reportika.com/torture-forced-labor-alleged-at-prince-group-linked-compound/): This is the third article in a three-part series on the Prince Group. For Part I of RFA’s investigation, click here. For Part II, click here.  Panha has an idea of the horrors that take place within the Golden Fortune Science and Technology Park in Cambodia’s southeastern border town Chrey Thom. He has witnessed what happens to those who try to leave. “When they recapture escaped workers they beat them until they’re barely alive. I’ve seen it with my own eyes,” Panha told RFA, declining to give his family name. His brother, he said, is head of security at the 15-acre (four-hectare) facility, and Panha has watched him hunt down escapees. “If you don’t beat them they will stop being afraid and more will try to escape.” While the compound is ostensibly open to the public, and billed as an industrial park, it is surrounded by a 10-foot-high (three-meter) concrete wall topped with barbed wire. Its heavy, metal front gate is manned by uniformed security guards, who bar entry to ordinary visitors.  Built by the powerful and well-connected Prince Group, the facility now counts cyberscam operations among its businesses, according to witnesses, staff and former employees. While the group denies any involvement in the park, it is run by a company headed by Prince executives and bears several other indicators of connections to the group. Golden Fortune Science and Technology Park in Chrey Thom, Cambodia, is surrounded by a 10-foot-high concrete wall topped with barbed wire. It is seen here in a recent photo. (RFA) Inside, locals allege, trafficked Vietnamese, Malaysian and Chinese nationals are forced to carry out cyberscams. They are part of an enslaved workforce that the U.N. estimates numbers approximately 100,000 people across Cambodia – a claim the government denies. Fourteen local residents – among them current and former employees working at the Golden Fortune compound – separately told RFA they had witnessed security guards violently subduing escaped workers before returning them to the compound. For security reasons, witnesses requested their names not be used. At least two other Prince Group-linked properties have previously been connected with human trafficking and cyberscam operations, according to local and international media reports.  Prince Group spokesperson Gabriel Tan told RFA that while the conglomerate built the Golden Fortune compound, it did so at the request of a client, whom he declined to identify. Asked about allegations of trafficking and cyberscam operations within the compound he added, “we are unaware of the incident you mentioned.”  Cambodian corporate records suggest that the park’s parent company, Golden Fortune, is run by Ing Dara, a businessman with extensive ties to the Prince Group. He holds directorships in a number of Prince companies, including one cited by the Prince Group’s founder as the ultimate source of his wealth in disclosures to an offshore bank. Ing Dara and Golden Fortune could not be reached for comment.  RFA has previously revealed that Chinese police have established a special task force to investigate the Prince Group’s alleged money laundering and illegal online gambling operations run from Cambodia. In part two of our series, RFA explored how illicit funds appear to be washed and funneled into legal Prince Group-affiliated businesses.  This final installment in the three-part investigation into the company explores allegations that one of its facilities holds victims of Asia’s blossoming cyber-slavery industry.  Dirty jobs Chrey Thom is a one-road town abutting the Bassac river just a few hundred yards upstream from Vietnam. Like many border communities in Cambodia, the town is thick with casinos built to service foreigners who face restrictions on gambling in their own countries.  A Cambodian government crackdown against online casinos in 2019 forced many to close. In some cases, the empty real estate has been taken over by criminal gangs that force trafficked workers to perform cyber fraud. Such frauds have exploded in recent years, in particular “pig butchering” in which victims are lured into putting large sums of money into phony investment schemes. However, those performing the scams are often also victims held against their will and forced to find people to dupe using various online platforms.  As cyberscam operations have proliferated, they’ve also been found operating in office blocks, apartment complexes and what appear to be purpose-built compounds.  A “hotel” just outside the Golden Fortune compound in Chrey Thom, Cambodia, has bars on its balconies to keep people from getting out, sources tell RFA. (RFA) Set on 15 acres of land and surrounded by concrete walls topped with barbed wire, the Golden Fortune facility hosts a soccer field, a basketball court and 18 large dormitory style buildings, all of which were constructed since mid-2019, according to satellite imagery reviewed by RFA.  Metal bars cover the dormitory windows on each of the five floors, suggesting they are designed to keep people in. Those allegedly imprisoned inside are mostly Vietnamese and Chinese, locals said. Cambodians work inside the compound, too, in security roles. Online Khmer-language advertisements for jobs within the compound seen by RFA called for Cambodians who speak Vietnamese, offering a salary of $600-800 a month on top of three meals a day and accommodation.  Though relatively well-paid, such work is wholly unappealing to 60-year-old Moeun, who asked that her full name not be used. She spoke with RFA reporters while standing in the thigh-high oily water of a drainage canal, catching fish with her bare hands. “If we don’t do good work and torture they will cut our salaries, so we prefer to come here and catch some fish to get some money,” said Moeun, whose children had worked inside the compound. “Besides working for them, what else can we do?”  A former Golden Fortune security guard says workers who escaped from the compound, the triangle-shaped area seen in this Dec. 19, 2023 satellite image, would be hunted down and bounties offered for their return. (CNES/Airbus) Her account was confirmed by a current Golden Fortune employee, who told RFA that disobedient or unproductive workers are detained on the first floor of a building...
- [Seven political prisoners found dead in Myanmar’s Rakhine state](https://ij-reportika.com/seven-political-prisoners-found-dead-in-myanmars-rakhine-state/): Junta troops shot and killed seven people arrested in Mrauk-U, a family member of one of the victims told Radio Free Asia on Monday. The victims included a journalist and a well-known social media commentator.  Their exact dates of death are still unknown, but their bodies were discovered after the Arakan Army captured Mrauk-U on Thursday, according to an Arakan Army statement on Sunday night.  Most of the victims were in their 20s to 40s, it added. Kyaw Zan Wai, also known as Phoe La Pyae,  was popular for criticizing the junta through jokes on Facebook. Myat Thu Tun, who often published under the name Phoe Thiha, was a former reporter for media outlet Democratic Voice of Burma. The other civilian victims were Kyaw Thein Hlaing, Kyaw Win Hlaing, Ko Nyunt, Win Naing and Pyae Sone Win. The bodies were buried and the victims’ families were not informed of their deaths, according to the Arakan Army’s statement. Junta troops arrested the men in late 2023 and all were held in custody at the Mrauk-U Police Station.  They were transferred to Mrauk-U-based military Battalion 378 when fighting broke out between the junta and Arakan Army on Dec. 24, 2023, according to family members. When fighting escalated on Jan. 31, two soldiers shot the seven prisoners and buried them in a bomb shelter near Mrauk-U Hospital, the Arakan Army’s statement claimed. Myat Thu Tun was in contact with his family until Dec. 25, but after Christmas, they did not hear from him, his wife Ohn Mar Shwezin Myint told RFA on Monday.   “When Mrauk-U city was captured by the AA, I was so happy that he was about to be released,” she said. “But when I came to know that they had been killed and buried, I was devastated. It hurts.” Myat Thu Tun worked for 7Day News Journal, Democratic Voice of Burma, The Voice, Development Media Group and other domestic and international news agencies. “I was so sad,” she said. “They were brought into the military battalion when the fighting broke out in December. I still got in touch with him around Christmas. He said he was safe. That was the last I heard.” Regime troops also attempted to hide the bodies of two other civilians, according to the Arakan Army. After capturing Mrauk-U and Minbya townships, resistance troops discovered the bodies of Nyi Nyi Aung from Rathedaung township and Kyaw Nyunt from Minbya township. Both were killed on Jan. 19 by Minbya-based junta infantry Battalion 379, the statement said. The junta has not released any information regarding the deaths. RFA phoned Rakhine state’s junta spokesperson Hla Thein, but calls went unanswered on Monday. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Spirit of Uyghurs is celebrated in paintings of ‘Home’](https://ij-reportika.com/spirit-of-uyghurs-is-celebrated-in-paintings-of-home/): “Home” means different things to young Uyghurs – some of whom may have not even visited their ancestral homeland in China’s far western Xinjiang region. That was the theme of the latest annual art competition for Uyghur artists and others held by the Uyghur Collective, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based youth group that has organized the annual event since 2019. Uyghur artist Gülnaz Tursun from Kazakhstan expressed admiration for the young artists’ sense of pride in being Uyghur, evident in their creations.  “This art contest has a great theme, with each painting expressing sentiments of homeland, home and family,” she said.  “It warms my heart to see that even while living abroad, our youth still harbor a deep longing for their homeland, evident in their works that reflect a profound love for their roots – a sentiment that truly touched me,” Tursun said. Munawwar Abdulla, the Uyghur Collective’s founder who also works as a researcher at Harvard University, said she and others came up with the competition five years ago because there were not enough platforms for Uyghurs abroad, especially those in the fine arts, to display works that “embody Uyghurism.” The competition is a way for Uyghurs living in the diaspora to preserve their culture, language and religion amid measures by the Chinese government to wipe them out in Xinjiang – which the mostly Muslim Uyghurs prefer to call East Turkistan – and replace them with China’s dominant Han culture. It is also a way for young Uyghurs who were born abroad to stay connected to their homeland, where the Chinese government has repressed Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities, and committed severe human rights violations that have amounted to genocide and crimes against humanity, according to the United Nations, the United States and other Western countries. ‘I felt compelled’ Thirty pieces by Uyghur artists around the world were submitted during the latest contest, with submissions due by Dec. 25, 2023.  The entries were showcased on the Uyghur Collective’s social media accounts, and viewers voted online between Jan. 13-15. The Uyghur Collective announced three winners on Jan. 17. In second place, ‘Freedom and Liberty’ by Adina Sabir, 16, from the United States, shows a tea set and a wheel of Uyghur flatbread on a table with New York City in the background. (Adina Sabir) First place went to Kübra Sevinç, 17, from Turkey for her entry titled “Bir Tuwgan,” or “Relative,” depicting a Uyghur mother wearing traditional ikat robe while holding her child against a backdrop of mountains and two yurts on grassland. She won US$300. Competition judge Malik Orda Turdush said the watercolor painting was “elegantly drawn, skillfully portraying flowers, clothing and the bond between mother and child.” Sevinç, who incorporated symbols from the Turkish world in the picture, said she became familiar with Uyghur people and Xinjiang after her father attended a protest in 2019 and brought home the blue flag of East Turkistan, which has been hanging in their house ever since.  “Upon seeing that blue flag, I felt compelled to do something for our brothers and sisters in those distant places,” Sevinç said. “I was following Instagram pages about the Turkish world, and a drawing contest on this page caught my attention. Given its connection to Uyghurs and East Turkistan, it felt profoundly meaningful to me.”  Yearning for the homeland Uyghur artist Merwayit Hapiz from Germany said Uyghur parents in the diaspora play a crucial role in nurturing children to develop with a deep love for their motherland.  “In those paintings, you can discern their profound respect for Uyghur ethnicity, Uyghur life and culture,” she said. “Their yearning for the homeland is palpable. The artworks mirror the Uyghur education and pride instilled by parents in the diaspora. A nation&#8217;s existence is revealed through its art and culture.”   In recent years, authorities in Xinjiang have detained an estimated 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in “re-education” camps, destroyed thousands of mosques and banned the Uyghur language in schools and government offices. China has said the camps have been closed and has denied any policies to erase Uyghur culture. “The oppression faced by the Uyghurs felt as if it was targeted to me as well,” said Sevinç. “As a Turk, the ancestors of the Uyghurs were also my ancestors. All my paintings have significance, and I was delighted to create art on a subject that means a lot to me, focusing on the Uyghurs.” “Freedom and Liberty” by Adina Sabir, a 16-year-old living in the United States, claimed second place and a $200 prize. The work shows a teapot, teacups and a wheel of Uyghur flatbread on a table. A doppa skullcap hangs on a nearby wall alongside an open window through which the Statue of Liberty and Manhattan skyscrapers can be seen. “‘In ‘Freedom and Liberty,’ the juxtaposition of two locations, notably the Statue of Liberty outside the window and the robust Uyghur atmosphere indoors, makes us think,” Turdush said.  Sabir said she wanted to express her love for her country, the United States, and for her Uyghur homeland in her painting. “In this painting, the country outside the window and the culture within the house both are a home to us,” she said. “In this free country, we are able to live with our traditions. The Statue of Liberty is a symbol of freedom.”   Kashgar spring Joy Bostwick, an artist originally from Flagstaff, Arizona, won third place for her watercolor painting “Spring in Kashgar,” a depiction of a lane in the city, a stop along the Silk Road in southern Xinjiang, whose Old City was torn down by Chinese authorities.  In third place, ‘Spring in Kashgar’ by Joy Bostwick, an artist originally from Arizona, depicts a lane in Kashgar. (Joy Bostwick) In the watercolor, a Uyghur woman sells flatbread on a table shaded by a red umbrella at the base of a tradition building with a carved wooden balcony that is typical of architecture in southern Xinjiang, while another person holding the hand of a toddler...
- [The case for seating overseas legislators in Southeast Asian parliaments](https://ij-reportika.com/the-case-for-seating-overseas-legislators-in-southeast-asian-parliaments/): Around 1.7 million Indonesians living overseas are registered to vote in this month’s presidential and legislative elections, a mammoth task for the General Elections Commission, which has had to prepare 828 voting booths at Indonesian representative offices worldwide, as well as 1,579 mobile voting boxes and 652 drop boxes for absentee voting.  How many overseas Indonesians will actually turn out to vote is another matter, and will there be any further controversy after reports that ballots were given to overseas nationals too early? According to a review by the Philippines’ Commission on Elections published this month, of the estimated 10 million overseas Filipinos, only 1.6 million are registered to vote and only 600,000 (around 40 per cent) did so at the 2022 elections.  Expat Filipinos react as presidential candidate and former president Joseph Estrada speaks during a campaign event in Hong Kong, April 4, 2010. (Tyrone Siu/Reuters) Most Southeast Asian governments, at least the more democratic ones, are looking at ways of reforming how overseas nationals vote. The Philippines’ electoral commission says it intends to have an online voting system in place by 2025 for overseas nationals, although there is still talk that this might be cost-prohibitive and could require digital voting to be rolled out at home too, which is simply too difficult for the election commissions of most Southeast Asian countries for now.  In Malaysia, where overseas balloting has been in something of a mess for the past decade, parliamentarians last month hit on fixed-term parliaments as one way to fix the problem.  However, it might be worth pondering why overseas voters are still asked to vote for representatives in parliament who live hundreds of miles away from them, whose priority is to represent constituents back at home, and who may know nothing about the concerns of overseas nationals.  Constituencies mismatched In Indonesia, for instance, votes from overseas Indonesians go to deciding the seven seats in the House of Representatives sent by Jakarta II district. (Jakarta II, which is Central and South Jakarta, was chosen because that’s where the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is located.)  This may actually be superior to how other Southeast Asian states count overseas ballots – indeed, at least the seven congresspeople from Jakarta II district know they’re supposed to represent overseas constituents. Compare that to Thailand, where overseas voters select the candidates in the constituency where they are from or were registered, so a Thai living in London but who hails from, say, Chiang Mai province votes for the MPs from Chiang Mai province. But how can the MP from Chiang Mai province be expected to adequately represent overseas electors when perhaps only 0.1% of the ballots cast for them came from overseas? An Indonesian voter receives a ballot-slip at the Indonesian Embassy in Singapore to vote in presidential election, July 8, 2009 (Wong Maye-E/AP) Why not, instead, make overseas voters a separate district and allocate six or seven seats solely for them? They could have one seat for an MP representing Indonesians in North America, another for Indonesians in Europe, another for those in Northeast Asia, another for Southeast Asia, and so forth.  And these seats would be occupied by candidates who live overseas. Imagine the Indonesian congressperson who resides in Berlin, New York, Seoul, or Melbourne. They obviously would be able to understand better the concerns and problems facing other Indonesians living abroad.  Aloof from local politics There’s a democratic element to this, too. An overseas MP wouldn’t have to mix daily with their peers in Manila, Kuala Lumpur or Jakarta. They would, on the one hand, remain aloof from the politicking and palm-greasing back home and, on the other hand, be able to bring new ideas learned from abroad back to their capitals.  They could attend parliamentary sessions every month or two, funded by the state, and spend most of their time abroad, where they could also work more closely with their country’s embassies in the regions they represent.  Officials check documentation of Indonesians living in Malaysia as they stand to cast overseas ballots ahead of the Indonesia’s general election, in Kuala Lumpur, April 14, 2019. (Mohd Rasfan/AFP) Currently, almost 10 million overseas Filipinos are represented by several government bodies, such as the Commission on Filipinos Overseas, an agency under the Office of the President. However, having overseas MPs in parliament would provide another layer of representation for nationals living abroad, allowing their voices to be heard by the government bodies and by overseas-based elected representatives.  Indeed, protecting the large population of overseas Filipinos is one of the three pillars of Manila’s foreign policy initially laid out in the 1990s, yet those emigrants have little legislative representation.  It isn’t a revolutionary idea to have overseas-based MPs represent overseas voters. France’s National Assembly has eleven lawmakers representing overseas constituencies. Italy’s parliament has had eight.  Global examples Nor is it specifically a European idea. The Algerian parliament has eight MPs who represent overseas nationals. Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Peru and Tunisia, to name but a few, also have some parliamentary seats set aside for overseas constituencies.  To quickly rebut one argument against it, it would not require a massive change to the composition of parliaments, nor would it require too many administrative changes. At the most, we’re talking about less than ten seats, so a fraction of parliament in a country like Thailand, whose National Assembly has 500 seats! Philippine Senate president Juan Ponce Enrile looks at a tally board during the counting of overseas votes for presidential and vice-presidential candidates at the House of Representatives in Manila, May 28, 2010. (Romeo Ranoco/Reuters) But if electoral commissions are now pondering ideas to better include their overseas nationals in the democratic process, it might be worth considering the more affordable and, perhaps, more democratic option of giving a handful of seats in parliament to overseas representatives.  Nor, indeed, would it be a terrible idea if campaigners in Southeast Asia’s autocracies suggested this as a rational way of protecting their overseas compatriots –...
- [Eight songs that didn't make it into China's Lunar New Year gala](https://ij-reportika.com/eight-songs-that-didnt-make-it-into-chinas-lunar-new-year-gala/): As people across China welcome the Year of the Dragon, the ruling Communist Party&#8217;s propaganda machine has stepped up a campaign of &#8220;positive energy&#8221; and &#8220;good news&#8221; about the economy despite widespread reports of slashed bonuses, unpaid wages and youth unemployment and disenchantment. Yet the songs that have truly resonated with people during the past year weren&#8217;t featured on the annual star-studded Spring Festival Gala show aired by state broadcaster CCTV on Friday.  Most of these songs first emerged on social media and became quite popular – until censors blocked many of them. But people are still able to see and hear them using virtual private networks, or VPNs, or finding other ways to circumvent China’s “Great Firewall.” Some are still viewable on Bilibili, the Chinese version of YouTube, or other social media platforms.   1. &#8220;You&#8217;re Not Really Happy&#8221; by Mayflower &#8220;Are you happy?&#8221; an interviewer asks an oil-smeared mechanic at the start of a reboot of the 2008 Mayflower hit &#8220;You&#8217;re not really happy.&#8221; &#8220;Sure,&#8221; says the man, adding that happiness is fixing cars and not giving his parents any cause to worry. &#8220;But what about your happiness?&#8221; asks the interviewee. &#8220;I don&#8217;t know,&#8221; says the man uncertainly, in a remixed video posted to X by citizen journalist Mr Li is not your teacher. Undercutting propaganda images of a prosperous country that is merely undergoing some &#8220;problems and challenges,&#8221; the song&#8217;s lyrics highlight the need to pretend everything is fine, just to survive. &#8220;You&#8217;re not really happy &#8212; that smile&#8217;s just a disguise,&#8221; say the lyrics. &#8220;The world laughs, and you join in, hiding your tears. Survival&#8217;s the game, no choice, just comply.&#8221; &#8220;Why take this punishment when you&#8217;ve already lost &#8230; let sorrow end now, start fresh, breathe new air,&#8221; it concludes, striking a chord with X users when it was posted on Feb. 2, ahead of the Lunar New Year festivities. &#8220;Chinese people’s happiness is like North Korean happiness, like Stockholm syndrome happiness,&#8221; commented @pifuzhinu113541 on the video. &#8220;Because &#8216;unhappiness&#8217; is a crime!&#8221; &#8220;This is most people,&#8221; added @Louis00135, while @DodgyLee1 quipped: &#8220;Propaganda department: Don&#8217;t spread rumors if you don&#8217;t believe them. Also the propaganda department: The whole country is brimming with optimism!&#8221;  U.S.-based current affairs commentator Tang Jingyuan said the song &#8220;lays bare the scars that lie below the glamorous image projected by the Chinese Communist Party.&#8221; &#8220;The video raises the question why, in the world&#8217;s second-largest economy, so many people from different social classes, men, women and children, are having such a hard time, and can&#8217;t achieve happiness,&#8221; Tang said.   2. &#8220;Descendants of the Dragon&#8221; by Namewee Malaysian rapper Namewee&#8217;s love letter to the &#8220;little pinks&#8221; drips with cultural references and political irony, and has notched up more than 7 million views since it dropped &#8212; just in time to welcome the Year of the Dragon. Complete with emperor figure in a Winnie-the-Pooh mask as a stand-in for Communist Party leader Xi Jinping, the song isn&#8217;t the first time Namewee has taken aim at the &#8220;little pinks,&#8221; some of whom recently also went viral in a stand-off with British boogie-woogie pianist Brendan Kavanagh around the public piano at London&#8217;s St. Pancras Station.     Images and references to Winnie-the-Pooh are banned by Chinese internet censors due to a supposed resemblance to Xi, who is suspected of ordering the removal of Lunar New Year&#8217;s Eve from the list of official public holidays this year, because its name (除夕 chúxì）is a homophone for &#8220;get rid of Xi&#8221; (除习 chúxí). According to Namewee&#8217;s Facebook page, the song is satirically &#8220;dedicated to every Chinese at home and abroad from all over the world (including Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan), to defend the dignity of the Chinese people!&#8221; &#8220;As a &#8216;descendant of the dragon,&#8217; we must always remember: Love the party, love the country, love the chairman!”  The track fires out multiple puns on the Chinese word for dragon, &#8220;龙 lóng,&#8221; taking aim at those who further the aims of the authoritarian government, despite not wanting to live under its rule. &#8220;There&#8217;s a group of people from the East,&#8221; Namewee raps, &#8220;who love their motherland but live in London, Cambodia, Northern Myanmar and Thailand &#8230; everywhere, from NYC to LA, chain-smoking, talking on the phone all day, to their cousins and their nephews, calling all their fellow villagers to come and join them.&#8221; &#8220;Hating on Japan and dissing the U.S. is our duty &#8230; flooding YouTube, criticizing and spreading fake news &#8212; FALSE!&#8221; it says. &#8220;His Majesty dons the Dragon Robe,&#8221; Namewee raps, while dancing alongside &#8220;Emperor Poo.&#8221; &#8220;Together, we learn to roar like a dragon.&#8221; A Chinese person who recently emigrated to Australia and gave only the nickname Liga for fears of reprisals said anti-communist culture is now hip, with the potential to reach large global audiences. &#8220;This is a new trend, the attractiveness of anti-communist creative content, which can be monetized,&#8221; Liga said. &#8220;It shows that people who are dissatisfied with the Chinese Communist Party are now a political force that cannot be ignored, despite not having the right to vote.&#8221; &#8220;Their influence is pretty formidable, with the help of the internet,&#8221; they said.   3. &#8220;Qincheng Prison Welcomes You&#8221; by RutersXiaoFanQi Chinese censors have gone to considerable lengths to have the channel silenced, filing takedown requests that YouTube has complied with despite growing concerns over Beijing&#8217;s &#8220;long-arm&#8221; overseas law enforcement. The channel&#8217;s song &#8220;Qincheng Prison Welcomes You&#8221; opens with the face of Winnie-the-Pooh shining down as the sun, and warns that anyone found insulting Xi will find themselves welcome at Beijing&#8217;s notorious Qincheng Prison. YouTuber @RutersXiaoFanQi puts out a steady stream of spoof videos and satirical content targeting Xi Jinping, in what has become a sub-genre using the hashtag #InsultTheBun. &#8220;Insult Winnie, commit thought crimes, the trail to jail is your fate,&#8221; sing the robotic synthesized voices. &#8220;Make yourselves at home, fellow inmates, old and new alike.&#8221; &#8220;You may laugh, but you&#8217;re on the list &#8212; can&#8217;t you see?&#8221; &#8220;The monarchy&#8217;s no longer a...
- [Critics dismiss Vietnam’s clemency for death row inmates as ‘progress’](https://ij-reportika.com/critics-dismiss-vietnams-clemency-for-death-row-inmates-as-progress/): Vietnam’s President Vo Van Thuong recently commuted the sentences of several inmates on death row to life in prison as part of a general amnesty, but rights campaigners and legal experts said the move should not be seen as a sign that the country is improving its rights record. Instead, they said, Vietnam’s liberal use of the death sentence is part of a bid by the government to keep its citizens in line and burnish its international image through regularly announced acts of clemency. On Dec. 27, Thuong granted amnesty to 18 death row inmates, commuting their sentences to life in prison. More than a month later, five other death row inmates had their sentences similarly reduced after they filed a petition to Thuong. California-based activist Nguyen Ba Tung of the Vietnam Human Rights Network told RFA Vietnamese that the amnesty was simply part of a bid by the government to “beautify Vietnam’s image on the world stage.” “The government retains the death penalty as a way to menace the people,” he said in a phone interview. “At the end of the year, or on special holidays, they let the president grant an amnesty to show that they are ‘humane.’ But international human rights groups can see through this act.” Vietnam’s judiciary is notorious for its application of the death sentence. Eighteen criminal charges in the country’s penal code carry maximum sentences of execution – most of which are related to drug crimes. Amnesty International’s latest annual report on death sentences and executions, released in May 2023, ranked Vietnam as eighth among nations with the most recorded death sentences in 2022, with at least 102. Just weeks prior to Thuong’s decision to grant amnesty to the five death row inmates, a court in Nghe An province handed down nine death sentences to convicted traffickers from a busted drug ring. Amnesty ‘not a progressive act’ Nguyen Van Dai, a veteran lawyer in the capital Hanoi, told RFA that the application and commutation of the death sentence is all part of a strategy by the government to threaten its citizens at home and avoid criticism abroad. “Every year, Vietnam hands out hundreds of death sentences to drug traffickers and murderers,” he said. “If all the death inmates were executed, the international community would pillory Vietnam. So they find inmates who were sentenced to death for less heinous criminal acts and grant them amnesty.” Dai dismissed the idea of amnesty for death row inmates as progress or a sign of judicial reform. “Progress means that clemency should be granted to all prisoners, both political or criminal, but it is never applied in cases of national security,” he said. “This is a form of discrimination and I don’t consider amnesty a progressive act.” In 2022, Vietnam granted clemency to 31 death row inmates, four of whom were foreign nationals. In September 2023, Vietnam executed death row inmate Le Van Manh, despite claims by Amnesty International that his case was “mired in serious irregularities and violations of the right to a fair trial,” and calls by the international community to stay his sentence. Manh was sentenced to death in 2005, when he was 23 years old, for allegedly raping and killing a female student from his village earlier that year. He had pleaded not guilty to the charges and maintained his innocence until his execution. Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
- [Arakan Army claims capture of third city in Myanmar’s west](https://ij-reportika.com/arakan-army-claims-capture-of-third-city-in-myanmars-west/): An ethnic armed organization in Myanmar announced it has now captured three major cities, according to a statement from the Three Brotherhood Alliance.  Rakhine state’s Arakan Army (AA) claims to have captured the last major junta territory in Mrauk-U, effectively taking control of the city. On Thursday, the group captured Police Battalion 31, following earlier captures of junta Battalions 377, 378, and 540. Both junta soldiers and policemen surrendered during the battle, said one Mrauk-U resident, asking to remain anonymous for security reasons. “The fighting in Mrauk-U is over. Locals are not allowed to enter the city at the moment. The No. 31 police battalion has also been captured by the AA,” he told RFA on Friday. “I heard they surrendered. But the AA attacked the military battalions. The junta troops surrendered after the battalion commander died.” However, it’s unclear how many police officers and soldiers surrendered and are in Arakan Army custody, he said, adding that the situation wasn’t stable yet. The Arakan Army currently occupies all 10 battalions formerly under control of the junta’s Kyauktaw-based No. 9 Military Operation Command Headquarters. The army also controls three townships across Rakhine: Mrauk-U, Kyauktaw, and Minbya. There is currently no military police or soldier presence in the townships, residents said, adding that most had surrendered, fled, been captured, or died during battles.   Radio Free Asia contacted the Arakan Army’s spokesperson Kaing Thu Kha and Rakhine’s junta spokesperson Hla Thein for more information on the battle, but neither responded by the time of publication. The regime has not released any information on conflicts in Rakhine state, including Thursday’s battle in Mrauk-U. The Three Brother Alliance, consisting of three ethnic armies, has made huge gains in Rakhine and Shan states since launching its campaign at the end of October, prompting thousands of junta troops to surrender or flee to neighboring countries. Bangladesh’s foreign minister Hasan Mahmud announced 340 members of Myanmar’s Border Guard Police fled to Bangladesh on Wednesday, adding they would be returned to Myanmar. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Myanmar resistance fighters burned alive stokes outrage](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-resistance-fighters-burned-alive-stokes-outrage/): Two young men in shackles are interrogated by armed men. As villagers look on, the men are suspended from a tree and set on fire. Their screams are heard over the flames as a unified cheer goes up among observers. Video footage of this atrocity has gone viral in Myanmar, fueling outrage in a nation already hardened to the depravity of war after three years of increasingly bloody conflict since the Feb. 1, 2021, military coup d’etat.  Sympathizers have circulated artwork on social media to pay tribute to the men who died, Phoe Tay, 23, and Thar Htaung, 22. The art includes symbolic images of two stars hanging from a tree under a campfire. The video shows their deaths in graphic detail. They were captured Nov. 7, 2023, in fighting between pro-junta forces and resistance fighters at Myauk Khin Yan village in Magway region’s Gangaw township.  According to a local official from the administration of the shadow National Unity Government, the video was taken by a villager who fled the area on Dec. 12 and Dec. 13. It’s unclear who first posted the video that began circulating widely this week. The two young men were members of the local Yaw Defense Force that attacked positions held by junta troops at Myauk Khin Yan and then retreated when reinforcements from the pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militia arrived, according to the YDF. The two young men were left behind after they both sustained leg wounds. The YDF said every household in Myauk Khin Yan was told to send one person to witness the executions. The video starts with the two young men being questioned by armed, uniformed soldiers while shackled at the legs and their hands tied behind their backs. The video then shows them dragged in chains to a nearby tree where they are hung as a fire is set just underneath. A crowd of people in civilian clothes can be seen in the background. Sporadic laughter from people apparently located closer to the violence can can be heard in the video. Local sources, who declined to be name for safety reasons, said Phoe Tay was a first year university student and Thar Htaung was enrolled at a secondary school. Both were apparently enrolled in the resistance force. Radio Free Asia spoke to the father of Phoe Tay. The father, Myint Zaw, already knew of his son’s death but has not seen the video – partly because he lacks adequate internet access in his village. He voiced horror and anger.  “Yes, it is Po Tay, my son,” Myint Zaw said. “He is gone. His life as a human is over. At that time, they were tortured. There was blood on the head. I didn’t witness it, but I learned that he was beaten on the head, beaten on the knees.” “We could not retrieve the body. Nobody could go there because Myauk Khin Yan is the stronghold village of Pyu Saw Htee [pro-junta militia],” he said.   Myint Zaw said of the video: “I haven’t watched it. But there are reports about it, and many people are talking about it.” “His friends in the village are horrified by it,” he said. “People are deeply hurt. They cannot accept such an act.” Online outrage Since the coup three years ago, reports of torture, beheadings and burning of corpses by junta forces have become commonplace, but the graphic nature of the Nov. 7 video has triggered a wave of revulsion in Myanmar and beyond – and sympathy for the dead.  Hundreds of people have commented on Facebook and others have posted online images and memes that feature the two young men. “I could no longer watch that video. How merciless they were,” said Facebook user Ko Zaw, who lists himself as a resident of Kuala Lumpur. “May you two avoid such a fate in your next lives. Please have compassion with each other, Myanmar citizens.”  Burmese social media has seen an outpouring of AI-generated art tributes to Phoe Tay and Thar Htaung after the nature of their deaths became public. (Clockwise from top left: AIMasterPieces, Christine Ang, ChanHlong, Hein Htut Aung, Crd-AungYeWin and UKhaing) Among the social media artwork are images depicting two stars hanging from a tree, a phoenix rising from the ashes and two young men looking down into a cloud-covered valley. “Whenever I check my phone, I see your faces, brothers,” said Facebook user and Bangkok resident Thein Lin Aung, who added that the amount of graphic photos and videos being reposted was bordering on the reckless. “Even those without any blood relationship feel such a heavy pain,” he wrote. “Please think about their parents, families and relatives.”  ‘Justice must be sought’ RFA’s calls this week to junta spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment on the video went unanswered.  But the junta-appointed Information Ministry claimed in a statement on Wednesday that the video was fabricated by militia groups and the two young men were killed by a rival People’s Defense Force. “The illegal subversive media is only circulating fake news at the right time to mislead the public and the international community that the security forces are carrying out such inhumane and brutal acts of terrorism, which are being committed by the terrorists from the so-called PDFs,” the ministry said. NUG spokesperson Nay Phone Latt told RFA that the NUG’s Ministry of Home Affairs has started building a case against the alleged perpetrators. However, several sources told RFA that village residents have expressed their fear of identifying the culprits. After the killings, nearly 200 people fled the village because they felt threatened by Pyu Saw Htee militia members, local people said. Gangaw township includes a significant number of supporters for the military junta and members of the Pyu Saw Htee militia, which the military has supplied with weapons and provided with training. Aung Myo Min, the human rights minister for NUG, noted that some of the perpetrators in the video weren’t wearing a military uniform. He described the...
- [Myanmar junta kills 6 internally displaced women and children](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-kills-6-internally-displaced-women-and-children/): Junta troops shot and killed women and children living in eastern Myanmar, a human rights group told Radio Free Asia.  The group was attacked while fleeing a junta offensive in Kayah state’s Shadaw township, Karenni State Interim Executive Council secretary Zue Padonmar said Wednesday. After being captured in the forest outside their village, they were taken alive as hostages.  “It happened on Feb. 5. Three women and three children were killed. One of the women who was killed was pregnant,” she said.  “The children who were killed were very young. This kind of incident rarely happens. They are war-torn displaced people … They were taken as human shields.” The victims included two disabled women in their 50s, a 33-year-old pregnant woman, and three children between the ages of three and seven. The women’s bodies were found with wounds on their faces and legs, likely inflicted during their interrogation, said Banyar, director of the Karenni Human Rights Group, who goes by one name. They were later shot in the head. The group was captured when a special operations force launched an offensive in Kayah state. The column was reinforced at Shadaw Byuhar Hill by a helicopter of troops who captured the women and children, along with a man, to use as human shields, Banyar said. Only the man was able to escape.  The regime’s targeting and killing of civilians is a war crime, Zue Padonmar told RFA. The Karenni Interim Executive Council said it is preparing to take legal action against the junta in domestic and international courts. Zue Padonmar also urged the international community not to cooperate with the junta or sell them aviation fuel. RFA contacted junta spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun to confirm details about the alleged shooting, but did not receive a response by time of publication. The junta also carried out an aerial bombardment on a school at Daw Si Ei village in western Demoso township on Feb. 5, killing four children and injuring at least 10, according to local defense forces.  A total of 4,500 civilians have been killed across the country in the three years since the military coup, according to a statement by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners on Feb. 7. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Arakan Army captures two junta battalions in Rakhine state](https://ij-reportika.com/arakan-army-captures-two-junta-battalions-in-rakhine-state/): The Arakan Army has captured two key military units in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state, giving it effective control of Minbya township and putting it in a position to challenge junta control of the state capital, according to an ethnic rebel alliance and sources in the region. On Tuesday morning, the Arakan Army, or AA, routed Light Infantry Battalions 379 and 541 – the two junta battalions that remained in Minbya after the ethnic rebels captured the 380th battalion on Jan. 28 – the Three Brotherhood Alliance, of which the AA is a member, said in a statement. “All junta soldiers surrendered to the AA,” said a resident who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. It wasn’t clear how many soldiers this entailed, but the latest estimates by military experts suggest most battalions in the Burmese Army have around 200 men. The takeover means “the AA now controls Minbya,” he said. People are worried about possible airstrikes by the military and “don’t dare go outside.” ​​The advances are the latest in a series of victories for the Three Brotherhood Alliance, which launched a campaign in October on junta forces in the northern and western parts of the country. In northern Rakhine and neighboring Chin state, the AA seized arms and ammunition during several attacks on junta positions in January. On Jan. 16, nearly 300 junta troops surrendered to the AA after it took control of two major military junta encampments in Kyauktaw township. And on Jan. 24, the Three Brotherhood Alliance said in a statement that the AA had won full control of Pauktaw, a port city just 16 miles (25 kilometers) east of the Rakhine capital Sittwe. The takeovers follow the AA’s occupation of the entirety of western Chin’s Paletwa region – a mere 18 kilometers (11 miles) from the border with Bangladesh – in November, after it ended a ceasefire that had been in place with the junta since the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup d’etat. The Three Brotherhood Alliance claimed in a statement late on Tuesday that the AA has now captured all but two of the 10 light infantry battalions under the aegis of the No. 9 Military Operations Command in Kyauktaw. They include the 379th, 380th and 541th battalions in Minbya; the 374th, 376th and 539th in Kyauktaw; and 378th and 540th in Mrauk-U township – the last two of which were also taken on Tuesday morning, the alliance said. The two remaining light infantry battalions under the No. 9 Military Operations Command are 377th in Mrauk-U and 375th in Kyautaw, according to the Three Brotherhood Alliance, which added that the AA had also taken control of Artillery Battalion 377 in Kyauktaw. Central Rakhine offensive No. 9 Military Operations Command in central Rakhine’s Kyauktaw township is one of three junta command centers in the state, the other two being No. 5 in southern Rakhine’s Toungup township and No. 15 in northern Rakhine’s Buthidaung township. A Rakhine-based military observer told RFA that the AA is focusing on taking control of No. 9 Military Operations Command so that it can launch offensives from the region against battalions under No. 5 and No. 15. “If the AA can capture the [Operations Command] in Kyauktaw, then they will control the central area of the state,” the observer said. “This area is important for military offensives, so the AA could use it to launch strategic attacks on the military in other areas.” The observer noted that the junta is ceding battalions and townships despite its use of the air force, navy and ground troops, suggesting that it no longer has the capacity to counter AA offensives. Arakan Army forces display arms and equipment seized after the capture of the Myanmar army’s Light Infantry Battalion 540 in Minbya, Feb. 2, 2024. (AA Info Desk) He also suggested that if the AA is able to take complete control of Mrauk-U and Kyauktaw, it would likely push on to fight for control of the capital Sittwe and Ann township, where the junta’s Western Military Headquarters is located. &#8220;If the junta loses these towns, it can be assumed that the next phase of battles will occur in Sittwe … and Ann,” he said. “It may then spread further to Buthidaung and Rathedaung townships.” The AA has yet to issue any statements about the junta battalions they have captured, casualties suffered in the fighting, or the number of military troops who have surrendered. Rapid gains Another resident monitoring the military situation in Rakhine told RFA that the AA could assume control of as many as five townships in the north of the state by the end of February, before advancing south. &#8220;We earlier thought that the AA would proceed with attacks in southern Rakhine only in 2025, after first taking control of the north,” he said. “However, they have made significant gains in Ramree and Toungup townships in a short span of time. The junta soldiers have fled [across the borders] to Bangladesh and India, and more soldiers will surrender soon.” In its statement on Tuesday, the Three Brotherhood Alliance said it also expects that the AA will fully capture the Taung Pyo Let Wei and Taung Pyo Let Yar border outposts north of Rakhine’s Maungdaw township along the border with Bangladesh, days after launching attacks on the two areas. The alliance claimed that AA fighters had located the bodies of several members of the junta-affiliated Border Guard Forces killed in the fighting and confiscated a large cache of arms and ammunition, adding that “more than 200 junta soldiers fled the area to Bangladesh.” Meanwhile, fighting remains fierce in Ramree township, where the AA launched attacks on a military outpost in December, residents of the area said. More than 10,000 civilians have fled the clashes and at least 60 homes were destroyed in military airstrikes and artillery attacks, they said. The junta has yet to release any statements related to the military situation in Rakhine state....
- [Myanmar junta troops seize over 300 hostages](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-troops-seize-over-300-hostages/): One woman died and over 300 villagers were arrested after a junta raid in central Myanmar, residents told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday. Troops shot 21-year-old Khin Soe Wai while she fled her village in Mandalay township, locals said.  Over 50 soldiers stormed Kan Swei village following a clash with local resistance forces on Sunday. Mandalay and Myingyan People’s Defense Forces attacked junta troops with drones only half a mile away. After shooting Khin Soe Wai, villagers said the column occupied the village’s monastery, interrogating more than 100 villagers on Tuesday and burning down three homes.  Troops took more than 30 of them to a village in nearby Natogyi township. After arriving in Na Nwin Taw Bo, soldiers arrested over 300 more villagers, who have not been released yet, Myingyan-based defense forces member Bo Moe Kyo told RFA on Wednesday. &#8220;On the fifth, a woman from Kan Swei who ran away was shot dead,” he said. “About 150 villagers in Kan Swei were detained in the monastery. They were beaten and tortured. About 30 of them were taken by the junta troops.” Since the raid, some 5,000 residents from eight villages in Myingyan township and Natogyi township have been forced to flee due to the junta column, he said. “Na Nwin Taw Bo was raided by the column again. There were no casualties. But they arrested everyone they met: children, adults and women,” he said. “More than 300 villagers were arrested. They are still being held as hostage.&#8221; Calls by RFA to Mandalay’s junta spokesperson Thein Htay to learn more about the raid went unanswered on Wednesday.  In January, four women and five men from Mandalay region&#8217;s Myingyan township were arrested and killed by junta troops. As of Feb. 6, over 4,400 people across the country have been killed since the military seized power three years ago, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [An Insightful Interview with Rushan Abbas: Championing Uyghur Rights](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-with-rushan-abbas-on-uyghur-rights/): Interview with Rushan Abbas who is a Uyghur American activist and advocate from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China. 
- [Senate confirms Kurt Campbell as No. 2 US diplomat](https://ij-reportika.com/senate-confirms-kurt-campbell-as-no-2-us-diplomat/): The U.S. Senate on Tuesday confirmed President Joe Biden’s top Asia foreign policy aide, Kurt Campbell, as deputy secretary of state.  Campbell, previously the Indo-Pacific Affairs coordinator on the White House’s National Security Council, was confirmed in an overwhelming 92-5 vote to replace Wendy Sherman, who retired in July. During his confirmation hearing in December, Campbell said he would prioritize the strategic threat posed by China if confirmed, and coax the Senate to ratify the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea to help push back against Beijing’s expansive South China Sea claims. “Even our allies and partners say, ‘Hey, wait a second. You&#8217;re holding China to account to something you yourself haven&#8217;t signed up for?’” Campbell said at the time. “We&#8217;ve gotten very close in the past; I&#8217;d love to get that over the finish line. It&#8217;ll be challenging. I&#8217;m committed to it.” During the hearing, he was praised by Democrats and Republicans alike, with Sen. Bill Hagerty, a Republican from Tennessee who was the ambassador to Japan during the Trump administration, praising Campbell for his “most helpful, most insightful” guidance. In the Obama administration, Campbell was credited as being the architect of the president’s “pivot to Asia,” which aimed to reorient U.S. foreign policy away from the Middle East toward East Asia. In the current White House, he has been credited with reinvigorating “the Quad” dialogue between the United States, Australia, India and Japan. Campbell’s appointment shows the Biden administration’s increasing focus on China in its foreign policy. The longtime public servant was described as being possibly “the biggest China hawk of them all” by Politico upon his appointment to the White House in 2021. However, he also led the charge in organizing last year’s high-profile summit in San Francisco between U.S. President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, which paved the way for the ongoing easing of diplomatic tensions between Washington and Beijing. Edited by Malcolm Foster
- [Myanmar resistance army deports nearly 60 Chinese nationals](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-resistance-army-deports-nearly-60-chinese-nationals/): An armed resistance group in northern Myanmar handed over nearly 60 Chinese nationals accused of online fraud and owning illegal weapons, according to the army’s statement on Monday night.  The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, which occupies Kokang region on the country’s border with China, deported 59 Chinese citizens between Sunday and Monday, the army’s information department said.  One group of 36 people was arrested on Sunday and another 23 were captured on Monday. The army announced it had investigated the Dong Chein and Swan Hauw Chein neighborhoods of Shan state’s Laukkaing city during a crackdown on drug trafficking and illegal weapons. The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army’s Special Police Department seized mobile phones and weapons from the 36 suspected of online fraud, according to a statement from the Kokang Information Department. Monday’s suspects were arrested in relation to online money laundering. All those arrested were handed over to Chinese authorities at an internally displaced persons camp called BP-125 on the China-Myanmar border in Laukkaing, according to Kokang Police. The arrested Chinese nationals were transferred to Chinese authorities by Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army forces on Feb. 5, 2024.  (The Kokang) Security forces have been conducting daily inspections in the city to combat drug and weapons smuggling, as well as online scam groups, a Laukkaing resident told RFA on Tuesday. “Now the forces conduct searches of homes and people every day,” he said. “People who work for a money scamming gang were arrested. The rest of the people were suspected [gang] leaders. They’ve also been arrested.” In Kokang region, local resistance forces have encouraged residents to report illegal online activities since Feb. 1. They are also registering foreigners residing in the area legally and allowing them to obtain temporary residence permits. Since the launch of Operation 1027 at the end of October, the Three Brotherhood Alliance, which includes the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, has committed to fighting online fraud in Kokang region. In late January, China issued arrest warrants for 10 people believed to be gang leaders, including the former chairman of the Kokang regional junta administration group.  From September to December 2023, more than 44,000 Chinese nationals were deported by both the junta and the United Wa State Army.  More than 50,000 foreigners who entered Myanmar illegally from Oct. 5, 2023 to January 2024 have been sent back to their respective countries, regime leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing announced during a security and defense meeting on Jan. 31. Of those who were returned, 48,120 were Chinese nationals and 1,810 were from other countries, he added. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Arakan rebels in Myanmar’s Rakhine seize outpost on Bangladesh border](https://ij-reportika.com/arakan-rebels-in-myanmars-rakhine-seize-outpost-on-bangladesh-border/): The anti-junta Arakan Army seized an outpost manned by the military-affiliated Border Guard Force along western Myanmar’s border with Bangladesh on Sunday, confiscating arms and equipment, according to residents and an alliance of ethnic rebels. The attack marked the latest blow to Myanmar’s military in Rakhine state, where the ethnic Arakan Army, or AA, ended a ceasefire in November that had been in place since the junta assumed power in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup d’etat. The AA took control of the Taung Pyo Let Yar outpost in Maungdaw township on Sunday afternoon, taking prisoners and prompting nearly 60 fighters with the Border Guard Force, or BGF, to flee towards the border, the Three Brotherhood Alliance – of which the AA is a member – said in a statement. The statement by the alliance, which also includes the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, said that AA fighters were killed in the battle, although it did not provide details of the number of casualties. It said the AA is also attacking a nearby BGF outpost called Taung Pyo Let Wae. The two outposts, located just north of the seat of Maungdaw township, are vital to the junta and each were manned by at least 100 soldiers, residents told RFA Burmese. Local people bring a man wounded by a gunshot to Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) in Ukhia, Bangladesh, Feb. 4, 2024. (Tanbir Miraj/AFP) Photos and videos of the battle posted to social media appeared to show BGF troops running towards the Bangladesh border amid volleys of gunfire, as well as wounded BGF fighters. Media reports cited officials in Bangladesh as saying that at least 95 Myanmar border guards, some of whom are wounded, have fled across the border over the last few days. Reports said the Myanmar border guards had been provided shelter at Bangladesh Border Guard outposts and that at least 24 of them had been sent to hospitals in neighboring Cox’s Bazar district to be treated for their wounds. Fierce fighting continued in the area on Monday, residents said, and the military sent a jet fighter to carry out an airstrike. One resident of Maungdaw who declined to be named due to security concerns said the AA began attacking the outposts on Saturday, forcing villagers to flee to the border for safety. “Some local residents fled to Bangladesh, while others dug bunkers and took shelter,” he said. “Fighting is ongoing … so [people] don’t dare stay there. A plane came and attacked two or three times.” More than 1,000 people live in the Taung Pyo area, including residents of nearby Thin Baw Hla and Mee Taik villages who were displaced by fighting between the military and anti-junta forces in 2022. The junta has not released any information about the attacks on the BGF outposts in Maungdaw or troops fleeing to Bangladesh. Calls by RFA to Hla Thein, the junta’s attorney general for Rakhine state, went unanswered Monday. Fighting spills across border At least two people in Bangladesh – a Bangladeshi woman and a Rohingya refugee – were killed on Monday when a mortar shell fired from Rakhine exploded on the woman’s house in Bandarban district near where the fighting was happening, media reports said, citing Bangladeshi government officials. Police identified the two victims who died in the mortar explosion as Hosne Ara, 50, a local resident, and Nobi Hossain, 65, a Rohingya laborer who was working at her house. “Firing and shelling had intensified since the morning. Suddenly, a mortar shell landed in my sister’s house and exploded. She died,” Shah Alam, Hosne Ara’s brother, told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated news outlet, on Monday. A Bangladeshi boy displays a bullet, allegedly shot from Myanmar during fighting between Myanmar security forces and Arakan Army, in Ghumdhum, Bangladesh, on Feb. 5, 2024. (Shafiqur Rahman/AP) Iman Hossain, the son of the dead Rohingya laborer, said his family had received the news that his father was killed in the explosion. “We came to Bangladesh from Myanmar to save our lives. But my father died in a Myanmar mortar shell [explosion]. What else can be more painful than this?” Nobi Hossain told BenarNews. Some 1 million ethnic Rohingya refugees have been living in Bangladesh since 2017, when they were driven out of Myanmar by a military clearance operation. ‘AA will press further’ Another resident of Rakhine’s Maungdaw township, who also spoke on condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal, said only 10 BGF battalions and three BGF tactical forces remain there and in nearby Buthidaung township. “I believe the AA will press further,” he said. “If the outposts of Taung Pyo are captured, I think that [cross-border] trade will resume in Rakhine state. Also, I think, the rest of the outposts in the area will be attacked, too.” The resident said the AA is likely targeting outposts along the border to reestablish trade routes with Bangladesh, which had been blocked by the military. “When the junta blocked the roads to Rakhine, all goods became scarce, so the AA feels they have the responsibility to reopen them,” he said. “Therefore, it can be assumed that the main reason for the attacks in Maungdaw are to reestablish trade with Bangladesh.” Smoke rises from a Myanmar Border Police post following fighting with Arakan Army forces near Ghumdhum, Bangladesh, Feb. 5, 2024. (Shafiqur Rahman/AP) The AA announced in December that it had captured more than 60 BGF outposts since November, when fighting resumed in Maungdaw township. The group claimed that junta troops retreated from most of the outposts because they were “afraid of being attacked.” The AA has launched offensives against junta bases in Buthidaung, Maungdaw, Mrauk-U, Minbya, Kyauktaw, Rathedaung, Ponnagyun and Ramree townships. Rohingya refugees Meanwhile, in Rakhine’s Taung Nyo township, where clashes between the military and the AA are now raging, the junta has set up temporary camps to receive some of the Rohingya refugees who have been living in Bangladesh. Khin Maung, an aid worker who is assisting...
- [Cambodian leader to discuss border issues, trade on first Thailand visit as PM](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-leader-to-discuss-border-issues-trade-on-first-thailand-visit-as-pm/): Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet will on Wednesday make his first visit to neighboring Thailand since succeeding his strongman father Hun Sen six months ago. Hun Manet is scheduled to meet Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin in Bangkok for talks on economic development of border areas, bilateral trade, closer transport connectivity and tourism, Thai officials said Monday. The two leaders may also discuss overlapping territorial claims in the Gulf of Thailand and a longstanding dispute over Preah Vihear, an ancient Hindu temple complex located between the two countries, according to analysts. Hun Manet, a graduate of U.S. military academy West Point, was in command of Cambodian forces around the temples when the two countries clashed several times over ownership between 2008-11. Thousands of troops are still deployed along both sides of the border and access to the temple from the Thai province of Sri Saket province remains off limits.  Pumin Leeteeraprasert, a lawmaker from Thailand’s ruling Pheu Thai party, said he hoped that Srettha would address the issue of the Preah Vihear and reopening the border gate to help promote tourism.  “The prime minister acknowledged our request. It’s up to him to raise the matter with PM Hun Manet,” Pumin told RFA affiliate BenarNews. “The Thai-Cambodian relationship is in good shape, but we have to wait and see the result.”  In 2013, a judgement by the International Court of Justice ordered Thailand to withdraw its forces in honor of a 1962 resolution that awarded the temple to Cambodia. Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Manet salutes during an inspection of troops at a ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of the formation of the Royal Cambodian Army in Phnom Penh on January 24, 2024. (AFP) The temple dispute is not the only source of tension between the Southeast Asian neighbors. Thailand and Cambodia both assert control over an area of ocean covering roughly 27,000 square meters in the Gulf of Thailand. The overlapping claims area could hold 11 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, large quantities of condensate and oil, according to CLC Asia, a government affairs and corporate advisory firm headquartered in Bangkok.   “The two new prime ministers may want to solve both land and maritime disputes,” Panitan Wattanayagorn, an independent scholar on security and foreign affairs, told BenarNews.  The two leaders could look to share resources in the gulf, possibly by creating a Joint Authority for exploration and exploitation such as the one agreed to by Thailand and Malaysia in 1979, said Panitan, who once served as a security advisor to former Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha. Former Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, center, walks in front of the National Assembly in Phnom Penh Aug. 21, 2023. (AP) Hun Manet took over leadership of Cambodia when his father, Hun Sen – who built a decades-long reputation for corruption and repression – stepped down in August last year.  Last week, ahead of Hun Manet&#8217;s visit, three exiled Cambodian activists were arrested by Thai immigration authorities for threatening to protest his arrival. They included Kong Raiya, who was jailed twice for his outspoken criticism of the Cambodian government; Lim Sokha, a senior member of the banned opposition Candlelight party; and opposition activist Phan Phana, who was arrested with his wife and two children, aged two and four. The three activists had recently fled to Thailand to seek asylum and had been granted refugee status, Phan Phana told Radio Free Asia. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.
- [Why nonviolent resistance is the key to a democratic China](https://ij-reportika.com/why-nonviolent-resistance-is-the-key-to-a-democratic-china/): The principle of nonviolence is rooted in the idea that justice can only be achieved through just means. Since Mahatma Gandhi founded his nonviolent resistance movement that eventually won India her independence, the idea has become accepted around the world, and the United Nations has designated Oct. 2 &#8220;International Nonviolence Day.&#8221; The nonviolent resistance theory of the late American scholar Gene Sharp, a lifelong advocate for this form of resistance, has been credited with inspiring color revolutions in former Soviet bloc countries, the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia, and the Arab Spring. Nonviolent resistance is also emerging as the fundamental mode of protest against authoritarian rule for Chinese citizens, and sthe one that has the most impact. From the fearless action of Peng Lifa on Beijing&#8217;s Sitong Bridge in October 2022, to Nanjing University of Media and Communications student Li Kangmeng, who was the first to silently raise a blank sheet of A4, kicking off the &#8220;white paper&#8221; protests that were to spread across China and make global headlines a few weeks later, there are plenty of examples. In my view, nonviolent resistance isn&#8217;t just the main practical way to oppose authoritarian states today. It also holds significant implications for China&#8217;s future ability to achieve a peaceful political transition and establish a democratic government. We need to uphold this fundamental concept. Protesters hold up blank pieces of paper and chant slogans as they march to protest strict COVID-19 measures in Beijing, Nov. 27, 2022. (Ng Han Guan/AP) It&#8217;s a practical, feasible approach that ordinary people can incorporate into their daily lives. Its various forms, 198 of which were set out by Gene Sharp, are easily adopted, applied, and disseminated by the general public, making it unpredictable, and hard for authoritarian regimes to counter preemptively. And it&#8217;s gaining traction among the people. The goal in engaging in such tactics today is to end the totalitarian rule of the Chinese Communist Party and secure human rights and civil liberties for China&#8217;s people. To achieve this, we must build unity among various civil forces. Nonviolent resistance is our only option today, not just because we lack firearms or because it aligns with our moral principles, but because it&#8217;s a necessity for the future – for pushing ahead towards a constitutional democracy, and eventually achieving democracy through peaceful means. Because the collapse of authoritarian tyranny doesn&#8217;t automatically lead to constitutional democracy. Following the collapse of any authoritarian regime, there is the daunting task of clearing away the rubble and constructing a new political community, something that may prove much harder than overthrowing totalitarian rule in the first place. When China enters its post-Chinese Communist Party era, people from different regions and ethnicities will have diverse ideas and demands. The complexity of addressing these contradictions and disputes may well surpass that of any other country in the world. Peaceful, rational communication, negotiation, and cooperation will become urgently necessary. Violence could emerge Commitment to nonviolent resistance means that we must consider our interests, but also those of our children and future generations to come, and we must continue to adhere to the principle of nonviolence throughout the whole process: in standing up to the tyranny of an authoritarian government today, but also in opposing the tyranny of the majority and protecting everyone&#8217;s human rights and civil liberties tomorrow. Only then can we lay a solid foundation on which to build our future democracy, and prevent our progress towards democracy from being interrupted by a series of crises, as it was a century ago. What&#8217;s more, violence may emerge at any stage of China&#8217;s political transition, and we must prepare to deal with it. Plenty of those killed by the Chinese Communist Party, including Lin Zhao, Yu Luoke, Liu Xiaobo, and the students on Tiananmen Square in 1989, didn&#8217;t engage in violence, yet they still lost their lives at the hands of the authoritarian regime. So we know that we&#8217;re facing an authoritarian regime that has no regard for the basic principles of humanity and no moral boundaries. Yet nonviolent resistance doesn&#8217;t mean people can&#8217;t defend themselves when the sword of authoritarian tyranny is raised against them. Under such circumstances, keeping to the path of nonviolent resistance becomes even more challenging, requiring unwavering conviction, courage, wisdom, and long-term resilience.  We need to unite more people in this effort, because violence may be part of the reality of China&#8217;s political transition. Many in China and overseas worry about potential chaos in China if Communist Party rule were to suddenly collapse, leaving a power vacuum and societal breakdown. Security guards stop journalists from entering the apartment house where Liu Xia, wife of Liu Xiaobo, stays in Beijing, Oct. 8, 2010. Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize for &#8220;his long and nonviolent struggle for fundamental human rights.&#8221; (Andy Wong/AP) In such a scenario, Chinese refugees might overwhelm neighboring Asian countries or even Europe and America, disrupting global peace and stability. Back home, long-suppressed hatred could erupt into acts of violence. Such fears are not unreasonable. China lacks a universally respected leader, a law-abiding culture, or any kind of guiding force transcending the political realm. But that risk doesn&#8217;t justify continued authoritarian rule in any way. On the contrary, it underscores the need for us to oppose violence and use the power of the law to hold criminal elements of the authoritarian regime to account for their crimes against the people, to ensure justice is done. Complex and arduous transition To achieve this, we will need to work together to maintain normal economic and social life, minimize acts of violence, reduce social unrest, and lessen the social cost of China&#8217;s political transition.  Only then can we gain genuine support from the international community and help the Chinese people to achieve effective political change. Later, there may also be dissenting opinions and conflicts among the various forces that previously united against authoritarian rule. We must respond to this in a reasonable manner, and engage in democratic negotiations using...
- [Planned dam sparks concerns that Luang Prabang could lose World Heritage status](https://ij-reportika.com/planned-dam-sparks-concerns-that-luang-prabang-could-lose-world-heritage-status/): A satellite photo comparison dated Feb. 2, 2024 (left) and Feb. 7, 2021 (right) shows vast construction in preparation for a controversial hydropower dam across the Mekong River, about 25 kilometers (16 miles) upstream of the historic Lao town of Luang Prabang, a UNESCO World Heritage site. The Lao government is playing down speculation the dam project puts the UNESCO status at risk. (Planet Labs) Speculation that the historic Lao town of Luang Prabang could be stripped of its World Heritage status because of a massive dam planned upstream is worrying local residents. Although the Lao government denies there is cause for concern, a former senior UNESCO official has reportedly warned that it’s a real threat hanging over one of the country’s main tourist attractions. Luang Prabang was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995 for its “unique, remarkably well-preserved townscape.” It&#8217;s known for its daily parade of monks collecting alms, vibrant night market, well-preserved Buddhist temples, including the 16th-century gilded Wat Xieng Thong, and colonial-era architecture.  Nearly 780,000 foreign and domestic visitors in the first nine months of 2023, according to Lao tourism figures.  Miss Laos New Year carries a replica of King Kabinlaphom&#8217;s head during the annual Laos New Year or &#8216;Pi Mai&#8217; celebrations at the Wat Xiengthong Buddhist temple in Luang Prabang, Laos, April 15, 2019. (Manan Vatsyayana/AFP) Questions about the town’s status arose after Minja Yang, a former deputy director of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, told Nikkei Asia in January that Luang Prabang was at risk of losing its status because of increasing development related to a hydropower dam project about 25 kilometers (16 miles) upstream on the Mekong River.  In March 2023, UNESCO issued a report recommending that Laos continue efforts to ensure that the Luang Prabang Dam would not have a negative impact on the town’s heritage sites, and take measures to regulate tourism-related activities and infrastructure development. The US$3 billion, 1,460-megawatt dam project on the Mekong mainstream is located between the upstream Pak Beng hydropower project and the downstream Xayaburi Dam, and will provide power for export to Thailand and Vietnam after completion in 2027. It is one of many dams the Lao government is building along the Mekong River in the country’s quest to become the “battery of Southeast Asia.” French colonial row houses are seen along a street in Luang Prabang, Laos, March 2023. (Courtesy photo) The U.N.’s Paris-based cultural agency requested that Laos submit to the World Heritage Centre an updated report on the state of conservation and the implementation of the measures by Feb. 1, 2024, to preserve the city’s “outstanding universal value.” “If the second dam is indeed constructed, I believe Luang Prabang should be delisted,” Yang told Nikkei in an email. “Without the World Heritage status, ill-conceived projects of shopping malls and casinos aimed for certain categories of tourists that we have so far succeeded in stopping over the past 20 years, will now cave into various vested interests,” Yang told Nikkei. “So, I can only imagine what the future of the town will be.” RFA could not reach Yang or officials in UNESCO’s Bangkok office for comment. Mixed reactions An official from the World Heritage Department of the Lao Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism,  who wanted to be identified only by his first name Pheune, told RFA on Feb. 2 that Luang Prabang would not be delisted and that UNESCO officials had expressed concerns outlined in the March 2023 report. Pheune also said that construction of the Luang Prabang Dam would not affect the town’s World Heritage status because the site is far from the city. A Luang Prabang province official, who like the other sources in this report requested anonymity for safety reasons, agreed. “To delist the town of Luang Prabang is not easy,” he said.  “Yes, many Chinese are leasing buildings and transforming them to hotels and restaurants, and some of them might not be complying with the rules and regulations of UNESCO, so our city officials should be aware of those issues and should step up the control,” he said. A girl wears a traditional Lao costume at the Wat Xiengthong Buddhist temple on Lao New Year or &#8216;Pi Mai&#8217; in Luang Prabang, Laos, April 15, 2019. (Manan Vatsyayana/AFP) But other Lao officials and city residents say they are concerned that Luang Prabang might be at risk because of too many Chinese-backed developments, as Chinese investors lease more buildings and turn them into hotels and restaurants. A Lao businessman in the city said he heard about the delisting rumor, but believes that Luang Prabang is still preserving its heritage, culture and tradition, especially in the city center.  The development is occurring mainly in the suburbs, and builders must receive permission before erecting structures, he said. The man cited the example of a Chinese company that wants to build a cable car line near the town, though city authorities have not yet given it the green light. But a town resident was not so optimistic, noting that Chinese investors in various businesses are not interested in preserving local tradition and culture.   “I heard that Luang Prabang could be stripped of its World Heritage status because there are too many Chinese businesses here,” he told RFA. “Don’t forget, getting World Heritage Site status is not easy. Our government should be careful because Luang Prabang as a World Heritage Site attracts a lot of tourists from around the world. We, the residents, enjoy better living conditions because of that status.” A tourist visits the Haw Pha Bang temple in the grounds of the Palace Museum in Luang Prabang, Laos, Sept. 8, 2014. (Mark Baker/AP) Another resident raised concern about the future dam.  “What would happen if the dam broke in the future?” he asked about the fate of Luang Prabang, which lies in a valley at the confluence of the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers. “Certainly, that break would wreak havoc on our town and people.” Phakhanxay Sikhanxay, director general of the Heritage...
- [Detained blogger sees mother for first time since disappearance from Thailand.](https://ij-reportika.com/detained-blogger-sees-mother-for-first-time-since-disappearance-from-thailand/): A blogger who last year went missing from Thailand and later resurfaced in Vietnamese police custody was finally allowed to meet his mother for the first time since his disappearance, his family told Radio Free Asia. Duong Van Thai, 41, was living in Thailand when he disappeared on April 13 in what many believe was an abduction.  Vietnam has neither confirmed nor denied that he was abducted and taken back to Vietnam, but shortly after his disappearance, authorities announced that they had apprehended him for trying to sneak into the country illegally. On Tuesday afternoon, Thai’s mother Duong Thi Lu, 70, received an unexpected phone call from the police, saying that she would be allowed to see her son the next day at the B14 Detention center in Hanoi’s Thanh Tri district, she told RFA Vietnamese on Friday. On Wednesday morning, she visited the detention center and talked to her son through a thick glass window – the first time she had seen him in nine months. “For about half an hour we talked about his health, the family and our village,” she said. “Police had warned me at the gate not to talk about [problematic] issues.” It’s a rarity that she was allowed to see him while the investigation was ongoing. Abduction  Thai had fled to Thailand in late 2018 or early 2019, fearing political persecution for his many posts and videos that criticized the Vietnamese government and leaders of the Communist Party on Facebook and YouTube.  He had been granted refugee status by the United Nations refugee agency’s office in Bangkok. He was interviewed to resettle in a third country right before his disappearance near his rental home in central Thailand’s Pathum Thani province.   By mid-2023, the Security Investigation Agency under the Ministry of Public Security announced that Thai was under investigation for anti- State charges under Article 117, a vaguely written law that rights organizations say is used to silence dissent.. Health The last time Lu saw Thai in person was when she visited her son in Bangkok one year ago around the Tet holiday, Vietnam’s version of the Lunar New Year. She said that he looks different after his time in custody. ”I could not recognize him because his skin is fairer. When he was in Thailand it was dark,” But he looked very healthy and hasn’t lost a lot of weight.” Duong assured her that in the detention center he was adequately fed and well treated, she said. Regarding the investigation, she said that police did not give any details about it, but encouraged her in a general way.  ”When I was back at the gate, the detention guard said, ‘Be calm. He does not face any problems here. He will soon be at home with you From now until Feb. 20, if there is not any change, we will send you confirmation.’” Lu said that they were not allowed to freely talk, so she did not know her son’s thinking about hiring defense lawyers, and that she was also too old to know how to do anything like that. RFA attempted to contact the Security Investigation Agency under the Ministry of Public Security to inquire about Thai’s case, but the officer in charge refused to respond. Under the Penal Code of Vietnam, the defendants in National Security cases are only allowed to see their family and lawyers when the investigation is complete. Translated by An Nguyen. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Suspected Chinese spy pigeon released after 8-month detention in India](https://ij-reportika.com/suspected-chinese-spy-pigeon-released-after-8-month-detention-in-india/): A pigeon, suspected of being used by China for espionage, has been released after eight months in police custody in Mumbai, according to local media reports.  The falsely-accused bird was released from the Bai Sakarbai Dinshaw Petit Hospital for Animals on Tuesday, said a police officer in India’s most populous city, as cited by the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency on Wednesday. Its current whereabouts are unknown.  The pigeon was caught in May, 2023, at a port in the Chembur suburb of Mumbai with two rings tied to its legs featuring words that appeared to be Chinese, which led the police to suspect it was spying for China, PTI reported. The bird was taken to the animal hospital for custody, until it emerged in January that it was actually an open-water racing pigeon from Taiwan, which had escaped and flown to India, according to the news agency. This was not the first time a pigeon has been detained by the watchful Indian police force. In March, 2023, two suspected spy pigeons were caught in the eastern Odisha state. The first one was found on a fishing boat with devices fitted on its leg which appear to be a camera and a microchip. The two birds are believed to still be under investigation.  Back in 2020, police in Indian-controlled Kashmir captured a bird that belonged to a Pakistani fisherman, but later found that it had simply flown across the border, admittedly without permission. Before that, in 2016, another pigeon was captured after it was found with a note threatening Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Flying spies Throughout history, pigeons have been used by the militaries in many countries for delivering messages and spying. China, for instance, allegedly runs a special military pigeon unit at the Guilin Joint Logistics Support Center in Kunming, Yunnan province, according to media reports. “Today, with all kinds of ways to intercept messages sent by electronic means, terrorists or enemies of a state can use ways that cannot be tapped, such as pigeons,” said Yusuf Unjhawala, an Indian defense analyst as well as a scholar at the Takshashila Institution in Bangalore “The use of animals for military purposes is an old thing, from horses to elephants to pigeons,” said Unjhawala. “Dolphins can also be used to detect underwater mines.” A Taiwanese defense expert, Shen Ming-Shih from the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said racing pigeons have gained such popularity that raising them has become an industry in Taiwan. “Taiwan also uses racing pigeons to send intelligence or deliver messages, despite the advancement of various communication technologies,” Shen told Radio Free Asia. Edited by Taejun Kang and Elaine Chan.
- [Hun Manet blames derelict building problem on foreign media](https://ij-reportika.com/hun-manet-blames-derelict-building-problem-on-foreign-media/): Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet blamed bad foreign press for the abrupt end to a development boom in the coastal resort of Sihanoukville that has left hundreds of derelict buildings in its wake. &#8220;It takes a long time to build a good reputation so that people will want to come to visit Angkor Wat but [this reputation] was destroyed within only six months after a few articles from Al Jazeera,” he said, without elaborating on specifically what the Qatar-based news outlet had reported. In 2019, Al-Jazeera published a scathing piece about crime-ridden casinos in Sihanoukville, and in 2022 it produced a documentary about cyber slaves–people duped into working as scammers, usually in casinos–after they were promised high-paying jobs.  Hun Manet’s remarks came at a forum to promote investment in Sihanoukville, where according to data by the Ministry of Finance there are 362 so-called “ghost buildings” – hotels, restaurants or casinos funded by Chinese investors who pulled out before construction was completed. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet blames bad foreign press for the abrupt end to a development boom in the coastal resort of Sihanoukville. (RFA) Hun Manet unveiled a plan to deal with the problem, which would allow special visas and tax incentives for investors to purchase the buildings worth more than US$1 million on the condition that they fix and maintain them. &#8220;We will consider tax exemptions [for those who buy the ghost buildings and fix them] but we need to set conditions so that they are actually fixing them instead of sitting on them for resale,” Hun Manet said. He said the government will also make Sihanoukville more attractive by introducing duty free zones, investing in infrastructure and fostering the creation of resorts and other services for tourists. And to prevent further bad press, Sihanoukville province should do more to prevent crime. The Cambodian government seeks to promote investment in Sihanoukville, where according to data, there are 362 so-called “ghost buildings” – hotels, restaurants or casinos funded by Chinese investors who pulled out before construction was completed. (RFA) Minister of Finance Aun Pornmoniroth told the forum that Cambodia needed US$1.1 billion to take care of the ghost building problem.  “Back in 2016 investment in Sihanoukville was booming, especially in construction of restaurants, hotels and shops, but since 2019, due to the financial crisis and COVID-19 everything stopped,” he explained.  In addition to the 362 ghost buildings there are an additional 176 buildings that are complete, but are not being used, he said. Concerning incentives The new incentives might bring more casinos to Sihanoukville concerns Cheap Sotheary, the provincial coordinator for theCambodian Human Rights and Development Association.  He told RFA Khmer that the province would have to deal with more crime, drugs and human trafficking unless it seeks out other kinds of investment. &#8220;[Casinos] bring in gamblers through and sell drugs, alcohol and sex,” she said. “People don&#8217;t want to see this kind of investment.&#8221; Social and political commentator Por Makara said corruption has scared away Western investors.  New economic incentives might bring more casinos to Sihanoukville, which brings concerns about crime that may come along with gambling. (RFA) &#8220;The ghost building situation will worsen because only Chinese investors … will be willing to deal with all the corruption,” he said. “European and American investors don&#8217;t want to be involved with human rights abuses.&#8221;  Political commentator Kim Sok told RFA that the government&#8217;s incentives would not attract good businesspeople to invest in the restoration of ghost buildings in Sihanoukville. He said that the main reason why Cambodia lacks good businessmen now is because the legal system is trampled by powerful people, corruption and crime. &#8220;Hun Manet&#8217;s incentives won&#8217;t help the national or local economy but are only good for money laundering. Good investors won&#8217;t invest in those buildings,&#8221; he said. The International Monetary Fund on Wednesday said in a report that Cambodia is on a “recovery trajectory post-pandemic.” The country’s GDP grew 5.2% in 2022 and is projected to grow 5.3% in 2023, “fueled by a resurgence in tourism,” which saw gains due to the 2023 South-East Asia Games. Translated by Samean Yun. Edited by Eugene Whong.
- [January sees 23 landmine injuries in Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/january-sees-23-landmine-injuries-in-myanmar/): Landmines have killed one and injured 22 others across Myanmar’s north in January alone, locals told Radio Free Asia Thursday.  One woman is dead and most of the injured have lost limbs during the explosions in northern Shan state, social aid organizations said.  A 36-year-old man from Namtu township’s Hko Hpeik village was sent to Lashio Hospital after being hit by a landmine on Tuesday. He was struck while cutting bamboo, said neighbors and residents who transported him to the hospital.  “He went to cut bamboo in the north of the village. One of his legs was amputated and he was sent to Lashio,” he told RFA on Thursday, asking to remain anonymous to protect his identity. On Monday, a 29-year-old man had his leg amputated after stepping on a landmine. He was cutting wood in a forest of Muse township, said a Muse resident who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons. In Namhkam township, a woman was killed by a landmine on Jan.18 on her way to a farm, according to data compiled by RFA. Five women and 17 men were injured by landmines across seven townships, including Lashio, Hsipaw, Manton, and Kokang region. The highest number of people injured were from Muse, according to compiled data. The number of people injured by landmines was the highest in areas where the fighting between the military junta and the Three Brotherhood Alliance was intense, those living in northern Shan state said. However, residents could not confirm which group had planted the mines. Neither the military nor the Three Brotherhood Alliance has released any information regarding deaths and injuries from landmine blasts. Nationwide, 168 out of 330 townships are at risk of death or injury by landmines, compared to 100 in 2020, according to the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor’s report released on Dec. 28, 2023. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Suu Kyi’s son receives 1st letter from her since Myanmar coup](https://ij-reportika.com/suu-kyis-son-receives-1st-letter-from-her-since-myanmar-coup/): In mid-January, Kim Aris received a letter from his mother, Aung San Suu Kyi, the former de facto leader of Myanmar and Nobel laureate who is serving a 27-year prison sentence.  It was the first public communication from her since late 2022, when the junta barred her legal team from visiting her in prison, and the first time he had heard from her since before the Feb. 1, 2021, coup d’etat that removed the democratically elected government from power. After the coup, the ruling junta sentenced Suu Kyi to 33 years in prison on 19 charges, including corruption. In August, her sentence was reduced to 27 years after she was pardoned for five cases. Suu Kyi, 78, is suffering from medical and dental problems, including gingivitis, sources have told Radio Free Asia, but the junta has denied her outside medical treatment. On Jan. 21, Myanmar’s Supreme Court ordered the auction of her family lakeside villa in Yangon, where she spent more than 15 years under house arrest. The starting price is US$90 million. There is a decades-long ownership dispute between Suu Kyi and her estranged older brother, Aung San Oo, who says the house is his. Last year, Aris, 47, who is based in the United Kingdom, began a new campaign to free her by trying to draw worldwide attention to her incarceration. In an exclusive interview, RFA Burmese reporter Soe San Aung spoke with Aris. The content has been edited for length and clarity. RFA: What is your reaction to the junta’s plans to auction off your mother’s house at 54 University Avenue Road in Yangon?  Aris: I was sorry to hear that. This auction is going to go ahead. I know my mother was wanting to use that property for her charities in the future, but at the moment she has no say in what’s happening since she’s locked up, and she’s not even allowed to see her lawyers. So, I know that in the past, she has contested my uncle’s claim on the property, and I know that she would still do so if she had freedom. RFA: How was Suu Kyi planning to use the property for charities? Aris: I don&#8217;t know exactly what she was going to use it for, but she set up the charity in her mother’s name, the Daw Khin Kyi Foundation. I knew it was going to be used for that, but I believe the military has stripped her of all the assets that she has built up for those various charities. So, I don&#8217;t know what’s going to happen there. Aung San Suu Kyi and her son Kim Aris, left, at the airport in Bagan before flying back to Yangon on July 8, 2011. (Soe Than Win/AFP) RFA: Can you recall any memories you have of the house? Aris: I have many memories of that house going back to before my grandmother died. And then, obviously, I was there when my grandmother was dying and for her funeral. When [my mother] was first put under house arrest, I was there as well. And I’ve been back since she was freed from house arrest. So, I have good memories of that house.  Even though some of those memories may not sound that good, they’re good memories for me. For instance, being with her when she was put under house arrest. It may not sound like a particularly good time, and it wasn’t a good time, but it&#8217;s still a good memory for me. Aung San Suu Kyi&#8217;s family home is seen on the banks of Inya Lake in Yangon, Nov. 12, 2010. (Reuters) RFA: Have you heard anything about the care package that you sent to your mother last year? Aris: I sent a care package last year when we heard that she was not well, and I was given the go-ahead to send a care package. She finally received that at the end of last year, and I received a letter back from her this month. This is the first I have heard from her since before the coup. RFA: What did the letter say? Aris: It’s just to do with family and to say that the care package arrived safely. There’s really very little to say. It’s just sending love to the rest of the family and saying that she’s in good spirits. Her spirit is strong, even if her health is not as good as it was in the past. RFA: Has the junta contacted you about your request to meet with your mother? Aris: No, they haven’t contacted me at all. I’m still trying to have contact with her regularly, hopefully. But, so far we have only managed to have this one communication. Aung San Suu Kyi holds the hand of her younger son Kim Aris after his arrival at Yangon airport on Nov. 23, 2010. (Soe Than Win/AFP) RFA: Is she in good health? Aris: I believe she is in reasonable health. I think she has ongoing issues with her teeth and with problems with her neck as well. So, I know she has some of the ongoing health concerns. RFA: How did you get the letter? Aris: Through the British Foreign Office. RFA: When did you receive it? The date when I got the letter was about two weeks ago, so in mid-January. RFA: What was written in Aung San Suu Kyi’s handwriting? Aris: Yes, it was photocopied, and they emailed me the photocopy. I now have the hard copy in my hands as well. RFA: It’s almost been three years since the military coup d&#8217;état and the subsequent fighting between junta and resistance forces and ethnic armies. Where’s this heading? Aris: Well, I hope that the fighting will stop. It’s been going on for far too long as it is. I know that my mother would be desperately sad to see the situation the country is in at the moment. It’s very hard to say from the outside. It’s very hard to see...
- [Myanmar arrests alleged Chinese scammers, former MP](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-arrests-alleged-chinese-scammers-former-mp/): Police in northern Myanmar have arrested 10 phone and internet fraud suspects and sent them to China, the Chinese embassy in Yangon announced.  Six of those arrested on Tuesday night are accused of being ringleaders of the scam operation, the embassy’s statement said.  They include Bai Suocheng, a former chairman of Myanmar’s Kokang region, his son Bai Yingcang, Wai Huairen, Liu Zhengxiang, Liu Zhengmauk and Xu Laofa. They have since been handed over to China, the embassy said.  Bai Suocheng and his son were among 10 people named in arrest warrants issued on Dec. 10 by China’s Ministry of Public Security. Bai Suocheng is a former member of parliament for the junta’s Union Solidarity and Development Party and a close friend of regime leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, according to political analyst Than Soe Naing, who added that Suocheng was trusted by the junta. “Bai Suocheng was mainly working on scamming businesses in Kokang’s economy and China demanded his arrest when this scamming increased. The junta had to carry it out,” he told Radio Free Asia.  “When China issued a warrant, the military junta immediately brought him back to Naypyidaw and gave him security. However, China intervened to stop the fighting in the northern Shan state, so the junta could not deny them and gave China what they wanted.” The Chinese embassy statement called the operation “another significant success in law enforcement cooperation between China and Myanmar.” On Jan. 23, more than 1,000 Chinese nationals were arrested in Shan state’s Namhsan for alleged connection to scam centers. About 44,000 people suspected of committing crimes have been handed over to China as a result of joint police action against online fraud in northern Myanmar, the statement continued. This number includes investors and gang leaders. As of Wednesday, the military had not released any information on the joint operation. RFA contacted regime spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, but he did not respond by the time of publication. Translated by RFA  Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Chinese activists transiting at Taipei airport say they’re seeking asylum](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-activists-transiting-at-taipei-airport-say-theyre-seeking-asylum/): Three Chinese nationals who fled to Thailand in November and arrived at Taipei’s airport on Tuesday told Radio Free Asia they fear arrest if they return to Beijing and are planning to seek assistance from the Taiwanese government to move to a third country. Tian Yongde, Wei Yani and Huang Xingxing all obtained United Nations temporary refugee cards in Bangkok after traveling there in November. All three arrived in Taiwan on a flight from Kuala Lumpur and had tickets to board another flight to Beijing.  But in an interview with RFA late Tuesday, Tian Yongde said the three were instead preparing to pass through a security checkpoint at Taoyuan Airport in order to stay in Taiwan. “I hope the Taiwan government will give me some time and let me wait here,” he said. “Taiwan is recognized for its high quality, and it is safe and secure to wait for a U.S. visa in Taiwan.” Tian, 52, said authorities began keeping tabs on him in 2005 when he visited the home of Zhao Ziyang, China’s former prime minister who was removed from power in the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre and kept under house arrest for 16 years. After that, Tian was unable to work and was summoned by police many times for writing articles or participating in “group incidents.”  RFA was not immediately able to verify the account of Tian and his traveling companions, but they forwarded images of the identification cards provided to them by the U.N. refugee agency. “I was arrested twice for ‘subversion of state power’ in 2009 and 2011,” Tian said. “The first time, I gave materials to petitioners, and I was said to be illegally holding state secrets.” The other two people – 53-year-old Wei Yani and 17-year-old Huang Xingxing – are mother and son. They are unrelated to Tian, and only met him once they arrived in late November in Thailand. They eventually made plans to travel together. ‘Unsafe in Thailand’ Wei said she was imprisoned four times in China for a total of 10 years for petitioning for basic rights for herself and for friends. Authorities accused her of “picking quarrels and provoking troubles” and “subverting state power,” she told RFA. She said she had trouble finding work after she was released from prison in June, and also had one more criminal trial pending. “So I borrowed money from others to apply for a refugee certificate with my son,” she told RFA. “I just want to be able to move on from here [Taiwan] through media appeals.” Tian recorded a video at Taoyuan Airport in which he said he feels more safe in Taiwan than in Thailand, where authorities have recently sent a number of prominent activists and dissidents back to China. “Hello everyone, I am Tian Yongde,” he said in the video. “Because I feel unsafe in Thailand, when I came to Taiwan, which feels relatively safe, my purpose is to go to the United States.” Wei said she and her son will seek asylum in the United States or the Netherlands if they are allowed to stay in Taiwan. In the future, she would like to help Chinese people petition for complaints. “I still have more things to do,” Wei said, referring to her previous work with writing and gathering petitions.  The Taiwan Immigration Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment by RFA on the three Chinese nationals. Edited by Chen Meihua, He Ping and Matt Reed.
- [Karen army claims 5 dead after junta helicopter crash](https://ij-reportika.com/karen-army-claims-5-dead-after-junta-helicopter-crash/): The Karen National Liberation Army shot down a junta aircraft, killing soldiers onboard, a member of the ethnic force told Radio Free Asia. The group shot a helicopter down in Kayin state while it was enroute to a battalion based in Myawaddy, near the Thai border, he said, asking to remain nameless for fear of reprisals.  “Two helicopters flew in at around 2:30 p.m. today,” the Karen National Liberation Army member told RFA on Monday. “They were targeted and shot with heavy weapons, missiles, drones, and cannons at the same time while they were landing.” The Karen National Liberation Army and other allied forces killed five junta officers on board.  The aircraft were a Eurocopter-356 flying alongside an Mi-35 attack helicopter, he said, adding that the Eurocopter was destroyed during the attack.The Mi-35 went back to the Mawlamyine-based Southeast Military Regional Command headquarters. “It was fired at with a 0.5 [heavy machine gun] from Asia Road. We still don’t know if it was hit or not,” he said. The five killed included three majors, a captain, and Brig. Gen. Aye Min Naung, the Karen National Union announced on Monday night, adding that another onboard the helicopter was also injured.  Karen National Liberation Army joint forces are seen in an undated photo. (Karen National Liberation Army) RFA contacted Karen National Union spokesperson Padoh Saw Taw Nee by phone for information on injured persons, but calls went unanswered.  As of Tuesday afternoon, the military junta had yet to issue a statement confirming the attack.  Apart from Aye Min Naung the commander of the 44th Light Infantry, Col. Soe Tun Lwin, acting commander of Light Infantry Battalion 9, and pilot Col. Toe Oo were among the dead, according to military sources quoted by The Irrawaddy website. Kayin state junta spokesperson Saw Khin Maung Myint told RFA he was not aware of the incident.  A downed jet from the battle of Nam Hpat Kar in a picture released on Jan. 25, 2024. (Citizen Journalist) On Jan. 3, the Kachin Independence Army reported they shot down a military helicopter that was delivering rations to Nar Hpawt military camp in Waingmaw township, Kachin state. The group said the attack destroyed the helicopter and killed the regime soldiers on board. The Kachin Independence Army also claimed to have shot down a junta fighter jet on Jan. 16 near Nam Hpat Kar village in Kutkai township in northern Shan state. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Myanmar junta sentences nearly 400 women in 3 years since coup](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-sentences-nearly-400-women-in-3-years-since-coup/): Nearly 400 women in Myanmar have been sentenced to prison, some for more than 20 years – or even death – for political offenses in the three years since the coup, a report by the Burmese Women’s Union said. The report included high-profile women including ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi and documentary filmmaker Shin Daewe among the 398 women sentenced by the junta, which took control of the country on Feb. 1, 2021. The most recent high profile sentencing occurred on Jan. 10, when journalist and film director Shin Daewe, 50, got life in prison for ordering a drone online. When she went to pick up the drone on Oct. 15, junta soldiers arrested her on terrorism charges. “She is a filmmaker, and she makes films. She bought the things she needed. I can’t understand how it was connected to terrorism,” Myint Thu, told RFA Burmese.  Being shut up in prison will keep her from family and from making more films. “It will be a loss for her, the family and the community,” he said. “I just want my sister to come back home.”   Most of the women were convicted under two laws: Section 50 (j), a counter-terrorism law, and Section 505 (a), a Burmese Woman’s Union, or BWU, official told RFA. The latter law was added to the penal code to the junta after the coup, and it can be used to punish comments or implications that the coup or the military is illegitimate, according to New York-based Human Rights Watch. Nearly 400 women, including documentary filmmaker Shin Daewe, have been sentenced to prison or death during three years of the military coup, according to Burmese Women’s Union. Here is Shin Daewe speaking at the Wathan Film Festival in 2014. (Courtesy of Wathann Film Festival) “Some were sentenced to 40 years in prison for contacting and donating to the resistance forces,” the official said, asking not to to be identified for fear of reprisal. The junta also used Section 121 on high treason, the most popular legal provision being used to charge politicians; and section 124 on incitement to riot to charge the 398 women. The junta also outlawed bail after taking charge and has arrested more than 20,000 people, including more than 5,000 women since, mostly for political offenses.  According to the records compiled by the BWU, of those arrested women, 39 were sentenced to life in prison and 16 face the death penalty.   Additionally, two received sentences between 45 to 65 years, seven between 30 and 45 years, 27 between 20 and 30 years, 105 between 10 and 20 years, 205 between five to 10 years, 315 between one and five years, and two under one year.  Martial law The junta has imposed a number of martial law areas throughout the country, and most of those arrested were tried and sentenced in military courts.  According to martial law, political offenses can be given the death penalty, indefinite imprisonment with hard labor, or maximum punishment under the respective charges.  An official from the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, or AAPP, commented that the military council has purposely cracked down on women who had been participating in anti-regime peaceful protests that have been ongoing since  just after the coup. &#8220;Why are political prisoners sentenced to long-term prison terms? The main reason is hatred,” the official said. “It’s quite clear about the junta. To be frank, they want to kill the people who are against them.”  Though many of the people arrested and unfairly sentenced are men, women are participating in anti-junta movements at a very high rate, he said. “We see women side-by-side with men and against the regime in all ways. The regime hates it very much,” the official said. “They crack down on women unjustly because they hate them so much. It seems like they are taking revenge.” He added that the junta filed charges as they pleased, and when imposing sentences, the judges themselves were only making orders according to the instructions from the junta. But the junta’s spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun told RFA in 2022 that only those who are guilty are punished in accordance with law. However, he also said that a person who just donated a single kyat to any anti-junta cause could face imprisonment of at least 10 years or even the death penalty under the counter-terrorism laws. According to Aung Myo Min, the human rights minister for the shadow National Unity Government, made up of former lawmakers ousted by the coup, the military courts deprive people of their right to defend themselves. “Does a person get his or her legal rights during this kind of legal process, court hearings and passing judgements? I’m sure they won’t get it,” he said. “The military courts have no independence. You don’t have the right to call witnesses or the right to defend. If you look at it, if a person is unjustly arrested, his or her legal rights are denied.” Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.  
- [Karenni resistance group claims victory in Myanmar’s northeast](https://ij-reportika.com/karenni-resistance-group-claims-victory-in-myanmars-northeast/): The Karenni Nationalities Defense Force captured a mineral-rich city in northeast Myanmar, the group announced, saying most junta troops fled from checkpoints and camps on Friday, two days before the ethnic army moved in.  Karenni troops captured Mawchee city in Kayah state on Sunday with no subsequent battle, a spokesperson told Radio Free Asia. The city in Hpasawng township is home to one of the world’s largest tin ore and tungsten mines. “The entire city of Mawchee has been captured and controlled by the Karenni revolutionary forces,” he said. “The military junta camps in Mawchee are in a state of retreat. We learned that junta troops retreated around the night of Jan. 26.” Because there was no battle, residents did not have to flee, he added. Banyar, the director of the Karenni Human Rights Group, said residents had been warned that if the junta abandoned camps in towns and villages, it often bombarded them with aerial and artillery attacks. “The junta army always does two things when they abandon these towns and villages. One is to burn the villages and the other is to shoot and destroy them with heavy weapons and airstrikes,” he told RFA on Sunday. “We are worried about that. People are well aware of this situation and they are making the necessary arrangements.” RFA has not been able to contact residents of Mawchee because phone and internet access have been cut off. RFA called Kayah state’s junta spokesperson Myint Kyi to learn more about the situation, but calls went unanswered on Sunday. Karenni joint forces have been carrying out Operation 1111 since Nov. 11, 2023. As part of the operation, the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force formed alliances with the Karenni Army, Urban Guerrilla Forces, and People’s Defense Forces from Loikaw, Moebye, and Demoso in Kayah and southern Shan state. Together, the joint forces have been carrying out attacks on junta camps. Since Nov. 11, the forces have captured 20 camps in Loikaw, Demoso, and Moebye, according to a Karenni Nationalities Defense Forces statement on Jan. 28. Battles to occupy cities are likely to continue this year, according to political analyst Than Soe Naing. “People are worried about the ceasefire in northern Shan state [breaking down]. Although it seems like the [military] movement in other areas across Myanmar will be calm, the Kachin Independence Army has captured Mabein city [in Shan state],” he said. “As for Rakhine state, Pauktaw has been completely seized. So the developments of the spring revolution and its momentum continue.” The Three Brotherhood Alliance and junta signed a ceasefire on Jan. 11 under Chinese pressure during a meeting in Kunming to end clashes over territory in northern Shan state. However, other ethnic armed groups have continued fighting elsewhere in the country, forcing junta troops to abandon five cities nationwide. Junta tanks seized by the Arakan Army at junta camps in Paletwa township on Jan. 18, 2024. (Arakan Army Military Desk) Shan state’s Mabein, Chin state’s Paletwa, Rakhine state’s Pauktaw, and Kayah state’s Ywar Thit and Mawchee have all been captured since the ceasefire was announced. According to data compiled by RFA, ethnic armed groups and People’s Defense Forces have attacked and seized 36 cities across the country from the military junta since October 2023. Junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing said Friday that groups should not take up arms and ignore the law in demanding self-determination, self-governance, and the establishment of self-administered regions. He told a meeting of the junta’s stability, law, and order committee these rights can only be given with the approval of parliament. It has been nearly three years since the junta seized power from a democratically elected government in a Feb. 1, 2021 coup. The junta has repeatedly delayed plans to call national elections. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Kim Jong Un’s sister ‘not to be underestimated,’ author says](https://ij-reportika.com/kim-jong-uns-sister-not-to-be-underestimated-author-says/): North Korea’s next global “charm offensive” will be led by leader Kim Jong Un’s younger sister, Kim Yo Jong, who is the strategic mastermind in Pyongyang and could eventually succeed her brother in power. At least that’s according to Sung-Yoon Lee, a North Korea expert and fellow at the Wilson Center who late last year released a 304-page biography about the woman he calls “the brains” behind the despotic rule of her brother, a man he says is more interested in basketball. “She is really the mastermind of this family campaign to expand their influence over South Korea and beyond,” Lee said at a book-signing event hosted by the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea at DACOR Bacon House in Washington, D.C., on Thursday morning. Lee told the gathering that his book, titled “The Sister: North Korea&#8217;s Kim Yo Jong, the Most Dangerous Woman in the World,” was years in the making, with his interest piqued by her attendance at her father’s funeral in 2011, when the world knew little about her or her brother. Even though in Korea, the “proper way to express your sorrow is to really overdo it, to exaggerate and wail away almost deliriously,” Lee said, noting there was an added incentive to do so in the North, Kim Yo Jong “showed genuine, profound sadness” but otherwise felt no need to go further, even when the cameras were trained on her face. Sung-Yoon Lee, left, speaks alongside Committee for Human Rights in North Korea Executive Director Greg Scarlatoiu at an event at DACOR Bacon House in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 25, 2024. (Alex Willemyns/RFA) In the years that followed, he said, her always perfectly upright posture, “Mona Lisa smile” and “imperious” demeanor when appearing in public made him more curious about her role leading the hermit kingdom. “Unfortunately, I see in her eyes a sparkle – intelligence,” he said. “I saw that in Kim Jong Il, too, and in Kim Il Sung, the state founder. They were intelligent; they were not crazy, in the conventional sense.” “I don&#8217;t see that sparkle in Kim Jong Un,” he added. Winter Olympics The wider world first got to know Kim Yo Jong, believed to be 37 years old, at the February 2018 Winter Olympics in the South Korean city of PyeongChang, which took place in the lead-up to then-U.S. President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un’s first meeting in June 2018. With South and North Korea fielding a united team, Kim Yo Jong was invited to the south to represent Pyongyang in meetings with then-South Korean President Moon Jae-In and to attend the games. After arriving at Incheon airport “not showing any bit of excitement or happiness that she was there … [almost] as if she had walked into her own living room,” she later attended the games’ opening ceremony, where she was seated directly behind Moon and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, who famously chose to “ignore” her presence behind him. “Throughout the evening, from certain camera angles, it seemed she was lording it over Mike Pence, seated right behind,” Lee said, adding that the visual was sought by North Korea for propaganda reasons. “Later, I learned that this was not an accident,” he said. “Kim Yo Jong had insisted that she be seated behind them – above President Moon and Vice President Pence – or else ‘We go back home.’”  “So accommodations were made,” he explained. The Sister: North Korea&#8217;s Kim Yo Jong, the Most Dangerous Woman in the World by Sung-Yoon Lee is about Kim Jong Un’s increasingly powerful sister, tapped to be his successor to lead North Korea. (Courtesy of PublicAffairs) The next day, Kim Yo Jong visited Moon at his offices in Seoul and for a short while became “a star” on the world stage, with many seemingly enchanted by the sudden emergence of a female North Korean leader. More importantly, after months of escalating provocations between her brother and Trump, her message of peace and reconciliation seemed to resonate as more sincere than if it had come from Kim Jong Un. ‘Don’t trust her’ Lee says that is a mistake he hopes to shatter with his biography, arguing Kim Yo Jong will be wheeled out as the friendly face of the North’s global outreach when it once again tries to appear open to compromise. He called for the world not to be fooled. “She is the No. 2 official in arguably the world&#8217;s most tyrannical regime,” he added. “What she says, no matter how sweet it may sound, must be questioned and cannot be accepted at face value.” A switch back to diplomatic niceties after the ongoing round of provocations is as predictable as the plot to Rambo 4, Lee said, noting that “[Rambo] First Blood was a good movie, but by the time you’ve seen Rambo 4, you have a pretty good idea how the movie ends.” As the true director of North Korea’s propaganda department since 2012, he said, Kim Yo Jong was a skilled political operator, and would be even more at ease on the world stage her second time around. Kim Yo Jong, right, shakes hands with South Korea&#8217;s director of the National Security Office, Chung Eui-yong, June 12, 2019 as she delivers a condolence message in Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) from her brother to the family of former South Korean first lady Lee He-ho, who passed away. (Korean Central News Agency/AFP) “People will want to believe in her message, and perhaps even share in the credit that she seeks peace and denuclearization,” Lee said. “Don&#8217;t trust her. Don&#8217;t believe everything she says. Don&#8217;t patronize her.” “She&#8217;s not to be underestimated,” he said. Eventually, Kim Yo Jong may position herself to take over the reins from her brother, even if the current leader’s daughter, Kim Ju Ae, born in 2013, has been slated as the heir apparent in Pyongyang. “When [Ju Ae] is in her mid-20s, and comes to view her auntie as expendable, cumbersome...
- [US urges China to push Iran to pressure Houthis over Red Sea attacks](https://ij-reportika.com/us-urges-china-to-push-iran-to-pressure-houthis-over-red-sea-attacks/): U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has asked Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to use Beijing’s influence on Iran to push it to stop the Houthis in Yemen from attacking Red Sea trade routes. The appeal came during two days of meetings in Bangkok between the pair, according to a senior Biden administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity according to rules set by the White House. Over 12 hours, the pair also discussed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Myanmar’s civil war, North Korea, Israel’s war with Hamas, the South China Sea, fentanyl and artificial intelligence, the official said. It was their first meeting since Oct. 26, when Wang visited Washington in the run-up to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s trip to San Francisco in November for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, during which he also held direct talks with U.S. President Joe Biden. The official said the meeting was meant to build on the commitments made during that summit, including to reinstate military-to-military talks and to stem illicit Chinese exports of precursors for fentanyl, which has been called a leading cause of death for American adults. A working group on counternarcotics would be established on Tuesday and both Military-Maritime Consultative Agreement Meetings and talks about regulating artificial intelligence would be held in the Spring.  “The two sides are committed to continuing these strategic channels of communication,” the official said, adding there would be “a telephone call between the two leaders at some point in the coming months.” Diplomatic telephone On the apparently widening conflict in the Middle East that began with the attack on Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7, the White House official said Sullivan had pressed Wang to use Beijing’s influence on Iran to push it to end attacks by Houthis on trade ships transiting the Red Sea. The Houthis’ latest attack took place Friday and this time directly targeted a U.S. warship, the USS Carney, which was patrolling the area to try to prevent further attacks in the lucrative trade route. Both Hamas and the Houthis have been labeled “proxies” of Iran by the United States, with Tehran not viewed as having direct control of either group but being accused of funding and training both. The Houthis, meanwhile, are accused of targeting trade ships off Yemen’s coast in response to Israel’s invasion of Hamas-controlled Gaza. As a major trading nation, China had its own interests in stopping the attacks on the Red Sea route and had the ability to pressure Iran as one of the biggest buyers of its oil, the White House official said. “We would characterize both the economic and trade relationship as giving Beijing leverage over Iran to some extent. How they choose to use that, of course, is China&#8217;s choice,” the official said. “Iran’s influence over the Houthis, and the Houthis’ destabilization of global shipping, raises serious concerns not just for the U.S. and China but for global trade,” they added. “There should be a clear interest in China in trying to quiet some of those attacks.” The civil war in Myanmar was also discussed by Sullivan and Wang, building off talks between Sullivan and Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin on Friday, during which the official said Sullivan “stressed the importance” of getting humanitarian aid into Myanmar. However, the official said the United States was less hopeful about China’s assistance in pushing North Korea to end its growing nuclear weapons program or its recent provision of ballistic missiles to Russia. “I&#8217;m not sure I would characterize anything recently as constructive,” the official said, adding the United States still hoped China would come round to helping “bring us back to the path of denuclearization.”
- [A Critical Survey of the Biggest 5 Economies: The Survey Reportika](https://ij-reportika.com/a-critical-survey-of-the-biggest-5-economies-the-survey-reportika/): A critical Survey of the Biggest 5 economies of the world viz the USA, China, Japan, Germany and India titled Survey Reportika.
- [Thousands flee capital of Myanmar’s Rakhine state as battle looms](https://ij-reportika.com/thousands-flee-capital-of-myanmars-rakhine-state-as-battle-looms/): Thousands of residents have fled the capital of western Myanmar’s Rakhine state in anticipation of a looming battle between the rebel ethnic Arakan Army and junta soldiers, local residents told Radio Free Asia. Fighting in the fortified administrative and military hub of Sittwe is expected to be intense, and would come after close to three months of heightened conflict between the military and the Arakan Army, or AA.  In recent weeks, the AA has seized several junta military camps in the townships that encircle Sittwe, including Mrauk-U, Minbya, Kyauktaw and Rathedaung. The military junta has blocked highways and waterways throughout Rakhine since November, making it hard for people to leave the state capital. Those who have decided to stay are digging bunkers at their homes, placing sandbags nearby and otherwise searching for safe places or moving to nearby rural areas, local residents said. “In Sittwe, you cannot use roads or waterways,” a resident of the state capital told RFA. “So, some leave for Yangon out of fear – and they have to go there by air.” There are four flights a day with about 50 people on each flight, according to the resident, who did not want to be named for security reasons. Several local residents told RFA that plane tickets from Sittwe to Yangon are fully booked until the end of March, and some people are chartering planes to get out. Sittwe’s population is over 120,000, including students from several universities, according to 2019 statistics from the general administration department. Some local residents estimated that as many as 30 percent of residents have already left. Gaining ground The AA and two other rebel groups make up the Three Brotherhood Alliance, which launched a campaign in October on junta forces in the northern and western parts of the country.  Last week, nearly 300 junta troops surrendered to the AA after it took control of two major military junta encampments in Kyauktaw. And on Wednesday, the Three Brotherhood Alliance said in a statement that the AA had won full control of Pauktaw, a port city just 16 miles (25 kilometers) east of Sittwe. Landline and internet connections have been shut down in northern Rakhine’s townships, including Sittwe, residents said. In some areas, only the Mytel telecom network has been available.Residents said they have had to wait one or two days to withdraw cash from banks in Sittwe and are also having difficulty buying basic commodities such as food and oil as prices rise. Plane tickets to Yangon cost between 350,000 kyats (US$166) and 500,000 kyats (US$238), the Sittwe resident said.  “Impoverished individuals and people who can’t afford to buy airline tickets can’t run anywhere,” he said. “They can’t afford to live in Yangon. So there are many people who have to stay here.”    RFA couldn’t immediately reach Rakhine state’s junta spokesperson Hla Thein to ask about the steady stream of residents leaving Sittwe.   At a Jan. 20 meeting with state level departmental officials, junta-appointed Rakhine chief minister Htein Lin said security has become the administration’s top focus in the state. The Sittwe resident who spoke to RFA about flights to Yangon said he and his family are also trying to travel to Myanmar’s biggest city. “I’m worried about being unable to flee home if something happens. I have a family and children,” he said. “Battles can affect children emotionally. I don’t want to force them to live with such hardships.” Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster. 
- [US national security advisor to meet Chinese Foreign Minister in Bangkok](https://ij-reportika.com/us-national-security-advisor-to-meet-chinese-foreign-minister-in-bangkok/): U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and China’s foreign minister Wang Yi are set to meet in Bangkok Friday and Saturday to build on a pledge to deepen their dialogue, despite the two superpowers’ differences on Taiwan. This meeting will be the first high-level talk between the two nations since the U.S. President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping met in the United States in November.  “During the new round of meetings, (Wang) will state China’s position on China-U.S. relations, including the Taiwan issue, and exchange views with the U.S. side on international and regional issues of common interest,” a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson told reporters at a regular press conference on Friday. Upon his arrival in Thailand’s capital Friday, Sullivan first met with Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin and Foreign Minister Parnpree Bahiddha-nukara and discussed ties between the two nations as well as regional and global issues, including efforts to address the worsening crisis in Myanmar. During the meeting, Sullivan emphasized “U.S. commitment to expanding collaboration on trade and investment, accelerating the transition to a clean energy future, deepening the two nations’ people-to-people ties, and broadening our security cooperation as we promote a free and open Indo-Pacific,” according to a White House statement.  Thailand’s Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, left, talks with U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan at the government house in Bangkok, Thailand, Friday, Jan. 26, 2024. (Government Spokesman Office via AP) Thailand, one of the U.S.’s major non-NATO allies and geographically important to the region, however, reaffirmed its non-interference approach. On the China-Taiwan issue, for instance, the Thai side reiterated before the meeting its “vision on Thai-Chinese relations, based on Thailand’s One China policy as well as common interests and international principles that the two countries adhere to, towards the building of a Thailand-China community with a shared future for enhanced stability, prosperity and sustainability.”   Regarding planned talks between Sullivan and Wang, a Thai foreign ministry spokesperson said: “The meeting is actually arranged bilaterally between the two sides. We did not have any role in organizing for the meeting or anything but we are pleased that Thailand is the venue for such a meeting.”  “And we are confident that the dialogue between the two sides will contribute to peace and security and development of the countries in the regions also at the global stage as well.” Dr. Isa Gharti, a public policy researcher at Chiang Mai University, believes the meeting between Sullivan and Wang stresses Thailand’s strategic position as the middleman for the super powers. “The country has a long history of balancing its relationship with China and the U.S., which is appropriate for it  to be the host,” Gharti told Radio Free Asia.  “The role as a facilitator to solve high-level conflict is a positive thing for the Srettha administration,” he added, referring to the current prime minister’s government. Thailand and China will celebrate 50 years of diplomatic ties in 2025, marking 190 years of their relationship. Edited by Taejun Kang and Mike Firn.
- [Military battalion camp seized by Kachin rebels in Myanmar’s Shan state](https://ij-reportika.com/military-battalion-camp-seized-by-kachin-rebels-in-myanmars-shan-state/): An ethnic army has captured the military camp of the junta’s Light Infantry Battalion No. 123 in northern Myanmar’s Shan state, residents and the rebel group said Thursday, capping months of fighting for control of a key trade route with China. The loss of the base means that ethnic rebels now control the entire 130-kilometer (80-mile) trade route from Muse township on the border with China to Hseni, located some 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of northern Shan state’s largest town of Lashio. It is also the latest in a number of setbacks for the military since an ethnic offensive in late October that has seen the Three Brotherhood Alliance capture 15 cities in northern Shan state, seize control of more than 200 military camps, and force the surrender of some 4,000 junta troops. The Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, took control of the camp on Wednesday evening after initially overrunning Nam Hpat Kar town on Jan. 17, KIA spokesman Col. Naw Bu told RFA Burmese. “We heard that the military camp at Nam Hpat Kar was seized around 3 p.m. or 4 p.m., but we haven’t received any details from the field yet,” he said. “We haven’t been able to get a phone connection through.” A resident of Nam Hpat Kar who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns, told RFA that KIA soldiers entered the military compound on Wednesday, prompting junta troops to flee toward nearby Tarmoenye township. “I’m sure the KIA troops are now stationed at Light Infantry Battalion No. 123 camp,” he said. “Since the troops retreated toward Tarmoenye, they are following them and clearing them out. The damage to the village is huge.” Ethnic rebels began attacking Nam Hpat Kar township in late August, but the KIA only started the fight for control of the Light Infantry Battalion camp on Jan. 14. Junta forces responded to attacks on the camp with heavy artillery and airstrikes, residents said. The KIA claimed on Jan. 16 that it was able to shoot down a junta jet fighter during fighting in the area. Civilian casualties Another resident of Nam Hpat Kar, who was forced to leave his home amid the fighting, told RFA that the military airstrikes destroyed area homes and caused civilian casualties. “The [KIA] also broke into the houses and fired from inside of them, so the military attacked the houses based on information they received,” he said. “At the moment, out of the eight houses I know [were fired on], four were reduced to ashes. The rest of the houses no longer have walls or roofs.” The resident said at least two civilians were killed in the fighting, but was unable to provide additional details. He said villagers are afraid to return home because of the threat of additional airstrikes. More than 20,000 people live in Nam Hpat Kar, which consists of four wards and nine village tracts. Aid workers said that some 10,000 residents of villagers close to the military camp were forced to flee to monasteries in the townships of Namhkan, Muse, Lashio and other nearby areas amid the clashes. Another resident of Nam Hpat Kar told RFA that, as of Jan. 17, he had documented the deaths of at least 24 civilians due to military airstrikes and artillery fire, and said at least 100 homes had been damaged. The KIA claims to have downed a junta jet fighter during the Nam Hpat Kar battle. On Jan. 25, 2024 an image of the downed jet from the Battle of Nam Hpat Kar was released. (Provided by Citizen Journalist) A social worker who fled from Nam Hpat Kar due to the fighting said on Thursday that the number of casualties and extent of the damage had yet to be fully accounted for, due to severed internet and telephone lines. The junta has not released any statement about the situation in Nam Hpat Kar. KIA demonstrates importance A former military officer, who now works as a commentator on military and political issues in Myanmar, said that the capture of the camp in Nam Hpat Kar is a demonstration of the junta’s increasing weakness in the region. “The attack took 10 days, and we should praise the bravery [of the junta troops] who resisted it,” he said. But he criticized the military’s leadership for failing to do enough to hold the camp. “[Nearby] Kutkai and Namhkan [townships were] seized by the [Ta&#8217;ang National Liberation Army],” the former officer said, referring to one of the three ethnic armies that, along with the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and the Arakan Army, form the Three Brotherhood Alliance. “Now, Nam Hpat Kar, which is located at the top of the road heading to Namhkan, has been captured. So now it is all done, and [the KIA] has demonstrated the importance of its role [in fighting the military],” he said.    In the five months of fighting between ethnic armies and the junta for Nam Hpat Kar, more than 50 civilians – including women and children – were killed, according to residents. Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Matt Reed.
- [Myanmar court orders sale of jailed Suu Kyi’s historic home](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-court-orders-sale-of-jailed-suu-kyis-historic-home/): A Yangon court has ruled in favor of Myanmar’s junta selling jailed former State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi’s historic family home, a source close to the court told Radio Free Asia on Thursday.  The court issued an order to allow junta officials to put the house up for auction on Mar. 20 for a reserve price of roughly US$90 million, the source said, asking to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak to the media. “The price that has been decided would be divided up after auctioning and selling,” he said. “Now, the order has been implemented. It determined the reserve price of the auction and set the date of the auction and when the sale will be made.” The source claimed the Kamayut District Court in Yangon region that issued Thursday’s order was junta-affiliated. A cordoned-off entrance with insignia for the National League for Democracy (NLD) party is pictured near the house of detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi, in Yangon on June 23, 2022. (STR/AFP) Ownership of the historic lakeside home and yard at 54, University Avenue in Yangon’s Bahan township has long been disputed by Aung San Suu Kyi and her brother Aung San Oo. The house was awarded to Aung San Suu Kyi’s mother, Khin Kyi, after Gen. Aung San was assassinated in 1947.  On Aug. 22, 2022, the junta-controlled Union Supreme Court declared the house would be auctioned under Aung San Oo’s appeal.  Aung San Suu Kyi lived there for almost 15 years under house arrest during the military regime. The shadow National Unity Government has designated the house a national cultural heritage site and announced that legal action will be taken if the junta sells it. Aung San Suu Kyi, right, and then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tour the grounds after meetings at Suu Kyi&#8217;s residence in Yangon, Myanmar Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool) Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested along with former President Win Myint and other leaders of the deposed National League for Democracy party shortly after the military seized power in a Feb. 2021 coup. The junta sentenced the 78-year-old to 33 years in prison for 19 charges. Last August she was partially pardoned for five of them as part of a general amnesty, reducing her sentence to 27 years.  The Nobel Peace Prize laureate was initially jailed in solitary confinement in Yangon’s Insein Prison. It&#8217;s not clear where she is currently being held. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Residents fear junta attack, despite NUG control in Myanmar’s Sagaing](https://ij-reportika.com/residents-fear-junta-attack-despite-nug-control-in-myanmars-sagaing/): Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government has claimed administrative control of four key towns in the northern region of Sagaing following their fall to resistance forces, but residents say they still live in constant fear of attacks by the military. Beginning in November, anti-junta forces seized the towns of Kawlin, Khampat, Shwe Pyi Aye and Maw Lu. National Unity Government, or NUG, officials entered the towns shortly afterward and set up basic administrative services. “The civil administrative mechanism was put in place after the first round of conflicts,” said an information officer with the People’s Administration Organization in Khampat who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke to RFA Burmese on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. “The town is now firmly under the control of the NUG and the People’s Administration Organization is formed and functioning,” he said. But a series of junta attacks on the towns since their seizure have left residents fearing for their safety, and some who have fled their homes say they are reluctant to return. From Dec. 10-16, Khampat township was the center of fierce fighting due to incursions by junta forces, while on Jan. 7, the military conducted airstrikes that hit a church service in the township’s Ka Nan village, killing 17 civilians, including nine children, and injuring 19 others, according to a report by the NUG. “It is safer to travel than before due to fewer security checkpoints,” a resident of the township told RFA Burmese. “But we are constantly alert to loud noises of cars and motorcycles, as we live in fear of airstrikes. We are still worried that fighting will resume.” Soldiers with the civilian National Unity Government take part in training near the Myanmar-Thai border, Oct. 8, 2021. (AFP) Similarly, a joint force of anti-junta fighters under the NUG and members of the ethnic Kachin Independence Army seized Kawlin on Nov. 6, and the NUG began administering the town on Dec. 6. But residents told RFA that civilians have since been killed by junta artillery attacks and said transporting goods around the area remains unsafe. “The junta is blocking cargo trucks and travelers into Kawlin … so there are many difficulties affecting the flow of commodities,” one inhabitant of the town said. “The junta’s Light Infantry Battalion No. 120 fires artillery shells from [nearby] Wuntho township &#8230; [and] more than 10 civilians were killed after the town fell under the control of resistance forces.”  Residents said that on Jan. 2, a junta artillery attack on Kawlin’s market killed six civilians, and injured two. Five days later, the bodies of 19 civilians killed by the military council were discovered near Wuntho township, six of whom were from Kawlin, they said. NUG governing with ‘all possible resources’ Some residents told RFA that they feel they have the right to expect better protection from the NUG, now that the shadow government has assumed administrative control in their towns. Kyaw Zaw, the spokesperson of the NUG President’s Office, said that his administration is doing the best it can with the resources in the areas under its control. “We are implementing civil administrative mechanisms with all possible resources, while our defense forces are working to prevent attacks by the junta,” he said.  He added that the NUG has established interim administration in more than 170 townships across the country, and is working to enhance rule of law, development, education, health and the economy. In other towns, the NUG has faced challenges implementing its goals, acknowledged a member of the People’s Administration Organization in Maw Lu township, who also declined to be named citing fear of reprisal. “We have experienced some difficulties in the administrative process as we are not civil service personnel,” he said of the town, which was seized by a joint force of the Kachin Independence Army, the All Burma Students’ Democratic Front, and anti-junta People’s Defense Force paramilitaries on Dec. 13. The St. Peter Baptist Church-Kanan, in Kanan village, Khampat town, Sagaing region was struck by the suspected military aerial bombardments, seen here Jan. 8, 2024. Myanmar&#8217;s military attacks buildings of every religion all over the country, according to rights activists. (David Htan/AP) A resident of Maw Lu confirmed that inhabitants have “many needs” at the moment. “We have been relieved from some adversities [under the junta], but frankly, we don’t enjoy total peace,” the resident said. “We expect a genuine democracy, in which an administration treats us humanely. We hope the people will not have to suffer much longer and that the end of revolution will come as soon as possible.” The junta has issued no statements about the towns it lost to the NUG in Sagaing region. According to a Nov. 28 report by the independent research group ISP-Myanmar, which documents the impact of conflict on civilians in the country, at least 119 armed clashes took place in Sagaing since the Oct. 27 launch of Operation 1027, an offensive led by the Three Brotherhood Alliance of ethnic armies. Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Matt Reed.
- [Nearly 40 Myanmar civilians dead after four-day clash](https://ij-reportika.com/nearly-40-myanmar-civilians-dead-after-four-day-clash/): Intense battles between junta troops, the Kachin Independence Army and joint People’s Defense Forces have killed 40 civilians, locals told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday.  Fighting in northern Myanmar has surged for four days as allied resistance forces and junta troops fight for control over Shan state’s Mongmit city. Junta airstrikes and heavy weapons are responsible for civilian deaths, residents who witnessed battles said.  Fighting began last Thursday, when the Kachin Independence Army captured Mongmit Police Station and junta camps in the city, and ended on Sunday. The military retaliated with heavy arms and indiscriminate airstrikes, burning Mongmit market and causing high civilian casualties, locals said.  Most victims were from the southern neighborhoods of Mongmit, said one resident who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. “We can’t say the number of the people who died in the neighborhood yet. For sure, the southern neighborhood has the most deaths, including Let Hkoke Tan and Haw Nan,” he said. “I can estimate that there are almost 40 dead and they all are civilians.” One local who fled the city on Saturday told RFA he witnessed the deaths of civilians and junta soldiers while fighting raged in the city center. He has since seen casualty lists circulated. “I saw four dead civilians. I can confirm that one military officer and about seven junta soldiers were dead when we left the city,” he said, asking to remain anonymous to protect his identity. “I don’t know the current situation of the city because the phone lines are down now.” At least 10 people were injured and are being treated at nearby village clinics, he added. Continuous aerial attacks and shelling damaged and destroyed houses downtown and in the city’s south, locals said, adding that homes near the police station were burned down. About 150 shops in the market caught fire and several monasteries were also damaged by heavy artillery, according to residents. Calls to Shan state’s junta spokesperson Khun Thein Maung and national spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun by RFA to learn more went unanswered Wednesday. Kachin Independence Army spokesperson Col. Naw Bu said he could not confirm details about the battles due to phone line outages in the area. Telecommunication and internet access have been cut off in Mongmit city where fighting occurred. More than 10,000 people have fled the city, residents said.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Fate of junta officers unclear following surrender to rebels in Myanmar’s Shan state](https://ij-reportika.com/fate-of-junta-officers-unclear-following-surrender-to-rebels-in-myanmars-shan-state/): Speculation is swirling over the fate of six brigadiers-general from the Burmese military following their surrender of a strategic Shan state city to ethnic rebels earlier this month in a humiliating setback to the ruling junta. The six were commanding officers deployed in the junta’s Kokang regional command center at Laukkai, the largest base in northern Shan state near the Chinese border. The base was overrun on Jan. 4 by the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, prompting 2,100 soldiers in the facility to lay down their arms. Soldiers and family members were permitted to leave by the rebels. Sources close to the military told RFA Burmese that on Jan. 6, the six generals were flown by helicopter to the Northeast Regional Military Command headquarters, and later sent to the capital Naypyidaw.  The sources spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. AFP, citing an unnamed military source, said the six generals had been taken into custody. The Irrawaddy online news journal on Tuesday cited unnamed “junta sources” as saying that three had been sentenced to death, and three jailed for life. The sources said the six had been charged under military law for “shamefully abandoning” their posts. RFA could not immediately confirm the sentences. AFP on Tuesday quoted the junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun as saying there was &#8220;no sentence for the six brigadier-generals yet.&#8221; The officers were identified as Brigadiers-General Moe Kyaw Thu, the head of Laukkai headquarters; Tun Tun Myint, the acting chief of the Kokang Self-Administered Zone; and Zaw Myo Win, commander of the 55th Division; and Aye Min Oo, Thaw Zin Oo, and Aung Zaw Lin – the heads of Operation Centers 14, 16, and 12, respectively. Sentences may have repercussions Analysts said that stiff sentences for the generals could have major repercussions within the military. Zachary Abuza, a professor at the National War College in Washington and an adjunct at Georgetown University, called the reported sentences “extremely draconian,” adding that, if true, they are “likely to cause an enormous backlash within the senior officer corps,” particularly if they were simply following orders from Naypyidaw. Regardless, he said, “no amount of scapegoats will make up for the SAC’s gross incompetence in managing the economy and war effort,” using an acronym for the official name of the junta, the State Administration Council. This photo taken on Dec. 10, 2023 shows members of the Mandalay People&#8217;s Defense Forces on patrol amid clashes with Myanmar&#8217;s military in northern Shan State.(AFP) Former Captain Aung Myo Khat, who now advises Myanmar’s resistance forces as part of the anti-junta Civil Disobedience Movement, agreed that the officers had likely surrendered on Naypyidaw’s orders, and that dealing with them had become a delicate situation for the junta. “If the soldiers who retreated learn about [the junta leadership] taking such action against their commanders, there may be a rebellion,” he said. “On the other hand, if no action is taken, battalion commanders and officers … in all parts of Myanmar may also follow in their footsteps and surrender. So, I think [junta leaders] are in a dilemma.” Than Soe Naing, a political commentator in Myanmar, said that regardless of who ordered the surrender, it was “a result of [the junta’s] mismanagement.” “Now there are lots of complaints about [mismanagement] in the army, and soldiers have lost confidence,” he said. “The idea that they cannot win the battle and therefore have to launch a suicide attack or surrender is dominating [the mindset of junta troops] in the entire Northeast region, and its spreading.” Leadership facing criticism The MNDAA claims that the seizure of Laukkai resulted in the largest surrender by the military during Operation 1027, an offensive it began in late October as part of the Three Brotherhood Alliance of ethnic armies, along with the Ta’ang National Liberation Army and the Arakan Army. Since its launch, the alliance has reportedly captured 15 cities in northern Shan state, seized control of more than 200 military camps, and prompted the surrender of some 4,000 junta troops. Myanmar&#8217;s military chief Min Aung Hlaing makes a speech during a defense and security council meeting in Naypyidaw, Jan. 31, 2023. (Provided by Myanmar Military Information Team/AFP) Nearly three years since its February 2021 coup d’etat, the military’s control of Myanmar is “rapidly diminishing,” Zach Abuza said, noting that there are growing calls for junta chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing to step down. “There will be schisms within the military leadership between those who are interested in negotiating a political settlement and those who feel that the military hasn’t been sufficiently resolute in crushing the dissent,” he said. Min Aung Hlaing has faced increasing criticism over his handling of Operation 1027 and for allowing Myanmar’s once-strong military to appear weak under his watch. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Mat Pennington.
- [China unlikely to invade Taiwan in next 5 years: survey](https://ij-reportika.com/china-unlikely-to-invade-taiwan-in-next-5-years-survey/): China is unlikely to invade Taiwan in the next five years, a survey released this week showed. But Beijing is capable of executing “a law enforcement-led quarantine and a People’s Liberation Army (PLA)-led blockade of Taiwan,” according to experts who took part in a survey by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) released on Monday.  A quarantine to substantially reduce trade into, and communications with, Taiwan would put significant pressure on the island and could serve as the prelude to a blockade by the PLA or a full-on amphibious invasion, said the experts.  The new poll – “Surveying the Experts: U.S. and Taiwan Views on China’s Approach to Taiwan” – was released by the CSIS’s China Power Project just after Taiwan elected its new president, Lai Ching-te. It was conducted from Nov. 28 to Dec. 15, 2023 – before the presidential poll – with the participation of 87 experts, 52 from the U.S. and 35 from Taiwan, all leading academics or former officials. Invasion unlikely Responding experts said that in the next five years, “if China seeks to coerce Taiwan, Beijing’s most likely course of action would be a law enforcement-led quarantine of Taiwan.” But “if China’s goal is to force immediate unification of Taiwan, a PLA-led highly kinetic joint blockade” is the most likely scenario, according to 80% of respondents. Without U.S. intervention, most experts did not believe Taiwan could resist a blockade for more than three months.  Just 26% of U.S. respondents and 17% of Taiwanese respondents agreed that China has the military capability to effectively launch an amphibious invasion of Taiwan within the next five years.  The rest had much lower confidence in China’s ability as such invasion would require “a much larger commitment of military forces than a quarantine or blockade, and the operations involved would be significantly more complicated.” Soldiers at the 2nd Battalion of the Taiwanese army&#8217;s 58th Artillery Command conduct an exercise in Jan. 2024. (Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense) Taiwanese experts seemed to have a lower perception of the China threat compared to U.S. experts – only 51% of them believed that China could sustain a high-intensity conflict for more than a year versus 71% of American respondents. Among U.S. experts, 44% believed China would be willing to detonate nuclear weapons against U.S. or coalition forces during a Taiwan conflict, but only 11% of Taiwanese experts thought the same. U.S. support While virtually all U.S. respondents were confident that their country would intervene militarily in the case of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, 9% of Taiwanese respondents said they were not confident. And 11% of Taiwanese experts were not confident that the U.S. would intervene if China conducted a joint sea and air blockade of Taiwan. Some 63% of U.S. experts believed that America would step in against a quarantine of Taiwan, but only 40% of their Taiwanese peers thought so.  The survey’s authors explained that these lower levels of confidence stemmed from various factors, the first of which was that “U.S. support for Taiwan is conditional.” “The goal of U.S. policy toward Taiwan has long been to avoid moves by either side of the Taiwan Strait to unilaterally shift the status quo,” they said, “and if Taiwan’s actions precipitate a conflict, the United States may be disinclined to intervene.” The second factor lies in China’s campaign of misinformation and disinformation in Taiwan about U.S. willingness to support Taipei. “These efforts are aimed at causing the Taiwan public to lose hope and feel that unification is their only option,” the survey authors said. Beijing, on the other hand, “has little doubt that Washington would defend Taiwan,” they added.  Edited by Taejun Kang and Mike Firn.
- [North Korea urges mothers to snitch on their kids who watch South Korean media](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-urges-mothers-to-snitch-on-their-kids-who-watch-south-korean-media/): North Korea is asking mothers to snitch on their kids who steal government property and watch illegal media, promising forgiveness if they report their actions to authorities, residents in the country told Radio Free Asia. The request came during the country’s national meeting for mothers, held from Dec. 3-5, the fifth ever meeting of its kind and first in 11 years. Speakers at the meeting emphasized that mothers must strengthen family education and do their part to eradicate anti-socialist elements.  In January, people who attended the national meeting were obliged to provide lectures organized by the Socialist Women’s Union of Korea, the country’s premier women’s organization. The message of forgiveness was relayed to the mothers during these lectures, sources said. In the city of Anju in the western province of South Pyongan, attendees to the lecture were surprised that it was an ordinary woman who spoke to them rather than an official, a resident there told RFA Korean. “This is the first time that an ordinary member of the Women’s Union gave a lecture,” she said, adding that the speaker told them the usual messages of respecting their husbands and having lots of children. “The lecturer said that it is important for mothers to educate their children to eliminate anti-socialism,” she said. “If their children have committed a crime, such as watching South Korean movies or stealing state property, mothers should voluntarily report it to the judicial authorities and receive forgiveness.” Serious crime Stealing from government supplies and watching illegal media are serious crimes in North Korea, with violators punished harshly, sometimes even  with public executions. Last year RFA reported that parents would take the rap if their kids were caught watching foreign media, but now authorities appear to be asking moms to tell on their kids.  At the lecture held in Tongrim county, in the northwestern province of North Pyongan, the speaker took it a step further, saying that mothers should police how their kids dress and forbid them from dancing in a certain way, a resident there told RFA. “The lecturer said that educating our children is important to eliminate the trends of unusual clothing and dancing that has recently appeared among young people,” she said. “If mothers voluntarily reported their children who took drugs at home, indulged in exotic cultures, or committed social crimes, the authorities would take responsibility, educate them, and not charge them with any crime.” But many in attendance were not buying it.  “Women responded to the lecture about reporting their children to the judicial authorities with astonishment,” she said, “saying mothers are now being used as a means of controlling young people.” Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong.   Photo in folder ENG_KOR_MothersMeeting_01222024People listen as North Korea&#8217;s leader Kim Jong Un speaks at the 5th National Meeting of Mothers in Pyongyang, Dec. 4, 2023. (KCNA via REUTERS)
- [N Korea asserts military commitment amid underwater nuclear test doubts](https://ij-reportika.com/n-korea-asserts-military-commitment-amid-underwater-nuclear-test-doubts/): North Korea has reiterated its dedication to enhancing its military prowess on the global stage as South Korea has suggested that Pyongyang’s claim about testing underwater nuclear weapons might be “exaggerated” and “fabricated.” “There is a widespread dominance of coercion and unilateral actions driven by the logic of power, which severely encroaches upon the sovereignty and survival rights of nations advocating for self-determination and independence,” said Kim Son Gyong, North Korea’s deputy minister of foreign affairs, as cited by the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency on Monday. Speaking at the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Uganda last week, the deputy minister justified Pyongyang’s continued pursuit of military advancement, including its nuclear program. “The situation where the sovereignty, autonomy, survival, and development rights of sovereign nations are under severe threat is particularly evident on the Korean Peninsula,” said Kim. “As provocations from our adversaries increase, there is a continuous need to build an overwhelmingly strong military preparedness, capable of deterring any form of provocation or action, and being fully and thoroughly prepared.” Such remarks came as North Korea said Friday it had carried out a test of an underwater nuclear weapons system, claiming it was facing severe security threats from the allies. The North’s Underwater Weapon System Institute tested the “Haeil-5-23,” its underwater nuclear system involving drones, its Ministry of National Defence claimed. Submarine-launched weapons can be deployed covertly, often evading the allies’ detection systems, potentially offering Pyongyang a more elusive means of deploying its nuclear weapons. South Korea on Sunday, however, raised the possibility that the claim might have been exaggerated and fabricated. “There is a possibility that North Korea’s claims may have been exaggerated and fabricated, based on our comprehensive analysis up until today,” South Korea’s Presidential Office said in a statement. “If indeed a test had taken place, it is presumed to have involved some form of torpedo, and the likelihood of it being a nuclear-powered system is highly improbable. “There are no instances of developing a small nuclear reactor suitable for a torpedo with a diameter of less than 1 meter.” Amid the tensions, North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un pledged last week to amend the country’s constitution to declare Seoul as Pyongyang’s “primary and immutable enemy.”  Edited by Taejun Kang Elaine Chan.
- [Bhutan ‘open for business’ as voters choose former PM Tobgay to rebuild economy](https://ij-reportika.com/bhutan-open-for-business-as-voters-choose-former-pm-tobgay-to-rebuild-economy/): “Bhutan is open for business,” wrote Prime Minister-elect Tshering Tobgay on X, after the people of the tiny Himalayan kingdom returned him to power in parliamentary elections this month. Analysts say Tobgay’s two-thirds majority win indicates the 800,000 people of Bhutan are pinning their hopes on an experienced hand to rebuild the economy, reverse an ongoing migration crisis, and strengthen ties with the landlocked nation’s two neighbors, India and Tibet, amidst ongoing border negotiations with China.  The victory by Harvard-educated conservation advocate Tobgay, 58 – who served as Bhutan’s second democratically elected prime minister between 2013 and 2018 – comes as the country faces “unprecedented challenges” that are prompting it to tailor its famed “Gross National Happiness”(GNH) policy to one that takes into account its economic needs.  Tobgay’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP) – which promised to leverage GNH in its efforts to turn Bhutan into a developed nation – won 30 of the 47 National Assembly seats, while its rival Bhutan Tendrel Party (BTP) won the remaining 17 seats in Bhutan’s fourth general elections since its 2008 transition from an from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy, with a bicameral elected parliament. Bhutan&#8217;s Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi before their meeting at Hyderabad House in New Delhi, India, July 6, 2018. (Altaf Hussain/Reuters) Bhutan’s GNH index was first conceptualized in 1972 by the King Jigme Singye Wangchuk as a “holistic approach” to sustainable development and a more important measure of growth than gross domestic product. Since then, the country’s leaders have promoted and the model &#8212; which emphasizes good governance, sustainable development, cultural preservation and promotion, and environmental conservation &#8212; widely regarded as Bhutan’s soft power export to the world.  However, concerns about the economy and record high youth unemployment levels of 28.6%, which have forced young Bhutanese to emigrate in large numbers for better job opportunities, have weighed on this election, with both parties citing economic growth as a key priority. The PDP has said it believes that “&#8230;GNH should continue to be the springboard to enhance peace, prosperity, and happiness for all Bhutanese in our collective journey to become a developed nation.”  “The PDP has the experience of having worked as the opposition in the first democratic government and as the ruling party in the second. So, it has exposure to different aspects of governance,” said Dasho Kunzang Wangdi, Bhutan’s former chief election commissioner, who set up and ran the country’s first democratic elections in 2008.  “We are hopeful their efforts will be geared towards not only reviving but also giving an added fillip to economic growth and balancing that with the need to ensure the general well-being of the people of Bhutan,” he added. Balancing happiness and growth Tobgay – who detailed an ambitious 12-point economic transformation plan to turn Bhutan into a developed nation by 2047 – is expected to lead the implementation of a 15 billion ngultrum (US$181 million) economic stimulus plan and drive initiatives to attract foreign direct investment, improve ease of doing business, and boost export and tourism levels.   “Our nation’s economy is teetering on the brink of collapse. With an average growth rate of just 1.7% in the past five years, our economy is at its worst in our recent history,” said Tobgay in his party’s manifesto, titled ‘A Contract with Bhutan.’ “The next five years are crucial for us to rebuild – get our economy back on track, enable private businesses to thrive, increase job opportunities, revitalize our education and healthcare systems, uplift the poor, empower our public servants, transform agriculture, and boost national revenue generation,” Tobgay added. He also plans to accelerate Bhutan’s hydropower and renewable energy generation, while bolstering the country’s private sector through the establishment of special economic zones and the privatization and divestmens of state-owned enterprises to boost capital markets.  Tobgay’s office did not immediately respond to Radio Free Asia’s request for comment on his program. A Bhutanese man looks at posters of candidates on the eve of polling to the upper house National Council in Samdrup Jonkhar, Bhutan, April 22, 2013. Bhutan ended more than a century of absolute monarchy with its first parliamentary elections in 2008. (Anupam Nath/AP) Tobgay’s approach represents “a pragmatic tailoring of the GNH concept to what the world needs today,” Aditya Gowdara Shivamurthy, an associate fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, a Washington, D.C. think tank. “Bhutan knows that it cannot be isolated from the rest of the world and the rest of the economy, and that’s why this whole special economic zone has been proposed. And I think that is a classic example of how Bhutan tailors its GNH concept with its economic growth and economic need,” he told Radio Free Asia. Bhutan has been gradually boosting the communications and information technology sector since the early 2010s, and the move to set up the SEZs intends to draw investment and sustainable development through service-intensive projects such as resorts and IT parks, rather than industrial projects, Shivamurthy said. “There’s a massive expectation from the new government. I think people have voted for this new government for the very reason that they know this party… and expect that this experienced party will offer them solutions rather than a new party coming in and trying to start from scratch,” he added.  Namgay Pem, a Bhutanese citizen who cast her vote at the Lingmu-Toedwang Constituency in Punakha District, one of the 20 dzongkhags or districts comprising Bhutan, echoed that sentiment. “The interventions that the government brings in should not compromise the happiness and well-being of the citizens, and that GNH, which is the main philosophy, should guide all the developmental and economic developments in the country,” she said. Relations with India and China The election was closely watched by India, against the backdrop of Bhutan’s ongoing border negotiations with China – an issue of strategic concern for India, which has faced border disputes and skirmishes with its northern neighbor.  In October, Bhutanese Foreign Minister Dr Tandi Dorji visited...
- [The Myanmar military’s air superiority is slipping away amid sanctions and opposition attacks](https://ij-reportika.com/the-myanmar-militarys-air-superiority-is-slipping-away-amid-sanctions-and-opposition-attacks/): One of the most important setbacks for Myanmar’s military since an opposition alliance launched Operation 1027 last October has been the loss of three different aircraft: two jet trainers and an Mi-17 heavy-lift helicopter. An Mi-35 attack helicopter was also lost in 2023.  The Myanmar military should have total air superiority.  For the first two years of the conflict, the opposition National Unity Government’s (NUG) best air defense was doxing Air Force pilots – publishing their addresses, as part of an assassination campaign. Gradually, the NUG’s People’s Defense Force militias began to erode the junta’s air superiority by effectively deploying armed drones.  Significantly, we’re now seeing Ethnic Resistance Organizations (EROs) begin to deploy air defenses, at a time when the junta has become even more dependent on air attacks. That increased tempo of operations requires more maintenance on overworked airframes. Fighters of anti-junta Mandalay People’s Defense Forces prepare a drone with an explosive-drop amid clashes with Myanmar junta forces in northern Shan State, Dec. 11, 2023. These military junta losses matter for three reasons. First, while not small by regional standards, the Myanmar Air Force (MAF) certainly does not have excess capacity. At the top end, it has some 31 SU-29s and four  recently delivered SU-30s from Russia.  The recently delivered seven JF-17s multi-role fighters, jointly produced by China and Pakistan, are reportedly already grounded due to cracks in their airframes and other maintenance issues.  Airworthiness questions On paper, Myanmar has approximately 40 other jet fighters, but these are old, Chinese-produced knock-off Russian jets from the 1990s. They are well beyond their service life.  The MAF is thought to have 20 Nanchang Q-5s, the Chinese version of the MiG-19, down from the 36 it imported from 1994-2001. It also has some 21 Chengdu J-7s, a Chinese produced MiG-21. That’s down from some 60 that it had purchased from 1990-1999.  It’s unclear how many of these fighters are still airworthy.  Myanmar’s military has relied on its 18 Russian-built Yak-130 trainers for much of its combat operations. Since the February 2021 coup, Myanmar has taken delivery of some six Guizhou JL-9 jet trainers, referred to as FTC-2000G, which have a spotty performance and safety record.  A fighter of anti-junta Mandalay People’s Defense Forces pilots a drone near the frontline amid clashes with Myanmar junta forces in northern Shan State, Dec.11, 2023. (AFP Photo) The MAF also flies an unknown number of Chinese K-8 trainers that can be used for ground support. Second, we should also assume that given sanctions on the Singapore-based companies that have been the key importers of spare parts, the overall lack of foreign exchange available to the junta, and other supply chain issues, including those caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine, that around 20% of the aircraft are probably not operational.  In December 2023, the sanctioned director of Sky Aviator and two others were caught trying to  smuggle 508,925 Singapore dollars (US $382,380) in cash out of that city-state. Sky Aviator, which has an office in Singapore, had a large contract to purchase spare parts for the air force. Another sanctioned firm, Sky Royal Hero Company Limited, has the contract for the maintenance and spare parts for servicing the Russian jet fighters.  For nearly three years, the MAF has been flying at increased tempos without the scheduled maintenance they require.  Airstrikes ramping up The military’s promised counter offensive has not materialized. Over 4,000 troops have surrendered since Operation 1027 began, and well-documented recruitment issues mean the military does not have a sufficient number of troops to launch ground offensives across the multiple battle zones, which has forced them to rely on long range artillery and air strikes. An independent research firm documented 336 airstrikes in December 2023, alone, with nearly half against the Three Brotherhood Alliance, the group of ethnic armies behind Operation 1027.. The loss of one of their 12 already over-taxed heavy lift helicopters is another important setback for the military’s counter-offensive. One of their tactical advantages has been air mobility and resupply, especially given their loss of key roads. Although the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) claims to have shot down the Guizhou JL-9/FTC-2000G on Jan. 17, there is little evidence to support this, Video footage that shows the plane falling from the sky, without smoke or any other sign of hostile fire, indicates likely engine failure. Myanmar Air Force Jet fighters drop bombs during military exercises in Ayeyarwady delta region, Feb. 2, 2018. (Lynn Bo Bo/Pool via AP) That leads to the third implication: The MAF is losing aircraft to hostile fire.   While the military claims that it was a technical malfunction that brought down a K-8 trainer, Karenni forces claim to have shot it down.  The KIA claims to have shot down an Mi-17 transport helicopter, killing all six crew members on Jan. 3.   Both helicopters and the trainers, especially when they are being used for ground attacks, are vulnerable to small arms fire.  Eyes on Beijing But these developments also beg the question: What weapons are being used to down the aircraft? The only ethnic armed group that is known to have shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles (known as MANPADs) is the United Wa State Army (UWSA).  Until very recently, the UWSA has sat out the conflict, neither supporting the junta nor joining the NUG. It recently declared its neutrality in the Three Brotherhood Alliance’s Operation 1027, though it did receive two townships from them.  A man looks on at homes destroyed after air and artillery strikes in Mung Lai Hkyet displacement camp in northern Kachin state, Oct. 10, 2023. (AP Photo) Though the UWSA has quietly sold weapons to other ethnic armies and the NUG, it has, to date, refrained from selling MANPADs.  Has that changed? And if so, why now? It was long believed that they would not sell the weapons for fear of angering China. So did China approve the transfer, or are the groups now willing to incur Beijing’s wrath?  The KIA claims that they shot down the Mi-17...
- [China is the world’s worst jailer of journalists, CPJ says](https://ij-reportika.com/china-is-the-worlds-worst-jailer-of-journalists-cpj-says/): China is the worst jailer of journalists in the world, a report by a New York-based watchdog said, and nearly half of the journalists behind bars in the country are Uyghurs who reported on the persecution of the mostly Muslim group in Xinjiang. In its 2023 prison census, conducted on Dec. 1, the Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, found that there was a spike in arrested journalists, with 320 believed to be behind bars – close to a record high. More than half of those jailed journalists were charged with false news, anti-state or terrorism charges in retaliation for their coverage, the group’s research found. China led all countries, with 44 journalists in prison, accounting for 32% of the worldwide total. Following closely behind was Myanmar, with 43. Vietnam was fifth on the list with 19, ahead of Iran and just behind Russia. Hong Kong media mogul and pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai, is escorted by Correctional Services officers to a Hong Kong court appearance, Dec. 12, 2020. (Kin Cheung/AP) “China has long ranked as one of the world’s worst jailers of journalists,” the report said. “Censorship makes the exact number of journalists jailed there notoriously difficult to determine, but Beijing’s media crackdown has widened in recent years, with 2021 marking the first time journalists from Hong Kong were in jail at the time of CPJ’s census.”  In addition to Hong Kong, Xinjiang was another chief area of concern, according to the report. Of the 44 imprisoned journalists in China, 19 are Uyghurs. Among them is Ilham Tohti, a professor who was also the founder of the news website Uighurbiz. Tohti was arrested almost exactly 10 years ago, and later sentenced to life in prison on charges of separatism. Another is Qurban Mamut, the former editor-in-chief of the popular Uyghur journal Xinjiang Civilization. Mamut went missing in November 2017 and RFA learned in 2022 that he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for “political crimes.” Media gather outside the offices of Stand News in Hong Kong on December 29, 2021, after police raided the office of the local media outlet and arrested six current and former staff. (Daniel Suen/AFP) “Chinese authorities are also ramping up the use of anti-state charges to hold journalists, with three out of the five new China cases in CPJ’s 2023 database consisting of journalists accused of espionage, inciting separatism, or subverting state power,” the report said.  “Many journalists charged are ethnic Uighurs from Xinjiang, where Beijing has been accused of crimes against humanity for its mass detentions and harsh repression of the region’s mostly Muslim ethnic groups,” it said. ‘Silencing minority voices’ The disproportionate number of jailed Uyghur journalists mirrors the situation in Xinjiang, Beh Lih Yi, the CPJ’s Asia program coordinator told RFA Uyghur. “Nearly half of the journalists behind bars in China in 2023 were Uighur journalists. They have been targeted under vague charges such as inciting separatism or being ‘two-faced,’ a loose term Chinese authorities often use to punish those they see as publicly supporting government policy but secretly opposing it,” said Yi.  “The media repression highlights the Chinese government&#8217;s harsh attempt to silence minority voices and independent reporting – even as Beijing repeatedly rejected claims of widespread human rights abuses in Xinjiang,” he said. A giant screen in Beijing shows Chinese President Xi Jinping visiting Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region July 15, 2022. (Tingshu Wang/Reuters) He said that long-term sentences for Uyghur journalists were “outrageous and cruel,” and called on the Chinese government to release all its imprisoned journalists and allow all journalists to freely report in Xinjiang. The report proves the importance of the work of Uyghur journalists, Zubayra Shamseden of the Washington-based Uyghur Human Rights Project said. “It is clear from the imprisonment of Uyghur journalists that China doesn’t want the international community to know anything about Uyghurs,” said Shamseden. “Uyghur journalists report on Uyghur issues. They are the voices of the Uyghur people in the world. By imprisoning Uyghur journalists, China is attempting to crush the voices of Uyghurs.” The report also noted that Israel saw a huge spike of journalist jailings last year, with all those known to be behind bars on the date of the census having been arrested in the West Bank. Additional reporting by Mamatjan Juma. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Two civilians die as fighting continues in northern Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/two-civilians-die-as-fighting-continues-in-northern-myanmar/): Fighting between the Kachin Independence Army and junta troops in northern Myanmar left two residents dead, locals told Radio Free Asia on Friday.  On Thursday morning, the Kachin Independence Army and other local resistance militias raided a police station and the three infantry battalions stationed in Mongmit, locals said. Junta troops soon retaliated by land and air, they added. Fighting flared up again Friday morning after a brief respite, residents said, with battles intensifying near the town’s center. The junta’s airstrikes continued into Friday afternoon, one local told RFA, declining to be named for security reasons.  &#8220;[The junta] is still firing now from a fighter jet. We had to hide in basements,” he said. “Now, there&#8217;s fighting near the police station and the market.” The jet dropped six bombs on Friday morning, he added.  Airstrikes were particularly heavy on Thursday, with at least 10 bombs damaging some residents’ homes, locals said. A 37-year-old man named Si Thu was killed by a bomb blast, they said. Another man in his 40s died of apparent heart failure. Three others were injured, they added. Because of the ongoing attack, families and aid organizations have not been able to collect the bodies, one resident said.  &#8220;One of the four injured in yesterday&#8217;s airstrike has died. Another pedestrian died after suffering a heart attack caused by the sound of explosions,” they said, declining to be named for fear of reprisals. “We have not moved their bodies yet. No one can go out.” Most of the village’s 10,000 residents have fled to nearby villages, he added. Residents told RFA that junta troops are strictly inspecting civilians fleeing through the city’s exits. Myanmar’s regime has not released any information about the fighting in Mongmit. RFA contacted Shan state junta spokesperson Khun Thein Maung and the Kachin Independence Army’s information officer Col. Naw Bu for comment, but neither answered by the time of publication on Friday.  Clashes between the Kachin Independence Army and junta troops have persisted since Monday in Kutkai and Mongmit townships. The KIA is not part of the alliance of ethnic armies that agreed a ceasefire with the junta on Jan. 11 in several townships across Shan state. That China-brokered ceasefire has already faltered with the Three Brotherhood Alliance claiming the junta launched airstrikes on Mongmit and two other townships in the northern state on Sunday The alliance also announced in a press release Wednesday that one of its members, the Myanmar Democratic National Alliance Army, had retaliated after the junta fired grenades at its troops. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Myanmar’s army is forcing residents to join pro-junta militias](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-army-is-forcing-residents-to-join-pro-junta-militias/): Myanmar’s military is pressuring residents in the southwestern Bago region to join pro-junta militias, offering them incentives such as money and rice, forcing them to pay fines if they refuse and even threatening to destroy their villages if they don’t comply, RFA Burmese has learned. The conscription drive comes amid reports of heavy losses suffered by the military in clashes with anti-junta forces in recent months, particularly in northern Myanmar’s Shan state where an alliance of ethnic resistance groups have seized 15 out of 22 townships since launching an offensive in October. Rebel gains since then have suggested that the country’s civil war, triggered by the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup d’etat, may be approaching a turning point. The pressure tactics come after the junta announced on Jan. 9 that it plans to “increase public defense and security systems to enforce public and regional security.” Residents said junta-appointed ward and village administrators began summoning residents to meetings last week to inform them of the plan. “Most people don’t want to join” the militias, said a resident of Thegon township who insisted on anonymity for personal safety, forcing villagers to scrape together cash to buy their way out of the conscription drive. “Those who can afford to, give money in order not to join,” said the resident. “But others neither join nor give 200,000 kyats (US$95) [to defer]. They can’t afford it … Every village is facing this problem. No one wants to join.” On Jan. 12, the junta ordered administrators in Thaegon to conscript 20 people per village, he said. They threatened to burn down villages that did not comply, saying they were siding with anti-junta People’s Defense Force, or PDF, paramilitary groups. In nearby Nattalin township, residents said that the junta has been conscripting militiamen since Jan. 11 by offering various “incentives.” “They force people to provide financial support for the ones who join,” said one resident. “In places where 50 people are conscripted, they plan to arm 10 of them and provide food as an incentive. They said the other 40 had to join as ‘reserves.’” 10 men from every 100 houses The resident said that administrators have been tasked with drafting 10 men from every 100 houses, resulting in 30-90 conscripts per village, depending on the size of the village. Heads of households are made to draw lots, and those selected must be provided a monthly subsidy of 5,000-20,000 kyats (US$2-10) per month by those who are not. Draftees are deployed as “community security,” the resident said, but must also serve in the military “if necessary.” Other sources in the region said that similar drives were underway since early January in the townships of Hpayargyi, Daik-U, Taungoo, Thandaung, Padaung, Shwedaung, Paungde and Paukkhaung.  Incentives included 120,000 kyats (US$57) and a sack of rice per month for those who join, while the cost of deferring ranged from 500,000-800,000 kyats (US$238-381). Protecting against ‘terrorists’ When contacted by RFA for comment, Tin Oo, the junta&#8217;s economic minister and spokesman for Bago region, said that residents were “preparing to protect their communities from violence.” “It depends on them [whether they want to join],” he said. “Some villages say that they do not allow these PDF ‘terrorists’ to enter their area at all. We know that many young people are joining the militias to protect their own community.” Lu Aye, information officer of the Thayarwady district PDF, said that the conscription is being implemented to replenish the depleted strength of the military. “The situation is always intense in Thayarwady district,” he said. “Mostly, we attack [the military] first. That’s why the junta needs to replenish the depleted strength of its soldiers with militiamen. And to be frank, they are forcing them to fight and die on behalf of the soldiers.” Other reports suggest that the junta has also launched conscription campaigns in Yangon and Ayeyarwaddy regions.  On Thursday, the No. 2 southern regional sub-command of the shadow National Unity Government’s Southern Command, issued a statement saying it will “take action” against anyone pressuring civilians to form militias for the junta. Tin Oo, the deputy commander of the No. 2 sub-command – which operates in Yangon, Bago and Ayeyarwaddy (and a different person than the junta minister with the same name) – told RFA that anyone involved in militia conscription will be “prosecuted under military law.” “We have urged the public to avoid [the drives] as much as possible,” said the deputy commander. “Our statement is aimed at stopping the forced recruitment immediately and, if it does not end, we will take effective action against those who are involved or supporting it. There is a war going on, so we will take action according to military law.” Forming militias is part of a junta bid to shore up military troop shortages and “drive a wedge between the people,” he added. Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
- [Only 3% of Taiwanese see themselves as primarily Chinese: US survey](https://ij-reportika.com/only-3-of-taiwanese-see-themselves-as-primarily-chinese-us-survey/): Only 3% of adults in Taiwan see themselves as primarily Chinese, despite Beijing insisting that Taiwan is a Chinese province and should be reunified with the mainland, a new survey has found. Some 67% of respondents to the survey said they were primarily Taiwanese and not Chinese, while 28% think of themselves as both Taiwanese and Chinese, U.S. Pew Research Center said in its report on Tuesday. 2% did not respond.  In total, 2,277 people took part in the survey which focused on how people in Taiwan think of their identity. Interviews were conducted via telephone, and the margin of error was 2.64. To the question “How emotionally attached do you feel to the country of China,” 11% of respondents said they are “very emotionally attached” while 32% answered “not at all attached.” Adults under the age of 35 are especially likely to identify as solely Taiwanese (83%), and women are more likely than men to do so (72% vs. 63%). Pew conducted the survey in the period between June 2 to Sept. 17, 2023, several months before the election that saw Lai Ching-te from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) elected president. The DPP, however, lost its majority in the 113-seat legislature after the Jan. 13 election to the more pro-Beijing Kuomintang. Tied to politics “Identity in Taiwan is tied to politics,” Pew’s researchers said, “Those who consider themselves primarily Taiwanese are most likely to align themselves with the DPP.” “Meanwhile, those who regard themselves as both Chinese and Taiwanese, or as primarily Chinese, are more aligned with the Kuomintang (KMT),” they said. At the parliament, the KMT won 52 seats to the DPP’s 51 seats. “Few in Taiwan are happy with how things are going there today,” the report said. Some 24% of respondents expressed satisfaction, while 32% were dissatisfied and 37% were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied.  Taiwan celebrates the arrival of 2024 with fireworks at Taipei 101 Tower in Taipei, Taiwan January 1, 2024. (Reuters/Ann Wang) Those who support the ruling DPP, as well as those who consider themselves primarily Taiwanese, were more likely to express satisfaction with how things are going in Taiwan. Only 10% of those who support the opposition KMT said they were content with the current situation. Most people across age groups and political alignments, even those who identify as primarily Chinese, consider China’s power and influence a threat to Taiwan, according to the survey. The survey found that 66% categorize it as a major threat, more than those who said the same about the United States (45%) or Russia (25%). Earlier research found DPP supporters favor the U.S. over China, while KMT supporters favor China over the U.S., the report added. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [China’s population falls and economy sputters](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-population-falls-and-economy-sputters/): China’s population fell by 2 million people last year, fueled by long-term decline in birth rates and a wave of deaths from COVID-19, as the country reported slower-than-expected economic growth in the fourth quarter despite government claims of a post-lockdown recovery. Economic expansion of 5.2% from October through December achieved the government’s target, but prospects for short-term growth remain hampered by a burst real estate bubble, weak consumer and business confidence and mounting local government debt. And the slump is proving a major obstacle in the government&#8217;s attempts to get people to have more children to boost consumption and curb the aging and shrinking of the population. The total number of people in China fell by 2.08 million, or 0.15%, to 1.409 billion in 2023, the National Bureau of Statistics reported on Wednesday, compared with a fall of 850,000 in the previous year. Total deaths last year rose by 6.6% to 11.1 million, with the death rate reaching the highest level since 1974, at the height of the political violence of the Cultural Revolution. Experts have estimated that the initial wave of Omicron that followed the lifting of three years of lockdowns, compulsory testing and mass quarantines under President Xi Jinping&#8217;s zero-COVID policy likely infected up to 1.2 billion people in China. As the first wave hit an under-vaccinated population, funeral homes and crematoriums were working around the clock to deal with a massive wave of deaths, leading experts to estimate that as many as 1 million people died. Mourners stand outside a crematorium as columns of smoke pour out of chimneys in Beijing, Dec. 31, 2022. (Ng Han Guan/AP) Meanwhile, new births fell 5.7% to 9.02 million and the birth rate was a record low 6.39 births per 1,000 people, down from a rate of 6.77 births in 2022. The working-age population of people aged 16 to 59 fell by more than 10 million, or just over 60% of the population, weakening attempts to spur recovery through domestic consumption alone. Youth unemployment Unemployment among 16-24 year-olds stood at 14.9%, according to the National Bureau of Statistics&#8217; revised calculation method, compared with more than 20% under the previous calculation method. Both the population figures and youth unemployment rates are highly sensitive topics for the ruling Communist Party, which is keen to sing the praises of the economy in a bid to boost people&#8217;s confidence in the future. An article leaking Wednesday&#8217;s official figures was deleted from China&#8217;s tightly controlled internet late last month. Yet even officials admitted that things were not all they could be. &#8220;The employment situation this year is still under pressure, while structural contradictions in the employment of some groups and some industries are prominent,&#8221; National Bureau of Statistics chairman Kang Yi told a news briefing in Beijing on Wednesday. Good things are happening with China’s economy, says National Bureau of Statistics Director Kang Yi during a press conference in Beijing, Jan. 17, 2024. (Image from National Bureau of Statistics video) &#8220;However, as the economy picks up and improves, as industrial transformation and upgrades accelerate, positive factors for stabilizing employment are also constantly on the increase,&#8221; he said. Economist Si Ling said most people aren&#8217;t buying the government&#8217;s upbeat claims, however. &#8220;There are issues with almost all of China&#8217;s macroeconomic performance and numerical statistics, the job market is bleak, and economic performance is really shocking,&#8221; he said.  &#8220;Unemployment is highest among the age group that used to find it easiest to get jobs, people under 20,&#8221; he said. &#8220;A serious lack of growth momentum coupled with unsatisfactory macroeconomic performance make it very hard to create new opportunities and to attract young people to join in [become economically active].&#8221; Facing crises? Chu Yue-chung, assistant professor of finance at the Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology, said few people will be taken in by the &#8220;recalculation&#8221; of the youth unemployment figures. &#8220;Logically speaking, under normal circumstances, the employment rate should be better among young people,&#8221; Chu said. &#8220;Businesses naturally want to hire young people because &#8230; older people want higher salaries.&#8221; &#8220;But this is not the reality, and there is a big problem with that.”   University graduates attend a job fair in Wuhan, China, Aug. 10, 2023. (AFP) U.S.-based economist Cheng Xiaonong, said China is facing an economic and financial crisis, yet the government is hoping to reassure foreign investors and stabilize business confidence, citing a Jan. 16 speech by ruling Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping in which he promised a &#8220;tough&#8221; approach to the financial sector. &#8220;Xi pointed out that efforts must be made to prevent and defuse financial risks, especially systemic risks,&#8221; state news agency Xinhua paraphrased him as saying. &#8220;Financial regulation must be &#8216;sharp and tough&#8217;.&#8221; &#8220;Local governments should not just do their financial work well, but also focus on the big picture, and manage well [the] financial risks under their jurisdiction and perform their duties well in maintaining stability,&#8221; it quoted Xi as saying. &#8220;Corruption must be resolutely cracked down on &#8230; and anyone in charge must be held accountable for risk control. We should also crack down on financial crimes,&#8221; he said. According to Cheng, Xi only had one message to put across in that speech. &#8220;That is, that the financial crisis is already here, and it can&#8217;t be resolved by conventional means,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s aimed mostly at domestic Chinese banks [because] he thinks bank officials and employees aren&#8217;t doing their best.&#8221; &#8220;He is saying he will blame them for bad debts incurred during his time in office, that they have to solve this, and if they can&#8217;t, they&#8217;ll be arrested,&#8221; Cheng said. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Days after ceasefire, northern Myanmar sees more battles](https://ij-reportika.com/days-after-ceasefire-northern-myanmar-sees-more-battles/): Fighting erupted between the junta and allied ethnic groups in northern Myanmar just days after the two sides agreed a ceasefire, according to a statement released Wednesday by the Three Brotherhood Alliance. The alliance accused junta soldiers remaining in Shan state’s Kokang of firing grenades, the statement said. It added that junta troops launched the weapons from 30 meters (98 feet) away while allied Kokang resistance fighters were stationed near Kachin mountain.  Despite the ceasefire reached during a third round of China-brokered peace talks in Kunming on Thursday night, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army retaliated and fighting began again around 4 p.m. on Tuesday.  The alliance claimed junta troops fired back three times with heavy weapons before retreating. Despite the ceasefire, it’s possible that remaining junta troops separated from the rest of the army would open fire and attack, a military analyst who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday. “The areas of Laukkai, Konkyan, and Yan Long Keng are very rough and it’s difficult to communicate there. It’s probably the remnants of the junta army that went into the forest during the [previous] battles,” he said.  “I am not sure whether they know about the ceasefire after the [Kunming] talks.” The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, one of the groups making up the Three Brotherhood Alliance, captured Laukkai city in Kokang’s Self-Administered Zone when more than 1,000 junta troops surrendered on Jan. 4  Although the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army sent the surrendering troops back to Lashio, some who were separated from the main group may have initiated the attack, military observers said. Both the alliance and regime announced their public agreement to the ceasefire on Friday. According to the agreement, all parties involved would immediately cease fighting in their current locations. Starting Friday, the Three Brotherhood Alliance agreed to refrain from attacks on cities and junta camps. Regime forces similarly committed to halting airstrikes and other heavy weapons attacks. However, tensions still run high. When the Kachin Independence Army launched an attack on a Kutkai military base Sunday night, the junta Defense Service released a statement claiming the Three Brotherhood Alliance’s Ta’ang National Liberation Army was involved.  Despite the ceasefire, the alliance is still preparing for future battles, claiming in a statement released Sunday that the regime is launching an offensive that began on Saturday. The statement added the junta is also responsible for airstrikes and heavy weapons attacks in Mongmit, Kutkai, and Kyaukme townships after the ceasefire agreement. RFA called Shan state junta spokesperson Khun Thein Maung and national junta spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for more information on these accusations, but calls went unanswered Wednesday. According to data compiled by RFA, in the more than two months since Operation 1027 launched on Oct. 27 to Friday’s ceasefire, the alliance captured 15 cities in northern Shan state. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [What role did China play in a rebel group’s victory in northern Myanmar?](https://ij-reportika.com/what-role-did-china-play-in-a-rebel-groups-victory-in-northern-myanmar/): When the Three Brotherhood Alliance of rebel groups in Myanmar started a campaign against junta forces in the northern part of the country they chose a slogan designed to win support from a fourth potential ally: China. “Wipe out the scammers, rescue our compatriots,” the group declared in the message.  China, which shares a border with Kokang, a region in Shan state in northern Myanmar, had expressed increasing frustration with organized crime rings that had been allowed to operate in the area by junta-aligned forces. An estimated 120,000 people are being held in Myanmar against their will. Chinese nationals have both been trafficked by these groups and fleeced by them.  The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army – which along with the Ta&#8217;ang National Liberation Army and the Arakan Army make up the Alliance – had tried and failed twice before to retake the region. This time, however, Kokang’s capital of Laukkai fell into rebel hands on Jan. 4.  Since then, China has played a clear role in mediating a truce between the two sides. But the initial success of the rebel campaign has led analysts to speculate that it had, in fact, received Chinese backing.  China’s leaders may have sought to kill &#8220;two birds with one stone,” according to Deng Yuwen, a political commentator and former journalist  – strengthening China’s position in the region while removing the destabilizing threat presented by the scam compounds. &#8220;The Chinese government can use the scamming operations as a way to secretly support local forces … and control the area that way,&#8221; Deng said.  &#8220;They solve the scamming problem and cultivate bold agents of the Chinese state at the same time,&#8221; he said, meaning China believes the new leaders of Kokang will better reflect its interests.  Chinese police arrest Chinese nationals allegedly involved in online scamming operations in Myanmar, Dec. 10, 2023. (Kokang officials) A ‘king’ and a coup Kokang has long been in China’s orbit, and many of its residents are ethnically Chinese. In the mid-20th century, Kokang served as a base for Myanmar communists.  With the collapse of the Communist Party of Burma in 1989, local warlord Peng Jiasheng – whose nickname was &#8220;the king of Kokang” – switched his allegiance to the junta. The military granted the region autonomy and allowed Peng to keep his military presence in the area, though China remained an important patron.  In 2009, Peng was ousted in a coup led by his second-in-command, Bai Suocheng, who consolidated his family&#8217;s control over the state. Bai allowed government troops to be stationed in Kokang for the first time while residents were granted Myanmar nationality.  Bai offered sanctuary to criminal groups in return for huge payouts that also benefited the junta. Eventually, massive, organized scam operations began to thrive in Kokang. China pushes back Last year, the Chinese government appeared fed up. In August, it took part in a joint operation with Myanmar and Thailand targeting the scam centers. Over the intervening months, more than 40,000 Chinese nationals were arrested in Shan state for involvement with online scams, according to data collected by RFA.  A number of powerful Kokang business people were arrested at a trade fair in China in October, and in November, Beijing issued arrest warrants for a well-connected Kokang politician and three family members on allegations of masterminding an online scam ring.  China’s Ministry of Public Security issued arrest warrants for 10 people, including the former chairman of the Kokang self-administered region, Bai Suocheng [top row, first left], his son Bai Yingcang [top row, second left] and his daughter Bai Yinglan [top row, third left]. (The Kokang) On Dec. 10, China&#8217;s Ministry of Public Security put out another wanted list, naming 10 individuals in connection with the scams, including Bai Suocheng, his grown children and a few junta officials. The move not only showed Beijing’s growing impatience with Myanmar&#8217;s handling of the scam rings, but signaled that China favored leaders in Kokang more closely aligned with its national interests. The prince’s plans After he had been dethroned as the king of Kokang, Peng Jiasheng resurfaced as the leader of the MNDAA, fighting Myanmar forces on occasion without significant success. When he died in 2022, his son, Peng Denren, took over and immediately made plans to reclaim control of his father’s lost territory. The Alliance launched “Operation 1027” – so-called for the on Oct. 27, 2023, date – offensive against Myanmar military strongholds in northern Myanmar. Even though the Alliance remained outnumbered by government troops, the rebel forces scored several significant victories early on. Its soldiers have since seized more than 300 military bases, around a dozen towns, and won control of several key trade routes with the neighboring Chinese province of Yunnan. Members of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army walk past a Myanmar military base after seizing it during clashes near Laukkaing township in Myanmar’s northern Shan state, Oct. 28, 2023. (Kokang Information Network/AFP) Suspicion over ‘foreign’ experts Myanmar&#8217;s junta chief in November claimed that the ethnic-minority armed groups were getting outside assistance, according to a report by Agence France-Presse.  He said the rebels had been using &#8220;drones with advanced technology&#8221; to attack junta positions and were aided by &#8220;foreign drone experts,&#8221; although he didn’t specify which country they came from. Li Jiawen, a spokesman for the MNDAA, denied the offensive was aided by the Chinese. &#8220;The situation we have today is the result of nearly 70 years of tyranny by the junta,&#8221; Li said. Even China’s tacit approval of the operation is important, Yun Sun, the director of the China Program at the Stimson Center, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, said in an interview with RFA. “The biggest support that China has lended to this organization is to not stop them,” she said.  Rebel forces were able to retreat over the border to avoid junta artillery barrages. China allowed the flow of money and goods in Shan state that helped to sustain the rebels to continue, Sun said.  And there was likely a psychological...
- [Chinese warships leave Cambodia’s Ream naval base](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-warships-leave-cambodias-ream-naval-base/): Two Chinese warships leading a training program for the Cambodian Navy since early December have left the Ream naval base, satellite imagery shows. Images captured on Jan. 15 and provided by the U.S. earth imaging company Planet Labs show an empty berth at the new pier, where the two People’s Liberation Army (PLA) corvettes were docked for several weeks. The ships were still seen as of Jan. 13, 2024. The new pier at Ream Naval Base on Jan. 13, 2024 (left) with two vessels and on Jan. 15 without any vessel. (RFA via Planet Labs) Radio Free Asia reported on Dec. 5, 2023 about the arrival of the PLA vessels – the first foreign warships to gain access to the new China-funded facility with a deep-draft pier that can accommodate aircraft carriers. A U.S. State Department spokesperson said at that time that Washington had “serious concerns” about China’s plans for exclusive control over portions of Ream Naval Base, and was watching closely. The Chinese ships provided on-ship and in-port training to Cambodian navy staff, according to the Ream naval base’s social media. They may have also taken part in confidence-building activities with the local navy and population, according to Carl Schuster, a retired U.S. Navy captain and former director of operations at the U.S. Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center. “All port visits have a political element,” Schuster told RFA, “Allowing ship tours to visitors from the town, working with local naval forces and meeting with local officials often are more important than the training activities.” People-to People Exchange Year The ships’ departure took place as Cambodia and China officially launched a new campaign to boost bilateral ties and tourism called “The 2024 Cambodia-China People-to-People Exchange Year.” Chinese and Cambodian media reported that a launching ceremony was held last Saturday in Siem Reap. Former Defense Minister Tea Banh, now a member of the Supreme Privy Council to King Sihamoni, and Li Shulei, a member of the Political Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee, presided over the event. Tea Banh said that the campaign “will inject fresh momentum into building a high-quality, high-level and high-standard Cambodia-China community with a shared future in the new era,” according to Xinhua news agency. Cambodian dancers at the launch ceremony of the 2024 Cambodia-China People-to-People Exchange Year on Jan. 13, 2024. (Tea Banh’s Facebook) Cambodia received 2.36 million Chinese tourists in 2019, accounting for 35.7% of total international tourist arrivals. China and Cambodia have seen a rapid development of their relationship, with Beijing providing Phnom Penh with much needed financial assistance. Siem Reap is where a new Chinese-financed airport began operations in October. The airport has a capacity of 7 million passengers a year and serves as a gateway to Cambodia’s most important tourist destination – the Angkor Temple complex. The Siem Reap-Angkor International Airport was funded by a Chinese company under Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative development plan.  Another big airport near the capital Phnom Penh is also being financed and developed by China. More than 40% of Cambodia’s US$10 billion in foreign debt is owed to China, according to the Cambodian Ministry of Economy and Finance. For its part, Phnom Penh has become one of Beijing’s vocal supporters. After the weekend’s elections in Taiwan, Cambodia immediately “reaffirmed its strong support for the One-China policy.” “In light of the recent developments in Taiwan, the Ministry reiterates Cambodia’s resolute adherence to the One China policy, recognising the People’s Republic of China as the sole legitimate authority representing the entirety of China,” Foreign ministry’s spokesman An Sokhoeun was quoted as saying by local media. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [Buddha hair relic raises questions about authenticity](https://ij-reportika.com/buddha-hair-relic-raises-questions-about-authenticity/): A Vietnamese pagoda has quietly returned a supposed Buddhist relic – eight hairs said to be from Sidartha Gautma, the founder of Buddhism – to Myanmar after questions arose over its authenticity. The relic was on display at the Ba Vang Pagoda in northern Vietnam from Dec. 23-27, receiving huge press in the country at the time of its arrival. The pagoda made a big deal about receiving the relic with a large ceremony to receive what it was calling one of Myanmar’s “national treasures.” But when RFA Vietnamese asked RFA Burmese to verify the story with religious experts in Myanmar, they said there was little if any archaeological or historical evidence to authenticate the relic. If it were widely believed to be legitimate, the relic would be far more well-known in Myanmar, a country that is 87% Buddhist.  After doubts about the relic appeared on social media, the pagoda returned it to its owners. Many objects believed to be sacred relics have dubious origins, a Buddhist monk who is a member of Myanmar&#8217;s highest State Buddhist Sangha Council, told RFA Burmese on condition of anonymity for security reasons due to commenting on sensitive religious issues.  &#8220;Any relics that we have today are due to [people] over-believing in something unreasonable,” he said. “People should use their own reasoning [to determine] whether [something like this] could be possible or not.&#8221;  RFA attempted to discuss the matter with the Myanmar military junta&#8217;s Religious Affairs Department, but both spokesmen declined to comment or were unavailable. A gift from the enlightened According to legend, the eight hairs were given to two Burmese merchants by the Buddha himself, who lived in the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. Ba Vang Pagoda and its abbot, the Most Venerable Thich Truc Thai Minh, said they had borrowed the relic for display from Parami Monastery and Parami International Buddha Relics Museum in Myanmar.  If genuine, it would mean that the relic was passed down through the generations from the two merchants until the museum became its steward.  RFA confirmed that both the monastery and the museum exist. They are both located in Yangon, but could not reach the spokesperson or a responsible representative of either. Although the story about the relic went viral on social and mainstream media in Vietnam, Myanmar’s media has had no coverage regarding the lending of its “national treasure” to Vietnam for exhibition, as had been reported in Vietnam. The reckoning The Giác Ngộ online newspaper under the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha, or VBS, reported that at its meeting on Jan. 4, 2023, the standing board of VBS’ Northern Executive Council discussed disciplinary action against the abbot Minh for being involved in the display of the Buddha hair relic. According to the Most Venerable Thich Duc Thien, the vice-chairman and secretary-general of the Executive Council, the Minh admitted fault in front of monks, nuns and Buddhist followers for the display that provoked public controversy and damaged the reputation of the sangha. The VBS accepted his penance, asking him and the pagoda not to organize any international exchanges at the pagoda over the next year, Thien told RFA. Translated by RFA Burmese and Vietnamese. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar’s junta threatens to raze villages to bolster army numbers](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-junta-threatens-to-raze-villages-to-bolster-army-numbers/): Myanmar’s military junta is recruiting villagers across more than 50 townships in the country’s central areas, locals told Radio Free Asia on Monday. Up to 50 residents per village are required to serve in the regime’s militia in Bago region chosen through a raffle system, they added.  The junta is recruiting civilians between the ages of 18 and 60 heavily from western and eastern Bago. Twenty villages in eastern Bago and 28 villages in western Bago have already been targeted, residents said. Village administration appointed by the regime has required eligible members of each household to enter a raffle system, where those selected must attend a month-long military training course.  If villagers don’t cooperate, soldiers have threatened to burn down their villages, said a resident in western Bago region who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons. To be excused from service, they must pay between 800,000 kyat [US$380] and one million kyat [$476]. “The [junta] ordered one person per household to enlist. If not, the village will be burned down. When [soldiers] say something like that, people are afraid because they are villagers. They cannot afford to give people from every single house,” he said. “People did not want their village to be burnt, so they agreed with the raffle system. Also, a soldier changed the requirement later to only 10 people from every single village who had to serve for the militia. But people who got selected by the raffle system to serve also do not want to join the militia.” To be exempt from the raffle, residents are required to pay 100,000 kyat [$47] per household, they said.  The military junta began asking for 50 people per village in eastern Bago starting from Friday, said a man from Hpa Yar Gyi village.  “The [junta] is asking for between 50 and 60 people from our area. Let’s say there are 10 people in this village’s section – if two people are selected to join, they must go when the junta calls, whether they are at work or not,” he told RFA. “They have to join militia training. The junta just says joining training, but they have to go to the frontline after.” The military has advertised that those who join the militia will be paid 120,000 kyat [$ 57] and provided a bag of rice per month, residents said.  The junta started to implement the scheme after a meeting between military chiefs and pro-junta political parties on Jan 6. Bago’s junta spokesperson Tin Oo told RFA Thursday that this method allows locals to protect their communities, adding that participating would help increase stability and public security.  “No one wants terrorism,” he said. “[Serving in the militia] allows them to defend their homes and that depends on them preventing People’s Defense Force terrorists from getting into their villages.” Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Cambodians need consumer rights NGOs in an era of scams and scandals](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodians-need-consumer-rights-ngos-in-an-era-of-scams-and-scandals/): Long gone is the heyday of Cambodia’s civil society, which a decade ago was the most vibrant and rumbustious in Southeast Asia.  The authoritarian Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), in power since 1979 and now firmly in control of a one-party state, saw it as a threat and has systematically crushed the public sphere since 2013. Some NGOs still exist and are performing brave work, but they have been greatly defanged and are petrified of lawsuits or dissolution by the ruling party.  Despite decades of tens of millions of dollars being pumped into Cambodia’s NGO sector, mainly from foreign governments, there has never been an association created that specifically represents the interests of consumers. There is apparently an NGO registered as the Cambodian Consumer Association, but it has no website and good luck trying to find out anything about its activity.  Leader of Cambodian People&#8217;s Party Hun Sen and his son Prime Minister Hun Manet release pigeons during a ceremony to mark the 45th anniversary of the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime in Phnom Penh on Jan. 7, 2024. (Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP) Consumers International, a global organization for consumer groups, has no affiliate in Cambodia, according to its website. “Without consumer protection associations,” a report on Cambodia stated, “there will be an imbalance of bargaining power between consumers, and producers and sellers of products and services. As a result, consumers’ rights are not fully protected.”  Indeed, on the one hand, consumption is increasing and habits are changing. Household final consumption expenditure rose to $18.1 billion in 2021, up from around $10 billion in 2011 and just $3.3 billion in 2001, according to World Bank figures. Cambodia’s e-commerce sector, difficult to regulate, is expected to surge in value to $1.78 billion in 2025, more than double what it was worth in 2020.  &#8216;Scam-state&#8217; Yet, there remain major concerns about the quality of products being sold, especially by traders on Facebook, and other consumer protection issues. Certainly not helping the situation, Cambodia has gotten a damaging reputation as a country of scammers—a “scam-state”, if you like. More and more Cambodians are also becoming consumers of government services, including the expanding healthcare sector, and contributors to the state through growing taxation collection.  On the other hand, business groups, foreign corporations and the country’s powerful tycoons, many of whom have married into the political aristocracy, are increasingly calling the shots. A Cambodian protest against a controversial law regulating non-governmental organizations in Phnom Penh, July 24, 2015. (Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP) Hun Manet, who took over as prime minister from his long-serving father in August, has pitched himself as a friend to the capitalist class. His young government spent months preparing for its first Government-Private Sector Forum in November, at which Hun Manet stressed: “Today’s forum is also a testament to the close cooperation and culture of dialogue between the government and the private sector to jointly address the problems and concerns of investors in order to promote private sector development in Cambodia”.  The claim made by the CPP throughout the decades is that economic freedom is more important than political freedom. Yet rather unequal freedom when one side (the businesses and producers) has vast institutional power and the ear of the premier, yet there are no comparable groups defending the interests of consumers.  Cambodia only adopted a Law on Consumer Protection in November 2019, and the commerce ministry created a National Programme on Consumer Protection last year. A lengthy report published in late 2021 by the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, titled Law in the Digital Age: Protection of Consumer Rights, noted that the “actual implementation of [the Law on Consumer Protection] in promoting and protecting consumer rights is questionable.”  Southeast Asian examples Chapter Seven of this report, titled “Legal and Practical Considerations for Establishing a Consumer Association in Cambodia,”  is an interesting read on this topic. The report recommended that “civil society and nongovernmental institutions need to play an outstanding role as check and balance agents in overseeing consumer rights promotion and protection in both traditional and electronic commerce. Civil society and NGOs shall urge, support, and join the establishment of consumer associations in different sectors to ensure that consumer rights to safety, rights to information, rights to choose, rights to be heard of concerns, and rights to redress are guaranteed.” Cambodian security officers detain protesters in prisoner uniforms as they demonstrate against a controversial law regulating non-governmental organizations outside the National Assembly building in Phnom Penh, July 26, 2015. (Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP) There are good examples across Southeast Asia. One is the Consumers Association of Singapore, a non-profit, non-governmental organization. It runs comparison websites that provide consumers with information on prices charged by companies for everyday necessities and energy. It operates an Accredited Businesses List so that consumers can check if companies are reputable. Importantly, consumers can also submit complaints on its websites which are then investigated.  Elsewhere in Southeast Asia, there is also the Federation of Malaysian Consumers Associations, the Myanmar Consumers’ Union, a Foundation for Consumers in Thailand and a Coalition for Consumer Protection and Welfare in the Philippines.  An overarching “Consumers Association of Cambodia” would be a welcome addition to the public sphere and, with the right funding, including from foreign donors, could engage in the same roles as the Singaporean counterpart. Yet, more targeted associations would also be needed.  Using public money One area could be in tax. In 2013, domestic tax revenue was just $900 million, or around $60 per capita. By 2022, it had spiked to $3.45 billion, or $206 per capita. As such, most Cambodians have become taxpayers as well as consumers of government services in recent years. The National Social Security Fund, a national healthcare insurance, has expanded rapidly in recent years and  Hun Manet vows to expand it further. State expenditure has increased from $409 million (13 percent of GDP) in 2013 to $7.9 billion (27 percent of GDP) in 2022. Yet there remains no “Taxpayers Alliance of Cambodia”. Such an association would lobby the government to...
- [Time is not on Myanmar junta's side, almost 3 years after coup](https://ij-reportika.com/time-is-not-on-myanmar-juntas-side-almost-3-years-after-coup/): In his televised New Year’s address to the country, Myanmar’s junta leader Min Aung Hlaing vowed to prioritize economic growth in 2024, apportioning all the blame for the country’s sharp economic contraction on the opposition his coup ousted almost three years ago.   Min Aung Hlaing made no mention of the military’s setbacks since the Three Brotherhood Alliance of ethnic armies in northern Myanmar launched their offensive on October 27, 2023. And while the losses, which include over 30 towns and the surrender of over 3,000 troops are real, the continued economic crisis remains the junta’s single largest vulnerability. Smoke rises from a burning Myanmar military compound amid clashes with armed group Ta&#8217;ang National Liberation Army in northern Shan State, Dec. 13, 2023. (AFP Photo) The economy has shrunk by 10-12 percent since the Feb. 1,  2021 coup that deposed the National League For Democracy-led government.  In a recent report, the World Bank predicted the country would only see 1% growth in 2024, given the “broad-based slowdown across productive sectors including agriculture, manufacturing, and trade.”  Over half the population is living beneath the poverty line, while the World Bank found that 40% of surveyed families saw a decline in income in 2023 compared to 2022. The kyat currency has lost half of its value since the coup and it now appears that the State Administrative Council (SAC), as the junta is formally known, has given up any hope of controlling it.  Forex woes In early December 2023, the Central Bank of Myanmar announced that it would no longer fix the exchange rate, allowing the currency to trade at market prices.  This was a tacit acknowledgement that the gap between the official rate of 2,100 kyat per U.S. dollar  and black market rate of 3,500 kyat per greenback was too large to ignore, and that the regime no longer had foreign exchange reserves to prop up the declining kyat.  The shortage of dollars also portends a further energy crisis. Electric black- and brown-outs have been common throughout the country, even in Naypyidaw. And shortages of gasoline and diesel increased in late-2023.  Fighters of Ta&#8217;ang National Liberation Army search a building after running over a compound belonging to Myanmar junta military in Shan State, Dec. 12, 2023. (AFP Photo) The SAC had subsidized energy imports by making dollars available to politically-connected energy importers at below market rates in order to ensure a steady supply of fuel. The junta no longer can afford that.  In late December, there were reports of tankers refusing to unload in Yangon’s Thaliwa port until they were paid, indicating a dire shortage of dollars. The regime has been encouraging border trade with China and Thailand, which is conducted in Chinese yuan or Thai baht. But the loss of key border areas is hampering that.  While SAC forces still control the border city of Muse, which handles almost 90% of border trade with China, the Three Brotherhood Alliance now controls the Mile 105 Trade Zone as well as a host of smaller border crossings, such as Chin Shwe Haw. Muse and Lashio are the only towns in northern Shan State that are still under junta control. Ethnic armies on the march The Three Brotherhood Alliance – Arakan Army, Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, and Ta’ang National Liberation Army – now controls almost all towns along highways 3 and 34, to the border.  Ta’ang National Liberation Army forces captured a military camp as far west as Nawnghkio, which is only 15 miles from Pyin Oo Lwin, home of the Defense Services Academy, though the Air Force has intensified airstrikes to retake the town.  Among advances by other ethnic armies, Karenni forces now control much of the state including the trade routes to Mae Hong Son in Thailand. The Karen National Union has been consolidating its position along the Thai border.  Fuel prices, delays at the border and increased transportation costs resulted in some $500 million in lost border trade in the two months following the launch of Operation 1027 in northern Shan State. Border trade accounts for 40% of exports and 21% of imports.  Myanmar Now, citing Commerce Ministry figures, found that exports to Thailand and China in the last 9 months of 2023 fell by $178 and $157 million, respectively. Residents of an improvised neighborhood gather to receive rice distributed by the World Food on the outskirts of Yangon, May 21, 2021. Over half the population in Myanmar live beneath the poverty line. (AFP Photo) Sector after sector have been hit hard.  In late November, the SAC stopped supplying fuel to industrial estates, calling on factory owners to negotiate their own energy purchases. In the key garment sector, 271 of 817 factories (33%) have shut down since the coup – due to shortages of foreign exchange to pay for raw materials, high energy prices, and the loss contracts and foreign investor unease with the human rights situation. Even Chinese-owned firms are closing. For those still employed, wages are stagnant and being eaten up by inflation, which remains high at 29%. Prices of staples, including rice, eggs, and cooking oil, have soared.  The junta refused to increase the minimum wage for workers, instead offering a 1,000-kyat (US$0.20) daily allowance. The current minimum wage was set in 2018. Myanmar Kyat notes are seen in a donation coffer at a Buddhist pagoda in Yangon, April 17, 2017. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP) The agriculture sector has been impacted by changing weather patterns and shortages of imported fertilizers and pesticides. While the cost of production has soared for farmers, in mid-September 2023, the junta imposed price ceilings on wholesale rice trade to stabilize prices for urban consumers. U.S.-imposed sanctions on the Myanma Investment and Commercial Bank and Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank, which were responsible for most of the U.S. dollar transactions, have crippled foreign trade. Singapore’s United Overseas Bank has been quietly closing Myanmar-linked accounts, further hampering their international transactions. In December 2023, three Myanmar nationals, including Kyaw Min Oo, the CEO of Sky Aviator, were...
- [Counting underway in Taiwan’s pivotal presidential election](https://ij-reportika.com/counting-underway-in-taiwans-pivotal-presidential-election/): Voting has ended and counting is underway in Taiwan’s presidential election, a ballot that will shape its future relationship with China and stance on independence and stability. Polls opened at 8:00 a.m. at nearly 18,000 locations, from the island’s south to its capital Taipei and closed at 4 p.m with votes immediately being counted and reported to the election authorities soon after. The result for Saturday’s election should be clear by late evening when the losers concede and the winner gives a victory speech. At stake is the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait between the Chinese mainland and the self-governed island, claimed by Beijing as its own, but equally important are bread-and-butter issues. Key candidates in the presidential race are: Vice President Lai Ching-te of the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Hou Yu-ih of the Beijing-favored Kuomintang (KMT) and Ko Wen-je of Taiwan’s People’s Party (TPP). Former physician and mayor of Tainan, Lai, known for his support of Taiwan independence, aims to continue President Tsai’s policies of maintaining Taiwan’s de facto independence amidst heightened tensions with Beijing. Facing challenges like slow wage growth and high housing costs, Lai’s DPP, once an opposition to the KMT’s rule, now faces criticisms of being the establishment. “Today is a glorious day, great weather to vote. I encourage everyone to go vote, demonstrate the vigor of Taiwanese democracy,” said Lai after casting his vote in his hometown of Tainan. “Let Taiwan continue to move forward.” Hou from the KMT, a former police officer and mayor of New Taipei City, represents a “Taiwanese flavor” in politics, which his party believes could help attract a broader voter base beyond its traditional supporters; he advocates for dialogue with Beijing under the “1992 consensus” to reduce cross-strait tensions. However, the viability of this consensus is in question since Chinese President Xi Jinping’s 2019 interpretation aligned it with a stringent “one China principle,” echoing the increasingly restrictive model seen in Hong Kong. “I am very happy to see people voluntarily come out to vote early in the morning. This demonstrates a very important voting behavior of Taiwanese democracy in the electoral process – where democracy is used to select the most ideal president, vice president and legislators,” said Hou after voting in New Taipei City. “More importantly, no matter how chaotic the election process is, everyone must unite after the election.” Ko, a former surgeon turned politician, founded the TPP four years ago, focusing on domestic issues like energy and housing, after a surprising victory in Taipei&#8217;s mayoral race as an independent. While the TPP isn’t strong enough to dominate the legislature, Ko aims to position it as a parliamentary power broker, advocating for a coalition with the KMT and offering a “third choice” to voters, with policies aligning more closely with the KMT’s stance on China. Asked by journalists how he felt after casting his ballot in Taipei, Ko said:”Keep a normal mind, finish what one needs to finish every day, and plan for the next stage after each is completed.” An official of a polling station holds up a ballot slip, as vote counting for the presidential elections commences, at a high school in New Taipei City on January 13, 2024. (Sam Yeh / AFP) Just hours before the polls got underway China continued to assert its presence in the region. Taiwan’s defense ministry said eight People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft and six PLA Navy vessels were detected around the island as of 6 a.m. local time, with one aircraft entering Taiwan&#8217;s Air Defense Identification Zone. Some voters may be dissuaded from supporting independence-leaning candidates by China&#8217;s military threats, but the United States has pledged support for whichever government forms. A White House official said on Wednesday that U.S. President Joe Biden will send an “unofficial” delegation of former officials to Taiwan following the presidential elections. Aside from tensions with China, the Taiwan election is also predominantly determined by domestic concerns. In November 2023, Taiwan&#8217;s statistics bureau reported its GDP growth forecast as 1.42%, the lowest since 2008. Taiwan is grappling with soaring housing prices, ranked among the highest globally, while its wage levels were among the lowest compared to other developed economies, according to March figures. The outcome of the elections will also impact the security and economy of neighboring countries like Japan and South Korea. Taro Aso, the former Prime Minister of Japan, recently warned that China’s territorial claims on Taiwan could lead to a dire crisis for Japan, necessitating Tokyo’s intervention in the Taiwan Strait during any conflict to protect its citizens. Additionally, a Bloomberg Economics report released on Tuesday indicated that South Korea’s GDP would face the second-largest drop, after Taiwan, if a war were to break out between China and the democratic island. A woman casts her vote in the presidential election at a polling station in a temple in New Taipei City on Jan. 13, 2024. (Alastair Pike/AFP) Experts who spoke to Radio Free Asia said they believe maintaining the status quo is considered the safest approach regardless of the outcome of the elections.  Despite Beijing’s ongoing threats to use force to reclaim Taiwan, there’s little belief in an immediate invasion by China, they said, citing several factors at play: Taiwan’s determination to maintain its freedom and identity, the relations between Washington and Beijing, and the U.S.’s commitment to protecting Taiwan’s interests. Above all, the economic cost of a conflict could be devastating for the region and the world. For one, Taiwan is the leading global producer of the most advanced semiconductors.  Beyond the presidential and vice presidential elections, there are also 113 legislative seats up for grabs. More than 83% of the total population, or approximately 19.55 million voters, are eligible to cast their ballot. In 2020, DPP President Tsai Ing-wen and her running mate Lai won over 8.17 million votes, or 57.13% of the total, to defeat Han Kuo-yu and Chang San-cheng of the KMT. Additionally, a majority of seats was gained by the DPP in the...
- [Experts denounce trips to Xinjiang as ‘genocide tourism’](https://ij-reportika.com/experts-denounce-trips-to-xinjiang-as-genocide-tourism/): The Chinese government has thrown open the door for tourists to Xinjiang. Or at least those it deems worthy of an invite.  While officials previously let in diplomats, journalists and those considered “friends of China,” they are now presenting the restive far-western region as a tourist destination of sorts in a bid to remove some of the tarnish from China’s image as a human rights violator in the far-western region in the eyes of the international community. Nearly 400 delegations and groups consisting of more than 4,300 people from various countries and international organizations visited the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in 2023, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a press conference on Jan. 5.  Visitors included government officials, diplomats, religious figures, experts, scholars, and journalists as well as ordinary travelers, he said. Unlike travel in the rest of China, however, visits remain by invitation only and visitors are led on government-sponsored tours.  These include trips to mosques and heritage sites “to see how Xinjiang’s traditional culture is protected,” Wang said. “They went to local factories, businesses and farms to learn about Xinjiang’s production and development, and visited ordinary households where they saw the happy life of people of various ethnic groups.” “Seeing is believing,” he said. “People are not blind to the truth. For certain countries, they are comfortable telling lies about genocide and forced labor in Xinjiang…. Xinjiang will keep its door open to the world.”  Foreign envoys visit an exhibition on Xinjiang&#8217;s anti-terrorism and de-radicalization work in Urumqi, capital of northwestern China&#8217;s Xinjiang region, Aug. 4, 2023. (Zhao Chenjie/Xinhua via Getty Images) The move comes as China gets ready for its fourth Universal Periodic Review, or UPR — a Human Rights Council mechanism that calls for each U.N. member state to undergo a peer review of its human rights records every 4.5 years. The review is scheduled to be held in Geneva, Switzerland, on Jan. 23. Authorities have tightly controlled who enters Xinjiang, where harsh repression of Uyghurs and other Muslims in recent years has amounted to genocide and crimes against humanity, according to the United States, the United Nations, the parliaments of other Western countries and human rights groups.  Authorities in Xinjiang have detained an estimated 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims, destroyed thousands of mosques and banned the Uyghur language in schools and government offices. China has said that the “re-education camps” have been closed and has denied any policy to erase Uyghur culture. A recent CBS documentary on China’s “rebranding” effort shows surveillance cameras and facial recognition devices monitoring Uyghurs. The name of the ancient town of Kashgar appears in Chinese as “Kashi” on signs and billboards, while the 15th-century Id Kah Mosque — closed to local Muslims since 2016 — has been transformed into a tourist attraction. Through the scripted travel junkets, the Chinese government is spreading a narrative that Uyghurs live happy lives to cover up Beijing&#8217;s severe human rights violations in Xinjiang, experts on the region said. Foreign visitors, in turn, have perpetuated the narrative through photos and posts on their social media accounts. Criticism from rights groups The dissemination of propaganda and China’s efforts to enhance the image of Xinjiang have sparked criticism from human rights groups.  Claudia Bennett, a legal and program officer at Human Rights Foundation, said the orchestrated visits conceal the harsh realities of forced family separations, arbitrary detentions of millions in concentration or forced labor camps, and thousands of Uyghurs living in exile and forcibly rendered stateless.  “In a strategic effort to legitimize its colonization of the Uyghur region, the Chinese Communist Party carefully organizes propagandist visits for diplomats, journalists and religious scholars,” she told Radio Free Asia. “These tours are designed to whitewash the CCP’s gross human rights violations.” The U.S.-based Uyghur Human Rights Foundation, or UHRP, called the visits “genocide tourism” in a report issued last Aug. 30, saying that they help China conceal genocide and crimes against humanity occurring in Xinjiang. Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress, took the criticism of the junkets a step further. “Collaborating with China’s propaganda equates to complicity in genocide – a grave crime,” he said. “Humanity will not forget, and the Uyghur nation will not forget. Those involved will be held accountable before history.&#8221; Hector Dorbecker, counselor for economic-commercial and financial affairs at the Embassy of Mexico in Beijing, tries to play dutar, a long-necked two-stringed lute, in Jiayi village of Xinhe county in northwestern China&#8217;s Xinjiang region, Aug. 2, 2023. (Zhao Chenjie/Xinhua via Getty Images) Travel and excursion propaganda to portray life in Xinjiang as normal is part of “Beijing’s current strategy,&#8221; explained Adrian Zenz, an expert on China’s policies in Xinjiang.  “They are showing Uyghurs and Uyghur culture, but not real and free people or culture, but a hollowed out version, a mummified version, like a CCP museum,” said Zenz, director of China studies at the U.S.-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. With the U.N.’s UPR session on the horizon, there can be little doubt that Beijing is touting the visits as a way to counter criticism of its policies in Xinjiang, said Sophie Richardson, former China director at Human Rights Watch. The main problem with the UPR, however, is that there are no penalties for failing to comply or to correct abuses, Richardson added. “Beijing has proven just how easy it is to manipulate the process to keep independent civil society, both inside and outside China, out of the process … and to submit a national report that is breathtakingly dishonest in its claims to upholding human rights.” Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Abby Seiff.
- [Ex-junta official says Shan state ceasefire is ‘not sustainable’](https://ij-reportika.com/ex-junta-official-says-shan-state-ceasefire-is-not-sustainable/): Junta officials and a resistance alliance agreed to a temporary ceasefire during talks in China, a person attending the meeting told Radio Free Asia on Friday morning. The Three Brotherhood Alliance and regime representatives reached the decision during peace talks in China’s Kunming on Thursday. The agreement was signed into effect at 10 p.m., the anonymous source said, asking RFA not to disclose his name because he was not authorized to talk to the media.  As a result of the discussion, the allied Arakan Army, Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, and Ta’ang National Liberation Army agreed to cease capturing cities and military camps in northern Shan state. Junta officials agreed not to instigate aerial attacks and operate heavy weaponry. China’s border with Myanmar would be re-opened after renegotiation among the three northern alliances, junta officials and China when the area is more stable, the meeting attendee said.  This decision is a result of Chinese pressure and would not be sustainable in the long run, said an ex-military official, who asked RFA to protect his identity for safety reasons.   “This ceasefire is due to pressure from China. China definitely put pressure on both sides, because Yunnan’s industrial products are affected. Because of this, a ceasefire agreement was reached before the resolution was clear,” he said.  “This halt is a breather for the junta council. The Three Brotherhood Alliance also breathed a sigh of relief. And China also breathes a sigh of relief. But I want to say that this is not a long-term, stable situation.” Neither party could deny it was a result of Chinese pressure, said Dr. Hla Kyaw Zaw, a political and military analyst based in China. “There are pros and cons. Some say this could set back the Spring Revolution. I don’t think so. As for the northern group, they still need to rest in order to prepare their armies in peace, and the ceasefire is temporary,” she told RFA.  “It’s a good thing to stop temporarily and politically discuss. They also need to be free to discuss. There may be some consideration for what China wants [from the Three Brotherhood Alliance] when China intervenes.” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning voiced Beijing’s support for the ceasefire at a regular news conference Friday. “China hopes the relevant parties in Myanmar can conscientiously implement the agreement, exercise maximum restraint toward each other and solve the issues through dialogue and consultations,” she said, adding that the ceasefire was also in China’s interests. “The two sides promised not to undermine the safety of Chinese people living in the border area and Chinese projects and personnel in Myanmar,” she said. A previously reported cease-fire was not honored by either side. The result of this discussion is only for northern Shan state and would not apply to Rakhine state, added the meeting attendee. The Arakan Army’s attacks have also impacted Chinese development projects in Rakhine. On Monday morning, the Arakan Army launched an offensive on a junta naval base in a Chinese special economic zone.  Representatives from the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, Arakan Army, and Ta’ang Liberation Army attended the meeting, said the anonymous source. Lt. Gen. Min Naing and five members from the military council also attended, he added, as well as China’s special representative Deng Xin Jun. Since Operation 1027 launched on October 27, 2023, 15 out of 22 townships in northern Shan state have been occupied by northern resistance groups, according to data compiled by RFA.  Combined troops from Karenni National Defense Force, People’s Liberation Army, Bamar People’s Liberation Army have captured six cities across Shan state, including Chinshwehaw, Kunlong and Hsenwi.  The United Wa State Army has since captured Hopang and Pan Lon cities.  The Ta’ang Liberation Army also seized Namhsan and Manton, in addition to other cities in Ta’ang Self-Administered Zone, including Namhkam, Mongngawt, and Namtu cities. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Kokang handover of towns to Wa rebels seen as boon to Myanmar resistance](https://ij-reportika.com/kokang-handover-of-towns-to-wa-rebels-seen-as-boon-to-myanmar-resistance/): The handover to ethnic Wa fighters of two towns seized from the military by Kokang rebels last week is likely part of a bid to elicit their support in the fight against the junta and deals a blow to the regime’s hold on power in northern Myanmar, observers said Thursday. On Jan. 4, fighters with the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, stormed the junta’s Kokang regional command center in Laukkaing township – the largest base in northern Shan state near the Chinese border – prompting soldiers in the facility to lay down their arms, despite the military’s attempt to defend the facility from afar with artillery fire and airstrikes. A day later, the MNDAA seized the towns of Pang Long and Hopang from the military in the Wa Self-Administered Region’s Hopang township, located around 6.5 kilometers (4 miles) away from Laukkaing’s town of Chinshwehaw. Under MNDAA protection, armed troops with the United Wa State Army, or UWSA, later entered the townships as some 700 junta troops and their family members retreated to the Wa region town of Lashio. A military analyst, who spoke to RFA Burmese on condition of anonymity due to security reasons, noted that the MNDAA and UWSA are former allies and said the MNDAA made the handover to ensure relations between the two groups remain on good terms. “[The MNDAA] will not maintain friendship with the Wa if [they] establish an administrative system by themselves [in Hopang and Pang Long] as they did in Chinshwehaw and [nearby] Kunlong after seizing those towns,” the analyst said. Hopang and Pang Long are part of an area formerly controlled by the UWSA that was handed over to the then-military regime, the State Law and Order Restoration Council, as part of a negotiated ceasefire agreement. “So it was expected that the [MNDAA] would attack Hopang and Pang Long and hand them to the Wa, even though the Wa were not involved in the fight to occupy them,” the analyst said. The MNDAA had taken control of Chinshwehaw after the start of Operation 1027, an offensive it launched along with the Ta’ang National Liberation Army and the Arakan Army as part of the so-called Three Brotherhood Alliance of ethnic armies in late October that has since reportedly captured 10 townships in northern Shan state and seized control of more than 200 junta camps. Wa assumes control On Wednesday, the MNDAA handed over Pang Long and Hopang to the UWSA, which controls territory connected to the two townships, in a formal ceremony, according to residents and UWSA officials. The UWSA is Myanmar’s largest ethnic army, and in November had vowed to remain neutral amid Operation 1027. Myint Than, a resident of Hopang, told RFA that the UWSA “greeted locals cordially” during the handover and noted that while junta troops and their families had left, “it is not true that the [ethnic majority] Bamars were driven out.” “The Bamars have been operating clothing stores, all of which have been allowed to reopen,” she said. “It is likely that those who have joined the [anti-junta] Civil Disobedience Movement [boycotting state jobs under the military regime] will be re-employed.” The handover ceremony for the Myanmar towns of Hopang and Panglong on Jan. 10, 2024 drew a crowd. (Citizen journalist) The 2008 constitution designated the six townships of Hopang, Mongmao, Pangwaun, Narphan, Matman, and Pangsang/Pangkham of northeastern Shan state as the Wa Self-Administered Region. With the handover of Hopang township, the junta only controls Matman township, while the UWSA now controls the remaining five townships. Residents told RFA that the UWSA informed them they will be issued residential permits, which will allow them to travel freely within the entire Wa region. Handover ‘a positive’ for resistance A former military officer, who also declined to be named for fear of reprisal, said the junta is likely incensed by the handover, as Pang Long was home to a military base and a key part of its territory in northern Shan state. “To be frank, [the UWSA] managed to outwit them by taking those towns without a fight,” the officer said. “The military will not be pleased. The Wa have broken the status quo by taking these two towns.” Hla Kyaw Zaw, a political and military observer based in China, said that the UWSA’s occupation of Hopang and Pang Long would be good for the resistance. “I see the gradual unity of ethnic groups as a positive [for anti-junta forces],” she said. “The Wa focus on the interests of their own people and the MNDAA has said that its main goal is to regain the [ethnic] Kokang region and form a special region again. They realize that it would be impossible for them to do so only by freeing their own people.” “Since they understand that the whole country needs to be free from the military dictatorship, I believe they will assist the resistance, which will benefit the revolution,” she added. Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
- [China helps world achieve record renewable energy growth](https://ij-reportika.com/china-helps-world-achieve-record-renewable-energy-growth/): China’s “extraordinary” acceleration in renewable energy capacity propelled 2023 to witness the fastest global growth rate in over twenty years, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in a new report on Thursday. The world’s annual additions to renewable electricity generation capacity soared by nearly 50%, reaching approximately 510 gigawatts (GW) &#8211; marking the 22nd consecutive year of setting new records in renewable capacity growth, the Paris-based IEA said in its Renewables 2023 report.  According to the report, China’s deployment of solar PV (photovoltaic) in 2023 increased by 116%, matching the global total of 2022, while its wind power installations increased by 66% compared to the previous year. The report predicted that the next five years will see the fastest growth yet, but warned the lack of financing for emerging and developing economies is a vital issue. The current expansion of renewable power has made the COP28 goal of tripling global capacity to at least 11,000 GW by 2030, which more than 130 governments agreed to during the climate change conference last month in Dubai. China, India, and Indonesia did not join the pledge due to its accompanying anti-coal stance and the more demanding goal of doubling the average annual rate of energy efficiency improvements to 4%. “Onshore wind and solar PV are cheaper today than new fossil fuel plants almost everywhere and cheaper than existing fossil fuel plants in most countries,” IEA’s executive director Fatih Birol said. “For me, the most important challenge for the international community is rapidly scaling up financing and deployment of renewables in most emerging and developing economies, many of which are being left behind in the new energy economy.” “Success in meeting the tripling goal will hinge on this.” This infographic shows renewable electricity capacity growth by country/region between 2005 and 2028. (IEA) Under existing policies and market conditions, global renewable power capacity is expected to grow to 7,300 GW by 2028, with renewables overtaking coal to become the largest source of global electricity generation by early 2025, according to IEA projection. The growth trajectory is about 2.5 times its current level, which is still short of the tripling goal by 2030. Asia-Pacific progress report The world’s second-biggest economy, China, has a renewable energy capacity to triple the previous five years’ increase of 2,000 GW in the next five years, making up 56% of the global increase, IEA said. From 2023 to 2028, China will add almost four times more renewable capacity than the European Union and five times more than the US, the second and third-largest growth market.  According to IEA’s forecast, the world’s renewables “powerhouse” is expected to reach its national 2030 target for wind and solar PV installations &#8211; 1,200 GW &#8211; this year, six years ahead of schedule. By 2028, almost half of China’s electricity generation will come from renewable energy sources. A solar farm operates next to Donggou village near Shijiazhuang city in northern China&#8217;s Hebei province, Nov. 10, 2023. (Ng Han Guan/AP) Apart from China, the rest of Asia will see renewable capacity grow by 430 GW by 2028, a 73% increase from 2022 levels, with India driving half of the regional growth and ASEAN adding 14%.  India is projected to add 205 GW by 2028, doubling its 2022 capacity, and is poised to become the third-largest global market for renewables.  The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is expected to increase renewable capacity by a combined 63 GW by 2028, IEA said. Southeast Asia has the potential to offer one of the highest global renewable growth possibilities, the IEA said, but would require “more ambitious renewable energy targets and prompt implementation of long-term, transparent, and competitive support policies.” In major Southeast Asian economies such as Indonesia, Vietnam, and Thailand, regulations and policy support gaps hinder renewable energy growth and project development. The overcapacity of young, contract-bound fossil fuel power plants, particularly coal and gas, impedes the transition to renewable energy by financially disincentivizing utilities from investing in new renewable projects.  Vietnam’s rapid solar PV boom, with installations reaching 20 GW in 2019-2020, has led to challenges in integration, with a pressing need for more investment in transmission and distribution infrastructure. Last year, Vietnam and Indonesia signed into the Just Energy Transition Programme in a shift towards reassessing and potentially retiring older conventional plants, aided by international financial support to alleviate government budget pressures. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [World Bank urges Laos to raise VAT tax and taxes on tobacco, alcohol](https://ij-reportika.com/world-bank-urges-laos-to-raise-vat-tax-and-taxes-on-tobacco-alcohol-2/): Laos should raise its value-added tax rate and also increase taxes on cigarettes and alcohol as part of efforts to address high inflation and currency depreciation, the World Bank said. The government should also spend more money on health care and education to lay a foundation for future development, the bank’s representative in Laos, Alex Kremer, said in a report released last month. But the World Bank’s tax recommendations were mostly aimed at tackling Lao’s current troubled economy, which has struggled with rapidly rising prices, low foreign investment and public debt that could grow to 125 percent of GDP this year. The massive amount of debt, which reached US$18.7 billion at the end of 2022, has destabilized the country’s macroeconomy and slowed economic growth, Kremer said in the report. Just over half of the debt is owed to China, which helped Laos build the US$6 billion Lao-China High Speed Railway as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. Other major Chinese investments include roads and hydropower dams. Mining projects and local jobs Meanwhile, the government approved 192 concession projects last year worth almost US$5 billion in 2023, more than double the number from the previous year, according to the Ministry of Planning and Investment. Most of the investors are from China and Vietnam who are focused on the country’s mining, energy and agricultural sectors, the ministry said in a report. Projects approved by the government in 2022 were worth US$2.3 billion, according to the ministry. Most of the projects are in the mining sector, which could create more jobs for local people as companies seek to extract gold, ore and other minerals, according to an official who is familiar with the country’s planning and investment sector . “Of course, there are some impacts but they are not big problems,” he said. “There will be damage to local roads, but the investing companies are responsible for that. Some local people will have opportunities to work as daily workers.” Debt servicing Service payments on the country’s debt – the regular payments required by loan issuers that include interest and principal – could rise to 39 percent of GDP, the World Bank said. Laos’ currency, the kip, depreciated 29% against the Thai baht and 21% against the U.S. dollar last year. The main cause of the depreciation was a shortage of foreign currencies needed to pay down the debt and fund development projects, according to the World Bank. Similar to a sales tax, the value-added tax, or VAT, is added to the price of a product or service at each stage of production. Raising it from 7% to 10% and bringing in more revenue from tobacco and alcohol sales would help stabilize the government’s finances, Kremer said.  The Lao government has also been cracking down on corruption, selling government assets and eliminating ineffective state enterprises. New import-export requirements An official from Laos’ national bank, the Bank of the Lao PDR, told Radio Free Asia that other measures to get inflation under control, such as mandating exchange rates and enforcing the law on foreign currency management, haven’t been working. “We’ve failed to control exchange rates, even after we shut down all money exchange outlets,” he said, requesting anonymity for safety reasons like other sources in this report. “But we can’t inspect everything and everywhere.”  The Lao Ministry of Industry and Trade on Dec. 29 unveiled a new rule that requires all import-export companies to register with the government and to conduct all foreign transactions only through banks in Laos.  “We want the companies to make payments through the banks in Laos so that more foreign currencies will be in the system,” an official from the Lao Ministry of Finance said. Most commercial banks in Laos aren’t able to sell foreign currencies to customers, according to an official of the Joint Development Bank’s Luang Prabang branch. “We only buy foreign currencies,” he said. “If customers really need foreign currencies, they can write a formal letter requesting to buy foreign currencies from any banks.” Because of the government enforcement on foreign currency, business people in Laos have turned to the black market for foreign currency, an employee of an import-export company that brings in goods from Thailand told RFA. Translated by Phouvong. Edited by Matt Reed.
- [World Bank urges Laos to raise VAT tax and taxes on tobacco, alcohol](https://ij-reportika.com/world-bank-urges-laos-to-raise-vat-tax-and-taxes-on-tobacco-alcohol/): Laos should raise its value-added tax rate and also increase taxes on cigarettes and alcohol as part of efforts to address high inflation and currency depreciation, the World Bank said. The government should also spend more money on health care and education to lay a foundation for future development, the bank’s representative in Laos, Alex Kremer, said in a report released last month. But the World Bank’s tax recommendations were mostly aimed at tackling Lao’s current troubled economy, which has struggled with rapidly rising prices, low foreign investment and public debt that could grow to 125 percent of GDP this year. The massive amount of debt, which reached US$18.7 billion at the end of 2022, has destabilized the country’s macroeconomy and slowed economic growth, Kremer said in the report. Just over half of the debt is owed to China, which helped Laos build the US$6 billion Lao-China High Speed Railway as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. Other major Chinese investments include roads and hydropower dams. Mining projects and local jobs Meanwhile, the government approved 192 concession projects last year worth almost US$5 billion in 2023, more than double the number from the previous year, according to the Ministry of Planning and Investment. Most of the investors are from China and Vietnam who are focused on the country’s mining, energy and agricultural sectors, the ministry said in a report. Projects approved by the government in 2022 were worth US$2.3 billion, according to the ministry. Most of the projects are in the mining sector, which could create more jobs for local people as companies seek to extract gold, ore and other minerals, according to an official who is familiar with the country’s planning and investment sector . “Of course, there are some impacts but they are not big problems,” he said. “There will be damage to local roads, but the investing companies are responsible for that. Some local people will have opportunities to work as daily workers.” Debt servicing Service payments on the country’s debt – the regular payments required by loan issuers that include interest and principal – could rise to 39 percent of GDP, the World Bank said. Laos’ currency, the kip, depreciated 29% against the Thai baht and 21% against the U.S. dollar last year. The main cause of the depreciation was a shortage of foreign currencies needed to pay down the debt and fund development projects, according to the World Bank. Similar to a sales tax, the value-added tax, or VAT, is added to the price of a product or service at each stage of production. Raising it from 7% to 10% and bringing in more revenue from tobacco and alcohol sales would help stabilize the government’s finances, Kremer said.  The Lao government has also been cracking down on corruption, selling government assets and eliminating ineffective state enterprises. New import-export requirements An official from Laos’ national bank, the Bank of the Lao PDR, told Radio Free Asia that other measures to get inflation under control, such as mandating exchange rates and enforcing the law on foreign currency management, haven’t been working. “We’ve failed to control exchange rates, even after we shut down all money exchange outlets,” he said, requesting anonymity for safety reasons like other sources in this report. “But we can’t inspect everything and everywhere.”  The Lao Ministry of Industry and Trade on Dec. 29 unveiled a new rule that requires all import-export companies to register with the government and to conduct all foreign transactions only through banks in Laos.  “We want the companies to make payments through the banks in Laos so that more foreign currencies will be in the system,” an official from the Lao Ministry of Finance said. Most commercial banks in Laos aren’t able to sell foreign currencies to customers, according to an official of the Joint Development Bank’s Luang Prabang branch. “We only buy foreign currencies,” he said. “If customers really need foreign currencies, they can write a formal letter requesting to buy foreign currencies from any banks.” Because of the government enforcement on foreign currency, business people in Laos have turned to the black market for foreign currency, an employee of an import-export company that brings in goods from Thailand told RFA. Translated by Phouvong. Edited by Matt Reed.
- [Fighting across western Myanmar kills 4 and displaces 45,000](https://ij-reportika.com/fighting-across-western-myanmar-kills-4-and-displaces-45000/): At least three battles raged between Myanmar’s junta and the Arakan Army across three western townships on Wednesday, locals told Radio Free Asia.  One civilian died during attacks on Wednesday and three others were injured across Rakhine state’s Minbya and Kyauktaw townships, with 25,000 people forced to flee, residents said. The injuries and death occurred when heavy artillery from the junta landed in Kyauktaw township’s Ah Pauk Wa village.  Dak Maung, a man from Ah Pauk Wa, died instantly, while three others, including Ah Tun Che, Aung Tun Mya and Aung Mya Thar, were injured, locals said. On Wednesday, a Kyauktaw-based junta artillery battalion shelled the village with heavy weapons at random, a resident who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons told RFA. “They started shooting around 4:30 a.m. More than 10 heavy shells were fired by Battalion 377,” he said. “They shot at the village although there was no fight.” Almost all 5,000 people from Ah Pauk Wa have fled to safety, he added. Fighting in Minbya township’s capital, Minbya town, also continued into Wednesday after raging through the night, residents said. Villagers said they learned that the Arakan Army initiated the attack by firing at military camps in Minbya on Tuesday evening. The army retaliated on the ground and by air using fighter jets.  “We have been hearing the sounds of heavy artillery being fired since Tuesday evening. This morning we heard the sound of small arms being exchanged,” said one resident on Wednesday, declining to be named for fear of reprisals.  “We came to know that the Arakan Army has attacked military battalions 379, 380 and 541 at a junta camp in Minbya&#8217;s Kyein Taung. Two jet fighters are shooting now.” More than 20,000 residents from Minbya and nearby villages have fled to safety due to the battles, locals said. Some local residents were injured by the junta’s shelling, but details regarding injuries and casualties have not been released about this attack yet.  However, to Minbya’s north, at least 15 junta soldiers were killed in a battle between the Arakan Army and regime soldiers, according to a statement released by the Arakan Army Tuesday night.  In Rakhine’s Mrauk-U, fighting erupted on Tuesday and junta soldiers from infantry battalion 540 captured three civilians. While walking into the city of Mrauk-U, soldiers shot the civilians and killed them, the statement added. RFA contacted Arakan Army spokesperson Khaing Thukha for further details on the battles in Kyauktaw, Mrauk-U, and Minbya townships, but did receive a response by the time of publication. Calls to Rakhine state’s junta spokesperson Hla Thein by RFA also went unanswered. Fighting in Rakhine during the last two months has intensified, resulting in more civilian deaths each day, residents told RFA.  According to data compiled by RFA, 55 civilians have been killed and more than 140 have been injured when fighting resumed after a year-long ceasefire from Nov. 13, 2023 to Wednesday.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Nearly 3 dozen political prisoners died in Myanmar jails in 2023](https://ij-reportika.com/nearly-3-dozen-political-prisoners-died-in-myanmar-jails-in-2023/): Some 34 political prisoners died in military junta’s prisons across Myanmar in 2023, with 18 killed inside jails and 16 others dying due to a lack of medical treatment, a human rights monitoring group said Tuesday. The use of torture against inmates has increased in the wake of the military&#8217;s February 2021 coup d&#8217;état, with some political prisoners killed after being accused of escape during transfer to other detention centers, according to the Myanmar Political Prisoners Network and the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. A report issued by the Myanmar Political Prisoners Network on Dec. 31, 2023, based its findings on inmate casualty numbers in Myanmar’s most notorious jails in Pathein, Daik-U, Myingyan, Monywa, Magway, Tharyarwady, Insein and Kalay townships.  Thike Tun Oo, a member of the organization’s leading committee, told Radio Free Asia that the ruling junta has stepped up its oppression of political prisoners as it loses ground to resistance forces throughout the country.   “While the military council is being defeated in the battles, they have seen prisons as battlegrounds, and they oppressed political prisoners more and more in 2023,” he said. Former rapper San Linn San, a 29-year-old former rapper and singer, was one of the prisoners who died from a lack of proper medical treatment.   After the February 2021 coup, he left the entertainment industry to participate in various anti-regime activities, and joined a rebel fighting group. On Sept. 24, 2023, the junta said it arrested San Linn San because he was a member of the anti-regime Black Dragon Force in Pyapon in Ayeyarwady region. He was sentenced to death in October because the group was accused of killing local administers under the junta. He was later transferred to a jail in Pathein. A view of Pathein Prison in Myanmar&#8217;s Ayeyarwady region, in an undated photo. (Citizen journalist) San Linn San had to have surgery for a buildup of cerebrospinal fluid deep inside his brain from being tortured at an interrogation center, said Ko Shine, a close family friend. He continued to suffer from the condition while in prison and died there.  “When he suffered this serious injury, he was not allowed to go for medical treatments outside the prison,” Ko Shine said. “His head was like a sponge.” Myanmar’s Prisons Act of 1894 stipulates the right of inmates to obtain medical treatment without delay.  High fever Cherry Win, a 23-year-old who opposed junta rule and was sentenced to 10 years in prison under the country’s Counter-Terrorism Law, died on Dec. 21, 2023, while suffering from a severe fever because she was not allowed to seek outside medical treatment, according to the sources with knowledge of the situation. The young woman&#8217;s house in Demoso township in Kayah state was burned down amid fighting between armed resistance groups by junta forces in mid-2021, forcing her and her family to flee to safety, said a relative who declined to be named for safety reasons. Junta authorities arrested Cherry Win in Yangon just before she planned to go to Singapore for a job, and accused her of having contact with anti-junta People’s Defense Forces.  “We did not know about her death immediately,” the relative said. “We got this news from RFA radio about 10 days after her death. It was confusing for us because we did not see her dead body, and [we believed that] the military council might have burned it.”  A lawyer told RFA on condition of anonymity that the junta does not inform family members about prisoner deaths, or show their bodies to them, as the authorities are required to do.  “No one can say what the law is at present because the military council has ignored laws and regulations,” he said. An official at the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a Thailand-based prisoner monitoring group, who was imprisoned by the junta in Myanmar, told RFA on condition of anonymity that he and others were tortured at an interrogation center. “We felt relief once we were in prison, and I believed I would not die in the prison because I was liberated from the torture,” he said. “However, some prisoners were reportedly killed outside the prison.” RFA could not reach officials at Myanmar’s Prison Department for comment.  Kyaw Zaw, spokesman for the President’s Office under the shadow National Unity Government, said officials are trying to take legal action against those responsible for the deaths of political prisoners that have occurred during the military regime. As of Tuesday, the junta had arrested nearly 25,800 people and detained over 19,900 since the 2021 coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Translated by Aung Naing for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Chinese ‘monster’ ship patrols near Vietnam’s oil fields](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-monster-ship-patrols-near-vietnams-oil-fields/): Chinese coast guard ship 5901, dubbed “The Monster” for its size, has been near Vietnam’s oil exploration blocks at Vanguard Bank in the South China Sea since early December, Radio Free Asia has learned.  The CCG 5901 has “conducted an intrusive patrol of Vietnam&#8217;s oil and gas fields west of Vanguard Bank,” said Ray Powell, director of the U.S.-based SeaLight project, who was the first to spot the latest movement of the vessel in Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). An EEZ gives a state exclusive access to the natural resources in the waters and in the seabed. Data obtained by RFA from tracking website MarineTraffic show the CCG 5901 (formerly known as Zhong Guoa Hai Jing 3901) has weaved an on-and-off pattern west of the Vanguard Bank, where Vietnam has some oil exploration projects, since at least Dec. 9, 2023. MarineTraffic uses AIS (automatic information system) signals that ships are obliged to transmit for safety reasons to track them. The Chinese ship has mostly been running “dark”, or not broadcasting AIS, since departing Sanya, Hainan, on Nov. 14, 2023, according to Powell. “This frequent practice violates the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, of which China is a signatory,” he added. Chinese coast guard ship 5901’s activities in Vietnam’s economic zone, Dec. 9, 2023- Jan. 7, 2024. (MarineTraffic) The last time the CCG 5901 turned on its AIS was on Jan. 7, 2024 at around 8:20 a.m. UTC. The ship was about 50 nautical miles (92.6km) southwest of Vanguard Bank. Several Vietnamese fishery patrol vessels were seen tailing the Chinese ship. The Chinese ship’s AIS was also activated on Dec. 9 and Dec. 29, 2023. The 12,000-ton CCG 5901 is double the size of a U.S. Navy Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser and is also bigger than an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer. The coast guard ship, armed with heavy machine guns, also has a helicopter platform and a hangar large enough to accommodate larger rotary wing aircraft. Shared future Vanguard Bank, called Bai Tu Chinh in Vietnamese, is an important site of Vietnamese oil and gas development where Vietnam and some foreign partners carry out oil and gas exploration. It is also a known flashpoint between Vietnam and China – their law enforcement vessels confronted each other in July 2019 in one of the worst maritime standoffs in the South China Sea between them in recent years.   Chinese coast guard vessels maintain a frequent presence near the Vanguard Bank (Wan’an Tan in Chinese) – a submerged formation that lies entirely within Vietnam’s EEZ. China is among the six parties that hold claims over the South China Sea but Beijing’s claim is by far the largest, covering almost 90% of the sea. “The [incursion] is not new but it happens right after Vietnam and China agreed to build a ‘Community with a Shared Future’ during Xi Jinping’s visit to Hanoi in December,” said Le Hong Hiep, a senior fellow at Singapore&#8217;s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. The concept of a ‘Community with a Shared Future’ is China&#8217;s vision for international relations in the Chinese leader, Xi’s Jinping era. “That shows that essentially the Vietnam-China bilateral relations have not changed and it remains very difficult for the two countries to share a future should China continue pursuing its current claim over nearly-entire South China Sea,” Hiep told RFA. Another Vietnamese political analyst, Nguyen Khac Giang, said that the Chinese coast guard patrols “may be sending a message to not only Vietnam but the broader international community about China’s sovereignty in the South China Sea.” “On the other hand, China wants to maintain its pressure to interrupt Vietnam’s oil and activities in the area, as well as to push Hanoi to agree to a joint exploration plan with China in the same manner as what it achieved with the Philippines under the Duterte administration,” said Giang. In 2018, Manila and Beijing signed an agreement to explore oil and gas reserves in the South China Sea but the Philippines declared an end to it in June 2022, after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. took power. The two countries, however, had agreed ‘to resume discussions on oil and gas development” after Marcos visited Beijing in December. Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.
- [19 civilians massacred by junta forces in Sagaing region](https://ij-reportika.com/19-civilians-massacred-by-junta-forces-in-sagaing-region/): Military junta soldiers massacred 19 civilians in two townships in northwest Myanmar’s Sagaing region after detaining them, residents said, in the latest slaughter of civilians in the country’s nearly three-year civil war. Piles of corpses of all 19 people were discovered on Sunday near the Five Mile bus terminal located at the convergence of Kawlin, Wuntho and Pinlebu townships, local residents told Radio Free Asia. The dead had lived in Wuntho township and Kawlin township, both of which had been seized by anti-regime People’s Defense Forces, or PDFs, made up of ordinary people who have taken up arms against the junta, which took control of the country in a February 2021 coup d’etat. Junta soldiers, already pushed back by recent advances by rebel groups, have resorted to brutality to stop residents from providing support to the PDF, residents said. The military column that killed the civilians was headed from Paungbyin township to Kawlin and Wuntho townships, resistance forces and residents said.  They were found dead on the night of Jan. 5, the same day of their arrest, residents said, though Radio Free Asia has not yet been able to confirm the deaths with the ruling military council.   Displaced civilians from Kawlin township in northwestern Myanmar’s Sagaing region are seen Nov. 2, 2023. (Kawlin Info) The shadow National Unity Government has been operating Kawlin township’s administrative, legislative and commercial sectors since resistance forces captured the township on Dec. 3, 2023.  In coordination with Operation 1027, a series of defensive attacks by an alliance of three ethnic armies in northern Shan state launched on Oct. 27, joint forces comprising the Kachin Independence Army and local PDFs have captured Kawlin, Mawlu, Khampat and Shwepyiaye towns in Sagaing region. Signs of atrocities The bodies of five residents from Kawlin, whose hands and feet were tied, were collected and buried on Sunday, according to an official from the local PDF.  The bodies were those of a father and two sons, female rice merchant Khin Sein, and driver Tun Phaw Hlaing, he said. The adults were between the ages of 30 and 50.   “One of the five bodies we took away yesterday had been shot many times in the abdomen very closely,” said the official who declined to be named to ensure his safety. “Another body was found with serious injury to the head.” Some 5.56-millimeter cartridges made by Myanmar’s military defense industry were found near the bodies, he said.  RFA could not reach junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun or Sai Nai Nai Kyaw, the spokesperson for Sagaing&#8217;s ethnic affairs minister, for the comment on the massacre.  Junta forces attacked civilians in Kawlin and Wuntho townships to try to recapture Kawlin township from the local PDF, said a Wuntho resident on condition of anonymity. “They have threatened the locals with killing possible informants of the resistance forces when they advanced on Kawlin,” the person said.  Civilians displaced by fighting in Myanmar are seen on the move in Salingyi township, Sagaing region, Nov. 26, 2023. (RFA) Kyaw Win, the UK-based executive director of the Burma Human Rights Network, said the mass killings of civilians is a war crime and a crime against humanity. “Military troops have also committed similar crimes across the country,” he said. Women and children Deadly attacks by junta soldiers have taken their toll on civilian women and children in Myanmar.  In December alone, nearly 40 women and children lost their lives, with most killed by airstrikes, artillery shells and gunshots, according to the Burmese Women’s Union.  Of the 33 women killed, 22 had been arrested by the military junta, the women’s rights umbrella organization said. The women who died in the attacks included six in Sagaing region, six in Rakhine state, four in Mandalay region, two in Mon state, three in Magway, four in Bago region, four in Shan state, three in Kayin state and one in Chin state. “A total of 15 women died during bombardments in December, 17 women were killed by artillery shelling, and one died from a gunshot,” said Wai Wai Myint, an official from the Burmese Women’s Union.  Six children between the ages of 1 and 7 years old died in airstrikes by junta forces, including three in Sagaing’s Paungbyin town, one in the region’s Pale township, and two in Nyaunglebin township in Bago region.  Aye Myint Aung Aung, a leading member of the Women Alliance Burma, a group that emerged from protests following the 2021 coup, said women and children are not safe in conflict-torn areas of Myanmar. “The military council will show no mercy to any civilians, and has targeted them,” she told RFA. “Along routes [traveled by] military columns, they raped and killed women. These soldiers did not even have compassion for the children.” RFA could not reach a spokesman for the junta for comment on women and children casualties.  In all of 2023, nearly 400 women were killed and over 540 were arrested by the military council, according to the Burmese Women’s Unions. Translated by Aung Naing for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Resistance groups claim capture of 2 Myanmar cities](https://ij-reportika.com/resistance-groups-claim-capture-of-2-myanmar-cities/): Myanmar’s Three Brotherhood Alliance claimed the capture of two cities, according to a statement released Monday. The resistance group announced they stormed two junta camps on Sunday, causing troops to withdraw. The alliance reportedly captured Hseni in northeastern Shan state on Sunday morning. The junta camp there also acts as the army’s regional operational command headquarters, according to the alliance. Later that day, the allied forces moved to the city of Kutkai and seized it late at night, according to locals. All junta troops from Hseni and Kutkai withdrew and fled to Lashio on Sunday afternoon, said one local who has been following military movements in the area. The alliance comprises three resistance groups, including the Ta&#8217;ang National Liberation Army, Arakan Army, and Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army. Since the Three Brotherhood Alliance’s Operation 1027 began in late October, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army’s fighters have claimed control of most major areas in Hseni.  The junta&#8217;s regional headquarters and smaller camps are located several kilometers away from the city. The area has been under a blockade for almost two months. Troops retaliated during Sunday’s attack using heavy artillery and airstrikes, a local told Radio Free Asia, asking to go anonymous to protect their identity.  The alliance attacked the camps in Kutkai multiple times earlier this month, they said, adding that junta troops responded with airstrikes on Sunday evening during the fighting. One fighter involved in the ground battles told RFA Kutkai was entirely captured, despite the junta’s heavy defense. However, others said the status of Hseni could not be confirmed at this time.  “It is true that our forces captured the whole of Kutkai city last night,” said a spokesman for the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, asking to remain nameless for fear of reprisals. “As for Hseni, I can’t confirm it, because we are not there.” Myanmar’s regime has not released any information about battles in Hseni and Kutkai. RFA was unable to reach junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment regarding junta injuries and fatalities. On Thursday, the alliance also overtook a military command center in northern Myanmar, claiming control of the city of Laukkai according to a statement released Friday.   Since the launch of Operation 1027 two months ago, the Three Brotherhood Alliance has reportedly captured 14 townships in northern Shan state and seized control of more than 200 junta camps. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- ['We've been in this situation for a long time'](https://ij-reportika.com/weve-been-in-this-situation-for-a-long-time/): As Taiwan gears up for presidential and legislative elections next Saturday, voters on the streets of the democratic island&#8217;s capital Taipei say a Chinese invasion isn&#8217;t at the top of their list of concerns. Despite the Chinese Communist Party&#8217;s ongoing information wars, political infiltration and military incursions in the Taiwan Strait, some of the island&#8217;s 23 million people say that such worries aren&#8217;t at the forefront of their minds. As the country counts down the last days of a presidential race, voters must choose between incumbent ruling Democratic Progressive Party Vice President Lai Ching-te, who has a strong track record of standing up to China, against the more China-friendly opposition candidates – Hou Yu-ih for the Kuomintang and Ko Wen-je for the Taiwan People&#8217;s Party. But not all voters are following the threat from China as closely as they were. &#8220;It&#8217;s pretty pointless as a Taiwanese person to speculate on such matters, as we&#8217;ve been in this situation for a long time,&#8221; a voter who gave only the surname Lu told RFA Mandarin in a recent round of street interviews.  Much of the early debate on the presidential campaign trail revolved around how candidates will handle the military threat from China.  U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping walk together after a meeting during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders&#8217; week in Woodside, California, on Nov. 15, 2023. Xi’s statement that there wasn’t a timetable for an invasion of Taiwan appears to have made voters feel more secure. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP) But Chinese President Xi Jinping&#8217;s comments to U.S. President Biden at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco in November, in which he denied there was a timetable for an invasion of Taiwan, appear to have made voters feel more secure. &#8220;We all know deep down that there can be no war,&#8221; a voter who gave only the surname Weng said. &#8220;I&#8217;m not worried,&#8221; said a voter surnamed Chou. &#8220;The Taiwanese people must have confidence in themselves, and make their country strong.&#8221; &#8220;There is no problem,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I feel confident.&#8221; Protecting sovereignty Xi hasn&#8217;t relinquished China&#8217;s territorial claim on the island, which split from the mainland in 1949 amid civil war and has never been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party, reiterating in a New Year address on Dec. 31 that &#8220;China will surely be reunified.&#8221; But a 31-year-old Taipei office worker who gave only the surname Hsieh said people are used to military threats and ramped-up rhetoric from Beijing at election time. &#8220;All of the parties want to protect Taiwan&#8217;s sovereignty,&#8221; Hsieh said, adding that he doesn&#8217;t see a vote for any of the candidates as a vote for war. Neither can any of them promise that China would definitely not invade if they won the election, he said, adding that low-level, city-level exchanges are likely to alleviate current tensions with China. A J-15 Chinese fighter jet takes off from the Shandong aircraft carrier during exercises around Taiwan, April 9, 2023. One Taipei office worker says people are accustomed to military threats from Beijing at election time. (An Ni/Xinhua via AP) Hsieh said the main advantage for the opposition parties is that China won&#8217;t talk to the DPP, which has dismissed Beijing&#8217;s claim on Taiwan and criticized its crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong.  But he said the ruling party has a better track record when it comes to diplomacy, national defense and boosting Taiwan&#8217;s international status, not to mention the all-important relationship with Washington. ‘Stop interfering’ A 90-year-old voter who gave only the surname Kao said he is a staunch Kuomintang supporter, who nonetheless doesn&#8217;t want to see Chinese interference in Taiwan&#8217;s democracy. &#8220;I wish China would stop interfering in Taiwanese politics,&#8221; Kao said. &#8220;Taiwan is under a democratic system now, which is different from communism.&#8221; He said Taiwan has come a long way since the civil war between Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek, and has spent the last few decades moving towards democracy, while China has been under Communist Party rule for more than 70 years. &#8220;Taiwan has gotten used to ruling itself democratically,&#8221; Kao said. A resident uses a magnifying glass as he reads a newspaper article calling Taiwan Vice President Lai Ching-te’s debate speech &#8220;Disaster words,&#8221; in Beijing, Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2023. A 90-year-old voter says she wishes “China would stop interfering in Taiwanese politics.&#8221; (Andy Wong/AP) A voter who gave only the surname Li said anti-communism has been deeply ingrained in Taiwanese society since the 1927-1949 civil war between the Kuomintang government of the 1911 Republic of China and communist insurgents. &#8220;They may fear our independence, but they didn&#8217;t build our country,&#8221; she said. &#8220;It&#8217;s better if they live their lives, we live ours, and we maintain peaceful cross-straits relations.&#8221; Housing, the economy Some told RFA Mandarin that they are more worried about the high price of housing than the threat of war. &#8220;The economy is still pretty important, and our leaders need to take active steps to deal with it,&#8221; Lu said. &#8220;The high cost of housing has led a lot of young people to lose confidence in the future,&#8221; he said, adding that he feels it&#8217;s time for a change after eight years of DPP rule. &#8220;​​If you are in power for too long, then issues of corruption are more likely,&#8221; Lu said. &#8220;This is a problem faced by all ruling parties in the world, not just in Taiwan.&#8221; Chou disagreed, saying the current leadership has done a good job, and that &#8220;Taiwan is very happy now,&#8221; and that she&#8217;s counting her blessings. Others said they were keen on Ko, because he appeared more down-to-earth, and to have concerns that were closer to their daily lives. &#8220;The stuff about China is kind of out of our reach, and I don&#8217;t pay much attention to it,&#8221; a voter surnamed Qu told RFA Mandarin. A Lai supporter surnamed Yang said the issue was much simpler for him. &#8220;We must elect people who are able to protect Taiwan,&#8221; he...
- ['Kids start to ask themselves who they are and where they come from'](https://ij-reportika.com/kids-start-to-ask-themselves-who-they-are-and-where-they-come-from/): As families leave Hong Kong in droves in a bid to remove their kids from an education system that is increasingly steeped in Chinese Communist Party propaganda, they are building new lives in democratic societies like Taiwan and the United Kingdom. Many middle-class parents, asked why they chose to leave their home amid an ongoing crackdown on public dissent in Hong Kong, say it&#8217;s for the kids. Yet the challenges for children uprooted from friends, school, family and the city they once called home are far from insignificant. Three years ago, the Cheungs emigrated to Taiwan with their family of five, including Yuet, 13, Guji, 10 and Yiu, 8. According to a YouTube video made by Yuet at the time, they called out excitedly &#8220;We&#8217;re going through the gate now!&#8221; before giving their relatives a quick hug, and embarking on their new life more than 700 kilometers (400 miles) away. Around the same time, the Ho family were taking off for the United Kingdom, with 10-year-old Marcus and 9-year-old Max. &#8220;[My dad] just said we were going to the U.K.,&#8221; Marcus said in a recent interview with Radio Free Asia. &#8220;Actually, I don&#8217;t remember the details because we were very young at the time.&#8221; &#8220;I never thought much about leaving behind all my classmates and friends.&#8221; The Cheung children said they had some idea of why they were leaving, other than their parents wanting them to get a better education, and that there wasn&#8217;t much room for resistance to the idea. Language problems Coming from Cantonese-speaking Hong Kong, they also found it hard to communicate when they first got to Taiwan, where Mandarin Chinese is the medium of instruction in schools, and where Taiwanese – mutually unintelligible with Cantonese – is also widely spoken. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t understand Mandarin at all, or any other languages,&#8221; Guji said. &#8220;It was hard for me to communicate.&#8221; All three children were thrown into a system that taught them in a spoken language they didn&#8217;t know well, and required them to understand phonetic notation systems they had never been taught, leading them to lose marks in Chinese tests that should otherwise have been a cinch. &#8220;They all know this phonetic system because they learned it in kindergarten,&#8221; Yuet complained. &#8220;But we were in fifth and sixth grade and we didn&#8217;t know it, yet 20 marks out of every 100 were for phonetic spellings, so I got 70.&#8221; &#8220;There&#8217;s a bit less homework compared with Hong Kong, and the teachers are kinder and a bit less scary when they tell you off,” Guji said. “They&#8217;re not as strict.&#8221; The Ho family emigrated to the United Kingdom with 10-year-old Marcus and 9-year-old Max. (Shi Shi) The Cheungs also get to spend more time with their parents instead of being left with a domestic helper, as they were in Hong Kong. In the U.K., Marcus and Max have also had to work hard to overcome the language barrier. Marcus found leaving Hong Kong, where he was on the soccer, badminton and swimming teams and class president, quite a wrench. But there have been compensations, too. British schools have far less of a hothouse atmosphere than the education system in Hong Kong, and don&#8217;t expect kids to study all hours of the day and night just to keep up with requirements. That leaves more time and energy for doing the things they love, including plenty of energetic outdoor play. &#8220;The pace in school seemed very leisurely,&#8221; their father Simon told RFA Cantonese. &#8220;But after I looked at what he was doing, it turned out he wasn&#8217;t just playing around &#8212; he had written two pages.&#8221; &#8220;After they caught up in English, communication became easier, and they both like to play football, so it became a lot easier for them to communicate with their friends,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I think they&#8217;re fairly happy,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They&#8217;re not particularly unhappy.&#8221; Less pressure Asked if this was an accurate assessment, Marcus said he prefers life in the U.K., because there&#8217;s less pressure. Early years education expert Bonnie, who has also emigrated to Taiwan with her children, said children are adaptable and generally manage to settle, even after such a move. But they thrive in an atmosphere where they can talk about their feelings, and have a sense that the family is working together to overcome problems. &#8220;First, remember that you&#8217;re in this together, and second, give them time and give them space,&#8221; she advised. &#8220;I don&#8217;t mind letting my kids see my weakness, because that&#8217;s a very real feeling.&#8221; But ultimately, the parents are the ones responsible for emigration, not the kids, she said. &#8220;Children have to let go of the people and things they love most because of a decision made by their parents,&#8221; she said.  Marcus, Max and the Cheung children aren&#8217;t alone. BNO visas So far 40,000 Hong Kong minors have been approved for the British National Overseas visa program, which offers a pathway to permanent residency and citizenship. Childhood education expert Bonnie, who has emigrated to Taiwan with her children, says children are adaptable and generally manage to settle, even after such a move. (Chunyin) Meanwhile, schools in Taiwan reported 129 new students from Hong Kong in the 2020 academic year, and 174 in the 2021 academic year, compared with less than 100 between 2015 and 2019. National Taiwan University sociologist Lu Ching-hu said parents who emigrate from Hong Kong were far more likely to oppose the changes in that city than those who stay behind. &#8220;There is a positive relationship between resistance and immigration,&#8221; said Lu, who has studied emigrating Hong Kong families. &#8220;If you are a parent, the relationship is even stronger.&#8221;  U.K.-based Simon said that was a key factor in the Ho family&#8217;s decision to leave. &#8220;One of the reasons is that the teaching materials have been changed,&#8221; he said. This makes it harder for parents to help kids revise for tests in what has become an unfamiliar and hostile education system. &#8220;There are some...
- [Taiwan accuses China of gray zone tactics by flying balloons](https://ij-reportika.com/taiwan-accuses-china-of-gray-zone-tactics-by-flying-balloons/): After Taiwan spotted Chinese balloons flying over its main island, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) in Taipei accused Beijing of conducting ‘cognitive warfare’ against Taiwanese people just days before the general election.  Two more Chinese balloons were detected crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait, which serves as the de facto boundary between Taiwan and China, on Friday. One of them flew over the Taiwan island itself, the ministry said Saturday in a strongly-worded statement. On Jan. 13, the Taiwanese go to polls in presidential and parliamentary elections seen as vital for cross-strait relations. The MND only began disclosing China’s balloon incursions in December 2023 and has so far reported the sighting of 19 balloons, including six that entered the island’s airspace. An airspace is a portion of the atmosphere above a country’s territory, to which it holds exclusive sovereignty. Experts say the balloons are likely meteorological as most of them fly at a relatively low altitude. The MND said, according to their analyses, “the main purpose of the recently detected airborne balloons is to conduct gray zone activities, attempting to use cognitive warfare to affect the morale of Taiwanese people.” Cognitive warfare, often known as psychological warfare, refers to activities designed to control the mental state and behavior of other people. The drifting paths of the balloons “posed a serious threat to the safety of many international flights,” the ministry said in a statement sent to reporters. It added that the Taiwanese military is keeping a close watch and would notify civil aviation authorities about any new developments, while “condemning the Chinese Communist Party for its disregard of aviation safety and for the safety of passengers on both sides of the Taiwan Strait and internationally.” ‘Hyping China’s threat’? Wendell Minnick, a Taipei-based veteran Chinese military watcher, said the balloons could be an air traffic problem for airliners at 30,000 ft (9.1km). “Sucking one of these into the engine would result in a crash,” Minnick told Radio Free Asia.  “But these weather balloons are not unusual; they come from two different weather balloon stations in China,” said Minnick. “Now that Taiwan’s MND has begun mentioning them, they have to keep doing so.” Chinese media outlets, meanwhile, said they were “harmless weather balloons” and accused the Taiwanese government of “hyping the mainland threat.” “It’s evident that weather balloons pose no threat to anyone, however, media outlets in the U.S. and Taiwan island use them to perpetuate the ‘mainland threat theory’,” said the state-run Global Times in an editorial on Thursday.  The Global Times mentioned the incident that happened in early 2023 when U.S. authorities accused China of flying a spy balloon over the continental U.S. In the so-called “2023 Chinese balloon incident,” the Pentagon sent a stealth F-22 Raptor fighter jet to shoot down what it said was a Chinese high-altitude surveillance platform in the Atlantic Ocean on Feb. 4. China said it was a weather balloon that was blown off course, but the incident led to further tensions in the already problematic China-U.S. relations. Edited by Taejun Kang.
- [Retracted study was based on unethically collected Uyghur DNA samples, experts contend](https://ij-reportika.com/retracted-study-was-based-on-unethically-collected-uyghur-dna-samples-experts-contend/): The recent retraction of an academic journal article that discussed the genetic information of Uyghurs and Kazakhs in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region has raised questions and concerns about ethical standards in scientific research, as people familiar with the study believe that genetic samples were obtained under duress. In June, Elsevier, a Dutch publisher, announced the retraction of a scientific article published in 2019 in its journal “Forensic Science International: Genetics.” The retraction was attributed to the failure to meet necessary ethical approvals in scientific research, The Guardian reported. The deleted study, entitled “Analysis of Uyghur and Kazakh populations using the Precision ID Ancestry Panel,” was authored by Chinese and Danish researchers in Ürümqi.  It involved the collection of blood and saliva samples from 203 Uyghurs and Kazakhs, which were then tested using genetic sequencing technology developed by the American biotech company Thermo Fisher Scientific. The article&#8217;s authors claimed that their findings could help police in using genetic sequencing techniques to identify suspects in cases. &#8220;A clear knowledge of the genetic variation is important for understanding the origin and demographic history of the ethnicity of the populations in Xinjiang… [which] may offer an investigative lead for the police,&#8221; the article said. In the redaction notice, the journal said that an investigation revealed that those who collected the samples did not obtain the necessary ethical approval. Forced collection Yves Moreau, a professor at the University of Leuven in Belgium, has raised the concern that the Chinese government forcibly collects and arbitrarily uses genetic information from Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities. He told Radio Free Asia’s Uyghur Service that he had been critical of the 2019 study for a considerable period of time before it was finally deleted. “The article that was retracted … That&#8217;s a case that has been open for a very, very long time,” said Moreau, who added that he is working toward getting journals to reevaluate numerous articles, many on the same subject.   Moreau had also taken issue with a similar study published in the June 2022 issue of “Forensic Science Research,” a journal acquired by the Oxford University Press in 2023. That article detailed a study sponsored by China’s Ministry of Justice that analyzed the genetic information of Uyghurs based on blood samples collected from them. The retracted 2019 article and the 2022 article was written by the same authors, Claus Børsting, Niels Morling, and Xalmurat Ismailjan (Halimureti Simayijiang) from the forensic genetics department at the University of Copenhagen. Qelbinur Sidiq, shown speaking at the &#8220;Uyghur Tribunal&#8221; in 2021, says she saw samples collected from blood, as well as collections of fingerprints and retina scans. She said she herself was made to give all three in 2016. (Tolga Akmen/AFP) Ismailjan is known to have ties to China&#8217;s public security agencies and is listed as being jointly affiliated with Xinjiang Police College, The Guardian report said.  Experts like Moreau contend that the blood samples utilized in both studies were obtained from people who had no choice but to participate.  Moreau was reluctant to take on the 2022 article, he said, because one of editors-in-chief of the journal was from the Institute of Forensic Science of the Chinese Ministry of Justice. “So I thought, well, if I&#8217;m going to write a letter asking for ethical re-evaluation of an article in that journal, I&#8217;m not going to get much of an answer,” he said.  But when the journal was acquired by Oxford University Press, he was able to raise the issue with that institution, he said. “Now I can write to Oxford University and tell them, … you know, you were actually publishing this journal for the Institute of Forensic Science of the [Chinese] Ministry of Justice,” said Moreau. In an email sent to Irene Treacy, vice chancellor of the University of Oxford, Moreau noted that &#8220;such consent should be given voluntarily, and he does not believe that the Uyghurs consented to [biometric data collection] voluntarily.&#8221; After Mr. Moreau raised the issue, the editorial departments of the University of Copenhagen and the editor departments of the aforementioned journals replied via email that they would investigate the matter, he explained. Coerced samples Witnesses have observed coerced genetic data collection both inside China’s secretive “reeducation camps” in Xinjiang and also outside of the camps.   Qelbinur Sidiq, who currently lives in the Netherlands, said she saw samples collected from blood, as well as collections of fingerprints and retina scans. She said she herself was made to give all three in 2016. &#8220;Blood samples and DNA sequencing are mandatory, whether you are inside the camp or outside. There is an order where authorities instruct you on when to go to which hospital for the collection of your blood sample and DNA,” she said. “There is no freedom or choice to refuse.” Sidiq said that the police inform residents through the chat platform WhatsApp as to when they must appear at a specific hospital for collection. “Participants are given one week, and the notice explicitly states that failing to participate will result in severe consequences,” she said. “As a result, there is no freedom or choice in the matter, and individuals are unable to inquire about their results. Asking for the result of the blood sample is not an option.&#8221; Duarte Nuno Vieira, the co-editor-in-chief of “Forensic Science Research,” denied the journal had received financial support from China’s Ministry of Justice, according to the Guardian report. Journals have a responsibility to evaluate the ethics of the studies that appear in articles they publish, Maya Wang, associate Asia director for New York-based Human Rights Watch, told RFA. &#8220;Given the brutality of the collection process, I believe it is important for such journals to check and review research articles on samples taken from Uyghurs and Tibetans by Chinese police agencies,” she said. “It is unlikely these journals not know the background of such articles.&#8221;  In 2021, Professor Yves Moreau initially uncovered similar articles published by Chinese researchers about Uyghurs in the American journal Molecular Genetics and Genome...
- [Anti-junta groups claim they seized junta military camp in Shan state](https://ij-reportika.com/anti-junta-groups-claim-they-seized-junta-military-camp-in-shan-state/): Myanmar’s anti-junta forces Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and Mandalay People’s Defense Force (PDF) jointly seized a junta military camp in Than Bo village in northern Shan state on Wednesday, according to the groups on Thursday. The Mandalay PDF announced that on Tuesday, their combined forces launched an attack on the junta’s base camp, effectively taking control of it and capturing a platoon commander, Col. Thet Aung.  During the battle, there were casualties on both the military junta and some PDF troops, the group stated, without specifying the total number of casualties. The seized junta camp is under the command of the junta’s Central Region Military Command, which has between 50 and 100 forces, according to the TNLA on Friday.  RFA was unable to reach junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comments about the group’s claim.  The Mandalay PDF is currently participating in Operation 1027 led by the anti-junta Three Northern Brotherhood Alliance. The Mandalay-Nawnghkio-Gote Twin road, connecting the Mandalay region and northern Shan state, has been obstructed and closed off through a joint effort by the TNLA and Mandalay PDF.  This has led to regular clashes between the junta and resistance groups situated in regions such as Ho Hko, Hsam Ma Hse, Thone Se, Ohn Ma Hkar, and Kyauk Kyan villages in the Nawnghkio township. Over the span of more than two months during Operation 1027, the Three Brotherhood Alliances have successfully overtaken 10 townships in northern Shan state and seized control of over 200 camps belonging to the military junta.  The group continues its attacks against the junta camps in the cities of Hseni and Kutkai in northern Shan state, with the combat remaining intense up to the present day. Edited by Taejun Kang and Elaine Chan.
- [No candy for old kids in North Korea](https://ij-reportika.com/no-candy-for-old-kids-in-north-korea/): North Korea is toning down its annual candy giveaway to children this year ahead of leader Kim Jong Un’s Jan. 8 birthday, handing out less candy and snacks than in previous years – and to fewer children, residents in the country told Radio Free Asia. The quality of candy is also lower, they said. Meanwhile, adults were buying their annual New Year’s “present” from the state: wall calendars that came with a variety of illustrations, including rockets and images of plump children. The calendars, marking the important dates for “Juche 113” –  also known as 2024 – were once free, but now must be purchased. Gifts of sweets to children on or around the birthday of the country’s leader has been a tradition in North Korea dating back to the reign of national founder Kim Il Sung – Kim Jong Un’s grandfather – and continued during the rule of his father Kim Jong Il. But this year the government is limiting the gift to kids aged 6 or younger. The government began distributing this year’s candy gift on Dec. 31, a resident of the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons. But children will likely be disappointed because they are getting less this year, and the quality has declined, he said. “The number of recipients who qualify for the gifts also decreased significantly,” he said. “Starting this year, elementary school students [and anyone older] are excluded from receiving confectionery gifts.” The gift package this year consists of hard candy, packaged snacks like chips or sweet breads, bean powder coated candy, and other select items, he said.  The government has not overtly said that the candies are for Kim Jong Un’s birthday, however. But residents assume that must be the reason, because they remember that under the rule of the previous leaders, children received candy ahead of their birthdays, the resident said. Self-reliance With the changing of the year from Juche 112 to Juche 113, adults are also “given” paper calendars from the state, which they must purchase. “Juche,” is North Korea’s founding philosophy of self-reliance, and the Juche era is said to have begun with the birth of Kim Il Sung in 1912.  RFA reported in 2022 that pandemic concerns had resulted in people having to pay for their own annual calendar gift, and those who could pay more received better quality calendars. That trend is continuing into this year, but the people have several versions of the official calendar they can buy, with themes centered around missiles, the cult of personality, the military, education, and tourism, another North Hamgyong resident told RFA on condition of anonymity for personal safety. The missile calendar is titled “The Status of the Juche Powerhouse,” he said, while the calendar about soldiers and marines is called, ”Let’s Destroy the U.S. Imperialist Invaders, the Bitter Enemies of the Korean People.” A North Korean wall calendar for the year &#8216;Juche 113&#8217; or 2024. Residents were &#8220;gifted&#8221; calendars like these, this year, though they had to be purchased. (RFA) The tourism-themed calendar seemed tone deaf though, because it pictures a lifestyle that most North Koreans can not even dream of, he said. “How many people in North Korea can enjoy sightseeing and eating at restaurants on a boat like in the calendar?” he said. “Furthermore, there are students who cannot go to school because they are starving, and there are all these chubby students featured in the [education] calendar.” The calendars are printed on low-quality paper this year due to a paper shortage, and even then there are different versions of varying cost, a resident of North Pyongan province in the northwest told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “A multipage calendar costs 5,000 won (59 U.S. cents), and a single page calendar [displaying the entire year] costs 500 won (6 cents),” she said. “Well-off residents purchase the multipage calendars and there is a high demand for calendars featuring pictures of flowers and souvenirs.” She said that the militaristic calendars were less popular because they feature missiles, soldiers or scenes from the 1950-53 Korean War, which North Korea calls the “Great Fatherland Liberation War.”  The overly militaristic themes are a turnoff for some, but the resident said that people will always find reasons to complain.  “Last year’s calendar featured a picture of a young child holding a milk cup, but milk is a luxury for most people.” she said. Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar’s junta releases more than 9,600 prisoners](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-junta-releases-more-than-9600-prisoners/): Myanmar’s junta granted amnesty to 9,652 prisoners on Thursday, according to a statement released by the junta’s State Administration Council on Thursday.  The prisoner release took place on the 76th anniversary of the country’s independence from the United Kingdom. The amnesty was conditioned on the agreement that, should they reoffend, they would be required to serve both the remaining sentence and any new punishment. About 114 foreign prisoners were included in the amnesty, according to a separate statement from the junta. It said they were released to maintain friendly relations with other countries. Among those released is Kaung Set Lin, a photojournalist from the Myanmar Press Photo Agency in Yangon, who had been sentenced to three years on charges of damaging public interest. Kaung Set Lin was arrested while injured when police and soldiers, using a vehicle, charged into an anti-coup protest he was covering on Pan Pin Gyi Street in Yangon&#8217;s Kyimyindaing township. “Yes, he is freed. My son is among the released. Now we are about to go home. Needless to say, I am so happy. I wanted to see my son’s face before I died. Now my wish has come true,” Myo Myint, the father of the journalist, told RFA Burmese.  A Burmese photo journalist Kaung Set Lin was released from Insein Prison on Jan.4, 2024. (RFA) However, another journalist, Hmu Yadanar Khat Moh Moh Tun from the Myanmar Press Photo Agency, who was arrested alongside him, has not been released.  Actress Thin Zar Wint Kyaw and model Nan Mwe San, who faced criticism from the junta and were sentenced to several years in prison on charges of undermining Myanmar culture and sexual orientation, were also released, according to media reports. But RFA has not been able to independently verify this information. While a few political prisoners were released today, detained former political leader Aung San Suu Kyi and former President Win Myint, who have received lengthy prison sentences under various charges, along with members of the National League for Democracy (NLD) Government, lawmakers, university students, and democracy activists, remain incarcerated. A family member of Tun Tun Hein, NLD-led government’s deputy speaker, said he has not heard any news about his release yet. Tun Tun Hein, the 72-year-old deputy speaker who also served as the chairman of the country’s lower house in the parliament, had been sentenced to more than 30 years.  “I wished he would be released because he is old. I hope he comes out with amnesty and I am praying for it. I haven&#8217;t heard any news yet,” said the family member.  A lawyer, who is handling the cases of political prisoners and requested anonymity for security reasons, informed RFA Burmese that none of the political prisoners serving long-term sentences were among those released on Thursday. Only those who had been sentenced to terms between two and three years and were close to their scheduled release dates were freed, the lawyer added.  Based on the junta statements, there have been 14 amnesties granted since the coup, including the one on Thursday. In total, more than 92,000 prisoners have been released during these amnesties, but only a small number of them were political prisoners. Edited by Taejun Kang and Elaine Chan.
- [India repatriates 151 junta soldiers who fled fighting](https://ij-reportika.com/india-repatriates-151-junta-soldiers-who-fled-fighting/): India has repatriated 151 junta soldiers who entered the country last week to escape ethnic Rakhine fighters during clashes across the border in western Myanmar’s Chin state, according to residents and media reports. On Dec. 27, Arakan Army, or AA, troops attacked a military base in Chin state’s Paletwa township, prompting the junta soldiers to flee across the border into India’s Mizoram state. A resident of Mizoram told RFA Burmese that the 151 troops surrendered to a unit of India’s Assam Rifles in Lawngtlai district’s Tuisentlang village two days later. “From there, they were brought to [Mizoram’s capital] Aizawl via Lunglei [township],” said the resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing security concerns. “I saw a Myanmar plane fly by [on Jan. 2] that appears to have taken the soldiers back. I saw it twice and I believe it made two trips because there were over 150 [soldiers].” Indian media reported that local police sent the soldiers – nine of whom were injured – to Aizawl, where they would be interrogated by Indian officials before being handed over to Myanmar’s junta. Additional reports said that the troops would be sent back to Myanmar’s Rakhine state capital Sittwe after a Myanmar Airlines aircraft landed at Mizoram’s Lengpui Airport. Attempts by RFA to reach Aung Cho, the junta’s spokesman and secretary of Rakhine state, for comment on the status of the troops went unanswered Wednesday. Some of the Myanmar junta soldiers who fled to Mizoram state in India are seen Dec. 29, 2023. (Citizen journalist) The 151 junta soldiers are the latest group of military troops to flee clashes with the AA from Chin state into India. More than 40 soldiers who entered the country after the AA occupied Chin state’s Rihkhawdar township were returned to Myanmar on Nov. 14. Another group of more than 40 soldiers and their family members who fled to India during fighting with anti-junta forces in Sagaing region’s Tamu township were also recently repatriated to Myanmar, according to residents. Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
- [Junta helicopter shot down by anti-junta force in northern Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-helicopter-shot-down-by-anti-junta-force-in-northern-myanmar/): A junta helicopter has been shot down in Waingmaw township of Myanmar’s northern Kachin State by an anti-junta Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, on Wednesday afternoon, according to a KIA spokesperson. The helicopter was leaving the township after delivering supplies to the Nar Hpawt junta military camp in the area before it was shot down, and the KIA is currently investigating further details, Col. Naw Bu, KIA’s information officer, told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday.  “I can confirm that the helicopter has crashed, and it was our front line that fired upon it. But it is not fully known whether it crashed due to a technical defect or our attack,” said Naw Bu.  “Now the reports from the ground said that the junta council’s jets are hovering around the site where the helicopter crashed. And the locals said that air strikes are being conducted near the location.” The specifics regarding the type of helicopter that crashed, the number of people on board, and any casualties are still unknown, Naw Bu added.  Local residents in nearby village Nam Sang Yang told RFA that they witnessed a military helicopter descending slowly in an upside-down position, while emitting smoke. One resident said that he observed a military helicopter plummeting in a burst of smoke near Nam Sang Yang village, shortly before noon on Wednesday. “It [the helicopter] was shot at around 11.50 a.m. Two helicopters came to drop supplies and one was hit when it took off after completing the delivery. It crashed near a hill not far from Nam Sang Yang village,” said the resident.  Junta’s Nar Hpawt camp is located in the area under the control of the KIA Brigade(5), which is defending KIA’s headquarters in nearby Laizar city. RFA was unable to reach junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comments about the helicopter. According to weapons experts, the Myanmar Air Force is utilizing Russian-made military helicopters for both transport and combat purposes.  Activists group Justice For Myanmar revealed that Sky Aviator Company Limited, known for its ties to the military leadership, acquired these helicopters from Russia in 2019. Edited by Taejun Kang and Elaine Chan.
- [Thai cannabis drinks find their way to Lao markets](https://ij-reportika.com/thai-cannabis-drinks-find-their-way-to-lao-markets/): Thailand’s easing of laws governing the sale of marijuana last year has led to a proliferation of cannabis products on the market, some of which are ending up in stores in neighboring Laos, where authorities aren’t laughing. In June 2022, Thailand became the first country in Southeast Asia to decriminalize marijuana, prompting a proliferation of related shops across the nation where the drug has always been easy to access, but with the risk of stiff penalties. Among the more popular products being offered for sale in Thailand are so-called “happy drinks,” or juice and carbonated beverages that under the new law may contain a relatively low dose of up to 0.2% tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC – the main psychoactive ingredient in cannabis.  The drug, which can produce a sense of relaxation and euphoria, was previously only available for medical use to alleviate a variety of conditions, including stress and depression. But the new market that has sprung up in Thailand is an exception in Southeast Asia where, in most other countries, the use of cannabis and other drugs is illegal and punishable with lengthy jail terms. Some nations, such as Indonesia and Singapore, execute criminals convicted of sale, possession or consumption. In neighboring Laos, laws prohibit the production, trade and use of cannabis for recreational purposes. A police officer in the capital Vientiane, separated by the Mekong River from Thailand’s Nong Khai province, confirmed to RFA that only cannabis products “authorized by the Lao Ministry of Health to be used for medical purposes” are permitted for sale in the country. “The sale of cannabis is prohibited,” said the officer who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. “We regularly inspect shops and stores, and if we see it, we’ll confiscate it.” But residents told RFA that has not stopped happy drinks produced in Thailand from finding their way across the border and onto the shelves of stores in the capital. One resident of Vientiane told RFA Lao that happy drinks are now on offer at minimarts along the Mekong River – if one knows where to look. “In Laos, the sale of this kind of drink is not legal yet,” he said. “Some individuals sell the drink secretly and if they’re caught, they’ll be arrested.” Another resident of Vientiane, who researches how cannabis can be used for medical purposes, confirmed the availability of the drinks in the city. “This is a new drink and consumers must be careful,” he said. “It’s available but prohibited by law.” RFA’s own investigations found happy drinks openly sold at several markets in the capital, including a brand produced by Thai beverage company Srinanaporn Marketing PLC that is marketed as “fruit juice with cannabis water.” It comes in flavors such as mixed berry, pineapple, lychee and lime. Growing demand among youth But while the beverages are increasingly available in Laos, several business owners told RFA that smuggling them into the country isn’t worth the trouble, citing tough laws and a clientele largely uninterested in such products. “I don’t know whether other stores have cannabis juice, but we don’t,” said one store owner in Vientiane. “We don’t import it because it’s against the law.” A bartender at a nightclub in the capital told RFA that his establishment “serves only beer.” “Unlike Thailand, Laos still bans cannabis,” he said. “Besides, the fruit drink containing cannabis juice is not popular among Laotians yet.” They appear to be gaining fashion among members of the country’s younger generation, however. An officer with Vientiane’s Saysettha District Police Department told RFA that happy drinks containing cannabis and other banned ingredients “are popular among youngsters,” who drink them to “have fun and dance.” One such drink contains kratom – an herbal substance that can produce stimulant-like effects and is also legal in Thailand. Oulayvanh Phonesavanh, the deputy head of the emergency department at Vientiane’s Friendship Hospital, recently told local media that around five patients are admitted to her ward each day due to kratom juice poisoning – most of whom are between the ages of 16 and 35. A young man from Vientiane’s Pak Gneum district said that, despite the risks, happy drinks aren’t going away any time soon. “As their name implies, happy drinks are often drunk at parties,” he said. “Those who drink them can expect to be happy, excited and having fun all night.” Translated by Max Avary. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
- [‘End of junta is near’ amid mass surrenders: Myanmar’s shadow govt](https://ij-reportika.com/end-of-junta-is-near-amid-mass-surrenders-myanmars-shadow-govt/): The end of the junta is near amid mass desertions and surrenders of junta troops, said Myanmar’s shadow government on Monday.  “We have seen the mass deserting and surrender of the military council soldiers unprecedented in military history &#8230; Looking at these, it can be said that the end of the [junta] military council is near,” said Duwa Lashi La, the acting president of the National Unity Government (NUG) during his new year’s address.  “Junta troops are facing the situation where its soldiers are either surrendering or being captured in battles on a daily basis,” said the interim leader, adding that 550 military junta soldiers have surrendered during Operation 1027 by the anti-junta Three Northern Brotherhood Alliance. He also cited a statement by the Karen National Union, or KNU, as saying that more than 18,000 military council soldiers have been killed in the KNU-controlled areas since the coup.  The acting president’s speech came a few days after an intense battle between the anti-junta Arakan Army (AA) and junta troops in Paletwa township, Chin state, on Dec. 29, 2023. As a result of the battle, more than 80 military junta soldiers crossed the border and fled to India’s Mizoram state, according to Paletwa residents. India-based the United News of India (UNI) reported on the same day that 83 junta soldiers entered Tuisenlang village on the Mizoram-Myanmar border.  UNI stated that the junta soldiers would be sent back to Myanmar, noting that there were four instances in November and December last year when junta soldiers escaped to the Indian state of Mizoram. Junta troops who fled to India’s Mizoram state on Dec. 29, 2023 (Citizen Journalist) A Paletwa resident who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals told Radio Free Asia last Thursday that the military council troops had fled to the Mizoram side, fully armed. The resident added, however, he could not confirm whether the junta soldiers were repatriated to Myanmar.  As of Tuesday, the junta’s military council has not commented on the soldiers who fled to India.  Aung Cho, junta council’s spokesman for Chin state and Chin state’s secretary, by phone, has also not responded to RFA’s inquiries.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Taejun Kang and Elaine Chan.
- [An uncensored history of modern China](https://ij-reportika.com/an-uncensored-history-of-modern-china/): A partly anonymous team of journalists and historians is setting up an archive of uncensored historical material to allow the Chinese people to &#8220;reclaim their history&#8221; from the ruling Communist Party&#8217;s official narrative, according to its founder. The China Unofficial Archive, founded by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and former China correspondent Ian Johnson, is &#8220;dedicated to making accessible the key documents, films, blogs, and publications of a movement of Chinese people seeking to reclaim their country&#8217;s history&#8221; since the Communists took over in 1949. It includes books, films and documentary records from key points in China&#8217;s recent history, including the Great Famine of the late 1950s to early 1960s under late supreme leader Mao Zedong, memoirs of the political turmoil of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution and former Beijing Mayor Chen Xitong&#8217;s personal account of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. &#8220;We believe that public domain books, magazines, and films should be widely available, and that there is an inherent value in making different voices heard,&#8221; the bilingual Archive&#8217;s About section reads. The non-profit archive was co-created and is co-maintained by Chinese journalist Jiang Xue and others &#8220;who prefer to remain anonymous,&#8221; it says. Johnson, whose recent book “Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and their Battle for the Future” portrays the same people his archive hopes to serve, told Radio Free Asia in a recent interview he hopes that more Chinese people will gain access to materials through the archive that are unavailable in China due to government censorship. &#8220;I noticed talking to a lot of people that &#8230; although there&#8217;s a lot more information possible to share in China, like people emailing PDFs and that sort of thing &#8230; it was sometimes difficult to find more information,&#8221; Johnson said. &#8220;Somebody might send you a book about a topic, but it would be difficult to find other books on the topic or other authors on the topic.&#8221; Providing access Currently, the archive has a backlog of around 175 films that are currently being digitized that have yet to appear on the site, which Johnson said is around &#8220;75% or 80%&#8221; focused on people still living under censorship, with the remainder aimed at non-Chinese overseas. Johnson had the idea to set up a &#8220;clearing house&#8221; for useful historical research material for those who lack access to big research libraries in major universities like Harvard. &#8220;My primary goal was to help people who are doing this kind of research to simply have access to existing materials, all the books and the documentary films, etc,&#8221; he said. Ian Johnson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and former China correspondent, is the founder of the China Unofficial Archive. (Cai Yaozheng) Johnson was careful to note that he doesn&#8217;t endorse any of the material on his site as better or more truthful than any other material. &#8220;We have chosen these titles because we think that they&#8217;re useful and important,&#8221; he said. &#8220;But we aren&#8217;t saying necessarily that we agree with everything written by this author or that sort of thing, so in that sense, it is a bit like a library.&#8221; &#8220;We think there&#8217;s maybe an inherent value in a better flow of information,&#8221; he said, adding that the website aims to serve the needs of ordinary people and &#8220;citizen historians.&#8221; The site is unlikely to be accessible to internet users behind the Great Firewall of government censorship in China unless they employ special tools to get around government blocks and filters. &#8220;That&#8217;s to be expected,&#8221; Johnson said. &#8220;We&#8217;re looking to reach the people who are trying to research and, and write their country&#8217;s history.&#8221; &#8220;The raw numbers of people is small, but I think they can also be influential people in the long run,&#8221; he said. ‘Just the beginning’ The archive has plans to keep on adding new resources from what Johnson termed &#8220;a huge amount of potential material.&#8221; &#8220;What we&#8217;ve put on the site right now is just the beginning,&#8221; he said.  Not everything is eligible, either. Johnson and his team will steer clear of posting any book that is currently still on sale, although they plan to post an entry signposting readers to publishers and bookstores in the case of some publications. Books that are still readily available in libraries around the world are unlikely to get a spot, whether they&#8217;re on sale or not. But books that are out of print, or whose publishers have been shut down, or have been banned from sale will be made available, according to Johnson. &#8220;We don&#8217;t want to hurt [anyone&#8217;s] ability to earn a living,&#8221; he said. Even with that content ruled out, there is plenty of new material being published by what Johnson described as &#8220;an amazing explosion&#8221; of citizen historians in the past two decades in China. &#8220;Sometimes in Hong Kong, sometimes just as a PDF, sometimes they make a film and put it on YouTube or some other place like that,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I don&#8217;t think many people, certainly outside of China, realize how much has been done about that.&#8221; &#8220;It&#8217;s remarkable that it&#8217;s primarily written by Chinese people inside China under often difficult conditions and without the benefits of being a professor at a big university and a budget and graduate students to help you do all the dirty work, right?&#8221; &#8220;These are people often working on their own and under quite difficult circumstances,&#8221; Johnson said. &#8220;And so I thought it was an important trend that needed some highlighting and in this way by putting it all together.&#8221; &#8220;It shows the scope of this movement.&#8221; Edited by Luisetta Mudie and Malcolm Foster.
- [Women and children suffer amid Myanmar’s civil war](https://ij-reportika.com/women-and-children-suffer-amid-myanmars-civil-war/): As Myanmar’s civil war approaches its third year, intensified fighting across the country this year between ruling junta forces and resistance fighters has destroyed villages and parts of towns, displacing hundreds of thousands of civilians, most of whom are women and children.  The number of internally displaced persons, or IDPs, reached more than 1 million this year, nearly 11,000 of whom fled to neighboring India and Thailand, according to a United Nations report. “The lives and properties of our people were destroyed,” said Zin Mar Aung, foreign affairs minister under the parallel National Unity Government, noting the junta’s burning of villages, air strikes targeting civilians and mass killings. At least 330 women died this year as a result of attacks by junta forces amid the escalation of armed conflict, said Tin Tin Nyo, general secretary of the Women&#8217;s League of Burma. “The number of civilian casualties increased due to artillery attacks and air strikes,” she told Radio Free Asia. “Most of the victims were women, children and the elderly.” A woman killed by an artillery shell fired by Myanmar junta forces is carried by rescuers in Noe Koe village in Kayah state’s Loikaw township, Aug. 31, 2023. (Karenni Human Rights Group) Since the end of October, the number of internally displaced persons also increased, with most being women and children, Tin Tin Nyo said.  “After a country falls under the rule of dictators, it loses the rule of law and justice,” she said, adding that her organization has seen an uptick in gender-based violence, abuse by husbands amid economic decline, and a growing number sex workers.  “These are both visible and invisible challenges,” said the women&#8217;s rights advocate. “2023 was full of severe hardship for women.” ‘Lost hope’ Yu Yu, a woman who fled amid armed clashes in eastern Myanmar’s Kayah state, said she has suffered trauma as an IDP. “We are surviving on the food of donors as we have no jobs,” she said. “We have lost hope.” Women who left their jobs to join the Civil Disobedience Movement, or CDM, to resist the military rule following the February 2021 coup say they’ve had difficulties making ends meet while caring for children or aging parents. “My father is 80 years old, my mother is also elderly, [and] they are not in good health,” said Khin May, who used to teach at a private high school in Bago region but quit to join the CDM. “It is very difficult for us while I have no job,” she said, adding that she believes the resistance forces will triumph over the junta in 2024.  Hla Win, who lost her leg to a landmine, walks with crutches at a camp for internally displaced people near Myanmar’s Pekon township, July 29, 2023. (AFP) Children have suffered amid the civil war as well, and more than 560 have died since the military seized control from the civilian-led government in the February 2021 coup, according to Aung Myo Min, the NUG’s human rights minister. Since Dec. 21, four children between the ages of 8 and 11 were killed in Rakhine state’s Mrauk-U township, a 9-year-old child was killed in Namtu in northern Shan state, and a seven-year-old girl died in an attack by junta troops in Sagaing region’s Paungbyin township, according to figures compiled by RFA. “This is a war crime,” said Aung Myo Min. “It’s everyone’s responsibility to protect children at all times, but we have seen almost every day that killings are taking place where there are children as they sleep alongside their families, as well as the deaths of pregnant mothers.” Utter despair The death of children are often directly linked to women dying mid the fighting, said Thandar, head of gender equality and women’s development under the NUG’s Ministry of Women, Youth and Children’s Affairs. “For example, in Sagaing and Magway regions, grown men are performing revolutionary duties, while the women, the elderly and vulnerable groups like children are fleeing together,” she said. “So, if women are hit, children are hit, too.” According to Shan Human Rights Foundation based in Thailand, 28 children were killed due to the junta’s attacks from Oct. 27 to Dec. 27 during the the Three Brotherhood Alliance rebel offensive that has put junta forces back on their heels. People flee a village after renewed fighting between Myanmar&#8217;s military and the Arakan Army in Pauktaw township in western Rakhine state, Nov. 19, 2023. (AFP) Air- and land-based artillery strikes are the most common cause of death, and children are among the mass casualties when such attacks occur, death counts indicate. On Apr. 19, nearly 20 children under the age of 18 were killed in an air strike during a gathering in Pa Zi Gyi village in Sagaing region’s Kanbalu township. Eleven others died during an attack on Mon Laik IDP camp near the headquarters of an ethnic army in the town of Laiza in Kachin state on Oct. 9.  And eight more children were killed during an aerial bombardment of Vuilu village in Matupi township in western Myanmar’s Chin state on Nov. 15. Roi Ji, 40, told RFA that she was in utter despair because all five of her children died in the attack on the Mon Laik IDP camp. “I can’t think about anything anymore,” she said. “I’m in a state of derangement.” Precarious futures Children who live in war-torn areas no longer have access to schools or adequate nutrition, and face bleak futures. Nwe Nwe Moe, a former teacher at Shwebo Technical College who joined the Civil Disobedience Movement and has since become a member of Yinmarbin-Salingyi multi-village strike committee in Sagaing region, said she dare not think about the future of the children living among the chaos of war. “I’m concerned about whether the children will be able to develop into capable young people because there is no safety, no access to study, health care, or nutritious food for them,” she said. “I have a sinking feeling about those who are in life-threatening and emotionally insecure situations.” People...
- [Ethnic armies’ ‘Operation 1027’ put Myanmar junta on defensive in 2023](https://ij-reportika.com/ethnic-armies-operation-1027-put-myanmar-junta-on-defensive-in-2023/): Myanmar’s ethnic armed organizations and other resistance groups made significant gains against the country’s military dictatorship in 2023. &#8220;Operation 1027,&#8221; launched by the Three Brotherhood Alliance in northern Shan state in October, was a surprising success. Along with the efforts of local People’s Defense Forces, or PDFs, and ethnic armed groups in Kayah, Kayin, Chin, and Kachin states, anti-junta forces put the ruling military junta on the defensive.&nbsp; The junta lost hundreds of outposts as rebel forces captured towns and several key border crossings in November and December, suggesting the tide could be turning in the country&#8217;s civil war that erupted after the military overthrew a democratically elected government in a February 2021 coup d&#8217;etat “The military council suffered great losses in 2023, while the people’s revolution has stepped forward gradually,” said Kyaw Zaw, spokesman for the shadow National Unity Government, or NUG. “It is the victory of the people.” The number of junta troops surrendering to resistance forces increased after Operation 1027 began.&nbsp; &nbsp; People&#8217;s Liberation Army forces from China fight Myanmar junta army troops near northwestern Myanmar&#8217;s Sagaing region, Nov. 23, 2023. (Reuters) &nbsp; &nbsp; On Oct. 30, more than 40 members of Light Infantry Battalion 143 in Kunlong township, northern Shan state, surrendered to the Three Brotherhood Alliance, which includes the Arakan Army, Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army. A day later, the military junta’s 15 local militia members laid down their weapons and turned over their arms and ammunition. Reports of junta units submitting to resistance forces have continued over the last two months. “Many have contacted us to surrender,” said Maung Maung Swe, spokesman for the NUG’s Ministry of Defense. “If we can have more collaborative fights, the military council will soon topple.” Junta troops have lost motivation and confidence in their fighting ability because of Operation 1027, political observer Than Soe Naing said.&nbsp; “They have realized they should not sacrifice their lives for corrupt senior military officials,” he said. “They will surrender if they are defeated, and will flee from the military if they have an opportunity. It’s become a common idea among soldiers.” We were unable to reach junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment about junta forces surrendering.&nbsp; Local administrations Ethnic armies and officials from the NUG, which is mostly made up of former civilian government leaders, have been setting up interim administrative bodies in areas they control.&nbsp; In other areas of the country, resistance leaders have started to think about what Myanmar would look like if the junta was defeated.&nbsp; In Sagaing region, a hotbed of resistance to military rule that saw a resurgence of anti-junta protests in 2023, more than 170 resistance forces held a forum on May 30-31 to discuss the armed revolt and local administration. &nbsp; Ta&#8217;ang National Liberation Army troops prepare to launch a drone during their attack on a Myanmar junta military camp in Namhsan township in Myanmar&#8217;s northern Shan state, Dec. 12, 2023. (AFP)&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; “The forum was held to continue the revolution collaboratively as it has been for more than two years,” Sagaing Forum spokesman Chaw Su San said. “It also aims to forge more cooperation among anti-military dictatorship forces in Sagaing region.” On Nov. 17, democratically elected representatives from Sagaing, Tanintharyi and Magway regions convened regional parliaments and approved a preparatory bill for an interim constitution, supported by the dissolved National League for Democracy. But revolutionary groups objected to the measure, saying they wanted to ensure equal rights for negotiation, participation and collective leadership by all resistance groups, said Soe Win Swe, another Sagaing Forum spokesman. “We concluded that the recent approval was intended just for the interest of a single organization, so we objected to it,” he said. “The Sagaing Forum firmly stands on collective leadership.” Draft constitutions In western Myanmar, armed ethnic Chin groups have also gone on the offensive since October. “Our resistance forces could capture only four or five military outposts in the past two and half years,” said Salai Timmy, the secretary of the Chinland Joint Defense Committee.&nbsp; “However, after launching Operation 1027, we controlled about nine outposts,” he said. “Meanwhile, the military troops abandoned about 12 camps.” The Chin National Front, an ethnic Chin political organization whose armed wing has battled junta forces, along with local administration organizations, established Chinland — Chin state’s new name – following the approval of a new constitution on Dec. 6. The Chinland Council, the new governing body, will form a legislature, an administration and a judiciary branch within 60 days, said Salai Htet Ni, first joint secretary of the council.&nbsp; &nbsp; Members of the Myanmar Army’s Light Infantry Battalion 129 surrender to the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army in northern Shan state, Nov. 12, 2023. (Three Brotherhood Alliance)&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; In eastern Myanmar, ethnic Karenni forces launched Operation 11.11 — their own version of Operation 1027 — in November, seizing at least nine military outposts in Kayah state, said Khun Bedu, chairman of the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force. “The junta soldiers abandoned their camps,” he said. “We are moving on to capture more outposts.” Resistance forces in Kayah state set up an Interim Executive Council, or IEC, on June 12, putting in place local administrations at village, village-tract and township levels, IEC General Secretary Khu Plue Reh said. NUG is working with the IEC without intervening in administrative procedures, he said. “We also work together to provide public services especially in education, health care and humanitarian assistance,” he said. With its own public support, the establishment of the IEC could be an initial step toward the establishment of a federal union in Myanmar — a long-running goal of ethnic political organizations and their respective ethnic armies. In adjacent Kayin state, the Karen National Union, or KNU, battled junta troops, while providing training to local PDFs.&nbsp; The KNU’s Karen National Liberation Army and PDF forces took control of Mon township in early December — the first town captured in Bago region. Resistance forces...
- [Relatives say imprisoned Vietnamese journalist’s health declining](https://ij-reportika.com/relatives-say-imprisoned-vietnamese-journalists-health-declining/): A Vietnamese journalist who is serving an 11-year prison sentence told family members that his health has declined to the point that he can no longer consume food without vomiting, a relative told Radio Free Asia. Le Huu Minh Tuan, a member of the Vietnam Independent Journalists’ Association, was arrested in 2020 on a charge of “conducting propaganda against the state.” He’s now serving an 11-year term at Xuyen Moc Prison in southern Vietnam’s Ba Ria-Vung Tau province. Tuan, 34, said during a visit on Tuesday that “he is too weak to bear any more” and that he “cannot hold on” much longer, according to the relative, who wished to remain anonymous. Tuan has had digestive issues since late last year and has been diagnosed with ulcerative colitis and hepatitis by a medical officer at the prison. He contracted scabies in mid-2023, and that has now spread to his whole body, according to the relative.   Although his family has sent medication several times, he has not been allowed to receive them and can only take medicine provided by the prison, the relative said.  Tuan received a cursory examination at a local hospital in November, according to the relative.  On Tuesday, family members could only see Tuan through a thick glass partition and were allowed to talk to him only via telephone. He was able to walk by himself but moved slowly.  “He has only bone and skin left now, very pale. He could not consume anything because his body could not digest food. He just drank milk and thin porridge,” the relative said. ‘His life quite clearly depends on it’ Tuan is a former editor of the Vietnam Times online newspaper and a member of the Vietnam Independent Journalists’ Association, which fought for press freedom in Vietnam but was not recognized by the Communist-led government. Tuan was prosecuted alongside Pham Chi Dung, the association’s president, and Nguyen Tuong Thuy, a blogger for RFA and the association’s vice president. Dung was given a 15-year prison term, while Thuy was sentenced to 11 years. Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division, called on the government to immediately release Tuan. &#8220;Since Vietnam&#8217;s prisons provide virtually no health services to start with, Le Huu Minh Tuan should be immediately and unconditionally released so that his family can get him the support and medical care that he urgently needs,” he told RFA. “There should be no excuses, his life quite clearly depends on it.” Many international organizations, including Amnesty International, have criticized Vietnam for its inhumane treatment of prisoners of conscience and for holding them in harsh conditions with malnutrition and poor medical care. Family members have sent an urgent petition to the Ministry of Public Security’s Department of Prison Management and to Xuyen Moc Prison with a request to give Tuan proper treatment and a thorough examination at a hospital. RFA’s calls to Xuyen Moc Prison and Ba Ria-Vung Tau Provincial People’s Procuracy to verify information went unanswered. Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Matt Reed and Roseanne Gerin.
- [Junta raid kills 10 Rohingyas, injures 17 in Myanmar’s Rakhine state](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-raid-kills-10-rohingyas-injures-17-in-myanmars-rakhine-state/): Ten Rohingyas were killed and another 17 injured in the Buthidaung and Mrauk-U townships in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, as a result of airstrikes by the junta on Thursday, local residents told RFA Burmese on Friday. At around 9 p.m. on Thursday night, heavy artillery fired from a junta camp struck Zay Di Taung village in Buthidaung township. The attack resulted in the loss of six family members, including three Rohingya children who were at home asleep, and left another member of the family critically injured, according to the residents. The casualties included Zafaul, a 60-year-old man; Ansaula, a 19-year-old man; Sotyod Ahmed, a 5-year-old boy; Norol Ahmed, a 3-year-old boy; Halayar, an 11-year-old boy; and Tausmi Nara, a 20-year-old woman. “Three heavy weapons fell into the village on Thursday night. One [of three] fell directly on the houses. All six members of the family who were sleeping in the house died and it was also burned down,” a Rohingya resident of Zay Di Taung village, who wished to remain anonymous for his security reasons, told RFA Burmese Friday.  “So the bodies were also burnt. The other one was injured while trying to evacuate,” said the resident, adding that the heavy artillery was fired by the junta camp at Thone Se Ta Bon Zay Di hill in Buthidaung township. Rohingyas are fleeing due to battles in Mrauk-U’s Myaung Bway village on Dec. 28. (AK/Citizen journalist) Locals said that there are more than 60 households with more than 300 population in the Rohingya-dominant Zay Di Taung village.  Despite the pervasive fear among villagers caused by the casualties from the conflict, Rohingya Muslims remain restricted from moving freely, even within Rakhine state. Consequently, they are compelled to stay in their village, lacking any refuge to flee to in times of danger. Zay Di Taung village is not alone. Four Rohingya were killed and 16 others were injured in junta’s Thursday airstrikes on Rohingya villages, including Kaing Taw, Bu Ta Lone and Baung Dut villages in Mrauk-U township, according to the locals. The junta raid came after anti-junta force Arakan Army (AA) attacked the Myaung Bway, also known as Myaung Bway Chay, Police Station in Mrauk-U township on Thursday, a resident, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals, told RFA Burmese on Friday.  “The AA attacked the Myaung Bway Police Station on Thursday. Then the junta army attacked with heavy artillery and airstrikes, causing casualties when the nearby villages were also shot. The homes were also burned down. The junta opened fire from the side of Mrauk-U and Minbya, and shot them with jets,” the resident said.  The AA claimed on Thursday that the junta attacks were “deliberately” carried out.  The junta said in a Friday statement that no air strike had been carried out on Mrauk-U’s Myaung Bway village and surrounding area on Thursady.  It also claimed that when the AA used the drone to attack the Myaung Bway police station from a distance, the junta security forces used anti-drone weapons, or jammers, which made drone bombs fall near the surrounding villages. The statement made no mention of the death of Rohingyas in Buthidaung township’s Zay Di Taung village. Rohingyas are fleeing due to battles in Mrauk-U’s Myaung Bway village on Dec. 28. (AK/Citizen journalist) Based on records gathered by RFA, 40 civilians lost their lives and over a hundred were wounded during the clashes between the AA and the military junta, which reignited for over a month from Nov. 13 to Dec. 29. Following the military clearance operations and assaults in 2017, over 700,000 Rohingyas from Northern Rakhine sought refuge in Bangladesh. Presently, over a million Rohingyas are residing in refugee camps along the Bangladesh border, as reported by the United Nations and various international organizations. It is said that about 1.4 million Rohingyas still remain in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, and these Rohingyas are enduring food scarcity and severe limitations in Myanmar, while also grappling with criminal activities and gang violence in refugee camps in Bangladesh. Consequently, they are taking perilous sea journeys to reach Indonesia or Malaysia. Since last November, over 1,500 Rohingyas have reached Indonesia’s Aceh province by boat. Indonesian President Joko Widodo has pledged temporary aid for these Rohingya refugees, yet there is resistance from the local population. This situation has raised alarms among human rights groups. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Taejun Kang and Elaine Chan.
- [Disinformation campaign spurred student attack on Rohingya shelter, Indonesian activists say](https://ij-reportika.com/disinformation-campaign-spurred-student-attack-on-rohingya-shelter-indonesian-activists-say/): Human rights activists and some observers on Thursday alleged that university students who stormed a Rohingya shelter in Aceh province the day before had been influenced by an “organized” disinformation campaign, which some even linked to the upcoming general election.  Their comments came amid a flood of condemnation of the “inhumane” incident, which resulted in the students forcing the 137 terrified refugees in Banda Aceh, mostly women and children, into trucks to another location. The Rohingya will now be guarded by security forces, a top minister said Thursday. Observers noted that the mob action on Wednesday – which was captured on video and widely circulated – was not typical of student protests in Aceh.  Hendra Saputra, the project coordinator of Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) Indonesia, an NGO in Aceh, said he suspected that Wednesday’s incident was not spontaneous, but “organized and systematic.” He told BenarNews that the students were influenced by social media posts that spread hate and misinformation about the Rohingya. “[The posts] also accused the refugees of taking their food and land, and of sexual harassment and other bad behavior. But these are all false accusations,” he said, adding that no evidence was presented to substantiate the claims.  Besides, the refugees couldn’t be a burden because the government is not spending money on them, Hendra said. “There’s no government budget allocated for refugee management,” he said. A Rohingya woman reacts as she is relocated from her temporary shelter following a protest demanding the deportation of the refugees, Banda Aceh, Aceh province, Indonesia, Dec. 27, 2023. [Riska Munawarah/Reuters] Aceh, a predominantly Muslim province that has special autonomy status in Indonesia, has a history of welcoming the Rohingya refugees, who are also Muslim.  However, as more than 1,500 Rohingya have arrived since mid-November, the province’s villagers have been demanding they be sent back, claiming there weren’t enough resources for the refugees as well. Those demands grew to small protests, which on Wednesday escalated to the student mob charging into the Rohingya shelter, kicking their belongings and creating mayhem, as many of the refugees sobbed uncontrollably or looked on, frightened and shocked. The government will move the 137 Rohingya refugees to the local Indonesian Red Cross headquarters and the Aceh Foundation building, said Mohammad Mahfud MD, the coordinating minister for political, legal, and security affairs. “I have instructed security forces to protect the refugees because this is a humanitarian issue,” Mahfud told journalists in Sidoarjo, East Java. Newly arrived Rohingya refugees return to a boat after the local community decided to temporarily allow them to land for water and food, having earlier rejected them, Ulee Madon, Aceh province, Indonesia, Nov. 16, 2023. [Amanda Jufrian/AFP] Some analysts have attributed the hostility towards the Rohingya to deliberate misinformation. Chairul Fahmi, a Rohingya researcher and law lecturer at Ar-Raniry State Islamic University in Banda Aceh, said some of this disinformation could be linked to political actors who have an interest in exploiting the refugee issue for their own agenda. “The authorities might have had a hand in the Rohingya disinformation campaign. The protest yesterday did not reflect the typical student movement,” he told BenarNews. “There is a possibility that the students were instructed.” Political parties or groups could try to stir up anti-Rohingya sentiment ahead of the general election in February, suggested Ahmad Humam Hamid, a sociologist at Syiah Kuala University in Banda Aceh. “Aceh should not be used as a battleground for the presidential election over the Rohingya matter. It would be very dangerous,” Ahmad told BenarNews. Meanwhile, Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto, the frontrunner in the Feb. 14 presidential election, was in Aceh on Thursday, and spoke about the Rohingya. He said that while Indonesia should be humanitarian towards the stateless Rohingya, it should also prioritize the welfare of its own people. “Many of our people are struggling, and it is unfair to take in all the refugees as our responsibility, even if we feel humanitarian and sympathetic,” Prabowo said, according to local media. Newly arrived Rohingya refugees wait to board trucks to transfer to a temporary shelter after villagers rejected their relocated camp, in Banda Aceh, Aceh province, Indonesia, Dec. 27, 2023. [Chaideer Mahyuddin/AFP] Della Masnida, 20, a student at Abulyatama University who took part in Wednesday’s incident at the shelter, accused Rohingya refugees of making “unreasonable demands.” “They came here uninvited, but they act like this is their country. We don’t think that’s fair,” she told reporters on Wednesday. The student mob collectively issued a statement saying they rejected the Rohingya “because they have disrupted society.”  “We all know that President Joko Widodo has stated that there is a strong suspicion of criminal acts of trafficking among them. Even the Aceh police have said that this is an international crime,” they said in the statement issued Wednesday. The Rohingya are a persecuted Muslim minority from Myanmar, who have been fleeing violence and oppression in their homeland for years. Close to one million live in crowded camps in Bangladesh. With few options after years of a stateless existence, many Rohingya are desperate to leave and that makes them susceptible to exploitation by human traffickers, analysts have said. Gateway to Malaysia Most of the Rohingya who arrived in Aceh recently had left violent and crowded refugee camps in Myanmar’s neighbor, Bangladesh, where 740,000 of them took shelter after a brutal crackdown by the Burmese military in 2017. For the Rohingya, Indonesia is a gateway to Malaysia, which is a top destination for migrant workers from many South Asian and Southeast Asian nations. The Indonesian government, which has not ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention, has said that it does not have the obligation or the capacity to accommodate the Rohingya refugees permanently, and that its priority is to resettle them in a third country. Earlier this month, government officials complained they were overwhelmed and Indonesia was alone in bearing the burden of the Rohingya. Mitra Salima Suryono, spokeswoman for the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR in Indonesia, believes nothing could be further from the truth, and cited...
- [Burmese city hit by huge job losses amid Chinese factory closures in Dec.](https://ij-reportika.com/burmese-city-hit-by-huge-job-losses-amid-chinese-factory-closures-in-dec/): About 3,000 workers were left unemployed and without full compensation following the ongoing shutdowns of Chinese garment factories in December in Pathein, Ayeyarwady region of Myanmar, according to workers on Wednesday.  Since the first week of December, the three factories &#8211; Haubo Times, He Shan, and North Shore &#8211; have been shut down, and it’s planned that some of the remaining employees will be laid off by the end of the month, a women from Haubo Times who was laid off told RFA Burmese.  “Hubo Times was closed this December. They [the factory officials] pay workers for four to six days of their work (in the first week of the month). After that, there are only a few workers left until Dec. 20,” said the woman, adding that some sections of the factory are still operational, but workers there were also asked to work only until the end of December.  Labor activists close to the matter said the closure was due to the lack of power supply, difficulties in purchasing fuel for generators to run the factory, a lack of demand and raw materials shortage. The activists noted that while the affected workers did receive compensation equivalent to three months&#8217; salary from the factories, they have not been given overtime pay and social security benefits by their employers that are provided by the junta council’s Ministry of Labor. An activist in Pathein township, preferring anonymity due to fear of repercussions, highlighted that the compensation process was handled unjustly, disproportionately impacting workers with longer tenures. “Workers with longer tenures should receive more compensation based on the labor law. They expect that too. It’s demoralizing and disappointing for them when the company does not abide by this law,” the activist told RFA Burmese.  The three garment factories as well as Aung Thein Win, the junta council spokesman for Ayeyarwady region and a regional minister for social affairs, have not responded to RFA’s inquiries as of this writing. There were about 15 garment factories in Pathein before the military coup, but now more than half of them have been closed, a local resident told RFA Burmese.  Pathein is not alone. The garment industry in the Yangon Industrial Zone also suffered rising raw material prices, difficulty securing the materials and extreme power outages among other issues. As of August, there were 817 factories in the whole country that are members of Myanmar Garment Manufacturers Association, or MGMA, according to the association. Among them 546 were up and running, while 271 were reportedly closed down, it said. Of these 546 operational, 311 were China-owned factories. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Taejun Kang and Elaine Chan.
- [Candlelight Party tries to win over Nation Power Party](https://ij-reportika.com/candlelight-party-tries-to-win-over-nation-power-party/): The Candlelight Party is urging the new Nation Power Party to join forces with it to form a stronger opposition alliance to the ruling Cambodian People’s Party ahead of Senate elections in February, a former Candlelight official said Wednesday. Rong Chhun, former Candlelight Party vice president who now serves as an advisor to the Nation Power Party, told RFA that leaders from both parties held informal talks in the name of democracy to discuss the strategy for upcoming Senate election on Feb 25.  Rong Chhun and Chea Mony, a prominent former union leader, left the Candlelight Party to form the Nation Power Party after Candlelight’s candidates were excluded from participating in the July general election by the National Election Committee. The committee did not recognize the party because it couldn’t produce an original registration form issued by the Interior Ministry. As a result, the Cambodian People’s Party won 120 of 125 seats in the National Assembly.  Efforts by Candlelight leaders to regain official status in recent months have failed, prompting them to seek out smaller parties certified by the ministry.  Though there have been no official discussions between the Candlelight and Nation Power parties, the latter is ready to make concessions so that they will have to allocate their candidates to stand for specific constituencies and electoral regions without having to compete with each other, Rong Chhun said.  “As for now, I cannot confirm that there will be any specific concessions, but there should be mutual concessions and win-win solutions,” he said.   RFA was unable to reach Ly Sothearayut, secretary general of the Candlelight Party, for comment. Kimsuor Phirith, former Candlelight Party spokesman who currently serves as a member of the Khmer Will Party, said he was not aware of any informal talks between Candlelight and the Nation Power Party, but he urged the latter to join the opposition “Alliance Toward the Future.” The Candlelight Party said in October that it would join forces with three smaller parties — the Khmer Will Party, Grassroots Democratic Party and Cambodia Reform Party — to form a political alliance that would aim to field candidates in the 2027 local commune elections and the 2028 general election.  So far, the National Election Committee has officially registered the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, Khmer Will Party, Nation Power Party, and the royalist Funcinpec Party, to run in the upcoming Senate elections in which 58 of the body’s 62 seats are up for grabs.  Cambodia’s Constitution allows King Norodom Sihamoni to nominate two senators and the National Assembly to nominate another two.  Both the Khmer Will Party and the Nation Power Party have registered candidates for all the eight Senate constituency regions nationwide, representing the 58 seats.  Sam Kuntheamy, president of the Neutral and Impartial Committee for Free and Fair Elections, said if the Nation Power and Candlelight parties failed to work together, their votes would be divided in the upcoming election because most opposition voters, who are commune councilors, are Candlelight Party members.  Translated by Sovannarith Keo for RFA Khmer. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Junta attack kills 8 civilians, injures 25 in Myanmar’s Laukkaing city](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-attack-kills-8-civilians-injures-25-in-myanmars-laukkaing-city/): Junta’s recent deployment of heavy weaponry in Laukkaing, a city within the Kokang Self-Administered Zone in Myanmar’s Shan State, has resulted in the death of eight civilians and left 25 others injured, according to the anti-junta Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) on Tuesday.  The MNDAA said in a statement that the military junta’s two heavy weapons landed near the Crown hotel in Dong Cheng neighborhood in Kokang, bringing civilian casualties. It added that the injured individuals were transported to the hospital, while those who passed away were cremated. A local resident, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals, told RFA Burmese that he eye-witnessed the death of several civilians when a shell hit and detonated on a car parked near the Crown Hotel. “The heavy weapon dropped straight on that car and one of the people in the car and the two others near the car died. Children and women were among the dead,” said the resident.  He further explained that the incident occurred when troops from the MNDAA positioned near the Sel Ton gate, just outside Laukkaing city, launched an attack on the 77th Division of the military junta as they entered the city. A heavy weapon used in this exchange landed near the Crown Hotel and exploded, resulting in casualties. The military junta continues to bombard Laukkaing city, and frequent disruptions in internet and telecommunication services have made it difficult to ascertain the full extent of the casualties. RFA Burmese called Li Kyarwen, a MNDAA spokesman on Wednesday regarding the local’s claim, but he did not respond. The military junta has yet to issue a statement on this incident as of Wednesday noon. RFA Burmese also contacted Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, the State Administration Council spokesman, but the call went unanswered. Separately, the MNDAA said three civilians were killed and ten were injured on Dec. 24 in an junta’s airstrike in Laukkaing and Hseni (Hsenwi) township. Between Oct. 27 to Dec. 23, a total of 55 civilians were killed and more than 40 people were injured due to the junta airstrikes in Kokang Region, according to data compiled by RFA based on the MNDAA’s statements.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Taejun Kang and Elaine Chan.
- [Military burned more than 440 bodies over 19-month period](https://ij-reportika.com/military-burned-more-than-440-bodies-over-19-month-period/): More than 440 bodies, mostly those of civilians, were burned by ruling junta forces across Myanmar between March 2022 and September 2023, according to a report by a U.K.-based nonprofit group dedicated to exposing human rights abuses and war crimes. The report from the Centre for Information Resilience, or CIR, said the military regime’s soldiers have routinely set villages ablaze and torched civilians – including some believed to be burned alive – amid the ongoing conflict with anti-junta forces to spread fear and control the population. The report, issued on Dec. 24, the second anniversary of a Christmas Eve massacre in Kayah state, was based on information from local media reports and user-generated content  compiled by the Myanmar Witness project which has monitored and documented human rights violations in Myanmar since the coup. At that massacre two years ago, Myanmar army soldiers killed at least 35 civilians, including women and children, and burned their bodies near a village called Moso, Radio Free Asia reported. The number was later increased to 50 civilians. Despite clear evidence and witness accounts pointing to national troops as the perpetrators, Myanmar’s military junta, which seized power from an elected government in a February 2021 coup, denied responsibility for the killings and blamed local resistance forces. Matt Lawrence, director of the Myanmar Witness project, called the incidents “another horrific dimension to the impact of the conflict on the people of Myanmar.” Grisly images Investigators relied on local media reports and user-generated content to determine how many civilians were burned during the 19-month period, using photos and videos from social media platforms.  In one instance, the photos and videos allowed investigators to identify the burned bodies of 150 victims, including what appeared to be the charred bodies of children, and corpses of others stacked before being set ablaze, the report said. “Who these individuals were, and how they ended up here, is far less clear, but open source evidence suggests that some were burnt alive, while others were burnt after death or as a result of an artillery or air strike.” CRI said. The remains of burned bodies are seen in Pa Lon Twi village of Mindat township in western Myanmar&#8217;s Chin state, Nov. 10, 2022. (Chinland Defense Force-Mindat) Most of the burnings occurred in northwestern Myanmar’s Sagaing region, a hotbed of armed resistance to the junta, but the report did not specify whether civilians there were burned after being killed or burned to death before they died. A local resident said that when the junta troops raided the villages and set fire to their homes during the clearance operations, some elderly people who could not escape were also burned to death. During a raid of Mu Gyi in Sagaing region on Nov. 24, 2022, about 100 Myanmar soldiers burned down nearly 200 houses killing about six people, said a resident, who did not want to be named for security reasons. Among them was 80-year-old Aye Yin, who died because she could not escape.  “The junta troops raided the village and torched houses owned by people who had connections to members of People’s Defense Forces,” said the resident, referring to local armed resistance fighters. “The fire spread and burned down other houses.”   Seeking justice The greatest number of civilians burned in a single incident occurred during the December 2021 attack in Kayah state&#8217;s Moso village. Zue Padonmar, one of the secretaries of  the Karenni State Interim Executive Council, said local officials tried to take action against the military, which had committed the mass killings but still enjoyed impunity. “We talked  to international organizations to find ways to punish this army, especially for committing these war crimes [and] genocide, and in order to not support the mechanisms of the military council. We also continuously recorded accounts about the perpetrators.” Those who burned civilians to death or burned dead bodies should receive capital punishment, some Burmese legal experts said. Because the acts are war crimes, top military leaders and commanders should be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court, said Kyee Myint, a veteran high court lawyer. “The people who gave the orders will be sent to jail, [and] the rest will be tried under domestic law,” he told RFA. “Burning people alive is an international crime.” RFA’s calls to junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment went unanswered on Tuesday.  Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [The Dark Side of the Chinese Loan Applications](https://ij-reportika.com/the-dark-side-of-the-chinese-loan-applications/): This exposé by Ij-Reportika uncovers the unsettling realities concealed beneath the seemingly innocuous facade of Chinese Loan Applications.
- [Junta attack claims lives of 3 people in Myanmar’s Rakhine State](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-attack-claims-lives-of-3-people-in-myanmars-rakhine-state/): The junta army’s heavy artillery shelling in Myanmar’s ancient capital of Mrauk-U in Rakhine State between Sunday and Monday resulted in the deaths of three civilians and the arrest of nine others, local residents told Radio Free Asia on Monday. The shelling also caused damage to an archaeological museum that is renowned for its ancient Buddhist pagodas and temples, they added. Locals said that the junta army has been continuously firing heavy weapons all over the Mrauk-U city after the battle between the junta army and the anti-junta force Arakan Army (AA) on Sunday.  The roof and antiques inside of the Cultural Museum which displayed the ancient cultural heritages in the city’s Nyaung Pin Zay neighborhood were damaged by a junta heavy weapon at around 5 a.m. on Sunday, according to locals.  Three monasteries, Setdamma Sukarama, Gandamar, Mingalar Man Aung, and some houses in the city were also damaged during the attack, a monk in the city who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals told RFA Burmese on Monday. “They [junta troops] are shooting with heavy artillery continuously. We could not enter the city and there was no one in the city. The fighting broke out on Sunday [Dec. 24] morning. They are shooting with heavy weapons all day and night,” said the monk.  The archaeological museum in Mrauk-U’s Nan Yar Kone was hit and destroyed by junta heavy artillery on Dec. 25, 2023. (Citizen journalist) The AA launched attacks on the police station and junta camp on the hill near Ngwe Taung Pauk bridge on the way out of Mrauk-U city early Sunday morning, and the junta responded with heavy weapons, killing three residents and injuring at least five others in the city, the locals explained. Another anti-junta force Three Northern Alliances also confirmed in a Sunday statement that the junta army had targeted the city’s residential areas of civilians and villages with heavy weapons. After the battle, about 70 soldiers from Mrauk-U-based junta Infantry Battalion (377) entered the city’s Aung Mingalar and Bandula neighborhoods and arrested nine civilians, said local residents.   The arrested include a 25-year-old man, Wai Lin Che, a 35-year-old man, Maung Hla Bu and a 50-year-old, Aung Tin Shwe. The names of the rest are still unknown. A Mrauk-U resident, who declined to be named for security reasons, told RFA Burmese that the junta troops arrested the civilians to use them as a human shield.  “They were arrested on Sunday afternoon. The junta troop assumed that the AA troops were also in the city. The [junta] troops were afraid of being attacked when they patrol into the city, so they took the civilians as human shields. All the residents are fleeing and some of the names [of those arrested] still unknown,” he told RFA Burmese.  This photo shows a group of Arakan Army officers. (Arakan Army) Anti-juta forces the Three Brotherhood Alliances also confirmed the arrest on Sunday night and said the nine civilians were arrested by the military council. Locals said that almost the entire city residents had to flee amid arrests, battles and casualties. As of 2014, the population of Mrauk-U stood at around 40,000. Junta’s military council has not released any statement about the incidents. Both Hla Thein, the council’s spokesman for Rakhine state and Attorney General, and Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, a military council spokesman, did not answer RFA’s inquiries.  Meanwhile, the AA released a statement on Monday that it will “respond effectively” to the military council army that deliberately attacked and destroyed the ancient cultural heritage of the Rakhine people. Separately, the shadow National Unity Government (NUG) blamed the junta in a Monday statement calling its attack on the museum “inhumane” and “act of war crime,” adding that it is bringing these cases to domestic and international courts. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Taejun Kang and Elaine Chan.
- [Southeast Asia’s ‘narco-state’ and ‘scam-states’ undercut authoritarian rule boasts](https://ij-reportika.com/southeast-asias-narco-state-and-scam-states-undercut-authoritarian-rule-boasts/): The year 2023 has been one of disorder in Southeast Asia.  War is still raging in Myanmar, where perhaps thousands of civilians were killed this year, on top of hundreds more soldiers and anti-junta fighters. ASEAN, the regional bloc, has failed yet again to either bring the warring parties to the negotiation table or, as a result, take a sterner position on the military government that took power through a coup in early 2021. A consequence of the escalation of political violence in Myanmar has been the proliferation of crime. According to the Southeast Asia Opium Survey 2023, published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the country reclaimed the spot as the world’s biggest opium producer, with the area of land used to grow the illicit crop increasing by 18 percent to 47,100 hectares in 2023, compared to the previous year.  Poppy fields stretch across pastures in mountainous Shan State, Myanmar in 2019. Myanmar reclaimed the spot as the world’s biggest opium producer according to the UNODC Opium Survey for 2023. (Ye Aung Thu/AFP) The report noted that “although the area under cultivation has not returned to historic peaks of nearly 58,000 ha (143,300 acres) cultivated in 2013, after three consecutive years of increases, poppy cultivation in Myanmar is expanding and becoming more productive.”  At the same time, production of methamphetamine has also increased.  One result has been to flood the rest of Southeast Asia with cheap drugs. On Dec. 13, the Thai police seized 50 million methamphetamine tablets near the Myanmar border, the country’s largest-ever drug bust and the second largest in Asia.  Alastair McCready, reporting for Al Jazeera in November, noted that yaba pills—combination of methamphetamine and caffeine—are selling for US$0.24 cents each in Laos.  The flood of drugs has led to an explosion of other criminal activity. Radio Free Asia has reported on the growing anger of ordinary Laotians about the authorities inability to investigate even petty crimes, which has been compounded by the ongoing economic crisis in the communist state, another indication of the disorder now infecting the region.  Enter ‘scam states’ Singapore, after staying capital punishments for years, felt it necessary to begin state-enforced executions again, killing the first woman defendant in two decades this year for drug-related offenses.  If Myanmar has the distinction of becoming Southeast Asia’s “narco-state” once again, some of its mainland neighbors now have the reputation of being what could be called “scam-states.” The blockbuster Chinese hit of the year No More Bets—a film about unwitting Chinese youths being lured into working for scammers somewhere in Southeast Asia, whereupon tragedy unfolds—was banned by several Southeast Asian governments, including Cambodia’s, which presumably thought its “ironclad” friend was spreading malicious propaganda.  Bags containing about 2 million methamphetamine tablets seized in a northern Thai border town near Myanmar are displayed during a news conference in Chiang Rai province, Thailand, Dec. 17, 2023. (Office Of the Narcotics Control Board via AP) Indeed, if in China No More Bets was a Tarantino-esque public health warning, in Southeast Asia it was an alarming indictment of all that’s wrong in their nations, a held-aloft mirror they couldn’t ignore, hard as they tried. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights reported in August that at least 120,000 people in Myanmar and 100,000 in Cambodia “may be held in situations where they are forced to carry out online scams.” According to a UNODC report, there could be “at least 100,000 victims of trafficking for forced criminality” in Cambodia alone. “If accurate,” the report added, “these estimates of trafficking for forced criminality in Southeast Asia would suggest that this is one of the largest coordinated trafficking in persons operations in history.”  Note that those numbers are only of people forced to work in Southeast Asia’s scam compounds, which stretch from mainland Southeast Asia to Malaysia and the Philippines. The number of workers who choose, however you understand that word, to work in this industry is no doubt many times higher. Half of national GDP The UNODC was more hesitant in its language than it could have been. It offered a “conservative estimate” that the scam industry of one Mekong nation, which it did not name, “may be generating between $7.5 and $12.5 billion” in revenue annually, around half that country’s official GDP in 2021.  Some think it was a reference to Cambodia, whose GDP was US$27 billion that year. My guess is that the UNODC was being vague because it knows this estimate could also apply to Laos and Myanmar.  Five telecom and internet fraud suspects who were handed over to the Chinese police pose for a photo at Yangon International Airport in Yangon, Aug. 2023. (Chinese embassy in Myanmar/Xinhua via AP) Moreover, it’s possible that online scamming, with its associated human trafficking and money laundering, might now be the most profitable industry in all three states, and this increasingly un-shadowy sector may be worth as much as the entire GDP of all three states.  To quote the UNODC report: “the scam industry is earning criminal groups the equivalent of billions of U.S. dollars, with profits rivaling the GDP of some countries in the region.”  There have been some busts in Cambodia and the Philippines. One of the sparks for the “Operation 1027” offensive that unfolded in October across northern Myanmar, touted as the biggest rout of the junta’s forces since the February 2021 coup, was the apparent inability of the military junta to tackle Chinese-run scam compounds in Shan State. Because of the junta’s inactivity, a number of armed ethnic groups stepped in to tackle the scam compounds, which was well received in Beijing.  However, the task of tackling these groups is beyond the capabilities of the police and militaries of Southeast Asian states. In authoritarian mainland Southeast Asia, law enforcement is a patronized, pay-for-promotion extension of ruling parties, which makes them not only ineffective but also systematically corrupt.  Political protection Naturally, there is a good deal of political protection of these...
- [Lao Christians given permission to celebrate Christmas](https://ij-reportika.com/lao-christians-given-permission-to-celebrate-christmas/): Christians in Laos are preparing to celebrate Christmas more freely this year after the Lao Evangelical Church received permission to do so from the Ministry of Interior, several believers told Radio Free Asia. In the past, Christians across the country had to get permission from their village and district authorities – approval that was not granted in many cases. Even though Laos has a national law protecting the freedom of religion, Christians have been restricted, persecuted and sometimes attacked in the one-party communist country with a mostly Buddhist population. Earlier this year, 15 Christian families and a pastor in Luang Namtha province were evicted and their homes destroyed because they didn’t participate in traditional and cultural activities of the communities. This year, however, the security minister sent a notice asking the district and provincial authorities to facilitate Christmas celebrations. Christmas, which celebrates the birth of Jesus as the promised messiah, falls on Monday this year, but churches are marking the holiday with various services and gatherings during this time. “We’re inviting some local leaders to attend our Christmas celebration,”  a member of the Lao Evangelical Church in Savannakhet Province, who like other sources in this report requested anonymity for safety reasons, told RFA Lao. “This year, we don’t have to request permission to celebrate the holy day from the local authorities because we got permission from the central government more specifically from the Ministry of Interior,” he said. “The ministry has just sent a notice of the authorization to all provinces then the provincial authorities passed it down to the districts,” he said. “A district official told us that there are some changes this year; one of the changes is that we don’t have to request permission from the local authorities.” The Lao Evangelical Church is the largest registered Christian church in Laos with in 2021 more than 200,000 followers and around 200 pastors. Restrictions in some places Still, Christians in Savannakhet Province said they faced restrictions. “We’re celebrating Christmas this year, but not in our village because our village chief wouldn’t allow us to celebrate the holy day here, we would have to join the celebration in another village in the district,” a follower in Nong district said. Last year, Christians in three villages in that same district requested permission to celebrate Christmas, but the district authorities gave permission to only one village, Nalao. When Christians defied those restrictions and set up stages, tables and tents in all three villages, about 20 police and military officers armed with guns came. They dismantled and confiscated all the things the people had set up, prompting the women and children to cry, said a believer from the province. “We lost everything. We lost about 30 wooden planks, several hundreds of tables, chairs and tents. We rented these materials and equipment: so, we lost a total of ten million kip (US$500), and religious ceremonies were canceled,” he said. Historically, the district has been resistant to Christians. In 2018, seven Christian leaders in Nong district were arrested then released about a week later for organizing services without proper permission.  A Christian in the district called for more freedom to exercise one’s faith.  “We’d like to call on the authorities to allow us to freely celebrate Christmas and other religious ceremonies in every village, not just only one or two villages,” he said. Translated by Max Avary. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Thailand ready for any scenario on Myanmar border, foreign minister says](https://ij-reportika.com/thailand-ready-for-any-scenario-on-myanmar-border-foreign-minister-says/): Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has discouraged Myanmar’s junta from further violence In the border region after the army lost a major border town, the Thai foreign minister said Friday. Allied rebel forces, including the Karen National Union, captured a final junta battalion in Kayin state’s Myawaddy on Thursday morning, effectively gaining control of the city and causing thousands to flee into the border region.  “We have sent a message to the [State Administration Council], as a matter of fact, that we do not want to see violence there,” Thai Foreign Minister Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara said at a press conference in Mae Sot on Friday afternoon. “We are also talking to ASEAN by way of statement, as well, but certainly to get everyone back on track to the five-point consensus,” he said, referring to the 2021 plan which included a call for a ceasefire and dialogue between all parties in Myanmar. The allied rebel’s capture has caused neighboring Thailand’s armed forces to deploy soldiers alongside Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridges, which regulate both people and goods and connect Myanmar’s Myawaddy to Thailand’s Mae Sot. Thailand is prepared to accommodate four different affected groups, the foreign minister said.  This includes junta soldiers, 200 of which could be seen on Thursday and Friday, sheltering in northern Myawaddy near Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge No. 2. “At this point, there is no indication yet that they want to cross over,” Parnpree said. “For Thailand, we have no issue addressing any type of entry into the country on a strictly humanitarian basis.” Thailand allowed 600 junta personnel, including soldiers and their families, to be sent back to Myanmar through Mae Sot by plane on Sunday. In the event further conflict erupts, Thai nationals living near the border would be given shelter and access to necessities, while preparations have been made and assistance provided to Myanmar nationals to escape to safety, he continued.  According to the Karen Department for Health and Welfare, fighting in Myawaddy district has displaced 2,000 new people into Thailand’s Tak border province. These people are in need of food, shelter and medicine, a spokesperson said. About 30 people have been injured, but the number of casualties is still unknown. Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.
- [Biden: US will defend Philippines if vessels are attacked](https://ij-reportika.com/biden-us-will-defend-philippines-if-vessels-are-attacked/): U.S. President Joe Biden said Thursday that American military support for the Philippines was “ironclad,” and any attacks against its vessels in the South China Sea would invoke a 1951 treaty that compels each country to come to the other’s aid in the event of a conflict. The comments came ahead of an unprecedented summit between Biden and his Japanese and Philippine counterparts at the White House. A senior U.S. official said the talks were arranged because of the recent flare-up in tensions between Beijing and Manila in the South China Sea. “I want to be clear, the United States’ defense commitments to Japan and to the Philippines are ironclad,” Biden said at the opening of the meeting. “Any attack on Philippine aircraft, vessels or armed forces in the South China Sea would invoke our mutual defense treaty.” The U.S. has a mutual defense treaty with the Philippines and a military alliance with Japan, both of which were inked in 1951. Chinese coast guard vessels fire water cannons towards a Philippine resupply vessel, the Unaizah, on its way to a resupply mission at Second Thomas Shoal (Ayungin Shoal) in the South China Sea, March 5, 2024. (Adrian Portugal/Reuters) Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said that increased trilateral cooperation between the Pacific nations was borne from their shared democratic values and evidenced by joint military drills in the South China Sea last weekend. “It is a partnership born not out of convenience nor of expediency,” Marcos said, “but as a natural progression of a deepening cooperation amongst our three countries, linked by a profound respect for democracy, good governance and the rule of law.” Water cannon attacks Chinese coast guard vessels have in recent weeks fired water cannons at Philippine boats attempting to supply a deliberately sunken warship that serves as a Philippine naval outpost at the Second Thomas Shoal (Ayungin Shoal), with Beijing also warning Manila against trying to access it. The shoal lies in South China Sea waters within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, where Manila holds sovereign rights. But Beijing claims most of the sea as its historic territory and says Manila must ask permission from Chinese authorities to access the area. People protest against the Marcos administration’s 2023 decision to grant the United States greater access to military bases in the Philippines, as they demonstrate in a park near the White House in Washington, where the leaders of the U.S., Philippines, and Japan were holding a summit, April 11, 2024. (BenarNews) Earlier on Thursday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning accused Manila of “violating China’s sovereignty” for decades due to the half-sunken BRP Sierra Madre, which was grounded at the shoal in 1999 to maintain Manila’s sovereignty but now needs repairs. Speaking at a daily press briefing, Mao said Chinese authorities were “willing to allow” Philippine vessels to freely access the increasingly dilapidated outpost – but only to “tow” it away, and not repair it.  She said Manila needed to inform Beijing of any such plans before accessing the area, and then “China will monitor the whole process.” “If the Philippines sends a large amount of construction materials to the warship and attempts to build fixed facilities and a permanent outpost, China will not accept it and will resolutely stop it in accordance with law and regulations to uphold China’s sovereignty,” Mao said. She added that China’s recent “activities” in the South China Sea, such as the water-cannoning of Philippine vessels, “are in full compliance with international law” and “there’s nothing wrong about them.” ‘Crystal clear’ A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity prior to the summit, told reporters that Biden had been “crystal clear” about American military support for Manila, and said the flare-ups with China in the South China Sea were an impetus for Thursday’s summit. USS Mobile, JS Akebono, HMAS Warramunga, BRP Antonio Luna and BRP Valentine Diaz sail in formation during a multilateral maritime cooperative exercise between Australia, the United States, Japan and the Philippines within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea, April 7, 2024. (POIS Leo Baumgartner/Royal Australian Navy) “It is one of the reasons for the meeting because we are very concerned about what we’ve been seeing,” the official said. “He has repeated many times that the U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty applies to the South China Sea, including Philippine vessels that may be underway there, including its coast guard vessels,” the official said. Another U.S. official added that Philippine and Japanese coast guard officers would be welcomed aboard U.S. Coast Guard ships during a maritime exercise later this year “to further train and synchronize our work together” in case of a future attack that sparks a conflict. Philippine activists protesting outside the U.S. Embassy in Manila on April 11, 2024, warned that a Washington summit between the leaders of the Philippines, United States and Japan could provoke an angry response from China over the South China Sea and threaten regional stability. (Gerard Carreon/BenarNews) The two officials also said the United States would help fund a major infrastructure project in the Philippines known as the Luzon corridor, as part of the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, which is the U.S. answer to China’s high-spending Belt and Road Initiative.  The Luzon corridor, they said, would help connect Subic Bay, Clark, Manila and Batangas in the Philippines, with investments in infrastructure “including ports, rail, clean energy, semiconductor supply chains and other forms of connectivity in the Philippines.” “We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Marcos,” one of the officials said, “ready to support and work with the Philippines at every turn.” U.S. President Joe Biden hosts Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Japan Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for a summit of the three nations’ leaders at the White House, in Washington, April 11, 2024. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters) In his final remarks before talks opened behind closed-doors Thursday, Biden said the newfound cooperation between the United States, Japan and the Philippines would be a boon...
- [Van Thinh Phat chairwoman sentenced to death in Vietnam’s biggest fraud trial](https://ij-reportika.com/van-thinh-phat-chairwoman-sentenced-to-death-in-vietnams-biggest-fraud-trial/): Truong My Lan, the chairwoman of Vietnamese developer Van Thinh Phat, has been sentenced to death for masterminding a multi-billion-dollar fraud, state-controlled media reported Thursday. Judges at Ho Chi Minh City’s People’s Court said she was guilty of bribery, embezzlement and violating banking regulations. Lan owned a 91.5% stake in Saigon Commercial Bank and, over the course of 10 years, ordered bank officials to approve more than 2,500 loans to shell companies she controlled, causing the bank to lose the equivalent of US$27 billion. Lan ordered subordinates to bribe auditors at the State Bank of Vietnam to cover her tracks. Head banking inspector Do Thi Nhan received $5.2 million in bribes, while deputy chief inspector Nguyen Van Hung received $300,000, state media said. A family member told Reuters Lan planned to appeal the verdict. Edited by Elaine Chan.
- [In China, drones, social media monitor foreign journalists: report](https://ij-reportika.com/in-china-drones-social-media-monitor-foreign-journalists-report/): Chinese authorities use drones to monitor and follow foreign journalists as they report from the country, as well as detaining, harassing and threatening them with non-renewal of their work permits if they report on topics deemed sensitive by the government, according to a new report on journalists&#8217; working conditions. Four out of five members who responded to the Foreign Correspondents&#8217; Club of China annual working conditions survey said they had experienced &#8220;interference, harassment or violence&#8221; while trying to do their jobs in China during the past year, the FCCC report found. Local governments are increasingly using technology to keep track of foreign media workers, the report found. &#8220;During a trip to Poyang Lake, where we were reporting on the status of the Yangtze River dolphin, we were followed by multiple cars with plainclothes individuals inside,&#8221; the report quoted a journalist with a European media organization as saying.  &#8220;At one point, the plainclothes individuals appeared to use a drone when a blocked sandy road prevented them from getting closer by car,&#8221; they said. A cameraman from Hong Kong Cable TV is restrained from photographing the crowd waiting to buy tickets for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, July 25, 2008, in Beijing, China. (Robert F. Bukaty/AP) Another European journalist reported similar high-tech surveillance when on a reporting trip to two provinces affected by extreme weather events linked to climate change. &#8220;We were followed by multiple carloads of plain clothes officers,&#8221; the report quoted them as saying. &#8220;Drones were sent out to follow and observe us when we got out of our vehicle to film/collect interviews. When we moved on foot to a spot, the drones would follow us.&#8221; Respondents also told the FCCC they had reason to believe the authorities had &#8220;possibly or definitely&#8221; compromised their WeChat (81%), their phone (72%), and/or placed audio recording bugs in their office or homes, the report found. ‘Endless cat-and-mouse game’ Another journalist with a European newspaper described reporting in China as &#8220;an endless cat-and-mouse game.&#8221; &#8220;Whatever strategy you try, the Chinese surveillance and security system adapts and closes the gap,&#8221; the report quoted them as saying. &#8220;Whatever strategies you use, the space for reporting keeps getting smaller and smaller.&#8221; A foreign reporter of many years&#8217; experience in China who gave only the surname Lok for fear of reprisals told RFA Cantonese that she expects her communications apps to be monitored at all times. &#8220;I was talking about an issue with a friend here [in mainland China] &#8230; and may have mentioned it on WeChat,&#8221; Lok said. &#8220;Later, he was called in by the police to &#8216;drink tea'&#8221; – a euphemism for being called in for questioning. Journalists crowd a National People&#8217;s Congress press conference a day before the opening of the annual session of China&#8217;s parliament, in Beijing&#8217;s Great Hall of the People on March 4, 2019. (Greg Baker/AFP) &#8220;It turned out that the problem wasn&#8217;t him, but the conversation he had with me,” she said. “We have to be careful, because a lot of trouble has come from talking to people on WeChat.&#8221; A second Hong Kong journalist who gave only the surname Wong for fear of reprisals said it used to be easier for journalists to evade official surveillance than it is now. &#8220;The Chinese government&#8217;s digital surveillance methods are comprehensive,&#8221; Wong said. &#8220;You could describe them as a dragnet, in which every move the target makes is visible to them.&#8221; Online surveillance Huang Chao-nien, an assistant professor at the National Development Institute of Taiwan&#8217;s National Chengchi University, agreed, adding that the government has used online surveillance to target journalists for years. The government has long used an internet development model that intervenes in the market to control tech companies &#8230; forcing them to cooperate with the government in carrying out political surveillance and controls on public speech, he said. More than half of the journalists who took part in the FCCC annual survey said they had been &#8220;obstructed&#8221; at least once by police or other officials, while 45% encountered obstruction by unidentified persons, the report said. Some had been warned not to join the club as it was deemed an &#8220;illegal organization,&#8221; while others were threatened with non-renewal of their visas and work permits if they didn&#8217;t toe the line, the report said. Areas deemed particularly sensitive by Chinese officials were even harder to work in, it said, adding that 85% of journalists who tried to report from the far western region of Xinjiang in 2023 experienced problems.  &#8220;In Xinjiang we were followed the entire time,&#8221; the report quoted a European journalist as saying. &#8220;It was particularly unpleasant in Hotan, where we counted about half a dozen plainclothes following us by car or on foot.&#8221; &#8220;In Korla, we at some point had six cars following us. When we did a U-turn and then a detour over an abandoned construction site and dust road, they all faithfully followed us,&#8221; the journalist said. Chinese policemen manhandle a photographer, center, as he photographs a news event near the No. 1 Intermediate People&#8217;s Court, in Beijing Sunday, Jan. 26, 2014. (Andy Wong/AP) And the definition of “sensitive” areas appears to be expanding. &#8220;An increasing number of journalists encountered issues in regions bordering Russia (79%), Southeast Asian nations (43%) or in ethnically diverse regions like Inner Mongolia (68%),&#8221; the report said. More than 80% said potential sources and interviewees had declined to be interviewed because they didn&#8217;t have prior permission from their superiors to speak to foreign media. Fear of reprisals is even being felt among experts, pundits and commentators, the report said. &#8220;Academic sources, think tank employees and analysts either decline interviews, request anonymity, or don’t respond at all,&#8221; it quoted respondents as saying. Translated with additional reporting by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Philippines’ Marcos denies ‘gentleman’s agreement’ with Beijing over South China Sea](https://ij-reportika.com/philippines-marcos-denies-gentlemans-agreement-with-beijing-over-south-china-sea/): Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Wednesday denied the existence of a “gentleman’s agreement” between his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, and China that Manila would not make repairs to a rusting military outpost in a disputed shoal in the South China Sea. Duterte’s former spokesman, Harry Roque, has said the previous Philippine government entered into a deal with Beijing to keep the “status quo” in the waterway, which has become the scene of increasingly tense confrontations between the two nations. As part of the deal, Duterte allegedly agreed the Philippines would not send construction materials to repair the BRP Sierra Madre, a dilapidated World War II-era naval ship that was deliberately run aground on Second Thomas Shoal in 1999. “We don’t know anything about it,” Marcos told reporters before leaving for talks with U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Washington “There is no documentation, no record. We were not briefed [about it] when I came into office, no one told us that there was that agreement.” Marcos said his staff were demanding information from ex-Duterte officials, but “we still haven’t got a straight answer.” “I am horrified by the idea that we have compromised through a secret agreement, the territory, sovereignty and sovereign rights of the Philippines,” Marcos said. Since taking office in June 2022, Marcos has reversed Duterte’s pro-China policies, realigning with the United States and granting American troops greater access to Philippine bases.  Duterte has not directly commented on the supposed deal, but the Chinese embassy in Manila has alluded to it on a number of occasions after Chinese vessels have been accused of harassing Filipino supply boats heading to the Sierra Madre.  China claims nearly all of the South China Sea, while disregarding overlapping claims from Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan. Last week, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Manila “has been going back on its words and provoking China” over Second Thomas Shoal, without directly mentioning any agreement. Roque has not replied to requests for comment made by RFA affiliate BenarNews, but he has been quoted widely in local media saying he stands by his earlier statement. “The gentleman’s agreement is to respect the status quo on the entire West Philippine Sea dispute,” he said, referring to the portion of the South China Sea within Manila’s exclusive economic zone. As Marcos left on Wednesday afternoon for Washington, the Philippine military reported that some 48 Chinese vessels – mostly from its maritime militia – were being monitored near another disputed outcrop, Scarborough Shoal, and three Philippine-occupied features in the South China Sea. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.
- [China gives monks a list of things they can’t do after the Dalai Lama's death](https://ij-reportika.com/china-gives-monks-a-list-of-things-they-cant-do-after-the-dalai-lamas-death/): In the event of the Dalai Lama’s death, Buddhist monks are banned from displaying photos of the Tibetan spiritual leader and other “illegal religious activities and rituals,” according to a training manual Chinese authorities have distributed to monasteries in Gansu province in China’s northwest, a source inside Tibet and exiled former political prisoner Golok Jigme said. The manual, which lists 10 rules that Buddhist clergy should follow, also forbids disrupting the process of recognizing the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation, said the source from inside Tibet who requested anonymity for safety reasons.  Tibetans believe they should determine his successor in accordance with their Buddhist belief in reincarnation, while the Chinese government seeks to control the centuries-old selection method. The 14th Dalai Lama, 88, fled Tibet amid a failed 1959 national uprising against China’s rule and has lived in exile in Dharamsala, India, ever since. He is the longest-serving Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader in Tibet’s history. The manual, which was seen by Radio Free Asia and was issued to monks in Kanlho Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in the historical Amdo region of Tibet, is the latest effort by Beijing to crack down on the religious freedom of the Tibetan people, experts and rights groups say.  A screenshot of the page in a Chinese government-issued training manual listing 10 rules for Tibetan Buddhist monks to follow in the event of the Dalai Lama’s death. (Citizen journalist) It is part of Beijing&#8217;s systematic attempts to make Tibetan Buddhists more loyal to the Chinese Communist Party and its political agenda rather than to their religious doctrine, said Bhuchung Tsering, head of the research and monitoring unit of International Campaign for Tibet in Washington. “This goes against all tenets of universally accepted freedom of religion of the Tibetan people that China purports to uphold,” he told RFA. China has imposed various measures to force Tibetan monasteries to conduct political re-education and has strictly prohibited monks and ordinary Tibetans from having contact with the Dalai Lama or Tibetans in exile, whom Beijing sees as separatists. The Chinese government has intensified its suppression of Tibetan Buddhism in the Tibetan Autonomous Region and in other Tibetan-populated areas in China in recent years. “The latest government campaigns against the Dalai Lama and Tibetan Buddhists’ religious practices in Gansu province represent another attempt by the Chinese government to interfere in the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation process,&#8221; said Nury Turkel, a commissioner on the bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, or USCIRF. Turkel called on the U.S. government to sanction Chinese officials who violate religious freedom.  ‘Separatist ideology’ The manual also says monks are forbidden to engage in activities that undermine national unity, hurt social stability in the name of religion or require cooperation with separatist groups outside the country, the source said.   It says no illegal organizations or institutions will be allowed to enter monasteries and that the education system for monks cannot harbor elements of “separatist ideology.” He Moubou (C), secretary of China&#8217;s State Party Committee, visits Tibetan monks in Machu County, Kanlho Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, in China&#8217;s Gansu province, March 19, 2024. (Citizen journalist) The rules also prohibit the promotion of “separatist ideas” and the dissemination of “separatist propaganda” via radio, internet and television or by other means, and forbids deception in the form of open or covert fraud, the source from inside Tibet said. “While the Chinese government implements various political education and activities targeting Tibetans, the primary focus seems to be eradicating Tibetan identity through the dismantling of Tibetan religion and culture,” said Golog Jigme, who was imprisoned and tortured by Chinese authorities in 2008 for co-producing a documentary on the injustices faced by Tibetans under Chinese rule. He now lives in Switzerland and works as a human rights activist. There are 10 Tibetan autonomous prefectures in Chinese provinces bordering Tibet, including ones in Gansu, Sichuan, Qinghai and Yunnan, where many ethnic Tibetans live.  Kanlho Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Gansu province, where authorities distributed the manuals, is home to about 415,000 Tibetans speaking the Amdo dialect. The province has about 200 large and small monasteries under its administration.  During a visit to two counties in Kanlho Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in March, He Moubao, secretary of China’s State Party Committee emphasized the need for Tibetans to Sinicize religion and to implement the Chinese Communist Party’s policy on religious work. Monks should be guided in this regard to maintain national unity and social stability, he said. A Tibetan Buddhist monk holds two Chinese government textbooks on religious policies and laws and regulations given to monks at a monastery near Xiahe in China&#8217;s Gansu province, May 8, 2008. (Ng Han Guan/AP) “Communist China egregiously violates the religious freedom in Tibet by Sinicising Tibetan Buddhism to fulfill its political and ideological goals and agenda,&#8221; said former USCIRF Chair Tenzin Dorjee. “To say that no one can lawfully practice Buddhism after His Holiness the Dalai Lama passes away is an indication of imposing more religious repressions in Tibet later,” he told RFA. China, which annexed Tibet in 1951, rules the western autonomous region with a heavy hand and says only Beijing can select the next spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, as stated in Chinese law.  Tibetans, however, believe the Dalai Lama chooses the body into which he will be reincarnated, a process that has occurred 13 times since 1391, when the first Dalai Lama was born.  At his home in Dharamsala earlier this month, the Dalai Lama, whose given name is Tenzin Gyatso, told a gathering of hundreds of Tibetans during a long-life prayer offering to him that he was in good health and was “determined to live for more than 100 years.” He has said on several occasions that his successor would come from a free country without Chinese interference.  Translated and edited by Tenzin Pema for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Rebels claim 2 junta bases in central Myanmar, taking 120 surrenderers](https://ij-reportika.com/rebels-claim-2-junta-bases-in-central-myanmar-taking-120-surrenderers/): Over 100 junta troops surrendered after guerilla-style militias captured two of their camps in central Myanmar, a militia member told Radio Free Asia on Tuesday. The camps are located between two townships in Sagaing region, where anti-junta sentiment is high and indiscriminate attacks by the Myanmar military have been frequent since the army seized power in 2021.  Seven combined anti-junta armed groups, including Paungbyin People’s Defense Force and Homalin People’s Defense Force, carried out the most recent capture on Sunday. A member of the militia said the People’s Defense Forces now control the Chindwin river between two townships, strategic land that the junta used to target villages. The river was previously used by junta forces to transport supplies and fuel further attacks on villages situated nearby. “These camps and battalions are connected to Homalin and Paungbyin [townships]. Now, we can completely control the waters of the Chindwin river,” he told RFA, declining to be named for security reasons. “From that place, the military could attack villages in Paungbyin. But that area is now in our hands.” Some junta soldiers were trapped and later rescued by a Mi-17 helicopter from the junta air force base in Homalin, he added. The People’s Defense Force seized Light Infantry Battalions 396 and 370, as well as taking 120 surrenderers prisoner out of the 300 junta troops present. Troops stationed across Sagaing have frequently conducted attacks across the region and have been accused of gruesome assaults and baseless arrests of civilians, including women and children, people with disabilities and the elderly. Sagaing was also cited as the division with the highest rate of body-burning, a recurrent tactic by junta troops. RFA contacted Sagaing region’s junta spokesperson Nyunt Win Aung regarding the bases’ capture, but he did not respond.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Taejun Kang. 
- [8 Lao women arrested in Thailand for prostitution](https://ij-reportika.com/8-lao-women-arrested-in-thailand-for-prostitution/): Authorities in Thailand have arrested eight Lao women, seven of whom entered the country illegally to work as prostitutes, and one who worked as their madam, Radio Free Asia has learned. According to the Anti-Trafficking in Person Unit of the Thai Department of Special Investigation, the seven women were aged 21 to 36, and they were arrested at a karaoke bar in Bang Pakong district in the southern province of  Chachoengsao. The eighth woman is the wife of the bar’s owner.  A police officer in Bang Pakong district confirmed Monday that the seven women, who were arrested on April 4, are still in custody and are awaiting trial and will be deported to Laos later. The sex trade is technically illegal in Thailand, but laws against it are rarely enforced. Authorities do, however, more strictly enforce immigration laws. “Usually, people from Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar are allowed to work in Thailand in only certain types of work like construction, but not in entertainment venues or karaoke bars,” Col. Pattanapong Sripinproh of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Unit told RFA Lao.  “They are not allowed to work as bar girls or drink girls,” he said. “If they do, they’ll be arrested.” Thailand&#8217;s Central Investigation Bureau raid a karaoke shop April 4, 2024 in Bang Pakong district, Thailand. (Manager Online) Sripinproh explained that police were able to catch the eight women by going undercover and posing as johns. “One of our police officers disguised as a customer at the karaoke bar and agreed to pay 2,000 baht ($54) for sex with one of the women,” he said, explaining that the bar owner and a hotel get their cut of the money and the woman would get about 1,300 baht ($36). Following this lead, the police officers inspected the bar and found that seven women were working illegally. “Based on the law on foreign workers …  the violators will be fined up to 10,000 baht (US$272) and/or jailed for two months,” he said, but acknowledged that in most cases there is no fine or jail time. Instead the women are usually deported and blacklisted for two years. He also said that if the husband and wife were found guilty of human trafficking they could face up to 20 years in prison. “But in these cases we found out that those seven women are older than 20 and none of them were forced to prostitution,” said Sripinproh. “So, the husband and wife won’t be charged with human trafficking. But they will be charged with doing illegal business by providing sexual services.” RFA reported in March that four Lao women were arrested in Ban Bueng district in nearby Chonburi province for entering the country illegally and working as prostitutes. They told Thai police that they entered Thailand as tourists, rented rooms in a hotel and then sold sex. Translated by Max Avary. Edited by Eugene Whong.
- [Rebels push over 600 junta personnel out of Myanmar-Thailand border town](https://ij-reportika.com/rebels-push-over-600-junta-personnel-out-of-myanmar-thailand-border-town/): Myanmar junta forces, pushed out by rebel groups at the border township of Myawaddy, have requested to be evacuated with their family members through a Thai border town, Thailand’s foreign ministry said on Monday.  “After receiving the said request, and upon considering the urgency of the situation and the possibility of an evacuation of Myanmar personnel and their families to safe areas, a decision was made at the government level to approve the request from Myanmar on humanitarian grounds,” said the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement.  Around 617 personnel have requested evacuation, including 410 soldiers and 207 family members, according to Thai media.  Allied rebel armed groups in Kayin state, which border’s Thailand Tak province, have suspended some of the junta’s local government offices in the major trade hub township of Myawaddy since Saturday, said a local businessman. “At Friendship Bridge No. 1 also, immigration is issuing papers for people to cross [over the border], working as usual,” he said, declining to be named for security reasons. “The usual police, Office of the Chief of Military Security Affairs and Bureau of Special Investigation were not seen at Friendship Bridge No. 1.” Friendship Bridge No. 1 connects the Thai city of Mae Sot with Myanmar’s Myawaddy and has been run by Myanmar’s junta since it reopened in 2023 after a three-year hiatus.  The Karen Nation Union, working with guerilla armies, or the People’s Defense Forces, and the Border Guard Forces on Saturday’s maneuver, has not issued any updates about their hold on Myawaddy since the Thai ministry’s announcement.  The group announced on Saturday it captured Thin Gan Nyi Naung village in Myawaddy district, still 12 kilometers (seven miles) from the border.  In 2023, it seized a mountain overlooking Myawaddy, and took control of the city’s Asian Highway in December.  While these liminal successes at the border could mark significant economic and security changes, there are other strategic trade routes and military positions the junta still has a tight grasp on, said Dulyapak Preecharush, an associate professor of Southeast Asian Studies at Thailand’s Thammasat University. “Now, the opposition groups have more power than the [State Authority Council] in this area and will become the powerful stakeholder there,” he said. “However, despite the Tatmadaw&#8217;s [the military of Myanmar’s] failure in defending the city [Myawaddy], other military camps in Kayin state and its headquarter of Southeastern Regional Command in Mawlamyine have not been captured.” Non-political aid According to the Thai foreign ministry, one flight arrived from Myanmar at Mae Sot’s airport on Sunday. The ministry did not elaborate if all officials boarded the flight or were evacuated, but said the junta has since requested that remaining flights for Monday and Tuesday be canceled.  A meeting will be held at the Government House on Tuesday to “assess the situation” and “determine a course of action for Thailand,” the statement continued.  Thailand’s Ratchamanu task force, based in the border province of Tak, has stressed the country’s firm neutral stance among all warring factions in Myanmar. “In line with humanitarian principle, Thailand would not take side with Myanmar troops nor ethnic forces but we give assistance where applicable,” Task Force Commander Col. Nattakorn Reuntib told Radio Free Asia. Soldiers, regardless of their political association, would be disarmed, given basic assistance and repatriated, he added. Thailand’s foreign ministry has not responded to RFA’s inquiries as of this writing.  This development – the ethnic armies having more control over the border – could prompt Thailand’s officials to re-examine their operations in Mae Sot, said political analyst Panitan Wattanayagorn. “Who controls the bridge must control immigration,” he said, adding that new groups may be more flexible on the border than the junta was. “The Thai officers must renegotiate with the new groups to make sure there is no real surge or increase in terms of crossing borders illegally.” Edited by Elaine Chan and Taejun Kang.
- [Arakan Army’s gains enough to enable self-rule in Myanmar’s Rakhine state](https://ij-reportika.com/arakan-armys-gains-enough-to-enable-self-rule-in-myanmars-rakhine-state/): The Arakan Army, or AA, is continuing their sweep across Rakhine, furthering the military gains of the ethnic Three Brotherhood Alliance, of which it is a member, in Shan state. While the capture of nine towns, with a tenth in southern Chin state, is another humiliating defeat for the Burmese military, it also sets the scene for a very messy political discussion moving forward. Myanmar’s military continues to be on their back feet. The Kachin Independence Army continues to make gains, recently securing control over a major trade route with China, after seizing the last of the military camps along the Bhamo-Myitkyina highway. The once staunchly pro-junta border guards forces in Kayin state are now hedging their bets and putting some distance between themselves and Naypyidaw.  Meanwhile, the junta’s announced counter-offensive out of Lashio against the Ta’ang National Liberation Army and Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army – the other two members of the Three Brotherhood Alliance – in northern Shan State has not materialized. But it’s in Rakhine where the military has been handed its most significant territorial defeats. The AA has captured six of Rakhine’s 17 townships and several smaller towns since launching an offensive on Nov. 13, 2023, with ongoing offensives against several others. As of early April, the AA had captured some 170 junta camps and posts, as well as several larger bases, battalion headquarters, and training facilities. Arakan Army soldiers stand with an artillery piece after capturing the Ta Ron Aing base in Chin state from junta forces, Dec. 4, 2023. (AA Info Desk) The capital of Sittwe is surrounded, and many civil servants have been withdrawn. The Chinese special economic zone in Kyaukphyu is on the verge of falling, prompting the United League of Arakan, the AA’s political wing, to publicly pledge to protect all foreign direct investment that benefits Rakhine and “ensure the smooth continuation of their operations.” At present, China’s US$8 billion investment, which includes their oil and gas pipelines and a proposed deepwater port with rail and road links, can only be accessed by sea. As a recent International Institute for Strategic Studies report concluded: “But no matter the final outcome, the AA’s sweeping gains are already enough to enable self-rule over a large portion of the Rakhine homeland and to reshape the wider balance of power in Myanmar.” Little leverage over AA in Rakhine On April 1, 2024, China’s special representative to Myanmar, Deng Xijun, met with junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing in Naypyidaw to try to broker a ceasefire. While the Chinese-brokered ceasefire between the Three Brotherhood Alliance and the military regime is tenuously holding in northern Shan state, the AA refuses to be bound by it in Rakhine. China has less leverage over the AA, which has shown no interest in halting their offensive. The AA has stated their intention to capture the entire state, not just their traditional heartland in the north, though it’s not clear that they have the manpower and resources to do so. Over-reach could spread their forces too thin. The AA is in the midst of an offensive in Ann township, which is not just the headquarters of the military’s Western Command, but the key junction on the road to Magwe region. The loss of Ann would make overland resupply to northern and central Rakhine extremely difficult. Overland supply could only come in through the highway from Bago region’s Pyay township in the south. The military has responded in typical fashion, with more indiscriminate air and long-range artillery strikes against unarmed civilians. In a two-day period in early April, six civilians were killed and 16 were wounded. RFA Burmese reported that some 79 Rohingya civilians have been killed and 127 more have been wounded in the past four months. The junta has commenced implementation of its national plan to conscript some 5,000 people a month, including amongst ethnic Rohingya in Rakhine, despite the assassination of local administrators. People who appear to be Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state undergo weapons training by junta military personnel on March 10, 2024. (Image from citizen journalist video) This is a perverse irony after the military waged an ethnic cleansing campaign that drove 1 million ethnic Rohingya, whom they refer to as “illegal Bengalis,” into Bangladesh, and kept many others in concentration camps. Poorly armed and trained conscripts have limited military utility, indicating the military’s desperation for manpower. Role of Rohingya conscripts But the Rohingya conscripts play a much more important role in fomenting political strife within the opposition camp. The Buddhist-dominated Arakan Army has a tense relationship with the Rohingya population. It has tenuously accepted the shadow National Unity Government’s position that the Rohingya are legal citizens and that they should be returned to the country from Bangladesh in an orderly fashion. There have been a number of reports that the military is reaching out to the Arakan Resistance Solidarity Army, or ARSA, whose misguided raids on border posts and police stations in 2017 were the casus belli for the military’s ethnic cleansing campaign. Since being driven into Bangladesh, ARSA’s primary activities have been to secure control over the refugee camps and eliminate rivals within the Rohingya community; they have not participated in the armed rebellion. That the military believes that they can recruit ARSA as a proxy against the AA seems preposterous. The AA is neither willing to share any political power in Rakhine nor countenance the presence of any other armed actors. So there is a perverse logic to the military’s overtures to ARSA, which is searching for relevance. With mounting battlefield losses, the best that the military can do is to strike up ethnic and sectarian tensions. This should come as no surprise: stoking communal tensions has always been a key party of their strategy. An airstrike by Myanmar junta forces destroyed houses in Minbya township’s Myit Nar village in Rakhine state on April 3, 2024. (Arakan Princess Media) Indeed, the United Nations’ Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, which was established following...
- [Netflix's take on ‘Three-Body Problem’ gets mixed reviews in China](https://ij-reportika.com/netflixs-take-on-three-body-problem-gets-mixed-reviews-in-china/): A Netflix adaptation of Chinese sci-fi author Liu Cixin&#8217;s “The Three-Body Problem” has sparked mixed reactions in China, with some complaining of a lack of nuance, that much of the action takes place outside of China and that key characters are played by non-Chinese actors. But others praised it as a well-made adaptation for Western audiences and had made improvements in female characters. The show, which premiered on March 21 just as a man was sentenced to death for fatally poisoning one of its producers, billionaire Lin Qi, was Netflix&#8217;s most-watched English TV show from March 25-31. It features scenes of a political &#8220;struggle session&#8221; from the Cultural Revolution under the rule of late supreme leader Mao Zedong, in which physicist Ye Zhetai is beaten to death by Red Guards after being denounced by his own wife, for teaching the Big Bang theory and therefore failing to deny the existence of God. The scenes &#8212; omitted from a homegrown adaptation of Liu&#8217;s books produced by Tencent &#8212; are likely one of the reasons that the show is officially blocked in China. But viewers in China still discussed it widely after using circumvention tools to get around the “Great Firewall” of government censorship. Violence under Mao Reports emerged on social media in January that the show would likely be blocked on the orders of the ruling Chinese Communist Party&#8217;s Central Propaganda Department. While RFA was unable to confirm those reports independently, the political violence of the Mao era remains a highly sensitive topic for the government today, and has gotten other films and TV shows banned before. Publicity still for the Tencent adaptation “Three Body.” (Baidupedia) Nonetheless, enough people were able to see the show to discuss and search for &#8220;Three Body beating/hanging scene&#8221; on the Weibo social media platform, according to trending searches spotted by RFA this week. The hashtag #3BodyProblem# garnered billions of views on Weibo, according to The Guardian newspaper, and notched up a 6.9/10 score on Douban&#8217;s review site, compared with an 8.7 score for Tencent&#8217;s Chinese-made version of the show, which premiered in January. Mixed reviews Some appear to have been underwhelmed by the show, which transplants a good deal of the action to the United Kingdom, and changes the genders, ethnicities and names of several major Chinese characters in the book. One post complained that all of the best Chinese male leads had been given to non-Chinese actors. The show&#8217;s producers have said they wanted the whole world to be depicted. Douban user Victor’s Catzz described the Netflix version as &#8220;quite good,&#8221; adding that it improves considerably on Liu Cixin&#8217;s writing of female characters and foreigners, which he thought was &#8220;a mess anyway.&#8221; &#8220;What&#8217;s wrong with Netflix making reasonable adaptations for English-speaking audiences?&#8221; the user wrote in a post titled &#8220;A minority opinion.&#8221; @Rick Ro$$ from Shaanxi disagreed, commenting: &#8220;Netflix has switched up a lot of the ideas in the original work. Those ideas were precisely the essence of The Three-Body Problem.&#8221; One comment thought pro-Beijing &#8220;little pinks&#8221; had hijacked the show&#8217;s rating on public review sites, while others argued over whether the characters were more two-dimensional in the Chinese-made TV show or in the Netflix version. @engauge commented from Guangdong that the &#8220;melodrama&#8221; in the Netflix version had glossed over the &#8220;global vision and apocalyptic background to the political and social turmoil in the original work.&#8221; Sichuan user @Drunken_and_dreamed_98147 wanted to know why, if the show&#8217;s setting had been transplanted elsewhere, the writers had kept the Cultural Revolution scenes. &#8220;Why not change that era to show discrimination against black people in America?&#8221; the user wanted to know. &#8220;Wouldn&#8217;t that satisfy foreign requirements for political correctness even more?&#8221; Cultural Revolution Alexander Woo, executive producer of Netflix&#8217;s version of &#8220;The Three-Body Problem,&#8221; told The New York Times in a recent interview that scenes of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution held a special meaning for him as his family lived through that era, as did the family of the episode&#8217;s director Derek Tsang. &#8220;We give a lot of credit to him for bringing that to life,&#8221; Woo told the paper. &#8220;He took enormous pains to have every detail of it depicted as real as it could be. I showed it to my mother, and you could see a chill coming over her, and she said, &#8216;That’s real. This is what really happened.'&#8221; Publicity still from Netflix’s “The Three-Body Problem” (Netflix) Tsang told RFA&#8217;s Cantonese service in an interview in January that he felt the depiction of the Cultural Revolution was a key part of the show. &#8220;It is becoming increasingly difficult to depict that period in any way [in China],&#8221; he said. &#8220;But it is a very important part of history.&#8221; &#8220;If we are honest, we can all learn from it if we face up to it and take it seriously. It&#8217;s important to show everyone how ridiculous that period was,&#8221; Tsang said. U.K.-based writer Ma Jian said one of the reasons that the Cultural Revolution is still so sensitive in today&#8217;s China is that President Xi Jinping is drawing on Mao Zedong&#8217;s playbook even now, prompting fears that he is going to drag the country back to that era. &#8220;Xi Jinping wants a return to the Cultural Revolution, and to imitate Mao Zedong,&#8221; Ma said. &#8220;[But] the whole world has seen through the horror of totalitarianism.&#8221; Translated with additional reporting by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Sri Lankans present rare Buddha relics to the Dalai Lama](https://ij-reportika.com/sri-lankans-present-rare-buddha-relics-to-the-dalai-lama/): A delegation of Sri Lankan Buddhists on Thursday presented relics of the Buddha to the Dalai Lama at his home in Dharamsala, India, in a gesture that was celebrated by hundreds of Tibetans who lined the streets with silk scarves and flowers. The relics – fragments of the Buddha’s bones and teeth – have immense historical and spiritual significance, connecting Buddhist worshippers to the legacy of Buddha, a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived during the 6th and 5th centuries BCE and whose teachings formed the key tenets of Buddhism.  Tibetans along the streets paid their respects as the relics made their way to the Dalai Lama’s residence.  The leader of the Sri Lankan delegation, Waskaduwe Mahindawansa Maha Nayaka Thero, said the relics were presented to the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader on behalf of the entire Sangha community in Sri Lanka as a token of their “immeasurable gratitude and admiration” for his role in “accomplishing more for Buddhism than anyone in history.” “This marks a special momentous occasion for the entire Buddhist community in the world because we were able to gift the holy, authentic, sacred relics of the Buddha as a token of appreciation for His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s kindness, wisdom and compassion towards the entire humankind,” he said. The Buddhist community reveres the Dalai Lama as a living Bodhisattva – a being who is on the way to becoming enlightened – making him the only eligible person in the world to whom to give the authentic and holy relics, he added. Maha Nayaka Thero is head of Amarapura Sambuddha Sasanodaya Maha Nikaya, a sect of Theravada Buddhism, which is practiced in Sri Lanka and other parts of Southeast Asia.   ‘The world needs peace’  The Dalai Lama waited outside the gate to his home to receive the relics and welcome the Sri Lankans, as monks chanted prayers and staged a formal welcome, and artists performed Tibetan songs and dances. “On a practical level, the world needs peace, and that’s the core of the Buddha’s message,” the Dalai Lama said.  “However, I’m prepared not to mention Buddhism as such, but to emphasize secular ethics and universal values, crucial among which is compassion,” he said. “The important thing is to have a warm heart.” The relics of the Buddha are carried up to the Dalai Lama’s residence in Dharamsala, India, April 4, 2024. (Tenzin Woser/RFA) The delegation, including Damenda Porage, founder-president of the Sri Lankan-Tibetan Buddhist Brotherhood, said it was a long-held wish to offer the relics to the Dalai Lama as a gift.  Six years of planning The event was the culmination of six years of planning and preparation, with the assistance of the 7th Ling Rinpoche, the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama’s tutor, accelerating the fulfillment of the presentation of the relics, the delegation said. The items presented to the Dalai Lama are part of 21 authentic relics that have been preserved for several generations at the Sri Lankan Buddhist temple of RajaGuru Sri Subuthi Waskaduwa Maha Viharaya in Waskaduwa, near the capital Colombo.  “These sacred relics, discovered during the British reign in India in the Piprahwa excavations, hold profound significance for millions of Buddhists worldwide,” the Sri Lankan Buddhist leader said. After the Buddha’s passing, the relics were divided and enshrined in stupas in eight kingdoms, including the ancient city of Kapilavastu, which was known as the capital of the Shakya kingdom where the Buddha spent the first 30 years of his life.  These relics were later discovered at an excavation at Piprahwa, a modern-day archaeological site in Uttar Pradesh, India, or what was earlier known as Kaplivastu, during the British reign in India.  In 1898, British official William Peppe presented them to the Sri Lankan monk, Waskaduwe Sri Subhuti Mahanayake Thero, who took the Kapilavastu Buddha relics to Sri Lanka. Additional reporting by Tenzin Woser for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Ethnic army seizes city on Myanmar-China border](https://ij-reportika.com/ethnic-army-seizes-city-on-myanmar-china-border/): An ethnic army captured a town near the Chinese border, less than a week after officials met in Myanmar’s capital to discuss cooperation between the two countries, residents told Radio Free Asia on Friday.  Myanmar’s military junta, which seized all major governmental seats in a 2021 coup d’etat, invited a Chinese envoy to Naypyidaw on Monday to discuss the Kachin Independence Army’s mass seizure of military camps and subsequent fighting on the border. Some border gates in Kachin state have still not been reopened, political analysts and residents told RFA.  The rebel group has captured 60 junta camps since fighting began on March 7 and now controls portions of two major trade routes in Myanmar’s northern Kachin state, one of which runs along China’s border.  The Kachin Independence Army, headquartered in border town Lai Zar, captured another major city nearly 160 kilometers (100 miles) south on Thursday. Rebel troops have occupied the city since March 29, but were not able to negotiate the junta’s surrender until Thursday, Lwegel residents said.  All administration departments under the junta have been sealed off and their staff have left the city, a resident told RFA on Friday, adding that Kachin troops are now deployed throughout the city. &#8220;The city has been seized. Kachin Independence Army troops have arrived in the city,” he said. “All administrative departments have been closed, and Kachin national flags were seen in some places. Soldiers and the police are still trapped.” In addition to Kachin national flags hanging on the General Administration Department, market and hospitals in the city, they have also issued notices that only authorized personnel will be allowed at border gates and administrative departments, he added. Soldiers and other military personnel in Lwegel have been relegated to a junta base nearby.  RFA contacted Kachin state’s junta spokesperson Moe Min Thein for comment on the military’s surrender, but he did not respond by the time of publication. Kachin Independence Army information officer Col. Naw Bu told RFA that although the former administration staff had left, the anti-junta group’s administrative processes had not yet started in the city’s 21 government offices. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 
- [North Korean no-no: Carrying bags on your shoulder](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korean-no-no-carrying-bags-on-your-shoulder/): In North Korea, carrying a bag with a strap on your shoulder can get you in trouble – because that’s the way they do it in the capitalist South.  Instead, true socialists carry bags on their back or in one hand, people are told, sources in the reclusive country said. It’s the latest example of authorities controlling even the personal details of North Koreans’ lives. Women are told they can’t wear shorts, people are punished for using loan words from English, which they may have learned from South Korean TV dramas that get smuggled into the country on thumb drives, and couples getting married are strongly discouraged from holding wedding banquets or even clinking wine glasses at the reception. Most of these no-nos come under the draconian Rejection of Reactionary Thought and Culture Law, which aims to root out an invasion of so-called capitalist behavior.  Bag violators can have their bags confiscated, be kicked out of school or even sent to labor centers for daring to tote their loot close to their hips, sources say. “A patrol organized by the Socialist Patriotic Youth League cracked down on a college student who wore a bag on their side at the main gate of Hamhung Medical University,” a resident of the eastern province of South Hamgyong told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “This is the first case of a crackdown on college students for how they carry bags.” He said that the crackdown will continue until April 15, the Day of the Sun, a major holiday in North Korea that commemorates the life of leader Kim Jong Un’s grandfather, national founder Kim Il Sung. Fashion item Bags are one of the few ways that North Korean youths can express their individuality. Prior to the 1990s, the government provided all school supplies, including backpacks for students.  This ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Aid from Moscow dried up, ruining North Korea’s centrally planned economy and throwing the country into the “Arduous March,” which is what North Koreans call the 1994-1998 famine that killed hundreds of thousands of people. Since then, it fell on the students to provide their own bags, which have become a fashion item of sorts. To counter this tendency, authorities supplied backpacks to students in elementary, middle and high schools this year but were not able to provide backpacks to all incoming college and university students because of production shortages.  So the crackdown instead puts the burden on the students to appear uniform. But young people are influenced by South Korean TV shows and movies, which are illegal for them to watch. “College students prefer to wear shoulder bags with long straps on their side because they often watch South Korean TV shows,” a resident of the western province of South Pyongan told RFA on condition of anonymity for personal safety. She said that the administration at Pyongsong University of Education and Teachers Training College announced at the school’s opening ceremony that from now on, anyone carrying a bag on their side would be punished for spreading the culture of the South Korean “puppets,” a demeaning term for its southern neighbor that alludes to its close ties with the United States. Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Junta troops kill 2 political prisoners after removing them from jail](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-troops-kill-2-political-prisoners-after-removing-them-from-jail/): Junta soldiers killed two inmates after secretly removing them from a prison in southern Myanmar, activists told Radio Free Asia on Thursday.  Troops took 25-year-old Min Thu and 35-year-old Ko Win Thiha from Tanintharyi division’s Dawei Prison on the night of March 17. Both were arrested under the country’s anti-terrorism act, a set of broad laws that cover many actions related to opposing the military junta. Since the country’s 2021 coup, civilians and activists have been subject to mass arrests for actions ranging from social media posts to suspicion of participating in or funding one of the many rebel groups opposing the military dictatorship.  A Dawei Political Prisoners Network official, declining to be named for security reasons, told RFA that Min Thu and Ko Win Thiha’s families were informed of their relative’s deaths only after they submitted visitation requests to the prison.  &#8220;Min Thu and Win Thiha, with black hoods on their heads, were taken out of prison by junta soldiers,” he said. “Before they were taken, extensive searches were conducted in the prison. They were taken out of jail and killed after being accused of having things that were prohibited in jail.” In late March, relatives who went to the prison to request visitation were informed by prison officials of the two men’s deaths, a source close to Dawei Prison said. Min Thu was am Islamic studies teacher serving a ten-year sentence. RFA could not confirm when he was arrested. Win Thiha was arrested in February 2022 and sentenced to seven years in prison under Section 51(c) of the Counter-Terrorism Law for production or intention to distribute a weapon and Section 505(a) of the penal code for incitement against the military. RFA contacted the junta’s Prisons Department deputy director Naing Win for comment on the deaths at Dawei Prison, but he didn’t answer the phone. As of Wednesday, 217 political prisoners are serving prison terms in Dawei Prison, according to a report from the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 
- [Arab politicians praise China’s policies in Xinjiang](https://ij-reportika.com/arab-politicians-praise-chinas-policies-in-xinjiang/): A delegation of Palestinian and other Arab politicians praised China’s policies in Xinjiang during a visit to the northwestern region, sparking criticism from experts and Uyghur rights advocates for not highlighting the plight of fellow Muslims living in the region. The delegation was led by Bassam Zakarneh, a member of Fatah&#8217;s Revolutionary Council of Palestine and made up of politicians from Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Jordan and Tunisia, according to a report by the Global Times.  On March 27, Xinjiang’s Communist Party chief Ma Xingrui welcomed them to Urumqi, the regional capital. The goal of the visit, according to a Xinjiang Daily report, was to present a comprehensive understanding of the situation in Xinjiang and convey a narrative of a peaceful and vibrant region to the international community. That’s in sharp contrast with the United States and some Western parliaments, which have accused China of carrying out a genocide against the 11-million-strong Uyghurs who live in Xinjiang – a region taken over by Chinese Communists in 1949 – by imprisoning, torturing and sterilizing those who do not fall into line.  Beijing has denied the claims and said that alleged concentration camps are in fact vocational training centers that have since been closed. To the visiting delegates, Ma touted the region’s development, stability and guarantee of human rights for all ethnic groups, and accused the United States and the West of spreading lies, according to Chinese media reports.  “Their objective is to restrict and control China through Xinjiang,” Ma was quoted as saying. ‘See it for yourself’ During their meeting with Ma, the delegation praised China’s creative governance measures and “unprecedented progress in economic development,” the Xinjiang Daily said. The delegation head said that “people of all ethnic groups live a good life, enjoy full freedom of religious belief, and have smiles on their faces,” according to the report, which didn’t provide the names of who spoke or any direct quotes. Women walk past a propaganda slogan promoting ethnic unity in “the new era”, in both Chinese and Uyghur languages, in Yarkant, Xinjiang region, July 18, 2023. (Pedro Pardo/AFP) The paper went on to say that the delegation said the United States and other Western nations are “smearing” China’s Xinjiang policy and fabricating rumors. “Why not come and see it for yourself?” the delegates said, according to the Xinjiang Daily. “We will tell more people what we saw and heard in Xinjiang, China, so that Arab countries can better understand the real Xinjiang, China.” But experts on the region said China orchestrated what the delegates would and wouldn’t see during their visit so as to conceal the persecution of the Uyghurs.  The visitors should have been allowed to speak directly and freely with Uyghur Muslims living in the region, said Robert McCaw, director of the Government Affairs Department at the Council on American-Islamic Relations.  “Apparently, China wants to reach out to these leftist movements in the Arab world, and China wants to use them as its own propaganda,” said Mustafa Akyol, senior fellow at the Cato’s Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity. “The Arab world should not be influenced by China.” Political dynamics at play China has used such visits to Xinjiang to win over other Muslim groups – and push them away from the United States and other Western powers, experts say. It has also supported the Palestinians, as it seeks to expand its influence in the Middle East. Ten 10 months ago, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told Chinese President Xi Jinping during a visit to Beijing that he believed the Xinjiang issue, often framed as a human rights concern, was in fact a battle against terrorism, extremism and separatism.  And last August, China invited delegates from the 57-nation Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to visit Xinjiang, in a bid to promote its rosy narrative about the peace and prosperity enjoyed by Uyghurs and blunt international criticism. “China seeks to build consensus and strengthen its global influence,” said Ma Ju, an ethnic Muslim Hui scholar based in the United States. Meanwhile, Muslim nations may be unwilling to criticize China because they need its political support and investment, experts said. Although some Muslim countries have endured a painful history under Western colonialism, they may be willing to overlook that China has effectively colonized the Uyghur homeland, Ma said.  “For them, the primary concern seems to be finding a method to counter the influence of the U.S. and the West,” he said. Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Series of junta attacks leave 6 dead in Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/series-of-junta-attacks-leave-6-dead-in-myanmar/): Multiple junta attacks killed six civilians and injured 16 others over a two-day period, residents who experienced the ambush told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday.  Junta troops conducted aerial assaults and shelled villages across three townships in Myanmar’s western state of Rakhine. The area has experienced several months of indiscriminate violence toward civilians following the end of a year-long ceasefire between the anti junta Arakan Army and the military in November 2023.   Since then, the Arakan Army has seized eight townships across Rakhine state and recently set eyes on a ninth.  In Minbya township, under Arakan Army control since Feb. 6, airstrikes by the junta’s air force killed three women and injured seven more people on Wednesday, said a resident from Myit Nar village who declined to be named for security reasons.  &#8220;Two bombs were dropped into the village around 4:00 a.m.,” they said. “One of the injured is a healthcare worker. [The junta] dropped bombs when we were all sleeping.” In Myebon township, which is not under Arakan Army control, airstrikes in Kan Htaunt Gyi village killed three residents and injured three more on Tuesday. Later that day, junta forces also shelled Pauktaw township&#8217;s Maw Htoke Gyi village, injuring six. The Arakan Army seized Pauktaw township on Jan. 24.  RFA attempted to contact Rakhine state’s junta spokesperson Hla Thein for a response to allegations that junta air strikes have targeted civilians, but he did not respond by the time of publication. According to data compiled by RFA, fighting between the Arakan Army and junta forces has killed nearly 200 civilians and injured more than 500 since fighting began again on Nov. 13. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 
- [Schools in North Korean province remain closed amid respiratory outbreak](https://ij-reportika.com/schools-in-north-korean-province-remain-closed-amid-respiratory-outbreak/): A resurgence of a respiratory illness believed to be caused by coronavirus has caused some elementary schools and childcare facilities in North Korea to remain closed past April 1, which should have been the starting date of the new school year, residents in the country told Radio Free Asia. RFA reported that in early March, at least five children in the northern province of Ryanggang had died of a respiratory disease that had symptoms similar to COVID-19.  The province shuttered all daycares and schools and returned to an emergency quarantine posture  that had been in place nationwide during the worst of the pandemic.  While middle and high schools will start as scheduled, for elementary schools and daycares, the lockdown – which was supposed to have lasted for only 10 days – is continuing into April. When April 1 was drawing near, authorities decided to postpone the school year, a resident of the province told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The main cause of infection circulating these days is called mycoplasma which is similar to coronavirus and is known to be fatal to children,” he said.  Mycoplasma is a form of bacteria that can cause a type of mild pneumonia that has symptoms like sore throat, cough and fever, and can be treated with antibiotics. Though mycoplasma infections have symptoms that overlap with COVID-19, the latter is caused by a virus, and cannot be treated with antibiotics. U.N. medicine Furthermore, the resident said that North Korean medicine is ineffective and the disease must be treated with medicines supplied by the United Nations, which the government sells for profit. “The U.N. medicines are so expensive that ordinary residents cannot even think of buying them,” he said. “Even if your child has a high fever and is sick, you can’t buy the U.N. medicines in the pharmacy, so you will end up letting your child go.” Staff of the Pyongyang Primary School No. 4 clean stairwells in Pyongyang, North Korea June 30, 2021. (Cha Song Ho/AP) According to the source, an antipyretic injection to reduce fever costs 15,000 won (US$1.76) – a huge sum for most North Koreans. The resident said that for residents, it is maddening that the government is not taking a more active role in trying to cure those who have fallen ill, and have only postponed the school year. “Since children have died because of their high fevers, the residents are raising their voices against the authorities urging them to treat infected patients with the U.N. medicine instead of selling it,” he said. In 2020, North Korea waited until June 1 to start the school year due to the pandemic, then declared an early vacation in July as conditions worsened. There is no telling when the daycare centers and elementary schools will reopen this year, another Ryanggang resident said on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “Today is supposed to be the first day of the new school year for students enrolling in school or entering a new grade,” she said. “Young students who graduated from kindergarten this year and should be entering elementary school for the first time are really disappointed.” She said that many parents are shocked by the delay, and many think that the number of students affected by COVID-19 and mycoplasma must be high if they are taking such measures. Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar junta hosts China’s envoy for border issue talks](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-hosts-chinas-envoy-for-border-issue-talks/): A Chinese official met with junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing to discuss cooperation between Myanmar and China, according to the Global New Light of Myanmar, a junta-backed newspaper. Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing hosted China Ministry of Foreign Affairs special envoy Deng Xijun in Naypyidaw on Monday to discuss the issues complicating China and Myanmar’s border relationship.  Deng Xijun came to Naypyidaw because border gates have still not reopened due to increased fighting, political and military analysts told Radio Free Asia. Since China brokered a ceasefire between allied rebel groups called the Three Brotherhood Alliance on Jan. 11, other anti-junta groups have increased their efforts to seize junta-controlled territory. The Kachin Independence Army, which is not part of the alliance, captured nearly 60 junta camps in March and gained control of a partial border trading route and another major highway in Myanmar’s northern Kachin state. A former military officer who did not want to be named for security reasons said re-opening these gates in northern Shan state is vitally important to both the junta and China, as is preventing the Kachin Independence Army from getting closer with the U.S.  &#8220;Of course, they want to re-open the border gates. Yunnan&#8217;s exports are mainly to Myanmar, but it is very difficult to reach an agreement,” he said. “Another point is that both governments have to prevent [the Kachin Independence Army] from being close to the U.S. So they often meet and discuss this.” On Thursday, American foreign policy director Derek Chollet announced on social media that he met several armed group leaders, including representatives from the Kachin Independence Army. Border Stability Fighting between the Kachin Independence Army and junta has raged since Wednesday, when the rebel group began attacking junta camps and highways near Lwegel, a Kachin town directly on the Chinese border.  Three hundred junta soldiers, administrative staff and families of both trapped by fighting attempted to seek refuge in China on Friday, but were refused by Chinese border officials, said Lwegel residents. RFA contacted Yangon’s Chinese Embassy to verify this case, but the office did not respond by the time of publication.  Further to the south in Shan state, casinos notorious for trafficking Chinese citizens into forced labor have sprung up in border areas like Muse. Eliminating these scam centers is one of the few common interests of the junta and rebel groups, which have deported a combined total of over 50,000 Chinese nationals between October 2023 and March 2024 for illegal activity. However, political commentator Than Soe Naing told RFA it would be difficult for Deng Xijun and junta forces in Naypyidaw to attempt to end the conflict in Kachin state. &#8220;China&#8217;s pressure will have some effect on the [Kachin Independence Army] because their base is on the border. But they are not following everything China says,” Than Soe Naing said. “So I think that it will not be very easy if they agree to the peace process like the rest of the armed groups.” The Chinese military will conduct a two-day live-fire exercise on Tuesday and Wednesday near its border with Myanmar, Dehong Dai and Jingpo prefectures in Yunnan announced on Monday.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.
- [Indonesian President-elect Prabowo meets with Chinese leader Xi, discusses deeper strategic ties](https://ij-reportika.com/indonesian-president-elect-prabowo-meets-with-chinese-leader-xi-discusses-deeper-strategic-ties/): Indonesian President-elect Prabowo Subianto met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing on Monday and was expected to travel on to Japan for similar high-level talks during an unprecedented trip by the uninstalled head of Indonesia’s next government. Outgoing Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo agreed to the travel plans of the president-elect who continues to serve as defense minister, according to Jokowi’s office. Prabowo is to take the oath of office in October, when he becomes Indonesia’s first new president in a decade. “Yes, he had received permission,” a source at the Presidential Staff Office who was not authorized to speak on the trip and asked for anonymity told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated news service, on Monday. Prabowo was scheduled to meet with Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang and Defense Minister Dong Jun before leaving for Japan on Tuesday, where he was to meet with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Defense Minister Minoru Kihara, officials said. The news on Friday that China’s president had invited his future Indonesian counterpart from Southeast Asia’s largest country raised eyebrows in Jakarta, because no president-elect had ever undertaken such a trip abroad. Prabowo’s trip to China and Japan – a close ally of the United States – is also his first foreign journey since he won the Feb. 14 presidential election. During Prabowo’s meeting with the Chinese president, Xi told Prabowo that China was willing to enhance “comprehensive strategic cooperation” with Indonesia and make positive contributions to regional and world peace, said Brig. Gen. Edwin Adrian Sumantha, spokesman for the Indonesian Ministry of Defense. Prabowo expressed the hope to Xi that the largest country in Asia and the largest one in Southeast Asia could continue strengthening their strategic partnership, Edwin said. “Regarding defense cooperation, I view China as one of the key partners in ensuring regional peace and stability,” Prabowo said, according to a statement released by the Indonesian defense ministry. “I am also committed to fulfilling Indonesia’s Minimum Essential Force (MEF), including increasing defense industry cooperation and productive dialogue,” the Indonesian president-elect said. The statement did not mention the South China Sea despite a recent study by Indonesia Strategic and Defence Studies (ISDS) and Kompas Research and Development finding that nearly three-quarters of Indonesians see China’s activities in the waterway as a threat to Indonesia’s sovereignty. “The Indonesian public does not like the aggressiveness of Chinese ships which are pushing into Indonesian territory,” ISDS co-founder Erik Purnama Putra told BenarNews last month, referring to waters around Indonesia’s Natuna islands. Edwin said Prabowo was to go to Japan for a Tuesday meeting to strengthen long-standing bilateral relations. “Yes, the statement is confirmed. He will also visit Japan on April 2 to 3, scheduled to meet with the Japanese prime minister and defense minister,” Edwin told BenarNews on Monday. Chinese officials led by President Xi Jinping (left side of table) meet with President-elect Prabowo Subianto and other Indonesian officials in a meeting room at the Great Hall of the People, in Beijing, April 1, 2024. [Indonesian Defense Ministry] During his meeting with Prabowo, Xi also emphasized that China was ready to make positive contributions to maintaining regional and global peace and stability. “President Xi emphasized the importance of cooperation between China and Indonesia in maintaining maritime security in the Southeast Asia region, especially regarding the South China Sea issue which is of global concern,” Edwin said. Prabowo conveyed greetings and a message from Jokowi to Xi, and said he was happy to make China the first country he visited following the election. In his message, Jokowi told Xi that his successor as president supported developing closer ties with China and would continue Indonesia’s friendly policy toward China, according to Xinhua, the Chinese state-run news agency. During Jokowi’s nine years in office, bilateral trade with China has soared and Beijing has invested billions of U.S. dollars in infrastructure projects in Indonesia. Recalling the development of bilateral relations over the past decade, Xi said both sides had made the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway an example of high-quality cooperation and entered a new stage of development. China views its relations with Indonesia from a strategic and long-term perspective, Xi said, according to Xinhua. He said Beijing would work with Jakarta to build a Sino-Indonesian community with a shared future that has regional and global influence to contribute to regional and world peace, stability and prosperity. ‘Too soon’ Indonesian international political analysts, meanwhile, questioned making China the first stop for Prabowo before taking office. “Prabowo’s visit to China is too soon. It would have been better if he had waited until he was inaugurated first, then visited a foreign country,” Raden Mokhamad Luthfi, a defense analyst at Al Azhar University, told BenarNews last week. “Visits to foreign countries by the newly inaugurated Indonesian president should first be toneighboring ASEAN-member countries such as Malaysia, considering that Indonesia’s interests are much greater in ASEAN than in other countries,” Raden said, referring to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Prabowo has bucked tradition in another way as well with his overseas trip, according to Zulfikar Rahmat, director of the China-Indonesia Center of Economic and Law Studies (Celios). “There are two reasons for this. The first is, of course, that Prabowo sees China as a partner in the economic sector. We know that in recent years, China has been Indonesia’s number one trading partner,” he said. Last year, Indonesia became the largest recipient of Chinese investment in the Southeast Asia region with a figure reaching U.S. $7.3 billion, according to data from the State’s Investment Coordinating Board. In October 2023, Erick Thohir, State-Owned Enterprises minister, said the Indonesia-China Business Forum had resulted in 31 business cooperation agreements reaching at least 200 trillion rupiah ($15.5 billion). Even so, he added there is still potential for cooperation of up to $28.6 billion with China covering infrastructure, energy, manufacturing and tourism. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.
- [Police, soldiers injure 17 following Myanmar prison riot](https://ij-reportika.com/police-soldiers-injure-17-following-myanmar-prison-riot/): Police and prison guards injured at least 17 inmates in western Myanmar after a prison riot broke out, an advocacy group told Radio Free Asia on Monday. Fighting between prison staff and inmates, including political prisoners charged with opposing Myanmar’s regime, started on Sunday night in Ayeyarwady division’s Pyapon Prison, one Pyapon city resident said. &#8220;I heard that two inmates tried to break out of the prison that night,” he said, declining to be named for security reasons. “However, they were captured by prison guards. The authorities buried the news.&#8221;  According to sources close to Pyapon Prison and Myanmar’s Political Prisoners Network, a dispute between prisoners and prison guards caused the riot, but RFA has not been able to independently verify the claim. Prison authorities accused the inmates of attacking guards, claiming the guards controlled the situation by bringing in junta-affiliated police and soldiers, according to a statement by the Political Prisoners Network.  Seventeen inmates are receiving treatment at the prison hospital, along with one guard, said Thaik Tun Oo, a member of the leading committee for the Political Prisoners Network. &#8220;Currently, we know that some political prisoners are among the 17 injured,” he said. “Others are criminal prisoners. I think the number of injured people might be more than 17.” Authorities locked down Pyapon Prison on Monday following the riots, he added. RFA contacted Naing Win, deputy director general of the junta’s Prisons Department, and Ayeyarwady’s junta spokesperson Khin Maung Kyi for comment on the riot, but neither picked up the phone. Junta soldiers and police have increased security in Pyapon town to prevent unrest spreading, locals said. Prisoners in Ayeyarwady’s capital of Pathein staged a protest in January 2023 after guards tortured an inmate who was caught with a cell phone, and again one week later when the prison planned to execute a teacher sentenced to death.  In response, guards killed eight people and injured 60 in a shooting meant to quash the riot.  Following the country’s 2021 coup, over 26,000 political prisoners have been arrested in Myanmar for speaking against the country’s military junta, funding rebel groups and other charges. Over 20,000 are still in prison, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 
- [Government overconfidence could cloud a brighter future for Laos](https://ij-reportika.com/government-overconfidence-could-cloud-a-brighter-future-for-laos/): It may sound  perverse to say – given that inflation in Laos has been at one of the highest rates in Asia since 2022, the national debt stands at more than 130 percent of GDP – but the second-poorest nation in Southeast Asia has many reasons for optimism. Tourism is likely to return to pre-pandemic levels this year. Its ASEAN chairmanship this year is greatly boosting its international profile—and, thus, international trade prospects.  Vientiane has sensibly bet on food exports to China, since China’s demographics are arguably the worst in the world and is set to have the fastest population decline in human history. Even today, China cannot feed itself. It imports around 65.8 percent of all foodstuff.   Although that was down from 93.6 percent in 2000, external demand is likely to rise in the coming years as its working-age population collapses, forcing even more rural folk into the cities and industries. It is therefore a solid bet by Vientiane that agriculture exports to China will grow in the coming decades. Its exports increased to $1.4 billion in 2023, up by a quarter from the previous year.  The Vientiane-Kunming railway has already expanded export opportunities into China. If Laos can attract interest from consumers further west, in Central Asia and Europe, it can use the railway links through China to increase trade.  Better still, if Laos can extend its rail network down to Thailand’s ports, again thanks to Chinese investment, that would make it easier and cheaper to export its goods further afield.  Travelers walk toward the first Beijing-Laos cross-border tourist train at the Beijing Railway Station on March 18, 2024. (Jia Tianyong/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images) Better than that, Vietnam has pledged to connect Laos via railways to its port in Vung Ang, which would make it easier for trans-Pacific exports, opening up Laos’ producers to the U.S. market.  Politically, too, the communist Lao People&#8217;s Revolutionary Party can be confident in its own monopoly on power. There is no meaningful resistance group among the diaspora or at home. Unlike communist Vietnam, there is nothing like a pro-democracy movement.  Perhaps most heartening for Vientiane, and something often overlooked, Laos has the youngest population of all the ASEAN states and the healthiest-looking demographics over the coming three decades.  Just 4.7 percent of the population is aged above 65. Some 65.4 percent are of working age (15-64) and 29.9 percent are below the age of 15. By 2050, the working age population will actually grow to 68 percent, while just a tenth will be of retirement age by that year.  Aged versus aging societies By comparison, in 2050, a fifth of Vietnam’s population will be aged 65 and over. In Thailand it will be around a third.  Laos won’t become an “aging society” – when 7 percent of the population is aged above 65 – until 2035. It won’t become an “aged society” – when the over-65 cohort is above 14 percent) – until 2059. One reason for this, however, is the country’s shorter life expectancy. Vietnam became an “aging” society in 2011; Thailand became “aged” in 2020. Moreover, when Thailand became an “aging” society in 2002 its GDP per capita was $2,091. Vietnam reached it in 2011 when its GDP per capita was $1,953.  Laos’ GDP per capita stands at $2,535, and it still has another decade or so before it touches “aging” society status. This means that Laos has at least 30 years before demographics start to bite, and even by 2050 there will still be double the number of youngsters aged 0-15 than retirees.  That gives Laos three decades to expand industry and output. For these reasons, political leaders in Vientiane often give off the air of extreme patience, as though they’re sitting pretty on borrowed time.  On the trade front, Laos achieved above 7 percent growth rates in the 2010s when its trade was almost entirely with its immediate neighbors. New infrastructure could open up vastly more markets and attract far more investment in industry and manufacturing, which remains nascent.  Young people splash water at each other in celebration of the Songkran festival in Vientiane, April 14, 2023. (Kaikeo Saiyasane/Xinhua via Getty Images) Railway connections to ports in neighboring countries can help Laos overcome its landlocked confinement at the same time as its workforce booms in number – with around 2 million Laotians to be added to the workforce by 2050.    However, not all is well. The economy has been shockingly bad since 2020, not all of which was caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.  The government and central bank have been incompetent in constraining inflation—and just about all other economic ailments.  The national debt started to climb to unmanageable levels by 2018. Laos imports too much and has barely any control over exports.  The government admits that close to a third of export revenue doesn’t reenter the country. Mostly it is funneled to foreign-owned companies, or profits are hidden, denying Laos a massive chunk of available taxes.  Education, tax collection concerns It’s unlikely that Laos can fully weaken itself off imports. Dispensing of its petroleum dependency would be sensible, given that Laos produces more than enough energy through its hydropower dams. But that means converting most transport and machinery to electric battery-powered, which is simply too expensive for most countries, not least Laos. It still also relies massively on imports for agricultural inputs such as fertilizers.  Since 2020, ever greater numbers of Laotians have left to find work abroad, mainly in Thailand. This has depopulated many rural communities, leaving the elderly to tend to the young. Many of those who have left are the better-educated.  At the same time, the education sector is now in poorer health than pre-2020, although government spending on education began to fall as a percentage of GDP much earlier. Non-attendance or absentee rates are high among students, and teacher numbers are dwindling.  It’s difficult to see how this generation of children, buffeted by the pandemic and shoddy schooling, will become as...
- [Young activists recall abuse at Hong Kong juvenile correctional facility](https://ij-reportika.com/young-activists-recall-abuse-at-hong-kong-juvenile-correctional-facility/): Young political activists jailed under a crackdown on public dissent have described a litany of physical and sexual abuse inside one of Hong Kong&#8217;s juvenile offender facilities, according to recent online reports and interviews with RFA Mandarin and The Reporter magazine. While accounts of abuse and sexual assault by police officers and prison guards have emerged in recent years among former protesters and activists, not many have been confirmed or even fully investigated. But on Jan. 19, a Correctional Services officer and five young inmates at the Pik Uk Correctional Institution were remanded in custody on charges of causing &#8220;serious bodily harm&#8221; to an 18-year-old inmate, including causing rectal perforations with a wooden implement, online court news service The Witness reported. The victim required surgery and a stoma bag as a consequence of the attack, the report said. The case prompted another young activist who had been detained in the same juvenile facility under the 2020 National Security Law to speak about another unreported incident there. Wong Yat Chin, of the activist group Student Politicism, took to Facebook to talk about a rape and abuse and anal assault with a toothbrush perpetrated on a 15-year-old boy in Pik Uk, which houses young male inmates up to the age of 21. &#8220;The 15-year-old boy was under duress and didn&#8217;t dare to tell his family about the anal rape,&#8221; Wong wrote. &#8220;It wasn&#8217;t until he was hospitalized for persistent bleeding that Correctional Services officers called the police.&#8221; &#8220;A few months later, the police gave up the prosecution, saying there was insufficient evidence,&#8221; wrote Wong, who was serving a three-year jail term in Pik Uk at the time. The Correctional Services Department then issued a statement accusing Wong of &#8220;slander.&#8221; But the Ming Pao newspaper later reported that a case sounding much like the one he described was reported to police on Jan. 30, 2022. According to Wong, prison guards don&#8217;t always carry out assaults themselves, but allow certain inmates known as &#8220;B Boys&#8221; special privileges to &#8220;discipline&#8221; fellow inmates. He also described bullying and physical assaults he and his fellow inmates suffered at the hands of guards and other inmates acting under duress. Youth prison population growing Since the pro-democracy movement of 2014, the authorities have prosecuted large numbers of young people for taking part in &#8220;illegal&#8221; public gatherings, &#8220;rioting&#8221; and other protest-related charges, as well as more serious offenses like &#8220;terrorism&#8221; and &#8220;subversion&#8221; for peaceful activism under the 2020 National Security law. According to the Hong Kong Correctional Services Department, the number of people in custody under the age of 21 rose from 4% to 6% of the total population, with a total juvenile prison population of around 450 as of the end of 2022. Hong Kong democracy activist Tony Chung poses in a bedroom in Britain on December 29, 2023 (Ben Stansall/AFP) A former Pik Uk inmate who gave only the pseudonym Cheung Tz Hin for fear of reprisals told RFA and The Reporter that he recalls an incident in which guards had a group of seven cellmates squat down in a stairwell that wasn&#8217;t covered by surveillance cameras after they sang the banned protest anthem &#8220;Glory to Hong Kong&#8221; in their cell the night before. To their shock, Cheung and the others were slapped around by the guard. &#8220;At first I thought he would stop short,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I never expected he would actually hit us.&#8221; From time to time after that, guards would also shove Cheung and another cellmate around at random times, elbowing them and hitting them on the palms or the soles of the feet with a metal ruler, Cheung recalled. Prison rules bar singing by inmates, but Cheung said exceptions were made for inmates who sang songs with no political content, for their own entertainment. &#8220;It felt like the correctional officers were really selective, and targeted us in particular,&#8221; he said. Beaten within earshot He said guards and their proxies used to take their victims to the stairwell behind the daily activities room, where the sounds of them being beaten would drift through for the other young inmates to hear. One inmate would walk around on crutches after these assaults, he said. &#8220;We could see a little [of what was going on] through a gap, but mostly we could just hear the sound of hitting, which was very regular,&#8221; Cheung said. &#8220;We would see him walking around on crutches because the soles of both feet had been beaten.&#8221; Hong Kong activist Wong Yat-chin, who founded a group called Student Politicism in 2020, poses during an interview with AFP in Hong Kong July 14, 2021. (Anthony Wallace/AFP) The attacks were to have tragic consequences. After four nights of this treatment, Cheung heard the guards gossiping about the boy&#8217;s suicide attempt by drinking detergent. He fell to the ground foaming at the mouth, and had to be sent to an external hospital for gastric lavage, Cheung heard them saying. He was later transferred to a forensic psychiatric facility at Castle Peak Hospital, but never returned. &#8220;Usually, he would have come back to Pik Uk 14 days later,” Cheung said, “but I never saw him again, and I heard from the staff that he never came back from Castle Peak Hospital.&#8221; Hong Kong independence activist Tony Chung, who has served a 21-month jail term for &#8220;secession&#8221; under the 2020 National Security Law, spent some time after his release campaigning for the rights of other prisoners in Hong Kong. He told RFA Mandarin and The Report that he once tried to help a teenage inmate &#8220;forced to have oral sex to the point of ejaculation&#8221; by another inmate at Pik Uk to file a complaint. But he was never allowed to meet with the youth alone, only with another inmate who he suspected was actually the perpetrator of the alleged assault. &#8220;The older inmate who was rumored to be the perpetrator asked him in a provocative tone of voice: &#8216;Has someone been treating you badly? Tell me!&#8217; and...
- [Returning from China, North Korean workers are paid in dubious IOUs](https://ij-reportika.com/returning-from-china-north-korean-workers-are-paid-in-dubious-ious/): North Korean workers returning from China with hopes of a big payday are incensed because the government is not paying them in cash. Instead, it’s giving them bank-issued money vouchers, which the workers are worried might end up being worthless, residents told Radio Free Asia. The vouchers, essentially IOUs, were issued in 2021 in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Authorities explained that they could be used just like cash, and that they would be phased out once the pandemic ended.  Until then, the vouchers – printed on lower quality paper than the currency –  are supposed to be traded with cash on a 1:1 ratio, but nobody knows how long they will be good. North Koreans are already distrustful of their government on money matters because in 2009 it revalued the won, issued new currency and limited the amount of older currency that could be traded for the newer one, wiping out the life savings of many.  Since then, faith in the won has been shaky, so dollars, euros and yuan are therefore freely traded in North Korean marketplaces. Faith in the vouchers is even shakier than the won. “Most of the workers feel like they have returned empty-handed, so they are angry,” a resident of the northwestern province of North Pyongan told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “Although the party emphasizes that the money vouchers should be used without restrictions like cash, people distrust them because the authorities clearly stated that they are a temporary measure due to the prolonged COVID-19 crisis,” she said. Assumptions When workers are sent overseas – mostly to China – there’s already an understanding that the lion’s share of their wages will be forwarded to the cash-strapped government in Pyongyang.  The remainder, however, is several times more than what they would earn doing the same job in North Korea.  So the Chinese companies get cheap labor, the government gets a lot of foreign cash, and the workers still come out ahead – or such was the assumption. The workers, mostly young women working in factories, had been in China since before the pandemic, some for six years or more. Because they were earning yuan in China the workers thought they would be paid in yuan upon their return. But they are now told to accept payment in money vouchers, which the people have very little confidence in, the North Pyongan resident said. Red tape and unfair exchange rates On top of this, the government appears to be exploiting the workers further through red tape and unfair exchange rates, the sources said.  “The market exchange rate is 1,700 to 1,800 won per Chinese yuan,” she said. “But the announced rate is fixed at 1,260 won per yuan, so the workers are getting screwed.” The Chinese companies paid 2,500 yuan (about US$350) for each worker every month, but about two-thirds of this money was sent to the state.  The workers were said to be earning about 800 yuan ($110) per month, but then red tape fees cut into even that amount. “There’s management fees at headquarters, maintenance costs at the consular department, insurance costs, social subsidies, and accommodation fees,” the resident said. “When all is said and done the workers are said to be getting between 100 and 300 yuan (US$13-41) for the whole month.” Remarkably, that is still above the paltry salaries for government-assigned jobs in North Korea. Another North Pyongan resident said that the workers are getting a raw deal after putting in 14-hour days in China and now have to accept payment in money vouchers. “The selection of workers dispatched overseas is still ongoing these days, but not many workers are willing to go to China,” she said. “The poor working environment and intensive labor exploitation in China, as well as the fact that the payment is not properly compensated, have become widely known facts.” She said that some of the workers who returned this time gave up all of their wages and returned with nothing, after the authorities compelled them to donate to various funds and subsidies. These include supporting national and local construction projects, condolence donations for the late former leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il on their death anniversaries, and funds to strengthen national defense. “They won’t see even a single yuan coin for all their hard work in China,” the first resident said.  Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Ethnic army seizes major trade route on Myanmar-Chinese border](https://ij-reportika.com/ethnic-army-seizes-major-trade-route-on-myanmar-chinese-border/): An ethnic army seized five military junta camps near the Myanmar-Chinese border, residents told Radio Free Asia on Friday. During an offensive, the Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, captured encampments under junta Battalion 366 near Kachin state’s Momauk township. The seizure also gave the ethnic armed group partial control of a China-Myanmar border trade road after the Thursday offensive. Since Myanmar’s February 2021 coup, fighting between the KIA and junta forces has raged for weeks at a time over the state’s lucrative jade mines and the rebel army’s historical stronghold near its headquarters on the Myanmar-China border. The KIA now controls portions of two major trade roads in the state since its partial capture of the domestic Myitkyina-Bhamo highway in early March, in addition to a junta camp under Battalion 142 in Momauk township. A battle further north in Lai Zar caused shells to land in China, burning down several houses, residents said.  One resident told RFA that the junta retaliated with air strikes after Yaw Yung Artillery and Hpaleng Hill camps were captured Thursday. “Yaw Yung was entirely captured and Hpaleng camp was also captured yesterday,” he said, asking to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. “The junta’s air force came to open fire while KIA troops were confiscating things in these camps after the captures.” Yaw Yung is an important strategic camp because of the high-level commander stationed there and its proximity to trading posts with China, residents living near the captured camps said.  Kachin army troops are currently stationed in Lwegel city, about 11 kilometers (seven miles) from Yaw Yung Artillery camp, residents said, adding that they are negotiating with junta troops and administration staff on their exit from the city. RFA contacted Kachin state’s junta spokesperson Moe Min Thein and KIA spokesperson Col. Naw Bu on the junta’s surrender, but neither responded. A statement on the KIA&#8217;s Facebook page on March 28, said three camps were captured on the 27th and two on the 28th, namely Shan Tai, Bang Yau, Law Mun, Hpaleng and Yaw Yung. The KIA and joint guerilla armies have captured over 40 junta camps in Momauk and Waingmaw townships near the KIA’s headquarters in Lai Zar city in Kachin state as of Thursday.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.
- [Rohingya activists call for more control of aid money](https://ij-reportika.com/rohingya-activists-call-for-more-control-of-aid-money/): Rohingya Muslim activists representing fellow refugees forced out of Myanmar and into “prison-like” camps in Bangladesh said in Washington on Thursday that foreign aid to the camps would go further if some of it was given directly to refugee-run groups. But a representative of the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, said little money was left over after aid cuts that currently see the refugees provided with only $10 worth of food a month. About 90% of the 1.2 million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh struggled to have “acceptable food consumption” late last year, according to the World Food Programme, when their monthly ration of food was bumped up from about $8 to about $10 per person.  Speaking at an event on Capitol Hill to mark two years since the United States labelled Myanmar’s atrocities in 2017 against the Rohingya a “genocide,” the activists said aid was not always spent in ways most helpful for the Rohingya refugees living in Cox’s Bazar. “There are ways to do it effectively,” said Yasmin Ullah, a Canada-based rights activist born in Myanmar’s Rakhine state and the director of the Rohingya Maiyafuinor Collaborative Network. Yasmin Ullah of the Rohingya community is interviewed outside the International Court in The Hague, Netherlands, Jan. 23, 2020. (Peter Dejong/AP) The activist said her group had raised $20,000 through crowdfunding to be disbursed by refugee-run groups in the camp to improve livelihoods there. But she noted global aid flows were far larger. “We know our issues. We know how and where to put this money. We can run with $10,000 farther than any other humanitarian groups can,” she said. “We are asking for aid to be utilized and to directly go to refugee-led initiatives and refugee-led organizations.” Unsolved problems Aid for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh has dwindled, with less than two-thirds of the approximately $850 million in annual aid requested by aid agencies in the country being fulfilled, a U.N. report said. Lucky Karim, a Rohingya refugee who resettled in the U.S. state of Illinois in 2022 and now works with the International Campaign for the Rohingya, said that any international aid sent to help people in the camps “means a lot to us as refugees” and was appreciated. But she questioned why the hundreds of millions of dollars flowing into the camps each year were not improving conditions. “It’s not about how many years the U.S. has been supporting Rohingya,” Karim said. “What are you guys able to solve?” “Did you solve the labor issue? Did you solve the sexual and domestic and the other violence in the camps? Did you solve the human trafficking issue? Did you figure out the security risks at the camp? Did you figure out and identify the gangs and the nonstate actors in the camp at night?” she said. “Those are the only questions we have.” Requests for more help, she added, were “not just about increasing funding,” with many Rohingyas understanding funds are limited.  “When it comes to the funding issue, when I talked to USAID, for example, they&#8217;re like, ‘Oh no Lucky, we have other places in war, like Gaza, for example, and Ukraine, for example,’” Karim recounted, noting there were “many other cases coming up every few years.” Like Ullah, she said some aid could be spent more effectively. “The amount of funding you&#8217;re sending to Rohingya refugees in Cox&#8217;s Bazar and elsewhere should go to the right people at the right time to the needed situations,” she said. “How do you ensure it without Rohingya’s involvement in the decision making process?” Limited funds Peter Young, the USAID director for South and Central Asia, told the event that the United States had sent more than $1.9 billion in aid to support Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh since the 2017 genocide. Brothers Mohammed Akter, 8, and Mohammed Harun, 10, pose for a photograph on the floor of their burned shelter after a fire damaged thousands of shelters at the Balukhali refugee camp in Cox&#8217;s Bazar, Bangladesh, March 25, 2021. (Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters) But he acknowledged the global aid being made available “is not sufficient to meet the needs of people” in the refugee camps. What was once a $12 monthly food ration to the refugees, he explained, was cut to just $8 last year before the eventual bump back to $10. At the end of the day, he said, aid groups were left grappling with the fact they have few funds left after disbursing those meager rations. “We certainly agree with – as Lucky said – the importance of working with and through the Rohingya community,” Young said. “We do make sure our projects that are implemented there are staffed by Rohingya there [or] developed in consultation with community leaders.” “At the same time, if you do the math, $10 a month for a million people consumes our entire budget pretty quickly,” he said. “So the bandwidth that we have to do other programming besides food is limited.” One of the first priorities for the refugee camps outside of food would be “durable shelters,” Young said, due to both the propensity of the camps to be hit by devastating disasters and the “understanding that there will be a lot of people there for some time into the future.” But for the Rohingya activists, that’s only a start. Karim, the Illinois-based refugee, said little will change in the camps until Rohingyas are given some decision-making powers – and “not just coming to D.C. every six months” for forums on Capitol Hill. “You take a bunch of notes, you leave us, you forget us,” the activist said. “We want a specific seat at the table.” Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Vietnam police suspend officer in connection with suspicious death](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-police-suspend-officer-in-connection-with-suspicious-death/): Police in Vietnam’s Dong Nai province have suspended an officer involved in the case of Vu Minh Duc who died just hours after being summoned for investigation. His family told Radio Free Asia his body bore signs of torture after it was released from hospital on March 22, the day he died. On March 27, Tien Phong (The Pioneers) newspaper reported that Capt. Thai Thanh Thuong, deputy head of the Police Team for Social Order Crimes Investigation of Long Thanh District Police had been suspended. The female officer signed the notice to summon Duc to the local police station on the morning of March 22. The decision to temporarily suspend the officer, signed by the director of Dong Nai Provincial Police, took effect on March 24. It did not specify why she was suspended. As reported by RFA, Duc, was accompanied by his relatives to the district police’s headquarters in accordance with the summons notice, to work with investigator Thai Thanh Huong or investigator Luu Quang Trung regarding a case of “disrupting public order” in connection with a fight on Oct. 7, 2023 in An Phuoc commune. On the afternoon of March 22, his family was informed that Duc had fainted during the interrogation and was sent to Long Thanh District’s General Hospital for emergency care. He later was transferred to a hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, and when his family arrived, the doctors told them Duc had died. According to the death certificate of Cho Ray Hospital, Duc died because of a coma, acute kidney failure, acute liver failure, and injuries to the soft parts of his left and right thigh. The National Forensic Institute worked with the Dong Nai Provincial Police and the Long Thanh District Police to conduct an autopsy on the afternoon of March 23, 2024, to find out the cause of his death. His family was not allowed either to take photos of the autopsy or to receive the autopsy report. “His chest area, his skin had swellings and dents, and his thighs and buttocks were swollen. In addition, the level of bruising was noteworthy. Taking a deep look inside when he was operated on, I saw a lot of blood clots inside, penetrating deep into the bone. They were not normal bruises,” Vu Hoang Phu, who witnessed the autopsy told RFA on March 27. “On his two wrists there were scratches forming circle shapes, our family believe they were handcuffs traces. “Together with other traces on his body, the family thought there seemed to have been some kind of great force put on his body.” Phu said his family had received many calls and messages, saying that in addition to Thai Thanh Huong and Luu Quang Trung three other district police officers had also taken part in Duc’s interrogation. His family arrived at Cho Ray Hospital, around 9:50 p.m. on March 22 and a doctor informed that Mr. Duc had passed away. However, the hospital’s death certificate said he died at 11:00 p.m. “Our family is now very sad and cannot understand, plus terrified by the level of pain he had suffered. We still don’t know who beat Duc to such an extent, and what objects were used to investigate/interrogate him,” Phu said. He said his family had sent petitions to multiple agencies, asking them to clarify where and when his brother died, who participated in his interrogation, and why there were bruises on his body. Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [Vietnam arrests Buddhist abbot from Khmer Krom minority](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-arrests-buddhist-abbot-from-khmer-krom-minority/): Vietnamese police on Tuesday arrested a Buddhist abbot and two followers – all members of the Khmer Krom ethnic minority – for their alleged roles in two separate incidents involving a pagoda in the country’s south. The nearly 1.3-million strong Khmer Krom ethnic group live in a part of Vietnam that was once southeastern Cambodia. They face discrimination in Vietnam and suspicion in Cambodia, where they are often perceived not as Cambodians but as Vietnamese.  The arrested abbot, Thach Chanh Da Ra, born in 1990, is head of the Dai Tho Pagoda in Tam Binh district in Vinh Long province.  He and Kim Khiem, born in 1978, had posted allegedly slandering and insulting videos on social media and were charged with “abusing the rights to democratic freedom,” in violation of Article 331, a law that rights groups have said is vaguely written and often used to stifle dissent.  Ra was dismissed from the government-recognized Vietnam Buddhist Sangha in December. Police also arrested Thach Ve Sanal, another member of the pagoda, on charges of “illegally arresting, holding, or detaining people,” for his alleged role in an incident that occurred when a task force entered the pagoda to investigate on Nov. 22, 2023. The arrests took place just a week after authorities sentenced two other Khmer Krom to prison for “abusing democratic freedoms,” and about a month after a third was given three-and-a-half years on the same charge. False accusations The government’s accusations about the three men arrested Tuesday are fabricated, Duong Khai, a monk at the pagoda, told RFA Vietnamese. “They distorted and slandered us, not the other way around,” he said. “They constantly come to harass us and disrupt security and public order. They disturbed our indigenous Khmer Krom community and gave us no days of peace.” Khai said that the Vietnamese authorities arrest whoever they dislike, especially if they dare to speak up and tell the truth about the government’s wrongdoings. “They arrested Kim Khiem because he had spoken out about their repression (of Khmer Krom,)” he said. “As for the abbot, Thach Chanh Da Ra, the authorities have repeatedly harassed (him) since the tree-cutting incident.” Vietnamese authorities have arrested Thach Ve Sanal on charges of “illegally arresting, holding or detaining people” under Article 157 of the Penal Code. (congan.vinhlong.gov.vn) More than a year ago, the Buddhist followers elected Ra to replace the former abbot of the pagoda, Thach Xuoi, because they believed Xuoi had colluded with authorities to cut down a 700-year-old tree in the pagoda that had become a community symbol.  Ra and Khiem were arrested when they were returning to the pagoda after conducting services elsewhere, the monk said. International condemnation The Vietnamese government is unfairly targeting Ra as a means to force the pagoda to join the officially recognized Sangha, the U.S.-based Kampuchea Krom Khmers Federation said in a press release Tuesday. The organization called on authorities to drop all charges and release all three of the arrested people, and said the United Nations and the international community should condemn Vietnam – a member of the U.N. Human Rights Council – for its suppression of religious freedom. RFA attempted to contact the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Embassy of Vietnam in Cambodia for comment but received no response. The charges against Ra are “bogus” according to Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at New York-based Human Rights Watch. “The Vietnamese government is deliberately harassing, discriminating against, and abusing the Khmer Krom leaders who stand up for their language, culture, and Theravadan Buddhism, and this crackdown is extending to senior Buddhist monks asserting their right to freedom of religion and belief,” Robertson said. He said that Ra’s arrest showed that government officials have no respect for the religious beliefs of the Khmer Krom. Robertson said that the U.S. Department of State should recognize the severity of Vietnam’s repression and designate it a country of particular concern for its violations of religious freedom. Translated by Anna Vu and Samean Yun. Edited by Eugene Whong.
- [Junta helicopter crashes during training exercise in Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-helicopter-crashes-during-training-exercise-in-myanmar/): A junta-owned military helicopter crashed in northern Myanmar, according to a statement by officials on Wednesday.  The accident was caused by mechanical failure during a training exercise in Mandalay region’s Meiktila city on Tuesday, the press release stated, adding that the pilot and trainee onboard were not injured during the crash. Meiktila is home to the junta’s Air Force Central Command. Former junta air force sergeant Zayya told Radio Free Asia crashes have become more frequent because military aircraft are constantly in use by junta officials.  “We have seen more aircraft crashes and the use of helicopters has increased,” said the man, who goes by one name. “Many of the aircraft that have come to us have weaknesses. Overuse of the aircraft will continue to happen.” It’s important to check the condition of aircraft after each use, he added, but the junta can no longer do that because of the frequency they are being used in carrying out attacks all over the nation. According to a September report by the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights, airstrike attacks increased in Myanmar by 324% between 2021 and 2023.  On Feb. 29, a fighter jet crashed near Magway region’s Kyu Wun village in central Myanmar. Just weeks earlier, a military plane repatriating troops who fled to India skidded off the runway at Mizoram state’s Lengpui Airport. These crashes were preceded by more infrequent crashes in earlier years of the coup. In November 2022, a training pilot plane crashed in Tanintharyi region’s Thayetchaung township. In June 2021, a junta passenger plane crash killed 12 people at Pyinoolwin’s nearby Anisakhan Airport in Mandalay region. The dead included a monk, two army majors, a captain and a corporal. According to data compiled by RFA, rebel armies in Kachin, Kayin and Karenni states, as well as guerilla armies, or People’s Defense Forces, claim to have shot down seven transport helicopters and fighter jets in the three years since the 2021 coup. Five additional junta aircraft have crashed due to technical or human error. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.
- [Sign says Phnom Penh land dispute is settled – but residents disagree](https://ij-reportika.com/sign-says-phnom-penh-land-dispute-is-settled-but-residents-disagree/): A long-running land dispute in Cambodia’s capital of Phnom Penh took another twist Tuesday when authorities posted a big sign saying that evicted residents have agreed to move to another location – even though most residents said that wasn’t true. The dispute began nearly five years ago when former Prime Minister Hun Sen gave residential land near Tamok Lake to developers who plan to build a high-rise building.  Ever since, authorities have been trying to evict about 200 families from their homes in the Samrong Tbong community in the capital’s Prek Pnov district. Land disputes are common in Cambodia and other Southeast Asian countries. Government officials routinely seize land for lucrative real estate ventures, leaving displaced local residents with little or no recourse. About three weeks ago, about 50 residents began a protest on the land – some of them in waist-deep muddy water around the construction site – to demand that President Hun Manet’s government grant them the right to keep their land. On Tuesday, district authorities put up a metal sign nearly two meters, or 6 feet, wide, saying: “This location has been settled according to [government] policy.” A view of some of the houses in the Tamok Lake area of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, March 26, 2024. (Citizen journalist) But representatives of the community say the sign does not reflect the will of the majority. Samrong Tbong community representative Sea Davy told Radio Free Asia that 27 families accepted land swaps with the authorities, while 70 others refused the deal, wanting to remain on their land and build houses.  She asked the government to grant residents, who do not want land in a different area, the right to build on their own land. The land dispute has left some of the people impoverished and with high debt, while some children have dropped out of school to help their parents earn a living.  RFA was unable to reach Phnom Penh Gov. Khuong Sreng or district Gov. Them Sam An for comment. Residents say they will continue to protest until a solution is found. Translated by Yun Samean for RFA Khmer. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Hong Kong journalists’ new norm is to do a job under ‘unclear’ laws](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-journalists-new-norm-is-to-do-a-job-under-unclear-laws/): For Hong Kong journalists, there is absolutely no room for old habits, even if they die hard.  The city’s second national security law passed swiftly last week has widened the scope of what constitutes a breach of national security. It has also raised the  risk of news reporting which has already increased since the Beijing-imposed first law came in 2020 and  China increasingly encroached on the city. “What had been habitually acceptable, normal practice before, is no longer the case,” said a veteran journalist who declined to be named. “Journalists have to relearn and recalibrate.” This means throwing into the wind best practices in journalism. In their place, the most experienced practitioners are learning by reviewing daily how government officials posture and how the court rules, the veteran journalist told Radio Free Asia. Another seasoned journalist who also spoke on condition of anonymity said while the immediate effects of the new law officially known as the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance have yet to be seen, the editorial process – from a journalist reporting the news to editors editing the story for publication – has become much more complex. “For instance, if you have a scoop on a new government policy – would you report and publish that or would it be a breach of law? We don’t know what is considered lawful or what can become questionable,” the seasoned journalist explained, echoing the veteran journalist’s view of the unease that has been clouding the media since 2020. The change in journalistic practices started nearly four years ago, after China’s parliament passed the National Security Law. However, the introduction of the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance last week, also referred to as Article 23  based on a clause in Hong Kong’s mini constitution, the Basic Law – has intensified the concerns and uncertainties that Hong Kong journalists have faced over the past few years. While there are overlaps with the first law, Article 23 has also created new offenses, given increased punishment for offenders and afforded the government sweeping new powers to crack down on all forms of dissent on the grounds of treason, insurrection, sabotage that endangers national security, external interference in Hong Kong’s affairs, and espionage and theft of state secrets.  “National security” in Article 23 is defined as identical to the first law, by China’s definition, which journalists and critics viewed as vague and heightened uncertainties.  In both laws, national security refers to “the status in which the state’s political regime, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity, the welfare of the people, sustainable economic and social development, and other major interests of the state are relatively free from danger and internal or external threats, and the capability to maintain a sustained status of security.”  Henry Tong, an exiled Hong Kong activist who is currently living in Taiwan, tears a a piece of cardboard with 23 on it, during a protest against Hong Kong&#8217;s Article 23 law in Taipei, Taiwan, March 23, 2024. (Ann Wang/Reuters) Under Article 23, insurrection and sabotage can be punished with life imprisonment. Jail terms for sedition are increased from two years to seven, or 10 if alleged perpetrators are found to have colluded with a foreign force. The law also allows for a lengthening detention period without charge from 48 hours to two weeks, as well as expanded the British colonial-era offense of “sedition” to include inciting hatred against the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. The Hong Kong government had not responded to Radio Free Asia’s request for comment on Article 23’s effect on journalists at the time of publication. When uncertain, self censor Journalists who remained in the field observed that self censorship is now second nature in the profession and on the increase in Hong Kong, once Asia’s bastion of free press and expression, and one of the very virtues that helped propel the city to an international financial center. “Before, you just report the news; as balanced as you can be, after getting all sides of the issue. Now, you would think twice and more times, whether to even report. It’s become a collective decision involving more editors and often lawyers,” said the seasoned journalist. “Or you simply don’t report.”  Article 23 can also apply to actions that take place outside Hong Kong – by both residents and businesses – a move seen as key to what critics described as China’s “long arm” to hunt down overseas pro-democracy activists and “anti-China elements.” “It also makes reporting about overseas protests as journalists previously did, risky because you might be seen as providing a platform to these organizations abroad,” pointed out the veteran journalist, adding that these days, the approach is to wait for an official line from the Hong Kong government before publication of such types of news. Indeed, Hong Kong media outlets were sparing in coverage of overseas protests against the first day of Article 23’s implementation on Saturday. When they did, the angle was to convey the annoyance of citizens of foreign cities unsettled by the chaos created by the demonstrations.  A case in point: HK01, an online news portal in Hong Kong, reported Saturday on disgruntled Taiwanese people who told protesters, many of whom were immigrants from Hong Kong, at a Taipei rally to “go back to Hong Kong” and not to mess up Taiwan.  Robert Tsao, founder of United Microelectronics Corp., speaks with his staff after a news conference in Taipei on Sept. 1, 2022. (Ann Wang/Reuters) At the same reported Taipei event in the bustling Ximen district, demonstrators were joined by Robert Tsao, founder of chip-making giant United Microelectronics Corporation and former Hong Kong resident, who blasted the Chinese Communist Party for upholding authoritarianism in the guise of national security and through the “laughable” concept of “subverting the nation” when the country and regime are separate notions.  “The CCP has tied the political regime with the country, which is a scam and extremely absurd,” Tsao said, as he warned that the fate of Taiwan and Hong Kong...
- [Indonesia recovers bodies of 11 Rohingya from capsized boat off Aceh coast](https://ij-reportika.com/indonesia-recovers-bodies-of-11-rohingya-from-capsized-boat-off-aceh-coast/): Indonesian search-and-rescue officials said Monday they had recovered the bodies of 11 Rohingya refugees, mostly women, who were on a boat that capsized off the coast of Aceh province last week. Some of the 75 Rohingya who were rescued had told officials that the wooden boat was carrying around 150 members of the stateless minority group from Myanmar, but an Indonesian official, who declared an end to the search operation on Thursday, later pushed back at reports that people had died. On Friday, the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said it feared that more than 70 refugees were dead or had gone missing from the boat that overturned in waters off West Aceh regency last Wednesday. Of the 11 bodies recovered from the capsized boat, six were found relatively close to each other in waters off Jaya district in West Aceh, on Monday afternoon, said Mirza Safrinadi, an operations commander at the local Search and Rescue Task Force. “The bodies were initially spotted by local fishermen and reported to authorities. Because the location was near Banda Aceh, the [search-and-rescue] team quickly responded to evacuate the victims,” he said. The bodies were transported to Calang City and then transferred to Teuku Umar General Hospital in Aceh Jaya district. One body was discovered by fishermen who were searching for turtle eggs at a beach in Arongan Lambalek District, West Aceh, on Monday morning, Mirza said. “After discussions with UNHCR and IOM [International Organization for Migration], we can confirm that these individuals were Rohingya refugees who were victims of the capsized boat incident,” Mirza said. The bodies were laid to rest in the mass cemetery in West Aceh for victims of the 2004 tsunami in Aceh, an official said. Two more bodies of Rohingya refugees, found on Saturday and Sunday, were also laid to rest in the same cemetery. Of the 11 dead refugees, nine were women, said Faisal Rahman, a UNHCR protection associate. Boat originated in Bangladesh Of the 75 Rohingya rescued, six were saved on March 20, and 69 others, who had been clinging to their wooden boat for nearly a day and were suffering from hunger and dehydration, were brought ashore the next day.  Supriadi, the captain of the search-and-rescue ship that saved 69 refugees, on Friday took issue with the UNHCR and IOM’s contention that 76 people may have perished or were missing at sea. He said he didn’t believe this was the case because the 69 (of 75) refugees rescued Thursday “had clear coordinates provided by fishermen who witnessed the refugees in distress.”  “If there are still victims, where are they located?” he had said. Meanwhile, UNHCR’s Faisal said the agency was able to get more clarity on how many passengers were on the boat and where it had originated. Faisal said that after collecting more data the agency concluded that there were 142 Rohingya refugees and seven crew members on the boat. Additionally, he said the boat had not originated in Malaysia with Australia as the planned destination as they were originally told, he said. The boat had left from Cox’s Bazar in southwestern Bangladesh, where the refugee camps host some 1 million Rohingya, including 740,000 who fled a brutal military crackdown  by the Myanmar military in 2017. “Through our interviews with several refugees, we can confirm that they departed from Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh,” Faisal said. “Initially, they were headed to Malaysia, where some of their family members already resided. Others had plans to reach Indonesia.” This latest incident occurred amid the increasing arrival of Rohingya refugee boats in Indonesia.  “In 2023 alone, more than 2,300 Rohingya refugees arrived [in Indonesia], with a significant increase from November onwards. This number exceeds the number of arrivals in the previous four years as a whole,” UNHCR and IOM said. The Rohingya have been accommodated in locations across Aceh, according to the UNHCR. UNHCR reported that 569 Rohingya refugees had died or gone missing at sea last year, as they made the perilous journey by sea to oppression in their home country or the crowded and violent refugee camps in southwestern Bangladesh to get to Southeast Asia. Pizaro Gozali Idrus in Jakarta contributed to this report. BenarNews is an online news outlet affiliated with Radio Free Asia.
- [Philippines summons China envoy to protest ‘aggressive actions’ in South China Sea](https://ij-reportika.com/philippines-summons-china-envoy-to-protest-aggressive-actions-in-south-china-sea/): Manila on Monday summoned a Chinese envoy to strongly protest the “aggressive actions” of the China Coast Guard in the South China Sea, following an incident that left three crew members aboard a Philippine supply boat injured. The Philippines was on Saturday attempting to resupply troops stationed on a ship at Second Thomas Shoal, known locally as Ayungin Shoal, when China’s coast guard and maritime militia “harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers against the routine RoRe [rotation and resupply] mission,” officials said. Chinese water cannon blasts hurt three Filipino crew members and caused “significant damages to the vessel,” the Philippine Coast Guard said. “The Department of Foreign Affairs summoned the Charge d’affaires of the Chinese Embassy this morning to convey the Philippines’ strong protest against the aggressive actions undertaken by the China Coast Guard and Chinese Maritime Militia against the rotation and resupply mission undertaken by the Philippines in Ayungin Shoal on 23 March 2024,” Ma. Teresita Daza, a spokeswoman for the Department of Foreign Affairs, said in a statement.  China “has no right to be in Ayungin Shoal,” she said, a low-tide elevation that lies well within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. “China’s continued interference with the Philippines’ routine and lawful activities in its own exclusive economic zone is unacceptable,” said Daza. Saturday’s incident was the second time this month that Philippine crew members were injured in a confrontation between Chinese and Philippine ships in the disputed South China Sea. Tense incidents at sea have become more frequent lately, as Chinese ships try to block Philippine ships and boats from delivering supplies to Manila’s military outpost there.  The Philippines in 1999 deliberately grounded an old navy ship on the shoal – BRP Sierra Madre – where it maintains a detachment of troops. Four crew members aboard a military-contracted Philippine ship sustained minor injuries when a water cannon blast from China Coast Guard ships shattered the windshield on the bridge during the incident on March 5, according to Filipino officials. “The Philippines urges China to take the correct track of abiding by international law and respecting the legitimate rights of other states like the Philippines, and to cease and desist from its continued violation of international law,” Daza said, adding the Philippine embassy in Beijing had also been instructed to lodge a protest with China’s foreign ministry.  China claims nearly the entire South China Sea, including Second Thomas Shoal that is within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan also have territorial claims to the sea. A 2016 ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague dismissed China’s sweeping historical claims to the waterway, but Beijing has refused to acknowledge the ruling.   This frame grab from aerial video footage taken and released on March 23, 2024 by the Armed Forces of the Philippines shows a vessel described as a China Coast Guard ship (L) deploying water cannon against the Philippine military-chartered civilian boat Unaizah May 4 during its supply mission near the Second Thomas Shoal. (Armed Forces of the Philippines/AFP) On Monday, China’s embassy in Manila said it had communicated its “strong opposition” to the Philippine government, which it accused of attempting to transport construction materials to the shoal – a claim that Manila has denied.  “The China Coast Guard in response has implemented lawful regulation, interception, and expulsion in a reasonable and professional manner,” the embassy said in a statement. It added that the international arbitration award in 2016 was illegal and therefore “null and void.” Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro on Monday urged Beijing to take its claims of sovereignty in the South China Sea to international arbitration. “If China is not afraid to state its claims to the world, then why don’t we arbitrate under international law?” Teodoro told reporters, adding Manila would not budge on its position. “They are the ones who entered our territory. No country believes [their claims] and they see this as their way to use force, intimidate and bend the Philippines to their ambitions.” Washington condemned China’s most recent actions as “dangerous” and said they “undermine regional stability but also display a blatant disregard for international law.” “[The] People’s Republic of China (PRC) ships’ repeated employment of water cannons and reckless blocking maneuvers resulted in injuries to Filipino service members and significant damage to their resupply vessel, rendering it immobile,” said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller. Jeoffrey Maitem and Mark Navales reported from Manila. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.
- [What exactly happened to Vietnamese President Vo Van Thuong?](https://ij-reportika.com/what-exactly-happened-to-vietnamese-president-vo-van-thuong/): On March 20, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam voted to accept the resignation of President Vo Van Thuong, capping the spectacular downfall of a once-promising new leader that underscores the risks of Hanoi’s anti-corruption campaign.  The following day, an extraordinary session of the National Assembly accepted his resignation but failed to elect his successor. Vice President Vo Thi Anh Xuan will serve as the acting president until the National Assembly elects a president.  There’s no sign that Thuong will be the last scalp in an anti-corruption campaign that has toppled a slew of senior leaders in the one-party state in recent years. The dismissal of two deputy prime ministers, two presidents and one other Communist Party of Vietnam Politburo member, as well as other ministers and former ministers, since December 2022 undermines Vietnam’s selling point of political stability and rattled markets.  Rumors of Thuong’s downfall began on March 14, when the Netherlands announced the postponement of a March 19-22 visit by the Dutch royal couple at the request of the Vietnamese government “due to internal circumstances.” Word quickly emerged that Thuong had submitted his resignation to the ruling party Politburo.  He is the fourth Politburo member forced to resign since December 2022, bringing the number of members down to 14, the smallest since the Doi Moi economic reform era began in 1986. Spilling tea on corrupt officials Thuong has been described by some academics as the party’s ideologue. While he held ideological positions within the party, he was no ideologue.  It’s true that before becoming the president in March 2023, following the ouster of Nguyen Xuan Phuc, Thuong chaired the Central Committee’s Propaganda and Education Commission, as well as heading the Central Council on Political Thought, a brain trust of General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong. But that was a mid-career reinvention in part to burnish his credentials. He’s not the party ideologue nor apparatchik that some claimed. From 2011-2014, Thuong was the party chief of Quang Ngai province, before moving to Ho Chi Minh City in 2014. He served as the deputy party chief under Le Thanh Hai, better known as the godfather of Ho Chi Minh City. Little happened in terms of the region’s economic and real estate development without his knowledge and approval. Vietnam&#8217;s then-President Vo Van Thuong looks on during a meeting in Hanoi on April 21, 2023. (Nhac Nguen/AFP) Despite his leadership role in the freewheeling south, Thuong was brought to Hanoi, in large part, to spill the tea on corrupt party officials, as the central government moved to reassert control.  In 2016, Thuong was appointed to the Central Committee’s Propaganda and Education Commission. He was elevated to the Politburo in 2020, and joined the Secretariat, which is in charge of the party’s day-to-day operations, in 2021.  Thuong was clearly being groomed for bigger things. Born in 1970, Thuong was the youngest person on the Politburo, and many pundits had tipped him as being a possible successor to Nguyen Phu Trong as general secretary at the 14th Congress, expected to be held in early 2026. He was also the only southerner amongst the senior leadership. For a party that is out of touch with Vietnamese youth, choosing a younger general secretary has a certain logic. Even if passed over at the 14th, Thuong would have been well positioned to take over the party at the 15th Congress. In short, his fall is quite spectacular.  Who brought Thuong down and why? So who wanted Thuong gone and why? After all, he was often described as a young protege of the powerful party chief, which should have accorded him some protection.   It’s worth noting that Thuong’s resignation was the result of an investigation dating back to his time in Quang Ngai, from 2011-14, which shows just how far back rivals are willing to dig.  All eyes quickly fell on Minister of Public Security To Lam. Politburo member Gen. To Lam, right, poses with other members of the Vietnam Communist Party&#8217;s Central Committee in Hanoi on Jan. 28, 2016. (Hoang Dinh Nam/AFP) When the Politburo elected Thuong president in February 2023, not everyone was happy, least of all Lam who may have seen the presidency as a path to whitewashing his own scandals, including being filmed in celebrity chef Salt Bae’s London restaurant eating $1000 gold encrusted steaks after placing a wreath at the grave of Karl Marx. In April 2023, four Vietnam Airlines flight attendants were arrested in Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Son Nhut airport for smuggling 11 kilograms (22 pounds) of illegal narcotics. One was rumored to be Thuong’s niece.  In a country known for the quick dispatch of the death penalty for drug offenses, all four stewardesses were quickly released with a slap on the wrist. The message to Thuong could not have been more clear. Since Lam’s own scandals appeared to preclude him from contention to be the next general secretary, the presidency would extend his political lifespan, especially if he could ensure that his protege, Deputy Minister of Public Security Luong Tan Quang, succeeded him.   Lam goes after his own rivals His predecessor, Tran Dai Quang, after all, continued to keep an office in the security ministry despite becoming president in 2016. Lam expected to continue to wield influence over the powerful ministry in order to keep rivals in check and protect his family’s growing corporate empire. For years,Trong used Lam and the security ministry to target rival faction members. Nguyen Xuan Phuc, who challenged Trong for the general secretaryship in 2021, was ousted in February 2023. Other leaders tied to former Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung have been systematically taken down.  Increasingly, Lam dispatched his own rivals.  Vietnam&#8217;s Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, left, and Vietnam&#8217;s then-Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc attend the ASEAN summit via video, in Hanoi on Nov. 12, 2020. (Nhac Nguyen/AFP) With Thuong’s dismissal, there are now only three other eligible replacements among members of the Politburo under existing party rules:...
- [In debt and desperate, misled Vietnamese seek political asylum in Australia](https://ij-reportika.com/in-debt-and-desperate-misled-vietnamese-seek-political-asylum-in-australia/): After four months in limbo about his refugee status and heavily in debt, Hung has some advice for anyone from Vietnam planning to work in Australia on a tourist visa: “If you are keen on coming to Australia, you’d better choose a legal way,” said the part-time laborer from Hanoi, who was duped into paying an immigration service company to apply for an entry visa on his behalf. “Arriving with a student or skilled labor visa is OK, but you should think twice about using a tourist visa,” he said. For years, Hung made ends meet in Hanoi on a monthly income of 10 million dong (US$400), but was unable to build any savings due to the high cost of living in Vietnam’s capital. After hearing stories of other Vietnamese landing good-paying jobs while visiting Australia, Hung, who spoke to RFA Vietnamese using a pseudonym due to security concerns, decided to travel the 5,000-odd kilometers (3,100 miles) southeast to try his luck. He hoped to earn a better salary Down Under – where minimum wage workers earn AU$70,000 (US$48,000) a year, or 14 times the average income in Vietnam – and save money to improve his living standard back home. Vietnamese who are unable to obtain work visas for Australia are eligible for a Work and Holiday Visa, which allows people to work while traveling in the country for up to one year. Applicants must be between the ages of 18 and 30, have no criminal record and provide evidence that they have completed at least two years of undergraduate study. They must also show that they can support themselves financially while in Australia and have attained a certain level of English proficiency. In debt and desperate Hung, who did not disclose his age, had no employer to sponsor a work visa and was unable to meet either the education or English proficiency requirements for a Work and Holiday Visa. But a Vietnamese immigration services company told him that he could legally work in Australia as a tourist. Australian tourist visas have a significantly lower barrier to obtain. They are good for three months and can be extended to a full year in special circumstances. However, entrants are not eligible to work during their visit. Unfamiliar with the application process, Hung took on debt to pay 100 million dong (US$4,000) – a substantial amount for the average Vietnamese laborer – to the immigration services company to handle his visa, as well as purchase an airline ticket, and he flew to Australia in July 2023. Hung had hoped to live and work in Australia for up to two years, to pay off what he had borrowed in getting there and to build wealth. Instead, by October, his tourist visa was about to expire and he had only accrued more debt while supporting himself for three months in a nation with a vastly higher cost of living. Increasingly desperate, Hung sought help from fellow Vietnamese through social media, and was advised to apply for an Australian Onshore Protection Visa (Subclass 866) as a political refugee, which would allow him to stay in Australia for longer and work legally. He paid someone AU$1,000 (US$650) to prepare his application, went to the local immigration department to be fingerprinted, and was granted a bridging visa (BVE 050) that allows him to lawfully reside in the country while awaiting a decision on his status. While Hung will be required to present evidence of his asylum claim, it is unclear when he will be called for an interview, due to the large backlog of applications. Topping the list for asylum seekers According to the Australian Department of Home Affairs, 2,905 Vietnamese nationals applied for the Australian Onshore Protection Visa in 2023, making them the largest ethnic group to do so and accounting for 12% of the total number of applicants. Vietnamese topped the list of asylum applicants in Australia, beating out Indians and Chinese, in each of the last five months of 2023, and ranked second in three other months last year. Thai officers talk to Vietnamese and Cambodian refugee and asylum seekers in Bangkok, Aug. 28, 2018 after rounding up more than 160 who are believed to be at risk of persecution if they are returned to their homelands. Refugee applications to the Australian Embassy in Vietnam, also sent from Thailand and Australia, tend to increase after political upheavals, says one immigration attorney. (AP) Many of them end up in situations like Hung’s, nervously awaiting a verdict on their claim to learn whether they will be granted residential status or forced to return home. The bridging visa does not expire and grants holders the right to work and access a national health insurance assistance program so that they can receive medical care in Australia. However, if asylum status is denied, the bridging visa will be automatically canceled within 28 days, and the holder will be required to leave the country. Those denied status have the right to appeal the decision with an immigration court. The chances of being awarded political asylum in Australia are fairly low. In 2023, the Australian Department of Home Affairs processed nearly 1,000 asylum applications, of which only 53, or 5.6%, were approved. The stakes are considerably higher for applicants who have fled persecution in Vietnam, where the one-party communist state brooks no dissent. Being forced to return home can often mean a jail sentence, or worse. ‘Extraordinary surge’ in applications Vietnamese-Australian immigration attorney Le Duc Minh told RFA that his law firm has helped many “genuine” Vietnamese political asylum seekers successfully apply for status in Australia. But he acknowledged that he regularly hears stories like Hung’s from people who ended up in debt after trying to work illegally in the country. “Some people simply ask me, ‘Please find a way for me to stay longer to earn money and pay off my debts. I borrowed hundreds of millions of dong in Vietnam to make this trip. I cannot go home...
- [Pro-junta editor charged with defamation after criticizing ministry](https://ij-reportika.com/pro-junta-editor-charged-with-defamation-after-criticizing-ministry/): The editor-in-chief of People Media was charged with defamation following critical comments he made in a livestream video – the first time an employee of a pro-junta news outlet has faced legal action by the military since the 2021 coup d’etat. Kyaw Soe Oo’s comments on Tuesday found fault with the Ministry of Home Affairs for not sending any senior police officials to attend the funeral of an officer who was recently killed in Kachin state.  Nay Pyi Taw police arrested Kyaw Soe Oo the same day, family members told Radio Free Asia.  The ruling military junta, which seized power in a February 2021 coup, has cracked down on independent media outlets in Myanmar to silence them from reporting about the coup and its violent aftermath.  In 2021, the junta shut down five media outlets that provided independent coverage of the protests against military rule.  Last year, the regime threatened legal action against Democratic Voice of Burma TV and Mizzima TV, demanding that the shuttered independent news broadcasters pay thousands of dollars in transmission fees, Voice of America reported. People Media is known for its pro-military views. Kyaw Soe Oo regularly broadcasts his video commentaries on Telegram and YouTube.  In Tuesday’s livestream, Kyaw Soe Oo noted that police officers who have ties to high-ranking officials are typically never assigned to dangerous frontier posts. It’s only the officers with no money or connections who are transferred to those areas, he said. He also invited viewers to send him information on possible bribery involving military and police officers and gambling businesses.  After his arrest, Kyaw Soe Oo underwent two days of interrogation before he was formally charged under Section 505(a) of the penal code, relatives said. That provision of the law was added by junta authorities after the coup to punish comments or implications that the coup or the military is illegitimate. Kyaw Soe Oo was sent to Nay Pyi Taw prison on Thursday, relatives said. Police raided People Media’s office in Nay Pyi Taw on Thursday morning and confiscated computers, phones and cameras, according to sources close to Kyaw Soe Oo. There has been no official statement from the military junta regarding the arrest. Translated by Kalyar Lwin. Edited by Matt Reed.
- [Suspect in Lao bear cub trafficking case is on the run](https://ij-reportika.com/suspect-in-lao-bear-cub-trafficking-case-is-on-the-run/): A Chinese man found with 16 black bear cubs during a raid of a microfinance institute by Lao authorities last week is on the run, while the cubs are now being cared for by a wildlife conservation group in Luang Prabang province, a district official said Friday. The incident is the latest case of the illegal transportation of wildlife in Laos — a hub for wildlife trafficking for the exotic pet trade and medicinal purposes. Such activities are banned by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, which protects endangered plants and animals. On March 17, police from the environment division of Vientiane’s Department of Public Security and from Sikhottabong district’s public security office raided the Chinese-owned Ya Thai Microfinance Institute in the district’s Nongsanokham village to rescue the animals. Police seized the bear cubs after the Chinese man’s Lao wife would not tell them where they came from. They said they arrested her and are searching for the man, who owns the institute, and others who may be involved. Asiatic black bears, also known as moon bears because of the white or cream-colored crescent pattern on their chests, are listed in CITES’ most crucial category of endangered due to overhunting and to loss of habitat as forests are felled.  As a CITES member, Laos must abide by the treaty’s prohibition on the international trade of live Asiatic bears or bear parts. Demand for bear bile Poachers can demand exorbitant sums for the bears’ gallbladders and bile, which are used in traditional medicines believed to cure a variety of ailments.  They extract the bile, which helps protect the bears’ livers and prevents gallstones and illness during long hibernations, during which the animals are subdued and jabbed in the abdomen with needles in an attempt to pierce their gallbladders. The official from the Sikhottabong district office, who declined to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media, told Radio Free Asia that the Chinese owner of the institute fled after police raided the office, and authorities are now searching for him. The Chinese man has a history of trafficking wildlife and other illegal activities, he said. Lao authorities involved in the raid would not comment on the incident to RFA. No one at the Ya Thai Microfinance Institute answered the phone when RFA called. On March 20, police handed the cubs over to the Australian wildlife organization Free the Bears, to keep them in its wildlife sanctuary in Luang Prabang, according to a video on the Facebook page of Vientiane&#8217;s Department of Public Security.  In the video, the cubs, some of which are inside pet carriers, can be heard crying out. Lt. Col. Chansamouth Chanthalangsone, deputy head of the environment division at the department, said in the video that the bears were brought to the capital city without proper documentation, constituting the illegal transportation of wildlife. He did not mention how authorities knew to raid the office, though the institute is located in a building where people live close to each other, so they might have heard the bears screaming. The Free the Bears office in Luang Prabang declined to give RFA any information about the incident, citing the investigation. In mid-February, Free the Bears took possession of two male moon bear cubs that had been held in a cage for more than two years near the Laos-Thailand border. The bear cubs had been raised by a villager in remote Xayaburi province since their birth.  Translated by Phouvong for RFA Lao. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Victor Li ‘prays’ Hong Kong can keep global financial center status](https://ij-reportika.com/victor-li-prays-hong-kong-can-keep-global-financial-center-status/): Victor Li, chairman of Hong Kong’s Cheung Kong Holdings, says he “prays” that the city will not lose its international financial center status, as the international backlash mounts with the passing of the more expansive second national security law this week. “I pray very, very hard it will not be lost,” Li told reporters, after a sigh, at the company’s annual results press conference Thursday when he was asked to comment on Hong Kong’s economic outlook. The head of the Hong Kong-based conglomerate stressed that the city’s international financial center status hadn’t come easy. “There are only a few in the world that can be called true international financial centers, and Hong Kong has been one of them for many years. It has been hard-won.” Hong Kong is the world’s fourth most competitive financial center, trailing Singapore which has taken over the third spot from Hong Kong since September 2022, according to the latest edition of the Global Financial Centres Index by Z/Yen Group and the China Development Institute released this week.  Li, the elder son of Hong Kong’s richest billionaire and revered businessman Li Ka-shing, has followed in the tradition of his father. Before he stepped down from the public eye in his retirement, Li Ka-shing’s sought-after views always carried weight on the markets.  Victor Li pointed out that Hong Kong people have gone through a very tough past few years, their resilience put under “wave after wave of stress tests” – from the anti-government protests in 2019, to the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing economic downturn. How to address the economic headwinds, he said, is entirely up to the Hong Kong government. Still, without any crystal ball in the world or the ability to predict the future, Li said Cheung Kong Executive Director Justin Chiu had pointed out to him that all the news that could negatively impact Hong Kong had been released. On the property market front, restrictions were lifted last month and interest rate cuts are only a matter of time, while there are signs of consumption picking up.   “Once the real estate market booms, other industries will be better; Hong Kong is more unique in this respect,” he said. Li added that everything has its ups and downs, and “the probability for the downside is lower than that for the upside.” In recent years, pro-government media have chided the Li family for divesting its assets offshore and making fewer large investments in Hong Kong. At the press conference, Li countered that Cheung Kong has added a total of eight real estate projects in the city. But the company is also a multinational enterprise with interests in over 50 countries and regions across different sectors. If there are any projects that yield globally accepted returns, the company will certainly invest in Hong Kong, Li added. Translated by RFA Staff. Edited by Taejun Kang and Mike Firn.
- [Dozens of Rohingya rescued from capsized boat off Indonesian coast](https://ij-reportika.com/dozens-of-rohingya-rescued-from-capsized-boat-off-indonesian-coast/): Indonesian rescuers on Thursday brought ashore 69 additional Rohingya who were found clinging to their wooden boat for nearly a day and suffering from hunger and dehydration after it capsized in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Aceh province, authorities said.  Those rescued were brought to shore for medical treatment, said Supriadi, captain of the rescue ship, even as some locals protested their arrival. Six others from the same boat were rescued Wednesday by local fishermen. “When they were found, they were weak due to dehydration and perhaps had not eaten for several days,” said Supriadi, who goes by one name.  Authorities reported that search efforts were complete.   A video taken by a fisherman on Wednesday showed more than 50 Rohingya standing on the overturned hull of the barely visible boat as they frantically waved for help. The boat had flipped over in waters off Kuala Bubon port (16 nautical miles from Meulaboh), possibly after being struck by large waves, according to officials. Zaned Salim, one of the original six to be rescued, said 150 Rohingya departed from a Malaysian refugee camp 24 days ago, hoping to sail to Australia, adding that about 50 people had died during the journey. Authorities said they did not recover any bodies during rescue efforts, adding that those efforts were finished.  Meanwhile, hundreds of residents blocked roads in protest against the latest Rohingya arrival.  “The residents demand that the Rohingya refugees not be placed in their village,” said Iswahyudi, West Aceh’s deputy police chief, who goes by one name. Local journalists reported that villagers were carrying banners and shouting their opposition to the refugees’ presence.  “We do not accept refugees here. … Why bring them to our village?” said one resident. Indonesia is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, but has a long history of hosting refugees from various conflicts. It allows refugees to stay temporarily, while they wait for a third country to resettle them, a process that can take years. Aceh has a history of welcoming Rohingya, specifically, but there has been growing resistance fueled by negative sentiment on social media. Some residents claimed there are not enough resources for both themselves and the Rohingya. A Rohingya holds a floatation device as he swims toward a rescue boat in the waters off West Aceh, Indonesia, March 21, 2024. [Reza Saifullah/AP] Faisal Rahman, an associate with the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) praised the collaborative rescue operations by the local leadership and law enforcement. “The UNHCR deeply appreciates the swift and compassionate action of the West Aceh district officials and their teams in aiding the Rohingya,” Faisal said, adding several of those rescued were in poor health and rushed to a local hospital. Rahman said Zaned Salim’s claim that as many as 150 people were aboard the boat needed to be verified.  “If the refugee’s claims were true, it implies a tragic loss of lives at sea, as only 75 individuals have been accounted for,” he said.  A child and other Rohingya sleep aboard a National Search and Rescue Agency ship after being rescued from their capsized wooden boat about 16 nautical miles off the coast at a port in Meulaboh, West Aceh, March 21, 2024. [Zahul Akbar/AFP] Persecuted minority The Rohingya are members of a persecuted stateless Muslim minority from Myanmar who have been fleeing violence and oppression in their homeland for years.  Following a 2017 military offensive in Myanmar’s Rakhine state that the U.N. described as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing,” about 740,000 Rohingya fled from their homes across the border to Bangladesh. About 1 million Rohingya live in crowded camps in and around Cox’s Bazar in southeastern Bangladesh. Desperate, many leave overcrowded refugee camps in Bangladesh, seeking better lives in other Muslim countries including Malaysia and Indonesia.  The latest wave of Rohingya began arriving in Aceh in October 2023.  Since then, over 1,800 refugees have landed in Indonesia and have been accommodated in locations across Aceh, according to the UNHCR. In January, the UNHCR reported that 569 Rohingya refugees had died or went missing at sea in 2023 while attempting to flee from Myanmar or Bangladesh. BenarNews is an online news affiliate of Radio Free Asia.
- [Junta navy arrests around 80 Rohingya off Myanmar coast](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-navy-arrests-around-80-rohingya-off-myanmar-coast/): Myanmar’s junta navy arrested around 80 Rohingya attempting to flee the country by boat, residents who witnessed the event told Radio Free Asia on Thursday.  Officials arrested the group on Tuesday morning in Myanmar’s coastal Mon state. The boat was intercepted off the shores of Ye township’s Kaleguak Island in the Andaman Sea. Mon state’s junta spokesperson Aung Myat Kyaw Sein told RFA that although Mon’s administration was made aware of the arrest, other details have yet to be confirmed. “The estimated number is about 80, but we do not know the genders yet,” he said, adding that unspecified official processes still need to be carried out. The arrested Rohingya will be treated well and officials will follow official procedures, he said.  RFA was able to confirm the group traveled on a boat named Zwel Khit San, but could not identify where the group traveled from or where it intended to go. Many Rohingya who had remained in Rakhine state after being targeted in a genocide by the Myanmar military in 2017 fled to Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia following the country’s 2021 coup. In October and November 2023, junta troops arrested over 200 Rohingya escaping to nearby countries by boat, citing job scarcity, unemployment and increasing restrictions placed on the ethnic minority. After junta troops announced the enactment of the People’s Military Service Law on Feb. 10, videos originating from Rakhine state’s west a month later showed Rohingya undergoing military training. Troops have also preyed on Rohingya in internally displaced people’s camps, offering them freedom of movement in exchange for bolstering the junta’s numbers.  Mon state residents said that junta forces arrested 117 Rohingya on a rubber farm in Thanbyuzayat township’s War Kha Yu village in January, but the reason is still unknown.  The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reported on Jan. 23 that during 2023, at least 569 Rohingya died and went missing after leaving Myanmar and refugee camps in Bangladesh. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 
- [Overseas activists vow to keep fighting despite new Hong Kong security law](https://ij-reportika.com/overseas-activists-vow-to-keep-fighting-despite-new-hong-kong-security-law/): Overseas activists have vowed to keep up their campaign for Hong Kong&#8217;s promised rights and freedoms amid international condemnation of the city&#8217;s second national security law, which critics say will likely widen an ongoing crackdown on dissent when it takes effect on Saturday. The Taiwan-based advocacy group Hong Kong Outlanders said the Safeguarding National Security Law, passed unanimously in a Legislative Council with no opposition members on Tuesday, had been rushed through in just 11 days. &#8220;We will continue to speak out without fear of this evil law,&#8221; the group said, announcing a protest on the streets against the legislation on Saturday, to &#8220;defend the rights of Hong Kongers.&#8221; U.S. Senator Ben Cardin, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the law will have &#8220;a chilling effect on the remaining vestiges of Hong Kong&#8217;s autonomy and freedoms.&#8221; He said he was &#8220;alarmed&#8221; about the impact of the law on American citizens, businesses and independent media in the city. “I urge the Beijing and the Hong Kong governments to rescind Article 23, as well as the 2020 National Security Law, and restore to the people of Hong Kong their basic rights and freedoms,&#8221; Cardin said, adding that Congress will continue to reevaluate the treatment of Hong Kong as a separate entity from the rest of China under U.S. law. Making life harder British Foreign Secretary David Cameron warned that the law will make it harder to live, work and do business in Hong Kong. &#8220;It fails to provide certainty for international organizations, including diplomatic missions, who are operating there,&#8221; Cameron said in a statement on the government website. A poster advertises a street activity in Taipei on the Facebook page of the Taiwan-based exile group Hong Kong Outlanders. (hkoutlanders.tw via Facebook) &#8220;It will entrench the culture of self-censorship which now dominates Hong Kong’s social and political landscape, and enable the continuing erosion of freedoms of speech, of assembly, and of the media,&#8221; he said.  In Beijing, foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said such comments were &#8220;slander.&#8221; &#8220;China expresses strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to certain countries and institutions that denigrate and smear Hong Kong&#8217;s Safeguarding National Security Ordinance,&#8221; Lin told a regular news briefing in Beijing. &#8220;The Chinese government is unswervingly determined to safeguard national sovereignty, security, and development interests, and &#8230; to oppose any external interference in Hong Kong affairs,&#8221; he said. ‘Puppet government’ U.S.-based Hong Kong rights campaigner Frances Hui said she had &#8220;struggled to get out of bed&#8221; due to depression after the government bypassed democratic institutions that took decades to build. &#8220;I know #JoshuaWong, Wong Ji-yuet, and others will probably spend more days in jail under this law,&#8221; Hui said via her X account, in a reference to democracy activists already imprisoned for taking part in protests in the city. &#8220;The only remaining bits of freedom in the city will soon be crumbled. Hong Kong will become just another Chinese city with a puppet govt that obeys China,&#8221; she wrote. But she added: &#8220;I know our determination for freedom &amp; democracy will never change. One day, we will meet again.&#8221; Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party condemned the passing of the law as the &#8220;darkest day&#8221; for Hong Kong.  Police officers stand guard outside the Legislative Council in Hong Kong, March 19, 2024. (Louise Delmotte/AP) &#8220;Hong Kong is now completely shrouded in the shadow of the Chinese Communist Party’s totalitarian rule,&#8221; the party said in a statement on Wednesday, adding that the Legislative Council was now just a &#8220;rubber stamp&#8221; for Beijing. It said the new law&#8217;s more expansive interpretations of national security crimes would &#8220;completely destroy what Hong Kong has left in the way of human rights or a legal system.&#8221; The party vowed to support the international effort to help Hong Kong, safeguard democracy and counter totalitarianism. Investors will leave In Japan, Foreign Ministry Press Secretary Kobayashi Maki said the government has &#8220;grave concern&#8221; about the law, and called on the authorities to ensure that the rights of Japanese nationals and companies in Hong Kong were respected, citing close economic ties with the city. U.S. State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said the law has the potential &#8220;to accelerate the closing of Hong Kong’s once open society.&#8221; &#8220;We’re alarmed by the sweeping and what we interpret as vaguely defined provisions laid out in their Article 23 legislation,&#8221; he told a regular news briefing in Washington on Tuesday. &#8220;We think that this was fast-tracked through the non democratically elected Legislative Council after a truncated public comment period,&#8221; he said, adding that U.S. officials are in the process of analyzing potential risks to American interests under the law. Wu Jui-ren, an associate researcher at Taiwan&#8217;s Academia Sinica, predicted that the law will spell the end of Hong Kong&#8217;s status as a global financial center. Foreign investors will leave one after another, he predicted.  Patrick Poon, human rights campaigner and visiting researcher at the University of Tokyo, said the law gives officials too much power, especially when it comes to defining what is meant by &#8220;collusion with foreign forces&#8221; or &#8220;state secrets,&#8221; or what constitutes subversion. He said anyone working for foreign organizations in the city could be at risk under the law, even if they post something online that the government doesn&#8217;t like. &#8220;It&#8217;s all entirely up to those who enforce the law to decide, in line with the practice of totalitarian governments,&#8221; Poon said. &#8220;Hong Kong has gone a step further towards being just like mainland China.&#8221; Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Resistance groups kill and threaten Myanmar junta’s conscription supporters](https://ij-reportika.com/resistance-groups-kill-and-threaten-myanmar-juntas-conscription-supporters/): Rebel defense groups killed two administrators in vigilante slayings and are threatening the lives of more, according to resistance organizations. Since the country’s 2021 military coup d’etat, significant defeats for the junta have driven coup leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing to enact the People’s Military Service Law. Subsequent widespread panic from Myanmar’s youth has pushed them into hiding, across the Thai border in droves, with one even taking his own life. The law would require men and women between 18 and 35 to serve in the country’s military for two years and skilled professionals for longer terms.  In two regions in central Myanmar, Wundwin Township Revolution Force and Salin People’s Defense Force have taken action into their own hands. The groups admitted to gunning down two local administrators in Magway’s Salin township and Mandalay’s Wundwin township, according to the defense forces. Salin People’s Defense Force told Radio Free Asia they murdered 50-year-old Myint Htoo on Monday at 10:30 p.m. after he took a loudspeaker to the village’s streets to encourage young people in Pu Khat Taing to serve in the junta’s military. Radio Free Asia could not independently confirm details about Maung Pu’s death, but a Salin People’s Defense Force official reported that both village administrators were armed with hand-made guns.  An official of the Salin People’s Defense Force who spoke on the condition of anonymity for security reasons told RFA they plan to continue targeting administrators who support conscription. “We have made a list of local administrators, officials from the general administrative department and immigration officials who are taking advantage of political instability to threaten people and seek their own interests,” he told RFA on Wednesday. “We still have to continue to take action individually.” A representative from Wundwin Township Revolution Force said they are monitoring the behavior of local officials backing the junta. “Anyone who continues to work for the military service law according to the junta council must go the same way as Maung Pu,” he said. He agreed to speak about the group’s actions under the condition of anonymity.  RFA contacted Magway and Mandalay junta spokesmen Myo Myint and Thein Htay for comments on the deaths, but they did not respond. Nationwide threats As military recruitment begins in Yangon, five guerilla groups issued a statement on Tuesday night with warnings that they would take “severe action” against administrators supporting the law. The joint statement was issued by the Yangon Region People’s Defense Force, Yangon Urban Guerrillas, Yangon UG Association, Yangon Army and Yangon Guerrilla Army, who called the conscription system “a flagrant violation of human security.” Junta officials began their registration and recruitment operations to bolster army numbers on March 12. Still a deeply junta-controlled region, the vast majority of township and neighborhood-level officials are carrying out the orders, a Yangon resident said. “The current enumeration and enlistment are being led by the chairs of administration and administrators,” he said, asking to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. “They have to send the lists to the township-level administration and carry it on, step by step. It looks like many of the lists have already reached their hands.” Yangon region’s junta spokesperson Htay Aung told RFA Wednesday that these procedures were not necessarily in connection with the conscription law, but merely business as usual. “Security is normal for us. Yangon is calm and peaceful as usual,” he said. “Normal procedures are being carried out in accordance with the law.” Twenty-one local administrators of Rakhine state’s Thandwe township submitted their resignations on March 18 after junta officials asked them to recruit a militia and compile lists of potential recruits. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 
- [Health authorities on alert as anthrax infects 14 in southern Laos](https://ij-reportika.com/health-authorities-on-alert-as-anthrax-infects-14-in-southern-laos/): More than a dozen people have been infected by anthrax in two districts in southern Champassak province and authorities have responded by placing restrictions on the movement and slaughtering of some farm animals, several officials told Radio Free Asia.  Provincial health officials announced on March 12 that anthrax – a rare, serious infectious disease caused by bacteria – was found in the carcasses of 97 cows, buffaloes and goats.  Three people in Champassak tested positive for anthrax last week, but that number jumped to 14 on Tuesday, according to the provincial Health Department. The 14 patients all have large, dark scabs and are receiving treatment, a health official told RFA. Authorities believe they contracted anthrax – or what’s known as “black blood disease” – by eating meat from infected cows or buffaloes.. Anthrax usually affects livestock like cattle, sheep and goats, but humans can be infected if they are exposed to contaminated animal products or animals.  According to the World Health Organization, anthrax isn’t generally considered to be contagious between humans, although there have been some cases of person-to-person transmission. The provincial health department has issued a notice asking local medical centers and authorities to report any new cases and urging anyone who develops black bumps on their body to see a doctor as soon as possible. “We’re concerned. We have stopped eating meat,” a Soukhoumma district resident told RFA. “Now, we eat only pork and fish.” Transporting and slaughtering farm animals has been temporarily banned, and people are required to properly bury their dead animals, the department said. A slaughterhouse worker told RFA that they are complying with the order and have stopped buying animals from local farmers.  An agricultural official in Pathoumphone district said authorities have stepped up surveillance efforts and have officially warned the public not to eat locally slaughtered meat. Translated by Max Avary. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [Blinken stresses ‘ironclad’ support for Philippines in South China Sea standoffs](https://ij-reportika.com/blinken-stresses-ironclad-support-for-philippines-in-south-china-sea-standoffs/): U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with his Philippine counterpart in Manila on Tuesday to lay the groundwork for a summit between the leaders of the United States, the Philippines and Japan next month. U.S. President Joe Biden, Philippine leader Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will meet in Washington on April 11 for trilateral talks that will focus on protecting a “free and open” Indo-Pacific region, according to the White House. Speaking at a press conference alongside Blinken, Filipino Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo said the three-way summit aimed to capitalize on “complementarities” between the countries, notably in infrastructure, critical minerals, energy and maritime security. Blinken said that collaboration on defense and economic issues would only result in all three countries becoming stronger. “So that’s what the summit is about, as well as our work together to uphold international law,” he said. He and Manalo had discussed ways of streamlining the budding trilateral alliance “to make sure that even as we have this leaders’ summit, we have mechanisms in place to make sure there are things working together day in day out.” Blinken’s visit comes at a crucial moment in bilateral relations between the two allies, who have ramped up defense cooperation amid increasing Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea, including in waters that fall within the Philippine’s exclusive economic zone. China claims nearly all of the South China Sea while dismissing the territorial claims of several Southeast Asian nations and Taiwan. “The alliance has never been stronger, but we not only have to sustain that, we have to continue to accelerate the momentum,” said Blinken, who was making his second trip to Manila as America’s top diplomat. He first visited the Philippines in August 2022, weeks after Marcos took office as president. Filipino activists protest at the Mendiola Peace Arch outside the presidential Malacañang Palace in Manila ahead of a meeting between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on March 19, 2024. (Jojo Riñoza/BenarNews) Manalo said he had thanked Blinken for Washington’s “consistent support,” particularly in regards to Chinese harassment of Filipino supply boats. In the most recent incident, four Filipino sailors sustained minor injuries earlier this month when China Coast Guard boats intercepted a supply vessel and fired at them with water cannons. “We discussed regional issues, especially the situation in the South China Sea, and I stated that the Philippines is committed to managing disputes in accordance with our national interests, the rules-based international order and international law, especially UNCLOS,” Manalo said, referring to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. “We reaffirmed our shared view that a strong and capable Philippines would make a formidable ally for the United States.”  Blinken reiterated Washington’s “ironclad commitments” to defend the Philippines from outside aggression. He also said the two allies had shared concerns about Chinese “actions that threaten our common vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific,” including within the Philippine exclusive economic zone. “Repeated violations of international law and the rights of the Philippines – water cannons, blocking maneuvers, close shadowing, other dangerous operations – these waterways are critical to the Philippines, to its security, to its economy, but they’re also critical to the interests of the region, the United States, and the world,” Blinken said.   On Tuesday, China’s foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said the U.S. had no right to interfere in disputes between Manila and Beijing and China would take the necessary actions to defend its territory. “Military cooperation between the United States and the Philippines should not harm China’s sovereignty and maritime rights and interests in the South China Sea, let alone be used to prop up the Philippines’ illegal position,” Lin told a regular briefing, according to a report from Reuters.  Blinken is expected to meet with Marcos later on Tuesday. The Philippine leader recently returned from a trip to Germany and the Czech Republic in which he criticized Beijing’s expansive territorial claims and sought support for a free and open South China Sea.  Camille Elemia contributed reporting from Manila. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.
- [COVID symptoms kill 5 North Korean children, schools and daycares shuttered](https://ij-reportika.com/covid-symptoms-kill-5-north-korean-children-schools-and-daycares-shuttered/): At least five North Korean children have died as a resurgence of a respiratory disease believed to be COVID-19 has caused authorities to enact quarantine procedures in Ryanggang province, residents told Radio Free Asia. Residents living in the central northern province, which borders China, will have to wear masks and children will be confined to their homes, as schools and daycare centers have been temporarily shuttered. Sources said they were not sure if the lockdown applied outside of Ryanggang province. “In early March, children showing symptoms of coronavirus died one after another in Paegam county,” a resident of the province, who requested anonymity for safety reasons, told RFA Korean. “The provincial party committee took emergency quarantine measures through the quarantine center.”  According to the resident, quarantine workers that went house-to-house informed residents that three children in Paegam county died along with two more in nearby Kapsan county after exhibiting coronavirus-like symptoms. Another Ryanggang resident confirmed how the news was spread.  ‘Fever cases’ Residents, however, say they believe the situation could be much worse than reported, the first resident said. For the first two-and-a-half years of the pandemic, North Korea claimed outwardly to be completely “virus free,” but in April 2022, Pyongyang admitted the virus had spread to all areas of the country and declared a state of “maximum emergency” the following month.  During the entirety of the emergency, the government kept an official tally of “fever cases,” but its official total on global COVID-19 case tracking websites remained at or near zero. Experts said it was likely that cases could not be confirmed due to a lack of reliable testing capacity.  Prior to the emergency, when patients in North Korean hospitals with COVID symptoms died, the hospital would quickly cremate the bodies so that they could not be tested for the disease, then attributed the deaths to other causes. Though authorities acknowledge that five children have died, residents think that the response points to many more casualties, as daycare centers, kindergartens and schools will be closed for a 10-day period, and everyone will be required to wear masks or face punishment, the resident said. He said that the quarantine center in the city of Hyesan ordered all children to be kept at home as much as possible because they are at greater risk than adults. “Some are complaining about how children are supposed to be kept indoors when the adults have to do whatever it takes to make a living and find food,” the resident said. “On the other hand, some others agree that the temporary school closure is the best option in the absence of medicine.” The quarantine center also promoted personal hygiene practices when it went house-to-house, the second Ryanggang resident told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely.  “The quarantine workers warned of the seriousness of the situation and they also shared the news that several children infected with the coronavirus had died in Paegam and Kapsan counties,” she said. “There are many patients around me who are coughing and suffering from high fevers, similar to coronavirus symptoms.” The second resident said things were just as bad now as they were during the pandemic.  At that time, the border with China was closed and trade had been suspended, so there were shortages of everything. Additionally, lockdowns at home meant that people could not go out to earn money to support themselves. “There is no money now, just like during the big outbreak,” she said. “And even if you have money it is difficult to get medicine.” Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong.
- [‘Piles of corpses’ left after Myanmar junta attacks village](https://ij-reportika.com/piles-of-corpses-left-after-myanmar-junta-attacks-village/): A junta aerial bombardment killed and injured dozens in western Myanmar, locals told Radio Free Asia.  Most residents in Thar Dar, a predominantly Rohingya village in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, were sleeping when a fighter jet dropped a bomb around 1 a.m. Friday, a local said.  “Twenty-three people died on the spot and more than 30 were injured. There are piles of corpses in the village,” said the man who didn’t want to be named for safety reasons. “Children and elderly are among the dead, covered with tarpaulin and everything. Most of those who died and were injured lost their limbs.” Thar Dar village, nearly five kilometers (three miles) north of Minbya city, was captured by the Arakan Army on Feb. 26. The rebel group has also seized six other townships in Rakhine state, including most recently Kyaukphyu, where a large Chinese mega-project is located. The army also controls Pauktaw township in neighboring Chin state to the north. While the Arakan Army has announced its intentions to control the state’s capital of Sittwe, junta troops have focused their resources on both small and large-scale attacks against civilians, which villagers have labeled a pattern of indiscriminate killings. Thar Dar village has little more than 300 houses and a population of under 2,000, residents said. While there was no battle in the area to warrant an attack, residents told RFA the village had become a brief refuge for Rohingya fleeing nearby Sin Gyi Pyin village after it was also targeted. Rakhine state has also seen other attacks on the ethnically persecuted group, including an attack that killed an entire Rohingya family in Sittwe.  RFA contacted Rakhine state’s junta spokesperson U Hla Thein for more information on Thar Dar’s aerial bombardment, but he did not pick up the phone. Junta columns regularly shell and drop bombs on villages in Minbya, Mrauk-U, Pauktaw and Ponnagyun townships where they have already lost control, residents said.  As of March 3, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported more than 170 civilians had been killed and over 400 injured since the fighting in Rakhine state began again on Nov. 11, 2023. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 
- [Vietnam’s next leader faces crunch time with economy, demographics](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnams-next-leader-faces-crunch-time-with-economy-demographics/): January brought a fresh gust of rumors about the whereabouts of Nguyen Phu Trong, the Communist Party of Vietnam general secretary. He hadn’t been seen in public for a few weeks and failed to meet with the visiting president of Indonesia, leading some commentators to speculate that his health was deteriorating once again.  We had been here in 2019 when it was rumored – accurately, it turned out – that Trong had suffered a stroke while on a visit down south. This time around, Trong showed up again rather quickly, delivering a speech to the National Assembly on January 15. But rumors of the 79 year-old’s failing health are a reminder of his and the country’s frailty.   Given that party chiefs tend to rule for two five-year terms, we can assume that the next general-secretary, if voted in at the next Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) National Congress in 2026 and if Trong does actually retire then, will rule until 2036.  It is not overly dramatic to say that the next party chief will govern during the most consequential decade of Vietnam’s development.  Women work at the Hung Viet garment export factory in Hung Yen province, Vietnam, Dec. 30, 2020. (Kham/Reuters) Not least, that person  is likely to enter office facing even more uncertain world politics.  One uncertainty is China, whose economy is in a terrible state and which is set to experience perhaps the worst demographic crisis of any country in known history.  The other is a retreating America. The great debate in the United States right now is whether to maintain its post-1945 interest in world affairs or to descend into nationalism and protectionism. If Washington chooses the latter – and Donald Trump’s possible re-election later this year would be an indication of that – the globalization we’ve known since 1945 that has depended on U.S. security guarantees, not least to keep the seas safe for world trade, could collapse.  Vietnam has arguably been one of the biggest beneficiaries of globalization – perhaps second only to China in recent decades. More to the point, China and the United States combined account for 46 percent of Vietnam’s exports and 40 percent of its imports.  Demographic time bomb Hanoi can do little to rectify China’s troubled economy or dispel America&#8217;s isolationist tendencies. But it can clean its own house.  The most existential concern, as framed by a headline in the state-run press last year, is its “demographic time bomb.” Thailand is set to lose 10 million people of working age by 2050, about a quarter of its current workforce. China, based on conservative estimates, will lose 217 million workers, down from 984 million today.  Vietnam, thanks to its citizens having so many children in the 1990s, will only see its working-age population dip by around 253,000 people by 2050, from 67.6 million now – a 0.3 percent fall. The workforce will have passed its peak by the mid-2030s.   Instead, Vietnam appears set to suffer the problem of too many retirees. Vietnam became an “aging” society in 2011, when 7 percent of its population was aged over 65. It will become an “aged” society, when that demographic is more than 14 percent of the population, in 2034.  Elderly people exercise at a public park in Hanoi, Oct. 9, 2018. (Kham/Reuters) Vietnam will be the fourth “aged” society in Southeast Asia, after Singapore, Thailand and Brunei. The percentage of people over 65, those who don’t work and are net extractors of state money, will double between now and 2050, from 10 percent to 20 percent.  In fact, people over 60 will go from 14.7 to 26.5 percent of the population over this timeframe. That’s the figure to bear in mind since Vietnam’s retirement age for men will be 62 in 2028 and 60 for women in 2035.  Moreover, the proportion of retirees will probably be higher than 26 percent of the population since women, who retire earlier, outnumber men by the time they’re 60 years old. So it’s possible that Vietnam is looking at around a fifth of its population in retirement by 2030 and nearly a third by 2050.  Unlike Thailand and China, whose demographic future is dire, more so than some analysts think, Vietnam won’t see a declining workforce at the same time as an increase in retirees, so it won’t be left trying to scrape less money from fewer workers for greater welfare payments to more retirees.  However, Vietnam is starting from a lower wealth base. If its GDP per capita doubles between now and 2034, it would still be on par with Thailand’s GDP per capita today. If it triples, it will be on par with today’s Malaysia, which won’t become “aged” until 2042.  Tough decisions won’t wait Vietnam risks becoming old before it becomes rich, unless, that is, it can turbocharge its economy over the coming decade and half. According to the World Bank, Vietnam has until 2042 before its “demographic window of opportunity will close.”  The state will have to find vastly more money for its retirees, sapping funds that could be invested in infrastructure and education.  Spending on education has already fallen from around 18 percent of government expenditure in the early 2010s to around 15 percent. Infrastructure spending has been criminally misused. Just look at the badly managed Ho Chi Minh City metro project.  Currently, average social insurance payments are just $240 per month, a little over two-thirds of workers’ average income. A lengthy World Bank report noted that “Countries with old-age dependency ratios equal to Vietnam’s projected level in 2035 typically spend 8-9 percent of GDP on public pensions, well above the 2-3 percent that Vietnam has spent over the past decade”.  Commuters fill the street during morning rush hour in Ho Chi Minh City, Jan. 12, 2024. (Jae C. Hong/AP) By today’s GDP, that means the Vietnamese state will need to find something in the range of $18-21 billion annually just for pensions within a decade. That’s not counting the additional...
- [Smuggling of the deadly Synthetic opioid FENTANYL](https://ij-reportika.com/smuggling-of-the-deadly-synthetic-opioid-fentanyl/): An investigative report on Fentanyl production, smuggling, its impacts on health and on geopolitics of the world.
- [China's stability maintenance system kicks into high gear on ‘sensitive dates’](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-stability-maintenance-system-kicks-into-high-gear-on-sensitive-dates/): On dates considered politically sensitive by the ruling Chinese Communist Party, police and local officials across China call up or visit anyone they think might cause some kind of trouble for the authorities, and take steps to silence or control them. On “sensitive dates” such as June 4, the date of the 1989 Tiananmen killings, authorities target independent journalists, rights activists and lawyers, anyone with a grievance against the government, people who complain and petition the authorities, and anyone with a track record of posting online content that the government doesn&#8217;t like. Meanwhile, an army of internet censors, many of whom work for private service providers, keeps a list of metaphors, code words, homophones and other workarounds to help them block and delete unwanted content. They are putting into practice China&#8217;s &#8220;stability maintenance&#8221; system, designed to nip social unrest in the bud. Security personnel walk outside the Great Hall of the People after the second plenary session of the 14th National People’s Congress in Beijing on March 8, 2024. (Jade Gao/AFP) Blogger and former police detective Deng Haiyan, who uses the online handle &#8220;Second Uncle,&#8221; said the police are trying to get ahead of any potential unrest, and nip it in the bud. &#8220;Every time there is a major celebration or festival, they want to make sure nothing untoward happens,&#8221; Deng said. &#8220;They assume that certain people will take the opportunity to cause trouble at a time like that.&#8221; &#8220;Once trouble starts, it spreads very easily, so they want to lock it down beforehand.&#8221; Former Sina Weibo censor Liu Lipeng said online service providers must keep a calendar of &#8220;sensitive dates&#8221; and be aware of certain keywords and workarounds that internet users may employ to evade censorship. &#8220;As a service provider, you have to have a manual to avoid getting into trouble,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Sensitive dates&#8221; include major political meetings like the National People&#8217;s Congress that ran in Beijing from March 5-11. ‘Picking quarrels and stirring up trouble’ Fu Yuxia, who is pursuing a complaint against the government through official petitioning channels, hails from a small town outside Lianyungang city in the eastern province of Jiangsu. She was detained by police in her hometown of Niushan in late February on charges of &#8220;picking quarrels and stirring up trouble.&#8221;  The reason? Fu had bought a rail ticket to visit her parents in Xuzhou, an action that was flagged by the stability maintenance system ahead of the Beijing parliamentary sessions. &#8220;They&#8217;re afraid that I&#8217;ll go to Beijing during the National People&#8217;s Congress, so they have detained me in a rescue facility, with people from my local police station on guard outside, round the clock,&#8221; Fu told RFA Mandarin from detention. &#8220;They keep coming to check that I&#8217;m still in my room,&#8221; she said, adding that police had also questioned her and taken her fingerprints, warning that she would be jailed if she made plans to travel to Beijing. A petitioner holds photos of evidence in her grievance against local officials, outside a government petition office in Beijing on March 2, 2016, a few days before the National People&#8217;s Congress opens its annual session. (Greg Baker/AFP) Calls to the Niushan police department rang unanswered during office hours one day ahead of the National People&#8217;s Congress&#8217; opening session. Hangzhou-based freelance writer Zan Aizong also had his liberty restricted during the parliamentary sessions by police in his home city of Hangzhou, who kept coming to his apartment to check up on him. He complained in an online statement: &#8220;What do the parliamentary sessions have to do with me? I&#8217;m not a delegate to the National People&#8217;s Congress or the Chinese People&#8217;s Political Consultative Conference.&#8221; Zan couldn&#8217;t see why he was being targeted, as he isn&#8217;t someone who is pursuing a grievance, nor a member of a persecuted group. &#8220;I&#8217;m just a writer and a not-very-famous online commentator,&#8221; he said.  &#8220;Is it necessary to waste so much manpower and material resources? Is it necessary to maintain stability in this way?&#8221; Zan wanted to know. Placed under guard Meanwhile, state security police in Beijing were placing a guard outside the home of independent political journalist Gao Yu, according to her social media account. &#8220;How are Beijingers supposed to live a normal life?&#8221; Gao said in a Feb. 27 post to her X account, calling the surveillance &#8220;unbearable.&#8221; Gao said national security police repeatedly called her phone and turned up at her home in a bid to prevent her from meeting a dissident who was believed to be in Beijing. Similar protocols are typically put in place every five years ahead of the Communist Party&#8217;s national congress, dissidents and activists have told RFA. Petitioners and dissidents have told RFA Mandarin that they are also placed under guard, detention or house arrest up to two weeks ahead of China&#8217;s National Day, when the ruling Chinese Communist Party marks the founding of the People&#8217;s Republic of China by late supreme leader Mao Zedong on Oct. 1, 1949. Veteran Chinese journalist Gao Yu works at her desk in her home in Beijing on March 31, 2016. (Greg Baker/AFP) Qing Ming, the tomb-sweeping festival, can also be a political minefield for the authorities, because people often use it to commemorate high-profile dissidents like Liu Xiaobo and ousted former leaders like Zhao Ziyang. Every April 5, police across the country are out in force to stop people from visiting the former homes and graves of people regarded as politically &#8220;sensitive&#8221; by the government. In 2021, Geng He, wife of disappeared rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, vowed to make offerings every year outside the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco on Qing Ming, because she can only assume her husband has died. &#8220;I don&#8217;t have any dreams now. I only hope that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) can return Gao Zhisheng&#8217;s ashes to me for humanitarian reasons.&#8221; &#8220;I now have a premonition that is getting stronger and stronger, which is that Gao Zhisheng has been persecuted to death,&#8221; she said in a public statement. &#8220;Otherwise,...
- [Vietnamese police track down Montagnards in Thailand](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnamese-police-track-down-montagnards-in-thailand/): Police from Vietnam’s Dak Lak province made unexpected visits to two areas in Thailand where a number of ethnic minorities are seeking refugee status on grounds that they have been persecuted, they told Radio Free Asia.  Members of the Montagnard community said they panicked when the agents visited their homes on Thursday to persuade and threaten them to return to Vietnam. The term “Montagnard” was coined by French colonialists to describe tribes who live in Vietnam’s Central Highlands, many of whom are Christians, but Vietnam has rejected use of the term.  Police also searched for those wanted in last June’s armed attacks on two People’s Commune headquarters in Dak Lak province in the Central Highlands that left nine people dead, the refugees said.  The area where the attacks took place is home to about 30 indigenous tribes who have a long history of conflict with the Vietnamese majority, and who claim they have been discriminated against. In January, 100 individuals were tried in the case, and 10 were sentenced to life in prison on terrorism charges. The remainder were handed sentences ranging from three-and-a-half years to 20 years, mostly on terrorism-related charges. Vietnamese lawyers criticized it as a hasty show trial.  Montagnards living in Bang Len district Nakhon Pathom province, 60 kilometers (37 miles) from the Thai capital Bangkok, said Thai police brought the Vietnamese police officers to their homes.  Thai police officers asked the Montagnards to gather in a front yard where two of eight Vietnamese officers dressed in plainclothes questioned them, one of the refugees told Radio Free Asia on Friday. Not convinced The two officers gave their names and said they were from the homeland security force in Dak Lak province and from the Gia Lai provincial police, while the other officers took photos and videos with smartphones and camcorders, the refugee said.  They tried to persuade the Montagnards to return to Vietnam, saying they would take care of their transportation, food and accommodation expenses,” he said.  “Once you return to Vietnam, we&#8217;ll take care of everything,” the refugee said, recalling the officers’ words.  But he was skeptical. “If we returned to Vietnam, we would die,” he said “We would never be safe. What the Vietnamese [authorities] want is to imprison us.”  Dinh Ngan, an ethnic Bana refugee, said the directorof the Gia Lai provincial police said he would be their “guardian” if they wanted to return. Otherwise, the director said the police would arrest them or they would face difficulties. Another refugee, Nay Phot, said the same official told the Montagnards to return to Vietnam where the government would be lenient towards them and provide them with land and vehicles.  “They threatened that if we didn’t come back, the police would have to arrest us, and then the government would no longer forgive us,” he said. In a statement posted nine days ago, Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security branded Montagnard Stand for Justice and the Montagnard Support Group as terrorist organizations linked to the 2023 Dak Lak attacks.  Asking about others The refugee, who requested anonymity out of fear of his safety, said the two officers asked him and others about the whereabouts of Y Quynh Bdap and other wanted Montagnards, showing them their images and arrest warrants on their cellphones.  Y Quynh Bdap, co-founder of Montagnard Stand for Justice, was accused of being associated with the Dak Lak attacks and later sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison on a terrorism charge at a trial held in Vietnam this January. He has denied participating in the attack. Police Col. Adisak Kamnerd of the Bang Len police told RFA that he had not received requests from any agency to allow Vietnamese officers to go there.  Another security official, who asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media, told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service, that this was the first known incident whereby Vietnamese police questioned Vietnamese refugees in Thailand, violating their basic privacy rights. He also called the action “undiplomatic.” “I believe they are coming after the suspects in the Dak Lak attacks,” he said. The incident occurred one day after the Public Security Online Newspaper reported that Minister of Public Security To Lam met with Thai Ambassador to Vietnam Nikorndej Balankura. During the meeting, Lam proposed that the two sides sign an agreement on extradition and mutual legal assistance in criminal matters. RFA did not receive a response to an email sent to the U.N.’s refugee agency in Bangkok. Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to an emailed request for information.  Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Junta regains control of still-smoldering city in Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-regains-control-of-still-smoldering-city-in-myanmar/): A 10-day battle in central Myanmar has left one city in ashes, residents told Radio Free Asia on Friday.  Fighting between resistance groups, or People’s Defense Forces, and junta soldiers began in Sagaing region’s Kani city on March 2, locals said.  Sagaing, an agricultural region in the heart of Myanmar’s dry zone, has faced the brunt of junta attacks since Myanmar’s 2021 coup began.  Civilians region-wide have been subject to indiscriminate arson, arrests, shelling from heavy weapons and raids as rebel groups have proliferated in Sagaing’s central plains and neighboring Chin state.  People’s Defence Forces have been trying to capture Kani since March 2, focusing attacks on the city’s police station, school and administrative office where junta troops are stationed. Kani city is the capital of Kani township.  The result has been a city in ruin and full of bodies. The amount of casualties is still unknown since much of the city remains inaccessible, according to one local who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.  “Much of inner Kani city has already been destroyed. There are corpses of civilians and junta soldiers. Civilians’ houses were burned down there,” he said. “We found that the houses of revolutionaries were torched initially. That’s all we can say at the moment.” A People’s Defense Force soldier fighting in urban Kani told RFA the junta air force dropped 500-pound bombs during the battle. After the rebel group captured a hill near Kani on March 7, the junta’s army retaliated with helicopters and fighter jets. The air force repeatedly targeted urban areas and rural villages around the city, according to defense force officials. Junta troops regained control of the city and nearby Nyaung Pin Wun village on March 12, but both sustained severe fire damage in the following days, residents said. Sagaing’s junta spokesperson told RFA that the arson was likely a defense tactic used by rebel armies. “It is also possible that the burning was started by the People&#8217;s Defense Forces to disrupt the army. It could cause the army to not be able to chase [resistance fighters] while they were fleeing,” Nyunt Win Aung explained. He declined to comment on villagers&#8217; accusations that bombs had been dropped by his administration’s army. “Now the army can control the city completely. The People’s Defense Forces are no longer there. They fled again. If the people live in the city, they can come back.” Kani has been deserted since fighting broke out, and nearly 10,000 residents from nearby villages have also fled to safety, according to the residents. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.
- [Three years on, whereabouts of Tibetan poet is a mystery](https://ij-reportika.com/three-years-on-whereabouts-of-tibetan-poet-is-a-mystery/): More than three years after the arrest of a popular Tibetan writer and poet in northwestern China, police have not provided any details about his whereabouts, his sentence or his well-being, despite repeated appeals by his family for information, two sources told Radio Free Asia. Gendun Lhundrub, a former monk at Rongwo Monastery in Rebgong county of Malho Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in China’s Qinghai province, was detained on Dec. 2, 2020.  Authorities did not cite any reasons for his arrest, which followed a long period when police monitored his activities for signs of dissent and opposition to Chinese policies, RFA learned at the time. Chinese authorities frequently detain Tibetan writers, artists and singers who promote Tibetan national identity and culture or who have criticized China’s rule of the western region.  They scrutinize their writings for content considered as “endangering national security” or constituting an “act of separatism,” thereby deeming them threats to the ruling Chinese Communist Party.  Lhundrub’s relatives have made repeated requests to authorities in Rebgong county to find out where he is and whether he has been sentenced, said one source from inside Tibet.  “However, they have not received any response to their queries,” said the source, who declined to be identified for safety reasons. Whenever the family wants to send items to Lundrub, officials at the Chinese government&#8217;s Rebgong county office tell them to leave the items with them, and they will forward them to Lundrub, he said.  “His well-being is also unclear as no one has been allowed to meet him,” the source added. Additionally, officials have shared no details or documentation as proof of Lhundrub’s sentence, both sources said. Long list Lhundrub is among those on a long list of well-known Tibetan writers and poets arrested by authorities. In 2016, Tibetan language advocate Tashi Wangchuk was arrested and tortured. He was released in 2021 after being held for two years in pre-trial detention and serving part of a five-year prison sentence.  Gendun Lhundru was born in 1974 in Rebgong in the traditional Amdo region of Tibet in the northeastern part of the Tibetan Plateau.  He became a monk at a young age and enrolled in the Rebgong Dargye Monastery. He later studied at the Rebgong Rongpo Monastery, Labrang Tashi Kyil and Serta Labrang.  Starting in 1994, he wrote poetry. In October 2022, he released an anthology of poems called “Khorwa,” and wrote on the website Waseng-drak that writers and artists require freedom to express their thoughts and emotions without restriction, RFA learned from sources that year.  Lhundrub’s collection of poems, which include “Black Rosary,” “Melody of Life” and “White Book,” and his literary skills are highly regarded by Tibetans around the world. Written by Tenzin Pema for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [800 Chinese deported from Myanmar’s Thai border](https://ij-reportika.com/800-chinese-deported-from-myanmars-thai-border/): More than 800 Chinese nationals were deported from near Myanmar’s border with Thailand in relation to online fraud, according to China’s Ministry of Public Security. The group was deported Wednesday from Myawaddy’s infamous gambling and scam center, Shwe Kokko, in Myanmar’s Kayin state through neighboring Thailand, the ministry said in a statement on Wednesday. Scam centers have plagued the border areas of Thailand, Myanmar and China as nationals from all three countries are tricked into – and subsequently enslaved in – online fraud. Tens of thousands of Chinese nationals were deported from Myanmar in 2023 by both junta and rebel army officials for their roles in both perpetuating and being trapped in criminal schemes. Many are linked to forced labor, human trafficking and money laundering, which proliferated after COVID-19 shut down casinos across Southeast Asia. A resident in Myawaddy told Radio Free Asia that the gambling businesses in Myawaddy should be eradicated. “The [Chinese nationals] have been repatriated through Thailand as they were illegally staying in Shwe Kokko. They kept saying that [authorities] are continuously sending them back,” he said, declining to be named given the issue’s sensitivity.  “There are still gambling businesses in Myawaddy. The [big] gambling business split off and many small ones appeared in the city center. They are still there.” Since March 2023, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security has been cooperating with Myanmar and Thai authorities on the border to crack down on transnational communication network fraud and online gambling activities. The 800 Chinese nationals were linked to an online money laundering gang, according to the statement. The details of the repatriation could not be confirmed by RFA. The arrests were a result of the long-term trilateral cooperation between China, Myanmar and Thailand, it continued. According to Myanmar junta-backed media, 52,820 foreigners, including 50,772 Chinese nationals, were repatriated from Oct. 5, 2023 to March 6, 2024. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.   
- ['10 Don’ts' for Chinese young people](https://ij-reportika.com/10-donts-for-chinese-young-people/): Over the past year or so, young Chinese &#8220;refuseniks&#8221; have been swearing off marriage, children and mortgages – rejecting traditional milestones on the path to adulthood – amid apparent despair over their futures, the economic outlook and politics. But recent social media posts show that they’ve added several more “don’ts” to the list. They include not donating blood, not giving to charity, not playing the lottery, not investing money, including in property, and even not helping an elderly person &#8212; largely because they&#8217;re afraid they might get exploited or trapped. The list, dubbed the “10 Don’ts” of young people, has been circulating on social media. &#8220;This generation of young people have no hope, so they don&#8217;t bother working hard any more,&#8221; said a university graduate who gave only the surname Wang for fear of reprisals. &#8220;They might as well just lie down in the hope of a stress-free life.&#8221; The attitude is particularly problematic for the ruling Communist Party as it tries to encourage people to use the internet to share &#8220;positive&#8221; content, particularly about the economy, rather than complaining about how hard their lives are. Young workers rest outside a shopping mall in Beijing, Jan. 17, 2024. (Ng Han Guan/AP) Author and political essayist Yu Jie said the refusal to marry and have kids is linked to young people&#8217;s disillusionment with the Chinese government and the way it manipulates them to believe they are the future of the nation, when actually they are merely its tools. &#8220;No young person today believes in the lies of Mao Zedong or his successor Xi Jinping,&#8221; Yu wrote in a commentary for RFA Mandarin.  Motivated by fear Many Chinese don’t want to donate blood because they fear the data could be used to force them into donating organs for the elite, said a resident of the eastern province of Shandong who gave only the surname Lu for fear of reprisals.  People worry that if they get into an accident, their organs will be taken without their consent if information about their blood type is available to the authorities, she said. &#8220;The reason they won&#8217;t donate to charity is that they can barely support themselves, and that they need donations themselves,&#8221; Lu said, summarizing some of the many comments on the topic that were no longer visible on Weibo on Tuesday. The resistance to  investing in property is linked to overpricing and the fear of becoming a &#8220;mortgage slave,&#8221; current affairs commentator Tianluke told RFA Mandarin, using his pen-name “Pilgrim” for fear of reprisals. &#8220;The economic situation in China is very bad right now,&#8221; Tianluke said. &#8220;A lot of people have been laid off, and there are a lot of graduates who are unemployed.&#8221; And some people are afraid of helping an elderly person in trouble in case they get accused of causing the problem they’re trying to address. It&#8217;s a “manifestation of the collapse of trust &#8230; in Chinese society,&#8221; he said.  A young couple walk by a construction site near office buildings in the Central Business District in Beijing on March 2, 2024. (Andy Wong/AP) Yu, the essayist who wrote a Dec. 29 column for RFA Mandarin, said the various &#8220;don&#8217;ts&#8221; are all about avoiding the various “traps” set by the Communist Party – meaning people getting caught up in a system that exploits them for the benefit of the privileged political and financial elite.  &#8220;Things such as donating money to charity, donating blood, and helping the elderly are all good deeds that are taken for granted in civilized countries,&#8221; he wrote. &#8220;But in China, they are all taken advantage of.&#8221; &#8220;The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer,” Yu wrote. “That&#8217;s why young Chinese people warn each other to avoid these traps to avoid disaster.&#8221; ‘Kids have no future’ Meanwhile, censors have deleted an article that questions the value of hothousing children through the highly competitive education system &#8212; a defining behavior of the country&#8217;s middle class. The article, titled &#8220;Middle-class kids have no future,&#8221; was unavailable “due to violations of regulations” on Tuesday, though copies were still visible outside China&#8217;s Great Firewall of internet censorship. People tour by a deserted shopping mall in Beijing on Feb. 19, 2024. (Andy Wong/AP) The blog post tells the tale of a successful Shanghai parent whose son didn&#8217;t want to study any more, because he wasn&#8217;t naturally good at passing exams, and didn&#8217;t see the point. He started delivering food in the evenings instead, to earn some money. In a follow-up post in which he reports that the article has been taken down, the blogger argues that only gifted kids should compete for spots at top schools, because the rest are effectively only there as “cannon fodder” for the competitive system. &#8220;It&#8217;s the middle-class trap, isn&#8217;t it?&#8221; commented X user @passi0nateGirl under RFA’s X post about the article. &#8220;Nowadays, the middle class can wind up back in poverty due to sickness, unemployment, a property crash, badly performing stocks, or a company partner running away.&#8221; Translated with additional reporting by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Indiscriminate shelling kills mothers, children in Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/indiscriminate-shelling-kills-mothers-children-in-myanmar/): An artillery attack in northern Myanmar killed five civilians, residents told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday. The victims included two women in their 30s and three children in Kachin state’s Bhamo township. Conflict in the area has already killed three civilians and damaged houses across the Chinese border since the Kachin Independence Army took 14 junta camps last Thursday. Flights at an airport nearby were grounded for the foreseeable future after short-range missiles damaged the runway.  Following the group’s six-day attack last week, the Kachin Independence Army told RFA it plans to reopen the nearby Myitkyina-Bhamo road, not having had control of the camps alongside it since 2011.  The shelling on Tuesday originated from the junta’s Bhamo-city based No. 21 Operation Command Headquarters, but landed in Kan Ni village. All five victims died immediately, said one Kan Ni local. “The mother, Myint Maw, and her two children, as well as another unnamed mother and her child died,” he told RFA on Wednesday, asking to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. “The three children were five to ten years old, one girl and two boys.” The dead will be cremated at Kan Ni village cemetery on Wednesday, residents said. Junta troops have been firing shells at several small villages like Kan Ni, despite there being no fighting in the area, locals said. RFA phoned Kachin state junta spokesperson Moe Min Thein to learn more about the shelling, but he did not respond by the time of publication. Junta troops and the Kachin Independence Army, alongside allied resistance groups, have clashed over Kachin state’s lucrative jade mining industry.  Civilians have accused the junta’s army of torching houses, killing civilians and conducting raids on villages throughout the state.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.
- [China's 'little pinks' go after drinks maker over 'Japanese' styling](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-little-pinks-go-after-drinks-maker-over-japanese-styling/): Shares of Chinese soft drink maker Nongfu Spring have dropped after some consumers said they were boycotting their products due to a perceived lack of patriotism, and posted videos of themselves on social media dumping out their contents. Hong Kong-listed shares in Hangzhou-based Nongfu Spring slid 7.7% from HK$44.60 on Feb. 29 to HK$41.20 on March 5, as online nationalists launched a boycott at the start of the annual National People&#8217;s Congress, which ended Monday. Users shared photos of labels on some of the company&#8217;s spring water bottles, complaining that it depicted a Japanese temple. Others likened a Greek letter on the company&#8217;s bottled jasmine tea to the shape of Tokyo&#8217;s Yasukuni Shrine, where the Japanese war dead are remembered. Others targeted the company&#8217;s founder and China&#8217;s richest man Zhong Shanshan, calling him a profiteer, and pointing out that his son Zhong Shuzi is an American citizen, citing the company&#8217;s 2020 prospectus. Still others said the red bottle cap used on Nongfu Spring water bottles recalled the red sun emblem in the Japanese national flag. Zhong Shanshan, chairman of Nongfu Spring, gestures during a speech at a press conference in Beijing, May 6, 2013. (CNS via/ AFP) Nongfu Spring responded on March 8, saying that the labels on its Oriental Leaf Green Tea bottles are based on a Chinese temple, and pointing to text on the label which mentions that the Japanese art of tea-drinking originated in China. &#8220;The content is not only authentic but also meticulously sourced, with the intention of highlighting the profound impact of Chinese tea and tea culture on a global scale, thereby showcasing a strong sense of national pride and confidence,&#8221; the company said in comments reported in the nationalistic Global Times newspaper. Targets of wrath The statement appears to have done little to mollify the &#8220;little pinks,&#8221; a nickname for zealously patriotic supporters of the ruling Chinese Communist Party. On Sunday, two branches of 7-Eleven in the eastern province of Jiangsu said they had pulled all Nongfu Spring products from the shelves, saying that they won&#8217;t sell products that &#8220;adulate Japan,&#8221; the paper reported. Nongfu Spring hasn&#8217;t been the only target of nationalists&#8217; ire in recent days, either. They have also gone after Nobel literature laureate Mo Yan for hurting their feelings by &#8220;insulting the People&#8217;s Liberation Army, late Chairman Mao Zedong, and the Chinese people.&#8221; Mo&#8217;s work &#8220;Red Sorghum,&#8221; which was made into a 1987 film starring Gong Li, &#8220;vilified the Eighth Route Army&#8221; and &#8220;insulted revolutionary martyrs,&#8221; according to some comments, while others demanded compensation for hurt feelings and &#8220;reputational damage.&#8221; Chinese Literature Nobel Prize winner Mo Yan, center, leaves following a panel discussion at the Beijing International Book Fair in Beijing, Aug. 23, 2017. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP) Netizens also took aim at Beijing&#8217;s Tsinghua University for being the only top university that hasn&#8217;t been targeted for U.S. sanctions. China has laws banning insults to revolutionary heroes and martyrs, as well as to the national anthem, its soldiers and police force. You’re hurting my feelings Its lawmakers are also considering a law criminalizing &#8220;hurting the feelings of the Chinese people,&#8221; a stock phrase frequently used by Chinese officials and state media to criticize speech or actions by outsiders that Beijing disapproves of.  Under a proposed amendment to the Public Security Administration Law, wearing the wrong T-shirt or complaining about China online could lead to a fine of up to 5,000 yuan (US$680) or 15 days in jail.  The law doesn&#8217;t specify what kind of acts might do such a thing, but does warn that &#8220;denying the deeds&#8221; of revolutionary heroes and martyrs or defacing their public memorials would count.  &#8220;Sometimes it&#8217;s directly organized by the government, and sometimes it&#8217;s not &#8212; it&#8217;s just people jumping on the bandwagon,&#8221; political commentator Ji Feng said. He said the hate campaign against Mo Yan recalled the public denunciations of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, and the Anti-Rightist Movement of the 1950s. If such denunciations continue, Ji warned that they will eventually target people who say nothing at all, and eventually move on to include those who don&#8217;t sing the praises of the Communist Party or its leaders loudly enough, &#8220;layer by layer.&#8221; Hard-wired U.S.-based political commentator Hu Ping said both Mo Yan and Nongfu Spring were once considered to be firmly inside the Chinese political establishment, and they are now next in line because public figures who supported democracy have long since been dealt with. &#8220;[Their targets] are getting more and more left-wing, because there&#8217;s nobody left on the other side of the political spectrum,&#8221; Hu said. &#8220;So they just find the most liberal-minded person and attack them, which we all think is pretty ridiculous.&#8221; Members of security look on after the opening session of the National People&#8217;s Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on March 5, 2024. (Pedro Pardo/AFP) Independent political scholar Chen Daoyin said patriotism has become hard-wired into China&#8217;s legislation, administrative regulations and throughout law enforcement under the leadership of Xi Jinping. &#8220;Anyone deploying this kind of patriotic [attack] is protected by these structures, so internet censors wouldn&#8217;t dare to stop them, or they might get burned themselves,&#8221; Chen said.  He said nationalistic witch hunts drive huge amounts of traffic on Chinese social media platforms, suggesting that the latest wave of &#8220;little pink&#8221; activity wasn&#8217;t driven by any government order. &#8220;It was a spontaneous thing, and purely driven by economic motives.&#8221; Mo, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2012, has yet to respond publicly to the criticisms of his work. British-Chinese writer Ma Jian said totalitarian regimes lend themselves to such dramas in the absence of freely available information. &#8220;When a totalitarian country has eliminated true patriots, and anyone with a sense of morality or justice &#8230; then when the mob starts to bite there is nowhere they won&#8217;t go once they take the opportunity,&#8221; Ma said. &#8220;We will continue to see stories like this, and the most extreme kind of absurdities &#8212; it won&#8217;t just be...
- [Week-long battle in northern Myanmar displaces over 110,000](https://ij-reportika.com/week-long-battle-in-northern-myanmar-displaces-over-110000/): Week-long fighting between the junta and a northern ethnic army is responsible for mass displacement in Myanmar, locals told Radio Free Asia on Tuesday. Junta troops entered Hsihseng city in western Shan state on March 3, where gunshots could still be heard as of Monday at noon, said one Hsisheng resident, asking for anonymity.  “The battle is still going on. The junta based in Hsaik Hkawng village and Bang Yin city are shelling towards Hsihseng city,” he said. “On March 3, the junta troops returned to enter Hsihseng city, and the fighting has been going on ever since and hasn’t stopped yet.” The Pa’O National Liberation Army captured Hsihseng on Jan. 22, causing junta troops and the allied Pa-O National Army to retaliate with heavy weapons and airstrikes. The Pa-O National Liberation Army is an insurgent group composed of the Pa-O, an ethnic group native to northeast Myanmar’s Shan state. More than 100,000 people from six urban Hsihseng neighborhoods and 60 villages in Hsihseng township have fled to safety, as have the residents of 31 villages in neighboring Hopong township. Fighting also resumed in southern Shan state’s Pinlaung township on Saturday, forcing nearly 10,000 civilians from 17 villages to temporarily relocate. A Pinlaung resident who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons told RFA on Monday that fighting between the junta and Karenni Nationalities Defense Forces and allied Pa-O National Liberation Army resumed in the township after junta troops carried out an offensive. “The junta army carried out the offensive and confronted them there. It’s been three days since March 9,” he said. On Sunday and Monday, fighting grew more intense as the junta began using airstrikes and heavy weapons, he added. Heavy damage in southern Shan state The renewed conflict has killed nearly 50 civilians and injured 60 more from Jan. 22 to March 11, despite a Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement signed by both the Pa-O National Liberation Army and junta officials in Hsihseng, Hopong and Loilen townships, according to the Pa-O Youth Organization. Roughly half of the dead were killed by airstrikes or heavy weapons, among them five children, according to the youth organization’s Monday statement.  “The military council has increased the airstrikes and drone bombings in the Hsihseng city battles. In Hopong’s Mae Nel mountain ridge, the junta carried out an airstrike when the locals returned after fighting calmed on March 8,” said Nan, a spokeswoman of the Pa-O Youth Organization.  “It killed a man on the spot in Kyauk Ka Char village, Hopong township. About 10 houses were damaged, although there was no fighting in that village.” In some areas, civilians are continuing to die from airstrikes, she added. Thirteen of the near 50 deaths occurred when people died after being arrested and interrogated by the junta. Eight people, including those internally displaced, died due to other causes. Four children were among the 60 injured. Airstrikes injured 36 people, artillery shells injured 18 and six were injured by landmines and other causes, according to the statement.  The junta army fired over 1,500 explosives, and conducted over 400 attacks by air and drones, destroying nearly two hundred homes, as well as 15 religious buildings.  RFA reached out to Shan state’s junta spokesperson Khun Thein Maung to confirm the organization’s statistics, but he did not answer calls. In early 2023, conflict killed more than 30 civilians and displaced more than 10,000 during fierce battles between the Karenni National Defense Forces, affiliated resistance groups, or People’s Defense Forces, and junta troops in Pinlaung township. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 
- [Videos appear to show Myanmar military training Rohingyas](https://ij-reportika.com/videos-appear-to-show-myanmar-military-training-rohingyas/): Videos have emerged on social media in recent days that appear to show junta personnel providing military training to ethnic Muslim Rohingyas at a site in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state, amid reports of forced recruitment around the country. On Feb. 10, the junta imposed a military draft law – officially called the People’s Military Service Law – prompting civilians of fighting age to flee Myanmar’s cities. Many said they would rather leave the country or join anti-junta forces in remote border areas than serve in the military, which seized power in a 2021 coup d’etat. The junta has sought to downplay the announcement, claiming that conscription won’t go into effect until April, but RFA has received several reports indicating that forced recruitment is already under way. Two videos emerged on Facebook over the weekend showing junta troops training a group of people wearing full military uniforms in the use of firearms and around 30 armed people wearing fatigues inside of a military vehicle. They were posted to the site with a description that identifies the subjects as Rohingyas. A third video, posted on March 7, shows junta Rakhine State Security and Border Affairs Minister Co. Kyaw Thura visiting a warehouse where hundreds of people, believed to be Rohingyas, are seated in military attire. RFA was unable to independently verify the content of the videos. Reports suggest the junta has been forcibly recruiting Rohingyas in Rakhine in recent weeks, and residents told RFA Burmese that the video shows members of the ethnic group receiving training at a site in the north of the state, although they were unable to provide an exact location. They said that junta personnel have detained and enlisted around 700 Rohingyas for military training from the Rakhine townships of Buthidaung, Maungdaw and Kyaukphyu, as well as the capital Sittwe, since the Feb. 10 announcement, with the goal of forming a militia. In Kyaukphyu, the training has progressed to using firearms, said a resident who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. “It is known that the current training phase involves firearms practice,” the resident said Monday. “Gunfire has been heard over the past two or three days, although the training regimen varies daily.” Many of the detainees are living at Kyaukphyu’s Kyauk Ta Lone camp for internally displaced persons, or IDPs, where on Feb. 29 junta authorities forcibly gathered 107 mostly ethnic-Rohingya Muslims between the ages of 18 and 35 at the camp’s food warehouse, after collecting their personal information. Former military captain Nyi Thuta, who now advises the armed resistance as part of the anti-junta Civil Disobedience Movement, questioned why the military regime is forcibly recruiting the Rohingya when it has refused to grant them citizenship. &#8220;These people are being coerced and manipulated in various ways into fighting to the death for the junta, which is facing defeat in [the civil] war,” he said. ‘No way to escape’ Some 1 million Rohingya refugees have been living in Bangladesh since 2017, when they were driven out of Myanmar by a military clearance operation. Another 630,000 living within Myanmar are designated stateless by the United Nations, including those who languish in camps and are restricted from moving freely in Rakhine state. Rights campaigners say the junta is drafting Rohingya into military service to stoke ethnic tensions in Rakhine, while legal experts say the drive is unlawful, given that Myanmar has refused to recognize the Rohingya as one of the country’s ethnic groups and denied them citizenship for decades. People who appear to be Rohingya Muslims ride in the back of a military vehicle, March 9, 2024. (Image from citizen journalist video) Myanmar’s military is desperate for new recruits after suffering devastating losses on the battlefield to the ethnic Arakan Army, or AA, in Rakhine state. Since November, when the AA ended a ceasefire that had been in place since the coup, the military has surrendered Pauktaw, Minbya, Mrauk-U, Kyauktaw, Myay Pon and Taung Pyo townships in the state, as well as Paletwa township in neighboring Chin state. On Feb. 28, the pro-junta New Light of Myanmar claimed that Rohingya had not been recruited for military service because they aren’t citizens. Attempts by RFA to reach Hla Thein, the junta’s attorney general and spokesperson for Rakhine state, went unanswered Monday. Nay San Lwin, a Rohingya activist, condemned the coercion of members of his ethnic group into military service as a “war crime.” “They wield power and resort to coercion and arrests,” he said, adding that he believes the junta’s goal is to “obliterate the Rohingya community.” “I perceive this as part of a genocidal agenda.&#8221; Earlier this month, the shadow National Unity Government, or NUG – made up of former civilian leaders ousted in the coup – warned that Rohingya were being pressed into duty by the military “because there is no way to escape.” Kachin youth fleeing recruitment Meanwhile, residents of Kachin state said Monday that young people in the area are increasingly fleeing abroad or to areas controlled by the armed resistance to avoid military service. The draft law says males between the ages of 18 and 35 and females between 18 and 27 must serve in the military. A draft-eligible resident of Kachin’s Myitkyina township said that he and others like him “no longer feel safe” in Myanmar. “Since the conscription law was enacted, it has become quite difficult for us to realize our dreams,” he said. “It isn’t even safe to go out to a restaurant. We feel threatened daily.” People stand in line to get visas at the embassy of Thailand in Yangon on Feb. 16, 2024. (AFP) But even for those who have left the country, life can be difficult abroad. A young Kachin named Ma La Bang who recently relocated to Thailand said he doesn’t have a visa to stay in the country legally, and told RFA that people like him worry about being forced to return home. &#8220;Young people living...
- [Indiscriminate shelling kills family in western Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/indiscriminate-shelling-kills-family-in-western-myanmar/): Heavy artillery in Myanmar’s west killed seven people over the weekend, locals told Radio Free Asia. After the ethnic rebel army captured a city only 24 kilometers (15 miles) from Rakhine state’s capital of Sittwe on Mar. 4, most residents fled as junta soldiers prepared for battle.  While the Arakan Army has not entered Sittwe, a shell explosion on Saturday night is responsible for the deaths and five additional injuries. All victims were Rohingya living between Sittwe’s Kathe and Aung Min Ga Lar neighborhoods. A resident who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons told RFA on Sunday that five people were killed instantly, while two more died at Sittwe Hospital. “Five died on the spot at the beginning, and two died on Sunday morning,” he said. “The first five dead were a whole family.” The dead were sent to Sittwe Hospital’s mortuary, locals said, adding that most of the injured were hit by shrapnel in the head and lower body. The names and ages of victims could not be confirmed as telecommunication remains difficult to access in the area, but children and elderly women are among the casualties, residents said. RFA contacted Rakhine state’s junta spokesperson Hla Thein for more information about the explosion, but he said that he didn’t know anything about the attack. Military-controlled newspapers claimed on Monday that the Arakan Army fired into Sittwe’s Kathe neighborhood, killing the seven civilians. RFA contacted Arakan Army officials for comment on this accusation, but did not receive a reply by the time of publication. A man who identified himself as part of Sittwe’s Rohingya community told RFA on Sunday that the restrictions and travel ban imposed by the junta have been particularly harsh for those in the ethnic group, historically targeted by the Myanmar military. “Everyone is worried,” he said, asking not to be named for fear of persecution. “People don’t know when and at what time a heavy weapon will fall, so people live with fear and anxiety.” Junta-affiliated police officers in Sittwe city, Rakhine state, taken on an unknown date. (RFA) Junta troops arrived in Sittwe’s Kathe neighborhood a few hours after the explosion, he said, adding that security has been tightened and almost no one dares to walk freely around the area.  Despite allowing civilians to travel within Sittwe, those remaining in the capital have been told they are not allowed to leave, residents said. Another Sittwe resident who also asked for anonymity told RFA he suspects the military junta’s repeated attacks on civilians are intentional. “Heavy weapons have not just fallen once or twice,” he said. “I doubt that the heavy weapon firing had any purpose because they dropped shells in civilian neighborhoods, not a military target.” Locals claimed ammunition was fired from Sittwe-based Police Battalion No. 12, but RFA has not been able to independently verify this statement. On Feb. 29, soldiers firing explosives into a crowded market in Sittwe killed 12 civilians and injured 18 more in what appeared to be another round of indiscriminate civilian attacks.  As of Feb. 18, renewed fighting in Rakhine between the military junta and Arakan Army has killed 111 civilians and injured 357 since it began on Nov. 13, 2023, according to a statement by the Arakan Army.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.
- [Police disrupt popular R-rated movie to check viewers’ ages](https://ij-reportika.com/police-disrupt-popular-r-rated-movie-to-check-viewers-ages/): Police officers paused a movie and turned on the theater lights to check the ages of cinema-goers at a Ho Chi Minh City screening of the popular Vietnamese film “Mai,” which is rated “18+” because it features several sex scenes. No underage viewers were found, but the Feb. 26 disruption prompted heated debate on social media and showed that Vietnam’s new Cinema Law – which imposes administrative fines for underage viewers – may present some enforcement challenges as the country’s movie industry grows. The law’s sections on establishing a ratings system, categorizing films and offering warnings for viewers about explicit material were clear in offering implementation guidance, a lawyer from Hanoi who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons told RFA.  “But the regulations on the monitoring of and administrative fines on viewers with inappropriate age at movie theaters are unrealistic and still not clear in terms of authority,” he said. ‘Vibrant market’ Vietnam has several hundred theaters nationwide that show movies from Hollywood and other internationally-produced films that are dubbed into Vietnamese.  Theaters also show movies made in Vietnam – some of which are funded by the state and are usually focused on historical topics for propaganda purposes. The government has said it hopes to promote homegrown cultural offerings, such as films made in Vietnam. Vietnam has “a vibrant market that has seen stellar post-pandemic recovery” that pairs well with “a young but dynamic” local filmmaking industry “that is experimenting with new genres and making a wider range of film,” Deadline Hollywood said in an article about the country’s movie industry last month. “Mai” was released last month at the beginning of the weeklong day of Tet holiday, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year. It quickly proved to be a box office success. The movie “revolves around the life of a 30-something massage therapist” who meets a younger man who develops a crush on her, according to VN Express. It was rated as “18+” – meaning that only moviegoers 18 and older could buy a ticket. Mistaken protocol? Police entered an auditorium of Cinestar Quoc Thanh Cinema in Ho Chi Minh City at around 7 p.m. on Feb. 26, state media reported.  The inspection was in line with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism’s recent dispatch that requested culture authorities in cities and provinces strengthen the inspection and monitoring of the new cinema regulations. The ministry’s dispatch also cited recent local media reports that some movie theaters weren’t checking IDs during ticket sales, making it possible for viewers under 18 to buy tickets and watch “Mai.” “Responsible forces conducted a sudden inspection but did not find any underage viewers at the screening,” a Cinestar Quoc Thanh Cinema’s representative was quoted as saying by the Dan Tri (People’s Knowledge) online news outlet. But the pausing of the movie at Cinestar Quoc Thanh cinema wasn’t based on what’s written in the law, the lawyer from Hanoi told RFA. “Instead of inspecting the operating process of the cinema, they checked viewers’ identifications,” he said.  Article 19 of the Cinema Law, which went into effect in January 2023, states that cinemas shall ensure viewers are of the right age according to film ratings. Article 47 of the law states that provincial People’s Committees have the responsibility to “inspect, settle complaints and denunciations, and handle law violations in cinematographic activities according to their jurisdiction.” Another government order – Decree 38, issued in 2021 – covers how to handle administrative violations in the fields of culture and advertising. Permitting audience members to watch movies that are not age-appropriate can result in a fine ranging from 30-40 million dong (US$1,200-1,600). Any profits obtained from such actions can also be confiscated, according to the decree. ‘An uncultured act’ Dinh Thuan Ngo, who worked as a lawyer in Ho Chi Minh City before migrating to the United States, told RFA that the cinemas themselves should be the ones to enforce age requirements for certain films, such as by checking identifications when tickets are purchased. “In this 21st century, there are many civilized ways in accordance with international standards that the authorities can take rather than that barbaric act,” he said, referring to the Feb. 26 inspection.  “Entering in such a way was an uncultured act,” he said. “They claim to be people of culture but did not behave as people understanding culture and in a cultural environment.” Ho Chi Minh City resident Nguyen Dan agreed, saying on Facebook that the authorities behaved in a rude manner.  “The fact that the police rushed into the film auditorium to inspect whether there were any viewers under 18 must be seen as a big deal,” he said. “The police cannot act so rudely in a country that [claims to be] free and democratic.” His comment was one of many on Vietnamese language social media sites that were critical of the inspection.  But on the Facebook page “Thường Dân” (Ordinary People), which generally favors the Vietnamese government, one user said in a post that it was not a coincidence that “all countries around the world have regulations on the age at which people can access feature films on television or in cinemas.&#8221; “When a film is labeled 18+ because it contains many violent images, foul language and steamy  scenes, it should only be accessed by viewers at the age of 18 or over,” the author wrote.  “Was it a prevention of people’s cultural entertainment activity when an interagency working group, including the police, inspected cinemas when it was reported that children (people under 18) had been allowed to watch the movie?” RFA sent an email to seek the Cinema Department’s comments on the inspection at Cinestar Quoc Thanh cinema but did not receive an immediate response. Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [The US need not appease  the  Communist Party to engage with Vietnam](https://ij-reportika.com/the-us-need-not-appease-the-communist-party-to-engage-with-vietnam/): The death last month of William Beecher, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who, among other scoops, revealed the Nixon administration’s secret bombing campaign in Cambodia during the Vietnam War, ought to make us remember two things: First: Washington has been guilty of criminality abroad, especially when it believes that noble-ish ends justify brutal means. And second, despite those who regard the U.S. government as perpetually conspiratorial, Washington is bad at keeping secrets.  Obsessed with the idea that the Viet Cong’s persistence could be traced to allies or resources external to Vietnam—namely Cambodia and Laos—and that the will of the communist North, and thus its ally, the Soviet Union, could be overcome by displays of mass destruction, the Nixon and then Ford administrations resorted to great iniquities for the sake of the purported greater good. They also courted unsavory allies. The same logic led the U.S.  to continue supporting the genocidal Khmer Rouge in Cambodia after – and because – it was overthrown by Vietnam, and because it was backed by Beijing, the budding U.S. Cold War partner at the time.  Cambodians flee Khmer Rouge insurgents during artillery shelling of Phnom Penh, Jan. 28, 1974. (AP) There are signs of this old fixation in Washington on viewing events in Southeast Asia solely through Cold War politics in U.S. engagement with Vietnam.  There are still some people in Vietnam who resent the United States for abandoning the South to the communists in 1975, although most people who think this way risked their lives and fled abroad in the late 1970s.  Today, a younger generation, while not nostalgic for the corrupt and dictatorial Republic of Vietnam in Saigon, is becoming resentful that Washington appears to be doing its utmost to entrench the Communist Party of Vietnam’s (CPV) rule.  On my last visit to Vietnam, in late 2022, I met up with prison-scarred pro-democracy activists who cannot quite stomach the fact that the laudatory “reconciliation” since the 1990s between the former enemies has been conducted to ensure maximum exposure for the communist regime.  In 2015, for instance, the Obama administration broke protocol when it invited Nguyen Phu Trong, the CPV general secretary, on a state visit, a privilege usually only offered to heads of government or state.  When President Joe Biden traveled to Hanoi in September to upgrade relations to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, he didn’t have to sign the improved partnership deal alongside Trong; he could have done so with Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh or State President Vo Van Thuong.  Blurring the lines But by signing it alongside the party boss Trong, Washington symbolically implied it bought into the communist propaganda that the CPV is  the Vietnamese state.  “The degree to which the U.S. is willing to blur the lines between the Vietnamese state and the CPV represents the most substantial recognition of the CPV-led regime by Washington thus far, marking a significant achievement for both the CPV and Trong,” wrote  prominent Vietnamese academic Hoang Thi Ha in October.  This is playing out even as quite a few senior CPV apparatchiks, including the general secretary, still think that Washington is plotting “peaceful evolution,” a communist euphemism for regime change that long predates the &#8220;color revolutions&#8221; modern-day autocrats fear. As one democracy campaigner told me, in fact, Washington is effectively engaged in supporting the political status quo in Vietnam and is making the lives of reformers much more difficult.  They can, he said, no longer count on rhetorical support from the U.S.. In the past, when trying to convert others to their cause, they could have at least pointed at speeches made by American officials who condemned the Hanoi regime’s repression.  Not anymore.  Vietnam&#8217;s Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and President Barack Obama speak to reporters after their meeting in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., July 7, 2015. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) Washington officials push back. “We question whether public lecturing is the best plan of action with countries that are seeking to work closely with us,” one told the Washington Post after Biden’s visit to Vietnam in September.  However, that overlooks the impact this has on the Vietnamese people.  Without “public lecturing,&#8221; many Vietnamese reckon that the U.S. is no longer interested in human rights in Vietnam. Worse, some think that Washington is praising the communist regime, influencing their own opinions on whether its monopoly of power is legitimate or beneficial.   Writing about Biden’s meeting with Trong in the Washington Post’s opinion page last year, Max Boot noted that “when Biden glad-hands Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and now Nguyen Phu Trong…he is, at the very least, open to the charge of hypocrisy in a way Trump was not.”  But Boot added: “Sometimes you have to make common cause with the lesser evil to safeguard the greater good. That’s what Biden is doing in Hanoi.” Party state The case made by the human rights activists isn’t that the U.S.  should have no relations with Vietnam; it’s that Washington shouldn’t be conducting this engagement so openly and cordially through the CPV.  There is also no reason to think that if Washington is  friendly enough to the communist regime, Vietnam is going to become the next Philippines, a U.S. treaty ally that allows it to station troops on its soil. Vietnam will never be an “ally,” in any meaningful sense, of the United States. And with the CPV  in charge, Hanoi will not  engage in containment of China. Some 90 days after Biden upgraded relations, Trong met with President Xi Jinping and signed Vietnam up to China’s “Community with a Shared Future.” “[Washington is] in thrall to the idea that Vietnam can be part of an anti-China group. That idea is nonsense.” said analyst Bill Hayton.  Those who truly seek  an alliance with Vietnam to contain China  should logically support regime change in Vietnam that produces a nationalist government in Hanoi that would be more receptive to the anti-Chinese voices of the masses...
- [The Geopolitical Weaponization of Maps by China](https://ij-reportika.com/weaponization-of-maps-by-china-throughout-history/): The investigative report by Ij-Reportika aims to scrutinize the contentious matter of Chinese maps throughout history.
- [Embattled Hong Kong women rights defenders deserve support and solidarity](https://ij-reportika.com/embattled-hong-kong-women-rights-defenders-deserve-support-and-solidarity/): On International Women&#8217;s Day, as we celebrate the rights of women around the world and shine a spotlight on inspiring women, the women of Hong Kong who have paid a high price for  fighting for equal rights and for basic rights and freedoms under an increasingly intolerant government.  Women human rights defenders face gender-based challenges and restrictions that drive them to use alternative strategies in their activism to achieve their goals and overcome obstacles. They have demonstrated immense bravery and perseverance in the Hong Kong that has emerged since the imposition in 2020 of the National Security Law. During the 2019 Hong Kong pro-democracy protests, young women were prominent in protests, and many faced gender-based and sexual violence. In particular, a number of women reported sexual assault and harassment by the Hong Kong police when they were in detention or in other forms of custody. Few of these cases were prosecuted and the perpetrators have not been held accountable to this date.  Many women from Hong Kong said that gender-based and sexual violence was a known phenomenon, particularly at the hands of the police. They added that they would not file a complaint, because the investigation would also be conducted by the police, who were unlikely to hold their own officers accountable.  Riot police detain a woman as anti-government protesters gather at Sha Tin Mass Transit Railway station in Hong Kong, Sept. 25, 2019. (Tyrone Siu/Reuters) The women acknowledge the violations that they faced were an unfortunate part of pro-democracy activism, and although they did what they could to avoid assault and protect themselves, it was still worth the risk when fighting for democracy and rights and freedom in Hong Kong.  In 2023, I wrote a submission to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women on behalf of Hong Kong Watch, about these issues. I provided statistics and case studies, and interviewed women human rights defenders about their own experiences of gender-based and sexual violence, as well as what they observed around them.  It was chilling to learn that such violations against women were normalized and that there were so few tools for accountability. But it is nevertheless inspiring to see these strong women persevere.  At the United Nations in Geneva, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women did raise concerns about women’s rights in Hong Kong. The body urged the Hong Kong government to hold perpetrators accountable and strengthen the framework to protect women’s rights. They also warned the Hong Kong government against using national security and public order measures in a way that could violate women’s rights.  A year on, the Hong Kong government has yet to implement these recommendations or show that they are taking women’s rights seriously.  Chow Hang-tung At the top of the list of women deserving support on this day is Chow Hang-tung. The former vice-chairperson of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, Chow was charged with “inciting others to participate in an unauthorized assembly” for a Tiananmen Square Massacre vigil in 2021. Remanded in custody since September 2021, Chow, an activist and lawyer, faces a potential 10 years in jail if convicted of “inciting subversion of state power” in a trial that is expected to begin in late 2024. Having reviewed her circumstances, the UN Human Rights Council’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concluded that Chow was arbitrarily detained, should be released immediately, and that her treatment is in contravention of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Hong Kong is a signatory. Activist and barrister Chow Hang-tung arrives at the Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong on June 8, 2023. (Isaac Lawrence/AFP) Chow faces a number of very serious violations to her rights and freedoms, some of which are related to her gender.  One thing is clear: she deserves to be free and to exercise her rights, including freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.  Chow remains calm and poised and a source of hope for many of us who stand up to the Hong Kong government, as well as the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing. She has not given up and shows no sign of doing so.  This year, Chow was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Swedish MP Guri Melby. Her brave and principled peaceful activism against the Chinese Communist Party makes her a deserving candidate. Chow has made immense sacrifices for the rights and freedoms of the people of Hong Kong, as well as the people of China.  Article 23 advances Many more women in Hong Kong languish behind bars, many of whom are political prisoners, in the jurisdiction that has the highest percentage of women prisoners in the world.  This includes women who have been arrested and charged under the 2020 National Security Law and the sedition law. Also on the list are women who were former key personnel at Apple Daily, former members of the Legislative Council, former district councilors, and many others.  International Women&#8217;s Day this year coincided with the publication and Legislative Council reading of the Safeguarding National Security Bill, under Article 23 of the Basic Law in Hong Kong.  Lawmakers take part in reading the draft of the Safeguarding National Security Bill at the Legislative Council in Hong Kong on March 8, 2024. (Li Zhihua/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images) This fast-tracked law is set to prohibit new types of offences, and has proposed provisions which are vague and will criminalise the peaceful exercise of human rights while dramatically undermining due process and fair trial rights in Hong Kong.  The bill will contribute to institutional violations of human rights, including women’s rights, in Hong Kong, and it is something the world must condemn and stand up against.  Many human rights defenders, including many women human rights activists, are taking action today to raise awareness and coordinate responses to this Bill. On International Women’s Day, the strong women of Hong Kong who have fought for equality and against...
- [Kachin army storms northern Myanmar, taking 14 camps](https://ij-reportika.com/kachin-army-storms-northern-myanmar-taking-14-camps/): A rebel army in Myanmar seized over a dozen junta camps in the north, an official told Radio Free Asia on Friday.  Since the Kachin Independence Army launched an offensive on Sunday, it has captured 14 camps near its headquarters in Lai Zar city on the Chinese border, said information officer Col. Naw Bu. Several townships in Kachin state have been caught in frequent conflict as junta troops and Kachin Independence Army soldiers fight for control of the area’s jade mines, highways, and border areas.  Since China brokered a ceasefire between the Three Brotherhood Alliance and junta forces, Kachin state’s largest army – not in the alliance – has been a formidable opponent for the military in both Shan and Kachin states.  Rebel soldiers seized camps on Myitkyina-Bhamo road on the fifth day of the six-day attack. “The largest camp, Hpun Pyen Bum where 120 millimeter heavy weapons are based, was captured on Thursday evening. Ntap Bum camp was also captured,” he said.  “Most of the junta’s small defensive camps around Bum Re Bum and Myo Thit were captured. Now, these small defensive camps are being used [by the KIA] to attack big camps, like Bum Re Bum and Ka Yar Taung.” The junta army has been firing heavy artillery at the Kachin Independence Army’s headquarters in Lai Zar since Thursday, he added.  The bombardment has impacted not only Lai Zar, but also the border with China. Shells fired by junta troops killed three civilians, including a child and a woman on Thursday. Three more fell across the Chinese border, destroying property, locals said. RFA contacted the Chinese Embassy in Yangon and national junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun to confirm the army fired shells into China, but neither responded by the time of publication.  A Lai Zar resident told RFA this morning that the sounds of fighting could be heard everywhere as the junta continued to attack the city with heavy weapons.  “Since this morning, gunshots have been heard in many places. There were more than eight rounds of artillery fired this morning until 8 a.m.,” he told RFA on Friday. “The shells landed on the other side of Lai Zar city, on the Chinese side and burned houses. Many people in the city have been fleeing to safety.” Grounded Flights and Closed Roads The Kachin Independence Army has not had control of these camps since 2011, Col. Naw Bu said, adding they also plan to reopen Bhamo-Myitkyina Road. The highway was closed in July after fighting erupted between the junta and Kachin Independence Army in Nam Sang Yang village, near Lai Zar. Bhamo Airport, Kachin state in Feb. 2024. (Citizen Journalist) Clashes in Kachin state’s capital have also impacted transportation in and out of the state. An airline ticket sales representative told RFA resistance groups began attacking multiple flight locations across the region. On Thursday, the Kachin Independence Army and allied People’s Defense Forces attacked the junta air force headquarters with short-range missiles. The groups also fired heavy weapons at Bhamo Airport, forcing it to close indefinitely and suspend flights. “Bhamo Airport has been closed since Thursday. The airport authorities have shut down the airport and are not sure when the planes will be allowed to land again,” a representative told RFA, asking to remain anonymous for security reasons. “I am not sure if the canceled flights will be replaced so I am just refunding people’s money.” A Bhamo resident who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons said fighting in the city continued into Friday. “The airport was attacked by a short-range missile and the runway was hit and damaged a little. People who are traveling urgently and the sick are having a hard time now the airport is closed,” he said. “Heavy weapons were also firing all night last night. I couldn’t sleep.” RFA contacted Kachin state’s junta spokesperson Moe Min Thein regarding the closures and conflict, but he did not respond. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.
- [Myanmar’s junta imposes multiple death sentences on activists](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-junta-imposes-multiple-death-sentences-on-activists/): Lawyers and human rights experts in Myanmar have condemned the junta’s liberal use of the death penalty, including several recent cases where anti-junta activists received multiple death sentences. Such sentences are meant to terrorize opponents of the junta, which is losing ground to ethnic armies and resistance fighters in a civil war now in its third year, but the absurdity of doing so is turning the judicial system into a farce, rights groups say. &#8220;No one should be sentenced to capital punishment twice,” Kyaw Win, executive director of the Burma Human Rights Network, told Radio Free Asia. “The death penalty for these cases is more than enough, giving twice makes the legal system a joke.” Since taking control of the government in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup, the military junta has sentenced a total of 164 people to death, according to the Thailand-based Assistance Association for  Political Prisoners. On Feb. 29, the military junta sentenced seven people to death – five of them for the second or third time. The seven – Thura Phyo,  Tun Tun Oo, Kyaw San Oo, Ko Ko Aung, Aung Moe Myint, Win Myat Thein Zaw and  Kaung Si Thu – were convicted of murdering two women from the Ayeyarwady region’s Pyapon township, who they believed were junta informants, sources familiar with the situation told RFA Burmese. Five of the seven had already been sentenced to death on Oct. 20, along with two other defendants, San Lin San and Wunna Tun, the latter of whom has been sentenced to death twice himself. That case was over the killing of ward administrators in Maubin, Pyapon and Bogale townships. But four of those five had been involved in an even earlier case, meaning they have now received the death penalty three times. In addition, the defendants in all three cases received prison sentences ranging from 15 to 45 years. Imposing multiple sentences is unprecedented in Myanmar’s judicial history, lawyer Kyee Myint told RFA. &#8220;Only one [death] sentence must be given,” he said. “Sentences should not be imposed again and again. It is against the law.”   Thike Tun Oo, a leading committee member of the Political Prisoners Network-Myanmar, said that in addition to the repeated death sentences, long-term prison terms are not the fair punishments for the crime.  &#8220;The death penalty should not be imposed on them at all as they have suffered the same penalty,” he said. “In addition, some were sentenced to 45 years after the death penalty. It is a totally unfair sentence.” RFA Burmese attempted to contact the family members of the sentences by telephone, but were unable to reach them.  RFA also attempted to contact Khin Maung Kyi, the minister of social affairs for the Ayeyarwady region, but received no response.   Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar’s Arakan Army draws closer to region’s capital](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-arakan-army-draws-closer-to-regions-capital/): An ethnic rebel army captured a city near the capital of western Myanmar’s Rakhine state, locals told Radio Free Asia on Thursday.  The Arakan Army continued its offensive through the state by claiming victory in Ponnagyun city, which sits just 24 kilometers (15 miles) east of capital city, Sittwe.  The rebel army has captured six townships across Rakhine state and another in neighboring Chin state to the north since breaking a year-long ceasefire in November.  Arakan Army soldiers captured Ponnagyun on Monday, the first city in Sittwe district.  A Sittwe resident who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons told RFA that the nearby battle alarmed residents in the city, causing them to flee en masse before the army could advance toward the coastal capital.  “Since the Arakan Army captured Ponnagyun, we don’t have electricity in Sittwe. Many people are fleeing because the fighting is getting closer to Sittwe,” he said, adding that about 300 people are fleeing daily. “Mainly elderly and young people are fleeing.” Most locals are heading to townships already captured by the Arakan Army, such as Pauktaw, Kyauktaw, Minbya and Mrauk-U, he said. Others are escaping to Yangon by air. Sittwe airport, Rakhine state on Nov. 20, 2023. (RFA) Rakhine state does not have a functional railway, and junta-imposed travel bans have made it difficult for people to escape by land and sea. Junta soldiers based in Sittwe have still enforced a curfew, residents said, adding that signs of military preparation are noticeable in the city and countryside as the Arakan Army approaches.  Escalating Conflict Sittwe township is home to nearly 150,000 people, and residents say half of the township’s population has left. However, RFA has not yet been able to independently confirm the claim. Many residents forced to stay in Sittwe amidst war preparations simply can’t afford to leave, they explained.  According to a statement by the United Nation Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs released on Wednesday, the escalating battles have displaced some 148,500 people since fighting began on Nov. 13.  On Feb. 29, junta troops fired a shell into a crowded market in Sittwe, which killed 12 and critically injured 18 more.  Residents are also feeling the junta’s grasping attempt for control on other cities in Arakan Army territory.  In Rakhine state’s Minbya township, junta aerial attacks have damaged an elementary school and several houses. Troops dropped explosives on Ann Thar village late at night on Wednesday, residents said. An Ann Thar resident told RFA on Thursday that the only school in the village was completely destroyed. “A jet dropped four 200-pound bombs at around 11.40 p.m.,” he said. “The casualties are still unknown and the telecommunication has been cut off.” The village was attacked on Feb. 29, when another jet dropped explosives and damaged four homes, he added. RFA contacted Rakhine state’s junta spokesperson Hla Thein for more information on fighting in Sittwe district and Minbya township, but he did not answer the phone. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 
- [Forced recruitment underway in Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady region](https://ij-reportika.com/forced-recruitment-underway-in-myanmars-ayeyarwady-region/): Junta authorities in southwestern Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady region are compiling lists of draft-eligible residents amid a roll-out of the country’s conscription law, sources told RFA Burmese. On Feb. 10, the junta enacted the People’s Military Service Law, prompting many civilians of fighting age to flee Myanmar’s cities, saying they would rather leave the country or join anti-junta forces in remote border areas than serve in the military, which seized power in a 2021 coup d’etat. The junta has sought to downplay the announcement, claiming that conscription won’t go into effect until April, but RFA has received several reports indicating that forced recruitment is already under way across the country. Residents of Ayeyarwady region’s Ingapu, Kyon Pyaw, Yae Kyi and A Thote townships said that junta authorities called a meeting of ward and village administrators in the third week of February and ordered them to gather lists of residents eligible for military service. A resident of Kyhon Pyaw’s Inn Ma village, who like others interviewed for this report spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns, told RFA that authorities checked residency lists in the village and compiled a list of 35 people, both men and women, for conscription. &#8220;There are 10 wards here and the heads of 10 households in each ward collected the lists, and handed them over to the respective ward administrators,” he said. “They didn’t need to collect the lists door to door, as they can find the information from the family lists. The disabled and ill were exempted from military services.” Recruiting one from each village In Ingapu, the junta’s township administration ordered ward and village administrations to recruit one person from each village-tract for military service, residents told RFA. A resident of Ingapu’s Thet Kei Tan village said that the village administrator gave superiors the name of one young man in nearby Chin Kone village, who he said “seemed willing to join the military.” &#8220;On the other side of our village, each household had to pay 10,000 kyats (US$5) if they did not want to serve,” he said. Southwestern commander Brig. Gen. Wai Lin meets with militia members from townships in the Ayeyarwady region on Sept. 22, 2023. (Myanmar military) In nearby Bogale township, junta authorities organized military training for teachers in front of the town hall around mid-February, residents said. On Feb. 20, leaflets were distributed in area markets persuading people to join the military. Township authorities called a meeting with respective ward administrators and instructed them to “focus on youths who have no parents and few relatives” for recruitment, a resident told RFA. “It wasn’t mandatory to recruit one person from each household,” he said. “Authorities recommended at the meeting that the recruitment focus on youths with no parents and those who are willing to join the military to earn a salary.” In another Ayeyarwady township called Myan Aung, a resident told RFA that the recruitment process began around Feb. 15 in the wards and villages.  He also said that the junta conducted military training for 30 people at the headquarters of Infantry Battalion 51 in the seat of Myan Aung township on Feb. 27. Residents of the township were made to pay for the cost of two sets of military uniforms and the daily wages of the trainees, he said. A member of the Ayeyarwady parliament, who declined to be named, told RFA that the junta leadership has focused on his region to recruit soldiers as it is their “stronghold.” “However, I don’t think they will get the numbers they had hoped for,” he said.  Another Ayeyarwady lawmaker condemned the junta’s use of forced recruitment to implement the conscription law. “Although they use the term ‘military service,’ people are actually being forced to work as porters or act as human shields on the battlefield,” he said. “It’s a grave violation of human rights.” Hundreds held in Mandalay RFA also received reports on Wednesday that hundreds of youths aged 20-30 who had been recruited for military training from around the country are being stationed in Mandalay region’s Yamethin township. “Around 200 or 300 youths are being held at the No. 1 Police Training Depot for military training,” said a resident of the township. “They have to live in dormitories there and no one is allowed to leave.” Another resident of Yamethin told RFA that, beginning on March 1, security had been strengthened at the facility. “It’s not the regular training period for new police officers,” he said. “Authorities are inspecting all passers-by.” Myanmar junta authorities conduct inspections at the Dedaye bridge checkpoint in Pyapon district, Ayeyarwady region. (We Love Dedaye) The junta’s Information Ministry said in a social media post on Feb. 27 that there had been some “misinformation” circulating about the collection of personal data of men aged between 18 and 35. It also dismissed reports that junta security forces and administrative organizations are forcibly arresting people for military service. Similarly, pro-junta newspapers said Wednesday that reports of youths being held for military training at the No. 1 Police Training Depot in Yamethin are false. On Feb. 15, pro-junta media quoted spokesman Major General Zaw Min Tun as saying that around 50,000 people will be drafted into military service each year in accordance with the country’s conscription law. He added that 13 million people are currently eligible for service in Myanmar, based on a 2019 census.  Missing for more than a month Reports of the forced recruitment in Ayeyarwady came as a resident of the region told RFA that four people arrested by junta authorities in Dedaye township for alleged possession of weapons remain missing one month after their detention. Hlaing Myo Kyaw, Naing Myo Shwe and his wife Su Mar, and Htet Myat Soe from Dedaye’s Kyeik Taw and Ka Wet Chaung villages were arrested on Feb. 4 with drones and weapons, including rocket-propelled grenades, or RPGs.  Two others from the township – former political prisoner Wai Yan Oo and his mother – were also detained at the time. Two...
- [China says upgrade, trade-in policy creates billion-dollar market](https://ij-reportika.com/china-says-upgrade-trade-in-policy-creates-billion-dollar-market/): China’s top state planner has projected a multi-billion-dollar market from Beijing’s policy pushing for industries to upgrade their equipment and citizens to trade in their old vehicles and home appliances for new ones. The domestic consumption push, an integral part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s latest mantra to unleash “new productive forces,” is seen as instrumental to Beijing’s efforts to revive growth. Zheng Shanjie, chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, also assured the media that Beijing’s 5% GDP goal is achievable. “This goal is in line with the annual requirements of the ‘14th Five-Year Plan’ and matches the potential of economic growth, a goal that can be achieved with positivity and hard work,” he told reporters at a press conference on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress Wednesday.  Zheng said the economy is recovering and showing new results, without specifying. One such potential result could be the over 5 trillion yuan (US$694 billion) that is forecast to be created annually as industries and companies upgrade their equipment to raise development quality. “Chinese industries and the agricultural sector last year invested about 4.9 trillion yuan in equipment. The push to raise quality development will only increase demand for equipment upgrade,” he said at the joint briefing with China’s finance minister, commerce minister, central bank chief, and head of the securities regulator. The campaign will focus on industrial, agricultural, construction, transport, education, cultural tourism and healthcare, where the upgrade will foster reduced carbon emissions, safety, digital transformation and smart intelligence, Zheng added. Similarly, Zheng described the trade-in market for vehicles and home appliances as “huge” and in the “trillion yuan” level, given that car and white goods ownership last year reached 336 million units and 3 billion units, respectively.  The upgrade and trade-in drives could enhance China’s efforts to build a circular economy, he noted. “The promotion of such large-scale equipment upgrade and consumer goods trade-in is a systematic project … to be supported by fiscal, financial and tax policies.” “New productive forces” was coined by President Xi during a trip to the rustbelt Northeast region last September, where he highlighted the need for a new economic model. In Xi’s China, the state’s role is expanding and the private sector is retreating.  Central government agencies and local governments are now focused on putting the new vision into play. Chinese Premier Li Qiang in his maiden government work report on Tuesday called for a “new leap forward” to modernize the industrial system and accelerate the development of new productive forces across sectors like electric vehicles, hydrogen power, new materials, life sciences and commercial spaceflight.  To support the domestic demand policy, Beijing will issue 1 trillion yuan of special long-term bonds this year, and more in the next few years.  The thrust of China’s economic policy direction is “seeking progress while maintaining stability, promoting stability through advancement, and in construction before destruction,” according to the Chinese premier’s work report. As such, authorities could be banking on “new productive forces” to buffer the structural challenges that clouded the outlook of the Chinese economy, like a deepening real estate market crisis, local government indebtedness and economic issues due to demographic shifts. Li’s report offered little details on structural reforms which some analysts said are crucial to address fundamental problems. Externally, China’s foreign trade will face a severe situation, commerce minister Wang Wentao said at the press conference. Echoing the complexity and unpredictability of the external environment, People’s Bank of China Governor Pan Gongsheng stressed that the central bank will leverage on monetary policies and intensity macro-control policies to ensure stability. “China’s monetary policy toolbox is still rich [with tools at our disposal], and there is still sufficient room for monetary policy [adjustments],” Pan said, adding that the bank will keep the yuan basically stable. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [Junta imposes martial law in rebel-controlled Shan state townships](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-imposes-martial-law-in-rebel-controlled-shan-state-townships/): Myanmar’s junta has declared martial law in three northern Shan state townships seized by ethnic rebels during an ongoing offensive, prompting concern from residents who fear the military is planning a push to retake the areas. The junta has declared martial law in more than 60 townships across the country, including in Sagaing, Magwe, Tanintharyi and Bago regions, as well as in Chin state. The designation has been used as a justification by the military to impose heavy punishments on residents on the basis of suspicion alone.  Observers say the junta had refrained from declaring martial law in Namhsan, Mantong and Namtu townships in northern Shan state with the hope the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, would join a ceasefire agreement. The declaration, announced Monday, is an indication that negotiations have stalled, they said. The TNLA, the Arakan Army, and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army together make up the ethnic Three Brotherhood Alliance, which in October launched an offensive known as Operation 1027 against the military in northern Shan state, which borders China. Less than two months after the start of Operation 1027, the TNLA captured Namsan, Mantong and Namtu, on Dec. 15, 22 and 28. Since then, the ethnic army’s top leadership has regularly conducted public meetings with what they say is an emphasis on a “community-based governance system” in the townships. In Namtu, municipal, healthcare and electricity services have been restored, according to residents, and inhabitants who fled earlier fighting have mostly returned home. While the TNLA remains the de facto leadership in the three townships, the junta’s imposition of martial law technically transfers their administrative and judicial oversight to the commander of the military’s Northeastern Command, based in the region’s largest town Lashio. Residents told RFA Burmese that the declaration of martial law came “just as the situation began to stabilize,” and said they now fear renewed clashes between the military and the TNLA. &#8220;We are now under TNLA governance, and the junta no longer exists here,” said a resident of Namtu who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. Now that martial law has been declared, it’s as if they could attack us whenever they want.” All three townships are within 160 kilometers (100 miles) of the Northeastern Command, the resident noted, which “adds to our unease.” “We may need to prepare trenches and bomb shelters once again,&#8221; she said. ‘Even less secure’ A resident of Namsan told RFA that while the situation in her township wasn’t safe before, “now it feels even less secure.” “The use of airplanes to drop bombs and the indiscriminate use of heavy weaponry add to our concerns,” she said. “While some people have not yet returned to their homes, others have just come back.” An official from the TNLA news and information department told RFA that the junta’s declaration of martial law in the three townships was no surprise. “That’s just what they do,” he said. “During the height of fighting, the junta declared martial law in [eight northern Shan state] townships … now, post-battle, announcing martial law in these three townships aligns with their strategic approach.” On Nov. 12, as Operation 1027 reached a crescendo, the junta declared martial law in the townships of Lashio, Kutkai, Kunlong, Hsenwi, Namhkam, Muse, and Chinshwehaw, as well as in Laukkai, in the Kokang Self-Administered Zone. A curfew remains in effect in the townships, with movement restricted between the hours of 6 pm and 6 am. The Three Brotherhood Alliance captured 16 cities in Shan state, including Muse and Chinshwehaw, as part of the offensive before agreeing to a ceasefire in China-brokered talks with junta representatives on Jan. 11. An ex-military official later said it was not sustainable and less than a week after the agreement, both sides were accused of violating it in a skirmish. Last week, the two sides met again in the Chinese city of Kunming for talks that focused on reopening parts of the border with China that had been shut down during the fighting and preserving the ceasefire. ‘It’s clear they’ve given up’ But a political commentator and former military officer told RFA that peace in northern Shan state remains tenuous. He said that while the junta had been holding out hope that the TNLA would join Myanmar’s Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement, or NCA, the declaration of martial law in the townships under its control indicates that the military leadership no longer sees that as an option. &#8220;[The junta was] indecisive from the beginning, and even was vacillating [on how to deal with the TNLA],” he said. “Now, it’s clear that they’ve given up trying [to bring them into the NCA].” The NCA was introduced in 2015 to end years of fighting over minority rights and self-determination. Since then, some 10 ethnic groups have signed the agreement. Ta’ang National Liberation Army troops pose after capturing a Myanmar junta camp in Mantong on Dec. 23, 2023. (PSLF/TNLA News and Information Department) The junta’s declaration of martial law in Namhsan, Mantong and Namtu follows a Jan. 28 declaration in the Shan state townships of Mongmit and Mabein. The two townships had earlier been seized by the Kachin Independence Army. The latest declaration brings to 13 the number of townships under martial law in Shan state. Township captured The imposition of martial law on Namsan, Mantong and Namtu came amid reports on Tuesday that the Arakan Army, or AA, had captured Ponnagyun township in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state, where it continues to battle the military despite the Three Brotherhood Alliance ceasefire in Shan state. In a statement, the AA claimed that Ponnagyun is under its “complete control” after 13 days of fighting, from Feb. 21 to March 4, culminating in the capture of the military’s Light Infantry Division 550 base there on Monday. It said its fighters had seized “several bodies” of junta troops, including that of junta Tactical Commander Col. Myo Min Ko Ko, Light Infantry Battalion 208 Commander Col....
- [Junta airstrike hits passenger bus in Myanmar, killing woman](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-airstrike-hits-passenger-bus-in-myanmar-killing-woman/): Junta forces dropped an explosive on a passenger bus, killing an elderly woman, locals told Radio Free Asia Tuesday.  Regime troops dropped the bomb from a Soviet-produced Mi-2 helicopter on Monday while battles raged nearby. Five passengers on board were injured, residents said, adding that the bus was enroute to Dawei, the capital of Myanmar’s southernmost Tanintharyi region.  Fighting in Dawei has already left thousands homeless. On Sunday alone, 1,000 residents fled five villages in the township after a local defense force attempted to capture a junta camp, villagers told RFA Burmese  On Feb. 17, a junta offensive on Dawei city’s eastern side near the Thai border initiated a 10-day battle with local resistance groups. The fighting left 7,000 Tanintharyi residents stranded and in need of food and medicine.  Troops dropped the latest explosive on top of a bus parked on Myeik-Dawei No. 8 Road in Thayetchaung township around 4 p.m. The victim was a 60-year-old woman passengers could only identify by the partial name of Aung, according to an official from the No. 2 Battalion of Dawei district’s People’s Defense Force. “An elderly woman who was traveling with Mandalar Minn Express bus died. She was hit on her back, underarm and face,” he said, declining to be named for security reasons. “Her body was cremated on Monday. Her belongings are being kept by the No. 2 Battalion until they can be given to her family.” The defense force has not been able to reach Aung’s relatives, and no further identifying information could be confirmed at this time. Intense fighting near the Win Wa Police Station in Thayetchaung township, 28 kilometers (17 miles) south of Dawei city, caused the bus to park on the road, the official added. Dawei defense force’s Oak Awe column spokesperson Yaung Ni told RFA the junta army bombed other villages in Thayetchaung township and a strategic hill nearby. Battles continued into Tuesday when a junta artillery unit based in Dawei township’s Za Har village fired heavy artillery. The blast exploded in Maung Mei Shaung village’s Shin Dat We Pagoda compound, injuring two civilians. RFA contacted Tanintharyi spokesperson Thet Naing to confirm these claims, but he did not respond. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Authorities urge ‘stability’ amid restrictions on Tibetans due to dam protests](https://ij-reportika.com/authorities-urge-stability-amid-restrictions-on-tibetans-due-to-dam-protests/): Chinese officials have told local ethnic Tibetans and monastic leaders in Sichuan province to maintain stability following the arrest of more than 1,000 protesters over a hydropower dam, and made clear that the project would continue, two Tibetans with knowledge of the situation said. If built, the Gangtuo Dam power station on the Drichu River could submerge several monasteries in Dege’s county’s Wangbuding township and force residents of at least two villages near the river to relocate, sources earlier told RFA.  “Chinese officials have held meetings in the Wonto village area where they ordered local Tibetans to comply with the government’s plans and regulations and called for the leaders of the local monasteries to mobilize the locals to toe the party line,” said one source who hails from Dege and now lives in exile.  On Feb. 25, Dege County Party Secretary Baima Zhaxi visited Wangbuding and neighboring townships to meet with Buddhist monastic leaders and village administrators, during which he called for “stability” and urged residents to comply with regulations or else be “dealt with in accordance with the law and regulations,” according to a local news report. “As the stability maintenance period in March and the national Two Sessions approach, we must implement detailed stability maintenance measures to promote continued harmony and stability in the jurisdiction,” Zhaxi was quoted in the report as saying.  The Two Sessions refers to China&#8217;s annual meetings of the National People&#8217;s Congress and of the Chinese People&#8217;s Political Consultative Conference, being held this week in Beijing. “We must continue to carry out the investigation and resolution of conflicts, risks and hidden dangers, and effectively resolve conflicts and disputes at the grassroots level, and nip them in the bud,” Zhaxi said. Zhaxi’s visit comes ahead of Tibetan Uprising Day on March 10, a politically sensitive date that commemorates the thousands of Tibetans who died in a 1959 uprising against China’s invasion and occupation of their homeland, and the flight of their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, into exile in northern India. Keep building Zhaxi also visited the dam construction site and told the leaders of the coordination team to adhere to their work orders and make arrangements for “the next step of work,” according to a local Chinese government announcement. Zhaxi told residents about “the great significance and necessity of the construction of hydropower stations” and indicated that the government would “protect the legitimate interests of the masses to the greatest extent.” “Abide by the law, express your demands in a legal, civilized and rational manner, and do not exceed the bottom line,” Zhaxi told locals during the on-site visit, according to the same news report. “Otherwise, you will be dealt with in accordance with the law and regulations.”  Tibetans in exile hold a rally in Amsterdam to support dam protesters in Dege county, southwestern China&#8217;s Sichuan province, March 1, 2024. (Netherlands Tibetan Community) On Feb. 23, police arrested more than 1,000 Tibetans, including monks and residents in the county in Sichuan’s Kardze Autonomous Tibetan Prefecture, who had been protesting the construction of the dam, meant to generate electricity. Authorities continue to heighten security restrictions in Dege county on the east bank of the Drichu River, called Jinsha in Chinese, and in Jomda county of Qamdo city in the Tibet Autonomous Region on the west bank of the river, said the sources who both live in exile and requested anonymity for safety reasons.  Strict surveillance Residents are forbidden from contacting anyone outside the area, the sources said. Chinese officials continue to impose strict digital surveillance and tight restrictions on movement in Wangbuding after rare video footage emerged from inside Tibet on Feb. 22 of Chinese police beating Tibetan monks, before arresting more than 100 of them, most of whom were from Wonto and Yena monasteries.  Since then, authorities have carried out wide-scale rigorous interrogations of the arrested Tibetans, even as information from inside Tibet has been harder to come by amid a crackdown on the use of mobile phones and social media and messaging platforms to restrict communication with the outside world, sources said. The protests began on Feb. 14, when at least 300 Tibetans gathered outside Dege County Town Hall to protest the building of the Gangtuo Dam, part of a massive 13-tier hydropower complex with a total planned capacity of 13,920 megawatts.  Over the past two weeks, Tibetans in exile have been holding solidarity rallies in cities in the United States, Canada, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Australia and India.   Global leaders and Tibetan advocacy groups have condemned China’s actions, calling for the immediate release of those detained. Last week, Chinese authorities released about 40 of the arrested monks on Feb. 26 and 27, RFA reported.  Additional reporting and editing by Tenzin Pema for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Australia pledges new funds for maritime cooperation as ASEAN summit begins](https://ij-reportika.com/australia-pledges-new-funds-for-maritime-cooperation-as-asean-summit-begins/): Updated March 04, 2024, 03:05 a.m. ET. Canberra will invest $64 million Australian dollars (US$41.8 million) over the next four years, including A$40 million in new funding, to expand maritime cooperation with Southeast Asia, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said on Monday. Wong made the pledge at a forum on the sidelines of the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit 2024 in Melbourne, which will celebrate 50 years of partnership between Australia and the regional bloc. The summit is being held against a backdrop of increasingly assertive posturing by China in the South China Sea and the intensifying civil war in Myanmar, both of which are likely to be high on the agenda. Wong said the new funds for maritime cooperation would contribute to security and prosperity within the region. “What happens in the South China Sea, in the Taiwan Strait, in the Mekong subregion, across the Indo-Pacific, affects us all,” she said in her keynote address Monday. She said the “region’s character” was under challenge and that no country must dominate. “We face destabilizing, provocative and coercive actions, including unsafe conduct at sea and in the air and militarisation of disputed features,” Wong said, without singling out a specific nation. China asserts sovereignty over almost all of the South China Sea, through which trillions of dollars in trade passes each year, putting it at odds with the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam, and Taiwan.  In 2016, an international tribunal refuted the legal basis for nearly all of China’s expansive maritime and territorial claims in the waterway. It said that Beijing’s insistence on holding “historic rights” to the waters were inconsistent with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS. Beijing has never recognized the 2016 arbitration or its outcome. Speaking at the same forum, Philippines Secretary of Foreign Affairs Enrique Manalo said the rule of law and especially UNCLOS was the fundamental starting point for maritime cooperation in the region. “The shared stewardship of the seas and oceans in the region behooves us to unite in preserving the primacy of international law so we can ensure equitable and sustainable outcomes for all,” he said. “It also calls for us to stand firmly together in opposing actions that contradict or are inconsistent with international law.” The Philippines under the presidency of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has taken a stronger stance in dealing with Beijing on the South China Sea. Marcos has also pursued warmer ties with the United States, a traditional ally, reversing the policies of his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte. In recent months, tensions between Manila and Beijing have led to numerous run-ins, including the China Coast Guard’s alleged harassment of Filipino vessels delivering provisions to troops at its military outpost on Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal in the South China Sea. On Monday, the Philippine Coast Guard deployed a patrol vessel to Benham Rise, a huge resource-rich underwater plateau off the eastern coast of the archipelago, amid reports of Chinese research vessels there. The 83-meter (272 foot) long BRP Gabriela Silang will also visit the northern Batanes islands, near Taiwan, the coast guard said. Benham Rise, which is part of the Philippines’ extended continental shelf, does not fall within Beijing’s “nine-dash line” territorial claims in the South China Sea but that has not stopped China from conducting surveying missions in the area. Camille Elemia in Manila contributed to this report. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization. Updated to include Monday&#8217;s developments in the South China Sea.
- [Why Laos’ Communists cannot do anti-corruption](https://ij-reportika.com/why-laos-communists-cannot-do-anti-corruption/): Corruption is often seen as a byproduct, a quirk, of a political system. But in many authoritarian states, it is actually the modus operandi.  Consider what binds a political structure together. How do you make sure that lowly officials in the provinces listen to their masters in the capital? How do you instill the sense that everyone is working together for the same cause, that all participants aren’t just a bunch of self-interested, warring individuals? One way is through terror. Officials listened to Joseph Stalin, the Soviet dictator, and his Politburo because they feared for their lives.  Another is through a common sense of purpose. This could be ideological. Everyone works towards the same goals because they believe they are creating a better world. Or it could be existential, such as everyone pulling together during wartime. Or it could be transactional, as we see in meritocracies, with everyone accepting the norms and hierarchies of the political structure because doing so means they stand a chance of advancing up the political ladder.  Cambodia&#8217;s King Norodom Sihamoni, front center, and members of Cambodia’s government pose with newly elected members of parliament during the opening ceremony at the National Assembly building in Phnom Penh on Aug. 21, 2023. (Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP) However, another method is through corruption, what some academics would call “rent-seeking”. Low-ranking officials in the provinces pay heed to their superiors in the capital because they are all part of vast patronage networks. Low-ranking officials are loyal to their patrons in return for financial benefits and promotion, while the higher-ranking patrons in government are able to get others to follow their policies because they control the fortunes of those lower down the hierarchy.  Moreover, corruption provides something of a common purpose, a common understanding, amongst all levels of the political structure. Everyone knows how the game is rigged and that they have to pay fealty to those who control the most important patronage networks in order to advance up the hierarchy. Indeed, graft instills a sense of loyalty.  When harmonized, as in Cambodia, a rent-seeking system ensures that all political grandees have just enough access to financial rewards and that graft is spread somewhat equitably so that there are no major internal frictions.  That begs the question of how anti-corruption campaigns can work in authoritarian states that previously had rent-seeking systems. Vietnam is a good example. Before 2016, the Communist Party of Vietnam held its hierarchy together in large part through corruption.  This was partly because of the decentralization that occurred in the 2000s, which made it much more difficult for the central party apparatus to control what was happening in the provinces and districts. More importantly, ideological factors that had previously held the Communist Party together began to fade.  Rent-seeking cadres By the early 1990s, when Hanoi made peace with Beijing, Vietnam was for the first time in half a century unthreatened by a foreign power. No longer could the CPV compel internal cohesion within its ranks through rally-around-the-flag appeals to cohesion and unity At the same time, because the Vietnamese government became more professionalized, it meant bringing in non-communist officials.  This, added to the public’s disinterest in socialist ideals, especially after the capitalist reforms in 1986, meant that communist ideology no longer functioned as a way to bind the political structure together. And the CPV was no longer the sole arbitrator of nationalism. In the early 2000s, a popular strain of nationalism emerged among the public that accused the party of being unpatriotic for selling Vietnamese land to foreign (mainly Chinese) investors, which culminated in the momentous Bauxite protests of 2009.  Amid these social changes, a new generation of rent-seeking apparatchiks emerged – personified by Nguyen Tan Dung, who became prime minister in 2006 – who cast aside ideology and nationalism and instead embraced graft as a way of building their own personal power and binding the splintering party apparatus. This led to a reaction, however, from the more ideological factions of the party, led by Nguyen Phu Trong, who became party chief in 2012.  Vietnam&#8217;s Communist Party general secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, left, gestures as he arrives at the National Assembly in Hanoi on Jan. 15, 2024. (Nhac Nguyen/AFP) However, it was only when he defeated Dung in the 2016 National Congress that Trong launched his anti-corruption campaign. Even then, dismissing or jailing the corrupt was only one side of the coin. Far more important, as Trong has acknowledged, has been his so-called “morality campaign”. Since 2016, he has reinstated socialist ideology and ethics as the defining factor of party membership.  To be promoted now, an official must at least rhetorically profess fealty to socialism and demonstrate a clean, hard-working lifestyle. At the same time, Trong has re-centralized power, taking away authority from the provincial officials and giving it to his small clique in Hanoi, which is one reason why he has struggled to find a successor, given that he has now cloaked his own position in so much power &#8212; perhaps the most since 1986 &#8212; that it has become even more precarious and existential if the CPV selects an unfit successor.  So what about next-door Laos?  Similar to Vietnam, it embraced decentralization in the 1990s, stripping the apparatchiks in Vientiane of some of their authority. Given its geography, the central party apparatus in Laos has always been unable to fully control what local officials do. Its capitalist reforms in the late 1980s also stripped socialist ideology as a common cause within Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP). In fact, the LPRP has long been less ideological than its Vietnamese counterpart.  Anti-corruption failure Nationalism, too, has disappeared. Indeed, the growing anti-Chinese chorus of Laotians has led many to regard the LPRP with disdain, believing it has allowed foreign businesses to destroy the environment and made Laotians second-class citizens.  Unlike in Vietnam, however, anti-corruption efforts have failed in Laos.  When he became prime minister in 2016, Thongloun Sisssoloth vowed to unleash a vast anti-graft campaign, but it had...
- [State-funded film set during Indochina war attracts surprising interest](https://ij-reportika.com/state-funded-film-set-during-indochina-war-attracts-surprising-interest/): A state-funded film about a 1947 battle between French troops and Vietnamese resistance forces has attracted a surprising level of interest from theatergoers who have lined up to watch the movie and requested a wider distribution. “Dao, Pho va Piano” – or “Peach, Pho and Piano” in English (with pho referring to the famous Vietnamese noodles) – was released on Feb. 10, the first day of Tet, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year holiday. Vietnam’s government often uses the state budget to fund films about historical topics for propaganda purposes. But those movies often fail to attract viewers and are usually pulled from theaters after a short run. They sometimes later air on state television. Despite little advertising, word got out on social media that the film was worth watching. Last week, ticket requests crashed the website of Hanoi’s National Cinema Center and long lines were seen outside a Ho Chi Minh City theater. Battle of Hanoi The movie is set during the final days of the Battle of Hanoi, the first battle of the First Indochina War fought between the French and the Viet Minh, an independence-seeking coalition led by Vietnamese Communists. A key scene in the movie shows a barricade in Hanoi’s ancient quarter where Vietnamese militiamen use lunge mines – a type of suicide bomb used against tanks – to resist an attack by French forces.  The self-sacrifice allowed Viet Minh units to withdraw from the city to a region north of Hanoi, where they regrouped and later defeated the French. A scene in the film “Dao, Pho and Piano.” (Thanhuytphcm) The film’s director, Phi Tien Son, noted that Vietnam has produced a dearth of good historical films over the years. “The country’s cinema industry still owes the audience a lot regarding films about historical topics,” he told Vietnam Television. “I hope my colleagues will gradually pay that debt in the coming time.” Hanoi resident Nguyen Hoang Anh said the movie does a nice job of depicting the elegant, tragic and romantic characteristics of living in Hanoi in the 1940s.  But there are unrealistic battle scenes, some over-the-top theatrical dialogue and many illogical details, she told Radio Free Asia. The filmmakers should have made it clear that the story was a fictional reenactment of an historical event, she said. “What worried me is that the film made viewers wrongly think that the French planned to kill all residents and whoever stayed back [in Hanoi] would die,” she said.  “My family – both my mother’s and father’s sides – lived through that time in Hanoi,” she said. “In fact, there were options for those who decided to stay or leave.” Wider screenings The government spent 20 billion dong (US$812,000) to make the film, but didn’t allocate much funding for advertising or distribution, according to the state-affiliated VietNamNet, one of the country’s largest news portals. In response to demand, the few theaters showing the movie have increased the number of screenings from three times per day to 15 daily, according to state media.  As of Feb. 20, it has generated a revenue of more than 1 billion dong (US$40,600) – a surprising amount for a government-funded historical film. Last week, distribution company BETA Media agreed to show the movie in theaters nationwide, the head of Vietnam’s Cinema Department, Vi Kien Thanh, told VietNamNet. Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [Ford vans seen in Kim Jong Un’s entourage](https://ij-reportika.com/ford-vans-seen-in-kim-jong-uns-entourage/): North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency released at least two photos of vans used in Kim Jong Un’s motorcade that appeared to be made by Ford Motor Co., suggesting that Pyongyang has again evaded U.N. sanctions. One Feb. 29 photo of a groundbreaking ceremony shows Kim walking on a red carpet lined with soldiers at attention with the black passenger vans in the background.  Another shows the four of the vans bearing the Ford logo on the front driving behind a luxury black sedan.  The vehicles appear to be fourth generation Ford Transit vans that have been manufactured in North America since 2021. The photos didn’t show any passengers in the vans. A 2013 U.N. sanctions resolution bans the import of luxury cars into North Korea. Another U.N. resolution in 2017 banned the import of all means of transportation. But it’s widely believed that luxury goods are still being smuggled into North Korea. Two black Ford Transit vans are seen in the background during North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s visit to air force headquarters on Dec. 1, 2023. (KCNA)   T.R. Reid, director of corporate and public policy communications for Ford, told Radio Free Asia that Ford “fully complies” with sanctions against North Korea and other countries, and “doesn’t provide products or services in, to or through agents of the country.” “How these vehicles were procured for use in and brought to North Korea is unknown,” he said. In January 2023, a vehicle presumed to be a Mercedes-Benz Maybach GLS 600 belonging to Kim was revealed in images from North Korea’s Korean Central Television.  And at the end of last year, Kim and other top North Korean officials were seen arriving at Party Central Committee headquarters in a Mercedes-Benz S-Class car. Allowing the Ford vans to be photographed was a demonstration by Kim that he can still access luxury items from all over the world, said Bruce Bennett, a senior researcher at the Rand Institute. “American things like a Ford. German things, like a Mercedes,” he said. “He’s basically demonstrating his power and access that his people can get around all of these sanctions.” Translated by Jisoo Kim. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [Vietnamese police detain journalist Nguyen Vu Binh, family say](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnamese-police-detain-journalist-nguyen-vu-binh-family-say/): Authorities in Hanoi have detained a journalist and long-time critic of the Vietnamese government, a relative told RFA Vietnamese on Friday, in the latest sign of the squelching of dissent in the communist-ruled nation. Police took Nguyen Vu Binh, 55, into custody on Thursday. He was then briefly brought home to pack some clothes and his house searched on the basis of a warrant, the relative said.  His family was informed that he was being arrested but not provided any documents, before Binh departed with the police. The reason for his arrest was not immediately clear. “The police brought Nguyen Vu Binh home, read out the search warrant, a list of confiscated items and other documents, and took him away,” said the relative, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. “However, he was not handcuffed.” Binh worked for 10 years as a reporter with the official Tap Chi Cong San, or Communist Review, before becoming a prominent activist in Hanoi. In December 2003, the Hanoi People’s Court sentenced him to seven years in jail for “espionage,” accusing him of collecting and composing documents “distorting” the democratic and human rights situation in Vietnam and sending them to “reactionary organizations” overseas. He was released in early 2007 as part of an amnesty order, after which he continued to participate in peaceful activities promoting human rights. Binh has been a regular contributor of blogs published on the RFA Vietnamese web site.  Running for re-election Nguyen Van Dai, a Germany-based human rights lawyer, told RFA that on Wednesday Binh had received a summons from the Hanoi Security Investigation Agency ordering him to attend a meeting on Thursday regarding his participation in video livestreams on the YouTube channel TNT Media Live, owned by San Jose, CA-based radio station Tieng Nuoc Toi, or My Country’s Language.  But Dai said that Binh had stopped participating in those programs in June 2022. Vietnam is ruled by a communist government that is intolerant of dissent. It is currently running for re-election as a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council. Vietnam sits 178th out of 180 nations on the Reporters Without Borders press freedom index. The Paris-backed watchdog says Vietnam is the world’s third largest jailer of journalists. New York-based Human Rights Watch presented Binh with the Hellman-Hammett Award twice, in 2002 and 2007, for writers around the world “who have been victims of political persecution and are in financial need.” He is also an honorary member of the International PEN organization.  Three bloggers who contributed to RFA Vietnamese are currently serving prison terms in Vietnam: Truong Duy Nhat, Nguyen Tuong Thuy, and Nguyen Lan Thang. Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Mat Pennington.
- [Burmese city of Mongmit left ravaged after months of battles](https://ij-reportika.com/burmese-city-of-mongmit-left-ravaged-after-months-of-battles/): Months of intense battles between anti-junta groups and junta forces have ravaged the city of Mongmit in Myanmar’s Shan state, resulting in widespread displacement, lootings and arson, according to locals.  Currently under junta control, the city was once a battleground where the Three Brotherhood Alliance clashed with junta forces. A ceasefire between the two, mediated by China, was established on Jan. 11, but battles persisted with the Kachin Independence Army, which did not partake in the ceasefire agreement. After launching attacks on Jan. 18, the KIA, in alliance with the All Burma Students’ Democratic Front and People’s Defense Forces, temporarily took over the city, residents told Radio Free Asia on Friday.  However, on Jan. 29, the junta forces recaptured the city through a fierce counterattack involving airstrikes and heavy artillery. This offensive led to the destruction of over 200 buildings, including key structures like the market, monasteries, and a school, as well as 100 residential homes. In this tumultuous period, close to 10,000 inhabitants evacuated the city, abandoning their homes and businesses for extended durations. The resulting void has triggered a wave of robberies throughout the urban neighborhoods, according to locals.  The Kachin Independence Army joint forces and the military junta fought in Mongmit city in northern Shan state on Jan. 28, 2024. (Citizen journalist) A resident, among those who have returned to the city, told RFA that he saw a group of people holding sticks and swords looting houses.  “They took everything without leaving anything behind. It was a group of people in plain clothes and most of them were criminals in the past,” said the resident who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons. “They did not even leave the fence door. They took it away and no one dared to say anything. Then they burned homes. It’s already like a ruined city.” Another woman from Mongmit said that nearly all the shops in the city had been looted, including her own. “Our shop has been looted and there is nothing left, just like every shop in the city now. It was broken into and our goods were stolen,” she said, declining to be identified for fear of reprisals. “It’s worse where there are no people now, some of them are returning to the city.” Mongmit and its neighboring city Mabein have been under martial law since Wednesday.  Shan state’s junta spokesperson, Khun Thein Maung, did not respond to RFA’s inquiries. According to the Shan Human Rights Foundation’s statement on Tuesday, a total of 27 civilians were killed by heavy artillery and airstrikes from Jan. 1 to Feb. 2, including two mass killings. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Taejun Kang.
- [Exclusive: Kim Jong Un is now ‘Great Comrade,’ no longer ‘Great Leader’](https://ij-reportika.com/exclusive-kim-jong-un-is-now-great-comrade-no-longer-great-leader/): North Korea’s supreme leader Kim Jong Un has received a new title, “Great Comrade,” signaling that the leadership wants to emphasize his achievements over his predecessors, father Kim Jong Il and grandfather Kim Il Sung, residents told Radio Free Asia. The shift from “Great Leader” to “Great Comrade” occurred sometime this month, as the country circulated a five-point oath – shared exclusively with RFA Korean – that must be sworn by all North Koreans to pledge their loyalty. The oath, sent to all organizations and institutions in the country, is read by officials at various events, including holidays and national anniversaries, and repeated by the people, said a North Korean resident who requested anonymity for security reasons Each of the five parts of the oath contains the title “Great Comrade.” The promise commits the speaker to “support and defend” Kim Jong Un “politically and ideologically,” and pledges that they will remain “loyal and obedient” to his sole leadership “at all costs,” and will only follow the “Mt. Paektu bloodline,” which refers to the Kim Dynasty. National founder Kim Il Sung and the ruling Kim family is said to have strong connections to Mt. Paektu, the tallest mountain on the Korean peninsula and a sacred peak in Korean mythology. The oath goes on to say the speaker is armed with the “revolutionary ideology of Great Comrade Kim Jong Un” and commits them to “vigorously participate in the construction of socialism,” and fight against anti-socialism. It concludes by pledging to dedication “to the final victory of the Juche revolution and National Unification.” Juche is North Korea’s founding ideology of self-reliance. Elevating his status The five points are preceded by a singular statement about working towards the socialist theory known as “Great Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism” – but after that, neither Kim’s father nor grandfather are mentioned. The lack of emphasis on Kim’s predecessors suggests that the government wants to elevate his status above them, according to Jiro Ishimaru of the Osaka-based Asia Press, a news outlet that specializes in North Korea. The cover of the oath administered to all North Korean residents. (RFA) “In the past there were consistent messages saying that we should not forget the leadership of Grand Marshal Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il and carry out their instructions,” Ishimaru said.  “But in this oath, these messages have almost disappeared. It refers to ‘Great Comrade Kim Jong Un’ and only mentions that Kimilsungism–Kimjongilism is to be maintained,” he said. “It certainly seems like a lot has changed.” The new oath places unique emphasis on Kim Jong Un, whereas previously the government included adherence to the ideologies of the predecessors to project a sense of continuity to enhance the perception of his legitimacy, Cheong Seong-chang, the director of the Center for Korean Peninsula Strategy at the Sejong Institute, told RFA.  “In the past, they expressed their stance to inherit the ideology and policies of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. But there are many differences between Kim Il Sung-Kim Jong Il’s policies and Kim Jong Un’s policies,” he said. “This oath basically puts Kim Jong Un’s instructions and guidance forward as the absolute standard. So, it seems that Kim Jong Un’s leadership is firmly rooted now.” Dropping national unification  Recently, the North Korean government has reversed its official stance on reunification, and no longer considers it a priority. This makes the fifth clause of the oath, which mentions national unification, obsolete. Experts therefore believe that this oath was written in 2021 or earlier. A resident of North Korea who requested anonymity for safety reasons said that instructions were given to officials to skip the part about national unification when reading the oath.  Experts expect that a revised version of this oath will be circulated soon to reflect the shift away from the South, which in recent months North Korea has defined as its “primary enemy.”  Additionally, Pyongyang has ended economic cooperation with Seoul, and has stopped using language that considers Koreans on both sides of the DMZ as belonging to the same race of people.  Translated by Claire Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar junta kills 12 after firing into crowded market](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-kills-12-after-firing-into-crowded-market/): Junta shelling of a crowded market killed 12 people and critically injured 18 more on Thursday morning, rescue workers told Radio Free Asia. A junta battalion on a nearby road fired indiscriminately into a marketplace in Rakhine state’s capital of Sittwe during the busiest time of day, locals said. Sittwe has become a disputed territory since a rebel group, the Arakan Army, captured surrounding junta camps and seized six townships across Rakhine state. In early February, the Arakan Army demanded junta troops in Sittwe surrender before their arrival in the capital.  The junta army’s grasp on the area has been tenuous after losing territories, but troops have attempted control by placing restrictions on the capital and making large-scale arrests. On Feb. 19, regime forces detained 500 people who landed in Sittwe off a flight arriving from Yangon. A rescue volunteer who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons told RFA the dead have been sent to Sittwe Hospital’s mortuary, and the injured are being treated there “Those 18 were critically injured and their injuries are life-threatening,” he said. “Some people died on the spot and others after arriving at the hospital. All of them are vendors and shoppers.” The names and ages of the deceased could not be confirmed. However, most of them were women, children and the elderly, the volunteer added. The shell was fired by a battalion near Shu Khin Thar road, residents said. RFA contacted Rakhine state’s junta spokesperson Hla Thein for further details about the attack, but he did not reply.  The Arakan Army ended a humanitarian-based year-long ceasefire on Nov. 13 with the junta when they began to attack border outposts and convoys across Minbya and Rathedaung townships.  The Arakan Army released a statement on Tuesday saying that 111 civilians have been killed and 357 have been injured by small and heavy artillery fired by the junta from the ceasefire to Feb. 18, 2024. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Tibetans in India march in solidarity with those arrested in dam protest in China](https://ij-reportika.com/tibetans-in-india-march-in-solidarity-with-those-arrested-in-dam-protest-in-china/): Tibetans and Buddhist leaders in northern India on Wednesday participated in a march to show their solidarity with Tibetans in southwestern China’s Sichuan province arrested for peacefully protesting the planned construction of a dam.  Similar solidarity rallies were held in London and other cities the same day. The large Buddhist community in Ladakh – in Jammu and Kashmir – expressed concerns that the dam project will submerge several significant monasteries with ancient murals that date back to the 13th century.  The Regional Tibetan Youth Congress, which organized the march and rally, said Buddhists there were concerned about the humanitarian situation and the violation of cultural and religious rights stemming from the expected impact of the dam on several monasteries and villages near the Drichu River. On Feb. 23, police arrested more than 1,000 Tibetans, including monks and residents, of Dege county in Sichuan’s Kardze Autonomous Tibetan Prefecture, who had been protesting the construction of the Gangtuo Dam, meant to generate electricity. If built, the power station could submerge monasteries in Dege’s Wangbuding township and force residents of at least two villages near the Drichu River to relocate, sources told RFA.  Rigzin Dorjey, president of the youth wing of the Ladakh Buddhist Association Leh, said there is an urgent need to address the ongoing human rights abuses and environmental destruction perpetrated by China’s communist government.  He underscored the interconnectedness of global Buddhist communities and the shared responsibility to stand in solidarity with Tibetans in their struggle for justice, freedom and dignity. ‘Collective commitment’ Lobsang Tsering, vice president of the Regional Tibetan Youth Congress of Ladakh, said the rally serves as “an expression of solidarity and support for Tibetans facing challenges and oppression in Dege county.” “It symbolizes a collective commitment to standing up against oppression, promoting human rights and preserving Tibetan culture and identity in the face of adversity,” Tsering said.  Tenzin Peldon, who participated in the march in Ladakh said while Tibetans everywhere usually gather to raise their voices against China on politically significant dates such as March 10, known as Tibetan Uprising Day – which commemorates the thousands of lives lost in the 1959 uprising against China’s invasion and occupation of their homeland – it is crucial that they come together during dire situations like the one being faced by Tibetans in Dege to collectively speak up against China’s oppression.  “I urge all Tibetans in exile not to give up hope and to continue to raise awareness on online platforms about the plight of Tibetans in Dege county,” she said.  Other protests were held in Bir village and Clement town in India, and in London, where Tibetans demonstrated outside the Chinese Embassy to show their support for the Dege county protesters, demand the release of the detainees, and call for an immediate halt to the dam construction. “Risking arrest and torture, Tibetan residents of Kham Derge [Dege county] have shared images and videos of the protest with the outside world,” the Tibetan Community UK said in a statement. “They want the international community in the free world to know about their plight and to raise their voice.” Authorities released about 40 of the arrested monks on Feb. 26 and 27, RFA reported on Tuesday. Chinese authorities released about 20 monks each on Monday and Tuesday, said the sources who spoke on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.  Also on Wednesday, Human Rights Watch called on Chinese authorities to immediately release the detained Tibetan monks. “The Chinese authorities have long been hostile to public protests, but their response is especially brutal when the protests are by Tibetans and other ethnic groups,” said Maya Wang, the group’s acting China director, in a statement.  “Other governments should press Beijing to free these protesters, who have been wrongfully detained for exercising their basic rights,” she said. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi and Tenzin Pema for RFA Tibetan. Additional reporting by Pelbar for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Junta troops beat Myanmar man unconscious during interrogation](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-troops-beat-myanmar-man-unconscious-during-interrogation/): Junta troops have arrested at least 10 young people from Myanmar’s delta region, beating one unconscious during questioning, locals told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday. The youths, from three villages in Ayeyarwady region, were accused of involvement in political activities, residents from Kyonpyaw township said, citing sources close to the police station. On Sunday, soldiers arrested a man from Kyee Taw Yoe village who goes by the name Freddy. Following Freddy’s arrest, around 10 youths from Nyaung Kone and Kyar Inn villages were rounded up.  A Kyonpyaw township resident who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons told RFA the youths were thought to be connected to Freddy, who was tortured by the police. “There was a young man who was arrested in Kyonpyaw on Feb. 25. He was the first to be arrested. He is still under investigation and in Ah Htaung police custody,” said the local. “We found out that the young man was unconscious because they beat him during the interrogation. After that, more than 10 people were arrested on political suspicion.” Some other young people from the area have fled as a result of the arrests, he said. RFA called Ayeyarwady region’s junta spokesperson Khin Maung Kyi to learn more about the arrests, but he did not answer calls. In October, 20-year-old Kyonpyaw local Soe Paing Oo died during interrogation after being accused of communicating with resistance forces.  Days earlier, he was awarded cash and a certificate  for his surrender in a junta ceremony.  On Jan. 6, at least seven locals were arrested in connection with the murder of two village administrators, Than Min Aung and Ngwe Thein in Kyonpyaw township’s Ma Gu Yoe village, locals said.  The township in eastern Ayeyarwady has faced some of the nation’s heaviest recruitment efforts, even before junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing announced on Feb. 10 plans to enforce the People’s Military Service Law.  Junta troops demanded 10 recruits per village in January, threatening to burn down houses if their quota was not met.  Relying on surrendered resistance fighters and retired military personnel, troops also attempted to bolster numbers in December. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Mud-soaked residents scuffle with officials trying to demolish their homes](https://ij-reportika.com/mud-soaked-residents-scuffle-with-officials-trying-to-demolish-their-homes/): Pleading for help from the mud, residents scuffled with authorities in Cambodia’s capital on Tuesday as they tried to block machinery brought in to demolish their homes to make way for a planned high-rise development. “I can’t live without my house! I used to cultivate rice during the dry season, but now they say I occupied the land illegally, and they will confiscate it,” cried a woman named Kong Toeur while sitting in waist-deep muddy water. “All children must know this pain!” she shouted. “This is Cambodia law.”  Another villager, Tim Ouk, said the villagers had done nothing wrong. “Authorities must stop all machinery from destroying our houses,” she said. Such land disputes are common in Cambodia and other Southeast Asian countries as authorities seek land on which to build apartment buildings and shopping malls. In this case, authorities have been looking for ways to evict food vendors and residents from the area next to Ta Mok Lake in Phnom Penhl’s Preaek Phnov district.  The lake is the city’s largest, with a total area of more than 3,240 hectares (8,000 acres). Hundreds of hectares of Ta Mok Lake have already been filled in to pave the way for the development projects. About 200 families are asking authorities to set aside four hectares of land from the development where they can live. Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [Fourteen injured in Myanmar after jet attack in rebel territory](https://ij-reportika.com/fourteen-injured-in-myanmar-after-jet-attack-in-rebel-territory/): Junta bombs injured 14 villagers in the country’s west on Tuesday, residents told Radio Free Asia.  The attack occurred when a jet attacked Rakhine state’s Minbya township in the middle of the night, they said. The bombs destroyed houses and critically injured several civilians in Thay Kan village.  Minbya township is part of Mrauk-U district, the sprawling ancient capital of Rakhine state.  The Arakan Army has won control of Rakhine state’s Pauktaw, Minbya, Mrauk-U, Kyauktaw, Myay Pon and Taung Pyo townships in the last four months, as well as neighboring Paletwa township in Chin state to the northeast.  Following the ethnic army’s capture of Minbya city on Feb. 6, there has been no fighting in the township for several weeks, one resident said. “At around 1 a.m., a jet came and dropped two bombs, injuring 14 people. Four among the injured were in critical condition,” he said, declining to be named for security reasons. “A house was destroyed by fire. Some other houses were also destroyed.” Thay Kan village has a population of only 400 people, and no military junta troops were stationed nearby, he added. The injured are currently being treated at nearby clinics, residents told RFA. Calls to Rakhine state’s junta spokesperson Hla Thein by RFA seeking comment on the incident went unanswered. On Feb. 20, junta troops arrested over 100 young ethnic Rakhine men on a bus leaving the country’s commercial capital of Yangon. Many were traveling to their homes in Minbya, among other nearby townships. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [US official expresses concern over crackdown on Tibetans protesting dam](https://ij-reportika.com/us-official-expresses-concern-over-crackdown-on-tibetans-protesting-dam/): An American official expressed deep concern about the arrest of over 1,000 Tibetans protesting a dam project in central China that would destroy several Buddhist monasteries, saying the United States “stands with Tibetans in preserving their unique cultural, religious, and linguistic identity.”  Tibetan advocacy groups condemned China’s actions, calling for the immediate release of those detained. On Feb. 23, police arrested more than 1,000 Tibetans, including monks and residents, in Dege county in Kardze Autonomous Tibetan Prefecture, who had been peacefully protesting against the dam, which would also force two villages to be relocated, sources told Radio Free Asia.  Over the weekend, police began interrogations, beating some detainees so badly that they required medical attention, sources told RFA.  Uzra Zeya, U.S. under secretary for civilian security, democracy and human rights and U.S. special coordinator for Tibetan Issues, said on X on Feb. 25 that she was deeply concerned by reports of the “mass arrests of Tibetans protesting the construction of a dam that threatens displacement of villages &amp; destruction of monasteries.” “China must respect human rights &amp; freedom of expression and include Tibetans in the development &amp; implementation of water and land management policies,” she tweeted.  “These centuries-old monasteries are home to hundreds of Tibetan Buddhist monks and contain irreplaceable cultural relics,” she wrote. “The U.S. stands with Tibetans in preserving their unique cultural, religious, and linguistic identity.”   ‘Wiping out culture and religion’ The arrests “should be a reminder to the world of how brutal daily life under China’s occupation is for the Tibetan people,” a  statement issued Monday on X from the International Campaign for Tibet by its president, Tencho Gyatso. “China tries to hide its forced relocation of Tibetans, its destruction of their environment, and its attempts to wipe out their culture and religion,” the statement said. Saying the protesters demonstrated “incredible courage,” Gyatso said they needed the support of the international community.  “We call on the Chinese government to free these Tibetans at once,” she said. “We also call on the U.S. and other governments to step up pressure on China to end its vicious occupation of Tibet.” Chinese authorities arrest Tibetan monks during a protest against a dam project on the Drichu River in Dege county, southwestern China&#8217;s Sichuan province, Feb. 22, 2024. (Image from citizen journalist video) Four Tibetan NGOs based in Dharamsala, India, home to the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, issued a statement of solidarity with the Tibetan community in Dege county. They said that the displacement of Tibetan communities is “not new phenomena,” just one of many examples. “The continued disregard for the rights and well-being of Tibetans in the face of such development projects is unacceptable and demands immediate attention from the international community,” said the statement by the Tibetan Women’s Association, National Democratic Party of Tibet, Regional Tibetan Youth Congress and Students for a Free Tibet.  Environmental disruption The four groups went on to say that the construction of the dam not only threatens the local Tibetan community but also poses a risk to the fragile ecosystem of the Tibetan plateau.  “Any disruption to Tibet’s rivers and a diversion of the rivers could have far-reaching consequences for the environment, biodiversity, and livelihoods of millions of people downstream,” they said.  William Nee, research and advocacy coordinator at Chinese Human Rights Defenders, or CHRD, told RFA that his organization was concerned about the situation of the detainees, whether they are being maltreated and if they have sufficient food.  RFA reported earlier that authorities told those who were arrested to bring bedding and food, suggesting they would not be released soon. CHRD was also concerned whether authorities were giving those arrested access to relatives and lawyers, and whether they were being detained according to Chinese Criminal Procedure Law.  “But beyond that, there are also concerns about the livelihood of the potentially affected communities by the dam and whether this has been taken into consideration,” Nee said. “And also the cultural rights, given that this might impact monasteries – some having ancient murals going back to the 13th century.”    Khenpo Sonam Tenphel, speaker of the Tibetan parliament-in-exile, tweeted on X that Tibetans worldwide condemned the crackdown.  “We urge China to promptly release those detained and to cease the dam construction,” he tweeted. “It is crucial for China to acknowledge the peaceful protests of Tibetans, addressing their concerns about preserving historic monasteries and safeguarding their homes.” Translated and edited by Tenzin Pema. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Six-day battle in central Myanmar kills 7 civilians](https://ij-reportika.com/six-day-battle-in-central-myanmar-kills-7-civilians/): Ongoing junta shelling across central Myanmar has killed seven civilians as of Monday, locals told Radio Free Asia.  Battles began last Wednesday when anti-junta forces in China state attacked the junta troops in the state’s Tedim township, in Khaikam city near the border with Kale township. Kale township of Sagaing region has been the site of other junta attacks in the last few months. On Wednesday, a drone crash, perceived by locals to be an accident, injured 13 children when the drone’s explosives detonated over a village monastery.  In September, four family members died when a junta shell exploded on their home in the township.  A Kale resident who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons told RFA Monday that seven people were killed by heavy artillery in other neighborhoods of Kale city, the capital of Kale township, but the whereabouts of the other six have not been identified yet, as the fighting is ongoing. “One was killed and one was injured on Feb. 25. Now people in Sin Ywar neighborhood have also fled to safety,” said the resident. “Many homes were damaged due to the military junta’s shelling and many people were injured.” All the victims were from Kale city, the resident added. The extent of civilian and soldier injuries is still unknown at this time. Roughly 5,000 residents of Kale city have fled to safety, according to aid workers assisting internally displaced people.  Kale city became the first to resist the February 2021 military coup in May, with civilians arming themselves with age-old Tumee rifles. This mobilization came in the wake of one of the deadliest single-day massacres, with junta troops killing 110 people across the nation on March 27, 2021. According to Myanmar’s 2019 General Administration Department statistics, Kale township is home to more than 340,000, of whom almost half are ethnic Chins. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Taejun Kang.
- [Vacation is over for Cambodian strongman Hun Sen](https://ij-reportika.com/vacation-is-over-for-cambodian-strongman-hun-sen/): Every politician, especially one whose chokehold over a country lasted nearly four decades, needs some time off. Hun Sen, who handed over the prime ministership of Cambodia to his eldest son last summer, has had his feet up for the past seven months.  Not that he’s been idle; he’s still president of the ruling party and head of the King’s Privy Council, and has occasionally intervened to publicly chide his son for some mistakes. But after the Senate elections on Feb.  25, he’ll be coronated as the new Senate president.  The position will make him acting head of state when King Norodom Sihamoni is out of the country, as he often is for health checkups in China. With Cambodia now a Hun family fiefdom, you’ll have Prime Minister Hun Manet as head of government and Hun Sen as de-facto head of state.  What does it matter, you may ask, since Hun Sen is already all powerful? But the question contains the answer.  Clearly, Hun Sen doesn’t think of himself that way or else why would he want the Senate presidency? Indeed, he stated on the day that he resigned as prime minister last July that he would become Senate president, so clearly this had been decided when the ruling party was crossing the T’s on its vast succession plan in 2021 and 2022.  Moreover, it’s not a risk-free move. It means the current Senate president, Say Chhum, has to retire. This has the added benefit of pensioning off another graying ruling party grandee and one who some think controls a rival faction within the party.  Say Chhum had agreed to resign last year, perhaps safe in the knowledge that his family’s patronage networks are now in the hands of his son Say Sam Al, the land management minister.  But for those in the party (and there are some) angry that the CPP has become a family-run affair, the Hun duo as heads of government and state won’t sit well. Hun Sen stated last July during his resignation speech that by becoming Senate president, “I will not intrude into the responsibilities of the new prime minister,” but it certainly appears that may to some.  Cambodia&#8217;s Prime Minister-designate Hun Manet, center, and incoming cabinet members pose for a group photo at the headquarters of the Cambodian People’s Party in Phnom Penh, Aug. 10, 2023. (Kok Ky/Cambodia’s Government Cabinet via AFP) Moreover, it seemingly goes against the spirit of the party’s generational succession scheme in which the aging “first generation” CPP leaders (Hun Sen included) were supposed to retire from frontline politics and give formal powers to the “second generation”, even if the elders still called the shots behind the scenes. So why not give the Senate presidency to a younger, “second generation” politician?  Given that the CPP took years to meticulously plot this succession process – so it cannot be that they were stuck in making a decision about who would become Senate president and Hun Sen was the easiest option to fill the void – the only logical conclusion is that Hun Sen wants the Senate presidency because he thinks he needs it. First, it will allow him to travel abroad on state visits or welcome visiting leaders in an official capacity, which he hasn’t been able to do since August.  Despite having been the world’s longest-serving head of government, he never gained acceptance as a world’s statesman, certainly not one spoken of with the same reverence as Lee Kwan Yew of Singapore. The Senate presidency might give him another decade or so to attempt to claim such a mantle. Second, according to some, it gives him official diplomatic immunity, which may come in handy at some point in the future. Third, and while one ordinarily ought to avoid psychoanalyzing politicians, it’s probable that Hun Sen detests being away from frontline politics and not being able to make public displays of his power, so maybe it’s the case that he is taking the Senate presidency simply because he can.  Institutional capture Now 71, he has been a senior politician since the age of 27, and he never seemed the type to enjoy retirement nor to shy away from publicity. Hun Sen is never happier than when delivering a three-hour monologue to a crowd of bussed-in workers. But he’s had few opportunities to do so since August, although that’s partly because he has wanted to give his son the limelight. As Senate president, he will have a captive audience (in more ways than one) again.  Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, the Senate presidency gives him yet more institutional power to intervene if something was to go wrong with his son’s government – or, indeed, if there was ever a putschist attempt against Hun Manet.  Remember that Hun Sen has repeatedly said he would return as prime minister if any major crisis befouled the government; the insinuation being that his vacation from the premiership may be temporary. For the best part of a decade, the Hun family has been on a long march through the institutions, wary that some of its rivals may also be on their own such project.  Today, he has the King’s ear as head of the Supreme Privy Advisory Council. He controls the powerful but unruly (and quick to disgruntlement) business tycoons, the oknha, as president of the newly-formed Cambodian Oknha Association.  He’s also president of some other CPP-linked “uncivil society” groups. Through constitutional reforms in 2022, he greatly weakened the power of the National Assembly to reprimand ministers or the prime minister, and in 2023 he helped make the loyal but politically weak Khuon Sudary the new president of the lower chamber of parliament. These steps gave even more power to the CPP over personnel choices.  Cambodian People&#8217;s Party President Hun Sen, left, addresses supporters in Phnom Penh as his son Prime Minister Hun Manet, right, listens during a ceremony marking the 45th anniversary of the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime, Jan. 7, 2024. (Tang Chhin...
- [China’s diplomatic reach dominated global index](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-diplomatic-reach-dominated-global-index/): China has the world’s farthest-reaching diplomatic network, according to a new study, closely followed by the United States. It has a bigger diplomatic footprint than its larger economic rival in Africa, East Asia and the Pacific islands, according to the Lowy Institute’s 2024 Global Diplomacy Index released Sunday. It also has a bigger presence in East Asia, following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Washington’s reach is more extensive in Europe, North and Central America and South Asia, with the same number of diplomatic posts as Beijing in the Middle East and South America, the survey found. China’s expansion has come at the expense of Taiwan, as China courts lower income nations with offers of infrastructure, economic and administrative assistance.  In January, Nauru switched diplomatic allegiance from Taipei to Beijing. The move by the tiny Pacific country reduced Taiwan’s diplomatic allies to 12 nations, including the Vatican, Paraguay and Eswatini. The index showed a rapid growth in diplomatic missions in the Pacific islands, seen as key geopolitical allies by the world’s two leading superpowers. “The Global Diplomacy Index shows that governments continue to invest in diplomacy to project power and achieve their interests,” said Ryan Neelam, the director of the Public Opinion and Foreign Policy Program at the Lowy Institute. “The ongoing rivalry between the United States and China is reflected in the superpowers’ dominance in the 2024 rankings, while geopolitical competition has propelled Asia and the Pacific into focus.” The index was launched in 2016. This year, it covers the diplomatic networks of 66 countries and territories in Asia, the Group of 20 nations and members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Data was collected between July and November last year. Edited by Taejun Kang.
- [INTERVIEW: How the West has been misreading China for years](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-how-the-west-has-been-misreading-china-for-years/): Frank Dikötter, author of the &#8220;People&#8217;s Trilogy&#8221; about China under of Mao Zedong, has been chair professor of humanities at the University of Hong Kong since 2006. He recently published &#8220;China After Mao,&#8221; in which he argues that claims that the Chinese Communist Party has significantly changed direction in the post-Mao era are a misreading by those outside the country who &#8220;live in a fantasy world.&#8221; He told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview that Chinese leaders have been very consistent in their messaging on political reform, and their economic goals and determination to maintain their dictatorship at all costs. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. RFA: What is the difference between the Mao era and the post-Mao era? Dikötter: So, what have [Chinese leaders] been telling us? A very simple story: China is in the process of &#8220;reform and opening up.&#8221; So, there will be economic progress, and with economic change there will be political progress. China will become first a capitalist country and then a democracy. Of course, what has happened is the exact opposite. If you read the documentation carefully, you find out that never at any one point did Deng Xiaoping, Hu Yaobang, Zhao Ziyang, Jiang Zemin, all the way up to today, never did a single leader ever say, “We want a capitalist system.” They all said the exact opposite, that they would uphold the socialist road. It is in the Constitution.  People take pictures in front of portraits of, from left, the late Chinese chairman Mao Zedong and former Chinese leaders Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao and current president Xi Jinping at an exhibition in Beijing, Sept. 26, 2019. (Wang Zhao/AFP) All along, they were very clear about what they wanted. They wanted to reinforce the socialist economy. So what is a socialist economy? [It&#8217;s] not necessarily something that you have under Mao. A socialist economy is one where the state has or controls the means of production. Money, labor, fertilizer, energy, transportation, all these are the means of production. They all belonged to the state. Today the money belongs to state banks. The land belongs to the state. Energy is controlled by the state. Large enterprises are controlled by the state. That was their goal, and they achieved it. Workers are seen near pumpjacks at a China National Petroleum Corp oil field in Bayingol in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region, Aug. 7, 2019. (Reuters) The second point is democratization. At no point did anyone say they wanted to have a separation of powers. On the contrary, Zhao Ziyang said very clearly back in 1987 that China would never have the separation of powers. Xi Jinping also made that very clear. But nobody in the West heard them, because they didn&#8217;t want to hear it. RFA: Has everyone misjudged the Chinese Communist Party? Dikötter: There is a profound failure on the part of a great many people, politicians, experts and scholars outside China to simply listen to what all of these leaders said very clearly and also to read and understand what’s been happening. The failure is reasonably straightforward. It is a refusal to believe that a communist — a Chinese communist — is a communist. Delegates attend the closing ceremony of the 20th Chinese Communist Party&#8217;s Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Oct. 22, 2022. (Noel Celis/AFP) The truth is that the origins of the People&#8217;s Republic of China are not in the Tang Dynasty, not in the Song Dynasty, not in the Ming or the Qing. They are in 1917, when Vladimir Lenin seizes power and establishes a communist system. That is what inspired China after 1949. That was the system behind it. So, if you do not understand that China is communist, if you keep on saying it&#8217;s not really communist, that they pretend to be communist, you will never understand anything. RFA: Will China ever have a true democracy? Dikötter: In the People&#8217;s Republic, you have a dictatorship, but they call themselves a democracy. They have no elections, but they say they have free elections. So what is an election in the People&#8217;s Republic? If you vote for the person they tell you to vote for. They give you a list one, two, three names. You can you can pick one of these three. That&#8217;s it. That&#8217;s an election. People walk along a street in the Dongcheng district of Beijing, Dec. 3, 2023. (Pedro Pardo/ AFP) RFA: You devote an entire chapter in your book to the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, but you don&#8217;t go into the rights and wrongs of it. Why not? Dikötter: The Tiananmen massacre is &#8230; the most important moment after 1976. The 200 Chinese tanks that entered Beijing in June 1989 crushed Chinese people. That&#8217;s really quite extraordinary. It’s important because it shows that the party had an iron determination to retain its monopoly on power.   RFA: Do you believe that the Chinese people want democracy? Dikötter: Nobody knows what people in China want, for a very simple reason — they can&#8217;t vote. … If you do not have freedom of expression, if you cannot express your opinion at the ballot box, then we simply don&#8217;t know. You don&#8217;t know what people think in a dictatorship.  But it&#8217;s probably safe to assume that a system based on the separation of powers, including freedom of the press and a solid judicial system, would probably be beneficial, for instance, for the economy. … This is basically a modern economic model based on debt. You spend to create the illusion of growth. Then you spend more. My feeling is that there may be people in the People&#8217;s Republic of China who are probably thinking about whether this is really a successful system or not. That&#8217;s all we can say. Police detain a person in downtown Hong Kong on the 34th anniversary of the 1989 Beijing&#8217;s Tiananmen Square crackdown, near where the candlelight vigil is usually held, June 4, 2023....
- [China arrests more than 1,000 Tibetans protesting Chinese dam project](https://ij-reportika.com/china-arrests-more-than-1000-tibetans-protesting-chinese-dam-project/): Police on Friday arrested more than 1,000 Tibetans including monks from at least two local monasteries, in southwestern China’s Sichuan province after they protested the construction of a dam expected to destroy six monasteries and force the relocation of two villages. The arrested individuals – both monks and local residents – are being held in various places throughout Dege County in Kardze Tibetan Prefecture because the police do not have a single place to detain them, said the sources who requested anonymity for safety reasons. The sources said that those arrested have been forced to bring their own bedding and tsampa – a staple food for Tibetans that can be used to sustain themselves for long periods. One source said that the fact that police are asking Tibetans to bring their own tsampa and bedding indicates that they will not be released anytime soon. On Thursday, Feb. 22, Chinese authorities deployed specially trained armed police in Kardze’s Upper Wonto village region to arrest more than 100 Tibetan monks from Wonto and Yena monasteries along with residents, many of whom were beaten and injured, and later admitted to Dege County Hospital for medical treatment, sources said. Citizen videos from Thursday, show Chinese officials in black uniforms forcibly restraining monks, who can be heard crying out to stop the dam construction.&nbsp; After the mass arrests, several Tibetans from Upper Wonto village who were employed in other parts of the country returned to their hometown to visit the detention centers. They were demanding the release of the arrested Tibetans. However, they too got arrested by the authorities. The Chinese Embassy in Washington hasn’t commented on the arrests other than in a statement issued Thursday that said the country respects the rule of law. “China protects the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese nationals by the law,&#8221; the statement said. Massive dam project The arrests followed days of protests and appeals by local Tibetans since Feb. 14 for China to stop the construction of the Gangtuo hydropower station. On 14th February at least 300 Tibetans gathered outside Dege County Town Hall to protest the building of the Gangtuo dam, which is part of a massive 13-tier hydropower complex on the Drichu River with a total planned capacity of 13,920 megawatts.&nbsp; The dam project is on the Drichu River, called Jinsha in Chinese, which is located on the upper reaches of the Yangtze, one of China’s most important waterways.&nbsp; Local Tibetans have been particularly distraught that the construction of the hydropower station will result in the forced resettlement of two villages – Upper Wonto and Shipa villages – and six key monasteries in the area&nbsp; – Yena, Wonto, and Khardho in Wangbuding township in Dege county, and Rabten, Gonsar and Tashi in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, sources told RFA. Sources on Friday also confirmed that some of the arrested monks with poor health conditions were allowed to return to their monasteries.&nbsp; However, the monasteries – which include Wonto Monastery, known for its ancient murals dating back to the 13th century – remained desolate on the eve of Chotrul Duchen, or the Day of Miracles, which is commemorated on the 15th day of the first month of the Tibetan New Year, or Losar, and marks the celebration of a series of miracles performed by the Buddha. “In the past, monks of Wonto Monastery would traditionally preside over large prayer gatherings and carry out all the religious activities,” said one of the sources. “This time, the monasteries are quiet and empty. … It’s very sad to see such monasteries of historical importance being prepared for destruction. The situation is the same at Yena Monastery.”&nbsp; Protests elsewhere Fueled by outrage over the destruction of cultural sites and alleged human rights abuses in Derge, Tibet, Tibetan communities across the globe have erupted in protest. From Dharamsala, home to the Dalai Lama, to rallies outside Chinese embassies in New York and Switzerland, demonstrators are raising their voices. Kai Müller, head of the International Campaign for Tibet, condemned China&#8217;s &#8220;ruthless destruction&#8221; of Tibetan heritage, while Human Rights Watch highlighted the difficulty of obtaining information due to China&#8217;s tight control. These protests underscore the simmering tensions between the Tibetan people and the Chinese government, with concerns ranging from cultural erasure to potential threats to regional water security. Read about the entire struggle for Tibet and of His Highness Dalai Lama: https://ij-reportika.com/his-holiness-dalai-lama-and-the-tibetan-cause/
- [Over 100 scam gang suspects arrested in Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/over-100-scam-gang-suspects-arrested-in-myanmar/): Junta troops arrested over 100 people while raiding a casino on the Thai-Myanmar border, locals said on Friday.  The compound was the site of an online gambling den in Myanmar’s Tachileik city in eastern Shan state.  The region comprising northern Thailand, eastern Myanmar and southern Laos is known as the Golden Triangle, notorious for gambling, trafficking and fraud. A resident declining to be named for safety reasons told Radio Free Asia that the 1G1-7 Hotel in Tachileik’s San Sai Kha neighborhood, where the casino crackdown occurred, is a long-standing institution in the city. “The raid and arrests at the casino, which was opened behind the 1G1-7 Hotel, has been open for about a decade as a casino,” he said. “It was raided and people were arrested in the morning.” Junta soldiers and police arrested Myanmar, Thai and Chinese nationals, locals said. They are currently in custody, but no further details about their location or identity are known.  Troops and police gather outside the 1G1-7 Hotel in Tachileik city on Feb. 23, 2024 (Telegram: People Media) Another Tachileik resident said there are hundreds of online gambling businesses in the 11 neighborhoods of the city and in its surrounding villages. Many operate in homes and hotels, he said.  “Houses are entirely rented, and the hotels were rented out by floors for operating [online casinos],” he said. “Chinese and Thai nationals are also involved.” Online money scamming gangs often disguise their operations as casinos, locals said. In 2023, more than 40,000 Chinese nationals were deported from Shan state for staying illegally in Myanmar and working in illegal businesses and scam centers. This is the first time police have cracked down on scam centers in Tachileik, locals said.  The junta has not officially released any information on Friday&#8217;s arrests. RFA reached out to Shan state’s junta spokesperson Khun Thein Maung, but he did not respond by the time of publication.  However, pro-military channels on the social messaging app Telegram shared that the people arrested in Tachileik were committing online fraud as part of an organization known as “Kyar Pyant.” It reported the Chinese gang, which specializes in online fraud, was raided by junta security forces. State-owned newspapers reported on Feb. 9 that more than 50,000 foreigners, mostly made up of Chinese nationals, were transferred back to their respective countries for illegally staying in Myanmar from Oct. 5, 2023 to Feb. 8, 2024. Some 48,803 Chinese, 1,071 Vietnamese, 537 Thai, 133 Malaysian, 20 Korean, and 18 Lao nationals were transferred, the statement said.  In November, 19 South Koreans were rescued by junta forces after being forced to work in Tachileik in an illegal business.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Myanmar's military recruiting Rohingya at displaced camps](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-military-recruiting-rohingya-at-displaced-camps/): Myanmar’s junta is offering freedom of movement to Rohingya Muslims restricted to camps for the displaced in Rakhine state as part of a bid to entice them into military service amid the nationwide rollout of a conscription law, according to sources in the region. The enactment of the People’s Military Service Law on Feb. 10 has sent draft-eligible civilians fleeing from Myanmar’s cities, saying they would rather leave the country or join anti-junta forces in remote border areas than fight for the military, which seized power in a 2021 coup d’etat. Myanmar’s military is desperate for new recruits after suffering devastating losses on the battlefield to the ethnic Arakan Army, or AA, in Rakhine state. Since November, when the AA ended a ceasefire that had been in place since the coup, the military has surrendered Pauktaw, Minbya, Mrauk-U, Kyauktaw, Myay Pon and Taung Pyo townships in the state, as well as Paletwa township in neighboring Chin state. But rights campaigners say the junta is drafting Rohingya into military service to stoke ethnic tensions in Rakhine state, while legal experts say the drive is unlawful, given that Myanmar has refused to recognize the Rohingya as one of the country’s ethnic groups and denied them citizenship for decades. Some 1 million ethnic Rohingya refugees have been living in Bangladesh since 2017, when they were driven out of Myanmar by a military clearance operation. Another 630,000 living within the country are designated stateless by the United Nations, including those who languish in camps for internally displaced persons, or IDPs, and are restricted from moving freely in Rakhine state. Residents of the Kyauk Ta Lone IDP camp in Rakhine’s Kyaukphyu township told RFA Burmese that junta forces, including the township administration officer and the operations commander of the military’s Light Infantry Battalion 542, took a census of the camp’s Muslims for the purpose of military service on Monday. Junta personnel compiled a list of more than 160 people deemed eligible for conscription and informed them they would have to take part in a two-week military training program, according to one camp resident who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. “The township administration officer came … and told us that Muslims must also serve in the military, but we refused to follow his order,” the resident said. “Then, the military operations commander arrived here along with his soldiers, and forced us to do so under the military service law. They collected the names of more than 160 people.” Freedom of movement Some 1,500 Rohingyas from around 300 families have been living at Kyauk Ta Lone since ethnic violence forced them to flee their homes in Kyaukphyu 12 years ago.  Since taking the census on Monday, junta officers have repeatedly visited the camp, trying to persuade Rohingya residents to serve in the military with an offer of free movement within Kyaukphyu township, said another camp resident.  “They won’t guarantee us citizenship,” he said. “But if we serve in the military, we will be allowed to go freely in Kyaukphyu.” Other camp residents told RFA they “would rather die” than serve in the military, and suggested the recruitment drive was part of a bid by the military to create a rift between them and ethnic Rakhines – the predominant minority in Rakhine state and the ethnicity of the AA. No date was given for when the training program would begin, they said. After receiving training, the recruits would be assigned to a security detail along with junta troops guarding routes in and out of Kyaukphyu, and dispatched to the battlefield “if necessary.” Rohingya IDPs are afraid to serve in the military, but are unable to flee the camp because it is surrounded by junta troops, residents added. Other recruitment efforts The military service census at the Kyauk Ta Lone IDP camp came as Rohingyas in the Rakhine capital Sittwe, the Rakhine townships of Buthidaung and Maungdaw, and other parts of Kyaukphyu reported that junta troops have been arresting and collecting data from members of their ethnic group as part of a bid to force them into military training. On Monday and Tuesday evening, military personnel arrested around 100 Rohingyas of eligible service age from the Buthidaung villages of Nga/Kyin Tauk, Tat Chaung, Pu Zun Chaung and Kyauk Hpyu Taung, said a resident who also declined to be named. “People doing business in the village were arrested. Village elders were also arrested,” said the resident, who is also a Rohingya. “At least one young person from every house was arrested and taken to the army. The parents of those who were arrested are quite worried now.” Junta troops said that the AA had established camps near the Rohingya villages and residents would have to undergo military training to defend the area, he added. They said the residents would be equipped with weapons and returned to their villages after the training was complete. Rohingyas in Sittwe and Maungdaw, where an AA offensive is now underway, also reported junta census efforts and pressure to join military training. They said that larger villages are expected to provide 100 people for training, while smaller ones should send 50 residents. Law does not apply A lawyer who is representing Rohingyas in several legal cases told RFA that the People’s Military Service Law “does not apply” to members of the ethnic group because they do not have citizenship status in Myanmar. He added that the junta&#8217;s attempt to recruit Rohingyas is part of a bid to drive a wedge between them and the people of Myanmar, many of whom oppose the military regime. Nay San Lwin, an activist on the Rohingya issue, said that the junta hopes to divert attention from its losses to the AA in Rakhine state by igniting tensions between ethnic Rakhines and Rohingyas. “If the Rohingyas are forced into their army, there could be a lot of problems between the Rakhines and the Rohingyas,” he said. “That&#8217;s what they want....
- [Two-month travel ban extended in western Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/two-month-travel-ban-extended-in-western-myanmar/): Myanmar’s regime extended a travel ban in a conflict-ridden coastal area, locals told Radio Free Asia on Thursday. The ban prevents Rakhine state residents from traveling by water, fishing, and gathering on the township’s shores until Apr. 19. Kyaukpyu township, where the ban was originally established on Dec. 19, has been a source of conflict between the ethnic Arakan Army and junta forces. The Arakan Army launched attacks on Kyaukpyu’s junta naval base on Jan. 8 and 21, leading locals to suggest China should discuss its many upcoming development projects in the area with the ethnic armed group to ensure their continued protection. Kyaukpyu’s coast is the site of a Chinese-funded special economic zone, as well as upcoming ports and railroads stalled in December due to fighting. Residents have voiced concerns that Chinese development projects fail to provide local jobs and that they will impact the region’s vital fishing industry.  A fisherman in Kyaukpyu city on June 4, 2019. (RFA) An official from a social assistance group in Kyaukpyu township said the travel ban was announced in a letter on Monday. “Motor boats and rowing boats are not allowed to navigate along the river and it is forbidden to have alcohol or to fight along the shore,” he said, declining to be named for fear of reprisals. “Traveling in the villages and towns has been banned in the past. Everyone gets in trouble.” The junta’s order also stated that if locals choose to violate this order, action will be taken according to existing laws. The ban applies to the township’s capital of Kyaukpyu city, six surrounding village tracts and eight neighborhoods. It also prevents locals from gathering or fishing on the Ohn Chaung stream, Than Zit River, and nearby beaches, according to the statement. The restrictions were implemented after the Arakan Army broke a year-long ceasefire by attacking junta camps in Kyaukpyu township, Rakhine state on Nov. 13, 2023, residents said. A Kyaukpyu resident who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons told RFA that the travel ban has caused residents many problems affecting their health and quality of life.  “Locals are facing difficulties in getting food, and commodity prices have become expensive. Sick people in rural areas suffer because of the delay in getting medical treatment,” he explained. RFA called Rakhine state’s junta spokesperson for comment on the extension, but he did not respond to inquiries. Villagers can only receive permission to travel after submitting an application five days in advance, residents in Kyaukpyu’s surrounding areas said. Within Kyaukpyu township, the junta prohibits the shipment and delivery of most types of medicine, food, electrical equipment, and hygiene products, including women’s sanitary pads. On Monday, 60 passengers flying from Yangon were arrested after landing in Kyaukpyu’s airport. Pregnant women, children and elderly people have since been released, though the location of others remains unknown.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Hong Kong official slams groups' criticism of new security law](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-official-slams-groups-criticism-of-new-security-law/): Hong Kong security chief Chris Tang has lashed out at the London-based rights group Hong Kong Watch after it issued a statement signed by 86 groups saying that forthcoming security legislation would have “devastating consequences” for human rights in the city. The new legislation, called Article 23, criminalizes treason, insurrection, the theft of state secrets and other national security offenses. It is billed by the government as a way to close “loopholes” in the already stringent 2020 National Security Law. But Hong Kong Watch and the other groups said the definitions of such crimes were vague in the bill, and would criminalize people&#8217;s peaceful exercise of their human rights. &#8220;The proposed law includes a number of procedural changes that will dramatically undermine the Hong Kong people’s due process and fair trial rights,&#8221; said joint statement signed by 86 organizations. &#8220;The introduction of Article 23 will bring further devastating consequences for human rights beyond those brought by the National Security Law when it was imposed by Beijing in 2020,&#8221; said the statement, which called on governments to publicly oppose the law, and for those responsible to be sanctioned. &#8220;The last time the authorities attempted to introduce Article 23 in 2003, over 500,000 Hong Kongers took to the streets in protests with the plans abandoned,&#8221; the statement said, adding:&#8221; But now they can no longer speak out against it.” The bill is highly likely to be passed by the Legislative Council now that electoral rules have been changed to allow only “patriots” to run for election. ‘Slander and intimidation’ Tang, who has previously claimed that recent waves of mass popular pro-democracy movements in recent years were the work of &#8220;foreign forces&#8221; operating in Hong Kong, criticized Hong Kong Watch for using &#8220;gangster tactics.” Tang told a news conference in Hong Kong on Monday that most of the groups that signed the letter, which include Freedom House, Chinese Human Rights Defenders, Hongkongers in Britain, Human Rights Watch and the Index on Censorship, were &#8220;anti-China organizations seeking to disrupt Hong Kong.&#8221; Demonstrators in Hong Kong with tape over their mouths protest the city government’s anti-subversion bill, Feb. 14, 2003. (Anat Givon/AP) He accused &#8220;anti-China and anti-Hong Kong&#8221; organizations of &#8220;slander, intimidation &#8230; wrong, misleading and making something out of nothing,&#8221; after they criticized the planned law, which analysts have warned will broaden the definition of what is a &#8220;national security&#8221; matter still further. &#8220;These comments are slander and intimidation by external forces who want to endanger our national security,&#8221; he said, brushing aside the possibility of further sanctions on Hong Kong officials. &#8220;The more you sanction us, the more it appears that we&#8217;re doing the right thing,&#8221; Tang said, likening the law to putting in &#8220;doors and windows to prevent burglaries,&#8221; and accusing the groups who signed the statement of &#8220;gangster&#8221; tactics. Tang accused Radio Free Asia of reporting what he described as &#8220;false” criticism that the new law would target media organizations. He called the media outlet a &#8220;foreign force&#8221; that was misleading the people of Hong Kong.  He said only those who &#8220;deliberately&#8221; set out to slander the government could be liable under the planned law. RFA, funded by the U.S. Congress to provide independent news in countries that lack a free press, has not publicly responded to Tang&#8217;s comments. Hong Kong&#8217;s Secretary for Justice Paul Lam, left, Chief Executive John Lee, center, and Secretary for Security Chris Tang attend a press conference on Article 23 in Hong Kong, Jan. 30, 2024. (Lam Yik/Reuters) Tang said the public response to the Article 23 legislation had been welcoming, and that claims that the new law would boost police powers to detain people at will were &#8220;attempts to intimidate the people of Hong Kong.&#8221; &#8220;I believe that our friends in the media will not endanger national security,&#8221; he said, in response to concerns that media organizations could be targeted under the law for platforming views deemed a threat to national security. Chief Executive John Lee said on Tuesday that his administration will seek to pass the new law as soon as possible. &#8220;Our work on legislation under Article 23 of the Basic Law will be advanced at full speed,&#8221; Lee said. &#8220;The government will move forward, and I believe that the Legislative Council will fulfill their constitutional responsibilities in this regard as soon as possible.&#8221; Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Pro-junta ‘drone test’  injures 13 children in Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/pro-junta-drone-test-injures-13-children-in-myanmar/): A drone test by pro-junta militia injured 13 children in Myanmar, residents told Radio Free Asia.  Regime soldiers working in collaboration with the Pyu Saw Htee militia are responsible for a weapons accident that occurred on Saturday, locals said. The militia is made up of pro-junta supporters, veterans and Buddhist nationalists.  The drone, carrying several bombs, flew over Sagaing region’s Kale township, close to the Chin state border. Soldiers are permanently stationed in Kale township’s Aung Myin Thar village, leading them to believe the attack was an accident, they added. A resident who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons told RFA on Tuesday that a drone mounted with explosives flew over a nearby monastery compound when it suddenly crashed and exploded. Thirteen children playing in the monastery’s soccer field were injured when the bombs detonated.  “The military junta gave weapons to the Pyu Saw Htee members and they were testing them to carry out bombardments with drones that evening. The bombs fell on the soccer field where the children were playing,” he said. “Six of the children were critically injured. Some of them were hit in their faces and eyes. Some had to have their limbs amputated.” The children who are critically injured are being treated at Kale city’s military hospital, while the remaining seven are being treated at Kale General Hospital in the township’s capital, he added. All victims are between the ages of eight and 15 years old, but identifying information is not known at this time.  The junta’s Ministry of Information released a statement on Tuesday saying that the accident was fake news, reporting that the blasts in Aung Myin Thar village were due to landmines planted by terrorists.  RFA contacted Sagaing region’s junta spokesperson Sai Naing Naing Kyaw for more details, but did not receive an answer. According to data compiled by RFA, 1,429 civilians have been killed and 2,641 were injured by junta airstrikes and heavy artillery from the Feb. 1, 2021 coup until Jan. 31, 2024. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Junta arrests 600 civilians after their arrival at 2 Rakhine airports](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-arrests-600-civilians-after-their-arrival-at-2-rakhine-airports/): Junta troops arrested around 600 civilians after their flights from Yangon landed at two airports in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state, according to family members and sources with knowledge of the situation, who said the military is holding them on suspicion of attempting to join the armed resistance. The arrests come amid the enactment of a conscription law that has sent draft-eligible civilians fleeing from Myanmar’s cities, saying they would rather leave the country or join anti-junta forces in remote border areas than fight for the military, which seized power in a February 2021 coup d’etat. On Monday, junta soldiers detained nearly 500 passengers after they arrived at the airport in Rakhine’s capital Sittwe from Yangon. They were transferred to a military camp at the Lawkananda pagoda, their relatives told RFA Burmese. The same day, more than 60 passengers from Yangon were similarly arrested after landing at the airport in Kyaukphyu city and taken to Rammawati City Hall, family members said. Pregnant women, children, and the elderly among the passengers were released the same day, they said, although the exact number was not immediately clear. The family member of a detainee at the Sittwe airport told RFA that there is no way to contact those being held. “We only knew that all the passengers from the Yangon-Sittwe flight were taken by car to Lawkanada pagoda for inspection as soon as they landed at the airport,” said the family member who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. “It was discovered that many passengers – around 500 – are being held. We don’t know what they are being inspected for.” The military has also cut off phone and internet connections in the area, and troops stationed at the Lawkananda pagoda do not allow civilians to enter the compound, sources told RFA. The passengers who landed at Kyaukphyu airport were arrested and “immediately taken by car to Rammawati City Hall,” where they are being held for “interrogation,” said a resident of the city. “Some of them who have residential documents or were on household lists were released,” the resident said. “The people from other areas have not been released,&#8221; he added, noting that one resident of Ramree township “was handcuffed and taken to the military camp.” Rakhine youth returning Armed clashes broke out in Rakhine state after the ethnic Arakan Army, or AA, ended a ceasefire in November that had been in place since the coup. Since then, the military has controlled routes in and out of the region by land and water, forcing people to rely on air travel. After the junta announced the enforcement of the People’s Military Service Law on Feb. 10, Rakhine youth working and studying in Yangon were barred from registering for temporary residency in the city. Fearing arrest, a growing number of them have returned home, according to sources in Yangon.  A resident of Yangon told RFA that troops at the two airports in Rakhine arrested the passengers on suspicion of planning to join anti-junta armed groups in the state. &#8220;The Rakhine people in Yangon were forced to return home [after they were barred from registering for residency],” he said. “They were told to go back home for military service, even though they were studying and working … Although the passengers produced their IDs, they were arrested on suspicion of planning to join the Arakan Army.” Kyaukphyu airport in Rakhine state is seen in this undated photo. (Winnet Myanmar) RFA has also received reports of junta troops arresting youths on the Yangon-Mandalay Expressway, Mandalay–Myitkyina Highway, and on their way to Kayin and Chin states. Sources were unable to provide the exact number of detainees and RFA was unable to independently verify their claims. Attempts by RFA to contact Rakhine State Attorney General Hla Thein, the junta’s spokesperson in the region, for comment on the arrests and investigation went unanswered Tuesday. During three months of fighting in Rakhine, the AA has captured Pauktaw, Minbya, Mrauk-U, Kyauktaw, Myay Pon and Taung Pyo townships in the state, as well as Paletwa township in neighboring Chin state. The conflict in Rakhine is escalating amid AA offensives on the junta-controlled townships of Maungdaw, Buthidaung, Rathedaung and Ramree. Maungdaw camp captured On Monday, the AA captured a military outpost in Maungdaw’s Pe Yang Taung area after a nine-hour battle, according to a statement released by the Three Brotherhood Alliance of ethnic armies, which includes the AA. AA fighters recovered “more than 10 bodies of junta soldiers,” as well as weapons and ammunition from the camp, the statement said.  The Three Brotherhood Alliance said that over the course of the fighting, which took place from around 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., the military launched three airstrikes from fighter jets. The seizure of the outpost in Pe Yang Taung comes days after the AA captured two junta-affiliated Border Guard Force outposts in Bodhigone and Narula, near Maungdaw, on Feb. 16. The military has not released any information about the fighting, and Hla Thein was unavailable for comment. Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Matt Reed.
- [Dutch government withdraws permits for ASML to export to China](https://ij-reportika.com/dutch-government-withdraws-permits-for-asml-to-export-to-china/): The Netherlands has decided to withdraw permits for ASML, the leader in semiconductor equipment manufacturing, to export its equipment to China on fears it may be used for military purposes.  In a written response to questions from members of parliament, Dutch Trade Minister Geoffrey van Leeuwen said that China is focusing on foreign expertise, including Dutch expertise in the field of lithography, to promote self-sufficiency in its military-technical development ASML tools can be used to make advanced semiconductors that can go into “high value weapons systems and weapons of mass destruction,” and the Dutch government is focused on “the risk of undesirable end use” when reviewing export licensing decisions, van Leeuwen said in a written note cited by Reuters. Netherlands-based ASML dominates the world market for lithography systems, needed by computer chip makers to help create circuitry. The minister was questioned by a lawmaker on why the government initially granted, then quickly retracted, a license for ASML to export various equipment to undisclosed customers in China. He did not respond directly to the question, but only said several licenses to export advanced equipment to China were granted since the licensing requirement was introduced in September. About 20 similar applications are expected this year, without a breakdown of how many for China. Under pressure from the United States, the Netherlands last year required ASML to apply for licenses to export its mid-range deep ultraviolet lithography machines. The company’s most advanced tools have not been sold in China. On Jan. 1 this year, ASML confirmed that some of its export permits for equipment to China were revoked. According to regulations, the company said it will not export any NXT:2000i or more advanced equipment to China, and due to U.S. restrictions, the company also cannot export NXT:1970 and NXT:1980i products to “a small number” of Chinese manufacturers. Translated by RFA staff. Edited by Taejun Kang and Mike Firn.
- [‘The whole trip was a complete shock and surprise.’](https://ij-reportika.com/the-whole-trip-was-a-complete-shock-and-surprise/): Ilya Voskresensky is a travel blogger from St. Petersburg, Russia, who last week joined the first foreign tour group to visit North Korea in four years. In January 2020, North Korea closed its border with Russia and China, and suspended all trade, fearful that the coronavirus would wreak havoc over the country. Tourism and the foreign cash generated by the industry came to a screeching halt.  The cash-strapped North Korean government has been itching to restart tourism and actively recruited the first foreign tour group that would visit the country since before the pandemic. The 97 Russians arrived on Feb. 9 and spent four days and three nights in the capital Pyongyang and at the Masikryong ski-resort in the eastern province of Kangwon. Following the visit, RFA Korean’s Jamin Anderson interviewed Voskresensky, who said that the North Korean authorities closely watched him and tried to limit his freedom to film from the moment he boarded the Pyongyang-bound Air Koryo plane in the Russian Far Eastern city of Vladivostok. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. RFA: How did you decide to take this trip? Were there any concerns about the dangers involved? Who did you travel with? Voskresensky: I decided to go on a trip as soon as I heard that North Korea was opening and there would be a tour for Russian citizens there, and I like making films about my travels for my YouTube channel.  So I realized that this was an ideal opportunity to shoot something interesting and unique, something that I had never seen or felt before in my life. I wanted to see this kind of closed country, and to have a look at how that isolation and [North Korea’s] conservative culture affects tourism, the people, and the country in general. Of course, I had concerns because I read a lot of stories, watched films about the DPRK and understood that many different things could happen to me there. Furthermore, they really don’t like those who’re constantly filming, and I was going there just to film. But we did it anyway. There were still concerns. I went there with a friend of mine. He&#8217;s my cameraman, and the two of us were there together. A magazine displayed on the Korean Air flight. Ilya Voskresensky mentioned that the first 13 pages were all about Kim Jong Un, and he felt that North Korea was a country of &#8220;the cult of personality.&#8221; (Courtesy Ilya Voskresensky) RFA: Did you encounter any unique experiences or any kind of cultural shock during your trip? Voskresensky: The whole trip was a complete shock and surprise. The fact that in Pyongyang, a large city where 3 million people live, there are very few people on the streets and there are practically no cars at peak hours – not at 17:30 in the evening nor at 7:30 in the morning. You go through the streets, and they are empty and it’s shocking. It’s also shocking how the cult of personality has simply surpassed all levels. When you open a publication, like the flight magazine on the airplane, the first 13 pages had only the face of one person [Kim Jong Un] and this is also shocking. I didn’t see anything culturally unusual, but I soon saw the oddities of the regime, the way it changes the country. The closedness of this country, which absolutely preserves its ideology. It was like being teleported to the past.  Sometimes you look at pictures and there are people driving past or some kind of construction site and you have the feeling that this is all AI-generated around propaganda slogans, posters, and portraits of leaders, and it is simply astounding. Ilya Voskresensky snowboards at Masikryong Ski Resort in North Korea. Voskresensky said that filming and shooting at the resort was completely unrestricted, allowing him to document his snowboarding adventures. (Courtesy Ilya Voskresensky) RFA: What freedoms and restrictions did you experience during the trip? When they imposed restrictions, what reasons were given? Voskresensky: We encountered restrictions literally immediately on the plane. I took my camera to film how I entered the plane and I was immediately told off.  When we took our seats a man was there sitting with us. He was just sitting doing something on his phone, taking pictures of the porthole.  We hadn’t even left Russia yet. A member of the cabin crew came up, it was a North Korean airline, so the flight attendant just came, took the man’s phone and started looking through his photos. He looked and deleted what he didn’t like. This was the first impression we got, and we hadn’t even left the country. We were still in Russia, but sitting in a DPRK airplane. [Once we were in North Korea] we were banned from filming construction sites as well as shabby-looking buildings. [Our guide] said that these houses are being demolished and there would be new houses, but it was obvious that there were people still living in them.  They only allowed us to shoot picturesque, beautiful scenes. For example, at the ski resort where we were, there were no restrictions on filming at all, and we filmed absolutely everything. We were also banned from filming military sites, but that’s something I understand, and I didn’t even ask why it’s not allowed.  There was a ban on walking around the city on your own, meaning you couldn’t leave the hotel and go for a walk around the city. I asked why. I wanted to go for a walk, but I was told, ‘You don’t know the Korean language and you will have problems.’ You couldn’t film construction sites, because they supposedly look ugly, and they want to show their country as a beautiful place. It was impossible to film, as I already said, building compounds where people live. But when they brought us to certain city squares, on the contrary, they happily wanted us to take photographs.  And as I said before, when we flew to the...
- [Airstrikes kill 6, including children, in Myanmar’s Kachin state](https://ij-reportika.com/airstrikes-kill-6-including-children-in-myanmars-kachin-state/): An onslaught of airstrikes in northern Myanmar killed six civilians and injured 13 more, rescue workers told Radio Free Asia on Monday.  Junta troops retaliated after joint resistance forces attacked a regime base in Kachin state on Friday.  After the Kachin Independence Army and Arakan Army, two allied ethnic armed organizations, fired on Mansi township’s “strategic hill,” the junta base turned its guns on nearby Si Hkam Gyi village. Mansi township, which borders China, has been a site of previous conflict in late January. The Kachin Independence Army claimed the capture of 30 junta troops on Jan. 22 and 57 more soldiers escaped attacks by crossing the Chinese border.  Regime soldiers bombarded the village by air in a two-day attack on Saturday and Sunday, when roughly 1,000 residents fled the area, locals said.  On Saturday alone, troops dropped 20 bombs on four villages, they added. A rescue worker with Myitta Shin Charity Group, who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons, said civilians and victims are being moved to safety. “Hundreds of local people are trapped in the villages, including Si Hkam Gyi village. We plan to evacuate these people first and we are waiting to pick up the evacuees coming out of the villages today,” he told RFA on Monday.  “The bodies haven’t been picked up yet because they died in the bomb shelters. We haven&#8217;t been able to get inside.” The blasts killed two girls aged two and six. The airstrikes also killed four men in their 40s. The injured, mostly women, were sent to nearby Bhamo Hospital.  Many of the displaced were sent to Man Thar village monastery and are being provided with medicine and food, he added. A resident of nearby Si Kaw village who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons told RFA he was forced to flee in the middle of Saturday night, during the blasts. “We left the village at 2 a.m. There was no difficulty on the way and I came with my own motorbike. I am staying in the hall next to Man Thar Monastery,” he said. “The communities in Man Thar village provided food as soon as we arrived and the Myitta Shin Charity Group’s rescue team is picking up all the people who want to take refuge and helping them.” Kachin Independence Army spokesperson Col. Naw Bu said on Sunday that people needed to live in a safe place and protect themselves from the junta airstrikes. “There is fighting on the side of Si Hkam Gyi village. The military junta fires airstrikes all day long. The fighting continues there, like it did before,” he said. “They mainly do not attack on the ground and depend on heavy artillery and airstrikes, so people must flee for their safety as much as possible.” The junta’s Northern Region Military Command Infantry Battalions 121, 276, 123 and 15 are stationed just 48 kilometers (30 miles) away from Strategic Hill. Mansi township is one of the main supply routes to junta troops in nearby Bhamo city, which is why their attacks have been so fierce, said Col. Naw Bu. RFA contacted Kachin state’s junta spokesperson Moe Min Thein on Sunday for comment on the accusations of indiscriminate firing and civilian deaths, but he did not answer at the time of publication.  According to data compiled by RFA, junta airstrikes have killed 1,429 civilians and injured 2,641 more from the day of the coup on Feb. 1, 2021 to Jan. 31, 2024. Over 2.6 million people had been displaced due to war by the end of 2023, according to a report from the United Nations Office of Humanitarian Affairs. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [For Uyghur family, a legacy of rootlessness](https://ij-reportika.com/for-uyghur-family-a-legacy-of-rootlessness/): Tursun Muhammad was thirteen when political persecution forced his family to leave their prosperous farm in Yarkant, Xinjiang, and flee over the Pamir Mountains. Tursun’s father was targeted during the Cultural Revolution for his wealth and the fact that he was a landlord, Tursun told RFA. After attending Friday prayer at the local mosque he was locked up for three days. So, he packed up his family and left Yarkant to journey into Afghanistan.  It took 45 days to reach Kabul. So high are the Pamir ranges that they are known as the “roof of the world.” The family sheltered in caves on the route. Once, Tursun passed out from lack of oxygen. An older sister died along the way.  “Her body is left on the mountain, buried in stones,” he said.  In Afghanistan, the formerly prosperous farmer sold vegetables from a cart to feed his family. Tursun learned to be a tailor, and as a young man started a family of his own with another Uyghur refugee, until fighting in the country forced the Muhammads to move again, this time to Pakistan. About 15 years later, the Muhammads were forced to flee again, leaving Afghanistan due to conflict and eventually settling in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. (Illustration by Rebel Pepper) Now, decades later, the family’s legacy of rootlessness may soon pass to Tursun’s son, Turghunjan, who along with his wife and their three children are part of a small ethnic Uyghur community of Afghan refugees in Rawalpindi, Pakistan’s fourth largest city. The Muhammad family has built a modest, if limited, life there, but they remain undocumented and could be forced to leave their home as the government moves to deport Afghan refugees due to a claimed fear over terrorism.  “When we left Yarkant, our parents left everything in Yarkant,” Tursun told RFA. “When we moved from Afghanistan, we left everything in Afghanistan, only thinking about staying alive. Now we are hearing the same thing again.” Fears of deportation  Hundreds of other Afghans have already been kicked out of Pakistan. With the help of human rights groups and the U.N. refugee agency, the Uyghurs have for now been allowed to stay, but it isn’t clear how long the reprieve will last.  The family’s main worry remains being sent back to Afghanistan, a place they left decades ago.  But they have heard about China’s persecution of Uyghurs. Could the Taliban, as it cozies up the Chinese Communist Party, force the Uyghurs to return to China in some sort of gesture of goodwill? “The future is dark,” Turghunjan said. “It’s dark in Afghanistan, and even now, living in Pakistan, it is dark too.” Turghunjan Muhammad grew up in Pakistan, but as an undocumented immigrant he had few opportunities. He dreamed of becoming an engineer. Without a national ID, however, he couldn&#8217;t attend school. (Illustration by Rebel Pepper) Bradley Jardine, managing director of the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs, a Washington, DC-based group that promotes scholarship about the region, said it is “not beyond the realms of possibility” that the Uyghur families could be sent back to China. “Such incidents have occurred in the past when Uyghur passports have expired&#8221; to exiles who have caught the attention of Chinese officials, he said. From 1997 through January 2022, 424 Uyghurs were deported to China and another 1,150 were detained in 22 countries, according to a database maintained by the Oxus Society.  Tenuous existence In some ways the Muhammads’ story is unique. There are thought to be only about 20 families in a similar situation. Their feeling of precarity, though, is one that many Uyghur families outside of China can relate to.  Beyond the anxiety of deportation are also the limits placed on Uyghur refugees in host countries that may be reluctant to grant them the full rights of citizenship. Sometimes, it is for fear of upsetting an important international partner. Other times, it is simply because of their own restrictive immigration policies.  Turghunjan learned to be a tailor from his father, making traditional Pakistani shalwar kameez. His small salary supports his family, which includes his wife and three children. (Illustration by Rebel Pepper) As a refugee, Turghunjan couldn’t attend school. So, instead of becoming an engineer, an early aspiration, he learned to be a tailor from his father, stitching traditional Pakistani shalwar kameez. When his daughter was born, he could not even pick her up from the hospital because he lacked a national ID card. He had to enlist the help of a friend to convince hospital authorities to release her.   Though his children, now aged 17, 12 and 8, go to private schools, they will be unable to attend a university in Pakistan. “Sometimes my daughter says that if we had an ID, she would go to college and study computer engineering,” Turghunjan said. “The conditions are not letting us grow.” Dreaming of the west Despite the challenges, Tursun said he has tried to keep alive their Uyghur culture within his family.  His father has died, but Tursun has kept his almond doppa, a skull cap Uyghurs wear, and his prayer beads, along with his mother’s prayer mat. The family speaks to each other in the Uyghur language. “We follow the Uyghur culture,” Tursun said. “We are Uyghur, so even if we go back to Afghanistan there is nothing for us.” Now the family worries they could be sent back to Afghanistan or even China. Pakistan has threatened to deport Afghan refugees, including the small community of ethnic Uyghurs in Rawalpindi. (Illustration by Rebel Pepper) Like other Uyghur emigres, the Muhammads&#8217; hope now is to reach a Western country better able to resist pressure from China and offer a greater chance for permanence.  Canada’s promise to take in 10,000 Uyghurs refugees &#8211; about the number of ethnic Uyghurs now thought to live in the United States &#8211; is particularly seen as a potential solution. But even in Western countries the process to citizenship is slow and cumbersome. In a report last year, the...
- [‘I am devastated.’ Burmese parents’ horror at burning death of sons](https://ij-reportika.com/i-am-devastated-burmese-parents-horror-at-burning-death-of-sons/): Earlier this month, a video of the burning deaths of two anti-junta fighters was widely viewed by Burmese people on social media. Phoe Tay, 23, and Thar Htaung, 22, were captured Nov. 7, 2023, in fighting between pro-junta forces and resistance fighters at Myauk Khin Yan village in Magway region’s Gangaw township.   The video showed them in shackles as they were interrogated by armed men. They were then dragged to a nearby tree where they were suspended as a fire was set underneath them. The two young men screamed as flames rose up and engulfed them. The video was taken by a villager who fled the area in December, according to a local official from the administration of the shadow National Unity Government. It’s unclear who first posted the video that began circulating in early February. Phoe Tay’s father, Myint Zaw, told Radio Free Asia last week that he was aware of his son’s death but had not seen the video. Edited transcripts of RFA’s interviews with Myint Zaw and the parents of Thar Htaung – Ye San and Soe Linn – are below. Interview with Myint Zaw RFA: We watched the video of the burning alive of two youth People’s Defense Force fighters – Phoe Tay and Thar Htaung. Myint Zaw, what would you like to say first? Myint Zaw: When Phoe Tay died in action, it was immediately posted online. Yes, it is Phoe Tay, my son. He is gone. His life as a human is over.  I learned that he was beaten on the head, beaten on the knees. In one photo, he was on his knees. That image is still springing to my mind. The image is still in my phone.  After that, I didn’t know how he was killed. We could not retrieve the body. Nobody could go there because Myauk Khin Yan is a stronghold village of the pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militias.  Phoe Tay’s father says his son joined the resistance after the 2021 coup. (Provided by family) RFA: You saw photos from just before the burning. Did you watch the video of them being burned alive? What did you hear about this video? Myint Zaw: I haven’t watched it. But there are reports about it, and many people are talking about it. My phone is not available for such things because of poor internet connections.  His friends in the village are horrified by it. “Is it true? They really did that?” People are deeply hurt. They cannot accept such an act. Many people are talking about it.  I heard that they dragged him by tying a rope around his neck and that they burned him alive. So, I’ll never forgive the perpetrators. RFA: Please tell us about Phoe Tay. What was his education?     Myint Zaw: My son, Phoe Tay, is also known as Myo Htet Aung – that was his school registration name. Before the coup, under the National League for Democracy government, he sat for the matriculation exam. Two months after the 2021 coup, when the exam results were announced, he passed with two distinctions. RFA: We learned that he joined the Yaw Defense Force. Why did he join the YDF?     Myint Zaw: When the 2021 coup d’état took place, he was in a jade mine in Hkamti, where he was learning to drive a backhoe. My nephew, his cousin, was driving a backhoe there. He brought my son there.  Then some friends called him and asked him what he was doing. With politics in his mind, he immediately returned home. Then he joined the YDF. RFA: Did he seek permission from you to join the YDF? Myint Zaw: I told my son that if I was your age, I would have already joined the resistance. My son and I had the same opinion. But he did ask for my permission. RFA: Did you talk to him at all after he joined the armed group? Myint Zaw: I still have to take care of his younger brother. After the Thadingyut festival (to celebrate the harvest moon) in October, (Phoe Tay) said we had to initiate the brother as a Buddhist novice.  He said, “Father, I can look after you only when the revolution is over. Please try hard now. We have to initiate my brother as a Buddhist novice monk. I can help you only after the revolution.” I told him not to worry about us. “I’m proud that my son sacrificed for the people and the country. But I feel sad … I am devastated,” says Phoe Tay’s father. (Provided by family) RFA: What do you do to make a living? Myint Zaw: I’m a farmer. There is a land plot given by my mother in Maw Lel village of Gangaw township. I make a living with a rice milling machine. I have a tricycle to transport sand and stones to nearby villages. RFA: On Nov. 7, when Phoe Tay was killed, did the Yaw PDF inform you? How did they inform you? Myint Zaw: They arrived one-and-a-half days later, because they had to come on foot. His comrades looked glum. They came and told us that he was killed and asked us what they should do. RFA: Did the YDF provide your family with cash? Myint Zaw: Yes, they gave us cash. They provided 2 million kyats (about US$950) for Thar Htaung and the same amount for Phoe Tay. RFA: How do you and your family feel about your son being burned alive, killed brutally and inhumanely? Myint Zaw: I’m proud that my son sacrificed for the people and the country. But I feel sad. I don’t want to talk about it. And I don’t know what to say. I am devastated. RFA: Phoe Tay might have been the smartest in the village. He passed his exam with two distinctions. What were his goals? Did he tell you about what he wanted to be? Myint Zaw: He didn’t say exactly. What he used to say was that he...
- [What motivated you to pursue higher education in the USA instead of your home country?](https://ij-reportika.com/motivation-to-pursue-higher-education-in-usa/): Download Complete Report: Click Here Freedom and Comfort Global Perspective Academic Opportunities Education System Concerns Personal Reasons Career Prospects
- [North Korea recalls documentary about Kim Jong Un’s mother](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-recalls-documentary-about-kim-jong-uns-mother/): North Korea has recalled a 2011 documentary that sang the praises of Kim Jong Un’s mother, two sources inside the country told Radio Free Asia, but the move is prompting people to wonder why the country has always maintained a level of secrecy about her identity and background. “Since her biographical information has never been officially stated, the recall on the film is actually raising suspicions,” a resident of the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons.  Most North Koreans don’t know her name – Ko Yong Hui – or that she was born in Osaka, Japan, or that her father, Ko Gyon Taek, managed a military factory in the city prior to the end of World War II.  The documentary, titled “Mother of Great Songun Korea,” leaves out all those facts, the sources said. In lieu of her name, the film referred to her as “respected mother” and showed many scenes of her at Kim Jong Il’s side during his official appearances.  Screenshot of the North Korea-produced documentary ‘Mother of Great Songun Korea’. (lovepink4200 via Youtube) It was distributed internally to high-ranking officials, government agencies, and the military on VCD, or video compact disc, in 2011, the same year that Kim Jong Il died. “Recently, judicial agencies such as the Provincial State Security Department and the Social Security Department have begun rounding up copies of propaganda materials,” the resident said. “Instructions were given to retrieve and delete documentary films related to the general secretary’s biological mother,” he said, explaining that “Mother of Great Songun Korea” was on the undisclosed list of now-banned materials. The recall was also confirmed by a resident of the northern province of Ryanggang, who told RFA in the now-banned documentary that “Ko Yong Hui, is touted as having ‘accumulated great achievements that brought about a bright future’” for North Korea. Made in Japan Ko was raised in Japan as part of the Korean minority in the country, and in 1962, the family moved to North Korea as part of a repatriation program.  In the early 1970s, Ko appeared as a dancer in the Mansudae Art Troupe – a popular group of musicians known for propaganda performances that glorify the state and its leaders. It is not known when she got together with Kim Jong Il, but she is believed to have met him in the early 1970s, and she bore him three children in the 1980s, including Kim Jong Un. Though most sources describe her as having been his mistress, some suggest she may have been his third wife. The government has never acknowledged any marriage between them, however. Screenshot of the North Korea-produced documentary ‘Mother of Great Songun Korea’. (lovepink4200 via Youtube) According to North Korea’s songbun caste system, Ko would be of the lowest caste because she was born in Japan, her father’s job supported the Japanese war effort, and her occupation as a dancer – which would tarnish Kim Jong Un’s image. Ko’s background does not neatly fit the nation’s founding myth that its leaders are descended from the so-called Paektu Line, named after the Korean peninsula’s tallest mountain, which is the setting of many of the Korean nation’s founding myths, including the lore of the Kim Dynasty. Kim’s grandfather, national founder Kim Il Sung is the progenitor of the line, and his first wife Kim Jong Suk – Kim Jong Il’s mother – fought alongside her husband in his guerilla army against Japanese rule prior to and during World War II, giving Kim Jong Il near mythical status as the legitimate son of two popular national heroes. “In the past, previous leaders inherited power based on the purity of the Paektu bloodline and the legitimacy of revolutionary traditions,” the North Hamgyong resident said.  “Details about the birth and lives of the leaders as well as their siblings, parents, grandparents and great-grandparents, were made public and promoted as patriotic examples.” Erasing sensitive information? In contrast, Kim Jong Un, due to his mother’s background, could be seen not as a third-generation revolutionary leader, but the illegitimate son of Kim Jong Il’s Japan-born mistress whose father supported the imperialist war effort. Screenshot of the North Korea-produced documentary ‘Mother of Great Songun Korea’. (lovepink4200 via Youtube) If it becomes widely known, that support of imperial Japan could cause problems for Kim Jong Un, Bruce Bennett, a senior researcher at the California-based RAND Corporation, told RFA. &#8220;Kim is trying to wipe out anything that would potentially challenge his control of the country,” said Bennett. “So the issue of his maternal grandfather having supported the Japanese I mean that&#8217;s something that could really hurt him potentially.  “And so that&#8217;s part of the history he wants to get rid of,” he said. Bennett said erasing facts about his mother might marginally help his case to stay in power, but it would be more helpful were he to improve the economy and his people’s lives. Screenshot of the North Korea-produced documentary ‘Mother of Great Songun Korea’. (lovepink4200 via Youtube) The lack of available information about Ko is causing residents to question what they have been told about their leader, Kim Jong Un, the Ryanggang resident said. “As the biography of the leader has not been made public even after him having been in power for 12 years, some are raising doubts about the identity of his mysterious birth mother,” he said. “The argument is that if there is no dishonorable family history in the pure Paektu bloodline, there is no reason not to disclose details about her.” Kim Jong Il was able to claim that his hereditary succession was legitimate because of the purity of his lineage to the Paektu bloodline, the second resident said.  Kim Jong Un claims the same lineage, but the secrecy appears to be giving people doubts. “Given the actions of the authorities, who are ordering the recall and destruction of copies of the already released documentary film about his mother, people are questioning whether his...
- [Myanmar rebels claim junta outpost on Bangladesh border](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-rebels-claim-junta-outpost-on-bangladesh-border/): An ethnic minority insurgent group has captured a junta base on Myanmar’s border with Bangladesh, sources close to the rebel group told Radio Free Asia on Friday. The Arakan Army, or AA, which resumed its battle against the junta for territory in Myanmar’s west in November, controls nine townships in Rakhine state and one in Chin state. In January, the AA turned its focus to Maungdaw, a strategic township for border relations with Bangladesh. On Thursday, AA troops captured junta Border Guard Station No. 6 in Inn Din village. Nearly 600 soldiers were stationed at the guard post, said one resident who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons. “The border guards, combined with forces from other outposts, were stationed in that camp,” he said. “A junta division commander was also posted there. There are many casualties from the junta side and some soldiers ran away.” In late May, junta airstrikes killed one civilian and wounded nearly a dozen in Maungdaw township. The AA launched an unsuccessful offensive against the same border post on Jan. 5, but were held back by the junta’s combined navy, air force and army.  RFA tried to contact AA spokesperson Khaing Thukha and Rakhine state’s junta spokesperson Hla Thein, but neither responded by the time of publication.  Junta troops built the post in 2017 after destroying a predominantly ethnic minority Rohingya village that was located there, residents told RFA.  The AA is also attacking Maungdaw’s Myin Hlut-based Border Guard Station No. 9. The insurgent group captured Maungdaw’s Border Police Command Office No. 1, which is the largest junta camp in Maungdaw township, residents said, adding that only five junta-occupied border guard posts remain in the township.  Rebels are maintaining attacks on Ann, Thandwe and Maungdaw townships, where the junta’s Western Regional Military Headquarters for Rakhine state is based. A ceasefire between the AA and the military broke down in November, at the same time that other ethnic minority and pro-democracy insurgents launched attacks that have put forces of the junta that seized power in 2021 under unprecedented pressure. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.
- [Australian journalist Vicky Xu starts a new life in Taiwan](https://ij-reportika.com/australian-journalist-vicky-xu-starts-a-new-life-in-taiwan/): Vicky Xu, a Chinese-born Australian journalist who was the target of a widespread campaign of online abuse by agents and supporters of Beijing after she exposed forced labor in Xinjiang, is fighting back against Chinese Communist Party propaganda by living her best life in democratic Taiwan, she told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview. Xu, 29, has been learning martial arts and living a quiet life in Taiwan after quitting social media in the wake of trolling by pro-China accounts, who labeled her &#8220;anti-China&#8221; and &#8220;a traitor&#8221; as well as circulating fake nude photos of her. &#8220;It&#8217;s not I who&#8217;s the traitor,&#8221; Xu said indignantly. &#8220;It&#8217;s the Chinese Communist Party.&#8221; She said the government, who criticized her via state media in the wake of her expose of forced labor in Xinjiang, was betraying its own people. Vicky Xu in Taipei, June 6, 2024.(Lee Tsung-han/RFA) Xu co-authored a report on forced labor in the region that was published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, or ASPI, in 2021. Xu has previously also written for both the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and The New York Times. Xu has since reopened some social media accounts, and was drawn to Taiwan because she is unable to go back to China now, and regards it as a relatively safe place from which to stand and face her demons, the traumatic legacy of the online abuse campaign. Since being followed and stalked in Australia in the wake of the ASPI report, Xu said she now reacts with fear when she encounters people of East Asian appearance while out and about, and wanted to live for a while in Taiwan to overcome that phobia. &#8220;My main impression since I&#8217;ve been living here is that people can live decently, and with dignity,&#8221; Xu said, adding that part of the draw was being able to speak Mandarin and eat Chinese food. &#8220;It feels like a parallel universe, another China,&#8221; she said. &#8220;It&#8217;s a great place, and people who know me and know what I do respect me, or are even proud of me,&#8221; she said. Vicky Xu plays the violin in an undated photo. (Courtesy of Vicky Xu) &#8220;There are so many issues in China where the government doesn&#8217;t treat people like human beings, and then the people themselves don&#8217;t treat each other as human beings,&#8221; Xu said. &#8220;The situation is very serious, and I think it needs to change.&#8221; &#8220;Even if people abuse me in China, I still care about their interests, and about their safety,&#8221; Xu said. &#8220;For me, as a journalist, telling the truth is the most important thing. There&#8217;s no point otherwise; I don&#8217;t want to waste my life.&#8221; ‘Betrayed’ Xu was once a staunch supporter of the Chinese Communist Party, getting the five stars from China&#8217;s national flag tattooed on her ankle and posing on Tiananmen Square as a young woman from a small city in the western province of Gansu, a stop on the high-speed railway linking Xinjiang with the northwestern city of Lanzhou. Vicky Xu shows off her tattoo of the five stars from the Chinese national flag in Beijing&#8217;s Tiananmen Square. (Courtesy of Vicky Xu) She studied English-language broadcasting at Beijing&#8217;s Communications University, before accidentally finding out the truth about the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre on a trip to Australia, which she describes as a &#8220;betrayal&#8221; for the young patriot she once was. &#8220;I was so shocked because it was a huge example of how the Chinese Communist Party betrayed its own people,&#8221; she said. &#8220;June 4, 1989, was a huge stain on the history of Communist Party rule.&#8221; &#8220;The Chinese people are educated to be loyal to the party, and to love the party, but that&#8217;s not possible for a normal and logical person &#8230; because the party doesn&#8217;t love you,&#8221; she said. &#8220;It just wants to suppress everything, including the concentration camps in Xinjiang and all kinds of human rights abuses.&#8221; For Xu, who once bought the party line that the massacre was CIA propaganda, the revelation was a turning point. Vicky Xu testifies on transnational repression by Beijing at the Czech Parliament. Undated. (Courtesy of Vicky Xu) &#8220;[It] was the starting point for my political enlightenment, and for my doubts about the legitimacy of Communist Party rule,&#8221; she said. She said she secretly visited a number of survivors, family members of victims and former police officers in a bid to understand more about what happened that summer. Xi ruling through his own trauma Eventually, Xu dropped out of her broadcasting degree and went to Australia to study politics instead. Since then, she has come to an understanding of the Communist Party under Xi Jinping as the product of multiple generations of trauma. Vicky Xu entertains guests with her stand-up comedy routine. (Courtesy of Vicky Xu) &#8220;I really think Xi Jinping is ruling the country through his trauma, because very controlling people are usually acting from a deep sense of fear,&#8221; Xu said. &#8220;During the Cultural Revolution, his father was put in prison and his step-sister committed suicide, while Xi was ostracized by the rest of the offspring of party leaders and locked up in the party school.&#8221; &#8220;When he escaped and ran back home to get something to eat from his own family kitchen, his own mother reported him to the authorities,&#8221; she said. Xi should be getting psychotherapy, she said, but that nobody would dare to offer it to him. Xu has even made these ideas into a stand-up comedy routine about &#8220;giving Xi Jinping a hug,&#8221; that she performs from time to time. Death threats Yet Xu still has times when she feels isolated, and remains vigilant for any sign of surveillance or harassment from supporters of Beijing, following her experiences elsewhere. &#8220;I have received threats of death and sexual violence,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I had people standing guard in front of my home, and even intruding into the house to take pictures for no reason.&#8221; Vicky Xu speaks to RFA Mandarin, June 6, 2024.(Lee Tsung-han/RFA) &#8220;When...
- [Conscription in Myanmar drives insurgent recruits: civilian government](https://ij-reportika.com/conscription-in-myanmar-drives-insurgent-recruits-civilian-government/): Nearly 1,000 people eligible for conscription into the Myanmar military’s ranks are instead seeking training from the shadow civilian government’s armed forces, the group announced.  The junta, which seized power in 2021 and has since faced increasing desertions and military losses nationwide, announced the implementation of the People’s Military Service Law in February. The military has since recruited about 9,000 people through two rounds of conscription based on a lottery system. Many young people have fled the country out of fear that they may be drafted. Recruitment by junta soldiers has involved coercing young people, including minors, threatening violence or property destruction and most recently, threats and heavy fines for parents of draft dodgers as a third round of conscription approaches, residents say. About 960 people have chosen to seek training under the civilian National Unity Government’s People&#8217;s Defense Forces, or militias opposing the junta, the group’s southern military office said in a statement on Wednesday. The statement included photos of a recent graduation. The N.U.G. was formed by members of the civilian administration ousted in the February 2021 coup. A 28-year-old man eligible for military conscription under the junta in central Myanmar’s Mandalay Division told RFA he initially planned on going abroad, like many people already have, but he was now aiming to join anti-junta forces. “At first I was hesitant to put my family at risk but now I canceled my preparations to go abroad and work and have decided to take up arms. Now I am preparing and am still trying to connect with the training group,” he said, asking to remain anonymous for security reasons.  “I can’t take it anymore, mainly because of the [junta’s] injustice, the way they are killing and torturing people. Most young people would make the same decision. This is the only way left for us to root out the military dictatorship.” The National Unity Government’s Southern Military Headquarters No. 3 began accepting trainees to undergo basic military courses in April and May, it said in its statement. RFA phoned the headquarters for more information, but it could not be contacted due to limited telecommunications access. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 
- [China sends glacial water from Tibet to the Maldives, raising concerns](https://ij-reportika.com/china-sends-glacial-water-from-tibet-to-the-maldives-raising-concerns/): China gifted 3,000 metric tons of Tibet’s glacial water to the island nation of the Maldives in two separate batches in March and May — the same months it unveiled and implemented water conservation regulations at home. The Water Conservation Regulations set limits on water usage within administrative regions and prioritize water conversation work in Tibet and other parts of China.  They were issued by China’s State Council on March 20, a week before it sent the first delivery of 1,500 metric tons of water in jugs to the Maldives, which is experiencing a scarcity of fresh water.  The regulations then went into effect on May 1, weeks before China donated the second batch of water jugs.  China finalized the deal with the Maldives during a November 2023 visit by Yan Jinhai, chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region, to the low-lying archipelago threatened by rising sea levels. The Maldives has forged strong bilateral relations with China and is a beneficiary of the Belt and Road Initiative, under which it has borrowed more than US$1 billion from Chinese banks in the past decade, according to Western think tanks.  Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu signed 20 agreements, including one for financial and military assistance, with Beijing during his inaugural state visit to China in January 2024.   The Maldives thanked the people of Tibet for their “generous donation,” which it expects will greatly support its island communities. Its freshwater resources are affected by erratic rainfall patterns and rising sea levels. Water shortages in Tibet But Tibetans inside Tibet said they face water shortages themselves because Chinese authorities have implemented systematic water conservation and management campaigns across various Tibetan villages and towns for over a decade. This has occurred while authorities have restricted the availability of water and set limits on water usage at the local level. “I have heard that China is donating bottled water from Tibet to other parts of the world for free for political gain,” said one source from the Tibet Autonomous Region, where Chinese authorities have carried out water conservation campaigns for over a decade.  “However, in Tibet, the local Tibetans do not have enough drinking water,” he said. “At times there isn’t enough water to even brush our teeth.” On March 27, the same day the Maldives said it received the first batch of water, the Water Conservancy Bureau of Ngari Prefecture, or Ali in Chinese, the birthplace of key South Asian rivers, began a series of year-long events for the general public to promote water conservation. In Nyingtri city, or Linzhi in Chinese, authorities have implemented the strictest water resources management system over the past several years and boast of its effectiveness.  “The water used to wash rice and vegetables can be used to mop the floor and water the flowers. &#8230; Nowadays, water-saving behaviors like this have become a conscious action of many citizens,” said a 2023 announcement by the city government. Meanwhile, Tibetans who have grown up on their ancestral land in Gangkar township in Dingri county, called Tingri in Chinese, are being forced to relocate to make way for the expansion of China’s water bottling facilities and industry, two sources said.  “Gangkar is known for its fertile pastureland and significant water resources from glaciers with 15 water springs in the region, which the local Tibetans have always relied on for their livelihoods,” said the first source.  Chinese authorities plan to move about 430 residents to take control of the water resources from the land, he said. Weaponizing water China’s move signals it is engaging in “water politics” and playing the long game for geopolitical gains in South Asia, experts said.  The Chinese government has projects underway to extract clean, clear and mineral-rich water to support the expansion of its premium mineral bottled water industry, they said. Beijing also wants to control water flows to lower riparian states such as India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, to further its own aspiration of regional dominance, experts said. “The imperative to address the threat of China weaponizing water in Tibet cannot be overstated,” wrote scholars Neeraj Singh Manhas and Rahul Lad in a March report titled &#8220;China&#8217;s Weaponization of Water in Tibet A Lesson for the Lower Riparian States&#8221; in the Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs. With approximately 87,000 dams built, China poses a historic threat, having already dammed most internal rivers, they add, while calling for proactive measures to implement enduring policies to protect these vital Tibet’s water resources. Tibet is at the forefront of China’s “water wars” in the region, said Anushka Saxena, a research analyst at the Takshashila Institution, a public policy think tank in India.  Tibet’s eight major transboundary river systems have the capacity to turn China into “Asia’s water hegemon,” given that their water can be used for both domestic economic and foreign policy-related interests, as well as can be weaponized to cause harm to lower riparian states, she said. “In that light, China’s moves vis-à-vis export of water to Maldives cannot be isolated from the larger approach China is adopting to using Tibet’s water resources,” she added.
- [Five dead, 20 missing in Myanmar landslide](https://ij-reportika.com/five-dead-20-missing-in-myanmar-landslide/): Updated June 5, 2024, 06:18 a.m. ET. Rescue workers in northern Myanmar recovered the bodies of five mine workers, including one Chinese national, on Wednesday and were searching for missing victims of a landslide at a rare earths mine, residents told Radio Free Asia. The landslide in Kachin State’s Chipwi township trapped 25 people in a shaft early on Tuesday, they said. Resource-rich Kachin State, which has rare earth and jade mines, has been the site of  of a surge in clashes between the junta and an ethnic minority insurgent force, the Kachin Independence Army, since early this year. The landslide occurred during regular operations at the rare earth mine near Chinese Border Post No. 3, about eight km (five miles) from Pang War village, said one witness who declined to be identified for security reasons.  “There was a landslide when I was working and around 20 people were in there, including a Chinese site manager,” he said. “These landslides are a continuous problem lately because it is rainy season.” Rescue officials were searching for 20 people still missing, residents and mine workers said.  Three Chinese nationals were believed to be among the missing, the witness said, adding that junta forces had tightened security at the site and forbidden photographs, threatening a fine of 5,000 Chinese yuan (US$ 703) for anyone taking a picture. RFA telephoned Kachin State’s junta spokesperson, Moe Min Thein, for more information but calls went unanswered. The Chinese embassy did not respond to an emailed request for comment by the time of publication. Rescue operations had been complicated because the land was still collapsing at the mine, said another resident, who asked to remain anonymous because of the junta’s media blackout. A woman aged 19 who had been selling things at the mine was among the missing, said the resident. “The rest are all men,” he said. “It’s difficult to search even now because the mountain is still collapsing.” Two landslides occurred in a nearby rare earth mine near Pang War village on May 27 and 29, killing two workers, he said. The environmental group Global Witness said in a report last month that rare earth mining production increased by 40% in Pang War between 2021 and 2023. The area is under the control of junta-led militias and pro-junta border guards, and more than 300 mining sites have been developed there since the military seized power in a coup in early 2021, Global Witness said. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.  Updates number of missing.
- [Animal welfare group calls for end to dog and cat meat trade in Vietnam](https://ij-reportika.com/animal-welfare-group-calls-for-end-to-dog-and-cat-meat-trade-in-vietnam/): A global animal welfare organization has begun a campaign in three major Vietnamese cities, calling for an end to the trade of dog and cat meat for human consumption, according to state media reports. The Vienna, Austria-based group, Four Paws, says the animals are killed cruelly and that the meat poses health risks from rabies and other diseases. Calling its campaign “Journey of Love,” the group is organizing educational activities in Ho Chi Minh City, Danang and Hanoi to raise people’s awareness about the negative aspects of the dog and cat meat business. “We believe now is the time to take immediate action against dog and cat meat trading activities, especially given the increasing incidence of diseases and epidemics,” Phan Thanh Dung, an officer from Four Paws’ Companion Animal Campaign, was quoted as saying by the Vietnam Law Newspaper. Every year, about 6 million dogs and cats are caught, transported and slaughtered for their meat in Vietnam, according to Four Paws. Most of them are stolen from communities or strays taken from the streets. Vendors in wet markets openly sell dead dogs and cats alongside live ones crammed into cages and waiting to be killed for human consumption, according to an August 2022 report by We Animal Media, an animal photojournalism agency that documents stories of animals used for human purposes. While the sale and consumption of dog meat is legal in Vietnam, the government banned the consumption of cats in 1998 but then canceled the directive in 2020, the report said.  Those who eat dog and cat meat run the risk of infection from potentially deadly bacterial diseases and parasites such as E. coli and salmonella, which are commonly found in contaminated meats, the report said.  Animal rights groups and Vietnamese activists have been working to end the practices of selling and consuming dog and cat meat, given the poor conditions in which the animals are kept and the killing process conducted in view of other animals. In late 2023, Four Paws and the People’s Committee of Hoi An, whose ancient town in central Vietnam is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, closed one of the municipality’s last remaining dog meat restaurants.  A survey conducted by Four Paws in Vietnam in early 2021 indicated that 91% of people believed the government should ban the dog and cat meat trade.  Also, 95% of respondents said they believed that eating dog and cat meat was not part of Vietnamese culture, and therefore supported ending the trade. Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [US Defense Secretary visits Cambodia amid concern about China](https://ij-reportika.com/us-defense-secretary-visits-cambodia-amid-concern-about-china/): U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin arrived in Phnom Penh on Tuesday for a brief visit, days after Cambodia and China wrapped up their biggest ever military exercise. During his one-day visit, Austin will meet top Cambodian officials “to discuss defense issues with the new Cambodian leadership,” the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh said in a statement.   “This is the first bilateral visit by a U.S. Secretary of Defense, and it is the second for Secretary Austin following his attendance at the ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting-Plus in November 2022,” it said. Austin arrived in Cambodia from Singapore where he attended the annual Shangri-La Dialogue security forum. During the conference, the secretary sought to reassure U.S. allies of Washington’s “iron-clad” commitment in the region in the face of growing rivalry with China. China and Cambodia have just held a 15-day military exercise, both on land and at sea, with the participation of three Chinese warships, two of which have been in Cambodia for six months at the Ream naval base. The two corvettes were still seen docked at the base in Sihanoukville on Monday. The U.S government has said it has “serious concerns” about China’s plans for exclusive control over portions of the Ream Naval Base. Cambodia has repeatedly denied handing the base over to China. U.S.-Cambodian relations have become strained during the past decade partly over U.S. concerns about the suppression of Cambodia’s political opposition. In 2017, the Cambodian government suspended the joint Angkor Sentinel exercises between the two militaries and in 2018, the U.S. government suspended military assistance to Cambodia in response to its suppression of the  opposition. Cambodia under veteran leader Hun Sen rejected U.S. criticism of its domestic political conditions and built closer relations with China. Hun Sen stepped down as prime minister last year with his son, Hun Manet, taking over Turning a new page? Soon after arriving in Phnom Penh, Austin paid a courtesy call on Hun Sen, who is now president of the Senate. Hun Sen was accompanied by former defense minister Tea Banh in  the meeting. Austin also met  Prime Minister Hun Manet, a West Point military academy graduate, and Defense Minister Tea Seiha. Hun Manet and Tea Seiha are Hun Sen’s and Tea Banh’s sons, respectively. Chhengpor Aun, research fellow at The Future Forum, a Cambodian think-tank, said Austin’s visit gave Cambodia’s new leaders the opportunity to highlight more balance in their country’s diplomacy. “Secretary Austin will be much welcomed in Phnom Penh in general because his presence will help back up the Cambodian government’s attempt to prove it is still on the course of its promised neutrality in foreign relations,” said Chhengpor Aun. &#8220;The Ream naval base, the ever-growing Sino-Cambodian defense relations, and strained military-to-military ties between Phnom Penh and Washington will highly likely dominate Secretary Austin’s meetings with senior Cambodian officials.” Sailors stand guard near petrol boats at the Cambodian Ream Naval Base in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, July 26, 2019. (Reuters/Samrang Pring) Another analyst – Nguyen Khac Giang, visiting fellow at Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute – said that Austin&#8217;s decision to visit Cambodia instead of the close ally the Philippines or newly elevated strategic comprehensive partner Vietnam, “reflects the U.S.’s attempt to reconcile deteriorating U.S.-Cambodia relations.” “With Phnom Penh successfully transitioning leadership from Hun Sen to his son Hun Manet, Washington likely views this as a good moment for rapprochement,” Giang told Radio Free Asia, adding that while sensitive topics such as Chinese influence and the Ream naval base are likely be discussed, he thinks both sides “will focus more on potential cooperation and common interests, particularly as Cambodia will serve as the coordinator of the U.S.-ASEAN Dialogue Relations from 2024 to 2027.” The state-aligned Khmer Times newspaper said that with Hun Manet’s “outward-looking policies,” there’s a unique prospect to recalibrate any misunderstanding and to start a new chapter in the two countries’ relationship, provided that both sides “are genuinely sincere with each other.” The article by Pou Sothirak, senior advisor to the Cambodian Center for Regional Studies, and Him Raksmey, executive director of the Cambodian Center for Regional Studies suggested that the first thing for the U.S. to do wais to rethink its policy of targeted sanctions on Cambodian officials and members of the business elite, and restrictions on trade preferences “which are ineffective and counterproductive, compelling Cambodia deeper into economic reliance on China.” The Future Forum’s Chhengpor Aun agreed that the new generation of Cambodian leaders “presents a window of opportunities for improvement of U.S. relations” as Cambodia wants to secure a stable state of relations with the U.S., now its biggest export destination. Cambodia sold US$8.89 billion worth of goods to the U.S. in 2023, about 40% of its total exports, according to the Cambodian General Department of Customs and Excise.  However, “if the visit aims to woo Cambodia away from China or to push political reforms in Phnom Penh, Secretary Austin can be disappointed,” said Chhengpor Aun. “Sino-Cambodian ties are important for Phnom Penh political elites – be it the old guards or the new princeling generation – in terms of political and regime security,” he said. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Myanmar democracy champion Thura Tin Oo, dead at 98](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-democracy-champion-thura-tin-oo-dead-at-98/): Thura Tin Oo, the patron of Myanmar’s National League for Democracy party, which was overthrown by the military in a 2021 coup d’etat, has died at the age of 98, according to family and party members. He was admitted to Yangon Hospital’s cardiac care unit on May 29 due to deteriorating health and later transferred to the hospital’s intensive care unit, where he passed away on Saturday morning, his grandson Thet Thut Oo told RFA Burmese. “We will be keeping grandpa at Windermere House No. 30 for the next five days” for funeral proceedings, Thet Thut Oo said, referring to the family’s estate. Sai Nyunt Lwin, another champion of democracy and the chairman of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy Party, told RFA that he and Thura Tin Oo had “shared a strong bond.” &#8220;We knew each other since our early days working in the NLD,” he said, using an acronym for the National League for Democracy. “His passing on a day when the NLD is facing significant challenges adds to our grief.&#8221; Born on March 12, 1927, in Ayeyarwady region’s Pathein township, Thura Tin Oo served as the fourth Commander-in-Chief of the Myanmar army from 1974-1976, and was awarded the country’s prestigious Zayya Kyawhtin and Thura Medals. He joined the NLD party in 1988 at its inception, alongside former state counsellor and democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, who was jailed by the junta along with other party leaders in the aftermath of the military’s Feb. 1, 2021 coup. The junta refused to allow Aung San Suu Kyi to attend Thura Tin Oo’s funeral, although she was permitted to send flowers via junta officials, NLD members told RFA. Suu Kyi, 78, was initially sentenced by the junta to 33 years on 19 charges, a sentence that was later reduced to 27 years. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate is believed to be in solitary confinement in Naypyidaw Prison, in the capital, but her exact whereabouts are unknown. A previous junta imprisoned Thura Tin Oo for eight months and kept him under house arrest for five years following the Depayin massacre in May 2003, when a junta-backed mob killed dozens of NLD members in Sagaing region. He suffered a stroke in 2017 after falling at his home and had difficulty speaking because of his condition. Dedicated to serving others But writer Htin Lin Oo, who cared for Thura Tin Oo during his hospitalization, said that despite his health problems, the politician had remained dedicated to serving others up until his passing. &#8220;If we were to liken him to cranes that risk their lives for the survival of their descendants, then Thura Tin Oo was a crane that flew relentlessly from the front lines until his last breath,&#8221; he said. Myanmar&#8217;s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, right, flanked by vice-chairmen Tin Oo, left, of the National League for Democracy, makes her weekend speech to her supporters from her residential gate in Yangon Sunday, July 7, 1996. (Richard Vogel/AP) NLD members told RFA that the junta refused to allow Aung San Suu Kyi to attend Thura Tin Oo’s funeral, although she was permitted to send flowers via junta officials. Suu Kyi, 78, was initially sentenced by the junta to 33 years on 19 charges, a sentence that was later reduced to 27 years. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate is believed to be in solitary confinement in Naypyidaw Prison, in the capital, but her exact whereabouts are unknown. Nay Phone Latt, the spokesperson of the Prime Minister&#8217;s Office of Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, or NUG, expressed sadness that Thura Tin Oo had died before the junta was removed from power. &#8220;During a period when there is significant potential to completely eliminate the military dictatorship, we want leaders like Thura Tin Oo to remain with us until the rebellion’s conclusion,” he said. “It saddens me deeply that he passed away before reaching the end of the journey, as he was instrumental in leading the struggle for democracy.&#8221; The NLD also suffered the loss of Nyan Win, a top party official and former advisor to Suu Kyi, when he died from COVID-19 in prison in July 2021. A resident of Yangon told RFA that the loss of leaders like Thura Tin Oo and Nyan Win is “truly disheartening” for the country. &#8220;Thura Tin Oo made significant sacrifices for the country throughout his life,” said the resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. “Losing such an esteemed patron is akin to Suu Kyi losing one of her pillars of support … My sole concern now is for Suu Kyi’s well-being.&#8221; Translated by Kalyar Lwin. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
- [South Korea to suspend inter-Korean military pact over trash balloons](https://ij-reportika.com/south-korea-to-suspend-inter-korean-military-pact-over-trash-balloons/): South Korea decided on Monday to suspend a 2018 inter-Korean tension reduction pact until “mutual trust is restored” in a response to North Korea’s sending of nearly 1,000 trash-filled balloons to the South.  The 9/19 Comprehensive Military Agreement, signed on Sept. 19, 2018, aimed at defusing tension and avoiding war, was implemented after a meeting between South Korea’s then-president Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The presidential National Security Council held a meeting to evaluate North Korea’s recent behavior and agreed to propose a motion suspending the agreement at a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday. “The attendees decided to submit a proposal to suspend the entire effectiveness of the September 19 Military Agreement until mutual trust between the two Koreas is restored,” the presidential office said in a release.  North Korea has sent waves of trash-filled balloons into the South since Thursday in what it said was a tit-for-tat campaign against South Korean activists sending balloons carrying propaganda material denouncing the North’s regime. South Korea’s National Security Adviser Chang Ho-jin said on Sunday the government would take “unbearable” measures against the North in response to its balloons and its jamming of GPS signals last week.  The anger over the balloons has raised speculation that South Korea might resume propaganda campaigns via loudspeakers along the border. The loudspeakers used to air criticism of the Kim Jong Un regime’s human rights abuses, as well as news and K-pop songs, to the fury of the North. To resume the front-line broadcasts, it would be necessary to nullify the 2018 inter-Korean military agreement. Hours after South Korea’s warning, North Korea said it would suspend its cross-border balloon campaign, though it also threatened to resume it if anti-Pyongyang leaflets were sent from South Korea. The North said its balloon campaign was launched purely in response to leaflets sent by South Korean activists. Fighters for a Free North Korea, a Seoul-based organization that floated anti-Pyongyang balloons over the North last month, said on Monday that it would consider stopping sending leaflets only if the North apologized for sending its trash-bearing balloons to the South.  “We send facts, loves, medications, one-dollar bills, dramas and trot music to the North, but how come they send us waste and trash?” the organization said in a statement, referring to a type of Korean music.  “North Korea leader Kim Jong Un should immediately apologize.” Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Tiananmen – 35 years later](https://ij-reportika.com/tiananmen-35-years-later/): Download the poster here   June 4 marks the 35th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre, in which the People’s Liberation Army killed hundreds, possibly thousands of civilians, stamping out weeks of protests in the heart of China’s capital. The government still suppresses mention and memorializing of the 1989 killings in Beijing.
- [Chinese defense minister denounces ‘outside forces’ at security forum](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-defense-minister-denounces-outside-forces-at-security-forum/): Chinese Minister of National Defense Dong Jun launched an acerbic attack on what he called the “hegemonic powers” behind tension in the Asia-Pacific, a clear swipe at the United States and its allies. In an address to the annual Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore, Adm. Dong said that people in the Asia-Pacific are “independent and self-reliant,” and were “against any attempt to turn our countries into vassal states or draw us into bloc confrontations.” “Our people have firmly rejected infiltration, sabotage and coercion by outside forces,” the minister said, adding that regional countries “despise those who attempt to bolster themselves by taking orders from hegemonic powers.” Dong also said China had exercised great restraint in the face of what he called “infringements and provocations” but warned “there is a limit to our restraint.” Beijing has repeatedly accused Washington of assisting Taipei and Manila to stand up to its assertive actions in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea. The Pentagon last month deployed an intermediate range missile system in the Philippines during the annual Balikatan military drills, which Beijing condemned as bringing &#8220;huge risks of war into the region.&#8221; The U.S. House of Representatives has recently passed an $8-billion package to help Taiwan boost its defense capabilities against China. Dong said  that “some external interfering forces keep hollowing out the One China principle with the salami slicing strategy.” “They have cooked up Taiwan-related legislations and continued to sell arms to Taiwan and have illegal official contacts with it.” The minister, who took office five months ago after his predecessor was removed over suspected corruption, went on a lengthy tirade against Taiwanese leaders who he called “Taiwan independence separatists.” China considers the democratic island one of its provinces and Dong said that China “will take resolute actions to curb Taiwan independence and make sure such a plot never succeeds.” He accused Taiwan’s leaders of “betrayal of the Chinese nation and their ancestors,” and said they would be &#8220;nailed to the pillar of shame in history.&#8221;  “The Taiwan question is at the core of China’s core interests,” the minister said. “Anyone who supports Taiwan independence will only end in self-destruction.” Cadets gather during an open day at the PLA Naval Submarine Academy, in Qingdao, Shandong province, China April 21, 2024. (Reuters/Florence Lo) Defense analyst Malcolm Davis from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, or ASPI, said that Dong “made clear a willingness for China to use force to prevent independence and respond to any external forces involved in supporting Taiwan.” “It was a fairly predictable speech and very much the &#8216;party line&#8217; with little in the way of new comments. In effect this was a propaganda speech and not an accurate statement of Chinese policy,” Davis said. ‘Wolf warriors’ But Dong’s tone did seem more combative than that of his predecessor, Li Shangfu, he added. “On the South China Sea, he issued a warning that China won&#8217;t rule out the use of force specifically in relation to the Philippines and the support of the United States,” the Canberra-based analyst said, “That suggests to me that China does intend to escalate the crisis, and has singled out the Philippines as their focus with the goal being to coerce Manila to capitulate to Chinese interests.” Unlike Li and his predecessors, Dong is not a member of the Central Military Commission of the Chinese communist party – the highest national defense organization. “That may be the reason behind Dong’s tough statements to show his clout and get a promotion,” said an Asian analyst who didn’t want to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue. A Chinese academic praised Dong’s speech and said his attendance at the conference helped bring “China’s real voice” to the world. “The Shangri-La Dialogue as a major security forum bears a great relevance to China,” said Gao Zhikai, vice president of the Center for China and Globalization and chair professor at China’s Soochow University. “It is important that China’s voice, which is increasingly in sharp contrast to that of the U.S., be heard.” Several other Chinese delegates also promoted Beijing’s views at the forum, in a forthright manner known as “wolf warrior” diplomacy. The term, adopted from the title of a Chinese movie, describes an assertive, even aggressive, approach to international relations. Chinese delegate, Maj. Gen. Xu Hui, asks a question at the Shangri-La Dialogue, in Singapore, May 31, 2024. (Reuters/Edgar Su) Maj. Gen. Xu Hui, president of the International College of Defense Studies at China’s National Defense University, confronted Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. after the latter’s keynote speech on Friday, saying that Manila was risking ruining the “long-earned, long-lasting peace” within ASEAN by responding to Chinese vessels’ activities in the disputed South China Sea. On Saturday, another Chinese delegate, Senior Col. Cao Yanzhong, a researcher at China’s Institute of War Studies, questioned U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin about the U.S. alliance system in the region which Beijing compares to “an Asian version of NATO.” During a session on ‘Maritime Law Enforcement and Confidence Building’ on Saturday, another Chinese delegate, Senior Col. Ge Hanwen, associate professor at the College of International Studies at China’s National University of Defense Technology, blamed the Philippines for “dramatically” raising tensions in the region and Japan for using water cannons first in a confrontation at sea. Austin and Dong met for about an hour at the conference on Friday for talks aimed at improving their communications, a U.S. official said. New regional order A Western observer at the forum, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Radio Free Asia that the Chinese delegates are “on a mission to spread Beijing’s messages and their statements are pre-scripted and pre-approved by the [communist] party.” Beijing-based Gao denied that.  “It is only normal that people from all walks of life, including military officers, talk about the topics of their interest,” Gao said. “China attends a lot of international forums because we believe in having our voice heard by as many people as possible.” Dong acknowledged...
- [New school for overseas Tibetan kids aims to preserve language](https://ij-reportika.com/new-school-for-overseas-tibetan-kids-aims-to-preserve-language/): In a bid to help preserve Tibet’s language and culture, a nonprofit organization in northern India is transforming one of its facilities into a boarding school where children of Tibetans living overseas can go to live and study. The Dharamsala, India-based school being created by the Tibetan Children’s Villages, or TCV, is accepting applications for the academic year starting Aug. 1 for children entering grades four to eight.  There are already several Tibetan boarding schools elsewhere in India, but this will be the first time one is being created for the children of overseas Tibetans. The Lower Tibetan Children’s Villages school (TCV) is seen in Dharamsala, India. (TCV) The move comes as China intensifies its policies to suppress — or even eradicate — Tibetan and other ethnic languages and cultures and replace them with Mandarin and Han Chinese customs. Chinese officials in Tibet and in Tibetan-populated areas in China’s western provinces are using government-run boarding schools to assimilate Tibetan children culturally, religiously and linguistically, rights groups say. Schools become ‘battleground’ Tibetan students are being forcibly removed from their homes and immersed in a Mandarin-language curriculum without an opportunity to learn the Tibetan language or culture. “Tibetan schools are the battleground for CCP ideology,” said Kai Mueller, the Berlin-based executive director and head of U.N. advocacy at the International Campaign for Tibet, referring to the Chinese Communist Party. “We have noted so many forms of indoctrination towards Tibetan children in school that it is quite astounding,” he said. The Lower TCV school in Dharamsala, India, is being renovated as a new boarding school for Tibetan children from abroad. (TCV) The types of indoctrination include poetry competitions on Chinese President Xi Jingping Thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics, field trips to Communist Party museums, and school visits by Chinese officials and members of the Chinese military who teach children about national unity, Mueller said. “The Chinese rulers are using ever new methods to try to transform young Tibetans into loyal Chinese,” he said.  “Their main starting point is language,” he said. In a two-pronged approach, Chinese officials work to dissuade children from learning their mother tongue by sending them to compulsory boarding schools and make Mandarin attractive to young Tibetans, Mueller said. “In this way, the Chinese leadership wants to destroy the youth&#8217;s connection to traditional Tibetan culture and language,” he said. Students learn about tuberculosis at the Tibetan Children’s Villages lower school in Dharamsala, India, in this undated photo. (TCV) Grassroots idea For this reason, many Tibetans both inside and outside Tibet urged Tibetan Children’s Villages to set up a boarding school for children from overseas, TCV Director Sonam Sichoe told Radio Free Asia. The proposal was then approved by the network’s board.  The school’s main priority will be to teach Tibetan language skills and cultural traditions, while simultaneously receiving a modern education that is on par with the West, Sichoe said. So far, about 15 students from the United States, Canada, Australia, Denmark and Germany have enrolled. Regardless of the numbers, the school will proceed as planned, he said. In the dormitories, the children from overseas will be mixed with students from India so that they don’t end up speaking only English, he added. The Lower TCV school in Dharamsala, India, is being renovated as a new boarding school for Tibetan children from abroad. (TCV) Tuition, room and board cost US$350 per child per month, Sichoe said.  Because the children are expected to come from different countries, the main medium of teaching academic subjects will be in English to ensure ease of understanding and communication, he said.  Studio Nyandak Dharamsala, a design company whose local employees are all TCV alumni, is working with school administrators to renovate the campus. Changes include the installation of Western toilets, single beds instead of bunk beds, water heating facilities and solar panels.  Expanded network Set up in 1960 as a nursery for Tibetan children, TCV was established after the Dalai Lama proposed a center to care for kids who had been orphaned or separated from their families while fleeing after China’s annexation of Tibet in 1959. Since then, the organization expanded its footprint across India to become a network of boarding schools caring for over 15,000 children. The Dharamsala-based Lower TCV campus — now being renovated into a residential school for overseas children — came about in the 1980s after the main TCV school was inundated with children who had been smuggled out of Tibet by Tibetan parents during China’s liberalization program of that period. Earlier this year, Jetsun Pema, the younger sister of the Dalai Lama who led the school for many years, received the Pearl S. Buck award from Randolph College in Lynchburg, Virginia, in recognition of her service. Students of the Tibetan Children’s Villages lower school perform a drum line in Dharamsala, India, in this undated photo. (TCV) Parents’ reactions Migmar Bhuti, a Tibetan in New York, welcomed the new boarding school, saying it would enable Tibetan children to more effectively learn and preserve the Tibetan language and culture at an early age. But she also expressed concern over whether math, English, science and the social sciences would be adequately taught. “Since the Lower TCV School is planning to only take in students from the fourth to eighth grades, I wonder if that will allow the children to catch up in their classes when they move back here from the ninth grade, or whether they will need to drop a grade,” she told RFA Tibetan. Given that academic and vacation schedules in the West differ from those in India, school officials are in discussions with parents about these concerns, said Choeying Dhondup, TCV’s general-secretary. The Lower TCV school in Dharamsala, India, is being renovated as a new residential school for Tibetan children from abroad. (TCV) Kalsang Dorji, a father of two children and principal of a Sunday school for Tibetan children in Berkeley, California, said Tibetans there have wanted a dedicated residential school to teach their language and culture to...
- [US defense chief seeks to reassure Asia-Pacific partners](https://ij-reportika.com/us-defense-chief-seeks-to-reassure-asia-pacific-partners/): U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has reconfirmed Washington’s strong commitment to the Indo-Pacific, as well as to working with allies and partners in the face of growing rivalry with China. Austin spoke at the Shangri-La Dialogue annual security forum on Saturday, just a day after meeting with his Chinese counterpart to open lines of communication between the two world powers. This was the secretary’s third time to speak at the forum and likely his last as a U.S. presidential election in November may bring changes in defense diplomacy. The Indo-Pacific “has remained our priority theater of operations,&#8221; Austin said, seeking to brush off concerns that other security challenges in Ukraine and Gaza may have shifted U.S. attention. He stressed that Washington is “deeply committed” to the region, adding “We are all in. And we&#8217;re not going anywhere.” He went on to list a number of cooperation projects between the U.S and countries including Australia, Japan, India and the Philippines.  Austin said that the U.S. “can be secure only if Asia is secure.&#8221;  “The defense secretary’s speech shows that the dynamics of U.S. strategic partnerships may have changed because Washington has to balance different world regions, but not so much,” said Alexander Vuving, professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Hawaii. Other factors that may have contributed to the slight shift, in Vuving’s opinion, are U.S. domestic politics and the “responses of regional states and non-state actors to the weakening of the current international order.” The Pentagon chief, meanwhile, emphasized what he called the “power of partnerships” amid a “new convergence” in the region. &#8220;This new convergence is about coming together, not splitting apart. It isn&#8217;t about imposing one country&#8217;s will,” Austin said in an apparent dig at China, “It isn&#8217;t about bullying or coercion. It&#8217;s about the free choices of sovereign states.” Beijing has been accused by some of its neighbors of acting aggressively in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait. In his keynote speech on Friday, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. condemned “assertive actions that aim to propagate excessive, baseless claims through force, intimidation and deception,” believed to be committed by Beijing. The Philippines has accused Chinese coast guard vessels of harassing and preventing Filipino fishermen and law enforcement agencies from operating in the disputed waters of the South China Sea. While not mentioning China, Austin said that “the harassment that the Philippines has faced is dangerous” and the peaceful resolution of disputes should be achieved through dialogue and not coercion or conflict.  &#8220;And certainly not through so-called punishment.” Just 10 days ago, the Chinese military held large-scale “punishment” drills around Taiwan after Lai Ching-te was sworn in as the new president of the democratic island. Strengthening partnerships The U.S. House of Representatives last month passed a $8-billion defense package to help Taipei counter Beijing, which considers Taiwan a Chinese province that should be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary. China reacted angrily, saying this sends the wrong signal to “Taiwan independence separatist forces” and the “military collusion” between the U.S. and Taiwan would only push up tensions and the risk of conflict and confrontation in the Taiwan Strait. China has long said Washington is trying to build a NATO-like alliance in the Asia-Pacific, an accusation that was brought up and denied on Saturday by the U.S. defense secretary. Replying to a question by Chinese Senior Col. Yanzhong Cao about the U.S.’ “alliance system” in the region, Austin said that “like-minded countries with similar values and a common vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific are working together to achieve that vision.” “And we will continue to do those kinds of things going forward,” he said. The defense secretary, however, called for better communication with China, saying that “dialogue is not a reward, it is a necessity,” and that “there&#8217;s no substitute for open lines of communication to avoid misunderstanding and miscalculations.” U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin meets with Chinese Minister of Defense Adm. Dong Jun in Singapore, May 31, 2024. (U.S. Department of Defense) Austin and the Chinese minister of national defense, Adm. Dong Jun, held a one-hour meeting on Friday to discuss U.S.-China defense relations and other security issues. It was the first in-person meeting between the twos, marking a resumption of communication after then-defense minister Li Shangfu declined a meeting with Austin last year Chinese Defense Ministry spokesperson Wu Qian told reporters afterwards that it showed the bilateral military relations were stabilizing. “The resumption of exchanges does not mean that differences and conflicts between the two countries have been resolved,” warned a Taiwanese analyst. “China is still conducting military exercises around Taiwan and the U.S. continues joint exercises with the Philippines and other allies,” said Shen Ming-Shih from the Institute for National Defense and Security Research in Taipei. He added that while both sides keep pursuing their own objectives, the best they can do is to “have more dialogue and exercise restraint.”  Edited by Mike Firn.
- ['We'll never forget,' Tiananmen massacre families write to Xi Jinping](https://ij-reportika.com/well-never-forget-tiananmen-massacre-families-write-to-xi-jinping/): The relatives of civilians killed by Chinese troops who crushed pro-democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square with machine guns and tanks on the night of June 3-4, 1989, have written to President Xi Jinping calling for an official reckoning with the bloodshed on the 35th anniversary of the crackdown. &#8220;We will never forget the lives that were lost to those brutal bullets or crushed by tanks on June 4 35 years ago,&#8221; the letter said. &#8220;Those who disappeared, whose relatives couldn&#8217;t even find their bodies to wipe away the blood and bid them a final farewell,&#8221; the letter said. &#8220;It is too cruel that this happened along a 10-kilometer stretch of Chang&#8217;an Boulevard in Beijing in peacetime.&#8221; Public mourning for victims or discussion of the events of spring and summer 1989 are banned in China, and references to June 4, 1989, are blocked, filtered or deleted by the Great Firewall of government internet censorship. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, died when late supreme leader Deng Xiaoping ordered troops into the Chinese capital to clear protesters and hunger-striking students from Tiananmen Square.  While any account of the events of that summer have been scrubbed from the public record, younger people have been able to find out about it by visiting overseas websites, and have started taking part in annual commemorative activities around the world alongside exiled Hong Kongers. Campaigning for accountability The letter is the latest to be addressed to China&#8217;s highest-ranking leader in what has become an annual ritual for the Tiananmen Mothers, a group of bereaved relatives that campaigns for official accountability, transparency about the death toll and compensation for victims&#8217; families. It said official rhetoric on the crackdown was &#8220;intolerable&#8221; to the families of victims because it &#8220;reverses right and wrong, and ignores the facts.&#8221; The letters have never gotten a reply, and bereaved relatives are typically asked to keep a low profile when the sensitive anniversary of the bloodshed rolls around. Calls to group spokesperson You Weijie and member Zhang Xianling rang unanswered on Friday after the letter was published. Former 1989 student protester Zheng Xuguang, who now lives in the United States, said he isn&#8217;t surprised by the deafening silence from Beijing, which has described the weeks-long student-led pro-democracy movement on Tiananmen Square as &#8220;counterrevolutionary rebellion,&#8221; or “political turmoil.” A military helicopter drops leaflets above Tiananmen Square, Beijing, on May 22, 1989, which state that the student protesters should leave the square as soon as possible on Monday morning. (Shunsuke Akatsuka/Reuters) &#8220;How can they admit that they were wrong to kill people?&#8221; Zheng said. &#8220;Xi Jinping and the Communist Party are co-dependent; if Xi were to reappraise the official verdict of June 4 &#8230; the Communist Party would fall from power.&#8221; &#8220;I don&#8217;t think he&#8217;s going to do that, because there&#8217;s no room in his ideology for these ideas.&#8221; Tseng Chien-yuen, an associate professor at Taiwan&#8217;s Central University, said today&#8217;s China is in sore need of some reflection on the massacre, however. &#8220;They need to look at it again and reappraise it, apologize and compensate the innocent students and others who were shot and killed back then, and think about whether to hold those responsible accountable,&#8221; Tseng said.  &#8220;I don&#8217;t think Xi Jinping would need to bear the historical responsibility for the legacy of [late supreme leader] Deng Xiaoping,&#8221; he said. Poll: What would you do? RFA&#8217;s Mandarin Service asked its followers and listeners in a poll on X whether they would join the 1989 student movement today, if they could travel back in time to 1989. Many listeners responded outright that they would, while others said their view of the tragedy was colored by the official view, and didn&#8217;t change until they left China. Others said they have become more radical than the 1989 protesters. &#8220;We were very naive back then, because we didn&#8217;t want to overthrow the Communist Party, but to reform it,&#8221; a person who gave only the nickname Matt responded. &#8220;Unfortunately, the Communist Party didn&#8217;t even give people the chance to do that.&#8221; &#8220;For our generation, June 4 is an unfamiliar expression,&#8221; wrote a high schooler from the northeastern city of Qingdao. &#8220;Growing up under the red flag of this fake party, we have been indoctrinated with the idea that loving the party and loving the country are the same thing.&#8221; Another responded by email that they hadn&#8217;t believed overseas media reports about the massacre at first, despite finding them on overseas websites. &#8220;Mainland Chinese were either misled by their pro-party stance, or they knew a little more than that, but still thought that the protests had to be brought to an end somehow,&#8221; they said.  A respondent who gave the nickname Key said he had learned about the massacre and the student movement from older people in his family, and said he admired the 1989 protesters, but added: &#8220;Times have changed, and the younger generation needs to fight for their rights in a peaceful and rational way.&#8221; User &#8220;wophb&#8221; wrote: &#8220;35 years on, the June 4 incident still has a profound impact on us and is worth reflecting on. Each generation has a unique mission.&#8221; Drawing a parallel with the &#8220;white paper&#8221; protests across China in 2022, the user said they would consider taking part in the 1989 movement if they could go back in time. Successful brainwashing Wu Heming, a Chinese student currently in California, said he is still noticing the after-effects of his education at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party two years after arriving on American soil. &#8220;This is mainly because the Chinese Communist Party&#8217;s brainwashing in education is very, very successful,&#8221; Wu said. &#8220;From childhood onwards, people have no other channels through which to access any other information, so all of your thought patterns get solidified by that rhetoric.&#8221; Another student and former &#8220;white paper&#8221; protester Zhang Jinrui said the two movements had a lot in common. “ &#8220;If you compare those who participated in the June 4 incident and those who participated in the white paper...
- [Myanmar junta recruits thousands of soldiers: report](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-recruits-thousands-of-soldiers-report/): Myanmar’s junta has recruited nearly 4,000 men nationwide in its latest round of conscription as it seeks to reinforce the ranks of its army in the face of battlefield setbacks to insurgents battling to end military rule, a nonprofit group said.  Under the People’s Military Service Law, enacted by the junta in February,  men between the ages of 18 and 45 can be conscripted. The announcement has triggered a wave of killings of administrators enforcing the law and driven thousands of draft dodgers into neighboring Thailand.  A new round of conscriptions was undertaken in mid-April, according to the analysis and data group Burma Affairs and Conflict Study. Training for the nearly 4,000 new recruits began on May 14 in 16 schools across the country, the group said in a release on Wednesday.  One mother was relieved that her two sons were not selected in a raffle system used for the recruitment. She said all families with military aged men had to pay 10,000 kyats (US$ 2) to support the recruits. “I’m so worried that my sons will be picked in the next round,” she told RFA on Friday. The woman declined to be identified. About 5,000 people were recruited in the first round of conscription in early April, which brings the total number to about 9,000, according to the research group.  Spokesmen for the junta were not immediately available for comment on Friday but they said in state-backed media during the first round of recruitment that people were not being forced to join and only volunteers were allowed to begin training.  However, civilians reported mass arrests of young people in the Ayeyarwady and Bago regions, as well as village quotas that included adolescents and threats to burn residents’ houses down if recruits did not come forward. Senior junta official Gen. Maung Maung Aye, who is in charge of the national recruitment drive, said at a meeting in the capital of Naypyidaw on May 20 that the second round of recruitment had begun successfully. Those who failed to attend would  be dealt with according to the law, he said. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.     
- [Cambodia’s traditional marble and sandstone sculptors still carve by hand](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodias-traditional-marble-and-sandstone-sculptors-still-carve-by-hand/): As they draw closer to Ko Koh commune, drivers and passengers traveling on National Road 6 can spot the thousands of marble and sandstone statues and sculptures set out along the highway in central Cambobia’s Kampong Thom province. The sculptures – mostly of Buddha, various animals and the Angkor-era’s King Jayavarman VII – come from the area’s numerous hand-carving businesses. The traditional art dates back centuries.  About 50 families in Ko Koh commune’s Samnak village are engaged in the local industry, which also provides employment opportunities to about 200 people from other nearby villages, commune chief Chap Thin told Radio Free Asia. Statues of the Buddha. (RFA) Stone sculptor Tep Thean said apprentices can earn from 600,000 (US$146) to 800,000 (US$195) riel a month, while skilled craftsmen are paid up to 100,000 riel (US$24) per day.  But the craft is less popular these days, he said.  “Carving is very difficult. It affects our health. Sometimes it breaks,” he said. “It is very dangerous if we are not careful.” For years, the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts has sent trainers to the area to help local sculptors hone their skills and to follow certain practices that make the works uniquely Cambodian, he said. Four steps by hand One has to go through four stages of stone processing. During the first stage, the sculptor trims a stone down into the desired shape of the sculpture, with outlines of the shoulders, arms, legs and face. The second step is to create six corners on the stone, and the third step is to sketch out the face of the sculpture. During the last stage, the sculptor polishes the face and cleans the sculpture before putting it out for sale.  A major selling point for the sculptures is that they are produced by hand, Chap Thin said. “Those who love Khmer sculptures will differentiate those made by hands and machines,” he said. “They won’t value those made by machines.” Undated video screenshot of Stone sculptor Em Ri Phon. (RFA) The sculptures are sold in Cambodia and in areas of southern Vietnam where ethnic Khmers live – often referred to as Kampuchea Krom. They are also shipped abroad to the United States, Canada and Australia.  Although Cambodian sculptors are skilled and meticulous, they can’t carve stone surfaces as smoothly as those made by computer-guided machines. Some of the sculptors in Ko Koh commune are worried that machine-operated stone carvings from Chinese and Vietnamese-owned companies could tarnish the reputation of Cambodian stone carvings. Master stone carver Em Ri Phon said his family is earning 50 percent less from orders than they did a year ago. “This artistic work – I want to promote our art culture as well as Khmer sculpture,” he said. “We want to preserve this culture for a long time.” Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed.
- [Mass arrest in Myanmar’s Rakhine State ends in interrogations, beatings](https://ij-reportika.com/mass-arrest-in-myanmars-rakhine-state-ends-in-interrogations-beatings/): Myanmar’s junta detained hundreds of villagers in Rakhine State, including children, over suspected links to ethnic minority insurgents and beat at least three people to death, residents told Radio Free Asia on Thursday. The security sweep appeared aimed at preventing the Arakan Army insurgent force making more advances after a string of recent gains and stopping them from closing in on the state capital of Sittwe, residents said.  “The junta soldiers ordered all villagers to gather and they’ve been detained all day since yesterday,” said one resident of Byian Phu village, which is several kilometers north of Sittwe. “Now, the men have been taken in military vehicles. The women and children were gathered in the cemetery,” said the villager, who declined to be identified in fear of reprisals. Another villager said three people were beaten to death while junta soldiers interrogated them RFA could not verify the villagers’ accounts and telephone calls to Rakhine State’s junta spokesperson, Hla Thein, to seek information went unanswered.  The Arakan Army has seized junta bases in Rakhine and Chin states since a ceasefire between the junta and one of Myanmar’s most powerful insurgent groups ended in November. Residents have accused junta troops of carrying out indiscriminate attacks on civilians, recruiting members of the persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority and detaining  civilians hostage on suspicion of supporting groups fighting  the junta that seized power more than three years ago.  As the Arakan Army gets closer to Sittwe, residents said the junta has increased security, arresting and interrogating more people. About 100 junta soldiers conducted the raid on Byain Pyu  at noon on Wednesday, iand checked lists that households are meant to keep of overnight visitors, a monitoring system made stricter since the army seized power again in a 2021 coup. Soldiers also went from house to house to search for anyone hiding from them, residents said. Some people were beaten and taken away, along with valuables discovered in their houses, residents said.  Another villager, who also declined to be identified for safety reasons, told RFA that at least three men were beaten to death by the junta soldiers. “Men were being interrogated near the tea shop at the market. They were beaten and interrogated one after another. One of my relatives died there,” the Byain Phyu resident said. “It is said that two or three more people died. The bodies have not been returned.” In northern Rakhine State, the Arakan Army captured Rathedaung and Ponnagyun townships in March and Pauktaw in January, leaving only Sittwe and Maungdaw, near the border of Bangladesh, under junta control.  While insurgent forces in several parts of the country have made significant gains since late last year, seizing numerous junta camps, villages and towns, no group has captured a state capital. The junta has arrested 425 civilians in Rakhine State  since November, the Arakan Army said in a statement on Monday. Fighting in the state had killed 268 civilians and wounded 640, it said.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 
- [Police probe singer for video showing South Vietnamese flag](https://ij-reportika.com/police-probe-singer-for-video-showing-south-vietnamese-flag/): Vietnamese police are investigating a famous singer after a viral video showing her playing with her children in an American house with a tiny version of the banned flag of South Vietnam in the background.  The flag, which features a yellow field and three horizontal red stripes in the center, was used by South Vietnam until the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. However, South Vietnamese who fled the country and now live in the United States or other countries still display the flag as a symbol of pride and identity. On Monday, a video of singer Ngoc Mai, also known as O Sen, and her husband, circus artist Quoc Nghiep, playing with their children in an American house with small U.S. and South Vietnam flags – sitting on a bed headboard – spread quickly on social media. Despite quickly removing the video from her Facebook page, Mai received harsh criticism on social media, especially from government-backed accounts. Vietnamese singer Ngoc Mai performs on Sept. 21, 2018. (DRD Vietnam via Wikimedia) One netizen said Mai “burned the bridge” after crossing it —  a reference to being ungrateful to the communist one-party state.  Vietnam’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism told the media that it was verifying the video. Ho Chi Minh City police are working with the city’s Conservatory of Music on the case, media reports said. Mai used to be a music lecturer there but left in 2019.  The singer had been admitted to the Communist Party of Vietnam when she worked for the conservatory, but her party membership was later revoked because she did not regularly participate in related activities, according to a report by the Ho Chi Minh City Law Newspaper, citing artist Ta Minh Tam, a former deputy president and party chief of the academy.  Family vacation Her husband, Quoc Nghiep, said on Facebook that their family was on vacation in the United States and participating in charity concerts to raise funds for disabled children.  “To raise as much as possible for the children at Huong Duong House, the tour participants always used transportation and accommodations provided by volunteers,” he wrote.  The family members were playing in one of the rooms but did not pay attention to the surroundings or control what was recorded in the video, Nghiep said.  “[We] have learned a great lesson from this incident and will not let similar things happen,” he wrote.  A screenshot from the video posted on Facebook by singer Ngoc Mai with the flags of the United States and South Vietnam on the headboard. (RFA screenshot/Chuyện nước Mỹ của Tí via Youtube)   Radio Free Asia could not reach the Vietnamese Culture and Science Association, the organization in Houston, Texas, that organized the charity concerts, for comment.  On his Facebook account, Hanoi-based lawyer Bui Quang Thang wrote that it would not be unlawful for the flag of South Vietnam to appear in a place in Vietnam because existing law doesn’t ban it. Nevertheless, many people in Vietnam still view the flag as a symbol of hostility toward the current Vietnamese government, said writer Nguyen Vien who lives in Ho Chi Minh City. “It has been 49 years since the war ended,” he said. “We should only view that flag as a symbol of a lost nation. In reality, it is just nostalgia, and we should respect that nostalgia. It is a part of history, and we cannot deny it.” Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Clashes displace 15,000 civilians in western Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/clashes-displace-15000-civilians-in-western-myanmar/): Fighting in western Myanmar has forced thousands of people to flee from their homes, left parts of a town in smoldering ruins and killed three civilians, residents told Radio Free Asia, as opponents of military rule try to defeat the junta that seized power in 2021. The clashes between junta troops and insurgent groups in Chin State, which is on the border with India, displaced 15,000 people in two days and led to the destruction of parts of Tedim town, they said.  Anti-junta insurgents from Chin State control 10 towns in the state, while another ethnic minority rebel group, the Arakan Army, controls two others. A battle broke out on Sunday night and continued into the next day, said a resident who declined to be identified for security reasons. Two people fleeing by motorcycle from Tedim on Monday morning were hit by artillery fire. A 40-year-old woman was killed  while her male cousin was wounded. “She was taken to a nearby house after she was injured. That’s when she died. She was cremated in Tedim on Tuesday morning,” he said. “Her cousin, who was also hurt, has a broken leg and is now being treated at a hospital in Kale town.” On Sunday, the junta’s air force bombed nearby camps occupied by the Zoland People’s Defense Force, a Chin group opposed to the junta, residents said. Junta aircraft also bombed two villages controlled by the rebel group, killing two civilians. RFA called Chin State’s junta spokesperson, Aung Cho, to ask for information about the clashes, but the calls went unanswered. Most of the displaced people are taking shelter in Kale, a town in the neighboring Sagaing region, about 80 km (50 miles) away, said another resident who also asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. Others are sheltering in nearby forests.  “Most of the residents fled,” the second resident told RFA  “Most of them fled to Kale town. There are some who could afford to go to Champhai,” he said, referring to a town in India. At around noon on Monday, junta soldiers burned about 30 houses in Tedim, one of the residents said. “The burnt houses were the ones near the clock tower in Myoma neighborhood and down by the telecommunication office,” he said, asking to remain anonymous given security worries. “All the houses near the local administration office were also set on fire.” Dr Sasa, a senior official in a shadow civilian government, said the destruction in Tedim was a crime against humanity and the international community should help. &#8220;Tedim town in Chin State has been burned down by the brutal forces of Myanmar&#8217;s military junta &#8230; It is imperative to help Myanmar end this reign of terror and build peace,&#8221; Sasa, who goes by one name, said on the social media platform, X.  An official from Zoland People’s Defense Force, which occupies territory in Tedim township, told RFA that the allied Chin defense forces captured nine junta soldiers, as well as several military camps. “There are three places [we captured], including the junta&#8217;s Electric Power Corporation office,” he told RFA on Tuesday, declining to be identified for security reasons. “Some junta soldiers were killed during the battle, but those captured alive will be treated according to the law.”  One member of the anti-junta Chin force was killed and three were wounded, he said.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.         
- [China cracks down on Tibetans during holy month](https://ij-reportika.com/china-cracks-down-on-tibetans-during-holy-month/): Chinese authorities have instructed Tibetan students, government workers and retirees to refrain from engaging in religious activities in Tibet’s capital Lhasa during the Buddhist holy month of Saga Dawa, four sources said. The Saga Dawa festival occurs during the fourth month of the Tibetan lunar calendar and runs from May 9 to June 6 this year.  For Tibetan Buddhists, it marks the period of Buddha’s birth, enlightenment and parinirvana — the state entered after death by someone who has attained nirvana during their lifetime. During the holy month, thousands of religious pilgrims visit temples and walk sacred kora routes around Lingkhor and Barkhor streets in Lhasa, encircling the revered Jokhang Temple.  The ritual kora — making a circumambulation around sacred sites or objects as part of a pilgrimage — holds immense significance for Tibetan Buddhists who believe that virtuous deeds performed during Saga Dawa are magnified based on their location. A video obtained by Radio Free Asia showed heavy police presence surrounding the Barkhor area — the heart of the capital with its famed pilgrimage circuit — on May 22, the eve of the 15th day of the fourth month of the Tibetan Lunar calendar, considered one of the holiest days during Saga Dawa.  Since the start of Saga Dawa, Chinese police have tightened security around key religious sites, including Potala Palace, Jokhang Temple, and the Barkhor area, the sources told RFA. The measures illustrate the deterioration of religious freedom in Tibet under the Chinese government’s suppression and Sinicization of Tibetan Buddhism — a policy that seeks to bring the religion under the control of the Chinese Communist Party. Police everywhere While devotees were seen on pilgrimage on the other days of Saga Dawa, the 15th day on May 23 saw heightened restrictions, with police stationed along the pathways leading to the Sera, Gandhen and Drepung monasteries, said the sources who declined to be named out of fear of retribution by authorities. “There isn’t any place where you don’t see police and interrogation stations,” one of the sources told RFA.  Tibetans line up to offer prayers as they mark the day of Buddha&#8217;s birth, death and enlightenment at the Tsuklakhang temple complex in Dharamshala, India, May 23, 2024. (Ashwini Bhatia/AP) The Chinese government has increased the number of police checkpoints in and around Lhasa, and authorities have been interrogating Tibetans spontaneously, the person said.  Individuals who do not have a shenfenzhang, or Chinese resident identity card, are prohibited from visiting temples, leading to the heightened restrictions now in effect, said a second source.  “During our visits to circumambulate the holy sites, Chinese police regularly inspect everyone&#8217;s identity cards and engage in arguments,” said a third source.  “Having to engage in disputes with the Chinese police takes an emotional toll on us, and this is one of the reasons why many are afraid of engaging in religious activities as often as they’d like,” he said. A Nepalese monk lights a butter lamp during Saga Dawa at Swayambhunath, one of the holiest Buddhist stupas in Nepal, in Kathmandu, May 24, 2013. (Prakash Mathema/AFP) Facial recognition technology is pervasive at key pilgrimage sites and authorities regularly frisk Tibetans making pilgrimages, said a fourth source. Flag-raising festival Additionally, during the Ngari Flag Raising Festival in Purang county, called Pulan in Chinese, of Ngari Prefecture in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, ​​Chinese authorities increased security  as people gathered on May 23 for the annual ceremony, and banned the use of drones during the event, according to the sources.  The annual tradition of hoisting a large central prayer flag pole in front of Mount Kailash in Tibet began in 1681 during the time of the 5th Dalai Lama. Buddhist monks and Hindu holy men sit by a roadside expecting alms as Tibetans mark the day of Buddha&#8217;s birth, death and enlightenment in Dharamsala, India, May 23, 2024. (Ashwini Bhatia/AP) In a government notice dated May 16, the Pulan County Public Security Bureau in Talqin said the use of drones and other aircraft during the Saga Dawa flag raising festival was prohibited and that violators would be punished.  Tibetans who attended the event were subjected to extensive questioning and coerced into agreeing to uphold social order and refraining from causing discord, said one of the sources. Police instructed people not to share photos or videos of the festival on social media, he said. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Tenzin Pema for RFA Tibetan and by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar’s junta kills  4 villagers following mass arrest](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-junta-kills-4-villagers-following-mass-arrest/): Junta troops and members of an affiliated militia killed four civilians in central Myanmar shortly after they and 19 other people were rounded up in a sweep as troops hunted for insurgents battling to end military rule, residents told Radio Free Asia on Tuesday. The villagers were detained and taken away for questioning in the Sagaing region’s Pale township as they headed to nearby farms on Friday.  The group of men and women, mostly residents of Ywar Thit village, were taken to In Ma Htee village about 3 km (2 miles) away and tortured, said one Pale resident, who declined to be identified for fear of reprisals. Witnesses reported that four of the detainees were killed.  The villager identified one of the dead as Tun Naing from In Ma Htee, who was in his thirties. “He had been on the run for a long time because he did not want to join the Pyu Saw Htee,” the villager said, referring to a pro-junta militia made up of supporters of the military, Buddhist nationalists, and army veterans that is frequently accused of terrorizing villages.  “But now, he’s been arrested and killed. Those who were freed also had injuries from the beatings and are now being treated.” Nineteen people were released on Monday, he added. He identified the other dead men as Thint Zaw Oo, 25, Tun Naing Linn, 24, and Kyaw Khaing, who was in his fifties. The bodies had not been returned to their families, he said. RFA phoned the Sagaing region’s junta spokesperson, Nyunt Win Aung, for more information on why villagers were arrested but he did not return the call by the time of publication. The military has faced unprecedented opposition in Myanmar’s central heartlands, which are dominated by members of the majority Burman community, since seizing power from an elected government in early 2021. While ethnic minority groups have battled for autonomy in border hills for decades, central areas like Sagaing had been peaceful until the coup triggered outrage and an insurgency waged by pro-democracy activists in league with the ethnic minority rebels.  Junta troops have cracked down harshly on communities in response to the uprising, aiming to root out supporters of the activists’ People’s Defense Forces. According to a tally compiled by the independent media outlet Burma News International and its Myanmar Peace Monitor, junta forces have killed 1,446 civilians in the past two years in massacres, which the group defines as five or more people killed at the same time. Thousands of people were killed when the security forces crushed mass protests against the 2021 coup and thousands have been killed in fighting across the country since then. The Sagaing region has faced more attacks by the military than any other region or state, the monitoring group said in a statement on Monday. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.   
- [Dozens of Taiwanese celebrities endorse Beijing's claim on island](https://ij-reportika.com/dozens-of-taiwanese-celebrities-endorse-beijings-claim-on-island/): Dozens of artists and actors from Taiwan have been lining up on social media to endorse Beijing&#8217;s territorial claim on the island by retweeting a Chinese state media post in support of eventual &#8220;unification.&#8221; More than 70 artists and celebrities including journalist Patty Hou, singer and actress Nana Ouyang and TV host and actress Dee Hsu reposted a statement from Chinese state broadcaster CCTV on the Weibo social media platform which said that independence for Taiwan, which has never been ruled by Beijing, was &#8220;a dead end.&#8221; &#8220;The unification of Taiwan with China cannot be stopped,&#8221; said the May 22 statement, local media reported, citing a social media spreadsheet. CCTV&#8217;s post was in response to the inauguration speech of Taiwan&#8217;s elected President Lai Ching-te, who called on Beijing to stop threatening his country, and respect the will of its 23 million people, the majority of whom have no wish to be ruled by the Chinese Communist Party. &#8220;Taiwan has never been a country and will never become one,” the post said, adding “Taiwanese independence is a dead end. Unification with the motherland is unstoppable! China will eventually achieve complete unification.”  Other artists appeared to be offering their support less directly, by claiming a &#8220;Chinese&#8221; identity, a view that isn&#8217;t shared by most of their compatriots. Lead singer Ashin of the Taiwanese band Mayday told fans at a concert at Beijing&#8217;s Bird&#8217;s Nest stadium on Saturday that &#8220;We Chinese, when we come to Beijing, must eat roast duck! What else should we eat?&#8221; in a statement similar to the saying, &#8220;When in Rome.&#8221; And singer Jolin Tsai, who has had an LGBTQ+-themed song deleted from her concerts by Chinese censors, told concert-goers that residents of &#8220;our Chinese city of Nanchang&#8221; were the most passionate fans. Ashin of Taiwanese band Mayday performs in Kuala Lumpur in 2013. (Lai Seng Sin/AP) One fan commented on Nana Ouyang&#8217;s re-post that they were unhappy about her support for Beijing. &#8220;I’ve been your fan for a long time, but I love Taiwan more,&#8221; the fan wrote in comments reported by the Taiwan News. Another told Ouyang to go live in China: &#8220;Don&#8217;t come back to Taiwan.&#8221; Some Hong Kong artists also followed suit, including martial arts star Donnie Yen, who sparked controversy when he was a presenter at last year’s Oscars despite protests over his pro-Beijing stance on the Hong Kong protests of 2019. Resisting pressure Not everyone piled onto the bandwagon, however. Taiwanese actor Yang Hsiu-hui told reporters on Sunday that she identifies as Taiwanese, and doesn&#8217;t want to make money from China. &#8220;Some people told me I would lose access to the market in mainland China,&#8221; Yang said, adding that she had turned down jobs in China for political reasons. &#8220;I gave up on that market a long time ago,&#8221; she said. Taiwanese singer Jolin Tsai is pictured in Milan in 2017. (Marco Bertolrello/AFP) President Lai expressed empathy for the artists in a statement on Sunday, saying he could understand how much pressure they were under &#8220;in another person&#8217;s house,&#8221; and that they may privately feel very differently. Ruling Democratic Progressive Party Mayor of Kaohsiung Chen Chi-mai said China should honor freedom of speech rather than coercing Taiwanese entertainers into taking a political stance, while the Kuomintang, the largest party in Taiwan&#8217;s parliament, said putting pressure on Taiwan&#8217;s artist doesn&#8217;t &#8220;build goodwill across the Taiwan Strait,&#8221; local media reported. The island&#8217;s Ministry of Culture said the artists were forced into taking a position by &#8220;unavoidable circumstances,&#8221; and that such coercion would never happen in democratic Taiwan. Taiwan President Lai Ching-te wears a hat given to him by Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican, in Taipei on May 27, 2024. (Taiwan Presidential Office via AP) &#8220;To the artists taking a public stance under unavoidable circumstances, we extend our understanding,&#8221; the ministry said in a statement on Sunday. &#8220;Taiwan &#8230; will never ask anyone to take a public stance, nor will anyone be punished for taking, or not taking, such a stance.&#8221; &#8220;The lack of political coercion is the most valuable thing about a free Taiwan,&#8221; the ministry said. ‘Divide and conquer’ Chinese dissident Gong Yujian, who now lives permanently in Taiwan, told RFA Mandarin that the artists&#8217; statements are part of a campaign to wage &#8220;cognitive warfare&#8221; on Taiwan. &#8220;I am certain, and can say without hesitation, that this is a case of the Chinese Communist Party&#8217;s divide-and-rule tactics and cognitive warfare being waged against Taiwan,&#8221; Gong said. &#8220;The aim is to split supporters of independence, with the ultimate aim of benefiting the Chinese Communist Party and its &#8216;fifth column&#8217; in Taiwan,&#8221; he said. Kang Kai, chairman of the Taiwan Performing Arts Union, told RFA that he had no problem with President Lai&#8217;s approach.  &#8220;Everyone has their own opinion,&#8221; Kang said. &#8220;The most important thing is that they work hard to support their families and do a good job.&#8221; &#8220;I don&#8217;t like to see artists getting involved in politics. Neither side wants a war,&#8221; he said.  Chinese dissident Gong Yujian poses for a photo in New Taipei City in 2015. (Pichi Chuang/Reuters) A spokesperson for a foundation run by former Kuomintang President Ma Ying-jeou, who recently met with Chinese President Xi Jinping on a trip to Beijing, told RFA Mandarin that &#8220;bullying&#8221; can work both ways. &#8220;It seems that you are expected to say you&#8217;re Taiwanese and not Chinese, if you want to be respected &#8230; in Taiwan,&#8221; Ma Ying-jeou Foundation CEO Hsiao Hsu-tsen said. &#8220;That&#8217;s just another form of suppression and coercion.&#8221; But Taipei Mayor Chiang Wanan said there would be no repercussions for the Taiwanese artists who supported Beijing&#8217;s claim on the island. &#8220;We are a free and democratic country, and Taipei is a diverse and open city, so how can we stop them from performing?&#8221; Chiang said. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [China ‘can claim the South China Sea’: former Malaysian PM](https://ij-reportika.com/china-can-claim-the-south-china-sea-former-malaysian-pm/): Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said that China can claim the South China Sea, but that doesn’t mean that other countries with overlapping claims should accept it, a view that differs from the Malaysian government’s official line.  Beijing has drawn a so-called nine-dash line to demarcate its “historic claim” of 90% of the disputed waters. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also hold conflicting claims over smaller parts of the South China Sea. “OK, you can claim,” said Mahathir at the annual Future of Asia conference hosted by Nikkei Inc. in Tokyo at the weekend. “We don’t accept your claim but we don’t have to go to war against you because of your claim.” “Maybe one day you will realize that the claim means nothing,” the 98-year-old former leader said. He did not elaborate. Mahathir’s statement appears to differ from the Malaysian government’s official line. Most recently in 2023, Malaysia, together with the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam, rejected China’s map that depicts its sovereignty in the South China Sea. “They claim that the South China Sea’s belonging to them, but they have not stopped ships from passing through,” he said, adding that Kuala Lumpur has been producing oil and gas in the sea but “so far they have not done anything.”  “As long as there is no stoppage of the passage of ships through the South China Sea then it’s good enough.” The former leader argued that priorities should be given to maintaining peace and fostering economic development. The 10-member Southeast Asian bloc, ASEAN, has been peaceful “compared to other regional groupings,” he said, “Until now there’s no major wars between ASEAN countries.” ASEAN could serve as “a good model” for the world where there are different ideologies but “we don’t go to war with each other.” Malaysia will hold the grouping’s rotating chair in 2025, taking over from Laos. Not taking sides When asked about China-U.S. rivalry, the veteran leader urged regional countries to stay neutral as “if we take sides, we are going to lose either the American market or the Chinese market.” He noted that China did appear to be aggressive but it was the biggest trading partner for ASEAN countries and “we cannot lose that market.”  He also warned against taking sides in the Taiwan issue, saying that there was “no necessity” to see a confrontation between China and Taiwan. Beijing considers democratically governed Taiwan a Chinese province that should be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary.  Last week, China conducted a two-day “punishment” military exercise around Taiwan, believed to be in response to the inauguration of the new Taiwanese president, Lai Ching-te. Mahathir said that  China’s leader, Xi Jinping, “seems to be more ambitious and aggressive,” but China’s policies may change in  future because of changes at the top. “Leaders don’t live forever so policies may change when leadership changes,” he said.  Mahathir Mohamad, who will be 99 in July, served as prime minister from 1981 to 2003 and again from 2018 to 2020.  Incumbent Malaysian prime minister Anwar Ibrahim was also present at the Future of Asia 2024 forum and delivered a speech. In an interview with Nikkei Asia on the forum’s sidelines, Anwar said that his focus “will be the economy.” Malaysia’s position remains that disputes should be settled via engagement and the way forward is to seek peaceful resolution through negotiations, according to Anwar. Future of Asia, held by Japan’s Nikkei annually since 1995, is “an international gathering where political, economic, and academic leaders from the Asia-Pacific region offer their opinions frankly and freely on regional issues and the role of Asia in the world,” according to the company. Edited by Taejun Kang and Mike Firn.
- [Malaysian fishermen want govt to crack down on Vietnamese encroachers](https://ij-reportika.com/malaysian-fishermen-want-govt-to-crack-down-on-vietnamese-encroachers/): Syed Mohd Nawawi and fellow Malaysian fishermen are fed up. They say they want local authorities to do more to crack down on foreign fishing boats – particularly from Vietnam – that have been encroaching into Malaysia’s territorial waters for years to trawl for squid.  Malaysia has laws with stiff penalties to guard against illegal fishing. It also signed an MoU with Vietnam three years ago to deal with this issue. But that hasn’t deterred foreign fishermen from trawling in Malaysian waters without permits or paying off local skippers to lend them their fishing licenses, Malaysian fishermen allege.  The local squid stock is becoming depleted because the Vietnamese boats use big nets that can damage the sea floor, Syed said.  “Fishermen on the east coast of Malaysia really don’t want this,” he told BenarNews. Syed is based in Kuala Terengganu, a port on the eastern shores of Peninsular Malaysia.   “They use ‘pukat gading’ [large fishing nets] … equipment that can damage the ecosystem. [W]hatever is under the sea is depleted because they use rollers,” he said of the Vietnamese boats, adding that when the nets come upon reefs “they’ll kill all the coral and everything.” As a result of illegal fishing by foreigners, Malaysia lost US$172 million (823 million ringgit) in fisheries through 428 incursions by non-Malaysian boats between 2020 and 2023, according to Mohamad Sabu, Malaysia’s minister of Agriculture and Food Security. Of the 19 foreign boats intercepted and seized by Malaysian authorities during that period, 18 were from Vietnam, officials said.    Persistent problem Vietnamese fishing boats have been encroaching in Malaysian waters in the South China Sea for almost two decades, residents, officials and experts say. But despite a memorandum of understanding signed between the two countries’ maritime agencies in 2021, the problem persists. “In 2022, there was an oil spill in the Gulf of Thailand and this led to a decline in fish species in nearby areas. Indirectly, this has caused many foreign fishermen from Vietnam and Thailand to trawl in Malaysian waters,” said one expert, Syuhaida Ismail. “Most Vietnamese fishing vessels would fish in their own area, but then came to Malaysian waters after their sonar technology detected more catches in Malaysia. The catches are known to be more rewarding compared to catches in Vietnam,” Syuhaida, research director at the Maritime Institute of Malaysia, told BenarNews.  A catch of squid is displayed at the market in Pasar Payang, Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia, April 13, 2024. [Syahrin Abdul Aziz/BenarNews] Under Malaysia’s fisheries law, foreign fishing boats and foreign nationals are subject to a fine not exceeding 6 million ringgit ($1.25 million) each in the case of the owner or master, and 600,000 ringgit (US$125,000) in the case of every member of the crew, if found guilty of fishing illegally in Malaysian waters.  During intercepts at sea by Malaysia’s coast guard, some tense and violent standoffs with Vietnamese fishermen have occurred. In 2020, a Vietnamese sailor was shot dead by members of the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency, after crews of Vietnam-flagged vessels rammed and attacked an MMEA boat with Molotov cocktails and hard objects during a patrol 81 nautical miles (150 km) off Tok Bali in Kelantan state, coast guard officials said at the time. And last July, one MMEA member was attacked and seriously injured to the head while inspecting a Vietnamese fishing boat off the coast of Kuala Terengganu. According to one Vietnamese fisherman, desperation drove him to fish in Malaysian waters. For safety reasons, he requested that he remain anonymous. “There are difficulties. For example, at that time, in Vietnam, our fishing grounds did not have enough squid. But in their waters, they have more. So we have to enter their waters,” the fisherman said during an interview with RFA Vietnamese at Radio Free Asia. BenarNews is an online news agency affiliated with Radio Free Asia.
- [Taiwan's people must never forget Tiananmen massacre, artists warn](https://ij-reportika.com/taiwans-people-must-never-forget-tiananmen-massacre-artists-warn/): The unknown &#8220;Tank Man&#8221; hero who faced down a line of People&#8217;s Liberation Army tanks in his shirtsleeves and holding a shopping bag in June 1989. A grieving woman pulling a tank out of a baby&#8217;s body. The hastily packed suitcases of Hong Kongers packed with memories of home as they fled an ongoing crackdown in their city. These and many more works of art are on display in Taipei through June 13 in a bid to warn the democratic island&#8217;s residents of the dangers of forgetting &#8212; specifically the threat to human rights and freedoms posed by authoritarian rule. As the island is encircled by People’s Liberation Army forces on military exercises, artists are marking the 35th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre with an exhibit that includes key moments in the pro-democracy movement in recent years as well as commemoration of those who died in the 1989 bloodshed. The exhibit, titled &#8220;Preserving Memory: Life, Death,” brings together more than 30 works by 18 artists in wooden frames resembling household cabinets, including 3D-printed replicas of the “Pillar of Shame” massacre memorial sculpture, which has been seized by national security police in Hong Kong.  A grieving woman pulls a tank out of a baby&#8217;s body in a painting on show at the &#8220;Preserving Memory: Life, Death&#8221; exhibit in Taipei on May 23, 2024. (RFA/Hsia Hsiao-hwa) Upstairs at the imposing blue-and-white memorial hall commemorating Taiwan&#8217;s former authoritarian ruler Chiang Kai-shek, with a candlelight vigil to be held in Democracy Boulevard outside the hall on June 4 this year, more than one third of the works on show are from Hong Kong artists who fled their city amid a crackdown on dissent in the wake of the 2019 pro-democracy protests. Candlelight vigils were held for the victims of the June 4, 1989, massacre every year in Hong Kong for three decades, before they were banned in 2020 and their organizers jailed. Dangers Tiananmen massacre eyewitness Wu Renhua told the launch event on Thursday that he hopes the exhibit will remind Taiwan&#8217;s 23 million people, particularly the younger generation, of the dangers of Chinese Communist Party rule. Speaking as People&#8217;s Liberation Army warships and planes encircled the island on military exercises intended as a &#8220;serious punishment&#8221; for Taiwan&#8217;s democratically elected President Lai Ching-te, Wu said Taiwan is currently under threat today because of the Chinese Communist Party&#8217;s authoritarian system. Exiled Hong Kong artist Choi Chi-ho (right) and curator Abbey Li at the opening of the &#8220;Preserving Memory: Life, Death&#8221; exhibit in Taipei on May 23, 2024. (RFA/Hsia Hsiao-hwa.) &#8220;Over the years, some political parties, some politicians, and some media in Taiwan have been trying to curry favor with the Chinese Communist Party, saying that it&#8217;s different now, and that China today has changed,&#8221; Wu told the event. &#8220;This worries me greatly.&#8221; &#8220;I hope that through commemorative activities for June 4 and by telling the truth about the June 4 massacre, more Taiwanese, particularly the younger generation, will see the violent nature of the Chinese Communist Party for what it is,&#8221; Wu said, calling for &#8220;a sense of crisis” to safeguard Taiwan&#8217;s freedoms and its democratic system. Exiled Hong Kong artist Choi Chi-ho, who exhibited his suitcase as an artwork, said he had packed in a huge hurry when the time came for him to leave Hong Kong, with only a couple of days to get himself ready. &#8220;I just stuffed everything I could find &#8230; anything I could find to represent my 20 years of life in Hong Kong, my experiences and memories, into that suitcase,&#8221; Choi told RFA Mandarin, adding that he couldn’t bear to open it until he heard about the exhibit. Organizers from Taiwan&#8217;s New School for Democracy pose at the launch of the &#8220;Preserving Memory: Life, Death&#8221; exhibit in Taipei on May 23, 2024. RFA/Hsia Hsiao-hwa. Among the items in the suitcase was the key to his old apartment. “My house key,” Choi explained. “I thought maybe one day I’d go back, but eventually, it just wound up here. I’ll never be able to use it again.” “My ex-boyfriend wrote me a farewell letter and gave me some of his clothes,” he said. &#8220;When my mother found out I was leaving, she took out a Bible and wrote some words of blessing on it for me,&#8221; he said. &#8220;When I opened it later, I saw she&#8217;d also put some family photos from my childhood in there.&#8221; Authoritarian control Choi said the exhibit seeks to underline what can happen to a society once it comes under Beijing&#8217;s control. &#8220;Taiwan has also lived through a very authoritarian era,&#8221; he said in a reference to the one-party rule of the Kuomintang that ended with the direct election of the island&#8217;s president in 1996.  &#8220;Only by understanding human rights violations in our own land, or in the territory next door, do we realize that freedom and democracy are hard-won, and that our predecessors paid a high price in blood, sweat and human life for them,&#8221; he said. Former Hong Kong bookseller Lam Wing-kei speaks at the launch of the &#8220;Preserving Memory: Life, Death&#8221; exhibit in Taipei on May 23, 2024. RFA/Hsia Hsiao-hwa. Canada-based democracy activist Yang Ruohui said by video message that respect for human rights was the biggest difference between Taiwan and China under Communist Party rule. &#8220;I would like to call on the people of Taiwan to pay attention to the human rights situation in China, and to help us build a Chinese community in diaspora that embraces human rights, freedom and democracy as a way of life, and demonstrates it to those in mainland China,&#8221; he said. Former Hong Kong bookseller Lam Wing-kei, who fled to Taiwan after being held for months by Chinese state security police for selling banned political books to customers in mainland China, said it&#8217;s not enough just to mark the anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre every year. &#8220;We must also reflect on why this happened in 1989,&#8221; he told the launch event. &#8220;Was it because...
- [Episode 7a: Hollywood, we have (had?) a problem! (Or did we?)](https://ij-reportika.com/episode-7a-hollywood-we-have-had-a-problem-or-did-we/): In Honor of Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage Month, this edition of RFA Insider brings together a panel of four Asian American RFA staffers to discuss Asian representation in U.S. media. Joining the insiders on the panel are Charlie Dharapak, RFA&#8217;s multimedia managing director, and Boer Deng, director of RFA&#8217;s Investigative team. Recording for this episode went on way longer than expected, so the decision was made to release it as two separate episodes. In the rundown, the panel each introduced Asian two Asian characters from their youths in an effort to make a top five list out of them. Eugene&#8217;s characters were Ensign Harry Kim from Star Trek Voyager (1995-2001) and Rufio from the 1991 film Hook. Amy&#8217;s were Prince Christopher from Rogers and Hammerstein&#8217;s Cinderella (1997) and Kelly Kapoor from The Office (2005-2013). Charlie&#8217;s characters were two played by Pat Morita, Arnold from Happy Days (1974-1984) and Martin Yan, from the cooking show Yan Can Cook (1982-present according to Wikipedia). Boer said that because she was born abroad and moved to the U.S. as a child, she did not feel the need or expectation to be represented and therfore did not submit any characters to our top 5 list but acknowledged that for people who were born in the U.S., representation is important. Prior to the show, Eugene, Charlie and Amy ranked each other&#8217;s characters but not their own. The ranks were averaged. Who will come out on top? Tune in next week for Episode 7b, which will feature How its Made, and the panel will discuss their journeys as Asians in the journalism field, how their parents reacted to their choice of study or profession, given that jobs in journalism do not confer the traditional markers of success, and ways they think coverage of Asian Americans or Asia can improve.
- [Junta officials bulldoze 200 homes in Myanmar neighborhood](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-officials-bulldoze-200-homes-in-myanmar-neighborhood/): Junta administrators destroyed 200 homes in a neighborhood in Myanmar’s Yangon Division on charges of trespassing, residents told Radio Free Asia, the latest in a series of evictions to clear squatter communities in urban centers. The homes in Mingaladon township’s Pale neighborhood were bulldozed on Thursday by municipal officers and troops, they said.  Officials sent residents letters in late April telling them they had to leave  by an early May deadline.  Myanmar’s military has cleared tens of thousands of homes across the country, accusing people of squatting. The neighborhoods are usually in the suburbs of Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city, crammed with makeshift dwellings made from tarpaulin, scraps of wood and corrugated iron.  A resident who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons told RFA that only 18 households left willingly. The rest were destroyed. “They brought a bulldozer to completely flatten them,” he said. In the eviction notice, signed by the junta chairman of Mingaladon township’s Planning and Administration Board, residents were told  “all squatter buildings” in the area had to be dismantled and removed by May 10. People who have lost their homes have had to find rented accommodation, neighbors said. RFA telephoned Yangon region’s junta spokesperson, Htay Aung, for information about the incident  but he did not answer the phone. On April 26, junta forces and municipal officials ordered district authorities to remove 600 houses in Yangon’s Mayangone township, residents said. According to data compiled by RFA, nearly 20,000 houses in Mayangon, Dagon Myothit (Seikkan), Dagon Myothit, Dawbon and Mingaladon townships, have been removed in the more than three years since the military seized power from a democratically elected government in a February 2021 coup. In addition to Yangon, the second city of Mandalay and some other centers have seen  forced evictions. On Dec. 2, 2022, the United Nations called the removal of residential homes by force without providing replacements for those evicted a war crime. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.  
- [In bid to reduce traffic jams, Vietnam mulls congestion fees](https://ij-reportika.com/in-bid-to-reduce-traffic-jams-vietnam-mulls-congestion-fees/): Vietnamese drivers entering big cities during peak traffic periods will have to pay “congestion fees” if one lawmaker gets his way.  Nguyen Phuong Thuy, a representative from the capital Hanoi, argued during a discussion Tuesday in the National Assembly that the fee would boost the state budget, increase funds for land transport infrastructure – and reduce traffic jams. He was one of 23 National Assembly deputies who discussed a draft Law on Roads, including the possibility of charging fees on personal cars that enter city centers at certain times, according to a state media. The proposal comes as Vietnam grapples with growing traffic congestion, inadequate transportation infrastructure and increasing air pollution from exhaust fumes despite the government&#8217;s commitment to net-zero emissions by 2050. Officials in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s largest city with a population of 9 million, calculated that in 2022, the city lost about 138 trillion dong, or US$5.4 billion, due to traffic jams for missed work time, wasted fuel while sitting in traffic and labor force costs. Public transportation is lacking. In 2022, Hanoi had about 5.8 million motorbikes and 600,000 automobiles, though only 140 bus lines, meeting an estimated 31% of total demand, according to a report by the Hanoi Times. Five centrally governed cities in Vietnam – Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Haiphong, Danang and Can Tho – have the authority to impose driving charges not previously defined by law, according to a report by Viet Nam News.  It wasn’t immediately clear what the fees might be under the new proposal. Three conditions must be met for the scheme to work, Thuy said, according to an online report by VN Express. First, the collection should be digitized. Second, public transportation should meet at least 30% of transportation demand. And third, infrastructure, parking lots, and public transit systems must connect personal vehicles with public ones. “Cars owned by people both inside and outside the city have increased, while old, dilapidated infrastructure has failed to meet transport demand,” he said.  Mixed views But some people are skeptical the plan would be effective. Hanoi resident Nguyen Khac Toan said he didn’t believe a fee on inbound-city cars would reduce traffic jams. “The fee collection measure seems right, but it is only situational and patchy,” he told Radio Free Asia. “It would not help because those who need to drive a car into the city would pay to do so.” Traffic gridlock occurs near the National Convention Center during the 13th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam in Hanoi, Jan. 26, 2021. (Nhac Nguyen/AFP) Former National Assembly Deputy Luu Binh Nhuong wrote on Facebook that poor traffic management is the main cause of traffic jams in Hanoi — not inbound personal vehicles.  Therefore, any fees imposed on these drivers would not be not fair and would be a violation of free movement and free business under the country’s Constitution and Competition Law, he said. Nguyen Quang A, another Hanoi resident, said a willingness by city officials to address limited parking spaces and high parking  fees would help ease the situation. Drivers have to pay several hundred thousand dong an hour to park, and lots are difficult to find, he said.  “For city dwellers, there should be parking lots built for them, but in case they park on the streets, a fee should be collected for using public space,” he said. “Those who own cars have to follow. That is the easiest way to solve traffic jams and to collect money for the city budget.” Past proposals This isn’t the first time that Vietnam’s major cities have considered fees on personal vehicles entering the city center – but none have been implemented. The Vietnamese government issued a decree in April 2022 to enhance order, transport security and reduce traffic jams, and several cities were told to conduct a fee collection pilot program for inbound vehicles. In 2017, Hanoi’s People’s Council issued a resolution on enhancing traffic order and combating traffic congestion. It called for limiting or stopping motorbike traffic in certain areas of the five centrally governed cities after 2030, as well as collecting tolls from vehicles in highly congested and polluted areas of major cities. The People’s Committee of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s southern economic hub, included a traffic jam fee in its general city planning project until 2040, a plan that would look further to 2060. Fees would be collected during specific times of the day, including peak travel.  Translated by Gia Minh for RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster. 
- [South Korea, China, Japan to hold trilateral talks on May 26-27 in Seoul](https://ij-reportika.com/south-korea-china-japan-to-hold-trilateral-talks-on-may-26-27-in-seoul/): Leaders of South Korea, China and Japan will meet on May 26-27 in Seoul for their first trilateral talks in more than four years, South Korea’s presidential office said on Thursday. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol will have bilateral talks with Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Sunday, ahead of their three-way gathering on Monday, South Korea’s deputy national security adviser, Kim Tae-hyo, said. The summit will cover six areas of cooperation: economy and trade, sustainable development, health issues, science and technology, disaster and safety management, and people-to-people exchanges, Kim said, adding that the leaders would issue a joint statement. The leaders will also discuss regional and international issues and meet about 80 businesspeople at a dinner on Sunday and a business forum the next day, Kim said. “The summit will serve as a turning point for fully restoring and normalizing the trilateral cooperation system among South Korea, Japan and China,” he added. “It will also provide an opportunity to recover future-oriented and practical cooperation momentum that will allow the people of the three countries to feel the benefits.” The neighbors held an inaugural stand-alone trilateral summit in 2008, and were supposed to meet annually after that. But the summit has been suspended since it was last held in December 2019, in China, because of bilateral feuds and the COVID-19 pandemic. Relations between all three have been fraught for various reasons over recent years. South Korea and Japan are working to improve relations strained due to historical disputes stemming from Japan’s wartime aggression. They are also strengthening their trilateral security partnership with the United States amid growing rivalry between China and the U.S. Japan, South Korea and the United States underscored their security cooperation against North Korean threats and reinforced their commitment to a “free and open Indo-Pacific” during an August 2023 Camp David summit. In 2018, the year before the last summit between the three Asian neighbors, in the Chinese city of Chengdu, North Korea unexpectedly changed its aggressive stance toward the U.S. and South Korea. Seoul, in turn, eased its criticism of Pyongyang.  Japan, however, continued to prioritize pressure on North Korea, causing disagreement with Seoul over North Korea policy. By the 2019 talks, the three neighbors could only agree on a general policy of cooperating on efforts to denuclearize North Korea. China and South Korea have also clashed in recent years over a U.S. missile defense shield installed in South Korea. Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized the U.S. and its allies for their “intimidation in the military sphere” of North Korea at a recent bilateral summit. In March, Russia vetoed a U.N. resolution to extend a monitoring panel for enforcing North Korean sanctions, while China abstained, blocking U.S.-led efforts to control Pyongyang’s weapons program. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [In a first, Kim Jong Un’s portrait is displayed next to his predecessors](https://ij-reportika.com/in-a-first-kim-jong-uns-portrait-is-displayed-next-to-his-predecessors/): For the first time, a large portrait of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was placed alongside portraits of his father and grandfather in a public place in what experts say is a move to boost the cult of personality surrounding him. State media released images of the three portraits adorning the facade of the Central Cadres Training School of the Workers’ Party of Korea in Pyongyang during the school’s opening ceremony this week.  The three portraits were also shown above the chalkboard in one of the classrooms. Photos of the first two dynastic leaders, national founder Kim Il Sung, and his son and successor Kim Jong Il, are displayed in every public building and private home. They are treated with such respect that citizens have been praised in state media for dashing into their burning homes to rescue the portraits. A general view of the completion ceremony to mark the opening of the newly completed school of the Workers&#8217; Party of Korea Central Cadres Training School in Pyongyang, May 21, 2024. (Photo by KCNA VIA KNS/AFP) Until now, Kim Jong Un’s photo had not been displayed next to his predecessors in an official setting. It’s not yet known if this will become the norm nationwide.  Should the display of all three leaders be mandated by law, it would suggest that Kim Jong Un demands more respect than his father did. Displays of Kim Jong Il’s portrait only became mandatory upon his death in 2011, though people voluntarily hung it up while he was still living as a display of patriotism.  Kim Il Sung portraits, meanwhile, have been mandatory since the 1970s. Murals and music video The move comes amid other propaganda efforts to elevate Kim Jong Un’s status.  Just a few weeks ago, the country debuted a new music video that casts him as the “friendly father of the nation.” New murals depicting Kim have been erected nationwide over the past few years. These are all examples of the systematic idolization of Kim Jong Un carried out in stages according to Kim In-tae, a senior researcher at the South Korea-based Institute for National Security Strategy. The portrait display follows the trend of “placing Kim Jong Un at the pinnacle of North Korea&#8217;s collectivism and totalitarianism,” he told RFA Korean. By placing his photo alongside his father and grandfather, Kim is trying to inherit the legacy and revolutionary tradition of his predecessors, Hong Min, from the North Korean Research Division at the Seoul-based Korea Institute for National Unification, told RFA. “It shows that he has gone from prioritizing his predecessors and setting himself at a level lower than them to now standing as a leader of the exact same level,” said Hong, adding his prediction that the country will now start heavily promoting Kim Jong Un’s own ideological principles. The cadre school’s opening ceremony also served to cast Kim as a champion of socialism, as portraits of prominent communist ideologues Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin also were also on display, Hyun In-ae, from Seoul’s Ewha Womans University noted.    “It seems they declared to the whole world, ‘We are orthodox socialism,’” she said. “At the same time, this also signifies a declaration to the world that Kim Jong Un is the firm leader of North Korea.” Translated by Leejin J. Chung. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar rebels capture junta camp near capital of Kachin State](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-rebels-capture-junta-camp-near-capital-of-kachin-state/): Ethnic minority Kachin insurgents have captured a junta military camp near the state capital of Myitkyina, in northern Myanmar, which has also given them control of a main trade route to the border with China, a spokesman for the rebel group told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday.  The Kachin Independence Army is one of Myanmar’s most powerful insurgent forces and has made gains in recent weeks with the capture of eight towns in Kachin State and northern Shan State, as well as about 100 junta military camps, it says. On Tuesday evening, Kachin fighters took control of a junta infantry battalion base in Waingmaw township, about 20 km (12 miles) to the south of the Myitkyina, said Col. Naw Bu, the Kachin Independence Army’s information officer.  “That camp was providing security for the villages such as Aung Myay 1 and 2, as well as Waingmaw town. So it can be said to be strategically important,” he said. The territorial gain has also given the Kachin force control of a main road going south, including to the border with China, which is about 40 km (25 miles) to the east.  “There are no military camps on the other side of the Waingmaw-Laizar-Momauk-Lwegel road. We are stationed here, but we are not allowing cars or others to travel yet due to security reasons,” Naw Bu said. Lwegel is a main crossing for trade on the border with China. The junta has also not issued any statements on the fighting. RFA tried to telephone Kachin State’s junta spokesperson, Moe Min Thein, to ask about the situation but he did not answer.  The Kachin force is one several that have made significant gains recently against forces of the junta that overthrew an elected government in early 2021 triggering bloody opposition to military rule. Pro-democracy fighters have taken up arms and linked up with ethnic minority armies, like the Kachin, which have been battling for self-determination for decades in hilly border regions. While the opponents of military rule have captured numerous junta bases, towns and villages, in fighting that escalated sharply late last year, none has seized a state capital. Naw Bu declined to comment on casualties on either side in the latest fighting, or on if any weapons and ammunition had been captured. Ethnic minority Lisu fighters loyal to the junta control two camps in Waingmaw town while a junta infantry battalion holds another position there, he said. Civilian Deaths Responding to the Kachin offensive, junta forces bombed Hkat Shu village in southern Waingmaw township on Monday and Tuesday, killing six residents, including children, and wounding 19, according to residents. A severely wounded woman was taken to hospital in Myitkyina while the rest of the injured were getting treatment at Waingmaw’s hospital, one  resident, who declined to be identified, told RFA. The junta-backed Myanma Alin newspaper said on Wednesday that the military regime was not responsible for the attacks on Hkat Shu village. About half of Hkat Shu’s population of 10,000 have fled because of the fighting, residents said. According to data compiled by RFA, mostly from accounts from residents and the insurgents, nearly 80 civilians were killed in Kachin State due to the junta airstrikes and heavy weapons between Jan. 1 and May 21. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Taejun Kang. 
- [North Korean toy store blows up on state media with ICBM-themed fireworks](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korean-toy-store-blows-up-on-state-media-with-icbm-themed-fireworks/): A fireworks store in North Korea was featured in the country’s state media for its unique products, including fireworks shaped like intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs. Experts told Radio Free Asia that the fireworks, shaped like North Korea’s Hwasong-17 ICBM, unveiled in 2020 and first test fired in 2022, are meant to instill national pride among children, and the parents who would buy them. “Our store carries fireworks that everyone loves, and that teenagers and students enjoy,” a worker at the Changgwang Fireworks Store said on the May 19 Korea Central Television broadcast.  The report showed an entire section of the store with missile-themed fireworks, including a launcher in the shape of a transporter erector launcher vehicle, or TEL. The store’s military-themed products are clearly aimed at children, as its interior includes colorful pictures of animals on the walls, and a small fenced-off play area for toddlers, flanked by two very large Hwasong-17 models and a mural depicting the missile being launched into a sky full of cartoon stars and bursting fireworks. Military themed-toys are very common in North Korea, but the country seems to want the people to be on board with dedicating resources and labor to missile and rocket development. KCTV (Korean Central TV) reported that the Changgwang fireworks store in Hwasong District, Pyongyang, North Korea, is now selling new fireworks, including models of the Hwasong ICBM, May 19 ,2024. (KCTV) In February 2023, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s wife, Ri Sol Ju, was spotted wearing an ICBM-shaped necklace at a banquet commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Founding of the Korean People’s Army. In February 2024, the country forced residents to buy laminated photos of a reconnaissance satellite rocket launch to display in their homes as a constant reminder of the country’s military achievements. Instilling pride  The missile-themed displays are an attempt to foster national pride among the people, both through children and their parents, Bruce Klingner, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a former analyst at the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, told RFA Korean. “It reinforces the message that North Korea needs nuclear weapons and missiles because of the U.S. threat,” he said. “And it is a way of explaining away the dire economic conditions that North Korean people suffer from because it&#8217;s being blamed on the United States.” David Maxwell, vice president of the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy, said the displays are an effort by the authorities to try to “ reinforce the legitimacy of North Korea as a military power to show off its nuclear and missile capabilities.” “It&#8217;s an example of the prioritization of resources that the Kim family regime does,” said Maxwell. “It prioritizes enhancing the reputation of the regime over the welfare of the people, while the people suffer the worst lives of really any population in the world today.” Such militaristic children’s toys were unheard of decades ago, said Kim Su-kyung, who escaped North Korea in 1998 and resettled in the United States. “When I was young, there were no goods like this,” she said. “We used to play a military game called ‘Kill the Yankee’ during field day at school, but it seems like that has now been upgraded and made into these types of toys.” She said the public would not be receptive to these toys and would not appreciate the government’s attempts to manipulate public opinion with “useless toys.”  Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Airstrike kills woman on Myanmar-Bangladesh border](https://ij-reportika.com/airstrike-kills-woman-on-myanmar-bangladesh-border/): A Myanmar junta airstrike near the border with Bangladesh on Tuesday killed one civilian and injured 11, residents told Radio Free Asia, the latest casualties in a region that has seen some of the country’s most intense fighting in recent weeks. Junta forces launched air attacks after insurgents from the Arakan Army assaulted the military regime’s Border Guard Force near Maungdaw town on Monday. In response, aircraft dropped three bombs on two nearby villages in Rakhine State’s Maungdaw township. Since November, the Arakan Army has captured eight townships across Rakhine State and has launched several offensives in other areas. Fighter jets bombed Shwe Baho and Baw Di Kone villages at around 4 a.m., one resident, who declined to be identified in fear of reprisals, told RFA.  “A young woman died in Shwe Baho. She is a university student and was taking refuge in the village. The whole family was fleeing the battle but they were injured,” he said. “The Arakan Army is attacking Lay Mile’s Border Guard Force, so [the junta] bombarded all areas and surrounding villages.” The dead woman, Pan Ei Pyu, 22, also worked at a social assistance group, residents said. The wounded ranged in age from 5 years to 71, residents said.  Myanmar’s junta has yet to release any information on the attack. Rakhine State’s junta spokesperson, Hla Thein, did not answer calls from RFA. Forces of the junta, which seized power in an early 2021 coup, have lost territory in several parts of the country since late last year when militia groups, formed by pro-democracy activists and allied ethnic minority insurgent groups fighting for self-determination went on the offensive. Despite making advances, the junta’s opponents have no air power, leaving them, and villages in areas in which they operate, vulnerable to airstrikes. Four civilians were killed and six were wounded between May 14 and 19 when the junta bombed villages in southern Maungdaw township, residents said. On Saturday, the Arakan Army announced it had captured all junta camps in Buthidaung, a township along the Myanmar-Bangladesh border. Hours earlier, the group was accused of attacking a school with a drone where members of the Rohingya minority, a mostly Muslim community that has faced persecution for decades, were sheltering. Eighteen people were killed and more than 200 were wounded, residents said. The Arakan Army, in its Saturday statement, did not mention the Rohingya deaths, but said its forces were aiming to capture Maungdaw town, about 16 km (10 miles) west of Buthidaung township, also near the Myanmar-Bangladesh border. International aid groups and local residents in Buthidaung, Maungdaw and Thandwe townships were told to evacuate by the United League of Arakan, the political wing of the Arakan Army, after it issued a warning of more attacks on junta forces on Monday. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 
- [Heat wave kills 100 in Myanmar, mostly infants and elderly](https://ij-reportika.com/heat-wave-kills-100-in-myanmar-mostly-infants-and-elderly/): Scorching temperatures killed about 100 people in central Myanmar in just four days, social aid groups told Radio Free Asia on Monday. In the Sagaing region’s Monywa township, heat-related illnesses have killed people as young as one month but it is the sick and elderly who are most at risk, aid workers and residents said. “The death toll rose sharply. It’s a pity that babies were among those deaths. Some were just four or five months old,” an official from the Thukha Hita blood donation and funeral assistance group told RFA.  “There were up to 29 bodies yesterday …  in two cemeteries in Monywa town.”, said the group official, who declined to be identified for safety reasons. The extreme heat from Thursday to Sunday largely affected sick and elderly people, said one resident assisting those in need, adding that Saturday and Sunday were the worst days. “They can’t stand the heat at all,” said the resident, referring to the sick and old. “It’s so terrible that even we, young people, can’t survive. The power outages haven’t helped.” Two Monywa-based organizations, Yone Gyi Lu Nge social assistance association and Thukha Hita blood donor association and funeral assistance, are helping to cremate the bodies to keep up with the rise in deaths.   RFA telephoned the Sagaing region’s junta spokesperson, Nyunt Win Aung, for more information about the situation but he did not answer. The junta’s Ministry of Health spokesperson, Than Naing Soe, told RFA the ministry was organizing heat-stroke prevention awareness and treatment but he declined to comment further. According to the military’s weather agency, the highest temperature in Monywa city was recorded on Friday, reaching 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit). Some families are opting to stay in hotels to escape the heat because of the unreliable, or even non-existent, power supplies, residents said. Numerous people had sought treatment in clinics and hospitals for heatstroke and dehydration, they added. Myanmar has seen extreme temperatures throughout this year’s hot season, killing as many as 40 people per day in early May. In Rakhine State in western Myanmar, severe water shortages have affected 50 villages and killed more than  80 people. Temperatures usually cool down a bit in May and June with the arrival of the rains. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 
- [Chinese agents highly active in democratic Taiwan, dissidents say](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-agents-highly-active-in-democratic-taiwan-dissidents-say/): On Jan. 13, 2023, Guangdong dissident Xiao Yuhui crossed the 10-kilometer (6-mile) stretch of water from China to Kinmen, a small island that is still controlled by Taiwan, paddling across on a surfboard. But Xiao&#8217;s bid to escape the influence of the Chinese government didn&#8217;t end there. He believes the ruling Chinese Communist Party under Xi Jinping is now focusing closely on &#8220;cleaning up&#8221; opposition voices overseas, and has spotted people he believes to be Chinese agents a number of times at public events in democratic Taiwan. According to a former Chinese agent who spoke recently to Australian broadcaster ABC, this is exactly what&#8217;s going on. Former Chinese spy &#8220;Eric&#8221; told the station that he has been involved in surveillance, abductions and the silencing of targets around the world since 2008. The Spanish-based group Safeguard Defenders, which has warned the world about China&#8217;s secret police stations, its network of &#8220;consular volunteers&#8221; and its targeting of dissidents and activists overseas, has now launched a &#8220;one-stop shop&#8221; legal advice center to help fight transnational repression by Beijing. &#8220;The Chinese Communist Party kidnaps and threatens people at home, and they do the same thing overseas,&#8221; Xiao said, in response to a question about the ABC report. The sight of unidentified people he suspected were agents of the Chinese state filming and recording at pro-democracy events in Taiwan worried him enough that he now stays away from protests, rallies and other public events that are seen by Beijing as &#8220;anti-China.&#8221; He&#8217;s not the only one who&#8217;s worried, either. &#8220;Both the Taiwanese government officials and the human rights groups who have assisted me have said they hope I won&#8217;t take part in so many activities or give public interviews, which could lead to my whereabouts being exposed,&#8221; Xiao told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview. &#8220;They told me this because [China] has so many political collaborators in Taiwan,&#8221; he said. Strange behavior Li Jiabao, a former exchange student from China who applied for political asylum after speaking out against constitutional amendments allowing Xi to abandon term limits for his own job, said he has been continually targeted by authorities in China since then. One unidentified person approached Li as he took part in a documentary in 2019 about his life story and situation, demanding that the director delete all footage, he said. &#8220;[The director] didn&#8217;t even know whether he had captured the person following us or whether he was just a very suspicious sort of person,&#8221; Li said. &#8220;The man seemed very nervous and panicky, and behaved unacceptably, threatening us.&#8221; On another occasion, Li spotted someone who appeared to be following him in a park near his home. The man would watch him, but then looked at his phone if Li looked in his direction. Chinese exchange student Li Jiabao shouts ‘defend freedom of speech’ and ‘defend Taiwan&#8217;s sovereignty,’ at a protest in Taiwan&#8217;s southern port city of Kaohsiung, April 7, 2019. (Hsia Hsiao-hwa/RFA) Li noticed people exhibiting similarly strange behavior at rallies he attended in Taipei to mark the anniversaries of the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen massacre, he said. Shortly after his denunciation of Xi, someone contacted him claiming to be a journalist, and sent him emails in a bid to have him download an app to his phone. &#8220;He used a disposable account,&#8221; said Li, who later realized what had likely happened after reading media reports of Chinese agents posing as journalists. &#8220;Turns out he was phishing me.&#8221; &#8220;The main thing they want is to get access to your contacts &#8230; as well as the Telegram, Facebook and other chat records commonly used by dissidents,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They can also be used to track your location at any time, to know who you are meeting, what you did and what activities you took part in.&#8221; Money for spying Li has also been approached and offered money to spy on fellow dissidents in Taiwan, he revealed. &#8220;Someone asked me how much you can make a month in Taiwan, said I must be short of money, and told me to go and film the Falun Gong, and the next day to film dissidents, including asking them how they&#8217;re doing,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They told me just to live my life, and that they would contact me via a Hong Kong account if I thought it was too sensitive,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The Chinese want to find out if you&#8217;re willing to do stuff for them for money. I always refuse.&#8221; Xiao said the Chinese agents clearly knew of his love of photography, because he remembers being approached in October 2023 to take photos of planes taking off and landing at Taipei&#8217;s Songshan Airport, home to a Taiwanese Air Force base that runs the flying service for the president and vice president of Taiwan. &#8220;They give you some simple tasks to do and some financial support, to see if you can be bought, then more work would follow,&#8221; he said. Xiao smelled a rat at the time, and turned down the offer. Threats to family members back home are another key part of the Chinese state security police playbook, according to dissidents overseas. Li said he once received a message from his family asking if he was &#8220;being used by overseas or foreign forces.&#8221; Xiao said the authorities back home had visited his mother at her home and tried to get her to call him and find out his whereabouts and future plans. Abduction threats Sometimes, the goal is to get the target to a location where they can be handed over to the Chinese police, the former Chinese agent, who gave only the pseudonym &#8220;Eric,&#8221; told ABC. During the program, it emerged that RFA political cartoonist Rebel Pepper, whose real name is Wang Liming, was one of the targets, with Eric detailing a plot to lure Wang to Cambodia, using a Chinese-owned conglomerate that has become one of the fastest-growing companies in Cambodia – the Prince Group – to carry out the scam.  RFA has verified...
- [Vietnam’s ruling party names To Lam as new state president](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnams-ruling-party-names-to-lam-as-new-state-president/): Vietnam’s Communist Party has named minister of public security To Lam as the new president in an unprecedented reshuffle of the country’s leadership. It also nominated Tran Thanh Man as the new chairman of the National Assembly, it said in a statement.  Party cadres at a meeting that concluded on Saturday “recommended” Lam and Man to the top positions. The National Assembly – Vietnam’s parliament – is expected to approve the appointments when it meets this week. The two men will be replacing Vo Van Thuong and Vuong Dinh Hue, who were forced to resign earlier in the year amid an anti-corruption campaign that has seen dozens of senior officials lose their jobs or be disciplined. The campaign, dubbed the “blazing furnace”, was initiated by the party’s general secretary, Nguyen Phu Trong, who sees corruption as the biggest threat to the Communist Party’s legitimacy. But some critics say it has been used as a political tool by factions in the party to eliminate competitors. Gen. To Lam, 66, has been minister of public security since April 2016 and deputy minister for six years before that. He joined the public security service in 1974 and rose through the ranks to become a general in 2019. As his successor at the ministry of public security has not been nominated, Lam appears to have retained his minister’s position for now. Lam is believed to be one of the main figures behind the “blazing furnace” campaign, having been deputy head of the party&#8217;s anti-corruption steering committee since 2021.  The general was accused of involvement in the kidnapping of Trinh Xuan Thanh, a Vietnamese fugitive, in Berlin in 2017 and Thanh’s return to Hanoi through Slovakia. The Hanoi government denied all allegations but the case led to a temporary rift in diplomatic relations between Germany and Vietnam. Lam will be the third state president in just 15 months – his predecessor Thuong was forced out in January and Thuong’s predecessor Nguyen Xuan Phuc resigned a year earlier. Tran Thanh Man, 62, currently deputy chairman of the National Assembly, is to take over from Vuong Dinh Hue, who was once considered a rising star in Vietnam’s politics and a contender for the job of general secretary. Hue stepped down this month after the party’s central inspection commission found that he had committed mistakes and wrongdoings unfit for a political leader.  During last week’s meeting, the party’s senior officials also voted to add four new members to its powerful Politburo. The new appointments are expected to restore unity within the party’s leadership but analysts warn that infighting may continue in the run up to the 14th national party congress, slated to take place in January 2026. Nguyen Phu Trong, 80, who has been the party’s general secretary since 2011, is expected to step aside at the congress, or even before that, but there’s no clear imminent successor to his position. To Lam and Pham Minh Chinh, the incumbent prime minister, are seen by Vietnam watchers as strong candidates to succeed Trong as general secretary. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [China’s ‘virtual invasion’ of India and the cultural genocide of Tibet](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-virtual-invasion-of-india-and-the-cultural-genocide-of-tibet/): There is no border between India and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). In the northwest and northeast, India adjoins Tibet. It is not necessary for your Indian interlocutor to be a die-hard nationalist to think this way.  As a matter of fact, this is what a large number of Indians have believed since 1949, when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took power in Beijing. Their reasoning is that Tibet is a sovereign political entity occupied by the People’s Republic of China, and that it should regain independence within its historical borders. On the other hand, the CCP claims that Tibet has always been a part of China.  A Buddha statue is seen in Tawang in the northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, India, April 9, 2017. (Anuwar Hazarika/Reuters) Powered by this claim, one of the weapons of the PRC’s foreign offensive are geographical maps where  boundary disputes are used as tools for sinicization of Tibet. In this pursuit, the CCP is indefatigable.  On March 30, the Ministry of Civil Affairs of the PRC committed  its latest misappropriation of Indian toponyms, changing 30 placenames in the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh.  Eleven residential areas, 12 mountains, four rivers, one lake, one mountain pass and a piece of land were given new Chinese names in simplified Chinese ideograms, Tibetan script and pinyin rendering as well as in the Roman alphabet.  Chinese names For each of those places, geographical coordinates are also duly furnished as well as a high-resolution map. The CCP ceremoniously celebrated the event with all the technicalities needed to make it seem an important and legitimate operation.. The sinicization of toponyms in Arunachal Pradesh is only the latest offensive in an ongoing campaign that Beijing has launched in recent years.  Villagers stand in a line to cast their votes at Sera village in Arunachal Pradesh, April 9, 2014. (Utpal Baruah/Reuters) The inaugural step of the campaign took place on April 13, 2017, when the ministry officialized the change of six place names. The second move was made official on Dec. 29, 2021, and it included the change of 15 toponyms . The third came on April 2, 2023, when 11 place names were sinicized as well.  It is noteworthy that the official announcement of the first change explicitly defines it as the “first batch,” implying there was more to come. However, nowhere is it written that the new March 2024 fourth batch in this series should be constructed as being the last one. It is a bit like playing a board game. None of the newly renamed real places in Arunachal Pradesh came under the PRC’s sovereignty as a result of the contrived Chinese maps, and the occupation of sovereign Indian territory that the new toponyms seem to indicate has not happened.  Chinese logic But the CCP’s move is consciously aiming to achieve a clear psychological effect – achieved by presenting the change of names as the direct consequence of a specific logic.  The territory that India calls Arunachal Pradesh doesn’t exist as such, the CCP asserts. It is just a portion of the PRC’s sovereign territory, it maintains. So, it concludes, place names can’t be Indian and must be Chinese, and new maps must show this  to the entire world. Young Buddhist monks play between prayers at the Tawang monastery in Tawang town in Arunachal Pradesh on April 5, 2023. (Arun Sankar/AFP) The CCP’s claim that Arunachal Pradesh doesn’t exist is based on the view that the Indian state by that name is simply a part of Tibet, which, the CCP underlines, has always been an integral part of China.  According to CCP propaganda, that part of “China’s Tibet” that Delhi Indianizes under the “fake” name of Arunachal Pradesh is simply a portion of Southern Tibet, or “Zangnan,” as the Chinese regime calls it. This assertion has been continuously perpetrated by the PRC since 1950, with the annexation and then military occupation of Tibet, which was in fact, a different, independent country.  Cultural genocide The Chinese invasion of Tibet, completed with the Battle of Lhasa in 1959 and its suppression of Tibetan identity, harsh religious persecution and other serious encroachments on liberty amount to a cultural genocide, as Tibetan leaders in exile have repeatedly asserted. Playing chess with the lives of millions of people has always been the policy of the Chinese regime in Tibet. This war of maps is rooted in the disputed border lines that separate India and PRC, where de facto, agreed-upon, and legal borders have not coincided since the time of British India. This dispute was complicated by the emergence of a highly ideological and aggressive regime in China in 1949. The game of maps that the CCP plays is quite sophisticated: It alternates its claim that some Indian territories are Tibetan – therefore belonging to China – with the dismemberment of “ethnic Tibet.” Indian army soldiers walk along the line of control at the India-China border in Bumla in Arunachal Pradesh, Oct. 21, 2012. (Anupam NathAP) Thus, the sinicizing of Arunachal Pradesh is a cynical attempt to legitimize the permanent subjugation of an entire people as a fait accompli confirmed by an international border.  This curtailment  and disrespect of India’s  sovereignty shows that what the PRC wants, the PRC gets – even if it comes at the price of culturally and politically attacking a foreign nation.  For its part, India rebukes this aggression, repeating that any boundary dispute regarding Arunachal Pradesh or other bordering lines, these must be discussed with Tibet, not the PRC – because Tibet is not the PRC, and will never be.   Totalitarian arrogance may pretend to change history and reality.  It devastates societies, traditions and individual freedom, but it will ultimately fail.    Marco Respinti is director-in-charge of  Bitter Winter, an online publication that promotes religious freedom and human rights.  Aaron Rhodes is president of the Forum for Religious Freedom-Europe, and author of The Debasement of Human Rights. The views expressed here are their own and do not reflect...
- [About 30 Rohingya killed in clashes between Myanmar junta, insurgents](https://ij-reportika.com/about-30-rohingya-killed-in-clashes-between-myanmar-junta-insurgents/): About 30 members of Myanmar’s Rohingya minority have been killed in clashes between junta forces and ethnic minority Buddhist insurgents, residents of Rakhine State said on Saturday, raising new fears that the persecuted Muslim community is being caught in the middle of increasingly bitter fighting. Twelve Rohingya civilians were killed in junta airstrikes targeting fighters from the Arakan Army, or AA, in Buthidaung township on Friday.  Later in the day, the Arakan Army bombed  a school where Rohingyas were sheltering with drones, killing 18 of them, residents said. About 200 people were wounded, a Buthidaung Rohingya resident who identified himself as Khin Zaw Moe told RFA. “People are scared. The casualties may be even higher,” he said. “The exact number is not known due to the difficulty in communicating.” Rohingyas from about 20 villages were sheltering in the high school when it was attacked, he said. It was not clear why the Arakan Army bombed the school. RFA tried to telephone the AA spokesman, Khaing Thukha, and the junta’s Rakhine State spokesperson, Hla Thein, but could not get through to either of them.  The AA, who are battling the junta for self-determination of the Buddhist ethnic Arakan community in the state, said in a statement on Saturday its forces had captured all junta bases in Buthidaung. It did not mention Rohingya civilians. Rohingya, who have been persecuted for decades in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, are getting caught up in the war between the AA and junta forces, human rights workers  say. Both sides have pressed Rohingya into their ranks and at the same time have accused Rohingya of helping their rivals. Both the AA and junta forces subjected members of the Muslim minority to violence, residents and rights workers say. Another Rohingya resident of Buthidaung said the AA burned down homes in eight neighborhoods of the town although he didn’t know how many of the homes had been destroyed. Rohingya activist Nay San Lwin told RFA that tens of thousands of Rohingyas had fled from their homes after the AA ordered them to leave the town by 10 a.m. on Saturday. Another township resident told RFA on Saturday that AA fighters had rounded up thousands of Rohingya near Buthidaung prison.  RFA was unable to confirm any of the accounts because telephone lines and internet links were down. More than 700,000 Rohingya fled from a Myanmar military crackdown in 2017, in response to a series of attacks on the security forces by Rohingya insurgents. Most of those refugees are sheltering in camps in southeast Bangladesh, where they joined hundreds of thousands who fled earlier abuses. More than half a million Rohingya remain in Rakhine State, many of them in camps for the internally displaced. Rohingya activists estimate the Rohingya population of Buthidaung to be around 200,000.  Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [Indian authorities in Manipur state force Myanmar refugees out of border villagers](https://ij-reportika.com/indian-authorities-in-manipur-state-force-myanmar-refugees-out-of-border-villagers/): Myanmar refugees who fled civil war and sought refuge in border villages in neighboring India&#8217;s Manipur state said they are are being deported by local authorities and a paramilitary group. Manipur state Chief Minister Nongthombam Biren Singh said in a May 8 Facebook post that the deportation of nearly 5,500 “illegal immigrants” was underway, though he did not specifically refer to the Myanmar refugees. Of that number, authorities had collected the biometric data of almost 5,200 of them, he said. The Indian government has a policy to collect fingerprints of all foreigners residing in India, including refugees deemed “illegal immigrants,” for security purposes. The thousands of civilians from Chin state and Sagaing region poured over the Indian border and into Manipur state to escape armed conflict between junta troops and rebel forces that followed the military’s seizure of power in a February 2021 coup d’état. Another 60,000 Myanmar civilians from Chin state have crossed the border and sought shelter in Mizoram state, south of Manipur, according to Chin civil society groups in Myanmar and aid workers. The Mizoram government, however, has decided not to repatriate any of the Chin refugees until the situation there stabilizes. Many ethnic Mizos in Mizoram believe that they and the Chins belong to the same ethnic group. A screenshot of a post on X about the deportation of Myanmar refugees by N. Biren Singh, chief minister of northeastern India&#8217;s Manipur state, May 2, 2024. (@NBirenSingh via X) Singh’s announcement contradicted an earlier statement by Indian Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah that the government would not repatriate the refugees until peace had been restored in Myanmar. India is not a signatory of the U.N. refugee convention, which states that refugees should not be returned to countries where they face serious threats to their life or freedom. &#8216;A disregard of lives&#8217; Soon after Singh’s comment, village administrators and soldiers from the Assam Rifles, a paramilitary force that protects India &#8216;s northeastern border, began removing 30 refugee households, forcing them into a forest near border post 74, said a Myanmar refugee who declined to be named for safety reasons. “We were forced to remove our shelters and leave there,” said the refugee who fled Htan Ta Bin village in Myanmar after it was burned down. “Now we have to live in a yard.” An official from the Burma Refugees Committee–Kabaw Valley, an organization that helps people fleeing to Manipur from war-torn Myanmar, objected to the refugees being deported and said they have not received humanitarian aid. “They crossed the border because of the conflicts with junta troops who threatened their lives,” said the aid worker who declined to be identified out of fear for his safety. “They were arrested and handed over to the Myanmar junta,” he said. “It is a disregard of the lives of displaced persons, and we object to it.” Salai Dokhar, a New Delhi-based activist who runs India for Myanmar, a group that raises awareness of the rights of refugees, said it would not be safe for the refugees to return if biometric data collected by the Manipur government is handed over to the Myanmar junta. Before repatriating Myanmar citizens, the Indian government sends immigration documents or background information to the ruling junta based on refugee testimonies or documents they possess. A screenshot of a post on X about the deportation of Myanmar refugees by N. Biren Singh, chief minister of northeastern India&#8217;s Manipur state, May 2, 2024. (@NBirenSingh via X) “If they are handed over [to the junta] along with the biometric information, then the security of the deported persons would be worrisome,” he said. Dokhar also said he would question officials about the contradictory statements on Myanmar refugee deportation made by Singh and Shah. Neither the Myanmar Embassy in New Delhi nor the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees responded to RFA’s emailed requests for comments by the time of publishing. Call to stop deportations The International Commission of Jurists, a human rights NGO based in Geneva, Switzerland, called on the Manipur government to immediately stop the forced deportations and reconsider treatment of the refugees. On May 2, Singh announced on social media the deportation of 77 detained “illegal immigrants” from Myanmar, calling it the “first phase.” Of these, 38 women and children were handed over to Myanmar’s junta. However, the Manipur government has not yet released the remaining 39 from prison. More than 60 Myanmar refugees arrested by Indian authorities at the border are still being held in prisons, according to volunteer aid workers concerned about the refugees being deported. Translated by Aung Naing for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Joshua Lipes.
- [Australia sanctions entities linked to North Korea-Russia arms deal](https://ij-reportika.com/australia-sanctions-entities-linked-to-north-korea-russia-arms-deal/): Updated May 17, 2024, 04:47 a.m. ET. Australia has imposed targeted sanctions against entities linked to the unlawful weapons trade between North Korea and Russia. “Australia is imposing targeted financial sanctions, in coordination with international partners, on a further six entities associated with North Korea’s supply of arms and related materiel to Russia,” said Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong in a statement on Friday. “Australia condemns, in the strongest possible terms, North Korea’s illegal export and Russia’s procurement and use of North Korean ballistic missiles, in support of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine.” Noting the continued transfer of weapons from North Korea to Russia is a flagrant violation of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions, Wong said Australia would work with Western allies to hold Russia and North Korea to account and address the security threat posed by the North.  Wong’s statement came a day after the United States announced sanctions on two Russian individuals and three Russian companies for facilitating arms transfers with Pyongyang. U.S. Treasury officials said in a statement that the two countries had strengthened their military cooperation over the past year, with the North providing ballistic missiles and munitions to Russia in return for weapons and economic aid. The U.S., South Korea and others have accused Pyongyang of supplying Moscow with weapons to use in its war in Ukraine – an accusation that both countries have denied. A now-defunct U.N. panel of experts tasked with investigating violations of sanctions related to North Korea’s prohibited nuclear and ballistic missile programs, released a report in March, detailing with photographs Russia’s arms dealings with North Korea. A few hours after Australia’s announcement, North Korea fired several short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast, the South Korean military said.  “We identified several projectiles believed to be short-range ballistic missiles fired into the East Sea [Sea of Japan] from the Wonsan area of North Korea,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff said. The North Korean missile flew about 300 km (186 miles) before falling into the Sea of Japan, the JCS added. This is North Korea&#8217;s fifth ballistic missile test launch this year. The JCS said it was analyzing details of the missiles and shared relevant information with the U.S. and Japan. “We strongly condemn North Korea’s missile launch as a clear act of provocation that seriously threatens the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula,” the JCS said, adding that South Korea will closely monitor the North’s activities. Edited by Mike Firn. This story was updated to include information about North Korea&#8217;s missile launch.
- [Tibetans undergo political education for protesting land grab](https://ij-reportika.com/tibetans-undergo-political-education-for-protesting-land-grab/): Tibetans who protested the seizure of their pasture land by Chinese authorities in Markham county in April have been subjected to a series of political education sessions after they were accused of protesting for political reasons, two sources with knowledge of the situation said. Area officials are also preventing the Tibetans from petitioning higher authorities in Chamdo, a city in the eastern part of the Tibet Autonomous Region, for fair compensation for their land, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. County officials have misled higher-ranking officials in Chamdo and in Tibet’s capital Lhasa into thinking that the protest by Tibetan residents was political in nature, rather than an appeal against the land grab, said the first source. “[They] have used that as an excuse to organize a series of political education sessions in the area,” he said.   Chinese police argue with Tibetans protesting the seizure of their pasture land in Markham county, western China&#8217;s Tibet Autonomous Region, April 10, 2024. (Citizen journalist) In early April, 25 Tibetan families from Taktsa village in Markham county learned their land had been sold without their knowledge to businessmen by county officials, when the new owners sent people to clear it. Four Tibetans were arrested April 10 for protesting the land grab and later released on April 16, but they were beaten while in detention. Chinese authorities in the Tibet Autonomous Region and in Tibetan-populated areas of nearby Chinese provinces often ignore residents’ concerns about mining and land grabs by local officials, who routinely rely on force to subdue those who complain or protest, according to human rights groups. Rejecting low compensation In April, the Tibetans rejected 3,000 yuan (US$415) in individual compensation that was belatedly offered to them by Chinese authorities, saying the amount was too low for the pasture land that had been sold by Chinese county officials to businessmen in 2023.  Since then, the Tibetans have had to attend a series of political education sessions, with more than 30 Chinese county officials from various departments visiting the area over the past month, said the two sources.  Chinese authorities in Markham county also announced a reward for information that could help them identify an individual who shared news of the land grab protest with outside parties, the sources said. “This is the first time we have seen such rigorous political education sessions and monitoring in the area, with so many levels of officials visiting the place to conduct group political education sessions and going door-to-door,” said the second source. On April 16, the Luoni Township Party Committee, where the village is located, organized a Chinese Communist Party discipline study and political education meeting with over 30 Chinese officials. They included members of the township party committee, all party members of directly affiliated branches, at-home cadres, temple management committees, police stations, health centers and school administrators.  Chinese police argue with Tibetans protesting the seizure of their pasture land in Markham county, western China&#8217;s Tibet Autonomous Region, April 10, 2024. (Citizen journalist) “Following the meeting, members of the Chinese Working Affairs Committee visited each family in their homes to provide political education,” the second source said.  They told the Tibetans that the Chinese government would address any problems they faced, but that they couldn’t share information with people living outside Tibet because it would compromise national dignity and reflect poorly on the Chinese Communist Party, thereby constituting a criminal act, the second source said. Police monitoring Since the protest, around 10 policemen have been deployed to patrol the area day and night to monitor the Tibetans’ activities, the sources said.  “Instead of addressing the core problem, Chinese authorities are using political maneuvers and have prevented local Tibetans from appealing their case in Chamdo,” said the first source.   The first source said the land taken from the Tibetans is 1.5 kilometers (one mile) long and covers an area of 1 square kilometer (0.4 square miles), and is worth about 5 million yuan, or US$692,000.  Officials told the residents to accept their offer of 3,000 Chinese yuan each without protest or face imprisonment for noncompliance. The Chinese police and Markham county officials are now threatening the Tibetans by labeling the protests as political in nature and intimidating locals about likely consequences, given that protests of a political nature amount to a criminal offense, the sources said.  Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Tenzin Pema for RFA Tibetan, and by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster. 
- [Vietnam’s only female Politburo member steps down](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnams-only-female-politburo-member-steps-down/): The only female member of Vietnam’s Politburo has stepped down, state media reported Thursday. The Politburo accepted Truong Thi Mai’s resignation, saying the Central Inspection Committee found there were “a number of violations and shortcomings in her work,” VNExpress reported. Mai’s departure comes after this year’s resignation of the chairman of the National Assembly, Vuong Dinh Hue, and President Vo Van Thuong. Three of the five most senior positions in Vietnamese politics are now unfilled. Thursday’s decision came at the opening of the ninth conference of the 13th Party Central Committee. Only three people chaired the conference, Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and Director of the General Department of Politics of the Vietnam People&#8217;s Army General Luong Cuong. Meanwhile, the communist party announced Thursday it will nominate candidates for president and National Assembly chair, it said in a statement. The National Assembly will vote on the candidates, who weren’t named, at a month-long meeting which starts Monday.
- [Vietnamese church in land dispute dating back to 1975](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnamese-church-in-land-dispute-dating-back-to-1975/): Parishioners of a Catholic church in southern Vietnam are protesting the local government’s plan to build a school on land that they say belongs to the church, igniting a dispute that dates back to 1975, the parishioners told Radio Free Asia. Two school buildings at the Thanh Hai Church in Thanh Hai ward, Phan Thiet city, Binh Thuan province were lent to the government in 1975 to be used as public schools. Now the government plans to return one of the buildings to the church and will raze the other to build a more modern 10-classroom school building. Similar land disputes between local governments and religious institutions regarding land use are very common in Vietnam.  Key to the Thanh Hai dispute is that the authorities are not officially using the term “return” to describe the process, implying that the land does not belong to the church. The parishioners, however, oppose the plan for the new school, saying they want all of the land returned to them. When the province began measuring the land surrounding the schools on May 8, hundreds of parishioners came to the churchyard to stop them. “We demanded that the authorities stop measuring the land of the two educational facilities that used to be the parish’s Catholic primary and middle schools,” a member of the church’s Pastoral Council, who like all unnamed sources in this report requested anonymity for security reasons, told RFA Vietnamese. He said that the council told the local authorities not to take action on church land without prior notification, and since then nothing has happened at the site. RFA contacted Thanh Hai People’s Committee for more information about the incident, but a staff member who answered the phone said the information should be requested in person, directly to the leaders of the ward “No one, from the authorities to the priests, can take away our land,” she said. “[This is] the land our parents put a lot of effort and hard work to claim since they migrated to the South.” Claim rooted in history The Thanh Hai Parish was established in 1955 and its first parishioners were those who migrated south from the northern provinces of Thanh Hoa, Hai Phong, and Quang Binh following the signing of the Geneva Accords, which divided Vietnam into the communist North and anti-communist South. Today there are 8,000 parishioners and they make up 75% of the population in Thanh Hai ward, according to a 2015 survey.  Before the North defeated the South and unified Vietnam in 1975, the schools on the church land were run by the parish and only the children of parishioners could attend. But that changed when the new government requisitioned the schools and ordered that they serve all children in the ward. Thanh Hai parishioners protested local authorities&#8217; plan to build schools on land borrowed from Thanh Hai church, May 8, 2024. (Năm Chiếc Bánh vía YouTube) Due to the increasing number of parishioners in recent years, the parish has found it necessary to build some additional facilities, including a parking area, a pastoral service house, and a place for children and young people’s religious activities. As a result, in 2014, the parish started to request the authorities to return the two schools to them. According to a copy of the document named “1996 Land Use Declaration,” the Thanh Hai Parish, represented by Priest Vu Ngoc Dang, lent the local authority the school facilities with a total area of 6,136.8 square meters (1.5 acres). The document was signed and sealed by the then Chairman of Thanh Hai Ward People’s Committee. However, according to a document posted on the Binh Thuan province website, authorities said that the province had never borrowed the parish’s land to house the two schools. They say the establishment of the two schools followed Circular No. 409 of the People&#8217;s Revolutionary Committee of the Middle Central Region, which said that &#8220;starting from the school year 1975-1976, all types of private schools (run by individuals, and religious and social organizations) will be converted into public schools.&#8221;  ‘Land extension’ When the parishioners learned of the plan on Feb. 16, they gathered at the Episcopal See to protest. Video footage of the incident shows a woman named Toan explaining why she feels so strongly about the dispute.  The plan to return one building to the church and to build the new school on the site of the other building was announced in a governmental meeting on March 1. All references to returning the land to the church were avoided, in favor of the term “land extension.”  According to the pastoral council member, the Phan Thiet Episcopal See and the Thanh Hai Parish priest agreed with the plan, but the parishioners disagreed, because they want to get back all the land that their parents and grandparents lent to the government nearly 70 years ago. RFA attempted to contact Duong Nguyen Kha, the priest of Thanh Hai Parish for comment, but he did not respond. The Phan Thiet Episcopal See also did not respond to email queries. Translated by Chau Vu. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Pacific gets ‘record’ share of Australia’s static foreign aid budget](https://ij-reportika.com/pacific-gets-record-share-of-australias-static-foreign-aid-budget/): Pacific island countries are getting an increased share of Australian foreign aid, budget documents show, as it shifts into funding infrastructure such as undersea cables and ports in response to China’s inroads in the region. Overall, Australia’s foreign aid budget is flat and it remains one of the least generous donors in the OECD club of wealthy nations, ranking 26th out of 31 countries. The increased focus on infrastructure also means that proportionately less of the aid budget will be spent on health. In the Pacific, the largest aid increases in Australia’s 2024-2025 government budget are directed at Fiji, where Australia will help fund a port upgrade, and Tuvalu. The atoll nation of 12,000 people last year ceded a partial veto of its foreign policy and security relationships to Australia under the Falepili Union agreement. “If we look at this reduction in health &#8212; is this because our partners have told us they’re not that interested in health &#8212; I don’t think so,” said Stephen Howes, director of the Australian National University’s Development Policy Center. “If we’re going to go into Fiji and tell them we are using our aid to help them expand their port, that’s because we don’t want China to do it, and that’s going to mean less funding for health,” he said at a panel Wednesday on the budget’s aid component. China’s government has courted Pacific island nations for several decades as it seeks to isolate Taiwan diplomatically, gain allies in international institutions and erode U.S. military dominance.  Its inroads with Pacific island nations, including a security pact with the Solomon Islands in 2022, have galvanized renewed U.S. attention to the region. The budget released Tuesday shows the government has allocated A$4.96 billion [US$3.29 billion] to aid, an increase of 4.0% from the previous year. “Australia is delivering a record $2 billion in development assistance to the Pacific, maintaining Australia&#8217;s position as the region&#8217;s largest and most comprehensive development partner,” the budget papers said. In real terms, the spending is flat at 0.19% of Australia’s national income, according to the Australian Council for International Development, and less than half of its level in the 1980s. “This budget provided the government with an opportunity to show real humanitarian leadership in responding to human suffering across the world,” the council said in a statement.  “Australians see what is happening on their screens in all corners of the globe and expect their government to do more. This budget barely touches the surface,” it said. Howes said the budget documents project aid spending to be unchanged for the next decade and beyond. Pacific island countries now account for more than 40% of the aid budget, almost doubling from a decade earlier, at least partly reflecting government concerns about China’s role in a region that Australia has regarded as its sphere of influence. Australia remains the single largest donor to Pacific island countries despite China’s enlarged presence in the region. At least a fifth of the Australian aid budget is spent on what Australia calls governance programs that aim to bolster democracy, anti-corruption efforts and transparency of public institutions. For Tuvalu, Australia will provide additional funds for its land reclamation projects that aim to protect against king tides and projected sea-level rise and also contribute the lion’s share of the country’s first undersea telecommunications cable. Tuvalu, one of the dwindling number of nations that have diplomatic relations with Taiwan, last year signed a treaty with Australia that requires it to have Australia’s agreement for “any partnership, arrangement or engagement with any other state or entity on security and defence-related matters.” In Fiji, Australia is providing budget support to the government as the tourism-dependent economy continues to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. It also is supporting an upgrade to Fiji’s largest bulk cargo port and its shipbuilding industry.  Papua New Guinea, with its estimated 12 million people, remains the single largest recipient of Australian aid in the Pacific at A$637.4 million. The Solomon Islands, where Australia has a security force stationed after riots in 2021, is the second largest with A$171.2 million. The budget documents also revealed that Australia’s government agreed in December to provide an A$600 million loan to Papua New Guinea, a day after the two countries signed a defense cooperation agreement. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.
- [Tibetan singer arrested for song lamenting Dalai Lama’s absence](https://ij-reportika.com/tibetan-singer-arrested-for-song-lamenting-dalai-lamas-absence/): “In this land where the Victorious One is absent,  Leaders exist, but false ones. The Tibetans are bereft of direction,  Like a deer lost in the midst of a fog…” A Tibetan performer who sang these lyrics, publicly yearning for the Dalai Lama and blasting Chinese leaders as “false,” was arrested in early February in China’s Sichuan province, two sources with knowledge of the situation said. Gyegjom Dorjee, in his early 30s, sang “Tearful Deluge of a Sorrowful Song” alongside other artists at concert on Jan. 15, as part of pre-Losar, or Tibetan New Year, celebrations, said the sources on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.  The song alludes to life under Chinese government rule, likening Tibetans to “birds confined in a cage.” The use of “Victorious One” refers to the Dalai Lama, seen by Beijing as a separatist. Even carrying a picture of the leader of Tibetan Buddhism is considered a crime.  In a video of Dorjee’s performance, an audience of more than 100 Tibetans can be seen clapping and cheering uproariously at the end of his two-minute song. But nearly a month later, Dorjee was summoned to a police station in Khyungchu county, or Hongyuan in Chinese, in Ngaba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, and subsequently arrested, the sources said. Since then, his whereabouts remain unknown, they said. “The Chinese government said his song had political connotations and raised concerns about its lyrics,” the first source told Radio Free Asia.  Security threat Tibetan artists like Dorjee, who peacefully express disagreement or discontent with China’s policies in the Tibetan Autonomous Region or Tibetan-populated areas of Chinese provinces, are branded by Chinese authorities as dangers to “national security” or “social stability.” In particular, Tibetan writers, artists and singers who advocate for Tibetan national identity and culture or voice criticism of China’s governance often face detention.  An activist holds a placard showing a portrait of late Tibetan singer Tsewang Norbu, who, according to Tibetan rights groups, self-immolated during a protest in Lhasa, capital of western China&#8217;s Tibet Autonomous Region, on Feb. 25, 2024. (Sam Yeh/AFP) A nomad with a passion for singing and engaging in traditional Tibetan cultural performances, Dorjee often has been called upon to perform at local events and festivals, the first source said.  Following his arrest, Dorjee’s family tried to get information about the charge and his whereabouts from the Khyungchu police station, but police turned them away without providing it, said the second source.  “They were told Dorjee was being interrogated because of the provocative nature of his lyrics and thoughts, and that there were ‘political problems’ with his song lyrics and ideology,” he said.  ‘Red-faced ones’ Dorjee’s lyrics also made references to “this place of inequities/injustice” and the discrimination suffered by the “red-faced” ones, using an old epithet used to describe Tibetans.  “The song expresses the common grievances held by the Tibetans against Chinese rule and criticizes the repressive policies of the Chinese party-state,” the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy said in a statement. “In the current climate of heightened repression, local Tibetans have little to no avenues to exercise basic human rights including the right to freedom of expression or peaceful dissent,” it said. Some Tibetan artists have taken their protests against the Chinese government to an extreme.  In 2022, Tsewang Norbu, a well-known contemporary Tibetan singer, set himself on fire in front of the iconic Potala Palace in Lhasa to demonstrate his opposition to Chinese policies in Tibet.  Radio Free Asia later learned that Norbu’s act was an attempt to draw attention to his grievances, and that he succumbed to his injuries. Edited by Tenzin Pema for RFA Tibetan, and by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Widespread Myanmar water shortage kills scores of people](https://ij-reportika.com/widespread-myanmar-water-shortage-kills-scores-of-people/): Nearly 50 villages in western Myanmar are facing shortages of water, residents told RFA on Tuesday, after the hot season brought record high temperatures across the region. Ponds and small lakes across Rakhine State are drying up, leaving residents with limited water for drinking and cooking. The United Nations has warned that tens of thousands of people displaced by conflict face the risk of disease as a result of the lack of water. Villages across Ponnagyun township have faced severe drought since April, as the hot season reached its most intense period, said one resident, who declined to be identified in fear of reprisals. “There are two or three ponds in the village. But this year, the daytime temperature rose so high that the ponds went dry,” he said. “Some people don’t even bathe regularly and sometimes even lack drinking water. There are some aid groups donating water but it’s not enough because most of the villages need it.” Ponnagyun faces a water shortage every year but this year has been the worst, he said, adding that some residents were suffering from diarrhea from drinking dirty  water. Nearly a quarter of the households in Ah Htet Myat Hle village’s camp for internally displaced people are facing a water shortage, a camp administrator said. Water-borne illnesses killed three people in the camp in April, with similar symptoms killing nearly 80 in other  camps across the state in the same month, aid workers have said. Camp official Aung Myint told RFA that hundreds of people were facing various  symptoms from drinking unclean water. “We are already having a lot of trouble in the camp. Hundreds of people are suffering from diarrhea. My child is also suffering from it, too,” he said. “Three people from the camp have died from disease. It is caused mainly due to unclean drinking water, rising heat and the toilets.” Mass displacement and disruption in Rakhine State from fighting between junta forces and ethnic minority insurgents from the Arakan Army, has forced thousands of people from their homes and deprived them of their livelihoods. Those forced into camps, mostly members of the persecuted Rohingya minority, lack access to doctors and sanitation.  RFA tried to contact Rakhine State’s junta spokesperson, Hla Thein, but he did not respond. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.
- [Uyghur activist moved to safe location after perceived threat in Paris](https://ij-reportika.com/uyghur-activist-moved-to-safe-location-after-perceived-threat-in-paris/): A Uyghur activist living in Paris has been moved to a secure location after a group of unidentified men appeared on her doorstep last week and called for her to let them in, according to the president of the European Uyghur Institute. On the morning of May 8, eight unidentified people emerged from a black van with tinted windows outside the Paris home of Gulbahar Jelilova, a Uyghur businesswoman from Kazakhstan who spent 18 months in a Xinjiang internment camp, said Dilnur Reyhan, president of the institute. At the time of the incident, Jelilova was away from her apartment, but neighbors told her the unidentified people repeatedly buzzed her unit — though the bell does not list her name, Reyhan said. They also called her cell phone several times. As the group gathered in front of the building, Reyhan posted a photo on X, saying Jelilova was “terrified” by their presence.  “Gulbahar herself saw the Chinese men when she reached the turn leading to her house and took a photo of them. She was scared and called me,” Reyhan told Radio Free Asia.  “Their decision to ring the doorbell may have been intended to intimidate her, to send a message, or perhaps they had a specific purpose,” she said, adding that the car resembled “vehicle used for kidnappings.” A May 8, 2024 post on X by Dilnur Reyhan, president of the European Uyghur Institute, shows men and women dressed in black standing near a van outside the residence of Gulbahar Jelilova. (@DilnurReyhan via X) Reyhan said she called the police, who arrived and were told by the group they had come to see a Japanese rock garden they heard was in the building.  She said “trusted sources” later reported all eight were Chinese nationals and that her group was helping prepare a court complaint against the group. RFA could not confirm their identity or nationality.  Reyhan said such acts of intimidation had grown more common, and that she herself had been regularly followed by a car in recent months.  Jelilova could not be reached, and the French police did not respond to requests for comment from Radio Free Asia.  ‘Tomorrow this could be me’ Gulbahar Haitiwaji, a Uyghur detained in China’s “re-education” camps for two years but who now lives in France said the incident at Jelilova’s apartment had unnerved many.  “Because China is so ruthless, in the back of my mind I always think that one day they’ll bring about harm towards me,” she said. “For example, yesterday it was Gulbahar, tomorrow it could be me.” Related Stories Former Xinjiang Internment Camp Detainee Honored With ‘Hero of the Year’ Award Tibetan, Uyghur protesters greet Xi Jinping in Paris Pro-Beijing ‘thugs’ tormented Xi protesters, activists say The incident took place one day after Chinese President Xi Jinping wrapped up his two-day state visit to France, his first stop on a three-country European visit. His arrival was greeted by several protests from Tibetan, Uyghur and Chinese activists – including Jelilova. While such demonstrations have in the past been met, sometimes violently, with pro-Beijing counter-protests, there was little sign of that in Paris.  But at a May 5 protest at Madeleine Square, which is located close to the French president’s residence, Uyghur activists were met by a small group of French-speaking counter-protesters.  A video posted to Facebook shows about eight young men, all wearing masks and none of whom appear to be of Chinese descent, holding up letter-sized photos of World Uyghur Congress President Dolkun Isa with a mark across his face.  As the crowd of protesters approach them, they shout “liar” and “they are bulls–ing us” in French, before running away as police pursue them for unknown reasons.   Isa told RFA that he suspected the protests were the “result of the Chinese government’s arrangements, funding, or organization.” The Chinese Embassy in Paris did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication.  Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Abby Seiff and Malcolm Foster.
- [Manila accuses Beijing of island building in South China Sea](https://ij-reportika.com/manila-accuses-beijing-of-island-building-in-south-china-sea/): The Philippine coast guard has sent ships to monitor what Manila suspects to be China’s illegal island building in the South China Sea, the Presidential Office said. The office of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said in a statement that since April, the coast guard vessel BRP Teresa Magbanua had been operating near Sabina Shoal, known in the Philippines as Escoda Shoal, to keep a watch on China’s “supposed illegal activities.” Sabina Shoal is a low-tide elevation in the Spratly Islands, well inside the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ) but also claimed by China, Taiwan and Vietnam. It is only 75 nautical miles (140km) from the Philippine island of Palawan. An EEZ gives the coastal state exclusive access to natural resources in the waters and in the seabed. Philippine coast guard spokesman Jay Tarriela said in the statement that crushed corals had been dumped on the reef – an indication of land reclamation. However, the suspected island building appeared to be at an initial stage, he said. Tarriela also said that besides the BRP Teresa Magbanua, two more coast guard vessels had been deployed on a rotating basis to monitor the area. “We are alarmed by this,” said Jonathan Malaya, assistant director general of the Philippine National Security Council. Malaya told a press conference on Monday that similar “crushed corals” were detected earlier on Sandy Cay, another group of low-lying reefs near Philippines-occupied Thitu island, also known as Pag-asa island. “These were crushed corals and it was obvious that they came from another place,” Malaya said. Suspected dumped corals on Sabina Shoal (Philippine Coast Guard) The Philippines in March launched a scientific research mission on Sandy Cay, prompting China to protest. Beijing has yet to respond to the latest allegations regarding Sabina Shoal. Monitoring procedure Tarriela explained in a post on the social platform X, formerly Twitter, that the Philippine coast guard had implemented a “standard operating procedure” to inspect Sabina Shoal for any dumped crushed corals.  After more than three weeks of monitoring, the coast guard discovered that “crushed corals were dumped and it is highly likely that the maritime features were altered.” The force has released some photo evidence of the damaged corals. “We must stay vigilant and not lose sight of the illegal activities and aggressive behavior exhibited by China in Escoda (Sabina) Shoal,” Tarriela wrote in his post. “Not only does this pose a threat to our sovereignty, but it also causes significant damage to our marine environment,” the coast guard spokesman wrote. Sabina Shoal. (Google Maps) In a report released last December, the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) and the China Ocean Institute – both based in the United States – said that competing states in the South China Sea had caused “the largest active man-made reef destruction in human history.” The organizations named China as the most egregious actor by far, having wiped out roughly 4,648 acres (19km2) of reefs in four years between 2013 and 2017. Most destruction was due to dredging and landfill to construct infrastructure on artificial islands. Beijing carried out most of its island building activities during that period and by 2022 had fully militarized the three largest reefs – Subi, Mischief and Fiery Cross. Jason Gutierrez in Manila contributed to this report. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Chinese police harass family members of US-based content creators](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-police-harass-family-members-of-us-based-content-creators/): Chinese authorities are stepping up pressure on the family members of U.S.-based YouTubers and other creative professionals in a bid to censor the content they make on American soil, according to recent video statements and interviews. &#8220;I really never imagined the police would come after me because I migrated along with my entire family,&#8221; YouTuber Qiqi, who goes by one name, said in a video posted to her channel on April 25. &#8220;But now the police have gone and gotten in touch with relatives on my mother&#8217;s side of the family.&#8221; &#8220;They couldn&#8217;t get a hold of me, so they went after my mother instead, which is the same thing,&#8221; she said, adding that the order to find her relatives had come down from the provincial level of government. &#8220;I&#8217;m not going to say exactly who because the police are probably watching this.&#8221; Qiqi&#8217;s video comes amid growing concern over Beijing&#8217;s “long-arm” law enforcement targeting overseas activists and students, as well as YouTubers who post content that is critical of the Chinese Communist Party and its leader Xi Jinping. &#8220;They kept calling my mother in the middle of the night, harassing her, calling again and again,&#8221; Qiqi said. She said the police &#8212; who want her to shut down her YouTube channel and delete all of her videos &#8212; needn&#8217;t bother calling any more. A cyclist prepares to be checked by police officers at a checkpoint near Tiananmen Square in Beijing, June 4, 2020. (Ng Han Guan/AP) &#8220;A big part of the reason I left China was that I wouldn&#8217;t be able to speak freely until I got out,&#8221; she said. &#8220;So why do you think I&#8217;ll listen when you try to pursue me overseas?&#8221; Repeated attempts to contact Qiqi online went unanswered by the time of writing. Common problem Veteran U.S.-based journalist and YouTuber Wang Jian said the Chinese authorities often pursue and harass Chinese migrants overseas, or put pressure on their relatives back home. &#8220;Actually, it&#8217;s not just YouTubers, but journalists, dissidents, human rights lawyers and anyone critical of the Chinese authorities have this problem,&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;But YouTubers are more likely to get to the critical point where someone [in the Chinese government] feels hurt by what they do.&#8221; He said the aim in contacting people&#8217;s relatives was to show them that they aren&#8217;t free from possible reprisals, even if they live overseas. A woman looks at a propaganda cartoon warning local residents about foreign spies, in an alley in Beijing on May 23, 2017. (Greg Baker/AFP) &#8220;[It means] you have a weakness, so be careful what you say,&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;You can&#8217;t express your thoughts freely &#8212; the Communist Party has been doing this since it was founded.&#8221; One of the videos police wanted Qiqi to take down was a Jan. 14 upload in which she discussed whether President Xi Jinping really would give the order to invade Taiwan. Complaints from people operating as part of Beijing&#8217;s United Front overseas influence campaign are believed to have been behind the removal of at least two satirical YouTube channels taking aim at Xi in recent years. ‘Drink tea’ Meanwhile, a group of rights activists who are currently making a small-budget satirical film taking aim at the Chinese government in Los Angeles said police back in China have hauled in a number of their family members back home to &#8220;drink tea,&#8221; a euphemism for questioning or a dressing-down. Wang Han, who is directing the movie &#8220;The Emperor Vs. the Three Evils,&#8221; said the police had managed to track down family members of all of the crew. &#8220;The police kept on calling the home of [one actor], telling [his parents] not to let him take part in this,&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;The police keep trying to contact me as well.&#8221; Wang said freedom of expression should be a universal human right that he and the rest of the crew aren&#8217;t willing to let go, however. &#8220;People in China should have the right to express themselves freely, but if we can&#8217;t do that in China, then at least we should get to do that in the United States,&#8221; he said. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Episode 6: Songs, (alleged) spies, and the curious case of Wang Shujun](https://ij-reportika.com/episode-6-songs-alleged-spies-and-the-curious-case-of-wang-shujun/): &#8220;It&#8217;s go time!&#8221; says Amy as she tries her best impression of Eugene to start off the show. Podcast Free Asia We answered our first listener comment from a youtube user who took issue with our account of an Asia Fact Check Lab story about U.S. President Jimmy Carter discussing the One China policy, which recognizes China but only acknowledges China&#8217;s stance on Taiwan. This was way back in episode 1! We welcome all feedback, even negative feedback&#8230; and of course, we made our rebuttal. The Rundown This episode&#8217;s rundown was music themed! The Vietnamese Service reported about Vietnamese pop singer Dam Vinh Hung, who got in hot water for wearing a military-themed costume accentuated with medals that looked like those issued by the South Vietnamese during the Vietnam War, the faction that lost and was considered the enemy of the faction that won and set up the current government. Hung revealed that the medal in question had the words &#8220;HIGH QUALITY GARMENT&#8221; on it and therefore was obviously not a replica of any South Vietnamese medal, but another medal he wore said &#8220;Marine Semper Fi,&#8221; which is the motto of the U.S. Marines. Whoops. Hung did however say that he would never wear this costume again, so as not to offend anyone. The Korean Service reported about a new music video in North Korea that praises leader Kim Jong Un as the country&#8217;s &#8220;Friendly Father.&#8221;  Eugene revealed that he is a stan of the vocalist Kim Ryu Kyong, even if she is singing an over the top propaganda song. The video is also over the top with so many dolled-up apparently average North Koreans singing Kim&#8217;s praises that it has entertainment value for reasons its makers perhaps did not anticipate. Another interesting aspect of the video is that it contains some expensive musical instruments and equipment that may be violations of sanctions. So it is possible that part of the purpose of this video is for North Korea to thumb its nose at the world, showing that it can get around sanctions. How It&#8217;s Made We talked to Tara McKelvey and Jane Tang from RFA&#8217;s Investigative team about a their report on Wang Shujun, a pro-democracy activist from New York who is accused of spying for China. Wang allegedly met with Chinese intelligence agents and passed them information about Chinese dissidents located in the U.S. Through the discussion we learn that Wang is a very interesting character and that this case could serve as a precedent for other so-called &#8220;disposable assets&#8221; who may have been unwittingly serving as spies, possibly without their own knowledge. BACK TO MAIN
- [Myanmar junta bombs rebel meeting, killing 16 including child](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-bombs-rebel-meeting-killing-16-including-child/): Myanmar junta airstrikes on a gathering of opponents of military rule killed 16 people, including a child, and injured 25, residents and an anti-junta militia member said on Friday. The anti-military activists were meeting in a Buddhist monastery in Magway region when the aircraft attacked, said a resident of the area who identified himself as Ko Lin. A child was among the dead in the Thursday morning attack in Ah Kyi Pan Pa Lun village in Saw township, he said. “The monastery was hit with firebombs. Eleven or 12 people were caught in the fire,” he told Radio Free Asia. The dead had been cremated and the wounded were being treated, according to groups helping the  victims. RFA tried to contact the junta’s spokesperson, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, by telephone for more details but he did not answer. Myanmar’s central dry zone, made up of the Sagaing, Magway and Mandalay regions, has become a hotbed of opposition to military rule from the majority ethnic Burman community. Pro-democracy activists took up arms after the military overthrew an elected government in 2021, forming militias known as People’s Defense Forces (PDF) and allied with ethnic minority insurgent groups that have been battling for self-determination in border regions for decades. The anti-junta forces have been on the offensive since late last year, making significant gains in several areas. The junta has used heavy firepower in its battles against PDF fighters in central Myanmar, at times leveling villages and killing numerous civilians, survivors have said.  A member of Saw township’s PDF said the jets attacked from an air base in Tada-U in Mandalay Division. “It seems that the members were being targeted when they were meeting in the monastery, but civilians were also there,” said the militia member, who declined to be identified. He said a jet made three attack runs over the village, dropping six bombs in all. Thursday’s attack on Ah Kyi Pan Pa Lun was the most deadly in the district since the war began, residents said. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 
- [Police arrest 3 Cambodian opposition party members](https://ij-reportika.com/police-arrest-3-cambodian-opposition-party-members/): Cambodian authorities arrested three opposition party members on Thursday — one leader from a new party and two members of an older party — ahead of a range of elections on May 26, activists told Radio Free Asia. Sun Chanthy, 44, president of the National Power Party, formed last year, was questioned by police after being arrested at Phnom Penh International Airport upon his return from Japan, where he addressed Cambodian supporters. Charged with incitement, he was detained at Phnom Penh Municipal Police headquarters.  Chea Mony, vice president of the National Power Party, traveled with Sun Chanthy to Japan and witnessed the arrest, saying it had to do with upcoming provincial, municipal, district and Khan council elections. Chea Mony said that during the visit to Japan, Sun Chanthy did not make political statements that would have disrupted Cambodia&#8217;s social order or national security. “There was no effect on national security according to accusations by the court,” Chea Mony told Radio Free Asia. “The council election is coming. We don’t need to explain, [but] this is a threat ahead of the election.” “This is a repeated action to scare the pro-democrats,” he said. “The party doesn’t have any plans to incite anyone.” New party The National Power Party was formed in 2023 by breakaway members of the Candlelight Party, the main political organization opposing the government under the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, or CPP.  The CPP has ruled the country since 1979, often arresting political opposition members on politically motivated charges ahead of elections to ensure its own politicians retain power or win new seats in contested areas. In response to the arrest, the National Power Party issued a statement calling on the government of Prime Minister Hun Manet to release Sun Chanthy without any conditions and to restore political space so that the party can participate in the democratic process. Adhoc staffers Ny Sokha, (foreground, C), Yi Soksan, (rear C) and Nay Vanda arrive at an appeals court in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, June 13, 2016. (Heng Sinith/AP) In the arrest warrant issued on May 7, Chreng Khmao, prosecutor of the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, ordered police to bring Sun Chanthy to the internal security office of the Phnom Penh Municipal Police before May 23 for questioning on the “incitement” charge. But the warrant didn’t mention what Sun Chanthy said during his Japan visit that brought about the charge. The Ministry of Justice issued a statement saying authorities arrested Sun Chanthy for incitement to provoke social chaos because he blamed the government of being biased and discriminatory with the distribution of poverty cards for the poor and that he twisted information.  Candlelight Party members arrested Also on Thursday, police arrested two members of the Candlelight Party in Kampong Cham province — Dum Khun, second deputy head of Ampil commune in Kampong Siem district in Kampong Cham province, and Sim Sam On, commune councilor of Ampil — said former Candlelight Party leader Ly Kim Heang. They are being detained by Kampong Cham provincial police, she said, adding that authorities have not yet told their families the reasons for their arrest and have not allowed them to see the two men. The Candlelight Party issued a statement saying that the arrests constituted a threat aimed at eliminating legitimate political activities, and called for their release. Since the beginning of 2024, more than 10 members of the Candlelight Party have been detained by authorities, including six officials from Kampong Cham province.  Ny Sokha, president of Adhoc, Cambodia’s oldest human rights group, warned that the government&#8217;s reputation would deteriorate and that it would face more pressure from the international community if it continued to arrest opposition party members.  “This will affect the government’s reputation on the world stage,” he said. Translated by Yun Samean for RFA Khmer. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [China’s third aircraft carrier completes first sea trial](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-third-aircraft-carrier-completes-first-sea-trial/): Satellite imagery shows China’s third aircraft carrier Fujian has returned to Shanghai Jiangnan Shipyard after completing an eight-day maiden sea trial. In a Planet Labs image from May 9, 2024, obtained by Radio Free Asia, the Fujian was seen moving back to its berth at Jiangnan, where it was built and fitted out over the last six years. During the sea trial that began on May 1, the carrier tested its propulsion and electrical systems and other equipment, and “achieved the expected results,” according to China Military Online. It will conduct follow-up tests according to established plans, the People’s Liberation Army’s news outlet said. “If previous experience is any guide, we can expect three to five months of sea trials to ensure the integrity of the hull and propulsion systems,” said Robert Farley, a senior lecturer at the University of Kentucky. “If everything goes well, Fujian could begin flight operations this year,” Farley said, adding that it could take a year or more for the aircraft carrier to “actually be operational.” Sailors assigned to China&#8217;s third aircraft carrier Fujian conduct maiden sea trial in an undated photo. (China Military Online) Fujian will likely host Shenyang J-15 fighters, as well as the next generation J-35s, JL-10 trainer jets and the new Xian KJ-600 fixed-wing AEWC (airborne early warning and control) aircraft. The airplanes would be launched from the carrier’s deck by a modern system called Catapult Assisted Take-Off Barrier Arrested Recovery (CATOBAR) that so far has only been used by the U.S. and French navies. It is the first Chinese aircraft carrier equipped with CATOBAR. China’s first two flattops – Liaoning and Shandong – use a ski jump-style launch system. The CATOBAR system is able to launch more and heavier aircraft than the ski jump system. At 80,000 tons, Fujian is of the same size as a U.S. Nimitz-class carrier but smaller than the new Gerald R. Ford carrier of 100,000 tons.  “Even after commissioning the Chinese will still have lots to learn, so we can expect Fujian to operate at a slower pace than a U.S. supercarrier, even given the differences in size,” said Farley. However, at the end of this process China will have “a very advanced carrier, probably more advanced and capable than the carriers currently operated by France or the United Kingdom,” the maritime affairs expert told RFA. Strategic platform The Chinese navy released a number of photographs and a nearly eight-minute video showing the Fujian’s movements during the sea trial. Chinese experts were quoted by the Global Times as saying that the successful maiden voyage “has laid a solid foundation for future test voyages, and marks a concrete step toward its commissioning” into the navy. The fleet of three aircraft carriers would boost the navy’s combat capability and serve as strategic platforms to safeguard China’s sovereignty, they said. China’s third aircraft carrier moving back to berth at Jiangnan Shipyard, Shanghai, on May 9, 2024. (Planet Labs) China already has numerically the largest navy in the world with an overall battle force of over 370 ships and submarines, compared with the U.S.’s 293 ships and submarines. It also has the largest coast guard fleet in the world, besides a powerful maritime militia. A report by the U.S. think-tank Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments said that in addition to its three aircraft carriers, China may build another two in the next 10 years. “No one would ever go through the process of learning CATOBAR operations just to build one carrier, so I expect that we&#8217;ll see at least one more ship of Fujian&#8217;s type,” Farley said. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Facebook page administrator sentenced to 8 years for ‘anti-state’ posts](https://ij-reportika.com/facebook-page-administrator-sentenced-to-8-years-for-anti-state-posts/): Vietnam has sentenced another administrator of the popular “Diary of Patriots” Facebook page to eight years for posting content that criticized the government, a verdict that his family felt was not constitutional, they told Radio Free Asia. In addition to the eight years, Phan Tat Thanh must serve three years probation during which he would be under the supervision of authorities. The sentence is identical to that of the other administrator of the page, Nguyen Van Lam which the court handed down in March. The “Diary of Patriots” is a democracy advocacy page with 800,000 followers, and both administrators were found to have violated Article 117 of Vietnam’s penal code that prohibits “anti-state propaganda.” Rights groups say the law has been written to be intentionally vague so that it can be used as a tool by Hanoi to stifle dissent. Thanh’s father Phan Tat Chi, who was present at the trial, strongly disagreed with the verdict, which exceeds the five to seven years recommended by prosecutors. “Such an unfair and unreasonable verdict,” he said. “Today’s trial and verdict trampled on the Constitution and suppressed ordinary people.” He said that his son’s actions fall under Article 25 of the constitution which provides that Vietnamese citizens have the right to freedom of speech, press freedom, access to information, and freedom of assembly, association and demonstration. Multiple profiles According to the indictment, the Ministry of Public Security’s Department of Cyber Security and High-tech Crime Prevention discovered that the private Facebook account “Chu Tuấn” and Facebook page ‘‘Văn Toàn’’ had posted, shared and live-streamed illegal content. The agency reported it to the Security Investigation Agency of Ho Chi Minh City Police for their handling in accordance with the law.In mid-April 2023, authorities discovered that Phan Tat Thanh had been managing the ‘‘Văn Toàn’’ Facebook page with several different profiles, ‘‘Black Aaron,’’ ‘‘Chu Tuấn,’’ ‘‘Huỳnh Heo,’’ and ‘‘Mít Huỳnh.’’ They found that he had posted seven stories and images that were problematic because they criticized the draft law on Special Economic Zones, characterized the government as a totalitarian regime, and criticized many of its socio-economic policies. The posts also called for civil disobedience. Thanh allegedly shared the Facebook accounts with a user having a Facebook profile named “Thao Nguyen” to create and post false stories with content defaming government officers&#8217; honor and dignity. Authorities notably were not able to identify who had been operating that profile. According to Thanh’s father, during the trial, Thanh and his defense attorneys Tran Dinh Dung and Nguyen Minh Canh, all affirmed that despite creating the Facebook profiles, he had not used them nor posted the stories. It was “Thao Nguyen” who used the profiles and posted the stories, they said.Additionally, the page was still active during the time Thanh was in custody with several new posts appearing during this time. Beaten and tortured However, the presiding judge, Bui Duc Nam, did not accept the argument that Thanh was not behind the offending posts. In the trial, Thanh also said that he had been beaten, tortured and forced to give testimonies by investigators during custody and detention periods.According to Thanh’s father, when he was allowed to say his final words at the trial, Thanh still pleaded innocent, attributing the investigation results to coerced statements. However, the Presiding judge stopped him, saying “This [the trial] is not a forum [for you] to say whatever you want to say.” In a media release issued one day before the trial, Ms. Patricia Gossman, Deputy Director of the Human Rights Watch’s Asian Division, said that the government of Vietnam tries to claim that it does not have any political prisoners, and that it only imprisons those who violate the law. “What Vietnamese leaders refuse to acknowledge is that article 117 of the penal code is a clear violation of freedom of expression, one of the most basic rights enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which Vietnam has ratified,” she said. “Vietnam should repeal its rights-abusing laws instead of punishing its citizens for speaking their minds and expressing their views.” Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar insurgents accused of recruiting Rohingya in Bangladesh camps](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-insurgents-accused-of-recruiting-rohingya-in-bangladesh-camps/): Myanmar Muslim insurgents have pressed about 500 Rohingya refugees in camps in Bangladesh to join the war in their homeland where fighting between rival factions has intensified sharply in recent weeks, refugees told Radio Free Asia.   Members of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) and the smaller Rohingya Solidarity Organization have taken their fellow Muslim Rohingya refugees from the camps for military training, said people living in the world’s largest camp in southeast Bangladesh. RFA could not reach either of the insurgent groups for comment nor authorities responsible for the camps in Bangladesh. The reports, if confirmed, could herald intensifying conflict in western Myanmar’s Rakhine State where residents say the Myanmar junta has been pressing members of the persecuted Rohingya minority to help battle one of Myanmar most powerful insurgent forces, the Arakan Army, which draws it support from the state’s majority ethnic Rakhine Buddhist community. “Everyone is running from the camp,” said one Rohingya refugee who declined to be identified fearing for his safety. “Children under the age of 18 are being caught and sold to those groups … it’s said they are being sent to the Burma side to reinforce in the battles but I don’t know who they’re fighting against.” The refugees had been detained in the camps between April 29 and May 8, most of them between the ages of 14 and 30, said the refugee, who complained that Bangladesh authorities were doing nothing to stop the abductions, which averaged at about one young man per household. ARSA fighters attacked a string of Myanmar government border posts in 2017, triggering a sweeping crackdown by the Myanmar army that sent some one million Rohingya villagers fleeing to safety in Bangladesh. The rebel force, which is seeking self-determination in the state, surged in strength in the wake of that violence and is now one of Myanmar’s main groups fighting junta forces to end military rule.  “These are terrorist organizations,” another refugee said of the two groups whose members he said came at night to press-gang people. “Even 12 or 14-year-old children were among those arrested.” Rohingya villagers still living in Myanmar appear increasingly at risk as the junta army and the Arakan insurgents battle it out. Since the Arakan Army stepped up its attacks on the military in November, both sides have been accused of recruiting or killing Rohingya from camps for internally displaced people in Rakhine State. The ARSA has in the past been accused of violence against its own members living in Bangladesh and of faith-based massacres on Hindu villagers. Nearly one million refugees live in the camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district, according to the latest U.N. figures.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.
- [Women account for 1 in 5 deaths in Myanmar since coup](https://ij-reportika.com/women-account-for-1-in-5-deaths-in-myanmar-since-coup/): Myanmar’s junta has killed more than 900 women and arrested nearly 5,000 others in just over three years since the military seized power in a coup d’etat, a political prisoner watchdog group said Tuesday. Shortly after the Feb. 1, 2021, coup, tens of thousands of civilians took to the streets of Myanmar to protest – many of whom were women. The junta responded with violent and sometimes deadly force, before launching a scorched earth offensive against rebel groups around the country. On Tuesday, Thailand’s Assistance Association of Political Prisoners (Burma), or AAPP, said in a statement that it had documented the junta’s killing of at least 929 women between the coup and May 6, 2024, accounting for nearly one in five of the 4,973 people killed since the takeover. The AAPP said that the junta arrested at least 4,778 women over the same period, making up 18% of the total 26,631 people arrested since the coup. Of the women arrested, at least 781 have been sentenced to prison, Naw Khin San Htwe, the secretary general of the Burmese Women’s Union, told RFA Burmese. In March last year, Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government said that the junta had killed 483 women in the 25 months since the coup and detained 3,125 others. The AAPP said Tuesday that the number of those killed and arrested is “likely much higher,” noting that it only tallied the deaths and arrests it had been able to verify. One woman’s case In one of the latest examples of women arrested and sentenced since the coup, a junta court last month found Lwin Cho Myint, the former general secretary of the Student Union of the University of Technology in Sagaing region, guilty of violating the country’s anti-terrorism law and ordered that she spend 17 years in prison. A family member called her arrest and imprisonment “arbitrary” in an interview with RFA. &#8220;The junta is unjustly detaining and imprisoning anyone who dissents against them, fabricating charges to justify their actions,” said the family member, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. “Such imprisonment under false pretenses amounts to oppression,” the family member said. “The more repression, the stronger the revolution. If the repression increases, there will be uprisings all over the country.” In a more high profile case, on Jan. 10, a court in Yangon region’s notorious Insein Prison sentenced documentary filmmaker Shin Daewe to life in prison after finding her guilty on two counts of terrorism. Heavy punishments for dissenters Zu Zu May Yoon, the founder of the AAPP, told RFA that the junta regularly imposes heavy punishments on anyone who opposes its rule. &#8220;Following the coup, there were instances of political prisoners being condemned to death without anything made public,” she said, noting that even minor infractions under martial law incur a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison. “During my time there [in prison], people sentenced to death, life imprisonment, or lengthy terms were all confined within the same penitentiary,” she said. “They were isolated from contact with anyone else and endured severe living conditions.” A woman touches a bus carrying prisoners being released from Insein prison for the Buddhist New Year, in Yangon on April 17, 2024. (AFP) AAPP said it had documented several young women who were shot dead during peaceful protests in the aftermath of the coup or died under suspicious circumstances while in custody. Among those killed during peaceful protests were Kyal Sin and Mya Thwet Thwet Khaing, aged between 19 and 20, who were shot dead by junta police at demonstrations in Mandalay and Naypyidaw in February 2021. Nobel Aye, a former political prisoner who was arrested and held at a detention center in eastern Bago region, was shot and killed by junta soldiers on the pretext that she had escaped from the courthouse in Waw township on Feb. 8, 2024. Nobel Aye’s brother Chan Myae said that he wanted justice for the killing. &#8220;We want to regain our lost human rights and get justice for the torture and killings,” he said. “I strongly protest the widespread violation of women’s rights in Myanmar, encompassing not only my sister but all women, by the [junta] forces that have seized power.&#8221; Violent deaths on the rise for women The Burmese Women&#8217;s Union’s Naw Khin San Htwe, told RFA that since the coup, women in Myanmar have been killed in increasingly violent ways. &#8220;If you look at the circumstances of the deaths, most of them died due to airstrikes, landmines, and heavy weaponry,” she said. “In addition, some were raped and murdered. Moreover, women have succumbed during interrogations, while others have been fatally shot in wartime conflicts.&#8221; Released prisoners are welcomed by family members and colleagues after they were released from Insein Prison Wednesday, April 17, 2024, in Yangon. (Thein Zaw/AP) RFA has documented several cases of women taking up arms alongside men on the frontlines of the war against the junta, saying they could no longer tolerate the unlawful killings and arrests of their gender. One former nurse who joined the Civil Disobedience Movement of civil servants boycotting the junta now provides medical aid to injured rebels on the frontline. The former nurse, who also declined to be named citing fear of reprisal, told RFA that women are regularly subjected to sexual violence in detention, even if it does not escalate to rape. &#8220;They [the junta] transgress numerous human rights against women, perpetrating relentless violence,” she said. “Thus, I am compelled to persevere until the very end, aspiring to be the final torchbearer of resistance for my generation. My commitment remains steadfast to eradicate this scourge from our midst.&#8221; Translated by Kalyar Lwin. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar helicopter crash ends in shootout, killing pilot, anti-junta group says](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-helicopter-crash-ends-in-shootout-killing-pilot-anti-junta-group-says/): An insurgent group in eastern Myanmar said on Tuesday it shot down a junta military helicopter and killed its pilot then clashed with junta forces on the ground. The Karenni Nationalities Defense Force insurgent group said they opened fire on two helicopters delivering reinforcements and rations to a junta base in the town of Hpasawng in Kayah State on Monday. One helicopter was hit and came down in Bawlake township, an insurgent officer told Radio Free Asia. “The helicopter blew smoke and crashed after it was hit,” said the officer, who declined to be identified for security reasons. “The pilot was killed when we opened fire.” RFA has not been able to independently confirm the officer’s account.  The Kayah State-based news site Kantarawaddy Times reported that two pilots had been killed. The junta did not release any information about such an incident and Kayah State’s junta spokesperson, Zar Ni Maung, did not answer his telephone when RFA tried to call for information. Junta spokesmen have in the past dismissed claims by insurgent forces of shooting down aircraft, which they have now done eight times since the latest round of war in Myanmar began after the army overthrew an elected government in early 2021. Karenni Nationalities Defense Force members near Than Lwin Bridge in Hpasawng city on May 6, 2024. (Karenni Nationalities Defense Force) The Karenni officer said at least 10 soldiers in the second helicopter had parachuted to the ground after the first helicopter was hit, and battled Karenni forces. Though junta forces have the advantage of air power, the insurgents have been making gains in several different parts of the country since late last year, including in Kayah State, on the Thai border. As of Tuesday morning, allied insurgents were monitoring the crash site but there had been no further reports of casualties, said a Karenni Nationalities Defense Force news and information official. The junta and Karenni forces have been battling since the rebels launched an offensive to capture two infantry battalion positions near Hpasawng on Saturday. The junta’s army has launched more than 20 airstrikes in its defense of Hpasawng, a Karenni officer said. Anti-junta forces have claimed responsibility for shooting down a total of eight junta aircraft, including a transport helicopter and fighter jets, in Kachin, Kayah, Kayin, and Rakhine states, since 2021, according to data compiled by RFA. Kayah State, home to various insurgent factions battling to take territory from junta forces, has seen escalating violence in recent months, with landmines claiming more victims and accusations of rights abuses leveled against junta forces. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 
- [Fake images of US college protests circulate in China](https://ij-reportika.com/fake-images-of-us-college-protests-circulate-in-china/): Pro-Palestinian protests on U.S. college campuses have gotten attention on Chinese social media, but some of these posts show unrelated demonstrations that happened months or even years earlier. One aerial video showing a massive gathering of thousands of people packed together – purported to be at Columbia University in New York – is actually a demonstration in January in Hamburg, Germany, against a far-right political group. Another photo claimed to show a protester holding up a famous Mao Zedong quote in Chinese, “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” But Asia Fact Check Lab found this to be from a pro-gun rally held in Virginia in 2020.  As the Israeli-Hamas conflict drags into its seventh month, student demonstrations supporting the Palestininans and calling for a cease-fire have spread across dozens of U.S. university campuses. The aerial video of thousands gathered in public was shared on the popular Chinese social media platform Weibo on April 28, with the breathless caption: “U.S. university demonstration: Pro-Palestinian protest at Columbia University is majestic!”  Chinese netizens claimed that a video posted on Weibo shows a pro-Palestinian demonstration in April, but in reality it wasn&#8217;t. (Screenshot/Weibo and TikTok) But a reverse image search found the video, shared on TikTok  Jan. 21, 2024, actually depicted 80,000 people in Hamburg, Germany, protesting against the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, party “since their ‘secret meeting’ with the fascist Identitarian Movement was revealed. Keyword searches including “AfD” found the Hamburg demonstrations were one amongst a series of protests to break out against the party after a news report surfaced that the group had considered a plan to expel all people of “non-German backgrounds” from the country, including immigrants who have already obtained residency at a meeting with influential leaders. Video of demonstrations against the AfD released by German media and government agencies match the purported footage of pro-Palestianian demonstrations at Columbia University spread on Weibo. (Screenshots/YouTube) In another case, a number of Weibo influencers and X accounts also recently claimed that one protester at an unspecified college campus held up a poster with the Mao quote, “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”  But this is false. The photo is from a pro-gun rally held in Virginia in 2020, and has nothing to do with any pro-Palestine demonstration.  The photo of a purported April protest recently spread on Weibo has actually been circulated online since 2020. (Screenshot/Sina Military and Weibo) A reserve image search reveals that a version of the same image shown in a larger frame was published in an article published on the Chinese military news blog Sina Military in 2020 Keyword searches using visual clues from the photo, including a banner that reads Constitutional Conservatives, found that it shows a rally held by pro-gun advocates from all across the U.S. in Richmond in 2020.  A closer look at the image also shows a street sign reading “N. 9th St.” at the top of the frame. A search in Google Maps found that this was a street in Richmond and not part of the university campus.  A person uploaded a photo of the pro-gun rally to Google Maps in January 2020 in real time as it was happening. (Screenshot/Google Maps) Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Shen Ke, Taejun Kang and Malcolm Foster. Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X.
- [Hundreds of Myanmar junta troops surrender near Bangladesh border](https://ij-reportika.com/hundreds-of-myanmar-junta-troops-surrender-near-bangladesh-border/): At least 200 Myanmar junta troops have surrendered after an ethnic minority army captured their headquarters in Rakhine State, near the Bangladesh border, the anti-junta organization said on Monday.  The Arakan Army, which has been fighting the military regime for territory since a year-long ceasefire ended in November 2023, captured a junta camp in western Myanmar’s Rakhine State, near the Bangladesh border, last Thursday. The No.15 Operation Command Headquarters fell to the Arakan Army after a 12-day battle, the latest in a series of setbacks for the junta that seized power in a coup in 2021. The insurgent force released video footage of hundreds of soldiers and others surrendering. Some of the 200 soldiers pictured in the videos were captured from five battalions in late March and April, the Arakan Army said in a statement, identifying the battalions as the 552, 564, 565 and 551. “All of these battalions were captured by a heavy offensive attack between March 25 and May 3,” the group said. Junta soldiers as well as some Rohingya Muslims could also be seen in the video footage released by the Arakan Army. Some Rohingya have complained of being forced into the junta’s army. The Arakan insurgent group did not say how many junta troops it held but said they had surrendered because of its blockade of their Operation Command Headquarters. Junta troops and family members under No.15 Operation Command Headquarters surrendered to the Arakan Army, released on May 6, 2024. (Arakan Army Information Desk) Rakhine State’s junta spokesperson, Hla Thein, did not answer his telephone when RFA tried to contact him for comment by the time of publication.  Of the 12 military council battalions in Buthidaung township under the No.15 Operation Command Headquarters, five, including the No.15 Operation Command Headquarters, have been captured. Since November, the Arakan Army has captured nine townships across Rakhine State. Fighting continues in Ann, Buthidaung, Maungdaw, and Kyaukpyu townships. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 
- [INTERVIEW: Former North Korean diplomat on the drawbacks of being elite](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-former-north-korean-diplomat-on-the-drawbacks-of-being-elite/): Ryu Hyun-woo was North Korea’s acting ambassador to Kuwait when he defected to South Korea in 2019. As one of the elites in North Korea, he had rights and privileges that ordinary citizens do not. But at the same time, he and others like him were under even more scrutiny than the average citizen, he says. Ryu lived in an apartment complex in Pyongyang where all of his neighbors were high-ranking North Korean officials. In an interview with RFA Korean, Ryu explained that life as an elite is like already having “one foot in hell” because of the constant surveillance their lives are under, and how easily they are discarded if the leader needs someone to take the blame. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. RFA: Can you tell us a little bit about your background? Ryu: I was born in Pyongyang. I graduated from the Pyongyang Foreign Language Institute and Pyongyang University of Foreign Studies, majoring in Arabic. I then joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and worked there for over 20 years. After working as a diplomat in Syria and Kuwait, I came to South Korea in September 2019. I have settled in and I am living well in South Korea. RFA: When you were in North Korea, you lived in and exclusive area of Pyongyang, correct? Do all the elites live in the same area? Ryu: The administrative district name is Uiam-dong, Taedonggang district, Pyongyang. This place is also called Eundok village, and it is the residence of many officials. There are six major buildings in the residence. The generals of the North Korean People’s Army live in four of the buildings. One building is for high-ranking officials in the Central Committee. The remaining one is where high-ranking officials of the administrative department live. RFA: We often hear about North Korea’s chronic shortages of electricity. Did the elevators on these buildings cut out from time to time like they do for everyone else living in apartments? Ryu: You’re right. North Korea has a poor power supply system. Because of it, the elevator sometimes stops working. However, there are times when it operates normally. For example, during commuting hours, it is guaranteed. Nevertheless, the electricity often drops even during commuting hours.  My house was on the 4th floor. Oh Guk Ryol, the head of the operations department, lived on the 5th floor, and Director Kim Yang Gon lived on the 3rd floor. The former head of the United Front Work Department and Oh Guk Ryol came down from the floors above, and my father-in-law (Jon Il Chun, the former head Office 39, the secretive organization that manages the slush funds of the Kim family) and I would get on to the elevator. As we were going down, Kim Yang Gon got on.  Then just as the elevator was going down to the second floor, it suddenly stopped. I was the youngest of everyone there, so I had no choice but to open the escape hatch on the ceiling of the elevator. It’s like a vent. I climbed up to the third floor and I saw something that looked like a latch that opens the elevator door. I opened the door with it, contacted the management, and rescued the other officials in the elevator. The electricity situation was so bad. RFA: Can living in that area of Pyongyang be seen as a matter of pride for its residents? Ryu: It can be interpreted as having a lot of trust and high loyalty. However, there are pros and cons. Once you enter this place, you are subject to wiretapping, stalking and strong surveillance. You can’t say anything inside your house.  For example, wasn’t Chief of Staff Ri Yong Ho shot to death? It was because he was at home making slanderous remarks about Kim Jong Un with his wife. He was purged and disappeared. My mother-in-law kept pointing to her mouth whenever I tried to complain about something. She told me to be quiet and not to say anything because they listen to everything.  To that extent, they wiretap 24 hours a day. That’s why there is a different way to share thoughts. My in-laws would wake up around 5:30 in the morning. I would wake up around 6 o’clock. Then we go for a jog or walk together. That’s the time my father-in-law would ask me questions and I would also talk to him.  For example, while I was in Syria, I heard a South Korean refer to my father-in-law as ‘Kim Jong Il’s safekeeper,’ so I passed that on to my father-in-law. RFA: You told your father-in-law about something that came out in the South Korean media? Ryu: I told my father-in-law that in South Korea, he is referred to as ‘Kim Jong Il’s safekeeper.’ My father-in-law laughed. I told him those things, secret things that should not be caught by wiretapping. We exchanged stories like that while taking a walk or in a place where wiretapping does not work. Ryu Hyun-woo (right), who served as North Korea’s acting ambassador to Kuwait in 2019, escaped from North Korea and has now settled in South Korea, in a frame grab from an interview with RFA Korea. (RFA) RFA: Was there ever any frightful incident you witnessed while living there? Ryu: The household we were closest to was Park Nam Ki, director of the Planning and Finance Department of the ruling party of North Korea. Do you remember the currency reform in 2009?  (That was when North Korea introduced new versions of its paper currency, but allowed the people to exchange only a certain amount of their old currency, thereby wiping out most people’s savings.) As a result of that incident, Park Nam Ki was shot to death in January 2010. In February of the same year, Park Nam Ki’s entire family members went to a political prison camp. I remembered it was around 1 or 2 o’clock in the morning. There was a truck from...
- [The Techo Funan Canal won’t end Cambodia’s dependency on Vietnam](https://ij-reportika.com/the-techo-funan-canal-wont-end-cambodias-dependency-on-vietnam/): First it was the Ream Naval Base. Now it’s the Techo Funan Canal.  Could the planned $1.7-billion waterway that will cut through eastern Cambodia – which will be built, funded and owned by a Chinese state firm – be used by Beijing to attack or threaten Vietnam?  Phnom Penh denies this and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet reportedly had to assuage the Vietnamese leadership of this concern during a visit last December.  Sun Chanthol, a Cambodian deputy prime minister and the former minister of public works, recently said he also tried to mollify Hanoi’s concerns about the project, formally known as the Tonle Bassac Navigation Road and Logistics System Project. The United States has been more vocal than Vietnam in raising concerns over the Ream Naval Base in southern Cambodia, which China is extensively refurbishing and where China appears to have stationed some vessels for the past few months.  Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet wave in Hanoi, Dec.11, 2023 during Manet’s visit to boost bilateral relations between the two Southeast Asian nations. (Hau Dinh/AP) But Hanoi’s worries about the Techo Funan Canal have leaked out in drabs from within Vietnam.  Last month, an academic journal article by two researchers at the Oriental Research Development Institute, part of the state-run Union of Science and Technology Associations, warned that the Cambodian canal might be a “dual-use” project.  “The locks on the Funan Techo Canal can create the necessary water depths for military vessels to enter from the Gulf of Thailand, or from Ream Naval Base, and travel deep into Cambodia and approach the [Cambodia-Vietnam] border,” they argued in a study that was republished on the website of the People’s Public Security Political Academy.  Geopolitical implications One ought to be skeptical. China having access to the Ream Naval Base is one thing— it is a military base. It makes sense for Beijing to want to station and refuel its vessels on the Gulf of Thailand, effectively encircling Vietnam.  But if China was thinking of attacking Vietnam, wouldn’t it be simpler for the Chinese navy to follow Cambodia’s coastline to Vietnam? Beijing presumably wouldn’t want its vessels to be stuck in a relatively narrow Cambodian canal.  But if you can imagine Cambodia allowing the Chinese military access to its inland waterways to invade Vietnam, why not imagine Phnom Penh allowing the Chinese military to zip along its (Chinese-built) expressways and railways to invade Vietnam?  If you are of that mindset, then Cambodia’s road or rail networks are just as much of a threat, or perhaps more so, as Cambodia’s naval bases or canals. Two Chinese warships, circled, are seen at Cambodia&#8217;s Ream naval base on April 18, 2024. (Planet Labs) Nonetheless, the canal has geopolitical implications for Vietnam.  Cambodia exports and imports many of its goods through Vietnamese ports, mainly Cai Mep. The Funan Techo Canal, by connecting the Phnom Penh Autonomous Port to a planned deepwater port in Kep province and an already-built deep seaport in Sihanoukville province, would mean that much of Cambodia’s trade no longer needs to go through Vietnam.  Phnom Penh can justifiably say this is a matter of economic self-sufficiency. “Breathing through our own nose,” as Hun Manet put it. Phnom Penh reckons the canal will cut shipping costs by a third.  Cambodia has a dependency on Vietnam’s ports. If Cambodia-Vietnam relations turned really sour, such as Phnom Penh giving the Chinese military access to its land, Hanoi could close off Cambodia’s access to its ports or threaten to do so, effectively blocking much of Cambodian trade – like it did briefly in 1994.  Remove that dependency, and Vietnam has less leverage over Phnom Penh’s decision making.  Mekong River projects Even the environmental concerns around the canal are about geopolitical leverage.  Vietnam is justified in fearing that Cambodia altering the course of the Mekong River—after Laos has been doing so for two decades—will affect its own already at-risk ecology.  Fears are compounded by the lack of publicly available environmental impact assessments over the canal and the fact that the Mekong River Commission, a regional oversight body that is supposed to assess the environmental impact of these riparian projects, has become a feckless body for dialogue.   Vietnam&#8217;s Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and China&#8217;s President Xi Jinping, following a meeting at the Government Office in Hanoi, Dec. 13, 2023. (Nhac Nguyen/Pool Photo via AP) Hanoi is no doubt concerned about its own position since it hasn’t been able to get Phnom Penh to openly publish those impact assessments. This further compounds Vietnam’s sense of weakness for having failed for more than a decade to limit how its neighbors go about altering their sections of the Mekong River, with highly deleterious impacts on Vietnam’s environment and agricultural heartlands.  Clearly, Phnom Penh isn’t for turning on the canal project. Just this week, Hun Manet applauded apparent public support for the scheme as a “huge force of nationalism”. Phnom Penh is making this a sovereignty issue, thus making criticism a matter of state interference, a way of silencing dissent in Southeast Asia.  It’s not all bad news for Vietnam, though. The Financial Times noted that, according to Vietnamese analysts, even if the Techo Funan Canal goes ahead, “Hanoi retains leverage over Cambodia&#8221; because ships carrying more than 1,000 tonnes would still rely on Vietnamese ports.  Cambodia could get around this by using smaller vessels. That would be less profitable but still doable. By my calculation, Cambodia’s exports to Vietnam have grown by more than 800% over the last six years, from $324 million in 2018 to $2.97 billion last year.  In the first quarter of this year, Vietnam bought 22 percent of Cambodia’s goods. Exports certainly give leverage. No other single country is queuing up to start buying a fifth of Cambodia’s products.  Trade dependency In fact many of these Cambodian exports are re-exported by Vietnam to China, so Phnom Penh might think it can cut out the Vietnamese middleman. But it cannot.  Arguably, Cambodia&#8217;s...
- [China sends 300 workers to deep sea port project in Myanmar’s Rakhine state](https://ij-reportika.com/china-sends-300-workers-to-deep-sea-port-project-in-myanmars-rakhine-state/): China has sent more than 300 technicians and workers to a deep sea port project in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state amid intense fighting between the military and ethnic rebels, according to residents. A ship carrying the crews, along with heavy machinery and food, docked at Maday Island in Rakhine’s Kyaukphyu township on the evening of April 28, the residents told RFA Burmese, after receiving permission from the junta to work on the project in the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone, or SEZ. The deployment comes after six months of clashes in Rakhine between junta troops and the Arakan Army, or AA – part of an alliance of three ethnic armies that have pushed the junta back in the western and northern parts of the country.  Experts say the ethnic army victories mark a turning point in the war that began soon after the junta took control of the government in a February 2021 coup d’etat. The Kyaukphyu SEZ’s deep sea port complex is a key Chinese-led venture for which Beijing had requested heightened security. The project was approved in 2023 by the junta and attempts to recruit locals for work have been met with controversy and distrust. A resident of Kyaukphyu who, like others interviewed in this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns, told RFA that some of the Chinese nationals who arrived on the ship are now residing in hotels in the township. &#8220;Both the workers who were already there and those who recently arrived travel to Maday Island in the morning and return to the city in the evening using hovercrafts,” he said. “The ship that arrived carried Chinese experts, including engineers responsible for the power lines and water systems.&#8221; The Myanmar military’s Danyawaddy Naval Base near Thit Poke Taung village in Kyaukphyu township, Rakhine state, seen here in Jan. 26, 2023. (Airbus) Residents said the ship departed from Maday Island on the morning of April 30. Attempts by RFA to reach Hla Thein, the junta’s attorney general and spokesperson for Rakhine state, for additional information about the deployment and the status of the project went unanswered. China and Myanmar signed an agreement to implement the Kyaukphyu Deep Sea Port Project and SEZ in November 2020, under the National League for Democracy government, which was deposed months later in the military coup. On Dec. 26, 2023, the two nations signed another agreement specifically for the deep sea port project during a meeting in Naypyidaw. Despite the agreements, residents say the project has yet to be fully implemented. The deep sea port project is a joint venture between the neighboring countries, with Myanmar contributing 30% of the investment and China providing the remaining 70%. The port is expected to include 10 wharfs capable of docking container ships. Developing a war zone Kyaukphyu township has been at the forefront of fighting in recent months between the military and the AA, which in November ended a ceasefire that had been in place since the coup. Since then, the ethnic army has taken control of eight of Rakhine state’s 17 townships, as well as one township in neighboring Chin state. Clashes and exchanges of territory occur on a near daily basis in the state. On Thursday evening, the AA captured the pro-junta Border Guard Police Command, at which some 600 junta troops were stationed, and two pro-junta Border Guard Force camps in Maungdaw township, residents told RFA. The AA first attacked the police command on April 25, and the capture ended a week of fighting, residents said. “Hundreds of border guard troops” retreated from the police command to Shwe Zar ward in the town of Maungdaw following the seizure, they added. A day earlier, the AA captured two military outposts in the Mayu mountain range near the Myanmar-Bangladesh border where around 100 junta troops were stationed, according to sources close to the Rakhine rebel group. The seizure ended a nearly three-week bid by the AA for control of the camps, they said. Residents said Friday that the Rakhine state capital Sittwe – a city of 100,000 people with typically crowded beaches and markets – has become “a ghost town,” as the AA captured nearby towns in recent months. Those who lack the funds to relocate face a shortage of commodities and skyrocketing prices, while some are starving, they said. Junta troops have tightened security in the city since April 10, when AA chief Major Gen. Twan Mrat Naing urged residents of Sittwe and Kyaukphyu to flee to his army’s controlled territories. A jetty for oil tankers is seen on Maday island, Kyaukphyu township, Rakhine state, Myanmar in this October 7, 2015 file photo. (Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters) Meanwhile, the AA and junta forces are in a fierce fight for control of Rakhine’s Ann township, which is the base of military’s Western Command, as well the townships of Buthidaung and Thandwe townships. The latest developments follow the AA’s March capture of Ramree township, which shares Maday Island with Kyaukphyu township.  A resident who has closely watched the progress of Chinese projects in the region told RFA at the time that the AA had assumed control of most of the areas within the Kyaukphyu SEZ and said the ethnic army would likely have a say on how Chinese development proceeds. Protecting Chinese interests Zachary Abuza, a Southeast Asia analyst at the National War College in Washington – who writes commentaries regularly for RFA – said that despite assurances to Beijing by both the military and the AA that they would protect its interests in Myanmar, China’s decision to deploy workers and technicians to the Kyaukphyu SEZ is “putting [them] in harm’s way.” “They&#8217;re both giving assurances for the protection of Chinese interests, but they&#8217;re still very much in competition over the control of Kyaukphyu,” he said, noting that “fighting has increased” around the township seat in recent weeks. “Right now, the Arakan Army is in fairly solid control of most of northern Rakhine … [and] is going to have to move...
- [Myanmar junta closes hospital for employing protesters](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-closes-hospital-for-employing-protesters/): Junta officials shuttered a hospital in southeast Myanmar for hiring staff who oppose the military regime, sources close to the hospital told Radio Free Asia.  Military junta administrators ordered the private Aye Thandar hospital, in the Mon State capital of Mawlamyine, to close for three months, the sources said.  Military junta officials, including staff of the junta-led State Ministry of Health, sent a notice telling  the hospital to close from Wednesday, one of the sources said. “It was ordered to close for three months, not even two months like the hospitals in Yangon and Mandalay,” said the source, who declined to be identified for fear of reprisals, referring to hospitals closed in Myanmar’s two biggest cities for similar reasons. “They said it was temporarily closed for employing Civil Disobedience Movement workers,” the source said. RFA called Mon State’s junta spokesperson Aung Myat Kyaw Sein to ask about the directive, but he did not answer his telephone. The Civil Disobedience Movement, which at one time included more than 350,000 striking state employees erupted in opposition to military rule after a coup in 2021, when the generals ousted an elected government led by democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi. Doctors and nurses were at the forefront of the protests that swept the country in the weeks after the coup but  Teachers, doctors, and other public employees were later  forced to make difficult economic decisions to secure their livelihoods.  Many medical professionals have sought work at institutions opposed to the junta or providing healthcare to ethnic minority insurgent organizations battling the military, sometimes making themselves a target in the process.  The regime’s minister of health, Thet Khaing Win, told an annual Myanmar Private Hospitals Association ceremony on Wednesday that private healthcare providers that failed to comply with business license rules would face action in accordance with the private health businesses law. In all, 295 private hospitals had been granted business licenses throughout the country, he said. Authorities in Yangon closed two hospitals this year, both for two months.   Six hospitals in Mandalay, where doctors launched the Civil Disobedience Movement in 2021, were forced to close in 2022 after being accused of employing workers opposed to  the junta.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.
- [Forced to work as maids in Saudi Arabia, Cambodians beg to be repatriated](https://ij-reportika.com/forced-to-work-as-maids-in-saudi-arabia-cambodians-beg-to-be-repatriated/): Dozens of Cambodian women trafficked to work as maids in Saudi Arabia are demanding that their embassy arrange for them to return home, saying that since authorities rescued them nearly two weeks ago, they have lacked access to adequate food and their health is rapidly deteriorating. On April 18, Cambodia’s Ministry of Labor confirmed that 78 Cambodian migrant workers had been tricked into working in Saudi Arabia, but have now been rescued and placed in hotel rooms under the care of the Cambodian Embassy.  The ministry said 51 of the women are in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, 15 in the capital Riyadh, and 12 in Dammam, on the coast of the Persian Gulf. The Ministries of Labor and Foreign Affairs, along with the Cambodian Embassy, claimed to be purchasing flights for the victims to return to Cambodia, promising to return 29 on April 19, 27 on April 20, and the final 22 on April 21. However, on April 27, RFA Khmer received videos from several of the victims in which they claimed to remain stranded in Saudi Arabia. In the videos, the women call for help from former Prime Minister Hun Sen, his wife Bun Rany, and their son Prime Minister Hun Manet.  They said the companies that brought them to Saudi Arabia had “violated their contracts,” leaving them mired in legal issues surrounding their salaries and basic rights. They claim several of them were subjected to physical abuse by the households where they worked, including being denied food and sleep. They singled out Saudi firm BAB, which places workers from Cambodia-based company Fatina Manpower, for allegedly threatening them and accusing them of working illegally in the country. Some of the victims said they were unable to leave the country because BAB had refused to terminate their contracts. The women told RFA that since their rescue, some of them had been “confined” to their hotel rooms “without proper access to food,” and said they were appealing for help because they could “no longer wait for the government” to send them home. According to Cambodia’s Ministry of Labor, nearly 1.4 million people were provided with employment opportunities to work abroad in 2023, more than 93% of which are in Thailand, while the remainder are in South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia. Stranded in Saudi Arabia RFA contacted one of the women, Thaing Sokyee, who said she had been forced to work as a maid in multiple homes each day without being provided enough food to eat before she was rescued, and is now suffering from health issues. “I’ve called on the [labor] ministry and the embassy to find prompt solutions for us so that we may return to Cambodia,” she said. “We’ve faced mounting difficulties; our bodies have deteriorated as we were forced to work without food.” Doeun Pheap, another victim who said she is sick as a result of her working conditions, told RFA that she has been confined to her room since her rescue and has not been permitted by embassy staff to go outside to purchase medicine. She said the staff told her to wait for the government to send her home and that she was advised to record a video clip “saying that my health condition is getting better and that I have been provided with enough food to eat.” “I still hurt all over my body – I’m able to stand up, but my waist and my back still hurt,” she said, adding that embassy staff had provided her with “rice, but not food.” “I didn’t do it [record the video] because I was too hungry and exhausted; I couldn’t bear doing anything.” Other victims claimed that Uk Sarun, Cambodia’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, had “threatened to abandon us if we continue to publicly call for help.” Trafficking designation On Monday, Ambassador Uk Sarun confirmed to RFA Khmer that only 16 of the 78 women had been returned home so far. He said that some of the women had faced a shortage of food due to the ongoing holy month of Ramadan, during which Muslims fast during the day and only eat at night. He did not address claims by victims that he had threatened to withhold assistance if they continued to speak out about their situation. The Khmer Times reported last week that 29 of the 78 had been safely repatriated as of April 19, while the rest were awaiting documentation to leave, but provided no attribution for the numbers. The report said that the embassy was providing the victims with food and accommodation and cited Cambodian Ministry of Labor spokesman Katta Orn as saying that the ministry was conducting an investigation into the employment scam. RFA spoke with Bun Chenda, a Cambodia-based anti-human trafficking officer for labor rights group CENTRAL, who said the women had been “exploited” when they were sent to Saudi Arabia without proper compliance with labor contracts. “We are not sure if the government is treating their cases as human trafficking,” he said. “If they are being rescued as human trafficking victims, intervention would likely be easier and they wouldn’t be subject to legal action by a Saudi Arabian company.” Translated by Yun, Samean. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
- [Landmine toll set to surpass previous years in eastern Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/landmine-toll-set-to-surpass-previous-years-in-eastern-myanmar/): Thirty people have been injured or killed by landmines in an eastern Myanmar state this year, officials there said, highlighting a problem that the U.N. children’s agency says has made Myanmar one of the world’s most heavily mined countries. Civilian officials in Kayah State have warned villagers wanting to go home in areas abandoned by the military junta to get the approval of anti-junta forces before venturing back because of the danger of mines. “Those who fled the war are now returning. It’s been a month or two and they are coming back,” Ba Nyar, secretary  of the Karenni Interim Executive Council, told Radio Free Asia. While the landmine toll has risen sharply this year,  Ba Nyar said Kayah State has had nearly 100 landmine victims since Myanmar’s conflict surged after a 2001 coup, when the military ousted an elected government triggering an intensifying campaign by fighters determined to end army rule. The council on Wednesday told residents not to go home without getting clearance from anti-junta forces and it appealed for residents to report any mines of unexploded ordnance in their neighborhoods. A 14-year-old boy was killed by a landmine in Demoso township’s Pu Hpar village while herding cattle on Sunday. The anti-junta Progressive Karenni People’s Force said civilian toll from mines had surged since anti-junta forces launched an offensive in November with a strategy aimed at seizing territory from junta control, a member of the anti-junta force said. Retreating junta forces had left a deadly legacy, he said. “There are many landmines planted,” said the insurgent group member, who declined to be identified. “Villagers have stepped on and been hit by landmines. Some have lost their legs and hands.” Karenni forces have captured seven towns – Kayah State’s Mese, Demoso, Ywar Thit, Shadaw, Mawchee, and Shan State’s Moe Bye and Nan Mei Khon &#8211; since launching their Operation 1111 offensive. The U.N. Children’s Fund said in a report last month that civilian deaths and injuries from landmines and unexploded ordnance throughout Myanmar had nearly tripled to 1,052 in 2023, from 390 the previous year. The humanitarian group said 118 people, including 59 children, were killed by mines in 20023 and it called on all sides in the conflict to protect civilians and “take immediate steps to halt the use of these indiscriminate weapons.&#8221;. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 
- [Upbeat video casts Kim Jong Un as North Korea’s father figure](https://ij-reportika.com/upbeat-video-casts-kim-jong-un-as-north-koreas-father-figure/): An upbeat and unusually high quality propaganda music video coming out of North Korea purports to show a prosperous, modern society full of happy people who love their leader. Titled “Friendly Father,” the rousing song depicts soldiers, students, steel workers and others singing Kim Jong Un’s praises.  “He is holding his 10 million children in his arms and taking care of us with all his heart,” go the lyrics.  But the video also shows some equipment used to produce the song that may be in violation of international sanctions that have banned the import of luxury goods into North Korea since 2006. They include Korg and Roland synthesizers, headphones by Sony and a speaker from U.S.-based Harmon Kardon.  An analysis of the equipment appeared on a keyboard enthusiasts page on popular internet bulletin board Reddit, where the keyboards were identified as the Korg Kronos and the Roland FA-07. The synthesizers sell for between US$2,000 and $3,000 in the United States.  Luxury goods were defined by the U.N. Sanctions Committee on North Korea as those beyond the purchasing ability of ordinary North Korean residents. Japan therefore defines expensive musical instruments as luxury goods. RFA was not able to confirm how or when the equipment was imported to North Korea. A spokesperson from Roland stated in an email that the company has never sold any products to North Korea, adding that the Roland FA-07 was manufactured in 2014, but that no purchase records from that year were available. Evading sanctions North Korean media often shows the use of foreign goods that should be barred due to sanctions. According to NK news, a media specializing in North Korea, on April 28th, six Toyota SUVs  and a Land Cruiser 300 that had never been seen before, appeared in Kim Jong Un’s security procession. North Korea is flaunting its ability to evade sanctions by showcasing sanctioned items in media, Bruce Klingner, Senior Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, explained in a phone call with RFA  “It just encourages the entity, whether it&#8217;s governments or businesses, to just continue violating the rule,” he said. “What we&#8217;ve seen is a number of nations, predominantly China and Russia, who blatantly violate the U.N. resolutions by assisting North Korea.” A Korg Kronos is displayed May 7, 2011. (synthfiend via Wikipedia) Though the video focuses on scenes of happy North Korean people, when it shows Kim Jong Un, it attempts to portray him as acting fatherly towards children.  In one shot he is hugging a small child while another looks on. In the next, he meets several young students who cry at his very presence.  A third shot shows several male members of the military embracing the smiling leader. “Let&#8217;s love Kim Jong Un, our friendly father,” the lyrics say. “We all trust and follow him with one heart.” Translated by Claire S. Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Edited by Eugene Whong.
- [Myanmar ethnic army secures 2 bases after month-long battle](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-ethnic-army-secures-2-bases-after-month-long-battle/): An ethnic minority insurgent force in Myanmar has captured two strategic positions near the junta’s regional military headquarters in Rakhine State, residents told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday. The Arakan Army (AA), which has gained control of eight townships in Rakhine State from the military following a 2021 coup, seized another two camps on Saturday, they said. The junta positions at Chaung Byu Har hill and Taw Hein Taung Byu Har in Ann township are now under the control of the rebel group, the residents said. Arakan Army fighters began attacking the two camps on March 24, said one woman in Ann township. The positions are near the headquarters of the Western Regional Command, one of at least a dozen regional commands across the country. “Casualties among junta troops are high but the exact number is not known. Some say it’s about 150,” said the woman, who declined to be identified for security reasons.  “But it can be confirmed that those two strategic hills have been seized,” she said, adding that hundreds of junta troops were believed to have been stationed at the camps.  RFA tried to contact the  junta spokesperson in Rakhine State, Hla Thein for more information but he did not respond. The AA has not released any information about the latest fighting. Forces opposed to military rule, including various ethnic minority insurgent groups seeking self-determination and pro-democracy activists who took up arms after the 2021 coup, have made significant gains since allied forces launched an offensive in October last year. A person close to the Arakan Army told RFA that retreating junta troops had fled towards the Western Regional Command headquarters in Ann. “The battle is continuing,” said the source, who also declined to be identified. The junta had in recent days been sending reinforcements and weapons to beef up defenses at the headquarters, he said. The Arakan Army has also been attacking the junta’s operations command headquarters in Rakhine State’s Buthidaung township and captured three outposts there on Tuesday, residents said.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 
- [Uyghur spy turns to religion and lands in Xinjiang prison](https://ij-reportika.com/uyghur-spy-turns-to-religion-and-lands-in-xinjiang-prison/): A Uyghur official who spied on fellow Uyghurs in Xinjiang is serving a seven-year prison sentence on the charge of religious extremism after he was moved by Muslim sermons and gave up smoking and drinking alcohol, area authorities said. The change of heart in Yasin Tursun, a Chinese Communist Party member and secretary of Terim village in southern Xinjiang’s Peyziwat county, pleased his family but upset authorities, the sources said, insisting they not be identified for security reasons.  After struggling to find a reason to arrest and convict him, authorities accused him of being “two-faced” and sentenced him to prison in October 2019, two policemen and a county official told Radio Free Asia. He is estimated to be about 55 now. Tursun’s case highlights how Beijing has clamped down harshly on the mostly Muslim Uyghurs, and their religious practices — including prayer and abstaining from alcohol and fasting during the month of Ramadan — in the far-western region of Xinjiang in the name of suppressing religious extremism and terrorism.  It also shows how Chinese authorities have enlisted Uyghurs to spy on their own people.  ‘Two-faced’ When Tursun ended up embracing Muslim practices, authorities in 2017 fell back on the common accusation of being “two-faced” — used by the Chinese Communist Party to describe officials or party members who are either corrupt or ideologically disloyal to the party.  Among Uyghurs, it is applied to those who show an interest in carrying on their cultural and religious traditions. In Tursun’s case, authorities were upset that he gave up alcohol and tobacco, promoted their abstinence and listened to Muslim sermons, the sources said. Tursun was handed over to the authorities, and following an investigation was sentenced to seven years in prison, they said.   Some village cadres — including Tursun — who worked as spies had unexpectedly inspiring experiences at secret and public religious events, said an official from Peyziwat county, called Jiashi in Chinese. They were moved by the orderliness and kindness at these gatherings, as well as by the eloquent speeches of religious leaders and their insightful interpretations of the world, humanity and life, said the official, asking not to be identified. This caused some of the Uyghur cadres to disengage from their work activities, and even resign, he said. &#8216;Swayed&#8217; by religion One police officer from Terim village said all former Uyghur cadres from the the second sub-village had been arrested.  “We had 10-16 cadres, but now there are none left,” he told RFA. The security director of Terim’s fifth sub-village said two “two-faced” Uyghur cadres, including Tursun, had been influenced by “religious extremism.”  Tursun was arrested for his association with religious individuals, while the other cadre, Rahman Ghopur, about 33 years old, was arrested for promoting the idea of not crying at funerals, he said. Tursun was removed from his role because of “bad habits” such as abstaining from alcohol, the security director said. “Yasin Tursun was removed from his position because he made his wife wear modest clothes and he himself grew a beard,” he told RFA. “The investigation indicated that he had been influenced by religious individuals. I heard he was swayed while working at religious events.” The security director said he was in the courtroom when Tursun was sentenced for “religious extremism,” and that others who were listed among his mobile phone contacts faced similar circumstances. A second officer from the police station in Terim said Tursun’s previous lifestyle of spying had nearly destroyed his family, but after he embraced religion, his relationships with his wife and children improved. Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Manila says China obstructs, damages its ships at disputed shoal](https://ij-reportika.com/manila-says-china-obstructs-damages-its-ships-at-disputed-shoal/): Updated April 30, 2024, 04:40 a.m. ET. The Philippines said that Chinese coast guard vessels fired water cannons at two of its ships on Tuesday, causing some damage  in the latest confrontation near the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. The shoal, called Bajo De Masinloc in the Philippines and Huangyan Dao in China, is within the Philippine exclusive economic zone but is under de-facto control by China. Philippine Coast Guard spokesperson Jay Tarriela said in a statement that the Philippine coast guard ship BRP Bagacay and fishery patrol ship BRP Bankaw were carrying out “a legitimate maritime patrol” in the waters near the shoal. “During the patrol, the Philippine vessels encountered dangerous maneuvers and obstruction from four China Coast Guard vessels and six Chinese maritime militia vessels,” Tarriela said. Chinese vessels fired water cannons at the BRP Bankaw first, and afterwards at the BRP Bagacay, causing damage to both ships, he said. Philippine media reported that Chinese coast guard ship 3305 also collided with the BRP Bankaw, damaging its railings. A video clip released by the Philippine Coast Guard shows the BRP Bagacay being shot at with powerful streams of water by Chinese vessels 3105 and 5303. As a result, the Philippine ship’s suffered damage to its railing and canopy.  “This damage serves as evidence of the forceful water pressure used by the China Coast Guard in their harassment of the Philippine vessels,” the Philippine spokesman said, adding that the Philippine ships continued their maritime patrol despite the harassment. The Chinese Coast Guard has also installed a 380-meter floating barrier that covers the entire entrance of the shoal, “effectively restricting access to the area,” Tarriela noted. Chinese spy ship China Coast Guard Spokesperson Gan Yu said that on April 30, Philippine Coast Guard Ship 4410 and Government Ship 3004 ignored China’s repeated warnings, insisting on “invading the waters” adjacent to China&#8217;s Huangyan Island.  “In accordance with the law, the Chinese Coast Guard took necessary measures such as follow-up, water cannon warnings, and blockade control to drive away illegally intruding Philippine ships,” the statement said. China claimed its operations were “professional, standardized and legal,” saying the Philippines’ actions “infringe on China&#8217;s sovereignty and seriously violate international law and basic norms of international relations.” It urged the Philippines to stop what it called “infringement” on territory where China claims sovereignty, saying the Coast Guard would continue to carry out “rights protection” in the area. China’s state media reported on Tuesday morning that Chinese ships expelled two Philippine vessels that “intruded into the waters adjacent to Huangyan Dao.”  China’s state-run tabloid Global Times quoted a Chinese analyst as saying that “professional control measures taken by the Chinese side are required to prevent the escalation of a possible maritime confrontation.” The Philippines says its ships that routinely sail to the area around the Scarborough Shoal to distribute fuel and food supplies to fishermen have been harassed by Chinese vessels.  China claims historical rights over most of the South China Sea even though a landmark international arbitration case brought by Manila in 2016 rejected those claims entirely. The Scarborough Shoal was under the Philippines’ control until 2012 when a standoff resulted in China’s taking over. The latest confrontation took place as a major U.S.-Philippines annual military exercise is underway, this year with the participation of France and Australia. Exercise Balikatan 2024 has just completed a five-day multilateral maritime exercise component that began on Apr. 25.  The combined naval force of one U.S. and one French warship, together with two Philippine vessels, was constantly shadowed by Chinese surveillance ships, as well as other surface combatants, according to the Philippine military, quoted in domestic media. Surveillance ships, commonly known as “spy ships” for their reconnaissance capabilities, have been frequently spotted at the times the United States and its allies stage major naval drills, including the biennial Rim of the Pacific. Radio Free Asia contacted the Chinese foreign ministry for comment but did not immediately receive a response. More than 16,000 troops from the Philippines and the U.S are taking part in the Balikatan 2024 which is scheduled to end on May 10. Edited by Taejun Kang. Jason Gutierrez in Manila contributed to this report. Updated with China Coast Guard statement.
- [In Tibet, parents plead for children to help collect caterpillar fungus](https://ij-reportika.com/in-tibet-parents-plead-for-children-to-help-collect-caterpillar-fungus/): It’s caterpillar fungus harvesting season in Tibet, and parents have staged protests urging Chinese authorities to let their children leave a residential boarding school to help collect the rare ingredient used in traditional medicine, two sources inside the region said. Gathered in the Tibetan highlands, caterpillar fungus has been used for centuries to treat heart, liver and lung diseases, high cholesterol, low libido and impotence – despite a lack of scientific evidence.  It can fetch US$18,000 a pound, and in rare cases more than US$50,000 a pound. Parents in Tenchen county, or Dengqen in Chinese, in Chamdo city, in the eastern part of the Tibet Autonomous Region protested on April 27 to allow their children to return home to help with the harvest, on which many families depend to make a living. Exclusive video footage shared with Radio Free Asia showed over 40 Tibetan parents standing outside the boarding school in Trido township, Chidu in Chinese, with some seen hugging the railings of the school gate.  Most are kneeling with hands folded or their thumbs out, a Tibetan gesture of appeal for mercy, as they shout “Please let the children go.”  ‘Summer grass, winter worm’ Families rely on the help of their children, especially the younger ones who are trained in the labor-intensive harvesting of yartsa gunbu, said the first source, using the Tibetan name of the slender brown root-like fungus, which translates as “summer grass, winter worm.”  Caterpillar fungus. (Citizen journalist) The fungus, which originates from dead caterpillars, is found in meadows above 3,500 meters (10,500 feet) in Tibet, parts of China and in the neighboring Himalayan regions of Bhutan and Nepal.  Called dong chong xia cao in Chinese, its scientific name is Ophiocordyceps sinensis. The fungus can be consumed directly, added to food or liquids, or ground up for use in traditional medicine.  In the past, children studying in what rights groups call colonial-style boarding schools were allowed to return home on weekends and given longer breaks during the April-June period so they could help their families with the harvest. “Tibetan families need all the help they can get during the caterpillar fungus harvesting season because the harvest and sale of the fungus is the main source of income for them,” said the second source, who like the first spoke insisted on not being named. “Previously, the school would allow the students to go in batches on longer leave of a week to a fortnight during this period,” he said.   During the protest, parents appealed to authorities to show more consideration in allowing the children to go home during the harvesting season by adjusting their vacation time to ensure there would be no disruption to the children’s studies and to families’ earnings prospects, he added. None sent home yet after agreement A day after the protest, county officials intervened in the matter and agreed on April 28 to send some of the students back home, said the sources.  However, in response to an RFA request for confirmation, an official at the local county office said the students had not yet been sent home as of Monday.  RFA contacted the Tenchen County Education Bureau for more information, but officials there refused to comment. According to a December 2021 report published by Tibet Action Institute, the Chinese government’s network of boarding schools for Tibetan children are “colonial projects” operating under the guise of providing education to Tibetan populations spread across vast areas, but in reality are part of an assimilation campaign promoted by Chinese President Xi Jinping.  Activists and Tibetans fear the long-term implications of these boarding schools, where they say Tibetan children are separated from their parents and homes in an attempt to reduce real contact with their own language and culture and are instead taught primarily in Chinese, with intense political indoctrination.     Translated by Tenzin Palmo for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Tenzin Pema for RFA Tibetan, and by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Cambodia will not negotiate over Funan Techo canal: Hun Sen](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodia-will-not-negotiate-over-funan-techo-canal-hun-sen/): Cambodia’s leader Hun Sen has said that his country would not negotiate with Vietnam over the planned Funan Techo canal, despite concerns about its environmental and geopolitical impacts. A group of Vietnamese experts suggested last week that Hanoi should ask Phnom Penh to delay the project for further discussions. Former prime minister Hun Sen, who is now the president of the Senate and still retains much power, told a business banquet  that construction of the 180-kilometer (112 mile) canal will go ahead as planned  this year,  emphasizing the project was of national interest. The Funan Techo canal, officially known as the Tonle Bassac Navigation Road and Logistics System Project, will connect the Cambodian coastal province of Kep on the Gulf of Thailand with the inland provinces of Kandal and Takeo, and the capital Phnom Penh via a tributary of the Mekong River. It will be developed by a Chinese company at a cost of US$1.7 billion and, when operational in 2028,  will help reduce Cambodia’s dependence on Vietnam’s sea ports for its international trade. . But the project has raised concerns in Vietnam where the rice-growing Mekong delta is vulnerable to sea water incursions if the Mekong’s flow is reduced. A series of dams on the river in China to the north has already raised fears about flows downstream.  Some Vietnamese experts said the Cambodian canal could “reduce the flow of the river by up to 50%” in Vietnam’s delta, home to 17.4 million people. Hun Sen dismissed the concern, saying any loss of water would affect Cambodia first. No mistake in 47 years The Funan Techo canal project was proposed and approved when Hun Sen was head of the government and analysts say it is being seen as one of his great legacies. “Hun Sen has never made a wrong decision in the past 47 years,” the veteran leader, referring to himself, told a  dinner hosted by the Cambodian Oknha Association. Oknha is a title bestowed on Cambodians who are committed to charity or generous with  donations to the government. Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge soldier who defected to fight alongside Vietnamese forces, and who first became prime minister in a government set up by Vietnam after it invaded Cambodia,   said his country “is not inferior to Vietnam.” “Cambodia knows how to protect its interests, Vietnam does not need to care,” the Senate president was quoted in Cambodian media as saying. While calling for Vietnam’s understanding, Hun Sen said Cambodia’s eastern neighbor also “built a lot of dams to protect their crops and these have an impact on Cambodia.” He  said he was not pushing Cambodians to hate Vietnamese people and the Vietnamese side must do the same, the Khmer Times quoted him as saying. Map of the proposed Funan Techo canal. (Cambodia National Mekong Committee) Vietnamese analysts say the canal could also have security implications by allowing naval forces to operate on inland waterways near the Vietnamese border. Vietnam’s foreign ministry this month urged Cambodia to provide information and an impact assessment on the water resources and ecological balance of the delta region. The U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh has also called for more information, saying that while the U.S. respects “Cambodia’s sovereignty in internal governance and development decisions,” the Cambodian people as well as people in neighboring countries “would benefit from transparency on any major undertaking with potential implications for regional water and agricultural sustainability.” “We urge authorities to coordinate closely with the Mekong River Commission (MRC) to provide additional project details and to participate fully in any appropriate environmental impact studies to help the MRC and member countries fully understand, assess, and prepare for any possible impacts of the project,” an embassy spokesperson said last week. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [In reversal, China now wants to preserve Kashgar’s Old City](https://ij-reportika.com/in-reversal-china-now-wants-to-preserve-kashgars-old-city/): In an about-face, Xinjiang’s highest legislative body has issued new regulations to protect Kashgar’s Old City — the heart of Uyghur culture — which they previously ordered to be destroyed and reconstructed, leaving only a small area as a tourist attraction. The measures, which take effect on May 1, prompted accusations of Chinese hypocrisy by experts on the far-western region, who say it’s meant to benefit investors in tourism and deflect criticism of Beijing’s persecution of the 11-million mostly Muslim Uyghurs.  The Regulation on the Protection of the Ancient City of Kashgar passed on March 31 aims to protect the cultural heritage of Kashgar’s ancient city, which is was once a key trading post on the Silk Road between China and Europe. But starting in 2008, China has already demolished 85% of Kashgar’s ancient quarter and relocated thousands of residents to newer “earthquake-resistant houses,” according to a June 2020 report by the Uyghur Human Rights Project, or UHRP, on the destruction of the Old City. By the end of 2010, more than 10,000 ancestral earthen homes there had been destroyed, and shops near the 15th-century Id Kah Mosque were transferred to new buildings made to look like Uyghur architecture, according to journalist Nick Holdstock, who has written two nonfiction books about Xinjiang. “Above their doors are wooden signs saying ‘Minority Folk Art’ or ‘Traditional Ethnic Crafts’ in English and Chinese,” he was quoted as saying in the UHRP report. Police officers patrol in the old city in Kashgar, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China, May 4, 2021. (Thomas Peter/Reuters) Now all that is left is about 15% of the Old City, which has largely been renovated into a Disneyland-like tourist center for visiting Chinese tourists and dignitaries. The supposedly ancient Kashgar gate that appears frequently in Chinese promotional material is actually a modern creation and doesn’t reflect traditional Uyghur design. China’s past actions appeared to be motivated by a “campaign to stamp out tangible aspects of Uyghur culture,” the UHRP report said. Cradle of Uyghur civilization This is particularly painful for Uyghurs because Kashgar is considered to be the cradle of their civilization, with two millennia of history.  Urumqi may be the political capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, but Kashgar has been the historic center of Uyghur statecraft, politics, art, music literature, trade, culture and religion.  It was in Kashgar that in the 11th century prominent Uyghur Turkologist Mahmud Kashgari penned the “Divan Lugat-it Turk,” the first comprehensive dictionary of Turkic languages, which also contains an  early map showing countries and regions from Japan to Egypt. A strategic trading post along the Silk Road, Kashgar was visited by Marco Polo on his way to the court of Kublai Khan during the Mongol Yuan Dynasty in the 13th century, and before that had been the capital of the Uyghur Karakhanid Empire, a Turkic-Uyghur empire that lasted from 999 to 1211. It was in Kashgar that the first East Turkistan Republic was declared in 1933, before China aided by the Soviet Union invaded and took control of the region in 1949 against the wishes of the people to remain an independent country. ‘Museumify’ Now, after all the destruction China has wrought in the city, new regulations call for the preservation of the old quarter’s overall historical appearance, natural environment, historical buildings, ancient trees, traditional communities, streets, courtyards, buildings and other structures such as street-side pillars. They will also protect intangible cultural heritage, including historical events, figures, handicrafts, traditional arts and customs and rituals. “Any demolition, alteration or disruption of the architectural or landscape features designated for conservation is strictly prohibited,” the regulation says. But experts say the measures will hardly rectify the damage already done, and will only serve to turn what’s left of Kashgar’s vibrant culture into a tourist attraction. “It seems absurd in the present context to think that the Chinese government actually is concerned about the preservation of Uygur culture,” said Sean Roberts, director of the Central Asia Research Project at George Washington University. “One of the dangers that Uyghur culture faces right now in China is being ‘museumified’ in a way that no longer reflects active lived culture, but reflects something that is packaged for tourists,” he said.  Deflecting criticism More seriously, the move is likely meant to deflect attention from atrocities China has committed against Uyghurs in Xinjiang, Roberts said. Besides the destruction of thousands of mosques and other structures significant to Uyghur heritage, Chinese authorities have suppressed Muslim religious practices and arbitrarily detained Uyghurs in state-sponsored camps, where some have been subjected to forced labor, sterilization, contraception and abortion. Since 2017, an estimated 1.8 million Uyghurs have been herded into concentration camps, where they are subjected to forced labor, mistreatment and human rights abuses. A woman cooks in her house next to the remnants of other houses, demolished as part of a building renovation campaign in the old district of Kashgar, in Xinjiang province August 3, 2011. (Carlos Barria/Reuters) China has denied committing atrocities in Xinjiang and says the camps are actually vocational centers that have been shut down.  But the United States has determined that China’s actions against the Uyghurs constitute a genocide, while a U.N. report said they may amount to crimes against humanity. Benefitting Chinese developers The new regulation will benefit Chinese investors involved in tourism in the city, said Henryk Szadziewsk, a senior researcher at the Uyghur Human Rights Project. For example, Beijing-based tourism and property developer Zhongkun Investment Group Ltd. is involved in restoration efforts and tourism initiatives in the Old City, he said. Following earlier reconstruction work, the Old City’s neighborhood Communist Party committee leased the reassembled quarter to Zhongkun, which began marketing the area as a “living Uyghur folk museum” and established a “near monopoly” over Kashgar’s tourism, the UHRP report said. “The new Kashgar Old City has a different set of people who occupy that space — people who have interests in tourism and people who have interests in the exploitation of that,” Szadziewski told RFA. “To...
- [China's communists once used Hong Kong to subvert a mainland government](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-communists-once-used-hong-kong-to-subvert-a-mainland-government/): Beijing insisted Hong Kong pass stringent security legislation known as Article 23 due to fears that the city would be used as a base from which to bring down the government &#8212; because that&#8217;s exactly what the Chinese Communist Party used the city for. Hong Kong passed the Safeguarding National Security Law on March 23 as a mandatory obligation under Article 23 of the city&#8217;s Basic Law. It was billed by the government as a way to close “loopholes” in the already stringent 2020 National Security Law, which was imposed on the city by Beijing, ushering in a crackdown on dissent in the wake of the 2019 protest movement. But its roots go much further back in history, according to a veteran journalist and a legal expert, to when the Chinese Communist Party was itself trying to overthrow the Chinese government led by the Kuomintang nationalists. A lawmaker holds a copy of the proposed Safeguarding National Security Bill at the Legislative Council in Hong Kong, March 19, 2024. (Louise Delmotte/AP) Secret documents recently declassified by the Chinese government reveal how the Chinese Communist Party used Hong Kong as a base from which to subvert the 1911 Republic of China regime founded by Sun Yat-sen after the fall of the Qing Dynasty. Reading these documents, I found that the Chinese Communist Party turned Hong Kong into a base for propaganda, for United Front [outreach and influence] operations, organizational operations and mass mobilization. The setting up of these various bases can be traced back to the 1930s, and were documented in a report made by Wu Youheng, then secretary of the Hong Kong municipal party committee, to the Central Committee. The Chinese Communist Party really did turn Hong Kong into a base for subverting the central government and dividing China. This is a key reason why Beijing has always seen Hong Kong as a potential threat to its grip on power, due to its relative freedom and connectedness to the outside world. From Hong Kong, Chinese communists raised funds to finance their campaigns, stored equipment and other reserves, and trained new cadres, according to party documents and other historical texts. Supply and communication line Hong Kong also formed part of a secret supply line that ran along the southeastern coast to Shanghai, then to the party&#8217;s Central Revolutionary Base in the eastern province of Jiangxi, and people also moved along the route. Through this secret communication line used to move supplies and arms, more than 200 important leading cadres of the Communist Party of China including Zhou Enlai and Liu Shaoqi were sent to Hong Kong for rest and recuperation. This secret supply line was also an important channel for the communists to receive arms from the Soviet Union. A young woman is caught between civilians and Chinese soldiers, who were trying to remove her from an assembly near the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, June 3, 1989.(Jeff WidenerAP) Even more importantly, the Chinese Communist Party took advantage of the relative freedom enjoyed by Hong Kong residents under British rule to set up a command center from which to run its entire military operation for the South China region in the city. Even the first provincial party committee for Guangdong province was set up in Hong Kong, on Aug. 7, 1927. By January 1939, the party had set up a southern branch of its Central Committee to direct political, military, mass struggle and other work throughout southern China, and held a major conference in the city&#8217;s Wanchai district in 1947. The Wanchai Conference, where participants talked about waging guerrilla warfare against the Kuomintang regime, including a concept they termed &#8220;red separatism.” The Chinese Communist Party has itself made full use of Hong Kong&#8217;s freedoms to subvert the central government of the Republic of China and implement armed separatism to split the country. It is precisely because of this historical experience that the party is very aware of Hong Kong&#8217;s potential to overthrow a corrupt regime, and is very afraid that others will use their own tactics against them. This is the deep-seated reason why Beijing is afraid of Hong Kong. ‘Political city’ Those fears were brought into far sharper focus on June 4, 1989, when around a million Hong Kongers turned out in protest at the massacre of civilians in and around Tiananmen Square by the People&#8217;s Liberation Army, according to Eric Lai, a research fellow at the Center for Asian Law, Georgetown University. &#8220;With so many Hong Kong people supporting the Tiananmen student movement, they thought it would likely continue to be a thorn in the Chinese Communist Party&#8217;s side after the 1997 handover,&#8221; Lai said.  He said Beijing revised Article 23 of the planned Basic Law after that event, adding in a number of &#8220;national security&#8221; crimes including &#8220;subverting the central government,&#8221; &#8220;collusion with foreign forces,&#8221; a crime for which pro-democracy media magnate Jimmy Lai is currently on trial. Since that day, Chinese officials including former Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office director Lu Ping resolved that Hong Kong could never be allowed to become “a political city.”  Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, center, is flanked by Deputy Foreign Ministers Li Ke Nung, left, and Chang Wen Tien at the final session of the Geneva Peace Conference on July 21, 1954. (AP) Lu said that once Hong Kong becomes a political city, there will be endless internal disputes that will give opportunities for foreign forces [to interfere], Lu Ping’s view was shared by almost all the communists I knew in Beijing. Today, Hong Kong is once more a power base for the Chinese Communist Party, with the city&#8217;s Committee for Safeguarding National Security wielding huge power on Beijing&#8217;s behalf, according to Eric Lai. &#8220;The Article 23 legislation &#8230; once again confirms that the Committee for Safeguarding National Security has supreme power and further consolidates the legitimacy of its rule,&#8221; Lai told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview. What&#8217;s more, the legislation has become a vehicle for the translation...
- [Episode 5: Flashpoint Myawaddy](https://ij-reportika.com/episode-5-flashpoint-myawaddy/): Podcast Free Asia RFA Insider is five episodes old, a developmental milestone that Eugene and Amy receive with joy! For reference a 10-week-old baby would be kicking and punching, and a 10-week-old fetus would start getting fingernails. A 10-week-old piece of bread, meanwhile, would be all moldy&#8230; um&#8230; probably. Corrections this week are short and sweet: on last episode’s discussion of matching couple outfits, Eugene clarifies that the North Korean government does not require everyone to wear the same clothes. Instead, citizens are held to clothing restrictions that prohibit items like tight pants and t-shirts with foreign words, leaving them with limited style choices. The Rundown The Mandarin Service recently reported that China’s internet censors removed more than 700 videos of online micro-dramas for “exaggerating” spousal and familial conflicts. Micro-dramas, binge-able online shows whose episodes are only a few minutes long, are most popular among young women in China – the same group that President Xi called upon in October to focus on raising families. This censorship comes at a time when China’s birth and marriage rates continue to plummet, as more young people are delaying marriage to focus on work, education or buying property. In North Korea, coffee is gaining a foothold as a trendy beverage and a bribe. The Korean Service reported that coffee shops, once only seen in hotels for foreign tourists, have begun to appear in Pyongyang and other cities. While only the elite can afford to enjoy a cup on the regular, the interest in coffee culture, acquired through illegal foreign movies, transcends class. Some more health-conscious officials have even begun asking for coffee over the traditional bribe of cigarettes – residents told RFA that they have treated officials to a coffee with sugar and gifted South American coffee beans in exchange for favors.  How It’s Made Kyaw Min Htun, deputy director of the Burmese Service, joins us to address the recent tug-of-war between the Myanmar military and various ethnic armies for control of Myawaddy, a trading town bordering Thailand. He offers some insight into why opposition forces withdrew from Myawaddy days after taking control and the ways in which neighboring countries’ interests have influenced Myanmar’s current situation. With the country embroiled in civil war since the 2021 military coup, Kyaw Min Htun offers a much-needed explainer of the “who” and “why” of the current conflict, what the international community can do to help and his thoughts on a post-war future. Special thanks to Kiana Duncan for this awesome report that explained the situation at the time of recording. Since then she&#8217;s filed another with an update:  Back to main
- [Myanmar closes border checkpoint amidst conflict](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-closes-border-checkpoint-amidst-conflict/): Myanmar shut a main border crossing with Thailand early on Friday as junta forces carried out airstrikes in nearby areas, Thai officials and residents of the area told Radio Free Asia.  Insurgent forces captured most of the eastern border town Myawaddy this month but they were forced to withdraw days later under the threat of junta airstrikes. Junta troops re-gained control of a main battalion headquarters  in the town on Wednesday.  Residents of the Thai town of Mae Sot, over a border river from Myawaddy, said they heard explosions early on Friday, apparently coming from junta  airstrikes to the south of Myawaddy. A turboprop aircraft was heard flying over Palu, to the south of Myawaddy, and nearly 10 explosions were heard, according to residents on the Thai side. Separately, a Thai immigration official said crossings from Myanmar over the main border bridge had stopped and it was not clear who was in control on the Myawaddy side. “People from Myanmar can not come yet but they can cross back from here,” said the official, who declined to be identified. Trucks that normally deliver goods to Myanmar via a second bridge, which is used mainly for  cargo, have been unloading their shipments at small river crossings instead. A Karen militia force commander with extensive business interests and a history of close ties with the junta helped free about 200 junta troops who had been cut off by insurgent Karen National Liberation Army troops in the fighting this month, Thai media reported.  The commander, Col. Saw Chit Thu, who broke away from the main Karen guerrilla organization in the 1990s, has close ties with Chinese investors who have funded casinos and online scamming rackets on the Myanmar side of the border. The United Kingdom imposed sanctions on him in 2023 linked to suspicions of involvement in human trafficking and other rights violations. Saw Chit Thu, who denies wrongdoing, had this month raised doubts about his alliance with the junta, saying he was no longer supporting junta forces, but according to media reports, he had acted to protect his business interests in helping junta forces re-take control of Myawaddy.  Democracy and rights activists have long denounced Saw Chit Thu and his militia, the Karen National Army. “Saw Chit Thu is a rights-abusing militia commander who has gotten rich via a horrid mix of abuses of deported migrants, human trafficking of persons to scam centers, gambling, sexual exploitation and prostitution, and worse,” said Phil Robertson, deputy director for Human Rights Watch in Asia.  “I think no one should be surprised that he suddenly betrayed the [Karen National Liberation Army] by rushing back into the arms of his [State Authority Council] junta overlords who have been complicit in Chit Thu’s massive profits at the expense of the Karen people.” Edited by Kiana Duncan and Taejun Kang.
- [Junta recruits another 300 Rohingya in new round of conscription](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-recruits-another-300-rohingya-in-new-round-of-conscription/): More than 300 Rohingya men from villages near Rakhine state’s capital have been forced by junta troops to attend mandatory training for Myanmar’s military over the last few days, residents told Radio Free Asia on Thursday.  The latest round of compulsory conscription among the stateless Muslim minority comes a month after about 1,000 Rohingya from elsewhere in Rakhine were made to join the military in March.  More broadly, more than 100,000 young men have fled their homes since the military announced in February it would implement a draft to shore up its ranks after a series of battlefield defeats, according to a report released by the Burmese Affairs and Conflict Study. Myanmar has been wracked by civil war ever since the military overthrew the civilian-led government in a 2021 coup. Amid the battlefield setbacks over the past six months, the military has said it plans to conscript 50,000 young men and women each year – and is forcibly recruiting Rohingya in Rakhine state to meet quotas. State Administration Council members hand out leaflets explaining the law of militia service on Feb. 29, 2024, in Kyun Hla City, Myanmar. (State Administration Council) The effort comes in a state where just seven years ago, the military tortured, raped and killed thousands of Rohingya and sent nearly 1 million fleeing into neighboring Bangladesh. The 300 Rohingya recruits were taken this week from more than 30 villages in Sittwe township and were all between 18- to 30-years-old, a Rohingya village administrator who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals told RFA. They were taken by police cars to the military’s Regional Command Headquarters in Sittwe to prepare for training, he said. Soldiers are now pressing those who remain in a patchwork of villages and internally displaced camps into service to prop up their struggling military campaign in the state against the ethnic Arakan Army.  In exchange for their service, the junta has promised would-be Rohingya fighters freedom of movement as well as small amounts of food and money.  ‘Worrying around the clock’ Junta officials have communicated through village elders and administrators during the conscription process, according to a Rohingya woman who lives in Sittwe who requested not to be named for security reasons.  “The officials entice the locals with national identity cards and salary,” she said. “They forced village elders to provide young Rohingya to protect the country. But as Rohingya youth are fishermen, they are not suitable for military service.” State Administration Council members hand out leaflets explaining the law of militia service on Feb. 29, 2024 in Kyun Hla City, Myanmar. (State Administration Council) None of the recruits are willing to undergo military training, but they face arrest and beatings if they refuse, she said. “People in Rakhine state are worrying around the clock about the recruitment for military training,” the village administrator said. “Some people have fled from their homes to other places.” The 1,000 Rohingya who were recruited in March were put through a two-week training. Afterward, some were deployed to the battlefields while others were sent back to their villages or IDP camps as reserves, residents told RFA. RFA attempted to contact Attorney General Hla Thein, the junta spokesman for Rakhine state, to ask about this week’s recruitment, but he didn’t answer phone calls. Pressed into service Since Myanmar’s conscription law was announced by Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing on Feb. 10, troops nationwide have attempted to press-gang large numbers into the dwindling military.  It requires men and women aged 18 to 35 to serve in the junta’s armed forces for two years – prompting more than 100,000 to flee their homes to avoid the draft, the Burmese Affairs and Conflict Study found. The junta has carried out operations to enforce the military service law in 224 townships across the country, the report said. Approximately 5,000 young men were sent to 15 military training sites by the end of March, it said.  Rohingya Muslims are seen in military uniform during a training session in Rakhine state on March 10, 2024. (Citizen journalist) In addition, more than 2,000 people from 40 townships across Myanmar have been enlisted as militia – a number that includes the Rohingya who were recruited in March, the report found. A resident of Mandalay said people are anxiously watching for the recruitment process to begin again, now that the recent Thingyan water festival holiday has concluded. “It is anticipated that they will start it in May,” he said. “People are curious about what will happen following Thingyan.” Eventually, the new recruits will be called on for frontline combat operations, according to former military officer Lin Htet Aung, who participated in the non-violent Civil Disobedience Movement after the coup. “When the regular army no longer possesses the capacity to execute these tasks, it becomes evident that this deliberate strategy aims to rely solely on the youth of the populace as their military force,” he told RFA. Translated by Aung Naing and Kalyar Lwin. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar insurgents capture junta base in south](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-insurgents-capture-junta-base-in-south/): Insurgents have captured another base from Myanmar’s junta forces, this time in the far south of the country, in the latest in a string of setbacks for the military that overthrew an elected government in 2021, officials from anti-junta forces told Radio Free Asia on Thursday.  Ethnic minority Karen fighters have in recent weeks seized several camps from junta forces in eastern Myanmar, mostly notably in a major trade town near the Thai border. On Wednesday, ethnic minority Karen insurgents, together with pro-democracy allies, captured the junta’s Maw Hta camp in the Tanintharyi region’s Dawei township. Thirty weapons were seized in the camp, where about 40 junta soldiers had been stationed, said one official from the Karen National Union (KNU), who declined to be identified for security reasons.  “It took only a moment to capture the camp because junta troops were scared and fled,” the official said. The shadow civilian National Unity Government’s Tanintharyi region office confirmed that the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), the armed wing of the KNU, and members of allied People’s Defense Forces seized the area near the Thai border. “A border station has been captured by Karen National Liberation Army and People’s Defense Force joint forces. At present, there are still things that need to be confirmed,” said the Tanintharyi information officer, who also declined to be identified. RFA contacted Tanintharyi region’s junta spokesperson, Thet Naing, for more information, but he did not respond. Myanmar has faced violent turmoil since the military overthrew a government led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in early 2021. The fighting in recent days has prompted warnings from Thailand to Mynamar’s rivals to avoid any spillover across the border.  In January, rebel forces captured Kyauk Htu camp in Dawei.  On April 16, they captured Myeik, a major Tanintharyi town, and then announced the launch of military operations in two nearby townships. Of Tanintharyi’s 10 townships, only Bokpyin and Kawthoung are free from major conflict. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.
- [2 teachers jailed for criticizing authorities on social media](https://ij-reportika.com/2-teachers-jailed-for-criticizing-authorities-on-social-media/): Two Vietnamese teachers were sentenced to prison on Wednesday in separate cases for criticizing authorities on social media under vague statutes often used to stifle dissent, people with knowledge of the situation said.  They are the latest examples of how Vietnam systematically suppresses basic freedoms and civil rights.  Duong Tuan Ngoc, 39, was sentenced by the Lam Dong People’s Court to seven years in prison and three years of probation under Article 117 of the country’s Penal Code for disseminating anti-state propaganda and “smearing senior leaders” on his social media accounts. Retired teacher Nguyen Thu Hang, 62, received a two-year sentence under Article 331 for abusing democratic freedom that violated the interests of the state, rights and the legal interests of organizations and individuals. She was convicted by the Dong Hoi People’s Court for using personal Facebook accounts to defame a judge who had presided over the land dispute case in which she was involved. She was also accused of streaming such video clips at various provincial offices. Under the one-party rule of the Communist Party of Vietnam, the government severely restricts rights to freedom of expression, religion, association, peaceful assembly and movement, according to human rights and civil society groups. “No one should be targeted for comments made on social media criticizing the government,” Josef Benedict, a researcher covering the Asia Pacific region for the CIVICUS Monitor, told RFA via text message. Health videos Ngoc, jailed since July 15, 2023, was an online teacher who specialized in macrobiotic diets, which aim to avoid foods containing toxins. He used to post articles and livestream videos about education, health and social issues on his Facebook and YouTube pages. Police in Lam Dong province in southern Vietnam summoned him and his wife, Bui Thanh Diem Ngoc, on July 10, 2023, to question them about anonymous reports that Ngoc used his Facebook account to sell drugs. But after Ngoc proved he was innocent, the police initiated a new probe on the charge of distributing anti-state propaganda and arrested him five days later. Vietnamese teacher Duong Tuan Ngoc in a video screenshot. Authorities accused the teacher of posting and sharing articles and videos on his Facebook and YouTube accounts that mocked, defamed and criticized the government and the party’s policies, and smeared senior party and state leaders, according to notices Lam Dong Police gave to Ngoc’s family. A relative, who requested anonymity for safety reasons, told Radio Free Asia that Ngoc’s first-instance trial, which his wife and lawyer were allowed to attend, lasted about two hours on Wednesday morning. “The defense lawyer did not make a defense case for him but requested sentence litigation, saying that he had a clean criminal record and had performed many charity activities before his arrest,” the person said. During the trial, Ngoc admitted to having “spoken ill of government officials” but affirmed his wish of “a multiparty and pluralistic regime and an improved political regime,” said the relative. It appears as though Ngoc will not appeal the verdict because he wants to serve his sentence as soon as possible so he can see his family again and resume work, the person said. ‘Lip service’ Benedict from CIVICUS said Ngoc’s arrest for peaceful expression online is the latest attempt by the Vietnamese regime to stifle peaceful expression, which contravenes the country’s international human rights obligations to protect fundamental freedoms. He expressed concern over the government’s use of Article 117, which U.N. experts have found overly broad and aimed at silencing those who seek to exercise their right to freely express their views and share information with others. “These actions are unbecoming of a member of the U.N. Human Rights Council and shows that the government has been only merely paying lip service to human rights and has no intention of respecting and protecting them,” Benedict said. Vietnam is a current three-year member of the Human Right Council in Geneva, Switzerland, for the 2023-25 term and will seek reelection to the body for the 2026-28 term, despite widespread rights violations. Ngoc is well-known on social media, and his Facebook page has more than 45,000 followers with an introductory description declaring: “I have rights as a citizen. You have rights as citizens. Citizens are the rightful owners of the country.” He has two YouTube accounts, one of which features hundreds of videos on health, medicine and life in the countryside, and has nearly 95,000 followers. His other channel has about 39,000 followers and features videos discussing politics, corruption and poor leadership in Vietnam.  Ngoc is the eighth Vietnamese activist convicted this year, and the third to be charged with disseminating “anti-state propaganda” according to an RFA tally. Retired teacher Meanwhile, the retired teacher, Nguyen Thu Hang, was sentenced to two years in jail for abusing democratic freedoms to infringe on the interests of the state. Hang, a resident of Dong Hoi city in Quang Binh province in central Vietnam, previously worked at a middle school in Dong Hoi, and was arrested on Nov. 27, 2023. Dong Hoi police’s investigation agency said Hang disagreed with a verdict handed down in a civil trial about a land-use rights dispute and a request to annul a land-use rights certificate in which she was a plaintiff. The agency said that from March to May 2023, Hang repeatedly used her Facebook account to livestream comments on Judge Nguyen Van Ngh, posting videos of herself speaking at the headquarters of Nam Ly ward, Dong Hoi’s Department of Education and Training, and Quang Binh province’s Inspection Department. Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Vietnam should ask Cambodia to delay canal project: experts](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-should-ask-cambodia-to-delay-canal-project-experts/): Participants at a Vietnamese-sponsored consultation have suggested that Hanoi should ask Phnom Penh to delay a proposed  canal project for further discussions, amid Vietnamese worries about the project’s environmental and economic impact. Construction of the 180 km (112 mile) Funan Techo canal, connecting the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, with the Gulf of Thailand, is planned to begin later this year and to be completed within four years. The proposed canal will include a section of the Mekong River, raising concern in Vietnam about the impact downstream, especially in Vietnam&#8217;s rice-growing Mekong Delta. The canal could “reduce the flow of the river by up to 50% by the time it comes to Vietnam,” said Le Anh Tuan, a prominent Vietnamese scientist.  Vietnam needs more time for consultation in order to protect the river’s delta, home to 17.4 million people, Tuan told the meeting in the town delta of Can Tho. Another expert, Dang Thanh Lam from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, said Vietnam must ask for an environment impact report from Cambodia. The U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh also called for more information, saying that the Cambodian people as well as people in neighboring countries “would benefit from transparency on any major undertaking with potential implications for regional water and agricultural sustainability.” “We urge authorities to coordinate closely with the Mekong River Commission (MRC) to provide additional project details and to participate fully in any appropriate environmental impact studies to help the MRC and member countries fully understand, assess, and prepare for any possible impacts of the project,” an embassy spokesperson said. Ly Van Bon, the owner of the Bay Bon fish pond located on the Mekong river which was affected by sediment, shows redtail catfish inside his fish pond in Mekong&#8217;s regional capital Can Tho, Vietnam, May 25, 2022. (Reuters/Athit Perawongmetha) For its part, Cambodia said it had secured endorsement for the project from the MRC chairman – Lao President Thongloun Sisoulith. Sisoulith has just visited Phnom Penh and, during a meeting with Cambodian Senate leader and former prime minister Hun Sen, he was asked to show his support for the canal.  “In response, the Laotian president, without hesitation, announced his support,” Cambodia’s Fresh News media outlet, which is supportive of the government, reported. No obligation  Laos and Cambodia are both long-term allies of Vietnam but both have in recent years leaned more towards China. Vietnam has repeatedly expressed concerns about the possible environmental and economic impacts of the project. This month, a Vietnamese foreign ministry spokesperson urged Cambodia to provide information and an impact assessment on the water resources and ecological balance of the delta region. In response, a senior Cambodian official said that Phnom Penh was not obliged to do so. Cambodia’s Minister Delegate attached to the Prime Minister in charge of ASEAN affairs, So Naro, told the Khmer Times that Cambodia was not legally required to submit any document to Vietnam  regarding the studies and construction of the Funan Techo canal. Cambodia had submitted “all documents of the studies on the canal related to the impacts on the environment and the water resources” to the MRC, So Naro said. The MRC is an intergovernmental organisation in charge of the sustainable management of the Mekong basin. “The Vietnamese authorities can request access to those files,” So Naro said. Cambodia has insisted that the canal  would not disrupt the flow of the Mekong.  The projected Funan Techo canal (in blue). (Google Maps/ RFA) Officially known as the Tonle Bassac Navigation Road and Logistics System Project, the Funan Techo canal will be developed by a Chinese company at a cost of US$1.7 billion. It will mean that more trade can flow directly to Cambodian  ports, bypassing Vietnam. The Cambodian government said it would cut the transport costs and reduce dependence on Vietnamese ports. It also said that the project will bring great social and economic benefits to 1.6 million Cambodians living along the canal. Security questions Besides the environment and economic impacts, analysts say Vietnam is also worried about the security implications of the canal. There have been suggestions that the canal could allow Chinese navy ships to travel upstream from the Gulf of Thailand and the Chinese-developed Ream naval base on the Cambodian coast close to the border with Vietnam.  Cambodia has rejected such speculation with Hun Sen insisting that Cambodia and Vietnam “are good neighbors and have good cooperation in all fields.” But Vietnam has been in dispute with China over some island chains in the South China Sea and it eyes China’s involvement in the region with suspicion. Vietnam shares a long land border with Cambodia. Between 1977-1978 there was fighting between Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese troops during the so-called southwest border war, which led to a Vietnamese invasion and the establishment of a pro-Hanoi government in Cambodia. The situation on Vietnam’s western border should get more attention because of “threats of untraditional security challenges, mostly over the Mekong delta,” said Nguyen The Phuong, a Vietnamese political scientist at the University of New South Wales in Australia. “A loss of the Mekong&#8217;s ability to sustain large scale food production will have tremendous impact on Vietnam&#8217;s security in the south,” Phuong said. “From my point of view, the western front is becoming more critical day by day but Vietnam is too distracted by maritime issues at the eastern front, or the South China Sea.” Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [Young Laotians held at Myanmar casino fearful of fighting nearby](https://ij-reportika.com/young-laotians-held-at-myanmar-casino-fearful-of-fighting-nearby/): A group of 14 young Laotians who are being held at a Chinese-run casino in Myanmar said they are frightened by the recent fighting in nearby Myawaddy and are calling for new efforts to free them. The young Laotians were trafficked to work as scammers at a place called “Casino Kosai” in an isolated development near Myawaddy.  Karen Nation Union, or KNU, and allied anti-junta guerrilla armies took control of the important trade town earlier this month during intense fighting with Myanmar’s military.  Some of the young Laotians recently overheard junta soldiers saying the casino could be a target for bombing later this week, four of the young Laotians told Radio Free Asia on Tuesday. “I would like to call on the soldiers of KNU to rescue us from this place as soon as possible because the fighting is moving closer and closer to us,” one of the young Laotians, who like other sources in this report requested anonymity for safety reasons, told RFA. “Right now, we’re hearing a lot of loud shots toward us,” he said. “We’re afraid that we’ll get shot by stray bullets.” Earlier this month, two teenage girls were allowed to leave the casino after a 40,000 yuan (US$5,500) fee was paid to gain their freedom. They arrived home in Luang Namtha province in northern Laos on April 8.  The Chinese-owned ‘Casino Kosai’ in Myawaddy, Myanmar, near the Thai border. (Citizen journalist) The remaining 14 youths and their parents are hoping that officials at the Lao Embassy in Yangon can negotiate their release.  “The only hope I have right now is that the higher-up authorities of all sides are stepping up their efforts because we the parents have been trying and failing to rescue our children for more than two years now,” a mother of one of the Laotians told RFA. ‘Emotionally affected by it’ Many of the young Laotians originally sought jobs in one of the casinos in the Golden Triangle, the border region Laos shares with Thailand and Myanmar.  But instead they ended up trafficked and held captive at the casino, which is about 320 kilometers (200 miles) south of the Golden Triangle and 640 kms (400 miles) from their homes in northern Laos.  For more than a year, their parents have sent pleading messages to government officials in Laos and Myanmar. With the recent fighting nearby, they have become even more concerned, several parents told RFA. “I can’t eat and I can’t sleep right now because I worry about the safety of my daughter,” another mother said. “I heard about the situation over there getting worse, and I’m emotionally affected by it. I’m always thinking about my daughter.” A Lao embassy official told RFA on Tuesday that they are still gathering information on the 14 Laotians and will send a request to junta authorities soon. “We’re trying our best to rescue these Laotians,” he told RFA on Tuesday. Translated by Max Avary. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [Tibetans say compensation for Chinese land grab is too low](https://ij-reportika.com/tibetans-say-compensation-for-chinese-land-grab-is-too-low/): Tibetan families whose pasture land was sold to Chinese businessmen without their knowledge or consent say that compensation belatedly offered to them – 3,000 yuan, or about US$415 each – is far too low, sources familiar with the situation told Radio Free Asia. Four Tibetans who had been arrested April 10 for protesting the land grab in Markham county in Chamdo, or Changdu in Chinese, in the Tibet Autonomous Region, were released, but said they had been beaten while in detention, a source told RFA Tibetan on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. “The four of them were released on April 16 but they were beaten and tortured during detention, and one of them even has a swollen cheek,” the source said. Since the protest, about 10 policemen have been deployed to patrol the area day and night, where they closely monitor all activities of the people, sources said.  Chinese police argue with Tibetans who were protesting Chinese authorities’ illegal seizure of pasture land owned by Tibetans in Markham County in Tibet Autonomous Region, China, April 10, 2024. (Citizen journalist) It’s the latest example of land taken by Chinese authorities in Tibet and in Tibetan-populated areas of nearby Chinese provinces for mining, farming or other use. Local officials routinely use force to subdue those who complain or protest. Earlier this month, about 25 families were shocked when a Chinese businessman came to clear their land. They were told their land had been sold without their knowledge or any compensation. After they protested, Chinese officials agreed to pay each family 3,000 yuan, or about US$415, each. The resident said that the affected families must accept the compensation without protest, and it cannot be negotiated because the amount has been decided by higher authorities. Chinese police argue with Tibetans who were protesting Chinese authorities’ illegal seizure of pasture land owned by Tibetans in Markham County in Tibet Autonomous Region, China, April 10, 2024. (Citizen journalist) Other residents said that those who do not comply with the government’s instructions on the matter could face imprisonment. Authorities conveyed the details of the compensation plan at a meeting on April 16, requiring at least one representative of each of the affected families to attend. “The people were unhappy about the compensation and rejected the low figure,” said the first source, who explained that the pasture land is being dug out to clear all remaining grass. Attendees were not allowed to bring their phones to the meeting, where authorities warned the families that it was forbidden to leak any information outside the country and reprimanded them for committing the “crime” of spreading news about the land grab and protesting it. “They were told that internal problems can only be solved internally,” a second resident said on condition of anonymity to speak freely.  “But if this information had not been widely reported, there wouldn’t have been any talk of compensation, let alone the release of the four young men who were arrested and detained.” Additional reporting by Dolma Lhamo and edited by Tenzin Pema for RFA Tibetan
- [Uyghur butcher served 7 years in jail for urging friends not to drink alcohol or smoke](https://ij-reportika.com/uyghur-butcher-served-7-years-in-jail-for-urging-friends-not-to-drink-alcohol-or-smoke/): A Uyghur butcher serving a seven-year prison sentence in southern Xinjiang for advising friends not to drink alcohol or smoke at a gathering has been released alive and returned to his family, sources with knowledge of the situation said. It marks the first time that one of the roughly 100 jailed Uyghur residents from Xaneriq village had been released alive, said an Uyghur from the area who now lives abroad, but who did not give his name for fear of retribution. Authorities freed Mahmudjan Muqeddem, 46, who hails from the Tawaqchi community of Xaneriq village, on April 11, he said. The village lies in Kashgar Yengisheher county in Kashgar prefecture.  Police officers salute at the outer entrance of the Urumqi No. 3 Detention Center in Dabancheng in northwestern China&#8217;s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, April 23, 2021. A police officer from the Yenitam community in Xaneriq confirmed that Muqeddem, a butcher and farmer, had served seven years in a prison in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and was released on April 11.  The officer’s colleagues told him that Muqeddem was arrested on suspicion of religious radicalization for advising his friends not to drink or smoke at an event prior to 2016. Initially, he was “educated” in a camp for two years, but in 2019, he was sentenced and transferred to prison, they said.  “The reason for arrest is that he stopped others from smoking and drinking,” said the officer. “He is not a religious figure.” Extremist behaviors Abstaining from alcohol is one of 75 different activities and behaviors identified by the Chinese government as a sign of potential religious extremism. It is listed in brochures distributed in some parts of Xinjiang to educate the public on how to identify extreme religious activities. It is also a cause for jailing Uyghurs, who as Muslims abstain from drinking alcohol, as part of a larger effort by Beijing to eradicate Uyghur culture and religion.  A person stands in a tower on the perimeter of the Number 3 Detention Center in Dabancheng in northwestern China&#8217;s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, April 23, 2021. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP) Xaneriq village consists of 23 smaller communities with a total population of 31,000 people, averaging around 1,400 people in each community.  About 800 people live in Tawaqchi community, of which more than 100 were in prison, with some serving indefinite sentences in internment camps, the Uyghur expatriate said. Since 2017, six others imprisoned were released dead, he said, though RFA could not independently confirm this. Muqeddem’s release has offered some hope to others from the village’s Tawaqchi community worried out the fate of their imprisoned relatives, the expat said.  But because the butcher was considered to have committed one of the mildest “crimes” among those arrested, his release also caused concern about the fate of those serving sentences for more serious offenses, he added. Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Injured sent to Thai border hospital following Myanmar clash](https://ij-reportika.com/injured-sent-to-thai-border-hospital-following-myanmar-clash/): A Thai border hospital received nearly 40 injured people for treatment after a battle in neighboring Myanmar, according to Thai officials on Monday. At least 38 were admitted in total, Thai public health minister Cholnan Srikaew said during a press conference at Mae Sot General Hospital on Monday.  Mae Sot is a Thai city that shares a border with Myanmar to the west. It is notable as a trade hub and for its substantial population of Burmese migrants and refugees. “We treat them according to their conditions, mostly involving surgery,” he said. “There were 22 people admitted on Saturday. Another 16 gradually came on Sunday.” Cholnan declined to disclose how many junta troops and rebel soldiers were included among the injured. “We do not discriminate which group they are,” he said, adding that foreign nationals would be referred to relevant security agencies following their treatment. The armed branch of the Karen National Union, called the Karen National Liberation Army, and its allies captured junta Infantry Battalion 275 in Myawaddy, a Burmese town that shares a border with Thailand’s Mae Sot, on April 10.  After rebel forces intercepted a junta convoy and injured over 100 soldiers on its way to recapture Myawaddy on Thursday, Mi-35 helicopters bombed the town in retaliation on Saturday around 3 a.m.  Gunfire between junta troops and rebel forces and airstrikes could be heard late into late Sunday morning, Thai soldiers and Mae Sot residents told Radio Free Asia.   Since the rebel capture of Battalion 275, about 200 junta troops have been stranded at a customs compound near the border’s Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge No. 2, roughly 10 kilometers (six miles) north of Mae Sot. RFA could not confirm if these troops were among those admitted to Mae Sot’s hospital.  Following Saturday and Sunday’s battles, about 3,000 people were evacuated and several hundred refugees were taken to Rujira ranch a few kilometers north of Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge No. 2, according to Thai officials.  The evacuees were predominantly Myanmar, said Thai soldiers, in addition to some Thai nationals working in Myanmar. Thai authorities provided refugees with food and medical services. As of Monday, about 2,000 displaced people have returned since fighting calmed in Myawaddy, the Bangkok Post reported on Monday, adding that Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge No. 1, which is used for immigration, remains open.  The newspaper cited a Thai military officer as saying that negotiations between the junta and the Karen rebel force and its allies have begun.  Padoh Saw Taw Nee, a spokesperson at The Karen National Union, told RFA that it is reviewing the military and public welfare situation since fighting has calmed. Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by Taejun Kang and Mike Firn.
- [Lao coffee growers feel pinch of worker shortage, high inflation](https://ij-reportika.com/lao-coffee-growers-feel-pinch-of-worker-shortage-high-inflation/): As the coffee bean harvesting season begins, plantation owners in southern Laos face a shortage of laborers because of low wages and high inflation in the small, landlocked Southeast Asia country, said people who work in the industry. Workers on plantations in Champassak province’s Paksong district are shunning jobs that pay just US$10-13 a day, based on the weight of coffee beans they pick, and instead heading for better paying work in neighboring Thailand. Others have sought jobs on cassava farms, where the pay is slightly better, a coffee farm worker told Radio Free Asia on Tuesday.  Coffee growers in the district usually need 400-600 workers to harvest the beans, a plantation owner in the district said. Coffee beans are the main cash crop for many small-scale farmers in Laos and the country’s third-largest agricultural export product. Lao coffee is exported to more than 26 countries in Asia, Europe and North America, according to the International Trade Centre in Geneva, Switzerland. Most coffee farms in Laos are located in Champassak, Sekong and Salavan provinces on the Bolaven Plateau, known as the country’s coffee heartland. Sitting atop an ancient volcano, the plateau’s nutrient-rich soil and cool climate are conducive to growing coffee trees. Other coffee-growing areas are in Houaphanh and Xieng Khouang provinces in the north. A view of a coffee plantation in Paksong district of southern Laos&#8217; Champasak province in September 2018. (RFA) But the country’s current high inflation rate, which stood at nearly 25% in March, is driving laborers to jobs that pay better wages, people involved in the industry said.  “Many laborers like to seek higher-paid jobs in Thailand as they get paid low working in the country,” the coffee plantation employee said. Like others in this report, he insisted on not being identified for fear of getting in trouble. “Therefore, we are facing a shortage of labor now, and inflation is the main factor causing this problem.”  Desperate for workers The coffee farm owner in Paksong said the labor shortage in the industry is nothing new and that inflation has been a key factor.  “If they work for us, they earn around US$100-150 per month, but they can earn around US$350 per month if they work in Thailand,” he said. To cope with the current labor shortage, some coffee farm owners have raised wages to attract more laborers, which means higher fixed costs. The coffee farm owner said he has had to double wages to US$15-20 a day to get workers to pick the beans.  “If we do not provide this rate, they will not work for us,” he said. “Some laborers just come to work for the coffee harvesting season, but go back to Thailand once [it] ends.” A woman works in the rain on a coffee plantation on the Bolaven plateau in southern Laos, Sept. 2, 2003. (Karl Malakunas/AFP) The labor shortage in Laos’ coffee industry began in 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a Champassak province official with knowledge of the situation, who declined to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media.  There were over 218,00 confirmed cases of the highly contagious respiratory infection in Laos, and nearly 760 recorded deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, which stopped collecting data in March 2023. A coffee growers association has contacted the provincial Department of Labor and Social Welfare for help in finding seasonal laborers for the past three years, the official said.  “We tried to help coffee farm operators in the province to find laborers to meet their needs, but very few people are interested in working in this kind of job,” he said. Thongphat Vongmany, deputy minister of agriculture and forestry, said in February that Laos’ agricultural exports totaled US$1.44 billion in 2023, but he did not give a separate breakdown for coffee exports. Agriculture Minister Phet Phomphiphak, however, told the country’s National Assembly in December 2023 that Laos’ coffee exports during the first nine months of 2023 totaled US$64 million. Translated by Phouvong for RFA Laos. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Blinken to visit China amid claims about Russia support](https://ij-reportika.com/blinken-to-visit-china-amid-claims-about-russia-support/): U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to China on Wednesday, according to a senior State Department official, in a trip that comes as he and others in Washington accuse Beijing of “fueling” Russia’s war in Ukraine by helping to resupply its military. Blinken will travel to Shanghai and Beijing from Wednesday to Friday, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the plans ahead of time. The official said he could not yet confirm that Blinken would meet Chinese President Xi Jinping during the visit. The trip will attempt to build on recent diplomatic outreach to Beijing, the official explained, but would also necessitate “clearly and directly communicating [American] concerns on bilateral, regional and global issues” where China and the United States differ on policy. Among other issues, Blinken will raise “deep concerns” about alleged Chinese business support for Russia’s defense industrial base, the crisis in the Middle East and also in Myanmar, the issue of Taiwan and China’s recent “provocations” in the South China Sea, he said. But the official played down the likelihood of results, with many of the differences between Washington and Beijing now deep-seated. “I want to make clear that we are realistic and clear-eyed about the prospects of breakthroughs on any of these issues,” he said.  He also demurred when asked if Blinken would meet Xi on Friday, as is rumored. But he said more scheduling details will be released later. “It&#8217;s safe for you to expect that he&#8217;ll spend considerable time with his counterpart … Foreign Minister Wang Yi,” he said. “We are confident our Chinese hosts will arrange a productive and constructive visit.” ‘Fueling’ the Ukraine war American officials have since last week accused Chinese businesses of keeping Russia’s war effort afloat by exporting technology needed to rebuild the country’s defense industrial base that supplies its military. Speaking to reporters on Friday on the Italian island of Capri ahead of the Group of 7 foreign ministers’ meeting, Blinken said U.S. intelligence had “not seen the direct supply of weapons” from China to Russia but instead a “supply of inputs” required by Russia’s defense industry. The support was “allowing Russia to continue the aggression against Ukraine,” he said, by allowing Moscow to rebuild its defense capacity, to which “so much damage has been done to by the Ukrainians.” “When it comes to weapons, what we’ve seen, of course, is North Korea and Iran primarily providing things to Russia,” Blinken said. “When it comes to Russia’s defense industrial base, the primary contributor in this moment to that is China,” he explained. “We see China sharing machine tools, semiconductors, [and] other dual-use items that have helped Russia rebuild the defense industrial base that sanctions and export controls had done so much to degrade.”   Beijing was attempting, Blinken said, to secretly aid Russia’s war in Ukraine while openly courting improved relations with Europe. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz met with Xi in Beijing on Tuesday, and Xi is set to meet French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris next month.   “If China purports, on the one hand, to want good relations with Europe,” he said, “it can’t, on the other hand, be fueling what is the biggest threat to European security since the end of the Cold War.” The G-7 group, which also includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom, also released a statement on Friday calling on China “to press Russia to stop its military aggression.”  The seven foreign ministers also expressed their concern “about transfers to Russia from business in China of dual-use materials and components for weapons and equipment for military production.” In an email to Radio Free Asia, Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, did not deny Blinken’s claims.  But he said China “is not a party to or involved in the Ukraine crisis” and that the country’s position on the war is “fair and objective.” “We actively promote peace talks and have not provided weapons to either side of the conflict,” Liu said. “At the same time, China and Russia have every right to normal economic and trade cooperation, which should not be interfered with or restricted.” Not the only tension Blinken’s trip will come amid a slew of other squabbles between the world’s two major powers bubbling since last year’s Xi-Biden talks. In a speech at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, on Thursday, FBI Director Christopher Wray repeated claims he made to Congress earlier this year that Chinese hackers were targeting key U.S. infrastructure and waiting to “wreak havoc” in case of a conflict. On April 11, Biden notably warned Beijing that the United States would come to the aid of Philippine vessels in the South China Sea if they were attacked by China, calling the commitment “ironclad.” On the economic front, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who herself visited Beijing this month, has slammed Beijing for what she says is over-subsidization of green technology, with cheap Chinese exports crippling development of competing industries worldwide. Xi also expressed concerns to Biden during a phone call on April 2 about a bill that would allow the U.S. president to ban the popular social media app TikTok, which U.S. officials have called a national security threat, if its Chinese parent company does not divest. China, meanwhile, on Friday forced Apple to scrub social media apps WhatsApp and Threads, both owned by Facebook parent company Meta, from its App Store, citing “national security concerns.” Blinken will be joined on his trip by Liz Allen, the under secretary for public diplomacy and public Affairs; Daniel Kritenbrink, the assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific; Todd Robinson, the undersecretary for narcotics and law enforcement; and Nathaniel Fick, the U.S. ambassador-at-large for cyberspace and digital policy.
- [Religious leader faces new charge in case that brought 5-year sentence](https://ij-reportika.com/religious-leader-faces-new-charge-in-case-that-brought-5-year-sentence/): Investigators in southern Vietnam charged the 92-year-old leader of a Buddhist community with incest on Friday after gathering evidence – including blood samples – from members of the church, state media reported. Le Tung Van of the the Peng Lei House Buddhist Church in Long An province has previously been at the center of allegations of incest, fraud and abusing freedoms. In 2022, he was sentenced to five years in prison for “abusing democratic freedoms.”  The provincial Security Investigation Agency said it launched the new case after receiving reports of Van’s alleged incestuous behavior, according to the Vietnam News Agency. The new charge also comes a week after two of his defense lawyers were stripped of their membership in the Ho Chi Minh Bar Association – a decision they warned could precede new action against Van. An attorney who spoke anonymously to Radio Free Asia for security reasons said Van hasn’t been required to serve the 2022 prison sentence due to his old age and frail health. The attorney added that the new charges announced on Friday were “vague” and appeared to use old evidence. Police forcibly collected DNA samples from members residing in the Peng Lei Buddhist House Church at least three times in 2021 and 2022, including one occasion where they obtained blood samples in the name of COVID-19 testing. Days after the church was searched in January 2022, authorities announced the “abusing democratic freedoms” charge against Van. He was accused of taking advantage of religion and philanthropy for their own personal benefit, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Van was also charged with incest and fraud, but these charges were later dropped.   The complaint was reportedly made by the government-recognized Vietnam Buddhist Sangha, the state-backed religious entity, and a member of the Sangha’s board of directors, according to the commission. Vietnam maintains strict laws on religious activity that require groups to be supervised by government-controlled management boards. The Peng Lei Buddhist House Church is an independent Buddhist community. Defense lawyers seek asylum Van was indicted in June 2022 after authorities accused him of directing other defendants to create videos and write an article that insulted Duc Hoa District Police and the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha, according to the commission. The five-year sentence was issued the following month. Van has appealed his conviction and sentencing, and he’s been under house arrest since then. Authorities have continued to investigate the incest allegations. In October 2022, one of Van’s defense attorneys, Dang Dinh Manh, criticized the way that blood samples were taken from Van and his family members.  Samples should adhere to criminal procedural regulations and medical standards and the consent of the individuals or their legal guardians should be obtained, he said. Van’s lawyers have also criticized authorities for preventing them from meeting with Van and other accused church members. Last year, Dang Dinh Manh and two other defense attorneys for the church – Nguyen Van Mieng and Dao Kim Lan – sought political asylum in the United States after they received a police summons related to accusations of “abusing democratic freedoms” during their legal defense of Van and the church. Last week, the Ho Chi Minh Bar Association announced its decision to revoke the membership of Dang Dinh Manh and Nguyen Van Mieng for not paying fees.  Both lawyers told RFA last week that the decision could pave the way for authorities to take new action in their investigation of the members of Peng Lei Buddhist House Church.  RFA’s attempts to contact Long An Police at the provided phone number went unanswered on Friday.  Additionally, RFA was unable to reach anyone from the Peng Lei Buddhist House Church to verify Friday’s state media reports. Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Matt Reed.
- [Chinese navy is operating out of Cambodia's Ream base: US think tank](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-navy-is-operating-out-of-cambodias-ream-base-us-think-tank/): Cambodia appears to have given the Chinese navy extended and exclusive access to its naval base in Ream despite official claims that they only arrived for training purposes, a U.S. think tank said. Radio Free Asia first reported on the arrival of two Chinese corvettes last December, the first foreign warships allowed to dock at the new Chinese-built pier at Ream, Sihanoukville province. The ships left the pier on January 15, 2024, only to return several days later, said the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington D.C. in a new report. AMTI analyzed commercial satellite imagery that shows the Chinese vessels “have now maintained a consistent presence for over four months.” “It appears that they&#8217;ve been based there, just as the leaked 2019 MOU [memorandum of understanding] suggested they would be,” said Greg Poling, AMTI’s director, referring to the reported controversial agreement between Cambodia and China in 2019 giving Beijing exclusive rights to part of the Ream naval base.  “This isn&#8217;t just a visit or an exercise,” Poling told RFA. “Despite the Hun Sen and Hun Manet governments&#8217; denials, the PLAN [People’s Liberation Army Navy] is operating out of Ream.” Training Cambodian navy The AMTI report said that no other ships, including Cambodian vessels, have been seen docking at the new pier, “which was completed last year to enable larger warships to dock in Ream’s shallow waters.” This indicates “a visible sign of privileged access for China’s military,” it said, adding that the degree of China’s access to Ream in the future will confirm whether Ream has become a Chinese naval base. Former Cambodian defense minister Tea Banh visits a Chinese warship at Ream naval base, Dec. 3, 2023.  (Facebook: Tea Seiha) Cambodia is preparing for the upcoming annual joint exercise Golden Dragon with the Chinese military, part of which will be conducted at sea, RFA has learned. Naval commanders held a meeting in Phnom Penh on April 18 to discuss the exercise. It is unclear whether the Chinese vessels currently at Ream would take part in Golden Dragon 2024. In last year’s iteration, the two navies conducted their first-ever joint naval drills in the waters off Sihanoukville, but with a landing ship dispatched from China. RFA has contacted Rear Adm. Mey Dina, Ream naval base’s commander, for more clarification but has not received any reply. When the two Chinese ships arrived in Ream in December 2023, Cambodia’s minister of defense Tea Seiha said on Facebook that it was “for training our Cambodian Navy crew.” In the following days there was indeed a training course for Cambodian navy staff at Ream, attended by Chinese officers. However, there were no further reports on any activity of the Chinese ships in either Cambodian or Chinese media. “We don’t know what the Chinese have been up to [at Ream] because China builds and operates it itself,” said a Cambodian analyst who wished to stay anonymous due to the sensitivity of the topic. “What appears to be evident is that Beijing has begun to station semi-permanent warships there as a means of solidifying its military footprint across Southeast Asia,” said Paul Chambers, a political scientist at the Center of ASEAN Community Studies at Naresuan University in Thailand.  “A Chinese foothold in Cambodia offers support to other nearby Chinese military platforms in the South China Sea, Myanmar, Laos, and southern Asia,” Chambers told RFA. ‘Serious concerns’ There has been no immediate comment from the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh. The U.S. State Department last December said it had “serious concerns” about China’s plans for exclusive control over portions of Ream Naval Base, a claim that Cambodia has repeatedly denied. Top officials in Phnom Penh have maintained that allowing a foreign military to be based in Cambodia would be in contradiction to the country’s constitution. Sailors stand guard at the Cambodian Ream Naval Base in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, July 26, 2019. (Reuters/Samrang Pring) Cambodian analyst, Chhan Paul, wrote in the pro-government newspaper Khmer Times that any allegation of a Chinese military base is a “deliberate attempt to malign Cambodia.” “Cambodia never claims that it won’t allow warships from China to dock at the Ream naval base. Cambodia openly welcomes warships from other friendly countries to dock at the base,” the independent analyst wrote, “Therefore, the mere sighting of a Chinese warship cannot be interpreted to mean anything out of the ordinary.” Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi is to visit Cambodia from April 21 to 23 to further consolidate bilateral relations in “wide-ranging areas,” according to a press release from the Cambodian foreign ministry. Wang Yi is scheduled to call on King Norodom Sihamoni and meet with Prime Minister Hun Manet and his father Hun Sen, who is now the president of the country’s Senate. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Interfaith conference seeks to raise awareness about Uyghur genocide](https://ij-reportika.com/interfaith-conference-seeks-to-raise-awareness-about-uyghur-genocide/): The hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs subjected by China to detention, forced labor and cultural erasure underscores the urgency for global action, panelists said at a two-day interfaith conference on disrupting Uyghur genocide organized by The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity that wrapped up Thursday. Survivors, experts, religious leaders and activists participated in panels to discuss the situation of the Uyghurs and called on governments to promote pro-Uyghur policies and to pressure businesses that profit from Uyghur forced labor, said a notice about the conference on the foundation’s website. An estimated 1.8 million mostly Muslim Uyghurs and other Turkic ethnic groups have passed through “re-education” camps in Xinjiang, in China&#8217;s far northwest, as part of a larger effort by Beijing to wipe out the Uyghurs along with their culture, language and religion. Some of the detainees have been subjected to torture, rape and psychological abuse. These actions and policies, the United States and other Western governments say, amount to genocide and crimes and against humanity against the 11 million Uyghur people. China denies the human rights abuses and says the camps were vocational training centers and have since been closed. Restrictions placed on Uyghurs are to counter religious extremism and terrorism, according to Beijing. Western diplomats have raised the Uyghur genocide issue “directly and forcefully” with Chinese officials, Ellen Germain, special envoy for Holocaust issues at the U.S. State Department and a panel speaker, told Radio Free Asia. Additionally, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act of 2021 and the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2018, require the U.S. government, State Department and Department of Homeland Security, among others, to take action that will impose consequences on those who commit genocide or other atrocities, she said.  “We recognize that it’s never enough for those who are suffering,” Germain said. ‘We are not afraid’ The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, named for the Holocaust survivor, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, writer and human rights activist who died in 2016, has thrown its support behind raising awareness of the Uyghur genocide through protests, op-eds, funding and events such as conferences. Elie Wiesel poses with his wife Marion and son Elisha in New York, Oct. 14, 1986. (Richard Drew/AP) In 2023, the foundation awarded grants amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars to three Uyghur groups dedicated to Uyghur rights advocacy and education amid ongoing repression against the ethnic group by Chinese authorities. “We’re not afraid of the Chinese Communist Party because they are in the wrong, and what they are doing is intolerable,” said his son, Elisha Wiesel, the foundation’s chairman.  “And if we can help to get the world to see that, to get the American public in particular to see that, that’s part of our role, and we need to do it in serving my father’s memory,” he said.  Forced sterilizations of detained Uyghur women, the destruction of thousands of mosques throughout Xinjiang, and the assignment of Han Chinese civil servants to stay in the homes of Uyghur families are other ways the Chinese government has sought to wipe out the Uyghurs and their culture.  “That is a genocidal activity to suppress the birth rate of a people, to change their buildings and remove their character, to forcibly remove their traditions by inserting people into the family life to prevent certain traditions from being followed,” Wiesel said.  Two major challenges The foundation faces two major challenges in trying to raise awareness about the Uyghur genocide, Wiesel said. The first is the Chinese government’s “information blackout policy,” making it nearly impossible for Uyghur families living in Xinjiang to communicate with relatives overseas or for the press to get first-hand information on what’s happening there.  “If the Western free press doesn’t have access to the atrocity, it can’t report it,” Wiesel said. “And then, it’s almost as though it doesn’t happen.” The second is that it is difficult to get celebrities to draw attention to the genocide because China is a major market for U.S. and Western movies and goods, such as sneakers.  “So, all of a sudden [China] has dollars and cents to impact celebrities, which makes it much harder now that their bottom line is at stake,” Wiesel said. “It’s much harder to activate them.” Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Ethnic army intercepts junta offensive on Thai-Myanmar border](https://ij-reportika.com/ethnic-army-intercepts-junta-offensive-on-thai-myanmar-border/): An ethnic armed group intercepted a junta retaliation near the Thai-Myanmar border on Thursday, according to an announcement from rebel forces. The Karen National Liberation Army, an armed branch of the Karen National Union, along with other allied groups, captured the last remaining junta Infantry Battalion 275 near a border town in Myanmar’s Kayin state on Wednesday.  In response, the junta launched state-level offensive “Operation Aung Zeya” to capture Myawaddy city, according to a Karen National Union statement released Thursday.  Karen National Liberation Army joint forces destroyed military vehicles, including an armored vehicle, while junta troops were marching enroute to Myawaddy, it continued. According to the Karen National Union, more than 100 junta troops were injured and killed, and the group was stopped at Dawna Hills, a mountain range extending through Kayin state. Radio Free Asia  reached out to a Karen National Union spokesperson by phone today to learn more about the retaliation, but he did not respond. On high alert A Myawaddy resident who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons told RFA that the Karen army had warned some villages about junta airstrikes, which began on Tuesday evening. “The villages near Infantry Battalion 275 have been ordered to be evacuated by the Karen National Union due to air raids,” he said. “On April 18, people are telling each other to evacuate starting from today.” Civilians are waiting to go to Thailand through the Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge, while other Myawaddy residents are monitoring the situation, he said, adding that everyone is worried.  Another resident in the border city said the non-alighned Karen National Army, formerly the junta-aligned Border Guard Force, are patrolling the streets and warning the residents to be prepared to evacuate quickly if heavy fighting breaks out. Junta forces fired with heavy weapons and bombarded villages along their marching route during their offensive, causing civilian casualties and property damage, the Karen National Union’s statement said. The junta has not released any information on the attack. RFA called junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for more information, but he did not pick up the phone. Since April 5, the Karen National Liberation Army and joint forces have captured the junta camps 355, 356 and 357 in Kayin state’s Thin Gan Nyi Naung town, in addition to Falu camp and Kyaik Don Byu Har hill camp and others around Myawaddy city. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 
- [Report: China is exporting digital control methods](https://ij-reportika.com/report-china-is-exporting-digital-control-methods/): China’s government has turned the country’s tech companies like Huawei and ZTE into its “proxies” and uses their dominant market share in developing countries around the Indo-Pacific region to export its authoritarian model of the internet, according to a new report. In countries such as Cambodia, Malaysia, Nepal and Thailand, the dominance of the Chinese companies in building digital infrastructure has meant Beijing’s controlled version of the internet is expanding, leading to a fragmentation with the West’s open web, it says. The report is titled The Digital Silk Road: China and the Rise of Digital Repression in the Indo-Pacific and was released Wednesday by Article 19, a London-based internet-freedom advocacy organization. The group says the cut-price internet infrastructure being offered by companies beholden to the Chinese Communist Party “has benefited” countries that otherwise would be stuck with outdated infrastructure.  But that assistance comes with a catch, it says. “China has packaged its model as the prevailing best practice, often masked as support for innovation centers, exchanges or broader digital diplomacy initiatives, especially on issues relating to cybersecurity,” the report says, adding that the result is further “digital repression.” “This is intended to tip the scales in global adoption to influence more states to employ Chinese norms, accelerating internet fragmentation.” Cambodia’s ‘Great Firewall’ The report points to Cambodia, where it says “China is present at virtually every layer of the digital ecosystem,” which it says has been marked by a “shift towards China-style digital authoritarianism.” Firms like Huawei and ZTE have played “a leading role” in laying out infrastructure, it says, to the point where Cambodian telecoms companies only offer the two companies’ internet routers.  Hip-hop artist Kea Sokun listens to one of his songs online at a cafe in Phnom Penh, Cambodia January 29, 2022. (Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP) Huawei is also Cambodia’s only authorized cloud service provider and is responsible for much of the country’s 5G network, it notes, as well as its terrestrial and submarine internet lines and data centers. But it says China’s influence extends beyond infrastructure. “Alongside infrastructure-level cooperation, the shadow influence of China’s internet governance model has loomed large over Cambodia’s embrace of digital authoritarianism,” the report says, terming China’s influence on internet norms a form of “digital diplomacy.” In some areas, that has improved network engineering, the report says, but it also includes provision of “the technical knowhow for Cambodia to better emulate China’s digital authoritarian model.” The report blames such digital diplomacy for Cambodia’s National Internet Gateway, a system akin to China’s “Great Firewall” that allows the government to monitor and control all internet traffic. Phnom Penh has not said who is building the system, “but experts in Cambodian civil society believe it is Huawei or ZTE,” the report says. China alternatives The report recommends Western governments seek to work further with Taiwan and its technology sector to develop the self-ruling island further as a “counterweight” to China’s digital influence. A technician stands at the entrance to a Huawei 5G data server center at the Guangdong Second Provincial General Hospital in Guangzhou, in southern China&#8217;s Guangdong province on Sept. 26, 2021. (Ng Han Guan/AP) Taiwanese companies could help export infrastructure more friendly to the open web, it says, and countries like the United States could provide “greater financial resources” to civil society groups in the affected countries to push back against digital authoritarianism.  But it warns against casting too wide of a net in searching for alternatives to Chinese-built infrastructure and internet norms. Specifically, “while greater regional cooperation is necessary,” it says, “uncritically embracing countries with their own records of digital dictatorship, such as Vietnam, will ultimately be counterproductive.” Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar junta releases thousands of prisoners in New Year amnesty](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-releases-thousands-of-prisoners-in-new-year-amnesty/): Myanmar prisons nationwide released over 3,000 prisoners on Wednesday, according to junta-controlled media. Since the country’s 2021 coup, thousands of civilians have been arrested for donating to groups opposing the junta, protesting and speaking out against the military regime’s leaders.  According to the junta’s media statement, reduced sentences were given “for the peace of mind of the people” and “social leniency” during the Burmese New Year Commemoration. Prisoners were released under the condition that if they commit another crime, they will serve the remainder of their previous sentence as well as the sentence for their most recent crime, in accordance with the country’s Criminal Procedure Law, military-supported channels like MRTV continued.  Prisoners’ family members have been waiting in front of Yangon region’s infamous Insein Prison since early on Wednesday morning, residents said.  Family members waiting in front of Insein Prison in Yangon region on April 17, 2024. (RFA) The mother of a political prisoner waiting by Insein Prison on Wednesday said she hopes to see her son, who has been in prison for three years for defamation. “The people in the prison said that prisoners like my son with a prison term of less than three years would be released, while prisoners with a long sentence would get a reduced prison term,” she said, declining to be named for security reasons.  “That’s why I am waiting for my son. He was arrested and jailed when [junta forces] found revolutionary messages on his phone while checking the [ward’s] guest list that night,” she continued, referencing a housing registration system that has intensified since the junta took power. However, like previous amnesties, which have been criticized as a false show of humanity from the junta in the past, only a small number of political prisoners will likely be released, said Thaik Tun Oo, a member of Political Prisoner Network-Myanmar. “Even if there are political prisoners among the released, there will be a few well-known figures, a few political prisoners and there will be a lot of other people with criminal charges, just like the [junta] has done throughout the post-coup period,” he said “As far as we have found out, we have even heard that there are no political prisoners released in some prisons. I think they may have difficulty releasing political prisoners after the recent military defeats,” he said, referring to military victories since last October by the Three Brotherhood Alliance and the Karen National Liberation Army. In addition to the more than 3,303 prisoners, eight foreign prisoners who were jailed locally were released and deported, according to the military’s announcement. Prior to Wednesday’s amnesty, the junta administration also released 9,652 prisoners on Jan. 4, 2024 for Burmese Independence Day, but few political prisoners were among them, according to advocates for those jailed under the military regime.  According to the statements released by the junta, only 15 pardons were granted and a total of 95,000 prisoners have been released in more than three years since the coup.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.  
- [China axes hundreds of TV dramas depicting family tensions](https://ij-reportika.com/china-axes-hundreds-of-tv-dramas-depicting-family-tensions/): China&#8217;s internet censors have deleted hundreds of online TV dramas for portraying the negative aspects of family life amid an attempt by the ruling Communist Party to get more people to start families and rescue plummeting birth rates. Censors at video platforms Douyin and Kuaishou deleted more than 700 videos of TV micro-dramas portraying in-fighting between in-laws because of the &#8220;extreme emotions&#8221; they evoked, the government&#8217;s &#8220;Rumor-refuting platform&#8221; on Weibo reported. &#8220;Many micro-dramas on this theme deliberately amplify and exaggerate conflicts between husband and wife, conflicts between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, and intergenerational conflicts through eye-catching stereotypes and abnormal and bizarre relationships,&#8221; the post said. The move comes as President Xi Jinping tries to promote marriage and family life as a way of boosting flagging birth rates. The number of Chinese couples tying the knot for the first time has plummeted by nearly 56% over the past nine years, with such marriages numbering less than 11 million in 2022. A November 2023 poll on the social media platform Weibo found that while most of the 44,000 respondents said 25 to 28 are the best ages to marry, nearly 60% said they were delaying marriage due to work pressures, education or the need to buy property. The logo of Chinese video sharing company Kuaishou is seen at its company in Hangzhou, in eastern China&#8217;s Zhejiang province on February 5, 2021. (AFP) Birth rates have fallen from 17.86 million in 2016 to just 9.02 million in 2023, despite a change in policy allowing couples to have up to three children in 2021.  In October, Xi called on women to focus on raising families, and the National People&#8217;s Congress this month started looking at ways to boost birth rates and kick-start the shrinking population, including flexible working policies, coverage for fertility treatment and extended maternity leave. Changing priorities But young women in today&#8217;s China are increasingly choosing not to marry or have kids, citing huge inequalities and patriarchal attitudes that still run through family life, not to mention the sheer economic cost of raising a family. A recent study of Mandarin pop songs aimed at a female audience focused far less on romantic love and more on personal freedom and economic independence. It appears the authorities want to avoid having women put off taking the plunge into family life by clamping down on mother-in-law gags and other depictions of family tensions. A screen shows a military parade at a booth of Chinese video-streaming startup Kuaishou, at the 2020 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) in Beijing, September 4, 2020. (Tingshu Wang/Reuters) &#8220;Douyin and Kuaishou have recently removed from the shelves a number of illegal micro-short dramas that deliberately choreographed &#8220;mother-in-law and daughter-in-law battles&#8221; to exaggerate extreme emotions.&#8221; The deleted shows &#8220;promoted unhealthy and non-mainstream views on family, marriage and love, and deliberately amplified and exaggerated conflicts between husband and wife, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, etc,&#8221; the Weibo &#8220;rumor-refuting&#8221; post said. The censored titles included shows called &#8220;My Husband is a Mommy&#8217;s Boy,&#8221; &#8220;In the Doghouse with Mother-in-law,&#8221; and &#8220;Rich Lady Strikes Back,&#8221; and were removed to promote the &#8220;healthy development&#8221; of the online video market, it said, adding that Kuaishou had deleted more than 700 such shows. China&#8217;s State Administration of Radio, Film and Television has also issued new rules requiring platforms to apply for a license to distribute online TV shows, starting June 1. ‘Positive energy’ Current affairs commentator Chang Guantao said many online TV producers like to use social injustice as a talking point to get more viewers, which he said was &#8220;embarrassing&#8221; to the government, which wants anything posted on China&#8217;s tightly controlled internet to exude &#8220;positive energy&#8221; for the future of the country. &#8220;More and more micro-dramas are vying with each other to directly address society&#8217;s sore points, and those marginalized by government policy,&#8221; Chang said.  &#8220;This is likely something that news regulators and public opinion control agencies don&#8217;t want to see, so they have to regulate and control them, and limit their development in various ways,&#8221; he said. The logo of Chinese video-streaming startup Kuaishou is seen in Beijing, China May 10, 2017. (Stringer/Reuters) Current affairs commentator Bi Xin said micro-dramas have been much more lightly regulated than regular TV shows &#8212; until now. &#8220;It doesn&#8217;t cost too much to make a micro-drama, around 300,000 yuan (US$41,000), but they have a wider reach,&#8221; Bi said. &#8220;The authorities need to suppress and manage them by forcing them to get licensed, because their content isn&#8217;t always in line with the main theme [of government propaganda].&#8221; The news website Caixin quoted micro-drama producers as saying that there will now be a classification and hierarchical review system for the shows, which will be divided according to their production budget. Higher budget shows will be directly regulated by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, while lower budget productions will be managed by the same authorities at the provincial level. The lowest-budget shows will be left to video-sharing platforms to censor, the report said. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar junta soldiers surrender in ethnic army’s first Tanintharyi win](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-soldiers-surrender-in-ethnic-armys-first-tanintharyi-win/): Nearly 50 junta soldiers surrendered to an ethnic armed group in southern Myanmar, its political wing announced on Tuesday The Karen National Union’s armed branch, the Karen National Liberation Army, intercepted junta troops in Tanintharyi region’s Myeik township.  Commander Lieutenant Colonel Aung Hein, leading the junta’s Myeik-based Infantry Battalion 103, surrendered to the Karen army’s Brigade 4, according to a statement from the Karen National Union. The Karen National Liberation Army intercepted 48 troops on their way back to regroup in Htee Hta Byu Har junta camp on Monday, while six junta soldiers were killed in the attack. The group began fighting for territory in Tanintharyi in November 2022. This victory marks a first for the Karen National Liberation Army’s successes in the region, a spokesman for KNLA allies the Myeik District Revolutionary Force told RFA. “We can say that this surrender was the very first of its kind in Tanintharyi region,” he told RFA, declining to be named for security reasons. “I heard that they surrendered yesterday.” The troops that surrendered used to conduct military operations in Tanintharyi and Palaw townships, he said, adding that joint Karen National Union and People’s Defense Forces are conducting operations against the army in Dawei and Palaw township. RFA contacted Tanintharyi region’s junta spokesperson Thet Naing for a comment on the incident, but he did not respond by the time of publication.  Nearly 70 light and heavy weapons were seized and the 48 junta soldiers who surrendered are being held in accordance with international law, the Karen National Union’s statement said. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.
- [Chinese authorities arrest 4 Tibetans for protest over land grab](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-authorities-arrest-4-tibetans-for-protest-over-land-grab/): Police have arrested and detained four Tibetans who protested Chinese authorities’ seizure of pasture land owned by Tibetans in the Tibet Autonomous Region, three sources inside Tibet told Radio Free Asia. On April 10, residents of Taktsa village in Luonixiang rural township in Markham county in Chamdo, or Changdu in Chinese, clashed with authorities after they appealed against the land grab and demanded compensation, said the sources, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal. In 2023, a Chinese county official illegally sold the pasture land to businessmen without the knowledge of locals and without providing them any compensation, the sources said.  The Tibetans had no knowledge that their land had been seized illegally until this April when the businessmen sent people to clear it. The Tibetans then confronted authorities, demanding payment. Police arrested and detained four of the Tibetans, and slapped and beat many others at the scene, said one of the sources.  There were no immediate details about the status of the four or the charges against them, and it is not clear for what purpose the seized land will be used.  Despite repeated attempts, RFA did not receive any immediate response to calls to Markham county authorities and the local police station.  Chinese police argue with Tibetans protesting the seizure of pasture land in Markham county in western China&#8217;s Tibet Autonomous Region, April 10, 2024. (Citizen journalist/video screenshot) Chinese authorities in the Tibet Autonomous Region and in Tibetan-populated areas of nearby Chinese provinces often ignore residents’ concerns about mining and land grabs by local officials, who routinely rely on force to subdue those who complain or protest, according to human rights groups. Over the past few years, there have been several reports of similar land grabs that have taken place in Chamdo, a resource-rich area in eastern Tibet.  Most of the land grabs have been related to mining, including copper, gold and lithium, and development projects that China has undertaken in the areas. In some cases, Tibetans have been forced from their homes. Thumbs up Videos obtained by RFA show over a dozen Tibetans pleading before Chinese police as they raised both their thumbs up — a Tibetan gesture of a request to show mercy.  The gesture was also seen being made by Buddhist monks and Tibetans residents during February protests in Dege county, southwestern China’s Sichuan province, in an appeal to Chinese officials to stop a planned dam project on the Drichu River. Chinese police argue with Tibetans protesting the seizure of pasture land in Markham county in western China&#8217;s Tibet Autonomous Region, April 10, 2024. (Citizen journalist/video screenshot) In the videos from Markham county, young and elderly Tibetans kneel before police clad in black, and wail, while others pull and tug at the authorities to heed their pleas. The land in question is used by about 25 Tibetan families to graze their animals and for recreation purposes, the sources said.  Chinese authorities have arrested the official who had colluded with the businessmen to illegally seize the land without compensating the Tibetans, charging him with corruption, said one of the sources.  Now, the residents are demanding compensation for the land that had been occupied, he added. Chinese police have forbidden the Tibetans from sharing information about the incident with people outside China, the sources said.  Translated by Dolma Lhamo and edited by Tenzin Pema for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Water festival attacks kill 3 during Myanmar coup leader’s holiday](https://ij-reportika.com/water-festival-attacks-kill-3-during-myanmar-coup-leaders-holiday/): Missile attacks on two universities in a holiday town in Myanmar killed three and injured eight, residents told Radio Free Asia on Monday.  During coup leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing’s Thingyn – or water festival – visit to Mandalay division’s Pyinoolwin city on Sunday, an unknown group fired more than 15 missiles at two military universities. The blasts, which hit the Defense Services Academy and Defense Services Technology Academy, also damaged a department of a nearby hospital and Aung Myay Zaya monastery.  The missiles injured five civilians when they landed on Pyinoolwin Hospital’s orthopedics department, said one Pyinoolwin resident, declining to be named for security reasons.  &#8220;The two monks who died were people who wore robes during the Thingyn period. They died when the explosion happened near them,” he said, describing civilians who temporarily become monks to observe Myanmar’s new year water festival. “The last man who died on the spot was in Ward No. 8. Another three people were injured in this neighborhood alone.” Following the attack, tourists who came for the holiday and some permanent residents fled the city, he added.  From 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Sunday evening, about 40 shots and explosions could be heard, said one Pyinoolwin resident who was near the site of the attack.  “After the sound of the missiles, Defense Services Academy and Defense Services Technology Academy troops cut the power. The military and social aid vehicles were busy,” he said, declining to be named for fear of reprisals. “I knew they fell in the area of the Defense Services Academy.” Staff at Pyinoolwin Hospital are preparing to move patients to Mandalay Hospital, while junta soldiers are conducting security checks around the city, residents said.  No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks yet, but residents told RFA that they were likely carried out from a hill behind the university campuses.  The junta has not issued any statements about the attacks. RFA called Mandalay division’s junta spokesperson Thein Htay for more information on the attacks, but he did not respond.   Residents told RFA they believe the attack was carried out because of Min Aung Hlaing’s visit. On Sunday, a bomb exploded near a pavilion in Mandalay city, injuring 12 people.  Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Viral video highlights targeting of Hmong women to marry Chinese men](https://ij-reportika.com/viral-video-highlights-targeting-of-hmong-women-to-marry-chinese-men/): The man behind the phone chuckles as he calls out in the Hmong language to villagers sitting around a raised wooden home in rural Laos. A young man in a yellow hooded sweatshirt offers a slightly embarrassed smile, while other men gathered around a motorbike appear to pay him no mind. The camera zooms in on two young women who look shocked or turn away, as others laugh, before it settles on a girl barely in her teens, sitting atop a bike between two other children. This 30-second video, shot in an undisclosed location in Laos, went viral late last month after it was posted to Facebook, along with dialogue warning of ethnic Hmong middlemen working as interpreters for Chinese nationals seeking Hmong women and girls as wives. While the offer of marriage can be a financial leg up for largely poor Hmong villagers in rural Laos, many women who accept end up victims of human trafficking, according to a Lao official, who is calling on authorities to take action against the middlemen.  Some of the women end up as forced laborers and sometimes face physical punishment, the official said. “In the video, the middleman goes to a village and says that there are some Chinese men looking for Lao Hmong girls and women to be their wives,” a speaker of the Hmong language told Radio Free Asia.  “The video doesn’t mention the province, district, or village,” he said. “It’s only clear that Chinese men are looking for Lao Hmong wives.” A Lao Hmong middleman assists Chinese middlemen looking for Lao Hmong girls and women to marry Chinese men, March 24, 2024 in Laos. (Citizen journalist) The women and girls typically live in remote hill areas and are usually uneducated, according to an official from the Lao People’s Revolutionary Youth Union, the ruling party’s youth wing. “As I observe, some of the men cannot marry Chinese women because they are poor,” the youth official said. “But when they come to Laos, they’re in a better position in terms of wealth.” Loopholes in Laos’ laws The Chinese men offer the parents large amounts of money or promise to build a modern cement house, he said.  And they mostly target the Lao women in their early 20s, with fair skin and a small body, a source in Vientiane province’s Thoulakhom district told RFA. The influx of Chinese people into Laos in the last few years has presented new challenges to the Lao government’s anti-human trafficking efforts, according to several government officials. Many of the Chinese men obtain all of the required Lao government documents before marrying Hmong women, one Vientiane-based official told RFA. That can make it more difficult for provincial authorities to gauge whether the women will face an abusive situation once they move to China, the official said. “There are some loopholes in Lao regulations and laws for the Chinese men to take advantage to bring Lao girls and women to China,” the official said. “We only know their whereabouts once they face problems and are in a situation where they need help. But we can’t stop them from going to China with their new husbands.” It was unclear how many Hmong women have moved to China to marry Chinese men in recent years. But Lao government officials and one person who works for an NGO said the practice has become commonplace in the country’s north, particularly in Luang Prabang and Oudomxay provinces. “I just saw this happen earlier this year,” a resident of Xayabury province’s Hongsa district told RFA. “A middleman who works for Chinese men came here to negotiate with parents of Hmong women. When the parents said yes, he did all the paperwork according to regulations and laws on marriage.” In every instance, the Hmong women and the Chinese men didn’t meet each other until after the paperwork was completed, he said. Because of that, the village doesn’t hold an engagement ceremony, like with other marriages. Translated by Phouvong. Edited by Matt Reed.
- [Wildfire destroys prized mushrooms, income source for Tibetans](https://ij-reportika.com/wildfire-destroys-prized-mushrooms-income-source-for-tibetans/): A recent wildfire in a Tibetan-populated area of China’s Sichuan province ravaged vast swathes of forests covered with pine and oak trees that nurtured a hidden treasure and an economic lifeline for residents — matsutake mushrooms.  The wildfire that broke out in March in Nyagchu county, or Yajiang in Chinese, in Kardze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, forced 3,000 people from the traditional Kham region of Tibet to evacuate the area and burned down several houses. No human casualties have been reported.  But the fire destroyed about one-sixth of the county’s matsutake output, Chen Wen, director of the Yajiang Matsutake Industrial Park, told Chinese media. The mushrooms, which Tibetans gather to supplement their income and others use in dishes in Japan, South Korea and China, may not grow again in the burned area for at least 20 years, he said. Matsutake mushrooms, seen in this undated photo, are referred to as &#8216;oak mushrooms&#8217; in a nod to their symbiotic relationship with evergreen oak trees in Tibet. (Citizen journalist) China is the world’s largest producer and exporter of matsutake mushrooms, exporting US$30.3 million in 2022, while Japan is the top importer, bringing in US$24.7 million that year. The primary places where the mushrooms grow in China are within the Tibetan plateau, including in Nyagchu county, which accounted for more than 12% of China’s annual output, according to the Yajiang County Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Science and Technology Bureau.  Demanding and lucrative Many families in Nyagchu — where Tibetans make up the majority of the county’s population of over 51,000 — have for years braved the frigid mountain air to forage for the elusive mushrooms during the traditional harvest season between July and September.  Foraging matsutake is a demanding if lucrative job with harvesters often spending weeks at high altitudes in harsh weather conditions to search for the mushrooms, said an area resident. Some varieties are rare and require meticulous searching, while others grow underground and require careful removal, he said. “In one day, you can make more than 2,000 yuan (US$300) during the harvesting season,” said a source inside Tibet who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal. Tibetans forage for matsutake mushrooms in this undated photo. (Citizen journalist) Residents believe that the impact of the fire may force some Tibetans to abandon matsutake harvesting and seek alternative sources of income in other areas. But at a recent press conference on the impact of the wildfire, Sichuan provincial representatives did not mention the disaster’s potential effects on the livelihoods of Tibetans who rely on matsutake harvesting. The fire also damaged the local ecosystem, killing birds and insects that play a role in the growth of the mushrooms, said an area resident, adding that the long-term ecological consequences of the blaze remain unclear. “Nyagchu is renowned for its abundance of naturally grown matsutake, and the harvest is a crucial source of income for many Tibetan families in the county,” said Washington-based Tsering Palden, a native of Nyagchu, who has sold the mushrooms in the past.  Palden estimates that area households earn about 200,000 yuan (US$28,000) annually from selling the mushrooms. ‘Oak mushrooms’ In Tibet, matsutake mushrooms are most commonly referred to as “oak mushrooms,” or beshing shamo and besha for short in Tibetan, in a nod to their symbiotic relationship with evergreen oak trees in Tibet.  Matsutake mushrooms, seen in this undated photo, are a highly prized delicacy in many parts of Asia. (Citizen journalist) In his 2022 book “What a Mushroom Lives for: Matsutake and the Worlds They Make,” Michael Hathaway, professor of anthropology at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, describes how Tibetan villagers in Yunan province hunt for them. The villagers gather the mushrooms in the morning and return home when dealers arrive at a market or drive along the roads, buying them as they go, he writes. The dealers then sell their matsutake to other dealers, who arrange for them to be shipped across China and to Japan and South Korea. The price of matsutake mushrooms had jumped over the past 40 years from the equivalent of about US$1 per pound (2.2 kg) in 1985 to US$70 per pound, according to Beijing-based Tibetan writer and poet Tsering Woeser. The mushrooms have specific environmental requirements for growth and thrive in undisturbed, high-altitude forests with the right balance of sunlight and moisture, said the source inside Tibet. “The fire has disrupted these conditions and may take years for the ecosystem to recover sufficiently to support matsutake growth,” he added.  Translated and edited by Tenzin Pema for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Uyghur activist receives Roosevelt freedom of worship award](https://ij-reportika.com/uyghur-activist-receives-roosevelt-freedom-of-worship-award/): A Uyghur activist on Thursday received a Four Freedoms award from the Roosevelt Foundation for years of campaigning for the rights of Muslim Uyghurs in far-western China’s Xinjiang region. Zumretay Arkin, director of global advocacy and chair of the Women’s Committee at the World Uyghur Congress, was presented the Freedom of Worship Award at a ceremony attended by members of the Dutch royal family and Prime Minister Mark Rutte. Zumretay Arkin is awarded the Freedom of Worship medal by the Roosevelt Foundation at a ceremony in Middelburg, the Netherlands, April 11, 2024. (Zumretay Arkin via Twitter) Based in the Netherlands, the Roosevelt Foundation honors individuals and organizations committed to protecting the Four Freedoms — freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear — proclaimed by former U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt in a 1941 speech. The awards ceremony was held in Middelburg, capital of the Dutch province of Zeeland. Roosevelt’s ancestors were from a village named Oud-Vossemeer in Zeeland. “Me, standing here, accepting this prestigious award is a strong message to the Chinese government that we will not be silenced,” Arkin said during her acceptance speech. “The persecution of the Uyghurs is not merely a domestic issue confined to the borders of China; it is a matter of global concern that demands our collective action and solidarity,” she said. Zumretay Arkin makes a short speech after receiving the Freedom of Worship Award from the Roosevelt Foundation at a ceremony in Middelburg, the Netherlands, April 11, 2024. (Zumretay Arkin via Twitter) Arkin, 30, called on the international community not to remain silent in the face of egregious human rights abuses and to hold the Chinese government accountable for its actions while demanding an end to the repression of religious freedom and genocide in East Turkistan, Uyghurs’ preferred name for Xinjiang. Arkin has drawn international attention to the suppression of religious freedom and violations of Uyghur human rights, founded a Uyghur friendship group for women worldwide, and worked to support Uyghur refugees, according to the Four Freedoms Awards website.   She has advocated for the protection and preservation of Uyghur culture, religion and language in international forums, including at the United Nations, the website said.   Zumretay Arkin (3rd from R) stands with other award winners and officials at the Roosevelt Foundation in Middelburg, the Netherlands, April 11, 2024. (Zumretay Arkin via Twitter) The U.S. and other Western governments have deemed China’s severe repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, including mass internments in camps, torture, and forced abortions and sterilizations of Uyghur women, as a genocide and crimes against humanity.  In February 2021, the parliament of the Netherlands was the first European legislature to pass a nonbinding motion saying that the treatment of the Uyghurs in China amounted to genocide. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Police in Vietnam fine YouTuber for filming pagodas](https://ij-reportika.com/police-in-vietnam-fine-youtuber-for-filming-pagodas/): Police in Vietnam fined a YouTuber 7.5 million dong (US$300) for filming activities at a local pagoda. According to a police announcement, residents in the southern province of Dong Thap reported suspicious filming activities at a pagoda in Cao Lanh city’s Ward 4 on July 5.  The police then summoned Nguyen Binh Dan, born in 1984, to the police station and issued him the fine for “abusing social media to share and post numerous false information, insulting the prestige of organizations/damaging the reputation of organization.”  During the meeting with police, Dan said that he regularly recorded videos of local pagodas and uploaded them to his personal YouTube channel, which has more than 11,000 subscribers. The police said Dan’s videos contained false and religion-dividing content which generated offensive and negative comments. The announcement did not specify any details about the videos or the name of Dan’s YouTube channel. Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Eugene Whong.
- [Myanmar flooding destroys 20,000 acres of crops](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-flooding-destroys-20000-acres-of-crops/): Flooding has devastated crops and forced schools to close  in 30 villages across central Myanmar, residents told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday.  The rain-swollen Ayeyarwady River in the Magway region flowed over its banks , destroying 20,000 acres of green beans, peanuts and sesame in the key agricultural region, where most households farm as a  primary means of income, one resident of Kamma township said.  “Flooding this year is very bad,” said the resident, who declined to be identified for fear of reprisals due to the military regime’s crackdown on independent media. “Most of the bean fields are flooded and that’s the primary crop in this area.” Yae Lel Taung village school in Kamma township in Magway region flooded on July 23, 2024.(Facebook: Aung Kyaw Thu)   About 20 schools have been closed, he said, adding that five more townships in Magway are also experiencing rainy-season flooding. Since the beginning of July, flooding has displaced tens of thousands in the region, washed away homes and killed several people, residents and relief workers said. RFA telephoned Magway region’s junta spokesperson, Myo Myint, for comment but he did not respond by the time of publication. RELATED STORIES Myanmar floods displace thousands, destroy hundreds of homesFloods in Myanmar force 10,000 from their homes, many trappedCollapse at notorious Myanmar rare earth mine kills 15 people The rainy season is not due to end until late October but for now, the worst may be over. The junta’s Department of Meteorology and Hydrology reported early on Wednesday that water levels had receded below the danger level in Mandalay’s Nyaung-U township, to the north of Magway, and in areas to the south, near the river’s delta including in the towns of Seik Thar, Hinthada and Zalun. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 
- [North Korea bans hit war movie 5 months after release](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-bans-hit-war-movie-5-months-after-release/): A hit North Korean big budget film that took four years to make and was intended to usher in a new era of high quality movie production has been banned only five months after its release, residents in the country told Radio Free Asia. The blockbuster “72 Hours” tells the story of the opening moments of the 1950-53 Korean War – which it says South Korea started – and it details how the North Korean army captured Seoul in only three days. In reality it was the North that attacked first, but Pyongyang maintains that the first sacking of Seoul during the conflict&#8211;it changed hands four times&#8211;was part of a counteroffensive. The government has not announced a reason why the film has been mothballed, but a resident of the northwestern province of North Pyongan said on condition of anonymity for safety reasons that it might be because of the government’s recent crackdown on the term “unification,” in line with leader Kim Jong Un’s policy of considering South Korea a separate hostile country, rather than part of the same race of people. She also said it might be because the government is trying to scrub media that has references to South Korean place names. The word “Seoul” is spoken many times in the film, for example. “The movie is about our army advancing south after we were attacked … on June 25, 1950, which makes residents think that it was actually us who lit the fuse of war,” she said.   The resident also said the plot of the film blames military commanders for resting on their laurels after taking the capital, when they should have advanced and taken all of South Korea before it could catch its breath. “Usually, the price of a movie ticket is 1,000 (10 US cents) won, or 3,000 won (30 cents) if it’s new,” she said. “However, ‘72 Hours’ … cost 18,000 won ($1.80)” That amount is an enormous sum, equivalent to about half a month’s salary for the lowest paid government jobs. Related Stories In new movie, the South started the Korean War, as Pyongyang has always claimed North Korea bans more than 100 patriotic songs that refer to reunification Kim Jong Un to revise constitution, label S Korea as ‘primary enemy’ “The authorities suddenly banned the screening of the movie ‘72 Hours’ and issued a policy to retrieve all copies of ‘72 Hours’ that had spread among residents,” she said. “They did not specify the reason for banning it and they just suddenly designated it as prohibited.” Most copies of the film were distributed from person to person on USB flash drives, so the crackdown not only forbids viewings of “72 Hours,” but also distribution, a resident of the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “The movie ‘72 Hours,’ which was first released in February this year, attracted a lot of attention from residents from the beginning,” he said. “It is on an entirely different level than previous movies and has been highly anticipated since its production.” It was supposed to be a film that represented the priorities of the Kim Jong Un era, he said. The high ticket price made it a premium film that poorer residents could not afford to see in theaters. “The Party said the movie would not be aired on television until all production costs were recovered. And now, the movie has been banned,” he said. Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong.
- [North Korea brushes off any hope of better U.S. ties under Trump](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-brushes-off-any-hope-of-better-u-s-ties-under-trump/): North Korea dismissed on Tuesday a suggestion by former U.S. President Donald Trump that he could improve relations if he were to win November’s election, saying it did not expect any change in U.S. hostility and it was ready for confrontation. Trump spearheaded an unprecedented diplomatic push on North Korea when he was president in an effort to get it to abandon its nuclear and missile programs. He met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un three times, including once at the Joint Security Area in the Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas. But the effort brought no tangible progress and North Korea has been relentlessly building up its nuclear arsenal and developing the missiles with which to carry the bombs. As Trump prepares for his bid to win the presidency for a second term, he has referred to his efforts on North Korea, implying he could make progress if he returned to the White House.  He said in a speech at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last week: “It’s nice to get along with somebody who has a lot of nuclear weapons.” RELATED STORIES Surprise Trump-Kim DMZ Meeting Wins Applause, But Raises Doubts About Real Progress Rumors of Breakdown in US-North Korea Summit Spread in North Korea Abrupt End to US-North Korean Summit Disappoints Experts, But Some See Prospect of Future Negotiations But the state Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA, appeared to rule out in a commentary any hope for warming ties, even if Trump becomes president again. “No matter what administration takes office in the U.S., the political climate, which is confused by the infighting of the two parties, does not change and, accordingly, we do not care about this,” said the news agency, which reflects official thinking. “It is true that Trump, when he was president, tried to reflect the special personal relations between the heads of state but he did not bring about any substantial positive change,” it said. The KCNA said the U.S. had pursued “the most vicious and persistent hostile policy” towards it for decades and it was prepared to defend itself. “The DPRK has bolstered its self-defensive capabilities to safeguard its ideology, social system, dignity and life and is fully ready for all-out confrontation with the U.S.,” it said, referring to North Korea by the initials of its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.  The U.S. has long argued that North Korea’s nuclear program is illegal and subject to U.N. sanctions aimed at pressing it into disarmament talks, while backing staunch U.S. ally South Korea. Edited by Taejun Kang.
- [Uneasy calm in Dhaka under curfew, police arrest hundreds for ‘violence’](https://ij-reportika.com/uneasy-calm-in-dhaka-under-curfew-police-arrest-hundreds-for-violence/): An uneasy calm prevailed in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka on the third day of a nationwide curfew Monday, as authorities said they had arrested hundreds of people for their alleged involvement in violence during protests that turned deadly last week. While there were no protests or street clashes, two people badly hurt in the earlier violence succumbed to their injuries on Monday.  This took the death toll to at least 138 in a week of street clashes that began as protests against a discriminatory quota system for government jobs and became a wider agitation against Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s 15 years in power. Hasina and other government officials blamed opposition groups for last week’s deadly violence, according to footage from Channel 24 distributed by Reuters news agency. But university students, who began the protests after the quotas were reinstated by a court last month, have alleged that it was members of the student wing of Hasina’s Awami League, aided by the police, who incited the clashes.  A man rides his motorbike on a mostly empty street past vehicles that were set on fire during clashes among university students, police and government supporters, after violence erupted during what were initially protests against government job quotas,Dhaka, July 22, 2024. (Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters) U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller on Monday said the U.S. condemns “reported shoot-on-sight orders” that are part of a crackdown on the protests. “The United States is concerned by reports of ongoing telecommunications disruptions in Bangladesh,” Miller told reporters, referring to a state-imposed internet and mobile connectivity shutdown that continued Monday, reported Reuters. Habibur Rahman, Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s commissioner, told reporters on Monday that police have arrested more than 600 people, mostly in Dhaka, for violent acts during the protests. A senior official from the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Zahir Uddin Swapon,  and a minor party’s leader, Md. Tarek Rahman, were arrested Monday. Tarek’s wife, Tamanna Ferdosi Sikha, told BenarNews that a joint force of police, border guard and soldiers entered their house at about 2:30 am and picked up Tarek and his brother. “They seized a computer and other digital devices from our house,” she said. Students give a 48-hour ultimatum After the curfew that was imposed Friday was indefinitely extended on Sunday, Bangladesh Army chief Waker-uz-Zaman told reporters that more time was needed to “normalize” the situation.  “Many state properties were vandalized &#8230; there are many ways of staging protests,” he said Monday. “But carrying out attacks on state properties is not wise.” Several government buildings and properties were set on fire last week during the clashes, including the state broadcaster and a train station. The protesting students were not mollified by the Supreme Court on Sunday ending most of the quotas in civil service jobs.  The court lowered the number of reserved jobs to 7% from 56%. A key plank of the quota system was the reservation of civil service jobs for relatives of those who fought in Bangladesh’s 1971 independence war. The students also demanded that the internet be restored and security forces be withdrawn from university campuses. “We are issuing an ultimatum … 48 hours to stop the digital crackdown and restore internet connectivity,” Hasnat Abdullah, coordinator of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement, told the Associated Press. “Within 48 hours, all law enforcement members deployed at different campuses should be withdrawn, dormitories should reopen and steps should be taken so that students can return to the [residence] halls.”  Asif Nazrul, a professor in Dhaka University’s law faculty, said protesting students might only be satisfied if authorities apologize for unlawful actions, arrest armed cadres of the ruling Awami League’s student and youth wings and arrest police and elite Rapid Action Battalion members who fired on unarmed civilians. “Over 150 people died and thousands of protesters were injured in the uprising. I think the protest will not end with the judgment of the Supreme Court. Bangladesh’s people are not so foolish,” he told BenarNews.  The Rapid Action Battalion has previously been accused of enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings and the use of torture and the U.S. has imposed financial sanctions on it for “serious human rights abuses.”  Two auto rickshaws are seen on an otherwise empty road during a nationwide curfew in the Jatrabari area in Bangladesh&#8217;s capital, Dhaka, July 22, 2024. [Jibon Ahmed/BenarNews] Some students are also demanding Hasina apologize or retract her comments from a week ago, when she said anti-quota protesters were akin to collaborators with Pakistan in the 1971 war Bangladesh fought to separate from that nation.  The protests spread after Hasina’s comments.  Reuters video showed her telling business leaders at a meeting in her Dhaka office that opposition forces were responsible for vandalism, arson and murders during the protests.  Hasina’s advisor, Salman F. Rahman, said the student movement had been hijacked by people who wanted to overthrow the government. “There was a big conspiracy, they tried to ensure the fall of the government,” Rahman said. Another Hasina administration member, Nasrul Hamid, state minister for power and energy, claimed that the clashes caused U.S. $85 million in damages to power equipment. “We are trying to identify the people involved in such sabotage and they must be prosecuted,” he said. Bangladesh army personnel stand guard near the parliament house during a curfew imposed after clashes during anti-quota protests turned deadly, Dhaka, July 22, 2024. (Munir uz Zaman/AFP) Meanwhile, average Bangladeshis are bearing the brunt of the curfew, according to their accounts and those of vegetable, fruit and meat sellers. Abdul Baten, who operates a garment factory in an area called Mirpur-11, told BenarNews that prices of staple foods have risen. “We mainly depend on potato, egg, broiler chicken skin and leg, and lentils. A dozen eggs now costs 160 taka, up from 135,” he said. The problem, said vegetable trader Nur Mohammad, is that no produce is coming into Dhaka. “There is an abundant supply of vegetables outside Dhaka. But due to the curfew it cannot be transported here,” he told BenarNews. “Unless the supply chain is restored, the prices will not come down,”...
- [Second Thomas Shoal: deal or no deal?](https://ij-reportika.com/second-thomas-shoal-deal-or-no-deal/): China and the Philippines said they have achieved a “provisional arrangement” on resupply missions by the Philippines to the Second Thomas Shoal, where it maintains an outpost that China objects to, but their accounts of the agreement differed. The shoal, known in China as Ren’ai Jiao and in the Philippines as Ayungin Shoal, has been at the center of sharply rising tension and confrontation between the two countries, with China being accused of blocking access to Filipino troops stationed there. On June 17, a Filipino soldier was wounded in an encounter with Chinese coast guard personnel who also confiscated some Philippine guns during a Philippine rotation and resupply mission to the BRP Sierra Madre – an old navy ship that Manila deliberately grounded on the reef in 1999 to serve as its outpost to reinforce its claim. The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Sunday that both countries had “recognized the need to de-escalate the situation in the South China Sea and manage differences through dialogue and consultation.” The provisional arrangement for the resupply of daily necessities and rotation missions to the BRP Sierra Madre was achieved following the “frank and constructive” discussions at the 9th Bilateral Consultation Mechanism meeting on the South China Sea on July 2, the foreign ministry said, noting that it would not prejudice either side’s position in the disputed waters. It did not provide any further details. The hot-headed June 17 encounter raised fears of a more serious clash between U.S. ally the Philippines and China, but both sides agreed at the early July consultation to “de-escalate tensions” in the waters. RELATED STORIES Philippines reports fewer Chinese ships in South China Sea Philippine military chief demands China pay US$1 million in damages for clash Tensions simmer near a shoal both China and the Philippines claim China’s version On Monday, a spokesperson at China’s foreign ministry said Beijing continued to demand that the Philippines tow away the BRP Sierra Madre and restore the state of hosting no personnel or facilities at the Second Thomas Shoal. In the meantime, China would allow the Philippines to send living necessities to the personnel on the warship “in a humanitarian spirit” if the Philippines informed it in advance and after on-site verification was conducted, according to the spokesperson. But if the Philippines were to send large amounts of construction materials to the warship and attempted to build fixed facilities or a permanent outpost, China would “absolutely not accept it and will resolutely stop it,” the spokesperson added. A Chinese think tank – the South China Probing Initiative – said that with this statement, the two sides may agree to return to the situation between 1999 and 2022 when the Philippines promised not to send construction materials to the Second Thomas Shoal and China would continue to let humanitarian supplies go there. Analyst Collin Koh from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore wrote on the X social media platform that China’s version of the agreement “draws more questions than not about whether it will hold at all even before the ink is dry.” In this handout image provided by Armed Forces of the Philippines, a Chinese Coast Guard holds an axe as they approach Philippine troops on a resupply mission in the Second Thomas Shoal at the disputed South China Sea on June 17, 2024. (Armed Forces of the Philippines/AP) Shortly after the Chinese side issued its statement, Philippine foreign ministry spokesperson Teresita Daza denied that such arrangements as prior notification and on-site confirmation had been made. “I want to stress that the agreement was concluded with the clear understanding by both sides that it will not prejudice our respective national positions,” she said. “For the Philippines, this means that we will continue to assert our rights and jurisdiction in our maritime zones as entitled under UNCLOS (U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea).” The Second Thomas Shoal lies well inside the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone but also within the self-proclaimed nine-dash line that China draws on its maps to claim historic rights to almost the entire South China Sea. Maritime expert Ray Powell at Stanford University in the United States said that given the latest exchanges, he was “not sure there is a deal at this point.” A meeting of foreign ministers from Southeast Asian countries is to take place this week in Vientiane, Laos, and Daza said the Philippines would continue to articulate its positions on the South China Sea issue there. Edited by Taejun Kang. 
- [Nguyen Phu Trong left Vietnam's Communist Party ripe for strongman rule](https://ij-reportika.com/nguyen-phu-trong-left-vietnams-communist-party-ripe-for-strongman-rule/): On July 19, the Vietnamese Communist Party announced the death of its general secretary, Nguyen Phu Trong. The previous day, it announced that Trong, 80, ostensibly the most powerful politician in the country, had been relieved of his duties for health reasons.  He had missed several key meetings in recent months, and even when he did attend, he appeared shaky and unwell. He suffered a stroke a few years ago but seemingly bounced back.  However, his near-unprecedented third term in office has been cut short.  To Lam, the public security minister and promoted to state President last month, will now assume Trong’s duties. Having led the party since 2011, Trong attempted to reinvigorate an institution that, by the early 2010s, had become bogged down by individual rivalries, profit-seeking, and self-advancement.  A man rides past a poster for the 13th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam in Hanoi on Jan. 22, 2021. (Nhac Nguyen/AFP) Corruption was so rampant the public was mutinous. Ideology and morality had fallen by the wayside. Pro-democracy movements threatened its monopoly on power. The private sector was not just fantastically wealthy, but desired more political power. But in what condition does Trong leave the institution he sought to fix?  Externally, its monopoly on power is safer. It has increased repression of activists and democrats while appeasing the public through its high-profile takedown of the corrupt.  The private sector has been constrained, too, so poses no threat to the party’s political authority. The economy has insulated the party from any meaningful repercussions from the West over human rights. ‘Blazing Furnace’ Within the Communist Party, however, Trong leaves behind a mess.  Lam, as public security minister, and Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, artfully used Trong’s signature “Blazing Furnace” anti-corruption campaign to advance their own interests, effectively purging anyone who might rival them for Trong’s job in 2026.  More Politburo members have been sacked than at any time in memory. Two presidents have “resigned” in as many years. The Politburo is now filled mostly with military personnel and securocrats, the only two factions – and sometimes rivals – left with power.  Lam, if he does formally become acting general secretary, which the Politburo will have to vote on, is in a prime position to maintain the job in 2026. One imagines he has very different ideas about the nature of the Communist Party than Trong. Early in the anti-corruption campaign, Trong remarked that he did not want to “break the vase to catch the mice.” That metaphor implied that tackling corruption should shield a delicate Communist Party, not smash it to pieces.  Vietnam&#8217;s President To Lam, front right, and Cambodia&#8217;s Defense Minister Tea Seiha, back right, pay their respects in front of honor guards at the Independence Monument in Phnom Penh on July 13, 2024. (Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP) However, in his quest to rid corruption from a corrupt institution, he eroded almost every check the Communist Party of Vietnam had to prevent a supreme leader figure from rising to the top. Trong violated the three major “norms” that the party introduced in the early 1990s.  Politburo members were expected to retire at 65, and individuals could only occupy the most senior positions for a maximum of two terms. More importantly, no one person could hold at the same time two of the four most powerful positions: General Secretary, State President, Prime Minister, and Chair of the National Assembly.  This “four pillar” (tu tru) system  created a form of succession plan. Regular reshuffles and a separation of powers amongst the political elite would prevent the Communist Party from tilting towards dictatorship.  Shattering the norms The norms created a structure in which politicians could fight over policies, often brutally, but without the entire apparatus collapsing because of division. There could be a regular rotation between different factions and geographic networks, meaning no one group was ascendant for too long.  Hanoi called this “democratic centralism.” Of course, it’s not democracy, but it’s a form of pluralism that, in theory, had prevented the party from descending into dictatorships like North Korea, Cuba, or China under Xi Jinping. Trong broke every one of these rules.  Between 2018 and 2021, he held the posts of party general secretary and state president simultaneously, the first person to do so since 1986. (Lam seems likely to repeat that.)  Trong passed away during his third term as party chief, the first leader since Le Duan to have that record. He not only constantly had the party flout retirement-age limits for himself – he should have stepped down in 2021, if not earlier – but such exemptions have been handed out like confetti during his tenure. Vietnam&#8217;s Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong addresses a press conference after the closing ceremony of the Communist Party of Vietnam 13th National Congress in Hanoi on Feb. 1, 2021. (Manan Vatsyayana/AFP) At the same time, his anti-graft campaign has centralized power among an increasingly small number of Politburo members. Provincial party politics have been purged and constrained to give more power to the central party apparatus. The party dominates the government. The public security ministry is all-seeing.  This was always going to happen. How else do you clean up an uncleanable organization in which power flows up and discipline is enforced only by those above you?  The campaign increases the necessity of one section of the party to maintain power indefinitely.  Who designates what is the true morality and which cadres are truly moral? Well, a certain clique of the party running the anti-corruption campaign In one speech on the theme, Trong urged the party to “strengthen supervision of the use of the power of leading cadres, especially the heads, push up internal supervision within the collective leadership; make public the process of power use according to law for cadres and people to supervise.”  The purge is designed to enforce the view that no one has absolute power above the party. Anyone who uses the power must serve the...
- [A palm reading: Japan’s navigation plan for Pacific waters](https://ij-reportika.com/a-palm-reading-japans-navigation-plan-for-pacific-waters/): The triennial meeting of the Japanese Prime Minister with the leaders of the Pacific Islands Forum  – referred to as PALM – is normally not much of an attention grabber. But this year’s meeting, which has just concluded in Tokyo, makes it clear that Japan is looking to significantly ramp up its presence in the region. This comes on the back of increased bilateral engagement – think new embassies in Kiribati and Vanuatu – and a reinvigorated QUAD with a focus on resource and burden sharing among the membership of the strategic security partnership (Australia, India, Japan, USA). The joint declaration from this their tenth meeting, known as PALM10, with its associated action plan sets out what we can expect from Japanese engagement with the Pacific over the next three years. The use of the seven pillars of the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent as a structure for future engagement is notable. The Blue Pacific concept was developed by Pacific nations as a home-grown framing to address their challenges. Other partners have inserted the term Blue Pacific into announcements and documents. However, this takes the recognition of the Pacific’s own framework to another level. It is particularly significant given that Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe coined the term Indo-Pacific, which many in the Pacific islands region have resisted. Secretary General of the Pacific Islands Forum Baron Waqa (L) and Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida shake hands during the opening session of the 10th Pacific Islands Leaders Meeting (PALM10) in Tokyo on July 18, 2024. (AFP) PALM10 sees a move to an “All Japan” approach to working with Pacific partners. Whilst several Japanese agencies are referenced in the outcome documents, the most notable is the prominence of the Japanese Self-Defense Force in future engagement. Japan’s military impacts in the Pacific islands region are well known and loom large in the regional memory. While the PALM10 action plan references the continuation of activities related to World War II, such as retrieval of remains and clearance of unexploded ordnance, new activities will see the Japanese presence in the region take on a markedly military aspect. This will add to what is an already crowded environment in which defense diplomacy has been increasing in recent years. However, Japan’s use of this strategy has been relatively limited until now. The PALM10 action plan refers to increased defense “exchanges” to consist of port calls by Japanese Defense Force aircraft and vessels. This may not be as easy to achieve as Tokyo officials might like. At the same time as PALM10 was in session in Tokyo, Vanuatu’s National Security Advisory Board refused a request for a Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force vessel to dock in Port Vila. The reasons for the refusal remain unclear. Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida (C) speaks during the opening session of the 10th Pacific Islands Leaders Meeting (PALM10) in Tokyo on July 18, 2024. (AFP) Other examples of increased use of the JSDF are the provision of capacity building to Pacific personnel for participation in peace-keeping operations and inclusion of a Self-Defense Unit in disaster relief teams to be deployed to Pacific island countries at their governments’ request. At the end of the Action Plan are items for “clarification.” Included in the list (of three) for Japan to clarify are two that continue this push for increased defense diplomacy. They are: a proposal to accept Pacific cadets into the National Defense Academy of Japan and to use the Japan Pacific Islands Defence Dialogue to foster “mutual understanding and confidence building.” The JPIDD has met twice, most recently earlier this year. We are now into the Pacific meeting season and in six weeks the 53rd Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting will convene in Nuku’alofa, Tonga. Japan is a longstanding dialogue partner of the forum. The ongoing review of regional architecture includes revisions to how dialogue partners are selected and accommodated. What was discussed and agreed at PALM10 will play a role in determining where at the Blue Pacific table Japan will sit.
- [North China Bridge Collapse: 11 Dead, Over 30 Missing](https://ij-reportika.com/north-china-bridge-collapse-11-dead-over-30-missing/): Shangluo, Shaanxi Province – A tragic bridge collapse in northern China has resulted in 11 fatalities and left more than 30 individuals unaccounted for, according to state media reports on Saturday. The incident occurred amidst torrential rains that have been battering the region, leading to flash floods. The bridge, spanning a river in Shangluo, Shaanxi Province, succumbed to the sudden downpour and flash floods at approximately 8:40 PM on Friday (1240 GMT), as reported by the state news agency Xinhua, citing the provincial public relations department. State broadcaster CCTV reported that nearly 20 vehicles and more than 30 individuals remain missing after the highway bridge collapsed into the river below. All 11 confirmed victims were recovered from five vehicles that had been pulled from the water. Images broadcast on state television depicted a partially submerged bridge section with the river coursing over it. A witness, identified by his surname Meng, recounted the chaos as he approached the bridge: &#8220;Other drivers started yelling at me to brake and stop the car.&#8221; Meng observed a truck ahead of him failing to stop and plunging into the river. Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for &#8220;all-out efforts&#8221; to locate the missing individuals, according to CCTV. Extensive rescue operations are ongoing as authorities strive to mitigate the disaster&#8217;s impact. Widespread Flooding and Damage Northern and central China have been subjected to relentless rainfall since Tuesday, causing extensive flooding and significant damage. Shaanxi Province has been particularly hard-hit, with state media reporting at least five deaths and eight individuals missing due to flooding and mudslides in Baoji city. Television footage has shown entire neighborhoods submerged in muddy waters, with residents and excavators working to clear the debris. Extreme Weather Patterns The semi-desert province of Gansu, neighboring Shaanxi, and Henan Province in central China have also experienced severe rainfall this week. In Nanyang city, Henan, the rainfall volume was equivalent to a year&#8217;s worth within just a few days, according to CCTV reports. Additionally, in southwestern Sichuan Province, heavy rains have triggered landslides, resulting in two deaths and seven missing individuals as of Friday, reported by Xinhua. China is experiencing a summer marked by extreme weather conditions, with heavy rains affecting the east and south while much of the north faces successive heatwaves. Scientists attribute the increasing frequency and intensity of such extreme weather events to climate change exacerbated by greenhouse gas emissions. In May, a highway collapse in southern China, following days of rain, resulted in 48 fatalities. Earlier this month, a tornado struck a town in eastern China, causing one death, injuring 79, and inflicting substantial damage. Conclusion The devastating bridge collapse in Shaanxi Province highlights the urgent need for enhanced infrastructure resilience and effective emergency response mechanisms in the face of increasingly volatile weather patterns. The ongoing search and rescue efforts underscore the determination to save lives and support affected communities during this challenging time. For further updates, please refer to state media broadcasts and official announcements.
- [Hun To went after the press; who really won?](https://ij-reportika.com/hun-to-went-after-the-press-who-really-won/): ANALYSIS He is the notorious playboy cousin of Cambodia’s prime minister, and has long been viewed as the family’s fixer for all things they would rather not come into public view.  Hun To has reportedly been investigated by Australian police for heroin trafficking; faced questions in connection to threats against the family of slain political analyst Kem Ley, which fled to Australia in 2016 and; in recent years, reporting by Al Jazeera and The Australian newspaper has tied him to cyber slavery, scam compounds and drug smuggling.   But in bringing lawsuits against those news organizations, he inadvertently highlighted how Australia – a key regional partner for Cambodia – is running out of patience for the Hun dynasty’s antics.  Earlier this month, Hun To scored an apparent victory after he secured an out-of-court settlement over a years-long dispute with The Australian. The outlet agreed to retract a 2-year-old story it had published about Hun To that “some readers may have understood” to have alleged that he “was linked to human trafficking, cyber scams and drug importation,” the paper wrote.  “The Australian did not intend to make any such allegations against Mr Hun and accepts his denials of such conduct.” The retraction marked the conclusion of a defamation case Hun To had brought against The Australian in December 2022. It came just after the Australian government had declined to renew his visa, RFA has learned – even though he had spent decades living part-time in the country and he and his family owned extensive business and property interests around Melbourne.  While Canberra gave no reason for its decision, Hun To’s lawyers insisted in court complaints seen by RFA that the rejection was spurred by news stories from The Australian and Al Jazeera linking him to organized crime, fraud factories and human trafficking in his native Cambodia.  A case launched in parallel by Hun To against Al Jazeera is ongoing. The Qatari state-funded outlet did not respond to a request for comment. Australian libel law is notoriously plaintiff-friendly, particularly in cases where the defendant is a news organization. This growing reputation led the author of a 2019 New York Times op-ed to dub the island nation “the defamation capital of the world.”  In Australian defamation cases, the burden of proof uniquely rests with the defendants. No other type of case places such burden on the party being sued. In such a legal environment, defendants run higher risks of losing and incurring hefty damages, and that has often encouraged news organizations to settle out of court. The retraction might have gone little noticed until Hun To’s lawyer, Adam Lopez – who has been known for taking on controversial defamation cases – took to LinkedIn to gloat about his victory. The dispute with The Australian had been “resolved on a confidential basis,” he noted, suggesting that the newspaper had made further concessions beyond the retraction.  Cambodia press and social media users quickly picked up the story, with some simply reporting on the retraction and others criticizing The Australian or the Australian court system.   With the scrubbing of the controversial story, Hun To enjoyed precisely one day of victory.  On July 10, news broke suggesting Hun To’s business interests were neck deep in exactly the type of allegations for which The Australian had just apologized. Elliptic, a financial compliance firm specializing in tracing cryptocurrencies, published a report alleging that a “Cambodian conglomerate with links to Cambodia’s ruling Hun family” had laundered more than US$11 billion for cyber scammers. The name of the company was Huione Pay, and Hun To is one of its three directors.  A subsequent report by Reuters found evidence that Huione Pay had processed cryptocurrency worth $150,000 that had been stolen by the sanctioned North Korean hacking collective known as Lazarus. In response to the allegations, National Bank of Cambodia, the country’s central bank, told Reuters that it “would not hesitate to impose any corrective measures” on Huione, although it said so “without saying if such action was planned,” the news agency drily noted. Following the revelations, digital finance company Tether announced that it had frozen $29 million of cryptocurrency held by Huione following a “a direct request from law enforcement.” Whether the latest news make Hun To reconsider going after the press, however, seems unlikely, said Phil Robertson, director of Asia Human Rights and Labor Advocates.  Hun To “would be wise to abandon his case since all the dirt has come out on Huione, but he won&#8217;t because he&#8217;s a shameless, arrogant, rights-abusing tycoon who believes that whatever he does, the ruling Hun family will have his back.” Neither Huione&#8217;s nor Hun To’s lawyer had responded to requests for comment as of publication. These allegations are far from the first time Hun To has caught negative publicity. Australian MP Julian Hill spoke in Parliament last March arguing that Hun To and other politically connected Cambodian figures “should never again be granted visas to visit Australia.”  His speech charted Hun To’s long and checkered links to Australia, noting that as early as 2003 Australian police had sought to arrest him on suspicion of heroin trafficking. Since then, Hun To and his wife acquired millions of dollars&#8217; worth of property in Australia, Hill added, “with seemingly no legitimate explanation for where their wealth has come from.” “It&#8217;s no secret that Hun To has his finger in lots of pies — drug trafficking, illegal deforestation, animal trafficking, illegal gambling,” Hill said. “Most recently, we&#8217;ve heard reports he&#8217;s dipping his toes into human trafficking, as well. That&#8217;s diversifying, isn&#8217;t it?”
- [North Korea’s Kim in military talks with Russian vice defense minister](https://ij-reportika.com/north-koreas-kim-in-military-talks-with-russian-vice-defense-minister/): North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has discussed the “importance and necessity” of military cooperation with Russia’s vice defense minister to “defend mutual security interests,” the North’s state media reported on Friday. Kim met a Russian military delegation, led by the vice minister, Aleksey Krivoruchko, in Pyongyang on Thursday, according to the Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA. “The talk shared recognition of the importance and necessity of the military cooperation between the two countries to defend mutual security interests,” the KCNA said. Kim reiterated his firm support and solidarity for Russia’s war with Ukraine and stressed the need for the militaries of the two countries to “get united more firmly” to develop bilateral relations, the news agency added. Krivoruchko is the first known ranking Russian military official to visit North Korea since a summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kim.   The two met in Pyongyang for talks aimed at bolstering their economic and security relations and underscoring their shared defiance of Western sanctions. Under a new partnership treaty announced at their summit they  agreed to offer each other military assistance “without delay” if either were attacked. Russia has been cozying up to North Korea since Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The United States has accused North Korea of sending Russia weapons for use in its Ukraine war but both North Korea and Russia deny that. RELATED STORIES North Korea, Russia agree to offer military assistance if either is attacked North Korea’s Kim hails Russia alliance, promises Putin support on Ukraine Putin arrives in North Korea, vows to boost cooperation and fight sanctions More balloons The military in U.S. ally South Korea resumed propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts toward North Korea in response to the North’s latest launch of trash-carrying balloons into the South. The broadcasts took place from Thursday evening to early Friday in areas near where the balloons were launched, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff, or JCS, said on Friday. Since late May, North Korea has sent more than 2,000 trash-carrying balloons into the South in retaliation for the launch by anti-North Korea activists of balloons carrying propaganda leaflets towards the North. “The military’s response going forward will fully depend on North Korea’s actions,&#8221; the JCS said, without providing further details.  On Thursday, the JCS said the latest North Korean balloons appeared to be traveling toward the northern part of Gyeonggi Province that surrounds Seoul, advising the public to not touch any fallen balloon and to report them to the military or police. South Korea resumed loudspeaker broadcasts last month as it fully suspended a  2018 inter-Korean military tension reduction agreement in response to the North’s launch of waves of trash-carrying balloons. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [To Lam: The man with the golden steak is now leading Vietnam](https://ij-reportika.com/to-lam-the-man-with-the-golden-steak-is-now-leading-vietnam/): In the West, he may be best known for eating a gold-covered steak while his countrymen survive on an average of about US$10 a day. But in Hanoi, Vietnam’s new top leader To Lam has for years been seen as an operator whose decades in politics long paved the way for his ascent. On Thursday, that climb reached a new zenith after Vietnamese state media announced that Lam, 67, would take over the duties for Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong. It comes less than two months after Lam was elevated to the Vietnamese presidency – a move that put him in pole position for the general secretary job, the most powerful in the country. Vietnamese President To Lam attends a press briefing with Russian President Vladimir Putin (not pictured), at the Presidential Palace in Hanoi, Vietnam, June 20, 2024. (Minh Hoang/Pool via Reuters) The son of a Vietnamese police colonel, Lam began his career in public security in 1979. He joined the Communist Party of Vietnam in 1981, eventually rising to become the minister for public security – the country’s top security official – in 2016.  In 2019, he was awarded the rank of general by then-president Trong. Security czar In his capacity as security minister, he focused on internal politics and counter-intelligence – areas that may well have helped him to later cement his political powers. The stint was not without controversy. In 2017, Lam was accused of being involved in the kidnapping of Trinh Xuan Thanh, a fugitive oil executive and former provincial official, in Berlin.  Thanh later returned to Hanoi through Slovakia. The government denied kidnapping but the case led to a temporary rift in diplomatic relations between Germany and Vietnam.  But it would fit a larger pattern of alleged transnational repression and quashing of dissent overseen by Lam.  His term as security minister saw the arrests and suspected kidnappings of journalist critics, including RFA blogger Truong Duy Nhat, who disappeared in Thailand in 2019 but is now in jail in Vietnam serving a 10-year sentence. Golden steak and ‘Onion Bae’ In 2021, Lam was involved in another controversy after he was caught on video eating a piece of gold-plated steak at a luxury restaurant in London.  A video clip of the general being fed a US$2,000 steak by celebrity chef Salt Bae went viral, causing a public outcry at home.  This was followed by a draconian crackdown, including the arrest and jailing of a noodle-seller nicknamed “Onion Bae” who had dared to ridicule Lam by posting a parody of the incident to social media. He remains in jail. Lam subsequently ramped up anti-corruption crackdowns that saw off potential rivals within the party in what critics have said were clearly politically motivated investigations. Vietnamese President To Lam, left on red carpet, and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, right on red carpet, review the guard of honor at the Presidential Palace in Hanoi, Vietnam, June 20, 2024. (Minh Hoang/AP) Lam’s enthusiastic implementation of this so-called “Burning Furnace” campaign led to the sacking of half a dozen senior ministers and Politburo members within the span of months beginning in 2022. Yet Lam and Trong, the ally he succeeds, are also said to have questionable hidden interests. In May, the Tiếng Dân newspaper revealed that a younger brother of To Lam, To Dung, was the chairman of the construction and real estate firm Xuan Cau Group, noting that the company had been conspicuously absent from any investigation even as it has won projects worth billions of Vietnamese dong with little oversight.  Private man Little else is known about the private life of Vietnam’s new top man.  He does not appear to have ever given any remarks to Western media and nothing in English has been written of his immediate family, though Vietnamese reports say he has been twice married, first to Vu Hong Loan, the sister of a Vietnamese police major general and currently to Ngo Phuong Ly.  He appears to have several children. One daughter was revealed to have graduated from London’s prestigious School of Oriental and Asian Studies, or SOAS, in 2023.  On the global stage, Lam has made clear his endorsement of the so-called “Bamboo diplomacy” Hanoi has undertaken to balance its relations between East and West.  In June, he welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin, weeks after his swearing in as president, calling him “comrade” and hailing a successful visit.  Hanoi saw visits from Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden within the previous nine months. Whether his caretaker role becomes a more permanent one, there seems little likelihood that Lam would veer from the established path. At his presidential swearing-in in May, he promised to “continue to strengthen the party’s capabilities, its ruling power and combat prowess.” He may well be looking to strengthen the same in himself.  Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar anti-junta activists accused of assassination plot die in custody, group says](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-anti-junta-activists-accused-of-assassination-plot-die-in-custody-group-says/): Two members of an anti-junta group accused of trying to kill Myanmar&#8217;s junta leader died after being tortured during interrogation, a spokesperson for the group told Radio Free Asia. Seven people were arrested on June 8, allegedly in possession of two 107 mm rockets and launchers, near the site of a bridge opening ceremony attended by the junta leader, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing. Two more suspects were rounded up the following day, and another rocket was seized. Another four people were detained several days later in connection with the plot, junta-controlled media reported. The Yangon-based Dark Shadow urban guerrilla group said four of the people arrested were its members and two of them died after being tortured. &#8216;Comrade Shein Myint Mo Aung and Comrade Zaw Gyi died during the interrogation. Although we don&#8217;t know exactly what date they died, they died at Ba Yint Naung Military Interrogation Center,” said the spokesperson, who declined to be identified for fear of reprisals. “The other two Dark Shadow members, Myo Thein Tun and Ye Zaw Tun, have been out of touch with their families and we don’t know whether they are dead or are still alive.” Members of urban guerrilla groups were arrested by junta forces for allegedly plotting to kill junta leader Min Aung Hlaing, according to the junta-controlled newspaper, Myanma Alin on June 17, 2024. (Myanmar Military)   The other nine people arrested, who are members of other guerrilla groups, are believed to be still in custody. RFA called the Yangon region’s junta spokesperson, Htay Aung, to ask about the suspects but he did not respond by the time of publication. RELATED STORIES Myanmar guerrilla groups claim responsibility for bombings Junta deploys first round of military recruits to Myanmar’s frontlines Drafting of women underway in Myanmar, despite junta claims to the contrary According to information released by junta-controlled newspaper Myanma Alin on June 17, the plot was foiled when informers told police the group was aiming to fire three 107 mm rockets at Yangon region’s Thanlyin Bridge No. 3 during its opening ceremony. Myanmar had been in turmoil since the military ousted an elected government led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in early 2021 with many young democracy supporters taking up arms in a bid to end military rule after troops crushed protests. As of Thursday, more than 5,400 civilians have died due to extrajudicial killings, public crackdowns on protests and attacks by land and air across the country, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, . Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 
- [As Myanmar junta falters, rival ethnic armies jostle in Shan state](https://ij-reportika.com/as-myanmar-junta-falters-rival-ethnic-armies-jostle-in-shan-state/): The rout of military junta troops and seizure of territory across Myanmar’s border with China has brought the Three Brotherhood Alliance a new struggle in Shan state: dealing with a myriad of actors and shifting alliances seeking to profit from the rapidly changing political landscape. The region’s multiple well-armed ethnic armies include a powerful force that is a de facto ally of Beijing, groups that are aligned with the junta, and other militias with no allegiance to the democratic opposition National Unity Government or the fight to reverse the 2021 military coup. In northern Shan state, insurgent alliance members the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and the Myanmar National Defense Alliance Army (MNDAA) last month launched the second phase of Operation 1027, capturing key military outposts in the country’s largest state.  The TNLA’s capture of the last junta camp in Nawnghkio, and its move south into Mogok, will complicate the movement of reinforcements and resupply of Lashio, northern Shan state’s biggest city and a commercial gateway between Mandalay and Muse on the Chinese border.  Members of the Ta&#8217;ang National Liberation Army and the Mandalay People&#8217;s Defense Force stand in front of the captured building of the Myanmar War Veterans&#8217; Organization in Nawnghkio township in Shan state, June 26, 2024. (Mandalay People&#8217;s Defence Force via AP) China has put pressure on the alliance to halt the offensive, which started after violations of a cease-fire China negotiated in January. On July 13, the MNDAA announced a unilateral cease-fire would go into effect from July 14-18, out of respect for the Chinese Communist Party, which was convening a Third Plenum session in Beijing,  While the two forces remain in positions around Lashio, their offensive has slowed for now.  That’s not to say that hostilities have ceased: The junta continues to launch airstrikes.  China has been unable to broker a new ceasefire, even though the Three Brotherhood Alliance had sent representatives to nearby Kunming for talks.  The MNDAA and TNLA always fight back in self-defense. And with their newly captured Chinese-made anti-aircraft artillery, the two Shan state-based armies have more capacity to target the heavy-lift Mi-17 helicopters the junta uses to resupply and reinforce remote positions.  RELATED STORIES Myanmar rebels rack up more gains as Operation 1027 enters new phase Myanmar insurgent allies capture strategic Shan state town from junta Ethnic army overruns junta command center in Myanmar’s Kokang region China awaits junta approval to resume border trade with Myanmar’s Shan state Inroads into Shan regions The turmoil in Shan state has drawn local actors – the United Wa State Army (UWSA) and Shan State Progressive Party (SSPP) – off the sidelines. They are trying to limit the Brotherhood’s gains and exploit the weakness of the State Administrative Council, as the junta is formally known.  Tensions between the TNLA and SSPP continue to fester, with both sides accusing the other of instigating attacks.  July 13 talks between the two sides in Panghsang aimed at lowering tensions were declared successful by the TNLA.  But while these have not escalated into a larger conflict, they’ve resulted in the SSPP not joining the fight against the junta. Indeed, the SSPP, along with the UWSA, seem to be abetting the junta. What we are seeing play out are  ethnic loyalties and alliances in the complex Shan patchwork. At over 155,000 square kilometers 60,000 square miles), Shan state is not just the largest of Myanmar’s 14 states and administrative divisions, it makes up nearly a quarter of the total land area.  The majority of the six million population are ethnic Shan, with nine other ethnic groups. The TNLA represents the roughly half a million Ta’ang, or Palaung people. The MNDAA is comprised of Mandarin-speaking ethnic Chinese based on the border with China’s Yunnan province. As a result of Operation 1027, the two Brotherhood armies are making significant inroads into ethnic Shan-dominated regions.  The state has several ethnic resistance organizations composed of ethnic Shan, including the SSPP and the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS).  But they are bitter rivals and with limited manpower, equipment, and resources, and neither army controls a contiguous area, making a political map of central and southern Shan State look like a patch of leopard spots. Most of the armed groups in the region have been highly opportunistic and unprincipled. None joined the National Unity Government or picked up arms against the regime.  All three groups have benefited from the insecurity caused by the coup, which allowed them to focus on their illicit business activities, including the production, sale, and/or taxation of methamphetamine. The Wa: rested and ready After Operation 1027 began last October 27, the SSPP attacked its rival the RCSS, on the grounds that it remained a National Ceasefire Agreement partner of the junta. While it was hoped that the SSPP would join Operation 1027, their limited operations against the junta’s ally last year was accepted as sufficient for the time being. The SSPP seemed to pledge support for the second phase of Operation 1027, but its tensions with the TNLA have put that on hold.  In a surprise move, the United Wa State Army has started to move well outside of its Kokang autonomous region, centered on the border crossing to China at Panghsang (Pangsang).  The UWSA captured the mountain town of Tangyan, which is 135 km (85 miles) south of Lashio, without firing a shot, then continued west and took Mongyai.  There are now reports that the UWSA have moved west all the way to the Salween (Thanlyin) River – leading observers to ask, what’s going on? With 20-30,000 men, the UWSA, which grew out of the wreckage of the Communist Party of Burma, is one of the largest and best armed ethnic resistance organizations. Ostensibly an ethnic Wa organization, today its leaders are all Mandarin-speaking ethnic Chinese, and the group is seen as Beijing’s closest proxy. They’ve had autonomy since 1989. United Wa State Army soldiers march during a military parade in the town of Panghsang, April 17, 2019....
- [Anti-junta forces capture camps in central Myanmar township](https://ij-reportika.com/anti-junta-forces-capture-camps-in-central-myanmar-township/): An anti junta group in Myanmar’s Mandalay region is continuing to make gains in a key township following the collapse of a truce between insurgent armies and the military who seized power in a 2021 coup. The Mandalay People’s Defense Force, or PDF, captured a junta camp at the Alpha cement factory in Madaya township on July 14, and one at Taung Ta Ngar two days later, it said in a statement on Tuesday. Madaya is just 30 km (19 miles) north of Mandalay, the capital of the region and Myanmar’s second-largest city. The Mandalay PDF has been fighting alongside the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, since late October 2023.  The TNLA, which has also teamed up with the Arakan Army and Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army as part of the Three Brotherhood Alliance, pushed back junta forces in several regions before agreeing a shaky China-brokered truce with the junta in January. When the ceasefire collapsed on June 25, the TNLA attacked Mandalay’s Mogoke township and several towns in Shan state to the region’s east, while the Mandalay PDF focused much of its attention on Madaya and Singu townships in Mandalay region. The defense force said it had captured 28 junta camps as of Wednesday. Weapons and ammunition seized after Mandalay PDF captured the junta base at the Alpha cement factory in Madaya township, Mandalay region in a photograph released on July 16, 2024. (Mandalay PDF) Mandalay PDF spokesman Osmon, who goes by one name, told Radio Free Asia Myanmar’s military suffered heavy losses in the battle for Madaya. “There were many casualties on the side of the junta in these operations. We have seized corpses and arrested junta soldiers,” he said. “There were some casualties on the side of Mandalay PDF.”  Osmon didn’t disclose the numbers of casualties on either side but said the PDF took more than 150 prisoners. He added the group is now engaged in a fierce battle with junta forces at Madaya’s Kyauk Ta Dar base. RELATED STORIES Myanmar junta steps up security in Mandalay as fighting spreads across region  Thousands stuck between checkpoints on Myanmar road amid renewed fighting Thousands displaced in Myanmar’s Mandalay region On Tuesday, three people were killed when a shell hit Madaya town, close to its train station and main market. “It happened around 8 a.m.,” said a resident who didn’t want to be named for fear of reprisals. “A 44-year-old woman, a 30-year-old woman and a two-year-old girl were killed.” The man said he didn’t know which side had fired the shell, while another resident said the blast happened close to where junta troops were stationed. “It was about 10 to 14 meters away from them,” he said, also requesting anonymity for security reasons. “It was also close to where the junta soldiers always come to drink tea.” RFA phoned the junta spokesman for Mandalay region, Thein Htay, for details on the fighting in Madaya, but he did not answer calls. The National Unity Government, a shadow government formed by members of the civil administration ousted in the 2021 coup, said on June 27 that PDFs and their allies have made sweeping gains in Mandalay region and Shan state to the east, in a campaign it dubbed “Operation Shan-Man.” The Mandalay PDF said it had captured 11 junta camps in Singu township,  80 km (50 miles) north of Mandalay city, by July 7. Now the junta is fighting back, damaging around 100 houses and injuring more than 20 people in airstrikes on July 16, as it seeks to flush PDF forces out of Singu town. The PDF’s Singu-based head of information, Than Ma Ni, said the junta carried out more than 20 airstrikes on Tuesday and also bombarded the town with heavy artillery.  “The junta’s air force has been striking all day as Mandalay-PDF has taken over Singu town,” he said Wednesday. “There were no deaths, but those who were hit by shrapnel have been moved to a safe place and are receiving medical treatment. The entire town was pretty much destroyed.” Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [Junta deploys first round of military recruits to Myanmar’s frontlines](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-deploys-first-round-of-military-recruits-to-myanmars-frontlines/): The first round of soldiers recruited under Myanmar’s controversial military draft law have completed their training and are being deployed to the frontlines of the junta’s war against rebels in the country’s remote border areas, their family members said Tuesday. The deployment marked the latest chapter in the junta’s bid to shore up its forces amid heavy losses against various ethnic armies and rebel militias since its 2021 coup d’etat, prompting the junta to enact the People’s Military Service Law in February.  Under the law, men between the ages of 18 and 35 and women between 18 and 27 can be drafted to serve in the armed forces for two years. The announcement triggered a wave of assassinations of administrators enforcing the law and drove thousands of draft-dodgers into rebel-controlled territory and abroad. The military carried out two rounds of conscriptions in April and May, training about 9,000 new recruits in total. A third round of conscription began in late May, with draftees sent to their respective training depots by June 22. The first batch of recruits completed their three-month training on June 28, and family members told RFA Burmese on Tuesday that the new soldiers were sent to conflict zones in Myanmar’s Rakhine and Kayin states, and Sagaing region, beginning in early July. While the junta has never said how many recruits were trained in the first group, a mid-April report by the Burmese Affairs and Conflict Study, a group monitoring junta war crimes, indicated that it was nearly 5,000 young people from across the country. RELATED STORIES Thailand, Myanmar sign agreement on extradition of criminal suspects Junta military preparations point to brutal next phase in Myanmar conflict Dozens of officials carrying out Myanmar’s draft have been killed “My husband told me that orders from [the junta capital] Naypyidaw directed the deployment of new recruits from training batch No. 1 to conflict-affected areas, including Rakhine state,” said Nwe Nyein, the wife of a new recruit from Ayeyarwady region.  “They [the junta] had previously said that new recruits under the People’s Military Service Law would not be deployed to the frontlines,” she said. “However, I am worried because my husband was sent to the remote border areas.” Nwe Nyein said that the second batch of recruits are expected to complete their military training on Aug. 2 and reports suggest that they will also be sent to the frontlines. Used as ‘human shields’ A resident of Myanmar’s largest city Yangon, who requested anonymity for security reasons, said that some people close to him had been injured in battles in northern Shan state and have since returned home. &#8220;A young man from our town was shot in the arm, but he never underwent an operation to remove the bullet,” the resident said. “He also said that almost all the new recruits sent to the frontlines had been killed, and their families didn’t even receive their salaries.&#8221; Recruits from the first batch of training under Myanmar junta&#8217;s people&#8217;s military service law seen on July 16, 2024. (Pyi Thu Sitt via Telegram) In southern Myanmar’s Tanintharyi region, residents told RFA that the junta is deploying new recruits to battle. Min Lwin Oo, a leading committee member of the Democracy Movement Strike Committee-Dawei, condemned the deployment of new recruits with only short-term military training, suggesting that they are being used as “human shields.” Flagging morale Former Captain Kaung Thu Win, who is now a member of the nationwide Civilian Disobedience Movement of former civil servants that left their jobs in protest of the military’s power grab, told RFA that the junta urgently needs more soldiers, and he expects that nearly all new recruits will be sent to the frontlines. &#8220;About 90% of these new forces will be dispatched to the battlegrounds, regardless of whether they engage in combat [with rebel groups] or target people [civilians],” he said. “Their [the junta&#8217;s] main objective is to ensure they have more soldiers equipped with guns.&#8221; Kaung Thu Win also said that the junta faces many challenges in its propaganda efforts to persuade new recruits to fight, but is also increasingly unable to trust its veteran soldiers as losses mount. Recruits from the first batch of training under Myanmar junta&#8217;s people&#8217;s military service law seen on July 16, 2024. (Pyi Thu Sitt via Telegram) Than Soe Naing, a political commentator, slammed the junta over the reported deployment and echoed the former captain’s assessment of the military’s low morale. &#8220;Young people are being sent to die after … [mere] months of military training,” he said. “Even veteran soldiers in their 60s who have been sent to the battlefield have lost their motivation.&#8221; 5 years of service? The junta has yet to release any information about the deployment of new recruits to the frontlines. Meanwhile, although the People’s Military Service Law states that new recruits must serve for a total of two years, reports have emerged that the junta is telling soldiers that they will have to fight for five. Junta officials have publicly denied the reports. Attempts by RFA to contact the office of the chairman of the Central Body for Summoning People&#8217;s Military Servants in Naypyidaw for further clarification went unanswered Tuesday. Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar junta steps up security in Mandalay as fighting spreads across region](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-steps-up-security-in-mandalay-as-fighting-spreads-across-region/): Junta forces have tightened security in Myanmar’s second-biggest city, Mandalay, while shelling civilians elsewhere in the region, after coming under renewed attack from an alliance of insurgent forces battling to end military rule. A shell killed a seven-year-old boy and a woman in her 30s after it exploded in a residential area of Mandalay region’s Mogoke town on Monday evening, residents told Radio Free Asia Tuesday.  Another four-year-old girl and a 60-year-old woman, as well as a woman and man both in their 30s, are in critical condition, said one Mogoke resident, asking to remain anonymous for security reasons. “A child and a grandmother were seriously injured by shrapnel that hit them in the neck,” he said. “It was not easy to send them to the hospital, so they were treated at home by people who have some medical knowledge.” The shells were fired from a junta camp on Strategic Hill in eastern Mogoke, a ruby-mining town about 200 km (120 miles) north of Mandalay city. Over half the town’s population has fled after fighting intensified between junta troops and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, which has taken control of western Mogoke, residents said.  RELATED STORIESMyanmar rebel army calls ceasefire after junta airstrikeThousands stuck between checkpoints on Myanmar road amid renewed fightingMyanmar insurgent allies capture strategic Shan state town from junta The TNLA is part of an alliance of three ethnic minority insurgent forces known as the Three Brotherhood Alliance. The alliance launched an offensive last October, codenamed Operation 1027 for the date it began, and pushed back junta forces in several regions. After a five-month ceasefire ended on June 25, the TNLA, and allied forces attacked junta camps in Madaya, Singu and Mogoke townships in Mandalay region, and Hsipaw, Kyaukme, Nawnghkio and Lashio towns in Shan state to the east. Stepping up Security The TNLA and its allies have also turned their attention to junta bases near Mandalay region’s capital, causing the military to step up security in Mandalay city, residents said.  One city resident, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. told RFA that after Operation 1027 resumed in late June, the junta had increased the number of outposts around Mandalay and its historic palace. “We’re getting a sense that the areas around the palace are more secure. They also installed heavy weapons on top of Mandalay Hill and also on Yankin Hill,” he said. “Security has been increased a lot. If there was a place with four or five soldiers before, there are about 10 soldiers now.” Troops are also stationed on top of high-rise buildings in the city’s Chanmyathazi township, one resident said, also asking for anonymity to protect his identity.   “The junta troops are stationed on the top floors of Ma Ma-29 and No. 49 buildings,” he said, adding that soldiers also occupied buildings in the Myayenanda, and Aungpinlel neighborhoods, as well as Mandalay’s industrial zone. “The troops asked residents to leave in order for soldiers to be stationed there.”  Army personnel are also stationed in Inwa (Inn Wa) town, 32 km (20 miles) south of Mandalay city, which is close to a junta air force base, he added. On Monday, the junta closed the Mandalay-Madaya Road after fighting with allied rebel forces near Madaya township’s Kyauk Ta Dar village, which is just 27 km (17 miles) away from Mandalay city. According to the Mandalay People’s Defense Force, the group had captured 25 junta camps in Madaya township and 11 in Singu township as of July 7.  RFA called Mandalay region’s junta spokesperson Thein Htay for more information on increased security and the attack on Mogoke, but he did not answer phone calls. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 
- [‘People’s court’ issues arrest warrant for Xi Jinping](https://ij-reportika.com/peoples-court-issues-arrest-warrant-for-xi-jinping/): A citizens’ tribunal has issued a symbolic arrest warrant for Chinese President Xi Jinping after issuing a nonbinding verdict that he committed crimes of aggression against Taiwan, crimes against humanity in Tibet, and genocide against Uyghurs in Xinjiang. The Court of the Citizens of the World — a “people’s court” dedicated to universal human rights and based in The Hague, the Netherlands — issued the arrest warrant on July 12 after four days of hearings, which included expert witness testimonies and victim accounts. Members of the China Tribunal included Stephen Rapp, former U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues; Zak Yacoob, a retired judge who served on the Constitutional Court of South Africa; and Bhavani Fonseka, constitutional lawyer and human rights lawyer and activist in Sri Lanka. RELATED STORIES Uyghurs mark 2 years since ‘genocide’ finding Uyghur Tribunal finds China committed genocide in Xinjiang Uyghur Tribunal wraps up in London with eye on December ruling on genocide allegations Uyghur Tribunal determination could change paradigm for China relations: experts Experts and witnesses detailed widespread human rights abuses in Tibet and Xinjiang, including intrusive surveillance, repression, torture and restrictions on free expression and movement, as well as what they described as efforts to eradicate their distinct cultural and religious identities.   Some witnesses were survivors of mass detention camps in Xinjiang, where torture and the forced sterilization of Uyghur women occurred. Though the unofficial body has no legal powers, its proceedings highlighted the plight of aggrieved parties and provided a model for prosecution in international or national courts under the principle of universal jurisdiction.    The court said it “obtained sufficient legal grounds” for Xi’s arrest on the charges laid out against him and called on the international community to support its decision, though it is unclear how governments will react. Judge Zak Yacoob (L) speaks with presiding judge Stephen Rapp during the China Tribunal at the Court of the Citizens of the World, in The Hague, the Netherlands, July 12, 2024. (Court of the Citizens of the World via YouTube) “The tribunal’s core findings are of significant importance, revealing the extent of human rights abuses committed by the Chinese state,” said a report by JURIST, a nonprofit news organization that highlights rule-of-law issues around the world. There was no immediate response from the Chinese government. Former prisoners speak Former Tibetan political prisoners, including Dhondup Wangchen and Tenpa Dhargye, recounted the torture they experienced in Chinese jails and the impact of China’s repressive policies in Tibet. Tibetan filmmaker and human rights activist Jigme Gyatso, also known as Golog Jigme, who has been jailed by Chinese authorities on at least three occasions, highlighted Xi Jinping’s efforts to completely eradicate the use of Tibetan language and culture.  He also outlined what he said was the systematic torture and persecution of political prisoners after their release and the coercive control of Tibetans’ movements in greater Tibet.  Gulbahar Haitiwaji, a Uyghur former internment camp detainee who now lives in France, testified before the tribunal about being chained to beds and tortured in Xinjiang.  She told Radio Free Asia that she felt immense excitement when called upon to testify, seeing it as a crucial opportunity to speak for the hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs who endured China&#8217;s concentration camps.  “Back then, while in the camp, I often wondered if there was any justice in the world capable of punishing those responsible for our people&#8217;s suffering,” she said. The Chinese government tried to dissuade some Uyghurs from providing testimony in The Hague. Abdurehim Gheni, a Uyghur activist who now lives in the Netherlands, said Chinese police contacted him via Telegram, a WeChat-style communication app banned in China, as recently as two days before he was scheduled to appear before the court. The police also had his brother leave voice messages telling him not to attend the hearing, he said. Judges Bhavani Fonseka (L) and Zak Yacoob (C) and presiding judge Stephen Rapp hold court during the China Tribunal at the Court of the Citizens of the World in The Hague, the Netherlands, July 12, 2024. (Court of the Citizens of the World via YouTube) Gheni recounted that his brother said: “Do not do anything against the government. If you return here, the government will be lenient on you. We can also go there to see you.” The tribunal reported that it faced attempts to shut it down in the form of a phony cease-and-desist order, and said a spy disguised as a legal volunteer provoked staff and other volunteers to resign, JURIST reported.   &#8216;First meaningful step&#8217; Abduweli Ayup, a Uyghur rights activist and researcher based in Norway, who also testified at the China Tribunal, said the verdict holds significant importance for Uyghurs. “It’s the first meaningful step to stop the Uyghur genocide,” he said. “The court has completed the accusation against the perpetrator and judged at the trial. The verdict implicates the criminal, Xi Jinping. He should be arrested and punished,” he said. In December 2021, an independent, nonbinding Uyghur Tribunal in London found that China committed genocide against Uyghurs in Xinjiang and that Xi Jinping shared primary responsibility for the atrocities. Though the panel had no state backing or power to sanction China, its conclusion added to the growing body of evidence at the time that Beijing’s persecution of Uyghurs constituted a crime against humanity that deserved an international response. In February 2023, the Court of the Citizens of the World issued an indictment against Russian President Vladimir Putin for the crime of aggression in Ukraine and called for his arrest.  A month later, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin along with Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children&#8217;s rights, for alleged war crimes involving accusations that Russia had forcibly taken Ukrainian children. Additional reporting by RFA Mandarin. Translated by RFA Uyghur and RFA Tibetan. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Joshua Lipes.
- [Thai court postpones Vietnamese activist’s extradition hearing](https://ij-reportika.com/thai-court-postpones-vietnamese-activists-extradition-hearing/): Updated July 15, 2024, 03:08 a.m. ET. A court in Bangkok on Monday postponed the hearing on Vietnam&#8217;s request for Thailand to extradite Montagnard activist Y Quynh Bdap. Defending lawyer Nadthasiri Bergman said the court agreed with the defendant&#8217;s request that the case documents be made available in a language he understands. The hearing will now take place on Aug. 1 and 19. &#8220;We did not have time to prepare the fight for the case today, which was politically motivated,&#8221; Bergman told reporters outside the court, which was closed to the media due to the national security nature of the hearing.  However, several officials from Vietnamese security agencies were allowed inside, she said. Defending lawyer Nadthasiri Bergman speaks to reporters outside the Criminal Court in Bangkok on July 15, 2024. (RFA) In January, Vietnam sentenced 32-year-old Bdap to 10 years in prison on terrorism charges, accusing him of involvement in 2023 attacks on two public agency headquarters in Dak Lak province in which nine people were killed. Bdap has protested his innocence, pointing out that he has been in Thailand and recognized as a refugee since 2018. On June 11, Thai authorities arrested Bdap for “overstaying” his visa following an extradition request from Hanoi. The previous day he met with Canadian authorities to discuss resettlement there as a refugee. RELATED STORIES Rights groups call on Thailand not to extradite Vietnamese activist Thai extradition of activist to Vietnam would be illegal, group says 10 defendants given life sentences for Dak Lak attacks Bdap is an ethnic Ede and the co-founder of Montagnards Stand for Justice. Montagnards is a term coined by French colonialists to describe around 30 indigenous tribes living in Vietnam’s Central Highlands. They have a long history of conflict with the Vietnamese majority and claim they have been discriminated against over issues including religion and land rights.  &#8220;He, a minority, was tortured and is scared if he is to be sent back,” Bergman said, adding that she intended to prove he was innocent of any involvement in the Dak Lak attacks. &#8220;Thailand has to live up to the international standard, given he is a protected asylum seeker under the U.N. agency.&#8221; Thailand has bid three times for a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council. The latest attempt is for the 2025-2027 term, with the election taking place this October. Kannavee Suebsaeng, vice chairman of Thailand’s House Committee on Law, Justice, and Human Rights, who observed Monday’s hearing said, given Thailand’s aspirations, it needs to improve its track record on human rights. &#8220;I want Thailand to handle this transnational repression properly to shore up its dignity,&#8221; he said outside the court.  Freedom House defines transnational repression as “governments reaching across borders to silence dissent among diasporas and exiles, including through assassinations, illegal deportations, abductions, digital threats, Interpol abuse, and family intimidation.” Bdap was denied bail and continues to be held in a special prison in Bangkok. Edited by Mike Firn. Updated to include comments from Kannavee Suebsaeng.
- [China’s Communist Party set to open key policy meeting amid economy worries](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-communist-party-set-to-open-key-policy-meeting-amid-economy-worries/): Top members of the ruling Communist Party of China will gather Monday to discuss ways to lift the world’s second-biggest economy out of its post-COVID slump and reduce dependence on technology from its geopolitical rival, the United States. The four-day, closed-door meeting, chaired by President Xi Jinping, is expected to unveil tax system revisions and other debt-reduction measures, steps to deal with a massive property crisis, and policies to  boost domestic consumption, policy advisers have said. Previous third plenum sessions of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee – more than 300 full and alternate members – have unveiled policy initiatives for the next five to 10 years. Some have announced significant shifts. Residential buildings under construction by Chinese real estate developer Vanke in Hangzhou, in eastern China&#8217;s Zhejiang province, March 31, 2024. (AFP) The 1978 plenum launched Deng Xiaoping’s historic economic reform and opening policies, while the 1984 event confirmed the reform direction in the face of resistance. The 1993 gathering pledged a recommitment to market economic reforms after the clampdown following the Tiananmen massacre. The 12 years of the Xi Jinping era have put the brakes on market reforms as Xi consolidated power in the party, analysts said. Xi’s third plenum 2013 “laid out a series of economic reforms, most of which have not succeeded, most of which have not been carried through,” said Barry Naughton, the So Kwan Lok Chair of Chinese International Affairs at the University of California San Diego. “So everyone is very curious and puzzled to see what this new third plenum is going to bring,” he told Radio Free Asia Mandarin. The previous plenum, 2018, saw Xi further consolidate power with the scrapping of presidential term limits.  Interventionist policies This plenum, normally held once every five years, was expected last autumn but delayed without explanation until this month. Yu Jie, a senior research fellow on China at Chatham House, a British think tank, said the plans to be unveiled in coming days “are unlikely to be policies eagerly waited and favored by private enterprises and global investors.” Instead of stimulus measures to boost growth, expect “further government intervention to channel economic resources into the strategic and innovation sectors and to guarantee minimum social welfare to the poor,” she wrote on the Chatham House website. RELATED STORIES Chinese police target dissidents, petitioners ahead of plenum China&#8217;s jobless struggle amid economic slump China to hold long-delayed plenary meeting to boost embattled economy The Communist Party will introduce two economic slogans during the plenum: “New quality productive force” describing making the Chinese economy a leader in technological innovation, and “new national system” of stronger centralized control allocating capital and resources to sectors with strategic significance,” Yu wrote. “The underlying emphasis here is not on the economy but on geopolitics,” she added. Chinese state media have tried to create an upbeat mood for the secretive gathering Jingxi Hotel in Beijing. “Entering July, Chinese people’s expectations will be running high,” according to a June 30 commentary in the Global Times newspaper, predicting “a holistic package of new reform plans” that is expected from the meeting. “After more than 40 years’ reform and opening-up, Chinese policymakers are becoming both astute and experienced in managing a giant economy like China’s,” it said. Tech war over consumption Naughton said, however, Chinese firms and people are not very bullish. “It&#8217;s quite clear that the expectations and household understandings of the economy have deteriorated dramatically since 2022.  People have a hard time getting jobs. People’s income growth is slower and they feel much less confident about it,” he told RFA. The International Monetary Fund has said China’s economy is set to grow 5% this year, after a “strong” first quarter, but other economists warned the recovery has been imbalanced in favor manufacturing and exports over consumption. “Xi Jinping clearly wanted the majority of the state’s resources and the majority of the state’s attention to be focused on this technological war with the United States, to wean China off the dependence on technology that has been dominated by Americans,” Naughton said. “He doesn’t care about the rate of growth of consumption of the Chinese people,” he added. An employee counts Chinese yuan banknotes at a bank in Hefei, Anhui province, Nov. 11, 2010. (Reuters) Ahead of the conclave, China is ramping up its “stability maintenance” system, which kicks into high gear targeting those the authorities see as potential troublemakers ahead of top-level meetings and politically sensitive dates in the calendar. Authorities across China are targeting dissidents and petitioners ahead of next week’s key meeting of the ruling Communist Party, placing them under house arrest or escorting them out of town on enforced “vacations,” Radio Free Asia reported this week. Several high-profile activists including political journalist Gao Yu, rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang and political commentator Zha Jianguo have been targeted for security measures ahead of the third plenary session of the party’s Central Committee, a person in Beijing familiar with the situation who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals said. Reporting by Ting I Tsai. Editing by Paul Eckert.
- [Is Kim Jong Un taking his luxury yacht out for vacation?](https://ij-reportika.com/is-kim-jong-un-taking-his-luxury-yacht-out-for-vacation/): Is North Korean leader Kim Jong Un taking a family vacation?  Satellite imagery shows that the Kim family’s 80-meter (262-foot) cruise ship – complete with a waterslide and an Olympic-sized swimming pool – is out at sea.  Some experts say Kim&#8217;s recent public appearance on land makes it very unlikely that he was on board but others said he may have been. According to satellite photos taken June 27 and July 5 by Planet Labs, an American commercial satellite imaging company, the luxury cruise ship was identified as sailing off North Korea’s east coast near Wonsan, Kangwon province. Kim is known to use this ship for recreational activities with his family or to entertain foreign VIPs. A luxury cruise ship reserved exclusively for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was recently identified as sailing between the ship repair dock at Wonsan Port and the exclusive Kalma Villa. The distance between the marina and Kalma Villa is about 4.5km (2.8 miles). Wonsan Villa can be seen across from Kalma Villa. (Google Earth, image production – Bruce Songhak Chung) Bruce Songhak Chung, a researcher at the South Korea-based Korean Institute for Security and Strategy who analyzed the satellite photos, told RFA Korean that it is likely that either Kim himself, or his family, took the cruise ship to the family villa on the Kalma peninsula. “Only North Korean leaders and their families exclusively use luxury cruise ships,” he said. “As the summer vacation season approaches, it is presumed that General Secretary Kim may have visited a private villa in Wonsan to spend the summer with his wife Ri Sol Ju and daughter Kim Ju Ae.” Chung noted that there was no way to tell whether Kim was on board, but that he might have been, considering that he had just finished leading an important meeting of the ruling Korean Workers’ Party’s Central Committee. The plenary meeting lasted from June 28 to July 1, and on July 2, Kim visited factories and other government institutions with government officials. This makes it less likely that he was on board on June 27.   Related stories Trappings of North Korean leader’s lavish lifestyle visible by satellite  North Korean leader Kim Jong Un builds luxury villas over grandfather’s old home N Korean leader receives a luxurious car gift from Putin: state media The cruise ship may have been on a test voyage in the earlier image, ahead of Kim’s vacation, said Cho Han-Bum, a researcher at the South Korea-based Korea Institute for National Unification. He also noted that Kim was not with his wife Ri Sol Ju or daughter Kim Ju Ae during his public appearances. “It is possible that Kim Ju Ae, Ri Sol Ju and other families have already gone on summer vacation,” said Cho. “Therefore, there is a possibility that Chairman Kim Jong Un, who finished the plenary meeting, completed local guidance and joined his family.”  Getting around sanctions Currently, North Korea has a total of four luxury cruise ships – with lengths of 50, 55, 60, and 80 meters (164-262 feet) – for Kim’s exclusive use.  These cruise ships were obtained in the 1990s, during the rule of his father and predecessor, Kim Jong Il, before sanctions were imposed. The sanctions, enacted after North Korea’s first nuclear test in 2006, are meant to deprive Pyongyang of cash and resources that could be funneled into its nuclear and missile programs.  They are also intended to prevent the Kim family and other North Korean elites from getting their hands on luxury goods. But they still trickle in. Recently, Kim Jong Un imported luxury cars, including a Russian-made Aurus Senat and a German-made Mercedes-Benz Maybach. A large 80-meter-long luxury cruise ship equipped with a water slide and an international-standard swimming pool, and a 60-meter-long cruise ship are moored at the ship dock in Wonsan, Kangwon province. Normally, private cruise ships are managed at this marina. (Google Earth, image production – Bruce Songhak Chung) The recent surge in the value of the U.S. dollar against the won has made food prices in North Korea rise and has negatively affected the economy in general, but the Kim family continues to live the high life, said Cho. “The problem with international sanctions against North Korea is that they have an effect on the entire national economy, but do not affect the upper class,” he said. “They import as many luxury goods as they want using various agents or aliases.” He said sanctions are unable to target only the country’s leadership. “As public sentiment deteriorates, it may lead to a weakening of Chairman Kim Jong Un’s support base, but the current sanctions against North Korea are not enough to prevent the Kim family from living a luxurious life.” Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong.
- [Interview: White House ‘extremely concerned’ about closer Russia-North Korea ties](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-white-house-extremely-concerned-about-closer-russia-north-korea-ties/): Mira Rapp-Hooper is the Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for East Asia and Oceania at the White House National Security Council, or NSC.  During this week’s NATO Summit in Washington, she spoke with RFA Korean’s Lee Sangmin, touching on points related to increased cooperation between Russia and North Korea, following Vladimir Putin’s visit to North Korea last month. The summit included representatives from the Indo-Pacific Four, or IP4, an informal grouping of South Korea, Japan, New Zealand and Australia, and Rapp-Hooper said that it was important to include those countries in discussions with NATO, especially considering that the partnership between North Korea and Russia concerns security in both the North Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. RFA: So how much are you concerned about the recent deepening relationship between Russia and North Korea? Rapp-Hooper: We are extremely concerned about the relationship between Russia and North Korea. Of course, we have been for about a year as that relationship has grown closer and closer, and it has become clear that both Russia and North Korea are exchanging extremely worrisome forms of support with one another.  On the one hand, of course, we know that the (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK) has been providing Russia with millions of rounds of ammunition, as well as missiles that have been used on the battlefield in Ukraine to devastating effect fueling Russia’s war machine, and taking the lives of innocent civilians, all over the conflict. And that’s deeply disturbing.  But one of the things that is also very troubling about this relationship is the fact that we know that Russia is probably providing the DPRK with technical assistance, sophisticated forms of support for some of its military programs. But those forms of cooperation are much harder to track. So while we know what the DPRK is giving to Russia, we know less than we would like to about what Russia is giving to the DPRK. And that is something that should concern not only the countries of the Indo-Pacific who care about peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula and beyond.  Mira Rapp-Hooper, Senior Director for East Asia and Oceania, National Security Council, at the Asia Center in Washington, Sept. 13, 2023. (U.S. Institute of Peace via Flickr) But countries in Europe are increasingly understanding that this relationship affects them, too. Now, of course, this has all become more prominent recently because of Vladimir Putin’s visit to Pyongyang, when the two countries released a declaration that looks very much like an alliance treaty.  But really, what this does is capture something that we knew the whole time, which is the fact that this is not just a marriage of convenience where these two powers are cooperating so that Russia can get help in its war against Ukraine. There is political buy-in at the highest levels, from both of these governments.  The piece of optimism that I would offer today, however, is that it is not just the ROK, the United States and Japan who are worried about this problem. We have very good trilateral cooperation amongst the three of us to share intelligence and to coordinate our policy actions.  But part of what you’re seeing here at NATO today is that all of our NATO allies also care about this problem, because Russia has brought DPRK technology to Europe in the form of ballistic missiles being used on the battlefield in Ukraine. So we’ve never seen our European allies more engaged in DPRK issues, more wanting to cooperate, to address, and limit, this relationship. And we are hopeful that that cooperation will have a stabilizing effect in the face of all of this destabilizing behavior.  RFA: In what ways can NATO and its allies counter cooperation between North Korea and Russia? Rapp-Hooper: Well, there are, you know, certain areas where cooperation, unfortunately, is quite difficult to affect. We know that many of the shipments that take place between DPRK and Russia take place within their territorial seas or over rail lines. So there’s very few options for the international community there.  But there are other areas, where we do cooperate, and we will continue to do so. And that relates to things like financial sanctions that may run at the heart of their cooperation, and other measures that we can take, such as intelligence sharing, information sharing that might allow one country to be more empowered to limit this cooperation wherever they can.  There is also, of course, the role that we all play diplomatically, not just in putting pressure on both Pyongyang and Russia, but on additional countries, who might be able to take action to try to limit this relationship.  The world is, of course, watching (the People’s Republic of China, or PRC) and the question looms large, what Beijing will do about this relationship, given that it is so destabilizing and not in China’s interests either. But we’ve yet to see a clear answer to that question. RFA: What kind of a role can China play in dealing with North Korea issues? Rapp-Hooper: That’s really up to China. In the past, the PRC has long played a role on the Korean Peninsula. Obviously, it is a key continued trading partner of Pyongyang and a longtime political partner. There is obviously a very close political relationship as well, between Beijing and Moscow – which is its own cause for concern.  But there’s no doubt that if Beijing was interested in doing so, it could play a stabilizing and responsible role, to encourage in particular, the worst (aspects of the) DPRK-Russia cooperation to come to an end. But again, all eyes are on Beijing to see if it will make that choice.  RFA: Why is it significant that the IP4 are participating in the NATO Summit? Rapp-Hooper: Our IP4 partners in the (Republic of Korea, or ROK), Japan, Australia and New Zealand have been at the last three NATO summits. And...
- [Interview with Rinzin Namgyal on Life, Tibet and the Dalai Lama](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-with-rinzin-namgyal-on-life-tibet-and-the-dalai-lama/): Interview with Rinzin Namgyal associated with FNVA on life in India, Tibet, Dalai Lama and peaceful struggle of Tibetans around the world.
- [Ethnic rebels close in on 2 towns in Myanmar’s Rakhine state](https://ij-reportika.com/ethnic-rebels-close-in-on-2-towns-in-myanmars-rakhine-state/): Ethnic minority rebels fighting to take over western Myanmar’s Rakhine state reported on Friday advances in two areas where its forces have been making significant gains against the military junta that seized power in a 2021 coup. The Arakan Army, or AA, fighting for self-determination of the state’s predominantly Buddhist ethnic Rakhine population, said its fighters captured the last junta base on the outskirts of Thandwe town, the headquarters of the Infantry Battalion 55 base, on Tuesday, although junta troops still occupied the town center. Thandwe is about 250 km (155 miles) northwest of Myanmar’s biggest city of Yangon, and near one of Myanmar’s main beach resorts. The AA has captured 10 townships  in Rakhine state and neighboring Chin state, since late last year, part of a series of setbacks for the embattled junta. RELATED STORIES MSF aid group withdraws from Myanmar&#8217;s west, citing violence and restrictions Fleeing fighting in Rakhine, Rohingya pay to be smuggled to Bangladesh &#8216;Neither hospitals nor doctors&#8217; for 10,000 displaced in Myanmar In the north of Rakhine state near the border with Bangladesh, about 350 km (217 miles) northwest of Thandwe, the AA announced that its forces had seized the Ma Gyi Chaung Border Guard Camp on Thursday and was pressing junta forces at Border Guard Post No. 5 and and in nearby Maungdaw town. The insurgents said this week its forces had killed more than 750 junta soldiers in those two main battle zones. Radio Free Asia was not able to independently verify the toll but residents of both regions have been reporting heavy fighting for weeks. RFA tried to contact the junta’s main spokesman, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, for information but he did not respond. The Myanmar junta’s Thandwe-based Infantry Battalion 55 was captured by the Arakan Army at 9:45 a.m. on July 9, 2024. Photo taken on July 10, 2024. (Arakan Army Information Desk) Since the AA warned residents to leave Maungdaw on June 16, more than 5,000 people have fled to Bangladesh, which is across a border estuary, said one town resident who declined to be identified for security reasons. “There are at least 80 to 100 Rohingya people fleeing to Bangladesh [every day],” he said. “Boats from Bangladesh come to pick them up.” Despite fighting in Maungdaw town, Bangladesh authorities have forced at least 12 refugees back into Myanmar, residents said. The Bangladesh Embassy in Yangon did not respond to RFA’s request for comment.  More than 700,000 members of the mainly Muslim Rohingya minority fled to Bangladesh in 2017 after the Myanmar military launched a crackdown against Mjuslim insurgents. Two residents of Maungdaw town were killed in the latest heavy weapons fire and 13 were wounded, residents said. The AA did not give any update on casualties, either among junta forces or its own, but said 30 junta soldiers and border guards fled into Bangladesh during fighting on Thursday.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.
- [The Han in the Moon](https://ij-reportika.com/the-han-in-the-moon/): China&#8217;s Chang’e-6 lunar probe returned to Earth carrying samples from the far side of the moon, making China the first country to accomplish that feat. Beijing says it adheres to the peaceful use of space, but Western analysts question China&#8217;s motives for developing the moon. Critics say China takes a mercantilist view of the moon and is seeking to exploit resources like water-ice, helium 3, and rare Earth minerals.
- [Myanmar insurgent allies capture Shan state town](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-insurgent-allies-capture-shan-state-town/): An alliance of insurgent forces battling to end army rule has captured a major town in northern Myanmar, a spokesperson for the main group told IJ, in the latest setback for the junta that seized power in a 2021 military coup. The Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, and allied forces seized the last base in Shan state’s Nawnghkio town from junta troops on Wednesday, after two weeks of fighting, the spokesperson said. “We were able to capture the junta’s missile battalion in Nawnghkio town at around 3 p.m.,” the spokesperson told. The junta has not released any information on the battle, and Shan state’s junta spokesperson, Khun Thein Maung, did not answer inquiries from IJ. The TNLA, which is part of an alliance of three ethnic minority insurgent forces known as the Three Brotherhood Alliance, ended a five-month ceasefire with the junta on June 25.  Since then, the group has been fighting for territory in Shan state’s Nawnghkio, Kyaukme, Mongmit and Hsipaw townships, as well as in Mandalay region’s Mogoke township. The alliance has since claimed to have captured at least 26 bases across the north. The alliance launched an offensive last November, codenamed Operation 1027 after the date it began, and pushed back junta forces in several regions including along northeastern Myanmar’s border with China. Insurgent forces in other parts of the country have stepped up their attacks since then too, posing the biggest challenge the military has faced in years of conflict. China, concerned about its economic interests according to Myanmar sources, brokered peace talks in Shan state in January that brought a halt to the conflict there but the truce collapsed late last month and fighting has surged since then. RELATED STORIES Myanmar insurgents claim post-ceasefire capture of 26 camps Talks between Myanmar rebel alliance and junta focus on Chinese interests China awaits junta approval to resume border trade with Myanmar&#8217;s Shan state Myanmar rebels rack up more gains as Operation 1027 enters new phase Junta airstrikes Nawnghkio, about 85 km (52 miles) northeast of Mandalay, is on the main road between Myanmar’s second city and the Chinese border. The insurgents are also trying to capture Lashio, the main city in northern Shan state, which is about 120 km (75 miles) northeast of Nawnghkio. TNLA spokeswoman Lway Yay Oo said Nawnghkio was captured by fighters from the TNLA, the Palaung State Liberation Front, Mandalay People’s Defense Force and Danu People’s Liberation Army.  The insurgents captured several junta administrative offices and 10 military bases around the city including the headquarters of three battalions, along with 600 weapons, the groups said in a joint statement. The insurgents posted pictures on social media of their fighters with a captured multiple rocket launcher, two double barrel anti-aircraft guns, as well as rows of captured rifles and other weapons. Weapons seized by joint forces, including the Ta’ang National Liberation Army and Mandalay People’s Defense Force, on July 11, 2024. (Mandalay People’s Defense Force) Junta retaliation has been fierce, with its forces launching more than 100 airstrikes in Nawnghkio town, the TNLA said. None of the insurgent groups released any figures for casualties amongst their forces. Ten residents of the town were killed and nine were wounded, the TNLA said, adding that nine houses and two monasteries were destroyed.  The group blamed the deaths on the junta’s heavy weapons, but Ij was not able to confirm this independently.  National junta spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun told state-owned newspapers on Wednesday that special attention would be paid to ensuring the safety of civilians  in the renewed fighting. Nawnghkio has a population of more than 16,000 people but most have fled because of the fighting, residents said.
- [Ancient Buddhist temple in Xinjiang stirs controversy](https://ij-reportika.com/ancient-buddhist-temple-in-xinjiang-stirs-controversy/): Two earthen pillars, eroded by sand, in barren terrain are all that’s left of an ancient Buddhist temple in the far-western Chinese region of Xinjiang. Chinese historians and archaeologists assert that a 7th century Chinese empress ordered the construction of the Mor Temple — known locally as Mora, or “chimney” in the Uyghur language — one one of the earliest Buddhist sites in the region. The ruins show China’s influence in shaping the history and culture of the region — home today to 11 million mostly Muslim Uyghurs — going back centuries, state-run media said. “They are a powerful testimony to the diversity, unity and inclusiveness of Chinese civilization,” according to a June 3 report by the China News Service. But experts outside China dispute those claims, saying the Mor Stupa, or pagoda, and other temple structures were built in more of an Indian style. And it&#8217;s highly unlikely that Wu Zetian, empress from 690-705 CE during the Tang Dynasty, was involved in the construction of pagodas because it was hundreds of miles away from her court in central China, they say. Instead, the Chinese government-backed research may be driven more by Beijing’s efforts to expand its cultural influence in the region, where it is actively seeking to Sinicize Uyghur culture and Muslim practices, they said. A view of the Qigexing Buddhist Temple ruins in Yanqi Hui Autonomous County, northwestern China&#8217;s Xinjiang region, Oct. 4, 2012. (Rolfmueller via Wikimedia Commons) “Empress Wu, the famous female emperor of that time, was avidly promoting Buddhism but not necessarily was she promoting it out in Xinjiang,” said Johan Elverskog, a professor of history at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, and author of the book A History of Uyghur Buddhism. “There is no way that the Tang was involved in building things that far to the west,” he said. Before Islam Before Islam arrived in China in the 7th century, Buddhism did flourish in what China today calls Xinjiang, or “New Territories” — but which the Uyghurs refer to as East Turkistan, the name of the Uyghur nation that briefly existed in the mid-20th century. Western archaeologists and Buddhism researchers believe that Buddhism began to spread to Xinjiang during the Kushan Empire, which controlled the western and northern Tarim Basin in southern Xinjiang and ruled over parts of what is today Afghanistan, Pakistan and India between the 1st century BCE and the 3rd century CE. Some historical documents show Buddhism spread to the region from Afghanistan and northern Pakistan, Elverskog said, while other documents indicate that the Kingdom of Khotan, in present-day Hotan, adopted Buddhism as the official state religion in the 2nd and 3rd centuries.  Archaeological digs at the Mor Temple — about 30 kilometers (19 miles) northeast of Kashgar — since 2019 have determined that the original complex was built in the 3rd century, according to the China News Service report. It said that elements of Chinese architecture appeared between the 7th and 10th centuries, indicating the prevalence of Chinese Buddhism.  Artifacts discovered around the site reflect Indian and Central Asian Buddhist traditions as well as the influence of the Central Plains, an area along the Yellow River that is believed to be the cradle of Chinese civilization, it said. But Elverskog said that while there was a Chinese military presence in the region during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE), no Buddhist temples were built. ‘United’ by Chinese culture The idea that Uyghur culture, including its ancient Buddhist history and structures, should be supplanted by Chinese culture was summed up in a speech by Pan Yue, head of the State Council’s National Ethnic Affairs Commission, at an international forum on Xinjiang’s history and future held in June in Kashgar. “Although Xinjiang’s culture is diverse, it exists in unity, and the most important factor that unites them is Chinese culture,” said Pan, who has been in his role since June 2022.   “Xinjiang should be studied from the perspective of the common history of the Chinese nation and the multipolar unity of the Chinese nation, and Xinjiang should be understood from the perspective of a region where many cultures and religions coexist and ethnic groups live together,” he said.  A view of the perimeter wall of the Rawak Stupa, a Buddhist stupa with modern stone protection, situated on the southern rim of the Taklamakan Desert in northwestern China&#8217;s Xinjiang province, Nov. 17, 2008. (Vic Swift via Wikimedia Commons) Kahar Barat, a Uyghur-American historian known for his work on Buddhism and Islam in Xinjiang, said there was “absolutely no Chinese influence” in the Buddhist culture of places like Kashgar and Kucha, another city that once had many Buddhist temples. He said Kashgar and Kucha were part of the Hindu-Greek Gandhara Buddhist culture that existed in present-day Pakistan from the 3rd century BCE to the 12th century CE. “They call it the Gandhara art,” he said. “It’s the Gandhara culture created by the Buddhism developed in Kashmir and Pakistan. Therefore, the Buddha paintings and temples in Hotan, Kashgar, Kucha have the influence of Gandhara culture.” Furthermore, Buddhist temples during the Tang Dynasty were modeled after those in India, making it an exaggeration to say that the Mor Stupa and other temple structures reflected the architectural style of that era, he said.  “Pavilion-style construction is a style of India Buddhism,” he told RFA. “Hence, all the pavilions in China are inspired by these styles. The building styles in the Han Dynasty were later influenced by Buddhist vihara-style construction.” Elverskog agreed that the Mor Temple was built in Indian style. “It’s obviously based on precedence in northwest India,” he said. “That was the main source of the Buddhist culture in Hotan and particularly coming from India. … So the Buddhism, the iconography, the artwork, was heavily based on northwestern Indian models.”  Xia Ming, a political science professor at the College of Staten Island in New York, said China&#8217;s interpretation of historical Uyghur Buddhism as part of Chinese Buddhism shows the tendency of the Chinese Communist Party...
- [China’s ‘monster’ ship lingers in Philippine waters: Manila](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-monster-ship-lingers-in-philippine-waters-manila/): Chinese coast guard vessel 5901, dubbed “The Monster” for its size, has maintained an “illegal presence” in Philippine waters for a week, said a spokesperson for the country’s navy. Roy Vincent Trinidad told reporters on Tuesday that the CCG 5901 has been near Sabina Shoal, known in the Philippines as Escoda Shoal, since July 3. Manila’s biggest and most modern coast guard ship – the BRP Teresa Magbanua – has been shadowing the movements of the Chinese vessel, he said. The 2,260-ton Philippine multi-role response vessel, however, is dwarfed by “The Monster” which is five times its size. At some points, the Chinese ship was only about 500 meters (1,640 feet) from the BRP Teresa Magbanua, according to Trinidad. While under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS, foreign vessels can conduct so-called innocent passage and freedom of navigation operations, the spokesperson said, adding: “We are monitoring them because they should not be conducting any maritime research, they should not be doing anything detrimental to the security of the state.” The Philippine coast guard first spotted “The Monster” anchored near Sabina Shoal last Saturday. The shoal, claimed by China, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan, is less than 90 nautical miles (167 km) off the coast of Palawan island inside the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, where Manila has jurisdiction over natural resources. (Google Maps) Philippine coast guard spokesperson Jay Tarriela said at the time that his forces radio challenged the Chinese vessel, warning that it was operating inside the Philippine EEZ but “The Monster” did not respond. “It’s an intimidation on the part of the China coast guard,” Tarriela said. The 12,000-ton CCG 5901 is the largest coast guard vessel in the world and is heavily armed. When asked about the statement, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said the shoal belonged to China. Lin Jian said that it is part of Chinese Nansha islands, also known as the Spratly islands, not the Philippines’ EEZ.  “To patrol and conduct law enforcement activities by Chinese military and coast guard vessels in the waters near Xianbin Jiao is within China’s domestic law and international law, including UNCLOS,” Lin said, referring to Sabina Shoal by its Chinese name. Suspected land reclamation China lays claim to most of the South China Sea and draws a so-called nine-dash line on its maps to mark its “historic rights.” An international arbitration tribunal in a case brought by the Philippines in 2016 ruled that China’s claims are unlawful but it has refused to recognize the ruling. “The Monster” last month conducted a 10-day patrol along the nine-dash line to reinforce it before returning to the Philippines’ EEZ this month. China has also been sending research vessels, naval vessels and other ships to Sabina Shoal, leading to suspicion that it is attempting to build an artificial island there. The Philippine coast guard said that crushed corals had been dumped on the shoal – an indication of the early stage of land reclamation. China’s foreign ministry dismissed the accusation as “groundless and pure rumor.” Chinese ‘monster’ ship reinforces nine-dash line in South China Sea China deploys ‘monster’ ship near disputed shoal Manila accuses Beijing of island building in South China Sea Manila: Philippines, China agree to ‘de-escalate’ South China Sea tensions Sabina Shoal is also important to the Philippines as it serves as the meeting point for vessels resupplying troops stationed at the nearby Second Thomas Shoal. The Philippine and Chinese coast guards have been confronting each other near the shoal, where Manila ran aground an old warship – the BRP Sierra Madre – to exert its control. In an incident on June 17, a Filipino sailor lost a finger during an altercation  between Philippine military and Chinese coast guard personnel there. Manila and Beijing have since held talks and agreed to “de-escalate tensions” but the situation remains largely unchanged. In the latest development, the Chinese navy’s Shandong carrier strike group has been spotted passing the northern Philippines on its way to drills in the Pacific. The carrier group includes China’s second aircraft carrier Shandong, cruiser Yan’an, destroyer Guilin and frigate Yuncheng. Philippine armed forces  spokesperson Francel Margareth Padilla told reporters on Wednesday that the Philippines noted the deployment of the Chinese carrier strike group in the Philippine Sea “with concern.” “We emphasize the importance of maintaining peace and stability in the region and urge all parties to adhere to international laws and norms,” he said. Jason Gutierrez in Manila contributed to this report. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [Thousands stuck between checkpoints on Myanmar road amid renewed fighting](https://ij-reportika.com/thousands-stuck-between-checkpoints-on-myanmar-road-amid-renewed-fighting/): Several thousand people have been stranded for 10 days on a major highway in Myanmar’s Mandalay region after residents fled from the ruby mine township of Mogoke, where intense fighting between the military junta and insurgent forces resumed late last month. Residents told Radio Free Asia that about 300 vans and about 50 trucks – most carrying people – as well as hundreds of motorbikes, have been stuck between military junta checkpoints on the Mogoke-Mandalay highway. People started traveling south toward Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city, after a ceasefire in place since January broke down on June 25 when the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, resumed fighting across northern Shan state and Mandalay regions.  Thousands had to stop for more than a week when junta troops blocked the road in Thabeikkyin township, residents said. Among them were pregnant women and people with chronic diseases or gunshot wounds.  They were allowed to proceed on the highway Tuesday morning but another checkpoint further down south in the township left them stuck once again, the residents said. “The security checkpoint was opened because people were rushing despite the ongoing battle,” one resident said, citing nearby fighting between the military and anti-junta forces. “The gate was opened even though the road wasn’t safe.”  A five-month long ceasefire ended last month after the TNLA accused junta forces of repeatedly carrying out drone and artillery attacks and airstrikes in several townships in Shan state, including Mogoke. As part of a renewed offensive, the TNLA and its allies attacked two junta infantry battalions in Mogoke, which is about 200 km (120 miles) north of Mandalay city. The TNLA is one of three forces in the Three Brotherhood Alliance that launched Operation 1027 in October. In January, Chinese officials brokered the ceasefire between the three allied armies and junta forces as fighting late last year was posing a risk to Chinese economic interests across the country.  Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [Beijing, Manila trade blame over coral damage](https://ij-reportika.com/beijing-manila-trade-blame-over-coral-damage/): The Philippines on Tuesday rejected criticism by China that the military vessel it grounded on a disputed reef in the South China Sea had damaged its  coral  ecosystem. The National Task Force for the West Philippine Sea – Manila’s name for the part of the South China Sea within its exclusive economic zone – said in a statement that the accusation against the Philippines “is false and a classic misdirection.” “It is China who has been found to have caused irreparable damage to corals,” it said, “It is China that … jeopardized the natural habitat and the livelihood of thousands of Filipino fisherfolk.” In 1999, Manila deliberately ran an old warship aground – the BRP Sierra Madre – to serve as a military outpost on Second Thomas Shoal, which it refers to as Ayungin. Confrontations there between the Philippine and Chinese coast guards have intensified in recent months. On Monday, China released a survey report on the supposed damage caused by the Philippines to the  reef at the Second Thomas Shoal, which China calls Ren’ai Jiao, and is claimed by both countries. The report commissioned by China’s Ministry of Natural Resources said that the “illegally grounded” BRP Sierra Madre has gravely damaged “the diversity, stability and sustainability of the coral reef ecosystem”. It added that Chinese scientists conducted a survey through satellite remote sensing and field investigation in April and found that not only had the ship grounding process inflicted “fatal damage” on the coral reef, but its prolonged grounding also “has greatly inhibited the growth and recovery of corals in the surrounding area.” Supposed dead corals underneath the Philippine BRP Sierra Madre military vessel in an undated photo released by China’s Ministry of Natural Resources. (Handout via Xinhua) China said photos released with the report showed dead corals underneath the Philippine warship, with researchers calculating that the aggregate coverage of reef-building corals at the reef has declined by 38.2%. The report proposed that the Philippines promptly remove its ship from the shoal, “thereby eliminating the source of pollution, and preventing further sustained and cumulative damage to the coral reef ecosystem.” China claims most of the South China Sea and all the islands and reefs within the so-called nine-dash line that it draws on maps to mark “historic rights” to the waters. An international arbitral tribunal in 2016 ruled against all of China’s claims but it refuses to accept it. ‘Fake news and disinformation’ The Philippine task force called China’s survey report an attempt to “spread fake news and disinformation,” as well as to conduct “malign influence operations” against the Philippines. It cited the 2016 arbitral award, which found that Chinese authorities were aware that their fishermen were harvesting endangered species on a substantial scale in the South China Sea using methods that inflicted severe damage on the coral reef environment. Additionally, they had not fulfilled their obligations to stop such activities, the task force said.  The Philippines has collated evidence that China has been responsible for severe damage to corals at a number of reefs in the disputed waters, it said, calling for an independent, third-party marine scientific assessment by impartial recognized experts. It also invited neighboring countries to join the Philippines in “pushing for a more united, coordinated, and sustained multilateral action to protect and preserve the marine and land biodiversity in our region.” RELATED STORIES South China Sea coral reefs under severe threat: report Vietnam rapidly builds up South China Sea reef Overfishing fuels South China Sea tensions, risks armed conflict, researcher says The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, or AMTI, at the U.S. Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in a report last December that China had caused the most reef destruction through dredging and landfill while developing artificial islands in the South China Sea. More than 6,200 acres (25 square km) of coral reef have been destroyed by island building efforts in the South China Sea, with 75% of the damage – equivalent to roughly 4,648 acres (19km2) – being done by China, according to AMTI. Another 16,353 acres (66 square km) of coral reef were damaged due to giant clam harvesting operations by Chinese fishermen, it said. China dismissed the AMTI report as “false” and said it was based on old satellite images. Chinese officials maintain that China continues to give importance to protecting the environment in the South China Sea. Jason Gutierrez in Manila contributed to this report. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
- [Renewed fighting drives 50,000 people from homes in northern Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/renewed-fighting-drives-50000-people-from-homes-in-northern-myanmar/): Some 50,000 people have fled their homes over the last five days amid renewed fighting around Lashio, the capital of northern Shan state, residents and relief workers told Radio Free Asia. At least 15 civilians have been killed since July 3, when forces allied with the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDA, began an offensive in the township around Lashio, which is home to the military junta’s Northeastern Military Command’s headquarters.  Battles have since taken place in Nam Tong, Man Hawng, Nam Ma Baw Da and Nawng Mun villages. Most of the deaths happened in one area of Lashio township that was struck by artillery fire during the first day of fighting, an aid worker who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons told Radio Free Asia. Several other residential areas have since been hit by artillery attacks. “The artillery fire occurs frequently until now,” the aid worker said. “The residents have fled their homes in these areas.” A heavy weapon that was dropped on another neighborhood on Sunday injured three Buddhist novices and two civilians, he said. Residents flee from armed conflicts in Lashio township, July 2024, northern Shan state, Myanmar. (Citizen Photo) Residents of Lashio township have been heading south toward the city of Taunggyi, the capital of Shan state that is about 340 km (210 miles) away, one resident told RFA. Others aimed to look for shelter in the Mandalay region or in the commercial capital of Yangon, he said. Lashio sits at the junction of a highway that connects mainland Myanmar to the Chinese border to the north.   Fighting between Lashio-based junta soldiers and insurgents resumed on June 25 after the collapse of a ceasefire brokered by Chinese officials in a series of meetings that began in January.  The Ta’ang National Liberation Army, an ally of the MNDAA, announced the capture of 26 junta camps in the days following the end of the ceasefire. The TNLA and other resistance forces in Mandalay have been attacking junta outposts in four townships in northern Shan state and Mandalay region. RFA tried to contact MNDAA spokesperson Li Kya Win and the junta’s spokesperson for Shan state, Khun Thein Maung, for more details on the fighting, but neither of them answered the phone. Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [Philippines, Japan sign groundbreaking defense pact as ‘counterweight’ to China](https://ij-reportika.com/philippines-japan-sign-groundbreaking-defense-pact-as-counterweight-to-china/): The Philippines and Japan signed a defense pact Monday that will allow troops to be deployed in each other’s country, a landmark agreement seen as a counterweight to China’s growing assertiveness in the South China Sea. The Reciprocal Access Agreement, or RAA, was signed by Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro and Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa in Manila at a ceremony witnessed by Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.  Japan’s foreign and defense ministers are in the city for “two-plus-two” meetings with their Philippine counterparts. The RAA serves as a framework for security operations and training between the two nations, including joint military drills and maritime patrols in the parts of the South China Sea claimed by Beijing but within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.  Japan has pursued similar agreements with a handful of countries, such as the United Kingdom and Australia, but this is a first in Asia.  It also signifies the first time Japanese troops will be allowed to return to Philippine soil since the Imperial army’s occupation during World War II. Speaking after the signing, Kamikawa hailed the pact as a great achievement that would help “maintain and strengthen a free and open international order based on the rule of law.” Teodoro said the deal was a step forward for the region and would add another layer to bilateral and defense relations. It would also help create a “global architecture which will ensure sustainable peace and stability in our area,” he said. Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara said the Philippines and other Southeast Asian nations were strategically important for Japan, as they are situated at a key junction of its sea-lanes. He added Japan was keen to deepen trilateral and quadrilateral ties, with the Philippines, United States and Australia. Philippine Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo (left) and Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro (right) meet with their Japanese counterparts in Manila on July 8, 2024. (Jojo Riñoza/BenarNews) The signing of the RAA comes amid escalating tensions between Manila and Beijing in the South China Sea. On June 17, Philippine officials said China Coast Guard personnel, armed with pikes and machetes, punctured Philippine boats and seized firearms during a resupply mission to an outpost on Second Thomas Shoal. One Filipino sailor lost a finger in the clash, the third such encounter this year in which Philippine personnel have been hurt. Earlier on Monday, Philippine Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo thanked Japan for standing by the Philippines in its maritime dispute with China. He also praised Tokyo for supporting the rules-based international order, including a 2016 international arbitration ruling that found China had violated Manila’s sovereign rights in its exclusive economic zone. “Our meeting today is an auspicious time for frank and candid discussions on issues of utmost importance to both our nations in an increasingly diverse dynamic geopolitical environment,” Manalo said during the two-plus-two meetings. Chester Cabalza, president of Philippine-based think tank International Development and Security Cooperation, said the defense deal was “groundbreaking” and would serve as a counterweight to China in the region.  “The significance of the military pact enlivens the agility and deterrence of Manila with the quantum leap support of a strategic and technologically advanced neighbor like Japan,” Cabalza told RFA affiliate BenarNews. Don McLain Gill, a political analyst at the international studies department of De La Salle University, said the agreement would act as an independent stabilizing force. At the same time, it would be compatible with U.S. efforts to form a network of alliances in the Asia-Pacific region.  “Japan has played a significant role in crafting a more robust framework for Manila-Tokyo ties, and Japan has also demonstrated its steadfast commitment in being the Philippines’ major economic and defense partner,”  he said. “In a scenario where the U.S. may dial down its support for Manila, our partnership with Japan is likely to remain steadfast and consistent.” Manila has a similar deal with Washington, the 1999 Visiting Forces Agreement, which sets the terms under which American military personnel can operate on Philippine soil.  The U.S. now has access to nine military bases across the archipelago and has pledged U.S. $100 million for upgrades. Jojo Riñoza and Gerard Carreon contributed to this report from Manila. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.
- [Laos can feed itself, but its food security is complicated](https://ij-reportika.com/laos-can-feed-itself-but-its-food-security-is-complicated/): Can Laos feed itself?  The short answer: Yes. It can grow enough rice.  Per capita rice consumption is one of the highest in the world, at 206 kilograms (453 pounds) per person per year. The Lao Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry reckons the country can produce, at maximum, 3.7 million tons of rice annually. That’s around 510 kilograms (1,222 pounds) of rice per person.  However, when it comes to other foods, things become a little more complicated.  A few weeks ago, Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone laid out new plans for self-sufficiency, the latest buzzword in Vientiane – and most Southeast Asian capitals. It’s a very optimistic goal, but what else can the Lao government do?  A tree is seen in rice fields in Laos, July 16, 2022. (Reuters) RELATED STORIES Weak governance, poor economy drive the hollowing out of Laos Lao central bank governor removed amid economic crisis China&#8217;s dependency on potash imports could give tiny Laos rare leverage Lao farmers worry about upcoming rice season as heat wave kills crops A monetary crisis since 2021 has kept inflation rates among the highest in Asia and seen the kip, the local currency, depreciate by as much as half against the U.S. dollar. Much of this crisis stems from Laos’ dependency on imports &#8212; mainly fuel &#8212; and because it foreign currency reserves are almost depleted.  Sonexay wants Laos to be self-sufficient in finance and energy — an unlikely prospect. His third pillar is food. A joint report by the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Program warned that food insecurity affected more than a million people out of the 7.2 million population in 2022. The situation could have been worse.  Geography and transport Since the economic crisis began in 2021, Laotians have responded in two ways: many have left for Thailand, where work is more plentiful and better paid, while others have returned to their family farms.  If Laos wants to industrialize and raise GDP per capita above the current $US 2,600, de-urbanization isn’t a long-term solution. And the policy ideas Vientiane is now talking about come up against structural problems.  First, consider geography. Most of Laos is mountainous and forested—there’s a reason why it has been a buffer region between the Thais, Burmese, and Vietnamese for centuries.  Never able to sustain a large population, Laos remains the least densely populated country in Southeast Asia, with 33 people per square kilometer (.38 square miles). Cambodia is the next least densely populated, with around 98 people per square kilometer (.38 square miles). A vendor, right, fills rice in a plastic bag for her customer, January 27, 2024, in Luang Prabang, Laos. (Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP) Only Laos’ southern panhandle and some northern provinces – chiefly Xayaburi – are suitable for agriculture. The country has just 0.16 hectares (0.4 acres)of arable land per person, below the world average and well below what Thailand, Cambodia, and Myanmar have.  Geography and poor government management create the second problem: transport. For centuries, because the terrain made it difficult to move around, farms were small, serving only the immediate vicinity.  That remains so today, with four out of every five people still engaged in low-productivity, smallholder rice cultivation. This prevented the formation of larger farms, meaning not enough capital was generated for private-funded infrastructure works, namely roads or railways. Moreover, the Mekong River flows along the Thai-Lao border, so it has never been feasible to ship food by waterway from the hinterland to population centers.  Selling to China In more recent decades, the Lao government has barely invested in rural infrastructure. Only 12 percent of the cultivated rice area is irrigated, so the remainder can only be planted once a year during the rainy season. Irrigation would allow for two harvests a year. By 2019, it was cheaper to import rice than grow it domestically, primarily due to transport costs. In 2022, Laos exported $US44 million worth of rice but imported $US 29 million worth.  Laos needs more capital for farmers to expand, irrigate, and diversify, and more investment to build roads or rail networks in the hinterland. But Laos is far less self-sufficient in capital than in anything else. The national debt is now around 130 percent of GDP.  The Lao state simply cannot afford to finance these projects itself. Vientiane must instead rely on external capital. Indeed, massive Chinese investment has recently flooded into Laos, but this creates two big problems.  A farmer and his son harvest their rice field on a Chinese made tractor, Oct. 13, 2009, in Muang Sing, northern Laos. (Voishmel/AFP) Chinese firms invest in agricultural production in Laos to grow products for export to China, where prices are higher and food insecurity is a more pressing issue.  Why would Chinese firms invest hundreds of millions of dollars in building roads in, say, Phongsaly Province, the least accessible region, when they can lease Laos’ most fertile farms in regions like Xayaburi and Vientiane provinces, which already have great transport links to China? There are now excellent transport links from Laos to China, like the Vientiane-Kunming railway. This has made it easier for farmers to sell their produce in China than within Laos. Because of this export potential, many farms, including the most productive ones in the more arable provinces, have shifted to cash crops, mainly cassava. In January alone, Laos exported $98 million worth of cassava, making it the second-largest export after energy. Rising fertilizer imports Yet, because Laos’ soil is so poor, tons of artificial fertilizers and pesticides need to be dumped on it to achieve even minimum production standards. Until recently, Laos used barely any artificial fertilizers. In 2010, per hectare of land, Laos used less than a tenth of what Thailand used. Now, it uses about half.  Laos now uses more fertilizers per hectare than Cambodia, which produces far more food— around 2 to 3 times more rice per year. Phosphate fertilizer use per hectare of cropland rose from 2.4 kg in 2000 to around 3.2...
- [Dalai Lama marks 89th birthday, allays concerns about his health](https://ij-reportika.com/dalai-lama-marks-89th-birthday-allays-concerns-about-his-health/): In a video released Saturday on his 89th birthday, the Dalai Lama said he was recovering from his recent knee replacement surgery, felt “physically fit” and thanked Tibetans around the world for praying for him. “I am nearly 90 now, except for the issues with my knee, I am basically in good health,” the Tibetan spiritual leader said in the five-minute video, his first public statement since undergoing successful knee surgery on June 28 at a top New York City hospital. “Despite the surgery, I feel physically fit,” the Dalai Lama said, allaying concerns about his overall health. “So, I wish to ask you to be happy and relaxed.”  “Today, Tibetans inside and outside of Tibet are celebrating my birthday with much joy and festivity,” he said, speaking in Tibetan. “I would like to thank all my fellow Tibetans, inside and outside Tibet, for your prayers on my birthday.”  Several global leaders, including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, sent birthday greetings. “Through his promotion of nonviolence and compassion, as well as his commitment to advancing human rights for all, His Holiness serves as an inspiration for the Tibetan community and many around the world,” Blinken said in a statement. Modi wrote on X: “Sent my greetings to His Holiness the Dalai Lama on the occasion of his 89th birthday. Pray for his quick recovery after his knee surgery, good health, and long life.” The Nobel Peace Prize winner enjoys strong support in the United States, where prominent lawmakers have spoken out about human rights issues in Tibet.  China, however, considers him a separatist and has criticized those who meet with him, including a delegation of U.S. lawmakers who recently met with him in Dharamsala, India. Last month, the U.S. Congress passed a bill urging China to re-engage with the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan leaders to resolve its dispute over the status and governance of Tibet. China-Tibet talks ground to a halt in 2010. “We stand by His Holiness and the Tibetan community as they seek to preserve Tibetans’ distinct cultural, religious, and linguistic heritage,” said U.S. Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues Uzra Zeya, in a birthday greeting. Thousands converge At the Park Hyatt Hotel in New York, where the Dalai Lama is recovering, a steady stream of Tibetans and Buddhist devotees have gathered every day since his arrival in the United States on June 23, braving the heat to walk around the hotel and offer prayers. On Saturday, to mark his birthday, devotees converged in even larger numbers to offer hundreds of katags, white Tibetan silk scarves, and bouquets of flowers outside the hotel, which many referred to as their “temple.” Billboards in New York&#8217;s Times Square flash birthday greetings to the Dalai Lama just after midnight on July 6, 2024. (RFA/Nordhey Dolma) On Friday evening, on the eve of his 89th birthday, at least a thousand Tibetans gathered in New York’s Times Square to witness two giant billboards carrying birthday messages written in Tibetan and English. As the messages flashed at midnight, the crowd – many of whom were decked out in Tibetan dress and waving the Tibetan flags – cheered, sang, danced and chanted prayers. Reflecting on his life so far, the Dalai Lama said in the video he was resolved to continue to give his best to promote Buddhism and the well-being of the Tibetan people. He also acknowledged the “growing interest” in the Tibetan cause in the world today, and felt he had made a “small contribution” toward that. ‘Year of Compassion’ In Dharamsala, India, Sikyong Penpa Tsering, the leader of the Central Tibetan Administration, the Tibetan government-in-exile, announced plans to celebrate the Dalai Lama’s 90th birthday next year as the “Year of Compassion” marked by a series of year-long events starting in July 2025. The Dalai Lama has said that he will provide clarity around his succession, including on whether he would be reincarnated and where, when he turns 90. Sikyong Penpa Tsering and Sikkim Chief Minister Prem Singh Tamang cut the birthday cake at the official Central Tibetan Government-led ceremony to commemorate the Dalai Lama’s 89th birthday in Dharamsala, India on Saturday, July 6, 2024. China – which annexed Tibet in 1951 and rules the western autonomous region with a heavy hand – says only Beijing can select the next spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, as it seeks to control the centuries-old selection process for religious leaders, including the Dalai Lama. Tibetans, however, believe the Dalai Lama chooses the body into which he will be reincarnated, a process that has occurred 13 times since 1391, when the first Dalai Lama was born.  The 14th Dalai Lama fled Tibet amid a failed 1959 national uprising against China’s rule and has lived in exile in Dharamsala, India, ever since. He is the longest-serving Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader in Tibet’s history. Ever since, Beijing has sought to legitimize Chinese rule through the suppression of dissent and policies undermining Tibetan culture and language.  Beijing believes the Dalai Lama wants to split off the Tibet Autonomous Region and other Tibetan-populated areas in China’s Sichuan, Qinghai, Yunnan, and Gansu provinces – which Tibetan refer to as “Amdo” and “Kham” – from the rest of the country. However, the Dalai Lama does not advocate for independence but rather proposes what he calls a “Middle Way” that accepts Tibet’s status as a part of China and urges greater cultural and religious freedoms, including strengthened language rights. Blinken said in his statement Saturday that the “The United States reaffirms our commitment to support efforts to preserve Tibetans’ distinct linguistic, cultural, and religious heritage, including the ability to freely choose and venerate religious leaders without interference.” Additional reporting by Tashi Wangchuk, Dolkar, Nordhey Dolma, Dickey Kundol, Yeshi Dawa, Sonam Singeri, Dorjee Damdul, Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Written and edited by Tenzin Pema, edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Prominent Chinese dissident Xu Zhiyong cut off from other inmates](https://ij-reportika.com/prominent-chinese-dissident-xu-zhiyong-cut-off-from-other-inmates/): Prominent Chinese dissident Xu Zhiyong is being held separately from fellow prisoners under a number rather than his name, and subjected to round-the-clock monitoring by his cell-mates, according to U.S.-based legal scholar Teng Biao. Xu, who was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in February, is also being forced into labor at the unnamed prison where he is currently serving a 14-year jail term for &#8220;subversion of state power,&#8221; Teng said. His trial alongside rights lawyer Ding Jiaxi was widely criticized by rights activists as resulting from a trumped-up charge. Activists and rights lawyers say Xu has never advocated violence, and has paid a very heavy price for advocating for his personal ideals. Normally, inmates are held in cells with about 12 beds. But Xu is being held in a four-bed cell separately from the other prisoners, Teng said, citing information that emerged during a visit by Xu&#8217;s family members on June 25. &#8220;I recently received news that Dr. Xu Zhiyong&#8217;s basic rights are being violated and abused in prison,&#8221; Teng said. &#8220;The worst of it is that Xu Zhiyong has moved to a cell with just three cell-mates, who are responsible for guarding him constantly and monitoring him continuously round the clock.&#8221; Related stories Tortured dissident Xu Zhiyong stands trial for ‘subversion’ China sentences 2 prominent activists after attending 2019 dissident gathering US lawmakers nominate Uyghur professor, Chinese dissident for Nobel Peace Prize &#8220;Xu Zhiyong has also been deprived of his name during forced labor, and is referred to by a code name, 003,&#8221; Teng told RFA Mandarin. The cell-mates are acting as proxies for prison guards, preventing him from talking to anyone, and Xu has to be escorted to the bathroom by one of them, Teng said. Xu is also being deprived of phone calls and reading and writing materials, and his family say they&#8217;ve never received any of the letters he writes to them, Teng said, adding that Xu is allowed to read only prison-approved books on Chinese culture. Detained after Xiamen dinner Xu, who has already served jail time for launching the New Citizens&#8217; Movement for greater official accountability, was detained in early 2020 and held on suspicion of &#8220;subversion of state power&#8221; alongside Ding and other activists who held a dinner gathering in the southeastern port city of Xiamen on Dec. 13, 2019. Jailed human rights activists Xu Zhiyong [left] and Ding Jiaxi are seen in an undated photo. (Credit: China Human Rights Defenders) Rights groups say the case against him has been marred by rights violations. Both men were held incommunicado, denied permission to meet with either family members or a lawyer for two years.  On April 10, 2023, the Linshu County People&#8217;s Court in the eastern province of Shandong handed down a 14-year jail term to Xu Zhiyong and a 12-year sentence to Ding. Police continue to put pressure on Xu&#8217;s family members, Teng said. &#8220;The family members who visit have been harassed, threatened and intimidated by state security police,&#8221; Teng said. On May 4, state security police from Henan province followed Xu&#8217;s sister to ensure she has had no contact with the outside world, as required by the authorities, he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s very common for the Chinese Communist Party to abuse political prisoners and prisoners of conscience,&#8221; Teng said. &#8220;They particularly target prisoners of conscience like Xu Zhiyong who have had some impact at home and overseas.&#8221; Called for Xi to quit Teng said one of the reasons for the harsh treatment was Xu&#8217;s letter calling on Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping to step down, which is believed to be the trigger for his 2020 arrest. He called on Western governments to put diplomatic pressure on Beijing over the authorities&#8217; treatment of Xu. &#8220;If this kind of abuse continues, it will do great harm to Dr. Xu Zhiyong&#8217;s physical and mental health,&#8221; Teng said. Jailed dissident Xu Zhiyong, second from left, was nominated by the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China for a Nobel Peace Prize in February 2024. (CECC) Swedish political commentator Zhang Yu, who campaigns for jailed writers for Independent Chinese PEN, said Xu&#8217;s treatment is even harsher than that meted out to late 2010 Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t expect them to go this far,&#8221; Zhang said. &#8220;This is much worse than the way Liu Xiaobo was treated.&#8221; Zhang called on the international community to call for the release of Chinese prisoners of conscience like Xu, and for him to receive humane treatment in line with international human rights standards. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Reflecting on 15 Years Since the Urumchi Massacre: A Call for Justice](https://ij-reportika.com/reflecting-on-15-years-since-the-urumchi-massacre-a-call-for-justice/): By Dolkun Isa, President of the World Uyghur Congress Fifteen years have passed since the Urumchi massacre of July 5, 2009, a tragic event that left deep scars on the Uyghur community and brought international attention to the plight of our people. As we reflect on this somber anniversary, it is crucial to acknowledge the enduring impact of the violence and to renew our commitment to justice, human rights, and accountability. The Urumchi massacre was a culmination of escalating tensions between the Uyghur population and Han Chinese settlers in East Turkistan. What began as a peaceful protest by Uyghur demonstrators, seeking justice for the deaths of two Uyghur factory workers in Guangdong, quickly descended into chaos. The Chinese government&#8217;s heavy-handed response, involving mass arrests and violent crackdowns, resulted in the deaths of hundreds and the arrest of thousands. Official figures report 197 fatalities, though Uyghur advocacy groups and independent observers suggest the number could be significantly higher. Following these tragic events, the Chinese government cut off communications channels with the outside world, and blocked internet access for almost a year, making it impossible for information to circulate. Uyghur editors, journalists, web administrators, professors and students were arrested and sentenced in the following months and years. One of those cases include Gulmire Imin, a web-administrator who was accused of organising the July 5th protests, as well as posting an announcement on Salkin and leaking state secrets. She is currently still in prison, serving a 19-year sentence, in Urumchi. In the aftermath, the Chinese authorities imposed stringent security measures across East Turkistan, further marginalizing the Uyghur population. Surveillance systems were intensified, and policies aimed at cultural assimilation and genocide, such as restrictions on religious practices and the use of the Uyghur language, were rigorously enforced. Reports of arbitrary detentions, forced labour, and re-education camps have since surfaced, painting a grim picture of the human rights situation in the region. The Urumchi massacre and the subsequent treatment of Uyghurs are not merely domestic issues; they are matters of international human rights that demand global attention and action. The lack of international accountability on that occasion paved the way for the further crackdown against Uyghurs in the years that followed. The international community has expressed concern and condemnation, but meaningful action has been limited. Economic and geopolitical considerations often temper responses from global powers. However, the principles of human rights and justice should transcend such interests. As we mark the 15th anniversary of the Urumchi massacre, it is vital to amplify the voices of those who have suffered and continue to suffer. We must listen to the testimonies of survivors and the families of victims. Their stories are a powerful reminder of the human cost of ethnic violence and repression. The international community, including governments, non-governmental organizations, and human rights advocates, must work together to hold the Chinese government accountable for its actions. The recent propaganda attempts by the Chinese government to portray a ‘’harmonious’’ life of Uyghurs should not distract the international community from seeking accountability. Real people are still separated from their families, and have disappeared relatives. In conclusion, the 15th anniversary of the Urumchi massacre is a moment for reflection, remembrance, and renewed resolve. It is a time to honour the memory of those who lost their lives and to stand in solidarity with the Uyghur community in their quest for justice and dignity. The international community must act decisively to ensure that the events of July 5, 2009, are not forgotten.
- [Four Myanmar villagers  found dead after raid by junta forces](https://ij-reportika.com/four-myanmar-villagers-found-dead-after-raid-by-junta-forces/): Villagers in southern Myanmar recovered the bodies of four civilians, days after junta soldiers arrested them in a raid, an anti-military group told Radio Free Asia on Friday. Residents said troops took eight people into custody after storming Khaung Pyan village in the southernmost Tanintharyi region on Monday, but only the bodies of four men had been found.  Three women and a man were still missing, according to the Democracy Movement Strike Committee Dawei District, a group opposed to the junta that seized power in a 2021 coup.  The four bodies were found beside a nearby creek, with their hands tied behind their backs and “many stab wounds,” an official from the group said.  &#8220;Villagers were arrested when a junta column raided Khaung Pyan. They were arrested on July 1 and villagers found four dead bodies on July 3 and 4,” he said, declining to be identified  for fear of reprisals. Residents identified the four dead men as Kyaw Sein, Aung Zaw Win, Thar Thar and Naing Naing, who were aged between 40 and 60 and all from Khaung Pyan village in Yebyu Township.  RELATED STORIES Junta military preparations point to brutal next phase in Myanmar conflict Myanmar insurgents capture junta base in south Myanmar junta soldiers surrender in ethnic army&#8217;s first Tanintharyi win Tanintharyi region’s junta spokesperson, Thet Naing, did not respond to a request from RFA for comment on the deaths.  Junta troops have occupied Dawei Special Economic Zone in Tanintharyi’s capital since Monday, causing residents in neighboring Yebyu township to flee. Fighting in Tanintharyi increased when the Karen National Liberation Army, an ethnic minority insurgent group battling for self-determination  captured several junta bases in the region in April.  In the more than three years since the coup, more than 5,300 civilians have been killed by the junta, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 
- [Why environmental activism survives Cambodia’s destruction of  civil society](https://ij-reportika.com/why-environmental-activism-survives-cambodias-destruction-of-civil-society/): The Cambodian government has to claim to be committed to climate action. So it really doesn’t like people who point out the lie.  For years, the loudest critic has been Mother Nature, a group of environmental activists formed in 2013 that has often run afoul of the authorities. In 2021, several members of the group documented waste run-off into Phnom Penh&#8217;s Tonle Sap river, near the royal palace. This was linked to companies run by some well-connected individuals.  For this, they were charged with plotting against the government and insulting the king, two charges that prosecutors never even tried to prove in a trial that ended on July 2 with ten Mother Nature activists being sentenced to between six and eight years in jail. Three were also convicted of defaming King Norodom Sihamoni, receiving sentences of eight years in prison. The other seven got six years behind bars.  Cambodian environmental activist Phuon Keoraksmey is arrested outside the Phnom Penh municipal court after a verdict on July 2, 2024. (Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP) Five of the ten are currently in hiding or exile. They were tried in absentia. That includes the founder of Mother Nature, Spanish environmentalist Alejandro Gonzalez-Davidson, who was deported from Cambodia in 2015. It was “another crushing blow to Cambodia’s civil society,” said Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for research, Montse Ferrer. Igor Driesmans, the EU ambassador to Phnom Penh, tweeted that he is “deeply concerned about increasing persecution and arrests of human rights defenders in Cambodia.”  Indeed, Cambodia’s civil society is now a mere whisper of what it once was. Since 2017, it has been systematically dismantled. The trade union movement has been broken up, while NGOs have been destroyed by lawsuits and jailings. Some middle-class liberals have been bought off with government jobs and promises of reform when Hun Manet, the son of the long-serving premier, inherited the prime ministership last year.  RELATED STORIES 10 Cambodian environmental activists sentenced to prison Environmental activist’s video blog highlights hopes for Cambodia’s future Shady partners abound on UNDP investment platform In Southeast Asia, protecting the environment is its own hazard Splintering of activists However, unlike all other forms of activism that came before, environmentalism has endured. That’s partly because groups like Mother Nature refused to self-censor. But it is also structural. In the past, civil activism was disparate. Cambodia had a strong trade union movement, but this was only in the garment factories. It had loud middle-class urbanites, but they stayed in the cities and campaigned for liberal reforms.  People in the countryside protested when their land was taken away and given to well-connected businesses, but they rarely connected with other groups.  The now-dissolved Cambodia National Rescue Party brought some of the voices under one roof for a brief period between 2012 and 2017, but once the party was dissolved that year, on laughable accusations of plotting a coup, the civil activist groups splintered.  Not environmentalism, however. That’s because, unlike most other causes, it unites rural folk and urbanites, rich and poor, nationalists and cosmopolitans. It is intensely patriotic, whereas some other campaigns could be rebuked as un-Cambodian. And it doesn’t grapple with abstracts.  Debates about human rights and democracy are messy. There are spectrums. There’s subjectivity. Only at the extremes can one see authoritarianism in action.  Cambodia security officers clash with a union member near the National Assembly during a protest against the trade union law in Phnom Penh, April 4, 2016. (Samrang Pring/Reuters) The Cambodian authorities don’t arrest hundreds of people daily. There is no public flogging. You can spend your entire life keeping your head low and avoiding the jackboot. But the environmental cause is different.  Cambodians pass a river and see how more polluted it gets each day. They can watch the forests disappear. They  can experience the droughts that are now more common. They can see where the lakes once were, now filled in for construction.  If their house is flooded because the land around them has been destroyed and built over, that creates a more immediate sensation of grief and anger than reading that the U.S. has downgraded Cambodia to the lowest Tier 3 ranking for money laundering.  Environmentalism threatens a corrupt state Whereas a propagandist can dismiss human rights and democracy with claims of “Asian Values” and the need for social stability over individual rights, no one can explain away deforestation, mass pollution, and environmental destruction as anything other than a crime against the nation itself. That’s why environmentalism poses such risks for autocratic regimes. It’s ridiculous the courts ruled that the Mother Nature activists plotted against the state. But, in a sense, the cause does threaten the state.  What it reveals is just how much Cambodia’s political system is a criminal racket.   Cambodia’s political system is feudal-ish: It’s a  political aristocracy, composed of corrupt and incestuous families, rules. But it depends on the money and patronage of economic barons, the financiers.  Money flows up and favors flow down. Those favors include illegal logging, land grabs, industrial pollution, and the destruction of waterways.  Volunteer students and Buddhist monks collect plastic waste from a sewage canal to set an example and educate people on proper plastic disposal in Phnom Penh on Oct. 28, 2023. (Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP) The tycoons may donate some money to some good causes, but the environmentalists come along and point out that this money was made by destroying the country’s natural resources.  The ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) claims to represent the “people of the soil,” but the environmentalists show that it puts the interest of capital above the interests of the people.  The CPP derides its opponents as cosmopolitans bought and owned by the West, but the environmentalists prove that the CPP government has presided over the utter gutting of Cambodia’s natural wealth, frequently by foreign-owned companies. Ly Chandaravuth, one of the activists jailed this week, said this before the trial: “When [political elites] destroy our country, they have taken on new nationalities; they have millions of dollars;...
- [Philippine military chief demands China pay US$1 million in damages for clash](https://ij-reportika.com/philippine-military-chief-demands-china-pay-us1-million-in-damages-for-clash/): The Philippines’ military chief on Thursday demanded that China pay 60 million pesos (US$1 million) in damages incurred during a violent confrontation between its coast guard and Filipino troops in the South China Sea last month. China Coast Guard personnel, armed with pikes and machetes, punctured Philippine boats and seized firearms in the June 17 incident near Second Thomas Shoal, locally known as Ayungin and called Ren’ai Jiao by Beijing. One Filipino sailor lost a finger in the clash, the third such encounter this year in which Philippine personnel have been hurt on missions to rotate and resupply troops stationed at Second Thomas Shoal. “I demanded the return of seven firearms that were taken by the Chinese coast guard,” said Gen. Romeo Brawner at a press conference. “They destroyed our equipment and when we estimated the cost of the damage it’s 60 million pesos.” The compensation does not include the cost of surgery for the Filipino soldier who lost a finger, said Brawner, who outlined his demand for compensation in a letter to Beijing. Brawner made the comments after a command conference between military officials and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in which security challenges and threats facing the Southeast Asian nation were discussed. Marcos called for de-escalation of tension with China in the South China Sea, the Philippine military chief said. However, rotation and resupply missions to the BRP Sierra Madre would continue, Brawner added.  On Tuesday, Manila and Beijing agreed to reduce hostilities “without prejudice to their respective positions” at a regular bilateral meeting. China asserts sovereignty over almost all of the South China Sea, through which trillions of dollars in trade passes each year, putting it at odds with the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam, and Taiwan.  In 2016, an international tribunal refuted the legal basis for nearly all of China’s expansive maritime and territorial claims in the waterway. It said that Beijing’s insistence on holding “historic rights” to the waters were inconsistent with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS. Beijing has never recognized the 2016 arbitration or its outcome. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.
- [Police host activities for Uyghurs in Xinjiang on Islamic holiday](https://ij-reportika.com/police-host-activities-for-uyghurs-in-xinjiang-on-islamic-holiday/): On an important Muslim holiday last month, police and security officials in China’s far-western region of Xinjiang set up camps to keep an eye on Uyghurs, took Uyghurs to see communist-themed films, and visited Uyghur homes to make sure they weren’t practicing Muslim religious activities. The moves around the Qurban Eid, also known as Eid al-Adha or the Feast of the Sacrifice, which fell on June 17 this year in Xinjiang — one of two official Muslim holidays in China — appeared to be attempts to undermine the observation of the Muslim holy day, outside experts said.  Chinese authorities are trying to weaken Uyghurs’ ethnic and religious identity and forge their loyalty to the Chinese state and the Communist Party, while maintaining security, the experts said. “It looks like they are trying to Sinicize Eid,” said Erkin Ekrem, a professor at Hacettepe University in Ankara, Turkey, and vice president of the World Uyghur Congress. “The Chinese government is trying to change the Eid customs, prayers and traditions [by] making Uyghurs consume food along with Chinese people [and] adding Chinese elements to the Eid festivals, thereby removing the Muslim Eid elements,” he added. RELATED STORIES China pushes ‘Sinicization of Islam’ in Xinjiang as Ramadan arrives Most Uyghurs banned from praying on Islamic holiday, even in their homes Chinese use Muslim holiday for propaganda purposes, celebrating with Uyghurs Before 2017, when the Chinese government started cracking down on religious activities in the predominantly Muslim region, men would observe the holiday by visiting mosques for special prayers, cooking meals, spending time with relatives and welcoming guests to their homes.  Since then, authorities have also forbidden Islamic dress for women, beards for men, and Muslim names for children. They have also prevented Uyghurs from fasting during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan and encouraged the consumption of pork and alcohol, which Islam forbids. Chinese national consciousness On the eve of Eid, Ma Xingrui, Communist Party secretary of Xinjiang, visited communities in Urumqi, the region’s capital, and asked residents to strengthen Chinese national consciousness and insist on the Sinicization of Islam. Public security officers celebrated the holiday with Uyghurs and other ethnicities in Xinjiang and promoted “the common consciousness of the Chinese nation,” the Xinjiang Daily reported on June 19. A screen displays Chinese President Xi Jinping near a mosque in Kashgar, northwestern China&#8217;s Xinjiang region, June 4, 2019. (AFPTV) The Keriye County Public Security Bureau in Hotan invited teachers at area primary schools, students and parents on June 16 to participate in social activities at a police camp to “build strong Chinese national consciousness and celebrate Eid,” the report said. On the same day, police in Qitai county in the Changji Hui Autonomous Prefecture invited Uyghur “relatives” with whom they had been paired up under a previous monitoring program to visit a museum to watch communist-themed films. On June 17, members of the Public Security Bureau in the prefecture’s Manas county visited Uyghur homes and danced with residents, who had no choice but to join in, the news report said.  “The police showed their concern for the public by their actions and also planted the seeds of national unity deep in everyone’s hearts,” it said. Assimilation policies Henryk Szadziewski, director of research at the Uyghur Human Rights Project, said public security agents interfere in Muslim holidays like Eid al-Adha to push assimilationist policies in Xinjiang. Uyghur identification with Turkic culture along with a belief in Islam and related social and political values are considered a threat because they are outside the control of the Chinese state, he told Radio Free Asia.  Attendees watch video of a Muslim praying during a government reception held for the Eid al-Fitr holiday in Beijing, China, May 13, 2021. (Ng Han Guan/AP) “China’s policies are intended to weaken those kinds of affinities outside which are beyond the borders of China and to ensure Uyghurs allegiances are pinned to the Chinese state and, of course, the Chinese Communist Party,” Szadziewski said. But the Chinese government separates Islam in China from Islam in the rest of the world, Erkin Ekrem of the World Uyghur Congress said.  “In China, the Sinicization of Islam is being carried out vigorously,” he told RFA. “They are trying to create a nation away from Islamic beliefs and customs.” “Deemphasizing the religion adding in this secular Chinese national consciousness [is] meant to delink Eid al-Adha from its religious origin,” he said. “That is one of the aims here.” Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Seven dead, including 3 children, killed in Myanmar clash](https://ij-reportika.com/seven-dead-including-3-children-killed-in-myanmar-clash/): Shelling during a clash in northern Myanmar killed seven civilians on Wednesday, including three children, residents told Radio Free Asia, as fighting between junta troops and ethnic minority insurgents escalated following the breakdown of a ceasefire. Fighters from the Ta’ang National Liberation Army and their junta army rivals blamed each other for the death of the civilians when shells hit their homes in the town of Lashio in northern Shan state. Fighting between the junta soldiers from the Northeast Command and the autonomy-seeking rebels resumed on June 25 after the collapse of a ceasefire brokered by Chinese officials in a series of meetings that began in January.  The Ta’ang National Liberation Army announced the capture of 26 junta camps in the days following the end of the ceasefire. RELATED STORIES Junta troops destroy roads in northern Myanmar as renewed fighting looms China awaits junta approval to resume border trade with Myanmar&#8217;s Shan state Talks between Myanmar rebel alliance and junta focus on Chinese interests The fighting in Lashio escalated on Wednesday with one shell killing a family of six in their house, said a resident, who declined to be identified in fear of reprisals.  &#8220;It happened while they were eating in the kitchen. The dead bodies have been sent to the morgue,” he said. “We’ve heard the sound of heavy guns firing all morning but I’m not sure if the junta army or the revolutionary group was responsible.” Those killed were Zel Zaung, 14,  Dwel Aung and Zel Nwel, both 15, Sai Khon and May Yi, both 30, and  Mar Gyi, 70. A shell hit another Lashio house early in the day, killing a woman and wounding two men, residents said. RFA could not confirm their identities.  The Ta’ang National Liberation Army and civilians blamed the junta for the deaths but the junta blamed the rebels in posts on its Telegram channels. RFA called Shan state’s junta spokesperson Khun Thein Maung for more information on the attacks but calls went unanswered. Fighting between the two groups has also affected Namhu and Nampawng villages near Lashio town. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 
- [Lao central bank governor removed amid economic crisis](https://ij-reportika.com/lao-central-bank-governor-removed-amid-economic-crisis/): National Assembly lawmakers on Tuesday removed the governor of Laos’ central bank at the end of its legislative session as top officials search for ways to address the country’s inflation and economic woes. The assembly approved a proposal from Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone to transfer Bounleua Sinxayvolavong, the governor of the Bank of Lao P.D.R., to a position in Luang Prabang province, according to the assembly’s vice-chairwoman, Sounthone Xayachack. Laos’ economy hasn’t recovered much from blows brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. International tourist numbers remain low, jobs are scarce and many younger workers have sought higher-paying jobs in Thailand or elsewhere in the region. Also, higher fuel prices and the steady depreciation of the Lao currency, the kip, have fueled inflation, according to a report from the Lao Statistics Bureau in May.   Laos’ economic problems are now affecting “the future of its food security and nutrition” in the country, according to the Asian Development Bank, or ADB. Inflation has had a big impact on food prices, which has reduced people’s purchasing power and has forced many households “to devise food-coping strategies, such as reducing food consumption and meal frequency to bridge their nutritional needs,” the ADB said in a report last month. The kip weakened by 31% against the dollar last year – a trend that was expected to continue this year, the World Bank has said.  Laos’ high debt service obligations have constrained the government’s ability to respond “to immediate issues of high inflation, which has placed pressure on people’s incomes and living standards, as well as long-term labor productivity issues,” the report said. Minister of Finance Santiphab Phomvihanh told lawmakers last month that the government will need at least US$10 billion this year to cover all debt-related expenses, but the central bank – had so far only brought in US$3 billion. ‘Talk and talk’ Lawmakers on Tuesday also approved a resolution that recommended the government address a teacher shortage, the increasing numbers of student drop-outs, the national debt and uncontrolled mining operations. The Assembly also passed or amended 13 different laws, including laws on property rights, investment promotion, environmental protection and anti-corruption. “Our country has two national priorities – solving economic-financial woes and cracking down on drugs,” lawmaker Sinava Souphannouvong said at a meeting last week.  “I’m urging the government to set cracking down on corruption as the third national priority,” he said, pointing out that neighboring Vietnam adopted a campaign against corruption. The reality, though, is that corruption “happens from the top,” according to a former government official in southern Laos who asked to remain anonymous to speak freely about the workings of government. “The inspection agency dares not inspect the top and other high-ranking officials,” he told Radio Free Asia. “Only low-ranking officials have been punished.” A businessman also believed that there will be no real impact from the government’s campaign against corruption. “Oh, they just talk and talk, but nothing will happen,” he told RFA . “They also have two other national priorities: solving economic-financial problems and cracking down on drugs. But they have failed to implement these two priorities. I think they’re going to fail on the third one as well.”  Translated by Max Avary. Edited by Matt Reed.
- [Philippines ‘ready’ to discuss continental shelf with Vietnam](https://ij-reportika.com/philippines-ready-to-discuss-continental-shelf-with-vietnam/): The Philippines says it is willing to hold talks with Vietnam after it called for consultations on a Philippine submission on an extended continental shelf claim in the South China Sea. &#8220;We are ready to engage Vietnam on possible ways forward that would help achieve a mutually beneficial solution to South China Sea issues in accordance with international law, particularly the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea [UNCLOS],&#8221; the Philippine department of foreign affairs said. The Philippines also welcomed Vietnam&#8217;s recognition of the submission, filed on June 14 with the U.N. Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, or CLCS, to register the Philippines’ entitlement to an extended continental shelf in the West Palawan region of the South China Sea. On June 20, responding to Manila’s submission, Hanoi did not protest outright but instead said that while coastal states had the right to determine their outer continental shelf boundaries under UNCLOS, when submitting their claims “they must respect the legal and legitimate rights and interests of other relevant coastal nations with opposite or adjacent coasts.” A spokesperson for Vietnam said it stayed ready to hold talks with the Philippines to seek a solution that was mutually beneficial for both countries. Meanwhile, China has rejected the Philippine submission, saying it infringed upon China’s sovereign rights and jurisdiction and violated international law.  Beijing says it holds “historic rights” over most of the South China Sea but an arbitral tribunal under UNCLOS in 2016 rejected all of its claims. The Philippine submission, reinforcing the tribunal ruling, has not named China as a party for negotiations on the continental shelf. China and the Philippines have recently been involved in tense confrontations over some reefs that both claim but lie within Philippine waters in the South China Sea.  US officials on Vietnam visit warns of &#8216;irresponsible&#8217; China Philippines &#8216;monitoring&#8217; Vietnam&#8217;s South China Sea island building South China Sea dispatch: Excitement, fear fill Scarborough Shoal voyage Acceptable solution Nguyen Hong Thao, professor of international law at the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam, or DAV, noted Manila’s willingness to discuss the delimitation of maritime boundaries with the relevant countries. “Vietnam and the Philippines have been maintaining solidarity and cooperation for the common good,” he told RFA. It is unclear when the consultation is expected to begin. The CLCS said it would look at the Philippine submission in a session between January and March next year. The continental shelf can extend beyond 200nm to a maximum of 350nm from the shore, or baseline. (The U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea) The extended continental shelf is the stretch of seabed that extends to a maximum of 350 nautical miles (648 km) from the shore of a coastal state, which has exclusive rights to explore it or exploit its natural resources. However, the Philippine submission may overlap with previous submissions by Vietnam and Malaysia, as well as with a Vietnam-Malaysia joint submission in 2009, against which the Philippines protested. In a recent opinion piece, DAV’s Thao argued that maritime limits, including the overlapping outer limits of the continental shelf in the South China Sea, need to be agreed upon by the countries involved. He warned of a new “battle of note verbales,” or diplomatic notes sent to the U.N. secretary-general to express concern, from neighbors of the Philippines. The CLCS cannot make a determination if another party objects, and that is why in the immediate future, “the Philippines may consider withdrawing from its objection to the Vietnam-Malaysia joint submission and negotiating with these two countries to find an acceptable solution,” the legal expert suggested. RFA contacted the Philippine foreign ministry for comment but did not receive a response by time of publication. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Body cams prevent North Korean customs agents from living off bribes](https://ij-reportika.com/body-cams-prevent-north-korean-customs-agents-from-living-off-bribes/): To cut down on rampant bribery, North Korean customs agents checking truck shipments coming across the border from China are now required to wear body cameras, a customs official and a truck driver told Radio Free Asia. That’s cut off a lucrative source of income for the customs agents, suddenly making it difficult for them to repay high-interest loans they took out to weather the COVID-19 pandemic, which shut down trade with China, the customs agent said. “They borrowed at 100% annual interest, so their debt doubles every year,” a customs official, from the border city of Hyesan in Ryanggang province, told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The reason they cannot receive bribes is because of the tiny cameras attached to their bodies,” he said. A North Korean soldier holds a camera as he looks at the South, April 17, 2017, at the truce village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on the border between North and South Korea. (Jung Yeon-Je/AFP) Prior to the pandemic, customs officials were able to pad their paltry government salaries with bribes from smugglers who either imported banned items or lied about the volume of imports to hide profits from the government.  But when COVID hit, North Korea closed its borders to trade and the customs officials lost their livelihoods.  To survive, many borrowed money from donju – North Korea’s wealthy class – promising to pay them back once trade with China resumed, the customs agent said. Many border officials took out high interest loans of 30,000 yuan (US$4,100), and some borrowed as much as 150,000 yuan ($20,500).  They were used to living the high life and did very little to reduce their spending during the time that the border was closed, thinking it would be relatively easy for them to repay, the official said. Unexpected twist In May, trade resumed, but the border officials never foresaw that authorities would require them to wear body cams – making it nearly impossible to collect bribes. “The reason why cameras were installed on custom officials and security agents’ bodies was because there were many cases of illegal Chinese mobile phones and SIM cards being smuggled into the country through customs trade channels,” the customs official said.  These Chinese cell phones allow people living near the border to access Chinese networks and call outside the country, potentially letting people pass along information North Korean authorities want to keep control of. “This is fundamentally to block the path of internal secrets from being leaked outside the country through illegal mobile phones,” the official said. Meanwhile, the loan sharks are pressing the officials to pay up. “Hyesan customs officials and security agents are unable to go home at night,” he said. “This is because the donju come to the homes of customs officials and security agents and abusively demand repayment.” A truck driver who used to drive through the border at Hyesan told RFA that it was easy for customs officials to spot smugglers and their smuggled goods. “Customs truck drivers smuggled televisions from Chinese truck drivers until 2019,” he said. He said that since the border reopened, all imported goods come on the backs of Chinese trucks, which are then unloaded into North Korean warehouses on the border. North Korean workers who load and unload Chinese trucks used to be friendly with the Chinese drivers, sharing cigarettes and having casual conversations with them, but now they are told not to even make any verbal contact.  “If they say a single word with them, they will be immediately taken to the State Security Department for an investigation and be kicked out of their work group,” the driver said. A solider films military officers following a mass dance performance, May 10, 2016, in the capital&#8217;s main ceremonial square in Pyongyang, North Korea. (Damir Sagolj/Reuters) In the more unusual cases where North Korean trucks export goods to China, they are allowed to go only 400 meters (yards) into Chinese territory, and once empty back out – and are followed by security guards, he said. With body cams now a requirement, some of the customs officials are doing whatever they can to transfer to other departments where the bribes might be a little smaller but at more easily accepted, he said. “Security agents who monitor trade cargo do not hide the fact that they have small cameras attached to their bodies,” the driver said. “They advise cargo loading and unloading workers not to create any problems, as the whole day’s work is being recorded.”   Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Floods in Myanmar force 10,000 from their homes, many trapped](https://ij-reportika.com/floods-in-myanmar-force-10000-from-their-homes-many-trapped/): Rivers in northern Myanmar swollen by torrential rain have burst their banks, forcing about 10,000 people, including many displaced by war, to flee, while many others have been trapped on their roofs by the rising waters, relief workers told Radio Free Asia on Monday.  Heavy rain in Kachin state has led to floods in four townships along the banks of the Irrawaddy and N’mai rivers, forcing residents to seek shelter in monasteries and elsewhere on higher ground. &#8220;Every neighborhood is flooded. It could be worse than the record set in 2004,” said one relief worker in the state capital, Myitkyina, referring to the last severe flooding in Myanmar’s northernmost state 20 years ago. “There are lots of people affected,” said the aid worker, who declined to be identified in fear of reprisals by the military authorities for speaking to the media. RFA called Kachin state’s junta spokesperson, Moe Min Thein, for information on rescue efforts but calls went unanswered. A junta-backed newspaper, The Global New Light of Myanmar, reported that relief operations were underway and nine evacuation facilities had opened in Kachin state since Sunday. Overflowing rivers forced residents from their homes in Tanai, Waimaw, Chipwi townships, and parts of Myitkyina, which is on the west bank of the Irrawaddy. Collapse at notorious Myanmar rare earth mine kills 15 people At Myanmar camp for displaced hundreds struggle as rainy season looms Five dead, 20 missing in Myanmar landslide Camps for people displaced by weeks of fighting between the autonomy-seeking Kachin Independence Army insurgent group and junta forces in Waingmaw, Chipwi and Myitkyina townships were also flooded, with their inhabitants forced to find higher ground, witnesses said. There were no immediate reports of deaths in the latest flooding but landslides, partly triggered by the heavy rain, have recently killed at least 35 people in rare earth mines in Chipwi township.  By 9:30 a.m. on Monday, the Irrawaddy river had risen four feet (1.2 meters) above its critical level, and was still rising by about three inches every hour, Naing Linn Htwe, chief of the Department of Meteorology and Hydrology, said in a statement. Some residents of Myitkyina have taken refuge from the swirling, murky waters on the roofs of their homes. &#8220;We’re trapped,” one resident stuck on a roof told RFA. “The water is almost as deep as the height of a man.” “In my household, there are three kids and two elderly people and rescue hasn&#8217;t come yet, but they said they would. They said they’d run into some difficulties on the way.” To the south, residents in river-side communities in the Sagaing, Magway and Ayeyarwady regions, which are also on the Irrawaddy, are fretting that the inundation will soon reach them. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.
- [Dalai Lama discharged from hospital after knee surgery](https://ij-reportika.com/dalai-lama-discharged-from-hospital-after-knee-surgery/): The Dalai Lama was discharged from a New York City hospital Saturday after undergoing successful knee replacement surgery, hospital staff said. The Tibetan spiritual leader, who turns 89 on July 6, has experienced health problems for years. His knee issues required medical attention outside northern India where he has lived in exile for 65 years following a failed uprising against Chinese rule in Tibet. After being discharged, he went to the Park Hyatt Hotel in Manhattan, where he is staying. “He is expected to make a full recovery and was discharged Saturday morning, June 29th,” said Dr. David J. Mayman, chief of the adult reconstruction and joint replacement service at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. “His Holiness’s personal medical team and office were in constant communication with the surgical and medical staff at HSS,” Mayman said. “We are grateful for their trust and assistance.” Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, arrives at his hotel in New York on June 23, 2024. (Reuters/Jeenah Moon) The Nobel Prize winner enjoys strong support in the United States, especially among prominent lawmakers who have spoken out about human rights issues in Tibet, despite objections by China which views him as a separatist and bristles at his interactions with foreign officials. Tibetans and well-wishers gathered outside the hospital and the Park Hyatt to greet His Holiness, holding khatas – Tibetan white scarves – and flowers, offering their blessings for his swift recovery. “First of all, I am so happy to hear about the success of His Holiness’s surgery,” said Chemi Youdon, waiting outside the hotel to welcome the Dalai Lama with a bouquet in hand. “Secondly, this is his visit to the United States after such a long time. And thirdly, though I had a glimpse of him at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey when he first arrived, as a Tibetan, you never get enough of his blessings.” Pema Sonam, waiting outside the Park Hyatt in New York, said the surgery highlighted the importance of the Dalai Lama’s health. “It’s a blessing that His Holiness has visited the U.S., allowing us to receive his blessings after so many years. I want to thank the attending doctor and his team, staff, and everyone involved for doing such a wonderful job.” No public engagements are planned for the immediate future, as His Holiness focuses on his health and well-being.
- [Workers say some 60 Cambodian rescued maids still in Saudi Arabia](https://ij-reportika.com/workers-say-some-60-cambodian-rescued-maids-still-in-saudi-arabia/): Some 60 Cambodian maids who complained publicly about abuse and labor rights violations remain stranded in Saudi Arabia, several workers told Radio Free Asia, several months after pleading with diplomats and others for help. The women, who went to the Middle Eastern country for jobs, said they have been physically abused by their employers and denied food and sleep. Some said they hadn’t been paid or were told they would be required to work for longer than their contracts stipulated. The maids and other workers in Saudi Arabia first sought Cambodian government intervention and assistance in March.  In April, Cambodia’s Labor Ministry said 78 migrant workers who had been misled into working in Saudi Arabia had been placed in hotel rooms under the care of Cambodian diplomats.  Two dozen women returned home in May. Another 48 women have since been flown back to Cambodia, according to Em Bopha, one of the workers who is still in Saudi Arabia.  A total of 133 Cambodian workers have been removed from their abusive employment situations. The 60 workers still in Saudi Arabia have been staying at several different facilities while diplomats arrange for their return, she said. Cambodian company Fatina Manpower Co. Ltd. helped arrange the contracts between the workers and their Saudi employers, and is now working on their return.  The remaining workers suspect the delay in sending them back to Cambodia is rooted in Fatina Manpower’s inability to pay compensation to partner companies in Saudi Arabia, Em Bopha said.  The owner of Fatina Manpower, Man Teramizy, is a senior official at Cambodia’s Ministry of Labor. Radio Free Asia was unable to reach the ministry’s spokesperson, Katta Orn, for comment on June 24. Cambodia’s ambassador to Egypt, Uk Sarun, said a group of about a dozen maids who left one of the holding facilities for a day on June 20 has complicated diplomatic efforts to coordinate their return.  The workers have been frustrated by the delays and uncertainty, Em Bopha said. But fleeing from the facility was “insulting,” Uk Sarun told RFA. “We have tried very hard,” he said. “We are still waiting for responses [from the company]. But now it’s a little more difficult. I asked them for understanding and I told them to return to the company’s facility.”  Translated by Sovannarith Keo. Edited by Matt Reed.
- [Chinese Students in USA Committed to CCP?](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-students-in-usa-committed-to-ccp/): In survey report, "Experiences and Aspirations of Foreign Students in the USA" a significant pattern emerges among Chinese students in USA.
- [North Korea draws navigable group  in round 3 of FIFA World Cup Asian qualifiers](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-draws-navigable-group-in-round-3-of-fifa-world-cup-asian-qualifiers/): The road to the 2026 FIFA World Cup for the North Korean team will go through three Middle Eastern countries and two former Soviet republics, the Asian Football Confederation decided in a  drawing for the third round of qualifiers in Kuala Lumpur Thursday. North Korea was drawn into Group A along with  Iran, Qatar, Uzbekistan, the United Arab Emirates, and Kyrgyzstan. Though the team, known by supporters as the Chollima, have the lowest world ranking among the six teams, Group A offers a chance for qualification, with only Iran ranked among the world’s top 30 teams.  In drawing Group A, North Korea avoids an inter-Korean showdown, with South Korea heavily favored to dominate Group B, full of Middle Eastern minnows Iraq, Jordan, Oman, Palestine and Kuwait. Group C, meanwhile, is the “Group of Death,” with powerhouses Japan, Australia and Saudi Arabia drawn together, and Bahrain, China and Indonesia rounding out the group. In the second round, North Korea finished second in its group behind Japan and ahead of Syria and Myanmar. They crushed Myanmar 6-1 in Yangon and 4-1 in a home match played in Vientiane, Laos. The campaign also featured a strong showing against 17th-ranked Japan in Tokyo, where they lost 1-0. But North Korea forfeited the home match because they refused to host. North Korea fans in the stands before the match against Japan, March 21, 2024 in Tokyo. (Issei Kato/Reuters) North Korea hasn’t hosted a home match since the last World Cup cycle, playing South Korea to a 0-0 draw in Pyongyang in 2019. The third round will kick off on Sep. 5, with North Korea set to face Uzbekistan in Tashkent. Should the Chollima finish in second place or higher after playing each member of Group A home and away, the team would advance to the 2026 FIFA World Cup in Canada, the United States and Mexico. Finishing the group in third or fourth place would advance North Korea to a fourth round of qualifying, where six teams would vye for two more spots in 2026 or a berth in the inter-confederation playoffs. Questions remain as to whether North Korea will host its own home matches or continue to coordinate them with third countries. Although the country has reopened its borders that had been shuttered since the beginning of the COVID pandemic in 2020, it may not be ready to welcome teams from other countries and their fans. The Chollima are very popular among fans in their home country, but the team also has fans from outside its borders. Should the team advance to the finals and play on U.S. soil, Paul Han, a North Korean escapee who lives in Indianapolis, would cheer for the North Korean players, he told RFA Korean. “I cheer for North Korea especially when they play against South Korea, the United States, or Japan,” he said. “It’s a matter of the fate of those players, because they can be sent to a place where the sun and moon cannot be seen (if they lose).” Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong.
- [China trying to ‘normalize’ incursions in Taiwan Strait, Taipei says](https://ij-reportika.com/china-trying-to-normalize-incursions-in-taiwan-strait-taipei-says/): China is attempting to normalize its increased incursions into the waters around the outlying Kinmen islands in the Taiwan Strait, Taiwan’s Defense Minister Wellington Koo has warned. Koo told a hearing at the Taiwanese legislature on Wednesday that by stepping up its activities in the prohibited and restricted waters around Kinmen, China is trying to establish a new normal. Kinmen is less than 10 km (6.2 miles) from China’s Fujian province. “Prohibited” and “restricted” waters are the tacit boundaries between Taiwan’s outer islands and China’s mainland that both sides have been adhering to.   “Prohibited waters” refer to the territorial waters around Kinmen that extend about halfway to the Chinese coast, or roughly 4 km (2.2 nautical miles) to the north and northwest, and about 8 km (4.3 nautical miles) to the south. “Restricted waters” extend a little further to the south, about 24 nautical miles from Taiwan’s main island. Taiwan Coast guard boats seen at a port in Kinmen, Taiwan, Feb. 20, 2024. (Ann Wang/Reuters) On Tuesday, Chinese and Taiwanese coast guards had a tense two-hour standoff after four coastguard ships from mainland China were seen patrolling in Kinmen’s restricted waters. Such incursions have become regular, according to the Taiwanese coast guard, which reported in May a record number of 11 Chinese vessels intruding into Kinmen’s waters. “The Chinese coast guard has organized a new fleet of cutters to establish a new enforcement model around Kinmen in an attempt to demonstrate their sovereignty over Taiwan,” said Su Tzu-yun, a research fellow at Taiwan’s state-run Institute for National Defense and Security Research, or INDSR. “This can be seen as an expansion of the gray zone tactic, that is the use of the coast guard fleet to expand China’s maritime control, not only against Taiwan, but also against the Philippines in the South China Sea, and against Japan in the Senkaku islands,” Su told Radio Free Asia. Gray zone activities are not explicit acts of war but harmful to a nation’s security as they are aimed at achieving security objectives without resort to direct use of force. RELATED STORIES Taiwan&#8217;s Kinmen Island: On the front lines of tension with China Rudd says China using &#8216;gray zone&#8217; tactics against Taiwan Cross-Strait tensions at risk of rising after Kinmen incident New model of law enforcement China’s Global Times reported that the Chinese coast guard has adopted a new model of conducting law enforcement near Kinmen, by expanding its scope and intensity, as well as making it “all-weather enforcement.” According to the news outlet, since June the Fujian coast guard has organized a fleet of warships to conduct extensive patrols and further strengthen China’s control over the area. The newspaper quoted a Chinese Taiwan expert, Liu Kuangyu, as saying that this new maritime enforcement method can serve as an example for promoting a “one country, two systems” formula, providing an optional solution for resolving the Taiwan question. The Taiwanese government has repeatedly said that China’s incursions are harmful to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. Beside activities at sea, Beijing has also flown military aircraft over the median line in the Strait into Taiwan’s air defense zone on a daily basis. This month, Taiwan has tracked 389 flyovers by Chinese military aircraft, including 141 over the past week, according to the defense ministry in Taipei. To respond to China’s gray zone activities “it requires the alertness and joint efforts of the Indo-Pacific countries and the ASEAN, because the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea are connected,” said INDSR’s Su Tzu-yun. “Regional sea lanes bear a great importance on the world&#8217;s economic development as well as serve the common interests of neighboring countries,” the analyst said, adding that China needs to be prevented from monopolizing and controlling them. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [China's Communist Party expels ex-defense chief, predecessor in graft probe](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-communist-party-expels-ex-defense-chief-predecessor-in-graft-probe/): China’s ruling Communist Party on Thursday expelled ex-Defense Minister Li Shangfu and his predecessor over corruption charges, state media said, in the latest move in a purge that has toppled more than a dozen senior military officers and defense industry figures. Li’s removal from the party came 10 months after he disappeared from public view, and was reported to be under investigation in connection with the procurement of military equipment. He was sacked without a replacement in October, amid a series of sudden firings and disappearances. “Li seriously violated political and organizational discipline,” the official Xinhua news agency reported. China&#8217;s Defense Minister Li Shangfu delivers a speech at the 20th Shangri-La Dialogue summit in Singapore on June 4, 2023. (Roslan Rahman/AFP) “He sought improper benefits in personnel arrangements for himself and others, took advantage of his posts to seek benefits for others, and accepted a huge amount of money and valuables in return,” the agency said in a report also carried by state broadcaster CCTV. “Li&#8217;s violations are extremely serious in nature, with a highly detrimental impact and tremendous harm, according to the investigation findings,” the Xinhua report added. The official agency used almost identical language for the case of Wei  Fenghe, Li’s predecessor as defense minister from 2018 to 2023. “Wei lost his faith and loyalty,” it said.  Wei’s alleged misdeeds “severely contaminated the political environment of the military, bringing enormous damage to the Party&#8217;s cause, the development of national defense and the armed forces, as well as the image of senior officials,” the agency added. The two generals were stripped of their military ranks, and their cases have been handed to the military procuratorate for prosecution, Xinhua said. The expulsion of Li and Wei came almost a year after Communist Party chief Xi Jinping fired two top generals of the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force, which controls the country&#8217;s nuclear missiles. Xi also heads the powerful Central Military Commission (CMC). China&#8217;s President Xi Jinping walks past China&#8217;s Defence Minister Wei Fenghe, left, after the opening session of the National People&#8217;s Congress in Beijing on March 5, 2023. (Noel Celis/AFP) In the dozen years since Xi Jinping came to power, his wide-ranging anti-corruption campaign has targeted party, state and PLA officials. Nine senior officers and at least four defense industry executives have been sacked. In 2014, Xu Caihou, a former CMC vice chairman, was expelled from the party and the PLA for corruption. A month later, another vice chairman of the Commission, Guo Boxiong, was ousted from the party, and later given a life prison sentence. &#8220;The signal sent to other PLA leaders is very obvious.&#8221; said Ye Yaoyuan, a professor of international studies at the University of St. Thomas. &#8220;For Xi Jinping, he hopes to set a more authoritative example before the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Communist Party Central Committee,” he told Radio Free Asia, referring to a key party meeting in mid-July. China’s President Xi Jinping meets with senior officers of troops stationed in China&#8217;s Yunnan province, in Kunming, Jan. 20, 2020. (Li Gang/Xinhua via Getty) “That is, ‘if something happens to the PLA leaders, I am really willing to take action, and my means of handling it are definitely not a simple transfer or other simple ways to end it.’&#8221; Ye said. Thursday’s report, the first official confirmation that graft was the reason for the sudden and secretive removal of Li and Wei, made no mention of another mystery high-level purge: that of former Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang. Qin has been absent from public view since he met with the foreign ministers of Sri Lanka and Vietnam in Beijing on June 25, 2023. His disappearance came amid widespread and unconfirmed rumors that he was under investigation for having an affair, and possibly a child, with Phoenix TV reporter Fu Xiaotian. Edited by Paul Eckert.
- [UN rights envoy urges action to stop Myanmar’s access to weapons, funds](https://ij-reportika.com/un-rights-envoy-urges-action-to-stop-myanmars-access-to-weapons-funds/): Financial institutions must do more to stop the Myanmar junta acquiring weapons, a U.N. human rights rapporteur said, singling out Thailand as the new main source of military supplies that Myanmar was getting through the international banking system. Thailand said it was studying the report from the special rapporteur for human rights in Myanmar, Tom Andrews, adding that its banking and financial institutions follow the banking protocols of any major financial hub. Many Western governments have imposed sanctions on the Myanmar junta that seized power in a 2021 coup and Andrews said international community efforts to stop the flow of weapons have had some success. The junta’s procurement of weapons, dual-use technologies manufacturing equipment and material through the international banking system was down by a third from US$377 million in the 2022 financial year to US$253 million in 2023, he said. But the junta had taken opportunities to skirt restrictions and its “forces continue to systematically assault Myanmar civilians using powerful weapons of war obtained from abroad,” Andrews said in his report. The junta, known as the State Administration Council, or SAC, had altered its sources of weapons and military supplies and exploited gaps in sanctions regimes, changed financial institutions and taken advantage of the lack of political will on the part of governments to coordinate and enforce action, he added.  “The SAC has identified and is aggressively seizing opportunities to circumvent sanctions and other measures taken by the international community,” said the rapporteur. Andrews contrasted the response to Myanmar’s bloody crisis from two of its neighbors: Singapore and Thailand. Singapore, long a major supplier of military equipment with close commercial ties with Myanmar, had “articulated a clear policy opposing the transfer of weapons”, in line with a U.N. General Assembly resolution that passed overwhelmingly after the coup. Following an investigation by the Singapore government, exports to Myanmar of weapons and related materials from Singapore-registered entities using the formal banking system dropped from almost US$120 million in FY2022 to just over US$10 million in FY2023, according to Andrews. ‘Leading source’ Thailand, on the other hand, does not have an explicit public policy position opposing the transfer of weapons to Myanmar, Andrews said, adding that exports from Thailand-registered entities more than doubled over the same period, from just over US$60 million to nearly US$130 million. “Many SAC purchases previously made from Singapore-based entities, including parts for Mi-17 and Mi-35 helicopters used to conduct airstrikes on civilian targets, are now being sourced from Thailand,” he said. “Thailand has now become the SAC’s leading source of military supplies purchased through the international banking system,” he added. Andrews noted that, as with Singapore, he found no evidence that the Thai government was involved in or aware of the transfers but noted that if it were to respond in the same way the Singapore government had, “the SAC’s capacity to attack the people of Myanmar would be significantly reduced.”    Thailand’s foreign ministry said in a statement it had seen Andrews’ report and was looking into it. “Many countries have been named and certainly these are countries where the majority of financial transactions in the region would pass through,” the ministry said. “Our banking and financial institutions follow banking protocols as any major financial hub. So we will have to first establish the facts before considering any further steps.” Andrews called on states that support human rights in Myanmar to halt the sale of weapons to it by their companies and for financial institutions to freeze relations with Myanmar’s state-owned banks. The rapporteur said the findings in his report covered purchases via the formal international banking system and not military procurement pathways such as in-kind trade or purchases with hard currency. While Singapore’s military exports to Myanmar had dropped dramatically, and those from Russia and China also declined, Indian exports remained constant, according to Andrews, while acknowledging some of Myanmar’s military procurement from those countries may have moved to informal channels.  Edited by Taejun Kang and Mike Firn. 
- [Drug runners in Laos shoot at police, abandon vehicles packed with meth and heroin](https://ij-reportika.com/drug-runners-in-laos-shoot-at-police-abandon-vehicles-packed-with-meth-and-heroin/): Alleged drug runners in northwest Laos shot at police and fled on foot into dense jungle leaving behind two vans packed with meth and heroin, a police social media post said. At about 9 p.m. on June 21, officers noticed that the two vehicles did not have license plates and ordered them to pull over for inspection. The occupants of the vehicles allegedly shot at the police and abandoned the vehicles, fleeing into the forest, the Bokeo province police department said on its Facebook page. After inspecting the vehicles, they found around 5.8 million meth pills and 225 kilograms (almost 500 pounds) of heroin. It’s the latest incident in Laos’ struggle to eradicate drugs from proliferating inside the country. Lao Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone reported on June 10 to the Lao National Assembly that cracking down on drugs remains a national priority and in the first half of this year, the government was able to arrest 2,616 drug suspects.  “Most of the drugs are from either Myanmar or China because they can’t be produced here in our country,” an officer of the Bokeo Police Department, who like all unnamed sources in this report requested anonymity for security reasons, told RFA Lao. He said that part of Laos is prone to drug smuggling, and that by law, samples of the seized drugs would be sent to a lab to verify that they are indeed meth and heroin. The rest will be destroyed. The officer explained that they did not pursue the suspects because they were armed and it was very dark in the forest, so they didn’t want to take unnecessary risk. Related Stories Lao police seize 14 million meth pills, arrest two suspects Despite eradication efforts, opium poppy cultivation persists among Hmong in northern Laos Police raid karaoke bar in northern Laos area known for drugs, trafficking A resident who lives near where the incident occurred told RFA he heard gunshots at around 9 a.m. “It was at night and nobody at my house had gone to bed yet,” he said, “The next morning, I found out that there was a clash between police and drug smugglers.” He said he and his neighbors were disappointed that the suspects were not apprehended. Another resident said that he wished the police would have brought the suspects in because it is likely they are smuggling drugs in from other countries. There is a large market for drugs in Laos, particularly among younger people, an employee of a rehab center in the province said. “Many Laotians, especially youths aged 15 or 16 have become addicted to drugs and are admitted to the rehab center. Sometimes, the center has up to 30 of them,” she said.  “Drugs, particularly meth, are available anywhere in our village and region,” she said. “Drugs destroy people’s lives. If the government can’t stop this, many more people will be affected.” Translated by Max Avary. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [‘Neither hospitals nor doctors’ for 10,000 displaced in Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/neither-hospitals-nor-doctors-for-10000-displaced-in-myanmar/): About 10,000 people in Myanmar, most of them members of the mainly Muslim Rohingya minority displaced by fighting, are in urgent need of food and medical aid, residents told Radio Free Asia on Tuesday.  Fighting between junta forces and autonomy-seeking Arakan Army insurgents has intensified in recent weeks in Maungdaw township in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state, compounding hardships for the population after junta troops shut down hospitals, prohibited travel and forcibly conscripted villagers into the army. The fighting has forced residents from four neighborhoods in the outskirts of Maungdaw town to take shelter in schools for the past two months.  Food and medical resources are now running out as the fighting in the area intensifies, said one resident, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.    “We can hear heavy artillery all the time. People have been killed and wounded as a result of shells landing on their houses. There are no hospitals, no doctors, that’s why people are so worried,” he said.  Fighting between insurgent armies and the junta that seized power in a 2021 coup has intensified since late last year in several parts of the country, including Rakhine state, where Arakan Army fighters occupy nine townships and have captured nearly all junta outposts, including those on the Bangladesh border.  While civilians have been suffering throughout the country, the Rohingya people have faced particular hardship with human rights groups saying both sides in the conflict have abused their rights, accusing them of helping their rivals and press-ganging them into their armies. Rohingya have for decades faced persecution in mostly Buddhist Myanmar with more than 700,000 fleeing to neighboring Bangladesh in 2017 from a military crackdown following Rohingya insurgent attacks on police. The Maungdaw resident said this time, junta roadblocks imposed as part of their anti-insurgent operations meant fleeing to Bangladesh was not an option and no aid groups were able to provide food and medical care. Residents reported casualties from the shelling but could not confirm the number or details. Access to the internet and telecommunications has been cut. Rakhine state’s junta spokesperson Hla Thein did not respond to calls from RFA requesting comment on the situation. According to the junta-controlled Myanma Alin newspaper, junta officials provided more than 2,000 households in Maungdaw’s affected neighborhoods with a bag of rice each on Saturday. The World Food Programme said on Tuesday its warehouse in Maungdaw township was burned down on Saturday. The U.N. food agency has not been allowed to travel in Maungdaw township since last month.  The Arakan Army warned residents to evacuate on June 16, saying in a statement its fighters would attack Maungdaw town.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.     
- [North Korea holds nationwide anti-US rallies on 74th Korean War anniversary](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-holds-nationwide-anti-us-rallies-on-74th-korean-war-anniversary/): North Korea held mass anti-U.S. rallies nationwide on Tuesday to mark the 74th anniversary of the start of the 1950-53 Korean War, residents in the country told Radio Free Asia. The city of Hyesan, in the north on the Chinese border, herded more than 80,000 residents into a stadium and forced them to chant slogans against America and listen to speeches decrying Washington for four hours, a resident there told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The anti-American mass rally held today to commemorate the 6.25 War was larger than any mass rally I have ever seen in my life,” she said, referring to the war by the date of its start, as is customary in the Korean language when referring to important events. She said that the rally started at 8 a.m. and went until noon. Following the event the crowd split into three groups and headed for different parts of the town, shouting anti-American slogans and parading through the streets, she said. “At 3 p.m., a ‘War Veterans Reunion Meeting’ was held at the Hyesan Movie Theater, attended by members of the Socialist Patriotic Youth League and Socialist Women&#8217;s Union of Korea,” she said. People attend a mass rally denouncing the U.S., June 25, 2023 in Pyongyang, North Korea. (KCNA). Hyesan has a listed population of 250,000, but many registered there are either connected with the military or have been assigned to the city from elsewhere to work, meaning the actual population of the city is only about 140,000, the resident said. This means that more than half of the population was in the stadium on Tuesday. The resident said orders were given for “everyone from elementary school students to war veterans, who could walk” to be mobilized for the rally. “This 6.25 War-related event was not held only today but has been taking place every day since the 23rd, starting with the Socialist Patriotic Youth League and the Socialist Women&#8217;s Union of Korea,” she said. “This will also be the first time that this kind of event lasted three straight days.” A different take In North Korea, the war is officially called the “Great Fatherland Liberation War,” even though most historians agree that in the early hours of June 25, 1950, it was the North that crossed the 38th parallel that divided the peninsula to invade the South. Fighting ended in 1953 with an armistice, not a treaty, meaning the war is technically still ongoing.  North Korea claims that it was victorious against the United States and its allies in the war, even though 2.5 million Koreans died – fighting on both sides – and North Korea ended up controlling slightly less territory than it had before the war. People attend a mass rally denouncing the U.S., June 25, 2023 in Pyongyang, North Korea. (KCNA). On a national scale, Tuesday’s rallies, held all over the country are the largest ever held to commemorate the war, an official from Hyesan’s surrounding Ryanggang province told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “Today’s mass rally was prepared nationwide from June 16 in accordance with (national leader) Kim Jong Un’s direction on June 13,” he said. June 25 kicks off an entire “anti-American struggle” month that ends on July 27, the anniversary of the signing of the armistice, which North Korea calls “Victory Day.” People attend a mass rally denouncing the U.S., June 25, 2023 in Pyongyang, North Korea. (KCNA). He said that Kim Jong Un ordered that this year’s anti-American struggle month be filled with events commemorating the war to whip up an anti-American atmosphere. “Each party and labor group will continue to hold gatherings on stories related to the 6.25 War, watch movies and visit the anti-espionage struggle exhibition hall and the class education center until July 27, which is the Day of Victory in the Great Fatherland Liberation War,” he said, adding that students will participate in Korean War-themed writing and art contests. People attend a mass rally denouncing the U.S., June 25, 2023 in Pyongyang, North Korea. (KCNA). The event for the 73rd anniversary of the Korean War last year was only one hour long, so people are complaining that they had to do so much this year, the official said. For years, authorities promised that once North Korea had nuclear capabilities, a “flowery path will unfold, and tailwinds will blow for our people’s future,” he said.  Now that North Korea has nuclear weapons, though, the narrative has shifted. It’s the fault of Washington that living standards in North Korea are still so low. “Residents are complaining that they are talking about the U.S. and its imperialist plans these days,” he said. Translated by Claire S. Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [China-backed hackers step up spying on Taiwan: security firm](https://ij-reportika.com/china-backed-hackers-step-up-spying-on-taiwan-security-firm/): Suspected Chinese state-sponsored hackers have intensified cyber-espionage activities against Taiwanese targets since late last year, with a particular focus on its technology sector, an online security company said in a new report. U.S. cybersecurity company Recorded Future said RedJuliett – a “likely Chinese state-sponsored group” – has conducted a campaign to collect intelligence on government, academic, technology, and diplomatic organizations in Taiwan over the six months from last November. The RedJuliett campaign likely aimed to “support Beijing’s intelligence collection on Taiwan’s economic and diplomatic relations, as well as critical technology development,” Insikt Group, a team of researchers from Recorded Future, said in the report.  The hacking group likely operates from Fuzhou, the capital of southeastern China’s Fujian province, according to the researchers. Fujian is on the west of the Taiwan Strait and is the closest Chinese province to Taiwan. Insikt added RedJuliette “exploited known vulnerabilities in network edge devices such as firewalls, virtual private networks (VPNs), and load balancers for initial access.” The hacking group, believed to be active since at least mid-2021, also used the aliases Flax Typhoon and Ethereal Panda. RedJuliett conducted network reconnaissance or attempted exploitation of more than 70 Taiwanese organizations, including representative offices overseas. “Within Taiwan, we observed RedJuliett heavily target the technology industry, including organizations in critical technology fields,” the cybersecurity company said. RedJuliett conducted vulnerability scanning or attempted exploitation against a semiconductor company and two Taiwanese aerospace companies that have contracts with Taiwan’s military, as well as eight electronics manufacturers, two universities focused on technology, an industrial embedded systems company, a technology-focused research and development institute, and seven computing industry associations. Besides Taiwan, the group also expanded its operations to compromise organizations in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Laos, South Korea, the United States, Djibouti, Kenya, and Rwanda, according to the U.S. firm. China’s ‘destabilizing’ actions When asked about the Recorded Future report, Chinese foreign ministry’s spokesperson Mao Ning said she was not aware of it.  Mao, however, said that the U.S. firm has “fabricated disinformation” about China in the past. International security companies have warned against multiple hacking campaigns linked to the Chinese state and targeting foreign governments and organizations. China has repeatedly denied any involvement. Beijing considers the self-governed Taiwan a Chinese province that should be reunified with the mainland, by force if needed. Last Friday, China warned that supporters of independence for Taiwan could be tried in absentia and sentenced to death for “splitting the country.” The U.S. on Monday condemned China’s “escalatory and destabilizing language and actions” against Taiwan. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told a press briefing that threats and legal warfare “will not achieve peaceful resolution to cross-strait differences.” “We continue to urge restraint and no unilateral change to the status quo. And we urge the PRC to engage in meaningful dialogue with Taiwan,” Miller said, referring to China by its official name the People’s Republic of China. Edited by Taejun Kang.
- [Hong Kongers in UK 'feeling nervous' over ID card changes](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kongers-in-uk-feeling-nervous-over-id-card-changes/): Hong Kong residents will need to replace their ID cards over the next two years, authorities say, which could force those living in the United Kingdom or elsewhere to choose between going back and risking possible arrest, or being unable to return indefinitely. Smart ID cards issued before Nov. 26, 2018, will be invalidated in two phases in 2025, the government said on June 18. Cards belonging to people born in or after 1970 will expire on May 12, 2025, while cards issued to people born in 1969 or before will expire on Oct. 12 next year. Anyone outside of Hong Kong will be given a 30-day grace period to allow them to replace their old ID card on their return, the statement said. But overseas Hong Kongers who fled a political crackdown on dissent in the wake of the 2019 protest movement said they could be forced to choose between risking arrest on their return, and losing the ability to return to the city in future, where many still have families and property. Many Hong Kongers who settled in the United Kingdom on the British government&#8217;s lifeboat program for holders of the British National Overseas, or BNO, passport also hold a Chinese passport that is specific to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.  A first-generation Hong Kong ID card (left), with a second-generation Hong Kong smart ID card issued in 2018 (right). (Illustration/Photo: Matthew Leung/RFA) But anyone seeking to renew their Chinese passport without traveling back to Hong Kong could be stymied by a lack of valid ID card, a prerequisite for passport renewal applications. When the British government launched the BNO visa program, offering a pathway to long-term residency and citizenship, China reacted angrily, and announced it would no longer recognize the BNO passport. The catch While permanent residents won&#8217;t lose their right of abode in Hong Kong, and can get back into Hong Kong with a valid ID card alone, once the card expires returning Hong Kongers will effectively need a Hong Kong-issued SAR passport or another country&#8217;s passport to be allowed in through the immigration checkpoint. &#8220;There are always worries about going back to Hong Kong,&#8221; a said Hong Konger in the U.K. who gave only the nickname Ringo for fear of reprisals. &#8220;Some people weren&#8217;t planning to go back, while others may be waiting until after naturalization [as a British citizen].&#8221; &#8220;But now they&#8217;re going to feel a lot more nervous if they need to go back to Hong Kong before their ID cards expire,&#8221; she said. Hong Kong&#8217;s deputy director of immigration Eric Wong displays Smart ID Cards in his office, Feb. 20, 2002, in Hong Kong, as Hong Kong prepares to make its 6.9 million citizens carry &#8220;smart&#8221; identity cards. (Vincent Yu/AP) &#8220;And it&#8217;s more expense because they&#8217;ll need to spend money on a flight back to Hong Kong in the next year or so, which they might not have counted on doing,&#8221; Ringo said. A former Hong Kong immigration assistant who gave only the surname Chan for fear of reprisals said the announcement was likely an attempt to intimidate people who had fled the crackdown. &#8220;It&#8217;s obvious that they&#8217;re using the ID card replacement scheme to intimidate some Hong Kongers who emigrated to the U.K., making them feel as if they could face further difficulties if they go back to Hong Kong to renew their ID cards,&#8221; Chan said. The Hong Kong government slammed last week&#8217;s report from RFA Cantonese on the move, saying that the replacement of ID cards was part of measures to combat fraud and identity theft, and not to suppress or intimidate Hong Kongers. Police form a cordon at Causeway Bay on the 35th anniversary of the crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators at Beijing&#8217;s Tiananmen Square in 1989, near where a candlelight vigil is usually held, June 4, 2024, in Hong Kong, China, (Tyrone Siu/Reuters) &#8220;The invalidation of old ID cards will not affect one&#8217;s right of abode in Hong Kong and they could still travel in and out of Hong Kong as long as holding a valid travel document,&#8221; the government said in a June 21 statement. But the statement didn&#8217;t address the status of BNO passport holders whose Hong Kong SAR passports had expired. Passports revoked Exiled Hong Kongers also told RFA Cantonese that they are also concerned that the authorities have the power to revoke a person&#8217;s Hong Kong SAR passport at any time. Earlier this month, the city government announced it had revoked the Hong Kong SAR passports of six U.K.-based activists including former pro-democracy lawmaker Nathan Law, imposing financial sanctions on them and hitting back at the British government for &#8220;deliberately discrediting&#8221; the city with spying charges against one of its officials. Secretary for Security Chris Tang revoked the Chinese passports of U.K.-based activists Christopher Mung and Finn Lau, former pro-democracy lawmaker Nathan Law, former British consular employee Simon Cheng, who co-founded the advocacy group Hongkongers in Britain, and overseas YouTube hosts Johnny Fok and Tony Choi.  And many overseas Hong Kongers fear that they could be arrested under national security laws for social media activity carried out overseas. A man waves farewell to friends as departs for a permanent move to U.K. at the Hong Kong airport, June 30, 2021. (Vincent Yu/AP) Last November, a Hong Kong court handed down a two-month jail term to former overseas student Yuen Ching-ting, 23, after she pleaded guilty to &#8220;publishing online speech with seditious intent&#8221; to social media starting in September 2018, before the national security law took effect. The case against her was based on her posting of &#8220;inflammatory remarks&#8221; to social media platforms, including the banned 2019 protest slogan &#8220;Free Hong Kong! Revolution now!&#8221; while she was studying in Japan. Yuen was arrested in March after returning to Hong Kong from Japan, where she was studying. Local media outlets reported that she was in the city to change her Hong Kong identity card. She was initially arrested on suspicion of inciting secession, a...
- [Myanmar airstrike on monastery where villagers were sheltering kills 17 activists](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-airstrike-on-monastery-where-villagers-were-sheltering-kills-17-activists/): Myanmar junta forces killed 17 people in an airstrike on a monastery where people were taking shelter from fighting after insurgents battling to end military rule attacked a nearby army camp, members of anti-junta militia groups told Radio Free Asia on Monday.  The junta’s air force launched the attack on Saturday night on a monastery in Nant Thar village in the central region of Sagaing, killing a monk and 16 other people including three members of the same family, they said. Sagaing has seen unprecedented levels of violence since a 2021 military coup triggered an insurgency by pro-democracy activists who formed People’s Defense Forces around the country to confront the military. Junta forces have been accused of razing vilages, carrying out mass shootings and bombing villages indiscriminately as they hunt for members of the People’s Defense Forces. The airstrike in Indaw township followed an attack on a junta camp carried out by an alliance of fighters including members of the Indaw People’s Defense Force, the Kachin Independence Army, the All Burma Students’ Democratic Front, and other groups, activists said. Nant Thar has two monasteries, one under the control of rebel forces and another occupied by junta forces, said an official of the anti-junta Indaw Revolution group, who declined to be identified for security reasons. “People were called to the monastery and locked down by the junta troops when fighting erupted and the jet then bombed the monastery at midnight while people were locked down,” the group official said.  “They must have wanted to bomb the monastery on the mountain,” he said, referring to the monastery controlled by anti-junta forces. “They dropped the bombs on their own monastery by mistake.” The military has not released any information about the incident and calls to Sagaing region’s junta spokesperson, Nyunt Win Aung, for more information went unanswered. Junta troops have cut communication links to the village, a frequent tactic after big attacks.  More than 10 people, including children, were wounded, the Indaw Revolution official said, adding that some were in critical condition. The dead were cremated on Monday, he said. The village has been largely empty since April last year when anti-junta forces repeatedly attacked the military camp in Nant Thar, which is on a major road, residents said. But junta troops had prevented remaining residents from leaving, including those killed on Saturday, they said. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 
- [Thousands welcome Dalai Lama’s arrival in US for knee surgery](https://ij-reportika.com/thousands-welcome-dalai-lamas-arrival-in-us-for-knee-surgery/): Updated at 18:40 ET on June 23, 2024. The Dalai Lama was greeted by a large crowd of chanting and flag-waving Tibetans and other supporters upon his arrival Sunday in the United States for knee surgery. It was the first trip to the United States for the 88-year-old Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader in seven years and his first overseas trip since November 2018, before the coronavirus pandemic. He lives in exile in Dharamsala, northern India,  After landing at Teterboro Airport, in New Jersey, he was greeted by people holding traditional khata white scarves, chanting, singing, waving flags and wishing him a quick recovery from the operation on his right knee. “It’s a moment of profound joy and spiritual fulfillment for us,” said Tsering Dickey, who traveled from New York with her family to see him at the airport. “Seeing His Holiness in person after such a long time brings hope and inspiration to our community and we hope and pray that his knee surgery goes well.” The Dalai Lama then traveled by car to New York, where thousands of well-wishers awaited him outside the Park Hyatt, lining up along 57th Street in Manhattan, where he will be staying. No public talks or engagements are currently planned for his visit.  The doctor suggested that successful right knee surgery would help his left knee function better as well, and that he may be able to walk properly within three weeks, Sikyong Pempa Tsering, the head of the Central Tibetan Administration, told RFA. Devotees wait for the arrival of the Dalai Lama outside of the airport in Teterboro, New Jersey, June 23, 2024. (RFA) The Dalai Lama enjoys strong support in the United States, where prominent lawmakers have spoken out about human rights issues in Tibet, though China considers him a separatist and has criticized those who meet with him.  The well-wishers included Tibetans and people from Himalayan regions, Mongolia, India, Vietnam, Bhutan and Nepal, as well as individuals from across the United States. “The presence of His Holiness here in the United States is a spiritual boon, as he is visiting after seven years,” said Tashi Kyiloe from New York. “It is a great opportunity for older people like me to receive his blessing.” The visit comes after the recent passage of a bill in the U.S. Congress that urgest the Chinese government to engage in dialogue with the Dalai Lama or his representatives, or democratically elected Tibetan leaders, to resolve the China-Tibet dispute. The Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Dispute Act, also known as the Resolve Tibet Act, calls on China to cease its propagation of disinformation about the history of Tibet, the Tibetan people and the Dalai Lama. Additional reporting by Nordhey Dolma, Jolep Chophel, Yeshi Tashi and Tashi Wangchuk. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [What was Vietnam thinking, welcoming Putin?](https://ij-reportika.com/what-was-vietnam-thinking-welcoming-putin/): Why did Hanoi welcome Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, for a state visit this past week?  Sure, invite him. Allow Russian state media to speculate on a visit. Meet with his underlings. But to actually unfurl the red carpet for a leader whose global travel has been sharply curbed by an International Criminal Court arrest warrant ?  From geopolitical, domestic, economic, and ideological points of view, it makes little sense – unless the rising security faction is dictating what happens within the Communist Party of Vietnam.  Some 15 deals on economic, educational, and political cooperation were signed. But those items could have been agreed upon without Putin&#8217;s presence. That was the smokescreen, however.    General Secretary of Vietnam’s Communist Party Nguyen Phu Trong, fourth from right, meets with Russia&#8217;s President Vladimir Putin, center left, in Hanoi, June 20, 2024. (Vietnam News Agency via AFP) RELATED STORIES Putin visits Vietnam, aiming to renew Cold War ties Vietnam’s fraternal ties with Russia are put to the test Bear East: RFA Special report on Russia’s influence in Asia The deepening ‘securitization’ of Vietnamese politics Russia was the largest provider of military equipment to Vietnam until 2022, but that was before it invaded Ukraine and depleted much of its arsenal.  Sales to Vietnam have tanked since. Nobody should look at how Russian equipment is faring in Ukraine and conclude, “I need some of that.” However, that’s apparently what the Vietnamese military is thinking.  According to a finance ministry document leaked to the media last year, Vietnam thinks it can buy weapons from Russia via payments to a joint Vietnamese and Russian oil venture in Siberia, which would allow it to avoid U.S. sanctions.  Missiles in mind The New York Times cited a Vietnamese official saying the secret deal will be worth $8 billion over the next two decades. Some reckon this is now Vietnamese government policy, which might explain Putin’s visit.  Some observers believe Hanoi wants aircraft and new naval vessels from Russia. Its navy badly needs an upgrade. And it really wants BrahMos cruise missiles developed by a joint Russian and Indian venture.  Beijing has apparently pressured Moscow not to sell to Hanoi. Given that Russia is now utterly dependent on China, it’s unlikely that Moscow would agree to the sale.  Maybe Hanoi thought that by giving Putin some international publicity and support through the visit, Putin would return the favor with missiles. Maybe Hanoi thought it needed Putin to be there in person to drive a hard bargain: “If you don’t give us what we want, we’ll go to South Korea for military equipment.” Cargo containers are seen in Quy Nhon port in Vietnam’s Binh Dinh province on March 29, 2024. (Tran Thi Minh Ha/AFP) But it’s a risky business. It’s hard to imagine the U.S. not responding to any such deal to buy Russian weapons, however cleverly it’s designed to get around sanctions, with very forceful sanctions.  Indeed, it’s hard to imagine this not impacting Vietnam’s economy more generally. The economy isn’t spectacular at the moment, and Hanoi really cannot afford to jeopardize relations with the U.S., its second-largest trade partner and primary export destination. It certainly cannot afford to do so when Donald Trump, who famously remarked that Vietnam is the “worst abuser” of the U.S. on trade, could soon return to the presidency.  ‘Securocrats’ in charge But this risk-taking may be the consequence of the “securocrats” having taken over the Communist Party of Vietnam, having used party chief Nguyen Phu Trong’s signature anti-corruption campaign to purge their rivals over the past 12 months.  Trong, now 80, did not look very well in his meeting with Putin. It’s still uncertain if he’ll make it to the next party congress in early 2026. My guess is that Trong is no longer the arbitrator he seemed to be until very recently. In this vacuum, the “securocrats” – officials of the security ministry  – have quickly forged a stranglehold over the party.  After last month’s changes to the Politburo, there are now just two economics-minded technocrats in the 16-member elite decision-making body, the lowest number in decades.  Vietnam Communist Party official Dinh Tien Dung, left, meets with Chinese Communist Party official Wang Huning in Beijing, Sept. 28, 2023. (Yan Yan/Xinhua via Getty Images) To Lam, the former public security minister and now president, is tipped to become the next party chief.  There is talk that the securocrats aren’t yet finished purging the party of their economic-minded rivals—those who would put up a fight within the party against any major military deal with the Russians.  Dinh Tien Dung, the Hanoi party chief and former finance minister, “resigned” this week and will likely soon exit the Politburo. It was probably the securocrats who lobbied hard for the Putin visit to happen, silencing those who we know from leaks were dead against it.  Flow of information The anti-graft campaign has certainly weakened the bureaucracy. Civil servants are so petrified of being reprimanded for potentially making mistakes, especially when it comes to using state money, that they’ve simply stopped making hard choices, leading to a bureaucratic slowdown and major problems in state capacity. The bigger concern should be whether bureaucratic fear has also impacted the flow of information within the party. Are underlings still willing to give their superiors unwelcome but honest news?  According to Nguyen Khac Giang, of the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, “the new [politburo] leaders…are more ‘thinkers’ than ‘doers,’ lacking significant achievements that justify their promotions. This reinforces the belief that in the uncertain context of the anti-corruption campaign, it is wiser for bureaucrats to play safe by doing less and surviving rather than taking risks.” To Lam is sworn in as Vietnam’s president at the National Assembly in Hanoi, May 22, 2024. (Nghia Duc/National Assembly via AP) Look north of the border and Xi Jinping, China’s paramount leader, has fully centralized power and thoroughly purged anyone competent or honest from the bureaucracy. It’s not that he has surrounded himself with...
- [In rare backtrack, junta says it will investigate senior monk’s shooting death](https://ij-reportika.com/in-rare-backtrack-junta-says-it-will-investigate-senior-monks-shooting-death/): Myanmar’s military junta announced Friday that it would investigate the shooting death of a senior Buddhist monk, just one day after junta-controlled media denied responsibility. Sayadaw Bhaddanta Munindabhivamsa, the abbot of Win Neinmitayon Monastery in the Bago region, was shot dead Wednesday in his car as it left an airport in the central Mandalay region.  Television broadcaster MRTV announced initially that the abbot’s car was caught in a firefight between junta troops and guerillas from the rebel People’s Defense Forces, a grassroots militia formed by citizens opposed to military rule.  But another monk who was in the car with him said the attack on the car was carried out by junta soldiers. On Friday, the junta’s chief minister for the Bago region visited the monks of the Win Neinmitayon Monastery and admitted that the military had published incorrect information.  The junta later announced that it would re-examine the incident and respond accordingly. Related Story Senior Myanmar monk shot dead by junta soldiers, colleague says Dhammaduta Buddhist University and the Patriotic Myanmar Monks Union in Yangon released a statement Thursday expressing their condolences over the death of Sayadaw Bhaddanta Munindabhivamsa. The Samgha Samagga, a monk’s association in Mandalay, also released a statement condemning the shooting, labeling the incident as terrorism. At the time of his death, Sayadaw Bhaddanta Munindabhivamsa was 77 years old and had been a monk for 57 years. He also held many advanced Buddhist literature degrees. Edited by Eugene Whong.
- [Collapse at notorious Myanmar rare earth mine kills 15 people](https://ij-reportika.com/collapse-at-notorious-myanmar-rare-earth-mine-kills-15-people/): Rescuers recovered the bodies of 15 mine workers in northern Myanmar on Friday after a landslide at a rare earths mine, residents said, the latest deaths in an unregulated industry feeding surging demand for the minerals in China and beyond. Thirty workers, most of them young men, were trapped in the Pang War mine in Kachin state when the collapse occurred at around midnight on Wednesday, a relative of one of the missing miners told Radio Free Asia. “Fifteen bodies have been found so far. Two women were among them,” said the resident who declined to be identified in fear of reprisals for talking to the media. “The rest haven’t been found.” It was the second major disaster at the mine this month. A June 4 landslide killed more than 20 people, including three Chinese nationals. A surge in the illegal mining of rare earth metals in northern Myanmar is being driven by demand from neighboring China for terbium and dysprosium – elements that are used in the production of electric vehicles, environmental activists say. Pang War is in an area under the control of junta forces but the mining and the pollution it generates are largely unregulated. RFA called Kachin state’s junta spokesperson, Moe Min Thein, for information on the landslide but he did not respond.  Environmentalists say companies from China, where mining has become increasingly regulated due to safety and environmental concerns, fund the mining and ship the ore across the nearby border for processing and sale on into global supply chains. Chinese nationals are increasingly seen working at the mines, residents say. RFA contacted China’s embassy in Myanmar for comment but it did not reply by the time of publication. The number of rare earth mines in resource-rich Kachin state grew by 40% between 2021 and 2023, the environmental group Global Witness said in a recent report. There are more than 300 mines in the state’s Special Region 1 of the township, it said. There has also been a surge of fighting in the state between junta forces and the autonomy-seeking Kachin Independence Army, at times over access to resources and trade routes. The increase in fighting this year has displaced and killed civilians and comes as forces of the junta that seized power in a 2021 coup have faced setbacks in several parts of the country including Kachin state. Environmental activists say all sides in Myanmar’s northernmost state seek profits from its resources, including the rare earths. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Taejun Kang.  
- [Xi Jinping visits Mao’s caves](https://ij-reportika.com/xi-jinping-visits-maos-caves/): President Xi Jinping has led top military brass on a pilgrimage of caves that were a key revolutionary base for the late supreme leader Mao Zedong, state media reported, a move analysts said was aimed at strengthening grip over the People&#8217;s Liberation Army. The cave complex of Yan&#8217;an, in northeast China, where Mao spent the formative years of the Chinese Communist Party leadership during the war with Japan, has become a symbol of ideological purity in China, and has been described by commentators as one of the &#8220;holy sites&#8221; of the Chinese revolution. The Yan&#8217;an conference marks &#8220;a return to the roots of the military,&#8221; state news agency Xinhua paraphrased Xi as saying. It comes after Xi fired Li Shangfu from his post as defense minister on Oct. 24, 2023, with no explanation given. A number of senior leaders of the People&#8217;s Liberation Army&#8217;s Rocket Corps, including the head of China&#8217;s nuclear arsenal, had also been fired by Xi in July. Yan&#8217;an is also where Mao launched a major &#8220;rectification&#8221; campaign, purging his opponents from party ranks. Newly elected Chinese Defense Minister Gen. Li Shangfu takes his oath during a session of China&#8217;s National People&#8217;s Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on March 12, 2023. (Andy Wong/AP) Commentators told RFA that the choice of Yan&#8217;an as a venue for Xi&#8217;s speech sent out a strong symbolic message. Xi told the political work conference in Shaanxi province that &#8220;the armed forces must always be led by those who are reliable and loyal to the party,&#8221; Xinhua reported. He warned of &#8220;deep-seated problems&#8221; in the military due to a &#8220;lack of ideals and beliefs.&#8221; Useful propaganda tool Communist troops arrived in Yan&#8217;an, on the poverty-stricken loess plateau of the Yellow River, in 1935, making their homes in caves and eating millet gruel every day until the tide swung their way in the civil war in 1948. The Yan&#8217;an period of Chinese history is a useful propaganda tool, because it came before the power struggles and political campaigns launched by Mao against his opponents threw the country into years of turmoil and cost millions of lives, and still carries a message of hope for many Chinese people. During a government-organized media tour, tourists visit the former residence of Chinese leader Mao Zedong at the Yangjialing Revolutionary Site in Yan&#8217;an, the headquarters of the Chinese Communist Party from 1936 to 1947, in Shaanxi province on May 10, 2021. (Hector Retamal/AFP) Current affairs commentator Cai Shenkun said Xi&#8217;s message was clear. &#8220;He is emphasizing the importance of who it is holding the gun,&#8221; Cai said. &#8220;It used to be said that the party should command the gun, but the key question is, who is actually holding it?&#8221; &#8220;Mao Zedong ruled the party with guns, Deng Xiaoping did the same,&#8221; he said in a reference to Mao&#8217;s successor who ordered the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre by People&#8217;s Liberation Army forces in Beijing. Wife promoted Meanwhile, Xi has reportedly promoted his wife Peng Liyuan, a former military singer who holds the rank of major-general, to a senior position in the Central Military Commission’s Cadre Assessment Committee, which approves appointments, according to senior political commentator Willy Lam. &#8220;Peng’s increasing public profile and potential elevation within the military hierarchy invites comparisons to Mao Zedong’s reliance on his fourth wife, Jiang Qing, during the Cultural Revolution,&#8221; Lam wrote in a commentary last month for the Jamestown Foundation . Cai said it is significant that the conference is being held ahead of the third plenum of the Central Committee next month, and can be seen as a message that Xi is strengthening his grip on the military. During a government-organized media tour, figures are displayed representing the former Chinese leader Mao Zedong at Dongfanghong Theatre in Yan&#8217;an, the headquarters of the Chinese Communist Party from 1936 to 1947, in Shaanxi province on May 10, 2021. (Hector Retamal/AFP) Current affairs commentator Guo Min agreed, saying that party control over the armed forces is a recurrent concern for Xi. &#8220;He&#8217;s talking about the absolute leadership of the party over the military, which basically means, his absolute command over the military,&#8221; Guo said. &#8220;Political work is actually about toeing the line, the same line as [Xi],&#8221; he said. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Putin visits Vietnam aiming to renew Cold War ties](https://ij-reportika.com/putin-visits-vietnam-aiming-to-renew-cold-war-ties/): Russian President Vladimir Putin was given a grand welcome with a 21-gun salute on Thursday after arriving in old ally Vietnam on a trip that is likely to be promoted by Moscow as more evidence of the West’s failure to isolate him over the invasion of Ukraine. Presiding over the ceremony was Vietnam’s new president, To Lam, and not the Communist Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong, due to the latter’s ailing health.  The two presidents saluted their countries’ flags before inspecting the guard of honor, who cheered “We wish the president good health!” In later talks, Lam congratulated Putin on his re-election and praised Russia’s achievements, including “domestic political stability,” Reuters reported.  The Vietnamese president told a press briefing that both Vietnam and Russia were committed to the principle of “not forming alliances nor agreements with third parties to take actions that harm each other’s independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and fundamental interests.” Putin arrived in Hanoi in the early hours from Pyongyang, where he and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed an agreement that pledges “mutual assistance in the event of aggression” against one of them. He was met at Hanoi’s airport by the head of Communist Party’s external affairs commission and a deputy prime minister in a much more low-key reception compared with the lavish fanfare laid on for him in North Korea. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Vietnam’s President To Lam at the welcome ceremony hosted at the Presidential Palace in Hanoi, Vietnam, June 20, 2024. (Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters) No major agreement is expected during the Russian president’s 24 hours in Hanoi but he’s scheduled to meet with, besides President To Lam, the general secretary of the Communist Party, the prime minister and the National Assembly’s chairman. Putin, who has been on a U.S. sanction list since 2022 for ordering the invasion of Ukraine, is also wanted by the International Criminal Court, or ICC. Vietnam is not a member of the ICC and so is under no obligation to act on its arrest warrant.  “Few countries now welcome Mr. Putin,” Australian Ambassador to Vietnam Andrew Goledzinowski wrote on social media platform X in a rare post by a foreign envoy. “But he needs to demonstrate that he is still a ‘world leader’. So Vietnam is doing him a huge favour and may expect favours in return.” No nuclear power, for now Ahead of his arrival in Hanoi, Putin praised the close ties between the two countries, who he said share “the same, or similar approaches” to current issues on the international agenda. “We are grateful to our Vietnamese friends for their balanced position on the Ukrainian crisis and for their desire to help find tangible ways to resolve it peacefully,” he wrote in an article on Vietnamese Communist Party’s mouthpiece Nhan Dan. Hanoi has declined to denounce the Russian invasion of Ukraine and did not take part in last weekend’s Ukraine peace summit in Switzerland, to which Russia was not invited. The Russian president said that trade and investment, especially in the energy industry sectors, were the two governments’ priorities.  Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom is “ready to help Vietnamese partners develop their national nuclear power industry,” he said. Russia maintains a strong global influence in nuclear power and is the world’s leading exporter of nuclear power plants. Yet Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh told Rosatom’s Director General Alexey Likhachev on Wednesday that his country “has not had any policy to return to developing nuclear power but will continue to research and consider nuclear energy as an important solution to achieve net zero emissions by 2050,” according to the Vietnam News Agency. Hanoi shelved a plan to build its first nuclear power plant  in 2016, citing lack of resources and concerns of safety. Vietnam’s President To Lam welcomes Russia’s President Vladimir Putin at the Presidential Palace in Hanoi, Vietnam, June 20, 2024. (Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters) Rosatom, however, is helping construct a nuclear science and technology research center in the southern province of Đồng Nai. Putin’s visit is generally seen as symbolic and could help strengthening interactions in traditional areas such as economy and investment, science and technology, education and training, culture and tourism, and also defense and security. Vietnam is one of the largest buyers of Russian arms and still relies on Moscow to maintain and upgrade its arsenal but no contract signing is envisaged during the visit. Russia is a traditional ally and supported Vietnam throughout the Cold War but the dynamics of the relationship have changed as Vietnam adopts a new multilateral, diversified foreign policy that enabled it to forge new partners such as the U.S. and Japan. “Russia will never again be a strategic partner for Vietnam. Moscow has chosen a different partner and a different strategic destiny,” the Australian Ambassador Goledzinowski wrote, apparently referring to Vietnam’s neighbor China. Hanoi and Beijing are at odds over their sovereignty claims in the South China Sea, an important waterway shared by several countries but China claims  having historic rights to more than 80% of it. Russia has maintained a neutral position in the South China Sea and is involved in many oil and gas projects in the region but it has recently voiced support for China’s rejection of “external interference”, or in other words, the role of the U.S. and its allies, in the region’s maritime disputes. Edited by Taejun Kang. 
- [Ecuador ends visa-free entry for Chinese nationals fleeing country](https://ij-reportika.com/ecuador-ends-visa-free-entry-for-chinese-nationals-fleeing-country/): Authorities in Ecuador have suspended visa-free entry to Chinese nationals starting July 1, citing a jump in arrivals, half of whom either overstay the terms of their entry or leave the country via &#8220;irregular routes&#8221; to other destinations, making them vulnerable to human traffickers. Ecuador&#8217;s capital Quito has become a well-known jumping off point for Chinese nationals planning to make the dangerous journey overland to Mexico prior to claiming political asylum in the United States, a grueling journey known as &#8220;walking the line.&#8221; The move, which was announced ahead of World Refugee Day on June 20, is a heavy blow for the &#8220;run&#8221; movement &#8212; a buzzword describing the mass exodus of people from China following the lifting of pandemic restrictions in late 2022. The meme took off during the grueling lockdowns, mass incarceration in quarantine camps and compulsory testing of Xi Jinping&#8217;s zero-COVID policy, which the government ended abruptly, following nationwide protests, in December 2022. Ecuador&#8217;s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Human Mobility said it was suspending visa-free entry to Chinese nationals due to &#8220;an unusual increase in irregular migratory flows of Chinese citizens &#8230; who would be using Ecuador as a starting point to reach other destinations.&#8221; Chinese migrants navigate thick brush after being smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico in Fronton, Texas, April 5, 2023. (Reuters) &#8220;In recent months, there has been a worrying increase in migratory flows from China,&#8221; the Ministry said in a June 18 statement posted to its official X account.  &#8220;50% of these entries have not left through regular routes and within the times established by law,&#8221; it said, adding that the ban will &#8220;[prevent] them from being victims of human trafficking or migrant smuggling.&#8221; Chinese border crossings Since last year, a total of 66,000 Chinese citizens have entered Ecuador, but only 34,000 have left the country through official routes, according to the ministry. The U.S. government has also reported a huge increase in the number of Chinese citizens seeking political asylum last year. More than 37,000 Chinese nationals were arrested at the U.S. southern land border in 2023, 10 times the number of the previous year. There was a small dip in the first three months of 2024, but numbers rebounded to 3,282 in April, according to U.S. government statistics. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said the visa-free arrangement had been in place since August 2016, and had &#8220;played an important and positive role in promoting cross-border travel and practical cooperation in various fields between the two countries.&#8221; While he didn&#8217;t directly address the mass exodus of Chinese nationals via Ecuador since the lifting of COVID-19 travel bans in 2022, he said the Chinese government continues to &#8220;work with relevant countries to jointly tackle human smuggling activities.&#8221; Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian speaks on June 18, 2024, in Beijing. (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, PRC) &#8220;The Chinese government firmly opposes all forms of human smuggling,&#8221; Lin told a news briefing in Beijing on Tuesday. &#8220;Chinese law enforcement departments are working with relevant countries to jointly tackle human smuggling activities, repatriate illegal immigrants and maintain a good order in cross-border travel,&#8221; he said. Trekking through the rainforest Performance artist and social media personality Chen Shaotian, also known as Brother Tian, documented his hazardous trek through the Central American rainforest after touching down in Quito in May 2023, via a video sharing platform. Chen, who has previously served a 14-month jail term for criticizing the Communist Party on social media, said his trip took him and a party of 200 other Chinese citizens through bus stations, border checkpoints, refugee camps and other facilities that have sprung up to serve the constant stream of people heading for the United States through Central America. Along the way, they were fleeced by corrupt police, paid fees to the &#8220;snakehead&#8221; people smuggling gangs, who charged extra for a more comfortable trek involving tents and horses, and robbed repeatedly along the way, Chen told RFA Mandarin after arriving in the United States. Chen said he flew to Turkey, then to Ecuador, before making his way northwards along the coast through Peru and Venezuela. Translated by Luisetta Mudie.
- [Putin to visit Vietnam to affirm traditional partnership](https://ij-reportika.com/putin-to-visit-vietnam-to-affirm-traditional-partnership/): On the afternoon of March 2, 2001, the packed hall at Hanoi&#8217;s Vietnam-Russia Friendship Palace erupted in cheers and applause as President Vladimir Putin walked in. The energetic 49-year-old shook hands and chatted with members of the audience before delivering a warm address.  A similar gathering of alumni of Russian universities and institutes is planned in Hanoi on Wednesday for Putin, who is in his fifth term as Russia’s president, and will be on his fifth visit to Vietnam.  Yet it’s hard to expect an equally enthusiastic welcome for the Russian leader this time in a country where, though fondness for Russia remains strong, its invasion of Ukraine has eroded some support, analysts say. A crowd of Hanoi’s residents try to reach visiting Russian President (L) for a hand-shake as the Russian leader leaves the temple of the Literature in Hanoi on March 2, 2001. (Hoang Dinh Nam/AFP) Russia has a close, long-standing relationship with Vietnam and is one of Hanoi’s few comprehensive strategic partners. However, after more than 20 years, the relationship between the old allies has changed substantially. Vietnam has adopted an open-door policy since the mid-1980s and has since normalized relations with countries it fought in the past, including China and the United States.   Hanoi takes great pride in its so-called bamboo diplomacy, that enables it to befriend  former foes while maintaining old friendships. “Putin’s visit is highly symbolic,” said Nguyen Ngoc Truong, a senior Vietnamese diplomat turned foreign affairs analyst. “It reflects Vietnam’s independent, self-reliant and multilateral foreign policy.” RELATED STORIES North Korea’s Kim promises Putin full support for Russia’s Ukraine war Vietnam’s fraternal ties with Russ are put to the test Bear East: RFA Special report on Russia’s influence in Asia “Vietnam invited U.S. and Chinese top leaders to visit last year so this visit shows once again that Hanoi is pursuing its foreign affairs principles without exception,” Truong told RFA. “There is still a part of Vietnam’s society that is deeply Russophile, but it is shrinking. The Ukraine war has also led to a shift in the way the Vietnamese public view Russia, and Putin personally,” the analyst added. ‘Low expectations’ Putin is set to arrive in Hanoi from Pyongyang where he held talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to boost the ties of two countries both at odds with the West. The Russian president is expected to spend about 24 hours in Hanoi and to meet the four most senior Vietnamese leaders – the general secretary of the Communist Party, the state president, the prime minister and the National Assembly’s chairman. Putin’s delegation will discuss cooperation projects in various areas, including energy and defense, but no major agreements are expected. Vietnamese police officers stand guard near the Opera House in preparation for the security rehearsal ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin&#8217;s visit to Vietnam, in Hanoi, Vietnam, June 19, 2024. (Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters) Trade between Vietnam and Russia stands at just US$3.7 billion, lagging far behind that with the United States &#8212; to the tune of US$97 billion &#8212; and with China &#8212; US$131 billion. Russia is still Vietnam’s biggest supplier of weapons but purchases have decreased markedly over the past five years and Hanoi did not place any new orders last year.  U.S. sanctions have also made payment to Russia difficult so the two sides would have to “discuss a new financial mechanism,” according to Nguyen The Phuong, a Vietnamese political scientist at the University of New South Wales in Australia. “It is impossible for Vietnam to wean off Russia’s weapons overnight,” Phuong said. “It still has to rely on Russia for a long time to come as it’s very hard to find alternative sources.” Russian experts said Vietnam will also be mindful not to irk the United States too much with Putin’s trip. “Vietnam as an export-oriented economy depends much more on the U.S. so it will act with an eye on Washington, and Beijing as those countries are much more important for Vietnam than Russia these days,” Kirill Kotkov, head of the Center for Far Eastern Countries Studies in St. Petersburg, told Russian media. “If there is a conflict with China, for instance, Russia will not be able to support Vietnam like we did in 1979 and the Vietnamese know that,” Kotkov added, referring to a brief but bloody Sino-Vietnam border war. Valuable partner Vietnam is not a member of the International Criminal Court, or ICC,  and so has no obligation to act on an arrest warrant it issued for in 2023 over alleged war crimes in Ukraine. Still, a spokesperson for the U.S. embassy in Hanoi, voiced disapproval of Putin’s visit. “No country should give Putin a platform to promote his war of aggression and otherwise allow him to normalize his atrocities,” the spokesperson told Reuters when asked about the impact of the visit on ties with the U.S. “If he is able to travel freely, it could normalize Russia&#8217;s blatant violations of international law.” Despite such U.S. misgivings, Hanoi remains a steadfast friend and partner to Moscow, analysts say. “Vietnam has never joined any anti-Russian forces and blocs, nor has it supported any embargoes or sanctions aimed at isolating Russia,” Russian analyst Grigory Trophymchuk, told the Vietnam News Agency. “For the Russian Federation, this is particularly valuable from a geopolitical point of view.” Vietnamese children play near Lenin statue in Hanoi, Vietnam, June 29, 2023. (Tran Viet Duc/RFA) Putin’s visit comes as Vietnam is going through an unprecedented upheaval in its domestic politics, largely because of an anti-corruption campaign, called “blazing furnace”, initiated by Communist Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong. The campaign, and the infighting it has generated, has led to the departure of six members of the party’s Politburo and the ascent of To Lam, a former minister of public security, to state president. General Secretary Trong – and not Vietnam’s president – is the host of Putin’s trip, as well as of the previous trips by U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi...
- [Thai Senate adopts historic bill legalizing same-sex marriage](https://ij-reportika.com/thai-senate-adopts-historic-bill-legalizing-same-sex-marriage/): People rejoiced in the streets of Bangkok and other Thai cities on Tuesday after the Senate passed a bill that puts Thailand on the cusp of becoming the first Southeast Asian nation to legalize same-sex marriage. With the two houses of the Thai legislature having now adopted legislation that provides equal marriage rights to LGBTQ people, the bill will become law within 120 days after the king signs it and it is published in the Royal Gazette. The legislation is expected to unlock previously denied legal rights for Thai same-sex and non-traditional couples, such as adoption or the ability to make health care decisions for their partners’ behalf, human rights activists said.  A majority of senators attending the session voted in favor of its passage. About 100 of the 250-member Senate were not present for the vote. Out of 152 voters, 130 approved, four disapproved and 18 abstained, said Gov. Singsuk Singprai, the first vice president of the Senate, who chaired Tuesday’s session. The scene outside Government House in Bangkok was filled with rainbow colors of the Pride flag as gay people and others gathered to celebrate this landmark moment for Thailand’s LGBTQ community.      “As an LGBTQ person who is in love and wants to marry another woman, we have long hoped that we would have equal rights and dignity, just like the heterosexual couples who can marry and start families,” Ann “Waaddao” Chumaporn, an LGBTQ organizer and community spokesperson, said during Tuesday’s Senate deliberations on the Marriage Equality Bill.    _________________________________RELATED STORYTogether three decades, Thai same-sex couple hopes for legal recognition _________________________________ The bill proposes replacing terms such as “husband” and “wife” with “spouse” in Section 1448 of Thailand’s Civil and Commercial Code.  “We hope that changes in Thailand will ignite a spark for other countries in Asia. Although this law is not 100% perfect, from an international human rights organization’s perspective, it makes Thai law more aligned with international standards,” Mookdapa Yangyuenpradorn, a Southeast Asian human rights associate at Fortify Rights, told BenarNews, an affiliate of Radio Free Asia. If and when the bill becomes law, Thailand would join Taiwan and Nepal as the only countries in Asia to recognize the rights of same-sex couples to wed. Members of the LGBTQ+ community celebrate after Thailand’s Senate passed a marriage equality bill to legalize same-sex unions, outside Government House in Bangkok, June 18, 2024. (Patipat Janthong/Reuters) Isa Gharti, a public policy researcher at Chiang Mai University, said the vote demonstrates progress in accepting sexual diversity. “This shows the societal advancement in Thailand in terms of accepting sexual diversity and safeguarding the rights of the LGBTQ community to equality both legally and in human dignity. This is a positive sign that will make Thai society more open, although there are still some voices of opposition,” Isa said. “Going forward, Thailand must also address deeply entrenched gender discrimination and biases in education, employment, and public health,” Isa said. “It’s essential to educate the public to foster understanding and reduce stigmatization of sexual diversity.” ‘Beautiful and powerful’ In Thailand, a Buddhist-majority politically conservative country, legislation around same-sex marriage has been more than two decades in the making.  An earlier marriage equality bill, introduced by opposition lawmakers from the progressive Move Forward Party, reached its second reading in November 2022, but didn’t move beyond that because of a series of legislative delays. It died when Parliament dissolved in March 2023 ahead of the general election two months later.  This year, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the current bill, with 400 of 415 lawmakers present endorsing it at its final reading in March. Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, who is a backer of marriage equality, has said his government was working toward Bangkok hosting World Pride 2028. “We have fought a long time because we believe in all equal rights,” Srettha wrote on his X account after the vote. “Today is our day. We celebrate to ‘diverse’ love, not ‘different’ [love]. Love is beautiful and powerful.’ Supporters of LGBTQ+ rights march toward Government House in Bangkok as they celebrate the Senate’s approval of a same-sex marriage bill, June 18, 2024. (James Wilson-Thai News Pix/BenarNews) The movement for legal recognition of same-sex marriage began during the Thaksin Shinawatra government in 2001. At the time, the Ministry of Interior proposed amendments to the marriage law, but dropped them because of public opposition. A military coup forced Thaksin from the prime minister’s office in 2006. In 2012, the government of Thaksin’s sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, introduced the Civil Partnership Bill for consideration. While this bill did not grant full marriage rights to same-sex couples, its progress was halted by another military coup in 2014 that drove her from the same office. The Move Forward Party proposed the Marriage Equality Bill in the lower House in 2022. Simultaneously, the administration of then-Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha submitted the Civil Partnership Bill for consideration.  While the two bills shared similarities, the Civil Partnership Bill would have established a “life partnership” status for same-sex couples, granting them fewer legal rights than “marriage.” The House term ended before either bill could be passed. After Tuesday’s Senate vote, Plaifah Kyoka Shodladd, an 18-year-old who identifies as non-binary, took the floor and thanked everyone who supported the legislation, calling it a “force of hope” that will help Thailand become more accepting of diversity, the Associated Press reported. “Today, love trumps prejudice,” Plaifah said. BenarNews is an online news outlet affiliated with Radio Free Asia.
- [US Condemns 'Aggressive' China After Collision with Philippine Ship in South China Sea](https://ij-reportika.com/us-condemns-aggressive-china-after-collision-with-philippine-ship-in-south-china-sea/): The United States has issued a strong condemnation of China following a collision between a Chinese vessel and a Philippine supply ship near Second Thomas Shoal in the disputed South China Sea. This incident, which occurred early Monday, is the latest in a series of increasingly tense confrontations in the strategically critical waterway, heightening concerns about the potential for global conflict. Both nations have blamed each other for the collision, with China asserting &#8220;indisputable sovereignty&#8221; over almost the entire South China Sea, including many features far from its mainland. The Philippines, along with other nations, disputes these claims. In a post on X, US Ambassador to Manila MaryKay Carlson condemned China’s &#8220;aggressive, dangerous maneuvers,&#8221; accusing them of causing bodily injury and damaging Philippine vessels. Although neither side reported injuries or significant damage, the incident escalated tensions just weeks after Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. warned that the death of any Filipino in the South China Sea would be considered close to an act of war. Marcos has been strengthening ties with the US, which has emphasized its &#8220;ironclad commitment&#8221; to a 1951 mutual defense treaty with the Philippines. This treaty obligates both nations to defend each other if attacked by a third party. US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller reiterated the US&#8217;s support for the Philippines, condemning China&#8217;s &#8220;escalatory and irresponsible actions.&#8221; Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell discussed the collision with Philippine Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs Maria Theresa Lazaro, emphasizing that China had obstructed the Philippines’ lawful maritime operations, infringing on their freedom of navigation. The collision marks the first such incident since China enacted a new law on Saturday allowing its coast guard to seize foreign ships and detain their crews for up to 60 days without trial. The Chinese coast guard accused the Philippine ship of ignoring warnings and approaching in a &#8220;deliberately and dangerously&#8221; unprofessional manner. In contrast, Philippine authorities accused Chinese ships of &#8220;dangerous maneuvers,&#8221; including ramming and towing Philippine vessels. Philippine army spokesperson Col. Francel Margareth Padilla highlighted that the main issue is the illegal presence and actions of Chinese vessels within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, infringing on their sovereignty. Second Thomas Shoal, a submerged reef located about 200 kilometers from the Philippine island of Palawan, is part of the Spratly Islands—a region claimed by multiple nations including China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and Taiwan. The shoal has strategic importance due to its proximity to potential oil and gas reserves. In 2016, an international tribunal in The Hague ruled in favor of the Philippines, declaring China had no legal basis for its extensive claims in the South China Sea. However, China has ignored this ruling, continuing to assert its dominance in the region. Over the past year, clashes between China Coast Guard ships and Philippine vessels have resulted in damage and injuries to Filipino sailors. The latest incident involved a Philippine ship on a mission to supply soldiers stationed on the BRP Sierra Madre, a rusting vessel grounded deliberately in 1999 to assert the Philippines’ territorial claims. The Chinese Coast Guard accused the Philippines of illegally delivering supplies and conducted measures including &#8220;warnings and interceptions&#8221; and forced evictions, claiming their actions were reasonable and professional. Philippine officials have broadly denounced China&#8217;s actions. Defense Minister Gilberto C. Teodoro Jr. stated that China&#8217;s &#8220;dangerous and reckless behavior&#8221; would be resisted by the Armed Forces of the Philippines, calling for the international community to recognize China as the primary obstacle to peace and stability in the South China Sea. This incident underscores the ongoing and intensifying disputes in the South China Sea, where China&#8217;s actions continue to challenge regional stability and international maritime laws. For a detailed analysis of China&#8217;s broader maritime activities, refer to our extensive report, &#8220;An Investigation into the Dubious Chinese Distant-Water Fishing Fleet (DWF).&#8221;
- [Guards beat dozens of female political prisoners in Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/guards-beat-dozens-of-female-political-prisoners-in-myanmar/): Myanmar prison authorities beat about 80 female political prisoners, critically injuring five of them, after prison authorities sparked a protest when they confiscated the women’s belongings, a human rights group told Radio Free Asia on Tuesday.  Many people have been imprisoned in Myanmar for their political beliefs and activity since a 2021 coup ended a decade of tentative democratic  reforms and triggered widespread opposition to military rule. Junta authorities have been accused of torture, extrajudicial killings and other abuses in Myanmar’s cramped and crumbling prisons. Tension in the Bago region’s Daik-U Prison began when guards seized food and personal belongings of about 40 political prisoners on Saturday, according to the Political Prisoner Network Myanmar. The women demanded their items back. As the disturbance grew, prison authorities punched and beat women prisoners and fired shots into the air, said a member of the rights group’s steering committee, Thaik Tun Oo.  “The five who were seriously injured are being treated at the prison’s clinic,” he told RFA, adding that they had suffered severe blows to the head.  Thirty of the victims were locked in cells following the riot, he said.  RFA contacted both the junta’s Prison Department and the Myanmar office of the International Committee of the Red Cross for more information on the situation but telephone calls and emails to both went unanswered. About 160 political prisoners, including many of the victims, had recently been transferred from Kyaikmaraw Prison in Mon state, as well as Bago’s Thayarwady Prison, known for its poor conditions and crumbling infrastructure, Thaik Tun Oo said.  Two prominent members of the political activist organizations 88 Generation Peace and Open Society, Nu Nu Aung and Khat Khat Lwin, are being held at Daik-U Prison, said sources close to Nu Nu Aung, who added that she had been injured in the disturbance.  According to the rights group the Assistance Association for the Political Prisoners, as of Monday, more than 9,000 of the 26,877 people arrested since the coup had been sentenced to prison terms. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Taejun Kang. 
- [Former top Tibet official under probe for corruption](https://ij-reportika.com/former-top-tibet-official-under-probe-for-corruption/): The Chinese Communist Party’s former top boss in Tibet is being investigated for “severe violations of discipline and law,” according to a statement from China’s anti-corruption body, using a euphemism commonly used to describe corruption.  Wu Yingjie, former party secretary of the Tibet Autonomous Region, is one of several top officials recently dismissed from the Chinese Communist Party amid a crackdown on officials past and present who have engaged in graft.  The move was praised by Tibetans on Chinese social media in a rare display of public opinion about such measures in China. “It is very good that this man has been arrested,” said one person. “This is good news for Tibetans,” said another.  “This enemy of the Tibetans has been captured and it will eliminate harm from the Tibetan people,” said a third. In 2022, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Wu, 67, for his policies in Tibet that “involved serious human rights abuse, including extrajudicial killings, physical abuse, arbitrary arrests, and mass detentions” in the far-western region. Additional abuses cited included forced sterilization, coerced abortion, restrictions on religious and political freedoms, and the torture of prisoners. Wu, who now serves on the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, is the first former party secretary of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, or TAR, to be placed under investigation and the eighth ministerial-level official to face a probe since the Communist Party’s National Congress in 2022.  The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission announced the investigation on June 16.    Other officials under investigation include Dong Yunhu, chief of the Shanghai legislature; Sun Zhigang, a former medical reform official; Han Yong, former chairman of the Shaanxi Provincial Committee of the Chinese People&#8217;s Political Consultative Conference; Gou Zhongwen, former sports minister; Tang Yijun, former justice minister; Tang Renjian, agriculture minister; and Li Yuefeng,  executive vice-chairman of the Central Committee of the Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League. Tibetans react Tibetans inside Tibet took to Chinese social media to express their scorn for Wu Yingjie, known for his crackdowns and repressive policies, a source inside Tibet told Radio Free Asia on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.  More than 760 comments appeared on a WeChat channel in response to a story about Wu’s investigation, all expressing support for the probe. Members of the Tibetan community in Belgium hold a demonstration to mark the celebration of the 57th Tibetan Uprising Day in front of the EU headquarters in Brussels on March 10, 2016. (Emmanuel Dunand/AFP) But at least one activist predicted the investigation would do nothing to change the plight of Tibetans. “Despite Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s investigation of  Wu Yingjie and other officials as part of the nation’s anti-corruption campaign, there will be no positive impact on Tibet and its related issues,” said Sangay Kyap, a Tibetan rights analyst. Shortly after Wu was promoted to party secretary in 2016, he issued a statement stressing the need for officials to “expand positive propaganda” and to “thoroughly expose and criticize” the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism. Wu also urged officials to “eliminate the negative influence” of the Dalai Lama’s use of religion and to guide believers to treat religion rationally. Under President Xi Jinping, Wu also intensified repressive measures in Tibet, including the establishment of Chinese-run boarding schools with a curriculum focused on the Chinese language that undermines Tibetan culture and language, said Bawa Kelsang Gyaltsen, representative of the Office of Tibet in Taiwan. “Wu Yingjie had been the CCP party secretary for the region, implementing severe and oppressive policies in Tibet for over 20 years,” he said, referring to the Chinese Communist Party. Another official, Jiang Jie, 58, a former senior political advisor in the TAR, was also indicted on charges of taking bribes by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate following an investigation, the body announced on June 14. Jiang Jie is shown in a Jan. 17, 2024 post on X. (@globaltimesnews via X) Prosecutors in Tianjin allege that Jiang, who is also a former vice chairman of the TAR’s Regional Committee of the Chinese People&#8217;s Political Consultative Conference, misused his various positions, including serving as mayor of Dongying in Shandong province and deputy head of the regional government, to unlawfully gain advantages for others in exchange for significant sums of money and valuables. Xinjiang official expelled In a related development, Li Pengxin, a former deputy secretary of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the region north of Tibet, has been expelled from the Communist Party and dismissed from public office for “serious violations of Party discipline and laws,” official Chinese media reported Monday. An investigation found that Li, 63, had lost his ideals and convictions, was dishonest about his problems, accepted money and valuables, took advantage of his former position to seek benefits for others, and was suspected of accepting bribes, according to a statement issued Monday by China’s anti-corruption body and the National Commission of Supervision. Li Pengxin is shown in a June 17, 2024 post on X. (@PD China via X) When Li was deputy secretary in Xinjiang from September 2016 to July 2021, he oversaw a crackdown on Uyghur educators, sending them to prison  At a meeting of party cadres in 2017, Li announced that prominent Uyghur scholar Tashpolat Teyip had been removed and replaced as president of Xinjiang University.  Afterwards, Teyip disappeared from public view, leading Uyghurs to believe he had been detained. Uyghurs interviewed by RFA in 2018, after news about his disappearance came to light, said they believed Teyip was removed amid an unprecedented ideological purge in Xinjiang against so-called “two-faced” Uyghur officials. The term is used by authorities to describe Uyghurs who do not willingly follow directives and exhibit signs of disloyalty. Additional reporting and translation by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan and Alim Seyoff for RFA Uyghur. Edited by Tenzin Pema, Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Interview with Ivlynn Yap (Executive Chairman: Citrine One Group)](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-with-ivlynn-yap-executive-chairman-citrine-one-group/): An interesting Interview with Ivlynn Yap Cheng Theng who is serving as the Executive Chairman of the Citrine One Group.
- [China says Philippine vessel causes collision in South China Sea](https://ij-reportika.com/china-says-philippine-vessel-causes-collision-in-south-china-sea/): China said a Philippine supply vessel “dangerously” approached its ship near a disputed atoll in the South China Sea on Monday, causing a collision but the Philippines dismissed the complaint as “deceptive and misleading.” The Chinese coast guard said in a statement a supply ship from the Philippines “illegally intruded into the waters adjacent to Ren&#8217;ai Reef,” using the Chinese name for the Second Thomas Shoal.  The Philippines deliberately ran a World War II-era warship, the BRP Sierra Madre, aground on the shoal in 1999 to serve as a military outpost. It runs regular rotation and resupply missions to the shoal, known as Ayungin in the Philippines. The Chinese coast guard added the Philippine supply ship ignored its warnings, violated international regulations for preventing collisions at sea and “deliberately and dangerously” approached the Chinese vessel in an “unprofessional manner, resulting in a collision.” “The responsibility lies entirely with the Philippines,” it said. The Philippine military said in response that it would not discuss operational details of what it calls “legal humanitarian rotation and resupply mission” at the shoal. “We will not dignify the deceptive and misleading claims of the China coast guard,” it said in a statement, adding that the main issue remained “the illegal presence and actions of Chinese vessels” within the Philippines’ EEZ. The Chinese actions not only infringe the sovereignty and sovereign rights of the Philippines but also escalate tensions in the region, it stated. Tensions between China and the Philippines at the shoal have in recent months been the most serious in years in the South China Sea, where six parties hold overlapping claims with China’s claim the most expansive, including more than 80% of the waters. New order China has been blocking the Philippines’ efforts to bring supplies to the marines stationed on the BRP Sierra Madre, saying the voyages violate China’s jurisdiction despite the reef being located well inside Manila’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). In March, Chinese coast guard and maritime militia vessels were accused of firing a water cannon at a Philippine supply boat near the shoal, causing significant damage to the vessel and injuring its crew. It is unclear whether a water cannon was used in the Monday incident and what damage the alleged collision caused to the vessels involved. The Chinese coast guard has issued a new order, which became effective on June 15, that allows its force to detain foreign vessels and crew suspected of “trespassing” into Chinese-claimed waters. Edited by Taejun Kang. 
- [Myanmar’s junta takes desperate measures to stem capital flight](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-junta-takes-desperate-measures-to-stem-capital-flight/): The rumors were everywhere: A politically connected crony, U Thein Wai, better known as Serge Pun, was called in for questioning.  While he was not arrested, the military’s questioning of the CEO of Yoma Bank and eight directors of other subsidiaries under his control is another indicator of just how dire Myanmar’s economic situation is.  The 71-year old Sino-Burmese tycoon sits atop a massive business empire of some 50 different interrelated companies. The most important of these are First Myanmar Investment Company (FMI), Serge Pun and Associates (SPA), and, of course, Yoma Bank.  While largely invested in real estate through Yoma Land, SPA is one of the largest conglomerates in the country, with investments in real estate, construction, banking and financial services, Suzuki automobile assembly, the KFC franchise and healthcare.  Yoma Bank is one of the largest private banks in Myanmar and has been in important overseas conduit, especially after the US government sanctioned two state banks in June 2023. Yoma Bank has ties to the military, lending to both the military-owned Mytel and Pinnacle Asia, which is owned by Min Aung Hlaing’s daughter, Khin Thiri Thet Mon. Yoma Bank CEO U Thein Wai, also known as Serge Pun, smiles as electronic trading commences during the opening day of trading at Yangon Stock Exchange, March 25, 2016. (Gemunu Amarasinghe/AP) In November 2022, the State Administrative Council, as the junta is formally called, bestowed on him the honorific Thiri Pyanchi, granted for outstanding performance.  Pun’s ties to the military are deep enough that the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation divested their 4.55% equity stake in Yoma Bank in December 2022, selling it to FMI. This is not to say that Pun has been completely pro-military. Compared to other cronies, he’s been much less so. He’s hedged his bets and incorporated holdings in Singapore and Hong Kong. Arguably he would be a lot wealthier were it not for the coup, but he’s worked within the reality of the coup. So what prompted the Office of the Chief of Military Security Affairs, the feared military intelligence service, to come calling? In short, facilitating capital flight.  Real estate roadshow In late May, a group of five executives of a real estate firm, Minn Thu Co., held an unauthorized roadshow, selling Bangkok condominiums. Minn Thu had allegedly established unauthorized bank accounts in Thailand to facilitate the sales.  Thai real estate is being pitched to Burmese as a safe investment at a time when the kyat has fallen to a record low of over 5,000 kyat per dollar, while soaring inflation eats into the currency’s purchasing power.  Gold has reached record rates: 5.8 million kyat per tical (15.2 grams, .54 oz) – 4.5 times the pre-coup rate of 1.3 million kyat. Over 20 gold dealers have been arrested recently, accused of engaging in speculation.  The beleaguered middle class is desperately searching for a place to park what’s left of their assets after more than three years of conflict. Four of the five businessmen who staged the roadshow have been arrested, and one other executive is at large.  A customer waits to withdraw money at Yoma Bank in Yangon, June 17, 2013. (Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters) To serve as a deterrent to others, the junta arrested three people who purchased the condos, having illegally transferred assets overseas. Yoma Bank is believed to have assisted in financing the purchases by  transferring assets to Bangkok in violation of the junta’s currency controls. Military intelligence officials are also investigating whether Yoma Bank is offering what are de facto mortgages for overseas real estate, as an investment vehicle, in contravention of Myanmar law. In recent days, the junta has expanded their investigation into over 100,000 private bank transfers. Capital flight began immediately after the coup. Radio Free Asia reported the purchase of THB2.5 billion (US$69 million) and THB 3.7 billion (US$100 million) in Thai real estate in 2022 and 2023, respectively.  In the first quarter of 2024, Burmese were the second largest group of foreign nationals to invest in Thai real estate, according to the Bangkok Post, having purchased at least 384 units, worth THB2.2 billion ($60 million). Estimates, though, are far higher, as many properties are believed to have been purchased using Thai nominees.  Focus on funds And of course, the revelation that junta leader Min Aung Hlaing’s own children have moved their own assets to Thailand was a huge embarrassment for the regime. Aung Pyae Sone owns a condominium worth around $1 million in Bangkok, while Khin Thiri Thet Mon has two accounts at Siam Commercial Bank.  Reports are emerging that Khin Sri Thet Mon purchased a condo in the ultra swank SCOPE Langsuan, which was completed in May 2023, and where a three bedroom unit sells for $4.2 million to over $15 million. The SAC has deployed uniformed personnel to both public and private banks since mid-2021 to block transfers to the civil disobedience movement, the National Unity Government, and ethnic resistance organizations. But soon after that, they also began monitoring capital flight. The junta is increasingly cracking down on the informal banking sector, known as hundi, that is used by at least 40 percent of overseas workers. In early June, the regime froze the accounts of 39 additional hundi dealers, following the crackdown on 20 others in January.  The hundi system keeps desperately needed foreign exchange out of the formal banking system, where people and companies are forced to convert it to kyat at artificially low exchange rates. Given the state of the economy, capital flight is the rational choice for Burmese with the means.. Myanmar junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing and his wife, Kyu Kyu Hla, visit a Buddhist monastery in Thailand in February 2018. (Myanmar military) The World Bank has reported on the dire state of the economy, which has shrunk by nearly 20% since the coup. The poverty rate is now 32%, while 2024 GDP growth estimates have been halved to 1%.  The NUG estimates that the junta has printed 30 trillion kyat...
- [Government mum about Hun Sen audio calling for opposition to be 'smashed'](https://ij-reportika.com/government-mum-about-hun-sen-audio-calling-for-opposition-to-be-smashed/): Former Prime Minister Hun Sen encouraged supporters of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party to “smash” and “destroy” opposition political activists in audio comments that circulated on Khmer social media this week. The Cambodian government has neither confirmed nor denied the veracity of the audio, which circulated widely on Facebook and other social media. Listeners say it sounds like the veteran leader, who currently serves as Senate president. It was purportedly recorded at a party meeting last week. “Please all city, capital and provincial presidents of the party, be informed that in the past few weeks I sent a decision pertaining to a group of people who are experts in destroying the grassroots,” Hun Sen says in the audio. “You must smash this force to a point that they no longer disturb us, let’s make it clear,” he said. “While we destroy their forces, we can persuade them to join us.” In August, Hun Sen stepped down as prime minister, a position he held since 1985, allowing his son to take over. But he retains power as the president of the Senate and head of the Cambodian People’s Party, or CPP. The run-up to the July 2023 parliamentary elections saw a months-long campaign of intimidation and threats against opposition leaders and activists. Some activists were persuaded to publicly switch their allegiance to the CPP.  Additionally, the National Election Committee ruled that the main opposition Candlelight Party couldn’t appear on the ballot, citing inadequate paperwork. The decision paved the way for the CPP to win 120 of 125 seats in the National Assembly. Cambodia also held Senate elections in February and local provincial, municipal and district elections in May. Care for the new ‘brothers and sisters’ In the audio, Hun Sen urged CPP officials to work on persuading opposition activists to defect now – instead of waiting to act months before the next round of elections.  Cambodia has local commune council elections scheduled for 2027. Its next parliamentary election is set to take place in 2028. Supporters of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party participate in a campaign rally in Phnom Penh on July 21, 2023. (Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP) Efforts should include incorporating party switchers into the CPP’s party structure and encouraging them to recruit more defectors, Hun Sen said. “I ask the provincial party and local party offices to expeditiously administer these brothers and sisters [defectors] so they do not feel left out, or that there is a lack of care for them by the local party branches,” he said.  “Let’s declare the incorporation [of the defectors] into the party from now,” he said. “Let’s break their grassroot bases now so that they do not have base support.” Hun Sen is an avid social media user, with 14 million followers on Facebook and 925,000 on TikTok. RFA messaged Hun Sen on Facebook on Wednesday to verify the audio, but he hadn’t responded by Friday. RFA was also unable to reach government spokesman Pen Bona for comment. ‘Psychological threat’ Eng Chhai Eang, a former opposition lawmaker who now lives in the United States, said the audio was forwarded to him last week after a CPP official had sent it to opposition activists in Cambodia. He told RFA he believed the audio was real and reflects Hun Sen’s longtime approach to political opponents. Eng Chhai Eang continues to serve as the vice president of the Cambodian National Rescue Party, or CNRP, which was the main opposition party until it was banned by the Supreme Court in 2017. “His vicious deeds started after the CNRP dissolution,” he said. “He ordered attacks against those who refused to defect. Any activists were attacked.” The audio was probably intended as a “a psychological threat,” according to Rong Chhun, a prominent opposition activist who is an adviser to the opposition National Power Party, which was founded last year. Translated by Yun Samean and Sok Ry Sum. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [China's dependency on potash imports could give tiny Laos rare leverage](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-dependency-on-potash-imports-could-give-tiny-laos-rare-leverage/): Let’s start with the good news – potentially great news, in fact – for Southeast Asia: Laos could be sitting on 10 billion tons of potash, one of the three main fertilizers used in global agriculture.  In 2022, a subsidiary of the Chinese company Asia-Potash International announced a $4.3 billion investment in a potash mining venture in Khammouane province. This deal grants exploration rights to 48 square kilometers for potassium ore.  The company reckons it can start with producing 1 million metric tons of potash annually, scale up to 5 million tons by 2025 and eventually reach 7 to 10 million tons. For a comparison, Canada, the world&#8217;s largest potash producer, exported around 23 million metric tons, valued at approximately $6.6 billion, in 2023. In 2022, Laos&#8217;s potash exports were valued at approximately $580 million, representing about 1.7 percent of global supply. It isn’t inconceivable that Laos will become a global player.  Location helps Laos Geography is key. Next door is China, the world&#8217;s largest importer of food and food inputs, and the world’s third-biggest purchaser of potash. China imports around 8 million metric tons each year, about half of its demand, although that is increasing.  China is the world’s biggest producer of potatoes, which are very reliant on potassium. China’s potato heartlands – Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan provinces – are on Laos’ doorstep. Guangdong province, China’s main banana producer, isn’t too far away.  There’s ample room for Laos to expand potash exports in Southeast Asia, too. Indonesia, the world’s fourth-largest potash importer, bought around $2.1 billion worth in 2022, with Laos holding a 6 percent market share.  Malaysia, the sixth-largest importer, spent around $1 billion on potash, with Laos having a 2 percent share. Laos is already the largest supplier of potash to Vietnam, with exports worth about $82 million in 2022. Officials with Sino-Agri International Potash Co., Ltd. and the Lao government sign a memorandum of understanding March 24, 2023, to build a smart eco-industrial city in Khammouane province. (Pathedlao) If, for instance, Laos was to replace suppliers like Jordan and Israel and capture a 20% share of China’s potash import market, its exports could rise to around US$750-800 million, making potash Laos’ second-largest export product, after energy.  Right now, the spot price for potassium chloride is US$307 per metric ton. So, loosely, 10 million tons exported a year would bring in around US$3 billion.  Expectations shouldn’t be that high, though. It’s one thing for a Chinese investor to promise to produce 10 million tons a year and it’s another thing for it to actually deliver it.  And because it&#8217;s a Chinese firm selling the goods, most of the money won’t stay in Laos. And there are already the same complaints as with every Chinese investment: Asia-Potash International isn’t hiring local workers.  Geopolitics Nonetheless, estimates vary, but there still could be between $30 million and $300 million in annual revenue for the Lao state. Almost certainly it will be towards the lower end, but it’s not to be sniffed at by the badly-indebted government.  However, consider the geostrategic implications.  Up until now, China hasn’t really needed Laos. It lacks the strategic importance of Cambodia, with its naval base on the Gulf of Thailand, or the trade routes offered by Myanmar, where China is developing a $7 billion port to access the Indian Ocean for oil and LNG imports from the Gulf.  In 2022, Laos accounted for a mere 0.1 percent of China&#8217;s total imports; food makes up less than a tenth of that, so Laos isn’t a solution to China’s future food insecurity. A bulldozer works on a large hill of potash at the Dead Sea Works in Israel&#8217;s Sodom area, Feb. 16, 2016. (Menahem Kahana/AFP) China’s primary import from Laos is pulped paper, not energy. Instead, China constructs hydropower dams and coal-fired stations in Laos, which generate electricity sold to Thailand and Vietnam.  Geostrategically, Laos is a useful ally for Beijing to have because of its ASEAN membership, but Vientiane holds little weight in the regional bloc.  Should something drastic occur in Laos – such as the fall of the ruling communist party or the emergence of an anti-China government – Beijing would be displeased and Chinese investments would be at risk, but China&#8217;s national security would be unaffected.  That situation changes if Laos becomes a significant supplier of potash. If projections are correct and Laos can produce between 7-10 million tons of potash annually, it could theoretically more than meet China’s entire import demand. That makes Laos a national security interest for Beijing. Food security The Chinese government is preparing itself for military conflict. It knows that in the event it launches an invasion of Taiwan or attacks a rival state in the South China Sea, the West will hammer it with economic sanctions so damaging it would make the retribution reaped on Russia look like a slap on the wrist.  Self-sufficiency and diversification are the buzzwords. But it’s doubtful that China – arguably the country most dependent on world trade and on U.S. protection of shipping routes – could survive such sanctions.  Even short of war, food security has long been a major concern for China., for reasons too long to go into. According to Xi Jinping, the supreme leader, food security is the “foundation for national security.”  Beijing is also concerned that its reliance on imported fertilizer inputs “could pose a major threat to its food security”. There’s no way China can achieve the food self-sufficiency that Xi wants, as was spelled out in a detailed study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a U.S. thinktank. Farmers operate rice seedling transplanters in Taizhou, in eastern China&#8217;s Jiangsu province, June 12, 2024. (AFP) China can domestically produce enough nitrogen and phosphate fertilizers, the latter essential for phosphate-hungry rice. But almost all of China’s phosphate is produced in Xinjiang and Tibet, far away from the rice-growing Han heartland and where the local population is largely hostile to rule by Beijing. China will remain...
- [Junta troops destroy roads in northern Myanmar as renewed fighting looms](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-troops-destroy-roads-in-northern-myanmar-as-renewed-fighting-looms/): Military junta troops have destroyed major roads that connect several towns and cities controlled by rebel forces in northern Myanmar’s Shan State in what could be preparation for renewed fighting in the area, residents told Radio Free Asia. Junta forces used bulldozers on Wednesday to damage a road connecting Namtu township and Namsang Man Ton, which has been under the control of the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA. On Thursday, junta bulldozers made a section of the Lashio-Hsenwi road impassable. That part of the road, which leads to Hsenwi, Kun Long and Chinshwehaw townships, is an area controlled by the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA. The TNLA, MNDAA and Arakan Army together make up the Three Brotherhood Alliance, which in October launched an offensive that has dealt the military a series of defeats, pushing government forces back. Residents of Lashio told RFA that security has been tightened at the entrance to the strategic town, which is home to the military’s northeast command headquarters. The road leading to Lashio city under the control of Brigade 6 of the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) was destroyed by the junta, June 13, 2024. (PSLF/TNLA News via Telegram) That’s likely a reaction to a nearby buildup of forces by the Three Brotherhood Alliance, a resident told RFA on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “It’s been apparent that the junta has also been gathering its forces and weapons near the area controlled by the ethnic armed organizations,” the resident said.  “Moreover, insurgent forces have been seen near Lashio,” the resident. “And now the roads to Lashio have been cut off. It is expected that conflict will occur very soon.” Ceasefire violation A resident of Moe Meik township, who requested not to be named, told RFA that people are already fleeing to safe areas ahead of expected armed clashes between the junta and the alliance. “We have learned that the ethnic alliance force is headed to this area,” he said. “Almost all the people have left the town now.” The destroyed roads have led to a rise in the price of rice and other goods, a Namtu township resident told RFA. Gasoline has increased from 3,600 kyat (US$1.72) to 4,000 kyat (US$1.91) per liter and is being sold on a limited basis, he said. In nearby Kutkai township, the price of rice has risen by 50,000 kyat (US$24) per bag as people rush to buy supplies, a resident there said. Three Brotherhood Alliance and junta representatives agreed to a Chinese-brokered ceasefire during a round of talks in January. Less than a week after the agreement, both sides were accused of violating the deal.  Members of the Kokang army (MNDAA) clean up the Rantheshan camp, which they had just captured, October 29, 2023. (The Ko Kang via Facebook) Junta forces carried out artillery shelling on June 9 on a TNLA outpost between Pang Tin and Man Pying villages, which is located about 32 kilometers (20 miles) away from Moe Meik.  Troop movements and other preparations by the TNLA are in response to the shelling, several residents said. TNLA spokeswoman Lway Yay Oo told RFA that the junta is violating the January ceasefire agreement, and they will carry out retaliatory attacks if junta troops conduct more military action. “It was found that the junta has sent more drones and forces in northern Shan state. They are also cutting off routes,” he said. “It is deliberately creating fear in the public.” Calls by RFA to junta spokesperson Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun for a response to the TNLA spokeswoman’s remark went unanswered.    It’s unlikely that members of the Three Brotherhood Alliance would accept another ceasefire, military and political commentator Hla Kyaw Zaw said. “Even if China tries to prevent it again, the TNLA will not stop its mission,” he said. “Now that the junta has cut through the roads, the TNLA has reason to attack.” Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [Interview with Abduweli Ayup (Project Manager at Uyghur Hjelp)](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-with-abduweli-ayup-project-manager-at-uyghur-hjelp/): Interview with renowned Uyghur activist Abduweli Ayup, serving as the Project Manager at Uyghur Hjelp discussing their causes.
- [Exiled Tibetan political leader honored with democracy medal](https://ij-reportika.com/exiled-tibetan-political-leader-honored-with-democracy-medal/): The leader of Tibet’s government-in-exile on Thursday won the Democracy Service Medal from the U.S.-based National Endowment for Democracy, recognizing Sikyong Penpa Tsering’s commitment to advancing democracy and promoting the dignity of the Tibetan people.  In his acceptance speech, Tsering dedicated the award to Tibetans inside Tibet and in exile, and to the Dalai Lama, acknowledging the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader’s role in defending democracy and human rights for all Tibetans. &#8220;I am an ordinary person, but His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama is the architect and spirit behind everything that we are now or what we have today,” he said. during the award ceremony at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington.  “This award is for the people I serve,” said Tsering, who is head of the Central Tibetan Administration. The award, which honors people defending democracy worldwide, was also given to former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, Russian opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza and Free Belarus leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. The Dalai Lama reacts after receiving the National Endowment for Democracy&#8217;s Democracy Service Medal during a ceremony at the Library of Congress in Washington, Feb. 19, 2010. (Jason Reed/Reuters) Since taking office after winning the 2021 democratic elections which saw a 77% voter turnout, Sikyong Penpa Tsering has worked to counter Chinese influence and mobilised Tibet’s allies to speak up against the suppression of cultural identity within Tibet, said Castro.  “In recognition of those efforts, it’s my honour to present the 2024 democracy service medal to Sikyong Penpa Tsering on behalf of the National Endowment for Democracy. Also on Thursday, the Tibet Action Institute received the endowment’s Democracy Award for its work in documenting the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts to erase Tibetan children&#8217;s identity by forcibly enrolling them in state-run boarding schools in Tibet.  The Regional Center for Human Rights and the Waey Organisation also received the Democracy Award. The National Endowment for Democracy, founded in 1983, promotes democracy worldwide through grants funded primarily by the U.S. Congress. Resolve Tibet Act The ceremony came a day after the U.S. Congress passed the Resolve Tibet Act, urging China to resolve the Tibet-China dispute through dialogue. It now awaits President Joe Biden&#8217;s signature to become law. It calls on Beijing to resume dialogue with the Dalai Lama, who is the spiritual leader of Tibet, and other Tibetan leaders about how Tibet is governed. No formal talks have taken place since 2010. The National Endowment for Democracy&#8217;s Democracy Service Medal is pictured before being presented to the Dalai Lama at the Library of Congress in Washington, Feb. 19, 2010.  (Jason Reed/Reuters) Tsering welcomed the passage of the bill and expressed hope that Biden would sign it into law soon.  He also confirmed that a congressional bipartisan delegation led by Rep. Michael McCaul and which includes Pelosi, is set to meet with the Dalai Lama and Central Tibetan Administration leaders in India on June 19. Tsering also presented Pelosi — a long-time Tibet supporter and strong China critic — with her award, while lauding her unwavering fight for democracy, and against authoritarianism, everywhere. Pelosi commended the endowment for its efforts to highlight global injustices. “One of the cruelest tactics used by oppressors is to imprison people and make them disappear, hoping they will be forgotten.” she said.  “But we do not forget them,” she said. “Our members of Congress, in a bipartisan manner, consistently raise their names—whether on the House floor, in meetings with heads of state, or during visits to other countries.” Additional reporting by Yeshi Tashi and Tenzin Pema. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Allied ethnic forces capture junta-occupied buildings in Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/allied-ethnic-forces-capture-junta-occupied-buildings-in-myanmar/): Five ethnic armed groups have joined forces to fight the junta for a township in Myanmar’s west, a group member told Radio Free Asia on Friday.  Chin Defense Forces, an umbrella term for several allied groups opposing the junta and active in seven of Chin state’s nine townships, captured an administration office and a police station in Matupi township on Tuesday.  Matupi-based junta Infantry Battalion 304 is using heavy weapons and its air force counterparts, said a member of the Chin Defense Forces.  “Now, the [township’s] administration office and police station were captured by our forces, but we are monitoring the situation for more airstrikes,” he said, asking to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. “We’re continuing to attack the junta’s infantry battalion.” Following clashes over Matupi town in early June, the junta sent reinforcements and tightened the perimeter around the buildings, he added. Chin Defense Forces Brigade 1 is composed of three allied groups, including Zoland’s People’s Defence Force, Mindat Chin Defense Force and Chin National Defense Force.  Other rebel armies, including the Rakhine-based Arakan Army and Magway-based Yaw Army, have also teamed to drive the junta out of Matupi, he said.  He did not disclose the number of casualties for the junta or Chin Defense Forces.  More than 8,000 people live in Matupi town, but nearly all have fled into nearby villages and India’s Mizoram, which neighbors Chin state, since 2023 when conflict began escalating between ethnic insurgent groups and the junta, residents said.  RFA phoned Chin state’s junta spokesperson Aung Cho for more information on the Chin Defense Force’s capture, but calls went unanswered. Joint Chin forces have captured small towns across Chin state, including Thantlang township’s Hnaring village, Hakha township’s Surkhur village, Falam township’s Webula and Rihkhawdar villages, Mindat township’s M’kwiimnu village and Kanpetlet township’s Kyin Dway village. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Taejun Kang. 
- [Dozens of officials carrying out Myanmar’s draft have been killed](https://ij-reportika.com/dozens-of-officials-carrying-out-myanmars-draft-have-been-killed/): More than 80 junta-appointed administrators across Myanmar have been assassinated for aiding or participating in the military conscription of civilians since the draft was announced in February, according to an RFA tally. In all, 82 village and ward administrators, clerks and others have been killed in the past four months, according to statements from the People’s Defense Force militias, largely made up of ordinary citizens who have taken up arms against the military rulers. Myanmar’s ruling junta activated the mandatory conscription law, dormant since 2010, as it lost ground — and troops — to ethnic armies and PDF guerilla fighters. The law allows for men ages 18 to 45 and women ages 18 to 35 to be drafted into the armed forces for two years. Medical doctors and other specialists up to age 45 must serve for three years.  Evading conscription is punishable by three to five years in prison and a fine. Rebel groups have sought to undermine the draft, and killing those ordered to carry it out has been one way.  “In the past, administrators were well-regarded by the people,” said a relative of an administrator killed in Yangon. “Now, they are becoming widely disliked by the public. Even after his death, his remaining family members face ostracism.” ‘Only one fitting punishment’ In Yangon, administrators in Kungyangon, Insein and North Dagon townships were killed after resistance forces warned them to resign, to stop supporting the junta, and to stop conscripting civilians. “If they continue these actions without compliance, then there is only one fitting punishment during the revolution,” said an official from the People&#8217;s Defense Force of Shwebo township in northwestern Myanmar’s Sagaing region. In the central Mandalay region, two dozen administrators have been killed during the past four months — the highest number of fatalities in a single region or state — followed by Magway region with 18 fatalities. Nearly 40 administrators have resigned, other officials said. People attend a lecture on the administrative rules of village administration law at the General Administration Department in Mahlaing township, Mandalay region, Myanmar, Feb. 1, 2024. (RFA) Residents say that some administrators are extorting amounts equivalent to hundreds of U.S. dollars from civilians who refuse to perform military service.   An administrator in Ayeyarwady region, who wished to remain anonymous for safety reasons, said he is waiting for the junta to approve his resignation. “I won’t continue because my family&#8217;s lives are in danger,” he said. “Although I have resigned, the head [of the township’s General Administration Department] will not accept it. As a result, our lives are now filled with chaos and uncertainty.” The military council has not issued any statements about the administrators’ deaths. ‘Alternative strategies’ A former military officer, who also requested anonymity for safety reasons, said civilian conscription efforts have not slowed down despite the number of administrators who have been killed. “If one administrator dies, the next assigned administrator will continue the task,” he said. “Killing individuals will not stop the process. If this method fails, the military will pursue alternative strategies.” The junta’s Central Body for Summoning People’s Military Servants based in Myanmar’s capital of Naypyitaw said it would work with security forces in relevant states and regions to step up protection for administrators. Political analyst Than Soe Naing said administrators are arbitrarily mistreating civilians under the pretext of the law. “There is no police department to lodge complaints about these cases, nor a court to file a lawsuit,” he said.  “When the public protests, they are met with gunfire, torture and imprisonment,” he said. “These actions have persisted, leading the public to resist this unjust law in acts of civil disobedience.” Translated by Kalyar Lwin for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster. 
- [Myanmar rebel group bombs gold shop chain, alleges its link with junta](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-rebel-group-bombs-gold-shop-chain-alleges-its-link-with-junta/): An insurgent militia in central Myanmar planted a bomb at a gold shop chain, alleging it was linked to the junta. The explosion injured six civilians, residents told Radio Free Asia on Thursday. The anti-junta group, No More Dictatorship People Defense Force, targeted a shop in Mandalay Division’s Chanayethazan township on Wednesday afternoon. “We know that Zwe Htet gold shops have been made with the shares of the junta council’s leaders,” said the leader of the group who goes by Charlie.  “So we carried out this [attack] with the intention of letting people know about one of the junta council’s economic pillars and telling people not to support them.” Zwe Htet is a national chain selling gold, jewelry and gems, with branches spanning Mandalay and Yangon’s commercial areas.  RFA has not been able to independently verify the guerilla group’s claims about the chain’s financial connections to the junta. The chain has not released any information about the attack. Junta soldiers and police arrived shortly after the blast, said one witness, asking to remain anonymous for security reasons.  “I went outside to see what happened right after I heard the explosion, but the gold shop’s doors were still shut,” he said. “Then the police came after a while and I saw an employee was carried out of the area.” Three of the shop’s employees and three other bystanders were injured in the attack blast, residents said. Mandalay Division’s junta spokesperson, Thein Htay, has not responded to RFA inquiries as of this writing.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Taejun Kang.
- [China gives 6 patrol boats to Myanmar’s military junta](https://ij-reportika.com/china-gives-6-patrol-boats-to-myanmars-military-junta/): China has delivered six patrol boats to Myanmar’s military junta, fulfilling a promise made in 2020 to the country’s previous democratically elected civilian government, the Chinese Embassy said in a statement on Wednesday. The patrol boats that were handed over in Yangon on Tuesday will be used in law enforcement efforts to control gambling and drug trafficking and in rescue and water resources protection activities, the embassy said. But a former army officer, who wished not to be named for security reasons, told RFA that the vessels could also be useful for naval military operations in Rakhine state, which has several well-traveled rivers and an Indian Ocean coastline. Rakhine state has seen intense fighting between military junta troops and the ethnic minority insurgent Arakan Army since last November. “If these boats are modified a little bit, weapons could be installed,” the former army officer said.  A navy patrol boat donated by China is docked at Lanmataw jetty in Yangon, Myanmar, June 12, 2024. (RFA) Four of the patrol boats are 48 meters long (157 feet), and the other two are 28 meters long (91 feet), the embassy said. The civilian government under the National League for Democracy first requested the vessels in 2018. China’s projects in Rakhine An agreement was made in 2020 during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s two-day visit to Myanmar, in which several deals were signed to implement multibillion dollar infrastructure projects under the Belt and Road Initiative. The projects include a US$1.3 billion deep-sea port in Rakhine state’s Kyaukphyu, as well as the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, a 620 km (1,000 mile) high-speed railway and road network that will run from China’s Kunming city through Myanmar’s major economic hubs and on to the port. The corridor will ultimately give China crucial access to the Indian Ocean at Kyaukphyu. The military junta removed the civilian government and seized power in February 2021. A resident of Kyaukphyu township who closely monitors the Chinese projects told RFA that the Chinese ambassador visited Kyaukphyu on Monday. Human Rights Watch found in 2022 that the Myanmar junta had used Japan-funded passenger ships during military operations in Rakhine state. “The Myanmar junta’s misuse of Japanese development aid for military purposes effectively makes Japan a backer of the junta’s military operations,” Asia program officer Teppei Kasai said at the time. When asked via email on Wednesday if the patrol boats could be used for military purposes, the Chinese Embassy in Myanmar directed RFA to a statement posted on its Facebook page. RFA’s attempts to contact junta spokesman Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun to ask about the patrol boats were unsuccessful on Wednesday. Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [Junta interrogation results in more deaths in Myanmar’s west: source](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-interrogation-results-in-more-deaths-in-myanmars-west-source/): Junta soldiers in Myanmar’s west interrogated dozens of detained villagers and tortured several to death, residents told Radio Free Asia.  The soldiers beat three of the arrested residents from Byain Phyu village in Rakhine State on Wednesday until they were rushed to the hospital, two eventually dying from their injuries, said one resident, declining to be named for security reasons.  “More than 40 people were sent to Sittwe Prison from the [junta’s] military interrogation yesterday. Three of them were close to death,” he said. “The three of them were sent to Sittwe Hospital. Two died yesterday, and the other one is seriously injured.” The bodies were covered in bruises and long cuts, he added. A family member who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals told RFA that those who were sent to prison also had serious injuries. “The [junta] said residents from the village will be jailed. The villagers were severely tortured when we went to see them,” he said. “My uncle is also among the people who were sent to prison.” Junta authorities stationed in the area filed a case against the detained residents under Section 17(1) of the Unlawful Association Act and Section 188 of the Penal Code for disobeying an order, said another resident. The charges allege that villagers were connected to the anti-junta Arakan Army. Junta’s move came as clashes intensify between the Arakan Army and junta forces, with the rebel group advancing closer to the state capital, which made Myanmar military ramp up its raids and interrogations in the surrounding areas.  On May 29, junta troops arrested residents of Byain Phyu village and killed over 70 people. The arrested villagers were interrogated about connections to insurgent armies, according to locals. Nearly 200 junta soldiers surrounded the village and detained a large but undisclosed number of men.  Women and children under 15 involved in the arrest were released on May 31, but the remaining 40 men were transferred from an interrogation center in Byain Phyu, Rakhine State, to a prison in Sittwe on Tuesday, residents reported. Separately, junta troops threatened residents from five villages near the state’s capital of Sittwe that they must evacuate by Friday. According to an Arakan Army statement, Byain Phyu’s death toll following the arrests reached 76 as of June 4.  RFA phoned Rakhine state’s junta spokesperson Hla Thein to confirm the two additional deaths reported on Wednesday, but he did not respond by the time of publication.  Junta spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun denied the mass arrests and killings through military-controlled media on June 4.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Taejun Kang. 
- [South Korea fires warning shots as North Korean soldiers cross border](https://ij-reportika.com/south-korea-fires-warning-shots-as-north-korean-soldiers-cross-border/): South Korean soldiers fired warning shots after a dozen soldiers from North Korea crossed one of the world’s most fortified borders earlier this week, the South’s military said Tuesday. The incident occurred at 12:30 p.m. on Sunday, as the soldiers crossed the military demarcation line, or MDL, that bisects the demilitarized zone, or DMZ, dividing the two Koreas, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said, adding that it was likely a mistake. “The area near the DMZ is heavily wooded, and the MDL signs are not clearly visible,” Lee Sung Joon, a spokesperson for the joint chiefs, told reporters at a news briefing. “Therefore, (they) were moving through the bush in a situation where there were no clear paths, and the South Korean military had been observing them even before they got close to the MDL.” After the warning shots were fired, the North Korean soldiers promptly crossed back over into North Korean territory, which Lee said resulted in the joint chiefs’ assessment that there was no intent to cross the MDL. North Korean escapees prepare to release balloons carrying leaflets and a banner denouncing North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for North Korea&#8217;s latest nuclear test, in Paju, near the border with North Korea, South Korea, on Sept. 15, 2016.  (Ahn Young-joon/AP) A joint chiefs of staff official told RFA Korean that the North Korean soldiers were a mere 50 meters inside South Korean territory and were there for only a short time. He said they were working with tools like pickaxes and it is assumed that they lost their way when they crossed. ‘Primary enemy’ The incident comes at a time when tensions are high on the Korean peninsula, with the North having this year defined the South as a primary enemy, and no longer referring to North and South Koreans as being “one race” – an ethno-nationalist, pro-unification phrase that has been used in both Koreas over the years. Since then, the North has tested missiles several times, and recently floated trash-filled balloons over the border, a nod to South Korea-based civil groups’ decades-old practice of launching their own balloons filled with anti-regime leaflets. South Korean soldiers examine various objects including what appeared to be trash from a balloon believed to have been sent by North Korea, in Incheon, South Korea, June 2, 2024. (Yonhap via Reuters) The incident occurred on the same day that the South Korean military made loudspeaker broadcasts audible in North Korea in response to the trash balloons. The joint chiefs said they would continue to monitor North Korean military movements and take “necessary measures in accordance with operational procedures.&#8221; Common occurrence Experts told RFA that border incursions like Sunday’s happen quite frequently and the South’s assessment of the situation was proper and justified. “Incidents like this have been pretty common along the militarized zone for the entirety of the armistice,” said Sydney Seiler, the former national intelligence officer for North Korea at the National Intelligence Council, an U.S. government organization that bridges policymakers with the intelligence community. “It would be unnatural or it would be strange to think of this as anything more complex than what&#8217;s been described.” A balloon believed to have been sent by North Korea, carrying various objects including what appeared to be trash and excrement, is seen over a rice field at Cheorwon, South Korea, May 29, 2024. (Yonhap via Reuters) He said one could imagine that North Korea might have wanted to test how South Korea would respond, but suggested that idea was “far-fetched” considering the circumstances. “Sometimes the simplest answer is the right answer,” he said. “I don&#8217;t think it was a significant event.” Gary Samore, the former White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction, and Patrick Cronin, the Hudson Institute’s Asia-Pacific security chair, both told RFA that they accepted South Korea’s assessment of the incident. Both also acknowledged that outside of Sunday’s incident, North Korea is currently increasing provocations with the South during a particularly tense period in inter-Korean relations. “Dictators like to play this game of ‘chicken’ because only they know whether they are serious about the use of lethal force,” said Cronin. “Meanwhile, democratically elected leaders are subject to harsh reactions from public opinion, which can be easily manipulated into thinking that a strong defense might trigger open conflict.” Translated by Leejin J. Chung. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Vietnam sets record in island building in 2024: report](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-sets-record-in-island-building-in-2024-report/): Vietnam’s island building in the South China Sea has reached a record with the total new land created in the first six months of this year equaling that of 2022 and 2023 combined, a U.S. independent think tank said. The Washington-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) said in its latest report that since November 2023, Vietnam has created 692 new acres (280 ha) of land across a total of 10 features within the Spratly archipelago. In comparison, it created 404 acres (163.5 ha) of land in the first 11 months of 2023 and 342 acres (138.4 ha) in 2022. Vietnam has reclaimed a total area of about half the area that China has built up, with much of Vietnam&#8217;s work on reefs China also claims. Of the two main island groups in the South China Sea, China occupies the Paracels, while the  Spratlys, to the south, are contested by several  countries. Vietnam occupies 27 features and has been carrying out large-scale reclamation works on some over the past year. Among the 10 largest features in the Spratlys, five are being developed by Hanoi, AMTI said. Vietnam’s features are much smaller than any of China’s so-called Big Three &#8211; Fiery Cross Reef, Mischief Reef and Subi Reef &#8211; artificial islands that Beijing developed and fully militarized.  Vietnam’s overall dredging and landfill totaled about 2,360 acres (955 ha), roughly half of China’s 4,650 acres (1881.7 ha).  The research group said  Vietnam’s reclamation was a major change. Just three years ago, the total amount of Vietnamese dredging and landfill was less than a tenth that of China’s.   Vietnam’s work includes the Barque Canada Reef, or Bai Thuyen Chai in Vietnamese, where the area nearly doubled over six months, from 238 acres (96.3 ha) to 412 acres (166.7 ha),  the group said. Vietnam says little about its work at the features apart from it is to protect them but not to expand them or change structures. There was no immediate government response to the AMTI report. A Vietnamese outpost in the Spratlys, May 2024. RFA/str Runway potential Six months ago, Radio Free Asia reported on the rapid expansion of Barque Canada Reef from the end of 2021. Chinese think tank the South China Sea Probing Initiative had said Hanoi may be building a second airfield on the reef but the latest satellite imagery shows no sign of that. Vietnam has one  1,300-meter runway on the Spratly Island, or Truong Sa Lon in Vietnamese, which can handle medium-sized military aircraft. The Barque Canada Reef “measures 4,318 meters in length, which makes it the only Vietnamese outpost so far with the potential to host a 3,000-meter runway” like those that China has, the think tank said. China’s three largest artificial islands are all equipped with runways that can accommodate bigger military transport, surveillance, and bomber aircraft. Satellite image of Barque Canada Reef, May 11, 2024. AMTI/Maxar Technologies Other features under Hanoi’s control that have undergone significant development since November 2023 are Discovery Great Reef, South Reef, Namyit Reef and Pearson Reef, according to the report. Vietnam “has continued implementing a mix of cutter-suction and clamshell dredging”, AMTI researchers said. A cutter suction dredger cuts the seabed into fragments with a rotating head. Material is sucked up by dredge pumps and discharged through pipes across sea and land. Scientists say cutter suction dredgers are more environmentally destructive and China has been criticized for using them. The Vietnamese public seems supportive of the  island building. Many social media commentators hail “the right strategy” in the face of China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea. Six parties – Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam – claim parts of the South China Sea as well as the islands and reefs inside it but China’s claims are the most expansive. A Philippine official, asked about Vietnam’s dredging and landfill work, said that Hanoi was reclaiming features that it occupied before a 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea. “Vietnam focuses on minding their own affairs,” Philippine coastguard spokesperson Jay Tarriela told reporters.  “They do not engage in harassing our fishermen or illegally deploying coast guard vessels and maritime militia in the waters surrounding our occupied maritime features,” he said. The Philippines has accused China of harassing fishermen and law enforcement agencies in Philippine waters, especially near the Scarborough and Second Thomas shoals. China says  it has “indisputable jurisdiction” over all the reefs and atolls in the Spratlys. Edited by RFA staff
- [Police video of detained unofficial Vietnamese monk allays fears](https://ij-reportika.com/police-video-of-detained-unofficial-vietnamese-monk-allays-fears/): Supporters of an unofficial monk who had become an internet hit but then disappeared for a few days after Vietnamese authorities detained him last week breathed a sigh of relief on Monday after police published a video of him receiving a new national ID card. Monday’s video of 43-year-old Le Anh Tu, better known as Thich Minh Tue, allayed concerns after an interview with him Friday on a state-run news program had raised suspicions about his well-being, and that he was speaking under duress. For the past month, Le Anh Tu had drawn ever-increasing attention on social media for his pilgrimage across Vietnam. Along the way, he also unwittingly became a symbol of what many people say is a lack of religious freedom in the country.  Sporting a shaved head, patched garments and an alms bowl, Tue is not recognized as a monk by the state-sanctioned Buddhist group — and indeed did not claim to be a monk, just someone trying to follow Buddha’s teachings. Authorities apparently became alarmed at the attention Tue was getting, and on June 2, officials detained him, saying he stopped his trek amid concerns about threatening social stability.  But monks with him said authorities forced them to disband in a midnight raid and took him to an undisclosed location. His case has drawn attention from a U.S. lawmaker and international rights groups. Viewed with suspicion For several days, the monk wasn’t heard from, spurring public concern.  Then on Friday, June 7, the state-run Vietnam Television, or VTV, aired a three-minute news bulletin in which Tue said he was safe and had chosen to end his pilgrimage because of traffic concerns.  But the VTV video was viewed with suspicion by social media users who noted that Tue was interviewed in front of a white-painted tree trunk, which is a marker typically found in strictly controlled areas, such as military barracks and prisons. They suggested Tue’s hand movements indicated that he was under stress and alleged that there was no reflection of his interviewer in his eyes. In that interview, Tue tells reporter Lien Lien that he “would have continued to cultivate outside [on a pilgrimage] if there had not been so many crowds, affecting traffic safety and social order.” In the video, which shows footage of him being thronged by what appears to be hundreds of followers, VTV slams what it says is false information about Tue’s arrest over the past week and claims that “opposing forces” have exploited his case “to distort Vietnam’s policy on religion.” ‘More reliable’ Then, on Monday, a second video of Tue appeared that allayed people’s concerns. It was a rather mundane video published by police in Gia Lai province, in southern Vietnam where his permanent residence was registered, showing Tue receiving a new national ID from the police department’s Order and Administration Management Division. In the video, Tue enters the division’s “Office for ID application and pick-up,” where he meets with a police officer who explains the card’s benefits, such as its use for air travel and health check-ups. Tue is then interviewed about his thoughts on receiving the new ID, which he says “will be very good if it can be used to ensure my right to self-cultivation.” The video ends with Tue saying that he is healthy enough to return to his study of the Buddha’s teachings. A screenshot from a Youtube video uploaded June 9, 2024 shows an interview aired by VTV with independent monk Thich Minh Tue, left, in which he said he agreed to stop walking the streets. (VTV24 via Youtube) On Monday, Nguyen Viet Dung, a former prisoner of conscience who on June 7 launched a petition demanding that Vietnamese authorities disclose Tue’s whereabouts, told RFA Vietnamese that while the public was “skeptical” about the VTV interview, “many agreed that the Gia Lai provincial police video was more reliable.” “The people’s greatest wish was to see their beloved monk be safe,” he said. “Therefore, their greatest wish, to a certain extent, has been fulfilled.” Family request to ‘protect image’ Meanwhile, a lawyer on Monday dismissed a claim made in the VTV video that Tue’s family had called on authorities to “handle those who took advantage of [his] images and uploaded them to social media,” saying that only Tue has the right to make such a request. On June 9, a document requesting the assistance of authorities, purportedly sent by Tue’s older brother Le Anh Tuan to police in Gia Lai’s Ia To commune, was circulated online, as well as a document asking police to verify that Tuan is Tue’s sibling. The second document was approved and signed by Ia To Commune Police Captain Ksor Hue. Neither of the documents were dated and RFA was unable to independently verify their authenticity. Regardless of whether the documents were indeed sent by Tue’s brother, lawyer Ha Huy Son of the Hanoi Bar Association told RFA that they would still be invalid under Vietnamese law. “As Mr. Minh Tue (whose real name is Le Anh Tu) is over 18 years old and has sufficient behavioral and legal capacity, defending his interests and privacy is his responsibility – no one can do it for him,” he said. Attempts by RFA to reach Tuan to verify the information in the two documents went unanswered Monday. Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
- [Airstrike targets insurgent meeting in Myanmar, 16 killed](https://ij-reportika.com/airstrike-targets-insurgent-meeting-in-myanmar-16-killed/): A Myanmar military airstrike on a meeting of anti-junta activists in a monastery in central Myanmar killed 16 people, including two monks, and wounded 22 people, witnesses told Radio Free Asia. The bloody raid in Let Pan Tan village was the latest in the central region of Sagaing, which has been rocked by violence since the military overthrew an elected government in 2021 triggering an insurgency by members of the majority Burman community in Myanmar’s heartland. Activists taking up arms against military rule have formed militias called People’s Defense Forces, linking up with ethnic minority insurgent groups  that have been battling for self-determination for decades in remote borderlands. One witness close to a People’s Defense Force said the military must have received a tip-off that the meeting was taking place on Saturday. “The bombardment was carried out while the people were in the meeting due to leaked information. How would they know from so far away?” said the source who declined to be identified for security reasons. “So it’s clear we should consider that there are spies and informers in the village or near the village, who are secretly collecting information about us.”  RFA was not able to contact People’s Defense Force groups in the region. Sagaing’s junta spokesperson, Nyunt Win Aung, did not answer telephone calls seeking comment. While junta troops have been pushed back in several parts of the country since allied anti-junta fighters went on the offensive late last year, the military can unleash devastating force in seconds with its jets. Anti-junta forces have no air power with the exception of drones, and little in the way of anti-aircraft weapon systems to face the threat. On June 3, a junta airstrike on a wedding in Sagaing’s Mingin township killed 33 people and wounded 64. RFA has not been able to verify whether the civilians were among the casualties in Let Pan Tan, where numerous buildings, including a second monastery, were damaged, the witnesses said. Military swoop for suspects Nine people at the meeting were killed on the spot and seven died later of their wounds, residents said. It was impossible to identify some of the victims, another witness, who also declined to be identified, told RFA.   “The bodies were badly damaged and disfigured,” said the witness, adding that several victims were decapitated. “There are quite a lot of people who got severely hurt and had their arms or legs severed (in the blast). There isn’t enough medicine for  everyone.” Early on Sunday, a convoy of junta troops raided Let Pan Tan village and arrested about 10 people, including women, the witness said. RFA was not able to verify that information. According to compiled data by the RFA, junta attacks have killed 662 civilians and injured 1,492 more nationwide from January to May 2024. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan. 
- [Hong Kong exiles in UK and Canada lack access to billions of their savings](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-exiles-in-uk-and-canada-lack-access-to-billions-of-their-savings/): In April 2023, Hong Kong Watch found that Hong Kongers were being denied access to up to £2.2 billion (US$2.8 billion) of their hard-earned Mandatory Provident Fund retirement savings. Fast forward one year, and the number has only increased to over £3 billion (US$3.8 billion).  This act of transnational repression is placing an unnecessary financial and mental strain on an estimated tens of thousands of Hong Kongers in the UK and Canada who moved abroad under British National (Overseas) (BNO) passports, set up to allow a permanent residence pathway for them.  The Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) is a compulsory retirement savings scheme for the people of Hong Kong. Hong Kongers can ordinarily withdraw their entire account early if they make a statutory declaration that they have departed Hong Kong permanently with no intention of returning to resettle.  However, the Mandatory Provident Fund Authority, which oversees the provision of MPF schemes, released a statement in March 2021 saying that because the BNO passport was no longer recognised by the Hong Kong government as a valid travel document and proof of identity as of Jan. 2021. This means that those trying to withdraw their savings early cannot rely on the BNO passport or visa to support an application for early withdrawal of their funds.  A protester raises his British National Overseas passports during a candlelight vigil to mark the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, in Hong Kong, June 4, 2020. (Tyrone Siu/Reuters) Despite this, the MPF-related legislation, regulations, and terms of the deeds governing entitlement to MPF benefits in Hong Kong remain unchanged. Under the MPF trust deed, trustees including those based overseas like HSBC, Standard Chartered, Manulife and Sun Life, have a legal obligation to release MPF to beneficiaries who are able to provide evidence of their right to reside in a foreign country.  There is no reason that a BNO passport or visa should be denied under this deed. However, the latest research from Hong Kong Watch includes case studies detailing how Hong Kongers continue to be denied access to their MPF on the grounds that they hold a BNO passport or visa.  This includes many Hong Kong families in the UK, from a single mother who is unable to afford a heater for her son due to being denied £57,000 (US$70,000) worth of her MPF, to a family of five that is unable to afford a wheelchair accessible property for their severely disabled child due to the withholding of their MPF.  Individual hardship Others with withheld savings struggle to adapt to their new environments for financial reasons, to assist relatives in escaping from increasing repression in Hong Kong, and to start desired business ventures in the UK or Canada. Since 2021 and as recently as last month, Hong Kong Watch has documented numerous rejection letters from MPF trustees to Hong Kongers denying the early withdrawal of their MPF on the grounds that the BNO visa or passport is not a valid form of identification per the Hong Kong government’s lawless declaration.  I have spoken with a Hong Konger who has £90,000 (US$114,000) frozen in MPF assets, and another who had obtained Canadian permanent residency and was still denied access to their MPF by Manulife for simply arriving in Canada with a BNO passport.  The latter case is especially concerning, particularly after Manulife’s Global Head of Government Relations for Canada, Maryscott Greenwood, testified before the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration on Monday and claimed that Manulife had never denied a Hong Konger access to their savings on the basis of holding a BNO visa.  Having seen a written transcript of a call between the Hong Konger who was denied access to their MPF and Manulife, in which Manulife said, “even if you hold Canadian PR, it’s ineligible to withdraw the fund as a BNO passport holder,” this is simply not true. Maryscott Greenwood, Manulife’s global head of Government Relations for Canada, testifies via video before the Canadian Parliament’s Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, June 3, 2024. (Image from Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration video) Sun Life’s Head of Global Government Affairs and Public Policy, Laura Hewitt, also testified in the hearing.  It was unfortunate but unsurprising that despite having productive meetings with Hong Kong Watch prior to the hearing, both Manulife and Sun Life executives delivered cautious, pre-prepared answers and repeatedly failed to respond to direct “yes”  or “no” questions from the Canadian Parliament.  Fortunately, members of the Canadian Parliament including Tom Kmiec, Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Greg McLean, Paul Chiang, Fayçal El-Khoury, and Jenny Kwan, who is herself a prior BNO visa holder, were not satisfied with these non-answers.  The MPs pressed the business representatives on why they have withheld Hong Kongers’ own savings from them since 2021. Tom Kmiec asked both companies: “Why are you still operating in an autocratic, totalitarian regime that is dominated by Beijing?” The question remains unanswered. Tasks for London and Ottawa The next UK government should vow to provide clarification to UK-based MPF trustees that the BNO visa is intended to lead to “permanent settlement and British citizenship” to show their support for Hong Kongers in Britain.  London  should also pledge to raise and condemn this form of transnational repression with their counterparts in Hong Kong. On the campaign trail, the future UK government has the opportunity to present these pledges to 140,000 eligible Hong Kong BNO voters. The Canadian government should work with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to change the designation of BNO passport and visa holders from GBN )Great Britain) to CHN (China) or HKG (Hong Kong) on Canadian permanent residency cards to prevent further retaliation from the Hong Kong government. A man waves to family members before leaving for the United Kingdom at the Hong Kong International Airport, June 30, 2021. (Tyrone Siu/Reuters) With a current backlog of 9,000 permanent residency applications for Hong Kongers in Canada, this will only become a greater administrative issue in the near future if IRCC labels the nationality of...
- [Interview with Judy Lin (Journalist and International Business Researcher)](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-with-judy-lin-journalist-and-international-business-researcher/): Interview with Judy Lin who is a Journalist and International Business Researcher, on various topics including Journalism and Technology.
- [Arakan Army treatment of Rohingya minority poses challenge to Myanmar opposition](https://ij-reportika.com/arakan-army-treatment-of-rohingya-minority-poses-challenge-to-myanmar-opposition/): Evidence of Arakan Army culpability in mass arson attacks on Rohingya homes in western Myanmar&#8217;s Buthidaung township – where satellite imagery has confirmed that more than 400 homes were burnt to the ground – poses a serious challenge to the anti-junta opposition. While such attacks have ceased since the Arakan Army captured the majority Rohingya town, the rebels&#8217; double-speak both weakens the prospects of an inclusive federal democracy, and is very shortsighted for the ethnic army’s leadership. As it is said, the truth is the first casualty in war, and so far here’s what we know happened: On May 18, the Arakan Army captured the last remaining four light infantry battalions and two border guard police camps in Buthidaung, following a multi-month siege. Immediately, over 400 homes in Rohingya residential neighborhoods were set ablaze. There is a chance of course that some of the fires were set by the retreating junta military, who had waged a genocidal campaign against the Rohingya in 2017-18. The military seems determined to stoke inter-communal tensions as it retreats from northern Rakhine state, and “false flag” operations are part of the military’s modus operandi. In a bizarre irony, the army has been conscripting Rohingya men into its depleted ranks to fight the Arakan Army, while at the same time, relying on radical groups, such as the Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO) and the Arakan Rohingya Solidarity Army (ARSA), operating in the refugee camps in Bangladesh to recruit fighters. Despite the military’s own culpability in ethnic cleansing, they are trying to paint themselves as defenders of the Rohingya community, as the Arakan Army settles old scores. If the Arakan Army continues such attacks, they are making an alliance between the military and radical Rohingya groups including ARSA and the RSO, inevitable. Flames from burning homes in Buthidaung in Rakhine state, are seen above the treetops in this image provided by a Rohingya refugee, May 17, 2024. (Image from video via AP) While this is not surprising, it is exceptionally short-sighted in its thinking and undermines the effort to defeat Myanmar’s military and establish a federal democracy.  This should not come as a surprise. The Arakan Army’s position on the Rohingya has been two faced. Its leader, Tun Mrat Naing, has a decade-long track record of referring to them as “Bengalis”, parroting the Myanmar military’s own term for the Rohingya.  The arson attacks have also increased tensions between the Arakan Army leadership and the National Unity Government (NUG). Following the military coup in February 2021, the Arakan Army made a very important, if not surprising, statement in support of the NUG position that the Rohingya were a persecuted minority who were entitled to full citizenship, and that the one million refugees in Bangladesh should be repatriated. More intransigent after military gains But with military gains since the Three Brotherhood Alliance launched its offensive on October 27, 2023, the Arakan Army has become far more intransigent. Its leadership has signaled this change to their constituents, whether in social media or simply by greenlighting attacks by local units. The Arakan Army’s military gains are significant. They now claim to have seized 180 military camps and taken full control of eight of Rakhine’s 17 townships. While they have not moved on the state capital of Sittwe or the Chinese special economic zone in Kyaukphyu, they are controlling the roads in and out of them.  Should the Arakan Army complete their capture of Maungdaw, they will have driven the military out of the entire northern region of Rakhine. While the ethnic Rakhine army has stated their intention to liberate the entire state, for now they are trying to control the three main entry points into the northern part of the state in order to consolidate their power.  The military has scant deployments in southern Rakhine, meaning that the Arakan Army’s takeover of the entire state is not unthinkable.  Arakan Army troops pose in Buthidaung, Myanmar, in an image posted to social media May 18, 2024. (AA Info Desk via VKontakte) The Arakan Army has proven itself to be amongst the most effective fighting forces among the ethnic armed organizations. Their battlefield advances have spread the military thin and not allowed the junta to redeploy troops to Kachin, Kayah or northern Shan states, where regime forces have suffered serious setbacks.  Likewise, in eastern Myanmar, though opposition forces had to give up the border town of Myawaddy, the military has not been able to regain full control of the key Asia Highway. In short, military success has given the Arakan Army the opportunity to advance their short-term and parochial political interests at the expense of the national agenda to defeat the military. The Arakan Army’s stated commitments to the anti junta opposition’s long-term political goals, as stated by the NUG, should always be taken with a grain of salt.  They are the only ethnic army that has flirted with independence, and their authoritarian leanings show they are hostile to democracy and any political system that would force them to share power.  Prejudice with huge implications The United League of Arakan, the AA’s political arm, issued a statement on May 20 that denied any culpability for the Rohingya village torchings, apportioning the blame solely on the military. Its statements since then have been largely dismissive and continue to deny the attacks, while criticizing media reporting on civilian casualties. But evidence of their culpability is mounting, underscoring the reality that the Arakan Army does not like the Rohingya population, nor does it want to see large-scale resettlement from Bangladesh. The Arakan Army’s politics capitalize on Rakhine Buddhist prejudice against the Muslim community. The Arakan Army leadership is under intense pressure to renounce any violence towards the Rohingya. But the reality is that many of their troops were involved in the communal violence against them. This is simply a return to their default setting. The Arakan Army’s position has larger implications.  While they might have moved on from the 2017 ethnic cleansing, the international community, including...
- [Experiences &amp; Aspirations of Foreign Students in the USA](https://ij-reportika.com/experiences-aspirations-of-foreign-students-in-the-usa/): Experiences and perspectives of students from China, India, and South Korea studying in universities across the United States of America. 
- [What misconceptions about your home country have you encountered while living in the USA?](https://ij-reportika.com/misconceptions-about-china-india-and-south-korea/): Download Complete Report: Click Here Misconceptions about China Chinese People Only Eat Raw Animals: 40% encountered misconceptions about Chinese people only eating raw animals. They clarified that Chinese cuisine is diverse and includes a wide range of cooked dishes, reflecting regional flavours and culinary traditions. No Ethnic Diversity: 25% students encountered misconceptions about China being home to only one ethnic group, with little recognition of its diverse population. They emphasized the rich tapestry of ethnicities and cultures within China, including Han Chinese as the majority but also numerous minority groups. Subpar Education System: 24% students encountered misconceptions about China having a subpar education system, with assumptions of lower academic standards and limited opportunities for intellectual growth. They emphasized the rigorous nature of education in China and the emphasis on academic excellence. High Crime Rates: 11% students encountered misconceptions about crime rates in China, with assumptions of high levels of criminal activity and insecurity. They highlighted China&#8217;s efforts in maintaining public safety and low crime rates in many areas. Misconceptions about India All Indians are Hindu: 31% students felt Many Americans wrongly assume that all Indians practice Hinduism, overlooking the religious diversity present in India, which includes significant populations of Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, and others. Indians are all IT professionals: 30% students felt that there&#8217;s a stereotype that all Indians are IT professionals or work in the tech industry. They clarified that while India has a significant presence in the global IT sector, its workforce is diverse, spanning various industries such as Agriculture, healthcare, finance, entertainment, and more. India is a land of poverty and slums: 24% students felt that there&#8217;s a misconception that India is uniformly impoverished and characterized by widespread slums. They highlighted that while poverty exists in India, there are also thriving urban centers, a growing middle class, and areas of affluence. Indians only eat spicy food: 15% students felt that another common stereotype in USA about India is that all Indian cuisine is excessively spicy. They said while Indian cuisine is known for its flavorful spices, there&#8217;s a wide variety of dishes with varying levels of spiciness, and not all Indian food is intensely spicy. Misconceptions about South Korea South Korea is Dangerous Due to North Korea: 34% students mentioned that Americans often confuse South Korea with North Korea, assuming that South Korea is a dangerous place due to its proximity and tense relationship with North Korea. This misconception overlooks the fact that South Korea is a developed, stable, and safe country. Pop Culture is All There Is: 25%&nbsp; students encountered the stereotype that South Korean culture is solely defined by K-pop, K-dramas, and other entertainment exports. While these are significant aspects of modern South Korean culture, they don&#8217;t encompass the country&#8217;s rich history, diverse traditions, and multifaceted society. Koreans are Overworked: 22% students noted that Americans often perceive South Koreans as being academically obsessed, and overworked. While the education system and work culture in South Korea are rigorous, this stereotype can overlook the balanced and fulfilling lives many South Koreans lead. Korea is Conservative: 13% highlighted the misconception that while South Korea is technologically advanced, its daily life remains overly conservative. Students pointed out that South Korea is a dynamic country where modernity and tradition coexist, and many aspects of daily life are quite progressive. Every Meal has Kimchi: 6% students mentioned that many Americans believe kimchi is a constant and mandatory part of every meal in South Korea. While kimchi is a staple in Korean cuisine, it is not the only food Koreans eat, and the cuisine is diverse and varied.
- [How likely are you to stay in USA and work towards your career aspirations?](https://ij-reportika.com/how-likely-are-foreign-students-to-stay-in-the-usa/): Download Complete Report: Click Here Very Likely India: A significant portion of 40% respondents expressed a strong likelihood of staying in the USA to pursue their career aspirations. They were driven by a desire to contribute to the development of the USA, influenced by success stories of Indian CEOs who studied in the West and achieved prominence. Additionally, they felt a sense of gratitude for the opportunities provided by the USA and sought to maintain connections to their Indian roots through cultural practices. South Korea: 32% students expressed a strong intention to stay in the USA after completing their studies. They cited reasons such as a sense of gratitude towards the country that provided them with educational opportunities, the desire to work for tech giants, and the potential for great professional exposure and career advancement in the USA. China: 11% students expressed a strong likelihood of staying in the USA to pursue their career aspirations. They cited opportunities for growth, access to advanced technology, and a conducive work environment. These students highlighted their adjustment to the environment and culture of the USA, planning to work in places like Silicon Valley or join multinational corporations such as Google, Apple, or OpenAI. Somewhat Likely South Korea: A larger group of 45% students indicated a moderate likelihood of staying in the USA. This group included those who were undecided about their long-term plans and might consider returning to South Korea or relocating to another country. However, many in this category had adjusted well to life in the USA during their studies and might choose to settle there for convenience and familiarity. India: 21% students indicated a moderate likelihood of staying in the USA for their career. They were considering options such as traveling the world, delaying their decision, or returning to India to work for a US multinational company. These individuals were open to exploring various opportunities before committing to a specific career path. China: A small portion of 13% respondents expressed moderate interest in staying in the USA for their careers. They valued job prospects, networking opportunities, and potential for professional growth. These students considered opportunities in European countries or Australia, traveling the world, or were undecided about their career paths. Not Likely China: A significant majority of 76% expressed a desire to return to China and contribute to its development, viewing it as essential for China to become the world&#8217;s leading economy. They believed their exposure to the USA would equip them with the skills and knowledge needed to advance China&#8217;s ambitions. India: 39% respondents expressed little interest in staying in the USA for their career. Instead, they were inclined to return to India and contribute to its progress. They aspired to play a role in India&#8217;s development from a developing nation to a developed one, perhaps by starting their own company or working in sectors that can drive economic growth and social development.South Korea: 23% students indicated that they were not likely to stay in the USA after completing their studies. These students planned to return to South Korea to contribute to its development, apply their skills and knowledge gained abroad, and pursue career opportunities in their home country.
- [What do you see as the major challenges facing your home country today?](https://ij-reportika.com/major-challenges-facing-your-home-country-today-survey/): Download Complete Report: Click Here Challenges faced by China Censorship: 38% identified censorship as a major challenge facing China, citing restrictions on freedom of speech and expression as impediments to open discourse and societal progress. Dwindling Global Image: 20% students expressed concern about China&#8217;s global image, which is often perceived as authoritarian and lacking in respect for human rights and democratic values. They noted the importance of improving China&#8217;s international reputation to foster positive relationships with other nations. Discontent Among Ethnic Groups: 17% students highlighted the discontent among ethnic minority groups such as Uyghurs and Tibetans, pointing to issues of cultural suppression, human rights abuses, and ethnic discrimination. Rising Inequality: 14% students highlighted inequality as a significant challenge, citing disparities in wealth, access to education, healthcare, and opportunities between urban and rural areas, as well as among different socioeconomic groups. Poor Work-life balance: 11% identified work-life balance as a major challenge facing China, pointing to long working hours, intense competition, and high levels of stress in the workplace as factors contributing to poor quality of life and mental health issues. Challenges faced by India Outdated Education System: The education system was identified as a critical challenge by 31% of respondents. They criticized the system for promoting rote learning, outdated teaching methods, and a lack of emphasis on innovation and critical thinking skills. Many called for reforms to make education more relevant, practical, and conducive to fostering creativity and problem-solving abilities among students. Corruption: A significant portion of 26 % respondents cited corruption as a major challenge facing India. They expressed concerns about pervasive corruption in local government offices, including encounters with corrupt practices such as bribery, particularly with traffic police. However, many respondents noted a positive trend of decreasing corruption due to ongoing digital initiatives in India. High Pollution: Pollution was identified as a pressing challenge, particularly in urban areas, by 19% of respondents. They highlighted the detrimental effects of pollution on public health, the environment, and overall quality of life, emphasizing the urgent need for measures to address air, water, and noise pollution. Unemployment: Unemployment emerged as a significant concern among respondents, with 14% expressing worry about the lack of job opportunities in the country. Many cited under-employment as a common issue, where individuals are unable to find jobs that match their qualifications and skills, leading to frustration and economic instability. Inadequate Health infrastructure: 10% respondents highlighted the inadequate health infrastructure in India as a major challenge. They expressed concerns about long waiting times in government hospitals and high costs of treatment in private healthcare facilities, making access to quality healthcare difficult for many individuals, especially those from lower-income backgrounds. Challenges faced by South Korea Aging Population: 34% mentioned South Korea&#8217;s rapidly aging population is its biggest challenge. Respondents highlighted concerns about the increasing burden on the pension system, healthcare services, and the workforce shrinking as the elderly population grows. They stressed the need for policies to address these demographic changes, such as encouraging higher birth rates and implementing better support systems for the elderly. Mental Health Issues: 23% participants raised concerns about the mental health crisis in South Korea. They pointed to high rates of stress, depression, and suicide, particularly among students and young adults. The respondents called for more comprehensive mental health services, increased awareness, and reduced stigma around seeking help for mental health issues. Youth Unemployment: 20% respondents pointed to the high youth unemployment rate as a pressing issue. They noted that despite South Korea&#8217;s advanced economy, many young people struggle to find stable and well-paying jobs. This challenge is often attributed to the high level of competition in the job market and the mismatch between the education system and the needs of the labor market. Political Polarization: 13% respondents mentioned the increasing political polarization in South Korea as a significant challenge. They observed that the political landscape has become more divided, which has led to social tensions and a lack of consensus on important national issues. They stressed the importance of fostering dialogue and cooperation across different political and social groups to ensure stable and effective governance. Real Estate and Housing Prices: 10% identified the soaring real estate and housing prices, particularly in major cities like Seoul. Respondents expressed concern about the affordability of housing for young families and the impact of high property prices on social inequality. They emphasized the need for government intervention to stabilize the housing market and make home ownership more accessible.
- [How would you rate the differences in political and social freedoms between your home country and the USA?](https://ij-reportika.com/political-and-social-freedoms-compared-to-usa/): Download Complete Report: Click Here Much Greater in the USA China: 51% indicated that political and social freedoms are much greater in the USA. They cited the presence of censorship, surveillance, and the social credit system in China, which restricts freedom of speech and expression. Additionally, they appreciated the political freedoms enjoyed in the USA, such as the right to vote, freedom of speech, and access to diverse sources of information. India: 10% believed that political and social freedoms are much greater in the USA. They cited factors such as the prevalent caste system, discrimination, lesser women&#8217;s rights, and rising violence against women in India. They also raised concerns about the integrity of elections and LGBT rights in India. South Korea: 9% emphasized the broader freedoms in the USA, highlighting more extensive freedom of speech, robust protection of individual rights, and a more open media environment compared to South Korea. Somewhat Greater in the USA China: 31% acknowledged that political and social freedoms are somewhat greater in the USA. They highlighted the democratic system allowing for diverse opinions without fear of reprisal and concerns about the non-cooperative nature of law enforcement in China. South Korea: 16% noted that while both countries enjoy considerable freedoms, the USA offers slightly more leeway in terms of social movements, freedom of expression, and a less hierarchical societal structure. India: 14% felt that political and social freedoms are somewhat greater in the USA. They mentioned issues such as the slow pace of police and judicial systems in India, fear of these systems, and corruption leading to inequality. About the Same in Both Countries South Korea: 42% felt that political and social freedoms are quite comparable. Both countries have strong democratic institutions, vibrant civil societies, and legal frameworks that protect individual freedoms. India: 35% believed that political and social freedoms are about the same in both countries. They emphasized the democratic principles upheld by both nations and the protection of individual freedoms. China: 12% viewed political and social freedoms as about the same in both countries. They noted that control is effectively in the hands of the rich and powerful in both, with differences in political transparency and accountability. Somewhat Greater in Home Country South Korea: 20% found South Korea to have somewhat greater freedoms, appreciating the high degree of social cohesion, community-focused values, and societal respect for education and public order. India: 18% perceived that political and social freedoms are somewhat greater in India. They highlighted initiatives such as reservations for government jobs and electoral seats aimed at uplifting the downtrodden and poor in India. China: 5% believed that political and social freedoms are somewhat greater in China. They pointed to rapid economic development facilitated by the one-party rule of the Communist Party of China (CPC) as evidence of political stability and progress. Much Greater in Home Country India: 23% believed that political and social freedoms are much greater in India. They pointed to various schemes targeting women and the downtrodden, the accessibility of the judicial system, and the strength of the Indian constitution. Concerns about racial discrimination in the USA were also noted. South Korea: 13% highlighted aspects of South Korean society such as the emphasis on public safety, efficient governance, and a culture promoting individual responsibility and collective well-being. They also appreciated the sense of security and trust in public institutions in South Korea. China: 1% felt that political and social freedoms are much greater in China compared to the USA. They highlighted the efficient implementation of policies by the Chinese government, leading to rapid economic development and progress in infrastructure and technology.
- [Do you feel more personally free in the USA compared to your home country?](https://ij-reportika.com/do-you-feel-more-personally-free-in-the-usa-compared-to-home-country/): Download Complete Report: Click Here USA has more freedom China: 78% of students expressed feeling a greater sense of personal freedom in the USA compared to China. They cited freedom of expression, individual rights, and opportunities for self-determination as key reasons. Media and social media censorship in China were major factors for their preference. South Korea: 37% of students felt more personally free in the USA. They cited the greater freedom of expression, where individuals can openly share their opinions without fear of social or legal repercussions. They appreciated the liberal atmosphere, which encourages diverse viewpoints and free speech, and the higher degree of personal autonomy in the USA. India: 35% of students expressed feeling a greater sense of personal freedom in the USA compared to India. They pointed to freedom of expression, individual rights, and opportunities for self-determination as key reasons. Media and social media censorship in India were highlighted as significant factors. Home country has more freedom India: 65% of students indicated that they did not feel more personally free in the USA compared to India. They mentioned cultural familiarity, social support networks, and a sense of belonging as reasons for their preference for the perceived constraints of India. South Korea: 63% of students felt more personally free in South Korea. They highlighted the comfort of cultural familiarity and strong social support networks, which provided a sense of community and belonging. They also noted that South Korea&#8217;s societal structure, despite being more conservative, provided a sense of order and cohesion, making them feel secure and supported. Lower crime rates and a rigorous, structured education and work environment were additional factors contributing to their sense of freedom in South Korea. China: 22% of students indicated that they did not feel more personally free in the USA compared to China. They mentioned cultural familiarity, social support networks, and a sense of belonging as reasons for their preference for the perceived constraints of China.
- [How important is it for you to maintain your connection to your native identity while living in the USA?](https://ij-reportika.com/maintain-the-connection-to-your-native-identity-survey/): Download Complete Report: Click Here Very Important India: 45% consider it very important to maintain their connection to their Indian identity. They stay updated on Indian news, culture, and politics, and celebrate festivals, follow cricket matches, and watch Indian movies. China: 41% consider it very important to maintain their connection to their Chinese identity. They engage in cultural events, prepare traditional dishes, and preserve their linguistic identity through language exchange programs. Most of these students live within the Chinese diaspora in the USA. South Korea: 39% of students emphasized the importance of staying connected to their South Korean identity. They celebrate traditional festivals, participate in cultural events, and maintain culinary traditions, finding solace and belonging through these practices. Somewhat Important India: 31% view maintaining their Indian identity as somewhat important. They stay connected through social media and occasionally follow Indian politics, while also celebrating festivals and language. They balance staying connected with avoiding homesickness. China: 29% view maintaining their Chinese identity as somewhat important. They recognize its significance but prioritize it less than those who find it very important. They maintain connections through social media platforms like WeChat and TikTok. South Korea: 25% find it somewhat important to maintain their South Korean identity. They practice the Korean language through exchange programs, classes, or speaking with family and friends, and stay connected via social media and legacy media. Neutral South Korea: 20% acknowledged the importance of their South Korean identity but did not prioritize it highly. They keep up with news and cultural trends but do not engage deeply in cultural practices. China: 15% expressed neutrality about maintaining their Chinese identity. They do not actively preserve their cultural heritage and linguistic identity. India: 14% expressed neutrality about maintaining their Indian identity. They engage moderately with social media and cultural events, occasionally following Indian politics and cultural happenings. Not Very Important South Korea: 9% found maintaining their South Korean identity not very important. They focus more on adapting to American culture and integrating into the local community. China: 7% indicated that maintaining their Chinese identity is not very important. They focus on assimilating into American culture and do not actively engage in preserving their cultural heritage. India: 6% indicated that maintaining their Indian identity is not very important. They have limited interest in social media connections and do not actively follow events in their home country. Not Important at All China: 8% stated that maintaining their Chinese identity is not important at all. They have fully embraced American culture and do not feel a strong attachment to their cultural heritage. South Korea: 7% considered maintaining their South Korean identity not important at all. They prefer embracing a new identity in the USA and do not find cultural connections crucial to their sense of self or well-being. India: 4% stated that maintaining their Indian identity is not important at all. They have fully assimilated into American culture, with minimal engagement in Indian cultural events or politics.
- [How challenging have you found adapting to cultural differences between your home country and the USA?](https://ij-reportika.com/cultural-differences-between-india-and-the-usa-survey/): Download Complete Report: Click Here Very Easy China: 7% of participants found it very easy to adapt to cultural differences between China and the USA. They had prior exposure to diverse cultures, strong language skills, or personal traits that facilitated their adaptation process. India: 6% of participants found it very easy to adapt to cultural differences between India and the USA. They had prior exposure to diverse cultures, strong language skills, and personal traits that facilitated their adaptation process. South Korea: 5% of students felt that adapting to cultural differences was very easy. They mentioned their previous exposure to Western culture through media, travel, or education, which helped them adjust smoothly. They also cited the welcoming and diverse environment in the USA as a factor that eased their transition. Somewhat Easy China: 20% of participants indicated that they found it somewhat easy to adapt to cultural differences between China and the USA. They faced minor challenges but overall found the adjustment process manageable due to their openness to new experiences and willingness to adapt. India: 20% of participants indicated that they found it somewhat easy to adapt to cultural differences between India and the USA. They faced minor challenges but overall found the adjustment process manageable due to their openness to new experiences and willingness to adapt. They also pointed out that a large and helpful Indian diaspora in the USA assisted them in the process. South Korea: 17% of students found the adaptation process somewhat easy. They highlighted the support systems available at universities, such as international student offices and cultural exchange programs, which helped them navigate cultural differences. They also appreciated the openness and friendliness of American peers. Neutral South Korea: 31% of students expressed neutrality regarding the difficulty of adapting to cultural differences. They acknowledged both the challenges and the supports available, feeling that the process was neither particularly difficult nor easy. These students often cited a balanced mix of familiar and unfamiliar cultural aspects that made their experience neutral. India: 24% of participants reported feeling neutral about the challenge of adapting to cultural differences between India and the USA. They did not encounter significant difficulties or differences that stood out during their adaptation process, appreciating the blend of familiar and new experiences in both countries. China: 13% of participants reported feeling neutral about the challenge of adapting to cultural differences between China and the USA. They did not encounter significant difficulties or differences that stood out during their adaptation process. Somewhat Challenging India: 30% of participants found it somewhat challenging to adapt to cultural differences between India and the USA. They faced obstacles such as language nuances, cultural norms, and lifestyle adjustments. Most participants in this category missed their parents and family and found it challenging to accept the new culture. China: 28% of participants found it somewhat challenging to adapt to cultural differences between China and the USA. They encountered obstacles such as language barriers, unfamiliar social norms, and differences in daily routines. Additionally, they faced stereotypes or misconceptions about their culture, which contributed to their sense of challenge. South Korea: 27% of students mentioned finding the cultural adaptation somewhat challenging. They cited difficulties such as language barriers, different social norms, and the high-paced and individualistic nature of American society. These students often missed the communal and hierarchical aspects of South Korean culture and found it hard to adjust to the more informal and egalitarian interactions in the USA. Very Challenging China: 32% of participants reported finding it very challenging to adapt to cultural differences between China and the USA. They experienced significant barriers such as racism and discrimination. These factors heightened their feelings of isolation, stress, and difficulty in integrating into the new cultural environment. India: 20% of participants reported finding it very challenging to adapt to cultural differences between India and the USA. They encountered significant obstacles in navigating unfamiliar social customs, overcoming language barriers, and adjusting to different societal norms, which posed significant challenges to their integration into the new cultural environment. They missed helpful Indians back home and colorful festivals while adapting to the new place. South Korea: 20% of students felt that adapting to cultural differences was very challenging. They cited factors such as racism, stereotypes, and a lack of understanding or acceptance from peers as significant barriers. These students missed the culture and food of South Korea the most. They also struggled with homesickness and the stark contrast in educational and social systems between the two countries.
- [How do you foresee studying in the USA impacting your future career compared to studying in your home country?](https://ij-reportika.com/future-career-prospects-in-usa-compared-survey/): Download Complete Report: Click Here Significantly Positive China: 27% of respondents expressed optimism regarding the significantly positive impact that studying in the USA could have on their future career prospects. They cited factors such as access to diverse academic programs, advanced research opportunities, and a global network of professionals as contributing factors to their positive outlook. India: 25% of respondents expressed optimism regarding the significantly positive impact that studying in the USA could have on their future career prospects. They cited factors such as access to cutting-edge technologies, diverse career opportunities, and exposure to global markets as contributing factors to their positive outlook. South Korea: 19% of students believed that studying in the USA would have a highly positive impact on their future careers. They highlighted the benefits of access to advanced research facilities, diverse academic programs, and the prestige of American universities. They also appreciated the opportunity to build a global network of professional contacts and gain exposure to innovative practices and ideas. Somewhat Positive South Korea: &nbsp;37% of students anticipated a somewhat positive impact on their careers. They recognized the advantages of an American education, such as enhanced critical thinking skills and a global perspective. However, they also acknowledged potential challenges, such as adjusting to a different cultural and professional environment. China: 29% of students anticipate a somewhat positive impact on their future careers as a result of studying in the USA. While acknowledging the potential benefits of an American education, they remained cautious about the challenges they face, such as cultural adaptation and competition in the job market. India: 28% of students anticipate a somewhat positive impact on their future careers as a result of studying in the USA. While acknowledging the potential benefits of an American education, they remained cautious about the challenges they face, such as cultural adaptation and competition in the job market. Neutral South Korea: 29% of students felt neutral about the impact of studying in the USA on their future careers. While they acknowledged the quality of education and opportunities available in the USA, they were uncertain about how these factors would translate into tangible career benefits. They believed that career success would depend more on individual effort and adaptability rather than the location of their education. India: 18% of respondents expressed neutrality regarding the impact of studying in the USA on their future careers. They acknowledged the advantages of an American education but remained uncertain about how it would directly translate into their career trajectories. China: 14% of respondents expressed neutrality regarding the impact of studying in the USA on their future careers. They acknowledged the advantages of an American education but remained uncertain about how it would directly translate into their career trajectories. Somewhat Negative China: 20% of students foresee a somewhat negative impact on their future career prospects due to studying in the USA. They expressed concerns about potential challenges such as visa restrictions, cultural barriers, or difficulties in finding employment post-graduation. India: 17% of students foresee a somewhat negative impact on their future career prospects due to studying in the USA. They expressed concerns about potential challenges such as visa restrictions, cultural barriers, or difficulties in finding employment post-graduation. South Korea: 11% of students foresaw a somewhat negative impact on their careers from studying in the USA. They expressed concerns about potential challenges, such as visa restrictions, cultural differences, and difficulties in re-integrating into the South Korean job market. Significantly Negative India: 12% of respondents believe that studying in the USA will have a significantly negative impact on their future career prospects compared to studying in India. They expressed concerns about potential obstacles such as limited job opportunities for international students, visa constraints, and difficulty adjusting to the American work culture. China: 10% of respondents believe that studying in the USA will have a significantly negative impact on their future career prospects compared to studying in China. They expressed concerns about potential obstacles such as racism against Chinese students leading to limited job opportunities, visa constraints, and difficulty integrating into the American workforce. South Korea: 4% of students believed that studying in the USA would have a significantly negative impact on their future careers. They cited reasons such as potential discrimination, the high cost of education, and the fear of not finding suitable employment in the USA or South Korea after graduation. They were concerned that the time and resources invested in an American education might not yield the expected returns.
- [From your experience, how would you rate the academic environment in the USA compared to your home country?](https://ij-reportika.com/academic-environment-in-the-usa-survey/): Download Complete Report: Click Here Much better in the USA China: 42% of participants rated the academic environment in the USA as much better. They cited factors such as greater academic freedom, more diverse opportunities, and advanced resources as reasons for their preference. India: 39% of participants expressed that they perceive the academic environment in the USA to be significantly superior to that in India. They based this opinion on factors such as better infrastructure, more advanced research facilities, higher quality of education, and greater opportunities for academic and professional growth in the USA. South Korea: 13% of respondents emphasized the diverse range of academic programs, research opportunities, and resources available in American institutions. They appreciated the emphasis on critical thinking, creativity, and interdisciplinary learning in the USA. Somewhat better in the USA China: 25% of participants rated the academic environment in the USA as somewhat better. They acknowledged some advantages in the USA such as more innovative teaching methods or better facilities but didn&#8217;t see a substantial difference. &nbsp;India: 19% of participants indicated that they believe the academic environment in the USA is somewhat better than that in India. While they acknowledge some advantages in the USA, they still see room for improvement or recognize certain strengths in the Indian academic system. South Korea: 15% of respondents acknowledged the strengths of the US academic environment but also recognized areas where improvements could be made, such as affordability and student support services. They appreciated the competitive nature of education in the USA. About the same in both countries South Korea: 47% of respondents viewed the academic environments in the USA and South Korea as comparable. They noted similarities in teaching methodologies, research standards, and academic rigor, recognizing that both countries have strengths and weaknesses in different areas. India: 11% of participants perceive the academic environments in both the USA and India to be relatively similar. They have observed comparable standards of education, research opportunities, or overall academic experiences in both countries. China: 10% of participants felt that the academic environments in both the USA and China were about the same. They noted similarities in the quality of education or academic experiences in both countries. Somewhat better in Home Country India: 18% of participants expressed the opinion that the academic environment in India is somewhat better than that in the USA. They value aspects of the Indian academic system such as cultural familiarity, lower costs of education, or specific strengths in certain academic disciplines. South Korea: 15% of respondents believed that South Korea offers certain advantages in its academic environment, such as a strong emphasis on STEM fields, technological innovation, and rigorous academic standards. They also cited the high global rankings of South Korean universities in certain disciplines. China: 13% of participants rated the academic environment in China as somewhat better. They pointed out aspects such as a stronger emphasis on discipline or more rigorous academic standards as reasons for their preference. Much better in Home Country India: 13% of participants believe that the academic environment in India is significantly superior to that in the USA. They base this opinion on factors such as a preference for Indian teaching methods, closer proximity to family and cultural roots, or better career prospects in the Indian context. China: 10% of participants rated the academic environment in China as much better. They cited reasons such as cultural familiarity, closer relationships with professors, or specific academic strengths in China&#8217;s educational system. South Korea: 10% of respondents expressed a preference for the academic environment in South Korea, citing factors such as high-quality education, advanced research facilities, and a culture of academic excellence prevalent in South Korean universities.
- [An overdue farewell to Southeast Asia’s pro-democracy icons](https://ij-reportika.com/an-overdue-farewell-to-southeast-asias-pro-democracy-icons/): A decade ago, Southeast Asia seemed poised for democratic transformation, spearheaded by three icons: Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi, Cambodia’s Sam Rainsy and Malaysia’s Anwar Ibrahim.  Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy was on the cusp of a historic election victory, potentially gaining entry into government for the first time in the army-run nation.  Sam Rainsy’s Cambodia National Rescue Party had narrowly lost to the ruling party in the 2013 elections, but momentum hinted at a possible win at the next ballot.  Meanwhile, Anwar’s People’s Pact coalition won the popular vote in Malaysia’s 2013 elections, marking the start of a new political era. During a late 2013 visit, Sam Rainsy suggested in a meeting with his fellow pro-democracy icons that they should “work together to promote democracy in our region.” Fast forward to today, and all three have either fallen from power or seen their legacies tarnished—and the region&#8217;s democratic transformation now seems more distant than ever. Cambodian exiled political opponent and leader of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), Sam Rainsy, in Paris, on July 27, 2023. (Joel Saget/AFP) Suu Kyi, ousted in early 2021, saw her international reputation go up in smoke for her defense of the military&#8217;s genocide against her country’s Muslim Rohingya minority.  Sam Rainsy went into exile in 2015 and his party dissolved two years later as the ruling Cambodian People’s Party tightened its authoritarian chokehold. Rainsy now writes financial updates with little hope of returning to Cambodia.  Anwar became Malaysia’s prime minister in 2022 but has abandoned his once-professed liberal, secular ideals. His government has launched “lawfare” campaigns against opponents.  In August, Malaysian prosecutors charged Muhyiddin Yassin, the leader of the opposition, with sedition for complaining that the king hadn’t asked him to form a government last year.  Anwar’s pluralist appeal has gone out of the window.  He’s unpopular with Malays, he has defended a deputy prime minister accused of corruption, his speeches are flecked with anti-Semitism and anti-Western vitriol, and he has drawn Malaysia closer to China and Russia. Anwar visited Moscow this month and now declares support for China’s “reunification” of Taiwan.  “Anwar had been a favorite of Western reporters and officials, heralded as a man who could liberalize Malaysian politics,” the Economist recently wrote. Since taking power, he has been “a very different kind of leader.” A milder form of tyranny One shouldn’t mourn the passing of Southeast Asia’s icons, the disappearance of a handful of individuals who were supposed to drag the region by their own sweat and sacrifice into a freer future.  There was too much focus on personalities rather than policies; too much about a single person’s fate to become premier and not on the people they were supposedly fighting for.  Suu Kyi was the National League for Democracy; she was destined to save Myanmar because her father had done the same when Burma emerged from British colonial rule in the 1940s.  Even before Sam Rainsy’s party was dissolved, it had become cleaved between the factions loyal to him and another leader. They, too, saw themselves as the embodiments of salvation for an entire country.   Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in Oslo on June 15, 2012. (Markus Schreiber/AP) As Suu Kyi and Anwar showed, you sacrifice your entire life in exile, imprisonment, scorn and harassment, and once you finally attain power, you believe you damn well need to stay there, whatever it costs.  After all, losing power means a return to tyranny and the bad old times—so a milder form of tyranny is justifiable to prevent that.  Southeast Asia isn’t unique; the worst leaders are those who have taken a long walk to power.  Seldom does a revolutionary not become a counter-revolutionary. Rarely does the liberal in opposition remain a liberal in power.  Suu Kyi gambled – badly – that publicly defending the military’s genocidal actions against the Rohingya was the price worth paying to prevent a military coup. She should sacrifice up the few for the apparent benefit of the majority, she reasoned.   The end of idolatry should allow Southeast Asian democrats to focus on strengthening political institutions rather than idolizing individuals.  A new example in Thailand The region should look at what’s happening in Thailand.  Unique in Southeast Asia, Thailand’s progressive movement has created a pro-democracy “archetype”— someone young, Western-educated, good-looking, conversant in English, ideally with a business background, and very social media savvy.  Pita Limjaroenrat, who employed this archetype to make his Move Forward Party the country’s largest at last year&#8217;s elections, was more of a character than an icon.  Pita played this role with Move Forward, but it was the same character that Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit played before him with the Future Forward party, Move Forward’s predecessor party, and that Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut now plays as leader of People&#8217;s Party, the successor to Move Forward.  This is a clever tactic. If the leader is disbarred from politics, as Thanathorn and Pita were, then someone else can easily assume the role, as Natthaphong has done.  If the party is dissolved, as Future Forward and Move Forward were, you make a new one led by the same character with the same script.  This prevents a party from being consumed by one person – à la Suu Kyi. It turns the dissolution of a party into an inconvenience, instead of the death knell of an entire movement, as was the case with Sam Rainsy and the Cambodia National Rescue Party.  Malaysia&#8217;s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim in Berlin, Germany, March 11, 2024. (Liesa Johannssen/Reuters) It means that if the leader wins power, he knows he is there because of the script he has been given, not the one he’s written. The rest of Southeast Asia would be better off developing their own archetypes, not waiting for the next icons to appear.  Neither is the end of Southeast Asia’s pro-democracy icons a bad thing for the West, which was too quick in the 1990s and 2000s to put its faith in a few personalities being able to drive...
- [Philippine coast guard ship leaves disputed shoal in South China Sea](https://ij-reportika.com/philippine-coast-guard-ship-leaves-disputed-shoal-in-south-china-sea/): UPDATED AT 5:30 ET on Sept. 15, 2024 The Philippines has withdrawn a coast guard vessel at the center of a standoff with China at a disputed shoal in the South China Sea, saying it had played a crucial role in “countering illegal activities” but had to return to port because of bad weather, low supplies and the need to get medical care for some of those on board. The Sabina Shoal,  about 140 km (85 miles) west of Palawan island, is claimed by both countries but is entirely within the Philippine exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, where the Philippines holds rights to explore for natural resources. The five-month standoff with China at the shoal resulted in several collisions between Philippine and Chinese vessels, especially during Philippine resupply missions to its ship, the BRP Teresa Magbanua, raising fears of a more serious conflict between the Philippines, a close U.S. ally, and an increasingly assertive China. “Their steadfast presence has played a crucial role in countering illegal activities that threaten our marine environment and thwarting attempts by other state actors to engage in surreptitious reclamation in the area,” the Philippine coast guard said in a statement, referring to the officers and men on board the ship. Ship tracking specialists earlier told Radio Free Asia the 2,200-ton coast guard flagship left the hotly disputed shoal, known in the Philippines as Escoda, at around 1 p.m. on Friday. Data provided by the website MarineTraffic, which uses automatic identification system (AIS) signals to track ships, show that the BRP Teresa Magbanua (MRRV-9701) was back in the Sulu Sea near the Philippines’ Balabac island, about 200 km (125 miles) to the south of the shoal. There was no immediate comment from China on the ship’s withdrawal from the shoal. The BRP Teresa Magbanua is one of the largest and most modern vessels of the Philippine coast guard. It was deployed to Sabina Shoal in April to monitor what the Philippines fears is a Chinese plan to reclaim land there, as China has done elsewhere in the South China Sea. Philippine officials insisted that the vessel could remain there for as long as necessary but China denounced what it saw as the “illegal grounding” of the BRP Teresa Magbanua and deployed a large number of ships there to keep watch. The Philippines denied that the vessel had been grounded. Beijing feared that by maintaining the vessel’s semi-permanent presence at the shoal, Manila aimed to establish de-facto control over it, similar to what it has done at the Second Thomas Shoal, where an old Philippine warship, BRP Sierra Madre, was deliberately run aground to serve as an outpost. For its part, the Philippines is worried that without the presence of its authorities, Chinese ships will swarm the area and effectively take control of it, as happened at Scarborough Shoal – another disputed South China Sea feature – where China has had control since 2012. Sabina Shoal is close to an area believed to be rich in oil and gas, and also served as the main staging ground for resupply missions to the Sierra Madre at the Second Thomas Shoal. Lower the tension The  Philippine coast guard said in its statement on Sunday that it was “firmly committed and determined in protecting the Philippines’ sovereignty, sovereign rights, and jurisdiction in the West Philippine Sea, including in Escoda Shoal.” But Ray Powell, director of the U.S.-based SeaLight project at Stanford University, said China was likely to deploy to the area as it did at the Scarborough Shoal. “The parallels are unavoidable,” said Powell, who monitors developments in the South China Sea. “China is also likely to declare victory – hard to avoid that conclusion,” added the maritime security analyst. The withdrawal comes days after Philippine Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Maria Theresa P. Lazaro met China’s Vice Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong to discuss the situation at the shoal.  The Chinese side reportedly urged the Philippines to immediately withdraw its vessels while “Lazaro reaffirmed the consistent position of the Philippines and explored ways to lower the tension in the area,” the Philippines Department of Foreign Affairs said in a statement after the Sept. 12 talks. The Philippine coast guard made no mention of the talks in its statement. Philippine analyst Chester Cabalza, president of the International Development and Security Cooperation think tank, described the withdrawal of the ship as “anti-climactic,” adding that he thought both sides should withdraw from the vicinity of the shoal, which is in an important sea lane. Cabalza said if the Philippines and China had reached any agreement in their Sept. 12 consultation, that would become evident in the absence of any “swarming of Chinese armada” at the shoal. “The ball is with China now,” the analyst told RFA’s affiliate BenarNews. RELATED STORIES China, Philippines trade blame over &#8216;ramming&#8217; at disputed shoal https://www.rfa.org/english/news/southchinasea/china-philippines-ramming-sabina-08312024064753.html China releases report to fortify claim over disputed shoal in South China Sea https://www.rfa.org/english/news/southchinasea/china-sabina-shoal-report-08302024043714.html Philippines, China clash near disputed shoal in South China Sea https://www.rfa.org/english/news/southchinasea/china-philippines-shoal-clash-08262024023722.html *Jason Guterriez in Manila contributed to this report.” Editing by RFA Staff This story has been updated to include comment from the Philippine coast guard. 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- [EXCLUSIVE: Dissident Chinese journalist works on her next book from exile in Thailand](https://ij-reportika.com/exclusive-dissident-chinese-journalist-works-on-her-next-book-from-exile-in-thailand/): Read this interview in Mandarin. At the far end of a quiet garden courtyard in Chiang Mai, home to a small &#8220;village&#8221; of exiled Chinese writers and intellectuals, is a communal study room with books lining the walls. Veteran investigative journalist Dai Qing, 83, once one of the Chinese Communist Party&#8217;s most influential critics, is often there, reading and writing as she enjoys a quiet life of contemplation in Thailand &#8212; as well as working on her forthcoming book, &#8220;Notes on History.&#8221; Dai, a former reporter for the party&#8217;s Guangming Daily, was an early and prominent critic of China&#8217;s flagship Three Gorges Dam project, publishing a book Yangtze! Yangtze! arguing against the move. She also served time in Beijing&#8217;s notorious Qincheng Prison for supporting the students during the 1989 pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square. Now part of a community of exiled Chinese writers and researchers in the northern Thai resort town, Dai spoke to RFA Mandarin &#8212; after her daily swim &#8212; about what led her there: RFA: Why Chiang Mai? Dai Qing: I should say that Chiang Mai wasn&#8217;t actually my choice. I&#8217;ve always lived in big cities, ever since I was a child. When they asked me where I was from, I said I was Chinese. For example, I was born in the wartime capital Chongqing, and later I worked in a Beijing high school. I have always been in big cities. I really don&#8217;t like big cities, I don&#8217;t like the bustle and prosperity &#8212; I like the quiet: trees and grass, blue sky and white clouds. When we set up this courtyard, it was as a small community of friends. We all shared the same values ​​and common hobbies, like reading. We set up a research center and invited people from foreign universities with an interest in China to come. We have so many people here who can talk to them, share our experiences, and they can stay here too. RFA: How many homes are here? Dai Qing: Today, there are 31 houses that were designed by [independent writer] Ye Fu. Many of the people here are his friends, and they just sort of came here. It costs less than one-fifth of the price of a place in Beijing, right? But they don&#8217;t all live here. Some are rented out. Who do they rent to? That&#8217;s another question. People who are dissatisfied with the Chinese education system, who want to bring their children here to study and enroll in the British education system. We rent houses to them. There are several families like that. You can see that the most lively ones are full of kids. Dissident journalist Dai Qing swims near her home in Chiang Mai, Thailand, Sept. 2024. (RFA) RFA: Did they come before or after the COVID years? Dai Qing: Some came before and some came after, so there are basically two groups. The first group is people who are dissatisfied with China&#8217;s education system and come here to have their children attend school. The second group is Ye Fu, Tang Yun, and Wang Ji, all people who have suffered political discrimination and oppression in China and can&#8217;t go back. RFA: So you came here because you were dissatisfied with Chinese politics? Dai Qing: It&#8217;s not that simple. It&#8217;s just that &#8230; before Hu Yaobang&#8217;s death in 1989, civil society in China hadn&#8217;t achieved a modern transformation, but it was actually much more relaxed than it is now. We could do a lot of things. Then Hu Yaobang died, and 58 days later, the crackdown continued, until it became what it is today. RFA: What happened to you in 1989? Dai Qing: Well, I was a journalist, so of course I was in contact with people from all walks of life. I told [1989 student leader] Chai Ling, do you think that just because you&#8217;re a good student of Chairman Mao that you can gather a bunch of heroes just by raising your arms, and be a leader? That&#8217;s not how things are. I kept telling them that they kept resisting and calling for democracy and demanding concessions even though the leaders had already made concessions. I told them it wasn&#8217;t right. I was trying to bring about peace, and they wound up putting me in Qincheng. RFA: When you left China, did the police warn you not to give interviews, or make other demands? Dai Qing: The police actually let me leave in 2023 because I had so many friends and relatives in the United States, and I wanted to go visit them now that my daughter had retired. She retired on her 55th birthday in 2023. I felt that I was in the later stages of my life, and I made an agreement with them that I wouldn&#8217;t give interviews or take part in activism, and they let me leave.  Then, when I went to various universities, everyone wanted to talk to me, but it had to be in closed-door meetings. Participants weren&#8217;t allowed to record audio or take photos or video with their phones. No one was allowed to publicize it. When I got back to Hong Kong and then to Beijing, the police were very happy. As far as they were concerned, I&#8217;d stuck to the deal. Later I asked &#8230; their boss who came to visit me whether he knew what I&#8217;d done back in the 1980s. He said they hadn&#8217;t bothered to research it. But they know now. RFA: How are you getting along here in Chiang Mai? Dai Qing: Actually it&#8217;s a question of &#8220;three noes and two don&#8217;ts&#8221; – that&#8217;s the way I describe my situation right now. I have no pension, no social security and no medical insurance, which is the “three noes” part. The “two don&#8217;ts” are: don&#8217;t get sick, and don&#8217;t hire help. I do all of the housework myself. RFA: Do you still follow what&#8217;s going on back in China, culturally, economically and politically? Dai Qing: Not so much. I...
- [Beijing is Training 3,000 Foreign Police Officers : The Hidden Agenda](https://ij-reportika.com/beijing-is-training-3000-foreign-police-officers-the-hidden-agenda/): China plans to train 3,000 foreign police officers, raising concerns over its global security ambitions and potential influence on law enforcement practices abroad. 
- [More Rohingya are arriving in Bangladesh, as Rakhine state burns](https://ij-reportika.com/more-rohingya-are-arriving-in-bangladesh-as-rakhine-state-burns/): Some 20,000 Rohingya have entered Bangladesh in the last three months as they flee worsening conditions in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, with some new arrivals taking shelter in rented houses outside U.N.-administered camps, refugees and local officials say. The uptick comes with Bangladesh enmeshed in political turmoil and amid worsening violence in Rakhine, which lies just across its southeastern border. Arakan Army insurgents have been waging a fierce campaign to wrest control of the state from Myanmar’s military government.  “There is a terrible situation in Rakhine. There is no condition to stay there. No food, no shelter, no treatment for sick people,” said Mohammed Feroz Kamal, who arrived last week from Rakhine’s Maungdaw district. “Drone attacks are being carried out, especially on the people who have gathered to flee to the border in that country,” he told BenarNews. “Hundreds of people are dying. ”I saw many dead bodies on the way.” RELATED STORIES  Myanmar rebels say victory is near after battle near Bangladesh border Rohingyas face ‘gravest threats since 2017’ as fighting rages in western Myanmar Rohingya refugees drown fleeing Myanmar’s war as concerns mount Some 5,000 Rohingya who fled recent fighting waiting to cross to Bangladesh Rohingya community leader Mohammed Jubair, chairman of the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace and Humanity, said at least 20,000 people had crossed into Bangladesh during the past three months.  But a Bangladeshi official put the number at around 16,000. “They used the poor law-and-order situation as an advantage,” Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner Mohammed Mizanur Rahman told BenarNews, referring to the chaotic and lawless atmosphere in Bangladesh before and after the Sheikh Hasina government fell in early August. Earlier this week, in the face of new cross-border arrivals, Bangladesh transitional government head Muhammad Yunus called on the international community to speed up efforts to resettle Rohingya refugees in third countries. The “resettlement process should be easy, regular and smooth,” Yunus said during a meeting on Sept. 8 with the International Organisation for Migration, Reuters reported. The interim administration headed by Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and pioneer of microcredit loans, has been struggling to maintain law and order since Hasina resigned and fled the country amid student-led, anti-government protests. Two Rohingya families who recently escaped from Myanmar have taken refuge in this multistory building in Teknaf, Bangladesh, Sept. 10, 2024. (Abdur Rahman/BenarNews) This week, a BenarNews correspondent visited several villages, including the municipal town of Teknaf, which lies along the border with Myanmar.  According to local officials, Rohingyas are crossing the frontier into Bangladesh every day. “Border Guard Bangladesh and Bangladesh Coast Guard are working to prevent Rohingyas at the border,” Mohammed Adnan Chowdhury, executive officer of Teknaf Upazila sub-district, told BenarNews. “However, some Rohingyas are entering the border in the middle of the night. Many of them are renting houses in the main towns of the city and entering the villages.” He and others described how the recent influx differed from those in the past, including in 2017 when some 740,000 Rohingya fled into Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district over a period of months. Rented digs Most of the new arrivals are businessmen or from relatively well-to-do families in Maungdaw district, Rohingya community leaders said. Feroz, who paid a broker 50,000 Bangladeshi taka (US$418) to enter Bangladesh, is now spending 4,000 taka (US$33) per month to stay in a six-room, tin-roofed house in Teknaf alongside two other Rohingya families already living there.  Another Rohingya, Nur Shahed, is staying in an apartment with another Rohingya family in Teknaf’s Shilbania neighborhood  He said he had intended to take his family to the Kutupalong refugee camp, but there was no more space.  “So many people like me have taken shelter here in villages and in rented houses,” he told BenarNews. Mohammed Rafiq stands at the door of a building in Teknaf, Bangladesh, where he is now living in an apartment with his family after fleeing from Myanmar’s Rakhine state, Sept. 10, 2024. (Abdur Rahman/BenarNews) Immigration expert C.R. Abrar, a professor at Dhaka University, underlined that regardless of their income status, the new arrivals were being forced to come to Bangladesh to save their lives. “Therefore, they should not be treated as criminals under any circumstances; they should be given facilities and security as refugees,” he said, noting that Bangladesh — with its huge refugee population — should pass laws on how to treat them, and participate in related international agreements.  “Those who are outside the refugee camps are in a more vulnerable situation than those inside the camps,” he said. “They are likely to face various forms of harassment and violence. Therefore, they should be taken to the camps, from a humanitarian point of view, as the primary task.” BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Putin admires Kim Jong Un, unlike other world leaders, North Koreans are told](https://ij-reportika.com/putin-admires-kim-jong-un-unlike-other-world-leaders-north-koreans-are-told/): Russian President Vladimir Putin looks up to Kim Jong Un with the utmost admiration and respect, North Koreans were told at this week’s mandatory lectures at neighborhood watch unit meetings, two residents told Radio Free Asia.  The weekly lectures – at which a local party official reads lecture materials received from the central government – are intended to reinforce loyalty to the country’s leadership and Kim’s cult of personality. “This week’s lecture session informed the residents of the Russian president’s boundless admiration for their leader, Kim Jong Un,” a resident from the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons.  “It was intended to promote the high international standing of the marshall,” a reference to Kim, he said. Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un walk during a farewell ceremony upon Putin&#8217;s departure at the Sunan International Airport in Pyongyang, June 19, 2024. (Vladimir Smirnov/POOL/AFP) Russia has been cozying up to North Korea since Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. While many in the international community are hesitant to engage with Russia while the war rages on, North Korea has been more than willing to trade with Russia and publicly declare support for the war.  The United States has accused Russia of using North Korean weapons in Ukraine, which North Korea and Russia deny.  Putin and Kim met in the Russian Far East in September 2023, and again in Pyongyang in June 2024. As evidence of Putin’s admiration for Kim, the lecture listed several examples. One was that Putin, who is notoriously late for nearly all his meetings with other global leaders, was 30 minutes early for his meeting with Kim in Vladivostok in April 2019, the resident said.  North Korea&#8217;s leader Kim Jong Un (R) presents the Kim Il Sung Medal to Russia&#8217;s President Vladimir Putin (L) in Pyongyang, June 19, 2024. (KCNA VIA KNS/AFP) “Whenever President Putin meets with world leaders, he is late because he looks down on other countries and has a unique sense of superiority,” he said. “But when it comes to The Marshal, he expresses it as admiration.”  However, the lecture didn’t mention Putin’s visit to Pyongyang in June, when he arrived several hours later than planned, turning what should have been a two-day state visit into a quick one-day stop. Luxury car Another example in the lecture was Putin’s gift of a Russian-made luxury sedan to Kim, a resident of the northern province of Ryanggang told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely.  But this generated “a cold atmosphere” in the lecture hall, the second resident said. “Some residents [privately] protested, saying, ‘If I were the head of the country, I would have asked for food, which the country desperately needs instead of a car,’” he said. RELATED RFA CONTENT RFA Insider episode 13 Timecode 43:07 North Korean leader hails deepening ties with Russia The apparent point of the lecture was to instill in the public the idea that Russia is being respectful to North Korea – and that other world leaders also yearn to meet Kim, he said. This wasn’t very convincing to most listeners, he said.  “Residents who can’t even eat one full meal don’t listen to the government’s propaganda,” he said.  North Korean authorities also held lectures on similar topics for residents in the early 2000s when they were receiving aid such as rice and fertilizer from South Korea and the international community. Park Ju Hee, an escapee from Musan, North Hamgyong province, said that aid coming from Western countries at the time was because of the “bold strategy and outstanding leadership” of then leader Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Un’s father. Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Civilians killed as Myanmar rebels attack junta forces in the north](https://ij-reportika.com/civilians-killed-as-myanmar-rebels-attack-junta-forces-in-the-north/): Read RFA coverage of this story in Burmese. Thousands of people have fled from fighting between ethnic minority guerrillas and Myanmar junta troops that entered a fifth day on Thursday, and at least 10 civilians have been killed, residents told Radio Free Asia. The autonomy-seeking Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, and allied militias loyal to a shadow civilian administration, have made significant gains in Myanmar’s northernmost Kachin state since launching an offensive in March. The insurgents have forced junta troops in the resource-rich region on the border with China into dwindling areas of control, mirroring setbacks elsewhere in Myanmar for the military that seized power in a 2021 coup. A resident of Hpakant township, a major jade-producing region, said at least 10 civilians were killed in crossfire between insurgents and the military in Hseng Taung village since the anti-junta forces surrounded it and launched an attack on Sunday. “People died after being hit by both heavy and small weapons. There are a lot of wounded,” said the resident who declined to be identified for safety reasons. “Many, many houses have been destroyed. Bullets were raining down.” Junta airstikes also sparked major fires in the town, witnesses said. Most of those killed were men, he said, adding that a peace activist named Yup Zau Hkawng, who was wounded in shelling on Monday. By Thursday, the KIA-led attackers had seized and burned down the Hseng Taung police station, sources close to an anti-junta People’s Defense Force, or PDF, allied with the KIA told RFA. RFA telephoned Kachin state’s junta spokesperson, Moe Min Thein, for comment but he did not respond by the time of publication and a telecommunications outage in the area made it difficult to check accounts of the fighting. About 60 soldiers were at the police station when the attack was launched, said another resident, who also asked to remain anonymous. “The Hseng Taung police station was captured but fighting has been going on after they set it on fire,” he said. “Some junta soldiers are dead, others were caught alive, and the rest were able to flee.”  KIA fighters had sealed off all roads in and out of the village, said the KIA spokesman, Col. Naw Bu. Residents said about 10,000 people had fled from the village over the five days of fighting, many seeking refuge in Nam Hmaw, Hseng Awng and Hpakant towns. The KIA and allied forces control most roads in and out of Hpakant town and have captured all but five junta bases in the township, anti-junta forces say. RELATED STORIES Red Cross chief calls for greater aid access after visit to Myanmar  Myanmar rebels capture last junta base in township on Chinese border China fires into Myanmar after junta airstrike on border, group says  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan.  We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Floods swamp Myanmar’s capital, stranding thousands in typhoon’s aftermath](https://ij-reportika.com/floods-swamp-myanmars-capital-stranding-thousands-in-typhoons-aftermath/): Floodwaters as high as five meters (15 feet) submerged parts of Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw on Wednesday, sweeping away houses and trapping thousands of residents, as the remains of Typhoon Yagi swept inland and dumped rain after battering Vietnam over the weekend. After torrential rains that started Monday, water levels rose to the roofs of hundreds homes in villages around the capital, where the military junta’s top officers live. Some people were stranded on their rooftops. “Floods have swept away some houses,” a resident of Tatkon township told Radio Free Asia. “We remain trapped in the village. We cannot go anywhere. We have called rescue teams, but no one has come.” In Vietnam, the number of people killed or missing from Typhoon Yagi and related natural disasters rose to 292 people, including 152 confirmed deaths, according to Vietnam’s Disaster and Dike Management Authority. The storm – the biggest this year to hit Southeast Asia – battered northern Vietnam and southeastern China on Saturday, causing landslides and a bridge collapse northwest of Hanoi that was captured in dramatic dashcam footage.  Brimming rivers Heavy rainfall over the last several days has dumped water into already brimming rivers in Vietnam, Laos and elsewhere. In Laos, the Mekong River Commission issued a flood warning for Luang Prabang, a popular tourist destination that sits at the confluence of the Mekong River and a major tributary, the Nam Khan. More rain was forecast for Thursday in Luang Prabang and on Friday and Saturday in the capital, Vientiane.  The Mekong River Commission on Wednesday warned of flooding in northeastern Cambodia as water makes its way downriver from overflowing dams in Laos. In Myanmar’s northern Shan state, towns have also been affected by rising waters that have left people without electricity or phone service.  Further south in Kayin state, the Thaungyin River burst its banks in the important border town of Myawaddy on Tuesday, according to a rescue worker who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity for security reasons. Several residential areas were quickly flooded, and people have since taken shelter at monasteries and schools, he said. About 5,000 have been affected by the flood. “The water level is rising faster and stronger than before in Myawaddy township,” the rescue worker said. “The flood has reached to rooftops in lowland areas.” More flooding is likely to take place in southern Myanmar’s delta region as water makes its way downriver on the Ayeyarwady river, according to meteorologist Win Naing. RFA wasn’t able to contact the junta’s Department of Disaster Management to ask about the status of rescue operations throughout the country. Hanoi evacuations Flooding in the streets of Hanoi prompted the evacuation of thousands of residents near the Red River on Wednesday. In Vietnam’s northern industrial zones, some factories have been forced to close and may not reopen for several weeks, according to Reuters, which cited business executives. Many factories in Quang Ninh and Hai Phong are without power and water, Bruno Jaspaert, CEO of industrial parks in Hai Phong, told Reuters. Several Samsung and Foxconn factories in Thai Nguyen and Bac Giang are also facing the risk of flooding due to rising floodwaters, according to Reuters. Flooding in some areas of northern Vietnam was also being affected by the release of water from a hydropower plant along China’s section of the Lo River, which is a tributary of the Red River. The Vietnamese government said it has asked Beijing to reduce the discharge. Translated by Aung Naing, Anna Vu and Sum Sok Ry. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster. RFA Vietnamese and RFA Khmer contributed to this report. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [EXPLAINED: Why are there questions about foreign judges in Hong Kong’s high court?](https://ij-reportika.com/explained-why-are-there-questions-about-foreign-judges-in-hong-kongs-high-court/): A decision by Hong Kong’s top court in August to uphold the convictions of seven of Hong Kong’s most prominent pro-democracy activists, including newspaper publisher Jimmy Lai, has not only raised fears for freedom of the press but also questions about the role of foreign judges. One of the quirk’s of Hong Kong’s system negotiated when Britain handed it back to China in 1997 was foreign judges in the judiciary. They have long been upheld as a testament to the commitment to the rule of law. But criticism is growing that they legitimize an administration that fails to uphold values of political freedom and freedom of expression. Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong, made a pointed remark after the Hong Kong court’s August ruling, describing the verdict as one that “revealed the rapidly deteriorating state of the rule of law in Hong Kong.”   “This unjust verdict is further compounded by the involvement of Lord Neuberger, a former head of Britain’s Supreme Court, in this decision,” he said. David Neuberger is a British judge who served as the president of the British Supreme Court from 2012 to 2017. After his retirement, Neuberger participated in Hong Kong’s judicial system as part of the Court of Final Appeal, or CFA, which has the power of final adjudication and the ability to invite judges from other common law jurisdictions to join the court when necessary.  He said in August his role as a judge in Hong Kong was to decide cases that come before him according to the law. A man (bottom R) waits at a traffic light outside the Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong on March 31, 2022. (Isaac Lawrence/AFP) Why does Neuberger sit at the CFA? Hong Kong’s CFA was established on July 1, 1997, as part of the city’s legal framework under the Basic Law, which serves as its mini-constitution. The CFA replaced the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London as Hong Kong’s highest court after the end of British colonial rule. The Basic Law set out the city’s judicial system, which includes the CFA, the High Court, District Court, magistrates’ courts, and other specialized courts. It also ensured that Hong Kong’s common law system would continue. Cases in the CFA are heard by the chief justice, three permanent judges chosen by the chief justice, and a non-permanent judge who can be from Hong Kong or another common law jurisdiction. They are also selected by the chief justice. Under the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal Ordinance, an overseas non-permanent judge must be a judge or a retired judge of a court of unlimited jurisdiction in either civil or criminal matters in another common law jurisdiction. They should also ordinarily reside outside Hong Kong. There are no restrictions on the type of cases an overseas judge may preside over. Government officials and legal figures in Hong Kong often cite the presence of overseas judges as proof of international confidence in the independence of Hong Kong’s judiciary.   As of Sept. 11, there were seven overseas non-permanent judges at the CFA.  A supporter of media mogul Jimmy Lai, founder of Apple Daily, holds signs as his prison van leaves the Court of Final Appeal, in Hong Kong, China, Dec, 31, 2020. (Tyrone Siu/Reuters) What are the recent debates? The engagement of overseas judges has come under public scrutiny, particularly after some resignations following the implementation of a Beijing-imposed national security law in June 2020. The United States, Britain and other countries have criticized the law under which many Hong Kong residents have been prosecuted for dissent and media outlets shut. Only judges nominated by the city’s chief executive can sit on national security cases but the list of nominees is not made public, media has reported. The Hong Kong government said that any judge, regardless of nationality, was “eligible for designation” under the national security law, but in the small number of national security law cases that have reached the top court, no overseas judge has sat. A pro-establishment barrister and government adviser, Ronny Tong, questioned whether the city needed judges who owe their allegiance to other countries. They should not preside over national security cases, particularly if they came from countries “hostile to China or Hong Kong,” he said.  Social media critics question the foreign judges’ “luxurious” lifestyle. They are flown into Hong Kong on an ad hoc basis, enjoying first class travel and a generous salary for their visits, which typically last 29 days, media critics said. A statue of Lady Justice at the Court of Final Appeal is pictured, in Hong Kong, China, Sept. 5, 2023. (Tyrone Siu/Reuters) What are the foreign judges’ positions? Some of foreign judges who have stepped down since 2020 have questioned their roles under an administration that they say no longer respects basic rights and freedoms. In 2020, senior Australian judge James Spigelman cited the impact of the National Security Law as he stepped down. Two years later, U.K. Supreme Court justices Robert Reed and Patrick Hodge resigned following concerns raised by the British government. Other British judges, Jonathan Sumption and Lawrence Collins, resigned in June.  Collins cited the “political situation in Hong Kong” in a brief statement about his departure, while Sumption wrote in the Financial Times that Hong Kong was  “slowly becoming a totalitarian state”. “The rule of law is profoundly compromised in any area about which the government feels strongly,” Sumption said, adding that it was “no longer realistic” to think that the presence of overseas judges could help sustain the rule of law in Hong Kong. A spokesperson for Hong Kong’s judiciary said in June that its “operation will not be affected by any change in membership of the court”. Hong Kong’s government rejects any suggestion that the courts are subject to political pressure. It says the national security law, introduced after mass protests in 2019, was necessary to ensure the stability that underpins the financial hub’s prosperity. Edited by Mike Firn.  We are...
- [Sluggish property revenues hit Hong Kong fiscal reserves](https://ij-reportika.com/sluggish-property-revenues-hit-hong-kong-fiscal-reserves/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Cantonese. Falling revenue from land auctions &#8212; once a mainstay of the city&#8217;s fiscal strength &#8212; has hit Hong Kong government coffers hard in recent months, resulting in a spike in the fiscal deficit and dwindling fiscal reserves. Government expenditure between April and July topped HK$242.6 billion (US$31 billion), with revenue at just HK$90.1 billion (US$11.5 billion) over the same period, resulting in a cumulative year-to-date deficit of HK$135.4 billion (US$17.4 billion), the government said. The government reported a budget deficit of about HK$100 billion (US$12.8 billion) for the fiscal year that ended in March 2024, almost double its earlier estimate. The latest figures from April through July suggest it could be on track for an even larger hole in public finances in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2025. Hong Kong reported a budget deficit of HK$257.6 billion for the 2020-21 fiscal year, the largest deficit in 20 years, reflecting huge government expenditures during the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Apartment blocks at Oi Man housing estate, May 8, 2024, in Hong Kong. (Dale De La Rey/AFP) But the deficit, which analysts say is mostly the result of reduced revenues from land auctions and recently cut stamp duties, hasn’t disappeared since then, largely due to a flagging property market and a post-lockdown economic slump. Fiscal reserves stood at HK$599.2 billion (US$76.8 billion) as of July 31, their lowest level in 14 years. However, the figures have taken into account proceeds and payouts on recent government bond transactions, the government said in an Aug. 30 statement. Fiscal obligations Hong Kong is obliged under its constitution, the Basic Law, to avoid deficits by keeping spending within revenue limits, yet the city has reported four deficits in the past five years. “The government has slowed down the supply of land to give the market time, but the Hong Kong property market is facing structural changes,” Joseph Ngan, former finance channel chief at i-CABLE News, wrote in a recent commentary for RFA Cantonese. “The effect of the stimulating measures at the beginning of this year has now worn off, and real estate prices have seen further downward pressure in recent months,” Ngan wrote. “This has impacted developers&#8217; willingness to invest in land, and will eventually mean a huge fiscal deficit.” The situation has left some government departments charged with managing affordable housing and cultural assets in dire financial straits, including the Housing Authority, which runs the city&#8217;s public housing estates, and the Urban Renewal Authority, which spearheads urban redevelopment and refurbishment projects. Hong Kong apartment buildings, May 15, 2024. (Dale De La Rey/AFP) Such departments are now in need of fresh injections of capital, analysts said. The Housing Authority, which relies on public housing rentals and the sale of premium-free Home Ownership Scheme housing as its main income, is in a similar situation.  Revenue in recent years has been lower than expected, leaving the body with an operating surplus that shrank from HK$12.6 billion (US$1.6 billion) in 2023 to HK$2.6 billion (US$330 million). Public rental housing revenue is expected to move into the red this fiscal year, with a projected deficit of around HK$2.143 billion (US$276 million) next year.  Housing construction promised At the same time, the Hong Kong government has pledged to speed up construction of more than 10,000 subsidized housing units within the next five years, boosting annual construction expenditure by HK$10 billion (US$1.2 billion) to HK$40 billion (US$5 billion).  The authority has tried to staunch the losses by slashing discounts to its affordable Home Ownership Scheme private sector apartments from 62% last year to just 30% this year, but the move has made it harder to sell the apartments in what was already a difficult market. Financial commentator Simon Lee said the authority was forced to sell off some of its public housing assets in the wake of the Asian financial crisis of 1997. &#8220;The Housing Authority was the first to be affected when the real estate market froze during the 1997 financial crisis,&#8221; Lee said. &#8220;Public housing rentals can carry on when the market is strong, but Hong Kong is tied into the public policy model of real estate subsidies.&#8221; He said the government also holds a stake in train and subway operator MTRC, and subsidizes it to build housing and other developments on its land, and around stations. A worker walks past a large advertisement photo of a property project of the China Evergrande Group outside its local headquarters in Hong Kong, Oct. 4, 2021. (Vincent Yu/AP) Meanwhile, the Urban Renewal Authority has been issuing bonds in a bid to raise enough funds. &#8220;Exorbitantly high construction costs and high interest rates, coupled with high prices for previously acquired land &#8230; have put considerable pressure on the [Urban Renewal] Authority,&#8221; Joseph Ngan told RFA Cantonese’s Free to Talk Finance show. &#8220;The reversal in the real estate market has left a lot of property-related public bodies under tremendous pressure,&#8221; he said. Bond sale The Urban Renewal Authority&#8217;s recent triple-tranche HK$12 billion (US$1.5 billion) senior bonds offering under its US$3 billion Medium Term Note Programme will help to fund its capital expenditure on urban renewal projects and for general corporate purposes, the authority said in an Aug. 21 statement. The offering was well-received by a diverse group of high-quality local and overseas investors, including banks, asset managers, corporations, insurance companies, hedge funds, central banks, official institutions, family offices and private banks.  It had a peak combined orderbook of over HK$22.8 billion (US$2.9 billion), representing an oversubscription rate of around 2 times, the statement said. The bond sale came after the authority suffered its first loss in nine years in 2022/23, totaling more than HK$3.9 billion last year. Projected construction costs this year will run to HK$64.3 billion (US$8.2 billion), but current cash reserves are only HK$18 billion (US$2.3 billion). The authority has also been allowed to borrow up to HK$25 billion (US$3.2 billion) under government guarantees. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by...
- [Vietnam defense minister Phan Van Giang visits US to boost ties](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-defense-minister-phan-van-giang-visits-us-to-boost-ties/): Updated Sept. 10, 2024, 07:03 a.m. ET. Vietnam’s minister of national defense Phan Van Giang is in the U.S. to bolster bilateral security cooperation amid rising tensions in the South China Sea. Vietnam is among the states that claim at least part of the waterway and it has been seeking to strengthen its maritime capabilities, including with purchases of defense technologies and equipment. Giang’s trip is his first official visit to the U.S. since he took office in April 2021. Hanoi and Washington upgraded their relations to the top tier of comprehensive strategic partnership in September 2023, during a visit by U.S. President Joe Biden to Vietnam. Yet their security and defense cooperation, deemed highly sensitive as the two countries fought each other in the past, remains limited and has focused mainly on the legacies of the Vietnam War, such as searching for American soldiers missing in action and decontamination of areas affected by toxic chemicals. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin (R) welcomes Vietnamese Defense Minister Gen. Phan Van Giang (L) to the Pentagon in Washington, Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf) Gen. Giang and his counterpart, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, had a meeting on Monday at the Pentagon, during which they “underscored the importance of working together to overcome war legacies,” according to a summary provided by the Department of Defense. They also “discussed opportunities to deepen defense cooperation, including on defense trade, industrial base resilience, and information sharing,” the department said without providing  further details. Shopping list According to the U.S. government, from 2016 to 2021, it authorized US$29.8 million – a relatively small amount – in defense articles to Vietnam via direct commercial sales. The Defense Department also has more than $118 million in active foreign military sales to Vietnam, mainly of trainer aircraft. This budget would be greatly expanded if Vietnam decided to procure more U.S. equipment, analysts say. “Defense equipment suppliers and subcontractors can expect increased demand for naval combatants, aerial defense, intelligence systems, and surveillance and reconnaissance equipment,” the U.S. government’s International Trade Administration said in its commercial guide. “Maritime security and air defense is where Vietnam has the biggest need, but I would expect Vietnam would start with maritime security first, as this dovetails with U.S. expectations,” said Alexander Vuving, a professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Hawaii “But there is no clear-cut distinction between maritime security and air defense. For example, aircraft, radars and missiles are essential in both,” Vuving told Radio Free Asia. RELATED STORIES Closer Vietnam-US ties not based on Beijing issues, says conference Vietnam hosts its first international defense expo Vietnam mulls law that may open market to foreign arms firms US Defense Secretary Austin Meets in Hanoi With Vietnamese Officials The United States and Vietnam signed in 2015 a so-called Joint Vision Statement on defense relations – their most important document setting out defense cooperation, in which maritime security was highlighted. The U.S. has given the Vietnam coast guard two Hamilton-class cutters – a third one is scheduled to be delivered in the near future – as well as tactical drones and patrol boats. Veteran regional military watcher Mike Yeo said that coast guard cutters “would be an obvious item” on Hanoi’s shopping list. “But another possibility is the approval for transfer of subsystems to Vietnam such as jet engines for Korean FA-50 light attack planes should Vietnam decide to buy them,” Yeo said.  “Vietnam hasn&#8217;t bought the FA-50 yet but it seems like a logical choice going forward and as the engine used is a U.S. design an export clearance will be needed for any buyers,” he added. Not targeting China The United States lifted its lethal arms embargo on Vietnam in 2016, enabling it to procure U.S. equipment but “it will depend mainly on Vietnam&#8217;s needs and the prices,” said Vuving. Vietnam’s defense budget has not been made public, but could be about $7.8 billion in 2024, according to GlobalData. It remains dependent on cheaper Russian arms and equipment but there are efforts to diversify supplies with a major defense expo in Hanoi in 2022 and a second one slated for this December. Before the meeting with Gen. Giang on Monday, Secretary Austin said his department had accepted an invitation to the event that is due to be attended by defense suppliers from dozens of countries including Russia, India, the United Kingdom, Israel and France. Vietnam’s big neighbor China did not attend the first Vietnam Defense Expo and has yet to confirm its attendance at the second. A visitor looks into the U.S. Excelitas’ Merlin-LR Image Intensifier weapon-mounted sight during a defense expo in Hanoi on October 2, 2019. (Nhac Nguyen/AFP) Hanoi is always cautious not to antagonize Beijing while deepening ties with Washington, insisting that any effort to modernize its military is purely for self-defense and not aimed at any  country. “China will watch Vietnam-U.S. relations very closely,” said Vuving. “Beijing is unhappy with any progress in U.S.-Vietnam relations.”  Edited by Mike Firn. Updated to clarify Phan Van Giang&#8217;s schedule. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Hong Kong turns away German activist as US warns of growing risks](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-turns-away-german-activist-as-us-warns-of-growing-risks/): Read coverage of this topic by RFA Mandarin, RFA Tibetan or RFA Cantonese. Authorities in Hong Kong have interrogated and denied entry to a German rights activist amid warnings from the United States of growing personal and business risks for those traveling to the city. Immigration officers turned away rights activist David Missal, deputy managing director &amp; press officer for the Berlin-based Tibet Initiative Germany, after he arrived at Hong Kong International Airport on Sept. 7 from Beijing&#8217;s Daxing International Airport, according to a copy of an official &#8220;Refusal Notice&#8221; he shared to his X account on Sunday. &#8220;I was just refused entry to Hong Kong,&#8221; Missal, who is also the co-founder of a group called Freedom for Hong Kong, wrote in his X post.  &#8220;After 13 sleepless hours under immigration examination in the middle of the night, I was told that I could not enter the city and was eventually allowed to take a plane to Vietnam.&#8221; Missal, who isn&#8217;t the first foreign rights activist to be denied entry to Hong Kong, described being &#8220;questioned several times and held in a room without any daylight,&#8221; adding that immigration officers also searched his luggage.                    &#8220;The police did not provide any reason for the entry refusal. In the end, I was accompanied by plainclothes police officers to the plane to Vietnam,&#8221; Missal wrote, adding that he had been allowed to enter mainland China for two weeks on a visa waiver program with no issues. &#8220;I hope Hong Kong will be free – one day,&#8221; he said. Eroding freedoms Ray Wong, who heads Freedom for Hong Kong, said the erosion of the city&#8217;s freedoms was clear to all, including foreign passport-holders. &#8220;That Hong Kong has become less free is something not only we, who come from Hong Kong, notice,&#8221; Wong said in a statement. &#8220;Foreigners are also not safe from the regime&#8217;s arbitrariness. The National Security Police has become an instrument of repression.&#8221; Tenzyn Zöchbauer, executive director of Tibet Initiative Germany, strongly condemned the treatment of Missal. &#8220;It is unacceptable that even private travelers with critical voices are denied entry,&#8221; Zöchbauer said. &#8220;These measures are not only an alarming sign of the ongoing loss of Hong Kong&#8217;s autonomy but also a clear violation of international human rights standards.&#8221; Missal told RFA Mandarin in a later interview from Vietnam that the move was an example of China&#8217;s &#8220;transnational repression.&#8221; &#8220;The Hong Kong government and a lot of authoritarian countries are doing this now; I think it&#8217;s very common,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s pretty scary.&#8221; A screenshot of a post on X by David Missal, deputy managing director &amp; press officer for the Berlin-based Tibet Initiative Germany he says shows a plainclothes policeman following him in the Hong Kong airport, Sept. 8, 2024. (@DavidJRMissal via X) Yet Missal was allowed to enter China, spending time in Beijing and southwestern Sichuan province in a private capacity before boarding the plane to Hong Kong.  This suggests the city&#8217;s officials are now even more zealous than their mainland Chinese counterparts when it comes to turning away &#8220;undesirables.&#8221; &#8220;I feel like Hong Kong is the same as mainland China now, or it may be more strict, which is a real shame,&#8221; Missal said, adding that he didn&#8217;t know if the incident would affect his ability to go back to mainland China in future. Personal details probed From Sept. 3, anyone traveling to Hong Kong will have their personal details sent to the city authorities before they board their flight, making it easier for officials to turn away foreign journalists, members of international organizations, and anyone else they see as &#8220;undesirable&#8221; before they travel. Missal&#8217;s denial of entry came as the U.S. government issued risk advisories to American citizens and businesses, warning them of &#8220;personal safety and legal risks&#8221; when traveling to Hong Kong or doing business there. Five government departments issued a statement to &#8220;highlight new and heightened risks&#8221; to U.S. companies operating in Hong Kong in the wake of the latest national security legislation, known as “Article 23.” &#8220;Hong Kong’s diminishing autonomy from the central government of the People&#8217;s Republic of China, creates new risks for businesses and individuals in Hong Kong that were previously limited to mainland China,&#8221; the departments said in a joint statement dated Sept. 6. A screenshot of a post on X by David Missal, Deputy managing director &amp; press officer for the Berlin-based Tibet Initiative Germany that shows his denial for entry into Hong Kong, Sept. 8, 2024. (@DavidJRMissal via X) The warnings were aimed at individuals, businesses, academic institutions, media organizations, research service providers and investors operating in Hong Kong, it said. “The vaguely defined nature of the law and previous government statements and actions raise questions about risks associated with routine activities,” it said, in a reference to the &#8220;Article 23&#8243; legislation passed in March. The U.S. State Department has warned Americans to &#8220;exercise increased caution when traveling to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) due to the arbitrary enforcement of local laws&#8221; since April 2024, when its advisory was updated following the implementation of Article 23. ‘I don’t think this ploy will succeed’ The Hong Kong government rejected the advisory as &#8220;misleading and untruthful,&#8221; accusing Washington of &#8220;trying to create panic.&#8221; The city&#8217;s second-in-command, Chief Secretary for the Administration Eric Chan said the U.S. advisory was an attempt to suppress China’s rise. “The National Security Law has been enacted for a long time and we can all see that we have never groundlessly arrested any business people,” Chan told reporters on Saturday. The warnings “involve an element of intimidation, to scare away business people hoping to invest in Hong Kong. I don’t think this ploy will succeed,” Chan said. Anouk Wear, U.S. Research and Policy Advisor for the London-based rights group Hong Kong Watch, welcomed the U.S. advisory, however. “This advisory &#8230; rightly highlights the new and increased risks of operating in Hong Kong,&#8221; Wear said in a statement, which called for further sanctions on Hong Kong officials...
- [Rebel army captures major Myanmar navy training base](https://ij-reportika.com/rebel-army-captures-major-myanmar-navy-training-base/): Read coverage of this story in Burmese. Insurgents in western Myanmar have captured an important military training base after a month of fighting, the rebel army said in a statement, dealing what is likely to be a severe blow to the embattled military. .Arakan Army troops seized the Central Naval Diving and Salvage Depot between Thandwe township’s Maung Shwe Lay and Kwin Waing village in Rakhine state on Thursday, said the ethnic minority insurgent force battling for self-determination.  The Arakan Army, or AA, said the facility was the last naval base held by junta forces in Thandwe township, and it was defended on a “huge-scale” by the junta’s air force and navy as well as more than 1,200 soldiers, including many new graduates from the base. “More than 400 junta soldiers were killed during our attack, and junta weapons, ammunition and equipment were seized,” the AA said in  its statement.  Radio Free Asia was not able to independently verify that toll and the junta main spokesperson, Major Gen. Zaw Min, Tun did not respond to requests for comment.  The AA posted pictures of its fighters standing by a diving boards at the training center. The base is a major navy training facility and its loss will be of huge significance for the military, said Pe Than, a former member of parliament for the Arakan National Party, which in the past had affiliations with the AA. “Losing such a base will affect training as well as fighting. They’ve destroyed the navy and weakened the army, like cutting a man off at the waist,” he said. He said the Danyawaddy Naval Base in Kyaukpyu township, to the north of Thandwe, was the navy’s last facility in Rakhine state. “The military is like a bird with one wing now,” he said. Arakan Army forces after capturing the junta&#8217;s Central Naval Diving and Salvage Depot in Rakhine State on Sept. 5, 2024 (Arakan Army Information Desk) The loss of the base will not only dent the junta’s morale and reputation but also bring in more resources for the AA through the control of goods coming through a nearby port, he said. The AA said it expected junta retaliation against civilians in the area. Human rights investigators say junta forces have been increasingly attacking civilian targets as they lose ground to insurgent forces in different parts of the country. The military denies attacking civilians. The Arakan Army, which launched a new offensive against the military in November, controls nine townships in Rakhine state and one in neighboring Chin state, and is battling to take full control of three other townships.  Junta forces have launched crackdowns in the north of the state, near the Bangladesh border, and across the neighboring Ayeyarwady region after AA gains in the south of the state. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [INTERVIEW: Documentary filmmaker re-lives the 2019 Hong Kong protests](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-documentary-filmmaker-re-lives-the-2019-hong-kong-protests/): A journalist who made a feature-length documentary using on-the-ground footage of the 2019 Hong Kong protests has spoken about the need to face up to the trauma of the months-long movement. The protests, which began as an outpouring of anger over plans to allow the extradition of criminal suspects to face trial in mainland China, were a key milestone in Hong Kong’s transformation from one of the most free-wheeling cities in Asia to the restrictive semi-police state it is today. The filmmaker, who gave only the nickname Alan for fear of reprisals, will screen his film &#8220;Rather be Ashes Than Dust&#8221; in Canada this month to mark the fifth anniversary of the protest movement this year. Built from thousands of hours of handheld footage from Hong Kong&#8217;s streets, much of the action takes place amid pitched street battles between frontline protesters wielding umbrellas, bricks and Molotov cocktails confronting fully-equipped riot police with non-lethal bullets, water cannons and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of tear gas. For Alan, editing his film involved reliving the chaos, terror and heartache of those months, as well as facing up to his own traumatized response. &#8220;I knew all of the scenes inside out,&#8221; he told RFA Cantonese in a recent interview. &#8220;Every location, exactly what happened there &#8212; where shots were fired, where people were arrested, where blood was spilled.&#8221; PTSD Alan, who like many Hong Kongers has suffered with post-traumatic stress disorder after witnessing so much violence and anguish on Hong Kong&#8217;s streets, had to take the edit slowly. &#8220;There were some scenes where I really couldn&#8217;t stop crying,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I would cut for maybe one or two minutes, then I wouldn&#8217;t be able to carry on.&#8221; Only some protesters took on police at the barricades, however. The film also portrays peaceful protesters in their thousands and millions coming out in support of the &#8220;Five Demands&#8221;: the withdrawal of amendments to extradition laws; fully democratic elections; an amnesty for all arrested protesters; accountability for police brutality and the withdrawal of the use of the word &#8220;rioters&#8221; to describe them. Hong Kong director “Alan,” whose film “Rather be Ashes Than Dust” premieres in Canada in September 2024. (RFA) While the extradition amendments were withdrawn after crowds of masked activists stormed the Legislative Council on July 1, 2019, the government continued to describe the protests as &#8220;riots&#8221; instigated by &#8220;hostile foreign forces,&#8221; and eventually quashed an independent report into police violence. Tens of thousands of people were arrested and packed into overcrowded jails amid  reports of abuse in custody, while electoral rules were rewritten to ensure that only &#8220;patriotic&#8221; candidates loyal to the ruling Chinese Communist Party could stand. Inner conflict At times, Alan found that his role as a supposedly impartial observer was at odds with his desire to help those he was filming. &#8220;One time, the police pinned down a couple,&#8221; he said of one incident, which happened as protesters occupied the Hong Kong International Airport at Chek Lap Kok. &#8220;I was some distance away at the time, but I could see them going after people.&#8221; &#8220;I really, really wanted to warn them to get out of there fast,&#8221; he said. &#8220;But I was a coward and kept quiet – I just kept on filming the whole thing.&#8221; That decision haunts Alan to this day, leading him to feel that the film could encourage similar &#8220;soul-searching&#8221; in others. &#8220;The couple got arrested in the end,&#8221; he said. An image from the trailer from the documentary “Rather Be Ashes Than Dust”. (Doc Edge via Youtube) Later, he was to act as a witness for protesters who were being arrested. &#8220;Everyone who got arrested started saying their names and ID card numbers in front of a video camera,&#8221; Alan said. &#8220;Because there were rumors going around that anyone who got arrested would likely just disappear, never to be heard of again.&#8221; &#8220;So we recorded all of their images and their voices, as evidence,&#8221; he said. Sold-out theaters &#8220;Rather be Ashes Than Dust&#8221; has already been screened at film festivals in South Korea, New Zealand and Sweden. At the Busan International Film Festival last October, it played to three sold-out theaters that were packed with young Koreans. &#8220;Hong Kong&#8217;s government is actually quite similar to that of South Korea: there&#8217;s a lot of conflict and disputes,&#8221; he said. &#8220;That atmosphere was the reason why so many young South Koreans came to watch my film.&#8221; Alan thinks his film, which is scheduled to screen in Toronto on Sept. 28 and 29, will encourage others to face up to Hong Kong&#8217;s recent history, even if the wounds are very far from healed. &#8220;It&#8217;s been five years now, and regardless of how you see things, I think we have to face up to what happened with courage and fortitude, because it&#8217;s our history,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Then, maybe we can reflect on it, maybe do some soul-searching, ask if we did the right thing, and if it was enough?&#8221; Even from exile, the film has a role to play, he believes, adding: &#8220;The media should never abandon its duty to speak out on behalf of the powerless, the vulnerable and the oppressed.&#8221; Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [EXPLAINED: The (worrying) popularity of caterpillar fungus](https://ij-reportika.com/explained-the-worrying-popularity-of-caterpillar-fungus/): By now the army of scavengers has retreated from the high hillsides of the eastern Tibetan plateau, their bounty in hand. Harvest season for yartsa gunbu (དབྱར་རྩྭ་དགུན་འབུ།), or caterpillar fungus, typically runs from May to July, when winter snows have receded and thousands of rural, ethnic Tibetans can prospect for what’s also known as “soft gold.”  It’s hard to overstate the importance these few weeks hold for the people who climb the steep slopes. Collecting caterpillar fungus —  which is used to treat a variety of ailments — can account for as much as 90% of a rural family’s annual income.  But high demand has spurred overharvesting, making it harder to find the fungus in its natural environment. Climate change poses another challenge. Warmer temperatures on the high plateau are reducing the length of winter, a critical time for yartsa gunbu. Now a new threat is emerging, sources inside China say: artificial varieties designed to fill the gaps between supply and demand, in the form of either cultivated fungi or fake products altogether. Although Chinese authorities have tried to regulate the sale of cultivated fungus, interviews with Tibetans and online videos that attract tens of thousands of viewers say imposters have infiltrated the market. “It will definitely jeopardize the lives of thousands of Tibetan herders and farmers whose income depend on the wild yartsa,” said Lobsang Yeshi, who has practiced traditional Tibetan medicine at Men-Tsee-Khang in Dharamshala, India, for the past 20 years.  A local resident pulls out a caterpillar fungus west China&#8217;s Qinghai province May 12, 2007. (Simon Zo/Reuters) What is caterpillar fungus and where does it come from? Yartsa gunbu translates to “summer grass, winter bug.” The Ophiocordyceps sinensis – its scientific name – releases spores that sink underground and infect the larvae of ghost moths, so called for the white color of males. The yartsa gunbu takes over, commandeering the caterpillar’s nervous system, consuming its organs and finally, in spring, emerging from its head as a brown stoma at altitudes of greater than 13,000 feet (4,000 meters). Its methods have drawn comparisons to the fungus that stars in the HBO hit zombie series, “The Last of Us.” Harvested intact, it’s about the length of a little finger and shaped like a caterpillar with a stem attached.  Yartsa gunbu is found primarily in the Himalaya mountains and the Tibetan plateau. The Yushu Tibetan Autonomous prefecture in Qinghai province, east of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, is a particularly good place to look. Thousands of its residents set up makeshift camps from which they hike into the thin air. The annual harvest is reportedly around 300 million fungi that can cost $7 a pop or more, leaving a multi-billion dollar market.  A jar of caterpillar fungus on sale at a herbal medicine shop in Queens, New York, Aug. 23, 2024 (Lobsang Gelek/RFA) What is caterpillar fungus used for? Yartsa gunbu has been used in Tibetan and Chinese traditional medicine to treat heart, liver and lung ailments. More recently, it acquired a reputation for improving sexual stamina in men and women. (“Himalayan Viagra” is another moniker.) Studies have shown possible benefits, though scientists say more clinical research is needed. Users consume yartsa gunbu by brewing it with hot water similar to how tea or herbal infusions are prepared, or chewing it as it comes. Some put it in soups and other recipes. Lesser specimens are ground into powders. Why are people growing a fungus ?  Pluckers like to pick the fungus before it releases spores, limiting its ability to reproduce and leading to its population decline. China has encouraged the development of cultivated yartsa gunbu, and one company has reportedly solved the puzzle, synthetically growing the O. sinensis fungus found in the wild.  But some individuals are trying to cultivate fungus varieties on their own. That, fungus traders say, has undercut prices and, because the buyer’s remain suspicious of its medicinal properties, consumer confidence, several sources told RFA.  In Guangzhou, a major market, “there is a hesitancy of customers in buying because of too much artificial fungus in the market,” one trader said. A Tibetan living in Qinghai province said prices have dropped nearly 20% this year.  In New York, a retailer said he can still sell a single piece of wild fungus for $14, but “there are a lot of fake and cultivated yartsa” undercutting the business, he said. &#8220;Nowadays, people are selling thousands of artificial yartsa online per day, as well as in shops, jeopardizing the original yartsa business,&#8221; he said. Studies have shown that cultivated fungus can replicate the chemical compounds of natural varieties, though there are differences.  A local resident displays a few caterpillar fungus, Qinghai province, China, May 12, 2007. (Simon Zo/Reuters) What is China doing to protect the market? Chinese authorities seem to be aware of the financial risks to some of their poorest populations.  In April, the Chinese government in Qinghai, tried to control the artificial plantation of yartsa gunbu. But a trader in Nagchu, Tibet Autonomous Region, an area that historically has been among the best for finding wild yartsa gunbu, said enforcement has been lax. &#8220;Chinese authorities have come out with a lot of rules saying that the artificial fungus is banned,” the trader said. “But the on-ground reality is that the Chinese authorities are not strictly monitoring or stopping the sale of artificial fungus. And this is making it tough for us to sell the real fungus.&#8221;  Lobsang from RFA Tibetan contributed to this article. Edited by Jim Snyder and Boer Deng. Check out our reports Author: Investigative Journalism Reportika
- [Chinese soccer fans bemoan 0-7 loss to Japan as ‘Day of Humiliation’](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-soccer-fans-bemoan-0-7-loss-to-japan-as-day-of-humiliation/): Read a version of this story in Chinese Chinese netizens reacted with embarrassment and frustration to the men’s national soccer team’s humiliating 0-7 loss to Japan in a World Cup qualifying match, with some calling it a “Day of Humiliation.” &#8220;Ah! It&#8217;s simply embarrassing to talk about. As a Chinese, I am ashamed,” sports enthusiast Zhao Xiang told Radio Free Asia. “This is practically a joke.” &#8220;Why can&#8217;t we solve these problems?” he asked. “I don’t think the physique of Chinese people is an issue. Koreans and Japanese are also Asian and they make it to the (World Cup). Why can’t we?&#8221; Japan is one of Asia’s strongest teams, competing in every World Cup since 1998. Meanwhile, China has only managed to qualify once, in 2002 – so getting beaten isn’t terribly surprising. But losing by such a lopsided score in Thursday’s match in Saitama, north of Tokyo, was hard for many Chinese fans to swallow.  Japan’s Takumi Minamino fights for the ball with China&#8217;s defender Liu Yang during their World Cup qualifying match in Saitama, Sept. 5, 2024. (Yuichi Yamazaki/AFP) Despite its relative lack of success in the world’s premier tournament, China is a soccer-crazed nation. President Xi Jinping, a fan himself, once expressed his hope for China to host and even win the men’s World Cup one day.  “Sept. 5 is a day of humiliation for Chinese soccer,” said an online media outlet run by the government of Shandong province. Chinese citizens have a complex relationship with Japan, owing to the troubled history between the two nations, which fought major wars against each other during the 20th century and found themselves aligned on opposite sides of the Cold War. EXPLORE OUR WORLD CUP QUALIFIER COVERAGE North Korea falls 0-1 to Uzbekistan to start 3rd round of World Cup Asian qualifiers Asian qualifier outlook round 3: North Korea  Podcast: RFA Insider EP10 (Timecode 17:32) While thousands of Chinese tourists have flocking to Japan each year, Chinese social media regularly erupts in Japan-bashing sentiment, such as when Japan released wastewater from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant last year into the ocean, sparking fears about tainted seafood.  ‘Real gap’ It was the worst loss for China’s men’s team since 2012, when the team suffered a 0-8 shellacking to perennial world powerhouse Brazil. The Chinese women’s national soccer team has performed much better, competing in eight World Cups, with the 1999 team finishing 2nd in that year’s tournament. The women’s team is ranked 18th in the world, while the men’s team is ranked 87th. Zhang Yuning, a former player of the Chinese team, said the match “demonstrates the real gap between Chinese and Japanese football.”  “It is ultimately reflected in the score, which demonstrates the difference between Chinese and Japanese football,” he said. China&#8217;s Fernandinho, Alan, Dalei Wang and teammates after their 0-7 World Cup qualifier loss to Japan in Saitama, Sept. 5, 2024. (Issei Kato/Reuters) He said the Chinese team should acknowledge the gap and try to perform better in the upcoming matches. According to Chinese media reports, Fan Zhiyi, another former national player, also criticized the home team by stating that the loss to a powerful team like Japan was understandable, but it was terrible that Japan was allowed to score so easily. &#8220;If it weren’t so far from here, I would have really jumped into the Huangpu river,&#8221; Fan said, referring to Shanghai&#8217;s main waterway, in a widely circulated video. &#8220;How many football association presidents have we had? Has anything changed? It’s just changing the syrup without replacing the prescription!&#8221;  Competing for spots Thursday&#8217;s match was the start of the third round of China and Japan&#8217;s world cup qualifying campaign, and they are competing with 16 other Asian teams for spots in the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which will be hosted jointly by Canada, Mexico and the United States. Wataru Endo opened up the scoring for Japan in the 12th minute, and China managed to keep the Japanese out of the goal for the rest of the first half until the second minute past regulation, when Kaoru Mitoma found the back of the net.  Goals rained down on China in the second half, with Takumi Minamoto scoring in the 52nd and 58th minutes, followed by Junya Ito at 77, Daizen Maeda at 87, and Takefusa Kubo at 5 minutes past regulation. China&#8217;s head coach Branko Ivankovic on the sidelines during the World Cup qualifying round football match between Japan and China in Saitama, Sept. 5, 2024. (Yuichi Yamazaki/AFP) Many fans on social media blamed the loss on China’s new manager, Croatian Branko Ivankovic, who was handed the reins in February, but others clapped back. &#8220;Stop blaming the head coach and demanding for his resignation after the game,” netizens said. “It doesn’t matter who the coach is. … (we should) just withdraw from the competition. … We can’t afford the embarrassment.&#8221;  Others suggested that China withdraw from international soccer altogether. With the defeat, China sits at the bottom of the Group C standings, and will look to regain its footing on Tuesday vs Saudi Arabia in Dalian. Also in Group C, Bahrain upset Australia 1-0 and Saudi Arabia and Indonesia played to a 1-1 draw. Meanwhile, in Group B, Palestine turned heads earning a scoreless draw against heavily favored South Korea, and in Group A, North Korea lost to Uzbekistan 0-1. Translated by Li Yaqian. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Torrential rains, deadly flooding hit Tibetan areas of Qinghai province](https://ij-reportika.com/torrential-rains-deadly-flooding-hit-tibetan-areas-of-qinghai-province/): Read RFA&#8217;s coverage of this topic in Tibetan. Heavy rains in Tibetan areas of central China’s Qinghai province have triggered severe flooding, destroying infrastructure and killing at least nine people and hundreds of livestock, three Tibetans from inside Tibet said. The rains have drenched the area since Sept. 2, flooding roads, damaging bridges and causing landslides, they said. Chinese state media reported that heavy rains have  inundated houses and swept away vehicles. Tibet is experiencing heavier annual rainfalls and flooding than in the past, which some Tibetan rights groups say is due to climate change. Six people died in Trelnag township of Serchen (Gonghe in Chinese) County in Tsolho Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, the sources said, insisting on not being identified to avoid reprisals from authorities. Five of them died while traveling in a vehicle when a bridge collapsed, one source said. Three others died due to a landslide in Honaguk village in Minhe county of Tsoshar (Haidong in Chinese) prefecture.  Some areas experienced severe hailstorms, which shattered windows and glass panes in the homes of nomads, the sources said. Livestock dies The flooding killed livestock as well. Nearly 400 cattle and sheep died In Tsekhok (Zekog) county in the Malho (Huangnan) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture.  Residents there needed help pulling dead cattle from the water and mud. RELATED STORIES Why do places in Tibet have both Tibetan and Chinese names? Sudden flooding, landslides damage homes and roads in remote Tibetan county Hail, torrential rain leave at least 31 dead in Tibetan-populated areas of China Severe rain damages significant monastery in Tibet (VIDEO) In Minhe district, houses were damaged, and highways and bridges were washed over, while grasslands were covered by mud. As of Sept. 4, the Chinese government elevated the weather-damage alert for Qinghai from level 4 to level 3.  Chinese state media reported a level-one flood warning has been issued for Siling (Xining) city as well as Tathang, Kumbum and Tongkor counties. As a result, officials suspended bus transportation from Siling to these areas. Roads and bridges connecting Tongkor and Siling have been severely damaged by the flooding, the sources said. Additionally, roads leading from Dashi (Haiyan) and Kangtsa (Gangcha) counties of Tsojang (Haibei) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, and Themchen (Tianjun) county of Tsonub (Haixi Mongolian and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture) to Siling (Xining) city have been cut off, making travel in and out of these areas impossible. The areas have been hit by flooding before. In 2022, five people died and over 2,000 head of livestock died due to flooding in parts of Qinghai province, including Mangra (Guinan), Serkog and Rebgong counties, as well as Labrang town in Sanchu (Xiahe) County of Kanlho (Gannan) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Gansu province.   Additional reporting and translation by Tashi Wangchuk and Tenzin Dickyi. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [South Korea, Japan ‘ready to stop North Korea hiding behind Russia’](https://ij-reportika.com/south-korea-japan-ready-to-stop-north-korea-hiding-behind-russia/): Leaders of South Korea and Japan said they would maintain their readiness to stop North Korea hiding behind Russia in its provocative acts, Kim Tae-hyo, South Korea’s deputy national security adviser, said on Friday. Kim was speaking after South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida met for talks in Seoul that included ways to deepen cooperation, even as Kishida prepares to step down at the end of the month. Kishida arrived for a two-day visit and talks with Yoon, their 12th summit in about two years. It was their last summit, as Kishida will not seek reelection as prime minister and leader of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party after three years in the job. During the summit, Kishida called for peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula through a “unification doctrine” that Yoon announced last month, which focuses on expanding North Koreans’ access to external information and proposes establishing an official dialogue channel between the two Koreas to discuss various issues. Yoon, in his opening remarks at Friday’s summit, said it was important to maintain the positive momentum in relations with Japan. He added that the two countries have a chance to raise their relations to another level when they mark next year’s 60th anniversary of diplomatic ties and that working with Kishida on improving relations was the most meaningful development since he became president. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida attend a meeting at the Presidential Office in Seoul, South Korea, Sept. 6, 2024. (Lee Jin-man/Pool via Reuters) Relations between the two U.S. allies have been fraught for years because of South Korea resentment of Japan’s behavior during its occupation of Korea before and during World War II. But Yoon and Kishida have been able to build a close relationship as a result of Yoon’s decision last year to resolve a long-standing dispute regarding Japan’s wartime mobilization of Koreans for forced labor by compensating victims without contributions from Japanese firms. The two leaders have since resumed a “shuttle diplomacy” of holding meetings on the fringes of international conferences and visiting each other as needed. Their restored relations have also substantially enhanced trilateral security cooperation with the United States, as all three of the allies warily watch North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons and the missiles to carry them.  RELATED STORIES Seoul, Beijing, Tokyo reaffirm Korean Peninsula denuclearization commitment Tokyo, Seoul target North Korea-Russia arms deal with sanctions Yoon, Kishida aim for better ties; island issues may constrain South Korea has been trying to bolster cooperation with regional partners in response to deepening military ties between North Korea and Russia.  On Wednesday, Yoon met New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon. They condemned North Korea’s nuclear weapons development and its military cooperation with Russia, including the North’s export of ballistic missiles to Russia in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions. Yoon and Luxon denounced Russia’s war against Ukraine, while pledging to support Ukrainian sovereignty and its efforts to secure a just and lasting peace, according to a joint statement. Edited by Mike Firn. 
- [Cambodian civil servant caught up in dragnet is brother of government critic](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-civil-servant-caught-up-in-dragnet-is-brother-of-government-critic/): Read RFA coverage of this story in Khmer. As a Cambodian civil servant, Hay Vannith’s only apparent wrongdoing was being related to an ardent critic of Hun Sen. But even that was enough to get him arrested at a busy border crossing last month as he attempted to flee into Thailand. Three weeks later, the 28-year-old Ministry of Health official remains in detention at Prey Sar prison in Phnom Penh. He is one of nine still being held following a crackdown in August aimed at critics of a decades-old regional economic cooperation agreement with Laos and Vietnam. Hay Vannith and the eight others are accused of plotting to overthrow the government and can expect to be prosecuted, Prime Minister Hun Manet – the son of long-time leader Hun Sen, who is now Senate president – said Thursday at a graduation ceremony for law students and trainees in Phnom Penh. All told, Hun Manet announced that 66 people were arrested last month ahead of planned – but never carried out – protests against the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Triangle Development Area, or CLV. All but the nine were released. Cambodian scholar Hay Vannith is seen in a screen grab of a Zoom call posted on social media. (VOA) But friends say Hay Vannith has not been involved in political activism – unlike his brother Hay Vanna, an opposition figure who lives in Japan. “From what I have known and shared with him for almost a decade, he has nothing to do with politics, and has no political interest or rivalry against the current government,” said Chiva Sum, a former classmate of Hay Vannith’s at the Royal University of Phnom Penh. “These allegations are falsified in a political manner,” he said. ‘Unlawfully detained’ A joint statement from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch last week criticized the mass arrests, saying that activists and others were “unlawfully detained and charged for peacefully expressing their views.”  The 1999 CLV agreement was aimed at encouraging economic development and trade between Cambodia’s four northeastern provinces and neighboring provinces in Laos and Vietnam. Debate over the deal has resurfaced over the last several months, with some activists expressing concerns that it could cause Cambodia to lose territory or control of its natural resources to Vietnam, mostly through the use of land concessions to private investors. The prospect of losing sovereignty or land to Vietnam is a politically sensitive issue in Cambodia, with opposition politicians often using anti-Vietnamese rhetoric. Overseas Cambodian activists organized protests on Aug. 11 against the CLV in South Korea, Japan, Canada and Australia. One of them was Hay Vanna. Hay Vannith and other relatives of Hay Vanna had been worried about their safety since July 23, when Senate President Hun Sen gave an angry speech on state-run television that specifically threatened the activist’s family. Cambodian scholar Hay Vannith is seen in a booking photograph following his Aug. 16, 2024, arrest in Phnom Penh. (Confidential source) “This person by the name of Hay Vanna, who lives in Japan, commented on the so-called ceasing of the four Cambodian provinces to others,” Hun Sen said.  “But you shouldn’t be confused – you have family members here in Cambodia,” he said. “And they who are living here, must not be arrogant. After hearing his message &#8230; you must stop, or else.” Tense political environment Hay Vannith was born in Kampong Cham province, the fourth child in a well-to-do family. After earning his bachelor’s degree in biological engineering, he studied at Kansas State University in the United States on a Fulbright scholarship.  He earned a master’s degree in food science in 2023, and returned to Cambodia to work at the Ministry of Health’s National Institutes of Public Health. At first, Hay Vannith didn’t consider leaving Cambodia in response to Hun Sen’s threats, according to Chiva Sum, who lives in Japan. He was focused on his work at the ministry, engrossed in his pursuit of scientific knowledge and wanted to continue preparing for a return to the United States for doctoral studies. Also, he believed he would be overlooked by authorities amid the tense political environment due to his lack of interest and involvement in national affairs, his longtime friend said. RELATED STORIES Cambodian political activist’s brother arrested at Thai border crossing Cambodia arrests 30 amid warnings over anti-CLV demonstrations Hun Sen warns of more arrests related to Vietnam-Laos cooperation deal But by mid-August, a heavy police and military presence could be seen in every major city and along highways, where authorities set up checkpoints and began making arrests in an effort to prevent the protests, which had been planned for Aug. 18 throughout Cambodia. Other family members successfully made it out of Cambodia on Aug. 5, according to Hay Vanna. Eleven days later, Hay Vannith was arrested at the Poipet border crossing in northwestern Cambodia. Authorities didn’t confirm his whereabouts for four more days. A day later, on Aug. 21, a recorded confession was posted on the government spokesperson’s Facebook page. In the audio clip, Hay Vannith said that his brother instructed him “to carry out a plan to mobilize the people with an intent to overthrow the government and absolutely oppose the CLV through the means of sharing on Facebook and Telegram.” Authorities have also distributed a typed confession signed with Hay Vannith’s thumbprint. Legal observer Son Chumchoun told Radio Free Asia that prosecutors will have to show other evidence that supports the confession. Coerced statements go against the principle of the rule of law – even if the accused has signed with a thumbprint, he said. Unlike other previous cases, where detainees in political cases were released after they acknowledged their wrongdoing, the authorities haven’t released Hay Vannith, Son Chumchoun said. RFA hasn’t been able to reach the Ministry of Health for comment on the arrest. Translated by Sum Sok Ry. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [EXPLAINED: Why is Taiwan called ‘Chinese Taipei’ at sports events?](https://ij-reportika.com/explained-why-is-taiwan-called-chinese-taipei-at-sports-events/): If you’re watching the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games and wondering what or where “Chinese Taipei” is, you’re not alone. More than 10 athletes from Taiwan are competing in the games, but they aren’t being introduced as coming from Taiwan. Instead, they are represented as being from “Chinese Taipei.” This isn’t just the case at the Paralympics or Olympics – it happens at all major international sporting events. Taiwan’s athletes are not allowed to compete under the Taiwanese flag. Here is why. What is ‘Chinese Taipei’? “Chinese Taipei” is the name Taiwan agreed upon with the International Olympic Committee, or IOC, in 1981 to participate in the Olympic Games. Instead of Taiwan’s red and blue flag, Taiwanese athletes compete under the “Plum Blossom Banner,” a white flag that carries the Olympic rings. A traditional flag-raising song, not Taiwan’s national anthem, is played when its athletes are on the podium. This allows Taiwan to compete without presenting itself as a sovereign nation. The Badminton Men’s Doubles Gold Medal Match at the Paris 2024 Olympics, Paris, France, Aug. 04, 2024. Supporters can be seen holding Chinese and Chinese Taipei Olympic flags during the gold medal match. (Ann Wang/Reuters) Why not ‘Taiwan’? Taiwan, or the Republic of China, is not diplomatically recognized by most countries despite being a self-ruled democracy of 23 million people with its own borders, currency and government. This dates back to 1949, when Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China disagreed over which government was the rightful “China.” After the Chinese Civil War ended in 1949, the Nationalist government fled to Taiwan, while Mao Zedong’s communist forces established the People’s Republic of China on the mainland. According to Beijing’s communist leadership, there is only “One China,” meaning Taiwan is considered part of it and must eventually be reunified with the mainland, by force if necessary. In Beijing’s view, as a breakaway province, Taiwan does not have the right to state-to-state relations or to be treated as a state on the international stage. As part of its efforts to isolate Taiwan, Beijing prevents the island from using the name “Taiwan” in international events. Why ‘Chinese Taipei’? The dispute over Taiwan’s name at international sports events began in 1952 when both Taiwan and China were invited to the Olympics. At that time, both governments claimed to represent China, leading Taiwan to withdraw from the Games. In 1956, Taiwan participated under the name “Formosa-China,” but Beijing  boycotted those Games and withdrew from the IOC two years later. During the 1960s, Taiwan competed under the name “Taiwan” at the request of the IOC. However, Taiwan’s government at the time objected, insisting on being called the Republic of China, or ROC. By the 1970s, more countries were diplomatically recognizing Beijing instead of Taiwan. In 1972, Taiwan participated in the Olympics as the ROC for the last time. Taiwan then boycotted the 1976 Games after host country Canada insisted it compete under the name Taiwan rather than ROC. In 1979, Taiwan was suspended from the Olympics after the IOC recognized Beijing as the representative for China. Two years later, Taiwan was allowed back into the Games after agreeing to compete under the name “Chinese Taipei,” which it has used ever since. A flag bearer holding the flag to represent Taiwan enters the stadium for the closing ceremony of the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, Sunday, Oct. 8, 2023. (AP/Eugene Hoshiko) Back to Taipei? There are now growing calls to use the name Taiwan at the Games once again as relations between Taiwan and China are at a low point. The Formosan Association for Public Affairs, U.S.-based nonprofit organization that seeks to build worldwide support for Taiwan independence, urged the IOC in early August to allow Taiwan’s team to compete under the name “Taiwan” rather than “Chinese Taipei”. “Taiwan is an independent, sovereign country, and this is a long-established ‘status quo’,” the association’s president said in a statement, adding that Taiwan’s Olympic team was “fully entitled to compete proudly under the name ‘Taiwan’.” A referendum on whether “Chinese Taipei” should be changed was held in Taiwan in 2018, although “Taiwan” lost, partly because top athletes opposed the change, fearful of being banned from major sports events.  China has dialed up diplomatic and economic pressure on the island since former president Tsai Ing-wen’s administration came to power in 2016, as Tsai and her party refused to acknowledge that Taiwan and the mainland belonged to “One China.” President of Taiwan, Lai Ching-te, who came to power after winning a January election despite Beijing’s fierce opposition to his bid, ran on a platform of promoting peace in the Taiwan Strait while not compromising on claims of Taiwanese sovereignty. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Experts: North Korea’s Chinese-made soccer uniforms might violate sanctions](https://ij-reportika.com/experts-north-koreas-chinese-made-soccer-uniforms-might-violate-sanctions/): Read a version of this story in Korean.  North Korea’s national soccer team will kick off the third round of Asian qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup on Thursday, but their Chinese-made uniforms might be part of a sanctions violation, experts told Radio Free Asia. Chinese sportswear maker Inlang Sports posted on social media last week that the North Korean team would be wearing uniforms bearing Inlang’s logo for the first time in Thursday’s match vs Uzbekistan in Tashkent. The company in January held a ceremony to announce that they had agreed to sponsor North Korean men’s and women’s soccer, and supply uniforms, but this arrangement could be in violation of sanctions intended to deprive Pyongyang of cash and resources that could be used in its nuclear and missile programs. “Money transfers and joint ventures would likely be a sanctions violation,” Aaron Arnold, a Senior Associate Fellow at the U.K.-based Royal United Services Institute’s Centre for Finance and Security, told RFA Korean.  “You could also feasibly argue that the uniforms are prohibited under the luxury goods ban, but that could be a stretch.” UN Security Council Resolution 2270 defines sports equipment as “luxury goods,” but Alastair Morgan, the former ambassador of the United Kingdom to North Korea, explained to RFA how the uniforms might not count. A friendly football match between the national teams of North Korea and Jordan. (Jordan Football Association) “The PRC … might argue that a sponsorship arrangement does not necessarily involve the supply of goods though it might do so, and/or that items of clothing are not ‘recreational sporting equipment,’” he said, using an acronym for the People’s Republic of China. “Depending on the nature of the financial transactions involved, and whether the DPRK recipient was a designated entity, there might conceivably be other violations.” Inlang’s sponsorship of the team also could mean that the North Korean uniforms could be sold to the outside world. Inlang did not respond to RFA queries regarding possible sanctions violations. This is not the first time that North Korean soccer has caused sanctions concerns.  In the 2022 Qatar World Cup Asian qualifier match between South Korea and North Korea held in Pyongyang in 2019, the South Korean national team instructed its players not to exchange uniforms after the match due to the possibility of violating sanctions against North Korea. Should the North Korean team qualify for the World Cup, it would be Inlang’s debut at the tournament. In the 2022 Qatar World Cup, 13 teams wore Nike kits, seven went with Adidas, and 6 wore Puma. Six different makers outfitted the remaining six teams. Nike is also the current sponsor of the Chinese national team. In 2010, the last time North Korea qualified for the World Cup, the team wore uniforms made by Italian firm Legea.  Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong.
- [North Korea may have executed officials over flood damage: spy agency](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-may-have-executed-officials-over-flood-damage-spy-agency/): North Korea is suspected of executing a number of officials held responsible for devastating floods this year and South Korea’s spy agency said it was “monitoring signs” to try to determine what had happened. The agency’s announcement came a day after a South Korean broadcaster reported that up to 30 officials in flood-hit regions of North Korea had been shot to death.  Heavy rains in July flooded large areas along the Amnok River in North Korea’s North Pyongan, Jagang and Ryanggang provinces with some South Korean media outlets reporting that more than 1,000 people were killed or were missing.  At that time, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said that he would punish officials for the damage, which a South Korean government ministry said appeared to be an attempt by Kim’s to dodge blame for the disaster. Since then, Kang Pong Hun, the chief secretary of the Jagang Provincial Committee of the North’s ruling party, and other senior officials, including Public Security Minister Ri Thae Sop, were dismissed from their posts over the flood damage, according to North Korea’s state-media. The South’s National Intelligence Service, or NIS, said Kang was possibly among the executed officials. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits a flood-affected area near the border with China, in North Pyongan Province, North Korea, in this undated photo released July 31, 2024 by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency. (KCNA via Reuters) NIS’s announcement came a day after South Korea’s TV Chosun cited an unidentified South Korean government source as saying North Korean officials deemed responsible for the flood disaster had likely been executed. “We understand late last month, 20 to 30 officials in the affected region were shot to death, including Kang Pong Hun” TV Chosun quoted the official as saying. Since the disaster, the North’s state media have featured Kim leading flood relief efforts, emphasizing his concern for the victims, but it has given no details of casualties.   South Korea said that there was a high possibility of casualties given that North Korea was reporting the rescue effort in such detail. A resident of the northwestern province of North Pyongan told Radio Free Asia Korean, on condition of anonymity for security reasons, that residents affected by the flood were forced to watch propaganda videos that portrayed Kim as a hero and were told they must avoid showing even a hint of sadness on their faces.  Another resident told RFA Korean that soldiers mobilized to rebuild flood-hit towns were stealing food and other supplies because they have been given none by the government, upsetting residents. RELATED STORIES Sent to flood-ravaged areas, North Korean soldiers steal supplies, townspeople say North Korean flood victims who lost their homes or families told not to show sadness State media shows North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un leading flood rescue North Korea reportedly declined a rescue offer from China, and did not respond to a South Korean offer of aid.  But the North’s official Korean Central News Agency reported in August that Russian President Vladimir Putin offered humanitarian assistance to help North Korea cope with flood damage in another sign of expanding relations between the two nations. Russia’s state-run Tass news agency carried a similar report, saying that Putin told Kim in a message: “You can always count on our assistance and support.” Edited by Mike Firn. 
- [A former political aide tried to secretly advance China’s interests, say prosecutors](https://ij-reportika.com/a-former-political-aide-tried-to-secretly-advance-chinas-interests-say-prosecutors/): U.S. prosecutors accused Linda Sun, 40, of secretly working to push the interests of the Chinese government while working as an aide to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul. In exchange, the prosecutors said, Sun’s family reaped benefits. U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said “the illicit scheme enriched the defendant&#8217;s family to the tune of millions of dollars.” Sun was arrested on Tuesday in New York and has been charged with failure to register as a foreign agent, money laundering, conspiracy and other crimes.  Her husband, Christopher Hu, 41, who runs a store called Leivine Wine and Spirits in Flushing, Queens, was also arrested. According to the indictment, he helped with kickbacks, facilitating the transfer of millions of dollars. He has been charged with money laundering, conspiracy and conspiracy to commit bank fraud. RELATED STORIES Arrest of Chinese dissident on spy charges leaves trail of broken trust Podcast: Master of Deceit, The Trial of Shujun Wang 5 things the Shujun Wang trial revealed about Chinese espionage The case may be further evidence of how Chinese officials try to influence political policies in the United States, former FBI counterintelligence agent Holden Triplett, co-founder of a risk management consultancy, Trenchcoat Advisors, said.  “This helps to demonstrate how widespread and real this threat is – and also acts as a warning to people and serves as a lesson in what is illegal,” Triplett said in an interview. Sun started working for former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2012 and was promoted to the position of director of Asian American Affairs, according to her online posts. She then served as an aide to Hochul. Sun was hired by the state’s Department of Labor in 2022, but she left after several months. Tickets and other gifts According to court documents, Sun tried to cut out references to Taiwan, a hot-button issue for the Chinese government, in state communications. In addition, prosecutors said, she procured unauthorized letters from the governor’s office to help Chinese government officials travel to the United States for meetings with state officials. In exchange, Sun and her husband received profits from business funneled to his Flushing liquor store, as well as event tickets, a job for her cousin in China and gifts. One of these gifts, salted duck prepared by the personal chef of a Chinese consulate official, was sent to her parents’ house, according to the prosecutors. According to the indictment, the couple laundered the money and used the profits to buy a $3.5 million dollar house in Manhasset and a new Ferrari, among other items. Sun and Hu pleaded not guilty on Tuesday and were released on bond. Seth DuCharme, a lawyer for Sun, did not respond immediately to a request for comment. Neither did Ken Abell, a lawyer for Hu. The arrests of Sun and Hu follow a crackdown on the Chinese government’s attempt to influence U.S. views and to spy on people in this country. A pro-democracy activist, Yuanjun Tang, was recently accused of working secretly for the Chinese Ministry of State Security. In August, Shujun Wang, a historian, was found guilty of serving as an agent of a foreign government without notifying the attorney general.  Wang faces up to 25 years in prison and will be sentenced in January.  Some analysts say that the significance of the cases like Sun’s and Hu’s may be overblown, however. The charges are held up as examples of pernicious Chinese influence on the United States, but they do not always pan out. Or they may not be as damaging as they initially seem. Alex Nowrasteh, a vice president at the libertarian Cato Institute and the author of a study “Espionage, Espionage-Related Crimes, and Immigration,” said that the charges against Sun and Hu seem to indicate a “classic New York state corruption case.”  But the allegations, even if they turn out to be true, do not necessarily mean that these individuals posed a threat to the security of the United States. “It’s not the same as a spy trying to steal U.S. nuclear secrets,” Nowrasteh said. “This case might be used as, ‘Americans should worry more about Chinese espionage.’” In fact, he said, many of these cases, perhaps including this one, have no impact on national security. Edited by Jim Snyder
- [Media Watch: Rumors about Chinese leader Xi spread online](https://ij-reportika.com/media-watch-rumors-about-chinese-leader-xi-spread-online/): In nations where secrecy shrouds the lives of leaders, like China, North Korea and Russia, rumors can quickly take root in the absence of information. This is particularly true when it comes to the health of those leaders, an issue often treated as a state secret.  Recently, the internet buzzed with speculation about Chinese President Xi Jinping’s health, as a noticeable lack of public appearances from July to August fueled rumors that he might be seriously ill. Despite recent media appearances, rumors about Xi’s health show no sign of waning online. Below is what AFCL found. Stroke rumor A rumor that Xi suffered a stroke appeared in mid-July following the Communist Party’s Third Plenary Session. At the time, the phrase “stroke” was banned from one of China’s main search engines, Baidu, lending credibility to the rumors swirling around Xi’s health. On top of that, a photo of Xi frowning in apparent discomfort at the session emerged online, with many claiming that it was evidence of a health problem.  However, it was later revealed that the photo had been taken two months before the session and captured a fleeting expression on Xi’s face. Rumors on X claimed that Xi had suffered a stroke. (Screenshot/X) Xi’s body double? On July 20, China’s state-run broadcaster CCTV released footage of Xi paying tribute to the late Vietnamese General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong at the country’s embassy in Beijing.  Soon after, several Chinese-speaking online users claimed that the man at the ceremony was actually a body double of Xi, adding that Xi could not make it to the event due to health issues.  Some users claimed that a body double of Xi appeared at a commemoration for the recently deceased Vietnamese general secretary. (Screenshots/X and Ministry of Foreign Affairs website) The users cited blue patches on the carpet seen in the video, along with Xi’s stance and the folds of his ears, as evidence that the CCTV footage was likely fake and had been heavily edited in post-production. A comparison of the rumors on X (left) with photos taken by Vietnamese and Chinese outlets (right) shows that the crease on Xi&#8217;s ear changes depending on the angle and lighting of a given shot. (Screenshots/X, VNA and CCTV) However, using an image verification tool InVID, AFCL found no sign of the video being edited by AI.  Missing tripod? A claim about Xi using a body double due to health issues emerged again in late July when a X user shared a CCTV report on Xi’s meeting East Timor’s head of state, claiming that there were visual inconsistencies.  The users pointed out a tripod positioned behind the side of a table where the Chinese delegation was sitting. While the tripod was visible in some shots, it seemed to be missing in others taken from different angles in the same general direction. Rumors cite a variety of circumstantial evidence as proof  of the rumors of Xi’s ill health. (Screenshots/X) But the claim lacks evidence.  The meeting was held in the east wing of the Great Hall of the People, the same venue where Xi had met with former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou in April 2024. AFCL compared CCTV footage of the two meetings and found that three similar doors were positioned on the side (circled in red in the pictures below). They show that the tripod was placed in a spot where it could have been out of view depending on the camera angle. Comparing footage of Xi’s recent meeting with East Timor’s leader (left) with that of his earlier meeting with Ma Ying-jeou (right) a number of similarly shaped doors at the meeting venue. (Screenshots /Jennifer Zeng X account and CCTV) Regular reappearances  In the Chinese dissident community in the United States, rumors about Xi’s health have been around for years, appearing regularly since at least 2017. They include a claim that Xi had severe health conditions such as a brain tumor, a brain aneurysm and a hearing issue.  But Yaita Akio, a former special China correspondent in Beijing for the Japanese news daily Sankei Shimbun, says such rumors are illogical and often easy to spot.   Due to officials’ control over media, breaking news in China is often vague and piecemeal when first being reported, Akio said on X, noting that details of an event are more likely to trickle out to the media rather than to be all known at once, which can lead to misunderstandings. Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Shen Ke and Taejun Kang. Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X.
- [Hong Kongers march in London to mark subway station police attacks](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kongers-march-in-london-to-mark-subway-station-police-attacks/): Read RFA coverage of this story in Mandarin from London and Canada Hundreds of Hong Kongers gathered in London over the weekend to mark the fifth anniversary of 2019 attacks by riot police on unarmed train passengers with baton&#8217;s and tear gas in Prince Edward subway station. Around 500 people gathered in London&#8217;s Trafalgar Square on Saturday, raising the colonial-era flag of British Hong Kong and singing the banned protest anthem &#8220;Glory to Hong Kong,&#8221; before lowering the flag to half-mast to mourn those who died during the months-long protests against Hong Kong&#8217;s vanishing autonomy under Chinese rule. The protesters then marched to the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London, shouting &#8220;Hong Kong is not China!&#8221; and &#8220;One Hong Kong, one nation!&#8221; and handing out information leaflets about the attacks to passers-by. Police were present at the march, and while the demonstration drew stares from some people around Chinese-owned businesses as the march passed through Chinatown, there was no physical or verbal altercation. Details of the attacks by riot police at the height of the 2019 protest movement remain shrouded in secrecy. Journalists and activists are having difficulty piecing together a coherent picture of what exactly happened in the station as much of the evidence remains in the hands of the authorities. While police and government officials have hit out at &#8216;malicious rumors&#8217; that someone died, the selective release of stills from surveillance footage from cameras inside the station has done little to assuage public mistrust in the official narrative. Call for investigation A woman who gave only the surname Wong for fear of reprisals said she has been living in the U.K. for three years now, and has attended every rally marking the Aug. 31, 2019, attacks. Wong said the attacks were one of the most iconic events in the entire anti-extradition movement, adding that she &#8220;can&#8217;t accept&#8221; that the Hong Kong police charged into a subway station and &#8220;indiscriminately attacked&#8221; people. She said the government has yet to fully investigate the incident, and called for the truth about what happened in the subway station to be made public. Passers-by view an art exhibit about the 2019 Hong Kong protests in Vancouver, Aug. 31, 2024. (RFA/Liu Fei) The parents of a 6-year-old marcher told RFA Mandarin that they had &#8220;mixed feelings&#8221; about being allowed to hold peaceful demonstrations in the United Kingdom after moving to the country in June. They said they felt an obligation to tell people in Britain about how their freedoms were built on the sacrifices of others, and that Hong Kongers had been forced to emigrate to the U.K. by the ongoing political crackdown in their home city. In Canada, around 40 protesters gathered outside the Chinese Consulate in Calgary, burning photos of Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee and security chief Chris Tang, who was chief of police at the time of the protest movement, when rights groups hit out at the use of &#8220;excessive force&#8221; by the authorities. 39 minutes Public anger against the police treatment of protesters began with the intense tear-gassing of unarmed crowds who had no escape route at the start of the anti-extradition protests. It gained momentum when officers took 39 minutes to respond to hundreds of emergency calls when unidentified mobsters in white T-shirts attacked passengers and passers-by at Yuen Long MTR on July 21, 2019. And it took on a much darker turn following the bloody attacks on train passengers, after which the MTR refused to release video footage from trains and platforms despite persistent rumors that at least one person died in the attacks. Photos of Lee&#8217;s second-in-command Eric Chan and Secretary for Justice Paul Lam were also burned. Protest organizer Paul Cheng, who organized the protest, called them Hong Kong&#8217;s &#8220;Gang of Four,&#8221; and called on the Canadian government to sanction them. &#8220;They helped the Communist Party destroy Hong Kong and kill Hong Kong,&#8221; Cheng told RFA Mandarin at the protest. &#8220;They are the Communist Party&#8217;s running dogs. The Communist Party is the culprit in the killing of Hong Kong, and they are its accomplices.&#8221; Cheng, who emigrated to Canada more than 40 years ago, says he remembers the freedoms once enjoyed by the city&#8217;s 7 million residents, adding that things are very different now. First sedition conviction Last Thursday, a Hong Kong court found two editors of the now-defunct Stand News guilty of conspiring to publish seditious material, marking the first sedition conviction against any journalist since Hong Kong’s handover from Britain to China in 1997. The publication’s former editor-in-chief, Chung Pui-kuen, and former acting editor-in-chief, Patrick Lam, could face a maximum prison term of two years under colonial-era sedition laws. A former Hong Kong journalist who gave only the nickname Stephen for fear of reprisals said he used to work as a journalist in the city, and was particularly saddened by those convictions. &#8220;All Hong Kong media have the same tone now,&#8221; he said. &#8220;There&#8217;s no opposing voices, just a unified message.&#8221; Meanwhile, Vancouver-based activist Christine described physical and mental &#8220;torment&#8221; after leaving the city she once called home. &#8220;I can&#8217;t let it go, to be honest,&#8221; she said. &#8220;It&#8217;s not easy. But fortunately, there is a group of us with the same aspirations, so we can use that discomfort as motivation.&#8221; &#8220;So we come out on days that need to be commemorated, which is better than pretending I&#8217;ve forgotten about it,&#8221; she said. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Taiwan’s chips industry ‘key reason’ for world to protect island: Lai](https://ij-reportika.com/taiwans-chips-industry-key-reason-for-world-to-protect-island-lai/): UPDATED Sep. 2, 2024, 02:07 ET. Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te said the island can take advantage of its semiconductor industry not only to promote the development of the economy but also as a key reason for the world to protect the island.  Commenting on a rumor circulating in the U.S. that Taiwan’s semiconductor industry could be the very reason for China to decide to attack Taiwan, Lai said he would try his best to protect the island’s security.  “Since TSMC’s operating system is very complex, not any group of people could just take it and continue to operate it,” he said during a televised interview on Sunday.  TSMC, or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, is a Taiwanese multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company. In the first quarter of 2024, TSMC recorded a market share of 61.7% in the global semiconductor foundry market, while its closest competitor, South Korea’s Samsung, occupied 11%. Since controlling semiconductor production and distribution can reshape global economics and trade as well as establish a new technological order, Taiwan’s semiconductor industry has become crucial in the strategic competition between the U.S. and China.  Lai said the purpose of any Chinese invasion of Taiwan would not be about acquiring more territory, but rather about the desire to change the “rules-based world order” in order to achieve hegemony. Counting on the international community’s support for Taiwan, the Taiwanese President said the Taiwan Strait issue was “not only a Taiwan-China issue, but also an Indo-Pacific issue, and even a world issue”.  This echoes remarks made last month when Lai urged the world’s democratic countries to come together and act to prevent China from expanding authoritarianism. “China has even weaponized trade. Using various pressures and threats, it’s politically manipulating not just Taiwan, but also Japan, Korea, Australia, Lithuania, Canada, and other countries,” said Lai last month.  RELATED NEWS China’s ‘growing authoritarianism’ won’t stop with Taiwan: Lai Ching-te China says it ‘destroyed large network’ of Taiwanese spies Taiwan proposes biggest ever defense spending of US$19.7 billion China regards Taiwan as a renegade province that should be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary. The democratic island has been self-governing since it effectively separated from mainland China in 1949 after the Chinese civil war. Regarding a rumor about his visit to the U.S., Lai said during the Sunday interview that he had no plans to do so, stressing that there were already “very good” channels of communication between Taiwan and the U.S. Edited by Mike Firn. This story has been updated to clarify a translation of Lai&#8217;s remarks.
- [How secure is Hun Manet’s year-old premiership in Cambodia?](https://ij-reportika.com/how-secure-is-hun-manets-year-old-premiership-in-cambodia/): On Aug. 22, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet marked his first anniversary in office by personally receiving dozens of Khmer artifacts returned to Cambodia by the United States. The ceremony at his Peace Palace was dripping with symbolism.  “Why did these Khmer statues leave Cambodia? Because we were divided,” he declared. “However, now, their return symbolizes our reunion. On the first anniversary of [his government], we have maintained stability, peace, and prosperity for the people. Today, we celebrate as a unified nation, free from war and division.” However, just a week earlier, the Cambodian Interior Ministry had ordered police to tighten security around Phnom Penh, instructing provincial leaders to do the same, citing a group allegedly plotting a Bangladesh-inspired “color revolution.”  There is unease in the country over tensions with neighboring Vietnam over the Funan Techo Canal, the Hun dynasty’s legacy project, which could threaten Vietnam’s rice-growing heartlands.  In this photo released by Agence Kampuchea Press (AKP), Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, front, prays before a statue with Culture and Fine Arts Phoeurng Sackona, right, during a ceremony for the return of artifacts in Peace Palace in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Thursday, Aug. 22, 2024. (AKP via AP) The public is also concerned about the implications of the Development Triangle Area, an old agreement involving Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam that has become a new point of contention in anti-Cambodian People’s Party circles.  Despite the government&#8217;s efforts to frame this as a purely economic zone, old prejudices persist, with some Cambodians viewing Hun Manet&#8217;s government as unpatriotic, much like they did his father’s.  Hun Sen, who ruled from 1985 until he handed power to his son last year, was often accused of being a puppet of Vietnam and later China, accused of selling off Cambodian land to the highest foreign bidder. On the surface, despite concerns about the recent Bangladesh revolt, Hun Manet and his family appear secure. They control almost every significant political and social institution, and the economy continues to provide jobs and food for the people. Hun Sen meticulously planned last year’s transition, implementing a “generational succession” in which key political and civil service families passed power down to their sons or relatives.  Shrewd transition strategy This strategy was shrewd, as many authoritarian governments have succumbed to fratricide during leadership transitions. By allowing the political families that matter to keep their patronage and corruption networks, no one lost wealth or influence, thus ensuring stability during the changeover. The Hun family remains first among equals, the ruling house within Cambodia’s political aristocracy. They control nearly every important institution except two: the navy, run by the Tea family, and the national police, overseen by the Sar family.  Hun Sen secured the presidency of the Cambodian Senate earlier this year, making him the acting head of state – a position that grants him the institutional power to intervene if his son’s government faces a crisis.  To further consolidate power, he enacted constitutional amendments last year to weaken the National Assembly and appointed a loyalist, Khuon Sudary, as its president. Additionally, he installed a family ally as army chief, succeeding Hun Manet, while another son, Hun Manith, heads military intelligence and now serves as deputy army chief.  People carry small Cambodia national flags and banners during the groundbreaking ceremony of the Funan Techo Canal in Kandal province, Aug. 5, 2024. (Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP) Another son, Hun Many, who leads the country’s largest youth movement, was appointed minister of the Civil Service last year, ensuring the Hun family’s control over the bureaucracy. Hun Sen intends to remain CPP president for life, with Hun Manet running the party’s youth wing.  Hun Sen has also  brought the rowdy but powerful business tycoons into line through the Cambodia Oknha Association he formed last year and presides over.  The monarchy, while independent, lacks political interest, with King Norodom Sihamoni staying out of politics and the Queen Mother, the power behind the throne, now 88 years old. Moreover, Hun Sen, Hun Manet, and their allies dominate the Royal Council of the Throne, the body responsible for selecting the next king. In this feudal-like political system, the Hun family has appeased other influential families by allowing them to keep their patronage networks while consolidating its power across almost every key institution.  Ordinary Cambodians’ concerns No family from this First Estate can rival the Huns. They also enjoy the support of the economic barons, the oknhas, and other business elites who finance the political aristocracy.  That leaves the Third Estate, the ordinary Cambodians. Hun Sen needed to rig last year’s general elections—and the two prior—to secure his son’s ascent to power.  Repression has persisted under Hun Manet’s rule. The opposition has been neutralized, and civil society has been either silenced or co-opted. Hun Manet’s government has successfully distributed patronage to the middle classes, whose loyalty might have shifted toward a political alternative, if one was ever to exist again. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet (C, front) cuts the ribbon at the launching event of the Kampot Multipurpose Port in Kampot province, Cambodia, June 6, 2024. (Ly Lay/Xinhua via Getty Images) The government continues to deliver basic needs.  While the recent revolution in Bangladesh alarmed the Hun family, Cambodia does not face similar conditions. The country’s garment industry, which many expected to collapse during the COVID-19 pandemic, has instead rebounded and is once again driving economic growth.  Cambodia’s tourism industry has also recovered in terms of visitor numbers, though revenue remains about two-thirds of pre-2020 levels. There has been progress in the tech and service sectors, though the construction industry and related sectors, like brickmaking, have declined.  Typically, young women worked in garment factories while young men found jobs on construction sites, so the loss of construction jobs could have posed a threat to the government. However, many young men have returned to agriculture, which is thriving, especially with increased exports to China. Read more RFA commentaries COMMENTARY: Cambodia’s Hun Dynasty stakes reputation on the Funan Techo Canal COMMENTARY: Elite power...
- [China's Soft Power Propaganda Network](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-soft-power-propaganda-network/): An in-depth investigation into China's Soft Power Propaganda Network, exploring how state-run media outlets like CGTN, Xinhua News Agency, and Global Times, along with Chinese Cinema, TV Series, Ultra Short Dramas, AI-generated content and influencer-driven channels, shape global perceptions and advance the Chinese Communist Party's geopolitical agenda.
- [The Global Media Propaganda Network](https://ij-reportika.com/the-global-media-propaganda-network/): China&#8217;s international media presence plays a pivotal role in amplifying its reach and reinforcing its soft power propaganda network globally. State-run media outlets like China Global Television Network (CGTN) and Xinhua News Agency broadcast in multiple languages, targeting diverse audiences worldwide. For instance, CGTN offers channels in English, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Russian, ensuring China&#8217;s narratives reach a broad spectrum of viewers. Additionally, CGTN&#8217;s specialized channels, such as CGTN Turk and CGTN Hausa, operate on popular social media platforms like Facebook and X, further expanding their influence. Xinhua News Agency, dubbed &#8220;The World&#8217;s Biggest Propaganda Machine&#8221; by Reporters Without Borders, is a cornerstone of this strategy. It operates globally, providing content in multiple languages while subsidizing coverage costs to ensure widespread dissemination of Chinese viewpoints. Xinhua&#8217;s CNC World, a 24-hour English-language news channel, is designed to offer a favorable view of China, countering foreign media narratives. Moreover, China&#8217;s media outlets are available across numerous cable and satellite providers worldwide, making channels like CCTV-4 and CGTN accessible in various regions. This global media network allows China to strategically influence international perceptions, particularly in countries with significant Chinese-speaking populations and in regions where China&#8217;s economic interests are strong. For instance, the Global Times, another Chinese state-run outlet, receives significant traffic (average 104.6K monthly organic visits) from countries like India (30%), the United States (27%), and Australia (7%), illustrating the global reach of China&#8217;s media apparatus. China Daily, another key player in China&#8217;s international media strategy, further amplifies the country&#8217;s global soft power. With an organic traffic of 44.8K monthly visits, it reaches a significant audience, particularly in Western and Asian countries. The majority of its readership comes from the United States, accounting for 43% of the traffic, followed by India (9%), Australia (7%), Singapore (6%), and Malaysia (5%). China Daily publishes content in English, making it accessible to a global audience and allowing China to shape international perspectives on various issues. Through these extensive media channels, China effectively promotes its political and cultural narratives, aligning global content with its ideological goals and enhancing its soft power influence on the world stage. Propaganda by Xinhua: Key Examples Xinhua News Agency, as China&#8217;s largest and most influential state-run news organization, has been at the forefront of disseminating propaganda that aligns with the Chinese government&#8217;s narratives on various contentious issues. During the 2017 Doklam standoff, Xinhua released a satirical video titled &#8220;Seven Sins of India,&#8221; which portrayed India in a derogatory manner, sparking accusations of racism and anti-Indian sentiment. In 2019, during the Hong Kong protests, Xinhua&#8217;s biased portrayal of the protests as violent and illegitimate led to Twitter banning state-sponsored media from ad purchases. Xinhua&#8217;s role in spreading propaganda became even more evident during the COVID-19 pandemic, where it downplayed the virus&#8217;s threat and emphasized China&#8217;s response while ignoring early cover-ups and public discontent. &nbsp;Additionally, Xinhua has been involved in promoting disinformation during the Russian -Ukraine war by supporting pro-Kremlin narratives through digital ads on Facebook. These examples underscore Xinhua&#8217;s role in advancing the Chinese government&#8217;s propaganda efforts on a global scale. CGTN and Its Role in Chinese Propaganda China Global Television Network (CGTN) is a key player in the Chinese government&#8217;s global media strategy, acting as the international arm of China Central Television (CCTV). Controlled by the Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party, CGTN broadcasts in multiple languages and aims to promote China’s narratives to a global audience. Over the years, CGTN has been embroiled in various controversies, including the detention of Australian journalist Cheng Lei on national security grounds and its dissemination of disinformation regarding COVID-19. The network has also faced criticism for its biased coverage of significant geopolitical events, such as the 2019 Hong Kong protests, the Russian -Ukraine war, and the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant discharge. These incidents highlight CGTN&#8217;s role in spreading Chinese state propaganda, often facing pushback from international regulators. For instance, the United States designated CGTN as a foreign mission, and the UK revoked its broadcasting license in 2021 due to concerns over editorial independence and political control. CGTN&#8217;s YouTube Network and Its Global Reach CGTN&#8217;s YouTube network is a significant component of its international media presence, leveraging the platform to reach diverse audiences across the globe. The main CGTN channel boasts 3.14 million subscribers, making it the flagship of the network. Other regional and language-specific channels, such as CGTN Africa with 884K subscribers and CGTN Español with 530K subscribers, highlight CGTN&#8217;s tailored approach to different markets. The network also includes specialized channels like CGTN Sports Scene (175K subscribers) and CGTN Documentary (9.5K subscribers), further expanding its reach and influence. With content available in multiple languages, including Arabic (588K subscribers) and French (457K subscribers), CGTN&#8217;s YouTube channels play a crucial role in disseminating content that aligns with China&#8217;s global narratives, making it a vital part of the country&#8217;s soft power strategy. Channel Name Subscriber Count CGTN 3.14M CGTN Europe 448K CGTN America 707K CGTN Africa 884K CGTN Documentary 9.5K CGTN Arabic 588K CGTN Global Watch 6.04K CGTN BIZ 2.58K CGTN Sports Scene 175K CGTN Podcasts 3.23K CGTN Global Business 8.14K CGTN Français 457K CGTN UN 193 CGTN Español 530K CGTN на русском 289K The CGTN Soft Power Network with the Subscriber Count Here is a case study of two of its prominent YouTube Channels: YouTube Channel: CGTN Arabic&nbsp; CGTN Arabic, formerly CCTV-Arabic, is an Arabic-language television channel under the China Global Television Network, a subsidiary of China Central Television. The channel serves as a propaganda arm of the Chinese government, disseminating content that aligns with the Chinese Communist Party&#8217;s (CCP) agenda. It aims to shape perceptions of China in the Arabic-speaking world, often countering Western narratives and promoting a sanitized image of China, including controversial areas like Xinjiang. Key Propaganda Themes 1. Propaganda to Whitewash Xinjiang&#8217;s Image: 2. Promoting China&#8217;s Global Influence: 3. Bashing Western Media and Policies: 4. Promoting Chinese Culture and Economic Achievements: 5. Positive Spin on Controversial Issues: Community Engagement In recent years, CGTN Arabic&#8217;s community posts have frequently bashed...
- [Propaganda Network of YouTube Influencers](https://ij-reportika.com/influencer-based-youtubers-for-soft-power-propaganda-network/): China&#8217;s strategic use of influencer-based YouTube channels has become a crucial element in its soft power propaganda network, particularly in shaping global perceptions of China and countering Western narratives. These influencers, many of whom are expatriates or foreign residents in China, utilize their platforms to promote themes such as the alleged falsehoods spread by Western media, the superiority of China&#8217;s infrastructure, technology, and safety over that of the United States and their home countries, and the notion that China is always on the right side of geopolitical conflicts. A sample of the most prominent channels reveals the extensive reach and influence these platforms hold. For instance, channels like Jabiertzo with 845K subscribers and Daniel Dumbrill with 167K subscribers, frequently address topics such as the situation in Xinjiang, presenting narratives that counter reports on human rights issues. Similarly, Nathan Rich with 490K subscribers and Cyrus Janssen with 661K subscribers often highlight China&#8217;s advancements in technology and infrastructure, portraying China as a superior alternative to the United States. In total, the combined reach of these most prominent channels accounted for in this report amounts to 5.33 million subscribers, with a staggering 10,577 videos that have collectively garnered over 1.05 billion views. This extensive content library is used to disseminate China&#8217;s narrative on various global issues, reinforcing the idea that China&#8217;s approach is not only legitimate but preferable to Western models. Channels like Living in China and Niranjan China, with subscriber counts of 460K and 814K respectively, contribute to the portrayal of China as a safe, prosperous, and culturally rich society, often contrasting it with perceived notions. Channel Name Subscribers Videos Views Country Alex from Xinjiang 44.1K 70 7,204,566 Hong Kong Numuves 84K 392 15,687,017 China Daniel Dumbrill 167K 266 13,473,874 Hong Kong FerMuBe 41.2K 693 3,585,459 United States Jabiertzo 845K 915 218,626,212 Spain Asia Hot Topics 19.7K 97 2,650,695 United States Cross Pacific Confrontation 623 33 75,992 N/A VOC: Vision of China 4.47K 119 994,783 Canada Nathan Rich 490K 233 36,895,956 United States Noel Lee 31.2K 144 2,886,782 N/A Living in China 460K 320 57,661,697 United Kingdom Niranjan China 814K 575 125,939,595 India China Content Center 607K 4,069 210,156,033 United States BeeRose in China 18.4K 29 860,928 United States TripBitten 78.1K 224 7,788,812 United States Part Time Traveller &#8211; China 25.6K 553 3,760,153 India Cyrus Janssen 661K 411 119,111,974 United States Barrett 376K 601 52,129,466 United Kingdom Harvey in China 24K 133 2,336,921 United Kingdom Fel Thommy 263K 399 85,110,680 United States Reporterfy Media &amp; Travel 211K 302 29,413,718 United Kingdom 5,333.73K 10,577 1,056,299,162 Statistics of some of the popular Chinese Propaganda YouTube Channels The strategic deployment of these influencer-led channels is a sophisticated tool in China&#8217;s Soft Power Propaganda Network, allowing the country to shape international discourse and influence global public opinion in favor of its geopolitical stance. Through engaging, relatable content that appeals to both Western and non-Western audiences, these YouTube channels effectively support China’s broader propaganda objectives, reinforcing its narrative of being a global leader in technology, governance, and social stability. Country Number of YouTube Users (in millions) as of April 2024 India 476 United States 238 Brazil 147 Indonesia 139 Mexico 84.2 Japan 79.4 Pakistan 66.1 Germany 65.7 Vietnam 63 Philippines 58.1 Turkey 58.1 UK 55.7 France 50.2 Egypt 48.1 Thailand 44.2 Number of YouTube Users (in millions) as of April 2024 Despite China being the world&#8217;s most populous country after India, it is notably absent from the list of leading YouTube audiences as of April 2024. This absence is primarily due to the Chinese government&#8217;s long-standing restrictions on YouTube, which has been blocked in the country since 2009. Consequently, the platform is inaccessible to the vast majority of China&#8217;s population, leading to a significant gap in its user base despite the country&#8217;s vast potential audience. Interestingly, this gap has given rise to a unique phenomenon where many foreign YouTubers, residing and working in China, create content that caters primarily to international viewers, particularly those in countries where YouTube remains highly popular. These content creators often focus on showcasing various aspects of Chinese culture, travel, and daily life, which aligns with the growing global interest in China. However, their content frequently extends beyond mere cultural exchange, becoming a vehicle for soft power and state-sponsored propaganda. These YouTube channels and vlogs are often subtly or overtly linked to the Chinese state, either through direct support or indirect influence. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leverages these influencers to build and promote narratives that align with its geopolitical objectives and desired international image. By presenting an idealized version of China, these influencers contribute to shaping global perceptions in a way that supports the CCP&#8217;s strategic interests. This content often portrays China as a modern, harmonious, and prosperous nation, glossing over or omitting discussions of controversial issues such as human rights, censorship, or political repression. Furthermore, these influencers may receive preferential treatment, easier access to restricted locations, and other incentives that are not available to independent journalists or content creators critical of the Chinese government. In this way, the CCP effectively utilizes foreign YouTubers as part of a broader soft power strategy, disseminating state-approved narratives to a global audience, while circumventing the direct use of traditional state media channels. This influencer-driven content plays a crucial role in the CCP&#8217;s efforts to build a favorable narrative about China on the global stage, leveraging the reach and appeal of YouTube to influence public opinion, even in the absence of direct access to the platform within China itself. Following some of the prominent YouTube channels indulged in Chinese Propaganda: Channel:  Living in China Key Propaganda Themes: Channel:  Niranjan China Key Propaganda Themes: Read the entire report for a comprehensive understanding of the Influencer Network: Link Niranjan’s content across these platforms consistently promotes a narrative of China’s advancements, quality of life, and rapid development, often contrasting these aspects with India and other countries to highlight China&#8217;s superiority. Channel:  China Content Center Key Propaganda Themes: China Content Center consistently promotes narratives that emphasize China&#8217;s economic and...
- [Soft Power Propaganda Network of Chinese Cinema](https://ij-reportika.com/soft-power-propaganda-network-chinese-cinema/): Chinese cinema serves as a potent tool for extending Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda, promoting narratives that align with the party&#8217;s vision across various genres. Here are some examples of best Chinese propaganda movies: The Founding of a Republic (2009) This series dramatizes the events leading to the establishment of the People&#8217;s Republic of China in 1949. It highlights Mao Zedong&#8217;s leadership and the CCP&#8217;s victory over the Nationalists, emphasizing the legitimacy of the current regime. The Founding of a Republic dramatizes the events leading to the establishment of the People&#8217;s Republic of China in 1949, presenting the rise of the Chinese Communist Party as a heroic and inevitable triumph. The film seeks to highlight the historical struggle for democracy but offers a revisionist theme, framing the CCP’s ascent as a natural and just outcome of the nation&#8217;s history. Despite this, the film has been critiqued for being more of a historical romp rather than a disciplined treatment of the subject, as noted by G and M.E. Davies. The former editor of the Southern Weekend, Chiang Ping, remarked that the film underscores the limits of the contemporary Party-guided commercial repackaging of Chinese history. The impact of the film was significant enough that Douban, a Chinese film rating site, eventually disabled the rating feature for it and the other films in the trilogy. In response to some international reactions, co-director Huang Jianxin defended the film, stating, it’s unfair to describe The Founding of a Republic as propaganda since modern Chinese audiences are too sophisticated to swallow a simplistic rendering of history. International Reach: The movie has been strategically showcased at various international film festivals and cultural events as part of China&#8217;s broader propaganda efforts to influence foreign audiences. Notably, the film earned significant revenue internationally, grossing $1,035,741 worldwide, with substantial earnings in Hong Kong, New Zealand, and Thailand. It was prominently featured at the Chinese Film Festival in Pakistan, held at the Pakistan National Council of Arts (PNCA), among other global venues. Additionally, the film is available on Amazon Prime in select locations and YouTube with English subtitles/audio, where it has garnered over 260,000 views since August 30, 2021. Despite YouTube being banned in China, this substantial viewership from international audiences underscores the attempts to project the state-sanctioned narratives beyond China’s borders The Founding of a Party It is a Chinese propaganda film released in 2011 to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The film was produced by the state-owned China Film Group and aims to depict the early formation of the CCP. Starting with the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911 and concluding with the Party&#8217;s founding congress in 1921, the film portrays the struggle and rise of the CCP as a response to the socio-political challenges of the time. While the film attempts to present a narrative of ideological commitment and revolutionary fervor, it is widely recognized as a state-sponsored effort to reinforce the legitimacy and historical significance of the CCP. The film&#8217;s romanticized portrayal of figures like a young Mao Zedong aligns with its propagandistic goals, aiming to evoke patriotic sentiments and support for the Party among its domestic audience. International Reach: “The Founding of a Party,” internationally released as “Beginning of the Great Revival,” exemplifies China&#8217;s use of cinema as a propaganda tool to shape foreign perceptions of the Chinese Communist Party&#8217;s history. Unlike its prequel, “The Founding of a Republic,” this film was dubbed in multiple languages, including Japanese, French, Russian, and English, to ensure a broader international reach. Screened in over 10 countries, including the U.S., Canada, and Australia, it grossed $58,320,429 worldwide. The film was strategically promoted to international audiences, featured at the China Image Film Festival in Europe, where it received The Committee Special Awards. Its multilingual availability and different international cut underscore China&#8217;s efforts to influence global audiences more effectively than its predecessor, projecting a state-approved narrative through carefully curated cinematic experiences. The Founding of an Army (2017) It is the third installment in what can be humorously dubbed the People&#8217;s Republic of China Cinematic Universe (PRCCU), following The Founding of a Party and The Founding of a Republic. Directed by Andrew Lau and backed by an astonishing forty-six credited producers, the film is a state-sanctioned, star-studded epic commemorating the 90th anniversary of the founding of the People&#8217;s Liberation Army. Despite its attempts to attract a younger audience by featuring teen idols, the film remains largely a propaganda piece, with a polished narrative that highlights Mao Zedong&#8217;s leadership while portraying Chiang Kai-shek as a short-sighted antagonist. The film does include two notable battle scenes that add to its visual appeal, though overall, it continues the trend of its predecessors in presenting a highly stylized and idealized version of history. International Reach: Unlike its predecessors, this film was strategically released in Southeast Asia, targeting audiences in Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam, and Estonia before being showcased at the ASEAN international film exhibit. Grossing $60,600,361 worldwide, the film serves as a vehicle for the Chinese government to project its narrative beyond its borders. “The Founding of an Army” underscores China&#8217;s ongoing efforts to shape foreign perceptions of its military history and bolster its soft power in strategically important areas. Wolf Warrior (2015) and Wolf Warrior 2 (2017) The Wolf Warrior series, comprising Wolf Warrior (2015) and Wolf Warrior 2 (2017), exemplifies Chinese cinema&#8217;s role in advancing CCP propaganda. These films follow Leng Feng, a Chinese special forces operative, as he battles foreign mercenaries who threaten China&#8217;s sovereignty and global interests. Wolf Warrior emphasizes the discipline and heroism of the Chinese military, contrasting it with the ruthless, morally corrupt foreign adversaries, thereby promoting a narrative of national pride and military strength. International Reach: “Wolf Warrior” (2015) was strategically marketed and released on a large scale for international audiences. The film is available on prominent streaming platforms like Apple TV, Amazon Prime, Peacock Premium, and many others, ensuring widespread accessibility. Released in both Mandarin and English, it grossed a substantial $81,411,331 worldwide,...
- [Soft Power Propaganda Network Used Against Tibet](https://ij-reportika.com/soft-power-propaganda-network-used-against-tibet/): Delve into China's use of propaganda to control narratives about Tibet. Examine how Propaganda Network is leveraged to shape perceptions.
- [EXPLAINED: Why does the South Vietnamese flag spark tension?](https://ij-reportika.com/explained-why-does-the-south-vietnamese-flag-spark-tension/): South Vietnam’s yellow flag with three red stripes – which represented the anti-communist republic until the end of the Vietnam war in 1975 – sparks strong, opposing emotions among Vietnamese, depending on who you’re talking to. And recently, it’s been getting a lot of attention online in Vietnam.  Social media users have been digging up footage of Vietnamese celebrities performing at events in the United States where the yellow flag appeared in the background, with the aim of embarrassing them. They’ve “outed” a string of celebrities, including singer Myra Tran, who in 2019 performed at the U.S. funeral of a former soldier in the South Vietnamese army, prompting her to apologize. But for ethnic Vietnamese in the United States, the flag holds deep emotional significance, and they say there’s nothing to apologize for. The conflicting sentiments around the flag show the lingering divisions that persist nearly 50 years after the end of the Vietnam War. What does the flag represent to the Vietnamese diaspora? The 1975 victory of the North Vietnamese forces brought the country under communist rule and triggered a mass exodus of Vietnamese in the southern part of the country to flee to the United States, Canada and elsewhere. To those Vietnamese refugees and immigrants, the flag represents their lost homeland – the Republic of Vietnam, which existed from 1955 until 1975, a land that some of their loved ones died to protect.  Student protesters in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) display the South Vietnam flag during a protest against Premier Nguyen Khanh, Aug. 31, 1964. (Nguyen Van Duc/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) It is also a symbol of resilience of those who resisted communism and overcame immense challenges to build new lives, and, most importantly, their enduring stance against communism. Many Vietnamese immigrants have used the flag to express hatred for a communist regime that ousted them from their country. Activists have lobbied local officials to recognize the flag representing the displaced overseas Vietnamese community. In the United States, the flag has been formally recognized by 20 states and 85 cities as of 2023, according to a resolution introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives last year that seeks to recognize the flag as a symbol of the Vietnamese immigrant community. In cities like Westminster, California, home to a large Vietnamese American population, the flag is displayed during community events, protests and memorials. Virginia’s Eden Center, the East Coast’s largest concentration of Vietnamese businesses, also flies the South Vietnamese flag alongside the U.S. flag.  “Since I was born, I’ve always seen the yellow flag with three red stripes everywhere, and I know that it is the flag of the Vietnamese people,” 23-year-old Phuong Anh, born and raised in southern California, told RFA Vietnamese. What does it represent to Hanoi? In Vietnam today – represented by a red flag with a yellow star – the old South Vietnamese flag is considered a symbol of treason and defiance against the government. Showing it is seen as subversive, potentially leading to severe penalties, including imprisonment.  The flag is often associated with the so-called “reactionary forces,” a term the Vietnamese government uses to describe those who oppose its rule, including former South Vietnamese officials, their descendants, and members of the Vietnamese diaspora who fled the country after the war. State-controlled media work hard to make sure images of the yellow flag do not appear in publications or on broadcasts, even if it is in a news report about an election campaign in the United States or a sports event. In January 2022, for example, Vietnam Television postponed airing a soccer match in Australia due to fans waving red-striped yellow flags in the stadium. How does the flag remain an obstacle? The flag, as a symbol of resistance to communism, worries the Vietnamese government as it could spark opposition and dissent at home and abroad, according to experts. In Vietnamese educational and propaganda materials, the yellow flag is depicted as something to be disavowed. As a result, many in the country are angry or hostile when they see the flag. The tension surrounding the flag shows the legacy of the Vietnam War and the deep divisions it created. It leaves many overseas Vietnamese questioning whether the Vietnamese government is ready for reconciliation with the diaspora community and moving forward from the past. “We can only achieve reconciliation if we understand the pain of our people,” said Johny Huy, a Vietnamese in North Carolina. “I believe these are things our nation needs to acknowledge, we need to recognize and accept the suffering of those who had to flee and escape after 1975.” Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [China, Philippines trade blame over “ramming” at disputed shoal](https://ij-reportika.com/china-philippines-trade-blame-over-ramming-at-disputed-shoal/): China and the Philippines traded accusations of ramming each other’s vessels on Saturday at a disputed shoal in the South China Sea, marking an apparent escalation in an already tense situation in the area. Jay Tarriela, spokesperson for the Philippine National Task Force for the West Philippine Sea – part of South China Sea over which the Philippines claims jurisdiction – said that a Chinese coast guard vessel “deliberately rammed and collided” three times with a Philippine coast guard ship “despite no provocation” from the Philippine side. The Philippine vessel, BRP Teresa Magbanua, has been on deployment at Sabina Shoal, known in the Philippines as Escoda Shoal, since April to monitor what the Philippines fears is China’s plan to reclaim land at the shoal. Tarriela told a press briefing in Manila that the incident was the fifth case of harassment by China of Philippine ships operating in the area in August. He said there were no reports of any injuries to Philippine personnel. A Chinese coast guard spokesperson accused the Philippines of provocation at the shoal, which both sides claim but which lies entirely within the Philippine exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, where the Philippines holds rights to explore for natural resources. The Chinese coast guard ship 5205 “lawfully issued verbal warnings and conducted monitoring and control measures” against the Philippine ship which “continued its provocations at China’s Xianbin Jiao,” Chinese coast guard spokesperson Liu Dejun said, referring to the shoal by its Chinese name. At around midday, the Philippine ship “deliberately rammed into the Chinese ship 5205 in an unprofessional and dangerous manner, causing a collision for which the Philippines bears full responsibility,” Liu said. Sabina Shoal has in recent days become the latest flashpoint between the Philippines, a close U.S. ally, and China in the South China Sea, raising concerns about conflict between the neighbors. The U.S. has spoken in support of Manila, with Ambassador MaryKay Carlson saying in a statement that Washington “condemns the multiple dangerous violations of international law” by China, including Saturday’s incident. “We stand with the Philippines in upholding international law,” she added. Less than a week ago, Philippine officials said another ship – the BRP Datu Sanday – “encountered aggressive and dangerous maneuvers from eight Chinese maritime forces” while attempting to deliver diesel, food and medical supplies to Filipino fishermen operating near the shoal. China has repeatedly accused the Philippines of “illegally grounding” the BRP Teresa Magbanua in order to “forcibly occupy” the shoal. China on Friday released an ecological report to back its claim to the feature that officials said is a Chinese island. RELATED STORIES China releases report to fortify claim over disputed shoal in South China Sea Philippines, China clash near disputed shoal in South China Sea Manila accuses Beijing of island building in South China Sea Jason Gutierrez in Manila contributed to this story. Edited by RFA staff.
- [Hundreds of Taiwanese 'disappear' in China over past 10 years](https://ij-reportika.com/hundreds-of-taiwanese-disappear-in-china-over-past-10-years/): Read related stories in Mandarin: 10年来857名台湾人在中国被失踪或任意逮捕 and 强迫失踪在中国：纪念日背后的无尽悲痛与抗争  More than 800 nationals of democratic Taiwan have “disappeared” over the past 10 years in China, which has long used forced disappearances to silence and control its own dissidents and rights activists, rights groups said on Friday. Figures compiled by the Taiwan Association for Human Rights and several other non-government groups showed that 857 Taiwan nationals have been &#8220;forcibly disappeared or arbitrarily arrested&#8221; in China, activists told a joint news conference in Taipei. They include publisher Li Yanhe (pen name Fu Cha), detained in Shanghai since April 2023, democracy activist Lee Ming-cheh, who served a five-year jail term in Hunan province for &#8220;attempting to subvert state power,&#8221; and businessman Lee Meng-Chu, jailed for nearly two years for &#8220;espionage&#8221; after he snapped photos of People&#8217;s Armed Police personnel at a Shenzhen hotel at the height of the 2019 Hong Kong protests. Speaking on the United Nations&#8217; International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, Taiwan Association for Human Rights chief Eeling Chiu called on China to fulfill its obligations under international human rights law. &#8220;China should &#8230; immediately release those who have been forcibly disappeared or arbitrarily detained,&#8221; Chiu told journalists, calling on the Taiwan authorities to ratify United Nations conventions against torture and enforced disappearances as soon as possible. &#8220;[They should also] actively assist the families of those who have been arbitrarily arrested and detained in China and set up assistance mechanisms for them,&#8221; she said. Members of a support group for disappeared Taiwanese publisher Fu Cha hold up signs calling for his release to mark the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, Aug. 30, 2024. (Huang Chun-mei/RFA) Activist Wang Chia-hsuan of a petition group in support of Li Yanhe, or Fu Cha, said Li was born in China but had permanent residency in Taiwan at the time of his disappearance, having lived in Taipei for more than a decade. He has been incommunicado for 527 days, and has been detained on suspicion of &#8220;incitement to secession,&#8221; Wang said. He called on Taipei municipal authorities to step up efforts to communicate with the Chinese authorities regarding Li&#8217;s case. Lee Ming-cheh told the news conference that his disappearance and subsequent jailing put huge pressure on his family back home. &#8220;Collaborators with the Chinese government in Taiwan warned my wife off talking to Taiwanese NGOs or speaking out publicly about my case, saying they would allow her to travel to China to visit me [if she complied],&#8221; he said. &#8220;If she spoke publicly about my case, she wouldn&#8217;t be allowed to go to China,&#8221; Lee said, accusing the Chinese government of abusing current crime cooperation agreements with Taiwan to persecute its residents. Negotiating is key Ruling Democratic Progressive Party lawmaker Puma Shen said the Taiwanese authorities could do a better job of negotiating in the early stages of such cases. &#8220;Government officials &#8230; should call on China for more appropriate handling of [such] cases,&#8221; Shen said. &#8220;If that doesn&#8217;t happen, then we should cut off communication [with China].&#8221; &#8220;If we continue to communicate past that point, there will be no deterrence at all &#8230; and it will send the message that it&#8217;s OK if our people keep disappearing,&#8221; he said. Taiwanese publisher Li Yanhe in an undated photo. (Fu Cha via Facebook) Meanwhile, Taiwanese lawmaker Hung Shen-han warned that it&#8217;s not only Taiwanese who are at risk of arbitrary arrest and &#8220;disappearance&#8221; in China. &#8220;The risk to individuals of being disappeared and prosecuted in China don&#8217;t just apply to Taiwanese,&#8221; Hung said, adding that some democratic countries have issued travel advisories to their citizens on the matter. &#8220;The Chinese government uses its laws, along with various undemocratic and unsupervised practices, to threaten the personal safety of people from all countries who go to China,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Chinese citizens themselves face the same problem.&#8221; Geng He, the U.S.-based wife of human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng said it has been seven years since he &#8220;disappeared&#8221; on Aug. 13, 2017. &#8220;Gao Zhisheng has been missing for seven years and 17 days, with no news or explanation, neither verbal nor written,&#8221; she told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview. &#8220;They deploy the whole state apparatus in its entirety to target people like Gao Zhisheng who speak the truth and work on behalf of the people,&#8221; Geng said. The couple&#8217;s entire family has also been affected, she said. &#8220;My entire family&#8217;s ID cards have been confiscated for the past 15 years now,&#8221; Geng said. &#8220;This has caused great inconvenience to my family in terms of their ability to work, go about their lives, access medical treatment and travel.&#8221; &#8220;They&#8217;re being controlled to death,&#8221; Geng said. &#8220;Basically, they can&#8217;t leave their homes.&#8221; Gao&#8217;s sister died by suicide in May 2020, while his brother-in-law also took his own life after being forced to beg the authorities to &#8220;borrow&#8221; his own ID card so he can access his cancer medication. Disappeared Chinese rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng in an undated photo. (Weiquanwang) Veteran rights lawyer Bao Longjun said the authorities have also &#8220;disappeared&#8221; his wife Wang Yu, also a prominent rights attorney, on several occasions in recent years. She was incommunicado for several hours on Wednesday during the trial of rights lawyer Yu Wensheng and activist Xu Yan in Suzhou. &#8220;I feel like it&#8217;s about ruling the country through terror,&#8221; Bao told RFA Mandarin. &#8220;There is no legal basis for [enforced disappearances].&#8221; &#8220;If you are even slightly disobedient, they will immediately bring state power to bear, forcibly restricting your freedom, and controlling you to achieve what they think is stability,&#8221; he said. Uyghurs and Tibetans Chinese authorities have also forcibly disappeared Uyghurs and Tibetans in the far-western part of mainland China. An estimated 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims have been detained in Xinjiang under flimsy pretexts during mass incarcerations that began more than seven years ago in an effort by Chinese authorities to prevent religious extremism, separatism and terrorism. Former Xinjiang University President Tashpolat Teyip, who himself vanished in 2017...
- [Vietnam, Philippines sign defense cooperation agreement](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-philippines-sign-defense-cooperation-agreement/): Vietnam and the Philippines signed a defense agreement on Friday that would see the two South China Sea claimants strengthening their cooperation at sea, where both face an assertive China.  The agreement comes at a time of heightened tensions, especially between the Philippines and China, which are at loggerheads over some of the reefs and atolls in the waterway. Vietnamese defense minister Phan Van Giang is in Manila on a visit “to materialize the common understandings” achieved during the state visit by Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to Hanoi in January, according to the Vietnamese ministry’s Quan Doi Nhan Dan newspaper.  Giang and his counterpart, Gilberto Teodoro, signed a defense cooperation agreement to boost a strategic partnership between the two militaries, focusing on maritime cooperation. Coast guard forces from both countries are to set up a hotline to manage “non-traditional security challenges,” and share information, the Vietnamese minister told President Marcos during a courtesy call to the Malacañan Palace. Gen. Phan Van Giang, Vietnam’s Minister of National Defense pays a courtesy call on President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. of the Philippines on Aug. 30, 2024. (Vietnam News Agency) On Aug. 9, coast guard vessels from Vietnam and the Philippines conducted their first-ever joint drills. Marcos described Giang&#8217;s first visit to the Philippines as a &#8220;very significant point in the history between our two countries.&#8221; “The Philippines and Vietnam have enjoyed good relations … We now talk about defense cooperation, security cooperation, maritime cooperation, and certainly, on the area of trade as well,” Marcos was quoted by the official Philippine News Agency as telling Giang.  Giang said the two countries had “very good” interactions and dialogues, especially when it comes to “navy-to-navy discussions.” RELATED STORIES Vietnam’s coast guard to hold first drills with Philippines Philippines, Vietnam set to boost cooperation in South China Sea Philippine, Vietnamese coast guards sail together to bolster nautical cooperation While visiting the Philippine navy headquarters, the Vietnamese minister stressed that, as neighbors at sea, Vietnam and the Philippines shared interests in security and safety of navigation amid unpredictable challenges. However, the four-star general, who fought in a Sino-Vietnam border war in 1979, did not refer to China or its activities in disputed waters. Instead, he reiterated that Vietnam was pursuing a so-called Four Nos defense policy: no military alliances, no siding with one country  against another, no foreign military bases in the Vietnamese territory or using Vietnam as leverage to counteract other countries, and no force or threat of force in international relations. While a military alliance between Vietnam and the Philippines is unlikely, they can still bolster exchanges and joint activities. The Philippine navy has agreed to send a team to Vietnam’s 2nd Defense Expo in December. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Pakistan-based Uyghur businessmen praise China during Xinjiang visit](https://ij-reportika.com/pakistan-based-uyghur-businessmen-praise-china-during-xinjiang-visit/): Read this story in Uyghur: خىتاي پاكىستاندىكى بىر قىسىم ئۇيغۇرلارنى «ئىرقى قىرغىنچىلىق ساياھىتى» گە ئاپارغان A group of 10 Pakistan-based businessmen who praised China’s policies during a trip to Xinjiang this month have been blasted by Uyghur activists for parroting Beijing’s propaganda and turning a blind eye to China’s oppression of the roughly 12 million Uyghurs living there. The businessmen, most of whom were ethnic Uyghurs, came on the eight-day trip funded by the Chinese government from the Ex-Chinese Association Pakistan, established in 2007 with China’s support to promote the welfare of the Uyghur community in the country. In social media posts, the delegation said they saw Uyghurs and other Muslims living happily and peacefully in the far-western region, and that China was actively developing the region. They also dismissed Western reports of Chinese atrocities.  Photos and videos from the trip, which began on Aug. 20 and included stops in Urumqi, Korla and Kashgar, show members of the delegation — two of whom wore doppas, or Uyghur skullcaps — raising Chinese flags, attending special banquets and participating in events organized by officials.  The posts showed them watching musical performances and proclaiming that “Muslims of all ethnicities are living happily in Xinjiang.” The trip is the latest by officials from mostly Muslim countries organized by Beijing in an effort to dispel allegations of genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs in the region, activists say.  An estimated 1.8 million Uyghurs have been put into concentration camps scattered around Xinjiang, although Beijing has described them as job training facilities that are now mostly closed. RELATED STORIES Uyghur refugees in Pakistan face deportation in April Major Muslim group buys into China’s narrative of happy Uyghurs in a stable Xinjiang China pumps up narrative of happy Uyghurs in Xinjiang among Pakistanis Foreign diplomats in China treated to tour of Xinjiang and ‘happy’ Uyghurs But this was the first time that a foreign delegation with ethnic Uyghurs from a Muslim-majority country was invited to the far-western region, Uyghur activists said.  “Despite having relatives in prison, they remain silent about East Turkestan because they benefit from the Chinese consulate” in Pakistan, said Omer Khan, founder of the Pakistan-based Omer Uyghur Trust, which assists Uyghurs living in the country, using Uyghurs’ preferred name for Xinjiang.  “Their actions bring shame not only to Uyghurs in their homeland, but also to Uyghurs worldwide,” he said. RFA could not reach the Ex-Chinese Association Pakistan for comment. Helping cover up? Activists and Uyghurs abroad said they found the photos and videos disturbing, mainly because most Uyghurs living outside China cannot communicate with their relatives in Xinjiang or obtain information about those who have been detained there. Uyghurs in Pakistan are outraged by the delegation members, seeing them as aiding and abetting China’s efforts to cover up the Uyghur genocide, Khan said. Nearly 1,000 Uyghur families live in Gilgit and Rawalpindi, Pakistan, where their ancestors migrated from Xinjiang 50 to 60 years ago. However, they are stateless and do not have Pakistani citizenship.  In Rawalpindi, nearly 100 Uyghurs who fled to Pakistan through Afghanistan years ago are still at risk of being deported to China or Afghanistan because of Pakistan’s failure to grant them citizenship — something activists say is due to Chinese pressure. Members of the delegation — which included association chairman Muhammad Nasir Khan and Nasir Khan Sahib, former chairman of the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry — began posting on social media in Urdu and English as soon as they arrived in Xinjiang, Khan said.  In Korla, the second-largest city by population in Xinjiang, they participated in the city’s “Intangible Cultural Heritage Week” as part of China’s “Xinjiang is a wonderful place” propaganda campaign designed to counter criticism of its policies in the restive, heavily Muslim region, he said. The Chinese press covered the delegation’s visit, claiming that they witnessed peace, stability, economic development, religious harmony and cultural prosperity in the region.  State-controlled media reports publicized the delegation’s statement: “We can see people dancing happily all the time. We really feel that the life of the people in Xinjiang is sweeter than honey.”  Abdul Aziz, a Uyghur businessman from Gilgit who participated in the Xinjiang trip, posted short videos on Facebook titled “Xinjiang trip diaries,” showing the delegation visiting exhibitions on counter-terrorism and anti-extremism, the International Grand Bazaar and the Islamic Institute of Xinjiang in Urumqi and tourist sites in other places. RFA’s attempts to contact Abdul Aziz via his social media platforms were unsuccessful. Pakistan under pressure Hena Zuberi, director of the human rights group Justice for All, described the situation as deeply saddening, saying Beijing is using such visits to justify its genocidal policies under the guise of China-Pakistan friendship.  Pakistan has come under pressure from Beijing because of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a 3,000-kilometer (1,800-mile) Chinese infrastructure network project under the Belt and Road Initiative to foster better trade with China, and secure and reduce travel time for China’s Middle East energy imports. “If they took a stance and they said and asked the hard questions and demanded to know what was happening to those Muslim people in the Uyghur region, I think the situation would be different,” Zuberi said of the visiting delegates.  “But Pakistan is so economically imprisoned by China, they can’t,” she said. Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar insurgents attack navy base as junta recruits militias](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-insurgents-attack-navy-base-as-junta-recruits-militias/): Insurgents in Myanmar’s Rakhine state are closing in on an important junta naval base, a spokesman for the group said on Thursday, as military authorities in neighboring regions rounded up people into civil defense teams in preparation for rebel advances. The Arkan Army ethnic minority force has made stunning gains in Myanmar&#8217;s westernmost state, capturing townships, military bases and an airport at Thandwe town, since going on the offensive late last year. Now AA fighters are attacking the last remaining junta positions protecting its Maung Shwe Lay naval base in Thandwe, AA spokesman Khaing Thu Kha told Radio Free Asia. He said eight naval vessels were supporting junta ground troops and the fighting was fierce. Junta spokesmen have not commented on the latest fighting. Myanmar’s military has been battling insurgencies since soon after independence from Britain in 1948 but the pressure its forces are under this year is unprecedented. Pro-democracy activists, outraged by the ouster of an elected government in 2021 and a bloody crackdown on protests that followed, have taken up arms, linking up in many parts of the country with ethnic minority rebels fighting long wars for self-determination. Junta forces have lost ground in Rakhine and Chin states in the west, Kachin state in the north, Shan state in the northeast and eastern areas along the border with Thailand.  In addition, central heartland areas that have been peaceful for decades have been rocked by clashes as anti-junta People’s Defense Forces go on the attack.  Junta officials told administrators on Aug. 16 it would begin setting up militias, or public security committees,  to arm people to defend their communities, according to information leaked on social media.  Residents in the Ayeyarwady region, near a conflict zone in southern Rakhine state, said on Thursday that authorities there had begun recruiting people into the militias, drawing names through a lottery system in five townships.  “They’re recruiting us for their militia,” said one resident of a township that borders Rakhine state. “Local administrators are recruiting people between the ages of 35 and 65 under the pretext of serving public security in the neighborhoods and villages,” said the resident, who declined to be identified. “They even tried to recruit some disabled people and when they refused, they had to pay a fine.” RFA tried to telephone Ayeyarwady region’s junta spokesperson, Khin Maung Kyi, for information but he did not answer. Political parties in the area have also been told to help fill the ranks, said one party member. “Political parties have been called up for recruitment in some towns,” said the party worker who declined to be identified. “The junta asked us to contribute 50 people.” Recruits would be asked to carry weapons and do some short military training, he said. Translated by RFA Burmese Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 
- [Notable Cambodian businessman detained, charged in embezzlement case](https://ij-reportika.com/notable-cambodian-businessman-detained-charged-in-embezzlement-case/): A prominent Cambodian businessman has been detained for questioning by an investigating judge following accusations he stole millions of dollars from an investment company. Kuy Vat, the former chairman of the Cambodian Investors Corporation, was arrested on Aug. 24. The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday charged him with “non-compliance with traded instruments.” The fraud and embezzlement charges follow allegations from several people that Kuy Vat has bounced large checks and otherwise misappropriated money invested in the Cambodian Investors Corporation, or CIC, according to CamboJA News. CIC collected US$100 million from investors but allegedly hasn’t allowed people to make withdrawals and hasn’t paid out interest, as promised, since August 2023, CamboJA News reported earlier this year. Kuy Vat is the owner of the Park Cafe chain of restaurants, which has 11 locations across Phnom Penh, the capital.  Among the alleged victims in the case is Kouch Mengly, a Cambodian-American who told Radio Free Asia in April that he lost US$300,000 to the company.  “If justice isn’t sought and this is allowed to continue, the people will lose faith in the government and the justice system, and the government will lose the faith of the international community, which will lead to the destruction of the Cambodian economy,” he said. CIC board member Som Sambath told RFA that he was unaware of allegations that Kuy Vat had transferred money from CIC to his personal accounts. “I don’t know what to say until I know the truth – then I can answer your question,” he said. “I don’t know how to answer now.” RFA was unable to reach a spokesman for Phnom Penh prosecutors, Chhay Chhay Hong, to ask about the charges. CIC board member Khim Sokheng was also unavailable for comment on Wednesday. Translated by Sum Sok Ry. Edited by Matt Reed.
- [Did Taiwanese ships fly the Chinese flag while passing through the Red Sea?](https://ij-reportika.com/did-taiwanese-ships-fly-the-chinese-flag-while-passing-through-the-red-sea/): A video and photograph of a cargo vessel have been shared in Chinese-language social media posts that claim they show vessels from  the Evergreen Group – Taiwan’s shipping and transportation conglomerate – flying a Chinese flag while passing through the Red Sea in July. But the claim is false. Evergreen vessels have not passed through the Red Sea since December 2023. A video of a cargo ship was posted on Chinese social media Bilibili on Aug. 17. “A cargo ship belonging to China’s Taiwan-based Evergreen Group passed through the Red Sea flying the five-star red flag without incident. Previously, the Houthis have repeatedly attacked passing ships in the Red Sea, but ships flying the Chinese and Russian flags have usually been able to pass through safely,” the video’s caption reads.  The 12-second video shows multiple scenes, including China’s national flag, the Five-star Red Flag, and a cargo ship with an “EVERGREEN” sign on it.  Separately, a photo of what appears to be Evergeen’s cargo vessel was shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Aug. 18, alongside a caption that reads: “The Evergreen Hotel refused to fly the Chinese flag, but Evergreen Marine flew the Chinese flag when it passed through the waters under the jurisdiction of the Houthis in the Red Sea.” A number of influencers posted photos of Evergreen ships purportedly flying China’s flag (Screenshots/X, Weibo and Bilibili) The claim began to circulate online after Chinese social media users criticized a decision by a branch of the Taiwanese Evergreen Laurel Hotel in Paris to refuse to fly China’s national flag during the Olympics. Some users further criticized the Evergreen Group, the hotel’s parent company, for what they said was double standards after several of its ships passed through the Red Sea in July while flying the Chinese flag for protection.  Evergreen Group is a Taiwan conglomerate with businesses in shipping, transport and associated services such as energy development, air transport, hotels and resorts. Taiwan has been self-governing since it effectively separated from mainland China in 1949 after the Chinese civil war, but China regards Taiwan as a renegade province that should be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary. However, the claim about the Evergreen vessels flying the flag is false.  Vessels in question Reverse image searches found the two vessels seen in the Bilibili video and the photo on X are Evergeen’s EVER ALP and EVER BUILD.  A comparison of the EVER ALP and the EVER BUILD with the respective Chinese influencers’ content. (Photo/AFCL) According to the ship tracking service Marine Traffic, both vessels are under the jurisdiction of Panama.  Since the internationally recognized United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea stipulates that a ship must sail under the flag of the state to which it is registered, those ships should fly Panama’s flag.  Information on the EVER ALP and EVER BUILD. (Screenshot/Marine Traffic)  According to a contingency plan issued by Evergreen in December 2023, all of its cargo vessels originally scheduled to pass through the Red Sea  between Asia, Europe and the eastern United States would be rerouted around the Cape of Good Hope due to the threat of attacks on merchant ships. Since the release of the contingency plan by Evergreen, the EVER ALP has not passed through the Red Sea, while the EVER BUILD has only sailed between northeast China and Thailand, nowhere near the Red Sea. Records from the ship tracking service Marine Traffic also show that neither the EVER ALP nor the EVER BUILD has sailed through the Red Sea since the group issued its contingency plan.  The respective routes of both vessels recorded on Marine Traffic show that they have not entered through the Red Sea in the last 9 months.  (Screenshots/Marine Traffic) A representative of Evergreen told AFCL that it had not changed its company-wide shipping reroute around the Cape of Good Hope, and the company required its vessels to follow the international and industry practice of flying the flags of the country under whose jurisdiction they sail.  Hoisting a different country’s flags A former Taiwanese Coast Guard official told AFCL that, in practice, there are cases when a ship might fly a different country’s flags.  It is common for ships to fly another country’s flag alongside their own registered state flag to show goodwill when passing through that country’s territorial waters, the official said.  In disputed waters, ships from one country involved in the dispute might fly the flag of the other country to reduce the risk of interference from the rival state’s authorities or militias. Lastly, ships from smaller or less powerful nations often fly the flag of a more powerful country when passing through pirate-infested waters to create a deterrent, the official explained, adding that Taiwan did not legally permit ships under its jurisdiction to engage in the second or third scenarios. Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Shen Ke and Taejun Kang. Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X.
- [China arrests 15 North Korean escapees near Laos](https://ij-reportika.com/china-arrests-15-north-korean-escapees-near-laos/): Under cover of darkness, the 15 North Koreans – 13 women and two children – approached the river, where they expected to catch a speedboat out of China to Laos, bringing them one step closer to freedom. They had traveled more than 2,500 kilometers (1,500 miles) across China to get to that point, hoping eventually to fly from Southeast Asia to Seoul.  Suddenly, Chinese police appeared and arrested all of them. Instead, they will likely be repatriated – a fate that awaits nearly all North Korean escapees in Chinese police custody – and will likely be punished for fleeing. The incident occurred on the night of Aug. 21, according to a South Korean human rights group, Korea Unification Solidarity, that had been helping the escapees. The Chinese guide leading the group had sent a video clip to update their status to some of their family members who had already made the journey to South Korea. They were arrested moments later. According to Korea Unification Solidarity, the escapees were on their way to South Korea – in a roundabout route.  After first fleeing North Korea to China, they were divided into two groups to avoid detection. Each group took a different route across China to the southern city of Kunming, and once reunited they planned to cross the border to a Southeast Asian country.  “The two groups arrived safely in Kunming and merged, but when they sent a video of their arrival at the riverside, the police raid started,” Jang Se-yul, a representative of Korea Unification Solidarity, told RFA Korean. “When I asked another guide, he said that they were all caught at the riverside.” An escapee living in Seoul identified by the pseudonym Lee for safety reasons told Jang that his younger sister was among the group of 15 arrested escapees. “Ten days ago, my younger sister and her group of 15 people left Yanji, Jilin Province, to go to Kunming and they were arrested by the Chinese police.” Lee said, according to Jang. “Their whereabouts became unknown after the video clip was sent by the Chinese guide.” The three-second-long video clip provided to RFA by Lee via Jang shows several women, presumed to be among the 15 escapees, moving toward a river in pitch darkness to board a boat. RFA has not been able to independently confirm which river is shown in the video or any of Jang’s statements about the incident. According to Jang, the group consists of 13 North Korean women and two children who had lived temporarily in the northeastern Chinese provinces of Heilongjiang and Jilin. Illegal migrants? Although many in the international community are critical of China for forcibly repatriating North Korean escapees, Beijing maintains that they are not refugees, but illegal economic migrants, and that it must repatriate them because it is bound by two diplomatic agreements with Pyongyang. The arrests come about a month after South Korea celebrated its first-ever North Korean Defectors’ Day, a new holiday that will henceforth fall on July 14 and celebrate the stories and struggles of North Koreans who have resettled in South Korea. During the holiday events, South Korean President Yoon Seok-yeol pledged to make “every diplomatic effort to prevent our compatriots who escaped North Korea and are living overseas from being forcibly repatriated.” During the COVID-19 pandemic, repatriations temporarily halted as the border between China and North Korea were closed down, but now that the border is open again, repatriations have resumed. When RFA contacted South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment on the arrests, the ministry’s spokesperson Lee Jae-woong said that there was nothing that could be confirmed. But he said that South Korea maintains that North Koreans residing overseas should not be forcibly repatriated under any circumstances. South Korea’s Ministry of Unification told RFA that it reiterated that position and that it is currently verifying the facts.  Translated by Jay Park. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
- [Top White House official in Beijing for talks with foreign minister](https://ij-reportika.com/top-white-house-official-in-beijing-for-talks-with-foreign-minister/): U.S. President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan arrived in China on Tuesday on a three-day trip that includes talks with Foreign Minister Wang Yi, and comes after complaints from China’s neighbors about what they see as its territorial intrusions. Sullivan and Wang “will hold a new round of China-U.S. strategic communication,” according to China’s foreign ministry, exchanging views on bilateral relations, “sensitive issues” and “major international and regional hotspots.” A senior White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters on Friday that Sullivan and Wang would discuss a range of topics including areas of disagreement, such as Taiwan, Ukraine and the Middle East. RELATED STORIES Top White House official to visit China Philippines, China clash near disputed shoal in South China Sea Philippines joins US-led allies in multilateral maneuvers in South China Sea The visit comes amid protests by U.S. allies Japan and the Philippines about what they say are Chinese incursions. Japan said a Chinese Y-9 reconnaissance plane entered Japanese airspace for two minutes on Monday, which Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi described as “utterly unacceptable.” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said on Tuesday China was trying to verify the report, adding that its military had “no intention of intruding” into any country’s airspace. Meanwhile, Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. said on Tuesday that China was “the biggest disrupter” of peace in Southeast Asia. His comments came after a clash on Sunday between Philippine and Chinese vessels near a disputed reef in the South China Sea. US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan is welcomed by Director General of the Department of North American and Oceanian Affairs of the Foreign Ministry Yang Tao (C) and US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns (L) upon arriving at the Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing on Aug. 27, 2024. (Ng Han Guan/POOL/AFP) Sullivan was greeted at Beijing’s Capital Airport by the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s North American and Oceanian department head Yang Tao, and U.S. ambassador Nicholas Burns. His trip is the first official visit to China and the first by a national security adviser since Susan Rice went to Beijing under the Obama administration in 2016. Sullivan and Wang have met in Washington, Vienna, Malta and Bangkok over the past 18 months. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Cambodia announces fundraising effort for ‘border infrastructure’](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodia-announces-fundraising-effort-for-border-infrastructure/): Cambodians are being asked to pay for infrastructure projects in a remote border area where an economic cooperation agreement with Vietnam and Laos has recently sparked criticism and protests from opposition activists. The projects would be aimed at developing four provinces in northeastern Cambodia that are part of the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Triangle Development Area, or CLV. Prime Minister Hun Manet’s Cabinet announced the creation of a Foundation for Border Infrastructure Development on Monday in a statement that included the names of six banks where people could send money. It was unclear what infrastructure projects would be funded by the foundation. The provinces – Kratie, Stung Treng, Ratanakiri and Mondulkiri – are thinly populated. Money raised under the initiative would help the government “in the spirit of national unity, peace, sovereignty and territorial integrity, [to] promote stronger and more sustainable border development,” Hun Manet said. “Cambodians of all backgrounds, both inside and outside the country” are encouraged to contribute, the prime minister said. Several high-profile Cambodian businessmen have already posted messages on social media that showed their donation to the foundation. The 1999 CLV agreement between the three countries was aimed at encouraging economic development and trade between the four northeastern provinces and neighboring provinces across the border. But some activists recently began expressing concerns that the CLV could cause Cambodia to lose territory or control of its natural resources to Vietnam.  Overseas Cambodians held protests in South Korea, Japan, France, Canada and Australia on Aug. 11. Planned demonstrations in Cambodia on Aug. 18 were never held after the government deployed security forces and arrested more than 30 people. The fundraising effort appears to be aimed at harnessing some of the nationalistic sentiment sparked by CLV critics, according to Oum Sam An, a former lawmaker for the former main opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party. “This is demagogic politics to deceive the people,” he told Radio Free Asia. “He is trying to show that his family is patriotic and didn’t cede any land to Vietnam.” RFA was unable to reach a government spokesperson for comment on the new foundation. Translated by Sum Sok Ry. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
- [Vietnam’s parliament appoints new ministers after To Lam takes top job](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnams-parliament-appoints-new-ministers-after-to-lam-takes-top-job/): Updated Aug. 26, 2024, 06:45 a.m. ET. Vietnam has announced a shakeup of ministers as To Lam shores up power and continues his predecessor’s anti-corruption campaign, following his elevation to general secretary of the Communist Party this month. National Assembly members replaced two deputy prime ministers and appointed another – the country’s fifth – at an extraordinary meeting in Hanoi attended by Lam and Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh.  Supreme Court Chief Justice Nguyen Hoa Binh, 66, Finance Minister Ho Duc Phoc, 60, and Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son, 61, became deputy prime ministers. The shakeup comes after Le Minh Khai was removed from his position as deputy prime minister by the Politburo on Aug. 3 to take responsibility for a land-use scandal in Lam Dong province. The Politburo also announced this month it was moving Tran Luu Quang from a deputy prime ministerial role to head up the Central Economic Commission. Parliament also appointed new justice and environment ministers in Monday’s one-day session.  ‘Blazing furnace’ continues National Assembly Secretary General Bui Van Cuong said parliament would elect a new state president during its October session, Vietnamese media reported. Lam has held the post for three months. Lam, a former public security minister was elected general secretary – the country’s most powerful position – on Aug. 3, following the death two weeks earlier of his predecessor, Nguyen Phu Trong. Trong had championed an anti-corruption drive known as the “blazing furnace” to tackle graft among party officials and business leaders. The campaign claimed the jobs of several senior government members, including Vo Van Thuong, who was forced to step down as president in March after just one year in office. Lam, 67, took over the presidency on May 22 and had already assumed the general secretary’s role on an interim basis the day before Nguyen Phu Trong’s death. RELATED STORIES Analysts: Vietnam’s new leader promises reform, but it won’t be easy To Lam elected as Vietnam’s top leader Nguyen Phu Trong left Vietnam&#8217;s Communist Party ripe for strongman rule Carl Thayer, emeritus professor at the University of New South Wales Canberra, said it would be unusual for Lam to remain both party secretary general and president. “Since reunification of Vietnam and the adoption of the 1992 constitution, Vietnam’s party leaders have consistently rejected the idea of merging the office of party general secretary and state president,” said Thayer.  He said if Lam was able to concentrate on a single role it would give him more time to oversee the selection of the next generation of leaders at the party congress scheduled for early 2026 and continue Trong’s “blazing furnace” campaign. “No doubt To Lam will be vigorous in opposing any potential candidate involved in corruption or who fails to meet party ethical standards,” he added. “But the process of vetting must be viewed as fair and balanced across the entire Vietnam Communist Party and not a particular faction or region.” Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang. Updated to note election for state president will take place in October.
- [Archeologists unearth ruins of ancient Uyghur city in Mongolia](https://ij-reportika.com/archeologists-unearth-ruins-of-ancient-uyghur-city-in-mongolia/): The discovery of the ruins of a long-lost city in northern Mongolia believed to be built by Uyghurs roughly 1,400 years ago enhances knowledge of Uyghur civilization amid the Chinese government’s efforts to rewrite the Muslim group’s history to fit into its own narrative, historians and other experts said. “This discovery fills a historical gap,” Saban Dogan, the project’s lead archaeologist from Izmir Katip Calabi University in Izmir, Turkey, told Radio Free Asia. “Second, it advances the understanding of [Uyghur] Turkic urban and residential life by another hundred years.” Turkish and Mongolian archaeologists discovered remnants of the lost city of Togu Balik in June and July during excavations in the Tuul River Valley, known as the Tugla River valley in Uyghur historical documents, according to Turkiye Today, which first reported the findings.   Dogun suggested that Togu Balik was constructed between 630 and 680 CE, making it one of the earliest cities built by Uyghurs.  Today, the Uyghurs are concentrated in the Chinese far-western region of Xinjiang, which they prefer to call East Turkistan, where some 11 million live under Chinese rule and are subjected to a genocide, according to the United States and the parliaments of some Western nations. RELATED STORIES China digs up the past to shore up official version of history Ancient Buddhist temple in Xinjiang stirs controversy INTERVIEW: Lawyer debunks China’s historical narrative of control over Xinjiang Togu Balik, built by the Toquz Oghuz — a confederation of Turkic Tiele tribes known as the “nine clans” in Inner Asia during the early Middle Ages — was a key city of the Uyghur Khaganate, or empire, under the Orkhon Uyghur nobility. That empire existed between 740 CE and 840 CE, following the Uyghurs’ destruction of the Second Turkic Khaganate, an empire  in Central and Eastern Asia  founded by a clan of the Goturks, another Turkic people, which lasted from 682–744 CE. The Uyghur Khaganate controlled a vast area of the Euro-Asian steppes, stretching from Lake Baikal in the north to the Great Wall of China in the south, and from Manchuria in the east to the Tian Shan mountain range and Lake Balkhash in the west. China’s narrative The discovery of the ruins comes at a time when Uyghur history and archaeology have become sensitive political topics as Chinese historians attempt to reshape Uyghur identity within the notion of the “Chinese nation,” experts said.  These historians claim that Uyghurs have been part of the Chinese nation since ancient times and are not Turkic. Some argue that the Uyghurs migrated to what is now Xinjiang in the 9th century CE and that the Han Chinese were the original inhabitants of the area, contrary to historical facts.  Turkish and Mongolian archeologists excavate the ruins of Togu Balik in northern Mongolia in 2024. (Turkey’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism/Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency) The discovery of Togu Balik intensifies the debate over Uyghur history, archaeology and the origins of the Uyghurs, the experts said. But Chinese historical documents also indicate that Uyghurs lived in a vast region from the north of the Tuul River in Mongolia to Tian Shan in present-day Xinjiang, said Alimjan Inayet, a professor of Uyghur folklore at Ege University in Izmir, Turkey. “Uyghurs have inhabited the East Turkistan geography since time immemorial,” he told RFA. “These historic documents show that Uyghurs didn’t come to East Turkestan in the 840s CE like current Chinese historians allege, but are the most ancient tribes that lived on this vast land,” Inayet said. “There is no historical basis for China to claim that Uyghurs came to this land only after the 840s.”  Kahar Barat, a Uyghur-American historian known for his work on Buddhism and Islam in Xinjiang, agreed, saying Uyghurs at that time migrated from one side of the empire to the other, and did not invade others’ land. Highly civilized people Uyghurs were the first among nomadic Turkic tribes in Eurasia who had established cities and settled in them, giving up their nomadic lifestyles, Inayet said.   “Togu Balik, also known as the East City, proves that the Uyghurs were a highly civilized people who established this earliest city,” he added. Dogan declined to comment at length on the political controversy involving China’s efforts to co-opt Uyghur history, but said that the long history of the Uyghurs is very clear and cannot be obscured by the political agendas of China or other countries. Historical sources mention Togu Balik, but its exact location was unclear until now, he said.  Turkish and Mongolian archeologists excavate the ruins of Togu Balik in northern Mongolia in 2024. (Turkey’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism/Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency) “In our discussions with Mongolian archaeologists, we hypothesized that the excavated site might be Togu Balik,” Dogun said. “The artifacts found in the ruins of a building in the area confirmed this hypothesis.” The discovery of Togu Balik fills a historical gap in the urban life of the Uyghur and Turkic peoples, he added. “Togu Balik can be considered the oldest Uyghur city known so far,” he said. The city is historically recognized as the place where the Uyghur Toquz Oghuz inhabited and fought against a Turkish invasion in 715 CE.  Togu Balik is mentioned in the inscriptions of the Second Turkic Khaganate as well as in the historical documents of the Tang Dynasty, said Barat. “Togu Balik is one of the earliest capitals of Uyghurs,” he told RFA. Khitan Empire It was once believed that Togu Balik was related to the Khitan Empire, a proto-Mongol nomadic people who ruled the northern part of China from the 10th to the early 12th century, and is also known as the Liao Dynasty.  Turkish and Mongolian archeologists excavate the ruins of Togu Balik in northern Mongolia in 2024. (Turkey’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism/Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency) But because archaeologists have now found Uyghur ceramic tiles beneath walls at the Togu Balik site, Dogan suggested that the city was later used by the Khitans after the Uyghurs left. “Until now, it was considered that these ruins belonged to the Khitans, but archaeologists have discovered ceramics related to the Uyghurs, specifically related to the...
- [A far cry from sweet and sour: Hong Kongers bring their food to the UK](https://ij-reportika.com/a-far-cry-from-sweet-and-sour-hong-kongers-bring-their-food-to-the-uk/): Hong Kongers fleeing a political crackdown in their home city are the biggest wave of migrants to settle in Britain since the Windrush generation arrived from the Caribbean &#8212; and they&#8217;re bringing their food with them.  While previous generations of Chinese immigrants would gravitate towards Chinatowns in London and Manchester to make and sell dim sum or roast Cantonese duck to local diners, this cohort is bringing an updated menu of Hong Kong food that offers fellow migrants a nostalgic taste of home. Instead of being concentrated in inner city areas like their forerunners, the nearly 200,000 holders of the British National Overseas passport are making use of a lifeboat visa program to fan out across the country, from Sutton in Surrey, to Brick Lane and Canary Wharf in East London, to affordable neighborhoods in Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester. They&#8217;re even growing their own vegetables in their backyards instead of relying on the fresh foods available through chains of Asian foods wholesalers. A shop in the U.K. sells Hong Kong-style milk tea. (Cynthia Hung Jones/RFA) The Hong Kong food stall with the longest line of waiting diners at a weekend food market in the Canary Wharf financial district in early June 2024 offers salt beef tripe, brisket and tendon braised Hong Kong style, attracting a mixed crowd of expectant customers. For some, it&#8217;s the taste of home, and for others raised on typical fare from earlier British Hong Kong takeaways, it&#8217;s a far cry from sweet and sour chicken balls. &#8220;Food has always been an important part of the way that immigrant communities construct their identities,&#8221; says Hong Kong columnist Carpier Leung. &#8220;I have high hopes for the influence that this wave of immigration can have on Hong Kong cuisine.&#8221; The new wave is already breaking on British shores. Over the past two years, more supermarkets have started selling packages of dim sum like har gau shrimp dumplings and char siu pork buns, while Hong Kong-style egg tarts and the city&#8217;s signature mix of strong black tea with evaporated milk have started popping up in trendy cafes in areas where Hong Kongers have congregated. You can buy street snacks like egg waffles and French toast, Hong Kong diner (or cha chaan teng) style, in Sutton and Manchester these days. Dreams of Mong Kok Nicole, who founded the Hong Kong nostalgia restaurant HOKO in Brick Lane, said she was drawn to the area because its grittiness and trendiness reminded her of Kowloon&#8217;s Mong Kok district.  That was home to the &#8220;fishball revolution&#8221; of 2016 when disgruntled young people &#8212; some of them supporters of the city&#8217;s independence movement &#8212; ripped up paving bricks from the area&#8217;s narrow shopping streets and hurled them at police. Founder Nicole outside her Hong Kong nostalgia restaurant HOKO in London’s Brick Lane. (Cynthia Hung Jones/RFA) The first thing you see when you walk into HOKO is a row of evaporated milk tins used by cha chaan teng, with their distinctive red-and-white packaging. The next is the diner-style layout with high-backed, partitioned seating of the kind where low-paid office workers would rub shoulders with blue-collar workers in search of an affordable breakfast or set lunch deal. The tables are stacked with orange melamine chopsticks, with menus in glass cases, throwbacks to Nicole&#8217;s memories of these eateries that date back to the 1960s and ‘70s in her home city. Cantopop by Justin Lo is blaring from the speaker system, while posters of Hong Kong bands bedeck the walls. &#8220;We sell Hong Kong food that tells a story,&#8221; she says, listing milk tea, French toast, pork chop, Swiss chicken wings and borscht, all staples of cha chaan teng &#8212; food that arrived in a global free port from somewhere else, only to acquire a peculiarly Hong Kong twist, making it quite unlike the original. &#8220;Swiss chicken wings&#8221; was the result of a miscommunication between English-speaking tourists and Hong Kong chefs, who heard &#8220;Swiss&#8221; when the customer said &#8220;sweet,&#8221; according to HOKO&#8217;s menu. Milk tea was brought in during British colonial times and persisted long after British tea-drinkers had forgotten all about evaporated milk. Nicole thinks the latest generation of migrants from Hong Kong is &#8220;braver, and truer to ourselves and to Hong Kong cuisine.&#8221; Telling the difference Another Hong Kong eatery in east London, Aquila, has directly imported some of its ingredients from Hong Kong to ensure its dishes remain authentic.  &#8220;We have to insist on that authenticity so that British people will be able to tell the difference between Hong Kong and China [when it comes to food],&#8221; says co-founder Lucas. The founders and manager of Hong Kong restaurant Aquila in London’s Leytonstone pose for a photo under the flags of British Hong Kong and the Republic of China (Taiwan) in June 2024. (Cynthia Hung Jones/RFA) The first thing you see when you walk into this joint is a political statement &#8212; the flags of British Hong Kong and the Republic of China, currently located in democratic Taiwan, alongside photos from the 2019 protest movement against the loss of Hong Kong&#8217;s promised freedoms that would land a person in hot water back home, under two national security laws. But the founders don&#8217;t worry much about annoying China, which took back control of Hong Kong in 1997 and still insists on a territorial claim on Taiwan. &#8220;I&#8217;m running a British business &#8212; what is there to be afraid of?&#8221; says Lucas. &#8220;My grandfather&#8217;s business was ruined by the Chinese Communist Party, and my family has been anti-communist ever since.&#8221; &#8220;I hope that customers will ask why these things are on display, so I can tell them the story of Hong Kong,&#8221; he adds. Chicken hotpot Not all food translates easily, however. Hong Kongers have developed a passion in recent years for a local form of chicken hotpot. But Hong Kong migrant and entrepreneur Sam says he doesn&#8217;t think the dish has taken off with British diners, who prefer their chicken boneless and not floating around in scalding hot...
- [Bicycle built for who?](https://ij-reportika.com/bicycle-built-for-who/): To Lam made his first foreign trip as general secretary of Vietnam’s Communist Party to China, where President Xi Jinping gushed about the two countries’ &#8220;shared future.&#8221;  But the goals of the neighboring nations with similar political systems don’t always align, including on matters of sovereignty in the South China Sea, where China’s sweeping territorial claims have earned rebukes from Hanoi and sparked widespread public protests in Vietnam. While both leaders are pedaling forward, they appear to be headed in opposite directions.
- [Two Myanmar reporters among four killed in raid by junta forces](https://ij-reportika.com/two-myanmar-reporters-among-four-killed-in-raid-by-junta-forces/): Myanmar junta forces hunting insurgents raided a reporter’s home killing him, another reporter and two other people, one of whom was a member of a rebel group, associates of the victims, including a former employer, told Radio Free Asia.  The troops raided reporter Htet Myat Thu’s home in Mon state on Wednesday after receiving a tip-off that insurgents were meeting there. Since the military seized power and toppled a civilian government more than three years ago, junta officials have closed independent media outlets and arrested and tortured some reporters, victims and rights groups say. Junta soldiers opened fire on the home of Htet Myat Thu in Kyaikto township on suspicion the people there were members of a pro-democracy insurgent group called the Kyaikto Revolutionary Force, the associates of the men said.  The second reporter killed in the raid was Win Htut Oo, 28, a freelance journalist who worked for the Democratic Voice of Burma and The Nation Voice, one of his employers told RFA.  About 30 soldiers raided the home, said a source close to one of the victims who declined to be identified for security reasons.  “Htet Myat Thu was shot first when he opened the door. Another man, Kyin Wak, was shot in the leg when he jumped out of a window,” said the source.  “Win Htut Oo and another man, Ah Win, were shot at the back of home while they were trying to flee.” Ah Win was a member of the Kyaikto Revolutionary Force but the other man, Kyin Wak, just lived in the house and had no militia affiliations, associates said. Authorities did not return the bodies to their relatives but cremated them, they added.  Twenty-six-year-old Htet Myat Thu worked for the Voice of Thanbyuzayat news outlet. He was arrested once before while reporting on protests that followed the 2021 coup but continued his work as a journalist after being released. Nay Aung, chief editor of The Nation Voice, dismissed any suggestion that either of the reporters was a member of an insurgent group.  &#8220;The journalists are just trying to report the right information in a timely way while they’re out in the field,” he said. “But the junta viewed this as an attack on the military and retaliated against them, step by step.” Pro-junta channels on messaging app Telegram reported that four Kyaikto Revolutionary Force soldiers were killed in a shootout during a raid on a home where rebel soldiers were gathering.  RFA tried to contact Mon state’s junta spokesperson Saw Kyi Naing for comment but he did not respond.  According to data from the Independent Myanmar Journalists Association, 176 journalists have been arrested since the 2021 coup. Of these, five have been killed and 52 remain in custody. Myanmar ranks ninth for number of journalists killed and second for the number of jailed journalists worldwide, according to the 2023 Global Impunity Index released by the Committee to Protect Journalists press freedom group. RELATED STORIES Myanmar filmmaker Pe Maung Same dies after release from prison  Former reporter for independent new outlet dies in Myanmar prison On World Press Freedom Day, journalists across Asia continue to face threats Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 
- [In Pictures: 17,000 gather in New York arena to offer prayers for Dalai Lama](https://ij-reportika.com/in-pictures-17000-gather-in-new-york-arena-to-offer-prayers-for-dalai-lama/): Many gathering before dawn, more than 17,000 people were in attendance at a New York area sports arena to offer prayers for the long life of the 89-year-old Dalai Lama, who said he expected to live past 100. The Tibetan spiritual leader recently completed over six weeks of physiotherapy in Syracuse, New York, where he was undergoing his recovery and resting after knee replacement surgery on June 28. The Dalai Lama also spoke about the need for religious harmony and emphasized the principles of secular ethics — an ethics system that appeals to religious and nonreligious alike and is based on the cultivation of genuine compassion. The Dalai Lama presides over a prayer ceremony, addressing more than 17,000 people gathered at the UBS Arena in New York, Aug. 22, 2024. (RFA Tibetan) People line up to hear the Dalai Lama preside over a prayer ceremony, addressing more than 17,000 people gathered at the UBS Arena in New York, Aug. 22, 2024. (RFA Tibetan) The Dalai Lama presides over a prayer ceremony, addressing more than 17,000 people gathered at the UBS Arena in New York, Aug. 22, 2024. (RFA Tibetan) The Dalai Lama presides over a prayer ceremony, addressing more than 17,000 people gathered at the UBS Arena in New York, Aug. 22, 2024. (RFA Tibetan) The Dalai Lama presides over a prayer ceremony, addressing more than 17,000 people gathered at the UBS Arena in New York, Aug. 22, 2024. (RFA Tibetan) Attendees listen as the Dalai Lama presides over a prayer ceremony, addressing more than 17,000 people gathered at the UBS Arena in New York, Aug. 22, 2024. (RFA Tibetan) Attendees gather as the Dalai Lama presides over a prayer ceremony, addressing more than 17,000 people gathered at the UBS Arena in New York, Aug. 22, 2024. (RFA Tibetan) Attendees receive kata prayer scarves as the Dalai Lama presides over a prayer ceremony, addressing more than 17,000 people gathered at the UBS Arena in New York, Aug. 22, 2024. (RFA Tibetan) Some attendees pray as the Dalai Lama presides over a prayer ceremony, addressing more than 17,000 people gathered at the UBS Arena in New York, Aug. 22, 2024. (RFA Tibetan) Attendees celebrate as the Dalai Lama presides over a prayer ceremony, addressing more than 17,000 people gathered at the UBS Arena in New York, Aug. 22, 2024. (RFA Tibetan) Children sing as the Dalai Lama presides over a prayer ceremony, addressing more than 17,000 people gathered at the UBS Arena in New York, Aug. 22, 2024. (RFA Tibetan) People line up to enter before the Dalai Lama presides over a prayer ceremony, addressing more than 17,000 people gathered at the UBS Arena in New York, Aug. 22, 2024. (RFA Tibetan) People line up to enter before the Dalai Lama presides over a prayer ceremony, addressing more than 17,000 people gathered at the UBS Arena in New York, Aug. 22, 2024. (RFA Tibetan) People line up to enter before the Dalai Lama presides over a prayer ceremony, addressing more than 17,000 people gathered at the UBS Arena in New York, Aug. 22, 2024. (RFA Tibetan) People enter UBS Arena before the Dalai Lama presides over a prayer ceremony, addressing more than 17,000 people gathered, in New York, Aug. 22, 2024. (RFA Tibetan) Photos edited by Eric Kayne
- [Rebels seize junta oil field in central Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/rebels-seize-junta-oil-field-in-central-myanmar/): Insurgents in central Myanmar seized a junta oil field, rebel groups told Radio Free Asia on Thursday, the fourth such oil facility captured in recent fighting that has seen the military lose significant amounts of territory. Myanmar has produced oil in the Irrawaddy River valley since the 19th century but its offshore gas fields are a much more important source of revenue for the junta that seized power in a 2021 coup. Pro-democracy insurgent members of milita’s known as People’s Defense Forces, or PDFs, in the Magway region seized the Thagyitaung-Sabal oil field in Pakokku township on Tuesday following a pre-dawn assault on about 50 soldiers defending it,  a PDF spokesman told RFA.  “We’ve been holding the field and have soldiers cutting off the ground route,” said Pauk township’s PDF information officer Ko Sit. “Six junta soldiers were killed and two were arrested during the fighting,” he said. He gave no information on casualties among PDF fighters. PDF fighters seized weapons and ammunition, and about six million kyat (US$1,000) in cash, he said. The military responded with airstrikes and sent reinforcements to a police station in nearby Pauk township, Ko Sit said, adding that fighting continued into Wednesday as junta forces tried to regain control of the field. RFA tried to contact Magway region’s junta spokesperson Myo Myint for comment but he did not return calls.  The oil field, operated by the junta-owned conglomerate Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise, or  MOGE, produced 119 barrels of crude oil and 2.5 million cubic feet (71,000 cubic meters) of natural gas per day in 2018, according to the Ministry of Electricity and Energy. Thagyitaung-Sabal oil field run by the junta&#8217;s Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise on June 7, 2023. (People&#8217;s Spring-Facebook) Resource-rich parts of Myanmar have seen heavy fighting this year as rebel groups try to capture them. Kachin state in northern Myanmar has jade and rare earth mines while parts of Shan state in the northeast has rich ruby mines. PDF groups captured Myaing township’s Kyauk Khwet oil field on March 2 and Pauk township’s Letpanto oil field on April 19. On Aug. 15, PDF forces occupied the Pu Htoe Lon oil field in Gangaw township.  RFA was not immediately able to contact the MOGE for comment about the latest loss of an oil field.   The U.S. Treasury Department has described the MOGE as “the largest single source of foreign revenue for Burma’s military regime, providing hundreds of millions of dollars each year.” Last October, it announced sanctions against MOGE, banning companies from providing it with financial services. Magway region has no privately owned oil fields, after the junta ordered their closure in June last year. Although it gave no reason, owners and workers said the junta was worried that profits were being used to fund PDFs. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 
- [Lao and Chinese security forces raid call centers in the Golden Triangle](https://ij-reportika.com/lao-and-chinese-security-forces-raid-call-centers-in-the-golden-triangle/): Lao and Chinese security forces detained 771 people in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone during a joint operation conducted ahead of a deadline for illegal call centers in the notorious zone to close. Authorities in northern Laos have notified call centers in the Chinese-run special economic zone, or SEZ,  that they have until Sunday to shut down their operations. Scamming operations run by Chinese nationals who try to trick people into fake investments are rife in the zone. Many of the workers are mistreated and prevented from leaving the premises. The Golden Triangle SEZ along the Mekong River in Bokeo province in northern Laos has been a gambling and tourism hub catering to Chinese visitors, as well as a haven for online fraud, human trafficking, prostitution and illegal drug activities. The Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone Command dismantles a gang of telecommunication fraudsters in a video posted to their Facebook page in Bokeo Province, Laos, Aug. 20, 2024. (Mass Media of Public Security via Facebook) The Lao government’s closure order came after an Aug. 9 meeting between the Bokeo provincial governor, high-ranking officials from the Lao Ministry of Public Security, and Zhao Wei, the chairman of the Golden Triangle SEZ. The joint raids with Chinese authorities began on Aug. 12, according to the Lao Ministry of Public Security website. Among the 771 people detained were 275 Laotians, 231 Burmese and 108 Chinese, the ministry said. Other nationalities included people from the Philippines, India, Indonesia, Ethiopia and Vietnam. “Most of them are just workers who were hired to work at the centers,” a ministry official told Radio Free Asia. “It’s a form of human trafficking because they were lured to come to the SEZ to work at stores or restaurants, but later they were forced to work as scammers.” Computers and cellphones A Bokeo provincial official, who like other sources in this report requested anonymity for security reasons, said many of the Chinese citizens who were arrested were in leadership roles at the call centers.  “We handed over all the Chinese to Chinese authorities at the border gate in Luang Namtha province several days ago,” she said. “Other foreigners, such as Indians and Filipinos, are waiting for their respective embassies to pick them up.” Most of the arrested Lao nationals were booked, reeducated and handed over to family members, she said. Authorities have also seized more than 2,000 pieces of electronic equipment, including 709 computers and 1,896 mobile phones, according to the ministry. “All Chinese people and equipment seized from the raid have been sent back to China to comply with the agreement between the Lao Ministry of Public Security and the Chinese counterparts,” a Luang Namtha province official told RFA. RELATED STORIES Laos orders Golden Triangle scammers out of zone by end of month 280 Chinese arrested in Laos for alleged online scamming Laos repatriates 268 Chinese suspected of scamming In the first half of 2024, as many as 400 call centers were operating in the Golden Triangle SEZ. The centers mostly targeted Chinese, which eventually prompted authorities in China to team up with their counterparts in Laos. The owner of a Vientiane employment agency that hires workers for Chinese companies in the SEZ said they have paused recruitment activities and are waiting to see what happens after Sunday’s deadline. “If the police stop raiding the places, we’ll be back in business,” he said. Translated by Max Avary. Edited by Matt Reed.
- [Rohingya refugees drown fleeing Myanmar’s war as concerns mount](https://ij-reportika.com/rohingya-refugees-drown-fleeing-myanmars-war-as-concerns-mount/): Twenty-six members of Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya minority drowned when their boat capsized as they were trying to flee to Bangladesh, witnesses said, an accident likely to compound fears that the largely Muslim community is facing a new round of genocide. Rohingya living in Rakhine state in western Myanmar have been caught in crossfire between ethnic minority insurgents fighting for self-determination against Myanmar’s military, with both sides accused of killing them. Some analysts have warned that the latest attacks are worse than those inflicted on the community in 2017, when a Myanmar military crackdown against Rohingya militants triggered an exodus of some 700,000 people to Bangladesh. As then, Rohingya are again fleeing the violence to Bangladesh, many crossing a border river in small boats. On Monday, a crowded boat crossing the Naf River to Bangladesh sank killing 26 of those onboard, witnesses said, the latest in a spate of deadly accidents on the river. &#8220;There were 30 people on the boat including 18 children. Only four survived. The rest died,” said one of the witnesses who declined to be identified because of security fears. Rescue workers searching for bodies had found seven victims, including four children and a pregnant woman, he added. Aung Kyaw Moe, deputy minister of human rights for Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, said the boat was heading to Bangladesh because of intense fighting in Maungdaw township on the border between junta troops and the Arakan Army, or AA, insurgent group. &#8220;They fled for their lives. They were worried about where the heavy artillery would fall,” he said. “The Naf River is dangerous because of the ebb and flow of the tide. They had to risk their lives.&#8221; Aung Kyaw Moe said the situation in Rakhine state was confusing because some areas were controlled by junta forces while others were in the hands of the AA, with tens of thousands of Rohingya caught up in the conflict. The AA draws its support from the largely Buddhist ethnic Rakhine community, the majority in the state. The rebels are fighting Myanmar’s military for greater autonomy, in alliance with ethnic minority forces from other areas and democracy activists who took up arms after the army overthrew an elected government in 2021. Both sides have been accused of killing Rohingya, with AA fighters blamed for attacking people believed to be supporting junta forces. On Aug. 5, dozens of Rohingya people were killed by fire from heavy weapons as they waited for boats to cross to Bangladesh, survivors told Radio Free Asia. Some survivors said the AA was responsible though the insurgents denied that. RELATED STORIES Arakan Army seizes key town in southern Myanmar Attacks against Rohingyas ‘now worse than 2017 Rebels evacuate 13,000 Rohingyas amid battle for Myanmar’s Maungdaw Torched homes On Aug. 12, Human Rights Watch said both the junta and the AA had committed extrajudicial killings and widespread arson against Rohingya, Rakhine and other civilians in Rakhine state. “Ethnic Rohingya and Rakhine civilians are bearing the brunt of the atrocities that the Myanmar military and opposition Arakan Army are committing,” said the group’s Asia director Elaine Pearson. “Both sides are using hate speech, attacks on civilians, and massive arson to drive people from their homes and villages, raising the specter of ethnic cleansing.” The recent attacks on Rohingya were “worse than in 2017” and represents a “second wave of genocide”, two experts told a press briefing in the United States this month. There were about 60,000 displaced people in Rakhine state before the latest round of fighting resumed late last year but now there are more than 500,000, aid groups there say. Echoing growing concerns about the Rohingya, the U.K.-based Burma Human Rights Network, or BHRN, called on Wednesday for the international community to protect Rohingya, particularly those in Maungdaw. It cited witnesses as saying many Rohingya had been killed in boat accidents or from bombs on the banks of the Naf River. The group cited witnesses as saying AA fighters had torched Rohingya homes in Maungdaw.  “These problems started when the junta forcibly recruited Rohingya for military service,” Kyaw Win, director of Burma Human Rights Network, told RFA. “If there are violations by AA troops on the ground, the AA needs to be exposed and action needs to be taken.” The AA, in an Aug. 18 statement, accused “Muslim armed forces” of setting fire to homes and it warned that rights activists making accusations could affect harmony between ethnic groups. The AA said it had evacuated nearly 20,000 people, including Rohingya, from embattled Maungdaw town and would move more to safety. Kyaw Win said forces opposed to the junta throughout the country, including the National Unity Government and other insurgent groups, had been reluctant to criticize the AA, their anti-junta ally.  But he said the international community should investigate the AA&#8217;s actions and take measures, including sanctions, if necessary. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Uyghurs sentenced to cumulative 4.4 million years in prison: study](https://ij-reportika.com/uyghurs-sentenced-to-cumulative-4-4-million-years-in-prison-study/): All told, Uyghurs imprisoned by China in the far-western region of Xinjiang have been sentenced to a cumulative 4.4 million years, a report by Yale University’s Genocide Studies Program says. And the true tally is probably far higher, researchers said. The figure highlights the scale and severity of the Chinese government’s crackdown on the mostly Muslim Uyghurs since 2017, when thousands of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities were herded into re-education camps and prisons. The 25-page report, “Uyghur Race as the Enemy: China’s Legalized Authoritarian Oppression &amp; Mass Imprisonment,” frames the massive incarceration not only as a crime against humanity and genocide, but also as a form of “dangerous lawfare” designed to erode the Uyghurs’ future prospects for dignity, prosperity and freedom.  The study drew on information from the Xinjiang Victims Database, which has data on nearly 62,700 Uyghurs detained in Xinjiang, based on leaked Chinese police documents and other records. Researchers also studied records from the Xinjiang High People’s Procuratorate from 2017 to 2021. It does not include numbers from years since then, after the court stopped publishing data, meaning the true number is much higher. They found 13,114 cases that included a prison sentence, with an average term of 8.8 years, and multiplied the figure by 500,000, which they called a “conservative” figure based on the 540,000 individuals prosecuted by court from 2017 to 2021, to get 4.4 million years. “This is happening on a scale that the world has not seen,” said Uyghur human rights lawyer and advocate Rayhan Asat, principal author of the report. “And if China is allowed to fulfill the 4.4 million years of a cumulative imprisonment it has sentenced the Uyghur people to, it will mean a total ethnic incapacitation for the Uyghur people.” RELATED STORIES UN rights chief calls on China to protect human rights in Tibet and Xinjiang Rights groups blast UN for inaction on China’s repression in Xinjiang Call for debate on rights violations in Xinjiang rejected by UN Human Rights Council UN human rights chief issues damning report on Chinese abuses in Xinjiang This data is crucial for understanding the profound human rights violations and the long-term impacts on the Uyghur community. ‘Legalized human rights abuse’ The Chinese government uses “legalized authoritarianism” to extend the reach of the authoritarian state by weaponizing its legal system against people critical of state policies, the report said. In the case of Xinjiang, Beijing has recognized the Uyghur identity as an enemy and has used laws such as Article 120 of the Criminal Law governing terrorist crimes, the Counter-Terrorism Law, and the Xinjiang Implementing Measures for the Counter-Terrorism Law “to legitimize human rights abuses,” it said. “The involvement of laws as a means of carrying [out] human rights abuses sufficiently characterizes Uyghur incarceration as a legalized human rights abuse,” it said. The study also noted that while the Chinese authorities make public criminal records in other parts of the country, records from almost 90% of cases in Xinjiang are not public. Asat told Radio Free Asia that she wanted to contextualize the consequences of China’s actions for the entire Uyghur population given that the mass incarceration of Uyghurs without due process and with disproportionately harsh imprisonment is already horrific in isolation.  She has publicly campaigned on behalf of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in China, including her brother Ekpar Asat, who has been held in detention in Xinjiang since 2016.  “With a cumulative imprisonment of 4.4 million years — a conservative estimate — it’s nearly impossible for the population to carry on their culture and community — our culture and community,” she said. Human toll The analysis comes before the second anniversary on Aug. 31 of a report by former U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet who visited Xinjiang in May 2022 and said China’s mass detentions of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in the region may constitute crimes against humanity. Her successor, Volker Türk, this March urged China to carry out recommendations from his office to protect human rights in Xinjiang, Tibet and across the country, but Beijing ignored his call. “[In] the context of mass imprisonment, it gives an idea of just how much, human capital is lost to the Uyghur community, the Uyghur population in China as a result of what is arguably a political and arbitrary, punitive, ethnically-based system of mass imprisonment,” said David J. Simon, director of the university’s Genocide Studies Program. “The one other thing I will add about that figure is that the authors of the report have stressed to me that it is a conservative estimate — that the real number, the number of years that Uyghur political prisoners may actually be facing under these laws, could actually be substantially higher,” he told RFA. The report makes several recommendations to address the issue.  It says Türk, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, or OHCHR, and U.N. member states must trigger all accountability mechanisms to pressure China to free innocent detainees and to use diplomatic tools to collectively push for the release of all imprisoned Uyghurs. It also recommends that individual states declare they are not willing to do business with China and to impose targeted sanctions like those already imposed by the United States, Britain, the European Union and Canada. The report also recommends that the U.N.’s Human Rights Commission and the OHCHR jointly condemn Beijing’s actions and establish a Commission of Inquiry in China to investigate atrocity crimes.  “It’s been nearly a decade after China rolled out its extensive atrocity campaigns against the Uyghurs, and the world’s attention is slowly waning due to other crises emerging,” Asat said. “But the horrors in the Uyghur region have not ceased.” With additional reporting by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
- [Myanmar rebels capture last junta base in township on China border](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-rebels-capture-last-junta-base-in-township-on-china-border/): One of Myanmar’s most powerful insurgent armies has taken full control of a strategically important township in Kachin state on the border with China, its information officer told Radio Free Asia. The Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, together with People’s Defense Forces loyal to the shadow National Unity Government, defeated junta forces to capture their last remaining battalion base in Momauk township in northern Myanmar on Monday, Col. Naw Bu said. “We were able to completely seize Infantry Battalion 437,” he said. “The military council launched airstrikes but now we can say we have taken control of the whole of Momauk township.” There were casualties on both sides, Naw Bu said, but he declined to give details. RFA telephoned the junta’s Kachin state spokesman and social affairs minister Moe Min Thei to ask about Momauk but he did not answer. The KIA, fighting for self-determination against the forces of the junta that toppled a democratically elected government in 2021, launched an initial attack on Momauk on May 7, then began their final push, along with their allies, on July 24. Momauk is about 130 kilometers (870 miles) south of the Kachin state capital of Myitkyina, and only about 14 kilometers (9 miles) east of the town of Bhamo where the junta’s Operations and Command Headquarters 21 is based,  Naw Bu said. Junta forces had withdrawn towards Bhamo, which is on the east bank of the Irrawaddy River, he said. The KIA and its allies have captured more than 20 junta camps in the township since late July and about 200 junta camps in the whole of Kachin state since the beginning of the year, he said. RELATED STORIES China fires into Myanmar after junta airstrike on border, group says Fighting flares near state capital in north Myanmar Northern Myanmar residents caught up in fighting, dozens hurt Residents flee fighting Junta airstrikes, artillery attacks and arson led to the destruction of more than 100 homes in Momauk and more than 3,000 people had fled, many to the safety of areas under KIA control, residents said. One displaced resident sheltering near the Chinese border said he was afraid of more fighting. “The town is being cleared up but I haven’t gone back,” said the man, who wished to remain anonymous for safety reasons.  “I would like to check my home if I could but I’m still worried that there will be more fighting,” he said, referring to Bhamo and Mansi towns where junta forces are based. “There are so many difficulties when we flee and shelter with relatives”. The KIA is one of several insurgent forces to make significant gains against junta forces since late last year. An alliance of three rebel factions has pushed junta forces out of major towns in Shan state, to the southeast of Kachin state, while the military has lost ground to ethnic minority insurgents in Rakhine state in the west, and in Kayah and Kayin states in the east, as well as in parts of the deep south. The junta has responded with airstrikes including on the KIA headquarters at Lai Zar on Aug. 15. That attack unsettled neighboring China, which fired warning shots at junta jets, according to the KIA. The United Nations says about 3 million people have been forced from their homes by the fighting in Myanmar, many since clashes surged at the beginning of the year.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [Photos: Myanmar motorists queue for hours as fuel shortages persist](https://ij-reportika.com/photos-myanmar-motorists-queue-for-hours-as-fuel-shortages-persist/): Residents in northern Myanmar’s Mandalay city and Taunggyi city in Shan state have been queuing all day and – in some instances – overnight to keep their spot in line for the limited amount of gasoline being sold.  Citizen photos provided to RFA show hundreds of motorists in Taunggyi on Aug. 18, queuing to purchase fuel.  A Taunggyi resident told RFA that when gasoline sells out for the day, they have to line up in front of the stores a day in advance to get the fuel that won’t be sold until the next day.  “As soon as the gas distribution quota for the day runs out, people must queue for the next day’s distribution, leading to a full day’s wait,” the resident said.   “Without queuing, getting fuel is quite difficult. Additionally, with more people moving to Taunggyi from other areas, the number of motorcycles and cars in the city has increased.” Similarly, in Mandalay, locals say that they have to wait in line overnight because there isn’t enough fuel for cars. Last week, RFA reported that petrol stations in Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon, were closed because of a severe shortage that has forced gasoline suppliers to ration fuel. It’s the latest evidence of an economy struggling with a multitude of problems since the military overthrew an elected government in 2021.  The root of the shortage appeared to be the plummeting value of the kyat currency, and the junta’s efforts to rein in the inflation that the weak kyat is causing, along with the economic disruption stemming from the conflict that has swept the country since the military takeover.  However, the Myanmar junta’s Fuel Import, Storage and Distribution Supervisory Committee stated through junta media outlets on Aug. 14 that there is no fuel shortage. Waiting for hours, motorists queue for fuel in Taunggyi city, Shan State, Myanmar on Aug. 18, 2024. (Citizen Photo) Motorists queue to buy gasoline in Taunggyi city, Shan State, Myanmar on Aug. 18, 2024. (Citizen Photo) Hundreds of motorists wait to purchase gasoline in Taunggyi city, Shan State, Myanmar on Aug. 18, 2024. (Citizen Photo)
- [South Korea jails scam group leader for 8 years over Laos, Myanmar operation](https://ij-reportika.com/south-korea-jails-scam-group-leader-for-8-years-over-laos-myanmar-operation/): A South Korean court sentenced the head of an online scam group that operated in Laos and Myanmar to eight years in prison for luring South Koreans with a false promise of “making big money” and forcing them to commit fraudulent crimes. Nearly 60 victims lost more than 23 billion won (US$17 million) between May and October last year after the scam group imprisoned victims in offices set up in special economic zones in Laos and Myanmar to commit fraudulent crimes, the Daegu District Court revealed.  The court also sentenced a senior officer and a recruiter of the group to four years in prison each. Ten other group members, including a “consultant,” were jailed for up to to three years. Online gambling and scam centers that have proliferated in Southeast Asia in recent years. University of Texas researchers estimated in a March report that scammers had tricked investors out of more than US$75 billion since January 2020.  The South Korean scam group targeted financially struggling individuals by presenting them with falsified data, convincing them that there were promising investment opportunities in Laos and Myanmar, the court added.  “The victims are complaining of extreme economic and mental suffering as a result of the crime and are pleading for severe punishment for the defendants,” the court said, explaining the reason for the sentences. Lured by offers for jobs such as Korean language interpretation and cryptocurrency sales, South Korean job seekers are forced into illegal activities such as voice phishing, investment scams, romance scams, and sex trafficking, according to South Korea’s foreign ministry.  Employers compound the abuse by confiscating passports for “visa processing,” and then demanding payment for travel and living expenses. Victims can be detained and assaulted. Given the increase in criminal activities targeting South Koreans, the ministry in January imposed a travel ban, known as a level 4 alert, for the Lao Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone from Feb. 1. As of Monday, the ban was in place. South Koreans must obtain a special government permit if they wish to stay in areas under a level 4 alert, the highest of a government travel warning system. Those who remain in a country without permission face criminal penalties under the passport law. In November last year, South Korea announced that 19 citizens had been rescued by Myanmar police after being held by an  illegal business in a town in eastern Myanmar on the Thai border.. RELATED NEWS Laos orders Golden Triangle scammers out of zone by end of month Laos concerned over scam ring influx amid China’s Myanmar crackdown Myanmar police rescue 19 South Korean captives Southeast Asia’s scam centers are increasingly raising concern around the world and governments in the region are being pressed to take action against them. Authorities in  Laos recently gave illegal call centers operating in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone until the end of the month to clear out or face police action.  Following an Aug. 9 meeting between the governor of Bokeo province, high-ranking officials from the Lao Ministry of Public Security, and Zhao Wei, the chairman of the Golden Triangle SEZ, Lao authorities ordered all scam centers to be “completely shut down by Aug. 25,” according to state media reports and an official from the public security ministry. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns, told RFA Lao on Monday that the centers were given the opportunity to “remove all of their belongings by the deadline.” “After that, we’ll set up a special force to enforce the order,” he said. Edited by RFA Staff. 
- [China digs up the past to shore up official version of history](https://ij-reportika.com/china-digs-up-the-past-to-shore-up-official-version-of-history/): China is working on major archaeological projects with its neighbors in Central Asia in a bid to dig up fresh finds to shore up its official historical narrative and extend its regional soft power, experts told RFA Mandarin in recent interviews. Since President Xi Jinping launched his &#8220;Belt and Road&#8221; global influence and supply chain initiative in 2013, the country has invested heavily in high-profile excavations along the ancient Silk Road trading routes that once linked China to the Middle East via Central Asia. The Chinese Communist Party relies on strongly stated historical narratives to boost China&#8217;s image at home and abroad, and Xi believes archaeology can help with that, experts said. Last month, Chinese historians and archaeologists claimed that a 7th century Chinese empress ordered the construction of an ancient Buddhist temple in Xinjiang, home to 11 million mostly Muslim Uyghurs, emphasizing the idea of the region as a &#8220;melting pot&#8221; going back centuries. Yet the whole idea of the Silk Road was invented in the 19th century as a colorful metaphor to describe ancient patterns of trade and communication between China, Central Asia, the Middle East and Europe, according to Sören Stark of the Center for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University. Related stories Ancient Buddhist temple in Xinjiang stirs controversy Chinese research in Xinjiang mummies seen as promoting revisionist history &#8220;The whole notion of the Silk Road is &#8230; a construct, right, in which we are operating,&#8221; he told RFA Mandarin in an interview earlier this month. &#8220;There wasn&#8217;t such a thing like the Silk Road &#8212; there never was. It&#8217;s a 19th century construct.&#8221; &#8220;There were corridors, there was a network of communication between China, Rome, India, the Near East, northeastern Europe, the Tigris,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s just a little bit heightened right now because there&#8217;s obviously a lot of government funding from the Chinese side into the sphere of Central Asian archaeology.&#8221; 70 digs China has carried out more than 70 archaeological collaborations in Central Asian countries in a bid to &#8220;study the ancient Silk Road exchanges between China and Central Asia,&#8221; the nationalistic Global Times newspaper reported in June. One joint dig in Uzbekistan recently unearthed an ancient settlement dating back to the 8th century BC near the Surkhandarya river. A researcher checks the ceramics discovered at the archaeological site of Shuomen ancient port in Wenzhou, east China&#8217;s Zhejiang Province, Oct. 11, 2022. The archaeological site of Shuomen ancient port was discovered at the end of 2021, with ruins of ancient buildings, shipwrecks, and porcelain pieces unearthed in the following archaeological excavations. According to the National Cultural Heritage Administration, the discovery is important to studies of the ancient Maritime Silk Road. (Weng Xinyang/Xinhua via Getty Images) &#8220;Chinese and Uzbek experts have made a total of three discoveries in the Central Asian country from April to June,&#8221; the paper reported on June 23, citing an investigation into the ancient Kushan Empire, along with ruins and cliff paintings in the Fergana valley. The projects are being touted as part of the Belt and Road initiative, with the paper quoting cultural scholar Fang Gang as saying that &#8220;the story of the ancient Silk Road is transforming into today&#8217;s Belt and Road Initiative to strengthen the ties between China and Central Asian countries.&#8221; The point, according to archeologist Wang Jianxin at Xi&#8217;an&#8217;s Northwest University, is to &#8220;challenge Western-centered interpretations of ancient Silk Road culture while also enhancing the world&#8217;s understanding of China&#8217;s contribution to ancient Silk Road civilization,&#8221; the paper said. But archaeologists said nationalistic agendas and archaeology make uneasy bedfellows, although China isn&#8217;t the only country to look to the past to boost its legitimacy in the present. &#8220;My concern is that as with any country or any government that supports archaeological excavations (in contrast to excavations supported by academic institutions or private funds) that there is a nationalistic agenda,&#8221; Silk Road scholar Judith Lerner told RFA Mandarin in a written reply. The aim is often &#8220;to prove that we were there first, that people speaking a particular language can be traced by that language back to the country supporting the excavations, that is, China,&#8221; she said. ‘Add Chinese voices’ For example, the idea of China as a historically peaceful influence in the region has been widely propagated by Northwest University&#8217;s Wang Jianxin, who has used findings from the Uzbekistan digs around the Kushan Empire and Yuezhi sites as evidence that the two peoples lived peacefully side by side near the Surkhandarya river. Wang has said his mission is to &#8220;add Chinese voices&#8221; to the archaeological work currently being done in Central Asia. &#8220;We just really don&#8217;t know,&#8221; Lerner said. &#8220;And I think we really have to look at things more culturally and sociologically.&#8221; Stark said Chinese teams typically look for evidence from the point of view of the official history of China, to see if it supports it or disproves it. &#8220;Essentially they come equipped with their national &#8230; Chinese-language, historical sources and what they tell about the history, what they tell about the history of the Western regions,&#8221; Stark told RFA Mandarin in an interview earlier this month. &#8220;That&#8217;s their guide in what they are doing &#8230; they always come from a Chinese perspective on things.&#8221; Visitors look at a 3,000-year-old mummified body of a child found along the Silk Road in China&#8217;s far western region of Xinjiang at an exhibition in Beijing, Jan. 16, 2003. (China Photos via Getty Images) &#8220;They&#8217;re not fundamentally questioning actually whether this whole narrative in these sources is problematic,&#8221; he said. For example, the people known in China as the Yuezhi who allegedly lived in harmony with the proto-Chinese Kunshan Empire may not have been called that when they were alive, Stark said, adding that they could have been a tribe of Central Asian nomads, giving them more links to the Turkic peoples of Xinjiang than to modern Han Chinese. &#8220;The tombs that the Chinese team has excavated are very consistent with the burial...
- [China boosts port surveillance as mpox virus spreads globally](https://ij-reportika.com/china-boosts-port-surveillance-as-mpox-virus-spreads-globally/): China has stepped up emergency pandemic drills across the country and announced tighter surveillance of incoming travelers amid warnings that a more lethal and transmissible strain of the mpox virus is spreading internationally. From Aug. 15, anyone arriving in China from countries and regions where mpox cases have been confirmed, or with symptoms like fever, headache, back or muscle pain, swollen lymph nodes or a rash is now required to declare their condition to customs authorities on entry, state news agency Xinhua reported on Friday. sThe move comes after the World Health Organization on Wednesday declared mpox a public health emergency of international concern, sounding the alarm over its potential for further international transmission, with several African countries, Sweden and Pakistan all reporting confirmed cases of the deadly virus. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, mpox is spread through “close contact,” including sexual contact, and by touching contaminated surfaces. But The Lancet medical journal cited animal studies in March 2023 as showing that transmission through the air is also possible with some variants of the virus. Data from the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cited by Xinhua showed that during the past week alone, more than 2,000 new mpox cases have been reported in African countries, with 38,465 mpox cases and 1,456 deaths across the continent since January 2022. Worries about another lockdown Authorities across China recently began emergency pandemic preparedness drills, resulting in photos of personnel clad from head to toe in white personal profective equipment, or PPE, and widespread concern on social media as people wondered if lockdowns were in the cards once more. Local authorities rolled out emergency drills to prepare for &#8220;pneumonia of unknown cause&#8221; in Henan&#8217;s Zhengzhou city, Zhangye in the western province of Gansu, southwestern Sichuan and the megacities of Beijing and Chongqing. Workers take part in an emergency pandemic drill in Beijing’s Shijingshan district, Aug. 7, 2024. (Beijing Municipal Health Commission) Similar drills happened ahead of the World Military Games in Wuhan in 2019, while COVID-19 was also initially described as &#8220;atypical pneumonia&#8221; when it tore through the central city of Wuhan in December 2019 before being named by the WHO as a global pandemic. According to a post on X by citizen journalist &#8220;Mr. Li is not your teacher,&#8221; the drills form part of a nationwide disease control and prevention action plan. The financial news service Yicai.com said the drills will be rolled out across 10 provinces by the end of August. Photos from emergency infectious disease drills in Chongqing on July 4 included a photo of two people in full-body PPE collecting samples from two chickens, although there was no mention of avian influenza in the official report. Some online comments referred to &#8220;post-traumatic stress syndrome&#8221; caused by the three years of lockdowns, compulsory quarantine and mass-testing of ruling Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping&#8217;s zero-COVID policy, which ended amid nationwide protests in late 2022. &#8220;This is so we can be on a war footing again, right? I think if this happens again, the Chinese Communist Party will bring about its own downfall,&#8221; said one comment, while another said: &#8220;We don&#8217;t want to go through that again.&#8221; The first comment also alluded to a renewed wave of COVID-19 infections in China, adding: &#8220;It&#8217;s still out there, and it&#8217;s peaked again recently, but it&#8217;s too hot to mention.&#8221; More behind the scenes? Lin Xiaoxu, a former virology researcher at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center said there could be more going on in China currently than meets the eye, citing the government&#8217;s track record in trying to cover up public health emergencies. &#8220;Generally speaking, the government still conceals a lot of health information, especially during public health crises,&#8221; Lin said. &#8220;I don&#8217;t think they&#8217;re doing these so-called emergency drills for no reason.&#8221; Chinese social media users seem to be thinking along similar lines. A recent wave of COVID-19 infections in the southern province of Guangdong was listed among &#8220;hot topics&#8221; on Weibo on Thursday, claiming that the latest strain of the coronavirus was causing more severe symptoms in younger people. Clicking on the search term refers readers to a video on the official account of the Southern Metropolis Daily newspaper and N Video, in which reporters visit Guangzhou Xinshi Hospital to investigate the recent spike in COVID-19 cases, quoting an expert as saying that the latest wave of the disease is hitting younger people with more pain and fever than previous variants. Guangzhou&#8217;s Yangcheng Evening News and the Luzhong Morning News both reported a sharp spike in the number of COVID-19 cases in July, with &#8220;more obvious symptoms&#8221; in young people. Workers take part in an emergency pandemic drill in Beijing’s Shijingshan district, Aug. 7, 2024. (Beijing Municipal Health Commission) Huang Yanzhong, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Japan, Europe and the United States are all currently seeing a wave of COVID-19 infections, and that cases in China appear to be following the same pattern. &#8220;China is getting this too, but I don&#8217;t see any pattern suggesting any essential mutations that would make it different from what is happening overseas,&#8221; Huang told RFA Mandarin in an interview on Thursday. Young people hit He said the latest strains of COVID-19 have hit younger people harder everywhere, not just in China, likely due to impaired immunity caused by repeated infections. &#8220;The number of young people infected is increasing, so I think that a large proportion of ​​Chinese population has impaired immunity, with a lot of people who&#8217;ve been repeatedly infected, but the Chinese government basically doesn&#8217;t report it much,&#8221; Huang said. He said a return to citywide lockdowns could happen if the Chinese authorities find the current wave is getting out of control. &#8220;Given that the whole economy and the unemployment situation are very bad right now, the government could use a public health crisis as an excuse to impose more stringent social controls, as a way of clamping down...
- [Dalai Lama talks about life in exile in first speech since surgery](https://ij-reportika.com/dalai-lama-talks-about-life-in-exile-in-first-speech-since-surgery/): In his first public speech since knee replacement surgery in June, the Dalai Lama spoke on Friday about how living in exile had brought awareness about Tibet and Buddhism to a global audience. “If I had not been a refugee, I may be sitting on a high throne in Lhasa, Tibet,” the Tibetan spiritual leader told over 100 Tibetans and other well-wishers gathered at the Dalai Lama Library and Learning Center in Ithaca, New York. “By coming into exile, I had an opportunity to travel around the world explaining the essence of Buddhism to a wider audience, building a human-to-human connection that has proved to be beneficial and connect with many people globally,” he said. “People around the world today feel a deep sense of closeness and unity with Tibet and Tibetans,” said the 89-year-old spiritual leader during his first visit to the center that was established by the Namgyal Monastery. RELATED RFA CONTENT Dalai Lama marks 89th birthday, allays concerns about his health China clamps down on social media ahead of Dalai Lama’s birthday Dalai Lama discharged from hospital after knee surgery Tibetans worldwide rejoice over Dalai Lama’s successful knee surgery Thousands welcome Dalai Lama’s arrival in US for knee surgery The center, which opened to the public in September 2023, includes a digital audio archive with 40,000 hours of the Dalai Lama’s teachings, about 4,000 books with translations of ancient texts on the evolution of Buddhist thought, and Buddhist artifacts from India and Tibet.   Clad in the finest Tibetan attire and holding white silk ceremonial scarves, Tibetans of all ages stood in long rows in the center’s premises to welcome the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama at the Dalai Lama Library and Learning Center in Ithaca, New York, Aug. 16, 2024. (RFA) The roughly 100-strong Tibetan community in Ithaca had spent weeks helping with the preparations at the center.  “We all took turns to volunteer at the center over the past month, doing everything from gardening to cleaning to hoisting prayer flags and other chores with the intention of making the center as beautiful and as clean and as ready as possible to receive His Holiness,’ said Tenzin Tsokyi, a resident.  Oneness of humanity In his address on Friday, the Dalai Lama reaffirmed his commitment to serving the Tibetan people and promoting the Buddhist tradition, and emphasized the importance of preserving their religious and cultural heritage. “Everyone has done their best, and I encourage you to keep doing so,” he told those gathered at the center.  “I was born in Amdo and have had good relationships with people since my childhood,” he said. “And now, even as I am aging, I have built relationships with people from all over the world.  “Under the concept of oneness of humanity, I have received compassion and care from others,” he said. “No matter where I go in the three provinces of Tibet, I never waver in my belief in our shared humanity.”  The Dalai Lama at the Dalai Lama Library and Learning Center in Ithaca, New York, Aug. 16, 2024. (RFA) The Dalai Lama, who celebrated his 89th birthday last month, has been in the United States since late June for medical treatment. After undergoing successful knee surgery at a top New York hospital, the Dalai Lama has been recovering and undergoing physical therapy in Syracuse, New York. Dr. David Mayman, chief of the adult reconstruction and joint replacement who performed the surgery, on June 28 said the Dalai Lama was progressing positively.  On Aug. 22, more than 10,000 Tibetans, Mongolians and people of Himalayan communities based in North America are scheduled to offer a collective long life prayer offering to the Dalai Lama at the UBS Arena in New York.  The Dalai Lama at the Dalai Lama Library and Learning Center in Ithaca, New York, Aug. 16, 2024. (RFA) The following day, the Dalai Lama is scheduled to depart for India via Switzerland.  The Dalai Lama arrived in New York on June 23, marking his first visit to the United States in over seven years and his first overseas trip since November 2018.  Translated by Tenzin Dickyi and Tashi Wangchuk. Edited by Tenzin Pema and Malcolm Foster.
- [China fires into Myanmar after junta airstrike on border, group says](https://ij-reportika.com/china-fires-into-myanmar-after-junta-airstrike-on-border-group-says/): China opened fire across the border into Myanmar apparently as a warning to Myanmar military aircraft that attacked an ethnic minority insurgent base, an insurgent force spokesman and residents told Radio Free Asia. Myanmar junta forces attacked the headquarters of the Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, at Lai Zar, close to Myanmar’s northern border with China on Thursday after Kachin fighters captured two junta force positions in Hpakant township earlier in the day. Chinese forces on their side of the border then opend fire across the border, said Col. Naw Bu, a KIA Information Officer. “We assume the Chinese fired shots because of their security concerns,” Naw Bu said. “I don&#8217;t know what they fired but the sound was quite loud. There were explosions in the sky. They fired more than 10 times from the Chinese side. They weren’t firing flares.” Naw Bu did not say whether the earlier junta airstrikes on the KIA headquarters caused any casualties or damage. The Chinese embassy in Myanmar did not respond to a request from Radio Free Asia for comment on the incident. The junta’s spokesman for Kachin state, Moe Min Thein, did not answer telephone calls seeking comment. The KIA, one of Myanmar’s most powerful insurgent groups, has made significant gains against junta forces this year, as have allied rebel groups in other parts of Myanmar. The KIA and its allies have captured more than 200 junta camps in Kachin state since the beginning of the year, Naw Bu said. China has been alarmed by the fighting on its border, in Myanmar’s Kachin state and Shan state in northeast Myanmar, and the threat the turmoil poses to its economic interests in Myanmar, which include energy pipelines, ports and natural resources. China maintains close relations with the junta but also has links with ethnic minority forces, especially those that operate along its border. China has repeatedly called for Myanmar’s rivals to settle their differences through dialogue and even managed to broker two short-lived ceasefires in Shan state this year.   RELATED STORIES China top diplomat meets Myanmar leader, junta denies coup rumors Northern Myanmar cut off by state-wide communications blackout China’s frustration with the Myanmar junta’s incompetence is mounting China hopes for stability A Lai Zar resident who did not want to be identified for safety reasons said Chinese planes had also been in the sky on Thursday, after the junta planes bombed the Kachin rebel base. “I don&#8217;t know which side of the border the bombs fell. It was a bit far from Lai Zar,” the resident said of the junta attack that triggered the Chinese response. “There were also Chinese planes and the Chinese side fired more than 10 warning shots,” the resident said. Earlier on Thursday, the KIA seized control of La Mawng Kone, a strategic hill held by junta troops, along with a military camp in Taw Hmaw village, both in Hpakant,  Naw Bu said. Hpakant is famous for its jade mines, and since the beginning of the year Kachin fighters have been closing in on the town and the junta forces stationed there. The Chinese fire into Myanmar came a day after its foreign minister, Wang Yi, was in Myanmar for talks with junta leaders. Wang raised China’s concerns with junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing at a meeting in the capital Naypyidaw, according to China’s foreign ministry. “Wang Yi expressed his hope that Myanmar will earnestly safeguard the safety of Chinese personnel and projects in Myanmar, maintain peace and stability along the China-Myanmar border, step up joint efforts to crack down on cross-border crimes and create a safe environment for bilateral exchanges and cooperation,” the ministry said. Analysts say China is also keen to limit the influence of Western countries and India in Myanmar and is becoming increasingly frustrated with Min Aung Hlaing and the junta’s failure to end the conflict. It is pressing for an &#8220;all-inclusive&#8221; election as a way to resolve the crisis, they say.  Wang also had talks this week with a former Myanmar military leader, Than Shwe, who called on China to help Myanmar restore stability, the Chinese ministry said.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [In Senegal, a rare look inside an abandoned North Korean Embassy](https://ij-reportika.com/in-senegal-a-rare-look-inside-an-abandoned-north-korean-embassy/): Facing a money crunch due to international sanctions, North Korea closed seven of its embassies around the world last year, including one in Dakar. RFA Korean Service reporters who were in Senegal’s capital for another story got an unexpected tour of the now-abandoned embassy that offered a rare look at the lives of North Koreans abroad.   Life is often hard for overseas North Korean workers. As much as 80% of their earnings are thought to be handed over to their government. They are forced to surrender their passports, leaving the workers vulnerable to abuse. They spend long stretches away from their families.  But in some instances living beyond North Korea’s borders can bring comparatively greater freedoms and luxuries, although workers are still closely monitored, according to Ryu Hyun-woo, a former North Korean ambassador to Kuwait who now lives in South Korea.  SEE RELATED STORIES 100,000 North Korean work abroad, earning $500 million a year North Korean companies scrambling to send workers to Chinese factories North Korea orders return of workers in China stranded by the pandemic The white, two-story embassy in Dakar had a pool, a rooftop deck and a large room for hosting guests. Among the litter left were wrappings for Chinese noodles and an empty DVD box.  One poster still on the wall warned of a potential threat: mixing the wrong type of foods. Beef and spinach can cause a stomach ache; pork and ginger a sore throat. Hyun-woo said he created a similar list when he was in Kuwait before he defected.  “Since we’re not always familiar with the types of food in a place like Senegal, or whether they suit our tastes, it’s sensible to be aware of food that shouldn’t be eaten together,” Hyun-woo said in an interview with RFA Korean. Edited by Jim Snyder.
- [Myanmar’s rivals compete to win over young hearts and minds](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-rivals-compete-to-win-over-young-hearts-and-minds/): Both sides in Myanmar’s civil war are trying to win over young people, offering opportunities in education to the third of the population who have faced disruption and disappointment since a 2021 military coup triggered bloody turmoil. Myanmar society, strictly regimented over decades of military rule, went through an unprecedented opening up from 2011, with young people, especially in towns and cities, plugging into the world via social media as civilian politicians looked to a more prosperous, stable future. But the coup shattered those hopes and young people were at the forefront of nationwide protests against the military takeover that the army crushed. Now the junta, struggling with an economy in crisis, is trying to win back the disaffected youth, promising eight new universities across the country to “nurture science and technological human resources,” state-run media reported this week. “It is necessary to organize youths to play a crucial role in digital transformation and meeting the sustainable development goals,” the junta leader, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, told an event marking International Youth Day on Aug. 12. Myanmar possesses “a massive workable force of youths” who make up 33% of the population, the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported Min Aung Hlaing as saying. The new polytechnic universities, to open through 2024 and 2025, would encourage research, “beefing up science, technology and innovation,” as well as “nurturing science and technological human resources,” the newspaper added. University students across the country boycotted classes after the coup as part of their protest against military rule. The junta later reopened at least 250 universities and training colleges but those institutions had lost 90% of their students by early this year, according to statistics from the junta’s education department. With their dreams shattered, and a military regime looking to draft young people into its embattled army, many young people have left the country to places like Thailand, hoping to find work or continue their education. The junta has responded to the exodus with travel restrictions, preventing young people from leaving by air and creating new bureaucratic hurdles for prospective overseas workers and students.   ‘Nourish the skills’ Myanmar’s civilian shadow National Unity Government, or NUG, which opposes the junta, says it sees education as key to ending military rule once and for all and fulfilling the dream of a democratic Myanmar. The NUG said on Wednesday it had opened 21 online and in-person universities, in addition to an existing 16 educational institutions it already supported, attracting more than 20,000 students. “The purpose of vocational education is to contribute to the future federal, democratic Myanmar where we would work to nourish the skills of the public,” the NUG’s deputy minister of education, Sai Khaing Myo Tun, told an online press conference.  Colleges have been opened in areas under the control of anti-junta insurgent forces, offering degrees in the social sciences, political science, teacher education, arts and sciences degrees, he said. “Educational access for many students has been improved.” Editing by Taejun Kang
- [China top diplomat meets Myanmar leader, junta denies coup rumors](https://ij-reportika.com/china-top-diplomat-meets-myanmar-leader-junta-denies-coup-rumors/): Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Myanmar ruler Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing on Wednesday and highlighted Beijing’s continued support for the military regime, even as the junta had to dispel rumors of a coup. Pro-junta media reported that the two men held a closed-door meeting in the capital Naypyidaw during which Wang expressed China’s hope for Myanmar’s stability and development, expressed appreciation for Myanmar’s continued endorsement of China’s claim to sovereignty over the democratic island of Taiwan, and pledged China’s steadfast support in international forums. The meeting came amid calls from junta supporters for the removal of Min Aung Hlaing over his failure to eliminate the armed opposition and rumors circulating on social media that he had been deposed by a fellow general, which the military regime’s True News Information Team denied. During Wednesday’s talks, Wang emphasized the need for all stakeholders to be represented in an election that the junta has promised for next year, but which critics say will be an illegitimate sham. Wang also offered China’s assistance with election-related matters and technical support for a census in preparation for the vote, media reports said. Myanmar’s military ousted an elected government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in early 2021, jailing her and hundreds of party colleagues and supporters, dissolving her party and banning other parties. The coup touched off a nationwide civil war as the junta sought to cement its control, pitting it against various paramilitary groups and ethnic armies on multiple fronts in the country’s remote border regions. The junta has promised to hold elections but critics say a vote would be meaningless with Suu Kyi and so many pro-democracy politicians and activists behind bars. At Wednesday’s meeting, Wang expressed Beijing’s opposition to attacks by ethnic armed groups on towns and villages in northern Shan state, which borders China. Junta officials responded by saying that Myanmar would not permit any actions that could harm China’s interests and is placing special attention on China’s stability, development and security, reports said. Beijing has not released any information regarding the meeting or discussions with the junta and details of Wang’s statement were not carried by pro-junta media. ‘Push for broad dialogue’ Speaking to RFA Burmese, Kyaw Zaw, the spokesperson for the presidential office of Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, or NUG, suggested that “China’s statements were misrepresented by the junta” to align with its interests and stabilize the border region. “The Chinese Embassy has also issued a statement [ahead of the meeting],” he said. “Their primary concern seems to be the border areas of Shan state and aiming to halt the fighting in Myanmar – particularly due to fears about the impact on their own border regions.” Attempts by RFA to contact junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for his response to the NUG’s claims went unanswered Wednesday. In this Kokang online media provided photo, fighters of Three Brotherhood Alliance check an artillery gun, claimed to have been seized from Myanmar junta outpost on a hill in Hsenwi township, Shan state on Nov. 24, 2023. (The Kokang online media via AP) Hla Kyaw Zaw, an expert on China-Myanmar affairs, said that Wang met with Min Aung Hlaing as part of a bid by the Chinese government to “maintain a positive relationship” with the junta. “The situation [in northern Shan state] won’t be resolved by a ceasefire alone,” he said. “There is a push for a broad dialogue that includes all stakeholders involved in the Myanmar issue to find a comprehensive solution. But the junta appears to be displeased with this approach.” RFA sources in Naypyidaw said that Wang Yi’s visit to Myanmar was also scheduled to include meetings with retired Senior Gen. Than Shwe and former President Thein Sein, who led Myanmar’s quasi-civilian government prior to the November 2020 elections that brought Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party to power. Wang Yi’s meeting with Min Aung Hlaing follows talks he held in June with Myanmar’s former President Thein Sein at the State Guesthouse in Beijing. The Chinese foreign minister’s visit to Myanmar is his second since the military coup, following one in June 2022. Rumors of coup The talks in Naypyidaw came amid rumors swirling on social media that Min Aung Hlaing had been detained as part of an internal coup orchestrated by a military adjutant general on Tuesday evening. The claims, which originated from a social media account called “Captain Seagull,” were quickly dismissed by the junta’s True News Information Team as “baseless rumors spread by fake accounts aimed at destabilizing the country.” The information team also said that military officials, including Min Aung Hlaing, were continuing to perform their duties as usual. RELATED STORIES Myanmar rebels claim capture of town on road to China Resistance forces take control of two Chinese-backed joint ventures in Myanmar Top Myanmar army officers seized by insurgents in Shan state, junta says Myanmar rebel group vows to protect China’s interests A former military officer, speaking anonymously due to security concerns, told RFA that the disinformation is part of a broader effort to create social and political instability in Myanmar. “The notion of a military disintegration due to an internal coup is creating false hope among the public,” he said. “In reality, the political situation remains stagnant. The military, having been built up over decades, cannot be expected to collapse in just three years.” The rumors come amid frustration from junta supporters over Min Aung Hlaing’s handling of the conflict, which has seen the armed opposition make substantial gains in recent months. Market shelled Myanmar’s military has increasingly turned to airstrikes and artillery fire as its troops suffer battlefield defeats, often with deadly results for the country’s civilian population. During busy hours on Tuesday, at least 11 civilians were killed and 10 others injured when junta troops in Sagaing region’s Monywa township fired a 60-millimeter rocket that landed in a market in Hta Naung Taw village, residents told RFA. Those killed in the attack included eight...
- [Does a video show Israeli intelligence reaction to Haniyeh’s death?](https://ij-reportika.com/does-a-video-show-israeli-intelligence-reaction-to-haniyehs-death/): A video of a man in a suit dancing has been shared in Chinese-language social media posts with a claim that it shows the Israeli intelligence agency’s reaction to the death of Ismail Haniyeh, a political leader in the Palestinian militant organization Hamas. But the claim is false. The video in fact shows the men’s basketball team of the University of North Carolina following a victory over their archrival Duke University in March 2016.   The claim was shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, on July 31, 2024. “Israeli Intelligence is in a state of euphoria because of the killing of Hamas leader Haniyeh,” the claim reads in part.  It was shared alongside a seven-second clip that shows a man in a suit dancing excitedly while entering a room before walking towards a group of men dressed in blue gym suits in what appears to be a locker room. Haniyeh, a political leader within the Palestinian militant organization Hamas, was assassinated in Tehran on July 31. While Israel is widely suspected of orchestrating the attack, it has not officially commented on the death as of press time.   The same video with similar claims was shared on X here and here.  But the claim is false.  Keyword searches found a longer version of the video posted on YouTube on March 6, 2016. The clip shows a locker room celebration of the men’s team of the University of North Carolina after it held on to beat Duke University on March 5, 2016, and lock up the top seed in the ACC men’s basketball tournament.  The caption of the two-minute and one-second video reads: “This locker room celebration has been a long time coming for the Tar Heels as the team gets its first win at Duke since 2012. The win also secured the regular season ACC championship for the squad.” The clip shared on China’s Weibo social media platform was taken from about 35 seconds into the original video.  Chinese influencers on X posted a short video with a caption saying that the Israeli intelligence agency celebrated Haniyeh’s death (left). However, the footage was taken from a celebration video shot by an American men&#8217;s basketball team in 2016 (right). (Screenshots/ X and YouTube) Separately, social media users also claimed that the Israeli intelligence agency responded to Haniyeh’s death, citing a post by “Mossad Commentary” on X on July 31, 2024. “He was killed in the shower like the dog he is,” the post reads.  But the X account “Mossad Commentary” is not the official account of the Israeli agency.  The posts attached a screenshot of a post from an X account named Mossad Commentary as evidence of the claim.  Chinese social media influencers claimed that an Israeli secret service organization had commented on the death of Haniyeh in a post on X. (Screenshots/Weibo and NetEase) The account has previously spread misinformation regarding the Israel-Hamas conflict, as reported by the BBC, Associated Press and Euronews. Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Shen Ke and Taejun Kang. Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X.
- [Relatives urge prison officials to move environmental activists to capital](https://ij-reportika.com/relatives-urge-prison-officials-to-move-environmental-activists-to-capital/): Lawyers and family members of five imprisoned environmental activists said the activists are still being held at separate remote prisons, making it time-consuming and costly to visit them. The mother of Phoun Keo Raksmey told Radio Free Asia that she visited her daughter at Pursat Provincial Prison on Aug. 9 and found her to be much thinner compared to a month ago. She complained of cramped and isolated living conditions, no electricity and bad food. “It is difficult to eat there and everything is much more expensive,” said Raksmey’s mother, Kong Manit, who said it costs her between US$100 and US$200 to travel to Pursat.  Several relatives told RFA they have been working with lawyers to submit transfer requests in writing to have the five activists from the Mother Nature group moved on humanitarian grounds to Prey Sar Prison in Phnom Penh. Such a move would make it easier to meet with the lawyer who is defending the activists and is organizing their appeal.  “They are far away, and we need to meet them one by one,” the lawyer, Sam Chamroeun, told RFA.  Ten Cambodian environmental activists receive prison sentences of six to eight years each, July 2, 2024, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. (AP) A Phnom Penh Municipal Court judge sentenced a total of 10 activists in the case to between six and eight years in prison after they were convicted on July 2 for conspiring against the state. Five of the 10 defendants are either in hiding or live outside of the country and were tried in absentia, including the Khmer-speaking founder of the Mother Nature group, Spanish environmentalist Alejandro Gonzalez-Davidson, who was deported from Cambodia in 2015. Intended to demoralize The other five were immediately transported from Phnom Penh to different prisons – some of them in remote provinces. Raksmey is imprisoned at the foot of the Cardamom Mountains in Pursat, which is about 220 km (136 miles) from Phnom Penh. Long Kunthea is being held in northern Preah Vihear province near the Thai border. Thon Ratha is at Trapeang Thlong Prison in Tbong Khmum province near Vietnam.  Ly Chandaravuth is imprisoned in Kandal Provincial Prison in Takhmau, just a few kilometers south of Phnom Penh, while Yim Leang Hy is being held in Kampong Speu Provincial Prison, about 52 km (32 miles) west of the capital. Hong Srey Mao, the wife of Yim Leang Hy, said she just delivered their second child and hasn’t been able to visit her husband. Their 5-year-old often asks about his father’s whereabouts. “I am sad and lack harmony because the government arrested my husband unjustly,” she said.   The government has sent other high-profile prisoners to remote locations, including Cambodian-American lawyer Theary Seng, who was convicted of treason in 2022 in another case that was criticized as politically motivated. She was held at first at Preah Vihear Prison before her eventual transfer to Prey Sar. RELATED STORIES Cambodian prison officials stop family from visiting environmental activists Why environmental activism survives Cambodia’s destruction of civil society 10 Cambodian environmental activists sentenced to prison Prosecutors play videos of environmental activists at Cambodian trial Sending the five activists to different prisons was intended to demoralize them and their families, said Ny Sokha, the president of human rights group Adhoc. The charges against the environmental activists – first filed in 2021 – were also widely condemned as politically motivated. The case stemmed from several instances of activism, including the 2021 filming of sewage draining into the Tonle Sap River in front of Phnom Penh’s Royal Palace.  Three of the 10 were also convicted of insulting King Norodom Sihamoni.  The activists can submit a transfer request to the Ministry of Interior, according to prisons spokesman Nuth Savana. In the meantime, inspectors will be sent to Pursat to look into conditions at the prison there, he told RFA. Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed.
- [PNG jolts donors over power grid roll-out as China sale dismissed](https://ij-reportika.com/png-jolts-donors-over-power-grid-roll-out-as-china-sale-dismissed/): The chairman of Papua New Guinea’s national power provider has called for a faster U.S. and foreign donor roll-out of promised electricity infrastructure while saying there is absolutely no plan to sell critical grid assets to China.  At APEC’s Port Moresby meeting in 2018, the U.S, Australia, New Zealand and Japan pledged to fund new electricity infrastructure in the Pacific country with the goal of connecting 70% of PNG’s population by 2030.  The deal was announced against a backdrop of growing concern in Washington and Canberra about China’s inroads with Pacific island nations, especially as an economic partner. But six years later, there is little to show in terms of electricity connectivity, according to analysts and industry insiders, with one donor admitting the “2030 target remains ambitious.” “It could be faster, and there are a lot more discussions that need to be made between the parties,” Moses Maladina, the chairman of PNG Power, told RFA affiliate BenarNews on the sidelines of an investment conference in the Australian city of Brisbane. Moses Maladina gestures in this photo posted to Facebook by PNG Power on March 8, 2022. (PNG Power/Facebook) “There is room for improvement. We just have to work closely and make sure we achieve the target.” Maladina, who is also the chairman of Kumul Consolidated Holdings, the government’s investment arm in state-owned infrastructure, ports, logistics and financial services, batted away reports that the power grid was for sale.  Australian broadcaster Channel 7 claimed last week that management from PNG Power had traveled to China seeking investment in its power grid, triggering a furious denial from Port Moresby which accused the station of inflaming geopolitical tensions. Maladina said that legally and officially there had been no talks about any potential sale to Chinese investors.  “From a shareholders point of view, there has been no discussion on it and absolutely no interest on our part to sell our transmission lines or our distribution lines in any way,” he said. Papua New Guinea is the most populous Pacific island country with an estimated 11.7 million people, but its economy is small, underdeveloped and plagued by infrastructure problems. Only about 13% of the population is estimated to have access to electricity, and even then it is unreliable and confined primarily in urban areas, according to the Asian Development Bank. In 2018, the Trump White House touted the Papua New Guinea Electrification Partnership (PEP) as a “principles-based, sustainable infrastructure development that is transparent” – in an apparent rebuke of what it frequently said was China’s secrecy-shrouded development financing to poor nations. Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister Peter O’Neill (center), flanked by the leaders of Australia, New Zealand, Japan and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence (far right), during the signing of a joint electricity deal at the APEC Summit in Port Moresby Nov. 18, 2018. (Reuters) Australia committed A$25 million in the first year of the multi-year PEP project. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade did not provide figures on overall investment by the time of publication.  New Zealand has invested NZ$41 million (US$24.7 million) to date towards electrification in PNG under the partnership, including rural grid extension and renewable generation projects. “The constraints to broad based grid connection in Papua New Guinea are significant, including geography, land ownership structures and the regulatory environment, so a 2030 target remains ambitious,” said a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.  The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) launched a five-year US$57 million electrification program under the PEP in November 2020, but did not reply to a request for comment about its continued involvement. Mihai Sora, director of the Pacific islands program at the Lowy Institute, said the partnership’s 2030 target was looking increasingly out of reach.  “The PEP was designed as a multi-party flagship development initiative that was intended to present an alternative to the BRI for PNG,” he told BenarNews, using the acronym for China’s globe-spanning infrastructure program, the Belt and Road Initiative. “But progress has been slow, complicated by the deep governance challenges in PNG’s domestic power sector, the rugged geography of PNG, the difficulty of coordinating so many separate partners, and low capacity among domestic stakeholders in PNG.” Sora said the strategic context during which the deal was signed in 2018 has become more pronounced today, as China vies for influence in PNG with the U.S. and its allies. However, it would be difficult for PNG to “pivot to China for the same kind of support in the power sector, given the work that is already underway on this project.” PNG’s Minister for State Enterprises William Duma demanded an apology from Channel 7 over its report, calling it “ridiculous.” But the broadcaster said it stood by the story.  Duma’s demand was not the first time he has squared off with Australian media. He successfully sued the Australian Financial Review last year for defamation over claims that he acted corruptly in granting a petroleum license and won A$545,000 (US$340,000).  BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.
- [Hun Sen warns of more arrests related to Vietnam-Laos cooperation deal](https://ij-reportika.com/hun-sen-warns-of-more-arrests-related-to-vietnam-laos-cooperation-deal/): Cambodia’s Senate President Hun Sen on Monday again threatened to arrest anyone who tries to organize a demonstration in the country against an economic cooperation agreement with Vietnam and Laos that has been a subject of online debate over the last month. The 1999 agreement between the three countries was aimed at encouraging economic development and trade between Cambodia’s four northeastern provinces and neighboring provinces across the border. Last month, three activists were arrested on incitement charges after they spoke of concerns that the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Triangle Development Area, or CLV, could cause Cambodia to lose territory or control of some of its natural resources to Vietnam. The activists made the comments in an 11-minute Facebook video. An angry Hun Sen ordered the arrests and has spoken publicly about the CLV several times since then. On Monday, Hun Sen warned in a Facebook post of more arrests after overseas Cambodians set up a chat group on the Telegram app where plans for an Aug. 18 demonstration in Phnom Penh against the CLV were being discussed. The Telegram group was created following a weekend of protests against the CLV among overseas Cambodians living in South Korea, Japan, Canada and Australia. “My message to all brothers and sisters in this group, I listened to your conversation in the group long enough,” he said. “You are being incited by overseas people.” ‘Try it’ Hun Sen said he has spies in the Telegram group who have sent conversations and names to his private account. He added that he wouldn’t order the arrests for anyone who left the group. “We cannot let a few people destroy the peace of 17 million people. Some have seen the events in Bangladesh and compared the events in Cambodia,” he said. “Try it. If you consider yourself a strong person, please try.” Hun Sen stepped down as prime minister last year but remains a powerful force in the country. His son, Hun Manet, succeeded him as prime minister.  Last week, Hun Manet warned Cambodians against protesting against the government, citing Bangladesh’s recent demonstrations in its capital that turned into deadly clashes and caused that country’s leader to resign. RELATED STORIES Cambodia’s prime minister warns against Bangladesh-like demonstrations Police arrest activists after Facebook video angers Cambodia’s Hun Sen Hun Manet has also tried to reassure Cambodians about the CLV, saying that the agreement won’t result in the loss of any territory. Soeung Senkaruna, the former spokesman for human rights group Adhoc, said Cambodians both inside and outside the country have the full right to freedom of expression, which is guaranteed by the Constitution and international law.  Using force to keep people from expressing their opinions shouldn’t happen in a country “that the government claims enjoys democracy and peace,” he said. Translated Sun Sok Ry. Edited by Matt Reed.
- [Opponents of Myanmar junta skeptical on any Thai help for census, vote](https://ij-reportika.com/opponents-of-myanmar-junta-skeptical-on-any-thai-help-for-census-vote/): Opponents of military rule in Myanmar have criticized the possibility that Thailand will help conduct a census in preparation for an election that the Myanmar junta has promised but which critics say will be an illegitimate sham. The possibility of Thai support for Myanmar’s Oct. 1-15 census and for an election next year was discussed by the Thai  ambassador, Mongkol Visitstump, and the head of Myanmar’s Election Commission, Ko Ko, and Immigration and Population Minister Myint Kyaing in Myanmar’s capital of Naypyidaw on Aug. 7, junta-backed media reported. Myanmar’s military ousted an elected government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in early 2021, jailing her and hundreds of party colleagues and supporters, dissolving her party and banning other parties.  The junta has promised to hold elections but critics say a vote would be meaningless with Suu Kyi and so many pro-democracy politicians and activists in jail. A spokesman for a civilian shadow government largely made up of politicians from Suu Kyi’s party told Radio Free Asia the international community, including Thailand, should focus on restoring human rights and stability, not supporting any “illegitimate” junta plan. “I would request the international community not to support and help this illegitimate Myanmar military junta against the will of the people,” said Kyaw Zaw, spokesperson for the Office of the President of the National Unity Government, or NUG. “This is a time for the international community to support Myanmar people and Myanmar people’s resistance against the fascist military and prepare for the post-military era,” he said.  Thailand’s embassy in Myanmar and its Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to requests for comment.  Thailand has been at the forefront of efforts to press Myanmar’s rivals into resolving their differences peacefully.  RELATED STORIES Myanmar junta orders its workers to pay it part of their Thai wages Thailand should end Myanmar junta’s control over migrants: NUG Thailand’s offer of aid to Myanmar gets mixed reaction It says that it is the country that shares the longest border with Myanmar, and which has for decades served as home for hundreds of thousands refugees fleeing conflict  in Myanmar, it has a particular interest in seeing stability restored. But despite the efforts of Thailand and its neighbors in the Association of South East Asian Nations, fighting has escalated as  junta forces face battlefield setbacks in several parts of the country. ‘Step up attacks’ Kyaw Zaw said the junta had no ability to conduct a “meaningful, useful census,” and that the international community should focus on other human rights and development efforts.  The junta has not set a date for an election but the earliest would be early next year. Under the constitution, an election must be held within six months of a state of emergency being lifted. A state of emergency in effect since the early 2021 coup was extended for another six months on Aug. 1.  The junta chief, Sen. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, has said an election will be held in 2025 but acknowledged that voting in some places may not be possible in the absence of “peace and stability”. Insurgents control 73 towns across the country, according to data from the Myanmar Peace Monitor.  A political observer close to one of Myanmar’s most powerful ethnic minority insurgent groups, the Arakan Army, dismissed the possibility of an effective census and election given the amount of territory the insurgents control, adding that attempts by the junta to organize a vote would likely only exacerbate the fighting. “It is very likely that [they] will step up attacks on the liberated areas, especially targeting the civilians as collective punishment,” said the political observer, who declined to be identified given the sensitivity of the issue. The Arakan Army controls nine townships in Rakhine state in western Myanmar as well as territory in neighboring Chin state. “Neighboring countries should speak out, that the SAC needs to stop attacks on civilians and initiate dialogue and only then can genuine elections come out of these,” he said, referring to the junta, which is officially known at the State Administration Council. Edited by Taejun Kang.
- [Olympics fans in Laos watch events through social media, Thai broadcasts](https://ij-reportika.com/olympics-fans-in-laos-watch-events-through-social-media-thai-broadcasts/): Sports fans in Laos have been watching the Paris Olympic games through online video platforms or through television broadcasts from neighboring Thailand. Four athletes representing Laos competed in Paris, but there was little expectation they would bring home a medal. So viewers in Laos have also taken an interest in Thai athletes and other Southeast Asian competitors.  “I know well that Lao athletes have very little chance to win a medal,” a Vientiane resident told Radio Free Asia. “But I’m still closely following the Olympic games.” She cheered on Panipak Wongpattanakit from Thailand, who won a gold medal in the taekwondo women’s flyweight division. “I remember that she also won a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics too,” she said, referring to the games held in 2021. “I would say ‘congratulations’ to her.” Steven Insixiengmay of Laos competes in the Men’s 100m Breaststroke Heats on July 27, 2024 in Nanterre, France. (Al Bello/Getty Images) Laos’ television channels didn’t have enough advertising sponsors to show a live broadcast of the Paris games, an official from Laos’ Olympic committee said.  Instead, committee officials who are in France have been posting results from Lao athletes on social media platforms and have also done a few Facebook Live broadcasts to talk about the events, he said. Fans in Laos have also just been enjoying the track and field, soccer and gymnastic events no matter who is competing, another Lao citizen told RFA. “I watch almost everything,” he said. Laos hasn’t won a medal since it first sent athletes to the Olympics in 1980, when the games were held in Moscow.  Praewa Misato Philaphandeth of Laos performs a rhythmic gymnastics routine, Aug. 8, 2024 . (Mike Blake/Reuters) Four athletes represented Laos in Paris: Silina Pha Aphay, a Lao-born 100-meter sprinter; Praewa Misato Philaphandeth, a rhythmic gymnast who is of Lao, Thai, and Japanese descent; and Ariana Southa Dirkzwager and Steven Insixiengmay, both of whom are Lao-American swimmers. Pha Aphay was briefly in the spotlight during a preliminary heat of the women’s 100-meter race. She was seen helping another sprinter, Lucia Moris of South Sudan, who fell to the ground during the race after an apparent injury.  After crossing the finish line in sixth place, Pha Aphay ran back to Moris as she lay on the track in pain. She stayed with her as medics strapped her onto a stretcher. “Once I saw her on the ground in pain, it was in my mind that I must finish my race first,” she told RFA. “Then I asked permission from the referee if I could help her. The referee said yes, then I rushed to help her.” Translated by Phouvong. Edited by Matt Reed.
- [Gymnastics silver medalist Nairman Kurbanov thrills Kazakhs and Uyghurs](https://ij-reportika.com/gymnastics-silver-medalist-nairman-kurbanov-thrills-kazakhs-and-uyghurs/): Kazakhstanis turned out in large numbers to welcome home gymnast Nariman Kurbanov from the Paris Olympics, where the 26-year-old ethnic Uyghur won a silver medal in the Men’s Pommel Horse – the first gymnastics medal for the Central Asian nation in the 30 years it has competed as an independent country. Kurbanov, who has been a gymnast since the age of six and holds degrees in coaching and law, was met at Almaty airport Wednesday by Kazakhstani sports officials and community leaders and activists representing the nearly 300,000 Uyghurs in Kazakhstan. &#8220;It&#8217;s been a few days since the finals of the Olympics, but I still can&#8217;t fully grasp the significance of my medal,” he told Radio Free Asia Uyghur.  “My fans and sports enthusiasts from all over the country and abroad are not only congratulating me, but also expressing their gratitude for the joy I&#8217;ve brought them,” he added. “My parents and relatives were overjoyed to see my success. In particular, my father, who has always been by my side, is delighted by this blessing and feels as if he is in seventh heaven,” said Kurbanov, whose father coached him for much of his early career. Kazakhstan&#8217;s Nariman Kurbanov poses with his silver medal during the podium ceremony for the artistic gymnastics men&#8217;s pommel horse during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Bercy Arena in Paris, Aug. 3, 2024. (Lionel Bonaventure/AFP) In the Aug. 3 finals in Paris, Kurbanov scored 15.433 points, falling by a tenth of a point to gold medalist Rhys McClenaghan from  Ireland with 15.533 points. “The entire population of Kazakhstan, including the Uyghurs, expected and believed that Nariman would earn a medal at the Olympics. Now, Nariman has won the silver medal and justified our confidence,” Bahar Rejapova, a Uyghur youth activist from Kazakhstan, told RFA. He noted that Kurbanov had become widely known in Kazakhstan since started competing in international competitions in 2018 or earlier and winning world titles. “I am not exaggerating when I say that his efforts and determination will serve as a great role model for us, the youth,” Bahar said. Veteran Kazakhstani trainer Tursun Sadirov told RFA Kurbanov’s silver medal was “a great honor for our country and our people” which called to mind the earliest medalists, including many Uyghurs, from the days when Kazakhstan was part of the Soviet Union and competed under the USSR flag. Independent Kazakhstan competed in its first summer games in Atlanta in 1996. “When I saw and heard Nariman carrying the blue flag of Kazakhstan, I was very happy and I thanked him, his parents, and coaches,” Tursun told RFA.  “I express my gratitude to our young people like Nariman, who are introducing Kazakh sports to the world, and wish them great success.&#8221; Take a moment to read more Taiwanese boxing gold medal hopeful heads to final match in Paris Soaring price of shuttlecocks ruffles feathers in China Chinese police arrest Beijing woman for ‘defaming’ Olympic athletes Tibetan athlete fails to medal in her latest Olympics but is ‘happy’ Chinese state TV pulls plug on Taiwan’s badminton victory Chinese social media users slam athletes over failure to deliver gold Silver medallist Kazakhstan&#8217;s Nariman Kurbanov celebrates after the artistic gymnastics men&#8217;s pommel horse final during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Bercy Arena in Paris, Aug. 3, 2024. (Paul Ellis/AFP) The performance in Paris by Kurbanov, who is credited with inventing the difficult pommel move called “the Kurbanov,” has also reverberated among the Uyghur diaspora. “His silver medal achievement brings great joy to us all. For the Uyghur community, this is especially significant,” said Alimjan Hamrayev, a Uyghur professor and head of the Euro-Asia Uyghur Academy in Almaty. “Nariman Kurbanov’s success has greatly contributed to strengthening Uyghur-Kazakh friendship. His accomplishment has reinforced our historic bonds,” he told RFA. Kurbanov told RFA in an telephone interview Friday that support from Uyghurs around the world is &#8220;very nice.&#8221; &#8220;When I go on the world stage, I represent Kazakhstan, our entire country, but since I am a Uyghur, I feel the Uyghurs&#8217; concern about me in Kazakhstan, and in Europe, and in America, and in Australia,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Everyone is sending me greetings from all over the world. All the Uyghurs are rooting for me, congratulating me, and it is very nice. It makes me very proud of our entire nation.&#8221; Translated by Alim Seytoff. Edited by Paul Eckert.
- [Myanmar junta authorities prevent young adults from leaving the country by air](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-authorities-prevent-young-adults-from-leaving-the-country-by-air/): Myanmar authorities under the ruling junta are now preventing young adults who want to get jobs abroad from leaving the country via Yangon’s international airport, people with knowledge of the situation said. Young people have been leaving Myanmar in droves to work in other countries since the military seized control in a February 2021 coup d’état followed by violent crackdowns on civilians and civil war. The new measure is one of various methods used by the ruling military council to control the number of citizens leaving for employment opportunities abroad because of the civil war, economic downturn and military conscription. Men ages 18 to 35 years and women ages 18 to 27 must serve a minimum of two years in the military under Myanmar’s conscription law.   In May, the junta temporarily banned all men from working abroad amid widespread public concern over the implementation of the military conscription law. RELATED STORIES Myanmar’s junta halts passport conversion as Thailand mulls worker amnesty Myanmar now requires biometric ‘smart card’ to exit country by border Myanmar junta bans all men from working abroad Junta requires workers abroad to send money home via approved banks Authorities are denying people between the ages of 23 and 35 from taking flights out of Yangon, the country’s largest city, since the beginning of August, said a city resident. They have implemented tighter passenger scrutiny and are turning away young adults regardless of the type of passport they hold, citing incomplete documentation, said the person, who like other sources in this report asked not to be named for fear of retribution. Myanmar issues nine types of passports, including one for overseas workers, known as PJ, one for tourists, known as PV, and one for sailors, known as PS. But there is no specific policy detailing which types of people are restricted from traveling, the Yangon resident said.  “Even those with all the required documents and a PJ passport people have been barred from leaving the country,” the person said.  Neither junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun or Nyunt Win, permanent secretary of the Labor Ministry, responded to requests for comment on the travel restrictions. Illegal ways to go abroad RFA has not been able to determine how many people have been affected by the measure so far. A labor union leader criticized the new restrictions, saying they would push young people to find illegal ways to go abroad. “Due to the pressure on people to leave because they can’t find work in this country, it is the foreign employment agencies that are most affected,” he said. “As a result, illegal agencies are beginning to emerge, and brokers are becoming more active.”  Travelers wait in a security check line in the departure terminal at Yangon International Airport in Yangon, Myanmar, June 2024. (RFA) Authorities previously didn’t check whether passports matched corresponding visas, but now if there’s a mismatch, the person is not allowed to leave the country, said an employee at an overseas job search service in Myanmar. “Some travelers were sent back because they were using PV passports with a work visa, even though the passport type appeared to match the visa type,” the person said, adding that those with such visas cannot use them for other travel purposes.  “In other words, if you hold a tourist passport, you will no longer be allowed to go abroad for work, study or similar purposes,” the source said. In June, the military council also revoked the right to change passport types. Additionally, PJ passport holders are now permitted to work overseas only if they possess an Overseas Worker Identification Card. A young woman aspiring to work abroad said she believes the cash-strapped junta is restricting those with PV passports from leaving the country for jobs elsewhere because it doesn’t collect taxes from them. “It would be more convenient if, after allowing people to go, the authorities required 25% of their salary to be transferred back at a set amount, deducting the government’s share,” she said. “This system could then be applied to PV passport holders in the same way.”   A young sailor told RFA that he and others who must renew their passports have to wait longer than previously to get a new travel document. Passports must be valid for at least 18 months before sailors set off and leave Myanmar, but unforeseen delays in waiting for a QR code after submitting a renewal application are preventing them from working, he said. “I have about six months left on mine, but I can’t work on a ship with only six months remaining,” he added. Translated by Kalyar Lwin for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Matt Reed.w
- [Four more killed in sweeping crackdown in Myanmar’s Sagaing](https://ij-reportika.com/four-more-killed-in-sweeping-crackdown-in-myanmars-sagaing/): Myanmar junta forces shelled a village in the Sagaing region killing four people, residents said, in the latest attack in an anti-insurgent campaign in which hundreds of homes have been torched and thousands of villagers have been displaced, residents said on Friday. The central Sagaining region, largely populated by members of the majority Burman community, has seen some of the worst of the violence that has engulfed Myanmar since the military overthrew an elected government in early 2021. Outraged by the coup and a subsequent crackdown that shattered hopes for reform, pro-democracy activists from towns and cities, and central rural areas that had been largely peaceful for decades, have taken up arms to fight to end military rule. Sagaing has become a hotbed of dissent and junta forces have responded with full force, including airstrikes and shelling that have killed hundreds of civilians and raids in which villages have been largely destroyed and residents detained and tortured. Residents of the arid heartland region told Radio Free Asia that junta forces shelled Yinmarbin township’s Htan Taw Gyi village, about 125 kilometers (77 miles) west of the city of Mandalay, on Wednesday night for no apparent reason, killing four civilians and wounding six. The fire from the junta camp about eight kilometers (five miles) away hit the eastern part of the village, said one resident, who declined to be identified for security reasons.  &#8220;Three people died on the spot. Seven people were wounded but one of them died in the morning, so four people have died in total. There was no battle at that time,” said the resident. RFA telephoned the Sagaing region’s junta spokesperson, Nyunt Win Aung, for comme but he did not answer the phone. Residents identified the four people killed as Myint Than Aung, Phyo Zaya, Pho Thet Wai and Hlwan Moe, all aged between 20 and 40.   The injured were receiving medical care, residents said, without giving details. Junta spokesmen have denied targeting civilians but insurgents say the military has for decades cared little about civilian casualties as it tries to cut rebel forces off from civilian populations that sympathize with the rebels’ cause. Related stories: Thousands flee junta raids in central Myanmar Junta military preparations point to brutal next phase of Myanmar conflict More than 100,000 displaced by Myanmar conflict in two weeks Homes burned Independent verification of accounts related by residents is almost impossible but the evidence suggests junta operations in Sagaing have resulted in widespread dislocation of civilian populations and destruction. Residents of Kanbalu township, to the north of  Yinmarbin, estimated that a junta operation there had forced about 30,000 people from their homes since a July 24 attack by a pro-democracy militia on a junta force post in Kyi Kone village. Fighters armed with homemade or looted weapons in what are known as People’s Defense Forces, or PDFs, regularly raid outposts and ambush forces throughout the country. The July raid by the Kanbalu-based PDF sparked a junta sweep of some 20 villages in which an estimated 400 homes have been torched, residents said.  About 70 soldiers stationed in Bo Te Kone and Min Kone villages had torched numerous homes, said one villager who fled the crackdown. The displaced were struggling to make do outdoors in the rainy season, too fearful to venture back to their villages to see what remained, he said. “The weather is not good so our health is affected. We had no time to carry food or drinks with us when we ran, so we’re having a hard time,” said the villager, who also declined to be identified. Junta forces have burned 95,450 civilian homes across Myanmar since the coup, according to the independent research group Data for Myanmar. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan.
- [IOC: North Korean athletes never received sanctions-violating smartphones](https://ij-reportika.com/ioc-north-korean-athletes-never-received-sanctions-violating-smartphones/): The 14 North Korean Olympic athletes in Paris have not received the smartphones that were gifts to all athletes, the games’ authority told Radio Free Asia in a revised statement after it was questioned whether such gifts would be a sanctions violation. The International Olympic Committee previously told RFA Korean on Wednesday that the phones – manufactured by South Korean maker Samsung – were picked up by the North Korean delegation, but said on Thursday that “We can confirm that the athletes of the NOC of DPRK have not received the Samsung phones.” The DPRK, or Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, is the official name of North Korea. If the phones were to be brought back from Paris into North Korea, they would violate sanctions that prohibit import of industrial machinery, Lee Jaewoong, spokesperson for the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told a news conference. A participant films Samsung Electronics&#8217; Galaxy Z Flip 6 during the Galaxy unpacked products media preview in Seoul, South Korea, July 8, 2024. (Lee Jin-man/AP) “In accordance with Paragraph 7 of Resolution 2397, the UN Security Council prohibits the direct or indirect supply, sale, or transfer of all industrial machinery to North Korea,” he said. “Smartphones are prohibited goods under this resolution.”  The IOC did not respond to an additional RFA inquiry as to whether the phones were simply not distributed to the athletes by the North Korean Olympic Committee or if they were returned. IOC spokesman Mark Adams also did not clearly answer related questions at the press conference on Thursday, saying that he would have to find out more information about the subject. Ashley Hess, a former member of the UN Security Council&#8217;s North Korea Sanctions Committee panel of experts, pointed out to RFA Thursday that the smartphones could also violate sanctions on luxury goods. “It could fall under the luxury goods ban (UNSCR 1718) – a list of which is up to Member States to define for their own implementation purposes, but my reading of the EU luxury goods list is that smartphones are explicitly included, so if the Samsung phones are smartphones, as is reported by the media, then they would likely fall under the luxury goods ban, given that the Olympics are in France,” she said. There has been controversy in the past regarding North Korean athletes receiving Samsung smartphones at the Olympics. At the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, the Olympic organizing committee was concerned about violating sanctions and offered to provide North Korean athletes with Samsung phones under the condition that they return them before returning home. The North Korean delegation refused to receive them. Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong.
- [Myanmar junta bombs sleeping village killing seven, rebels say](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-bombs-sleeping-village-killing-seven-rebels-say/): The Myanmar junta’s air force bombed a village in a strife-torn central region killing seven people as they slept, an insurgent group said on Thursday, the latest deaths in what opponents of the junta say is a deliberate campaign to target civilians in areas under rebel control. Forces of the junta that seized power in a 2021 coup are increasingly relying on air power to strike back at insurgent forces who have made significant gains on the ground in several parts of the country since late last year.   In the central Mandalay region, pro-democracy fighters in the Mandalay People’s Defense Force and allied Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, ethnic minority insurgents have captured dozens of junta positions, including the gem-mining town of Mogoke, over recent months. But the junta has responded with deadly retaliation from the air, in a campaign the junta’s enemies say is aimed at killing civilians in a bid to warn the population off support for the rebels. In the dead of night on Tuesday, the junta’s air force launched an attack on Mandalay region’s Payaung Taung village in a strike that appeared to be timed to catch villagers asleep in their beds to maximize casualties, the Mandalay force said in a  statement.  &#8220;Seven people were killed when a bomb was dropped at night, four women and three men,” said a resident of the area who declined to be identified for safety reasons. “There were also many injured people but we don&#8217;t know the details yet.”  Radio Free Asia could not reach the junta main spokesperson, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, by telephone to ask about the incident. The Mandalay People’s Defense Force released photographs of the victims but it said it could not identify them.  The junta&#8217;s air force launched strikes on two villages in the Mandalay region&#8217;s Singu township on Aug. 4, killing 13 people and wounding 19, the group said.  Junta spokesmen have denied targeting civilians. A three-party alliance of insurgent forces, including the TNLA, this week called on neighboring China to intervene with the junta to press it to stop attacking civilians.  The insurgents have little in the way of anti-aircraft weapons to defend against junta jets. According to data compiled by the RFA, airstrikes and heavy weapon attacks by junta troops have killed about 2,000 civilians and wounded nearly 4,000 since the 2021 coup, up to May. RELATED STORIES Myanmar rebels rack up more gains as Operation 1027 enters new phase Junta military preparations point to brutal next phase of Myanmar conflict Myanmar still getting jet fuel despite call to cut supply: rights group Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan. 
- [North Korea punishes students and officials for watching banned Korean War film](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-punishes-students-and-officials-for-watching-banned-korean-war-film/): North Korea has kicked four university students out of school, sentenced another to eight months of hard labor, and fired government officials because they secretly watched a big budget North Korean propaganda film that was banned only five months after its release, residents and officials  in the country told Radio Free Asia. The blockbuster “72 Hours,” directed by the country’s leader Kim Jong Un, tells the story of the opening moments of the 1950-53 Korean War – which it says South Korea started – and it details how the North Korean army captured Seoul in only three days. In reality, it was the North that attacked first, but Pyongyang maintains that the first sacking of Seoul during the conflict – it changed hands four times – was part of a counteroffensive. RFA reported that the film, which debuted in February, was banned last month without explanation. Residents told RFA Korean that the film remains immensely popular and people are confused by the ban, because the film is made in North Korea and glorifies the military.  “The son of the deputy chairman in charge of food administration at the People’s Committee who secretly stored the movie on a USB stick was expelled from the Workers’ Party,” a college student in the northern province of Ryanggang told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons. The deputy chairman’s son was a student at Hyesan Medical University and last month he and some other students watched the film together, he said. RELATED STORIES In new movie, the South started the Korean War, as Pyongyang has always claimed North Korea bans hit war movie 5 months after release In a separate incident, the chairman and a group of colleagues watched the film together.  “The deputy chairman &#8230; and four staff of the food administration department who watched the movie were fired from their positions,” he said. “Four students from the University of Agriculture and Forestry of Hyesan Medical University were punished by expulsion.” The son was sentenced to eight months labor because he purchased the film and was responsible for showing it to the others, the student said. During the trial it was found that he bought the USB flash drive that contained the film in the local marketplace in the city of Hyesan for 12 yuan (US$1.68). There are likely hundreds of people in Ryanggang who have either been punished or are under investigation over the film, a government official told RFA on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. “As the number of people subject to punishment increases, resentment among residents is also increasing, so they’re out here saying, ‘Why did the authorities make a movie that you can be punished for watching?’” Keeping up with the Chinese Kim Jong Un commissioned the film in 2021 after watching the Chinese-made Korean War blockbuster “The Battle at Lake Changjin,” which depicts one of the conflict’s pivotal battles – fought between Chinese and U.N. forces – that resulted in heavy casualties for the Chinese but forced the U.N. to retreat from the northern half of the Korean peninsula.    Kim was so moved by that film, that he “strongly scolded” the country’s propaganda filmmakers, clamoring for them to make a similar film, the official said. Kim even provided $10 million for production costs. “Kim Jong Un himself carefully guided the content of the movie and every facial expression of the actors on site. But the movie became caught up in controversy and was eventually banned,” the official said. When it was released in February it was an instant hit, and theaters were still showing it months later.. Despite its popularity though, “72 Hours” did not have the desired effect. People began to wonder how North Korea was able to capture Seoul in only three days if South Korea started the war with a surprise attack on the North as Pyongyang claims, the official said.   “Does it make sense that the United States, which had prepared for a long time and started the war by surprise, lost Seoul in three days?” he said. “The movie only deepens the suspicion that the Korean War was not started by the United States but by a North Korean surprise attack.” The official said that this logical gap is the reason why the film was banned. In a previous RFA report, other sources suggested that the ban was because the film made references to places in South Korea, or because it uses the word “unification,” which does not jive well with North Korea’s recent policy toward South Korea that defines it as a separate hostile country, rather than part of the same race of people.   Whatever the reason, people did not take the ban seriously, the official said. “They thought it was not a big deal because it’s made by us. It’s not a film from South Korea,” he said. “Also, Kim Jong Un himself directed it.” Because the film was so widely distributed on portable media after the ban, “the director of the Ryanggang Province Film Distribution Center, cell secretary, technical manager and the head of the city and county film distribution department were also arrested,” he said.  Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong.
- [Philippines joins US-led allies in multilateral maneuvers in South China Sea](https://ij-reportika.com/philippines-joins-us-led-allies-in-multilateral-maneuvers-in-south-china-sea/): The Philippines joined the United States, Australia and Canada in a two-day “maritime cooperative activity” from Wednesday to press for freedom of navigation and overflight in the South China Sea amid maritime tensions with China. The navies and air force units of the four nations will operate alongside each other to enhance “cooperation and interoperability” in the disputed waterway, a joint statement said. “We stand together to address common maritime challenges and underscore our shared dedication to upholding international law and the rules-based order,” it said. “The activity will be conducted in a manner that is consistent with international law and with due regard to the safety of navigation and the rights and interests of other States.”  The statement was signed by Gen. Romeo Brawner, the military chief of the Philippines, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command chief Adm. Samuel Paparo, Australian Defence Force chief Admiral David Johnston and Gen. M. A. Jennie Cargian, the chief of Canada’s Defence Staff. “Australia, Canada, the Philippines, and the United States uphold the right to freedom of navigation and overflight, other lawful uses of the sea and international airspace, as well as respect for maritime rights under international law, as reflected in the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS),” they said. The aim of the multilateral sail was to demonstrate a “collective commitment” to boosting international cooperation. The statement did not specifically say where the drills would be held, only that the maneuvers would take place “within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone” in the South China Sea.  The Philippines last week carried out similar joint sails with Japan and with the U.S. separately in Philippine areas of the South China Sea. Coast guards from the Philippines and Vietnam meanwhile are scheduled to hold their own joint drills on Friday. In related news, China on Wednesday conducted air and sea patrols near Scarborough Shoal, a flashpoint in territorial tensions between Beijing and Manila, according to a report by Agence France-Presse. Analysts praise multinational maneuvers Chester Cabalza, president of International Development and Security Cooperation, a Philippine think-tank, hailed the defense deals with various allies.  He noted that prior to this, Manila had also signed a groundbreaking Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA) with Japan, another country with a territorial dispute with China. That deal would allow the exchange of troops for joint training with each other. He said the multilateral sails this week show the “global recognition” of Manila’s international arbitration award in 2016 in its territorial dispute with China over Scarborough Shoal. “It shows the legitimacy of  its sovereignty rights in the disputed maritime domains of the South China Sea,” Cabalza told BenarNews. “It reaffirms the bone of contention that China alone is not the sole owner of these important sea lanes of communications and trade,” he said. He said the joint sails should work to “solidify” the belief that countries should follow the rules-based order in the disputed sea region, a key shipping route where experts say more than 60% of global maritime trade passes. Geopolitical analyst, Don McClain Gill at the De La Salle University in Manila, said the joint sails affirm the 2016 ruling but he emphasized that such activities need to be done on a regular basis. “Patrols and exercises are very important in ensuring the freeness and openness of the maritime domain, but it must be supplemented by other activities as well, such as capacity building and more robust and permanent deterrence posture in our area in the West Philippine Sea,” Gill told BenarNews, referring to South China Sea waters within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. “This is a very good indication that like-minded countries, three of which are part of the exercise, recognize that the Philippines is legitimately entitled to its sovereign rights and sovereignty based on UNCLOS and the 2016 arbitral ruling,” Gill said, alluding to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. “This is significant in that regard and must be continued,” he said. “As we can see, the Philippines has become a fulcrum for maritime cooperation.”  Countries such as Canada, which are far removed from the conflict, are also concerned because they are worried it may affect global trade and affect the stability in a “very critical maritime space,” he said. While global partnerships like the joint sail are important, he said this had not deterred Beijing from continuing with its activities in the South China Sea. But this should not be taken negatively by the Philippines, but rather as an “opportunity to explore what else could be done.” Last week, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken met their Filipino counterparts in Manila and announced a U.S. $500 million infusion to help Manila defend its shores from threats posed by China.  The funds would go towards strengthening Manila’s defenses in the South China Sea, and the monies came shortly after tensions and confrontations surrounding Ayungin Shoal or Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea. Manila maintains a rusting World War II-era ship in Ayungin, and a violent confrontation there in June saw a Filipino serviceman lose a thumb.  Both sides have subsequently worked towards de-escalating the tensions, but it remains unclear how China would react to the joint sails this week. Jeoffrey Maitem contributed to this report from Manila. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.
- [North, South Korean boxers become first to medal in their sport on same day](https://ij-reportika.com/north-south-korean-boxers-become-first-to-medal-in-their-sport-on-same-day/): It’s been a weird and wacky few days for North Korea at the Olympics as North and South Korean boxers both became the first Korean women to medal in their sport and a Kim Jong Un impersonator showed up to cheer the North Korean on. Additionally, it was revealed that North Korea had to negotiate Paris 2024 broadcast rights directly with the International Olympic Committee, rather than getting the feed from South Korea as usual. North Korean boxer Pang Chol Mi and her South Korean counterpart Im Ae-ji were both part of the Women’s 54-kilogram tournament, and they both won bronze by losing in their respective semifinals on Aug. 4. Boxing, like other fighting sports,  awards two bronzes at the Olympics, but unlike judo or taekwondo, the bronzes are not won with victories in a “second chance” repechage tournament, but with losses in the semifinals.    Technically, Pang is the first Korean woman to medal in boxing, because her semifinal was played earlier, but had both Pang and Im won, they would have faced each other in the finals. That fact was not lost on the athletes ahead of the semifinal, Im told reporters from South Korea’s Yonhap News. “I met Pang Chul Mi at the weight room in the athletes’ village and she said ‘fighting.’” said Im.  South Korea&#8217;s Im Ae-ji celebrates after winning in the women&#8217;s 54kg preliminary round of 16 boxing match during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the North Paris Arena, in Villepinte, July 30, 2024. (Mohd Rasfan/AFP) The English word “fighting,” is a slang word meaning “do your best” in the variety of the Korean language spoken in South Korea.  RFA reported in December 2023 that North Korean authorities were cracking down on citizens who use the word in text messages.  “So, I told [Pang] to push hard together to meet each other in the finals, but we both lost,” said Im. Both boxers will recieve their bronze medals in a ceremony after the final on Aug. 8. Prior to the Olympics, Pang and Im faced each other at the Asian Games in Hangzhou, China in 2022. Pang emerged victorious from their early torunament bout and went on to win gold. Observers in South Korea told RFA they were worried upon hearing Im’s account of their encounter in Paris. “If it is true that Pang said ‘fighting,’ she could be pointed out as someone who watched a lot of South Korean dramas,” a North Korean who escaped the country in the second half of 2023, identifying himself by the pseudonym Ri Jong Sik for safety reasons, told RFA Korean.  “I am concerned that she will be subject to punishment when she returns to North Korea,” said Ri. Lee Kyu-Chang, the director of the Human Rights Research Division at the Seoul-based Korea Institute for National Unification, told RFA that it was important to first determine how Pang’s words of encouragement were nuanced. “I’m not sure if there were any records, such as photos or videos taken,” said Lee. “But when considering only the word ‘fighting,’ I am concerned about the possibility of punishment after she returns.” Lee predicted that if it is confirmed that Pang cheered for the South Korean athlete it would be difficult for the North Korean authorities to approve such an act, given leader Kim Jong Un’s recent stance of hostility toward the South. Fake Kim photobombing North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was present during the semifinals, or at least his lookalike was. Howard X, a Hong Kong-born Australian who has gained notoriety online for impersonating Kim in public situations, was in the stands in costume when Pang lost to win bronze.    He told RFA that he did not have the opportunity to shake hands with Pang or any other North Korean athlete at the games, but he stood behind Pang and her opponent, China’s Chang Yuan, when they were interviewed following their semifinal. Howard X, a Kim Jong Un impersonator at the 2024 Paris Olympics. (@KimJongUnDouble via X) “They were giving interviews. I was trying to meet them and I was right behind them, you can see.” he said. “I was standing there waving to the camera the whole time.” He wasn’t sure if the footage made it back to North Korea, but if it did, he imagined that the people there would be surprised. “I’m hoping by being there, you know, North Korea’ll go ‘Hey, how come Kim Jong is in the Olympics? He&#8217;s supposed to be looking after us with our floods,’” Howard X said, referring to the natural disaster that struck the country last week when heavy rains caused waters in the Yalu River to rise, damaging river towns and submerging inhabited islands. A Kim Jong-un impersonator holds a Korean unification flag during the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics at the Kwandong Hockey Centre, Gangneung, South Korea, Feb. 14, 2018. (Lucy Nicholson/Reuters) Paris is not Howard X’s first Olympics. He was spotted at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics at a hockey match between Japan and a unified Korean team.  When he tried to interact with the North Korean cheering squad, South Korean security guards dragged him away. Howard X’s brand of humor is not intended to make fun of North Koreans, he said. “We don&#8217;t have a problem with the people of North Korea. What we have a problem with is the government of North Korea,” he said, adding that he was there to remind people that North Korea is not a normal country, and that they use the games for propaganda. Befuddling broadcast rights North Korea this year acquired broadcast rights from the International Olympic Committee directly instead of negotiating broadcast rights with a South Korean outlet. South Korea’s Seoul Broadcasting System had been awarded the rights for the whole peninsula for the 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2024 Games, in an agreement inked in 2011. Normally, North Korea would simply use the South Korean feed, but an agreement was reached with the IOC this year to get the...
- [Report on Vandalism and Unrest in Bangladesh Following Prime Minister Hasina's Ouster](https://ij-reportika.com/report-on-vandalism-and-unrest-in-bangladesh-following-prime-minister-hasinas-ouster/): Protests and Political Unrest: On Monday, widespread protests erupted in Bangladesh, culminating in the ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. The demonstrations, initially sparked by a controversial government job quota system, intensified and resulted in nearly 300 deaths. Protesters demanded Hasina&#8217;s resignation, leading to violent clashes and significant upheaval. Thousands of protesters stormed the prime minister&#8217;s palace, further escalating the crisis. In response to the unrest, the government imposed an indefinite curfew starting from 6 pm on Sunday and announced a three-day closure of all establishments except essential services. The protests, which turned violent, prompted the deployment of troops who fired blank shots to disperse crowds without using live ammunition. Army Chief General Waqar-uz-Zaman announced the formation of an interim government and urged protesters to end the violence, assuring that normalcy would be restored within two days. Communal Violence Against Christians and Hindus: Islamist groups, emboldened by the lack of strong leadership, have seized the opportunity to target the Christian and Hindu minority, who have long been subjected to discrimination and persecution in the Muslim-majority nation. Amid the political turmoil, several incidents of communal violence were reported. The Indira Gandhi Cultural Centre in Dhaka&#8217;s Dhanmondi area was among the sites damaged by protesters. Many Hindu temples across the country also suffered major damages. Kajol Debnath, leader of the Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council, confirmed these incidents, noting that the situation remains tense. The Bangabandhu Memorial Museum at Dhanmondi 32, dedicated to Hasina&#8217;s father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was severely affected by fires set by protesters. Additionally, the house of Sheikh Sohel, Hasina&#8217;s cousin, was set ablaze, and a statue of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was vandalized in the Rajbari district. The office of Beximco House, a major pharmaceutical company, was also targeted and set on fire. In recent violent incidents in Bangladesh, at least two Hindu councillors have been killed amid a broader wave of attacks targeting the Hindu community. In Rangpur district, Haradhan Roy of the Awami League and Kajal Roy were both murdered on Sunday, while Haradhan&#8217;s nephew was reportedly lynched by a mob. The violence extended to Hindu religious sites, including an attack on an ISKCON centre where deities were destroyed and the building was set on fire. Additionally, Hindu homes in Noakhali district were also assaulted, with footage showing mobs attempting to break into residences. These attacks have raised serious concerns about the safety and security of minority communities in the region. In response to the escalating violence, the Minorities Unity Council of Bangladesh has issued contact information for leaders of Hindu temples, Christian churches, and Buddhist temples. This initiative aims to provide a direct line for members of the Hindu, Buddhist, and Christian communities to report any incidents of unrest or violence. By facilitating communication with these leaders, the council hopes to enhance community coordination and ensure prompt responses to emerging threats. Comments and Reactions: Political commentator Professor Nazmul Ahsan Kalimullah described the day as a &#8220;Bloody Sunday,&#8221; emphasizing the communal turn of the violence. Exiled Bangladeshi activist Pinaki Bhattacharya urged students to march to Dhaka, declaring that the revolution had begun. A source from Bangladesh suggested that the opposition party might be receiving support from outside the subcontinent, contributing to the turmoil. The situation remains volatile, with the interim government working to restore order and prevent further violence. The hope for peace and stability in Bangladesh persists amid these challenging times.
- [Myanmar rebels claim capture of town on road to China](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-rebels-claim-capture-of-town-on-road-to-china/): An insurgent group fighting the Myanmar military has captured a northeastern town on a main road to China, seizing the last junta military bases after weeks of fighting, a senior official of the rebel group said on Tuesday. The Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, is a member of the Three Brotherhood Alliance, which is battling the junta that seized power in a 2021 coup across Shan state.   The group captured the headquarters of two junta battalions and the Operation Command Headquarters No. 1 in Kyaukme, a town on the road between the cities of Mandalay and Lashio on Monday, the TNLA official who wished to remain anonymous told Radio Free Asia.  He said the TNLA now had complete control of Kyaukme. RFA tried to contact Shan state’s junta spokesperson, Khun Thein Maung, to ask about the situation in Kyaukme but he did not respond by the time of publication.  If confirmed, the capture of Kyaukme by the TNLA would be another major setback for the forces of the junta, coming just days after another member of the insurgent alliance captured the headquarters of the military&#8217;s Northeast Regional Command in Lashio. Lashio is about half-way between Myanmar’s second city of Mandalay and the Chinese border. RELATED STORIES Myanmar rebel group vows to protect China’s interests Myanmar’s junta extends state of emergency for another six months China’s frustration with Myanmar junta’s incompetence is mounting Mines and bombs A Kyaukme resident who witnessed the fighting confirmed that the TNLA had captured the junta’s positions that were defended by trenches, bunkers and mine fields. “The junta dug trenches around all of the bases, including their Operation Command Headquarters, and built concrete bunkers everywhere,” said the resident, who declined to be identified, in fear of reprisals. TNLA fighters had used drones to drop bombs on the junta’s defenses, the resident said. “The whole hill has been turned into a  bunker. The TNLA troops had to first clear mines slowly and the junta had the upper hand.” Neither the TNLA nor the junta released estimates of casualty figures.  Kyaukme residents said junta forces had fled to a position about 6 km (4 miles) away. While some civilians who had fled earlier were returning to their homes, others were staying away in fear of junta airstrikes, said another resident. Junta forces have launched numerous airstrikes in Shan state and elsewhere, inflicting a heavy toll on civilians. “We can’t hear any shooting and the TNLA have been securing the area,” the resident said. “The morning market is even operating normally. The only thing people are worried about is airstrikes. Everyone is afraid, the whole country is afraid of planes.” The Three Brotherhood Alliance launched the second round of an offensive begun late last year, codenamed Operation 1027, in June after two China-brokered ceasefires between the junta and rebel groups broke down.   Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 
- [Resistance forces take control of two Chinese-backed joint ventures in Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/resistance-forces-take-control-of-two-chinese-backed-joint-ventures-in-myanmar/): An anti-junta militia seized two Chinese-invested joint ventures in two regions of Myanmar amid fighting between junta soldiers and resistance forces, throwing the future of the operations into uncertainty. In July, two separate People’s Defense Forces took control of the Alpha Cement factory in Mandalay region and the Tagaung Taung nickel mine in Sagaing region. Junta troops attacked the cement factory, about 30 kilometers (19 miles) north of the junta’s Central Command, and tried to burn down buildings inside the compound while fleeing a successful assault by the Mandalay People’s Defense Force militia, Myanmar Now reported.  The military has conducted daily airstrikes on the cement plant, owned by Myanmar’s Myint Investment Group and and China’s Anhui Conch Cement Co., since militia forces capturing it, the report said. RELATED STORIES Myanmar rebel group vows to protect China’s interests Rebels vow to protect Chinese investment in Myanmar As China expands investment in Myanmar, experts warn of public backlash A People’s Defense Force in northwestern Myanmar’s Sagaing region took over a major Chinese-backed nickel-production plant from junta forces in July without a fight on the border between Mandalay region’s Thabeikkyin township and Sagaing region’s Tigyaing township, Myanmar Now said in another report. About 60 junta soldiers and police abandoned 64 weapons and ammunition at the Tagaung Taung mine compound and left, Nay Phone Latt, spokesman of the Prime Minister’s Office of the shadow National Unity Government, or NUG, told Radio Free Asia.  The NUG is now responsible for the safety of the factory and its employees, he said. The seizure of the cement factory and nickel mine comes as the junta continues to lose ground to People&#8217;s Defense Forces, or PDFs, loyal to the NUG and allied ethnic armed groups — almost four years into a civil war that shows no sign of abating. A satellite image of the location of the Tagaung Taung nickel mine and processing plant in Tigyaing township, northwestern Myanmar&#8217;s Sagaing region, December 2019. (The Irrawaddy/Google Earth) The incidents also indicate that the junta cannot fully safeguard Chinese-invested projects in Myanmar and that increased discussions between Beijing and the NUG may be forthcoming, said political analyst Than Soe Naing. “China will need to decide whether to rely on the military council or the PDFs and ethnic armed forces to protect its interests in Myanmar,” he said.  The NUG has not issued instructions for the two factories to cease operations, and they are able to continue normal operations, despite the fighting, said Nay Phone Latt. The Chinese Embassy in Myanmar said it may investigate the situation of the factories seized by the PDFs, but it did not respond to RFA’s request for comment. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a regular press conference in Beijing on July 25 that conflicts in Myanmar should not interfere with domestic Chinese projects, businesses or the security of Chinese citizens. The Alpha Cement plant burns after being set ablaze by retreating junta troops in a screenshot from a video posted on July 14, 2024. (@mandalaypeopledefenceforce via Telegram) The NUG will not recognize businesses established under contracts signed with the State Administration Council, the formal name of the ruling junta, but will accept those that operated under contracts signed by previous governments, Nay Phone Latt said. International companies operating in Myanmar must pay taxes to the NUG instead of to the military council, he added. The NUG said its policy is to protect all legal foreign investments in Myanmar, not just those from China. Junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun and spokesmen for Mandalay and Sagaing regions did not respond to requests for comment. Translated by Kalyar Lwin by RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Matt Reed.
- [Top Myanmar army officers seized by rebels, junta says](https://ij-reportika.com/top-myanmar-army-officers-seized-by-rebels-junta-says/): A Myanmar insurgent group has captured senior army officers after seizing their headquarters, a military spokesperson announced on Monday, in a stunning setback for the embattled junta that seized power in a 2021 coup. The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, insurgent group said it captured the junta’s Northeast Regional Military Headquarters in the Shan state town of Lashio last week. It is the first such headquarters that rebels fighting to end military rule have captured. “We had communication with the senior officers until 6:30 in the evening on Aug. 3, but we’ve been out of contact until now,” junta spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun said in a statement. “According to unconfirmed reports, some senior officers have been arrested by terrorist insurgents,” he said. The junta spokesperson did not say how many officers had been captured or give any names or ranks but media reported that the commander of the Northeast Regional Military Headquarters, Maj. Gen. Soe Tint, Regional Chief of Staff Brigadier General Thant Htin Soe and chief of the Kyaukme-based Operation and Command Headquarters, Brigadier General Myo Min Htwe were in MNDAA custody. Radio Free Asia tried to contact MNDAA spokesperson Li Kyar Win to confirm the reports but he did not respond. RELATED STORIES Myanmar insurgents free political prisoners in northern Shan state cityMyanmar rebel group vows to protect China’s interestsNorthern Myanmar cut off by state-wide communications blackout Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military overthrew an elected government led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in early 2021. Ethnic minority insurgents battling the military for decades have been joined by pro-democracy activists, and they’ve made significant gains in several parts of the country, particularly since large last year when several groups launched offensives. On Saturday evening, the MNDAA, a member of a three-party rebel alliance that has made big gains against the military, announced it had captured Lashio’s Northeast Regional Military Headquarters after a month of fighting. Myanmar has 14 such regional military command headquarters. The MNDAA did not mention the capture of senior officers but said more than 470 wounded junta soldiers and their family members had been evacuated from the headquarters’ hospital on Thursday. Neither side has announced casualty figures but at least nine civilians have been killed in the fighting and thousands of Lashio residents have fled from the battered city. The junta-backed Myanmar Alinn newspaper said on Monday that MNDAA fighters had attacked the military hospital, killing civilian patients, staff and relatives of junta troops.  The junta commander-in-chief of the Defense Service Office also announced on Monday that several women serving in the junta’s police force had been killed in the battle, as well as many of their family members.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 
- [Taking over from the inside: China’s growing reach into local waters](https://ij-reportika.com/taking-over-from-the-inside-chinas-growing-reach-into-local-waters/): On March 14, 2016, Argentina’s coast guard detected a Chinese vessel fishing illegally in national waters. When the ship attempted to ram the coast-guard cutter, the Argentinians opened fire on the vessel, which soon sank.  The Lu Yan Yuan Yu 10 was one of eleven Chinese squid vessels that the Argentine navy has chased for suspected illegal fishing since 2010, according to the government.  But one year after the incident, Argentina’s Fishing Council announced that it would grant fishing licenses to two vessels owned by the same Chinese operator that owned the ship the Argentine navy had chased the previous year. These ships would sail under the Argentine flag through a local front company.  The decision seemed to violate Argentine regulations that not only forbid foreign-owned ships from flying Argentina’s flag or fishing in its waters but also prohibit granting licenses to operators with records of illegal fishing. The move may have been a contradiction, but it is an increasingly common one around the world. Over the past three decades, China has gained supremacy over global fishing by dominating the high seas with more than 6,000 distant-water ships. When it came to targeting other countries’ fishing grounds, Chinese fishing ships typically sat “on the outside,” in international waters along sea borders, running incursions across the line into domestic waters.  In recent years, from South America to Africa to the far Pacific, China has increasingly taken a “softer” approach, gaining control from the inside through legal means by paying to flag in their ships so they can fish in domestic waters without the risk of political clashes, bad press, or sunken vessels.  Infographic by The Outlaw Ocean Project This method typically involves going around prohibitions on foreign shipowners by partnering with local residents and giving them majority ownership stakes. Through these partnerships, Chinese companies can register their ships under the flag of another country, gaining permission to fish in that nation’s territorial waters.  Sometimes Chinese companies sell or lease their ships to locals but retain control over decisions and profits. In other places, these companies pay fees to gain fishing rights through “access agreements.” From Micronesia to Iran Chinese companies now control nearly 250 flagged-in vessels in the waters of countries including Micronesia, Kenya, Ghana, Senegal, Morocco, and even Iran. Many of these companies have been tied to a variety of fishing crimes.  Trade records show that some of the seafood caught on these vessels is exported to countries including the United States, Canada, Italy, and Spain. Mar del Plata is Argentina’s largest fishing port and the headquarters for many fishing companies. Many Argentine-owned fishing vessels have, however, been neglected in recent years. In some parts of Mar del Plata’s port, those vessels now sit neglected or sunken, unused and unsalvageable. (Pete McKenzie/The Outlaw Ocean Project) Most countries require ships to be owned locally to keep profits within the country and make it easier to enforce fishing regulations. “Flagging in” undermines those aims. And aside from the sovereignty and financial concerns, food security and local livelihoods are also undermined by the export of this vital source of affordable protein, often to Western consumers.  In the Pacific Ocean, Chinese ships comb the waters of Fiji, the Solomon Islands, and Micronesia, according to a 2022 report by the U.S. Congressional Research Service.  “Chinese fleets are active in waters far from China’s shores,” the report warned, “and the growth in their harvests threatens to worsen the already dire depletion in global fisheries.”  The tactic of “flagging in” is not unique to the Chinese fleet. American and Icelandic fishing companies have also engaged in the practice.  But as China has increased its control over global fishing, Western nations have jumped at the opportunity to focus attention on its misdeeds.  Even frequent culprits can also be easy scapegoats. When criticized in the media, China pushes back, not without reason, by dismissing their criticism as politically motivated and by accusing its detractors of hypocrisy.  Still, China has a well-documented reputation for violating international fishing laws and standards, intruding on the maritime territory of other countries and abusing its fishing workers.  Two local men fish in Mar del Plata, Argentina, in March 2024. (Pete McKenzie/The Outlaw Ocean Project) History of misbehavior In the past six years, more than 50 ships flagged to a dozen different countries but controlled by Chinese companies have engaged in crimes such as illegal fishing and unauthorized transshipments, according to an investigation by the Outlaw Ocean Project.  China’s sheer size, ubiquity and history of misbehavior is raising concerns.  In Africa, Chinese companies operate flagged-in ships in the national waters of at least nine countries. In the Pacific, an inspection in 2024 by local police and the U.S. Coast Guard found that six Chinese flagged-in ships in the waters of Vanuatu had violated regulations requiring them to record their catch in logbooks. In August 2019, a reporting team inspected a Chinese fishing vessel off the coast of West Africa. (Fábio Nascimento/The Outlaw Ocean Project) China’s control over local resources is not constrained to domestic waters. In Argentina, China has provided billions of dollars in currency swaps, providing an economic lifeline amid domestic inflation and hesitancy from other lenders.  China has also made or promised billion-dollar investments in Argentina’s railway system, hydroelectric dams, lithium mines, and solar and wind power plants.  This money has bought Beijing the type of influence that intervened in the fate of the crew from the Lu Yan Yuan Yu 10. When the ship sank, most of the crew were scooped up by another Chinese fishing ship and returned to China.  However, four of them, including the captain, were brought to shore, put under house arrest and charged with a range of crimes by a local judge who said the officials had endangered their own crew and the coast guard officers who chased them. China’s foreign ministry soon pushed back against the arrest. Three days later, Argentina’s foreign minister told reporters that the charges had “provoked a reaction of great concern...
- [The Tarnished Glory: How Doping Has Undermined the Integrity of the Olympics](https://ij-reportika.com/the-tarnished-glory-how-doping-has-undermined-the-integrity-of-the-olympics/): The Olympics have long stood as a beacon of human achievement, fair play, and international unity. Yet, over the years, the integrity of this prestigious event has been repeatedly tarnished by doping scandals. Athletes from various countries have resorted to performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) to gain an unfair edge, compromising the spirit of fair competition and the honor associated with Olympic glory. Among the most notable offenders are China, the United States, and Russia, whose doping incidents have marred the history of the Games. The Chinese Doping Scandals China&#8217;s rise in the world of sports has been accompanied by a series of doping scandals that have cast a shadow over its achievements. The most significant of these incidents involved Chinese swimmers and weightlifters, who were found to have used banned substances to enhance their performance. Sun Yang, one of China&#8217;s most celebrated swimmers, faced multiple doping allegations. In 2014, he was suspended for three months after testing positive for the banned stimulant trimetazidine. Although he retained his Olympic medals, the incident raised serious questions about the legitimacy of his achievements. In 2020, Sun received an eight-year ban for refusing to cooperate with a doping test in 2018, further damaging his reputation and that of Chinese swimming. In weightlifting, Chinese athletes have also faced significant scrutiny. During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, three Chinese weightlifters, including gold medalists Liu Chunhong and Cao Lei, were stripped of their medals after reanalysis of their samples revealed the presence of banned substances. These cases highlighted the extent to which doping had infiltrated Chinese sports and led to increased calls for stricter anti-doping measures. The United States and High-Profile Doping Cases The United States, despite its leading position in global sports, has not been immune to doping controversies. High-profile cases involving athletes such as Marion Jones and Lance Armstrong have severely impacted the credibility of American sportsmanship. Marion Jones, once hailed as the fastest woman on earth, won five medals at the 2000 Sydney Olympics (three gold and two bronze). However, her career came crashing down when she admitted to using steroids supplied by the notorious BALCO laboratory. Jones was subsequently stripped of her medals, and her fall from grace served as a stark reminder of the pervasive nature of doping in athletics. Cycling legend Lance Armstrong also found himself at the center of a massive doping scandal. Armstrong, who won a bronze medal in the time trial at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, was later revealed to have used a sophisticated doping regimen involving EPO, human growth hormone, and blood transfusions. His systematic cheating led to him being stripped of his Olympic medal and seven Tour de France titles, profoundly shaking the world of professional cycling. The Russian Doping Cases Perhaps the most egregious example of doping in recent history involves Russia, whose state-sponsored doping program was exposed in a scandal that rocked the sports world. The scale and organization of the program, which aimed to dominate the Olympics through systematic cheating, were unprecedented. The 2012 London Olympics and the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics were heavily affected by Russia&#8217;s doping scheme. An investigation by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) revealed that Russian officials had manipulated test results and tampered with samples to ensure their athletes passed doping controls. As a result, numerous Russian athletes were stripped of their medals, and the country faced partial bans from subsequent Olympics. Notable athletes affected by the scandal include Anna Chicherova, who lost her bronze medal in high jump from the 2012 London Olympics, and Tatiana Lysenko, who was stripped of her gold medal in hammer throw from the same Games. The exposure of Russia&#8217;s state-sponsored doping program led to significant sanctions and highlighted the lengths to which some nations would go to achieve Olympic success. The Impact on Olympic Integrity The pervasive issue of doping has had a profound impact on the integrity of the Olympics. Each doping scandal not only undermines the achievements of those caught cheating but also casts doubt on the legitimacy of the competition as a whole. Clean athletes are robbed of their rightful victories, and the spirit of fair play is eroded. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and WADA have intensified their efforts to combat doping, implementing more rigorous testing protocols and harsher penalties for offenders. However, the challenge remains daunting, as new substances and methods to evade detection continue to emerge. Conclusion Doping scandals involving countries like China, the United States, and Russia have significantly tarnished the Olympics&#8217; reputation. These incidents serve as a sobering reminder of the ongoing battle against performance-enhancing drugs in sports. Upholding the integrity of the Olympics requires a collective commitment to fair play, stringent anti-doping measures, and a steadfast resolve to preserve the true spirit of athletic competition. Only through such efforts can the Olympics reclaim its standing as a true celebration of human potential and sportsmanship.
- [Cambodia’s Hun Dynasty stakes reputation on the Funan Techo Canal](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodias-hun-dynasty-stakes-reputation-on-the-funan-techo-canal/): Ground will be broken on the Funan Techo Canal on August 5 – strongman Hun Sen’s 72nd birthday. The waterway will be carved through the eastern regions of the country, eventually connecting the capital Phnom Penh to new deep-water ports in Sihanoukville and Kampot, on the Gulf of Thailand.  The Cambodian government believes the $1.7 billion waterway will reduce Cambodia’s dependency on Vietnam, through whose ports much of Cambodia’s imports and exports are transported.  They expect an economic boon for the country, with cheaper transportation making Cambodian goods more competitive, fostering overall economic growth. But the megaproject has been controversial, to say the least.  Initially, much of the controversy centered on Vietnam’s apparent fear that Cambodia might allow its “ironclad friend” China military access to the canal. The security dimension was played up. Villager Sok Rom looks at excavators being used on the construction of the Funan Techo canal along the Prek Takeo channel in Kandal province, July 9, 2024. (Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP) However, there are more significant concerns. The first is environmental. There are genuine concerns, especially if you’re a Vietnamese resident of the Mekong Delta, about the potential ecological impact. Carving out the canal could lead to further intrusion of salt water into the Mekong’s distributaries and create a massive levee between Cambodia and Vietnam’s floodplains.  As Brian Eyler of the Stimson Center has put it: “the canal will disconnect the floodplain, creating a dry zone to its south and a wetter zone to the north.” Much remains unknown since Phnom Penh hasn’t yet publicly released any environmental impact assessment on the canal. The second concern is economic, and this is a bit more hazy.  David Brown, an economic analyst, argued recently that “there is no plausible economic argument for digging a canal.” I disagree.  Economic logic There is some economic logic to the project if it’s done properly. It will make domestic transport of goods cheaper, benefiting consumers and  make Cambodian exports more competitive in international markets.  Yes, Cambodia has new expressways and wants to re-do its aged railways, but moving goods by water is many times cheaper than by road or rail.  It will mean more business for Cambodia’s new ports in Sihanoukville and Kampot, boosting these local economies. It should bring some investment to the rural areas where the canal passes through.  And it does make Cambodia more economically self-sufficient—no one can say with 100% certainty that Vietnam won’t in the future deny access to its ports, which would effectively mean an economic blockade for Cambodia. Residential homes along the Prek Ta Hing channel, where the proposed second phase of the Funan Techo canal is set to be built, in Kandal province, July 9, 2024. (Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP) None of this is to say that Phnom Penh has gone about this the right way. The entire process has lacked transparency.  The government was too hubristic at the beginning, thinking that China would fund everything, and has over-egged the patriotic angle of the canal, choosing not to have a decent dialogue with the public about the complexity of the scheme.  Indeed, Prime Minister Hun Manet, who inherited the premiership from his father Hun Sen last year, has presented it as a nationalistic project.  As Hun Manet put it, the canal will give Cambodia “a nose to breathe through.” Of course, this rhetoric comes slightly unstuck once you recall that the China Road and Bridge Corporation will have a lengthy build-operate-transfer contract on the project, so it will only pass into Cambodian ownership sometime in the second half of this century.  Even so, Phnom Penh’s propaganda machines are in full swing: anyone who criticizes the scheme is unpatriotic or despises Cambodia, and those who support it are the true adherents of national sovereignty. Legacy building The inherent problem is that the whole thing is essentially a vanity project.  That doesn’t mean it’s entirely illogical or uneconomical. But you have to remember that this isn’t a normal project. It’s far more symbolic than the Phnom Penh-Sihanoukville Expressway, the country’s first proper motorway, or your bog-standard hydro dam. It’s a way for Hun Sen, who is still the kingpin despite resigning last year after nearly four decades in power, to give himself a physical legacy. The Hun dynasty is physically cutting an artery through the country, a landmark to the power of the Hun family that they hope will last for centuries. “Our ancestors built the Angkor Temple and other great monuments, but unfortunately we used to be divided. Now, we are once again united and we are building new achievements,” Hun Manet said earlier this year. Construction will begin on August 5, Hun Sen’s birthday.  Kavi Chongkittavorn, a veteran Thai journalist, has called the Funan Techo Canal a “litmus test for Hun Manet&#8217;s leadership.” Another analyst put it: the government has to “complete it by all means, at all costs.” Workers dig the Funan Techo canal at Prek Takeo in Kandal province, July 9, 2024. (Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP) Indeed, the Hun family has staked its reputation, though not its power, on the project.  When trying to defend the canal during a speech in May, Hun Sen, referring to himself in the third person, tried to reassure Cambodians: “Hun Sen has never made a wrong decision in the past 47 years”. (He has; many.) For Hun Manet, it offers an opportunity for drums, flags and loyalty-parades. His first year in power has been somewhat dull.  He isn’t as bombastic, as in-your-face, as his father. His speeches aren’t as wild and rambling; his rhetoric is more measured and consensus-based. His focus is policy, often of the boring sort.  The ruling party framed his succession as a technocratic shift, the transition from a generation of rulers who literally fought to save the country from genocide to a generation that will make slow, incremental improvements to the progress they inherited.  Take a moment to read more Cambodian canal project to kick off on Hun Sen’s birthday Vietnam urges Cambodia to cooperate...
- [North Korea refused China's rescue offer for Yalu River island residents](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-refused-chinas-rescue-offer-for-yalu-river-island-residents/): North Korea declined China’s offer to rescue residents on islands in the Yalu River–some of whom later died in flooding–because Pyongyang was afraid that those rescued would try to escape to China permanently, officials in the country told Radio Free Asia. As heavy rains caused rising waters in the Yalu River, which divides the two countries, it became apparent that opening floodgates at hydropower dams would be necessary. But doing so would submerge inhabited islands near the northwestern city of Sinuiju, which lies across the river from China’s Dandong. “The heavy flood damage in Sinuiju, which occurred between the noon of the 27th and the early morning of the 28th, occurred when the floodgates of the Taepyongman Hydropower Station were opened,” an official from Sinuiju’s surrounding province of North Pyongan told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “An evacuation order was issued to Sinuiju residents before opening the floodgates around 2 a.m. on the 28th.” China&#8217;s ambassador to North Korea Wang Yajun led a delegation of over 40 people to pay respects at the Unsan Chinese People&#8217;s Volunteer Army Martyrs&#8217; Cemetery amid pouring rain, July 25, 2024, in Unsan county, North Korea. (The Embassy of the People&#8217;s Republic of China in the Democratic People&#8217;s Republic of Korea via Reuters) By then, the waters were so high that people didn’t dare try to escape on their own, he said, adding that many people on one of the islands died when the floodgates were opened. A South Korean government official told reporters that up to 1,500 residents have died or are missing as a result of the floods. That number hasn’t been verified by North Korea. North Korean state media, meanwhile, reported that 4,100 homes and 7,000 acres of land have been submerged. State media has also used the disaster to boost the profile of the country’s leader Kim Jong Un by featuring him in photos that apparently show him personally leading rescue operations. The deaths could have been prevented, as China had offered to save the residents before the waters got too high, another North Pyongan official told RFA on condition of anonymity for security reasons.  “The police in Dandong conveyed their intent to rescue the island residents to the North Pyongan Province’s Social Security Bureau,” he said. “However, Kim Jong Un refused China’s offer and so many residents who were stranded on the island became victims.” China&#8217;s ambassador to North Korea Wang Yajun led a delegation of over 40 people to pay respects at the Unsan Chinese People&#8217;s Volunteer Army Martyrs&#8217; Cemetery amid pouring rain, July 25, 2024, in Unsan county, North Korea. (The Embassy of the People&#8217;s Republic of China in the Democratic People&#8217;s Republic of Korea via Reuters) On July 27, when heavy rains showed no signs of stopping soon, representatives from both cities discussed opening the floodgates, the official said. “They only open if China agrees,” he said. “It was obvious that if the water gates of the power plant were opened while the Yalu River was very swollen, the islands in the estuary would be submerged.” It was then that the Dandong police said that they could safely move the island residents to China, but were rejected by Kim, the official said. China&#8217;s ambassador to North Korea Wang Yajun led a delegation of over 40 people to pay respects at the Unsan Chinese People&#8217;s Volunteer Army Martyrs&#8217; Cemetery amid pouring rain, July 25, 2024, in Unsan county, North Korea. (The Embassy of the People&#8217;s Republic of China in the Democratic People&#8217;s Republic of Korea via Reuters) “Kim Jong Un did not allow the islanders to evacuate to China under the pretext that they could flee to South Korea. Meanwhile, it got dark and a helicopter deployment became impossible,” he said, adding that North Korean rescue teams couldn’t start evacuations until the next day and they were staying at a nearby hotel. After the rescue was completed, Kim Jong Un arrived on the scene to lead and direct the rescue. “Kim Jong Un arrived in Sinuiju around 8 a.m. on the 28th. The rain had already stopped and the water in the Yalu River was decreasing.” South Korean outlet Yonhap News reported that Kim Jong Un told North Korean media that there were no casualties and accused South Korean media of &#8220;fabricating&#8221; the scale of flood damages.  Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong.
- [India pledges $300m loan to boost Vietnam’s maritime security](https://ij-reportika.com/india-pledges-300m-loan-to-boost-vietnams-maritime-security/): India has offered to provide Vietnam with US$300 million to strengthen its maritime security amid rising tensions in the Asia-Pacific region and increasing wariness in both countries about China’s growing military might and assertiveness. India’s pledge was made during a visit to India this week by Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, during which he and his host, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, virtually inaugurated a military software hub in the city of Nha Trang in central Vietnam. The Army Software Park is being developed with India’s assistance and is expected to produce software solutions as well as provide information technology services. Modi said at a welcome ceremony for Chinh at Hyderabad House on Thursday that Vietnam was an important partner in India’s Act East Policy and Indo-Pacific vision.  The Act East Policy is a diplomatic initiative to promote economic, strategic and cultural relations with the vast Asia-Pacific region at different levels.  Both countries would “continue cooperation for a free, open, rules-based and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Modi said. This visit from July 30 to Aug. 1 was Chinh’s first trip to India as head of government. RELATED STORIES Vietnam’s PM visits India to reaffirm strategic partnership Vietnam mulls law that may open market to foreign arms firms Vietnam hosts its first international defense expo The leaders said in a joint communique at the end of the visit that Vietnam and India “agreed to strengthen further their defense cooperation based on common priorities and interests, and to contribute to the stability in the Indo-Pacific region.” A package of preferential loans worth US$300 million would be offered for two projects to improve Vietnam’s maritime security, they said. They  did not specify details but Indian media said the money would  be spent on procuring two types of patrol boats for the Vietnamese navy. In June 2023, India donated to Vietnam a missile corvette, the INS Kirpan, and also sold it 12 high-speed guard boats. Rule-based South China Sea Maritime security is seen as one of the most important elements of Vietnam-India bilateral relations and they have held regular maritime security dialogues since 2019. The joint communique emphasized the importance of “maintaining peace, stability, security and freedom of navigation and overflight in the South China Sea.” Both countries are committed to finding peaceful solutions to maritime disputes in accordance with international law, in particular the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS, they said. They stressed that UNCLOS is the legal framework for all maritime activities in the region and the basis for all claims over jurisdiction. Vietnam, together with other ASEAN countries, and China are negotiating  a code of conduct for parties in the South China Sea.  India and the United States are not involved in those talks but the two leaders called in their communique for a rule-based and effective code of conduct that “does not affect rights and jurisdictions of other countries, including those not taking part in the negotiation process.” China has warned against what it sees as the “intervention” of outside countries in South China Sea disputes. Edited by Taejun Kang.
- [State media shows North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un leading flood rescue](https://ij-reportika.com/state-media-shows-north-korean-leader-kim-jong-un-leading-flood-rescue/): North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been spotted in state media leading flood relief efforts after heavy rains caused the Yalu River to swell, inundating sections of nearby towns, residents in North Korea and China told Radio Free Asia. More than 5,000 people who were stranded by the floodwaters were saved by on-site instructions relayed by Kim, the state-run Korea Central News Agency reported, complete with photos showing him leading the rescue effort. The South Korean government said that there was a high possibility of casualties given that North Korea was reporting about the rescue effort in such detail. Some of the residents were trapped when they did not heed warnings to evacuate and stayed in their homes, residents said. Meanwhile, North Koreans who have been dispatched to work in China are being forced to donate to a flood relief fund from their pay. A resident who requested for security reasons only to be identified as living near the Yalu, told RFA Korean that residents in and around Hyesan, in the northern province of Ryanggang, were facing “life threatening” moments since the river’s waters began to overflow.  A view of a flooded area near the country&#8217;s border with China, which has been hit by heavy rainfall from Tropical Storm Gaemi, in North Pyongan Province, North Korea, July 28, 2024. (KCNA via Reuters) “The water level of the Yalu River fluctuated by up to two meters (more than 6 feet) within an hour,” he said, adding that a vehicle equipped with a loudspeaker went from village to village along the river, instructing people to urgently move to higher ground. “Despite this, the residents just stood on the levee of the Yalu River, unsure of what to do, and did not evacuate,” the resident said.  Most did not want to evacuate because they did not want to leave their belongings behind for opportunistic thieves, he said. “The area around the Yalu River has high property prices, and people with a higher standard of living in Hyesan City reside there,” he said. “Because they could not suddenly move their expensive belongings, such as refrigerators, televisions, and sewing machines, they were unable to evacuate despite knowing the danger.” He said that most North Koreans cannot afford things like televisions and sewing machines even after working hard for decades. “If the house was left empty, thieves would rush in and steal all the property in an instant, so the people felt they could not evacuate even when the water rose.” The Yalu floods have also affected Dandong, China, which lies across the river from North Korea’s Sinuiju, a resident in Dandong told RFA, on condition of anonymity for personal safety. “The Yalu River overflowed, causing water to rise up to sidewalks in Dandong,” she said. “On the other side of the river in Sinuiju, North Korean soldiers were stacking sandbags all day.” An island in the river located 2 kms (1.24 miles) upstream from Sinuiju was submerged according to reports.  Relief payments When the flooding began, the North Korean government began asking workers it dispatched to China to donate to relief efforts. But just one day later, the government stopped asking and ordered them to donate, residents in China said. According to a report by the UN Expert Group on North Korea Sanctions published early this year, there are about 100,000 North Korean workers in over 40 countries, but mostly in China and Russia. Their presence is a violation of UN sanctions that required all dispatched workers to return to North Korea by the end of 2019 with no new worker visas issued. North Korea has been known to get around sanctions by sending the workers on student or tourist visas.  “An order to raise funds for flood recovery was issued today at the Dandong Branch of the Consulate General in Shenyang,” a resident of Dandong told RFA on condition of anonymity for personal safety. He said that news reports showing Kim Jong Un leading rescue efforts kept coming in to companies in Dandong, so they convened an emergency meeting for each work unit and ordered them to contribute to the relief effort personally. “However, most of the workers dispatched to China were passive about providing financial support, even though they were saddened by the reality of their country suffering from heavy flood damage,” he said. “Through the meeting, some workers decided to donate 10 yuan (US$1.30) from their monthly salary, while others decided to donate up to 30 yuan ($4.15).” The purpose of their being overseas is to raise foreign currency for the cash-strapped government, so they are already forced to donate the lion’s share, and are paid only a fraction. To have to donate even more increases their hardship, the Dandong resident said. “The reason North Korean workers are reluctant to participate in support projects is because it is difficult to live on only 300 yuan ($41.50) each month,” he said. “They’re out here saying that flood recovery should be something that the government should take care of.” North Korean leader Kim Jong Un walks up an embankment towards a train during a visit to a flood-affected area near the border with China, in North Pyongan Province, North Korea, in this undated photo released July 31, 2024. (KCNA via Reuters) A Chinese citizen of Korean descent in Dandong said that the North Korean consulate in Shenyang later required that each worker donate 200 yuan ($27). “Workers were initially expected to contribute 10 yuan ($1.38) each, with officials donating 50 yuan ($6.92),” he said.  “When this failed to raise the necessary amount, they upped it to 200 yuan.” He said the workers are angered that they are being made to donate so much. “It is unfortunate that three days of heavy rain led to flood damage, but the people are complaining, wondering if they will lose all of their already tiny salary.” Translated by Leejin J. Chung and Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong.
- [Vietnamese activist on trial from prison cell in Thailand](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnamese-activist-on-trial-from-prison-cell-in-thailand/): A court in Bangkok on Thursday began hearing a Vietnamese request for the extradition of a Montagnard activist who Vietnam accuses of terrorism but who rights groups say will be tortured if sent back. Y Quynh Bdap, 32, a campaigner for ethnic minority people, is wanted in Vietnam where he was sentenced in absentia in January to 10 years in prison after being convicted of involvement in 2023 attacks on public agencies in Dak Lak province in which nine people were killed. The co-founder of the Montagnards Stand for Justice indigenous rights group has been in Thailand since 2018 and denies involvement in the 2023 violence. He was not allowed to attend Wednesday’s hearing and had to take part by teleconference from remand detention after Vietnamese officials cited security concerns. &#8220;It&#8217;s hard to inquire and translate on teleconference,&#8221; defending lawyer Nadthasiri Bergman told Radio Free Asia. &#8220;It is also a disadvantage being unable to meet a lawyer in the courtroom.&#8221; The case has shone a spotlight on Vietnam’s stand on dissent and also on what rights groups say is growing cooperation between states in the region to crack down on each other’s dissidents. &#8220;The hearing must be transparent,” said Pornpen Khongkachonkiet, director of the Bangkok-based rights group Cross Cultural Foundation, describing Bdap as a rights defender at risk of deportation. Bdap is from the Ede minority, one of about 30 groups known as Montagnards, the French term for hill people, in Vietnam’s Central Highlands. The mainly Christian groups have suffered years of persecution from authorities over religion and land rights. ‘Swap mart’ On June 11, Thai authorities arrested Bdap for “overstaying” his visa following an extradition request from Vietnam.  Thailand does not recognize refugee status but the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has recognized him as a refugee and he is awaiting resettlement to a third country. Bdap met Canadian authorities on June 10 to discuss resettlement there. U.S. embassy officials and representatives of international organizations observed Thursday&#8217;s hearing, as did Vietnamese security officials. As well as the hearing on Vietnam&#8217;s extradition request, Bdap will also stand trial for the immigration offense on Aug. 5. It is unclear when the court will hand down its ruling, Bergman said, adding that Bdap would fight the two-tier proceedings. She said she was hopeful that if a recently enacted Thai law on forced disappearances was taken into account, he “would not be sent back into harm’s way.”Thailand and Vietnam do not have an extradition treaty but have cooperated on a reciprocal cross-border basis in recent years when dealing with dissidents, right groups said. New York-based Human Rights Watch accused Thailand of acting like a &#8220;swap mart&#8221; to exchange dissidents, and disregarding international norms. Independent experts have called on Thailand to respect the obligation of non-refoulement, which prohibits returning a person to a country where they would face a risk of persecution or torture, the U.N. rights office said last month More than 160 people are incarcerated in Vietnamese prisons for criticizing the government, among them environmental activists and campaigners for  press freedom, according to Human Rights Watch. Edited by Mike Firn.
- [China sanctions US lawmaker for criticizing Beijing’s human rights record](https://ij-reportika.com/china-sanctions-us-lawmaker-for-criticizing-beijings-human-rights-record/): China on Wednesday sanctioned U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, accusing him of “interfering in China’s internal affairs,” though the congressman said it would not deter him from continuing to speak out against the Chinese government’s poor human rights record in Tibet. The sanctions against McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat, prohibit him from engaging in any transactions or other activities with organizations and individuals in China. They also bar him and his family from entering the country, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.  The sanctions took effect on Wednesday as a “countermeasure” against McGovern’s actions and statements that “interfere in China’s internal affairs and undermine China’s sovereignty, security and development interests,” the ministry said.  McGovern told Radio Free Asia that the sanctions&#8217; timing suggests they are a reaction to a U.S. bill on Tibet that President Joe Biden signed into law earlier this month and to McGovern’s meeting with the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, at his home in Dharamsala, India, in June.  “If PRC [People’s Republic of China] leaders don’t like it when people speak out against their horrific human rights record, maybe they should improve their horrific human rights record,” he said. “They can start by ending their oppression of Tibetans, ending their genocide in Xinjiang, and ending their crackdown on democracy in Hong Kong.”   RELATED STORIES Biden signs bill urging China to resume talks over Tibet     Defying China, US lawmakers meet with Dalai Lama Two Americans sanctioned by China say they don’t care US Congress passes bill on reciprocal travel to Tibet   McGovern introduced and was among the key sponsors of the Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Dispute Act, also known as the Resolve Tibet Act, that supports Tibetan self-determination and urges China to resume dialogue with the Dalai Lama or his representatives to reach a peaceful resolution to the dispute between Tibet and China.  It also empowers the U.S. State Department to counter China’s disinformation about Tibet and encourages the Chinese government to “address the aspirations of the Tibetan people regarding their distinct historical, cultural, religious and linguistic identity.” A vocal critic McGovern has been a vocal critic of China’s human rights record and a firm Tibet supporter, having spoken out openly in the past on several humanitarian issues, particularly on China’s human rights violations in Tibet and Xinjiang and the impact of Beijing’s assimilation policies on Tibetan cultural, religious and linguistic identity.  Asked whether Beijing’s latest move will result in any change in his stance on Tibet, McGovern responded, “Absolutely not.” The Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, sips tea at the Tsuglakhang temple in Dharamsala, India, Feb. 28, 2023. (Ashwini Bhatia/AP) McGovern was also the author of the Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act which former U.S. President Donald Trump signed into law in December 2018. The law denies Chinese government officials access to the United States if they are responsible for creating or implementing restrictions on American government officials, journalists, independent observers and tourists seeking access to Tibet. China has also imposed sanctions and other restrictions on prominent U.S. citizens. In 2022, Beijing sanctioned U.S. historian Miles Yu and Todd Stein, a deputy staff director of the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China who previously worked as a lobbyist for the International Campaign for Tibet. They were banned from traveling to China or contacting anyone there.  Last year, China also imposed sanctions against Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican, one of the key sponsors of the Resolve Tibet Act who led a U.S. bipartisan congressional delegation to Dharamasala to meet with the Dalai Lama in June.  Prior to the visit, China warned the delegation against making the trip. Later, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian criticized the trip and said the U.S. must not sign the bill into law.  At the time, Lin said China would take steps to “firmly defend its sovereignty, security and development interests.”  Edited by Tenzin Pema for RFA Tibetan and by Roseanne Gerin and Matt Reed.
- [Thailand’s offer of aid to Myanmar gets mixed reaction](https://ij-reportika.com/thailands-offer-of-aid-to-myanmar-gets-mixed-reaction/): A Thai pledge to donate millions of baht to help alleviate a humanitarian crisis in neighboring Myanmar has met with a mixture of gratitude and skepticism from Myanmar’s pro-democracy government in exile. The kingdom will give nine million baht (US$250,000) to the humanitarian center of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, known as ASEAN, Thai Foreign Affairs Minister Maris Sangiampongsa told a regional meeting in Laos on the weekend.  But Kyaw Zaw, spokesperson for the president’s office of the National Unity Government, or NUG, said that while they greatly appreciated Thailand’s gesture, coordinating with the junta alone was not enough to ensure the aid would reach those most in need. “Since most of the desperately in need internal [displaced people] are living in resistance-controlled areas, not the junta,” he told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday. “The coordination with the junta will just give them the photo opportunities and not effectively reach out to the desperately in-need people on the ground.” ASEAN has been struggling to help fellow member Myanmar resolve a bloody crisis triggered by a 2021 military coup, pressing all sides to accept a plan aimed at ending the violence and initiating talks.  But Myanmar’s military has largely ignored the plan and fighting between junta forces and various allied insurgent groups has intensified this year, with the number of internally displaced rising to more than 3 million civilians, according to the United Nations. Since forming its humanitarian corridor into eastern Myanmar in March, ASEAN’s Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management, or AHA Centre, has overseen a Thai shipment of 4,000 aid packages into Kayin state to assist civilians affected by fighting. The AHA Centre has also distributed nearly US$2 million worth of food and hygiene supplies to communities in Myanmar’s Sagaing and Magway regions, as well as southern Shan state and Mon states, ASEAN said in a statement on Saturday.  The earlier Thai aid was initially sent over the border into a part of Myanmar under the control of junta forces and was then transported deeper into the interior.  Thai officials at the time declined to be drawn into a debate on whose territory the aid ended up in but the NUG believes such donations have failed to target populations that are the most seriously affected by conflict. Political analyst Panitan Wattanayagorn shared that view. He told RFA that Thailand’s initiatives regarding Myanmar were not as clear as they were in the past, including the potential use of the humanitarian corridor, because the delivery of aid had become more complicated as the control of territories changed as the course of the war unfolded. “More and more areas are under control of groups that can deliver the support, like the Karen and others,” Panitain said. “Thailand’s participatory role is changing. It’s adopting a more maybe wait-and-see approach, unlike the previous administration.” Parts of western Myanmar have seen critical food and healthcare shortages as junta blockades as part of its effort to battle the Arakan Army insurgent force, which has captured at least nine townships in Rakhine state and one in neighboring Chin state.  RELATED STORIES Myanmar’s civil war has displaced 3 million people: UN ASEAN special envoy to meet Myanmar junta leader ASEAN should admit defeat over Myanmar  Edited by Taejun Kang.
- [Food shortages reported in rebel-controlled areas of Myanmar’s Chin state](https://ij-reportika.com/food-shortages-reported-in-rebel-controlled-areas-of-myanmars-chin-state/): Food and medicine shortages in two townships in Myanmar’s Chin state have worsened in the six months since the Arakan Army took control, causing most residents to leave the area, aid workers and residents said. The ethnic rebel Arakan Army, or AA, drove junta forces out of Paletwa and Samee townships on Jan. 14.  A Paletwa resident, who requested not to be named for security reasons, told Radio Free Asia that people in the township’s urban area have been trading pigs and cattle for rice and other consumer goods over the last several months. “People living in the urban areas can’t travel at all,” he said. “They have no salt, cooking oil or fish paste. They are facing many difficulties in traveling and living.” The AA has been fighting the military junta as it seeks self-determination for the Buddhist ethnic Rakhine population in western Myanmar. Bags of rice are donated to Kaki Swar Refugee Camp in Palatwa township, June 19, 2024. (Paletwa IDPs and Humanitarian Supporting via Facebook) In Paletwa, ethnic Chin residents have had to seek permission from the AA to travel from their homes to their farms in the township’s rural areas, residents told RFA. That has created difficulties for residents trying to make a living, they said. RFA was unable to contact AA spokesperson Khaing Thukha for comment on the shortages.  For the last seven years, Paletwa and Samee township residents have been importing fuel and basic consumer goods from India’s Mizoram state through the Kaladan River, which flows into Myanmar. But last month, an influential Indian civil society organization – the Central Young Lai Association – called for a halt to the transport of goods from Mizoram state to AA-controlled areas in Chin state, citing the AA’s treatment of ethnic Chin people. That has caused a severe shortage of fuel and basic foodstuffs in northern Rakhine state and in some areas of Chin state, residents said. Since January, many residents have since taken refuge in Mizoram state, while others have moved through neighboring Rakhine state to Myanmar’s commercial capital, Yangon. Due to unstable phone lines and internet communication, the exact number of residents left in Paletwa and Samee townships was unknown. But relief workers said only one-third of residents are still living in the urban areas of the two townships. Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Matt Reed.
- [Philippines to get US$500M in defense infusion from Washington](https://ij-reportika.com/philippines-to-get-us500m-in-defense-infusion-from-washington/): The United States on Tuesday announced an “unprecedented” $500 million infusion to help the Philippines defend its shores amid increasing territorial threats from China, as the American and Filipino defense and diplomatic chiefs met in Manila. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken made the announcement after meeting with their Filipino counterparts, Gilbert Teodoro and Enrique Manalo, at a so-called “2+2” meeting in the Philippine capital. It was the first time the meeting was held in the Southeast Asian country, a key U.S. ally in the region that has opened nine military bases to American troops. “[W]e are taking bold steps to strengthen our alliance,” Austin told a press briefing after nearly four hours of closed-door talks. “We are poised to deliver a once-in-a-generation investment to help modernize the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine Coast Guard. We are working with the U.S. Congress to allocate 500 million dollars in foreign military financing into the Philippines,” he said. The Pentagon chief described this level of funding as “unprecedented,” saying “it sends a clear message of support for the Philippines from the Biden administration, the U.S. Congress and the American people.” Separately, the U.S. was looking to double its investment in Philippine military sites where American troops have access to under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, Austin said. “President Biden’s budget request this year includes more than 128 million dollars to fund important EDCA infrastructure projects and U.S. government investment in these locations,” he said. “During our meeting we also reaffirmed that the Mutual Defense Treaty remains the bedrock of our alliance,” Austin said. “And let me be clear: the Mutual Defense Treaty applies to armed attacks on either of our armed forces, aircraft or public vessels anywhere in the South China Sea.” Signed in 1951, the treaty calls on the allies to come to each other’s aid in times of foreign aggression. The Philippines maintains an old, rusting World War II-era ship, the BRP Sierra Madre, in Second Thomas (Ayungin) Shoal, to serve as its military outpost in the disputed South China Sea reef. Marcos meets with Austin, Blinken President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. set the tone for Tuesday’s 2+2 meeting when he met Austin and Blinken at the Malacañang presidential palace earlier in the day. He said he was pleasantly surprised that both secretaries had taken time out to visit Manila despite the political transition in the U.S. “And I am always happy that these communication lines remain very open – all the things we are doing together in terms of alliance, in terms of the specific context of our situation here in the West Philippine Sea … are constantly examined and re-examined so we are agile in terms of our responses,” Marcos said, referring to South China Sea waters within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. Blinken said the meeting was evidence of a “steady drumbeat of very high-level engagements” between the longtime allies. Austin underscored that both nations were “more than allies” and practically family.  “We have common interests, common values,” he told Marcos, according to transcripts released by the presidential palace. “And so I think we’ve done a lot over the last three and a half years to continue to strengthen our alliance, and we look forward to continuing to work with you and your team to move even further.” (From left) U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Philippine Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo and National Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro pose for the cameras after holding foreign and defense ministerial meetings at Camp Aguinaldo in Manila, July 30, 2024. (Jason Gutierrez/BenarNews) Last week, the Philippines and China agreed on an arrangement on Filipino missions to Ayungin to “de-escalate” tensions in the sea region after an incident last month during which a Filipino serviceman lost a thumb during a violent encounter with Chinese coast guard and navy forces. Following the agreement, the Philippines last Saturday transported a fresh batch of Filipino forces to the BRP Sierra Madre. It went ahead without any incident, but the Chinese subsequently said it allowed the mission to go through after confirming on the scene that the Filipino vessel only carried “humanitarian living necessities.” The details of the arrangement have not been made public, but the Philippines disagreed with China’s version of events. Geopolitical analyst Julio Amador IIII said China was playing up to an international audience that the Philippines had “acquiesced” to its demand but that in truth, “it was purely a diplomatic spin.” “Beijing cannot help itself in this regard because it has to show that it did not bend to a weaker competitor,” Amador told RFA affiliate BenarNews, stressing that Manila was right in responding quickly to any Chinese claims. He said the “2+2” meeting indicated how serious the U.S. was in addressing what it sees as a security threat posed by China. “The 2+2 is the ministerial level alliance management mechanism that provides direction to both countries in working together as security and defense allies,” he said, adding that the U.S. $500 million funding would likely go towards supporting the Philippine military’s modernization program. “This is the single biggest support that the Philippines will receive from the U.S. in FMF [foreign military financing]. It will address previous comments from Manila that non-U.S. allies actually get more support than actual allies.” BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.
- [Authorities in Xinjiang rearrest son of prominent Uyghur businessman](https://ij-reportika.com/authorities-in-xinjiang-rearrest-son-of-prominent-uyghur-businessman/): Authorities in Xinjiang rearrested the son of a prominent Uyghur businessman two days after he was released from “re-education” in March and days before before his wedding, two relatives with knowledge of the situation told Radio Free Asia. Abuzer Abdughapar, 24, who worked at a car dealership in Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi, was rearrested on March 25 by public security authorities, said his uncle Abdusattar Abdurusul, citing information from other relatives in Almaty, Kazakhstan. He was supposed to get married on May 11, an event to which his relatives in Almaty had been invited, Abdusattar said. The reason for Abuzer’s arrest is unknown, and authorities have not informed Abuzer’s family about his whereabouts. Abuzer was first arrested and detained in 2017 in his hometown of Ghulja – or Yining in Chinese – after spending a year studying Turkey. He was sent to a “re-education” camp and released nearly a year later.   His rearrest is an example of how authorities are apprehending Uyghur detainees, who have already served time in “re-education” camps or prisons, under various pretexts to eliminate what Chinese authorities deem “threats to national security.”  Among those rearrested are entrepreneurs and philanthropists, and Uyghurs who have traveled abroad, especially to Muslim countries. Abdughapar Abdurusul in an undated photo. (Courtesy of Abdusattar Abdurusul) “I heard there [was] a 100-day clearance going on which entailed the rearrest of people who were arrested and released before,” Abdusattar said. “The Chinese government is trying to erase us.”   Mutallib, the Almaty-based older brother of Abuzer’s grandmother, confirmed the young Uyghur’s rearrest. “We heard he was arrested on March 25 and that he has not been released,” he said. “The wedding was paused as well. Up to now, we don’t know his whereabouts or the reason for his arrest.” Chinese police officers at the Public Security Bureau in Urumqi refused to answer questions about Abuzer’s rearrest when contacted by RFA. Father arrested in 2018 His father tried to bribe authorities in Urumqi to release Abuzer, but they lied to him and disappeared after receiving the money, Abdusattar said. In 2018, authorities also arrested Abuzer’s father, Abdughapar Abdurusul, a prominent philanthropist and owner of a multimillion-dollar import-export company in Ghulja that does business with Kazakhstan, for taking an unsanctioned Muslim pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia and “tax evasion,” Abdusattar said. They also detained Abuzer’s mother, Merhaba. The family’s fixed assets, companies and houses worth more than several hundred million dollars were confiscated, he said. Merhaba later died in a “re-education” camp. Abdughapar had been sentenced to death, but was released in 2020, said his older brother Abdusattar, a businessman who lives in Europe. Abdusattar said he believes that Abuzer and Abdughapar were released after he went public about their detentions via Western media, including RFA. Authorities re-arrested Abdughapar a second time in summer 2021, but released him a few months later, his brother said. The cause of his arrest is unknown. Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Matt Reed.
- [Floods force 20,000 people from homes in Myanmar’s Bago](https://ij-reportika.com/floods-force-20000-people-from-homes-in-myanmars-bago/): Flooding triggered by torrential downpours has forced about 20,000 people from their homes in the Myanmar city of Bago and they now face a dire shortage of water and food with more rain expected, aid workers and residents said on Monday. A child was swept away and drowned near Bago, which is famous for its Buddhist temples, about 80 km (50 miles) north of the former capital of Yangon, after days of relentless rain, residents said. The flooding has compounded misery for many people struggling to get by in an economic crisis in the wake of a 2021 military coup that plunged the country into bloody turmoil. “The flood hasn’t subsided. I don’t know how to express the hardships, the flooding amidst the political crisis. We’re facing shortages of food and medicine,” a Bago resident, who declined to be identified for fear of reprisals for talking to the media, told Radio Free Asia. Floods in Bago in Myanmar on July 29, 2024. (RFA) Aid groups said 20,000 people have been forced from their homes since Friday, with residents of the Ah Htet Zaing Ga Naing Gyi, Kyun Tharyar, Kyauk Gyi Su and Pon Nar Su neighborhoods particularly hard hit. “Those neighborhoods are flooded up to the height of bamboo,” said an official with a Bago-based social aid group, who also declined to be identified. “There’s an urgent need for clean drinking water and food for the evacuees,” said the official, adding that some people who had sought shelter in a relief camp were forced to move again when the waters kept rising. The junta that seized power in 2021 said in a notice in the state-owned Myanmar Alin newspaper that 27 flood relief camps had been opened and military authorities in Bago had helped 18,210 people evacuate and were providing assistance to them. A child from a family already displaced by fighting was killed in the town of Mone, to the north of Bago, when fast-flowing flood waters washed away a river bank, residents said. “They were fleeing the war and were sheltering in the forest when the child was washed away. The body was found near Kyaung Su village,” said the first Bago resident. Meteorological officials said early on Monday that the flood waters in Bago could rise by another six inches over the next day and would remain above the danger level for some time.  Floods in Bago on July 29, 2024. (RFA) To the east of Bago, the Sittaung River, one of the main rivers flowing south through central Myanmar to the ocean, had overflowed and flooded communities along its banks, residents of the area said. Even further to the east, flooding in Myawaddy township on the border with Thailand killed three people &#8211; a child and two men &#8211; on Saturday when a border river burst its banks, residents said. Flooding in northern Myanmar’s Kachin state displaced thousands of people early this month. The military council’s Meteorological Department and the Hydrological Directorate announced on Sunday that 12 cities across Myanmar faced flooding.  Editing by RFA staff.
- [Laos, Thailand mark first direct passenger train between Bangkok, Vientiane](https://ij-reportika.com/laos-thailand-mark-first-direct-passenger-train-between-bangkok-vientiane/): The first direct passenger train between Bangkok and Vientiane arrived earlier this month.  Previously, passengers could ride from Bangkok to the Thai city of Nongkhai on the border with Laos. But now they can travel straight into Vientiane – and also have the option of transferring to the high-speed rail line that travels north to Kunming in southwest China.  The first State Railway of Thailand train began servicing the route on July 19. A return train on July 20 left Vientiane at about 6:25 p.m. and arrived in Bangkok at about 7:35 a.m. the next day.  Prices ranged from between 158,000 kip (US$7) to 560 million (US$24) kip. It was so popular that officials added an additional carriage after passengers bought most of the available tickets. “I always commuted by train when I was studying,” one Lao passenger told Radio Free Asia. “I wanted my kids to take this train, so they could experience it.” Eventually, passengers could travel from Bangkok and Vientiane on a high-speed rail line. Earlier this year, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Thailand’s prime minister that he hopes to speed up construction of a high-speed rail line in Thailand that would connect with Laos’ high speed line, which China built in 2021 as part of its Belt &amp; Road Initiative. China has said that it plans to construct and connect a 3,000-kms (1,864-miles) pan-Asian railway network, in which Chinese rail lines would extend all the way to the tip of the Malay Peninsula, linking Beijing to Singapore. Edited by Matt Reed.
- [Another day, another fraud case in Vietnam](https://ij-reportika.com/another-day-another-fraud-case-in-vietnam/): The week that Vietnam was in an official state of mourning for Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, whose tenure was centered on a “Blazing Furnace” anti-corruption campaign that toppled dozens of top officials, another big corporate fraud trial began in a Hanoi court.  While its scale and scope pale in comparison to the Van Thinh Phat scandal orchestrated by businesswoman Truong My Lan, who was convicted and sentenced to death in April 2024, the FLC (Finance, Land, and Commerce) scandal is garnering significant media attention.  Trinh Van Quyet, was a young, brash, high-flying tycoon, and briefly in 2021, the country’s wealthiest person.  Established in 2010, his property company, FLC, quickly grew into a sprawling conglomerate with some 17 subsidiaries and affiliated companies in real estate, resorts and golf courses, as well as Bamboo Airways, once the second largest privately-owned airline in the country.   Quyet, 49, was arrested in March 2022 along with his two sisters for stock market manipulation, appropriation of property, and fraud. Authorities arrested 47 other people, including FLC executives and several regulators. In all, 15 relatives are on trial. At least one other FLC executive is at large. FLC Group CEO Trinh Van Quyet holds a model of a Boeing Dreamliner passenger jet at his office in Hanoi, July 30, 2018. (Nhac Nguyen/AFP) Perhaps more importantly, police arrested the former chairman of the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange, Tran Dac Sinh, its director, Le Hai Tra, and two other bourse executives. The four were charged with “abusing positions and powers while performing official duties.” Quyet is accused of running $156 million “pump and dump” stock fraud between May 2017 and January 2022. He had his two sisters and 43 other family members establish some 500 different brokerage accounts.  False documents Quyet and his family members traded FLC stock amongst themselves at a frenzied pace, creating the perception of demand and causing the price to soar. On many occasions, his sister would cancel a stock purchase at the last minute, having already created the impression that the shares were in demand. In another scheme, from 2014-2016, Quyet had family members and employees at another subsidiary, FLC Faros Construction, falsify documents to make it look as though they were making investments and increasing the firm’s charter capital from VNĐ1.5 billion ($59,000) to VND4.3 trillion ($169 million).  Thus when the once loss-making private company was publicly listed, which was only possible because of the intervention of corrupt bourse officials, it appeared to be worth significantly more than it was.  Police escort FLC Group CEO Trinh Van Quyet to court on July 22, 2024, for his trial on fraud charges in Hanoi. (Anh Tuc/AFP) Quyet and other defendants quickly sold the 391 million of 430 million shares that they controlled, netting $142 million, and collapsing the stock price for other investors. All in all, the various schemes resulted in the six listed FLC companies seeing the value of their shares rise between 70% and 1,700%.   In addition to the fraud, Quyet sold large shareholdings without notifying financial regulators, a requirement for corporate executives. In January 2022, he sold nearly 75 million shares of FLC stock, collapsing share prices, and prompting the Ministry of Public Security to open an investigation.  RELATED STORIES Mendicant monk Thích Minh Tuệ offers an embarrassing contrast to Vietnam elites Breaking the laws of the land: Vietnam’s real estate scandals Ouster of parliament chief bares Vietnam corruption, power struggle Cleaning house in the Communist Party of Vietnam ahead of Tet Meet To Lam, Vietnam&#8217;s Communist Party chief and successor to Nguyen Phu Trong  Regulatory shortfalls The FLC case matters for three reasons. First, it was only possible because the regulators were in on the fraud. As was the case in Truong My Lan’s massive fraud case at Saigon Commercial Bank, the scheme was abetted by poorly paid regulators.  This once again raises the question “who regulates the regulators?” If Vietnam cannot get a baseline financial regulatory system running, it will negatively impact its domestic capital markets, corporate governance, and deter foreign investment.   While the Ministry of Public Security did a good job in investigating the fraud, as they did with Lan’s Van Thinh Phat (VTP) and Saigon Commercial Bank, it never would have gotten to this point if there was proper regulatory oversight. Second, while Vietnam’s stock market is not that large, it stands as one of the few opportunities for Vietnamese citizens to invest their money.  With a lack of confidence in their currency, Vietnamese tend to buy gold. In fact, in the past half year, the price of gold in Vietnam was trading well above international prices. The government had to auction off some of its gold reserves just to cool the market.  A woman displays gold at a shop in Hanoi, Oct. 11, 2009. (Kham/Reuters) Vietnamese also buy real estate, but that’s not always a safe investment. The domestic real estate market in Vietnam resembles China’s in many ways. Many property firms are saddled with debt and have defaulted, especially on dollar-denominated bonds.  A domestic credit crunch caused by the VTP scandal in late 2022 led to even more defaults and stalled real estate projects. Many Vietnamese were left paying mortgages on unfinished real estate that they could neither inhabit, nor rent.  The third place Vietnamese park their savings is in the stock market. The majority of shares in the Vietnam stock market are owned by individual, not institutional, investors. So when there is widespread fraud, it really hurts the burgeoning middle-class.   Quyet’s fraud was fairly simple, but the effects were widespread: There were nearly 100,000 victims. Although Quyet has paid some $8.3 million in restitution, it’s a drop in the bucket.  Cost to taxpayers Third, the FLC fraud trial has an impact on the larger economy.  The company – which is one of the largest private companies in the country – is still in operation, but barely.  The Ho Chi Minh Stock exchange delisted the company due to the fraud. Trading...
- [North Korea to sell gambling rights at vacant 105-floor Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-to-sell-gambling-rights-at-vacant-105-floor-ryugyong-hotel-in-pyongyang/): A North Korean hotel which has been under construction for 37 years has plans to sell the rights to operate a casino on the premises if the operator promises to complete construction of the building’s interiors, a resident of the capital Pyongyang told Radio Free Asia. The 105-floor Ryugyong Hotel began construction in 1987 and at 330 meters (1,080 feet), it is the tallest building in North Korea and the most iconic structure in Pyongyang’s skyline. Though it was supposed to open in 1992, the collapse of the Soviet Union ended the steady stream of aid from Moscow, and the North Korean economy entered a period of crisis that culminated in the 1994-1998 famine, so finishing the hotel became less of a priority. External construction was completed in 2011 and the Ryugyong was supposed to open partially in 2013, but those plans fell through. Though it remains vacant, LEDs have been installed on one side of the building’s facade, converting it into one of the world’s largest displays. It’s currently used to show propaganda signage, visible from much of the city at nighttime. Gamblers play a slot machine in Pyongyang, April 12, 2012. (Pedro Ugarte/AFP) “A plan to install a casino at the Ryugyong Hotel has been reviewed,” a resident of the capital told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The plan is to try to attract foreign investment.” The review happened after the country’s leader Kim Jong Un ordered that the government take practical measures to promote tourism, according to the resident.  “The authority to determine the location of the casino to be installed at the hotel and the right to operate the casino will be granted to a foreign entrepreneur who invests in the cost of internal construction,” he said.   “This project was approved by the Central Committee after reviewing and discussing the profitability of the casino installed at the Yanggakdo Hotel, also in Pyongyang.” The Yanggakdo is North Korea’s first luxury hotel, opened in 1996. It is perhaps most well known as the site of the 2016 Otto Warmbier banner-stealing incident that led to the U.S. citizen’s detention and eventual conviction and 15-year prison term. Warmbier was repatriated in a vegetative state in June 2017 and died shortly afterward. Authorities hope to capture the success of the foreigners-only casino at the Yanggakdo in the Ryugyong. Light designer Kim Yong Il smiles during an interview with the Associated Press as his creation, the light show displaying propaganda messages on the facade of the pyramid-shaped Ryugyong Hotel, is seen in the background in Pyongyang, North Korea, Dec. 20, 2018. (Dita Alangkara/AP) Casinos in North Korea are very profitable for the government, as they siphon away foreign currency from international tourists,  a resident from the northwestern province of North Pyongan told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely.  Currently the country has two such casinos, at the Yanggakdo in Pyongyang and the Bipa Hotel in the Rason Special Economic Zone in the northeast near the border with China and Russia. The 105-storey Ryugyong Hotel, the highest building under construction in North Korea, is seen lit up ahead of 70th anniversary of country&#8217;s foundation in Pyongyang, September 6, 2018. (Danish Siddiqui/Reuters) “When the casino is built at the Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang and the hotel’s accommodations, restaurants, swimming pool, and billiards room are finally completed … tourism in Pyongyang is expected to be revitalized,” the North Pyongan resident said. “This is why overseas investment is desperately needed.”. He said trade representatives would advertise the investment opportunity at a Chinese government-sponsored product exhibition event involving North Korea, China, Russia and Mongolia scheduled to start on Saturday in the Chinese city of Dandong, which lies across the Yalu River from North Korea’s Sinuiju. Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong.
- [Thousands flee junta raids in central Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/thousands-flee-junta-raids-in-central-myanmar/): Myanmar junta forces raided a string of villages in central Myanmar killing three civilians and sending some 10,000 fleeing from their homes after anti-junta insurgents attacked a nearby military base, residents told Radio Free Asia on Friday.  The Sagaing region has been regularly battered by airstrikes and artillery bombardments as junta forces crack down on insurgent groups that have stepped up attacks in the past nine months. On Thursday, about 150 junta soldiers in a convoy of vehicles raided at least nine villages in Kanbalu township, residents said, following an attack on an army camp by members of an anti-junta People’s Defense Force allied with the shadow National Unity Government, which was formed by civilians after the military seized power in a 2021 coup. “After the Kyi Kone Bridge camp was attacked, the army launched an offensive on the villages,” said one resident who declined to be identified in fear of his safety. “The junta troops stationed at Tha Yet Khaung village are burning houses this morning. Revolutionary groups are monitoring the situation,” he said, referring to anti-junta fighters.” Three civilians in Tha Yet Khaung and Tha Pyay Thar villages were killed in junta artillery and drone attacks. Kanbalu district and Ye-U township-based People’s Defense Forces said  they killed 16 soldiers and seized weapons in their attack on the army camp. RFA has not been able to independently verify the claim.  RFA called Nyunt Win Aung, the junta spokesman for the Sagaing region, to request comment on the incident, but he did not answer the phone. RELATED STORIES Junta deploys first round of military recruits to Myanmar’s frontlinesSome 13,700 schools in Myanmar are closed due to civil warMyanmar airstrike on monastery where villagers were sheltering kills 17 activists Sagaing, for years a peaceful heartland region of central Myanmar, inhabited mostly by members of the majority Burman community, has seen unprecedented opposition to the military since the 2021 coup dashed hopes for reform.  In the months that followed, the junta crushed protests against military rule and many activists then took up arms, some linking up with ethnic minority insurgents who have battled for self-determination from remote border lands for decades.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 
- [Lao Christian pastor shot dead in home by masked men](https://ij-reportika.com/lao-christian-pastor-shot-dead-in-home-by-masked-men/): A Christian pastor was shot and killed Tuesday evening in his home in northwestern Laos by two men dressed in black suits, according to a relative and provincial police.  Thongkham Philavanh, in his 40s, was a Khmu, an ethnic group in Southeast Asia, the majority of whom live in northern Laos. As a religious leader, he often participated in Christian church activities in Oudomxay province. The pair fired twice at Thongkham at his home in Vanghay village in the province’s Xai district, according to a statement his wife gave to police. She took him to the provincial hospital, but he died upon arrival.  Police said they are investigating the incident and could not provide further details. Assaults and legal action against Christians in the one-party communist state with a mostly Buddhist population are not uncommon, despite a national law protecting the free exercise of their faith. Those who practice Christianity are objects of suspicion by authorities and subject to persecution. RELATED STORIES Lao house church reopens after being attacked     Burned Bibles and broken homes Officials tell Lao Christians to remove videos of attack by authorities, villagers       Lao Christians fearful after police report no progress in pastor’s suspected homicide Christians attacked, driven from their home in southern Laos      Christian communities in Oudomxay province and other parts of Laos told Radio Free Asia on Thursday they were mourning Thongkham’s loss.  “Last night, our community was shattered by the tragic loss of our beloved pastor, who was senselessly taken from us in an act of violence,” some of them wrote in English on Facebook. “His profound wisdom, unwavering faith, and boundless compassion touched the lives of so many.” A relative of the pastor, who didn’t want to be identified for safety reasons, said the two men wore face masks and rode motorcycles, though she didn’t know where they came from. “I am not sure why they killed him, but I believe that it must be because he serves Jesus Christ,” she said. “One thing that I am sure of is that there are some groups of people who dislike what Thongkham does as Christian pastor.” Thongkham’s funeral will be held on July 27 at the village cemetery, his family said. Lao Christian pastor Thongkham Philavanh is seen in photos in a July 23, 2024, Facebook post. (Bong Vip via Facebook) One Christian believer told RFA that it appears as though Thongkham was killed because he was a Christian pastor and religious leader, and that some people may not have liked that. Another believer who knew Thongkham some years ago said he was unhappy to learn about the pastor’s passing via social media. Other Christian communities in Laos expressed concern about the safety of their pastors and members, fearing they too may be killed.  A member of the Lao Evangelical Church said anti-Christian groups in the country seek opportunities to harm Christians. In October 2022, Christian pastor Sy Sengmany was found dead near a forest in Khammouane province after two men visited his house earlier in the day, and village authorities warned him to stop his religious activities. The case remains unsolved. Translated by Phouvong for RFA Lao. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Matt Reed.
- [Rights group, senator speak up for dissident fighting extradition from Thailand](https://ij-reportika.com/rights-group-senator-speak-up-for-dissident-fighting-extradition-from-thailand/): Pressure built on Thailand Thursday over the detention of a detained Vietnamese dissident fighting extradition back home with one human rights official warning of a stain on the government if it deported him. Y Quynh Bdap, from Vietnam’s Ede minority, was detained on June 11 and is being held in a special prison in Bangkok while a court decides his fate.  In January, Vietnam sentenced the 32-year-old to 10 years in prison in absentia on terrorism charges, accusing him of involvement in 2023 attacks on two public agencies in Dak Lak province in which nine people were killed.  Bdap has been in Thailand since 2018 and denied any involvement in the 2023 attacks. The U.N. refugee agency has recognised him as a “person of concern”. “Put simply, if he is sent back, chances are he dies, disappears, is tortured. That will stain the hands of the Thai government,” Sunai Phasuk, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, told a seminar in Bangkok. The Thai government did not respond to a request for comment from Radio Free Asia. RELATED STORIES Thai court postpones Vietnamese activist’s extradition hearing Rights groups call on Thailand not to extradite Vietnamese activist 10 defendants given life sentences for Dak Lak attacks Sunai said the terrorism charges that Bdap is facing at home did not meet international standards of justice. Referring to a previous military government in Thailand that was intolerant of dissent, he said he questioned the behavior of the civilian administration that replaced it. On July 15, a Bangkok court postponed Bdap’s extradition hearing until Aug. 1, He is also facing an immigration offense related to overstaying his visa. Bdap’s lawyer, Nadthasiri Bergman, told a hearing this month the case reflected intensified transnational repression, through which governments exert their influence across borders to silence dissent. A Thai senator, Angkhana Neelapaijit, told the seminar that Thailand should live up to international standards on human rights, ratify the 1951 Refugee Convention, update its immigration law to take into account enforced disappearance and torture, and insist that all extradition requests from other countries go through its Court of Justice. Thailand and Vietnam have not signed an extradition treaty but regularly exchange each other’s nationals on a reciprocal basis.  Vietnamese officials have not made a public comment on Bdap’s case but Sunai and Bergman said they believed Vietnam was exerting pressure for the extradition case to be resolved in their country’s favor. Edited by Mike Firn.   
- [China hawk to steer Trump’s national security](https://ij-reportika.com/china-hawk-to-steer-trumps-national-security/): Michael Waltz, a Republican congressman from Florida, will be President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for national security advisor&#8211; a position in which he is likely to play an outsized role in shaping China policy. Waltz, 50, has long been hawkish on Beijing. A former Green Beret who served in Afghanistan, the Middle East and Africa, he won several Bronze Stars, including two for valor, for his service. Waltz then worked in policy at the Pentagon and served as an advisor to former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney. In 2018, he was elected to Congress and became known as one of its most hardline members on China. He serves on the House Foreign Affairs, Armed Services and Intelligence Committees. Waltz has also been on the House China Task Force, which examines how the U.S. can best compete with China. He has called for additional support for Taiwan, saying on X in May 2023 that the U.S. should start “arming Taiwan NOW before it’s too late.” In addition, he’s demanded that China put an end to human rights abuses in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and called for the U.S. to boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. Waltz used to feel frustrated by the deferential manner shown by another Republican president, George W. Bush, in the White House Situation Room. In his 2014 book, Warrior Diplomat: A Green Beret’s Battles from Washington to Afghanistan, he wrote of sitting in during a tense videoconference with then-President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and lamenting Bush’s failure to be firmer. “Unfortunately, really sticking it to Karzai was not Bush’s style,” Waltz wrote. The atmosphere in the second Trump White House will be dramatically different. Waltz will move to the front of the Situation Room. And Trump, known for “sticking it to” any number of people, will have his own style. RELATED STORIES China expecting harder times after Trump victory Asian leaders congratulate Trump on US election victory Asians see Trump offering tougher policies on China, despite contradictions Yet Waltz‘s uncompromising views could also create tension with Trump, despite the President-elect signalling that he will be tough on China says June Teufel Dreyer of the University of Miami Coral’ and author of China’s Political System: Modernization and Tradition. Waltz “is distrustful of the People’s Republic of China and its motives,” she says. “He does not believe in the hype that we can work together in peace and friendship.” Trump has threatened to slap tariffs on Chinese goods and sought confrontation with Beijing over intellectual property, technology and other economic issues. Those efforts are likely to continue when he takes office. But at the same time, he has expressed admiration for the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping. He has called Xi a “brilliant guy” and praised him for his success at becoming “president for life.” Teufel Dreyer says that Trump may decide at some point to take a more deferential approach to Xi, and this could cause a rift between Trump and his advisor. “Waltz is not a shrinking violet. He’s willing to speak his mind,” she says. “He’s not going to back down.” The unpredictable nature of the White House has far-reaching implications. So does the track record of the incoming national security advisor and his hawkish views. “There will be efforts to crack down on the bad behavior of China – how they are ripping off American goods, as well as the spying—that’s going to be top of mind for Waltz,” predicts Brett Bruen, a former director of global engagement on the National Security Council in the Obama White House. “If I’m sitting in the Chinese foreign ministry office, these are worrying signs.” Edited by Boer Deng and Abby Seiff We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar junta bombs insurgent-held gem-mining hub killing 9](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-bombs-insurgent-held-gem-mining-hub-killing-9/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. Junta forces bombed a famous ruby-mining town under insurgent control in central Myanmar killing nine people and wounding 13 in a deliberate attack on civilians, an insurgent group official told Radio Free Asia on Tuesday. Junta aircraft bombed three neighborhoods in Mogok on Monday at around 11 p.m. while one of the military’s Russian helicopters also fired into the town for about 30 minutes, they said. “Nine people died. We have to say it really impacted them badly. The junta wasn’t fighting, they were targeting residents,” said Lway Yay Oo, a spokesperson for the anti-junta Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA. The insurgent group is part of a three-member alliance that has made striking gains over the past year in northeast Myanmar against forces of the junta that seized power in 2021. The TNLA has been in control of Mogok, in the Mandalay region, since July. Six men and three women were killed in the air raid, said Lway Yay Oo, adding that a child was among the 13 people being treated for their wounds. Radio Free Asia could not independently verify details of the attack and calls to Mandalay’s junta spokesperson, Thein Htay, went unanswered. TNLA fighters were combing through the rubble of 10 homes that were destroyed in the airstrike, said one resident of the town that has been famed for hundreds of years for its rubies and other gem stones. “They shot directly into residential neighborhoods so everyone is afraid,” said the resident. The Myanmar military has been pushed back in different regions of the country over the past year and has increasingly been resorting to airstrikes, on both insurgent positions and civilian areas, human rights groups say. Between January and October, junta airstrikes killed 540 civilians, according to the advocacy group the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. RELATED STORIES Rebels capture 9 posts in Myanmar’s Mandalay region, open front Myanmar ethnic alliance says offensive will continue until junta overthrown Perhaps it would be better if Myanmar’s civil war became a ‘forgotten conflict’ Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Hong Kong ‘upgrades’ lamppost that matched Tiananmen massacre date](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-upgrades-lamppost-that-matched-tiananmen-massacre-date/): Authorities in Hong Kong have been going to extraordinary lengths to avoid shining a light on some of the more negative aspects of recent Chinese history, and thereby angering Beijing. Officials have changed the name of a lamppost whose official number contained an inadvertent reference to the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. The move suggests local officials are keen to avoid getting into trouble with the ruling Chinese Communist Party, which bans public references to the bloodshed that ended weeks of pro-democracy demonstrations on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, and would prefer to keep the public in the dark. The lamppost is located next to a footbridge between Yu Wing Path and Ma Tin Road in Hong Kong’s Yuen Long district, close to the internal border with mainland China, and was once labeled “FA8964,” which could be read as code for “June 4, 1989,” a politically sensitive keyword that is banned on the Chinese internet. The old number was clearly visible on Google Streetview on Nov. 8, but RFA Cantonese found that the actual number had been changed to “DG8332” in an on-the-ground investigation on the same day, while the lamppost had been repainted with a sign warning of “wet paint.” A lamppost in Yuen Long marked &#8220;FA8964&#8243;—a reference to the June 4 incident—recently had its number changed, sparking criticism. A government database of lamppost locations that is used to help residents report the precise location of crimes showed that lampposts numbered “FA8963” and “FA8966” were still listed, but a query on Nov. 8 for lamppost “FA8964” resulted in the message “data not found.” The city’s Highways Department told Radio Free Asia in response to a query about the disappeared number that lampposts are sometimes given new numbers when new streetlights are installed, their position changed, or the equipment renovated. While Hong Kong isn’t yet subject to China’s Great Firewall of blanket internet censorship, some websites linked to the pro-democracy movement are blocked by internet service providers in the city. The website of the London-based rights group Hong Kong Watch is also blocked. The city has used a High Court injunction to force YouTube and other providers to remove references to the banned protest anthem “Glory to Hong Kong,” and arrested local residents for “seditious” posts on Facebook. While the city’s 7 million residents are able to search Google and other sites for information on the People’s Liberation Army’s 1989 killing of civilians in Beijing, authorities have removed hundreds of books from public libraries in recent years, including those referencing the massacre. Local residents said they thought the lamppost’s “upgrade” was pretty pointless. “Changing the number is just going to draw more attention to it,” former Yuen Long district councilor Kisslan Chan told RFA Cantonese in a recent interview. “But there are always people who want to get promoted.” He said he didn’t think the order had come from higher up, but suggested that local officials were trying to demonstrate zeal amid an ongoing crackdown on public dissent in the city. Former district councilor Leslie Chan said the move showed just how sensitive the authorities were, however, citing the High Court injunction on “Glory to Hong Kong.” “It’s the same reason &#8230; that such a powerful ruling party is afraid of a song,” Leslie Chan said. “Beijing fears the number 8964 more than anything.” A local resident who gave only the surname Chan for fear of reprisals said the move was a waste of public funds. “They could have used that money to help people,” she said. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. RELATED STORIES YouTube blocks banned Hong Kong protest anthem ‘Glory to Hong Kong’ Hong Kong removes hundreds of politically sensitive books from public libraries The 1989 Tiananmen massacre – as seen by a new generation of watchful eyes We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Minister in Myanmar’s ousted government dies days after release](https://ij-reportika.com/minister-in-myanmars-ousted-government-dies-days-after-release/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. A former minister in Aung San Suu Kyi’s ousted government has died shortly after being released from prison, family friends and party colleagues told Radio Free Asia, the latest jailed member of Myanmar’s last elected government to die. Win Khaing, 74, was minister of electricity and energy in the government formed by Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, or NLD, which was overthrown on Feb. 1, 2021, when the generals ended a decade of tentative reform and reimposed hardline military rule. “The respected Win Khaing joined hands with the NLD to make it the best. He was involved in both management and policy reforms and was capable of carrying them out,” said NLD colleague Bo Bo Oo, the party’s deputy chairperson for the Sanchaung township in the main city of Yangon. “The loss of our distinguished Win Khaing is a loss for all Myanmar citizens, the whole country’s loss,” Bo Bo Oo told Radio Free Asia from an undisclosed location. Family friends said Win Khaing died of heart disease and diabetes in hospital late on Friday. He had been released from the infamous Obo Prison in Mandalay on Oct. 28 due to deteriorating health and taken to Mandalay General Hospital. Win Khaing was arrested shortly after the 2021 coup and later jailed for 28 years on corruption charges related to a hydro-power project. Almost all NLD leaders, including Suu Kyi, have been jailed on various charges that they have dismissed as politically motivated. Calls to Myanmar military spokesperson, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, went unanswered. Military-run media did not report Win Khaing’s death but the news spread quickly in Myanmar’s second-biggest city. ‘Military is responsible’ Some residents drew parallels with the death last month of Zaw Myint Maung, another top NLD member who died of cancer days after being released on medical grounds from a lengthy sentence in the same prison. “Of course, they only give amnesty to a person when they know they’re going to die,” said one resident who declined to be identified for security reasons. “People in Mandalay knew he had been released a week before he passed away.” The civilian shadow administration in exile, National Unity Government, or NUG, formed by former NLD members, has criticized the junta officials for failing to provide prisoners with adequate medical treatment. A spokesperson for the NUG, Nay Phone Latt, denounced the “ illegal capture and jailing” of pro-democracy politicians. “The military is completely responsible for this,” Nay Phone Latt said. The death of elderly NLD members raises concerns for the fate of Myanmar’s most popular politician, Suu Kyi. The 79-year-old daughter of the hero of Myanmar’s campaign for independence from colonial rule was also arrested after the 2021 coup. She was sentenced on various charges, that she dismissed as trumped up, and jailed for 33 years though her sentence was reduced to 27 years. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate is believed to be in solitary confinement in prison in the capital, Naypyidaw, but her exact whereabouts are unknown. About 2,000 other NLD members have been jailed by the military regime since the coup along with thousands of other democracy campaigners. Among those to have died in custody was Nyan Win, a top NLD adviser to Suu Kyi, who died of COVID-19 in 2021. A year later, the junta executed former NLD lawmaker Phyo Zayar Thaw, for treason and terrorism charges. RELATED STORIES Myanmar democracy champion Tin Oo, dead at 98 Relative of Myanmar’s ex-dictator arrested over social media posts Over 100 Myanmar political prisoners have died since coup, group says Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Chinese state TV drama about Xi's father fails to impress](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-state-tv-drama-about-xis-father-fails-to-impress/): China’s state broadcaster has launched a historical TV show with an all-star cast dramatizing the role of President Xi Jinping’s father Xi Zhongxun in the communist revolution, although social media reaction and commentators suggest that young people in China would rather watch “Stranger Things.” Read our report on how CCP has established its propaganda using soft power propaganda network : Soft Power Propaganda Network of Chinese Cinema “When the wind blew from the northwest, the revolutionaries &#8230; watered their faith with their own blood and lived their lives in hope,” state broadcaster CCTV said in a Weibo post announcing the launch of the 39-episode TV series with a short trailer on Nov. 5. “I’m Xi Zhongxun,” whispers a youthful version of the revolutionary veteran over footage of idealistic young men saluting the communist flag and charging into battle. “I will forever fight for the struggling masses with all my might,” he pledges over full-costume footage of historic battles amid the yellow dust of northwest China, with red flags appearing in nearly every shot. “I make revolution with the Communist Party because it’s through them that I saw the light of truth, and was given something to fight for,” the character says. Later, the narrator intones: “Xi Zhongxun, a leader of the people who came from the people,” followed by a shot in which the elder Xi plays with his young son, Xi Jinping, driving home a political point about the current Chinese leader’s lineage. Personality cult The show comes amid growing signs of a Mao-style personality cult around Xi, as institutions and political figures compete to show the utmost loyalty to Xi and his personal brand of political ideology, including via propaganda movies and TV shows. The latest show, titled “The Northwest Years,” tells the story of the elder Xi’s role as a young man in the war against the Japanese in the country’s northwest, defending China’s borders and promoting land reforms to free farming communities from the yoke of local landlords. Chinese President Xi Jinping, on screen, delivers a speech during the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on July 1, 2021. “Nobody’s going to watch this kind of show unless they have to,” Gao said, adding that the role played by Xi Zhongxun in the 1969 Ninth Party Congress headed by late supreme leader Mao Zedong had been hugely inflated. “Xi Zhongxun was very low-ranking at the time of the Ninth National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, and played a very small role only,” he said. “I saw a scene showing him raising the curtain for Mao Zedong &#8230; which I think is a bit over the top.” But he said audiences were still unlikely to be impressed, despite the lavish costume and set design. “People are no longer interested in these dramas, which have nothing to do with the lives of ordinary people,” he told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview. He said such shows no longer have the captive audiences via free-to-air state broadcasters that they used to enjoy, as people can now go online for their entertainment. A resident of the northern province of Shaanxi who gave only the surname Li for fear of reprisals said Xi Zhongxun was more of a political than a military leader. “Xi Zhongxun’s most important political achievement was to instigate the Hengshan Uprising, which was a rebellion of two divisions of the National Revolutionary Army stationed in Yulin, in all about 5,000 to 6,000 people,” Li said. “This uprising cleared the obstacles for the Yan’an troops to move northward and ensured the safety of Mao Zedong’s troops based in Yan’an,” he said. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Perhaps it would be better if Myanmar’s civil war became a ‘forgotten conflict’](https://ij-reportika.com/perhaps-it-would-be-better-if-myanmars-civil-war-became-a-forgotten-conflict/): It’s become fashionable in some quarters to suggest the three-year-old Myanmar civil war might be solvable if only more people remembered that it was taking place. Julie Bishop, a former Australian foreign minister appointed the UN Special Envoy on Myanmar in April, recently gave her first address to a UN General Assembly committee, in which she warned that “the Myanmar conflict risks becoming a forgotten crisis.” One might enquire by whom this conflict is apparently becoming “forgotten.” One can hardly say with a straight face that it has been forgotten by the 54 million people of Myanmar, nor by the 3.1 million people who have been displaced, nor the million or so Rohingya who must still live in hell-hole refugee camps abroad because they know the military junta wants to finish the genocide it started years ago. It is certainly not forgotten by the people who matter the most. Displaced people from Lashio cross the Dokhtawaddy river as they flee their homes following clashes between Myanmar&#8217;s military and the Ta&#8217;ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), in Zin Ann village between Lashio and Hsipaw township in Myanmar&#8217;s northern Shan state, July 8, 2024 But the claim also invites the question: Would there be any improvement if the conflict was less forgotten? Frankly, if any Western democracy or the UN wanted to intervene, they’ve had several years to do so. If ASEAN wanted to stop play-acting at mediation, it’s had since April 2021 to carve some teeth into the Five-Point Consensus, its unrealized peace plan. Post-colonial settlement This conflict has been raging since February 2021, though some might say, quite accurately, that it has actually been waiting to erupt since the 1950s. Whereas nearly every other Southeast Asian country underwent something like a civil war or democratic revolution after gaining independence from European colonial powers, Myanmar never did so. That process was left stillborne by the military coup of 1962. Because the military has shown that it cannot be trusted to share power with a civilian government, only now, do the people of Myanmar have the possibility of throwing off the foul despotism that has enchained them throughout the post-colonial era. RELATED STORIES newsletter. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of RFA. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Jailed Tibetan community leader denied retrial](https://ij-reportika.com/jailed-tibetan-community-leader-denied-retrial/): Read a version of this story in Tibetan Chinese authorities in Tibet have denied to retry an envirnomental activist who is serving a seven-year sentence for campaigning against government corruption, his lawyer said on social media. Anya Sengdra, 53, a resident of Kyangchu township in Gade (in Chinese, Gande) county in the Golog (Guoluo) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture has already served six years of his sentence for “disturbing social order” after he complained online about corrupt officials, illegal mining and the hunting of protected wildlife. He was convicted and sentenced in 2019, and has attempted to appeal the decision twice before, his lawyer Lin Qilei said in a post on X on Tuesday. “This marks the third appeal for a retrial submitted to the Sixth Circuit Court of the Supreme People’s Court in Xi’an,” Lin said on X. “As usual, I filled out the necessary forms and waited in line. After some time, a judge came out and informed me that they had decided not to review Sengdra’s case,” Lin said. “He advised me not to return to the court regarding this matter in the future.” RELATED STORIES UN Human Rights Experts Call on China to Free Jailed Tibetan Community Leader Tibetan activist detained for exposing illegal sand, gravel mining In 2020, a group of UN human rights experts appealed to the Chinese government, urging them to dismiss the charges against him. Earlier this month, the Chinese authorities detained Tsogon Tsering, a Tibetan environmental activist from Sichuan province after he made a rare public appeal on social media for action against a company he accused of illegally extracting sand and gravel from a river. Tsering has remained in custody since then and his whereabouts are still unknown. Edited by Tenzin Dickyi, Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [UN climate change case ‘particularly relevant’ following Trump election win: lawyer](https://ij-reportika.com/un-climate-change-case-particularly-relevant-following-trump-election-win-lawyer/): An international legal judgment on governments’ obligations to prevent human-driven climate change has become more crucial after Donald Trump’s election victory raised the prospect of the U.S. again withdrawing from the landmark Paris agreement, a lawyer in the case said. The U.N.’s International Court of Justice, or ICJ, is set to begin hearings on Dec. 2 that will culminate in it issuing an opinion on states’ responsibilities and the legal consequences for countries that fail to act. More than 130 nations – but not top polluters China and the U.S. – supported a push by Pacific island nation of written statements ever filed in an advisory proceeding before the court. The court also received dozens of written responses to the initial submissions. It extended the deadline for written submissions several times. China and the U.S. both made written submissions, as have organizations such as OPEC and the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Regenvanu said in a statement Hurricane Milton last month showed the U.S., like Pacific island nations, increasingly faces extreme weather. “This is a shared problem that will not solve itself without international cooperation, and we will continue to make that case to the incoming president of one of the world’s largest polluters,” he said. Edited by Mike Firn. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Climate ‘flashpoint’ looms for Trump’s China-centric focus on Pacific: US analysts](https://ij-reportika.com/climate-flashpoint-looms-for-trumps-china-centric-focus-on-pacific-us-analysts/): Growing U.S. security and diplomatic ties with Pacific island nations are unlikely to slow even if American foreign policy undergoes a major shake-up during Donald Trump’s second term, say former White House advisers and analysts. Following decades of neglect, Washington has in recent years embarked on a Pacific charm offensive to counter the growing influence of China in the region. While Trump’s unpredictably and climate change skepticism could be potential flashpoints in relations, deepening U.S. engagement with the Pacific is now firmly a consensus issue in Washington. Trump is likely to maintain focus on the relationship, experts say, but he will have to prove that U.S. attention extends beyond just security-related matters. “President Trump saw a strategic rationale for increased engagement in the Indo-Pacific and increased engagement in the Pacific islands,” said Alexander Gray, a senior fellow in national security affairs at the American Foreign Policy Council. “While the reality is that the security lens is going to galvanize our commitment of resources and time on the region, it’s important for us to send a message that we have other interests beyond just security,” added Gray, who was the first-ever director for Oceania &amp; Indo-Pacific security at the National Security Council. “We have to show an interest in development, economic assistance and economic growth.” A number of firsts Trump’s first term between 2017-21 contained a number of firsts for relations between the world’s No. 1 economy and Pacific islands. PHOTO President Joe Biden (R) meets with presidents of Pacific island nations at the U.S.-Pacific Island Country Summit in Washington, D.C., Sept. 29, 2022. Paik, who is now a senior fellow with the Australia Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the climate factor would complicate the relationship, but it was unlikely to “completely sink” it. Despite Trump’s open skepticism about dangerous planet warming, U.S. support for resilience efforts across the Pacific might not be affected, some observers said. “The Pacific certainly didn’t agree with us on our macro approach to climate change,” said Gray, who visited the region a number of times, including for the 2019 Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) in Tuvalu. “But we made tremendous progress in advancing our relationships in the region because we were able to talk about resilience issues that affect people day to day.” Shared values, mutual respect Following Trump’s sweeping victory on Tuesday, Pacific island leaders tried to stress their shared interests with the U.S. “We look forward to reinforcing the longstanding partnership between our nations, grounded in shared values and mutual respect,” said Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape. Tonga’s Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni and Fiji’s Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabukia both said they looked forward to advancing bilateral relations and Pacific interests. Pacific island nations have sought to benefit from the China-U.S. rivalry by securing more aid and foreign investment. But they have expressed alarm that their region is being turned into a geopolitical battleground. Reilly said a danger for any new president was treating the Pacific islands as a “geopolitical chess board.” “That’s a terrible way to actually engage and win hearts and minds and build enduring partnerships,” he said. Paik said the U.S. now needs to build on the successes of the first phase of American re-engagement. The U.S. renewed its compact of free association deals with Micronesia, Palau and the Marshall Islands earlier this year, but “some of the implementation is still pending,” she said. The deals give the U.S. military exclusive access to their vast ocean territories in exchange for funding and the right for their citizens to live and work in the U.S. “Some of the embassies have been opened, but we still only have one or two diplomats on the ground,” said Paik. “We still need to open an embassy in Kiribati and potentially other locations. “We need to get ambassadors out to the region. We need a permanent ambassador to the PIF.” No sitting U.S. president has ever visited a Pacific island nation. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Exclusive: How Chinese nationalism is sending jitters through the Arctic](https://ij-reportika.com/exclusive-how-chinese-nationalism-is-sending-jitters-through-the-arctic/): This story was reported with the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. Read their story here On an early morning in late July, a luxury expedition cruise ship, boasting the latest in high-end Arctic travel, made a slow approach to the docks of Ny-Ålesund, a remote settlement in Norway’s Svalbard Islands. At 79 degrees north latitude, Ny-Ålesund is the northernmost inhabited outpost on Earth. Isolated in the Arctic’s desolate winter, it hosts just 30 year-round residents. Newayer, a Chinese travel agency, chartered the vessel for 183 tourists from Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Beijing. Each passenger paid at least $13,000 for a two-week “Three Arctic Islands” tour, marketed as an exclusive opportunity to reach the “top of the Earth,” complete with “the luxury of Chinese hospitality.” Clad in matching red jackets bearing a polar bear logo, the travelers disembarked at their first stop: China’s Yellow River Research Station in Ny-Ålesund. There they marked the 20th anniversary of the station – one of several research facilities established on Svalbard by different nations. More than 100 Chinese tourists waved national flags beneath a Chinese Communist Party-style banner hung on the research station’s door. The travel agency’s blog likened the celebration to “raising the Chinese national flag during the Olympics.” Among the participants, a woman in a People’s Liberation Army, or PLA, uniform was seen saluting and posing for photos. A PLA Ground Force patch is visible on her right arm, two professional cameras are slung over her shoulders. “The big picture of China’s ambitions in the Arctic is that it reflects a clear, long-term strategic goal: China wants to be a significant presence in the Arctic,” says Isaac Kardon, a senior fellow for China Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington D.C. think tank. Since declaring itself a “near-Arctic state” in 2018—despite lacking territorial claims—China has steadily built its presence through legal, military, commercial, and individual channels. Svalbard has become the latest frontline. An Arctic Battleground for Great Powers A remote Norwegian archipelago roughly twice the size of Hawaii, Svalbard lies less than 1,000 kilometers from the North Pole, some 650 kilometers north of mainland Norway. Chinese tourists celebrate for a drone-style video at China’s Yellow River Research Station in Svalbard, Norway, July 2024 Entering the ‘gray zone’ Fan Li, the CEO of Newayer, the tour agency, told RFA and NRK that their tour group informed the research station of its plans to stage a celebration at Yellow River, and to hang banners and wave Chinese flags outside the station. The station never objected or even raised it as an issue. “The staff at the Yellow River Station came out to engage with us, and everyone was quite happy about that,” Li told RFA and NRK. A video of the tour group’s celebration was posted to Newayer’s social media account. It further features eight guests telling the camera that they are PLA veterans and perform coordinated military salutes to China while a patriotic song plays as a soundtrack. Afterward, passengers gathered to share their stories of service in the PLA. Li said that the presence of veterans on board was merely a “coincidence” and that when Newayer realized the connection, the company organized a ceremony and incorporated the clip into its video. According to Li, all of those featured were retired, as it’s difficult for active military members in China to travel abroad. However, one cruise participant, who identifies herself in the video as Yin Liu, was photographed wearing military garb bearing the insignia of the PLA on Svalbard. On camera, Liu says she enlisted in 1976 and fought in Vietnam in 1984 and gave the name of her unit. Ying Yu Lin, an expert on the PLA at Tamkang University in Taiwan, identified Liu’s fatigues as a “Type 21” training uniform issued by China’s Ministry of Defense in 2023. It is restricted to military personnel and would not be accessible to civilians, Lin said. The “Type 21” uniform can be seen on the Chinese Defense Department website. Members of China’s Arctic expedition team, based at the Yellow River Research Station, take a boat out for sampling on the Austre Lovenbreen glacier in Svalbard, Norway, June 22, 2024. Questions of diplomacy But sources familiar with diplomatic discussions say that Norway is unlikely to take a leading role in pushing back against China. “Like many countries, Norway just doesn’t have a lot of equities in its dealings with China,” says Kardon. Overt criticism or perceived slights can cause notable damage, like in 2010, when Beijing banned imports of Norwegian salmon after its Nobel committee awarded the Peace Prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. But as long as that’s the case, room for more muscular tactics in the Arctic will grow. Last month as China celebrated the 75th anniversary of the People’s Republic, the Chinese Coast Guard engaged in joint operations with Russian forces in the Arctic. This was preceded in September by a meeting of Russian and Chinese officials in Beijing to discuss economic development and resource extraction in the region, and earlier, a Chinese and Russian meeting in Svalbard to explore opening a joint research center in Pyramiden, a former Soviet mining hub on the islands. “So if you’re looking for a pattern here, I would say this is the latest version of what China and Russia are trying to do—find a way to get to the red line without crossing it,” says Lanteigne, referring to the Yellow River celebration incident. “It is a very subtle signal, one that really demonstrates that China is now starting to deviate more directly from Norway regarding what is and is not proper activity on Svalbard.” Lanteigne views this as a pressing challenge that the Norwegian government must confront head-on. “I think there needs to be the understanding that with the Arctic beginning to militarize as a whole, Svalbard is caught in it, whether it likes it or not.” Edited by Boer Deng We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Residents of Kamala Harris’s ancestral Indian village are disappointed with her loss](https://ij-reportika.com/residents-of-kamala-harriss-ancestral-indian-village-are-disappointed-with-her-loss/): Residents in Kamala Harris’s ancestral village expressed disappointment at her defeat in the U.S. presidential election but said there is still hope in the future for her and that they feel pride in her participation in the hotly contested presidential race against Donald Trump. Former President Trump, who previously won the November 2016 election, emerged as the victor on Wednesday morning. In Harris’ maternal ancestral village of Thulasendrapuram in Tamil Nadu, India, the frustration among residents, who were saying daily prayers at a temple for her victory, was clear as a Trump win became apparent. “Many people gathered at our temple yesterday to pray for her victory,” Anbarasu, a retired oil company employee, told Radio Free Asia. “Though we’re disappointed by her defeat, she is still young and has future opportunities to run for president.” “On behalf of myself and our villagers, we congratulate Trump and pray that his work benefits the people,” he added. Young businessman Sundar said he was sad about Harris’ loss, though it was still admirable that she competed for the leadership of one of the world’s superpower nations. Assistant village leader J.A. Sudhagar also expressed disappointment over Harris’ loss, despite residents’ many prayers at the local Dharmasastha Hindu temple. He extended congratulations to Trump on his victory “as per our tradition.” Residents of Thulasendrapuram held special prayers and ceremonies at the temple on Nov. 5-6 to support Harris’ candidacy. Meanwhile, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was one of the first world leaders to congratulate Trump on his win. “Heartiest congratulations my friend Donald Trump on your historic election victory,” Modi wrote on X. “As you build on the success of your previous term, I look forward to renewing our collaboration to further strengthen the India-U.S. Comprehensive Global and Strategic Partnership. Together, let’s work for the betterment of our people and to promote global peace, stability, and prosperity.” Several Indians interviewed by RFA said they were pleased with the result and optimistic that Trump’s victory would mean a continuation of his past relationship with Modi when he served as the 45th U.S. president. Their relationship was marked by strong diplomatic engagement, strategic cooperation and personal warmth, despite sporadic spats over tariffs and trade imbalances. “I am happy about Trump winning,” said New Delhi resident Sohan Lal. “I think he is good for India, and he is a friend of Modi.” “If the American president is someone strong, then it is good for the world,” he said, adding that he believed Harris would not be as capable of governing the U.S. as Trump. Manish, who works in the IT industry in New Delhi but only gave his first name, said Trump’s second term as president would be beneficial for the U.S. economy, given his experience as a businessman. Manish also expressed hope that Trump’s good relationship with Modi would continue in the future. Prashant, who also works in the IT industry in India’s capital but gave only his first name, agreed, expressing optimism that U.S.-India relations would reach a new high during Trump’s second presidential term. “I think regardless of Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, whoever is better for India is what matters to us,” he said. Additional reporting by Tenzin Dickyi and Dickey Kundol for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Tenzin Pema, Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [The New Star War? Key to Winning the AI and Semiconductor Race](https://ij-reportika.com/the-new-star-war-key-to-winning-the-ai-and-semiconductor-race/): In March 1983, US President Ronald Reagan delivered his iconic Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) speech, known as “Star Wars,” which ignited an arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union centered on missile defense systems. Today, a similar race is unfolding between China and the United States, this time focused on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its backbone, semiconductors. These technologies are viewed as strategic assets vital to national security, and whoever secures the upper hand will likely dominate global leadership. The U.S. currently holds a technological edge over China in both AI and semiconductors, bolstered by export controls designed to slow China&#8217;s progress. Yet, the geopolitical rivalry is unlikely to subside, regardless of who occupies the White House. The emergence of a “trust alliance” among democratic nations and the push for self-sufficiency within pro-China regimes are expected to accelerate the decoupling of the tech landscape into distinct spheres of influence. The Role of the “CRINK” Group The Halifax Forum’s term “CRINK”—representing China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea—has drawn comparisons to the Axis powers of World War II. However, such an ideological lens oversimplifies the complexities of today&#8217;s geopolitical landscape. Unlike the WWII era, today’s world is deeply interconnected through globalization, with China playing a pivotal role in global manufacturing and supply chains as well as the largest market for those products. China’s economic footprint is significant: it produces one-third of the world’s manufacturing output, including 72% of flat-panel displays, 36% of electronic products like smartphones and PCs, and two-thirds of electric vehicles (EVs). It is also the largest consumer market for EVs, industrial robots, and semiconductor equipment. Any comparison to Cold War dynamics must take into account this interdependence. The CRINK nations, especially China, Russia, and Iran, also control substantial shares of global resources, such as minerals, crude oil, natural gas, and rare earth elements that are critical to global production. Addressing Asymmetric Dependence The West faces a dilemma: how to reduce dependence on China without destabilizing global supply chains. The U.S. and its allies have focused on increasing resilience by diversifying sources of supply, but this strategy only tackles one side of the problem. Without reducing reliance on China as a consumer market, these efforts may fall short. This is not a call for erecting a new “iron curtain” to divide the world but rather a recognition that the democratic world has underinvested in innovation and market development. More must be done to stimulate demand for AI, semiconductors, and related components within trusted allied countries. If new chips made in America and Europe lack viable markets for assembly and sale outside of China, these efforts risk becoming redundant. The Challenge of Enforcement Recent events illustrate the complexity of enforcing tech restrictions.&nbsp;GlobalFoundries&nbsp;was fined&nbsp;by the U.S. Department of Commerce for supplying chips to an affiliate of&nbsp;SMIC, a Chinese semiconductor company on the U.S. Entity List. Similarly, a&nbsp;TSMC chip was discovered in a Huawei processor, highlighting gaps in oversight and the difficulty of monitoring supply chain loopholes. The U.S. approach of adding more companies to the Entity List is akin to a game of whack-a-mole—reactive and unsustainable. Huawei’s founder&nbsp;Ren Zhengfei has underscored this challenge, noting that with 99% of Chinese companies unaffected by U.S. sanctions, workarounds are almost inevitable. Huawei can obtain chips indirectly, buying from third or fourth-tier customers of TSMC, which only comes to light through painstaking reverse engineering. Similarly, SMIC and other sanctioned firms can establish new affiliates to circumvent restrictions, exposing the limits of self-regulation and due diligence. The Motivation Behind SMIC’s Moves While media coverage has focused on the immediate facts, less attention has been given to the motivations behind SMIC’s clandestine purchases from GlobalFoundries. Despite significant investments in expanding mature node capacity with dozens of new fabs, why does SMIC continue to source chips from other manufacturers? This suggests that advanced technology or strategic stockpiling may still be critical for sanctioned entities, or even attempts at technology theft by reverse engineering, revealing deeper vulnerabilities in the current enforcement strategy. The Path Forward for the Democratic Alliance Forming a “trust alliance” that shares technology securely is crucial, but it must go beyond reactive measures. Are there robust mechanisms to prevent sanctioned chips from being falsified and re-entering the global market? Simply adding trade tariffs as a deterrent to China&#8217;s exports may not work. The need to address the&nbsp;asymmetry of both supply and demand dependencies&nbsp;in China cannot be underestimated. The democratic world must shift from a reactive posture to a proactive strategy. This involves investing in innovation, building demand for AI and semiconductors within allied markets, and fortifying tools to track down product sales endpoints and counter falsifications for regulatory frameworks to close loopholes. Without such foresight, the democratic camp risks repeating the fate of the Soviet Union and its allies during the original “Star Wars” era—falling behind due to a lack of comprehensive strategy. By fostering resilience and innovation, the trust alliance can ensure it remains competitive and secure in the evolving geopolitical landscape. About the Author Judy Lin is the Deputy Editor At Large of Taiwan&#8217;s CommonWealth Magazine English Website and founder/editor in chief of TechSoda.online. She has covered Semiconductor, AI, and Geopolitics during her tenure as lead reporter and managing editor of DIGITIMES Asia and Foreign Exchange Market/Macroeconomics for Reuters Taiwan. Source : Link (Investigative Journalism Reportika has obtained the author&#8217;s authorization for reproducing the content).
- [Myanmar junta chief seeks China’s help on border stability](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-chief-seeks-chinas-help-on-border-stability/): Read RFA coverage of these topics in Burmese. Myanmar’s junta leader called on China to help bring stability to their common border on his first visit to his northern neighbor, a year after insurgents in north Myanmar border regions launched an offensive that has raised questions about the sustainability of his military rule. China has extensive economic interests in Myanmar including energy pipelines running across it, from the Indian ocean to southern China’s Yunnan province, and is keen to see an end to the turmoil triggered by a 2001 military coup, when military chief Sen. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing ousted an elected government. Min Aung Hlaing arrived in the city of Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, on Tuesday for talks with provincial officials and regional meetings on investment opportunities. Myanmar’s state media has not reported any planned trip to the capital, Beijing. “The senior general discussed the need to place emphasis on stability of border areas and to accelerate cooperation for stability of border areas so that export and import trade can be conducted,” Myanmar’s military-run Myawady news outlet reported. A three-party insurgent alliance based in Shan state, on the northeastern border with China, made unprecedented gains against junta forces after launching an offensive on Oct. 27 last year, capturing at least five major border trade crossings. Insurgent allies in other parts of Myanmar have also been on the offensive, putting the military under unprecedented pressure and raising questions about the prospects of the military holding onto power. Analysts say China has become frustrated with the junta’s failure to end the chaos and had been reluctant to invite Min Aung Hlaing to visit Beijing, as a mark of its disapproval. While maintaining ties with the Myanmar junta, China also has contacts with the insurgent groups in northern and northeastern Myanmar battling to end military rule. China has called on both sides to negotiate and has offered to help the junta organize an election next year saying it hopes it can help encourage reconciliation. China has also pressed the insurgents to end their war and has closed border crossings to put economic pressure on them. China has also closed its border in some places to civilians fleeing fighting. In September, one Shan state insurgent group, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, which is part of an alliance responsible for major territorial gains from the junta over the past year, agreed to cooperate with China to reduce conflict and to stop its campaign to capture major cities. Political analyst Than Soe Naing said China was likely to maintain its pressure on the anti-junta groups. “I believe China will continue to help the junta and pressure them,” Than Soe told RAdio Free Asika. “They’ll also probably pressure them not to allow people to participate in the Spring Revolution,” he said, referring to the uprising against military rule triggered by the 2021 coup. Residents of Shan state said the latest Chinese restrictions were on the stretch of border controlled on the Myanmar side by the United Wa State Army, a powerful militia that has not battled the junta for decades and is known to have close contacts in China. Residents told Radio Free Asia that China’s closure of the border since Oct. 27 had led to shortages of medicine, fuel, food, electronics and household items causing prices to surge. RELATED STORIES China undermines its interests by boosting support for Myanmar’s faltering junta China border restrictions prompts pricing surge in Myanmar China calls for action after attack on consulate in Myanmar Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [2024 US election live updates: Reactions from Asia](https://ij-reportika.com/2024-us-election-live-updates-reactions-from-asia/): What you need to know The U.S. presidential election is being keenly watched across Asia. The outcome of the race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump will have a major impact on America’s relations with the region on issues like trade, security and climate change. Radio Free Asia reporters will be gauging reactions in Asia and will regularly update this post with what we hear from regular citizens and from governments. For most part, our reporting is from countries that are under authoritarian rule. Hopes run high in Harris&#8217; ancestral village A tiny village located on the other side of the world in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu is offering prayers at the local Hindu temple, hoping for victory for one of their own, Vice President Kamala Harris. Harris, 60, was born in California to an Indian mother and Jamaican father, both of whom immigrated to the United States for higher education. In the village of Thulasendrapuram – where Harris’s maternal grandfather Painganadu Venkataraman “P.V.” Gopalan was born – residents have been gathering each day at the village temple to offer special prayers to the Hindu deity Ayyanar – worshipped in rural parts of Tamil Nadu as a guardian or protector – to watch over Harris. The residents refer to Harris as the “daughter of the land,” and say they feel a deep connection with her because of her ancestral ties to the village. The village is decked out with signs featuring Harris‘s portrait and banners wishing her good luck in the election, which will determine whether or not she will become America’s first female president and first president of Indian descent. “We in this village offer daily prayers for Kamala Harris to win the election,” Aruna Murli Sudhagar, the leader of the village, told Radio Free Asia. Read more of this story Posted at 5:13 pm Eastern on 11/5/24 Take a moment to explore our election coverage Live U.S. election map Deep dive: How would Harris and Trump differ on Asia? China focuses on threat of violent unrest as US voters head to polls US presidential election sparks curiosity in North Korea Vietnamese show interest In Vietnam, social media platforms are abuzz about candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, and at least three newspapers are asking, “Who will be elected U.S. president?” Nguyen Binh, a farmer in the southern province of Dong Nai, expressed surprise that Americans were free to talk openly about elections. He recalled that a number of independent candidates in Vietnam’s 2016 National Assembly election are in prison. “I only wish for one thing: that talented people in Vietnam and virtuous people in Vietnam can run for election fully, openly, and run comfortably without being coerced,” he said. “The right to self-determination belongs to the people with their votes, not from any political party.” Independent journalist Nam Viet said he believes that the interest shown by Vietnamese demonstrates their thirst for democracy. “The commenting, judging, choosing sides&#8230; of Vietnamese people in the U.S. election is sometimes funny, but it shows that a desire for change is still smoldering in the hearts of the nation,” he said. “The people must be rehearsing their right to self-determination,” Nam said, saying Vietnam holds “sham” elections. Posted at 5:34 pm Eastern on 11/5/24 Clockwise from top left, China’s President Xi Jinping, North Korea’s leader Jim Jong Un, Laos Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone and Vietnam’s Communist Party General Secretary To Lam. How do elections work in authoritarian Asian nations? In a world bracing for a close U.S. presidential election result this week, a large swathe of Asia picks its leaders without suspense &#8212; and mostly with little popular participation. Chinese President Xi Jinping was confirmed by the National People’s Congress in March 2013 with 2,952 votes for, one against, and three abstentions. Last year the rubber stamp parliament voted unanimously to give him a third term, putting him on track to stay in power for life. North Korea’s leaders have inherited their power from father to son for three generations. They are technically “elected” – but there is no choice. In 2014, Kim Jong Un was elected to the Supreme People’s Assembly without a dissenting vote with 100% turnout. Fellow communist states Laos and Vietnam pursue their own variations of the same Marxist-Leninist party-state model copied from the Soviet Union, with Hanoi avoiding strongman rule in favor of collective leadership. Cambodia has been dominated by the ruling party of Hun Sen, who banned the main opposition parties in the previous two parliamentary elections. Myanmar held a credible multi-party election in November 2020, a vote that delivered a strong majority to the National League for Democracy of de facto national leader Aung San Suu Kyi. But the military didn’t like the results and staged a coup on Feb. 1, 2021. Read more here. Posted at 5:05 p.m. Eastern, 11/5/2024 We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Malaysia objects to Vietnam’s South China Sea island building: media](https://ij-reportika.com/malaysia-objects-to-vietnams-south-china-sea-island-building-media/): Malaysia has protested over Vietnam’s island building in the South China Sea in a rare negative exchange between the neighbors, Reuters news agency cited Malaysian officials as saying. Late last month, Radio Free Asia reported on Vietnam’s development of an airstrip on Barque Canada reef, an artificial island within the Spratly archipelago that Malaysia also claims. The reef’s landfill area is estimated to have expanded to nearly 2.5 square kilometers (617.7 acres) as of October 2024, more than doubling in a year. Two unidentified officials told Reuters that the Malaysian government sent a letter of complaint to Vietnam’s foreign ministry in early October, before RFA’s report, “but has so far received no reply.” Malaysia and Vietnam are among the six parties that hold overlapping claims in the South China Sea and to its numerous islands and reefs, alongside China, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan. The Philippines has said it was “monitoring” Vietnam’s island-building activities but has not officially protested. The recently leaked letter of complaint, if true, could be a rare point of tension as until now Malaysia has only complained about Vietnamese fishermen’s “illegal activities” in Malaysian waters. Kuala Lumpur claims at least 12 features in the Spratlys, including Vietnam-controlled Amboyna Cay and Barque Canada reef, and Philippines-controlled Commodore and Rizal reefs. Malaysia has a physical presence on five features &#8211; Swallow, Ardasier, Erica, Mariveles and Investigator reefs – which are also claimed by some other parties. Due to the complexity of those overlapping claims, regional countries generally stay quiet about their neighbors’ island building and instead focus their attention on China, which has reclaimed the most land in the South China Sea and completed the militarization of three large artificial islands. Suspected Vietnamese runway on Barque Canada reef, Oct. 2, 2024. Anwar visits China Malaysia has repeatedly rejected China’s claims in the South China Sea, most recently in 2023 over the latest edition of the Beijing-issued standard map of China, which encompasses areas lying off the coast of Malaysian Borneo. Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has reiterated on many occasions that Malaysia would continue to conduct oil and gas exploration in Malaysia’s exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea, despite objections from China. Anwar is in China on an official visit from Nov. 4-7, his third in two years, and observers say the trip signals a closer relationship between Malaysia and its big neighbor. “That may explain if there is any recent friction between Malaysia and Vietnam, which has had big issues with China in the South China Sea,” said Viet Hoang, a Vietnamese maritime expert. The Chinese government has not said anything publicly about the reclamation works done by Vietnam but Chinese analysts have warned about the risk of a new flashpoint. RELATED STORIES Vietnam expands strategic capabilities in South China Sea Increased risk of conflict in South China Sea, forum warns East Asia fails to adopt South China Sea statement amid finger pointing Malaysia is the rotating chair of the Southeast Asian grouping ASEAN in 2025 and its support would bolster China’s confidence in disputed waters, Viet said. For its part, “Anwar’s government seems to view China as a significant economic opportunity and is willing to set aside other issues to pursue this opportunity,” said Ian Chong, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore. However, if Kuala Lumpur managed to carry on with some oil projects it is mainly thanks to the fact that “they’ve had a longer history of conducting such projects and are physically further away from China,” Chong said. Edited by Mike Firn. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [US presidential election sparks curiosity in North Korea](https://ij-reportika.com/us-presidential-election-sparks-curiosity-in-north-korea/): North Korean state media has made no mention of Tuesday’s U.S. presidential election but that hasn’t stopped residents &#8211; particularly traders and executives &#8211; from learning about it and taking an interest, according to sources in the country. While official media outlets, including the Rodong Sinmun, report news from around the world, they regularly omit information about U.S. politics. But three sources in North Korea’s North Hamgyong province told RFA Korean that some residents had heard about the election through foreign radio broadcasts or other means, and were “very curious about it.” A corporate administrative executive in his 40s who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns, said he had learned about the U.S. election “through foreign radio about a month ago.” “[Then,] a few days ago, a close friend told me that there will be a U.S. presidential election in early November, and that former President (Donald) Trump and the current vice president, a black woman, were competing, which surprised me,” he said, referring to Kamala Harris. The administrative executive said that for his friend to know that level of detail about the election, he “must be listening to foreign radio,” without specifying the broadcaster. Several foreign news organizations transmit radio programs into North Korea, including Radio Free Asia and Voice of America. “Not only people who secretly listen to the radio, but also trade workers who frequently travel abroad, executives who attend political lectures, and executives who read ‘reference newspapers’ would generally know about the U.S. presidential election,” he said. RELATED STORIES North Korea orders wartime readiness during joint U.S.-South Korean military drills North Korea brushes off any hope of better U.S. ties under Trump Possible ICBM launch or nuclear test by North Korea close to U.S. presidential election North Korea occasionally informs the general public about international situations, he said, noting that publications such as “reference newspapers and communications” are published separately by the official Korean Central News Agency, subject to approval by the government. Many ordinary North Koreans are aware of Trump, who met for talks during his 2016-2020 presidency with the country’s supreme leader, Kim Jong Un. “There are many ordinary citizens who are curious about the international situation and the United States,” he said. “This is because they know that the United States is the wealthiest and most militarily powerful superpower on Earth and that its role is crucial in adopting U.N. sanctions resolutions and designating state sponsors of terrorism.” The administrative executive said that details about what sanctions are imposed on North Korea by the U.S. are published in periodicals criticizing Washington, including a book called “Common Sense for Journalists,” which anyone can read. Views were mixed on whether North Korea would fare better if Trump, a Republican, or Harris, a Democrat, were elected. “People often say that Republicans are hardliners and Democrats are moderates,” he said. “On the other hand, some people say that having a Republican in power would be beneficial to us as in the past economic sanctions and other restrictions were often eased when Republicans were in charge.” Split on expected impact Another source from North Hamgyong‘s Hoeryong city, who also declined to be named, told RFA that while ordinary residents who are struggling to earn a living don‘t know much about the U.S. presidential election and aren’t interested in international affairs, “it seems that there are still quite a few people who know about [the election].” “At a drinking party with four [close] friends there was talk that Trump, who sat down with Kim Jong Un for talks, was running in the U.S. presidential election again,” said the man in his 40s. “Only one of the four friends was unaware of the election,” he said. “I think they found out about it through foreign radio, people who went abroad to earn foreign currency, or Chinese people I have connections with.” People hold signs ahead of Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance speaking during a rally on Nov. 3, 2024, in Derry, New Hampshire. Meanwhile, “the party has repeatedly spread negative propaganda against former U.S. President Donald Trump to the public &#8230; because no results were achieved through the North Korea–United States Singapore summit in June 2018 and the Vietnam Summit held in February 2019,” he said. Another official in North Pyongan province told RFA that trade organizations and economists are “very interested” in the election because it could drive fluctuations in prices and the global economy, which affect life in North Korea. “Those who are involved in large-scale businesses or are affiliated with national trade institutions have a slight hope that the domestic economy will recover through this U.S. presidential election,” he said. But the average citizen has little interest, he said, “because their lives have never improved, regardless of who is president.” Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Vietnamese fishermen in China’s detention for six months: think tank](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnamese-fishermen-in-chinas-detention-for-six-months-think-tank/): Vietnamese fishermen have been in Chinese detention in the Paracel archipelago for more than six months, a Chinese think tank has reported, days after Vietnam demanded that China release all detained fishermen and their boats and stop its harassment of them. The Beijing-based South China Sea Probing Initiative, or SCSPI, a government-sanctioned think tank, said on the social media platform X that the fishermen “were detained in April and May” for illegally fishing activities in the waters around the Paracels. It did not provide other details including the number of detainees. Vietnam, China and Taiwan all claim sovereignty over the island chain, known as Xisha islands in Chinese and Hoang Sa in Vietnam, but Beijing has been controlling the entire area since 1974, after defeating troops of the then South Vietnam government. RELATED STORIES Vietnam says China attacked fishing boat near disputed islands EXPLAINED: What are the Paracel Islands and why are they disputed? Vietnam accuses China of ‘illegal detention’ of South China Sea fishermen Last week, a Vietnamese foreign ministry spokesperson said Hanoi had “resolutely” protested and demanded China “immediately release all the fishermen and fishing vessels, appropriately compensate them for the damages and stop the harassment against Vietnamese fishermen” without giving any further details. Vietnam says that the Paracels have been a traditional fishing ground for generations of its fishermen but China has been stopping and expelling Vietnamese vessels from the waters around the islands, and sometimes detaining them and demanding fines. A fisherman (C) receives medical treatment upon his arrival home, after his boat was rammed and then sunk by Chinese vessels near disputed Paracels Islands, at Ly Son island of Vietnam&#8217;s central Quang Ngai province May 29, 2014. Last month, Vietnam said Chinese law enforcement personnel boarded a fishing boat from Quang Ngai province and beat the crew with iron bars, seriously injuring four of them, prompting the Vietnamese government to publicly protest. ‘Destructive’ fishing activities The SCSPI said that the Vietnamese fishermen were detained for “harvesting live corals, electrofishing and other environmentally destructive activities.” It also published photos that it said showed explosives and detonators used by Vietnamese fishermen in the Paracels. On Nov. 1, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told a press briefing in Beijing that China hoped Vietnam would “earnestly raise the awareness of its fishermen and make sure they will not engage in illegal activities in waters under China’s jurisdiction.” Vietnamese authorities insisted that, as the Paracel islands belong to Vietnam, it is within the fishermen’s rights to operate in the archipelago’s waters. This year, the Quang Ngai provincial government told media that most of the fishing boats from the province used non-destructive methods such as trawling, line fishing and diving. The Asian Maritime Transparency Initiative, or AMTI, a U.S. think tank, said as for trawling, “China and Vietnam account for the largest share of overall fish catch in the South China Sea.” In its report ‘Deep Blue Scars’ from Dec. 2023, AMTI also accused China of causing the most coral reef destruction in the South China Sea through dredging and land fill, burying roughly 4,648 acres (18.8km2) of reefs.” Vietnam came second with 1,402 acres (5.7km2). Chinese fishermen have also been using an extremely harmful method of “dragging specially made brass propellers” to dig up reef surfaces for giant clam harvesting, AMTI’s report said. Edited by Mike Firn. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [EXPLAINED: What is China’s United Front and how does it operate?](https://ij-reportika.com/explained-what-is-chinas-united-front-and-how-does-it-operate/): Evidence is mounting of clandestine Chinese influence operations in the heart of America. Just in the last few months, a former aide to the governor of New York state and her husband were arrested for alleged illicit activities promoting the interests of China; a Chinese democracy activist was arrested and accused of spying for China; and a historian was convicted of being an agent for Beijing. The three separate cases of former Albany functionary based on expert testimony. United front groups often have innocuous sounding names, like the Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification or the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries. Many appear to be ordinary overseas Chinese community organizations, and are found in business and even in multinational corporations. Lurking behind or within them, though, are government or party agencies – very often China’s powerful intelligence, security and secret police agency. “United front groups are used – very specifically – to hide the Ministry of State Security,” said Peter Mattis, head of the non-profit Jamestown Foundation. “This is why I like to think of the United Front Work Department as the tall grass that is sort of deliberately cultivated to hide snakes,” he told RFA. What is the history of China‘s ’united front’ work? Under the Moscow-led Comintern in the 1920s, the Chinese Communist Party adapted Soviet revolutionary Vladimir Lenin’s concept of forming a “united front” – forging temporary alliances with friends and lesser enemies in order to defeat greater enemies. After Mao Zedong’s Communists took power in 1949, united front work focused internally on co-opting Chinese capitalists and intellectuals, who were brought to heel and persecuted in the 1950s under Mao’s vicious ideological campaigns. Supporters await the arrival of Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to Kings Park in Perth, Australia, June 18, 2024. Citizens of Taiwan have for decades been pressured by united front efforts to support unification with the Communist-controlled mainland. The recent imposition of draconian national security legislation in Hong Kong has made citizens and exiles who oppose those authoritarian steps in formerly free Chinese territory targets of united front pressure. These targets are not alone and the list is growing, with Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand also grappling with Chinese influence campaigns that smack of united front work. “There’s no clear distinction between domestic and overseas united front work: all bureaus of the UFWD and all areas of united front work involve overseas activities,” the report from Australia’s ASPI said. “This is because the key distinction underlying the United Front is not between domestic and overseas groups, but between the CCP and everyone else,” it said. The Chinese Embassy in Washington told Radio Free Asia that the United Front’s domestic role is to “promote cooperation between the (Communist Party) and people who are not members of it.” Outreach to the diaspora “helps give full play to their role as a bridge linking China with the rest of the world,” the embassy spokesperson’s office said in an e-mailed statement. “Its work is transparent, above-board and beyond reproach,” it said. “By making an issue out of China’s United Front work, some people are trying to discredit China’s political system and disrupt normal exchange and cooperation between China and the United States.” Additional reporting by Jane Tang of RFA Investigative. Edited by Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [China Honors Wei Guoqing Tied to Cannibalism in Full-Honors Burial Ceremony](https://ij-reportika.com/china-honors-late-general-linked-to-cultural-revolution-cannibalism/): Beijing, China — The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) recently reburied the ashes of Wei Guoqing, a founding general of the People’s Liberation Army and former regional party chief in Guangxi, with full honors, despite his notorious association with atrocities during the Cultural Revolution. The high-profile burial ceremony, held on October 24 at Beijing’s Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery—a final resting place for China’s top leaders and revolutionary heroes—was attended by relatives of late revolutionary leaders Zhu De and Peng Dehuai. Wei’s legacy is overshadowed by his role in the brutal Guangxi Massacre, where factional violence during the Cultural Revolution led to the deaths of an estimated 100,000 to 150,000 people through methods like beheadings, stoning, drowning, and even cannibalism. Investigative Journalism Reportika recently highlighted similar cases in its report on China’s Soft Power Propaganda Network, which examines how the CCP shapes narratives by honoring figures with violent histories while downplaying their actions to project a cohesive revolutionary image. Public Outrage and Satire News of Wei’s burial sparked outrage on Chinese-language social media, with comments characterizing Wei as a &#8220;butcher&#8221; and satirizing the CCP’s willingness to honor a figure associated with such violence. One user on X (formerly Twitter) remarked, “Babaoshan is already packed full of demons and monsters – there’s always room for one more,” while another joked, “Paying tribute to a legendary gourmet,” accompanied by an image of Wei with a fictional KFC backdrop. These comments reflected disgust, referencing notorious fictional killers and highlighting the lasting resentment in Guangxi over his legacy. Symbolism and Political Commentary Experts suggest the burial of Wei’s remains is politically symbolic. Feng Chongyi, a professor at the University of Technology in Sydney, argued that honoring Wei signals President Xi Jinping’s positioning as a political heir to Mao Zedong, endorsing the Cultural Revolution’s “struggle” tactics. “By giving him the honor of entering Babaoshan, Xi Jinping is endorsing the persecution mania of the Cultural Revolution,” Feng said, noting parallels between Xi’s approach and Mao’s. Professor Yang Haiying of Japan’s Shizuoka University added that Wei’s burial reflects the CCP’s unwillingness to distance itself from the violent legacies of the Cultural Revolution. Investigative Journalism Reportika’s report emphasized that the CCP continues to honor violent figures as a means to reinforce its revolutionary ethos, using their stories to control narratives in a way that bolsters the CCP’s own historical legacy. Wei Guoqing died on June 14, 1989, days after the Tiananmen Square massacre ended student-led pro-democracy protests. His ashes remained in storage until this recent burial, renewing public discourse around his legacy and the lasting impacts of the Cultural Revolution’s brutality. Reference: https://www.rfa.org/english/china/2024/11/02/china-enshrines-cultural-revolution-leader-guangxi-massacre-cannibalism
- [To Lam moves to secure full term at pinnacle of Vietnamese power](https://ij-reportika.com/to-lam-moves-to-secure-full-term-at-pinnacle-of-vietnamese-power/): To Lam’s recent relinquishing of the presidency of Vietnam is no sign of weakness or a challenge to his leadership. It was a logical step toward securing a full term as Communist Party general secretary. In a system that prides itself on collective leadership, there was consternation within the Communist Party of Vietnam, or CPV, about Lam’s rapid accumulation of power over the past year. The National Assembly has been signaling since August that this transfer of power would happen. For Lam, the presidency was just a stepping stone. While he seemed to enjoy the diplomatic function and traveled to eight countries in his brief five month tenure, and there’s a logic to the most powerful person being the country’s top representative, his priority is getting elected to a full term with his team at the 14th Party Congress in January 2026. While Lam may be the CPV general secretary, he still needs the support of the party Central Committee, and there are other power centers that he has to contend with. He has nothing like Xi Jinping’s hold over the Communist Party of China. Stacking the Politburo The 18-member Politburo elected at the 13th Party Congress in January 2021 has fallen to a low of 12 members. Lam has moved to fill the ranks. There have been five new Politburo members elected since May, including his protege, Luong Tam Quang at the Ministry of Public Security, or MPS. Deputy Prime Minister of Vietnam Tran Luu Quang delivers a speech at the Nikkei Forum “Future of Asia” in Tokyo on May 25, 2023 Lam understands that the party’s legitimacy comes through performance. Lam is not just stacking the Politburo; he’s appointing allies, especially those from his home province of Hung Yen, across key party positions. Lam installed another MPS deputy, Nguyen Duy Ngoc, as the head of the Central Committee office, a very powerful behind-the-scenes position in personnel issues and agenda setting. Lam now has his eyes and ears at the nerve center in the Central Committee. Ngoc also serves on the CPV’s 12-member Secretariat, which runs the party’s day-to-day affairs. Institutional checks Also new to the Secretariat is Le Minh Tri, who heads the Central Committee’s Civil Affairs Committee and is the prosecutor general of the Supreme People’s Procuracy. Le Hoai Trung, Lam’s top foreign policy adviser, who has been by his side in all foreign trips and meetings, also serves on the Secretariat. Lam is also moving to neutralize opposition. He appointed Vu Hong Van, a police major general also from Hung Yen, as deputy chairman of the Central Inspection Commission. Its chairman, Tran Cam Tu, is the one person on the Politburo who could cause the general secretary some trouble. He heads an investigative body with powers to investigate senior leadership that’s beyond Lam’s control. And as a reminder that Lam is not in complete control, on Oct. 25, the Politburo elected Tu as the standing chairman of the Secretariat, over Lam’s preferred candidate, Nguyen Duy Ngoc. Soldiers march in a parade in Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam, May 7, 2024. The other institutional check is the People’s Army. While armies tend to dominate politics in Southeast Asia, in Vietnam, power is the security police, a reflection of the regime’s fear of popular color revolutions. In addition to Lam and Luong Tam Quang, there are four other members of the Politburo who came up through the Ministry of Public Security. Many have looked to the military as an institutional check on the MPS, which is why the election of Luong Cuong to the presidency on Oct. 21 is seen as so important. Gen. Cuong is a career political commissar, becoming the chief of the Vietnam People’s Army’s General Political Department in 2016. As the top party official in the military, he also served on the Secretariat since 2016, becoming its standing chairman when Truong Thi Mai was forced to resign in May. In addition to Cuong, Minister of National Defense Phan Van Giang serves on the Politburo. Shoring up army ties Lam has been trying to build ties to the military. As general secretary, he is concurrently the chairman of the Central Military Commission, the highest defense decision-making body. In that capacity, he routinely meets with different military units and leadership. Lam’s also trying to carefully make his mark on personnel. He promoted Trinh Van Quyet, the current head of the General Political Department, to the Secretariat. He promoted three other senior officers from Hung Yen Province, including Deputy Minister of National Defense Hoang Xuan Chien, and Lt. General Nguyen Hong Thai, the commander of Military Region 1, which borders China. Even if the generals aren’t happy with a cop as chairman of the Central Military Commission, Lam is slowly putting his people into leadership positions. And all this matters, because the army comprises 11-13% on the Central Committee, the largest single bloc. Lam understands that getting allies into key positions should make himself unassailable just over a year from now at the 14th Congress. Through Luong Tam Quang, he can continue to investigate rivals. Other allies are in charge of personnel selection and drafting key party documents. The Communist Party of Vietnam has a culture of collective leadership – a norm that Lam briefly violated. By ceding the presidency, especially to a military man, he neutralizes some of the opposition to him, while giving up very little real power. In his consolidation of power, Lam took down eight different rivals on the Politburo since December 2022, a period of unprecedented political churn. Any more turmoil could be counter-productive. Lam seems to have succeeded in getting all his ducks in a row to be elected to a full term in January 2026. So rather than see the relinquishing of the presidency as a sign of weakness, it’s more accurate to think of it as a sign of growing political strength. Zachary Abuza is a professor at the National War College in Washington and an adjunct at Georgetown...
- [North Korea Intensifies Inspections on Propaganda Speakers called the Third Network](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-sends-military-to-inspect-homes-for-working-propaganda-speakers/): Ryanggang Province, North Korea — North Korea’s main anti-socialism inspection division is conducting door-to-door checks in the northern Ryanggang province to ensure that government-installed propaganda speakers in every household are functioning. Known as the “Third Network,” these speakers deliver local government messages, propaganda songs, and emergency alerts, often deemed critical for mobilization during times of crisis. Unified Command 82, established in 2021 to consolidate anti-socialism inspection units, is leading the current inspections, marking the second round of checks this year following a similar operation in March. Since October 11, residents have been required to listen to daily patriotic war songs and follow all government broadcasts, residents told Investigative Journalism Reportika under anonymity. By October 21, the inspections intensified, with inspectors identifying citizens who were either missing speakers or not actively tuning into the broadcasts. Households lacking a working speaker have been advised to purchase one through the post office, while those failing to comply are being publicly reprimanded. According to a local agricultural worker, many rural homes face challenges with the Third Network, with some areas still disconnected due to infrastructure issues dating back to the 1990s economic crisis. As a solution, officials proposed that residents donate dried ferns or omija berries to fund the purchase of broadcasting lines from China. However, this proposal has met resistance, as rural citizens are already struggling to meet basic needs. With a looming deadline at the end of November, officials warned that local party leaders may face severe punishment if they fail to restore full speaker functionality in their communities. However, previous years’ similar threats of punishment have reportedly gone unenforced.
- [Does a photo show people lining up for a Trump rally in New York?](https://ij-reportika.com/does-a-photo-show-people-lining-up-for-a-trump-rally-in-new-york/): Chinese and English influencers on , Instagram and X. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Cashing In](https://ij-reportika.com/cashing-in/): North Korea is sending more than 10,000 Korean People’s Army troops to fight for Russia in Ukraine, with some 3,000 already moved close to the front in western Russia. The deployment, under a security partnership pact North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russia’s Vladimir Putin signed in June, has raised concern among the U.S. and allies South Korea, Japan and Ukraine. Critics see mercenary motives in Pyongyang, which will receive cash and technology for the mission. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Church in village of Myanmar’s Catholic leader bombed in junta raid](https://ij-reportika.com/church-in-village-of-myanmars-catholic-leader-bombed-in-junta-raid/): Read RFA coverage of these topics in Burmese. Junta forces damaged a church in the home village of Myanmar’s most prominent Christian, Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, one of several religious buildings destroyed in fighting between the military and pro-democracy forces, residents told Radio Free Asia on Thursday. Bo, Myanmar’s Roman Catholic leader, lives in the main city of Yangon and was not in Mon Hla village, in the central Sagaing region, when a junta drone bombed St. Michael’s Church on Wednesday night. “They’ve destroyed an entire side of the church, the whole right side,” said one woman in the village, who declined to be identified in fear of reprisals. The church’s bell tower and nave were also damaged, she said. Opponents of the junta have accused the military of targeting Christian and Muslim places of worship, destroying hundreds of them in its campaign against insurgent forces and their suspected civilian supporters. Bo has in the past called for attacks on places of worship to end and in 2022, he called for dialogue after a raid by junta forces on his home village. The junta’s spokesman in the Sagaing region said he “didn’t know the details of the situation yet.” About a third of Mon Hla’s population are Roman Catholic, rare for a community in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar’s central heartlands. Its residents trace their origins back to Portuguese adventurers who arrived before British colonial rule. Residents said it was not clear why the military attacked the village as there was no fighting with anti-junta forces there at the time. Thirteen people were wounded in two previous attacks on the village in October, they said. There were no reports of casualties in the Wednesday night attack on Mon Hla. Many villagers fled from their homes the next day when drones reappeared in the sky, the woman said. “We had to flee yesterday. Then today, the drones retreated so we could return. Now, we’ve fled again,” she said. The Sagaing region has seen some of the worst of the violence that has swept Myanmar since the military overthrew an elected government in early 2021. Insurgents groups set up by pro-democracy activists are waging a guerrilla campaign in many parts of Sagaing, harassing junta forces with attacks on their posts and ambushes of their convoys. The military has responded with extensive airstrikes, artillery shelling and, increasingly, drone attacks. In Kanbalu township, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) to the north of Mon Hla, junta forces attacked two villages, Kyi Su and Kyauk Taing, torching about 400 homes including two Buddhist monasteries and two mosques, residents there told RFA. “Our people had to run from the bombs dropped by drones,” said one resident of Kyi Su. “But for those who ran, their homes were raided and burned.” “Two monasteries are in ashes and two of our Muslim mosques are unusable.” Residents said many of the destroyed homes were simple, thatch huts, put up to replace homes destroyed in earlier fighting. RELATED STORIES Mass killings on the rise in Myanmar for fourth straight year Myanmar junta forces kill dozens in attack on monasteries Aid workers arrested, killed amid junta crackdown in Myanmar Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Tensions Escalate as North Korean Troops Enter Russian Combat Zones : Ukrainian intelligence](https://ij-reportika.com/tensions-escalate-as-north-korean-troops-enter-russian-combat-zones-ukrainian-intelligence/): Summary:Ukrainian intelligence has reported intercepted calls revealing concerns among Russian troops about Russia’s integration of North Korean soldiers into its combat units near the Ukrainian border. With around 10,000 North Korean troops allegedly stationed in Russia’s eastern region and more expected to arrive in Kursk, the situation marks a significant development in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. This report examines the recent collaboration between Russia and North Korea, the operational challenges faced by Russian troops, and the potential impacts on regional security. Intelligence Findings According to Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Agency, intercepted audio reveals frustration among Russian soldiers stationed in Kursk. The Russian troops expressed concerns about the logistics, leadership, and resources required to effectively integrate North Korean forces. In one intercepted call, a Russian soldier expressed outrage over orders to allocate already scarce Russian armored vehicles to the North Korean troops. Another soldier noted a shortage of translators, leading to an ad-hoc arrangement where Russian servicemembers attempted to manage language barriers themselves. In a particularly contentious call, a soldier used a derogatory term to refer to North Korean troops, reflecting cultural and operational divides that could further complicate Russia’s integration efforts. North Korean Forces and Strategic Deployment The Pentagon recently confirmed that around 10,000 North Korean troops are now stationed in Russia, with a projected deployment to Kursk in the coming weeks. This represents a marked increase from prior estimates, signaling an accelerating commitment by North Korea to support Russian military efforts. Command and Control Issues:To address language and communication barriers, Russia reportedly assigned one translator and three Russian personnel for every 30 North Korean soldiers. However, intercepted calls indicate Russian soldiers doubt that these measures will ensure effective command and control over the mixed units. These logistical and command challenges raise questions about the combat effectiveness of these newly integrated units. Intervention from South Korea:Amidst the Russian-North Korean alliance, Ukraine has strengthened ties with South Korea. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol have initiated intelligence sharing and plan to exchange military delegations. Both leaders expressed concerns over the potential combat role of North Korean troops near the Russia-Ukraine border. Diplomatic Developments North Korea’s Foreign Minister arrived in eastern Russia, marking her second trip within six weeks. While she is scheduled to meet Russian officials in Moscow, Kremlin sources report that Russian President Vladimir Putin has no plans to meet with her. This visit underscores North Korea’s increasing engagement with Russia amidst mounting global sanctions. Implications for the Russia-Ukraine Conflict The integration of North Korean soldiers may provide a temporary boost in manpower for Russia but presents significant operational challenges. If Russia deploys these troops to the frontlines, the linguistic and logistical issues could weaken unit cohesion and effectiveness. Additionally, South Korea’s engagement with Ukraine may introduce new intelligence-sharing capabilities that could counteract North Korea&#8217;s involvement in the conflict. Conclusion:As North Korean troops move closer to active combat zones, the Russia-Ukraine conflict enters a new phase of international entanglement. Operational inefficiencies and geopolitical tensions continue to evolve as the conflict broadens, with the involvement of North Korean forces and heightened South Korean-Ukraine relations potentially altering the strategic calculus on the ground.
- [Marshall Islands wins Human Rights Council seat with climate, nuclear justice agenda](https://ij-reportika.com/marshall-islands-wins-human-rights-council-seat-with-climate-nuclear-justice-agenda/): Marshall Islands was elected on Wednesday to sit on the United Nations Human Rights Council, or HRC, from next year, with climate change and nuclear justice as its top priorities. Currently there are no Pacific island nations represented on the 47-member peak U.N. human rights body. Marshall Islands stood with the full backing of the Pacific Islands Forum, or PIF, and its 18 presidents and prime ministers. The HRC’s mission is to promote and protect human rights and oversee U.N. processes including investigative mechanisms and to advise the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Addressing the General Assembly in September, Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine warned that “common multilateral progress is failing us in the hour of greatest need, perhaps most at risk are human rights.” She said accountability must apply to all nations “without exception or double standard.” “Our own unique legacy and complex challenges with nuclear testing impacts, with climate change, and other fundamental challenges, informs our perspective, that the voices of the most vulnerable must never be drowned out,&#8221; she said in New York on Sept. 25. Aerial view of a surge of unexpected waves swamping the island of Roi-Namur in the Marshall Islands, pictured Jan. 21, 2024. (Jessica Dambruc /U.S. Army Garrison-Kwajalein Atoll/AFP) In 2011, Marshall Islands along with Palau issued a pioneering call at the General Assembly to urgently seek an advisory opinion on climate change from the International Court of Justice on industrialized nations’ obligations to reduce carbon emissions. While they were unsuccessful then, it laid the foundation for a resolution finally adopted in 2023, with the court due to begin public hearings this December. Heine has been highly critical of the wealthy nations who “break their pledges, as they double down on fossil fuels.” “This failure of leadership must stop. No new coal mines, no new gas fields, no new oil wells,” she told the General Assembly. When Marshall Islands takes up its council seat next year, it will be alongside Indonesia and France. Both have been in Heine’s sights over the human and self-determination rights of the indigenous people of the Papuan provinces and New Caledonia respectively. For years Indonesia has rebuffed a request from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights for an independent fact-finding mission in Papua and ignored the Pacific Islands Forum’s calls since 2019 to allow it to go ahead. “We support ongoing Forum engagement with Indonesia and West Papua, to better understand stakeholders, and to ensure human rights,” she told the General Assembly. In May, deadly violence erupted in New Caledonia over a now abandoned French government proposal to dilute the Kanak vote, putting the success of any future independence referendum for the territory out of reach. Heine said she “looks forward to the upcoming high-level visit&#8221; by PIF leaders to New Caledonia. No dates have been agreed. President of the Republic of the Marshall Islands Hilda Heine addresses the 79th United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., Sept. 25, 2024. (Reuters/Eduardo Munoz) Countries elected to the council are expected to demonstrate their commitment to the U.N.’s human rights standards and mechanisms. An analysis of Marshall Islands votes during its only previous term with the council in 2021 by Geneva-based think tank Universal Rights Group found it joined the consensus or voted in favor of almost all resolutions. Exceptions include resolutions on human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories where it “has generally voted against,” the report released ahead of the HRC election said. As part of its bid to join the council, Marshall Islands committed to reviewing U.N. instruments it has not yet signed, including protocols on civil and political rights, abolition of the death penalty, torture and rights of children. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar junta expands mandatory remittance for migrant workers](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-expands-mandatory-remittance-for-migrant-workers/):  Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. Myanmar workers in Laos must remit a quarter of their salary back home, the junta’s minister of labor said, the latest cohort of migrant workers forced to exchange earnings at an artificially low rate as the military struggles to acquire foreign currency. The Ministry of Labor has already implemented increasingly strict measures on migrant workers in neighboring Thailand to pay taxes, remit part of their salary at an artificially low exchange rate through junta-owned banks and pay additional fees to receive vital documentation.  On Tuesday, Minister of Labor Myint Naung met Myanmar factory workers in Vientiane to tell them remittances needed to be submitted through “official channels,” his ministry said in a statement. Myanmar’s economy has been in freefall since the generals ousted an elected government in early 2021, bringing tentative political reforms and economic growth to a halt and ushering in bloody turmoil. Foreign investment has dropped precipitously in the three and a half years since the coup while overall, the economy has contracted by nearly 20%, according to the World Bank. Myanmar’s 2024 gross domestic product growth estimates have been halved to 1%, in large part due to widespread conflict and junta mismanagement. Desperate for foreign exchange, the junta has increasingly turned to tapping its many migrant workers. In Laos, where hundreds of thousands of Myanmar workers are believed to be employed in services, agriculture and manufacturing, workers fretted about how much of their money would be left after the new deduction through official junta channels, in addition to a 2% tax they are required to pay the Myanmar embassy. “For basic workers like us, it’s not OK at all,&#8221; said one worker who declined to be identified for safety reasons. “We’re only getting 80 yuan (US$11) a day and then we have to subtract the cost of food. After that, we have to transfer our salary through a broker,” said the worker at a factory where wages are paid in the Chinese currency.  Myint Naing, in a speech outside of the Alpilao International Sole Limited garment factory, said workers could make the transfer once a month, or for up to three months at a time. “Whether it’s using official banking systems, through the Central Bank of Myanmar from someone who has a Remittance Business License, or it’s an international money transfer service linked through a bank system, you must transfer the money to your family,” he said. But the worker said the exchange rate the junta set was crippling. “It’s so low. After sending it through the places they say we have to use to transfer, what’s left isn’t enough for our families,” he said. The civilian shadow National Unity Government, or NUG, that was set up after the coup by members of the ousted civilian administration, has denounced the junta’s rules for migrant workers as a systematic violation of their rights.  “Both the military and its finances are in crisis,” the NUG’s vice labor minister, Kyaw Ni, said in a statement. “As the military’s failures increase, they need to replenish with money from people. So they’re turning to workers in Laos.”  RELATED STORIES: Political instability since coup prompts foreign investment exit from Myanmar  Shuttered Thai offices leave Myanmar migrants in legal limbo Thai police detain 26,000 migrant workers from Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Uyghur advocacy group to hold elections despite threats by China](https://ij-reportika.com/uyghur-advocacy-group-to-hold-elections-despite-threats-by-china/): World Uyghur Congress to elect new president during its general assembly in Sarajevo, despite harassment and threats from China.
- [Myanmar junta forces kill, mutilate villagers, insurgents say](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-forces-kill-mutilate-villagers-insurgents-say/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. Myanmar junta soldiers massacred and mutilated at least 25 villagers in revenge for an insurgent attack and impaled some of the victims on stakes as a warning, anti-junta forces in the strife-torn central region of Sagaing told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday. Various pro-democracy insurgent factions in Sagaing have been waging a sustained guerrilla campaign on the military this year, attacking junta positions and convoys in the arid, heartland region dominated by members of the majority Burman community. The bloody military campaign in Budalin township, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) northwest of the city of Mandalay, followed a Sept. 30 insurgent attack on a military position near Si Par village in which 30 junta troops were killed and 40 were captured, insurgents said.  A junta column of more than 100 soldiers started raiding villages in Budalin on Oct. 4, arresting scores of people as well as killing suspected rebels sympathizers over the next two weeks, Min Han Htet, a senior member of an insurgent faction called the Student Armed Forces, told RFA. “We’ve determined that they’ve killed no less than 25 people. The nature of the killings was very cruel,” he said.  “They decapitated them, they cut off their arms and legs. The corpses were planted on fences. Those are the types of scenes we’ve encountered.” RFA tried to contact the junta’s main spokesperson, Zaw Min Tun, to ask about the situation in Sagaing but he did not answer the telephone. The Office of the Chief of Army Staff denied in a statement on Monday that soldiers had killed six people in Si Par village.  Min Han Htet said seven people from Myauk Kyi village were killed, six from Si Par, six from Budalin town, two from Ta Yaw Taw village, one from Se Taw and several others who had yet to be accounted for. Details from areas being occupied by the military, including Saing Pyin Lay village, were difficult to ascertain, an aid group said. The soldiers responsible for the killings were under the authority of the Northwest Military Command, based in the town of Monywa, and included members of the 33rd Battalion, insurgent sources said. About 300 homes were burned in the security sweep by junta forces, who were backed up by numerous airstrikes, Min Han Htet said. Residents of the region estimated that more than 100,000 people had fled from their homes in the area. Internally displaced people in Budalin township, Sagaing region, on May 21, 2024. ( Citizen Photo) ‘March on’ Thet Oo, information officer for the Sagaing People&#8217;s Support Network, which tries to help victims of the conflict, said nearly 15,000 displaced people were in urgent need of help. “What they mainly need are things like rice, cooking oil and other provisions, as well as medicines to care for their health,” he said. “If they stay in their village during storms and rain, in the cool and wet seasons, they need shelters.” The United Nations says more than 3 million people have been displaced by the fighting in Myanmar this year. The shadow civilian National Unity Government, or NUG, set up by pro-democracy politicians after the military overthrew a civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi in early 2021, denounced the killing and mutilation of villagers and reiterated a call for the outside world to stop supplying arms to a military that murders its people. “What does the international community expect of a terrorist group that commits such cruel atrocities?” said the NUG’s Minister of Human Rights Aung Myo Min. “People are dying. This isn’t a time to meet and talk about hopes for peace. Their actions aren&#8217;t indicative of peace,” he said, referring to a recent call by the junta for talks, which the opposition dismissed as window-dressing for a foreign audience. The NUG said at least 23 people were killed in Budalin township between Oct. 11 and Oct. 20, in 17 raids by the military, which included airstrikes on five villages. Junta forces had also used scores of villagers as human shields, the NUG’s Ministry of Human Rights said in a statement. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners rights group said 26 people, including six childrens, were killed in Sagaing, this month, up to Oct. 22. Eleven of them died after being detained, it said. Min Han Htet said his group would step up its fight. &#8220;Although the enemy tries to scare us, we urge everyone to march on, unafraid, with our students and other revolutionary forces in Sagaing,” he said. RELATED STORIES A new generation in Myanmar risks their lives for change No limits to lawlessness of Myanmar’s predatory regime Month of fighting leaves once-bustling Myanmar town eerily quiet  Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Chea Mony: Leader of Cambodia's new opposition party](https://ij-reportika.com/chea-mony-leader-of-cambodias-new-opposition-party/): It was in his first job as a teacher 30 years ago that Chea Mony, who last month became head of Cambodia’s newest opposition party, got involved in activism. Together with another young math teacher, Rong Chhun — who later became a prominent labor activist — they formed a teachers&#8217; union to combat what they viewed as injustices at the school. “We were called ‘democratic teachers,’” Chea Mony, 55, told Radio Free Asia in an interview.  “I did not like corruption. I did not like to see an exploitation of our schoolteachers’ hours,” he said. “I did not like to see the students having to cross a river to go to school, and when they did not have the money to pay the boat fares, they were not allowed to take the boats to school.” “Because of that, we organized a protest,” he said. Chea Mony went on to become a leader of the Cambodian Independent Teachers Association, or CITA, which he founded with Rong Chhun. It worked closely with the Free Trade Union of Workers of the Kingdom of Cambodia, led by his brother Chea Vichea. Chea Mony greets supporters after arriving at Phnom Penh International Airport in Cambodia, Feb. 1, 2006. (Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP) After Chea Vichea, a popular union labor organizer and outspoken critic of former Prime Minister Hun Sen, was gunned down by an unknown assailant in 2004, the workers’ union elected Chea Mony as president.  Now, he faces the greatest challenge of his life as president of the National Power Party, or NPP, formed in 2023 to oppose the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, or CPP, led by Prime Minister Hun Manet, son of longtime ruler Hun Sen. Squashing opposition For years, the CPP has acted to suppress any political opposition.  In 2017, the country’s top court dissolved the main opposition party, the Cambodia National Rescue Party. The subsequent opposition Candlelight Party was barred from participating in 2023 elections on a technicality.  Police have arrested activists and political opponents — including Sun Chanthy, the NPP’s previous chief, who was jailed on incitement charges. RELATED STORIES Police arrest 3 Cambodian opposition party members Labor leader remembered 20 years after his assassination Candlelight Party tries to win over Nation Power Party Government-aligned unions sue Chea Mony over ‘appeal’ for sanctions against Cambodia “I have many years of experience as a civil society leader, and my struggle is fighting for freedom, for the benefit of justice,” he said.  ”So, for me as the current leader of the National Power Party, I am not paying attention to [anything else] because my struggle is to focus on freedom and people, and it is not illegal [to do so].&#8221; The NPP contested in Cambodia’s 2024 senate elections and the 2024 provincial elections, but none of its candidates won seats. Humble roots Born in Kratie province, in eastern Cambodia, Chea Mony grew up in Kandal province, which surrounds Phnom Penh, with his four brothers and two sisters. His father was a former civil servant during the Sangkum Reastr Niyum period, also known as the First Kingdom of Cambodia from 1955 to 1970 when Prince Norodom Sihanouk ruled. His mother, a housewife, died of an illness when he was young. His father was killed in 1976 by the Khmer Rouge, the radical communist movement that ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 and killed an estimated 2 million people through overwork, starvation or executions. Cambodian Buddhist monks pray near trade union leader Chea Vichea&#8217;s coffin during his funeral in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Jan. 25, 2004. (Chor Sokunthea/Reuters) After he graduated with a degree in chemistry from the Royal University of Phnom Penh in 1993, he taught at Hun Sen Saang High School in Saang district of Kandal province until 2000, when he transferred to Boeung Trabek High School in Phnom Penh. That was where he met Rong Chhun, who became chairman of the teachers’ union they founded, CITA. “Rong Chhun and I have the same character,” Chea Mony said. “We do not like oppression, exploitation and violation of rights.” During the late 1990s and early 2000s, CITA and the Free Trade Union of Workers of the Kingdom of Cambodia engaged in many demonstrations to demand higher wages for teachers and factory workers, and to pressure the government to respect human rights. Though his nonviolent activism resulted in dozens of lawsuits, authorities never arrested him.  “We are the union leaders; we have to sue for justice [for the workers],” he said. “I&#8217;ve always [led] strikes [by] demanding that a labor court to resolve labor disputes,” he said. “It is better to take the labor case to an arbitration tribunal.” 2017 lawsuit One of the most significant lawsuits against Chea Mony was filed by 120 pro-government unions in late 2017.  They accused him of inciting the European Union and the United States to inflict economic sanctions against Cambodia after Chea Mony gave an interview to RFA about the impact of such sanctions on government and factory workers, if imposed.  Chea Mony (C) walks with Sam Rainsy (foreground R), head of the main opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, during a march to mark the 10th anniversary of the death of union leader Chea Vichea, in Phnom Penh, Jan. 22, 2014. (Heng Sinith/AP) This occurred after Hun Sen repeatedly invited the international community to immediately impose sanctions on his regime. The court proceeded quickly, deciding to summon and charge Chea Mony, who instead fled abroad to escape harassment by the court.  The case was dropped after Cambodia&#8217;s Labor Ministry settled it outside the court, following intervention by the International Labor Organization and a request by major garment buyers that the government drop the charges against Chea Mony and other union leaders. Rong Chhun, also 55, who is now an adviser to the NPP, described Chea Mony as a liberal and strong-willed advocate for democracy and respect for human rights. “He is also a sharp advocate, strong in the face of adversity, when leading demonstrations and strikes,” he said....
- [Myanmar rebels seize major border gate near China](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-rebels-seize-major-border-gate-near-china/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. Allied insurgent forces in northern Myanmar have captured a main junta post  near the border with China, an officer of the anti-junta Kachin Independence Army told Radio Free Asia on Tuesday, the latest setback for the military in the resource-rich region. The Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, is based in Myanmar’s northernmost state and is one of the most powerful groups battling for autonomy. It has made significant progress over the past year, capturing  rare earth and jade mines as well as routes for border trade with China.  KIA information officer Naw Bu told RFA the latest junta position to fall was the Border Guard Post No. 1003, on the Waingmaw-Kan Paik Ti road, from where junta forces defend nearby towns. “Forces captured the camp that was providing security to Kan Paik Ti town. After that, they also captured the camp in between Border Guard Posts No. 5 and 6,” he said.  “Also along the Bhamo-Momauk road, junta soldiers have been fighting intensely for two days after coming up with armored cars.” Kachin state has long been one of Myanmar’s opium growing regions and Naw Bu said junta troops were stationed near hundreds of acres of poppy fields in the area. RFA tried to telephone Kachin state’s junta spokesperson, Moe Min Thein, for information about the situation but calls went unanswered.  A resident of the area who declined to be identified for security reasons said fighting was still going on near the poppy fields forcing about 1,000 villagers to flee to Kan Paik Ti town for safety. “As for Kan Paik Ti, there are still junta soldiers, militia members and border guards there. Residents are worried about fighting there,” the resident said. Last week, KIA and allied forces captured military positions near the border town of Pang War, to the northeast of Kan Paik Ti and a major rare earth mining center. In response to the fighting, China closed border gates under KIA control late on Friday, refusing to allow civilians fleeing the area to enter, and trapping about 1,000 people. Since July, KIA and allied forces have captured 12 towns, including Mabein, Chipwi and Lwegel, as well as 220 camps across Kachin and northern Shan states.  Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff.  We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [China calls for action after attack on consulate in Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/china-calls-for-action-after-attack-on-consulate-in-myanmar/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese China on Monday urged Myanmar’s junta to find and punish the perpetrators of a bomb attack on its consulate in Mandalay over the weekend, but observers warned that more attacks are likely amid public anger over Beijing’s support for the military regime. China has remained one of the junta’s few allies since the military orchestrated a coup d’etat and seized control of Myanmar in February 2021.  Chinese investment in Myanmar is substantial, and the armed opposition has attacked several projects in a bid to cut off badly-needed revenue for the junta, which is straining under the weight of global sanctions in response to its putsch. On Friday evening, unknown assailants detonated a bomb at the Chinese consulate in Mandalay region’s Chanmyathazi township, damaging part of the building’s roof, the junta and Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Saturday. No one was hurt in the blast. No group or individual has claimed responsibility. On Monday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Li Jian condemned the attack and called on the junta to “make an all-out effort to hunt down and bring the perpetrators to justice.” The Chinese consulate in Mandalay also urged all Chinese citizens, businesses and institutions in Myanmar to monitor the local security situation, strengthen security measures and take every precaution to keep themselves safe. Myanmar’s junta has said it is investigating the incident and is working to arrest those responsible. Opposition condemns attack An official with the Mandalay People’s Defense Force, which runs anti-junta operations in the region, denied responsibility for the bombing. “The Mandalay People&#8217;s Defense Force has not carried out any urban missions, including the attack on the Chinese consulate general’s office recently,” said the official who spoke to RFA Burmese on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. The foreign ministry Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, or NUG, also condemned the bombing in a statement that said it opposes all terrorist acts that tarnish relations with neighboring nations. It said differences of views should be solved through diplomatic means rather than violence. “Such kinds of attacks have absolutely nothing to do with our NUG government or our People’s Defense Force,” said NUG Deputy Foreign Minister Moe Zaw Oo. “We never commit terrorist acts and we condemn such attacks.” RELATED STORIES China undermines its interests by boosting support for Myanmar’s faltering junta China denies entry to Myanmar nationals trapped by battle Myanmar rebels capture border base near Chinese rare-earth mining hub Moe Zaw Oo suggested that the junta had orchestrated the attack to “[create] problems between our forces and China.” “The junta is trying to exacerbate the conflict … and sowing discord,” he said, without providing evidence of his claim. Tay Zar San, a leader of the armed opposition, echoed the NUG’s suspicion that the junta was behind the attack. “The military regime and its affiliated organizations are intentionally provoking ethnic and religious conflict under the context of anti-Chinese sentiment,” he said, adding that the junta has “organized” anti-Chinese protests in downtown Yangon and Mandalay. He also provided no evidence to back up his claims. Attempts by RFA to contact junta spokesperson Major General Zaw Min Tun for a response to the allegations went unanswered Monday. Enemy of the people Tay Zar San said that the people of Myanmar have been angered by Beijing’s support for the junta and its attempts to pressure ethnic armed groups along its border to end their offensive against the military. Since launching the offensive nearly a year ago, heavy fighting for control of towns in northern Shan state has sparked concern from China, which borders the state to the east, and forced it to shut previously busy border crossings. China has tried to protect its interests by brokering ceasefires between the junta and ethnic armies, but these haven’t lasted long. Myanmar&#8217;s Army Commander Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, left, speaks with Chinese President Xi Jinping at a hotel in Naypyidaw, Jan. 18, 2020. (Office of the Commander in Chief of Defense Services via AP) Junta supporters have expressed concern that territory lost to the armed opposition will not be retaken and are posting messages opposing China’s engagement on social media. Earlier, the junta supporters staged anti-China protests in Yangon, Mandalay, and the capital Naypyidaw. Than Soe Naing, a political commentator, said that the people of Myanmar will increasingly target China if Beijing continues supporting the junta. “As this struggle intensifies, anti-Chinese sentiment in Myanmar is likely to grow,” he said. “However, it is important to recognize that this is not a conflict with the Chinese people, but rather a response to the Chinese Communist Party&#8217;s stance and the misguided policies of its leadership on the Myanmar issue.” Additional tension The consulate bombing came amid reports that China’s military had fired at the junta’s Russian-made MiG-29 fighter jets as they carried out airstrikes on ethnic rebels on the border. A video of the purported attack – in which anti-aircraft guns fire into the air while Chinese-language commands are given – went viral on Saturday evening, although RFA has been unable to independently verify its authenticity or the date it took place. Additionally, an official with the People’s Defense Force in Sagaing region’s Yinmarbin township told RFA that his unit had ambushed a junta security detail guarding a convoy of trucks carrying copper from the Chinese-run Letpadaung Copper Mine Project in nearby Salingyi township. At least one junta soldier was killed, but the convoy was able to proceed, said the official, who also declined to be named. A traffic police officer directs traffic near a welcoming billboard to Chinese President Xi Jinping, in Naypyidaw, Jan. 17, 2020. (Aung Shine Oo/AP) RFA was unable to independently verify the official’s claims and efforts to reach the junta’s spokesperson for Sagaing region went unanswered Monday, as did attempts to contact the Chinese Embassy in Yangon. In late August, junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing vowed to protect Chinese assets and personnel in Myanmar during a meeting...
- [Over a dozen children missing after Myanmar boat accident](https://ij-reportika.com/over-a-dozen-children-missing-after-myanmar-boat-accident/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese.  A boat carrying 70 people off the coast of southern Myanmar overturned on Sunday night and eight people were confirmed dead and 17 were missing, including children heading back to school after a holiday, a rescue worker told Radio Free Asia.  The crowded ferry capsized when it encountered strong currents soon after setting off from the island village of Kyauk Kar, bound for Myeik town to the south in the Tanintharyi region, said a resident of the area who declined to be identified due to media restrictions imposed by military authorities. “We only managed to recover eight bodies last night. There are a lot still missing,” said the rescue worker who also declined to be identified.  &#8220;There are also survivors. We don’t know the exact list. Right now, it’s chaos.” Boat accidents are common in Myanmar, both on its many rivers and off its coasts. Hundreds of commuters, migrant workers and refugees have been involved in accidents this year. The resident said students heading back to school after the Thadingyut holiday, along with their parents and others displaced by recent conflict in the area, were among the victims of the accident that occurred as the ferry was passing through a channel known for treacherous currents. “From Kyauk Kar there’s … the opening of the ocean where the current is too strong,” one resident said.  “When the current was too rough, due to the boat’s position and because it was top heavy, it overturned.” The eight people found dead were identified as seven women between the ages of 16 and 60, and a three-month-old boy, residents said.  According to a rescue committee, 47 people survived while 17 children were unaccounted for. Residents and civil society organizations were searching for more victims. The military has not published any information about the accident, and calls by RFA to Tanintharyi region’s junta spokesperson, Thet Naing, went unanswered.  RELATED STORIES Scores killed by Asia’s most powerful storm of the year Eight missing after boat accident in Myanmar&#8217;s Yangon 16 Myanmar workers missing in Golden Triangle boat accident  Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff.  We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [In rare appeal, Tibetan calls for company to stop digging up river](https://ij-reportika.com/in-rare-appeal-tibetan-calls-for-company-to-stop-digging-up-river/): A Tibetan from Sichuan province has made a rare public appeal on Chinese social media, calling on authorities to take action against a company that he accuses of illegally extracting sand and gravel from a local riverbed, Tibetan sources with knowledge of the situation said. In a 5-minute video posted on WeChat on Oct. 15, Tsongon Tsering from Tsaruma village in Kyungchu county said Anhui Xianhe Construction Engineering Co.’s digging has caused severe soil erosion and a drop in water levels in the Tsaruma River. Such public appeals are rare due to fear of reprisals from the government for speaking out against authorities or state-approved projects. Authorities have since shut down his account and blocked search terms related to his name on WeChat, a popular Chinese social media platform, said two sources from inside Tibet, who like others in this report, declined to be identified out of fear of retribution. Tsering’s case illustrates how authorities silence Tibetans who accuse Chinese companies of violating environmental regulations or harming the environment. In the video, Tsering says Tibetan residents had made repeated appeals before local authorities for action against the company for causing environmental harm, but to no avail. Tsongon Tsering, a Tibetan man from Tsaruma village in Kyungchu county in China’s Sichuan province, calls for authorities to take action against illegal sand and gravel mining taking place since May 2023 on the Tsaruma River. (Image from citizen video via WeChat)   “The Anhui Xianhe Construction Engineering’s business office has been illegally extracting sand and stones from the river in Tsaru Ma Village during their road construction work,” he says in the video while holding up his ID card. “The large-scale and indiscriminate extraction of sand from the river has led to serious soil erosion in the surrounding area and is posing a threat to the foundations of residents’ homes,” he continues. Tsering’s video, which gained significant attention online, was also widely shared by other users on the platform but even those were taken down and all related content censored by Thursday, Oct. 17, the two sources said.  Sources from the region said they fear Tsering, who hails from Ngaba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, will face punishment for his public criticism of authorities. RELATED STORIES US coordinator highlights Tibet’s role as regional freshwater source Hundreds of thousands of Tibetans forced to relocate, report says EXPLAINED: The impact of climate change on the Tibetan plateau China’s climate change stance seen undermined by destructive policies in Tibet Tibet&#8217;s environment: Is it better or worse? Four other sources inside Tibet confirmed Tsering’s statement that the sand extraction from the local river has caused environmental harm and that locals had reported the issue to various government departments at the village and county levels. They also provided photos and videos as evidence of the damage, but no action had been taken, said the sources.  Tsering’s video, which had around 10,000 views in a day’s time, received more than 500 comments from netizens, the majority of whom expressed support for his appeal and called for environmental protection and for the Chinese state media and authorities to address the issue.  Tsering also tagged official Chinese media outlets in his post to draw their attention. Affects the Yellow and Yangtze In the video, Tsering explained that the Tsaruma River, where the extraction is taking place, is linked to the Yangtze and Yellow River systems, two of China’s most important. “The pollution of these river sources and the protection of local ecosystems and biodiversity are deeply interconnected issues,” he said. “Moreover, this directly affects the water resources of Asia and the conditions of the high-altitude frozen soil.” A sand mining operation is seen along the Tsaruma River in Kyungchu county in Sichuan province, China, in this image posted Oct. 15, 2024, by Tibetan resident Tsongon Tsering. (Image from citizen video via WeChat) On Oct. 17, a source told RFA that following Tsering’s online appeal, the Kyungchu County Development and Reform Office had promised a thorough investigation into the matter.  An official from the Ngaba Prefecture Ecological Protection Office said his office was aware of the issue and investigating it in collaboration with the Sichuan Provincial Ecological Environment Monitoring Office, Chinese state media reported.  The agencies would release their findings soon, he said. “Although environmental protection policies were introduced many years ago, implementation issues persist in our area,” said Tsering in the video.  Brushing it under the rug In it, he confirms that the county’s Ecological Environment Bureau responded to his complaint in April 2024, confirming that the construction company had extracted sand and stones from the river and that it had been fined. But Tsering said the response merely covers up for the relevant business enterprise and tried to brush the problem under the rug. “They have addressed minor issues while avoiding the major ones, and have not taken any action to restore the ecological environment or manage the soil erosion situation,” he said. “They have simply erected barriers around the endangered house foundations and considered the matter resolved.” Anhui Xianhe Construction Engineering, registered in China in June 2012, is involved in various construction projects including road construction, urban development, hydropower projects and environmental protection works.  RFA Tibetan could not reach the company for comment.  Additional reporting by Dorjee Tso and Tashi Wangchuk for RFA Tibetan. Translated and edited by Tenzin Pema and by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [PRC at 75: In China under Xi Jinping, people run or 'lie flat'](https://ij-reportika.com/prc-at-75-in-china-under-xi-jinping-people-run-or-lie-flat/): Read this story in Mandarin. When Xi Jinping took his place as leader of the ruling Chinese Communist Party in 2012, some commentators expected he would be a weak president beset by factional strife in the wake of the jailing of former Chongqing party chief Bo Xilai and cryptic official references to rumors of a coup in Beijing.  Yet Xi has evoked more comparisons with late supreme leader Mao Zedong than any other leader since Mao&#8217;s death in 1976, with his cult of personality, his abolition of presidential term limits and his intolerance of any kind of public criticism or protest, including in Hong Kong. Blamed by many outside China for his government’s handling of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan, Xi seriously damaged his reputation among the Chinese people with three years of grueling lockdowns that saw some people welded into their own apartments and others carted off to mass quarantine camps in the middle of the night. While the zero-COVID years eventually ended in late 2022 amid nationwide protests known as the &#8220;white paper&#8221; movement, a mass exodus of people dubbed the &#8220;run&#8221; movement was already under way. Refugees and dissidents, private sector executives and middle-class families with children have been willing to trek through the Central American rainforest to get away from life in China, in the hope of gaining political asylum in the United States. &#8220;I left China for Ecuador and Colombia, then walked north through the rain forest,&#8221; one migrant &#8212; an author whose writings were banned under Xi &#8212; told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview. &#8220;I left on Aug. 8 and entered the United States on Oct. 21.&#8221; &#8220;I was limping from my second day in the rainforest, and I was robbed by bandits,&#8221; the person said. &#8220;I could have died.&#8221; A migrant from China, exhausted from the heat, rests on the shoulder of a fellow migrant from Nicaragua after walking into the U.S. at Jacumba Hot Springs, California, on June 5, 2024. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP) Another recent migrant &#8212; a writer &#8212; said they left because everything they wrote had been banned. &#8220;My articles were banned from newspapers and magazines, my name was not allowed to be mentioned, and I couldn&#8217;t take part in public events,&#8221; they said. &#8220;I realized if I stayed in China, my life would just be a huge disaster, so I fled in a hurry.&#8221; Xu Maoan, a former financial manager in a private company, said he used to make a good professional salary of 10,000 yuan (US$1,400) a month, but lost his job due to the COVID-19 restrictions.  He never succeeded in finding another, despite sending out hundreds of resumes, and recently joined many others making the trek through the rainforest to the U.S. border. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t find out about the white paper movement until I got to the United States,&#8221; Xu told RFA Mandarin. &#8220;All news of it was blocked in China.&#8221; Reversing course? But it wasn&#8217;t just the pandemic; Xu and many like him were growing increasingly concerned that Xi was reversing the investor-friendly policies of late supreme leader Deng Xiaoping, with his confrontational attitude to Western trading partners and hair-trigger sensitivity to &#8220;national security,&#8221; an elastic term used to describe any activity that could threaten or undermine the ruling Chinese Communist Party&#8217;s official narrative. &#8220;I have personally experienced how the government drove away foreign investors and cracked down on the private sector, in the name of national security,&#8221; Xu said. &#8220;The government is in financial difficulty, so if they don&#8217;t like you, they raid you.&#8221; Chinese police conduct work during a raid of the Shanghai office of international consultancy Capvison in an undated photo. (Screenshot from CCTV via AP) &#8220;[Xi] quarreled with Europe and the United States, frightening foreign investors, who withdrew to Vietnam and India,&#8221; he said. &#8220;His values are the opposite [of Deng Xiaoping&#8217;s].&#8221; &#8220;The domestic economy has collapsed, but they just won&#8217;t admit it,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I was afraid we would be going back to the days of famine and forced labor of the Mao era, so I left in a hurry.&#8221; Xi&#8217;s abolition of presidential term limits in 2018 and the creation of what some fear is a Mao-style cult of personality around him is also driving concerns. &#8220;Xi has deified himself as the &#8216;core&#8217; leader with his own personality cult, but he lacks Mao&#8217;s charisma,&#8221; Ma Chun-wei, assistant politics professor at Taiwan&#8217;s Tamkang University, told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview. &#8220;He requires everyone to study Xi Jinping Thought throughout the party and the whole education system.&#8221; Oppression of Uyghurs, Tibetans Xi has also presided over the mass incarceration of Uyghurs in Xinjiang&#8217;s &#8220;re-education&#8221; camps, the surveillance and suppression of Tibetans and their culture, as well as the upgrading the Great Firewall of internet censorship and the installation of surveillance cameras in schools to monitor students and teachers alike. Under his tenure, private companies have been forced to set up Communist Party branches, and censorship is tighter than it has ever been, Ma said. Yet Xi is one of the most ridiculed leaders in recent Chinese history, according to exiled author Murong Xuecun. &#8220;He has had the most nicknames of any general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in the past 70 years,&#8221; Murong told RFA in a recent interview. &#8220;Some people calculate that he has more than 200 nicknames.&#8221; Many of Xi&#8217;s nicknames are now banned from China&#8217;s internet, including Xi Baozi, Winnie the Pooh and Xitler, and their use has led to imprisonment in some cases. Pro-democracy activists tear a placard of Winnie the Pooh that represents President Xi Jinping during a protest in Hong Kong on May 24, 2020. (Isaac Lawrence/AFP) &#8220;The key to all of this is the political system,&#8221; Murong said. &#8220;Xi rose to lead the Communist Party and have power over appointments, the military, the party, the police and national security agencies through a series of opaque and intergenerational processes.&#8221; &#8220;He commands everything, yet his power isn&#8217;t subject to...
- [Real estate prices skyrocket as Yangon swells with Myanmar’s displaced](https://ij-reportika.com/real-estate-prices-skyrocket-as-yangon-swells-with-myanmars-displaced/): Read RFA coverage of this story in Burmese Myanmar’s civil war is driving up housing demand in Yangon, causing rents to skyrocket as people displaced by conflict in remote border regions seek out the relative safety of the country’s largest city, according to real estate agents and residents. Myanmar’s military orchestrated a coup d’etat in February 2021, touching off widespread rebellion by ethnic armies and armed opposition groups. Civilians have been caught in the crossfire, and the United Nations’ refugee agency estimates that some 3.1 million people have been displaced by fighting. That’s caused Yangon’s population to swell from around 5.6 million to as many as 10 million people, leading to a shortage of housing and causing rents to nearly double since early 2023, a real estate agent in Yangon told RFA Burmese. “Now we estimate that Yangon’s total population has become 15-18% of the whole country [of around 56 million],” said the agent who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. “People can&#8217;t find a place to rent, and many are living in overcrowded apartments,” he said. “Some apartments have been turned into dormitories to accommodate up to 30 people.” Real estate agents estimate that at present, there are just over 300,000 apartments in central Yangon. RELATED STORIES A new generation in Myanmar risks their lives for change No limits to lawlessness of Myanmar’s predatory regime Month of fighting leaves once-bustling Myanmar town eerily quiet  Another real estate agent said that the cost of rent “has been gradually rising since 2023,” from around 300,000 kyats (US$145) to 500,000 kyats (US$240) per month for a studio apartment. “Those who can’t pay move to the outskirts of the city,” he said. “The apartments in some areas downtown aren’t worth the increased rent.” A woman who fled fighting in Rakhine state’s Thandwe township to Yangon in April said her rent had increased from 300,000 kyats to 350,000 kyats (US$165) per month since then, while her younger sister now pays 500,000 kyats per month, up from 300,000 kyats in early 2023. Aside from Yangon and Ayeyarwady regions, five of Myanmar’s regions and seven of its states see regular armed conflict, prompting many residents to seek the relative stability of the country’s commercial hub. Mass relocation A resident of Yangon, who also declined to be named, told RFA that real estate agents are increasingly raising rents as the city becomes overcrowded. “As a result of the influx of people displaced by civil war, flooding, and other crises, apartment rental prices are rising,” she said. “Real estate agents are taking advantage of the situation, demanding higher prices and capitalizing on the desperate circumstances of those displaced persons.&#8221;   A neighborhood in Lanmadaw township, Yangon, on October 9, 2024. (RFA) As rents go up, the sale prices of property are also rising. In Yangon&#8217;s Dagon Myothit township, before the military coup, the price of a 10-foot (3-meter) wide home was just over 10 million kyats (US$4,765). Just over three years later, the same home now sells for 50 million kyats (US$23,820), real estate agents told RFA. The price of apartments in Yangon’s Sanchaung and Kamayut townships has risen to 100 million kyats (US$47,645) from 60 million kyats (US$28,585) a year earlier, they said, while rents in these areas have doubled to 600,000 kyats (US$285) from 300,000 kyats over the same period. Social Affairs Minister Htay Aung, the junta’s spokesperson for Yangon region, said on Oct. 8 that plans are underway to expand housing projects in the city due to the increasing number of displaced persons. “This is part of the trend of migration between rural and urban areas,” he said. “As Yangon city develops, we have plans to extend the [boundaries of the] city.&#8221; Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Rebel army advances on junta’s western headquarters in Myanmar’s Rakhine state](https://ij-reportika.com/rebel-army-advances-on-juntas-western-headquarters-in-myanmars-rakhine-state/): Read RFA coverage of this story in Burmese Heavy fighting is underway in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state between junta troops and ethnic rebels in the vicinity of the military’s western command center, trapping civilians in the crossfire, residents said Friday. The Arakan Army, or AA, battling for self-determination for the mostly Buddhist Rakhine people, has taken territory across Rakhine state and controls 10 of the state’s 17 townships, and one in neighboring Chin state since the military’s February 2021 coup d’etat. It would be the first rebel group to take over a state if it seizes all territory in military control there, as it has vowed to do. Clashes have intensified since the AA launched an offensive on Sept. 26 against military positions in Rakhine’s Ann township, capturing the military’s Taw Heing Taung and Me Taung strategic hills. The junta has since sent reinforcements to the area. The fighting is now located around five kilometers (three miles) from the junta’s Western Regional Military Command, according to residents who spoke to RFA Burmese on condition of anonymity, due to security concerns. “The AA has been firing heavy weapons both day and night at the western command, Light Infantry Battalion No. 373, and the artillery battalion in Ann township,” said one resident, adding that the military has responded with multiple airstrikes. “The fighting is escalating in downtown Ann now.” RELATED STORIES: Myanmar junta airstrike kills civilians sheltering in rebel territory Rebels battle for Myanmar junta’s western military headquarters Rebel army closes in on 2 townships in western Myanmar A resident of Ann said that inhabitants of the town have tried to escape the fighting, “but the junta won&#8217;t let them.” &#8220;People are living in constant fear, uncertain of what might happen next,” the resident said. “There is a severe shortage of food, medicine, and medical care, as hospitals and clinics are struggling to provide services.” According to the resident, the price of medicine at local markets is now “far beyond the reach of ordinary citizens,” while transportation has become extremely difficult as “gasoline prices have soared to more than 30,000 kyats (US$14) per liter.” Travel prohibited Another resident of Ann, who also declined to be named, said junta forces ended departures on Wednesday, when they stopped 15 vehicles carrying more than 100 people attempting to flee to nearby Pa Dan and Min Bu townships. “It remains unclear where the passengers have been taken,” he said. Weapons and ammunition seized by Arakan Army forces on Mae Taung hill in Ann township are seen Oct. 7, 2024. (AA Info Desk) Attempts by RFA to contact AA spokesperson Khaing Thukha went unanswered Friday, as did efforts to reach the junta’s Rakhine state spokesperson Hla Thein. Fighting between the AA and junta forces in Rakhine state began around a year ago, when the AA ended a ceasefire that had been in place since the military coup. Residents of Rakhine state say that the junta has been conducting more aerial attacks on civilian areas in townships which were lost to the AA, as well as areas of intense fighting. Data compiled by RFA found that junta airstrikes killed 93 civilians and wounded 66 others in Rakhine’s Thandwe, Maungdaw, Pauktaw, Myaebon and Toungup townships in September alone. Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [China denies entry to Myanmar nationals trapped by battle](https://ij-reportika.com/china-denies-entry-to-myanmar-nationals-trapped-by-battle/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. Villagers and rare earth miners are trapped on the Myanmar-China border following a battle between allied rebel forces and junta troops, residents told Radio Free Asia on Friday.  The Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, is one of dozens of ethnic armed groups fighting the junta for territory and autonomy. Since the 2021 coup, it has seized 220 bases and 11 towns across Kachin and Shan states.  Fighting has centered on the region’s lucrative rare earth and gem mining sites, as well as major trade routes leading to Kachin state’s capital, Myitkyina, and further north to China.  The KIA seized control of nearly all of Shan state’s Chipwi township in early October but continue to try to take control of the remaining junta camps and border posts in the area.  While Chinese officials have previously allowed those displaced by fighting to enter the country and later be repatriated, 1,000 residents and workers trapped by fighting on Thursday were met with closed borders near Chipwi’s Pang War town, said one resident, asking to remain anonymous for security reasons.  “The Chinese haven&#8217;t opened the gate from yesterday until early today. Along the border, everyone is sleeping in tents and it’s very crowded,” he said, adding that KIA forces had captured Chanyinku village, nine kilometers (five miles) from Pang War. “Now, they’ve nearly arrived in Pang War. The junta is also shooting with heavy weapons.” RELATED STORIES: Rebels seize junta base near Chinese rare-earth mine in northern Myanmar As fighting wears on, many in Myanmar are focused on a new government China fires into Myanmar after junta airstrike on border, group says Residents began fleeing when fighting broke out near a stream in Chanyinku, he said. They can’t escape along the Chipwi-Myitkyina Highway or other vehicle routes due to heavy fighting, leaving them stuck at the Chinese border.  Ethnic armed groups and Myanmar’s junta have asked for China’s help, but the neighboring giant has declined to take sides, instead brokering short-lived ceasefires and peace talks. Conflict on the border and throughout the country has encroached on Chinese investment, trade, territory and infrastructure, causing Chinese border officials in Ruili to warn armed groups in northern Myanmar to stop fighting or it would “teach them a lesson.” In a video posted on social media on Thursday a woman said Chinese authorities allowed their own nationals to enter the country, but Myanmar nationals were not allowed near the border gate. Another video showed Chinese authorities had blocked the border crossing with barriers tied together with rope to prevent Myanmar citizens from entering.  Myanmar refugees and Chinese rare earth workers try to enter China at the China-Myanmar border gate in Pang War on Oct. 18, 2024. (Kachin New Group) The Chinese embassy in Yangon did not respond to emails from RFA requesting more information about the border closure.  Some Pang War residents are sheltering in nearby forests and a church, residents said as fighting continued Friday about a kilometer from the town.  KIA forces have been trying to capture junta border guard posts in the area, said Information Officer Naw Bu. “I’ve heard that from Pang War to Chanyinku village, KIA forces are doing a ground clearance operation,” he said. “But we don&#8217;t know some of the battle details.” KIA and allied forces turned their attention on Pang War after capturing a border guard post 16 kilometers (10 miles) away on Tuesday, residents said. They are also trying to seize a border guard post in Waingmaw township’s Kan Paik Ti town, 160 kilometers (100 miles) southwest of Pang War, they added. RFA attempted to contact Kachin state’s junta spokesperson Moe Min Thein for more information on the offensive, but he did not respond. Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by Mike Firn.  We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Viral party video shot inside Cambodian prison prompts leadership reshuffle](https://ij-reportika.com/viral-party-video-shot-inside-cambodian-prison-prompts-leadership-reshuffle/): Cambodia has appointed a new director at Phnom Penh’s Prey Sar prison after a leaked video of a party inside the facility showed prisoners dancing, drinking and appearing to handle drugs. The prison’s deputy director and spokesman, Nuth Savana, will continue in those roles while adding the director title, Minister of Interior Sar Sokha said in a statement on Wednesday. No reason was given for the appointment, but it comes just days after Prime Minister Hun Manet ordered a probe into the video, which began circulating on Facebook and other social media accounts last week.  It shows one young man – clad in just his underwear and a pair of sunglasses – dancing next to two prisoners who hug each other as they sway to an electronic beat. In the foreground, another prisoner chops up a white powder as others bop around amid flashing lights. Nuth Savana told Radio Free Asia on Thursday that an investigation he led this week found that the video footage was taken in January 2023 during the Chinese New Year holiday and was shot inside Prey Sar. “I am working on the case step by step,” he said. “The minister of interior ordered strict measures against those who were involved. He ordered inspectors to go there in addition to my team.” On Tuesday, Hun Manet said at a public appearance in Kandal province that he had asked Sar Sokha to investigate why inmates were allowed to have a party in what looks to be a prison’s common area. “We don’t know for sure what is happening on the Facebook video,” the prime minister said, according to a video of his speech that was posted to Facebook. “Maybe the was 10 years old but we need to investigate, and we especially need to reform and strengthen the prisons across the country.” He suggested that management of Prey Sar could be strengthened “by shuffling its leadership.” ‘Strict measures’ ordered In June, prison officials in northern Stung Treng province were accused of taking bribes and then releasing eight Chinese prisoners who authorities said had illegally crossed into Cambodia. The prisoners had told police that they had been smuggled across the border and planned to travel to Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville, a seaside resort that has become a hotbed of criminal activity over the last decade.  Prey Sar, located on the outskirts of the capital, is Cambodia’s largest prison with about 8,000 inmates.  The prison’s male facility, known as Correctional Center 1, has been criticized for poor conditions and overcrowding.  Prey Sar’s previous director, Yin Kun, retired on Sept. 9. The acting director who was named to the role last month was sidelined by Nuth Savana’s appointment this week. As the new director, Nuth Savana said he wanted to reform the prison so that human rights are fully respected and the well-being of prison guards and prisoners is ensured. Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Life sentence for Vietnamese tycoon already facing death penalty](https://ij-reportika.com/life-sentence-for-vietnamese-tycoon-already-facing-death-penalty/): Businesswoman Truong My Lan was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday in relation to a multi-billion-dollar fraud for which she already faces the death penalty, Vietnamese media reported. The Chairwoman of property developer Van Thinh Phat appeared at Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court to hear the verdict after a month-long trial. Lan, 68, was found guilty of fraud, money laundering and cross-border currency trafficking. In April, Lan was sentenced to death for embezzling US$12.5 billion, and a total of 40 years for bribery and violating bank regulations. The court ordered her to repay $27 billion in loans to companies in the Van Thinh Phat group from Siam Commercial Bank, or SCB, in which she holds a 91% stake. Lan’s lawyers said she planned to appeal the death sentence, although a date has not been announced. RELATED STORIES Van Thinh Phat chairwoman sentenced to death in Vietnam’s biggest fraud trial Van Thinh Phat case tests investor confidence in Vietnam One year after inmate’s execution Vietnam continues sentencing people to death On Thursday Lan was sentenced to life for fraudulent property appropriation, 12 years for laundering more than $18 billion, and eight years for illegally transferring $1.5 billion out of the country and receiving $3 billion from abroad, according to Vietnamese daily the Tuoi Tre. During the trial of Lan and 33 other defendants, including her husband Eric Chu, the court heard that the Van Thinh Phat chairwoman told senior staff at the property company, SCB and Tan Viet Securities to issue more than 300 million bonds, allowing her to appropriate $1.2 billion from nearly 36,000 investors. Last Friday, as the trial ended, Lan had been allowed to address the court, appealing for clemency. “Standing here today is a price too expensive for me to pay. I consider this my destiny and a career accident,” Lan said, according to the VNExpress news site. “For the rest of my life, I will never forget that my actions have affected tens of thousands of families.” Edited by Taejun Kang. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Police say son of Cambodian Muslim leader facing sexual assault charges](https://ij-reportika.com/police-say-son-of-cambodian-muslim-leader-facing-sexual-assault-charges/): The son of a high-ranking Cambodian Muslim cleric has been arrested on charges of sexual assault and rape after police received complaints from residents of a Phnom Penh student dormitory.  Police said they heard complaints from four victims between 13 and 15 years old and have also spoken with four witnesses. Kamarudin Suhaimi was arrested on Tuesday, denied the charges in a court appearance and was being detained as police continue their investigation, according to Fresh News. Suhaimi is the son of Sos Kamry, the chairman of the Highest Council for Islamic Religious Affairs in Cambodia. Kamry told the Khmer Times that the allegations were “a rumor” and that his son hasn’t committed any crimes. Suhaimi had been the manager of security, hygiene and health at the girls’ dorm for the An-Nikmah Al-Islamiyah Phnom Penh Institute, which lists itself as an elementary school on its Facebook page. He was relieved of those duties following complaints from students of inappropriate behavior and language directed toward students, the school said in an Oct. 12 statement. The aunt of one of the alleged victims told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday that Suhaimi sexually assaulted her niece “a few times.” “But my niece didn&#8217;t dare to tell because she was threatened,” she said. RFA was unable to contact Kamry for further comment on the charges against his son. National Police Chief Sar Thet was also unavailable for comment on Wednesday.  Ny Sokha, president of human rights group Adhoc, praised the authorities’ actions and told RFA that he hopes police and prosecutors will give justice to the victims regardless of the suspect’s influential father.  “We want to see justice for both sides. Authorities should be working on the case to show that it isn&#8217;t under the influences of powerful people,” he said.  Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar junta extends census as fighting, floods slow election preparations](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-extends-census-as-fighting-floods-slow-election-preparations/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. Myanmar’s military regime has been forced to extend its two-week census, an official told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday, after fighting and threats of retaliation against junta administrators, along with flooding in the wake of Typhoon Yagi, made it impossible to gather information in many parts of the country. The census, aimed at tallying potential voters ahead of the widely-criticized 2025 elections, has met strong opposition from the country’s ethnic armed groups who say preparations for a nationwide vote are impossible while they battle a regime that continues to arrest and kill its critics.  Since the country’s coup over three years ago, the junta has been under pressure from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to hold elections. But the regime has continued to extend a state of emergency across the country and brought in tough new registration laws that disqualify many parties from standing, including the National League for Democracy, deposed after winning a landslide victory in the 2020 election. RELATED STORIES: As Myanmar’s census draws to a close, observers question its accuracy Myanmar census-takers and their protectors face rebel attacks Myanmar junta invites insurgents, ‘terrorists’ to join election After the official census period ended on Tuesday, the junta’s ministry of immigration and population said more time was needed to reach households in areas of armed conflict and regions whose roads had been cut off by recent storms and flooding. &#8220;Although we conducted the census from Oct. 1 to Oct. 15, there are still regions that are left out,” Vice Minister of Immigration and Population Htay Hlaing told RFA. “We’ll continue there, but I can’t say how long it will last.” The junta plans to add 40,000 more enumerators to the nearly 110,000 already working to collect census data, his ministry said, adding that there are an estimated 13 million households in the country, with a population of over 56 million. Htay Hlaing declined to comment on how many people had filled out the census over the past two weeks. Census takers take down information in Yangon. Oct. 9, 2024. (RFA) On Wednesday, state-owned media encouraged those in “relevant areas” who remained uncounted to contact the Central Census Commission, adding that they would publish preliminary results in December.  Powerful ethnic armies continue to seize territory from junta forces in Rakhine state in Myanmar’s west, border regions like Kachin, Kayin and Kayah states, and central Mandalay region, casting doubt on how junta forces could do an accurate count there. Census takers and the troops and police guarding them have come under attack from rebel forces in Chin state and Sagaing, Yangon and Tanintharyi regions since early October.  A junta soldier on guard during the census in Yangon, Oct. 9, 2024. (RFA) Junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing on Tuesday called on Myanmar’s ethnic armed groups to cooperate with the election plans, warning: “Only when the country forges peace and stability will the government initiate the strengthening of the multiparty democratic system and correct reform processes as quickly as possible.” But former election monitor San Aung, who has been observing the latest preparations, told RFA the junta will not be able to complete the census in areas controlled by armies opposed to Min Aung Hlaing’s regime “There are so many forces defending areas that they won’t allow a census to be done in. Even in Yangon, it’s not easy to count,” he said, referring to Myanmar’s largest city, where guerilla groups bombed administrative offices days before the census began. “There are also very few enumerators. Getting the data in phases will probably also be difficult. They’re definitely endangering their security and their lives.” Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by Mike Firn.  We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar rebels capture border base near Chinese rare-earth mining hub](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-rebels-capture-border-base-near-chinese-rare-earth-mining-hub/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese Joint rebel forces have seized a key base for Myanmar’s pro-junta Border Guard Force in Kachin state, and residents say rebels will soon occupy a nearby town that serves as a hub for Chinese rare-earth mining and cross-border trade. Rebel control of these mines could potentially disrupt shipments of these lucrative rare earths, which are used in cell phones, cars and other products, and could cut off an important source of revenue for the junta, which has struggled financially amid global sanctions over its Feb. 1, 2021, coup d’etat. It would also give the Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, more leverage in dealing with China, which has seemed to favor the military junta in power, including possible future peace talks that might be brokered by China. On Tuesday, a coalition of rebel forces under the KIA took control of the No. 1002 Border Guard Force Battalion, located around 16 kilometers (10 miles) from the town of Panwa, which is near the Chinese border. KIA spokesperson Colonel Naw Bu told RFA Burmese that his group had captured the base at around 1pm and is now carrying out a security “clearance operation” in the area. The battalion serves as the guard force for Panwa – located around 160 kilometers (100 miles) east of the Kachin state capital Myitkyina – and is “crucial for the area,” he added, without providing information about casualties sustained in the battle. A resident of Panwa who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns, told RFA that only a handful of camps operated by pro-junta militias remain near the town. “The junta will soon lose Panwa,” he said, although he cautioned that “casualties will be high” if the junta uses heavy weapons to defend the town, due to the densely packed nature of the houses there. The capture of No. 1002 Border Guard Force Battalion marked the culmination of a week-long battle for the site. RELATED STORIES: Myanmar junta bombs rebels despite peace gesture China warns Myanmar rebel army to stop fighting China in delicate dance with Myanmar’s rebel groups Residents of Panwa township told RFA that fighting is still taking place near the border, with the junta conducting airstrikes in the area. One resident noted that rebel forces had earlier taken over a major junta battalion stationed in the nearby village of Lu Pi. “The junta has been carrying out airstrikes there since yesterday to support its ground forces,” said the resident, who also declined to be named. “We no longer hear gunfire, although there have been some exchanges with heavy weapons.” An aerial view of a rare-earth mine in Panwa captured on Oct. 15, 2024. (Google Earth) Residents said that around 500 people from villages near the battalion – including Lu Pi, Sin Khone and Pang Bu – had fled to Panwa amid the fighting. Meanwhile, they said, the junta has been bombing Hpa Re village, which lies within territory occupied by the KIA’s 7th Brigade, and China is patrolling its border with military helicopters. Rare-earth hub Panwa township is home to the largest number of rare-earth mines in Kachin state. Global Witness, an NGO that monitors the world’s natural resource exploration, said this year that more than 300 rare-earth mines are located in Panwa and Chipwi township to the northwest. According to statistics published by the Chinese customs department, China imported US$3.4 billion worth of rare-earth minerals from Myanmar between the military coup and August 2024. Most of the mines in Panwa have been shuttered amid fighting in the region, and the Chinese workers there have largely returned home. The junta has yet to release any information about the situation in Panwa and attempts by RFA to contact Moe Min Thein, the junta’s social affairs minister and spokesperson for Kachin state, went unanswered Tuesday. Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [ASEAN openness constrained at Laos summit](https://ij-reportika.com/asean-openness-constrained-at-laos-summit/): Southeast Asian leaders wrapped up this month’s summit in the Lao capital Vientiane by reaffirming their commitment to an “open, inclusive and transparent” ASEAN community. But some of the international media covering the meeting of the 10 member countries complained the vision was far from reality due to tough local reporting restrictions.  Authorities would not allow the 800-or-so media members to talk to people on the streets to ask how they were coping with inflation that the Asian Development Bank forecasts will average 20% this year. The media coverage manual said the press must report only from the National Convention Center hosting the summit or the Media Center a few kilometers away. Permission to report in the field was not available during the Oct. 6-11 meetings, an official at the Lao ministry of foreign affairs told Radio Free Asia. “They keep us in a small zone and keep a close watch, we can’t go anywhere or interview anyone,” said a reporter at a Japanese news service who, like all the journalists interviewed for this report, didn’t want to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue. “I could not enter the meeting rooms and take a photo there. The bland press releases are not the reason we come here,” a Lao reporter for a Western news agency said. A journalist at another Japanese agency agreed that lack of access and the expectation that reporters would write their stories from official handouts meant it was impossible to get to the “essence” of the meetings.   “The press releases are too bland,” they said. “At the convention center, there were no officials to advise the media about the programs, press releases, how to get access to the internet, slow connections and arrangements for photo opportunities. We have to deal with that among ourselves.”     A man walks past a billboard for a bank which finances Lao energy projects, Oct. 6, 2024 (RFA) On the streets of the capital the only indication a summit was taking place were ASEAN billboards and the motorcades intermittently passing by. Even tourists trying to take photos of the Vietnam-gifted National Assembly House were waved away by plain-clothes police. Back at the media center, there were no briefings from Lao leaders or high-ranking officials to talk about the topics discussed or inform journalists about the views of the country chairing ASEAN this year. RELATED STORIES Blinken warns ASEAN of China’s ‘dangerous’ actions in sea disputes Malaysia’s Anwar calls for a united ASEAN amid rising ‘global tensions’ Laos’ ASEAN chairmanship propels foreign minister to PM contender The newsworthy items came from visiting officials such as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., with all three weighing in on recent Chinese actions in the disputed waters of the South China Sea. Reporters told RFA they were impressed by the prompt briefings from Thai officials after key events such as the China-ASEAN and U.S.-ASEAN Summits, but a Lao reporter was less complimentary about their own government’s briefings. “The Lao foreign ministry is always late in handing out statements, and yet there’s nothing interesting there. We cannot add more information to make the news interesting either.”   Lao authorities almost totally control the media according to Reporters Without Borders. The country ranks near the bottom of its 2024 World Press Freedom Index. Translated by RFA Lao. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [North Koreans pray to Buddha statues for good luck](https://ij-reportika.com/north-koreans-pray-to-buddha-statues-for-good-luck/): Residents in North Korea are praying to small, handmade statues of Buddha for good fortune or hoping that they cancel out “bad luck,” residents told Radio Free Asia.   North Korea is officially an atheist state, but its constitution guarantees religious freedom under certain conditions: religious practice must not encourage foreign influence or harm the state or the social order, and yet, the ruling Kim Dynasty enjoys almost god-like status, bolstered by a deeply embedded cult of personality that goes back three generations.  But with so many people struggling to make a living under harsh economic conditions, some are turning to Buddha statues to give them luck. “These days, in the apartment I live in, there are more people who buy Buddha statues that are a little bigger than the palm of your hand,” a resident of Songchon county in the western province of South Pyongan told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The Buddha statues are sold by a door-to-door salesman who goes around the apartments every morning,” she said. “The price of the Buddha statue is around 20,000 won,” or about US$1.17. Eat less, pray more The price for the statues might seem low to outsiders, but that’s an enormous sum of money in North Korea, equivalent to a little less than three kilograms (6.6 pounds) of rice. “People who are struggling to make ends meet buy Buddha statues with the money they would otherwise spend on rice,” the resident said. “They believe that placing a Buddhist statue in the house will eliminate bad luck.” Another resident, a woman in her 40s from the same province, told RFA under condition of anonymity that she recently bought a statue. “I put it in my house and pray to it before going to the market,” she said. “I pray that it will keep the officials off my back and help me earn a lot of money.” She said that the people who buy statues pray to remove misfortune in hopes of a better life.  “The statues are made at home by skilled workers who have spent a long time working in ceramics factories,” she said. “After digging up red clay and sculpting the Buddha figure by hand, they bake it in a small kiln installed in their homes, paint it yellow and gold, and then they are sold by the door-to-door salesman.” Religion punished Though North Korea is somewhat tolerant of Buddhism, it has very little tolerance for other major religions, including Christianity. In the past, Christianity had become so prevalent on the Korean Peninsula that Pyongyang was once called the “Jerusalem of the East.”  But now, if a North Korean is caught with a copy of the Bible, it’s not uncommon for the entire family to be put into a prison camp. In its 2024 Annual Report published in May, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent organization under the U.S. government, recommended to the State Department to continue North Korea’s designation as a Country of Particular Concern. The report noted that Christians were “especially vulnerable” to persecution, citing a 2023 South Korean government report that said North Korea considers Christians as “counter-revolutionaries” and “traitors” who must be eliminated.  “Simply being a Christian could lead to severe punishment, including torture, forced labor, imprisonment, and execution,” the report said, while also noting that information on religious freedom conditions for followers of other religions, including Buddhism and Catholocism, remains “severely limited.” Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Insurgent army tightens its grip on northern Myanmar town](https://ij-reportika.com/insurgent-army-tightens-its-grip-on-northern-myanmar-town/): Read RFA coverage of these topics in Burmese. An insurgent group battling Myanmar’s junta in Shan state has taken full control of a major town, a spokesperson told Radio Free Asia on Monday. The Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, said it captured the final junta base in Hsipaw on Sunday and plans to use its position to strike other military camps in the area. The TNLA, is a member of the Three Brotherhood Alliance that launched Operation 1027 nearly a year ago in an effort to seize territory from the military that took power in a 2021 coup.  Since launching the offensive, heavy fighting for control of Lashio, Nawnghkio and other northern Shan towns has sparked concern from China, which borders the state to the east, and forced it to shut previously busy border crossings.  China has tried to protect its interests by brokering ceasefires between the junta and alliance members, but these haven’t lasted long.  The second round of Operation 1027 began when a five-month truce collapsed in June. Since then the TNLA has captured Kyaukme, Mongmit and Nawnghkio towns in northern Shan state, as well as Mandalay region’s Mogoke town.  Two months later, the TNLA turned its sights on Hsipaw. It captured most of the town on Aug. 12 but the junta held on to an infantry camp. On Sunday, the Infantry Battalion 23 base finally fell to the TNLA, spokesperson Lway Yay Oo said.  “We managed to completely control Hsipaw,” she told RFA. “According to our list, there must be over 50 captured soldiers and over 100 members of military families. We will release the family members.” Neither side has reported any casualties and RFA’s calls to Shan state’s junta spokesperson Khun Thein Maung went unanswered. RELATED STORIES: Myanmar junta charges hundreds for scamming on Chinese border Traders in Myanmar struggle as borders with China remain closed in rebel-held areas Rebels seize junta base near Chinese rare-earth mine in northern Myanmar By taking full control of Hsipaw the TNLA is in a stronger position to attack nearby junta camps. After capturing most of the town in mid-August it started targeting light infantry battalions 503 and 504 about a kilometer away. The junta has been hitting back with daily airstrikes. A Y-12 airplane dropped more than 80 bombs on TNLA positions on Friday, the group said in a statement published the following day.  In over two months of fighting in Hsipaw, junta airstrikes and artillery fire have killed 32 people, including young children and injured 100 more residents, according to local civil society groups.  Lashio under fire Another Three Brotherhood Alliance member has also been taking territory off junta forces in Shan state. Since the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, captured the junta’s military headquarters in Lashio in July, and took full control of the town in August, civilians have borne the brunt of junta retaliation through frequent airstrikes and shelling. Junta bombs killed three villagers on Monday morning in the township’s Ei Naing village, residents said.  Three men in their 40s died and two other people were injured, including a child, according to a resident who didn’t want to be named for fear of reprisals. “The men who were attacked died on the spot. They didn&#8217;t have time to dodge because the bomb fell straight on their house,” he said.  The injured were moved to a safe location to receive medical treatment, he added. The bombs destroyed a church and five houses, according to an MNDAA-associated aid group. Residents stand outside a house bombed by junta planes in Ei Naing village, Lashio Township, Shan state on Oct. 14, 2024. (Facebook: Lashio Reconstruction) Frequent battles near Ei Naing village prompted heavy shelling by the junta, causing most of the 1,000 people living in the area to flee, residents said. Many returned to Lashio after the MNDAA took control of the township, but fled again following Monday’s attack.  In September, the MNDAA said it had cut ties with Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government. It said it would work with China to bring peace and announced it had no plans to capture large towns in Shan state.  Days later the junta bombed Lashio and peace talks never took place. Since June, over 20 junta airstrikes on Lashio have killed three people and injured over 100, according to an MNDAA statement on Oct. 4. Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by Mike Firn.  We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Cambodians conjure up US bogeyman behind Vietnam canal concerns](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodians-conjure-up-us-bogeyman-behind-vietnam-canal-concerns/): I was recently offered documents purporting to show that U.S. intelligence agencies have “been guiding Vietnam to sabotage” the Funan Techo Canal, Cambodia&#8217;s controversial megaproject that critics say poses a serious ecological threat to Vietnam’s southern rice-growing heartland. The Vietnamese-language documents offered by an official in Phnom Penh reveal nothing about alleged secret meetings or misinformation campaigns, merely restating Vietnam’s concerns about what its neighbor was doing based on publicly available reports.   It isn’t entirely surprising if Phnom Penh is now pushing the line that complaints about the canal are mostly American propaganda that Washington is helping direct Vietnam to regurgitate.    A Cambodian national flag is displayed during a groundbreaking ceremony of China-funded Funan Techo canal in Prek Takeo village, Cambodia, Aug. 5, 2024. (Heng Sinith/AP) It may make some psychological sense for Phnom Penh to pretend all the noise is a result of U.S.-China geopolitics and to think that Vietnam, its closest neighbor and increasingly important economic partner, isn’t actually angry at all about Funan Techo.  And Phnom Penh, somewhat justifiably, feels hemmed in by the uproar that followed Prime Minister Hun Manet&#8217;s announcement in May that construction of the canal will go ahead.  Although China has been funding almost every other megaproject in Cambodia, it refused to pony up most of the money for this one, leaving the Cambodian state to cover the costs that will likely end up being much higher than the $1.7 billion estimate.  Vietnam has made it known in private conversations with Cambodia’s leaders that it is unhappy about how Phnom Penh went about its assessments of the canal’s impact on the Mekong Delta. Reticent Vietnam The people of Southeast Asia would “benefit from transparency on any major undertaking with potential implications for regional water management, agricultural sustainability, and security,” a U.S. embassy spokesperson in Phnom Penh said recently. Yet it’s fanciful for Phnom Penh to think Vietnam doesn’t have concerns of its own about a neighbor’s construction of a 180-km (110-mile) canal near their shared border, or to think that Vietnam needs prodding from America to express these concerns to Cambodia’s government.  More often than not, in fact, it has been Washington that does the ventriloquizing for Hanoi.  One struggles to remember any Vietnamese minister giving a press conference or an official going on the record about Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base. Washington has alleged for years that Phnom Penh will allow China direct access to the base, which Phnom Penh denies.    Workers use excavators during the construction of the Funan Techo canal in Kandal province, July 9, 2024. (Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP) A Chinese naval presence in Cambodia wouldn’t be ideal for America’s security interests in the region, but the biggest threat would be to Vietnam, which lies just 30 km (18 miles) from the site. A Chinese naval base to its southwest would leave Vietnam pretty much encircled by Chinese forces at sea.  Yet most of what we know of Vietnam’s concerns comes from what the U.S. government has said about the matter.  Likewise, what we know about Vietnam’s concerns over the Funan Techo Canal comes either from its officials speaking anonymously to Vietnam’s state-run media, from the Cambodian government responding publicly to Vietnam’s concerns, or what one can infer from U.S. government statements.  Blaming foreigners The fact that American statements about the canal focus on the potential ecological and economic impact on Vietnam — hardly a top-line U.S. national security concern — suggests these fears originated in Hanoi.  It’s illogical to maintain that Hanoi would need U.S. intelligence services to warn it of the potential economic and ecological impacts of the canal.  Perhaps this has been discussed between Vietnamese and U.S. officials, but to imagine it’s all an American conspiracy to hammer Cambodia is rather desperate. But it has worked for Cambodia before.  In 2017, the Cambodian government instructed the Supreme Court to forcibly dissolve the country’s largest opposition party, the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), which might have given the ruling party a tough run at a general election the following year.    A supporter of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party wears a poster of party leader Kem Sokha as she stands outside the Supreme Court in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Oct. 31, 2017. (Heng Sinith/AP) The false narrative Phnom Penh constructed was that the CNRP was plotting a “color revolution” with U.S. support. The party’s dissolution came months after Phnom Penh shut down newspapers and civil society groups it has accused of being part of a U.S. plot.  Not a shred of evidence was offered to prove any of this, yet it jibed with the ruling Cambodian People’s Party’s parochial and paternalistic view of Cambodian society: Everyone is peaceful until foreigners start whipping up our locals; its foreigners who convince Cambodians to demand their rights and liberty.  The claim that America is now dripping poisonous misinformation into Hanoi’s ears over the Funan Techo Canal has a similar ring to it. As it implies, Asia would be entirely peaceful if it wasn’t for a captious U.S. pressuring countries in the region to do its bidding.   RELATED STORIES Cambodia’s Funan Techo canal exposes cracks in Vietnam ties Will Cambodia’s Funan Techo canal be a success? Cambodian anti-Vietnamese sentiment will stalk Hun Manet beyond trade zone spat Cambodia launches ambitious Funan Techo canal project Chinese whispers Read between the lines, and what one can also infer is an argument that the region would be entirely happy with China’s behavior if it weren’t for U.S. interference.  Indeed, the Cambodian official who contacted me claimed that “the U.S., in collaboration with Vietnam, is obstructing the Canal Project…to eliminate Chinese influence in Southeast Asia.” These claims echo Chinese propaganda that asserts that it’s not really Vietnam or the Philippines who wants to assert their sovereignty in the South China Sea in the face of Chinese aggression, but the Americans who are forcing them to challenge China.  Beijing’s line that Vietnam is a proxy of U.S. geopolitical interests now appears to have seeped into...
- [In new film, Dalai Lama says inner peace is key to happiness](https://ij-reportika.com/in-new-film-dalai-lama-says-inner-peace-is-key-to-happiness/): Read RFA coverage of this story in Tibetan. “Eight billion human beings. Everybody, including our enemy, wants peace,” says the Dalai Lama in a documentary that opens in Swiss cinemas on Dec. 5 and in other movie theaters around the world. “Wisdom of Happiness” offers an intimate, meditative cinema experience where the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader speaks directly to the camera about what he says is the source of happiness — inner peace. Directed by Barbara Miller and Philip Delaquis and listing Richard Gere, the American actor and Tibet advocate, as an executive producer, the 90-minute film premiered on Oct. 7 to a sold-out audience at the Zurich Film Festival.  Gere, a long-time follower of the Dalai Lama, expressed excitement at the event about the potential impact the film could have on global audiences.  “There are around 750 people here tonight with different energy, but after this film, they have the possibility to carry it back to their families, communities and the world,” Gere said at the film’s screening. “This is how we change the world.”  Taglined “A heart-to-heart with the Dalai Lama,” the film provides a personal glimpse into the Dalai Lama’s reflections on peace, happiness and the potential for a peaceful 21st century, while featuring never-before-seen, newly restored archival footage of the Tibetan spiritual leader. “We began working on this film in 2018, and it took six years to complete,” Miller told Radio Free Asia. “The result is an intimate and unique documentary that captures the Dalai Lama speaking directly to viewers, creating the feeling of a personal audience.” “His Holiness advocates for greater compassion in humanity during the 21st century,” she said. “It’s a true blessing that we were able to create this documentary, which reflects everything His Holiness stands for.”  ‘Not an easy century’ In the film, the 89-year-old Buddhist leader talks about balancing age-old Tibetan Buddhist traditions with contemporary values of a globalized society that is struggling with war, violence and environmental concerns.  “Our 21st century will not be an easy century,” the Dalai Lama says in the film. “Lot of difficulties come. Destructive actions come from destructive emotions. So, now our world needs knowledge about our mind, about our emotions, and how to tackle these emotions.”   Executive producer Richard Gere (4th from R); Jetsun Pema, the younger sister of the Dalai Lama (C); Penpa Tsering, president of the Central Tibetan Administration (2nd from R); and writers and directors Philip Delaquis (5th from L) and Barbara Miller (R) attend the premiere of &#8216;Wisdom of Happiness&#8217; at the Zurich Film Festival in Zurich, Switzerland, Oct. 8, 2024. (Nyishon via Tibet.net)   Also present at the premiere in Zurich were Jetsun Pema, the Dalai Lama’s younger sister, Sikyong Penpa Tsering, president of the Central Tibetan Administration – the Tibetan government-in-exile – the film’s co-executive producer Oren Moverman and director of photography Manuel Bauer. Speaking to RFA, Pema said, “It’s a truly wonderful film in which His Holiness shares practical wisdom for navigating the challenges of this century.”  “This is my second time watching it, yet every time I hear His Holiness speak, I feel both joy and sadness, and tears flow out without any control,” she said. “Everyone who has seen the film has loved it, and everyone is moved by it.” Sikyong Penpa Tsering underscored the significance of the film and the relevance of the Dalai Lama’s teachings amid current war and conflict around the world.  “While this film centers on His Holiness’ wisdom regarding the universal pursuit of inner peace and compassion, the cause of Tibet is inherently tied to the Dalai Lama,” he said. “As a result, Tibet’s struggle naturally becomes part of the film, and that is why I am here at this premiere.”    Filmmakers and Jetsun Pema (2nd from R), the younger sister of the Dalai Lama, celebrate the premiere of &#8216;Wisdom of Happiness&#8217; at the Zurich Film Festival in Zurich, Switzerland, Oct. 8, 2024. (Nyishon via Tibet.net) Though there are visible conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine, it is important to remember that there are also about 55 other wars and acts of violence occurring in the world, many of which go unnoticed, Tsering said.  “In times like these, the teachings of His Holiness the Dalai Lama on love and compassion, as presented through this film, hold immense relevance and significance,” he said. “The premiere at this festival couldn’t be more timely.”  Archive footage The documentary also delves into the story of the Dalai Lama’s early life, including rare archival material that chronicles his journey as Tenzin Gyatso, who was chosen as the spiritual leader of Tibet at the age of 4 in 1940. At the screening, Gere emphasized the unique presence of the Tibetan spiritual leader, saying, “He has a childlike quality, is completely unpretentious, and you feel a bubble of joy around him.” The Dalai Lama lifts a dove into the air in the trailer of &#8216;Wisdom of Happiness,&#8217; a documentary that features rare archival material of the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader’s early life. (Image from &#8216;Wisdom of Happiness&#8217; trailer via YouTube) “At the same time, he is probably the greatest scholar of his generation,” he said. “It’s an incredible mix of purity, joy and profound wisdom.” Pema also addressed the audience at the premiere, reflecting on the special connection between Tibet and Switzerland. “Switzerland was the first country to open its doors to Tibetan refugees after China occupied our homeland,” she said. “Like Tibet, Switzerland is a mountainous country, and it’s always a pleasure to be here.” Additional reporting by Rigdhen Dolma, Lhuboom and Tashi Wangchuk for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Tenzin Pema, Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Rights groups blast Skechers over new store in Xinjiang](https://ij-reportika.com/rights-groups-blast-skechers-over-new-store-in-xinjiang/): Rights groups are condemning U.S. footwear and apparel company Skechers as it used the star power of martial arts actor Donnie Yen to open a new store in Xinjiang despite allegations that ethnic Uyghurs in China&#8217;s far west are used for forced labor. In a video Yen posted to Instagram, crowds inside a glitzy shopping mall in the regional capital of Urumqi clamored to catch a glimpse of the Hong Kong actor, who is a Skechers brand ambassador — and is known to have pro-China sympathies. The company promoted its Sept. 28 Urumqi store opening heavily on Chinese social media, and Yen encouraged his nearly 130 million followers on Weibo to visit the outlet and explore its “comfortable treasures,” Voice of America reported. The brand is big in China: Of Skechers 5,200 retail stores worldwide, China has the most with more than 940. But the big promotional event — and opening a story in Urumqi — showed that Skechers was “completely tone deaf” to concerns about the use of Uyghur forced labor in Xinjiang, said Jewher Ilham, the forced labor project coordinator at the Worker Rights Consortium. “Skechers isn&#8217;t yet taking seriously the need to extricate its business from the Uyghur region, even after it was previously linked to forced labor by U.S. Customs and other institutions,” Ilham said. The United States has taken a strict stance on the issue. Under the 2021 Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, imports from Xinjiang are banned from entering the United States unless they are certified as not made with forced labor. In June 2022, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security added Skechers supplier Dongguan Oasis Shoes Co., Ltd., to a list of companies suspected of using Uyghur slave labor. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute issued a 2020 report titled “Uyghurs For Sale which found that 83 global companies and brands, including Skechers, were directly or indirectly benefiting from the use of Uyghur forced labor in 27 factories in China from which they sourced products. ‘Distasteful’ Skechers has been identified as a company within that risk, said Henryk Szadziewski, research director at the Uyghur Human Rights Project in Washington. “For me, even if the question of forced labor is in dispute, the very fact that you&#8217;re opening a shop [and] profiteering in a region where there&#8217;s ongoing crimes against humanity, I&#8217;d have to question the decision of Skechers here and ask them what kind of ethical guidelines and clearance were made to make this decision,” he told Radio Free Asia.  “So, it&#8217;s not just the forced labor,” he said. “[In] this region are ongoing crimes against humanity, and [Skechers’] decision is to open a shop and make money. That&#8217;s very distasteful.” When we contacted Jennifer Clay, vice president of corporate communications at Skechers, for comment, her assistant said Clay was traveling and “too busy to deal with that right now.” Yen, whose breakout film in the West was “Ip Man” in 2008, is a controversial figure because of his pro-China comments. He most recently appeared in  “John Wick 4” in which he had a prominent role along with American actor Keanu Reeves. His appearance at the Oscars in Hollywood in March 2023 prompted protesters to gather outside the venue, criticizing him for his lack of support for Hong Kong’s 2019 pro-democracy movement, which he had called “a riot.” Some critics even called on event organizers to disinvite Yen. Many Hong Kongers have boycotted Yen’s movies over his pro-Beijing stance during the 2019 protests against the erosion of Hong Kong’s promised freedoms and judicial independence that saw pitched battles between protesters armed with bricks, Molotov cocktails and other makeshift weapons against fully equipped riot police who fired rubber bullets and tear gas. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Did an American admiral claim the US will attack China in 2027?](https://ij-reportika.com/did-an-american-admiral-claim-the-us-will-attack-china-in-2027/): A claim emerged in Chinese-language social media posts that U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Lisa Franchetti revealed during an internal meeting a U.S. plan to launch a war against China in 2027.  But this is misleading. Franchetti’s comments were part of a public statement in which she said it was important to ensure the U.S. is prepared for a potential conflict with China by 2027. The claim was shared on Douyin, Chinese version of TikTok in late September, 2024, alongside a 30-second video that shows U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Lisa Franchetti.  “A leaked video shows that Franchetti revealed U.S.’s plans to launch a war with China in 2027 during internal U.S. Navy operations meeting,” the claim reads in part. Chinese online users claim that in a leaked conversation Admiral Franchetti said the U.S. plans to go to war with China in 2027. (Screenshots /X, Douyin and Weibo) There are growing concerns about a potential U.S.-China war, particularly the assumption that such a conflict would be short and decisive.  War games and military novels often portray limited, quick engagements, such as battles over Taiwan, but history shows that wars between great powers are rarely brief. Instead, they tend to drag on, expanding across multiple regions and involving other nations.  Several factors could trigger a U.S.-China war, with Taiwan being the most significant. A Chinese attempt to invade or blockade Taiwan could prompt a U.S. response. Territorial disputes in the South China Sea, where China’s claims clash with those of U.S. allies like the Philippines, also pose risks. Additionally, alliances involving nations like Russia or North Korea could draw more countries into a broader conflict, turning a regional dispute into a larger war. The same claim about Franchetti was shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, and Weibo.  But the claim is misleading.  Original clip A combination of keyword searches and reverse image search on Google found that the clips of Franchetti were taken from a video released by the U.S. military on Sept. 18, titled: “CNO Release Navigation Plan 2024.” “Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti released her Navigation Plan (NAVPLAN) for America’s Warfighting Navy at the Naval War College, Sept. 18,” the caption of the video reads in part. “This strategic guidance focuses on two strategic ends: readiness for conflict with the PRC by 2027 and enhancing long-term advantage,” it reads further. Separately, the Navy’s navigation plan, the first update in two years, sets the year 2027 as a baseline for U.S. naval operations in response to goals stated by Chinese President Xi Jinping regarding target dates for China’s military modernization.   A review of the video and the navigation plan found no mention of a  U.S. plan to launch a war with China in 2027. Chinese military modernization China proposed  accelerating the modernization of its defense forces at a meeting of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee in October 2020.  The meeting signaled that China’s armed forces should be prepared for the country’s great rejuvenation by 2027, a goal frequently mentioned by Chinese officials and reported in state-run media.  Since then, U.S. officials have debated and offered different viewpoints about whether China will attack Taiwan in 2027 or 2035.  When Chinese President Xi Jinping met U.S. President Joe Biden at a summit in San Francisco in November 2023, he denied that China planned to attack Taiwan in 2027 or 2035, according to media reports.  Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Shen Ke and Taejun Kang. Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Young female Tibetan cricketer breaks into India’s cricket scene](https://ij-reportika.com/young-female-tibetan-cricketer-breaks-into-indias-cricket-scene/): Read RFA coverage of this story in Tibetan. A 19-year-old has made history as the first Tibetan female cricketer to break into India’s highly competitive state-level cricket scene. Jetsun Narbu competes for the all-women’s Mumbai Cricket Association — the city’s top state-level team — and has her sights on the Indian national team. Narbu, who was born in Mumbai and has Indian citizenship, told Radio Free Asia that she hopes to use her platform to raise awareness about Tibetan identity and culture on the international stage. “I want to represent India and bring attention to my Tibetan heritage through cricket,” she said. “And If I could achieve that as a Tibetan cricketer, it would be a dream come true.” Narbu’s rise in cricket marks a significant milestone, both for her as an athlete and for the Tibetan community in India.  Indians are passionate about cricket. Played everywhere from crowded city streets to dirt lanes of rural villages, the sport unites people of all ages and backgrounds. Early seeds Narbu’s love for cricket developed during her childhood, when she first saw her father watching a match of female cricket players on TV. The image of women playing a traditionally male-dominated sport captivated her, fueling her ambition to become a cricketer.  Encouraged by her father, Narbu Chee, she started training to be a cricketer at the age of 13.  Jetsun Narbu at cricket practice in Mumbai, India, 2024. (Jetsun Narbu) Narbu developed her athletics skills with help from Indian coaches and strong family support, and has played in multiple tournaments, including Under-19 and T20 competitions, representing various teams at a state and national levels.  In 2021, Narbu represented the northeastern state of Sikkim during the Women’s Senior One-Day Trophy and the T-20 Women’s Senior Tournament. In 2023, Narbu represented Mumbai in the national T20 and under-19 ODI tournaments.  As a university student, Narbu studies finance at Jai Hind College in Mumbai and hopes to land a job in investment banking with the specialization in mergers and acquisitions. Ethnic background Narbu said she has never experienced discrimination based on her ethnicity, though she has occasionally noticed curious glances from Indian onlookers because of her different facial features.  “In sports, skills and dedication should matter more than your background or ethnicity,” she said, underscoring her belief in merit over identity. Her ambition, however, does come with challenges.  Competing in a sport where few Tibetan women are visible, Narbu is paving her path with little precedent, which can be both daunting and empowering, she says.  “Whatever sport you choose, focus on your training and commitment,” she said. “Through sports, we can not only showcase our talents but also bring attention to Tibet’s culture and cause.” Additional reporting by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Translated by Dawa Dolma. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar military transfers prisoners as insurgents advance](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-military-transfers-prisoners-as-insurgents-advance/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. Junta authorities in western Myanmar have transferred nearly 370 prisoners out of the town of Sittwe in anticipation of an attack by ethnic minority fighters of the Arakan Army, or AA, to free them, a politician and family of the detainees told Radio Free Asia. The AA is one of the most powerful guerrilla forces battling the Myanmar military and it has repeatedly announced its aim to capture the coastal town of Sittwe, capital of the western-most state, and one of the last important places the military holds there. The military is worried that the prisoners may escape or be released if the AA attacks Sittwe, said a Pe Than, a former member of parliament from the state. “Sittwe wouldn’t be controlled by the junta if the AA attacked so they don’t not want to see the inmates released after being prosecuted,” said the former member of the Arakan National Party. “That’s why, I think, those arrested in such incidents have been transferred to other prisons,” he said, referring to people imprisoned on charges of aiding or collaborating with the insurgents. RFA tried to contact Rakhine state’s junta spokesperson, Hla Thein, for information on the transfer but he did not answer calls. The AA has captured territory some 24 kilometers (15 miles) from Sittwe but it does not appear an immediate threat to junta forces there. However, AA fighters are advancing on the junta’s Western Command headquarters in Ann township, about 120 km (75 miles) southwest of Sittwe, capturing an important junta defensive position on a hill on the approach to Ann on Monday. The AA, battling for self-determination for the mostly Buddhist Rakhine people, has taken territory across Rakhine state and controls 10 of the state’s 17 townships, and one in neighboring Chin state. It would be the first Myanmar rebel group to take over a state if it seizes, as it has vowed to do, all territory in military control there. RELATED STORIES ‘Direct hit’ airstrike on homes kills 15 civilians in Myanmar’s Rakhine state Myanmar military court jails 144 villagers detained after massacre Myanmar junta arrests dozens for sending supplies to rebel zone &#8216;Transferred to Insein&#8217; About 200 of the 366 people transferred from Sittwe’s prisons were detained during a bloody junta raid on Byain Phyu village, on the outskirts of Sittwe, in June for being suspected AA supporters, residents of Sittwe said. “He said that they were about to be moved to other prisons and gave a message for the family not to worry and to take care of each other,” said a woman whose husband was among those transferred. “He said they were being transferred to Insein and Pathein prisons,” said the woman, who declined to be identified for safety reasons. Insein is Myanmar’s most notorious prison, in the main city of Yangon. Pathein is a town to the west of Yangon. Dozens of people were killed in the sweep of Byain Phyu, human rights group said, by soldiers fearful that AA fighters would stage an attack on Sittwe from the village. Most of the Byain Phyu villagers held in the prison were jailed for three years for unlawful association. Rakhine-based reporter Htet Aung and an unidentified colleague from the Development Media Group news outlet, which has reported on human rights violations by junta troops, were among those transferred, family members said. The two had been jailed for five years under a counter-terrorism law. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.  We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Police question students of shuttered Vietnamese education company](https://ij-reportika.com/police-question-students-of-shuttered-vietnamese-education-company/): Read this story in Vietnamese A non-profit organization that offered courses aimed at fostering independent thinking among Vietnamese citizens still has the attention of government investigators almost a year after it was forced to shut down.  Authorities have summoned some 50 students and teachers for questioning in the 10 months since FreeHub Education Solutions Company Ltd., or FreeHub, was closed, according to Nguyen Ho Nhat Thanh, the company’s founder. FreeHub opened in 2022 with the goal of giving learners the ability to think from multiple perspectives and make sound decisions in their personal lives. It offered courses – both online and in person – in philosophy, psychology, sociology, economics, history, culture and art.  Even though the classes didn’t discuss Vietnamese politics, authorities still viewed FreeHub as a threat, Thanh told Radio Free Asia on Monday. “It worried security agencies, who accused us of having toppling schemes,” he said. “The current regime is an ideological dictatorship. Therefore, different thinking flows are seen as threats.” Students sit inside a stadium ahead of celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the 1954 Dien Bien Phu victory over French colonial forces in Dien Bien Phu city on May 7, 2024. (Nhac Nguyen/AFP) Vietnamese courts have sentenced numerous journalists, boggers and activists over the last decade in an ongoing campaign to crush dissent.  Additionally, more than 60 people have been convicted and jailed for long terms for suspected links to a self-proclaimed government-in-exile that was founded in the U.S. in 1991. The Ministry of Public Security listed the group – known as the Provisional National Government of Vietnam – as a terrorist organization in 2018.  Summoned for questioning Thanh, also known as Paulo Thanh Nguyen, said he closed FreeHub in late 2023 in response to police harassment of its students in several locations. In the announcement posted on his personal Facebook page, Thanh wrote that trouble with authorities began after FreeHub offered a course on community development. Since then, FreeHub’s Facebook page has been taken down and its service provider has blocked access to its website. Security forces have continued to target students anyway, going to their homes or summoning them to government offices where they have been told to write personal reflections or reports, Thanh said, citing discussions with students. Security officers forced them to hand over their cellphones and laptops and to provide passwords, he added.  “Teachers have also been summoned,” Thanh said. “Security officers said the program was run by a reactionary organization, distorting many things and warning them they were not allowed to continue participating.” RELATED STORIES Vietnamese Authorities Raid a Civil Society Training Class Vietnamese Authorities Beat Dissident Bloggers on Human Rights Day The Ministry of Public Security seems to want to make FreeHub into a major case by linking it with overseas organizations already labeled as “hostile forces,” Thanh added.  Police have only summoned FreeHub students and teachers so far. Thanh said he believes authorities are collecting evidence for his eventual arrest. RFA called the Ministry of Public Security’s Security Investigation Agency to seek comment on Thanh’s accusations. The officer who answered the phone suggested that RFA’s reporter come to headquarters in person or send in a written request in order to receive a response. Thanh previously organized human rights events like “Human Rights Coffee” – a space for activists to meet following anti-China protests in Hanoi in 2014. He has also conducted training programs for young activists in various cities and provinces. Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [French Polynesian president asks UN to bring France into decolonization talks](https://ij-reportika.com/french-polynesian-president-asks-un-to-bring-france-into-decolonization-talks/): French Polynesia’s president and civil society leaders have called on the United Nations to bring France to the negotiating table and set a timetable for the decolonization of the Pacific territory. More than a decade after the archipelago was re-listed for decolonization by the U.N. General Assembly, France has refused to acknowledge the world’s peak diplomatic organization has a legitimate role. France’s reputation has taken a battering as an out-of-touch colonial power since deadly violence erupted in New Caledonia in May, sparked by a now abandoned French government attempt to dilute the voting power of indigenous Kanak people. Pro-independence French Polynesian President Moetai Brotherson told the U.N. Decolonization Committee’s annual meeting in New York on Monday that “after a decade of silence” France must be “guided” to participate in “dialogue.” “Our government’s full support for a comprehensive, transparent and peaceful decolonization process with France, under the scrutiny of the United Nations, can pave the way for a decolonization process that serves as an example to the world,” Brotherson said. Brotherson called for France to finally co-operate in creating a roadmap and timeline for the decolonization process, pointing to unrest in New Caledonia that “reminds us of the delicate balance that peace requires.” In August he warned France “always had a problem with decolonization” in the Pacific, where it also controls the territories of New Caledonia and Wallis and Futuna.  The 121 islands of French Polynesia stretch over a vast expanse of the Pacific, with a population of about 280,000, and was first settled more than 2,000 years ago.  Often referred to as Tahiti after the island with the biggest population, France declared the archipelago a protectorate in 1842, followed by full annexation in 1880. France last year attended the U.N. committee for the first time since the territory’s re-inscription in 2013 as awaiting decolonization, after decades of campaigning by French Polynesian politicians. French permanent representative to the U.N. Nicolas De Rivière responds to French Polynesia President Moetai Brotherson at the 79th session of the Decolonization Committee, pictured on Oct. 7 2024. (UNTV) &#8220;I would like to clarify once again that this change of method does not imply a change of policy,” French permanent representative to the U.N. Nicolas De Rivière told the committee on Monday. “There is no process between the state and the Polynesian territory that reserves a role for the United Nations,” he said, and pointed out France contributes almost 2 billion euros (US$2.2 billion) each year, or almost 30 percent of the territory&#8217;s GDP. After the U.N. session Brotherson told the media that France’s position is “off the mark”. French Polynesia was initially listed for decolonization by the U.N. in 1946 but removed a year later as France fought to hold onto its overseas territories after the Second World War. Granted limited autonomy in 1984, with control over local government services, France retained administration over justice, security, defense, foreign policy and the currency. Seventeen pro-independence and four pro-autonomy – who support the status quo – speakers gave impassioned testimony to the committee. Lawyer and Protestant church spokesman Philippe Neuffer highlighted children in the territory “solely learn French and Western history.” “They deserve the right to learn our complete history, not the one centered on the French side of the story,” he said. “Talking about the nuclear tests without even mentioning our veterans’ history and how they fought to get a court to condemn France for poisoning people with nuclear radiation.” France conducted 193 nuclear tests over three decades until 1996 in French Polynesia. “Our lands are contaminated, our health compromised and our spirits burned,” president of the Mururoa E Tatou Association Tevaerai Puarai told the U.N. denouncing it as French “nuclear colonialism.” “We demand justice. We demand freedom,” Puarai said. He said France needed to take full responsibility for its “nuclear crimes”, referencing a controversial 10-year compensation deal reached in 2009. Some Māʼohi indigenous people, many French residents and descendants in the territory fear independence and the resulting loss of subsidies would devastate the local economy and public services. Pro-autonomy local Assembly member Tepuaraurii Teriitahi told the committee, “French Polynesia is neither oppressed nor exploited by France.” “The idea that we could find 2 billion a year to replace this contribution on our own is an illusion that would lead to the impoverishment and downfall of our hitherto prosperous country,” she said. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Spike in arrests leaves Chinese detention centers overflowing](https://ij-reportika.com/spike-in-arrests-leaves-chinese-detention-centers-overflowing/): Detention centers in China are overflowing amid a sharp rise in the number of arrests in the first half of this year, according to defense lawyers and recent government figures. In the six months to June 30, prosecutors approved the formal arrest of 367,000 suspects, up 18.5% from the same period in 2023. They also prosecuted 761,000 people nationwide, a rise of 6.8% year-on-year, according to an article on the official website of the Supreme People&#8217;s Procuratorate dated July 29. The formal arrest figures don&#8217;t include people being held under criminal detention pending investigation by police, &#8220;residential surveillance at a designated location,&#8221; or administrative detention. The spike in criminal proceedings has led to overcrowded detention centers, prompting the authorities to build new facilities to hold the newly arrested, criminal defense attorney Wang Rui said in video footage uploaded to social media. &#8220;Detention centers are already overcrowded, with plans for expansion in a lot of places this year,&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;A few days ago, I met with a client who said there were more than 20 people in a cell that was designed to hold 12. Some people had to sleep on the floor.&#8221; &#8220;It was hot weather, but not only was there no air-conditioning; they didn&#8217;t even have an electric fan,&#8221; he said.  Criminal defense attorney Wang Rui. Undated. Unknown social media account. (Video screenshot/provided by Qianlang) A second lawyer from the central province of Henan who gave only the surname Sun for fear of reprisals confirmed Wang&#8217;s claim. &#8220;Usually you would have 12 or 14 people in a cell, but now that number has risen to more than 20,&#8221; he said.  According to January figures from the Ministry of Public Security, China has more than 2,300 detention centers, which are generally used to house people awaiting investigation, trial or appeal, while prisons are used to house those serving out their time. Minor rule-breaking Lawyers said that the likely reason for the sudden rise in the number of arrests was a nationwide clampdown on minor rule-breaking like irregularities in the accounts of small business owners, as well as on ordinary people lodging formal complaints about official wrongdoing. &#8220;Some people are being intercepted for petitioning, and may be charged with obstructing a public official in the performance of their duties, or picking quarrels and stirring up trouble,&#8221; Sun said. &#8220;They are finding reasons to arrest people even if no crime has been committed &#8212; that really is the situation right now.&#8221; Criminal defense attorney Wang Kui. Undated. Unknown social media account. (Video screenshot/provided by Qianlang) Another lawyer, Wang Kui, had a similar story, saying officials seem to have zero tolerance for any kind of rule-breaking these days. &#8220;In the past, they would turn a blind eye to a lot of stuff, but that&#8217;s longer possible now,&#8221; he said in a video uploaded to his social media account. &#8220;For example, if you run a small business and don&#8217;t complete the right paperwork, you could be accused of illegal business operations.&#8221; &#8220;If you have poor turnover and default on some payments, you could be charged with fraud or breach of contract,&#8221; Wang Kui said. &#8220;It&#8217;s becoming clearer and clearer that heavy sentences are being handed down for minor crimes.&#8221; The current economic downturn is stepping up pressure on people who are heavily indebted due to their mortgages, car loans, kids&#8217; education or who have black or gray-market income streams, the lawyers said. Pyramid schemes, fraud and money laundering are also rampant, due to falling corporate revenues, they said. Salaries down Meanwhile, cash-strapped local governments are slashing public servants&#8217; salaries and imposing fees and fines in every area of people&#8217;s lives, including new highway tolls and roadside parking fees on quiet residential streets. Guo Min, a former deputy police station chief at the Zhuzhou city police department in the central province of Hunan, said the authorities have been steadily building new detention centers and prisons in his home province for a few years now. &#8220;The expansion of detention centers, jails and prisons began several years ago, probably under the guidance of the central government,&#8221; Guo told RFA Mandarin. &#8220;Take Zhuzhou for example. They started building jails and detention centers several years ago, and they have been coming into use over the past couple of years.&#8221; &#8220;It appears that the government has long anticipated the current situation and made arrangements accordingly,&#8221; he said. The number of people arrested in China increased by nearly 20% in the first half of this year, causing overcrowding in detention centers across the country. (Reuters file photo) According to the Supreme People&#8217;s Procuratorate article, law enforcement agencies are currently targeting &#8220;Taiwan independence diehards&#8221; accused of &#8220;splitting the country and inciting others to secession,&#8221; although no figures were supplied.  China warned earlier this year that nationals of democratic Taiwan could be tried in absentia and even sentenced to death for supporting formal independence for the country, but Taipei said Beijing has no jurisdiction over acts and speech on its territory. Meanwhile, the authorities are also vowing to get tough on organized crime, prosecuting 28,000 people for gang-related offenses in the first half of the year, and on drugs-related offenses, which yielded 26,000 prosecutions over the same period, the article said. It said &#8220;more than 85% of criminal suspects confessed and pleaded guilty during the prosecution stage.&#8221; We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Over 100 Myanmar political prisoners have died since coup, group says](https://ij-reportika.com/over-100-myanmar-political-prisoners-have-died-since-coup-group-says/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. More than 100 political prisoners arrested by Myanmar’s junta have died in custroy in the three and a half years since the military seized power, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, or AAPP.  Junta authorities have arrested tens of thousands of activists, union leaders, rebel soldiers, journalists and people suspected of supporting insurgent groups.  Among those detained and sentenced to decades in jail are members of the ousted National League for Democracy, or NLD, administration, including former State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and other high-profile politicians detained hours after the early 2021 coup. Prisoners allowed out speak of appalling conditions in Myanmar’s numerous prisons and detention centers, including crumbling infrastructure, brutal treatment, sexual harassment and limited access to adequate food and medical care.  Of the 103 political prisoners who have died in prison since the coup, at least 63 people were denied medical treatment, the AAPP, a rights group based outside Myanmar, said in a statement on Monday following the death of a top NLD member. Mandalay region chief minister and NLD Vice Chairman Zaw Myint Maung had been diagnosed with leukemia before being sentenced to 29 years in prison on various of charges, including election fraud and other charges largely dismissed by pro-democracy activists. He was 73 when he died on Monday in hospital, where military authorities allowed him to go in his final days. Activists said he did not receive proper medical care in prison. “If Dr Zaw Myint Maung had proper outside medical treatment we wouldn’t have lost his life,” said Aung Myo Kyaw of the AAPP. “He didn’t really get proper medical care since he was arrested. Like Nyan Win, there are many more,” he said, referring to a long-time NLD  central executive committee member and Suu Kyi’s personal lawyer, who died in Yangon’s infamous Insein Prison from COVID-19 a few months after the coup.  “If these people were not in prison but outside, they wouldn’t have died.” Radio Free Asia could not reach junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment on the AAPP’s statement. Military authorities say prisoners are treated according to the law. ‘Malicious’ Other activists who have died include Pe Maung, a filmmaker killed by tuberculosis shortly after being released from prison, and rapper-turned-rebel soldier San Linn San, who died from head trauma after being tortured in prison,  a human rights monitoring group said.   Pe Maung and Zaw Myint Maung were both released by junta authorities when it was too late to get treatment, effectively sentencing them to death, said AAPP secretary Tate Naing.  “This kind of announcement, that they’ll be released when the inmates are about to die, has been done before by previous military dictators,” he said. “This is routine for the military regime – it’s a malicious and deliberate execution of political prisoners.” Other prisoners have been tortured to death or shot during prison riots, said Aung Myo Kyaw.  More than 20,000 people have been detained on political charges since the 2021 coup, of whom more than 9,000 have been sentenced to prison, the AAPP said.  The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights also denounced conditions in Myanmar&#8217;s prisons and detention centers, saying in a report last month that at least 1,853 people have died in military custody, including 88 children and 125 women, since the coup – many after being tortured. As ethnic minority insurgents and pro-democracy fighters make advances in several parts of the country, the military routinely detains villagers suspected of supporting the rebels, residents and rights groups say. On Monday, five women in Magway region’s Myaing township were arrested on suspicion of supporting an anti-junta militia, or People’s Defense Force, residents of the area said. They denied that the women were involved with any insurgent group.  RELATED STORIES: Senior Myanmar pro-democracy politician dies in custody at 73 A Myanmar revolutionary battles an old enemy with new allies Women account for 1 in 5 deaths in Myanmar since coup Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.  We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [North Korean farmers risk penalties if too many potatoes left in the ground](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korean-farmers-risk-penalties-if-too-many-potatoes-left-in-the-ground/): Read a version of this story in Korean North Korean farm managers who are not carefully harvesting their potato crops – leaving some behind – are getting in trouble with authorities, residents with links to the agricultural sector told Radio Free Asia. Inspectors recently swooped down on several collective farms in the northern potato-growing region of Ryanggang province to check the fields. “The inspectors drove around in cars and dug up every nook and cranny of the potato fields on the farm,” a resident who works in agriculture said on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “If the inspectors conclude that the fall harvest was not done properly, the farms must redo it until they pass the inspection,” another provincial resident said. The reason behind the checks appears to be that farmers are spending more time tending their personal fields than the collective farm’s lots, the sources said. In North Korea’s collective farming system, farmers are paid the standard government salary to work the land, and then all crops are collected by the state and distributed to the people. But since the collapse of the country’s economy in the 1990s, that salary is nowhere near enough to live on.  Bales of straw in North Korean fields after the rice harvest, as seen from the Ganghwa Peace Observatory across the border in South Korea, Sept. 23, 2024. (Yonhap News)   So the farmers, like everyone else, must support themselves by other means – and are planting their own personal potato patches–usually on land surrounding their homes. The potatoes grown there are either eaten or sold for extra income. When harvest time comes around, citizens are mobilized to provide free labor to the farm managers, who order them to quickly dig up the collective farms just to make quota by the Sept. 30 deadline. The farm managers have a tendency to not to watch the collective farms too, and they acknowledge that they are mostly going through the motions, the first resident said. “They are working so irresponsibly to the point that they joke that the mobilized workers are ‘digging for potatoes with their eyes closed,’” he said. Farmers beware But the government wants them to be more thorough, so it is sending inspection teams to check. “The Cabinet Agricultural Commission dispatched a 20-member harvest inspection team in Hyesan City on Sept. 26,” the second Ryanggang resident said, referring to a city in the province. Punishments for farm officials who fail inspections can be harsh, he said. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspects potato fields and agricultural machinery warehouses while touring a farm in Samjiyon county, Ryanggang province, in July 2018. (Yonhap News) Last year, many farm officials in the province were expelled from the Workers’ Party, and they lost all the housing and employment privileges that go with membership, and some were even sent to prison because they were sloppy in their management of the harvest. “Farm officials can’t sleep at night because they think something like that could happen to them right now,” the first resident said. At a farm in the city of Hyesan, the harvest was completed on Sept. 27, but then the workers were remobilized, that is, called to provide unpaid labor once again, when they heard that the inspection team had arrived. “They even mobilized middle and high school students to complete the harvest again,” he said. “The farm officials would rather miss the deadline than fail the inspection.” Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [China, North Korea mark 75th anniversary of ties in muted tone](https://ij-reportika.com/china-north-korea-mark-75th-anniversary-of-ties-in-muted-tone/): Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have marked the 75th anniversary of their countries’ relations but the messages they exchanged were less effusive and shorter than in the past, hinting at cooler ties. Xi’s message to Kim this year, published by China’s Xinhua News Agency, was 309 characters long, compared with 435 characters in 2019, for the 70th anniversary. Similarly, Kim’s message to Xi, published by the Korean Central News Agency, was 497 characters this year, down from 809 characters in 2019. But it wasn&#8217;t just the length of the messages that was different. Xi told Kim that relations between their countries had “stood the changes of the times and the trials of an ever-changing international situation and become a precious asset common to the two countries and the two peoples.” Xi added that China was ready to further develop relations “through strengthened strategic communications and coordination, and deepened friendly exchange and cooperation.” But Xi did not use the phrases he used in the 70th anniversary celebration, such as “the traditional friendship between China and the DPRK has grown stronger over time and gone deep into the hearts of the people.” DPRK stands for the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Kim referred to Xi in 2019 as his “esteemed” comrade but he dropped that salutation this year.  “Our Party and the government of the Republic will steadily strive to consolidate and develop the friendly and cooperative relations between the DPRK and China as required by the new era,” Kim said.  This year, the messages between Xi and Kim were published on page four of North Korea’s state-run Rodong Sinmun daily. In 2019, they were splashed across the newspaper’s front page. RELATED STORIES Xi’s latest message to North Korea’s Kim hints at cooling ties North Korea bans more TV and movies. Surprise! They’re Chinese North Korea orders return of workers in China stranded by pandemic Since North Korea and China established diplomatic ties on Oct. 6, 1949, their relationship has often been described as being “as close as lips and teeth.”  However, there have been signals that China, by far North Korea’s largest trading partner, has become more distant towards its northeastern neighbor. In September, Xi, in his first message to Kim in eight months, marking the anniversary of North Korea’s founding, was also less effusive in tone on the friendship between the countries than he had been the previous year. South Korea’s main security agency has raised the possibility of cooler ties between China and North Korea while media has reported that China is hesitant to form a three-way, anti-West alliance with North Korea and Russia.  North Korea and Russia have moved significantly closer amid widespread suspicion that North Korea has supplied conventional weapons to Russia for its war in Ukraine in return for military and economic assistance.  This year, North Korea and Russia the two countries signed a strategic treaty that includes mutual defense elements. China Beijing appears to prioritize a stable regional security environment to address its economic challenges and maintain relationships with Europe and its Asian neighbors. China’s foreign ministry has dismissed any suggestions that relations with North Korea have cooled. While North Korea largely sealed itself off during the COVID-19 pandemic, this year it has been building up its diplomatic ties, apart from those with Russia. A top Vietnamese defense official visited Pyongyang last month and in August, North Korea took steps to patch up ties with old ally Cuba. In April, a North Korean delegation visited Iran.  Edited by Mike Firn.  We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [China's workers complain of being 'beasts of burden'](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-workers-complain-of-being-beasts-of-burden/): There&#8217;s a new social media buzzword making the rounds in China that is a shorthand way for workers to complain about being overworked and exploited &#8212; &#8220;oxen and horses.&#8221; The metaphor has gone viral again recently with a video clip of talk show star Xu Zhisheng quipping about his company: &#8220;So what, are you gonna milk me now?&#8221; While China has long been known for its unforgiving office culture, as the post-lockdown economy flags and jobs get harder to come by, those who are in work find that more and more is being asked of them, leading them to describe themselves as beasts of burden. &#8220;Treatment of workers is getting worse and worse during the economic crisis,&#8221; a worker in the solar energy industry who gave only the pseudonym Jiang Ling for fear of reprisals told RFA Mandarin by email. &#8220;Oxen and horses is a popular buzzword in China &#8230; which expresses how badly workers are being treated.&#8221; An employee works at a workshop of an engineering equipment manufacturing enterprise, Feb. 29, 2024 in Nanjing, Jiangsu, China. (Yang Bo/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images) Long working hours, low pay and no way to stand up for their rights were the most frequently cited complaints by workers who spoke to Radio Free Asia in recent interviews. A white-collar employee with more than 10 years&#8217; experience in the state-owned and private sector, who gave only the nickname Amesis for fear of reprisals, said both sectors are as bad as each other when it comes to wringing the last drops of productivity out of employees. &#8220;The worst thing about private companies is the boss&#8217; arrogant attitude towards their employees,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Private companies will expect you to do overtime if they get a request from another department.&#8221; &#8220;But in state-owned enterprises, you&#8217;re treated like beasts of burden &#8212; expected to produce a report within a specified timeframe,&#8221; Amesis said. &#8220;In those companies, most of the tasks they assign to you are outside of your job description.&#8221; ‘No room to say no’ Regardless of the company structure, &#8220;requests&#8221; from management are non-negotiable. &#8220;There&#8217;s no room to say no, and no basic rights as an employee,&#8221; he said, adding that at least state-owned companies pay overtime, although at the same rate as regular wages. Dong Ming, who has held both white- and blue-collar roles since entering the workplace in 2005, said the hours are pretty long regardless of the type of labor you do. On the shop floor of a listed flooring manufacturer, Dong used to work &#8220;8.00 a.m. to 8.00 p.m. or 8.00 p.m. to 8.00 a.m. two weeks on day shift and two weeks on nights,&#8221; he said. A 2024 survey by human resources company Zhaopin found that nearly 70% of white-collar and blue-collar workers put in more than eight hours a day, with scant difference between them. And 34% of respondents described themselves as beasts of burden, or &#8220;oxen and horses.&#8221; Employees check electronic components at the workshop of Jiangxi Yingteli Electronic Technology Co., Ltd., June 8, 2023 in Jincheng, Shanxi, China. (Wei Liang/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images) Zhang Chao, a former national marketing director of a Chinese brewery, said there is little choice for workers faced with ever-increasing demands on their time. &#8220;In some low-end jobs, it&#8217;s pretty easy to recruit people, especially in the current environment,&#8221; Zhang told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview. &#8220;A lot of people competing on the bottom end of the ladder for basic jobs are unemployed.&#8221; In the private company where Zhang used to work, there was no such thing as overtime pay, and pressure to put in long hours is greater the further you are down the pecking order. But there are also oxen and horses among senior management, he said. &#8220;It depends on what kind of division of management labor you have with your boss,&#8221; he said. &#8220;If he trusts you, he will leave a lot of stuff to you &#8212; that makes you kind of a senior beast of burden.&#8221; ‘Wolf culture’ Amesis agreed, saying managers are no more able to resist the demands of their employer than workers further down the company hierarchy. &#8220;The managers report directly to the boss, and they&#8217;re the ones who get scolded if there are problems,&#8221; he said.  For Dong, who has put in shifts in restaurants, coal mines, factories and opticians, most workplaces don&#8217;t treat workers like human beings. Even at the opticians, where the job was somewhat easier, his boss used his lowly background to belittle and criticize him. &#8220;He told me that people like me with a poor background are incompetent and would never achieve anything,&#8221; Dong said. &#8220;He looked down on poor people, and saw them as narrow-minded and ignorant of everything, like fine dining.&#8221; An employee works on the production line at a workshop of wig, June 4, 2024 in Xuchang, Henan, China. (Kan Li/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images) The 12-hours shifts at the flooring factory left him exhausted at the time, but he didn&#8217;t see himself as exploited until later. &#8220;I was a little self-critical that I probably wasn&#8217;t up to it,&#8221; he said. The predatory attitude of employers towards those they hire has been dubbed &#8220;wolf culture&#8221; in the Chinese workplace. &#8220;Wolf culture basically means that everyone has to work together as a team, work overtime, and put up with things being tough,&#8221; Zhang said. &#8220;A team is only allowed to speak with one voice.&#8221; Anyone who steps out of line, even to raise a minor objection, is seen as the problem, even if the repercussions don&#8217;t come immediately. Bias toward companies This means that few Chinese employees are willing to put their neck on the line. &#8220;Even if you open your mouth and your manager politely refuses, if you go back a second time, the outcome may not be very good for you,&#8221; Zhang said. &#8220;Sometimes the manager will even start to target you.&#8221; And when that happens, there is little redress outside the workplace....
- [Cambodian anti-Vietnamese sentiment will stalk Hun Manet beyond trade zone spat](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-anti-vietnamese-sentiment-will-stalk-hun-manet-beyond-trade-zone-spat/): After months of disquiet, Prime Minister Hun Manet announced on Sept. 20 that Cambodia would be withdrawing from the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Development Triangle Area (CLV-DTA), a major investment pact.  Sophal Ear, a U.S.-based analyst, described the move as “almost Brexit-like” – a nice sound bite, but far from the case. Cambodia hasn’t left ASEAN, nor withdrawn from important regional bodies like the Mekong River Commission.  A report from February claimed that Vietnam had invested in 45 projects in Cambodia, worth around $1.7 billion, through the scheme since its inception in 2004. Yet, much of this investment likely would have happened bilaterally without the CLV framework.  In fact, a 2017 study showed that the majority of the program’s benefits went to Vietnam. Chhengpor Aun, an analyst, summarized it well: Cambodia’s leadership concluded that the CLV-DTA carried “higher political risks domestically than transnational economic and diplomatic gains it promised to deliver.” Granted, Hanoi won’t be pleased with Cambodia’s decision, especially given the ongoing controversy over Phnom Penh’s decision to progress with the Funan Techo Canal despite Vietnam’s concerns. The China-backed megaproject could have a major ecological impact on southern Vietnam and would reduce Cambodia’s reliance on Vietnamese ports.  Hanoi will be wary about the narrative that Cambodia’s exit from the CLV-DTA now opens the door for more Chinese investment, at the expense of Vietnamese influence.  However, the communist parties of Laos and Vietnam understand that authoritarian governments sometimes need to placate domestic dissent, even at the cost of international investment.  In 2019, Hanoi canceled a special economic zone (SEZ) law that would have granted Chinese companies greater access to northern Vietnam, following public outrage.  Dogged by history with Hanoi  It is likely that both Vientiane and Hanoi were briefed by Cambodia about the move beforehand. Hun Manet said that he informed both capitals that the decision was made &#8220;to disarm the opposition and maintain peace and solidarity.&#8221; The bigger question is what this means for Cambodian domestic politics.  Sources within the government say that the intensity of the anti-CLV reaction caught the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) by surprise.  Following last year’s leadership transition — when Hun Sen stepped down as prime minister after 38 years in power and appointed his eldest son as his replacement — the CPP hoped that it would be less vulnerable to anti-Vietnam rhetoric.  Hun Sen was perennially dogged by allegations of being a Vietnam lackey, given his history as the head ofHanoi-installed Cambodian government in the 1980s. Few things stir the Khmer as much as claims that Vietnam is encroaching on Cambodian territory. Cambodian civil servants hold photographs of Prime Minister Hun Manet and his father during a groundbreaking ceremony of China-funded Funan Techo canal, Aug. 5, 2024. (Heng Sinith/AP) Anti-Vietnamese sentiment dates back several centuries, when Cambodia was carved up by Vietnam and Siam.  Under French colonial rule, the Vietnamese were perceived as having privileged status over the Khmers. Pogroms against ethnic Vietnamese took place during the 1970s, and the Khmer Rouge, a genocidal regime, exterminated much of the Vietnamese diaspora.  Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge general, marched alongside Vietnamese troops in 1979 to help overthrow that regime. The Vietnamese soldiers stayed for a decade, and in 1985, Hanoi helped install Hun Sen as prime minister.  RELATED STORIES Cambodia pulls out of regional economic deal amid criticism EXPLAINED: Why is Cambodia threatening arrests over a 3-nation economic zone? Cambodia’s Funan Techo canal exposes cracks in Vietnam ties Will Cambodia’s Funan Techo canal be a success? Exploiting a weak spot Despite Hun Sen’s dominance, anti-Vietnamese nationalism remained his weak spot, exploited by opposition parties since the 1980s. The now-dissolved Cambodia National Rescue Party found it easy to brand Hun Sen a lackey to the youn, a derogatory term for the Vietnamese. It was hoped that such narratives would fade when Hun Manet took power. His rise to power was supposed to symbolize not only a generational shift in the CPP but also a generational change in culture, a new politics that no longer framed everything by the events of 1979.  Yet, the return of anti-Vietnam sentiment in the form of the anti-CLV protests suggests that some things remain unchanged. Worse, the anti-CLV protests coincided with the overthrow of Bangladesh’s dictator, which sparked fears of a “color revolution” in Phnom Penh. Former Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, left, guides former Vietnamese President Nguyen Phu Trong during a visit to the Peace Palace in Phnom Penh, Feb. 26, 2019. (Heng Sinith/AP) The immediate response of Hun Sen, who still calls the shots, was predictable. The government swiftly moved to suppress dissent. According to the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO), over 100 people have been arrested since late July, and more than 60 charged and imprisoned, for voicing opinions about the CLV-DTA.  Both Hun Sen and Hun Manet labeled the protesters “extremists,” and Phnom Penh’s propagandists stuck to their brief: “We are not losing our land, and we are not losing our sovereignty.”  But clearly, Phnom Penh decided this was not a battle worth fighting.  A more aggressive crackdown would have succeeded, but with foreign governments beginning to take notice – especially as the Cambodia authorities were targeting activists who were agitating against the CLV abroad – the risks outweighed the rewards. One goal of Hun Manet’s leadership is to improve Cambodia’s image internationally after relations with the West had deteriorated since 2017.  Nagging criticism Many Western governments have bought into the notion without evidence that Hun Manet is more of a liberal reformer than his father – someone they no longer need to pinch their nose when doing business with.  Phnom Penh eventually chose the easier route: withdrawing from the CLV-DTA, trusting that most people wouldn’t focus too much on the contradiction—if it didn’t jeopardize sovereignty, why quit?  Hun Sen is a protean politician unconcerned with contradictions.  Attempting to put the matter to bed, Hun Manet emphasized in a September 26 speech that the country was now united, saying, “There’s no...
- [Cambodia publicly shames maid deported after criticizing Hun Sen](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodia-publicly-shames-maid-deported-after-criticizing-hun-sen/): Cambodian authorities have circulated photos of a handcuffed domestic worker who was deported from Malaysia after calling her country’s former leader Hun Sen “despicable.” Nuon Toeun, a 36-year-old domestic worker over the past six years, was arrested Saturday at her employer’s home in the state of Selangor, which surrounds Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur. She was escorted to Cambodia by an embassy official and handed over to Cambodian authorities on Monday. After detaining her in Phnom Penh’s Prey Sar Prison on charges of “incitement,” Cambodian authorities distributed photos of Nuon Toeun in front of the facility, handcuffed and under military escort. Her deportation, arrest and public shaming drew condemnation on Thursday from observers and human rights advocates who slammed the Malaysian government for its complicity in Cambodia’s “transnational repression.” Former Cambodian parliamentarian Mu Sochua, who is now living in exile, called the case an example of how autocratic regimes seek to “silence dissent.” “A Cambodian domestic worker was immediately sent to prison after #Malaysia, complying with @hunsencambodia, deported her,” she said, in a post accompanying the photos of Nuon Toeun in handcuffs on the social media platform X. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, left, stands next to his father Hun Sen, former prime minister during the country&#8217;s 70th Independence Day in Phnom Penh, Nov. 9, 2023. (Heng Sinith/AP) Nuon Toeun often used social media to criticize Cambodia’s leadership including Prime Minister Hun Manet and his father Hun Sen, who held the post from 1985 until last year before passing the role to his son and taking a new role as president of the senate.  She also criticized the Cambodian government over handling a variety of social issues. ‘Despicable guy’ A few days before her arrest, Nuon Toeun had posted a video to her Facebook page in response to a comment telling her to “be mindful of being the subject of sin,” in reference to talking negatively about Hun Sen. “If I have sinned because I [have cursed] this despicable guy, I am happy to accept the sin because he has mistreated my people so badly,” she said in the video. “I am not a politician, but I am a political observer and expressing rage on behalf of the people living inside Cambodia.”  RELATED STORIES Malaysia deports Cambodian worker for calling Hun Sen ‘despicable’ Award-winning Cambodian journalist jailed for ‘incitement’ Australian prison sentence for official’s son strikes chord in Cambodia Asia Human Rights and Labor Advocates Director Phil Robertson slammed the “shameful collaboration” between the two governments in deporting and jailing Nuon Toeun for her comments. “Add yet another case in very long list of transnational repression actions undertaken by #Cambodia gov&#8217;t of @Dr_Hunmanet_PM @hunsencambodia,” Robertson wrote. “Hun Sen going after a maid in KL who called him &#8216;despicable&#8217; &amp; embassy escorts her back!” “What&#8217;s truly despicable is #Malaysia&#8216;s involvement in this!” he added. Josef Benedict, a researcher with the Civicus Monitor, a global civil society alliance, expressed alarm that Anwar Ibrahim’s government in Malaysia would facilitate Cambodian efforts to punish dissent. “A clear violation of international law &amp; a new low for this government,” he posted to X on Thursday. Nuon Toeun had been a supporter of the Cambodian National Rescue Party, or CNRP, which had been the main opposition party in Cambodia prior to its supreme court declaring the party illegal and dissolving it in 2017. Attempts by RFA to contact Cambodian government spokesman Pen Bona for comment on Nuon Toeun’s case went unanswered Friday. Am Sam Ath of the Cambodian rights group Licadho said that critics living abroad shouldn’t be deported for exercising their right to freedom of expression and warned that the case would only invite additional international scrutiny of the Cambodian and Malaysian governments. “The arrest drew a lot of criticism of Malaysian authorities for working with Cambodia to deport the maid,” he told RFA Khmer. “The international community has raised the issue of freedom of expression, which the Malaysian government should respect.” Am Sam Ath said that his organization is working to meet with Nuon Toeun at Prey Sar, who does not currently have legal representation. Translated by Samean Yun. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [US tech giants face human rights concerns over Vietnam investments](https://ij-reportika.com/us-tech-giants-face-human-rights-concerns-over-vietnam-investments/): Tech giant Meta announced this week it will manufacture virtual reality headsets in Vietnam, creating about 1,000 jobs, but the parent company of Facebook has not commented on whether it discussed freedom of speech with leaders of a government that regularly jails its citizens for expressing even mild dissent on social media. Meta’s Global Affairs President Nick Clegg was in Vietnam’s capital Hanoi on Monday, meeting Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh. Clegg met the country’s president and Communist Party general secretary, To Lam, at the end of September, meaning he had held discussions with the people holding three of the country’s four top political posts. “Vietnam continues to be an important country for Meta,” Clegg said after his talks in Hanoi concluded with a commitment by the company to manufacture its Quest 3S headsets in Vietnam. Meta said Clegg’s talks highlighted the company’s “commitment to supporting the country’s growth as a leading digital economy in Southeast Asia,” adding that Clegg and Chinh discussed economic and trade cooperation, the development of artificial intelligence and the possibility of Meta supporting Vietnam’s small and medium-sized businesses. But there was no comment from the social media giant about whether Clegg talked to Vietnam’s leaders about protecting the right to self-expression of the more than 75 million Vietnam-based Facebook users.   In August, social media poster Le Phu Tuan was jailed for four years and eight months for putting 21 videos on Facebook that prosecutors said included content “abusing freedom and democracy to infringe upon the interests of the state and the legitimate rights and interests of organizations and individuals.”  He was one of a growing number of Vietnamese to be prosecuted under the loosely worded Article 331 of the Criminal Code. Since the beginning of the year, at least 12 people have been arrested and eight imprisoned under the article. “A quick survey of Vietnam’s over 160 political prisoners will reveal that just about all of them are imprisoned in part for what they wrote online, and particularly on Facebook, but evidently that doesn’t matter to Meta anymore,” Asia Human Rights and Labor Advocates Director Phil Robertson told Radio Free Asia. “The final kick in the teeth for the free expression aspirations of Vietnamese on the platform is Clegg’s announcement that Meta will produce their virtual reality headsets in Vietnam. “With the leverage it gains over the company with control over that supply chain, you can bet that the Vietnamese government will expect Meta to take down content the government doesn&#8217;t like whenever the government demands it,” Robertson said. Meta had not responded to requests for comment from RFA about whether Clegg had discussed human rights with Lam and Chinh, by time of publication.  Meta stresses the importance of freedom of expression and enabling people to express themselves as freely as possible although rights groups have criticized it for restricting Facebook posts in the face of pressure from authoritarian governments.  Meta says it has a process for responding to government requests and it considers company policies along with local laws and international human rights standards. Vietnam, which has also adopted a requirement that foreign tech firms store data there, has been rated “not free” by Washington-based Freedom House, with a score of 19 out of 100 in its 2024 Freedom in the World report and no tech giant has located a data center there. “The authorities have increasingly cracked down on citizens’ use of social media and the internet to voice dissent and share uncensored information,” the free-speech advocacy group said. Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim (fifth from right) together with the Chief Investment Officer of Alphabet and Google, Ruth Porat (fourth from right) at the &#8216;groundbreaking&#8217; project for the development of data centers and cloud regions in Kuala Lumpur, 1 October 2024. (Facebook: Anwar Ibrahim) On Tuesday, Alphabet’s Google broke ground on a US$2 billion data center in Malaysia, saying it planned to invest more than $3 billion there by 2030. It is also reportedly planning a $1 billion dollar investment in a regional data and cloud center in Thailand, according to the Reuters news agency. “My government aims to empower every Thai citizen with the digital literacy needed to reduce inequalities and provide greater opportunities for all,” Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said on Monday. “Thailand not only offers resilient digital infrastructure and stable utilities, but also upholds technological neutrality.” RELATED STORIES Vietnam jails journalist for 7 years for ‘propaganda’ Backlash against Vietnamese student shows online bullying on the rise, netizens say Vietnam cracks down on social media users who criticize the state Vietnam’s top leader Lam also met Google executives in the U.S. at the end of September, but there was no confirmation of media reports it might  build a “hyperscale” data center close to Ho Chi Minh City. Vietnamese state media reports on the general secretary’s New York meeting with Google’s vice president for government affairs and public policy said that Karan Bhatia cited this year’s opening of a Google office in Ho Chi Minh City and the manufacturing of phones and components there as evidence of his company’s commitment to its partnership with Vietnam. “He expressed his hope to cooperate with the country in AI development, a sphere of Google’s strength that could be greatly useful to Vietnam,” the Vietnam News Service reported. The company had not responded to requests for comment from RFA on the possibility of a data center in Vietnam by time of publication. Nor did it respond to questions about Vietnam’s jailing of YouTube users whose content was considered critical of the government. Those users include Nguyen Vu Binh, jailed for seven years in September for “propaganda against the state,” under another article of the Criminal Code, 117, which rights groups say is vaguely worded. Since the beginning of the year, Vietnam has arrested nine people and sentenced at least 12 to prison under Article 117, according to RFA statistics. “Vietnam has become the worst rights abusing country in ASEAN after war-torn Myanmar, but you would...
- [PRC at 75: Deng Xiaoping never delivered on young people's desire for freedom](https://ij-reportika.com/prc-at-75-deng-xiaoping-never-delivered-on-young-peoples-desire-for-freedom/): Read RFA’s coverage of this in Chinese. Editors note: This is the second in a series of profiles of Chinese leaders on the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People&#8217;s Republic of China. Many in China under Communist Party leader Xi Jinping look back to the economic boom-time under late supreme leader Deng Xiaoping with nostalgia, as a freewheeling era in which it was easier to get rich, and when the government had less control over people&#8217;s lives. But the reality of life under Deng was much grittier, political activists and commentators told RFA Mandarin in recent interviews. In June 1983, postgraduate philosophy student Chen Kuide was singled out for political criticism after taking part in an academic conference in the southwestern city of Guilin, as part of a political campaign against &#8220;spiritual pollution.&#8221; It was just a few years after then supreme leader Deng had kicked off a slew of economic reforms and &#8220;opening up&#8221; to the rest of the world in the wake of the death of Mao Zedong and the trial of the Gang of Four that marked the end of the Cultural Revolution. But despite the rosy glow that often suffuses people&#8217;s memories of China in the 1980s, the political campaigns didn&#8217;t stop when the universities reopened and the government started the massive task of rehabilitating people who had been persecuted under Mao and his wife, Jiang Qing. Then Chinese Vice President Deng Xiaoping meets U.S. President Jimmy Carter at the White House in Washington, Jan. 29, 1979. (AP) Instead, Deng launched the &#8220;spiritual pollution&#8221; campaign targeting anyone with any liberal tendencies, who advocated humanitarianism, market economics or appreciation of the arts for their aesthetic, rather than social, value. By the time Chen got back to his dorm at Shanghai&#8217;s Fudan University, there was a red circle around his name on a list in the municipal government, and Chen and a fellow student were suspended from their studies for three months. Luckily for Chen, the campaign was later called off and he was reinstated.  His friend with government connections told him at the time: &#8220;There was a red circle round your name, as if you were going to be exiled to Qinghai or something.&#8221; Leaving aside the upbeat official narrative of &#8220;reform and opening up,&#8221; the 1980s was not an easy time to be Chinese, according to veteran U.S.-based democracy activist Wang Juntao. &#8220;I don&#8217;t think there was any golden age during the 1980s,&#8221; Wang said. &#8220;Intellectuals back then were pretty unhappy with Deng Xiaoping and Zhao Ziyang.&#8221; Fall of Hu Yaobang A 1980 amendment to the country&#8217;s constitution deleted a clause protecting people&#8217;s right to &#8220;speak out, air their views freely, hold debates and make big-character posters,&#8221; while a 1978 amendment made two years after Mao&#8217;s death deleted their right to &#8220;reproductive freedom,&#8221; amid growing concerns about the burgeoning population. A system of film censorship was set up in 1980, while the right to private ownership of land disappeared with a constitutional amendment in 1982. Nationwide student protests in 1986 were sparked by local officials&#8217; insistence on interfering in local elections to the People&#8217;s Congresses, and spread from eastern Anhui province to Shanghai and Beijing, in protests that lasted 28 days. Former 1989 student leader Chen Pokong also took part in the 1986 student protests in Shanghai. &#8220;We didn&#8217;t do anything much; just walked along the street and sometimes sat in front of the city government,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We weren&#8217;t trying to overthrow the government, just asked them to move a little faster and meet some of people&#8217;s demands for democracy and equality.&#8221; &#8220;It all fizzled out peacefully in the end, because the weather was cold, and the winter vacation was about to begin, and a lot of students wanted to go back home for the Lunar New Year,&#8221; he said. Deng Xiaoping and French President Francois Mitterand share a toast at a state banquet in Beijing, May 5, 1983. (Gabriel Duval/AFP) Soon afterwards, news emerged that premier Hu Yaobang would resign to take the fall for those protests, blamed for his &#8220;ineffective leadership.&#8221; Then the party expelled a number of prominent dissidents from its ranks, including journalist Liu Binyan, physicist Fang Lizhi and author Wang Ruowang. &#8220;Before that, I didn&#8217;t have much of an impression of Deng Xiaoping &#8212; he just seemed like a short little guy among the old guys in charge of the Chinese Communist Party,&#8221; Chen said. &#8220;But he had suddenly made such a big move, and I started to think about why that would be. I felt he didn&#8217;t really understand young people or our ideas.&#8221; &#8220;Once young people get started with economic reform, they&#8217;ll immediately start to want political reform too, and as soon as they start to interact with the West, they&#8217;ll want freedom and democracy,&#8221; he said. &#8220;But this old man just wanted to take a leisurely walk &#8212; he was behind the times, and not suited to ruling the country. He should have let younger people take charge,&#8221; Chen said. 1980s political purges Following the 1986 protests, the right to demonstrate was stripped from students in Beijing, with the passage of new regulations warning that anyone who took part in &#8220;unauthorized parades&#8221; would be prosecuted. Those rules were enshrined in national law after the 1989 Tiananmen Square mass protests. &#8220;For me, there was nothing good about the 1980s. Anyone who tried to fight for freedom and democracy was still suppressed,&#8221; said Wang, citing the heavy jail terms handed down to 1979 Democracy Wall dissidents Wei Jingsheng and Wang Xizhe. &#8220;The political purges continued throughout the 1980s, and large numbers of people were affected each time,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I think people who remember the 1980s as a good time probably didn&#8217;t care much about politics.&#8221; &#8220;I don&#8217;t think there has ever been a good time under the Chinese Communist Party, and that hasn&#8217;t changed.&#8221; Deng Xiaoping meets with foreign guests in Beijing on April 8, 1989. (AP) U.S.-based former Party School professor Cai Xia agreed...
- [Thousands flee Myanmar airstrikes after rebel ambush](https://ij-reportika.com/thousands-flee-myanmar-airstrikes-after-rebel-ambush/): About 10,000 villagers in Myanmar’s Sagaing region are fleeing junta airstrikes launched after forces loyal to a shadow pro-democracy government inflicted unusually heavy casualties on a military column, residents told Radio Free Asia. The heartland central region of Sagaing has seen some of the worst violence over the past year with pro-democracy guerrillas, largely from the majority Burman community, hounding junta forces who often respond with heavy artillery and airstrikes. On Wednesday, air force planes bombed Maung Htaung village in Budalin township, about 110 kilometers (68 miles) northwest of the city of Mandalay, destroying buildings and wounding at least two people, a resident said. “A bomb fell on the school and another was dropped near a Buddhist religious building. A third bomb hit a clinic,” said the resident who declined to be identified for fear of reprisals. “A man and a woman were wounded.” Residents of about 10 villages in the area were too frightened to stay in their homes and some took shelter in woods by their fields while others headed to the nearest monasteries and towns, villagers told RFA, estimating that about 10,000 people were displaced, many in urgent need of food. The airstrikes came after anti-junta People’s Defense Force fighters ambushed an infantry column on patrol from a camp in Ku Taw village on Monday.  Nearly half the soldiers in the patrol were killed and most of the rest were captured, according to a spokesman for one of the groups involved in the ambush called the Student Armed Force. “There are 32 dead junta soldiers and 42 were captured,” the spokesman, identified as Maj. Okkar, told RFA.  “The detainees are being held in accordance with the Geneva Convention, in accordance with agreement of the National Unity Government affiliates and local PDFs.”  Four PDF members were wounded in the battle, he added.  RFA has not been able to independently verify the account and calls to the junta’s Sagaing region spokesperson, Nyunt Win Aung, went unanswered by the time of publication. Democracy supporters of the government ousted in the 2021 coup set up the shadow National Unity Government, or NUG, to oppose military rule and organize the PDFs operating around the country.  The guerrillas released photographs of what they said were captured junta soldiers. The U.N. refugee agency estimated that 3.1 million people have been displaced internally by fighting in Myanmar since the military overthrew a civilian government in early 2021. Nearly 70,000 have fled to neighboring countries, the UNHCR said in a report published on Thursday. Residents fleeing fighting in Khin-U township, Sagaing region, on March 25, 2024. (Khin-U township Right Information Group) The military has increasingly resorted to airstrikes over recent weeks, in different parts of the country including Sagaing, Shan state in the northeast and Rakhine state in the west, particularly since the junta chief, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, vowed early last month to recapture areas lost to guerrilla forces. More than 130 people have been killed and more than 70 wounded by airstrikes from Sept. 1 to Sept. 24, across eight states and regions, RFA data shows. RELATED STORIES A new generation in Myanmar risks their lives for change No limits to lawlessness of Myanmar’s predatory regime Month of fighting leaves once-bustling Myanmar town eerily quiet  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Traders in Myanmar struggle as borders with China remain closed in rebel-held areas](https://ij-reportika.com/traders-in-myanmar-struggle-as-borders-with-china-remain-closed-in-rebel-held-areas/): Merchants of Chinese goods in Myanmar are reeling as China keeps its borders closed to areas of the Southeast Asian country that are controlled by anti-junta ethnic rebels, residents in Myanmar told Radio Free Asia. Since the junta took over Myanmar in a coup in February 2021, cross border trade between junta ally China and northern Shan state has amounted to a total of US$9 billion. But after rebel groups seized control of the area, Beijing shut down its border crossings, disrupting the livelihood of those in Myanmar who buy, sell and ship Chinese goods. &#8220;Many drivers have faced many difficulties,” a truck driver who works in northern Shan state told RFA Burmese. “In the past, we could drive cargo trucks. Now we have no jobs.” The trucker said that the owners of transportation firms are trying to get work in areas where the borders remain open, out of consideration for their drivers. Rebels control six border crossings with China on the Myanmar side. Five of these are under the control of the Three Brotherhood Alliance – which is made up of the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, the Arakan Army and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army – while the sixth is under the control of the Kachin Independence Army. Man Wein gate near the Chinese border, Sept. 2019. (RFA) Daily trade at the Kyin Sang Kyawt gate in Shan state’s Muse township was around US$6.6 million daily when it was open.  A resident of Pang Hseng township, who sells produce to Chinese buyers, said the closed border is creating hardship. &#8220;We rely on this border gate by selling vegetables to make a living,” the resident said. “Some others buy Chinese products to be sold here. But with the border gate closed now, all of us are facing many challenges, and unemployment has also increased.&#8221; Singbyu gate in Muse township is the only open trade route to China in northern Shan state, with limited time for crossing, and the junta has increased custom duties and restrictions. As a result, prices of imported Chinese goods have sharply increased. RFA tried to contact the junta’s spokesperson Major General Zaw Min Tun to learn more about the situation at the border, but he did not respond by the time of publishing. Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Eugene Whong. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Residents of Myanmar’s Lashio flee relentless airstrikes](https://ij-reportika.com/residents-of-myanmars-lashio-flee-relentless-airstrikes/): Hundreds of civilians in the rebel-controlled northeastern Myanmar town of Lashio are fleeing in the face of relentless junta air attacks as the military presses on with an offensive aimed at retaking territory captured by insurgent forces, residents said on Wednesday. Insurgents captured Lashio on Aug. 3, one of the most significant victories for a three-party guerrilla alliance that has made major advances since late last year against the junta that seized power in early 2021. But the junta now appears determined to recapture the town on a major trade link to China and is unleashing its air power to do so, residents say. “The planes normally come when night falls,” one Lashio resident who declined to be identified for security reasons told Radio Free Asia. “We worry about where they’re going to bomb, my home or others .. we pray no one gets hurt,” said the resident who is aiming to flee to the town of Taunggyi, about 25 kilometers (155 miles) to the south. “It’s happening almost every night so we just can’t stay anymore and have to flee again.”  Lashio had a population of nearly 250,000 but more than 200,000 have fled to Taunggyi, and other towns in Shan state such as Kalaw and Nyaung Shwe, as well as to the main cities of Mandalay and Yangon, residents say. RFA tried to contact Khun Thein Maung, a military council spokesman for Shan state, to ask about the situation in Lashio, but he did not answer phone calls. A damaged vehicle in the town of Lashio on Aug. 25 (RFA) The intensifying conflict in Myanmar’s civil war has displaced more than 3 million civilians, the United Nations says, and there’s no sign of the situation improving. The military has been shifting troops from southern to northern Shan state in a bid to recapture Lashio and other towns it has lost to insurgent forces in The Three Brotherhood Alliance, but at least for now it is mostly relying on its air power, rebel officials and residents say. The fighting comes despite peace efforts by neighboring China, which has brokered several short-lived ceasefires over the past year, and a vow by the main rebel force in Lashio, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, to cease fighting and end its cooperation with the shadow National Unity Government, or NUG, set up by pro-democracy politicians. China has major investments in Myanmar including oil and natural gas pipelines running from Rakhine state on the Indian Ocean coast through Shan state to its border. Lashio residents said that the telecommunications and internet access in the town had been cut since Tuesday, adding to a growing sense of panic. “I can no longer communicate with home and the planes are bombing every day, so I’m worried,” said another city resident, who also declined to be identified. Residents said it appeared that the MNDAA had cut communication links but RFA was not able to confirm that or to contact an MNDAA spokesperson for comment. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Interview with Lucio Pitlo: Philippines' Foreign Policy and China's Influence](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-with-lucio-pitlo-philippines-foreign-policy/): In an exclusive interview with IJ-Reportika, Lucio III Pitlo, a seasoned foreign policy and security analyst, shares his insights on the Philippines' current foreign policy under the Marcos administration. He discusses the nation's balancing act between major powers like the U.S., China, and Japan, ASEAN's role in regional security, and how China's growing influence impacts Southeast Asia. Pitlo also explores the challenges and opportunities facing the Philippines as it navigates complex geopolitical landscapes.
- [North Korea swaps soybean-based doenjang paste with wheat-based imitation](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-swaps-soybean-based-doenjang-paste-with-wheat-based-imitation/): Read a version of this story in Korean  North Korean authorities are providing the public with “foul tasting” wheat paste as a substitute for doenjang, the fermented bean paste that is a staple in Korean cuisine, residents told Radio Free Asia.  Something magic happens in the traditional making of soy sauce: when the salty liquid is siphoned off the top, the urn it’s been fermenting in still holds a treasure. It is the pungent paste of legend, doenjang – a key ingredient in Korean soups, stews, sauces and even snack foods. Doenjang is the subject of South Korean rap songs and tops ice cream dishes served at the Biden White House.  The paste has been made on the Korean peninsula for millenia. But North Korea, which has been suffering from food shortages, recently boosted wheat production at the expense of other crops. Packaged gochujang and bara gochujang sold at Pyongyang department stores and markets. Gochujang is a spicy red chili paste made with meju, fermented blocks of mashed boiled soybeans, a precursor to doenjang and soy sauce. (RFA) The result has been an excess of wheat and a shortage of soybeans, leading to the unlikely production of doenjang using the former. But people find it disgusting, a resident of the eastern province of South Hamgyong told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “Starting this year, wheat-based doenjang is being supplied to residents in the city of Sinpo instead of soybean-based doenjang,” she said, adding that most residents are saying they can’t eat it. “They say it is because the white color of the paste is unsightly and the taste is foul compared to the soybean-based doenjang which was previously supplied.” She said the wheat paste’s quality is poor because the production process leaves part of the wheat husk in the final product. “The eater ends up chewing on the husk and smelling a strange, sourish odor.”   She said that even after a deadly famine in the 1990s, when the government had almost no food to give to the people, supplies of doenjang never completely ran out. But now, the situation is so dire that the government is trying to pass off an inferior substitute. Because it is a fermented food, doenjang has a very long shelf life. An urn can be buried in the ground and used for several years. So in 2000, North Korea upscaled production, putting doenjang factories in every province and major city.  But there’s a shortage of soybeans these days, the resident said. “The doenjang you could get in the grocery stores up until last year was not 100% soybeans. It was mixed with corn,” she said. But even the corn-soybean mix doenjang was better than the wheat substitute, she said. Wheat-based doenjang is unpalatable, a resident of the northeastern city of Rason told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely.  A lemon bar ice cream with fresh berries, mint ginger snap cookie crumble and doenjang caramel dessert dish is displayed during a media preview, Monday, April 24, 2023, in advance of Wednesday&#8217;s State Dinner with South Korea&#8217;s President Yoon Suk Yeol at the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) She said that the municipal government did give out soybean-based doenjang to residents, but only as a gift on the four major North Korean holidays–New Year’s Day, the two birth anniversaries of leader Kim Jong Un’s late father and grandfather, who were his predecessors, on Feb. 16 and April 15, and the founding day of the ruling Korean Workers’ Party on Oct. 10. Additionally on holidays, residents of Rason “sometimes got small amounts of soy sauce,” she said. While the government-supplied doenjang was made with soybeans, it wasn’t as good as homemade varieties, “it was still good enough to eat.” “Many families, who cannot make their own doenjang or buy it homemade from others, had relied on soybean doenjang supplied by grocery stores,” she said. The wheat doenjang is a poor substitute, they say.   “Many people say it is too salty and stinks because it is not stored properly,” she said. “They wish that they could just get doenjang made from soybeans.” Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [South Korea unveils missile that can hit the North’s bunkers](https://ij-reportika.com/south-korea-unveils-missile-that-can-hit-the-norths-bunkers/): South Korea unveiled its latest domestically produced ballistic missile, the Hyunmoo-5, on Tuesday as President Yoon Suk Yeol warned North Korea that it would face the end of its regime if it attempted to use nuclear weapons. Dubbed the “monster missile,” reflecting a destructive capacity that South Korean media says is comparable to that of a nuclear weapon, the Hyunmoo-5 can carry a warhead weighing up to 9 tons and is capable of striking deeply buried command centers. It incorporates an advanced cold-launch system, which uses compressed gas to propel the missile from its launcher before ignition, minimizing damage to the launcher and increasing operational stability, South Korean media has reported. Media have drawn parallels between the Hyunmoo-5 and China’s Dongfeng-31 intercontinental ballistic missile, with the former estimated to have a range of 5,000 kilometers (3,107 miles), capable of targeting critical infrastructure in North Korea and beyond.  The new missile is a centerpiece of the Korea Massive Punishment and Retaliation plan, designed to respond to damage caused by a North Korean nuclear weapon by targeting its  leadership and military headquarters in a retaliatory strike. “Our military will immediately retaliate against North Korea’s provocations based on its robust combat capabilities and solid readiness posture,” Yoon said at a ceremony to mark the 76th founding anniversary of the founding of South Korea’s armed forces, where the new missile was showcased for the first time.  South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol speaks during a celebration to mark the 76th anniversary of Korea Armed Forces Day, in Seongnam, South Korea, Oct. 1, 2024. (Kim Hong-Ji/Pool/Reuters) “If North Korea attempts to use nuclear weapons, it will face the resolute and overwhelming response of our military and the South Korea-U.S. alliance. That day will be the end of the North Korean regime,” Yoon added.  Denouncing North Korea for threatening the South with its nuclear weapons and missiles, as well as other provocations, Yoon urged the North to abandon “delusions” that nuclear weapons could guarantee its security “False peace, based on the enemy&#8217;s goodwill, is nothing but a mirage. History has proven that the only way to safeguard peace is by strengthening our power so the enemy cannot dare challenge us,” he added, vowing to build a strong military and strengthen security based on the strong alliance with the U.S., as well as trilateral cooperation involving Japan. The South Korean military would reportedly aim to use dozens of Hyunmoo-5s to destroy the North Korean military command’s underground bunkers and devastate Pyongyang in the event of an emergency. RELATED STORIES INTERVIEW: Former ‘Office 39’ official on how North Korea finances nukes North Korea may conduct nuclear test after US election: South’s spy agency Satellite photos show expansion of suspected North Korean uranium enrichment site ‘Never bargain’ Some 5,000 troops and 340 pieces of military equipment, including the Hyunmoo-5, K9 self-propelled howitzers and four-legged robots, were mobilized for an anniversary ceremony parade that began at Seoul Air Base in the city of Seongnam, according to the South’s defense ministry. The ministry said the event was organized to show South Korea’s “overwhelming” capabilities to powerfully retaliate against enemy provocations. The showcasing of the Hyunmoo-5 came amid growing concern in South Korea as North Korea has intensified its nuclear posturing with the first public disclosure of its uranium enrichment facility last month. North Korea’s envoy to the U.N., Kim Song, said on Monday that the North would  never bargain over its “national prestige,” reaffirming the isolated country’s adherence to its nuclear weapons program. “When it comes to the right to self-defense, a legitimate right of a sovereign state, we will never go back to the point in the far-off past,” he said during a general debate at the U.N. General Assembly, repeating North Korea’s accusations of America&#8217;s “hostility” and claiming that its nuclear weapons were “just made and exist to defend itself.” “When it comes to national prestige, we will never bargain over it with anyone for it was gained through the bloody struggle of the entire Korean people,” he added.  The ambassador also said that no matter who wins the U.S. presidential election in November, North Korea would only deal with “the state entity called the U.S., not the mere administration.” “Likewise, any U.S. administration will have to face the DPRK which is different from what the U.S. used to think,” he said, using the acronym of the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, without elaborating. Edited by Mike Firn. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Prominent Cambodian journalist arrested: rights groups](https://ij-reportika.com/prominent-cambodian-journalist-arrested-rights-groups/): Award-winning Cambodian freelance journalist Mech Dara, who reported regularly on trafficking and cyberscam compounds, was arrested in the southwestern part of the country on Monday afternoon, a rights groups and local journalists’ association said, though his whereabouts remain unknown.  Six police cars intercepted Dara’s car at the Srae Ambel toll booth in Koh Kong province while he was driving to Phnom Penh, a relative who was with him told human rights group Licadho. Last year, Dara won the U.S. State Department’s human trafficking Hero Award for his coverage of Cambodia’s scam-compounds, where an estimated 100,000 have been forced to work – under threat of violence – as the perpetrators of online scams targeting people across the world. Dara’s reporting included stories for Voice of Democracy linking Cambodian businessman Ly Yong Phat to scam compounds. Known as the “king of Koh Kong,” Ly Yong Phat and his LYP Group conglomerate were sanctioned earlier this month by the U.S. Treasury Department for alleged abuses related to the treatment of trafficked workers in online scam centers.  &#8220;Arresting one of Cambodia&#8217;s bravest journalists will have a devastating effect on access to information for all Cambodians,&#8221; said Naly Pilorge, outreach co-director at Licadho. Dara sent a text message to Licadho informing them of his arrest, but as of 10:30pm they had not been able to determine where he was being held, said Pilorge.  RFA Khmer attempted to contact government officials but were unable to get any confirmation of the arrest. The Cambodian Journalists Alliance Association, or CamboJA, said it had confirmed the arrest with Eng Hy, a military police spokesman, who did not reveal the reason or where the journalist had been sent. Facebook photos of quarry While the reason for the arrest remains unknown, the Cambodian Journalists Alliance Association said in a statement it came one day after Dara reportedly posted since-deleted photos to Facebook that appeared to show how a quarry operation had destroyed the concrete stairs leading to a pagoda in Prey Veng province called Ba Phnom, a local tourist destination.  The Prey Veng provincial administration on Monday released a statement condemning the post and accusing the journalist of causing “social disorder.” The same day, Fresh News, a government-friendly outlet, on Monday published an article labeling Dara’s post “fake news.”  Dara previously reported for The Cambodia Daily, which shut down in 2017 citing government pressure; The Phnom Penh Post, which was purchased by a government-friendly businessman in 2018; and Voice of Democracy, which had its license revoked by the Cambodian government in February 2023.  His arrest set off a flurry of concerned social media posts from local and international journalists and others, who highlighted his fearless reporting.  “There is NO SCENARIO in which this is not a politically motivated arrest,” J Daniel Sims, a visiting expert on transnational crime with the United States Institute of Peace, posted on X.  Mech Dara “has been a leading voice shedding light on state-affiliated criminal industries for years amidst mounting repression. Concerned govts must call on @Dr_Hunmanet_PM to release him immediately.” A State Department spokesperson told RFA they were aware of the reported arrest and were “following developments closely with great concern.&#8221; Additional reporting by Alex Willemyns. Edited by Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar guerrillas attack junta military headquarters in Mandalay](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-guerrillas-attack-junta-military-headquarters-in-mandalay/): Pro-democracy insurgents battling Myanmar’s junta fired rockets at the military headquarters in the city of Mandalay, the group said on Monday, the latest in a series of strikes at the heart of the military’s command structure. There was no immediate confirmation from the junta of the attack on the Central Military Headquarters in Myanmar’s second-biggest city early on Sunday, which an activist group called Brave Warriors for Myanmar (BMW) said its members carried out with 107 mm rockets. “Two of the rockets hit a building where junta troops who are about to attack in northern Shan state are staying,” a member of the group who declined to be identified for safety reasons told Radio Free Asia. He said some troops were believed to have been wounded in the attack but the extent of casualties and damage were being investigated. Those who carried out the attack escaped, he said. RFA tried to contact the junta spokesman for Mandalay region, Thein Htay, by telephone to ask about the reported attack but he did not answer calls. The headquarters is in the heart of Mandalay, on the site of what used to be the walled palace of Myanmar’s kings who were deposed by British colonialists in the 19th century. The place was largely destroyed during World War II but the site is of symbolic importance for the nation. A resident of the area, which is known as Aungmyaethazan township, said he heard loud explosions early on Sunday. “I heard three or four blasts at around 2.28 a.m. on Sunday morning, they were quite loud, from a big weapon, I think,” the resident, who declined to be identified for safety reasons, told RFA. Myanmar’s military has been facing setbacks in fighting in several parts of the country over the past year, at the hands of its old ethnic minority insurgent enemies and new pro-democracy People’s Defense Forces, or PDFs, set up by activists largely from the majority Burman community, who took up arms after the generals overthrew an elected government in early 2021. Despite the setbacks, which have included the loss of a regional command headquarters in Shan state, northeast of Mandalay, and of a naval base in Rakhine state in the west, the military remains in control of major cities and can unleash devastating strikes with its air force. PDF fighters have launched several rocket attacks on military bases and junta leaders in the capital Naypyidaw as well as in the main city of Yangon. The junta has condemned what it calls “terrorist” attacks and arrested several groups of plotters. The BWM member said his group and an allied faction called the Shadow Mandalay Group had attacked the Mandalay base twice before, on Dec. 21, 2023, and on Sept. 3 this year. The BWM also helped plan a rocket attack on an air base in Naypyidaw in July, the group members said. PDF insurgents and their ethnic minority force allies have also captured a growing number of towns in the Mandalay region including Mogoke, Thabeikkyin, Singu and Tagaung. Anti-junta forces are also threatening Pyin Oo Lwin, a hill town 64 kilometers (40 miles) east of Mandalay that is home to the military’s Defense Services Academy. RELATED STORIES A new generation in Myanmar risks their lives for change No limits to lawlessness of Myanmar’s predatory regime Month of fighting leaves once-bustling Myanmar town eerily quiet  Edited by Mike Firn We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [A Myanmar revolutionary battles an old enemy with new allies](https://ij-reportika.com/a-myanmar-revolutionary-battles-an-old-enemy-with-new-allies/): This story is the fourth in a five-part series exploring the war in Myanmar and what might come if the fighting stops. Read this story in Burmese. Tall, square-jawed and with a facial expression set to stern, Saw Kaw looks every bit the rebel commander that he is. But as he sits in a secret camp of Myawaddy township in Kayin (Karen) state, strumming his guitar and singing songs he learned in church, it’s easy to wonder what shape the 37-year-old’s life might have taken had circumstances allowed. As it was, Saw Kaw was born in a small village in eastern Myanmar and into one of the longest running insurgencies in the world. Almost ever since Burma gained independence from Great Britain in 1948, ethnic Karen forces from small villages in the mountainous areas near Thailand have battled successive military juntas for greater autonomy. Among them was Saw Kaw’s father, who was a member of the Karen National Union, or KNU. When Saw Kaw was seven, soldiers raided his village in search of his father, who wasn’t there at the time. Saw Kaw said they found and beat his uncles and an elderly grandfather instead, sending his mother, seven months pregnant at the time, fleeing into the surrounding jungle. An illustration shows seven-year-old Saw Kaw watching soldiers — who were looking for his father, a resistance fighter — torturing his relatives. (Rebel Pepper/RFA) For safety reasons, he said the family has remained fractured ever since, constantly on guard that the military or their supporters could use one to get to another. “Hello, Mom, how are you,” Saw Kaw sings, playing one of his favorite songs. “I miss you so much. Please pardon me as I cannot come back to you.” A long struggle The Karen are among the largest minority groups in Myanmar, which is thought to have more than 130 different ethnicities with various relationships with the Burman majority that has held the reins of power in the country. The complicated ethnic make-up is seen as a barrier to lasting peace. In-roads other armies have made against junta forces to the north and west don’t necessarily indicate the country can emerge from its complicated civil war whole. But the KNU has committed itself to the idea of a federation in which it and other groups have a high degree of authority over their own affairs but participate in a larger, national government. They are allied with the National Unity Government, a group of exiled former government officials helping to fund resistance movements and build a lasting peace should the military collapse. Cobra Column commander Saw Kaw stands on Asia Road, near the site of what was formerly the Myanmar junta&#8217;s Battalion 356, July 12, 2024. (Chan Aung/RFA) As a military commander, Saw Kaw doesn’t have time to weigh all the possible political dynamics. But the force he controls – Cobra Column – is an unusual joint effort of seasoned fighters from ethnic armies and young, largely Burman revolutionaries who no longer wish to be governed by the junta. It is an NUG force, not a KNU one. &#8220;I cannot precisely predict when this significant event will conclude, but I firmly believe that this war must come to an end,” he said. “It is not solely an arm revolution; the entire populace is involved.” In the shared tragedy, he hopes a lasting cohesion can be formed. READ MORE IN THIS SERIES A new generation in Myanmar risks their lives for change Love and struggle: A new generation in Myanmar’s civil war For Burmese journalist, an uneasy safety in Thailand A coup, then civil war Many of the Karen are Christian due to a history of missionaries operating in the area during colonial rule, and Saw Kaw learned to play the guitar in his church. Whatever early musical aptitude he demonstrated didn’t much matter. He always knew what his future held – fighting for his people. After attending college in Thailand he returned home to join the Karen National Liberation Army, or KNLA. His life has seen peace, however. In 2015, the KNU and the Myanmar military negotiated a ceasefire in the capital of Naypyidaw. Saw Kaw was part of the delegation. In this Sept. 9, 2015, photo, Myanmar President Thein Sein greets representatives of armed ethnic groups at the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) meeting in Naypyidaw. (Gemunu Amarasinghe/AP) By then, Myanmar’s military leaders began to open the country up to the world after decades of isolation. The agreement fell apart, though, in 2021 when Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing led a coup that pushed out the civilian government of the National League for Democracy, claiming election irregularities that it has yet to prove. Some of the NLD members fled to Lay Kay Kaw, a town established with the help of the Japanese as a refuge for Karen displaced in the region’s long-simmering conflict. The city, which was known as a “peace town” symbolizing the new detente between the military and rebel forces, became instead a locus where People’s Defense Forces (PDFs) sought training from people like Saw Kaw. “With deep sympathy, I don&#8217;t want anyone else to suffer as we have,” he said in an interview from his camp, not far from the front line where rebels are trying to hold off a large collection of government troops. “If people in other places experienced what’s happening in this country, they wouldn’t be able to endure it. It’s truly unbearable.” Cobra Column commander Saw Kaw near the front line in Myawaddy district, Karen state, May 8, 2023. (Courtesy of Saw Kaw) Hunting former NLD members, the military attacked Lay Kay Kaw in December 2021, triggering a return of hostilities with the KNU and its armed units. Fighting escalated throughout 2022 and 2023, spreading to towns and villages in the Myawaddy, Kawkareik and Kyainseikgyi districts. Initially, Saw Kaw said the fledgling PDF units tried to hold off the onslaught with old Tumi guns, flintlock rifles used against the British more than...
- [Indian border fence cutting off crucial supply route to Myanmar’s Sagaing region](https://ij-reportika.com/indian-border-fence-cutting-off-crucial-supply-route-to-myanmars-sagaing-region/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese India is erecting a fence along its border with Myanmar, which residents of Myanmar’s Sagaing region say is cutting off trade routes and driving up the price of goods.  More than 1.6 million people have been displaced by conflict in Myanmar since February 2021, when the military seized power in a coup d’etat, according to the United Nations, with more than 50% of them – an estimated 821,000 people – from the Sagaing region. Many of the displaced there rely on cross-border trade from India for goods and medicine. Trade at the Tamu-Moreh border gate connecting India’s Manipur state to Sagaing was suspended in 2021 but area residents have continued to exchange goods through informal routes. India began construction of its border fence in Manipur state in June 2022 amid an influx of refugees from Myanmar, and Indian Union Government Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah said last week that around 30 km (20 miles) of the barrier have since been completed. Meanwhile, the junta has blocked roads leading to the checkpoint on the Myanmar side, and ethnic Chin commentator R. Lakher told RFA Burmese that India’s fence will make it difficult for residents in Sagaing to obtain goods and medicine from across the border. “The price of commodities has already significantly increased [because of the project],” he said. “This border area is relying on India for all its basic commodities and medical treatments. The local populace will surely suffer a lot of difficulties if the border fencing is completed.” A resident of Sagaing region who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns, told RFA that those who need to cross the border are already being forced to do so at unfenced areas, where they must pay higher fees for transportation. “If the border fencing is completed … residents who have close relatives on both sides will face various difficulties,” he said. RELATED STORIES Closed borders with India cause food, fuel shortages in western Myanmar Food shortages reported in rebel-controlled areas of Myanmar’s Chin state Jailed Myanmar activists in India in danger of deportation: rights groups India shares a 1,643-km (1,020-mile) border with Myanmar, 398 km (250 miles) of which are located along Manipur state. The Indian government has earmarked US$3.7 billion to build the border fence, which will also cover 520 km (325 miles) in Arunachal Pradesh, 215 km (135 miles) in Nagaland and 510 km (320 miles) in Mizoram. Another resident of Sagaing told RFA that the border fence will impact people on both sides. &#8220;Not only the people of Myanmar, but also the people of India will suffer difficulties because people from both sides already have a long history of crossing the border,” he said. Rihkhawdar- Zokhawthar border gate bridge connecting Rihkhawdar town in Chin state and Mizoram state in India on February 10, 2024. (RFA) Salai Dokhar, the co-founder of aid agency India for Myanmar, said that the Manipur government is urgently erecting the fence because Myanmar’s anti-junta forces have gained control over its border areas. &#8220;As Myanmar rebel forces are in control of border areas close to India, the Indian government will have to deal with them, which I believe it does not want to do,” he said. Invitation to rebel forces While the Indian government conducts bilateral negotiations with Myanmar’s junta, it made overtures last week to the country’s rebel forces for the first time since the coup, according to a report by Reuters news agency. The report said that India extended invitations to Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, or NUG, as well as to the China National Front, the Kachin Independence Army and the Arakan Army to attend a seminar by the government-funded Indian Council of World Affairs. A source with knowledge of the issue told RFA that Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar is leading the preparation for the event, the theme of which will be &#8220;Constitutionalism and Federalism.&#8221; The source said that only the Chin National Front had confirmed their registration to attend the seminar, while the other three groups have yet to respond. Observers welcomed the move, which they called “pragmatic,” given the junta’s weakening grip on power in Myanmar’s border regions. “All the Indian borders [with Myanmar] are close to areas under the control of these [anti-junta] forces, and this shows that India has adopted more pragmatic strategies suitable for the situation on the ground,&#8221; said an ethnic affairs analyst, who also declined to be named due to fear of reprisal. Attempts by RFA to reach the Indian Embassy in Yangon and the Myanmar Embassy in New Delhi about the border fence went unanswered Friday, as did attempts to contact junta spokesperson Major General Zaw Min Tun for comment on India’s invitation to anti-junta groups. Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar told his junta counterpart Than Swe in New Delhi on July 26 that his government is open to engaging with all stakeholders in resolving Myanmar&#8217;s crisis. Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Uyghur Democratic Reform Movement Calls for Global Unity and Support Ahead of Pivotal Congress](https://ij-reportika.com/uyghur-democratic-reform-movement-calls-for-global-unity-and-support-ahead-of-pivotal-congress/): Uyghur scholars and intellectuals urge global unity and support for the Uyghur cause ahead of the 2024 World Uyghur Congress General Assembly in Sarajevo. The movement seeks to strengthen democratic reforms, counter Chinese repression, and build international alliances.
- [China investigates US company for refusing to buy Xinjiang cotton](https://ij-reportika.com/china-investigates-us-company-for-refusing-to-buy-xinjiang-cotton/): Read RFA coverage of this story in Uyghur. China has launched an investigation into PVH Corp., the U.S. parent company of fashion brands Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, for suspected discriminatory measures by refusing to purchase cotton and other products from its northwestern region of Xinjiang, home to 12 million Uyghurs. Analysts said the measure appears to be a retaliatory response by Beijing against companies complying with U.S. laws that ban the import of materials and products from Xinjiang suspected of using Uyghur forced labor. “China is attempting to retaliate against U.S. sanctions on Xinjiang region by imposing its own sanctions on companies that follow U.S. sanctions,” said Anders Corr, principal of the New York-based political risk firm Corr Analytics. “It’s a very bad idea.” “Beijing is trying to tell Calvin Klein not to follow U.S. law but to follow Chinese law,” he said. China’s Ministry of Commerce said Tuesday that PVH Corp. must provide documentation and evidence within 30 days to show it did not engage in discriminatory practices over the past three years. “The U.S. PVH Group is suspected of violating normal market trading principles and unreasonably boycotting Xinjiang cotton and other products without factual basis, seriously damaging the legitimate rights and interests of relevant Chinese companies and endangering China’s sovereignty, security and development interests,” the ministry said in a statement. Earlier this month, China adopted a resolution condemning a series of U.S. sanctions against the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and providing support for affected companies. RELATED STORIES China introduces resolution opposing US sanctions on Xinjiang Uyghur rights advocates applaud addition of Chinese companies to US blacklist Uyghur forced labor bill heads to Biden’s desk after unanimous House, Senate votes In response to the measure, Alison Rappaport, PVH’s vice president of external communications, said the company maintains strict compliance with relevant laws and regulations in the countries and regions where it operates.  “We are in communication with the Chinese Ministry of Commerce and will respond in accordance with the relevant regulations,” she said, without further comment. Genocide In 2021, the U.S. government declared that China’s repression of Uyghurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang, including mass detentions, the sterilization of women, forced labor and cultural and religious erasure, amounted to genocide and crimes against humanity. Legislatures in several Western countries passed similar declarations. To punish China and get it to change its policies, the United States and other countries have banned the import of products from Xinjiang produced by Uyghur labor. About 90% of China’s cotton is produced in Xinjiang, most of which is exported. Since June 2022, the U.S. government has blacklisted companies in China that make products linked to forced labor in Xinjiang under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, or UFLPA.  The law also authorizes sanctions on foreign individuals and entities found responsible for human rights abuses in the northwestern region.  More than 80 companies are now on the entity list.  This May, the U.S. Homeland Security Department added 26 Chinese textile companies to the entity list under the act, restricting them from entering the U.S. market.  Consequences Henryk Szadziewski, research director at the Uyghur Human Rights Project, said China is using the measure to lash back over criticism of its policies in Xinjiang. “This is very much a message to multinational corporations that they should not comply with sanctions and other kinds of bans placed on entities operating in Xinjiang,” he said. “It definitely is a countermeasure to what is being done outside of China.” Nevertheless, multinational companies that adhere to U.S. sanctions and exclude forced labor products from their supply chains could face repercussions in China, Szadziewski said. “If you do want to operate in China, you really have to operate by their rules and not by the rules of elsewhere,” he said. Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcom Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Chinese nuclear submarine sank at dock: media](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-nuclear-submarine-sank-at-dock-media/): A Chinese nuclear submarine of the latest generation sank in late May or early June during construction at a shipyard in Wuhan province, U.S. media quoted defense officials as saying. The Wall Street Journal first reported on the suspected sinking of the sub at Wuchang shipyard, which had been believed only to build conventional diesel-powered submarines for the Chinese military. The newspaper said that the vessel that sank was the first of a new class of Chinese nuclear-powered submarines, called the Zhou class, which features a distinctive X-shaped stern. It was undergoing the final stage of construction when it sank.  The incident would indicate that the construction of nuclear submarines is moving to Wuchang from a previously known shipyard in Huludao, Liaoning province. Open source investigators reported unusual movements and activities at the shipyard on the Yangtze River in early June, when floating cranes were seen working to supposedly salvage the sub. Unidentified U.S. officials quoted by American media outlets said that China was trying to conceal the accident, which was a major setback for its submarine program.  ‘No information’ It is unclear whether the submarine had nuclear fuel on board when it sank and there are no indications of nuclear rescue efforts in the area in the following months. The Chinese embassy in Washington told news agencies that it “has no information to provide.” Taiwan, which closely monitors Chinese military activity, said it was aware of the reports. Defense Minister Wellington Koo said on Friday that authorities &#8220;have a grasp of the situation through multiple intelligence and surveillance methods,&#8221; the Reuters news agency reported, echoing words he used in June when Taiwanese media reported that a Chinese submarine had been spotted in the Taiwan Strait. RELATED STORIES Did the Chinese submarine accident happen? Singapore commissions 2 new submarines US denies coverup over sub collision in South China Sea China has the largest number of naval ships in the world – approximately 370 surface ships and submarines – according to the Pentagon’s 2023 China Military Power Report. Among them are six nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, six nuclear-powered attack submarines and 48 diesel-powered attack submarines.  China’s submarine force is expected to grow to 65 by 2025 and to 80 by 2035. Cadets demonstrate flag signals during a media tour to an open day at the People’s Liberation Army Naval Submarine Academy in Qingdao, Shandong province, China, April 21, 2024. (Reuters/Florence Lo) The suspected sinking of the Zhou-class submarine has provoked questions among Chinese military watchers. Some say that the waters of the Yangtze River around Wuhan are too shallow for new nuclear submarines.  “We must, of course, accommodate the possibility of a mistaken intel,” said Collin Koh, a regional military expert.  “It’s more likely this episode will end like the earlier news about a Chinese nuclear boat having met a mishap in the Yellow Sea or Bohai Gulf,” Koh said, referring to reports of an accident on a Chinese Shang-class nuclear submarine in August last year. British media at that time, citing leaked intelligence, said the Chinese attack submarine with hull number 417 was “caught in a trap intended to ensnare British sub-surface vessels in the Yellow Sea.” This resulted in systems failures that took six hours to repair and surface the vessel, resulting in the deaths of 55 sailors, the Daily Mail and the Times said. The Chinese military has never spoken about the incident and questions remain unanswered. Edited by Mike Firn. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Chinese truck convoys crowd main bridge to North Korea](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-truck-convoys-crowd-main-bridge-to-north-korea/): Read a version of this story in Korean The main bridge connecting North Korea has been packed bumper-to-bumper with Chinese trucks over the past week, indicating that relations between Pyongyang and Beijing are warming up and that trade is picking up swiftly, residents in China told Radio Free Asia. The Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge spans the Yalu River border, connecting the Chinese city of Dandong with North Korea’s Sinuiju. Most, if not all, official overland trade between the two countries transits this bridge.  A resident of Dandong  told RFA that over the past few days more than 100 trucks crossed the bridge each day. “The frozen relationship between China and North Korea seems to be gradually thawing,” he said. “You can see that by looking at the number of vehicles traveling between North Korea and China through the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge.” Over the past few months, North Korea has been opportunistically cleaving to Russia, which needs all the allies it can get as Moscow’s war with Ukraine isolates it from the rest of the international community. North Korea’s relations with China have thus taken somewhat of a backseat.  But economically, North Korea depends heavily on China. The large daily convoys are drawing spectators who enjoy watching such a massive number of trucks cross the bridge all at once, the resident said. “The reason why the truck movement has increased these days is because fabrics, materials, and equipment are being transported to North Korea to produce clothing,” he said. “This used to be produced in China. This is newly developed news that I learned through a Chinese businessman who has ties to North Korean officials.” He said the trucks go out in the daytime and unload about 40 tons of cargo each. They then return at nighttime. Flood recovery efforts A lot of the goods being transported are needed in flood recovery efforts, another Dandong resident said. In late July and August, heavy rains caused the Yalu River to overflow its banks, damaging communities and even submerging several inhabited islands. “Most of the items loaded on the vehicles are construction materials needed to restore areas affected by recent floods,” he said. “Additionally, there are lots of raw materials being brought in so that North Koreans can make products that were previously made by North Korean workers in China.”   Previously North Korea would send large numbers of workers into China to earn foreign currency for the cash-strapped regime. But all North Korean workers were supposed to have returned home by 2019 according to international nuclear sanctions. The second resident said that the same kind of work is being done, just in North Korea instead of in China. “In the past, some Chinese companies with a legal address in Pyongyang produced clothing and electronic products in North Korea using Chinese materials and then changed them into Chinese products,” he said. In addition to sanctions deterring dispatched workers, the mood inside North Korea is also changing, according to the second resident. The North Korean government is also cautious to send workers abroad because it exposes them to the outside world and makes them less easy to control as they learn about life outside the top-down controlled North Korean society. The second resident said that it is difficult to export products labeled as made in North Korea due to sanctions against North Korea, so products made to order in North Korea are converted to products made in China. “It is impossible to count the number of vehicles lined up on the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge, but at one glance, more than 100 vehicles are transporting goods to North Korea every day,” he said. “This is the result of both North Korea and China agreeing on various exchanges from the standpoint of mutual interest.” Translated by Claire S. Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.  We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar junta airstrike kills civilians sheltering in rebel territory](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-airstrike-kills-civilians-sheltering-in-rebel-territory/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. Myanmar junta jets bombed a shelter for displaced people in a rebel-held town in Rakhine state on Thursday killing 14 civilians and wounding 25, an insurgent force official told Radio Free Asia. The Arakan Army, or AA, has made significant gains in its battle for self-determination over the past year, capturing 10 of the 17 townships and major military bases in Myanmar’s westernmost state but the junta has been hitting back, in particular with its air power. Air force jets bombed the coastal town of Thandwe early on Thursday, hitting public administration offices where people displaced by the fighting have been staying, said the AA spokesperson. “Two jets came in and dropped two bombs each on the city hall and the environmental preservation office. More than 200 displaced people were sheltering in the office,” said the spokesperson, Khaing Thu Kha. “The injured were sent to hospital. Most were elderly people and children.” RFA tried to contact Rakhine state’s junta spokesperson Hla Thein for information on the airstrikes but he did not answer telephone calls. A Thandwe resident said he believed the jets had deliberately targeted civilians, though there was no particular evidence for that. “The people sheltering there are mainly from Thandwe township and Gyeik Taw village,” said the resident who declined to be identified for safety reasons. Residents and members of the AA say junta attacks in Rakhine state have increasingly targeted schools, monasteries, residential areas and government buildings that the AA has captured. The junta has denied targeting civilians though human rights investigators also say civilians in rebel-held areas are increasingly being killed in airstrikes. On Wednesday, junta attacks on nearby Myebon township’s Kan Htaunt Gyi village killed two women villagers and wounded seven people, residents said. The military has launched an offensive in Shan state, on northeastern Myanmar’s border with China, aiming to recapture lost territory there from two main insurgent forces allied with the AA. On Sept. 2, the junta designated all three members of the alliance “terrorist groups”. According to RFA data, junta airstrikes and heavy weapons attacks killed nearly 2,000 civilians and injured nearly 4,000 between the military’s February 2021 coup d’etat and May 2024. RELATED STORIES Myanmar junta arrests dozens for sending supplies to rebel zone A new generation in Myanmar risks their lives for change Myanmar junta airstrike kills dozens, including prisoners Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.  We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Biden meets Vietnam’s president in New York](https://ij-reportika.com/biden-meets-vietnams-president-in-new-york/): U.S. President Joe Biden and his Vietnamese counterpart, To Lam, met on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Wednesday, with the pair praising rapidly warming bilateral relations nearly half a century after the end of the Vietnam War. It marked the end of a whirlwind trip to New York for Lam, who in May became president – typically considered the second-most powerful office in Vietnam – and then ascended to the top role of general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam last month. Lam earlier met with U.S. business executives on Monday and delivered a concise – and mostly circumspect – inaugural speech as Vietnam’s president to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday. He also met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday and with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday. Meeting at the InterContinental New York Barclay hotel three blocks from the U.N. Headquarters, Lam thanked Biden for sending condolences upon the passing of his predecessor as general secretary, Nguyen Phu Trong, who died aged 80 after 13 years in office. Vietnam&#8217;s President and ruling Communist Party Chief To Lam meets with U.S. President Joe Biden (not pictured) on the sidelines of the 79th session of the United National General Assembly (UNGA) in New York City, U.S., Sept. 25, 2024. (Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters) “Even during his lifetime, the late general secretary often spoke of you with fond memories and sincere appreciation,” Lam said to Biden in his remarks in front of reporters prior to the closed-door meeting. “His historic visit to the U.S. in 2015 followed by your visit to Vietnam in September last year were historic milestones,” he added, “and have significantly advanced the growth of the Vietnam-U.S. relations, resulting in the higher level of the relations that we enjoy today.” “We appreciate very much your fondness for Vietnam, and your historic contributions have been pivotal in elevating our bilateral relations.” ‘Unprecedented cooperation’ Reading from notes, Biden noted that he and Vietnam’s leadership elevated bilateral ties to the “highest level possible” during his trip to Hanoi last year, which commentators at the time said was driven by the countries’ mutual distrust of Beijing’s growing power. “Since then, we&#8217;ve been very proud of the progress we’ve made,” Biden said, pointing to U.S. investments in microchips and supply chains in Vietnam and the countries’ “unprecedented cooperation” on cybersecurity as areas where the relationship was blossoming. U.S. President Joe Biden meets with Vietnam&#8217;s President and ruling Communist Party Chief To Lam (not pictured) on the sidelines of the 79th session of the United National General Assembly (UNGA) in New York City, U.S., Sept. 25, 2024. (Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters) Neither leader directly mentioned China in their remarks, with the Vietnamese government seeking to carefully balance its growing ties with America with productive relations with its northern neighbor. However, Biden said Hanoi and Washington were united in efforts to build “a more open and secure Indian Ocean, committed to freedom of navigation and the rule of law” – an apparent gaffe meant to refer to the Indo-Pacific region, which U.S. officials use for the vast region stretching from India through the Pacific to America’s west coast. “We continue our path breaking work to heal the wounds of war,” he added. “There’s nothing beyond our capacity to work together.” A senior administration official who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity after the talks said it was “an extremely warm meeting” and that the pair had also discussed “stability in the South China Sea.” Earlier on Wednesday, Lam met with Guterres, the U.N. secretary general, and discussed “the importance of multilateralism, the work of the U.N., international law including the Convention on the Law of the Sea,” according to a readout released by the United Nations. Vietnamese Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son also met with his Laotian and Cambodian counterparts, Saleumxay Kommasith and Sok Chenda Sophea, to affirm continuing cooperation in the wake of Cambodia’s recent decision to withdraw from a three-country development pact. US business leaders Lam was not only in New York for diplomatic meetings, though. His meeting with U.S. executives at a forum on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly on Monday was a productive one, according to Vietnamese state media, which reported that numerous cooperation deals were signed by Vietnamese and American businesses. Vietnam&#8217;s President To Lam addresses the 79th United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, 24, 2024. (Eduardo Munoz/Reuters) Former British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, who is now the president of global affairs for Facebook parent company Meta, told Lam during their talks that the company planned to manufacture its Metaverse virtual reality glasses in Vietnam, the reports said. A separate meeting with Nick Ammann, Apple’s vice president in charge of global government affairs, produced an agreement to create an Apple research and development center at the National Innovation Center in Hanoi, including scholarships for Vietnamese students to study artificial intelligence and “the internet of things.” Vietnamese tycoon Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao’s Vietjet Group also signed a $1.1 billion cooperation agreement with Maryland-based Honeywell Aerospace Technologies to provide avionics and aviation technical services for Vietjet’s aircraft fleet, the reports said. Deals on liquid natural gas and data center development were also signed during the forum, according to the state media reports. After five days in New York, Lam is scheduled to fly to Cuba on Wednesday night for meetings with his country’s old communist allies in Havana. He is scheduled to return to Vietnam on Friday. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar junta raids Shan state online scam center, detains hundreds](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-raids-shan-state-online-scam-center-detains-hundreds/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. Myanmar junta authorities arrested nearly 750 people, including more than 240 Chinese nationals, in a raid on an online scam near Myanmar’s border with China, sources close to regional authorities told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday. China has been pressing authorities in Myanmar for the past year to crack down on the online fraud gangs, many of which target Chinese citizens, and the arrests in the Shan state border town of Muse follow recent Chinese efforts to help Myanmar’s junta quell armed opposition to its rule. A resident of Muse said junta forces raiding the scam center on Monday had clashed with guards there, members of a pro-junta militia who were apparently caught unaware by the raid. “A shootout between the junta’s local militia and junta soldiers erupted in Muse’s Mingalar neighborhood and many people were arrested, including Chinese nationals,” said the resident, who declined to be identified for security reasons. “Security control at the town’s gates has been tightened more than ever.” It was not clear if there were any casualties in the shooting but sources close to Myanmar authorities said junta troops had detained nearly 750 people and 247 Chinese nationals among them would be handed over to authorities in China.  RFA called Myanmar military officials in Muse and Shan state’s junta spokesperson, Khun Thein Maung, for more information but neither responded by the time of publication.  The Chinese embassy in Myanmar did not respond to inquiries from RFA by time of publication. Illegal casinos, online gambling and scam centers have proliferated along Myanmar’s borders with both China and Thailand, as well as in Laos and Cambodia, many run by Chinese gangsters, law enforcement organizations say.  The operations often thrive on the labor of people tricked into thinking they’ve landed legitimate jobs but forced to adopt false identities online in what have become known as “pig-butchering” schemes, forming relationships with victims then tricking them into investing in fake schemes. University of Texas researchers estimated in a March report that scammers had tricked investors out of more than US$75 billion since January 2020.  China has turned to both junta authorities and its insurgent enemies, who control increasingly large areas in Shan state, for help in tackling the gangs. Chinese media reported early this year that 44,000 telecom fraud suspects had been handed over to China including 2,908 “fugitives” but action against the scam centers appeared to dwindle later in the year as fighting intensified between the Myanmar military and anti-junta forces. Suspects detained in a raid on a scam center in Shan state town of Muse. Sept. 23, 2024 (Citizen photo) China is keen to see an end to the turmoil in Myanmar that threatens its economic interests, which include oil and natural gas pipelines from the Indian Ocean coast, and has in recent weeks pressed main insurgent forces in Shan state to agree to halt their offensives against the junta, although neither side appears ready to lay down their arms. Analysts say China is hoping that an election the junta has promised to hold next year can pave the way for a resolution of Myanmar’s conflict, and it has offered help to organize the vote and a census that the military said will be held soon. RELATED STORIES No limits to lawlessness of Myanmar’s predatory regime Myanmar border militia emerges as nexus in regional scam network ‘Most easily corrupted’ Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar form scam epicenter Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.  We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Tibetan monk jailed for 18 months over Dalai Lama’s speech](https://ij-reportika.com/tibetan-monk-jailed-for-18-months-over-dalai-lamas-speech/): Read RFA coverage of this story in Tibetan. A Tibetan monk has been sentenced to over 18 months in prison on charges of sharing a speech by Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama on social media, Tibetans living in exile told Radio Free Asia. Chinese authorities arrested Jampa Choephel of Penkar Thang Monastery in Rebkong county, Qinghai province, shortly after he shared a speech by the Dalai Lama on March 10, they said. The date marks Tibetan National Uprising Day, the start of a failed Tibetan rebellion against Chinese rule in 1959. Possessing or sharing photos or videos of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader who has resided in northern India since 1959, is considered an act of separatism and has been a punishable offense in Tibet for decades. Choephel’s case is part of a broader crackdown on Tibetan Buddhist clergy and intellectuals, many of whom are imprisoned in undisclosed locations for extended periods. Most have been arrested for expressing their views or sharing information about conditions in Tibetan areas under Chinese rule. The monk was held in the county’s Gurathang Prison until his “secret” trial in August when he was sentenced, said the sources, both of whom declined to be identified so they could speak freely without reprisal. Choephel’s family was not informed about the trial because Chinese authorities considered it politically sensitive, the first source said.  Following the trial, Choephel was held for an additional month in the same jail, and the total six months he spent in detention were counted as part of his sentence, according to the sources.  An aerial view of Rebkong county in western China&#8217;s Qinghai province, Oct. 26, 2017. (Eric Lafforgue/Art In All Of Us/Corbis via Getty Images) Authorities monitor family In the meantime, Chinese authorities are closely monitoring the monk&#8217;s family, the second source said. “This constant surveillance has created a climate of fear and anxiety for them, preventing them from inquiring about his well-being,” he said.  On Sept. 22, Choephel was transferred to a prison in Xining, capital of Qinghai province, where he will serve the remainder of his sentence, the sources said. Chinese authorities tightly control Tibetans who live in Rebgong, called Tongren in Chinese, a restive area of Malho, or Huangnan, Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, restricting their political activities and peaceful expressions of cultural and religious identity. Choephel, originally from Rebgong Medpa, went into exile in India in 1986. He spent 10 years studying at a Tibetan monastery in Dharamsala from which he graduated in 1996.  Upon returning to Tibet, he resided at Penkar Thang Monastery in Rebgong, where he devoted himself to meditation.  A master of Tibetan calligraphy, Choephel also taught writing and English. But he remained under constant surveillance by the Chinese authorities, with police frequently monitoring and issuing warnings around his residence during significant occasions.  Additional reporting by Dechen Wangmo. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi and Dawa Dolma for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Joshua Lipes. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [China angry on Biden's comment on Chinese aggression during Quad](https://ij-reportika.com/china-hits-back-at-bidens-hot-mic-comment-on-aggression/): China has responded angrily to comments by Joe Biden, at a weekend summit of the QUAD Dialogue, about Chinese aggression, saying the grouping was a U.S. tool to ensure its hegemony.
- [Leaked audit of VW’s Xinjiang plant contains flaws: expert](https://ij-reportika.com/leaked-audit-of-vws-xinjiang-plant-contains-flaws-expert/): Volkswagen’s audit of its joint venture plant in Xinjiang — where human rights groups accuse it of using Uyghur forced labor — contains flaws that make it unreliable, said an expert who obtained a leaked confidential copy of the audit. The German automaker had declared in December that the audit of the factory, a joint venture with Chinese state-owned SAIC Motor Corp., showed no signs of human rights violations. But after analyzing the leaked audit report, Adrian Zenz, senior fellow at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington, found that contrary to its claims, the audit failed to use international standards and was therefore “unsuited to meaningfully assess the presence or absence of forced labor at the factory.” “The methodology of the audit was extremely faulty and insufficient,” he told Radio Free Asia in an interview. Zenz also found problems with auditors themselves. Last year, Volkswagen hired the Berlin-based consultancy Löning-Human Rights &amp; Responsible Business GmbH to perform the audit. Löning in turn commissioned the Shenzhen-based Laingma law firm, which has ties to the Chinese Communist Party, to conduct the actual examination. The Volkswagen-SAIC Motor joint venture plant is seen on the outskirts of Urumqi in northwestern China&#8217;s Xinjiang region, April 22, 2021. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP) But Zenz found that neither Liangma nor its expert, British national Clive Greenwood, had experience in performing social audits or SA8000 certifications based on internationally recognized standards of decent work. “Liangma’s audit did not conform to the SA8000 standard that it claimed to assess,” Zenz wrote in the 24-page report issued Thursday that was posted on the website of the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington–based conservative defense policy think tank. “Shortcomings in the audit’s method and implementation mean that it was not able to adequately assess forced labor risks,” he wrote. Inconsistencies Löning, which claimed the application of SA8000 auditing principles, neglected key aspects of this standard and ignored the region’s repressive political environment, Zenz found.  Furthermore, Liangma’s website does not advertise auditing services or indicate that the firm has expertise in conducting them. And the audit did not assess all the indicators of possible forced labor, he later told RFA in a phone interview. Zenz also found that two Han Chinese lawyers and Greenwood conducted the audit, but did not ask employees questions about possible forced labor, and they didn’t follow standards for worker interviews, he said.  An aerial view of Volkswagen cars to be loaded onto a ship at a port in Nanjing, in eastern China&#8217;s Jiangsu province, June 23, 2024. (AFP) The auditors live streamed interviews with workers back to their home office, thereby affording workers no confidentiality and risking intercepts via the internet by the Chinese government, he said.   By reading the leaked audit document, one can “assess the discrepancy between Volkswagen’s final statement about the audit and what the audit itself actually said,” Zenz said. Volkswagen defended the audit, saying it “always adheres to the legal requirements in its communications,” a company spokesperson told RFA in an email, asking not to be identified by name. “At no time has there been any deception of investors or the public.” Calls to withdraw News of the leaked audit prompted the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China to issue a statement on Friday saying it was dismayed by its contents. “It is totally unacceptable for a major company like Volkswagen to continue operating a factory where assimilationist policies are promoted, and unacceptable that claims were made about the integrity of their supply chain due diligence which appear to be false,” said the statement issued by lawmakers from various democratic countries focused on relations with China. The group called on Volkswagen to withdraw from Xinjiang and provide a full explanation in response to reports about the audit. RELATED STORIES US lawmakers query credibility of Volkswagen forced labor audit     Volkswagen reviews Xinjiang operations as abuse pressure mounts     Volkswagen under fire after audit finds no evidence of Uyghur forced labor   Protesters disrupt Volkswagen shareholder meeting over alleged Uyghur forced labor   The audit also indicated that the factory held staff activities to promote “ethnic unity” and ensure “harmony,” though these activities are associated with forced assimilation, Zenz’s report notes.  “This raises severe ethical concerns over Volkswagen’s continued presence in the region,” Zenz wrote. “A review of the audit shows that it did not attempt to assess forced labor according to international standards,” Zenz said. “It simply claims no forced labor based on a visual inspection of the factory and a review of worker contracts.” Furthermore, Greenwood, who joined Liangma in September 2023, shortly before the audit to participate in it, has publicly stated that SA8000 audits are worthless in China, the report said. “Mr. Greenwood’s enigmatic and in parts highly obscure background is marked by twists, turns, contradictions and obfuscation,” Zenz said in the report.  ‘Profiting from exploitation’ Uyghur rights groups have repeatedly called for Volkswagen to withdraw its presence and supply chains from Xinjiang and to shut down its joint venture in Urumqi. The World Uyghur Congress, or WUC, headquartered in Germany, said Volkswagen had “long demonstrated its complicity in the Chinese government’s genocide of Uyghurs.”   The Volkswagen-SAIC Motor plant is seen on the outskirts of Urumqi in northwestern China&#8217;s Xinjiang region, April 22, 2021. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP) “Credible and independent audits are not possible in a repressive environment, where millions of Uyghurs are under extensive surveillance, arbitrarily detained, and tortured for words or appearances that do not conform to Communist Party ideals,” Gheyyur Qurban, the group’s director of German Advocacy, said in a statement. “It is high time for VW to leave,” he said. Rushan Abbas, executive director of Campaign for Uyghurs, or CFU, said the leaked audit report pointed to “not mere oversight” but a “deliberate, cold-blooded betrayal of basic human dignity.”  CFU said it received a copy of the leaked audit report in August and that its findings had been shared with Financial Times, Der Spiegel and German TV broadcaster ZDF. “Profiting from the exploitation and suffering of innocent people is the height of moral...
- [Did Kim Jong Un make a statement threatening Israel?](https://ij-reportika.com/did-kim-jong-un-make-a-statement-threatening-israel/): A claim has been repeatedly shared in social media posts that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made a statement threatening Israel in support of Iran.  But the claim is false. Keyword searches found no official statements or credible reports that back the claim. Experts dismissed the claim, saying there is little to gain for Kim in making such a statement. The claim was shared in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Aug. 3, 2024, by a user called “SprinterFamily” who has previously spread false information about North Korea. The post cited Kim as saying: “We will always stand by Iran and will respond decisively to any threat to our ally. We warn the mercenary of global imperialism, namely Israel, not to make mistakes.” A screenshot of the false X post. The claim began to circulate amid growing fears of a regional war in the Middle East.  The nearly 10-month-old war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas has led to regular low-level hostilities between Israel and Iran and Hezbollah, as well as other groups in the region that are aligned with Tehran. But after the killing of the top leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah in July, Iran and Hezbollah pledged to retaliate, with media reports saying they may attack Israel.  North Korea has been a strategic partner of long standing for Iran, based on their subjection to extensive U.S. economic sanctions and other U.S. policies designed to counter the threats they pose to key U.S. partners.  There have been media reports that North Korean-made weapons have been supplied to Palestinian militant groups such as Hamas through Iran.  Some believe North Korea is indirectly involved in the conflicts in the Middle East, although it has never officially acknowledged or commented on any military support. But the claim about the North Korean leader’s threat against Israel is false.  A review of North Korea’s state-run media outlets, which often carry statements from Kim, found no such statement or report.  ‘Little to gain for Kim’ Harry Kazianis, senior director at the Center for the National Interest think tank, believes that if the statement was not recorded by North Korea’s official news agency, it should be assumed that the claim is false. Kazianis said North Korea had “other ways” to cause trouble for Israel, including sales of missile technology to Iran that could be used against Israel, citing U.S. and South Korean intelligence agencies. Makino Yoshihiro, a visiting professor at Hiroshima University and diplomatic correspondent for Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun, said there would be little to gain for Kim in making such a statement. “Iran is currently trying not to overly provoke the United States, and North Korea’s involvement would create confusion,” said Yoshihiro.  Bruce Bennett, a senior researcher at the RAND Corporation, believes the claim about Kim’s statement on Israel may have originated from China or Russia, citing Russia’s attempts to build an anti-Western coalition. “Given that there was an attack in Iran that killed a major Hamas leader, and Kim Jong Un did nothing, it suggests that if he was really threatening to confront Israel, something would have already happened,” Bennett said, adding that Kim’s threats are primarily for propaganda purposes and are unlikely to be carried out in practice. Translated by Dukin Han. Edited by Taejun Kang.  Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [No limits to the lawlessness of Myanmar's predatory military regime](https://ij-reportika.com/no-limits-to-the-lawlessness-of-myanmars-predatory-military-regime/): Having illegally seized power and overthrown a democratically elected government, Myanmar’s military was never expected to hold itself up to the rule of law.  But given their losses since a trio of rebel armies launched Operation 1027 nearly a year ago, the military has acted with an even greater degree of desperate and callous criminality. The U.N. The High Commissioner for Human Rights released a new report that recorded a 50% increase in civilian deaths from April 2023 to June 2024, year on year. In addition to the more than 2414 civilians killed, the report detailed the deaths of 1,326 people, including 88 children and 125 women who died in military custody since the February 2021 coup.  Myat Thu Tun, a former reporter for the media outlet Democratic Voice of Burma, was one of seven people arrested and killed in Rakhine state’s Mrauk-U by Myanmar junta forces in early 2024. (RFA) The report documented executions, egregious sexual violence, and routine torture. Those who survived government custody described harrowing conditions in prisons and military detention facilities.  Now there are leaked reports on pro-regime Telegram channels that the military government is preparing to execute five anti-regime activists as early as next week.  That would follow the shocking executions of four, including Kyaw Min Yu (Ko Jimmy) and Phyo Zeya Thaw, in July 2022.  There are at least 112 people who have been put on death row since the coup. And the regime wants to send a signal through the executions, both to domestic and foreign audiences, that it is still firmly in control, despite losses on the battlefield.  War crimes are the strategy  The world has become inured to the intentional bombing of civilians, the execution of POWs, and the mass arrests of citizens as a form of collective punishment. Over 27,000 people have been arrested since the coup.  Junta troops torched more than 1,050 houses in retaliatory arson attacks in Sagaing, Magway and Mandalay regions in the first half of 2024 alone.  Radio Free Asia has documented a stepped up aerial bombing campaign leading to increased civilian casualties.   This should come as no surprise. The military’s counterinsurgency doctrine, known as the “Four Cuts” – stopping food, funds, information and recruitment to insurgents – is predicated on the intentional targeting of civilians as a deterrent for lending support to anti-regime forces.  A man looks at homes destroyed after air and artillery strikes in Mung Lai Hkyet displacement camp, in Laiza, Myanmar, Oct. 10, 2023. (AP) War crimes have always been the milirary’s strategy, and troops are indoctrinated and encouraged to commit them, including rape. The military is fighting across six distinct battle grounds, and has suffered losses in all of them. It has lost control over 60% of the towns in northern Shan state alone.  Opposition forces now control key roads and riparian ports, making the movement and resupply of troops difficult. The only way that the military can retaliate is through aerial bombardment and long-range artillery strikes.  If they can&#8217;t kill the opposition forces, they will kill the populations that support them. Preying on their own The military’s forces have committed such egregious human rights abuses that it&#8217;s hard to feel sorry for them. But their predatory behavior starts with plundering the income of their own troops. Despite their paltry salaries, troops are compelled to make monthly contributions to the sprawling military-owned conglomerate Myanma Economic Holdings Ltd (MEHL). The amount differs based on rank, but all must pay.  At the end of the year, MEHL is supposed to pay troops a dividend. Yet nothing has been paid since the coup, a result of nationwide boycotts of military-produced products and services.  The military insurance plan is even more egregious.  Established in late 2012, by Min Aung Hlaing’s son, Aung Pyae Sone, by 2015 the Aung Myint Moh Insurance company had secured a monopoly on selling life insurance to the military, supplanting the state-owned Myanma Insurance. It has an unclear degree of military ownership through MEHL. Even the lowest ranked soldiers are pressured to buy a minimum two-year policy costing some 500,000 kyats – $238 at the official, artificially low exchange rate – in addition to a monthly premium of 8,400 kyats. Elizabeth Throssell, Spokesperson for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). (Daniel Johnson/UN News) Amid recent battlefield losses, including a large number of the hastily trained five classes of conscripts since, the company has had to pay out more than it&#8217;s taking in.  Its own capital reserves are thought to have flatlined in the overall poor economic climate and investment conditions.  As one can expect from Min Aung Hlaing’s rapacious clan, the insurance company is cheating. The firm has labeled many dead soldiers as “missing in action”.   In other cases, it has found loopholes in paperwork and nonpayment of monthly fees as justification for not honoring claims. The firm has pocketed the payments of the estimated 20,000 troops who have defected to the opposition.  The junta is flat out stealing from the soldiers that they conscript just to line their own pockets. A well-armed extortion racket The abject criminality of the military is getting worse.  Due to the military’s own economic incompetence, the economy has cratered. And with that has been a sharp decline in revenue needed to conduct the war.  The opposition National Unity Government&#8217;s digital Spring Lottery has significantly cut into government sweepstakes income. The loss of territory on the battlefield has cut off revenue streams.  Recent losses include four MOGE oil fields, coal, tin, lead and ruby mines. Intense fighting is underway in Hpakant in northern Kachin State for control of lucrative jadeite and rare earth mines.  Take a moment to read more China’s frustration with the Myanmar junta’s incompetence is mounting As Myanmar junta falters, rival ethnic armies jostle in Shan state Caveat creditor: China offers a financial lifeline to Myanmar’s junta Debris and soot cover the floor of a middle school in Let Yet Kone village in Tabayin township in...
- [New Zealand pilot freed after 19 months in Papua rebel captivity](https://ij-reportika.com/new-zealand-pilot-freed-after-19-months-in-papua-rebel-captivity/): A New Zealand pilot held hostage for 19 months by separatist rebels in Indonesia’s Papua region was freed on Saturday, Indonesian authorities said, bringing an end to a standoff that had drawn international attention. Phillip Mehrtens was abducted by the West Papua National Liberation Army, or TPNPB, in February last year. He was released following protracted negotiations facilitated by religious and tribal leaders in Nduga, a remote regency in Papua, said Bayu Suseno, spokesman for a joint military-police task force dealing with the separatist insurgency. “He was in good health when we retrieved him, and we immediately flew him to Timika,” Bayu said in a statement, referring to a major town in Central Papua province. He did not specify the exact conditions of his release. New Zealand pilot Phillip Mark Mehrtens is pictured in Timika after being retrieved by the Cartenz Peace Operation Task Force, following his release by separatist rebels, Sept. 21, 2024. (Photo courtesy of Damai Cartenz Indonesian police-military task force) Mehrtens was receiving the necessary evaluations to ensure he is both physically and mentally stable, Bayu added. Mehrtens, 38, had been working as a pilot for Indonesian airline Susi Air when his plane was seized shortly after landing in the region. The rebels, who are the armed wing of the Free Papua Movement, have long fought for independence from Indonesian rule. When Mehrtens was taken captive, the TPNPB demanded Papua’s independence in exchange for his release. Video footage of Mehrtens surrounded by heavily armed rebels had circulated online over the past year. TPNPB spokesman Sebby Sambom had said in a video statement posted on YouTube Tuesday that the group would unconditionally release Mehrtens “on humanitarian grounds”. Sambom reiterated, however, that the group’s demand for Papuan independence remains unchanged. “Our struggle for an independent West Papua is non-negotiable,” he said. New Zealand pilot Phillip Mark Mehrtens is pictured in Timika after being retrieved by the Cartenz Peace Operation Task Force, following his release by separatist rebels, Sept. 21, 2024. (Photo courtesy of Damai Cartenz Indonesian police-military task force) When asked about Mehrtens’ release on Saturday, Sambom declined to comment, saying he had not been briefed on it. Meanwhile, New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters welcomed the release. “We are pleased and relieved to confirm that Philip Mehrtens is safe and well and has been able to talk with his family,” he said in a statement. “This news must be an enormous relief for his friends and loved ones.” The New Zealand government had worked closely with Indonesian authorities and other parties to secure Mehrtens’ freedom, Peters said. The separatist conflict in Papua, simmering since the 1960s, has left thousands dead and many more displaced. Though Indonesia has sought to integrate Papua through infrastructure development and increased autonomy, many Papuans remain deeply resentful of Jakarta’s control, which they view as exploitative, especially in the context of the region’s vast natural resources. New York-based Human Rights Watch released a report on Thursday detailing what it called entrenched racism and systemic discrimination against the indigenous ethnic Melanesian people in Papua. The report said the Indonesian government had responded to Papuans’ calls for independence with arbitrary arrests, torture, forced displacement and extrajudicial killings. International human rights organizations have repeatedly called on Indonesia to allow independent investigations into the human rights situation in Papua, but the government has restricted access to the region. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [China targets high-ranking officials who read banned books](https://ij-reportika.com/china-targets-high-ranking-officials-who-read-banned-books/): Read RFA’s coverage of this story in Chinese China’s Communist Party is clamping down on the secret hobby of some high-ranking officials: reading banned books, a series of state media reports suggest. Officials from glitzy Shanghai to poverty-stricken Guizhou have been accused in recent months of &#8220;privately possessing and reading banned books and periodicals,&#8221; according to state media reports, which typically surface when the officials are probed by the party’s disciplinary arm. Senior officials have traditionally enjoyed privileged access to materials banned as potentially subversive for the wider population, via the &#8220;neibu,&#8221; or internal, publishing system, former Communist Party officials told RFA Mandarin in recent interviews.  Now it appears that President Xi Jinping is coming for their personal libraries and private browsing habits in a bid to instill the same ideas in all party members regardless of rank. A man walks past posters about Chinese political books displayed at the Hong Kong Book Fair in Hong Kong, July 18, 2012. (Philippe Lopez/AFP) During the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, any foreign book could be considered a &#8220;poisonous weed that promotes the bourgeois lifestyle.&#8221;  Books banned since 2000 have typically been works about recent Chinese history or inside scoops on senior leaders, including memoirs from Mao Zedong&#8217;s personal physician, late ousted premier Zhao Ziyang and a book about the later years of Mao&#8217;s trusted premier Zhou Enlai. Overseas publications are often banned or tightly controlled in China, either online, or via a complex process of political vetting by the authorities, including a 2017 requirement that anyone selling foreign publications in China must have a special license. Wider knowledge makes better leaders Former Party School professor Cai Xia said officials were generally allowed to read whatever they liked until the turn of the century. The arrangement encouraged officials to broaden their perspective, making them better leaders. &#8220;Politics, like art, requires imagination,&#8221; Cai said.  &#8220;Because experience shows that the more single-minded and closed-off the thinking of the Communist Party, especially the senior cadres, the narrower their vision and the poorer their thinking, and the harder it is for them to grasp the complex phenomena and situations that have emerged in China&#8217;s rapid development,” she told Radio Free Asia. Wider reading encourages deeper thought, which helps China &#8220;to move forward,&#8221; she said. Masks, goggles and books collected from the Occupy zone are seen on the table at guesthouse in Hong Kong Dec. 30, 2014. (Tyrone Siu/Reuters) Du Wen, former executive director of the Legal Advisory Office of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region government, said the purge of readers of banned publications is worrying. &#8220;This phenomenon is so scary, because it sends the message that there is no independence in the ranks of the Chinese Communist Party,&#8221; Du said. &#8220;Even dialectical materialism and critical thinking have become evidence of guilt.&#8221; Nearly 20 officials have been accused of similar infractions, Du said, basing the number on his observation of media reports. Officials have been tight-lipped about the names of the books and periodicals these officials were reading, yet the accusations keep coming. Those targeted In November 2023, the party launched a probe into former Zhejiang provincial Vice Gov. Zhu Congjiu, accusing him of losing his way ideologically. In addition to making off-message comments in public, Zhu had &#8220;privately brought banned books into the country and read them over a long period of time,&#8221; according to media reports at the time. In June 2023, the Beijing branch of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection expelled former state assets supervisory official Zhang Guilin for “possessing and reading books and periodicals with serious political issues,” alongside a slew of other alleged offenses including &#8220;engaging in power-for-sex and money-for-sex transactions.&#8221; Many of those targeted have been in the state-controlled financial system, while some have been concentrated in the central province of Hunan and the southwestern megacity of Chongqing, according to political commentator Yu Jie. A vendor attends to a customer next to images and statues depicting late Chinese chairman Mao Zedong, at the secondhand books section of Panjiayuan antique market in Beijing, China, Aug. 3, 2024. (Florence Lo/Reuters) &#8220;Interestingly, a lot of officials in the political and legal system, national security and prison systems, which are responsible for maintaining stability and persecuting dissidents, are also keen on reading banned books,&#8221; Yu wrote in a recent commentary for RFA Mandarin, citing the case of former state security police political commissar Li Bin. In Hubei province, the commission went after one of their own in party secretary Wang Baoping, accusing him of &#8220;buying and reading books that distorted and attacked the 18th Party Congress.&#8221; &#8220;Monitoring what people are reading shows the authoritarian system’s determination and ability to maintain its power and to destroy any resources that could be subversive and any doubts about the legitimacy of the authorities’ rule,&#8221; Yu wrote in a Chinese-language commentary on May 28. &#8220;Xi Jinping&#8217;s &#8230; goal is to turn more than 80 million party members into marionettes or zombies, and follow him, like the Pied Piper, in a mighty procession that leads to hell,&#8221; he said. Categories Zhang Huiqing, a former editor at the People&#8217;s Publishing House, told RFA Mandarin that &#8220;gray&#8221; books were allowed to be published under the watchful eye of the party&#8217;s Central Propaganda Department, which also reviewed and vetted foreign-published books for translation into Chinese, for distribution as &#8220;neibu&#8221; reading material. Divided into categories A, B and C, where A was restricted to the smallest number of officials, &#8220;reactionary&#8221; books were those that could potentially cause people to challenge the party leadership, and they were once distributed in a highly controlled manner, Zhang said. Du Wen said that while he was an official in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region government, he had access to a slew of foreign news outlets not usually sold on the streets of Chinese cities, including Bloomberg, The New York Times, The Washington Post and newspapers published in democratic Taiwan. &#8220;These were all allowed because if you want to do research, you have to understand what&#8217;s going on overseas,&#8221;...
- [The Era of Proxy Wars: How Major Powers Wage Indirect Wars](https://ij-reportika.com/the-era-of-proxy-wars-how-major-powers-wage-indirect-wars/): The world is indeed experiencing a resurgence of proxy conflicts, where major powers exert influence indirectly through smaller, often less stable, nations. This is part of a broader geopolitical strategy, allowing these big powers to avoid direct confrontation while still advancing their global interests. 
- [Vietnam releases 2 political prisoners ahead of leader To Lam’s US trip](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-releases-2-political-prisoners-ahead-of-leader-to-lams-us-trip/): Read RFA’s coverage of this topic in Vietnamese Vietnam has released two prominent political prisoners, a day before its top leader To Lam headed to the United States to speak before the United Nations General Assembly. Climate campaigner Hoang Thi Minh Hong, was sentenced to three years in prison last September for tax evasion. She was freed on Friday from a prison in Gia Lai province, her husband told the AFP news agency. “She took a bus home, it took her 12 hours to reach Ho Chi Minh City and I picked her up from the bus station at 5:00 am this morning,” Hoang Vinh Nam told the news agency. “It’s just amazing. She’s good, she’s healthy and she’s the same person she was when she went in.” Hong, 52, founded the non-profit CHANGE VN, which campaigned to raise environmental awareness. She shut it down in October last year after the  arrest of several environmental activists. Prosecutors accused her of dodging US$274,000 in taxes, which she was ordered to pay back, along with a fine of $4,000. RELATED STORIES Vietnam’s clean energy transition is failing, pressure group says Vietnamese activist sentenced to 3 years in prison US Human Rights Commission calls on Vietnam to release campaigner Authorities also released Tran Huynh Duy Thuc, eight months before the end of his16-year sentence, his brother Tran Huynh Duy Tan told Radio Free Asia. “There is nothing more joyful than this, waiting every day, every minute, every second,” Tan said. “There is nothing more to say, this moment has been very much awaited.” Tan added that his whole family had gathered at Thuc’s house to welcome him home. Thuc, 57, is the co-founder of human rights group Vietnam Path. He was arrested in 2009 and sentenced the following year for &#8220;activities aimed at overthrowing the people&#8217;s government,&#8221; in connection with his online articles criticizing Vietnam’s one-party state. “I was very surprised and also very happy when Thuc was released a few months early, before the end of the 16-year term,” said former political prisoner Nguyen Tien Trung, who fled to Germany to avoid possible re-arrest. “However, for me, Mr Thuc&#8217;s sentence is completely unjust and the 16-year sentence is incorrect, completely wrong by the Vietnamese government.” Trung told RFA Vietnamese that Thuc’s release comes at a time when the government is clamping down hard on the democracy movement. “Most of the prominent democracy activists had to leave or were arrested,” Trung said. “This means that Thuc will face many difficulties when he gets home and there may be very few people left by his side to continue the fight.” There was no announcement from the government as to why the two were released but it came one day before Communist Party General Secretary To Lam boarded a flight from Hanoi to New York where he is due to speak at a UN Summit of the Future and the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, Vietnamese media reported. In January 2023, the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, a bipartisan group of U.S. Congress members, called on Vietnam to release Thuc “immediately and without condition.” And in September last year, the U.S. State Department reacted to news of Hong’s sentencing by calling for the release of the environmental activist and other political prisoners. “NGO leaders like Hoang Thi Minh Hong play a vital role in tackling global challenges, proposing sustainable solutions in the global fight against the climate crisis, and combating wildlife and timber trafficking,” the State Department said. Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Mike Firn. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [North Koreans are getting sick of propaganda song “Friendly Father”](https://ij-reportika.com/north-koreans-are-getting-sick-of-propaganda-song-friendly-father/): North Koreans are growing weary of being bombarded by “Friendly Father,” an upbeat propaganda song praising leader Kim Jong Un that has been blanketing the country for months now, sources in the country tell Radio Free Asia. People are forced to sing it before every public event and a loudspeaker car drives through cities blaring it, said a resident of Ryanggang province in the north on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “He is holding his 10 million children in his arms and taking care of us with all his heart,” go the lyrics. “The love you give me is like the sea. The trust you give me is like the sky,” says verse two. “You are always by our side, and make all our wishes come true.” The Ryanggang resident said that he has heard the song every day since it was introduced in April, except for a three-day break in early May due to the death of a high-ranking official.  “Every factory, company, school, work unit, and neighborhood-watch unit in the province has both children and adults sing this song whenever the opportunity arises.” he said. Music video The government created a high-quality music video for the song depicting people from all walks of life enthusiastically singing along to it. Friendly Father was inspired by an earlier propaganda song called “Friendly Name” that sung the praises of Kim’s father and predecessor Kim Jong Il. The melody is different but many of the lyrics in “Friendly Father” are callbacks to the earlier song, which most North Koreans know by heart. North Korean students sing in music class at the Pyongyang Orphans&#8217; Secondary School in Pyongyang, North Korea, Sept. 1, 2016. (Jon Chol Jin/AP) The order to promote the song comes from the Central Party of the ruling Korean Workers’ Party, the Ryanggang resident said. It’s gotten to the point where people actively avoid places where the song is played publicly if they can help it, he said. Deserted park For example, in the city of Hyesan, on the border with China, there is a park where retired people gather to spend their free time by talking, singing, dancing, playing games or exercising.  But when the park turned off their music and began playing “Friendly Father” over the park’s public address system, the senior citizens went home, according to the resident. “The manager forced them to stop dancing to a folk song but to dance in praise of the marshal instead,” he said, referring to Kim by his military rank.  RELATED RFA CONTENT RFA Insider podcast Episode 6 (Timecode 13:50) Upbeat video casts Kim Jong Un as North Korea’s father figure  North Korea bans karaoke, saying it smacks of ‘rotten’ capitalist culture  North Korea bans more than 100 patriotic songs that refer to reunification “The elderly people stopped dancing and began to return home. The song … rang out in the empty park where everyone had left one by one … until it was deserted.” The park, which used to teem with old folks from sunrise to sunset, is now empty almost every day, he said. Respect thy elder Another problem with the song stems from Korea’s Confucian culture.  Often complete strangers are expected to grant older people a certain amount of respect simply because they are older, with the promise that they will receive the same respect from the young when they reach the same age. However, “people in their 70s and 80s are being forced to call Kim Jong Un, who is only in his 40s and is about the same age as their sons, their ‘friendly father,’” the resident said. North Koreans sing at a picnic gathering at a park in Pyongyang, April 18, 2012, a national holiday celebrating the birthday period of the late leader Kim Il Sung.  (Vincent Yu/AP) The government’s push of “Friendly Father” is even more aggressive than its efforts to promote songs from the reigns of Kim Jong Un’s father and grandfather, a resident of the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA who also asked not to be identified. “Back then, their songs were sometimes played on broadcasting cars, but they did not make people sing at the start of every learning session or lecture session, nor was it forced upon the elderly, as they are doing right now,” he said. People scoff at the notion that Kim Jong Un could be their “friendly father,” because they do not trust his leadership abilities, the second resident said. “They have no hope in their leader, but they are forced to familiarize their eyes, ears, and mouths with the image of him as their friendly father through the song,” he said. It seems that the propaganda efforts are getting bigger and louder as people’s dissatisfaction with society increases, he said. Translated by Claire S. Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Has China not launched a war since 1949?](https://ij-reportika.com/has-china-not-launched-a-war-since-1949/): A claim emerged in Chinese-language social media posts that China has not launched a war since 1949.  But the claim is misleading as it is a one-sided historical interpretation. A review of events shows that China has been involved in several major conflicts since 1949, and there are different views about how much of a role it played in starting them.  The claim was shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Aug. 24, 2024.  “While the U.S. has launched 469 conflicts since 1789, China has launched none since 1949,” the claim reads in part.  Multiple Chinese accounts on X have reposted an infographic comparing the number of wars initiated by the U.S. and China. (Screenshots/X) The claim has also been shared by several Chinese diplomats on X. Even Chinese President Xi Jinping said during a telephone call with U.S. President Joe Biden in 2021 that his country had not started a conflict since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.  Several Chinese diplomats also reposted the image and further spread on the narrative of the U.S. as a warhawk (Screenshots/X)  But the claim is misleading as it is a one-sided historical interpretation.  A review of historical events shows that China has been involved in several major conflicts since 1949 and there are different views about how much of a role Beijing played in starting them.  Below is what AFCL found.  The Sino-Indian War The month-long Sino-Indian War of 1962 was a conflict rooted in disputes with India over China’s attempts to build a military road linking its Xinjiang region with Tibet after China occupied the Tibet area in 1950, according to Encyclopædia Britannica, the world’s oldest continuously published encyclopedia.  The road was scheduled to pass through Aksai Chin, an area that overlaps parts of Tibet and Xinjiang but is also claimed by India as part of its northern Ladakh region. The war was preceded by intermittent skirmishes beginning in 1959, which culminated in an attack by Chinese forces against the region on Oct. 20, 1962.  But some scholars, including Wang Hongwei, a Chinese academic expert on South Asia, said that the campaign originated from an arbitrary border demarcation by India’s government in 1961.  Wang listed the advance of India’s army into territory that China claimed, attacks on Chinese posts, the killing of Chinese border guards and a 1962 Indian order for its forces to expel the Chinese from the North-East Border Special Region as evidence that the war was imposed on China.  China has officially described the conflict as a war of self-defense ever since. The Sino-Vietnamese War Internationally known as the Sino-Vietnamese War, the conflict that broke out when 220,000 Chinese soldiers struck along the 800-mile border with Vietnam early on Feb. 17, 1979.  While at the time both neighbors had communist political systems, Vietnam’s decision to sign a mutual defense pact with the Soviet Union in 1978 provoked the ire of many Chinese leaders, given that at the time Beijing and Moscow were struggling for leadership of the global communist movement.  This tension was later exacerbated by Vietnam’s invasion of neighboring Cambodia at the end of 1978 and the overthrow of the Beijing-backed Khmer Rouge government, an event that served as the catalyst for the conflict between Beijing and Hanoi.  The conflict has been called an aggressive war launched by China by scholars such as Miles Yu, the director of the Hudson Institute’s China Center, who emphasized that the conflict is portrayed completely differently in Vietnam and in China.  Vietnam portrays the conflict as a struggle against Chinese expansion, while China frames it as a war of self-defense. In line with this interpretation, a Chinese government webpage commemorating soldiers killed in the conflict, lists several actions by Vietnam in the mid-1970s – implementing discriminatory policies against Chinese minorities in Vietnam and conducting provocative border raids in which several Chinese citizens were wounded – as evidence that Vietnam came to view China as an enemy and gradually adopted a warlike posture towards it. However, Hsiao-Huang Shu, a scholar of Chinese military tactics at Taiwan’s Tamkang University, told AFCL that while the official Chinese government position paints the war as a punitive conflict rather than as an “invasion,” the war was clearly initiated by China.  Sino-Soviet border clashes  In March 1969, Chinese and Soviet forces engaged in a series of clashes on an island called Zhenbao on a border river.  Subsequent border skirmishes in the months following the conflict resulted in an unknown number of casualties. In order to end the dispute, Moscow adopted a carrot-and-stick approach, proposing negotiations on the border dispute while at the same time threatening military action if Beijing did not cooperate. The Soviet Union said that an initial ambush by Chinese army units of  Soviet border guards on March 2 was followed by a larger clash on March 15.  However, an article published by China’s state-run CCP Review said that the initial skirmish broke out when a Chinese patrol was obstructed and later shot at by Soviet troops.  But according to the noted historian of Sino-Soviet relations, Li Danhui, Chinese soldiers initially stabbed and fired upon a Soviet patrol on the day fighting broke out. He cited statements by Chen Xilian, the Chinese commander at Zhenbao, as evidence.  Michael S. Gerson, a former analyst at the U.S. Center for Naval Analyses, published a study of the incident, saying that territorial disputes over the strategically unimportant island largely arose as a byproduct of the larger Sino-Soviet ideological split in the 1960s. As part of the split, China said that the Soviet Union’s control of the island was a direct result of unequal treaties China had been coerced to sign, while the Soviet Union argued that China had no legal claim to the island. ‘Illogical comparison’ Michael Szonyi, a professor of Chinese history at Harvard University, told AFCL that while the U.S. has been involved in several wars around the world, the notion that China had “never started a war” was “absurd,”...
- [Satellite photos show expansion of suspected North Korean uranium enrichment site](https://ij-reportika.com/satellite-photos-show-expansion-of-suspected-north-korean-uranium-enrichment-site/): A suspected North Korean uranium enrichment facility that may have been toured by leader Kim Jong Un recently has grown significantly since construction was first spotted there in February, satellite imagery has revealed.
- [Myanmar guerrillas arrested in bid to attack air base, group says](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-guerrillas-arrested-in-bid-to-attack-air-base-group-says/): Myanmar junta authorities arrested two members of an urban guerrilla group planning to attack one of the military’s largest air bases, from where the air force launches attacks on civilians, the rebel group said. The two fighters were preparing to fire rockets at the Hmawbi Air Base, 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of the main city of Yangon, on Sunday when they were captured, the group called Dark Shadow said.  “Troops stationed at the Hmawbi Air Base have been carrying out aerial bombardments on homes and camps for internally displaced people,” the group said in a statement issued on Wednesday. Dark Shadow said other members of the team preparing to attack the air base had escaped. Fighting has surged over the past year between anti-junta forces, who include pro-democracy activists and ethnic minority rebels &#8211; and the military that seized power in early 2021 with the overthrow of a government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. Anti-junta forces have made significant gains in several parts of the country but they lack the weapons to take on the junta’s air force, which has increasingly been unleashing devastating attacks on the insurgents and on civilians in areas under their control. The U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar said in June that military airstrikes against civilian targets increased five-fold in the first half of the year A spokesman for the junta, which denies targeting civilians, was not immediately available for comment on the reported attack on the air base. A former air force officer who now supports the campaign to end military rule told RFA  aircraft flying out of Hmawbi mostly attack in Kayah state in the east and the Tanintharyi region in the south. “Hmawbi Air Base is close to Kayah state and Tanintharyi so the aircraft are used in operations in those areas,&#8221; said the former officer, who declined to be identified for safety reasons.  The base is also a hub for the distribution of jet fuel across the country and for aircraft maintenance and parts, he added. Dark Shadow and its allies have launched urban attacks on the junta and its facilities, including air bases before. Junta authorities arrested seven people in June for plotting a rocket attack on the junta leader, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, as he attended a  bridge opening ceremony in Yangon. Dark Shadow said at the time its members were involved in that. Two of those arrested for that plot died after being tortured during interrogation, a Dark Shadow spokesperson told Radio Free Asia in August. Another anti-junta activist, Nan Lin, head of a group called the University Students’ Union Alumni Force, said prospects were grim for the two detained members of Dark Shadow. “The way we see it, once revolutionary soldiers have been arrested, it’s unimaginable we’ll ever see them again or they’ll be protected according to the law,” Nan Lin told RFA on Thursday. RELATED STORIES: UN report describes torture and death of hundreds in custody since Myanmar coup Burmese filmmaker Pe Maung Same dies following release from junta prison Morale plunges amid setbacks as Myanmar&#8217;s junta looks for scapegoats Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Laos’ largest province is short 500 teachers](https://ij-reportika.com/laos-largest-province-is-short-500-teachers/): Laos’ most-populous province is short more than 500 teachers for the new school year starting this month, even as the central government slashes jobs to reduce the country’s enormous debt. The two problems can be traced to the economic crisis gripping Laos amid soaring inflation and living costs, a declining currency, poor job prospects and swelling debt from dams and other infrastructure projects. More than 300 teachers in Savannakhet province recently retired, Gov. Bounhom Oubonpaseuth said at a Sept. 9 meeting with other high-ranking provincial officials. That number includes volunteer teachers who help staff many classrooms. In Laos’ centrally planned economy, school staff are government employees, and many young people work as volunteer teachers in classrooms until there is an opening for salaried staff. But rampant inflation has made it less likely that volunteers will be offered a full-time state teaching job, and more volunteer educators have been walking away from the profession. A primary school in a rural area of Savannakhet province, Laos, in March 2023. (RFA) Interior Minister Vilayvong Boutdakham told lawmakers in the capital Vientiane last week that the government must cut more than 3,000 positions for nurses, teachers and other state workers by the end of 2025. The lack of teachers has been a growing issue in Savannakhet – with more than 1 million inhabitants – and elsewhere in the country since at least 2017, when the national government began reducing state employee quotas because of its shrinking budget. One teacher for several classrooms Earlier this year, the province began paying a living allowance of 1.5 million kip (US$68) a month to volunteer teachers. But that hasn’t been enough to keep enough volunteers in the schools. In the province’s Xayphouthong district, so many have quit that most kindergartens have no teachers and some schools have no teachers at all, a district education official said.  In Sepon district, officials need to bring in 123 volunteer and salaried teachers, an education official there told Radio Free Asia. There are 109 schools in the district’s rural areas, where it’s especially hard to hire and keep teachers, he said. RELATED STORIES Volunteer teachers quit in Laos amid weak job prospects Severe teacher shortage in Laos causes schools to close, merge Laos needs more teachers, but budget cuts mean new hires can’t fill gap “Only nine schools have enough teachers – the rest don’t,” he said. “One teacher has to teach many classes or grades at the same time.” Other provinces are facing the same issues. Northern Oudomxay Province has a shortage of 273 teachers. Central Bolikhamxay province has openings for 413 teachers, according to Phophet Kounnavong, deputy director of the province’s Department of Education and Sports. Lao primary school students gather in a classroom in March 2023. (RFA) One teacher in Bolikhamxay who recently resigned said the salary of 1 million kip (US$45) a month wasn’t enough to meet living expenses. “I quit to set up a small business,” she said. “Many volunteer teachers have also quit. They couldn’t wait. Those who continue will have to teach many classes at the same time – especially in rural areas.” Nationwide, last year’s teacher shortage was 2,778, according to official statistics published by the Lao Ministry of Education and Sports. Translated by Max Avary. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Massive Explosion in Russia’s Tver Region Following Ukrainian Drone Strike](https://ij-reportika.com/massive-explosion-in-russias-tver-region-following-ukrainian-drone-strike/):  A Ukrainian drone attack reportedly triggered a massive explosion at a Russian ammunition depot in the Tver region, causing evacuations and widespread concern.
- [Myanmar rebels kill 12 women from pro-military village: report](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-rebels-kill-12-women-from-pro-military-village-report/): Read RFA coverage of this story in Burmese. Rebel forces in central Myanmar ambushed a vehicle near a junta stronghold killing 12 women on their way to work in nearby fields, military-controlled media reported on Wednesday.  No group claimed responsibility for the Tuesday attack in the Sagaing region but anti-junta activists there have set up groups, known as People’s Defense Forces, or PDFs, that launch ambushes and raids on military posts in their campaign against the junta that seized power in 2021. The women were on their way to work near Kywei Pon village when attackers opened fire with guns and a rocket launcher, the Myanmar Alin newspaper reported. Three wounded women were being treated in hospital. Armed people in the women’s vehicle returned fire before soldiers arrived, said one Kywei Pon resident, who declined to be identified for safety reasons. “Not long after the junta army arrived and took the injured away with emergency vehicles,” said the resident. There was no information about any casualties among the attackers. Many supporters of the junta, including members of militias that help the military, live in Kywei Pon so PDFs attack it often, the resident added. One PDF member in Sagaing, who also declined to be identified for saety reasons, told Radio Free Asia that anti-junta forces were not involved in the attack although he acknowledged he did not know details of the incident. The military was mounting security operations in response, the Myanmar Alin reported. Residents said the military fired artillery into Taung Kyar village nearby in the belief that PDF members were stationed there. There were no reports of casualties.  Residents of other villages in the vicinity fled from their homes late on Tuesday in fear of more attacks by junta forces, residents said. Sagaing has seen some of Myanmar’s worst violence since the military took power three years ago, with clashes and airstrikes killing hundreds. Thousands of people have been displaced by the fighting. Seven of Sagaing’s PDFs, which are loosely organized under a civilian shadow National Unity Government, or NUG, are under investigation by the NUG for alleged human rights violations. RELATED STORIES Myanmar civilians trapped in monastery as clashes intensify Shortages in Myanmar lead to ‘socialist-era’ economy Myanmar’s civil war has displaced 3 million people:  UN Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.  We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Lightning strikes have killed 50 people in Cambodia so far this year](https://ij-reportika.com/lightning-strikes-have-killed-50-people-in-cambodia-so-far-this-year/): Lightning strikes killed 50 people and injured 43 others during the first eight months of 2024 – a year after nearly 130 people died after getting hit by lightning, according to Cambodia’s National Committee for Disaster Management. The high rates of death underscore the need for more public awareness, electrician Pon Robang told Radio Free Asia. In order to avoid lightning strikes, farmers and others should remember to avoid taking refuge under tall trees, he said. They should also stay away from water sources during storms.  Additionally, houses and high-rise commercial buildings should be equipped with lightning poles, he said. “These need to be tested during installation because I have seen some buildings burned by lightning,” he said. Lightning current is strong enough to cause heart attacks, skin burns and damage to people’s nervous systems. Most of the lightning strikes this year have occurred in Siem Reap, Battambang and and Banteay Meanchey provinces in the country’s northwest and Prey Veng and Tbong Khmum provinces in the east, according to the committee. A farmer in Battambang province&#8217;s Sangke district, Sem Bunthy, told RFA that he had never seen the government try to educate people about lightning strikes.  “No one comes to tell us anything when we suffer from storms or lightning,” he said. “We just live among our people. If we cannot solve the problem, there’s nothing we can do. We depend on ourselves.”   RFA was unable to reach National Disaster Management Committee spokesman Soth Kimkol Mony on Sept. 9 to ask further questions. Translated by Sum Sok Ry. Edited by Matt Reed. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Vietnam coast guard holds rare live fire exercise](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-coast-guard-holds-rare-live-fire-exercise/): Vietnam’s coast guard has held a rare live fire exercise to test responses to security threats, in an area off its central coast on the South China Sea. The Sept. 5-11 exercise was conducted by the Vietnam Coast Guard Region 3, in the waters off Binh Thuan province, the force said in a press release. Coast Guard Region 3 with headquarters in Ba Ria-Vung Tau province is one of Vietnam’s four coast guard zones, responsible for safeguarding its claims in the South China Sea as tensions are rising in the regional waterway. The tactical training and live five exercise – aimed at boosting combat readiness – is “one of the top priorities” of the coast guard, Col. Nguyen Minh Khanh, Region 3’s deputy commander, was quoted as saying. Coast guard personnel were responding to multiple scenarios such as &#8220;threats to sovereignty and security,&#8221; illegal incursions into Vietnam’s waters by foreign vessels, piracy and search-and-rescue and disaster relief. Vietnam coast guard personnel during live fire exercises Sept. 5-11, 2024. (Vietnam Coast Guard) Photographs and video clips released by the coast guard show troops, equipped with artillery, anti-aircraft guns and rocket launchers, shooting at airborne targets as well as firing water cannons and warning off foreign ships. “They have accomplished all the tasks with excellence,” Col. Khanh said. Vietnam rarely publicizes such activities despite having invested heavily in developing its coast guard in recent years.  RELATED STORIES Philippine coast guard ship leaves disputed shoal in South China Sea Vietnam, Philippines to sign defense cooperation agreement Vietnam’s coast guard to hold first drills with Philippines The U.S. coast guard is reportedly planning to transfer the last of three Hamilton-class cutters to Vietnam in the near future.  Maritime security is a defense priority for Vietnam, one of six parties that claim parts of the South China Sea, along with China, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan. Vietnam coast guard personnel during live fire exercises Sept. 5-11, 2024. (Vietnam Coast Guard) China, however, holds the most expansive claim and its authorities have become more aggressive against neighboring countries in disputed waters. This month, coast guard vessels from Vietnam and the Philippines took part in their first joint drills off Manila but they limited their activity to firefighting and search-and-rescue as Vietnam is careful not to be seen as siding militarily with any country. The Philippines and China have this year been in a tense standoff over disputed features in the South China Sea.  The Philippines last week recalled a coast guard vessel from the disputed Sabina Shoal but officials pledged never to “abandon our sovereign rights over these waters.”  Edited by Mike Firn. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Shortages in Myanmar lead to ‘socialist-era’ economy](https://ij-reportika.com/shortages-in-myanmar-lead-to-socialist-era-economy/): Read RFA coverage of these stories in Burmese. The queue for cooking oil stretches down a Yangon street. Householders turn up before dawn to fill a plastic bottle at a subsidized rate in Myanmar’s commercial capital – the latest evidence of a tanking economy. “If you can come early, you will get your quota early. If you are late, you might end up with nothing … and have to start all over again the next day,” Daw Htoo, whose real name was changed in order to protect her identity, told RFA Burmese. “You have to wait for your turn for about two and a half hours everyday,” she said of the palm oil, which costs 20% less than the price of peanut oil sold outside government-subsidized shops. “Some have been waiting since 5 a.m.&#8221; Daw Myint, a resident of Yangon’s Thaketa township in her 70s, told RFA that with the price of peanut oil now more than 20,000 kyats (US$4) per viss, which is equal to about 1.7 kilograms or 3.5 pounds, “we simply can’t afford to use it anymore.” In a country wracked by conflict since the military takeover three-and-a-half years ago, basic products are becoming more scarce.  People wait in line to purchase palm oil, Sept. 4, 2024 in Yangon. (RFA) Also, import restrictions are impeding the supply of basic medicines, deepening a humanitarian crisis. “It’s like we’re going back in time to when you had to line up for everything,” said a Yangon businessman who requested anonymity to avoid trouble with authorities. “Palm oil isn’t a rare product … This commodity is abundant and sold competitively around the world, but it’s being rationed in Myanmar.” Older residents say it reminds them of life under a previous military regime, led by Ne Win, when Myanmar followed a socialist political model. Under the system, all major industries were nationalized, including import-export trade, leading to price controls and the expansion of the black market to account for as much as 80% of the national economy. RELATED STORIES Red Cross chief calls for greater aid access after visit to Myanmar Political instability since coup prompts foreign investment exit from Myanmar Pumps run dry in Myanmar as forex crisis pushes up prices In late July, junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing announced that the country’s current situation is “most suited to socialist-era cooperative systems,” implying that, with Myanmar’s economy in freefall, the population should prepare to make sacrifices. One such sacrifice is cooking oil, according to residents and business owners in the country’s largest city Yangon. Major inconvenience Amid the conflict that has engulfed Myanmar since the military’s February 2021 coup d’etat, local production of vegetable oils from peanuts, sunflower seeds and sesame has dwindled or ceased entirely, forcing consumers to rely on imported palm oil to prepare their meals. But the junta has put restrictions on the hard currency needed to import palm oil, creating a shortage and a price jump in local markets. Yangon residents told RFA Burmese that the price of one viss container of palm oil now costs 16,000 kyats (US$3.20) – up from 8,000 kyats in January and 6,500 kyats in December 2023. Meanwhile, the value of the kyat has dropped from 3,500 kyats to 5,600 kyats per U.S. dollar over the same period. Early this month, a ration system went into effect, through which residents can purchase a maximum of half a viss each day at the subsidized price. An elderly woman buys palm oil Sept. 4, 2024. (RFA) An elderly woman in Yangon’s Lanmadaw township told RFA that the ration system is a major inconvenience. “If we were able to buy one viss at a time, we would only need to line up once a week,” said the woman who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.  A restaurant owner in Yangon’s North Dagon township told RFA that she has had to buy palm oil from the local market to supplement what she can buy through the junta’s ration system, because half a viss is not enough to meet her business’s daily needs. &#8220;Not only does it take time for us to buy palm oil [under the ration plan], but we can only buy a half viss at a time, which is only enough to cook five portions of rice,” she said. Attempts by RFA to contact the office of the junta’s Department of Consumer Affairs in Yangon for further clarification about the palm oil ration plan went unanswered. ‘Life-threatening’ Meanwhile, it has become increasingly difficult for people displaced by conflict to access essential medical supplies due to the junta’s restrictions on medical imports and a national shortage,  According to aid workers and those who have fled fighting, the demand for medicine is particularly acute among those displaced by conflict in Sagaing region, Chin state, Kachin state, northern Shan state, Magway region and Rakhine state. &#8220;We are dealing with cases of seasonal flu and diarrhea here – it’s definitely a life-threatening situation,” said a displaced person from Chin state’s Kanpetlet township. “Access to medicine would be helpful, but it’s simply not available. The biggest challenge is the inability to purchase the necessary medication.” A pharmacy in Yangon, Myanmar, Jan. 12, 2008. (Patrik M. Loeff via Flickr) Aid workers said that the transportation of medicine to Chin state, where approximately 250,000 war displaced are located, has become difficult due to road blockades imposed by the junta.  “The main issue is that the junta shuts down the roads whenever fighting intensifies, making transportation extremely difficult,” said one person assisting the displaced. “Pharmacy owners … are required to submit a list of their products to the junta’s General Administration Department and under these conditions, they are reluctant to sell openly. Everything is operating in secrecy right now.” According to a July 1 statement from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, more than 3 million people are internally displaced across Myanmar due to ongoing military...
- [Myanmar junta arrests dozens for sending supplies to rebel zone](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-arrests-dozens-for-sending-supplies-to-rebel-zone/): Junta forces in Myanmar arrested and interrogated about 70 residents in the capital of Rakhine state on suspicion of being rebel sympathizers and trying to send supplies into rebel zones, residents told Radio Free Asia on Monday.   The residents of Sittwe were targeted for trying to send goods and food to Arakan Army-controlled townships on Friday in violation of a junta blockade, residents said, adding that they had not been released as of Monday afternoon.  “They dropped the goods off on the bank of the Kaladan River headed for Pauktaw and Mrauk-U townships,” said one resident, who declined to be identified for security reasons, referring to two townships that the ethnic minority insurgents seized in recent months from forces of the junta that seized power in a 2021 coup. “Both the people who actually dropped the goods off and other people from the neighborhood were arrested, including women,” the resident said. The identities and exact charges that the detained people faced were not known, he said.  RFA tried to telephone Rakhine state’s junta spokesperson, Hla Thein, but he could not be reached for comment.  Another resident, who also asked not to be identified out of fear for their safety, said soldiers were holding the detainees at Sittwe Police Station No. 1, adding that the military had tightened security on Sittwe’s roads to block shipments to areas under AA control. Junta forces have lost significant amounts of territory to the AA in Myanmar&#8217;s western-most state since late last year and the guerrillas now control 10 of its 17 townships. Junta forces have for years battled insurgents with a so-called four-cuts strategy, cutting off rebels from food, funds, information and recruits. In Rakhine state, the military has tried to isolate the AA with transport blockades while rounding suspected sympathizers and setting up neighborhood militias to support the military. The AA, which draws its support from the state’s Buddhist ethnic Rakhine community and is fighting for self-determination, announced its intention to capture the junta-controlled capital of Sittwe in March. On Friday, the AA said it was planning an offensive to capture the remaining seven townships under junta control, including Sittwe.  RELATED STORIES Rebel army captures Myanmar navy training base Myanmar junta airstrike kills dozens including prisoners, rebels say Myanmar military court jails 144 villagers detained after massacre  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.  We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar’s Kachin rebels take key town on approach to Bhamo](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-kachin-rebels-take-key-town-on-approach-to-bhamo/): Ethnic minority Kachin fighters in northern Myanmar captured military camps on the approaches to the major town of Bhamo on Wednesday, another setback for the junta that have been struggling for much of the past year to hold territory in the face of concerted attacks. Junta forces now control less than half the country after suffering major battlefield setbacks in 2024, including the loss of command headquarters in Shan and Rakhine states, rebel groups have said. The military, which has ruled the ethnically diverse country with an iron fist for most of its history since independence from Britain in 1948, has called for talks but there are few signs of realistic steps towards peace. The Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, fighting for self-determination in Myanmar’s northernmost state, captured the military’s last bases in Mansi town, in southern Kachin state, about 17 kilometers (10 miles) from the town of Bhamo, on the main road south. “It can be confirmed, the three camps were captured this morning at around 11 a.m.,” said KIA information Naw Bu told Radio Free Asia, referring to bases for the junta’s infantry battalions 601, 319 and artillery battalion 523. RFA tried to contact the military council’s Kachin state spokesman, Moe Min Thein, by telephone to ask about the situation but he did not respond. Naw Bu did not give any information about casualties but said the junta forces in Mansi had been supporting their colleagues in Bhamo, an Irrawaddy River town and transport hub with a population of some 80,000 people before the latest fighting erupted. So the fall of Mansi was a significant loss for the military, Naw Bu said. “Mansi is important. These camps were providing security for Bhamo,” he said. The KIA launched an offensive to capture both Mansi and Bhamo on Dec. 4. A Mansi resident taking refuge outside the town told RFA that the military had responded to the loss of Mansi with sustained airstrikes. “The sound of explosions can be clearly heard from where I am,” said the resident, who declined to be identified for safety reasons. Mansi’s residents fled months ago to surrounding villages and farms, many living in tents, adding to Myanmar’s growing population of displaced that the United Nations estimates at more than 3.5 million people. RELATED STORIES Myanmar junta says it releases 600 political prisoners in mass amnesty ‘Snatch and recruit’ arrests in Myanmar target youth for military service Air, artillery strikes set grim benchmark for civilian casualties in Myanmar in 2024 Bhamo burns Naw Bu said the battle for Bhamo was fierce and the KIA had captured its police and civil administration headquarters, where junta forces were stationed. The military was defending its remaining positions with airstrikes and heavy weapons, he said. Most of Bhamo’s residents have fled but about 20,000 remain, according to estimates by aid workers, who say there have been civilian deaths in the fighting. Residents said at least eight of the town’s neighborhoods had sustained major destruction in fires sparked by artillery and airstrikes, including Min Kone, Nyaung Pin Yat, Kokko Taw and Shwe Kyee Nar, and about 50 residents had been killed over the past month. One resident said many of those displaced from Bhamo were sheltering in forests and villages with few supplies to sustain them. “Food and medicine are in need and the pregnant women need medicine and are facing hardship giving birth,” the resident, who also declined to be identified, told RFA. The KIA, one of Myanmar’s most powerful guerrilla armies, has made significant gains in fighting over the past year, capturing rare earth and jade mines that export to China, as well all main crossings on the border with China in its area of operations. China, the junta’s main foreign ally, has been trying to end the violence in its neighbor where it has extensive economic interests including energy pipelines from the Indian Ocean, and it has been pressing insurgents to strike ceasefires with the junta. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Thai police: Former Cambodian opposition lawmaker fatally shot in Bangkok](https://ij-reportika.com/thai-police-former-cambodian-opposition-lawmaker-fatally-shot-in-bangkok/): A former opposition party lawmaker was fatally shot just after arriving in Bangkok from Cambodia’s Siem Reap province, apparently by an assassin who fired at him as street vendors and others stood nearby, then casually rode off on a motorbike. as the CPP has used intimidation and the courts to neutralize the political opposition. Several Cambodians have said they were attacked in public in Thailand in 2023 because of their activism. Smash and destroy Last February, Prime Minister Hun Manet met with then-Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin in Bangkok to discuss a crackdown on what they called “interference” in Cambodian politics by Thai-based Cambodian political activists. In June, Hun Sen encouraged CPP supporters to “smash” and “destroy” opposition political activists in audio comments that were purportedly recorded at a party meeting and circulated on Cambodian social media. In November, six activists associated with the CNRP and one minor were deported from Thailand to Cambodia at the request of the Cambodian government. The six adults, who escaped Cambodia in 2022, were subsequently charged with “treason.” Cambodian activists remaining in Thailand told RFA in November that the arrests have increased their safety concerns, with one dissident saying that nearly 100 Cambodian refugees had fled their rented rooms for new housing and agreed to stop meeting up in-person. RELATED STORIES Cambodia charges 6 activists deported from Thailand with treason Cambodian opposition activist flees to US amid Hun Sen threats Government mum about Hun Sen audio calling for opposition to be ‘smashed’ Silent struggles plague Cambodian refugees in Bangkok Robertson urged Thai authorities to conduct a thorough and transparent investigation, adding that the French government should also “aggressively pursue justice” for Lim Kimya – “no matter where the path leads.” “Thailand’s international reputation is on the line in this case, and the Thai police and politicians should recognize they can’t just sweep this brutal murder under the rug,” he said. International human rights groups have condemned Thailand for assisting neighbors, including Vietnam and Cambodia, to undertake what the groups say is unlawful action against human rights defenders and dissidents, making Thailand increasingly unsafe for those fleeing persecution. Human Rights Watch has criticized what it called a “swap mart” of transnational repression in which foreign dissidents in Thailand are effectively traded for critics of the Thai government living abroad. Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Chinese firms supporting Russia pose as Taiwanese to dodge sanctions: activist](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-firms-supporting-russia-pose-as-taiwanese-to-dodge-sanctions-activist/): TAIPEI, Taiwan – Chinese firms supporting Russia are presenting themselves as if they are from Taiwan not only to avoid sanctions but also to discredit the self-ruled island, said a Ukrainian activist. Vadym Labas initially accused the Taiwanese company Taiwan Rung Cherng Suspenparts, or TRC, of modifying and producing servomechanisms for Russia’s deadly glide bombs, citing a transaction document between TRC and a Russian firm. However, Labas later clarified that further investigation revealed the TRC name in the document was actually a front for a Chinese company seeking to evade international sanctions, not the Taiwanese company. “We also discovered a double operation, which consisted not only of a new scheme to circumvent sanctions, but also an operation to discredit the Taiwanese manufacturer, which had been repeatedly carried out by the parties concerned,” Labas wrote on his Facebook on Monday. Labas added that the Chinese company KST Digital Technology Limited supplied servomotors to Russia through a network of intermediaries, including a firm called Kaifeng Zhendaqian Technology. These products were eventually rebranded as those of the Taiwanese firm TRC, whose name was used without authorization. Servomotors are crucial for glide bombs as they control the bomb’s aerodynamic surfaces, such as fins or wings, enabling precise maneuvering and guidance. “Taiwan has been unjustly implicated. The actual culprits are Chinese manufacturers exploiting TRC’s name for camouflage,” he added. Radio Free Asia was not able to contact KST Digital Technology Limited or Kaifeng Zhendaqian Technology for comment. Chen Shu-Mei, TRC’s deputy general manager, dismissed any suggestion of a business connection with Russia, saying the firm may take legal action to protect its reputation. “It was a totally unfounded claim,” said Chen, adding that the company primarily produces automotive chassis components and parts for vehicle suspension systems. RELATED STORIES Cross-strait shadows: Inside the Chinese influence campaign against Taiwan (Part I) Taipei hits back over Chinese military’s New Year propaganda video Taiwan warns internet celebrities on collusion after video uproar While not as advanced as Western precision-guided munitions, Russian glide bombs have become a key part of its air strategy in Ukraine. Military analysts estimate they contribute 20% of Russia’s operational advantage in the conflict. Ukrainian intelligence reports that Russia has greatly increased its use of such bombs. In May 2023, Russian forces were using about 25 glide bombs daily, but that number has since climbed to at least 60 per day, sometimes exceeding 100. Edited by Taejun Kang. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Storming past guards, 60 foreigner workers escape from Cambodian casino](https://ij-reportika.com/storming-past-guards-60-foreigner-workers-escape-from-cambodian-casino/): Wielding metal rods, nearly 60 foreigner workers –- many from Nepal and Pakistan –- stormed past security guards to escape from a northern Cambodian casino complex that’s home to an online scam operation, police said. Armed with rods fashioned from bed frames, the workers forced their way out of a gate near the Thai border in Oddar Meanchey province at about 5 p.m. on Sunday, according to provincial police official Bou Boran. The workers were fed up with the physical punishment they faced at the O’Smach resort, owned by Cambodian tycoon Ly Yong Phat, according to a local resident who witnessed the breakout. “Guards couldn’t stop or resist them, causing two to be wounded,” the resident said, requesting anonymity for security reasons. “They beat up the security guards, opened the door and rushed out.” The O-Smach resort, owned by Cambodian tycoon Ly Yong Phat, in Oddar Meanchey province, Cambodia.(RFA) In September, Ly Yong Phat and his LYP Group were sanctioned by the United States because of the company’s alleged links to human trafficking and forced labor at several casinos in Cambodia, including O’Smach resort. Vast networks of human trafficking claim over 150,000 victims a year in Southeast Asia, mostly in Myanmar and Cambodia. People are often trapped inside gated compounds where they are forced to work 16 hours a day looking for people to swindle on messaging apps or through phone calls. Those who don’t meet their quotas face beatings and torture. The 57 workers walked more than 5 km (3.2 miles) after they left O-Smach resort, Bou Boran said. Police shuttled them from there to the provincial capital, Samroang, where they were questioned, he said. The workers didn’t specify why they had fled the building, only said that they wanted to change where they worked, he said. “I asked them what was wrong and they said they wanted to go to work in Poipet,” Bou Boran said, referring to another Thai border town -– about 200 km (124 miles) from O-Smach –- that’s home to a half dozen casinos. RELATED STORIES Cambodian company sanctioned by US scrubs its identity US sanctions powerful Cambodian casino tycoon UN: Hundreds of thousands of people forced to scam Authorities should conduct an investigation into trafficking and forced labor at O-Smach resort, said Dy The Hoya, the migration program director at the Phnom Penh-based Center for Alliance of Labor and Human Rights, or CENTRAL. There have been many reports of foreigners of many nationalities –- not just Nepalese and Pakistanis -– that have been forced to do online scam work in areas along the Thai border, but authorities have yet to do a definitive investigation, he said. “We want to see all transparency and integrity, with the participation of stakeholders, especially Interpol, because this is a transnational crime,” he said. “It’s not just a crime in Cambodia. If we aren’t taking this seriously, the benefit would go to the criminals while our country loses its reputation.” Translated by Sum Sok Ry. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar junta says it releases 600 political prisoners in mass amnesty](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-says-it-releases-600-political-prisoners-in-mass-amnesty/): By RFA Burmese Myanmar’s junta has released 5,864 prisoners, including about 600 political prisoners, to mark Independence Day, a spokesman for the military said, but there was no sign that one of the world’ most famous political prisoners, Aung San Suu Kyi, would be set free. Myanmar has a tradition on big holidays of mass prisoner releases, with the majority being those jailed for ordinary crimes. Occasionally political prisoners are included. Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, spokesman for the junta known as the State Administration Council, said in a statement that 5,864 prisoners had been granted amnesty. “About 600 people prosecuted under 505 will be included,” he said on Independence Day on Saturday, referring to a section of the penal code that includes spreading fear and false news, which is used to target critics of the junta that seized power in 2021. The spokesman said 180 foreigners were being released, most of whom are believed to be from neighboring countries such as Thailand. There had been speculation that Myanmar’s most popular politician, Suu Kyi, might be released but the spokesman did not mention her and he did not respond to attempts to reach him for comment. The 79-year-old daughter of the hero of Myanmar’s campaign for independence from British colonial rule was arrested after the 2021 coup in which an elected government she led was ousted. She was later sentenced on charges she dismissed as trumped up and jailed for 33 years. Her sentence was reduced to 27 years. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate is believed to be in solitary confinement in prison in the capital, Naypyidaw, but her exact whereabouts are not known while concern for her health grows. Her younger son, Kim Aris, thanked his mother’s supporters for their prayers and hopes for her release. “I’ve held the same hope for her. Please don’t give up. Let’s continue to hold onto hope,” he said in a video message on Sunday. The military does not say how many prisoners of conscience it holds but the rights group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners says more than 28,000 civilians have been arrested in the nearly four years since the coup and 21,499 are in detention. One former political prisoner dismissed the amnesty as window dressing by the junta as it comes under pressure from its neighbors to end the war against ethnic minority and pro-democracy forces that has crippled its economy and triggered a humanitarian crisis. “It’s just for show to the International community,” the former prisoner who declined to be identified told Radio Free Asia, adding that most of the political prisoners being freed were near the end of their sentences. “They’re being released a day or two early.” RELATED STORIES 31 political prisoners died in prisons across Myanmar in 2024 ‘Snatch and recruit’ arrests in Myanmar target youth for military service Junta forces are mobilizing in central Myanmar amid Shan state ceasefire, rebel say ‘It’s a lie’ Among those freed was Khat Aung, a former chief minister of Kachin state when Suu Kyi’s party was in government, who was serving a 12-year term on various charges, the military said. Model and actress Thin Zar Wint Kyaw who was jailed for five years for her dissent was also released, a source close to her family said. “Her release has been confirmed, she’s in good health,” said the source. People in Myanmar&#8217;s Yangon city greet prisoners on a bus coming out of the Insein Prison after being released under an amnesty on Jan. 4, 2025.(RFA) Prisoners were emerging from jails across the country and rights groups were compiling data. A source in Kale town in the northwest said 23 people had been released there including four political prisoners. In the central town of Pyay, 11 political prisoners were among 60 people set free, said a source close to the town’s prison. The Political Prisoner Network Myanmar activist group told RFA that only 344 political prisoners, including 131 women, had been released as of Monday afternoon, not the 600 the junta announced. “It’s a lie to the public and the international community,” Thaik Tun Oo, a senior member of the group, told RFA from an undisclosed location. Thaik Tun Oo said the military did not dare release more political prisoners given the unprecedented setbacks it is facing in the war. “They don’t have the guts to release those sentenced for rebellion, who don’t accept their rule,” said Thaik Tun Oo. The only hope for most political prisoners was victorious anti-junta forces throwing open their prison gates, he said. Edited by Mike Firn. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [EXPLAINED: Why is an internet-famous Vietnamese monk on a trek to India?](https://ij-reportika.com/explained-why-is-an-internet-famous-vietnamese-monk-on-a-trek-to-india/): A Vietnamese monk who he would no longer adhere to a vow of poverty as he continued to study the Buddhist virtues. A newspaper report said he had announced he would no longer be begging for alms to prevent disruption to “security, order, and social and political safety.” RELATED STORIES Vietnamese monk leaves Laos, enters Thailand Publisher’s partner says book about ‘barefoot monk’ hasn’t received approval Vietnamese followers of ‘barefoot monk’ question call for social media silence How TikTok made a barefoot Vietnamese ‘monk’ go viral Supporters were quick to question whether he had been forced to write the letter under duress, or whether someone else had wrote it for him. At about the same time, the Government Committee for Religious Affairs announced on its website that Thich Minh Tue had “voluntarily retired.” Why is he walking to India? But then in November, Thich Minh Tue announced that he wanted to go on a pilgrimage to visit religious sites in India, where Buddhism originated. The question remains whether he will be allowed to return to Vietnam after the pilgrimage, a Thai observer told BenarNews. The observer, who requested anonymity for security reasons, noted that Thich Minh Tue is being accompanied by Doan Van Bau, a former security official in the Vietnamese government who specialized in criminology and psychological operations. “It is unclear whether he was assigned to escort the monk out of the spotlight in Vietnam and lessen his influence there,” he said. Vietnamese monk Thich Minh Tue, center, walks in Chong Mek, Ubon Ratchathani Province, Thailand, Dec. 31, 2024, as he arrives in Thailand from Laos.(RFA) A Thai police officer said Thich Minh Tue came into the country legally. “He didn’t indicate plans to travel to Myanmar, only stating he was coming for a pilgrimage, and we haven’t found any violations,” said Police Lt. Col. Kittipong Thanomsin of the border town of Chong Mek. “There are no concerns or need for special coordination, as we conduct regular checks as usual,” he told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news outlet. “There has been no communication from Vietnam.” Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster. BenarNews’ Nontarat Phaicharoen and Ruj Chuenban in Bangkok contributed to this report. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [A turbulent South China Sea: 5 things that may happen in 2025](https://ij-reportika.com/south-china-sea-5-things-to-watch-in-2025/): TAIPEI, Taiwan/MANILA &#8211; The South China Sea has become one of the world’s most perilous geopolitical hot spots in recent years, with China stepping up the reinforcement of its expansive claims and countries from outside the region getting increasingly involved. Here are five areas to watch in 2025: Taiwan Strait The situation in the Taiwan Strait has been becoming notably more tense, with nearly 3,000 incursions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone between January and November 2024, as well as two major military exercises &#8211; Joint Sword A and B – coinciding with important political events on the self-ruled island. Chinese leader Xi Jinping reiterated in his in 1999 to serve as an outpost. In the last few years, China’s coast guard has been blocking and disrupting Philippine resupply missions to the ship, the BRP Sierra Madre, and the troops stationed there. On June 17, 2024, in an unprecedented confrontation, China coast guard personnel, armed with pikes and machetes, punctured Philippine boats and seized firearms during a Philippine rotate and resupply mission, wounding a Filipino sailor. Both sides later called for de-escalation. On Dec. 12, China said it had granted permission to the Philippines to resupply the “illegally grounded” warship on Second Thomas Shoal on a humanitarian basis. But the June 17 incident showed that the situation could easily escalate into conflict, especially given the proximity of Second Thomas Shoal to a Chinese naval base on Mischief Reef, an artificial island that China built and has fully militarized. Manila and Washington signed a Mutual Defense Treaty in 1951 under which both parties are obliged to support each other in the event of an armed attack. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in November revealed that the U.S. military had set up a Task Force Ayungin, the Filipino name for the Second Thomas Shoal. Chief of the Philippine armed forces, Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., told an RFA reporter in Manila that his country was pursuing a three-pronged strategy when it comes to maritime defense: to establish an effective presence; to create effective deterrence and modernize military equipment; and to leverage alliances and partnerships with like-minded nations. Beijing, however, is not expected to give up its demand that Manila removes the BRP Sierra Madre and leave the disputed shoal. For its part, the Philippines is determined to defend it. “We’ll never abandon our territory at Ayungin,” insisted Col. Xerxes Trinidad, the Philippine armed forces’ spokesperson. Vietnam’s island building Vietnam’s island building in the South China Sea has reached a record, with the total area created in the first six months of 2024 equaling that of 2022 and 2023 combined, according to a study by the Washington-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI). Between November 2023 and June 2024, Hanoi created 692 new acres (280 ha) of land across a total of 10 features in the Spratly archipelago. Vietnam’s overall dredging and landfill totaled about 2,360 acres (955 ha), roughly half of China’s 4,650 acres (1,881.7 ha). “Three years from when it first began, Vietnam is still surprising observers with the ever-increasing scope of its dredging and landfill in the Spratly Islands,” AMTI said. Vietnam occupies 27 features and has been carrying out large-scale reclamation works on some over the past year. &lt;imgsrc=&#8221;&#8221; alt=&#8221;Satellite image of Barque Canada Reef, May 11, 2024.&#8221; height=&#8221;813&#8243; width=&#8221;1500&#8243;&gt;Satellite image of Barque Canada Reef, May 11, 2024.(AMTI/Maxar Technologies) A new 3,000-meter airstrip is nearly finished on Barque Canada reef, where the total landfill area more than doubled in one year to nearly 2.5 square kilometers, or 617.7 acres, by October 2024. Vietnam has had only one airstrip on an island called Spratly, measuring 1,300 meters, but besides Barque Canada, AMTI said that “it would be unsurprising” if Hanoi also considers runways on Pearson and Ladd reefs. New bases and runways “would give Vietnam a position on the other side of China’s ‘Big Three’ islands,” said Tom Shugart, adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. He was referring to China-developed Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief reefs, which are the largest artificial islands in the South China Sea. The next four largest are all newly expanded Vietnamese reefs. “Its progress in the last five months suggests that Hanoi is determined to maximize the strategic potential of the features it occupies,” said AMTI, adding that “it remains difficult to say when the expansion will end—and what new capabilities Vietnam will have once it has.” Code of Conduct in the South China Sea Malaysia is taking over as chairman of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, from Laos this month and every time the chair changes hands, the question of a legally binding code of conduct (COC) for all competing parties in the South China Sea surfaces. China and ASEAN countries have been negotiating a COC after reaching an initial Declaration of Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea in 2002. More than two decades later, it seems many obstacles remain despite Beijing’s repeated assertions that the consultation process is going well and agreement is close. Premier Li Qiang told an ASEAN summit in October that China and the bloc were “striving for early conclusion” of the code of conduct. China and five other parties, including four ASEAN countries – Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam – hold conflicting claims over parts of the South China Sea but China’s claim is by far the most expansive, covering nearly 90% of the sea. China is adamantly against what it sees as “a politicization” of the COC, as well as any “external interference” in the matter. Yet its assertiveness has prompted some countries to seek a counterweight from outside ASEAN. “Negotiations on the COC continue at a snail’s pace,” former Thai Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon told Reuters news agency in October. “An agreement seems impossible,” said Philippine legal expert, former Supreme Court justice Antonio Carpio. “China will never agree to some provisions, Vietnam to some others and so on. The target of concluding the COC by 2026, therefore,...
- [Laos shutters Chinese-owned potash mine over sinkholes](https://ij-reportika.com/laos-shutters-chinese-owned-potash-mine-over-sinkholes/): Laos has ordered a Chinese-owned potash mine believed responsible for two massive sinkholes in Khammouane province to cease operations until further notice, and to fill the sinkholes in, an official told Radio Free Asia. On Dec. 4, a sinkhole measuring 20 meters (65 feet) wide and 10 meters (33 feet) deep opened up on farmland in Thakhaek district’s Pak Peng village. On Dec. 21, another sinkhole — about half the size of the first — formed nearby. Residents suspect the sinkholes are a result of excavation at a potash mine in neighboring Nong Bok district, operated by Sino-Agri International Potash Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Asia Potash International Investment (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd., which is linked to entities directed by China’s governing State Council. After a month of central government inspections of the mine, the cause remains unclear. However, the company has been ordered to fill both sinkholes, a government official said Monday, speaking to RFA Lao on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The two sinkholes will be filled up with dirt. The company will carry out this task,” the official said, adding that after meeting with central government officials, a cause has not yet been determined. RELATED STORIES Villagers blame Chinese potash mine for massive sinkhole in central Laos Second sinkhole discovered near mining operation in central Laos At Lao potash mine, flood of Chinese workers are displacing local laborers Because fault has not been determined, the company may not have to pay compensation, the official said. A Pak Peng resident told RFA that those who live near the sinkholes are terrified of further collapses. “They are scared. The sinkholes are right in the middle of the rice fields,” the villager said. Filling in the holes is only a temporary fix, a Lao expert told RFA. “Underground extraction is very dangerous. One day the mine will collapse,” he said. “Dirt is excavated and water flushes will cause more sinkholes over the next 20 years. It won’t be long before we start seeing the consequences.” Translated by RFA Lao. Edited by Eugene Whong. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar enacts cybersecurity law that aims to restrict use of VPNs](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-enacts-cybersecurity-law-that-aims-to-restrict-use-of-vpns/): Myanmar’s junta has enacted a cybersecurity law that will penalize unauthorized provision of virtual private networks, or VPNs, which many people use to circumvent internet restrictions to get access to news and information and to report on what is going on in their country. The law, which came into effect on Wednesday, is aimed at preventing cyberattacks through electronic technology that threatens national sovereignty, peace, and stability, as well as to effectively investigate and bring charges against cybercrimes, the ruling military said in a statement published in newspapers. Myanmar cracked down on the internet and the media after the military ousted an elected government in early 2021, sparking an armed uprising that has raised questions about the sustainability of widely unpopular army rule. With the media under the control of the military largely a mouthpiece of the generals, many people rely on VPNs to skirt control and get access to independent and foreign media and to send material out of the country. The law sets out a penalty of six months in prison and a fine for “unauthorized VPN installation or service.” A VPN service provider told Radio Free Asia that the law could be disastrous for his business. “It’s really bad for us,” said the service provider, who declined to be identified for security reasons. “Even if there’s demand, we don’t dare sell it. We’ll keep an eye on whether they actually take action on it or not. If they really crack down on providing VPN service, we’ll have to register officially.” The law also sets out jail for up to six months, and or a fine, for distributing, transferring, copying or selling information that is “inappropriate for the public” through electronic technology. It also sets out jail of six months to a year for anyone found operating an illegal online gambling system. Illegal gambling, often organized by gangsters from China, has proliferated in more lawless parts of Myanmar and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. RELATED STORIES After 2024 setbacks, junta forces now control less than half of Myanmar Acts of charity bring light to wartime Myanmar Air, artillery strikes set grim benchmark for civilian casualties in Myanmar in 2024 A legal expert, who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons, told RFA that there should be a limit to the extent authorities can control online activity and the law posed a threat to public privacy and security. “If these technologies are used for gambling or for criminal purposes, there needs to be a provision to take effective action. However, we see that the law’s intent is to harm the public’s security and privacy,” he said. The law also states that Myanmar people living abroad can be punished. “Myanmar citizens residing in foreign countries shall be liable to punishment under this law if they commit any offense,” according to a copy of the legislation published in newspapers. Many Myanmar people living abroad try to report news from their country and organize opposition to the military via online communities. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Year in photos: Lens of empathy captures stories of resilience across borders](https://ij-reportika.com/year-in-photos-lens-of-empathy-captures-stories-of-resilience-across-borders/): WASHINGTON — Radio Free Asia photojournalist Gemunu Amarasinghe has had a distinguished career capturing images across Asia. His ability to access intimate moments sheds new light on the stories behind the struggle for freedom and human rights. In the special report, “In Washington, Myanmar democracy advocates push for a Breakthrough,” Amarasinghe captures the efforts of Myanmar’s National Unity Government in Washington, D.C., as Deputy Foreign Minister Moe Zaw Oo and press aide Aye Chan Mon navigate the complexities of international diplomacy. In “Nyah Mway: The boy who will forever be 13,” he delves into the tragedy of a young refugee from Myanmar who was fatally shot by police in Utica, New York. His photographs reveal the effect the incident has had on Nyah’s family and community, offering insight into broader issues of systemic violence and the experiences of displaced people in the United States. In “Five Years after a Summer of Protest, Hong Kong Exiles are Still Rebuilding Their Lives,” Amarasinghe chronicles the lives of Hong Kong activists who have resettled in the United States following the 2019 pro-democracy protests. Through his lens, Amarasinghe provides a comprehensive perspective on resilience and transition. Here are some of his photos: Aye Chan Mon, a press aide with Myanmar&#8217;s National Unity Government, works from home as her cat tries to intervene.(Gemunu Amarasinghe/RFA) Buddhist monks chant at the burial of Nyah Mway, 13, in Utica, New York, July 6, 2024.(Gemunu Amarasinghe/RFA) Hong Kong democracy activist Frances Hui stands outside the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in Washington, D.C., during a protest to mark World Press Freedom Day, May 2, 2024.(Gemunu Amarasinghe/RFA) Huen Lam visits the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, D.C., March 30, 2024.(Gemunu Amarasinghe/RFA) Edited by Jim Snyder. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Will Xi Jinping Annex Taiwan in 2025?](https://ij-reportika.com/will-xi-jinping-annex-taiwan-in-2025/): In a chilling New Year’s address for 2025, Chinese President Xi Jinping declared that “no one can ever stop” China’s reunification with Taiwan, signaling an unyielding commitment to assert control over the democratic island. The speech has been widely interpreted as a veiled threat of forced occupation, intensifying fears of an imminent military confrontation in the Indo-Pacific region. Xi’s Hardline Stance: Reunification at Any Cost Xi framed the issue of Taiwan as a core national objective, leaving little room for compromise. “The complete reunification of our motherland is an unshakable mission,” he declared, reaffirming the Chinese Communist Party&#8217;s (CCP) long-standing goal of bringing Taiwan under Beijing’s control. Over the past year, China&#8217;s aggressive military maneuvers near the Taiwan Strait, including record-breaking incursions into Taiwanese airspace, have fueled speculation that Beijing is preparing for an occupation by force. Taiwan’s Resilience: Democracy Under Siege Taiwan, a vibrant democracy with a strong sense of national identity, has consistently resisted Beijing’s claims. President Lai Ching-te condemned Xi’s statements as a direct threat to Taiwan&#8217;s sovereignty, vowing to strengthen the island’s defenses. “Taiwan is not for sale, nor will it be bullied,” Lai asserted in his New Year’s response. The Taiwanese government has ramped up military spending, acquiring advanced weapons systems and forging deeper alliances with democratic nations to counter China&#8217;s growing aggression. However, the looming threat of an occupation continues to cast a shadow over the island’s future. A Pattern of Suppression: Lessons from Tibet and Hong Kong Beijing’s history of authoritarian expansion provides a stark warning to Taiwan. Tibet has endured decades of cultural and religious suppression under Chinese rule, while Hong Kong’s promised autonomy has been systematically dismantled in defiance of international agreements. Critics argue that Taiwan would face a similar fate under Chinese occupation, with its democratic institutions dismantled and freedoms crushed. Neighboring nations such as Vietnam, India, and the Philippines have also felt the brunt of China’s territorial ambitions, facing military incursions and aggressive claims over disputed regions. Check out our investigation report on the same titled, &#8220;The Geopolitical Weaponization of Maps by China&#8221;. Global Stakes: A Test for Democracy The international community faces a critical test in its response to Beijing’s ambitions. The United States, Japan, and other democratic allies have pledged support for Taiwan, viewing its independence as a cornerstone of regional stability. However, the prospect of a Chinese occupation raises the stakes significantly, potentially triggering a conflict that could destabilize the entire Indo-Pacific region. Xi’s rhetoric, coupled with China’s military posturing, underscores the urgency for the world to stand with Taiwan. Failure to act decisively could embolden Beijing to expand its authoritarian reach beyond Taiwan, setting a dangerous precedent for global security. Taiwan: A Beacon of Resistance As China tightens its grip, Taiwan stands as a beacon of resistance against authoritarianism. The island’s determination to defend its sovereignty sends a powerful message to the world: freedom and democracy must be protected at all costs. Xi Jinping’s vision of “reunification” is increasingly seen not as a peaceful resolution but as a prelude to occupation—a stark reminder of the CCP’s willingness to sacrifice global stability for its expansionist ambitions. The battle for Taiwan’s future has become a defining moment in the global struggle between democracy and authoritarianism.
- [Vietnamese monk leaves Laos, enters Thailand](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnamese-monk-leaves-laos-enters-thailand/): A Vietnamese Buddhist monk who became an internet sensation earlier this year has crossed from Laos into Thailand on his way to India. Thich Minh Tue, who gained fame in Vietnam after his ascetic lifestyle attracted a following as he traveled by foot across Vietnam, began a pilgrimage to Buddhist sites in India in late November. (Amanda Weisbrod/RFA) At about 10:30 am on Tuesday, he and five other mendicant monks left the Vang Tao border crossing in Laos and passed through the Chong Mek border crossing in Thailand after spending 19 days in Laos. People knelt in front of the border crossing and scattered flowers and sprinkled water on the road as signs of respect for the monks. At the Chong Mek border crossing in Thailand’s Ubon Ratchathani province, about 100 people, mainly small traders and tuk-tuk drivers from Thailand and Laos, gathered to welcome the monks. About 20 Vietnamese YouTubers were also there early to report the news. RELATED STORIES Vietnam’s barefoot monk expected to cross from Laos into Thailand Viral barefoot monk’s journey to India explained (VIDEO) Publisher’s partner says book about ‘barefoot monk’ hasn’t received approval Thich Minh Tue, Vietnam’s ‘barefoot monk,’ enters Laos on pilgrimage to India Accompanying the monks on the walking journey through Laos were two well-known Vietnamese YouTubers — Doan Van Bau and Le Kha Giap. They were joined by four Thai volunteers handling logistics and two police officers from Ubon Ratchathani province who were dispatched to ensure order. Live video from YouTuber Doan Van Bau, who escorted the monks from Vietnam, shows Tue and monks Minh Tang, Minh Tri, Chon Tri, An Lac and Vo Sanh left Laos and entered Thailand without any problem when volunteers took care of the immigration procedures. Vietnamese monk Thich Minh Tue, center, arrives in Chong Mek, Ubon Ratchathani Province, Thailand, Dec. 31, 2024, on his way to India.(RFA) Bau said one of the people accompanying the group will take care of procedural issues as they walk to Thailand’s Mae Sot province en route to Myanmar. Tue became known to many people when he walked from the south to north Vietnam in May. When arriving in the city of Hue in early June, Tue and a group of more than 70 people who followed him were suppressed and dispersed by the police during a midnight raid. They took Tue to his hometown in Gia Lai province to scan his fingerprints for citizenship identification. On Nov. 25, Tue wrote a letter expressing his desire to travel to India and visit Buddhist relics, and asked for advice on directions and procedures. Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Does a video show ‘final moment’ of South Korean plane before crashing in Muan?](https://ij-reportika.com/does-a-video-show-final-moment-of-south-korean-plane-before-crashing-in-muan/): A video emerged in Chinese-language social media posts that claim it shows the “final moment” of the South Korean plane that crashed in the city of Muan on Dec. 29. But the claim is false. The video in fact has been shared online as early as September, months before the deadly plane crash. The video was shared on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, on Dec. 31, as well as on Weibo. The Weibo post has been taken down. “179 people on the Korean plane were killed, the worst airplane disaster in South Korea. The last few minutes before the plane exploded,” the caption of the video reads. The clip appears to have been filmed inside a plane, with oxygen masks falling from above passenger seats. Several passengers are seen holding their mobile phones and filming, and some passengers appear to be chanting. Some Chinese social media users claimed this video showed the “final moment” of the South Korean plane that crashed in the city of Muan on Dec. 29.(Douyin and Weibo) The video and the claim began to circulate after the Jeju Air flight carrying 181 people crashed in a ball of flames as it was attempting to land in the South Korean city of Muan on Dec. 29, killing all but two of those on board in one of the country’s worst ever air disasters. But the claim is false. Old video A reverse image search found the video had been shared online as early as September, months before the deadly plane crash, as seen here and here. Russian state media Sputnik’s Arabic edition reported in September that the footage showed the scene of an Air Algerie flight to Istanbul returning an hour after takeoff due to a technical fault, causing panic among the passengers on board. The Air Algerie plane landed safely. Clues in the clip A closer examination of the video reveals that the crew members are dressed in blue uniforms, and the seats are also blue, which is not consistent with Jeju Air’s signature white and orange color scheme. Additionally, passengers can be heard chanting in the video, but the language they are using is not Korean. According to South Korean and Thai authorities, among the 181 passengers aboard the crashed Jeju Air flight, two were Thai nationals, while the rest were Korean. A Korean-speaking journalist from AFCL also confirmed that the chanting in the video is unrecognizable and was not in the Korean language. Edited by Taejun Kang. Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [After 2024 setbacks, junta forces now control less than half of Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/after-2024-setbacks-junta-forces-now-control-less-than-half-of-myanmar/): Myanmar’s junta forces now control less than half the country after suffering major battlefield setbacks in 2024 -– including the loss of command headquarters in Shan and Rakhine states, several rebel groups said. In June, the Three Brotherhood Alliance of ethnic armies resumed offensive operations in Shan state. Within weeks, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army had captured Lashio, a city of 130,000 that is the region’s commercial and administrative hub and a gateway to China. Another member of the alliance, the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, also seized the strategic Shan state townships of in Ann township on Dec. 20. Elsewhere in Rakhine, the military has been reinforcing troops in areas that it does control, residents said earlier this month. That includes Kyaukphyu, where China has plans for a port as well as energy facilities and oil and gas pipelines that run to its Yunnan province. In neighboring Chin state, ethnic rebels captured two townships last week, Chin Brotherhood Alliance spokesperson Salai Yaw Mang said. Several anti-junta groups are now in control of about 85 percent of the state, he said. Soldiers from the Karen National Liberation Army patrol in an area hit by a junta airstrike in Myawaddy, April 15, 2024.(Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters) Forced recruitment In Shan state, to the northeast, ethnic armed groups control 24 townships, with just Tangyang, Mongyai and Muse still held by the junta. The capture of the northeastern command headquarters outside of Lashio in late July was one of the most significant losses for the military in years. In total, ethnic armed groups and allied forces have seized 86 towns across the country, the Myanmar Peace Monitor of Burma News International reported on Dec. 23. In Sagaing, in central Myanmar –- viewed as a homeland for the majority ethnic Bamar people –- a major junta offensive is expected sometime next year, according to Htoo Khant Zaw, a spokesperson for the People’s Defense Comrade group based in Sagaing’s Ye-U township. “The regime is still forcibly recruiting young people, even in the cities,” he said. “They are providing training, and the offensive is expected to be launched by land and air in 2025.” Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar’s Arakan Army takes a major town, says ready for talks](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-arakan-army-takes-a-major-town-says-ready-for-talks/): Myanmar’s Arakan Army insurgents captured the west coast town of Gwa from the military, a major step toward their goal of taking the whole of Rakhine state, and then said they were ready for talks with the junta. Gwa is on the coast in the south of Myanmar’s western-most state, 185 kilometers (115 miles) northwest of the main city of Yangon, and a gateway to the rice-basket Irrawaddy River delta. The AA said their fighters took control of Gwa on Sunday afternoon as junta troops fled but the military was trying to counter-attack with the help of its air force and navy guns. “The fighting is raging in some areas near Gwa. The junta council has sent reinforcements and they’re trying to re-enter,” the AA said in a statement late on Sunday. Residents reported blazes in the town from junta artillery and airstrikes. “Heavy weapons have landed in the town and everything is on fire,” said one resident who declined to be identified for safety reasons. Early on Sunday, a barrage of small-arms fire was heard as the AA launched their push, followed by air attacks, the resident said. “The small-arms fire has gone but now they’re bombing,” he told Radio Free Asia. The AA said it believed 700 junta soldiers had been killed in weeks of battle for the town, based on bodies found, information from prisoners and documents seized. It did not give any information about casualties on its side or about civilian casualties. It was not possible to independently verify the AA’s casualty figure and a spokesman for the junta that seized power in a 2021 coup did not respond to phone calls from RFA seeking comment. All sides in Myanmar play up their victories and their enemies’ losses while minimizing their own in public statements. The AA, one of Myanmar’s most powerful insurgent groups, has been accused of killings and other serious rights violations against the mostly Muslim Rohingya community. It denies that. RELATED STORIES Over one-third of Myanmar’s population to need aid by 2025: UNOCHA Myanmar appoints new defense minister as army struggles Myanmar to organize election in fewer than half of townships ‘Political means’ The capture of Gwa is another big step in a matter of days for AA troops, who are fighting for self-determination in Rakhine state. They took a major military base in Ann town on Dec. 20 and have now captured 14 of the state’s 17 townships, pushing the military into shrinking pockets of territory. The military is reinforcing its troops in the townships it controls – Sittwe, Kyaukphyu and Munaung, residents said this month. Neighboring China has economic interests in Myanmar, among them plans for a port in Kyaukphyu, where it also has energy facilities, including oil and gas pipelines that run to its Yunnan province. China, keen to end Myanmar’s conflict, has pressed two rebel groups in Shan state in the northeast to agree to ceasefires and talks. The AA praised China’s “active leadership” in promoting border stability and said it would talk at any time. “We always remain open to resolving the current internal issues through political means rather than military solutions,” the AA said. It did not refer to a ceasefire and said it believed its offensive over the past year would contribute to the “liberation” of all of the oppressed Myanmar people. The junta chief has also called for talks as his forces grapple with setbacks. The AA said it recognized and welcomed any foreign investment that contributed to development and said it would take care of investors. The Institute for Strategy and Policy (ISP-Myanmar), an independent research group, said this week that the AA controls 10 of the 11 Chinese projects in Rakhine state. The fall of the state capital of Sittwe to the AA would represent the end of military rule there, political analyst Than Soe Naing told RFA “Then the AA will have to talk about issues related to China’s interests,” he said. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Explosive Interview with Sam Cooper: Geopolitics, Canada and Journalism](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-with-sam-cooper-inside-geopolitics-and-canada/): Sam Cooper of The Bureau shares insights into global corruption, geopolitical conflicts, the fentanyl crisis, and hybrid warfare. Learn how investigative journalism is uncovering hidden networks and influencing policy change.
- [Almost all 181 on board killed in South Korean plane crash](https://ij-reportika.com/almost-all-181-on-board-killed-in-south-korean-plane-crash/): Updated Dec. 29, 2024, 04:37 a.m. ET. TAIPEI, Taiwan – A plane carrying 181 people crashed in a ball of flames as it was attempting to land in South Korea on Sunday, and all but two of those on board are presumed to have been killed, authorities said. Witnesses said they heard explosions and saw flames in an engine of the Jeju Air flight as it was trying to land at about 9:07 a.m. in the city of Muan, and authorities were investigating the possibility that its landing gear failed after a bird strike, the Yonhap News Agency reported. Video footage broadcast by TV stations showed the Boeing 737-800 plane coming onto a runway without deploying its landing gear. It skidded across the ground, hit a concrete wall, and exploded in a fireball. “The plane body was almost destroyed, and the dead are difficult to identify. It is taking time to identify the location of the remains and recover them,” the Jeollanam-do Fire Department said. “It is estimated that most of the 181 passengers, with the exception of the two who were rescued, died,” it said. The official death toll climbed through the day to 176, with three missing, as bodies were recovered from a smoldering crash site where some 1,500 rescue workers sifted through the wreckage. The BBC reported that “black box” flight data recorder had been recovered. Rescue workers take part in a salvage operation at the site of a plane crash at Muan International Airport, in Muan, South Korea, Dec. 29, 2024.(Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters) Jeju Air chief Kim E-bae made a public apology and extended condolences to the family members who lost their loved ones, vowing to provide all necessary support to the victims&#8217; families. “Regardless of the cause, I take full responsibility,” Kim said. South Korea’s acting president, Choi Sang-mok visited the crash site and told officials to make all-out efforts in their search, and expressing deep condolences to the bereaved. He promised all possible government assistance. Choi has been serving as acting president since Friday, after the National Assembly voted to impeach Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, who was suspended less than two weeks after assuming the role from President Yoon Suk Yeol on Dec. 14. “I believe no words of consolation will be enough,” Choi said. “The government will spare no effort in supporting the bereaved families,” the acting president added. Updates confirmed dead toll and adds comment from airline CEO. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Cambodian company sanctioned by US scrubs its identity](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-company-sanctioned-by-us-scrubs-its-identity/): Cambodian tycoon Ly Yong Phat’s self-named conglomerate has removed its logo from its central Phnom Penh offices just months after the well-connected businessman was hit with U.S. sanctions. The tycoon and his LYP Group were sanctioned in September due to the company’s alleged links to human trafficking at its casinos along the border with Thailand in Cambodia’s Koh Kong province. Ly Yong Phat’s O-Smach Resort, Garden City Hotel, Koh Kong Resort, and Phnom Penh Hotel were also sanctioned due to their alleged involvement in forced labor in online and cryptocurrency scams. The removal of the logo from LYP’s headquarters on Mao Tse Tong Boulevard was evident to RFA reporters on Dec. 25, with the company also having seemingly scrubbed its web presence and removed its listing from the Commerce Ministry’s public registry of businesses. Both the company’s main website, lypgroup.com, and its YouTube account were among the casualties, with both still missing as of Dec. 27. Radio Free Asia reached out to a representative for LYP Group for comment about the changes but did not receive a response. RELATED STORIES US sanctions powerful Cambodian casino tycoon Cambodia calls US sanctions of casino tycoon ‘misleading’ Newsweek retracts paid story on sanctioned Cambodian firm UN: Hundreds of thousands of people forced to scam LYP Group operates a wide array of business interests, including the PNN television station, a golf course, a water park, hotels and resorts, supermarkets and sugar plantations accused of land-grabbing. Commerce Ministry spokesman Penn Sovicheat could not be reached for comment about LYP’s removal from the business registry. A business ‘trick’ Exiled political commentator Kim Sok told RFA he suspected Ly Yong Phat was attempting to avoid damaging U.S. sanctions -– which prevent any American citizens, residents or companies from doing business with the tycoon -– by reconfiguring LYP Group under new companies. “The trick is likely to be a way to deceive the international community. They can change to a new company or a new owner to control it, not Mr. Ly Yong Phat,” said Kim Sok, who was granted political asylum in Finland following his release from Cambodian prison in 2018. “However, even if they use such tricks, they will not succeed because the situation in Cambodia as a whole, especially the Hun family, is under investigation or close monitoring by the world regarding human rights violations and the killing of democracy,” he said. Ly Yong Phat is a long-time adviser to Hun Sen, the former prime minister of Cambodia and now Senate president. He also serves as a senator for the ruling Cambodian People’s Party and the head of the Cambodian Okhna Association, which is a guild of tycoons. On Sept. 14, the association released a statement decrying the U.S. sanctions against Ly Yong Phat as “unjust” while denying that he or his companies had ever engaged in human trafficking or phone scams. Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Alex Willemyns. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Former Taiwan presidential hopeful Ko Wen-je charged with corruption](https://ij-reportika.com/former-taiwan-presidential-hopeful-ko-wen-je-charged-with-corruption/): TAIPEI, Taiwan – Ko Wen-je, a former Taipei mayor and one-time presidential candidate, has been charged with bribery, profiteering, embezzlement and breach of trust and could face more than 28 years months in prison if convicted Ko, who won support among younger voters in a presidential election this year with promises to upend Taiwan’s political establishment, was indicted on Thursday and released on NT$30 million (US$1 million) bail on Friday after spending 113 days in detention. Ko, chairman of the Taiwan People’s Party, or TPP, has denied the charges. “I still believe in myself. I’m not the type of person who would seek personal gain, engage in corruption, or break the law,” he told reporters outside his home on Friday. “That said, facing challenges like this makes me realize there are areas in my life I need to reflect on.” His party called the indictment a “politically motivated crackdown and judicial injustice.” Prosecutors allege Ko orchestrated financial benefits worth billions of New Taiwan dollars for private developers during his mayoral tenure, embezzled political donations, and accepted bribes totaling tens of millions. “After committing these crimes, investigators found shredded notes in his office containing instructions for accomplices to leave the country and inquiries about internal financial records,” the prosecutor’s office said in a news release. “This behavior demonstrates his attempts to evade responsibility and his poor attitude following the offenses, leading to the specific charges requested,” it added. Rise and fall Ko, a physician, rose to fame in Taiwanese politics by winning two elections for the mayor of Taipei in 2014 and again in 2022. In 2019, he founded the TPP, positioning it as an alternative to Taiwan’s dominant political parties, the Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP, and the Kuomintang, or KMT. In the 2024 presidential election, Ko and the TPP gained significant support among younger voters, presenting a fresh alternative to the establishment and posing a challenge to the dominance of the major parties. Ko has, however, stirred controversy with what critics see as an ambiguous stance on cross-straight relations. The TPP had maintained a nuanced approach, emphasizing the importance of peace and stability while advocating for Taiwan’s sovereignty. Ko criticized the DPP and KMT over their China-related policies, calling the approach of the former overly confrontational and of the latter too conciliatory. In 2015, Ko promoted a concept he called “one family on both sides of the Strait”, speaking in favour of exchanges between Taiwan and China and fostering goodwill. The ruling DPP, which takes a pro-sovereignty stance, accused Ko of “echoing” the Chinese Communist Party’s unification rhetoric and “undermining” Taiwan’s sovereignty. China regards Taiwan as a renegade province that must be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary. The democratic island has been self-governing since it effectively separated from mainland China in 1949 after the Chinese Civil War. Edited by Taejun Kang. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Notebook found on North Korean soldier outlines tactics for countering drones](https://ij-reportika.com/notebook-found-on-north-korean-soldier-outlines-tactics-for-countering-drones/): A North Korean soldier’s notebook described tactics for shooting down Ukrainian drones, including diagrams and details on how a three-person team should be used to lure and destroy the unmanned devices, the Ukrainian Special Forces said on Thursday on Telegram. The notebook was found on a dead soldier named Jong Kyong Hong in Russia’s Kursk region, according to the Telegram post. Radio Free Asia was unable to independently verify the information. About 50 North Korean soldiers were killed in Ukrainian drone attacks in Kursk last week, according to South Korea’s spy agency. “North Korean troops are being ‘consumed’ for front-line assaults in an unfamiliar battlefield environment of open fields, and they lack the ability to respond to drone attacks,” said South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, as cited by lawmaker Lee Seong-kweun, who was briefed by the agency on Dec. 19. The Ukrainian Special Forces posted a photograph of the notebook in its Telegram post. A diagram shows one person standing in front of the drone as the other two team members are positioned behind it, preparing to shoot. “When a drone is spotted, form a team of three,” writing in the notebook said. One person’s role is to lure in the drone from a forward position while maintaining a distance of about 7 meters (23 feet), the notes said. The other two should be ready to shoot the drone from a distance of 10 to 12 meters (32 to 40 feet), it said. “When the person luring the drone stands still, the drone will also stop, making it possible for the two to aim and shoot it down,” the writing said. ‘Human bait’ The Ukrainian Special Forces deemed the method as “living human bait.” The special forces said that it was unclear whether the tactic was unique to the North Korean military or if it was something that the Russian military had taught to them. Russian forces have complained that North Korean soldiers were a “burden” because of their “ignorance” of drone warfare, the South Korean spy agency said in its briefing last week. Initial evidence from Ukraine has shown that North Korean soldiers are ill-prepared and lack the skills for modern warfare, said Federico Borsari, a resident fellow at the Washington-based Center for European Policy Analysis. “They lacked counter-drone equipment, and with little cover they were easy targets for Ukrainian FPV operators,” he said, using the initials for “first-person view” –- a kind of drone that wirelessly transmits video feed. “Many were killed while trying to hide among tall, dry grass crops and leafless tree lines,” he said. “Snow –- and Ukraine’s thermal sensors -– made them easily identifiable as most of those soldiers didn’t wear white camouflage.” RELATED STORIES Ukraine reveals handwritten letter of a fallen North Korean soldier in Kursk More than 3,000 North Koreans killed, wounded in Russia’s Kursk: Zelenskyy Russians see North Koreans as a ‘burden’ over ignorance of drones: South says American, South Korean and Ukrainian authorities have said there are up to 12,000 North Korean soldiers in Russia, deployed there primarily to help Russia push Ukrainian forces out of positions they captured in Kursk in August. Earlier this week, Ukraine reported that more than 3,000 North Korean soldiers had been killed or wounded in Kursk. South Korea has estimated that the number of casualties among North Korean troops is at least 1,100. The Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, or DIU, noted on Dec. 17 that North Korean forces appeared to have taken additional measures to mitigate the threat of drone strikes. “After serious losses, North Korean units began setting up additional observation posts to detect drones,” the DIU wrote in a post to its official Telegram channel. On Thursday, DIU said on its website that North Korea has added at least five more observation posts to improve its drone reconnaissance. It also said that Russian drone units have started providing tank and artillery support for North Korean troops during assaults. Recent footage had suggested that the North Koreans were sometimes receiving no assistance from Russian forces during combat. Translated by Jay Park and Leejin Chung. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar Christians, wary of airstrikes, celebrate Christmas in a cave](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-christians-wary-of-airstrikes-celebrate-christmas-in-a-cave/): Many members of Myanmar’s Christian minority celebrated Christmas in fear this year, worried that the military would unleash airstrikes on them, with some worshippers taking to the safety of a cave deep in the forest for Christmas Eve mass. Predominantly Buddhist Myanmar has been engulfed in conflict since the military overthrew an elected government in 2021, with fighting particularly heavy in ethnic minority areas where many Christians live and where generations have battled for self-determination. “Christmas is a very important day for Christians, it’s also important to be safe,” said Ba Nyar, an official in an ethnic minority administration in eastern Myanmar’s Kayah state in an area under the control of anti-junta insurgents. “That’s why lately religious ceremonies have only been held in Mother’s Cave, which is free from the danger of air strikes,” he told Radio Free Asia, referring to a cave in the forest that covers the state’s craggy hills near the border with Thailand. Several hundred people, most of them women and children, crowded into the cave on Christmas Eve, squatting on its hard-packed floor for a service led by a priest standing behind an altar bedecked with flowers and candles. Ba Nyar and other residents of the area declined to reveal the cave’s location, fearing the junta would bomb it with aircraft or attack drones if they knew where it was. Villagers in a cave for Christmas Eve mass in a rebel zone in Myanmar&#8217;s Kayah state on Dec. 24, 2024.(Christ the King &#8211; Loikaw via Facebook) Most of those attending the service in Mother’s Cave have been displaced by fighting in Kayah state, where junta forces have targeted civilians and their places of worship, insurgents and rights groups say. Nearly 50 villagers were killed in Kayah state’s Moso village on Christmas Eve in 2021, when junta troops attacked after a clash with rebels. In November, the air force bombed a church where displaced people were sheltering near northern Myanmar’s border with China killing nine of them including children. More than 300 religious buildings, including about 100 churches and numerous Buddhist temples, have been destroyed by the military in attacks since the 2021 coup, a spokesman for a shadow government in exile, the National Unity Government, or NUG, said on Tuesday. RFA tried to contact the military spokesman, Major General Zaw Min Tun, for comment but he did not answer phone calls. The junta rejects the accusations by opposition forces and international rights groups that it targets civilians and places of worship. About 6.5% of Myanmar’s 57 million people are Christian, many of them members of ethnic minorities in hilly border areas of Chin, Kachin, Kayah and Kayin states. No Christmas carols In northwestern Myanmar’s Chin state, people fear military retaliation for losses to insurgent forces there in recent days and so have cut back their Christmas festivities. “When the country is free we can do these things again. We just have to be patient, even though we’re sad,” said a resident of the town of Mindat, which recently came under the control of anti-junta forces. “In December in the past, we’d hear young people singing carols, even at midnight, but now we don’t,” said the resident, a woman who declined to be identified for safety reasons. “I miss the things we used to do at Christmas,” she told RFA. In Mon Hla, a largely Christian village in the central Sagaing region, a resident said church services were being kept as brief as possible. Junta forces badly damaged the church in the home village of Myanmar’s most prominent Christian, Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, in an air raid in October. “Everyone going to church is worried that they’re going to get bombed,” the resident, who also declined to be identified, told RFA on Christmas Day. “The sermons are as short as possible, not only at Christmas but every Sunday too,” she said. The chief of the junta, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, attended a Christmas dinner on Sunday at St. Mary’s Cathedral in the main city of Yangon and reiterated a call for insurgents to make peace, saying his government was strengthening democracy. Anti-junta forces dismiss his calls as meaningless and say there is no basis for trusting the military, which overthrew a civilian government in 2021, imprisoned its leaders and has tried to crush all opposition. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Photos: Before, after images compare and contrast scenes from Indian Ocean Tsunami](https://ij-reportika.com/photos-before-after-images-compare-and-contrast-scenes-from-indian-ocean-tsunami/): Read about tsunami preparedness 20 years later at on BenarNews — an RFA-affiliated online news organization. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Pakistan Rejects USA's Concerns Over Missile Program as Baseless](https://ij-reportika.com/pakistan-rejects-us-concerns-over-missile-program/): Pakistan dismisses U.S. concerns over its missile program, calling them "unfounded" and emphasizing its focus on national defense and regional stability amid strained ties with Washington.
- [Along the Mekong, fishers and farmers battle a plastics catastrophe](https://ij-reportika.com/along-the-mekong-fishers-and-farmers-battle-a-plastics-catastrophe/): A monsoon storm brewed above Boonrat Chaikeaw as he cast his net into the endless tide of trash in the Mekong River on one day in June. He brought home more plastic than fish over six trips into the polluted waters of the Golden Triangle between Thailand, Myanmar and Laos. Below the Golden Triangle, at the center of the river’s lower basin, children swam among plastic debris as workers cleared the riverbanks of Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh — with identical plastic pick-up efforts on Tonle Sap lake. Further downstream, in Vietnam, the river spiderwebs into the tributaries, swamps and islands that comprise the Mekong Delta. In Can Tho, which lies along a Mekong tributary, fish farmers are relieved to no longer be living off a river besieged by plastic waste. Dozens of fish leap out of the water during feeding time at a fish farm on Son Island in Vietnam&#8217;s Mekong Delta.(RFA) The Mekong River supports millions of people along its 4,300-kilometer (2,700-mile) path from its headwaters in the Tibetan Plateau through Southeast Asia and eventually into the South China Sea. But its size and the politics of shared management has made it particularly susceptible to plastics pollution. Globally, the Mekong river is , an independent environmental reporting and analysis nonprofit. RFA retains full editorial control of the work. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Businessman convicted in shooting of young couple that angered Cambodians](https://ij-reportika.com/businessman-convicted-in-shooting-of-young-couple-that-angered-cambodians/): A prominent real estate businessman was convicted of shooting a young couple during a dispute inside a Phnom Penh home, sentenced to 31 years in prison and ordered to pay US$2.5 million, court officials announced. The shooting in June outraged Cambodians on social media, many of whom expressed their doubts in online comments that the businessman would be held accountable by a legal system widely viewed as corrupt. The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Monday convicted Srey Sina, 51, on charges of murder, attempted murder, illegal use of weapons and residential trespass. The $2.5 million in compensation will go to the relatives of the deceased and the injured victims, the court said. Srey Sina had held the title of oknha -– bestowed on Cambodians involved in business –- until a long-running dispute at a rental property erupted into the shooting, which left Long Lysong, 27, and his fiancee Khin Kanchana, 26, dead and two young men wounded. Two security videos viewed by Radio Free Asia showed Srey Sina shoot the couple and then scramble around two tables with a handgun stretched before him as the two young men dove under the tables to avoid him. Srey Sina fled the scene and was later arrested in neighboring Kandal province. He told police he shot the young couple with a handgun after Long Lysong used abusive language toward him. Influence and money On Facebook in June, Cambodians expressed worries that he would use his influence and money to gain his release from jail. Several top government officials made sympathetic public statements and sought to assure Cambodians that justice would be vigorously pursued, while King Norodom Sihanmoni issued a decree stripping Srey Sina of the oknha title. On Monday, Cambodians on social media were supportive of the sentence. Youth political activist Thu Vakhim said authorities should also investigate how Srey Sina was able to obtain a gun. RELATED STORIES Minister defends charges against tycoon in shooting of Cambodian couple Shooting that left young couple dead angers Cambodians on social media Cambodian law prohibits the use, purchase and lending of firearms to civilians. The use of firearms is permitted only by the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of National Defense. “This is a major problem for Cambodia,” said Sok Sal, a Cambodian worker in Thailand who spoke to RFA about Monday’s verdict. “If we don’t control illegal weapons, we will have more problems.” RFA was unable to reach court spokesman Y Rin for further comment on Tuesday. Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [US missile deployment in the Philippines is legitimate: Manila](https://ij-reportika.com/us-missile-deployment-in-the-philippines-is-legitimate-manila/): MANILA – The Philippines’ acquisition and deployment of a U.S. mid-range missile system is “completely legitimate, legal, and beyond reproach,” its defense chief said on Tuesday. China protested against the plan by the Philippines to acquire a Typhon mid-range missile system from the United States to boost its maritime capabilities amid rising tensions in the disputed South China Sea. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning called the plan “provocative and dangerous,” and said on Monday it was an “extremely irresponsible choice” not only for the Philippine people and people of all Southeast Asian countries, but also “to history and to regional security.” Philippine Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro said any deployment for the security of the Philippines was its affair. “The Philippines is a sovereign state, not any country’s ‘doorstep’,” Teodoro said in a statement. He did not refer to the Chinese comment on the missile system but reiterated that the enhancement of Philippine defense capabilities was intended to serve its national interest and “not targeted against specific countries.” “Any deployment and procurement of assets related to the Philippines’ security and defense fall within its own sovereign prerogative and are not subject to any foreign veto,” Teodoro said. RELATED STORIES Philippines ratifies defense pact with Japan, amid China tensions China, Philippines trade accusations over South China Sea confrontation Philippines enacts laws asserting maritime claims China and the Philippines have been trading accusations of provocation and intimidation over escalating tensions in parts of the South China Sea that they both claim, especially near reefs that lie inside Manila’s exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, but are also claimed by Beijing. “If the Chinese Communist Party is truly intent on reducing tensions and instability in the region, they should … stop their provocative actions … withdraw their illegal presence from the Philippines&#8217; EEZ, and adhere to International Law,” said Teodoro, who also accused Beijing of building up a nuclear arsenal and ballistic missile capability. Typhon system On Monday, Philippine army chief Lt. Gen. Roy Galido – while delivering his year-end report to an audience of domestic and foreign journalists in Manila – confirmed that the army has endorsed a plan to acquire a mid-range missile system “to boost the country’s capability in protecting its territory.” The mobile system, called Typhon, was deployed to the Philippines early this year as part of a joint military exercise with the U.S. military. Chinese defense minister Dong Jun said in June the deployment was “severely damaging regional security and stability.” The missile system, developed by U.S. firm Lockheed Martin, has a range of 480 kilometers (300 miles), and is capable of reaching the disputed Scarborough Shoal as well as targets around Taiwan. Philippine Army chief Lt. Gen. Roy Galido delivering his year-end report on Dec. 23, 2024, in Manila.(Jason Gutierrez/BenarNews) Galido said that the Typhon would “protect our floating assets,” referring to Philippine navy and coastguard vessels. The acquisition is taking place as the army is “tasked to come up with plans to contribute to the comprehensive archipelagic defense,” according to Galido, who added that “one of our inputs is to be able to defend this land through this type of platform.” Chinese spokeswoman Mao Ning criticized the plan, saying that the Philippines, “by bringing in this strategic offensive weapon, is enabling a country outside the region to fuel tensions and antagonism in this region, and incite geopolitical confrontation and arms race.” BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization. Edited by Mike Firn. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Uyghur intellectual died while in custody of Chinese authorities](https://ij-reportika.com/uyghur-intellectual-died-while-in-custody-of-chinese-authorities/): A Uyghur intellectual and educational activist, who was arrested the night before his daughter’s wedding five years ago, died only two months later while in detention, two people familiar with the situation told Radio Free Asia. Ibrahim Dawut was a former chemistry teacher at a high school in Kashgar, in China’s far-western Xinjiang region, who advocated for classes in the Uyghur region to be taught in Uyghur. He an outspoken critic of China’s bilingual education system in which some classes were taught in Mandarin and others in Uyghur. In 2019, Chinese authorities arrested him amid a sweep of mass arrests of mostly Ugyhur men. While the specific charges were unclear, he was taken away because of “his influence on society in Kashgar,” according to a source who had just recently moved to Europe. Dawut had been tailed by police since 2016 and had been called in for interrogation four or five times, she said. “The police took him away from his family on the night of July 28th, 2019, and we did not even know what had happened and why they took him,” said the source who requested anonymity for safety reasons. Dawut was in his late 50s at that time, and his daughter was to be married the following day, she said. “We looked for him for around 5-10 days and learned that the police arrested around 500-600 men, including him,” the source said. Dead and buried On Oct. 6, authorities informed Dawut’s family that he had died, she said, but buried him without showing his body to his family, prompting enormous outrage among his relatives. The police made his family sign a document which said he died from a heart attack, and they did not allow anyone to visit his tomb, she said. “When I asked the reason for his death, no one said anything,” she said. His death was confirmed by a staff member of the No. 6 High School in Kashgar, where Dawut had worked, but the person said he didn’t know any details. “He died several years ago. As far as I know, he died. The reason for his death is unknown,” he said. “Because details of his death were not reported to the school, we will not intervene in this type of case directly.” Educational activism Dawut had advocated for Uyghur language-based education through his writings since 2000 and often expressed disdain for the government’s bilingual education policies in Xinjiang, the source said. Dawut translated Chinese school books into Uyghur for high school students in Kashgar and provided students with school materials in Uyghur. He also opened bookstores in Kashgar and elsewhere, sold textbooks written in Uyghur and launched foreign language and college entrance exam preparatory courses. Abduweli Ayup, founder of Norway-based UyghurHelp and Dawut’s former student, said Dawut played a key role in opening a Uyghur language school in Kashgar, providing both support and financial investment. In 2011, Dawut invited Ayup to teach English and Turkish at the Nurhan Education Training Center he had founded and to help establish the Uyghur Mother Tongue Kindergarten. “We opened a school together. I was responsible for teaching English, Turkish and mother tongue, and he was responsible for teaching college entrance exam preparatory courses.” Ayup said. Dawut had also been an activist for teachers, organizing them and filing a lawsuit against the local government for withholding teachers&#8217; salaries for several months to fund a state highway project. The legal battle was successful in pointing out that the state was responsible for highways, not the local government, and the teachers received their full salaries and a public apology. Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar junta chief urges peace after troops suffer setbacks](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-chief-urges-peace-after-troops-suffer-setbacks/): Myanmar’s junta chief has reiterated a call for insurgents battling to end military rule to make peace, saying his government was strengthening democracy, his latest offer of talks as his forces suffer a string of setbacks. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, who overthrew an elected civilian government in a 2021 coup and has tried to crush opposition to the takeover, made his latest plea at a Christmas dinner on Sunday at St. Mary’s Cathedral in the main city of Yangon. “The government is implementing the roadmap, national and political visions to strengthen the multi-party democratic system that the people desire and to return to the correct democratic path,” the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper quoted Min Aung Hlaing as saying. “The government is committed to resolving issues encountered within the society through peaceful co-existence, specifically through dialogue to achieve success,” he said, adding that issues had to be resolved “through political methods but not handled in armed struggle.” Neighboring China is keen to see an end to Myanmar’s instability and has been pressing all sides to talk and has promised to support a general election expected next year. Min Aung Hlaing did not refer to his military’s setbacks in his Sunday address. Despite his calls for talks and Chinese pressure on the armed opposition, the military has been losing ground in several regions. On Friday, a regional army headquarters fell to the Arakan Army, or AA, ethnic minority insurgent group in Rakhine state, after months of fighting. The AA, which draws its support from the ethnic Rakhine Buddhist population, now controls about 80% of the state with the military boxed into small areas, including the Kyaukphyu economic zone on the coast where China has oil and gas pipelines and wants to build a port. In Chin state to the northwest, insurgents said they had made more advances against the military in recent days and they now controlled 85% of the state, which is largely Christian. RELATED STORIES EXPLAINED: What is Myanmar’s Arakan Army? Junta forces are mobilizing in central Myanmar amid Shan state ceasefire, rebel say Over one-third of Myanmar’s population to need aid by 2025: UNOCHA ‘Respect Rohingya rights’ Min Aung Hlaing’s calls for talks have been rejected by insurgent groups and a parallel civilian government in exile, the National Unity Government, who say they have no faith in the words of a military that has for decades stifled all dissent and locked up or killed its enemies. “The number one thing is that the revolutionary forces do not trust the military council,” said an official from one of the many pro-democracy guerrilla groups known as People’s Defense Forces, or PDFs, that have sprung up since the 2021 coup. “The other thing is that the junta is losing on the ground militarily so it’s impossible for us to hold talks with them now,‘’ said the official from a PDF in the central Monywa district. With the AA making sustained advances in Rakhine state, members of Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority, many of whom are based in northern parts of the state on the border with Bangladesh, issued a plea for the AA to respect their rights. “We urge the Arakan Army and its political wing … to uphold and respect the rights of the Rohingya and all ethnic and religious minorities,&#8221; the Rohingya groups said in a joint statement. “Undoubtedly, the Burmese military is our common enemy,” the groups said, while accusing the AA of human rights violations against Rohingya, including widespread arson and killings. The AA denies rights abuses but rights investigators say the AA has committed serious violations, particularly since the junta launched a campaign this year to recruit Rohingya men into militias to fight the AA. The Rohingya organizations, many based abroad, said they strongly rejected the groups that cooperated with the military and called on the AA to recognize the Rohingya as “an integral part of the (the state’s) diverse communities.” The groups also called for an emergency aid corridor to be opened up from Bangladesh to prevent famine. The United Nations says up to 2 million people face “the dire prospect of famine” in Rakhine state amid economic collapse and a worsening humanitarian crisis triggered by the 2021 coup. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Teenagers fight US militarization of Palau with UN complaint over rights violations](https://ij-reportika.com/teenagers-fight-us-militarization-of-palau-with-un-complaint-over-rights-violations/): Read this story on BenarNews KOROR, Palau — School students in Palau are taking on the United States military with a legal complaint to the United Nations over a “rapid and unprecedented wave of militarization” in their Pacific island nation. They allege that American military activities are destroying ecosystems, disturbing sacred sites, threatening endangered species, and breaking laws that protect the environment and human rights. A group of children play near the ocean in Koror, Nov. 29, 2024.(Harry Pearl/BenarNews) She is one of the seven teenagers, aged between 15 and 18, leading the pushback against U.S. military activity. Over the past year they travelled the length of the country visiting defense sites, interviewing local communities and documenting environmental impacts. Last month the students filed a submission to the U.N. special rapporteur on the rights to a healthy environment and the special rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples. Together with the Ebiil Society, a local nonprofit, and human rights lawyers in Guam, they alleged American military violations of environmental laws and indigenous rights in Palau. The group is among a young generation of Pacific activists using international legal mechanisms to fight for their rights, such as law students from Vanuatu who asked the International Court of Justice to give an opinion on states’ obligations to combat climate change. ‘Bulldozing’ through Palau Palau is one of three Pacific island countries including the Marshall Islands and Federated States of Micronesia that give the U.S. exclusive military authority in their territories in exchange for economic assistance under compacts of free association. The U.S. is now using the “compact provisions, which have never before been invoked, to justify a rapid and unprecedented wave of militarization throughout Palau,” according to the U.N. submission. The Palauan students’ complaint is focused on six U.S. military sites spread between Palau’s northernmost tip and its southernmost edge, including an over-the-horizon radar facility and a WWII-era airstrip being upgraded by U.S. Marines on the island of Peleliu. Ann Singeo, executive director of Palaun environmental nonprofit the Ebiil Society, on Nov. 27, 2024 in Koror.(Harry Pearl/BenarNews) U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, which oversees American forces in the region, did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story. But Palau President Surangel Whipps rejected any accusations that environmental laws had been broken or that local communities had not been adequately informed about military projects. Whipps acknowledged there were concerns about militarization in the community, but argued that for a small nation like Palau, which has been subject to “unfriendly behavior” by China, having the protection of the U.S. was a good thing. “We’ve always been a target because of our location, whether we like it or not,” he told BenarNews in an interview. “During World War II, we were a target and that’s why Japan built all the infrastructure here and used Palau because of our location. “If you’re going to be a target, you need to make sure that you’re protected. Our forefathers decided that the best relationship that we could have with the United States is in free association … but as partners, we have some obligations.” Nest Mechaet, a state legislator for Elab hamlet, sits at her family’s traditional land in Ngaraard state, Palau, Nov. 30, 2024.(Harry Pearl/BenarNews) She said there were fears that earthmoving might damage historical sites and affect sediment flows into the marine environment nearby, which is home to endangered dugongs, turtles and saltwater crocodiles. “Some old people say there are ancient stone platforms here,” she told BenarNews, looking out over the bay below where the radar will be positioned. “There are mangrove clams, sea cucumbers, fish – you name it. People are out there for food.” It’s unclear what impact the Angaur lawsuit or calls for a review of the permit in Ngaraard will have on the radar, which the U.S. had originally aimed to complete by 2026. The U.S. radar system, which will add to American early-warning capabilities for the western Pacific, is expected to bring economic benefits to the island including higher paying jobs and rental incomes. A sign at the ferry dock in the city of Koror calling for a ‘No’ vote against a proposed amendment to the Peleliu constitution, Nov. 25, 2024.(Harry Pearl/BenarNews) On the island of Peleliu, where U.S. Marines are revamping the Japanese wartime airfield, some local chiefs and former legislators are seeking an injunction against a proposed constitutional amendment concerning military activity in the state. Peleliu’s constitution currently requires the approval by 75% of residents in a referendum for any permanent military facilities to be built on the island or training to take place – a provision adopted after WWII. Under the amendment, which was put on the ballot of a Dec. 3 state election, the article would be repealed and authority on military matters transferred exclusively to the governor and legislature, according to court documents reviewed by BenarNews. It also proposes reducing the size of the state government from 15 members to 11 and removing five seats reserved for traditional chiefs. Whipps described a lot of the criticism about U.S. military projects in Palau as “misinformation” and suggested it was possibly “another Chinese attempt to convince people that things are really worse than they really are.” But Singeo, from the Ebiil Society, said it was important to mobilize young people to fight for the “survival of a culture and nation.” “No matter how strong they are, how big they are, this is not their home,” she said. “For me as an adult, to not support the kids to do this is the same as condemning them to a future of chaos, conflict and keeping their head down not saying anything.” BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Bosnian Genocide survivors reflect on the parallels with Uyghurs' suffering](https://ij-reportika.com/bosnian-genocide-survivors-reflect-on-the-parallels-with-uyghurs-suffering/): Survivors of the Bosnian Genocide 30 years ago told Radio Free Asia that they see parallels between their suffering and the experiences of Uyghurs in China’s far-western Xinjiang region. At that that time, the international community failed to stop the mass killings and other crimes against Bosnian Muslims. The 1992-95 Bosnian War left 100,000 dead, including the slaughter of 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica. Bosnians don’t want to see that happen again, and yet they see it unfolding in various locations around the world. “We have been shouting for many years that ethnic genocide should never happen again, but we are witnessing it every day,” said Almasa Salihovic, 36, who at age 8 fled with her family from advancing Serb forces and lost a brother in Srebrenica. Refugees from the overrun UN safe-haven enclave of Srebrenica gather outside the UN base at Tuzla airport in Bosnia and Herzegovina, July 14, 1995.(Darko Bandic/AP) “We know that Uyghur Muslims, because of religion and everything else, are being forced to perform labor, basically tortured,” said restaurant owner Abdu Porcovic, 39, who also survived Bosnia’s genocide. “All their freedoms are being reduced,” he added. Muhtar Abdurrahman, a Uyghur scholar whom RFA interviewed in Sarajevo during an October meeting of the World Uyghur Congress, called on the Chinese government to stop its persecution of the mostly Muslim Uyghurs. “They should remember how the perpetrator of the Bosnian genocide, Slobodan Milosevic, was brought before an international criminal court and faced justice,” he said. Milosevic, president of Serbia between 1989–1997 and president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 until his overthrow in 2000, was tried on charges of committing war crimes at an international criminal tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, in the early 2000s. He died before the case concluded. ‘Fascist government’ Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, who led the Bosnian Serb Army and was known as the “butcher of Bosnia,” were also tried and convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity. Gloved hands hold human skull during exhumation from mass-grave site near Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia, Sept. 18, 2009.(AP) Their fate suggests that those responsible for modern-day genocides also will see their day in court, Abdurrahman said. “We firmly believe that [Chinese President] Xi Jinping and his henchmen and his fascist government one day will face justice here in the International Criminal Court one day,” he said. The Bosnia War ended with the signing of the Dayton Accords in December 1995, a peace agreement that divided Bosnia and Herzegovina into two autonomous states — the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina dominated by Bosniaks and Croats, and the Bosnian Serb Republic dominated by Bosnian Serbs. Despite the immense hardships facing Uyghurs, Abdurrahman is hopeful that the situation in Xinjiang will follow a similar trajectory. “We are convinced that this genocide will eventually play a role in the birth of an independent Uyghur nation,” he said. Translated by RFA Uyghur Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Ukraine military drops leaflets urging North Korean troops to surrender](https://ij-reportika.com/ukraine-military-drops-leaflets-urging-north-korean-troops-to-surrender/): The Ukrainian military is dropping Korean-language leaflets urging North Korean troops fighting on Russia’s side of the war to “Surrender today and join South Korea tomorrow,” Radio Free Asia has learned. The leaflets appear in a video shared on the Telegram social media website by InformNapalm, an organization that has been reporting on the situation in Ukraine. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian website evocation.info also published on Telegram evidence that North Korean soldiers are provided with Russian ID, likely to hide their nationality in the event they are killed. The two social media posts are among many reports of North Korean participation in the war, which Pyongyang and Moscow have not outwardly confirmed. A Ukrainian NGO group published video on Telegram that shows drones carrying leaflets urging North Korean troops fighting for Russia to surrender. InformNapalm’s leaflet video shows a drone with a camera flying the leaflets over a wooded area. A caption in Ukrainian says, “Leaflets are dropped into the woods where North Korean soldiers are hiding.” RFA previously reported that a similar type of drone engaged North Korean troops in a battle in the Kursk region, killing 50 of them. But this time it was just leaflets. In addition to the “surrender” leaflet, there’s another that says “You’ve been sold!” A video posted on Dec. 19, 2024, of leaflets to be dropped, by the Ukrainian military on North Korea soldiers, which say &#8220;You&#8217;ve been sold.&#8221;(InformNaplam via Telegram) South Korean intelligence reported that Russia is paying every North Korean soldier about US$2,000 per month, but observers believe that just like North Korea’s dispatched workers, most of the money is likely sent to the cash-strapped North Korean government. RFA has not independently verified the authenticity of the video. According to InformNapalm, once North Korean soldiers surrender or are captured, their identities are protected and they are provided with support to go to South Korea to start a new life, but it acknowledged that it is still too early to tell how effective the leaflet campaign will be. RELATED STORIES Russians see North Koreans as a ‘burden’ over ignorance of drones: South says Ukraine drones kill 50 North Koreans in battle in Kursk region Russians ‘burning faces’ of dead North Koreans to keep them secret: Zelenskyy This fourth one appears as an HTML with a “Be careful!” message &#8211; Meanwhile, a Russian military ID with a bullet hole and blood stains on it was found on a dead North Korean soldier in the Kursk region, the photo published by evocation.io purports to show. The ID card is legible in the photo. It says the deceased soldier is Kim Kan-Bolat Albertovich, a native of Russia’s Tuva Republic, in southern Siberia, born on April 13, 1997. The ID card of a North Korean soldier disguised as a Tubain.(Invocation Info via Telegram) RFA cannot independently verify the authenticity of the photo. According to the ID, Pvt. Kim was allegedly born in the village of Bayan-Tala, graduated secondary school in 2016, worked as a roofer, and then entered military service in the Tuvan 55th Mountain Infantry Brigade. But a person with that name and birthdate does not exist in Russian records, the evocation.io reported. The soldier’s Korean signature also appears on the first page, suggesting his real name is Ri Dae Hyok. The document has more inconsistencies. It lacks photos, order numbers and official seals. Additionally, “Kim” has allegedly been a soldier since 2016, but he first received a weapon on Oct. 10, 2024, and a personal tag (AB-175311) a day later. If legitimate, this photo would confirm what South Korean intelligence revealed in October, that North Korean troops sent to Russia were issued fake Russian identification cards that said they were residents of southern Siberia, which is home to a people who are racially similar to East Asians. It is difficult to tell if the photo is legitimate or if it is propaganda, David Maxwell, vice president at the U.S.-based Center for Asia Pacific Strategy, told RFA. “If Russia or North Korea is attempting to hide their soldiers’ identities, it makes no sense. They’ll inevitably be exposed,” Maxwell said. “It’s another foolish move by the Russians and North Koreans because when these soldiers are captured or killed, their identities will be revealed.” He said it is already well known that North Korea is supporting Russia, so efforts to pass North Koreans off as a different Russian ethnic group was pointless. “Maybe it makes them feel better, but I don’t find this very important or credible.” Translated by Claire S. Lee and Jay Park. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Media Watch: Rumors hit chipmaker Nvidia amid US-China row](https://ij-reportika.com/media-watch-rumors-hit-chipmaker-nvidia-amid-us-china-row/): The escalating chip row between the United States and China has taken a sharp turn as tensions over semiconductor technology grow. With Donald Trump set to begin his new term as president in January, uncertainties surrounding U.S. policies are fueling speculation. Amid this volatile environment, rumors targeting American chipmaker Nvidia have surfaced in China, particularly after Beijing in media reports in December 2023, months before China’s recent investigation against the American chipmaker. The same photo was also in November that the chipmaker remained committed to maintaining its presence in mainland China. Keyword searches found no credible reports or statements that show Nvidia’s plan to exit China. Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Taejun Kang. Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Junta forces are mobilizing in central Myanmar amid Shan state ceasefire, rebel say](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-forces-are-mobilizing-in-central-myanmar-amid-shan-state-ceasefire-rebel-say/): Myanmar’s junta has been mobilized forces for offensives in the Mandalay, Sagaing and Magway regions at the same that it has significantly reduced attacks in northern Shan state following a recent ceasefire there, members of the rebel People’s Defense Forces told Radio Free Asia. Between Dec. 2 and Dec. 6, junta airstrikes and artillery killed 19 people and wounded at least 10 others in three townships in Mandalay region’s Myingyan district, according to an official from a pro-democracy paramilitary People’s Defense Force, or PDF, who requested anonymity for security reasons. Among the dead were four rebel paramilitary fighters, the PDF official said. The attacks are likely inspired by the junta’s larger aim of regaining control of Myanmar’s central plain heartland, according to the PDF official. The central plains -– home to the country’s majority ethnic Bamar peoples –- has seen fierce fighting since the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup. PDF units are made up of ordinary civilians who took up arms against the junta following the coup, and in many areas they have pushed junta troops back from territory the controlled. The offensives also coincide with the recent ceasefire agreed to by the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, after pressure from neighboring China. “China’s interference has played a significant role in Myanmar’s overall military situation,” a PDF member in Magway region’s Pakokku township said. “While the TNLA and MNDAA in northern Myanmar are facing pressure from China, the junta has reduced its airstrikes, and battles have decreased in these areas,” he said. “This has led the junta to focus more on the plains.” The attacks have notably increased in Mandalay, Sagaing, and Magway regions since just after junta chief Min Aung Hlaing returned from his early November trip to China, according to local rebel fighters. Resistance forces have abandoned some road sections between Myingyan and Taungthar townships in Mandalay due to the junta’s intensive ground and air attacks, according to the PDF official in Mandalay region’s Myingyan district. The junta has also moved forces into Sagaing region’s Pinlebu township, and have also sent troops along the Ann-Padan route, which is the only connection between Ann town in Rakhine state and Padan in Magway region, the official said. “They are likely preparing to control the central plain areas of Myanmar through a defensive war strategy,” the PDF official said. Political analyst Than Soe Naing said the last few weeks have again highlighted how anti-junta forces need to improve on their military strategy and coordination in central Myanmar. “Without a united front in the plain areas, their offensives have slowed, and they still require more weapons and ammunition,” he said. RFA attempted to contact junta spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun to ask about the military offensive in the central plains region, but received no response. Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar appoints new defense minister as army struggles](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-appoints-new-defense-minister-as-army-struggles/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. Myanmar’s junta appointed a new minister of defense, state-controlled media reported, in the wake of significant insurgent advances across the county that have put the military under unprecedented pressure. Gen. Maung Maung Aye, who has been chief of general staff, was appointed minister in place of Gen. Tin Aung San, who retained his position as deputy prime minister, media reported. State media did not give a reason for the change in its reports on Wednesday but the military has suffered major setbacks at the hands of insurgent forces over the past year. RFA called junta spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment, but he did not respond by time of publication. A defense official in a parallel government in exile, the National Unity Government, or NUG, said the junta would be determined to change the trajectory of the war. “Across the whole country, the army is obviously losing very badly, so this could be to redeem themselves or change that,” said NUG defense official Aung San Sha. The new defense minister will have to deal immediately with a crisis in Rakhine state in the west, where ethnic minority Arakan Army insurgents are closing in on the military’s Western Command headquarters in the town of Ann. The loss of the base will be a major setback for the army against one of Myanmar’s most powerful guerrilla forces. Ethnic Kachin insurgents are battling to capture the northern town of Bhamo, while fighters in the northwest, central areas and the east have also made advances. RELATED STORIES Junta chief vows to complete Myanmar census by year-end &#8212; then hold elections Myanmar rebels capture last military post on Bangladesh border Myanmar military presses offensive after two groups agree to talk In Shan state in the northeast, insurgents captured the town of Lashio, on an important trade route to the nearby border with China, in August and have held on to it despite a relentless campaign of airstrikes by the military. China has pressed two insurgent armies in Shan state to talk peace with the junta but it is not clear if the rebels will withdraw from the places they have captured, including Lashio. The new minister will be responsible for providing security for an election expected next year, which the junta hopes will boost its legitimacy, both at home and abroad, even though the opposition has rejected the vote as meaningless when their leaders, including Aung San Suu Kyi, are in prison. A former soldier who defected to the ranks of the junta’s opponents said the outgoing minister was also paying the price for implementing a deeply unpopular campaign of conscripting young people, with nothing to show for it. “All over the country the military is suffering – they’re recruiting and aren’t succeeding,” said the defector, Naung Ro. “It’s also because of this that Tin Aung San has been replaced,” Maung Maung Aye will be the third defense minister appointed by the junta that seized power with the ouster of an elected government in February 2021. Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Ukraine drones kill 50 North Koreans in battle in Kursk region](https://ij-reportika.com/ukraine-drones-kill-50-north-koreans-in-battle-in-kursk-region/): Read a version of this story in Korean Around 50 North Korean soldiers were killed in a battle against Ukrainian army drones in the Kursk region this week, video of the battle shared on social media revealed. It’s the latest evidence that North Korean forces are participating in Russia’s war with Ukraine, a fact that Moscow and Pyongyang are trying to hide, including by allegedly burning the faces off of North Koreans who are killed in action. The video, shared by Ukraine’s 8th Special Operations Regiment on Facebook, showed a drone attack in the battle fought on Monday. In the video, what are believed to be North Korean soldiers are seen running away or hiding behind trees when they encounter Ukrainian first-person-view drones, also known as FPV drones. An FPV drone with an attached portable grenade launcher during a test flight conducted by Ukrainian servicemen at their position near a frontline, amid Russia&#8217;s attack on Ukraine, in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine October 11, 2024.(Reuters) These FPV drones are said to be able to reach speeds of up to 150 kilometers (93 miles) per hour, meaning that if they encounter each other within 100 meters, it will take less than a second for them to collide. Andrii Kovalenko, the head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council, posted on on his Telegram account that North Korean soldiers were no match for the drones, also called unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs. “The dead DPRK soldiers did not have a visual understanding of the danger from UAVs before the drone strikes, which may indicate that the Russians poorly informed the Koreans about the use of drones at the front,” Kovalenko said. He also said that the Russian soldiers were seen trying to quickly recover the bodies of North Korean soldiers who died on the front lines, which was different from the way they recovered Russian casualties. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday in an address that preliminary data suggests that the Russians were trying to hide the deaths of North Korean soldiers. “Unfortunately, we are forced to defend against them as well, even though there is not a single reason for North Koreans to die in this war,” Zelensky said. “The only reason is Putin’s madness, which has consumed Russia and fuels this war.” Translated by Claire S. Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Edited by Eugene Whong. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar military defends Bhamo with bombing blitz, residents say](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-military-defends-bhamo-with-bombing-blitz-residents-say/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. Myanmar’s ruling military battled to defend a major northern town on Wednesday as its forces also came under pressure in the west and the east and its most important ally China worked to stop the onslaught by insurgents determined to end the generals&#8217; rule. Forces of the junta that seized power in a February 2021 coup have been pushed back in different places across the country by ethnic minority insurgents and allied pro-democracy militias over the past year. Ethnic Kachin insurgents have been attacking the northern city of Bhamo on the Irrawaddy River for two weeks and have advanced towards the military’s headquarters there. Junta forces have responded with heavy airstrikes, residents said. “Last night at around 8 p.m., the planes were dropping bombs. There must have been about 100 strikes,” said one Bhamo resident, who declined to be identified in fear of reprisals. “On the side of the headquarters, fighting is continuing and we hear gunfire. We can also see houses near there burning.” An aid organization in the area said 30 civilians had been killed and nearly 150 wounded in Bhamo since Dec. 4. Among the dead were 10 children and five nuns, said a spokesperson from the group who declined to be identified. “It’s an approximation from people on the ground and those who fled,” said the spokesperson. “The dead were killed by airstrikes and heavy weapons, and some by shooting when they fled.” RFA tried to telephone Kachin state’s junta spokesperson, Moe Min Thein, to ask about the situation in Bhamo but he did not answer. China, the junta’s main foreign ally, has been trying to end the violence in its neighbour, where it has extensive economic interests including rare earth mines in Kachin state energy pipelines from the Indian Ocean, and has been pressing insurgents to strike ceasefires with the junta. The chairman of the Kachin Independence Organization, or KIO, General N’Ban La, met senior Chinese official Wu Ken in the Chinese city of Kunming on Dec. 12 for talks on a truce with the Myanmar military and trade along Kachin state’s border with China, said Kachin military information officer Naw Bu. “They discussed a ceasefire and opening gates along the border, then after fighting stops, they talked about having peace talks with the junta,” he said. “Neither side has made any formal decision or agreement.” He declined to say if China was putting pressure on the KIA but China has in recent days pressed two insurgent groups in Shan state, to the southeast of Kachin state, to agree to ceasefires after cutting off border trade. RELATED STORIES Chinese aid cannot overcome Myanmar junta’s declining finances and morale China undermines its interests by boosting support for Myanmar’s faltering junta Sources: Junta representatives, leaders of rebel group in talks in China Manerplaw re-captured In Myanmar’s western-most Rakhine state, ethnic minority Arakan Army, or AA, insurgents have surrounded the army Western Command base in the town of Ann, one of the military’s last major headquarters in the state. The AA released drone video footage of the base on Wednesday, showing burning buildings in ruins, with smoke rising. Radio Free Asia could not verify the date the video was taken but it was clearly of the Western Command headquarters. The AA also released video of scores of captured men, hands tied, marching in a line with white flags of surrender. In the east, Myanmar’s oldest insurgent group, the Karen National Union, or KNU, re-captured their headquarters at Manerplaw, which they lost in 1995 to the army following a split in their ranks. “We are taking back the headquarters that we lost for 30 years,” said the group’s spokesman, Saw Taw Nee. Manerplaw, on a river along the border with Thailand, is of great symbolic importance. The Karen headquarters was the hub of opposition efforts by an alliance of ethnic minority groups and student fighters from the majority Burman community after the military crushed a pro-democracy uprising in 1988. Those same groups are again striving for unity as they seek to end military rule and usher in what they say will be a democratic, federal Myanmar. Translated by Kiana Dunan. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [UK court dismisses claim against intel agency by alleged Chinese ‘spy’](https://ij-reportika.com/uk-court-dismisses-claim-against-intel-agency-by-alleged-chinese-spy/): A London-based lawyer accused of secretly working with China’s propaganda arm has lost a legal appeal against the U.K.’s domestic intelligence service. Christine Lee said an “interference alert” from MI5 issued in January 2022 had violated her rights, leading to lost business, a barrage of racist emails and even death threats. Her son, David Wilkes, was part of the appeal and said that the alert also negatively affected him. But the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, an independent U.K. judiciary body, unanimously dismissed their claim, calling the alert issued to the British Parliament “a proportionate response to the threat posed” by Lee. The alert accused Lee of attempting to interfere with U.K. politics on behalf of the United Front Work Department, which Western governments say operates covert intelligence and influence campaigns abroad. The alert was the first ever issued related to China. However, officials did not deem her to have committed any prosecutable offense. Lee was born in Hong Kong but emigrated with her family to Belfast when she was 12. The advisory notice on lawyer Christine Lee from MI5, the U.K.’s domestic intelligence and security agency.(MI5) At the time the alert was issued, she was working as an attorney largely on behalf of members of the British Chinese community. Lee’s work on Anglo-Chinese relations garnered an award in 2019 from then-Prime Minister Theresa May. Wilkes, her son, was a diary manager for Barry Gardiner, a member of Parliament to whom Lee had donated more than 500,000 GBP over five years. The issuance of the alert prompted a barrage of news reports alleging that Lee was a Chinese agent, which she claimed caused her emotional distress. The judgment issued this week notes that Lee received rape and death threats following the issuance of the alert. Lee said the alert led to “irreparable reputational harm” and ended her work on behalf of asylum seekers. Wilkes alleged that he was told by his employer to resign or be dismissed the day the alert was issued. Gardiner denied the claim, and the two later reached a settlement. But the alert forced him to change careers and cost him friendships, Wilkes said. However, the tribunal ruled today that MI5’s warning about Lee’s alleged threat was justified, and that the agency was not responsible for abuses she faced from the media and public. The court was established in 2000 to weigh cases in which public entities, in particular British intelligence agencies, are alleged to have violated individual rights. The decision to dismiss Lee and Wilkes’ claims comes as fears over Chinese efforts to influence politics have gripped Britain. RELATED STORIES EXCLUSIVE: United Front-linked group lauded Yang Tengbo’s links to David Cameron EXCLUSIVE: Alleged Chinese spy tied to Prince Andrew is businessman Yang Tengbo EXPLAINED: What is China’s United Front and how does it operate? On Monday, British officials named Yang Tengbo as the alleged Chinese spy who had been barred from entering the United Kingdom due to national security risks in 2021, confirming an RFA Dec. 13 report. Yang had served as a business adviser to Prince Andrew and, as also was reported by RFA, had connections with former British Prime Ministers David Cameron and Teresa May through his consultancy, the Hampton Group International. British authorities allege Yang plotted to secretly advance Beijing’s interest in the U.K. through his ties to high-profile figures. China’s Foreign Ministry said the UK’s allegation of YangTengbo engaging in espionage was &#8216;ridiculous’ and called on both sides to work towards mutual benefit. Chinese officials have denied the allegations, saying Yang’s work was part of normal exchanges to promote international business. Yang himself had asked British authorities to release his name publicly. “The widespread description of me as a ‘spy’ is entirely untrue,” he said in a statement. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian on Tuesday called the spying allegations against Yang “ridiculous.” Edited by Abby Seiff and Boer Deng We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [New decree keeps associations under control of Vietnam’s Communist Party: Project 88](https://ij-reportika.com/new-decree-keeps-associations-under-control-of-vietnams-communist-party-project-88/): A recently decree that increases restrictions on associations in Vietnam is aimed at ensuring they stay under the control and do not threaten the absolute power of the ruling Communist Party, a new report said Monday. On Nov. 26, Vietnam’s government enacted Decree 126, which makes it more difficult to establish an association and gives the government more power to control and monitor the activities and funding sources of associations once they are up and running. Decree 126 replaces an earlier decree known as Decree 45 and grants the government the power to suspend and dissolve associations in Vietnam — a power it did not have previously. Ben Swanton, co-director of human rights group Project 88, said in a statement accompanying an analysis of the new decree that it is part of “a new wave of repression that is shaping policymaking in a way that will further suppress civil society.” RELATED STORIES Vietnamese NGOs shy from UN engagement fearing government reprisal NGOs Ask EU Parliament to Vote Against EU-Vietnam FTA And IPA Over Human Rights Issues NGOs speak out against Vietnam’s hopes of election to the UN Human Rights Council In issuing Decree 126, Vietnam’s government said the additional restrictions were needed to “ensure party control over associations,” “prevent foreign influence on domestic affairs,” and “clarify the role of associations in policymaking.” “Taken together, the government’s reasons for replacing Decree 45 paint a picture of paranoid leaders who want to tighten their chokehold on associations in the country,” Project 88 said. On July 13, 2023, the Communist Party issued Directive 24, which labels foreign influence a threat to Vietnam’s national security and orders further restrictions on local organizations. The Ministry of Home Affairs named Directive 24 as a driving force behind the need to replace Decree 45 with Decree 126. According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, as of December 2022, there were 71,669 registered associations operating in Vietnam. Student groups, community organizations, and civil society advocacy coalitions, as well as artistic collectives and social clubs, fall within the parameters of the decree, Project 88 said. Contradictions Project 88 said in its analysis that the new decree contradicts both Vietnam’s constitution and international law. “Vietnamese citizens have a constitutional right to free association, which is also guaranteed under international law,” the group said. “But Decree 126 grants the government unfettered authority to stop people from forming associations and to stop associations from operating independently.” The new decree also introduces new controls over the activities of associations, which “can only engage in policy advocacy at the request of the state.” “They must abide by all government regulations, and cannot do anything to harm national security, social order, morality, or the cultural identity of the nation,” Project 88 said. “None of these terms are defined by the decree, leaving it up to the discretion of public officials to determine what precisely constitutes a harm to one of these government interests.” Project 88 said that Decree 126 establishes a database to track the members and activities of all associations permitted to operate in the country, and gives authorities the right to request unlimited information of associations. Latest policy targeting associations The decree is the latest in a series of policy measures targeting associations in Vietnam, Project 88 said. In addition to Directive 24, earlier policies imposed onerous requirements for those that receive foreign funding and required government approval to host a conference related to national sovereignty, security, human rights, ethnicity, or religion. “The fears of the communist party towards an independent civil society have been known for some time,” the report said. “In various fora, the party has expressed concern about the potential for an independent Vietnamese civil society to interfere with the [party’s] control over the country’s internal affairs, particularly with regards to setting government policy.” The group said that a major goal of Decree 126 is “to ensure that associations in Vietnam will remain under state control.” “A related objective is to tighten control over associations as the country further integrates with the international community,” it said. Project 88 called on the Vietnamese government to repeal Decree 126 and Directive 24, and “stop enacting policies &#8230; that impose onerous requirements on associations.” The group also urged the government to stop forcibly closing associations, ensure that associations can engage in policy advocacy without fear of intimidation, and develop training programs to improve the knowledge of officials about freedom of association. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Rebels in Myanmar’s Rakhine state seize another stronghold, shun talks](https://ij-reportika.com/rebels-in-myanmars-rakhine-state-seize-another-stronghold-shun-talks/): Read RFA coverage of these topics in Burmese. Ethnic minority guerrillas in Myanmar’s Rakhine state have seized a major stronghold from the military, a spokesperson for the group said on Monday, another step towards their goal of controlling the entire state, while rejecting a junta call for talks. The Arakan Army, or AA, which is fighting for self-determination in Myanmar’s western-most state, is one of the country’s most powerful forces battling the junta that seized power in 2021. The insurgent force controls about 80% of the state, where China has extensive energy interests, and it fully captured the 12th of the state’s 17 townships before dawn on Saturday. “We managed to seize control of Operational Command Center No. 5 in Toungup township,” said AA spokesperson Khaing Thu Kha. “That means the Arakan Army has been able to completely seize the township.” RFA attempted to contact military spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment but he did not respond by the time of publication. Hours after the insurgents captured the base, the junta chief, Senior General Ming Aung Hlaing, called on the AA and two of its allies to agree to ceasefires and talks to end the war. “You can’t achieve your aims by demanding them through armed conflict, you must come to the political table,” Min Aung Hlaing said in a speech on the 50th anniversary of Rakhine State Day. “I urge you to give up the way of conflict so that we can peacefully solve our problems and arrive at a good path,” he said. RELATED STORIES In viral video, besieged Myanmar troops bemoan lack of support from junta chief EXPLAINED: What is Myanmar’s Arakan Army? Chinese aid cannot overcome Myanmar junta’s declining finances and morale The AA and the two allied groups, both based in Shan state on northwestern Myanmar’s border with China, launched a stunning offensive late last year, seizing large areas from junta troops including major towns and bases. Under pressure from China the two Shan state groups – the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, and Ta’ang National Liberation Army – have recently declared ceasefires and agreed to talks. A delegation from the MNDAA met representatives of the Myanmar military in the Chinese city of Kunming on Sunday, a source close to the military told Radio Free Asia, adding that Chinese officials also attended. But the AA rejected the junta’s call for a ceasefire, Khaing thu Kha said. “I consider it a dishonorable and brazen thing to say because in Myanmar, the military are the real violent ones,” he said. “Nobody in Myanmar supports them … they can not represent Myanmar anymore. The terrorist military should apologize to the public and surrender their weapons as quickly as possible,” Khaing Thu Kha said. The AA spokesman said his forces were closing in on another major military base in Rakhine state, its Western Command near Ann town, while junta forces were defending Gwa, in the far south of the state, with air power and fire from navy vessels, he said. “The situation is good, we can say that we’ll capture it soon,” the AA spokesperson said of the Ann base. Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [An ICC arrest warrant for Myanmar junta chief is too little, too late](https://ij-reportika.com/an-icc-arrest-warrant-for-myanmar-junta-chief-is-too-little-too-late/): There’s occasionally something to be said for symbolic gestures, but I struggle to get too worked up over the news that an International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor has finally applied for an arrest warrant for Min Aung Hlaing, Myanmar’s junta chief. The Nov. 27 . Myanmar Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, inspects officers during a parade to commemorate Myanmar&#8217;s 79th Armed Forces Day, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, March 27, 2024. The French government says it won’t comply with the Netanyahu warrant either because Israel isn’t a member of the ICC. But neither is Myanmar a party to the Rome Statute, so hasn’t Paris just given Min Aung Hlaing a kind of Western-backed immunity? For years the ICC has tried to rid itself of the criticism that it only goes after rulers of poor, internationally-weak nations while ignoring the crimes of first world leaders. Unfortunately, by seeking to prosecute the leaders of Israel and Myanmar in the space of a few weeks, the court may have succeeded in removing that stigma – but at the cost of its credibility and authority. David Hutt is a research fellow at the Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS) and the Southeast Asia Columnist at the Diplomat. He writes the Watching Europe In Southeast Asia newsletter. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of RFA. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [A long-deferred dream realized. My reunion with my mother](https://ij-reportika.com/a-long-deferred-dream-realized-my-reunion-with-my-mother/): Uyghur-American lawyer Nury Turkel hadn’t seen his mother in more than two decades. But she and two other Uyghurs, who were subjected to an exit ban in China, were included in a prisoner swap between the United States and China in November. Here, Turkel relates the story of his long-delayed reunion with his mother. My heart is overwhelmed with joy, relief and renewed hope this holiday season. After more than 20 years of separation, I am finally reunited with my beloved mother here in America. The most precious moment was seeing her embrace her grandchildren for the first time — a long-deferred dream finally realized. For much of my life, holidays like Thanksgiving felt hollow because of our family’s fractured reality. I have always been close to my mother. Our family often joked that I was an only child, although I have three younger brothers. My mother relied on me when she felt stressed or sad. This deep bond traces back to my birth during China’s notorious Cultural Revolution in a Communist reeducation camp. Chinese authorities used this bond to torment me, despite my having lived in America as a free Uyghur for nearly three decades. I had not seen my mother since 2004 and had spent only 11 months with my parents since leaving China 29 years ago. While on a flight from Rome, Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks to the people released by China, November 2024. I was born in 1970 in the midst of unspeakable horrors. My mother had already spent over six months in the camp before my birth. Severely malnourished and suffering from a fractured hip and ankle, she gave birth to me while in a cast from the chest down. We lived under dire conditions, marked by scarce food and constant surveillance. I was malnourished and frail, a living testament to my mother’s suffering. The first several months of my life were spent in detention alongside her. We were starved, isolated and stripped of our dignity. Yet, through it all, her resilience and unwavering strength sustained me through the darkest times. In the summer of 1995, driven by a long-standing admiration for freedom in America and inspired by the end of the Cold War, I arrived in the United States as a student and was later granted asylum. Witnessing the collapse of former Soviet blocs, including Central Asia regions with deep cultural, historical and geographical ties to the Uyghur people, reinforced my desire for freedom and higher education. Despite my life as a free American and four years as a U.S. official, the past continued to haunt me. I endured years of sanctioned isolation, unable to be there when my father passed away in 2022. The Chinese government’s retaliation intensified, barring my mother from traveling and isolating her socially. My mother, facing severe health issues, remained under constant surveillance and travel restrictions. These are common sufferings and struggles for countless Uyghurs around the world. I have been sanctioned by both China and Russia for what appears to be retaliation against my service in the U.S. government and decades-long human rights advocacy work. Every attempt to reunite us was blocked, and my mother’s deteriorating health intensified the urgency. Yet, our determination to be together never wavered. On the eve of Thanksgiving, a miracle unfolded. Three days before her arrival in America, security officials in Urumqi notified my mother that she would need to get ready to go to Beijing at 4 a.m. the next day. She had about 20 hours to prepare for this trip. It was a journey she had longed for with hope and prayer for over two decades. In her final hours in China, she visited my father’s grave to say goodbye one last time, honoring their shared history and fulfilling a deeply personal need for closure before embarking on her long-awaited journey. They had been married for 53 years, sharing countless memories, from raising a family to weathering life’s challenges with unwavering love and commitment. On the night of Nov. 24, around the same time Chinese security informed my mother about the trip to Beijing, I received a call from the White House notifying me about developments I would learn more about the next day at a pre-planned meeting with a senior National Security Council official. I woke up my wife and children and shared the news. I felt relieved, excited and deeply grateful. Early on Thanksgiving morning, while driving to Dulles Airport for my flight to Texas where I was to meet my mother, I received a call from a U.S. official who put her on the phone. “Son, I am on a U.S. government plane and free,” she said. “I don’t know what to say. So happy beyond words.” For so long, I lived with the constant fear that one day I might receive the unthinkable news of my mother’s imprisonment — or worse — just as I lost my father over two years ago. But when I heard my mother’s voice, hope prevailed, and the long-held darkness lifted. That fear and the unthinkable are no longer part of my life. At the U.S. Joint Base in San Antonio, Texas, I watched my mother descend the plane’s stairs, supported by a U.S. diplomat and greeted by a military commander in uniform. A wave of emotions washed over me, and I ran toward my mother. We embraced, tears streaming down our faces, overwhelmed by the reality of our long-awaited reunion. Her first words — “Thank God I’m here with you, and I won’t be alone when I die” — shattered and mended my heart all at once. This has been more than a reunion. It’s the restoration of a piece of my soul. Words cannot fully express my gratitude. On Thanksgiving morning, my brother, who had flown with me to Texas, and I brought our mother to Washington. Watching her embrace her grandchildren for the first time was a moment of incredible joy and healing. Though my father...
- [South Korea votes to impeach President Yoon over failed martial law bid](https://ij-reportika.com/south-korea-votes-to-impeach-president-yoon-over-failed-martial-law-bid/): South Korea’s National Assembly voted on Saturday to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol over his failed bid to impose martial law, to the delight of a huge crowd of anti-Yoon protesters outside the legislature.
- [Hong Kong verdict against Yuen Long attack victims prompts widespread criticism](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-verdict-against-yuen-long-attack-victims-prompts-widespread-criticism/): The verdict by a Hong Kong court has generated widespread criticism after it found seven people &#8212; including former lawmaker Lam Cheuk-ting &#8212; guilty of “rioting” when they tried to stop white-clad men wielding sticks from attacking passengers at a subway station in 2019. Exiled former pro-democracy lawmaker Ted Hui, who like Lam is a member of the Democratic Party, accusing authorities of “rewriting history.” “It’s a false accusation and part of a totally fabricated version of history that Hong Kong people don’t recognize,” Hui told RFA Cantonese after the verdict was announced on Dec. 12. “How does the court see the people of Hong Kong?” he asked. “How can they act like they live in two separate worlds?” The District Court found Lam and six others guilty of “taking part in a riot” by as dozens of thugs in white T-shirts rained blows down on the heads of unarmed passengers &#8212; including their own &#8212; using rattan canes and wooden poles at Yuen Long station on July 21, 2019. Lam, one of the defendants in the subversion trial of 47 activists for holding a democratic primary, is also currently serving a 6-years-and-9-month prison sentence for “conspiracy to subvert state power.” Wearing a cycle helmet, Galileo, a pseudonym, left, tries to protect Stand journalist Gwyneth Ho, right, during attacks by thugs at Yuen Long MTR, July 21, 2019 in Hong Kong. “I was panicky and scared, and my instinct was to protect myself and others,” he said. According to Galileo, Lam’s actions likely protected others from also being attacked. “I felt that his presence made everyone feel calmer, because he was a member of the Legislative Council at the time,” he said of Lam’s role in the incident. “He kept saying the police were coming, and everyone believed him, so they waited, but the police never came.” Police were inundated with emergency calls from the start of the attacks, according to multiple contemporary reports, but didn’t move in until 39 minutes after the attacks began. In a recent book about the protests, former Washington Post Hong Kong correspondent Shibani Mahtani and The Atlantic writer Timothy McLaughlin wrote that the Hong Kong authorities knew about the attacks in advance. Members of Hong Kong’s criminal underworld “triad” organizations had been discussing the planned attack for days on a WhatsApp group that was being monitored by a detective sergeant from the Organized Crime and Triad Bureau, the book said. Chased and beaten According to multiple accounts from the time, Lam first went to Mei Foo MTR station to warn people not to travel north to Yuen Long, after dozens of white-clad thugs were spotted assembling at a nearby chicken market. When live footage of beatings started to emerge, Lam called the local community police sergeant and asked him to dispatch officers to the scene as soon as possible, before setting off himself for Yuen Long to monitor the situation in person. On arrival, he warned some of the attackers not to “do anything,” and told people he had called the police. Eventually, the attackers charged, and Lam and others were chased and beaten all the way onto a train. One of the people shown in that early social media footage was chef Calvin So, who displayed red welts across his back following beatings by the white-clad attackers. So told RFA Cantonese on Friday: “The guys in white were really beating people, and injured some people &#8230; I don’t understand because Lam Cheuk-ting’s side were spraying water at them and telling people to leave.” He described the verdict as “ridiculous,” adding: “But ridiculous things happen every day in Hong Kong nowadays.” Erosion of judicial independence In a recent report on the erosion of Hong Kong judicial independence amid an ongoing crackdown on dissent that followed the 2019 protests, law experts at Georgetown University said the city’s courts now have to “tread carefully” now that the ruling Chinese Communist Party has explicitly rejected the liberal values the legal system was built on. RELATED STORIES EXPLAINED: What is the Article 23 security law in Hong Kong? Hong Kong police ‘knew about’ Yuen Long mob attacks beforehand EXPLAINED: Who are the Hong Kong 47? Nowadays, Hong Kong’s once-independent courts tend to find along pro-Beijing lines, particularly in politically sensitive cases, according to the December 2024 report, which focused on the impact of a High Court injunction against the banned protest anthem “Glory to Hong Kong.” “In our view, at least some judges are issuing pro-regime verdicts in order to advance their careers,” said the report, authored by Eric Lai, Lokman Tsui and Thomas Kellogg. “The government’s aggressive implementation of the National Security Law has sent a clear signal to individual judges that their professional advancement depends on toeing the government’s ideological line, and delivering a steady stream of guilty verdicts.” Translated with additional reporting by Luisetta Mudie. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar border with China in northern rebel zone to reopen - group says](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-border-with-china-in-northern-rebel-zone-to-reopen-group-says/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. The border between Myanmar and China in an area controlled on the Myanmar side by ethnic minority guerrillas is to reopen, the rebel group said on Friday, allowing for a resumption of trade including the export to China or rare earth minerals. Myanmar’s Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, and authorities in China have both closed the border in Myanmar’s northern-most state in recent weeks, as the insurgents have seized crossing points from the Myanmar military and Chinese authorities have banned cross-border movements in the hope of stopping the fighting. Representatives of the ethnic Kachin insurgent force, one of the most powerful groups fighting the Myanmar junta that seized power in 2021, met officials in the Chinese city of Kunming on Thursday to discuss the border, said a KIA spokesman. “It’s true that the border gates are being opened,” KIA Information Officer Naw Bu told Radio Free Asia, adding that he did not have details of the talks in Kunming. Residents on the border said that while gates on both sides had been opened, vehicles had yet to resume crossing and it was not clear when they would. The Chinese embassy in Myanmar did not respond to inquiries from RFA. RELATED STORIES Kachin, Shan residents face hardships as China and Myanmar block trade China undermines its interests by boosting support for Myanmar’s faltering junta Myanmar rebels capture border base near Chinese rare-earth mining hub The KIA seized five major crossing points from junta forces in recent weeks, taking full control of the border with China in its areas of operations after capturing important rare-earth and jade-mining centers, which export their output to China. Residents of Kachin state, on the other hand, import a wide range of consumer goods and essentials from China, including fuel, and border closures have brought hardships. China is pressing insurgent groups in northern and northeastern Myanmar to make peace with the military and it has closed its border in places controlled by insurgents on the Myanmar side to press them into talks. In October, China refused to let civilians fleeing fighting take refuge on its side of the border. The KIA responded with its own border closure, stopping the export of rare earths. Hla Kyaw Zaw, a Myanmar political analyst based in China, later told RFA that businessmen with interests in Kachin state’s mines had appealed to Chinese authorities to get the border open again. Two insurgent forces in Shan state, to the southeast of Kachin state, have agreed to ceasefires and negotiations with the junta in recent days but the KIA is locked in fierce fighting to capture the major Kachin state town of Bhamo from junta forces. A resident of the Kachin state border town of Pang War said the crossing with China was open but vehicle traffic had yet to resume. “The gates on both sides have been opened,” said the resident, who declined to be identified for security reasons. “But so far today they haven’t let cars pass. Let’s see what happens tomorrow.” Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [EXPLAINED: Why are leaflets protesting North Korea dropped in Japan?](https://ij-reportika.com/explained-why-are-leaflets-protesting-north-korea-dropped-in-japan/): Read a version of this story in Korean An organization dedicated to advocating for South Koreans abducted by North Korea plans to air-drop anti-North Korean leaflets in Tokyo on this week. Specifically, the group plans to use drones to drop the leaflets &#8212; containing photos and stories of some of the 516 South Koreans kidnapped by North Korea over the years &#8212; over the headquarters of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, which many regard as Pyongyang’s de facto embassy there. North Korea doesn’t have an embassy in Japan because the two countries don’t have formal diplomatic ties. What’s the goal of this tactic? The group is doing this because staffers at the headquarters of the pro-North Korean organization &#8212; also, abbreviated to Chongryon (in Korean) or Chosen Soren (in Japanese) &#8212; refused to accept a hand-delivered list of abductees, according to Choi Sung-ryong, the head of the South Korea-based Association of the Families of Those Abducted by North Korea. Choi said that dropping the leaflets on Chongryon headquarters is like sending them directly to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un &#8212; and he hopes that his efforts can prompt Pyongyang to acknowledge that it has abducted many South Koreans over the years. Choi said he would continue to distribute leaflets until this happens. “The leaflets include a request to quickly confirm whether the abductees are alive or dead,” said Choi. “We are asking Kim Jong Un to quickly confirm the fate of 516 family members. That’s why we’re protesting.” Zainichi Koreans in Japan pray for the late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il during a memorial service at a Korean cultural center in Tokyo on Dec. 29, 2011, shortly after his death. Its rival organization is the South Korea-aligned Korean Residents Union in Japan, referred to colloquially in Japanese and Korean using the abbreviation Mindan. Both organizations advocate for Zainichi Koreans living in Japan &#8212; which for most of the second half of the 20th century was the largest minority in the country, and is now the third largest. What does Zainichi mean exactly? In Japanese, it literally means “staying in Japan.” Today, there are hundreds of thousands of zainichi Koreans who live in Japan &#8212; they have been living there for generations, but for one reason or another they have not acquired Japanese citizenship. The history behind this is that when World War II ended in 1945, there were around 2.4 million Koreans in Japan, and while most of them returned to Korea over the next few months, around 640,000 stayed behind. A group of Japanese and zainichi Koreans stage a protest against Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara&#8217;s anti-foreigner remarks, in front of the Tokyo metropolitan government office April 12, 2000. Japan became party to several international human rights covenants in the 1980s and since the post-war period there has been a general change in mainstream Japanese attitudes towards minorities. But for much of the early postwar period, the community struggled economically, and community organizations emerged to counter discrimination against Zainichi. The Chosen Soren and Mindan groups have advocated for their rights in Japanese society and preservation of Korean culture and language among the community, including by securing funds from the South and North Korean governments to run schools for Zainichi children. Today, while there is greater acceptance of zainichi Koreans in Japanese society, they still face discrimination. Translated by Leejin J. Chung. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Xi Jinping calls for wider use of Mandarin in China’s border areas](https://ij-reportika.com/xi-jinping-calls-for-wider-use-of-mandarin-in-chinas-border-areas/): TAIPEI, Taiwan – Chinese President Xi Jinping said common Chinese language, or Mandarin, should be “spoken more broadly” in border regions, adding to longstanding concerns about the impact on China’s ethnic minority languages, which some of their speakers say are struggling to survive. China’s borderlands, spanning five provinces and four autonomous regions, including Tibet, Xinjiang Uygur and Inner Mongolia, are culturally and linguistically diverse and have seen opposition to Beijing’s efforts to assimilate ethnic minorities into the majority Han culture. While Mandarin is China’s official language, efforts to promote it have sparked controversy, with critics warning of harm to ethnic languages and cultural identities. “We should continue to deepen efforts on ethnic unity and progress, actively build an integrated social structure and community environment, and promote the unity of all ethnic groups – like pomegranate seeds tightly held together,” said Xi, addressing a Politburo study session on Monday. Xi also said Mandarin, colloquially known as Putonghua, and its writing system should be comprehensively popularized in border regions, and the use of national textbooks compiled under central guidance should be fully implemented, the state-run People’s Daily newspaper reported. He told members of the ruling party’s top policymaking body that it was necessary to guide all ethnic groups in border regions to “continuously enhance their recognition of the Chinese nation, Chinese culture and the Communist Party”. The Chinese leader added that maintaining security and stability was the “baseline requirement” for border governance, noting that efforts should be made to improve social governance, infrastructure and “the overall ability to defend the country and safeguard the border”. China’s Politburo regularly holds sessions, with discussion usually led by an academic – Monday’s session was led by Li Guoqiang, vice-president of the Chinese Academy of History. RELATED STORIES Tibetan language rights advocate under surveillance after release from detention Mandarin speech contests in Tibet are attempts to erase native language, experts say 4 Tibetan teens detained for resisting going to Chinese schools Xi’s latest remarks come amid a broader push in recent years by authorities to promote Mandarin-language education as part of a nationwide effort to assimilate ethnic minorities into the majority Han culture. In Inner Mongolia, the 2020 introduction of Mandarin as the primary language of instruction for core subjects led to widespread protests, school boycotts, and demonstrations by ethnic Mongolians, who fear the erosion of their native language and identity. Similarly, in Tibet, the increasing use of boarding schools where children are taught primarily in Mandarin has been condemned by rights groups as a strategy to weaken Tibetan cultural ties and instill loyalty to Beijing. In Xinjiang, the strict enforcement of Mandarin education has been linked to broader campaigns targeting Uyghur Muslims, including reports of mass detentions and forced assimilation – which Beijing denies – raising alarm over the systematic suppression of Uyghur language and traditions. On Dec. 28, 2021, China’s Ministry of Education, the National Rural Revitalization Bureau and the National Language Commission issued a plan to promote Mandarin. By 2025, it aims for Mandarin to be spoken and understood in 85% of the country as a whole and in 80% of rural areas. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [China demolishes prominent Xinjiang building owned by Uyghur activist in US](https://ij-reportika.com/china-demolishes-prominent-xinjiang-building-owned-by-uyghur-activist-in-us/): A symbolically important building in Xinjiang’s capital that was instrumental in the emergence of Uyghur entrepreneurs and businesspeople in the 1990s has been demolished, Radio Free Asia has learned. Authorities destroyed the Rebiya Kadeer Trade Center in Urumqi on Nov. 29, said Zumret Dawut, a Uyghur internment camp survivor now in the United States, citing sources from inside China’s far-western region of Xinjiang. The building had been shuttered for 15 years. Other sources in Xinjiang, including police officers and a tourism worker, confirmed the demolition, and satellite photos show debris where the building once stood on a corner of downtown Urumqi, near the Grand Bazaar. Built in 1990, the seven-story Rebiya Kadeer Trade Center, including the adjacent Akida Trade Center, was a 30,000-square-meter (323,000-square-foot) space with over 600 shops, conference rooms, wedding halls, classrooms and hotel rooms. Besides promoting the development of Uyghur entrepreneurs, the center became a meeting place for intellectuals, a training ground for young researchers and a starting point for philanthropists. The red arrow points to the Rebiya Kadeer Trade Center in Urumqi, capital of northwestern China&#8217;s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Sept. 9, 2009. Dawut’s sources told her that the building was imploded. She also said she closely monitored Chinese state media and social media platforms, including Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, for more information or videos, but found nothing. Strict security measures were implemented the day the building was torn down, Dawut learned from her sources, and the road where the trade center was located and surrounding streets were placed under surveillance. Before authorities destroyed the trade center, they distributed notices about closing nearby shops and buildings and restricted access to tourist sites. “I was told that the store owners were instructed to keep their shops closed on the day of the demolition, and no one was allowed in the area,” she said. When RFA contacted police and other officials in Urumqi about the building’s fate, most warned that the topic was sensitive and declined to answer questions when Kadeer’s name was mentioned. ‘Sensitive topic’ A police officer at the Urumqi Ghalibiyat Police Station said the situation was normal and that foreign tourists could visit the area around the Grand Bazaar, but he did not deny the building’s demolition. RELATED STORIES Sister of Uyghur Rights Advocate Rebiya Kadeer Confirmed to Have Died After Release From Detention ‘More Than 30’ Relatives of Uyghur Exile Leader Rebiya Kadeer Detained in Xinjiang Uyghur Leader’s Family Evicted World Cannot Turn a Blind Eye: Rebiya Kadeer China Frees Rebiya Kadeer “The Grand Bazaar can still be toured, and the museums are open for visits,” the officer said. “However, there is no longer a Rebiya Trade Center. You can’t refer to it by that name at this moment. It’s a sensitive topic.” When asked why the building was demolished, the officer said she and others at the police station had heard something about it but could not provide details because of the topic’s sensitivity. A duty officer at the city police’s external affairs department said the Kadeer building was demolished on Nov. 29 by municipal construction workers. But she said she did not have further information. A staff member from a tourism agency in Urumqi also confirmed the center’s destruction. “The Rebiya Kadeer Trade Center has already been demolished,” she said. “I haven’t been there since it’s in ruins, and everything is a mess.” A government worker in Urumqi who declined to give his name said authorities tried to carry out the demolition as quietly as possible, but the sound of the building imploding and police presence on surrounding streets created more fear in the already uneasy city. A view of the facade of the Rebiya Kadeer Trade Center in Urumqi, capital of northwestern China&#8217;s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Sept. 9, 2009. An officer from the Nanhu Police Station near the Kadeer building who was on duty around the Grand Bazaar on Nov. 29 suggested that others’ accounts were exaggerated and noted that few policemen were needed during the demolition because Urumqi’s streets are filled with surveillance cameras. “The demolition was carried out without causing any panic,” she said. 1999 arrest When Kadeer lived in Xinjiang, she was politically active and held positions in China’s National People’s Congress in Beijing and in other political bodies prior to her arrest in Urumqi in 1999 while en route to a meeting with a U.S. Congressional staff delegation. Chinese authorities accused her of sending confidential internal reports to her husband, who at the time worked as a broadcaster for Radio Free Asia and Voice of America in the U.S. Kadeer was released on medical parole in 2005 and fled to the United States, where she took on leadership positions in overseas Uyghur organizations, including the World Uyghur Congress. After deadly unrest between Muslim Uyghurs and Han Chinese in Urumqi in July 2009, Chinese authorities accused Kadeer, who was not present at the time, of being an instigator of the turmoil, and permanently shuttered her trade center. Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Did a Chinese tabloid publish a front-page story about Bashar al-Assad’s fall?](https://ij-reportika.com/did-a-chinese-tabloid-publish-a-front-page-story-about-bashar-al-assads-fall/): A photo of what appears to be a front page of a newspaper emerged in Chinese-language social media posts that claim it shows coverage of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad by China’s state-run tabloid, the Global Times. But the claim is false. The photo has been digitally doctored. The original photo shows a Global Times report about former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein published in 2003. The photo was shared online about Syria on Dec. 7, citing a statement from the Syrian Presidential Palace denying claims that Assad had left Damascus. The phrase “Why Bashar is not alarmed” was not used in the article’s title or body. Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Taejun Kang. Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Arakan Army takes fight to Myanmar’s western command in bid to control Rakhine state](https://ij-reportika.com/arakan-army-takes-fight-to-myanmars-western-command-in-bid-to-control-rakhine-state/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. Arakan rebels are fighting within the borders of the junta’s Western Military Command headquarters in Myanmar’s Rakhine state after having taken control of nearby Ann township last week, residents said Tuesday. The Arakan Army, or AA, is fighting for self-determination in Myanmar’s western-most state and has made unprecedented progress over the past year, pushing forces loyal to the junta that seized power in 2021 into a few pockets of territory. On Nov. 30, the AA seized the junta’s last military posts in Ann’s Myo Thit, Lay Yin Kwin, Aut Ywar and Ah Hta Ka neighborhoods, taking complete control of the town, which lies 220 kilometers (135 miles) west of Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw. By Tuesday, AA fighters had penetrated the headquarters of the junta in Rakhine state and the military has responded with aerial strikes and troop reinforcements, a resident of Ann told RFA Burmese. “The AA is now able to break into the western command headquarters and is calling on the remaining troops in the junta’s western command to surrender,” said the resident who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. RELATED STORIES Myanmar’s Arakan Army captures Ann town, focus now on army HQ EXPLAINED: What is Myanmar’s Arakan Army? A year after offensive, rebels control most of Myanmar’s Rakhine state Another resident, who is familiar with the ongoing conflict and also declined to be named, told RFA that junta troops were advancing to the headquarters along the 150-kilometer (93-mile) road connecting Ann northeast to Minbu township “in large numbers,” and had taken up defensive positions along Chinese infrastructure projects. On Nov. 20, the AA captured the town of Toungup in the center of the state, which is on a road hub including a link to the the Kyaukpyu economic zone on the coast, where China is funding a deep-sea port, and has energy facilities including natural gas and oil pipelines running to southern China. Beijing threw its support behind the junta shortly after the 2021 coup and Senior General Min Aung Hlaing’s regime has vowed to protect Chinese interests in Myanmar amid the country’s nearly four-year civil war. Reinforcements en route Meanwhile, residents said that a junta column of about 200 troops is advancing west towards Ann along the road that links it to neighboring Magway region’s Padan township. All the while, the military has been resupplying its troops in the Western Command headquarters with weapons and other supplies by air, they said. Last week, when the AA took control of Ann, sources told RFA that only a few residents had remained in the township and the AA had taken them to safety, leaving the town empty. Attempts by RFA to contact Hla Thein, the junta’s attorney general for Rakhine state, about the fighting in Ann township went unanswered Tuesday, as did efforts to reach AA spokesperson Khaing Thu Kha. The AA, which largely draws its support from Rakhine’s Buddhist majority, has made steady advances over the past year, from the state’s far north on the border with Bangladesh, through central areas to its far south, and it now controls about 80% of it. On Dec. 6, the AA announced that it had taken control of all of the junta’s more than 30 camps in Rakhine, except for the Western Military Command headquarters. Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [What’s Wrong with the Reports? (Part 1)](https://ij-reportika.com/whats-wrong-with-the-reports/): Explore Investigative Journalism Reportika’s comprehensive analysis of global indices and reports, including the World Press Freedom Index, Corruption Perceptions Index, Global Hunger Index, and more. Delve into critical sections such as methodological flaws, unexpected discrepancies, cultural biases, data limitations, and controversies. Our reports challenge assumptions, reveal hidden inaccuracies, and offer insights to foster informed debate.
- [What's Wrong with the World Happiness Report](https://ij-reportika.com/whats-wrong-with-the-world-happiness-report/): The World Happiness Report faces several criticisms, including issues with the Gallup World Poll, which serves as a primary data source. Concerns have been raised about the subjectivity bias in self-reported responses, where people’s perception of happiness can be influenced by cultural norms and expectations.
- [Myanmar to organize election in fewer than half of townships, parties say](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-to-organize-election-in-fewer-than-half-of-townships-parties-say/): Myanmar is expected to organize an election next year in fewer than half of its 330 townships in the first phase of a staggered vote, a political party official said on Tuesday, with an insurgency by anti-junta forces likely to prevent the polls from opening in large parts of the country. The generals who seized power in 2021 are hoping that an election will legitimize their rule and please neighbors, including China. The junta’s opponents say a vote under the military, with the most popular politicians locked up and their parties banned, will be a sham. More than 6,000 people have been killed in Myanmar’s war since the coup and some 21,000 have been jailed, U.N. experts said last week, calling on governments around the world to reject the junta’s election plan. No date has been set for the vote but it is expected this year. The chairman of the Election Commission, Ko Ko, met representatives of political parties in the capital, Naypyidaw, on the weekend to outline arrangements, said Myo Set Thway, general secretary of the People’s Pioneer Party. “He’s saying elections will just be held in places that are already safe and trusted,” Myo Set Thway, who attended the meeting, told Us. He cited the commission chairman as saying voting would be held in 161 of the 330 townships. Myo Set Thway did not say which townships would vote first but large parts of the country, including some central areas, have been rocked by fighting over the past year. Insurgents controlled at least 86 towns as of November, said the Burma News International’s Myanmar Peace Monitor. “He’ll hold the next elections in places that can be made secure, that was the connotation,” Myo Set Thway said, referring to the chairman. A spokesperson for the Election Commission could not immediately be reached for comment. China, with energy pipelines and other economic interests in Myanmar, supports the election and has been pressing ethnic minority insurgents to talk peace with the junta. Votes for the displaced In Myanmar’s last election in 2020, voting was held in 315 out of the 330 townships. The party led by democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi swept that vote, as it did in 2015. The army complained of cheating in 2020 and overthrew Suu Kyi’s government on Feb. 1, 2021. She has been jailed for 27 years. Authorities have effectively barred many parties from the vote, including Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, but 53 have registered, said Ko Ko. Voting will likely take place in Mon state and the Thanintharyi region in the south, Yangon and the Mandalay and Ayeyarwaddy regions, where the military retains strongholds, analysts say. A party leader from war-torn Rakhine state said people displaced by fighting had to be able to vote. “The Election Commission must protect the rights of internally displaced people fleeing from the military and sheltering in areas outside their scope,” said Aye Maung, chairman of the Arakan Front party. The U.N. says more than 3 million people have been displaced by the fighting and by flooding this year. Neighbors will be hoping an election can help to bring stability to resource-rich Myanmar. Thailand, China and India have discussed support for a census now underway and the vote. Edited by Kiana Duncan. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [What's Wrong with the USCIRF Report](https://ij-reportika.com/whats-wrong-with-the-uscirf-report/): Discover the hidden flaws in the USCIRF Annual Report, including strategic biases, methodological gaps, and lack of transparency, which challenge its credibility and impartiality on international religious freedom.
- [What's Wrong with the Global Hunger Index](https://ij-reportika.com/whats-wrong-with-the-global-hunger-index/): "The Global Hunger Index serves as a critical benchmark for global food security, but this investigative report by IJ-Reportika uncovers its methodological flaws. From outdated data to inconsistent scoring, these issues misrepresent nations' progress and obscure systemic challenges, calling for urgent reforms to ensure accuracy and accountability."
- [ What’s Wrong With the World Press Freedom Index](https://ij-reportika.com/whats-wrong-with-the-world-press-freedom-index/): The World Press Freedom Index aims to measure media freedom worldwide, but its reliance on subjective surveys and perceptions often oversimplifies the nuanced realities journalists face. This article delves into its methodological flaws and the need for a more data-driven, context-sensitive approach.
- [What's Wrong With the Corruption Perceptions Index](https://ij-reportika.com/whats-wrong-with-the-corruption-perceptions-index/): Discover the critical flaws in the Corruption Perceptions Index by Transparency International. Learn about its biases, subjective methodology, and the challenges in accurately measuring global corruption levels.
- [Cambodian journalist who reported on illegal logging dies from gunshot wound](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-journalist-who-reported-on-illegal-logging-dies-from-gunshot-wound/): A Cambodian reporter who was shot last week while investigating a forest-clearing operation in a wildlife sanctuary has died from his wounds, his wife told us. Chhoeung Chheng, 63, was shot on Dec. 4 as he rode on a motorbike toward the Boeung Per Wildlife Sanctuary in Siem Reap province. He was taken to Siem Reap Provincial Hospital, where doctors removed a bullet from his abdomen, according to his wife, Chiev Chap. However, doctors were unable to stop the bleeding and he died early Saturday, she told. Chhoeung Chheung, who worked as a journalist for online news outlet Kampuchea Aphivath, had previously reported on the destruction of natural resources in a community forest in the sanctuary. He was shot by unknown persons believed to have been hiding along the road, Chiev Chap told Ij-Reportika last week, citing a conversation with her husband. Police have arrested a suspect on attempted murder charges and have said they believe the shooting stemmed from a personal dispute. Siem Reap provincial court spokesperson Yin Srang told us on Saturday that the suspect has been placed under pre-trial detention. Journalists killed in Cambodia It’s been several years since a journalist has been shot in Cambodia, Nop Vy, executive director for the Cambodian Journalists Alliance Association, or Camboja, told us Khmer last week. Since 1994, at least 15 journalists have been killed in the country, the Cambodian Center for Human Rights said in a statement in October. Twelve of them were working on stories that could have posed a direct threat to powerful Cambodians, the center said. In 2014, journalist Traing Try was fatally shot in northeastern Kratie province as he was traveling with other reporters to investigate illegal logging in the region. “This murder is appalling and demands a strong response,” said Cédric Alviani, the Asia-Pacific bureau director of Paris-based Reporters Without Borders. “We call on Cambodian authorities to ensure that all parties responsible for the attack are severely punished,” he said in a statement. “We also urge the Cambodian government to take concrete actions to end violence against journalists.” Chhoeung Chheng was a person with sound character who always maintained good relations with his neighbors, Chiev Chap said. She urged authorities to sentence the offender to the fullest extent. “How can I accept this murder case? I saw him walking daily in front of me,” she said. “It is really unfair. I don’t know what else to do except to depend on competent authorities.” We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar rebels capture last military post on Bangladesh border](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-rebels-capture-last-military-post-on-bangladesh-border/): Ethnic minority insurgents have captured the last Myanmar military position on the border with Bangladesh after its defenders, including pro-junta militiamen from the mostly Muslim Rohingya community, abandoned the post and fled, the rebel group and residents said. The Arakan Army, or AA, which is fighting for self-determination in Rakhine state, seized the military stronghold known as Border Guard Post No. 5 near the town of Maungdaw on Sunday, the group said. “The Arakan army successfully captured and neutralized the last remaining outpost … in the Maungdaw region,” it said in a statement. Junta forces and members of Rohingya militia raised by the junta to battle the AA were trying to flee across the Naf River, which forms the border with Bangladesh, “using motorboats and canoes” and launching attacks as they did so, the AA said. “Clashes are still occurring … Therefore, due to military necessities and public security concerns, all river transportation in the Naf River will be indefinitely suspended,” the group said. Residents of Maungdaw said they were worried about the possibility of a navy boat operating offshore opening fire in retaliation for the AA’s capture of the position. “The AA has captured the entire border with Bangladesh,” said one resident who declined to be identified for safety reasons. “There’s still one junta navy ship … we need to keep that in mind, they can still shoot pretty far with their cannon.” The junta that seized power with the ouster of an elected government in February 2021 has been pushed back by insurgents in several parts of the country over the past year, raising questions about the sustainability of military rule. The capture of the entire border with Bangladesh by one of Myanmar’s most powerful insurgents armies comes days after ethnic minority Kachin insurgents in northern Myanmar, seized control of all of the border with China where its forces operate. ‘Commander captured’ A source close to the AA said the commander of military operations in the area, Brig. Thurein Tun, was among junta forces captured as they were trying to flee after the fall of the base. “He was arrested last night on the road that goes down to the river along with his personal staff, majors, captains and senior police officers,” said the source, who also declined to be identified. RFA tried to telephone the AA spokesperson, Khaing Thu Kha, and the junta spokesperson, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, to ask them about the situation but neither answered calls. Rohingya militia men from groups such as the Rohingya Solidarity Organization, Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army and Arakan Rohingya Army, were among the pro-jutna forces that fled, the AA said. AA fighters were on Monday searching for fleeing junta forces along the Ah Leh Than Kyaw Beach and in various waterways, residents said. The AA draws its support from the state’s Buddhist majority and has a fraught relationship with members of the Muslim minority, particularly since the junta started recruiting Rohingya this year into militias to battle the AA. Human rights investigators said the AA was responsible for killing scores of Rohingya civilians trying to flee from Maungdaw to Bangladesh on Aug. 5, when they were attacked with drones and artillery as the AA intensified its campaign to capture the town. The AA denied responsibility. The AA controls about 80% of Rakhine state – 10 of its 17 townships and one in neighboring Chin state. In townships it does not control, it has pinned junta forces into pockets of territory, such as the state capital, Sittwe, a military headquarters in the town of Ann and the Kyaukpyu economic zone on the coast where China has energy facilities and wants to build a deep-sea port. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Is Laos actually tackling its vast scam Industry?](https://ij-reportika.com/is-laos-actually-tackling-its-vast-scam-industry/): In early August, the authorities in Laos delivered an ultimatum to scammers operating in the notorious Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone: Clear out or face the consequences. On Aug. 12, the Lao police, supported by their Chinese counterparts, swooped in. Some 711 people were arrested during the first week. Another 60 Lao and Chinese nationals were arrested by the end of the month, and more arrests have been made since. The way Vientiane frames it, Laos is now getting tough on the vast cyber-scamming industry that has infested much of mainland Southeast Asia. In Laos, the sector could be worth as much as the equivalent of 40 percent of the formal economy, according to a United States Institute of Peace report earlier this year. The think tank estimated that criminal gangs could be holding as many as 85,000 workers in slave-like conditions in compounds in Laos. People in Laos tell me there is some truth to Vientiane’s assertions. This might have been why Laos was downgraded to Tier 2 on the U.S. State Department’s annual human trafficking ranking in July, while Myanmar and Cambodia were downgraded to the lower Tier 3. According to one expert, “Laos is taking this issue more seriously than Cambodia and has more capacity to respond than Myanmar.” An apparent call center in Laos is raided by authorities, Aug. 9, 2024. However, Vientiane would care if scammers are now merely set up shop elsewhere in Laos. One source tells me that they are already embedding themselves in the capital and near the Laos-China border. Depending on how things play out, Laos might end up with a diffuse scam industry that’s structured a lot more like Cambodia’s — and which is far harder to dismantle. Dispersing the scam compounds means increasing contacts between the criminals and officials from other provinces. Less sophisticated syndicates mean more of the scamming profits stay in-country, laundered through the local economy, infecting everything. Narco-states like Mexico and Colombia have learned the brutal lesson that it’s simpler to deal with an illegal industry run by one dominant cartel, even one you have to tolerate, rather than a scorched-earth free-for-all between many warring factions. Possibly, a similar impulse may be why Vientiane seemingly wants to push Zhao and his associates enough for some smaller operators to flee the country, but not enough that the Golden Triangle SEZ collapses. David Hutt is a research fellow at the Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS) and the Southeast Asia Columnist at the Diplomat. He writes the Watching Europe In Southeast Asia newsletter. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of RFA. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [INTERVIEW: An Ex-FBI agent helps unravel the mysteries of a spy swap](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-an-ex-fbi-agent-helps-unravel-the-mysteries-of-a-spy-swap/): A secret deal between the US and China announced in November allowed Chinese nationals to be freed in exchange for the release of several Americans imprisoned in China. One of the Chinese nationals who was freed, Xu Yanjun, had been serving a 20-year sentence. He had worked for China’s Ministry of State Security. One of the Americans in China, John Leung, reportedly an FBI informant, had been held in prison for three years. Two other Americans, Kai Li, also accused of providing information to the F.B.I., and Mark Swidan, a Texas businessman, were freed at the same time. In addition, Ayshem Mamut, the mother of human-rights activist Nury Turkel, and the two other Uyghurs were allowed to leave China. They all traveled on the same plane to the United States. Holden Triplett, the co-founder of a risk-management consultancy, Trenchcoat Advisors, has served as the head of the FBI office in Beijing and as director of counterintelligence at the National Security Council. Here, he weighs in on the high-stakes game of exchanging spies. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Interviewer: Spy swaps have a long history. What was it like in the past? Holden Triplett: During the Cold War, there were a lot of spy swaps. It’s kind of a normal way of interacting between two rival powers. But it was always Russia, or the Soviet Union, and the United States. It’s not something that China had typically engaged in in the past. Interviewer: Why would China, or any country, be interested in a spy swap? Holden Triplett: China would be very interested in getting back the individuals who’d worked for them. The longer they’re in prison in the U.S., the more chance they’re going to divulge information about what they’ve done. Also, the Chinese want to be able to say to the people who work for them, ‘Hey, we may put you in dangerous situations. But, don’t worry, if anything happens, we’ll get you back home.’ The down side for the Chinese, of course, is that it’s an implicit acknowledgement of what they’ve been doing. In the past, they’ve denied that they’re [engaged in espionage]. Interviewer: And for the U.S? Holden Triplett: The idea is the same; We get our spies back. It’s more of a game, I guess you could say. There’s a bit more protection for spies than for others. They get arrested, but they don’t serve time. And so, spying on each other is made into a regularized affair. My concern is that the Chinese say, ‘Now that we’ve established this kind of exchange, people for people, now all we need to know to do now is pick up some more Americans and arrest them.’ Then, the Chinese can try and bargain with the U.S. for their release. We’ve already seen that in Russia with Brittney Griner [an American basketball player who was imprisoned in Russia]. Look at who the Russians got back – Viktor Bout [a Russian arms dealer found guilty of conspiring to kill Americans]. The Russians have wanted him for decades. Nothing against Ms. Griner, but that is a pretty easy decision-making process. They pick up somebody who has star power, and they can get someone they want back. If China’s gotten that message, then Americans should be concerned about going to China. They could become a chip in a larger geopolitical game. There’s a possibility that they could get arrested and end up in a nightmare jail. Interviewer: Well, they say you’re not supposed to negotiate with &#8211; Holden Triplett: &#8211; with terrorists. Look, I think the U.S. is in a really difficult place. There’s pressure on the U.S. government from the families to get them back. Interviewer: Several Uyghurs were also released. What is the significance of that? Holden Triplett: I would assume the Chinese got something for this. They’re very transactional. They’re not doing something for the good of the relationship between the U.S. and China. Interviewer: It didn’t seem as though John Leung, who’d been held in a Chinese prisoner, was an important asset for the FBI. What do you think was behind this? Holden Triplett: I don’t know what role he played for the FBI, or even if that’s true. But regardless, the message from the bureau is: Don’t worry. Even if you’re doing dangerous work, we will protect you. We will come and get you. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative ReportsDaily ReportsInterviews Surveys Reportika
- [Lao teen says she’s been released from Chinese scam center in Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/lao-teen-says-shes-been-released-from-chinese-scam-center-in-myanmar/): A young woman who was forced to work at a Chinese-run scam center in Myanmar for two years is now in Thailand and expects to return to Laos soon. Last week, Radio Free Asia reported that the woman, who withheld her name out of fear of reprisals, was one of several Laotians trafficked to work as scammers at a place called “Casino Kosai” in an isolated development near the town of Myawaddy in Kayin state. Casino Kosai is in an area near the Thai border where ethnic Karen rebels have been engaged in intense fighting with military junta troops in recent months. It was unclear exactly how the young woman, who just turned 19, had gained her release, but her mother said that scam center operators had agreed to let her go. “It is the happiest moment in my life as soon as I heard from my daughter that the Chinese bosses would release her,” her mother said. “She was preparing to pack her belongings and the car would come to pick her up.” The woman told Radio Free Asia that she faced beatings whenever she failed to scam potential victims. “The Chinese bosses hit me and torture me every day,” she said in a text message. “Why isn’t anybody coming to help me?” The woman’s mother said her daughter was initially promised a factory job in Thailand, but was later sold to the Chinese scam gang and brought to Myanmar. She said her daughter told her about the abuse at the scam center and about working up to 19 hours a day. “I have no idea what to do to bring my daughter back home,” said the mother. “The Chinese bosses use cattle prods to torture her if she doesn’t do her job well.” The young woman told RFA Lao in a voice message that she arrived in Mae Sot on Wednesday, adding that she was unsure when she would continue on to Laos. On Friday, the woman told RFA that she was staying at a police station in Thailand’s Mae Sot district. RFA Lao spoke about the woman’s case with an official from the Lao Ministry of Public Security, who said that rescuing people from scam centers in areas in Myanmar that are not under junta control “is very difficult,” adding that there was little the Lao government could do about the situation. RFA was unable to reach Thai police in Mae Sot to ask for more information. Translated by Phouvong. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Dissident US monk faces terrorism charge in Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/dissident-us-monk-faces-terrorism-charge-in-myanmar/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. A Myanmar court has charged a dissident Buddhist monk, who is also a U.S. citizen, with terrorism, which carries a sentence of up to life in prison, as well as other charges used by the military to crush dissent, sources said on Friday. Pinnya Jawta, the 60-year-old abbot of a monastery in Buffalo, New York, returned to Myanmar in November on a religious visit. A former political prisoner, he took part in anti-military protests in 2007 known as the Saffron Revolution, and in earlier activism against military rule. Senior monks appointed by the authorities to oversee the Buddhist clergy had ordered him to disrobe, so he appeared in the Mingaladon court in Myanmar’s main city of Yangon in ordinary clothes on Thursday to hear the charges, a lawyer observing the case said. “Depending on the circumstances of the case, section 50-J is punishable by a minimum of 10 years up to a life sentence,” said the lawyer, referring to the most serious charge levelled, which is used against those suspected of funding, organizing or participating in terrorism or harboring terrorists. He was also charged under section 505-A of the Penal Code, which is an incitement charge used to punish anyone deemed to have encouraged members of the civil service or security forces to mutiny, said the lawyer, who declined to be identified in fear or reprisals by the authorities. It has been used against numerous opponents of military rule since the generals ousted an elected government in February 2021. The third charge was under section 66-D of the Communications Act, which covers defamation. Rights groups say the law is incompatible with international human rights law and standards and is used to limit freedom of speech. Since the monk did not have a lawyer, he was not able to defend himself at Thursday’s hearing, the lawyer said. The U.S. embassy in Myanmar did not immediately respond to a request for comment. RELATED STORIES Rubio as US top diplomat could be a win for Southeast Asian human rights International criminal court seeks arrest warrant for Myanmar junta chief Junta chief vows to complete Myanmar census by year-end &#8212; then hold elections Myanmar has been in turmoil since the long-ruling military ended a decade of reform in 2021 and ousted an elected government led by democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi. She and hundreds of political colleagues and supporters have been locked up while democracy activists have taken up arms and joined ethnic minority insurgent groups battling the military. U.N. experts said on Monday the world must pay more attention to Myanmar’s civil war and work harder to deny the military junta access to the weapons it has used to carry out a reign of violent terror against its civilian population. Military intelligence officers arrested Pinnya Jawta in Yangon on Nov. 13. He was later transferred to the city’s infamous Insein Prison, sources close to him told RFA. “I know he’s being detained in a cell block at Insein, not a big one,” one of the sources said. “He’s around 60 and he’s also suffering from diabetes.” He entered the country on a religious visa issued by the Myanmar embassy in the United States, they said. The Yangon region’s junta spokesperson, Htay Aung, told RFA he did not know about the case. Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Activists tell US Congress of China’s far-reaching cultural erasure](https://ij-reportika.com/activists-tell-us-congress-of-chinas-far-reaching-cultural-erasure/): WASHINGTON &#8211; A campaign by China’s government to rewrite the cultural identity and history of the country’s minority ethnic groups and political dissidents is increasingly being waged on American shores, activists told a U.S. congressional hearing on Thursday. The Tibetan, Uyghur, Mongolian and Chinese activists said that while the United States once stood as a bastion of free speech and a redoubt of cultural preservation for groups targeted by the Chinese Communist Party, many now feared Beijing’s extensive reach. Rishat Abbas, the president of the U.S.-based Uyghur Academy, told the hearing of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China that his sister Gulshan had been jailed in China on a 20-year sentence due to his and other family member’s anti-government activism abroad. RELATED STORIES Students banned from speaking Tibetan in Sichuan schools Hong Kongers self-censor out of fear, says sacked Tiananmen scholar US officials call for release of detained retired Uyghur doctor The U.S. government says China’s government is carrying out a “genocide” against the mostly Muslium Uyghur minority in the country’s far-west. Many Uyghurs abroad actively campaign to end the genocide and to do what they can to preserve their language and culture. But many look to the treatment of the family members, still trapped in China, of those Uyghurs who choose to speak out, and decide it’s safer not to provoke the Chinese Communist Party, even from abroad. “My sister’s imprisonment is a clear action of retaliation,” he said. “Her detention exposes the CCP’s aggressive policies that target Uyghurs simply for their identity and for the activism of their relatives abroad.” “She has never engaged in any form of advocacy in her life,” he said. Abbas said he was nonetheless not deterred, and hoped to one day bring a Uyghur-language textbook developed in the United States back to China’s Xinjiang region, where Uyghurs live under surveillance. Lawfare It’s not only Uyghur immigrants who have been targeted. In years gone by, American higher education institutions like Stanford University fearlessly curated U.S.-based historical archives about events censored by the Chinese government, said Julian Ku, a constitutional law professor at New York’s Hofstra University. But things have changed. Ku pointed to a lawsuit brought in the United States by the Beijing-based widow of the late Li Rui – a former secretary to Mao Zedong and later dissident who donated diaries to Stanford. Stanford says Li Rui donated the diaries through his daughter, fearing that they would be destroyed by Chinese officials if left in China. But Li Rui’s widow says they are rightfully hers and wants them returned. The widow, Ku explained, was inexplicably being represented by “some of the most expensive law firms in the United States,” and had likely already racked up legal fees in the “hundreds of thousands of dollars – and probably more – on a widow’s Chinese state pension.” Describing the tactic as “lawfare,” he suggested that the widow had powerful backers funding the battle, who may not even care if the litigation is ultimately successful. The nearly four years of costly legal battles sent a message to other U.S. universities, museums or nonprofits to avoid any contentious documents that might attract the attention of Beijing, Ku said. “They might think, ‘Well, maybe I don’t want to acquire that one, because it might subject me to litigation in China and maybe litigation here in the United States,” he said. “It serves as a deterrence for universities, museums and other institutions in the United States.” Living in fear Like Uyghurs, many ethnically Han Chinese in America also fear speaking out against Beijing even while in the United States, said Rowena He, a historian of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing who was last year banned from entering Hong Kong. “It’s very difficult to not to be emotional being in this room again because I remember 5-10 years ago, when I was first invited to testify to Congress,” He recalled. “I was extremely hesitant, because I was so concerned about my family members, and I was so worried.” “I lived with fear ever since the day I started teaching and researching the topic of Tiananmen,” she explained, citing the “taboo” around the topic in China, where the massacre is not openly acknowledged. She said increased funding for curriculums with alternate Chinese histories to the one put forward by Beijing could be one way to counter the “monopoly on historiography” held by China’s government. “If you go to Chinatown, many people are still supporting the CCP, even though they’re physically in the United States,” He said, noting that figures like herself were denigrated as anti-government. “Sometimes people call us ‘underground historians,’ but I do not like the term ‘underground,’” she said. “We are the historians.” Government funding Geshe Lobsang Monlam, a Tibetan monk who authored a 223-volume Tibetan dictionary and helps lead efforts to preserve Tibetan language outside of China, said one of the main obstacles for Tibetans outside China outside of pressure from Beijing was finding needed funds. “Inside Tibet, the young Tibetans have appeared powerless in their ability to preserve and promote their language,” the monk said, pointing to concerted efforts to erase use of the Tibetan language as young Tibetans grow proficient in using Mandarin through smartphones. “If there can be assistance by the United States to help procure technological equipment that can enable those of us in exile to continue our work on preservation of Tibetan culture and language and way of life … that would be very useful for us,” he explained. Temulun Togochog, a 17-year-old U.S.-born Southern Mongolian activist, similarly appealed for more funding for cultural preservation. Temulun Togochog,17, U.S.-born Southern Mongolian activist testifies before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, Dec. 5, 2024. Togochog said while the decreased global focus on the plight of Mongolians in China had allowed her family in the United States to openly teach her about Mongolian culture and their native language with little fear of reprisal, resources were few and far between. Mongolians living in China’s Inner Mongolia...
- [Myanmar’s Arakan Army captures Ann town, focus now on army HQ](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-arakan-army-captures-ann-town-focus-now-on-army-hq/): Insurgents in Myanmar’s Rakhine state have captured the military’s last posts in Ann town and have turned their attention to a nearby army headquarters, residents said on Tuesday, another major step in the rebels’ aim to control the entire state. The Arakan Army, or AA, is fighting for self-determination in Myanmar’s western-most state and has made unprecedented progress over the past year, pushing forces loyal to the junta that seized power in 2021 into a few pockets of territory. Residents of Ann, which is 220 km (135 miles) west of the capital, Naypyidaw, said the AA had seized the junta’s last posts in the Myo Thit, Lay Yin Kwin, Aut Ywar and Ah Hta Ka neighborhoods by Saturday, taking complete control of the town. “The Arakan Army has captured the entire town except the Western Command headquarters,‘’ one resident told Radio Free Asia. “Junta forces from their battalion areas captured by AA have gone to gather at the headquarters and are defending there,” said the resident, who declined to be identified for safety reasons. The military had fired at the advancing insurgents, setting fires in some of the town’s neighborhoods but the extent of the damage was not known, said the resident, adding he had no information about casualties in the fighting. AA fighters were now trying to seize the military headquarters on the southern side of Ann, where the defenders were being supported by extensive airstrikes, residents said. “The junta is protecting the Western Command day and night with massive firing from the air,” said the resident, who declined to be identified for safety reasons. Only a few civilians had remained in Ann and the AA had taken them to safety so the town was now empty, the resident said. “There are people staying in the forest in shelters they’ve made waiting to go home if the situation improves,” the resident said. RFA tried to telephone AA spokesperson Khing Thukha, as well as military council spokesman Hla Thein to ask about the situation but neither of them answered phone calls. RELATED STORIES EXPLAINED: What is Myanmar’s Arakan Army? A year after offensive, rebels control most of Myanmar’s Rakhine state Myanmar rebels capture town on main road to Chinese-built port The AA, which largely draws its support from the state’s Buddhist majority, has made steady advances over the past year, from the state’s far north on the border with Bangladesh, through central areas to its far south, and it now controls about 80% of it. On Nov. 20, the insurgents captured the town of Toungup in the centre of the state, which is on a road hub including a link to the the Kyaukpyu economic zone on the coast, where China is funding a deep-sea port, and has energy facilities including natural gas and oil pipelines running to southern China. Residents said that AA was attacking the military’s Number 5 Operation Command headquarters, to the south of Toungup on the road to the town of Thandwe. In the far south of the state, fighting is getting closer to the junta-controlled town of Gwa township, residents there said. The AA has fully captured 10 of Rakhine state’s 17 townships as well as Paletwa township in neighboring Chin state. Edited by RFA Staff We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Kachin, Shan residents face hardships as China and Myanmar block trade](https://ij-reportika.com/kachin-shan-residents-face-hardships-as-china-and-myanmar-block-trade/): Read a version of this story in Burmese. Closures along Myanmar’s shared border with China have cut off residents of Kachin and Shan states from humanitarian aid and sent the prices of goods skyrocketing, sources from the regions said Monday. Myanmar’s civil war in the aftermath of the military’s Feb. 1, 2021 coup d’etat prompted China to close all its border gates in Kachin state beginning on Oct. 19, and all border crossings in northern Shan state except for Muse township since July. Meanwhile, Myanmar’s junta has imposed restrictions on the transportation of goods to Kachin state from the country’s heartland, as the rebel Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, now controls all 11 of the state’s border gates with China, including the major trade checkpoints of Kan Paik Ti and Lwegel townships. In Shan state, the junta has also restricted the transportation of goods from Muse to areas of the state under the control of ethnic armed groups. The restrictions have left residents of the two border areas, and especially civilians displaced by fighting, feeling the squeeze, sources told RFA Burmese. A civilian sheltering in the Jay Yang camp for the displaced near Kachin’s Laiza township, where the KIA’s headquarters is located, said that between the border closures and junta restrictions on goods transported from the Kachin town of Bhamo and the state capital Myitkyina, “the situation has become dire.” “Residents are enduring severe hardships,” he said. “We are facing an uncertain and bleak future.” The displaced civilian said that the price of food items in Kachin state has risen dramatically, making it difficult for camp residents to afford basic necessities. RELATED STORIES Myanmar junta chief seeks China’s help on border stability Myanmar’s Kachin insurgents take control of their border with China Myanmar rebels seize major border gate near China Nearly all prices have doubled since the border closures, he said, with eggs at 1,000 kyats from 400; a viss (3.5 pounds) of pork at 50,000 kyats from 20,000; a viss of fish at 30,000 kyats from 15,000; a viss of chicken at 40,000 kyats from 20,000; a viss of beef at 60,000 kyats from 30,000; a viss of potatoes at 10,000 kyats from 6,000; and a cup of chili peppers at 3,000 kyats from 1,500. Meanwhile, a liter (.26 gallon) of cooking oil now costs 25,000 kyats, up from 10,000, and a liter of gasoline costs 15,000 kyats, up from 7,000. At the time of publishing, the official exchange rate was 2,100 kyats to the U.S. dollar, while the black market exchange rate was 4,300 kyats per dollar. Prior to the border closures, relief groups had been providing camps for the displaced with rice, oil, salt and chickpeas, but now can only distribute around 30,000 kyats per person, camp residents told RFA. Displaced suffer shortages Residents said that since the KIA seized the Kan Paik Ti border gate on Nov. 20 and Chinese authorities shut down the crossing, food prices had increased in Myitkyina, and the Kachin capital is now enduring a fuel shortage. A resident of the Sha Eit Yang camp for the displaced, located in a KIA-controlled area along the border, told RFA that the gate closures had made life extremely difficult. “There is no work to earn money in the area near our camp, so we can only find jobs far away from the camp,” he said. “With all the border gates closed, we can’t earn any income.” A Chinese flag flies over the border wall between China and Myanmar in Ruili, west Yunnan province on Jan. 14, 2023. Residents said that the TNLA has also blocked the transportation of fuel and food from Nam Hkam to Muse since Sunday, although TNLA spokeswoman Lway Yay Oo insisted that her group had imposed no restrictions on the flow of goods. RFA also tried to contact the junta’s spokesperson and economic minister for Shan state, Khun Thein, for comments on the commodity blockades, but he did not respond. Residents reported that restrictions have caused the prices of goods to “more than double” in Muse and Nam Hkam. Additionally, traders and drivers are out of work due to the closure of trade routes, traders in Muse told RFA. The restrictions imposed by China and Myanmar’s junta have impacted most of the nearly two million people who live in northern Shan state’s 20 townships, residents said. Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Matt Reed. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Insurgents in Myanmar’s Chin state capture four military camps, group says](https://ij-reportika.com/insurgents-in-myanmars-chin-state-capture-four-military-camps-group-says/): By RFA Burmese Ethnic minority insurgents battling Myanmar’s junta in Chin state have captured four camps from the military, killing 15 soldiers, said a spokesman for a rebel force in the northwestern state on the border with India. Conflict has consumed much of the remote Chin hills since the military overthrew an elected government in early 2021, forcing many thousands of villagers over the border into the neighboring Indian state of Mizoram, complicating a tense communal situation there. Fighters from two ethnic Chin insurgent forces, the Chin National Army, or CNA, and the Chinland Defense Force, captured four military camps between the towns of Hakha and Thantlang on Saturday after 10 days of fighting, said Salai Htet Ni, a spokesman for the CNA told Radio Free Asia. “We were able to capture the military council camps above Hakha town, between Hakha and Thantlang towns. Two junta’s captains, including a battalion commander and a police major, were killed in the battle. In addition to that, 11 bodies of soldiers were found and 31 were arrested by our forces,” he said. He said Chin forces suffered no fatalities but six fighters were wounded. He identified the captured camps as Thi Myit, Umpu Puaknak, Nawn Thlawk Bo and Ruavazung. He said the camps were important for the military’s control of the area, which is about 40 kilometers (25 miles) to the east of the border with India. Radio Free Asia tried to contact the military’s main spokesman, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, to ask about the situation but he did not answer phone calls. Salai Htet Ni said Chin forces were continuing to attack other military positions in the area. RELATED STORIES Food shortages reported in rebel-controlled areas of Myanmar’s Chin state Myanmar fighters capture hotly contested northwest town Rebel Chin forces in Myanmar capture town on Indian border Since the 2021 coup, anti-junta forces in Chin state have captured 11 towns, while the Arakan Army, which is based in Rakhine state to the south, has captured two Chin state towns near its border. According to civil society groups, about 200,000 people in the largely Christian state have been displaced by the fighting in Chin state, either to safer places within Myanmar or over the border into India’s Mizoram state. Some Hindu groups in India say the arrival of Christian refugees is exacerbating tensions between Hindus and Christians there. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [China jails journalist Dong Yuyu for 7 years for ‘spying’](https://ij-reportika.com/china-jails-journalist-dong-yuyu-for-7-years-for-spying/): A court in Beijing on Friday handed down a seven-year jail term to prominent journalist and columnist Dong Yuyu after finding him guilty of “espionage” in a trial behind closed doors that ended in July 2023, his family and press associations said. The Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court announced the verdict and sentence in the trial of Dong, 62, on Friday, saying it was based on evidence of his “meetings with Japanese diplomats,” his family told Reuters in a statement. The Japanese diplomat Dong met with was also detained by police, and China’s foreign ministry hit out at “foreign personnel engaged in activities inconsistent with their status in China.” The U.S. National Press Club said Dong, the former deputy head of commentaries at ruling Communist Party newspaper the Guangming Daily, hasn’t been allowed to see or speak with his family since his arrest at Beijing restaurant in February 2022. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists condemned Dong’s sentence. “CPJ condemns the sentencing of Chinese journalist Dong Yuyu to seven years in prison on espionage charges on Friday,” the group said via its X account. “The verdict is a travesty of justice and Dong Yuyu must be reunited with his family immediately.” Security was tight near the court building on Friday, with several police cars parked nearby and officers asking journalists to leave the area, Reuters reported. “Today’s verdict is a grave injustice not only to Yuyu and his family but also to every free-thinking Chinese journalist and every ordinary Chinese committed to friendly engagement with the world,” Dong’s family said in a statement sent to Reuters. The sentence was based on no evidence and “declares to the world the bankruptcy of the justice system in China,” the statement said. Commentator Espionage convictions in Chinese courts can result in sentences of 3-10 years in less severe cases, or life imprisonment in cases deemed more serious by the authorities. A man reads an issue of the Guangming Daily newspaper at a public display window in Beijing, China, June 10, 2020. Tarumi made an immediate protest to the foreign ministry, meeting with Assistant Foreign Minister Wu Jianghao, who told him that the meeting was “irregular.” Tarumi replied that Wu had misrepresented the meeting and objected strongly, with the support of the ambassadors of 13 other countries, according to his account. Eventually, the Japanese diplomat was released. Targeting Japanese diplomats A Beijing-based journalist who declined to be named said China intensified its surveillance of Japanese diplomatic missions following the incident, barring them from taking part in exchange activities as they normally would, and isolating them in their embassy and consulates. More than 700 journalists, academics and NGO workers have signed an online petition on Change.org calling for Dong’s release. Foreign diplomats, journalists and academics are now being scrutinized more closely by the Chinese authorities, and anyone who contacts them could potentially be accused of “espionage” in today’s political climate, the petition said. It said Chinese nationalists had called for the investigation of all former Nieman Fellows from China. Foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a regular news briefing on Friday, when asked to comment on the sentence, that “Chinese judicial organs handle cases strictly in accordance with the law, and illegal and criminal activities will be investigated and prosecuted according to law.” Edited by Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [North Korea bans 2 South Korean dishes](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-bans-2-south-korean-dishes/): North Korea has banned two popular dishes from being sold in restaurants because they are South Korean in origin, residents in the country told Radio Free Asia. It’s the latest example of Pyongyang cracking down on the “invasion” of South Korean culture &#8212; viewed as decadent and capitalist &#8212; into the reclusive communist country. Both dishes &#8212; budae-jjigae, a spicy stew that sometimes includes instant ramen noodles, hot dogs and whatever happens to be on hand, and tteokbokki, steamed rice cakes covered in a spicy sauce &#8212; have been very popular in South Korea for decades. They did not surface in North Korea until 2017, brought over by a restaurateurs attached to a department store operated jointly with Chinese companies, the residents said. Another food popular in the South that recently spread to the North, samgyeopsal, or barbecued pork belly slices, is not yet subject to the ban, they said. In recent years, South Korean culture &#8212; movies and TV shows, clothing and hairstyles, slang, humor and even dance moves &#8212; have been seeping into the North. South Korean TV shows and other media are smuggled into the country on thumb drives and watched widely &#8212; though in secret. In 2020, North Korea passed a law called the Rejection of Reactionary Thought and Culture Act to keep these things from spreading. Now it appears to have its sights on these foods. “Sales of tteokbokki and budae-jjigae at the marketplace have completely stopped since the 15th,” a merchant from the northern province of Ryanggang told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for personal safety. “The city police and the market management office have declared that if anyone is caught secretly selling those foods, their store will be shut down.” She said that restaurant managers who sold the dishes were under investigation, and that police took measures to prevent their sale in a food court at a local department store. “This is not simply a measure taken only in Ryanggang Province, but also to all restaurant networks and market food stands across the country, including Pyongyang,” the merchant said. “People are well aware that the sale of tteokbokki and budae-jjigae is prohibited because they are South Korean foods.” Created by division All three of the dishes appeared in South Korea after the division of the country at the end of World War II and the 1950-53 Korean War that effectively made the division permanent. Budae-jjigae literally means “army base stew,” and was borne out of a time of scarcity in the South. It was made from packaged food items that were past their expiration date, but still edible, such as hot dogs and SPAM, that were discarded by U.S. Army bases and reclaimed by hungry South Koreans out of necessity. These days in the South, the ingredients are procured by more conventional means, at the grocery store or from a wholesaler. Scissors are used to cut samgyeopsal at a Korean barbecue restaurant. At the marketplace, tteokbokki costs 3,000 won (12 US cents) and budae-jjigae costs 6,000 won (25 cents), according to the source. In department stores tteokbokki costs 15,000 won (62 cents) and budae-jjigae costs 24,000 won ($1). For context, rice, considered a luxury in North Korea, costs 9,500 won (43 cents) per kilogram (2.2 pounds). The intellectual said there was considerable opposition from business owners and residents to the crackdown, and many protested that the ban makes no sense when American and Western food items like hamburgers and sandwiches are not targeted by bans. “The position of food vendors and residents is that tteokbokki and budae-jjgae are not just South Korean food, but are also food enjoyed by ethnic Koreans in Yanbian,” he said, referring to the Korean Autonomous prefecture in China, home to an estimated 620,000 residents of Korean descent. “Residents say that there is no ideology in the food, but the authorities are only punishing powerless vendors for no reason.” We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [China probes top military official Miao Hua for ‘serious violations of discipline’](https://ij-reportika.com/china-probes-top-military-official-for-serious-violations/): The ruling Chinese Communist Party has placed Miao Hua, a high-ranking defense official, under investigation for “serious violations of discipline,” a phrase often used to denote an internal party corruption probe. “Miao Hua, member of the Central Military Commission and director of the Political Work Department of the Military Commission, is suspected of serious violations of discipline,” defense spokesperson Col. Wu Qian told a news conference in Beijing on Thursday. “After research by the Party Central Committee, it has been decided to suspend Miao Hua from his duties pending investigation,” Wu said. The announcement came a day after the Financial Times newspaper reported that Admiral Dong Jun, who was named as successor to Li Shangfu in December 2023 after Li was fired for corruption, was himself being investigated for graft. Wu dismissed the report on Thursday as “pure fabrication and rumor with ulterior motives.” “China does not accept such reports,” he said, but gave no further details of the investigation into Miao Hua. Miao Hua, right, China&#8217;s director of the political affairs department of the Central Military Commission arrives at the Pyongyang Airport in Pyongyang, North Korea Monday, Oct. 14, 2019. While holding talks with the defense chiefs of New Zealand, India, and Malaysia, as well as the ASEAN secretary-general, Dong refused a meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. Beijing blamed it on Washington for undermining China’s “core interests” by providing weapons to Taiwan. A native of Shandong province from where Xi’s wife Peng Liyuan also hails, Dong –- as well as his predecessor Li Shangfu -– was believed to be appointed by Xi. Yet Dong wasn’t promoted to the Central Military Commission, the top military leadership of the Communist Party, nor was he appointed to the State Council, or the national cabinet. In China, defense ministers are usually members of both those bodies and Dong’s non-appointment had raised questions about his position. Former ministers Li Shangfu and Wei Fenghe were expelled from the Communist Party for “grave discipline violations” such as taking bribes and causing great damage to the images of the party and its senior leaders, according to official statements. Series of sackings The investigation into Miao follows a slew of sackings at the highest levels of the People’s Liberation Army in recent months. Just after Dong was appointed, China expelled nine military officials from its parliament, including three former commanders or vice commanders of the PLA Rocket Force, one former Air Force chief and one Navy commander responsible for the South China Sea. Analysts said they believed that the expulsions were related to the corruption over equipment procurement by the rocket force. But they also link the purges to ongoing dissent within the Chinese military about its readiness to stage an invasion of democratic Taiwan, which has said it has no wish to submit to “peaceful unification” under Beijing’s territorial claim on the island. An academic who gave only the surname Song for fear of reprisals said Xi’s enthusiasm for an invasion may not be shared by actual military commanders, who fear China may not win such a war. “Even if the current boss [Xi] wants to attack Taiwan and work with Putin to change the global order for a century to come, real soldiers and generals know whether or not such a war can be won,” Song said. “The actual military commanders are the ones who know whether their forces are up to the fight, and whether the morale is there.” “The last two defense ministers, Wei Fenghe and Li Shangfu, were removed because they knew it couldn’t be won, and mustn’t be fought,” he said. “That, I think, is the most important reason.” China froze top-level military talks and other dialogue with the U.S. in 2022 after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi became the highest-ranking U.S. official in 25 years to visit Taiwan. The island has never been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party, nor formed part of the People’s Republic of China, and its 23 million people have no wish to give up their sovereignty or democratic way of life to be ruled by Beijing, according to recent opinion polls. China, which hasn’t ruled out an invasion to force reunification, was infuriated by the Pelosi visit and canceled military-to-military talks, including contacts between theater-level commanders. President Joe Biden persuaded his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, to resume contacts in November 2023, when they met on the sidelines of an APEC summit in Woodside, California.   We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative ReportsDaily ReportsInterviews Surveys Reportika
- [Civilians forced to clear landmines in central Myanmar by junta: source](https://ij-reportika.com/civilians-forced-to-clear-landmines-in-central-myanmar-by-junta-source/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. Troops stationed at junta security checkpoints are forcing civilians passing through a major highway in central Myanmar to perform landmine clearance operations, residents told Radio Free Asia. Landmines have become an increasingly common and deadly problem since insurgents across the country took up arms to fight the military who took power in a 2021 coup. While deadly warfare with rocket launchers, explosives and guns has killed thousands of soldiers and civilians, both rebels and junta troops have denied responsibility for mines and their casualties. “They started doing it from the first week of November…They ask us to cross through fields they assume have landmines. If they ask us to do one check, it’s for about one hour,” said a resident in the Burmese city Monywa. “At their gates, they don’t stop and ask every car to do the inspections, some don’t have to,” the resident added, declining to be named as talking to the media. Travelers are being selected from three of the 11 junta security checkpoints that stretch across the Monywa-Mandalay Highway, connecting the capitals of Sagaing to Mandalay region, some 132 kilometers (82 miles). The practice is particularly rampant near Myay Ne, Mon Yway and Taw Pu villages, residents said, adding that they’re often told to go look for landmines after soldiers inspect their vehicle. Junta soldiers typically select middle-aged people, asking them to go to areas they’re suspicious of, said another resident who added that no casualties had been reported yet. “Until the 26th, they were still asking us to cross the field. I haven’t heard of anyone having their arms or legs cut off because of crossing the landmine fields yet,” they said, asking to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. Travelers along the Monywa-Mandalay have decreased following forced clearance operations, residents said. Myanmar military spokesperson Zaw Min Tun has not responded to RFA’s inquiries. RELATED STORIES Junta raids in Myanmar’s Sagaing force thousands from homes Myanmar tops grim world ranking of landmine victims Thousands flee fighting in Myanmar’s heartland As of 2023, Myanmar saw the highest record in landmine and heavy weapons-related deaths at 1,003, according to a report published on Nov. 20 by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. It was also the first time that Myanmar had the most recorded landmine deaths out of any country worldwide. Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by Taejun Kang. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Explained: What is America’s ‘blacklist’- and does it really work against China?](https://ij-reportika.com/explained-what-is-americas-blacklist-and-does-it-really-work-against-china/): GlobalFoundries, a New York-based company, is the world’s third largest maker of semiconductor chips. It landed in hot water this month when U.S. authorities fined it $500,000 for selling its products to SJ Semiconductor, a Chinese company that can be found on a growing list of firms deemed a national security threat. Known unofficially as “America’s blacklist,” this catalog of over a thousand companies is maintained by the Bureau of Industry and Security, a division of the Commerce Department. Officially called the they had blocked an attempt to smuggle a bottle of gallium out of the country. People in Washington and Beijing are waiting to see whether the list gets longer or shorter in the coming year. The newly elected president, Donald Trump, will take office in January, and he’s promised big changes. Still, Trump has spoken out forcefully against China. Says Phildius: “I think he will—for lack of a better word—keep the screws tightened.” We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Junta raids in Myanmar’s Sagaing force thousands from homes](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-raids-in-myanmars-sagaing-force-thousands-from-homes/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. Myanmar’s military has launched an operation to clear pro-democracy insurgents from a contested central area, sending nearly 10,000 villagers fleeing for safety, an aid worker and residents said on Thursday. Junta forces have suffered significant setbacks in fighting over the past year but the army commander has vowed to recapture lost ground this dry season, when the military can take its heavy vehicles on dried roads into rebel zones. “They’re worried for their security, they can’t go home. We’re watching the situation and waiting,” an aid worker said of the situation in Kyunhla township, 175 kilometers (108 miles) northwest of the city of Mandalay. About 200 junta troops had raided more than 10 villages in the township in what the aid worker told Radio Free Asia was a violent campaign launched eight days ago. Residents said some homes were torched while soldiers had also occupied some homes. Kyunhla is in Sagaing, a heartland region populated largely by members of the majority Burman community that has been torn by violence since democracy activists set up militias to battle the military after the 2021 coup. RFA tried to reach Sagiang’s junta spokesperson, Nyan Wing Aung, but he did not respond by the time of publication. The aid worker, who declined to be identified for security reasons, said many of the villages had sought shelter in the woods near their fields. “If they have rice, oil and salt, they’ll be OK. At the moment, it’s very chilly, and for the people with fevers, they need blankets and medicine,” the aid worker said. RELATED STORIES Children make up nearly 40% of Myanmar’s 3.4 million displaced: UN Thousands flee fighting in Myanmar’s heartland Perhaps it would be better if Myanmar’s civil war became a ‘forgotten conflict’ The United Nations said on Wednesday more than 3.4 million people aredisplaced in Myanmar, an increase of 250,000 over the past few months, because of the conflict, severe flooding in July and September and economic collapse. “Compounding these challenges, high inflation, sharp currency depreciation, and ongoing trade disruptions due to conflict and border closures by neighboring countries have reduced access to essential goods, further straining communities,” the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said. Myanmar has received only $279 million, or a mere 28% of the overall funding requested for 2024, the office said. “Without immediate additional funding, the worsening crisis will push more people into extreme hardship, deepen vulnerabilities, and limit the potential for recovery for millions across Myanmar,” it said. Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Volkswagen sells Xinjiang plant linked to Uyghur force labor](https://ij-reportika.com/volkswagen-sells-xinjiang-plant-linked-to-uyghur-force-labor/): German automaker Volkswagen said Wednesday that it has sold its operations in northwest China’s Xinjiang region, where Beijing has been accused of widespread human rights abuses against Uyghurs. Activists and experts have accused VW of allowing the use of Uyghur slave labor at the its joint-venture plant with Chinese state-owned company SAIC Motor Corp. in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital. In a statement, the company cited “economic reasons” for its pullout from Xinjiang, home to about 12 million predominantly Muslim Uyghurs, where it also has a test track in Turpan. “While many SVW [SAIC-Volkswagen] sites are being, or have already been, converted to produce electric vehicles based on customer demand, alternative economic solutions will be examined in individual cases,” the statement said. “This also applies to the joint venture site in Urumqi,” it said. “Due to economic reasons, the site has now been sold by the joint venture as part of the realignment. The same applies to the test tracks in Turpan and Anting [in Shanghai].” The plant was sold to Shanghai Motor Vehicle Inspection Certification, or SMVIC, a subsidiary of state-owned Shanghai Lingang Economic Development Group for an undisclosed amount, Reuters reported. RELATED STORIES Leaked audit of VW’s Xinjiang plant contains flaws: expert US lawmakers query credibility of Volkswagen forced labor audit Volkswagen reviews Xinjiang operations as abuse pressure mounts Volkswagen under fire after audit finds no evidence of Uyghur forced labor Protesters disrupt Volkswagen shareholder meeting over alleged Uyghur forced labor The sale comes two months after an expert who obtained a leaked confidential copy of Volkswagen’s audit of its joint venture plant in Xinjiang said the document contained flaws that made it unreliable. Volkswagen declared in December 2023 that the audit of its Urumqi factory showed no signs of human rights violations. But after analyzing the leaked audit report, Adrian Zenz, senior fellow at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington, found that contrary to its claims, the audit failed to use international standards and was conducted by questionable examiners. Zenz, an expert on Xinjiang, concluded that the audit’s methodology was faulty and insufficient and that the report was “unsuited to meaningfully assess the presence or absence of forced labor at the factory.” Zenz called the news a “huge victory for the Uyghurs.” “This step was long overdue, he told RFA. “Sadly, it took public pressure and showcasing the full extent of the sham of the audit.” Strong international pressure Gheyyur Qurban, director of the Berlin office of the World Uyghur Congress who has led anti-Volkswagen activities, said Volkswagen’s withdrawal from Xinjiang was not due to economic reasons, but was linked to strong international pressure over the Uyghur issue. He said the World Uyghur Congress, a Uyghur advocacy group based in Germany, pressured the automaker to leave the region and forced it to defend itself before the international community. A Volkswagen I.D. concept car is displayed at the Beijing Auto Show in Beijing, China, April 24, 2018. In the statement, Volkswagen also said it was extending its joint venture agreement with SAIC until 2040 to introduce new vehicles to meet China’s growing market demand for electric cars. The original agreement was in place until 2030. The news came as the G7 Foreign Ministers’ meeting issued a statement expressing concern over the situation of Uyghurs in Xinjiang and Tibetans in Tibet persecuted by the Chinese government. The G7, or Group of Seven, comprises the major industrial nations — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States and the European Union. “We remain concerned by the human rights situation in China, including in Xinjiang and Tibet,” said the statement, which urged China to abide by its international human rights commitments and legal obligations. But Rushan Abbas, chairperson of the executive committee at the World Uyghur Congress, said that the carefully worded statement was insufficient. “The genocide persists, conditions worsen and concrete actions remain lacking,” she said, referring to China’s violence targeting the Uyghurs, which the U.S. and some Western parliaments have recognized as genocide. “While de-risking supply chains is vital, it must be paired with bold measures to hold China accountable for state-sponsored forced labor,” Abbas said. “Awareness demands action. We urge G7 nations to move beyond rhetoric and lead in holding China accountable for its human rights abuses.” Edited by Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [EXPLAINED: Who are Myanmar’s Arakan Army?](https://ij-reportika.com/explained-who-are-myanmars-arakan-army/): The Arakan Army insurgent group in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state has made rapid advances against the junta over the past year and controls more territory and people than any other rebel force in Myanmar. Rakhine state, or Arakan as it used to be known, was a separate kingdom until it was conquered by Burmese kings in 1784. Now the Arakan Army, or AA, could be on the brink of a major step towards fulfilling what it calls the “Arakan Dream”, of once again securing self-determination for the state of more than 3 million people, some 60% of whom are ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and about 35% Muslim Rohingya. As the AA advances towards its goal of driving out junta forces, scrutiny has turned to how it sees Rakhine state’s future in Myanmar, how it would handle the state’s Muslim minority, amid accusations of serious rights abuses, which the AA denies, and how it would accommodate China’s economic ambitions. Lightning progress The AA was founded in 2009 by members of the ethnic Rakhine community, led by former student activist Twan Mrat Naing, seeking shelter with the Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, in northern Myanmar. The AA recruited some of its first fighters among Rakhine men working in jade mines in Kachin state. They gained experience fighting the military alongside the KIA and other insurgent forces in Shan state, before filtering back into Rakhine state from around 2014. The AA burst onto the scene in Rakhine state on Jan. 4, 2019, with Independence Day attacks on four police stations. Aung San Suu Kyi, who led a civilian government at the time, ordered the military to crush the “terrorist” force but the two sides later agreed to a ceasefire. The AA condemned the military’s February 2021 coup but did not immediately resort to arms. Over the next two years of on-again, off-again ceasefires, the AA built up its administrative capacity through its political wing, the United League of Arakan, including a COVID-19 vaccination drive. In November 2023, it launched a large-scale offensive in coordination with two Shan state insurgent forces, as part of the Three Brotherhood Alliance. The AA made lightning progress, initially in northern Rakhine state and a southern part of neighboring Chin state that it claims, seizing military outposts, bases and towns, as well as large amounts of arms and ammunition. Arakan Army soliders with captured arms and ammunition in a phto posted on the group&#8217;s website on Feb. 13, 2024. The AA claims to have more than 30,000 fighters though independent analysts suspect its strength is around 20,000. The AA controls about 80% of Rakhine state – 10 of its 17 townships and one in neighboring Chin state. In townships it does not control, it has pinned junta forces into pockets of territory, such as the state capital, Sittwe, the town of Ann, home of the military’s Western Command, and the Kyaukpyu economic zone on the coast where China has energy facilities. RELATED STORIES Arakan Army treatment of Rohingya minority poses challenge to Myanmar opposition Arakan Army’s gains enough to enable self-rule in Myanmar’s Rakhine state International criminal court seeks arrest warrant for Myanmar junta chief Confederation While all of Myanmar’s insurgent forces want to throw off military rule, they differ when it comes to ultimate aims. Most ethnic minority forces and pro-democracy militias drawn from the majority Burman community aspire to a democratic, federal union but the AA has called for a vaguely defined “confederate status” for Rakhine state. “We will see whether a Federal Union of Myanmar will have the political space for the kind of confederation that our Arakanese people aspire for,” AA leader Twan Mrat Naing told the Asia Times newspaper in a 2022 interview. The prospect of the AA governing Rakhine state is bound to raise fears for the Rohingya. The AA’s position on the persecuted Muslim minority community has shifted over the years, from seemingly moderate and inclusive to accusations of mass killings this year. The catalyst for the hardening of the AA line on the Rohingya was a campaign by the junta to recruit, at times forcibly, Rohingya men into militias to fight the AA. U.N. investigators said they documented attacks on Rohingya by both the AA and the junta. On Aug. 5, scores of Rohingya trying to flee from the town of Maungdaw to Bangladesh, across a border river, were killed by drones and artillery fire that survivors and rights groups said was unleashed by the AA. The AA denied responsibility. As well as capturing large volumes of weapons from the military, the AA has been helped by its insurgent allies in the northeast, analysts say. For revenue, it says it relies on taxes and donations from Rakhine workers overseas. It denies any link to the flow of methamphetamines from producers in Myanmar to a booming black market in Bangladesh. The role of China is likely to be crucial as it seeks to bring peace to Myanmar. China has extensive economic interests in its southern neighbor including a hub for its Belt and Road energy and infrastructure network in Rakhine state at Kyaukpyu, where China wants to build a deep sea port. Natural gas and oil pipelines begin at Kyaukpyu and run across Myanmar to southern China. The AA, like other insurgents in Myanmar, has not attacked Chinese interests, though it has surrounded Kyaukpyu. Some analysts say the AA, with its northeastern Myanmar connections, has links to China. However, there has been no public indication that China is pressing the AA to make peace with the junta, as it has done with groups in northern and northeastern Myanmar. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Taejun Kang. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Taiwan: The Rising AI Powerhouse](https://ij-reportika.com/taiwan-the-rising-ai-powerhouse/): Taiwan, renowned for its role as a global leader in semiconductor manufacturing, is also making strides in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). In recent years, the island has become a hotspot for AI research, development, and application, leveraging its strong tech ecosystem and skilled workforce. This article explores how Taiwan is positioning itself as an AI powerhouse, the government’s role in fostering innovation, and the challenges and opportunities the country faces in the AI sector.  1. Taiwan’s AI Landscape: A Growing Tech Ecosystem Taiwan is no stranger to cutting-edge technology. As home to major companies such as TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) and MediaTek, the island has long been a key player in the global technology market. In recent years, Taiwan has expanded its focus to include AI, aiming to integrate the technology into various sectors, including manufacturing, healthcare, and transportation. AI research in Taiwan has seen substantial growth, with universities and private institutions playing a key role in advancing the field. National Taiwan University (NTU), Taiwan National Chiao Tung University (NCTU), and Academia Sinica are just a few of the country&#8217;s institutions conducting groundbreaking AI research. Taiwan’s investment in AI education and workforce development is expected to fuel long-term growth in the sector, helping to cultivate a highly skilled pool of AI professionals. Taiwan is also home to several AI startups and tech companies focused on AI-driven solutions. These companies are working across a variety of sectors, including smart manufacturing, healthcare diagnostics, AI-based cybersecurity, and autonomous vehicles. With the government’s support and Taiwan&#8217;s established reputation in hardware production, many believe the country is well-positioned to become a leading hub for AI innovation in Asia.  2. Government Support: Policies and Initiatives The Taiwanese government has recognized the potential of AI and has implemented a range of policies to foster the growth of the industry. In 2017, Taiwan introduced its “AI Taiwan” initiative, which seeks to promote the development and integration of AI technology across various sectors. The initiative includes funding for AI research, investment in talent development, and the creation of an AI-friendly regulatory environment. One of the key features of Taiwan’s AI strategy is its emphasis on collaboration between industry and academia. The government has been instrumental in establishing AI research hubs and facilitating partnerships between leading universities and technology companies. Additionally, Taiwan’s National Development Council (NDC) has launched a series of initiatives aimed at encouraging AI startups, including tax incentives and funding opportunities. The Taiwanese government has also prioritized the development of AI applications in industries such as manufacturing, healthcare, and agriculture. By leveraging AI to optimize production lines, enhance medical diagnoses, and improve crop yields, Taiwan hopes to transform its industries and boost its economy.  3. AI in Manufacturing: The Smart Factory Revolution Taiwan&#8217;s manufacturing sector, particularly its dominance in semiconductor production, is a key area where AI is expected to have a transformative impact. The government and private sector have been investing heavily in &#8220;smart manufacturing&#8221;—a blend of AI, robotics, and IoT (Internet of Things) technology designed to enhance production efficiency and reduce costs. AI-driven technologies such as predictive maintenance, quality control, and supply chain optimization are being increasingly implemented in factories across Taiwan. These innovations help manufacturers anticipate equipment failures, ensure consistent product quality, and streamline logistics operations. Taiwan’s status as a global leader in semiconductor production also positions it to be at the forefront of AI applications in advanced manufacturing. For example, TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, has incorporated AI into its production process to improve yields and accelerate innovation. The integration of AI technologies in these sectors not only strengthens Taiwan’s economy but also contributes to the global supply chain for cutting-edge tech products.  4. Healthcare: AI-Driven Solutions for Better Medical Outcomes AI&#8217;s potential to revolutionize healthcare is a major area of focus in Taiwan. The country has already made strides in using AI to improve medical diagnosis, drug development, and personalized healthcare. Taiwan&#8217;s healthcare system, which is known for its efficiency and high standards, has integrated AI technologies to enhance patient care and streamline operations. AI-powered tools are being used in medical imaging to identify early signs of diseases like cancer, while machine learning algorithms help doctors with diagnostic decision-making. Taiwan’s National Health Insurance system, which covers nearly the entire population, provides a rich database that can be used to train AI models for medical research and patient care optimization. Taiwan is also focusing on AI applications in elderly care, as the country has one of the fastest-aging populations in the world. AI-powered robots and assistive devices are being developed to help the elderly live independently and receive personalized healthcare services.  5. Challenges in AI Adoption While Taiwan has made significant strides in AI development, there are still challenges to overcome. One of the main obstacles is the shortage of AI talent. Despite the country’s strong educational institutions, there is intense competition for skilled workers in AI-related fields. Taiwan’s government and private companies are working to address this issue by offering incentives for AI researchers, including scholarships and funding for startups. Another challenge is ensuring that Taiwan’s AI ecosystem is inclusive and ethical. As AI systems are increasingly being used in sensitive areas such as healthcare and autonomous vehicles, there are concerns about data privacy, security, and algorithmic biases. Taiwan’s government has recognized these concerns and is working on AI regulations that will promote transparency, accountability, and fairness in AI development.  6. Looking Ahead: Taiwan’s AI Future The future of AI in Taiwan looks promising. The country’s strong technology infrastructure, government support, and skilled workforce make it an ideal location for AI research and development. As Taiwan continues to invest in AI education, foster innovation, and encourage collaboration between industries, it is likely to emerge as a leading global player in AI technology. In the coming years, Taiwan is expected to be a key player in shaping the future of AI, particularly in sectors such as semiconductor manufacturing, healthcare, and smart cities. The continued development of AI technology will...
- [China seeks easing of Japan ties amid growing tension with US](https://ij-reportika.com/china-seeks-easing-of-japan-ties-amid-growing-tension-with-us/): China on Friday added Japanese passport-holders to a newly expanded list of people eligible for unilateral visa-free entry on a trial basis, foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian announced on Friday. China also notified Japan that it will remove a buoy near the Diaoyu Islands, which are also claimed by Japan as the Senkaku Islands, Kyodo news reported. Japan had objected to the installation of the buoy in the high seas over Japan’s southern continental shelf in the Pacific Ocean without explanation, with Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi calling the move “regrettable” in June. The buoy was installed in high seas north of Japan’s southernmost Okinotori Island by the Chinese survey vessel Xiang Yang Hong 22 during a voyage through Japan’s waters, ostensibly “for the purpose of scientific research and serving public good.” An illustration of printed Chinese and Japanese flags July 21, 2022. Taiwanese national security expert Shih Chien-yu said China is also looking for other sources of income before the Trump administration comes to power in Washington, bringing with it a huge hike in tariffs. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has said he will impose a 10% tariff on all products coming into the U.S. from China on his first day in office as penalties for deadly fentanyl and illegal immigrants, which he claimed were pouring across the borders. Competition with US Trump’s election victory sparked concern in China, where many expect the next president to take a tougher stand than his predecessor, particularly on trade and economic issues, with repercussions for an already struggling Chinese economy. “Faced with the way its international relations are going, China is learning to put aside the proud attitude of the past,” Shih said. “It’s clear that there will be competition with the United States, so Beijing will definitely look to compete by reaching out to Tokyo to try to ease ties.” “They’ll be wanting to do this especially over the next few months, before Trump’s Indo-Pacific strategy becomes clear &#8230; because if they wait until after that, there’ll be very little room for further action,&#8217; he said. Shih said any rapprochement with Tokyo could also have security implications for the region. “China, the United States and Japan have a very special military and security relationship, so China will be trying to differentiate its relationships with the United States and Japan,” he said. “China will try to make some adjustments regarding Japan’s stance, which is to protect Taiwan or assist in its defense, because Japan will play an important role in any military conflict in the Taiwan Strait,” Shih said. Asked about visa-free entry for Japanese nationals, foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said Beijing wants to boost exchanges with Japan. “We hope that Japan will work with China to jointly enhance the level of facilitation of personnel exchanges between the two countries,” Mao told a regular news briefing in Beijing on Monday. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Joshua Lipes. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Laos detains staff at hostel linked to backpacker poisonings: media](https://ij-reportika.com/laos-detains-staff-at-hostel-linked-to-backpacker-poisonings-media/): Police in the Lao tourist town of Vang Vieng have detained staff at a backpackers’ hostel linked to the death of six tourists from suspected methanol poisoning, media reported on Tuesday. Two young Australian women, a British woman, two young Danish women and an American man have died, and about a dozen more people were reported to be sick, after consuming drinks suspected to have been laced with methanol on Nov. 12 in the town that has for years been a laid-back stop for young Western travelers. The Laopost news site reported that the 34-year-old manager and seven employees at the Nana Backpacker Hostel, where at least some of the victims are known to have stayed, had been arrested. Media reported earlier that the hostel had been temporarily closed. Laos has not officially confirmed the cause of the poisonings though a Thai hospital, where one of the victims died, said it was methanol, a clear, tasteless liquid that can be used to boost the alcohol content of drinks, often with fatal consequences. Mass methanol poisonings occur with grim frequency around the world. RELATED STORIES Mayor of Lao tourist town hit by poisoning promises justice for victims 6 tourists dead after drinking tainted alcohol in Laos Australian, American take death toll from tainted alcohol in Laos to 4 Details of how the tourists came to drink tainted alcohol in Vang Vieng are sketchy and it is not clear if they were all drinking at the same place. While authorities have ordered inspections of tourist venues and are carrying out an investigation of the incident, business owners in Vang Vieng told RFA Lao there had already been a drop in tourism in the town. “Yes, we’ve started to see some impact,” said one bar owner. “We’ve seen a decrease in the number of foreign customers,” she said, adding that foreign tourists are “much more careful” when they visit her establishment. District mayor Bounchan Malavong told media on the weekend that authorities had responded quickly to the deaths, investigating and taking measures including inspecting restaurants and entertainment venues to ensure that safety standards are upheld and to protect tourists. Edited by Taejun Kang. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [US bars 29 more Chinese companies over Uyghur slave labor](https://ij-reportika.com/us-bars-29-more-chinese-companies-over-uyghur-slave-labor/): WASHINGTON &#8211; The United States has banned another 29 Chinese companies from exporting their goods to America due to their alleged use of Uyghur slave labor. It’s the largest single blacklisting since the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act became law in 2021. The listing, by the bipartisan House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party into claims that U.S. venture capital firms are funding companies involved in Uyghur slave labor and thereby financing “genocide.” Pressure campaign In a statement, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said that the latest bulk blacklisting shows Washington’s resolve “to ensure that goods made from the forced labor of Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in Xinjiang do not enter the United States.” RELATED STORIES US lawmakers mark East Turkestan National Day with Uyghur community US blacklists 3 more Chinese textile firms over Uyghur slave labor EXPLAINED: What’s the controversy over ‘Uygur’ vs ‘Uyghur’? Rishat Abbas, the chairman of the Washington-based Uyghur Academy, told Radio Free Asia that the blacklisting represented “a critical move in the fight against forced labor in supply chains” in China. “By restricting goods from over 100 Chinese companies linked to the exploitation of Uyghurs in East Turkistan, this action sends a strong message to the Chinese Communist Party,” Abbas said, using the preferred Uyghur name for the Xinjiang region of China. Abbas added that the mounting international pressure was pushing Beijing toward a position where it may soon be forced “to reassess its policies of oppression toward the Uyghur population.” Edited by Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Mayor of Lao tourist town hit by poisoning promises justice for victims](https://ij-reportika.com/mayor-of-lao-tourist-town-hit-by-poisoning-promises-justice-for-victims/): The mayor of the Lao tourist town of Vang Vieng has promised justice for the six foreign tourists who died after consuming drinks suspected of being laced with methanol on a night out in the riverside backpacker hub, the Laotian Times newspaper reported. District mayor Bounchan Malavong told media on the weekend that authorities had responded quickly to the deaths, investigating and taking measures including inspecting restaurants and entertainment venues to ensure that safety standards are upheld and to protect tourists. Two young Australian women, a British woman, two young Danish women and an American man have died, and about a dozen more people were reported to be sick, after going out for drinks on Nov. 12 in the town that has for years been a laid-back stop for young Western travelers. “Bounchan Malavong … addressed the media about the ongoing investigation and the measures being taken to bring justice to the deceased,” the newspaper reported. “The mayor acknowledged that the incident has negatively impacted the image of tourism in Vang Vieng and Laos but reassured the public that tourism in the area remains strong, with both domestic and international visitors continuing to come.” The Lao Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed its condolences on Friday and emphasized its commitment to investigating the incident and holding those responsible accountable. “We extend our heartfelt condolences to the family and loved ones of the deceased,” the ministry said. Laos has not officially confirmed the cause of the poisonings though a Thai hospital, where one of the victims died, said it was methanol. The Laotian Times said investigations were underway to determine the cause and the results, once confirmed, would be shared with foreign countries. RELATED STORIES 6 tourists dead after drinking tainted alcohol in Laos Foreign journalists at ASEAN find Lao restrictions frustrating Lao blogger who criticized failed response to flood freed from prison Details of how the tourists came to drink tainted alcohol in Vang Vieng are sketchy and it is not clear if they were all drinking at the same bar. However, a cheap hotel where at least some of the victims are known to have stayed, the Nana Backpackers Hostel, had been temporarily closed, the Laotian Times reported. The hostel’s Vietnamese manager has been detained for questioning, according to the AFP news agency, which didn’t name them. Several governments, including the Australian, British, New Zealand and U.S., have updated their travel advisories to warn of the dangers of tainted alcohol in Laos. “Please be alert to the potential risk of methanol poisoning, especially when consuming spirit-based alcoholic drinks,” the U.S. embassy said. “Purchase alcoholic beverages and drinks from licensed liquor stores, bars, and hotels. Avoid homemade alcoholic drinks. Check liquor bottles for signs of tampering or counterfeiting, such as labels with poor print quality or incorrect spelling.” Methanol is a clear, tasteless liquid that can be used to boost the alcohol content of drinks, often with fatal consequences. Mass methanol poisonings occur with grim frequency around the world. The aid group Doctors Without Borders said some 1,200 people have fallen ill from drinking methanol-laced drinks in the past year, with 394 deaths worldwide, many of them in Asia. Edited by Taejun Kang and Mike Firn. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Cambodia, Laos sack foreign ministers in preparation for more combative geopolitics](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodia-laos-sack-foreign-ministers-in-preparation-for-more-combative-geopolitics/): On Nov. 19, Sok Chenda Sophea, who was only brought in as Cambodia’s foreign minister last year, was given the in as secretary of state. Washington’s leading China hawk is expected to take a much tougher stance on Beijing’s partners in Asia, such as Cambodia, and on mainland Southeast Asia’s vast scam industry that is increasingly victimizing U.S. citizens. Unlike Sok Chenda Sophea, Prak is more of a ruling-party partisan who can push back against U.S. criticism. Presumably, Phnom Penh realizes it’ll soon have to wade into a new fight with Washington, making it even more important to be on the best terms with Beijing. Beijing won’t be displeased by Prak’s return. Attuned to Beijing China is believed to have grown weary with some of the princelings installed in Hu Manet’s cabinet during last year’s vast generational succession process. It has been lobbying for the return of Prak, an old-style politician who understands how Beijing prefers things to be done. In Vientiane, Saleumxay did a good job in recent years of pitching Laos to the rest of the world, including the West, and as the only fluent English speaker in the Politburo was key to securing some important development assistance packages from Japan, the U.S., and European states. Yet Laos’s dire economic situation, particularly its massive debts to China, isn’t improving, and only Beijing has the ability to assist meaningfully. A damning report by the IMF published last week noted that Laos’s economy “critically relies on the continued extension of debt relief from China.” Vientiane knows it must narrow its foreign relations again to focus squarely on China. Indeed, the communist party is eager to find a more senior role for pro-Beijing figures like Sommath Pholsena, currently a deputy president of the National Assembly and a childhood friend of Xi Jinping, China’s president. He’ll likely be the next National Assembly chair. Thongsavanh Phomvihane, the new foreign minister, started his career at Laos’s embassy in Beijing, has closer ties to the Chinese Communist Party, and is more of a party loyalist than Saleumxay. Like Prak, he’s an older, more traditional and safer pair of hands, someone who understands what Beijing wants and how to provide that. David Hutt is a research fellow at the Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS) and the Southeast Asia Columnist at the Diplomat. He writes the Watching Europe In Southeast Asia newsletter. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of RFA. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Cambodian trafficking victim describes forced marriage, abuse in China](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-trafficking-victim-describes-forced-marriage-abuse-in-china/): Sok Suosdey had always worked hard to help support her family in Cambodia’s Oddar Meanchey province, on the border with Thailand, but no matter what she did, they remained poor. In 2016, things became even more dire when her family was saddled with repayment of a loan to a local bank. So when a neighbor approached her that year with the opportunity to make a higher salary in China, Sok Suosdey &#8211; who asked to use a pseudonym for this report to protect her privacy &#8211; leapt at the chance. After making the necessary preparations, she departed to the bustling city of Shanghai, excited with the prospect of becoming financially independent in China and helping her family get free from debt back home. But around a month after her arrival, the woman who had promised her a job told her she would have to marry a deaf Chinese man and if she refused, she would be on the hook for the costs associated with her relocation to China &#8211; a sum far beyond her ability to pay. Sok Suosdey agreed, but said that after her marriage, she was reduced to “a slave” in her husband’s home. She was made to take a job to earn money for the family, but her mother-in-law also forced her to do household chores whenever she had a break, and subjected her to relentless physical and mental abuse, she said. “Every day, my mother-in-law chased me to work from 10 am-11 pm, sometimes until 2 am,” she told RFA Khmer. “I only slept three hours a night, and I worked very hard. When I was at home, I also worked as a seamstress, sometimes as a laborer, or putting springs into children’s water guns.” Sok Suosdey said that if she needed new clothes, she was made to buy them with her own money. Her mother-in-law also refused to let her communicate with Cambodian friends she made or with family members back home, as “she was afraid I would run away from home.” “My Chinese mother-in-law insulted me and made me hurtful and fed up,” she said. Things were no different after having a child with her husband. “The most painful thing was that after I gave birth to a son, my mother-in-law kept me away from him and didn’t let him know who I was,” she said. “She wouldn’t let me take care of him and would even call the police when I tried to take him to school.” Trafficking to China According to a report by the human rights group Adhoc, in the first nine months of 2024, at least 29 Cambodian women were trafficked to China. Of the trafficked women, 28 were forced to marry Chinese men. According to the same source, in 2023, 28 Cambodian women were rescued from human trafficking in China. The NGO said that some of the women who married Chinese men were beaten, abused and forced to work as slaves by their husbands and families. In addition to physically and mentally abusing the women, some families also forced them into sex work, leaving them traumatized, it said. RELATED STORIES Trafficked Cambodian teenage girl returns from China Cambodian teen rescued from family home in China after Facebook plea ‘He told me that if I ran away he would report me to the Chinese police’ Sok Suosdey told RFA that, because she could no longer endure the abuse, she saved enough money to buy a mobile phone and started to seek help via social media. She started a group on Facebook for Cambodians in China and spent time searching for people she knew lived close to her parents back home. It was through these sources that she was able to contact her mother and get authorities at the Cambodian Consulate to intervene on her behalf. On July 16, 2024 &#8211; seven years after being trafficked to China &#8211; Sok Suosdey finally returned home to her family in Cambodia. Now 35, things have not been easy for Sok Suosdey back home, according to Sun Maly, the head of Adhoc’s Women’s Unit. She is the sole breadwinner of a household with an elderly mother, a father who was blinded during Cambodia’s civil war, and a younger brother with a mental disorder. But despite the challenges, Sok Suosdey is thankful for her rescue and overjoyed to be reunited with her loved ones, she said. Assisting victims When victims of human trafficking return to Cambodia, they receive assistance from the Ministry of Social Affairs&#8217; Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation agency, which provides them with mental health treatment and rehabilitation. However, the assistance is only temporary, and many victims face a long road to recovery. A Cambodian victim of trafficking (c) hugs her parents after she returns home from being rescued in China, in an undated photo. Once a victim is released from the Ministry of Social Affairs, humanitarian groups such as Adhoc step in to provide additional help. Adhoc’s Sun Maly said that her NGO now provides victims with sewing machines to help them achieve financial stability by starting their own business following their rescue. “My case manager has helped to find skilled trainers who can help women victims in tailoring,” she said. “Most villages have tailors, but as they age out, a victim with the ability to sew can replace them by setting up their own garment business.” Some victims told RFA that the Cambodian government needs to do more to pressure Chinese authorities to investigate claims of trafficking inside China. Chou Bun Eng, the permanent deputy chair of the Ministry of Interior’s Anti-Trafficking Committee, told RFA that she has met with Chinese authorities in the past to highlight the need to investigate such claims. However, she said that her Chinese counterparts regularly deny that there are any cases of Cambodian women being trafficked and forced into marriage in China &#8211; only consensual marriages. Domestic violence they classify as a “family dispute,” she said. “I’m not saying that all cases involve trafficking &#8211;...
- [A forlorn father](https://ij-reportika.com/a-forlorn-father/): Just over a decade after the dramatic downfall of the Chinese Communist Party leader Bo Xilai, a populist princeling rival of Xi Jinping who was ousted and jailed for corruption and murder, his son Bo Guagua emerged from a long public absence when he arrived in Taiwan for his wedding. Guagua, who was once known as a playboy who partied with celebrities and drove Italian sports cars while his father was the CCP boss of Chongqing, is set to marry a Taiwanese woman named Hsu Hui Yu. Hsu’s grandfather was a prominent member of the Kuomintang, the CCP’s Chinese civil war foe, in a ceremony that has created a stir on the island. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Vietnam’s Politburo disciplines former parliament chairman](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnams-politburo-disciplines-former-parliament-chairman/): Vietnam’s Politburo has disciplined former National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue for violations in office, the Tuoi Tre news site reported on Friday. The Communist Party’s top body ruled that Hue violated party and state regulations, particularly in the “blazing furnace” fight against corruption and failed to set an example while head of parliament, as a Politburo member, and as secretary of the National Assembly’s party unit. The Politburo also sanctioned former Transport Minister Nguyen Van The for violations in office. It said former President Vo Van Thuong was also at fault but wouldn’t be disciplined while undergoing medical treatment. Thuong was forced to step down as president in March. Hue was made to resign the National Assembly chairmanship in May. The stepped down as transport minister in Oct. 2022. Some political analysts argue that the “blazing furnace,” spearheaded by former Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong – and taken up by his successor, To Lam, on Trong’s death on July 19 – is a way for Vietnam’s top leader to get rid of potential competitors. The general secretary is considered the most powerful of the “four pillars” which include the president, prime minister and parliament chairperson. Lam filled a dual role as general secretary and president until Luong Cuong became president on Oct. 21. Cuong is seen by some analysts as a “place filler” president ahead of the 2026 National Congress, which selects Politburo members, effectively deciding who will be elected to the four top government positions. Edited by Mike Firn. RELATED STORIES Activists call on Vietnam’s top leader to honor rights commitment Vietnam land scandal involved government leaders, former minister says Vietnam’s parliament names Luong Cuong president We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Children make up nearly 40% of Myanmar’s 3.4 million displaced: UN](https://ij-reportika.com/children-make-up-nearly-40-of-myanmars-3-4-million-displaced-un/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. Children make up nearly 40% of the more than 3.4 million people displaced in Myanmar due to the civil war, UNICEF said Thursday. The findings from United Nations Children’s Fund came as an organization that monitors conflict in Myanmar said the ruling junta and affiliated groups have killed more than 670 children since the military seized power in a February 2021 coup d’etat, sparking the conflict. In a statement on Thursday &#8212; a day after World Children’s Day &#8212; UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Ted Chaiban said that the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar is “reaching a critical inflection point,” with escalating conflict and climate shocks “putting children and families at unprecedented risk.” He said that approximately 1 million people have been affected by the country’s war, which was sparked amid public opposition to the military takeover, and devastation caused by late September’s Cyclone Yagi &#8212; Southeast Asia’s worst storm of the year. Chaiban said that during a recent trip to Myanmar’s embattled Kachin state, he saw children “cut off from vital services, including healthcare and education, and suffering from the effects of violence and displacement.” “[I] saw firsthand how vulnerable children and other civilians are in conflict-affected areas and the urgent need to uphold international humanitarian law to protect them from such brutal attacks,” he said. RELATED STORIES Myanmar junta airstrike kills children playing by a church, group says Over a dozen children missing after Myanmar boat accident Myanmar tops grim world ranking of landmine victims Chaiban noted that minors account for 32% of the more than 1,000 people injured and killed by landmines and other explosive devices since the start of the conflict. “The increasing use of deadly weapons in civilian areas, including airstrikes and landmines hitting homes, hospitals, and schools, has severely restricted the already limited safe spaces for children, robbing them of their right to safety and security,” he said, adding that “the situation is dire.” Chaiban called for all stakeholders in Myanmar to guarantee safe and unhindered aid, especially for children and families in conflict zones, to remove administrative barriers and ensure minimum operating standards and to protect children from grave violations. “International humanitarian law must be upheld, with a focus on protecting civilians and civilian infrastructure &#8211; including schools and hospitals &#8211; and ensuring safe passage for those fleeing from violence,” he said. Additionally, he urged the international community to increase its support for the country’s children through funding and advocacy. “The cost of inaction is far too high — Myanmar’s children cannot afford to wait,” he said. Hundreds of children killed Also on Thursday, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners &#8211; Burma reported that, as of Nov. 20, the junta and its affiliate groups had killed at least 671 children in Myanmar since the coup nearly four years ago. The group said that the number showed a year-on-year increase in child mortality rates, attributable to the conflict. In 2021, AAPP said, 101 children under the age of 18 were reported killed, followed by 136 the following year. By 2023, the number had increased to 208 and, by the end of 2024, had reached 226 child fatalities. In one of the worst incidents since the coup, the junta bombed Konlaw village in Kachin state’s Momauk township on Nov. 15, killing nine displaced people, including seven children, the group said. Amid an escalating toll of child casualties caused by airstrikes, Naw Susanna Hla Hla Soe, the shadow National Unity Government’s Minister of Women, Youth, and Children’s Affairs, called for urgent measures to ban the sale of aviation fuel to Myanmar’s military. “We urgently request the cessation of aircraft fuel sales to the military regime, as it is being used to carry out brutal attacks that result in the killing of children,” she said during remarks delivered at a World Children’s Day event in Myanmar on Wednesday. Attempts by RFA to reach junta spokesperson Major General Zaw Min Tun for comment on the situation facing children in Myanmar went unanswered Thursday. According to the AAPP, junta authorities have killed at least 5,974 civilians since the military coup. Translated by Kalyar Lwin. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar’s Kachin insurgents take control of their border with China](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-kachin-insurgents-take-control-of-their-border-with-china/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. The most powerful insurgent group in northern Myanmar had captured the last crossing in its region on the border with China in defiance of Chinese efforts to press it and other Myanmar rebel forces to make peace with the junta that seized power in 2021. The Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, has been fighting for self-determination in Myanmar’s northernmost Kachin state on and off for decades and has made significant advances against the military over the past year. KIA and allied fighters launched a final push for Kan Paik Ti town, 75 kilometers (46 miles) east of the state capital, Myitkyina, early on Wednesday and captured it by around 7 p.m., a resident and a source close to the KIA said. “The junta soldiers fled to the border fence or to the Chinese side,” said a town resident who declined to be identified for safety reasons. “Employees of the junta administration have also been fleeing from the border gate to China.” Junta forces initially sent an aircraft to fire at insurgent positions but the town was quiet on Thursday, the resident said. The source close to the KIA said junta forces had launched attacks in other areas after the fall of Kan Paik Ti. Residents had no information about casualties in the latest fighting. Kan Paik Ti town on the China-Myanmar border in Kachin state on Nov. 20, 2024. RFA tried to reach Kachin state’s junta spokesperson, Moe Min Thein, and the KIA’s information officer, Naw Bu, for information but neither responded by time of the publication. The KIA and allied forces in northeastern, western and eastern Myanmar have made stunning gains over the past year, putting the army under the most severe pressure it has faced since shortly after independence from Britain in 1948. But the insurgents&#8217; success has alarmed giant neighbor China, which has extensive economic interests in Myanmar, including energy pipelines running up from the Indian Ocean and mining projects. RELATED STORIES Residents in Myanmar feel the crunch as trade with China shuts down Myanmar junta chief seeks China’s help on border stability Fresh Chinese support may not be enough to save Myanmar junta China has thrown its support behind the junta, promising to back an election next year that the junta hopes will bolster its legitimacy, and putting pressure on the KIA and other insurgent groups to respond positively to junta offers of talks. The junta leader, Sen. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, renewed a call to insurgent forces to talk peace while on a visit to China on Nov. 6, telling Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang that stability was crucial for economic development and trade. But the insurgents have dismissed the junta’s offer as a trick and reject the planned election as a sham when Myanmar’s most popular politician, Aung San Suu Kyi, and hundreds of other opponents of military rule are in prison. Over the past year, the KIA has captured jade and rare earth mines that export to China, and both sides have at different times sealed the border, partly to put economic pressure on the other side. China recently closed the border to civilians seeking shelter from fighting and has also shut off supplies reaching KIA-controlled areas leading to shortages of fuel and medicine. The KIA responded by suspending exports of rare earths to China, and the group now controls every border crossing through which the minerals vital to a range of Chinese manufacturing pass. Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Burmese. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Tibetan environmentalist released after serving nearly 15 years in prison](https://ij-reportika.com/tibetan-environmentalist-released-after-serving-nearly-15-years-in-prison/): Read original story in Tibetan A prominent Tibetan art collector and environmental activist who was sentenced to prison in 2010 has been released after serving nearly 15 years amid deteriorating health and is expected to remain under strict surveillance, three sources told Radio Free Asia. Karma Samdrub, 56, was arrested by Chinese authorities in January 2010 and sentenced by the Yangi County Court in Xinjiang later that year on trumped up charges of excavating ancient tombs and robbing cultural artifacts, despite having been cleared of all charges in a 1998 investigation. He was released from prison in Xinjiang’s Shaya County on Monday, according to the three sources, who spoke to RFA on the condition of anonymity for security reasons. In photos taken just after his release, the once well-built Tibetan businessman is seen needing the support of at least two to aid in his walking. “He is now suffering from spinal and back-related health issues and needs assistance to even walk due to prolonged mistreatment, torture and prison labor in the past 15 years,” one of the sources told RFA. Karma Samdrub, center, reunites with family and friends following his release from prison on Nov. 18, 2024. (Citizen Photo) Chime Namgyal received a two-year sentence on charges related to his conservationist work with Rinchen Samdrup. One of the three sources who spoke to RFA said that the two brothers were among the family members, friends and acquaintances who welcomed Karma Samdrup home this week. As part of his 2010 sentence, Samdrub will be deprived of all political rights for the next five years. This means that his civil and political freedoms will be restricted, including the right to the freedom of assembly and speech, as well as the right to hold a position in various organizations. Additional reporting by Tsering Namgyal. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi. Edited by Tenzin Pema, Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Briton, 2 Australians in intensive care after suspected alcohol poisoning in Laos](https://ij-reportika.com/briton-2-australians-in-intensive-care-after-suspected-alcohol-poisoning-in-laos/): BANGKOK – One British and two Australian tourists are seriously ill after drinking alcohol suspected of being tainted with poisonous methanol in a tourist town in Laos, after two young Danish women died, hospital sources told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday. The British tourist is in intensive care in a hospital in the Lao capital, Vientiane, while the two Australians are in hospital in neighboring Thailand, the sources said. As many as nine other tourists were ill, media reported. All of them were believed to have been in the Lao town of Vang Vieng, a favorite destination for backpackers in Southeast Asia. The Lao government said it had not identified what killed the two Danish women and made the others sick. “We acknowledged the incident but we do not have the autopsy and investigation results yet,” said an official at the Ministry of Public Security who declined to be identified, given the sensitivity of the matter. RFA previously reported that tourists got sick after a late-night drinking session on Nov. 12, according to sources in Laos who declined to be identified. A member of staff at the Kasemrad International Hospital Vientiane, said a tourist was admitted to the hospital last week. “The British national is in ICU,” the female staff member told RFA, referring to the hospital’s intensive care unit. She declined to give further details about the condition or gender of the patient. Two Australians, Holly Bowles and her friend, Bianca Jones, both 19, were in serious condition in Thailand &#8211; one in hospital in Bangkok and the other in the town of Udon Thani, near the border with Laos, Australian media reported. A member of staff at the Bangkok hospital did not deny it was treating one of the tourists but declined to identify her or give details of her condition. Australia’s 9News quoted Bowles’ father, Shaun, as saying his daughter was still fighting for her life. “Our daughter remains in the intensive care unit, in a critical condition. She’s on life support,” he said. Jones’ family said in a statement carried by Australian networks on Wednesday that she remained in intensive care in Udon Thani and they had received no update on her condition. “This is every parent’s nightmare and we want to ensure no other family is forced to endure the anguish we are going through,” the family said. The two best friends had been on a “dream getaway,” the family said in an earlier statement. Nana Backpacker Hostel in Vang Vieng, Laos, Nov. 19, 2024. ‘Profit over lives’ An official at the No. 103 Military Hospital in Vientiane told RFA on Wednesday the two unidentified Danish women had died of severe poisoning. “The [first] woman passed away on the first day she was transferred from Vang Vieng, having breathing difficulties,” the official said. “The second woman was able to travel by herself in a car but finally succumbed.” She said many other patients were referred to hospital elsewhere. Most of the sick tourists &#8211; who included Danish and Swedish nationals &#8211; had been staying at the Nana Backpacker Hostel in the town, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, reported. RFA spoke to Duong Van Huan, an owner of the hostel, who said that the poisoning did not occur at his bar. “I don’t know much of what happened,” he said “They went to the bar and came back &#8230; I only sent them to the hospital &#8230; I don’t know which bar they went to &#8211; Vang Vieng has lots of them.” A foreign businessman in Vang Vieng told RFA he thought there needed to be an international inquiry. “From my opinion, this needs a lot of investigation by local and foreign officials,” he said. “The ones who are accountable will get what they deserve and send a very clear message to all bars and hostels that they should never make a small extra profit over lives.” Police told RFA Lao they are investigating whether the source of the illness was methanol, a clear liquid that is often illegally added to alcohol as a cheaper alternative to ethanol. Even a small amount of methanol can be fatal. A tourist took to a Laos Backpacker group on Facebook to post a warning. “Urgent &#8211; please avoid all local spirits,” the tourist said. “Our group stayed in Vang Vieng and we drank free shots offered by one of the bars. Just avoid them as so not worth it. 6 of us who drank from the same place are in hospital currently with methanol poisoning.” An official at the Australian Embassy in Bangkok declined to comment. Edited by Mike Firn We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Five years on, PolyU protesters say they were defending freedoms](https://ij-reportika.com/five-years-on-polyu-protesters-say-they-were-defending-freedoms/): Five years after riot police besieged Hong Kong’s Polytechnic University and trapped protesters fought back with catapults and Molotov cocktails, four people who were there say they were trying to stand up for their promised rights and freedoms in the face of ongoing political encroachment from Beijing. The 10-day siege of PolyU began on Nov. 18, 2019, after around 1,000 protesters occupied the university as part of an ongoing series of actions to achieve the movement’s key demands: fully democratic elections; the withdrawal of plans to allow extradition to mainland China; greater official and police accountability; and an amnesty for detained protesters. The protesters were then trapped on campus as riot police encircled the area, prompting nearly 100,000 people to turn out to battle riot police across Tsim Sha Tsui, Jordan, Yau Ma Tei, Mong Kok and other parts of the Kowloon peninsula. Four young people who were among the besieged protesters spoke to RFA Cantonese on the fifth anniversary of the siege, which ended Nov. 19, 2019, and proved to be one of the last major standoffs between black-clad protesters and riot police after months of clashes sparked by plans to allow extradition to mainland China. Protesters are sprayed with blue liquid from a water cannon during clashes with police outside Hong Kong Polytechnic University in Hong Kong, Nov. 17, 2019. He said many young protesters were motivated by a desire to burn their home city to the ground rather than acquiesce in its transformation into another Chinese city under Communist Party rule. “Nowadays, the Chinese Communist Party is no longer hiding its authoritarian tendencies, and has been sanctioned by the international community, while the Hong Kong economy declines by the day,” Kai said. “This shows that our idea that we would all burn together was right on the money,” he said. Around 1,300 people were arrested, with around 300 sent to hospital for injuries related to water cannon blast, tear gas, and rubber bullets, as protesters wielding Molotov cocktails, catapults and other makeshift weapons from behind barricades beat back repeated attempts by riot police to advance into the university campus. Small groups of protesters continued to make desperate bids for freedom throughout the siege, many of them only to end up being arrested and beaten bloody by police. Police also deployed tear gas, water cannon, and rubber bullets against a crowd of thousands trying to push through towards Poly U from Jordan district, with hundreds forming human chains to pass bricks, umbrellas, and other supplies to front-line fighters. “I took part in a lot of protest-related activities from June [of that year] onwards, although I never considered myself a front-line fighter,” a former protester living in the United Kingdom who gave only the pseudonym Kit for fear of reprisals, told RFA Cantonese in a recent interview. “But I felt that if I wasn’t prepared to take it further, then we really would lose the rule of law in Hong Kong.” Protesters leave the Hong Kong Polytechnic University campus to surrender to police, in Hong Kong, Nov. 19, 2019. “What impressed me most was that some of the protesters used a homemade catapult to launch Molotov cocktails, which set fire to the police armored vehicle, forcing it to retreat,” he said. “Everyone cheered when that happened.” “Actually, the situation inside PolyU was total chaos, with a lot of misinformation coming in, and nobody really knew what to do,” he said. Tin said he had fled Hong Kong and wound up in Japan after traveling to several other countries first. “I’ve had good and bad experiences over the last five years, but I’ve survived,” he said. A former protester now living in Germany who gave only the nickname Hei for fear of reprisals said he went to PolyU on Nov. 17 to try to persuade his fellow protesters to leave while they still could. Before he knew it, he was trapped inside. “I wanted to persuade them to leave, because the situation was critical, with helicopters flying overhead,” Hei said. “But they refused to leave.” Hei never thought he’d be stuck there for as long as he was. “When it became clear at around 9.30 that evening that those of us left inside weren’t going to be able to leave, things got pretty dark,” he said. “One guy told us to make a written statement pledging not to commit suicide.” So he stayed behind to resist the advance of the riot police. “The police offensive was really intense,” he said. “I was on the platform of A Core for the entire night.” Pro-democracy lawmakers stand amid items left behind by protestors in Hong Kong Polytechnic University in Hong Kong, Nov. 26, 2019. “Just below us were the frontline fighters, and the police water cannon truck, which sprayed us on the platform with blue water from time to time,” Hei said. “Then at about 6.00 p.m. on the 18th, the police suddenly launched an offensive and fired large numbers of tear gas rounds and rubber bullets from a high altitude at the Core A platform.” “I opened my umbrella and squatted down next to a tree, and the bullets kept cracking on the umbrella,” he said. “We lost the position pretty quickly, but I was able to make it back to PolyU luckily.” Inside, rumors were swirling that the police would burst in to arrest everyone, so Hei managed to escape by following a lawyer who had come in to try to help the young people inside. He had a lucky escape. Anyone arrested during the siege was eventually charged with “rioting,” with some receiving jail terms of up to 10 years. “They only took my ID details,” said Hei, who wasn’t arrested, and who later left Hong Kong for Germany. He said the siege taught him how hard it is to stand up to an authoritarian regime. “But I have no regrets, because anyone with a conscience or any sense of justice would have chosen to stand up,” he...
- [Myanmar military steps up airstrikes in Shan state, Mandalay; dozens of casualties](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-military-steps-up-airstrikes-in-shan-state-mandalay-dozens-of-casualties/): Myanmar military airstrikes in northern Shan state and Mandalay region have killed about 30 civilians over the past week, an insurgent spokeswoman and residents said, as the military intensifies its attacks in a bid to re-capture territory lost over the past year. Ethnic minority guerrilla groups and their pro-democracy allies went on the offensive this time last year, achieving unprecedented gains against the military junta that seized power in an early 2021 coup and raising questions about the long-term sustainability of military rule. But the military has said it is intent on recovering lost territory and anti-junta forces are expecting offensives as the army takes advantage of the dry season now beginning, when it can send its trucks along dried-out roads into remote, rebel-held areas. At the same time, the air force is increasing its raids on areas under insurgent control. A spokeswoman for the Shan state-based Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, ethnic minority insurgent force said Kutkai town in northern Shan state, about 260 kilometers (160 miles) northeast of the city of Mandalay, was among the towns hit hard in recent days. “Since November 12, military council airstrikes have killed over 30 civilians and injured 46,” said Lway Yay Oo, spokesperson for the TNLA. “More than 30 houses have been destroyed in the attacks. The military council has primarily targeted densely populated areas, including buildings such as shops where civilians tend to gather.” RFA tried to contact the main military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, but he did not answer his telephone. Human rights groups and analysts say the Myanmar military has a long record of attacking civilians as part of its anti-insurgency strategy known as the “four cuts”, aimed at depriving rebel forces of food, funds, information and recruits. But a former military officer and political analyst said it was inevitable that the military would use its air power and it was not deliberately targeting civilians. “In war, unfortunately, casualties are inevitable. Cutting off the enemy’s communication lines is extremely challenging. The side with air superiority will naturally use it, that’s how it works… [but] we’ve never seen civilian casualties on this scale before,” said the analyst, who declined to be identified as talking to the media. ‘We’re not safe’ A Kutkai resident told Radio Free Asia that the air force dropped bombs near Yay Htwat Oo Garden Market and a church on Sunday night . “A two-month-old baby, his mother and an elderly grandmother were killed instantly,” said the Kutkai resident, who declined to be identified because of security fears. Ten people were wounded, seven of them critically, the resident said, adding: “The airstrike caused widespread destruction, with houses, shops and cars blown apart. The area targeted is densely populated.” “We’ve dug bunkers, but by the time we hear the sound of planes and try to get to the bunker, the bombs have already fallen. How can we feel safe? No matter how much we try to protect ourselves, they are deliberately targeting us. We’re not safe,” said the Kutkai resident. The TNLA-controlled towns of Nawnghkio and Mongngawt, in Shan state, and Mogoke, in the neighboring Mandalay region had also been attacked by the air force over the past week, residents there said. Captain Zin Yaw, a former military officer who has joined the opposition, told RFA that the military has been relentlessly bombing areas controlled by allied insurgent forces to keep them on the back foot, while the army had set its sites on retaking the town of Lashio, which allied rebel fighters captured on Aug. 3 in one of their most significant victories. “The military council is attempting to advance into Lashio from Mongyai and Tangyan,” said Zin Yaw. Mongyai is about 65 kilometers (40 miles) south of Lashio and Tangyan is about 85 kilometers (53 miles) m to the southeast. “It appears they are trying to hinder the Kokang and Ta’ang forces from preparing for further military action, aiming to render them incapable of mounting an offensive,” he said, referring to another rebel force, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, by the name of the Kokang region where it is based. The MNDAA holds Lashio. Edited by RFA Staff and Kiana Duncan. RELATED STORIES Perhaps it would be better if Myanmar’s civil war became a ‘forgotten conflict’ Fresh Chinese support may not be enough to save Myanmar junta Nearly 200 schools in Myanmar hit by junta air strikes since military coup We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Leader of rebel army detained in China’s Yunnan province](https://ij-reportika.com/leader-of-rebel-army-detained-in-chinas-yunnan-province/): The leader of an ethnic rebel army was being held under house arrest in China’s Yunnan province in the latest move by Beijing to pressure it to withdraw from Lashio, northern Shan state’s biggest city, a source close to the army told Radio Free Asia. The insurgent Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, captured the junta’s without incident after MNDAA forces had taken over most of the city. China has also cut off shipments of fuel, medicine and food items through its border into the MNDAA-controlled areas in Shan state. In September, the MNDAA said it had cut ties with Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government. It said it would work with China to bring peace, but days later the junta bombed Lashio and peace talks never took place. Beijing has recently stepped up its support for the military junta, and earlier this month, junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing traveled to Kunming – the capital of Yunnan – for talks with provincial officials. RFA has reached out via email to the Chinese Embassy in Yangon and the MNDAA’s information team for comments but neither immediately responded. Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Matt Reed. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar junta airstrike kills children playing by a church, group says](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-airstrike-kills-children-playing-by-a-church-group-says/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. Myanmar’s air force bombed a church where displaced people were sheltering near the border with China killing nine of them including children, days after the junta chief reiterated a call for peace talks, an insurgent group official told Radio Free Asia. Fighting in Myanmar is expected to intensify in coming weeks as forces of the junta that seized power in 2021 take advantage of the dry season to try to recapture territory lost to guerrilla groups over the past year, and despite efforts by neighboring China to promote dialogue. In northern Myanmar’s Kachin state, fighters from the Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, have made significant gains this year, capturing numerous military positions as well as jade and rare earth mines and most crossings on the border with China. The military has responded with airstrikes, which insurgents and rights groups say are often targeted at civilians in a bid by the military to scare off support for the rebels. A junta plane dropped a bomb on a church in Kachin state’s Konlaw village on Friday, next to a camp for people displaced by fighting, killing nine of them, said a KIA information officer, Naw Bu said. “It hit kids from the camp who were playing in the area at the time, the camp itself and the church,” Naw Bu said. “In just one family, the father, the mother, and all their kids, six people in total, died,” he said, adding that nine people were killed in all. He said there was no instigation for the attack, adding that an attack on displaced civilians and a religious building was a war crime. Eleven people were wounded, seven critically, and were being treated at a hospital near Lai Zar on the Chinese border, he said. RFA tried to telephone military spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment but he did not answer. Many Kachin people are Christian as are members of some of the other ethnic minorities in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar’s hilly border lands. The KIA captured Kung Law, which is to the east of the town of Bhamo, in late March in fighting that displaced about 3,000 people. The deadly bombing comes days after the junta chief, Sen. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, reiterated during a visit to China a call for peace talks with the rebel forces fighting for self-determination and to end military rule. Anti-junta forces have dismissed Min Aung Hlaing’s call as aimed at appeasing China, which is pressing for an end to the bloody turmoil in its south neighbor that threatens its economic interests there, including energy pipelines running up from the Indian Ocean and mining projects. Insurgents say they expect offensives against them in different parts of the country this dry season, which usually begins in November and enables the military to advance with its heavy vehicles over poor roads. Naw Bu identified those killed in the airstrike as Sut Zai Li, 5, May Sen Pan, 7, Gum Seng Maw, 9, Tsawm San, 10, Mung Htoi Awng, 11, Sa Ra Seng, 11 Myu Jet Awn, 13, Lazum Lung Wa, 35 and Mun Mai 36. From January to October, airstrikes killed 540 people nationwide, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners human rights group said in a report on Nov. 6. RELATED STORIES China denies entry to Myanmar nationals trapped by battle Residents in Myanmar feel the crunch as trade with China shuts down Fresh Chinese support may not be enough to save Myanmar junta Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [HSBC restructuring a chance to rescue UK’s Hong Kongers from transnational repression](https://ij-reportika.com/hsbc-restructuring-a-chance-to-rescue-uks-hong-kongers-from-transnational-repression/): HSBC’s recently-announced plan to split into four businesses from Jan. 1 offers the British multinational bank a chance to correct a wrong against tens of thousands of Hong Kongers in the UK and Canada who have been denied access to their retirement savings. The Calls grow for UK to expand lifeboat scheme for Hong Kongers China Derecognizes BNO Passports as UK Launches Hong Kong Visa Scheme As the largest trustee of the MPF, HSBC oversees five MPF schemes and manages approximately 30 percent of the total MPF market, with assets totalling HK$371 billion (£37 billion). From this, Hong Kong Watch has estimated that HSBC is denying Hong Kongers access to as much as £978 million worth of assets in MPF holdings. ‘Financial transnational repression’ This week 13 Parliamentarians from every major political party in the UK wrote new HSBC Group Chief Executive Georges Elhedery urging him to resolve the frozen funds issue. “As Members of Parliament, we welcome information on how the restructuring of HSBC, specifically the creation of separate ‘Hong Kong’ and ‘UK’ businesses, will impact the more than 180,000 BNO Hong Kongers living across the UK who attempt to withdraw their MPF savings,” said the letter. Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong and a signatory to the letter, called on HSBC to make “meaningful changes” for the affected Hong Kongers during the restructuring. “If HSBC has not yet taken into account how its reorganisation, specifically in regard to the split between the Hong Kong and UK markets, will affect Hong Kongers abroad, it should carefully consider how to protect its Hong Kong customers from further financial transnational repression,” wrote Patten, a patron of Hong Kong Watch. It has been nearly four years since the UK government launched the BNO scheme, which is far too long for Hong Kongers to be blocked from the very savings that, for some, would unleash the path to their new life in Britain. A man bids farewell to relatives and friends at the Hong Kong airport as he and his family prepare to leave the city for England, on May 21, 2021. I continue to hear accounts of struggle as Hong Kongers long to adjust to their new lives in the UK, including a single mom who is again worried about not being able to afford heating this winter, as well as one family which cannot afford accessibility features in their home for their child with disabilities. HSBC must seriously consider how it will handle Hong Kongers’ MPF savings as they rearrange the foundations of the company to split the Hong Kong and UK markets, as it is time for their funds to be rightfully released. In addition, the new UK government should seek to further understand the issue, raise the freezing of BNO Hong Kongers’ savings in every bilateral meeting with China and Hong Kong, and take immediate action to issue guidance to MPF trustees regarding the use of BNO passports as valid, UK government-issued identity documents. This would ensure that Hong Kongers who are part of the UK’s BNO community do not have to face another cold winter nor a sleepless night trying to figure out how they will provide for their family while still in the shadow of trauma from escaping political repression in Hong Kong. Megan Khoo is policy director at the international NGO Hong Kong Watch. Khoo, based in London, has served in communications roles at foreign policy non-profit organizations in London and Washington, D.C.. The views expressed here do not reflect the position of Radio Free Asia. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Alarming Pollution in Yangtze River in Wuhan, China](https://ij-reportika.com/alarming-pollution-in-yangtze-river-in-wuhan-china/): The Yangtze River, China’s longest and most iconic waterway, has recently experienced a significant drop in water levels, revealing an alarming sight: massive sewage pipes spewing untreated waste directly into the river. This sudden exposure has shed light on a long-standing environmental issue — the extensive pollution of one of the world&#8217;s most vital rivers. A Growing Environmental Crisis The exposure of these sewage pipes is a stark reminder of the critical state of China’s water quality, especially in major urban centers. Wuhan, with a population of over 11 million, has long been grappling with pollution in the Yangtze, but the revelation of the full scale of the problem has shocked local residents and environmentalists alike. The Yangtze, which serves as a crucial water source for millions of people and countless industries, has been under increasing stress from pollution for years. The river is a vital lifeline for agriculture, fishing, transportation, and drinking water. However, rapid urbanization, industrial growth, and lax environmental enforcement have contributed to worsening water quality. Large sections of the Yangtze now contain pollutants such as heavy metals, plastic waste, agricultural runoff, and, most disturbingly, untreated sewage. Health Risks and Long-Term Effects The discharge of raw sewage into the Yangtze River presents serious risks to both the environment and human health. The toxic waste, which can include bacteria, viruses, and industrial chemicals, contaminates the river water, making it unsafe for consumption, recreational use, and agriculture. For the millions of people who rely on the Yangtze for drinking water, this contamination poses an immediate threat to public health. The long-term environmental consequences could be catastrophic. The continuous flow of untreated sewage into the river can damage aquatic ecosystems, threatening biodiversity and disrupting the livelihoods of communities that depend on fishing and other water-based industries. The Yangtze is home to several endangered species, including the Yangtze River dolphin, which is already on the brink of extinction. Pollution only accelerates the decline of these species and further degrades the delicate balance of the river&#8217;s ecosystem. A Wake-Up Call for Action The revelation of massive sewage pipes discharging untreated waste into the Yangtze River should serve as a wake-up call not only for China but for the world. The pollution of rivers and other natural bodies of water is a global problem that affects ecosystems, public health, and economies. In China, where rapid urbanization and industrial growth have often come at the expense of environmental protection, this crisis underscores the urgent need for more stringent regulations and enforcement. For Wuhan and the broader Yangtze River basin, immediate measures must be taken to address the sewage problem, including expanding wastewater treatment infrastructure, increasing government oversight, and promoting public awareness of the importance of protecting the environment. The government has set ambitious goals for environmental protection, but whether these goals can be met in the face of growing challenges remains to be seen. The exposure of these sewage pipes is an alarming reminder of the complex and often hidden nature of environmental pollution. As the water level of the Yangtze continues to fluctuate, the eyes of the world will be watching to see if China can take meaningful action to reverse the tide of pollution and restore the health of this vital river system. For the people of Wuhan and the many communities along the Yangtze, the fight to protect the river is not just a matter of environmental stewardship — it is a matter of survival. Read Our Latest Investigative Reports on Investigative Reports of Ij-Reportika
- [Fresh Chinese support may not be enough to save Myanmar junta](https://ij-reportika.com/fresh-chinese-support-may-not-be-enough-to-save-myanmar-junta/): Myanmar’s military dictator, Min Aung Hlaing, returned from a five-day trip to China, his first since the February 2021 coup, with promises of further on border trade. As of now only one of five official border posts, Mongla, is open. China has not restored electricity and internet service to many of the border towns as punishment. Under Chinese pressure, the Myanmar National Defense Alliance Army (MNDAA), had to publicly distance themselves from the National Unity Government (NUG), the shadow opposition government. And yet they continue to defy Beijing, both continuing their military operations and coordination with the NUG. People gather around a destroyed building following an airstrike in Namhkham township in Myanmar&#8217;s northern Shan state, Sept. 6, 2024. The military is increasingly reliant on air power, which has led to the death of over 540 civilians and 200 schools in the first 10 months of 2024, alone. The most recent strike targeted the ruby-mining town of Mogoke, which the TNLA seized in July. But opposition gains have put those airbases in range. On November 5, a drone dropped a bomb at the airport in Naypyidaw soon after Min Aung Hlaing and his delegation departed for Kunming. On November 11, opposition forces fired rockets into the Shan Te airbase in Meiktila township. Meiktila is a major military hub with several bases and defense industries, and the airbase is the hub of Air Force operations in northern Shan, Kachin, Sagaing and Sagaing regions. There is now satellite evidence that the military is making improvements to a small airfield in Pakokku, just across the Irrawaddy River to the southwest of Myingyan, a major logistic and energy transit hub in Mandalay province where opposition forces have stepped up attacks. The regime appears to be moving to smaller airfields in strongholds, which would allow it to save fuel in operations. It also suggests that they are increasingly reliant on riverine transportation to get jet fuel safely delivered. Now in the dry season, the military sees a window of opportunity to regain territory lost since Operation 1027 began a year ago. Min Aung Hlaing has secured additional Chinese assistance, despite Beijing’s misgiving about his competence. But that support may be insufficient across so many distinct battlefields, against an opposition that has demonstrated their refusal to kowtow to Beijing. Zachary Abuza is a professor at the National War College in Washington and an adjunct at Georgetown University. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of the U.S. Department of Defense, the National War College, Georgetown University or Radio Free Asia. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Kim Jong Un wants North Korea to mass produce suicide drones](https://ij-reportika.com/kim-jong-un-wants-north-korea-to-mass-produce-suicide-drones/): North Korean leader Kim Jong Un wants the country to begin mass production of suicide drones, raising concerns that Pyongyang could potentially send these to Russia for use in its war in Ukraine. State media reported that the country’s supreme leader Kim Jong Un visited a test site for the unmanned attack aircraft. “The suicide attack drones, designed to be used within different striking ranges on the ground and the sea, are to perform a precision attack mission against any enemy targets,” the Korea Central News Agency report said. In tests, the drones “precisely hit” targets, it said. Kim “underscored the need to build a serial production system as early as possible and go into full-scale mass production,” the report said. Though the report made no mention of the possibility of North Korea manufacturing drones to be sold to Russia, several analysts said that North Korea might look to do just that. The war is the motivation behind North Korean drone development, Bruce Bennett, a researcher at the U.S.-based RAND Corporation told RFA Korean. “Putin wants cheap weapons, and Kim Jong Un can produce them,” said Bennett. “I suspect that Russia transferred drone technology to support North Korea’s production.” North Korean leader Kim Jong Un watches a drone test at the Drone Institute of the Academy of Defense Sciences, Aug. 24, 2024. He also noted that any North Korean ability to mass-produce drones could be a potential threat to South Korea. The successful test of suicide drones as reported by North Korean state media is a concern in light of the deepening ties between Moscow and Pyongyang, Bruce Klingner of the Washington-based Heritage Foundation said. Klingner said that North Korea has already provided Russia with artillery shells, ballistic missiles, and over 10,000 troops. He also said that the recent ratification of a comprehensive bilateral security treaty between Russia and North Korea suggests that Moscow might soon increase transfer of military technology to Pyongyang. Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department expressed concern over the deepening relationship, calling it and its associated weapons transfers “a trend that should be of great concern to anyone who is interested in maintaining peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, preserving the global nonproliferation regime, and supporting the Ukrainian people.” Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar junta can order migrant workers home to fight, agency says](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-can-order-migrant-workers-home-to-fight-agency-says/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. Myanmar’s Ministry of Labor has issued a ruling allowing it to call back overseas workers for military service and has made the employment agencies that send workers abroad responsible for bringing them back if ordered to, an agency told Radio Free Asia on Friday. Since the military ousted a democratically elected government in a 2021 coup, many thousands of Myanmar people have moved abroad to escape a crumbling economy, violent turmoil and, since early this year, the threat of being drafted into the military as it struggles against anti-junta forces. While many try their luck and head abroad in the hope of finding work, many others find work through employment agencies, filling jobs overseas through deals Myanmar has struck with other governments. The military’s ministry issued a regulation this week ordering job agencies to take full responsibility for their workers’ military service, and only to issue new contracts stipulating that workers and their foreign employers must agree that employees can be called back to serve, a member of staff at a Yangon-based employment agency told RFA. “Agencies have been given responsibility for their conscription. After we take that duty, the junta has a lot of ways of calling them back. It’s a lot of pressure,” said the agency employee who declined to be identified given the sensitivity of the matter. “If the workers we send are called back, then the trouble will start. If they don’t return, are we going to take action?” he said. Under the regulation, workers would only be called back after two years, the agency source said, while expressing concern that the time rule could easily be ignored. RFA was not able to determine the reaction of foreign employers to the regulation. RFA tried to call the junta’s labor minister, Nyan Win, to ask about the rule but he did not respond by the time of publication. The junta enacted a conscription law in February, making men aged 18 to 35 and women aged 18 to 27 to serve for up to three years, after various insurgent forces battling to end military rule went on the offensive and made significant advances. The law triggered an exodus of young people to places like Thailand. Myanmar authorities have detained and forcibly recruited people being sent back to Myanmar and turned to prisoners and even minors to fill gaps in the ranks, according to witnesses and residents of some communities. Struggling with a crippled economy, the junta has already ordered that Myanmar workers in Laos and Thailand make payments from their salaries to bolster foreign reserves and employment agencies risk having their licenses revoked if those remittances are not collected. Military authorities have also announced strict action against anyone caught trying to dodge the draft, state-run media reported on Nov. 7. Nationwide, there are 21,000 conscripts at 23 training schools, the independent research group Burma Affairs and Conflict Study said in a report on Oct. 15. RELATED STORIES Myanmar junta expands mandatory remittance for migrant workers Surge of Myanmar migrants into Thailand comes with grim costs 29 young men escape Myanmar junta’s conscription Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Thousands flee fighting in Myanmar’s heartland](https://ij-reportika.com/thousands-flee-fighting-in-myanmars-heartland/): Read RFA’s coverage of this topic in Burmese Fierce fighting between junta troops and rebels in central Myanmar’s Sagaing region over the past week has driven nearly 10,000 residents to flee their homes, sources said Thursday. The fighting in Sagaing, along the borders of Mandalay and Magway regions, marks the first bid by rebel forces to take Pale, a key town in Myanmar’s “dry zone” region &#8211; the country’s breadbasket and a stronghold of the military since its February 2021 coup d’etat. On Monday, the Bamar National Revolutionary Army or BNRA and allied forces launched an attack on a unit of some 40 junta troops stationed at the Pale Township General Administrative Office and police station, according to residents and rebel officials. The military responded with airstrikes and artillery, as well as reinforcements, and anti-junta forces were unable to capture the town as of Thursday, said Saya Naing, the station officer of the rebel Black Leopard Army, which is aligned with the Bamar National Revolutionary Army. “They drop soldiers with four or five helicopters every day,” he said, adding that on Thursday, as many as eight helicopters had brought reinforcements. “Our forces are surrounding them, but a Mi-35 helicopter attacked part of the town this morning, destroying about 50 houses.” RELATED STORIES Indian border fence cutting off key supply route to Myanmar’s Sagaing Four more killed in sweeping crackdown in Myanmar’s Sagaing Junta targeting aid groups, social workers in Myanmar’s Sagaing region Nearly 10,000 people have fled the fighting since Monday and are in need of aid, said a member of the Supporting Network for People in Sagaing relief group. “More than 2,100 households from 11 [nearby] villages and the town of Pale have fled from the intense fighting,” said the aid worker who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. “As of [Wednesday], the number of displaced persons has exceeded 9,500.” The aid worker said that among the displaced are those suffering from seasonal illnesses, pregnant women and the elderly. Four days of airstrikes The junta has carried out at least 20 airstrikes over the past four days, killing some civilians, according to a member of the Pale Township Public Administration aid organization. “Fighting is still escalating between the [rebel] forces and the junta forces,” he said. “We are evacuating as many of the residents as possible. We have taken out more than 200 people.” The aid worker said his organization is still fielding requests to help evacuate civilians who were left behind as others fled the attacks, including the paralyzed and the blind. “Many buildings were destroyed in the town,” he said. “As far as we know, three people were reportedly killed, while the actual number may be higher. People displaced by fighting huddle under tarps in Pale township, Sagaing region, in March 2024. A resident of Pale township who also declined to be named told RFA that everyone in her village had fled since the fighting began. “We fled our homes since Monday amid frequent bombardment by the junta,” she said, adding that the military was “scattering bombs” around the village. “Entire villages are fleeing on cattle carts, by foot and by motorcycle. We are facing a shortage of food supplies.” Casualty numbers unclear A military analyst and former army officer who did not wish to be named told RFA that the BNRA would likely face higher casualties fighting urban warfare in Pale town. “This is largely a tactical move rather than a full-scale operation [by the BNRA],” he said. “Due to Pale town’s proximity to the Northwestern Military Command, the junta frequently conducts airstrikes, which has prevented them from fully securing the town.” The analyst said reports indicate that “many BNRA soldiers have been injured” in the fighting, although he could not provide details. Allied rebel forces told RFA that the extent of casualties on both sides of the conflict remains unknown. Attempts by RFA to contact Nyunt Win Aung, the junta’s spokesperson and social affairs minister for Sagaing region, went unanswered Thursday. According to residents, the military bombarded Pale’s Aing Ma village on Nov. 5, killing four civilians. Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar’s Kachin rebels stop rare earth exports to China](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-kachin-rebels-stop-rare-earth-exports-to-china/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. An ethnic minority insurgent group in Myanmar has closed crossings it controls on the border with China, cutting off exports of valuable rare earths in response to recent closures of the border by China, residents of the area said on Thursday. The Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, which has been fighting on and off for decades for self-determination in Myanmar’s northernmost state, has made significant gains against junta forces over the past year, capturing territory, including some major rare-earth mines, and 10 border checkpoints. Rare earths are used in the manufacture of numerous items, from electric cars to wind turbines and cell phones, in Chinese factories, but the mining of the minerals essential for the green transition causes significant pollution. China, which the environmental group Global Witness said in a recent report had effectively outsourced its rare earth extraction to Myanmar, has also been trying to press insurgent groups battling the Myanmar junta to make peace by sealing the border to trade. The KIA had responded by sealing the part of the border under its control, cutting off cross-border shipments of inputs needed for rare earth mining and the export of the minerals back to China, residents in the border region of Kachin state told Radio Free Asia. “China keeps opening and closing the gates. Now, the KIA has closed them,” said a resident of Mai Ja Yang town, which is on the border with China, about 130 kilometers (80 miles) southeast of the state capital, Myitkyina. The resident, who declined to be identified for security reasons, said the KIA had closed the border there and at crossings at Lai Zar and Pang War on Tuesday. “As for rare earth mining, that’s all been closed because we don’t have the materials we need to extract them,” the resident said, referring to fuel and chemical inputs. RFA tried to contact KIA spokesman Naw Bu for information about the situation but he did not respond by the time of publication. RFA was not able to contact Chinese authorities or rare earth processors for comment and China’s embassy in Myanmar has not responded to inquiries from RFA. Economic pressure China has extensive economic interests in resource-rich Myanmar including energy pipelines that traverse the Southeast Asian nation, from the Indian Ocean to southern China’s Yunnan province, and several mining projects. While China backs the Myanmar military it also has contacts with anti-junta insurgent groups, especially those in northern and northeastern Myanmar, including the KIA, and has called on the rival sides to negotiate. In late October, China shut six border gates, causing shortages and price surges for fuel and household goods along Kachin state border towns, residents there said. As well as closing border crossings to put economic pressure on the insurgents, China has also closed its border to civilians fleeing fighting. At the Pang War border crossing, about 160 km (100 miles) northeast of Mai Ja Yang, China has sealed the border to traders and civilians but was allowing trucks hauling rare earths from the Kachin state mines to enter China. So the KIA, which recently captured the border post, stopped the trucks, a person affiliated with the KIA said. “As for the gate, China closed it so the KIA did too,” said the person, who also declined to be identified for security reasons. “The KIA blocked the road with wood and barbed wire.” Global Witness said in a report this year that there are more than 300 rare earth mines in Kachin state’s Chipwi and Pang War townships exporting to China, which the group said controls nearly 90% of global rare earth capacity. RELATED STORIES China undermines its interests by boosting support for Myanmar’s faltering junta Myanmar rebels capture border base near Chinese rare-earth mining hub China-led rare earth mining in Myanmar fuels rights abuses, pollution: report Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [China hawk Marco Rubio nominated for US secretary of state](https://ij-reportika.com/china-hawk-marco-rubio-nominated-for-us-secretary-of-state/): WASHINGTON – Marco Rubio, a strident foreign policy “hawk” when it comes to relations with China, has been nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to serve as the next U.S. secretary of state. The Republican senator from Trump’s adopted home state of Florida is almost certain to be confirmed as America’s top diplomat by his soon-to-be former colleagues, with the Republican Party now controlling the Senate with a 53-47 majority over the Democrats. Rubio’s nomination Wednesday completes a trifecta of China “hawks” in the three most important foreign policy picks for a president. He joins Rep. Mike Waltz of Florida, who will be appointed Trump’s national security adviser, and Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, who has been nominated to be ambassador to the United Nations. In a statement released on his Truth Social platform, Trump called Rubio “a Highly Respected Leader” and “a very powerful Voice for Freedom” who would represent America well on the world stage. “He will be a strong Advocate for our Nation, a true friend to our Allies, and a fearless Warrior who will never back down to our adversaries,” Trump said, adding that Rubio as a senator had “authored hundreds of new laws, including some that are truly transformational.” In his own statement, Rubio called the role of secretary of state “a tremendous responsibility” and said that he was “honored by the trust President Trump has placed in me” in making the nomination. “As Secretary of State, I will work every day to carry out his foreign policy agenda,” he added. “Under the leadership of President Trump, we will deliver peace through strength and always put the interests of Americans and America above all else.” From foes to friends It’s a remarkable turnaround in relations between the two Floridians, who along with Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas were the last three standing candidates for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. Trump easily brushed aside Rubio to secure the nomination and then the presidency, referring to the senator derisively and repeatedly as “Little Marco” while accusing him of being in the pocket of lobbyists. Rubio equally did not hold back, accusing Trump of using “illegal immigrant labor” to build Trump Tower in New York City and of only having found business success because of an inheritance from his father. But the pair seemed to make peace during Trump’s most recent run for office, with Rubio even being vetted as a possible vice president pick. Former President Donald Trump greets Sen. Marco Rubio during a campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Nov. 4, 2024. Rubio also has some support across the aisle, with Sen. John Fetterman, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, indicating that he plans to vote in favor of his nomination to the post. Sanctioned secretary If confirmed, Rubio would be the first sitting U.S. secretary of state to have been sanctioned by Beijing, having been blacklisted in retaliation for U.S. sanctions on Chinese officials for the genocide against the Uyghur ethnic minority and for the crackdown in Hong Kong. But there is already some skepticism of the influence he will have in the Trump administration, even if it is set to be dominated by China hawks. Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who was one of the few Republicans in the House of Representatives to vote to impeach Trump during his last term in office, said he thought Rubio might be kept on a tight leash. “Marco has shown his ability to kind of change for whatever Donald Trump demands, so it really comes down to, ‘What does Donald Trump demand?’” Kinzinger said in an interview with CNN on Monday. Edited by Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Jakarta seeks to contain fallout from South China Sea agreement with Beijing](https://ij-reportika.com/jakarta-seeks-to-contain-fallout-from-south-china-sea-agreement-with-beijing/): JAKARTA – Indonesia is seeking to contain the fallout from a maritime cooperation agreement with China that analysts say appears to indicate a softening of Jakarta’s stance on Beijing’s expansive claims in the South China Sea. A joint statement released after a meeting between Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Saturday said the two countries had reached an “important common understanding on joint development in areas of overlapping claims.” This “understanding” or agreement compromised Indonesia’s territorial and maritime rights, most regional experts said. One security analyst. though, noted on X that a clause stating that the cooperation would proceed only under the laws of both countries may mean the agreement will end up dead in the water. Jakarta had consistently rejected the Beijing-set boundary, which encompasses most of the South China Sea and encroaches into Jakarta’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) north of the Natuna islands, noted Eddy Pratomo, an ex-member of the Indonesian government’s law of the sea negotiation team. “[But] with this Indonesia-China joint statement, it appears Indonesia is now acknowledging overlapping claims,” Eddy, an international law professor at Diponegoro University, told RFA affiliate BenarNews. “This could be seen as tacit recognition of China’s dashed-line claim over the South China Sea, particularly around the North Natuna Sea,” he said. Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr (L) walks with Indonesia�s President-elect Prabowo Subianto during a courtesy call at Malacanang Palace in Manila on September 20, 2024. Opposition lawmaker Tubagus Hasanuddin, a member of the defense and foreign affairs committee in Indonesia’s House of Representatives, questioned the government’s approach to handling sensitive regional issues, particularly concerning the South China Sea. “The Foreign Ministry needs to exercise greater caution and responsiveness in handling official statements,” he said in a press release. “They shouldn’t act as a ‘firefighter’ only when problems arise.” He also raised concerns about the potential consequences of such an agreement for Indonesian fishermen, citing past instances of Chinese vessels entering Indonesian waters and engaging in illegal fishing. “Will this economic cooperation benefit us? Will Chinese fishing vessels then be free to roam in the Natuna area to catch our fish?” One clause in the joint cooperation agreement, however, could mean it would not go through, said Euan Graham, senior analyst at The Australian Strategic Policy Institute. “[T]he reference to “prevailing laws” means [the] agreement may be difficult for Prabowo to push through,” he noted on X. The part of the joint statement Graham is referring to says that the joint development would be “based on the principles of ‘mutual respect, equality, mutual benefit, flexibility, pragmatism, and consensus-building,’ pursuant to their respective prevailing laws and regulations.” Several analysts noted that Prabowo or Foreign Minister Sugiono needed to soon clarify what exactly the joint development was referring to and how the wording got into the joint statement. ‘Potential slippery slope’ The Indonesia-China joint development agreement has consequences not just for Indonesia but could potentially reshape geopolitical dynamics in Southeast Asia and draw responses from the United States and Japan, said international law expert Hikmahanto Juwana. “Countries in dispute with China will question Indonesia’s position,” Hikmahanto, a University of Indonesia professor, told BenarNews. The Indonesian government’s agreement with China might reflect a pragmatic alignment with a major political power, but it could potentially destabilize the region, said Muhammad Waffaa Kharisma, an international relations researcher at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). “In the short term, this statement may benefit Indonesia by easing tensions with China, particularly by reducing the likelihood of coast guard confrontations in the South China Sea,” he said. “However, in the long term, it could harm Indonesia’s standing with Southeast Asian neighbors. This is a potential slippery slope.” Pizaro Gozali Idrus in Jakarta contributed to this report. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [BREAKING Trump Unveils U.S. Crypto Reserve – A Game-Changer for Digital Assets!](https://ij-reportika.com/breaking-trump-unveils-u-s-crypto-reserve-a-game-changer-for-digital-assets/): In a groundbreaking move, President Donald Trump has announced the formation of a U.S. Crypto Reserve, incorporating Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), XRP, and Cardano (ADA). The initiative marks a significant shift in the nation&#8217;s approach to digital assets, reinforcing the United States&#8217; commitment to blockchain technology and decentralized finance. Trump’s Bold Move to Dominate the Crypto Era During his announcement, Trump directed the President&#8217;s Working Group on Digital Assets to integrate these five leading cryptocurrencies into the reserve. The inclusion of Bitcoin and Ethereum as the “heart of the reserve” underscores their dominance in the digital asset market. This initiative aligns with Trump&#8217;s previous pledge at the Bitcoin 2024 Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, where he vowed to build a “strategic national Bitcoin stockpile.” He also reaffirmed that his administration would retain all Bitcoin currently held or acquired by the U.S. government, solidifying Bitcoin’s role in national strategy. Trump’s Crypto Policy Shakes Up Regulations Trump’s stance on cryptocurrency has evolved significantly. His January 23 executive order tasked the Working Group on Digital Assets with assessing the feasibility of a national crypto reserve while establishing clear regulatory guidelines for stablecoins. The same order explicitly prohibited research and development of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the U.S., citing concerns over financial privacy and government overreach. White House Crypto Summit Set to Make Waves As discussions over the crypto reserve gain momentum, Trump is set to host the White House Crypto Summit on March 7. This event will bring together top industry leaders and policymakers to deliberate on digital asset regulation, the role of stablecoins, and the long-term implications of the crypto strategic reserve. The summit aims to provide clarity on the future of cryptocurrency policy under Trump&#8217;s administration. How Trump’s Crypto Plan Could Reshape Global Finance Trump’s endorsement of a national crypto reserve could significantly influence market dynamics. The inclusion of Solana, XRP, and Cardano alongside Bitcoin and Ethereum highlights the administration’s recognition of blockchain innovation beyond the two largest cryptocurrencies. This move could drive increased institutional adoption, regulatory clarity, and mainstream acceptance of digital assets in the United States. As the U.S. takes a proactive stance on digital currency, the establishment of a Crypto Reserve could set a precedent for other nations to follow, shaping the global financial landscape in the years to come.
- [INTERVIEW: ‘North Korea could have 300 nuclear warheads within 10 years’](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-north-korea-could-have-300-nuclear-warheads-within-10-years/): Ankit Panda, an expert on North Korea’s nuclear program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, was interviewed by Radio Free Asia regarding Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions and how its capabilities might be improved through North Korea’s support of Russia in its war with Ukraine. Panda, a Stanton senior fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at Carnegie, also said that North Korean intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, very likely can be used to attack an American city, and that Pyongyang might have as many as 300 warheads within the next 10 years. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. RFA: If North Korea were to launch an ICBM at the U.S. right now, do you think the U.S. would be vulnerable? Ankit Panda: That’s a good question. First of all, would North Korea launch an ICBM? Probably not &#8212; it would be essentially suicidal. There’s no reason for North Korea to attack the United States unprovoked. But the technical question that you asked, “Can North Korea essentially detonate a nuclear warhead over an American city?” &#8212; the answer to that question in my view is very probably yes, and that’s a carefully chosen phrase, “very probably yes.” The North Koreans, the reliability that they have is probably a lot lower than what the United States has, but it’s probably sufficient for the purposes that Kim Jong Un seeks which is to deter the United States. The only question that Kim has to ask himself is, “In a serious crisis or a war between the United States and North Korea, would an American president be worried that if the war got out of control, American cities could be vulnerable to nuclear attack?” And I think the answer there is absolutely. RFA: But can’t the United States intercept North Korean ICBMs with its missile defense system? Panda: The U.S. has a very limited homeland missile defense capability. We have a total of 44 interceptors that are capable of destroying incoming ICBMs. These interceptors are actually deployed in Alaska. There’s 40 of them in Alaska and four of them in California at Vandenberg Air Force Base. These are designed to deal with North Korean ICBM threats. But it gets a little complicated here because it’s not that there’s 44 interceptors, which means the U.S. can defend against 44 North Korean ICBMs. Probably the U.S. would look to use 3 to 4 interceptors against one incoming ICBM reentry vehicle. And so then if you’re in North Korea, you have a solution to this problem, right? You build more ICBMs. And so that is where the North Koreans have gone. I would argue that that is a chance that would be very difficult for an American president to take &#8212; this idea that the North Koreans could launch ICBMs and our interceptors might not actually work. Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean Workers&#8217; Party General Secretary Kim Jong-un after signing the &#8216;Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement&#8217; at the Kumsusan State Guest House in Pyongyang in June 2024.(Yonhap News) So we know from Ukrainian intelligence that there has been change in the KN-23s. &#8230; They used to be very inaccurate when they were first used. And it turns out there was a report in December 2024 that the precision has improved significantly, and that is a very, very important milestone for the North Koreans because &#8212; especially if they do want to deploy tactical nuclear weapons &#8212; precision of the missile system matters quite a bit because the yield of the weapon is a lot lower, the yield being the explosive power. And so if you’re trying to leverage those types of tactical nuclear weapons for maximal military utility&#8211;let’s say you want to hit an airfield in South Korea that has F-35s that you can’t deal with once they take off, so you have to destroy them before they take off. You really need to make sure that the the yield of the weapon and the precision of the missile match essentially in terms of the mission that you’re trying to accomplish. And so I really think that we shouldn’t underrate the ways in which North Korea’s missile transfers to Russia are very directly augmenting Kim Jong Un’s nuclear ambitions and strategy. RFA: When we talk about North Korean involvement in Ukraine, experts and officials say that North Korea is getting from Russia food or other kinds of support, but regarding missile technology, what does Pyongyang need that Moscow can give? Panda: The area where I think the Russians can really help them is with guidance computers, cruise missile maneuvering, cruise missile control and potentially even countermeasures, other types of ways in which to just improve the reliability of North Korea’s manufacturing standards for missile systems. So all of that, I think will will happen is probably happening in some form space launch technologies, too. I think the Russians will be very, very eager to to help the North Koreans out. That has been the most public facing component of technical cooperation. RFA: As North Korea and Russia grow closer, is there a possibility that Russia will recognize North Korea as an official nuclear state? Panda: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has pretty explicitly said that Russia no longer views North Korea as a nonproliferation concern. Essentially, you know, since the early 1990s, the major powers China, Russia, the United States and Japan, South Korea, the European Union, the whole world has seen North Korea as a nonproliferation problem. They’re the only country to have signed the Nonproliferation Treaty, left that treaty and built nuclear weapons. So it matters how you deal with North Korea for that reason. But it also matters in a big way that the North Koreans are really presenting unacceptable nuclear risks, in my opinion, to the United States and its allies, and so that demands a focus on risk reduction. President Donald Trump and North Korean General Secretary Kim Jong Un meet in Singapore on June 12, 2018.(Yonhap News)...
- [Thailand considers building a wall on its border with Cambodia](https://ij-reportika.com/thailand-considers-building-a-wall-on-its-border-with-cambodia/): BANGKOK – Thailand is considering building a wall on part of its border with Cambodia to tackle illegal crossings, particularly by gangsters involved in online scam centers and drug smugglers, a government spokesman said on Monday. There was no immediate comment from Cambodia on the proposal but the neighbors have a long-standing and bitter dispute over part of their 817 kilometer (507 miles) land border, and another dispute over their maritime border that has stymied the exploitation of offshore gas reserves. “The prime minister directed the cabinet and relevant agencies to further study the idea of erecting a wall between Thailand and Cambodia to prevent illegal crossings and travels of call-center gangsters as well as the drugs and contraband trades,” Thai government spokesman Jirayu Huangsab told reporters. Thailand, at China’s urging, has been cracking down on call centers over its border in eastern Myanmar, which researchers say are responsible for extensive financial fraud around the world and for trafficking in people to work in the centers. Cambodia is also home to call-center operations, including in its western border town of Poipet and the southern seaside town of Sihanoukville. Jirayu mentioned the possibility of putting up a wall in the area opposite Poipet. He said Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra floated the idea of a wall amid reports that scammers from Myanmar were migrating to Poipet, and Thailand planned to discuss the idea with Cambodian authorities. “The foreign ministry and the defense ministry shall coordinate with other relevant agencies and talk with Cambodia on how to make it, if we would, and what the result will be – will it solve problems?” Chinese pressure on its Southeast Asian neighbors to tackle the scam centers has also led to Cambodian action. Over the weekend, Cambodia repatriated 119 Thai nationals following raids in Poi Pet. RELATED STORIES EXPLAINED: What are scam parks? Residents: Scam center workers smuggled into Cambodia via the Mekong River Hun Sen, Cambodia’s powerful former prime minister, complained that Cambodia was not getting the credit it deserved for its action against the scam centers. “Countries on the border with Thailand, including Cambodia, have also tried to suppress the same thing,” Hun Sen said in a post on Facebook on Saturday. “Sadly, Thailand’s success is considered by some journalists and politicians as a failure of neighboring Cambodia,” he said. “The crime story is not over, it continues to be scandalous, which requires intergovernmental cooperation to be done effectively.” Edited by Mike Firn We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Homemade banana chips brings in tourists to rural Cambodian village](https://ij-reportika.com/homemade-banana-chips-brings-in-tourists-to-rural-cambodian-village/): Dozens of families in Cambodia’s Battambang province have developed a thriving side business: selling bags of homemade banana chips to foreign and Cambodian tourists. Wives and children in Battambang’s Kdol Daun Teav commune earn extra money by slicing up bananas, laying them out to dry on bamboo skewers and then selling them as snacks to people who travel to the area to visit Wat Ek Phnom, an Angkor-era temple. Making the banana chips requires patience, according to Nuon Chamnan. It takes a long time to peel bananas, and some days she has to peel and slice bananas until midnight to meet orders. “Sometimes there are so many foreign visitors and then there are no leftovers for other customers,” she said. A journey to Wat Ek Phnom is a popular day trip for people staying in Battambang town, which is about 9 km (5 miles) away from Kdol Daun Teav, where residents grow rice and gather fish from the Sankae River. Over the last few years, word has gotten around that tourists can see the traditional livelihood of Cambodian villagers while also buying a unique snack. Nuon Chamnan said she slices about 50 bananas a day, and can make about 50,000 riels (US$12.50) in sales. The business doesn’t require much of an upfront investment – just a lot of work, she said. “It’s not like we do it with machines,” said another banana seller, Khun Srey Lek. “We use our hands to do it normally, so it’s not tiring,” she said. “We just do it from morning to night, so we do it lightly, like a house chore.” Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [North Korean tour guides know about soldiers dispatched to Ukraine war, tourist says](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korean-tour-guides-know-about-soldiers-dispatched-to-ukraine-war-tourist-says/): A French travel blogger who was among the first group of Western tourists to visit North Korea in five years told Ij Reportika  that his tour guides knew that the country’s soldiers were fighting in Russia’s war against Ukraine &#8212; something the government has kept largely a secret from the public. Pierre-emile Biot, 30, said the Jan. 20-25 trip showcased North Korea’s culture, its close ties with Russia and its “surprisingly really good” locally-produced beer. The visitors were only allowed to stay within the Rason Special Economic Zone in the country’s far northeastern corner, near the border with China and Russia. Foreign tourism to North Korea had completely shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. It reopened last year, but only to visitors from Russia. Biot had always wanted to visit the reclusive state and thought it was only a matter of time until it would open up further. Last month, there were rumblings that the country would accept tourists from anywhere except South Korea and the United States on guided tours. Biot, who had been monitoring several travel agencies, was able to book a four-night five-day trip departing from China. ‘Quite welcoming’ To enter North Korea, Biot and his tour group of about a dozen, including other Europeans, traveled overland from Yanji in China’s Jilin province. He said the entry process getting into North Korea was easy, although authorities conducted sanitary inspections due to concerns about COVID-19. “It was quite welcoming, a lot more than I expected, and it went actually pretty smoothly,” Biot told RFA Korean from Hong Kong in a video call after the conclusion of his trip. “It think they are still a bit scare of COVID,” he said. “They didn’t check like vaccines or anything, but they did check our temperature. They had us pay for a disinfection of our bags also.” The tour was tightly controlled by two guides and two guides-in-training. None of the visitors had any freedom to roam around on their own, even outside their hotel at night. Pierre-Emile Biot stands beside a photo, Feb. 20, 2025, from the Summit between North Korean State Affairs Commission Chairman Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin, at the Russia-Korea Friendship Pavilion in Rason, North Korea.(Courtesy of Pierre-Emile Biot) Biot said that the tour guides tended to avoid questions about politics, but some did say that they knew that North Korean troops were sent to support Russia in its war with Ukraine. Since November, about 12,000 North Korean soldiers have been sent to Russia &#8212; although neither Moscow or Pyongyang have publicly confirmed this, and North Korean state media also has kept mum. “Apparently yes, they know about it, but they don’t know to what extent,” he said. “So they know about the relations with Russia getting better and better.” Good beer, ‘Great Leader’ When asked about the food the tour group was served, Biot praised the domestically produced beer. “Actually the beer was surprisingly really good,” said Biot. “Well, at every single meal we would have, we had no table water, but we had table beer like local beer too. I think all of us had at least like five beers per day.” Another part of the trip included a visit to statues of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s predecessors, his grandfather Kim Il Sung and his father Kim Jong Il. The tourists were told to buy flowers to lay in front of the statues in a show of respect. “We all had to bow, which was really important because we were the first tourist group” to visit in some time, Biot said. Throughout the trip, Biot could sense the immense respect that the North Korean people had for their leaders, he said. The guides often used the expression, “Our great leader made the decision &#8230;” and they spoke often about Kim Jong Un’s achievements. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Brother of ex-World Uyghur Congress president serving 20-year sentence in Xinjiang](https://ij-reportika.com/brother-of-ex-world-uyghur-congress-president-serving-20-year-sentence-in-xinjiang/): The older brother of former World Uyghur Congress President Dolkun Isa is serving a 20-year sentence in China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang for “inciting terrorism,” local police and security officers at a school where he taught said.
- [Uyghurs in Thai prison ‘heartbroken’ to learn friends deported](https://ij-reportika.com/uyghurs-in-thai-prison-heartbroken-to-learn-friends-deported/): Follow the story on Investigative Journalism Reportika Thailand’s Court Weighs Petition to Free Detained Uyghurs Thailand Faces Backlash Over Plans to Deport 48 Uyghurs to China BANGKOK &#8211; Four ethnic Uyghurs held in a Thai prison cried when they learned that 40 of their friends had been deported to China after being held for more than a decade in a Thai immigration lock-up, a friend of the men said on Friday after visiting them. Thailand deported the 40 Uyghurs to China on Thursday, ignoring warnings from the U.S., the U.N. and human rights groups that they risked torture when they were returned to the northeastern region of Xinjiang, which they fled more than 10 years ago. “When they learned that their 40 friends had been sent to China, they were heartbroken,” a 37-year-old friend of the detained Uyghurs, who asked to be identified as just Marzeryya, told us. “They cried, something they had never done before, because they are so worried about their friends,” she said. There are five Uyghurs in Bangkok’s Klong Prem prison where they were sent after trying to escape. Marzeryya said she met four of them on Friday. It was not clear why the five were not also sent back to China on Thursday. Thailand has defended its deportation of the 40, saying it had received an “official request” from China and sent them back after assurances from the “highest level” of the Chinese government on their safety. Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, in her first public comment on the deportations that threatens to create a rift with old ally the U.S., rejected any suggestion Thailand had sent the men back in exchange for some commercial reward from China, adding they had volunteered to go. “This is about people, not goods. People are not merchandise. We definitely did not trade them,” she told reporters. “I confirm that they returned voluntarily. Otherwise, there would have been dragging. There was no dragging, they walked up normally,” she said, referring to their transfer from Bangkok’s main immigration detention center to a flight back to China. Mostly Muslim Uyghurs in China’s vast Xinjiang region have been subjected to widespread human rights abuses, including detention in massive concentration camps. China denies that but U.N. experts said on Jan. 21 the Uyghurs in Thailand would likely face torture if forced back to China and they urged Thailand not to deport them. Trucked at night to airport The 40 were taken in the dead of night in trucks with windows blocked with sheets of black plastic, escorted by police cars and under a media blackout, to Bangkok’s Don Mueang airport for the flight home. Marzeryya rejected the suggestion that they had gone back voluntarily. “Why would they want to return to China when they fled from there because they had no freedom and couldn’t practice their religion? That’s why they’d never want to go back,” she said. Marzeryya said none of the five in prison wanted to go to China. “They don’t want to return. They begged us to pray that they would be relocated to a third country,” she said. Chalida Tajaroensuk, director of the People’s Empowerment Foundation, also visited four of the imprisoned Uyghurs on Friday. “They confirmed that they don’t want to go to China, they want to go to a third country,” Chalida told BenarNews. “They said they had already escaped from China, so why would they want to go back? This contradicts what the Thai government has said.” Another three ethnic Uyghurs are still being held at the Bangkok immigration detention center. They have Kyrgyzstan passports and so were not sent to China, Chalida said. The 48 Uyghurs were part of a cohort of more than 350 Uyghur men, women and children, who left China in the hope of finding resettlement abroad and were stopped and detained in Thailand in 2014. Turkey accepted 172 of them while Thailand sent 109 of them back to China in 2015, triggering a storm of international criticism . Several of them have died of illness over the years. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative ReportsDaily ReportsInterviews Surveys Reportika
- [EXPLAINED: Thailand’s repatriation of 40 Uyghur refugees to China](https://ij-reportika.com/explained-thailands-repatriation-of-40-uyghur-refugees-to-china/): Thailand’s decision to deport 40 Uyghurs back to China after languishing in a Bangkok detention center for over a decade raises concerns about their fate &#8212; and questions about what they were doing there in the first place. What is known about the Uyghurs sent back to China from Thailand? The men originally came from the Xinjiang region of northwestern China where 12 million Uyghurs live under Beijing’s harsh rule. Many have been subjected to human rights abuses and detained in concentration camps that Beijing says are vocational training centers. In 2014, the men were part of a larger group of Uyghurs who tried to escape Xinjiang through Thailand, but were caught. Ever since, they have been held at the Immigration Detention Center in Bangkok, a prison-like facility. After more than 10 years, on Thursday 40 Uyghur men were taken in trucks to Don Mueang International Airport to be deported to Xinjiang. Police officers patrol in the old city in Kashgar in China’s Xinjiang region, May 3, 2021.(Thomas Peter/Reuters) Why are Uyghurs trying to escape from China? Uyghur Muslims chafe under what they view as Chinese colonialism in their ancient homeland and resent curbs on their religion and culture under China’s drive to Sinicize ethnic minorities. While tensions have simmered for decades, a major turning point in the Uyghurs’ relations with the Communist government in Beijing was deadly unrest in July 2009 in Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi. A Uyghur protest against racism and mistreatment spiraled into three days of communal violence between Uyghurs and Han Chinese that left at least 200 people dead and 1,700 injured. Beijing responded with severe and escalating repression, including mass surveillance, a “strike hard” crackdown since 2014 – the year the 40 deported Uyghurs were arrested in Thailand. The campaign featured arrests, separation of children from their parents, and destruction of mosques and other key elements of Uyghurs’ distinct cultural and religious identity. In 2017, Chinese authorities began detaining Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims en masse in what Beijing called “re-education” camps and prisons set up to eradicate religious extremism. Millions underwent political indoctrination and some were subjected to forced labor, torture, rape and the sterilization of women. Many Western nations condemned well-documented acts of repression under the crackdown as genocide or crimes against humanity. Some states imposed sanctions to block the import of products made in Xinjiang with forced labor. RELATED STORIES Thailand deports 40 Uyghurs to China despite fears of torture Visiting Xinjiang, Xi Jinping doubles down on hard-line policies against Uyghurs China pushes the ‘Sinicization of religion’ in Xinjiang, targeting Uyghurs What is the likely fate of the repatriated Uyghurs, based on past examples? The United States, United Nations and human rights group fear that the men will be tortured and subjected to forced labor as punishment for attempting to flee. Thailand said that it agreed to the deportation only after receiving assurances from Beijing that they would be unharmed. But what little is known about previous batches of Uyghurs forcibly repatriated to China appears to justify the fears expressed by critics of Thursday’s rendition. In December 2009, Cambodia deported 20 Uyghur asylum-seekers back to China. Last December, in the first word about them in 15 years, a relative of one of the detainees in Turkey revealed to Radio Free Asia the fate of some of the 20. Ayshemgul Omer, who had maintained contact with fellow relatives of the deported detainees, told RFA Uyghur they were sent to prison after a secret trial a year after their return. Four individuals were sentenced to life imprisonment, four others were given 20 years, and eight others received 16- or 17-year jail sentences, she said. Omer said her seriously ill relative serving a 20-year sentence still had to perform labor in prison, while one woman, who was later released, had a miscarriage in detention due to torture that included electric shocks and being left nearly naked in a cold jail cell. The main immigration detention center in Bangkok on Feb. 26, 2025.(Jerry Harmer/AP) What leverage does China hold over countries like Thailand to enforce its demands? Although Thailand is a long-standing treaty ally of the United States, like most Southeast Asian nations it has become increasingly reliant on Chinese trade and investment, and has close diplomatic and security ties with Beijing. The mostly authoritarian governments in the region share policy alignment and political preference with Beijing. Thailand, whose post-pandemic economic performance has lagged behind many of its ASEAN competitors, largely depends for growth on China. China is the largest source of tourists and has been a top foreign investor in Thailand, while Chinese are the largest foreign purchasers of Thai real estate. Neighbor states Cambodia and Laos have largely staked their economic and political futures on close official relations with China, receiving major infrastructure investment under Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative. Cambodia hosts a Chinese-funded naval base at Ream that the People’s Liberation Army Navy visits, and has blocked even ASEAN statements on the South China Sea at the behest of Beijing. Edited by Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar insurgents strike in junta-dominated central area: NUG](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-insurgents-strike-in-junta-dominated-central-area-nug/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. Pro-democracy fighters and allied ethnic minority insurgents have captured a string of military positions in central Myanmar, the latest setbacks for the junta that has lost control of about half the country, a parallel government in exile said on Thursday. The allied insurgent forces captured seven military camps in the Bago region, on the old main road between the former capital, Yangon, and Myanmar’s second-biggest city, Mandalay, the National Unity Government, or NUG, said in a statement. The NUG, set up by supporters of ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, said eight junta soldiers were killed in the attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday by fighters from a pro-democracy People’s Defence Force, or PDF, and ethnic Karen fighters. One PDF member was also killed, the NUG said and it warned civilians that more attacks were coming. “The People’s Defense Forces will be stepping up military operations, so the public is advised not to visit military council units or checkpoints,” it said. The loss of territory in such a central area will be a set-back for the military which is also under major pressure in Rakhine state, in the west where ethnic Rakhine insurgents are closing in on a major hub for Chinese port and energy investments on the coast. The military, which seized power in a 2021 coup, has been pushed back in most parts of the country since late 2023 and is struggling to recruit soldiers to fill the ranks of the army. The junta has not released any information on the fighting in Bago. RFA tried to telephone junta spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment but he did not answer. In the Sagaing region, to the north of Bago, pro-democracy fighters captured a broadcasting station for the military-owned MRTV on Wednesday, the NUG said, adding that 11 junta soldiers were killed in that attack. It did not release information on its casualties in that attack. The Ministry of Defense said it responded to the Sagaing attacks with airstrikes and artillery support. Political analyst Than Soe Naing said while the attacks in junta-dominated heartland areas this dry season were significant, it would take bigger battles and more time “to dismantle the junta.” Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff. . We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Battling a dictatorship, building a democracy](https://ij-reportika.com/battling-a-dictatorship-building-a-democracy/): The rainy season had just passed when we made the difficult trek to eastern Myanmar last year to see how rebel troops were managing in the fourth year of war. We interviewed dozens of people over the course of three weeks – doctors and nurses from Yangon trying to adjust to life in the jungle and a group of young men and women working to build a kinder, friendlier police force with few resources. We met smiling fighters who despite being low on ammunition were managing to hold off major advances by military forces, and civilians trying to bring a sense of normalcy to the makeshift camps they had to flee to. We witnessed pain and suffering, as well as resilience, determination and uncertainty over what’s yet to come. As one person told us: “We cannot claim what will be tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow. We just live, day-by-day.” We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar military bombs insurgents attacking key Chinese investment area](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-military-bombs-insurgents-attacking-key-chinese-investment-area/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese Myanmar’s military bombed insurgents attacking the cornerstone of China’s investment in the country on Wednesday, killing some civilians, residents said, as the rebels pressed on with an offensive on the west coast township of Kyaukpyu. The Arakan Army, or AA, is one of Myanmar’s most powerful insurgent groups and has nearly achieved its objective of defeating the forces of the junta that seized power in 2021 across the whole of Rakhine state. “This morning, the Arakan Army launched heavy weapons at the Dhanyawadi navy base, and there was also shooting,” resident Nay Soe Khaing told Radio Free Asia, referring to the main navy base in Kyaukpyu. “The military returned fire with a fighter jet and there were civilians killed when the plane dropped a bomb,” he said. More than 1,000 civilians had fled the area, Nay Soe Khaing and other residents said, adding that civilian casualties were hard to pin down because communications were mostly severed. RFA tried to telephone the AA spokesperson, Khaing Thu Kha, and junta spokesperson Hla Thein for information on the situation but neither responded by the time of publication. The AA, which draws its support from the state’s ethnic Rakhine Buddhist majority, has captured 14 of Rakhine state’s 17 townships, defeating the military in battle after battle since late 2023 in a stunning advance. Kyaukpyu, one of the insurgents’ last big targets in the state, is on a natural harbor in the northwestern corner of Ramree Island, about 250 miles northwest of the commercial capital Yangon. Besides its natural deep-sea harbor, the area has access to abundant oil, natural gas, and marine resources. China plans a deep-sea port in the Kyaukpyu special economic zone, or SEZ, as a hub for its Belt and Road development strategy. Oil and natural gas are already flowing from Kyaukpyu terminals to southern China’s Yunnan province, giving China an alternative route for its oil imports in case of conflict in the South China Sea. The AA launched their push on Kyaukpyu on Feb. 20 and the military has responded with attacks from the air and from naval vessels at sea. RELATED STORIES Arakan Army closing in on capital of Myanmar’s Rakhine state Myanmar adopts law for foreign firms to provide armed security EXPLAINED: What is Myanmar’s Arakan Army? Heavy battles expected Another resident said major fighting was expected. “The Arakan Army is surrounding all the military camps,” said Tun Kyi. “After they surround them, we know the battles are going to really intensify. So we can say the battle to capture Kyaukpyu has started.” China has not commented on the latest fighting but it has tried to mediate in Myanmar’s conflict. On Friday, the junta and Chinese-owned CITIC Group discussed development in the Kyaukpyu economic zone and the company’s deep sea port, according to the Ministry of Information. But Kyaukpyu resident Htein Kyi, who closely monitors development plans, said it was unrealistic to even think about the various business contracts given the security situation. “With all the trouble and instability, it’s simply impossible to implement such large-scale projects,” he said. The AA already controls nine of the 11 Chinese development projects in Rakhine state, the Institute for Strategy and Policy Myanmar said in a report in January. While Chinese projects have faced disruption and delays in various parts of Myanmar, anti-junta forces have generally not set out to destroy facilities. On the contrary, some groups have promised to protect Chinese investments and personnel. Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [UN abruptly cancels Uyghur scholar’s speech at Paris language forum](https://ij-reportika.com/un-abruptly-cancels-uyghur-scholars-speech-at-paris-language-forum/): The United Nations on Monday abruptly cancelled a speech by a prominent exiled Uyghur scholar and linguist barely 24 hours before he was to address a Paris conference on language technologies, he told Radio Free Asia. In an email to Norway-based researcher Abduweli Ayup shown to RFA Uyghur, organizers provided no reason for rescinding the invitation to speak at the Language Technologies for All, or LT4ALL, conference, under the umbrella of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO. But Ayup said the reason was likely because he questioned an earlier presenter about protections for the Uyghur language in China, where some 12 million Uyghurs live in the northwestern region of Xinjiang. He and other Uyghur activists say Beijing is trying to eradicate their mother tongue. They say it is but one aspect of Chinese efforts to “Sinicize” Uyghurs — a Turkic people who are distinct from Han Chinese — through a process of cultural assimilation. On Feb. 12, the LT4ALL organizing committee sent Ayup a letter inviting him to serve as a chair/rapporteur for an afternoon session scheduled for Feb. 25 entitled “Education, Inclusion, Innovation” at U.N. Headquarters in Paris, France. He accepted and was added to the program. But on Monday, Feb. 24, organizers sent him an email saying they had been “unable to secure approval” to include his presentation in the program, and that they were “informed at the last minute, and this decision is beyond our control.” “We had hoped to find a better solution, but unfortunately, we have no other option at this time,” the letter said. “As a result, we will not be able to include your presentation in the published file or program.” ‘Threatened and disgusted’ Afterwards, in posts to the social media platform X, Ayup called the decision “disgusting.” He suggested it was made in response to his questioning a day earlier of a presenter, who he described as “a Chinese language activist &#8230; [that] is a gov official [who] works for [state media outlet] Hunan TV.” RELATED STORIES Uyghur intellectual died while in custody of Chinese authorities Two Siblings of Norway-based Uyghur Activist Sentenced to Jail in China’s Xinjiang Rights Groups Blast Uyghur Activist’s Expulsion From UN Forum in New York Ayup said the presenter had discussed a language museum in China during his session, after which Ayup asked him whether it contained information about the Uyghur language and whether Uyghur language activists are safe in China. “After those two questions, I was questioned by the Chinese delegation,” he said. “I felt threatened, I felt disgusted and disappointed. I believe my presentation was cancelled because of the questions I had asked from the Chinese speaker.” Ayup did not provide evidence in support of his claims. But he noted that the panel he was listening to included a representative of iFLYTEK — a partially state-owned Chinese information technology company that the U.S. sanctioned in October 2019 for its alleged role in mass surveillance and human rights abuses in Xinjiang. Ayup elaborated further in a post to X, accusing UNESCO of having “welcomed the criminal [and] kicked human rights defenders out” of the conference. “iFLYTEK is the company [that] helped [the] Chinese regime to arrest over [1] million Uyghurs,” he wrote in the post. Family suffering Ayup is the founder of Uyghur Hjelp, a Norway-based Uyghur advocacy and aid organization which maintains a list of detained Uyghur intellectuals. In May 2021, RFA learned that Chinese authorities had sentenced Ayup’s brother and sister to several years in jail in Xinjiang, allegedly for failing to demonstrate loyalty to authorities as expected. Sources with knowledge of the situation, however, said that they were arrested because of his activities in exile. UNESCO headquarters in Paris, France, Jan. 17, 2025.(Bertrand Guay/AFP) The confirmation of the sentence came on the heels of an RFA report confirming that Ayup’s niece, Mihray Erkin, had died at the Yanbulaq internment camp while being investigated by state security police in Kashgar prefecture. Ayup’s case is not the first time the U.N. has blocked a Uyghur activist from speaking at an event it organized. In April 2017, Dolkun Isa, a founder of the exile World Uyghur Congress and member of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, was forced from a forum at U.N. premises in New York by security guards without explanation. Isa’s removal prompted a coalition of human rights groups and organizations representing minority peoples around the world to condemn the act, calling it an expression of “domination” by an unnamed U.N. member state — an apparent reference to China. Attempts by RFA to contact UNESCO for comment on its decision to rescind Ayup’s invitation to the LT4ALL conference went unanswered by the time of publication. Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Taiwan detains China-linked cargo ship over severed undersea cable](https://ij-reportika.com/taiwan-detains-china-linked-cargo-ship-over-severed-undersea-cable/): TAIPEI, Taiwan – Taiwan’s coastguard detained a cargo ship and its Chinese crew after an undersea cable in the Taiwan Strait was damaged on Tuesday, saying it cannot rule out the possibility it was a deliberate “gray zone” act. Gray zone activities are covert, ambiguous, and low-intensity tactics used to achieve strategic goals without provoking open warfare, something Taiwan has frequently said China was employing around the self-ruled island. Taiwan’s Coast Guard Administration, or CGA, said that it received a report about the damaged cable from its telecommunication service on Tuesday morning and dispatched personnel to detain the Chinese-crewed Hong Tai 58, registered in Togo, which dropped anchor near the cable off the southwestern coast of Taiwan around the time it was disconnected. “The suspected Togo-flagged cargo ship, Hong Tai, was found to be a Chinese-invested convenience-flag vessel with all eight crew members being Chinese nationals,” said CGA. The Hong Tai remained stationary near the damaged Taiwan-Penghu No.3 submarine cable from Saturday to Tuesday, prompting Taiwan’s coast guard to monitor and attempt radio contact, which went unanswered, according to CGA. The vessel was later escorted to Anping Port, though initial boarding efforts failed due to rough seas, the coastguard said, adding that the case was being treated as a national security matter. “Authorities are not ruling out the possibility of a Chinese gray-zone operation,” the agency said. Lin Jian, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, told a briefing on Tuesday that he was not aware of the situation, though adding that it was not a “diplomatic issue.” He did not elaborate. Taiwan has reported five cases of sea cable malfunctions this year, compared with three each in 2024 and 2023. In 2023, for instance, two undersea cables connecting the Matsu islands were cut, disconnecting the internet. At that time, Taiwan authorities said that two Chinese vessels caused the disruption, but that there was no evidence Beijing deliberately tampered with the cables. RELATED STORIES Taiwan severs academic ties with Chinese universities, citing propaganda links China condemns US for tweak to Taiwan reference; Washington calls it ‘routine’ update Taiwanese army officer’s failed defection to China ends in 13-year sentence Taiwan has repeatedly accused China of employing gray zone tactics to destabilize the region without direct military conflict, citing Chinese military incursions, cyberattacks, economic coercion, election interference and undersea cable damage. Beijing regards Taiwan as its territory while the democratic island has been self-governing since it effectively separated from mainland China in 1949 after the Chinese Civil War. Taipei has condemned Beijing’s trade restrictions on the island’s exports and suspected disinformation campaigns ahead of elections, warning of growing threats to regional security. China, however, denies these accusations, asserting that its military activities are routine operations and that economic measures are based on regulatory concerns. Beijing insists Taiwan is a domestic issue and warns against foreign interference, maintaining that its actions are lawful and necessary to safeguard national sovereignty. Edited by Taejun Kang. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Over 2 dozen teachers at Aksu school sentenced to prison in Xinjiang](https://ij-reportika.com/over-2-dozen-teachers-at-aksu-school-sentenced-to-prison-in-xinjiang/): Read RFA coverage of this story in Uyghur. More than two dozen Uyghur teachers at a college in Xinjiang were arrested by Chinese authorities in 2017 and are currently still serving jail sentences, Radio Free Asia was able to confirm with officials at the school. Their arrests eight years ago occurred at a time when authorities in the northwestern region began rounding up Uyghur intellectuals, educators, businesspeople and cultural figures en masse and incarcerating them in re-education camps to prevent what China said was terrorism and religious extremism. Last week, RFA Uyghur reported that prominent historian Ghojaniyaz Yollugh Tekin, 59, who taught the Aksu Education Institute in the city of Aksu, had been arrested in 2017 and sentenced to 17 years in prison in late 2018 for his research, writings and views that Uyghurs are part of the Turkic world — and not Chinese. Upon further investigation, RFA learned that authorities also arrested and detained 25 other educators from the same school in 2017. But RFA could not determine the reasons for their arrests or the lengths of their sentences. Established in 1985, the college currently has about 220 staff members — more than half of whom are Uyghurs — and 3,000 students. During the early 2000s, there were 100-150 Uyghur teachers, according to Uyghur activist Tuyghun Abduweli, who hails from Aksu but now lives in Canada. A Chinese national flag flies over a vehicle entrance to the inmate detention area at the Urumqi No. 3 Detention Center in Dabancheng, western China&#8217;s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Apr. 23, 2021.(Mark Schiefelbein/AP) A person who works at the institute but who requested anonymity for safety reasons, said more than 20 teachers from the school were taken away in several groups in 2017. Their cases were filed by Aksu prefecture security agents, and the institute’s political affairs department and police station collaborated with them during the arrests and interrogations, the person said. Held in a Bingtuan prison A police officer who works at the institute told RFA that 26 teachers — mostly men — were arrested and are serving jail sentences. He said he was involved in the cases of three of the teachers arrested — Mutellip Mamut, Eli Qasim and Eziz Memet, the last of whom was about 47 years old at the time. Another police officer named two other imprisoned teachers — Abdusalam Eziz and Abdurahman Rozi — and said he assisted in their arrests as well as the arrest of Mutellip Mamut. Those arrested were initially taken to Aksu Prison, but were later transferred to a detention center run by the Bingtuan at its headquarters in Shihezi in northern Xinjiang, the police officer said. The Bingtuan is a state-run economic and paramilitary organization of mostly Han Chinese who develop land, secure borders and maintain stability in Xinjiang. RELATED STORIES Prominent Uyghur historian sentenced to 17 years in prison Uyghur lecturer said to be detained for not signing allegiance oath to CCP Uyghur literature professor confirmed detained in Xinjiang Uyghur linguistics professor serving 15-year sentence in Xinjiang New details emerge about Uyghur college teacher sentenced in China’s Xinjiang “Mutellip Mamut is currently at the Shihezi prison,” the police officer told RFA. Authorities held secret trials for the teachers, and institute leaders and staffers who collaborated on the cases were not allowed to attend, he added. Interrogated because of religious practices According to a person familiar with the situation in Aksu, a literature teacher named Abdusalam had been interrogated by authorities many times because of his religious practices and was eventually suspended from work. “His wife wore a hijab, and he himself prayed every Friday at home,” the person said. “He was frequently called out by the school because of this, and his wife was also suspended from her job.” Abdusalam was among those detained and jailed in 2017. A security officer from the school’s legal department confirmed the arrests and detentions of the teachers, but said he could not disclose their identities because of confidentiality requirements. About 10% of the institute’s teachers had been arrested, said another staffer. “They’re all in prison now,” said Tuyghun Abduweli. Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Taiwan bans academic exchanges with 3 Chinese universities amid security concerns](https://ij-reportika.com/taiwan-bans-academic-exchanges-with-3-chinese-universities-amid-security-concerns/): TAIPEI, Taiwan – Taiwan barred the island’s universities from collaborating with three mainland Chinese institutions, citing their ties with Beijing’s overseas propaganda arm, in what Taiwan opposition lawmakers said was a blow to cross-strait exchanges that have historically served as a bridge for dialogue despite geopolitical rifts. China and Taiwan have maintained educational exchanges, despite political and military tensions, allowing students and scholars from both sides to participate in academic collaborations, research projects and university partnerships. But on Thursday, Taiwan banned its universities from working with China’s Jinan University in the city of Guangzhou, Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, and Beijing Chinese Language and Culture College, citing their ties with the United Front Work Department. “Chinese universities affiliated with the United Front Work Department serve a political purpose rather than a purely academic one,” said Taiwan’s Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao. The United Front Work Departmen is a key arm of the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, that conducts influence operations, propaganda and political engagement globally. It works to shape narratives, co-opt elites, and extend Beijing’s reach into academia, media, and diaspora communities. Critics, including Taipei, accuse it of covert interference, disinformation, and suppressing dissent, with several governments warning of its role in election meddling, intellectual property theft, and undermining democratic institutions. “To prevent political influence operations we must halt cooperation and exchanges,” Cheng added. The ban drew criticism from Taiwan’s main opposition Kuomintang, or KMT, which criticized it as “politically motivated” and “detrimental” to cross-strait exchanges. “Students from over 80 countries attend these universities. It is shortsighted for the DPP to isolate Taiwan academically,” KMT legislative Fu Kun-chi said, referring to the island’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party. KMT chairman Eric Chu Li-luan also said the policy would do more damage to Taiwan’s higher education sector. “Academic cooperation should be based on international accreditation, not political considerations,” Chu said. “The DPP is using this as part of its broader political strategy for 2025, creating division instead of fostering engagement.” A DPP legislator, Wu Szu-yao, however, defended the ban, comparing it to the global shutdown of Confucius Institutes due to similar concerns over Chinese influence. Confucius Institutes are Chinese-funded language and cultural centers, which have drawn suspicion around the world of Chinese propaganda and influence. The U.S., Europe and Australia have closed many of the institutes, citing threats to academic freedom and security. “Taiwan has never restricted normal academic and cultural exchanges, as long as they are free from official influence. But these schools, being under the United Front Work Department control, inherently serve political purposes and follow political directives,” Wu said. RELATED STORIES Taiwanese army officer’s failed defection to China ends in 13-year sentence Taiwan to scale up annual military drill as China tensions mount Did Taiwan ‘severely punish’ students for supporting unification with China? Taiwanese students have long pursued degrees in Chinese universities, drawn by lower tuition fees, scholarship opportunities, and career prospects in the mainland. Chinese students also study in Taiwan, though in smaller numbers due to political restrictions. Universities from both sides have established joint research programs and academic agreements, facilitating faculty collaboration and student mobility. But exchanges have not been immune to political influence. China has at times limited the number of its students permitted to study in Taiwan, citing political concerns, while Taipei has imposed tighter regulations on Chinese scholars and researchers due to security considerations. Cross-strait relations under Taiwan’s pro-independence leadership have further strained the programs, leading to a decline in Chinese enrollment in Taiwan. The COVID-19 pandemic also disrupted exchanges, though some academic collaboration has resumed. China sees Taiwan as a breakaway province that must eventually reunite, even by force if necessary. Beijing views the island’s leader, Lai Ching-te, a pro-independence advocate, as a separatist and has increased military drills, economic pressure and diplomatic isolation to counter his leadership. Edited by Taejun Kang. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [North Korea confiscates dog fur-lined coats from civilians to clothe soldiers](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-confiscates-dog-fur-lined-coats-from-civilians-to-clothe-soldiers/): North Korean authorities are confiscating winter coats lined with dog fur &#8212; considered a luxury item &#8212; from civilians and giving them to under-supplied soldiers, residents told Radio Free Asia. The reasons for this campaign that began last month seem to be two-fold: To provide warm gear for army personnel in North Korea’s frigid winters, and to keep civilians from looking like they are wearing winter military uniforms. “Social security agents have been stopping men wearing dog fur coats on the streets and confiscating them on the spot,” a resident in South Pyongan province, north of the capital Pyongyang, told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for personal safety. “This is the first time they’ve done something like this,” he said. “They say it is because civilians cannot wear military uniforms.” In fact, aside from their warmth, the coats’ similarity to military uniforms is one reason why they are popular with civilians, he said. “It symbolizes authority,” the resident said. RELATED STORIES ‘Rooster hairstyle,’ see-thru sleeves now banned in North Korea North Korea bans leather coats to stop citizens from copping leader’s iconic look North Korea punishes women for wearing shorts, declaring them ‘capitalist fashion’ But few North Koreans can afford them. Only the wealthy can buy the specially-made coats. High quality dog fur-lined coats can cost up to 1 million won (US$50), more than the annual salary at most government-assigned jobs, the resident said. “They are the best winter clothing because the entire inner layer is lined with dog skin and fur,” he said. “They are expensive and can only be purchased from a specialty clothing maker.” Supply chain collapse North Korea’s nearly 1-million strong military has been chronically under-supplied for decades. Ever since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, which provided aid to the country, North Korea’s economy has suffered, and the military has struggled to equip its own personnel. A North Korean soldier wears a dog fur coat along the Yalu River in 2014.(KBS News) In principle, North Korean soldiers should receive summer uniforms once a year and winter uniforms every two years, but supplies are erratic. Things are so dire that last year the military began requiring soldiers to return their uniforms when they are discharged, so that they could be given to other soldiers. With the military lacking adequate clothes and soldiers shivering in the cold, it’s a bad look for wealthy civilians to be out and about in their toasty dog fur-lined coats, the resident said. “Only one in 50 men wear these dog fur-lined coats in the city of Unsan,” he said. “I’ve seen it worn by merchants who drive from place to place selling goods, and by the husbands of wealthy women.” With men required to work for a pittance at government-assigned jobs, most families are really supported by the women, who run small businesses. Women who become successful and wealthy, or who were already born into wealth, can afford to splurge on an expensive coat for their husbands. Not for the average soldier In the northwestern province of North Pyongan, the dog fur-lined coats are now a rarity, a resident there told RFA on condition of anonymity. Civilians “used to show off by wearing their dog-fur coats, but the authorities started confiscating them,” he said. “These kinds of coats are not supplied to the average soldier, but to officers and soldiers stationed at guard posts close to the border with South Korea.” He said the authorities ask the civilians how they can wear such a luxury when there are soldiers guarding the front line that shiver in tattered second-hand uniforms. “The soldiers have to participate in winter training,” he said, which means they have to “lie on their bellies on frozen ground, so these dog fur coats are essential to them.” He said the agents confiscating the coats tell their owners that their clothing will go military units on the front. “Some of these men protest against this, but they hold their tongues because they don’t want to be punished for speaking out.” Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [INTERVIEW: A former China correspondent examines identity and control under Xi](https://ij-reportika.com/interview-a-former-china-correspondent-examines-identity-and-control-under-xi/): After nearly a decade covering China as an NPR correspondent, Emily Feng returned to Washington, D.C. Her reporting spanned a period of profound social and economic change : Xi Jinping’s consolidation of power; the Xinjiang detention camps; Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement and the crackdown against it; China’s strict zero-COVID policy; and the country’s transformation into a surveillance state. Ultimately, Feng was caught in the crossfire of the U.S.-China rivalry — her visa was unexpectedly rejected, forcing her to relocate to Taiwan for the final years of her reporting. Her new book, “Let Only Red Flowers Bloom,” is a reflection on the search for identity and belonging under Xi Jinping’s rule. It will be published March 18. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. RFA: You moved to China in 2015 at the age of 22. What was the biggest question you had, and did you find the answer? Emily Feng: I wanted to see China for myself. I had visited family in the south a few times, but I was curious about how the country was changing, especially under Xi Jinping, who was then in his third year as leader. I wondered if China would continue opening up — economically, politically and culturally. I had just started consuming more Chinese-language culture, and I was interested in how cultural production would evolve. The day I arrived was about a week after the July 9 crackdown on human rights lawyers. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was a watershed moment in Chinese politics. It shaped the China I would experience over the next several years. RFA: The July 9 crackdown shocked many. What were its lasting effects? Emily Feng: It had systemic impacts. Many influential lawyers lost their licenses — people who had been shaping ideas about China’s legal and political future. It wasn’t just about individuals; it rippled across corporations, organizations and society as a whole. A security guard watches from a tower at a detention facility in Yarkent county in China&#8217;s Xinjiang region on March 21, 2021.(Ng Han Guan/AP) RFA: Were there any key moments during this period when you felt that social control was tightening? Emily Feng: I started thinking about this issue because of what was happening in Xinjiang. In 2017, I began reporting on Xinjiang, and at first, I had only heard about the existence of some camps. But as I continued following the story, I realized that the Xinjiang issue and the situation of the Uyghurs had much broader significance for the entire country. It wasn’t just a problem in the western region — it was connected to policies on ethnicity, identity, language and culture at the time. It also tied into a larger question of what kind of nation China and the Communist Party were trying to create. So, starting from Xinjiang as an entry point, I began to ask: Why does identity play such a central role in contemporary Chinese politics? RFA: How did you build trust with the people you interviewed, and how did you weigh the risks, both for yourself and for them? Emily Feng: It’s a daily conversation — with editors, with yourself, and, most importantly, with your sources. Many of my stories weren’t about government leaks; they were about personal experiences. Earning trust meant showing that I was willing to listen and making the effort to be there. Sometimes, it took years for people to open up. One Uyghur family I interviewed, for example, only felt comfortable sharing their full story after they had processed what had happened to them. In China, I might have to spend a lot of time exploring 10 different stories, but there’s only a 20% or even just a 10% chance of success. RFA: Did you ever face danger yourself? Emily Feng: Yes. I was investigated for my work, and my news organization was audited as part of the U.S.-China media tensions. Many reporting trips were cut short, and interviewees were sometimes detained while I was speaking with them. People I talked to risked losing jobs or public benefits. It’s not a black-and-white situation, but it’s something I had to be aware of when reporting in China. A worker wearing protective gear and standing behind a fence in a residential area under COVID-19 lockdown talks with a man on a scooter in the Xuhui district of Shanghai on June 16, 2022.(Hector Retamal/AFP) RFA: Your reporting often focuses on human stories. Under Xi’s rule, how is the younger generation navigating identity? Emily Feng: For me, identity was the central theme in all the stories I found most interesting in China. It’s also why I decided to collect many of them and write a book about it. I argue that identity is key not only to understanding this vast country, which is so important economically and geopolitically, but also to understanding how China sees itself and, consequently, what its future holds. Every decade or so, there’s this question: What kind of country can China become? The expectations of what Chinese people thought their country would become 10 years ago — before COVID, before the economic downturn — are vastly different from what a 20-year-old in Beijing or Shanghai envisions today. The theme of identity also allowed me to give a personal twist to these big, weighty questions that often dominate newsroom discussions. What gets lost in much of that coverage is the fact that these issues affect real people. Despite being a country so far away from the U.S., I wanted to humanize these stories, to make readers ask, ‘What if this were happening to my friend?’ I wanted to help people feel what it’s like to live in their world, because that’s what I’ve lost since leaving China — and, I think, what we’ve all lost now that there are fewer reporters on the ground in mainland China. RFA: In this era of tighter control, how do people carve out personal or ideological space? Emily Feng: It’s increasingly difficult....
- [Deeply Troubling DeepSeek AI](https://ij-reportika.com/deeply-troubling-deepseek-ai/): Investigative Journalism Reportika (IJ-Reportika) conducted an in-depth analysis of DeepSeek AI, comparing its responses with OpenAI's ChatGPT and xAI’s Grok 2.0 AI. Our findings reveal a troubling pattern..
- [Hong Kong’s Democratic Party plans to disband amid ‘political environment’](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kongs-democratic-party-plans-to-disband-amid-political-environment/): Once Hong Kong’s biggest opposition party, the Democratic Party has announced plans to disband amid a political crackdown in the city under two security laws. “It is a decision that we made based on our understanding of the overall political environment,” Chairman Lo Kin-hei told journalists following a meeting of the party’s central committee on Thursday. “Developing democracy in Hong Kong is always difficult, and it’s been especially difficult in the past few years,” Lo told reporters in the party’s headquarters, adding: “This is not what we wanted to see.” Lo said he hoped that Hong Kong would return to the values ​​of “diversity, tolerance and democracy” that were the cornerstones of the city’s past success. The move is widely seen as the symbolic end of any formal political opposition in Hong Kong, where critics of the authorities can face prosecution under security legislation brought in to quell dissent in the wake of the 2019 protests. It follows repeated calls for the party’s dissolution in Chinese Communist Party-backed media like the Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po. The news came just weeks after a court in Hong Kong sentenced 45 democratic politicians and activists to jail terms of up to 10 years for “subversion” after they took part in a democratic primary in the summer of 2020. The ongoing political crackdown has already seen the dissolution of the Civic Party, which disbanded in May 2023 after its lawmakers were barred from running for re-election in the wake of the 2020 National Security Law. The pro-democracy youth activist party Demosisto disbanded in June 2020. ‘That light has faded’ Lo said the disbandment couldn’t go ahead without a vote from a general meeting attended by 75% of the party’s members. He said he will chair a three-person working group to handle the process following what he called a “collective decision” by the Central Committee. Lo declined to comment on reports that party members had been harassed or threatened by people acting as messengers for the Chinese government. He said the party wasn’t in financial difficulty. Founding party member Fred Li said the Democratic Party had “done its duty and shone its light on Hong Kong.” “But we can see today that that light has faded,” Li said in comments reported by the Hong Kong Free Press. Martin Lee, known as the &#8220;father of democracy&#8221; in Hong Kong, April 26, 2021.(Anthony Wallace/AFP) He said its death would mark the end of democratic party politics in Hong Kong. “The Democratic Party was once the most important party when it came to gauging public opinion, so its death actually represents the ultimate death of public opinion [as a political force] in Hong Kong,” Wong said. ‘We must be vigilant’ He said fears that Hong Kong would become a base for opposition to Chinese Communist Party rule had led Beijing to break its promise that the city could keep its freedoms for 50 years after the 1997 handover. He warned that Beijing was trying to undermine Taiwan’s democracy by placing its supporters in positions of power, much as it did in Hong Kong. “Taiwanese people must be vigilant and must not believe the Chinese Communist Party’s promises to Taiwan that it can keep its freedoms if it submits to Beijing’s rule,” Wong said. “We must be vigilant, and we must resist.” Political commentator Sang Pu said the Democratic Party would never be allowed to field candidates under the current system in Hong Kong. “A political party that doesn’t run for election has no way to raise funds,” Sang said. “They get rejected [by venues] even when they try to hold party events &#8230; for spurious reasons like chefs getting into a fight or broken water meters.” “They are being badly suppressed, so at this point it’s probably better to give up,” he said. Recent electoral reforms now ensure that almost nobody in the city’s once-vibrant opposition camp will stand for election again, amid the jailing of dozens of pro-democracy figures and rule changes requiring political vetting. The last directly elected District Council, which saw a landslide victory for pro-democracy candidates amid record turnout that was widely seen as a ringing public endorsement of the 2019 protest movement. The first Legislative Council election after the rule change saw plummeting turnout, while Chief Executive John Lee was given the top job after an “election” in which he was the only candidate. Since Beijing imposed the two national security laws banning public opposition and dissent in the city and blamed “hostile foreign forces” for the resulting protests, hundreds of thousands have voted with their feet amid plummeting human rights rankings, shrinking press freedom and widespread government propaganda in schools. The government has blamed several waves of pro-democracy protests in recent years on “foreign forces” trying to instigate a democratic revolution in Hong Kong. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Flights between Australia, New Zealand diverted because of Chinese drills](https://ij-reportika.com/flights-between-australia-new-zealand-diverted-because-of-chinese-drills/): Several commercial flights between Australia and New Zealand had to divert on Friday because of a live-fire exercise conducted by Chinese warships, according to media reports. The Associated Press quoted Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong as saying that Canberra had warned international airlines flying between the two countries to beware of the Chinese live-fire exercise in the Tasman Sea. Commercial pilots had been informed of potential hazards in the airspace. Several international flights had been diverted as a result, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported without giving details. It was not clear if the exercise had finished. The Chinese military has not commented on it. The Tasman Sea between southeast Australia and New Zealand.(Google Maps) A Chinese navy task group, including the frigate Hengyang, cruiser Zunyi and replenishment vessel Weishanhu, is believed to have conducted the live-fire exercise. The Australian airline Qantas and its budget affiliate Jetstar had adjusted some flights across the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand, media reported. Australia’s Civil Aviation Authority and the air traffic control agency Airservices Australia “are aware of reports of live firing in international waters,” the latter said in a statement quoted by Reuters news agency. Although the live-fire exercise was observed in international waters, airlines with flights over the area were still advised to take precaution, it said. RELATED STORIES Australia protests to China about ‘unsafe’ aircraft maneuver over Paracels China calls Australia’s DeepSeek ban ‘politicization of technological issues’ Six countries join naval drills amid tension with China Short notice China had only notified Australian authorities about the exercise off the coast of New South Wales state earlier on Friday, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. “We will be discussing this with the Chinese, and we already have at officials’ level, in relation to the notice given and the transparency, that has been provided in relation to these exercises, particularly the live fire exercises,” Wong was quoted as saying. The Chinese task group has been operating near Australia since last week. On Thursday, the Australian defense department said the Chinese ships were spotted 150 nautical miles (276 kilometers) from Sydney, well inside Australia’s exclusive economic zone. Some naval vessels were deployed to monitor the Chinese warships’ movements, given they were just exercising freedom of navigation under international law, the department said. Some Australian analysts warned of the Chinese navy normalizing its presence and power projection overseas but Chinese media dismissed those concerts as “hype”, saying it was a normal part of the navy’s far seas drills. Edited by Mike Firn We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Tibetan netizens mourn death of ‘patriotic singer’ Lobsang](https://ij-reportika.com/tibetan-netizens-mourn-death-of-patriotic-singer-lobsang/): Read RFA coverage of this story in Tibetan. Popular Tibetan singer Lobsang, who was frequently detained and interrogated by Chinese authorities for music that was patriotic and critical of Chinese policies, has died following a prolonged illness, according to two sources, one in Tibet and one in exile. He was 39. Lobsang, who became famous at a young age and produced eight albums, died on Feb. 18 of a liver disease at a hospital in the city of Chengdu in southwest China’s Sichuan province, the source in Tibet said, speaking on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. “Due to political content in some of his lyrics, he was repeatedly summoned for questioning and detained by Chinese authorities,” the source said. Hailing from Kyungchu county in Sichuan province, Lobsang dedicated his life to music, releasing numerous albums, and was suspected of activism by the Chinese government because of the political content in his works, a source in exile told RFA. Authorities restricted the singer from traveling to Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, and other regions, he said. “Though he wasn’t imprisoned for extended periods, he was frequently questioned and detained,” the source said. Social media tributes Following Lobsang’s passing, Tibetans inside Tibet, in exile and across China expressed their grief on social media. “I grew up listening to his songs since childhood,” one Tibetan wrote. “I am deeply saddened by the passing of this singer who cared so deeply for the Tibetan people.” On his eight albums and in numerous other recordings, Lobsang sang songs that resonated deeply with Tibetans, such as “Three Camps of Sun and Moon,” which referenced the Dalai Lama with the lyrics, “The King of Snow Land, Tenzin Gyatso, coming to Tibet, may his lotus feet remain stable.” His music often touched on Tibet’s struggle, such as “Suffering and Happiness of the Snow Land,” “World Peace,” “Future of Tibet’s Children,” “Protector,” and “Fate of Tibetans.” Due to his powerful lyrics, Tibetans inside Tibet referred to him as “patriotic singer Lobsang.” Another netizen wrote: “His singing was as warm and familiar as a teacher, accompanying us through countless unforgettable times.” A Tibetan inside Tibet, speaking in a WeChat voice chat group, said Lobsang’s health fluctuated, sometimes appearing stable, while at other times deteriorating, until he died. Kunchok Tsering, a Tibetan living in India who collects and archives songs and writings by Tibetan artists in Tibet, said he considers Lobsang to be one of the region’s best singers. “His songs often praise His Holiness the Dalai Lama and reflect love for his country, Tibet, so his courage and lack of fear in creating such music were commendable,” Tsering said. Tsering cited Lobsang’s song “Nyi-Dha-Kar Sum,” meaning “Sun-Star-Moon,” paying homage to Tibet’s three spiritual leaders — the sun representing His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, the Moon symbolizing the Panchen Lama, and the star representing the Karmapa, head of the 900-year-old Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism and one of Tibet’s highest-ranking religious figures. “His lyrics are deeply powerful,” he said. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [China repatriates 200 citizens from Myanmar scam centers amid crackdown](https://ij-reportika.com/china-repatriates-200-citizens-from-myanmar-scam-centers-amid-crackdown/): MAE SOT, Thailand – Two hundred Chinese nationals were due to be flown to their homeland on Thursday in aircraft laid on by their government after leaving online fraud centers in an eastern Myanmar district on the border with Thailand, Thai officials said. The Chinese people were brought on buses, 50 at a time, from Myanmar’s Myawaddy district, over a border bridge to the Thai town of Mae Sot, and then taken to a nearby airport for their flight home, witnesses said. “Myanmar authorities and the Border Guard Force have brought Chinese nationals to the second Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge, and are handing them over to Thai officials,” Maj. Gen. Maitree Chupreecha, commander of the Thai military’s Naresuan Task Force, told reporters. “A total of 200 people will be repatriated today in groups of 50 every two hours,” he said. It was not clear if the people being flown back to China were organizers of the online fraud that has proliferated in recent years in Myanmar and other parts of Southeast Asia, or were victims of human traffickers and forced to work in the centers defrauding people online and over the telephone. A first flight left Mae Sot bound for China shortly before noon and three more were due to leave through the day. More flights to China are due on Friday and Saturday, taking more than 1,000 Chinese people home, Thai officials said. Thursday’s flights were the latest in a series of actions over recent weeks aimed at ending the scam center operations that have flourished largely unimpeded in different parts of Southeast Asia for several years. The scamming, known as “pig butchering” in China, involves making contact with unsuspecting people online, building a relationship with them and then defrauding them. Researchers say billions of dollars have been stolen this way from victims around the world. Huge fraud operation complexes are often staffed by people lured by false job advertisements and forced to work, sometimes under threat of violence, rescued workers and rights groups say. Researchers have said governments and businesses across the region have been enabling the operations by failing to take action against the profitable flows they generate. RELATED STORIES China pushes Thailand to act on cross-border scam centers EXPLAINED: What are scam parks? Myanmar militia hosting scam centers says it will deport 8,000 foreigners Thousands of victims But that has changed in recent weeks amid a blizzard of bad publicity triggered by the kidnap and rescue last month of Chinese actor Wang Xing, who was lured to work one of Myawaddy’s fraud operations. The growing public alarm across Asia about kidnapping and forced labor threatened to damage Thailand’s tourist industry and forced China to insist on action by authorities in its southern neighbors to crack down. China’s Assistant Minister of Public Security Liu Zhongyi visited Thailand in late January to focus efforts to combat the call center operations and the human trafficking that supplies their labor force. Thailand took its most decisive action ever against the fraud networks on Feb. 5, cutting cross-border power and internet services and blocking fuel exports to the Myanmar scam zones. The Myanmar junta also stopped fuel shipments to the Myawaddy district controlled by an ethnic minority militia force that is allied with the military government. The ethnic Karen militia that controls Myawaddy and has been hosting and profiting from the online fraud operations said last month it was going to stop fraud and forced labor and send back thousands of the people who have been working in the centers. A Thai activist group, the Civil Society Network for Victim Assistance in Human Trafficking, which has been helping scam center victims, said it has identified at least 2,000 people from more than a dozen countries forced to work at defrauding people around the world. But many thousands more people are believed to be still in the scam centers, in eastern Myanmar and beyond. A Thai member of parliament and head of its National Security Committee said it was important to gather as much information as possible from people being brought out of the scam centers to identify the kingpins and end their operations once and for all. “We need to gather information,” legislator Rangsiman Rome told reporters. “We must verify if they are victims or criminals and whether they know who is behind the call center gangs. This information is crucial for dismantling the transnational crime syndicates,” said Rangsiman. Edited by Mike Firn. RFA Burmese Service contributed to this report. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news organization. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [North Korea’s ‘Day of the Shining Star’ dimmer this year](https://ij-reportika.com/north-koreas-day-of-the-shining-star-dimmer-this-year/): Read the two Korean-language stories that were combined for this report. The “Shining Star” wasn’t quite as lustrous this year in North Korea, as celebrations for the birthday of supreme leader Kim Jong Un’s late father and predecessor came and went without much fanfare, residents told Radio Free Asia. In years past, the “Day of the Shining Star ”&#8211; Feb. 16, the birthday of Kim Jong Il &#8212; was called the “nation’s greatest holiday,” celebrated with crowded public events like gymnastics exhibitions, military parades and fireworks displays. Plus families received extra food rations and supplies as “gifts” to commemorate the late Dear Leader’s life. But this year there were no gifts, and the streets were empty, residents said. Experts, meanwhile, said the lack of celebratory atmosphere was an indication that Kim Jong Un is trying to downplay the significance of his father to boost his own reputation. The empty streets were a shocking sight, a resident from the northern province of Ryanggang told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. “This year on February 16th, Kim Jong Il’s birthday, the streets were so quiet that I could hardly see the shadow of a person,” she said. Regarding the absence of “gifts” from the government, she said that normally there’s a special supply order coming from the Central Committee of the ruling Korean Workers&#8217; Party, but no such order was made this year. ‘Depressing social climate’ People were still expected to visit and offer condolences to statues of Kim Jong Il and his father and predecessor, national founder Kim Il Sung, a government official from the same province told RFA. “After residents visited the statues, they went home, and the streets became empty,” he said. “The reason Kim Jong Il’s birthday, the nation’s biggest holiday, became so empty was not only due to the absence of holiday supplies, but also due to the depressing social climate.” RELATED STORIES North Korea Mobilizes Citizens for Kim Jong Il Birth Celebration Amid Covid-19, Cold Temperatures North Koreans forced to attend lectures to solidify personality cult of Kim family North Koreans gather cigarette butts to sell to clothing makers He said the people were anxious due to increased censorship and government crackdowns. “About 20 residents here in Ryanggang province were arrested by the Ministry of State Security for possessing illegal cell phones,” he said, adding that hundreds more were fined 300,000 won (US$13) &#8212; an enormous sum for North Koreans &#8212; for using electricity illegally. Due to power shortages, almost everywhere in North Korea is subject to rolling blackouts, but people can sometimes tap into power lines meant for factories or other state-owned facilities that receive power around the clock. “The people are worried that they may be arrested under some kind of pretext,” the official said. Celestial holidays for deceased leaders The Day of the Shining Star, along with Kim Il Sung’s birth anniversary on April 15, known as the Day of the Sun, are, according to the government, the two most important holidays in North Korea. They take precedence even over the Lunar New Year holiday, known in Korean as Sollal, and the autumn harvest holiday, known as Chusok. The latter two holidays had been the most important throughout the Korean peninsula for centuries, but the celestial holidays for the former leaders have been pushed to reinforce the cult of personality surrounding the three-generation Kim Dynasty that has ruled the country for nearly eight decades. The lack of celebration for the Day of the Shining Star is jarring, considering that at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, authorities still made the people attend public events to celebrate. It’s quite a departure from the early days of Kim Jong Un’s reign. He took over when Kim Jong Il died in 2011, and authorities at that time sought to solidify his legitimacy by emphasizing ties to the previous leaders, said Oh Kyung-seop, a research fellow at the Seoul-based Institute for Unification Studies. “But after (his) power base was established, they have been moving in the direction of putting (him) at the forefront,” Oh told RFA Korean. He also said that the de-emphasis on the previous generations of the Kim Dynasty these days can be interpreted as an expression of confidence that the current leader’s power base is solid. South Korea’s Ministry of Unification, meanwhile, noted on New Year’s Day that Kim skipped the customary visit to the mausoleum where his father and grandfather are buried. He had been visiting the mausoleum five times per year, including on the celestial holidays, but this pattern began to change in 2022. Travel applications denied The government also denied holiday travel applications, even for important family events, a resident of the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. The restricted travel areas include areas near the border with China and Russia, the border with South Korea, the capital Pyongyang, and areas near munitions factories. It was not immediately clear why these areas were restricted, but the resident said that the border areas might have been off limits for travel to prevent people from escaping so close to such an important holiday. “The residents living near the border areas are allowed to travel to other areas of the country, so I don’t understand why they are trusted, but people who live in other areas aren’t trusted to travel near the border areas,” he said. “It seems like they want to prevent serious incident, like crossing the river (to escape to China) during the month of Kim Jong Il’s birthday. Residents told RFA that they knew of specific cases where travel to important family events was denied. “In early February, my younger brother tried to go to the funeral for his wife’s uncle who lived in the border area, but he was unable to go,” the North Hamgyong resident said. “Even though all processes and documents were completed, he did not receive the travel certificate.” He said the procedure is far...
- [Myanmar adopts law for foreign firms to provide armed security](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-adopts-law-for-foreign-firms-to-provide-armed-security/): Myanmar’s military government has adopted a law allowing foreign companies to provide armed security services, which analysts suspect will lead to former military personnel from China protecting its extensive economic interests in its southern neighbor. The law raises the prospect of Chinese private military corporations guarding oil and gas pipelines from Myanmar’s Indian Ocean coast to Yunnan province, and ensuring uninterrupted supplies in the event of war in the South China Sea blocking regular shipping routes. The Private Security Service Law, published in state-run media on Tuesday, states that foreign companies seeking a license to set up a security company must be registered under the Myanmar Companies Law. The National Defence and Security Council must approve a company “holding arms and ammunition due to work demand in providing private security services,” states the law, signed by the leader of the junta that seized power in 2021, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing. The legislation stipulates that companies must ensure that staff are “not a member of any armed forces of a foreign country.” Myanmar’s military-drafted 2008 constitution rules out foreign forces operating in the country. The law also requires that “at least 75% of the hired private security servants must be Myanmar citizens,” and companies providing private security services have to abide by existing laws on weapons. China has extensive economic interests in Myanmar, many of them linked to a long-planned China-Myanmar Economic Corridor between China’s Yunnan and Myanmar’s coast. The corridor is part of Beijing’s multi-billion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative of energy and trade-facilitating infrastructure projects. They include a special economic zone and proposed deep-water port, with oil and gas facilities, in Kyaukpyu in Rakhine state, 800-kilometer (500-mile) oil and gas pipelines that extend to Kunming in southwest China, copper jade and rare earth mines and hydro-electric plants. While the embattled military still holds Kyaukpyu, many of the other projects are in areas that have come under the control of anti-junta forces battling to end military rule since the generals overthrew a government led by Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021. While the civil war has delayed Chinese projects, insurgent forces, some of which maintain contacts with China, have not launched major attacks on pipelines and other facilities, and have even promised to protect them. RELATED STORIES Arakan Army closing in on capital of Myanmar’s Rakhine state Myanmar junta chief seeks China’s help on border stability Trump extends ‘national emergency’ declaration for Myanmar ‘Selling out’ Analysts said the new law sets out the legal framework for a Chinese proposal to set up a China-Myanmar Joint Venture Security Company, as reported in the military’s Myanmar Gazette on Nov. 8. Lawyer Gyi Myint said the law reflected the junta’s determination to get China’s economic projects implemented by relying on Chinese security help. “We have reached a situation where the military has allowed things that are not allowed internationally. This is not in line with the 2008 constitution,” Gyi Myint told Radio Free Asia from an undisclosed location. Political analyst Than Soe Naing said the law would allow former members of China’s People’s Liberation Army to operate legally in Myanmar. “The junta council is selling out to China for nothing even though it is constantly talking about sovereignty,” he told RFA. RFA tried to contact the junta council’s spokesman, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, to inquire about the criticism of the law but he did not answer the telephone. The military council has not said when the proposed China-Myanmar Joint Venture Security Company would be set up. The Burmese-language Khit Thit Media reported late last year that a deal to establish a Chinese private military corporation in Kyaukpyu was signed in November between a Special Economic Zone management sub-committee and officials from the Chinese CITIC Group Company. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [India boosts security protection for Dalai Lama](https://ij-reportika.com/india-boosts-security-protection-for-dalai-lama/): Read RFA coverage of this story in Tibetan. India has boosted security for the Dalai Lama, adding about 30 police commandos to protect the Tibetan spiritual leader amid reports of potential security threats, according to a person familiar with the matter and Indian media reports. The move raises the security coverage for the 89-year-old Dalai Lama to the third-highest level, called Z-category, under the Central Reserve Police Force, or CRPF, the source told Radio Free Asia on the condition of anonymity because he wan’t authorized to speak to the media. Video footage of the Dalai Lama in southern India showed armed CRPF commandos around a vehicle carrying the Tibetan spiritual leader. Citing official sources, the Press Trust of India said the central government enhanced the Dalai Lama’s security because of “potential security threats.” The Indo-Asian News Service said the move was prompted by a recent Intelligence Bureau threat analysis report. RFA could not independently confirm these reports, and the security department of the Central Tibetan Administration &#8212; the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamsala, northern India &#8212; did not respond to requests for comment. The Indian Ministry of Home Affairs, the CRPF and the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs also didn’t offer any comments. The Dalai Lama normally lives in Dharamsala, but has been visiting a Tibetan community in southern India since Jan. 5. Chinese opposition The move comes amid growing concerns over the Dalai Lama’s safety due to China’s long-term opposition to his activities. Beijing is seeking to appoint the successor to the Dalai Lama, who is expected to either name his successor or provide some indication regarding his succession when he turns 90 in July. “This has led to growing desperation from the Chinese side,” senior Indian journalist and national security affairs specialist, Aditya Raj Kaul, told RFA. The highest level of security in India, given to the Indian prime minister and his immediate family, is called the Special Protection Group. Below that are the Z+ category, provided to top ministers in the central and state governments, and Z category, provided to prominent leaders and individuals based on their threat perception. Since the Dalai Lama’s flight from Tibet into exile in India in 1959, the Indian government has assumed responsibility for his security protection, maintaining a 24-hour security patrol around his residence in Dharamsala to ensure his safety. Whenever the Dalai Lama travels to different parts of India, his security arrangements are overseen by the central government, with state governments coordinating protection during his visits. The Dalai Lama (center) is guarded by the members of the Central Reserve Police Force in Hunsur, Karmataka state, India, Feb. 18, 2025.(Pema Ngodup/RFA) The Indian Ministry of Home Affairs directed the CRPF’s VIP security wing to take charge of the security for the Dalai Lama and ensure Z-category protection with around 30 CRPF commandos across the country, the Press Trust of India and other Indian media reported. The CRPF’s VIP security wing is provides security to individuals as assigned by the ministry, including politicians, state government ministers, governors, spiritual leaders, business tycoons and other prominent individuals. “Now there will be a massive security cover with commandos traveling with him in a multiple convoy and the possibility of additional state security cover,” senior Indian journalist and national security affairs specialist, Kaul, citing sources, told RFA. In December 2022, security at Bodh Gaya in northeast India’s Bihar state had been beefed up after an alleged threat to the Dalai Lama from a Chinese woman. However, the state police later clarified the incident was no threat to the Dalai Lama and that the Chinese woman had been detained and deported because she overstayed her visa. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi and Tashi Wangchuk for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Kalden Lodoe, Tenzin Pema, Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [North Korea vows to bolster nuclear force as US, allies push for denuclearization](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-vows-to-bolster-nuclear-force-as-us-allies-push-for-denuclearization/): TAIPEI, Taiwan – North Korea said Tuesday it will stick to its policy of bolstering its nuclear forces, days after the United States, Japan and South Korea reaffirmed their goal of the complete denuclearization of the North. The top diplomats of the U.S. and its two Asian allies on Saturday also decried “systematic, widespread and gross” violations of human rights in the reclusive state. The North’s foreign ministry dismissed denuclearization as an “unrealistic and failed concept,” condemning U.S. policies as “shortsighted,” as reported by its state-run Korea Central News Agency on Tuesday. North Korea will “consistently adhere to the new line of bolstering up the nuclear force” and “thoroughly deter the U.S. and its vassal forces from threats and blackmail” by making use of all political and military tools at its disposal, the ministry added. It also warned that any provocation would be met with decisive countermeasures, framing its nuclear program as essential for peace, sovereignty and self-defense. US ‘openness for dialogue’ South Korea’s foreign ministry said last week’s trilateral talks between U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya and South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul sent a “strong” warning against North Korean provocations and stressed their commitment to reinforcing the global sanctions regime against it. The ministry added the U.S. reaffirmed its “ironclad” security commitments to South Korea and Japan, “backed by America’s unmatched military strength, including its nuclear capabilities.” But the U.S. Department of State said in a statement following a separate meeting between Rubio and Cho that the U.S. remained “open” to a dialogue with the North – an element omitted from the South Korean statement. “Secretary Rubio reaffirmed America’s commitment to the complete denuclearization of the DPRK while expressing the Trump administration’s openness to dialogue,” the department said, without elaborating. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK, is the official name of North Korea. The South has not commented on the U.S. statement. RELATED STORIES North Korea demolishes facility for family reunions: Seoul Russia supports US-North Korea dialogue, envoy says North Korea vows to bolster nuclear forces as US, Japan hold summit The inconsistency raised concern in Japan where its leader said there should be no divergence among the three allies on North Korea. “Maintaining the regime is North Korea’s core national interest, and we must seriously consider how to separate this from the issue of its nuclear possession,” said Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Monday during a parliamentary session in response to a question about the U.S. stance on North Korea and its implication for cooperation between the U.S., Japan and South Korea. “We must ensure continued cooperation and communication among Japan, the U.S., and South Korea on achieving complete denuclearization while addressing North Korea’s demands for security guarantees,” Ishiba noted. Edited by Mike Firn. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [China wants tunnel, basement rooms at planned London ‘mega-embassy’](https://ij-reportika.com/china-wants-tunnel-basement-rooms-at-planned-london-mega-embassy/): An architect working on China’s controversial plans for a new ‘mega-embassy’ in London has revealed some of the details of the project, including a tunnel connecting two of the former Royal Mint buildings, basement rooms and accommodation for hundreds of staff. Plans submitted to a government inquiry indicate large-scale remodeling of the buildings on the former Royal Mint site, including a large basement area with a security airlock for vehicles, suites of basement rooms and a new tunnel connecting two of the existing buildings. Oliver Ulmer of David Chipperfield Architects speaks at the planning inquiry for China&#8217;s proposed new &#8220;super-embassy&#8221; in London, Feb. 13, 2025, in this image made from a live webcast.(Tower Hamlets Borough Council) “The basement &#8230; will be reconfigured to provide support spaces to the embassy functions on the floors above,” he said. “These will consist primarily of facilities to support the catering of events.” Changes will be made for “the provision of necessary security required for the embassy use,” Ulmer told Planning Inspector Claire Searson as part of a 10-day inquiry into the plan. The plans show a large basement with a security airlock, with access to two suites of unlabeled rooms, one via the new tunnel. Royal Mint Court, the controversial site of China&#8217;s proposed new &#8216;super-embassy&#8217; in London.(Matthew Leung/RFA Cantonese) But political scholar Benson Wong said the use of basement facilities for espionage-related activities was highly likely. “Underground tunnels can effectively prevent host country security forces from conducting surveillance of foreign diplomatic missions to collect intelligence or carry out wiretapping,” Wong said. “This means the embassy can carry out any espionage or intelligence work in a secure environment.” “If the Labour government does nothing and allows the new Chinese Embassy to take liberties, I think the impact could be disastrous,” Wong said. The project plans also include a formal entrance hall with ‘screening facilities’ for diplomatic visitors, a cultural exchange center and a ‘heritage interpretation center’ and conference and exhibition facilities, Ulmer told the inquiry. A new visa application center is also planned, along with “student service” and “business services” facilities, he said. The outdoor space includes plans for a courtyard garden with increased biodiversity and “Chinese influences,” Ulmer said. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar junta frees nearly 1,000 Rohingya from prison, group says](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-frees-nearly-1000-rohingya-from-prison-group-says/): Myanmar’s military government has released from prison nearly 1,000 members of the mostly Muslim Rohingya minority, a human rights group said on Monday, a rare gesture of goodwill towards the persecuted community. The junta has not announced the release and there has been no explanation as to why they were set free but it comes days after a court in Argentina issued arrest warrants for the junta chief and 22 other military officials for crimes committed against the Rohingya in a 2017 crackdown. “It is clear that the junta wants to cover up the crimes that they’ve committed against Rohingya,” said a senior member of group Political Prisoners Network Myanmar, Thike Htun Oo. “They immediately released the Rohingya from detention as soon as a court in Argentina issued international arrest warrants for them. We must be aware of this,” he told Radio Free Asia on Monday. Most of the 936 people being released on Sunday from prison in the main city of Yangon, including 267 women and 67 children, were arrested after the military overthrew an elected government in 2021, Thike Htun Oo said. They were due to be sent by boat from Yangon, to the Rakhine state capital of Sittwe in western Myanmar, he said. On Saturday, officials from the military’s Immigration Department entered Insein Prison in Yangon to issue the Rohingya with identity documents, Thike Htun Oo said, though adding he could not confirm exactly what type of documents they were given. Details of what those being released had done to be locked up in the first place were not available but most were believed to have been imprisoned for violating restrictions on their movements. RFA tried to telephone the Prison Department spokesperson and the office of the department’s deputy director general for information about the release but they did not answer. Most Rohingya are from Rakhine state and most are stateless, regarded as migrants from South Asia and not one of the ethnic groups classified as indigenous in Buddhist-majority Myanmar’s constitution. RELATED STORIES Myanmar junta bombs Rohingya Muslim village killing 41, rescuers say Rohingya at risk of being forgotten, activists say Violence against the Rohingya explained Forced to fight? Myanmar government troops led a bloody crackdown in Rakhine state in 2017 in response to Rohingya militant attacks on the security forces and more than 700,000 members of the persecuted Rohingya community fled to neighboring Bangladesh, where most remain. U.N. experts later said the military carried out mass killings and gang rapes with “genocidal intent.” The United States in 2022 determined that the violence committed against the Rohingya amounted to genocide and crimes against humanity. The Myanmar military said it was engaged in legitimate security operations. A court in Argentina ruled last week that international arrest warrants be issued for the self-appointed president and junta chief, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, and 22 other military officials for crimes committed against the Rohingya. Argentina became the first country to open an investigation into serious crimes against the Rohingya under the principle of universal jurisdiction, a legal principle allowing for the prosecution of serious crimes no matter where they were committed. Political analyst Than Soe Naing also said the junta was trying to improve its image in light of the Argentinian court ruling. “They’re releasing the Rohingya in order to try to restore justice from their side but they’re not going to succeed in trying to cover up their criminal mistakes,” he said. The leader of a Rohingya welfare organization said there was a danger those being released would be pressed to fight for the military in Rakhine state where an ethnic minority insurgent group battling for control of the state, the Arakan Army, or AA, has forced junta forces into a few small pockets of territory, including Sittwe. The co-founder of the Free Rohingya Coalition, Nay San Lwin, said the military was already pressing Rohingya men in camps for displaced people in Sittwe to join junta forces. “They are really worried about being forcibly recruited,” he said of those who had been released. Last year, embattled junta forces recruited Rohingya into militias to help fight the AA, which draws its support from the state’s Buddhist, ethnic Rakhine majority. The recruitment by the military of Rohingya led to attacks by the AA in which international human rights organizations said Rohingya civilians were killed. The AA denied that. Translated by Kianan Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff. RELATED STORIES Myanmar junta bombs Rohingya Muslim village killing 41, rescuers say Rohingya at risk of being forgotten, activists say Violence against the Rohingya explained We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [2 Lao women warn of pitfalls of agreeing to ‘sham marriages’ in China](https://ij-reportika.com/2-lao-women-warn-of-pitfalls-of-agreeing-to-sham-marriages-in-china/): A Lao woman who traveled to China for an arranged marriage warned others to demand legal documents and to have in-person meetings with potential husbands before leaving the country. Any woman who enters into what she called a “sham marriage” runs the risk of being trafficked to another man after they arrive in China, she told Radio Free Asia. “To those who may want to come to China, they should think and do research carefully,” she said, requesting anonymity for security reasons. “They shouldn’t decide without knowing what they could be facing. I experienced that myself.” A newlywed man shows marriage books for him and his wife in Luliang, northern China’s Shanxi province on Feb. 11, 2025.(Adek Berry/AFP) The woman said she jumped at the chance to move to China two years ago for an arranged marriage. But eventually she realized that a promised 60 million kip (US$2,750) payment was never going to come. “I heard many people say marrying a Chinese man would help to solve financial problems and make life more comfortable,” she said in an interview on Feb. 4. “I had too much excitement from a lack of experience at that time.” Arranged marriages between Chinese men and young Lao women have become more common in recent years as the women and their families seek financial security amid Laos’ bleak economy. A Lao anti-human trafficking activist who goes by the name Ms. Dee told RFA last month that a middleman is usually involved in forming an agreement. The young women and their families are paid at most 30,000 yuan (US$4,150) while the middlemen keep the remainder of the fee, which can be around 200,000 Chinese yuan (US$27,500), she said. “After being sent to China, the Lao girls of course expect to receive some money that they can send home to support their families. But in fact, their Chinese husbands refuse,” Ms. Dee said. ‘Just go with him’ Another Lao woman told RFA in a separate interview that a middleman sold her to a man three days after she arrived in China. “I was told not to be too particular,” she said on Feb. 10. “Just go with him. I have no choice at all.” The middleman added that she would get paid for the marriage after about six months, and could then “run away with a new man and get paid again,” she said. But the money never came, and she said she worries that a typical 16-year-old Lao girl could also be easily tricked by middlemen who promise monthly payments of 2,000 yuan (US$275) to send to family back in Laos. “The middlemen always gave them nice images of being married to Chinese men. ‘He’ll buy you a smart phone, nice clothes, new shoes,‘” she said. “All those materialistic things plus thinking of being out of poverty.” RELATED STORIES Lao police stop 3 women from boarding flight to China in trafficking case Three human traffickers to stand trial in northern Laos Lao official: Gov’t can’t afford to address rise in human trafficking Vientiane police arrest taxi driver and woman, rescue 4 teenagers The woman who spoke to RFA on Feb. 4 said Lao women could end up with a Chinese man who has a criminal record and isn’t able to provide legal marriage documents. “If the Chinese man cannot come to Laos and provide you with any legal documents, be aware and never believe that,” she said. “Don’t believe it if a middleman told you they will provide all needed documents when you have arrived in China.” She added: “You cannot trust the middleman. They will not pay you after you are sent to China.” A Lao official at the Anti-Trafficking Department told RFA that the middlemen often target young women from hill tribes who lack awareness and whose families have financial hardship. Translated by Khamsao Civilize. Edited by Matt Reed. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [OPINION: Banning Khmer Rouge denialism is a bad move for Cambodia and the world](https://ij-reportika.com/opinion-banning-khmer-rouge-denialism-is-a-bad-move-for-cambodia-and-the-world/): Quite soon, possibly to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Khmer Rouge takeover in April, Cambodia will pass a new law making it a jailable offense of up to five years to “deny, trivialize, reject or dispute the authenticity of crimes” committed during that regime’s 1975-79 rule. The bill, requested – and presumably drafted – by Hun Sen, the former prime minister who handed power to his son in 2023, will replace a 2013 law that narrowly focused on denial. The bill’s seven articles haven’t been publicly released, so it remains unclear how some of the terms are to be defined. “Trivialize” and “dispute” are broad, and there are works by academics that might be seen as “disputing” standard accounts of the Khmer Rouge era. Is the “authentic history” of the bill’s title going to be based on the judgments of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia? If so, there will be major gaps in the narrative. Cambodia’s courts are now so supine that one presumes the “authentic history” will be whatever the state prosecutor says it is, should a case come to trial. People leave Phnom Penh after Khmer Rouge forces seized the Cambodian capital April 17, 1975.(Agence Khmere de Presse/AFP) For today’s beleaguered and exiled political opposition in Cambodia, the invasion by Hanoi was yet another curse, meaning the country is still waiting for true liberation, by which most people mean the downfall of the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) of Hun Sen and his family. The CPP is quite explicit: any opposition equates to supporting the Khmer Rouge. “You hate Pol Pot but you oppose the ones who toppled him. What does this mean? It means you are an ally of the Pol Pot regime,” Hun Sen said a few years ago, with a logic that will inform the incoming law. Crackdown era The ruling CPP has finished its destructive march through the institutions that began in 2017 and is now marching through the people’s minds. A decade ago, Cambodia was a different sort of place. There was one-party rule, repression, and assassinations, yet the regime didn’t really care what most people thought as long as their outward actions were correct. Today, it’s possible to imagine the Hun family lying awake at night, quivering with rage that someone might be thinking about deviations from the party line. Now, the CPP really does care about banishing skepticism and enforcing obedience. What one thinks of the past is naturally an important part of this. Another troublesome factor is that, with Jan. 27 having been the 80th anniversary of Holocaust Remembrance Day, there is a flurry of interest globally in trying to comprehend how ordinary people could commit such horrors as the Holocaust or the Khmer Rouge’s genocide. The publication of Laurence Rees’ excellent new book, The Nazi Mind: Twelve Warnings from History, this month reminds us that if “never again” means anything, it means understanding the mentality of those who supported or joined in mass executions. Yet we don’t learn this from the victims or ordinary people unassociated with the regime, even though these more accessible voices occupy the bulk of the literature. RELATED STORIES Home of notorious Khmer Rouge commander attracts few tourists Final Khmer Rouge Tribunal session rejects appeal of former leader Khieu Samphan Nuon Chea Dies at 93, Ending Hopes of Closure For Cambodia’s Victims of Khmer Rouge Listen only to the outsider, and one comes away with the impression that almost everyone living under a despotic regime is either a passive resister or an outright rebel. There are a few devotees who find redemption after realizing their own sins – as in the main character in Schindler’s List. Yet no dictatorship can possibly survive without some input from a majority of the population. Thus, it’s more important to learn not “why they killed,” but “why we killed” – or “why we didn’t do anything.” Remembrance is vital The world could do with hearing much more about other atrocities, like Cambodia’s. For many in the West, there is a tendency to think of the Holocaust as a singular evil, which can lead one down the path of culture, not human nature, as an explanation. One lesson of the 1930s was that the people most able to stop the spread of Fascism were the same people least capable of understanding its impulses. The left-wing intelligentsia was content to keep to the position until quite late that Fascism was just a more reactionary form of capitalist exploitation, while conservative elites had a self-interest in thinking it was a tamable version of Marxism. Their materialism, their belief that life could be reduced to the money in your pocket and what you can buy with it, didn’t allow them to see the emotional draw of Fascism. These intense feelings brought the torch parade, the speeches, the marching paramilitaries, the uniforms and symbols, the book burnings, and the transgressiveness of petty revenge and bullying. Perhaps the best definition of Fascism came from Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky, who said: “there lives alongside the twentieth century the tenth or the thirteenth. A hundred million people use electricity and still believe in the magic power of signs and exorcisms.” Likewise, the same people now who were supposed to stop the rise of new despotisms have been as equally ignorant about the power of signs and exorcisms. Europe kidded itself that Russian strongman Vladimir Putin was as much a rationalist as Germany’s Angela Merkel. The notion that all the Chinese Communist Party cared about was economic growth blinded world leaders to its changing aspirations: Han supremacy, jingoism, revenging past humiliations, national rebirth and territorial conquests. In Cambodia, it is possible to find books by or about Khmer Rouge perpetrators, yet the curious reader must exert a good deal of effort. Those who do that find that a temperament for the transgressive and the cynical motivated the Khmer Rouge’s cadres. It won’t be long before the world marks a Holocaust Memorial Day without...
- [Thailand's Court Weighs Petition to Free Detained Uyghurs](https://ij-reportika.com/thai-court-considers-petition-to-free-detained-uyghurs/): A Thai court has opened a hearing on the fate of 43 Uyghurs detained for over a decade, raising fears of their forced deportation to China, where they face persecution.
- [China expels 1,000 monks and nuns from Larung Gar Buddhist Academy](https://ij-reportika.com/china-expels-1000-monks-and-nuns-from-larung-gar-buddhist-academy/): Read RFA coverage of this story in Tibetan. Chinese authorities have expelled over 1,000 Tibetan monks and nuns from the Larung Gar Buddhist Academy in the latest blow to the major center of Tibetan Buddhist learning, sources inside Tibet with knowledge of the situation said. Citing a lack of proper residency documentation, officials said they need to reduce the number of Buddhist clergy residing at the academy from 6,000 to 5,000, the sources said. The move is the latest in a long series of steps taken by China to destroy and shrink the academy, which by the early 2000’s was home to about 40,000 Buddhist monastics. In 2016, Chinese authorities destroyed half the compound and sent away thousands of monks and nuns. At the time, county authorities issued an order that spelled out the plans for the 2016-2017 demolitions and forced expulsions. In December 2024, about 400 officials and police were deployed to Larung Gar, which is in Serthar county (Seda in Chinese) within the Kardze (Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan province. Officials have pressured hundreds of Buddhist clergy to leave voluntarily, the sources said. “Those expelled have been ordered to leave under the pretext of lacking proper residency documents,” he said. “And to avoid drawing public attention, more than 1,000 monks and nuns have been gradually forced out over the past month.” An aerial view of Larung Gar Buddhist Academy in Serthar county of Kardze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in southwestern China&#8217;s Sichuan province, July 23, 2015.(China Stringer Network/Reuters) The source said that government officials have been stationed at the academy, imposing strict controls on the movement of monks, nuns, pilgrims and tourists. “They are strictly prohibited from taking photos freely and are only allowed to visit designated areas within the monastery.” Many of the residences of expelled Buddhist clergy have been marked for demolition, although they have not been destroyed yet, he said. Plans are in place to build a road through the monastery in April, leading to further demolitions, he said. Part of broader strategy The latest crackdown is seen as part of Beijing’s broader strategy to reduce the size and influence of religious institutions, particularly those ties to Tibetan Buddhism. While Beijing says such policies are meant to ensure social stability, rights activists argue they they aim to suppress Tibetan culture and religious freedom. Chinese authorities want to roll out a 15-year residency limit for Buddhist clergy at Larung Gar starting this year. They also plan to shrink the academy’s population even more by making registration mandatory, which will force Chinese students to leave, according to a report by Phayul, a news website about Tibet. RELATED STORIES Tibetan Buddhist centers linked to Larung Gar shut down under suspected Chinese pressure Larung Gar Buddhist Academy closes to new enrollment as China tightens controls China bans major prayer festival in Larung Gar for third consecutive year Destruction at Larung Gar greater than earlier reported Larung Gar has long been a symbol of resistance to Chinese control over Tibetan Buddhism — but it has suffered for that. When the Chinese government deployed around 400 troops from Drago county (Luhuo) and other areas to Larung Gar last December, with helicopters flown in to monitor the movement of monks and nuns, the source said. Beginning in 2025, strict restrictions will be enforced, preventing monks and nuns from staying at Larung Gar for more than 15 years, he said. Founded in 1980 by the late Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok, Larung Gar, was established as a center for Tibetan Buddhist education and meditation. Unlike traditional monasteries, it welcomed monks, nuns and lay practitioners from diverse backgrounds, fostering a unique blend of inclusivity and scholastic rigor that are now under threat. Larung Gar at one time was home to 40,000 Buddhist nuns and monks, but in 2017, over 4,000 monastics were expelled, and 4,700 dwellings were destroyed. “During that time, Chinese government officials stated that the Chinese Communist Party owned both the land and the sky, giving them the authority to do whatever they wanted with Larung Gar,” a second source said. Translated by Tenzin Palmo and Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Funding freeze threatens the survival of China-focused nonprofits and democracy.](https://ij-reportika.com/funding-freeze-threatens-the-survival-of-china-focused-nonprofits-and-democracy/): The recent suspension of U.S. foreign aid has precipitated a crisis for numerous nonprofits dedicated to illuminating the realities within China. These organizations, operating in regions such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the United States, have long been the torchbearers of truth, shedding light on issues ranging from media censorship and human rights violations to the ongoing Uyghur genocide. Their work not only provides a window into China&#8217;s opaque internal affairs but also upholds the ideals of free speech and democracy. The 2017 Chinese foreign NGO law had already dealt a significant blow to foreign nonprofits operating within China, forcing many to relocate or cease operations. The recent U.S. funding freeze threatens to be the final nail in the coffin for these vital organizations. Without immediate financial support, many face imminent closure, leading to layoffs and a significant reduction in their critical activities. The Risk of an Information Blackout on Chinese Civil Society The loss of these nonprofits would result in an alarming information blackout concerning Chinese civil society. Their unique contributions are not easily replicated by think tanks, universities, or journalists. If they disappear, the world loses an essential check on Beijing&#8217;s narrative, allowing misinformation and authoritarianism to flourish unchecked. In light of this, it is imperative for the U.S. government to grant emergency waivers to China-focused nonprofits, ensuring the continuation of their indispensable work. Should the U.S. be unable or unwilling to act swiftly, it falls upon other democratic nations to step in. A collaborative international effort, pooling resources to provide a few million dollars in aid, could preserve the research, expertise, and networks these organizations represent. This situation serves as a stark reminder of the dangers of over-reliance on a single source of funding. Democracies worldwide must recognize that supporting these nonprofits aligns directly with their core values and security interests. By empowering organizations that expose the flaws in China&#8217;s governance and advocate for democratic principles, we reinforce the global commitment to freedom, transparency, and human rights. The stakes are high. Without immediate action, we risk not only the extinction of these nonprofits but also the erosion of our collective understanding of China&#8217;s internal dynamics. In this critical moment, the international community must unite to ensure that the light of truth continues to shine, holding power to account and championing the cause of democracy.
- [Myanmar militia hosting scam centers says it will deport 8,000 foreigners](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-militia-hosting-scam-centers-says-it-will-deport-8000-foreigners/): Read Ij-Reportika coverage of these topics in Burmese A pro-junta Myanmar militia hosting extensive online fraud operations in its zone on the Thai border has said it will deport 8,000 scam center workers, most of them Chinese, from its area as it seeks to close down illegal activities. The vow to clean up human trafficking and online fraud comes after unprecedented pressure on the ethnic Karen force following growing international outrage about the criminal activity in its area including forced labor. “We expect that there will be up to 8,000 people, maybe more,” said Naing Maung Zaw, a spokesman for a militia known as the Karen Border Guard Force, or BGF, which oversees scam operations in eastern Myanmar’s Myawaddy district. “We’ll send back as many as we have – we’ve already made a list – via Thailand or back into Myanmar. According to the figures, many of them came in with Thai visas, so we have to send them back to Thailand,” he told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday. Most of them were from China, he said. The BGF sent 61 foreigners to Thailand on Feb. 6, a day after Thailand cut cross-border power and internet services and blocked fuel exports to Myanmar scam zones. The BGF’s Myanmar junta sponsors also stopped fuel shipments to the area, residents said this week. Another 261 foreigners from 20 countries, including China, Ethiopia, Malaysia, Nepal, Kenya and Philippines, were handed over to Thai authorities on Wednesday. Online fraud gangs proliferated in more lawless corners of Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos after the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted casinos. The scamming, known as “pig butchering” in China, usually involves making contact with unsuspecting people online, building a relationship with them and then defrauding them. Researchers say billions of dollars have been stolen this way from victims around the world. Huge fraud operation complexes are often staffed by people lured by false job advertisements and forced to work, sometimes under threat of violence, rescued workers and rights groups say. China, home to many of the victims of the scams, has in recent weeks worked to spur authorities in its southern neighbors to take action against the criminal enterprises. RELATED STORIES EXPLAINED: What are scam parks? South Korea jails scam group leader for 8 years over Laos, Myanmar operation Scam park victim returns to Hong Kong after Thai rescue Thais seek arrests In addition to the utility cuts and fuel blockade, Thailand’s Department of Special Investigation, which is responsible for tackling organized crime, has sought arrest warrants for the leader of the BGF, Col. Saw Chit Thu, and two colleagues on suspicion of human trafficking, Thai media reported this week. As the pressure has built up, BGF and its parent organization, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, or DKBA, have promised to eliminate fraud and forced labor in their area, and they have in recent days begun sending former workers across the border to Thailand A commander of the DKBA said the days of scamming and forced labor were over and his force would focus on legitimate business. “We plan to continue and support as much as we can businesses like housing, hotels and tourism to develop our own region,” DKBA Chief of Staff Gen. Saw San Aung told Ij-Reportika . The DKBA emerged from a split in the 1990s in Myanmar’s oldest ethnic minority guerrilla force, the largely Christian-led Karen National Union, when Buddhist fighters broke away, and sided with the military. The military let the breakaway fighters, who called themselves the DKBA, rule in areas under government control in Kayin state. The DKBA later set up the BGF under the auspices of the army, and they have reaped profits from cross-border trade, online gambling and scam operations. The DKBA is an important ally for the Myanmar military as it faces an onslaught from insurgent groups battling to end military rule. The DKBA intervened in April to help junta forces stop the KNU from capturing Myawaddy, a vital economic lifeline for the embattled regime. Edited by Ij-Reportika Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Telecom outages impact livelihoods in Myanmar’s Rakhine](https://ij-reportika.com/telecom-outages-impact-livelihoods-in-myanmars-rakhine/): Read RFA coverage of this story in Burmese. Telecommunications outages in western Myanmar’s embattled Rakhine state have persisted for nearly 100 days, impinging on its more than 3 million residents&#8217; right to information and livelihoods, sources in the region said Wednesday. The blackouts have affected all 14 townships occupied by the rebel Arakan Army, or AA, in Rakhine, sources said, as well as AA-occupied Paletwa township in neighboring Chin state, and the Rakhine townships of Kyaukphyu, Munaung and parts of Sittwe, which have been under the control of the military junta since its February 2021 coup d’etat. The AA cut off both telephone and internet access in its territories beginning Nov. 16, 2024, and a source close to the rebel group told RFA Burmese that the outages are “to prevent airstrikes, because there are junta informants” there. He offered no evidence to support his claim. The junta implemented blackouts in its Rakhine territories shortly after the AA attacked military positions in the state in November 2023, ending a year-long ceasefire. Attempts by RFA to reach Khaing Thukha, the AA spokesperson, for comment went unanswered Wednesday, as did calls to Hla Thein, the junta’s spokesperson and state attorney general in Rakhine state. A Buddhist monk records a video with his mobile phone as he listens to Rohingya Muslim poets during the &#8220;Poetry for Humanity&#8221; event in Yangon, Myanmar.(Sai Aung Main/AFP) Residents said that, in addition to affecting their livelihoods, the blackouts have made communicating with family members a challenge. “Separated across different areas, we can’t communicate with our families or close relatives,” said one Rakhine resident who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. He noted that transportation is difficult and travel expenses are high, so meeting in person is also off the table. “Our family members [in other parts of Rakhine state] don’t know what is happening to us here,” he said. “We are also deeply worried when we hear that the junta has carried out aerial strikes in areas where our family members live.” RELATED STORIES Northern Myanmar cut off by state-wide communications blackout Daily blackouts in Myanmar disrupt livelihoods of rural, urban dwellers UN calls for Myanmar to end internet blackout in Rakhine state Other residents said that fighters with the AA and other allied rebel groups have access to the internet via the satellite service Starlink. Several said that they need to travel “miles” in order to access a working telephone. Communicating from abroad Many people from Rakhine state, an underdeveloped area of Myanmar, choose to work abroad to earn a living and send money home to help their families. But a resident of Rakhine who is working in Thailand told RFA that the lack of phone and internet connections has made it nearly impossible for her to send money home. “I can’t even communicate with my children, who are still in the village, and as a mother, I constantly worry about them,” she said. “I also have parents and siblings, and I want to know if they are safe and how they manage to make a living. Not being able to reach them fills me with anxiety.” The woman, who also declined to be named, said it had been “more than two months” since she last had contact with her family members in Rakhine. Journalists in Rakhine told RFA that while the AA has allowed them to access the internet using Starlink, they can only do so for five hours a day, limiting their ability to report news from the region. Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [EXPLAINED: How US tariffs affect Vietnam’s economy](https://ij-reportika.com/explained-how-us-tariffs-affect-vietnams-economy/): reported. Anti-dumping investigation In September 2024, Vietnam’s Department of Trade Defense at the Ministry of Industry and Trade said that the U.S. Department of Commerce was investigating Vietnam, along with other countries, for dumping and subsidies, with the dumping accusation having a margin of up to 160%, the highest in the world. The investigation period is 2023 and the damage assessment period is from 2021 to 2023. Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Mike Firn. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar refugees in limbo after US suspends resettlement program](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-refugees-in-limbo-after-us-suspends-resettlement-program/): Read RFA coverage of this story in Burmese. UMPIEM MAI REFUGEE CAMP, Thailand &#8212; Saw Ba had been living in a refugee camp on the Thai-Myanmar border for 16 years when he got the news last month that he’d been waiting years for: He and his family would be boarding a plane to resettle in America. It had been a long wait. Saw Ba, in his 40s and whose name has been changed in this story for security reasons, had applied for resettlement soon after getting to the camp in 2008. With much anticipation, staffers from the International Organization for Migration, or IOM, brought his family and 22 other people from Umpiem Mai Refugee Camp to a hotel in the Thai border town of Mae Sot in mid-January. There they were to wait to catch a flight to Bangkok and on to the United States. Freedom and a new life awaited. But three days later, the IOM staffers delivered bad news: All 26 people would have to return to the refugee camp because the incoming Trump administration was about to order a halt to the processing and travel of all refugees into the United States. The Umpiem Mai Refugee Camp on the Thai-Myanmar border, at Phop Phra district, Tak province, a Thai-Myanmar border province, Feb. 7, 2025.(Shakeel/AP) Saw Ba and his family had been so sure they would be resettled that they had given all of their belongings — including their clothes — to neighbors and friends, while their children had dropped out of school and returned their books. “When we arrived back here [at Umpiem], we had many difficulties,” he told RFA Burmese, particularly with their children’s education. “Our children have been out of school for a month, and now they’re back, and their final exams are coming up,” he said. “Our children won’t have books anymore when they return to school. I don’t know whether they’ll pass or fail this year’s exams.” Missionary work Saw Ba fled to the refugee camp because he was targeted for his Christian missionary work. Originally from Pathein township, in western Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady region, he was approached by an official with the country’s military junta in 2009 and told to stop his activities. When he informed the official that he was not involved in politics and refused to comply, police were sent to arrest him. He fled to Thailand, where he ended up in the Umpiem Mai camp. There he met his wife and had a son and daughter, now in seventh and second grade, respectively. RELATED STORIES Vietnamese in Thailand wait anxiously after Trump suspends refugee program Myanmar aid groups struggle with freeze as UN warns of ‘staggering’ hunger Tide of Myanmar war refugees tests Thailand’s welcome mat for migrants Another woman in the camp, Thin Min Soe, said her husband and their two children had undergone a battery of medical tests and had received an acceptance letter for resettlement, allowing them to join a waitlist to travel. She had fled her home in the Bago region in central Myanmar for taking part in the country’s 2007 Saffron Revolution, when the military violently suppressed widespread anti-government protests led by Buddhist monks. Thin Min Soe and other refugees at the camp told RFA they are afraid of returning to Myanmar due to the threat of persecution. The country has been pitched into civil war after the military toppled an elected government in 2021. Many said they no longer have homes or villages to return to, even if they did want to go back. With the U.S. refugee program suspended, “we are now seriously concerned about our livelihood because we have to support our two children’s education and livelihoods,” she said. When RFA contacted the camp manager and the refugee affairs office, they responded by saying they were not allowed to comment on the matter. US has resettled 3 million refugees Since 1980, more than 3 million refugees &#8212; people fearing persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, politics or membership in a social group &#8212; have been resettled in the United States. During the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the United States resettled 100,034 refugees, the highest number in 30 years. The most came from the Republic of the Congo, followed by Afghanistan, Venezuela and Syria. Myanmar was fifth, accounting for 7.3%, according to the Center for Immigration Studies. Over the past 30 years, the United States accepted the highest number of refugees from Myanmar &#8212; about 76,000 &#8212; followed by Canada and Australia, according to the U.S. Embassy in Thailand. Hundreds of Myanmar refugees from Thailand were brought to the U.S. in November and December, before the end of former President Joe Biden’s term. The Ohn Pyan refugee camp near Mae Sot, Thailand, undated photo.(RFA) Thai health workers will provide healthcare during the day from Monday to Friday, while refugee camp health professionals will be on duty at night and on weekends. The U.S. freeze on foreign aid has also impacted the work of other humanitarian groups at the Thai-Myanmar border, including the Mae Tao Clinic, which provides free medical care to those in need, as well as health education and social services, officials told RFA. Translated by Aung Naing and Kalyar Lwin. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster. 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- [Did a Taiwan official say he didn’t want Chinese tourists coming in bulk?](https://ij-reportika.com/did-a-taiwan-official-say-he-didnt-want-chinese-tourists-coming-in-bulk/): A claim began to circulate online that Taiwan’s minister of the Mainland Affairs Council Chiu Chui-cheng said in a media interview he didn’t want a large number of mainland Chinese tourists coming to the island. But the claim is misleading. Chiu’s statement was a paraphrase of feedback received by his ministry from the Taiwanese public, not a statement of his own views. The claim was shared on Weibo on Jan. 13. A Weibo user said on Jan. 13 that although there was a decrease in mainland Chinese tourists visiting Southeast Asia, Taiwan shouldn’t be excited about receiving them since Taiwan was not the option for them because Taiwan said it didn’t want Chinese tourists. The user attached a media interview of Chiu Chui-cheng, the minister of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, which oversees cross-strait relations, as evidence, claiming that Chiu publicly said he didn’t want Chinese tourists coming to the island in bulk since it would harm the island’s tourism industry. Some Chinese users on Weibo spread a video of the minister of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, saying the island did not want to accept many tourists from the Mainland.(Weibo and TikTok) Taiwan has long welcomed tourists from mainland China, viewing such visits as a means to foster cross-strait exchanges. In 2008, agreements were established to facilitate group tourism from mainland China to Taiwan. By 2015, mainland Chinese tourists comprised approximately 40.54% of Taiwan’s total tourist arrivals. However, in August 2019, Beijing suspended individual travel permits for mainland residents visiting Taiwan, leading to a significant decline in tourist numbers. The COVID-19 pandemic further disrupted cross-strait tourism. In August 2023, Taiwan announced plans to relax restrictions on Chinese business and group travelers, aiming to resume tourism exchanges. Despite these efforts, as of early 2025, comprehensive tourism exchanges have not fully resumed. In January 2025, China announced preparations to resume group tours to Taiwan for residents of Shanghai and Fujian province, signaling a potential thaw in tourism relations. But the claim about Chiu is misleading. Chiu’s statement was a paraphrase of feedback received by his ministry from the Taiwanese public, not a statement of his own views. Chiu’s statement A reverse image search on Google found the clip on Weibo was taken from Chiu’s interview with Taiwanese broadcaster FTV News aired on Jan. 4. At the interview’s five-minute and 35-second mark, Chiu can be heard discussing the Taiwanese public’s negative reaction to a recent announcement by Chinese officials. “Shanghai’s vice mayor announced that the city will actively promote tourist groups to come to Taiwan. The following day, the Mainland Affairs Council received more than 100 calls and media voicing opposition against this proposal, stating their reason as not wanting large numbers of tourists to lower the quality of Taiwan’s tourism,” Chiu said. A close look at the video shows Chiu made no mention that he didn’t want Chinese tourists coming to the island in bulk since it would harm the island’s tourism industry. At the video’s six-minute and 24-second mark, Chiu said that his ministry was focused on ensuring that Chinese tourists visit Taiwan in a healthy and orderly way. He pointed out that tourism from China was not entirely market-driven, as travelers must apply for a permit from Chinese authorities, adding that this meant that China could use policy measures to influence cross-strait tourism. If Taiwan implements policies that China disapproves of, Beijing may reduce the number of Chinese tourists as a form of pressure, impacting Taiwan’s tourism industry and even compelling businesses to express support for China, Chiu noted. “This is something we must closely monitor,” the minister added. Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Taejun Kang. Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar junta blocks fuel to eastern border scam center town](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-blocks-fuel-to-eastern-border-scam-center-town/): Read RFA coverage of these topics in Burmese Myanmar’s junta has blocked the supply of fuel to a town bordering Thailand where scam centers are rampant days after Thailand cut cross-border power, fuel and internet services to the lawless enclave where fraud and forced labor have thrived. The Myawaddy district is under the control of a pro-junta militia known as the Border Guard Force, or BGF, that has opened up its zone to criminal networks, many run by Chinese networks, which operate extensive “pig-butchering” online fraud operations. Thailand, facing damage to its tourist industry because of public alarm throughout Asia about forced labor in the centers, cut off electricity and the internet and blocked the supply of fuel to Myawaddy on Feb. 5. The Myanmar junta has also stopped fuel reaching Myawaddy from central Myanmar ports to replace the supplies blocked by Thailand, Myawaddy residents told Radio Free Asia. Myanmar military authorities were not letting fuel trucks through a checkpoint at a bridge on the road between the town of Kawkareik and Myawaddy, they said. “There’s no fuel at all in the town,” said one Myawaddy resident who declined to be identified for security reasons. “More than 40 boxers are stuck at the junta checkpoint,” said the resident referring to fuel trucks. “We do not know what’ll happen tomorrow.‘’ RFA tried to telephone the junta’s spokesperson, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Htun, to ask about the fuel restriction but he did not answer. The scams, known as “pig butchering” in China, usually involve making contact with unsuspecting people online, building a personal relationship with them and then defrauding them. The centres are often staffed by people lured by false job advertisements and forced to work. The rescue of a Chinese actor from a Myawaddy fraud center last month raised international alarm about the centers, triggered the cancellations of Thai holiday plans by frightened Chinese tourists and encouraged the Thai government to act. Chinese President Xi Jinping thanked Thailand’s visiting prime minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra last Thursday for the crackdown. RELATED STORIES EXPLAINED: What are scam parks? South Korea jails scam group leader for 8 years over Laos, Myanmar operation Myanmar border militia emerges as nexus in regional scam network Pumps run dry Ordinary residents of Myawaddy say the restrictions on power and fuel are hitting them as well as the scam centers. “Many businesses rely on fuel for pumping water, for everything. So while cutting fuel will affect the scam gangs it also impacts the public,” said the town resident. One Myawaddy gasoline pump said it only had enough fuel for a car or two but that was sold out even though the price had nearly doubled to 10,000 kyat (US$5) a liter. In the area’s main hub for scam operations at Shwe Kokko, 15 kilometers (9 miles) north of Myawaddy, the price of fuel rose to almost 20,000 kyat before it sold out. “In Shwe Kokko, there’s absolutely no fuel. You can’t use a car at all,” said the resident. The ethnic Karen BGF emerged after a split in Myanmar’s oldest minority insurgent force, the Christian-led Karen National Union in the 1990s. Buddhist breakaway fighters formed their own force and allied with the military, which granted them control of Myawaddy. Analysts say the junta has turned a blind eye to the scam centers, and profited from them, while the BGF has helped the military keep KNU forces out of the main crossing point for trade on the Thai-Myanmar border. Facing pressure from all sides, the BGF has promised to clean up its zone and stop fraud and forced labor. On Sunday, it ordered Chinese nationals working in online operations to leave the town of Payathonzu, on the Thai border to the south of Myawaddy, by the end of the month. The junta leader, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, said last week the military would take action against money laundering. Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [New traffic edict is Vietnamese communists’ ‘mission civilisatrice’](https://ij-reportika.com/new-traffic-edict-is-vietnamese-communists-mission-civilisatrice/): A commentary by David Hutt As one theory goes, as a country becomes wealthier, its streets should become more orderly and safe. Or to use the favored word of the Vietnamese Communist Party, the roads need to become more “civilized.” Any visitor to Hanoi or Saigon, however, cannot help but notice that economic development hasn’t been coupled with vehicular orderliness. At least, that was until the authorities introduced a new edict at the beginning of January. Traffic fines have since risen tenfold, with the biggest tickets over US$1,500. Cars that don’t stop at red lights can be fined US$780, up from US$230 last year. Fines have also been increased for drunk drivers, those who park on the pavement, those speeding, etc, etc. According to local media, opening a car door in an unsafe manner will now result in a penalty of US$860, up from US$23. Vehicles wait at a red light at an intersection in Hanoi on January 8, 2025.(Nhac Nguyen/AFP) One question is how to tell whether the latest traffic edict has been a success or not. By the reduction in traffic-related accidents or deaths? By the severity of the fines imposed? A danger is that it becomes a numbers game. On the other hand, there’s a risk that conformity with the law only lasts for as long as the police keep issuing crippling penalties, which may not be for too long. I hear the police in Ho Chi Minh City are again allowing motorists to turn right at red lights at some intersections. When, in 2007, the government introduced a regulation requiring motorbike drivers to wear helmets, most responded with ironic obedience—they wore cheap, light-weight baseball-cap headgear that were in keeping with the letter of the law but not the spirit. No country’s police can enforce traffic regulations alone; it requires a majority of drivers to accept that laws about speeding or stopping at traffic lights or parking only in parking zones are more beneficial for the whole than the informal codes that regarded these as suggestions to be ignored when convenient. As has always been the case in Vietnam, any lasting change will have to come from the bottom up. David Hutt is a research fellow at the Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS) and the Southeast Asia Columnist at the Diplomat. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of Ij-Reportika. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Gyalo Thondup, Dalai Lama’s older brother, dies aged 97](https://ij-reportika.com/gyalo-thondup-dalai-lamas-older-brother-dies-aged-97/): Gyalo Thondup, an elder brother of the Dalai Lama who played a crucial role in the history of modern Tibetan, has died at his home in Kalimpong in northeast India aged 97. One of six siblings to the Tibetan spiritual leader, he leaves behind a legacy built on a lifetime of advocating against Chinese rule in Tibet. At different points in his life, Thondup made numerous – at times desperate – attempts to save Tibet’s traditional culture and self-governance, including seeking U.S. support for an armed resistance against the Chinese Communist regime, as well as through dialogue with Beijing, engagement with global leaders, and raising Tibet’s plight with the United Nations. Groomed from a young age to serve as an advisor to his younger brother, Thondup’s singular role in advancing the Tibetan cause – often as the unofficial envoy of the Dalai Lama – as well as his early efforts to reform Tibet’s social and political systems have been met with a mix of reverence and controversy. China’s Deng Xiaoping, 1978.(AP) The meeting gave rise to a series of formal negotiations between the Dalai Lama’s official envoys and the Chinese leadership that continued until they ground to a halt in 2010. Beyond his position as a brother to the Dalai Lama, he held high offices within the Tibetan government-in-exile, serving as Prime Minister in 1991 and Minister for Security from 1993 to 1996. Yet an account of his life – The Noodle Maker of Kalimpong, co-written with Anne Thurston and published in 2015 – reflects deepest on his most controversial role, as the linchpin of a secret U.S.-backed campaign to arm and train Tibetan resistance fighters from 1956 to 1974. ‘Chief architect’ of the Tibetan resistance When the People’s Liberation Army invaded Tibet in 1949, Thondup was in Taiwan. Unable to return home, he went to the U.S., where an older brother, Thubten Jigme Norbu, had gone ahead to earlier, and was there introduced to contacts at the CIA, the American intelligence agency. But according to Thondup, it was not until 1956, when he had been living back in India and serving as a back channel source for what was going on in Tibet that the CIA approached him again with concrete plans to help train Tibetans to take up arms against the Chinese. “The CIA was prepared to train some of the freedom fighters as radio operators and guerrilla warriors,” he writes in Noodle Maker. “[U.S. Admiral] John Hoskins wanted me to introduce him to some of the Tibetan fighters. I was happy to oblige.” The resistance was not supported by the Dalai Lama, who as a figure of peace cannot back the taking up of arms on his behalf, but Thondup could. Beginning in 1957, he helped recruit fighters who would be sent to U.S. training camps in subsequent years. Some 200 fighters were eventually trained at Camp Hale, a secret location in Colorado. Many of these fighters were later airdropped into Tibet to set up radio communications with Langley, which has later been credited for enabling the timely asylum granted to the Dalai Lama after his flight into exile from Tibet. A 1963 brochure created by Ken Knaus and Tibetan trainees portrays Chinese leader Mao Zedong leading the destruction to Tibetan way of life.(STCIRCUS Archive of Tibetan Resistance via Hoover Institution Library &amp; Archives) Though Thondup was one of several intermediaries between the Tibetan and U.S. governments, his status as the Dalai Lama’s brother meant that “in the eyes of the U.S. government, Gyalo was not just an intermediary; he was the chief architect of the Tibetan resistance,” according to Carole McGranahan, anthropologist and author several studies on Tibet’s resistance. But in his later years, he seemed to express some regret for trusting the Americans, who ended the training program by 1974 amid warming relations between Beijing and Washington during the Nixon era. His criticisms of the approach taken by the U.S. and other governments in turn created significant controversy around Thondup within the Tibetan community. Nevertheless, Thondup, in what may have been his last media interview, told RFA in November 2024: “My hope is that Tibetans work together in unity and harmony and make Tibet’s culture, Tibet’s situation known to the whole world, and without losing heart continue to find ways to overcome difficulties, so everyone please work hard.” Additional reporting by Passang Dhonden, Lobsang Gelek, and Passang Tsering; edited by Kalden Lodoe and Boer Deng We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Prime Minister Hun Manet, has your father incited violence or not?](https://ij-reportika.com/prime-minister-hun-manet-has-your-father-incited-violence-or-not/): A commentary by David Hutt When a footman finds a pest in the pantry, does he ask the King whether he should stamp on it? What about if the King has been speaking for years about the need to “crush” and “destroy” and “eliminate” pests that infect his palace? Early last month, a former Cambodian opposition politician, Lim Kimya, was shot dead in the streets of Bangkok. The Thai police are still investigating the crime, but we know that several suspects are tied to elite Cambodian politics, including one who was an advisor to Hun Sen, the ruling party chief and former prime minister. Sam Rainsy, the exiled opposition leader, is convinced that Prime Minister Hun Manet, who took over from his father in 2023, and Hun Sen were personally behind the assassination. Cambodia&#8217;s Senate President Hun Sen, left, and Cambodia&#8217;s Prime Minister Hun Manet appear at a ceremony marking Cambodia&#8217;s 71st Independence Day celebrations in Phnom Penh on Nov. 9, 2024.(Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP) So I ask: can anyone who has listened to Hun Sen over the past few years think that he doesn’t want political opponents to be killed? Put differently, suppose you’re an enterprising upstart who wants to please his political masters or a recent convert to the CPP cause. If you had even only given a cursory glance over Hun Sen’s comments, would you think that the most powerful man in the land, who has ruled for more than four decades, wants you to treat political opponents with utmost respect and toleration or would you think he wants you to treat them with utmost violence? He was talking about something different, but Sok Eysan, the CPP’s greying spokesperson, noted in November that “statements from the party’s leader [Hun Sen] often translate into action.” Indeed, Cambodian politics often resembles working towards the Samdech. So let’s take a few examples of Hun Sen’s statements over the past few years. Last June, an audio recording was leaked of him imploring supporters to “smash” and “destroy” opposition activists. “You must smash this force to a point that they no longer disturb us,” he told his underlings. According to another account, he reportedly said that “we must crush and suppress the color revolutionaries one by one to maintain peace for the people.” RELATED STORIES Cambodian gov’t official denies role in Bangkok shooting of opposition critic Widow says shooting of former Cambodian lawmaker was ‘definitely political’ Thai police seek Hun Sen adviser believed linked to Bangkok killing of critic In 2023, Hun Sen was almost kicked off of Facebook after live-streaming a speech in which he warned opposition supporters that he would rally CPP folk to “beat you up” and “send people to your place and home.” “Either you face legal action in court, or I rally CPP people for a demonstration and beat you guys up,” he stated. Per a different translation, he stated: “There are only two options. One is to use legal means and the other is to use a bat.” The same year, speaking about activists who allege he has close ties to Vietnam, Hun Sen proclaimed: “You cannot escape [prison] because you are a fish in a barrel. I can break your neck to eat any time I want to.” Ahead of the 2017 local elections, he said if there were any protests, “the armed forces will crack down on them immediately … If war happens, let it be.” That same year, in an even more overt statement, he warned his political opponents: “you should prepare your coffins.” In a speech to troops in 2019, he called on the military to “destroy &#8230; revolutions that attempt to topple the legitimate government,” adding he is “not afraid to issue an order.” “Better to see the death of four or five people rather than the death of tens of thousands and millions,” he claimed. As for anyone in the military who is disloyal, he added, “they must be destroyed.” He then noted: “I am the one who steers the wheel.” Statements = action Only, he isn’t apparently at the helm when opponents and critics are destroyed (even figuratively). But this hasn’t stopped Hun Sen’s underlings from aping his terminology. For instance, five days before Kem Ley was shot dead in 2016, a general called on the military to “eliminate and dispose of [anyone] fomenting social turmoil.” All this must be coupled with the escalation of legal terminology. The government wants to pass legislation now that would brandish political opponents as “terrorists,” on top of Hun Sen’s claims that his opponents are “traitors.” So, according to his own spokesperson, Hun Sen’s statements “often translate into action.” And Hun Sen isn’t shy about admitting the immense power he wields in the country. Thus, would a reasonable person listening to these aforementioned comments think that Hun Sen hasn’t committed “incitement to commit a felony or disturb social security?” Granted, Hun Sen and his ilk could say that they were just being evocative; that when they say “smash” and “destroy” and “eliminate” and “suppress,” they only mean it figuratively. Okay, one can figuratively “smash” an opposition movement or even metaphorically prepare one’s coffins. But what about the warning to “use a bat” or to “beat you up?” Frequently, Hun Sen has specifically referenced physical violence as a comparison to legal prosecution. There is no way other than the literal to interpret him saying that it would be justified to “eliminate” five people in 2019 or 200 people in 2017 to safeguard the rest of society. Worse, his recommendations of violence are unspecific. He never says who should constitute the five or 200 people who could be “eliminated” for the sake of the greater good. He never says who specifically he thinks needs to be “crushed.” What is an underling supposed to think? That political opponents and activists, who the most powerful person in Cambodia says are “traitors” and “terrorists,” aren’t really a threat to the nation? That they should be tolerated? That one...
- [Campaign for Uyghurs, ‘Teacher Li’ nominated for Nobel Peace Prize](https://ij-reportika.com/campaign-for-uyghurs-teacher-li-nominated-for-nobel-peace-prize/): The rights group Campaign for Uyghurs and freedom of expression advocate Li Ying, known as “Teacher Li” on social media, were nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize by two U.S. congressmen who are members of a China panel. John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican and chairman of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, and fellow member Raja Krishnamoorthi, an Illinois Democrat, made the announcement on Feb. 5. The praised the nominees in a statement for their “unwavering commitment to justice, human rights, and the protection of the Uyghur people against genocide and repression.” ‘Teacher Li’ and the Campaign for Uyghurs nominated for Nobel PrizeAbout 12 million mostly Muslim Uyghurs live in northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region where they face repression by the Chinese government, which includes mass arbitrary detentions, forced labor, family separations, religious persecution and the erasure of Uyghur identity and culture. “In the face of one of the most pressing human rights crises of our time, Campaign for Uyghurs and Teacher Li continue to shine a light in the face of adversity, while challenging injustices and amplifying the voices of those too often silenced,” Krishnamoorthi said. Moolenaar noted the CFU’s “tireless advocacy and bold testimony” in ensuing that the world can’t ignore the truth about the Uyghur genocide in Xinjiang, and in amplifying victim’s voices to pierce the Chinese Communist Party’s wall of silence. A Campaign for Uyghurs press release announces that the Uyghur rights organization has been nominated for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize.(Campaign for Uyghurs) In the past, other Uyghur advocacy groups and individual activists, including the World Uyghur Congress, Uyghur Human Rights Project, prominent Uyghur scholar Ilham Tohti, and former World Uyghur Congress president Rebiya Kadeer, were nominated for the Nobel Prize. ‘White Paper’ movement Li Ying, a social media influencer who now lives in exile in Italy, rose to prominence during the ”White Paper&#8221; movement of November 2022, when thousands of people gathered in the streets of cities across China to protest lockdowns and mass quarantines President Xi Jinping’s zero-COVID policy. The protests, in which people held up blank sheets of paper to show they felt authorities had robbed them of their voices, were also triggered by an apartment fire in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital, where dozens died, apparently because they were locked in their building. Li took to social media to tell the world in videos and texts about the White Paper protests on his X account “Teacher Li is not your teacher”. While X is banned in China and news of the protests was heavily suppressed by the authorities, young people who supported the movement still found ways to send Li footage, photos and news of the protests. Li, whose audience has grown to 1.8 million followers, continues to post news censored by the Chinese Communist Party in China, despite Beijing’s targeting of him, his family and online followers. When Li woke up in Milan, Italy, on Feb. 6, his mobile phone was flooded with text messages congratulating him on the nomination, he told Radio Free Asia. “I never thought that this would happen to me, because there are many human rights lawyers and activists who are currently locked up in China’s detention centers and prisons,” he said, adding that they were more deserving of the nomination. “At the very least, this nomination demonstrates to the world, and to my family, that their son is not a traitor, and that he is really doing something to help the Chinese people,” said Li, who has been called a “traitor to the Chinese people” by Communist Party supporters. “So, in that sense it is a recognition of what I do,” he said. Mongolian rights Ethnic Mongolian Hada, an ailing dissident and political prisoner from China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region who goes by only one name, has also been nominated for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize. Mongolian dissident Hada displays a sign expressing support for herders in Mongolian and Chinese, Jan. 15, 2015.(Photo courtesy of SMHRIC) In January, four Japanese lawmakers nominated Hada for his continuing advocacy on behalf of ethnic Mongolians living under Chinese Communist Party rule, despite years of persecution. Hada has been imprisoned or placed under house arrest in China since 1995 because of his activities. He is a co-founder of the Southern Mongolian Democratic Alliance, a campaign group that advocates for the self-determination of Inner Mongolia, a northern region of China. The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize will be announced in October by the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo, and awarded on Dec. 10, 2025. Additional reporting by RFA Mandarin. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Effort to combat Southeast Asian haze hit by USAID shutdown](https://ij-reportika.com/effort-to-combat-southeast-asian-haze-hit-by-usaid-shutdown/): BANGKOK — An initiative to combat air pollution in Southeast Asia has suspended its work following U.S. President Donald Trump’s sudden halt to international aid – just as the peak season for health-threatening haze unfolds in the region. The program, a collaboration between the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center, NASA and the now shuttered U.S. aid agency, used satellite technology and geospatial data to help countries respond to cross-border environmental hazards such as agricultural land burning and forest fires. It also monitored and forecast air pollution. The annual deterioration in Southeast Asia’s air quality began with a vengeance last month as toxic pollution shrouded cities such as Bangkok and Hanoi for a week. UNICEF, the U.N.’s agency for children, this week released data that showed that poor air quality remains the largest cause of child deaths after malnutrition in East Asian and Pacific countries. “The suspension of the project during the regional haze season is unfortunate and presents challenges,” the disaster center’s air pollution and geospatial imaging expert, Aekkapol Aekakkararungroj, told Radio Free Asia. “The immediate consequence is that some of the planned activities, such as data integration and capacity-building efforts with local stakeholders, have been delayed,” he said. “This could potentially slow down the development and dissemination of tools that support timely decision-making and response strategies.” The State Department said Jan. 26 it had paused all U.S. foreign assistance overseen by the department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, during a review to ensure projects are consistent with Trump’s foreign policy agenda. The decision froze humanitarian programs worldwide — from landmine removal to HIV prevention — that are crucial to developing nations. Most of USAID’s thousands of employees have been put on leave from Friday, according to a notice that is now the only information on USAID’s website. The U.S. also has announced its withdrawal from the World Health Organization, or WHO, and the Paris Agreement to limit the increase in average global temperature to less than two degrees Celsius. Aekkapol said the disaster center is seeking funding from other international donors and if successful could resume its air pollution work within a few months. “I am optimistic that our efforts to secure alternative funding and partnerships will help us regain momentum by April,” he said. Collaboration with NASA would continue, he said. Child deaths Poor air quality is a health and economic burden worldwide that weighs particularly heavily on lower-income regions such as Southeast Asia. Although deaths in Asia linked to air pollution have declined substantially over the past two decades due to better healthcare and reduced indoor use of fuels such as coal for cooking and heating, they remain at alarmingly high levels, UNICEF officials said at a press conference in Bangkok on Thursday. Toxic air is linked to about 100 deaths a day among children under five in East Asia and the Pacific, UNICEF said, based on data compiled by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Use of dirty fuels for cooking and heating at home accounts for more than half of the deaths. Fine particles in the atmosphere — the basis of Southeast Asia’s annual haze — from land burning and fossil fuel sources such as vehicle exhausts also are a culprit. Its accumulation over cities or the countryside can depend on weather conditions. RELATED STORIES Musk says US aid agency will be closed Hotline unlikely to suffice in Mekong battle against dry season air pollution Top polluting nations dispute climate accountability at international court About two thirds of children in the region live in countries where particulate matter levels in the air exceed WHO guidelines by more than five times. Progress over the past two decades in reducing child deaths from air pollution “represents truly what is possible if we can keep this trajectory going,” said Nicholas Rees, an environment and climate expert at UNICEF. Maintaining the progress depends on factors such as political will, the strength of efforts to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and the capacity of health systems, he told RFA. “Without that, I fear progress will not only be slower in the years ahead, but we may even reverse some of the gains we have made,” he said. Edited by Mike Firn. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [4 forest fires erupt across Tibetan areas](https://ij-reportika.com/4-forest-fires-erupt-across-tibetan-areas/): Four forest fires have erupted in various parts of Tibet over the past two weeks, with a major one in Kyirong county near the border with Nepal raging uncontained after it swept through 40 square kilometers (15 square miles), according to satellite images and sources with knowledge of the situation. Chinese state media has provided only general reports, with no casualty figures. Tibetan sources told Radio Free Asia that Chinese authorities have restricted local residents from sharing details about the disasters on social media. Four forest fires have erupted across Tibet, causing property damage and wildlife loss.The largest fire, which broke out Jan. 23, was burning in a heavily forested area of Kyirong county in Shigatse prefecture of the Tibet Autonomous Region, or TAR, according to the sources, satellite images and a map from the NASA FIRMS, or Fire Information for Resource Management System. The region supports a diverse range of wildlife, including long-tailed gray leaf monkeys, leopards, musk deer, elk, peacock pheasants, snow chickens and herds of wild donkeys. It is also home to over 100 tree species, including rare varieties such as Tibetan longleaf pine, longleaf spruce and Himalayan yew. The locations, red marks, of active forest fires of the past 14 days in Tibet.(Planet Labs) Local Chinese officials said the cause of the fires was unknown and under investigation. Few firefighters dispatched The fires have continued to spread after two weeks because Chinese authorities dispatched only a few firefighters, according to the source outside Tibet but in contact with residents on the ground. “Chinese authorities have dispatched only a few firefighters so that the fire was not contained, even over 10 days after it first broke out,” the person said. Areas affected by the forest fire in Kyirong county, Tibet, are shown between Jan. 23 and Feb. 26, 2025, in this animation using imagery from NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS).(Animation by RFA) In Gangri township of Bachen County in Nagqu in the TAR, one Tibetan netizen wrote on Chinese social media on Wednesday: “Even though it has been days since the first fire outbreak, there’s no help in extinguishing the fire. Who’s going to save us?” Past wildfires Wildfires have erupted in Sichuan’s Nyagchu county before. In December 2024, a blaze broke out on the mountains near Chuka town that took a week to put out. Another fire in March of that year resulted in significant property damage. Located in the hilly plateau area of northwest Sichuan, Nyagchuka county boasts a diverse and rich biodiversity due to its varied topography and climate. It is home to 196 species of large fungi, including 126 edible varieties, as well as an abundance of medicinal plants such as cordyceps, astragalus and fritillaria. Smoke rises from the forest fire in Kyirong county, Tibet, Feb. 3, 2025.(Planet Labs) The forest fire in Zamthang county, which occurred around 4 p.m. local time on Thursday, reportedly threatened several surrounding villages as it spread. The Sichuan Provincial Forest Fire Brigade dispatched 495 people and 93 vehicles to the fire scene, official state media said. Additional reporting by Dolma Lhamo, Tsering Namgyal, Tenzin Norzom and Tashi Wangchuk. Edited by Tenzin Pema for RFA Tibetan, and by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [China thanks Thailand for scam crackdown; militia frees foreigners](https://ij-reportika.com/china-thanks-thailand-for-scam-crackdown-militia-frees-foreigners/): MAE SOT, Thailand &#8211; Chinese President Xi Jinping thanked Thailand’s visiting prime minister on Thursday for a crackdown on scam centers in Myanmar a day after Thailand cut off electricity and internet services to five hubs for the illegal operations just over its border. As Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra was meeting Xi in Beijing, a Myanmar militia allied with the junta released 61 trafficked foreigners from one of Myanmar’s major scam zones and handed them to Thai authorities over the border. Online fraud has mushroomed in parts of Southeast Asia over recent years, often relying on workers lured by false job advertisements and forced to contact people online or by phone to trick them into putting money into fake investments. Would-be investors have been cheated out of billions of dollars, with many perpetrators and victims believed to be from China, research groups say. Reports about the centers have hit the headlines in recent weeks after a Chinese actor was rescued from eastern Myanmar, alarming the public across Asia and leading to a rash of tour group cancellations to Thailand and raising the prospect of economic damage. Thai officials have also cited national security for their decision to cut electricity and internet to the enclaves in Myanmar, though they have not elaborated. Xi thanked the visiting Thai leader for her government’s action, China’s CCTV state broadcaster reported. “China appreciates the strong measures taken by Thailand to combat online gambling and phone and online scams”, CCTV cited Xi as saying. “The two sides must continue to strengthen cooperation in security, law enforcement and judicial cooperation” to “protect people’s lives and property,” Xi said. RELATED STORIES EXPLAINED: What are scam parks? Scam park victim returns to Hong Kong after Thai rescue China, Mekong countries agree to combat scam centers, arms trafficking Militia promises action With the pressure growing, the Myanmar militia group that has overseen and profited from the fraud operations in the Myawaddy region, the Border Guard Force, or BGF, sent 61 foreign workers to Thailand on Thursday and vowed to wipe out the illegal businesses. BGF spokesperson Lt.-Col. Naing Maung Zaw said the 61 foreigners, including some from China, were sent over a bridge across a border river from Myawaddy to the Thai town of Mae Sot. A Thai group that helps victims of human trafficking said 39 of those released were from China, 13 from India, five from Indonesia and one from Malaysia, Ethiopia, Pakistan and Kazakhstan. Media photographs showed Thai officials speaking to the 61, who included some women, as they sat on rows of plastic chairs. Many of them wore blue surgical masks. Last month, BGF leaders said they had agreed with operators of the scam centers to stop forced labor and fraud, and Naing Maung Zaw repeated a promise to clean up his zone. “At some time, we will completely destroy this scamming business. That’s what we’re working on now,” he told Radio Free Asia, adding that the utility cuts had hurt ordinary people more than the scamming gangs. Thai Defense Minister Phumtham Wechayachai greeted the 61 as they crossed into Thailand. “Please feel free to give us information and cooperation which will be useful for eradicating this,” Phumtham told them. “Please inform everyone about the conditions there,” he said before the 61 were taken to an immigration facility for paperwork. Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [China is deporting Tibetans trying to visit family in Tibet](https://ij-reportika.com/china-is-deporting-tibetans-trying-to-visit-family-in-tibet/): Read Ij-Reportika coverage of this story in Tibetan. Tashi, an ethnic Tibetan and Belgian citizen, was elated when he heard last November that China had expanded its visa-free stay to 30 days for 38 countries, including Belgium, from the previous 15 days. He immediately began making plans to visit relatives he hadn’t seen in 26 years, as the previous 15-day limit was too short a duration for such a long trip. As the departure day approached, Tashi — whose name has been changed for safety reasons per his request — was filled with “a mixed sense of excitement and apprehension,” he told Ij-Reportika. Tashi is one of several ethnic Tibetans who have been denied entry to China from European countries under this visa-free policy. When in late January Tashi boarded his flight from Brussels to Beijing, he envisioned taking a connecting flight to Chengdu, from where he expected to make the 20-hour drive to his hometown in the historic Amdo region in Qinghai province. “After 26 years, I thought my dream of returning had finally come true,” he said. “I imagined celebrating Losar [the Tibetan New Year] with my family, attending the Monlam Festival, and revisiting the place where I grew up.” “But mine was a journey interrupted,” he said. Signs mark the immigration section at Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing, China, January 2025.( Ij-Reportika) At least six Chinese officials took turns grilling him in a small room for 18 hours, Gyatso said. They questioned him on a range of subjects, including his escape from Tibet to India in 1994, his move to Belgium and his citizenship status there, and details about his relatives’ professions. Afterwards, the officials told him that he would not be allowed to return to his hometown because they found a photo of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan national flag — both banned in China — when searching his belongings and mobile phone. Queried about Dalai Lama links Similarly, in the case of Tashi, officials repeatedly accused him of being a follower of the Dalai Lama. He told Ij-Reportika that authorities accused him of being part of a campaign under the Dalai Lama, as seen by Beijing, to split Tibet from China, even though his work focuses solely on Tibetan language and culture. “This made me realize just how important my work is and knowing my work is meaningful and effective strengthens my resolve to do more,” Tashi said. &lt;imgsrc=&#8221;&#8221; alt=&#8221;Tibetan Buddhism&#8217;s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, offers blessings to his followers at his Himalayan residence in Dharamsala, India, Dec. 20, 2024.&#8221; height=&#8221;960&#8243; width=&#8221;1500&#8243;&gt;Tibetan Buddhism&#8217;s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, offers blessings to his followers at his Himalayan residence in Dharamsala, India, Dec. 20, 2024.(Priyanshu Singh/AFP) During more than eight hours of questioning, Tashi was asked about items among his belongings, apps on his mobile phone and the volunteer work he’d been doing in Belgium since 2006 concerning the preservation of Tibetan cultural and linguistic identity. “With each passing minute, they probed deeper, inquiring about every activity I had been involved in while volunteering in Belgium,” he said. Despite the quizzing, officials already “seemed to know every detail, right down to specific dates” about his activities, he said. When authorities informed Tashi that he needed to return to Belgium, they confiscated his passport and flight tickets and escorted him to immigration where he had to wait for another 13 hours without food or drink. “With nowhere to get sustenance, I sat there feeling helpless,” Tashi said. The Belgian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to an Ij-Reportika request for comment. Liu Pengyu, spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told Ij-Reportika via email that the Chinese government does not engage in any discrimination with regards to its visa-free policy. “The Chinese government administers the entry and exit affairs of foreigners in accordance with the Exit and Entry Administration Law of the People’s Republic of China and other laws and regulations,” Liu said. “Patriotic overseas Tibetans are an important part of the overseas Chinese community,” he added. “The Chinese government has always been very caring about their situation, and there is certainly no discrimination.” Additional reporting by Tsering Namgyal, Tenzin Tenkyong and Dickey Kundol. Edited by Tenzin Pema for Ij-Reportika Tibetan, and by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar authorities arrest 475 young people in Yangon in January: group](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-authorities-arrest-475-young-people-in-yangon-in-january-group/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. Myanmar junta authorities arrested nearly 500 young people in the biggest city of Yangon in January for conscription into the military and other reasons, a pro-democracy monitoring group said on Wednesday. Young people have been at the forefront of opposition to the junta that seized power four years ago, ending a decade of tentative reform that had given the public hope for an end to decades of stifling military rule. The junta, facing a growing insurgency since its coup, enforced a conscription law in early 2024 targeting men aged 18 to 35 to make up for heavy losses in battles against allied pro-democracy and ethnic minority guerrilla groups. But many young people are fleeing or finding other ways to dodge the draft leading to mass arrests by military officials to fill the ranks. “The junta is arresting people for many reasons, including public conscription – 475 have been captured,” said a member of an anti-junta group called the Rangoon Scout Network, which monitors political action in the former capital of Yangon. “They’re always waiting to arrest people. To be released, you have to pay a bribe of between 1 and 1.3 million kyat (US$475-$620). If you can’t pay, you’re conscripted.” RFA tried to telephone the Yangon region’s junta spokesperson, Htay Aung, to ask about the situation but he did not respond. The member of the Rangoon Scout Network, which has no connection with the global Scout Movement, did not say how many of those detained in January were men and how many were female. It said 58 of them had been detained and then released but there was no word on the others. According to data compiled by the network and allied groups, 241 of those arrested in January were simply chased down on the street in city neighborhoods such as North Dagon, Insein, Tamwe, Thingangyun and Ahlon. Among the others, 77 were arrested for violating guestlist registration rules, aimed at tracking where people stay, 58 were picked during spot check and 51 of those grabbed had outstanding warrants, the network said. RELATED STORIES Myanmar’s forced conscription: How the junta targets young men Myanmar military regime enters year 5 in terminal decline Students from coup-hit Myanmar lament loss of canceled ‘DEI’ scholarships The pro-democracy parallel government in exile, the National Unity Government, said the junta had trained nine classes of conscripts, or 40,000 people in all. Late last month, members of the public said the junta had begun initial steps to draft women for active military service. The military has faced significant setbacks in fighting that has engulfed townships across the country over the past year or more; thousands of people have been killed and some 3.5 million have been displaced. The military also wants to expand its area of control in the run-up to an election, expected late this year, that the generals hope will improve their legitimacy. Anti-junta groups say an election organized by the military will be a sham. Myanmar has endured strict isolationist military rule since 1962, apart from a decade of reform when democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi won two elections and many people dared hope that their country was at last taking its place in vibrant Southeast Asia as a stable democracy. The military’s ousting of Suu Kyi’s government on Feb. 1, 2021, on what were widely derided as bogus accusations of electoral fraud, crushed those hopes. Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Nearly 300 Myanmar nationals in Singapore naturalized in 2024 to avoid returning home](https://ij-reportika.com/nearly-300-myanmar-nationals-in-singapore-naturalized-in-2024-to-avoid-returning-home/): Nearly 300 Myanmar nationals living in Singapore have renounced their ties to their homeland and acquired Singaporean nationality last year, according to an announcement from the junta-controlled embassy there. A person originally from Myanmar told Radio Free Asia that some are doing this because they were having difficulties extending their passports through the embassy. Others decided they wanted to avoid paying taxes to the junta, which took over Myanmar in a coup four years ago, ousting the country’s democratically elected government. Additionally, some said they did not want to return to Myanmar because the junta is aggressively conscripting people to fight the civil war against a patchwork of factions opposed to military rule. People walk along the promenade at Marina Bay in Singapore on Jan. 27, 2025.(Roslan Rahman/AFP) According to Singapore’s Ministry of Human Resources and Empowerment, over 200,000 Myanmar citizens live in the country. Meanwhile, an individual who lived in Japan for over 13 years told RFA that he now regrets his decision to return to Myanmar permanently. He returned when the democratically elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi was in power. “(At that time,) returnees came from Singapore, Bangkok, and Japan, believing they could finally build a better future at home,” he said. “But all their hopes were dashed after the military coup, and some who had renounced their foreign citizenship to return to Myanmar now deeply regret their decision.” He said that these days, “nearly everyone” is trying to leave Myanmar as the situation worsens. Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [China ‘ramping up’ efforts to suppress Taiwan in South Africa, says Taipei](https://ij-reportika.com/china-ramping-up-efforts-to-suppress-taiwan-in-south-africa-says-taipei/): TAIPEI, Taiwan – China was “ramping up” its efforts to suppress Taiwan in South Africa, the democratic island said, after the South African government again demanded Taiwan’s liaison office in the capital Pretoria be relocated. The Taipei Liaison Office, established after South Africa severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan in January 1998, has functioned as a de facto embassy but without official diplomatic status. “The South African government sent another letter to the Taipei Liaison Office in the Republic of South Africa demanding that it leave the capital city of Pretoria before the end of March,” said Taiwan’s foreign ministry in a statement. “China is ramping up efforts to suppress Taiwan in South Africa,” the ministry added, citing the case of Ivan Meyer, chairman of South Africa’s second-largest political party, the Democratic Alliance, who was sanctioned by China for visiting Taiwan. “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs reiterates that the Taiwan government remains steadfast in its refusal to accept the South African government’s unilateral violation of their bilateral agreement and that it will continue communicating with South Africa on the principles of parity and dignity,” the ministry added in its statement on Sunday. Neither South Africa nor China had responded to Taiwan’s statement at time of publication. South Africa-China ties South Africa adheres to the One China policy, recognizing the People’s Republic of China as the sole legitimate government of China, including Taiwan as part of its territory. Diplomatic ties between South Africa and China have strengthened significantly since the establishment of formal relations in 1998, with China becoming South Africa’s largest trading partner. As a member of the BRICS, an intergovernmental organization consisting of 10 countries, including South Africa, it collaborates with China on economic, political, and developmental initiatives, aligning with Beijing on global governance reforms. RELATED STORIES DeepSeek dilemma: Taiwan’s public sector ban highlights global AI security concerns Taiwan says 85% of national security cases involve retired army, police Taiwan’s record budget cuts raise concerns over defense readiness In October 2024, South Africa said that it had asked Taiwan to move the office out of Pretoria. Taiwan said the request was made under pressure from China. “Relocating what will be rebranded as Trade Offices both in Taipei and in Johannesburg &#8230; will be a true reflection of the non-political and non-diplomatic nature of the relationship between the Republic of South Africa and Taiwan,” South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation said at the time. The relocation would align with the “standard diplomatic practice” as South Africa officially cut political and diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 1997, the department added. China welcomed South Africa’s request that Taiwan relocate its office, saying it “appreciated South Africa’s correct decision.” Taiwan, which China asserts has no right to independent diplomatic relations, maintains formal ties with only a dozen countries, mostly smaller and less developed nations. Taiwan’s government firmly rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims, insisting that China has no authority to represent or speak on its behalf in international affairs. Edited by Taejun Kang. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [China restricts travel for Uyghurs with onerous requirements: report](https://ij-reportika.com/china-restricts-travel-for-uyghurs-with-onerous-requirements-report/): While the Chinese government has loosened a ban on Uyghurs traveling outside of China, it places onerous burdens on those who want to go abroad, violating their internationally protected rights, Human Rights Watch said in a report released Monday. These restrictions are another example of Beijing’s repression of the 12-million strong Uyghurs in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, although authorities appear to want to project a sense of normalcy to the rest of the world, the report said. Uyghurs who apply to visit family abroad must disclose the purpose of their trip and an invitation from the relative, along with personal details, including their address, work status and other relevant documents, according to those who have recently left Xinjiang or met with relatives from the region. Authorities will also restrict travel by allowing only one family member to go at a time, using other family members as leverage to ensure their return, several Uyghurs told HRW. Applicants may also need a “guarantor,” often another official, and failing to comply puts family members at risk of punishment. Once abroad, Uyghur travelers cannot engage with activists or speak critically about the Chinese government. They also must return within a specified time frame, ranging from a few days to several months. For business trips, Uyghurs are only allowed to visit certain countries, such as Kazakhstan, and are banned from traveling to “sensitive” nations with large Muslim populations like Turkey. “The modest thaw in China’s travel restrictions has allowed some Uyghurs to briefly reunite with loved ones abroad after having no news for years, but the Chinese government’s travel restrictions are still used to oppress Uyghurs in Xinjiang and in the diaspora,” said Yalkun Uluyol, China researcher at Human Rights Watch, or HRW, in the report. “The Chinese government continues to deny Uyghurs their right to leave the country, restrict their speech and associations when abroad, and punish them for having foreign ties,” he said. Still tightly controlled For nearly a decade, Chinese authorities have clamped down harshly on Uyghurs and other Turkic groups in Xinjiang, putting an estimated 1.8 million in concentration camps in the name of stamping out terrorism and religious extremism. They began confiscating Uyghurs’ passports during a “strike hard” campaign in 2016 and imprisoned some for contacting people abroad. RELATED STORIES China uses London travel show to promote its narrative of Xinjiang in the West EXPLAINED: Is China taking away people’s passports? Chinese authorities impose travel ban in Xinjiang, citing COVID-19 prevention China expands recall of passports to Uyghurs outside of Xinjiang In spring 2024, authorities began allowing Uyghurs from overseas who were not critical of China’s policies to make restricted visits to Xinjiang. They also have returned the passports of some Uyghurs and allowed them to apply for travel abroad. Despite the slight relaxation of travel restrictions, the process is still tightly controlled and limited, according to HRW’s interviews with 23 Uyghurs outside China between October 2024 and February 2025, and a review of relevant official documents. While abroad, travelers are closely monitored, and upon return, their passports are confiscated, and they are questioned about their trip and contacts. Uyghurs living abroad can sometimes visit Xinjiang after a strict and lengthy vetting process. Those with foreign passports still need approval from local police and a neighborhood committee. Once they arrive in Xinjiang, some are questioned or told to stay in hotels instead of family homes. Join the tour Uyghurs living abroad who apply for a visa to enter China face thorough background checks, and even attending nonpolitical events or sending their children to Uyghur-language schools can lead to a visa denial, the report said. Some are directed by Chinese diplomatic missions abroad to join official tours to Xinjiang, requiring personal information and approval from various Chinese authorities, including local police, the local public security bureau and counterterrorism unit, and a neighborhood committee. Uyghurs holding foreign passports are additionally required to renounce their Chinese citizenship to participate in such tours, the report said. Those who join them say they are a safer option with a quicker and easier visa application process, rather than traveling on their own and risking police interrogation and possible detention. While on the tours, Uyghur are closely monitored by Chinese minders, must obtain permission to visit their families, must speak Mandarin Chinese and must participate in propaganda activities with provided scripts that praise the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s policies in Xinjiang. Through controlled visits and tours, the Chinese government keeps a tight grip on the Uyghur diaspora. Some Uyghurs stay silent or avoid activism and cultural activities, hoping to reconnect with their families and visit the region. “Uyghurs are facing stringent conditions and requirements if they want to briefly reunite or even just to communicate with family members in China,” Uluyol said in the report. “Being able to contact or visit loved ones abroad shouldn’t be a privilege granted to a few Uyghurs, but is a right that the Chinese government is obligated to respect.” Edited by Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [In the Myanmar military, life insurance for soldiers isn’t paying out](https://ij-reportika.com/in-the-myanmar-military-life-insurance-for-soldiers-isnt-paying-out/): Part of a three-story series to mark the fourth anniversary of Myanmar’s 2021 coup, looking at how the military treats its own soldiers. The 2021 coup that plunged Myanmar into civil war has been a disaster for its military. It has lost control of much of the country, and thousands of soldiers have been killed or wounded in the face of rebel advances. That’s also made it one of the riskiest places on Earth to enlist as a soldier – one where life insurance sounds like a sensible idea to those on the front line and a risky business for those offering it. Not so Myanmar, where members of the armed forces are required to take out life insurance provided by a company run by the son of army chief and coup leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing. The scheme is operated by Aung Myint Moh Min Insurance, or AMMMI, established in June 2013, when Myanmar opened up life insurance to the private sector. The company, however, is believed to be a subsidiary of Myanmar Economic Corporation, one of the military’s two sprawling business conglomerates. Myanmar military chief Min Aung Hlaing in Naypyidaw on June 10, 2017, at a donations event for victims of the military transport plane crash in the Andaman Sea.(Aung Htet/AFP) “It should surprise nobody that control of the military life insurance policies for Myanmar’s army rests with the son of Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing. Corruption in Myanmar’s military flows from the top down,” said political analyst Jonah Blank from the Rand Corporation, a think tank partially funded by the U.S. government. “Corruption permeates every rank, with profits flowing straight to the top,” he told RFA. RELATED STORIES ‘My father’s death wasn’t worth it’: Poverty awaits families of Myanmar army dead Myanmar’s forced conscription: How the junta targets young men for military service ‘We protect the family’ Former Maj. Tin Lin Aung, who defected from the military after the coup, said a service member starts paying premiums with their first paycheck, and the policy’s beneficiary is their spouse or other nominated family members. Ei Ei Aung, an independent online insurance agent, said that when life insurance was operated by state-run Myanma Insurance soldiers would be fully covered in the event of their death as soon as they submitted their first premium. Things became more flaky when Aung Myint Moh Min Insurance, whose motto is “We Protect the Family,” took control. 10,000 kyat banknotes currently in use in Myanmar.(RFA) Aung Myint Moh Min has a variety of policies catering for different ranks. Payouts on maturation of a policy or the death of the policyholder start as low as $110. Those cost the equivalent of $1.55 to $2.65 per month, depending on the lifespan of the policy. There are policies offering higher payouts with higher monthly premiums. RFA could not find publicly available financial information about the current operations of AMMMI, but if the number of military personnel is estimated at 130,000 and each person contributed $2 a month in premiums, the Aung Myint Moh Min Insurance company would be raking in more than $3 million a year in life insurance premiums. Concerns over the life insurance have intensified in the past four years since the coup, as conflict has escalated across Myanmar, and the military’s casualties have mounted. Insurance agent Ei Ei Aung told RFA there are many ways the company avoids paying out. “In the military, there are numerous cases where families of deceased soldiers fail to claim compensation,” she said. “This may be due to family members being unaware of the soldier’s death, lack of notification from responsible superiors, or insufficient communication. As a result, many compensation claims go unprocessed and are ultimately lost,” she said. Aung Myint Moh Min Insurance Company deducted a 25,000 Myanmar kyat ($11.93) monthly premium for life insurance from a captain&#8217;s August salary in 2020. Capt. Zin Yaw, who left the Burmese military in 2021, provided this document to RFA.(Zin Yaw) Missing out Relatives of Min Khant Kyaw, a 23-year-old from Ayeyarwady region, learned from authorities in November of his death in the military, without saying how, when or where he died. It was the first time the family had learned he was even in the military. Now they say they don’t know how to claim any benefits for him as they have no idea which unit he fought in. “The key issue is that the person connected to the deceased must be aware of the death and notify the insurance company,” Ei Ei Aung said. “If a death goes unreported, the family of the deceased misses out on significant rights as well. As a result, even though it is undeniable that these people have died, many do not receive the benefits they are due.” This is not the only benefit that the junta or its associates are accused of pocketing. Former and current soldiers told RFA that deductions from their salaries were made to buy shares in the two military-run conglomerates, Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited (MEHL) and Myanmar Economic Corporation, which have interests in everything from banking to mining and tobacco, and tourism, and are a direct source of revenue for the military. In 2020, Amnesty International released documents showing that MEHL had funneled up to $18 billion in dividends to the military. According to military defector Capt. Lin Htet, soldiers are coerced into buying shares according to a sliding scale according to rank, requiring payments of between 1.5 million and 5 million kyats ($110 and $330). Capt. Zin Yaw, another defector, said the practice has been that if foot soldiers can’t come up with the full amount on the spot, deductions are taken from their pay. Before the coup, annual dividends were paid to soldiers in September each year, but defectors and serving soldiers have told RFA dividend payouts became sporadic after the coup and stopped altogether in 2023. “I left the army in 2023,” said Lin Htet. “From 2021 to 2023, MEHL paid us the benefit...
- [The Promise of Never Again Cannot Cost Us Another Genocide](https://ij-reportika.com/the-promise-of-never-again-cannot-cost-us-another-genocide/): On the 80th anniversary of the Holocaust, a London memorial event honored past atrocities but glaringly omitted the ongoing Uyghur genocide. This silence is not just an oversight—it’s a warning. If we are to uphold the promise of "Never Again," we must not ignore present-day atrocities.
- [China's Largest Military Exercise Near Taiwan in 28 Years: What’s Different?](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-largest-military-exercise-near-taiwan-in-28-years-whats-different/): This story was originally published on the website of CommonWealth Magazine and is reprinted with permission The Chinese military conducted exercises again, but this time, it felt notably different. Between December 9 and 11, China designated seven reserved airspaces east of Zhejiang and Fujian. In response, Taiwan&#8217;s Ministry of National Defense (MND) immediately announced the establishment of a response center and activated its preparedness drills on December 9. &#8220;This was the largest-scale activity around Taiwan since the 1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis,&#8221; said MND spokesperson Sun Li-fang. However, unlike the previous&nbsp;Joint Sword A and B exercises that were highly publicized, China did not issue any official announcements regarding these drills, despite Taiwan’s heightened military alert. &#8220;This wasn’t exactly a military drill,&#8221; emphasized MND Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence Hsieh Jih-sheng,&nbsp;&#8220;But, announced or not, the scale of vessels dispatched this time was staggering, with their range extending from the first to the second island chain.&#8221; The only solid figures made available to the public came from senior national security officials who disclosed to Reuters that&nbsp;China had deployed nearly 90 naval and coast guard vessels around Taiwan, as well as in the East and South China Seas, two-thirds of which were warships. Despite the large deployment, Taiwan’s MND reported that the cumulative number of Chinese aircraft and vessels over the two-day period did not surpass single-day records set in September and October of 2024. Adding to the ambiguity, the MND did not disclose the exact positions and deployments of Chinese ships or coast guard vessels. Observers speculated that China’s recent actions were likely in response to President Lai Ching-te’s return from diplomatic visits to Taiwan’s allies. However, military experts argued that Taiwan’s heightened state of alert looked more like a proactive &#8220;preventive deterrence&#8221; strategy. Did Taiwan’s Preventive Action Diminish China’s Threat? &#8220;The political timing of these exercises seemed off,&#8221; observed Ou Si-fu, Director of the Chinese Politics, Military, and Operational Concepts Research Division at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research. From a broader perspective, Nick Marro, Global Trade Lead Analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), noted that China was focused on diplomatic repair and dealing with renewed trade tensions with the United States, making a large-scale invasion of Taiwan or military drill unlikely in the short term. Additionally, both the Cross-Strait Entrepreneurs Summit and the Twin-City Forum had taken place recently. More significantly, Trump and Xi Jinping had just spoken on the phone, making an escalation in the Taiwan Strait immediately afterward unlikely. Moreover, the timing was not favorable for major military exercises. Historically, China conducted real-combat drills in July and August as part of its annual training cycle. After mid-autumn, the Taiwan Strait would become more treacherous, unsuitable for large-scale operations, and China typically entered a review and assessment phase at the year-end. &#8220;The Chinese military tended to be quieter in December. With the sea conditions being poor, I was certain several navy and coast guard personnel were experiencing seasickness,&#8221; quipped Christopher Sharman, Director of the China Maritime Studies Institute at the U.S. Naval War College. According to Taiwan’s MND, there had been no live-fire activity or flight bans reported within the seven reserved airspaces announced by China. Furthermore, these reserved zones stretched from Zhejiang to Fujian.&nbsp;&#8220;These areas looked more like they were isolating China itself rather than Taiwan,&#8221;&nbsp;remarked Drew Thompson,&nbsp;Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University and a former U.S. defense official. Still, Taiwan’s heightened alert highlighted a crucial trend: the key force behind China’s intimidation of Taiwan—the Chinese Navy—had already significantly expanded over the past two years. The Real Risk is Complacency &#8220;Extensive Chinese military activity in the Western Pacific was no longer news,&#8221;&nbsp;said Drew Thompson. &#8220;Let’s not forget that China now has the world’s largest navy.&#8221; &#8220;Without position data or an official PLA statement, this event remained difficult to interpret. However, China had already demonstrated its capability to maintain a persistent presence around Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, and the South China Sea,&#8221; he added. Sharman further warned that China’s military actions did not always require naming, but over the past two years, the PLA had normalized airspace intrusions in the Taiwan Strait and steadily increased naval deployments around Taiwan. This trend risked desensitizing observers, allowing China to mask real operations under routine exercises. Nick Marro also observed that Taiwan’s stock and currency markets were unaffected by previous military exercises.&nbsp; &#8220;One could say markets had stabilized, and people were no longer afraid. However, the flip side was that complacency may have been setting in, which is the greatest risk.&#8221;
- [Vietnam’s To Lam consolidates power through personnel changes at 10th Plenum](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnams-to-lam-consolidates-power-through-personnel-changes-at-10th-plenum/): Exactly one year ahead of the Communist Party of Vietnam’s 14th Party Congress, the Central Committee convened its 10th Plenum, where General Secretary To Lam further solidified his lock on the party. There were a number of personnel changes in the convocation that started Sept. 18, 2024, the most important of which was the elevation of Lam’s longtime protege and former deputy minister of public security, Nguyen Duy Ngoc, to the Politburo. Upon his election as general secretary, following Nguyen Phu Trong’s death in July 2024, Lam appointed Ngoc to be the head of the Central Committee Office. This is not a sexy position, but it is the absolute nerve center of the Communist Party, responsible for setting up, drafting documents and agenda-setting for party plenums, as well as a host of other personnel issues. If one wanted loyal eyes and ears ahead of a party congress, the Central Committee Office is as good a place as any. Lam did meet some resistance when he tried to quickly elevate Ngoc as the standing chairman of the Secretariat, when Luong Cuong was elected president in August 2024. There appears to have been some concern at the time that Lam was amassing too much power. But at the 10th Plenum, Ngoc was elected to the Politburo. This is surprising, because under Party rules, one is only eligible to be on the Politburo after one full term on the Central Committee. Ngoc only joined the 13th Central Committee in January 2021. That speaks volumes about the trust To Lam has in him, as well as the lock Lam has on the Politburo and the Central Committee. RELATED STORIES To Lam moves to secure full term at pinnacle of Vietnamese power To Lam shakes up Vietnam with a government restructuring plan Vietnam’s To Lam throws his drowning rival an anvil Lam is governing with a sense of pragmatic urgency, fearful of falling into the middle income trap. He is pushing ahead with a major government re-organization that will lead to roughly one-fifth of civil servants losing their jobs and 10 ministries being folded into just five. That shakeup is meant to improve government efficiency, and speed up decision-making. But to get all that done, Lam needs to put in place loyal supporters of his agenda, and remove corners of resistance. Vietnam&#8217;s former Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung waves at the opening of the National Assembly&#8217;s autumn session in Hanoi on Oct. 20, 2022.(Nhac Nguyen/AFP) Courting the South Ahead of the 10th Plenum, though, was another event that had important political implications. To Lam awarded the highest party honor to former Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung. Dung had vied to become the CPV General Secretary at the 12th Congress in January 2016, but lost to Nguyen Phu Trong. The two men despised each other. Dung promoted a vision of growth based on market reforms. Trong saw that as not only a betrayal of socialist values, but as a policy that would enhance inequality and corruption, leading to the party’s loss of legitimacy. Although out of central decision making, Trong could never make corruption allegations against Dung stick. Meanwhile, Dung quietly positioned his American-educated son for advancement. Now the minister of construction, Nguyen Thanh Nghi, was recently made the deputy party chief of Ho Chi Minh City. Lam quickly and publicly courted Nguyen Tan Dung upon being elected general secretary. It was not just the simpatico of former Ministry of Public Security officials. While Lam’s lock on the party apparatus is very strong, he has one shortcoming: Southerners are really under-represented on the Politburo and other central-level bodies. In part, this is because Trong really worked to purge the southern party apparatus, which he deemed as too free wheeling. At present, only three of the 16 Politburo members are southerners — two are from the central region, while the remainder are northerners. Southerners are demanding greater representation on the 14th Politburo and Central Committee. Key to winning southern support is Nguyen Tan Dung, the most politically connected and savvy politician in the south. As such, his son, Nguyen Thanh Nghi is likely to be elevated. So while Dung’s Gold Star medal clearly signals the end of the Nguyen Phu Trong era, it also reflects the one key bloc that To Lam is actively courting so that he can put in place a leadership team of his making, not the traditional balances amongst factions and regions. Zachary Abuza is a professor at the National War College in Washington and an adjunct at Georgetown University. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of the U.S. Department of Defense, the National War College, Georgetown University or Radio Free Asia. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Defying orders, Chinese miner hasn’t stopped operating near 2 sinkholes in Laos](https://ij-reportika.com/defying-orders-chinese-miner-hasnt-stopped-operating-near-2-sinkholes-in-laos/): Defying orders from Lao officials, a Chinese-owned potash mining company hasn’t stopped operating near two massive sinkholes in central Laos, a Lao official, a worker and residents told Radio Free Asia. On Dec. 4, a sinkhole measuring 20 meters (65 feet) wide and 10 meters (33 feet) deep opened up on farmland in Thakhaek district’s Pak Peng village in Khammouane province. On Dec. 21, another sinkhole — about half the size of the first — formed nearby. Residents suspect the sinkholes are a result of excavation at a potash mine in neighboring Nong Bok district, operated by Sino-Agri International Potash Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Asia Potash International Investment (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd., linked to entities directed by China’s governing State Council. No one has been injured by the cave-ins, but villagers are anxious that more holes will appear. Earlier this month, Lao authorities told the company to stop operations near the sinkholes. But on Wednesday, an official with the government team investigating the matter told RFA Lao on condition of anonymity that Sino-Agri International “has never stopped operating near the sinkhole area.” Residents, who also declined to be named due to security concerns, also confirmed to RFA that the potash mine “is still running,” and that they regularly hear operations underway near the sinkhole area. Attempts by RFA to contact Sino-Agri International went unanswered. An employee who wished to remain nameless said the company continues to work “both above and underground all the time,” adding that more workers are being hired. No probe results yet Meanwhile, after nearly two months, an investigation into the cause of the sinkholes wrapped up on Sunday, a government team member told RFA, but official results have yet to be released. The team will hold another meeting next week to outline the investigation results, he said, noting that while the probe was initially expected to be completed by Jan. 21, there is no hard deadline. Khammouane Province Governor Vanxay Phongsavanh, left, and his delegation inspect a sinkhole in Pakpeng village, Laos, Dec. 4, 2024.(Khammouane News) Residents of Thakhek district were quick to dismiss the report. “They [the city and provincial officials] are like that — they don’t want the villagers to know,“ said one resident at the time. ”But the truth is nothing like this has happened before &#8230; The sinkholes are pretty close to their [the mine operator’s] drilling tunnel — no more than 150 meters (500 feet).” ‘We don’t know the real cause&#8217; An official with the Ministry of Energy and Mines investigation team told RFA at the time that his group was working daily to find the cause of the sinkholes. “As for the potash mine, we didn’t say it [the sinkholes] was related to the mine yet because we don’t know the real cause,” he said. But other residents said that while Lao authorities had consulted with Sino-Agri International during the investigation, “they ignored our concerns.” “It must be related to the mine since it happened while the tunnel was being drilled, and before exploration occurred,” another resident said. “Villagers can’t carry out a technical analysis, but according to our observation this is the first time something like this has happened [here] in decades.” Translated by RFA Lao. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Over 1,000 civilians flee Sittwe amid tension between Myanmar junta and ethnic army](https://ij-reportika.com/over-1000-civilians-flee-sittwe-amid-tension-between-myanmar-junta-and-ethnic-army/): More than 1,000 civilians have fled Rakhine state’s capital Sittwe and nearby areas in western Myanmar, fearing heavy artillery attacks as tensions rise between junta forces and the Arakan Army, an ethnic armed group that has advanced on junta positions, residents said Friday. Ongoing exchanges of fire between junta soldiers and the Arakan Army, or AA, in nearby villages, have prompted residents to seek safe havens out of concern that they might be hit by bombs, sniper fire, drone strikes or air strikes, should the conflict escalate. Of the 17 townships in Rakhine state, 14 are under the control of the AA, leaving only three — Sittwe, the military council’s regional headquarters, Kyaukphyu and Munaung — still in the hands of the military junta. An aerial view of Sittwe township in western Myanmar&#8217;s Rakhine state, May 15, 2023.(AP) “Some already fled from Sittwe township, but now they find themselves forced to flee again, adding to their hardships,” the person said. “Many are struggling due to a lack of warm clothing for winter and severe shortages of basic necessities after being displaced.” Junta fortifies positions The junta’s blockade of transportation routes in Rakhine state, which has made travel for displaced civilians difficult, has compounded the situation, they said. Sittwe residents told RFA that the AA has surrounded the city with a large number of troops while the military junta has fortified its positions, increasing its military presence with battalions outside the city, in areas of Sittwe, and at Sittwe University, in preparation for a defensive stand. RELATED STORIES EXPLAINED: What is Myanmar’s Arakan Army? Myanmar junta troops tell residents of villages near Sittwe to leave by Friday Arakan Army’s gains enough to enable self-rule in Myanmar’s Rakhine state (COMMENTARY) Myanmar’s Arakan Army draws closer to region’s capital Additionally, thousands of Rohingya — a stateless ethnic group that predominantly follows Islam and resides in Rakhine state — have been given military training by the junta, sources said. “The army is shooting; the navy is also shooting,” said a Sittwe resident. “People are afraid. They don’t know when the fighting will start.” AA’s heavy artillery The AA has already fired heavy artillery and used snipers. Local news reports on Jan. 27 indicated that daily exchanges of fire were occurring between the ethnic army and junta forces, including the use of attack drones. Civilians displaced by armed conflict flee Sittwe, capital of western Myanmar&#8217;s Rakhine state, Jan. 29, 2025.(Wai Hun Aung) Attempts by RFA to contact both AA spokesperson Khaing Thu Kha and junta spokesperson and Rakhine state attorney general Hla Thein for comment on the issue went unanswered by the time of publishing. Human rights advocate Myat Tun said he believes the AA will resort to military action in Sittwe if political negotiations fail. “The situation in Sittwe is escalating,” he said. “The AA is preparing to take military action if political solutions are not reached.” Translated by Aung Naing for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar junta blocks military-aged men from work abroad](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-blocks-military-aged-men-from-work-abroad/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. Myanmar’s junta has banned employment agencies from sending military aged men abroad as it struggles with a growing civil war while promising to extend peace and stability for an election that it hopes will bolster its legitimacy. Millions of Myanmar people have gone abroad to work, many through arrangements it has with other governments, organized by employment agencies. While the overseas workers are an important source of income for the junta that seized power in a coup on Feb. 1, 2021, the military is also keen to fill the ranks of its armed forces as it battles ethnic minority insurgents and allied pro-democracy fighters. Nearly a year after the junta enforced a conscription law, began recruiting women and arresting young men to serve, it has sought to block prospective soldiers from travelling abroad for work, representatives of employment agencies told Radio Free Asia on Friday. “Starting today, people between the ages of 18 and 35 will no longer be eligible for the OWIC,” an official at a Yangon-based oversea employment agency told Radio Free Asia, referring to the Overseas Worker Identification Card, issued by the Ministry of Labor, which everyone hoping to work abroad must obtain. “The restriction does not apply to women yet, only males between the ages of 18 and 35,” the official said, referring to a ministry order to stop issuing the cards. RFA tried to telephone the junta’s spokesperson, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Htun, to ask about the policy, but he did not answer. Minister of Labor Nyan Win also declined to comment and referred RFA to Zaw Min Htun. The ruling military extended a state of emergency for another six months on Friday saying more needed to be done to ensure peace and stability for a successful general election. No date has been set for an election, which anti-junta forces have dismissed as a sham. The constitution mandates that an election must be held within six months after a state of emergency is lifted. RELATED STORIES Myanmar aid groups struggle with freeze as UN warns of ‘staggering’ hunger Tide of Myanmar war refugees tests Thailand’s welcome mat for migrants Myanmar junta prepares to send migrant workers to Russia in 2025 In December, junta authorities ordered job agencies to add a clause in migrant workers’ contracts stating they could be called home for military service. One young man hoping to get a job through an agency to work in Thailand – where about 1.8 million Myanmar workers are officially employed and many more work unofficially – was despondent about his chances. “I already signed a contract with the agency and put a deposit down,” said the 25-year-old who declined to be identified. Another employment agency employee said migrant workers who come home for a visit could be banned from going back to their jobs abroad. “Some people might come back without studying the situation here … They won’t be given permission to go abroad again,” said the agency staffer, who also declined to be identified. Under Myanmar’s Military Service Enactment Law, anyone summoned for military service, as well as anyone who manages to postpone their service, are not allowed to travel to go abroad. Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Thousands of ‘Terrorism Suspects’ on ‘Shanghai List’ Include Uyghur Children, Elderly](https://ij-reportika.com/thousands-of-terrorism-suspects-on-shanghai-list-include-uyghur-children-elderly/): &gt;&gt;&gt; See the special page here. May 11, 2021 The recently leaked document provides new insight into how China characterizes extremist threats. More than three quarters of the names on a recently leaked Chinese government list of some 10,000 “suspected terrorists” are ethnic Uyghurs, while the document includes hundreds of minors and the elderly, providing rare insight into how Beijing characterizes threats it has used to lock up more than a million people. In 2020, a group of Australian hackers obtained the list, which was culled from more than 1 million surveillance records compiled by the Shanghai Public Security Bureau “Technology Division” and, after vetting it for authenticity, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) published it last month. The PSB unit is responsible for building databases and “image, wireless, and wired communication systems,” according to ABC, and experts say it most likely determines who should be placed on watchlists and further investigated as potential threats to the state. Most of the entries on the document, which RFA’s Uyghur Service has obtained a copy of and refers to as the “Shanghai List,” include dates of birth, places of residence, ID numbers, ethnicity, and gender of the individuals, nearly all of whom are referred to as “suspected terrorists,” although some are identified as having “created disturbances.” More than 7,600 of the people listed on the document are ethnic Uyghurs, while the rest are mostly Kazakh and Kyrgyz, fellow Turkic Muslims. The list, which analysts believe was compiled in 2018 at the latest, contains entries for individuals from all walks of life in Uyghur society, including ordinary citizens, children as young as five and six years old, senior citizens in their 80s, and Uyghurs who have lived and traveled abroad, as well as Uyghurs in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) who have never been abroad before. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar aid groups struggle with freeze as UN warns of ‘staggering’ hunger](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-aid-groups-struggle-with-freeze-as-un-warns-of-staggering-hunger/): MAE SOT, Thailand &#8211; Groups helping victims of Myanmar’s turmoil are struggling to provide assistance after the U.S. put a 90-day freeze on nearly all foreign aid, one organization said on Thursday, as the U.N. warned of looming hunger five years after the military ousted an elected government. More than 3.5 million people have been displaced in Myanmar due to war between a junta that seized power in 2021, which is backed by China and sanctioned by Western governments, and a loose alliance of pro-democracy and ethnic minority groups battling to end military rule. In the 2024 fiscal year, which ended on Sept. 30, the U.S. provided $141 million in humanitarian aid to Myanmar, much of which is channeled through groups working on the Thai-Myanmar border. The U.S. State Department on Friday announced the freeze on nearly all aid in order to give the State Department time to review programs “to ensure they are efficient and consistent with U.S. foreign policy under the America First agenda.” In the days since, stop-work orders have been sent by the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, to implementing partners ranging from media organizations to clinics. One aid worker, who declined to be identified, said about 20 relief groups providing healthcare with USAID assistance along the Thai-Myanmar border were at risk of being suspended. Nai Aue Mon, program director of the Human Rights Foundation of Monland group,which documents human rights violations, said communication and travel costs, salaries and stipends would be hit. “To be honest, it’s widespread, it’s huge,” Nai Aue Mon said of the impact of the aid freeze on humanitarian groups in areas under the administration of the anti-junta Karen National Union in Kayin state and to the south in Mon state, affecting thousands of people. “It significantly impacts those groups … nearly every organization is more or less impacted by this executive order.” Groups might have some funds in reserve and were scrambling for other sources of donations but the outlook was grim, he said. “As far as I know, my organization, we still have some resources but we don’t know after that,” Nai Aue Mon said. “We’re definitely struggling a lot.” RELATED STORIES China undermines its interests by boosting support for Myanmar’s faltering junta Tide of Myanmar war refugees tests Thailand’s welcome mat for migrants Thailand to try to fill the gap Some 100,000 ethnic Karen people from eastern Myanmar war zones have lived in camps on the Thai side for decades and people fleeing more recent repression in Myanmar’s towns and cities have also sought shelter on the border. Refugee camp hospitals were having to discharge patients because health workers had been suspended from duties, a health worker speaking on the condition of anonymity for security reasons told RFA. Thailand will help fill the gap in funding for the camps on its soil, at least for the time being, a government minister said, according to The Bangkok Post. “We cannot abandon or chase them away since they have lived here in the camps for a long time,” Thai Public Health Minister Somsak Thepsutin told the newspaper. “We cannot just talk about refugees who have been affected … All kinds of healthcare and assistance must be provided to other groups of people who live in this country.” The freeze in U.S. aid comes as Myanmar is spiraling into a humanitarian crisis, aid groups say. “A staggering 15 million people are expected to face hunger in 2025, up from 13.3 million last year,” the World Food Programme said in a report on Wednesday. Almost 20 million people, or nearly one in three people in Myanmar, will need humanitarian assistance in 2025, the U.N. food agency said. “Growing conflict across the country, access restrictions, a crumbling economy and successive weather-related crises are driving record levels of hunger,” said the WFP Country Director Michael Dunford. “The world cannot afford to overlook Myanmar’s escalating crisis. Without immediate and increased international support, hundreds of thousands more will be pushed to the brink.” Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Freeze to US aid hits Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar hard](https://ij-reportika.com/freeze-to-us-aid-hits-cambodia-laos-and-myanmar-hard/): On the Thai-Myanmar border, sick patients are being sent home from hospital. In Laos, school meals have been interrupted. And in Cambodia, hundreds of staff at the agency responsible for clearing land mines have been furloughed. The U.S. State Department on Friday in Myanmar due to AIDS, and testing and treatment programs have allowed hundreds of thousands to access antiretrovirals as well as lower the likelihood of contracting the virus in the first place. On Tuesday, the Trump administration issued a waiver permitting distribution of HIV medications, but this does not appear to restart broader preventative programs. In Bangladesh, where more than 1 million Rohingya who fled violence in Myanmar live in that has sent the cost of food and other basic goods skyrocketing. In Houaphan, which is one of the poorest provinces in the country, a school meals program has already had to scale back, according to a teacher who spoke to RFA on the condition of anonymity. Cambodia Like Laos, Cambodia still struggles with the legacies of decades of conflict as unexploded ordnance continues to maim and kill. The U.S. halt on funding demining programs is likely to set the government back in its goal to be mine-free by the end of the year. Chok Sopheap, then-executive director of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, delivers a speech to mark International Women&#8217;s Day, March 8, 2023, in Phnom Penh.(Heng Sinith/AP) Heng Kimhong, executive director of the Cambodian Youth Network, said that the suspension of U.S. government assistance would reduce some of its activities related to youth empowerment and the ability to protect natural resources. A USAID fact sheet issued last year noted that deforestation contributed heavily to climate change in Cambodia, which is considered particularly prone to natural disaster. Still, Heng Kimhong said he was “optimistic” funding would be restored as the U.S. is “not a country that only thinks about itself,” he said. “The United States is a country that protects and ensures the promotion of maintaining world order, building democracy, as well as building better respect for human rights.” Tibet Tibet’s government-in-exile, the Central Tibetan Administration, or CTA, represents the Tibetan diaspora and administers schools, health centers and government services for Tibetan exiles in India and Nepal. Several sources speaking on the condition of anonymity told RFA that the suspension affects programs run by the CTA, the Tibetan Parliament and a range of Tibet-related non-governmental organizations, raising concerns over the continuity of key welfare programs supporting Tibetans outside of China. An upcoming preparatory meeting for the Parliament-in-Exile was postponed as a result of the funding pause, sources told RFA. “The directive applies uniformly to all foreign aid recipients. Since Tibetan aid has been secured through congressional support and approval, efforts are underway to work with the State Department and relevant agencies to expedite the review and approval process for continued assistance,” Namgyal Choedup, the representative of the Office of Tibet in Washington, told RFA. A person holds an “Aid Tibet” sticker before a press conference to highlight the plight of Tibetans, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on March 28, 2023.(Stefani Reynolds/AFP) Various Tibetan NGOs and activist groups based in India expressed their concerns about the impact of the freeze in foreign assistance programs and said they hoped it would be soon lifted. Gonpo Dhondup, president of the Tibetan Youth Congress, emphasized the importance of U.S. aid for the Tibetan freedom movement and community stability. Tsering Dolma, president of the Tibetan Women’s Association, said assistance has been crucial for maintaining the exile Tibetan community. “Despite the 90-day suspension, I hope an alternative arrangement can be made to ensure continued U.S. support,” Tashi, a Tibetan resident in Dharamsala, told RFA. North Korea While the U.S. has long banned providing aid to the North Korean government, it has been a supporter of North Korean human rights organizations. Such programs help with global advocacy efforts on behalf of those living inside the closed nation, and also support refugees abroad. A representative from a North Korean human rights organization, who requested anonymity to speak freely, said the group received the stop-work order from their U.S. funders Saturday and requested an exemption waiver. “We will not be able to pay staff salaries, making furloughs or contract terminations inevitable. Backpay is also impossible because providing backpay would imply that employees worked during that period.” Ji Chul-ho, a North Korean escapee who is the director of external relations at the South Korea-based rights organization NAUH, told RFA he worried about the longer term impacts of such a pause. “While this is said to be a temporary suspension of grant expenditures, I worry that it will lead to a reduction in North Korean human rights activities and make it harder for various organizations to raise their voices collectively,” he said. Sean Kang, co-founder of the Ohio-based North Korea Human Rights Watch, told RFA a funding pause was hugely disruptive. “U.S. government projects related to North Korea require meticulous planning and scheduling, maintaining security, and being carried out cautiously over the medium to long term,” he said. “A three-month [pause] in such projects can cause significant disruptions, and if funding is ultimately canceled, all the efforts made so far could be wasted, leading to an even greater loss.” Reporting by RFA Burmese, RFA Khmer, RFA Korean, RFA Lao, and RFA Tibetan. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [China’s Bride Price Crisis: A Burden on Society and a Failure of Governance](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-bride-price-crisis-a-burden-on-society-and-a-failure-of-governance/): Read the report on How in rural China, the traditional practice of  bride price, has spiraled into a dire social and economic crisis. 
- [About 5,000 people displaced by war return to Myanmar border town](https://ij-reportika.com/about-5000-people-displaced-by-war-return-to-myanmar-border-town/): last month for the arrest of the junta chief, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, in connection with the 2017 violence. The United Nations Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar has also vowed to investigate abuses by the AA. Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Moveable feasts: Asia offers many ways – and dates – to celebrate the New Year](https://ij-reportika.com/moveable-feasts-asia-offers-many-ways-and-dates-to-celebrate-the-new-year/): Hundreds of millions of people in China and other parts of East Asia are on the move this week to celebrate New Year’s with family gatherings, feasts and traditional activities honoring ancestors and hoping to bring good fortune. Colloquially known as “Chinese New Year,” the Lunar New Year falls on Jan. 29 this year, but it can come as early as Jan. 21 or as late as Feb. 20. In 2026, the holiday falls on Feb. 17. The variation is the result of using a lunar calendar based on the phases of the moon, modified into a lunisolar calendar that addresses leap years to keep it roughly in line with the solar year of the Western, or Gregorian, calendar. Most East Asian nations adopted the Gregorian calendar in the late 19th or early 20th centuries, and the lunisolar calendar is used for cultural events, religious ceremonies, and for some people, birthdays. A Chinese woman lights a prayer candle during a service at Dhanagun Vihara in Bogor, West Java, Jan. 28, 2025, on the eve of the Lunar New Year of the Snake.(ADITYA AJI, Aditya Aji/AFP) The reason “Chinese New Year” is a misnomer is that the holiday is also observed on the same date in South Korea and Vietnam –- two neighbors of China that were heavily influenced by Chinese culture centuries ago. Like China, they will ring in the Year of the Snake on Wednesday. In South Korea, the holiday is called Seollal and features a return to hometowns, the wearing of traditional hanbok attire, playing folk games, and performing rites and offering food to deceased relatives to honor the family lineage. Young people bow deeply before their elders and receive gifts and money, and rice cake soup is a main treat for the holiday, which is a three-day affair. Kim Dynasty and Tet North Korea, separated from the South in the wake of World War II in a division cemented by the 1950-53 Korean War, returned to the practice of celebrating the Lunar New Year in 1989, and made it an official holiday in 2003. But the most important holidays in North Korea focus on the birthdates of founder Kim Il Sung and his son Kim Jong Il, the father of current leader Kim Jong Un. Even Lunar New Year is observed mainly by visits to statues of the two elder Kims. Tibetan women prepare for a ritual dance as they celebrate the Losar, or Tibetan New Year in Kathmandu, Nepal, Feb. 23, 2023.(Bikram Rai/AP) The ceremony Monlam (“Wish Path”) held at major monasteries of the Gelug sect of Tibetan Buddhism entails monks chanting and praying to bring peace and good fortune to their Himalayan region. The Uyghurs of the Xinjiang region, annexed by China in 1949-50, celebrate Nowruz, the Persian New Year. It falls on or near the Spring Equinox and will be observed on March 20 this year. The holiday is observed by various ethnic groups in countries along the Silk Road, including Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, India, Iran, Iraq, central Asian states and Turkey. For the Uyghurs, facing repression under Chinese rule and heavy-handed assimilation policies, there is a strong emphasis on preserving cultural identity through gatherings, feasts of special food, music and dance. RELATED STORIES Cash-strapped Chinese take the slow train home for Lunar New Year China swamped with respiratory infections ahead of Lunar New Year travel rush In song and dance, Uyghurs forced to celebrate Lunar New Year Splashing water, Buddhist rites In Southeast Asia, while Vietnam follows the Chinese-inspired calendar and traditions, the traditionally Buddhist nations of Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar mark the solar new year in mid-April, when the sun enters the sign of Aries the Ram. Revelers take part in mass water fights on the first day of Songkran, or Thai New Year, in Bangkok on April 13, 2024.(Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP) The people of Myanmar celebrate the Burmese New Year, called Thingyan, or Water Festival, by throwing buckets of water on each other and on Buddha images as an act of prayer to wash away misfortunes to welcome the new year. It falls on April 13-16 this year. Edited by Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Arakan Army captures junta camp on road to central Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/arakan-army-captures-junta-camp-on-road-to-central-myanmar/): , one of the few places left under junta administration, residents said. The other main area under junta control in the state is the Kyaukpyu economic zone on the coast, where China aims to build a deep-sea port, and has energy facilities including natural gas and oil pipelines running to southern China. Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [I was 10 when my father paid a smuggler to take me out of Tibet](https://ij-reportika.com/i-was-10-when-my-father-paid-a-smuggler-to-take-me-out-of-tibet/): When my editor asked me to report on the secret journey Tibetans take to escape into exile, I did not think that there was much worth writing about. It is the story of almost everyone in my community. It is not news, and we are in the news business. But as I reported the story, I could feel its power – and it reminded me of details of my own journey that I hadn’t thought about in years. I was born in Kham, in eastern Tibet, my parents&#8217; first born. A brother and sister followed, and the five of us lived with two cousins in a home that sat in a valley where the Salween River flows, surrounded by farm fields and mountain peaks. My mom sold produce in a town closer to the border with China, and I remember her taking me with her to pick the fruit to sell, teaching me a little Chinese as we worked. When she sold the fruit, she would bring back Chinese toys. All the neighborhood kids would gather around to play with me and my new plastic guns and cars. I loved the attention the gifts from my mother brought me. Lobsang Gelek and his housemates at Kempty Falls in Mussoorie, India, during summer vacation in 2006.(Provided by Lobsang Gelek/RFA Investigative) I haven’t spoken to my family since then, though I occasionally get word through relatives also in exile that they are safe and healthy. I hope that sometimes they see videos I do for RFA or read articles I write and know that I am well. Back in Nepal and India reporting for RFA last year, I felt nostalgia and emotion I did not expect after one of the people I interviewed shared a similar story of having walked in the snow with little food. In just a few weeks, I’ll become a parent myself. As I approach fatherhood, I admit that sometimes I feel anger toward my father for his decision. But I try not to blame him because I know he did what he thought was best for me. And I think he did give me a brighter future – I would never have been here in the U.S., or met my beautiful wife, who, like me, was also smuggled out of Tibet as a child, if I had stayed back. Like all expecting parents, we’re anxious and excited for what’s to come. One thing I know for sure: I will never send my child far away from me. The pain of separation is something that lingers in your soul, until the moment you can be finally reunited. I still hope for that day. Edited by Jim Snyder and Boer Deng. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [North Korea tests cruise missile; warns US, South Korea on ‘provocation’](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-tests-cruise-missile-warns-us-south-korea-on-provocation/): North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the successful test of a cruise missile system, North Korea’s state media reported, as it accused the United States and South Korea of provocations and vowed the “toughest counteraction” to defend itself. The underwater-to-surface strategic cruise guided weapons traveled for 1,500 kilometers between 7,507 and 7,511 seconds in the Saturday test before “precisely” hitting targets, the North’s KCNA news agency reported. “The test was conducted as a link in the whole chain of efforts for carrying out the plan for building up the defence capability of the country, aimed at improving the effectiveness of the strategic deterrence against the potential enemies in conformity with the changing regional security environment,” KCNA reported. Kim was cited as noting that the North armed forces were perfecting ”the means of war deterrence.” On Sunday, North Korea accused the United States and South Korea of “staging serious military provocations” with their military exercises. “The U.S. and the ROK will never evade the responsibility for the aggravation of regional situation to be entailed by an increase in the visibility of military provocations”, a senior foreign ministry official said in a statement, referring to South Korea by the initials of its official name, the Republic of Korea. “The DPRK Foreign Ministry is closely watching the military provocations of the U.S. and the ROK escalating the tension on the Korean peninsula and seriously warns them that such moves will entail a reflective counteraction,” the official said, referring to North Korea by the initials of its official name, the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea. “The DPRK will not permit the imbalance of strength imposed by the military nexus between the U.S. and the ROK and take the toughest counteraction to defend the sovereign right, security and interests of the state and thoroughly ensure peace and stability in the region.” RELATED STORIES Interview: Trump would like to resume personal diplomacy with Kim Jong Un North Korea reiterates it has ‘no intention’ of abandoning nuclear program ‘Smart balloons’ drop leaflets, loudspeakers into North Korea The inauguration of President Donald Trump has led to speculation about an improvement in ties between the old foes. During his first term, Trump embarked on unprecedented but ultimately unsuccessful engagement with North Korea to try to get it to abandon its nuclear weapons in exchange for sanctions relief and he has suggested he would be open to a new effort. Last week, North Korea reiterated that it had no intention of giving up its nuclear program, blaming the United States for creating tensions. North Korea has drawn closer to Russia since Trump’s first term and has sent large volumes of arms and ammunition, as well as some 12,000 soldiers, to help Russia in its war against Ukraine. Neither Russia nor North Korea has acknowledged the North Korean support. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Exiled Myanmar musicians find new voices after coup](https://ij-reportika.com/exiled-myanmar-musicians-find-new-voices-after-coup/): Once a full-time musician who toured throughout Myanmar, indie-pop star Linnith now finds himself in vastly different circumstances –- just like so many other celebrities who fled the country after the 2021 military coup d’etat. From his new home in Maryland in the United States, Linnith told Radio Free Asia about working as an Uber driver and trying to experiment with new music, but also generally “feeling lost.” “In my country, I don’t have to work like this – 50 hours a week, or something like that,” he said last week. After the coup, Linnith and many other artists took to the streets in protest. They also wrote music and posted on social media against the military dictatorship. Subsequent crackdowns by the junta left hundreds dead and thousands in police custody as censorship and threats of violence forced many artists into hiding. (Rebel Pepper illustration/RFA) But the aftermath of the coup has also brought underground and ethnic artists into the spotlight, as widely popular anti-coup music proliferates both online and off and artists navigate a new music industry with unique challenges. “Everything is different now, it’s not only the production, literally everything,” Linnith said, adding that he’s had to transition from making music in a major studio with a team and professional equipment to working independently. “After the coup, I can make music in my bedroom with my laptop with one cheap mic. I don’t even have a soundproof room, you know? That’s it.” Others are embracing the new underground nature of the music industry, where online platforms have given rise to popularity of new artists. “My priority is politics, so I write down all these things that I think about politics that I think about in my rap,” said an underground rapper asking to be identified as T.G. “I talk about the military coup and how we should unite and fight them back to get democracy for our generation.” New challenges But addressing politics can be a matter of life and death. At least three hip-hop artists have been arrested for their role in anti-junta movements, two later dying at the hands of the junta. Yangon-based 39-year-old Byu Har was arrested in 2023 for criticizing the military’s Ministry of Electricity and Energy on social media, and later sentenced to 20 years in prison. But others have met worse fates. Rapper and member of parliament for the ousted National League for Democracy party Phyo Zayar Thaw was executed in 2022. Similarly, San Linn San, a 29-year-old former rapper and singer, died after being denied medical treatment for a head injury sustained in prison linked to alleged torture, according to a family member. Many others have been injured protesting the dictatorship. Like many fleeing the country to avoid political persecution and to find work, much of the music industry has also shifted outside of Myanmar. A former Yangon-based rapper who asked to be identified as her stage name, Youth Thu, for security reasons moved to Thailand when she saw her main job in e-commerce being affected by the coup and economic downturn. “When I came here, I was trying to stay with my friends because I have no deposit money to get a room because I need to get a job first,” said a singer asking to be identified as her stage name, Youth Thu, for security reasons. Now working at a bar in Bangkok, she’s starting to incorporate her experiences into music that will resonate with others in the Myanmar diaspora. “I never expected these things. I never expected to be broke as [expletive deleted]. I never expected to live in that kind of hostel,” she said. “Especially migrants from Myanmar who are struggling here, I’m representing that group so my songs will be coming out saying all my experiences.” For those left inside the country, economic factors are also taking a toll on music production, Linnith said. “Because of inflation, the exchange rates are horrible… All the gear, the prices are going so high, like two or three times what it was,” Linnith said. “So most people can’t upgrade their gear or if something is wrong, they can’t buy a new thing.” Starting again The challenges have also ushered in new music and different tastes from audiences, as well as a boom in the underground industry and in rap and grime, a type of electronic dance, artists told RFA. T.G. said he’s seen a new appreciation for ethnic music coming from the country’s border regions, where languages other than Burmese dominate the music scene and everyday life. He’s also seen a revival of revolutionary music popularized in 1988, when student protests across Myanmar ended in a violent military coup that has drawn comparisons to the junta’s 2021 seizure of power. “After the [2021] coup, a lot of people from the mainland, a lot of people are going to the ethnic places like Shan, Kachin, Karen and then, Karenni,” he said. “They started to realize there are a lot of people willing to have democracy, so they started to realize that ethnic people are also important for the country.” Artists are also dealing with new feelings on a personal level. Depressed, anxious and struggling to cope with changing realities, Linnith and others have found new feelings to draw from. “The lyrics are literally ‘I give everything, I don’t believe in anything. I’m lost.’ That’s the kind of feeling I’ve got at the moment…I wrote it in my head while I was driving, again and again and again,” he said. “This is perfect timing, a perfect song for me…. Not just a perfect song, but the best song. It came from real feelings, real pain.” Youth Thu says while her music isn’t inherently political, she is also writing about her new life in ways she hopes will resonate with her audience. “I got to meet with other girls who are coming to Thailand to survive too. We have different goals, but still we are sharing lunch, sharing rooms, sharing the...
- [Tide of Myanmar war refugees tests Thailand’s welcome mat for migrants](https://ij-reportika.com/tide-of-myanmar-war-refugees-tests-thailands-welcome-mat-for-migrants/): The threatened deportations from Thailand of a Vietnamese ethnic minority activist and 48 Uyghurs detained after trying to flee China have cast a harsh spotlight on Bangkok. But a flood of war refugees from Myanmar poses a bigger test for Thailand’s relatively generous policies toward migrants. The Uyghurs, held in Thailand since 2014 after attempting to use the Southeast Asian nation to escape persecution in China, have said they fear they are about to be repatriated and staged a hunger strike to highlight their plight. Vietnamese ethnic minority rights activist Y Quynh Bdap, who Hanoi wants to extradite and jail for terrorism, denies Vietnamese accusations that he committed 2023 attacks on government offices that resulted in nine deaths. A Thai Immigration Bureau spokesperson said Thailand has “no policy” to deport the Uyghurs, while enforcement of a Bangkok court ruling calling for Bdap’s extradition to Vietnam is still pending. These high-profile rights cases are playing out amid a bigger crackdown on hundreds of thousands of Myanmar citizens who have taken refuge in Thailand since a military takeover four years ago. The displaced Myanmar citizens include junta opponents, but are largely ordinary people who seek safety and work as the civil war at home grinds into its fifth year, say those who help migrants in Thailand. Many have been subject to arrest, involuntary repatriation and arrest again back in Myanmar as Thailand moves to regulate labor migration flows with stricter registration policies and stringent inspections. “While all nationalities face similar risks, Myanmar nationals face dual risks – both political opposition groups and ordinary workers uninvolved in politics. If deported, they might be drafted into military service, risking their lives,” said Roisai Wongsuban, policy advocacy advisor for the Migrant Working Group, an NGO in Thailand. Mecca for migrants Along with scrutiny from rights and labor groups, Thailand gets plenty of credit from the United Nations and others for hosting more than 5 million non-Thai nationals. “Because of its relatively prosperous and stable economy, Thailand has attracted millions of migrants from neighboring countries looking for a better standard of living,” said the International Organization for Migration, or IOM. However, Thailand is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, meaning it doesn’t recognize refugees, and those who seek asylum can face detention and deportation. But it is a main base of humanitarian U.N. agencies and NGOs that help refugees in the region. “The country has also traditionally hosted hundreds of thousands of nationals from neighboring countries, who have fled their homelands due to war, internal conflict or national instability,” the IOM, a UN agency, said in a statement. Myanmar nationals cross over into Thailand at the Tak border checkpoint in Thailand&#8217;s Mae Sot district on April 10, 2024.(Manan Vatsyayana/AFP) Phyo Ko Ko, who works legally at a garment factory in Thailand, told RFA Burmese the military junta back in Myanmar is now collecting taxes on registered migrant workers’ earnings, in another hit to her income. “Workers only get a basic salary, so the money is spent on these visas and documents all year round,” said Phyo Ko Ko. Thai media have reported on some promising developments for migrants, such as cabinet approval in October of a plan to grant citizenship to nearly half a million people, including long-term migrants and children born in Thailand, and new visas for digital, medical and cultural pursuits. Despite the protests and crackdown of 2024, Wongsuban says the same economic priorities and necessities behind Thailand’s decision to accept migrant workers during the COVID-19 pandemic will ensure the flow of workers continues. Even critics and activists work with the understanding that “Thailand is the only country in the region that accepts a high number of migrant workers, war refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants,” he said. Reported by Nontarat Phaicharoen and Jon Preechawong for BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service, RFA Burmese and Phouvong for RFA Lao. Translated by Aung Naing and Phouvong. Written by Paul Eckert. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Exiled but Unyielding: Interview with Carmen Lau on Hong Kong’s Fight for Democracy](https://ij-reportika.com/exiled-but-unyielding-interview-with-carmen-lau-on-hong-kongs-fight-for-democracy/): Discover how exiled advocate Carmen Lau navigates challenges and opportunities as a voice for Hong Kong’s democracy movement. From cultural initiatives like the Hong Kong March to global advocacy at the World Liberty Congress, Lau shares her resilience and vision for the future.
- [Taiwan says 85% of national security cases involve retired army, police](https://ij-reportika.com/taiwan-says-85-of-national-security-cases-involve-retired-army-police/): Updated Jan. 24, 2025, 4:25 a.m. ET TAIPEI, Taiwan – Taiwan said 85% of its national security cases were found to involve retired military and police officers, adding China “systematically and organically cultivated” these forces in the island. Taiwan’s national security law is a set of legal provisions aimed at safeguarding its sovereignty and democratic system from internal and external threats. It includes measures against espionage, subversion, and activities threatening national security, with a particular focus on countering external interference, including from China. China regards Taiwan as a renegade province that should be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary. The democratic island has been self-governing since it effectively separated from mainland China in 1949 after the Chinese civil war. “85% of current incidents related to national security are involved with retired military and police. We are very concerned about this situation,” said Liang Wen-chieh, spokesperson of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, which oversees relations across the Taiwan Strait. “China has been systematically and methodically cultivating these forces on the ground in Taiwan … it has become very difficult to secure evidence in espionage and national security-related cases,” Liang added without elaborating. The number of individuals in Taiwan prosecuted for Chinese espionage increased from 16 in 2021 to 64 in 2024, Taiwan’s main intelligence agency, the National Security Bureau, or NSB, said in a report this month. In 2024, 15 military veterans and 28 active service members were prosecuted, accounting for 23% and 43%, respectively, of all Chinese espionage cases. “Chinese operatives frequently try to use retired military personnel to recruit active service members, establish networks via the internet, or try to lure targets with cash or by exploiting their debts,” said the NSB. “For example, military personnel with financial difficulties may be offered loans via online platforms or underground banks, in return for passing along secret intelligence, signing loyalty pledges or recruiting others,” the agency added. Lin Ying-Yu, an assistant professor at Tamkang University’s Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies in Taiwan, said retired officers’ connections made them a great target for China. “Retired military and police personnel may have connections from their previous deployments, or they may have colleagues still serving in the armed forces, military, or law enforcement agencies,” said Lin. “This makes retired individuals excellent intermediaries for accessing classified information through active-duty personnel.” RELATED STORIES Taiwan warns internet celebrities on collusion after video uproar EXPLAINED: What is China’s United Front and how does it operate? Beijing says Taipei behind anti-China hackers Operational base for Chinese attack The Taiwan government’s announcement on national security cases came days after Taiwanese prosecutors sought a 10-year prison sentence for a retired military officer for leaking classified information to China. The Taiwan High Prosecutors Office on Monday indicted retired Lt Gen. Kao An-kuo and five others for violating the National Security Act and organizing a pro-China group. Prosecutors claim that Kao, leader of the pro-unification group “Republic of China Taiwan Military Government,” along with his girlfriend, identified by her surname Liu, and four others, were recruited by China’s People’s Liberation Army, or PLA. The group allegedly worked to establish an organization that would serve as armed internal support and operational bases for the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, in the event of a PLA invasion of Taiwan. This effort reportedly included recruiting active-duty military personnel to obtain classified information and monitor strategic deployments. Additionally, they are accused of using drones to simulate surveillance on mobile military radar vehicles and other combat exercises, subsequently relaying the results to the CCP. China has not commented on Taiwan’s announcement on national security cases. Edited by Mike Firn. Updated to include comments from an expert. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Nearly 3 million Chinese restaurants, cafes shut down](https://ij-reportika.com/nearly-3-million-chinese-restaurants-cafes-shut-down/): China has seen nearly 3 million restaurants, cafes and other catering outlets shut down in the past year with many going bankrupt.
- [Myanmar junta bombs rebel-held town in Shan state killing 8](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-bombs-rebel-held-town-in-shan-state-killing-8/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. Myanmar’s military bombed a town in Shan state under rebel control killing eight people days after striking a ceasefire with an allied group that also operates in the northeastern state, the group in control of the bombed town said. The junta that seized power in a 2021 coup has been under major pressure from its insurgent enemies over the past year losing large areas of territory, military bases and major towns. The military has repeatedly called for talks over the past few months while at the same time unleashing its air force in devastating attacks on insurgents and the towns and villages they control, killing numerous civilians, rights group says. The latest junta air raid to inflict heavy casualties was in the town of Nawnghkio, which is under the control of the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, in Shan state. “Near Parami Teashop, the junta dropped two bombs back to back from a jet at around 11 a.m.,” the TNLA said in a statement after the strike on Wednesday. At least three women were among the dead and two houses and a police station were destroyed, it said. RFA tried to contact Shan state’s junta spokesperson, Khun Thein Maung, by telephone for comment but he did not respond. Destruction from an airstrike in Myanmar&#8217;s Nawnghkio town, seen on Jan. 22, 2025.(Thein Aung- Facebook) A resident of Nawnghkio, which is 90 kilometers, or 55 miles, northeast of the city of Mandalay, told Radio Free Asia the tea shop was obliterated and staff, customers and passers-by were among the dead. “The bomb hit right on the teashop as the family was cleaning up,” said the resident, who declined to be identified for safety reasons, referring to the people who ran the shop. “There were some people sitting around and a girl who works there was torn to pieces.” The military then fired artillery at Nawnghkio from the direction of the junta-controlled town of Pyin Oo Lwin, residents said. RELATED STORIES Myanmar military regime enters year 5 in terminal decline Two-thirds of residents flee Myanmar beach town as rebels battle junta troops Myanmar junta kills 28, including its own soldiers, in prison attack It was the second airstrike on the town in about 24 hours. One person was killed and two were wounded in a strike on an administrative office and the town hall on Tuesday, the TNLA said earlier. The TNLA, fighting for autonomy for the Ta’ang, or Palaung, people has emerged as a powerful force in Shan state and was part of a three-group alliance that went on a coordinated offensive in October 2024, scoring major victories against junta forces, including the capture of Nawnghkio. Another member of the Three Brotherhood alliance, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, struck a ceasefire with the junta on Saturday after talks brokered by China. While calling for talks, the junta chief also vowed late last year to re-capture territory lost in Shan state. Many insurgent groups have rejected the calls for talks, saying it is a ploy by the military which is trying to secure more areas in preparation for an election expected late this year that the generals hope will bolster their legitimacy. Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Vietnamese man fined for social media comments on new hefty traffic fines](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnamese-man-fined-for-social-media-comments-on-new-hefty-traffic-fines/): Please read a version of this story in Vietnamese A Vietnamese man has been fined US$200 for posting a question on social media about a hugely unpopular law allowing for hefty fines for traffic violations. The government mandate, called Decree 168, which went into effect in the new year, has prompted police to crack down on seemingly minor traffic violations, arousing widespread anger among Vietnam’s millions of drivers and motorcycle riders A truck driver known as N.V.D. posted a comment on TikTok in October asking anyone who “opposes draft Decree 168, please share your thoughts.” His comments were about a draft form of Decree 168, which was proposed last year, approved in December and implemented on Jan. 1, People’s Public Security reported. “Is this law for the people, or someone else?” he asked. Police ordered him to pay 5 million Vietnamese dong (US$200) for “the act of providing, sharing fabricated information, causing confusion among people about Decree 168,” according to the People’s Public Security newspaper, which noted that N.V.D. has over 17,500 followers. The Cyber Security and High-tech Crime Prevention Division in central Dak Nong province also ordered N.V.D. to delete three other posts about the decree. Screenshot of N.V.D.&#8217;s TikTok video in which he states &#8220;please share your thoughts” and is being used by the police as a basis for punishment for opposing draft Decree 168.(CAND) He is the second person to be fined for perceived criticism of the law. Last week, Hanoi resident Dang Hoang Ha was questioned by Ministry of Public Security officials for critical comments he made on his Facebook page and was fined 7.5 million Vietnamese dong (US$300). The ministry said the comments included “Saigon people took to the streets to protest because of Decree 168” and “Traffic police are out in force, blocking the streets.” Ha admitted to criticizing the new fines using provocative and misleading words and promised not to do it again, according to the ministry. In recent years the government has cracked down on social media posts it saw as a threat, jailing critics for “propaganda against the state,” under Article 117 of the criminal code and “abusing democratic freedoms,” under Article 331. Unpopular fines The effort over the last few weeks to discipline drivers who run red lights or ride their motorbikes on sidewalks has changed driver behavior for the better but has also led to more traffic jams, a Hanoi taxi driver told Radio Free Asia earlier this month. The initiative has also proven to be unpopular with social media commentators, many of whom have complained about the higher fine amounts. Fines for car drivers running red lights, for example, have risen from 4 million Vietnamese dong (US$157) to 18 million Vietnamese dong ($709), while fines for the same offense for motorcyclists went from 1 million Vietnamese dong ($39) to 4 million Vietnamese dong ($157). RELATED STORIES Vietnam punishes social media poster for complaining about traffic rules Tough new traffic fines anger Vietnamese In bid to reduce traffic jams, Vietnam mulls congestion fees N.V.D.’s comments in October included a remark that said anyone who committed a violation could lose half a year’s salary, which was “nothing short of strangling people,” according to a screenshot published by People’s Public Security. A source familiar with the matter, speaking to RFA on condition of anonymity for safety reasons, said N.V.D. was offering feedback on the draft decree because of his experience as a long-haul truck driver who transported agricultural products from the Mekong Delta to various provinces and cities. However, since Decree 168 took effect, N.V.D. has stopped accepting long-haul jobs because one of its regulations requires drivers to take a break after every four hours and limits drivers to a maximum of 10 hours per day and 48 hours per week. Many drivers told RFA that Decree 168’s restrictions on driving hours were unreasonable and would lead to increased transportation costs and reduced driver income. Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [China, Mekong countries agree to combat scam centers, arms trafficking](https://ij-reportika.com/china-mekong-countries-agree-to-combat-scam-centers-arms-trafficking/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. The six Mekong River countries are working together to combat online scamming and arms dealing in the interests of their security, China’s embassy in Myanmar said, as authorities renew efforts to tackle a problem that is causing growing alarm across the region. The rescue of a Chinese actor and several other victims this month from an online scam center in eastern Myanmar has shone a spotlight on the criminal gangs running fraud, money-laundering and human trafficking operations from some of the more lawless corners of the region. The scam centers proliferated in Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos after the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted casinos. Thousands of people have been lured by false job offers and then forced to work defrauding victims online in complexes often run by ethnic Chinese gangsters, human rights groups say. China, which is also home to many of the victims of the scammers, has been organizing action to tackle the problem with its southern neighbors, most recently at a meeting in the city of Kunming, in China’s Yunnan southern border province. “The operation brings together the law enforcement resources of various countries and is an effective cooperative force in the fight against telecommunications fraud and arms smuggling in the region,” China’s embassy in Myanmar said in a statement on Tuesday. “All parties unanimously agreed that regional security and stability were effectively protected,” it said. In 2025, members of the Lancang-Mekong Integrated Law Enforcement and Security Cooperation Center – China, Myanmar, Thailand Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam – will begin the second phase of an operation against the criminals, the embassy said. It did not give details of what it would entail. The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army hands over 337 telecom and internet fraud suspects to Chinese police on Oct. 7, 2023.(Kokang News) RELATED STORIES Scammers lure jobseeking Hong Kongers to Myanmar from Japan, Taiwan Is Laos actually tackling its vast scam Industry? Myanmar border militia emerges as nexus in regional scam network From August to December, Operation Zin Yaw resulted in a collective 160 cases cracking down on telecommunications fraud, in which more than 70,000 criminals were arrested and 160 victims were rescued, the embassy said. Myanmar authorities have said the large majority of suspects detained in raids are from China. China can provide “effective protection” against both arms smuggling and online fraud, the embassy said. The recent abduction and rescue from an eastern Myanmar enclave on the Thai border of Chinese actor Wang Xing, and model Yang Zeqi, has attracted media attention across the region and raised public alarm about safety. Thailand has seen a rash of group tour cancellations for the upcoming Lunar New Year and its government has promised action to protect its economically important tourist industry. The leaders of militias loyal to Myanmar’s junta and the operators of online scam centers announced this month that they had agreed to stop forced labor and fraud after coming under pressure from Thailand and the Myanmar military, sources close to the militia groups said. “The threat posed by the scam gangs is large – if you read the newspapers you know – so something needs to be done,” said Aung Thu Nyein, a member of the Institute for Strategy and Policy Myanmar think tank. Myanmar’s exiled parallel National Unity Government said in a statement on Monday it and other anti-junta groups would work with neighboring countries to suppress the scam centers. Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Hundreds block Cambodian highway to protest irrigation water shortage](https://ij-reportika.com/hundreds-block-cambodian-highway-to-protest-irrigation-water-shortage/): Hundreds of people in southern Cambodia used tractors and motorcycles to block a major national highway for three hours on Tuesday to demand that provincial authorities address severe water shortages that have damaged rice fields. Protesters tied tractors and other vehicles together across National Road 2 and used loudspeakers to rally farmers and other residents of Takeo province and to plead for help from Prime Minister Hun Manet and other government officials. Takeo resident Aob Ratana said in a Facebook live video from the protest that authorities could solve the water shortage by opening a dam in the province’s Bati district to allow water to flow into the Bati River, which runs alongside rice fields. Residents were angry that this particular request had gone unfulfilled, which was a major reason behind the blockage of National Road 2, which runs between Phnom Penh and the Vietnamese border. “The rice fields are dying and will be gone if they do not help solve the problem,” he said. “The district and provincial governments are not helping to solve the problem for the people.” Minister of Agriculture Dith Tina, Minister of Water Resources Tho Jetha and Minister in charge of Disaster Management Kun Kim met with the demonstrators at the site of the road blockage and promised to work on the issue. Im Rachana, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Agriculture, didn’t answer when asked by Radio Free Asia how the government planned to solve the lack of water in the area. A hard time this year Cambodian farmers have faced several droughts over the last 20 years. At least 1.1 million hectares of rice crops were affected and more than 30,535 hectares were seriously damaged by drought during the 2023-2024 dry season, which typically runs from November to April, according to the National Disaster Management Committee. The national government should work to restore natural irrigation systems, such as existing lakes and canals, and should also look into building new canals, said Dy Kunthea, a board member of the Cambodian Farmers Solidarity Organization. Aob Ratana warned on his Facebook live video that Cambodia’s overall economy would face trouble if too many rice fields fail this year. “There is water,” he said. “But it is not being distributed to the people, and they say that the people will have a hard time this year.” Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Donald Trump in Action: Key Executive Orders Signed During Inauguration](https://ij-reportika.com/donald-trump-in-action-key-executive-orders-signed-during-inauguration/): Donald Trump marks his second inauguration with bold executive orders, reversing climate and health policies, issuing pardons, reinstating federal workforce changes, and addressing U.S.-Panama relations.
- [Myanmar junta and insurgents sign ceasefire brokered by China](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-and-insurgents-sign-ceasefire-brokered-by-china/): Read RFA coverage of of Chinese trade for weeks, sources in the region said. “Food products can be sent and received normally,” Nyi Yan, a liaison officer with the United Wa State Army, another militia force based in Shan state, told RFA. “China also eased restrictions on the import of fuel into Wa administrative regions on Sunday night.” Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Beijing sees Trump presidency as ‘critical’ juncture for Sino-US ties](https://ij-reportika.com/beijing-sees-trump-presidency-as-critical-juncture-for-sino-us-ties/): Beijing views the second presidency of Donald Trump as a “critical” juncture that could improve ties with the United States, according to official commentaries in state media. “The river of history is constantly flowing, and the critical points are often just a few steps,” the People’s Daily, official newspaper of the ruling Communist Party, said in an op-ed published on Monday, the Trump’s inauguration date. Describing the international situation as “full of change and chaos,” the article said the bilateral relationship should be managed from a “strategic and long-term perspective, which will bring more certainty to a turbulent world.” “China-U.S. relations are the most important bilateral relations in the world &#8230; affecting the future and destiny of mankind,” the commentary said, citing a need for more exchanges between the Chinese and American people. “Both sides need to move towards each other,” it said. The official commentaries come amid multiple media reports that Trump plans to visit China within 100 days of taking office, and that a face-to-face meeting with Xi is on the cards. Chinese Vice President Han Zheng, who attended Trump’s inauguration ceremony on behalf of Xi Jinping, met with Vice President-elect J.D. Vance on Jan. 19 to discuss various bilateral issues including fentanyl, trade balance and regional stability. Two Taiwanese Kuang Hua VI-class missile boats conduct a simulated attack drill off Kaohsiung City, southern Taiwan, Jan. 9, 2025.(Chiang Ying-ying/AP) Current affairs commentator Wu Qiang said a more domestically focused approach to global cooperation is actually something that is shared by China and the Trump administration, and that the relationship would likely improve with more direct contact between Trump and Xi. “At the very least, they can balance the relationship by strengthening the relationship between their individual leaders,” Wu said. “This is the kind of strengthening that is welcomed by the leaders of China and also Russia.” He said such relationships would act as a “parallel” axis of international cooperation, alongside the China-Russia alliance and the U.S. relationship with allies NATO, Europe and Southeast Asia. Russia, Trade Commentator Yuan Hongbing said Trump’s plan to visit China is likely part of a bid to get Beijing’s help with a ceasefire in Ukraine. “The fundamental reason he is now showing goodwill towards Xi Jinping is that he wants to meet his diplomatic commitments,” Yuan said. “Russia is already in a position of advantage on the battlefield.” But trade is also likely high on the agenda, according to Yuan and a veteran Chinese journalist who gave only the surname Kong for fear of reprisals. “It’s part of the plan to make America great again,” Kong said, referencing Trump’s slogan. “He believes that the trade deficit has had an impact on the U.S. economy.” “But what kind of pressure he will bring to bear &#8230; that will be a key focus of his trip to China.” Sun Kuo-hsiang, director of Taiwan’s Nanhua University, said Taiwan could see its defense concerns drop further down the list of U.S. priorities under Trump. “During his first term, Trump put a strong emphasis on transactional diplomacy, and so he may use Taiwan as leverage, for example, reducing arms sales or limiting official contacts, in exchange for concessions from China on trade or international issues,” Sun told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview. He said that could undermine Taiwan’s ability to defend itself in the event of a Chinese invasion. “If Sino-U.S. ties ease, then China may believe that the United States has softened on Taiwan, and step up its military and diplomatic activities,” Sun said. “That will bring far more uncertainty to the situation in the Taiwan Strait.” Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar junta kills 28, including its own soldiers, in prison attack](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-kills-28-including-its-own-soldiers-in-prison-attack/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. The Myanmar military killed 28 of its own soldiers and their detained relatives in an airstrike on insurgent positions near an ancient capital in Rakhine state, according to the rebels and a human rights group. The Arakan Army, or AA, is fighting for control of Rakhine state and has made stunning gains over the past year, seizing 14 of its 17 townships from the control of the junta that seized power in an early 2021 coup. The military has struck back with its air force, launching numerous bombing raids, which early on Sunday included a strike on Kyauk Se village, to the north of Mrauk U town. “We don’t know the exact details yet but we do know that dozens are dead,” Myat Tun, director of the Arakan Human Rights Defenders and Promoters Association, told Radio Free Asia. “There were no residents affected, it affected prisoners of war, including children,” he said. The AA said 28 people were killed and 29 were wounded when the air force dropped three bombs on a temporary detention center run by the AA before dawn on Sunday. “Those killed/injured in the bombing were prisoners and their families who were arrested in battles,” the AA said in a statement. “Military families were about to be released and were being temporarily detained in that place.” Some of the wounded were in critical condition and the death toll could rise, the group said. RFA tried to contact AA spokesperson, Khaing Thu Ka, and Rakhine state’s junta spokesperson, Hla Thein, for more information but neither of them responded by time of publication. Bodies of some of the 28 people killed in the bombing of a detention camp in Myanmar&#8217;s Mrauk U, Rakhine State, released on Jan. 19, 2025.(AA Info Desk) RELATED STORIES Myanmar military regime enters year 5 in terminal decline Junta blockades keep Myanmar children malnourished and without vaccines Rakhine rebels seize first police station in Myanmar’s heartland Mrauk U is the ancient capital of Rakhine kings who were conquered by Burmese kings in 1784. The AA has captured hundreds of junta soldiers, police officers and their family members, in its relentless advance across the state, from its far north on the border with Bangladesh, down to the south where AA fighters have launched probes into neighboring Ayeyarwady division. Families of soldiers and police in Myanmar often live near them in family quarters. This was not the first AA prison to be bombed. In September, military aircraft struck a detention center and hospital in Pauktaw town, killing more than 50 prisoners of war, the AA said at the time. On Jan. 8, junta airstrikes in Ramree township’s Kyauk Ni Maw village killed more than 50, including women and children, and some 500 homes were destroyed in a blaze that the bombing sparked. Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Bodyguard for Vietnamese monk controls his every move](https://ij-reportika.com/bodyguard-for-vietnamese-monk-controls-his-every-move/): .” Then in November, the monk announced plans to travel on foot to India. Who is Doan Van Bau? On his personal YouTube channel, Bau described himself as a retired security officer and an active Communist Party member. He previously held the rank of senior colonel and served as director general of the Political Theory Division within the Central Propaganda and Education Department. RELATED STORIES EXPLAINED: Why is an internet-famous monk on a trek to India? Vietnamese followers of ‘barefoot monk’ question call for social media silence Vietnamese monk leaves Laos, enters Thailand In early posts on YouTube, Bau described himself as a “retired ordinary citizen” volunteering to assist Minh Tue in his pilgrimage, saying he had a deep respect for the monk’s commitment to Buddhism. In December, Minh Tue said in one of Bau’s YouTube videos about trip preparations posted that he only asked Bau to handle the immigration procedures on the way to India. But in more recent comments on social media, Bau said the Vietnamese government had issued official documents assigning him to be the “head of the delegation.” In another Facebook video on Jan. 7, Bau told Thich Minh Tue that while he has “no objections” to his “self-cultivation,” he hoped the monk “will not interfere with my planning, organization or management of the delegation.” Bau has since rejected at least three people from joining the pilgrimage, including two monks. Vietnamese monk Thich Minh Tue prepares to take a nap in Thailand, during his walk to India, Jan. 1, 2025.(RFA) Even before the pilgrimage started, officials appeared to be controlling the endeavor. A document released on Dec. 1 by Phat Tam Thien Dinh Tue Ltd., a company founded by Thich Minh Tue’s elder brother, listed 10 individuals authorized by the monk to accompany and assist him during the pilgrimage to India. But on the departure day, only two of them &#8212; Bau and Le Kha Giap – were officially allowed to join the delegation. Media blackout Bau is live-streaming the monk’s journey on YouTube – which many people in Vietnam are following – but the country’s state-run media has had no coverage of the entourage. Vietnamese journalists told RFA that the propaganda department has told them not to publish any news about it. After about a week of walking in Thailand, Bau said on his personal social media account that the delegation had many “adversities” in the journey so far, including foreign reporters and others observing the pilgrimage. As Thich Minh Tue heads toward Bangkok, Bau continued to keep a tight lid on the monk’s interactions, particularly with the media. “Bau has always spoken on behalf of the monk, taking over his right to communicate,” said Tuan Khanh, the musician who has been monitoring the pilgrimage closely. “The monk no longer has the opportunity to speak.” Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Thailand Faces Backlash Over Plans to Deport 48 Uyghurs to China](https://ij-reportika.com/thailand-faces-backlash-over-plans-to-deport-48-uyghurs-to-china/): Thailand faces global backlash for plans to deport 48 Uyghur detainees to China, sparking protests and raising concerns over human rights violations and international law obligations.
- [Myanmar military regime enters year 5 in terminal decline](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-military-regime-enters-year-5-in-terminal-decline/): Myanmar’s military approaches the fourth anniversary of the coup d’etat that put them in power in terminal decline. The economy continues to atrophy, with even . Further south, the Karen National Liberation Army and allied people’s defense forces (PDFs) are slowly taking pro-junta border guard posts along the frontier with Thailand. In Tanintharyi, local PDFs have increased their coordination and are pushing west from the Thai border towards the Andaman Sea coast, diminishing the scope of the military-controlled patchwork of terrain in Myanmar’s southernmost state. Some of the most intense fighting of late has been in the Bamar heartland, including Sagaing, Magway, and Mandalay. The military has stepped up their bombings, artillery strikes, and arson, that killed 52, wounded over 40 and destroyed 500 homes, had no military utility. Finally, the state of the economy is even more precarious given the loss of almost all border crossings. RELATED STORIES Chinese aid cannot overcome Myanmar junta’s declining finances and morale Perhaps it would be better if Myanmar’s civil war became a ‘forgotten conflict’ Myanmar’s junta answers rebel proposal for talks with week of deadly airstrikes Although the SAC technically still controls Muse and Myawaddy, which links them to China and Thailand, respectively, opposition forces control much of the surrounding territory. While Karen forces have not made a bid to take Myawaddy, the main border crossing, they are pinching in along Asia Highway 1 to Yangon. On Jan. 11, some 500 reinforcements in 30 armored personnel carriers were deployed from Hpa-An to Kawkareik in Kayan state near the Thai border to keep the last main overland trade artery open. To sum it up, the junta is entering the fifth year of military rule with its power rapidly slipping away. Although they still control one-third of the country – land that holds two-thirds of the population – their mismanagement of the economy has left the military regime broke. Spread too thin across too many fronts simultaneously, it’s hard to see the SAC doing anything to arrest their terminal decline in 2025. Zachary Abuza is a professor at the National War College in Washington and an adjunct at Georgetown University. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of the U.S. Department of Defense, the National War College, Georgetown University or Radio Free Asia. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [China hiding Deaths in disastrous Tibet Earthquake](https://ij-reportika.com/china-hiding-deaths-in-disastrous-tibet-earthquake/): China hiding the death toll in Tibet Earthquake in which 61,000 people are affected with at least 47,000 forcibly relocated.
- [What is the RedNote app and why are TikTok users moving there? | RFA Insider #24](https://ij-reportika.com/what-is-the-rednote-app-and-why-are-tiktok-users-moving-there-rfa-insider-24/): The double features don’t stop! Tune in to this episode of RFA Insider to learn about American social media users turning to a Chinese app in response to an impending TikTok ban, and how China is preparing for the incoming U.S. administration. Off Beat With TikTok slated to be banned on Sunday unless it is sold to a new, non-Chinese owner, young American users of the app have migrated en masse to Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote. The more than half a million American users who’ve joined RedNote in recent days, dubbing themselves “TikTok refugees,” hope to relocate their online communities and for some, send a strong message to Meta and its founder Mark Zuckerberg. Family photos, presumably taken in August 2024 and March 2023, found with the bodies of North Korean troops killed in the Ukraine-Russia war.(NK Insider) RFA’s own Korean Service also conducted an exclusive interview with a Ukrainian soldier sharing his battlefield encounter with North Korean soldiers. Double Off Beat As Washington, D.C. makes the final arrangements for U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration next Monday, countries around the world are similarly preparing for the new U.S. administration. Senior reporter Kitty Wang from RFA’s Mandarin Service comes on the podcast to share insight into how China might react to the new administration. Then-U.S. President Donald Trump (left) attends a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping during the G20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan, June 29, 2019.(Kevin Lamarque/Reuters) What’s the overall mood in China regarding Trump’s possible implementation of tariffs? Will Beijing alter its stance on either Taiwan or the South China Sea while working with this new administration? What about the Uyghur region and Tibet? Tune in to hear these answers and more. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [In bilateral talks, Philippines complains about China’s ‘monster’ ship in EEZ waters](https://ij-reportika.com/in-bilateral-talks-philippines-complains-about-chinas-monster-ship-in-eez-waters/): MANILA &#8212; Senior Philippine diplomats confronted Chinese counterparts in face-to-face talks about China’s “monster” coast guard ship intruding into Manila’s territorial waters, as the two sides met to discuss the hot-button issue of the South China Sea. Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Ma. Theresa Lazaro led the Philippine delegation in the 10th Bilateral Consultation Mechanism on the South China Sea, or BCM, which took place on Thursday in the Chinese city of Xiamen. Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong headed the Chinese delegation in the BCM, a series of bilateral talks that were started in 2017 with the aim of lowering tensions between the two countries – rival claimants – over the contested waterway. The Philippine side expressed “serious concern” about the presence and activities of China Coast Guard (CCG) vessels lately within Manila’s exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, including the 12,000-ton ship, dubbed “The Monster.” CCG 5901, the world’s largest coast guard ship, had been spotted patrolling the resource-rich Scarborough Shoal area in recent days and waters off the coast of Luzon, the main island in the Philippines. Manila had already lodged protests and diplomatic complaints about the ship’s intimidating presence in Philippine-claimed waters. Earlier this week, a Philippine National Security official said China was “pushing us to the wall” as he indicated that Manila was considering pursuing a new lawsuit against Beijing over the South China Sea. While CCG 5901 had not carried out any dangerous maneuvers so far, Philippine officials said its activities within Manila’s waters were not backed by any international law, according to a statement from the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs. “Our position is clear and consistent, but so is our willingness to engage in dialogue. We firmly believe that despite the unresolved challenges and differences, there is genuine space for diplomatic and pragmatic cooperation in dealing with our issues in the South China Sea,” the statement quoted Lazaro as saying at the meeting. China’s actions were “inconsistent” with the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS, which both Manila and Beijing had signed, and the recently passed Philippine Maritime Zones Act, according to the Philippine foreign office. Beijing earlier said that the presence of its ships in Scarborough was “fully justified,” reiterating its jurisdiction over the shoal. “We call on the Philippines once again to immediately stop all infringement activities, provocations and false accusations, and stop all its actions that jeopardize peace and stability and complicate the situation in the South China Sea,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said on Tuesday. This photo, released by the Philippine Coast Guard, shows Chinese Coast Guard ship 5901 sailing in the South China Sea, Jan. 15, 2025.(Philippine Coast Guard) Located about 125 nautical miles (232 km) from Luzon island, Scarborough Shoal – known as Bajo de Masinloc in the Philippines – has been under China’s de facto control since 2012. Beijing’s possession of the shoal forced Manila to file a lawsuit at the world court in The Hague. Four years later, an international arbitration tribunal ruled in Manila’s favor but Beijing has never acknowledged that decision, insisting on its historical claims over the waterway. Another flashpoint At Thursday’s meeting, the two sides also agreed to keep implementing a “provisional understanding” regarding Philippine resupply missions to the BRP Sierra Madre, a decrepit World War II-era military ship stationed in Second Thomas (Ayungin) Shoal, another disputed South China Sea feature. CCG vessels had been regularly blocking Philippine ships carrying supplies and troops to the shoal. But the two countries arrived at a provisional agreement in July, following a dramatic standoff the previous month between Filipino servicemen and CCG personnel at Second Thomas Shoal, during which a Philippine serviceman lost a finger. Philippine and Chinese officials, however, have not yet publicly disclosed the official document of the agreement or its details, with both sides making their own claims about the deal’s contents. RELATED STORIES Philippines on Chinese incursions: Not ruling out another South China Sea lawsuit China says ‘monster’ ship’s presence near Scarborough Shoal ‘fully justified’ Philippines says China’s ‘monster’ ship on a mission to intimidate At the talks on Thursday, both sides acknowledged the deal’s “positive outcomes” and “agreed to continue its implementation to sustain the de-escalation of tensions without prejudice to respective national positions,” Manila’s foreign office said. Both sides also “agreed to reinvigorate the platform for coast guard cooperation” but no specific details were provided. In 2016, under then-President Rodrigo Duterte who adopted a pro-Beijing policy, the two nations’ coast guards formed the Joint Coast Guard Committee (JCGC), establishing a hotline between the two maritime law enforcement agencies. In January 2023, amid increasing tensions in the disputed waters, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to set up a communication line between their foreign ministries. But a few months later, Manila officials said that China could not be reached in times of high tensions at sea. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [China expands orphanage-style boarding schools for Uyghur children](https://ij-reportika.com/china-expands-orphanage-style-boarding-schools-for-uyghur-children/): Read RFA coverage of this story in Uyghur. Orphanage-style boarding schools for Uyghur children whose parents were detained by Xinjiang authorities in internment camps that began in 2017, remain open and are expanding in certain areas, police and teachers with knowledge of the situation said. The development comes despite claims by the Chinese government that it shut down the “re-education camps,” in which an estimated 1.8 million Uyghurs have been held. Radio Free Asia has found that at least six such schools are operating in Yarkand county of Kashgar prefecture, Kuchar township of Aksu prefecture and Keriye county of Hotan prefecture. A police officer from Yarkand county said she had been assigned to take children whose parents had been arrested to schools in six different locations. “The most recent one I took one of them to was in Arslanbagh [village],” she told Radio Free Asia. “It was a school building that already existed before, and it seemed like it was a dormitory.” “The child used to live in Arslanbagh of Yarkand, but was later moved to Lengar [village],” she said. “So far, I’ve taken orphans to six different places. All of their parents have been arrested.” China said the re-education facilities were in fact “vocation training centers” set up to combat terrorism and extremism by re-educating individuals suspected of radical views, and teaching them Mandarin Chinese and trade and job skills. But human rights groups and Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims who were in the facilities said they were not vocation training centers but detention camps where authorities forced political indoctrination and abused inmates. ‘Protecting’ children After the mass detentions began about eight years ago, authorities opened so-called “Little Angels” schools to house and indoctrinate children whose parents were detained or imprisoned. Special police officers were assigned after 2017 to gather, place and “protect” children whose parents were taken to internment camps. They worked with teachers at these orphanage-like schools to monitor the children’s psychological and ideological state, keeping detailed records. In September 2018, RFA reported that nearly 3,000 children from Keriye county, whose parents had been taken to political re-education camps, were being held in two Little Angels schools, where they took classes, Uyghur sources said at the time. The police officer from Yarkand county could not provide a figure for the number of parentless children currently or previously educated in such schools there, nor could she say when the children’s parents would be released from confinement. “We don’t have information on when the school will be closed or when their parents are getting released,” she said. She added that a new boarding preschool had been established recently in Lenger village and now accommodated about 30 children. RELATED STORIES UN experts: Xinjiang expanding forced separation of Uyghur children Uyghur children face legacy of trauma caused by mass incarceration campaign Children of detained Uyghur parents held in ‘welfare schools’ in China’s Xinjiang Boarding preschools for Uyghur children ‘clearly a step towards a policy of assimilation’: expert Uyghur children separated from parents, held in ‘Little Angels schools’ in Xinjiang For easier monitoring and management, the preschools, elementary schools, and middle schools for children whose parents are serving prison sentences have been placed side by side in some areas, the police officer from Yarkand county said. “The earliest one built is at Yarkand Bazaar,” she said. “It serves as both a primary and middle school. Recently, we’ve been taking children there.” Barbed wire The police officer from Yarkand county also said the children attending the boarding schools were well-fed and safely educated, and that other police officers guarded the entrance gates to the schools, whose outer walls were topped with barbed wire. “The school environment is good, and they are eating on time with good food provided,” she told RFA. “The first one I went to was Charibagh. They have guards at the gates, and there is barbed wire on the walls. I’m not sure how many buildings there are in the Charibagh orphanage, but it’s quite large.” A security guard who has worked for eight years at a kindergarten in Kuchar county said such boarding-schools for Uyghur children “are everywhere” in the county. “In the early days, we worked 10-20 hours each day,” he said about the time when such schools were set up. “In those days, there were very few staff members but lots of children. The kids cried all the time as their parents were taken to reeducation not too long ago.” “Now the kids are somewhat used to it,” he said, adding that there were about 300 children at the Angels School. “The younger kids are here. The older kids are in the schools outside the township and county.” A police officer from Keriye county said that children whose parents were sent for re-education were placed in a boarding school, known as the Angels School, in Yengi Osteng village, and in another location. “The second one used to be an elementary school and has remained as such and named the Angels School,” he said. “There are two schools called ‘Angels Schools’ in Yengibagh — one is a preschool, and the other is an elementary school.” Mass incarceration of Uyghurs scattered some 500,000 Uyghur children in state-run boarding schools, orphanages and other institutions run by the Chinese state, according to a 2021 report issued by the Washington-based Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy. The forcible transfer of children from one group to another was one of five acts that meet the threshold for genocide, the report said. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster. 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- [Myanmar scammers agree to stop forced labor after actor rescued](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-scammers-agree-to-stop-forced-labor-after-actor-rescued/): Pro-junta militia leaders in Myanmar and operators of online scam centers have agreed to stop human trafficking after the rescue of a Chinese actor this month raised international alarm about their operations and looks set to damage Thailand’s tourist industry. The ethnic Karen militia force based on Myanmar’s border with Thailand is suspected of enabling extensive internet fraud, human trafficking, forced labor and other crimes, and is being enriched by a business network that extends across Asia, a rights group said in a report last year. But the case of Chinese TV actor Wang Xing, rescued this month from the notorious KK Park scam facility in eastern Myanmar’s Myawaddy, has brought the issue to public attention across Asia like never before. The result has been pressure from both the Thai government and the Myanmar military, leading to a meeting on Wednesday between the militias and their business partners in which they agreed to stop human trafficking, said a businessman close to the ethnic Karen militia. “The current issue of the Chinese actor has brought pressure from Thailand and the junta council in Naypyidaw. That’s why the meeting was held to enforce rules,” the businessman, who declined to be identified as talking to the media, told Radio Free Asia. Leaders of Myawaddy-based Border Guard Force, or BGF, and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, or DKBA, which control the border zone under the auspices of the Myanmar military, agreed on a set of five rules with the business leaders, many of them ethnic Chinese, the businessman said. The list includes no use of force, threats or torture, no child labor, no income from human trafficking and no scam operations, according to a copy of the rules that the businessman cited. Anyone found breaking the rules will lose their business and be expelled from the area. RFA tried to contact senior members of the ethnic Karen forces, Maj. Naing Maung Zaw of the BGF and Lt. Gen Saw Shwe Wa of the DKBA, but neither of them answered their telephones. Leaders of Border Guard Force and Democratic Karen Buddhist Army meet online gambling business owners in Myanmar’s Myawaddy town on Jan. 15, 2025.(AEC News) The Karen militia force in power in the eastern region emerged from a split in the 1990s in Myanmar’s oldest ethnic minority guerrilla force, the largely Christian-led Karen National Union, when Buddhist fighters broke away, formed the DKBA and sided with the military. The military let the DKBA rule in areas under its control in Kayin state, set up a Border Guard Force to help the army, and to profit from cross-border trade, and later from online gambling and scam operations. RELATED STORIES Online scam centers have proliferated in some of the more lawless parts of Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia. Lao teen says she’s been released from Chinese scam center in Myanmar Scammers lure jobseeking Hong Kongers to Myanmar from Japan, Taiwan Tricking investors The scam centers in Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos have ensnared thousands of human trafficking victims from all over Asia, and as far away as Africa. Many victims say they were lured by false job offers, then forced to scam people by convincing them over the phone or online to put money into bogus investments. University of Texas researchers estimated in a report in March last year that scammers had tricked investors out of more than US$75 billion since January 2020. People forced to work at the scam centers are often tortured if they refuse to comply, victims and rights groups say. The rules announced by the militias and scam operators come after a string of high-profile kidnappings, including that of Chinese actor Wang. Hong Kong authorities have sent a task force to Thailand in a bid to rescue an estimated 12 victims in Myanmar and have imposed a yellow travel advisory for Thailand and Myanmar, warning of “signs of threat,” but without mentioning the scam parks. The Bangkok Post reported on Wednesday that Thai hotels and airlines have been getting a flood of cancellations from Chinese tour groups for the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday. Authorities in the region have accused Chinese gangsters of organizing the centers but Chinese nationals in Thailand said Chinese state-owned companies were behind operations in Myanmar, and behind them is the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department. “Wherever you have these scam parks, you will find Chinese companies plying the biggest trade,” a realtor who only gave the surname Pan for fear of reprisals recently told RFA Mandarin. “The Myawaddy park was built by Chinese state-owned companies.” Pan said the parks were the criminal face of the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s United Front outreach and influence operations. “All of the big bosses are back in China,” he said. The Justice for Myanmar human rights group has accused governments and businesses across the region of enabling the cyber scam operations by failing to take action against the profitable flows they generate. Edited by RFA Staff. 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- [Japan to raise South China Sea issue with new Trump administration](https://ij-reportika.com/japan-to-raise-south-china-sea-issue-with-new-trump-administration/): MANILA &#8212; Visiting Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya said his government hoped to impress upon incoming U.S. leader Donald Trump how important the South China Sea issue is to peace in Asia. Iwaya visited Manila on Wednesday as part of a high-profile diplomatic push by Tokyo in Southeast Asian countries that border the strategic waterway. Last week, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba traveled to Malaysia and Indonesia to promote deeper defense and economic ties. In Manila, Foreign Minister Iwaya met with his Filipino counterpart, Enrique Manalo. Overlapping claims in the South China Sea “is a legitimate concern for the international community because it directly links to regional peace and stability,” Iwaya told a press briefing afterward. “Southeast Asia is located at a strategic pivot in the Indo-Pacific and is a world growth center, thus partnership with Southeast Asia is vital for regional peace and stability,” Iwaya said through an interpreter. “We will approach the next U.S. administration to convey that constructive commitment of the United States in this region is important, also for the United States itself.” The South China Sea, which is potentially mineral-rich and a crucial corridor for international shipping, has become one of the most perilous geopolitical hot spots in recent years. China claims almost the entire waterway while the Philippines, as well as Brunei, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Taiwan have overlapping claims to parts of it. Over the past few months, Manila and Beijing have faced off in high-stakes confrontations in the disputed waters. Iwaya said he was expected to attend Trump’s inauguration in Washington on Jan. 20, during which he would seek to build momentum on a trilateral arrangement that the Philippines and Japan forged with the outgoing Biden administration. Iwaya said Tokyo “strongly opposes any attempt to unilaterally change the status quo by force” in the South China Sea, where an increasingly bold China has been intruding into the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. China has maintained its claim in the sea region, saying that the activities of its coast guard vessels there were lawful and “fully justified.” Manalo, the Philippines’ top diplomat, said Chinese and Philippine officials were set to discuss their dispute in their latest bilateral meeting in the Chinese city of Xiamen on Thursday. Both sides are likely to discuss recent developments in the waterway, including the presence of China’s biggest coast guard ship – and the world’s largest – at the contested Scarborough Shoal. RELATED STORIES Philippines on Chinese incursions: Not ruling out another South China Sea lawsuit South China Sea: 5 things to watch in 2025 US presidential elections: Implications for Manila-Washington alliance, South China Sea During the news briefing on Wednesday, Manalo said that Manila and Tokyo had made “significant strides” in defense and security cooperation. Japan does not have territorial claims that overlap with China’s expansive ones in the South China Sea, but Tokyo faces a separate territorial challenge from Beijing in the East China Sea. “As neighbors, we face similar challenges in our common pursuit of regional peace and stability. Thus, we are working together to improve resilience and enhance adaptive capacity in the face of the evolving geopolitical landscape in the Indo-Pacific region,” Manalo said. Last month, the Philippine Senate ratified a so-called Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA) with Japan, allowing the two allied nations to deploy troops on each other’s soil for military exercises. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris (left) visits a fishing community in Tagburos village on Palawan island, a frontline territory in the Philippines’ dispute with Beijing over the South China Sea, Nov. 22, 2022.(Jason Gutierrez/BenarNews) Also on Wednesday, in an exit telephone call to Marcos, outgoing U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris emphasized the need for the two countries to carry on with their alliance after the presidential transfer of power and “in the face of provocations from the People’s Republic of China.” She noted that Washington “must stand with the Philippines in the face of such provocations and the enduring nature of the U.S. defense commitments to the Philippines,” her office said in a statement. Marcos and Harris had enjoyed a close working relationship and met six times during her term. In November 2022, the American vice president visited Palawan, the Philippine island on the frontline of Manila’s territorial dispute with Beijing in the South China Sea. The U.S. and the Philippines are bound by a 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty that calls on both nations to come to each other’s aid in times of aggression by a third party. The Biden administration has indicated it would help the Philippines defend itself in the event of an armed attack “anywhere in the South China Sea.” Jeoffrey Maitem in Manila contributed to this report. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar insurgents say they launched rocket attack on junta deputy](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-insurgents-say-they-launched-rocket-attack-on-junta-deputy/): Pro-democracy fighters in Myanmar launched a barrage of rockets at junta facilities in the eastern town of Loikaw as the deputy of the ruling military council was visiting, a rebel group said on Wednesday. There was no confirmation from the junta of the Tuesday night attack and the anti-junta Brave Warriors for Myanmar, or BWM, militia force said it had no information about casualties. The group said its members fired five 107 mm rockets to the State Hall in Loikaw, capital of Kayah state, and two rockets at a regional military command headquarters in the town as junta deputy Lt. Gen. Soe Win was visiting for Kayah State Day on Wednesday. “We want to make sure that even the deputy leader of the junta council is worried about his life, that’s why we had to attack,” an official from the militia group told Radio Free Asia. He said his group was trying to gather information about the attack, which was organized with help from two other militia groups, the Mountain Knight Civilian Defense Forces and the Anti-Coup People’s Liberation Force. A Loikaw resident said that he heard loud explosions and the sound of shooting on Tuesday night while some pro-junta channels on the Telegram messaging service said rockets had exploded at Loikaw’s airport and nowhere else. RFA tried to telephone the junta spokesman for Kayah state, Zar Ni Maung, but could not get through. RELATED STORIES Internet freedom has plummeted under Myanmar’s junta: report Myanmar’s junta answers rebel proposal for talks with week of airstrikes 31 political prisoners died in prisons across Myanmar in 2024 Anti-junta forces have on several occasions used short-range 107 mm rockets in actual or planned attacks on junta leaders, including its chief, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing. It was not the first time that Lt. Gen. Soe Win has been in the vicinity of an insurgent attack. On April 8, 2024, anti-junta fighters used drones to attack the Southeast Regional Military headquarters in Mawlamyine town when he was visiting. There was speculation at the time that he had been hurt in the attack and he was not seen in public for about a month afterwards, fueling rumors he had been wounded. Military-controlled media on Wednesday made no mention of any rocket attack in Loikaw but newspapers did carry a Kayah State Day statement from the junta chief, in which he called for people to reject the armed opposition and blamed the democracy supporters and foreign countries for “terror acts.” “The current instability and terror acts occurring within the country are the result of individuals claiming to be promoting democracy, but instead, they have resorted to electoral fraud to unlawfully seize state power,” he said, apparently referring to Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, which won elections in 2015 and 2020. He made no mention of any attack in Loikaw. “Rather than resolving issues through lawful democratic methods, they have chosen armed terrorism approaches,” he said. The military complained of fraud in the 2020 polls, despite there being no evidence of any major cheating, organizers said, and ousted Suu Kyi’s government in a coup on Feb. 1, 2021. She and many others have been locked up ever since. Min Aung Hlaing also accused foreign countries of “supporting dictatorship disguised as democracy.” “Some foreign countries, which claim to be defending democracy, are also supporting and encouraging armed terror attacks that are directly or indirectly against the democratic system,” Min Aung Hlaing said. He did not identify any countries. While Aung San Suu Kyi and her government attracted diplomatic and economic support from Western countries and some Asian neighbors, no foreign governments are known to have supported any anti-junta forces. The military gets most of its weapons from Russia and China. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Heng Sithy, Cambodian tycoon turned dissident, arrested in Russia](https://ij-reportika.com/heng-sithy-cambodian-tycoon-turned-dissident-arrested-in-russia/): WASHINGTON &#8211; Heng Sithy, a Cambodian businessman who drew headlines in recent weeks after accusing a number of senior police officials and members of the ruling family of theft, corruption and fraud, was arrested on Tuesday in Russia. The immediate reason for the arrest was unknown, but Fresh News, a government-aligned paper, published a statement Tuesday from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs saying the tycoon’s passport had been revoked. In December, according to the statement, the Phnom Penh Court issued an arrest warrant for Heng Sithy on a charge of blackmail with aggravating circumstances. A friend of Heng Sithy, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for safety reasons, confirmed his arrest. The friend shared voice messages in which the tycoon made grandiose claims about his reasons for traveling to Russia, none of which could be independently verified. “Tomorrow, I am going to Moscow and on Monday I will see Putin’s cabinet regarding drones and will inspect the drones and special forces,” he said on one voice message. In another, he spoke of the need to continue unspecified plans. “We must split the work,” he told his friend. “We must convince our working groups to continue the work to establish diplomatic groups and the fighting groups, I will be in charge.” RELATED STORIES Hun Sen’s nephew trades angry statements with businessman amid lawsuit threats Report: Online cybercriminal marketplace is part of Cambodian conglomerate Cambodian Elite Park Millions in Australia Defamation allegations At 39 years old, Heng Sithy appeared to have achieved the Cambodian dream. In a country where the average income is around $1,500 a year, he was a millionaire and paid all the dues expected of millionaires in a nation defined by its patronage politics. But last month, following a reversal in his fortunes following what appears to be a business deal gone bad, it seemed something in Heng Sithy cracked. A disagreement between Heng Sithy and a Singaporean entrepreneur spilled into the courts and then onto social media. As the dispute escalated, Heng Sithy began accusing senior police officials of taking multimillion dollar bribes from the entrepreneur, who he described as running “largest online casino network in Cambodia.” All denied the allegations. The Singaporean filed a defamation suit and on Dec. 3 the Phnom Penh Court issued an arrest warrant for Heng Sithy on a charge of blackmail with aggravating circumstances. The same month, he was stripped of his oknha title — an honorific bestowed upon wealthy, charitable and well-connected tycoons. Last week, Hun To, the nephew of the former prime minister, threatened to sue Heng Sithy for alleging that he stole US$9 million from a Chinese investor who sought government approval for a mine. Prior to his trip to Russia, Heng Sithy worked with his friend to prepare an open letter to Cambodian Prime Hun Manet. “I have never done anything wrong in business instead I was set up and got robbed [of] my wealth,” he wrote, according to the text shared with RFA. Cambodia, he added in the unpublished letter, had fallen “into the trap of criminal money when we have such officers in government doing such corruption.” The open letter closed with a direct appeal to Prime Minister Hun Manet: “Cambodia needs to be in good hands, a country needs a real leader, as a leader if your heart [is]&#8230; at the right place all will be good.” Neither Heng Sithy nor National Police Spokesman Chhay Kim Khoeun could be reached for comment. Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Abby Seiff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Russian PM wants closer economic cooperation with Vietnam after trade rises 24%](https://ij-reportika.com/russian-pm-wants-closer-economic-cooperation-with-vietnam-after-trade-rises-24/): Updated Jan. 14, 2025, 06:55 a.m. ET. Vietnam and Russia are reaping the benefits of a free trade deal at a time when Moscow faces international sanctions, with bilateral trade rising by an annual 24% last year, Russia’s prime minister said as he began a two-day visit to Hanoi. “We are paying priority attention to increasing trade and economic cooperation,” Mikhail Mishustin said in talks with his Vietnamese counterpart Pham Minh Chinh on Tuesday, as quoted by Russia’s TASS news agency. “Mutual trade turnover is growing steadily.” A free trade agreement between Vietnam and the Eurasian Economic Union came into effect in 2016. During a June 2024 visit to Vietnam, Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged to boost trade. Some 11 agreements were signed after he met then-President To Lam, in areas such as nuclear power. After meeting Chinh on Tuesday, Mishustin saw the nuclear agreement bear fruit with the signing of a memorandum of understanding between Russia’s state nuclear corporation, Rosatom, and the Vietnam Electric Power Corporation, TASS said. Talks also focused on trade when Mishustin went on to meet Lam, now communist party general secretary. “My colleague and I discussed the entire list of our bilateral issues, signed a corresponding action plan for our relations until 2030, confirmed 13 roadmaps and will achieve an expansion of our trade turnover to US$15 billion by 2030,” TASS quoted the Russian prime minister as saying. Vietnam says bilateral trade was worth around US$4.6 billion last year. Russia is a long-time ally of Vietnam and they are marking the 75th year of bilateral diplomatic relations this year. Their Comprehensive Strategic Partnership puts Russia on the highest level of engagement with Vietnam alongside countries including China and the U.S. RELATED STORIES Vietnam faces Trump era with awkward trade surplus with the US Vietnam, France upgrade relations to Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Vietnam defense minister Phan Van Giang visits US to boost ties Facing international condemnation and sweeping sanctions for its invasion of Ukraine, Russia is keen to hold on to its allies in Asia. Putin has also been pursuing closer relations with North Korea, meeting leader Kim Jong Un last June just ahead of his Vietnam visit. That relationship appears to be paying off, with the U.S. claiming Kim is providing Russia with weapons and troops, while Putin has shared missile technology. Hanoi is not in a similar situation regarding the supply of arms to Moscow, given that Vietnam is heavily reliant on Russian weapons, which make up about 80% of its military might. However, there was no sign of any new Russian arms sales to Vietnam during Mishustin’s visit because of international sanctions, an analyst said. “No major arms procurement deals were signed because Western sanctions on Russia have affected international currency transactions through the SWIFT system,” said Carl Thayer, a veteran Vietnam watcher and emeritus professor at the University of New South Wales, Canberra. “During Putin’s visit last year, the two sides discussed the possibility of a ruble-đong transfer mechanism. However, as the Vietnam-Russian Joint Statement issued at the conclusion of Putin’s visit made clear, defense-security cooperation was confined to non-traditional security issues. Vietnam wants to avoid any penalties for violating Western sanctions.” Vietnam has, however, resisted calls at the U.N. to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Vietnam is also one of the biggest investors in Russia, according to Vietnamese state media. As of last November, Vietnam had 16 projects in Russia with US$1.6 billion in capital, the fourth largest of 81 countries investing there, the Vietnam News Agency said. Edited by Mike Firn. Updated to include Mishustin’s comments at a meeting with To Lam. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [China bans monks, aid workers from visiting quake-hit areas of Tibet](https://ij-reportika.com/china-bans-monks-aid-workers-from-visiting-quake-hit-areas-of-tibet/): Chinese authorities in Tibet have forbidden aid workers and Buddhist monks from entering areas of the region struck by deadly earthquakes last week, three residents of the region and a Tibetan in exile told Radio Free Asia. On Jan. 7, a magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck Dingri county, near the border of Nepal. Chinese state media says it killed 126 people, but Tibetan sources said the toll was likely higher given that at least 100 people were killed in the town of Dramtso alone. State media also said the disaster injured 337 people and displaced more than 60,000 people. Starting Monday, authorities blocked off access, preventing monks, relief volunteers and aid providers from entering the affected area under the pretext of “cleanup,” and “security work,” the residents said under condition of anonymity for safety reasons. The blocking of monks was painful for survivors because in Buddhist tradition, prayers and rituals are conducted at the end of each week for the first seven weeks after a person’s death. Tibetans in other areas of Tibet, as well as those abroad or in exile in India, Nepal, Bhutan and elsewhere, gathered Monday to offer prayers. Aftershocks Since last week’s quake, more than 1,200 aftershocks have been reported by Chinese authorities. On Monday evening, two strong aftershocks &#8212; with magnitudes of 5.1 and 4.6 &#8212; struck Dingri County’s Tsogo township (Cuoguoxiang in Chinese) and Tashizong township (Zhaxizongxiang), respectively, according to the United States Geological Survey. RELATED STORIES At least 100 dead in one Tibetan township in wake of deadly earthquake Dalai Lama says no reason to be angry at China over Tibet quake Death toll from Tibet quake rises to 126, expected to climb According to a Dingri county official quoted by Chinese state media on Monday, “no casualties have been reported so far” in the latest aftershocks. The official added that “further investigation is underway.” Information censorship The Chinese government has also been deleting photos and videos about the impact of the earthquake from social media, residents said. “Chinese state media has been focusing on propaganda activities such as having Tibetan children wave Chinese flags. They are forcing affected residents to express their gratitude to the Chinese government, and they display (Chinese President) Xi Jinping’s photos in the temporary shelters provided,” another resident said. On Sunday, Sikyong Penpa Tsering, the democratically elected leader of the Central Tibetan Administration, the government-in-exile based in Dharamshala, India, issued a statement in which he called on Beijing to “&#8230;ensure transparency and accountability in relief efforts by granting unrestricted and immediate access to international aid organizations and media delegations.” Rescue workers conduct search and rescue for survivors in the aftermath of an earthquake in Changsuo Township of Dingri in Xigaze, southwestern China&#8217;s Tibet Autonomous Region, Jan. 7, 2025.(Jigme Dorje/Xinhua News Agency/AP) “Strict information censorship by the PRC government continues to pose significant challenges in verifying the accuracy of casualty reports and assessing the adequacy of relief operations,” Tsering said. He also called on the Chinese government to “provide adequate assistance in rebuilding efforts that takes into account the traditional Tibetan needs and fundamental rights of the Tibetan people.” A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun, in a press briefing on Monday, responded to a query raised on Tsering’s statement, saying, “The disaster response and relief work is generally proceeding smoothly. We are confident in winning this tough battle of quake response and returning work and life to normal in the affected areas as soon as possible.” Translated by Tenzin Pema. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Dozens missing in mudslide at Myanmar jade mine](https://ij-reportika.com/dozens-missing-in-mudslide-at-myanmar-jade-mine/): A mudslide at a Myanmar jade mine swept over a village on Monday and eight people were confirmed killed with dozens missing, residents of the area in Kachin state said, the latest disaster in the unregulated sector in which scores of people are killed every year. The mud swept through Sa Paut village in Hpakant township before dawn on Monday, after a pond full of jade-mining slurry overflowed, residents said. The bodies of three children, two women and three men, had been found by late morning but dozens were missing, residents said. “The damage was worse as it happened at night when everyone was sleeping,” a Hpakant resident told Radio Free Asia. “There were eight bodies found by 11:30 this morning … but there may be more dead.” Residents said about 50 homes were engulfed by mud and many villagers had joined a rescue effort. KIA-controlled gold mine in Myanmar’s Tanai township, Kachin state, after bombing by the military’s air force on Jan 11, 2024.(Kachin News Group) In Kachin state’s Tanai township, 15 people were killed in an air raid on a gold mine on Saturday, residents in the area said. RFA tried to telephone the military’s spokesman for Kachin state, Moe Min Thein, for information on the situation but he did not answer. Edited by Mike Firn RELATED STORIES China undermines its interests by boosting support for Myanmar’s faltering junta Myanmar junta chief urges peace after troops suffer setbacks Myanmar’s economy to contract by 1% this year on conflict, floods: World Bank We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Unexploded WWII bombs plague Palau amid US military build-up](https://ij-reportika.com/unexploded-wwii-bombs-plague-palau-amid-us-military-build-up/): Read this story at BenarNews PELELIU, Palau — Palauan Sharla Paules surveys the contaminated ground of her lush tropical home island of Peleliu, still littered with WWII munitions 80 years after its liberation from the Japanese. She recalls as a child her grandmother warning the land was poisoned by unexploded bombs, disrupting almost every aspect of traditional life on the island. “They said after the war the soil was so contaminated they couldn’t even plant food,” said Paules, 49, who is part of a team clearing the island for the mine action group Norwegian People’s Aid. “They couldn’t plant bananas, taro, tapioca or soursop. You still can’t plant tapioca and eat it here, it’s really bad.” Roger Hess, right, and a member of the Norwegian People’s Aid clearance team inspect an abandoned WWII munition on Umurbrogal Mountain in Peleliu, Palau, Nov. 26, 2024.(Harry Pearl/BenarNews) Hess is the Palau operations manager for Norwegian People’s Aid and is preparing a clearance operation in the upper reaches of Umurbrogal Mountain, a series of jagged, jungle-covered coral ridges that was one of the main battlegrounds on Peleliu. The Type 91 grenade held by Hess is not an unusual find in Palau. “The fuse may not function, but if you put it in a fire it will blow,” he said. MORE STORIES FROM PALAU Teenagers fight US militarization of Palau with UN complaint over rights violations Patriot missile plan stirs debate in Palau ‘Respect our sovereignty’: Palau tells China The Micronesian nation is one of nine Pacific island countries contaminated by an unknown quantity of explosive weapons left behind by Japanese and Allied forces after WWII. Although international awareness about the issue in the Pacific is lower than in landmine and cluster munitions hotspots like Cambodia or Africa’s Sahel region, experts say potentially lethal munitions are scattered across the region’s lagoons, beaches and jungles. U.S. Marines move up to the front lines over terrain denuded by the bombardment of Peleliu to mop-up Japanese forces, Oct. 12, 1944.(AP) At the time of their deaths, Raziv Hilly and Charles Noda were part of a group cooking over a backyard fire pit without realising the WWII-era projectile was buried beneath the ground. While media reports occasionally highlight the deadly threat, there are no formal systems in place to track accidents or gather comprehensive data on the extent of contamination in Pacific island nations, according to nongovernmental organizations. In 2012, the Pacific Island Forum, PIF, endorsed a regional UXO strategy that aimed to mobilize and coordinate efforts to tackle the problem. But according to people familiar with the plan, after an initial burst of energy, including two regional conferences in Palau and the Australian city of Brisbane, little progress has been made in recent years. The PIF did not immediately respond to BenarNews requests for an update on the strategy. Palauan Sharla Paules is part of NPA’s survey and clearance team in Peleliu, pictured on Nov. 26, 2024. (Harry Pearl/BenarNews) In 2023, the Pacific region saw an increase in funding for clearance of ERW. The U.S., Australia and Japan raised financial support for Solomon Islands and Palau, and made new investments in Kiribati and the Marshall Islands, according to the 2024 report produced by the Landmine and Cluster Munitions Monitor. Eliseussen said geopolitical “tension with China” partly explained the renewed attention and additional resources for the problem in the Pacific. Last year on Peleliu, U.S. Marines completed a $400 million rehabilitation of a WWII-era Japanese airfield, including removing UXOs at the site. It will allow fixed-wing aircraft to operate to enhance the U.S. military’s strategic capabilities in response to China’s ambitions in the South China Sea and Pacific region. Between 2021 and 23, the U.S. Department of State provided Solomon Islands with $4.5 million for clearance, $1.5 million for Palau and smaller amounts for Marshall Islands, Fiji and Papua New Guinea. John Rodsted, a researcher at SafeGround, said international donors like the U.S., Australia and Japan needed to step up assistance to rid the Pacific of UXOs and take a long-term approach to funding. He added that the Japanese in particular “should put their hands in their pockets and actually help clear this stuff up.” Contaminated soil Since NPA began survey and clearance in Palau in 2016, it has found 10,844 ERW scattered across the country, according to its records. Hess could not say if Peleliu – with a population of about 500 people – would ever be free of ERW, but based on the ferocity of fighting there were “probably still around 100 suspected hazardous areas.” A member of the clearance team from the mine action group Norwegian People’s Aid peers into an American tank abandoned after WWII in Peleliu, Palau, Nov. 26, 2024. (Harry Pearl/BenarNews) On a recent survey of Umurbrogal Mountain, the detritus of war was obvious to see – mortars, rockets and shells dotted the ground. Weeks earlier, NPA staff found the remnants of a suspected landmine outside a cave while accompanying Japanese personnel searching for soldiers’ remains, Hess said. “The biggest threat to public safety are white phosphorus munitions that were fired from 81 mm mortars,” he said, referring to the incendiary weapons that ignite on contact with oxygen. Not everything discovered is hazardous, but such items are marked with yellow-tipped stakes and white spray paint and their GPS coordinates recorded for retrieval later that day. After the munitions are collected, they are moved to a makeshift storage facility near the Peleliu’s trash heap, then transported to a disposal site on the nearby state of Koror, where they are cut open and burned out. The work is slow going – and decades late – but according to locals like Paules, it’s starting to make a difference. “When I was little, we saw a lot of [munitions] on the side of the street. Nowadays we don’t see so much,” she said. BenarNews is an online news outlet affiliated with Radio Free Asia. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys...
- [Man wanted in Lim Kimya murder is Cambodian official’s brother, records show](https://ij-reportika.com/man-wanted-in-lim-kimya-murder-is-cambodian-officials-brother-records-show/): A Cambodian man who is wanted by Thai police in connection to the murder of a former opposition lawmaker is the brother of Pich Sros, a politician who initiated proceedings against the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, or CNRP, that led to its 2017 dissolution, and holds a minor government position. On Tuesday, Lim Kimya, a former CNRP member of parliament, was gunned down in central Bangkok. One suspect in the murder — Ekalak Paenoi, a former Thai marine — was arrested on Wednesday in Cambodia’s Battambang province and as of this writing is still in the country pending extradition to Thailand. But a second man, believed to be the so-called “spotter” in the murder who followed Lim Kimya on a bus from Cambodia to Thailand, remains at large. Pich Sros, founder of the Cambodian Youth Party.(Fresh News) Pich Sros is also a member of the Supreme Consultative Council, an ad hoc body created by then-Prime Minister Hun Sen in 2018 to include smaller political parties who did not have any seats but were included in the new body to advise the government. Though the party failed to win any seats in 2018 or 2023, CYP joined the council with the lead representative, in this case Pich Sros, given a rank equal to a cabinet minister. Cambodians in the country and abroad expressed anger with both the murder and what they see as the government’s seeming disinterest in investigating the case. Thit Kimhun, a CNRP official, told RFA the opposition party would hold ceremonies for the slain politician in Long Beach, California, and Lowell, Massachusetts, on Jan. 19, while others would be hosted in France, Japan and South Korea. “We won’t allow this injustice to happen in Cambodia and now in Thailand,” she said. “We will continue to investigate and demand justice for Lim Kimya and his family.” In Springvale, Australia, a seven-day memorial ceremony will begin Jan. 12 with the local Cambodian community urging the Thai and Australian governments to investigate, said Chea Yohorn, president of the Khmer Association of Victoria. “The suspect is not an unknown guy,” Seng Sary, a political analyst based in Australia, told RFA. “He is a brother of Pich Sros. Giving justice to Lim Kimya will restore Cambodia’s reputation. We shouldn’t let him escape.” Calls to Pich Sros went unanswered Friday but earlier in the day he posted a photo to Facebook showing journalists packed tightly around an unseen figure, cameras and microphones shoved toward his face. The image depicts then-U.S. Ambassador Patrick Murphy speaking with reporters outside the trial of Kem Sokha. Above the photo, Pich Sros wrote a pithy note: “journalists have the right to ask questions/ but don’t have right to force people for answers/ journalists have the rights to ask/ but don’t have the right to demand for answers according to what they want.” We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar junta bans 7 books with LGBTQ+ themes](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-bans-7-books-with-lgbtq-themes/): Myanmar has banned seven books because of their LGBTQ+ content and will take legal action against their publishers, the military government announced, adding that the books were “obscene” and socially unacceptable. The banned domestically published books are “A Butterfly Rests on My Heart” by Aung Khant, “1500 Miles to You” and “Love Planted by Hate” by Mahura, Myint Mo’s “Tie the Knot of Love”, “Match Made in Clouds” by DiDi Zaw, “DISO+Extra” by Red in Peace and “Concerned Person U Wai” by Vivian, the Ministry of Information said. “These books are not accepted by Myanmar society, they are shameless and the content that can mislead the thinking and feelings of young people,” the Ministry of Information said in a statement published in state-run media on Thursday. LGBTQ+ people face widespread prejudice in socially conservative Myanmar, where British colonial-era legislation criminalises gay sex with up to 10 years in jail. The LGBTQ+ community made some advances during nearly a decade of tentative reforms, when the military partially stepped back from power to let a civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi rule, establishing some rights groups and holding festivals. But the democratic experiment ended in February 2021 when the military ousted Suu Kyi’s government and cracked down on dissent, with LBGTQ+ people among those who have been particularly hard hit, U.N. rights investigators have said. The ministry said the publishers of the seven books by Myanmar authors had broken the law by putting out obscene literature without permission and prosecutions would take place. Radio Free Asia tried to contact some of the publishers and authors of the banned books but was not able to. RELATED STORIES Junta censors tighten grip on Myanmar film industry Myanmar’s junta cuts filmmaker’s life sentence to 15 years as part of wider amnesty Myanmar’s junta shuts down publisher for distributing book on Rohingya genocide One reader in the main city of Yangon said he could not understand why the books were banned. While most were about LGBTQ+ people, they were not obscene, he told RFA. “These books can be read for entertainment. I don’t think they’re dirty,” said the reader, who highlighted strong characters in DiDi Zaw’s “Match Made in Clouds.” One Myanmar author, not among those whose books were banned, told RFA that while the expression of sexuality might be considered obscene, there was also the issue of free expression. “It doesn’t mean that obscenity should be allowed but banning books violates freedom of expression,” said the author who declined to be identified for security reasons. One member of the LGBTQ+ community said the military represented oppressive chauvinism. “The army is dominated by chauvinism. So women, children and LGBT people will always be oppressed,” the community member who also declined to be identified told RFA. “Taking action against books published about LGBT people but considered obscene is oppressing us … It makes me think we have to work harder in the revolution against the junta.” The U.N. Human Rights Council said in a report last year that Myanmar’s 2021 coup had precipitated an unprecedented human rights crisis. “Women, girls, and LGBT people are severely and uniquely impacted by this crisis, yet these impacts are all too often obscured and ignored by the international community,” it said. Edited by Mike Firn We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Dalai Lama says no reason to be angry at China over Tibet quake](https://ij-reportika.com/dalai-lama-says-no-reason-to-be-angry-at-china-over-tibet-quake/): Read RFA coverage of this story in Tibetan. In a prayer ceremony for victims of Monday’s earthquake in Tibet, the Dalai Lama told listeners that because it was a natural disaster and “not caused by political tensions,” there was no reason to be angry with Chinese authorities. The magnitude 7.1 quake left 126 people dead and destroyed 3,600 houses, according to Chinese officials — although Tibetans inside Tibet say the death toll probably exceeds 200. “Even though it is in our human nature, do not feel dispirited or doomed by such disasters,” the Dalai Lama told more than 12,000 Buddhist clergy members gathered for a ceremony in southern India on Thursday. “It helps to think that events like earthquakes are natural disasters and not caused by political tensions. The 7.1-magnitude earthquake killed scores of people and damaged thousands of homes. “There is no reason to show anger or hatred towards China,” he said. “Hence, Tibetans inside and outside Tibet should develop a kinder, more compassionate heart.” Still, Tibetans are disturbed that Chinese authorities have called off search-and-rescue operations, promoted the government’s official relief work, and banned them from sharing photos or videos about the quake on social media. The earthquake was centered around Dingri and Shigatse, close to the border with Nepal, in the southern part of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, controlled by China. ‘Meditate upon compassion’ The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, who is visiting the South Indian town of Bylakuppe — which has the largest Tibetan settlement in the world outside Tibet — counseled Tibetans not to lose heart in the face of the natural disaster. Instead, he urged them to transform this tragedy into a condition for the practice of compassion and spiritual growth and enlightenment. The Dalai Lama, right, leads prayers at a monastery in Bylakuppe, India, Jan. 9, 2025, in solidarity with those affected by the earthquake that hit the Tibet Autonomous Region in western China.(Tenzin Choejor/AP) But Tibetans continued to conduct their own rescue efforts in villages on Thursday, two sources in Tibet’s capital Lhasa told Radio Free Asia. A third source told RFA that Chinese authorities stopped operations to recover bodies from the ruins, even as the general public continued to retrieve them from the rubble on Thursday. Most of the casualties were elderly people and children because many young people were away at work when the temblor struck, the source said. Li Ling, deputy director of the TAR’s Special Disaster Investigation Office, attributed the earthquake to tectonic plate movement and blamed the high casualty numbers on poorly constructed traditional buildings. The Shigatse government has ordered residents not to post earthquake-related photos and videos on social media, saying it would harm rescue efforts and threatening severe punishment for violators, the two Lhasa sources said. RELATED STORIES Death toll from Tibet quake rises to 126, expected to climb 7.1-magnitude earthquake strikes Tibet, leaving many dead Dozens killed as 7.1-magnitude earthquake hits Tibet Chinese authorities are restricting documentation of the actual situation and local rescue efforts while heavily promoting official government relief operations, they added. They are also preventing people from taking photos or sharing information about casualties and damage. One of the sources reported that after three days, some remote areas still hadn’t received government assistance. Many villagers are sleeping in damaged building compounds without food, a source from the quake-affected region said. In Dingri’s Dramtso village alone, over 20 people died, and the Dzongphug Nunnery suffered severe damage, killing two nuns and injuring many others. Residents still had not received aid by the Wednesday afternoon, said one of the Lhasa sources. The Dewachen Monastery in Dingri’s Chulho township was completely destroyed, he added. Translated by RFA Tibetan. Edited by Tenzin Pema for RFA Tibetan, and by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar junta bombs Rohingya Muslim village killing 41, rescuers say](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-bombs-rohingya-muslim-village-killing-41-rescuers-say/): The Myanmar air force has bombed a fishing village in Rakhine state killing 41 civilians and wounding 52, most of them Rohingya Muslims, residents involved in rescue work said on Thursday, in an attack insurgents condemned as a war crime. Military planes bombed Kyauk Ni Maw village on the coast in Ramree township on Wednesday afternoon sparking huge fires that destroyed about 600 homes, residents said, sending clouds of black smoke up over the sea. The area is under the control of anti-junta Arakan Army, or AA, insurgents but a spokesman said no fighting was going on there at the time of the air raid. “The targeting of innocent people where there is no fighting is a very despicable and cowardly act … as well as a blatant war crime,” AA spokesman Khaing Thu Kha told Radio Free Asia. Villagers survey ruins in Kyauk Ni Maw village in Rakhine state after a Myanmar air force raid on Jan. 8, 2025.(Arakan Princess Media) RELATED STORIES Myanmar’s Arakan Army takes a major town, says ready for talks Myanmar’s junta answers rebel proposal for talks with week of deadly airstrikes EXPLAINED: What is Myanmar’s Arakan Army? The AA has made unprecedented gains against the military since late last year and now controls about 80% of Myanmar’s westernmost state. On Dec. 29, the AA captured the town of Gwa from the military, a major step toward its goal of taking the whole of Rakhine state, and then said it was ready for talks with the junta, which seized power in a February 2021 coup d’etat. But the junta has responded with deadly airstrikes, residents say. The military denies targeting civilians but human rights investigators and security analysts say Myanmar’s army has a long reputation of indiscriminate attacks in civilian areas as a way to undermine popular support for the various rebel forces fighting its rule. “The military is showing its fangs with its planes, that people can be killed at any time, at will,” aid worker Wai Hin Aung told RFA. Villagers watch homes burning in Kyauk Ni Maw village, in Rakhine state, after a raid by the Myanmar air force on Jan. 8, 2025.(Arakan Princess Media) The bombing of Kyauk Ni Maw is the latest bloody attack on members of the persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority. About 740,000 Rohingya fled from Rakhine state to neighboring Bangladesh following a bloody crackdown by the military against members of the largely stateless community in August 2017. Over the past year, Rohingya have suffered violence at the hands of both sides in the Rakhine state’s war, U.N. rights investigators have said. The AA took a hard line with the Rohingya after the junta launched a campaign to recruit, at times forcibly, Rohingya men into militias to fight the insurgents. On Aug. 5, scores of Rohingya trying to flee from the town of Maungdaw to Bangladesh, across a border river, were killed by drones and artillery fire that survivors and rights groups said was unleashed by the AA. The AA denied responsibility. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Landowners restrict public access to hundreds of religious sites in Myanmar’s Bagan](https://ij-reportika.com/landowners-restrict-public-access-to-hundreds-of-religious-sites-in-myanmars-bagan/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. Around 400 ancient religious monuments in Myanmar’s U.N.-designated World Heritage Site of Bagan are located on privately-held land, according to residents, who say access is restricted and maintenance is unregulated. The monuments — which include pagodas, stupas and temples — are on the property of private businesses and state-owned agencies, away from public view and oversight, the residents told RFA Burmese, speaking on condition of anonymity due to fear of reprisals. A resident of Mandalay region’s Nyaung-U township, located about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) from old Bagan, said that without easy access to the monuments, it’s unclear whether they are being properly maintained. The Eden Group, which is developing a hotel, owns land with at least 24 temples, including the Agga Tae and Paungku temples, the resident said. “The fenced-in sections have never been fully protected,” he said, and it isn’t easy for the public to get access to the compounds. A man takes a selfie with an ancient pagoda to celebrate Bagan being named as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Bagan, Myanmar, July 27, 2019.(Ann Wang/Reuters) A source close to the Department of Archaeology and National Museum said that the pagodas are being repaired and maintained. “When necessary, we carry out maintenance,” the source said, noting that workers use chemicals to kill trees that grow on top of the monuments. “As for the pagodas in private compounds, we have the right to maintain all these monuments.” The source went on to say that laws, rules and regulations have been enacted to prohibit the construction of buildings near the pagoda area, including high-rise buildings. Nyi Mon, director of the Department of Archaeology and National Museum (Bagan), confirmed that officials from his agency are “constantly inspecting pagodas in the hotel compounds to ensure that preservation work is unaffected.” He dismissed claims that monuments located within hotel compounds are inaccessible to the public, and said that maintenance is regularly carried out on the sites “with international technology and advice.” ‘As if they belong to someone’ But a resident of Bagan pointed out that many of the sites lie behind locked gates, “as if they belong to someone.” “Vinyl sticker sign boards outside display the pagoda’s code number, name, and the maximum number of visitors allowed at a time,” he said. “However, the temples remain locked, and only archaeological staff are authorized to hold the keys.” “Since these heritage sites are managed by the private sector, concerns have been raised about their authenticity and credibility,” he added. Temples in Bagan, Myanmar&#8217;s central Mandalay Region, July 7, 2024.(Sai Aung Main/AFP) Myanmar’s prior military regime forcibly evicted residents of Bagan to the so-called “New Bagan City” during the 1990s under the pretext that their homes were located within cultural heritage sites. Nonetheless, ancient pagodas of great historic value still exist on land owned by prominent businessmen and state agencies. Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [A Chinese international student and activist goes missing during a trip home](https://ij-reportika.com/a-chinese-international-student-and-activist-goes-missing-during-a-trip-home/): A 22-year-old Chinese student-activist, Zhang Yadi, has gone missing in China after returning from France. Rights groups say her case highlights Beijing’s transnational repression of overseas activists and growing crackdowns on Tibet-related advocacy.
- [Thai security forces clash with Cambodian protesters at disputed border](https://ij-reportika.com/thai-security-forces-clash-with-cambodian-protesters-at-disputed-border/): Thai security forces fired tear gas and rubber bullets as they clashed with Cambodian protesters on Wednesday in a disputed border area. It’s the most significant escalation since they declared a ceasefire to end a deadly five-day conflict in July. Video: Thai security forces clash with Cambodian protesters at disputed borderThe clash took place at a disputed frontier settlement, which Thailand says is part of its Ban Nong Ya Kaew village in Sa Kaeo province, but Cambodia says is part of Prey Chan village in Bantheay Meanchey province. On Wednesday, Cambodia’s information minister Neth Pheaktra accused Thai officials of encroaching across the border, and said they used “tear gas, rubber bullets and noise-making devices against Cambodian civilians.” According to Cambodian government spokesperson Pen Bona, Thai forces used violence to suppress unarmed Cambodian civilians and monks who were protesting peacefully. Cambodian officials said more than two dozen Cambodians were injured in the clash. Thai Army spokesperson Maj. Gen. Winthai Suvaree described the situation as a Cambodian mob encroaching on Thai territory, obstructing operations and destroying official property. He said Thai authorities regarded the incident as a provocation and an intentional violation of the ceasefire agreement. This image released by Agence Kampuchea Presse shows Thai soldiers carrying barbed wire in a disputed Thai-Cambodia border in Banteay Meanchey province, Sept. 17, 2025.(Agence Kampuchea Presse via AFP) On Wednesday, Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Manet called for international intervention, urging pressure on Thailand to respect the ceasefire and fully adhere to Cambodia-Thailand agreements. The two nations’ competing territorial claims stem largely from a 1907 map drawn when Cambodia was under French colonial rule, which Thailand has argued is inaccurate. The International Court of Justice in 1962 awarded sovereignty to Cambodia over an area that included the 1,000-year-old Preah Vihear temple, which still riles many Thais. The court has since reaffirmed its judgement. In June, Cambodia proposed returning to the international court to sort out the border in the disputed areas, a proposal Thailand firmly rejected. With reporting by Pimuk Rakkanam, RFA Khmer, Reuters and AP. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Philippines, China Ships Collide in Scarborough Shoal Skirmish](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-philippine-ships-collide-in-south-china-sea/): A tense standoff between Chinese and Philippine vessels in the disputed South China Sea turned violent on Tuesday, with ships colliding and water cannons allegedly causing injuries and damage.
- [Analysis: Kim Jong Un’s daughter steps into ‘successor spotlight’](https://ij-reportika.com/analysis-kim-jong-uns-daughter-steps-into-successor-spotlight/): RFA Perspectives — North Korea’s Kim Jong-un recently visited Beijing with his daughter, Kim Ju Ae. South Korea’s intelligence agency suggests she may be stepping into the “successor spotlight.” Video: Kim Jong Un&#8217;s daughter could be North Korea successorMany expected Kim Ju Ae to appear at Beijing’s iconic sites, similar to how Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko’s son, Nikolai, appeared at China’s Tiananmen military parade 10 years ago. But that didn’t happen. During Kim Jong-un’s 54-hour stay, Kim Ju Ae was never seen at official events. According to the South Korean spy agency, she mainly stayed at the North Korean embassy, avoiding public exposure. Still, the agency believes Kim Ju Ae is a likely future leader. Reuters(North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his sister Kim Yo Jong attend a meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in at the Peace House at the truce village of Panmunjom inside the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, South Korea, April 27, 2018. ) “I’ve always believed since we heard news about the daughter of Kim Jong-un, that being a member of this family with the Paektu lineage would be more important than the gender,” Jean H. Lee, a North Korea expert and Presidential Chair of the East-West Center. “And similarly, if you look at monarchies of the past in a very. I think male-dominated eras, countries that being a member of that family, whether you’re male or female, have been more important.” We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Analysis: Nepal’s protests are being closely watched in Vietnam](https://ij-reportika.com/analysis-nepals-protests-are-being-closely-watched-in-vietnam/): RFA Perspectives — Nepal’s streets have exploded in protest. Thousands of young people, angered by a government ban on social media, are standing up against corruption and inequality. In Vietnam, the youth are watching closely, because Nepal’s story feels eerily familiar. Video: Why Vietnam is paying attention to the protests in NepalWhy Vietnam cares So why are Vietnamese youth paying attention to what’s happening in Nepal? Because Nepal’s uprising highlights struggles they know all too well. Censorship, corruption, unemployment, and the communist party &#8211; these challenges echo in both societies. For Vietnam’s younger generation, Nepal’s story is not only a warning, but also a source of reflection and, perhaps, inspiration. Social media control The protest in Nepal was triggered by the state’s decision to block social media platforms, including Facebook, WhatsApp, and YouTube. In Vietnam, social media is tightly monitored, with posts taken down and activists punished. For both countries, digital spaces aren’t just entertainment; they are lifelines for free expression and e-commerce. When governments try to silence them, the youth push back. Protesters take selfies and celebrate at the Singha Durbar, the seat of Nepal&#8217;s government&#8217;s various ministries and offices, after it was set on fire during a protest against social media ban and corruption in Kathmandu, Nepal, Sept. 9, 2025.(Niranjan Shrestha/AP) When a fellow communist party-led system shows cracks, it challenges the narrative that Vietnamese citizens have heard for decades. In both countries, young people feel decisions are made without them, and often at their expense. In closing As Nepal’s protests unfold, Vietnamese youth are watching with interest. The events in Nepal may not predict Vietnam’s future, but they highlight questions many young people across Asia are asking today. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar election results expected at end of January, official says](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-election-results-expected-at-end-of-january-official-says/): An official from the commission set up by Myanmar’s ruling military junta to oversee upcoming elections said Thursday that the results of the widely disputed poll will be available by the end of January. At a news conference in Naypyidaw, Myanmar’s capital, election officials said that six parties would run for nationwide seats, while another 51 others would compete in individual states or regions. The vote is scheduled to be held in three phases beginning on Dec. 28, with two weeks between each phase, officials said. The military announced the election regime in July, the first national vote since the 2021 coup that ousted Myanmar’s democratically elected government and plunged the country into civil war. It also set up an interim government with military chief Min Aung Hlaing retaining power as interim president. The military doesn’t control all of Myanmar. Vast swaths are administered by a range of armed militias, ethnic groups and pro-democracy fighters, some in open, armed conflict with the ruling junta. At the press conference, election council member Khin Maung Oo noted 63 areas “which have security risks.” “We will continue working until we can hold [the vote],” he said. The military has framed the election as a way to end the conflict. Critics have called the election a sham, saying the military would retain power regardless of the vote. However, criticism of the election is illegal in Myanmar. State-run media reported on Wednesday that a 36-year-old man in eastern Shan state was sentenced to seven years of hard labor for a Facebook post that contained surveillance video of a robbery and criticized the military junta for prioritizing the election over public safety. It was the first known conviction under a new law, enacted in July, that criminalized speech or actions that might disrupt the election or the tools used to conduct it. Includes reporting from Agence France-Presse and the Associated Press. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [China to Create “Nature Reserve” on Disputed Scarborough Shoal](https://ij-reportika.com/china-says-it-will-create-nature-reserve-on-disputed-scarborough-shoal/): China announced on Wednesday that it will establish a nature reserve on Scarborough Shoal, a contested chain of reefs and rocks in the South China Sea, sparking renewed concerns about Beijing’s expanding territorial ambitions in the region.
- [Chinese-Built $2 Billion Airport Opens Near Phnom Penh](https://ij-reportika.com/2-billion-chinese-built-airport-opens-in-cambodia/): The inaugural flight — an Air Cambodia plane from China — was greeted with a ceremonial water salute, marking the official opening of the three-runway, 10-square-mile airport located about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the capital.
- [Myanmar’s Suu Kyi faces worsening health in military custody, son says](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-suu-kyi-faces-worsening-health-in-military-custody-son-says/): The son of former Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi said on Friday that his mother is suffering from health problems and needs urgent medical attention, appealing for her release from military custody.  Kim Aris told Reuters that the 80-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate had asked to see a cardiologist about a month ago, but that he wasn’t able to determine if that request had been granted.
- [U.S. House passes Uyghur Policy Act supporting victims of persecution by China](https://ij-reportika.com/u-s-house-passes-uyghur-policy-act-supporting-victims-of-persecution-by-china/): WASHINGTON — The House passed the Uyghur Policy Act on Tuesday, a bill that advances a strategy for the United States to support Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities enduring persecution at the hands of China’s government.
- [Kim, Putin, Xi share world stage at China’s military parade](https://ij-reportika.com/kim-putin-xi-share-world-stage-at-chinas-military-parade/): Enormous intercontinental ballistic missiles, new underwater drones, laser weapons and other military hardware paraded across Beijing’s Tiananmen Square for 90 minutes on Wednesday — a commemoration of 80 years since the Japanese surrender that ended World War II and a showcase of modern Chinese military might.
- [North Korea’s Kim Jong Un arrives in Beijing for military parade](https://ij-reportika.com/north-koreas-kim-jong-un-arrives-in-beijing-for-military-parade/): North Korean leader Kim Jong Un arrived in Beijing on Tuesday, ahead of a massive Chinese military parade on Wednesday that will celebrate 80 years since the Japanese defeat that ended World War II. Kim and his daughter Kim Ju Ae arrived at around 4 p.m. on a green train bedecked with North Korean flags. They were met at the Beijing train station by Cai Qui, China’s fifth-highest ranked official, and foreign minister Wang Yi. It’s the North Korean leader’s second reported trip abroad in six years, and his first trip to China since 2019. The event at Tiananmen Square is expected to include troops marching in formation, aircraft flyovers, displays of military equipment and some 50,000 spectators. But many eyes will be on the VIP audience, where Kim is expected to rub shoulders with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, among others. While Kim has engaged bilaterally with Xi and Putin in recent months, this will be their first gathering together. Analysts say they’ll be looking for signs of strengthening ties among the three countries. Earlier on Tuesday, Xi met with Putin at the Great Hall of the People and then again at his residence. That followed a summit on Monday in which Xi and Putin met with leaders from more than 20 non-Western countries. Among them was Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India, who talked with both Xi and Putin. Includes reporting from Agence France-Presse and Reuters. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [North Korea’s Kim Jong Un to attend military parade in China](https://ij-reportika.com/north-koreas-kim-jong-un-to-attend-military-parade-in-china/): Chinese President Xi Jinping extended Kim’s invitation to the event, which marks 80 years since Japan’s surrender in World War II, North Korean state media reported Thursday. Kim will be among 26 foreign leaders who are expected to attend, including Russian President Vladimir Putin.
- [Damaged Chinese ship now under repair, satellite images show](https://ij-reportika.com/damaged-chinese-ship-now-under-repair-satellite-images-show/): The Chinese coast guard ship that was damaged in a collision with another Chinese vessel in the South China Sea earlier this month is now being repaired at Hainan Island, according to satellite images published by Reuters.
- [Cambodian lawmakers pass bill allowing government to revoke citizenship](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-lawmakers-pass-bill-allowing-government-to-revoke-citizenship/): Lawmakers in Phnom Penh on Monday approved a law that will allow the government to strip Cambodian citizenship from people convicted of conspiring with foreign governments against the national interest.
- [Chinese Influence Operations in Bangladesh](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-influence-operations-in-bangladesh/): China’s influence in Bangladesh is expanding beyond trade and infrastructure into media, academia, and social networks. This report uncovers how Beijing’s propaganda and soft power strategies are reshaping narratives, fueling pro-China sentiment, and amplifying anti-India rhetoric across the country.
- [Philippine defense chief condemns Chinese activity near Second Thomas Shoal](https://ij-reportika.com/philippine-defense-chief-condemns-chinese-activity-near-second-thomas-shoal/): China has deployed an array of armed coast guard forces near the disputed Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea — one in a series of Chinese actions that the Philippines’ defense chief on Friday called “a matter not only of concern but of condemnation.” Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro spoke Friday during a joint press conference with Richard Marles, the defense chief for Australia, as the two countries engaged in combat drills that began Aug. 15 and worked toward an enhanced joint defense pact. “We work really closely with the Philippines in terms of asserting the rules-based order in the South China Sea,” Marles said. “That’s really important for us to jointly do.” The Philippine military reported this week that China has deployed coast guard and militia ships in the area, as well as a cadre of speedboats, some fitted with high-caliber machine guns. A helicopter and a drone were also reported in the area. According to the Philippine report, one of China’s boats came within 50 meters of the Sierra Madre, a warship that the Philippines deliberately grounded in 1999 to serve as a base of operations on Second Thomas Shoal. Two Filipino boats were deployed to keep the Chinese from coming closer, the Philippine military said. Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro, right, shakes hands with his Australian counterpart Richard Marles prior to their meeting at a hotel in Makati, Philippines, on Friday, Aug. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)(Aaron Favila/AP) China’s coast guard on Friday released a statement warning the Philippines to “immediately stop all infringement activities, provocations and false accusations” in the area, saying it would continue to “carry out law enforcement activities.” The Philippines and China have long fought and negotiated over territory in the South China Sea. Second Thomas Shoal sits within the Philippines’ U.N.-defined exclusive economic zone. It’s also within the wide swath of the sea that China claims as part of its maritime territory. In March, the Philippines accused China of “deceptive messaging” after state-run television accused the Philippine military of burning trash aboard the Sierra Madre. Last June, members of China’s coast guard used pikes and machetes to puncture Philippine boats and seized firearms during a Philippine mission to resupply the Sierra Madre. By December, China said it had granted permission for such resupply missions on humanitarian grounds. Philippine fishermen told RFA’s BenarNews last year that the heavy presence of Chinese vessels caused them to send out fewer boats, leading to a reduced catch and economic hardship. Includes reporting from The Associated Press. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [RFA wins two National Murrow awards for Myanmar coverage](https://ij-reportika.com/rfa-wins-two-national-murrow-awards-for-myanmar-coverage/): Recognition comes as military junta and China dominate Burmese information space WASHINGTON – Radio Free Asia (RFA) has won two National Edward R. Murrow awards for chronicling the struggles facing young people from post-coup Myanmar. The recognition for this coverage comes as RFA was forced to suspend much of its news-gathering operations due to the U.S. Agency for Global Media’s illegal cancellation of its grant and RFA’s uncertain future. “It is hard to believe that right now, Myanmar’s media is dominated by its military junta and China,” said Bay Fang, RFA President and CEO. “Challenging those narratives through hard-hitting, fact-based reporting has been RFA’s mandated mission by the U.S. Congress. “These awards serve as a stark reminder of RFA’s critical role in the Asia-Pacific region even as many of our language services, including RFA Burmese, have gone silent.” The multimedia feature Myanmar’s Gen-Z fighting for a nation’s future, produced last November, includes videos, images and text profiling the challenges and resilience of the generation coming of age after the February 2021 military takeover. An RFA team based outside the country returned to Myanmar to speak to people on the front lines in one eastern region to learn about their stories – and their hopes for the revival of their blood-stained country. More than three years of fighting has displaced more than 3 million people inside the country, and refugees continue to spill across borders to the west, south and east. While the military maintains control of the country’s largest cities, anti-junta forces have made unprecedented territorial gains. A 2023 survey of Myanmar found more than 5.1 million Myanmar adults accessed RFA content regularly either online or through shortwave broadcasts. The awards will be presented by the Radio Television and Digital News Association in New York on the evening of October 13. State of play at RFA: Until March, RFA was one of the only international outlets to have a sustained in-country presence since the 2021 military coup. RFA’s Burmese Service was forced to stop operations after the USAGM in March 2025 illegally cancelled the grant that funds Radio Free Asia. At present, 90 percent of RFA’s staff has been either put on unpaid leave or has resigned. RFA continues to fight the illegal termination of its grant funds. The matter is currently being litigated in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, with a hearing scheduled for late September. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [An ALL PROPAGANDA visit of Chinese Xi to Tibet to mark 60 years of contested rule](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-xi-makes-a-rare-visit-to-tibet-to-mark-60-years-of-contested-rule/):  Chinese leader Xi Jinping made a rare visit to Tibet on Wednesday to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Tibet Autonomous Region 
- [Hong Kong activists granted asylum in U.K., Australia](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-activists-granted-asylum-in-u-k-australia/): Two Hong Kong pro-democracy advocates have announced that they have been granted asylum: former lawmaker Ted Hui in Australia and activist Tony Chung in the U.K.
- [Myanmar’s ruling junta sets Dec. 28 election date as civil war rages](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmars-ruling-junta-sets-dec-28-election-date-as-civil-war-rages/): The military-backed election commission in Myanmar set Dec. 28 for the initial phase of long-promised elections, the first since the 2021 coup that overthrew the country’s last elected government and kicked off a still-raging civil war. Junta leadership nominally transferred power to an interim government last month in preparation for the elections. Last week, Min Aung Hlaing, the military chief and acting president, called for increased security to protect politicians and voters, warning of a rise in attacks on civil servants, according to the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper. International observers have framed the elections as a charade to keep Min Aung Hlaing and his generals in power. Critics point to a lack of free media in Myanmar, and that most officials in the last elected government, including leader Aung San Suu Kyi, have been arrested. U.N. reports detail a regime of torture inflicted on those the military has detained. It’s also unclear how a truly national election could take place in Myanmar. Control of the country splintered after the coup, with parts of the country held by bands of pro-democracy fighters or ethnic rebel groups, some of whom have pledged to block polls in their areas. “I don’t think the election will hold any significance for the people,” a 63-year-old citizen in the western state of Rakhine told Agence France-Presse. “I think this election is only being held to give power to military dictators until the world ends.” Meanwhile, clashes continue in Myanmar’s civil war, which has killed thousands, spawned rampant poverty, and left more than 3.5 million people displaced, nearly 40 percent of whom are children. On Sunday, at least 24 people were reportedly killed after the military bombed a hospital in Mawchi, a small town in Kayah state, the Associated Press reported. Includes reporting from the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, and Reuters. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [North Korea’s Kim, Putin vow cooperation in phone call](https://ij-reportika.com/north-koreas-kim-putin-vow-cooperation-in-phone-call/): North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to deepen their countries’ collaboration, North Korean state media said Wednesday, as Putin praised the “bravery, heroism, and self-sacrificing spirit” of North Korean troops who fought with the Russian military against Ukraine in the Kursk border region. On a telephone call on Tuesday with the Russian president, Kim said that North Korea would “fully support all measures to be taken by the Russian leadership in the future, too.” According to Russia’s TASS news agency, Putin shared with Kim information about his upcoming meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Alaska on Friday. Trump is expected to press Russia to end the war with Ukraine. North Korea has sent around 15,000 troops to Russia since last fall, according to South Korean tallies — and it has also supplied equipment including artillery and ballistic missiles to support the operation against Ukraine. Pyongyang first acknowledged its role in the Ukraine conflict in late April, around six months after the first reports of their troops’ presence. Ukrainian officials have released handwritten letters and combat instructions that are said to have come from North Korean soldiers who were killed in battle. Ukraine has also broadcast messages in Korean appealing to North Korean soldiers to surrender. Includes reporting from The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Chinese vessels collide while chasing Philippine boat near disputed Scarborough Shoal](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-vessels-collide-while-chasing-philippine-boat-near-disputed-scarborough-shoal/): Two Chinese vessels collided in the South China Sea on Monday while pursuing a Philippine patrol boat near the contested Scarborough Shoal, officials in Manila said, releasing video footage of the incident. The video shows a Chinese coast guard vessel shooting a water cannon and tracking close behind a Philippine coast guard boat until it collided with a much larger People’s Liberation Army craft, leaving visible damage on both Chinese vessels. The Scarborough Shoal is a triangular chain of reefs located 125 nautical miles from the main Philippine island of Luzon. Over the past year, China has sought to strengthen its claim to the shoal, mounted large-scale military drills and deployed the world’s largest coast guard ship, known as “The Monster,” in the area. Includes reporting from Agence France-Presse. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Video: China pressures Bangkok gallery to remove Uyghur, Tibetan, Hong Kong artwork](https://ij-reportika.com/video-china-pressures-bangkok-gallery-to-remove-uyghur-tibetan-hong-kong-artwork/): A Bangkok gallery is pressured — at China’s request — to remove and redact artwork about Beijing’s treatment of Uyghurs, Tibetans and Hong Kongers from an exhibit on authoritarian governments, according to a report by the Reuters news agency. Video: China pressures Bangkok gallery to remove Uyghur, Tibetan, Hong Kong artworkIn what the artists called the latest attempt by Beijing to silence critics overseas, the Bangkok Arts and Cultural Center changed multiple works by artists in exile in the exhibit on authoritarian governments collaborating across borders. According to Reuters, works removed included a multimedia installation by a Tibetan artist, while other pieces had been altered, with the words “Hong Kong”, “Tibet” and “Uyghur” redacted, along with the names of the artists. Artists names are redacted following what the Bangkok Arts and Cultural Center (BACC) said in an email was &#8216;pressure from the Chinese Embassy&#8217;, at the exhibition titled &#8216;Constellation of Complicity: Visualising the Global Machinery of Authoritarian Solidarity&#8217; in Bangkok, Aug. 7, 2025.(Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters) Sai, co-founder of Myanmar Peace Museum, the organization that put together the exhibition, said the removed pieces included Tibetan and Uyghur flags and postcards featuring Chinese President Xi Jinping, as well as a postcard depicting links between China and Israel. Earlier this year Thailand repatriated 40 Uyghurs to China. U.N. experts had warned they would be at risk of torture, ill-treatment and irreparable harm. Reporting by Reuters We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Philippines, India conduct joint exercises in South China Sea](https://ij-reportika.com/philippines-india-conduct-joint-exercises-in-south-china-sea/): Indian and Philippine naval crews sailed together for the first time in the South China Sea, officials said on Monday, one of several joint exercises the Philippine navy has held to counter China’s far-reaching maritime claims. The two-day joint sail included three Indian ships. It began on Sunday, a day before Philippine Prime Minister Ferdinand Marcos left for a five-day state visit to New Delhi that will include talks with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Before departing, Marcos lauded the two countries’ “shared values” and “steadfastness in upholding international maritime law.” China claims almost all of the South China Sea, a critical shipping route that’s also partially claimed by Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, despite an international arbitration court in 2016 ruling that its assertions had “no legal basis.” Beijing did not accept the ruling. A spokesperson for China’s military on Monday said that Chinese ships had conducted patrols in the South China Sea during the same period as the joint exercises. The spokesperson said those patrols were “routine,” but said that the joint exercises “disrupted regional peace and stability.” The Philippines has pressed its claims over the disputed waterway in recent months, enacting new laws, pushing for a maritime code of conduct, and considering new international lawsuits. Since 2023, it has conducted joint exercises with partners including the U.S., Japan, Australia, France and Canada. This year, Manila and Beijing have expressed their quarrel in the physical world — with each country’s coast guard unfurling a flag on a contested sandbank in April — and in cyberspace, jousting over a Google Maps update labeling part of the waterway the “West Philippine Sea.” Includes reporting from Agence France-Presse and Reuters. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Two Chinese Charged in Smuggling US AI Chips to China](https://ij-reportika.com/two-chinese-charged-in-smuggling-us-ai-chips-to-china/): Two Chinese nationals have been charged with smuggling restricted U.S. AI chips to China via Singapore and Malaysia. This case ties into IJ-Reportika’s investigation into China’s global AI ambitions and talent repatriation strategy.
- [In Conversation with Tenzyn Zöchbauer, the Executive Director of Tibet Initiative Deutschland](https://ij-reportika.com/in-conversation-with-tenzyn-zochbauer-the-executive-director-of-tibet-initiative-deutschland/): Since 1989, Tibet Initiative Deutschland (TID) has been a powerful voice for Tibetan self-determination and human rights in Europe. In this in-depth interview, the Executive Director reflects on how TID has evolved into one of Europe’s most influential Tibet advocacy organizations—shaping German foreign policy debates, exposing China’s transnational repression, and amplifying Tibetan voices in the digital age. From fighting cultural genocide through awareness campaigns on colonial boarding schools to building international coalitions, TID continues to champion Tibetan rights despite growing global challenges.
- [BRICS Expansion Signals Shift in Global Power Dynamics Amid Internal Divisions](https://ij-reportika.com/brics-expansion-signals-shift-in-global-power-dynamics-amid-internal-divisions/): Explore the expanding influence and challenges of BRICS as it grows beyond five members, reshaping global economics and politics amid internal divisions and rivalries.  
- [Dalai Lama Affirms Continuation Amid China’s Tightening Grip on Succession](https://ij-reportika.com/dalai-lama-affirms-continuation-amid-chinas-tightening-grip-on-succession/): The Dalai Lama confirms the continuation of his spiritual institution, asserting that the Gaden Phodrang Trust will solely oversee his succession—rejecting any Chinese interference and reaffirming Tibetan religious autonomy
- [FAKE NEWS MENACE by The New York Times and CNN](https://ij-reportika.com/fake-news-menace-by-the-new-york-times-and-cnn/): In a polarized media landscape, The New York Times and CNN have faced accusations of spreading misleading information. This report examines ten instances where these outlets were criticized for inaccurate or biased reporting, from the Hunter Biden laptop story to the Covington Catholic incident. Supported by retractions, lawsuits, and contradictory evidence, these cases highlight the challenges of maintaining journalistic integrity and the importance of critical media consumption.  
- [Remembering the June 15 Uyghur Student Demonstration](https://ij-reportika.com/remembering-the-june-15-uyghur-student-demonstration/): June 15 marks a significant day—the 37th anniversary of the 1988 Student Demonstration, one of the most unforgettable acts of resistance in Uyghur history. 
- [US and China Reach Trade Framework Agreement, Trump Announces 55% Tariffs](https://ij-reportika.com/us-and-china-reach-trade-framework-agreement-trump-announces-55-tariffs/): On June 11, 2025, President Trump announced a US-China trade framework to supply critical rare earth minerals and magnets, with 55% tariffs on Chinese imports. Negotiated in London, the deal awaits approval from Xi Jinping.  
- ['Trees Not Tesla': Australian City’s Protest Sparks Debate Over Environment and Elon Musk](https://ij-reportika.com/trees-not-tesla-australian-citys-protest-sparks-debate-over-environment-and-elon-musk/):  In Tonsley, Australia, the "Trees Not Teslas" campaign fights to save 60 trees from Tesla’s proposed battery recycling facility. With 95% of public submissions opposing the plan, activists cite environmental concerns and Elon Musk’s controversial image, while the council emphasizes job creation. The proposal awaits state approval amid growing tensions.  
- [South Africa Intensifies Vaccination as Foot-and-Mouth Disease Threatens Beef Industry](https://ij-reportika.com/south-africa-intensifies-vaccination-as-foot-and-mouth-disease-threatens-beef-industry/): South Africa ramps up vaccinations to combat a worsening foot-and-mouth disease outbreak threatening beef supplies, with over 900,000 doses ordered and Karan Beef's major feedlot under quarantine.  
- [Justice for Tiananmen is the JUSTICE FOR ALL](https://ij-reportika.com/justice-for-tiananmen-is-justice-for-all/): Dolkun Isa, the ex. President of the World Uyghur Congress, commemorates the 36th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre by drawing a powerful connection between the 1989 atrocity and China’s continued oppression in East Turkistan. He calls for international solidarity and justice for all victims of Chinese authoritarianism.
- [Breaking Silence, Building Peace: An Interview with Jeethu Elza Cherian Chacko](https://ij-reportika.com/breaking-silence-building-peace-an-interview-with-jeethu-elza-cherian-chacko/): In this compelling interview, UN Fellow and founder of Silence to Heal, Jeethu Elza Cherian Chacko shares how her diasporic upbringing, motherhood, and passion for inclusive policy shape her work in global diplomacy, gender security, and trauma-informed advocacy.
- [Harvard’s Scandal: Survey Exposes Chinese Students’ Loyalty](https://ij-reportika.com/the-harvard-controversy-and-chinese-students-ccp-links/): Harvard’s CCP controversy grows as IJ-Reportika survey shows 76% of Chinese students plan to return to China, raising questions of loyalty amid espionage fears.   
- [Putin Rejects Trump's Vatican Push for Peace Talks](https://ij-reportika.com/putin-rejects-trumps-vatican-push-for-peace-talks/): Tensions rise as Russian President Putin rejects Trump's proposal for peace talks at the Vatican. Meanwhile, Trump and Zelenskyy trade accusations amid Russia's largest drone strike on Ukraine.
- [Turkey Dismantles Chinese SPY Network Using Fake Cell Towers](https://ij-reportika.com/turkey-dismantles-chinese-spy-network-using-fake-cell-towers/): Turkish authorities dismantle a sophisticated Chinese espionage ring using IMSI-catcher devices to spy on Uyghurs and officials. The five-year operation, uncovered in May 2025, involved fake cell towers and shell companies, marking one of Turkey’s most advanced espionage cases.  
- [Trump’s Middle East Diplomacy: Meeting a (Former) Terrorist, Trade Deals and Beyond](https://ij-reportika.com/trumps-middle-east-diplomacy-meeting-a-former-terrorist-trade-deals-and-beyond/): Explore President Trump’s bold Middle East diplomacy in May 2025, including his controversial meeting with Syria’s Ahmad al-Sharaa, a former terrorist, and the decision to lift sanctions. Discover the implications for regional stability and U.S. foreign policy in this in-depth analysis.  
- [China Considers Tackling Fentanyl Crisis to Kickstart Trade Talks with U.S.](https://ij-reportika.com/china-considers-tackling-fentanyl-crisis-to-kickstart-trade-talks-with-u-s/): Discover the latest on China's potential move to address the fentanyl crisis to kickstart trade talks with the US. Explore smuggling routes, production hubs, and the impact on US-China relations in this investigative news report.  
- [Canada’s Carney Declares Victory, Vows to Defy Trump’s Threats](https://ij-reportika.com/canadas-carney-declares-victory-vows-to-defy-trumps-threats/): Prime Minister Mark Carney declares victory in Canada’s 2025 election, vowing to resist Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats. The Liberal Party secures a fourth term amid a surge of nationalism.  
- [China’s Bold Move: Flag Raised on Disputed Reef Near Philippines, Sparks Tensions](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-bold-move-flag-raised-on-disputed-reef-near-philippines-sparks-tensions/): China raises its flag on Sandy Cay, a disputed South China Sea reef near the Philippines. 
- [Explosive White House Report Points to Lab Leak as True Origin of COVID-19](https://ij-reportika.com/explosive-white-house-report-points-to-lab-leak-as-true-origin-of-covid-19/): Explosive White House report reveals COVID-19 likely originated from a Wuhan lab leak tied to gain-of-function research, exposing Fauci’s role, NIH failures, and widespread obstruction.
- [Trump vs. Xi: The Explosive U.S.-China Trade War](https://ij-reportika.com/trump-vs-xi-the-explosive-u-s-china-trade-war/): Explore the intense U.S.-China trade war from Feb-Apr 2025, as Trump and Xi escalate tariffs to 245%, shaking global markets. Dive into our detailed timeline and analysis.
- [Amazon Cancels Orders from Asian Suppliers Amid Tariff Concerns](https://ij-reportika.com/amazon-cancels-orders-from-asian-suppliers-amid-tariff-concerns/): Amazon cancels orders from China and Asian suppliers amid Trump’s tariff announcement, impacting vendors and raising supply chain concerns.  
- [Beijing AI Institute Criticizes US Blacklist Inclusion](https://ij-reportika.com/beijing-ai-institute-criticizes-us-blacklist-inclusion/): Beijing AI Institute Criticizes US Blacklist Inclusion, Calls for Reversal Amid Global Cooperation Concerns
- [Vietnam Strikes Back: Anti-Dumping Tariffs on Chinese Steel](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-strikes-back-anti-dumping-tariffs-on-chinese-steel/): Vietnam Strikes Back: Anti-Dumping Tariffs on Chinese Steel Signal Regional Pushback Against Beijing’s Economic Aggression
- [U.S. Sanctions Chinese Officials Over Hong Kong Crackdown and Tibet Restrictions: Trump Signals Human Rights Focus](https://ij-reportika.com/us-sanctions-chinese-officials-on-tibet-hongkong/): U.S. Sanctions Chinese Officials Over Hong Kong Crackdown and Tibet Restrictions: Trump Signals Human Rights Focus
- [Massive Protests Erupt in Istanbul Over Jailing of Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu](https://ij-reportika.com/massive-protests-erupt-in-istanbul-over-jailing-of-mayor-ekrem-imamoglu/): Massive protests erupted in Istanbul on March 30, 2025, as 2.2 million rallied for jailed mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, challenging President Erdogan’s rule amid claims of political suppression.  
- [Clashes in Kathmandu Leave Two Dead as Pro-Monarchy Protesters Demand Return of King Gyanendra Shah](https://ij-reportika.com/clashes-in-kathmandu-leave-two-dead-as-pro-monarchy-protesters-demand-return-of-king-gyanendra-shah/): Violent clashes in Kathmandu kill two as pro-monarchy protesters demand King Gyanendra Shah’s return, clashing with police and republican supporters. Nepal’s monarchy debate reignites.    
- [US Airstrikes in Yemen Kill Senior Houthi Terrorists, Escalate Tensions in the Red Sea](https://ij-reportika.com/us-strikes-kill-abdulmalik-al-houthi-brother/): In a significant escalation of military operations, US airstrikes in Yemen have killed several senior Houthi terrorists, including Abdulkhaleq Badr Al-Din Al-Houthi, the brother of Houthi terrorist Abdulmalik Al-Houthi, according to a Yemeni military spokesperson. The strikes, which targeted key Houthi military infrastructure across multiple provinces, mark a sharp intensification of US efforts to degrade the Iran-backed terrorist group&#8217;s capabilities amid ongoing attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea. Colonel Waddah Al-Dobish, spokesperson for the Yemeni Joint Forces, announced on X that Abdulkhaleq Al-Houthi, a senior terrorist overseeing the Central Military Region, was among those killed in coordinated strikes on Thursday, March 27, 2025. The attacks spanned Hodeidah, Sanaa, Saada, and Al-Jawf provinces, targeting top Houthi terrorists and their advisors involved in logistics and planning. Al-Dobish estimated approximately 150 casualties, with Al-Jawf suffering the highest toll. The strikes are part of a broader US campaign that began on March 15, aimed at dismantling the Houthi terrorist network and its operational capacity. The military monitoring platform Defense Line reported that the strikes also destroyed Houthi command centers and killed multiple technical specialists. However, the status of several terrorists tied to the group’s missile and drone programs, including Abdulhafid Al-Hilali and a logistics coordinator known as “Abu Aqil,” remains unclear. The Houthis have not issued an official statement, leaving the full extent of the damage to their terrorist network uncertain. Washington has previously acknowledged targeting senior terrorists in the Houthi weapons programs but has not released specific names, maintaining a degree of ambiguity around its targeting strategy. The US campaign, which has involved fighter jets from the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier stationed in the Red Sea, reflects a more aggressive stance under the Trump administration. Since March 15, the US has ramped up its operations, with reports of 44 airstrikes in a single night—the highest in the current campaign—targeting Houthi terrorists, air defense systems, command centers, and weapons facilities. The strikes aim to curb the Houthis’ ability to disrupt global commerce, as the terrorist group has launched scores of attacks on ships in the Red Sea since November 2023, often claiming solidarity with Palestinians amid the Israel-Hamas conflict. In response, the Houthis have claimed to have retaliated by targeting US warships, specifically the USS Harry S. Truman, which they describe as a primary launch point for attacks on Yemen. A Houthi statement asserted that they struck “hostile warships in the Red Sea,” including the aircraft carrier, though US officials have denied these claims, stating that Houthi drones and missiles have not come close to the Truman. The terrorist group’s military spokesman, Brigadier General Yahya Saree, previously declared their intent to target American warships in the Red Sea and Arabian Sea, framing their actions as a direct response to US aggression. The Houthis, who control much of Yemen, including the capital Sanaa, have proven resilient despite years of conflict, including a Saudi-led bombing campaign and previous US strikes under the Biden administration. Their attacks on shipping have disrupted a critical maritime corridor, forcing many vessels to reroute around southern Africa, driving up costs and impacting global trade. The Red Sea handles nearly 15% of global sea trade, making the Houthi threat a significant concern for international commerce. The latest US strikes have drawn criticism from Iran, which condemned the attacks as a violation of international law. Tehran, a key backer of the Houthi terrorists, denies directly controlling the group, though the Houthis are part of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” against Israel and Western influence in the region. The UN Secretary-General António Guterres has called for restraint, warning that further escalation could destabilize Yemen and the broader region, exacerbating an already dire humanitarian crisis in the country. Analysts remain skeptical of the long-term efficacy of the US airstrikes. The Houthis have weathered sustained military campaigns in the past, and their growing ties to Russia and China—evidenced by illicit shipping networks and potential military cooperation—complicate efforts to isolate them. Some experts argue that airstrikes alone are unlikely to dislodge the terrorist group, pointing to their deep entrenchment in Yemen’s political and military landscape. The killing of senior terrorists like Abdulkhaleq Al-Houthi may disrupt operations temporarily, but it could also galvanize Houthi support by fueling anti-US sentiment among Yemenis already suffering from years of conflict. As the US continues its campaign, the risk of retaliation looms large. The Houthi terrorists have vowed to escalate their attacks, and their history of resilience suggests they may attempt to strike US or allied targets in the region, potentially targeting the USS Harry S. Truman or US bases in the Middle East. The situation remains volatile, with the potential for a broader regional conflict if the cycle of strikes and counterattacks continues unchecked. For now, the Red Sea remains a flashpoint, with the US and the Houthi terrorists locked in a dangerous game of escalation that shows no immediate signs of abating.
- [Beijing Directs State-Owned Firms to Pause New Collaborations with Li Ka-shing-Linked Businesses](https://ij-reportika.com/china-ordered-to-halt-collaborations-with-li-ka-shings-businesses-after-his-panama-ports-sale-to-a-blackrock/): Beijing has ordered state-owned firms to halt new collaborations with Li Ka-shing’s businesses after his Panama ports sale to a BlackRock-led group, signaling geopolitical tensions. Explore the impact on CK Hutchison, CK Asset, and the Li family’s global investments.    
- [Bhutan’s refers to Tibet as Beijing-preferred ‘Xizang,’ sparking pushback](https://ij-reportika.com/bhutans-refers-to-tibet-as-beijing-preferred-xizang-sparking-pushback/): Bhutan became the latest nation to refer to Tibet as “Xizang,” prompting Tibetan politicians and advocates to urge Bhutan to stop using the term promoted by Beijing.
- [Media Watch: online users target Taiwan with rumors about its military](https://ij-reportika.com/media-watch-online-users-target-taiwan-with-rumors-about-its-military/): On March 13, Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te called for a tougher response to Beijing, describing China as a “foreign hostile force” intent on “absorbing” the democratic island – the toughest rhetoric yet toward Beijing from a Taiwanese leader. In response, Chinese officials called Lai a “destroyer of cross-Straits peace” and a “creator of the crisis in the Taiwan Straits.” The heated exchange continued online, with some Chinese-speaking social media users spreading rumors about Taiwan’s military. Below is what AFCL found. Conscription orders, military court A former journalist at China’s state-run CCTV, Rui Chenggang, claimed to have received conscription orders from Taiwan’s government in a X , Instagram and X. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Vietnam arrests Khmer Krom monk and 2 activists under vague law](https://ij-reportika.com/vietnam-arrests-khmer-krom-monk-and-2-activists-under-vague-law/): Vietnam arrested an ethnic Khmer Krom monk and two activists on Thursday and charged them with breaking a vague law that is often used to silence dissent, a Khmer Krom advocacy group said. Nearly 1.3-million Khmer Krom live in a part of Vietnam that was once southeastern Cambodia. They have faced serious restrictions on freedom of expression, assembly and movement. The trio were arrested in Preah Trapeang, known in Vietnamese as Tra Vinh province, according to the Khmers Kampuchea-Krom Federation, or KKF, which condemned the arrests. They were charged under Article 331 of the Vietnamese Criminal Code, and charged “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the State, lawful rights, and interests of organizations and/or citizens,” KKF said. If found guilty, the three men face prison sentences ranging from six months to three years, the group said. The group called the arrests another example of the Vietnamese government’s repression of the Khmer Krom community, “particularly their peaceful efforts to advocate for indigenous rights, religious freedoms and cultural preservation.” Lam Thi Pung, the wife of Thach Nga, one of the activists, said he collected used bottles and other materials for recycling to support their family. “Villagers give him rice, vegetables and fruits. I’m taking care of my child,” she said. “Now they have arrested my husband. I’m just with my child now, what am I to do?” Vocal Khmer Krom advocate The monk, the Venerable Kim Som Rinh, is a respected spiritual leader, the gorup said, and has long been a vocal advocate for the Khmer Krom people’s religious and indigenous rights through peaceful means. A year ago, on March 25, 2024, the state-sanctioned Vietnam Buddhist Sangha stripped Kim Som Rinh of his monk status, KKF said. “This arbitrary decision to defrock and arrest him was part of a broader effort to suppress the Khmer Krom community’s religious freedoms and prevent the expression of their cultural identity,” the group said. The other two activists are Thach Nga and Thach Xuan Dong, the KKF said. “Both men have courageously stood up for their people,” it said, including organizing human rights events such as the celebration of the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and International Human Rights Day. The Khmers Kampuchea-Krom Federation called on the United Nations and the international community to take action. It said that Vietnam, as a member of the Human Rights Council, must be “held accountable for its blatant disregard of international human rights norms.” Vietnamese officials could not immediately be reached for comment. Edited by Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Arakan Army to begin conscription in Myanmar’s west](https://ij-reportika.com/arakan-army-to-begin-conscription-in-myanmars-west/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. One of Myanmar’s most powerful rebel armies will begin conscription for all residents over 18 years old, residents told Radio Free Asia on Thursday. The Arakan Army, or AA, which controls the vast majority of western Myanmar’s Rakhine State, is organizing administrative processes in the state that would make conscription a legal obligation, a source close to the AA told RFA, adding that details would be released soon. A resident from Mrauk-U township also confirmed that the AA was holding meetings in villages to discuss details about the conscription. “Men between the ages of 18 and 45 will undergo two months of military training and be required to serve for two years,” the resident said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. He added that women between the ages of 18 and 35 will also be required to serve. No information has been released about what draftees will be required to do or whether they will serve in combat, raising concerns among civilians in the embattled region, which has witnessed brutal retaliation efforts from Myanmar’s junta. The AA currently controls 14 of Rakhine state’s 17 townships. RFA contacted AA spokesperson Khaing Thu Kha for more information, but he did not respond by the time of publication. RELATED STORIES EXPLAINED: What is Myanmar’s Arakan Army? Myanmar’s junta targets displaced people returning to embattled Rakhine state EXPLAINED: Arrested ARSA leader blamed for violence against Rohingya refugees With a well-organized military structure and strong local support, the AA has established de facto governance in much of the region, collecting taxes and administering justice independently from the central government. The junta views the AA as a persistent threat, as its growing influence undermines military control and fuels aspirations for greater autonomy among other ethnic groups. Facing serious setbacks from insurgent groups across the country, reduced foreign investment, and defections from its own troops, the junta enacted controversial conscription laws in February last year, mandating compulsory military service for men aged 18 to 35 and women aged 18 to 27. ​International human rights organizations have strongly criticized junta’s conscription law, arguing that it exacerbates the country’s existing humanitarian crisis and violates fundamental human rights. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Myanmar, Tom Andrews, described the junta’s imposition of mandatory military service as a sign of its desperation and a further threat to civilians. The enforcement of this law has led to a significant exodus of young people seeking to evade conscription. Reports indicate that thousands have fled across borders, particularly into Thailand, to avoid mandatory military service. Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by Taejun Kang. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [North Korean officials in China seen pretending to be South Korean](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korean-officials-in-china-seen-pretending-to-be-south-korean/): Recently, when entering restaurants or leaving official events, North Korean trading officials dispatched to China have been seen taking off lapel pins featuring the smiling faces of national founder Kim Il Sung and his son Kim Jong Il and pretending to be South Korean, two sources in China told Radio Free Asia. All North Korean officials overseas are required to wear the “Kim Bu-ja” &#8212; or “father-son” &#8212; pins to show their allegiance to the men known respectively as “Great Leader” and “Dear Leader.” The Kim dynasty is now in its third generation. Kim Il Sung, who ruled from 1948 until his death in 1994, was succeeded by Kim Jong-il, who ruled until 2011, after which his son Kim Jong Un took over as supreme ruler. “Last week, I visited a famous restaurant in Shenyang with an executive from a North Korean trading company I knew through business,” a source from the Chinese city told RFA Korean, requesting anonymity for personal safety. “When he arrived at the restaurant, he took off his Kim Bu-ja badge, put it in his pocket, and asked me not to say that he was North Korean,” he said. “Furthermore, he not only hid Kim Bu-ja’s badge, but also asked me to introduce him as a South Korean,” he continued. Easy to tell Another source in Yanji city, in China’s Jilin province, said he had witnessed the same behavior. “Recently, it’s hard to see North Korean officials wearing portrait badges,” he said. “North Korean officials take off their Kim Bu-ja badges and pretend to be South Koreans when they leave official events.” It wasn’t clear why the North Korean officials wanted to hide their identity, the first source said. He speculated that it was because South Koreans in China are treated as wealthy. “We don’t know the exact reason why these officials are taking off their Kim Bu-ja badges, but they might be embarrassed to be officials from North Korea, one of the poorest countries in the world,” he said. Despite their efforts, the second source said that it was easy to tell that the men were from North Korea as soon as they started talking given their accent and manner of speech. “North Korean officials can dress like South Koreans in terms of clothing and hairstyles, but if you talk to them, it’s immediately obvious” that their from the North. Many Chinese can also easily tell the difference, he said. “Some North Korean officials who have been in China for a long time are actually lamenting their situation,” with the North Korean economy on the brink of collapse, to their acquaintances in China, he said. “It’s understandable how North Korean officials feel about not being able to reveal that they’re North Koreans overseas,” he said. Edited by Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar junta announces schedule for December, January election](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-announces-schedule-for-december-january-election/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. Myanmar junta has announced that the election it plans to hold in December and January would be held in four phases, marking the first time the military has outlined a specific schedule for the controversial vote. The junta said in early March that the elections were slated for December 2025 with the possibility of January 2026, but observers at that time dismissed its plan, saying the military won’t be able to hold the vote in territory it doesn’t control – about half the country – and that the public will view the results as a sham. “A provisional date for the election is set on the third week and fourth week of December this year and first week and second week of January,” the junta’s Office of the Commander-in-Chief of Defense Services said in a statement on Wednesday, adding that the election would be held in four-part phases. “The government must take advanced measures to hold a fraud-free multi-party democracy general election that is truly free and fair,” it added, without elaborating. Since the 2021 coup, the junta has repeatedly attempted to hold elections, but these efforts have been consistently delayed. The military regime has extended the State of Emergency multiple times over the past four years, citing alleged fraud in the 2020 general elections, in which the National League for Democracy secured a decisive victory. By issuing back-to-back emergency declarations, the junta has effectively postponed the election process, prolonging its grip on power. Signs of progress toward holding elections have emerged in recent months as Myanmar’s junta chief traveled abroad to secure international support. Following diplomatic visits to Russia and Belarus in March, both countries pledged their backing for the junta’s controversial election plan. They join India and China, which have also expressed support for the isolated nation’s electoral process, despite the military regime’s decision to bar some political parties from re-registering due to alleged ties to rebel militias. RELATED STORIES Junta chief vows to hike defense budget, seeking to expand global presence Myanmar to organize election in fewer than half of townships, parties say Myanmar junta chief says election to be held by January 2026 But observers, including human rights groups and officials from the ousted National League for Democracy government, question the legitimacy of the junta-led election after an opaque census by the military left dozens of administrators dead and large parts of the country untouched. Widespread violence in embattled areas, coupled with near-daily airstrikes from the Myanmar military that often target civilians, also leave many skeptical about the feasibility of the election. Insurgent groups now control large swathes of the country’s borderlands, leaving the areas like Rakhine and Shan states under uncertain jurisdiction with minimal junta presence. Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by Taejun Kang. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Chinese influencer Yaya ordered to leave Taiwan after posting pro-China video](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-influencer-yaya-ordered-to-leave-taiwan-after-posting-pro-china-video/): Prominent Chinese influencer Liu Zhenya, also known as “Yaya,” left Taiwan Tuesday evening on orders from the Taiwanese government after she got in trouble for social media posts that appeared to support China’s use of force to take over Taiwan. Initially, Liu resisted leaving and held a press conference to protest the decision, claiming the Taiwan government was abusing its power. She was criticized by protesters who gathered at the scene and shouted anti-China slogans. But Liu left Taiwan on Tuesday evening, March 25, just before the deadline set by the Taipei government two weeks earlier. Beijing considers Taiwan a breakaway province that needs to be “reunified” with China, by force if necessary. The video that got Liu in trouble was from May 2024. At that time, she posted a video on her Douyin social media account about China’s “Joint Sword 2024A” military exercises around Taiwan. In the video, she called the Chinese military drills “the most intimidating and aggressive exercises ever,” and expressed support for defending national sovereignty. “Maybe tomorrow morning, the island will be filled with five-star red flags,” she said. “Just thinking about it makes me happy.” This video was later reposted on the official Facebook account of Taiwan.cn, a media outlet under the Taiwan Affairs Office in Beijing. On March 12, Taiwan’s National Immigration Agency, or NIA, determined that her actions violated regulations on residency for mainland Chinese nationals and revoked her residency permit on the grounds of “endangering national security and social stability.” It also imposed a five-year ban on reapplying for the permit and said she must leave the island by March 25. Heckled at press conference On Tuesday, Liu held a press conference to criticize the NIA’s decision to revoke her residency, calling it an abuse of power. Liu defended her comments, insisting that she had never advocated for military unification. “I support peaceful unification. My discussion of military unification was based on an analysis of the current situation,” she said. “Talking about military unification is different from advocating for it.” Liu also appealed to the Taiwan government not to separate her from her children, who live in Taiwan with her Taiwanese husband. 【亚亚抗拒限期离境 在台湾内政部陈情】【大批民众聚集抗议亚亚 要求她“回归中国”】网红八囧与群众在内政部门口与亚亚及支持者对峙，高喊口号。亚亚在内政部门口辩称自己没有主张武统，是对“形势的分析”。看看资料影片，大家觉得她的口气是“分析”还是“鼓吹武统”？#亚亚 #武统 #居留 #台湾 #中国… pic.twitter.com/HKAc6XUtea — 自由亚洲电台 (@RFA_Chinese) March 25, 2025 Throughout the press conference, protesters repeatedly shouted, “Welcome Yaya back to China,” along with other chants like “Yaya, go back to China!” and “June 4,” a reference to the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre that Beijing has attempted to cover up. Ba Jiong, a Taiwanese influencer who had originally reported on Liu’s actions, claimed Liu’s refusal to leave voluntarily was an attempt to stage a dramatic exit, with Taiwanese immigration officers escorting her onto the plane. Ba Jiong said this would allow Liu to create propaganda for Chinese state media. “Yaya wants to take a symbolic gesture back to China,” he said. “We’ll help fulfill her wish by holding signs like ‘June 4’ and images of Xi Jinping and the former Foreign Minister Qin Gang who went silent, making sure she has no material to use for her propaganda.” Taiwan’s Premier Cho Jung-tai said that freedom of speech must have limits. “Freedom of speech has boundaries, and the boundary is the survival of the state,” he said. “One cannot defame the country and still expect it to protect you.” In a separate interview, Interior Minister Liu Shih-fang pointed out that Liu was not just an ordinary mother. “She is waging a legal, public opinion, and psychological battle, and she has also received support from many pro-China Taiwanese and influencers.” Liu confirmed that NIA had made a decision regarding Liu, urging her to leave voluntarily. “If she does not depart by the deadline, we will take compulsory measures, and this decision has not changed,” she said. Edited by Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Junta chief vows to hike defense budget, seeking to expand global presence](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-chief-vows-to-hike-defense-budget-seeking-to-expand-global-presence/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. Myanmar’s junta chief said the military would increase the defense budget, while seeking to expand his international presence with a reported plan to join a regional summit in Thailand next month. Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing announced on Monday that the junta would increase the budget for its defense ministry to “enhance the strength and capacity of defense forces” as well as to “maintain peace and stability.” He did not provide specific figures. Since the 2021 coup, the junta has tripled its defense budget from 1.746 trillion kyats to 5.635 trillion kyats (US$2.68 billion) by 2023, according to media reports, accounting for about a quarter of the government’s total spending. The military has also invested over US$1 billion in weapons, primarily from Russia, China, Singapore, India and Thailand. Despite bolstering its capabilities, the junta faces intense international criticism for human rights violations, including indiscriminate attacks and mass detentions, leading to accusations of war crimes and increasing global isolation. Min Aung Hlaing has been also sanctioned by multiple countries, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union’s 27 member states. These sanctions include asset freezes, travel bans, and prohibitions on transactions, aimed at holding him accountable for human rights violations and the military’s seizure of power. However, Min Aung Hlaing appears to be attempting to reshape his international standing, as media reports indicate that he plans to participate in a regional summit in Bangkok next week – marking his first visit to Thailand. According to Thai media outlet ThaiPBS on Monday, Min Aung Hlaing is scheduled to visit Bangkok from April 3 to 4 to attend the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, or BIMSTEC, summit. The summit is expected to be attended by heads of state from member countries, including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. BIMSTEC is a regional cooperation organization established in 1997, comprising seven countries bordering the Bay of Bengal: India, Thailand, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bhutan. Min Aung Hlaing also recently visited Russia and Belarus, where he held meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Separately, he attended the Mekong River Basin Summit held in Kunming, Yunnan Province, China, in November – marking his first visit to China since the coup. RELATED STORIES Myanmar’s junta launches offensives on rebel strongholds in Mandalay region Junta offensives leave 4 dead, thousands displaced in northwest Myanmar Junta airstrike hits a clinic in central Myanmar, killing 11, including children Assaults in northern Myanmar As the junta leader looks abroad for support for his unelected government and approval for elections he plans to hold by January, his military’s attacks on pro-democracy forces and ethnic armies fighting for autonomy continue in an indiscriminate and brutal fashion. A resident from Mandalay’s Natogyi township said that junta forces bombed two villages around 1 a.m. on Sunday morning, injuring two women and six men, including a 13-year-old child. Insurgent groups, which retain control over much of the township, have seen a resurgence in junta offensives, following a series of failed ceasefires between the junta and rebel militias in the country’s north. “They were all just civilians, Although most were people avoiding conflict, there were those who couldn’t avoid it and were stuck in Let Wea and Myinni villages,” said the resident, who declined to be named over security concerns. “When the bomb fell, they ran but they didn’t get away.” Airstrikes on Myinni and Let Wea villages in Natogyi township in Mandalay region burned down more than 10 houses on March 23, 2025.(Natogyi Journal) A 65-year-old man was severely injured, and over 10 houses were destroyed by the blast, he added. Most residents from the two villages were sheltering in nearby mountains, but about a third had chosen to remain in their homes, residents said. Junta spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Htun has declined to comment. According to data compiled by RFA, 3,554 people have been killed by junta-led attacks since the coup began in February 2021, and another 7,064 have been injured. Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by Taejun Kang and Mike Firn. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Taiwan accuses China of 60 incursions into restricted waters](https://ij-reportika.com/taiwan-accuses-china-of-60-incursions-into-restricted-waters/): Chinese coast guard vessels intruded more than 60 times in the past year in waters near Taiwan-held Kinmen islands, which lie close to mainland China, Taiwan’s coast guard says. The spate of incursions follows a February 2024 incident when a Chinese speedboat capsized after evading inspection by Taiwan’s coast guard. Two Chinese men died. The incident raised tensions between Taiwan and China. Since then, China’s coast guard has mounted what it describes as “law enforcement” operations, but which Taiwan calls “grey zone” activities intended to undermine its control. Last Thursday, four Chinese coast guard ships encroached into waters south of Kinmen and were driven away, only to return the following day, the Taiwanese coast guard said in a statement Friday. It added that there had been 63 incursions since the February 2024 incident. A Taiwanese analyst described that as an effort to undermine Taiwanese sovereignty of the islands, which are home to about 200,000 people. “The deployment of coast guard ships denies the legitimacy of local law enforcement and denies Taiwan’s jurisdiction and sovereignty,” said Lee Chun-yee, an associate researcher at the National Defense Security Research Institute, a think tank under Taiwan’s defense ministry. “It intends to regard the waters of Taiwan’s outlying islands such as Dongsha and Kinmen as Chinese waters, so it has these jurisdictions. This is coercion against us,” Lee added. Dongsha, also known as Pratas, refers to a Taiwanese-held atoll southwest of Taiwan. China has yet to comment publicly on the Taiwanese allegations. Beijing considers Taiwan a breakaway province which it threatens to seize by force if necessary. Self-ruled Taiwan, which has a democratically elected government, views itself as a sovereign state. Kinmen is an archipelago that lies less than 10 kilometers (6 miles) from China’s Fujian province but more than 180 kilometers (110 miles) from Taiwan’s main island. Its residents have family and history on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, and shuttle regularly by ferry back and forth to the Chinese city of Xiamen. Taiwan describes as “prohibited waters” the territorial waters around Kinmen that extend about halfway to the Chinese coast, or roughly 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) to the north and northwest. “Restricted waters” extend a little further, about 8 kilometers (5 miles), to the south. But Chinese officials have said they will not recognize those restrictions. Locals on Kinmen have told RFA that even before the February 2024 incident, Chinese fishing boats were helping themselves to fish that were once the preserve of Kinmen’s fishing community. Edited by Mat Pennington. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Xi Jinping’s family wealth persists despite anti-corruption drive: US report](https://ij-reportika.com/xi-jinpings-family-wealth-persists-despite-anti-corruption-drive-us-report/): TAIPEI, Taiwan – Chinese President Xi Jinping’s family continues to hold millions of dollars in business interests and financial investments, said a recent U.S. report, raising suspicion that they might have benefited from Xi’s position despite his decade-long anti-corruption campaign. Xi launched an anti-corruption drive shortly after he took power in 2012, aimed at rooting out corruption at all levels of the Communist Party. The campaign, which targeted both high-ranking “tigers” and low-level “flies,” led to the investigation and punishment of hundreds of thousands of officials. But the U.S.-backed intelligence agency Office of the Director of National Intelligence, or ODNI, said Xi’s relatives have retained significant financial holdings, and they may have benefited from political connections through private and state-owned businesses. “Their [Chinese leaders’] senior-level positions would have granted access to privileged information and both private and state-owned enterprise actions could have advantaged family holdings due to their connections to persons with political power,” said the ODNI in a report released on Thursday. It didn’t identify any direct influence from the leaders contributing to growth in family investments. But it warned that centralized power, a lack of independent oversight, and minimal accountability, especially at the provincial level, are systemic factors that allow corruption to thrive in China. The report said these factors enable government officials to increase their personal wealth through corruption at a rate estimated to be four to six times their official salaries. “Higher-ranking officials, who have greater access to state resources, benefit the most from bribery and illicit financial dealings,” said the ODNI, citing membership in China’s National People’s Congress, or NPC, as an example. “Potential benefits of NPC membership incentivize individuals to pay high costs to join, often through bribes, and to accept bribes while a member, or even upon completion of service, to facilitate business deals,” it added. The NPC, China’s legislative body that serves primarily as a rubber-stamp parliament, is perceived as a status symbol and vehicle through which to gain access to sensitive government information. Xi’s anti-corruption drive Since taking power, Xi has positioned himself as a staunch opponent of corruption, launching an unprecedented crackdown within the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, the government, and the military. According to the ODNI, from 2012 to 2022, nearly five million officials have been investigated, with 4.7 million found guilty. “In his words, Xi intended to make government officials ‘unable and unwilling to be corrupt,’” said the ODNI. RELATED STORIES Chinese officials get derisory ‘Snail Awards’ for lying down on the job China probes top military official for ‘serious violations’ China to seize 3.1 bln yuan in assets linked to exiled former vice mayor The report also acknowledged that Xi’s early anti-corruption investigations primarily targeted high-ranking officials associated with his predecessors. But a decade-long drive widened its focus to officials from various factions, including those with close personal ties to Xi. Notably, in recent months, Xi has removed several top military officials, including Defense Minister Li Shangfu and Admiral Miao Hua, both of whom were considered close allies. Their abrupt dismissals underscore the CCP’s ongoing concerns about loyalty and military effectiveness, particularly within the People’s Liberation Army, which Xi has ordered to be combat-ready for a potential conflict over Taiwan by 2027. Edited by Taejun Kang and Stephen Wright. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Arrested ARSA leader blamed for violence against Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh](https://ij-reportika.com/arrested-arsa-leader-blamed-for-violence-against-rohingya-refugees-in-bangladesh/): DHAKA, Bangladesh – The leader of a Rohingya insurgent group blamed for instigating attacks that provoked a deadly offensive by the Myanmar military and the forced cross-border exodus of Rohingya in 2017 has not spilled “significant information” since his arrest earlier this week, Bangladesh police said. Ataullah Abu Jununi, leader of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, or ARSA, was arrested on Tuesday at an apartment near Dhaka where he had been staying for four months. The Rapid Action Battalion, an elite security force, said it took him into custody on suspicion of terrorism and illegal entry. Nine suspected accomplices were also arrested that day from northern Mymensingh district, RAB said. Mohammad Shahinur Alom, the officer-in-charge of Siddhirganj police station, said Ataullah and his accomplices were being interrogated for 10 days under a court order. “He is behaving in a very modest way. He has yet to give any significant information. Let us see what happens in the next several days,” Shahinur Alom told RFA affiliate BenarNews on Friday. Ataullah’s arrest occurred the same day that Southeast Asian NGO rebels have made significant gains in battles with junta troops to gain control of the region. “The U.N. secretary-general has stressed that Bangladesh should talk to the Arakan Army. Ataullah’s arrest could create a congenital atmosphere for probable repatriation of the Rohingya refugees, provided that Arakan Army and the central government agree,” he said. Abdur Rahman in Teknaf, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, contributed to this report. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [EXPLAINED: Why March is a sensitive month for Tibetans](https://ij-reportika.com/explained-why-march-is-a-sensitive-month-for-tibetans/): For decades now, March has been a politically sensitive month for Tibetans, when Chinese authorities ramp up restrictions and security measures. That’s because a series of important events and acts of Tibetan resistance have happened during this month over the years, starting with the March 10, 1959, uprising against Chinese rule. This year, too, Beijing has intensified security and surveillance measures across Tibet, conducting inspections and holding provincial, county and township level meetings to issue strict directives to take action to “win the stability battle” in March. Additional police and military forces have been deployed in the capital of Lhasa, including religious sites such as the Jokhang Temple and Sera Monastery, according to two sources in the region. Security personnel have been patrolling neighborhoods even at 3 a.m., they said. Social media censorship and internet shutdowns prevent Tibetans from sharing information with the outside world. What happened on March 10, 1959? On that day 66 years ago, tens of thousands of Tibetans in Lhasa rose up against Chinese rule, which had begun when Mao Zedong’s Communists invaded and forcibly annexed Tibet in 1950. The revolt was in direct response to growing Chinese repression and fears for the safety of the Dalai Lama. As Chinese forces rose to crush the rebellion, thousands of Tibetans died. Hundreds of Tibetans march through the center of Sydney, Australia, on March 10, 2017, marking the 58th anniversary of China&#8217;s presence in Tibet.(Jason Reed/Reuters) This year, in cities and towns globally, including in India, North America, and in Europe, the Tibetan Women’s Association organized marches that included students, Buddhist nuns and activists who amplified the voices of past Tibetan women patriots and assert the role of Tibetan women living in exile. March 14: Lhasa protest and crackdown Many years later, on March 14, 2008, large-scale protests erupted in Lhasa against Chinese rule and religious repression, erosion of Tibetan culture and economic marginalization. What began as a peaceful protest quickly escalated into the biggest uprisings in Tibet since 1959, triggering a violent crackdown, resulting in hundreds of arrests, disappearances and deaths. A Tibetan nun listens to a speaker during a protest march held to mark the 65th anniversary of the Tibetan Uprising against Chinese rule, in Dharamsala, India, March 10, 2024.(Adnan Abidi/Reuters) What does the Dalai Lama say about the future of Tibet? Beijing believes the Dalai Lama wants to split off the Tibet Autonomous Region and other Tibetan areas in Sichuan, Qinghai, Gansu, and Yunnan provinces from the rest of the country. However, the Dalai Lama does not advocate for independence but rather a “Middle Way” that accepts Tibet’s status as a part of China and urges greater cultural and religious freedoms, including strengthened language rights that are guaranteed for ethnic minorities under China’s constitution. Do Tibetans living in exile protest in March? Yes. Every March 10, Tibetans and their supporters around the world organize protests and solidarity events marking the anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan National Uprising. These protests serve as a powerful reminder of Tibet’s ongoing struggle for freedom and human rights. Edited by Tenzin Pema, Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar junta admits misconduct in its controversial conscription scheme](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-admits-misconduct-in-its-controversial-conscription-scheme/): Read RFA coverage of this story in Burmese. Myanmar junta’s top official said there had been misconduct in its conscription scheme – the military’s first admission since introducing conscription laws that have been highly criticized by rights groups. Facing serious setbacks from insurgent groups across the country, reduced foreign investment, and defections from its own troops, the junta enacted controversial conscription laws in February last year, mandating compulsory military service for men aged 18 to 35 and women aged 18 to 27. “Some recruitment committees have not followed legal procedures, leading to financial corruption and difficulties for some conscripts,” said Myanmar’s Vice-Senior General and Deputy Commander-in-Chief of Defense Services Gen. Soe Win in a speech on Thursday, adding that these “daily issues” were being addressed. It marked the first time junta officials admitted to misconduct in their conscription scheme. “Therefore, military personnel must promptly report any misconduct by recruitment committees to the relevant authorities,” Soe Win added. His remarks came amid widespread backlash against the scheme, with citizens fleeing the country to escape mandatory service, and local resistance groups retaliating by targeting officials involved in its enforcement. Junta recruiters have also been accused of taking bribes from households desperate to keep their family members from fighting and conscripting minors by arresting them. Some residents testified that many were forced to pay monthly fees to avoid conscription, while others said they had no choice but to pay ransom to secure the release of arrested family members and keep them from the frontlines. Human rights organizations have condemned the law as an abuse of power and a violation of human rights, while international observers warn that the policy could further destabilize the already volatile nation. RELATED STORIES Myanmar’s forced conscription: How the junta targets young men for military service Junta troops forcibly recruit more than 70 young men in Myanmar town 29 young men escape Myanmar junta’s conscription Many new recruits have been sent for training after being detained at gunpoint by junta troops. They face torture or execution if they are caught trying to escape. In late February, rebels in Myanmar’s Bago region assassinated two local administrators who forcibly recruited civilians for military service, bringing the number of officials killed for their involvement in carrying out the draft to at least 110. Between February and September 2024, anti-junta forces killed 108 ward and village administrators involved in recruiting, compiling name lists and extorting money for military service, according to data compiled by Radio Free Asia. Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by Taejun Kang. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [China Demands Protection for Students as U.S. Heightens Scrutiny Amid Security Fears](https://ij-reportika.com/china-demands-protection-for-students-as-u-s-heightens-scrutiny-amid-security-fears/): China demands U.S. protect Chinese students as Congress seeks data and GOP pushes ban. Survey reveals racism, freedom views amid security row.  
- [China forces Uyghurs to work during Ramadan in bid to prevent fasting](https://ij-reportika.com/china-forces-uyghurs-to-work-during-ramadan-in-bid-to-prevent-fasting/): Read RFA coverage of this story in Uyghur. Chinese authorities in Xinjiang are forcing Uyghurs to work during Ramadan to prevent them from fasting and praying as the Islamic holy month requires, sources in China’s northwestern region said. Videos circulating on social media platforms last week showed Uyghurs performing forced labor en masse during Ramadan. Some toiled in fields, while others performed cleaning work. The move is one of several measures by authorities to ban religious practices among the roughly 12 million mostly Muslim Uyghurs who live in Xinjiang amid China’s wider, systematic persecution of Uyghurs and their culture. Muslims are urged to fast between dawn and dusk during Ramadan, which this year runs from Feb. 28 to March 29. In most countries, Muslims can do this freely. But in China, authorities have banned fasting during the holy month under the guise of stamping out religious extremism — even requiring people to send officials video proof that they are eating lunch during the day. They also have forbidden Uyghurs from gathering at mosques to pray on Fridays and from observing other Muslim holidays. A video posted on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, showed residents of Hotan toiling in agricultural fields on the second day of Ramadan. Other information from a video posted on the seventh day of Ramadan indicated that residents of all Uyghur households had to perform collective cleaning. None of the videos gave details, such as where the residents performed the work, and no one offered an explanation as to why it had become necessary to work during Ramadan. “For 15 days, the residents have been working under the leadership of village and county governments to clean house yards and renovate public restrooms,” said a staffer who works for the Onsu county government in Aksu prefecture. Labor is good for you A policeman at a county police station told RFA that some residents were unhappy about being forced to work during Ramadan, but tried to defend the measure, saying that the labor was beneficial to them. “They hope that local authorities reduce their forced labor time and allow them to do their housework,” he said. A staff member of a neighborhood committee in Onsu county said Uyghurs have been working unpaid since the beginning of Ramadan, and they must perform cleaning as required or be punished for resisting. “We divided households into two groups, and each group had 10 people, and they all had to perform the expected tasks,” the staffer said. “We have not taken any measures against anyone opposing the government’s order.” Those who refused to do the work would be detained in a local cadre’s office for 7-10 days or taken “to the camps” if their resistance was strong, the staffer said, referring to the re-education camps Beijing built across Xinjiang. Uyghurs living in the Gulbagh neighborhood of Aksu’s Shayar county cleaned and organized their gardens and yards, the police officer said. Uyghur workers sew clothing at a garment factory in Maralbeshi county, northwestern China&#8217;s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, in 2018.(Chinese State Media) Chinese authorities in Aksu prefecture are forcing Uyghur residents to work during Ramadan so they can’t fast, said a person with knowledge of the situation who requested anonymity for safety reasons. Authorities also have required Uyghur villagers in the prefecture to attend political study sessions on the central Chinese government’s policies in Xinjiang nonstop since the beginning of Ramadan, this person said. Village cadres are intentionally holding the sessions during sahur, the pre-dawn meal, or iftar, the meal after sunset during the holy month. such as studying central government’s Xinjiang policies, the source said. A policeman from Uchturpan county in Aksu prefecture said the purpose of forced labor during Ramadan was to observe the Uyghurs. “Our purpose in doing this is to explain to them the policies of our [Chinese] Communist Party, educate them, and observe their thoughts and feelings,” he said. If a Uyghurs tire easily, feel weak or do not eat or drink while working, it proves that they have been fasting and have an ideological problem, he said. “Around 10 people were reluctant to comply with these rules, so we intensified our ideological work on them,” he said. Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Surviving the horrors of the Khmer Rouge](https://ij-reportika.com/surviving-the-horrors-of-the-khmer-rouge/): In 1975, a radical communist band of guerrilla fighters known as the Khmer Rouge conquered the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh. Their takeover ignited a genocide that claimed the lives of between 1.5 million and 2 million people, or a quarter of the country’s population. Under the leadership of a man known as Brother Number One, or Pol Pot, a systematic campaign of persecution, killing and starvation began within hours of his troops claiming Phnom Penh on the morning of April 17, 1975. Under Pol Pot’s rule, the goal was absolute. Citizens had no rights. The nation’s past would be erased to create a new future. Parents were separated from their children, and everyone was forced to pledge allegiance to Angka, as the organization headed by Pol Pot was known. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [North Korean soldiers scrounge for cigarette butts](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korean-soldiers-scrounge-for-cigarette-butts/): Read a version of this story in Korean The North Korean army is ordering soldiers to stop scrounging the streets for cigarette butts to smoke even as commanders keep some of the soldiers’ monthly cigarette rations for themselves, members of the country’s military told Radio Free Asia. The subject was broached during a video conference of the General Political Bureau of the army on March 14, a member of the military in the northern province of Ryanggang told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The meeting very seriously discussed the issue of lax discipline among commanders and soldiers,” the military member said, adding that desertion and theft were also brought up as examples of lax discipline. “At this meeting, soldiers were strongly warned against picking up cigarette butts,” he said. “It was officially declared that any soldier caught picking up cigarette butts on the street would be punished with revolutionary labor for at least three months,” a reference to getting the toughest chores. According to the military member, people sifting through cigarette butts to salvage unsmoked tobacco is a recent problem, but it’s a breach of decorum for a uniformed soldier to do it. “Each soldier is provided with 15 packs of cigarettes per month, but the commanders take them all up. So, the soldiers are left picking up the butts because they don’t have any cigarettes to smoke,” he said. “In the past, it was just the lower-ranked soldiers who looked for butts, but now even the higher-ranked soldiers are doing it too.” Cigarette rations have declined, another member of the military from the same province told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “In the case of the border guards, each soldier used to be supplied with 15 packs of Baekseung-brand cigarettes per month, but since last fall, they have only been supplied with 10 packs,” he said. “After the commanders skim off the top, the soldiers are left only 7 packs per month,” he explained. He said that every afternoon the leaders of the border guards send two soldiers to go collect cigarette butts because every unit has a shortage of cigarettes. “Even the border guard units, which are supposedly well-supplied, is in this state, and situations are much worse with other infantry units,” the second source said. “What is more troubling is that this year, even female soldiers have been spotted out on the streets, picking up cigarette butts.” Male units of the border guard are after the tobacco, but the female guards are after the filters, which contain cotton that can be used to make clothes or ceremonial blankets for newlyweds, a customary gift at weddings, he said. So the women &#8212; who aren’t allowed to smoke at all &#8212; trade the tobacco they collected in exchange for the filters that the men collected. With the money they get for selling the filters, they buy food for their unit. “The supply chain for soldiers is in such a sad state that soldiers are selling cigarette butts for food,” he said. “I wonder if threats like revolutionary labor can even work against these soldiers.” Translated by Clare S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Cambodia’s Ream naval base to open in early April](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodias-ream-naval-base-to-open-in-early-april/): The Chinese-developed Ream naval base in southwest Cambodia’s Sihanoukville province is slated to open early next month after three years of construction, a Cambodian commander has said. General Vong Pisen, commander-in-chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces, or RCAF, told the new Japanese military attaché in the kingdom that after the launch in early April, Cambodia would allow warships from his country to be the first to “historically” dock at Ream. Up until now, the main, new part of the base where China has built a deep draft pier capable of handling ships as large as aircraft carriers, a dry dock and other facilities, has been off limits to foreign vessels apart from Chinese ones. When a U.S. Navy ship visited Cambodia for the first time in eight years in December last year, it docked at Sihanoukville Autonomous Port some 20 kilometers (12 miles) away. Radio Free Asia reported last month that China sent two more warships to Ream, indicating that the construction may be near completion and the planned transfer of Chinese ships to Cambodia was imminent. This week, the naval base’s management announced that the inauguration ceremony for a Cambodia-China Logistics and Training Center would be held soon. RELATED STORIES Chinese defense company builds industrial estate in Cambodia Canadian warship visits Cambodia after drills in South China Sea Cambodia asks to renew joint drills with US amid Ream base concerns China’s foothold China and Cambodia began developing the Ream naval base with Beijing’s funding in June 2021 but a ground breaking-ceremony was held one year later in 2022. Last August, when visiting Ream, a RFA reporter witnessed the fast pace of development and was told that 100 Chinese naval personnel were “working day and night” on it. Together with the new facilities, Beijing is to give Cambodia two vessels, likely Type 056A missile corvettes, and has been training the Cambodian navy how to use them. Cambodia’s defense minister Tea Seiha (second left) inspects the Ream naval base on March 15, 2025. To his right is his cousin Tea Sokha, the new navy commander.(Facebook/Ream naval base) During the meeting on Tuesday between Gen. Vong Pisen and Japan’s military attaché, Takashi Hara, Vong said that the fact that Japanese vessels were to be given the first access showed “the high level of cooperation, communication and mutual trust” in the Cambodia-Japan comprehensive strategic partnership. Political commentator Kim Sok told RFA Khmer service that the gesture was designed to ease tensions surrounding the Chinese military presence at Ream because Japan is an ally of the United States and at the same time not considered a rival to China, therefore neutral. The U.S. has repeatedly expressed concerns over the lack of transparency in the Ream base’s development while Cambodia’s neighbors worry that a foothold at Ream would give China better control over the Indo-China peninsula and the South China Sea. Cambodia’s constitution does not allow foreign bases in the country but analysts say that China, having invested a large sum of money in the project, would have preferential access to Ream. Collin Koh, senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said that the arrangement was to give Beijing access to Ream’s facilities “predicated upon an on-demand basis, meaning they would have to be made available upon China’s request.” Edited by Mike Firn We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Video: Burmese refugees come together for violin lessons in Thai border town](https://ij-reportika.com/video-burmese-refugees-come-together-for-violin-lessons-in-thai-border-town/): MAE SOT, Thailand — Phoe San was one of thousands of Burmese migrants who fled to the Thai border town of Mae Sot after Myanmar’s military junta seized power from a democratically elected government in 2021. Like most Burmese migrants, he worried about earning a steady income and finding a safe place to live in the neighboring country. Phoe San plays the violin in a community center in Mae Sot, Thailand.(Kiana Duncan/RFA) But Phoe San also had a dream to teach music, and his violin classes at a local community center have attracted dozens of students who pay low fees and can borrow instruments for free. The classes have helped people connect with one another as they build new lives. “On the first day, I saw many, many students. I felt like I remembered my old life in Yangon,” he said. “We came here as refugees,” he said. “But we try to contribute what we can do to the Thai community.” We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Villagers flee as fighting rocks Myanmar’s delta](https://ij-reportika.com/villagers-flee-as-fighting-rocks-myanmars-delta/): Read RFA coverage of these topics in Burmese. War is encroaching into Myanmar’s rice-basket Ayeyarwady River delta, residents said on Tuesday, as fighters from the powerful Arakan Army, or AA, rebel group pile pressure on the military as they push out of their home territory. The AA has defeated forces of the junta that seized power in 2021 in almost the whole of Rakhine state, and while it focuses on the last military-controlled pockets, it is also building on its momentum to attack into the Magway region to the northeast, Bago to the east and Ayeyarwady to the south. More than 1,000 people from three delta villagers in Ayeyarwady’s Lemyethna township, about 35 kilometers (20 miles) to the west of Myanmar’s main river, were forced to flee from their homes as fighting erupted on Monday when junta forces tried to expel the AA from the area they recently occupied. “Le Khon Gyi, Wut Kone and San Kone, those villages had to move. There were about 1,000 people,” said one resident who declined to be identified for security reasons. It was the first time there had ever been fighting in the area, residents said, another indication of the unprecedented setbacks the junta has suffered over the past 18 months as ethnic minority insurgents and allied pro-democracy fighters battle to end military rule. The military is hoping to retake lost territory during the current dry season, and expand its area of control in the run-up to an election due by January, which it hopes will re-assert its authority and legitimacy, at home and abroad. Anti-junta forces reject an election under military rule as a farce and have vowed to defend their areas of control. Monday’s battle was near the Pathein-Monywa highway, a major north-south road connection where military patrols had increased, residents said. Neither the AA nor the military’s 344 Artillery Battalion which operates in the area has released any information about casualties. Their spokespeople were not available for comment. The AA draws its support from Rakhine state’s mostly Buddhist ethnic Rakhine people. Of all of Myanmar’s insurgent forces, it is closest to defeating the military in a state and taking power. The loss of the state would be an unprecedented blow to the military and would force China, which has major investments in the state, to deal directly with the insurgents to protect its interests. Chinese companies have energy facilities on the coast from where oil and gas pipelines run all the way to its Yunnan province, and it also has plans for a deep sea port as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. Tightly controlled military-run media has not reported on the dire situation facing its forces in the state and rarely gives any detail about fighting anywhere. On Tuesday, the military-run Myanmar Alin newspaper did mention the war in Rakhine state but only in connection with the disruption to the education system. Fewer than half of all school leavers in the state were able to take their college entrance exams, all in the last three pockets of territory under junta control, because of the fighting, it said. Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Junta troops forcibly recruit more than 70 young men in Myanmar town](https://ij-reportika.com/junta-troops-forcibly-recruit-more-than-70-young-men-in-myanmar-town/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. Authorities in Myanmar forcibly recruited more than 70 young men from a single town in the south-central Ayeyarwady region, residents said Monday, as the junta launched a new round of training for the country’s draftees. It’s the latest round-up under Myanmar’s military service law, which the junta began implementing last April as a way of shoring up its dwindling ranks amid mounting losses to rebel groups. On March 14, junta troops in Ayeyarwady’s Mawlamyinegyun township arrested more than 70 men — including some as young as 17 years old — and sent them to depots in the Yangon region to take part in the 11th round of military training, residents told RFA Burmese. The arrests were carried out by troops from the junta’s 534th Infantry Battalion based in Mawlamyinegyun, said one resident who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. “Young people in the villages are too afraid to sleep at home at night due to fear of conscription,” he said. “Soldiers are forcibly arresting them. The local battalion is carrying out the arrests, and at times, parents have no idea where to look for their children [after they are taken].” The identities of the young men were not immediately clear, and RFA was unable to independently verify who was taken in the dragnet. Attempts by RFA to contact Khin Maung Kyi, the junta’s spokesperson and social affairs minister for the Ayeyarwady region, for comment on the situation went unanswered Monday. The forced recruitment comes after residents of Ayeyarwady’s Hinthada, Laputta, and Kangyidaung townships last month said that several young men fled the area after they were summoned by name for conscription, instead of an earlier used lottery system. Administrators targeted over draft Under the mandatory military service law, men aged 18 to 35 and women aged 18 to 27 must serve a minimum of two years in the military. Young people have been looking for ways to leave the country ever since the law was enacted. Many new recruits have been sent for training after being detained at gunpoint by junta troops. They face torture or execution if they are caught trying to escape. In late February, rebels in Myanmar’s Bago region assassinated two local administrators who forcibly recruited civilians for military service, residents and other sources said, bringing the number of officials killed for their involvement in carrying out the draft to at least 110. Prior to the incidents, the latest killing of an administrator for their involvement in military recruitment was that of Than Htwe, of Khwet Ma village in Magway region’s Minhla township, who was shot dead on Feb. 15. Between February and September 2024, anti-junta forces killed 108 ward and village administrators involved in recruiting, compiling name lists and extorting money for military service, according to data compiled by RFA. Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar children, monks among dozens killed in heavy airstrikes](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-children-monks-among-dozens-killed-in-heavy-airstrikes/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. Myanmar’s military killed 40 civilians, including Buddhist monks and children, in airstrikes in northern Myanmar as it tries to pound its enemies into submission, insurgents told Radio Free Asia on Monday. Myanmar’s rising toll of civilian casualties comes as a humanitarian crisis is looming and a major food aid agency announced it will have to cut support because of a funding shortfall. Myanmar has been engulfed by conflict since the military overthrew an elected government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021, with thousands of civilians killed, villages razed and some 3.5 million people displaced by war and natural disasters. Forced onto the defensive by unprecedented opposition from young people from the majority Barmar community teaming up with ethnic minority insurgents, the military has increasingly turned to its air force to unleash devastation, often on civilian areas, rights groups and insurgents say. “We can say they are purposefully attacking civilians,” said Lway Yay Oo, spokesperson for the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, an ethnic minority insurgent force in Shan state, which is on the border with China. Junta airstrikes on the Sein Yadanar monastery in Shan state’s Nawnghkio town on Sunday, killed 13 civilians, including six monks, four of them young novices, said Lway Yay Oo. Seventeen people were wounded in the air attack, 13 of them monks, she said, adding that the military was trying to force the TNLA back into peace talks that China, with extensive economic interests in Myanmar, is trying to broker. The Myanmar army has a long record of trying to overcome insurgencies by undermining their civilian support, often by attacking villagers, rights investigators say. Lway Yay Oo said there was no question the military was targeting civilians. “They’re deliberately attacking religious buildings in Nawnghkio and they also bombed the hospital …. We’ve also seen that they’re burning and destroying homes.” The spokesperson did not say anything about prospects for talks with the military, which is keen to roll back insurgent gains over the past year as it prepares for an election, due by January, which it hopes will bolster its legitimacy at home and abroad. Myanmar’s military rarely releases information about the fighting, which has erupted in almost all corners of the country, and attempts by RFA to reach the junta spokesperson, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, by telephone were not successful. Related stories Living ‘day-by-day’ in Myanmar’s rebel camps Myanmar junta troops massacre 11 villagers, most too old to flee, residents say Myanmar’s Karen fighters capture junta camp, soldiers flee to Thailand Blood on road to Mandalay On Friday, a junta air attack on Let Pan Hla village, on a main road 70 kilometers (45 miles) north of Mandalay city, killed up to 27 people, according to a spokesperson for a pro-democracy insurgent force operating in the area. “They attacked for no reason and deliberately targeted the public. They were targeting customers and vendors in a busy street near the village market,” said Mandalay People’s Defense Force spokesperson, who goes by the one name Osman. Residents of Let Pan Hla village, north of Mandalay city, survey damage after a Myanmar military airstrike on March 14, 2025.(Mandalay People&#8217;s Defense Force) The People’s Defense Force, or PDF, captured the area in July and junta forces have been on the attack ever since, he said. The PDF commander, Soe Thu Yazaw, said in a social media post that six children were among the dead and many people were wounded. “The bombing targeted people going about their daily activities at the market, so the number of injured is also high,” he said. “Long distance buses often stop in Let Pan Hla for food and a break, so it’s busy.” The death and destruction from the fighting is compounding a dire humanitarian outlook in a country where the U.N. says a “staggering” 15.2 million people are unable to meet their minimum daily food needs and some 2.3 million people are facing emergency levels of hunger. The U.N. food agency has warned that more than one million people will be cut off from its food assistance from April due to critical funding shortfalls. “The impending cuts will have a devastating impact on the most vulnerable communities across the country, many of whom depend entirely on WFP’s support to survive,” Michael Dunford, representative and country director of the World Food Programme, said in a statement. Internally displaced people in Rakhine state, where fighting has been particularly heavy, would be hard hit, the WFP said. Aid agencies helping in Myanmar have been under pressure since a January order by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump to freeze all global aid until a review was completed. Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [UN chief: Discussing humanitarian aid corridor from Bangladesh to Myanmar](https://ij-reportika.com/un-chief-discussing-humanitarian-aid-corridor-from-bangladesh-to-myanmar/): Read this story on BenarNews site. DHAKA, Bangladesh — The United Nations is discussing the possibility of a humanitarian aid corridor to Myanmar from Bangladesh in an effort to create equitable conditions for Rohingya refugees to eventually return, the U.N. chief said in Dhaka on Saturday. However, the Rohingya refugees sheltering in Bangladesh could not make and immediate, “dignified return to their homeland in Myanmar’s Rakhine state amid the continued fighting there, added U.N. Secretary General António Guterres at a media briefing. U.N. chief António Guterres at a photo exhibition in Dhaka for the 50th anniversary this year of Bangladesh joining the United Nations, March 15, 2025.(Chief Adviser GOB via Facebook) “The crisis in Myanmar demands urgent global attention and action,” said Ejaz Min Khant in a statement Wednesday. “A humanitarian corridor between Myanmar and Bangladesh would be a lifeline for civilians impacted by the conflict.” The statement said Bangladesh should also lift restrictions on border trade with Myanmar “to help ease access to basic commodities for civilians in Rakhine state.” The NGO noted that Bangladesh’s interim leader, Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus had said in an interview aired earlier this month on Sky News that his government was in ongoing negotiations with the Arakan Army to create a “safe zone” for Rohingya refugees to return to Rakhine. Bangladesh’s Foreign Adviser Touhid Hossain, who also spoke at the joint media briefing, said the establishment of a humanitarian channel was not discussed with the U.N. chief during his visit. “This is much more of an operational matter, which we will of course deal [on] with the local offices of the U.N.,” Hossain said. Nearly a million Rohingya, a persecuted minority Muslim community in Myanmar, live in refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar in southeastern Bangladesh. Almost 800,000 of them crossed into neighboring Bangladesh to flee a deadly Myanmar military crackdown in 2017. Their return to Rakhine has been prolonged after civil war broke out in Myanmar following the military coup of February 2021. RELATED STORIES UN chief Guterres breaks Ramadan fast with 100,000 Rohingya in Bangladesh ‘Deeper into hunger’: UN to halve food aid for Rohingya in Bangladesh Rubio allows humanitarian aid as Dhaka claims Rohingya funding will continue U.N. human rights experts had said on Thursday that the Myanmar junta had not been allowing in relief supplies, with the situation “particularly critical in Rakhine,” which is home to the Rohingya and other ethnic minorities. Rakhine State was “on the brink of famine,” with two million people at risk of starvation, the statement added citing another U.N. agency. Meanwhile, heavy fighting continues in Rakhine between the Myanmar military and the rebel Arakan Army, Guterres said on Saturday. “There is a consensus that it would be extremely difficult in such a situation for an immediate and dignified return of the Rohingya,” he told the mrdia in Dhaka on Saturday. Guterres further noted that in the past, the relationship between the ethnic Rakhine and the Rohingya has not been an easy one. “So I think it is important to engage with the Arakan Army in order for ensure full respect of the rights of the Rohingya population in Rakhine,” the U.N. chief said. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres observes a traditional tool used by Rohingya to thresh rice, March 14, 2025.(Press Wing of the Chief Adviser) The Arakan Army founded in 2009 is fighting to “liberate” Rakhine towards its goal of self-determination. It has made significant gains over the past year to root out the military and now controls a majority of Rakhine’s townships, reported radio Free Asia, a news service affiliated with BenarNews. Comprising mainly Rakhine Buddhists, the Arakan Army claimed it respects the rights of Rohingya. But experts have said there was plenty of evidence that the Arakan Army carried out mass arson attacks on Rohingya villages in May and August last year. Guterres again made an impassioned plea to donor nations for more humanitarian aid for the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, whose food ration is set to be cut by more than half starting next month due to a funds shortage. “With the announced cuts in financial assistance, we are facing the dramatic risk of having only 40% in 2025 of the resources available for humanitarian aid in 2024,” he said. “This would have terrible consequences starting with the drastic reduction of food rations. That would be an unmitigated disaster. People will suffer and people will die.” He said that by offering the Rohingya refuge, Bangladesh had shown its humanitarian spirit. “By offering Rohingya refugees sanctuary, Bangladesh has demonstrated solidarity and human dignity, often at significant social, environmental and economic cost,” he said. “The world must not take this generosity for granted.” BenarNews is an online news organization affiliated with Radio Free Asia. 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- [PHOTOS: Thousands rally against China’s ‘mega-embassy’ in London](https://ij-reportika.com/photos-thousands-rally-against-chinas-mega-embassy-in-london/): LONDON — Hong Kong rights groups, Tibetans, Uyghurs and local residents gathered at the historic former Royal Mint Court on Saturday to rally against China’s proposed ‘mega-embassy’, voicing fears that Beijing would use the building to harass and monitor dissidents living abroad. It’s the second mass protest in in five weeks at the site near the Tower of London. Organizers estimated that 6,000 people participated. Video: Chinese &#8216;mega-embassy&#8217; protest in LondonThe protesters dispersed peacefully after the rally and no one was arrested. The Chinese government purchased the historic building in 2018 with plans to build what would become Beijing’s largest diplomatic facility globally. An architect working on the project revealed some of the details of the project, including a tunnel connecting two of the former Royal Mint buildings, basement rooms and accommodation for hundreds of staff. Signs depicting British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Chinese President Xi Jinping as Winnie the Pooh are wait for protesters at the proposed site of the Chinese “mega-embassy” in London, March 15, 2025.(Ka Kit Chan/RFA Cantonese) Protesters gather near the proposed site of the Chinese “mega-embassy” in London, March 15, 2025.(Ka Kit Chan/RFA Cantonese) Protesters gather near the proposed site of the Chinese “mega-embassy” in London, March 15, 2025.(Ka Kit Chan/RFA Cantonese) A protester holds a sign depicting British Prime MInister Keir Starmer and Winnie the Pooh which represents Chinese President Xi Jinping at the proposed site of the Chinese “mega-embassy” in London, March 15, 2025.(Ka Kit Chan/RFA Cantonese) We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [RFA operations may cease following federal grants termination](https://ij-reportika.com/rfa-operations-may-cease-following-federal-grants-termination/): The federal grants that fund Radio Free Asia and partner networks were terminated Saturday morning, according to a grant termination notice received by RFA. An executive order issued by U.S. President Donald Trump late Friday calls for the reduction of non-statutory components of the United States Agency for Global Media, or USAGM, the federal agency that funds RFA and several other independent global news organizations. The U.S. Congress appropriates funds to USAGM, which disburses the monies to the grantee news outlets. The brief order calls for the elimination “to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law” of USAGM and six other unrelated government entities that work on museums, homelessness, minority business development and more. While the order addresses “non-statutory components” of USAGM, RFA is statutorily established, meaning it was congressionally established by a statute in the International Broadcasting Act . But a letter sent to the president of RFA Saturday and signed by USAGM special adviser Kari Lake, whose title is listed as “Senior Advisor to the Acting CEO with Authorities Delegated by Acting CEO,” notes that the agency’s federal grant has been terminated and that RFA is obliged to “promptly refund any unobligated funds.” It says that an appeal can be made within 30 days. It was not immediately clear how and when operations would cease, but RFA is solely funded through federal grants. In a statement issued Saturday, RFA President Bay Fang said the outlet planned to challenge the order. “The termination of RFA’s grant is a reward to dictators and despots, including the Chinese Communist Party, who would like nothing better than to have their influence go unchecked in the information space,” the statement says. “Today’s notice not only disenfranchises the nearly 60 million people who turn to RFA’s reporting on a weekly basis to learn the truth, but it also benefits America’s adversaries at our own expense.” An editorially independent news outlet funded through an act of Congress, RFA began its first Mandarin language broadcasts in 1996, expanding in subsequent years to a total of nine language services: Cantonese, Uyghur, Tibetan, Korean, Khmer, Vietnamese, Burmese and Lao. RFA news programming is disseminated through radio, television, social media and the web in countries that have little to no free press, often providing the only source of uncensored, non-propaganda news. Because RFA covers closed-off countries and regions like North Korea, Tibet and Xinjiang, its English-language translations remain the primary source of information from many of these areas. Its parent agency, USAGM, oversees broadcasters that work in more than 60 languages and reach an audience of hundreds of millions. These include Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which reported Saturday that its grants had also been terminated. Voice of America and the Office for Cuba Broadcasting, which are directly run by USAGM, put all staff on paid administrative leave Saturday. In a post on Facebook, VOA Director Michael Abramowitz wrote: “I learned this morning that virtually the entire staff of Voice of America—more than 1300 journalists, producers and support staff—has been placed on administrative leave today. So have I.” Committee to Protect Journalists Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna urged Congress to restore funding to USAGM, “which provides uncensored news in countries where the press is restricted.” “It is outrageous that the White House is seeking to gut the Congress-funded agency supporting independent journalism that challenges narratives of authoritarian regimes around the world,” he said in a statement. China watchers cautioned that cuts to RFA in particular could impact Washington’s ability to counter Beijing. “Radio Free Asia plays a vital role in countering China’s influence by providing accurate and uncensored news to audiences facing relentless propaganda from the People’s Republic of China,” Rep. Ami Bera, a California Democrat, wrote in a post on X. “RFA helps advance American values amidst our ongoing Great Power Competition with China and exposes egregious human rights abuses like the Uyghur genocide and Beijing’s covert activities abroad.” Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul called the dismantling of RFA and its sister publications “giant gifts to China,” while Human Rights Watch’s Maya Wang posted that in places like Xinjiang and Tibet: “Radio Free Asia has been one of the few which can get info out. Its demise would mean that these places will become info black holes, just as the CCP wants them.” In a statement issued by USAGM Saturday evening and posted to X by Lake, the agency deemed itself “not salvageable” due to a range of alleged findings of security violations and self-dealing, though few details were provided. “From top-to-bottom this agency is a giant rot and burden to the American taxpayer — a national security risk for this nation — and irretrievably broken. While there are bright spots within the agency with personnel who are talented and dedicated public servants, this is the exception rather than the rule,” the statement read. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Immigration crackdown in southern China puts Myanmar migrant workers on edge](https://ij-reportika.com/immigration-crackdown-in-southern-china-puts-myanmar-migrant-workers-on-edge/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. Undocumented Myanmar migrant workers in southern China are living in fear amid an increase in raids by Chinese authorities on farms and factories near the border, workers and labor activists say. The arrests increased after 500 workers at a factory in Yunnan province protested against poor labor conditions in early March, migrant workers told Radio Free Asia. Ever since, Chinese police have made daily arrests of at least 30 Myanmar migrant workers in the border towns of Ruili and Jiegao who are undocumented or carry expired border passes, which people use to cross the border without a passport, the workers told RFA Burmese. Win Naing, who landed a job at a toy factory Ruili in early January, was issued a border pass so that he could commute to work, but it was short-term and has since expired. But now he’s too afraid to go outside, and isn’t sure when he’ll next see his his wife and three children, who are just across the border in Myanmar. “Since we stay inside the factory, we don’t have to worry as much about being arrested, but we can’t leave at all,” said Win Naing, who earns around 1,500 Chinese yuan (US$210) per month, considered a decent salary. “Without passports, we have to work and live very cautiously.” Most of those detained are being held in prisons in Ruili and nearby Yinjing village, they said, although some have been deported and banned from re-entering China “for several years.” People are desperate for jobs Every day, nearly 10,000 people wait at the border in Muse, in Myanmar, for a chance to cross into China and authorities only issue passes to about 700 of them. Short-term border passes are good for one week of entry into China, and when they expire, holders must reapply for one in Muse. But those who make it across often overstay their pass, said a resident of Shan state’s Kutkai township named De Dee, who is working in Ruili. That puts them at risk of arrest during frequent police inspections in places such as the Htike Li and Hwa Fong markets, where Myanmar migrants are known to live and work. “Chinese officials conduct checks on the streets and even inside homes,” she said. “Around 30 or 40 migrant workers are arrested each day.” The situation is similar in Jiegao, a migrant working there said on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. He said there are frequently “police cars circling the markets,” while authorities regularly “stop motorbikes and arrest people.” A migrant working in Muse told RFA that the amount of time undocumented workers are detained in the Ruili and Yinjing prisons varies, as does the lengths of bans on their re-entry to China. “Some undocumented migrants &#8230; are detained for a week, 10 days, or a month,” he said. “Those arrested in early March — mostly women— following the protest were banned from reentering China for about five or six years.” Those banned from re-entry who need to return to China are forced to pay more than 2 million kyats (US$953) — an incredibly steep cost for the average Myanmar citizen — to do so via illegal routes, the migrant added. Aid workers were unable to definitively say how many Myanmar migrants have been arrested in China since the protest earlier this month, and RFA was unable to independently confirm the number. ‘There are so many of them’ Attempts by RFA to contact the Chinese Embassy in Yangon about the arrests of undocumented Myanmar nationals in Ruili and Jiegao went unanswered by the time of publishing, as did calls to the Myanmar Consulate in Yunnan. RFA Mandarin spoke with a Chinese resident of Ruili surnamed Sun who said that police in the town had been targeting illegal Myanmar migrants for at least six months, although the arrests had intensified beginning in March. “Most of them are men who enter the country and go to the industrial park to find work, including jobs making parts for domestic cell phones and daily-use hardware, with salaries of 1,000-3,000 yuan (US$140-420) per month,” he said. Sun said that illegal migrants who are arrested “are usually repatriated, but not fined.” A merchant surnamed Zhang from Yunnan’s Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture, where Ruili and Jiegao are located, told RFA that Myanmar migrants also find work in area restaurants and massage parlors. He said that “because there are so many of them, the Chinese police are not in a position to carry out mass expulsions” and choose to repatriate small numbers of them back to Myanmar at a time. Translated by Aung Naing and RFA Mandarin. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Did European countries ban popular Chinese film ‘Ne Zha 2’?](https://ij-reportika.com/did-european-countries-ban-popular-chinese-film-ne-zha-2/): A claim began to circulate in Chinese-language posts that the Chinese animated film “Ne Zha 2” has been banned in Europe. But the claim is false. Keyword searches found no credible reports or announcement to back the claim. The film’s distributor confirmed that it had bought exclusive theatrical distribution rights for the film in more than 37 countries in March, including European nations. The claim was . Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture also denied rumors that the film was banned in Taiwan, stating that the movie has not yet applied for a Taiwanese theatrical release. Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Taejun Kang. Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Taiwan president slams China as ‘foreign hostile force’ in toughest rhetoric yet](https://ij-reportika.com/taiwan-president-slams-china-as-foreign-hostile-force-in-toughest-rhetoric-yet/): Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te on Thursday called for a tougher response to Beijing, describing China as an “foreign hostile force” intent on “absorbing” the democratic island — the toughest rhetoric yet toward Beijing from a Taiwanese leader.
- [Cambodian defense ministry defends appointment of navy commander](https://ij-reportika.com/cambodian-defense-ministry-defends-appointment-of-navy-commander/): Cambodia’s Ministry of National Defense has dismissed suggestions of nepotism in the appointment of new navy commander, Tea Sokha, insisting it is in compliance with the kingdom’s law.
- [Construction begins on first road bridge between North Korea and Russia](https://ij-reportika.com/construction-begins-on-first-road-bridge-between-north-korea-and-russia/): Construction has begun on a road bridge that would connect North Korea and Russia over the Tumen River that separates the countries, South Korean satellite imagery revealed.
- [Chinese envoy discusses election with Myanmar junta chief](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-envoy-discusses-election-with-myanmar-junta-chief/): A Chinese envoy has met Myanmar’s junta chief to discuss help for an election that the military aims to hold by January, days after the Myanmar leader secured a promise of support for the vote from its other main foreign backer, Russia.
- [Thailand’s power and fuel cuts hurting ordinary Myanmar residents](https://ij-reportika.com/thailands-power-and-fuel-cuts-hurting-ordinary-myanmar-residents/): Thailand’s move to cut off electricity, fuel and internet service to an area across the border in Myanmar rife with scam centers is hurting ordinary people more than the crime syndicates it was trying target, residents told Radio Free Asia. The shutoff of the grid since Feb. 4 has resulted in many turning to electric generators, and that’s doubled the price of gas in Myawaddy in just five weeks. Described by some as it’s “most decisive action ever,” Bangkok said the move was aimed at closing down the scamming operations, where hundreds of trafficked workers have been trapped and often tortured. Thailand also banned the export of 12 items, including mobile phones and electrical appliances, to Myanmar. But the criminal organizations are finding their way around the blockade, including often illegal ways to acquire the fuel needed to power their generators and continue their operations, residents told RFA Burmese. Instead of its intended targets, the shutdown is taking a much larger toll on residents in the area, which is controlled by the Karen Border Guard Force and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army. “Ordinary people are suffering the most from the Thai government’s fuel cuts,” said a Myawaddy resident who used the pseudonym Thura for fear of reprisals. “Meanwhile, scam call center gangs continue to receive fuel supplies with the help” of region rebel groups. Fuel is hard to buy because demand is high and supply is low. Gas has nearly doubled to 7,000 kyats per liter ($12.64 per gallon), Thura said. In Myawaddy, across from the Thai town of Mae Sot, gas stations are all closed, and residents instead have to buy fuel from residents on the Thai side of the border. The criminal gangs, by relying on their connections with these local armed groups, can get what they need without much difficulty. “In contrast, ordinary people are struggling due to fuel shortages caused by illegal traders.” Attempts by RFA to contact the Karen Border Guard Force spokesperson Lt. Col. Nai Maung Zaw and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army DKBA chief of staff General Saw San Aung, on March 10, for comment on these situations went unanswered. Illegal trade routes Kyaw Naing, a Myawaddy merchant who used a pseudonym for security reasons, told RFA that despite the Thai government’s bans on 12 types of products &#8212; which also include batteries, inverters and generators &#8212; are still being smuggled in. “Fuel is filled in cars from Mae Sot to be sold in Myawaddy,” Kyaw Naing said. “Buying fuel can be somewhat challenging, but it is still possible since the border routes are not completely closed all the time.” The banned Thai items can also be imported instead from China, to the point that the ban is almost ineffective, he said, adding that the Thai government should reopen the fuel market considering it is a basic need for the people. RFA attempted to contact Thin Thin Myat, chairman of the Myawaddy Border Trade Chamber of Commerce for comment, but she did not respond. With people buying fuel in Thailand to sell in Myanmar, sellers in Mae Sai, far to the north of the Mae Sot-Myawaddy border crossing are now requiring that buyers fill up only the gas tanks of their vehicles, not portable containers. Workers repatriated Meanwhile, the Karen Border Guard Force on Tuesday handed nearly 250 Indian and Malaysian workers who had been trafficked and held in Chinese gambling dens and scam centers in Myawaddy to authorities from their respective countries via the Mae Sot-Myawaddy Friendship Bridge. Among those freed were 226 Indian nationals and 24 Malaysians. “Plans are in place to repatriate more foreign nationals in the coming days,” a spokesperson for the Border Guard Force told RFA. Between Monday and Tuesday, 509 Indian nationals had been sent over the bridge to Indian authorities working alongside their Thai counterparts. The Karen Border Guard Force claims to have been conducting anti-scam and anti-human trafficking operations for nearly a month. According to a source at their Investigation Office, around 3,000 scam workers from China, Indonesia, India and Malaysia have been repatriated via Thailand. Translated by Aung Naing and Thane Aung. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Chinese defense company builds industrial estate in Cambodia](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-defense-company-builds-industrial-estate-in-cambodia/): A Chinese defense company and its Cambodian partner have begun developing an industrial park on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, strengthening China’s foothold in the kingdom’s defense sector. Cambodia’s defense minister Tea Seiha, who is also a deputy prime minister, presided over a groundbreaking ceremony for the C-01 industrial park, on Monday in Kandal province outside the capital, according to for their involvement in the development and production of drones for Russian military use in the Ukraine war. China is the largest foreign investor in Cambodia and has provided loans to many major infrastructure projects via the Belt and Road Initiative. As of October 2024, Cambodia had more than 2,300 industrial factories, half of which received investment from China of US$9 billion in total, according to the Kingdom’s industry ministry. Edited by Mike Firn We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [North Korea publicly executes 3 men for trying to escape by boat to South Korea](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korea-publicly-executes-3-men-for-trying-to-escape-by-boat-to-south-korea/): Read a version of this story in Korean North Korea publicly executed three men &#8212; shooting each one with 90 rounds from a machine gun &#8212; for attempting to flee to democratic South Korea, a witness and a resident who heard about the execution told Radio Free Asia. Authorities then burned their corpses in front of horrified residents of the town, who were forced to watch, the sources said. The three men, all in their 30s, had been caught in January when trying to escape to the South by boat. Lost in fog on the sea, they thought they had crossed the border when they saw what they assumed was a South Korean fishing vessel. They called out for help, but it turned out to be a North Korean patrol boat that caught them in the act, and they were promptly arrested, the two sources told RFA Korean. A North Korean navy ship, top right, patrols near fishing boats at South Korea-controlled Yeonpyeong island, May 31, 2009.(Byun Yeong Wook/AFP) By publicly executing the men &#8212; and telling villagers they would face a similar fate &#8212; authorities sought to scare anyone who might be thinking about fleeing themselves, the sources said. The incident reflects harsher punishment for escapees. In past years they would have been sent to reeducation camp for a maximum of 15 years. But now they will be killed by firing squad, with residents in the area forced to watch, the sources said. Public executions are a common occurrence in North Korea, for crimes like murder or human trafficking, or even distribution South Korean videos. Tied to stakes The three men &#8212; two brothers surnamed Kim and their friend surnamed Ri &#8212; were from South Hwanghae province, which borders South Korea on the peninsula’s west coast. A resident from the northwestern province of North Pyongan, who witnessed the execution while on a trip to South Hwanghae, described it in detail to RFA Korean, saying that it occurred in the the village of Songjong-ri in February, and the three men were tied to stakes. “We witnessed the young men being dragged out with black cloths over their eyes and gagged, being shot dozens of times and their bodies being torn to pieces,” he said. “Usually those who are to be executed are tied to the stake in three places: the neck, the torso, and the legs,” he said. “But this time, they were so weakened by severe torture that they had to be bound in six sections because they could not support their own bodies.” He said authorities yelled, “Traitors to the nation must be punished!” as the executioners emptied the entirety of their 90 round-magazines into each man. The execution was corroborated by another North Pyongan resident who heard about it from his friend from South Hwanghae &#8211;a witness himself &#8212; who had visited the northern province on business. He was told village authorities ordered everyone in nearby factories, farms and schools to attend. “It was an attempt to instill fear in the residents that this is what happens when you try to escape,” the second source said. “Most of the residents gathered without knowing what was happening, and they were made to witness such a horrific sight.” The first source said the authorities made of point of treating the dead men’s bodies with disrespect. “They said, ‘There is no place to bury the bodies of defectors in in this land!’ and they burned their scattered remains,” the resident said. Many children and young students in attendance were screaming in terror, and some residents collapsed and fainted, he said. Botched escape Since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, more than 34,000 people have escaped North Korea and resettled in the South. The most common route involves escaping first to China then avoiding captured and forcibly repatriated by Chinese authorities as they try to reach Southeast Asia. Once there, they can arrange with the help of a South Korean embassy to arrange a flight to Seoul. Crossing directly into the South is rare. But the Kim brothers and their friend Ri had hoped to defy the odds. According to the residents, prior to the execution the authorities announced that the trio had been planning their escape for months. They pooled their money to buy a small boat and set sail on the night of Jan. 6, hoping to cross the maritime border in waters west of the peninsula. “Unfortunately they found themselves in a difficult situation where they could not see an inch in front of them because of the fog in the middle of the sea,” the second source said. “However, they blindly headed south, navigating with a compass. As they continued southward, another vessel appeared within sight. “They thought it was a South Korean fishing boat and shouted, ‘We are people who have escaped to South Korea! Please spare us!’” But it was a North Korean patrol boat, and the three men were immediately arrested, he said. “Now if anyone’s caught trying to go to South Korea, they will be executed in public without exception.” Translated by Eugene Whong and Leejin J. Chung. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar junta troops massacre 11 villagers, most too old to flee, residents say](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-troops-massacre-11-villagers-most-too-old-to-flee-residents-say/): Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese. Myanmar soldiers on a sweep through a central village known for its support of anti-junta forces killed 11 civilians, most of them too old to flee, residents of the area who saw the bodies told Radio Free Asia on Monday. The Myanmar military has had an appalling human rights record for decades in its wars against ethnic minority guerrillas in remote frontier regions, independent investigators have said. But violence over the past couple of years has been particularly brutal in central areas dominated by members of the majority Barmar community who, since a popular government was overthrown in a coup in 2021, have for the first time risen up in opposition to military rule. All of those killed in Magway region’s Myay Sun Taw village were elderly apart from two, residents said. “My father was left behind and didn’t escape the village. He’s elderly, so he’s attached to his home and didn’t run away. We were urging and calling for him but he didn’t follow us,” said the son of one of the victims. “As far as I know, he was shot in the head. I feel devastated. This is my village, my people and my parents,” said the son, who declined to be identified for safety reasons. Soldiers from the 101st Infantry Division Headquarters and three other battalions were involved in the sweep through the region that began on March 2, villagers said. There was no battle to explain the soldiers’ actions as they raided the village, though the area is known to support pro-democracy fighters in militias called People’s Defense Forces that have sprung up across the country since the coup, especially in the central Magway and Sagaing regions, residents said. “They were all just civilians,” said one witness of the aftermath of the raid. RFA called the junta’s spokesperson, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, to ask about the incident but he did not respond by the time of publication. Destruction after a raid by Myanmar soldiers on Myay Sun Taw village, Magway region, taken on March 6, 2025.(Yesagyo Township Info Committee/Facebook) RELATED STORIES Myanmar junta chief says election to be held by January 2026 Nearly 30,000 civilians displaced by fighting in Myanmar’s heartland Fighting in Myanmar’s Sagaing region prompts thousands to flee to India border Residents identified the victims as a man over 70 named Han Tin, a man in his 60s named Htay Myint, 88-year-old woman Than Ma Ni, 60-year old woman Than Pyae, 86-year-old woman Hla Ngwe, 67-year old man Kyi Htay, 69-year old man Aung Myaing, 35-year old man Thant Zin, 40-year-old man Aung Lin Naing, 70-year-old man Nyunt Wai, and 50-year-old man San Win. Soldiers also burned down nearby Thar Gaung and Za Yat Ni villages, destroying about 600 homes and forcing some 10,000 people to flee. “Soldiers have launched a lot of offensives in this region. Most villages are carrying out actions with armed groups to protect themselves,” said a representative of the anti-junta Yesagyo Township Information Committee, who also declined to be identified in fear of reprisals. “The people killed in Myay Sun Taw were elderly and innocent. The military is malicious and extremely cruel.” Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [‘Free education’ in Southeast Asia often isn’t free](https://ij-reportika.com/free-education-in-southeast-asia-often-isnt-free/): Many Southeast Asian countries have adopted a policy of “free education” for students through middle school and, in some cases, through high school. But in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar, it isn’t really free. Many additional or hidden costs — for uniforms, textbooks, supplies, transportation, extracurricular activities and sometimes even teachers’ salaries or school maintenance or improvements — make education too expensive for some families to afford. In Vietnam, the Communist Party Politburo recently eliminated tuition fees for public school students from preschool to grade 12, a move parents initially welcomed — before learning about the high costs of other monthly educational expenses. According to a Feb. 28 report by state media, the Politburo decided to waive the tuition fees beginning in the 2025-26 school year, following a recommendation from the Ministry of Education and Training. The move marks the first time Vietnam has ordered an end to the fees, which applied to some 23 million students, on a national scale, said the report. Around 30 trillion Vietnamese dong (US$1.17 billion) will be applied from the country’s budget to make up for the shortfall, it said. The government will provide students at private schools with subsidies equivalent to the public school tuition rate, but private school families will be required to cover the remaining difference of their child’s yearly tuition, the report said. The state media report cited the Department of Education for Ho Chi Minh City as saying that monthly tuition for public high school students ranges from 100,000-200,000 Vietnamese dong (US$4-8), while tuition for preschool students is around 300,000 Vietnamese dong (US$12). A mother of two children in middle and high school in Hanoi applauded the end to tuition fees, but said other costs were higher than tuition. “While this may be a significant cost for the government, a tuition exemption of 200,000–300,000 dong is quite small compared to the other expenses parents have to cover for their children’s education in the city,” the mother told RFA Vietnamese, who like others in this report spoke on condition of anonymity due to fear of reprisal. The mother said she spends between 1 million and 2 million dong (US$39-78) per month on tuition fees, meals and drinking water. Additionally, families are expected to contribute to a yearly “parents&#8217; fund,” which schools use for events like Teachers&#8217; Day, Vietnam Women’s Day and other extracurricular activities. Another parent, whose child is in high school in Hanoi, told RFA that she remains concerned about monthly education expenses — particularly a 325,000 dong (US$13) fee for the student’s&#8217; afterschool classes. Concerns over high and opaque fees at public schools in Vietnam — which are seen as a burden for low-income families — have been widely reported in both state and social media for years. In 2024, the average monthly income of workers in Vietnam was approximately 7.7 million dong (US$300), according to the country’s General Statistics Office. Schools ‘don’t have enough money&#8217; In Laos, public schooling is free but students are required to pay several other unofficial fees for their education, according to parents. This includes tutoring fees and the cost of textbooks, as well as contributions towards maintenance fees and utility bills. A parent who previously lived in the capital Vientiane told RFA Lao he had to pay up to 650,000 Lao kip (US$30) for “learning and teaching activities” each year his child was in first through fifth grade. “On top of that I had to pay 150,000 kip (US$7) per month for a ‘special tuition fee’ for a subject my child wasn’t good at,” said the parent, who also declined to be named. The same parent recently relocated his family to Khammouane province and noted that schools in the countryside collect less than those in the cities. “They collect money to pay for textbooks for school and everyone has to pay 60,000 kip (US$3) per year for school maintenance,” he said. “But poorer families may not be able to afford it, preventing their kids from getting into schools.” In Bokeo province, on Laos&#8217; northern border with Thailand, another parent told RFA that he had to pay 300-400 Thai baht (US$9-12) for electricity each year since his child first began attending middle school. “When I first learned from the government that school is free, I felt so happy,” he said. “However, the school claims that they don’t have enough money, so they have to collect it from parents.” Speaking to RFA, an educator said that his and other schools have to spend money on things such as “repairing restrooms, painting, fixing sports facilities, building fences and buying materials” each year, requiring them to ask parents to contribute. ‘I am stressed out and exhausted’ Cambodian parents told RFA that while tuition is free, they also find fees at primary and secondary school to be exorbitant and complain that they take up a large part of their daily income. Those who live in extreme poverty often stop their children’s education altogether by 6th grade because of the cost, they said. Some have likened the teaching profession to a “business,” despite free tuition, citing the payments they must regularly make to their children’s schools. A student reads at Banlech Prasat Primary School, Prey Veng province, Cambodia, in an undated photo.(Business Wire/AP) Soeung Sakona, a tailor based in Siem Reap province’s Sala Kamreuk Sangkat, has two daughters studying at a high school in Siem Reap city and said she must spend at least 10,000 riel (US$2.50) in fees on each of them daily. Tutoring — often from the same people who teach at public school by day — textbooks, transportation and other school supplies are among the fees she said she must account for each day, leaving her with little wiggle room for her remaining income. “Every day is very tense for me because I cannot save anything &#8230; I spend a lot on them for their daily education to cover gas as well as their private courses,” she said. “I have to work hard to...
- [OPINION: Rohingya women are the grassroots advocates behind genocide arrest warrants](https://ij-reportika.com/opinion-rohingya-women-are-the-grassroots-advocates-behind-genocide-arrest-warrants/): The global celebration of International Women’s Day is a call to action to support and amplify the efforts of the extraordinary girls and women around the world who are tirelessly working within their communities to defend their rights and to empower future generations. Last month, we saw the Argentinian federal court issue arrest warrants against 25 Myanmar officials, including the seniormost military leaders, for genocide and crimes against humanity committed against the Rohingya community between 2012 and 2018. Our thoughts immediately went to the brave Rohingya women who helped make this significant legal action possible. For years, the Shanti Mohila (Peace Women), a group of over 400 Rohingya women living in the refugee camps in southeastern Bangladesh, have defied societal expectations and conservative gender norms. They are leaders in their community fighting for recognition and justice for the harms endured at the hands of the Myanmar military. They play a vital role as leaders, educators, and advocates for justice. RELATED STORIES Rohingya women say sexual violence, killings forced them out of Myanmar Rohingya at risk of being forgotten, activists say INTERVIEW: Why an Argentine court filed a warrant for Aung San Suu Kyi’s arrest The 2017 “clearance operations” by the Myanmar military against the historically persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority living in the Rakhine state were a series of widespread and systematic attacks involving mass killings, torture, and destruction of houses that led to the largest forced displacement of the Rohingya community from Myanmar into neighboring Bangladesh. Sexual violence was a hallmark of these “clearance operations,” with young women and girls disproportionately affected by brutal and inhuman acts of sexual and gender-based violence. Yet, despite efforts to destroy them through long-term serious physical and mental harm, Rohingya women fought back. Rohingya refugee women hold placards as they take part in a protest at the Kutupalong refugee camp to mark the first year of their exodus in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, Aug. 25, 2018.(Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters) Sexual violence against Rohingya women and young mothers in front of their families, and the accompanying sexual mutilations and forced pregnancies, are some of the most significant reflections of the perpetrators’ desire to inflict severe social and reproductive harm on the community. The SGBV was not only a part of the campaign of mass killings, torture and destruction of property in 2017 but also committed in the context of decades-long propagated narrative that uncontrolled Rohingya birth rate is a threat to the survival of the nation, and state policies that placed significant legal restraint on Rohingya reproductive rights. In a 2023 study on long-term impact of sexual and gender-based violence against the Rohingya men, women, and hijra conducted by the Legal Action Worldwide (LAW), clinical analysis by psychologists and medical doctors revealed that the SGBV against Rohingya had resulted in: permanent damage to survivors’ genitalia impacting their ability to procreate; severe psychological injuries that have left them in a state of extreme emotional distress; damaged the survivors’ family relations including with their spouse and children; severe ostracization of the women and children born of rape; and forced reorganization of the Rohingya households. The evidence of SGBV is critical in that its commission and its enduring and foreseeable impact on survivors clearly shows that the Myanmar military inflicted serious mental and bodily harm and imposed measures intending to prevent births within the community. It also reflects a deliberate incremental step in causing the biological or physical destruction of the group while inflicting acute suffering on its members in the process. Leaders within the Shanti Mohila network have been instrumental in supporting the conceptualization and implementation of studies such as the 2023 report – making them truly the grassroots advocates for the community. Towards holistic justice and healing Alongside these important contributions, the Shanti Mohila members continuously work within the camps in Cox’s Bazar to ensure awareness of the ongoing justice processes and provide peer support to one another and the wider community. Last year, LAW and Shanti Mohila engaged with Rohingya activists around the globe through LAW’s Rohingya Diaspora Dialogue initiative to foster wider recognition and advocacy for the significant work being done by the Rohingya women in Cox’s Bazar on gender equality and to hold the perpetrators of serious crimes responsible. These actions embody Shanti Mohila’s commitment and openness to learning. They are dedicated to remaining bold and effective advocates for their community and being against the illegitimate military regime that continues to commit atrocities against civilians across Myanmar. Shanti Mohila members stand in an embrace in a gesture of support and solidarity, in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, in 2022.(Ayesha Nawshin/Legal Action Worldwide) The challenges remain plenty since the renewed conflict between Arakan Army and Myanmar military in late 2023 has led to upward of 60,000 Rohingya arriving in Cox’s Bazar in a new wave of forced displacement, joining over 1 million Rohingya refugees already living in the camps. The evolving conflict dynamics in the Rakhine state and its impact on the Rohingya there add to the tensions in the camps. The risk of another surge in the forced recruitment of the Rohingya in the camps by organized groups pressuring youths to join the civil war in Myanmar persists. Amid this, the work and growth of Shanti Mohila can prove to be a stabilizing force, beyond their contributions to women empowerment and the justice process. They can provide an avenue to offset the negative impacts of the deteriorating regional security situation through promoting efforts toward reconciliation and encouraging people to keep the rule of law and justice at the center of their struggle. On this International Women’s Day, we celebrate the groundbreaking work of Shanti Mohila and the power and legacy they are creating for generations of Rohingya women, their community as a whole, and women across fragile and conflict-affected contexts worldwide. Ishita Kumar, based in Cox’s Bazar, is the legal and program adviser on the Rohingya crisis for Legal Action Worldwide (LAW), an independent, non-profit organization of human rights lawyers and jurists working in fragile and...
- [A North Korean base has mockups of South Korean cities, POW in Ukraine says](https://ij-reportika.com/a-north-korean-base-has-mockups-of-south-korean-cities-pow-in-ukraine-says/): Read a version of this story in Korean North Korean troops train at a base designed to emulate the layout of Seoul and other major South Korean cities, a South Korean lawmaker said, citing testimony from North Korean prisoners of war in Ukraine. If the testimony is true, it is an indication that North Korea has not given up on the possibility of invading the South, a South Korean ministry official said. The POW’s testimony was revealed during an interview &#8212; broadcast on South Korean radio and simultaneously livestreamed on YouTube &#8212; with National Assemblyman Yu Yong-weon about his recent visit to Ukraine, where he met with two North Korean POWs. North Korea has sent an estimated 12,000 soldiers to fight in Russia’s war against Ukraine, although neither Moscow or Pyongyang has publicly confirmed this. During the interview, Yu said that one POW identified as Ri told him that the base was located in Koksan county, North Hwanghae province, just over 40 miles (65 kilometers) from the DMZ that divides North from South. Urban warfare training center(Paul Nelson/RFA) Based on the satellite images, The entire base is approximately 3.5 kilometers (2 miles) long and 1.5 kilometers (1 mile) wide, with the model buildings spread over approximately 40 hectares (100 acres) “The base complex is split up into 4 sections of MOUT across the area,” Bogle said, using the abbreviation for “military operations on urbanized terrain.” “Most are simple, there may be around 5 structures that are two floors, but the vast majority are single-story structures, but some are as long as 36 meters (40 yards),” he said. Korean People&#8217;s Army special operations force train at a five-story building at a base, Sept. 11, 2014.(KCNA) The Koksan Training Base is also believed to have been visited by the country’s leader Kim Jong Un in Sept. 2024, when state media reported that he gave onsite guidance to soldiers at a training ground. NK news, a U.S. media outlet specializing in North Korea, analyzed a documentary video broadcast on the state-run Korean Central Television in January about the visit, and reported it likely took place in Koksan. On Friday, during a press briefing by the South Korean Ministry of Unification, a reporter asked spokesperson Goo Byung-sam about Ri’s testimony and the satellite imagery in the Korean version of this report, which was published on Thursday. The spokesperson said it was a military matter and that it would be inappropriate for the Ministry of Unification to comment. “That said, if this report is true, it would be yet another piece of evidence that North Korea has not abandoned its ambitions of invading the South,” Goo said. Translated by Claire S. Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [China warns US against containment as Trump’s second term reshapes relations](https://ij-reportika.com/china-warns-us-against-containment-as-trumps-second-term-reshapes-relations/): TAIPEI, Taiwan – No country should expect to suppress China and maintain good relations with it, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Friday, as he warned of a reaction if the United States tried to contain his country. But in response to questions about U.S. relations as President Donald Trump begins his second term, Wang also held out the prospect of a successful partnership between the world’s two biggest economies. “No country should fantasize that it can suppress China and maintain a good relationship with China at the same time,” Wang told a news conference on the sidelines of China’s annual parliamentary meeting in Beijing. “Such two-faced acts are not good for the stability of bilateral relations or for building mutual trust.” The United States has imposed tariffs of 20% on Chinese goods since Trump took office – 10% last month and a further 10% coming into effect on Tuesday. Trump imposed the tariffs in retaliation for what he says is China’s refusal to stop the outflow of precursors for the synthetic opioid fentanyl. U.S. officials blame fentanyl for tens of thousands of deaths each year. China moved swiftly to retaliate with tariffs of its own on American agricultural and food products while accusing the United States of “bullying.” Wang said the U.S. should reassess its policies, particularly on tariffs. He also dismissed U.S. criticism over fentanyl, describing it as a domestic issue that the U.S. must confront internally. The U.S. “should not repay kindness with grievances, let alone impose tariffs without reason,” he said, adding that China had provided the United States with “various assistance” to tackle the flow of fentanyl precursor drugs into the U.S. “If one side blindly exerts pressure, China will resolutely counter that,” Wang said. China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi (podium, 2nd L) speaks at a press conference during the ongoing National People’s Congress in Beijing on March 7, 2025.(Jade Gao/AFP) Wang warned of the “law of the jungle” in international relations if powerful countries bullied smaller ones. “Small and weak countries will get burned first, and the international order and rules will be under severe shock,” he said. “Major countries should undertake their international obligations … and not seek to profit from and bully the weak.” He said China welcomed more countries into a “community of a shared future.” “History proves that the only way to be a real winner is to care for everyone,” he added. ‘Playing with fire’ On broader U.S.-China relations, Wang denounced “unjustified external suppression” of China’s technology sector and reiterated Beijing’s opposition to Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy. Wang called on the U.S. to foster “positive and pragmatic cooperation and dialogue,” while emphasizing that mutual respect remained the foundation of U.S.-China ties, and their economic and trade ties were interdependent. “The two countries can be partners that contribute to each other’s success,” he said. Wang held out the prospect of good ties with the European Union as well, noting that annual China-EU trade has grown to US$780 billion. “We also believe that Europe can be a reliable partner. Both sides have the ability and wisdom to properly handle existing issues through friendly consultations,” he said. RELATED STORIES US charges 12 Chinese hackers and officials, offers $10M in rewards Trump hails retaliatory tariffs in defense of America’s jobs and its soul China announces 7.2% defense budget hike, reaffirms opposition to Taiwan independence Wang reaffirmed Beijing’s position on self-ruled Taiwan and accused outside powers of fueling instability, adding that anyone supporting Taiwan’s independence would get burned. “Taiwan has never been a country; it was not in the past, and it will never be in the future,” he said, warning that “allowing Taiwan independence undermines stability in the Taiwan Strait.” Wang further criticized “external support” for the island’s independence. “Supporting Taiwan independence is playing with fire,” he said. On the war in Ukraine, Wang repeated China’s stance of support for political negotiations to end a conflict that he said “could have been avoided.” “China has been advocating for peace talks since the first day of the crisis,” he said. “All parties should learn something from the crisis,” he said. “Among many other things, security should be mutual and equal, and no country should build its security on the insecurity of another,” he said. Edited by Mike Firn We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Exclusive: World’s ‘largest online black market’ loses banking license](https://ij-reportika.com/exclusive-worlds-largest-online-black-market-loses-banking-license/): Huione Pay, the banking arm of what’s been called the world’s “largest ever illicit online marketplace,” has been stripped of its banking license, the National Bank of Cambodia confirmed to RFA this week. The company is part of the wider Huione Group of Cambodia, a conglomerate which operates several “Huione” products, including marketplaces, banking and finance apps. One of these, a Telegram marketplace, has been identified as a notorious place for crime tied to up to $24 billion in illicit transactions. Huione Pay’s license was withdrawn owing to its noncompliance with “existing regulations and recommendations that may have been made by the regulators,” a National Bank of Cambodia spokesperson told RFA by email on Thursday. The spokesperson did not say when the license was withdrawn or what repercussions the company might face if they continue to operate. Huione did not respond to RFA’s requests for comment before publication. It has previously denied criminal activity– when Huione was identified by the cryptocurrency compliance firm Elliptic to have facilitated millions of dollars in criminal payments, it issued a statement insisting that it was a mere “information publishing and guarantee trading platform” bearing no responsibility for the goods and services others used it to trade. RELATED STORIES World’s ‘largest illicit online marketplace’ is just a download away Report: Online cybercriminal marketplace is part of Cambodian conglomerate Hun To went after the press; who really won? A March 6, 2025 post to the official Telegram channel of Huione Pay offering loans to customers in both dollars and cryptocurrencies.(RFA) However, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, or UNODC, Huione’s Telegram marketplace has become one of the main arteries of illicit commerce in Southeast Asia, a region grappling with an epidemic of human trafficking and internet fraud. The UNODC’s regional representative, Benedikt Hofmann, welcomed the termination of Huione Pay’s license. The withdrawal “will send an important signal, especially given the high profile of Huione and its outsize role for the region’s criminal ecosystem,” he told RFA. Hofmann cautioned, however, that this latest development would not be a cure-all for the region’s crime epidemic – nor would it necessarily mean the end of Huione. “Huione is in many ways the tip of the iceberg and we will see users shifting to other, similar providers which have emerged in the region,” he added. Much of the money that was being moved through Huione Pay came from illicit activities linked to cyberscamming, the UNODC found. For more than half a decade the region in which Huione operates has been dotted with compounds housing what the U.N. says are hundreds of thousands of enslaved workers forced to perpetrate a type of cyberscam commonly known as “pig butchering”. The practice is estimated to swindle billions of dollars from its victims around the world every year. Elliptic, the cryptocurrency compliance firm, traced billions of dollars flowing from Huione Guarantee, the Telegram marketplace, to Huione Pay. This was “likely so that these criminally-derived funds could be cashed out,” firm founder Tom Robinson told RFA. “I think this will be a blow to Huione Guarantee,” Robinson added. “We have direct evidence of Huione Pay laundering money from scam victims around the world, including the elderly and vulnerable. They are willing facilitators of pig butchering and other fraud, so any regulatory action against them should be welcomed.” The loss of Huione Pay’s license, which has not been previously reported, does not seem to have curtailed the company’s activities, however. As recently as Thursday the company’s official Telegram channel, linked to on its website, was offering loans to customers. A post on February 27th promoted the launch of a Huione-branded Visa card. Visa did not respond to requests for comment by press time. News of Huione Pay’s license being withdrawn was greeted as overdue by a former employee who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal. They told RFA it was openly acknowledged within the company that there were two sets of accounts maintained. “They cook the books,” the former employee said. While the company handled billions of dollars, “close to none” of those transactions were made available to the compliance department, which was relegated to the role of advisors, “ whose advice were never taken seriously,” the former employee said. One of Huione Pay’s three directors is Hun To, a cousin of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet. Official censure of a company so close to the inner circle of Cambodia’s ruling family is unusual. But Jacob Sims, an expert on transnational crime at the United States Institute of Peace, told RFA that the withdrawal of Huione’s banking license should not be read as a herald of reform. “It all ultimately amounts to a brand switch,” Sims said. “It’s basically an easy thing for the regime to point to and say, ‘Look, we’re cracking down on this’ without doing really anything but consolidating Huione’s available brands.” For Sims, there’s one way the Cambodian government could show it was serious about cracking down on the crime wave Huione has been surfing: “Arrest all the people involved in Huione.” Edited by Abby Seiff and Boer Deng We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Myanmar sends first workers to Russia; junta chief to Belarus](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-sends-first-workers-to-russia-junta-chief-to-belarus/): Read RFA coverage of these topics in Burmese. Myanmar has sent workers to Russia for the first time with 24 skilled construction employees setting off on Wednesday, Myanmar’s military government said, after the junta leader met President Vladimir Putin in Moscow for talks. Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, flew to Moscow on Monday for his first official visit with Putin. Russian media broadcast video of the two hugging as they met. The Myanmar military chief, on his fourth visit to Russia since he ousted a civilian government in a coup in 2021, thanked Putin for delivering six fighter jets to the junta, which has been embroiled in a civil war. Putin thanked the Myanmar leader for giving Russia six elephants last year, media reported. In talks on Tuesday, Myanmar’s military junta predicted Russia’s eventual victory over Ukraine in the three year-long war. The military’s Ministry of Information said in a statement that the first 24 workers had left for Russia under a memorandum of understanding that was still being worked out. “Both countries are looking forward to their friendship and to sending the workers,” the ministry said. The ministry did not say how many workers might follow the first batch of 24 or which industries they might be employed in. A Myanmar employment official said in December the military government was preparing to send workers to Russia at its request, to help make up for a shortage of foreign workers in agriculture and manufacturing amid its war with Ukraine. Charles Myo Thant, chairman of the Myanmar Overseas Employment Agencies Association, said they would take up jobs in agriculture, livestock, construction and factories, and they will need to learn Russian. Myanmar has for years sent workers abroad to places like Thailand and Singapore under government agreements. Many Myanmar people have also moved abroad to look for work, especially since the 2021 coup, which seriously undermined the economy. But junta authorities have recently placed restrictions on people going abroad for work as it seeks to fill the ranks of its armed forces through conscription. People of military age have been banned from applying for work abroad through employment agencies, and those allowed to leave for work have been told they may be ordered back to serve in the military. A labor activist based in the city of Yangon questioned the Russian agreement. “We can’t go to other countries, so why can we go to Russia?” said the activist, who declined to be identified for safety reasons. He also wondered what type of work they would be doing, saying hard labor or with no opportunities for training would not be popular. RELATED STORIES No limits to the lawlessness of Myanmar’s predatory military regime Trump extends ‘national emergency’ declaration for Myanmar Junta forces, Russian navy train together off western Myanmar coast Myanmar junta chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, with Russia&#8217;s President of Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin in Moscow March 4, 2025.(Myanmar Defense Services) Russia has been a steady supplier of weapons to the Myanmar military and its media reported that Min Aung Hlaing had also discussed cooperation in “all areas of the defense sector” in talks with Russian defense officials. The junta chief traveled from Moscow to the city of St. Petersburg and on Friday he was due to travel to Belarus at the invitation of President Aleksandr Lukashenko, the Myanmar military said. Political analyst Than Soe Naing said the focus of Min Aung Hlaing’s trip appeared to be ensuring security “under the umbrella of Russia’s empire.” “Going to Belarus is laying a foundation for security,” he said. Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Mother of Cambodian teen found dead says she was working to pay family debts](https://ij-reportika.com/mother-of-cambodian-teen-found-dead-says-she-was-working-to-pay-family-debts/): A Cambodian woman who authorities say was killed by two Chinese nationals last month dropped out of school when she was 15 to help her parents pay off bank debts, her mother told Radio Free Asia. Police found the heavily bruised and naked body of 18-year-old Heng Seavly in a shallow grave near a lake in Phnom Penh’s Dangkor district on March 1. On Monday, investigators announced the arrests of her boyfriend, 30-year-old Chen Cong, and 34-year-old Li Haohao. Police said the suspects confessed to the killing, adding that they believed she was about to leak information about a cyberscam operation in Phnom Penh. Relatives held a funeral for Heng Seavly in her hometown in southern Kampot province on Tuesday. “When I saw her brought into the temple, my energy and soul flew out of my body,” said her mother, Tim Sophy. “My daughter was naked when they killed her,” she told RFA. “This is so brutal. As a mother, I am shocked and speechless.” As the eldest daughter, Heng Seavly left home to work as a goods vendor in Sihanoukville to help her parents support her two younger siblings, Tim Sophy said. She was later persuaded by her boyfriend to move to Phnom Penh, the mother said. Tim Sophy, mother of Heng Seavly talks with RFA, in southern Kampot province, Cambodia, March 4, 2025.(RFA) “She was my fabulous daughter,” she said. “She never missed sending US$250 to $300 each month.” Police have said the two suspects acted on the orders of another Chinese national, 26-year-old Yang Kaixin, who remains at large. Translated by Sok Ry Sum. Edited by Matt Reed. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [China said we’re ready to fight till the end, If war is what the U.S. wants!!](https://ij-reportika.com/china-said-were-ready-to-fight-till-the-end-if-war-is-what-the-u-s-wants/): China accuses US of using fentanyl as a pretext for tariffs, escalating tensions. They have said they will fight till the end against USA.
- [Myanmar army tries to clear fighters from road, 20,000 villagers flee, rebels say](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-army-tries-to-clear-fighters-from-road-20000-villagers-flee-rebels-say/): Read RFA coverage of this story in Burmese. Myanmar’s military has launched air and artillery strikes as it tries to clear pro-democracy fighters from the vicinity of a major north-south road and nearly 20,000 villagers have fled from their homes to escape the violence, an insurgent fighter told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday. The army has been targeting more than 20 villages along the road in the Kanbalu township of the central Sagaing region since late February, they said. The road links Myanmar’s second largest city of Mandalay with Myitkyina city in the north. “The battles are intensifying. The junta is conducting so many offensives,” said a member of a rebel militia, or People’s Defense Force, in the area. The fighter, who declined to be identified for safety reasons, said recent fighting had been particularly heavy near Hnget Pyaw Taing village. “The people from evacuated villages need to run … they are now attacking with drones,” he said. RFA tried to contact Sagaing region’s junta spokesperson, Nyunt Win Aung, for information but he did not respond by the time of publication. The junta that seized power in an early 2021 coup faced major setbacks last year, losing ground in different parts of the country to PDFs and their ethnic minority insurgent allies. The army now controls about half the country, security analysts say, but it has been trying to regain lost ground during the current dry season. RELATED STORIES Fighting near Chinese enclave in Myanmar’s Rakhine state uproots 20,000 Myanmar’s junta leader meets Putin, predicts Russian victory in Ukraine Nearly 30,000 civilians displaced by fighting in Myanmar’s heartland Clashes have been particularly heavy in central areas, like Sagaing, where members of the majority Burman community have for the first time taken up arms in a bid to end military rule. The United Nations says about 3.5 million people have been displaced by both fighting and a natural disaster and the country is facing a humanitarian crisis, with widespread hunger looming. People displaced in the fighting in Kanbalu had to deal with a lack of water, the PDF member said. “Because now it’s the dry season and water is scarce, it’s difficult for people to flee,” he said. Junta forces also torched 250 houses at a major intersection near Hnget Pyaw Taing village late last week and into this week, he said. The anti-junta fighter said 21 members of the military’s Battalion 361 had been killed and 57 wounded while only five members of the PDF were wounded. RFA could not independently verify the casualties. Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [China’s Black Market for Nvidia AI Chips: A Growing Threat to Global Security](https://ij-reportika.com/nvidia-ai-chips-smuggling-china-us-export-ban/): Despite strict U.S. export controls, China is exploiting underground trade networks to obtain Nvidia’s most advanced AI chips. Traders are circumventing restrictions by routing shipments through third-party resellers in Southeast Asia, allowing Beijing to access cutting-edge technology that powers artificial intelligence development, military applications, and mass surveillance. This black-market operation poses a direct challenge to U.S. national security and global stability. China’s Shadow Network: How AI Chips Are Smuggled In Since the U.S. imposed export bans in 2022 to limit China’s access to high-performance AI processors, an underground network of brokers has emerged. These middlemen purchase Nvidia’s latest Blackwell and restricted Hopper chips from authorized suppliers in Malaysia, Vietnam, and Taiwan before reselling them to Chinese buyers at inflated prices. One striking case involves a vendor in Shenzhen who received an order for more than a dozen Blackwell servers—each containing eight AI processors—for a Shanghai-based customer. The buyer deposited $3 million into an escrow account, with the shipment planned for mid-March. This transaction highlights the efficiency and scale of China&#8217;s illicit semiconductor trade. Chinese resellers also use deceptive tactics to evade scrutiny, including: Some traders have become so confident in their ability to bypass restrictions that they openly advertise available AI servers on social media. A recently circulated video showed unopened Nvidia H200 servers stacked in a Chinese warehouse, ready for distribution. Why China is Desperate for Nvidia’s AI Chips China’s aggressive push to acquire AI processors is not just about technological advancement—it’s about securing dominance in artificial intelligence, which has critical implications for national security, military strategy, and surveillance. The demand for Nvidia’s Blackwell and Hopper-series chips stems from their unmatched capabilities in training advanced AI models, which play a vital role in: With each passing month, China’s reliance on smuggled AI chips grows, fueling its technological ambitions despite U.S. attempts to slow them down. U.S. Efforts to Crack Down—And China’s Evasive Tactics In response to these illegal trade networks, Nvidia and other U.S. tech firms have strengthened their &#8220;Know Your Customer&#8221; policies, conducting stricter background checks on buyers. Meanwhile, authorities in Taiwan and Singapore have ramped up scrutiny of high-tech exports, making it harder for smugglers to move large shipments. However, China’s black market is evolving. Resellers now go to extreme lengths to evade detection: Despite increased enforcement, the sheer demand for AI chips means the illegal trade continues at a rapid pace. The Global Risk: What Happens Next? The unchecked flow of AI chips into China is more than just a trade violation—it’s a direct security threat to the U.S. and its allies. If Beijing gains unrestricted access to cutting-edge AI technology, it will accelerate its development of military AI, strengthen its authoritarian surveillance state, and challenge the global balance of power. The Biden administration, along with allies in Asia and Europe, must act swiftly to close loopholes in semiconductor exports. Without a coordinated international response, China will continue to exploit the underground tech trade—fueling an AI arms race that threatens global stability.
- [Philippines accuses Chinese state outlet of ‘deceptive messaging’ on disputed shoal](https://ij-reportika.com/philippines-accuses-chinese-state-outlet-of-deceptive-messaging-on-disputed-shoal/): MANILA, Philippines – Philippine authorities accused a Chinese government-owned broadcaster of deceptive messaging and propaganda after it reported that a Philippine ship had deliberately engaged in acts to pollute South China Sea waters. China Global Television Network, or CGTN, released a video Saturday showing smoke emanating from the BRP Sierra Madre at the contested Second Thomas Shoal. The report said the smoke was caused by trash being burned by Filipino marines stationed aboard the rusting Philippine Navy ship. “Heavy smoke was seen from an apparent burning activity on a grounded Philippine military vessel on Friday,” CGTN said on Facebook. “The footage highlights a series of environmentally damaging activities onboard, which could pose a serious threat to the ecosystem at Ren’ai Jiao,” the report said, using the Chinese name for the shoal. To Filipinos, Second Thomas Shoal is known as Ayungin Shoal. “A report released in July last year suggests that the vessel has gravely damaged the diversity, stability, and sustainability of the coral reef ecosystem in the area,” it added. Philippine authorities on Tuesday refuted the Chinese state media report that the Filipino crew was allegedly causing pollution, and dismissed the claim as propaganda. “It’s part of the deceptive messaging of the Chinese Communist Party,” Rear Adm. Roy Vincent Trinidad, the Philippine Navy spokesman for the West Philippine Sea, told reporters. Manila refers to South China Sea waters within its exclusive economic zone as the West Philippine Sea. RELATED STORIES Chinese, Philippine social media users at odds over claim on Palawan South China Sea: 5 things to watch in 2025 Second Thomas Shoal: Deal or no deal? The Sierra Madre is a World War II-era ship that Manila ran aground on the shoal in 1999 to mark out the Philippines’ territorial claim and serve as its military outpost in the disputed waters. The shoal is located within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, or EEZ. Manila runs regular rotation-and-resupply missions to the ship manned by Philippine marines. Trinidad said Filipino troops had burned “combustible materials” on the BRP Sierra Madre on Feb. 28 as part of a fire drill. However, strong winds caused the fire to spread. “But they were able to put everything in control,” Trinidad said, referring to the troops aboard the ship. “There was no damage to the environment, all the men aboard the ship are safe. The exercise was conducted successfully,” Trinidad said. He said fire drills such as this are conducted aboard navy ships at least once every month. “There was no problem. The men of the ship are always prepared to respond to any eventuality to keep everything under control,” said Trinidad. A post on Chinese social media depicting Palawan island as part of China.(Douyin) Palawan, the posts claimed, was once named Zheng He Island, in honor of a Chinese explorer. However, although Zheng He’s existence and travels to Southeast Asia are well documented, there has never been a historical account that he visited the Philippine province. “Such statements about Palawan are baseless. They are bereft of legal references,” Trinidad said. “They are beyond common sense. In short, totally absurd.” Philippine National Security Adviser Eduardo Año agreed. “These assertions are outright fabrications intended to distort history, deceive the public and challenge the Philippines’ sovereignty over its lawful and internationally recognized territory,” Año said in a statement. Año urged Filipinos to remain vigilant against disinformation campaigns and “rely on verified historical and legal sources rather than propaganda designed to advance geopolitical agenda at the expense of truth.” He said Philippine authorities were tracing who started the post. Año also said that there had never been a “historical record or legal precedent” to support the claim. “Palawan has always been and will always remain an integral part of the Republic of the Philippines,” Año said in a statement issued Tuesday. Año said that even if Zheng did in fact visit Palawan, this “does not equate to ownership, just as the voyages of other explorers do not alter the sovereignty of nations today.” While the “false narratives” did not come from official government sites, Año said they appeared to be part of a “broader effort to undermine Philippine sovereignty and manipulate public perception both in the Philippines and China.” BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Tougher times for Myanmar’s political prisoners, a parent and rights group say](https://ij-reportika.com/tougher-times-for-myanmars-political-prisoners-a-parent-and-rights-group-say/): Read RFA coverage of this story in Burmese. Military authorities in Myanmar have imposed harsher conditions and punishments on political prisoners, restricting their access to parcels, books and medicine and beating those who complain, a rights group and a family member said. The military has struggled to suppress a groundswell of public defiance, as well as a growing insurgency, since it overthrew an elected government in 2021 and more than 6,000 people have been killed and nearly 29,000 have been arrested for their opposition, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, or AAPP said. Many of those detained have been young people, infuriated by the 2021 ouster of a civilian government after a decade of tentative reform raised hopes for change in a country that had seen largely unbroken military rule since 1962. The AAPP, in a statement on Monday, said conditions for political prisoners across the country were getting worse, with more restrictions on what they could get from outside. A parent of a political prisoner being held in the Thayarwady Prison in the central Bago region, agreed, saying supplies to inmates were not getting through. “I sent some medicine because they were sick, and although it was accepted by the mail department, it didn’t reach the children,” said the parent who declined to be identified for safety reasons. The Thayarwady Prison is notorious for being cramped and crumbling. “In the rainy season, there’s rain, and in the hot season bits fall from the ceiling all the time, like rain,” said the parent. “I ask them about it but they won’t do anything about it,” said the parent, referring to prison authorities. The AAPP, which monitors human rights conditions in Myanmar from the border with Thailand, also said prison authorities were putting restrictions on deliveries of packages and books, and some prisons had banned visits altogether. Political prisoners also complained of inadequate medical care and torture, the group said. RELATED STORIES Myanmar junta frees nearly 1,000 Rohingya from prison, group says Myanmar junta says it releases 600 political prisoners in mass amnesty Thousands freed from Myanmar scam centers are stranded due to official inaction In Yangon’s infamous Insein Prison, trade union leader Thet Hnin Aung, photojournalist Sai Zaw Thike, and another man named Naing Win were beaten after speaking to representatives of Myanmar’s Human Rights Commission about prison conditions during a visit. “Three political inmates … were taken to the prison’s interrogation center, where they were tortured and beaten before being placed in solitary confinement,” the group said in a statement published on Monday. RFA could not reach the office of deputy director-general of the Prisons Department for comment. The AAPP also said that three prisoners died due to lack of medical care in February after being detained by junta authorities in prisons and police stations. Myanmar’s junta has faced accusations from human rights groups of not providing adequate medical care for prisoners, and of often releasing sick prisoners days before they die. In 2024, 31 political prisoners died in custody, among them two members of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy administration that was overthrown in 2021, the former chief minister of Mandalay region, Zaw Myint Maung, and minister of electricity and energy Win Khaing. Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika
- [Mapping Power: What Xi Jinping's Travels Reveal About China's Global Strategy](https://ij-reportika.com/mapping-power-what-xi-jinpings-travels-reveal-about-chinas-global-strategy/): How Xi Jinping's 55+ foreign trips reveal China's strategy in Russia, Africa & Latin America — investments, debt-trap debates & illegal fishing.
- [Muslims in Europe: Migration, Demographic Change and the Expansion of Islamic Institutions](https://ij-reportika.com/muslims-in-europe-migration-demographic-change-and-the-expansion-of-islamic-institutions/): How Muslim migration has reshaped Europe: population growth, asylum trends, demographics, mosque expansion and the changing religious landscape across major European countries.
- [Jacob Coxon : A Resignation Heard Around the AI World](https://ij-reportika.com/jacob-coxon-a-resignation-heard-around-the-ai-world/): Researcher Jacob Coxon quit Anthropic, warning both AI labs are racing toward superintelligence as GPT-6 Astra raises fresh safety concerns.
- [China’s New Defence Mobilisation Law: How Beijing Is Preparing Civilian Technology for Future War](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-new-defence-mobilisation-law-how-beijing-is-preparing-civilian-technology-for-future-war/): China’s revised defence mobilisation law brings AI, drones, data, software and civilian industries into Beijing’s preparations for modern warfare.
- [Six Months In, the US-Iran War Is Escalating at Sea, and No One Is Backing Down](https://ij-reportika.com/us-iran-war-escalation-strait-of-hormuz/): The US and Iran are trading tanker strikes near the Strait of Hormuz as their six-month war escalates, oil prices spike, and both sides dig in.
- [The Two Koreas: Division, Comparison, Restrictions, and Alliances](https://ij-reportika.com/the-two-koreas-division-comparison-restrictions-and-alliances/): How Korea split in 1945, how North and South Korea compare today on GDP and freedoms, what's banned in each, and who their key allies are.
- [The Trishuli Catastrophe: Himalayan Flood, Chinese Hydropower, and the Risks of a Seismic Frontier](https://ij-reportika.com/the-trishuli-catastrophe-himalayan-flood-chinese-hydropower-and-the-risks-of-a-seismic-frontier/): What triggered the deadly August 2026 Nepal-China floods, and what the disaster reveals about Chinese hydropower dams in a seismic Himalayan corridor.
- [China, Technology and Global Power: An In-Depth Conversation with Shannon Brandao](https://ij-reportika.com/china-technology-and-global-power-an-in-depth-conversation-with-shannon-brandao/): In this exclusive IJ-Reportika interview, China specialist and China Boss founder Shannon Brandao discusses Beijing’s geopolitical strategy, economic pressures, technological ambitions, global supply chains, AI, national security and the future of independent geopolitical journalism.
- [Taiwan’s Unresolved Status: History, Identity and the One China Policy](https://ij-reportika.com/taiwans-unresolved-status-history-identity-and-the-one-china-policy/): Taiwan’s unresolved status lies at the intersection of history, democracy, diplomacy and geopolitics. From the Chinese Civil War and the Republic of China’s relocation to Taiwan in 1949 to today’s democratic Taiwan, the island has developed a distinct political identity while remaining diplomatically contested. This article examines Taiwan’s history, how Taiwanese people view China, the meaning of the One China policy, why only 12 governments formally recognise Taiwan, and how countries such as the United States, Japan and Malaysia maintain varying degrees of strategic ambiguity.
- [Who Is Leading the AI Race? Grok, OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity, and the Chinese Challengers](https://ij-reportika.com/who-is-leading-the-ai-race-grok-openai-anthropic-perplexity-and-the-chinese-challengers/): Money, users, benchmarks, cost, and trust each point to a different leader in the 2026 AI race. This piece compares Grok 4.5 and Grok Imagine (xAI), OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity, and the fast-growing Chinese model ecosystem (DeepSeek, Qwen, Kimi, GLM), with a closer look at DeepSeek's documented political bias, censorship, and data-privacy issues based on IJ-Reportika's investigation and independent research since.
- [Security Breach in Royal Marines Drone Fleet Linked to Chinese-Made Camera Components](https://ij-reportika.com/uk-drone-fleet-sending-singnals-to-china/): A fleet of Royal Navy surveillance drones operated by the Royal Marines was found to contain camera components that were communicating with a server based in China. 
- [How the Makkah Pact Is Reshaping the US-China Contest in the Middle East](https://ij-reportika.com/cracks-in-the-umbrella-how-the-mecca-pact-is-reshaping-the-us-china-contest-in-the-middle-east/): Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan's new defence pact signals Gulf doubts about US protection. Here's what it means for China's growing regional role.
- [Six Nations, One Crisis: Drug Addiction and the Fentanyl Trade in the USA, China, Russia, Japan, India and France](https://ij-reportika.com/six-nations-one-crisis-drug-addiction-and-the-fentanyl-trade-in-the-usa-china-russia-japan-india-and-france/): How fentanyl travels from Chinese labs to American streets, and how drug addiction compares across the US, China, Russia, Japan, India and France.
- [Exclusive Interview: Zhou Fengsuo on Tiananmen, AI Surveillance, and China's Democratic Future](https://ij-reportika.com/exclusive-interview-zhou-fengsuo-on-tiananmen-ai-surveillance-and-chinas-democratic-future/): 1. You were one of the prominent student leaders during the 1989 Tiananmen Square movement. Looking back after more than three decades, how has that experience shaped your personal philosophy and commitment to defending human rights? The Tiananmen Movement changed the course of my life. Like millions of Chinese students at the time, I believed China could become a freer and more just society through peaceful reform. We were not seeking chaos or revolution. We wanted dialogue, accountability, and dignity. For a brief moment in the spring of 1989, freedom seemed within reach. The June 4 massacre shattered the hope for...
- [TSMC and the Global Chip Supply Chain](https://ij-reportika.com/tsmc-and-the-global-chip-supply-chain/): Discover how TSMC became the backbone of the global semiconductor supply chain, powering AI, smartphones, defense, and cloud computing while shaping the geopolitical competition between the US, China, Japan, and Europe.
- [The Russia–Ukraine War: Geopolitical Coverage Report](https://ij-reportika.com/russia-ukraine-war-2026-report/): The Russia-Ukraine war, which escalated into full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, remains active and unresolved as of mid-2026. The conflict has evolved from rapid maneuver warfare into a grinding, drone-dominated stalemate along a roughly 1,200 km front. Diplomatic efforts led by the Trump administration, including an August 2025 Alaska summit and continued 2026 shuttle diplomacy, have produced dialogue but no signed ceasefire or peace agreement. Background: Competing Narratives The origins of the war are genuinely contested and are presented here as two competing framings rather than settled fact. Russian framing Ukrainian/NATO framing NATO&#8217;s post-Cold War eastward expansion broke informal 1990s...
- [Cryptocurrency, Global Power, Geopolitics & the New Financial Order](https://ij-reportika.com/cryptocurrency-global-power-geopolitics-the-new-financial-order/): Explore how cryptocurrency, China's Digital Yuan, CBDCs and geopolitics are reshaping the global financial order. Read IJ-Reportika's 2025–2026 report.
- [The Dalai Lama: A Journey Through Tibet, Exile, and Global Peace Advocacy](https://ij-reportika.com/his-holiness-dalai-lama-and-the-tibetan-cause/): His Holiness Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Cause along with Panchen Lama and Tibet's oppression is being investigated in this report at length. The 14th His Holiness Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, turns 87 on July 6th, 2022. He was Born on 6 July 1935, or in the Tibetan calendar, in the Wood-Pig Year, 5th month, 5th day. He is known as Gyalwa Rinpoche to the Tibetan people, is the current Dalai Lama, the highest spiritual leader and former head of state of Tibet.... 
- [Coming Together Against Silence: Reflections on the 3rd International Uyghur Forum, Ten Years After the Camps](https://ij-reportika.com/coming-together-against-silence-reflections-on-the-3rd-international-uyghur-forum-ten-years-after-the-camps/): Coming Together Against Silence: Reflections on the 3rd International Uyghur Forum, Ten Years After the Camps
- [The Iran War Is Reshaping Great Power Politics](https://ij-reportika.com/the-iran-war-is-reshaping-great-power-politics/): China's HQ-9B air defense system failed in Iran and Pakistan. Could Beijing now help Tehran build a nuclear arsenal, as it once did for Pakistan?
- [China's New "Ethnic Unity" Law: Why Taiwan, Uyghurs, and Tibetans Are Alarmed](https://ij-reportika.com/china-ethnic-unity-law-taiwan-uyghur-tibet/): China's new Ethnic Unity Law takes effect July 1, 2026. Here's what it requires—and why Uyghurs, Tibetans, and Taiwan see it as a serious threat.
- [The 2026 G7 Summit: Unity on Paper, Friction in Person](https://ij-reportika.com/the-2026-g7-summit-unity-on-paper-friction-in-person/): Inside the 2026 G7 summit in Évian: the Trump-Meloni photo feud, key outcomes on Ukraine, Iran, and China, and the case for engaging Russia and China.
- [FBI and MI5 Issue Joint Warning: Chinese Military Intelligence Ramps Up Online Espionage via Job Platforms](https://ij-reportika.com/fbi-and-mi5-issue-joint-warning-chinese-military-intelligence-ramps-up-online-espionage-via-job-platforms/): The FBI, MI5, and Five Eyes allies have issued a joint warning that Chinese PLA military intelligence is aggressively using LinkedIn, Indeed, and other job platforms to recruit Western defense and government personnel. Full details on the espionage tactics.  
- [Trump Booed at NBA Finals as Security Lockdown Frustrates New York Fans](https://ij-reportika.com/trump-booed-at-nba-finals-as-security-lockdown-frustrates-new-york-fans/): President Donald Trump was booed during the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden as heightened security measures disrupted fans and businesses.
- [Four New Zealand MPs Banned from China After Taiwan Visit](https://ij-reportika.com/four-new-zealand-mps-banned-from-china-after-taiwan-visit/): Four New Zealand MPs have been banned from China for one year after visiting Taiwan on a parliamentary delegation, with the Chinese Embassy demanding an apology to lift the sanctions.
- [Anniversary of  the brutal Tiananmen Square Massacre](https://ij-reportika.com/the-anniversary-of-the-brutal-tiananmen-square-massacre/): In the year 1989, around 1.5 million Chinese students, workers  and common citizens occupied Beijing's Tiananmen Square to protest against the ruling regime. This was the  largest political protest in communist China's history. More than 6 weeks of protests ended with the brutal Tiananmen Square Massacre of 3-4 June. 
- [H200 Deal, Jensen Huang's Tsinghua Seat, and Trump's Beijing Visit surrendering USA's AI Lead?](https://ij-reportika.com/h200-chips-tsinghua-trump-beijing-global-ai-race/): Jensen Huang joins Tsinghua's board, H200 chips sit undelivered, and Trump visits Beijing. We break down what it all means for the global AI race.
- [Trump Administration Unveils Policy Requiring Green Card Applicants to Apply From Abroad](https://ij-reportika.com/trump-administration-unveils-policy-requiring-green-card-applicants-to-apply-from-abroad/): The Trump administration has announced a major immigration policy shift requiring many foreigners in the U.S. to leave the country and apply for green cards from abroad, raising concerns over family separation and visa delays.
- [The Betrayal Ledger: Trump Has Threatened US Allies 200+ Times and Praised Putin and Xi Almost as Often](https://ij-reportika.com/trump-betrayal-ledger-allies-adversaries-foreign-policy/): Since returning to the White House, Donald Trump has called Canada "one of the nastiest countries to deal with," threatened to leave NATO, ambushed South Africa's president with debunked conspiracy theories, and turned on even his closest European ally, Italy's Giorgia Meloni. Meanwhile, he has flown to Beijing to toast Xi Jinping as "a great leader" and defended Putin's war aims as positions he personally "understands." This is the fully sourced record — date by date, quote by quote.
- [Chinese Spy Ring Convicted in UK: A New Front in Transnational Intelligence Operations Targeting Hong Kong Dissidents](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-spy-ring-convicted-in-uk-a-new-front-in-transnational-intelligence-operations-targeting-hong-kong-dissidents/): A London court has convicted two men, including a UK Border Force officer, for spying on Hong Kong dissidents on behalf of China. The case highlights rising concerns over transnational repression and foreign intelligence operations in the UK.
- [Tiffany Meier Interview: Hollywood Influence, Critical Minerals, and Global Power Shifts](https://ij-reportika.com/tiffany-meier-interview-hollywood-influence-critical-minerals-and-global-power-shifts/): NTD broadcaster Tiffany Meier discusses investigative journalism, China’s global influence, Hollywood soft power, critical minerals, information warfare, and the future of independent media in an exclusive interview with IJ-Reportika.
- [RightsCon Cancelled by Zambia: Economic Colonialism or Transnational Repression?](https://ij-reportika.com/rightscon-cancelled-by-zambia-economic-colonialism-or-transnational-repression/): The cancellation of the RightsCon conference in Zambia under alleged Chinese pressure has reignited debate over economic colonialism, transnational repression, and the growing influence of authoritarian power in Africa. The incident raises urgent questions about democracy, human rights, and global silence in the face of mounting geopolitical pressure.
- [The Rise of the Pacific Guardians: Australia and Japan’s New Strategic Alliance](https://ij-reportika.com/the-rise-of-the-pacific-guardians-australia-and-japans-new-strategic-alliance/):  Explore $7B frigate deal and evolving Australia-Japan strategic alliance as they take charge of Pacific defense amidst shifting geopolitics.
- [Global Surge in Refinery Fires Raises Questions Amid Ongoing Conflict](https://ij-reportika.com/global-surge-in-refinery-fires-raises-questions-amid-ongoing-conflict/): A surge in global refinery fires raises concerns over energy security, with over 45 incidents reported in 45 days amid geopolitical tensions.
- [Japan Recalibrates China Policy: Strategic Shift Signals Deepening Regional Frictions](https://ij-reportika.com/japan-recalibrates-china-policy-strategic-shift-signals-deepening-regional-frictions/): Japan plans to downgrade its description of ties with China, signaling rising tensions, security concerns, and a strategic shift in Indo-Pacific geopolitics.
- [The Defective Chinese Weapons (Part 2)](https://ij-reportika.com/the-defective-chinese-weapons-part-2/): An investigative analysis exposing failure rates of Chinese weapons exports, comparing global arms suppliers and revealing reliability gaps, operational risks, and the true cost of low-cost defence systems.
- [Philippines Accuses China of Cyanide Sabotage in South China Sea: Pattern of Maritime Coercion?](https://ij-reportika.com/philippines-accuses-china-of-cyanide-sabotage-in-south-china-sea-pattern-of-maritime-coercion/): Philippines alleges Chinese vessels used cyanide near Second Thomas Shoal, raising concerns over environmental sabotage and China’s distant-water fishing practices.
- [Hormuz Crisis Exposes China’s Calculated Diplomacy at the United Nations](https://ij-reportika.com/hormuz-crisis-exposes-chinas-calculated-diplomacy-at-the-united-nations/): China’s UN veto on the Strait of Hormuz crisis highlights its strategic caution, geopolitical balancing, and evolving global diplomatic ambitions amid rising tensions with Iran, the US, and Taiwan.
- [Barin Uprising: A Turning Point in China’s Policy Toward Uyghurs](https://ij-reportika.com/barin-uprising-a-turning-point-in-chinas-policy-toward-uyghurs/): The Barin Uprising of 1990 marked a critical shift in China’s approach to Uyghurs in Xinjiang, triggering decades of tightened control and security policies.
- [China, Pakistan and the Iran War: Strategic Mediation or Calculated Opportunism?](https://ij-reportika.com/china-pakistan-and-the-iran-war-strategic-mediation-or-calculated-opportunism/): Is China using Pakistan to influence the Iran war? A critical analysis of Beijing’s indirect diplomacy, Islamabad’s role and geopolitics.
- [Taiwan’s AI Island: Rising as a Global AI Leader Amid Competition from the US, China, and Europe](https://ij-reportika.com/taiwan-ai-island-ai-geopolitics/): Taiwan’s AI Island initiative is transforming the island into a global AI leader. With world-leading semiconductor capabilities and a rapidly expanding innovation ecosystem, Taiwan is now a key competitor alongside the US, China, and Europe in the global AI race.
- [Nepal Book Burning Incident Sparks Diplomatic Protest from China](https://ij-reportika.com/china-protests-xi-jinping-books-burned-nepal-university-investigation/): China has lodged a diplomatic protest after hundreds of copies of The Governance of China, authored by Xi Jinping, were burned at Manmohan Technical University in eastern Nepal. Beijing has demanded a full investigation, while the university claims the books were termite-damaged and destroyed during a routine clean-up—an explanation that has failed to quiet the diplomatic controversy with China.
- [China Hikes Fuel Prices Despite Reserves and Iran Oil](https://ij-reportika.com/china-hikes-fuel-prices-despite-reserves-and-iran-oil/): As the US-Israel conflict with Iran enters its third week on March 17, 2026, global oil markets remain volatile, with crude prices often exceeding $100 per barrel amid Middle East disruptions, Strait of Hormuz threats, and supply uncertainty. China, the world’s largest crude oil importer, has not escaped the impact. On March 9, 2026, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) implemented its largest retail fuel price increase in four years, lifting gasoline ceilings by 695 yuan ($100) per tonne and diesel by 670 yuan ($97) per tonne. The change, effective March 10, raised pump prices by approximately 0.53–0.57 yuan per...
- [Beijing’s Cyber Crackdown: Draft Law Aims to End Online Anonymity and Expand Global Control](https://ij-reportika.com/beijings-cyber-crackdown-draft-law-aims-to-end-online-anonymity-and-expand-global-control/): China’s draft Cybercrime Prevention and Control Law could end online anonymity, ban VPNs, and expand Beijing’s digital control globally, raising serious concerns for privacy, cybersecurity, and international businesses.
- [UN Experts Raise Alarm Over Disappeared Uyghur Returnees as China Remains Silent](https://ij-reportika.com/un-experts-raise-alarm-over-disappeared-uyghur-returnees-as-china-remains-silent/): Uyghur disappearance, China human rights, forced return, Thailand deportation, UN human rights report, transnational repression, enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention, Xinjiang, minority rights, international law, non-refoulement
- [900 Strikes in 12 Hours: The Explosive Timeline of the US–Israel–Iran War](https://ij-reportika.com/900-strikes-in-12-hours-the-explosive-timeline-of-the-us-israel-iran-war/): The US–Israel–Iran war enters its second week after massive strikes, missile barrages, and regional escalation. Over 1,300 dead as global powers including China, Russia, and India maneuver amid rising tensions.
- [Air Defence Collapse: HQ-9B Exposed in Iran and Pakistan](https://ij-reportika.com/air-defence-collapse-hq-9b-exposed-in-iran-and-pakistan/): The myth of invincibility surrounding China’s flagship air defence export—the HQ-9B—is rapidly unraveling. Following devastating coordinated US–Israeli airstrikes across Iran, and earlier scrutiny during Pakistan’s military confrontation with India, serious questions now confront Beijing: Is the HQ-9B truly battle-ready? Or is it another overhyped system that collapses under real-world combat stress? The recent destruction across more than 20 Iranian provinces—despite Tehran’s layered air defence shield—has placed China’s long-range surface-to-air missile (SAM) system under the harshest spotlight yet. A Layered Shield That Crumbled Iran’s air defence network was theoretically formidable. Its architecture combined: On paper, this layered defence should have complicated any...
- [US-Israel Strikes Kill Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei, Over 200 Dead](https://ij-reportika.com/us-israel-strikes-kill-irans-supreme-leader-khamenei-over-200-dead/): A joint US-Israel operation kills Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and over 200 others, triggering massive Iranian retaliation across Israel and Gulf states, disrupting oil flows and raising fears of wider Middle East war.
- [Trump’s “New Monroe Doctrine”: Latin America the Frontline of U.S.–China Economic War](https://ij-reportika.com/trumps-new-monroe-doctrine-latin-america-the-frontline-of-u-s-china-economic-war/): Trump’s revived “Monroe Doctrine” targets China’s growing influence in Latin America, reshaping power dynamics in Venezuela, Panama, Peru, and Argentina while risking regional instability and economic disruption.
- [China’s Growth and destruction of the Environment](https://ij-reportika.com/chinas-growth-and-destruction-of-the-environment/): An in-depth investigative report exposing the scale of environmental damage, examining pollution, deforestation, climate impact, and policy failures while highlighting urgent solutions for sustainable recovery and global accountability.
- [On the Brink of War: U.S. Military Poised to Strike Iran as Trump Weighs Historic Decision](https://ij-reportika.com/on-the-brink-of-war-u-s-military-poised-to-strike-iran-as-trump-weighs-historic-decision/): The US military is prepared to strike Iran as early as this weekend as President Trump weighs his final decision. Air and naval forces are positioned amid rising tensions and fragile diplomacy.
- [Vanishing Elites: Disappearances and Purges in Xi Jinping’s China](https://ij-reportika.com/vanishing-elites-disappearances-and-purges-in-xi-jinpings-china/): Explore the wave of elite removals in China (2012–2026), including politicians, military generals, business leaders, and public figures.
- [U.S. Sets June Deadline for Ukraine–Russia Peace Deal as Energy Attacks Intensify](https://ij-reportika.com/u-s-sets-june-deadline-for-ukraine-russia-peace-deal-as-energy-attacks-intensify/): Washington has given Kyiv and Moscow until June to reach a peace deal, even as Russia escalates attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and nuclear facilities.
- [Blood in Ghulja: The 1997 Massacre and China’s War on Uyghur Dissent in Xinjiang](https://ij-reportika.com/ghulja-massacre-1997-uyghurs-xinjiang/): On the 29th anniversary of the Ghulja Massacre, this report examines the 1997 killing of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, the crackdown that followed, and its lasting human rights impact.
- [Xi Jinping's Military Purge Deepens: From Water-Filled Missiles to the Fall of China's Top General](https://ij-reportika.com/xi-jinpings-military-purge-deepens-from-water-filled-missiles-to-the-fall-of-chinas-top-general/): Xi Jinping is purging China's military elite after a Rocket Force scandal exposed nuclear missiles filled with water instead of fuel and faulty silo lids, leading to the removal of top generals including Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, per US intelligence reports.  
- [Trump Warns UK Over China Ties as Starmer Seals Economic Deals in Shanghai](https://ij-reportika.com/trump-warns-uk-over-china-ties-as-starmer-seals-economic-deals-in-shanghai/): Shanghai | U.S. President Donald Trump has publicly cautioned the United Kingdom against deepening business engagement with China, calling such ties “very dangerous,” as Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer continued his high-profile visit aimed at resetting UK–China economic relations. Trump’s remarks came during a media interaction in the United States, where he reacted to new trade and investment understandings reached between London and Beijing. Despite describing Chinese President Xi Jinping as a “friend” whom he knows “very well,” Trump signaled unease over Western allies expanding economic links with China, extending similar warnings toward Canada. His comments landed just as Starmer arrived...
- [Geopolitics in Transition: Mohammad Khatibi on Iran, Multipolarity, and Middle East Security](https://ij-reportika.com/mohammad-khatibi-iran-foreign-policy-interview/): Mohammad Khatibi discusses Iran’s foreign policy strategy, resistance doctrine, BRICS expansion, and shifting power dynamics in the Middle East.
- [Parvovirus ‘Slapped Cheek Disease’ Surges Across the U.S. — CDC Issues Health Alert as Global Spread Expands](https://ij-reportika.com/parvovirus-slapped-cheek-disease-surges-across-the-u-s-cdc-issues-health-alert-as-global-spread-expands/): Parvovirus B19 cases are rising fast as CDC issues health alerts. Learn symptoms, risks, and global spread of slapped cheek disease in this IJ-Reportika report.
- [Is the Nobel Peace Prize Really About Peace?](https://ij-reportika.com/is-the-nobel-peace-prize-really-about-peace/): For decades, the Nobel Peace Prize has celebrated champions of peace—but an investigation into winners from 1996 to 2025 reveals a pattern of controversy, political alignment, and actions sometimes contrary to peace, raising questions about the true purpose of this prestigious award.
- [China Pushes Ahead With Military Modernization Despite Tumult, Latest Pentagon Report Warns](https://ij-reportika.com/china-pushes-ahead-with-military-modernization-despite-tumult-latest-pentagon-report-warns/): Pentagon warns China’s military modernization is accelerating despite purges and corruption, with urgent focus on Taiwan, nuclear buildup, and regional dominance.
- [U.S. Unseals Sweeping Narco-State Indictment Against Maduro’s Inner Circle After Venezuela Strike](https://ij-reportika.com/u-s-unseals-sweeping-narco-state-indictment-against-maduros-inner-circle-after-venezuela-strike/): U.S. prosecutors unseal sweeping indictment accusing Nicolás Maduro, his family, and top officials of running a narco-state cocaine and terror network.
- [Airbus Secures New Chinese Orders as Boeing Leads in 2025 Net Bookings](https://ij-reportika.com/airbus-secures-new-chinese-orders-as-boeing-leads-in-2025-net-bookings/): Airbus secures $4.1 billion in new A320 jet orders from two Chinese airlines, strengthening its China position even as Boeing leads global net aircraft orders in 2025.
- [China Sanctions Boeing After Trump Approves $11 Billion Arms Sale to Taiwan](https://ij-reportika.com/china-sanctions-boeing-after-trump-approves-11-billion-arms-sale-to-taiwan/): Beijing issues warning to Washington as cross-strait and US–China tensions escalate China has imposed sanctions on Boeing and a range of US defence firms and executives following the Trump administration’s approval of an $11 billion arms sale to Taiwan, a move Beijing has denounced as a direct challenge to its core national interests. China’s Foreign Ministry announced on Friday that 10 individuals and 20 US defence-related entities will face punitive measures, including asset freezes in China, business restrictions, and travel bans. Among the most prominent targets is Boeing’s production hub in St. Louis, Missouri, a key manufacturing centre for advanced military...
- [China Says Its Weapons Sales Are Not Linked to Cambodia–Thailand Clashes](https://ij-reportika.com/china-says-its-weapons-sales-are-not-linked-to-cambodia-thailand-clashes/): China denies links between its arms trade and the escalating Cambodia–Thailand border conflict, as Beijing pushes ceasefire talks amid rising regional tensions.
- [Ruslan Bortnik: Ukraine’s Fight for Real Independence and Honest Governance (Interview)](https://ij-reportika.com/ruslan-bortnik-ukraines-fight-for-real-independence-and-honest-governance-interview/): Leading Ukrainian analyst Ruslan Bortnik detailed interview on war, corruption, true sovereignty, and why Ukraine must stay independent from both Russia and the West.  
- [After the Uprising: Tracking Change in the Wake of Gen Z–Led Protests (Survey)](https://ij-reportika.com/comprehensive-survey-in-wake-of-gen-z-led-protests/): Survey of 10,000 respondents across seven regions examining causes, outcomes and lasting effects of Gen Z–led protests — and the central role of social media.
- [Rare Earth Metals: The Critical Elements Powering the Modern World](https://ij-reportika.com/rare-earth-metals-the-critical-elements-powering-the-modern-world/): Rare earth metals power EVs, wind turbines & defense tech. Discover what they are, where they’re mined, China’s dominance, and the escalating geopolitical struggle.  
- [Canada Close to Finalising $2.8 Billion Uranium Supply Deal with India](https://ij-reportika.com/canada-close-to-finalising-2-8-billion-uranium-supply-deal-with-india/): Canada and India are close to finalising a $2.8 billion uranium supply deal to fuel India’s nuclear plants, strengthening civil nuclear cooperation and long-term energy security
- [Self-Immolation as Students Protest](https://ij-reportika.com/self-immolation-as-students-protest/): A Tibetan monk set himself ablaze Wednesday at his monastery in China&#8217;s northwestern Qinghai province following protests by several thousand Tibetan students calling for education reforms, sources said. The self-immolation occurred at a monastery in Qinghai&#8217;s Rebkong (in Chinese, Tongren) county in Malho (in Chinese, Huangnan) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, triggering protests by hundreds against Chinese rule in Tibetan-populated areas, exile sources said. The burning came a day after nearly 4,000 middle school students held protests demanding Tibetan language and other rights in Rebkong and in neighboring Tsekhog (in Chinese, Zeku) county, sources inside Tibet said. The students had been prevented from...
- [The Chinese Global Brain Turning Back to Home](https://ij-reportika.com/the-chinese-global-brain-turning-back-to-home/): The Investigative Journalism Reportika report, "The Chinese Global Brain Turning Back to Home," examines China's strategic repatriation of STEM talent to drive innovation in AI, semiconductors, and more. Highlighting initiatives like the Thousand Talents Plan and "Made in China 2025," it details the return of experts from the U.S., Europe, and beyond, their contributions to China's tech ecosystem, and the geopolitical tensions, including espionage concerns, reshaping global innovation.  
- [US, South Korea to ‘Move Forward’ on Nuclear-Powered Submarines Amid Major Trade Deal](https://ij-reportika.com/us-south-korea-to-move-forward-on-nuclear-powered-submarines-amid-major-trade-deal/): South Korea secures US approval to build nuclear-powered submarines under a major trade and security deal involving $350bn in investments and reduced tariffs.
- [Devotion and defiance: Highlights from RFA Tibetan](https://ij-reportika.com/devotion-and-defiance-highlights-from-rfa-tibetan/): For nearly three decades, Radio Free Asia has provided critical Tibet coverage, serving as an information lifeline for Tibetan audiences living under China’s authoritarian rule and connecting them to Tibetans in exile – and all the while offering a rare window into life in the highly restricted region. Through shortwave radio and digital platforms, RFA Tibetan has reported epochal moments in the history of modern Tibet. It recorded first-hand accounts of the widespread protests in Tibet in 2008 and the subsequent wave of self-immolations. RFA documented the Dalai Lama’s historic voluntary devolution of his temporal powers in 2011 and transfer of...
- [The East Turkestan Independence Movement: History, Politics, and Global Implications](https://ij-reportika.com/the-east-turkestan-independence-movement-history-politics-and-global-implications/): Explore the history and politics of the East Turkestan independence movement — from Uyghur resistance and Soviet involvement to China’s policies and global human rights debates.
- [Southeast Asia’s “Fraud Cities”: The Rise and Fall of She Zhijiang and the Gray Zones of Overseas Investment](https://ij-reportika.com/southeast-asias-fraud-cities-the-rise-and-fall-of-she-zhijiang-and-the-gray-zones-of-overseas-investment/): She Zhijiang, a fugitive-turned-investor, is behind Southeast Asia’s controversial Asia Pacific New City, criticized as a hub for gambling and fraud. Explore the connections, arrests, and shadowy networks behind the project.
- [Controversial Zohran Mamdani: Redefine—or Ruin—New York amid uncertain global times](https://ij-reportika.com/controversial-zohran-mamdani-redefine-or-ruin-new-york-amid-uncertain-global-times/): Zohran Mamdani’s socialist rise to New York City’s mayoralty sparks fierce debate. Can his radical promises survive the realities of governance amid Trump’s clash with China and a shifting global order?
- [Radio Free Asia’s Silence: A Blow to Independent Journalism Across Asia](https://ij-reportika.com/after-29-years-rfa-is-on-pause/): Radio Free Asia (RFA), a cornerstone of independent journalism across Asia, has suspended operations due to funding uncertainty.
- [RFA suspends remaining editorial operations amid funding uncertainty](https://ij-reportika.com/rfa-suspends-remaining-editorial-operations-amid-funding-uncertainty/): Protective measures taken with hope of rebuilding news operations in future WASHINGTON &#8211; With the government shutdown and delay in receiving funding for the new fiscal year, effective Oct. 31, Radio Free Asia (RFA) will halt all production of news content for the time being. The move is part of a plan for the Congressionally-funded private corporation to implement cost-saving measures that can help sustain the organization should appropriated funding streams resume. President and CEO Bay Fang issued the following statement: “Because of the fiscal reality and uncertainty about our budgetary future, RFA has been forced to suspend all remaining news...
- [U.S. and China Poised to Avert 100% Tariff as Trump-Xi Meeting Nears, Says Treasury Secretary](https://ij-reportika.com/u-s-and-china-poised-to-avert-100-tariff-as-trump-xi-meeting-nears-says-treasury-secretary/): The U.S. and China appear close to averting a 100% tariff showdown after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said a “substantial framework” has been reached. Trump and Xi are expected to meet this week in South Korea to finalize details of the deal.
- [From Enforcer to Powerbroker: Zhang Shengmin’s Rise Amid China’s Military Crackdown](https://ij-reportika.com/from-enforcer-to-powerbroker-zhang-shengmins-rise-amid-chinas-military-crackdown/): China has named veteran anti-corruption enforcer Zhang Shengmin as the second-ranking vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, days after nine generals were purged. The appointment marks a deeper consolidation of Xi Jinping’s power over the military.
- [Myanmar junta says it seized 30 Starlink receivers in scam center raid](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-says-it-seized-30-starlink-receivers-in-scam-center-raid/): Myanmar’s junta said on Monday it raided one of the country’s most notorious cyberscam centers and seized Starlink satellite internet devices. Myanmar government media The Global New Light of Myanmar said the military “conducted operations in KK Park near Myanmar-Thai border” and had “seized 30 sets of Starlink receivers and accessories,” according to the AFP news agency. AFP said that number is only a fraction of the Starlink devices they identified using satellite imagery and drone photography. On the roof of one building alone in KK Park, images showed nearly 80 of the internet dishes. This Sept. 17, 2025, photo shows...
- [Myanmar junta admits it’s unable to conduct election across entire country](https://ij-reportika.com/myanmar-junta-admits-its-unable-to-conduct-election-across-entire-country/): The European Union’s Special Representative for Human Rights Kajsa Ollongren said on Thursday that they would not send observers to an election in military-ruled Myanmar, as it was unlikely to result in a credible outcome, according to the Reuters news agency. It follows Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing admitting on Wednesday that the military-backed administration will be unable to conduct an upcoming general election across the entire country, as a civil war triggered by a 2021 coup rages on. Detained Myanmar State Councilor Aung San Suu Kyi and president Win Myint during their first court appearance in Naypyidaw, May 24,...
- [US, UK sanction Cambodian conglomerate, alleging role in scam networks](https://ij-reportika.com/us-uk-sanction-cambodian-conglomerate-alleging-role-in-scam-networks/): The U.S. and British governments on Tuesday announced a sweeping crackdown on cyber-scam networks in Southeast Asia accused of luring workers with fraudulent job ads or fake romantic relationships, forcing them to extract billions from people across the world through a range of deceptions, then laundering the money they received.
- [China Arrests Founder of Prominent Underground Church in Multi-City Crackdown](https://ij-reportika.com/china-arrests-underground-church-founder-pastors/): Chinese authorities have detained Zion Church founder Jin Mingri and dozens of members in a nationwide crackdown on unregistered house churches, raising concerns over religious freedom and state control.
- [North Korea shows off new intercontinental missile at military parade](https://ij-reportika.com/photos-north-korea-shows-off-new-intercontinental-missile-at-military-parade/): Nuclear-armed North Korea displayed its most advanced Hwasong-20 intercontinental ballistic missile, described by the North Korean government as the country’s “strongest nuclear strategic weapon system,” state media said on Saturday.
- [North Korean soldiers who fought with Russian troops against Ukraine celebrated](https://ij-reportika.com/north-korean-soldiers-who-fought-with-russian-troops-against-ukraine-celebrated/): North Korean soldiers who fought alongside Russian troops against Ukraine marched through Kim Il Sung Square on Friday, carrying the flags of Russia and North Korea as part of the Workers’ Party 80th Anniversary celebrations. Video: North Korea soldiers who fought alongside Russia celebrated at Workers&#8217; Party anniversary The soldiers marched to the Russian patriotic song “To Serve Russia,” a rare and symbolic display of solidarity between Pyongyang and Moscow. According to estimates, around 2,000 North Korean soldiers were killed while supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine. And reports say that under a new deployment plan, North Korea recently sent another 1,000...
- [China Intensifies Military and Cyber Pressure on Taiwan, Defense Ministry Warns](https://ij-reportika.com/china-sharpening-forces-for-possible-future-attack-taiwanese-report-says/): China is ramping up both its military maneuvers and digital warfare against Taiwan, according to a new defense report from Taipei. The report details Beijing’s use of grey zone tactics, live-fire drills, and cyber disinformation campaigns aimed at undermining Taiwanese confidence in their government. As tensions heighten, Taiwan strengthens its own defenses and rhetoric against Beijing’s growing aggression.
- [Strike on festival protest in Myanmar kills at least 20, residents say](https://ij-reportika.com/strike-on-festival-protest-in-myanmar-kills-at-least-20-residents-say/): A military strike on Monday night hit a group in central Myanmar’s Chaung U township who were gathered to mark the Thadingyut full moon festival and to demonstrate against the military junta that rules the country. Video: Myanmar junta bombs full moon gatheringThe attack killed at least 20 people, according to a Reuters report that cited an eyewitness, the human rights group Amnesty International, and members of the shadow National Unity Government and an armed resistance group in the area. An event organizer told Agence France-Press that 40 people were killed, including children, while 80 others were wounded. Screams for help...
- [Hanoi floods again amid typhoon-spawned rains](https://ij-reportika.com/hanoi-floods-again-amid-typhoon-spawned-rains/): Residents and businesses in Hanoi on Tuesday were coping again with flooding as storms triggered by Typhoon Matmo have submerged major roads, particularly in inner-city districts. Commuters pushed motorbikes through calf-deep water in some areas. Several schools closed or moved classes online. Some flights from Noi Bai International Airport have been rescheduled or delayed. For many, it’s an unpleasant return to the flooding just last week from Typhoon Bualoi, which killed at least 51 people in Vietnam and caused around $600 million in damage. People push a motorcycle as they wade through a flooded street amid heavy downpours from Typhoon Matmo,...
- [Unbroken Faith: The Story of Sardar Mushtaq Gill Fighting for Pakistan’s Persecuted Christians (Interview)](https://ij-reportika.com/unbroken-faith-the-story-of-a-human-rights-lawyer-fighting-for-pakistans-persecuted-christians/): In this exclusive IJ-Reportika interview, Pakistani human rights lawyer and LEAD Ministries founder Sardar Mushtaq Gill shares his powerful journey of faith, freedom, and justice. From facing blasphemy charges and persecution to defending Pakistan’s most vulnerable Christian communities, Gill reflects on resilience, displacement, and his mission to stand with the voiceless across borders.
- [Turkey Weighs Rare-Earth Partnership with U.S., Marking Strategic Shift Away from China and Russia](https://ij-reportika.com/turkey-weighs-rare-earth-partnership-with-u-s-marking-strategic-shift-away-from-china-and-russia/): Turkey is exploring a strategic partnership with the U.S. to develop rare-earth deposits in Beylikova, signaling a major shift from previous talks with China and Russia. The deal could strengthen Ankara’s role in global critical mineral supply chains.
- [Two suspects at large as Thai court sentences hitman for Cambodian politician killing](https://ij-reportika.com/two-suspects-at-large-as-thai-court-sentences-hitman-for-cambodian-politician-killing/): BANGKOK — A Thai gunman was sentenced to life in prison on Friday for the killing of a Cambodian opposition politician in Bangkok, with the former lawmaker’s widow left questioning who ordered the killing. Lim Kimya, 74, a former legislator and member of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) as well as an outspoken critic of veteran Cambodian leader Hun Sen, was shot dead by Aekaluck Paenoi, a former Thai Marine, in footage captured on closed circuit television in the afternoon of Jan. 7 on a busy street in Bangkok. Two Cambodian suspects remain wanted by Thai authorities for their...
- [70 Years of “Autonomy” in East Turkistan: Rights in Theory and Practice](https://ij-reportika.com/70-years-of-autonomy-in-east-turkistan-rights-in-theory-and-practice/): On the 70th anniversary of the so-called Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Dolkun Isa exposes how Beijing’s promise of autonomy in East Turkistan remains a façade, with systemic violations of political, economic, cultural, and religious rights.
- [Trial begins in killing of former Cambodian lawmaker](https://ij-reportika.com/trial-begins-in-killing-of-former-cambodian-lawmaker/): BANGKOK &#8211; A trial began Tuesday for a man alleged to have shot and killed Cambodian opposition politician Lim Kimya during a brazen daytime attack in the Thai capital earlier this year. Lim Kimya’s widow, Lim Ani, told reporters outside the courthouse that she wanted to know why her husband was murdered. “I want to know the story behind the case. Who the masterminds were. I believe the judicial system here could help,” she said through a translator. “His death has turned everything upside down in my daily life,” she said. In this Oct. 17, 2017, photo, Lim Kimya, a member...
- [25 years of handover and havoc in Hong Kong](https://ij-reportika.com/25-years-of-handover-and-havoc-in-hong-kong/): 25 years of handover and havoc in Hong Kong have been presented in this investigative report. It shows the timeline of Hong Kong and changes post National Security Law in a comprehensive manner.
- [‘This is fake’ — How North Korea uses AI and deepfakes as a weapon](https://ij-reportika.com/this-is-fake-how-north-korea-uses-ai-and-deepfakes-as-a-weapon/): RFA Perspectives — Deepfake and AI videos are created from tools anyone can download. North Korean hackers are already using the same tools as a weapon. Video: &#8216;This is fake&#8217; How North Korea is weaponizing AI and deepfake technologyRecently, South Korea’s cybersecurity firm Genians revealed that a North Korean hacking group used AI-generated deepfake military IDs to impersonate defense agencies and launch phishing attacks. Their targets? Officials, journalists, human-rights activists, and researchers. This isn’t new. North Korean IT workers have long used AI and deepfakes to build fake identities—sometimes even stealing U.S. identities to apply for jobs. They appear in video...
- [East Turkistan: Everything you need to know](https://ij-reportika.com/east-turkistan-everything-you-need-to-know/): Seven years after China’s mass “re-education” drive in East Turkistan, the Uyghur people face detention, forced labour, surveillance, and cultural erasure. On the eve of China’s National Day 2025, this IJ-Reportika report highlights statistics, testimonies, and cultural losses that numbers alone cannot capture.
- [Chinese Influence Operations in Sri Lanka](https://ij-reportika.com/chinese-influence-operations-in-sri-lanka/): This comprehensive report examines China’s growing influence operations in Sri Lanka, particularly in the media landscape. From pro-China narratives in leading newspapers to state-owned collaborations with Xinhua and CGTN Sinhala, Beijing has entrenched its presence across print, broadcast, and digital platforms. The report also highlights the role of local influencers, think tanks, and Confucius Institutes in amplifying China’s soft power. While these efforts project a positive image of Beijing, they raise serious concerns about press freedom, debt dependency, and the erosion of independent discourse in Sri Lanka.
- [Hong Kong, parts of southern China shut down ahead of typhoon](https://ij-reportika.com/hong-kong-parts-of-southern-china-shut-down-ahead-of-typhoon/): Residents and businesses hunkered down in Hong Kong and at least 10 cities in southern China on Tuesday as Super Typhoon Ragasa, the most powerful tropical cyclone of the year, barreled toward land. Authorities urged residents to stay in their homes, where people taped up windows to protect against high winds. Supermarket shelves emptied in some areas as panicked residents stocked up on supplies. Residents in Hong Kong stock up on supplies at a supermarket to prepare for the approaching Typhoon Ragasa on Sept. 22, 2025.(Tyrone Siu/Reuters) Packing winds of up to 220 km per hour, or 137 miles per hour,...
- [Kim open to talks if U.S. drops denuclearization demand](https://ij-reportika.com/kim-open-to-talks-if-u-s-drops-denuclearization-demand/): North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he is open to talks with the United States, but only if Washington drops its demand that Pyongyang abandon its nuclear weapons program. Kim made the remarks during a recent session of the Supreme People’s Assembly, state-run Korean Central Television (KCTV) reported Monday. He said he has “good memories” of President Trump from their previous summits and would consider talking if the United States changes its stance. The statement marked Kim’s first public response to Trump’s recent overtures and underscored the gulf between the two sides. Dropping the U.S. goal of North Korean denuclearization...
- [Protest Rally Against China Planned in San Francisco on October 1, 2025](https://ij-reportika.com/protest-rally-against-china-planned-in-san-francisco-on-october-1-2025/): On Oct 1, 2025, a protest rally will be held in front of the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco. Organized by rights groups, it will spotlight China’s repression of Uyghurs, Tibetans, Hong Kongers, and Inner Mongolians, and oppose CCP expansionism.

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